MRC Portrays Telling The Truth About Trump As An 'Attack' On Him Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Rsearch Center's Kyle Drennen writes in a Dec. 4 post:
In its desperation to avoid any discussion of a potential major legislative win for the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, Monday’s NBC Today devoted an astonishing 15 times more coverage to the morning show’s fired co-host Billy Bush attacking President Trump in a New York Times op/ed than to the GOP tax bill working its way through Congress.
“Now on to that scathing on op/ed from Billy Bush in this morning’s New York Times. In it, he takes the President to task over their notorious exchange during a taping for Access Hollywood,” co-host Hoda Kotb hailed as she introduced 4 minutes 49 seconds of coverage on the rehashing of the year-old controversy (Another full minute of coverage came at the top of the 8 a.m. ET hour, making the show total 5 minutes 49 seconds).
Correspondent Kristen Welker followed by eagerly reminding viewers: "Everyone remembers that now-infamous Access Hollywood tape that nearly cost then-candidate Trump the election.” Noting anonymous sources claiming that “in recent weeks, Mr. Trump has reportedly been questioning the authenticity of the tape,” Welker touted how “Billy Bush, who lost his job over the controversy, is speaking out.” She proclaimed: “His message, the tape is real and the President’s denials have hit a raw nerve.”
Wait -- how was Bush "attacking" Trump? He was simply pointing out that, contrary to Trump's recent suggestions otherwise, that is indeed him on the "Access Hollywood" tape. From Bush's Times op-ed:
He said it. “Grab ’em by the pussy.”
Of course he said it. And we laughed along, without a single doubt that this was hypothetical hot air from America’s highest-rated bloviator. Along with Donald Trump and me, there were seven other guys present on the bus at the time, and every single one of us assumed we were listening to a crass standup act. He was performing. Surely, we thought, none of this was real.
We now know better.
[...]
President Trump is currently indulging in some revisionist history, reportedly telling allies, including at least one United States senator, that the voice on the tape is not his. This has hit a raw nerve in me.
I can only imagine how it has reopened the wounds of the women who came forward with their stories about him, and did not receive enough attention. This country is currently trying to reconcile itself to years of power abuse and sexual misconduct. Its leader is wantonly poking the bear.
That's not an attack -- that's pointing out that Trump is lying. That's telling the truth. If Trump wasn't engaging in revisionist history and trying to tell a blatant lie, this wouldn't be a story, but Drennen didn't concede that point.
Only in the world of the MRC -- where facts not favorable to its right-wing agenda or that make Trump look bad must be deflected and denounced -- is it an "attack."
WND Managing Editor Pretends He Doesn't Publish Fake News, Or Have An Agenda Topic: WorldNetDaily
The monthly appeal from WorldNetDaily managing editor David Kupelian to try and get WND readers to send him money for free content carries the headline "1 simple way to kill fake news and drain the swamp." In it, he makes this claim:
Do you remember hearing recently about a Washington, D.C.-based alternative news organization that had actually been the original funder of Fusion GPS, the notorious “oppo-research” outfit that later produced the infamously fraudulent, Democrat-funded “Trump dossier”? Or, what do you suppose happens (another actual example) when a journalism organization’s billionaire funder is overall a good, solid Republican – except he has a gay son who “married” his homosexual partner, and now the father is intensely focused on getting the Republican Party to embrace the entire LGBT agenda? Do you think a news organization funded by him, however conservative and reasonable and right-thinking it might otherwise be, will spend much time exposing the LGBT juggernaut that is currently turning American society, culture and law upside-down?
This is what can and does happen when you are basically a good news organization with good people, but funded by a billionaire with an agenda.
WND founder and Editor Joseph Farah puts it this way: “Even much of the alternative media has an agenda beyond the truth. And since most of it is controlled by the views of its billionaire owners, literally, there are problems with it. The one notable exception is WND. We’re not controlled by a billionaire, a group of billionaires or even millionaires. From the beginning, we simply operate from an independent truth-seeking drive with a God-centered worldview. We don’t make any apologies for it. But it keeps us independent of everything except our one bias – that we serve a Creator God who revealed His love for us through the Bible.”
This independence is one of the biggest factors that distinguishes WND from all of our journalistic colleagues both in the Big Media and the alternative media: We don’t rely on a billionaire funder whose agenda controls us.
We rely on you.
The first example Kupelian cites, the Fusion GPS funder, is the Washington Free Beacon. The second example is apparently a reference to Peter Singer, who is a major funder of the Free Beacon.
But is the Free Beacon's paying Fusion GPS for oppo research any different from WND's claimed hiring of private investigators to dig up dirt on Hillary Clinton, or using its lawyers to draft an affidavit to bolster its Obama birther conspiracy theories? Not really.
Interestingly, Kupelian inserts a bit of fake news here by claiming the "Trump dossier is "infamously fraudulent." In fact, a lot of it has been corroborated elsewhere. That doesn't bode well for Kupelian's quoting of Farah's instenc that WND is on "an independent truth-seeking drive with a God-centered worldview."
Of course, WND's lengthy history of publishingfakenews puts the lie to its claim that it's "truth-seeking" (just ask Clark Jones). And what "God-centered worldview" caused Kupelian to sell out his sense of morality to back an thrice-married adulterer and misogynist as his preferred presidential candidate? Indeed, Kupelian uses his column to tout "the stunning election of Donald Trump, sparing [Americans] the unthinkable horrors of a Hillary Clinton presidency."
If Kupelian is really looking for "1 simple way to kill fake news," he might want to try not publishing so much of it.
Time For Another Bogus MRC 'Study' of Trump Coverage Topic: Media Research Center
It's another month, so it's time for yet another bogus Media Research Center "study" of media coverage of President Trump. Manufacture some outrage, Rich Noyes:
But as the Media Research Center has been documenting all year, the media have approached the Trump presidency with unrelenting hostility. Our latest numbers show that coverage of Trump on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts in September, October and November was more than 90 percent negative (our methodology counts only explicitly evaluative statements from reporters or non-partisan sources).
In September, there were just 31 pro-Trump statements on the Big Three vs. 359 negative. In October, the number of positive statements grew to 41, while the negative statements swelled to 435.
In November, there was somewhat less coverage of the President, as political journalists raced to cover the allegations against Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore, but the ratio remained essentially unchanged: 33 positive statements vs. 320 negative statements.
Add it all up, and coverage of Trump has been 91 percent negative during the past three months. Our study of news in June, July and August found an identical rate of 91% negative, which means TV news is unchanged in its hostility toward the President.
As we have before, let's rehash the ways in which this study is bogus:
It focuses only on a tiny sliver of news -- the evening newscasts on the three networks -- and suggests it's indicative of all media.
It pretends there was never any neutral coverage of Trump. Indeed, the study explicitly rejects neutral coverage -- even though that's arguable the bulk of news coverage -- dishonestly counting "only explicitly evaluative statements."
It fails to take into account the stories themselves and whether negative coverage is deserved or admit that negative coverage is the most accurate way to cover a given story.
It fails to provide the raw data or the actual statements it evaluated so its work could be evaluated by others. If the MRC's work was genuine and rigorous, wouldn't it be happy to provide the data to back it up?
But who cares about crappy methodology that wouldn't pass muster among genuine research analysts when the bogus stuff gets so much coverage? The MRC was tickled to death that White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders cited the study's headline number, and the MRC's "news" division CNSNews.com published an op-ed by right-wing activist Tony Perkins that promotes the study.
That self-promotion tells us that actual research isn't the point of the MRC's work -- and that supplying a number to its fellow right-wing activists to tout on friendly media outlets, however bogus and ridiculous, is.
Dubious WND Doc Does Armchair Exams of Politicians Topic: WorldNetDaily
Dubious WorldNetDaily doc Elizabeth Lee Vliet devoted a Nov. 6 column to concern-trolling over the health of politicians she doesn't like:
As Democrats parade the opinions of various psychiatric and psychological TV “experts,” claiming that President Trump is “mentally ill” and unfit for office, I was recently asked: “Should Congress and political candidates release medical records to run for or hold political office?” And “Is it even ethical for psychiatrists and psychologists to be on TV claiming the president is mentally ill, or has a personality disorder, if they have not examined the patient?”
These questions became even more relevant with the recent revelation that Grubbs Pharmacy on Capitol Hill delivers prescriptions almost daily to members of Congress and their staff, some of which are medicines for serious illnesses like Alzheimer’s dementia. In fact, the pharmacist who handles these prescriptions for Congress and the elite on Capitol Hill is quoted in the article saying he finds it “troubling” that the public does not know who is suffering from such diseases that affect brain function, memory, judgment, and ability to think and analyze complex information.
In several recent media interviews, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi demonstrated facial tics, long pauses as she searched for words, stumbling over the pronunciation of simple words and difficulty remembering basic information, dates, names and even who is president.
Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton displayed facial tics, speech pauses, difficulty standing and difficulty recalling words during the 2016 campaign. Yet the public was only told she had “pneumonia.” These observations are not typical of pneumonia and suggest a more serious neurological problem.
Sen. John McCain disclosed he has a serious brain cancer, but has remained in office, casting critical votes that affect all Americans, although this type of cancer can impair thinking and judgment and cause behavior changes.
Vliet's armchair doctoring does have a blind spot, though, for politicians she does like:
President Trump has not exhibited any of the behaviors described above to suggest a medical or mental problem affecting performance. His speech is fluid, articulate and does not show the pauses and loss of common words that are easily observable with Pelosi, Clinton, or McCain.
Vliet wrote this was a few weeks before Trump was, in fact, caught slurring his words.
Vliet went on to demand that politicians make "proper medical disclosures" and she "suggests requiring all politicians holding or running for office to release their medical records and disclose any medical or mental conditions for which they are being treated with prescription medications." That's not necessarily a bad idea, but it's an ironic one coming from her because her idol Trump has made no such disclosures about his own health.
Trump's doctor issued a hastily written statement before the election declaring that "If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency." Vliet certainly understands that's not an informative or even helpful statement for a physician to make.
MRC Demands Coverage of Unemployment Numbers It Used To Suggest Were Faked Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Aly Nielsen complains in a Dec. 5 post:
The national unemployment rate is already at a low 4.1 percent rate, but some economists think it could go even lower in the next two years. However, many liberal news outlets ignored the forecast.
Goldman Sachs economists issued a forecast in November that the U.S. unemployment rate could fall to as little as 3.5 percent by late 2019. The three broadcast networks and several major newspapers ignored their views.
Those economists “lowered their unemployment rate forecast to 3.7 percent by end-2018 and to 3.5 percent by end-2019,” on Nov. 17, according to Reuters. “Our projections would imply an evolution over the current cycle from the weakest labor market in postwar U.S. history to one of the tightest,” Goldman Sachs’ economists said.
Between Nov. 17 and Dec. 1, none of ABC, CBS or NBC morning or evening news shows reported the unemployment forecast from the well known financial firm. In print,The New York Times,The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and USA Today also chose not to cover the bullish prediction.
Perhaps because economic predictions that go more than a year out are pure speculation. Perhaps, also, because the MRC was disparaging this same low unemployment number under President Obama.
We documented how MRC blogger Tom Blumer suggested in a March NewsBusters post that unemployment numbers under Obama were "phony," claiming that "there was reason to believe that BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics] may have changed its criteria for whether a person was in the labor force and began excluding more people who were legitimately looking for work" though citing no evidence to support that assertion beyond lame attempts to smear the then-BLS director as a partisan because she once co-wrote an op-ed arguing to end some exemptions to federal regulations.
If the unemployment number was so trustworthy under Obama, how can the it be suddenly trustworthy now under Trump, especailly when no evidence has been produced to support the claim that the numbers were ever skewed under Obama? And why should the Goldman Sachs prediction be taken at face value when the Trump administration has hired numerous Goldman Sachs executives and, arguably, as a vested interest in putting forward rosy predictions?
Perhaps Nielsen could answer these questions before demanding that the media report said rosy predictions about a number the MRC used to think was bogus.
WND Not Taking Roy Moore's Loss Well Topic: WorldNetDaily
If the initial wave of post-election columns is any indication, WorldNetDaily will not be taking the loss of Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate race well.
As expected, WND editor went on a huge conspiratorial rant (as if he goes on any other kind) over Moore's loss:
Let’s face it. That the race was in ever in doubt is attributable to one thing and one thing alone – weak, unsubstantiated, politically motivated allegations that go back four decades.
I don’t know about you, but I was a different person 40 years ago than I am today – a difference as stark as day and night.
Roy Moore has run for statewide office in Alabama a number of times in the last 20 years. Does it strike anyone else as strange that none of these allegations were made during that long political career? Could it be there is absolutely nothing to them – zip, zilch, nada?
Should the character and morality of any man or woman be judged on the basis of conduct that may or may not have happened 40 years ago?
I don’t think that would be a fair standard, even if the most egregious allegations against Roy Moore turned out to be 100 percent true.
[...]
Who stole this election?
The cartel of the Big Media and the Democrats.
It’s still powerful, even though more Americans are realizing they’re not get real news from the Big Media. But when that unholy cartel can steal a big and meaningful election in Alabama, then you know we’re in for a helluva political ride over the next three years.
Needless to say, Farah didn't mention the fact that, as the publisher of Moore's autobiography, he had a vested financial interest in Moore's victory. Ethical journalists -- which history does not show Farah to be -- are supposed to disclose conflicts of interest.
Scott Lively declared that Moore was the victim of a "borking":
First, the takedown of Judge Moore was decidedly not about vindicating newly minted and highly suspect accusations of decades-old alleged sexual misconduct; it was about keeping a genuinely independent, Bible-believing Christian conservative from joining President Donald Trump in the essential mission of draining the swamp in Washington, D.C. Judge Roy Moore would have been to the U.S. Senate and to President Trump what Judge Robert Bork would have been to the U.S. Supreme Court and to President Ronald Reagan – a clear and present danger to every political skunk, rat and RINO in D.C.. The real target of this is Trump, just as the “borking” of Judge Bork was about targeting Reagan.
Second, Alabama’s political chaos – and the tsunami of sex scandals that preceded it – was not the result of some spontaneous social revolt against male predation, but a calculated and diabolical political strategy of the Purple Revolution.
The Purple Revolution is America’s version of the George Soros “color revolutions” that have perfected the art of social crisis as a political weapon of mass destruction for the purpose of “regime change” at the national level. These orchestrated sex scandals (with no end in sight) are intended to energize the feminist base of the Democratic Party and draw large numbers of Republican women into their orbit for a 2018-through-2020 campaign demanding female leadership to save the nation from male debauchery.
Being the shameless type, a note at the end of Lively's column adds that "Lively is a Republican candidate for governor in the deep purple state of Massachusetts in the 2018 election." Given that Lively is as much of a right-wing extremist as Moore, that election won't go well for him.
Jack Cashill's spin on things was to try and prove Moore's innocence by recounting the case of Clarence Thomas:
In October 1991, no one believed Clarence Thomas any more than they believe Roy Moore today.
Like Thomas, Moore was hit with a last-minute charge of sexual impropriety that was nothing short of a political assassination.
Whether Moore was falsely accused or not I do not know, probably never will, but in Clarence Thomas’s case, I have no doubt he was telling the truth.
Cashill's main evidence was a claim in an Anita Hill-bashing book by then-conservative David Brock that the author has renounced.
And Michael Brown tried to play both sides of the fence, casting doubt on the claims on Moore's accusers while also questioning why evangelicals would support a man accused of perving on teenage girls in the first place:
Let’s put those questions aside and ask this: What if Judge Moore was robbed Tuesday because of false accusations? What if a pro-abortion liberal won a Senate seat because of a left-wing plot fueled by the media and funded by the likes of George Soros? What if a tremendous injustice was done?
Even if the worst-case scenario were true, are we willing to put our trust in God, who always has the last laugh, believing that He can turn things around for greater good? And if Judge Moore was guilty and not deserving of a seat in the Senate, can we trust that righteous people were restrained from voting for him, and all of this is divine chastisement?
Obviously, emotions are high on all sides, but if we turn those emotions into prayer and holy action, it will turn out for the greater good.
Remember, Brown hates transgenders while pretending to have sympathy for them, so fence-riding is kind of his specialty.
MRC's Graham: Megyn Kelly is Too Rich To Complain About Sexual Harassment Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center director of media analysis Tim Graham has a history of dismissing sexual harassment allegations when they're made against conservatives. He's declared Anita Hill a liar who made her accusations against Clarence Thomas in order to score a book deal and a law-school teaching gig, suggested former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson made her sexual harassment allegations against Roger Ailes -- the late former head of the channel that's like a second home for MRC talking heads -- in order to get a settlement payday and, yes, a book deal, and he along with MRC chief Brent Bozell have implied that Roy Moore's accusers shouldn't be believed because theres no physical evidence of their claims (which didn't keep the MRC from believing Bill Clinton's accusers).
Now he's taking a shot at another former Fox News anchor -- Megyn Kelly, who has also claimed that Ailes sexually harassed her.Graham whines in a Dec. 6 post that Kelly was featured among Time magazine's "silence breakers" that were named the people of the year. Graham sniped that for Time, Kelly didn't talk "about sexual harassers on her current show, but on Fox News." (Kelly currently hosts the fourth hour of the "Today" show, which recently jettisoned co-host Matt Lauer over harassment claims.) Perhaps because she was sexually harassed at Fox News and not in her short time at NBC?
Graham then argued that Kelly shouldn't be complaining about sexualharassment because she has a fat NBC contract:
On the video that appears with the cover story, Kelly gets profane. Over emotional music, Kelly says “We don’t have to just live like this. I always thought things could change for my daughter. I never thought things could change for me.” Actress and Harvey Weinstein accuser Rose McGowan says women have been “conditioned since birth to be polite,” and then Kelly is sliced in: “To be ‘nice’ [finger quotes]. To be ‘kind’. To be ‘liked’. To not make waves [music pauses] – Bullshit!”
At the risk of sounding rude to Kelly, the idea of her living in some kind of oppressive bubble might seem a bit odd, since she makes an estimated $23 million a year to host a morning TV show for NBC. The "maybe my daughter won't have it so rough" sounds a bit out of touch to people making $15 an hour...or the hotel housekeepers also featured in the video.
The point Kelly is trying to make -- which seems to have completely eluded Graham -- is that sexual harassment happens to popular TV anchors as much as to hotel housekeepers making $15 an hour. Perhaps Graham can enlighten us as to the maximum amount of money a woman can make and still complain about sexual harassment, since $23 million a year is too rich for his blood.
If anyone's sounding out of touch here, it's Graham, who has apparently decided that the degree a sexual harassment accuser can be believed is inversely proportional to how closely the accused adheres to conservative ideology.
WND Still Won't Report That 'Pagan' Artifact Reconstruction Is Driven By ISIS Destruction Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's obsession with an architect group's reconstruction of the arch to the temple of Palmyra -- which it insists on calling the temple of Baal and that it is a manifestation of a revival of pagan worship and not, as is the actual case, a poke in the eye of ISIS for destroying ancient relics -- has advanced to the next level with another reconstruction job.
According to an anonymously written Dec. 9 WND article:
They’re doing it again!
The same group that recreated the Roman triumphal arch that once welcomed travelers to the Temple of Baal is now honoring another pagan deity.
The United Arab Emirates, the Italian mission to the United Nations and the Institute for Digital Archeology have re-created a statue of the goddess Athena which once stood in Palmyra, according to Breaking Israel News.
Though Athena was venerated as a goddess of reason, she was also known as “Athena Promachos,” a war goddess, and the re-created statue features her holding a spear. The exhibit, titled “The Spirit In the Stone,” is being hosted at the United Nations headquarters in New York City.
It’s another move by globalist organizations to honor pagan deities, months after the reconstructed “Arch of Baal” went on a world tour, including being placed outside the G7 meeting of the world’s industrialized nations.
This time around, though, WND is enlisting its own employees to denounce the reconstruction in addition to the usual suspects like Jonathan Cahn and Carl Gallups:
“Most people today don’t realize how much of a hold ancient pagan beliefs, practices and images still have on their lives,” said Joseph Farah, author of “The Restitution of All Things: Israel, Christians and the End of the Age.” “In fact, pagan values and traditions have never left us. Even Jews and Christians are impacted by them. And they are not innocent because the gods of paganism are actually demons, according to the Bible. It’s not something to be played with.
“The question confronting us right now is: Why would the United Nations be involved in resurrecting these occult images and icons of the past? Do they not understand what this represents – the false gods of child sacrifice and all kinds of abominations and perversions?”
Joe Kovacs, author of “Shocked By The Bible 2,”says the whole sad spectacle is part of an old story.
“The promotion of pagan gods is certainly nothing new, and it again shows we’re all living in what I call ‘Opposite World,'” he explained. “It’s a world where most people do the very opposite action of what God has instructed. Our Creator tells us to have no other gods but Him, but folks do the opposite, honoring false gods.
Farah and Kovacs are lying when they suggest that the goal of the arch and statue reconstructions are get people to worship pagan gods and the occult. The Breaking Israel News article that was the apparent inspiration for the anonymous WND writer admits that both the Athena statue and the temple of Palmyra were destroyed by ISIS -- something the anonymous WND writer didn't think was important enough to include, like numerous WND writers before. (A picture caption of the Palmyra arch does concede it was taken before ISIS destroyed it.)
And since it's censoring a key element oft his story, WND certainly isn't going to give the Institute for Digital Archeology space to explain why it's doing this: to preserve cultural heritage destroyed by ISIS.
This means that once again, WND is complaining that the Institute for Digital Archeology is undoing the handiwork of ISIS in destroying ancient artifacts for the advancement of their own extremists ideology. And, thus, it also means that WND is effectively endorsing ISIS' work in destroying the artifacts.
WND is too cowardly to admit that's what it's doing, though.
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:18 PM EST
Updated: Wednesday, December 13, 2017 10:39 PM EST
MRC Writer Mad Someone In Media Is Doing Exact Same Thing His Boss Does Topic: Media Research Center
Chris Reeves huffs in a Dec. 8 Media Research Center post:
On Friday’s Morning Joe, the MSNBC show’s hosts and guests spent most of their broadcast mourning the announced resignation of Minnesota Senator Al Franken from Congress in the wake of over half a dozen allegations of sexual assault against him. In a stunning display of hypocrisy, MSNBC’s liberal morning pundits went to extraordinary lengths to cast doubt on the women who have accused Franken of sexual misconduct, violating the network’s own oft-repeated standards for Republican and conservative politicians.=
New York Times writer Bari Weiss was even brought on to complain about how “some innocent people are going to go down” as a result of what co-host Mika Brzezinski dubbed a “sex panic.” With so many liberal media and political figures biting the dust career-wise in recent weeks, the co-host also explicitly questioned the accuracy and honesty of Franken’s accusers, wondering repeatedly “if it happened” and whether “all women need to be believed.”
Reeves didn't mention that his boss, MRC chief Brent Bozell, has tried to cast doubt on the women who accused conservative Republican Roy Moore of sexual misconduct.
We noted as part of our documentation of how the MRC downplayed the accusations against Moore, Bozell and Tim Graham argued in their Nov. 17 column that the accusations against Moore be treated less seriously than those against Franken, if they should even be considered at all, because "there's no photograph" or "admission of guilt."
Then, in their Dec. 8 column, Bozell and Graham sought to grade sexual harassment scandals, making sure to place Moore's in the lower tier while moving on to Clinton whataboutism and working in a conspiracy theory to boot:
Make no mistake: Franken's ouster is in part a Democratic Party maneuver to clean house in the event Judge Roy Moore is elected to the Alabama Senate. The former Franken-promoting Washington Post got the Moore ball rolling with a disturbing article that included Leigh Corfman's claim that Moore initiated sexual contact with her in 1979, when she was 14. She expressed her displeasure at the contact, and he drove her home.
This accusation is more serious than Anita Hill's and, as distasteful as it is, much less serious than Juanita Broaddrick's rape charge against President Clinton or Mary Jo Kopechne's death. But the Mitchells and Brokaws grade sex scandals by checking the party label first. If Corfman had accused Clinton with a similar tale, the media elites would have felt sick and dragged their feet, just as they did with Jones and Broaddrick.
These, by the way, are the only two times Bozell and Graham -- two top leaders at the MRC -- have mentioned Moore in their column. If Moore was a Democrat, they would undoubtedly be saying much more about it.
If Reeves is so upset about people downplaying and casting doubt on sexual harassment accusers, he might want to have a chat with his boss before he writes further.
WND's Farah Again Hypocritically Denounces Attacks On A President Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah devoted his Dec. 5 column to a big ol' whinefest:
CNN’s Jim Acosta’s is in a huff about President Trump dissing him and his network as purveyors of “fake news.”
Acosta has claimed “this kind of rhetoric, this kind of behavior is going to lead to a journalist being hurt. That’s the thing I worry about.”
I would suggest that Acosta’s brand of rhetoric and his kind of behavior is going to lead to his entire profession being hurt. That’s what I worry about.
But Acosta and others like him are disingenuous phonies.
Did Acosta express outrage when his colleagues at Newsweek, over the course of 21 days, compared Trump to Charles Manson and labeled the president of the United States a “hate group”?
If so, I must have missed that.
Acosta probably regrets getting scooped by Newsweek.
Now which characterization do you suppose truly endangers lives – calling a reporter a “fake news” purveyor or comparing the president to Charles Manson and smearing him as a walking, talking “hate group”?
Which of those characterizations are more volatile, inflammatory, incendiary and dangerous?
One: As we pointed out the last time he whined about this, we don't recall Farah's concern when the website he leads was hurling volatile, inflammatory, incendiary and dangerous attacks at President Obama -- up to and including likening Obama to the Antichrist and, yes, Hitler.
Two: Farah might want to look into the experience of NBC reporter Katy Tur, who required Secret Service escorts after the Trump rallies she covered because of Trump's direct attacks on her from the podium. She was obviously worried about being hurt due to Trump's anti-media rhetoric -- as was the Secret Service.
Farah went on to huff:
Is it an “attack” on all journalists to call into question the credibility of certain reporters?
Of course not. It comes with the territory. Reporters need to earn credibility. It’s not something with which they are endowed by their Creator.
[...]
"The label “fake news” is not a slur if hurled at Acosta or the network for which he works. It’s an accurate characterization.
After a blip last month in which it was forced to acknowledge reality, CNSNews.com is back to its old pro-Trump bias when reporting on monthly unemployment statistic.
Susan Jones' main story on November's jobless numbers was in full rah-rah mode, cheering that "The economy added 228,000 jobs in November and the employment rate stayed at 4.1 percent -- a 17-year low." The inconvenient fact that the number of people out of the labor force hit another record high under Trump didn't get mentioned until the fourth paragraph. She then empahsized a different cherry-picked number, claiming that the number of people working part-time but desiring a full-time job "was down by 858,000 over the year."
The only other story was the usual Terry Jeffrey sidebar on manufacturing jobs vs. government jobs, cheering that "Employment in manufacturing in the United States has increased by 189,000 in the year since Donald Trump was elected president" while "employment in the federal government has declined by 3,000 since Trump was elected." No mention of what it claimed was the "real" employment rate, a staple of CNS reporting under President Obama.
WND Pushes Pro-Moore Framing of Accuser As A Liar Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's double standard in its treatment of those who accused Roy Moore of perving on teenage girls vs. accusers of non-conservatives of sexual harassment continues in a Dec. 7 article by Art Moore eagerly embracing the pro-Moore narrative that a woman who says she wrote an annotation of the date and place Moore wrote in her high school yearbook -- but still stands by her claim that Moore wrote that note -- is a liar:
Pointing to a TV interview broadcast Friday in which Beverly Young Nelson admitted she annotated the yearbook inscription that she offered as the best evidence of her claim that Senate candidate Roy Moore sexually assaulted her 40 years ago, the Moore campaign told reporters they should conclude Nelson has undermined her credibility and that nothing in her story should be believed.
“The voters are going to have to decide, were they lying then or are they lying now?” said Moore attorney Philip Jauregui, referring to a Nov. 13 news conference in New York in which Nelson made her claim with celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred.
Moore is now in a tight race for a normally safe Republican seat with Democratic opponent Doug Jones ahead of next Tuesday’s special election.
[...]
Jauregui noted that Nelson and Allred declared at the time that everything in the yearbook inscription was written by Moore.
“Today, it’s a different story, isn’t it?” he said Friday.
The text in the yearbook states: “To a sweeter more beautiful girl, I could not say Merry Christmas, Christmas, 1977, Love, Roy Moore, D.A., Olde Hickory House.”
The lawyer renewed his demand that the yearbook be released to an independent handwriting expert to determine, for one, how old the ink is.
Earlier Friday, Moore tweeted, referring to Nelson: “Now she herself admits to lying.”
Contrast that to WND's treatment of evidence that Juanita Broaddrick -- who has accused Bill Clinton of sexually assaulting her -- has lied. In 1998, Broaddrick submitted a sworn affidavit to independent counsel Ken Starr stating that nothing happened between them.
A January 2016 WND article reprinting a chapter from a WND-published book about women of have accused Clinton of misdeeds -- a book WND will never give Moore's accusers the opporunity to write -- author Candace Jackson complained that Clinton's lawyers "smugly pointed journalists" to the affidavit uncritically repeated a quote from Broaddrick that she signed the affidavit because "I didn’t want to be forced to testify about one of the most horrific events in my life." Jackson added: "But signing the affidavit hadn’t called off the hounds and there she was, reliving it all over again on national TV." Jackson continued to portray Broaddrick getting caught in a lie as somehow normal, asserting that a Clinton lawyerswho noted that Broaddrick has a credibility problem over flip-flopping on the affidavit "might have been a bit more convincing if we hadn’t watched a similar affidavit signed by Monica Lewinsky go up in smoke just six months earlier."
Jackson then tries to justify Broaddrick's lying, in part by invoking her own claimed experience of having been sexually assaulted:
Juanita Broaddrick had to live in a country where her rapist’s face, voice, and image surrounded her all through the ’90s. That kind of constant reminder might have pushed me over the edge to full disclosure, too. She admits to lying under oath, denying the rape in an affidavit for the Paula Jones case. I wasn’t under oath, but I once lied to protect the person who raped me – to a federal investigator doing a background check on this person for a job.
Being triggered by her attacker's rise to political prominence is a defense WND will grant to Broaddrick -- but not Moore's accusers. That's the very definition of a double standard.
CNS Takes Longer To Write About Franks' Resignation Than Franken's Topic: CNSNews.com
Around 1 p.m. ET on Dec. 7, Democratic Sen. Al Franken gave a speech in which he announced his resignation from his Senate seat over allegations of sexual harassment. About five hours later, it was announced that Republican Sen. Trent Franks would resign his seat over a surrogacy controversy. CNSNews.com reported on one with a little more urgency than the other.
Melanie Arter's CNS story on Franken's resignation was posted at 9:52 p.m. ET, about 10 hours after the resignation speech was given. It's a surprisingly straight story, given Arter's history of being a pro-Trump stenographer.
Arter also wrote the story of Frank's resignation -- but it wasn't until 2:30 p.m. on Dec. 8, more than 21 hours after his resignation was announced. Unlike with Franken, Arter did try to spin things for Frank.
On top of highlighting that Franks is "pro-life" and "most recently sponsored the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which bans abortions at 20 weeks of pregnancy or greater with exceptions when the mother’s life is in danger or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest," she also gave space to a former Franks aide to insist that Franks "never put the question to them if they would be surrogates for him" and that she’s never "been made to feel uncomfortable by the congressman” and “never seen any slightest bit of sexual harassment or intimidation." Arter also uncritically pushes Franks' later abrupt explanation of his decision to change his resignation from January to immediately, claiming he was motivated by his wife's illness.
But as WorldNetDaily did, Arter censored evidence that Franks' staffers were unconfortable with the surrogacy conversations because they thought he personally wanted to impregnate them, and that one staffer said she was retaliated against for rebuffing Franks' surrogacy advances.
Apparently, CNS needed all that extra time on the Franks story to figure out how to put the best face on a scandal surrounding an ideological ally.
WND Tries to Spin Away Trent Franks Surrogate Scandal By Pretending It Wasn't Sexual Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily reporter Alicia Powe's Dec. 8 article on the resignation of Sen. Trent Franks over asking his female staffers to be a surrogate mother for his child goes to great lengths to frame the controversy as not a sexual issue. Not only did Powe portray Franks as "adamantly denying anything sexual, either in word or deed," she recruited an anonymous lawyer to try to whitewash it:
Thus, while one news report Friday suggested the two aides were “concerned that Franks was asking to have sexual relations with them” – adding “it was not clear to the women whether he was asking about impregnating the women through sexual intercourse or in vitro fertilization” – a lawyer representing a surrogacy law firm explained to WND that surrogacy has absolutely “nothing to do with sex.”
“There is nothing sexual about it,” the attorney, who asked that her name be withheld from publication, told WND. “If someone claims they felt sexually harassed [by the conversation], it’s just a simple matter of maybe both parties aren’t educated or even knew what they were talking about.”
“I don’t even know about this congressman,” she said of the Franks controversy, but “if an individual feels sexually harassed by someone asking for them to be a surrogate, that would mean they didn’t understand what being someone’s surrogate or gestational carrier really means. There’s a lot of people who don’t even know what surrogacy means, so that wouldn’t be super shocking.”
Surrogacy is a strictly clinical procedure, explained the attorney, who handles contracts with egg donors.
“If somebody is going to be your surrogate, that absolutely does not mean that you are going to have sex, or even any physical contact whatsoever, that’s just a fact of the matter. A clinic would be involved and they would go through psychological screening. Whoever is going to be the surrogate would have to go through extensive screening to actually be cleared to enter into an IVF clinic where the embryo would be transferred. And she is literally just the carrier of that baby.”
Most couples reach out to family members, or individuals they feel close to, to become surrogates, the attorney explained, or else they find surrogates among friends because finding gestational carriers through an agency can be extremely costly.
“There’s many ways that people can find surrogates. If somebody is going through infertility and they want to find someone that will carry a baby for them, you can ask a family member, a friend. People go online. Most people use an agency that is very versed in surrogacy and can help the process so it’s handled professionally and properly. There are so many people that work independently.”
One: What's the purpose in granting anonymity to someone for what is basically non-controversial background information? Powe provides no reason for doing so. Perhaps the lawyer is a Franks-backing conservative who doesn't want to be seen publicly defending him by name.
Two: If there was "nothing sexual" in Franks' conversations with his staffers about potential surrogacy, that message apparently didn't reach the staffers. Politico reports:
The sources said Franks approached two female staffers about acting as a potential surrogate for him and his wife, who has struggled with fertility issues for years. But the aides were concerned that Franks was asking to have sexual relations with them. It was not clear to the women whether he was asking about impregnating the women through sexual intercourse or in vitro fertilization. Franks opposes abortion rights as well as procedures that discard embryos.
A former staffer also alleged that Franks tried to persuade a female aide that they were in love by having her read an article that described how a person knows they’re in love with someone, the sources said. One woman believed she was the subject of retribution after rebuffing Franks. While she enjoyed access to the congressman before the incident, that access was revoked afterward, she told Republican leaders.
Powe didn't mention any of that in her story.
Powe then posted tweets from "top conservative commentators" who were "arguing the congressman should not be forced to stop down for inquiring about a medical procedure." One of those "conservative commentators" is Mike Cernovich, a discredited conspiracy theorist who peddled the bogus "Pizzagate" conspiracy.
CNS Columnist: Manson Was The Ultimate Progressive Topic: CNSNews.com
Think of how Charles Manson could rightly be seen as the penultimate expression of the progressive’s worldview: He was his own God. In fact, he sometimes claimed to be God. Manson rejected organized religion, claiming he was both Jesus Christ and/or the Messiah. When he did quote the Bible, Manson misquoted it, twisted the words, and handled it selectively and self-servingly. Manson bragged he could start wars, purge and remake the culture, and preside over a world-wide reckoning.
Commentators are exhausting their vocabularies in describing the vile nature of Manson’s deeds and legacy. But Manson’s agenda was simply secular progressivism faithfully lived out: Manson, nor today’s liberals/relativists, bow to any deity other than themselves. They invent “truth” to suit their needs, hold unflinching confidence in their own importance and are willing to exploit others to advance their ideas.
It was moving that Sharon Tate’s sister said she had, “prayed for Manson’s soul.” News of the cult leader’s death caused most to think God and divine retribution: If evil is to be judged and if some go to hell—well, you connect the dots. But here is reality, folks: If there isn’t some divine judgement for those complicit with abortion-on-demand, like the presidential candidate we almost elected one year ago this month, then God will owe Charles Manson an apology. Planned Parenthood has murdered millions of times more humans than Charlie’s “family.”
The shedding of innocent blood didn’t faze Charlie. Manson, complicit with seven murders, is vilified. Secular progressives fight for the government subsidy of thousands of abortions each week. He is the personification of their worldview. No, secular progressivism by its very nature doesn’t do what we think of as “church.” But if they did, Charles Manson should quickly be canonized in their pantheon. Over a decades-long, pervasive scale, Charlie simply decreed, “My will be done.”
The Media Rsearch Center's Kyle Drennen writes in a Dec. 4 post:
The 
It's another month, so it's time for yet another bogus Media Research Center "study" of media coverage of President Trump. Manufacture some outrage, 
Dubious WorldNetDaily doc 
The Media Research Center's Aly Nielsen complains in a Dec. 5 
If the initial wave of post-election columns is any indication, WorldNetDaily will not be taking the loss of Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate race well.
Media Research Center director of media analysis Tim Graham has a history of dismissing sexual harassment allegations when they're made against conservatives. He's 
WorldNetDaily's 
Chris Reeves huffs in a Dec. 8 Media Research Center 
WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah devoted his Dec. 5 
After a 
WorldNetDaily's 
Around 
WorldNetDaily reporter Alicia Powe's Dec. 8 
Think of how Charles Manson could rightly be seen as the penultimate expression of the progressive’s worldview: He was his own God. In fact, he sometimes claimed to be God. Manson rejected organized religion, claiming he was both Jesus Christ and/or the Messiah. When he did quote the Bible, Manson misquoted it, twisted the words, and handled it selectively and self-servingly. Manson bragged he could start wars, purge and remake the culture, and preside over a world-wide reckoning.
