MRC Swings At Teen Vogue, Whiffs Spectacularly
Topic: Media Research Center

Teen Vogue has emerged as an unlikely location for coverage of social issues. And since it's doing that -- and failing to toe a right-wing agenda in the process -- the Media Research Center has put the magazine in its crosshairs.

A Feb. 23 MRC post by Katie Yoder carries the headline "‘Teen Vogue’ Has Already Pushed Abortion to Teens 63 Times in 2017." Yoder huffs (boldface hers):

Teen magazines targeting young women are no longer about make-up application, fashion tips or crushes. No, now they’ve found a more lucrative topic: abortion.

Earlier this month, Teen Vogue rightfully came under fire after publishing “What to Get a Friend Post-Abortion.” Conservative media and teenagers alike challenged the story that recommended teens give presents to their friends after having an abortion – from signing up as an abortion clinic escort to gifting an “angry uterus” heating pad. But the story is just one of many. In 2017 alone, Teen Vogue has already promoted abortion to teens more than 60 times.

This year, Teen Vogue has already published at least 63 articles promoting abortion (including showing abortion positively or restrictions on abortion negatively). Ironically, most of them appeared under the obsessed outlet’s “Wellness” section.

So Teen Vogue is not actually "promoting abortion"-- it seems Yoder is counting every non-negative mention of abortion on the website as "promotion."

How absurd does this get? The very first article on Yoder's list is actually about laws protecting transgenders; the only mention of abortion in the entire article is a quote from a judge noting that the legislation in question could "require them to perform and provide insurance coverage for gender transitions and abortions, regardless of their contrary religious beliefs or medical judgment."

That's what Yoder calls a "promotion" of abortion.

This is one of the many reasons the MRC is not, and should not be, taken seriously as a media critic.

WND Singles Out Pastor Who Felt 'Demonic' Activity At Trump Rally (With Made-Up Comments?)
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily is usually way too busy making messianic references about Donald Trump to note that others may feel differently.

So it was a bit of a surprise to see an anonymously written Feb. 21 WND article about a Florida pastor, Joel Tooley, who felt "demonic" activity that was "palpable" at a Trump rally he and his young dauther atteneded the previous weekend.

But unlike with the pro-Trump pastors and others who see divine intent in Trump's election and actions that WND has published, Tooley's claims were not allowed to stand unchallenged. The anonymous WND writer made sure to note that "Tooley is also an immigration activist" who has worked with "one of the nine agencies that get paid by the federal government to resettle refugees in the United States."

WND also published attacks on Tooley's account that, among other things, call it "BS to the core. Phony and made up" and that Tooley "needs to understand" that the Trump rally was, in fact, a "'deeply religious' experience." WND does not provide the source for thse attacks beyond claiming that they were "comments posted online."

But from where? The Facebook post by Tooley on which WND based its article contains no such comments in the 64 attached to it. We also conducted a quick Google search and could not find the comments independent of reposted versions of the WND article.

Are these comments from some super-secret website WND has access to but nobody else does? Or did WND make up these comments as a way to attack Tooley for  committing the offense of being critical of Trump?

We've contacted WND for an answer as to the comments' original source; we'll update if they respond.

MRC, WND Bash Reporter for Not Remembering A Right-Wing Anti-Obama Obsession
Topic: Media Research Center

Apparently, right-wingers expect the mainstream media to be well-versed on every simgle one of their hateful obsessions during the Obama years, no matter how minor.

A Feb. 20 Media Research Center post by Curtis Houck was outraged that NBC's Katy Tur -- whom the MRC appears to have helped President Trump attack during the election -- failed to recall a five-year-old anecdote involving Obama:

On Monday, our friend SooperMexican at The Right Scoop caught this embarrassing exchange on MSNBC as Katy Tur admitted to her guest that she was couldn’t recall President Barack Obama being caught on a hot mic in 2012 saying he’d have “more flexibility” to work with Russia after his reelection.

Tur was speaking to Republican Congressman Francis Rooney (Fla.) and pressing him about the Trump administration’s hopes to work better with Russia when Rooney brought up Obama’s remark in South Korea.

While he was incorrect about who Obama was speaking to (Dmitry Medvedev and not Vladimir Putin), Rooney noted: “Well, I think it was Obama that leaned over to Putin and said, I'll have a little more flexibility to give you what you want after the re-election.”

For a brief moment, there was silence before Tur blurted out: “I'm sorry, I don't know what you're referring to, Congressman.” 

In another example of the WorldNetDaily-ization of the MRC, WND's Chelsea Schilling joined in the attack on Tur the same day:

NBC reporter and MSNBC host Katy Tur – who accused President Trump’s advisers of having close ties to Russia – appeared to draw a total blank when a Republican congressman pointed out that former President Obama was caught on a hot mic pledging to give the Russian president more “flexibility” after the 2012 election.

“I see a lot of folks within Donald Trump’s administration who have a friendlier view of Russia than maybe past administrations did,” Tur said during an interview with U.S. Rep. Francis Rooney, R-Fla.

Responding to her claim concerning previous administrations, Rooney attempted to remind her about Obama’s famous promise to Russia.

“Well, I think it was Obama that leaned over to Putin and said, ‘I’ll have a little more flexibility to give you what you want after the re-election,'” Rooney said.

After a pause, the 33-year-old host replied, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re referring to, Congressman.”

[...]

The moment was so widely reported, then-GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney raised the subject during a presidential debate.

But as Mediaite reported -- but neither Houck nor Schilling could be bothered to mention -- Tur later pointed out that she was a local reporter in New York City during the 2012 election and was not covering politics. She also noted that she researched the issue after she got off the air and discussed it in more depth in a later MSNBC appearance. Houck noted the later Tur appearance but complained she "never mentioned that she was caught off guard" earlier in the day.

WND Columnist Omits GOP Gov's Role In Failing To Fix Dam
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Barbara Simpson rants in her Feb. 19 WorldNetDaily column:

It really gives you a good feeling when your leader, the guy in charge of the whole shebang, reacts to a near catastrophe that could have killed thousands, displaced millions and cost billions by saying, “Stuff happens.”

He didn’t even show up to take a look at the disaster scene. In fact, he doesn’t plan to.

But that’s Jerry Brown for you, the governor of the state of California. He’s not known as “Governor Moonbeam” for nothing. It was a moniker he got his first go-round as governor for two terms, 1975-1983. That was when he was the state’s 34th governor.

Now he’s the 39th, serving the second of two terms, from 2011 to the present. And now that he’s on his second try at the job, he’s doing his “moonbeam act” again.

[...]

Now that the possibility of the Oroville Dam collapsing still exists as I write this, Californians have learned that those hundreds of laws, thousands of people and millions of dollars don’t protect them at all.

And don’t forget that Gov. Brown is in the midst of plans to remove four dams from the Klamath River, one of which, at this point, has already flooded. And the rains are not over.

As for Oroville, it’s cold comfort when it’s revealed that Gov. Brown said he didn’t know anything about a 2005 motion filed with Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by three environmental groups that the Oroville Dam, and especially the earthen spillway, was vulnerable to collapse and that in 2008 that same commission said it knew nothing about such concerns.

Alert readers will notice -- since Simpson apparently didn't -- that Brown was not the governor of California at the time the 2005 motion to FERC was filed and the 2008 incident.

Who was? That's right, a Republican: Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Indeed, Simpson does not mention Schwarzenegger at all in her column.

There's plenty of blame to go around in the Oroville dam crisis. But Simpson wants to hang it only on the politically convenient ones.

MRC Forgets George Takei Has Personal Knowledge of Japanese Internment
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Scott Whitlock was apparently in a particularly foul mood and felt like attacking George Takei for having opined about President Trump's immigration policy. Under the headline "George Takei Sneers: Trump’s America First Policy Is Like Interning Japanese," Whitlock huffed:

USA Today on Thursday gave liberal actor/activist George Takei a platform to compare Donald Trump’s immigration policies to that of interning the Japanese during World War II. In a column, Takei slammed, “Our president has trumpeted an ‘America First’ policy, vowing to prioritize the well-being of the United States. But ‘America’ doesn’t seem to include the brown-skinned, foreign-sounding or non-Christian people affected by his travel ban, his Mexico border wall or his immigration raids.”

The actor continued, “Keeping America safe means shutting out Middle Eastern refugees and deporting ‘rapists’ and ‘murderers.’ Keeping American jobs means keeping out Mexicans who cross the border to take them.” In 2015, the activist used racist language to mock Clarence Thomas as a “clown in black face.”

Takei compared Trump’s plans to the mass internment of Japanese:

Seventy-five years ago, on Feb. 19, 1942, President Roosevelt launched his own version of “us vs. them,” authorizing the military to designate military zones and exclude any person from those zones as it saw fit. That order, like Trump’s travel ban, was on its face neutral. But it bore a clear intent.

Nearly 120,000 innocent people of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated simply because we looked like “them” — the enemy. Two-thirds of us were U.S. citizens. We lost our homes, our jobs and our businesses and were held for years without charge.

The government had put “America First,” and we suffered for it.

USA Today obviously was pleased with the piece as the paper put a preview of it on the top of the front page. It included a picture of the actor and the headline: "George Takei: Immigration Ban Divisive. Trump's 'us vs. them' stance reminds actor of Japanese internment." 

Whitlock apparently skipped over the part of Takei's column in which he wrote of his personal experience with internment, for he utterly fails to mention Takei's personal history with the issue:

I remember that day when American soldiers came to our home, carrying rifles with shiny bayonets, and ordered our family out. I was 5 years old. We were put on a train with armed soldiers at both ends of each car, as if we were criminals, and transported to Arkansas.

I remember the barbed wire fence of the internment camp, the tall sentry towers with machine guns pointed down at us. I remember the searchlight that followed me when I made the night runs from our barrack to the latrine. It became routine for me to line up three times a day to eat lousy food in a noisy mess hall. To go with my father to bathe in a mass shower. I could see the barbed wire fence and the sentry tower right outside my schoolhouse window as I recited the words “with liberty and justice for all”— too young to feel the stinging irony in those words.

In other words, Takei knows from where he speaks -- unlike Whitlock, who is simply lashing out at Takei for failing to fall in line with the new right-wing orthodoxy.

CNS Now Importing Praise For (And Dismissal Of The Ugly Past Of) Mel Gibson
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com's love for -- and desire to censor the ugly past of -- Mel Gibson is so strong, it's bringing in articles from other websites to sing Gibson's praises.

Last week, CNS'  new "Conservative Roundup" section featured a link to a article at right-wing site The Federalist demanding that Gibson's new movie "Hacksaw Ridge" receive some damn awards already.

Unlike CNS, Federalist writer Titus Techera did briefly mention Gibson's ugly past. The key word here is "briefly"; it merited just a single sentence: "Secondly, Gibson made several awful comments when stopped for drunk driving."

The rest of Techera's article was devoted to slobbering over "Hacksaw Ridge" and insisting that "America’s award institutions actually reward a patriotic movie that shows Christianity in American society as a source of hope and unity, rather than fear and division."

Armstrong Williams Doesn't Disclose His Conflict of Interest in Defending Ben Carson
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Armstrong Williams wrote a column, published Feb. 14 at Newsmax and Feb. 17 at WorldNetDaily, complaining that Ben Carson hasn't yet been given a Senate vote on his nomination to be President Trump's secretary of housing and urban development. Williams dramatically wrote:

Instead the nominee for secretary of housing and urban development, Dr. Ben Carson, is held hostage to a partisan strategy of gridlock and delay. It’s not as though Carson hasn’t been thoroughly vetted by Senate Democrats. Or that they have expressed substantive reasons to oppose his nomination. Prior to his confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee over one month ago, the nominee spent days visiting with committee members from both parties – even though he only needed the votes of the majority – answering questions and demonstrating respect for their important role in confirming presidential nominees. At the hearing, Dr. Carson patiently and thoroughly answered questions from Democrats and Republicans for hours. Not a single Democrat announced opposition, and on Jan. 24 every Democrat on the committee, including leading progressives like Elizabeth Warren and Sherod Brown, voiced their support for Carson through a unanimous voice vote of approval.

Yet the Democratic leadership refuses to follow the lead the key committee and allow an up or down vote by the full Senate.

But Williams failed to disclose one key fact: he's Carson's business manager. According to The Hill, the two reportedly have a "brother-like" relationship, talking on the phone several times a day.

But any mention of Armstrong's link to Carson is buried in the bio for Armstrong on the respective sites. The final sentence of WND's drop-down Armstrong bio states that "Williams is a longtime confidante of Dr. Ben Carson," while the lengthy bio for Williams at Newsmax waits until the sixth paragraph (!) to reference Carson -- but only through noting that Williams is a board member of Carson's scholarship fund.

One shouldn't have to be shunted to a bio page to have this conflict of interest disclosed -- Williams should have done so in his column, and Newsmax and WND should have made sure of that before publishing it. Williams (and WND and Newsmax) shouldn't presume that everyone knows about his relationship with Carson.

Then again, Williams has a problem with playing fast and loose with such things. In 2005, it was revealed that he was paid to promote the Bush adminstration's "No Child Left Behind" policies on his TV and radio programs but failed to disclose the payments to his listeners and viewers.

MRC Develops Shepard Smith Derangement Syndrome
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center just hates it when Fox News' Shepard Smith fails to toe the right-wing line like the rest of the other Fox News hosts.

Note the freakout the MRC's Nicholas Fondacaro had in a Feb. 16 post, which can only be described as Shepard Smith Derangement Syndrome:

Trump’s tongue lashing of the media had Fox News’ Shepard Smith frothing at the mouth with anger as he accused the President with a dubious smear during his show. “Your opposition was hacked and the Russians were responsible for it and your people were on the phone with Russia the same day it was happening and we're fools asking the questions,” he shouted with claims no report had ever made.

“No, sir, we're not fools for asking this question and we demand to know the answer to this question. You owe this to the American people,” Smith continued to yell. But no report had ever made the claim that Trump’s campaign staff was on the phone with Russian intelligence “the same day” the hacks were happening.

Un-ironically, Smith chastised the president for spewing “demonstrably, unquestionably, 100 percent, opinion aside, false” statements.

While we don't know the details of the specific accusation Fondacaro claims Smith is making, we do know that, according to Reuters, Michael Flynn, Trump's national security adviser for a few weeks, held five phone calls with Russia's ambassador to Washington on the day President obama retaliated for Moscow's interference in the presidential election. That may be what Smith was referring to.

How ironic that the MRC is demanding nothing but total fidelity to the facts from Smith while it's bashing anyone who demands the same to Trump.

Fondacaro then goes on to serve up more hypocrisy by demanding something conservatives wouldn't grant when it came to investigations into Hillary Clinton's email server -- wait for the FBI to finish their investigation:

True, [Trump and Russia] is an important issue that needs to be answered. But flying off the handle into hyperbole and spouting off lies does little to help the situation, and only serves to exacerbate tensions. The FBI is investigating their communications so there will be an answer to the press’s questions one way or another. 

Of course, the MRC wouldn't wait when it promoted the fake news before the election (courtesy of Smith's Fox News co-worker, Bret Baier) that an FBI indictment of Hillary Clinton was imminent. The MRC had no problem flying off the handle into hyperbole and spouting off lies back then. And the MRC couldn't stop ranting about how the FBI couldn't be trusted after James Comey's initial decision not to charge Clinton.

But now we're supposed to trust the FBI on Trump and Russia. Funny how the MRC's view of justice is driven not by facts but solely by politics.

Obama Derangement Syndrome, CNS Edition
Topic: CNSNews.com

As we've noted, Obama Derangement Syndrome continues to ooze from the Media Research Center despite President Obama's departure from office.

The latest example is from the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, where Michael Morris wrote in a Feb. 17 post:

Unlike former President Barack Obama, who spent valuable time filling out NCAA Tournament brackets with ESPN every year of his presidency, sitting President Donald Trump has “respectfully declined” to fill out a 2017 NCAA Tournament bracket on ESPN.

“We expressed our interest to the White House in continuing the presidential bracket,” stated ESPN network. “They have respectfully declined.”

How did Morris become the judge of how Obama purportedly wasted his "valuable time" as president? Morris needs to give up the shade-throwing and join Matt Philbin in getting professional help for their Obama Derangement Syndrome.

Morris didn't mention that Trump was spending his presumably equally "valuable time" as president partying at Mar-a-Lago.

 

WND's Jihad Against Keith Ellison Continues
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily has been regularly smearing Rep. Keith Ellison as a secret Muslim tool or something since his name came up as a possible Democratic National Committee chairman. How have those smears been going?

On Jan. 26, an anonymous WND writer intoned:

He was put into office by dedicated communists. He supported the dissolution of the United States to create an ethnostate only for blacks. He’s been the biggest defender of the Muslim Brotherhood in Congress.

And, now, he’s poised to take over one of America’s two major political parties.

He’s Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota. And he’s one of “The Enemies Within” profiled in Trevor Loudon’s explosive new documentary of that name.

That would be the same anti-communist foreigner Trevor Loudon who's beloved by far-right fringers like Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid.

The anonymous WND writer also called upon WND author and Muslim-hater Philip Haney to fearmonger that "it is indisputable Ellison is closely aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood, its front groups and its ideological goals." It's left unstated exactly what the Muslim Brotherhood even is, let alone what its purported "ideological goals" are.

WND anonymously rehashed its attacks in a Feb. 16 article, insisting that "a great deal of evidence indicates Ellison an operative for the Muslim Brotherhood." The anonymous writer also quoted WND columnist Jesse Lee Peterson -- who has no known expertise on either Islam or Democratic politics to furthe smear Ellison: "Ellison is a dangerous individual. He is not an acceptable candidate to be chair of the DNC. He is so far out of the mainstream that he shouldn’t be in Congress and should be charged and prosecuted for sedition."

This anonymous writer even called upon WND's favorite race-baiter, Colin Flaherty -- who's been scarce around these parts since Google threatened to pull its advertising from WND due to his obsession with "black mob violence" --  to make a race-related smear against Ellison:

“If black people want to support Ellison because he is the major black candidate, well, I suppose it is their privilege to support someone whose only claim to fame is that he hates America,” he said. “This guy is a disaster on every level. His prominence is a clarion call for people who reject racial preferences, big government and promotion of Islam. The fact that large numbers of people find him an acceptable candidate is just about as alarming as anything we can point to today.”

While Flaherty regards David Duke as a marginal figure and his endorsement of no importance, he does see similarities between Duke and Ellison.

“If someone wanted to make a moral equivalence between Duke and Ellison, that would be a great idea,” he said. “An obvious idea. Which makes it all the stranger that so few people draw the parallel.”

That's how desperate WND is to hurl any and every smear at Ellison. That, and the fact that WND's reporter won't put his or her name on the smears -- contradicting editor Joseph Farah's claim that "WND reports openly and honestly, listing publicly who’s who."

Two-Month-Old Speculation About Trump's Greatness Is Suddenly News At CNS
Topic: CNSNews.com

The Media Research Center's Brent Bozell once whined about speculation being presented as news, but his own "news" division, CNSNews.com, has no problem doing it.

Yet another example of this is a Feb. 17 blog post by CNS managing editor Michael W. Chapman, who finds a two-month-old CNN clip suddenly newsworthy because in it, Robert Kennedy Jr. says that Donald Trump "could be the greatest president in history if he wanted to." For video, Chapman includes only the 15-second segment of RFK Jr.'s CNN appearance in which he makes that claim.

Chapman made sure to note that RFK Jr. is a "liberal Democrat" -- but not that he shares with Trump a love of medically unfounded skepticism about vaccines.

If there was any news value in RFK Jr.'s words -- and there isn't; it's nothing but pure talking-head speculation -- Chapman would have reported them when they were originally said. Waiting two months to report them, as Chapman did, feels like a desperation tactic, as if Chapman must publish a daily quota of pro-Trump articles at CNS to make his bosses happy.

That would be worthy of mention for most journalists, but Chapman isn't a journalist -- he's a right-wing propagandist. While he can easily throw RFK Jr. under the bus -- he is a "liberal Democrat," after all -- the idea that his beloved Trump shared his medically unsound views can't be given the light of day at his website.

A few days later, Chapman followed that up with even more slobbering specuation about Trump's potential greatness, this time quoting right-wing sheriff David Clarke claiming that Trump "has the chance to be the Winston Churchill of the 21st century."

Chapman also rather hilariously quoted Clarke saying of Trump: ""And so, he is the president of all people. That doesn't mean all people have to like him, but all people must respect him as the 45th president of the United States." Chapman didn't mention how many times he and CNS have quoted Clarke spewing his disrespect for the 44th president of the United States.

NEW ARTICLE -- WND's Bashful Birthers, Part 2: Bashful No More
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Donald Trump's election made it OK for WorldNetDaily to be loud-and-proud birthers again -- and to help Joe Arpaio peddle more findings from his incompetent "cold case posse." Read more >>

MRC Downplays Trump's Weird, Racially Tinged Comment At Press Conference
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center was so happy about President Trump's anti-media screeds during last week's press conference that Curtis Houck and Scott Whitlock slapped together an item claiming to list "12 of the Top Trump Jabs at the Media in His Marathon Press Conference."

Thing is, one of the "jabs" really wasn't one -- even Houck and Whitlock conceded it was just "eyebrow-raising." That would be the exchange between Trump and reporter April Ryan, in which Trump asked the black reporter if she would set up a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus. Houck and Whitlock had no futher comment beyond irrelevantly and baselessly claiming that Ryan is a "liberal reporter."

Despite widespread criticism of Trump over the exchange for his apparent racial insensitivity, the MRC said nothing further about it. Given that the MRC is devoted to reflexively supporting Trump, that's not exactly eyebrow-raising.

At the MRC's "news" division CNSNews.com, it was a different story. Entertainer Charlie Daniels weighed in with his own alternative-facts explanation of what happened in a Feb. 17 column:

Reporter April Ryan asked the president if he intended to include the Black Congressional Caucus in his plans to help the inner cities. He replied that he'd been trying to set up a meeting with Elijah Cummings and that Cummings wouldn't meet with him for political reasons, whereupon he said in tongue-in-cheek fashion "Would you like to set up a meeting?" It was an obvious facetious remark meaning, "I've tried, do you want to give it a shot?"

Daniels can't actually know any of that, of course; he's just spinning for Trump to clean up after him the way the rest of the MRC is.

WND Columnist Pretends He's Not Bashing Transgenders
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily columnist Michael Brown tries to portray himself has a reasonable person among the anti-gay right -- but he does tend to relapse. For instance, Brown writes in his Feb. 15 column about transgenders:

I’m aware, of course, that there are people who struggle deeply with gender identity issues, people who find themselves between a rock and a hard place when it comes to which bathroom or locker room to use, people who are doing their best to fit in and ignore the people looking at them as if they were some kind of freak.

As I’ve said many times before, I do not minimize their struggles, and I long to see them find true and lasting wholeness.

Yet Brown is all too willing to trade in transgender stereotypes -- that transgenders are nothing but cross-dressing boys wanting to perv on girls in the bathroom -- to pander to his right-wing audience. This what he writes immediately before the above sympathetic words:

Let’s say that 16-year-old John identifies as a girl but is heterosexual, and he wants to play on the girls’ sports team and share their bathrooms, locker rooms and shower stalls (a “right” for which the Obama administration fought vigorously). That means that John, who perhaps wants to be called Jane, will still be attracted to girls – the very ones he’ll be playing with and undressing with and showering with.

This doesn’t mean he’s a sexual predator. It just means that he’s a male teenager, naturally attracted to females, which is one reason why he’s supposed to use the boys’ bathroom, locker room and shower stalls.

Yet to say this is to be transphobic and insensitive.

Similarly, let’s say that 30-year-old Charlie, who identifies as Charlene but remains a biological, heterosexual male, wants to change in the ladies’ locker room at the YMCA. This means that Charlie will be checking out the ladies there, since he’s heterosexual, and if the women complain to management that they feel uncomfortable, they will be branded troublemakers.

And most of Brown's column is focused on a transgender convicted of murder in the United Kingdom; he's irked that the media refers to the criminal by her gender identity rather than her male biology and makes a big deal out of how the prisoner  had to be "moved from a female prison for allegedly having sex with the female inmates." 

He huffs at the beginning of his column, "Welcome to the world of transanity";  he concludes, "This societal madness must stop. There must surely be a better way."

Does this sound like someone who's not minimizing transgender struggles? Doesn't it sound instead like someone who has no problem exploiting those struggles for the salacious and hateful purview of his right-wing WND audience?

MRC Transgender Freakout Watch, Laverne Cox Edition
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center is rather prone to transgender freakouts, and it's having another one, induced by transgender actor Laverne Cox getting a starring role as a transgender lawyer in the new TV series "Doubt," thanks to Alexa Moutevelis Coombs' Feb. 16 post.

After quoting Cox's character saying, "I’m a woman, but I used to be a man," Coombs huffed, "Sorry, but there is no 'used to be.' As much as you change your outside appearance, you can't change your chromosomes." Coombs then quoted two of the most transphobic doctors around to back her up.

The first, Joseph Berger, is so extreme that even the highly anti-LGBT National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality distanced itself from his views. The other, Paul McHugh, has been thoroughly discredited, as we've noted. The fact that Coombs repeats their lengthy titles -- Berger is "a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada," McHugh is "former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry" -- is a sad attempt to play the authority card.

But Coombs wasn't done whining. She went on to complain that "To further force this down our throats, they are also planning some transgender sex scenes between Cox and a man<' to which she shrieked: "Sorry, but I am in NO WAY interested in the 'nitty gritty' of what goes on between a man and a transgender woman!"

Coombs concluded by grousing that "There is no DOUBT that this show will be a liberal social justice warrior's dream, and a nightmare for the rest of us."

Attacking TV shows that don't conform to the MRC's narrow right-wing agenda is what MRC writers like Coombs are getting paid to do.