We've noted how the Media Research Center has defended right-wing anti-Muslim group ACT for America against charges that it's, well, anti-Muslim. It did so again in an Oct. 5 post by Corrine Weaver:

The Southern Poverty Law Center is at it again -- spreading hate against people it disagrees with.

This time, the SPLC targeted ACT for America during ACT’s seventh annual national conference. The assault triggered a response among liberals eager to prove their fidelity to SPLC’s intolerant agenda of hate. The SPLC attacked ACT as the “largest anti-Muslim organization in the U.S.,” and criticized Marriott hotels for hosting the conference. It also claimed Media Research Center president Brent Bozell was a person “better known for bashing LBGT persons.”

ACT for America isn’t what the SPLC pretends. It’s a “national security grassroots organization,” that has more than 750,000 members and 12,000 activists who help to “educate, engage, and mobilize citizens and elected officials to impact legislative outcomes to protect America.” The group, founded by Brigitte Gabriel, focuses on radical Islamic terrorism. However, the SPLC has translated this mission to mean “anti-Muslim,” even though a practicing Muslim spoke at ACT’s 2016 conference.

Founder Brigitte Gabriel defended ACT in a written statement to Newsbusters, “Our members include Jews, Christians, Muslims, Atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, gays and Lesbians indeed people from all backgrounds coming together to ensure America stays a safe and free country. The speaker right after Brent was an Ex-Muslim from the Palestinian territory. The man who read his introduction was a gay guy that works for us who organized ‘The Deplorable Inaugural Ball’ and had worked on the Trump campaign. He is our lead activism strategist.”

How funny that the extent of Weaver's "research" on whether ACT! for America hates Muslims is peruse its website and talk to its leader to get quotes denying. She also doesn't bother to examine the evidencethe SPLC uses to identify Gabriel's group as anti-Muslim, such as her various Islamophobic rantings.

Weaver also fails to mention ACT for America's ties to white nationalism, which the SPLC has also pointed out. She also didn't mention one other reason she's rushing to Gabriel's defense: She'll be a guest on the MRC's cruise to Alaska next year.

Instead, Weaver was merely content to engage in some lazy SPLC-bashing, rehashing the usual right-wing attack lines.

Weaver isn't the only MRC employee who got marching orders to defend Gabriel and her group. CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman ranted in an Oct. 13 "news" article:

Left-wing activists and Muslim advocates are trying to besmirch and silence the mainstream national security group ACT for America, labeling the organization an "anti-Muslim hate group," protesting against its conferences and rallies, and urging lawmakers to condemn them, according to documents from the activists and remarks made by ACT for America President Brigitte Gabriel. 

"We are the NRA of national security," Gabriel, a Lebanese-American, told CNSNews.com. "We want to empower citizens to become active in their community.... We want to make sure America preserves its identity, its traditions, its Constitution, its American values, including especially the protection of freedom of speech -- preserve America in the way our Founding Fathers envisioned it.”

As Weaver did, Chapman lazily takes Gabriel at her word that ACT for America isn't anti-Muslim -- and uncritically repeats her assertion that any criticism of her group might as well be coming from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a longtime bogeyman for conservatives -- and refuses to examine the particulars of the SPLC's case against it.

Chapman is rather desperate to paint ACT for America as "mainstream," using the word in the headline of his article as well as the lead paragraph. Perhaps that's an attempt at cover for the MRC to justify inviting Gabriel on its cruise (which Chapman, like Weaver, neglects to mention).

Interestingly, at  no point in either article -- despite both Weaver and Chapman serving as pro-Gabriel stenographers -- does Gabriel offer any definitive evidence that would disprove the claim that ACT for America is anti-Muslim.

Both Gabriel and the MRC seem to think that hurling enough empty words at critics are enough to dispel criticism.

UPDATE: While we were writing the above, the MRC posted another item on Gabriel, an interview with her at the Values Voter Summit in which Katie Yoder lets her rant at length against the SPLC's designation of her group. Again, no refutation of the claim ACT for America is anti-Muslim, no mention of the evidence the SPLC used to make its claim, and no disclosure that Gabriel is a guest on an MRC cruise.

Posted by Terry K. at 5:17 PM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, October 18, 2017 5:22 PM EDT

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Media Research Center blogger Clay Waters devotes an Oct. 13 post to a big ol' freakout over a New York Times column:

It was only a matter of time. A New York Times opinion piece attacked conservative opinion media outlets as prejudiced and cowardly (including a rising conservative star) while purportedly criticizing right-wing groupthink in “The Hollow Bravery of Ben Shapiro,” posted Thursday.

Contributor Jane Coaston, a former MTV news writer who has recently penned liberal political essays for the New York Times Sunday magazine, smeared influential conservative writer and speaker Ben Shapiro (who has appeared in threatening environments when delivering talks on liberal college campuses) as cowardly for not challenging his fans' awful right-wing opinions.

Keep in mind that Shapiro opposed Trump, which hardly ingratiates him to the people Coaston is considering.

The focus of Coaston's column is Shapiro's initial refusal to remove a racist Columbus Day video off his Daily Wire website until the bipartisan criticism grew too loud for him to ignore. Waters immediately rushed to Shapiro's defense, declaring that "Shapiro had that video taken down and apologized for leaving it up on the Daily Wire as long as he had" and later complained, "Shapiro did everything he could after the Columbus Day video gaffe, but Coaston still roasted him."

Well, no. Shapiro initially defended the video -- something Waters ignores -- because "conservatives are allowed to make satire, too." It took another day for Shapiro to realize the controversy wasn't going away; only then did he relent and have the video removed. That's hardly doing "everything he could."

Waters then went on a defensive tit-for-tat tirade against the column writer, first responding to Coaston's criticism of conservative attacks on transgenders that require "denying scientific fact":

The new official term is “gender dysphoria," but until 2013, “gender identity disorder” was included in theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM, in various editions), meaning the diagnosis was accepted in the authoritative manual of the psychiatric field until a few years ago.

She attacked one of Donald Trump’s campaign “falsehoods” that “America’s inner cities are hellholes and that black people have ‘nothing to lose’....”

Many liberals consider black life in America to be a racist hellhole, but when Trump says something similar it’s ludicrous?

Water's then deflected from Coaston's point that conservative media are cowardly for failing to encourage debate on issues among its readers:

Actually, it takes far more courage for a conservative to speak on a left-wing campus than it does a liberal speaker to talk on a conservative campus, as shown by how then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders appeared at Liberty University without unleashing violent acts. To get to her unbalanced blame of the right, Coaston had to glide over the violence and property damage radical leftists like Antifa provoke on college campuses, not to mention the intolerance of conservative thought in general.

Sanders at Liberty University is not the best example Waters could have cited, since, first, Liberty refuses to permit the existence of a College Democrats chapter at the school and otherwise strictly controls the lives of its students; and second, Sanders was a token liberal chosen to dispel the (not unfounded) notion that the school only invites conservatives to speak. And third, Sanders' appearance was in August 2015, well before politics got really ugly.

If Waters wants to see firsthand the monoculture of conservative thought the Times columnist was railing against, all he has to do is visit the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, which these days is largely Trump stenography.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:42 PM EDT

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As the Media Research Center continues to exploit the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal, it's still in trash-the-accuser mode when it comes to conservatives accused of the same offense (as Gretchen Carlson just learned). Take this from the MRC's Kyle Drennen in an Oct. 11 post:

Discussing the growing list of sexual harassment and rape allegations against left-wing Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein on her MSNBC show Wednesday afternoon, anchor Andrea Mitchell saw a chance to deflect away from the scandal swirling around the prominent Democratic Party donor to instead attack conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

“And you know, we shouldn’t just pretend that it’s just Hollywood, because every profession has its own dynamics. And I remember covering the Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991,” Mitchell declared as she recalled the discredited sexual harassment charges hurled at Thomas by Anita Hill.

As we pointed out in documenting the MRC's 25-year-long campaign against Hill, her accusations have never been "discredited." While Hill's side has not been definitively proven, neither has Thomas' side.

This is simply a false, baseless attack that demonstrates how the MRC treats victims of sexual harassment depending on the ideology of the alleged perpetrator.

Posted by Terry K. at 5:22 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, October 16, 2017 5:23 PM EDT

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The Media Research Center's Tim Graham and Brent Bozell lecture in their Oct. 13 column:

We can guess no one will make a movie about the decades of harassment by Weinstein and Hollywood's cover-up. And, certainly, no one would win an Oscar for it. No Holy Father in Tinseltown has moral authority. Feminist superstars like Meryl Streep professed they hadn't the slightest idea of what their friend Harvey was doing ... which makes them either profoundly cynical or amazingly clueless.

A far more believable response came from French actress Lea Seydoux, who wrote in the Guardian that she was groped by Weinstein. She said: "Everyone knew what Harvey was up to and no one did anything. It's unbelievable that he's been able to act like this for decades and still keep his career."

If the liberal intelligentsia found it completely unbelievable that a Catholic bishop might have been uninformed about sexual abuse by priests, then how do they expect anyone to believe it's impossible for the Streeps of Hollywood to be unaware?

How about conservatives who regularly appeared on Fox News -- like Bozell, for example, who for years had a recurring weekly segment on Sean Hannity's show, or any of the other MRC  -- who pontificate about Weinstein by don't want to talk about the serial sexual harassment perpetrated by Fox News chief Roger Ailes and host Bill O'Reilly?

As we've documented, Bozell not only couldn't be bothered to condemn Ailes -- that would have likely cut down on Fox News appearances for him and MRC -- his praise of Ailes upon the latter's death earlier this year completely censored mention of the sexual harassment that cost him his job. 

As far as O'Reilly's sexual harassment goes, Bozell and Graham wrote a column that included exactly one sentence in perfuctory denunciation of the harassment and the entire rest of the column attacking O'Reilly's critics and the "liberal media" for exposing it. Further, Graham appeared on the final episode of O'Reilly's show (albeit after he had been suspended) and didn't think he needed to comment on that situation.

Graham then took it one step further in an Oct. 15 post by attacking one of Ailes' accuser, whining that "this week’s People gave three pages to a big article on former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson, whose sexual harassment accusations against Fox News chief Roger Ailes created a similar hubbub in July 2016. Fox News settled her lawsuit for $20 million." Yes, according to Graham, Ailes' serial sexual harassment was just a "hubbub," apparently not a big deal.

Graham then portrayed Carlson's allegations as part of  a liberal hit job on Ailes: "Be Fierce: Stop Harassment and Take Your Power Back, and they loaded in an excerpt. The book’s dust-cover testimonials come from a progressive crowd: Maria Shriver, Katie Couric, Larry Wilmore, Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, Billie Jean King, and Fox-loathing journalist Gabriel Sherman."

Graham seems not to have considered that Carlson's publishers could find no conservative who would speak out on her behalf for fear of alienating Fox News and losing those precious TV hits -- after all, Bozell and Graham certainly have no interest in doing so.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:40 PM EDT

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The Media Research Center has deliberately misportrayed the kneeling protests by NFL players as disrespect for the flag, even though kneeling does, in fact, is an act of respect. So it's not surprising that the MRC is trying to drag "journalists" into its misleading narrative by rehashing a very old story. Take it away, Geoffrey Dickens:

Journalists are falling over themselves to praise NFL players taking a knee in protest during the National Anthem, but this isn’t the first time members of the liberal media have shown disrespect towards a symbol of national unity. Even as this country was recovering from the wounds of 9/11 some leftists in the press were agonizing over the proliferation of flag-waving.

First: Many of the people Dickens cites are not "journalists";  they are commentators like Katha Politt and Bill Moyers.

Second: Most of the examples Dickens cites are from the post-9/11 kerfuffle over whether people on TV should be forced to wear flag pins on their lapels. (No example is more recent than 2013, and there's a completely irrelevant one from 1991.) That means the conversation was not about patriotism but forced patriotism -- a difference Dickens doesn't seem to understand, or does and is pretending otherwise.

Certainly Dickens knows that forced patriotism is not real patriotism at all. That's why he (and the entire MRC) is trying to make this whole thing about the flag and not the issues the kneeling protest is actually about.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:27 PM EDT

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As of this writing, the Media Research Center has devoted a whopping 31 posts referencing the sexual harassment allegations surrounding now-former film executive Harvey Weinstein, a large number of them calling out people and media outlets that weren't obsessing over it as hard as the MRC has been, or who had previous links to Weinstein. For instance:

• NBC Blacks Out Harvey Weinstein Sexual Harassment Allegations
• Sean Spicer Mocks WashPost for Skipping Weinstein Scandal In Their Hard Copy
• Not Speaking Truth to Power: ‘Brave’ Late Night Hosts Skip Weinstein Sex Scandal
• Late Night Comedians, Washington Post Duck, Stumble on Harvey Weinstein Coverage
• Unlike ABC, CBS Hammers Obama and Clinton for Sleazy Weinstein Connections
• CNN’s Bash Unloads on Obamas Over Weinstein Donations, Silence: ‘Where Are the Obamas?’
• LAME: 'SNL' Boss Claims They Skipped Weinstein Mockery as a 'New York Thing'

If the MRC wants to play that game, let's take a look at how it reacted to two other recent high-profile cases of serial sexual harassment -- but these involved the leader and the star employee of the MRC's favorite channel, Fox News.

When tales of sexual harassment by Roger Ailes forced him to resign last year from the "news" channel he created, the MRC was the opposite of obsessed; it was mentioned only in passing, when it was mentioned at all. In one of the very rare times it did address the issue, one NewsBusters blogger insisted that Ailes shouldn't be blamed for the culture of sexual harassment at Fox News, and another claimed it was "liberal bias" for anyone to even discuss Ailes' sexual harassment issues.

When Ailes died earlier this year, not only did the statement on his death by MRC chief Brent Bozell fail to mention the sexual harassment, the MRC attacked anyone who attempted to include sexual harassment as part of an accurate accounting of Ailes' legacy.

When star Fox News host Bill O'Reilly was ousted from the network over similar sexual harassment allegations, the MRC didn't really want to talk about that either -- not even when its Tim Graham appeared on the final edition of O'Reilly's old show and had a chance to speak truth to power. Graham and Bozell then issued a perfunctory denunciation of O'Reilly, then spent the rest of their column attacking O'Reilly's critics, dismissing the allegations as old news and portraying O'Reilly as the victim of a hypocritical "liberal media." (Never mind Bozell and Graham's own hypocrisy in being unable to denounce sexual harassment without invoking the Clintons.)

Last month, the MRC touted O'Reilly's appearance on NBC in which he denied any harassment without offering any evidence to back him up and -- in an echo of Bozell and Graham -- insisted he was the victim of a "hit job, a political and financial hit job." Would the MRC ever provide a similarly uncritical platform for Weinstein to deny the allegations against him? Highly unlikely.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Bozell even suggested that the sexual harassment charges against Ailes and O'Reilly weren't true, and even if they were, the Fox News audience wouldn't care:

But many of the stories are background noise to Fox viewers suspicious of bias by the “mainstream media,” said Brent Bozell, president of the conservative media watchdog Media Research Center. Many question the truth of the stories or see them as payback for Fox’s success, he said.

[...]

“They’re not going to stop watching Hannity because of Roger Ailes,” Bozell said. “I don’t think they connect the two of them at all.”

Bozell didn't say whether he himself was having the same disconnect -- one that the MRC, by contrast, is working to ensure doesn't happen between Weinstein and anyone even tangentally associated with him.

The MRC has no room whatsoever to complain about silence and hypocrisy by others on the issue of sexual harassment. Yet it insists on complaining anyway.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:41 PM EDT

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It seems pretty obvious that Vice President Mike Pence's decision to walk out of an Indianapolis Colts NFL game because some players were kneeling during the national anthem was a stunt -- and a very expensive one at that. But accurately reporting the stunt-like nature of Pence's walkout earns you the ire of the Media Research Center.

Jay Maxson complained that "CNN's Brian Stelter accused Pence of planning his actions ahead of time," despite the fact that it was pretty obvious he did. Brad Wilmouth followed up by huffing about TV networks calling it it a stunt that "It did not seem to occur to either network that, when several of the '49ers players sparked the move by kneeling during the National Anthem, this display could also be called a 'stunt.'" Given that kneeling is something of a regular thing among some NFL football players, it could hardly be described as a "stunt" at this point. Nevertheless, Wilmouth goes on to grouse:

It did not seem to occur to either ABC or NBC that Pence, being a native of Indiana, perhaps has a tradition of attending games in his home state, and did not wish to merely give up on going because of the possibility of provocative actions by some players before they had actually occurred.

The fact that Wilmouth stuck a "perhaps" in there means he doesn't actually know whether Pence normally goes to football games in Indiana, and he's just grasping at straws to defend him.

Kyle Drennen complained that networks newscasts "touted left-wing 'critics' deriding the move as a 'PR stunt.'" He doesn't deny it, but he does try to deflect: "The protests against the National Anthem by NFL players were not 'impromptu' either, in fact, those demonstrations have been highly orchestrated in many cases. That never seemed to bother journalists before."

Oh, the lengths some people will go to defend a politician...

Posted by Terry K. at 9:09 PM EDT

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If you thought the Media Research Center was angry when Jimmy Kimmel spoke out against that mess of a Republican health care plan, it was in full-on rage mode when Kimmel reacted to the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

As he did last time, the MRC's Nicholas Fondacaro went on an unprofessional, random-boldface-laden tirade that was even more mean-spirited and personally insulting than the last:

The liberal media’s favorite late night shill and self-described pizza eating expert, Jimmy Kimmel used his show the day after the mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada to push for gun control while smearing Congressional Republicans for helping to cause the bloodshed. “They should be praying for God to forgive them for letting the gun lobby run this country because it’s so crazy,” the emotional Kimmel exclaimed to his audience.

“I’ve been reading comments from people who say this is terrible but there’s nothing we can do about it. But I disagree with that intensely because, of course, there is something we can do about it. There are a lot of things we can do about it. But we don’t,” he began.

SPOILER ALERT: Everything he claimed would have stopped the attack either wouldn’t have or was just him lying.

According to Fondacaro, Kimmel was "emotional," "ranting," told "lies," lives in a "warped reality," and "hadn’t done any actual research outside of ingesting and regurgitating Democratic Party talking points," ultimately whining that "There’s no doubt that the liberal media will hold Kimmel up as the darling sensible voice for tumultuous times." Well, there was certainly nothing sensible coming out of Fondacaro's mean-spirited mouth.

That was followed by Kristine Marsh bashing media praise of Kimmel's "emotional monologue," which was really a "political plea" that was "reciting the liberal media's gun control script," praising her colleague Fondacaro for "debunking the skewed facts and outright lies the comedic host helped spread to millions of Americans who may not know any better."Marsh concluded with a tirade of her own: "With the help of the media promoting his propagandizing on their own daytime news shows, it’s no wonder the entertainer is now treated as a policy expert rather than what he actually is, a comedian who is aiding the left-wing media's mission to mislead viewers on this difficult subject."

Neither Fondacaro nor Marsh mentioned the reason Kimmel had justification for being a little emotional: He's a native of Las Vegas.

Then, Curtis Houck dedicated a lengthy post to summarizing how "conservative star and podcast host Ben Shapiro obliterating [sic] the ABC late-night host on Tuesday for an 'abhorrent,' 'gross,' and 'nasty' gun control ranttouting confiscation and mauling those against his views as monstrous" (boldface his).

And because they never miss an opportunity to sneer at a TV personality who strays from their right-wing orthodoxy, Tim Graham and Brent Bozell huffed that Kimmel's monologue "might as well have been brought to you by speechwriters from the office of Senator Charles Schumer." Again, no mention of Kimmel's personal stake.

Graham then went solo to spew more hate at Kimmel, screeching at CNN's Bill Carter for calling Kimmel a reluctant everyman spokesman, highlighting his "estimated net worth: $35 million" and security detail and whining that "Having your own late-night show on ABC and using it for liberal sermons defines the Hollywood elite."

Marsh returned to cheer a right-wing artist's immature (or, according to her, "provocative") mocking of Kimmel for being emotional about the shootings and mockingly renaming his show the "Jimmy Kimmel Estrogen Hour" -- no mention, of course, of Kimmel's personal stake. Marsh lashed out not at the juvenile smear -- apparently, Marsh believes that real men don't get upset at the slaughter of dozens of people at a concert -- but at Kimmel for responding to it and making a "virtue-signaling" statement.

If all the MRC has to offer against its ideological enemies is gratuitous and immature insults, what good is all that Mercer money?

Posted by Terry K. at 2:26 PM EDT

Updated: Saturday, December 16, 2017 12:39 AM EST

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All last week, the Media Research Center and its various divisions had been promoting the boycott of last Sunday's NFL games, as demanded by MRC chief Brent Bozell:

Protesting the National Anthem not only distracts from the sport that pays these players millions but, more importantly, disrespects the men and women of the military who risk their lives to allow them that opportunity. This is a spectacle designed to score political points, and the public is sick and tired of it. People tune in to football to enjoy themselves, not to have to subject themselves to attacks on our flag because spoiled players don't like the politics of our president. The public needs to have its voice heard. This Sunday, October 1st, I ask football fans to support our flag and turn off the NFL. One week without football to support our flag. We should not continue to give attention to players who refuse to show respect for our great nation.

But the MRC has been silent this week on how Bozell's boycott went, and it can't be because the Las Vegas mass shooting pushed it out of the news. Tell us what happened, actual news outlet:

The kneeling-related boycott of the NFL hasn’t fully materialized.

Fox’s NFL coverage netted a 12.6 rating and 26 share, a 14% increase over its Week 4 coverage a year ago. The network broadcast one game nationally on Sunday and the ratings were about 20% better than CBS’ singleheader coverage in Week 4 of 2016.

Fox had the top-rated NFL broadcast of the weekend and its best singleheader telecast since 2015, the network announced on Monday.

About a third of the country saw the Los Angeles Rams’ 35-30 upset of Dallas Cowboys with the rest of the country seeing regional coverage, including the Carolina Panthers’ victory over the New England Patriots.

Excluding Week 1, where both viewership and the ability to gather ratings were impacted by Hurricane Irma, Fox reported its ratings had increased 1% over a year ago.

CBS saw a ratings decline due to Fox's stronger games, and NBC's Sunday night game heald steady compared to last year. ESPN's Monday night game saw a big drop from last year, but that appears to be the result of a lackluster matchup involving a small-market team.

It seems nobody listened to Bozell demanding that we #TurnOffNFL -- they turned Bozell off instead.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:38 AM EDT

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How deep in Donald Trump's pocket is the Media Research Center? MRC VP and right-wing apparatchik Dan Gainor went on the MRC's favorite outlet, Fox Business, to parrot the Trump line that the investigation of links between Trump and Russia is nothing but a witch hunt:

MRC VP for Business and Culture Dan Gainor appeared on Fox Business Network to discuss “fake news” that is spread on Facebook and media bias against President Donald Trump.

Intelligence Report anchor Trish Regan said on Sept. 22, the social media site announced cooperation with congressional investigators “to increase transparency after the company found more than more than 3,000 political ads apparently linked to Russian accounts over the past two years.”

On Twitter, Trump called it a continuation of the “Russian hoax” and noted the “totally biased and dishonest media coverage” in Hillary Clinton’s favor.

Regan reminded viewers that journalists have attacked Trump viciously and pointed out that all kinds of fake news appears on Facebook.

“I don’t like fake news, you don’t like fake news, but the reality is on Facebook there is all kinds of fake news about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump or some, you know, lose weight quick product ...” Regan said to Gainor before asking, “Why is the Donald Trump, sort of, Russians buying his election thing being singled out when I guarantee ya there was stuff on the other side too?”

Gainor replied, “Well, it’s because they have to push the Russia narrative. Donald Trump’s tweet is right. Yes, they are continuing to push the Russian witch hunt. They want to make it seem like Russia is the reason Donald Trump won. It’s not. Donald Trump’s the reason why Donald Trump won. Hillary is the reason why Donald Trump won. And the American people are the reason.”

 Spoken like a true Trump apparatchik. That's what the MRC is paying him for.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:53 PM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, October 4, 2017 11:34 AM EDT

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Over the past week, the Media Research Center glommed onto the controversy over pro football players kneeling during the National Anthem, despite the fact that it has nothing whatsoever to do with its claimed mission. Which tells us that for the MRC, it's all about publicity and blind support for Donald Trump and not about principle or even patriotism. A pop-up to prmote the protest doubled as a way to harvest email addresses for the MRC's political action arm.

The MRC network of websites generated numerous posts on the subject, which it incessantly retweeted to push the player-bashing meme in service of MRC chief Brent Bozell's attempt to stage a fan boycott of NFL boycott this weekend. Bozell made sure to twist intent so it was all about his beloved president and not about the issue that Colin Kaepernick voiced last year: "People tune in to football to enjoy themselves, not to have to subject themselves to attacks on our flag because spoiled players don't like the politics of our president."

It was throwing every attack and smear at the players that it could think of.

At the top of the smear-hurling list, of course, was the mysterious Jay Maxson, who already has a massive case of Kaepernick Deragement Syndrome. In one post, Maxson denied that the players have a point with their protest in calling attention to police brutality and justice for blacks, whining (boldface his):

Left-stream media and some of the NFL protesters insist that they are not dishonoring veterans or the national anthem, but if it's not about the national anthem or the sacrifices made by veterans, then why do these protests during the national anthem? Many a good man died in war zones just to keep our flag flying.

Because the players have made a point of saying not only does the protest has nothing to do with veterans, the kneeling is meant to show respect, as a former NFL player and military veteran told Colin Kaepernick to do.

Maxson whined further when a sportswriter pointed out the lack of mention of police brutality that sparked the protsts in the firstplace: "Speaking as a sports fan and a patriot, these outrageous pre-game displays are also too long on this word: disrespectful. And too short on this word: honor. No stadium PA announcer says, 'Please kneel to dishonor America.' They say, 'Please stand to honor America.' That's how it should be."

Curtis Houck, however, took a slightly different tack by surprisingly suggesting that Trump went a bit too far in demanding that players who knelt be fired, coming in the midst of a Heathering rant against "Never Trump diehard" Bret Stephens (whom Houck won't concede is a conservative): "What’s so absurd about Stephens’s arguments is that he assumes those against the players are onboard with the President calling for their firing. A slogan seen on Twitter (particularly by Ben Shapiro) has been that those against the protests 'oppose, but tolerate' them."

But tolerance has hardly been a hallmark of the MRC's anti-NFL campaign -- as illustrated by a CNSNews.com blog post by Michael W. Chapman touting self-hating black man Jesse Lee Peterson calling the protesters "evil."

That was joined by a Chapman post in which he touted how "actor, director, musician, and 7th-level Aikido black belt master Steven Seagal" opposed the protests. But then, Chapman undercut Seagal's credibility by noting that "Seagal also said that people who think Russia 'fixed' the 2016 presidential election are being fed 'astronomical propaganda' to create a 'diversion."

And, for some reason, the MRC called in the Catholic League's Bill Donohue to weigh in on the issue, even though football has even less to do with the Catholic League's mission than it does the MRC's.

So the MRC tried to make hay by trying to profit on an issue by making it even more partisan. Nobody's surprised by the sheer opportunism.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:44 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, October 2, 2017 12:07 AM EDT

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The Media Research Center has slowly turned itself into a public relations arm of the Trump administration. Check out this Sept. 17 post by Brad Wilmouth in total pro-Trump spin mode:

Since Donald Trump began his run for President in June 2015, parts of the dominant liberal media have repeatedly parroted the incorrect claim that, in 1989, Trump ran a newspaper ad in which he urged the execution of a group of young black and Hispanic teens who ended up eventually being proven "innocent" in spite of confessing to the infamous rape and beating of a Central Park jogger that year.

In fact, the ad in question did not specify that the Central Park Five should be executed as it came at a time when the death penalty was illegal in New York. There had been a push for the state legislature to enact a new law to reinstate capital punishment which would require overriding the veto of then-Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo -- who had vetoed a death penalty bill a month before the attack.

The defendants could not have been sentenced to capital punishment since it was not an option at the time of the crime.

Additionally, when Trump was asked about the ad in May 1989 on Larry King Live, CNN claims he stated that he only supported the death penalty for adults -- which would have excluded the Central Park Five because they were all between the ages of 14 and 16.

Note how Wilmouth parses Trump's ad to focus on how it "did not specify that the Central Park Five should be executed." In fact, the ad does reference the Central Park attack, the ran just a few months after it occurred, and the headline on it blared, "BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!" It seems pretty clear who Trump was talking about, even if he did not do so to the specificity that Wilmouth demands.

Wilmouth also argued that the Central Park Five deserved prison because, even if they weren't guilty of the attack they were sentenced, they must have been guilty of something:

In the film, The Central Park Five, as far-left film maker Ken Burns pushed a sympathetic view of the five teens, the documentary actually admitted that their defense attorneys had considered arguing that they could not have committed the attack on the jogger because they were busy "beating up other people" at the time. Their defense attorneys presumably had conceded that they were part of a group of dozens of teens who attacked as many as eight different random people in the park on the same night, including one man who received a skull fracture.

Also of note, as some have pushed the angle that, because the Central Park jogger was a white woman while the defendants were minorities, Trump was motivated by racism -- but what has been overlooked is that he also came to the defense of a black woman in Brooklyn who was raped and thrown from a four-story building a couple of weeks after the Central Park attack, and right after the death penalty ads ran in May of that year.

[...]

As for the issue of the Central Park Five being "exonerated" or proven "innocent," with some accounts even asserting that they were "acquitted," such claims are an overstatement given that, after another man -- convicted serial rapist Matias Reyes -- in 2002 confessed to attacking the jogger in 1989 and claimed that he did it alone, there was never another trial to determine their guilt. After DNA testing linked Reyes to the crime, the city's prosecution chose to vacate the convictions for all five.

Since there really is a phenomenon that people sometimes confess to offenses they did not commit, it would seem feasible either that the Central Park Five were pressured into confessing to a crime they did not commit, or that Reyes  -- who apparently had nothing to lose by confessing -- falsely claimed that he was the only assailant who took part in the attack.

It is possible that a jury would have found them not guilty if they had had the benefit of Reyes's testimony at the time, but, as they had already served their sentences, they were not tried again, and the sentences were simply vacated.

While Wilmouth does acknowledge that New York City paid a "generous settlement" to the Central Park Five -- which non-biased observers would argue is equivalent to the exoneration Wilmouth denies exists -- he complains that it was a "political decision" by Mayour Bill Di Blasio made "against the advice of the city's attorneys." But the newspaper link Wilmouth supplies as evidence of this also points out that the settlement averted a trial over the case by the Central Park Five defendants in which they were seeking $111 million.

Posted by Terry K. at 5:05 PM EDT

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How ironic: At the same time the Media Research Center was mocking the idea that an entertainer could speak authoritatively on health care policy, it was insisting that another entertainer could speak authoritatively on the Constitution.

Corinne Weaver huffs in a Sept. 21 MRC post:

It’s a sad world we live in where talking about the Constitution is considered inappropriate for children. But for actress Janine Turner (Northern Exposure), these are the accusations she faced from parents of the students she teaches about the Constitution. A former board member, who is a current member of the #Resistance, pushed the school who hosted Turner to apologize for inviting her.

The founder of Constituting America, a nonprofit organization meant to “educate Americans about the Constitution and the rights and liberties it provides and protects,” has given 230 speeches to over 20,000 people about the Constitution. Turner was invited to speak at Eubanks Intermediary School in Texas on September 12. After her presentation to the students, parents and teachers shamed her as presenting “political statements” that were not “appropriate.”

[...]

She also was not promoting a “hidden agenda;” instead, she stated, “The Truth Act and the corresponding research paper are bi-partisan, never pointing a finger at one party over the other.” But because the words “abortion” and “sexual trafficking” are found in the paper, a former member of the school board went out of his way to target both Turner and her daughter on social media, an action that “horrified” Turner, rightfully so.

But Turner does, in fact, have an agenda -- and it's one the MRC has heartily supported in the past. In 2010, it touted how Turner is a "conservative actress" who was "inspired by the TEA Party movement" to start her organization. The MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, promoted Turner saying that the Affordable Care Act was "not based on what a true Republic represents or what our Founding Fathers would have liked."

As part of spinning her current kerfuffle, CNS also published an op-ed by Turner in which she dubiously insisted that "Our main focus has been to consistently present the Constitution as a non-partisan document and to never discuss politics, political agendas or political parties" and that she has "no hidden agenda."

CNS has so far refused to give Jimmy Kimmel space to write an op-ed to explain his views.

The mere fact that the MRC has tried to blow up this kerfuffle into a full-blown controversy is evidence that Turner has an agenda. But it will never admit it -- conservatives don't have agendas by mere dint of being conservatives, but everyone who doesn't agree with Turner or the MRC is a filthy liberal who's trying to ram their agenda down the throats of America.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:47 PM EDT

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