MRC Clinton Equivocation Watch Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has been hitting the Clinton Equivocation hard this election season as it tries to deflect ever-more-sleazy accusations against Donald Trump by insisting that a Clinton did it first and worse.
One MRC researcher with a particular Clinton Equivocation fixation is Brad Wilmouth. On Oct. 11 he complained:
As the broadcast network evening newscasts on Monday recalled both the tape from 2005 revealing Donald Trump speaking lewdly about his behavior toward women, and Trump inviting women who have accused Bill Clinton of either sexual harrassment or assault to Sunday's debate, there was an obvious double standard in the willingness to use the term "sexual assault" with regard to Trump's behavior, while Clinton's behavior was alluded to in a more vague and toned down manner.
While the CBS Evening News called Trump's behavior "sexual assault," but Clinton's more violent behavior was labeled as "extramarital affairs" on the same show, ABC's World News Tonight and the NBC Nightly News each used a clip of debate moderator Anderson Cooper charging that Trump "sexually assaulted" women, but in both news casts used more vague terms like "wrongdoing" and "abused," or using words like "accusers" and "accused," giving little detail on what the Clintons were being accused of.
But Wilmouth still wasn't satisfied that the media was sufficiently dragging Bill Clinton down to Trump's level. So he recycled his complaint for an Oct. 21 post:
Since a number of women have gone public with charges that Donald Trump groped or forceably kissed them in past encounters, there has been a pattern of the broadcast networks being more likely to use the words "sexual assault" in referring to Trump's behavior, while using more toned down or vague wording to describe accusations against former President Bill Clinton of behavior that is at least as severe. This double standard has especially recurred several times over the past week on ABC's World News Tonight.
Between them, ABC correspondents Tom Llamas and David Wright have used forms of the words "sexual assault" or "assault" five times across three shows since last Thursday. But, on all five occasions when similar accusations against Clinton were referenced, Llamas avoided the word "assault," using words like "sex scandals," "sexual misconduct," and "accusers."
Yes, Wilmouth is spending what appears to be a substantial amount of time obsessing over whether Trump is being accused too much of engaging in "sexual assault,"and not enough time wondering why Trump's behavior should be compared to someone who is not on the ballot.
Considering the foregoing, the idea that there is a very substantial contingent of the American electorate still willing to elect Clinton is sobering at best, and horrifying at worst. When we look at Hillary Clinton at rallies or debates, leering into the cameras with bug eyes and Jack Nicholson’s frozen Joker smirk, I believe we are looking into the face of sheer madness.
That aside, Clinton’s lack of comeliness is probably the least of her liabilities. Despite all the efforts of the press, at this point the empirical evidence should speak for itself. If it does not – and barring widespread election fraud – we will know the answer in November. Then it will be apparent that Americans’ capacity for self-delusion has overcome their basic instinct for self-preservation.
Hillary Clinton is a user. No, to my knowledge she doesn’t do illegal drugs. Her drug of choice is political power – and it should be obvious to anyone who is paying attention that she has and will use anything or anyone to get it. The best example is her 41-year marriage to a charismatic serial philanderer, who used his charm to become president of the United States and now is attempting to use that charm to secure power again through his dutifully addicted wife.
We’re caught in a terrible impasse, a choice we must make between a woman who wants to be commander in chief and leader of the free world, a woman who polls show over 60 percent of other women believe to be untrustworthy and untruthful – and a man who never held public office and who has a penchant for fiery outbursts of accusations, name calling, bragging promises and flimsy outlines of impossible-sounding programs.
It’s clear that no matter what sleaze surrounding Hillary Clinton and her gang of criminals is uncovered, the march is on to elect her president, bringing into the White House with her: radical Black Lives Matter, Farrakhan, Sharpton and New Black Panthers types, self-hating Jew and Nazi collaborator billionaire George Soros, more Muslims like her top aide and girlfriend, Huma Abedin, radical gay, lesbian and transgender activists, socialists, communists, atheists, anarchists, domestic terrorists and anyone who wants, in President Obama’s equally evil wake, to destroy the nation and refashion it in their image.
The angst displayed by the worse – Hillary– and Michelle Obama over Trump’s disgusting remarks bragging about his ability to seduce women, caught on tape 11 years ago, was truly over the top in light of more recent events. Didn’t Michelle and her husband gratefully accept help from the man who had sex with an intern in the Oval Office? Can you imagine what would happen to a Republican president who did such a thing? Can you imagine what would happen to a college president or the CEO of a corporation who did such a thing? It’s disgusting!
Make no mistake about it. If you are a conservative Christian and Hillary Clinton becomes our next president, she will declare war on certain aspects of your faith. Your religious liberties will be targeted, and your biblical beliefs will be branded disturbing, if not downright dangerous.
Do not be deceived.
She has made herself perfectly clear on this in the recent past, and we deny this is to our own peril.
I can absolutely say, without reserve, that Hillary Rodham Clinton is a fraud from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. The way she portrays herself, in contrast to who she really is, are two different revelations.
FRAUD, n. [L. fraus.] Deceit; deception; trick; artifice by which the right or interest of another is injured; a stratagem intended to obtain some undue advantage; an attempt to gain or the obtaining of an advantage over another by imposition or immoral means, particularly deception in contracts, or bargain and sale, either by stating falsehoods, or suppressing truth.
From her boastful (criminal) record to her contrived and fabricated support, with her answers and comments, it is not hard to detect that she is a fraud.
Much of Wednesday’s debate was spent on her accusing her opponent of crimes of which she is guilty.
For one thing, Hillary Clinton seems to have pulled together a coalition of, shall we say kindly, “non-traditional” voters?
people on the government dole
illegal voters
cop haters
those who detest the military
Jew haters
Christian bashers
those who sacrifice children to the god of convenience
Communists
leftist ideologues
God deniers
gender benders
Muslims
It’s an odd mix, you have to admit. It’s hard to imagine a future of peaceful coexistence between some of these groups, let alone self-governance.
And maybe that’s just the point. Do you think Hillary Clinton believes in self-governance – the concept unique to the American constitutional system?
[...]
But it’s certainly interesting that she doesn’t mind throwing stones while clearly living in a big glass menagerie of malcontents and drawing more than her share of support from some who could accurately and fairly called “deplorables.”
CNS' Starr Attempts A False Planned Parenthood Smear, And Fails Topic: CNSNews.com
An Oct. 17 CNSNews.com article by Penny Starr carries the provocative headline: "Planned Parenthood Retweets Article: Founder Margaret Sanger Just Another Racist American."
Except that the article in question doesn't say that all, no matter how much Starr hints it does. She can only hint at that because she knows it doesn't.
The article in question that Starr is attacking Planned Parenthood for having retweeted comes from the Rewire site, and it debunks the right-wing idea that Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was motivated by racism and shows how anti-abortion activists use that false image of Sanger to shame black women. The part of thte article that Starr and CNS presumably think portrays Sanger as a "racist American" -- a phrase that appears nowhere in the article -- is a statement that "The United States is rooted in anti-Blackness" and most major corporations have some form of racism in their history, so "any argument that Black women in America should disavow Planned Parenthood because of some history of anti-Blackness would necessarily require that Black women disavow the very country in which we live."
It's quite a stretch to glean "Sanger is a racist" out of that -- especially since, as even Starr concedes, the bulk of the article makes the argument that Sanger was not motivated by racism.
Curiously, she doesn't dispute the article's main contention -- perhaps because she knows her employer has engaged in promoting those very same false narratives. As we've documented, CNS' parent, the Media Research Center, used these false and misleading quotes just last year to spread lies about Sanger.
So, with its wildly misleading headline and a refusal to challenge what the disputed article actually says, it seems Starr's attempt to smear Planned Parenthood is a failure.
Non-Shocker: MRC Loved Chris Wallace As Debate Moderator, Because Fox News Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's praise for Fox News' Chris Wallace's performance as moderator of the third presidential debate is utterly unsurprising. The fix was in from the beginning -- more specifically, since 2007, when Bozell demanded that Wallace be allowed to host a debate specifially because he would be Republican-friendly.
When Wallace was named a moderator, the MRC's Tim Graham cheered "the first nod to Fox News." The MRC had a curious hands-off policy on Wallace in the runup to his debate. While it cranked out working-the-ref articles detailing what it claimed to be the most "liberal" moments of earlier debate moderators Lester Holt, Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz, as well as mocking Matt Lauer's purported lack of gravitas before a presidential forum he moderated (Elaine Quijano was exempt because, according to Graham, "The MRC doesn't have a thick file on Elaine Quijano"), it did no such treatment for Wallace despite his extensive record. In fact, Graham insisted that Wallace wouldn't skew right: "Wallace won't want to look like a Trump booster, and the liberal media noted some tough questions in the primaries. The Washington Post in March hailed how Wallace set a 'bear trap' for Trump in a budget question."
When the earlier debates were over, MRC chief Brent Bozell rushed to attack the moderators. After Wallace's debate, Bozell was practically slobbering over the guy, giving him an "A+ PERFECT" grade:
Chris Wallace killed it tonight as moderator. He was perfectly fair to both, asking the exact same number of tough questions to both sides (eight to each). He asked the questions that his colleagues at CNN, CBS, ABC, and NBC refused to ask in the three prior presidential and vice presidential debates. His questions were substantive, relevant, issue-based, and focused on the records and quotes of the two candidates. He also remembered the first rule of debate moderating: GET OUT OF THE WAY. He was a total pro in every way, allowing the candidates to debate each other and explain themselves. I hope Fox’s competitors took notes. This is how it's done!
Bozell offered nothing to back this up, just like he never bothered to back up any of his attacks on the other moderators.
He didn't have to, because none of his post-debate statements were based on actual performace. Wallace got slobbering praise because he works for Fox News, where Bozell and other MRC staffers appear regularly. The other moderators were bashed because they don't work for Fox and because bashing them furthers the MRC anti-media agenda.
So dedicated is the MRC to protecting Wallace that Graham went after one commentator who deviated from the "near-universal praise" for him.Graham, like Bozell, is ignoring that Wallace was not balanced and did put a right-wingspin on some questions.
That analysis would seem to bolster John Ziegler's argument that the MRC cares more about fundraising than serious analysis of media bias. Of course, noting such things only gets you smeared as a drunk by Graham.
WND's Kinchlow Demonstrates 'The Danger of A Biased Media,' But Not How He Thinks Topic: WorldNetDaily
Ben Kinchlow's Oct. 16 WorldNetDaily column is titled "The danger of a biased media," in which he complained: "In an 'unbiased' media, why is it permissible to report allegations of improper behavior against one candidate but not another?"
He then cites right-wing author Ronald Kessler's attacks on Hillary Clinton, based on anonymous claims. Kinchlow touts Kessler as "the Washington Post’s investigative reporter," but he hasn't worked for the Post for decades; his most recent journalism gig was for Newsmax, where he was anythingbutunbiased.
Which highlights the major flaw in Kinchlow's analysis. He complains:
If you think most of what you see on TV, read in the print media or hear on radio is there without conscious design, then the free press – our “unbiased media” – have been extraordinarily successful in fooling a lot of people.
But he doesn't seem to understand that his column is published by one of the most biased "news" organizations on the planet. He should read WND's website sometime to see how many smear jobs they perpetuate against Hillary vs. actual reporting on Donald Trump's vile misogyny.
As for the media "fooling a lot of people," we need only to go to Kinchlow's column of the previous week, in which he once again goes birther on Obama:
We must introduce, and face the repetition of, a concept that led to the election of Barack Obama as president. It must be clearly understood that an objective view of Obama’s qualifications for president reveals the qualifications simply do not exist. There is nothing in his past, in terms of achievement, that qualified him for the office he now holds.
America wanted to prove to others, and itself, that it was not “racist.” This was the perfect opportunity to show that true equality had at last arrived in America. A relatively handsome, young, college-educated (no serious research done on that issue), articulate black male (no serious research into his birth circumstances) was the candidate.
In fact, Obama has released two birth certificates, verified as authentic by Hawaii state officials.
Kinchlow might want to address the danger of the highly biased media that has been extraordinarily successful in fooling him -- while also publishing him -- before he complains about the "unbiased media."
NEW ARTICLE: The Return of the Clinton Equivocation Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center gives Donald Trump a pass on his increasingly sleazy behavior by insisting that a Clinton did it first and worse. Read more >>
MRC's Graham Smears MRC Critic As Drunk Topic: Media Research Center
It seems the Media Research Center may be even worse at taking criticism than WorldNetDaily 's JosephFarah.
MRC director of media analysis Tim Graham spent an Oct. 17 post lashing out at conservative activist John Ziegler for pointing out at Mediaite that Donald Trump's claim of media bias is the desperate defense of a terrible candidate, obscuring what he considers genuine media bias, and that the MRC is simply trying to cash in by latching on to it because it "fundraises off of bad media coverage and wouldn’t exist if the problem ever really got solved." Mostly, Graham portrays Ziegler as drunk for saying it by making "Breathalyzer" references. Commence the whining, Tim:
There's nothing laughable in the charge that the problem of media bias against Trump isn't "real." You may argue Trump is not a movement conservative (many did during the primaries and many still do). But the reality of media bias against Trump surrounds anyone who follows the political media right now. Ziegler then launches into arrogant boasting about how he takes media bias too seriously to face "fake fighters against bias" like the "conservative" "Media Research Center."
[...]
Dear John: We don't know what we did to deserve this Breathalyzer-worthy rant. Many of us have spent most of our careers building the case against liberal media bias. There's nothing "fake" about it. You don't provide one "fake" example. If we are somehow insincere to fight the good fight for 30 years insincerely to keep the money coming in -- then can't it just be easily turned around on your career?
It's understandable that Ziegler is upset that many in the conservative media lined up with Trump in the primaries. It might even be understandable that Ziegler is mad that the MRC is still identifying how the media proves daily it's seeking a Trump defeat in the general election. Apparently we should somehow be taking two months off and knitting Reagan quilts. But it's offensive to insist anyone who disagrees with your tactics is whoring themselves out for (non)profit.
But it's undeniable that the MRC's embrace of Trump's media bias claims has been selective, depending on the target. As we've documented, the MRC wouldn't touch Trump's accusations of media bias in 2015 -- but then, they were targeted at Fox News, where Brent Bozell has a weekly slot on "Hannity" and he and other MRC employeees make regular appearances. It's only when Trump started targeting the so-called "liberal media" -- coincindentially, the MRC's main target -- in the wake of bad news about his vile misogyny that the MRC bothered to echo them.
Also remember the MRC's big flip-flop: It was originally bashing the "liberal media" for being too soft on Trump.
But Graham is too busy smearing Ziegler as an alcoholic to address the substance of his criticism, that Trump didn't push the "crooked media" line until women stepped forward with tales of his boorish behavior, and "Trump’s complaints are not based in truth, but in desperation. He is saying whatever might sound good at the moment to his base of fanatical future subscribers to whatever media venture he will create after he loses."Graham certainly knows this as well. But as long as he's saying the right words about a "crooked media," Graham won't bother to acknowledge that Trump's just playing to the base to save his political skin and not making an intellectual argument.
That appears to be because Graham knows he's right about the MRC being opportunistic. If the MRC was sincerely interested in media, wouldn't it have taken all bias complaints by Trump seriously? After all, accusing Fox News of media bias wouldn't rake in the donations that accusations against its pretedermined targets generate.
To see that just requires applied logic, not a chemically altered state. The fact that Graham can't, or won't, see the difference between the two tells you all you need to know about the MRC.
WND's Corsi Hurling Mud At Hillary, To Nobody's Surprise Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has been desperately trying to distract its readers from bad news about Donald Trump and his woman problems by trying to sling as much mud at Hillary Clinton as it can. You know, business as usual.
WND is flinging so much mud, in fact, that we don't have the time to rebut it all beyond pointing out that it should be assumed that WND has no credibility and because of that, nobody takes their so-called reporting seriously.
It is important, however, to document the atrocities to show the continuation of WND's downward spiral. We've already noted WND's false reporting on Hillary's "everyday Americans" remark (which, despite being utterly false, is still live at WND) and its pushing of the discredited story of Bill Clinton's purportedly illegitimate son.
Let's take a quick look at the mud Clinton-hater Jerome Corsi is flinging these days.
Corsi has been really desperately trying to insist that Hillary, not Trump, is the one with all the questionable ties to Russia. So much so, in fact, that he haswrittenfourarticles on the subject. In the first article, he tries to whitewash one of the Trump campaign's most damning connections -- that former campaign manager Paul Manafort received millions as a lobbyist for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine by insisting that "opponents have failed to document he ever received $12.7 million in approximately 22 previously undisclosed cash payments from Yanukovych’s pro-Russian party as supposedly documented by ''black ledger' entries revealed by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau."
But Corsi has so discredited himself over the years -- we remember all too well his bogus journey to Kenya to get fake documents and his Obama ring fail -- that he simply cannot be believed.
The "Bill Clinton's illegitmate son" story is his as well -- he's working with charlatan filmmaker Joel Gilbert despite the fact that Gilbert burned him badly on the Obama ring thing. He has a new story up announcing that said "illegitimate son," Danney Williams, will file a paternity suit against Bill Clinton. Corsi is continuing to deny that a 1999 DNA test was meaningful.
Corsi is censoring the obviously political motivations behind Williams, who is almost surely being exploited by pro-Trump forces like Gilbert. The statement announcing the paternity suit is hosted at the website for Citizens for Trump, which claims to be a "grassroots" group with the goal to "assist the Trump for President campaign in both winning the nomination for the GOP, and the general election in November of 2016."
Corsi also promoted the appearance of Malik Obama, President Obama's half-brother, at Wednesday's debate as a guest of Trump. Gilbert has his sleazy hand in this as well. Meanwhile, Right Wing Watch has documented how WND, led by Corsi, flipped from bashing Malik Obama as a filthy Muslim to joining Gilbert in exploiting him.
On top of all this transparently hackish anti-Clinton work, there's the fact that Corsi's anti-Hillary book is tanking so badly (it's currently No. 11,812 at Amazon, an abysmal ranking for a current-events book pegged to the presidential election) that WND is resorting to begging readers to buy it in bulk, and it's clear this election year is a bust for Corsi.
UPDATE: We forgot to note that Corsi has been maintaining another bit of Clinton-hating slime: recruiting poliitically driven doctors who have never examined Hillary Clinton to make various alarming armchair diagnoses of Hillary Clinton, such as Parkinson's disease. Corsi published twomore articles just this week.
MRC Mad That 'Family Guy' Quoted Trump Verbatim Topic: Media Research Center
The TV show "Family Guy" worked the infamous tape of Donald Trump making vile misogynistic remarks into the most recent episode of the show, and the Media Research Center's Erik Soderstrom was not pleased, and works in a rather lame Clinton Equivocation as well:
Ever eager to do their part this election, Family Guy decided to wade into the 2016 presidential campaign on behalf of Hillary Clinton by including the “Trump tapes” as part of last night’s episode, “American Gigg-olo.” Crammed into a plot that spent most of its time following striking pilot turned male prostitute, Glenn Quagmire, Family Guy's writers weakly shoehorned the embarrassing video into the episode by cutting in audio as if the show’s main character, Peter Griffin, had also been aboard the Access Hollywood bus during the hot mic incident.
I won’t include the video, but the original is widely available online and FOX posted the episode’s edited version on Twitter if you feel compelled to watch it yourself. Donald Trump has already apologized for his remarks, and including the video wasn’t about the episode’s story; it was about piling on the Republican nominee in every medium as we inch closer and closer to election day.
I won’t hold my breath for a Family Guy flashback placing one of the show’s characters in the room when Hillary donned her best, fake African American accent and screeched, “I don’t feel no ways tired.” I don’t anticipate seeing them work the audio of Hillary chuckling about her defense of a child rapist and subsequent plea bargain into a character’s memories. When Hollywood makes in-kind donations, they always seem to end up on one side of the aisle.
Poor Erik. Not only does he have to admit that his preferred candidate for president is so raunchy he can't post a video of him saying said raunchy things at the MRC, he can only muster the defense that the video was "embarrassing" and that "Trump has already apologized for his remarks."
Of course, another reason why Soderstrom won't post the video is that "Family Guy" zings Trump rather harshly. The show mocks Trump's defense that it was merely "locker room talk"; that gets referenced, to which Peter Griffin replies, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, that’s not ‘locker room talk.’ I meant like ‘good play,’ ‘good pass,’ like that kinda thing.” Peter also pitches the idea for Twitter as a place where "crazy people can bash ladies and minorities at 3 a.m."
So Soderstrom is left with defending Trump by blaming the MRC's perpetual go-to, the "liberal media." Sad, really.
Chuck Colson Is Still The Hardest-Working Dead Guy At CNS Topic: CNSNews.com
Chuck Colson has penned another op-ed for CNSNews.com, an Oct. 10 piece about how "Christians – Not the Enlightenment – Invented Modern Science."
As we've noted -- and CNS hasn't -- Colson died in 2012. The bio for Colson states once again that "Chuck Colson 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," but not that Colson is dead.
An "Editor's Note" states that "On this Columbus Day, we present a classic BreakPoint commentary by Chuck Colson on Columbus and the rise of science," but that note comes straight from Breakpoint, not CNS.
Would it kill CNS to go beyond cutting-and-pasting from Breakpoint and explain to its readers why it's giving a byline to a dead guy? Apparently so.
MRC Ludicrously Claims Lack of Endorsements For Trump Means Media Is 'Rigged' Topic: Media Research Center
Geoffrey Dickens does an admirable job of trying to play dumb in an Oct. 18 post, in which he pretends not to know why major newspapers that have endorsed Republicans in the past aren't endorsing Donald Trump for president.
His post is laughably headline "Rigged? Trump Doesn’t Have a Single Major Newspaper Endorsement." No, it's not "rigged," as Dickens should very well know, however much he'd like that to be the case in order to promote the MRC's anti-media agenda. Newspapers' editorial pages are separate from their news pages, and an endorsement generally does not influence news coverage.
Dickens complains that even papers who endorsed Mitt Romney in 2012 are endorsing Hillary clinton this year. He then huffs: "And while some of those papers have made the argument that Trump is not a reliable conservative, that doesn’t mean they have to go all the way in endorsing the liberal candidate," further complaining htat "some of the papers that switched from Romney to Clinton have attempted to justify their selection by claiming Clinton is 'bipartisan,' 'pragmatic,' and a 'centrist.'"
Dickens then excerpts from those endorsements of Clinton -- but he never excerpts those papers' explanations of why they didn't endorse Trump. Why? Because it would show that being a "reliable conservative" is the least of those papers' worries about Trump.
For instance, Dickens highlighted the Arizona Republic's noting that "Hillary Clinton has long been a centrist," but not what it said about Trump. For instance:
Trump’s inability to control himself or be controlled by others represents a real threat to our national security. His recent efforts to stay on script are not reassuring. They are phony.
The president commands our nuclear arsenal. Trump can’t command his own rhetoric.
Were he to become president, his casual remarks — such as saying he wouldn’t defend NATO partners from invasion — could have devastating consequences.
Dickens was also curiously silent about threats of death and violence sent to the Republic after the Clinton endorsement, nor did he mention that Clinton was the first Democrat ever endorsed for president by the Republic -- a clear sign that its concerns about Trump transcend ideology.
Dickens also highlighted that the Dallas Morning News claimed that Clinton achieved "common ground with some of Congress’ most conservative lawmakers" as a senator. But he didn't note what the paper said about Trump:
Trump's values are hostile to conservatism. He plays on fear — exploiting base instincts of xenophobia, racism and misogyny — to bring out the worst in all of us, rather than the best. His serial shifts on fundamental issues reveal an astounding absence of preparedness. And his improvisational insults and midnight tweets exhibit a dangerous lack of judgment and impulse control.
The News hasn't endorsed a Democrat for president since 1944. Dickens didn't mention that either.
Dickens also failed to mention how some of these papers also noted that right-wing criticism of Clinton has become ridiculous. The Dallas Morning News wrote that Clinton's shortcomings "pale in comparison to the litany of evils some opponents accuse her of. Treason? Murder? Her being cleared of crimes by investigation after investigation has no effect on these political hyenas; they refuse to see anything but conspiracies and cover-ups." The Republic stated of Clinton: "She has withstood decades of scrutiny so intense it would wither most politicians. The vehemence of some of the anti-Clinton attacks strains credulity."
Of course, doing that wouid not only highlight the feeling among the public that the Clinton-haters at the MRC have overplayed their hand, it would also dispel the notion there's a monolithic "liberal media" that's driven by ideology to attack anything Republican and conservative.
But since Dickens is a loyal MRC employee, deviating from the agenda is not his job -- pushing the meme, however dishonest, is.
Months After It Would Have Mattered, WND Weighs In On Cruz's Eligibility Topic: WorldNetDaily
Months ago, back when Ted Cruz was still running for president, WorldNetDaily couldn't runfast enough from questions about Cruz's eligibility to be president despite the fact that, by WND's own definition, Cruz was even more ineligible than it claimed President Obama was.
Nnow, all of a sudden -- months after Cruz stopped running for president and his eligibility is off the table for at least the next four years -- WND is expressing an opinion about Cruz's eligibility.
As does a lot of things at WND right now, it comes in the context of the stolen WikiLeaks emails. In an Oct. 16 article, an anonymous WND writer speculates about a proposed Democratic plan during the primary to declare that it would not challenge Cruz's eligibility:
But, was that the real story – or the whole story?
No, it wasn’t. Had the Democrats challenged Cruz on eligibility, it would have been tantamount to challenging Obama. Both had one American citizen parent – in both cases, their mothers. But, given the age of Obama’s teen-age mother at the time, there were legal questions raised, whereas Cruz’s mother had long been established as an American citizen. It would have been a tough case to make against Cruz given the ridicule the Dems piled on all those who challenged Obama’s constitutional eligibility.
Astute birther scholars will notice that this anonymous WND writer repeats an irrelevant claim and also moves the birther goalposts.
The statement that "there were legal questions raised" because of the age of Obama's mother at the time of his birth is true -- but it leaves out the fact that this clause only applies if the child was born outside the United States. Since Obama was born in Hawaii, and WND has not proven otherwise, it doesn't matter how old his mother is -- Obama is a citizen.
WND's current insistence that Cruz is a citizen because his mother "had long been established as an American citizen" is a change in position from the one it has longpromoted: that both parents must be citizens in order to confer citizenship on the child.
Of course, WND doesn't explain the reason it wouldn't address Cruz's eligibility at that time: because Joseph Farah, Jerome Corsi and crew knew that if they defended Cruz -- since, again, he was even more ineligible than Obama since, unlike Obama, he was born outside the U.S. -- they would also have to prove Obama was eligible as well. That refusal simply proved that WND's obsession with Obama's eligibility was never about the Constitution and always about trying to personally destroy Obama.
So, it apparently took six-plus months for WND to figure out a defense of Cruz's eligibility that managed to also keep Obama's eligibilitiy in question -- and it's still dishonest. That's just another reason nobody believes WND.
ConWeb Embraces Dishonest Report on Political Donations By 'Journalists' Topic: The ConWeb
The Center for Public Integrity has issued a report claiming to detail how "journalists" have donated to HIllary Clinton's campaign far more than to Donald Trump's. Needless to say, the ConWeb jumped right on it.
WorldNetDaily's Bob Unruh highlighted the finding that "journalists so far in this election season have given 27 times as much money to Hillary Clinton as to Donald Trump." Accuracy in Media's Don Irvine similarly promoted the findings, "as if we needed any further evidence that the liberal media are in the tank for Hillary Clinton." And Jason Devaney of Newsmax states that the report claims "people working in the media — which includes journalists, reporters, news editors, and TV news anchors — are opening their wallets for the former first lady."
But if you read the report closely -- which the ConWeb has no interest in doing -- it's obvious that CPI is using an overly broad definition of "journalist."
For instance, all four ConWeb reports highlighted that former ABC anchor Carole Simpson has donated $2,800 to Clinton. What CPI and the ConWeb don't make clear: Simpson left ABC in 2006 and currently works as a college professor. Insisting that Simpson continue to be held to the standards of a job she has not held for a decade -- and CPI offers no evidence that Simpson made any political donations while employed as a journalist -- is simply dishonest.
CPI also touts the donations to Clinton by talk show host Larry King, highlighted as well by AIM, Newsmax and the MRC. But has anybody ever considered King to be a "journalist"? No. More dishonesty.
In fact, the first example of an actual working journalist is the New Yorker's Emily Nussbaum. But she's a TV critic and rarely covers news or politics. But most of the working journalists in hard news that CPI cites as making political donations are employed by small local papers, not large media organizations, which generally prohibit reporters from making poltiical donations.
But because this dishonesty plays into the hands of the right-wing narrative about the evil "liberal media," the ConWeb will stick with the clickbait headline and ignore the dubious contents.
MRC Blames GOP Office Firebombing on Bill Maher Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center isn't interested in waiting for the facts to come in before assigning blame for the firebombing of a county Republican office in North Carolina. It's the age of Trump, after all, and the MRC no longer believes in facts.
The MRC's Kyle Drennen has a culprit all lined up. In an Oct. 17 post, he complains that NBC's "Today" show were discussing whether Donald Trump's "dark tone" set the stage for election violence. We'll let Drennen rant from here:
The reporter had the audacity to feature a sound bite from left-wing HBO host Bill Maher to lecture viewers on civility: “If you have that mindset, and then he loses, what happens?”
In July, Maher referred to Republicans as “retarded Nazis” who plan to force immigrants into “boxcars.”
It was precisely that kind of rhetoric that was employed by the criminals who firebombed the Republican Party office in North Carolina.
So, it's apparently Bill Maher's fault that the GOP office got firebombed. Got it.
What, you say? That's specious logic, you say? Well, we're just using the the MRC's own logic patterns. The day before, the MRC's Nicholas Fondacaro asserted that CNN's Brian Stelter "was concluding Donald Trump’s 'over heated the rhetoric' [sic] was what caused the attack." This despite the fact that Fondacaro also quouted Stelter as saying, "We have no idea who has done this. We don’t know if it’s a Republican, a Democrat, a movement. No idea."
Fondacaro then went on to say, "But according to a report by The Hill, two hours before Stelter was on air, authorities found the graffiti labeling local Republicans as Nazis. That’s not really a term Republicans like to call each other oddly enough, it’s usually a term flung by the left."
WND's Farah Suggests Anti-Muslim Bombing Plot Is A False Flag Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has a conspiracy theory he'd like to share with you. From his Oct. 16 column:
Have you ever asked yourself what the real purpose of Barack Obama’s “fundamental transformation of America” is really all about?
Have you considered why Obama has opened America’s doors to tens of thousands of unscreened and unscreenable, so-called Muslim “refugees” from Middle East terror hotspots?
Have you ever wondered what the endgame of this national suicidal policy is all about – along with other actions that seem to be pushing the hot buttons of even the clearest-thinking Americans with an ounce of common sense?
Maybe what appears to be a foiled “domestic terror plot,” in Kansas, so far under the radar of the national media, should give us a clue.
According to federal investigators, who apparently infiltrated a “militia group” called the “Crusaders” in the town of Liberal, Kansas, three men were arrested last week for planning to bomb a Garden City, Kansas, apartment complex where 120 people, including many Somali immigrants, lived – then publish a manifesto. The date of the attack was set for Nov. 9, the day after the presidential election.
Think about it. This is the kind of event that would put the seemingly bizarre Obama-Hillary Clinton agenda for the Islamization of America on steroids.
I hate to say it, but they seem to be dreaming about just such a bizarre attack – doing everything in their power to make it a reality.
[...]
Do you remember how Bill Clinton blamed Rush Limbaugh for the bomb attack on the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building in 1995?
I hate to say it, but an attack like this one would represent a sweet aroma to the noses of Obama and Hillary. It would provide an opportunity for massive surveillance, propaganda, sweeping federal control and worse.
Those who rightly oppose their certifiably insane policies on national security and open-door immigration practices would be blamed. They would finally have their evidence of widespread xenophobia, Islamophobia and right-wing “hate crimes.”
Sooner or later, it’s bound to happen.
I suspect it didn’t happen this time only because local police stumbled onto evidence for the impending attack when one of the plotters was turned in by his girlfriend on a battery charge.
Until then, FBI investigators were providing them with weapons and offering money for the attack. The plotters were under surveillance since February, the FBI said.
[...]
Operations? It sounds like these guys had other ideas in mind besides the November bombing. They also talked about bombing a mosque. What if they acted prematurely – without consultation with the FBI or confidential source? Was that a concern? Or was it the plan?
I hate to speculate like this. I hate to think like this. But it’s getting hard not to. Am I crazy paranoid – or are you thinking the same way?
Nope, you're crazy paranoid, Joe. You've been listening to the likes of Alex Jones and Michael Savage rant about false-flag conspiracies that you've now apparently decided to get in on that action and concoct one of your own.
You can't admit that some -- let alone the vast majority -- of Muslims in America are peaceful and not deserving of the condemnation and lazy Islamophobia your website heaps upon them.
And you most definitely can't admit the possibility that WND's anti-Muslim may very well have played a role in inspiring these men to plot to blow up Muslims in the middle of Kansas. (You've done this before.)
So, you hide behind tinfoil hats and false flags and pretend you're being the reasonable one.
The Media Research Center has been hitting the Clinton Equivocation hard this election season as it tries to deflect ever-more-sleazy accusations against Donald Trump by insisting that a Clinton did it first and worse.
Considering the foregoing, the idea that there is a very substantial contingent of the American electorate still willing to elect Clinton is sobering at best, and horrifying at worst. When we look at Hillary Clinton at rallies or debates, leering into the cameras with bug eyes and Jack Nicholson’s frozen Joker smirk, I believe we are looking into the face of sheer madness.
An Oct. 17 CNSNews.com 
The Media Research Center's praise for Fox News' Chris Wallace's performance as moderator of the third presidential debate is utterly unsurprising. The fix was in from the beginning -- more specifically, since 2007, when Bozell 
Ben Kinchlow's Oct. 16 WorldNetDaily 
It seems the Media Research Center may be even worse at taking criticism than WorldNetDaily 's 
WorldNetDaily has been desperately trying to distract its readers from bad news about Donald Trump and his 
The TV show "Family Guy" worked the infamous tape of Donald Trump making vile misogynistic remarks into the most recent episode of the show, and the Media Research Center's Erik Soderstrom 
Chuck Colson has penned another op-ed for CNSNews.com, an Oct. 10 
Geoffrey Dickens does an admirable job of trying to play dumb in an Oct. 18 
Months ago, back when Ted Cruz was still running for president, WorldNetDaily 
The Center for Public Integrity has issued a 
The Media Research Center isn't interested in waiting for the facts to come in before assigning blame for the firebombing of a county Republican office in North Carolina. It's the age of Trump, after all, and the MRC 
WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has a conspiracy theory he'd like to share with you. From his Oct. 16 
