CNS Columnist Brings Back 'Demographic Winter' Topic: CNSNews.com
Several years back, we wrote about the ConWeb's focus over what they called "demographic winter" -- veiled racism that effectively boiled down to the concern that white Christians weren't having enough babies and brown Muslims were having too many. It was rarely put in those terms, of course; it's usually framed as "Western countries" having their "traditional values" squeezed out by "immigrants."
Well, CNSNews.com has brought it back with an Aug. 19 column by John Stonestreet. He engages in the usual eupemistic language as his headline shows: "America’s Looming Demographic Winter: Can We Avoid a Fertility Free Fall?" He does change things up, however, by throwing Japan and China into the discussion, but he makes it clear he's worried mostly about Christians' apparent failure to procreate:
Which brings me to what Christians should think about this: As my colleague Warren Cole Smith points out, the solution is obvious: Start making babies again. It’s easy. It’s fun. It’s good for America. And it brings great joy!
But you might be surprised at how resistant many Christians are, including young people, to this counsel. Twice this summer, I’ve made students cry just by suggesting that marriage and babies are biblically a package deal. Though Christians disagree about the morality of artificial birth control, we should agree that the contraceptive mindset, which treats children as optional only if we want them, runs contrary to God’s intention for marriage.
The demographic winter is coming. In fact, the first snows have already fallen. Will we make what is already “disaster” even worse?
Stonestreet's implied but unspoken subetxt: Non-Christians in the U.S. should perhaps be breeding less.
MRC Mocks Burkinis, Forgets Some Christians Like Modest Swimwear Too Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck sneers in an Aug. 20 post:
The New York Times on Friday offered a one-two punch when it came to defending French Muslims and particularly women wearing “burkinis” that allow them to comply with Islamic laws of women staying completely covered and lambasting those raising concerns about women’s rights as “farcical” and downright “bigotry” preventing French women from “widen[ing] their sense of identity.”
Naturally, the paper’s editorial board was the most direct in Friday’s print edition with the title “France’s Burkini Bigotry” that bemoaned how “France’s perennial problem with Muslim women’s attire has taken its most farcical turn yet with a new controversy over the ‘burkini,’ body-covering swimwear whose name is an amalgam of burqa and bikini.”
Using the strawman argument that somehow “burkinis” are seen by some government officials as “a new weapon of war,” the paper also smeared Christians appeared suddenly concerned that “[t]his hysteria threatens to further stigmatize and marginalize France’s Muslims at a time when the country is listing to the Islamophobic right in the wake of a series of horrific terrorist attacks.”
It then argued that the designer of the suit didn’t particularly intend of this to happen but rather have something for “women who did not want to expose their bodies — for whatever reason — the freedom to enjoy water sports and the beach” (and not, you know, anger their overbearing husbands and imams).
So the only reason a woman would wear modest swimwear is "anger their overbearing husbands and imams"? Would Houck tell the same thing to Christians who prefer similarly modest swimwear?
That does exist, by the way -- there are numerous purveyors of modest swimwear that cater to Christians. For instance, a company called Dressing For His Glory offers not just maximum-coverage swimwear but school uniforms and athletic wear geared to Christian women (and, maybe, their overbearing husbands and ministers?). The designer explains:
Soon after being saved, I received requests from our Christian School to create culottes and other garments. I was thankful that my experience in the garment industry had prepared me to create clothing that would glorify the Lord. I saw that there was a need for clothing that was both modest and tastefully styled. With the encouragement of my husband and church family, this site was created to offer these clothes to a wider audience. It is my purpose to make it possible for Christian women to be a good testimony to our Lord Jesus Christ by dressing modestly yet fashionably. I hope that my garments will be a blessing to you and allow you to bring glory to God.
Another company, Lillies of the Field, makes a similar pitch for its modest swimwear and apparel (again, for ladies only): "This cottage industry began with the intent to help ladies dress in a way that honors the Lord and brings glory to His name."
Heck, even the Wall Street Journal has written about modest swimwear, noting that "devout Christian women" and Orthodox Jewish women favor them.
NEW ARTICLE: WND Goes Birther on Hillary's Health Topic: WorldNetDaily
Hillary Clinton's purported health issues are the new Obama birth certificate at WorldNetDaily -- and as with its birther rants, WND won't admit they've been discredited. Read more >>
Tim Graham's Hypocritical Bashing of NPR for Getting Rid of Comments Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Tim Graham uses an Aug. 20 post to work up some faux indignation at National Public Radio decided to eliminate comments on its website because only a tiny fraction of its audience makes use of the comments and loses money. (Funny, we thought the MRC was all about fiscal responsibility.) After hurling the requisite "liberal media" potshots and declaring that "This could be seen as lessening the chance a conservative can actually protest their leftist content" -- this from a guy who likes to get into Twitter fights with NPR media critic David Folkenflik -- Graham concludes by saying:
From the conservative perspective, it seems quite obvious that the conservative point of view does not get a respectful hearing or anything approaching equal time on this taxpayer-subsidized network. So the scrubbing of comments merely add another insult, and leave a deeper impression that NPR is an insular network for like-minded liberals.
Of course, by making this criticism, Graham is suggesting that his own employer is an avatar of providing "equal time" that NPR won't by providing full and free access to its forums. He's wrong.
We can speak from experience. We've been banned from posting at both NewsBusters and CNSNews.com -- not because we violated any posted comment policy (there isn't one that we could find) or engaged in abusive language (the right-wing haters get a free pass on that) but because we expressed an opinion forum moderators disagreed with.
Additionally, Graham, MRC chief Brent Bozell and the main MRC feed have blocked us from the benign act of following them on Twitter. Why? We have no idea.Besides, it's not like we're prohibited from reading their tweets -- between alternative methods of following them and retweets from MRC-related accounts we are following, we can keep up with what they say just fine.
By aggressively blocking anyone who disagres with them, Graham, Bozell and the MRC are really the ones who are lessening the chance anyone can actually protest their fallacious right-wing content, and it reinforces the impression that the MRC is an insular network for like-minded right-wingers.
Sound familiar, Tim? It should. If you and the MRC can't take criticism and actively block and censor opinions you don't like, you have no moral standing to criticize NPR for doing something only slightly analogous to that.
WND Trying to Scare, Shame People Into Voting for Trump Topic: WorldNetDaily
It seems a little early in the general-election cycle for this, but WorldNetDaily is heavily going to scare-and-Shame mode to generate votes from Donald Trump.
On Aug. 8, WND touted a video made by WND author Dan Bongino attacking any Republican thinking of voting for Hillary Clinton out of their general disgust for Trump:
“Understand this … by supporting Hillary you are actively contributing to the destruction of the greatest country on Earth,” he thundered. “This is not a theoretical exercise. You are destroying your kids’ economy. You are destroying your kids’ health care system. You are destroying your kids’ education system. You are destroying any semblance of reality in our court system. You’re destroying any sense of getting the government out of your life through this massive overgrowth of government bureaucracy. And you’re entrenching seven years of Barack Obama.
“You. In real time, you’re doing that.”
Wayne Allyn Root followed with an Aug. 16 column ranting at never-Trumpers: "Go ahead, elect Hillary and ruin America. It’s what any selfish fool would do," adding that "True conservatives put God and country above their personal wishes. Hillary’s election ends both. Forever." Root concluded:
It’s time to pick a side. For my children’s sake, for your own children’s sake, for America’s sake, I beg of you … reconsider.
The next president will pick not only Justice Scalia’s replacement on the Supreme Court, but three to four other justices ready to retire. The next president will decide whether America is capitalist or socialist for the next half century.
If you love America and want her to survive, there is only one option:
Donald J. Trump.
Justice Scalia is begging you from his grave.
Root didn't mention that he had just written a book touting Trump's candidacy.
WND managing editor David Kupelian -- who has sold his soul to back Trump -- tries to rouse the evangelical vote in favor of an amoral, thrice-married Republican in his Aug. 21 column, and he lowers the bar considerably: "Whatever the Republican candidates’ shortcomings, taking the trouble to vote for a president who isn’t a known sex predator, Marxist or career criminal seems pretty sensible for a 'born-again Christian,' doesn’t it?"
Kupelian concluded with a huge hissy-fit, declaring that anyone who doesn't vote for Trump is complicit in "our nation's suicide":
The responsibility for our nation’s suicide will not fall alone on all today’s university-indoctrinated youthful socialists, or the newly enfranchised immigrants and felons who overwhelmingly vote Democrat, or the various “minority groups” to which Hillary Clinton shamelessly panders in pursuit of their support.
No, the blame will fall squarely on all the righteous “Never-Trumpers,” on the “my-guy-didn’t-win-in-the primary-so-I’m-staying-home” Republican voters, on the “Yes-I-signed-the-pledge-but-I’m-breaking-it-cause-Trump-was-mean-to-my-wife/father/brother” GOP primary candidates, on the “I-serve-another-kingdom-not-of-this-world” and “I-care-only-about-the-gospel” Christians, on the “I-don’t-like-Trump-or-Hillary-so-I’m-voting-for-the-weird-pro-marijuana-Libertarian-guy” folks.
In other words, the blame will fall on good people whose pride, ego, resentment, emotions and self-righteousness tricked them into betraying their country, even their own children – all while believing they were standing strong on principle.
Says a guy who renounced his own principles to back Trump.
Remember, it's still more than two months before the election. How insane will WND's pro-Trump rhetoric get as it gets closer to November?
MRC Dances On The Grave of 'The Nightly Show' Topic: Media Research Center
Comedy Central canceled "The Nightly Show," and the Media Research Center couldn't be happier.
The MRC never liked the Larry Wilmore-hosted show, of course, since it was not a regurgitator of right-wing talking points. But the show's cancellation has sent it into a fit of grave-dancing.
Curtis Houck's Aug. 15 post announcing the cancellation was cheerfully headlined "Bye, Bye! Comedy Central Cancels Larry Wilmore’s ‘The Nightly Show’." Houck declared Wilmore to be a "far-left comedian" and groused the show's purpose was "mocking and smearing conservatives to the delight of television critics and other liberal journalists from coast-to-coast." He added, "NewsBusters readers should be more than familiar with the most heinous statements on the show as our newsroom has subjected ourselves to the show so you, the readers, don’t have to!"
After the show's final edition, Houck took exception to show producer Jon Stewart's advice to Wilmore that he shouldn't “confuse cancellation with failure," and he whined that "Stewart spun for his friend that he did because his show (despite its horrid ratings, unfunny attacks on conservatives, etc.) did and shows like his in the future will succeed because he went first in making everything about race and insulting conservatives."
Houck went on to confuse cancellation with failure by referencing "the failure of The Nightly Show."
Clay Waters made his disdain for "The Nightly Show" clear in the headline of his Aug. 20 post -- "Liberal NY Times TV Critic Dances Around Why Larry Wilmore's Leftist, Humorless Comedy Show Failed" -- and he also confused cancellation with failure by calling Wilmore a "failed TV host" and asserted that "the show’s angry, humorless leftism did the show in."
The next day, Waters returned the next day unironically complaining that "the far-left culture magazine Salon" did an article on the show "with a headline ripe for ridicule" -- doubly unironically since the headline for this item includes the words "Smug, Leftist Salon." Waters huffed that "Perhaps the fact that fans of the show consider “funny” to be an extraneous detail, even for a late-night talk show on a comedy channel, explains why the show failed."
The word "smug" appears four times in Waters' item, including in the headline, though none of those usages were applied to himself.
WND's Clinton Foundation Fail Topic: WorldNetDaily
In reporting on Hillary Clinton's release of her tax returns, an anonymously written Aug. 12 WorldNetDaily article goes straight for the conspiracy angle:
It’s also still unclear which fees were pocketed by the Clintons as income and which were designated as funds going to charity through the Clinton Foundation.
The 2015 tax return showed the Clintons deducted $1,042,000 in charitable contributions last year — with $1 million going to the Clinton Foundation.
The just released documentary “Clinton Cash,” based on a book by Peter Schweizer, explains how the Clintons make big money by selling access to themselves and use “speaking fees” to get around bribery laws.
[...]
The Clintons have been eluding deserved criminal charges in connection to the Clinton Foundation for years, according to the author of the explosive new book “Partners in Crime: The Clintons’ Scheme to Monetize the White House for Personal Profit.”
“I wrote ‘Partners in Crime’ because it became clear to me that the Clinton Foundation is a criminal operation,” Jerome Corsi, a WND senior staff writer and New York Times best-selling author, said in an interview. “It’s set up like a charity, so it defrauds people all over the world to think that they’re contributing to a good cause.”
Just one little problem: That has nothing to do with Hillary's tax returns. As Media Matters points out, those charitable contributions went not to the Clinton Foundation that WND and other conservatives have been targeting throughout the election but, rather, to the Clinton Family Foundation, a completely separate entity that's a clearinghouse for the Clinton family's personal philanthropy.
The fact that WND can't tell the two foundations apart is just another reason it's unlikely to regain the credibilty it's squandered anytime soon.
MRC: Norman Lear Isn't A 'Patriotic American' Because He's Liberal Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Alatheia Nielsen rants about Norman Lear in an Aug. 17 item:
For an op-ed meant to convince Republicans to dump Trump, TV producer and media mogul Norman Lear sure talked a lot about himself.
Lear tried to portray himself as an average, patriotic American in an Aug. 15, guest column in The Hollywood Reporter, but it was all a ruse.
In between discussing his own WWII service, and revealing that he swears at the news, the liberal attacked Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump calling him a “demagogue” and “that human middle finger to the American Way.” Borrowing an iconic phrase from American politics, Lear charged Republican Trump supporters to look in the mirror and ask themselves “Have you left no sense of decency, Sirs?”
But no matter how much he portray himself that way, Lear isn’t just like every other American. His overachieving $50 million net worth aside, Lear has built his life around attacking and belittling conservatives — first with TV shows like All in the Family — and then by founding People for the American Way (PFAW).
Is Nielsen really saying that Lear can't possibly be an "verage, patriotic American" because he's liberal? Sure looks that way.
Nielsen went on to rehash a couple of bogus attacks on PFAW division Right Wing Watch:
An offshoot of PFAW, Right Wing Watch, tracks conservative groups and individuals. Media outlets often pick up Right Wing Watch’s conservative attacks, even when they’re wrong.
In April 2015, Politico, Salon, Huffington Post, The Washington Post and Mother Jones all claimed Scott Walker said ultrasounds should be mandatory since they’re “a cool thing:” a false accusation first circulated by Right Wing Watch.
Right Wing Watch also accused HGTV’s Flip it Forward stars David and Jason Benham of being “anti-gay, anti-choice extremist[s].” Thanks to outside media attention, the brothers lost their show.
As we documented when Nielsen first made these claims, that's a fair interpretation of Walker's words -- not "false" -- given that the context of the interview in which he made the remark was using the "cool thing" anecdote to justify the forced-ultrasound bill he signed into law. And the Benham brothers really are "anti-gay, anti-choice extremist[s]," however much Nielsen wants to pretend otherwise. Does she think it's somehow not extremist to call homosexuality "demonic" and rant outside abortion clinics that they are the "altars of Moloch"?
We Call BS on WND's Secret Jewish Poll Topic: WorldNetDaily
An anonymously written Aug. 20 WorldNetDaily article states:
Jews vote Democrat.
It’s a fact of political life. It has been a given for decades. But it may not be true for Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to internal polls by an outside group that supports the former secretary of state for the presidency.
Here are the surprising numbers – 54 percent approval, 45 percent negative.
To put that in perspective, her numbers when the poll was conducted last May are worse among likely Jewish voters in 2016 than was Jewish support for Barack Obama four years earlier when he was running against Mitt Romney.
The poll also showed Jews had higher regard for Vice President Joe Biden, Bill Clinton and Bernie Sanders, though the Jewish senator from Vermont was only slightly higher than Mrs. Clinton.
The only thing more anonymous than the WND reporter who wrote this is the source of the alleged poll. "Internal polls by an outside group that supports" Clinton is a meaningless description that says nothing.
WND has not earned the credibility (let alone regained the credibilty it has lost over the years) to not only promote an effectively anonymous poll but also to hide behind an anonymous writer in doing so. If it were a legitimate poll, WND wouldn't have to hide where it came from.
It's a BS story about a BS poll. It's that simple. And it's yet another reason why WND is in deep financial trouble.
Chuck Colson Sure Writes A Lot of CNS Columns for A Dead Guy Topic: CNSNews.com
Since the end of 2015, Chuck Colson has written five bylined op-eds for CNSNews.com, the most recent being on Aug. 5. CNS' bio for Colson tells us that he "founded BreakPoint in 1991, a daily radio broadcast that provides a Christian perspective on today’s news and trends via radio, interactive media, and print"; it doesn't mention that he's a convicted felon from the Watergate scandal.
Another thing neither the bio nor the columns mention: Colson died in 2012.
While the columns do note that they are reprints, and one shares a byline with Eric Metaxas, who does the foiceover for the Breakpoint daily radio show, they do not note why they are reprints: Colson isn't around to offer original material.
CNS regularly publishes Breakpoint-affiliated writers like Metaxas and John Stonestreet, so it's not surprising that it would dig into the Colson archives. But let's not pretend the guy is still alive and cranking out the content -- dead men should get no bylines.
Just an odd bit of dishonesty that raises questions about CNS' actual commitment to journalism.
MRC Is Mad There's No Country Music On Obama's Summer Playlist Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center hates President Obama so much, even the most benign things about him come under withering attack, such as being what is universally acknowledged elsewhere as a pretty good father for a president.
Well, the MRC's Melissa Mullins -- who declared in that earlier post that the idea of Obama being praised as a good father made her want to vomit -- is at it again. And what heinous crime did Obama commit this time to incur Mullins' wrath?
He issued a summer music playlist.
"Who in the world decided that revealing Obama’s summertime playlist actually constituted as newsworthy?" Mullins rants in an Aug. 13 post. She continued: "You will notice there’s not a single country song on the list. But Obama is taking care of his own leftist base, throwing in a tune from the Bernie-Bros folk band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros."
Yep, Mullins is mad that there's no country music on the list, and she thinks there's such a thing as "Bernie-Bros."
She whines again: "But seriously…this is considered news?" To which we have to wonder: This sort of overwrought hostility over somebody's playlist is considered legitimate media criticism at the MRC?
Apparently it is -- otherwise the MRC wouldn't keep giving Mullins for her Obama-hate.
WND Now Promoting Chemtrails Conspiracy Theory Topic: WorldNetDaily
You're WorldNetDaily. You have a massive credibility problem after years of obsessively promoting bogus conspiracy theories abvout President Obama. Your attempts to inject journalism into your operation by hiring actual journalists have failed, and you have to beg for money to keep going.
So what do you do? You start promoting the chemtrails conspiracy theory. You know, the idea that contrails left by jets are really the government spreading chemicals on an unsuspecting populations.
Oddly, the current chemtrail interest from WND comes from Chuck Norris. His Aug. 7 column insists that a recent speech by CIA director John Brennan in which he discussed geoengineering (which Norris concedes Brennan never admits the government has done) was an admission the feds use chemtrails: "Let’s be clear about at least one thing: Despite that those on the right and the left (including our president) have denied the government’s use of stratospheric aerosol spraying in the past, chemtrailing just collapsed as conspiracy. The climate cat is now out of the bag!"
WND followed up with an Aug. 16 article noting a study in which 76 of 77 scientists interviewed debunked the idea of chemtrails, adding sarcasatically, "In other words, nothing to see up here. Move along."
Two days later, WND published another article -- like the earlier one, minus a byline; presumably, no WND employee wanted their names associated with promoting chemtrail conspiracies -- noting that the study "is not convincing those who believe something more nefarious is at work in the skies overhead" and that "the blowback has been swift across social media, with opponents accusing the scientists of offering up a whitewashed report."
The article even highlighted how "One critic took the time to email a full letter to lead scientist Steven Davis of University of California at Irvine, and he copied WND on the letter," and it included Davis' response, in which he points out that the scientists "were able to provide simple explanations based on chemistry and physics that do not involve a large-scale government conspiracy."
This isn't really helping to fix WND's credibility issues, is it?
MRC Fact-Checks the Fact-Checkers, Complain Facts Don't Fit Right-Wing Spin Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's war on facts continues with a couple attempts to fact-check the fact-checkers.
The MRC's Kyle Drennen gives it a shot in an Aug. 16 post, taking on PolitiFact editor Angie Holan's look into Donald Trump's assertion that President Obama was the founder of ISIS. Holan pointing out that "the terrorist group that we now call ISIS was forming right after the Iraq war, during the Bush administration."
Gotcha, Drennen proclaims: "Notice how she hedged her commentary by remarking that the terror group 'had a number of name changes.' In other words, the 'Islamic State' didn’t exist until Barack Obama came into office."
Well, no, that's not how that works, Kyle. Just like cigarette maker Philip Morris didn't suddenly become a completely different company when it renamed itself Altria in 2003, ISIS didn't become a completely different entity from its precessor groups simply by changing its name. Drennen is being utterly disingenuous here.
When an MSNBC host noted that the decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011 was based on an agreement President Bush signed with Iraqis before heaving office in 2008, Drennen huffed: "It’s amazing how President Obama was able to abandon just about every policy of the Bush administration but was somehow helpless to alter that one in any way."
In fact, according to FactCheck.org (which means Drennen will have to impose his right-wing "fact-checking" on this too), the Obama administration tried to negotiate with the Iraqis to keep U.S. troops in the country longer, but then-Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki wouldn't yield on a U.S. demand that U.S. troops should be shielded from criminal prosecution by Iraqi authorities.
Next up is Katherine Franklin, who uses an Aug. 17 NewsBusters post to go after a PolitiFact examination of a claim made by Ohio Right to Life against Ohio Senate candidate Ted Strickland accusing him of wanting to "force Americans to pay for abortion on demand, up until the moment of birth, with their taxpayer dollars," a claim PolitiFact found "mostly false."
A few red flags are clearly noticeable: Franklin does not link to the offending PolitiFact fact-check (which is actually a state affiliate working with a local TV station, not the national PolitiFact organization, something Franklin does not note), she barely quotes from the fact-check in her attack on it, and she waits until the 13th paragraph of her post to disclose the salient fact that she is the communications director for Ohio Right to Life, meaning she's hardly objective on the issue.
Franklin accuses PolitiFact Ohio of engaging in "obfuscation and spin" in rebutting her group's claim:
Mostly, Politifact took issue with the idea of legalized abortion-on-demand up until the moment of birth. Politifact rated this claim as False “because abortions at the nine-month mark just don’t happen.”
However, just last week, FactCheck confirmed that “there are many places in the world where abortion up to birth is legal.” For supporting evidence, the column sited seven places in the United States where this is the case. Furthermore, from the limited data that is available at the CDC, we know that at least 6,180 abortions occurred in the United States after 21 weeks gestation in 2012. Guttmacher’s statistics put that number at 12,000.
As for “abortion-on-demand,” the Politifact column offers no True/False rating on this point, but instead spins the meaning of “on-demand” to include the location of abortion facilities in states like Oregon and New Hampshire. It’s a weak argument and sounds more like the spin that would come from NARAL or Guttmacher. Abortion is literally legal for any reason in Oregon and Politifact wants to debunk this on the basis that there isn’t an abortion clinic on every street corner? That is more than a bit of a stretch.
Franklin is the one spinning here. PolitiFact is pointing out that few abortions occur after viability and that Ohio Right to Life's claim that a woman would have an abortion at the "moment of birth" is rather nonsensical and a "hypothetical non-event," quoting a doctor as saying, "If the mother’s life was at risk, the treatment for that is delivery, and the baby survives."
And contrary to Franklin's spin on the "abortion on demand," PolitiFact pointed out that due to waiting period and mandatory physician consultations supported by anti-abortion activists such as Franklin, there really isn't such a thing as "abortion on demand."
Nevertheless, Franklin declared victory:
By my tally, at a minimum, 2 out of 4 of our points were clearly confirmed as “true.” That doesn’t sound like “mostly false” to me. On the other two points, Politifact had to spin the information in order to muddy the waters on whether abortion is allowed “on-demand up to the moment of birth.” FactCheck confirmed this point a week ago, using laws from the United States to support its review.
Of course, Franklin is the one spinning here, but neither she nor the MRC will admit it.
WND's Farah Revises His Trump Landslide Prediction Topic: WorldNetDaily
On July 14, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah wrote a column titled "Prediction: Trump will win -- big." He likened Trump's campaign to Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign in which most pollsters had him running behind Jimmy Carter, writing: "I don’t expect the polls to shift in a dramatic way right up until Election Day. This is going to be a nail-biter right up until election night. Then everyone will be shocked – especially all of Trump’s Democratic, Republican and media critics. Remember where you read it first."
But after a month of Trump shenanigans, gaffes and outrages, Farah would like to rethink things a bit.
In his Aug. 12 column, Farah began by writing, "As one of those who has suggested Donald Trump has the potential not only to win the 2016 presidential election, but to win in a landslide, it’s time for a note of clarification." He didn't link his earlier column as evidence of his "suggestion" -- which, in fact, was a declared "prediction," not a mere suggestion.
Farah complained that "Trump is out publicly day after day commenting on too much," adding: "He needs to stop winging it in speeches. The comment about the Second Amendment folks was a gift to Hillary. He needs to stop giving his opponent gifts. It was sure to be magnified by his adversaries, both Democrat and Republican – and it was exploited indeed. Everyone knows Trump wasn’t suggesting assassination, for heaven’s sake, but why does Trump offer up such opportunities for his opponents to exploit?"
Actually, Trump suggesting assassination is a reasonable interpretation of his "Second Amendment folks" comment, so it's ridiculous for Farah to claim what "everybody knows" Trump really meant. It's certainly much more reasonable than clainming that, say, President Obama saying "We are here today because we know this work is not yet finished" during a speech at the Buchenwald concentration camp meant that he was in favor of exterminating Jews -- which is exactly what Farah argued in a 2009 column.
Farah echoed his "stop winging it" advice to Trump later in the column:
He needs to stay on script. He needs to be calmer, cooler – to demonstrate that he is not controlled by emotions. Stop all the tweeting and the Facebooking. Act like someone who wants to be and is equipped to be the commander in chief. You don’t have to say whatever is on your mind at a given moment. Take a breath and think before you speak.
That's richly ironic, given how much Farah and WND have mocked Obama over the years for using a Teleprompter (here and here, for instance).
Farah claims that if Trump followed his advice -- which also includes talking only about Obama and Hillary -- "he can still win this race and win it big. I’m sure of that. I’m just not sure he is disciplined to follow this advice."
If Trump is too undisciplined to win an election, how can he possibly be a good president? Farah doesn't answer that question.
Dear Brent Bozell: Where Is CNS' Coverage on Trump Controversies? Topic: Media Research Center
Last week, Media Research Center chief engaged in yet another rant "to slam compliant journalists for minimizing Hillary Clinton’s scandals while playing up Donald Trump’s controversies."Bozell said the media is "circling the wagons around Hillary Clinton where they simply will not report."
It's imporatant to point out just how utterly hypocritical Bozell is in claiming this.
The "news" operation Bozell runs, CNSNews.com, has repeatedly failed to put negative articles about Trump on its front page.
CNS published 17 original stories in three days about Hillary's email server while at the same time it was in a 12-day stretch of publishing no original articles at all about Trump -- even though this was a period in which Trump tweeted out an anti-Semitic image.
CNS buried news of the plagiarized nature of Melania Trump's RNC speech, instead playing up how the speech was "well-received."
CNS' initial reporting on a Trump press conference in which he invited Russians to hack Hillary Clinton's emails didn't even mention he said it.
And just this week, CNS published twoarticles in one day by its reporters about an edited State Department video -- one of which is a rewritten press release from its new friends at Judicial Watch -- but revelations the same day about Trump campaign official Paul Manafort about his pro-Russian lobbying, and his subsequent resignation from the campaign, warrented no original coverage or even get a mention of any significance on its front page. Instead, CNS did publish an article in which Trump complained that "the establishment media doesn’t cover what really matters in this country."
Clearly, it's Bozell who's circling the wagons around Trump and minimizing his scandals. If his own "news" operation can't fairly report the news, he has no moral standing whatsoever to dictate to others about fair reporting.
Several years back, we wrote about the ConWeb's focus over what they called "demographic winter" -- veiled racism that effectively boiled down to the concern that white Christians weren't having enough babies and brown Muslims were having too many. It was rarely put in those terms, of course; it's usually framed as "Western countries" having their "traditional values" squeezed out by "immigrants."
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck sneers in an Aug. 20 
The Media Research Center's Tim Graham uses an Aug. 20 
Wayne Allyn Root followed with an Aug. 16 
Comedy Central canceled "The Nightly Show," and the Media Research Center couldn't be happier.
The Media Research Center's Alatheia Nielsen rants about Norman Lear in an Aug. 17 
An anonymously written Aug. 20 WorldNetDaily 
Since the end of 2015, Chuck Colson has written 
The Media Research Center hates President Obama so much, even the most benign things about him come under withering attack, such as being what is universally acknowledged elsewhere as a 
You're WorldNetDaily. You have a 
The Media Research Center's 
On July 14, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah wrote a 
Last week, Media Research Center chief engaged in 
