Newsmax's Hirsen Cheers On The Myth Behind The 'Unplanned' Movie Topic: Newsmax
James Hirsen spent his March 25 Newsmax column gushing over the then-upcoming movie "Unplanned," cheering on the story it tells:
The movie boldly tells the true story of Abby Johnson, one of the youngest individuals in the country to ever have served as a Planned Parenthood clinic director.
After working at an abortion clinic for eight years and winning an “Employee of the Year” award, Abby had the enormously disturbing yet incredibly enlightening experience of having to assist with an ultrasound-guided abortion. What she witnessed was absolutely horrendous: a tiny baby inside the womb, who was in the struggle of his or her life, having to suffer through the gruesomeness of dismemberment.
Following the experience, Abby summoned up the courage necessary to leave her financially lucrative position and extensive employment stint. She walked away from the nation’s largest abortion provider and set out to launch a ministry that would help other former Planned Parenthood employees to transition out of abortion related work.
Except that's not the "true story" at all. As we documented, Planned Parenthood has stated that there were no ultrasound-guided abortions on the day that Johnson claims, Johnson did not assist on any abortion that day, and the only abortion patient that day who comes closest to the person described in Johnson's story was too early in her pregnancy to require the use of ultrasound. (Johnson stands by her version of the story and suggested Planned Parenthood doctored records to make her look bad.)
The rest of Hirsen's column is straight PR for the movie as well, parroting the producers' complaints that the film got an R rating for graphic scenes and complaining that "a teenage girl can obtain an actual abortion without her parent’s permission, but the same teenage girl is not allowed admission into a theater, minus the supervision of an adult, to view a film that includes a scene that merely depicts the real life procedure." Sticking to the script, Hirsen doesn't dare ask why the producers couldn't simply make cuts to the scene to achieve a PG rating.
Hirsen concluded his column with an over-the-top endorsement: "In honor of all the babies who have had to endure the procedure that Abby witnessed and worse, let’s all go see 'Unplanned,' and perhaps we can escort some teens and other youth who are secondary victims in this whole abortion tragedy."
Newsmax Hides That It Published Horowitz Book It's Promoting Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax is heavily promoting the new book by right-winger David Horowitz:
A March 17 article by Jason Devaney touted how Horowitz's book accuses " the 'anti-religious, anti-American left' of conducting an ongoing effort to erase God from American society dating back six decades."
A March 18 article by Bill Hoffmann gushed: "A New York Times bestselling author is warning that Christians are in real danger of persecution — in America. And this warning comes from a surprising source, a prominent secular Jew."
A March 23 article by Devaney promoted a Horowitz interview, in which he "compared Democrats to Satan ... saying they have the same "arrogance" as the serpent did in the Garden of Eden.
A March 30 article by Hoffmann further gushed: "Glenn Beck is praising David Horowitz’s new book Dark Agenda: The War to Destroy Christianity in America. David was just on Glenn’s national radio show this week, and the top-rated host told his audience that “this is a very critical book” and warned Americans of the growing attacks on Christians.
What none of these articles mention: Horowitz's book is published by Newsmax -- specifically, Humanix Books, Newsmax's book division. That explains why Hoffmann took the time to boldface every instance of the book title in his Beck article.
This undisclosed conflict of interest hurts Newsmax's efforts to be taken seriously as a news organization.
Newsmax's Gizzi Joins ConWeb Lovefest for Hungarian Right-Winger Topic: Newsmax
CNSNews.com and WorldNetDaily are not the only ConWeb outlets enamored by Viktor Orban's right-wing authoritarian government in Hungary. Newsmax's John Gizzi joins the parade with a March 15 article gushing over the country's "robust — and revolutionary — pro-family agenda" with a softball interview with Katalin Novak, Orban's minister of familiy and youth. How gushy? The picture accompanying Gizzi's article is of him interviewing Novak in an opulent-looking room.
Gizzi uncritically repeated "uplifting statistics" about Hungary's policies, which center around giving tax breaks to Hungarian natives to have children: "since 2010, the number of marriages is up 43 percent, divorces have decreased 20 percent, and the number of abortions has decreased 25 percent." Hungary has a very high divorce rate, and it's not actually clear that Orban's policies are having any effect on that.
Gizzi also played down the anti-immigration stance Orban has pushed and which lies at the heart of the "pro-family" policy. He noted Swedish official Annika Strandhall's criticism of the policy as "reek[ing] of the 1930s" but let Novak spin it by claiming "it’s not about what she’s saying but protecting our position" when, in fact, Orban has explicitly stated that Hungary is doing this instead of permitting immigration. (Even the white nationalist website VDARE has touted Orban's policy).
Last November, Gizzi did a similar softball piece on Republican Rep. Steve King that downplayed his white nationalist sympathies.
Pollster Thinks Criticism of America Is Anti-American Topic: Newsmax
Conservative pollsters John and Jim McLaughlin spend their March 4 Newsmax column framing any criticism of America as anti-American.
They summarize a poll they conducted for "our client United in Purpose for their 'You've Been Lied to!' campaign" -- but they don't describe the organization any further. As it turns out, United in Purposeis a data-mining organization with the goal of increasing turnout of evangelical Christian voters, but is best known for inadvertently making public information on millions of voters through failure to secure it. Its leader, Bill Dallas, spent time in prison for embezzlement. The United in Purpose website is curiously barren, having only a home page and contact page.
The McLaughlins wrote: "In our most recent national survey of 1,000 likely voters conducted between February 6 and 10, when we asked, 'Do you agree or disagree that America is the source of most of the world’s ills: political, economic and environmental?' 46 percent of all voters agreed and only 46 percent disagreed. It was a shocking result." They asserted that this was an "anti-American message."
The McLaughlins then declared that "Agreement that America is the source of most of the world’s ills is clearly a political message tied to party and ideology," with of course Democrats and liberals most like to hold that belief.
The pair demonstrated their bias further in another poll question asking who was to blame for "rising anti-Americanism," by including the choices of "media elites" and "Hollywood entertainment elites" -- derogatory right-wing terms for things they don't like. They would never describe, say, Fox News as "elites." They conclude with more biased posturing:
It is a political message that is driven by ideology and political beliefs and it is growing among younger voters. It’s clearly a message for the left to drive younger voters to their philosophy.
The vast majority of voters feel that anti-Americanism is on the rise, and they mostly blame partisan politicians and media entertainment elites for the rise of anti-Americanism. So while we agree Anti-Americanism is on the rise, as Americans, we can see it is clearly from germinating from the left within.
As if the McLaughlins aren't themselves trying to push an ideological message masquerading as purportedly neutral polling.
Newsmax Columnist Lionizes Late Navy Admiral, Ignores His Right-Wing Conspracy-Mongering Topic: Newsmax
We missed that retired Navy Adm. James Lyons died in December. But Newsmax columnist Joseph Schmitz served up a gushing tribute in a Feb. 16 piece:
"We the People" need now more than ever a few more "Swamp Foxes" like the late great Admiral James Aloysius "Ace" Lyons: a 21st Century Francis Marion.
Francis Marion served during the American Revolutionary War. According to The Society of the Cincinnati, "the nation's oldest patriotic organization, founded in 1783 by officers of the Continental Army," past presidents general of which include George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, Marion fought "during the defense of Charleston in 1776 and rose to the rank of colonel in the Second South Carolina Regiment. After the fall of Charleston in 1780, Marion was appointed brigadier general of State Troops and launched an effective campaign of harassment against British detachments around the state. His cunning and success in eluding capture in the coastal lowlands earned him the grudging admiration of his opponents and an enduring place in South Carolina lore as the 'Swamp Fox'."
As a modern-day Swamp Fox, Admiral Ace Lyons continued to serve after his retirement from naval service in 1987 by taking on the same swamp that President Donald Trump was elected in 2016 to drain — the administrative state run amuck.
[...]
The ongoing abuses of power by inhabitants of the current "swamp" in Washington, D.C. wouldn’t happen any more if more American patriots would follow the lead of the late great Admiral Ace Lyons, an extraordinarily courageous modern-day Swamp Fox.
May God rest the soul of Admiral James Aloysius "Ace" Lyons, a role model for any patriotic American willing to take on the administrative state run amuck, in or out of uniform.
Schmitz is not going to tell his readers what Lyons was best known for in his later years: pushing conspiracy theories. We caught a few of them: his membership on Accuracy in Media's "Citizens Commission on Benghazi" kangaroo court, hisembrace of conspiracy theories about Benghazi, his speaking at Larry Klayman's anti-Obama rally.
And Schmitz is certainly not going to mention one of Lyons' final acts: a March 2018 column published in the Washington Times falsely claiming that Seth Rich's brother helped him download Democratic National Committee emails that were then given to WikiLeaks. That got the Washington Times sued by Rich's family, resulting in a settlement that included retracting Lyons' column.
We're not sure that allegedly meritorious military service balances out causing someone to get sued because of your own malicious screw-up. But Schmitz isn't going to talk about that at all.
James Hirsen, who claims to be a lawyer, did a lawyerly job doing a little pro bono work for the National Enquirer in his Feb. 11 Newsmax column in attempting to insist that the apparent extortion attempt the Enquirer's parent, American Media Inc., is using against Amazon chief and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos really isn't extortion at all.
AMI threatened to publish compromising photos of Bezos if, as Hirsen tells it, "he did not publicly state that the tabloid’s reporting on his affair was not motivated by political concerns." But even as Hirsen admits, "David Pecker is the CEO of AMI, and he is known to be an associate and friend of President Donald Trump," and that Bezos "cited ways that the president and Pecker had cooperated in the past." It would seem, then, that AMI is demanding that Bezos state something that appears to be a lie.
He even concedes that the story "illustrates the hunger on the part of many in the mainstream press for anything that can be weaponized against the president and used to ratchet down his poll numbers" -- inadvertently acknowleging that it's legitimate for Bezos to breing up the Trump angle.
Hirsen insists that a "superficial read" is leading to claims of extortion. But, he adds, this is merely a business negotiation:
In analyzing this email, it is important to focus on the context within which both parties are seeking to settle a dispute.
In settlement negotiations, it is common practice for the parties to propose that each side will release the other from any potential claims. This is what was communicated through its legal counsel in the subject e-mail by AMI, along with a proposal that Bezos would agree to tell the public that AMI's coverage of Bezos was not politically motivated.
In return, AMI would agree not to publish the texts and photographs.
Outside of the settlement discussion context, criminal extortion would exist in a case such as this if money was demanded as payment for not making public an embarrassing secret. However, in this instance the key difference revolves around the settlement backdrop.
Why would the two sides be negotiating a settlement? It is clear that Bezos has been raising potential civil legal claims against AMI, while AMI has suggested that Bezos’s Washington Post planned to publish a false news story about AMI.
These cross assertions are arguably the basis for both parties to be pursuing a settlement of their respective claims. A settlement agreement would mutually release the claims of both parties.
[...]
Prosecutors would have an uphill battle in attempting to use these facts as a basis for a criminal extortion case. Additionally, the First Amendment creates further problems for the prosecution, since Bezos is a very well known influential public figure and a power player in Silicon Valley, Washington, D.C., and Hollywood.
Hirsen is incorrect in claiming that it's only extortion if money is involved. As Slate detailed, the federal extortion statute prohibits communication "containing any threat to injure the … reputation of the addressee" in order to extort "money or other thing of value." The statement of exoneration AMI is demanding from Bezos is clearly a thing of value, and the compromising photos it's threatening to print if it doesn't get that statement are clearly intended to injure Bezos' reputation.
(Hirsen curious doesn't mention that other prominent people have also been on the receiving end of AMI's sleazy tactics.)
Further, Hirsen does not supply any evidence that this was an actual "negotiation." If Bezos' telling is correct, AMI made demands of Bezos, and when he "didn’t react to the generalized threat with enough fear," it raised the ante by bringing up the compromising photos.
If this was really a First Amendment issue based solely on Bezos' newsworthiness as a "very well known influential public figure and a power player in Silicon Valley, Washington, D.C., and Hollywood," AMI would not need to negotiate with Bezos -- it would simply publish the photos. Every other legitimate news organization would do that.
Hirsen's column reads more like an audition as an attorney for AMI than a serious look at the legal issues involved here.
Newsmax Columnist Joins Snowflakes Triggered By Challenges to Toxic Masculinity Topic: Newsmax
The message I see in this ad is that men need to stop being men and that men’s default position is bestial. I think that’s outrageous.
I am not surprised that ad executives have fallen prey to the "men are bad" narrative, which is the extreme and ridiculous response to the equally extreme and ridiculous “women are victims” narrative that has become conventional wisdom in the wake of the sexual abuse accusations against Harvey Weinstein. Madison Avenue has about as much of a social conscience as Wall Street.
Unfortunately, the executives at Gillette aren’t the only ones who think that men are a problem.
This month, the American Psychological Association (APA) released its first-ever guidelines designed to help psychologists work with men and boys to address the so-called epidemic of “toxic masculinity.” According to the APA’s research, "traditional masculinity - marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggression - is, on the whole, harmful.”
I believe this hostility toward men is dangerous, but I also know that it’s nothing new. As the second and third wave feminists gained momentum over the last 50 or so years, they bolstered a narrative that has become accepted wisdom: Men, the patriarchy, and masculinity in general have been the source of women’s suffering. Women are taught to blame men for everything bad that has ever happened to them. The #MeToo movement is just the next generation of this.
The new guidelines put a negative spin on characteristics that have traditionally belonged to the male of the species.
[...]
The people who support the APA’s new guidelines and praise Gillette’s message are pretending to care about the welfare of boys and men, but I don’t believe that’s true. I believe they are mistakenly trying to protect women from a patriarchy that they deem to be harmful.
Masculinity is not toxic. It’s normal, it’s human, and it’s good. We need to remember that, despite what Madison Avenue or #MeToo wants us to believe.
Newsmax's Ruddy Still Defending Trump Topic: Newsmax
As a good friend of Donald Trump, Newsmax chief Christopher Ruddy has been a staunchapologist for the president. Now he's venturing toward ridiculous-defense territory.
Ruddy's Dec. 29 column is devoted to trying to shoot down the idea that Trump is acting like a mob boss. He insists that "Over many years of speaking privately with the president, in the most unguarded of moments, I don’t recall him ever referencing" mob-related films like the "Godfather" movies or "Goodfellas." He then tells us all the reasons Trump mob-esque behavior are really just the opposite:
If he emulates guys in movies, I think he sees himself as more John Wayne in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” or George C. Scott in “Patton.”
Trump does value strength. And loyalty.
But I don’t see the president’s view here as too different than other business and political figures I have known that value the same.
The president does like to vent against critics and old enemies.
Much of it can be over-the-top. He would rise higher in the polls if he kept such resentments to himself.
But that’s not Trump. He likes the shtick.
Remember that more than half of the senior staff in the White House and the Cabinet have, at one time or another, said critical things about the president.
Is this the government of a mafia don?
[...]
Or what about after 9/11?
When most folks in New York were evacuating the city, Trump raced down to the site of the World Trade Center in the aftermath of the attacks.
He asked Trump Organization staff to join him and help first responders.
As others fled to safety, Trump ran to danger. I talked to people that were at Ground Zero and saw him up close.
Is this mobster behavior?
[...]
OK, so I give you permission big media. Accuse Trump of many things, but admit he isn’t a mafia man.
Because if he really was, you wouldn’t be talking.
Ruddy spun hard again in his Jan. 28 column, insisting that Trump's cave on the border wall during the government shutdown he forced wasn't a cave at all:
The press spin these days is that President Trump lost to Nancy Pelosi on the government shutdown.
But Trump has a way of winning when he loses, and this will prove to be one of those cases.
[...]
So, did he get wall funding?
No.
But he has moved the needle.
By the end of the shutdown, the Democrats were signaling they would give him the full $5.7 billion in border security funds he asked for, though they don’t want the word “wall” used in the appropriation.
OK, let’s call it a “protective barrier.” That works for me.
[...]
My view is that Schumer and Pelosi are starved for deals they want to see happen.
The president is actually sitting quite pretty.
The White House should not tie border funding to the CRs.
But tying border funding to any and all legislation is fair game.
Those betting against President Trump on border funding should take their chips off the table.
Ruddy clearly knows on which side his bread is buttered.
Borrowing several of the tropes from the Democrats, writing an op-ed in The Washington Post, the house journal of the liberal establishment, Romney virtue-signaled his approval of some of the president’s policies, but curiously lambasted Mr. Trump’s failure to live up to the "mantle" of the presidency.
Romney cited Trump's "words and actions."
Sen. Romney was rather unspecific in his smearing of the president, though he did claim that "A president should unite us and inspire us to follow 'our better angels.'"
The implication seemed to be that Donald Trump has not done this, but one sympathetic to the president and his promise to "Make America Great Again," along with his administration’s superb economic accomplishments, could certainly see where the Lincolnesque appeal to "our better angels" was a part of Trump’s appeal.
Say what one might about Donald Trump, he does follow the rules. He has not ignored adverse court rulings or administrative pronouncements, and he has only sought to implement his policies through adherence to the traditional prerogatives of his office, and working with Republicans in Congress to obtain his legislative goals.
Romney’s op-ed made clear that he cannot be counted on to aid this president’s efforts.
[...]
By now seeking to cast obloquy on Mr. Trump, Sen. Romney has not only engaged in the kind of mendacity routinely employed by the President’s Democratic critics, but he seems to be putting his own desire for notice and purported integrity ahead of his loyalty to his party and his president.
Blind adherence to a leader is, of course, not always wise, but where, as is true of President Trump, he is doing the very things he promised.
Where those very things gained him an Electoral College majority, one would think the senators of his own party would support him, as Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., former senatorial critics, now appear to be doing.
Mitt Romney’s op-ed is profoundly disappointing, unwise, and disloyal. It can only please Mr. Trump’s enemies.
Newsmax Touts Kudlow's Economic Predictions, Censors How His Old Ones Failed Topic: Newsmax
David Patten enthusiastically writes in a Jan. 4 Newsmax article:
Larry Kudlow, director of President Trump’s National Economic Council, told Newsmax in an exclusive interview Friday that the economy’s addition of a whopping 312,000 jobs last month means “we’re in a boom” and there is no recession on the horizon.
“There’s way too much pessimism out there, probably because of the stock market correction,” Kudlow told Newsmax. “But sometimes stocks depart from the economy.”
He added: “We’re hitting on all cylinders. The Trump plan is working: Low tax rates for large and small businesses and individuals, the biggest regulatory rollback in decades, and sponsorship of American energy dominance.
“This is working. It has led to great confidence, particularly among small business owners.”
Patten, however, doesn't detail Kudlow's record on predicting non-recessions -- or anything, really:
“Despite all the doom and gloom from the economic pessimistas, the resilient U.S. economy continues moving ahead,” Kudlow wrote on Dec. 7, 2007, in National Review, predicting that gloomy forecasters would “wind up with egg on their faces.” Kudlow, who previously derided as “bubbleheads” those who warned about a housing bubble, now wrote that “very positive” news in housing should “cushion” falling home sales and prices.
“There’s no recession coming. The pessimistas were wrong. It’s not going to happen,” wrote Kudlow. “ . . . The Bush boom is alive and well. It’s finishing up its sixth consecutive year with more to come. Yes, it’s still the greatest story never told.”
[...]
When the economy didn’t rebound and housing continued its collapse, Kudlow pronounced, in a CNBC column on July 24, 2008, that he saw in the data “an awful lot of very good new news, which appear to be pointing to a bottom in the housing problem; in fact, maybe the tiniest beginnings of a recovery.” Stocks lost nearly half their value in the coming months.
Patten seems to have let his "exclusive interview" excitement overrule the idea of reporting the full story.
Newsmax Still Won't Disclose It Published Corsi's Book Topic: Newsmax
We've seen before that as conspiratorial writer Jerome Corsi gets deeper into trouble as part of Robert Mueller's Trump-Russia investigation, Newsmax is reluctant to admit that it, under its Humanix Books division, published his most recent book, "Killing the Deep State."
And so it is again in a Nov. 12 Newsmax article by Jason Devaney noting that Corsi "revealed in a new interview he expects to be charged with a crime stemming from the Russia investigation." Regarding Corsi's book, Devaney vaguely wrote only that "His most recent book, 'Killing the Deep State: The Fight to Save President Trump,' is a New York Times bestseller." It did, however, link to an offer promoting the book.
On Nov. 23, though, Newsmax followed up with a message to its mailing list under its "Moneynews" banner exploiting Corsi's legal troubles to sell his book:
We told you this would happen. Now he’s terrified — afraid for his life.
Look, they’re after him big time — the Deep State.
America’s shadow government is gunning hard for the man who exposed the truth...
The highly respected author and commentator who revealed the dark money trail in Washington — from Clinton to Obama to Comey to Lynch and scores of others in the highest-ranking positions in Washington.
[...]
What are you waiting for? This is, quite possibly, the most explosive book on Washington ever written.
It’s so shocking and so revealing we decided to foot the bill and just GIVE IT TO YOU — FREE.
Listen, you’d better get it here now because Corsi is at the very epicenter.
Mueller’s team says he knew too much...
What exactly does Corsi know?
[...]
It was only a matter of time something like this would happen — surely a travesty of justice.
One thing’s for sure…
Mueller’s office has emails and phone records.
As Corsi has insisted…
He just put all the pieces together, connected all the dots.
Seriously — it’s what he does best and anyone who follows Corsi knows this.
Corsi’s only “crime” was putting them in a tell-all book.
And, you know, perjury. But Newsmax won't tell you that -- or, again, that it published Corsi's whacked-out conspiracy book.
Herbert London, called a "conservative thought leader" by Newsmax, where he wrote a column for several years, died last week. Newsmax's John Gizzi gushed that he was a "renaissance man of the right" whose death "was a devastating blow to conservatives in his home state of New York and nationwide." Newsmax columnists Bruce Abramson and Jeff Ballabon touted "Herb’s prowess as a thinker, a teacher, and an institution builder" who was "always gracious, always open, always decent." London even got a farewell from CNSNews.com columnist Bill Donohue, who called him "a brilliant and courageous professor, writer, and activist, one who inspired everyone around him."
We touched on London a few times: He endorsed anti-gay conversion therapy, he freaked out over President Obama reiterating the general U.S. policy toward Israel by likening it to giving Hitler the Sudetenland, and he's approvingly quoted by WorldNetDaily columnist Kent Bailey calling Hillary Clinton "the embodiment of evil."
But we also caught London whitewashing his own history. In a 2009 Newsmax column, London claimed he was "reluctant to challenge" his opponent in a race for New York state comptroller when, in fact, he tried to smear his opponent as an anti-Semite in a campaign ad that was so nasty that even London's fellow Republicans distanced themselves from him.
That's a "conservative thought leader" in action, apparently. We hope Herbert has found peace.
Newsmax's Softball Article on Rep. King Downplays His White Nationalist Sympathies Topic: Newsmax
John Gizzi kicks off his Nov. 4 Newsmax article about Republican Iowa Rep. Steve King with a bit of soft gushiness:
With several polls showing a closer-than-ever race for Rep. Steve King (R-IA), the controversial Republican assured Newsmax that he was in strong shape to win a ninth term.
As national Democratic money pours into Iowa’s 4th District, King dismissed media claims he was facing a defeat.
“Things aren’t as bad for me as you’re hearing,” King told Newsmax. King is best known for his outspoken opposition to illegal immigration.
A new Emerson Poll shows him leading Democrat J.D. Scholten by 51 to 42 percent.
This then becomes full-blown misleading:
King has long been under fire from national media over his hardline stand against illegal immigrants.
This year, the “Des Moines Register” abandoned King and gave its endorsement to Democrat Scholten.
In addition, political action committees, including Land O'Lakes dairy company, have switched from King to Scholten.
Gizzi is falsely portraying King as being nothing more than merely "against illegal immigrants" and that the newspaper and Land O'Lakes abandoned King solely because of that stance.
The Register summed up its decision to endorse King's opponent without once mentioning his stance on "illegal immigrants" (unless you count a reference to King's "virulent xenophobia"): "In his almost 16 years in Congress, King has passed exactly one bill as primary sponsor, redesignating a post office. He won’t debate his opponent and rarely holds public town halls. Instead, he spends his time meeting with fascist leaders in Europe and retweeting neo-Nazis."
Similarly, Land O'Lakes withdrew its support for King after it was pointed out to the corporate entity that King "is the member of Congress most openly affiliated with white nationalism. He has retweeted a Nazi sympathizer and has displayed a Confederate flag on his desk."
Curiously, Gizzi never details any of King's white nationalist ties and sympathies, let alone admit that this is the reason for the current growth in criticism of King. It's only alluded to when Gizzi quotes a member of the National Republican Congressional Committee, tweeted that King’s “actions, comments and retweets are completely inappropriate. We must stand up against white supremacy" -- not that Gizzi ever describes the actions the person is referring to -- then allowsKing to play off the criticism by saying that "The NRCC hasn't backed me since 2012."
Gizzi's article is nothing more than a lame puff piece by a reporter who's more than willing to overlook the actual story.
Newsmax's Hirsen Can't Describe The Tweets That Got Roseanne Barr Fired Topic: Newsmax
James Hirsen's Oct. 15 Newsmax column largely repeats a claim forwarded by the factually dubious UK Daily Mail that anonymous ABC executives were experiencing "doubts and trepidation" over continuing "Roseanne" as "The Connors" after firing Roseanne Barr over a pair of racially inflammatory and conspiratorial tweets.
Curiously, though, Hirsen never gets around to describing the content of the tweets that got Barr fired. He called them "controversial" and "career-changing" for Barr, but didn't repeat what she said.
In case Hirsen has forgotten, Barr described former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, who is black, as what you get if "Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby." Barr also tweeted the false right-wing narrative that liberal bogeyman George Soros is a Nazi. (She also tweeted the utterly false claim that Chelsea Clinton was married to Soros' nephew.)
Why doesn't Hirsen want to remind his readers exactly what Barr tweeted that got her fired? Because he's trying to soften her image of Barr and turning her into merely an enthusiastic Trump supporter in order to bolster the case -- again, based on anonymous speculation from a news source known for caring little about the truth -- that "it is likely that ABC executives are experiencing regret over another hasty decision that was made by the television network." He goes on to tout about how the first episode of "Last Man Standing" on Fox after moving from ABC got good ratings; stars conservative comedian Tim Allen, who like Barr is "also a supporter of President Trump."
This isn't the first time Hirsen has taken Barr's side. In his June 4 column, he pooh-poohed the idea of a Roseanne-without-Roseanne reboot because "Barr had built a sizable reservoir of conventional fandom during her syndication run of 25 years" as well as "the bond that she shares with millions of people, many of whom voted for President Trump, who were chiefly responsible for the phenomenal ratings of the show and who managed to transform a television debut into a cultural event." He refused to detail the content of Barr's tweets then too, vaguely referring only to an "ill-fated tweet."
In a July 23 column, instead lamented that "a single tweet posted during personal non-working hours" cost her her career. He wouldn't repeat the actual language Barr used but instead euphemistically insisted that "Roseanne used a common hip hop term for a woman in reference to the former White House aide under President Obama." Somehow, we doubt Hirsen is sufficiently down with the street to know whether a "Planet of the Apes" reference in describing a black woman -- or is it the Muslim Brotherhood reference? -- actually is "a common hip hop term."
Newsmax Columnist Tries To Play the Emmitt Till Card on Kavanaugh Accusations Topic: Newsmax
As a black American, I have a particular sensitivity to the importance of the concept of the presumption of innocence and due process of law.
Few Millennials and modern journalists know of the famous Emmett Till murder case in Mississippi in the 1950’s. It was one of the first major national civil rights murder cases.
Emmett Till was a 14-year-old black boy visiting Mississippi from Chicago. He was beaten beyond recognition, shot, tied with barbed wire, and thrown into Mississippi’s Tallahatchie River.
Why?
Because of an accusation — a mere accusation — that he flirted with a white woman.
Till was only one of the more well known of the many thousands of blacks in the old American South who were tortured, castrated, burned alive, or lynched based only on an accusation of flirtation or sexual assault — they were presumed guilty.
There was no presumption of innocence and no requirement of due process!
With this despicable history as backdrop, it is more than disgusting to see Democrats in the United States Senate trample the basic principle of presumption of innocence and apply the old South standard of presumption of guilt once applied to blacks to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
For Kavanaugh, just as was the case for black males in the old South, there is no presumption of innocence and no requirement of due process by his enemies.
Yesterday, blacks’ enemies were Democrat segregationists and their shock troops in the Klu Klux Klan.
Today, Kavanaugh’s enemies denying him due process and presumption of innocence are progressive and liberal white Democrats and their friends on the left — who disrupted confirmation hearings — and forced Senator Ted Cruz and his wife from a Washington, D.C., restaurant.
[...]
Are there no Democrats in the United States Senate with a sense of decency unwilling to sit by while their colleagues attempt to destroy a man’s career, life, and family?
(McKee overlooks the inconvenient fact that both Kavanaugh's and Christine Blasey Ford's side got a hearing, Kavanaugh did not get lynched, and racism was not involved. Oh, and the Ku Klux Klan was never the "shock troops" of the Democratic Party, which had no military arm then or now.)
James Hirsen spent his March 25 Newsmax column gushing over the then-upcoming movie "Unplanned," cheering on the story it tells:
Newsmax is heavily promoting the new book by right-winger David Horowitz:
CNSNews.com
Conservative pollsters John and Jim McLaughlin spend their March 4 Newsmax 
We missed that retired Navy Adm. James Lyons died in December. But Newsmax columnist Joseph Schmitz served up a gushing tribute in a Feb. 16 
James Hirsen, who claims to be a lawyer, did a lawyerly job doing a little pro bono work for the National Enquirer in his Feb. 11 Newsmax 
The message I see in this ad is that men need to stop being men and that men’s default position is bestial. I think that’s outrageous.
As a good friend of Donald Trump, Newsmax chief Christopher Ruddy has been a 
Borrowing several of the tropes from the Democrats, writing an op-ed in The Washington Post, the house journal of the liberal establishment, Romney virtue-signaled his approval of some of the president’s policies, but curiously lambasted Mr. Trump’s failure to live up to the "mantle" of the presidency.
David Patten enthusiastically writes in a Jan. 4 Newsmax 
We've 
Herbert London, called a "conservative thought leader" by Newsmax, where he wrote a column for several years, died last week. Newsmax's John Gizzi 
As a black American, I have a particular sensitivity to the importance of the concept of the presumption of innocence and due process of law.
