WND Still Pushing Conspiracy on Notre Dame Fire Topic: WorldNetDaily
Being the irresponsible conspiracy-mongers they are, WorldNetDaily has enthusiastically pushed the idea that the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral was intentionally set, probably by Muslims. So committed is WND to this conspiracy theory that it's doing something that's become increasingly rare given its current dire financial state: original reporting.
WND's Art Moore made a phone call to France and he told us all about it in an April 28 article:
When the Fox News Channel’s Shepard Smith hung up on French politician and media analyst Philippe Karsenty during live coverage of the Notre Dame Cathedral blaze, authorities already were speculating the catastrophe that gripped the world was caused by an accident.
Although speculation is the coin of the cable-news realm, an indignant Smith wanted nothing to do with Karsenty providing context to the April 15 fire – nearly 2,000 attacks on French churches in two years – that would suggest an alternative cause should be considered.
And, in fact, as Karsenty pointed out in a phone interview from France with WND, a former chief architect of the Notre Dame – whose analysis has been virtually ignored – believes the accident theory makes no sense.
Karsenty told WND he was “shocked” when Smith abruptly ended the interview.
“I just wanted to put it in context,” he said, referring to the surge of attacks on churches. “And then I said, nevertheless, the media are lecturing us an hour after it started, saying it can only be unintentional.
“I didn’t say it was a terrorist attack. I didn’t say it was criminal,” Karsenty recalled to WND.
[...]
Karsenty observed a pattern in such incidents – particularly if it might have something to do with Islam – of authorities, without having investigated, immediately telling the public it was an accident.
“If you come out and say, ‘Wait a minute, there may be another explanation,’ it’s not [allowed],” he said.
“You don’t have the right to think freely.”
Moore also complained that Fox's Smith has a "reputation as a left-leaning counter to the network’s conservative commentators and hosts.
WND being WND, of course, Moore allowed no countervailing view -- can't interfere with the conspiracy theory, y'know.
MRC's Bozell Made Last-Ditch Effort To Save Moore's Fed Nomination Topic: Media Research Center
When President Trump first presented Herman Cain and Stephen Moore as possible nominees to the Federal Reserve board of governors, the Media Research Center didn't do all that much to boost them other than complain that the media was accurately reporting on the sleazy personal lives of both men -- Cain's sexual harassment, Moore's mistreatment of his ex-wife. Cain dropped out of the running soon after, leaving only Moore, whose scandal-ridden past was exposed further as his long history of comments denigrating women was documented.
Only then did the MRC feel the need to step things up a bit. An April 30 article at, of all places, Newsmax (and curiously not a MRC-operated outlet) touted an "exclusive statement" from MRC chief Brent Bozell:
The conservative Media Research Center on Tuesday unveiled a highlight reel of economist Stephen Moore’s strongest media appearances that may help explain the tempest over his expected nomination to the Federal Reserve Board -- his effectiveness communicating Trump’s economic policies.
On ABC News’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” Sunday, Moore noted the initial objections to his nomination focused on his credentials. Once that effort collapsed, he says, Plan B for Trump administration antagonists was to resort to a “sleaze campaign” focusing on “character assassination,” he said.
The longtime columnist said at least half a dozen mainstream media reporters are now sifting through everything he’s ever written, including columns that he says were written as provocative spoofs.
Those columns have now been used to link him to views that now sound antediluvian, such as questioning the advisability of having women receive equal pay. Moore now admits those tongue-in-cheek remarks were not funny, and has apologized.
Are Newsmax and Bozell claiming Moore's misogynist views were not "antediluvian" when he said them? Anyway, back to the video:
The video released Tuesday of recent appearances by Moore across the media spectrum provides voters a chance to see Moore defend his own record free from the filter of the mainstream media.
“The media’s broadside against Steve Moore is no surprise,” MRC founder Brent Bozell told Newsmax on Tuesday in an exclusive statement. “Moore’s pro-growth vision has been proven right by the booming economy.
“The liberal media’s mentality is we must stop any success coming from conservatives,” he added, “so they have launched a smear campaign against Moore that is unprecedented against a Federal Reserve Board nominee -- before he has even been nominated.”
The video -- posted at the MRCTV account on YouTube, but apparently not at MRCTV itself -- is just a clip package of Moore talking about his economic experience and criticizing the Fed for its recent monetary policy decisions.
Newsmax then quoted Bozell saying of the video: "Watching him make the TV rounds, I don’t think there is a more articulate promoter of the Trump economy than Moore." Of course, Moore's job on the Fed board would have been about making sound monetary policy, not being a "promoter of the Trump economy."
Meanwhile, at the MRC's "news" division CNSNews.com, a similarly half-hearted effort took place to boost Moore, whose column CNS publishes. An April 24 column by Phil Kerpen complained that "The dishonest criticisms of Moore's qualifications and independence are almost as bad as the desperate personal attacks," ignoring the fact that Moore's fealty to Trump is being touted by conservatives as his most salient qualification. Still, Kerpen insisted that "Moore's effectiveness as an advocate for Trump should not be mistaken for a lack of independence" and that he has an "impressive track record of getting it right when so many others got it wrong." Actually, being wrong is kinda Moore'sthing.
CNS managing editor Michael W. Chapman was then drafted to write a piece compiling how "numerous economic conservatives praised the White House and the economic forecasting of Stephen Moore." Chapman was silent on Moore's personal scandals.This was followed by a May 1 column by Ken Blackwell complaining that Moore was "savaged by the liberal press—and not for his economic knowledge or his views of domestic monetary policy—but via personal attacks on him and his family," further whining that "We have clearly reached a troubling point in American politics in which Republican presidential nominees are no longer reviewed based on the quality of their credentials (Moore’s are sterling) or the merits of their ideas (ditto), but are squeezed through a gauntlet of brutal, vicious attacks on their personal lives, reputations, and actions dating back as far as ten years."Blackwell didn't explain how this was different from the way Republicans have treated nominees under a Democratic president.
Alas, all this partisan political boosterism -- which would seem to bump up against the limits of the MRC 501(c)3 nonprofit tax status -- was too little, too late: Moore withdrew as a nominee. Curiously, CNS didn't find this to be newsworthy enough to report.
More White Nationalism Links At WND Topic: WorldNetDaily
We documented the other day how a BuzzFeed News profile on apparent former alt-right white nationalist Katie McHugh exposed that the Media Research Center hired an activist with the racist, misogynist Youth for Western Civilization, Tim Dionisopoulos, to run its social media accounts for four years. It turns out there's a link here to WorldNetDaily as well.
The article states that McHugh -- while still an alt-right white nationalist -- worked for WND for a few months in late 2017 but, according to her WND supervisor, "let go for performance issues." This, by the way, was a few months after she was fired from Breitbart for a string of racially charged tweets culminating in one stating, "There would be no deadly terror attacks in the U.K. if Muslims didn't live there." Clearly, the Muslim-haters at WND had no problem with that tweet.
But there's another WND-white nationalist link here as well. McHugh's boyfriend for a few years in the mid-2010s was Kevin DeAnna, founder of Youth for Western Civilization. In February 2012, DeAnna became the "marketing coordinator" for WND.
WND was actually proud of this connection for a while. A May 2012 article touted how DeAnna, along with three other WND writers, were placed on a Southern Poverty Law Center list of "the 30 most dangerous activists in the country." The article noted DeAnna was founder of YWC but did not describe the nature of the organization. DeAnna also wrote several articles for WND before his apparent departure in October 2012; we noted at the time that DeAnna defended Russian leader Vladimir Putin's persecution of the punk band Pussy Riot.
DeAnna also wrote an article promoting Bilderberg conspiracy theories; as it so happens, Dionisopoulos also wrote an article for WND around the same time featuring "citizen journalists" protesting outside of a Bilderberg Group gathering in Virginia (which we also noted at the time).
This is far from the first time WND has been caught dallying with white nationalism and barely disguised racism -- from Colin Flaherty to Paul Nehlen to Scott Greer, that thread has been running through WND for years.
CNS Didn't Get The Joke, Or The Point Topic: CNSNews.com
Craig Bannister grouses in an April 25 CNSNews.com blog post:
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) took a shot at the heritage of President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara, on Thursday after Mrs. Trump said German Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision in 2015 to allow more than a million migrants into the country was "one of the worst things that ever happened to Germany."
Responding on Twitter to an article by The Hill reporting on Lara Trump’s comments on Fox Business Channel earlier in the day, Rep. Swalwell took issue with Mrs. Trump’s German heritage:
“But what about her German-born grandfather-in-law?”
In an interview with Fox Business’ Stuart Varney, Lara Trump said her father-in-law, President Donald Trump, is trying to avoid Germany’s mistake by securing the U.S. southern border:
“It was the downfall of Germany, it was one of the worst things that ever happened to Germany. This president knows that, he’s trying to prevent that from happening here.”
Bannister not only missed that Swalwell was making a little joke, he missed the entire controversy that's happening here. Swalwell's tweet alluded to Trump's claim a few weeks earlier that his father was born in Germany -- which, like a lot of things Trump says, is not true.
Bannister also pretends Lara Trump's comment that Germany allowing refugees into the country was "one of the worst things that ever happened to Germany" and the country's "downfall" is not controversial or ridiculous. Many online have pointed out that the comment seems to downplay the whole Nazi thing, not to mention that other world war the Germans played a role in starting.
For Bannister to twist a joke over an outrageous comment into an attack on someone's ethnic heritage requires a lot of deliberate ignorance of reality. And he succeeds a little too well.
Newsmax Pushes Speculation That Notre Dame Fire Was Intentional Topic: Newsmax
An April 25 Newsmax TV report by John Bachman -- hidden behind a "Platinum" paywall on the Newsmax website but also posted at its YouTube page -- tries to push the idea that the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral was intentionally set.
Bachman's "cutting-edge" report by first getting the name not quite right -- using the English prounciation of Notre Dame instead of the proper French one -- then touting speculation challenging the "unusual immediate declaration of an accident when almost no investigation had been thoroughly conducted," then conceded that "many of the most radical theories have been debunked." He then took a huge, distracting logical leap, declaring that "one can make a clear case that Christianity is clearly under attack from extremists" and first citing ... the terrorist attcks in Sri Lanka. Bachman offersd no evidence whatsoever that terrorist attacks in non-French locations, or even any of the church vandalism incidents inside France, have any thing to do with what happened at Notre Dame. Still, he insisted that "it's easy to understand why many people are wondering and questioning French authorities as to why they were so quick and how they were able to declare the Notre Dame fire an accident without a full investigation."
Notre Dame fire conspiracy theories are expected from the likes of conspiracy-happy WorldNetDaily, but with the Media Research Center and now Newsmax leaning into it, there must be some right-wing narrative being built.
MRC Complains That Media Pointed Out Trump Made A Dumb Suggestion During Notre Dame Fire Topic: Media Research Center
At the Media Research Center, it's forbidden for anyone in the media to criticize President Trump -- even when he says something universally recognized as dumb. Take it away, Nicholas Fondacaro:
On Monday, the world watched in horror as the famous Notre Dame Cathedral burned. A deeply concerned President Trump put out a tweet urging for water-tanker helicopters to be used to put out the blaze. We later learned that French authorities didn’t use them because the weight of the water could cause further destruction. Despite many other people thinking the same thing, members of liberal media used it as an opportunity to score cheap points against Trump. But not all did.
For ABC’s World News Tonight, chief White House correspondent Jon Karl dug into Trump for offering “some unsolicited advice” to French firefighters. “Would that work? A veteran American firefighter told David it would not,” he chided.
He added: “Later, the French Civil Defense Agency said essentially the same thing. In its one and only tweet of the day in English. ‘All means are being used, except for water-bombing aircrafts which, if used, could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral.’”
During CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront, comedic reporter Jeanne Moos mocked the President’s idea for getting shot down:
JEANNE MOOS: President Trump offered advice, “perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it must act quickly.” Jersey City’s fire chief threw cold water on that.
CHIEF STEVEN MCGILL (Jersey City Fire Department): Water is very heavy and if it hits a structure like that, out of a tanker, it could cause further collapse.
Contrary to Fondacaro's opinion, it's not "mocking" Trump or "cheap points" to point out his idea was stupid -- that's just factual reporting. And the MRC hates it when the facts have a liberal bias.
WND's Brown In Denial About Hating Buttigieg Because He's Gay Topic: WorldNetDaily
Michael Brown began his April 17 column by taking a shot at Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg:
Go ahead. Ban be. Block me. Get out your nasty dictionary and vilify me. Call me obsessed. Hateful. Bigoted. Have at it.
The fact is, there are a million things I’d rather write about, but the state of the world leaves me no choice. To be silent is to give tacit approval. To be silent is to accept. To be silent is to capitulate. And that’s not going to happen.
A Democratic leader announces his presidential candidacy and then turns to kiss his same-sex partner. And the crowd celebrates.
Sorry, but I’m not celebrating.
After more ranting about transgenders, Brown added:
It is love that motivates me and moves me. Love for God. Love for America. Love for the coming generations. Love for what is best.
You can call it hate. You can brand me a Nazi. That will only encourage me to speak up all the more clearly.
We'll call it hate, since we're not seeing any love in Brown's motivation. After all, he spent his May 3 column explaining how we must hate Buttigieg because he's a gay Christian:
How then has he surged up in the polls? Why has he become the darling of the left?
It’s because he is gay. And he is “married” to his partner. And he is a professing Christian. And he is challenging sacred biblical and church traditions. What more could the left ask for?
But there’s a nuance to this we cannot miss.
Mayor Pete and his partner are the perfect poster boys for the gay agenda, a culmination of years of messaging and marketing.
They seem like really nice guys (and might well be).
They seem wholesome.
They are churchgoing.
They care about the poor.
To the best of our knowledge, they are not frequenting gay bars looking for anonymous sex encounters.
They are like your ideal neighbors, just a little different.
Brown complained about that purported "gay agenda" of homosexuality being "just another thing," asserting that this meant that he couldn't then demonize them as filthy sluts -- or, as he put it, "As for negative aspects of homosexuality (such as higher rates of promiscuity and STDs or “open” marriages), those should be hidden from the public eye."
Brown then demonstrated more a nimosity toward Buttigieg and his husband -- again while denying he is doing any such thing:
It could well be that Pete and Chasten are really nice guys. That they’re really committed to each other. That they would be very nice neighbors.
But two men (or two women) “marrying” will never equal a man and woman marrying. Two dads or two moms will never equal a mom and a dad (nor will they ever be able to reproduce themselves physically in their offspring). Sex distinctions, established by God at creation for the good of the human race, still matter.
Consequently, while I do not have the slightest animosity towards Mayor Pete (or Chasten), what I will celebrate is the miracle of a man and a woman coming together as one. A couple joined in romantic and sexual union, reproducing the unique byproduct of their emotional and spiritual and physical lives – a literal, new creation.
That’s the real first family, and it represents the fullest expression of God’s heart.
Gay families will take these words as hate-filled and denigrating, for which I’m truly sorry. I’m simply saying that God’s ways are truly best.
Pro tip for Brown: If you are devoting an entire column to defending the idea that Buttigieg and his husband must not be taken seriously -- and, indeed, be rejected as aberrant freaks -- because they are gay, you are denigrating them with a large degree of animosity.
MRC Employed A White Nationalist Topic: Media Research Center
A BuzzFeed News profile of Katie McHugh -- a white nationalist activist and writer so virulent that she ultimately found her ostracized from the movement and now says she has renounced her activism, changed her views and is broke -- contains an interesting sidelight about a former Media Research Center employee.
The article references a picture featuring McHugh with other white nationalists, including someone named Tim Dionisopoulos, who was active in a group called Youth for Western Civilization. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes YWC as ultraconservative and obsessed with race and misogyny -- to the point that Jared Taylor, leader of the white nationalist group American Renaissance, wrote a fundraising letter for it. He also earned a profile at the extremist monitoring group One People's Project, which notes that he was once arrested for making harassing phone calls.
Despite that record of extremism, Dionisopoulos moved in mainstream conservative circles. From 2011 to 2014, Dinoisopoulos was a writer for conservative website Campus Reform; he also served as a volunteer faculty member at the conservative Leadership Institute, which runs Campus Reform. From there, he joined the MRC as an assistant marketing director, managing its social media accounts. He also wrote at the MRC's MRCTV site.
It's unclear when Dionisopoulos left the MRC -- Dionisopoulos is quoted in the BuzzFeed article as saying he left employment there "months" ago. He may have left sometime after last August, when an Atlantic article (written by Rosie Gray, who also wrote the McHugh piece) noted that Dionisopoulos was pictured with other white nationalists including Ian Smith, who had worked as a policy analyst in the Department of Homeland Security. His last post for MRCTV was in October 2017.
Still, that means Dionisopoulos worked for the MRC for four years and was apparently not bothered by his white nationalism. the One People's Project profile on him was published in 2015, so it's unlikely the MRC didn't know about this during much of his tenure there.
That would be a similar timeframe reflecting the MRC's newfound concern over white nationalism in its ranks. The previous month, it had quietly dismissed Tom Blumer as a blogger for its NewsBusters operation after others (not the MRC) discovered white nationalist links in his posts. As with Dionisopoulos, it's highly unlikely the MRC didn't know about Blumer's white nationalist leanings, given that some of those offending links remained live in his posts for three years before they were pointed out and, thus, suddenly became inconvenient.
In deleting those links, the MRC added a note to Blumer's posts that "NewsBusters does not associate with known white nationalists." The record appears to demonstrate otherwise.
CNS, The Mark Levin News Service Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com is such an enthusiastic promoter of everything Mark Levin says or does -- 135 articles in 2018 alone on the alleged pearls of wisdom dropping from his mouth or of the guests (and even the guest hosts) on his TV and radio shows -- that it might as well rename itself the Mark Levin News Service. Levin even rewarded all this free publicity by giving Brent Bozell, head of the Media Research Center, which runs CNS, a fluffy, logrolling interview on his Fox News show in his first show of 2019.
The stenography hasn't stopped. In the first four months of 2019, CNS made Levin's rantings the subject of 43 articles. Here's the breakdown by month:
That's an average of one Levin stenography piece every 2.8 days. All of these articles simply repeat what Levin says, often in blockquoted text; nobody is permitted to respond.
It's ironic that Levin rants about objectivity at one point when he benefits from a complete lack of it at CNS. Levin might as well be paying Bozell and the MRC for all this fawning exposure, if he isn't already doing so.
MRC Writer Triggered By A Color On A Map Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Scott Whitlock was so triggered by a color on a map that he devoted an entire April 8 post to ranting about it (boldface his):
Talk about fake history. CBS Sunday Morning on April 7 featured a story on the Reconstruction era after the Civil War and former slaves who entered Congress in the 1870s. The visuals for the CBS segment used the political “red and blue” state graphics. But instead of following actual history, the network made the slave-holding Confederates red and the union states blue. It should be the other way around.
Correspondent Mo Rocca explained, “After returning home to Beaufort, South Carolina, Robert Smalls was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.One of more than a dozen African Americans to serve in Congress during the period known as Reconstruction, when the formerly rebel states were reabsorbed into the union and four million newly freed Africans were made citizens.”
As he talked, the CBS visuals showed the red Confederate states melting into the newly blue America. In reality, the Confederacy was made up of Democrats. It was Abraham Lincoln’s Republicans who fought to preserve the union and end slavery.
[...]
Credit to Rocca for at least getting this right (vocally) as he spoke. Referring to the African American members of Congress after the Civil War, Rocca noted, “All of them southerners, all of them Republicans in 1872.”
But apparently CBS’s graphic department couldn’t get this right.
Whitlock is apparently so inculcated by his anti-media work at the MRC that he has not considered the possibility that perhaps the CBS graphics department was not imposing modern political color meanings onto its map -- it was just after two contrasting colors, and red and blue are the two most prominent contrasting colors.
And even if one does accept Whitlock's conspiracy theory that CBS deliberate chose those colors with political motivation, it's worth pointing out that there's an element of truth given that Republicans currently dominatethe South and are primarily the ones defending Confederate monuments from removal.
WND's Tomczak Fawns Over Trump Again Topic: WorldNetDaily
As befits a writer who once described "your 10 Christimas gifts from President Trump," WorldNetDaily columnist Larry Tomczak is back for some more gushing in his April 22 column over Trump and glossing over his amoral behavior because he delivers the right-wing goods, not to mention that he was divinely appointed by God:
I am of the conviction that Donald Trump was God’s provision for our nation at a time when we needed an outsider, not a man pleaser. He is blunt, a businessman and certainly has lots of baggage!
When President Trump says and does things contrary to God’s Word, I don’t self-righteously criticize him and write him off but intentionally pray for him and cite what he’s doing contrary to Scripture. I distinguish between his policies and his personal misdeeds. He reminds me of Winston Churchill quoted in Andrew Roberts’s excellent biography, “I may not be the best practitioner of the Church but I am its best protector.”
I was in a leaders’ gathering in New York prior to Trump’s election where he spoke of a sense of destiny to restore America’s greatness as one nation under God. He spoke of the Bible his mom gave him, his Presbyterian roots, the priority of family and his abstinence from all cigarettes and intoxicants. He passionately stated the necessity of jettisoning the Johnson Amendment intimidating pastors from speaking on critical moral issues in our day.
A man of his word
While in office Donald Trump has kept his word to honor conservative values. He’s been strongly pro-life and pro-Israel; put committed Christians in his Cabinet and constitutionalists on courts throughout America; spoken out against socialism and apocalyptic global warning theories; started rebuilding our military and restoring respect for our veterans; brought about prison reforms; stood strong on legal immigration and national security; plus, initiated tax cuts and economic policies enabling millions of Americans to prosper, especially blacks and Hispanics. Our economy is at the most robust place in decades!
All the while he has been under the most vicious, hateful, unrelenting attacks of any person alive. Since the moment of his election, spiritual powers and principalities have operated through the media and personalities in an attempt to discredit him and perpetuate a false narrative that the election was illegitimate and must be overturned.
The entire Mueller report we endured for two years cost $30-$35 million of our tax money and was not a needed “investigation.” It was in reality a bogus scheme corrupt from the very beginning (multitudes hope this will now be uncovered). There isn’t and there simply never was any Russia-Trump collusion to interfere in the election, obstruction or the slightest bit of evidence found!
Actually, there are examples of obstruction detailed in the Mueller report, and there were enough documented examples of Trump campaign contacts with Russian operatives to warrant an investigation. But nobody's ever accused Tomczak of sticking to the facts.
CNS Obsesses Over Beto O'Rourke's Name (And Nickname) Topic: CNSNews.com
Beto O'Rourke has had the "Beto" nickname since he was a child, but right-wingers love to remind people that his real name is Robert in an attempt to undercut claims of authenticity and just plain pettiness (much like their insistence on incorrectly referring to the Democratic Party as the "Democrat Party"). Now CNSNews.com has joined that campaign of pettiness. Here are some recent examples of CNS needlessly emphasizing his formal name, complete with middle name:
Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke told his supporters in El Paso, Texas Monday night, "We know that walls do not save lives. Walls end lives." -- Susan Jones, Feb. 12
Former Congressman Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke, a Democrat from Texas who announced today that he is running for president in 2020, supports abortion across the board, including up to the moment of birth, according to his legislative record.-- Michael W. Champan, March 14
Newly minted presidential contender Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke wants to open lawful paths of immigration to potentially millions more people. -- Susan Jones, March 14
On his first day on the campaign trail Thursday, Democratic presidential hopeful Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke called for urgent action on climate change, and linked the leadership required to confront the issue with the storming of “the beaches in Normandy” in 1944. -- Patrick Goodenough, March 14
Democrat and newly minted presidential candidate Robert "Beto" O'Rourke said Tuesday he sees "a lot of wisdom" in abolishing the Electoral College: “You had an election in 2016 where the loser got 3 million more votes than the victor," he said. "It puts some states out of play all together.” -- Susan Jones, March 20
Speaking at a press gaggle following a town hall event at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA on Sunday, Democratic presidential candidate and former congressman Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke (D-Texas) called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “racist.” -- Craig Millward, April 8
Robert F. “Beto” O’Rourke released 10 years of tax filings on his website spanning from 2008 to 2017. -- Michael Morris, April 22
Speaking at a campaign event last week in Nevada, Democratic Presidential candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O'Rourke was asked by a student how he will “protect a woman’s right to access safe and legal abortion.” -- Michael New, April 30
Robert “Beto” O’Rourke, one of 20 people running for the Democrat presidential nomination, went to Yosemite Valley on Monday to announce what he calls “the most ambitious climate plan in the history of the United States.” -- Susan Jones, April 30
We found no instance in the CNS archive in which it ever referred to Sen. Ted Cruz -- whom O'Rourke ran against in 2018 -- as Rafael, his legal first name.
MRC Attacks CNN's Stelter For Not Spinning Trump Comment For Him Topic: Media Research Center
As we've documented, the Media Reserach Center cares a lot about context when it comes to quoting President Trump -- but not when it comes to any given non-conservative or whomever the MRC happens to hate.
An April 7 MRC post by Bill D'Agostino was zero parts "media research" and all parts pro-Trump defense operation, demanding context for words that Trump had left without context -- insisting that Trump's vague reference to getting rid of judges referred only to immigration judges, who aren't real judges anyway (needless boldface in original):
CNN’s Brian Stelter tried his darnedest to frighten viewers on Sunday by falsely implying that the President wanted to abolish one of the three fundamental branches of American government. The Reliable Sources host played two out-of-context clips of the President saying “we have to get rid of judges,” — but at no point did he explain that the President clearly had been referring specifically to immigration judges, and not to the judicial branch appointees that generally spring to mind when one hears the term “judge.”
One of the two clips was from a Friday press spray, in which the President said the following about reforming America’s immigration system: “Now, Congress has to act. They have to get rid of catch and release, chain migration, visa lottery. They have to get rid of the whole asylum system because it doesn’t work. And, frankly, we should get rid of judges.”
Stelter would likely defend himself by arguing that the President never specifically used the term “immigration judges.” However, even MSNBC producer Steve Benen was willing to give the President the benefit of the doubt in this regard.
[...]
Stelter, meanwhile, did not even float the possibility that the President might have been referring to immigration judges. Instead, he characterized the President’s words as “antithetical to democracy,” and after the clips played, he complained: “People mostly just shrug it off, like he’s the guy at the end of the bar, blowing off steam. Or like he’s an old man shaking his fist at a cloud.”
If Brian Stelter wants to prove that he was not deliberately misrepresenting the President’s words in an attempt to frighten his audience, he ought to explain what exactly he believed the President was saying.
Did he genuinely believe that Trump was proposing getting rid of judges, as established by Article III of the U.S. Constitution, across the board? Or was he arguing that abolishing immigration judges — executive branch employees formerly known as special inquiry officers, who are not even certified judges in the legal sense — would somehow be “antithetical to democracy?”
Presumably, American audiences would be alarmed at hearing their President propose “get[ting] rid of judges.” Presumably, it would be a journalist's job to explain what specifically the President was suggesting with that proposal. Unfortunately for Stelter’s audience, no such explanation was forthcoming. The clips had their intended effect, and the show continued apace.
This really isn't "media research" -- it's a political attack on Stelter for not telling a story in a way that benefits the MRC's favorite president.
CNS Published WH Press Sec's Lie, Hasn't Told Readers It's A Lie Topic: CNSNews.com
One of the side stories of the Mueller report is that it exposed as a lie a statement by then-deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders at a 2017 press briefing (remember those?) that "countless members of the FBI" had lost confidence in James Comey, who had just been fired by President Trump. Sanders insisted the claim was a "slip of the tongue" made in "the heat of the moment" and that it "was not founded on anything." Sanders has since doggedly stood by the "slip of the tongue" defense.
Among the outlets that published Sanders' original lie was CNSNews.com. A May 2017 article by pro-Trump stenographer extraordinaire Melanie Arter dutifully repeated Sanders' talking points:
One reporter asked what gives the White House “such confidence that the rank-and-file” within the FBI lost faith in Comey, given the perspective of an FBI special agent who said “the vast majority of the bureau is in favor of Director Comey” and “the real losers” are those in the FBI who “lost the only guy working in the past 15 years who actually cared about them.”
“Look, we've heard from countless members of the FBI that say very different things. In fact, the president will be meeting with Acting Director McCabe later today to discuss that very thing -- the morale at the FBI -- as well as make an offer to go directly to the FBI if he feels that that’s necessary and appropriate, and we’ll certainly provide further information on that meeting for you guys,” Sanders said.
Since the release of the Mueller report, CNS has not only ignored this revelation about Sanders -- thus hiding from its readers the fact that 1) Sanders told a lie and 2) CNS published it -- it has also failed to update its original article to acknowledge this fact. Not exactly a credibility-enhancing move.
WND Rewrites Year-Old Story To Smear Clintons Again Topic: WorldNetDaily
In March 2018, WorldNetDaily published an anonymously written article with the lurid headline "Bill, Hillary Clinton tied to sex-slaves 'cult" --but that link was tenuous at best and had absolutely nothing to do with sex. The group, known as NXIVM, had bundled donations to Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, years before anyone ever suspected any problems with the group, and officials under Bill Clinton, while Arkansas governor, had charged NXIVM leader Keith Raniere with running a pyramid scheme in a previous operation. But that was enough for WND to smear the Clintons yet again.
Fast forward to April 21, more than a year later -- and WND has basically published the same story with a slightly different news hook of one of the group's members, actress Alison Mack, pleading guilty to a charge in the case.
"Sex-cult case snares Hillary Clinton campaign," blared the anonymously written article's headline, with the lead paragraph asserting, "The stunning allegations of sexual abuse and human trafficking inside the NXIVM cult now has snared the Hillary Clinton campaign." A few paragraphs later, WND tried the hard sell:
At the suggestion of a political operative, who has since pleaded guilty to an unrelated New York state bribery charge also involving campaign contributions, the contributions were ‘bundled’ and presented to the candidate at a fundraising event attended by conspirators.”
Tyler Durden reported at Zerohedge: “And whose ‘presidential primary campaign’ did the group allegedly attempt to buy influence with?
“None other than Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to former NXIVM publicist-turned-whistleblower Frank Parlato, who told Big League Politics, ‘I was there, and I knew that the contributions were made by more than a dozen NXIVM members of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.”
What followed was a rehashing of the 2007 donation bundling and the 1992 Arkansas charges against Raniere -- in other words, nothing new, just the same old tenuous connection designed to smear the Clintons, and bogus news at that.
If trying to put old, bogus news in new bottles is all that WND can do these days, maybe it doesn't deserve to live.
Being the irresponsible conspiracy-mongers they are, WorldNetDaily has enthusiastically pushed the idea that the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral was intentionally set, probably by Muslims. So committed is WND to this conspiracy theory that it's doing something that's become increasingly rare given its current dire financial state: original reporting.
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