MRC Latino Lies In Denying Hispanics Are Disproportionately Affected By COVID Topic: Media Research Center
Kathleen Krumhansl ranted in an Oct. 3 MRC Latino post:
As the presidential election draws closer, the nation’s liberal Hispanic nets are scrambling to shoot any and all propagandistic weapons in order to rid themselves of Donald Trump. At Univision, this meant turning the COVID pandemic into a Latino problem, and portraying Latinos as eternal victims.
Watch as midday anchor Carolina Sarassa opens the segment about a multimedia report on Hispanics and coronavirus, making the absurd claim that “we (Latinos) were the first to get sick, to die and to be out of a job.”
CAROLINA SARASSA: To be Hispanic in the time of COVID-19 has had serious consequences. We were the first to get sick, to die and to be out of a job. Now, a Florida neighborhood shows how the virus severely hit a community marked by poverty. We now connect live with journalist Ana Elena Azpurúa to tell us more about what Hispanics face in the midst of this pandemic. Go ahead, tell us.
Not only is the claim baseless, but it comes across as yet another attempt to validate the segregation of Latinos as a Pan-Ethnic group living in the United States, and not as Americans.
According to the journalist interviewed by anchor Carolina Sarassa, the idea behind the study that features a Latino community in Florida, “was to show the double blow that Hispanics have suffered”, “and they have also been particularly affected by the economic crisis, unemployment and business lockdowns as well.” Sorry to break the bubble, but while Latinos have in fact, been badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic for a number of reasons, every other ethnicity not only in the United States, but worldwide, has suffered from the effect of COVID-19 in their health, income and wellbeing. COVID does not discriminate.
In fact, as even Fox News concedes, coronavirus has hit Hispanics disproportionally; CDC data from May through August shows that 24.2 percent of coronavirus deaths were among Hispanics, though they comprise 18.5 percent of the population. Dr. Anthony Fauci has pointed out that COVID-19 hospitalization rates are 359 per 100,000 among Latinos, compared with 78 per 100,000 in whites.
Further, Hispanics have been harder hit financially, expressing more worries about paying rent, child care or student loans than whites, and at the initial peak of the pandemic, Hispanic unemployment reached 18.9 pecent -- a record and much higher than that of whites.
In other words, Krumhansl is effectively lying to you. But she has a larger partisan goal in mind: At the end of her item, she demands that you read MRC chief Brent Bozell's "letter in strong opposition to the proposed rule change that would allow Univision to become 100% foreign-owned." She's so obsessed with Univsion, however, that she weirdly misidentifies Bozell as the "Univision founder."
In 1999 the late Rev. Jerry Falwell exposed an example of indoctrination of young children in the British-originated "Teletubbies" TV program. One of the four characters, Tinky Winky, was defined by a mocking journalist: "purpleness (the gay pride color), [an inverted] triangle (the shape of the gay pride symbol) and 'magic bag' [a purse] as evidence for Tinky Winky's same-sex preference." The U.S. distributor replied, "To think we would be putting sexual innuendo in a children's show is kind of outlandish." [The effrontery!], but the article did admit "Tinky Winky has been a gay icon in Britain since the show premiered there in 1997." The ridicule of Falwell was so relentless that few would defend him for what we front-line pro-family activists instantly recognized as unmistakable toddler-targeted conditioning, called "grooming" in criminal justice terminology.
I'll be mocked for reviving what the left thought they killed with ridicule, but bring it on! Christians need to see examples of leaders who can survive the smears without backing down or apologizing. I've made a career of doing that.
I'll now double-down by contending that the ubiquitous "rainbow unicorns" and similar rainbow imagery for children is a more recent example of intentional LGBT grooming of very young children. To be sure, the rainbow has long been an element of the entertainment culture of American children, so the scoffers have more ammunition for scorning this analysis. But, given the nearly quarter-century long worldwide effort the LGBTs have made to hijack (God's) rainbow as their exclusive brand, modern designers of children's toys and entertainment cannot claim innocence of their potential effect on children's association of rainbows with goodness, planted in young minds like seeds lying dormant until puberty – when these same pre-conditioned kids will be ripe for recruitment.
[...]
One other thing. We must stop reinforcing the LGBTs' claim on God's rainbow as their brand. We need a new symbol for our side to use as a graphic depiction of their movement. Send me your ideas in graphic form – suitable for all ages – and I'll do a follow-up article featuring the entries.
Cleanup Mode Again: CNS Does Damage Control on Trump's Non-Denial of White Supremacy Topic: CNSNews.com
As we documented, it took nearly a day for CNSNews.com to report the big news from the first presidential debate -- that President Trump couldn't quite denounce white suprmacism and right-wing extremism. But once it reported that, CNS was forced into damage control, a position it's familiar with.
Carig Bannister complained that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez cited an "incomplete quote" of Trump to declare Trump a white supremacist, claiming that "Trump twice answered 'Sure' to [moderator Chris] Wallace’s question about whether he was 'willing to condemn white supremacists and militia groups'" constituted an actual condemnation. Editor Terry Jeffrey did the same thing in responding to Nancy Pelosi's claim that Trump "would not disassociate himself" from white supremacists, declaring that "In fact, during the debate when moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump whether he was 'will tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups,' Trump said: 'Sure.'"
Melanie Arter did this as well, first noting Joe Biden's post-debate "cease and desist" response to Trump telling the far-right thugs of the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by," and then declaring that "As CNSNews.com previously reported, Trump was asked to condemn white supremacists and militia groups at the presidential debate, to which Trump said, 'Sure, I’m willing to do that. I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing, not the right wing. I'm willing to do anything. I want to see peace.'"
CNS then brought out the big guns: former pro football player Hershel Walker asserting that "Trump is not a racist." This was followed by a reworking by Craig Bannister of a piece from CNS' parent, the Media Research Center (who similarly played damage control over this) counting the "19 times" Trump has denounced racism, hufing that "two days after the first Trump-Biden presidential debate, the media continued to badger Pres. Trump, alleging that he hadn’t yet condemned white supremacists and, in particular, a group called the Proud Boys. And, once again, the president issued a clear, unequivocal condemnation of all racists and racist organizations."
Finally, CNS resorted to Charlie Daniels Jr., who's now writing a column at CNS in place of the one his late father wrote. He sarcastically whined that "the only sensible plan I can think of to allow President Trump to put this to rest once and for all" is that Trump "shall henceforth be required to condemn white supremacists, neo-Nazis, anti-Semites, and all forms of racism every hour on the hour for the remainder of his life, and if he fails to do so, everyone will know with absolute certainty that he’s a racist."
Daniels even defended the honor of the Proud Boys: "the only problem is that they are NOT a white supremacist group. They aren’t even exclusively white. Their leader is -- in fact -- Cuban."
Not a good look, CNS (and Mr. Daniels).
UPDATE: CNS also went surprisingly crankypants on an ideological ally, Fox News correspondent John Roberts, complaining that he "badgered Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnanyover whether President Trump denounces white supremacy today – even though McEnany told him the president did so the day before" and that "Roberts’ wife, Kyra Phillips, was actually one of those Trump personally denounced white supremacy to on Wednesday."
MRC Acts As Trump's Defense During His COVID-19 Sickness Topic: Media Research Center
Despite the fact that it so hates anything that could possibly be declared "liberal" that it would be partying from the rooftops if Joe Biden had contracted coronavirus, the Media Research Center got upset that there was maybe a little bit of karma at work when President Trump -- who had been notoriously dismissive of masks and discouraged mask-wearing at his rallies -- came down with coronavirus earlier this month, the MRC went ballistic. Just read the headlines:
Again: The MRC would have no problem acting evil, sick, cruel or ghoulish, or hitting new lows, if a liberal politician or member of the media caught coronavirus in the manner that Trump did. That's simply how soulless they are.
They even got a greatest-hits piece out of all this. The pinnacle, though, was an Oct. 5 piece by resident MRC ragebot Nicholas Fondacaro carrying the headline "They Wanted Him Dead: Nets Whine POTUS Got Cutting-Edge Medical Care." That was apparently too much for his bosses -- Fondacaro offered no evidence whatsoever of an explicit death wish -- for after posting, the words "They Wanted Him Dead" were de-escalated to "Did They Want Him To Suffer?" (Fondacaro's regular lying, apparently, isn't an issue for he still has a job there.)
The funny thing, of course, is that the MRC really do want journalists dead. We've documented how its writers have callously dismissed journalists' concerns about their safety while covering Trump ralliee, where Trump has whipped up anti-media sentiment, as them being self-centered.
The MRC only really seemed to care about how Trump's reckless behavior while being treated somehow owned the libs or the media. When Trump took a superfluous car ride on the Walter Reed Medical Center grounds, potentially exposing his security detail to the virus, Duncan Schroeder baselessly claimed the media was "showing utter dismay his state hadn't taken a turn for the worse," further whining that "CNN hates Trump so much that it will attack him even for how he handles his battle with COVID."
Mark Finkelstein chortled when CNN co-host expressed that Trump's stunt removal of his mask after returning to the White House set a bad example:
Berman's implication: Trump's gesture will encourage others to act in ways that will endanger them and others.
But what gave away Berman's game was that his show had already played the clip—twice!—before Berman made his dramatic demand. So Berman wasn't trying to save lives: he was just engaging in a virtue-signaling stunt. Never mind that most people -- even infected people -- take off their masks when they arrive at home. The only difference is most people aren't posing before a battery of cameras.
Never mind, of course, that Trump was engaged in his own virtue-signaling (or lack of same) with the mask-removal stunt. But Finkelstein -- and the rest of the MRC -- endorses that "virtue."
George Noory Hosts Jerome Corsi, And It Goes How You'd Expect Topic: Newsmax
George Noory is the host of an overnight radio show that delves into paranormal happenings and conspiracy theories. Jerome Corsi, well, you know who he is 0-- a sleazy, discreditedpeddler of conspiracy theories. When those two get together, you have an idea of what to expect. Here's how Noory summarized his radio interview with Corsi in his Oct. 13 Newsmax column:
Recently I had an opportunity to chat with Dr. Jerome Corsi on my radio show.
Corsi, who received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in Political Science in 1972, shared his analysis of current events, including the November election.
Corsi concurs with President Trump's contention that mail-in balloting is problematic, and cited the comparatively recent report of irregularities in a Pennsylvania election.
Further, he has concluded that election polling, which shows Joe Biden in the lead, is inaccurate because Democrats are over-sampled. Trump continues to draw enthusiastic and loyal crowds, he pointed out, while he described Biden as a noncharismatic figure who has not excited his base.
You know you're in for a load of hooey when Noory feels he has to pump up Corsi's credibility with his Harvard doctorate, which is unrelated to any of the shoddiness he has put out since then.
CNS' Debate Bias: Rebuttals And Snark For Biden, Stenography For Trump Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com's coverage of the first debate between President Trump and Joe Biden tracks with its usual pro-Trump slant: Statements by Trmp were presented without comment, while statements by Biden tended to be rebutted or snarked it with added editorial comment.
First, let's look at the Biden coverage (judged by Biden's prominence in the headline):
Patrick Goodenough -- who loves to fact-check Biden while giving Trump a pass -- complained that "Joe Biden in Tuesday’s presidential debate accused President Trump, again, of not asking China to allow U.S. health experts to visit Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak – a claim that has been debunked."
Goodenough also wrote that Biden "seemed eager to get across during Tuesday night’s combative presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio was that he is his own man, not beholden to the left wing of the Democratic Party," adding that his campaign worked with "democratic socialist senator" Bernie Sanders on a 110-page "manifesto" that "if implemented, will make Biden the most progressive president since FDR."
Melanie Arter wrote that Biden "said Tuesday that he does not support the Green New Deal, which President Donald Trump pointed out would cost Americans $100 trillion, and Trump said by not doing so, Biden 'just lost the radical left.'"
Susan Jones huffed that Biden declined to "answer the simple question" of whether he "would support Democrat [sic] calls to end the Senate filibuster and add more justices to the U.S. Supreme Court."
Another Jones article featuring Biden's "reopening plan" for the coronavirus pandemic had several paragraphs of transcript before Jones snarked that Biden "finally addressed the topic."
CNS published only two Biden-centric debate-related articles that were a relatively straight retelling of what happened:
By contrast, CNS published only three articles that keyed in on comments by Trump as indicated by the headline, and all three simply uncritically repeated what he said:
That's not surprising, given that both were written by chief Trump stenographer Melanie Arter.
Because Trump was not seen to have won the debate, CNS quickly issued a couple attacks on moderator and Fox News host Chris Wallace -- from its favorite right-wing radio host, Mark Levin, and in a blog post by editor Terry Jeffrey complaining that Wallace "personally engaged President Trump in a debate on 'climate change' that lasted for about 3 minutes and 45 seconds."
It was not until more than 18 hours after the end of the debate that CNS bothered to mention the big news from it: Trump's refusal to explicitly disavow white supremacists and his telling the Proud Boys hate group to "stand back and stand by." This being written by Arter, it's written blandly and plays whataboutism by also putting in the headline that Biden said Antifa is "an idea, not an organization."
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Biden Microaggressions Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center pushes mini-scandals and conspiracy theories in the hopes of making Joe Biden look bad. But nobody else seems to care. Read more >>
WND's Farah, Kupelian Hypocritically Rant About Things Topic: WorldNetDaily
For her Oct. 9 video -- taking a break from peddling far-right politics under the guise of "DIY Bible study" and now claiming to offer "Truth in the Booth" -- WorldNetDaily's Elizabeth Farah interviewed the guy she's worked along for the past two decades-plus, WND managing editor David Kupelian.
In the hour-long interview, Farah declared the election to be a "spiritual battle," and Kupelian of course concurred. He ranted:
What we're seeing in the whole charade of the Biden-Harris campaign right now where the entire media are playing along pretending this is a real person, pretending this is a person who has a mind, pretending he has any original thoughts going on at all right now, it's all a huge pretense. What we're seeing really is a -- what has infected all these people, the Democratic Party, the news media, culture, the incubator for all of it which is our colleges and universities, is something that we call Marxism, OK? But again, that's just a label. What it really, really, really is is a rebellion against God, a rebellion against God's laws and his son and his morality.
He also argued that people are "either channeling good or channeling evil." Of course, Kupelian and Farah (her husband, Joseph, too) have been channeling evil for years through the lies and conspiracy theories WND has spread -- highly ironic because both Farah and Kupelian like to seem themselves as, in Farah's words, "firmly footed in reality -- truth"and anyone who disagrees with them, or even points out they're wrong, are the evil ones who are engaging in projection.
Kupelian also complained, as he has before, about Trump-Hitler comparisons , calling them "grossly irresponsible and reckless" and declaring that the only way liberals "can sleep at night" and "look right into the camera" and tell lies is to make such a comparison. But he fails to acknowledge the very same argument can be made about him -- after all, WND spent eight-plus years of likening President Obama to Hitler and other assorted Nazis, and we assume Kupelian slept very well at night after spreading such smears and birther lies because he believed he was saving the world, or at least his right-wing vision of Christianity, by fighting Hitler. He and Farah would never consider themselves "grossly irresponsible and reckless" for their multitudes of Obama smears and lies.
Kupelian went on to rant that Nancy Pelosi calling Trump the "enemy of the people" was "treason" is "so irresponsible" that "you are asking people to go out and do horrible things." We would remind Kupelian that WND likened Obama to the Antichrist. Does he think that was irresponsible and that it asked WND readers to go out and do horrible things? And they certainly don't see themselves as irresponsible or reckless for portraying everyone they disagree with as not just wrong but evil, which may also spur people to do horrible things.
Farah, meanwhile, declared that "it's a moral obligation to vote for the Republican Party and Donald Trump this year" because "it's a biblical choice you're making, a spiritual, moral, ethical choice, and if we're walking in the feet of the Messiah, the shoes of the Messiah, the way, we can do nothing but vote for Donald Trump." Kupelian responded that "I could not agree more."
Kupelian went on to continue to deny Biden's humanity and push his conspiracy theory of him as a senile puppet, at one point calling him "Joe Biden, quote-unquote, the Trojan horse of Joe Biden. ... Joe Biden is really not there anymore, he's a puppet, he's a Trojan horse, everybody knows it."
Farah also gushed over Trump by going the divine-Doinald route: "He is like a Samson, in that he is -- you know, I m not going to speak for God spike fo him, but he is in office doing God's work." Kupelian then laughably claimed that Trump "has grown in office" and shown "grace" in the face of "unprecedented attacks." Again, Kupelian forgot there is, in fact, a precedent in WND's smears of Obama.
Farah also put in a plug for the new edition of WND's sparsely read Whistleblower magazine, which portrays Biden as, yes, a Trojan horse; the writeup also smeared him as "a feeble, constantly lying, unprincipled, corrupt career politician whose mental disintegration is now so apparent and advanced that he can barely speak coherently."
Even though they are WND company officials who played key roles in running the website into the ground because of the above lies and smears (and, of course, questionable business decisions and shady practices), Farah and Kupelian didn't talk about the current financial state of WND -- though they really should sometime if they want people to take them seriously.
MRC Defends And Deflects Over Trump's Debate Failure on White Supremacy Topic: Media Research Center
When President Trump couldn't quite denounce white supremacy and the thuggish right-wingers in the Proud Boys during the first presidential debate, the Media Research Center -- as you'd expecct from the media arm of the Trump campaign -- launched into the usual defense-and-deflection mode it has had to do so many times.
Gabriel Hays kicked off the defense by complaining that Joe Biden "called Trump a 'racist' and repeated the thoroughly-debunked lie that Trump praised white supremacists in Charlottesville." (Yeah, not so much.) Hays then tried to explain away"lefties in Hollywood" pointing out that Trump told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by": For the hyenas of Hollywood Twitter, the only interpretation of this moment was that Trump was sidestepping the condemnation of white supremacists and telling a group of racist militiamen to hold their villainous action until he gives the order. Though Trump has specifically condemned white supremacists and neo-Nazis at least twice now." Then he played whataboutism: "But, again, as Trump pointed out in the debate, where’s the condemnation of ANTIFA and the Black Lives Matter left which has inspired most of the violence on city streets since May?"
Curtis Houck whined that one commentator criticized Trump "for having supposedly failed to denounce hate groups." Nicholas Fondacaro, insisted that Trump actually did denounce white supremacists and militia groups when he merely agreed to do so without actually doing it:
But the full context, the transcript showed that Trump had mentioned the Proud Boys after demanding moderator Chris Wallace to give him a name of a group to condemn, and Joe Biden chimed in with the name. And the main take away was Trump saying “sure” after Wallace had asked: “Are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups?”
Kristine Marsh linked to Fondacaro's post in claiming that Trump's failure to condemn white supremacists was "another lie from the media." Joseph Morris asserted that Trump merely "inartfully answer[ed] a question about a white supremacist group," adding, "While Trump's response was not the best wording, it was not a call to violence." He too played whataboutism, huffing that "Joe Biden refused to even acknowledge the existence of far-left violent extremists, falsely proclaiming: 'Antifa is an idea not an organization.'"
Houck once again served up more embarrassing gushing over White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany by parroting her attempted defense of Trump:
After Tuesday’s exhausting presidential debate and Wednesday’s 20-minute cage match between Chris Cuomo and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), Thursday’s White House press briefing was an unmitigated disaster thanks to meltdowns from reporters demanding President Trump and Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany denounce white supremacist groups on what must be a near-constant basis, regardless of what Trump has said in the past.
Fox News chief White House correspondent John Roberts went first and asked McEnany “for a definitive and declarative statement without ambiguity or deflection” of Trump “denounc[ing] white supremacism and groups that espouse it, in all their forms.”
McEnany noted that it was answered on Tuesday at the debate and on Wednesday (thanks to a question from Roberts’s wife Kyra Phillips of ABC) and noted three direct instances of when he’s denounced hate during his presidency.
Norris returned to rant: "Appearing on CNN's New Day on Thursday, unhinged left-wing commentator Errol Louis was given free reign to fabricate wild claims that President Trump was sending a clear signal to violent extremists, militia-type organizations” and telling them 'That he does want them, in fact, to go out and help disrupt the elections.' Not only was there no challenge of the false smear, the cable network has actually been actively pushing such hysteria."
Noirris served up another reframing of Trump's remarks, claiming he was being criticized for "not denouncing white supremacy the way they demanded him to."
Jorge Bonilla got in on the action, claiming that Univision anchor Jorge Ramos -- a longtime MRC target -- "twice pushed the lie that President Donald Trump has not denounced white nationalism generally, or the proud boys specifically."
This was capped by an anonymously written piece with video headlined "19 Times Donald Trump Has Denounced White Supremacy" -- which included the debate clip in which Trump didn't actually denounce white supremacy. The unnamed author added whataboutism: "Oddly these same journalists don’t demand that Joe Biden repeatedly denounce Antifa."
It's almost as if the Trump campaign paid the MRC to crank out that last piece. And all the other defenses and deflections.
CNS Keeps Up The Spin On COVID Case Numbers Topic: CNSNews.com
Over the past few months, CNSNews.com -- mostly reporter Susan Jones -- has been heavilyspinning coronavirus case and mortality numbers, obscuring the summer surge by comparing it to the initial surge earlier this year. The spin hasn't let up.
A Sept. 15 article by Jones carried the headline "COVID-19 Deaths in Last Week of August Down 83.8% From April Peak and touted how "the number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 has now declined for at least five straight weeks since late July." Jones shifted her spin in a Sept. 22 article:
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 283,358 new cases of coronavirus in this county in the last seven days -- 37,417 reported yesterday -- for a total of 6,786,352 presumed or diagnosed cases since the first reported cases in February.
Yet based on death certificates submitted so far to CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, have decreased for at least five straight weeks since July 25.
For the final week of August, or the week ending August 29, NCHS recorded 4,306 presumed or confirmed COVID deaths, a 20.71 percent decrease from the 5,431 COVID deaths reported in the prior week; a 45.55 percent drop from the 7,909 deaths in the week ending July 25; and a 74.75 percent decrease from the record 17,055 deaths reported for the week ending April 25.
In another Sept. 22 article, Jones tried to shift blame for the virus in an article headlined "CDC: Adult Obesity, a Risk Factor for COVID, Is Increasing," making sure to highlight that obesity "increases the risk of severe illness from COVID-19."
Jones' Sept. 29 article was a bit of a corrective, but still featured her old spin:
As more death certificates are tabulated by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, it now appears that the COVID death toll ticked up, not down, in the week that ended on August 1, by the very smallest of margins.
For the week ending August 1, NCHS counted 7,974 COVID-19 deaths, just two more than the 7,972 recorded in the prior week.
That second COVID death peak of 7,974 is 53.24 percent below the first peak (17,055) in mid-April.
Jones had somewhat less spin and more reality in her Oct. 6 article:
Updated numbers from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that since mid-July, approximately one thousand people have died every day in this country from COVID-19.
That's well below the mid-April peak, when 17,063 people died in the week ending April 18.
But it's an acceleration from the six-week stretch in June and early July, when the number of weekly deaths ranged from 3,777 (week ending June 27) to 5,665 (week ending July 11).
Jones tried to spin harder in her Oct. 13 article, lamenting "new cases in all 50 states and the District of Columbia over the last seven days, with the highest per-capita increases in the upper Midwest/West" but declaring that "at the same time, data based on death certificates submitted to CDC show deaths have been dropping since the week ending August 1."
Patrick Goodenough tried his hand at spinning COVID in an Oct. 13 article by finding a new way to count dead people: "As a proportion of the national population, the United States has accounted for fewer deaths attributed to the coronavirus this month than any other major country in the Western Hemisphere except for Canada, although still more than those in Western Europe."
That's what spinning for Trump is all about.
UPDATE: Jones spins even more in an Oct. 20 article, noting a rise in coronavirus cases but declaring that "while cases are rising in most states, deaths are not rising at the same rate: CDC counts 0.2 deaths per 100,000 people in the last seven days."
MRC Parrots Trump's Needless Freakout Over Ballots Thrown Away Topic: Media Research Center
As the media arm of the Trump campaign, the Media Research Center believes it is its duty to bash media outlets for not reporting stories the way President Trump wants them reported -- even the facts don't exacctly back Trump up. Thus, we have Mark Finkelstein huffing in a Sept. 25 post:
It was another one of those liberal-media, "move along, nothing to see here" moments.
On CNN's New Day this morning, the crew did its best to utterly dismiss the significance of nine military ballots, seven of which were identified as being for President Trump [the two others apparently still sealed], having been found discarded in a Pennsylvania dumpster.
Co-host Alisyn Camerota conducted an echo-chamber conversation with CNN election analyst and ProPublica reporter Jessica Huseman. The pair took turns downplaying the importance of the troubling event:
"It hardly suggests any sort of widespread problem, whatsoever."
"There’s really nothing about this that would suggest a larger problem."
"It does not suggest an overwhelming problem . . . I just don’t think that there’s any evidence of that."
"We don't know what 'discarded' even means."
Camerota put a dismissive capper on it, calling the ballots in a dumpster just "hiccups." Hold your breath and they'll go away.
Later that day, Kyle Drennen went full-on Trump defense, accusing MSNBC's Chuck Todd of saying that Trump was making up a story related to the case because "when we asked the White House for information to back up this claim about Trump votes being thrown in the trash, they sent us a report that did not back up his claims one bit.reported that the story was not only completely true but being investigated by the Justice Department."
But Trump's wording about case was misleading at best, suggesting that the ballots were throw away because they were votes for Trump. There's no evidence then or now that this was the case. Nevertheless, Drennen ranted: "It’s interesting that any story that goes against the leftist media narrative is immediately disregarded and deemed irrelevant. Todd was so deep in the tank for Democrats that he preemptively called the President a liar, even as the anchor himself lied to his viewers."
But it turns out that CNN and NBC were right in their reporting that this was an isolated case. An actual news outlet reported that the ballots were incorrectly thrown away by a temporary contractor, who was removed when the incident was discovered.
Weirdly, neither Finkelstein nor Drennen thought it was odd that Department of Justice officials investigating the incident disclosed what candidate the unidentified -- after all, ballots aren't supposed to be counted until election night. One former DOJ official quoted by the actual news outlet found it "bizarre and disturbing."
MRC readers will never know the outcome of this case, however. Having performed its Trmp-mandated duty of fearmongering about mail-in voting, it hasn't mentioned the story again.
Alveda King Can't Stop Shilling for Trump Topic: Newsmax
Alveda King has longbeen a pro-Trump sycophant, and she went further into it in her Oct. 2 Newsmax column, gushing over President Trump's pandering to blacks, linking to Trump websites to back up her claims:
The first 2020 presidential debate was an eye-opener for America. Regardless of media bias, we saw and heard President Trump defend America's families, America's economy, America's babies, America's environment and America's security.
Just days before the debate, POTUS released his PLATINUM PLANfor boosting the underserved communities of America. Therein he declared that lynching is a hate crime, and that ANTIFA and the KKK are domestic terrorists.
All of this compassion and progress from President Donald John Trump: His history of fairness in the African-American community extends far beyond his first term as president of the United States.
Now that we are just a few days from the 2020 elections, in many instances the media is rushing to amp up their portrayal of President Trump as a racist. In response, I ask America to consider President Trump's record during his first term of office, and his agenda for the next four years.
As President 45, Trump has done a lot to Make America Great Again. And he's still not racist.
We don't know who owns the "still not racist" website King links to; the owner has hidden their identity.
(And, yes, Newsmax is still letting Trump call herself "Dr." even though her doctoral degree is honorary.)
In her Oct. 5 column, King tried to rather lamely explain why she's a Trump supporter:
During the 2016 presidential race Donald John Trump was one of my top five candidate preferences. In 2020 it is easy for me to answer the question, "Why Trump?" Over the last four years, I have had a front row seat watching President Trump fight for religious liberties not only here in America, but around the globe. I have watched him champion the rights of the unborn. I have watched him advance opportunities in Black America.
With POTUS I've taken a page from my Granddaddy's journal. I've put faith and expediency over church denomination and politics. Donald J. Trump is my president. I've got my vote, and my prayers. Both are in favor of President Trump and his "promises made and promises kept."
Again, let's pray for healing and better days ahead.
Trump is not exactly known for healing anything -- witness 210,000+ coronavirus deaths under his watch -- but you do you, Alveda.
The Coronavirus Vaccine Fearmongering Continues At WND Topic: WorldNetDaily
A coronavirus vaccine doesn't even exist year, yet WorldNetDaily has spentmonths fearmongering about it. And as vaccine candidates move closer to approval the fearmongering has continued.
Barbara Simpson ranted in her Sept. 25 column that the idea a vaccine will "suddenly fix everything" couldn't be "further from the truth," citing relatively rare cases in Africa where some people have caught polio from the vaccine. From there, it was quickly onto Bill Gates conspiracy territory:
It doesn't help that there are some big names associated with the program. The vaccine being used in Africa comes from the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) – which is supported and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Interesting, isn't it, that news media have ignored this growing catastrophe. Is it because it's in Africa – or because of the name "Gates"? You decide. Despite the failures, the vaccine campaign continues.
[...]
In fact, the Gateses also fund the GAVI Vaccine Alliance, which is running COVID-19 vaccine human trials in South Africa along with the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, which is also another Gates-funded institution.
My question is, given the result of the failure of the polio vaccine in Africa, why isn't there more pressure being put on the Gates people, and indeed the U.N. and WHO, concerning the safety of a COVID-19 vaccine?
Daniel Joseph served up an Oct. 2 video by Daniel Joseph asks the question, "Is a forced COVID vaccine the Mark of the Beast?" His answer appears to be yes, declaring that "this has the Antichrist written all over it." (No, we didn't sit through the entire tedious hour-and-a-half video.)
Brent Smith's Oct. 9 column went anti-vaxxer, declaring that "if your diseased child doesn't negatively affect me or my family, it isn't my problem," adding: "The science is all there. Any parent can research the safety and warnings of vaccines and make an educated decision to vaccinate their children and themselves, or not. This may seem rather selfish, but that's the price of freedom, and your stupidity and fear shall not trump my liberty."
This followed up on a column Smith wrote in August declaring that getting the vaccine is a matter of "My Body, My Choice." He invoked both Saul Alinsky and Chinese "social credit" schemes in the process, the concluded by claiming: "They're already taking away our right to choose how we vote. Soon, I fear, we may have to make a hard decision to choose, or not, to be vaccinated. And if we choose the latter, there will be consequences, as we move closer to the Chinese model."
(We overlooked this when it was first posted, but Scott Lively spent a column in July freaking out over the remote possibility that the Supreme Court could mandate a vaccine, adding that "the only hope I can see for avoiding mandatory vaccines is a Trump reelection accompanied either by 1) full GOP control of Congress, or 2) a quick flip of SCOTUS to a conservative majority." This being the gay-hating Lively, he also took a detour to rant about gay marriage.)
MRC Frets That Colbert's Trying To 'Weaken The Morale' Of Trump Supporters Topic: Media Research Center
Sergie Daez began a Sept. 30 Media Research Center post ominously: "Stephen Colbert is attempting to weaken the morale of religious conservatives who support Trump."
How? According to Daez, he made a joke about Trump being a "religious man" in that "he pays taxes like a church." This led to a lecture in which Daez handwaved Trump's general awfulness as a person because he sucks up to the religious right and that Joe Biden is somehow an even worse person for supproting abortion rights:
Colbert's suggestions could easily be true, but where’s the proof? Trump's marital infidelities? Those affairs of the past may have already convinced people then that Trump was irreligious, but at the same time, it goes without saying that any staunch Christian or Atheist is capable of adultery.
However, it doesn’t matter if Colbert’s assertions are correct. Even if religious voters are turned off by Trump’s supposed indifference to religion, they still are unlikely to turn to Joe Biden or even abstain from voting because Biden has made himself unappealing to religious voters. Biden supports many policies that religious voters cannot endorse in good conscience. He may call himself a practicing Catholic, but he publicly supports agendas and communities that regularly attack Christian principles and institutions.
That is why religious voters will probably still turn out for Trump. Biden is running on an extremist platform which has already gained notoriety for being the “Most Pro-Abortion in History.” Trump, on the other hand, has spoken up in defense of Christians, and he endeared himself to religious voters by publicly supporting pro-life institutions and values. Christians need protection, and Trump has generously been offering it. On the other hand, as vice president, Biden has been unwilling to help Christians, such as when he failed to stop Obama’s administration from forcing nuns to pay for birth control.
Stephen Colbert wants to do his bit for Biden by attempting to sow doubt in the minds of religious voters. He’s hoping that his words will compel them to seriously reconsider which candidate to vote for. But one has wooed religious voters; the other has alienated them. So even if Trump pays his taxes like a church does, he’ll probably receive numerous votes from religious voters since he makes a point to look out for them.
The MRC wants you to think this Trump campaign ad is "media research."
CNS Notices Only Polls That Make Trump Look Good Topic: CNSNews.com
Joe Biden is leading President Trump by a large margin nationwide -- but you'll rarely read about that at CNSNews.com, despite it claiming to be a "news" operation. Because CNS is operated by the Media Research Center, the media arm of the Trump campaign, the polls it promotes are cherry-picked to fluff Trump and avoid bad news about his campaign.
For example: An Aug. 21 article by managing editor Michael W. Chapman ignored the national numbers to promote a poll claiming that "Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump are statistically tied in the presidential race" in Minnesota, which Trump lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016. Needless to say, Chapman ignored theoverall polling that shows Biden with a sizable lead; instead, he pushed polling from the Trafalgar Group, which "weights its polls to account for a 'social desirability bias,' or the so-called shy Trump voters who are embarrassed to tell pollsters they support his candidacy." Trafalgar'spolling gets a C-minus rating from FiveThirtyEight.
Speaking of unreliable pollsters, CNS loves reporting on polls by Rasmussen, which has a notorious pro-Trump bias (on top of being on the unreliable side -- only a C-plus from FiveThirtyEight). Here are the Rasmussen polls CNS touted over the past couple months:
Even with more reputable pollsters like Gallup, CNS worked to cherry-pick results. Chapman found another cherry-picked -- and irrelevant -- finding to push in a couple articles:
Chapman found another weird (and meaningless) Gallup poll finding in an Oct. 7 article: "In a new poll on President Donald Trump's job approval rating, Gallup found that a majority of Americans predict Trump will win reelection -- only 40% said Biden will win. AndCraig Bannister did a lot of reading into another Gallup finding in an Oct. 13 article, working in an attack on Biden in the process:
Far more registered voters say they’re better off now than they were four years than say they’re worse off, a national Gallup Poll conducted September 14-28, 2020 reveals.
Fifty-six percent (56%) said they’re “better off” now than they were four years ago, while just 32% said they’re worse off.
As President Donald Trump seeks reelection, the 56% reporting that they’re better off now than four years ago tops the scores of four other presidents – Barack Obama, George Bush, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan - at the end of their first terms, Gallup reports.
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On Monday, WKRC-TV asked Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden why the 56% of registered voters who feel they're better off today should vote for him. Biden's response: "They probably shouldn't."
But as CNN's Chris Cillizza points out, the finding conflicts with Trump being behind in the polls and other findings showing that people don't personally like Trump, meaning that voters are not necessarily crediting Trump for making them "better off."
UPDATE: CNS also likes fake polls too. Like its Media Research Center overlords, it touted a Twitter poll claiming that a majority of respondents declared Trump the winner of the first debate.And even more than the MRC did, CNS hid the fact that it was an easily manipulated online poll that is utterly meaningless.
Kathleen Krumhansl ranted in an Oct. 3 MRC Latino post:
In 1999 the late Rev. Jerry Falwell exposed an example of indoctrination of young children in the British-originated "Teletubbies" TV program. One of the four characters, Tinky Winky, was defined by a mocking journalist: "purpleness (the gay pride color), [an inverted] triangle (the shape of the gay pride symbol) and 'magic bag' [a purse] as evidence for Tinky Winky's same-sex preference." The U.S. distributor replied, "To think we would be putting sexual innuendo in a children's show is kind of outlandish." [The effrontery!], but the article did admit "Tinky Winky has been a gay icon in Britain since the show premiered there in 1997." The ridicule of Falwell was so relentless that few would defend him for what we front-line pro-family activists instantly recognized as unmistakable toddler-targeted conditioning, called "grooming" in criminal justice terminology.
As we 
Despite the fact that it so hates anything that could possibly be declared "liberal" that it would be partying from the rooftops if Joe Biden had contracted coronavirus, the Media Research Center got upset that there was maybe a little bit of karma at work when President Trump -- who had been notoriously dismissive of masks and discouraged mask-wearing at his rallies -- came down with coronavirus earlier this month, the MRC went ballistic. Just read the headlines:
George Noory is the host of an 
CNSNews.com's coverage of the first debate between President Trump and Joe Biden tracks with its usual pro-Trump slant: Statements by Trmp were presented without comment, while statements by Biden tended to be rebutted or snarked it with added editorial comment.
For her Oct. 9 
When President Trump couldn't quite denounce white supremacy and the thuggish right-wingers in the Proud Boys during the first presidential debate, the Media Research Center -- as you'd expecct from the media arm of the Trump campaign -- launched into the usual defense-and-deflection mode it has had to do so many times.
Over the past few months, CNSNews.com -- mostly reporter Susan Jones -- has been 
As the media arm of the Trump campaign, the Media Research Center believes it is its duty to bash media outlets for not reporting stories the way President Trump wants them reported -- even the facts don't exacctly back Trump up. Thus, we have Mark Finkelstein huffing in a Sept. 25 
Alveda King has 
A coronavirus vaccine doesn't even exist year, yet WorldNetDaily has 
Sergie Daez began a Sept. 30 Media Research Center 
oe Biden is 
