Koch-Funded MRC Complains About Criticism of Kochs
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has been defending the right-wing Koch brothers lately. Aly Nielsen writes in a June 6 post:

“With the planet in peril, arts groups can no longer afford the Koch brothers’ money,” Post art and architecture critic Philip Kennicott claimed on June 5. His “perspective” was part of the Post’s Going Out Guide.

In his view, Charles and David Koch’s donations to the arts were “tainted” because they were “the driving force behind the political movement that has pulled the United States out of the global fight against climate change,” Kennicott wrote. 

He also accused the billionaires of inflicting a “moral and intellectual cost” on society by undermining “critical thinking,” “deference to reason and evidence,” “empathy and fellow feeling,” and “a sense that we are connected to other people.” 

Kennicott insisted the Kochs “furthered a worldview — based on unreason and selfishness — that undermines the basic good things we assume the arts promote.”

The Koch brothers promote small government and libertarian policies, often upsetting the liberal media. The Kochs refused to back President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. But the brothers are routinely attacked, especially for touting the benefits of the oil and gas industry.

The same day, John Hirschauer complained in response to a commentator highlighting "Koch money" in politics:

The default position of the Left, as a general matter, is that any arrangement that is politically disadvantageous to Democrats is the fault of some unknowable combination of conservative talk radio and the Koch brothers. The Left has blamed the Koch brothers for virtually every situation for which they would have to otherwise provide a coherent refutation, like the decision to pull out of the Paris accord or even the mere desire for a constitutional convention.

But neither Nielsen and Hirschauer mention that their employer receives Koch money through Donors Trust, a group that coordinates political donations from conservative philanthropists that is funded in part by Koch brothers interests -- so much so it's considered part of the "Koch network." Donors Trust has given the MRC around $500,000 since 2004, including more than $100,000 in 2014 alone.

Hirschauer's Koch-defending statement is pretty absurd given that the default position of the MRC, as a general matter, is that any arrangement that is politically disadvantageous to Republican is the fault of George Soros.

WND Flails to Keep Seth Rich Conspiracies Alive
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily's efforts to keep cynically exploiting Seth Rich's death in order to keep its malicious conspiracy theories alive have been waning -- as have the quality of the stories it has been publishing to push them. The latest batch of articles is no exception.

A June 11 article by Alicia Powe featured what was originally in the headline as a "haunting video" of Rich shot a year before his death, in which he discusses ballot integrity issues. Powe also rehashed never-proven claims about Rich from Kim Dotcom; for the first time, Powe concedes that Dotcom is a fugitive from justice who "faces extradition to the U.S. on a litany of unrelated charges, including copyright infringement and money laundering."

A June 15 article by Powe begged readers to sign a White House petition asking for a special prosecutor to investigate Rich's death (created by "J.F.," who may or may not be WND editor Joseph Farah) before the window to collect signatures and force a White House response ended on June 18. The deadline passed with only two-thirds of the needed 100,000 signatures gathered; WND has not yet reported on that failure.

Powe hit the streets for a June 18 article, in which she talked to "Americans living in and around the area where DNC staffer Seth Rich was brutally murdered" (did she asked the immigration status of potential interviewees to make sure she was talking only to "Americans"?) about Rich's death. She led off with a guy who was absolutely sure that Rich leaked the DNC emails to WikiLeaks, while also insisting that "I am not a conspiracy theorist," and also interviewed another man who said God intervened in the election to keep Hillary Clinton from winning. 

So, not exactly a representative sample of Americans.

Powe also stated that she tried to talk to the manager of the bar where Rich was seen several hours before his death, but "the WND reporting team was escorted out of the building" by the manager after accusing WND of "obstruction" and "disrespecting" the Rich family. Powe didn't dispute the accuracy of the manager's claims.

And a June 20 article by Powe touts a "months-long investigation" into Rich's death that offers only speculation. She waits until much further in the article to mention that the investigation was led by Jack Burkman, who's a lobbyist by trade.

By contrast to Powe's pushing of conspiracy theories, the Washingtonian accurately points out that Burkman's report "backs up its conclusions on a series of hunches, rather than actual evidence," contains "no new evidence," and is "more likely to stoke the conspiracies rather than put them to bed" -- which, of course, is what Burkman and WND want.

Unlike WND, the Washingtonian sought comment from Rich familiy spokesman Brad Bauman, who highlights that Burkman's report, conducted by college students, provided "valuable experience in research collection and report writing for students at George Washington University" but nothing in the way of new or useful information.

But WND's too desperate to keep the conspiracy alive to conduct actual journalism.

CNS Lets Bill Donohue Lie About Catholic Sexual Abuse
Topic: CNSNews.com

Gage Cohen writes in a June 6 CNSNews.com article:

On Tuesday, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights said in a press release that audits of the Catholic Church have consistently found that nearly 8 in 10 victims of sexual abuse by clergy were male and 85 percent of these male victims were post-pubescent, which is usually age 14-16 but can go as high as age 18.

[...]

In a telephone interview, CNSNews.com asked Dr. Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League, why this result was not being emphasized by U.S. bishops or the media.

“They’ve been intimidated by the dominant culture,” said Donahue. “They know there’s a serious problem there [with homosexual clergy]… it’s not good politics.”

“There’s nothing in social science literature that says you’re likely to be a predator, if you’re homosexual,” said Donohue. “But most have been homosexuals. There’s a problem.”

In fact, as we've reported, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice report on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church -- commissioned by Catholic lay people, underwritten by bishops and released in 2012 -- found no correlation between homosexuality in the priesthood and increased abuse of boys, and its authors warned against making the connection because homosexual behavior does not necessarily equal homosexual orientation.

Because Cohen sought out no other views or was apparently not even aware of the John Jay report that contradicts Donohue, he effective gave Donohue a platform to lie. Not exactly the way to build credibility at CNS, is it?

UPDATE: Cohen also failed to disclose that his boss, Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell, is on the Catholic League's board of advisers. That failure to disclose a blatant conflict of interest is also not a credibility-enhancer.

LeBron James Derangement Syndrome Watch
Topic: WorldNetDaily

LeBron James is rich and talented, but he still doesn’t “feel equal” to whites. People like LeBron feel inferior and victimized not because of “racism” (which doesn’t exist, and has never existed), but because they’re missing the love of a father.

Unless blacks drop their anger – which usually starts in the home with impatient mothers and grandmothers – they’ll always feel like victims. There’s nothing more that whites can do to prove they’re not “racist.” Whites must speak out against these fake accusations of “racism.” Good people should stop supporting entities spreading a culture of hate and blame against whites.

[...]

“Racism” is fake news! LeBron, like Oprah, wouldn’t be nearly as successful were it not for white Americans who are the majority of his fans and who pay his bills. Yet, he tells black and white children that it’s hard being a black man in white America. How sad!

LeBron and his hate-filled little black friends are setting a poor example to those who look up to them.

[...]

This guy is failure as a father and a role model. Instead of teaching his sons to obey the law and to be respectful – he’s setting them up to be suspicious and angry of the cops which could cause them to resist lawful commands and result in violent altercations. In San Francisco, it was reported blacks were eight times as likely to resist arrest as others.

Like most blacks, who don’t think for themselves, LeBron was influenced by Barack Obama in his anti-police, anti-white prejudice. LeBron also supported Hillary Clinton. He boycotted Trump’s hotel in SoHo when the Cavs stayed there in December 2016.

[...]

There’s nothing more whites can do to help LeBron or any other black person. Decent whites should reject the false idea of “racism” and stop buying NBA tickets.

It doesn’t matter how much money blacks make; unless they drop their anger, they’ll always feel like victims.

-- Jesse Lee Peterson, June 4 WorldNetDaily column

Tim Graham's Hypocritical Failure on Media Transparency
Topic: Media Research Center

Tim Graham devoted a May 31 Media Research Center post to lamenting that the New York Times was eliminating its public editor position: 'Once again, it is highly ironic that the nation’s top newspapers rage about the president being unaccountable to the public, while they abolish their own offices for dealing with reader complaints."

Surely Graham could have cited, as an example for the Times to follow, all those conservative news organizations that have public editors and ombudsmen or public editors, like the Washington Times and Fox News and Breitbart and the MRC's very own "news" division CNSNews.com.

Oh, wait -- they don't, they never have, and they have shown no interest in having one in the future.

Perhaps Graham, being the terrible media critic he is, doesn't want to admit that the "liberal media" has traditionally had higher standards when it comes to media transparency than the right-wing media ever has. Even if the Times had a public editor for only 20 years, it's still 20 years longer than any right-wing media outlet has had one.

If Graham is so concerned about the media being "unaccountable to the public" and lacking "offices for dealing with reader complaints," why isn't he telling Fox News or Breitbart to pick up where the Times left off and have their own public editors? Why doesn't he demand that MRC hire an ombudsman?

Because he's a terrible, hypocritical media critic, that's why.

WND Lies About SPLC To Defend Anti-Gay Groups
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily just hates it when right-wing anti-gay hate groups are identified as such. Bob Unruh complains in a June 11 WND article:

A “public charity” that purports to be “neutral” and provide online “nonprofit information to a broad audience at no cost to those users” has begun slamming Christian and other conservative organizations based on the recommendation of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which itself has been linked to domestic terror and once put Ben Carson on its list of “haters.”

For certain organizations, Guidestar has begun posting at the top of its reports a box with a logo and link to SPLC stating: “This organization was flagged as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.”

Among the organizations targeted by Guidestar are the American Family Association and the Family Research Council, both highly respected and prominent Christian organizations that SPLC considers “hate” groups because they support traditional marriage.

Unruh is lying. As we've pointed out, the SPLC has explained that it lists the FRC as a hate group "because it has knowingly spread false and denigrating propaganda about LGBT people — not, as some claim, because it opposes same-sex marriage." The AFA has similiarly spread anti-gay hate.

As usual with any WND story involving the SPLC, Unruh copies-and-pastes a summary of Floyd Corkins' attempt to shoot up the FRC headquarters -- the "domestic terror" Unruh claims in his opening paragraph the SPLC is "linked" to because Corkins found a list of anti-gay organizations on the SPLC websites. Of course, by that same standard, WND is linked to international terror because Norway massacre perpetrator cited WND six times in his anti-Muslim, anti-multiculturalism manifesto.

Late in his article, Unruh finally gets to the real reason why WND hates the SPLC: "SPLC recently was listed among the top 10 enemies that have attacked WND over the years. WND and WND Books were put on SPLC’s latest list of 'extremists.'" Unruh doesn't challenge the accuracy of the SPLC's characterization of WND.

MRC's Graham Sneers At Rachel Maddow's Looks
Topic: Media Research Center

In the wake of the shootings in Virginia, there's been a lot of talk about civility in the political sphere. Media Research Center director of media analysis Tim Graham's response: hold my beer.

Graham takes an unnecessary, gratuitious and mean-spirited shot at Rachel Maddow's looks in a June 14 post attacking her interview with Rolling Stone:

For her part, Maddow proclaims she is a “cheerleader for the American media,"an interesting choice of words since she tries very hard not to appear feminine.

What is the purpose of saying such a thing, Tim? What does that add to the conversation? Why do you think you should be taken seriously as a media critic when you're so eager to denigrate someone simply for refusing to conform to your idea of femininity? And as a chubby white guy, Graham hardly has any room to complain about the looks of other people.

Indeed, there's no reason to read the rest of Graham's critique, especially after his first attack on her was the above line, which appeared in the second paragraph. (Not that was anything different than Graham's usual anti-media blather, of course.) 

Graham exemplifies the arrogance of the right-wing media -- he doesn't believe he should hold himself to the same standards he insists on imposing on the "liberal media."  He has no principles, only a partisan agenda that he tries to enforce through intimidation and not reason.

Hate and thuggishness does not make for a principled organization. Graham hasn't figured that out yet.

WND Whines That Terrorists Are Treated As Mentally Ill
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily has a weird thing for complaining about people who argue that radicalized Islamists who commit terrorist acts might be mentally ill instead of mainstream Muslims. This happens again in a June 8 article by Art Moore:

While police continue to investigate the Manchester and London Bridge jihadist attacks, several incidents this week conducted in the name of Allah by Muslims in Europe have gained considerably less attention, dismissed as irrational acts of the mentally ill.

In London, a man roamed a heavily Jewish area Thursday morning shouting “Allah Allah” and “I’m going to kill you all,” and, in another part of the city Thursday, a nursery worker suffered broken ribs and was slashed with a knife by three women chanting “Allah will get you.”

Meanwhile, in Paris, the nephew of Farid Ikken, who attacked a police officer with a hammer Tuesday outside the Notre Dame Cathedral, expressed disbelief that his uncle — “a progressive, not an extremist” — would declare allegiance to ISIS and perpetrate a violent act, noting the whole family is “in shock.”

Ikken’s former boss, Algerian journalist Kamel Medjoub, suggested, the London Express reported: “Maybe he lost it that day and attacked a police officer in a moment of madness. But I refuse to believe he would pledge allegiance to ISIS.”

However, a video of Ikken pledging allegiance to ISIS was found in his apartment in a counter-terrorism raid.

[...]

David Kupelian, author of “The Marketing of Evil, “How Evil Works” and his latest, “The Snapping of the American Mind,” said in a WND story last August that in response to all of the cases of jihad-type assaults that have been labeled “mental illness,” the question should be asked: “Where does ‘radical Islam’ end and ‘mental illness’ begin? And what if they are the same thing?”

For more than 150 years, the legal standard for claiming innocence by reason of insanity has been the M’Naghten rule, noted Kupelian, WND vice president and managing editor, stipulating the perpetrator was unaware his criminal actions were wrong at the time he committed them, Kupelian noted.

“But by that definition, every Islamic terrorist in the world is innocent, since his religious delusions persuade him that not only is it right and moral to massacre innocent men, women and children, but it is mandatory, required by their god as a prerequisite for salvation,” he said.

Yet, as we've noted, WND didn't want to discuss the political motivation of Charleston masacre perpetrator Dylann Roof, presumably because he shared the same obsession with painting blacks as criminals and lament for apartheid-era South Africa as WND writers have.

As per WND's anti-Muslim editorial agenda, Moore lets anti-Muslim activists opine at length while failing to speak to any qualified mental health professional.

MRC Still Denying That Scalise Spoke To David Duke Group (For Which He Has Apologized)
Topic: Media Research Center

In a June 15 Media Research Center post, Brad Wilmouth complains that "CNN correspondent Randi Kaye repeated a discredited claim that Republican Rep. Steve Scalise 15 years ago spoke to a group founded by white supremacist and former KKK leader David Duke." He continues:

Kaye began the report by recalling that the Republican congressman has a well known love of baseball, and then moved to recounting his history in Congress. The CNN correspondent soon got to the claims about him speaking to white supremacists as she continued: "In 2014, after House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his primary, Scalise jumped into the race. But during that campaign, questions were raised about a speech he gave to a group led by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke back in 2002."

She then added: "Scalise told reporters, 'I detest any kind of hate group. For anyone to suggest that I was involved with a group like that is insulting and ludicrous.'"

Not mentioned was that back in 2015 it was already reported that the man who invited Scalise to speak in 2002 disputed the account that the congressman spoke to Duke's group. The man who booked hotel space for the group's convention, Kenny Knight, has claimed the event Scalise spoke to was a separate event for his local community group which he held in the same hotel as Duke's group to take advantage of the available space. Additionally, a flyer for the convention shows no sign that Scalise was one of the scheduled speakers.

As we pointed out the last time Wilmouth made this claim, he's completely ignoring the fact that Scalise issued an apology for speaking to Duke's group:

In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, Scalise called his appearance before the European-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO) — an extremist group founded by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke — a “mistake I regret” and added that he rejected the organization’s racist ideology. 

As he has over the past two days, Scalise said he made the EURO speech only to drum up support for a tax proposal he was then pushing in the state legislature. 

“Twelve years ago, I spoke to many different Louisiana groups as a state representative, trying to build support for legislation that focused on cutting wasteful state spending, eliminating government corruption, and stopping tax hikes,” Scalise said in his latest statement. 

“One of the many groups that I spoke to regarding this critical legislation was a group whose views I wholeheartedly condemn. It was a mistake I regret, and I emphatically oppose the divisive racial and religious views groups like these hold. I am very disappointed that anyone would try to infer otherwise for political gain. As a Catholic, these groups hold views that are vehemently opposed to my own personal faith, and I reject that kind of hateful bigotry. Those who know me best know I have always been passionate about helping, serving, and fighting for every family that I represent. And I will continue to do so.”

That seems like a major omission on Wilmouth's part. Which make the rest of his post as discredited as he claims the CNN reporter is.

WND's Hohmann Finally Finds Middle Eastern Immigrants He Doesn't Want To Deport
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Leo Hohmann's main day job as a reporter for WorldNetDaily consists of demonizing Muslim refugees who want to come to the U.S., basically arguing that all Muslim refugees should be presumed to be terrorists. But Hohmann has finally found some Middle Eastern natives he doesn't want kicked out of the country. Hint: they're not Muslim.

Hohmann laments in a June 15 article:

More than 100 Iraqi Christians were rounded up Sunday evening in federal raids in Michigan and will soon be deported back to their native land, where they face an uncertain fate in a country where Christians are marked for death in a genocide carried out by ISIS and other Islamic groups.

The raids were conducted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The ICE agents showed up without warning at the homes of Chaldean Christians and at a popular restaurant called Ishtar’s in Sterling Heights, Michigan.

Those detained were mostly legal residents of the U.S., some having spent the majority of their lives here, but have had felonies on their records.

Of course, many of the Muslim refugees Hohmann loves to demonize would also face the risk of death if they were sent back to their native countries, but he doesn't mention that -- he's too busy serving up sob stories about the Chaldean Christians aboiut to be deported.

Of particular ironic hilarity is Hohmann lamenting that President Trump won't deport the DREAMers -- people brought illegally as children into the U.S. who were subsequently raised here and have had little contact with their native country or language -- then quoting an activist effectively complaining  that the Chaldean Christians marked for deportation are being treated the way he wishes the DREAMers were:

Kalasho said dropping an Americanized Chaldean Christian into Baghdad is like putting a house-trained cat that has lived its entire life indoors out into the middle of the woods.

“What makes this so puzzling and frustrating is both the last administration and the current one have said these are people who are victims of genocide, but then they turn around and say that, although they are victims of genocide, they are perfectly able to survive if they get dropped off at an airport in Baghdad,” Kalisho said. “I don’t want to speculate on anything, but there are not many Christians currently in Baghdad. And many of these individuals being deported don’t know a lick of Arabic. Many proudly expose the cross. Many have tattoos of the cross or other Christian symbols, which will make them a clear target for someone who is a radicalized Muslim.”

[...]

“None of them had ever committed murder. None of them had ever raped anyone. But when ICE showed up, they had a crime on their record. They didn’t give them any information. They were picked up from their homes or from a restaurant and told they just wanted to ‘ask you a few questions.'”

If this treatment is bad and unfair to the Chaldeans, why isn't similarly unfair and bad for the DREAMers? Hohmann never brings that up.

CNS Exploits Shooting to Push Guns, Bash Left As Violent
Topic: CNSNews.com

While the Media Research Center has been denouncing politicization of the shooting of Republican Rep. Steve Scalise -- while also doing its own politicizing -- its "news" division, CNSNews.com, has been more aggressive about politicizing it.

An anonymously written article -- credited only to "CNSNews.com Staff" -- serves up pro-gun propaganda with the headline "Congressman: ‘By the Grace of God, One of the Folks Here Had a Weapon to Fire Back’."

From there, it was time to impugn liberal rhetoric as the inspiration for the shooting spree. Craig Bannister uncritically touted Newt Gingrich blaming “an increasing intensity of hostility on the left" for the shooting, and Gage Cohen highlighted that the shooter, James Hodgkinson, "'liked' the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on Facebook," making sure to add: "On a related note, domestic terrorist Floyd Corkins, who shot up the conservative Family Research Council (FRC) in 2012, told the FBI that he learned about the group on the SPLC’s website, which has a 'Hate Map' that labels the FRC as 'Anti-LGBT.'"

Actually, the two incidents aren't related at all, and Cohen doesn't dispute the SPLC's description of the FRC as "anti-LGBT" -- good for him, since that's pretty much indisputable. But hey, why quibble with facts when there's a tragedy to politicize?

Another Obama Derangement Syndrome Victim At WND Whines About Trump Derangement
Topic: WorldNetDaily

David Kupelian is not the only writer channeling the latent effects of Obama Derangement Syndrome on President Trump's critics. Gina Loudon writes in her June 11 WND column:

The Republicans, and most normal, working people in the world have concerns. They want tax cuts, a thriving economy, national security, and they want the failed Obamacare repealed.

The left is wholly unconcerned about any of that. It will name its issues as equality (a.k.a. socialism), environmentalism (a.k.a another excuse to implement socialism) and Russia (hello? Just one piece of evidence, please?).

Leftists want to torment Trump until he resigns, is impeached or – let’s just be honest about it –they wouldn’t shed a tear and might even celebrate if he died. They are the bullies on the playground shouting, “Russia! Comey! Russia! Comey!”

So why aren’t they having any success? Why can’t they fill a stadium with activists, like the president can? Why can’t they win a special Senate or House election? Why isn’t their torment taken seriously?

• This president is an executive. He is used to juggling many items at once, with fires to put out on every front, and he knows how to stay focused through it.
• They have yelled, “Chicken Little! The sky is falling!” so many times that the American public is having scandal fatigue. Every time they scream “collusion!” or “obstruction!” the American people roll their collective eyes and go back to their jobs, their families, and planning their summer vacation with the extra dollars starting to land in their wallets as this president continues to execute his plan to Make America Great Again.
• They aren’t real. There’s the ghost under your bed, the boogeyman in your closet and the zombie walking the dark alleys at night. And then there is the leftist activist. If George Soros stopped paying them to show up, to tweet, to vote and to spout narrative into microphones on fake news shows, it would be like that moment when you walk out of the theater and realize the zombies were never actually real.

Fantasies on the right that they will stop attacking are just as imaginary. They won’t. They can’t. They have no other skills.

The attacks will continue every day until the end of Trump’s presidency.

Of course, right-wingers like Loudon wanted to torment Obama until he resigned, was impeached or – let’s just be honest about it – they wouldn’t shed a tear and might even celebrate if he died. They were the bullies on the playground shouting, “Benghazi! Emails! Benghazi! Emails!”

Loudon appears to have conveniently forgotten that she has been as unhinged about Obama as she accuses lefties of being toward Trump.

We remember when Loudon made an armchair diagnosis of Obama as a dangerous psychopath like Stalin and Pol Pot, and also, if that weren't enough, the "most vacationing, golfing, tyrannical president in the history of the republic." She hoped Obama's birthday "will be rather dark, like a lot of children’s birthdays around the U.S. for your policies of demise and death" and ranted that Obama "is handing the global community the ability to control our speech, and our technological advances." She insisted that Obama used "ISIL" instead of "ISIS" because he secretly hates Israel, and that he has a father complex that makes him hate America and love Islam.

And Loudon is still in derangement mode:

Remember that cheer from your high-school days? It’s still so applicable when dealing with snowflakes and Peter Pan progressives who refuse to grow up.

When they say Russia, we say it was Hillary who cut her deal to sell uranium to Russia and pad the pockets of the Clinton Foundation. It was Obama who promised in a hot-mic-moment to lay down for the Russians after his re-election. It was the Obama administration that was supposed to protect our election systems from attacks in the last election. Russia is a Democrat problem.

When they say sexist, racist, homophobe, xenophobe, etc., we say our Constitution handles all of that. The Dems and their identity politics have only fomented hate and violence, and we are in the business of fixing that.

When they say environment, we say weather. Their own fatalistic theories have been destroyed, one by one, and their silly Paris climate agreement was nothing more than socialist redistribution of wealth (we call that stealing), and they were caught red-handed when it was ultimately discovered that all the money in the world won’t make a dent in their fantasy of climate change – because it’s weather.

Actually, Hillary Clinton did not sell uranium to Russia, weather is not climate, and she can ask Michael "Get AIDS And Die" Savage and Ted "Suck On My Machine Gun, Obama" Nugent about that whole fomenting-hate-and-violence thing.

Loudon claims to have a doctorate in psychiatry. Perhaps she should look up the idea of projection, because that's exactly what she's doing here.

MRC Tries to Politicize Congressman's Shooting -- As It Bashes Others for Politicizing It
Topic: Media Research Center

If there's one thing that the Media Research Center reliably does in the face of a shooting tragedy, it's complaining that others are politicizing said tragedy by discussing gun control -- and it did just that after yesterday's shooting of a congressman and others in Virginia.

"Shameful: Journalists Immediately Politicize Congressional Shooting With Gun Control Calls" read the headline of a post from Scott Whitlock, i which he huffed, "Apparently, it’s never too soon for liberal journalists to politicize a tragedy."

Madeleine Post followed with a post headlined "Celebs Brazenly Politicize Scalise Shooting, Declare ‘Too Many Guns’," complaining that "celebrities were more concerned with the politics of gun control than the fact that a U.S. congressman was shot."

Of course, the MRC has its own ways of politicizing tragedies, and it did so here as well.

MRC researcher Nicholas Fondacaro rushed to blame the media in a tweet complaining, "Meanwhile, @CBSNews recently complimented a play depicting the assassination of Trump," with the added hashtag #MediaPlayedARole.

Yes, Fondacaro is apparently blaming the shooting on a production of "Julius Caesar" that portrays a Trump-esque titular character.And the last time we checked, Fondacaro's attempt to make #MediaPlayedARole a thing utterly failed -- even his fellow MRC employees weren't picking it up.

Fondacaro was silent -- as was the rest of the MRC -- about a 2012 production of "Julius Caesar" that assassinated an Obama-esque titular character.

But, hey, why let double standards get in the way of a good attack line?

A Tale of Two Mass Shootings At WND
Topic: WorldNetDaily

As expected, WorldNetDaily was quick to politically exploit today's mass shooting in Virginia that injured Republican Rep. Steve Scalise and others.

An article by Leo Hohmann made sure to highlight that the alleged shooter, James Hodgkinson, was a "supporter and campaign volunteer of Bernie Sanders" who liked "far-left political organizations like, um, Right Wing Watch and Media Matters and was "an admirer of former President Obama."

That was joined by an article by Joe Wilson that focused on how Hodgkinson "apparently was a fan of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which nearly five years ago was linked to a domestic terror attack at the Washington office of the Family Research Council." Never mind that the two incidents have nothing whatsoever to do with each other and WND is simply playing guilt by association.

Guilt by association, of course, was something WND utterly refused to do regarding Dylann Roof's 2015 massacre of nine blacks in a South Carolina church -- presumably because it would have been the one that looked guilty. As we documented, Roof's views on blacks mirrored that of WND authors like Colin Flaherty and Jack Cashill, and his love of apartheid-era South Africa echoed that of then-WND columnist Ilana Mercer (and, more recently, WND author Alex Newman).

But WND refused to explore that aspect of Roof -- instead, it rushed to dismiss him as a mentally ill drug abuser, and Cashill doubted Roof's ability to write the hateful manifesto attributed to him.

No talk of drugs or mental illness regarding Hodgkinson so far at WND. That would ruin its narrative that he was driven by left-wing ideology.

The MRC vs. Shakespeare
Topic: Media Research Center

Having dispatched Reza Aslan, the revenge machine at the Media Research Center has set its sights on a bigger target: William Shakespeare.

Or, more accurately, a New York City production of "Julius Caesar" in modern dress, in which the titular character -- who gets assasinated at the midpoint of the play -- looks not unlike Donald Trump.

A June 9 column by the MRC's Tim Graham and Brent Bozell rants about the production's "poorly disguised Trump" and about "the play's Trump assassination plot" and the "bloody murder of Trump." Well, no.

Graham and Bozell give no indication that, in addition to any evidence they have ever seen the play they're attacking in any form, the theater company rewrote any of the play's prose to make it a "Trump assassination plot," which means that, staging aside, it's the same play it has been for the past 400 years or so -- in which the point of the entire production is not the assassination but its aftermath.

But it appears Bozell, Graham and the rest of the MRC are as ignorant of classic theater than they are of opera, so it has decided to take down Shakespeare:

• Kristine Marsh whined about "overt depictions of killing our president."
• Tom Blumer declared that the play has a "sick, modernized plot" -- not presenting any evidence that the plot itself was actually "modernized" -- and that the play would not have been ignored "if it had been adapted to show the assassination of Barack Obama while he was in office."
• Bozell weighed in again, huffing that the media "has put aside any semblance of objectivity, any semblance of fairness, any semblance of journalistic ethics" by not immediately condemning a modern interpretation of a classic play.
• Scott Whitlock vaguely described "Julius Caesar" as "a shocking New York play in which a Donald Trump look-alike is stabbed to death."
• Madeline Post attacked "The View's " Whoopi Goldberg for pointing out the obvious -- that the play "is not the story of Donald Trump" -- and went on to assert that "Julius Caesar" has an "unmistakable satirical nature."(Actually, the play is considered a tragedy.)

Over at the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, Gage Cohen is also unfamiliar with classic theater, complaining that the theater company offered "free tickets to anyone who wants to see President Trump assassinated" and later describing the play as a production "in which President Trump is portrayed as being brutally stabbed to death." Cohen later complained that the company putting on the play that "depicts PResident Trump stabbed to death, received an average of $976,296 from the government annually between 2010 and 2014."

Despite Tom Blumer's denial of wuch, there was amajor production of "Julius Caesar" in which Obama was depicted at the titular character -- a 2012 production by the storied Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. We found no evidence that Bozell or anyone else at the MRC objected to that production.

In other words, this is just another partisan game by the MRC. If Bozell and Co. didn't speak in 2012, they have no moral authority to speak up now.