CNS Uses Prayer Breakfast To Suggest Trump Is Sent From God, Has Healing Powers Topic: CNSNews.com
We noted back in March that CNSNews.com was creeping further toward WorldNetDaily territory by forwarding the idea that President Trump's election was divinely ordained. It leaned into that much more after Trump's appearance at the National Prayer Breakfast.
Managing editor Michael W. Chapman kicked things off with the blaring headline "Trump: 'We Pray That THIS Nation, OUR Home' Will be Blessed by the 'Eternal GLORY OF GOD!'" He further gushed that "In his remarks for the service and worship at the White House for the National Day of Prayer on Thursday, President Donald Trump stressed that Americans place 'our hope in the hands of our Creator' and pray that that "these United States" will be blessed by the goodness, grace, and 'eternal glory of God.'" Sadly, Chapman probably thinks that Trump actually believes what he spouted.
Melanie Arter laid it on even thicker in a companion piece suggesting that, through the words of the rabbi at the California synagogue victimized by a shooter, Trump has the power of spiritual healing:
Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein of Chabad of Poway told President Donald Trump on Thursday that the president was the first person to begin healing him following the shooting last week at the synagogue that claimed the life of one of his parishioners and injured three others.
During the National Day of Prayer service in the White House Rose Garden, Goldstein said he “faced evil and the worst darkness of all time” when a gunman opened fire on him and others during Passover service on Saturday.
[...]
“If something good could come out of this terrible, terrible, horrific event, let us bring back a moment of silence to our public school system,” he said. The rabbi thanked the United States and Trump.
“Mr. President, when you called me, I was at home weeping. You were the first person who began my healing. You heal people in their worst of times, and I’m so grateful for that. You have helped me bring great honor to Mrs. Lori Kaye of blessed memory – a 60-year-old dear friend of our congregation. I’ve known her for 25 years,” he said.
Finally, CNS published a column by Alveda King, who fully went there by rhapsodizing that "God has placed America on a path to redemption" through the election of Trump:
May history always remember the day the president of The United States humbly acknowledged God our Creator at the annual National Day of Prayer on May 2, 2019. My heart was filled with love for humanity, faith for a gloriously transformed nation, and hope for a better day there in the Rose Garden of the White House yesterday.
The sincere prayers of our vice president and our first lady set the tone for the impactful message delivered by America’s 45th president, Donald J. Trump. As the president spoke, tears filled my eyes, and during the lovely worship song, I heard myself resounding along with many gathered there: HALLELUJAH!
President Trump reaffirmed “In God we Trust” in so many ways. His strengthening of America’s religious freedom, his affirmation of the sanctity of life from the womb to the tomb, his compassion for those burdened by the opioid crisis – all of which are powerfully blanketed in prayer by those in support of the POTUS agenda – is so very encouraging.
When Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein called President Trump a healer, the resounding amens from among those gathered reminded me of the need of a great awakening. President Trump recently said he believes in redemption. Indeed, God has placed America on a path to redemption.
The Spirit of the Living God is upon many of us, evident in the POTUS delivery on promises of criminal justice reform, economic assistance for everyone, sanctity of life, compassionate humanitarian intervention and so much more.
If King really things that trump does anything humbly, she is sadly mistaken.
Horowitz Repeats Hoary Right-Wing Tropes To Brand Obama As 'Anti-Christian' Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax is the publisher of right-wing activist David Horowitz's new book on "the war to destroy Christian America" (not that Newsmax wants to admit that in its heavy promotion of said book). On May 2, Newsmax gave Horowitz a column that comes straight from right-wing fever swamps circa 2012, in which he explains why President Obama was the "most anti-Christian president":
Which American president changed the White House Christmas cards from being about Christmas or faith to cards featuring the family dogs and similar non-Christmas related subjects?
Which president decorated the White House Christmas tree with ornaments that included figures such as Mao Zedong and a drag queen?
Which president excluded pro-life groups from attending a White House-sponsored healthcare summit?
Which president nominated three pro-abortion ambassadors to the Vatican?
Which president speaking at Georgetown University ordered a monogram symbolizing Jesus’ name covered while he was delivering his speech?
Which president made a practice of deliberately omitting the phrase about “the Creator” when quoting the Declaration of Independence?
Which president opposed the inclusion of President Franklin Roosevelt’s famous D-Day Prayer in the WWII Memorial?
These things were all over right-wing circles back in the day -- and most are distorted or outright false. Let's summarize:
The Mao image in on Christmas ornament was actually an image of Andy Warhol's mocking portrait of Mao; that an an ornament featuring the drag queen Hedda Lettuce were apparently part of a program in which the Obama White House sent ornaments to community groups across the country to decorate for placement on the tree.
Horowitz never explains why it was so horrible for Obama to follow the secular traditions of Christmas and expanding the cards to cover other holidays around the same time instead of pushing a strictly religious interpretation.
Theh complaint about "pro-life" groups being excluded from a summit apparently stems from a 2009 complaint by anti-abortion website LifeNews, which seems to ignore that anti-abortion groups are political activists that do not provide health care.
Obama didn't actually nominate any of those "pro-abortion" ambassadors to the Vatican; those people were simply on a list of potential nominees that the Vatican said it didn't like. Two other people served as Vatican ambassadors under Obama, about whom neither the Vatican nor right-wingers complained about.
We covered the manufactured Georgetown monogram controversy at the time. In summary: Nobody has ever proven that Obama or anyone else "ordered" the religious monogram to be covered up.
Obama never personally opposed the addition of FDR's D-Day prayer to the World War II memorial; the Bureau of Land Management opposed the addition of a plaque containing the prayer because it was not part of the original design.
Horowitz's old-school ranting continued:
Among Obama’s more serious crimes was his support for the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which gave a green light to that infidel-hating organization to murder thousands of Coptic Christians simply because they were Christian.
Even worse, Obama abandoned America’s military base in Iraq and withdrew America’s troops, creating a vacuum which gave rise to ISIS and the creation of the Islamic state.
The jihadists then set out to murder hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians without a protest from Obama or a serious military effort to stop them.
Actually, Obama was more supportive of the democratic process in Egypt post-Arab Spring, in which Muslim Brotherhood-tied Mohammed Morsi was elected, than to the Brotherhood itself. Does Horowitz really think that Egypt's current rule under a repressive military dictatorship (which overthrew Morsi in a coup) is an improvement?
Also, Obama and the Iraqi government failed to agree to terms to continue operating a military base in Iraq; the Iraq parliament refused to approve a status-of-forces agreement that gave U.S. troops immunity from Iraqi law.
And, of course, no right-wing attack on Obama, however belated, can be complete without a reference to Benghazi:
And it was the direct responsibility of a president who went to the United Nations after the attack in Benghazi to protect the Islamicjihadistsresponsible for the murder of four Americans — including the American ambassador.
Although he knew the claim was false, Obama blamed their deaths on an obscure filmmaker whose offensive video no one saw. Obama then proclaimed to the world in the strangest words ever uttered by an American president: “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet Mohammed.”
The blood on Obama’s hands was more than a betrayal of the Iraqi Christians and the heroes in Benghazi.
It was a betrayal of every American and every Iraqi who gave their lives to keep that country out of the hands of the terrorists.
It was a betrayal of America itself.
Horowitz ripped Obama's statement out of context. Here's the full statement from Obama:
The future must not belong to those who target Coptic Christians inEgypt — itmust be claimed by those in Tahrir Square who chanted, “Muslims, Christians, we are one.” The future must not belong to those who bully women — it must be shaped by girls who go to school, and those who stand for a world where our daughters can live their dreams just like our sons.
The future must not belong to those corrupt few who steal a country’sresources — itmust be won by the students and entrepreneurs, the workers and business owners who seek a broader prosperity for all people. Those are the women and men that America stands with; theirs is the vision we will support.
The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. But to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see in the images of Jesus Christ that are desecrated, or churches that are destroyed, or the Holocaust that is denied.
Let us condemn incitement against Sufi Muslims and Shiite pilgrims. It’s time to heed the words of Gandhi: “Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.” Together, we must work towards a world where we are strengthened by our differences, and not defined by them. That is what America embodies, that’s the vision we will support.
Horowitz is simply recycling ancient anti-Obama claptrap for one more trot around the right-wing track. If his entire Newsmax-published book is like this, don't bother buying it.
MRC Pulls Post Mocking Jenner For Being Transgender, Doesn't Explain Why Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center was certainly enthusiastic about mysterious sports blogger Jay Maxson's latest post on May 12, tweeting it out with a picture of Caitlyn Jenner (back when he was Bruce) under the headlines like "Stars, Stripes & Trannies Forever in Sports Illustrated." It is on brand for the MRC to bash transgenders with such crude language; the NewsBusters subject archive lists Jenner under Bruce with the addition, "Olympic medalist turned transgender activist 'Caitlyn.'"
Strangely, though, Maxson's post was deleted some time after it was first posted, and the MRC has provided no explanation for why.
We found a copy of it at another blog, though. It appears Maxson was triggered by a report that Jenner would pose in Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue "wearing only an American flag and the gold medal won by Bruce Jenner in the 1976 Olympic decathlon." Let the nasty trans-bashing begin (bolding in original):
"America's Olympic champions usually wrap themselves in the flag after winning gold. ... They don't usually change their gender 40 years later and then wrap themselves in the flag for naked photos in Sports Illustrated. But in 1976 men were men and now Bruce Jenner is Caitlyn Jenner. There's a market for flag-wearing nudie transgenders in the weird, wide world of sports media in 2019, thanks to SI."
"Falcone isn't only confused about which anniversary Jenner is observing, but also about the biological gender of the man who was hailed as the world's greatest male athlete 43 years ago. She writes that Jenner will retrieve "her most prized possession”from the bottom of a makeup drawer because she didn't want it to be a visible reminder for her five children of what they would have to compare their achievements to."
"Jenner confirmed to Sports Illustrated's Tim Layden in 2016 that the gold medal was being stored in her nail drawer. However, there was no confirmation if it had been tarnished by pink nail polish."
"The LGBT pressure groups might change their tune on Trump now that he has given Jenner the huge victory about where she can urinate, however."
Again: Trans-bashing is totally on-brand for the MRC -- an MRC videographer once embarrassed himself by pretending to be a transgender student at a college (his idea of "transgender" was dressing in shorts and a tank top and talking with a lisp) who wanted to use the women's locker room, and Maxson has previously mocked a transgender sports writer for having "Jennered" to "womanhood" (scare quotes his).
We're still not clear on why the MRC pulled this post, since it's just as tranphobic and insulting as other prevoius MRC works -- and the arguably even more offensive "Stars, Stripes and Trannies" tweet is still live as of this writing. Can someone at the MRC explain further?
WND Repeats Bogus Attack on 'Anti-Trump' Textbook Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Art Moore repeats a bit of right-wing clickbait in an April 24 article:
A new high-school American history textbook depicts President Donald Trump as mentally ill and castigates both him and his supporters as racist.
Published by Pearson Education, “By the People: A History of the United States” will be used by many Advanced Placement students beginning in 2020, reports Todd Starnes.
In the final section, titled “The Angry Election of 2016,” the book states Trump’s “not very-hidden racism connected with a significant number of primary voters.”
“Most thought that Trump was too extreme a candidate to win the nomination, but his extremism, his anti-establishment rhetoric, and, some said, his not very hidden racism connected with a significant number of primary voters,” the book says.
Trump’s supporters, the author writes, are “mostly older, often rural or suburban, and overwhelmingly white.”
It says supporters of Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton “feared that the election had been determined by people who were afraid of a rapidly developing ethnic diversity of the country, discomfort with their candidate’s gender and nostalgia for an earlier time in the nation’s history.”
Clinton supporters “also worried about the mental stability of the president-elect and the anger that he and his supporters brought to the nation.”
But as the fact-checkers at Snopes detail, the textbook accurately attributes those views. The book doesn't "depict President Donald Trump as mentally ill" or "castigate both him and his supporters as racist"; it ascribes those views to Clinton supporters. Further, Starnes -- and, thus, Moore -- ignored that the textbook also stated that "Trump’s supporters saw the vote as a victory for the people who, like themselves, had been forgotten in a fast-changing America — a mostly older, often rural or suburban, and overwhelmingly white group" as well as the fact that there was also a negative depiction of Clinton from the point of view of Trump supporters, who "chanted 'lock her up' at political rallies, believing that Clinton’s use of her private e-mail account was not only a serious mistake — which many believed it was — but also a crime. Many within Trump’s base saw Clinton and the Democratic Party as elite snobs out of touch with many Americans’ economic pain or, perhaps even more, many Americans’ anger at being dismissed as not worthy of serious consideration."
Lazy stenography doesn't exactly instill trust in a media organization, even if lazy stenography is all you can afford to do.
MRC Parrots Trump White House In Downplaying Russian Election Interference Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's undeniable mission is to create and perpetuate narratives that benefit President Trump. So it should be no surpise that on the very same day that Trump White House senior adviser Jared Kushner downplayed the impact of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election -- in which federal investigators agreed that Russia worked to get Trump elected -- by claiming it was just "a couple Facebook ads," the MRC was parroting that very same argument, albeit in a slightly different way. Corinne Weaver writes in an April 23 post:
Election manipulation is something the media have typically associated with Russians. But one liberal billionaire funnelled 56 times more money into manipulating content to win elections than the Russians.
News for Democracy, a political organization backed by liberal billionaire and Microsoft board member Reid Hoffman, spent $5.6 million on Facebook ads in 2018. According to an April 23 report released by Tech for Campaigns, News for Democracy was one of the top 10 spenders on Facebook ads — outranking Planned Parenthood and the Republican Senatorial Committee. By comparison, Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) only spent $100,000 on Facebook ads.
Of course, the big difference is that the "liberal billionare" is American and working within U.S. election laws, and Russiais a foreign country trying to influence another country's election to its own benefit.
CNS Still Promoting Right-Wing Insult Comic DiGenova Topic: CNSNews.com
We'vedocumented how CNSNews.com has becomed enamored of right-wing lawyer Joe DiGenova as something of an insult comic, hurling clickbait invective at liberals and other people he doesn't like -- at one point ridiculously and maliciously claiming that deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw the Mueller investigation, "deserves the guillotine." DiGenova has continued to serve up the ranty sound bites, and CNS -- usually managing editor Michael W. Chapman -- has continued to pretend they're newsworthy.
Chapman served up a DiGenova rant on Jan. 30, in which he claimed that "the scandal at the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) involves a "brazen plot" to exonerate Hillary Clinton of felony crimes involving her mishandling of classified documents, and an ongoing "false case" to "frame" President Donald Trump with a "false Russian conspiracy that never existed."
On Feb. 22, Chapman touted another DiGenova rant that the U.S. is in a "civil war" because non-conservatives criticize President Trump, adding, "And as I say to my friends, I do two things – I vote and I buy guns.” Chapman chimed in that "the leftist press constantly refer to President Trump as Hitler, Stalin, a dictator, a Nazi, Mussolini, racist, white supremacist, treasonous, disturbed, demented, bigoted, etc.," referencing his own piece last October that conveniently omits that CNS never complained about similar epithets hurled at President Obama; for instance, in 2016 Chapman uncritically promoted Roseanne Barr's hyperbolic claim that "Obama's actions on the eve of Hanukkah mirrored those of the Nazis."
Susan Jones did the honors in a March 5 article, cheering how DiGenova encouraged Americans to break the law by refusing to respond to subpeonas from the Democratic-run House Judiciary Committee asserting in Jones' words that "private citizens should refuse to cooperate."
Chapman returned for an April 24 item repeating DiGenova's claim that "the forthcoming report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz will be "condemning of senior DOJ/FBI officials" in their abusive handling of the Russia-Trump collusion matter, and that he is '100%' certain Attorney General William Barr will use the report to launch a 'full-scale, criminal investigation' of the Justice Department and the FBI.
Then, an April 25 piece piece by Chapman featured a prime DiGenova rant under the headline "DiGenova Shreds TheHill.TV":
After The Hill.TV's Krystal Ball strongly implied that Attorney General William Barr lied about part of the Mueller Report, former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova strongly denounced her insinuation, stating that Ball had "no evidence that he lied, and you know it!"
He added that Barr had come "out of retirement to serve this country" in the Justice Department and that it was not acceptable to go on "national television calling the attorney general a liar!"
By contrast, CNS had no problem uncritically repeating claims by, among others, Brent Bozell, Mark Levin and Ted Nugent calling Obama a liar.
NewsBusters Forgets Dershowitz Is A Sleazy Porn Lawyer Too Topic: NewsBusters
P.J. Gladnick complained in an April 22 NewsBusters post: "Compare the legal backgrounds of Harvard's Alan Dershowitz versus sleazy porn lawyer Michael Avenatti. Who has the more distinguished career? Yet CNN chose Avenatti over Dershowitz for the go-to person for legal analysis of the Trump-Russia collusion probe."Gladnick went on to reference "sleazy Michael Avenatti."
But Gladnick forgot that Dershowitz has his own sleazy-porn-lawyer record as well.
As we've noted, Dershowitz has served as a lawyer for Jeffrey Epstein, known for his political connections and his sex-trafficking scandal. Dershowitz has also been accused by one of Epstein's underage victims of engeging in sex with her (which Dershowitz has denied).
NewsBusters loved to talk about the Epstein scandal when Bill Clinton's name came up with it, but since it turns out Donald Trump had ties to Epstein as well -- he liked to hang out at Mar-a-Lago to the point that he picked up one of his victims there, who was working as a towel girl -- blogger Mark Finkelstein can't change the subject fast enough.
Somebody need to tell Gladnick that Dershowitz and Avenatti aren't that different after all.
WND's Double Standard On 'Naked Refusal' To Accept Election Results Topic: WorldNetDaily
An anonymously written May 5 WorldNetDaily article states:
The Democrats’ “naked refusal” to accept the 2016 election results triggered a recent Senate rule change on approving judicial nominees, according to a lawyer for a public-interest law firm.
“Something had to be done to restore the original constitutional vision. Adopting the two-hour standard was sadly necessary to put the brakes on persistent partisan obstruction on judicial nominees,” wrote Ken Klukowski of the First Liberty Institute wrote.
Here we have yet another example of WND complaining about something that happened under Trump that it championed under President Obama. As far as "naked refusal" to accept election results go, we need only to go back to a 2014 column by WND editor Joseph Farah in which he ranted: "Obama has never been my president. I have steadfastly refused to acknowledge him as such. He is undeserving of the honorific. To this day, I am unconvinced he is even eligible for office."
WND beat Democrats to the "not my president" mantra. If only it would honestly acknowledge its history on the subject.
CNS Cheers Gay-Bashing of Buttigieg Topic: CNSNews.com
The anti-gay activists in charge of CNSNews.com will not let you forget that Democratic presidential candidtate Pete Buttigieg is gay. CNS also loves it when someone -- preferably right-wing political pastor Franklin Graham -- attacks Buttigieg for being gay.
So when Graham lashed out at Buttigieg for proclaiming his Christian faith, CNS managing editor Michael W. Chapman -- who loves Graham as much as he hates the LGBT community -- was on it, complete with scare quotes for Buttigieg's marriage:
Reverend Franklin Graham criticized Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg, who is openly gay and "married" to another man, for stressing that God does not belong to a political party while ignoring God's commandments against homosexual behavior and so-called gay marriage. Without following God's Word, he said, we have no moral foundation and are at risk of "eternal damnation."
Pete Buttigieg, 37, is the mayor of South Bend, Ind. He is a graduate of Harvard University and Pembroke College, Oxford. Buttigieg is "married" to Chasten Glezman, a teacher.
In an April 23 post on Facebook, Rev. Graham wrote, "Presidential candidate and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg is right—God doesn’t have a political party. But God does have commandments, laws, and standards He gives us to live by. God is God. He doesn’t change. His Word is the same yesterday, today, and forever."
Chapman filled out his article with selected gay-bashing Bible verses and a statement from St. Bernardine. But he was silent on Graham's hypocrisy in bashing Buttigieg but lending his political and religious support to a thrice-married adulterer who pays hush money to porn stars.
The next day, Chapman gave attention to a rant from "Ana Samuel, Ph.D., a research scholar at the Witherspoon Institute and founder of the marriage movement CanaVox," a "Latina Mama" who hates gays as much as Graham does:
But this "cuts both ways," wrote Samuel, specifically naming "policies that undermine our parental rights and duties by seeking to indoctrinate our children in progressive sexual ideology without our consent and sometimes in spite of our explicit protest."
These policies, she said, include reading assignments in the public schools that are explicitly designed "to normalize LGBT lifestyles"; sex education classes that promote abortion, masturbation, condom use, sex toys, and rectal intercourse; "[p]ediatricians who ask to see our teenagers alone and then push to prescribe them contraceptives or ask them about sexual behaviors that we find offensive"; "public library programming where unicorns, rainbows, gingerbread persons, drag-queen story hours, and other symbols of progressive sexual ideology make an appearance, so that we must regularly steer our toddlers clear of the propaganda"; and promotion of transgender propaganda in the schools.
"Mr. Mayor, it is hypocritical for you to cry foul about policies that 'harm you and your family' while your side pushes for government intrusions into the parent-child relationship at the most fundamental levels," said Samuel.
[...]
As for the gay lifestyle itself, Samuel said, "It is not a good idea to tell society that you don’t need a member of the opposite sex to have a baby or that kids don’t need a mom and a dad because they will do fine in any kind of arrangement. That’s not true, and there’s plenty of empirical data to prove it."
[...]
"Ask yourself: is the lifestyle you are setting up as a pattern for others to follow replicable and sustainable?" said Samuel. "Or does it further destabilize the family form that has provided the greatest financial and social stability to women, children, and the poor? The evidence consistently points to the latter."
"The weight of the past 50 years of social science evidence is virtually unanimous in its conclusion: children—and societies—do best when kids are raised by their married, stable, biological parents," said Samuel.
[...]
In conclusion, Samuel said, "Speak up! Do not let the gender ideology of the Left destroy our family values! Do not stop exercising your rights as mothers! Mamas of the world, unite!"
A few days after that, CNS' Craig Bannister complained when Buttigieg once again invoked religious values:
Morals and values are “grievously missing” from the White House today, gay Democrat Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg said Monday night.
[...]
But, Christian leaders, such as Reverend Franklin Graham, say that, by practicing homosexuality and gay marriage, Buttigieg is behaving immorally and violating Christian values.
As previously reported by CNSNews.com, Rev. Graham recently rebuked Buttigieg for “ignoring God’s commandments against homosexuality”[.]
Like Chapman, Bannister also failed to point out that Graham's political hypocrisy in bashing Buttigieg while gushing over the amoral Trump.
MRC's Graham Melts Down Over WH Correspondents Dinner Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Reserach Center hates journalists -- to the point that it mocks them for worrying about their safety after President Trump's MRC-endorsed denunciations of them as the "enemy of the people" -- and perhaps no MRC employee hates journalists more than Tim Graham. He demonstrates that again in a couple posts about the White House Correspondents dinner.
First, he mocks the head of the White House Correspondents Association as a "drama queen" for being justifiably concerned about his safety and suggesting journalists deserve to have violent acts committed upon them for not being loyal Trump stenographers:
The White House Correspondents Dinner was again a hostile zone for President Trump, underlining it's no mystery why the president skips it. White House Correspondents Association president Olivier Knox of Sirius XM Radio first paid tribute to the group's lawyer, who filed a brief against CNN screamer Jim Acosta being denied his press pass for a few days. "No president should get to pick and choose who covers him!" And then Knox went full Drama Queen:
OLIVIER KNOX: That gets us in an admittedly roundabout way to this president. I don't want to dwell on the president. This is not his dinner, it is ours, and it should stay ours. I do want to say this -- in nearly 23 years as a reporter, I have been physically assaulted by Republicans and Democrats, spat on, shoved, had crap thrown at me. I have been told by senior officials of both major parties that I will never work in Washington again. There was a brief moment in Afghanistan when I thought a soldier not quite old enough to shave would shoot me dead for the crime of taking a picture inside the presidential palace.
And yet, I still separate my career into the period before February of 2017, and what came afterwards. And that's because February 2017 is when the president of the United States called us the enemies of the people. A few days later, I was driving my then 11-year-old son somewhere, probably soccer practice, when he burst into tears and asked me is Donald Trump going to put me in prison?' At the end of a family trip to Mexico, he mused that if the president tried to keep me out of the country, quote 'at least uncle Josh is a good lawyer and he'll get you home."
If you are the son of Olivier Knox, your friends will probably rib you pretty bad at school on Monday. Why do journalists still do this? Talk about Fake News! Even Brian Stelter admitted all these conspiracy theories about dictator moves didn't turn out. So why keep talking about them? Yes, "enemy of the people" is a harsh term. We prefer "the opposition party." You can be sure this room was 99 percent Democrats. (Sean Spicer was there.)
But it's still in fashion to say criticizing journalists could get them killed....and they never wonder if calling Trump Hitler might endanger him.
In another post, Graham whines that the speaker at the dinner, Ron Chernow, failed to suck up to Trump the way Graham ovbiously would:
The White House Correspondents Association somehow thinks it has improved its annual dinner by removing the pompous liberal comedian and replacing that with a pompous liberal historian. On Saturday night, historian Ron Chernow kissed every ring in the room by insisting the assembled scribes to "the noble work of preserving democracy." Is that what they call 200-plus interviews for crooked Michael Avenatti?
RON CHERNOW: You folks in the media write the first drafts of history, and we historians the later one. Your work gives freshener, color, and immediacy to our sagas. I know how embattled you feel at this critical juncture as you combat the mistrust of a significant portion of the American electorate. I think you do noble work to preserve democracy at a time when a rising tide of misinformation masquerading as news threatens to make a mockery of the First Amendment. [Applause]
There are so many journalistic fakes and forgeries out there that the genuine article can become devalued and debased. You must also deal with the pervasive world of social rife with self-appointed pundits who search out news outlets that only strengthen their pre-conceived views.
Let's guess he doesn't mean CNN/MSNBC viewers. Read this as an attack on Fox News, conservative talk radio and conservative blogs. There's noting dumber than a meeting of self-appointed pundits going after "self-appointed pundits." Unless it's people who make "news" to strengthen liberals pre-conceived views attacking "news outlets" that "strengthen pre-conceived views."
Graham wants all media outlets tohave the same slobbering pro-Trump bias as the MRC's own "news" division, CNSNews.com. After all, the MRC never makes CNS follow the anti-bias standards it demands from the "liberal media."
What CNSNews.com gave up in breadth of coverage of April's employment numbers -- only two articles this time around -- it more than made up for in gushiness. See how Susan Jones started her main story:
Not since 2000 has the number of unemployed Americans been this low.
That drop -- to 5,824,000 in April from 6,211,000 in March -- helped lower the nation's unemployment rate two-tenths of a point to 3.6 percent, the lowest rate since 1969.
The Bureau of Labor statistics counts people as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the past four weeks, and are currently available for work.
Jones thenturned to the not-so-good news, which would have been the lead and headline of her article if Barack Obama was still president:
However, not everyone who is jobless is unemployed. A growing number, including retirees, are counted as not in the labor force, meaning they are not working and are not looking for a job. That number increased by 646,000 last month to 96,223,000.
The number of employed Americans, which has set 18 records so far in the Trump presidency, dropped slightly in April to 156,645,000 from 156,748,000 in March.
The economy added a strong 230,000 jobs last month, beating analysts' estimates of +190,000.
But the labor force participation rate dropped two tenths of a point to 62.8 percent, below the Trump-era high of 63.2 percent.
The only other story CNS did was its usual sidebar from Craig Bannister on Hispanic employment, which was similarly gushy. CNS editor in chief Terry Jeffrey did not contribute his normal sidebars on manufacturing jobs and government jobs.
This was, however, apparently replaced by another column by the Heritage Foundation's Timothy Doescher in full gush mode:
It’s time to celebrate: We have the lowest unemployment rate in 49 years, and wages continue to rise—especially for lower-wage workers.
On Friday, the Bureau of Labor statistics reported that in April, the economy created a whopping 263,000 jobs, and the U-3 unemployment rate—the one commonly cited—fell from 3.8 percent to 3.6 percent. The alternate measure for unemployment, the U-6, which includes those discouraged and underemployed as well, remained unchanged at 7.3 percent.
This is consistent with the larger pattern we’ve been seeing of the economy booming: Over the last year, our economy is averaging 213,000 jobs per month, and we now have 103 consecutive months of job creation.
Doescher waited until the 13th paragraph of his column to mention that it's "a little more troubling" that "the falling unemployment rate might be partially fueled by a decrease in the labor force participation rate."
Another column, by Hans Bader, was similarly gushy, proclaiming that "The Trump administration has helped fuel economic growth by bringing an end to the flood of red tape issued by the Obama administration." Bader identified no specific instance of red tape removal that could be tied to a specific impact on the economy.
WND's Dubious Doc Can't Stop Fearmongering About Vaccines Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jane Orient is a medical misinformer who leads the fringe-right Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and her current crusade is ranting aghainst compulsory vaccination by peddling misleading fearmongering about their safety. WorldNetDaily has been giving Orient a platform for this -- particularly during the current measles outbreak -- and did so again n a May 2 column, in which she mocks the proven concept of herd immunity:
It’s about the need for herd immunity, they say. We need a 95 percent vaccination rate for herd immunity to measles. With only 91 percent or so, we are having outbreaks! If we could just vaccinate another 4 or 5 percent!
Mayor De Blasio has a point about vaccinating everyone. Adults are getting measles because their shots have worn off. It is likely that we have survived for decades with a large part of the adult population vaccinated – but not immune. So where do the mandates stop?
Outbreaks have occurred in populations with a near-100 percent vaccination rate. Was it vaccine failure? Or was the vaccine not refrigerated properly? Or was a claimed outbreak real? One in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was called off when a special test, a reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) showed a vaccine-strain measles virus rather than a wild-strain measles virus. Some 5 percent of vaccinees may get an illness that looks like measles, but it is just a “vaccine reaction.” Can they shed live virus? Yes. Should you keep your immuno-compromised child away from recently vaccinated people? Just asking.
Like all medical treatments, vaccines are neither 100 percent effective, nor 100 percent safe. Read the FDA-required, FDA-approved package inserts.
Does Orient really want to stop all vaccinations until they can be 100 percent effective with no side effects? That's irresponsible -- even as she admits that no medical treatment is totally safe. She can't even admit that vaccines help the vast majority of people.
Orient did attempt a conciliatory note at the end of her column:
The threat of infectious diseases is real and increasing. We need more robust public health measures, better vaccines, and improved public knowledge and awareness. Deploying vaccine police and shutting down debate will erode trust in health authorities and physicians, although more people may get their shots. But such heavy-handed measures will not defeat the enemy – measles and worse diseases.
But Orient is not interested in "debate" -- she just cares about irresponsible fearmongering that is solely designed to convince people to act against their best health interests.
MRC Demands Round-The-Clock Coverage of Biden's 'Grabby Hands' Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center is so obsessed with Joe Biden's history of being a little too grabby in public with women -- a story that has already been thourghly covered by the media -- that it's outraged that it's not mentioned every single time Biden appears in the media.
MRC bigwigs Tim Graham and Brent Bozell set the whining tone in their April 2 column:
The Democrat-media complex has suddenly decided that Joe Biden has a creepiness problem. Why now? Why not when he was Vice President for eight years? Does anyone remember the allegedly fierce White House press corps pelting the press secretary with questions, asking when Obama would tell his understudy to stop putting his hands on women – and little girls, too – and putting his face uncomfortably close to theirs?
They then descend into a paranoid rant about how the "Democrat-media complex" want Biden out of the way because he's purportedly not liberal enough.
By the time Biden actually announced his candidacy for president, though, the MRC's whining had reframed to demanding that Biden's grabbiness wasn't being sufficiently reported to conform to its right-wing agenda -- which is to say, being reported all the time.
An April 23 post by Geoffrey Dickens complained that "liberal journalists have rushed to the defense of Biden’s grabbiness," as well as "laughing off or completely burying most of his numerous gaffes."
On April 25, Scott Whitlock griped that "CBS This Morning on Thursday covered the launch of Joe Biden without ever mentioning any of his gaffes, including his habit of being grabby with women," proclaiming this to be a "scandal."
The same day, Dickens huffed that TV networks devoted a "tiny (1 minutes, 52 seconds) amount of time ... to the former Vice President’s grabbiness in their coverage of his campaign’s official launch." He further complained that "Even when reporters briefly mentioned Biden’s female problems, they couched it in the most favorable terms."
Dickens -- who has apparently been named the MRC's Biden obsessive -- griped in yet another post, in which the word "scandal" was again used:
The Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks have cleared the path of any nagging stories about Joe Biden’s grabby hands – having all but wiped clean the stories of women complaining about their uncomfortable encounters with the former VP.
In just three days of coverage (Tuesday evening through Friday morning) the broadcast evening and morning shows have devoted a hefty 47 minutes, 4 seconds of combined coverage to Biden’s official entrance into the 2020 race. But they could only find 2 minutes, 21 seconds of time to spend on Biden’s roaming hands.
In terms of total coverage NBC news has led the way with 19 minutes, 27 seconds spent on the Biden announcement, with just a skimpy 56 seconds on complaints from women. ABC has spent 16 minutes, 37 seconds on the Democratic frontrunner’s entry but only 50 seconds on Biden being overly-friendly with women. CBS offered 10 minutes, 58 seconds to the Biden launch and just a meager 35 seconds on the former Senator’s touchy-feely ways.
Dickens appears to be more obsessed with Biden's hands than Biden is.
AIM Tries To Brand Synagogue Shooter As A 'Left-Winger' Topic: Accuracy in Media
Accuracy in Media's Brian McNicoll was in spin mode in an April 30 post, asserting that John Earnest -- accused in the shootings at a synagogue in California -- is "a left-winger who despises Trump."
Not so much. Actually, Earnest expressed hatred of Trump only regarding his relationship with Jews, denouncing him as a "Zionist, Jew-loving, anti-White, traitorous c*cksucker." And far from being a "left-winger," he was a devout church-goer associated with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, a right-wing evangelical group founded to counter liberalism in the mainline Prebyterian church.Earnest's manifesto spouted "cogent Christian theology" alongside his virulent anti-Semitism, with one pastor calling it "a frighteningly clear articulation of Christian theology in certain sentences and paragraphs."
But McNicoll didn't mention any of that. The remainder of his column is dedicated to bashing a New York Times article on right-wing extremism in California and complaining that Earnest "did not belong to any of the right-wing hate groups law enforcement officials have identified."
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.
We noted back in March that CNSNews.com was creeping further toward WorldNetDaily territory by forwarding the idea that President Trump's election was divinely ordained. It leaned into that much more after Trump's appearance at the National Prayer Breakfast.
Newsmax is the publisher of right-wing activist David Horowitz's new book on "the war to destroy Christian America" (not that Newsmax 
The Media Research Center was certainly enthusiastic about mysterious sports blogger Jay Maxson's latest post on May 12, tweeting it out with a picture of Caitlyn Jenner (back when he was Bruce) under the headlines like "
WorldNetDaily's Art Moore repeats a bit of right-wing clickbait in an April 24 
The Media Research Center's undeniable mission is to create and perpetuate narratives that benefit President Trump. So it should be no surpise that on the very same day that Trump White House senior adviser Jared Kushner 
We've
P.J. Gladnick complained in an April 22 NewsBusters 
An anonymously written May 5 WorldNetDaily 
The anti-gay activists in charge of CNSNews.com 
The Media Reserach Center hates journalists -- to the point that it mocks them for worrying about their safety after President Trump's MRC-endorsed denunciations of them as the "enemy of the people" -- and perhaps no MRC employee hates journalists more than Tim Graham. He demonstrates that again in a couple posts about the White House Correspondents dinner.
What CNSNews.com gave up in breadth of coverage of April's employment numbers -- only two articles this time around -- it more than made up for in gushiness. See how Susan Jones started her 
Jane Orient is a 
The Media Research Center is so obsessed with Joe Biden's history of being a little too grabby in public with women -- a story that has already been thourghly covered by the media -- that it's outraged that it's not mentioned every single time Biden appears in the media.
Accuracy in Media's Brian McNicoll was in spin mode in an April 30 
Being the irresponsible conspiracy-mongers they are, WorldNetDaily has 
