MRC Rants About Purported Media-Clinton Collusion, Ignore Actual Trump-Media Collusion Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center continued its conspiratorial ways by blaming the media for reporting unflattering news about Donald Trump in the Oct. 14 column by MRC Brent Bozell and Tim Graham, which asserts the conspiracy is real:
We once scoffed at the suggestion there was some form of a liberal media conspiracy against conservatives. Do liberals meet for breakfast and plan attacks on their ideological foes? Of course not, we'd answer. It's not a conspiracy. It's a mindset wherein what is liberal is good, and what is conservative is in opposition to what is good.
Apparently it was a conspiracy after all. The latest emails emerging from WikiLeaks have brought in the evidence. There is an unquestionable collusion between "objective" journalists and the Clinton campaign. Leaked emails show that her operatives discuss which reporters were the most pliant recyclers of their narratives (they picked Maggie Haberman of The New York Times). But reporter Mark Leibovich — also from the Times — gave Clinton's communications director, Jen Palmieri, veto power over quotes to be included in a Clinton profile in July.
It's not just WikiLeaks that has provided numerous other examples documenting the inseparable nature of the Clinton-media relationship. What TMZ has reported on the Trump tape with the shameless sex banter is far more telling. An article published yesterday by TMZ staff said: "Multiple sources connected with NBC tell us ... top network execs knew about the video long before they publicly said they did, but wanted to hold it because it was too early in the election. The sources say many NBC execs have open disdain for Trump and their plan was to roll out the tape 48 hours before the debate so it would dominate the news cycle leading up to the face-off."
In this election, it's now documented fact that "newsgathering" was not the goal of the architects of our top newspapers and newscasts. Rather, it was victory for the Democrats.
Bozell and Graham also claimed that Trump had "half-joked" that he'd throw Clinton in jail if elected president, whining that "the media bigwigs ranted and wailed that Trump sounded like Joseph Stalin or Adolf Hitler or a garden-variety tin-pot dictator." But Trump's repeated insistence Clinton should be jailed puts the lie to any claim of a "joke" and shows just how in the tank Bozell and Graham are for Trump.
Another sign of their in-the-tankness: In constructing this purported campaign-media conspiracy, the MRC is deliberately ignoring another one.
In August, Steve Bannon, the leader of Breitbart News, became the CEO of Trump's campaign. Repeat: The head of a media organization went directly from that to becoming the head of a political campaign -- something we are pretty sure never happened with any mainstream media organization. That is, in the flesh, the media-campaign collusion conspiracy that the MRC only imagines is happening in the "liberal media."
But has the MRC complained about it? Nope!
When Bannon's appointment to the Trump campaign was first announced, the MRC complained that Breitbart News was being maligned for its occasional anti-Semitic tendencies and how its incendiary content was accurately labeled as such.It said nothing at the time about the obvious media-campaign collusion.
Nor has it since. In fact, it's whitewashing Bannon's media connection completely. An Oct. 12 post by Graham complains that a Washington Post columnist "unloaded a Two Minutes Hate column on Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon," and he doesn't even acknolwedge Bannon is also the head of a media outlet.
Of course, pointing out right-wing media-campaign collusion, even when it's in plain sight, doesn't serve the MRC's -- or Trump's -- agenda. Feeding Trump's anti-media conspriacy, however, does.
Larry Klayman Reminds Us That He Can't Take Criticism Topic: WorldNetDaily
Larry Klayman is a buffoon, a terrible lawyer and an ambulance-chasing hate peddler who likes to file nuiscance lawsuits to take revenge on his critics. He can't even tell the truth about himself, and when he's confronted with a situation in which he must -- i.e., when his ex-wife accused him of "inappropriate behavior" with his children -- he pleads the Fifth Amendment.
Here's an example of thte latter, from Klayman's Oct. 8 WorldNetDaily column, in which he complains about the indignities he suffered while filing nuisance lawsuits in the 1990s against Bill and Hillary Clinton, whom he calls "the Bonnie and Clyde of American politics":
In addition, every two weeks, an article would appear in the politically compromised the Washington Post – which, not coincidentally, is a client of Kendall’s Williams & Connelly. The articles contained false and misleading “information” to smear me. The name of the biweekly column, written by sleazy, pliant reporter David Segal, was called “The Klayman Chronicles,” a phrase adapted from a film, “The Clinton Chronicles,” about Slick Willy. While I was flattered to have my “own” biweekly column in the Washington Post, I was also outraged that this major newspaper, however leftist and compromised, would make it a mission to try to run interference for Bonnie and Clyde.
You will not be surprised to learn that this story happened completely differently from the way Klayman portrays it. David Segal did not write a "biweekly column" about Klayman for the Post; he wrote a column called "Washington Hearsay" in which he occasionally included a "Klayman Chronicles" section (it's unclear whether that section appeared on a biweekly schedle, as Klayman claims).
The purportedly "false and misleading information" Klayman claims Segal wrote about him is apparently a reference to a 1999 column in which Segal highlighted how aggressive Klayman's Judicial Watch minions were in badgering bookers to try and get Klayman on TV. According to a former employee, writes Segal, "Klayman demanded that his public relations person call a handful of talk show producers every single day, rain or shine, regardless of the day's news":
"He would come in each morning and ask, `Who have you called and why haven't you called?'" said the onetime employee, who requested anonymity. "If the show was doing Hollywood that night, he'd say call anyway. If they were doing Tiananmen Square he'd say, `Well, I'm an international lawyer, try to pitch that.' If there was a school shooting he'd say, `So what? We're doing important things here.'"
Unsurprisingly, Klayman sued Segal over this, claiming that he had been defamed because Segal "falsely caused [him] to appear so bent on publicity for himself that he is insensitive to the murder of innocent children." The case went to trial and Klayman lost, with the trial judge noting that "Mr. Klayman does not dispute that he considers his activities to warrant significant media attention."
Klayman appealed and he lost there too. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals stated that "the challenged material, in context, demonstrates that the article's message centered on Mr. Klayman's drive for publicity" and that the statements "could perhaps be viewed as unpleasant and offensive from Mr. Klayman's perspective, but such perceived unpleasantness and offensiveness are not sufficient to sustain an allegation that material is reasonably capable of defamatory meaning." The appeals court concluded: "Rather, when read in context, a reasonable person of ordinary intelligence would understand the words to convey the message that a school shooting tragedy should not interfere with an employee's scheduling of television talk show appearances to enable Judicial Watch to explain its public interest endeavors, even if scheduling appearances required pitching the public relations strategy to a major event of the day, such as the Tiananmen Square event."
In short, Klayman is still holding a grudge over something written about him nearly two decades ago, reminding us that he can't handle criticism. (Soundfamiliar?)
Klayman spends the remainder of his column denouncing the release of the Donld Trump tape in which he discusses his vile misogyny (though he concedes Trump made "disgusting, lewd comments"), ranting that "I would bet the ranch that David Kendall, Williams & Connelly and their private investigators – either the old ones or a whole new crop of sleaze balls – were behind this." No evidence has ever surfaced that they are.
AIM's Kincaid Cheers Putin Meddling With U.S. Elections Topic: Accuracy in Media
Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid has normally despised Russian leader Vladimir Putin -- at least when acts as a foil for his right-wing views. Kincaid, who still lives in a Cold War mindset, has criticized Putin for pursuing "the Leninist dream of a world dominated by the KGB" and bashed Pat Buchanan for being "a slavish devotee of all things Putin."
But it turns out Kincaid is a slavish devotee of some things Putin. He has cheered Putin's anti-gay efforts and denied that he any kind of homophobe, declaring that "the Russian response to America’s export of homosexuality under Obama is understandable, not objectionable, and it doesn’t constitute 'homophobia.'" That "response" was a law that forbids people from saying anything nice about gays.
Nonw, in his Oct. 13 AIM column, Kincaid is cheering a foreign power -- Putin, no less -- involving itself in the U.S. election process by stealing other people's property and strategically releasing it to benefit Trump:
But he has professed his love for the Putin when he
The Hillary Clinton campaign says the hackers behind the leaked email evidence of their collusion with the major media are from Russia and linked to the Russian regime. If so, I want to publicly thank those Russian hackers and their leader, Russian President Vladimir Putin, for opening a window into the modern workings of the United States government-corporate-media establishment.
[...]
But the Russians, if they are responsible, have performed a public service. And until there is a thorough house-cleaning of those in the major media who have made a mockery of professional journalism, the American people will continue to lack confidence in their system.
Strange that an anti-communist like Kincaid is so happy that a foreign communist is meddling with American elections. Thats what happens when hate trumps intellectual integrity.
Meet Bob Just, The WND Democrat Topic: WorldNetDaily
Back in 2008, we identified Jerry Zeifman as a "Newsmax Democrat" -- a self-proclaimed Democrat who did nothing but appear at right-wing websites to bash his purported fellow Democrats (and misled about his relationship with Hillary Rodham Clinton during the Watergate investigation).
Well, it looks like we now have a WorldNetDaily Democrat, one Bob Just. His WND bio describes his this way: "Bob Just is a WND columnist, editor-at-large of Whistleblower magazine and a veteran national radio talk-show host. He has guest-hosted Sean Hannity's national radio show and also worked on Hannity's best-selling book, "Deliver us from Evil," doing research and development."
Does that sound like a Democrat to you? Yet he insists he is one.
In 2014, for instance, Just wrote a WND column insisting that "it has never been more important for mainstream Democrats to draw a line by not voting Democrat." Why? Because of the "disastrous leadership" of President Obama and the influence of Saul Alinsky on both Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Now, Just has written a couple of columns lamenting the state of "my Democratic Party." On Sept. 28, Just praises Donald Trump's campaign:
Among other things, that’s what Donald Trump says he’s campaigning to do. “Imagine what our country could accomplish,” Trump said recently, “if we started working together as one people under one God, saluting one flag.”
Sounds like “the greatest generation” talking.
And if Trump wins, the executive branch could cease being the enforcing arm of PC power. Then PC’s oppressive hold over the American people would start to break.
Just attacks Hillary Clinton as "she of the Benghazi scandal" and quotes approvingly from conservative anti-Clinton author Peggy Noonan. He concludes: "But most Americans aren’t fans of fantasy politics. They know something is terribly wrong – that this country is truly and dangerously on the wrong track. And that Hillary Clinton will not bring the change we need. In fact, she’s an enabler of our woes."
Just returned on Oct. 11 to lament "the cold civil war of my Democratic Party," in which he makes another pro-Trump argument and tries to spin away his vile misogyny: "Voters – especially women voters – are now being heavily pressured to consider Donald Trump as an unthinkable choice for president. Yes, his 'hot mic' comments from over a decade ago were unthinkable, but for many crucial reasons his candidacy is not."
Just's alleged "civil war" is between the religious and the secular, and he wants religion -- and Trump -- to dominate:
If we as voters allow our judgment to be clouded by anger or frustration at Donald Trump’s real flaws (possessed also by previous presidents), we will be making a dangerous emotional decision – rather than a sober one that creates the real future we want for our children and grandchildren. I’m asking you, as a Christian and as a Democrat, to vote to remain America.
The only “unthinkable choice” is Hillary Clinton.
Dos that sound like a Democrat to you? We didn't think so. But as long as Just insists on calling himself one, WND will continue to allow him to indulge in his fantasy.
MRC Invents a Media Conspiracy to Avout Talking About Trump's Sexism Topic: Media Research Center
Brent Bozell and his Media Research Center are in full conspiracy mode now.
As we've noted, the MRC has been in spin mode all week in trying to distract attention from the "Access Hollywood" tape of Donald Trump spewing vile misogyny, mostly serving as a surrogate for the Trump campaign by playing the Clinton Equivocation -- that anything the Clintons have done to women is far worse because, you know, the Clintons.
Anyway, the MRC has latched onto what it thinks is a full-blown conspiracy. TMZ reported, citing anonymous sources, that NBC officials purportedly knew about the Trump tape sooner than it has claimed and that the video's release was originally scheduled to influence the second presidential debate.
The MRC's Julia Seymour was first to pick up thte story, in which she downplayed Trump's misogyny by claiming that then-"Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush "goaded" Trump into saying those awful things. But her boss got wind of it and immediatedly went into full froth (with crazier stuff in bold):
What NBC has done is a direct threat to the democratic process and evidence of what conservatives have been saying all along. A network that purports to hold itself up as an objective news source while at the same time attempts to fix an election has lost all credibility. NBC must take responsibility, apologize to Donald Trump, and fire whoever was behind the strategic release of this tape. If the rest of the media do not call out NBC for their actions, they are complicit in a cover-up. Until then, I call on fellow conservative leaders to join me in denouncing this network for its hypocrisy and deliberate abandonment of journalistic integrity.
The ignorance and hypocrisy Bozell is displaying here is staggering.
First, note that Bozell says nothing about the content of the tape, which as a self-proclaimed family-values guy should give him pause. And he won't say anything beyond rote references to how "repugnant" it is, because that will make Trump look even worse, and as part of the GOP pact he and the MRC have, he can't do that.
Second, he's repeating TMZ's ignorance about NBC's structure. "Access Hollywood" is produced by NBC's entertainment division, a different entity from NBC's news division. The TMZ story doesn't discuss entertainment vs. news; it talks about NBC as a single entity. According to the Washington Post, NBC News official state they weren't aware of the Trump tape until just a few days before it was aired, and that the news side had allowed "Access Hollywood" to break the story first.
Third:The TMZ report is unsubstantiated with any on-the-record source. Is that thet standard the MRC is following for credible information these days, or is lack of substantiation perfectly accessible because it suits the MRC's agenda?
Fourth: "Fix an election"? "Complicit in a cover-up"? Really, Brent? That's just cray talk. Are you trying to tell me your own "news" operation, CNSNews.com -- which, last time we checked, is chock full of WikiLeaks articles and scant on stories about Trump's perviness -- never timed its coverage of a story to gain maximum outside coverage? That seems to be CNS' entire M.O.; the 2015 MRC annual report touted CNS' "constant presence on the Drudge Report."
Because CNS is apparently little more that Drudge clickbait, it didn't do the one thing that would have pre-empted the October Surprise nature of the "Access Hollywood" tape: vet Trump during the Republican primary process. That's not NBC's fault -- that's Bozell's, even though he came out against Trump during the primary.
But Bozell is still not done ranting about it. He's continuing to portray the predator Trump as a victim, appearing on friendly Fox Business to rant that the media is "secretly colluding with the Clinton campaign."
Here's a challenge for you, Brent: We dare you to release all records of contacts the MRC -- all divisions, including CNS -- has had with the Trump campaign and its surrogates about promoting Trump's agenda and devising messaging for damage-control operations and discussions about the success of that messaging. After all, your invention of a media conspiracy is being done for the benefit of the Trump campaign.
Do you have the guts, Brent?
When you can't defend the message, attack the messenger. That's what Bozell and the MRC are doing here by attacking the media for reporting on Trump's lengthy record of acting like a pervert.
Newsmax Still Won't Admit Kessler Used to Work There Topic: Newsmax
Poor Ronald Kessler. Even when he appears at Newsmax, he can't get his former employer to admit he used to work there.
An Oct. 11 Newsmax article touts Kessler's appearance on Newsmax TV in which he repeats his usual anonymous -- and, therefore, highly suspect -- claims that Hillary Clinton hates the Secret Service agents that guard her, but as has been the pattern, it's not mentioned that Kessler was Newsmax's White House correspondent for six years. Host J.D. Hayworth does call Kessler "our old friend," but does not specifically mention that he was a Newsmax employee. Needless to say, Hayworth makes no effort to challenge Kessler's lack of on-the-record sources to back up his claim.
Hayworth also lets Kessler -- a longtime Trumpophile -- uncritically defend Donald Trump over his vile misogyny, who comes up a novel defense: It's the women's faultfor throwing themsleves at him.
On Donald Trump's sexually aggressive remarks about women revealed in a 2005 hot-mic videotape, Kessler said people are missing the context.
Trump's longtime assistant Norma Foerderer "said these women were constantly after him and were shameless," Kessler claimed.
"If you look at that audio or video you see that he's saying when you're a star you can do anything implying, I think, that he had their consent to do what he felt like doing, I'm not condoning everything on the tape, but it's not much worse than Chris Matthews lusting over Melania [Trump] in a hot-mic moment."
"Basically Donald was like Elvis or like The Beatles constantly pursued by these very aggressive women," he added. "As Norma said, they had no shame and that's, I think, the context of what you saw on that audio."
Hayworth concurred, railing against the "double standard."
WND Peddles Discredited Tale of Bill Clinton's Illegitimate Son Topic: WorldNetDaily
Two signs that a WorldNetDaily article has a high probability of being misleading, if not outright false: 1) Jerome Corsi wrote it, and 2) Joel Gilbert is his source.
In 2012, Corsi promoted Gilbert's fraudulent anti-Obama film that promoted false, sleazy attacks against Barack Obama's family, and just before the 2012 election, Corsi pushed the Gilbert-sourced claim that Obama has Islamic writing on his wedding ring -- a claim so false Corsi's fellow birthers felt compelled to discredit it.
Now, in an Oct. 11 WND article, Corsi latches onto a video made by Gilbert about Danney Williams, who was pushed by Clinton conspirators in the 1990s as Bill Clinton's illegitimate son -- an identity Williams has apparently latched onto, presumably with a lot of coaching from Gilbert.
Just one problem with that: a DNA test conducted by the Star tabloid found no genetic link between Clinton and Williams. Accuracy in Media promoted the results, first reported by the Drudge Report.
Ah, but Corsi has a response to that too. In a separate article, he hunted down then-editor of the Star, who now insists that he saw no lab report from the 1999 test, despite him being quoted at the time as saying "There was no match, nothing even close," and that the Star never published a story about test. Corsi also claims that "the results made public came from the less reliable method known as a 'polymerase chain reaction' test, or PRC, that experts do not consider sufficiently robust to determine paternity."
Corsi then went into conspiracy territory, noting that "About a month after the 'DNA showdown,' The Star was purchased by the investment group Evercore Capital Partners LLC, headed by former Deputy Secretary Roger C. Altman, a longtime friend of Bill Clinton," with the suggestion that there was something fishy about the timing. Needless to say, Corsi offers nothing to back that up.
It's obvious that Corsi and Gilbert latched onto the Williams story for the sole purpose of desperately trying to distract from the mounting sexual harassment allegations against their favored candidate, Donald Trump. It's yet another sign of how desperate WND has become and how little it cares about the truth.
MRC on Trump's Vile Misogyny: Distract, Distract, Distract Topic: Media Research Center
Brent Bozell and his Media Research Center have no problem joining Donald Trumpm in the slime in trying to distract attention from Trump's vile misogyny and playing the Clinton Equivocation card.
Having previously whined about the October-surprise nature of the "Access Hollywood" video in which Trump is caught saying incredibly vulgar things, Bozell and Tim Graham hit that again in their Oct. 12 column:
Smelling Trump's blood in the water, the Clinton-enabling press sprang into action. None of them seemed to reflect for 5 seconds about how Trump could be describing Bill Clinton's modus operandi. Trump talked as Clinton did. The press' moral outrage was as phony as Hillary Clinton's. "This is horrific," Clinton shamelessly tweeted. "We cannot allow this man to become president."
The women who were actually harassed by Bill Clinton were never offered any support from Hillary Clinton, or her feminist army in the press.
After reliving the 1990s once again, they rant: "So ask yourself this question: How many times since 1994 have TV interviewers asked Hillary Clinton what she did or didn't do to smear these women? Try and find one occasion. As repugnant as it was, Trump's offense was words. The Clintons' offenses were actions. The cynicism boggles the mind."
Of course, as we all know now, Trump's offense was not just words, making Bozell's column suddenly inoperative. So he went into rage-bot mode to more fully distract, complaining even more about the "Access Hollywood" tape of Trump and seizing on a TMZ report (so apparently celebrity gossip sites are credible sources at the MRC now?) that NBC sat on the tape until just before the Oct. 9 debate for fuller impact:
What NBC has done is a direct threat to the democratic process and evidence of what conservatives have been saying all along. A network that purports to hold itself up as an objective news source while at the same time attempts to fix an election has lost all credibility. NBC must take responsibility, apologize to Donald Trump, and fire whoever was behind the strategic release of this tape. If the rest of the media do not call out NBC for their actions, they are complicit in a cover-up. Until then, I call on fellow conservative leaders to join me in denouncing this network for its hypocrisy and deliberate abandonment of journalistic integrity.
Bozell has not similarly asked why the Trump campaign may very well be colluding with Russian officials to fix the election by releasing the stolen WikiLeaks emails of Clinton campaign officials -- even as his MRC complains the media is not sufficiently covering them.
Meanwhile, Terry Jeffrey, editor in chief of the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com -- which, like a good Trump-loving right-wing outlet, is downplaying Trump's misogyny and gave original coverage only to Trump's defenders -- similarly went into distraction mode with his Oct. 12 column, in which he rehashed the Clinton impeachment trial. Jeffrey didn't mention Trump or Hillary in his column, but his clear implication is that because President Clinton wasn't convicted, there's no basis on which to criticize Trump.
And what was CNS' first original article on the additional claims from women that Trump groped them? An article by by Melanie Hunter -- who wrote the articles downplaying the "Access Hollywood" video -- uncritically noting Trump's insistence that the claims against him are lies.
WND's So-Called 'Consensus' On Trump Winning Debate Topic: WorldNetDaily
The headline of Garth Kant's Oct. 10 WorldNetDaily article declares: "Consensus: Trump wins debate, media lose along with Hillary." But Kant's "consensus" appears to be made up of people who support Trump and, thus, would be predisposed to say Trump won the debate.
Here's who Kant cites as part of his "consensus":
Ann Coulter
Michele Bachmann
Andrew McCarthy
The New York Post
Two writers at Lifezette, a right-wing website run by Laura Ingraham
Laura Ingraham
Monica Crowley
Frank Luntz
Newt Gingrich
Rudy Giuliani
John Podhoretz
John Hinderaker of Powerline
Kant does quote a couple of non-conservatives to suggest they were saying Trump won, but that's not quite the case. For instance, Kant writes: "Even a notable liberal conceded defeat, as Peter Beinart, a contributing editor for The Atlantic, tweeted, 'hate to say it but I think @realDonaldTrump staunched his campaign’s collapse tonight. Until the next big scoop.'" Successfully performing damage control does not equal winning a debate.
Kant also claimed the UK Telegraph newspaper "scorched the moderators for bias," but, in fact, the quote from the paper he uses shows that it's merely noting that moderator Martha Raddatz was repeatedly trying to get Trump to answer the question that was asked and that Trump was complaining about that -- not an admission of "bias."
MRC: Believe Clinton's Accusers, Not Anita Hill Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has long railed against Anita Hill for making sexual harassment allegations against conservative Clarence Thomas. The MRC's Tim Graham has long insinuated that she's a money-grubbing liar motivated to cash in on Thomas and advance her career as a law professor.
Hill plays an MRC pinata again in an Oct. 12 post by Nicholas Fondacaro attacking CBS for interviewing Hill in the wake of Donald Trump's vile misogyny (which the MRC is trying to bury). Fondacarohuffs that the CBS reporter "spoke as if it was a known fact that Thomas had somehow weaseled his way out of a deserved punishment. The CBS report failed mention Hill’s evolving story, or the testimony of other women which contradicted Hill’s accusations."
A few hours earlier, as it so happens, Graham was complaining that Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan was responding to Trump's collaboration with Breitbart News to bring out various Clinton accusers by calling it part of the "truth-averse" nature of Trump's campaign. Graham huffed:
This is how liberals dismiss these accusers. "Someone granted you an interview on TV, the rest of us ignored it or called you trailer trash, and now you're yesterday's news." That's called "settled, in one way or another," in the kangaroo court of the liberal media. The media don't believe in justice or dignity when the accused is Bill Clinton. It's "hate theater" to even make us think about what they've suffered.
Yet that's the exact same way Graham treats Hill. Apparently, it's OK to denigrate a victim if the person being accused of being the victimizer is conservative.
Furthering the double standard, Graham says nothing about the, ahem, evolving stories the alleged Clinton victims have told. Juanita Broaddrick, if you'll recall, testified in a sworn affidavit that Clinton did not assault her -- completely opposite to what she's claiming now.
And Kathy Shelton -- who was allegedly sexually assaulted by a man Hillary Clinton represented as a defense lawyer but who got off with a light sentence after irregularities in the case surfaced -- is claiming Clinton forced her to undergo a psychiatric examination the court record shows never took place.
Funny how only Anita Hill's story gets challenged by the MRC. But then, her story doesn't advance the MRC's agenda.
NEW ARTICLE: How Does An Ex-Soviet Bloc Spymaster Endorse Trump? Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily fave and ex-spymaster Ion Mihai Pacepa (and his co-author, Ronald Rychlak) strangely has nothing to say about Trump's cozy ties to Russia and its ex-Soviet spymaster leader Vladimir Putin. Read more >>
MRC's War on Fact-Checking Continues Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center remains as anti-fact as ever. Witness Curtis Houck's whining about fact-checking after the Oct. 9 presidential debate:
NewsBusters has documented extensively over the past year Politifact's blatant bias and selective fact-checking of liberals, but the divide kicked into high gear on Sunday night in the second presidential debate as, using previous posts, it examined only six statements by Democrat Hillary Clinton versus 15 statements by Republican Donald Trump.
Not surprisingly, Politifact ruled that, of the five Clinton statements, all five were either “true,” “mostly true” or “half true” with a sixth about coal and her energy policy given no review but instead directed readers to a post about her thoughts on coal “in context.”
As for Trump, they looked at 15 claims and deemed one “full flop,” seven “false” or “mostly false” (with a ninth all but labeled so), one “half true,” two “mostly true,” one “true,” and two not given a ruling.
[...]
Diligent readers would notice that there was nothing examined about what Clinton said concerning her e-mail scandal, Wall Street speeches, or Trump supporters being a “basket of deplorables,” but then again, this is Politifact we’re dealing with.
Moving to Trump, the litany of statement Politifact sprinted to debunk was, to say the least, long and extensive.
Diligent readers will also notice that Houck never does his own fact-checking of Clinton in order to prove PolitiFact wrong -- he simply rattles off a list of right-wing talking points. He's also pushing the claim that Clinton lied just as much as Trump during the debate -- which is simply not true. As the Washington Post noted, Clinton "on occasion made a factual misstep, but it didn’t even compare to Trump’s long list of exaggerations."
Yet Houck concludes his post by insisting he's not trying to draw false equivalence:
One can make the argument that Trump may say more things that are factually inaccurate, but a fact-checking site claiming to be dedicated to holding both sites accountable proved on Sunday night that they are either incapable of doing so or don’t care to.
Houck still doesn't want to concede that Trump tells significantly more falsehoods than Clinton does. When one side tells more falsehoods than the other, the record must reflect that. Houck insists that PolitiFact should be "holding both sites accountable," but in pointing out that Trump lies more, it's actually reflecting the record. Houck doesn't want to admit that -- or even the basic, indisputable premise that Trump does, indeed, tell more falsehoods. He must defend Trump, after all.
The MRC's war on fact-checkers continued with Tom Blumer ranting about debate fact-checks that were too pedantic for his taste and stuck with facts rather than spinning things for Trump.
Blumer concludes by stating: "We can expect more 'Stupid Fact Checks' to appear on a nearly daily basis between now and Election Day. To echo the press's disingenuous whine, we can expect them to occur so quickly that no one can possibly keep up with all of them. " Of course, to Blumer, any fact-check that points out how much of a liar Trump is is, by definition, "stupid."
WND Columnists Love Obnoxious, Sexually Predatory White Males Topic: WorldNetDaily
In condordance with its love of Donald Trump, WorldNetDaily is moving from merely excusing his vile misogyny to endorsing the behavior that makes it possible.
Kent Bailey -- who has cheered Trump's appeal to white males as a "tall, blond and Nordic 'warrior extraordinaire'" and insisted that "diminutive, pudgy, non-athletic and cerebral" Hillary Clinton just can't handle Trump, "who drives a golf ball 300 yards and eats nails for breakfast" -- devoted his Oct. 9 WND column to opining about something he invented called "Politically Correct Psychosis," which he claims "emerges when the Marxist, liberal and progressivist crypto-religious worldview is challenged, and it is especially prevalent in highly educated, upper middle class, Caucasian populations in New York, Florida, and California." A subset of this, apparently, is the idea of "toxic white masculinity," and Bailey links this in with his own brand of Trump-esque misogyny:
Today, feminist women and feminized liberal men are determined to not only rewrite European and American history, but the history of the species as well! They believe they can completely take over the country from the “toxic white men” who founded it and furnished it with virtually every invention in sight from the clock to the electric light, the Ford Model T, the Saturn rocket and, of course, the Internet – thanks to Al Gore. Read the works of historian Daniel Boorstein, and see who are the great discoverers, creators and developers of today’s amazing world – a virtual extravaganza of “toxic white men.”
7) What is this “toxic white male” thing all about, anyway? The answer-strained and fabricated notions about the literal “equality” of the sexes. Marxist liberals and their foot-soldier feminists are determined to produce equality in every nook and cranny of American culture even when it conflicts with human nature and objective reality. Thus, after 70 years of failure to usurp male influence and power, the new approach is to belittle, confuse, demean and ultimately disenfranchise men with the help of the media, the feminized universities and the Democratic Party.
If you cannot compete with men or take their place by legitimate means, then just bitch them to death, reject and shame them out of existence. This is basically how tattletale sisters have dealt with their annoying brothers since the dawn of time, and this is exactly what Hillary and her crowd are attempting with the ultimate toxic white male – Donald Trump.
So we can guess that Bailey is totally down with how Trump demeans women.
By contrast, Wayne Allyn Root dispenses with the pseudoscience of "paleospsychology" that Bailey hides behind and goes totally unhinged in his Oct. 10 WND column, sneering at the "fancy Ivy League degrees, media credentials and political titles" who predicted Trump was through and gave a full-throated endorsement of Trump's "savage" misogyny:
The media have it all wrong. The GOP establishment don’t get it. Trump isn’t a politician who has to abide by the rules. Trump is one big middle finger to all the people in power – to “business as usual.” He is our middle finger. He is our caveman. He is our savage. He is our animal.
So he doesn’t have to be well-mannered. Trump gets bonus points for being a savage. If he makes ladies in gowns faint … if he makes liberals vomit … if he makes crooked politicians tremble … then he’s our guy!
All of this bad stuff, all of these secretly recorded videos, they just make the story better. Trump isn’t a man; he is a folk hero. He’s Paul Bunyan. He’s the Loch Ness Monster. He’s Sir William Wallace, the hero warrior of “Braveheart.”
Yes, Trump’s an animal, a savage – but he’s our animal. He’s our savage. He’s a tough guy fighting viciously for us. And if he’s fighting “dirty”? Great. It’s about time we had someone on our side who brings a bazooka to a gun fight, instead of a knife.
Yes, any other politician would have stepped down, or backed down after that secretly recorded video was released. Trump DOUBLED DOWN. Instead of playing doormat or shrinking violet to Hillary at the debate, even after the release of that terrible video, Trump promised to put her in prison. Are you kidding me? This guy has balls in a nation filled with neutered men.
Trump wants to send Hillary to prison? Trump mocks her when she compares herself to Abraham Lincoln? Trump asks her why she doesn’t put some of her $250 million fortune in the race? Trump calls her behavior disgraceful? That was all music to our ears. This is our guy. Thank God we have a savage on our side!
Root concludes by going into full-throated nihilism:
So here’s my message to the liberals, the mainstream media and the GOP establishment:
Keep practicing premature prognostication. Stay delusional. Keep lying to yourself that Hillary is going to win. Stay over-confidant. We’re going to wipe that smug look off your faces on Nov. 8.
And keep the dirty tricks coming. Take it from the author of “Angry White Male” – you’re making us angrier. You’re creating a feeding frenzy. The more you attack him, the more you motivate us.
Release more videotapes – we dare you.
Show Trump using the “F” word. Release a Trump sex tape. Show Trump talking about how he owns all the crooked politicians. Prove Trump doesn’t pay taxes to our corrupt government. We love it. You’re just feeding the beast. You’re making the legend of Trump even bigger. You’re making our folk hero 10 feet tall. You’re creating a monster.
BRING IT ON. Let’s see the best you got. We don’t care. We’re coming to burn D.C. down. We’ve got our pitchforks. We’ve got our Brexit attitude on. More importantly, we’ve got our long, strong, vicious, savage middle finger …
We’ve got Donald J. Trump.
Of course, it's so much easier to destroy than to build, and Root talks only of destroying, of burning D.C. down. That makes him -- and Trump -- no better than a vandal. But he's too busy trying to burn down the country to notice.
CNS Reporter Spins Hard to Whitewash Trump's Vile Misogyny Topic: CNSNews.com
When it came to reporting on Donald Trump's vile misogyny in a video released last last week, CNSNews.com -- the "news" division of the Trump defenders at the Media Resarch Center -- first covered it only with Associated Press articles. That's not unusual for CNS, which posts no original content on weekends, though you'd think that with a hotly contested presidential election it might try to act like the news organization it claims to be and have some weekend staffing.
But with the new week, CNS was following the lead of its parent -- the only original articles it posted on Trump's vile remarks was from those defending him or spinning what he said.
An Oct. 10 article by Melanie Hunter featured right-wing strategist Mary Matalin doing some heavy spin by insisting that Trump merely had a "private conversation about sex he’s not getting," while the Democratic Party stood behind President Bill Clinton during his sex scandal with a White House intern. Hunter quotes others in her article critizing Trump, but the fact that she made Matalin's defense the lead means that's what the CNS spin will be on Trump -- presumably as dictated by editor in chief Terry Jeffrey, managing editor Michael W. Chapman or even MRC chief Brent Bozell himself.
Later that day, Hunter followed up with another article reinforcing the official CNS spin, this one uncritically quoting Mike Pence, Trump's vice presidential candidate, spinning even harder by saying that "while he doesn’t condone what GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump said in controversial remarks that that surfaced over the weekend, he believes in forgiveness and grace."
In both articles, Hunter rather benignly whitewashes the extent of Trump's vile misogyny, not bothering to quote any of Trump's actual words but, rather, merely claiming he was caught on tape "bragging about kissing and groping women."
It looks like Hunter had her marching orders: hide the truth and spin for Trump. And that's exactly what she did. It makes her a good right-wing apparatchik, but not that good -- or honest -- of a reporter.
WND Pushes False Anti-Hillary Story Topic: WorldNetDaily
Bob Unruh breathlessly writes in an Oct. 11 WorldNetDaily article:
There long has been evidence of Hillary Clinton’s sense of entitlement – the stories of her ordering Secret Service officers to carry her bags, her unabashed demands for hundreds of thousands of dollars for speeches, her insistence on specific travel accommodations and much more.
Now there’s evidence of exactly what she thinks of the average American who works hard and pays taxes to support the Washington establishment.
Not much.
“I know she has begun to hate everyday Americans,” wrote her campaign manager, John Podesta, in an email.
Hillary for prosecution, not president! Join the sizzling campaign to put Mrs. Clinton where she really belongs
The email has surfaced in a WikiLeaks dump of Podesta’s emails. Infowars’ Paul Joseph Watson noted the email, sent by Podesta on April 19, 2015, was a discussion about what “talking points Hillary should use in framing her candidacy for president in order to get a good head start.”
“I know she has begun to hate everyday Americans, but I think we should use it once the first time she says I’m running for president because you and everyday Americans need a champion,” he wrote. “I think if she doesn’t say it once, people will notice and say we false started in Iowa.”
Her director of communications, Jennifer Palmieri, responded, “Truth.”
“To emphasize,” Watson wrote, “John Podesta, Hillary’s campaign guru, is in black and white admitting that Hillary Clinton hates everyday Americans. This is huge.”
In fact, that's not true at all. As Media Matters explains, there is context to that email that Infowars -- the Alex Jones conspiracy website -- and Unruh ignore. The reference was to the "everyday Americans" slogan that Clinton used when she first launched her presidential campaign; when Podesta says "I know she has begun to hate everyday Americans," he's saying she hates the phrase in relation to her campaign.
Watson's original article has apparently been removed from the Infowars website and sister site Prison Planet, presumably because it's utterly false. As of this writing, Unruh's article is still live.
Unruh and WND are getting what they deserve for considering Infowars to be a credible source of information.
We know WND will publish any anti-Hillary claim it thinks it can get away with, regardless of its factual accuracy. It's already had to remove at least one false article from its website -- never apologizing for publishing that false information -- and it has published lies about Hillary it won't retract.
The Media Research Center continued its conspiratorial ways by blaming the media for reporting unflattering news about Donald Trump in the Oct. 14 column by MRC Brent Bozell and Tim Graham, which asserts the conspiracy is real:
Larry Klayman is a buffoon, a 
Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid has normally despised Russian leader Vladimir Putin -- at least when acts as a foil for his right-wing views. Kincaid, who still lives in a Cold War mindset, has 
Back in 2008, we 
Poor Ronald Kessler. Even when he appears at Newsmax, he can't get his former employer to admit he used to work there.
Two signs that a WorldNetDaily article has a high probability of being misleading, if not outright false: 1) Jerome Corsi wrote it, and 2) Joel Gilbert is his source.
Brent Bozell and his Media Research Center 
The headline of Garth Kant's Oct. 10 WorldNetDaily 
The Media Research Center has long railed against Anita Hill for making sexual harassment allegations against conservative Clarence Thomas. The MRC's Tim Graham has 
The Media Research Center remains as 
Kent Bailey -- who has 
By contrast, Wayne Allyn Root dispenses with the pseudoscience of "paleospsychology" that Bailey hides behind and goes totally unhinged in his Oct. 10 WND 
When it came to reporting on Donald Trump's vile misogyny in a video released last last week, CNSNews.com -- the "news" division of the 
Bob Unruh breathlessly writes in an Oct. 11 WorldNetDaily 
