MRC Is Shocked To Learn People Don't Trust Trump White House Topic: Media Research Center
Conservatives have told people for years that we shouldn't trust the government to tell us the truth. So it's something of a surprise that the Media Research Center is offended (or at least pretending to be) when the media stated that the Trump White House or his doctors couldn't be trusted to fully disclose the extent to which President Trump was suffering from coronavirus.
In a totally unsurprising development, the MRC's Kristine Marsh blamed the media for not implicitly trusting Trump:
The media will never take any responsibility for why Americans find them so untrustworthy; all they can do is reflexively blame President Trump. ABC’s chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl perfectly displayed this point while visiting Friday's The View, discussing President Trump’s positive COVID-19 test. He indulged the left-wing hosts’ in stirring up a conspiracy that the White House was lying about President Trump’s health.
[...]
The longtime ABC correspondent blamed this mistrust on Trump’s “war on truth” as having caused the nation to split into two camps of conspiracy theorists: Those who won’t believe anything coming out of the White House and those who won’t believe anything in the newspaper or on The View[.]
Joseph Norris took much the same tack, even linking back to Marsh's post:
Nearly all of CNN’s New Day on Friday was devoted to the news that President Trump has tested positive for COVID-19. During this media frenzy, one narrative was constantly pushed, that the American people cannot trust the President. Co-host John Berman tried to defend the irresponsible rhetoric: “When you lie about the little things it's hard to trust you on the big things and that’s where we are this morning.”
This has not only been a common thread on CNN, it has been prevalent throughout the leftist media. During The View they ran the exact same story challenging the credibility of the White House, especially regarding the pandemic. Neither show could provide evidence on why the American people should not trust the President.
[...]
It is troubling that the liberal network is so quick to accuse White House officials of lying and say that the American people cannot trust the information released without any evidence.
Like Marsh, Norris offered no reason why everything from the White House should be taken at face value and without question.
The MRC even defended the evasive answers given by Trump's doctors regarding his condition and treatment. Nicholas Fondacaro huffed that an ABC host "lashed out at Trump’s doctor at Walter Reed Medical Center for “dodged key questions about his health.” Of course, she omitted how Dr. Sean Conley still needed to follow the HIPPA [sic] privacy pledge even though he was the doctor for America’s top public official."
Marsh returned to be mad that "The View" brought in respected surgeon Atul Gawande to discuss Trump's health, dismissing him as a Joe Biden supporter (though she offered no evidence that anything he said had a political motivation) and complaining that one co-host "even got the good doctor to suggest the president was only feeling well because he was high on drugs and his medical team was concealing his severe condition." She further whined of co-host Sunny Hostin: "Hostin worries that Americans can’t trust doctors anymore, and so she brings on a partisan medical doctor to combat this dilemma? The View hosts didn't mention how Gawande endorsed Biden for president, called the Republican Convention an “autocracy,” touted ex-WH aide Olivia Troye, and sent many other tweets blaming Trump for coronavirus deaths."
John Shannon, meanwhile, decreed that only people with medical degrees can critique Trump's doctors (despite his colleague Marsh having just trashed a doctor for doing that):
Despite not having a medical degree between the three of them, Morning Joe hosts Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough, and Willie Geist had very strong professional opinions on Tuesday morning about how poorly the White House Medical Unit has handled President Trump’s battle with the coronavirus.
Seeming to lament the President's improving condition after leaving Walter Reed Monday evening, the trio wailed that his doctor must be lying.
[...]
Wondering why in the world any physician would not loudly echo the talking points of the leftist media, Geist added: “But if you’re a doctor, you don’t have to get re-elected. What’s the cost of telling the truth? (...) If the president fires you, okay, you go back to your job with the respect of other doctors and of your colleagues.” Does the Hippocratic Oath require medical professionals to be liberal activists? Evidently so.
[...]
Scarborough remarked that “[A] doctor has a responsibility to not lie to the American people and the world.” Apparently, journalists are held to much lower standards.
Shannon described the "Morning Joe" sergment as a "shameless attack on medical professionals" -- again, ignoring that's precisely what Marsh did to Gawande.
CNS Again Cheers Low Refugee Caps Under Trump Topic: CNSNews.com
Earliler this year, we documented how CNSNews.com reporter Patrick Goodenough spent years obsessed that the U.S. was letting in too many Muslim refugees and not enough Christian ones, and he was extremely happy that President Trump not only cut down on the number of Muslim refugees but sharply reduced the number of all refugees. Well, Goodenough is back on the refugee beat, again apparently happy that Trump is keeping refugee numbers low.
Goodenough cheered in a Sept. 22 article that "With fewer than ten days of the fiscal year to go, the Trump administration has admitted just 10,233 refugees into the United States since October 1 last year – 56.8 percent of the record-low cap of 18,000 admissions in FY 2020, which it set last fall." Then he fearmongered about the Democratic candidate for president:
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, however, has pledged if elected to set a cap of 125,000 refugees a year, with the aim to raise it further “over time commensurate with our responsibility, our values, and the unprecedented global need.”
Biden’s promised ceiling would be the highest since 1993, when a cap of 142,000 was established (although actual admissions that year were somewhat lower, just below 120,000).
The highest ceiling on refugee admissions fixed during the Obama-Biden administration was 85,000, in 2016, while under President George W. Bush the annual caps ranged between 70,000 and 80,000, and under President Clinton between 78,000 and 142,000.
Goodenough didn't explain why any of this was a bad thing. He did, however, return to his religious refugee body counts, noting that "Refugees identifying as Christians comprise 73.6 percent of FY 2020 total" and that "Refugees identifying as Muslims account for 22.5 percent of the total, comprising large majorities among the groups of refugees from Syria, Sudan, Somalia, and Afghanistan."
Goodenough followed up on Oct. 1, pronouncing that "Fiscal year 2020 ended overnight with the smallest number of refugees resettled in the United States in more than 40 years, and the Trump administration setting a cap on 15,000 refugee admissions for fiscal year 2021," making sure to add that "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pushed back at a reporter’s question on about whether the U.S. was doing enough to ease the global refugee crisis" by claoming that "There’s no more generous nation anywhere in the world when it comes to alleviating human crises around the world."
Goodenough was in full defense mode the next day as he gave the Trump State Department the floor to defend its record-low refugee cap:
Amid criticism over the Trump administration’s move to set a new record-low limit of 15,000 refugee admissions in fiscal year 2021 – reducing the annual ceiling for the fifth consecutive time – the State Department said Thursday the proposal reflected a “continuing commitment to prioritize the safety and well-being of Americans, especially in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.”
It also took into account a massive backlog of asylum-seeker cases, it said, referring to more than 1.1 million people already inside the U.S. whose applications for asylum are pending (as opposed to applicants for refugee status, who apply outside the country for resettlement through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.)
The department said in its announcement it expected “more than 290,000” new asylum claims to be received during FY 2021, which began on Thursday.
It also contended that the number of refugees resettled should not be seen in isolation from broader U.S. humanitarian-based immigration activity.
Goodenough did concede the low cap is being "heavily-criticized." Not by him, of course.
MRC Melts Down Over 'Turncoat' Ex-Pence Aide Topic: Media Research Center
Last month, Olivia Troye, former homeland security, counterterrorism and coronavirus adviser to Vide President Mike Pence, declared she'd had enough and would be supporting Joe Biden for president because o the Trump administration's insistence on putting re-election concerns ahead of mounting a coherent response to the coronavirus epidemic. Needless to say, the pro-Trump Media Research Center had no interest in listening to her message, obsessed instead with her "betrayal" of Trump and Pence.
When Troye appeared on CNN, Joseph Norris whined, "What’s the quickest way to become a CNN contributor? Announce in a high-profile way that you’re a former administration staffer who is now supporting Joe Biden," further huffing, "These staffers constantly speaking out are obviously part of the media's effort to help Democrats, just over two months before the election." Norris made sure to parrot the Trump White House's attacks on her:
CNN neglected to report on the response of the administration to Ms. Troye’s exit. But President Trump gave a brief interview Thursday afternoon where he claimed that the former aide was fired from her position and later gave a “beautiful letter” praising the administration before she left.
Vice President Pence commented that “it reads to me like one more disgruntled employee that has decided to play politics during an election year.”
The next day, Alex Christy complained how CNN hosts "welcomed the betrayal of Pence aide Olivia Troye, who made a pro-Biden ad for "Republican Voters Against Trump." The two had a mutual fondness for the word "damning" to describe Troye's attack on President Trump's COVID record. Pace even lamely claimed Troye, the self-proclaimed "McCain Republican," helps Biden pitch himself as "more of a moderate," referring to the segment as a "cheer-the-turncoat segment." He further attack Troye's story: "Why would a disgruntled employee narrative be that implausible? Anyone who leaves the White House and bashes Trump gets at least 15 minutes of fame on CNN, with many getting book deals as well."
Kristine Marsh went on the attack against the "Republican turncoat" as well: "Former Mike Pence aide Olivia Troye made the media salivate last week when she came out trashing President Trump as an uncaring monster who is undermining scientists in the task force’s coronavirus response," Marsh lamented that "Troye only faced one question about her former boss calling her a disgruntled employee who was fired from the task force months ago."
Norris returned to dismiss Troye once again as a "disgruntled ex-White House staffer Olivia Troye" who "has appeared on leftist media outlets several times to attack Trump." Marsh later similarly dismissed Troye as a "Never Trumper."
Like Trump, the MRC thinks loyalty is more important than competence.
An anonymously written Sept. 28 WorldNetDaily article breathlessly reported:
A Project Veritas undercover investigation released Sunday night alleges paid workers in the district of Rep. Ilhan Omar in Minneapolis are illegally gathering absentee ballots from elderly Somali immigrants.
Members of the Somali community interviewed by Project Veritas charge Omar and the state Democratic Party, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, are behind the "ballot harvesting."
The investigation features alleged ballot harvester Liban Mohamed in a Snapchat video with piles of ballots on his car dashboard.
An undercover video investigation by James O'Keefe's Project Veritas revealed a Minnesota-based source describes Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., as the mastermind behind a cash-for-ballots, voter-fraud scheme.
"Nobody would say that Ilhan Omar isn't part of this," said Omar Jamal, a Somali community insider and the chairman of the Somali Watchdog group. "Unless you're from a different planet, but if you live in this universe, I think everybody knows it."
One little problem: none of this appears to be true. The Daily Dot reports that Jamal's Somali Watchdog Group may not actually exist, with its website getting registered only two months ago -- about the time that Project Veritas started its alleged sting -- and it couldn't find anyone else associated with the group other than Jamal. Jamal also claimed he worked with the Ramsey County Sheriff's Department, which couldn't be verified and which Project Veritas didn't provide verification of.
Meanwhile, Liban Mohamed Osman says that Jamal offered him $10,000 to claim he was taking part in voter fraud for Omar. And Jamal himself has backtracked on claims he made in Project Veritas videos and says he hasn't met anyone who received cash in exchange for a vote.
Neddless to say, WND hasn't told you any of this, nor has it updated or corrected any of its original reporting. The only other reference to this story it has done is an Oct. 4 item repeating a Fox News piece on alleged Democrat Tulsi Gabbard promoting the story. Needless to say, WND did not report that Gabbard has since apologized to Omar.
Promoting bogus stories and refusing to correct the record when they've been exposed as bogus? That's the WND we know.
P.S. One of the Project Veritas employees desperately trying to defend their work is Jered Ede, its chief legal officer. That name might sounda little familiar for his previous work of fraud: He was an intern for CNSNews.com in 2005, when he falsely accused Paul Begala of claiming that Republicans "want to kill us." Further, his idea of "journalism" when he was editor of a conservative magazine at Johns Hopkins University was to illustrate an article with a picture of a dog defecating on a picture of Bill Clinton -- the kind of work that would seem to make him a sadly good fit for Project Veritas.
MRC's Double Standard On Judging Another's Mental Health Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck lectured in an Oct. 8 post:
On Thursday’s ReidOut, MSNBC host Joy Reid continued what’s been years of shameful behavior by some in the liberal media to treat mental health as something to joke about in context of President Trump, with journalists playing the role of doctor, pharmacist, and psychologist.
Regarding Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis, Reid asserted Trump went on a “roid-rant” Thursday morning and “not a man who sounds well” that shouldn’t be trusted with children, let alone the country. Throughout the first segment, she continued to ostracize the use of steroids (something people dealing with chemotherapy take) and asserted Trump wasn’t “in control of his emotions.”
Of course, Houck immediately undercut his criticism by judging Reid's mental health, smearing her as "ever-hateful and miserable." But dismissing someone as "crazy" or "insane" or "unhinged" because they say something the MRC doesn't approve of is something the MRC does all the time.
For instance, here's whom the MRC has proclaimed to be "unhinged" in the past month or so alone -- all of these at NewsBusters, of which Houck is managing editor:
Further last month the MRC's Joseph Vazquez guffawed because CNBC's Jim Cramer called Nancy Pelosi "Crazy Nancy" to her face, then the next day defended Cramer from a "Twitter woke mob" who criticized Cramer, in which he dismissed actress and singer Bette Midler as "loony"and insisted Cramer's remark was just a "Freudian slip."
And literally the next day after Houck scolded Reid for judging Trump's mental status, Scott Whitlock wrote a post screeching that Keith Olbermann was an "unhinged lunatic," disturbed," and, according to the all-caps headlind, "STILL NUTS" for issuing a comment about Trump and his Supreme Court candidate Amy Comey Barrett.In other words, he was playing the role of doctor, pharmacist, and psychologist -- something his editor purports to hate.
You want civility in political commentary, Mr. Houck? Back off your ridiculous hypocrisy and demonstrate some of your own first.
(Houck loves to lecture against invoking another's mental health issues in political commentary yet plays the victim when he's held accountable for his own words.)
UPDATE: A couple more recent examples of this hypocrisy via the Twitter world. MRC writer Nicholas Fondacaro tweeted a NewsBusters post about Nancy Pelosi, adding the comment "Nutty Nancy is off her pills again." Meanwhile, the NewsBusters Twitter account retweeted a tweet by MRC executive Tim Graham regarding NPR's Nina Totenberg using a GIF stating, "She cray cray."
When President Trump underwent treatment for coronavirus, CNSNews.com ramped up its usual pro-Trump spin even more.
Patrick Goodenough's initial story was highly sympathetic, avoiding any mention of how Trump's own behavior in largely refusing to wear masks and leading mostly mask-free rallies may have contributed to him catching the virus. The real spin began with a follow-up article by Susan Jones, who touted Trump telling Fox News' Sean Hannity before his diagnosis was announced that coronavirus is "a very, very tough disease,"in an apparent attempt to potray Trump as having taken the disease seriously despite his long record of doing otherwise. Melanie Arter, meanwhile, pushed the White House narrative that Trump's coronavirus symptoms were mild.
Another article by Arter complained that Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar -- whom CNS despises -- accused Trump having spread coronavirus during a campaign visit to Minnesota two days before his coronavirus diagnosis was announced. It has since been revealed that the Trump campaign refused to follow health guidelines and state regulations for the rally by letting in many more people than were allowed.
The spin continued with an article by Craig Bannister on the experimental drug cocktail Trump was given, followed by Jones featuring a Trump campaign adviser Stever Cortes "took reasonable risks, not reckless ones" and scoffing at the fact that several people who attended a Trump White House event before his diagnosis was announced had since tested positive for coronavirus.
Jones was in full Trump rah-rah mode when parroting his insistence that he's 'learned a lot about COVID ... by really going to school," adding that he made a motorcade drive around the Walter Reed Medical Center grounds "amid media anger over the perceived lack of transparency about his doctors' health briefings." (That's the only reference to that lack of transparency at CNS.) Later, she cheered how Trump sent out "at least 18 tweets in rapid succession, explaining what's at stake in the upcoming election" while still in the hospital. In that same vein, Arter pulled stenographer duty by uncritically repeating a Trump campaign spokesman sneering that "with COVID, with a quarantine, at Walter Reed, this president still did more events yesterday than did Joe Biden."
Editor Terry Jeffrey grumbled that "A maskless Chuck Schumer—the Senate Democratic Leader--stood on a sidewalk in New York City on Sunday and ranted about President Donald Trump holding a 'super-spreader' event at the White House where many people in attendance did not wear masks as Trump announced the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court." In fact, no less than Dr. Anthony Fauci later called the Barrett announcement a "superspreader" event -- something CNS has censored.
Finally, Jones gushed at how Trump "faced the cameras and pointedly removed his face mask" upon his return to the White House and issued a message saying Americans shouldn't let the virus "dominate you." She did note that "at least 197,029 people have died from COVID in this country," but didn't venture an opinion on whether they died because they allowed the virus to dominate them.
MRC Annoyed When Its 'Junk News' Is Critiqued Topic: Media Research Center
As much as it loves to bash and insult those it purports to critique, the Media Research Center has never been good at taking criticism. In an Oct. 5 MRC post, Corinne Weaver complained that the Oxford Internet Institute -- which she attacked last year for keeping an eye on right-wing "junk news" sites like the MRC's NewsBusters -- once again called out NewsBusters for serving "junk news":
In the briefing published on Oct. 5, 2020, the institute slammed nine pieces written and published in American conservative outlets such as NewsBusters, The Daily Caller, The Heritage Foundation’s The Daily Signal, BizPac Review, The Daily Wire and The Blaze. According to the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), these sites are considered “junk news.”
OII defined “junk news” as “... sources deliberately publish misleading, deceptive or incorrect information purporting to be real news about politics, economics or culture. This content includes various forms of propaganda and ideologically extreme, hyperpartisan or conspiratorial news and information.”
[...]
The briefing named a piece by NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck as an example of the “sharp criticism … levied against the reactions of mainstream media.” Even though the article in question was merely a wrap-up of quotes from NBC concerning the presidential debate that took place on Sept. 30, OII considered it “one of the best-fitting articles in the topic model of the previous section.” The issue with this characterization of the piece as “junk news” is that in the previous section, the only model given about pieces concerning the debate was that it “included words such as ‘Biden’, ‘debate’, ‘Trump’, ‘Wallace’, and ‘election’. This topic concerned the first US Presidential debate held on Tuesday night.”
Weaver is being disingenuous about the nature of OII's criticism of Houck's piece. It pointed out how right-wing websites' reactions to the debate fell into certain patterns: attacking moderator Chris Wallace, criticizing Biden's language without criticizing Trump's similar language, and bashing the media's reaction to the debate. That last point is what Houck's post got dinged on. Here's what OII wrote, since Weaver won't tell you:
Further, sharp criticism was levied against the reactions of mainstream media. A Daily Wire article with over 20,000 engagements detailed a CNN’s panel response to the debate, and although it mentioned Trump’s refusal to denounce white supremacy, it also claimed that Biden was the one that sunk to personal insults. Another article from NewsBusters that had comparatively few engagements at over 3,000 but was one of the best-fitting articles in the topic model of the previous section employed a similar strategy with NBC’s panel reaction.
Weaver didn't offer any rebuttal to OII's criticism -- just complained that it was made. Instead, she noted OII's definitionvof "junk news" and huffed, "By this definition, BuzzFeed would be 'junk news.'"
That's how you know the MRC is not engaged in "media research."
WND Defends The Honor Of the Proud Boys Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has long dabbled in white nationalism, so maybe it's not a surprise that it came to the defense of the right-wing thugs in the Proud Boys after they were suggested to be white supremacists during the first presidential debate. So we have Art Moore penning an Oct. 1 article on this:
The national leader of the Proud Boys – a black-Hispanic American – said Wednesday that Joe Biden made a mistake during the presidential debate by casting his group as white supremacist.
"We've been called many names," said Enrique Tarrio in an interview with Britain's Sky News, "and probably the most inaccurate name you can call us is white supremacists, as your viewers can see."
[...]
Tarrio's group says it officially rejects white supremacy. In November 2018, after media reported the FBI had classified the Proud Boys as an extremist group with ties to white nationalism, bureau officials held a briefing denying the claim.
The FBI agents said it was not their intent to classify the entire group but to characterize a possible threat from certain individuals. However, the agents suggested using the website of the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center as a resource. The SPLC has broadly labeled people who hold traditional views on subjects such as marriage as "extremists" or members of "hate groups."
Interestingly, that's the only reference Moore makes regarding what the Proud Boys actually are, and his pre-emptive dismissal of the SPLC fact sheet on the Proud Boys is suspicious. According to the SPLC, the Proud Boys do, in fact, have white nationalist leanings, Tarrio's ethnicity notwithstanding, with group founder Gavin McInnes having racist-right views. They are probably better known for their misogyny and Islamophobia, as well as their violence.
Moore didn't see fit to mention any of that stuff. Very strange.
Moore also played cleanup for President Trump for telling the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by": "Trump's use of the term 'stand by' was interpreted by media as an order for the Proud Boys to be on alert for further instructions. But Trump, as was indicated in his remarks to reporters Wednesday, apparently meant to affirm the term Wallace used, 'stand down.'"
This was followed the next day with an anonymously written article on how McInnes is threatening to sue Joe Biden and media outlets for calling the Proud Boys white supremacists. Not only did WND ignore the Proud Boys' and McInnes' white nationalist pasts, it laughably and counterfactually touted how the group "portrays itself as a patriotic counterbalance to Antifa."
The fact that WND is defending such an offensive, violent group tells us once again that maybe it doesn't deserve to live.
MRC Latino Lies In Denying Hispanics Are Disproportionately Affected By COVID Topic: Media Research Center
Kathleen Krumhansl ranted in an Oct. 3 MRC Latino post:
As the presidential election draws closer, the nation’s liberal Hispanic nets are scrambling to shoot any and all propagandistic weapons in order to rid themselves of Donald Trump. At Univision, this meant turning the COVID pandemic into a Latino problem, and portraying Latinos as eternal victims.
Watch as midday anchor Carolina Sarassa opens the segment about a multimedia report on Hispanics and coronavirus, making the absurd claim that “we (Latinos) were the first to get sick, to die and to be out of a job.”
CAROLINA SARASSA: To be Hispanic in the time of COVID-19 has had serious consequences. We were the first to get sick, to die and to be out of a job. Now, a Florida neighborhood shows how the virus severely hit a community marked by poverty. We now connect live with journalist Ana Elena Azpurúa to tell us more about what Hispanics face in the midst of this pandemic. Go ahead, tell us.
Not only is the claim baseless, but it comes across as yet another attempt to validate the segregation of Latinos as a Pan-Ethnic group living in the United States, and not as Americans.
According to the journalist interviewed by anchor Carolina Sarassa, the idea behind the study that features a Latino community in Florida, “was to show the double blow that Hispanics have suffered”, “and they have also been particularly affected by the economic crisis, unemployment and business lockdowns as well.” Sorry to break the bubble, but while Latinos have in fact, been badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic for a number of reasons, every other ethnicity not only in the United States, but worldwide, has suffered from the effect of COVID-19 in their health, income and wellbeing. COVID does not discriminate.
In fact, as even Fox News concedes, coronavirus has hit Hispanics disproportionally; CDC data from May through August shows that 24.2 percent of coronavirus deaths were among Hispanics, though they comprise 18.5 percent of the population. Dr. Anthony Fauci has pointed out that COVID-19 hospitalization rates are 359 per 100,000 among Latinos, compared with 78 per 100,000 in whites.
Further, Hispanics have been harder hit financially, expressing more worries about paying rent, child care or student loans than whites, and at the initial peak of the pandemic, Hispanic unemployment reached 18.9 pecent -- a record and much higher than that of whites.
In other words, Krumhansl is effectively lying to you. But she has a larger partisan goal in mind: At the end of her item, she demands that you read MRC chief Brent Bozell's "letter in strong opposition to the proposed rule change that would allow Univision to become 100% foreign-owned." She's so obsessed with Univsion, however, that she weirdly misidentifies Bozell as the "Univision founder."
In 1999 the late Rev. Jerry Falwell exposed an example of indoctrination of young children in the British-originated "Teletubbies" TV program. One of the four characters, Tinky Winky, was defined by a mocking journalist: "purpleness (the gay pride color), [an inverted] triangle (the shape of the gay pride symbol) and 'magic bag' [a purse] as evidence for Tinky Winky's same-sex preference." The U.S. distributor replied, "To think we would be putting sexual innuendo in a children's show is kind of outlandish." [The effrontery!], but the article did admit "Tinky Winky has been a gay icon in Britain since the show premiered there in 1997." The ridicule of Falwell was so relentless that few would defend him for what we front-line pro-family activists instantly recognized as unmistakable toddler-targeted conditioning, called "grooming" in criminal justice terminology.
I'll be mocked for reviving what the left thought they killed with ridicule, but bring it on! Christians need to see examples of leaders who can survive the smears without backing down or apologizing. I've made a career of doing that.
I'll now double-down by contending that the ubiquitous "rainbow unicorns" and similar rainbow imagery for children is a more recent example of intentional LGBT grooming of very young children. To be sure, the rainbow has long been an element of the entertainment culture of American children, so the scoffers have more ammunition for scorning this analysis. But, given the nearly quarter-century long worldwide effort the LGBTs have made to hijack (God's) rainbow as their exclusive brand, modern designers of children's toys and entertainment cannot claim innocence of their potential effect on children's association of rainbows with goodness, planted in young minds like seeds lying dormant until puberty – when these same pre-conditioned kids will be ripe for recruitment.
[...]
One other thing. We must stop reinforcing the LGBTs' claim on God's rainbow as their brand. We need a new symbol for our side to use as a graphic depiction of their movement. Send me your ideas in graphic form – suitable for all ages – and I'll do a follow-up article featuring the entries.
Cleanup Mode Again: CNS Does Damage Control on Trump's Non-Denial of White Supremacy Topic: CNSNews.com
As we documented, it took nearly a day for CNSNews.com to report the big news from the first presidential debate -- that President Trump couldn't quite denounce white suprmacism and right-wing extremism. But once it reported that, CNS was forced into damage control, a position it's familiar with.
Carig Bannister complained that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez cited an "incomplete quote" of Trump to declare Trump a white supremacist, claiming that "Trump twice answered 'Sure' to [moderator Chris] Wallace’s question about whether he was 'willing to condemn white supremacists and militia groups'" constituted an actual condemnation. Editor Terry Jeffrey did the same thing in responding to Nancy Pelosi's claim that Trump "would not disassociate himself" from white supremacists, declaring that "In fact, during the debate when moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump whether he was 'will tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups,' Trump said: 'Sure.'"
Melanie Arter did this as well, first noting Joe Biden's post-debate "cease and desist" response to Trump telling the far-right thugs of the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by," and then declaring that "As CNSNews.com previously reported, Trump was asked to condemn white supremacists and militia groups at the presidential debate, to which Trump said, 'Sure, I’m willing to do that. I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing, not the right wing. I'm willing to do anything. I want to see peace.'"
CNS then brought out the big guns: former pro football player Hershel Walker asserting that "Trump is not a racist." This was followed by a reworking by Craig Bannister of a piece from CNS' parent, the Media Research Center (who similarly played damage control over this) counting the "19 times" Trump has denounced racism, hufing that "two days after the first Trump-Biden presidential debate, the media continued to badger Pres. Trump, alleging that he hadn’t yet condemned white supremacists and, in particular, a group called the Proud Boys. And, once again, the president issued a clear, unequivocal condemnation of all racists and racist organizations."
Finally, CNS resorted to Charlie Daniels Jr., who's now writing a column at CNS in place of the one his late father wrote. He sarcastically whined that "the only sensible plan I can think of to allow President Trump to put this to rest once and for all" is that Trump "shall henceforth be required to condemn white supremacists, neo-Nazis, anti-Semites, and all forms of racism every hour on the hour for the remainder of his life, and if he fails to do so, everyone will know with absolute certainty that he’s a racist."
Daniels even defended the honor of the Proud Boys: "the only problem is that they are NOT a white supremacist group. They aren’t even exclusively white. Their leader is -- in fact -- Cuban."
Not a good look, CNS (and Mr. Daniels).
UPDATE: CNS also went surprisingly crankypants on an ideological ally, Fox News correspondent John Roberts, complaining that he "badgered Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnanyover whether President Trump denounces white supremacy today – even though McEnany told him the president did so the day before" and that "Roberts’ wife, Kyra Phillips, was actually one of those Trump personally denounced white supremacy to on Wednesday."
MRC Acts As Trump's Defense During His COVID-19 Sickness Topic: Media Research Center
Despite the fact that it so hates anything that could possibly be declared "liberal" that it would be partying from the rooftops if Joe Biden had contracted coronavirus, the Media Research Center got upset that there was maybe a little bit of karma at work when President Trump -- who had been notoriously dismissive of masks and discouraged mask-wearing at his rallies -- came down with coronavirus earlier this month, the MRC went ballistic. Just read the headlines:
Again: The MRC would have no problem acting evil, sick, cruel or ghoulish, or hitting new lows, if a liberal politician or member of the media caught coronavirus in the manner that Trump did. That's simply how soulless they are.
They even got a greatest-hits piece out of all this. The pinnacle, though, was an Oct. 5 piece by resident MRC ragebot Nicholas Fondacaro carrying the headline "They Wanted Him Dead: Nets Whine POTUS Got Cutting-Edge Medical Care." That was apparently too much for his bosses -- Fondacaro offered no evidence whatsoever of an explicit death wish -- for after posting, the words "They Wanted Him Dead" were de-escalated to "Did They Want Him To Suffer?" (Fondacaro's regular lying, apparently, isn't an issue for he still has a job there.)
The funny thing, of course, is that the MRC really do want journalists dead. We've documented how its writers have callously dismissed journalists' concerns about their safety while covering Trump ralliee, where Trump has whipped up anti-media sentiment, as them being self-centered.
The MRC only really seemed to care about how Trump's reckless behavior while being treated somehow owned the libs or the media. When Trump took a superfluous car ride on the Walter Reed Medical Center grounds, potentially exposing his security detail to the virus, Duncan Schroeder baselessly claimed the media was "showing utter dismay his state hadn't taken a turn for the worse," further whining that "CNN hates Trump so much that it will attack him even for how he handles his battle with COVID."
Mark Finkelstein chortled when CNN co-host expressed that Trump's stunt removal of his mask after returning to the White House set a bad example:
Berman's implication: Trump's gesture will encourage others to act in ways that will endanger them and others.
But what gave away Berman's game was that his show had already played the clip—twice!—before Berman made his dramatic demand. So Berman wasn't trying to save lives: he was just engaging in a virtue-signaling stunt. Never mind that most people -- even infected people -- take off their masks when they arrive at home. The only difference is most people aren't posing before a battery of cameras.
Never mind, of course, that Trump was engaged in his own virtue-signaling (or lack of same) with the mask-removal stunt. But Finkelstein -- and the rest of the MRC -- endorses that "virtue."
George Noory Hosts Jerome Corsi, And It Goes How You'd Expect Topic: Newsmax
George Noory is the host of an overnight radio show that delves into paranormal happenings and conspiracy theories. Jerome Corsi, well, you know who he is 0-- a sleazy, discreditedpeddler of conspiracy theories. When those two get together, you have an idea of what to expect. Here's how Noory summarized his radio interview with Corsi in his Oct. 13 Newsmax column:
Recently I had an opportunity to chat with Dr. Jerome Corsi on my radio show.
Corsi, who received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in Political Science in 1972, shared his analysis of current events, including the November election.
Corsi concurs with President Trump's contention that mail-in balloting is problematic, and cited the comparatively recent report of irregularities in a Pennsylvania election.
Further, he has concluded that election polling, which shows Joe Biden in the lead, is inaccurate because Democrats are over-sampled. Trump continues to draw enthusiastic and loyal crowds, he pointed out, while he described Biden as a noncharismatic figure who has not excited his base.
You know you're in for a load of hooey when Noory feels he has to pump up Corsi's credibility with his Harvard doctorate, which is unrelated to any of the shoddiness he has put out since then.
CNS' Debate Bias: Rebuttals And Snark For Biden, Stenography For Trump Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com's coverage of the first debate between President Trump and Joe Biden tracks with its usual pro-Trump slant: Statements by Trmp were presented without comment, while statements by Biden tended to be rebutted or snarked it with added editorial comment.
First, let's look at the Biden coverage (judged by Biden's prominence in the headline):
Patrick Goodenough -- who loves to fact-check Biden while giving Trump a pass -- complained that "Joe Biden in Tuesday’s presidential debate accused President Trump, again, of not asking China to allow U.S. health experts to visit Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak – a claim that has been debunked."
Goodenough also wrote that Biden "seemed eager to get across during Tuesday night’s combative presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio was that he is his own man, not beholden to the left wing of the Democratic Party," adding that his campaign worked with "democratic socialist senator" Bernie Sanders on a 110-page "manifesto" that "if implemented, will make Biden the most progressive president since FDR."
Melanie Arter wrote that Biden "said Tuesday that he does not support the Green New Deal, which President Donald Trump pointed out would cost Americans $100 trillion, and Trump said by not doing so, Biden 'just lost the radical left.'"
Susan Jones huffed that Biden declined to "answer the simple question" of whether he "would support Democrat [sic] calls to end the Senate filibuster and add more justices to the U.S. Supreme Court."
Another Jones article featuring Biden's "reopening plan" for the coronavirus pandemic had several paragraphs of transcript before Jones snarked that Biden "finally addressed the topic."
CNS published only two Biden-centric debate-related articles that were a relatively straight retelling of what happened:
By contrast, CNS published only three articles that keyed in on comments by Trump as indicated by the headline, and all three simply uncritically repeated what he said:
That's not surprising, given that both were written by chief Trump stenographer Melanie Arter.
Because Trump was not seen to have won the debate, CNS quickly issued a couple attacks on moderator and Fox News host Chris Wallace -- from its favorite right-wing radio host, Mark Levin, and in a blog post by editor Terry Jeffrey complaining that Wallace "personally engaged President Trump in a debate on 'climate change' that lasted for about 3 minutes and 45 seconds."
It was not until more than 18 hours after the end of the debate that CNS bothered to mention the big news from it: Trump's refusal to explicitly disavow white supremacists and his telling the Proud Boys hate group to "stand back and stand by." This being written by Arter, it's written blandly and plays whataboutism by also putting in the headline that Biden said Antifa is "an idea, not an organization."
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Biden Microaggressions Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center pushes mini-scandals and conspiracy theories in the hopes of making Joe Biden look bad. But nobody else seems to care. Read more >>
Conservatives have told people for years that we shouldn't trust the government to tell us the truth. So it's something of a surprise that the Media Research Center is offended (or at least pretending to be) when the media stated that the Trump White House or his doctors couldn't be trusted to fully disclose the extent to which President Trump was suffering from coronavirus.
Earliler this year, we 
Last month, Olivia Troye, former homeland security, counterterrorism and coronavirus adviser to Vide President Mike Pence, 
An anonymously written Sept. 28 WorldNetDaily 
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck lectured in an Oct. 8 
When President Trump underwent treatment for coronavirus, CNSNews.com ramped up its usual pro-Trump spin even more.
As much as it loves to bash and insult those it purports to critique, the Media Research Center has never been good at taking criticism. In an Oct. 5 MRC 
WorldNetDaily has long dabbled in white nationalism, so maybe it's not a surprise that it came to the defense of the right-wing thugs in the Proud Boys after they were suggested to be white supremacists during the first presidential debate. So we have Art Moore penning an Oct. 1 
Kathleen Krumhansl ranted in an Oct. 3 MRC Latino 
In 1999 the late Rev. Jerry Falwell exposed an example of indoctrination of young children in the British-originated "Teletubbies" TV program. One of the four characters, Tinky Winky, was defined by a mocking journalist: "purpleness (the gay pride color), [an inverted] triangle (the shape of the gay pride symbol) and 'magic bag' [a purse] as evidence for Tinky Winky's same-sex preference." The U.S. distributor replied, "To think we would be putting sexual innuendo in a children's show is kind of outlandish." [The effrontery!], but the article did admit "Tinky Winky has been a gay icon in Britain since the show premiered there in 1997." The ridicule of Falwell was so relentless that few would defend him for what we front-line pro-family activists instantly recognized as unmistakable toddler-targeted conditioning, called "grooming" in criminal justice terminology.
As we 
Despite the fact that it so hates anything that could possibly be declared "liberal" that it would be partying from the rooftops if Joe Biden had contracted coronavirus, the Media Research Center got upset that there was maybe a little bit of karma at work when President Trump -- who had been notoriously dismissive of masks and discouraged mask-wearing at his rallies -- came down with coronavirus earlier this month, the MRC went ballistic. Just read the headlines:
George Noory is the host of an 
CNSNews.com's coverage of the first debate between President Trump and Joe Biden tracks with its usual pro-Trump slant: Statements by Trmp were presented without comment, while statements by Biden tended to be rebutted or snarked it with added editorial comment.
