MRC Spins Trump's Attack on Central Park Five Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has slowly turned itself into a public relations arm of the Trump administration. Check out this Sept. 17 post by Brad Wilmouth in total pro-Trump spin mode:
Since Donald Trump began his run for President in June 2015, parts of the dominant liberal media have repeatedly parroted the incorrect claim that, in 1989, Trump ran a newspaper ad in which he urged the execution of a group of young black and Hispanic teens who ended up eventually being proven "innocent" in spite of confessing to the infamous rape and beating of a Central Park jogger that year.
In fact, the ad in question did not specify that the Central Park Five should be executed as it came at a time when the death penalty was illegal in New York. There had been a push for the state legislature to enact a new law to reinstate capital punishment which would require overriding the veto of then-Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo -- who had vetoed a death penalty bill a month before the attack.
The defendants could not have been sentenced to capital punishment since it was not an option at the time of the crime.
Additionally, when Trump was asked about the ad in May 1989 on Larry King Live, CNN claimshe stated that he only supported the death penalty for adults -- which would have excluded the Central Park Five because they were all between the ages of 14 and 16.
Note how Wilmouth parses Trump's ad to focus on how it "did not specify that the Central Park Five should be executed." In fact, the ad does reference the Central Park attack, the ran just a few months after it occurred, and the headline on it blared, "BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!" It seems pretty clear who Trump was talking about, even if he did not do so to the specificity that Wilmouth demands.
Wilmouth also argued that the Central Park Five deserved prison because, even if they weren't guilty of the attack they were sentenced, they must have been guilty of something:
In the film, The Central Park Five, as far-left film maker Ken Burns pushed a sympathetic view of the five teens, the documentary actually admitted that their defense attorneys had considered arguing that they could not have committed the attack on the jogger because they were busy "beating up other people" at the time. Their defense attorneys presumably had conceded that they were part of a group of dozens of teens who attacked as many as eight different random people in the park on the same night, including one man who received a skull fracture.
Also of note, as some have pushed the angle that, because the Central Park jogger was a white woman while the defendants were minorities, Trump was motivated by racism -- but what has been overlooked is that he also came to the defense of a black woman in Brooklyn who was raped and thrown from a four-story building a couple of weeks after the Central Park attack, and right after the death penalty ads ran in May of that year.
[...]
As for the issue of the Central Park Five being "exonerated" or proven "innocent," with some accounts even asserting that they were "acquitted," such claims are an overstatement given that, after another man -- convicted serial rapist Matias Reyes -- in 2002 confessed to attacking the jogger in 1989 and claimed that he did it alone, there was never another trial to determine their guilt. After DNA testing linked Reyes to the crime, the city's prosecution chose to vacate the convictions for all five.
Since there really is a phenomenon that people sometimes confess to offenses they did not commit, it would seem feasible either that the Central Park Five were pressured into confessing to a crime they did not commit, or that Reyes -- who apparently had nothing to lose by confessing -- falsely claimed that he was the only assailant who took part in the attack.
It is possible that a jury would have found them not guilty if they had had the benefit of Reyes's testimony at the time, but, as they had already served their sentences, they were not tried again, and the sentences were simply vacated.
While Wilmouth does acknowledge that New York City paid a "generous settlement" to the Central Park Five -- which non-biased observers would argue is equivalent to the exoneration Wilmouth denies exists -- he complains that it was a "political decision" by Mayour Bill Di Blasio made "against the advice of the city's attorneys." But the newspaper link Wilmouth supplies as evidence of this also points out that the settlement averted a trial over the case by the Central Park Five defendants in which they were seeking $111 million.
And then there is of course the elephant in the room – the newly discovered voice of the players – the refrain of social justice.
It started with a single player, corrupted by his radical social justice warrior girlfriend, who decided to sit in protest of our national anthem. Since then it has grown into some dopey “awareness” movement, where players sit, kneel, or raise their fist in the air, a la the 1960s black power movement, during the pre-game anthem.
And as all things of the left, it wasn’t about to end there. Social justice warriors must continue to push the envelope of normalcy and reason until it becomes ridiculous. Well, we’re there.
[...]
As a (soon not to be) die-hard NFL fan, I watch the game because I love football. Do what you want off the field. I couldn’t care less. Just leave your racial politics and division in the tunnel. In other words, while you’re in uniform, shut up and play.
The Big Media appears unable or unwilling to distinguish the difference.
The NFL is committing suicide by allowing its games to be turned into political events. Few care about the political opinions of the sports stars. The public watches to see them perform feats of athletic prowess. That’s how the players get paid – and paid well.
Not one media commentary has made this point: Don’t squash the hand that feeds you by kneeling down on it during the national anthem.
It’s just that simple. It’s not about race. It’s about holding up the greatest country on Earth with a couple minutes of respect – no matter what color you are.
And that’s why I had to write this simple refutation today. I didn’t watch any NFL games today. Instead, I watched baseball games where players – black, white and Hispanic – all stood reverentially and with dignity during the national anthem.
Trump is not the one dividing America over racial lines. Those who attack America – and the president – as racist are.
Trump never mentioned race. The media did. The players have.
Apparently, the question, “Who started it?” means nothing to the journalists, politicians and NFL players, coaches and owners who call the president “divisive.”
So, before discussing Trump’s reaction, our fellow Americans on the left need to answer some pretty simple questions: Has the behavior of those athletes been divisive? Is kneeling while tens of thousands of people are standing divisive? Is publicly showing contempt for the American flag for which innumerable Americans risked their lives, were terribly injured, or died divisive?
But football has more problems than players and owners who hate our country. It is a dying sport. In my judgment, it was once the most American of all our sports, emblematic of our motto: E Pluribus Unum. You have a group of people of diverse talents joined by merit, not race or privilege, united as a team for one goal. It epitomized the toughness, diversity, ingenuity, fortitude and togetherness that made our country great. Alas, the limp-wristed liberals are ruining it.
What is happening in football is happening to sports in general and is a reflection of how wimpy we are as a people.
[...]
I have heard all the medical stuff and understand. But the bottom line is wimpiness. If we don’t turn it around sooner or later, anti-wimps, who are not as comfortable as we are, will eat our lunch. I have never met a more dedicated sports fan than myself, but for the first time I switched channels when I saw millionaires disrespecting our country. (Tragically, many of these anti-patriots are blacks egged on by liberal Democrats who enslaved their ancestors and sponsored Jim Crow and segregation.)
Have you ever considered just how much of the national anthem protests occurring around the National Football League (NFL) come from millennial guilt, which I contend is a byproduct of white guilt? NFL players aren’t kneeling because they’re being oppressed; they’re kneeling because they aren’t. They’ve been spoiled. They have it so good in America, they had to invent their own set of injustices to fight so their lives would feel meaningful. I blame the media and many of their college professors for these players’ sense of entitlement.
[...]
The fact that so many blacks are in the NFL in the first place is proof positive that the great American experiment has worked despite their skin color and our nation’s history concerning slavery and civil rights. White Democrats that run the media and our institutions of higher learning have done blacks a huge disservice by promulgating the lie that America is inherently racist, while ignoring the progress that has been made due to an adherence to our Constitution. NFL players who choose to kneel during our national anthem lack historical perspective.
They feel guilty that they have it so good in America, so they had to invent their generation’s own set of grievances. Yelling “racism” even it doesn’t exist is easy – cop shootings in America is the perfect example. Let me be clear: I’m not saying there aren’t racist or crooked cops, but the number is miniscule. More “unarmed” whites are killed by cops than blacks. However, you wouldn’t know this by listening to the evening news. Reporting whites killed by cops isn’t an interesting headline because whites tend not to riot and destroy their own cities. There’s no ratings bump there! Sad, but true.
Behind the scenes, the NFL had already been pandering to the radical left for years. Entirely dependent on the liberal media for profits, the NFL cares more about maintaining its massive revenues than it does about American values.
First of all, a real man is grateful – to God, family and country.
Are we seeing appreciation among major sports figures right now? No, too many of these beneficiaries of American opportunity have decided their country is not worthy of respect or gratitude.
In heated campus discussions these days about “toxic masculinity,” we should first look at Exhibit A – these spoiled little boys playing major league sports.
No respect for our flag and anthem? Feel free to immigrate to another country. Trump rightly rebukes these selfish athletes. Representing the father figures many of them never had, he’s telling them to go to their rooms until they can act better.
True, the number of “bodies in the streets” was climbing in the year proceeding Kaepernick’s delusional protest. Three thousand more Americans were murdered in 2016 than in 2014, but it was not the police or the Trump supporters who had caused the spike in black homicides.
If there was any one person responsible for that spike, it was the same person most responsible for the slow-motion homicide of the NFL – sports fan Barack Obama.
So, now we are seeing many on the periphery of this issue who, in their ignorance, are “taking a knee” in solidarity with the NFL’s Kaepernick. They believe that they are protesting racism in the abstract (and who could object to that, right?) rather than playing into the hands of organized radical groups dedicated to fomenting racial tension and neutralizing the effectiveness of law enforcement. Here, it does bear mentioning that this strategy truly came into its own during the administration of Barack Obama, our first post-racial president, who dedicatedly empowered such groups through his rhetoric and policies.
You guys are just entertainers and not performing surgery on me, sending my child to war or affecting my income. You don’t raise my taxes, run my schools or regulate my life. You are entertainers, only! Your skill level, dedication and hard work has elevated you to the heights of your industry. But that industry is merely for “Entertainment Purposes Only!”
I don’t care if you see a “right” to give your opinion. I don’t have to speculate on your oppression. I just have to decide if I am entertained by you when I turn on the show. If I am entertained enough, I will keep my eyeballs on your program. Your advertisers will get to show me their products, and you will get more endorsements.
The tribalism of “kneelism” sums up the state of the progressive project. Like the Antifa Idiocracy, NFLers are generally not the smartest. Bereft of the faculty of logic or reason, these excitable, histrionic hulks can’t debate or argue effectively. Lacking words or wisdom, the kneelers resort to inappropriate displays and gestures aimed at the self, at self-aggrandizement.
Kneeling is the ultimate selfie, beamed to the country and blasted by the president himself.
In more ways than one, “taking the knee” is like taking a pee. It’s a waste. It speaks to the inward-looking, ego-driven, vain posturing of the left and its perpetually seething, predatory racial coalition. They’re bent on extracting something from innocent, ordinary Americans who owe them nothing.
So, here’s my simple proposal. Please hear me out before saying yes or no.
From here on, make it a rule that everyone on the team stands for the national anthem. You’re sending a message to America that you respect the flag and the sacrifices made for it. You are not being anti-American.
That will regain many fans you have lost, that will put the focus back on football, and that will take the pressure off. No big decisions to make. No questions that will divide the teams. Just a focus on playing the game you love.
But that’s just step one (and, to be candid, I don’t think people who support you will think you are selling out or compromising).
Next, you choose a few players to represent you, and you ask respectfully to meet with the president. He will see you standing for the anthem, and that will speak to him: “Mr. President, we’re as patriotic as you are, and we want to make America great. Can we have an hour of your time?”
I actually believe he’ll meet with you. That’s when you can tell him about all the things you do for your communities. (He’s a good PR person. He’ll let the whole world know about it.)
And that’s when you can raise your concerns about unequal justice and when you can tell him some of his comments stung you personally, as if they were even racial attacks. (I don’t believe they were, but I know some of you felt the sting.)
MRC's Double Standard on Entertainers Opining on Public Policy Topic: Media Research Center
How ironic: At the same time the Media Research Center was mocking the idea that an entertainer could speak authoritatively on health care policy, it was insisting that another entertainer could speak authoritatively on the Constitution.
It’s a sad world we live in where talking about the Constitution is considered inappropriate for children. But for actress Janine Turner (Northern Exposure), these are the accusations she faced from parents of the students she teaches about the Constitution. A former board member, who is a current member of the #Resistance, pushed the school who hosted Turner to apologize for inviting her.
The founder of Constituting America, a nonprofit organization meant to “educate Americans about the Constitution and the rights and liberties it provides and protects,” has given 230 speeches to over 20,000 people about the Constitution. Turner was invited to speak at Eubanks Intermediary School in Texas on September 12. After her presentation to the students, parents and teachers shamed her as presenting “political statements” that were not “appropriate.”
[...]
She also was not promoting a “hidden agenda;” instead, she stated, “The Truth Act and the corresponding research paper are bi-partisan, never pointing a finger at one party over the other.” But because the words “abortion” and “sexual trafficking” are found in the paper, a former member of the school board went out of his way to target both Turner and her daughter on social media, an action that “horrified” Turner, rightfully so.
But Turner does, in fact, have an agenda -- and it's one the MRC has heartily supported in the past. In 2010, it touted how Turner is a "conservative actress" who was "inspired by the TEA Party movement" to start her organization. The MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, promoted Turner saying that the Affordable Care Act was "not based on what a true Republic represents or what our Founding Fathers would have liked."
As part of spinning her current kerfuffle, CNS also published an op-ed by Turner in which she dubiously insisted that "Our main focus has been to consistently present the Constitution as a non-partisan document and to never discuss politics, political agendas or political parties" and that she has "no hidden agenda."
CNS has so far refused to give Jimmy Kimmel space to write an op-ed to explain his views.
The mere fact that the MRC has tried to blow up this kerfuffle into a full-blown controversy is evidence that Turner has an agenda. But it will never admit it -- conservatives don't have agendas by mere dint of being conservatives, but everyone who doesn't agree with Turner or the MRC is a filthy liberal who's trying to ram their agenda down the throats of America.
WND: Rohingya Muslims Totally Deserve To Be Massacred! Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's professional Muslim-hater, Leo Hohmann, is very upset that the media is depicting a group of Muslims as human beings:
This is pack journalism at its best, a virtual media blitz on a topic few Americans know anything about in a land faraway — but could soon have an impact here at home.
And the barrage of reports on refugees fleeing Myanmar, also called Burma, comes at a time when American media has vastly cut back their foreign reporting, whacking staffs and closing foreign bureaus by the dozens.
So what is it that CNN, Reuters, PBS, the Associated Press, and Politico all racing to Burma to cover?
They can’t wait to tell the heart-wrenching stories of Burma’s persecuted Rohingya Muslims.
[...]
Nevermind that few Americans could place Burma on a map and even fewer have any knowledge of the decades-old feud between Rohingya Muslims and Burmese Buddhists, a confusing situation in which two religions that tout themselves as “religions of peace” are killing each other.
Even Pope Francis has waded into the murky waters, making comments that fall in line with the Rohingya propaganda machine.
“They have been suffering, they are being tortured and killed, simply because they uphold their Muslim faith,” the pope said in February, comments that drew criticism from both Buddhists and Catholics in Burma.
While the stories of persecution of Burmese Muslims are gripping, the latest round of reports often leave out the fact that the Rohingya have also committed atrocities — some call it a burgeoning jihad — including rape and murder, against the Buddhists. The most recent chain of violence can be traced to a May 28, 2012, incident in which a Buddhist woman was raped and tortured by Rohingya Muslim men, leading to attacks by the Buddhists on Muslim villages.
While that incident did occur, Hohmann doesn't explain why that single incident justifies the rape, torture and child murder of an entire population of tens of thousands of people by government forces. Perhaps Hohmann doesn't think that genocide against Muslims needs to be justified.
Hohmann goes on to further justify mass killings of the Rohingya, asserting that "The Burmese government consider the Rohingya to be illegal aliens from Bangladesh, citing as evidence the fact that most Rohingya speak a Bangladeshi dialect," then huffing about the possibility that Rohingya could become refugees to the U.S.:
The stories being put out about the Rohingya Muslims are clearly being crafted with the intention of stirring up sympathy for the illegal aliens of another country, much the same way the incessant media coverage preceded the Obama administration’s decision to import more than 15,000 Syrian refugees in the last two years of Obama’s term.
Whether the media barrage about the Rohingya will have a similar effect on the Trump administration remains to be seen.
Actually, according to the Council on Foreign Relations -- which, unlike Hohmann, is not a total Muslim-hating ragebot -- Rohingya do have centuries-old ties to Burma.
As usual, Hohmann calls in his usual Muslim-hating buddies like Philip Haney and Ann Corcoran, who also effectively endorsed the ethnic cleansing:
Corcoran said there is no escaping the fact that the majority Buddhists don’t want the Rohingya Muslims in their country, but that should not be used as a pretense for the United States to take the Rohingya in as refugees.
“Why is this our problem,” she asks. “Should we be surprised that the Buddhists want Burma to be a Buddhist country? Just like Japan wants to remain Japanese, Hungary wants their country to be for Hungarians and Poland for the Poles,” she said. “Personally I don’t have a big problem with that. It doesn’t mean anyone who is not a Pole is going to be kept out of Poland, but they aren’t going to invite troublemakers, welcome them into their country, to come in and pro-create. They want to retain their ethnic and cultural identity.”
This is how much Hohmann, WND and its fellow travelers despise Muslims -- they would rather see them massacred than allow to come to the U.S. to escape genocide. It's like they belive Muslims are subhuman.
CNS Pretends Roger Stone Isn't A Sleaze Topic: CNSNews.com
Susan Jones uses a Sept. 26 CNSNews.com article to portray Roger Stone as normally as possible. Under the innocuous headline "Trump’s Friend Roger Stone Blasts House Intel Committee: ‘This Is Cowardice’," Jones writes:
Denied his request for an open hearing before the House intelligence committee on Tuesday, Roger Stone, a longtime friend and adviser to Donald Trump, released both a video and printed version of his opening statement to the committee before entering the hearing room.
He was blunt, scornful and ticked off:
[...]
Stone described himself as a 40-year friend of Donald Trump and one of Trump’s first campaign consultants. He said he consulted for the Trump campaign for five months, until August 2015, and continued to advocate for Trump thereafter.
Stone firmly denied any involvement in the alleged – alleged -- collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, and he said just because the intelligence community has said there was coordination that doesn’t make it true. He listed various failings of the intelligence community and said it has become politicized.
Jones conveniently fails to mention that there was good reason for Stone to be investigation over Russian meddling; as actual journalists at Politico reported:
Stone became a focus of the Russia probe because he indicated in August 2016 that he had communicated with Assange through back channels. Later that month, he seemed to foreshadow the email dump when he prophesied that it would soon be “Podesta’s time in the barrel.” WikiLeaks began publishing Podesta’s emails in October.
Stone also revealed earlier this year that he’d been in contact with Guccifer 2.0, believed to be a Russian-affiliated hacker at the center of a separate hack of the Democratic National Committee.
The only hint of Stone's sleaze and extremism in Jones' article is buried in a photo caption, which mentions that the testimony Stone released went to "Alex Jones' Infowars."
Needless to say, there was no mention of the fact that Jones' boss, Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell, cheered (albeit belatedly) when Stone was banned from CNN and MSNBC for making offensive remarks -- the Trump flip sent that down the memory hole. Nor was there any mention of Stone's personal life, which Jones and the rest of the Media Research Center would be denouncing as immoral were he not a loyal Trump lackey.
Newsmax's James Hirsen rants against Jimmy Kimmel in his Sept. 25 column:
Kimmel's son had already had to battle congenital heart disease in his infant life. The Democrats apparently saw the opportunity to exploit Kimmel's family difficulties, using the hardship as a means to attack the Republican proposed legislation by feeding lies to the late-night host. Particularly underhanded was the reframing of the efforts by the GOP to repeal and replace Obamacare as a plan that would fail to protect people with pre-existing conditions such as the one Kimmel's son experienced.
[...]
Lost in the media coverage has been the truth that people with pre-existing conditions would not be denied coverage under the GOP’s proposed legislation. However, it appears as though Kimmel was fed purposely misleading information from Schumer and dutifully repeated the lines for his audience.
Kimmel was not lying. In fact, the proposed Graham-Cassidy bill would permit states to not cover pre-existing conditions, making coverage prohibitively expensive or even nonexistent.
Hirsen also complains that "the co-writer of Kimmel’s healthcare remarks was none other than U.S. Senate Minority Leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.," and that the two had been "coordinating behind the scenes to put a wrench in the Republican undertaking of repealing the failing healthcare system known as Obamacare."
We remember when Hirsen vociferously defended Mel Gibson after his anti-Semitic rantings came to light and enthusiastically promoted his film "The Passion of the Christ" at Newsmax without disclosing his personal and business connections to Gibson -- including that he ran a foundation on behalf of Gibson's father -- so any complaints about Kimmel's fact-finding arrangement ring hollow.
Speaking of Overwrought Hatefests... Topic: Media Research Center
Under the headline "An Overwrought Hatefest at the Emmy Awards," Brent Bozell and Tim Graham spent their Sept. 22 column ranting about, yes, the Emmys, declaring it "a boorish hourslong festival of Trump bashing and Hillary mourning" and a "screaming political spectacle."
The day before that column appeared, however, Bozell and his Media Research Center held their very own overwrought hatefest in the form of the 30th Anniversary Gala and DisHonors Awards. It had a theme (of a speakeasy) as if it was a high school prom, and it was held at a grand building that, ironically for the government-hating right-wingers at the MRC, owes its existence to the federal government.
How hateful was it? One of its so-called awards was given to literally "Every Single Person We Don’t Like in the Liberal Media." And anti-Muslim activist Brigitte Gabriel was on hand to sneer, "President Donald Trump is living at the White House, while Hillary is at Costco signing books in the milk aisle." (Though Hillary sold more books last week than Gabriel ever has.)
Nevertheless, the MRC thought its hatefest was so entertaining that its "news" division, CNSNews.com, devoted threeentirearticles to Joe Piscopo's routine there (which didn't seem all that funny or original -- but then, conservatives don't demand that their humor be funny, just conservative).
Of course, there was not a word breathed about the award the MRC didn't give out: The "Williiam F. Buckley Award for Media Excellence" that was to be given to Sean Hannity but withdrawn after the award was challenged by Buckley's son, presumably opposed to Hannity's irresponsible and un-Buckley-like conspiracy-mongering. The only thing the MRC ever said about it was a single tweet from Bozell claiming a scheduling conflict; but as former MRC employee Ken Shepherd noted, Hannity hosted his regular Fox News show as usual that night.
The MRC definitely knows how to throw an overwrought hatefest to rival the Emmys. If only they'd simply admit that's what they're doing.
Fake News: WND's Hohmann Baselessly Blames Dems for St. Louis Violence Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily writer Leo Hohmann took a break from lying and fearmongering about Muslims to lie and fearmonger about Democrats in a Sept. 20 article:
The St. Louis Young Democrats are working hand-in-hand with Black Lives Matter to organize protests in the city, now entering their sixth night, and the mayor says she is “listening.”
The Young Democrats tweeted Wednesday at about 12:20 p.m. that the next “protest” in response to the not-guilty verdict in the Jason Stockley trial was planned for Wednesday evening, instructing rioters where to show up and at what time, hashtagging #Black Lives Matter on the tweet.
While the Young Democrats can claim they are calling for peaceful protests, that claim is dubious at best, given their connections with Black Lives Matter, a known radical group that espouses violence and has been seen on video kicking in storefront windows, spraying unknown chemicals and throwing rocks at police.
More than a dozen police officers have been reported injured, and tens of thousands of dollars in damage has been caused to local businesses that had nothing to do with the Stockley verdict.
Now it comes to light that the Young Democrats are organizing the riots, which they call protests.
First: The only "evidence" Hohmann presents of the St. Louis Young Democrats "working hand-in-hand" with Black Lives Matter is the hashtag, which is not evidence of anything.
Second: Hohmann provides no evidence whatsoever that the St. Louis Young Democrats endorse or condone any violence at the protests Hohmann claims it's "organizing."
Third: Hohmann provides no evidence that anyone officially affiliated wiuth Black Lives Matter committed any violence or that the organization itself "espouses violence."
In place of any evidence, Hohmann serves up ranting from self-loathing black man Jesse Lee Peterson, who insists (also without evidence) that Black Lives Matter is "evil."
Real journalists provide evidence to back up the claims they make. HOhmann can't be bothered -- and WND has no problem with that.
MRC's Hypocritical Attack on Coverage of Puerto Rico Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Nicholas Fondacaro huffs in a Sept. 25 post:
Hurricane Maria hit the U.S. island territory of Puerto Rico last Wednesday and since then, there has been an ever-worsening humanitarian crisis. Most of the island was still without power, supplies slow to arrive, and the threat of a failing dam as of Monday. Despite the terrible news coming from the island, the Big Three Networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) have dedicated far more time since Sunday to President Trump’s spat with protesting athletes than to the Puerto Rican people fighting to stay alive.
Between September 24 and September 25, the Big Three Networks spent a total of 92 minutes and 33 seconds of airtime hyperventilating about Trump's feud with various sports athletes. Compared to the 25 minutes and 45 seconds of total airtime between the three for Puerto Rico, over those two days. That means the networks spent 3.6 times more airtime on Trump’s Twitter war than the humanitarian crisis.
Again, the MRC has chosen to focus only on TV networks with a limited amount of news space, completely and deliberately ignoring the cable news channels (after all, that ratio probably occurred at its beloved Fox News as well).
The big problem here, though, is the utterly hypocritical nature of the criticism. Because you know who else prioritized Trump's NFL spat over the crisis in Puerto Rico? The MRC.
At the same time Fondacaro's post went live, the front page of the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, contained 13 stories, columns and blog post and Trump's NFL spat, seven of which were at the top of the page -- with the lead story being MRC chief Brent Bozell's own NFL-bashing rant:
At the same time, there were no stories on its front page -- none -- about Puerto Rico. Indeed, the first article about Puerto Rico at CNS wasn't posted until a day after the MRC's so-called study was issued -- and it was a column from the Heritage Foundation whining that "American workers and businesses will not be able to play a major role in the reconstruction unless President Donald Trump overrules the Department of Homeland Security and issues an extensive waiver from the commerce-killing Jones Act." That was followed an hour later by a stenography piece by Melanie Arter in which Trump declares that the recovery efforts in Puerto Rico are going well.
Neither article offered anything more than a glancing mention of the growing humanitarian crisis in the country.
The MRC is criticizing the media for doing the exact same thing its own "news" outlet is doing. That's the height of hypocrisy.
Yes, A WND Columnist Called Trump 'The Great White Hope' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Last year, we noted WorldNetDaily columnist Jesse Lee Peterson's tendency to invoke his black-conservative privilege to say things that would be denounced as racist had they come from the mouth or pen of a white person -- for instance, calling a black woman a "Negress" or mocking Black History Month. Not only hasn't he stopped doing it, he's ratcheting things up.
We have the greatest president in the history of America. I thank God for President Donald Trump, “The Great White Hope”!
At long last, a white man with courage speaks the truth, and he takes no mess from America-hating, liberal black liars tearing the country apart.
Now, the phrase "great white hope" was coined in the early 20th century by writer Jack London, who wanted a white boxer to defeat Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion. At one point, London implored one white boxer to return to the ring and take on Johnson by writing, "The White Man must be rescued."
Peterson surely knows the racially charged origin of that phrase, yet he used it anyway. It's as if he thinks blacks who don't share his right-wing thinking need to be dominated like millions of racist whites thought Jack Johnson should be -- again, the sentiment of a white supremacist. Not unlike earlier this year, when Peterson proclaimed Trump our "white savior."
Peterson continued his rant, which once again sounded like it should have been published at VDARE:
If leftists cared about black lives, why don’t they encourage black men and women to marry before making babies out of wedlock? Blacks commit abortion at more than twice the rate whites do, killing nearly one-third of their children in the womb. (In New York City, some years, more than half of black pregnancies end in abortion.) This deadens blacks’ souls, making them an unhappy and cruel people, with no peace. Of the black kids who survive, 72 percent are born out of wedlock, most raised without their fathers by angry black mothers and grandmothers. Black boys and girls grow up angry, sexual and, in many cases, violent.
President Obama did nothing to help – but only made things worse, promoting homosexuality and transgender madness instead of morality and marriage, expanding abortion in the U.S. and abroad. Obama investigated the police instead of rampant black violence and black brutality. Obama pushed the false illusions of “racism,” blame and excuses for black failure and rioting. He divided the country and darkened the souls of black people.
These professional athletes fawn over Barack Obama, but they hate President Trump, who sets a good example as a man of truth with love for the people. Trump aims to help black Americans out of their hell. Yet phony Christians like NBA’s Golden State Warriors player Stephen Curry does White House photo shoots with Obama and then shuns President Trump.
If Peterson thinks Trump tells the truth and remains so angry at Obama -- not to mention invoking notoriously racist rhetoric against people the same skin color as him -- methinks the unhappy, cruel person with no peace is Peterson.
No, MRC, Levin Isn't Vindicated on Spying Claims Topic: Media Research Center
Craig Bannister harrumphed in a Sept. 19 CNSNews.com blog post:
In March, conservative pundit Mark Levin documented that the Obama Administration had wiretapped the Trump campaign. On Monday, CNN reported that, indeed, the FBI had wiretapped former Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, both before and after the election.
But, while CNN’s claim is based on unnamed “sources,” Levin made his case by citing quotes from eight separate news reports [...] to make the case that the Obama Administration spied on Trump.
At the Media Research Center's NewsBusters, Tim Graham insisted that CNN's revelation about the FBI wiretapping Manafort "means there are some major-media reporters who should apologize to conservatives who asked questions about Trump-team surveillance. In March,ABC’s Brian Ross repeatedly denounced Mark Levin as a 'conspiracy-loving talk show host' (a la Alex Jones) over three days of newscasts." Graham added that HBO host John Oliver "should also get Levin on the phone and apologize."
Levin's claims reportedly inspired Trump's assertion that Trump wiretapped him. But the truth is not necessarily on Levin's (and the MRC's) side.
As the Washington Post points out, the target was Manafort, not Trump. He was being monitored as early as 2014, many months before Trump had even announced his presidential campaign, and he was apparently not monitored during the brief time he was the manager of the Trump campaign. There is, however, no evidence that Obama personally ordered it, as Levin has suggested.
Three's no need for anyone to apologize to Levin just yet. There is, however, a fairly urgent need for the MRC to explain the details of its business arrangement with him so that we know how much Levin is paying it to promote him.
WND's Resident Artist Shocked To Discover Gays Appear In Art Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's resident purported art critic, Marisa Martin -- better known to the non-ConWeb world as April Kiessling -- is shocked, shocked we tell ya, to discover that gay-themed art exists and that it is being put on display in art museums. As betis someone who writes for WND, she thinks this is all a conspiracy:
Reinterpreting history via “queer theory” has been a major goal for universities, but it’s making a gaudy debut in museums this year. You can translate that as: It is virtually impossible to avoid drowning in homosexuality, if you venture into most art institutions.
Galleries and media enthusiastically pimp the gay lifestyle to all comers, but the regal state museums held themselves somewhat aloof for a spell. Repositories of a grand Christian history, they hold the relics of nations and kings. But Britain’s Tate Museum, the Prado in Spain, MOMA and the rest, are out sniffing the wind for fads, and waving cash like a mating signal.
Anyone with two connected brain cells knows the hoopla over homosexuality is merely promotion of a virtually unidentifiable minority. (In this this case, approximately 1.7 % of people self-identity as “gay,” according the U.S. 2010 census. Adding bisexuality, transwhatever, no-sex, temporary insanity, or “other” comes to a whopping 3.7 of the population.)
Forcing museum patrons into contorted “queer gazing” or “queer history” is a form of aggressive cultural imposition on the majority of a population. Other than gay propaganda, there is no discernable purpose. Slightly more of the art works center on homosexuality than the percentage of people viewing them, but that’s often from investments to push the lifestyle.
Of course, anyone with two actually connected brain cells whould know that being gay isn't a "lifestyle." Nevertheless, "Martin" goes on to push the right-wing smear that homosexuality and pedophilia are no different:
Alt-sex propaganda in Western museums benefits only a small minority, and even that wouldn’t matter if it didn’t harm a substantial number of children. Pederasty was rampant in Roman and Greek culture, and it’s the foundation of the glorious gay movement now. There isn’t space to run the mountains of research proving relationships between gay rape in childhood and the inordinate numbers of abuse victims who insist they must be “born that way.” A few years back it was a mantra that child abusers were much more likely to end up abusing children if they didn’t get help. But this is long forgotten, because homosexuality is now decreed to be a gift – and how you got it doesn’t matter (much like the diseases that so often accompany the lifestyle).
Curators don’t attempt to hide their fixation on gayness, rather than any particular works of art. Images of (non-sexual) intimacy and friendship among the same sex are implied to reek of homoeroticism. Rooting out “hidden homoeroticism” is one of the biggest things going in going in art scholarship now, as gay desires are projected randomly and promiscuously.
The last time we checked, nobody was forcing "Martin" to go to a museum to see this. It's not propaganda if it's not coerced. Unless, of cousre, "Martin" thinks any opinion contrary to hers is "propaganda."
MRC Seems OK With Violence Happening To Journalists Who Don't Like Trump Enough Topic: Media Research Center
Last year, we argued that the Media Research Center's attacks on NBC reporter Katy Tur helped to prime the pump for Donald Trump's attacks on her during the campaign, which resulted in concerns about her safety as Trump supporters became increasingly hostile toward her and other journalists.
It seems that fear is the preferred state in which the MRC would journalists to remain.
In a Sept. 12 MRC post, Kyle Drennen wrote dismissively of Tur's legitimate fears of violence against her and other journalists:
Promoting her new book about covering Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign, on Tuesday’s NBC Today, correspondent Katy Tur told co-host Matt Lauer that the then-presidential candidate’s public criticism of her reporting was “jarring” and “scary.” Lauer shared her fear as he recalled the “intense feeling” he got at Trump rallies when the Republican nominee would attack the liberal media.
[...]
Tur responded: “At first, he was very charming. And when he realized that his charm wasn’t going to change my reporting, he would go on the attack....What I did every day though...was go out and try and honestly report on what was happening and hold him accountable for the things that he said.”
Lauer continued to paint Tur as the victim: “You said you kept a diary. I would love to go back and read the entry in the diary on that day that he called you ‘little Katy Tur’ and you were ‘dishonest’ and things like that.” Tur melodramatically declared: “Well, that is in the book. And you can go back and read exactly what it felt like in that moment. It was jarring, it was scary, and it was one of those feelings that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to shake.”
The morning show host commiserated with her: “Yeah, I was at a few of his rallies when he would target the press. And although he never mentioned me by name, I do remember the entire room turning around and looking at the press pool....And it was a very intense feeling.”
Tur breathlessly explained: “We had to have armed security. And it wasn’t just NBC, it was the other networks as well. I think everyone except for Fox and CBS. The crowd would all – they would turn on us and they would yell. And he riled them up to do that.”
She clarified: “I’m not saying Donald Trump’s supporters were violent, angry people. Many of them were lovely and wonderful when you talked to them one-on-one.” However, Tur then warned: “The concern was what if there’s one person in that crowd who might take this too seriously? Who might feel like this is not just a show or part of the act and take it further.”
Earlier in the segment, the reporter laughably claimed that her lack of experience in political reporting before being assigned to cover Trump’s presidential run actually made her a fairer journalist:
That last link goes to a February MRC post in which Nicholas Fondacaro declares that her fears of violence against journalists are "vile," huffing that "It’s reporting like this that helps to create the circumstances for the violent rhetoric we’re seeing from the left, such as Madonna talking about blowing up the White House and Sarah Silverman calling for a military coup." Interesting that Fondacaro thinks reacting to the anti-media atmosphere Trump creates is "vile," but not the actual creation of it.
Drennen followed up the next day by seemingly justifying threats of violence against Tur because she doesn't like Trump:
“The room goes wavy. My stomach churns. I can feel the bile in the back of my throat.” That reaction to Donald Trump winning the 2016 election didn’t come from Hillary Clinton’s new memoir, it came from the pages of NBC correspondent and MSNBC anchor Katy Tur’s book about covering the campaign.
The Hill’s Joe Concha read through a copy of Unbelievable, in which Tur bemoaned Trump’s victory: “I’ve heard him insult a war hero, brag about grabbing women by the pussy, denigrate the judicial system, demonize immigrants, fight with the pope, doubt the democratic process, advocate torture and war crimes, tout the size of his junk in a presidential debate, trash the media, and endanger my life.”
Appearing on Tuesday’s Today show to hawk the book, Tur similarly described how “jarring” and “scary” it was when Trump would criticize her biased coverage during campaign stump speeches. “We had to have armed security,” she hyped.
Beyond recalling her nausea, Tur also pushed her bizarre fear that Trump would become a lifetime dictator: "I have a vision of myself at sixty, Trump at a hundred, in some midwestern convention hall. The children of his 2016 supporters are spitting on me.”
After expressing her loathing of the President in such detail, does anyone really believe Tur can be an objective journalist?
So Tur should be grateful to Trump for endangering her life and maliciously belittling her profession? Is that the way Drennen would treat someone who did that to him?
The hatred the MRC has for journalists, it seems, borders on the pathological.
Fake News: WND Resurrects Zombie Lie About Obama Topic: WorldNetDaily
Bob Unruh writes in a Sept. 19 WorldNetDaily article:
Instances of hostility to religion across America surged 133 percent during the last five years of the Obama administration, according to a new report that documents more than 1,400 incidents ranging from the Obamacare attacks on faithful Christians to various prison restrictions on Muslims and Sikhs.
Critics say it shouldn’t be a surprise, since the former president claimed that the United States never was a “Christian nation.”
Unruh is lying -- creating fake news, as it were. As we pointed out the last time Unruh peddled this lie, Obama never said the U.S. is not, or never was, a Christian nation; he said we are not just a Christian nation.
On a side note, it's ironic that Unruh admits that Muslims are facing hostility to their religion (though only the ones in prison, apparently), given that his employer is all about promulgating hostility to religion when it involves Muslims -- to the point that it attacks Muslims for using the same federal religious freedom law it praises Christians for using.
MRC Blogger Doesn't Know Who John Legend Is Topic: NewsBusters
Media Research Center blogger Jay Maxson already has a severe case of Colin Kaepernick Derangement Syndrome -- and it's getting worse.
Maxson went on a tirade in a Sept. 24 NewsBusters post against a post at Slate defending football players' kneeling protests, written by John Legend:
NFL protests have given the liberal media a newfound "appreciation" of patriotism and the Constitution. Media covering this movement suffer from selective amnesia about U.S. history, however. Slate's John Legend is a protest apologist and historical revisionist as well who strains credibility.
In his blog today, Legend argues "The NFL Protests are Patriotic." He writes, "The president of the United States loves to drape himself in the symbols of patriotism, but fails to respect the ideals at the core of our Constitution and national identity. Trump may love the flag, but he doesn’t love anything it’s supposed to stand for."
Legend then proceeds to launch into historical revisionism, if not downright fantasy.
[...]
The Slate progressive asks if there would have been a Civil Rights Act without the Birmingham protests when Bull Connor unleashed dogs and firehoses on Black children. Legend skips over the fact that Connor was a Democrat. Would the Act have passed without Republican support? No. Democrats Al Gore Sr. and Robert Byrd were among the 21 Democrats who voted against civil rights, but Legend gives credit for it anyway to President Kennedy and President Johnson.
Maxson seems to be unaware that Legend is not a staff writer at Slate. As the bio link to his name states: "John Legend is a 10-time Grammy Awards winner, an Academy and Tony awards winner, philanthropist, and founder of the FREEAMERICA campaign."
Also, in trying to hang Bull Connor and opposition to civil rights in the 1960s on the entire Democratic Party, Maxson conveniently fails to mention that this opposition was the last gasp of anti-integration southern Democrats in the party, and that Democrats who opposed the party's endorsement of civil rights eventually became Republican.
In other words, the Democratic Party of the 1960s is not the party of today. So who's engaging in historical revisionism again?
If Maxson can't figure out something as basic as who John Legend is, we can probably assume that the rest of his hateful ranting is just as ignorant.
The Media Research Center has slowly turned itself into a public relations arm of the Trump administration. Check out this Sept. 17 post by Brad Wilmouth in total pro-Trump spin mode:
And then there is of course the elephant in the room – the newly discovered voice of the players – the refrain of social justice.
How ironic: At the same time the Media Research Center was 
WorldNetDaily's professional Muslim-hater, Leo Hohmann, 
Susan Jones uses a Sept. 26 CNSNews.com 
Newsmax's James Hirsen rants against Jimmy Kimmel in his Sept. 25 
Under the headline "An Overwrought Hatefest at the Emmy Awards," Brent Bozell and Tim Graham spent their Sept. 22 
Last year, we 
Craig Bannister harrumphed in a Sept. 19 CNSNews.com 
WorldNetDaily's resident purported art critic, 
Last year, we 
Bob Unruh writes in a Sept. 19 WorldNetDaily 
Media Research Center blogger Jay Maxson already has a 
