Trump-Fluffer Kessler Goes Into Full Apologist Mode Topic: Newsmax
Ronald Kessler is a Trumpophile from way back, and while he was a full-time writer for Newsmax, he promoted Trump's presidential ambitions as early as 2011. Kessler is still a Trump apologist, as he demonstrates in an April 23 column complaining that the FBI opened an investigation into Trump because he said in an interview that the "this Russia thing" was why he fired FBI Director James Comey. Commence apologist mode:
With those confusing words, it sounded as if Trump was saying he fired Comey because the FBI director was pursuing the Russia investigation and Trump wanted to stop it.
But Trump made it clear to aides afterward that he meant quite the opposite — that he was aware that firing Comey could prolong the Russia investigation. What Trump said in the interview immediately after his comment about “this Russia thing” confirms that and exposes [Andrew] McCabe’s rationale for opening the investigation of Trump as a fraud[.]
Trump went on to say to Holt that he supported a full investigation into Russian interference in the election. He said he never tried to pressure Comey into dropping the existing FBI probe of Russian interference in the election — a legitimate investigation that never specifically targeted Trump.
[...]
The media largely ignored Trump’s statement making it clear that he realized that by firing Comey, he was probably prolonging the existing FBI investigation rather than obstructing it. Nor, in all the endless stories about the Russia investigation did the media point out that Trump never actually interfered with the FBI investigation, that he was not a target of an FBI investigation when he fired Comey, and that he did not corruptly cover up, destroy evidence, or make false statements to mislead investigators, all of which happened during Watergate when President Nixon clearly obstructed justice.
But as the Mueller report made clear, "the Russia thing" did clearly play a role in Trump firing Comey. Trump was angry that Comey would not publicly say that Trump was personally not under investigation, and Comey's alleged behavior during the FBI investigation, as stated in Ron Rosenstein's letter providing justification for the firing, was never the main factor.
Kessler, like a good apologist, was still mad that Comey's firing did commence an FBI investigation into Trump, ranting that "Not since Hoover opened FBI investigations into anyone who criticized the government and blackmailed presidents and members of Congress has the FBI so outrageously abused its authority."
(Photo: Ron Kessler and his wife, Pamela, with Trump, from Kessler's 1999 book "The Season," about the Palm Beach social scene.)
MRC Falsely Puts A Swear Word In A Commentator's Mouth Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Brad Wilmouth was in full rage mode, and it seemed justified at first (by right-wing standards, anyway). Under the screaming headline "Heilemann Slams 'Big Fat Steaming Plate of Hannity,' 'Pig in ****'," Wilmouth huffed in a May 3 post:
On Wednesday's The 11th Hour with Brian Williams on MSNBC, during a discussion of Fox News reaction to Attorney General Bill Barr's testimony on the Mueller report, John Heilemann derided FNC host Sean Hannity as a "steaming, hot pile of Hannity" who is as "happy as a pig in ****" as the MSNBC national affairs analyst seemed annoyed at having to react to the conservative Fox News host's commentary.
Just one problem: Heilemann never said the swear word that Wilmouth portrays him as saying. As Wilmouth later writes in his piece, Heilemann actually said: "There's a phrase, people talk about a 'pig in,' you know. That's Sean right now -- he's happy as a pig in, you know."
So Wilmouth is lying. There's a difference between implying a swear word and speaking around it -- which Heilemann did -- and actually saying the word, which Heilemann did not but Wilmouth portrays him as doing.
Wilmouth's sloppiness goes even further. His first paragraph misquotes Heilemann by claiming he referred to a "steaming, hot pile of Hannity," when Heilemann actually said "a big, fat, steaming plate of Hannity." Doesn't anybody edit anything at the MRC these days? (Ask Tom Blumer.)
As of this writing, the MRC has not acknowledge Wilmouth's falsehood or issued a correction. Its failure to do so hurts whatever credibility it has.
A white journalist, actor and director who drew a following on Twitter by attacking “whiteness” and President Trump killed himself Saturday evening.
Pieter Bosch Botha, 34, also known as Pieter Howes, died at the Sandton hotel in Johannesburg, South Africa, after a battle with depression, reported the South African TV industry website TeeVeeTee.
Never heard of him? Neither have we. WND's article is little more than a rewrite of a piece on the man published by something called Information Liberation, which has been described as an extreme-right operation known for publishing false and misleading information -- which tells you how decimated the news side of WND is these days in his current financial crisis. (WND calls Information Liberation an "independent news and commentary site.")
WND, though, weirdly focuses on Howes' sex life, calling him a "gay white journalist" in the headline and inexplicably making the article's lead image a tweet from Howes' wedding -- even though his sexuality is irrelvant to anything in the story.
WND seems to want you to think that Howes killed himself because he was gay -- and maybe that he deserved to die. There's really no other logical explanation we can think of that would cause WND to play up his sexual orientation.
Of course, WND hates journalists as much as it hates people who are gay, so it can be credibly argued that it's pleased by this development.
MRC Does Damage Control For Ben Shapiro's Temper Tantrum Topic: Media Research Center
First the Media Research Center rushed to Ben Shapiro's defense over alleged mislabeling of his conservative views (despite its own long history of sloppy labeling of liberal views). Now, in a May 10 post, the MRC's Scott Whitlock is doing cleanup work on a disastrous TV appearance by Shapiro. Whitlock glowingly writes:
Conservative host Ben Shapiro appeared on the BBC, Thursday, in a contentious interview and attacked the bias and agenda of the network. After host Andrew Neil derided Georgia’s new pro-life abortion bill as “extreme,” “hard policies” that would “take us back to the dark ages,” Shapiro unloaded, “Okay, so you’re supposedly an objective calling polices with which you disagree barbaric.”
Neil huffed that “I’m not taking a view” of abortion. Shapiro shot back: “Sir, you just suggested that the pro-life position is inherently brutal and terrible. So, I’m asking you, as an objective journalist, would you ask the same question to a pro-choice advocate by calling their position brutal and horrible?”
Neil doubled down: “What I’m asking you is why is it that a bill banning abortion after a woman has been pregnant for six weeks is not a return to the dark ages?” The conservative author and commentator called out the cultural bias of the BBC:
My answer is something called science. Human life exists at conception. It ought to be protected. You purport to be an objective journalist. BBC purports to be an objective, down-the-middle network. It obviously is not and never has been. And you as a journalist are proceeding to call one side of the political aisle ignorant, barbaric and sending us back to the dark ages.
What Whitlock didn't tell you: Shapiro's attack on the BBC was followed by a massive temper tantrum in which Shapiro complained that Neil "simply going through and finding lone things that sound bad out of context and then hitting people with them is a way for you to make a quick buck on BBC off the fact that I’m popular and no one has ever heard of you" -- then stormed out of the interview.To which Neil deliciously responded, "Thank you for your time and for showing that anger is not part of American political discourse."
Whitlock also cut off his blockquote of Shapiro to eliminate his attack on Neil: "Why don't you just say you're on the left?" Well, that's because he's not. Whitlock noted deep in the post that "Neil is an editor of the British Spectator and not a man of the left, as Shapiro initially thought." Whitlock then linked to a post-interview tweet as stating that Shapiro had "since admitted this", but didn't call Shapiro out for failing to sufficiently prepare for the interview by figuring out beforehand that Neil likes to play devil's advocate; instead, he tried to give Shapiro cover by claiming that "it’s easy to see why one would have been confused," oblivously adding that "The classifying of the pro-life position as 'extreme,' 'hard' and 'taking us back to the dark ages' is hardly objective. It’s typical of the sneering BBC view of anything culturally conservative." Whitlock provided no evidence to support his claim that the BBC has a "sneering view" of cultural conservatism.
Shapiro totally botched that interview, but the MRC wants to use alternative facts to make you think differently.
CNS' Jeffrey Misleads To Portray Gov't Workers As Overpaid Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey thinks he's onto something in his May 8 column:
Which class of full-time, year-round American workers has the highest median earnings? Is it the class that works for private-sector employers? Is it the class that works for the government? Or is it the entrepreneurial class, who are self-employed?
According to the Census Bureau's Personal Income Table 07 (PINC-07), the competition isn't close. When it comes to making money in the modern United States of America, government workers win.
Among Americans who actually earn income by working, they are the upper class.
[...]
The overall median earnings for all of these full-time year-round workers in 2017 were $48,500.
Workers in private industry, however, made less than the overall median. Their median earnings were $46,797.
The self-employed did a little better than the national rate. Their median earnings were $50,383.
But government workers did the best. Their median earnings were $53,435.
That was 14.2 percent better than private-sector workers and 6.1 percent better than the self-employed.
In trying to bash federal workers as needlessly overpaid, Jeffrey deliberately ignores critical nuance. A 2017 Congressional Budget Office report reveals facts that Jeffrey considers inconvenient: Those "upper class" earnings for federal workers are actually on the lower end of the scale.
The CBO reports that compensation for federal jobs requiring a high school education or less is notably higher than private-sector jobs requiring a similar education level. But as the job requires increasing levels of education, the federal-private differential slowly disappears until federal jobs requiring a doctorate or other professional degree are actually paid less than in the private sector.
Further, one could argue that the private sector has many more jobs requiring only a high-school education level than does government, which tend to be low-paying and may be skewing the numbers Jeffrey cites by dragging down the overall private pay level.Indeed, one study found that 54 percent of state and local government employees have a college degree, compared with 35 percent in the private sector. (Another study found that nearly 52 percent of federal workers have a college degree.)
Jeffrey then gets into even more misleading territory:
Among all the classes of workers whose median earnings were reported in the Census Bureau's Table PINC-07, the greatest disparity was between those employed in private-sector agricultural jobs and those employed by the federal government.
The median earnings of federal government workers ($66,028) were 86 percent greater than the median earnings of private-sector agricultural workers ($35,490).
The Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture has made a telling observation about one part of the labor force in the American agricultural industry.
"The share of hired crop farmworkers who were not legally authorized to work in the United States grew from roughly 14 percent in 1989-91 to 55 percent in 1999-2001," it said in a report on farm labor published online.
"Since then," says the report, "it has fluctuated around 50 percent."
While Jeffrey does concede taht the crop farmworkers are "part of the most poorly paid class of workers listed in PINC-07," but he never admits that the federal government doesn't employ farmers or cropworkers, which no doubt accounts for the huge salary differential he's decrying.
MRC Sneers At Obamas' Netflix Deal Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's hatred of non-conservative media and its hatred of everything Obama found a nexus when Barack and Michelle signed a content development deal with Netflix.
There's actually some lead-up to this, in the form of a December 2016 post by Calista Ring trashing a made-for-Netflix film about the young Barack Obama, where she claims "most of the film focuses on Obama’s obsession with race," then sneering, "Now, it’s 35 years later, a black man named Barack Hussein Obama has been elected President of the United States twice, and still everything is about slavery for him."
When the Obamas first signed the deal a year ago, the sneering headline on Randy Hall's NewsBusters post read, "$$$ for 'Empathy': Obamas Sign Deal with Netflix to Produce Their Kind of Movies and TV." Hall also had trouble acknowledging that Obama was president, huffing that they were "the former Democratic occupants of the White House." Hall also complained that Netflix's chief content officer is a former Obama campaign donor and that the company "named scandal-plagued former national security advisor Susan Rice to its board of directors."
In November, Tim Graham complained that the first project the Obamas optioned was the book "The Fifth Risk" from "liberal author" Michael Lewis, a book "obviously addressing the Trump administration, since it 'details the chaos at the federal departments of Agriculture, Commerce and Energy in the transition from the Obama to Trump administrations.'" Graham doesn'tdispute any of the evidence Lewis presents in his book, only complains that it was written at all. It's not until the final paragraph that Lewis also wrote "The Blind Side," which suggests that he likely can't be pigeonholed as a "liberal author."
The winner for MRC-style sneering at the Obamas, though, is Gabriel Hays, who devoted a May 1 post to unprofessional condesension toward the Obamas:
Well, we finally have the opportunity to see what the Obamas have up their media mogul sleeves. After announcing a multi-million dollar Netflix deal, the former first couple have spilled the beans on their new streaming content, offering diehard Obama fans several options for clinging to the “Hope” and “Change” social justice dream from the comfort of their living rooms.
Grab that quart of Haagen Daaz and curl up in front of the laptop to reminisce about a more “tolerant” time in America’s history. Also, don’t forget the tissues.
CNN.com just unveiled the Obama production company’s list of upcoming streamable shows. Called — wait for it — Higher Ground Productions (it seems the names Take The High Road Pictures and Forgive Them, They Know Not What They Do Studioswere taken), the company has already slated seven new projects for Netflix, including several docuseries and full-length films. Including “a drama set in post-WWII New York City, a scripted anthology, a children's series, and a number of non-fiction projects.”
Hays concluded with one final sneer: "While we certainly can never get enough of that special Obama flavor, that amount of content should at least be enough to tide us over until Michelle gets into office. If you didn’t have Netflix before, this should convince you to grab a subscription. (As if.)"
The MRC is morphing from "media researchers" into insult comics.
Do the national media and Democrats think President Trump won’t leave office if he loses a close election in 2020?
At least one voice at CNN is joining the chorus of concern stoked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The network’s Chris Cillizza, a former MSNBC and Washington Post contributor, fretted on Twitter that Pelosi has said the 2020 Democratic nominee must win the presidential race emphatically or else Trump might not “concede.”
[...]
Pelosi’s concern that Trump might refuse to leave office if he loses followed on Hillary Clinton’s newest complaint about having an election “stolen.”
Of course, one person on TV is not "the national media." And WND seems to have forgotten that it raised the very same question about President Obama.
In a March 2015 column, WND editor Joseph Farah ranted that Obama "respects neither the law nor the American tradition of peaceful changes of power" and, thus, might refuse to leave the White House when his term ends. Farah added: "Again, do I think Obama will leave office in January 2017? Yes I do. But, with a track record like this – and, actually much worse – should we simply take it for granted?"
In a follow-up column a few days later, Farah argued that the Obamas were "are living it up on your dime" through federally paid vacations --which ignores the fact that President Bush had taken three times as much vacation time as Obama did -- and that he would be loath to give that up:
No doubt Obama will be in a position to make lots of money after the presidency, whenever he decides to end it. But it’s hard to imagine him enjoying six all-expense-paid vacations every year at his venue of choice. Not too many people live that kind of life – even with the “endowments” recent past presidents often get from their oil baron friends in the Middle East.
Do you think Obama’s about to give that up and move out of the White House to make room for Hillary Clinton?
I don’t know. The more I think about it, the less convinced I am.
Meanwhile, a July 2015 article by Cheryl Chumley claimed that Obama's assertion that he could likely win a third term in office "tapped into previous pundit discussions and constituent fears he might not want to leave the White House when his time was up – and in that case, who would actually stop him from staying?" But Chumley also quoted Obama saying that he couldn't run again because "the law is the law, and no one person is above the law, not even the president."
Going even further back, a 2014 column by Kathy Shaidle highlighted how Rush Limbaugh "has expressed his fear that President Obama may not step down when his term ends in 2017" because of something related to Obamacare.
And in an August 2016 column, Farah speculated that Obama would not leave office if Donald Trump won the presidency because he had criticized Trump:
Given what Obama has said about Trump, would he not have an obligation to prevent Trump from assuming office? And what would that mean to the peaceful process America has enjoyed for more than two centuries of transitions of power?
These are questions Americans have never before been confronted with in American history.
Should he not be asked pointedly about the implications of his stunning statements?
Should he not express exactly what his intentions are beforehand rather than to leave any doubt in the minds of the people?
If no one else will ask the question, I will: “Mr. President, if Donald Trump wins the election to become the next president of the United States, will you willingly and peacefully leave office and cooperate fully with the transition of power the way all of your predecessors in the White House have done in the past?”
It’s a simple question that needs to be asked and answered – given Obama’s highly inflammatory rhetoric over the last week.
There should be no doubt in the minds of the American people. There should be no veiled threats hanging over the heads of the citizenry as we prepare for the next election. It’s time for Obama to lay his cards on the table.
Will America follow the rule of law and the will of the people after the November election no matter what Obama might think about his successor?
Somehow we doubt thagt WND will apply this very same test to Trump, who has criticized most of the Democratic presidential candidates and will certainly be much more hostile to the eventual nominee that Obama ever was to Trump.
MRC: Stop Saying 8chan Is On The Right! Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Nicholas Fondacaro spent an April 28 post huffing that CNN's Brian Stelter was "politicizing" the shooting at a, Poway, Calif., synagogue by accurately noting that the shooter had been "radicalized on right-wing message boards" like 8chan. Fondacaro growled in response:
It should go without saying that “8chan” does not represent any part of the conservative movement, the Republican Party, or the right in general. But, as Stelter would say, it’s worth noting anyway because we have to reject the lies, misinformation, and gaslighting by those who seek division.
Except, you know, that 8chan is very much a part of the same side of the political ledger that Fondacaro is on. 8chan's /pol/ channel -- where the Poway shooter apparently announced his intent to commit a massacre -- is, in addition to being a home for neo-Nazi and white nationalist provocateurs, is a hotbed of anti-Muslim and anti-LGBT rantings. None of these things are associated with liberalism.
Fondacaro then attempted another bit of deflection: "In another case of this, Stelter tried to link the car attack in Sunnyvale, California on Tuesday with this supposed rise in white extremism. The only problem? The suspect in that attack was black." Fondacaro didn't mention that the driver was attempting to run down Muslims and reportedly praised Jesus after the attack. Again, neither hating Muslims nor loving Jesus are liberal proclivities, as conservatives continually remind us.
Fondacaro might want to do some, er, media research into what is where on the political spectrum before he addresses this subject again.
CNS Gushed Over Trump's NRA Speech -- But Censors NRA Drama Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com, like a good pro-Trump stenography operation, gushed over President Trump's speech at the National Rifle Association's annual meeting last month. So much so, in fact, that it generated three "news" articles from that speech -- two by Melanie Arter and one by Craig Bannister:
By contrast, CNS has published exactly nothing about the behind-the-scenes drama and power struggle that boiled over at the meeting -- accusations of financial misconduct by NRA officials, particularly in relation to millions of dollars paid to a public relations firm to run its TV operation, which resulted in the ouster of NRA president Oliver North.
This silence is doubly perplexing, since Allen West -- a "senior fellow" for CNS' parent, the Media Research Center, and a CNS columnist -- is also an NRA board member. He didn't have much to say either. His April 30 column, the first after the meeting began this way:
I just got back to our home in Garland, Texas from the 148th National Rifle Association Annual Meeting of the Members and Convention. Yesterday, we had our full board meeting. I have already made my comments about that.
He didn't, however, make those comments at CNS. And he hasn't make a peep about it at CNS since -- though he has since called for (at his own website) the removal of NRA executive VP and CEO Wayne LaPierre, who won the power struggle with North at the annual meeting and has since been accused of questionable spending.
CNS has an in with West and could get all of his NRA musings if it wanted to -- yet it refuses to report what he has to say about an issue CNS' conservative audience would want to hear more about.
Apparently, censoring bad news about its conservative friends trumps reporting the news at CNS.
MRC Mocks Fact-Checks on Satire -- Then Fact-Checks A Joke Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center -- specifically, Tim Graham -- lovestomock fact-checkers like Snopes who point out that the right-leaning satire site Babylon Bee is fake news, even though Snopes explains that it does so because "satire often isn’t recognizable as such in social media posts" and that right-wing fake-news sites repost Babylon Bee articles without identifying them as satire. Still, Graham sneeringly interpreted that in a May 12 post as "Snopes complained people are NOT bright."
If humor isn't supposed to be fact-checked, why did the MRC's NewsBusters -- of which Graham is the executive editor -- fact-check a joke?
Christian Toto -- a movie reviewer moonlighting as a right-wing pundit -- huffed in a lengthy May 4 post:
Stephen Colbert couldn’t resist.
Former Vice President Joe Biden finally announced his 2020 presidential campaign last week. Biden joined a crush of fellow Democrats hoping to unseat President Donald Trump next year.
Naturally, The Late Show host had to talk about it. And, given the program’s leftist slant, Colbert didn’t find much fault in Biden’s video announcement.
The comic had another target in mind.
Colbert accepted Biden’s inaccurate video claim that President Donald Trump praised white supremacists nearly two years ago following a Charlottesville, Va. protest which left one woman dead. If you listen to the president’s full comments he made it clear he did no such thing.
[...]
He began, with what else, a misrepresentation of actual facts.
“Donald Trump is still president? Did anyone read the Mueller Report,” Colbert asked. Yes, that’s the report that found no collusion between Trump and Russia. Seems like an important detail, the kind that would be exonerating for any clear-eyed reader.
Even a cartoonishly biased comedian.
Then Colbert moved on to Biden’s Charlottesville attack line. He dubbed the video both “powerful” and “true,” and a potent way to put the president on the defensive.
Toto included a screenshot of a tweet from "Dilbert" creator Scott Adams purporting to make the case that Trump's "full comments" showed he did not praise white supremacists when he said there were "very fine people on both sides" because that comment was adjacent to a reference to people protesting the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. But as the Washington Post's Aaron Blake pointed out, the statue-removal protest "was partly organized by a well-known white nationalist, Richard Spencer, and included both neo-Nazis and white supremacist groups" and, thus, "was clearly not one for your average supporter of Confederate monuments." Blake added:
For the Trump defense to make any sense, there would have had to be some other group of people who didn’t subscribe to these awful ideals but for some reason decided to march in common cause with neo-Nazis, white supremacists and white nationalists. It’s theoretically possible there might have been some such people there, but you would think they’d quickly become pretty uncomfortable marching next to people chanting “Jews will not replace us” — and people who appeared prepared for violence, even donning helmets.
But never mind actual facts -- Toto went on to spout the accepted right-wing narrative on the Mueller report:
The grand daddy of all Fake News stories remains the Russia Collusion hoax. Late night hosts spent two years telling us Trump colluded with Russia, sometimes in rather disturbing ways. Colbert famously used a homophobic slur to attack Trump regarding the allegations.
Did they apologize after the Mueller Report showed zero collusion? Of course not. As you just read, Colbert still insists the report should remove Trump from office.
Toto concluded by effectively making the same argument that Graham mocked when it came from Snopes:
Late night hosts crack wise with impunity. They serve up biased or downright fake news and never pay a single consequence. What’s to stop them from doing it all the way through the 2020 presidential campaign?
How many viewers will listen to their rants and think it’s the cold, hard truth?
The next time you read a survey saying Americans get their news from late night comics be afraid …. very afraid.
Of course, Graham will keep on mocking Snopes for fact-checking satire -- and forget he let a writer fact-check a joke.
WND Gives A Platform to Obama's Disgruntled Half-Brother Topic: WorldNetDaily
Malik Obama is a disgruntled man who's still trying to ride the coattails of his half-brother, Barack -- and supported Donald Trump for president in 2016 when the coattail-riding didn't work out for him. And because WorldNetDaily is even more disgruntled with Barack Obama that it looks for reasons to smear him even though he's been out of office for more than two years, it gave Malik Obama a platform. Behold, an anonymously written May 7 WND article:
Malik Obama, the older half-brother of Barack Obama, said in an interview that when he fell on hard times, he asked to stay with his brother and his family for a brief period, but Michelle Obama was against it.
Malik told “The Hidden Truth Show with Jim Breslo” the then-president turned his back on him again when two of Malik’s children died while waiting for approval to come to the United States from Kenya.
“I told him, brother, you’ve got to help me out,” Malik said.
He said that while illegal immigrants entered the U.S. claiming they had a right to be there, he was “struggling to follow the legal channel.”
The relationship went from being the best man at each other’s weddings to no longer being on speaking terms, Malik said, PJ Media reported.
Malik said the falling out centered on Malik starting the Barack H. Obama Foundation, named for Barack Obama Sr.
“He said if I don’t shut it down, he is going to cut me off,” Malik said. “This was an opportunity to do something. If he were to be a part of it, it would not be an issue. It is my father’s foundation.”
Malik said his brother “is a narcissist.”
“He feels like he is only one.”
WND has long portrayed Obama as a narcissist (while dismissing even the very thought that Donald Trump is an even greater one), so Malik is simply playing into an old trope that WND for some reason wants to relive.
WND also conveniently ignored Malik's credibility problems -- which it should know because it uncharacteristally busted him. In 2017, WND stated that a purported birth certificate Malik tweeted how showing that Barack Obama was born in Kenya "is not a valid document" (even though it spent two months claming otherwise wen it first surfaced in 2009).
It's rather sad that WND has to regress to dubious attacks on Obama -- and it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in any future WND might claim to have.
MRC's Sloppy Labelers Defend Ben Shapiro From Being Mislabeled Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has apparently never done the media research to determine the difference between political labels on the liberal side of the ledger -- as we'vedocumented, the MRC has sloppily labeled pretty much anyone and anything that's not unambiguously conservative as "far left." That, of course, is joined by its rage at the media labeling conservative figures and organizations as (gasp!) "conservative."
So it's unsurprising the the MRC is suddenly concerned with correct labeling, spewing more rage over a conservative figure it deemed to have been mislabeled.
In a not-so-subtle smear attempt, The Economist published a interview with conservative commentator Ben Shapiro and labeled him as a member of the “alt-right.” Shapiro is a mainstream conservative who has taken great pains to distance himself from right-wing fringe groups -- a devout Jew who often preaches about the dangers of tribalism and its destruction of reasonable discourse.
After swift backlash the Economist amended the headline. Still, the incident demonstrates the left’s aggressive push to demonize conservative speakers and connect them through implication to unreasonable and even violent and fringe groups.
The Economist titled the interview, “Inside the mind of Ben Shapiro, the alt right sage without the rage.” Inside, readers learn that the Daily Wire founder is a “controversial commentator” and proponent of “western values” -- enough to disgust progressives without resorting to dishonest labels.
So, yes, Ben Shapiro is a conservative, and the antithesis of white supremacy, anti-semitism, atheism/paganism that characterizes much of that is known as the alt-right.
Hays went on to huff, "Labeling traditional conservatives as part of an extremist, and often racist or violent, right wing fringe group is nothing new."Like how the MRC labels everything that's not conservative as "far left"?
Hays was back a few weeks later to rage over another alleged mislabeling of Shapiro:
In back-to-back articles, The Washington Post slimed conservative commentator Ben Shapiro as being ‘far-right’ and that his recent comments claiming that Notre Dame belongs to the “Judeo-Christian heritage” have contributed to “baseless, racist conspiracy-peddling” targeting Muslims.
The first article to engage in this malicious smear was written by Talia Lavin on Tuesday. Lavin claimed that Shapiro contributed to the “far-right’s” racist reaction to the Notre Dame fire, a “series of conspiracy theories neatly slotted into pre existing cultural biases.”
She concluded that “fast-talking-far-right” Shapiro’s assertion that the Cathedral was a “monument to Western civilization,” combined with “already-raging rumors about potential Muslim involvement,” made him complicit in evoking “the specter of a war between Islam and the West that is already part of numerous far-right narratives.”
[...]
Again, for The Washington Post this meant that these four individuals were in the same league, using the tragedy as a moment to defend white, European heritage at the expense of other cultures. For example, the piece contended that “others suggested Shapiro’s invocation of ‘Judeo-Christian’ values were in this instance simply a euphemism for ‘white.’ It then added that Spencer “spoke more plainly” on the issue, hoping the destruction would “spur the White man into action — to sieze [sic] power in his countries, in Europe, in the world.”
This is a laughable association.
Remember:The MRC has labeled Walter Cronkite, the sports blog Deadspin, and actress Meryl Streep as "far left." Does Gabriel think that's laughable or malicious? (Hint: It's both.)
Hays, it seems, is Shapiro's protector at the MRC. Last September, he complained that a liberal-leaning study of YouTube sought to link "top conservatives" like Shapiro to white nationalists like Richard Spencer, grousing that the report "deemed the entire collection — from moderate conservatives to full-blown racists — 'reactionary,' a term the report employed 13 times in order to hammer home that everyone mentioned was part of the same 'extremist' network. 'Extremist' was used 25 times in the report."
If the MRC wants to be credible in complaining about political labeling, it should do something about its own label carelessness first.
NEW ARTICLE -- Out There, Exhibit 72: CNS Obsesses Over Peter Strzok's Sex Life Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com doesn't want you to forget that the ex-FBI agent involved in Trump and Clinton investigations had an affair. But President Trump's extracurricular sex life and paying hush money to a porn star? CNS had trouble even saying her name. Read more >>
MRC Gives Up 'Media Research' For Trolling Journalists Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center was never really about media research -- manipulating data to push its right-wing anti-media narrative was, and is, more important than objectivity and transparency. Now it's getting even farther away from research -- and confirming that it's a political organization at heart -- by doing straight-up trolling of journalists.
After Attorney General William Barr released his summary of the Mueller report claiming there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, MRC chief Brent Bozell made a video declaring he would provide a care package to those in the media he claimed were suffering from "Collusion Delusion Syndrome":
CDS is caused by that belief that no matter how much evidence is there that shows that he is innocent, President Trump should be in prison. What can we do for people suffering from CDS? The Media Research Center, with your help, is sending a special care package to every member of the news media and on Capitol Hill suffering from CDS. Our care package, the MRC Emergency Care Package, includes a number of items of importance. We have a teddy bear, a Russian teddy bear, for them to hug. We also have a crayons book for those snowflakes who need to stay inside the lines. And a special box of crayons for them to use.
For those suffering from CDS, they may need a stress relief bag of tea. And there it is. Or maybe, maybe you need to squeeze to get some relief. This is for you. For those suffering of CDS with migraine headaches, we have some Advil. Or maybe for impending ulcers, some Tums. For those who have to weep uncontrollably, we have some tissues. And finally, if nothing else works, a bottle of Russian vodka. And if that doesn’t work, a second bottle of Russian vodka.
The juvenile trolling continued. When CNN showed a ratings drop, the MRC's Tim Graham was quick to mock; under a "CNN Sucks" headline, Graham sneered, "How do you like them Fact Apples, CNN?" This was followed by a May 3 post by Rich Noyes that claimed to "put those numbers in their proper perspective" by making absurd comparisons, claiming there are more, say, prostitutes or households with chickens than CNN viewers. These numbers were promoted with graphics on social media designed to ridicule, not inform.
Is this real "media research"? Nope. Then again, the MRC hasn't done that in a long time.
WND's Kupelian: Either You Love God, Or You're A Man-Hating Marxist Topic: WorldNetDaily
The theme of this month's edition of WorldNetDaily's sparsely read Whistleblower magazine is "HATING MEN," and David Kupelian has posted his lead essay. After cherry-picking a few examples of male-bashing feminists, he ponders: "Question: How can intelligent, educated adults in 2019 America, where women are freer and better off than in any country or at any time in history, possibly be consumed with such unbridled hatred for an entire group that comprises fully half of the population? Especially when that half of the population has fought all of our wars, cleared all of our wilderness, invented everything, constructed our civilization, and protected and sacrificed itself for women and children from day one."
Kupelian's answer: Hating men is the same thing as hating God, because if you're not of the proper Judeo-Christian mindset, you're a Marxist. No, really:
For Western nations rapidly transitioning into post-Christian societies, two opposite worldviews now openly war with each other. One is the traditional Judeo-Christian, biblical, patriarchal “prism” and the other is based on Marxist notions of radical equality.
The Bible – and the historical, cultural, moral and spiritual worldview it illuminates and champions – is utterly patriarchal. God is neither our Mother nor a genderless cosmic being, but our heavenly Father. God the Father created the first man, Adam; then out of Adam He created Eve. Almost all the Old Testament prophets were men. Jesus Christ was a man, as were all His disciples and apostles. Down through the centuries, the vast majority of Jewish and Christian religious leaders, from popes and priests to evangelists, rabbis and ministers, have been men. So, for that matter, have the vast majority of national political leaders.
Why? Is it, as alleged by those sworn to “tear down the patriarchy,” simply because men take advantage of their greater size, strength and aggressiveness to oppress women by bullying them into submission? Or is there a higher, indeed transcendent, principle – a divine order – evident in the overwhelmingly dominant leadership role men have exercised throughout human history?
In the Judeo-Christian worldview, just as God causes electrons to orbit around atomic nuclei and planets to orbit around suns so everything doesn’t crash into everything else and quickly descend into smoldering chaos, He also ordains a certain order to life on earth – to prevent much the same chaotic outcome.
[...]
Competing against this traditional worldview, which for centuries admirably served as the basis for a stable and prosperous America, is today’s essentially godless cult of radical equality. Seen through this prism, every race, religion, ideology, culture, ethical system and sexual/gender orientation, no matter how bizarre, immoral or insane, is as valid and worthwhile as every other (well, except for Christianity, conservatives, Republicans, men and white people in general). At the core of this worldview, there is no God, no divine moral law, no higher purpose of life binding us all together; there is only power and glory for the individual and tribe. And since there’s no ultimate meaning to anything, there can be no real differences between the sexes, other than those we ourselves decree.
Thus, everything Americans of previous generations thought was solid and real, even the most basic biology, is now considered merely the result of “social constructs” overseen by society’s oppressor class. So, for example, whether there are two genders as we once believed, or 24 or 48 (Facebook currently offers 71 gender choices, but a more recent online list includes 112), we are living in a time when every person is encouraged to pursue his, her or zir own “truth.”
But in reality, without the Living God overshadowing people in their relationships with one another, it doesn’t ultimately matter whether we have a patriarchal culture (Muslim culture is oppressively and abusively “patriarchal”), or a revolutionary matriarchy with a radical feminist queen at the top, or some dreamed-up totalitarian nightmare regime of enforced radical equality. The result will be the same: ever-evolving anxiety, conflict, loss of freedom, madness, violence and slavery. One of our founding fathers, William Penn, put it perfectly: “If man is not governed by God, he will be ruled by tyrants.”
Truth is, what we’re really beholding in today’s growing condemnation of men – not of the Harvey Weinsteins of the world, but disdain toward men in general – is primal rage and rebellion against God and the divine laws, order and values He so wisely has provided for our eternal benefit.
That framing is, of course, cartoonish. Kupelian must describe those he despises in the most radical, denigrating terms he can think of as part of a mysterious, monolithic "left" -- while depicting his own right-wing views as being the only possible correct viewpoint. It's that stark binary viewpoint that has doomed WND, and his insistence on sticking with it despite flailing to keep his job alive shows he has learned nothing from the past year and a half of trying to keep WND alive (or from his heart attack).
Ronald Kessler is a Trumpophile from way back, and while he was a full-time writer for Newsmax, he promoted Trump's presidential ambitions as early as 2011. Kessler is still a Trump apologist, as he demonstrates in an April 23 column complaining that the FBI opened an investigation into Trump because he said in an interview that the "this Russia thing" was why he fired FBI Director James Comey. Commence apologist mode:
The Media Research Center's Brad Wilmouth was in full rage mode, and it seemed justified at first (by right-wing standards, anyway). Under the screaming headline "Heilemann Slams 'Big Fat Steaming Plate of Hannity,' 'Pig in ****'," Wilmouth huffed in a May 3 
WorldNetDaily devoted a May 7 
First the Media Research Center 
CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey thinks he's onto something in his May 8 
The Media Research Center's hatred of non-conservative media and its hatred of everything Obama found a nexus when Barack and Michelle signed a content development deal with Netflix.
WorldNetDaily complains in a May 6 
The Media Research Center's Nicholas Fondacaro spent an April 28 
CNSNews.com, like a good pro-Trump stenography operation, gushed over President Trump's speech at the National Rifle Association's annual meeting last month. So much so, in fact, that it generated three "news" articles from that speech -- two by Melanie Arter and one by Craig Bannister:
The Media Research Center -- specifically, Tim Graham -- 
Malik Obama is a disgruntled man who's still trying to ride the coattails of his half-brother, Barack -- and supported 
The Media Research Center was never really about media research -- manipulating data to push its right-wing anti-media narrative was, and is, more important than objectivity and transparency. Now it's getting even farther away from research -- and confirming that it's a political organization at heart -- by doing straight-up trolling of journalists.
The theme of this month's edition of WorldNetDaily's sparsely read Whistleblower magazine is "H
