WND's Massie Has Another Michelle Obama Meltdown Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily columnist Mychal Massie has always irrationally hated Michelle Obama, whom he has spread lies about and whom he disturbingly loved to call "Buttzilla." He manages to refrain from doing that in his Nov. 25 column, but he finds other ways to be insulting and condescending.
Massie began his column by huffing, "For a person who despises white people, it certainly bothers the Obama woman that according to her so few of them want to be around her." The insults just kept on coming:
"bitter harridan"
"obnoxious woman"
"the Obama woman" (which he largely uses instead of her first name, which he uses only once outside of the headline)
"frighteningly unattractive, envious and mean-spirited"
"disgustingly unflattering and ill-mannered"
"She is unlikable because she is vengeful and self-absorbed"
Envious? Mean-spirited? Unlikable? Vengeful? Self-absorbed? Are we sure Massie's not talking about himself?
MRC Can't Deal With Impeachment Witness Demanding Fox News Apologize For Smearing Him Topic: Media Research Center
We've highlighted how the Media Research Center couldn't deal with Fox News hosts and guests being criticized for falsely smearing Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman as conducting "espionage" for Ukraine because he testified in the Trump impeachment hearings. Now it can't deal with the fact that he's demanding Fox News apologize for the lie.
The MC's Kristine Marsh complained in a Nov. 22 post:
The Democrats’ star witness Tuesday for President Trump’s impeachment hearing has threatened legal action if Fox News does not retract an opinion segment that was critical of him from a few weeks ago.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman sent a letter through his lawyer to the news network demanding a "retraction or correction" for an October 28 segment on Laura Ingraham's show. His lawyers charged FNC was “liable for punitive damages” for “false and defamatory allegations it published about LTC Vindman, knowing they were false.” The letter also called out Donald Trump Jr. and FNC host Tucker Carlson for “inflammatory” statements.
The letter was focused on that Oct. 28 show where FNC host Laura Ingraham and guest John Yoo criticized Vindman.
Marsh failed to mention the fact that Ingraham and Yoo falsely accused Vindman of espionage. Also, while she repeated a Fox News statement that Yoo "has subsequently done interviews to clarify what he meant," she didn't link to any of them. (While Yoo did walk back his false attack, he apparently didn't do so on Fox News, and Ingraham apparently hasn't walked back asything.)
Marsh then played the conservative victim card: "But the media didn’t share this same perspective when President Trump threatened legal action against other cable news networks like CNN, which network called a 'desperate PR stunt' that doesn’t 'merit a response.'" Perhaps because it was a desperate PR stunt and was seen more as an attempt by a powerful government official to silence a critic.
Marsh concluded by ranting: "The media as a whole have used the 'freedom of the press' as a cover for their biased and frequently false reporting about the President." She offered no substantiation for her claim that reporting on Trump is "frequently false."
This wouldn't be the MRC if it wasn't being hypocritical about things, and sure enough, a few days later, Randy Hall was cheering the type of lawsuit Vindman was threatening befause a conservative was filing it:
There are times when it seems that obviously liberal outlets in the “mainstream media” get away with producing “fake news” without facing any consequences for their poor reporting.
That situation may change after Thanksgiving, when California Republican Devin Nunes -- one of the press’s favorite targets during the “impeachment inquiry” held recently in the U.S. House of Representatives -- fights back in federal court against “demonstrably false” articles that have appeared on CNN and the Daily Beast website.
According to an article Washington Times reporter Rowan Scarborough, the items accused Nunes “of meeting with a former Ukraine prosecutor in a hunt for dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden.”
[...]
He also stressed that “it is not OK to work with someone who has been indicted on serious federal crimes to build a media narrative and dirty up a member of Congress” with “demonstrably false and scandalous stories.”
By contrast, the MRC thinks it's perfectly fine to "dirty up" a member of the military when he won't support the MRC's political agenda.
Unfortunately for Nunes, news broke that phone records show he did, infact, spend time on the phone with Rudy Giuliani's indicted Ukranian buddy Lev Parnas -- something for which he has offered not-very-convincing explanations. The MRC has largely ignored that unflattering piece of evidence, aside from a Jeffrey Lord column ranting that Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff was engaging in "abuse of power" in releasing those phone records.
CNS Is Sad Chick-fil-A Stopped Hating Gays As Much As CNS Does Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com used to love fast-food chain Chick-fil-A -- mainly because it hated gays as much as CNS does. It was just earlier this year that it gave Hans Bader column space to claim that the chain was facing a "First Amendment violation" because it was barred from opening a branch in an airport because of the company's support of groups like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Salvation Army who in Bader's words "support and defend marriage as defined by the natural law and Christianity -- one man and one woman for life." And just a couple months ago that managing editor Michael W. Chapman was cheering how "continues to experience tremendous sales and growth despite opposition and boycotts from LGBT activists" over the company's financial support for groups that oppose "gay marraige" (scare quotes are his), adding that "Despite the protests from the homosexual left, Chick-fil-A is doing well.
But a month after Chapman touted Chick-fil-A's gay-hate, the company pulled back on its gay-hating, restructuring its charitable donation strategy to focus on specific causes such as hunger, homelessness and educationand no longer giving to other groups including FCA and the Salvation Army.
As you might imagine, CNS is very sad about this. A Nov. 20 article by Chapman misconstrued the policy to claim that Chick-fil-A made a "corporate decision to stop donating to groups that support marriage between one man and one woman and quoting right-winger Mike Huckabee accusing the chain of having "made a "very big, big mistake" in thinking it could appease the left and LGBTQ activists," going on to quote right-wing activist Tony Perkins ranting that the chain "helped legitimize the Left's labeling of these groups." Chapman also lazily copy-and-pasted Bader's description of FCA and the Salvation Army.
CNS also published a torrent of commentary attacking Chick-fil-A for the change in his funding strategy and justifying the gay-hate:
Daniel Davis declared that "many loyal Chick-fil-A supporters feel betrayed, and they’re letting Chick-fil-A know" and the change in strategy "tells [LGBT activists] they can win, if they just bully Christian organizations for long enough."
John Horvat II huffed that the change in donation strategy "shocked many conservatives" and that "With Chick-fil-A’s fateful decision, it became clear that even those who do not sympathize with the LGBTQ+ agenda are expected to bow to pressure and fear."
The Heritage Foundation's Kay Coles James insisted that "Christians do not hate gay people; our faith teaches us to love everyone" -- even as she criticized Chick-fil-A for "caving to the bullying of a minority of radical activists" and "bullies who will never be satisfied with compromise." (The Heritage Foundation knows a thing or two about not being satisfied with compromise.)
JP Duffy complained that the company "cut off future donations to the Salvation Army and sent a check to the Covenant House, a group that has hosted a local Drag Queen Story Hour and celebrates LGBTQ pride." He wants the company to go back to hating gays: "I would say follow the example of three of the most courageous biblical figures — Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. They refused to bow to King Nebuchadnezzar’s image and as a result were thrown into a fiery furnace where God protected them from any harm. Their reverence for God was so strong that it overwhelmed fear. By following their example, you will be better equipped with the courage to glorify God in all you do."
Chapman wasn't done grousing, though, writing in a Nov. 27 article: "The number three fast-food chain in the United States, Chick-fil-A, which prides itself on being founded on biblical principles, donated $2,500 to the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The SPLC maintains a "hate map" on its website and its listing of the Family Research Council (FRC) as an"anti-LGBT" hate group was cited by domestic terrorist Floyd Corkins in his FBI interview after he shot-up the FRC in August 2012." Actually, it turns out that the donation was made by a volunteer for the company's charitable foundation, not by the foundation itself; Chapman has not corrected his article.
Chapman was still sad that Chick-fil-A stopped hating gays as much as he does, lamenting that "Chick-fil-A has made donations to the pro-abortion group The Pace Center for Girls; the pro-LGBTQ YWCA; the pro-LGBT child welfare service Chris 180; and the left-wing New Leaders Council."
MRC Tries To Prop Up GOP's Ukraine Conspiracy Theory Topic: Media Research Center
Just like its "news" division CNSNews.com, the Media Research Center proper has been pushing pro-Trump talking points on the Ukraine scandal and impeachment hearings. So dedicated to those talking points is the MRC, in fact, that it's even pushing the conspiracy theory pushed by Trump and other Republicans that Ukraine meddled as much, if not more, in the 2016 U.S. presidential election as Russia did.
But it wasn’t an “unfounded” “conspiracy theory” as they would like you to believe. According to then-Politico reporters David Stern and Ken Vogel, “Donald Trump wasn’t the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country.”
[...]
Their reporting also found that Ukraine’s influence did have consequences. “The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race,” they wrote, “helping to force Manafort’s resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia.”
But as we've pointed out, Ukranian officials' anti-Trump efforts were mostly limited to going after his campaign manager, Paul Manafort -- who later went to prison for bank and tax fraud regarding the millions of dollars he was paid for his work in Ukraine -- and an op-ed. There was none of the systematic disruption approved by the central government that Russia engaged in, and it's a lie to suggest otherwise.
Alex Christy huffed in a Nov. 25 post that "just because CrowdStrike is a conspiracy theory and that Russia did interfere, does not also mean Ukraine didn't," adding: "Second, it is simply not true that Republicans deny Russian interference in 2016 as all the congressional reports on the topic that came out in the aftermath of 2016 would have had to come out of Republican-controlled committees." But Republicans are falsely conflating what Ukraine did -- which was mostly limited to blogs and op-eds -- with the systematic meddling conducted by Russia.
(The admission that CrowdStrike is a conspiracy theory is a slight change of MRC policy; it has previously largely pretended that Trump wasn't pushing a conspiracy theory by referencing the idea CrowdStrike was stashing a hacked DNC server in Ukraine.)
And when Republican Rep. John Kennedy pushed the conspiracy theory on "Meet the Press," the MRC rushed to prop his claims up.
Curtis Houck followed up with a Dec. 2 post complaining that "CNN sided with Todd that Kennedy’s a puppet for Vladimir Putin pushing “conspiracy theories” (which are true) about Ukraine and the 2016 election."
Houck also complained that "Borger invoked the tiresome piece of fake news about '17 intelligence agencies' having the same conclusion about Russia and 2016, which was ironic since she had just bemoaned that we’re debating 'when is a fact a fact.'" He linked back to a 2018 MRC post on how "the liberal media screwed on Trump-Russia in 2017" to claim that "only three agencies (FBI, CIA and NSA) had reviewed the intelligence, which was then issued by a fourth, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence." But as an actual fact-checker pointed out, the Office of the DNI speaks on behalf of those 17 intelligence agencies, and none of those agencies has expressed disagreement with the conclusion.
Tim Graham huffed that "Sen. Kennedy acknowledged Russians were meddling, but just added Ukrainians were meddling, too. Todd repeatedly insisted that Kennedy was like a Russian agent for adding these inconvenient truths to the narrative." Graham refused to admit the inconvenient fact that nothing Ukraine did was on the scale of Russian meddling.
CNS Is Still Publishing -- And Promoting -- Increasingly Extremist Michelle Malkin Topic: CNSNews.com
In August, we noted that CNSNews.com published Michelle Malkin's dishonest defense of the white nationalist group VDARE, while its sister site NewsBusters did not. Interestingly, NewsBusters skipped a few other Malkin columns after that before stopping completely; the last one at NewsBusters appeared on Oct. 30.
Meanwhile, CNS is sticking with the increasingly extremist Malkin -- well, mostly. It declined to publish her Nov. 27 column in which she went full anti-vaxxer by ranting about "government-coerced immunization" regarding mandates for children to get immunized against human papillomavirus, dismissing it as "usually harmless" despite the fact that it's a leading cause of cervical cancer and obsessing over isolated cases of adverse side effects to falsely smear it as unsafe.
CNS apparently embraces Malkin's increasing vicious anti-immigrant rhetoric, such as her Dec. 5 column huffing that the U.S. is being "fundamentally and permanently transformed into United Nations refugee camps full of welfare dependents and tax burdens."
Shockingly, CNS remains so infatuated with the extremist Malkin that it touted an award she received. A Dec. 6 article by Craig Millward gushed:
Upon receiving an “Impact Award” from United in Purpose on Wednesday, Dec. 4, syndicated columnist and best selling author Michelle Malkin said, “I am an extremist when it comes to telling the truth.”
Malkin was one of 10 conservative leaders to receive an “Impact Award” in a ceremony held at Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C. on Wednesday.
[...]
“Because we all share a common zeal, an extreme zeal -- I embrace that word – yes, I am an extremist when it comes to telling the truth,” said Malkin. “And I know that each of the honorees here has been able to effectively use their powers of communication to do good and make an impact.”
Millward didn't mention that Malkin is also an extremist when it comes to white nationalism and anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories.
CNS should explain why it's continuing to align itself with such an extremist, even though its sister publication has stopped doing so.
AIM Obsesses Over Alleged Bias At Obscure Media Outlet Topic: Accuracy in Media
For some reason, Accuracy in Media has been targeting NowThis News, an obscure media outlet, doing several posts on its alleged bias over the past couple months alone. And, as ever, it has trouble with the whole media-watchdogging thing.
In a Nov. 21 post, Spencer Irvine -- grandson of AIM founder Reed Irvine and son of current AIM publisher Don Irvine -- asserted that calling abortions "safe and legal," which NowThis did in an article, "can be interpreted as a partisan stance," never mind that it can also be interpreted as an objectively true statement. He then lectured: "News media should not endorse, implicitly or explicitly, political views, stances, or opinions. NowThis News took a blatant political stance and yet portrayed itself as a neutral and trustworthy news source." Never mind that NowThis hasn't exactly hidden the fact that it's a progressive-leaning outlet.
We don't recall AIM complaining that any conservative media outlet "took a blatant political stance" on an issue, or that Fox News falsely "portrayed itself as a neutral and trustworthy news source" with its "fair and balanced" slogan.
Irvine attacked NowThis again in a Dec. 2 post attacking the outlet for calling out President Trump's falsehood that 14 million jobs have been created during his presidency. Irvine not only tried to spin the numbers but also the fact that Trump lies a lot:
It is common knowledge that Trump tends to embellish the facts in public speeches, but NowThis News criticized Trump for the embellishment. It also included a tweet from a Vox journalist who called Trump’s remarks “absurd,” despite that Vox Media is far from a neutral source of news and analysis.
NowThis compared Trump’s job creation numbers to Obama’s and claimed that the Trump-led economy “created fewer than 6 million jobs since Trump has taken office.” The article claimed that this was “less than what Obama created when he was in office,” and cited a Forbes article to support that claim. However, the link that NowThis News used was a broken link and the information in the Forbes article cannot be verified.
Upon further investigation, a different Forbes article pointed out that Obama created one million more jobs than Trump has at this point in the presidency, which is a significant difference. However, both Forbes and NowThis News did not take into account consumer confidence and how the U.S. economy got back on track after Trump’s election.
Irvine complained once more in a Dec. 5 post about an allegedly biased NowThis article on the impeachment hearings: "The lack of ideological balance, in addition to the partisanship and favoritism toward Democratic lawmakers and their witnesses in this recap article, illustrated NowThis News’s political bias and how it should tell its readers that it is a partisan news source, not an unbiased one." Again, Irvine did not hold conservative media outlets similarly accountable for their lack of balance.
Carrie Sheffield did the NowThis-bashing -- and Trump-defending -- honors in a Dec. 11 post:
NowThis News’ impeachment coverage omitted key facts about diplomats’ testimony on Capitol Hill, leaving false anti-Trump impressions for its readers.
“Trump and many in the GOP have called the inquiry a ‘sham’ despite the testimony of multiple career diplomats that Trump offered a quid pro quo to the president of Ukraine to investigate unfounded claims against Biden,” wrote NowThis’ Christina Cocca.
Cocca failed to mention that House Democrats based their calls for impeachment on assumptions, presumptions, and speculation from witnesses who had no interaction with the President. None of the diplomatic witnesses during the impeachment hearings had any firsthand knowledge or evidence of wrongdoing by the President.
Most of their witnesses never spoke with Trump or weren’t even involved in the events at hand. Only two people actually asked the president about this – Ambassador Gordon Sondland and Sen. Ron Johnson, and the President told both of them he was not seeking any quid pro quo.
If only AIM cared this much about the accuracy of conservative media.
MRC Won't Admit NY Times-Basher Is A Biased Conservative Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Aiden Jackson devoted an entire Dec. 2 post to how "former New York Times contributor and current New York Post reporter, Michael Goodwin" went on Fox News to talke about a Fox News-published op-ed complaining that the Times "has cemented itself as the CNN of the newspaper world with a leftist trajectory and near total loss of journalistic integrity" and that "the old-guard reporting standards at The New York Times are almost non-existent in the era of President Trump." Jackson went on to tout how "Goodwin then used a sledgehammer on the Timesto label them as a completely leftist publication through and through."
What Jackson doesn't tell you: Goodwin is a right-winger through and through. He did allude to it, stating that "As a disclaimer, it should be noted that Goodwin has served as a reporter with the Post for many years and currently writes opinion pieces for Fox News." But at no point does Jackson place an ideological label on Goodwin; instead, he played up Goodwin being a former Times employee to suggest that his Times-bashing is not partisan, despite the fact that he hasn't worked for the Times for a good couple decades and has been linked with right-wing outlets like Fox News and the Post since then.
Funny how the MRC has conniptions about how conservatives are labeled but won't use proper labeling when it doesn't serve its interests and narrative to do so.
WND Columnists Bash Buttigieg For Being Gay Topic: WorldNetDaily
Larry Tomczak spent his Nov. 18 WorldNetDaily column attacking Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg for being gay. He complained that "multitudes in the media are giddy about his ascendancy but are downplaying the issue of his homosexuality and gay "husband" for political reasons," while "millions are being desensitized to acceptance of homosexuality through multiplying gay characters in entertainment, pervasive gay pride events and children propagandized in schools." Never mind that Tomczak's gay-hating rants are also a form of propaganda.
Tomczak also attacked Buttigieg's Christian faith: "Whether it's Mr. Buttigieg or simply people we know, a person claiming to be an authentic Christian and a practicing homosexual is, according to Scripture, a counterfeit convert." He then listed "10 biblical reasons true Christians are not practicing homosexuals," in which two of the reasons involve it beinga "contradiction of biblical teaching," another declaring that homosexuality "cannot be justified" and the final one insisting that "Homosexual behavior can definitely be changed in anyone humbling themselves and repenting, as evidenced by multitudes throughout the world who testify to their freedom in Jesus Christ."
Nevertheless, he further tries to convert Buttigieg: "Here's the deal: Whether a high-profile figure like Pete Buttigieg or an ordinary person, God offers hope, forgiveness and freedom to everyone who repents and believes the transformative and liberating message of the gospel."
Fellow WND columnist Michael Brown similarly attacked Buttigieg for being gay and Christian:
It would be one thing if Mayor Pete Buttigieg was a non-religious man, taking swipes at the Bible as an out and proud, secular, gay man. It's another thing when he claims to be a follower of Jesus. The hypocrisy, let alone the butchering of the Bible, is all the more glaring.
Brown admitted Buttigieg has a point when he criticizes evangelicals who treat Trump has a savior figure, -- something Brown himself is guilty of -- then ranted: "Yet Buttigieg has absolutely no right to respond to a question about perceived Christian hypocrisy when he is a living example of Christian hypocrisy. He professes to be a committed Christian, yet he practices what the Torah calls 'detestable' and the New Testament calls 'contrary to nature.' Worse still, he celebrates this publicly. And how can he possibly discuss 'the question of what ethical content at all Christianity even has,' when he overthrows Christian ethics based on his sexual desires and romantic attractions?"
Brown then attacked Buttigieg for claiming to be a good Christian despite committing the "fundamental error" of being gay:
As for Jesus, when He came into the world, He was quick to forgive all manner of sins, including adultery. And He died to pay for our sins. But He warned that unrepentant adultery would be punished by the fires of hell, something far worse than the death penalty.
May the mayor of South Bend experience a personal awakening. And may he learn to bow to the morality and wisdom of the Word rather than twisting it to fit his own experience.
Funny how both Tomczak and Brown demand that Buttigieg bow to their religious will rather than letting him be a Christian in the way he believes is best.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:17 AM EST
Updated: Wednesday, December 11, 2019 12:37 AM EST
MRC's Most Dishonest 'Study' Yet Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center is known for its highly biased "studies" of media coverage. It may have outdone itself with its latest one. Bill D'Agostino huffed in a Nov. 25 post:
Broadcast networks NBC, CBS, and ABC have donated 75 hours of free air time to Democrats’ impeachment hearings, despite notably poor (and consistently shrinking) ratings. Yet during President Clinton’s impeachment, these same networks could not be bothered to carry more than a few hours of independent counsel Ken Starr’s one-day presentation of the evidence against Clinton on November 19, 1998.
NBC’s live coverage during the hearings amounted to a whopping 92 percent (1,653 minutes, or 27.5 hours) of the total 30 hours of testimony. CBS ran special coverage for 84 percent of the hearings (1,517 minutes, or 25 hours), while ABC broadcast 75 percent (1,358 minutes, or 22.5 hours). These numbers reflect the coverage on network-affiliated stations in the Washington, D.C. area.
By contrast back in November of 1998, NBC aired a paltry 26 percent (194 minutes) of Starr’s 12.5 hours of testimony on Capitol Hill. CBS covered 42 percent of the hearing (314 minutes), while ABC broadcast 36 percent (272 minutes).
Over the past two weeks, broadcast networks bumped hours of regularly scheduled programming for hearings featuring 12 hitherto unheard of witnesses, many of whom had never even spoken to President Trump. Yet these networks were reluctant to cover Starr’s testimony back in 1998, even though that hearing relied on a single well-known witness with intimate knowledge of all the evidence being presented.
That's right -- the MRC is dishonestly comparing several days of Trump impeachment hearing coverage to a single day of testimony by the chief anti-Clinton antagonist.
Note that D'Agostino also invoked the MRC narrative of dismissing the hearings because of their allegedly low ratings; he reinforced the narrative by claiming that "the hearings these past two weeks have had consistently poor viewership, and the number of Americans tuning each day has been shrinking." In fact, the hearings attracted millionsof viewers when counting all outlets that aired them, and NBC -- whose coverage D'Agostino attacked for drawing "even fewer eyes ... than an average Days of Our Lives episode" -- actually drew more viewers than Fox News in the coveted demographic of viewers age 25 to 54. Nevertheless, he insisted: "It would appear President Trump's election has rendered broadcast networks incapable of understanding what interests their own audiences.
D'Agostino also unironically complained about the Clinton hearings being described as having low ratings, to the point that individual affiliates broke away for their own local programming.
NEW ARTICLE -- CNS On Impeachment: Cleanup Mode Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com is so pro-Trump that it not only tried to spin away the worst aspects of President Trump's Ukraine entanglement, it tried to retcon the most incriminating statements about it made by the president and his surrogates. Read more >>
MRC Loves It When 'South Park' Mocks Transgenders, Is Sad When It's Criticized For Doing So Topic: Media Research Center
In a Nov. 13 post, the Media Reserach Center's Alexa Moutevelis gushed over how the TV show "South Park" mocked transgenders by how it "illustrated the absurdity of allowing men who identify as women into female athletic competitions, in a way only South Park can, in the episode titled 'Strong Woman,'" which featured "a trans athlete in the mold of former WWF wrestler Macho Man" entering a female strong-woman competition, and the women in the competition are told not to complain about because "you'll upset the PC babies." Moutevelis served up her own mocking at the end: "I can only imagine how the PC Babies will howl at this episode. You know how they are."
Moutevelis followed up that with a Nov. 21 post mocking one writer who claimed the episode descended into "the same tired old transphobic, homophobic, intentionally offensive gobbledygook":
Last week, South Park aired a classic episode that skewered the trans athlete phenomenon. But IndieWire author Jude Dry, whose pronouns are listed on Twitter as “they/them/theirs,” was not amused.
Dry's IndieWire article this Wednesday hilariously claimed the episode “provoked an immediate and universal backlash,” (only if backlash means laughter). The subtitle said, “Last week's episode provoked outcry by taking aim at transgender athletes, but the Comedy Central show has a long history of transphobia.” The definition of transphobia apparently means to not immediately celebrate and accept anything a trans person says.
[...]
It’s more that this author is humorless when it comes to certain hot button topics than that South Park is alienating viewers and yet Dry implies that creator Trey Parker is a bigot: “Parker’s pandering plea that his viewers not see him as a bigot for writing such a lazy, charged, and dangerous script is so ridiculous it’s almost laughable.”
And this IndieWire article is so ridiculous it is absolutely laughable.
Apparently, transphobic, homophobic and intentionally offensive gobbledygook is what trips Moutevelis' humor trigger, so this particular brand of hate is OK with her.
On the other hand, Moutevelis is not so supportive of "South Park" when when it mocks her favorite president. In September, she and Sadi Martin complained that "The new season of South Park got back to its libertarian roots in ways many conservatives might not appreciate" when it focused on "illegal immigrant children being placed in detention centers" and engaged in "heavy-handed comparisons of the Jewish Holocaust to the current immigration crisis America faces today." Moutevalis and Martin concluded by lamenting, "South Park has always been at its best when it's subversively skewering the sacred cows of the left. Let's hope the rest of the season brings more of that and doesn't keep hitting us over the head with the same liberal talking points we hear everywhere else."
So, in Moutevelis' eyes, "South Park" is hilarious when it makes jokes about liberal causes, but painfully unfunny when it mocks conservative causes. Maybe she's the real "PC baby" here.
WND Repeats Fake-News Ukraine Story Topic: WorldNetDaily
An anonymously written Nov. 20 WorldNetDaily article asserted:
A Ukrainian member of parliament says that Hunter Biden and his corporate cronies made $16.5 million from the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings.
[...]
Joe Biden is on video boasting he threatened Ukraine officials the U.S. would withhold aid if they didn't fire the general prosecutor, who was investigating Burisma at the time.
The Zerohedge blog reported an "indictment drawn up by Ukraine's Office of the Prosecutor General against Burisma owner Nikolai Zlochevsky claims that Hunter Biden and his partners received $16.5 million for their 'services' - according to Ukrainian MP Alexander Dubinsky of the ruling Servant of the People Party."
But as an actual news organization reported, this isn't actually true: no indictment was announced. Further, "ZeroHedge apparently misconstrued the original Russian article from the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency, which did not mention an indictment. The Interfax-Ukraine News Agency operates as part of Interfax, a Russian news outlet."
In other words, ZeroHedge is pushing Russian propaganda, it got that propaganda wrong to the point that it became even more propagandistic. The original ZeroHedge article has been corrected to more accurately state that "a document leaked from the Ukraine's Office of the Prosecutor General contains claims against Burisma owner Nikolai Zlochevsky."
The actual news organization also cited an expert on Russian kleptocracy, who pointed out that Dubinsky, the Ukraine official helping to push this claim, is "not credible" and that he and a fellow Ukraine official who also pushed this claim are "professional disinformers. ... Anybody who’s anybody knows about these two. They are not credible." WND didn't mention that either, which tells us that it (and ZeroHedge) are not among the "anybody who's anybody."
Meanwhile, WND's article remains uncorrected.
There's another claim in the WND article that's false as well: the asserion that the Ukrainian prosecutor Biden wanted fired "was investigating Burisma at the time." In fact, the prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was not investigating Burisma or much else at the time, which is why Biden (and other European countries) wanted him fired.
Geoffrey Dickens complained in a Nov. 19 post that "MSNBC has tabbed a Bernie booster (Rachel Maddow) and Joe Biden fan (Andrea Mitchell) to be the lead moderators for Wednesday’s Democratic debate. So it’s a good bet the questions won’t be coming from the right." He then served up "just a few examples of Wednesday night’s debate moderators’ history of liberalism, as culled from the MRC’s archives."
The next day, Nicholas Fondacaro attacked MSNBC's parent network, NBC, for a pre-debate segment of its "What Matters" series that allegedly "seemed to suggest only Democrats cared about the opioid crisis while boosting Senator Bernie Sander’s Medicare for all scheme," going on to huff that the series was "biased" and "only sought out 'What Matters' to Democratic voters. Scott Whitlock followed some hours later by bashing a different "What Matters" segment for purportedly being "yet another PR push for a liberal 2020 candidate" and doing so "shortly before sister network MSNBC debuted a Democratic debate filled with liberal hosts."
As far as the actual debate itself, Whitlock complained:
What was the big concern for the liberal hosts of MSNBC’s Democratic debate on Wednesday night? Dealing with the nasty Republicans and figuring out ways to convince them to support impeachment. The first half hour of the event was full of queries on impeachment, as well as fretting over being mean to Joe Biden’s son, and reminders that the GOP opposed Barack Obama. Rachel Maddow offered what could be the most obvious question for the assembled 2020 candidates.
Rather than focus on issues, she wondered if Senator Elizabeth Warren would lobby her GOP colleagues to remove the President. Not shockingly, Warren said she would!
Impeachment is not a issue these days? That's news to us.
Shortly thereafter, Whitlock whined in a separate post that Maddow -- whom he called "far-left" in the headline, a favorite sloppy label for the MRC -- "unloaded both on the state that hosted the 2020 contenders (Georgia) and also a conservative Democratic Governor for daring to be pro-life."
Even MSNBC's post-debate analysis was attacked, with Curtis Houck in bash mode on people paid to have an opinion for having an opinion (that he didn't approve of). Kyle Drennen followed by attacking other networks' debate coverage, feigning surprise that impeachment would be a topic of discussion and insisting that "it was as if all three network morning shows were reading from the same liberal script" by accurately reporting that impeachment was a debate topic. Drennen didn't tell us whether Fox News mentioned impeachment in its coverage of the debate.
CNS Lazily Reprints Press Release On Roger Stone's Conviction Topic: CNSNews.com
When Trump confidante and sleazy political operative Roger Stone was arrested on various on a warrant from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation earlier this year, CNSNews.com was quick to embrace the bogus conspiracy theory that Mueller tipped off CNN to the arrest so it could have cameras there. Even Mueller himself pointed out this was not true, but CNS never told its readers about it.
Despite that obsession over Stone's arrest, CNS' interest in the case didn't extend to his trial, not even bothering to offer daily coverage of it. And when Stone was found guilty, CNS did the absolute minimum: an anonymously written Nov. 15 article stating that "Political consultant Roger Stone was found guilty today by a jury that convicted him of obstructing a congressional investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, according to a statement put out by the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia," followed by a copy-and-paste job of the entire statement.
No mention of the conspiracy theory it once embraced, no mention of any statement by Stone or his attorneys on the verdict -- just an grudging acceptance that maybe Stone is as terrible as everyone outside the Trump orbit CNS occupies has said, and the ultimate in lazy stenography.
MRC Freaks Out Over Nonbinary Cartoon Character Topic: Media Research Center
We noted earlier this year when the Media Research Center had a freakout when the rebooted cartoon "She-Ra and the Princesses of Power" added a character who wasn't heterosexual and another character who had two dads -- as if acknowledging that gay people exist and aren't inherently evil was an insidious "gay agenda." Well, "She-Ra" has continued to refuse to be as heterosexual as the MRC demands so the freakouts have continued.
Alexa Moutevelis complained in an Oct. 30 item that not only is there a nonbinary character on the show, a nonbinary actor is voicing them:
Prepare for trouble! It looks like the new season of Netflix’s kids' show She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (coming November 5) will feature “the first nonbinary actor to voice a nonbinary animated character in a recurring series role.” Just what parents have been waiting for!
Netflix’s LGBTQ Instagram account Prism was so excited to make the announcement that they produced a video of performer Jacob Tobia talking about the character. Tobia, who recently wrote a memoir titled Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story, said, “I play a character called Double Trouble who is a non-binary, shape-shifting mercenary, so functionally, I’m playing myself.”
Moutevelis complained about the show being "propagandizing" and "indoctrination" -- as if she wasn't doing the exact same thing -- and concluded by ranting, "She-Ra already has featured gay characters and storylines in the past. It looks like season 4 will be more than Double Trouble – parents, beware!"
On Nov. 10, Elise Ehrhard complained further about this nonbinary character:
In season four’s She-Ra, released Nov. 5, the “non-binary” character Double Trouble is really just a shape-shifter like the countless other shape-shifting characters that have existed in past children’s cartoons and world mythology. Calling classic shape-shifters “transgender” is a new trope of the “woke.” For example, in Rick Riordan’s blockbuster mythological children’s book series, Magnus Chase, a shape-shifting demi-god wearing a hijab is now considered a “transgender” Muslim.
Memo to the left: shape-shifters are not real and men and women cannot change their biological sex. If the left gets to stamp “transgender” on every shape-shifting character, then Robin William’s Genie would have to be called gender dysphoric because he morphs into Joan Rivers, among many other impressions, while singing “Prince Ali” in Aladdin.
The only distinction of Double Trouble is that the voice sounds like a campy gay male from Sex and the City. S/he says “darling” a lot and tells one of the princesses “that outfit really isn’t working for you.” The way transgenderism itself is constantly channeling homosexual stereotypes may explain in part the calls by some lesbian and gay activists to separate themselves from the “T” part of their movement.
Ehrhard went on to mock the fact that nonbinary people would like to be addressed by their preferred gender (or nongender, as it were):
Double Trouble says he loves “the thrill of seeding destruction and chaos,” which pretty much encapsulates the entire LGBT movement’s encroachment into pre-pubescent children’s lives. It is very important to transgender activists to confuse children about both grammar and identity. Everybody, including the villain mastermind, refers to Double Trouble as “they” and "them." “Even the most evil person on the planet doesn’t misgender people, because that would be rude,” Tobia said. You can try to destroy the universe and the English language, but don’t you dare “misgender” anybody!
Ehrhard then issued a sexist attack on the show's writing staff for not being sufficiently male:
Much hoopla has been made of the fact that this contemporary She-Ra has an all-female writing team (even though biological sex is supposedly not fixed). That being the case, I am embarrassed for my sex because the show spends an inordinate amount of time having princesses kvetch at each other and argue about their feelings. I am middle-aged and have more patience, but it must be torture for the kids to wait for action in between endless bickering between Princess Glimmer and Adora while other heroes take “me-time.” Is this really what an all-female writing team is supposed to produce for an action cartoon? If so, it might be time to add some testosterone to the mix. That is, if anybody in Hollywood can still acknowledge biological reality at all.
Ehrhard and Moutevelis should perhaps obsess a little less about cartoons.
WorldNetDaily columnist Mychal Massie has always irrationally hated Michelle Obama, whom he has spread lies about and whom he disturbingly loved to call "Buttzilla." He manages to refrain from doing that in his Nov. 25 column, but he finds other ways to be insulting and condescending.
We've 
CNSNews.com used to love fast-food chain Chick-fil-A -- mainly because it hated gays as much as CNS does. It was just earlier this year that it gave Hans Bader 
Just like its "news" division 
In August, we 
For some reason, Accuracy in Media has been targeting NowThis News, an obscure media outlet, doing 
The Media Research Center's Aiden Jackson devoted an entire Dec. 2 
Larry Tomczak spent his Nov. 18 WorldNetDaily 
The Media Research Center is known for its 
In a Nov. 13 
An anonymously written Nov. 20 WorldNetDaily 
With the November Democratic presidential debate, the Media Research Center did with it usually does: 
When Trump confidante and sleazy political operative Roger Stone was arrested on various on a warrant from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation earlier this year, CNSNews.com was 
We 
