MRC's Houck Tries To Deny Trump's New Favorite Doc Is A Fox News Hire Topic: Media Research Center
Curtis Houck once again proved his pro-Trump colors in an Aug. 13 article:
On two separate occasions on Wednesday (and on their website), CNN dismissed White House Coronavirus Task Force hire and neuroradiologist Dr. Scott Atlas as merely a “Fox News guest” who’s part of an “echo chamber” that’s murdering “tens of thousands of Americans.”
Along with a CNN.com article, the segments totaled five minutes and 42 seconds, which was five minutes and 42 seconds more than they gave Janice Dean being removed from testifying before New York lawmakers about losing her in-laws to the coronavirus.
[...]
Starting with the second segment, CNN Tonight host Don Lemon rudely ignored Atlas’s distinguished career and instead boiling him down to a talking head: “[I]n the middle of the worst public health crisis in the middle of a century, Trump is turning to Fox News guest for medical advice instead of Dr. Fauci.”
Lemon refused to inform viewers that not only has Atlas been with Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, but he spent over a decade as a professor and chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center, edited a leading textbook on the topic, and been a leading global expert in using MRI’s to diagnose and treat brain and spine conditions.
[...]
Like she did on TV, [Kaitlan] Collins employed anonymous White House sources to trash Atlas and undercut his credentials as a way for Zuckerville to imply Atlas was not only unworthy of being taken seriously, but heard[.]
Houck is so desperate to defend Atlas' alleged medical bona fides that he neglected to point out that Atlas' specialty, neuroradiology, has noting to do with viral treatment or epidemiology, knowledge of which is needed to speak authoritatively about coronavirus. He also failed to explain that the Hoover Institution is a conservative think tank, not a medical organization that provides Aglas with any sort of relevant expertise.
Meanwhile, Houck completely censored the fact that Atlas hasn't praticed medicine for eight years and has made wrong predictions about coronavirus, and he certainly won't concede that the most logical explanation for Atlas coming to Trump's attention is that he has appeared on Fox News.
There will also be no follow-up post from Houck on the fact that because Atlas' views on coronavirus, such as promoting "herd immunity," are so out of sync with actual medical experts that even the coronavirus conspiracy-mongers at WorldNetDaily have criticized him, Fox News -- the channel that brought Atlas to Trump fame, reportedly won't book him on its news shows.
Houck concluded his post with a mini-rant showing the depths of is irrational hatred of non-Fox media: "In other words, CNN continued its poisonous march on Tuesday to divide the American people and crush their wills to hope for a better tomorrow and making clear that it all but views those against their anti-reopening, anti-hope, mental health-crippling, and pro-lockdown worldview as mortal enemies."
Soundds like the one whose mental health has been crippled is Houck, damaged by his years of Bozellville indoctrination.
CNS Still Trying To Spin Coronavirus Numbers Topic: CNSNews.com
Last month, we caught CNSNews.com repoirter Susan Jones trying to downplay the summer surge in coronavirus, much of which occurred in Republican-led states, by comparing the numbers to the very high number of cases in the spring. How has Jones done in the month since our report?
Jones' Aug. 11 body count was a little closer to reality but still labored to spin by including mid-April numbers for comparison:
As expected, the most recent death certificates submitted to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show at least three straight weeks of increased deaths involving the COVID-19 virus.
As CNSNews.com previously reported, deaths involving the virus started rising on July 4, following ten straight weeks of decline from the mid-April peak of 17,010.
In fact, contrary to her claim that CNS "previously reported" deaths were rising, her case-count article from the previous week claimed differently carring the headline "CDC: COVID-Involved Deaths Drop 8.29% for Week Ending July 18."
Jones repeated the formula for her Aug. 17 weekly update:
According to the latest death certificates submitted to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, deaths involving COVID-19 increased in all four weeks that ended in July. (Data for August are still too preliminary to be reliable.)
For the week ending July 25, at least 6,357 people died from COVID, a 2.53 percent increase from the 6,200 deaths in the week ending July 18, but 62.64 percent below the peak of 17,020 COVID-involved deaths for the week ending April 18.
At least Jones admitted up top that newer data "are still too preliminary to be reliable," something she buried in previous articles.
For the next week, numbers looked better from her perspective, so it was back to full spin mode:
Deaths attributed to COVID-19 are once again trending down, based on preliminary death certificates submitted to the National Center for Health Statistics, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For the week ending August 1, the NCHS counted 6,356 COVID-involved deaths, a 10.94 percent decline from 7,137 deaths in the prior week and a 62.67 percent decline from the mid-April peak of 17,030 deaths.
This time, she added a plug for her favorite president, something she didn't do in the articles admitting that cases were up:
"We are doing an incredible job on the China virus, but I'm going to talk to about that Thursday night," President Trump said in his speech to the Republican National Convention on Monday. "Will anybody be listening on Thursday?" he joked.
By Aug. 31, Jones was back to fully downplaying things, under the headline "CDC: COVID-Involved Deaths in Mid-August Down 63% From April Peak." This time, she added: "The official COVID-involved death count does not distinguish between COVID-only deaths and deaths where COVID may have exacerbated an otherwise survivable underlying condition."
COVID deaths for the week ending August 22 have returned to levels not seen since the end of June.
Based on death certificates submitted to the National Center for Health Statistics -- part of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- 3,504 people died of "confirmed or presumed COVID-19," for the week ending August 22.
That is a 36.69 percent decrease from the 5,535 deaths recorded in the prior week, and a 79.43 percent drop from the mid-April peak of 17,039 COVID-involved deaths -- that is, deaths given the ICD-10 code of U07.1.
Jones did other COVID-related spinning in a July 15 article touting lower death counts among younger people:
Medical experts have long noted that the younger you are, the less likely you are to contract COVID-19 or suffer adverse symptoms, and the latest numbers posted by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention bear that out.
CDC's National Center for Health Statistics now reports a total of 188 COVID-involved deaths among people age 24 and younger -- or 0.154 percent of the total 121,374 COVID deaths reported to CDC from early February through the week ending July 11. The majority of students fall into this 24-and-under age group.
By contrast, a total of 97,459 people age 65 and older have died of COVID as of July 11 -- 80.29 percent of the total COVID-involved deaths.
Jones went on to uncritically promote arguments from President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence that this proves schools should reopen fully, while going on to complain that "teachers unions are resisting" -- while censoring the fact that health experts have also advised caution regarding fully opening schools.
Jones further declared in an Aug. 4 article that "The latest CDC data shows that the 26 states led by Republican governors have fewer than half the COVID-involved deaths of the 24 states (and D.C.) led by Democrats." She added: "Of course, states led by Republican governors are not necessarily conservative or "red" states. But of the 30 "red" states that helped elect Donald Trump in 2016, COVID-involved deaths now total 51,631, which is 59.07 percent of the 87,406 COVID deaths in the 20 states and D.C. that voted for Hillary Clinton."
Gotta keep spinning for Trump and Republicans, right? That's what Jones gets paid to do.
MRC Still Choosing To Own the Libs By Embracing QAnon Topic: Media Research Center
We've documented how the Media Research Center has largely embraced the far-right QAnon conspiracy theorists in order to own the libs by painting them as victims of "censorship" of their dangerous fringe theories. It hasn't stopped doing so.
Facebook revealed its new “Dangerous Individuals and Organizations” policy to crack down on groups the platform said are “tied to violence.” It was the latest of many revisions in Facebook policies in recent weeks, all seemingly connected to the election.
“Today we are taking action against Facebook Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts tied to offline anarchist groups that support violent acts amidst protests, US-based militia organizations and QAnon,” Facebook reported in an August 19 blog. Facebook declared that it had “removed over 790 groups, 100 Pages and 1,500 ads tied to QAnon.” In targeting “militia organizations and those encouraging riots, including some who may identify as Antifa,” Facebook has “initially removed over 980 groups, 520 Pages and 160 ads.”
As usual, Hall censored the fringe nature of QAnon, then portrayed them in an end-of-item call to action as mainstream fellow travelers who are being victimized the same way the MRC loves to complain conervatives are: "Contact Facebook headquarters at 1-650-308-7300 and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives.
On Aug. 31, Hall complained that "Twitter censored a post retweeted by President Donald Trump indicating that the amount of COVID-19 deaths has been greatly exaggerated." But in noting that Trump had retweeted a QAnon adherent named Mel Q, Hall oddly framed a description of the conspiracy theory as coming from a bastion of the "liberal media," as if to discount the description: "Mel Q appears to be associated with the 'QAnon' conspiracy theorists, who according toThe New York Times, reportedly believe: 'Mr. Trump ran for office to save Americans from a so-called deep state filled with child-abusing, devil-worshiping bureaucrats.'"
In contrast to Hall, though, others at the MRC do seem to recognize that QAnon is something that should perhaps not be mainstreamed. Clay Waters groused in an Aug. 15 post that a New York Times reporter "smeared the Tea Party by comparing it to the nutty QAnon conspiracists." Waters also rebutted the claim that the Tea Party ebraced Obama birther conspiracy theories by huffing that "the 'birther' rumors about Barack Obama originated among Hillary Clinton supporters during the 2008 primary." But as we've noted, it was not Hillary supporters that obsessively pursued birther conspiracies for eight years but, rather, the likes of the definitely-not-Hillary-supporters at WorldNetDaily.
An Aug. 18 post by Heather Moon took offense to ranty "pro-Trump radio host" Bill Mitchell being described as a QAnon supporter and gave him space to finesse that claim while not explicitly denying it: "Mitchell addressed such claims on his Parler account. He explained that he has interviewed a few prominent QAnon (Q) followers on his radio program, and that he has “nothing against Qanon and those from the movement I have met seem to be true patriots and love Trump.” However, he clarified that he’s “never personally followed Q,” and noted that “it’s just too esoteric for my tastes.”
WND's Mercer Slips Further Into White Nationalism Topic: WorldNetDaily
Even though its affinity for white natinalism is arguably one reason WorldNetDaily is in its current precarious financial state, it still has a toe in that fetid water.
Ilana Mercer has been dancing around the fringe of white nationalism for years, normally expressed through her nostalgia for apartheid in her native South Africa and touting an intellectual case for it (while purporting to deplore its racial aspects); she also had Peter Brimelow of the notoriously white nationalist website VDARE write the preface to her book "Into the Cannibal's Pot" and appeared at a conference with the likes of Brimelow, Jared Taylor and John Derbyshire. But Mercer has been edgingcloser to more blatant, if still genteel, white nationalist leanings in recent years.
Mercer's Aug. 6 column was a long complaint against the idea that there's "systemic racism" in America and portraying white people as the real victims:
Systemic racism is most certainly not "the only plausible explanation" for the lag in the fortunes of African Americans, although, as it stands, systemic racism is inferred solely from one single fact: In aggregate, African Americans trail behind whites in assorted academic and socio-economic indices and achievements.
This logical error is the central tenet of preferential treatment – affirmative action, and assorted quotas and set-aside edicts and policies.
[...]
High among corporate America's priorities is acting as a race leveler – voluntarily sniffing out deviationists and generally proceeding against and "reeducating" pay-dependent prey. Corporate America's human resources departments are in the habit of deluging employees with the racial agitprop of illiterate, if degreed, pamphleteers. The woman who wrote "White Fragility" comes to mind.
In a workplace so shot through with hatred of whites, quite foreseeable is a form of intellectual reparations, where the designated white "oppressors" labor behind the scenes, while the officially "oppressed" manage them and take credit for their intellectual output.
It says something about the circles in which she runs that this column was also published by American Renaissance, Jared Taylor's white nationalist website.
Mercer's Aug. 13 column was dedicated to detailing mostly white victims of violence perpetrated by blacks, starting with "the point-blank execution of little Cannon Hinnant (white), on Aug. 9, by Darius Sessoms (black)." As we've noted, Hinnant's death has been exploited by race-baiting right-wingers as an apparent attempt to play down the police-related deaths of black people. She went on to add that "Similar black-on-white atrocities are a daily occurrence, documented, "in moving images," by "the fearless and indefatigable journalist Colin Flaherty. If you'll recall, Flaherty had a race-baitingplatform at WND for a few years.
On April 20, Mercer tried to argue that there was no racist intent on the part of the officer who caused the death of George Floyd, in which she danced around her true intent. She first claimed that "This is not to refute the reality of racially motivated crimes. These most certainly occur. It is only to refute the legal and ethical validity of a racist mindset in the prosecution of a crime"; by the end of her column, she had declared: "As I've argued here, racism amounts to a thought "crime." Thought crimes are the prerogative of a free people. To intellectually disembowel the left, the right must unapologetically reject the very idea of policing, purging and persecuting people for holding and expressing politically unpopular ideas."
Surprisingly, AmRen did not publish this column.
UPDATE: Mercer's "systematic racism" column was also published by something called NAEBC, or Newsroom for American and European Based Citizens, which Mercer has touted as "a young and vibrant nascent European organization, that’ll be offering up fighting words against the degenerate Left, stateside and on the Continent, all in furtherance of OUR VALUES." We're guessing that NAEBC is not much into multicululturalism or non-white people as a whole.
MRC Will Never Admit Trump Gets Anything Wrong Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center not only will refuse to admit that President Trump gets anything wrong (beyond Tim Graham's flippant dismissal that he has a "casual relationship with the truth"), it will attack anyone who points out that he does.
In an Aug. 5 post, Alexa Moutevelis complained that "Both Twitter and Facebook acted quickly Wednesday night to remove a video of President Trump speaking on Fox News about the coronavirus’ effects on children. The social media sites said the content violated their policies on COVID-19 misinformation." Moutevelis wasn't about to concede what actual news organizations, as well as Twitter and Facebook, pointed out: that contrary to Trump's claim that children are "almost immune" from coronavirus and thus schools should be fully reopened, children represent more than 7 percent of cases, and coronavirus has spread at schools that have reopened.
Instead, Moutevelis played whataboutism -- "Meanwhile, Twitter allows Iran's Supreme Leader Imam Sayyid Ali Khamenei to call for Israel’s violent destruction and keeps allowing noted anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan back on the platform" -- served up "what Trump said in full" to offer "more context" (not that it helps Trump's case), and uncritically repeated how "the Trump campaign defended the President’s comments."
Moutevelis also reprinted a tweet from her boss, Brent Bozell, defending Trump's lies: "Facebook and Twitter need to stop this crap! They should both be investigated for election interference. To censor the President during an election year, no matter what he says, is leftist election manipulation. Orwell would be proud." Orwell would likely be more proud of Bozell's defense of a (Republican) president's sacred right to lie to the American people.
President Donald Trump has been censored by Big Tech for commenting on COVID-19.
Facebook and Twitter obliterated a video of Trump speaking on Fox News about the coronavirus’s effects on children, both claiming the content violated their respective policies on COVID-19 misinformation. Conservative leaders have responded that this is yet another case of Big Tech’s accelerated use of their power to rig the election. Meanwhile, liberals contend that these crackdowns on the president’s speech are sorely needed.
Hall quickly moved to victim mode, declaring that "Conservative commentators were incensed by Big Tech’s overreach in censoring the president’s commentary on a disease whose nature is hotly debated.
Jeffrey Lord tried to spin things in an Aug. 8 post, citing studies showing children have a lower rate of infection than adults to claim Trump is right and the fact-checkers are wrong: "When will Facebook and Twitter block The Washington Post, Time magazine and the BBC from posting what Twitter labeled 'misinformation”' on their sites? Is there any punishment looming?"
The MRC still wasn't letting it go in an Aug. 13 post, in which Kayla Sargent got mad at Facebook's voter tool, then got doubly mad when it stated the tool is "based on lessons from our COVID-19 Information Center, which has been providing accurate and authoritative information from health authorities about the pandemic since March.” She huffed: "Considering the fact that Facebook recently removed a video of President Donald Trump discussing the effects of COVID-19 on children, and removed a video of doctors discussing hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the virus, conservatives may want to exercise caution when analyzing Facebook’s new tool."
Sargent didn't tell her readers that, as we documented, that video from "America's Frontline Doctors" talking about coronavirus included numerous false and misleading claims, not just the dubious claim that hydrochloroquine is an effective treatment.
CNS Bizarrely Fixated On Political Opinions Of Bette Midler, Cher Topic: CNSNews.com
As much as CNSNews.com loves to post article after fawning article about Mark Levin, it also engages in hate-posting -- writing about people's opinions of people it despises for the purpose of holding them up for ridicule for its right-wing audience. For reasons so far unexplained, the chief recipient of that is entertainer Bette Midler.
Since February, CNS has posted a whopping 29 articles on Midler opining on things political -- 20 of which have appeared since June:
Lest it wasn't clear that the goal here is to attack Midler's views, an Aug. 26 article by Susan Jones omplained that "leftist celebrity Bette Midler was particiularly vicious" in responding to a speech by Melania Trump at the Republican National Convention.
That's a lot of digital ink to spill on a relatively minor celebrity.
The vast majority of these Midler post are anonymously written, carrying only the byline of "CNSNews.com Staff." But a quirk of CNS' search engine shows the content managment system account from which articles are placed, and the anonymous Midler posts are almost all being posted from the account of editor in chief Terry Jeffrey.
Strangely, Midler isn't the only past-her-prime liberal celebrity CNS has fixated on in recent months Since April, CNS has posted 14 articles on the political opinions of Cher:
Again, most of these pieces are anonymously written but come from Jeffrey's account. His goal here appears more toward straight ridicule by featuring her random capitalization and penchant for substituting numbets for words in the headline, even though those are common across Twitter and social media. And, again, there's no explanation of why CNS cares so much about Cher's political opinions.
That's a bizarre fixation you got there, Mr. Jeffrey.
MRC Laughably Tries To Manufacture Biden 'Cheating' 'Scandal' Topic: Media Research Center
It's a sign of how desperate the Media Research Center is to re-elect President Trump at all costs that it's willing to be utterly hypocritical about it. Nicholas Fondacaro huffed in an Aug. 18 post:
On the day Jill Biden was set to take the stage at the virtual Democratic National Convention, an exclusive from the U.K.'s Daily Mail documented allegations from her first husband, Bill Stevenson, who claims their marriage was destroyed because she cheated on him with then-Senator Joe Biden (D-DE). Despite the allegations being fresh news, the Tuesday evening newscasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC covered them up to protect their candidate and boost Jill’s forthcoming speech.
[...]
But according to the Daily Mail report, “ Joe Biden and his wife Jill have lied to the world for more than 40 years about how they started dating — they actually had an affair that broke up her first marriage, her first husband claims. And the whole story the Bidens tell about how the presidential candidate fell in love with Jill after a blind date is completely made up.”
[...]
None of these new scandals were of any interest to the broadcast networks, whose mission it was to defend their 2020 candidate at all costs.
Fondacaro doesn't mention that the Daily Mail is considered so unreliable as a news source that Wikipedia banned it from being cited. He also didn't mention that Jill Biden's ex is putting all of this in a book likely to come out before the election, strongly suggesting that the ex is trying to profit off -- as we documented, Trump's niece got a much different treatment from the MRC for her book, accusing her of trying to cash in and demanding her allegations be fact-checked by the media. Fondacaro made no apparent effort to fact-check the ex's claims before promoting them.
Finally, Fondacaro ignores the inconvenient fact that even if the allegations are true about Jill Biden, Joe Biden is running against a man who is on his third marriage, cheated on all three wives, and paid hush money to a porn star to cover up their affair, so playing the morality card simply doesn't work here. If Fondacaro had ever condemned Trump's sleazy behavior, he might have a point, but he doesn't show that he has.
Nevertheless, the MRC insisted that was a "huge scandal." The next day, Kristine Marsh ranted:
Wednesday morning, all three networks displayed their allegiance to the Democrat party by continuing to completely ignore< a huge scandal that broke yesterday about how Jill and Joe Biden met. Even as the former second lady appeared on ABC, NBC and CBS’s morning shows for interviews following her husband's nomination last night, the journalists used the opportunity to schmooze with Biden and throw softball questions instead of asking about her ex-husband's claims she cheated on him with then-Senator Joe Biden.
Marsh demonstrated how little she cares about facts by deliberately getting the Democratic Party's name wrong, calling it "the Democrat party." And, like Fondacaro, Marsh made no mention of Trump's serial philandering.
Fondacaro again tried to flog this "scandal" to life in an Aug. 20 post, grousing that "While NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt refused to press Jill Biden on accusations she cheated on her first husband with then-Senator Joe Biden during his Thursday interview, he did awkwardly ask her whether or not she got nervous whenever her husband was addressing the public." Again, Fondacaro didn[t explain why he's giving Trump's exponentially worse behavior a pass.
Antoher WND Columnist Wants Us To Ignore Trump's Sleaziness Topic: WorldNetDaily
Michael Brown is not the only WorldNetDaily columnist who wants us to overlook President Trump's blatant amorality and overall sleaziness and re-elect him because he delivers the right-wing goods. Ellen Makkai gives it a shot in her Aug. 11 column, while being more than a little condescending to women who are understandably turned off by his behavior:
But before COVID-19 was loosed on our unsuspecting psyches, many women were already not Trump fans.
"He doesn't look or speak presidential, and his behavior is disgusting," says my neighbor, stating flatly that she hates Trump. For her, like many women, style not substance holds sway.
I pitched Trump's pre-COVID successes to no avail. The economy was roaring. The domestic energy boom gifts us freedom from pugnacious Middle Eastern thugs. The judiciary is packed with constitutionalists, and our foreign policy puts America first. Neither the virus nor his accomplishments shifts her take on The Donald.
Give them Obama, the hollow silver-tongued fox, or the handsomely reserved Romney – but a pugilist? No way. Our paunchy, bare-knuckle political brawler-in-chief turns women off.
My friend can't get beyond Trump's occasional coarse language, his spray tan and flaming orange hairdo. His long-past frat-boy boasting along with his present-day 3 a.m. spit wad tweets don't help either.
In 2018 political analyst Bill Schneider told The Hill, "[Women] don't like him … his attitude. … His signature attitude is defiance; that is what defines him." Perhaps our president reminds those soccer moms of an obstinate toddler during potty training – messy and defiant.
True, Trump defies the status quo. He defied North Korea's perpetual nuclear extortion. He defied NATO's lackadaisical financial ineptitude. He defied the ill-conceived Paris climate accord. He defied a confirmation circus that unjustly attacked his Supreme Court nominee. And he defied the vicious but doomed effort to overturn a validated presidential election.
Trump defied Planned Parenthood's ruse, deceptively labeled "women's health services." But best of all, he defied the anti-Semitic Middle East by redefining Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
Meanwhile, Wall Street sailed merrily into the stratosphere.
Trump critics parrot the negative scripts used by nightly newsreaders. "Misogynistic" is a favorite female gripe, though that sin was dumped years ago. Due diligence isn't in the wheelhouse of these anti-Trump women. Analytics and forgiveness have not been their tutors.
[...]
"He's not nice," is a frequent female response to Trump's muscular patriotism. So, what has past country-club diplomacy earned us? International exploitation of our resources, intellectual property and military might. Unchecked illegal immigration saps our strength.
"I want a pit bull at the gate," is my retort.
The one-100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, giving women the vote, hits Aug. 26. It was a long, arduous campaign by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and company. Consequently, I'm pained when otherwise intelligent females are won by a clever bumper sticker, well-concocted falsehood, or better hairline.
So I say, Ladies, wise up! Think for yourselves. Don't ingest that which is convincing but unconfirmed. Shun seductive political blather. Cast your vote carefully using fact-based data. And we'll again have an admittedly rambunctious but skilled and dedicated president worthy of your trust.
Makkai doesn't explain why anyone should trust Trump about anything, since a major truth she wants us to ignore is that Trump is a compulsive liar.
MRC Tries To Justify Smearing Kamala Harris As A 'Hoe' Topic: Media Research Center
Is there any sleazy right-winger the Media Research Center won't defend? Alexander Hall adds to the notoriousness in an Aug. 21 post that starts out as his usual victimization rant:
Big Tech has allowed open season on President Donald Trump for years, but cracks down quickly on criticism of the Democratic presidential ticket.
Conservative media analyst and author Mark Dice announced that “Facebook censored a viral meme I posted last week about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris” in a Facebook post yesterday. He added, “I can't tell you what it was, or I'll get another strike on my page and might get completely banned.” Dice was able to give more detail on his Twitter account, explaining that “Facebook is censoring the #JoeAndTheHo meme” in an August 19 tweet.
Dice’s tweet featured a purported screenshot of his censored post with what looked like a parody campaign sticker reading “JOE AND THE HOE.”
Then, shockingly, Hall tries to justify Dice's slut-shaming:
The criticism of Harris has an origin story. Her past affair with the married San Francisco mayor Willie Brown has come under the spotlight during the campaign. As USA Today summarized, “Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown addressed his past relationship with Sen. Kamala Harris in a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle.” In it, he “acknowledged giving her appointments that furthered her career.”
Even notoriously liberal Snopes responded to the question, “Did Kamala Harris Have an Extramarital Affair with Willie Brown That Boosted Her Career?”acknowledged that the allegations appeared to be partially true[.]
That's right -- the MRC thinks it's totally cool to smear Harris as having slept her way to the top because she once had an affair with a prominent politician.
The MRC wasn't done claiming victimhood for Dice, though. In a Sept. 2 post, Corinne Weaver whined that Facebook warned Dice about a post defending Trump-supporting teen Kyle Rittenhouse's killing of two people and shooting another during protests in Kenosha, Wis., that began with this bit of drama: The United States holds that an individual charged for a crime is innocent until proven guilty. But Facebook, along with a handful of other tech companies, has decided that it is more capable of casting judgment than the U.S. court system. "
CNS' Chapman Helps Trump Do Some Manhood-Measuring Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman has longbeen a pro-Trump sycophant. He ratcheted that up with a strange bit of manhood-measuring in an Aug. 14 "commentary" post:
Although the leftist media are pushing hard for a Joe Biden-Kamala Harris presidential victory, and like to portray liberals in general as being tech-savvy, new media pioneers, the numbers for today, Aug. 14, show that President Donald Trump has 85.1 million followers on Twitter and Joe Biden has 8.3 million followers.
Vice President Mike Pence enjoys a following of 9.3 million people on Twitter. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Biden's vice presidential running mate, has 4.9 million followers.
President Trump tweets frequently, for better or for worse. It is a tool for him to go around the left-wing editorial gatekeepers of the media, who regularly lie about him, and speak directly to the American people.
Of course, the number of Twitter followers is not much of a measure of anything. Chapman was careful not to mention that former President Barack Obama has even more Twitter followers than Trump, at 120 million. Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Katy Perry and Taylor Swift also have more Twitter followers than Trump.
The only way Chapman could have written a better pro-Trump ad is if he let the Trump campaign actually write the thing and let Chapman slap his name on it (which, as a pro-Trump sycophant, we wouldn't put past him).
The fact that a managing editor is allowed to write such blatantly biased pieces undermines any idea that CNS has journalism that can be trusted as honest and objective.
MRC Uses CBS Report To Bash Mail-In Voting, Just Like Trump Wants Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Scott Whitlock found something he thought he could turn into a right-wing talking point in a July 31 post:
This isn’t something you see often on network television. CBS on Sunday did an experiment to determine just how safe mail-in ballots will be in November. CBS Weekend News journalist Tony Dokoupil set up a campaign “headquarters” and mailed 100 “ballots” to himself through the U.S. Post Office. The results were not encouraging. They also refute the dismissive tone of other journalists when covering Donald Trump’s concerns about mail-in voting.
[...]
Former Arizona election official Tammy Patrick concluded that mail in voting is “setting up the voters with false expectations and you’re setting them up to fail.”
Yet, journalists constantly mock this idea. On July 26, This Week host George Stephanopoulos lectured White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows: “The President continues to warn that it's gonna be rigged, that his word, by mail-in ballots, even though there's no compelling evidence that mail-in ballots are tied to widespread voter fraud.”
The MRC repeatedly invoked this CBS story, largely to defend President Trump's attacks on mail-in voting:
It's more than a little strange to call criticism of mail-in voting "unsubstantiated" just days after CBS conducted its own mail-in voting experiment, and found it lacking! -- Tim Graham, Aug. 1
What is there to fact-check? CBS released the results of its mail-in voting experiment last month and their results were an astounding 3% failure rate, and it took over four days for those ballots to arrive. With that failure rate, if 100 million Americans vote by mail across the country, three million of those votes may never be counted. -- Adam Burnett, Aug. 4
In a viral news story, CBS tried a mail-in voting experiment, which went very badly. With these concerns, it begs the question as to why the mainstream media is pushing for mail-in voting. -- Duncan Schroeder, Aug. 4 and Aug. 15
In a similar stumble into reality, CBS's Tony Dokoupil recently discovered firsthand how mail-in ballots could be a disaster. -- Nicholas Fondacaro, Aug. 4
Do the journalists at CBS even watch their own reporting? On Thursday, reporter Weijia Jiang offered a fact check on Donald Trump’s concerns about mail-in voting, saying he has criticized it “without providing evidence.” But you know who did provide evidence? CBS. -- Whitlock, Aug. 6
But as Media Matters pointed out, the CBS segment omitted one important fact: the high rate of delay ballots in the experiment were driven by changes to the U.S. Postal Service that have taken place during Trump's presidency. And the MRC wasn't the only right-wing media operation to exploit it; others seized on the report as an excuse to attack the Postal Service and discorage mail-in voting, both of which are agenda items for Trump's re-election campaign.
It's almost as if the MRC is an arm of the Trump campaign. Doesn't that violate its nonprofit status?
CNS Censors Bad News About Another Official It Touted Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com loves to censor negative information about people it promotes, such as Candace Owens or Marjorie Taylor Greene. Add another one to the list.
Mnaging editor Michael W. Chapman wrote in a July 2 article:
Florida Sheriff Darryl Daniels criticized the liberal media for misrepresenting law enforcement as the "enemy," and pledged that if radical protesters become overwhelming, he will "make special deputies of every lawful gun owner" in the county to ensure the civil order.
"That's what we're sworn to do, and that's what we're gonna do," he said. "You've been warned."
Chapman then transcribe the entirety of a video Daniels made that "explains his office's approach to the radical protests being perpetrated in the United States in recent times."
That attention to detail from Chapman, however, didn't extend to reporting on the scandal Daniels embroiled himself in. As an actual news outlet reported:
Darryl Daniels, the sheriff of Clay County, Fla., dialed his deputy from the quiet suburban road with an urgent plea for backup: He was being followed by a stalker in a Jeep and appeared to be in “imminent danger."
But Daniels knew exactly who was behind him on that day in May 2019, prosecutors say: It was Cierra Smith, his former employee and mistress of six years, on her way to meet him at their regular spot. Filming the whole thing was his wife, to whom he had recently confessed the affair.
Now, Smith has resigned from her job, Daniels’s wife has filed for divorce, and the sheriff is the one who ended up behind bars. On Thursday, following a year-long investigation, Florida authorities filed four charges against him and booked him into jail.
After that was revealed, the Florida governor removed Daniels from his post, and he lost his bid for re-election.
Yet all this wasn't considered newsworthy to Chapman -- presumably because he presented himself as a Trump-esque law-and-order type and Chapman doesn't want to shatter the illusion.
MRC Cheers That Homophobe Can Make Money At YouTube Again Topic: Media Research Center
Last year, the Media Research Center was eager to portray right-wing "comedian" Steven Crowder as a victim of social media bias when YouTube demonitized his channel over the homophobic slurs he hurled at liberal commentator Carlos Maza, giving him the "it's just a joke" pass it will never give to a comedian who makes a joke about President Trump. Earlier this year, the MRC ramped up the conservative victimhood for Crowder while downplaying his homophobia.
The MRC's Kayla Sargent served up some good news for Crowder in an Aug. 14 post, while still managing to keep his victimhood intact:
It’s a win for free speech. Conservative comedian and political commentator Steven Crowder will once again be allowed to draw ad revenue on his YouTube channel.
YouTube lifted the restrictions against Crowder on August 12, more than a year after he was originally demonetized.
Crowder was originally restricted on the platform in June of 2019 after Vox contributor Carlos Maza accused Crowder of making homophobic and racist statements towards him in a since-removed tweet.
Maza’s accusations came to light on May 31, 2019, and YouTube promised that they would review Crowder’s flagged videos. On June 4, the platform tweeted a reply to Maza’s initial post, stating, “while we found language that was clearly hurtful, the videos as posted don’t violate our policies.”
Although YouTube did not take any initial action against Crowder, the pressure from the left and the media only increased, and some in the press called for Crowder’s channel to be “shut down completely.”
Sargent did concede that it was the fact that Crowder took down his homophobic videos, and not "YouTube's good graces," that got him re-monetized.She then warned: "The battle is never over, though. YouTube is still able to demonetize individual videos, and at any point, the platform could change its community guidelines again and restrict or even remove Crowder’s channel at any time."
As is MRC tradition, Sargent was quiet about the homophobic details of Crowder's videos that got him demonetized in the first place, and she left unspoken that the main thing Crowder can do to keep from getting restricted in the future is not be such a homophobe.
Sargent went on to push Crowder's victimhood in later MRC posts. An Aug. 20 post on how a poll found that "73 percent of U.S adults believe that social media companies censor political viewpoints of their users" was an excuse to mention how "Until recently, YouTube had demonetized conservitive comedian and commentator Steven Crowder." That was followed by an Aug. 26 post complaining that "YouTube chose to censor more content on its platform during its second quarter than it had in any previous quarter" similarly referenced how YouTube had "demonitized [Crowder's] channel a year."
In neither of those posts did Sargent point out that it was Crowder's homophobia that got his channel demonetized.
NEW ARTICLE: Hoaxsters Push A 'Trayvon Hoax' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Conspiracy-obsessed WorldNetDaily columnist Jack Cashill joined forces with charlatan filmmaker Joel Gilbert to make a film that once again trashes Trayvon Martin -- but Cashill won't tell you about Gilbert's factually challenged past. Read more >>
MRC Can't Stop Exploiting Tara Reade (And Censoring E. Jean Carroll) Topic: Media Research Center
As we'vedocumented, the Media Research Center doesn't actually care about Tara Reade -- it only cares that her dubious accusation that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her a few decades ago. If the MRC took sexual assault allegations seriously, it would have denigrated E. Jean Carroll for making one against Donald Trump. Nevertheless, the MRC persists in exploiting Reade for its political agenda.
Duncan Schroeder huffed on July 27 that a CNN guest "praised Joe Biden for his to plan to choose a woman as his running mate without mentioning that Biden has been credibly accused of sexual assault," adding that if the guesdt "was not a Democratic shill, he would have mentioned that Joe Biden was credibly accused of sexual assault by Reade. But CNN does not actually care about combating sexism or holding all politicians accountable, it cares about propping up Democratic candidates." Schroeder's post appeared under the ironic headline "Silence is Violence" -- after all, the MRC hasn't mentioned Carroll's credible accusations against Trump since April.
On Aug. 12, the MRC's Scott Whitlock got an "exclusive interview" with Reade (that it also translated into Spanish), in which she "spoke out about the selection of Kamala Harris as his vice presidential running mate." The MRC apparently did not ask Reade about E. Jean Carroll's accusations against Trump, nor did they ask her about her history of manipulative and deceitful behavior.
The same day, Whitlock whined, "Just how long can HBO stand by the radical HBO host John Oliver?" citing as evidence of his "radical" behavior: "In May, he promised to cover the Tara Reade sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden. He lied." Whitlock threw a massive fit about this in June.
A couple days later, Whitlock complained that an interview of Kamala Harris on MSNBC "censored any mention of the Democrat previously saying she thought Tara Reade, who accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, should be heard."
We should probably mention again that Whitlock and the rest of his MRC buddies have censored any mention of E. Jean Carroll for months.
Perpetual rage-bot Nicholas Fondacaro took things in a weird direction in an Aug. 17 post:
Democratic Party mouthpiece and CBS political correspondent Ed O’Keefe was so nervous about the enthusiasm gap between former Vice President Joe Biden and President Trump, that he spent part of his Monday segment on CBS Evening Newsboasting about Biden (an accused sexual assaulter) paling around with rapper Cardi B, who has admitted to drugging and robbing men (with accusations of rape).
Of course, this happened while the liberal media were ignoring the demands of Biden sexual assault accuser Tara Reade, who wanted the press to grill his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) on whether or not she believed his accusers.
Whitlock returned in an Aug. 25 post to grouse that "Last week during the Democratic National Convention, journalists and media outlets did their best to bury the 1993 sexual assault accusations against Joe Biden," going on to tout how Reade "told Fox News she would be willing to speak at the Republican convention if asked."
Whitlock's obsession with Oliver continued in an Aug. 30 post, in which he whined, "Oliver is the same Democratic hack who promised to cover Tara Reade and then hasn’t. Basically, he’s just a HBO shill for the DNC." And Whitlock is a shill for the Trump campaign.
Once more, let's remember that Whitlock and the MRC hasn't written a thing about E. Jean Carroll since April. That shows you just how empty its obsession with Reade is.
Curtis Houck once again proved his pro-Trump colors in an Aug. 13 article:
Last month, 
We've 
Even though its 
The Media Research Center not only will refuse to admit that President Trump gets anything wrong (beyond Tim Graham's 
As much as CNSNews.com loves to post article after fawning article about 
It's a sign of how desperate the Media Research Center is to re-elect President Trump at all costs that it's willing to be utterly hypocritical about it. Nicholas Fondacaro huffed in an Aug. 18 
Michael Brown
Is there any sleazy right-winger the Media Research Center won't defend? Alexander Hall adds to the notoriousness in an Aug. 21 
CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman has 
The Media Research Center's Scott Whitlock found something he thought he could turn into a right-wing talking point in a July 31 
CNSNews.com loves to censor negative information about people it promotes, such as 
Last year, the Media Research Center was 
As 
