Newsmax Tries To (Anonymously) Back Up Bogus Trump Claim On Biden Topic: Newsmax
It's generally agreed that President Trump got it wrong when he claimed Joe Biden wants to defund the police, and that Fox News host Chris Wallace was correct to call Trump out on that claim. But Newsmax -- whose CEO, Christopher Ruddy, is a buddy of Trump -- has decided differently.
Trump Was Right: Biden First Said He'd Defund Police" shouted the headline of an anonymously written July 19 piece. The nameless writer ranted:
It was like a "gotcha" moment reminiscent of Chris Wallace's dad on "60 Minutes."
Tapes are rolling. The president is the target.
The president says Joe Biden wants to defund the police.
Young Wallace snaps back, "No he does not."
But the facts show Trump was right. Biden had called for defunding the police.
And Trump was correct when he made the point in his interview Sunday with< Fox News host Wallace.
[...]
But earlier this month on liberal commentator Ady Barkan's podcast, Biden was asked if he supported defunding the police.
Barkan asked Biden: "[D]o we agree that we can redirect some of the [police] funding?"
Biden responded: "Yes, absolutely."
Even pro-Trump Fox News host Howard Kurtz wasn't buying this argument. Biden has never explicitly said he wanted to defund the police, and he pointed out the Biden interview with Barkan went beyond ouir anonymous Newsmax writer's cherry-picked clip, adding that he would also "condition" funding on things like banning chokeholds. Kurtz also pointed out that defunding police and redirecting police funding aren't the same things, although "some say diverting is funding."
Our anonymous Newsmax writer went on to take refuge in conflating the two: "fter Biden's clear cut call for redirecting police funds, his campaign went into cleanup mode, denying Biden supported police defunding." he then regurgitated a Trump tweet repeating the falsehood.
But if this argument is so ironclad, why didn't our anonymous author want to put his or her name on it? It's unusual for Newsmax to publish anonymous opinion pieces. Maybe the writer is a bit ashamed of having to peddle this opinion.
WND Still Pushing Hydroxychloroquine Topic: WorldNetDaily
Let's check in on WorldNetDaily's dubious doctors and other types to see how they're dealing with the coronavirus pandemic in terms of questionable cures and bad takes.
Andy Schlafly -- who is a lawyer, not a doctor -- devoted his June 30 column to praising the dubious benefits of hydroxychloroquine and denouncing its allegedly limited availablity to coronavirus patients as a Deep State conspiracy:
As the media sound alarm bells about a possible second wave of COVID, we should firmly reject another nationwide economic shutdown enforced by stay-home orders and mandatory masks. Republicans need an approach that gets Americans back to attending church, Trump rallies and in-person voting at local polling places.
Forcing everyone to wear a mask, even while jogging or boating, will do nothing to conquer the virus or restore public confidence. Sending the expensive new intravenous drug Remdesivir to hospitals, for COVID patients on their deathbed, will do nothing to calm public fears.
President Trump should turn instead to the approach liberals fear and oppose the most: making hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) widely available to the American people. Trump may not realize that the medication he took in May to successfully protect himself against COVID-19 is still inaccessible to most Americans.
[...]
Indeed, most world leaders have taken HCQ as a prophylaxis to protect against COVID-19, according to the president of El Salvador as quoted by CNN. And millions of ordinary folks in many foreign countries now have early access to this medication, which is helping conquer the virus outside of the United States.
[...]
Peter Navarro observed how the Deep State has been sabotaging Trump's reelection by blocking HCQ. He told the New York Times that this "is a Deep State blindside by bureaucrats who hate the administration they work for more than they're concerned about saving American lives."
It's time for others in the Trump administration to admit that Navarro was right, and make HCQ available immediately to all the American people, not just the well-connected few. Allowing a climate of fear to continue whereby Americans will not even attend church, let alone vote, is unhealthy for our country and unfair to Trump.
WND's chief dubious doc, Jane Orient, was still hyping hydroxychloroquine in her July 6 column, conspiratorially suggesting that randomized controlled trials on the effectiveness of the drug were deliberately sabotaged: "They can be designed to fail, as by giving treatment too late or in an overdose that increases death or adverse effects, or they can fabricate data. Studies that had to be retracted were used to stop further research and treatment with HCQ."
Orient also tried to fearmonger about a possible vaccine, as she is wont to do: "Trials race on, but they are tainted with ethical questions. For example, demonstrators in South Africa carried signs saying 'We are NOT guinea pigs' and 'Gates, we are not your lab rats.' The African Centre for Biodiversity raised many concerns about the vaccine trial, such as withholding crucial safety information. The controversial Louis Farrakhan warnsagainst taking the vaccine pushed by white multibillionaire Bill Gates. Do the lives of black African Africans matter if we badly need research results?"
Elizabeth Lee Vliet -- like Orient, linked to the fringe-right Association of American Physicians and Surgeons -- gushed with an overactive italic function in her July 13 column: "Stunning positive news on hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was released in early July, potentially opening up medical freedom at the time of America's celebration of our Declaration of Independence from British tyranny 244 years ago. During the first six days of July, SIX positive clinical studies of HCQ were released. ... All six studies showed that HCQ given early in COVID-19, alone or with zinc and azithromycin, reduces hospitalizations and deaths, with no serious heart or other adverse events."
Being a WND columnist and AAPS member, Vliet couldn't help but get conspiratorial:
Americans urgently need to see this new and encouraging information to help relieve anxiety and fear about coronavirus. The mainstream media is still suppressing such information, which can both save lives and help America reopen safely.
[...]
The U.S. situation is out of control, with people dying and businesses shut down because of FDA roadblocks and governors' restrictive orders illegally overriding normal FDA regulations that allow physicians to prescribe any >FDA-approved medication (including HCQ) however they deem medically appropriate. Physicians in many states also face threats of investigation by their state medical boards for prescribing HCQ for COVID-19, and state pharmacy boards direct pharmacists to refuse to dispense HCQ for COVID patients. Such political interference with doctors' ability to treat patients has never happened before in my medical career.
At some point, the Trump administration has to take charge of this interference with effective medical treatment that is costing lives, and rein in the FDA and the state-by-state bureaucratic HCQ restrictions.
Schlafly -- again, not a doctor -- followed up on July 14 with a demand that hydroxychloroquine be made over-the-copunter:
It is time to take the bull by the horns to conquer the Wuhan virus. Drastic action is necessary, like on Dec. 8, 1941, after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.
President Trump should order immediate public access to hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) by making the medication available over-the-counter (OTC). Liberals have interfered with public access to this medication for COVID-19 through the old-fashioned route of requiring a prescription and then having a pharmacist fill or reject the prescription.
[...]
No one credibly doubts that HCQ is safe, and safer than many medications currently available OTC. No one credibly doubts the dozens of studies showing that early use of HCQ, pre-exposure and immediately after exposure to COVID, has helped many overcome this dreaded disease.
He too went conspiratorial: "Every state board of pharmacy or medicine is controlled by left-leaning government workers who, by and large, despise President Trump and hope he loses in November. They are accomplishing their dream by choking off public access to HCQ."
The MRC's Focused, Dishonest Campaign To Brand Black Lives Matter As 'Marxist' Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center spent late May and early June following orders from the Trump re-election campaign, blaming Antifa for unrest in the wake of the police-caused death of George Floyd. But as it became clear that there were no roving bands of Antifa anarchists following orders from Antifa Central, the MRC had to abandon that narrative (mostly). But Trump must be served, and a scapegoat was still needed. Thus, the MRC glommed onto a new target: Black Lives Matter.
Because some early founders of BLM had stated they were "trained Marxists," that purported extremism became the new MRC narrative. The MRC rushed to defend Fox News host Tucker Carlson paranoid rant that Black Lives Matter "is definitely not about black lives, and remember that when they come for you, and at this rate, they will." Joseph Vazquez harrumphed his approval of Carlson's rant -- "No kidding" -- and bemoaned that advertisers were dropping ads on his show because did not want to be associated with such extremism. Vazquez didn't put it that way, of course, portraying Carlson as a victim who is "under threat of ad boycotts for not catering to the hive-minded mob." And Nicholas Fondacaro gushed like a schoolgirl a few days later under the hagiographic headline "Unfazed By Thought Police, Tucker Carlson Speaks Truth to BLM Power," effusing over how Carlson "was unfazed by the liberal thought police as he delivered a 17-minute-plus opening monologue Monday night speaking truth to the power of the Black Lives Matter movement. He called out their bullying tactics, manipulation of our moral values, and the brutalization of anyone who even offered mild criticism of the group."
A few days later, Clay Waters huffed: "Black Lives Matter (as opposed to the truistic slogan 'Black Lives Matter') is a political organization that has controversial positions, including defunding the police, reparations, and 'a reconstruction of the economy to ensure our communities have collective ownership' that are up for debate in a free society." And the malicious rebranding campaign was on:
Gabriel Hays declared that you must "recognize Black Lives Matter for what it truly is, a militant marxist movement – reminiscent of Mao’s China – aimed at shaming weak-minded individuals into denouncing their western way of life under the guise of appeasing some manufactured racial grievance." (Not wanting to be killed by police is a "manufactured racial grievance"?)
Hays returned to rant that "Teen Vogue is really pushing to indoctrinate young people into the Marxist designs of the Black Lives Matter movement."
Julie Mitchell complained that the BET Awards was "promoting the marxist Black Lives Matter movement."
Kyle Drennen grumbled that "Apparently NBC’s idea of patriotism is cheering on a radical Marxist organization determined on bringing about “revolution” across the United States."
Curtis Houck touted how White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany delivered a screed against journalists who had purportedly decided to "defend the anti-family, hateful, and Marxist Black Lives Matter organization over the Constitution and accusing the President of racism for disagreeing with BLM."
Duncan Schroeder asserted that "Black Lives Matter, which is a radical, Marxist organization that is responsible for the rioting, looting, and violence in recent protests." Schroeder's evidence that BLM "is responsible for the rioting, looting, and violence" is a link to a Tucker Carlson monologue that offered no proof to back up the claim.
Hays returned again to attack BLM as a "Marxist radical outfit."
Drennen equated having BLM activists on TV with "enabling Marxist radicals who preach violent action."
Fondacaro regurgitated a Fox News segment with Mark McCloskey, the St. Louis homeowner who along with his wife were recklessly waving weapons at protesters walking past his house, in which he stated that BLM and other groups are "Marxist and oppose everything I stand for and I hold dear and near."
Hays (again) huffed about "Marxist Black Lives Matter tenets."
Fondacaro ranted: "For almost 50 days, Black Lives Matter Marxists have been engaging in almost nightly battles with federal agents outside the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, effectively turning the streets into a war zone." Fondacaro offered no evidence that BLM played a role in the protests, even as he went on to brand the unrest as "Black Lives Matter riots."
Schroeder praised Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler for "correctly describing BLM as a radical Marxist organization."
Jay Maxson ranted about "the Marxist anarchist Black Lives Matter movement," uncritically quoting MRC sacred cow Mark Levin asking if pro athletes "know they are embracing a Marxist-anarchist movement."
Scott Whitlock pretended to care about civil rights in his attack: "CBS This Morningrightly honored the life and legacy of civil rights icon John Lewis on Monday. Yet, they dishonored this tribute with a softball interview of the radical, Marxist, dictator-supporting co-founders of Black Lives Matter."
Maxson whined that baseball players "took a knee Monday ... in solidarity with the Marxists of Black Lives Matter prior to a game."
All this reads like someone fed MRC writers talking points and their job was to use it as many times as possible. Indeed, it appears to have come straight from the top: A July 1 piece by Brent Bozell (no, we didn't see Tim Graham's byline anywhere) at the Daily Caller attacking BLM included this screed: "Black Lives Matter was founded by radical extremists who are perfectly pleased with the rioting, looting, vandalism and violence that have plagued our cities for the past several weeks. ... These are Marxists following the Maoist playbook in China during the late ’60s and early ’70s. The Maoist revolutionaries vandalized temples, tore down statues and destroyed artifacts. The opposition was marched to re-education camps."
Because the MRC has marching orders to fulfill, they're not going to tell you the truth about BLM; it must fall to actual fact-checkers to do so. Just because the BLM founders desribed themselves as "trained Marxists" doesn't mean the organization today operates as a Marxist group and that all who associated with it are automatically Marxists, let alone the strict Maoists that Bozell thinks they are. A scholar at the conservativeHoover Institution has pointed out that BLM's support for "gender identity politics sets it apart from historical Marxism," and it has not declared itself to be "expressly anti-capitalist."
The MRC is not offering any sort of cogent, reasoned analysis of the issue; it is engaged in partisan name-calling that defies facts. It knows exactly what it's doing, and who it's doing it for.
CNS Reporter Pushes Anti-Dem Narrative Of His Employer Topic: CNSNews.com
NSNews.com reporter Patrick Goodenough has evolved from being a relatively straight reporter to being a pro-Trumppropagandist. When his reporting focuses on Democrats, that bias is clearer than evern.
In a June 25 article, Goodenough fretted over the defeat of Rep. Eliot Engel, "a 16-term veteran backed by the party establishment," in the Democratic primary for a New York House seat by Jamaal Bowman, who was "endorsed by the high-profile 'squad' member" Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who similarly defeated a longtime Democratic incumbent in a party primary. Goodenough references the "squad" four times in his article, while he also rushed to defend Engel as the kind of Democrat he prefers, or at least will tolerate:
Engel ticks many of the liberal Democrat [sic] boxes, as his campaign’s Twitter feed made sure voters were reminded of on primary day, highlighting his 100 percent ratings from Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America, endorsements from the Sierra Club, Stonewall Democrats, New York AFL-CIO, among others, and his “F” rating from the NRA.
He also played a leading role in the impeachment of President Trump, a point underlined by Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff in his endorsement of Engel.
But his foreign policy stance puts him at odds with progressive activists: Engel voted in favor of the Iraq War, was the most prominent of a handful of House Democrats to oppose the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear deal, and is viewed as one of the most pro-Israel voices in the Democratic caucus.
Goodenough also hyped Bowman's declaration that "I can’t wait to get to DC and cause problems for those maintaining the status quo" -- putting it not onlyin the article itself but also in the caption of a picture of Bowman and in the headline.
Goodenough also misled about Ocasio-Cortez's primary in stating that she "easily won her primary in the 14th district, winning around 70 percent against a centrist challenger" (which, by the way, is the only reference to AOC's victory to be found at CNS). In fact, the challenger, former CNBC anchor Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, is not "centrist": she's a Republican disguised as a Democrat -- she even wrote a book touting conservative principles titled "You Know I'm Right" -- who didn't even live in the congressional district until a few months before she entered the race, having previously lived for years in a $15,000-a-month apartment in a Donald Trump-operated building in Manhattan. She also received financial support from business groups that normally support only Republicans.
MRC Complains About Lack Of Tara Reade Coverage -- As It Censors Fox News Sexual Harassment Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has always been hypocritial about Tara Reade, the woman who accused Joe Biden of sexual misconduct nearly 30 years ago. As we've pointed out, the MRC cares nothing about her as a person -- her only usefulness is as a cudgel to attack Biden on behalf of President Trump, even as it denigrated a woman who accused Trump of rape.
The dishonesty and the double standard continued in a June 29 post by Bill D'Agostino:
While liberal TV news outlets have fallen all over themselves in a rush to disapprove of anything involving Donald Trump, they’ve kept their airwaves largely free of any negative stories about his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden. In fact, it’s been more than a month since ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC or NBC have even mentioned the accusations of Tara Reade, a former Biden staffer who alleges that he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.
MRC analysts have looked at all broadcast and cable news coverage since the charges against Biden first surfaced on March 25. After a brief amount of coverage in April and May, and despite corroboration of Reade’s account, all of these networks dropped the story entirely.
But D'Agostino censored news that countered his narrative that Reade is credible: Politico looked into Reade's background and found a history of manipulative and deceitful behavior, and a PBS report that interviewed 74 former Biden staffers, many of whom disputed Reade's accusation based on their experiences with Biden.The only place you'll find these pieces referenced at the MRC is in a May 15 post by Tim Graham, who dismissed the Politico article as a "hit piece" and the PBS investigation with whataboutism, complaining that "Clarence Thomas's co-workers showed overwhelming support for Thomas and rejected Anita Hill's claims, but that didn't slow down the media's I Believe Anita boosters." At no point did Graham dispute the accuracy of either piece.
The day after Dagostino's "study," Scott Whitlock served up a post with the whining headline "In May, Hypocrite John Oliver PROMISED to Return to Tara Reade. He LIED." The whining continued:
It’s been eight weeks since HBO host John Oliver allowed a pathetic 26 seconds to the Tara Reade sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden. On the May 3 show, the HBO host promised her story would be “ fully investigated” and “I am sure that we will talk more about this as the story unfolds.”
He hasn’t returned to it. In the seven shows that have aired since, ZERO seconds were devoted to Reade and her claim of forcible penetration by the then-Democratic senator.
While D'Agostino and Whitlock were clutching their pearls over purported lack of coverage of the Reade story, they and their MRC coworkers were actively censoring the latest tales of sexual harassment at Fox News -- something they have lotsofpractice with, given how often Fox News personalities have been accused of untoward behavior.
On July 1, Fox News announced it had fired pro-Trump correspondent and anchor Ed Henry after a complaint of sexual harassment against him. This follows a 2016 suspension by Fox News following news of an extramarital affair. Not even a history of denouncing Henry as not sufficiently down with the Fox News agenda for the offense of asking non-softball questions to MRC sacred cow Mark Levin didn't even draw out the MRC gloating we know so well.
then, on July 20, two women -- a former Fox News producer and a once-frequent guest on the channel -- sued Fox News and hosts including Henry, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Howard Kurtz, accusing them of sexual harassment and gender discrimination. One woman even accused Henry of raping her.
This story too has been completely censored. The only mention of it we could find was on Brent Bozell's Twitter account, where he huffed: "I know Sean, Tucker and Howie. They are all honorable men. This stinks to high heaven. I don't believe a word of it."
In other words, he's doing what Graham complained PBS did in using people's personal experience as a n excuse to dismiss the complaint. And he's certainly not giving these women the benefit of the doubt his organization is giving Tara Reade.
It's as if the MRC's treatment of sexual harassment allegations depends entirely on the employer or political agenda of the accused.
They hate President Trump because he's everything they are not. They cannot buy him; and even worse, he loves America. President Trump opposes the looting, pillaging and selling of America's resources for personal wealth. The list of those having done that includes the Clintons, Obama, Romney, Biden, Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein.
President Trump donates his entire presidential salary, which means he has endured nearly four years of relentless persecution for no reason except he loves America and knows he's capable of truly "making American great again" – something Ronald Reagan was the last "American Patriot" elected to accomplish.
President Trump is a monumental threat to those sucking the lifeblood from We the People. No group has amassed the amount of material gain "elected-for-sale" politicians and the wraith-like globalist necromancers that control them have. No cabal or cartel in the history of the world has participated in the financial cannibalizing of America for personal enrichment like those on Capitol Hill and their handlers.
President Trump has upset that gravy train, and the globalist political sect want things as they were. For that to happen, however, this president must go. But, to remove President Trump they need you and I to suddenly believe they have our best interest in mind. Funny how their concern for our well-being occurs every election, but I digress.
[...]
Since when did any of these cancerous variola truthfully care about America and specifically the military? It sure wasn't when Hillary was running illegal arms deals, which many believe led to the murder of Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty in Benghazi. They didn't give a rat's tail when American border personnel and hundreds of innocent Mexican civilians/politician were murdered with weapons from Obama's illegal international gunrunning operation called Fast and Furious. There's no outcry over the billions upon billions of dollars Bush friends and handlers are still raking in thanks to his hedonistic monetary globalism cloaked in the veil of Middle Eastern military intervention for the security of America.
We must remember that every time they betray President Trump, these lucifarians betray us. If you don't believe me, take one look at what Dr. Fauci is now encouraging. Has it escaped you that as long as there was rioting and burning down entire neighborhoods there was no talk of COVID-19? In fact, dozens of so-called health care professionals signed a petition to encourage the protests, claiming all would be well.
Now that the burning has been reduced to smoldering heaps, liberal governors are bilging Faucian fearmongering as reason to shut down their states again. This sets the stage for delayed school starts and to reverse the rapid economic gains made as the country reopens. The injury from this will be blamed on President Trump.
Fox News et al. are churning out false polls claiming Biden is leading the presidential race by anywhere from 10 to 20 points depending on the poll. Anyone with even a fraction of an IQ point knows that's simply impossible, unless they're polling exclusively Democrats. And for the record, there are many Democrats who won't be voting for Biden.
This is what's happening behind the curtain of the "B" word. The question we must answer is: Are we willing to go along with the shafting they're trying to give We the People?
MRC's Double Standard On Referring To Women As 'Gals' Topic: Media Research Center
Mark Finkelstein ranted in a July 1 NewsBusters post:
On her MSNBC show this afternoon, the sexist Nicolle Wallace slighted Kayleigh McEnany, President Trump's spokesperson, as a "spokesgal."
It actually got worse. Wallace noted that Keir Simmons, the NBC reporter with whom she was speaking, had spoken with Vladimir Putin's "right-hand man," and that he sounded similar to President Trump's "right-hand spokesgal."
So according to Nicolle Wallace's sexist standards, a senior male aide to Putin is a "man." But a senior female aide is a "gal."
I'm guessing Harvard Law grad McEnany will let the slight by this liberal lightweight roll off her back. But it's a fascinating take for someone who complains Trump "bullies female reporters."
But imagine the MSM fainting spells if a conservative like Rush Limbaugh had said the same about a Democrat spokeswoman? Or called Nicolle a "spokesgal" for Biden?
Would Finkelstein faint if he know that his employer engaged in the very same behavior he's attacking Wallace for? Because it did.
The lead sexist perpetrator here is MRC writer Gabriel Hays, who loves to bandy the word "gals" around to demean women:
In a February 2019 post, he wrote: "For tennis legend and gay rights activist Martina Navratilova, it’s clear that she’s far from being the hippest gal on the LGBTQ scene."
In March 2019, Hays mocked Anita Hill and singer Katy Perry for getting awards, declaring that it meant "acknowledging women who write bubblegum pop songs for tweens with self-esteem issues and those gals around the world trying to smear the good name of potential SCOTUS nominees. "
Hays followed that with a July 2019 post mocking the U.S. women's soccer team for seeking pay that reflected their on-field success: "Hot off the heels of the U.S. Women’s World Cup victory, Hollywood and the media jumped at the pseudo-issue that is a pay disparity between women and men players, parroting the line that the gals are being shafted in their salaries.
Hays also huffed in an October 2019 post: "[Bette] Midler’s the kind of quality gal who, upon hearing news of pro-life legislation being passed, will tweet things like, 'Buy stock in coat hangers! Here we go, 60 years, back to the back alleys!'" In another October post, Hays sneered that Chrissy Teigen "sure ain’t no brave, righteous gal" for responding in kind to a nasty attack from President Trump.
He's not the only one, of course. In August 2017, Curtis Houck attacked Wallace as among the "guys and gals ... who loved what Jim Acosta did in treating a poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty like it’s the law of the land."
And Matt Philbin sniffed in an April 30 post attacking those concerned about women being vulnerable to coronavirus: "Women are, by the authors’ admission, more likely to be “essential workers” (70% of healthcare workers are women) and so they haven’t had their livelihoods destroyed. But okay, let’s talk about the plight of gals."
If Finkelstein had the guts to call out Hays and his fellow MRCers doing the same thing he furiously denounced Wallace for doing, he would be a profile in courage. On the other hand, he likely wouldn't be writing for the MRC anymore.
CNS Cleans Up After Trump Again Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com's love of pro-Trump stenography bit it back, prompting some furious back-pedaling. An anonym ously written June 21 article served up a stenographic account from President Trump's rally in Tulsa the previous day:
During his rally in Tulsa, Okla., on Saturday night, President Donald Trump discussed his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and said that he had “said to my people: Slow the testing down please.”
“We saved hundreds of thousands of lives and all we do is get hit on like we’re terrible,” said Trump.
“And what we’ve done with the ventilators, and with the medical equipment, and with testing—You know, testing is a double-edged sword,” he said.
“We’ve tested now 25 million people. It’s probably 20 million people more than anyone else,” Trump said. Germany’s done a lot. South Korea’s done a lot. They call me, they say: The job your doing—
“Here’s the bad part. When you test, when you do testing to that extent you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases,” Trump said.
“So, I said to my people: Slow the testing down, please,” Trump said.
“They test and they test,” he said. “We had tests of people who don’t know what’s going on. We got tests. We got another one over here. The young man’s ten years old. He’s got the sniffles. He’ll recover in about 10 minutes. That’s a case. Add up to it. That’s a case. That’s a case.”
This anonymous writer didn't seem to be aware that Trump was effectively admitting that Trump was slowing down testing to artificially keep coronavirus numbers down. So it was damage-control time -- which CNS is all too familiar with -- and who better to do that than CNS' top Trump stenographer, Melanie Arter:
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said President Donald Trump did not actually tell officials to slow down testing for the coronavirus.
His comment was made jest in an effort to expose how the media ignores the fact that there are more COVID-19 cases in the U.S., because “we have more testing.”
[...]
When asked what he meant by saying that he told his people to slow down on testing, the press secretary said, “The president was trying to expose what the media oftentimes does is they ignore the fact that the United States has more cases because we have more testing. We are leading the world in testing, and he was pointing that out that it's a fact that the media regularly ignores.
“It was a comment made that he made in jest. It’s a comment that he made in passing, specifically with regard to the media coverage and pointing out the fact that the media never acknowledges that we have more cases because when you test more people. You find more cases,” the press secretary said.
When asked whether it was appropriate to joke about coronavirus considering that 120,000 people have died, McEnany said the president was not joking about coronavirus.”
“I just said he was joking about the media and their failure to understand the fact that when you test more you also find more cases,” the press secretary said.
Thus, the narrative that Trump was joking became fact,despite the fact that there are no actual facts backing up -- indeed, the very same day that McEnany insisting that this was merely "in jest," Trump declared when asked about his statements: "I don't kid. Let me just tell you. Let me make that clear."
CNS' Arter devoted an article to that, in which she downplayed the "I don't kid" remark and highlighted his complaint that "the more COVID-19 testing that the United States does the more cases it will reveal" and his whining that "we have never been credited" for the amount of testing that has been done.
But Tim Graham of CNS' parent, the Media Research Center, didn't note any of that in his April 24 column, instead playing whataboutism by attacking CNN for criticizing Trump's "joke" -- an assessment Graham accepted without question, though he did have the sense to admit that it was "distasteful" -- because it was just as "distasteful" for CNN's Chris Cuomo to have "jokey interivews" with his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, including one where "Chris decided to mock the size of his brother's nostrils by unveiling a series of ever-larger Q-Tips (or test swabs) and cracked his brother up."
Graham failed to note that was at least a clear, unambiguous attempt at humor, while the only evidence Graham has that Trump was joking is McEnany telling us after the fact that it was. And he accepted it as fact anyway.
UPDATE: After the MRC tried to retcon Trump's remark as a joke, it mocked Joe Biden for a joke it decided had fallen flat. Susan Jones wrote in a July 1 article:
Striding to the podium for his first news conference in three months, former Vice President Joe Biden opened with what he apparently meant as a joke:
"I'm a few minutes late," he told the (non) crowd:
"This is my polling place. I was trying to vote early, but I couldn't find it. (No audible laughter).
There was no audible laughter after Trump's "in juest" line either, but CNS didn't tell you that.
Brent Bozell Tweets A Lie Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center researcher Nicholas Fondacaro is a liar -- but maybe that lying is part of the culture at the MRC and comes straight from the top.
MRC chief Brent Bozell declared in a July 17 tweet: "Bank of America has pledged to give Marxist Black Lives Matter ONE BILLION DOLLARS. Every conservative customer MUST CLOSE THEIR ACCOUNTS."
That's a lie. The truth: Bank of America has pledged $1 million over four years to help communities of color and minority-owned businesses.There's no evidence that any of the money -- let alone all of it -- is going to Black Lives Matter. Bozell apparently got his lie from Fox Business host Lou Dobbs, who had to issue a correction the next day.
By contrast, Bozell's false tweet is still live, and he has not corrected his lie in any subsequent tweet. In other words, his threat to the bank's business by demanding that conservatives "MUST CLOSE THEIR ACCOUNTS" there is built on a lie -- and is perhaps actionable on the bank's part. Remember that Bozell had to pay $3.5 million to World Wrestling Entertainment for spreading lies about the organization, so he's no stranger to defamation lawsuits.
Like we said, straight from the top. Bozell apparently doesn't care about the truth -- and as Fondacaro has demonsrated, neither do his employees.
Given all this, there's little reason to trust anything the MRC puts out.
WND -- Which Suggested Obama Wouldn't Leave WH -- Complains Over Suggestions Trump Won't Leave Topic: WorldNetDaily
An anonymously written July 14 WorldNetDaily article complained:
Hillary Clinton in an interview this week revived the conspiracy theory expressed earlier by presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden that President Trump, if he loses the 2020 election, would not leave the White House voluntarily.
The Washington Examiner noted Clinton said the nation has to "be ready" for such a scenario.
"Well, I think it is a fair point to raise as to whether or not, if he loses, he's going to go quietly or not. And we have to be ready for that," Clinton said.
[...]
An earlier Examiner report noted that it was Biden who confidently claimed that the military will escort President Trump out of the White House should the incumbent lose in November, and refuse to leave.
[...]
Biden then said, of the president, "I promise you: I am absolutely convinced they will escort him from the White House with great dispatch."
Responding to Biden's theory, Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh called it "just another brainless conspiracy theory from Joe Biden."
WND would rather you forget that its founder and editor, Joseph Farah, pushed the completely unfounded idea that President Obama would not leave office when his term expired.
as we documented the last time WND complained about this, Farah used several columns in 2015 and 2016 to forward the idea that Obama wouldn't leave office, either because he was "living it up on our dime" and would be loath to give up "six all-expense-paid vacations every year at his venue of choice" or because he felt he had "an obligation to prevent Trump from assuming office."
Since then, Trump has refused to commit to accepting the results of the November election if he loses, making such concerns legitimate. Farah's fever dreams aside, Obama said no such thing.
Farah wrote in one column, "Will America follow the rule of law and the will of the people after the November election no matter what Obama might think about his successor?" WND can be counted on to never ask that question about Trump.
CNS Interns Pester Members of Congress With LGBT-Bashing Gotcha Question Topic: CNSNews.com
The tradition of CNSNews.com to send its summer interns to pester members of Congress with a loaded gotcha question designed to advance CNS' right-wing agenda continued this year despite the coronavirus pandemic. This time, CNS dipped into its well of anti-LGBT animus to fabricate another attack on Joe Biden with this question: "Joe Biden says that as president he will require federally funded schools to let biological males who identify as females use female bathrooms and locker rooms. Do you support that?"
Here's who got dragooned into CNS' game, and how they responded to provide CNS with 11 articles worth of content:
As usual, there's little news value here -- it's mostly an exercise in providing the intern some resume bait by giving them the chance to ask a question of a member of Congress. Plus, any congressperson who fails to give the conservatively correct answer will be pilloried at CNS, with the hope of blowing up the incident into the larger conservative media (and the intern can get partial credit for that too). The only Democrat on CNS' list is Feinstein; the Republicans who were noncommital have likely opened themselves up for attacks from right-wingers like CNS for failing to adequately hate the LGBT community and treating them as human.
This is much more about honing right=wing political messages than it is about delivering "news."
WND's Cashill Can't Stop Obsessing About Obama Topic: WorldNetDaily
Barack Obama has been out of office for nearly four years now, and WorldNetDaily columnist Jack Cashill remains obsessed with him, devoted multiple columns to bashing him since Cashill has a decidedly belated anti-Obama book coming out next month.
On May 20, Cashill declared: "When the final chapter is written on Obamagate, historians will look to the April 10, 2016, as the day President Barack Obama triggered the eponymous coup." Of course, Cashill didn't tell his readers that Obamagate isn't really a thing.
In his June 3 column, Cashill complained that Obama "failed catastrophically" in trying to "ease racial tension in America," though he didn't explain why it was Obama's responsibility to do that and nobody else's. Cashill then started ranting about Trayvon Martin -- about whom Cashill wrote a hatchet job -- and promoted a film he participated in on the death of Martin by infamous charlatan Joel Gilbert.
On June 17, Cashill proclaimed apropos of nothing that the Seattle house where Obama's mother moved shortly after his birth "was located in what might be called "Greater CHAZ," just a few blocks beyond the current borders of the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone," then grumbled: "Throughout the Obama years, the very same journalists who mocked "birthers" made a hash out of Obama's nativity story, the story on which he built his candidacy." Of course, Cashill doesn't mention that he was a fellow traveler of the birthers.
Cashill used his June 24 column to cast aspersions about Obama's presidential memoirs purportedly running behind schedule, adding, "Obama fans need not fret. They can learn all they need to know about President Obama by reading my book, 'Unmasking Obama: The Fight to Tell the True Story of a Failed Presidency,' which is on schedule for its Aug. 18 release." he then rehashed his conspiracy theory that "Obama hasn't written any of his books himself and likely none of his speeches" -- then went into revisionist history about it.
Cashill has historically claimed that Bill Ayers actually wrote much of Obama's book "Dreams From My Father." In his column, he revised that, stating that "In September 2008, I introduced the thesis that terrorist emeritus Bill Ayers played a major role in crafting "Dreams." and highlighting how biographer Christopher Andersen "confirmed Ayers's involvement."Actually, Cashill was a source for Andersen's claim, which makes it suspect; by contrast, a British professor using a software program to detect similar words and phrases between works found that it was "very implausible" that Ayers wrote Obama's book.(Needless to say, Cashill attacked the professor for debunking his pet conspiracy theory.)
Cashill rehased his attacks on Obama and Trayvon Martin in his July 8 column, complaining that Black Lives Matter was founded by "radical ... activists" and "traces its founding "to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin's murderer, George Zimmerman," which is somehow Obama's fault. Again, Cashill blamed Obama for letting racial divisions "fester and the mayhem to explode"; again, he didn't explain why it was solely Obama's responsibility and not, say, Cashill's to do something about it.
On July 15, Cashill was ranting again about Obama, this time segueing into the hoary Benghazi conspiracy:
Lately, however, the question of Obama's whereabouts has become more literal. Where exactly is he? Where has he gone to labor away on his long overdue and overpaid memoir? Insiders, I am told, worry about his mental health and his fondness for a stiff drink.
Obama's elusiveness should not surprise. He has a habit of disappearing, and the media have a habit of not inquiring too hard into where he has gone, most memorably on the night of Sept. 11, 2012.
This led into yet anotherdefense of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, whose inflammatory anti-Muslim film was originally believed to have sparked the attack on the Benghazi compound (it did spark protests elsewhere). Once again, Cashill portrayed Nakoula as a victim, calling him "vulnerable" because he was on parole. As usual, he didn't tell his readers that Nakoula lied to his actors about the nature of the film he was making -- some of the actors were put in danger because of Nakoula's intentional deception -- and handwaved his lengthy criminal record to portray him as being involved in nothing worse than a "check-kiting scheme." (Actually, Nakoula was using fake names and stolen identities to move money around.) Cashill suggested that Nakoula was some kind of political prisoner for making the film; in fact, he was sentenced to a year in jail after admitting that he lied to authorities and violated his parole by uploading the film to the internet.
And that's what Jack Cashill has been up to lately.
MRC Makes A Pro-Trump Video With Pro-Trump Conservatives Topic: Media Research Center
On July 7, the MRC -- and its "news" division, CNSNews.com -- posted what is for all intents and purposes a pro-Trump election video, titled "We Hold These Truths: Conservative Leaders Answer The Mob." The CNS version declared: "A group of conservative leaders worked with the Media Research Center to record a message defending the greatness of America and its founders and condemning the protesters and mobs that have attacked our nation’s founding principles and commitment to individual liberty." The version posted at NewsBusters railed: "Conservative leaders from all over the country are fighting back and answering the violence and chaos of the angry, lawless mob marching in America’s streets."
It begins with various conservative reciting the opening of the Declaration of Independence ; Mark Levin got the "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" line, so he got in a stealth promotion for his Fox News show, "Life, Liberty and Levin."It even threw in Charlie Daniels in what was apparently his final media appearance before his death, for no other apparent reason than that he was an MRC favorite.
Oh, the MRC will never admit it's a pro-Trump video, since it's careful not to mention the word "Trump" anywhere in it -- after all, explicit electioneering would violate the MRC's nonprofit status. Butafter the recitation ended and the philosophical waxing was over with, it was on to reinforcing the Trump agenda, with stirring orchestral music swelling in the background.
Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton huffed regarding statue-toppling: "Those who deface or destroy these statues or other remembrances of these men are criminals." David Bozell, son of MRC chief Brent Bozell and head of activist group For America, chimed in: "They're also an ignorant mob, period. Full stop." Neither Fitton nor Bozell specifically excluded Confederate statues from their defense.
Republican Rep. Mike Lee defended the police as "necessary to protect the vulnerable and to keep dangerous communities from descending into chaos." Right-wing activist Jenny Beth Martin added: "Are there bad players? Of course. But don't lie about the police. Don't smear them as racist. Don't dismiss that they have to put their lives on the line every single day with lowlifes who harass and threaten them and, yes, kill them."
MRC senior fellow Allen West ranted: "Kneeling for the national anthem disrespects the flag ald all those who served them."
Former National Rifle Association spokesperson Dana Loesch -- who's best known for putting Klan hoods on "Thomas the Tank Engine" characters to declare her opposition to diversity in children's television -- huffed: "Free speech is a pillar of a free society and the best way to collectively seek and defend the truth. Firing or canceling those who offend woke sensibilities is grotesque, illiberal and un-American." She didn't mention her Klan-hood incident as a prime example of forcing cancel culture.
This was concluded by an end-of-video finale from much of the cast:
BRENT BOZELL: So a word directly to the protesters, the rioters and the hoodlums out in force these last several weeks.
MARK LEVIN: How dare you disrespect out heroes and trample on our heritage!
MARK BRANDON (president of FreedomWorks): How dare you rampage in our streets!
DENEEN BORELLI: How dare you intimidate and beat people with whom you disagree!
DAN BONGINO: Your hideous tactics match the hateful rot and ideology you champion.
CHARLIE DANIELS: You will not redefine America or frighten good, honest Americans into submission.
DANA LOESCH: We want to assure you of one thing.
JENNY BETH MARTIN: You will lose!
TOM FITTON: Your vandalism and cancellation, your lies and riots, will not stand.
TONY PERKINS (Family Research Council president): We live in the last, best hope of mankind, and we're not about to lose it to a bunch of fanatics, added and abetted by a complicit media and cowardly corporations.
BOZELL: You will not prevail. America will prevail -- today, tomorrow, and by the grace of God, forever.
Bozell and his buddies have decided that the death of George Floyd and other examples of police brutality that sparked all the unrest in the first place must be flushed down the memory hole.
CNS Obsessed With Biden's Purported 'Cognitive Decline' Topic: CNSNews.com
Back in March, CNSNews.com touted how Rudy Giuliani asserted that Joe Biden was allegedly "showing obvious signs of dementia" (never mind Giuliani's own questionable mental health). Now that Biden's the Democratic presidential nominee -- and the Trump campaign is making questions about Biden's mental health a key piece of his campaign -- CNS is being a good Trump lackey and amplifying those questions.
A June 29 article by Craig Bannister -- who wrote the above Guiliani item -- touted a Rasmussen poll finding that "Due to his ever-growing legacy of public gaffes and displays of confusion, 38% of likely U.S. voters now believe that former Vice President Joe Biden has 'some form of dementia'." Bannister added:
Biden’s mental lapses have gained added public attention since he became the frontrunner to become the Democrat Party’s 2020 presidential candidate. Last week, for example, Biden claimed while campaigning in Pennsylvania that 120 million Americans have died from the coronavirus – 1,000 times the actual count.
Bannister also did another article uniroinically quoting President Trump tweeting of Biden that "If I ever said something so mortifyingly stupid, the Fake News Media would come down on me with a vengeance." Bannister did concede this time that Biden "did appear to realize his mistake."
The next day, Bannister cherry-picked a quote from a statement from Biden on the issue and framed it as an unflattering headline -- Biden: ‘All You’ve Got to Do Is Watch Me’ to See if I’m Suffering Cognitive Decline -- in response to a question from a biased Fox News reporter.
Melanie Arter did a separate article based on the very same Biden response, then played gotcha:
Biden then confused the Thomas Jefferson Memorial for with the Lincoln Memorial.
“It's better that they do not, but it’s fundamentally different than pulling down the statue or going to the Lincoln Memorial and trying to pull-- not Lincoln Memorial - that's a bad example -the Jefferson memorial and grabbing Jefferson off his chair,” he said.
The Lincoln Memorial features the former President Abraham Lincoln sitting in a chair. The Jefferson Memorial features former President Thomas Jefferson standing up.
On July 14, Bannister found another poll on Biden's mental health to amplify:
While more than two-thirds of all likely U.S. voters say presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden should debate President Donald Trump, Democrat and Republican voters strongly disagree on whether or not the former vice president is up to the task, a new Rasmussen survey finds.
Bannister didn't seem concerned with Trump's mental health, nor did he question why Rasmussen apparently didn't poll people about it (because it has a pro-Republican and anti-Democratic bias).
CNS has amplified Biden's purported mental issues in other articles as well. In a June 23 article, Susan Jones uncritically quoted right-wing writer Victor Davis Hanson referencing "Joe Biden's cognitive impairment"; on June 26, Bannister promoted right-wing radio host Mark Levin in the midst of an attack on Nancy Pelosi's mental health, declaring that it was "Time for Pelosi to join Biden in a padded room" as he was "comparing Pelosi's lapse to those of former Vice President Joe Biden."
CNS has been similarly attacking the supposed mental health issues of Pelosi.
By contrast, we could find only one recent CNS article that noted questions about President Trump's mental health: a March 11 article by Bannister quoting "a Yale psychiatrist with a history of claiming President Donald Trump is mentally unfit" stating that "she doesn’t even want to discuss the mental health of Democrat presidential frontrunner Joe Biden – because Biden’s mental lapses are merely 'gaffes' – while Trump’s endanger all of humanity." It was a lazy rewrite of a NewsBusters post by Tim Graham, who went on to complain that mental health professionals -- as opposed to the random people Rasmussen polled and Bannister touted -- keep raising questions about Trump's mental fitness, declaring that doing so was "partisan."
MRC's Fondacaro Spreads Another Lie Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center writer Nicholas Fondacaro hasabadhabitof spreading lies and conspiracy theories, in part on his faulty definition of what a "lie" is. He did it again right in the headline of a June 25 post that screamed: "Nets Conceal Biden’s LIE: 'Over 120 Million' Americans Are 'Dead from COVID'." In the post itself, he whined:
At a campaign event Thursday, former Vice President and presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden mislead [sic] the public about how many Americans had died from the coronavirus, claiming “over 120 million dead from COVID.” In reality, there have been over 120 thousand Americans killed by the virus, which meant Biden’s claim was 1,000 times larger. That gross miscalculation went completely unreported by ABC, CBS, and NBC’s evening newscasts, which all boasted about Biden calling Trump a “child.”
At no point in his post did Fondacaro back up his headline claim that Biden's statement, while false, was a "lie." The dictionary defines a lie as "a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; Fondacaro offers no evidence that Biden misstated the number of COVID victims deliberately.
Fondacaro also censored the fact that Biden immediately corrected himself to accurately state that there were 120,000 deaths. That's why the networks didn't report on this -- it's a non-story. But then, if Fondacaro had told the whole truth, he wouldn't have an item.
Still, Fondacaro spent most of his item complaining that thte neteworks didn't report a right-wing attack claiming that a cancer research initiative spent much of its money on salaries. That's a reminder that Fondacaro is a pro-Trump partisan and not an impartial "media researcher" whose work can be trusted.
It's generally agreed that President Trump got it wrong when he claimed Joe Biden wants to defund the police, and that Fox News host Chris Wallace was correct to call Trump out on that claim. But Newsmax -- whose CEO, Christopher Ruddy, is a buddy of Trump -- has decided differently.
Let's check in on WorldNetDaily's dubious doctors and other types to see how they're dealing with the coronavirus pandemic in terms of 
The Media Research Center spent late May and early June following orders from the Trump re-election campaign, 
NSNews.com reporter Patrick Goodenough has evolved from being a relatively straight reporter to being a 
The Media Research Center has always been hypocritial about Tara Reade, the woman who accused Joe Biden of sexual misconduct nearly 30 years ago. As we've 
They hate President Trump because he's everything they are not. They cannot buy him; and even worse, he loves America. President Trump opposes the looting, pillaging and selling of America's resources for personal wealth. The list of those having done that includes the Clintons, Obama, Romney, Biden, Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein.
Mark Finkelstein ranted in a July 1 NewsBusters 
CNSNews.com's love of pro-Trump stenography bit it back, prompting some furious back-pedaling. An anonym ously written June 21 
Media Research Center researcher Nicholas Fondacaro 
An anonymously written July 14 WorldNetDaily article 
The 
Barack Obama has been out of office for nearly four years now, and WorldNetDaily columnist Jack Cashill remains obsessed with him, devoted multiple columns to bashing him since Cashill has a decidedly belated 
On July 7, the MRC -- and its "news" division, 
Back in March, CNSNews.com 
Media Research Center writer Nicholas Fondacaro 
