MRC's West Can't Get His Quotes Straight Topic: CNSNews.com
Allen West spends his Jan. 7 CNSNews.com column waxing on "the future of liberty in America." It's mostly about taking potshots at "socialism" and those he thinks promote it. He writes: "After all, one progressive socialist famously quipped in 2012, 'if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.' He was a sitting President who would be reelected after making such a damning assertion."
That statement from President Obama -- whom West has apparently decided is "he who must not be named" -- have long been taken out of context by West's employer, the Media Research Center, and other conservatives. In full context, Obama was simply pointing out that business owners got help along the way from everyone from mentors to a government that built roads and that collective action supplements individual initiative.
West goes on to write:
Perhaps we should ask, have the American people lost their spirit, drive, and determination? Have the American people become so lazy and complacent that they just sit back and wait for largesse to be spread amongst them? Scottish political philosopher, Alexander Fraser Tytler stated,
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
Except that Tytler didn't actually say that. As we'vedocumented, there's no evidence Tytler ever wrote such a thing, and the quote apparently dates back only to the 1940s and not the 18th century of Tytler.
Then again, West has never been interested in getting facts right in his work as an MRC "senior fellow."
WND Says Farah's Book Is Back In Print (Though It Never Really Was Out Of Print) Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has the glorious announcement in a Jan. 13 article:
While some suggest its time for Christians to dump the Old Testament, a best-selling new book finds the gospel of salvation, restoration, mercy and grace “everywhere you look,” says the author.
“The Gospel in Every Book of the Old Testament” by Joseph Farah is back in print after selling out nationwide before Christmas at the very moment at least one mega-pastor is calling for Christians to disengage from the Hebrew Scriptures – including even the Ten Commandments.
But as we pointed out when WND announced in November that the book was "SOLD OUT," it was still readily available at the outlets we checked, including Amazon and WND's own store (and of course, it's impossible for the Kindle version to be "sold out). It appears that WND -- following the apparent failure of its plan to raise as much as $400,000 to finance a massive first printing of the book despite not providing any evidence that the demand for Farah's book was that massive -- flipped the strategy (and acted financially responsible) by starting with a small print run it could afford and then print more as revenue from sales permitted.
There doesn't seem to be that much demand for the book in the first place -- certainly none that necessitated the 100,000-copy initial print run Farah and WND were originally planning. As of this writing, Amazon says the book is ranked No. 49,774, though it's ranked higher in very specific subcategories.
WND didn't explain the nearly two-month gap -- including the Christmas shopping season -- between the "SOLD OUT" announcement and the "back in print" announcement. Either there was never a shortage of the book in the first place, or the financial situation at WND is quite dire.
MRC Rebrands Racism and Anti-Muslim Hate As 'Free Speech' Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Alexander Hall complains in a Jan. 9 post:
Even when entrepreneurs build their own platforms and use alternate forms of money, companies can still shut off their cash flow.
Coinbase has just banned the accounts of free speech platform Gab as well as its CEO Andrew Torba. Gab has been both famous and infamous for its absolutist stance on free speech. As a result Gab had to find unconventional ways to raise money. Gab used Bitcoin, which can be exchanged for all manner of goods online. However, Bitcoins depend on exchange platforms like Coinbase to be converted back into real money and vise versa. Traditional payment processors like PayPal and Mastercard have denied services to controversial figures and been accused of censorship, and newer platforms like Coinbase and Cash App are following suit.
But as the MRC has done before, Hall refuses to note the specific content that keeps getting Gab deplatformed -- in this instance, its reputation as the place to go "when right-wing trolls and outright racists get kicked off of Twitter."
If the MRC really believed that Gab was all about "free speech," as Hall insists, it would quit Twitter and move that branch of its social-media operation there (and it would quit YouTube and move its video operations to BitChute). But it's not -- because it's cynically denouncing the deplatforming to perpetuate its narrative that social media platforms discriminate against conservatives when it would never permit the content that got those operations deplatform on the MRC's own websites. (Remember, Tom Blumer got fired from NewsBusters for including white-nationalists links in his posts.)
Gab is not the only beneficiary of Hall's attempt to rebrand right-wing hate as "free speech." Hall wrote in a Jan. 17 post that "Two free speech YouTubers from the UK have been demonetized for unclear reasons." Hall seriously soft-pedals the first, Tommy Robinson:
The video that Robinson was punished for was titled “TOMMY ROBINSON: GOODBYE 2018, BRING ON 2019!” He summarized his ongoing fight against grooming gangs in England, as well as successful fundraising he had organized for English communities.Grooming gangs became famous with the Rotherham Scandal, when it was exposed that UK politicians and police had ignored 10 years of largely Pakistani gangs sexually exploiting English girls.
He also spoke about his harrowing imprisonment for broadcasting on his phone outside a courthouse where a trial about grooming gangs was taking place.
In fact, Robinson is an anti-Muslim activist who violated British law that places strict rules about what can be reported during an ongoing trial that apply to all trials, not just the trial in question. Robinson was jailed because the offense violated terms of a previous suspended sentence, not for the act itself. In fact, Robinson's violation almost derailed the trials he was reporting on, which could have allowed the suspects to go free.
Hall also notes that Robinson is the head of the English Defence League without mentioning that the EDL is a far-right anti-Muslim group.
Hall did, however, hint at why the other person, who goes by the name of "Count Dankula," was deplatformed: he's a "Scottish Brexit-supporting internet comedian who made headlines when he was arrested for 'grossly offensive' hate speech. His offense was uploading a video where he taught his pet pug how to raise its paw in the 'Heil!' gesture to annoy his liberal girlfriend."
Hall bizarrely passed no judgment on this offensive act; instead, he gushed that it made him "a free speech icon online with a successful YouTube channel."
Too Good To Fact-Check: WND Repeats Prank Story Topic: WorldNetDaily
An anonymously written Jan. 8 WorldNetDaily article repeated a Wall Street Journal story claiming that Muslim interest groups -- specifically the Council on Arab-Islamic Relations -- lobbied Twitter to ban far-right anti-Muslim stunt provoacteur Laura Loomer (whom WND benignly and laughably describes only as a "conservative Jewish activist"). Since WND merely rewrote the Journal article, it couldn't be bothered to do its own fact-checking.
Bad move -- it appears the claim was the result of a prank.
Right Wing Watch reports that Loomer "was duped by internet pranksters into believing that her suspension occurred due to alleged lobbying by" CAIR. Loomer apparently took the fake info to the Journal, which dubiously represented standard complaints from CAIR employees "as evidence of the group’s influence over Twitter executives when they decided to shut down Loomer’s account." CAIR said it did nothing out of the ordinary in reporting Loomer's offensive work to Twitter.
Prankster Nathan Bernard reported numerous contacts with Loomer, which escalated into fabricating an appointment calendar showing that CAIR was scheduled to meet with Twitter chief Jack Dorsey. (Twitter has since confirmed that it never met with CAIR representatives.) An accomplice of Bernard noted that Loomer made no attempt to verify the identity of those who were feeding her this (bogus) information; meanwhile, the Journal apparently mistook CAIR's admission that it complained to Twitter about Loomer through the standard reporting channels Twitter provides to every user as an admission that it "privately lobbied" Twitter.
WND was far from alone in getting duped; numerous other right-wing websites also ran with the story, Right Wing Watch documents. Needless to say, WND hid the extent of Loomer's anti-Muslim extremism, which got her banned from Uber and Lyft for racist tweets ranting that too many of their drivers were Muslims and/or immigrants.
Also needless to say, WND has shown no interest so far in correcting the record (it usually doesn't unless someone threatens to sue). Its original story remains live and uncorrected, and a Jan. 15 article on another Loomer stunt did not mention the prank incident at all, let alone admit it was a prank.
Letting fake news stand after it's been proven fake is not helping WND's quest for credibility (or solvency).
CNS Obsesses Some More Over Athletes Who Praise God Topic: CNSNews.com
One of CNSNews.com's biasedpeculiarities is obsessing over sports figures who copiously praise God and/or Jesus in the wake of their victories or other achievements. Well, the athletes-praising-God beat has been pretty busy lately.
Michael Morris wrote a Jan. 8 post highlighing how Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, following his team's victory in the College Football Playoff championship, "said, 'All the credit, all the glory, goes to the Good Lord' and noted that he finds joy in 'focusing on Jesus.'" A few days later, he touted how "In the NFL Playoffs Divisional round matchup between the New Orleans Saints and the Philadelphia Eagles, Saints Tight End Benjamin Watson, Eagles quarterback Nick Foles, and numerous other players from both squads, knelt, linked arms and prayed together on the field," adding mostly redundantly, "Saints TE Watson and Eagles backup QB Foles are both outspoken Christians."
CNS is also highlighting how athletes are invoking God when they get hurt or if they screw up. A Jan. 7 post by Craig Bannister carried the headline "Bears' Kicker Turns to God after Missing Last-Second Field Goal, Losing Game" and stated:
Chicago Bears kicker Cody Parkey missed a heartbreaking 43-yard field goal with 10 seconds left in his team’s NFL playoff game against the Philadelphia Eagles, resulting in a 16-15 loss that eliminated his team. But, that didn’t stop Parkey from joining players from both teams in prayer at midfield immediately after the game.
Parkey’s kick had hit the left upright of the goalpost, then hit the crossbar, before falling just short. As his teammates consoled him, Parkey pointed to the heavens as he left the field - only to return after the game to pray at midfield with other Bears and Eagles players[.]
And Morris used a Jan. 10 post to highlight a college player invoking God following a grisly leg injury:
UCF Knights junior quarterback McKenzie Milton (#10) “went from almost losing” his right leg after suffering a “terrible injury”during a scramble in the second quarter of play against in-state rival USF on November 23, 2018, but Milton is now on the road to recovery, the QB saying, “God is definitely at work.”
“Thanking God for the miracles I see everyday in my life,” wrote McKenzie Milton in an Instagram post. “Went from almost losing my leg to leg pressing 40lbs in a little over a month. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. God is definitely at work..it’s gonna be a long process but it’ll be one hell of a story.”
We're not mocking athletes who invoke God regarding their achievements (or lack thereof) -- just CNS' insistence that this is "news."
Judith Reisman's Bogus Trump-Fluffing Numbers Topic: WorldNetDaily
Judith Reisman, the factually challenged Kinsey-hating obsessive, used her Jan. 12 WorldNetDaily column to tout "the success President Trump has had in fighting human trafficking compared to his predecessor, Barack Obama, as seen in the chart above." She added:
The first 18 months of the Trump presidency saw a 743 percent increase in arrests of traffickers over the first two years of Barack Obama’s first term.
Under Trump’s helm, 9,200 individuals were arrested on suspicion of human trafficking in 18 months. Under Obama, 1,238 were arrested for trafficking during his first two years. During eight years in office, Obama’s administration made only 42 more arrests for human trafficking than Trump’s administration made in his first 18 months! How many precious lives were saved by those 9,200 arrests!
Just one little problem: The numbers for Trump are more than a little dubious. Here's the chart Reisman is referring to:
Note the sources listed for the numbers. The first, from the Washington Examiner, covers the Obama years and come directly from the federal government. The second is an anonymous list of arrests allegedly made under Trump that offers no verification whatsoever, let alone any credibly sourcing.
An actual news outlet told the story of how these never-verified statistics -- in this case, originating with a group of conspiracy theorists -- spread on the right:
On July 7, Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA and frequent Fox News contributor, published a tweet that contained startling but inaccurately sourced statistics about the alleged growth of human trafficking arrests under the Trump administration. It stated there were 1,952 human trafficking arrests through all of 2016, but in the first half of 2018 authorities had already made an astounding 5,987 human trafficking arrests. Kirk’s tweet falsely claimed these figures came from the Justice Department.
Kirk deleted the tweet shortly after the true source of its figures was revealed: the notorious imageboard 8chan, home of the QAnon conspiracy “researchers” of the /qresearch/ board. The board’s “research,” which consisted of sloppily compiling information from nationwide news reports about human trafficking and child pornography arrests and charges, seeks to support a core belief of the QAnon conspiracy theory — that Trump is secretly battling a corrupt deep state and an evil cabal of pedophile Satan-worshiping elites. QAnon believers think if they can show that more human traffickers are being arrested, it will support the baseless notion that Trump is finally putting an end to long-protected trafficking rings used by these elites.
Though Kirk may not have realized it at first, he had bought into the collective fantasy of some of the Internet’s most outré Trump fans.
Reisman never explains where, exactly, that chart in her article came from, but it's unlikely that she made it -- it likely emerged from the same far-right fever swamp that generated the bogus statistics.But as another, more responsible writer points out, "the image failed to note that the two sources relied on two completely different methods of data gathering. The inconsistency means it can’t be used to accurately conclude that human trafficking arrests have increased nationwide."
WND obviously never bothered to fact-check Reisman's column and, thus, is once again guilty of publishing fake news. Will they ever learn?
MRC's Bozell & Graham Hint That Khashoggi's Murder By Saudis Was Justified Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center largely stayed away from the right-wingconspiracy-mongering surrounding murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But no more, apparently. MRC bigwigs Tim Graham and Brent Bozell devoted their Jan. 4 column to attacking Khashoggi over something else.
In a CYA effort, the pair graciously concede that killing journalists is bad: "The gruesome murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi shredded the idea that Saudi Arabian royalty should be praised for reforming itself. Princes who chop political opponents into little pieces are not nice people." Having got that nicety out of the way, they grouse: "That said, puh-leeze stop it with the adoration of a man who deserves none of it."
Graham and Bozell's bone of contention is that the Washington Post, for whom Khashoggi wrote columns criticizing Saudi Arabia, was apparently collaborating with officials from Qatar, which the duo make sure to inform us is "a nemesis of Saudi Arabia," and that the Post "buried these facts in paragraph 19 on page A-14, in a massive 5,000-word story," when it "deserved to be the lede." They then huff: "So Khashoggi was railing against one set of authoritarians ... with the research assistance and 'drafting' and "shaping" of another set. This doesn't make his ruthless murder any less heinous. But it ought to curtail all the 'Free Thinker Just Bearing Witness' rubbish."
It sure sounds like Graham and Bozell are trying to justify Khashoggi's murder, if only because they hate the Post so much.
WND's Erik Rush Adds Hermain Cain Revisionism To His Obama Derangement Topic: WorldNetDaily
Erik Rush starts off his Jan. 2 WorldNetDaily column by ranting about newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her "Green New Deal," which he dismisses as a "hideous legislative package." Soon enough, Rush is having yet another fit of Obama derangement:
If you consider the aggregate of grounds upon which people vote for candidates, Barack Obama was elected as our president in 2008 for no other reason than his status as an ethnic minority. His high crimes and unconstitutional measures and those of certain of his surrogates and cabinet members were overlooked by his detractors for the same reason. Even his political opponents were loath to criticize or condemn him despite his gross deficiencies, because none wanted to risk being labeled as racists; indeed, this was borne out with any who did dare to do so.
We have this dynamic to thank for the passage of Obamacare, which is financially damaging (if not crippling) Americans to this day. Crimes attendant to the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal, the IRS nonprofit-targeting scandal, the NSA domestic spying scandal, Benghazi and a host of others were handily ignored on the same basis.
Most importantly, it was known well in advance of his election by avowed lefties and closeted socialists in the GOP that Obama would be given this latitude simply because he was black. This is why he was positioned to run for the office in the first place.
From there, it was a quick trip to some revisionist history:
The same rationale can be applied to why the Beltway machine was so threatened by Herman Cain during the 2012 election cycle, and why they saw it as an imperative to take him out of the running decisively and early on. Like Donald Trump, Cain was a true outsider – and worse, he was black. In their eyes, it was entirely conceivable that voters might jump one black ship for another, because it was already plain at the time that Obama’s governance was abysmal. A vote for Cain would have allowed voters to save face in the name of diversity, but his election would have derailed the statist agenda for at least four years.
So, a sex scandal was concocted to knock Herman Cain off of the campaign trail, and it worked. Those who followed the story may recollect strong indicators that the Cain sex scandal originated with GOP operatives rather than Democrats.
But Cain's sex scandal wasn't "concocted" -- it was very real. While the article to which Rush links lists only allegations and places them as equivalent to allegations against Bill Clinton and John Edwards (which he would never describe as "concocted"), it's indisputable that two women who accused Cain of sexual harassment while he was head of the National Restaurant Association received a total of $80,000 in settlement money.
Shocker: CNS' Jeffrey Finally Calls Out GOP For Contributing to Federal Debt Topic: CNSNews.com
We've documented how CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey has been quick to blame Democrats for running up the national debt while refusing to call out Republicans for their roles in running up that same debt. Shockingly, Jeffrey has finally gotten around to specifically laying blame where it deserves.
Weirdly presented as his weekly column instead of a "news" article like most of his debt-related tirades, Jeffrey headlined his Jan. 9 piece "Republican House Increased Debt $7.9 Trillion in 8 Years." He even calls out his favorite president, Donald Trump, in doing so:
The recently deposed Republican majority increased the federal debt by $7.9 trillion in the eight years it controlled the House of Representatives.
At the close of business on Jan. 4, 2011, the day before the Republicans took control of the House, the debt was $14,014,049,043,294.41, according to the Treasury.
On Jan. 3, 2019, the last day before the Republicans turned control of the House back to the Democrats, the debt closed at $21,929,258,046,653.58.
So, under the Republican House majorities in four Congresses, the debt climbed $7,915,209,003,359.17.
That works out to approximately $989,401,125,420 per year, or $2,710,688,015 per day, or $112,945,334 per hour, or $1,882,422 per minute.
In fact, under the Republican-controlled House, the federal debt increased at an average rate of $31,374 per second.
Some Republicans may claim they should not be blamed for the massive increase in the federal debt during the eight years they controlled the House. They may say: "For four of those eight years, the Democrats controlled the Senate." Or: "For six of those eight years, Barack Obama was president."
But the Constitution says, "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law."
And no law may be enacted unless it passes the House.
A Republican-majority House approved every one of the federal spending laws enacted over the past eight years.
Not only that, but all of the spending laws enacted since Jan. 20, 2017, when President Donald Trump was inaugurated, have been approved by a Republican-majority House, a Republican-majority Senate and a Republican president.
That was the first half of Jeffrey's column; the latter half was devoted to arguing that "The federal debt did not climb by nearly a trillion dollars a year under a Republican-controlled House because the government did not tax enough. It climbed because the government spent too much.
Rashida Tlaib is a Palestinian-American who ran unopposed and became one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress alongside Ilhan Omar, D-MN (a Somali-American elected in 2016). Democrats also elected Kyrsten Sinema, the first openly bi-sexual elected to the U.S. Senate. The newly elected Senator from Arizona refused to be sworn in on a Bible.
Rashida Tlaib, Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Kyrsten Sinema are a new breed of radical Democrats hell-bent on trying to destroy this president. Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez belong to the Democratic Socialists of America – an anti-American group that has no respect for the U.S. Constitution. These extremist Democrats are not interested in working with President Trump or Republicans to end the government shutdown and secure the southern border with Mexico. Their goal is to impeach this president and undermine the rule of law. They want bigger government, higher taxes, open borders, and they embrace radical Islamists and want to weaken the U.S. military. Their socialist agenda is evil, and it’s antithetical to everything that makes America the greatest and freest nation on this side of Heaven. We cannot allow them to succeed!
[...]
Newly elected Democrats are more radical than their predecessors. Lowlife Democrats like Rashida Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez have no respect for the rule of law. They abhor the constitution and the Judeo-Christian values that shaped this great nation. If we continue electing socialists, Muslims and pro-open border politicians who refuse to enforce our laws and protect our sovereignty – we will lose more American lives and eventually lose our country.
-- Jesse Lee Peterson, Jan. 6 WorldNetDaily column
And so we have Rashida Tlaib, a 42-year-old Democrat, a lawyer, elected to Congress with 163 thousand votes from the 13th District in Michigan – one of the poorest sections of that state.
Most Americans outside of Michigan didn’t follow the election, so we had no idea of what Ms. Tlaib was like – at least until last Thursday night, after the new members of Congress were sworn in.
At a gathering that evening, she was feeling her oats with the victory and told the crowd that she told her son about winning and what would happen: “We’re going to go in there and we’re going to impeach the motherfu***r!”
Whew! Them’s fightin’ words, no matter where you’re from! But coming from a woman, a Muslim, just elected to Congress and just hours after her swearing-in, against a man who was elected president with 63 million votes – shows an ego and brashness she’s been hiding under her hijab.
[...]
If you’ve wondered if politics has scraped the bottom of the barrel, this is the proof.
Rep. Tlaib is the first female Palestinian-American in Congress and a Muslim. She planned to take the oath of office using former President Thomas Jefferson’s own Quran – changing her mind after she may have learned that his copy of Islam’s holy book helped persuade Jefferson to launch all-out war against the Islamist Barbary pirates.
One of Rep. Tlaib’s first acts as a national lawmaker reportedly was to modify a world map in her office to replace “Israel” with a state named “Palestine.”
[...]
How did a leftist Muslim from the Detroit area win seats in the Michigan legislature and now in Congress? Michigan has roughly 300,000 Arab-Americans, the highest proportion of any state, and two-thirds of them live in the four counties of the Detroit area.
This ethnic population is a magnet for more Arab immigrants, and a money magnet for Democratic candidates such as John Kerry who come fundraising and in search of Arab-American votes. Kerry, for example, gave a targeted speech to this audience condemning Israel and its wall that has successfully thwarted terrorism.
Henry Ford recruited “as far abroad as Iraq and Syria to find enough workers to assemble his cars,” Craig R. Smith and I wrote in our book “The Great Withdrawal,” and “imported the ancestors of today’s sizable Michigan Arab-American population.”
[...]
Tlaib was elected in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, the third-poorest district in the United States. For 53 years it was represented by radical leftist Democrat John Conyers. Conyers’ website included a button that instantly translated everything from English to Arabic to serve his large ethnic voter base; Tlaib’s congressional website will almost certainly do likewise.
MRC's Sports Blogger Goes Into Cognitive Dissonance Mode Again Over Ray Lewis Topic: NewsBusters
Mysterious NewsBusters sports blogger Jay Maxson just loves how former NFL star Ray Lewis is so religious -- so much, in fact, that Maxson conveniently forgets Lewis' involvement in a double murder that he ultimately plea-bargained down to obstruction of justice, and that Lewis has yet to come fully clean about his involvement in the deaths.
Maxson went into cognitive dissonance mode again in a Jan. 3 post complaining that a "lefty" sports blog called Awful Announcing "shamed" Lewis "for his faith." Maxson was mad that Awful Announcing pointed out how Lewis "uses every opportunity to talk about how religious and holier-than-thou he is," specifically claiming that current NFL star Odell Beckham Jr. "has removed God from his life" in relation to a off-the-field incident involving a model and "potential drugs" that did not result in any league sanctions against Beckham.
Maxson also noted another of the blog's slams against Lewis: "Ah, yes, the man known for his guilty plea to obstruction of justice after the murders of two men really should be the life counselor to a man who has never been criminally charged with anything." But Maxson strangely let that pass without comment, declining to address the conflict between his involvement in that crime and his current "holier-than-thou" status.
Maxson doesn't seem to understand it's not necessarily about Lewis being an judgmental religious man now, it's that he has never reconciled that religiosity with his violent past, let alone fully make amends for it. Unless Maxson can address that issue, perhaps he/she should stop whining about people criticizing Lewis for being overly religious.
Borrowing several of the tropes from the Democrats, writing an op-ed in The Washington Post, the house journal of the liberal establishment, Romney virtue-signaled his approval of some of the president’s policies, but curiously lambasted Mr. Trump’s failure to live up to the "mantle" of the presidency.
Romney cited Trump's "words and actions."
Sen. Romney was rather unspecific in his smearing of the president, though he did claim that "A president should unite us and inspire us to follow 'our better angels.'"
The implication seemed to be that Donald Trump has not done this, but one sympathetic to the president and his promise to "Make America Great Again," along with his administration’s superb economic accomplishments, could certainly see where the Lincolnesque appeal to "our better angels" was a part of Trump’s appeal.
Say what one might about Donald Trump, he does follow the rules. He has not ignored adverse court rulings or administrative pronouncements, and he has only sought to implement his policies through adherence to the traditional prerogatives of his office, and working with Republicans in Congress to obtain his legislative goals.
Romney’s op-ed made clear that he cannot be counted on to aid this president’s efforts.
[...]
By now seeking to cast obloquy on Mr. Trump, Sen. Romney has not only engaged in the kind of mendacity routinely employed by the President’s Democratic critics, but he seems to be putting his own desire for notice and purported integrity ahead of his loyalty to his party and his president.
Blind adherence to a leader is, of course, not always wise, but where, as is true of President Trump, he is doing the very things he promised.
Where those very things gained him an Electoral College majority, one would think the senators of his own party would support him, as Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., former senatorial critics, now appear to be doing.
Mitt Romney’s op-ed is profoundly disappointing, unwise, and disloyal. It can only please Mr. Trump’s enemies.
CNS Obsesses Over Congresswoman Using Swear Word In A Bar Topic: CNSNews.com
When newly elected Rep. Rashida Tlaib declared of President Trump at a party at a bar with other activists that she'd like to "impeach the motherfucker," CNSNews.com was ON IT.
Susan Jones kicked off the tsk-tsking in a Jan. 4 article noting that the "consensus" at CNN was that Tlaib "had gone too far." She also cited an op-ed Tlaib co-wrote discussing the need to impeach Trump in which she asked, "This is not just about Donald Trump. This is about all of us. What should we be as a nation? Who should we be as a people?" Jones lectured in response: "Tlaib has made it clear that she and others who agree with her should be the ones to answer those questions -- not the voters who elected Trump."
The same day, Craig Bannister lamented that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "said she has no intention of trying to limit the vulgarity of her party."
Two days later, CNS seemed to have settled on a strategy on referencing Tlaib's comment about Trump in the headline and/or lead paragraph of every story it published on her.
An anonymously written Jan. 6 article had to go back seven years, to a 2012 speech she made as a Michigan state legislator, to find something to attack Tlaib with in addition to her Trump comment. The headline reads "Rep. Tlaib Who Called Trump ‘Motherf*****: ‘Stop Having Sex With Us, Gentlemen. Find Somebody Else to Do It With’," and the lead paragraph restates that Tlaib is "the newly elected congresswoman who last week called President Donald Trump a 'motherf****r'."
A Jan. 7 article by Patrick Goodenough again restated that Tlaib is "the new congresswoman from Michigan who last week called President Trump a 'motherf****r'." The same day, an anonymously written article broke with the pattern by not referencing the Trump statement at all but, rather, highling that she "told the New York Times in August that her 'Allah is she.'"
That's five articles in four days after Tlaib made her Trump statement. But CNS wasn't done.
On Jan. 8, Bannister highlighted how Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin claimed to offer an apology to "all Americans" for Tlaib's "deplorable" comments.
An anonymously written Jan. 11 article resumed the pattern by carrying the headline "Rep. Rashida—Trump’s a ‘Motherf*****’—Tlaib Gives First Floor Speech—on Drunk Driving" and stating in the lead paragraph that Tlaib is "the newly elected congresswoman who stirred controversy by calling President Donald Trump a 'mother*****.'" -- even though that had nothing to do with the subject of the article, which summarized her first House floor speech on the subject of drunk driving.
And yet another anonymously written article, on Jan. 14, carried the headline "Rep. Rashida (Trump’s a ‘Motherf*****’) Tlaib Says ‘Congress Will Never be the Same’ With Her in It" and stated in the lead parafraph that Tlaib "gained significant publicity for declaring President Donald Trump as “mother*****.'"The anonymous CNS writer didn't note that this was the seventh article CNS had published since that remark was made -- six of which referenced the remark and five of which put the remark in the headline even though most of those article were not about the remark.
In other words, CNS itself is going out of its way to give Tlaib's remarks "significant publicity." It's hypocritical for it to complain about that.
By contrast, CNS was much more deferential to a Republican politician to similarly used a swear word. After President Trump reportedly used the term "shithole countries" in reference to other countries from which immigration is purportedly undesirable, Jones uncritically repeated a statement from Trump denying he used the word, and later claimed that "not everyone is distracted by the president's poor word choice," citing Fox News host Tucker Carlson's assertion that "Trump said something that almost every person in America actually agrees with."
NEW ARTICLE -- Slanties 2019: Into the Slantie-Verse Topic: The ConWeb
As the web the ConWeb weaves continues to spread under new writer Donald Trump, it's time once again to highlight the worst ConWeb reporting and craziest ConWeb opinions of the year. Read more >>
MRC's Acosta Derangement Syndrome Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center absolutelydespises CNN correspondent Jim Acosta. So it's no surprise that it spend the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 nurturing that hate.
The MRC's leading Acosta-basher, Curtis Houck, served up a year-end article on the "worst Acosta moments of 2018," unprofessionally sneering in the headline, "Jimmy, Jim, Jim" and rehashing thte MRC's cheering on attacks on Acosta by the Trump White House and attendees at Trump rallies.
In a Jan. 8 post, Nicholas Fondacaro huffed that it was "obnoxious" for Acosta to point out that, in reference to President Trump's prime-time address calling the situation at the souther border "a crisis of the heart, a crisis of thte soul," the Trump administration's policy of jailing children seized on the border was heartless and soulless.Fondacaro further whined: "CNN has become so entrenched in their Trump Derangement Syndrome, that they’re 'fact-checking' whether or not the President has feelings and emotions like a normal human being."
On Jan. 10, P.J. Gladnick insisted that Acosta underwent a "hilarious self-owning" by pointing out that there were parts of the U.S.-Mexico border that did not have a steel-slat fence and there was no "national emergency" there.Gladnick concluded: "Exit question: How long before @realDonaldTrump retweets Acosta accidentally making the case for why a border wall (or steel slat fence) is needed?"
Gladnick got his wish, and pathological Acosta-hater Houck couldn't have been happier, unable to stop gushing:
A day after a trollish tweet for the ages that united people across the right side of the aisle against the media for a day-long dunk squad session, President Trump responded to a question Friday afternoon from CNN chief White House correspondent/carnival barker Jim Acosta by telling him “good job” on his Twitter videos on Thursday in McAllen, Texas that inadvertently made the case for a border wall.
Houck concluded of Trump's bashing of Acosta: "Oh snap!" Is such juvenile ranting and derangement any way for a professional "media researcher" to behave?
Houck further showed his immaturity in a post headlined "Watch Tucker Carlson Mercilessly Lampoon Jim Acosta for His Epic Self-Own at the Border," which slobbered voer "Carlson’s Hall-of-Fame-worthy tomfoolery." What Hall of Fame? Houck never enlightens us -- he's more obsessed with finding any excuse to attack Acosta then to raise even the meekest objection to Carlson's sympathy for white nationalism.
UPDATE: We missed one bit of Acosta derangement from Houck last week. Under the clickbaity, hyperbolic headline "BOOM! Kellyanne Conway Nukes ‘Smart***’ Jim Acosta When He Delivers Low Blow," Houck declared:
Speaking to reporters Tuesday afternoon on the West Lawn of the White House, near to where the networks have their cameras setup for live shots, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway demolished CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta for being a “smartass most of the time.”
This came in response to when, instead of continuing to ask questions about the President’s primetime address, Acosta went personal and attacked Conway by chiding how Trump doesn’t have an “alternative facts problem like you do.”
Interesting that Houck doesn't think Conway's insult of Acosta was a "low blow," and that Acosta didn't "nuke" Conway by accurately pointing out her "alternative facts problem." That's what Acosta Derangement Syndrome does, apparently.
Allen West spends his Jan. 7 CNSNews.com column waxing on "the future of liberty in America." It's mostly about taking potshots at "socialism" and those he thinks promote it. He writes: "After all, one progressive socialist famously quipped in 2012, 'if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.' He was a sitting President who would be reelected after making such a damning assertion."
WorldNetDaily has the glorious announcement in a Jan. 13 
The Media Research Center's Alexander Hall complains in a Jan. 9 
An anonymously written Jan. 8 WorldNetDaily 
One of CNSNews.com's 
The Media Research Center largely stayed away from the 
Erik Rush starts off his Jan. 2 WorldNetDaily 
We've 
Rashida Tlaib is a Palestinian-American who ran unopposed and became one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress alongside Ilhan Omar, D-MN (a Somali-American elected in 2016). Democrats also elected Kyrsten Sinema, the first openly bi-sexual elected to the U.S. Senate. The newly elected Senator from Arizona refused to be sworn in on a Bible.
Mysterious NewsBusters sports blogger Jay Maxson just loves how former NFL star Ray Lewis is so religious -- so much, in fact, that Maxson 
Borrowing several of the tropes from the Democrats, writing an op-ed in The Washington Post, the house journal of the liberal establishment, Romney virtue-signaled his approval of some of the president’s policies, but curiously lambasted Mr. Trump’s failure to live up to the "mantle" of the presidency.
When newly elected Rep. Rashida Tlaib declared of President Trump at a party at a bar with other activists that she'd like to "impeach the motherfucker," CNSNews.com was ON IT.
The Media Research Center 
