WND Touts Bogus Election Fraud Conspiracy Theory Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has done a lot of conspiracy-mongering over the presidential election results. Let's look at one specific conspiracy. Steve Baldwin wrote in a Nov. 16 column pushing various election conspiracies:
Finally, we've all heard stories about the "Hammer" software, which has the ability to change voting totals during a data transfer. Credible people such as attorney Sydney Powell, Judicial Watch Chairman Tom Fitton and retired Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, believe it may have been used in the key swing states. The source for this allegation is a CIA whistleblower named Dennis Montgomery, who testified before Congress about how Obama and Biden used this software to win Florida in the 2012 presidential election.
While President Donald Trump's legal team pursues numerous lawsuits against states caught up in purported fraud, the primary legal argument rests on proving massive fraud. It will be shown this occurred courtesy of a tool for hacking vote-counting computers, developed by the CIA to monitor and influence foreign enemies. With the assistance of a CIA whistleblower who developed it in 2003 and a true patriot, retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, who understands the tool better than anyone else, the ugly truth is emerging. Despite CIA's charter banning domestic operations, this technology was applied domestically to ensure a political party's gain.
The technology, known as "Hammer and Scorecard" ("Hammer" is the supercomputer and "Scorecard" the software) steals elections by tampering with computers at state election computer-system transfer points and outside third-party election data vaults as votes transfer, using a prismatic scoring algorithm created to achieve the desired result. Barack Obama, upon learning of its existence in 2009, shared it with the Democrat [sic] National Committee. Recognizing its potential as a political weapon, he illegally commandeered and transferred it to Fort Washington, Maryland, where his White House, via an encrypted Virtual Private Network, could access it at will.
[...]
Gen. McInerney, 83, first learned about Hammer and Scorecard in 2018 – its existence and danger to American democracy revealed to him by close friend and fellow patriot, Adm. James A. "Ace" Lyons, as he lay dying. Lyons, who had been investigating it, left McInerney with a chilling warning: Obama's administration had stolen a super surveillance tool designed for foreign surveillance, turning it against the American people.
[...]
Hammer and Scorecard apparently work best in close elections as significant vote shifts might trigger suspicions. But smaller shifts, perhaps no more than 3%, would slide under the radar unnoticed. This might explain why it was not used on Hillary Clinton's behalf in 2016 as polls projected her win with 95% certainty. Only an enormous 2016 pro-Trump silent majority destroyed plans for back-to-back Democratic administrations.
This technological tool could well have sealed Democrats control of the Oval Office ad nauseam – one administration handing off Hammer to another. However, Trump's election temporarily disrupted the plot. Unfortunately, Trump failed to rid the deep state of all its bad players involved in the false Trump/Russia collusion claim. Thus, some, possibly even the current CIA and FBI directors, were left in positions to hammer Trump.
In fact, election security officials havesaid there's no evidence that Hammer and Scorecard even exist. And that "CIA whistleblower," Dennis Montgomery, is a fraud artist and hoaxster who has made something of a career of making fanciful claims about technology that turn out to be quite fraudulent. He was also allegedly involved with then-sheriff Joe Arpaio the scenes to try and advance Obama birther conspiracy theories and got paid $100,000 in tax money by Arpaio to provide information in another case that proved to be unreliable.
As for the former military men who are also pushing this, both McInerney and Lyons were members of Accuracy in Media's "Citizens' Commission on Benghazi" kangaroo court, McInerney is a Obama birther, and Lyons got the Washington Times sued for defamation after he wrote a column advancing Seth Rich conspiracy theories and falsely claiming that Rich's brother helped him download Democratic emails and give them to Wikileaks, forcing the Times to issue a public retraction. So maybe these are guys whose word can't be trusted.
MRC Again Upset That Right-Wingers Mispronouncing Kamala Harris' Name Get Busted Topic: Media Research Center
It's not enough for the Media Research Center to disagree with their political enemies; it must belittle them as well whenever possible. Thus, we have an Oct. 30 post by Tim Graham complaining about how Kamala Harris was asked about people who "mockingly mispronounce" her first name.
Graham complains seems to be that the question was asked at all, but he's also annoyed that People magazine referenced Tucker Carlson as among those deliberately mangling her name in an edited version of the interview when his name wasn't originally mentioned. Graham is playing dumb here, since the MRC got upset when Carlson was called out on his deliberate mispronunciation of her name back in August. But then the belittling came in, with an assist from the sainted Carlson:
We don't know who threw Tucker Carlson in there, but they would NOT like all the mockery Tucker dished out on Wednesday night. He played video of Harris recently calling herself "Camel-a," and then feigned outrage: "That was racism and sexism combined in a repulsive little Reese's peanut butter cup of hate!" Classic.
Yes, Graham really thought this was an issue that deserved a blog post -- which tells you about the nasty, petty nature of the MRC and how "media research" isn't really what they do.
CNS Is Angry Catholic Bishops Congratulated Catholic Biden Topic: CNSNews.com
Catholic officials are acknowledging that Joe Biden, a Catholic, won the presidential election, and the pro-Trump CNSNews.com is not having it.
When the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops congratulated Biden, CNS editor in chief Terry Jeffrey went on a lengthy Nov. 9 diatribe under the needlessly long headline "Top Catholic Bishop Acknowledges Pro-Abort, Pro-Gay-Marriage Biden as Second ‘President to Profess Catholic Faith’":
Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles, who currently serves as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has issued a statement describing Joe Biden—who supports legalized abortion, taxpayer funding of abortion, same-sex marriage, and allowing biological males to play on girls’ sports teams and use girls’ locker rooms—as “the second United States president to profess the Catholic faith.”
“We thank God for the blessings of liberty. The American people have spoken in this election,” said Archbishop Gomez in his statement--which is posted on the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
“Now is the time for our leaders to come together in a spirit of national unity and to commit themselves to dialogue and compromise for the common good,” said Gomez.
Jeffrey further ranted that "During his presidential campaign, Joe Biden staked out a number of positions that directly contradict Catholic moral teachings laid out in the Catechism of the Catholic Church," such as supporting gay marriage when "The Catholic Catechism, by contrast, holds that marriage is between a man and a women and that homosexual acts are “acts of grave depravity” that “are contrary to the natural law.”, and that "Biden also supports letting biological males who are “transgender” claim to be females on government identity documents—and to play on girls’ sports teams and use girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms" when "The Catholic Catechism cites Genesis 5:2 in stating: “Male and female he created them.”
The same day, an anonymously written article complained that the Vatican News website "has posted a headline today that says: US Bishops welcome Biden: ‘It’s time for unity,’” adding that "In his campaign—as noted by materials posted on his campaign website—former Vice President Biden supported legalized abortion, taxpayer funding of abortion and same-sex marriage. These things all violate Catholic moral teachings."
On Nov. 10, managing editor Michael W. Chapman gave space for an anti-abortion group to go on a hateful tirade against the bishops for the sin of congratulating Biden:
In response to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issuing a statement that congratulates Joe Biden and claims he is the second U.S. "president to profess the Catholic faith," leaders at the American Life League said this proves that the organization is "a feckless, spineless, conglomerate of dead souls."
[...]
Joe Biden is a Catholic who supports abortion, gay "marriage," gay adoption, and allowing biological males (transgender "women") to play on real women's sports teams and use their locker rooms, all of which is contrary to Catholic moral teaching.
American Life League President Judie Brown said, "The USCCB has affirmed what many of us have suspected for many years, and that is that most Catholic bishops have no problem with a Catholic politician spitting at the face of Christ by supporting the vile murder of the preborn."
"Joe Biden is such a man; he claims to be Catholic, yet he gives 100 percent support for abortion every day of the week and in every manner of brutality against the innocent," said Brown. "The Catholic bishops have erred, and as a Catholic, I am ashamed of them."
ALL Executive Vice President Hugh Brown said, "The reality of the USCCB issuing a statement of congratulations to Joe Biden should not be a surprise to anyone. The USCCB is a feckless spineless conglomerate of dead souls. They are not the descendants of the Apostles."
Chapman and Jeffrey never explained why the simple, polite act of congratulating a newly elected president must be retaliated against with such ridiculous partisan venom.
MRC's Double Standard On Disclosing Conflicts of Interest Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck got all worked up in a Nov. 9 post:
In a revelation announced The New York Times, former Newsweek editor, liberal historian, and MSNBC/NBC contributor Jon Meacham has been writing speeches for former Vice President Joe Biden, including his Saturday night “victory speech.” Of course, Meacham and the Comcast-owned networks never disclosed this fact.
The lack of ethics wasn’t entirely surprising, given how Meacham both endorsed Biden during the campaign and spoke August 20 at the Democratic National Convention, and neither network seemed to care.
[...]
It would be nice if Meacham, MSNBC, and NBC would admit to their major failure to uphold basic journalistic ethics, but don’t hold your breath waiting. And as we all know, if this had happened on Fox News, both CNN and MSNBC would be calling for heads to roll.
Two days later, Tim Graham called the Meacham situation a "scandalette," huffing that "MSNBC keeps having to let its contributors go....off to the Biden transition team. It's a natural migration pattern, MSNBC analysts headed back to Democratic government work." (Funny, we don't recall Graham saying a word about all the Fox News contributors who went to work in the Trump administration.) That was followed by Kyle Drennen huffing that "Shortly after being fired from MSNBC as a paid contributor after he failed to disclose that he had been writing speeches for Joe Biden, on Thursday, ex-Newsweek editor and left-wing 'historian' Jon Meacham turned to the pages of Time to boost his Democratic Party boss."
While the MRC has been fretting about Meacham, it has acted in a similarly unethical manner by promoting the right-wing Twitter alternative Parler without disclosing that Parler funder Rebekah Mercer is also a major funder of the MRC and sits on the MRC's board of directors.
That zero-ethics stance by the MRC has continued. A Nov. 20 post by Alec Schemmel attacked Bill Gates for (accurately) noting that Parler has become a haven for "Holocaust denial" and other far-right conspiracy theories. Schemmel huffed that "Gates glossed over the free speech concerns that led to Parler’s creation. Gates also suggested that Parler isn’t truly a viable alternative to the already established social media giants," further declaring that "many conservative voices have urged their audiences to transition to Big Tech alternatives like Parler." But Schemmel didn't disclose the Mercer link between Parler and the MRC.
WND's Election Conspiracy-Mongering, Part 3 Topic: WorldNetDaily
As loyal pro-Trump foot soldiers who put sycophancy before facts, WorldNetDaily's columnists have enthusiasticallypromoted Trump's never-proven claims that the election was stolen from him. They have continued to do so over the past week, even as the whole story has descended into yet another WND-style conspiracy theory. Let's review.
Maybe the swamp runs a lot deeper than any of us imagined. Maybe the swamp has tributaries that run out into the blue states, where carefully crafted election fraud has controlled our presidential elections for generations.
What if Trump in 2019 was already setting the stage for the largest sting operation in history? What if a few blue-state governors in battleground states have been coordinating their efforts in election fraud with fake ballots, fake voters and fake elections for generations – at least since the election of President John F. Kennedy, which was paid for by unionizing the federal government.
Most of the state elections could be real and the votes honestly counted. But a handful of coordinating blue-state governors and their election chiefs could control the outcome of the entire nation's election, with only smallish amounts of targeted fraud.
This year's general election could have been the first one with widespread media collusion for a single party, however. Internal polling for both campaigns had to show that it was setting up for a big Trump victory. The media-sponsored public polls were as fake as the rest of the news, meant to suppress the Republican turnout vote.
Trump won the election. Anyone who watched what happened in the middle of election night knows that. Trump won. Five states that are run by Democrats simultaneously stopped reporting on their election totals for three hours and then mysteriously came back with new totals that showed Biden ahead. Those five states are in different time zones. Trump was ahead significantly in all five before the simultaneous "pause" in reporting. Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan. All battleground states run by Democratic governors.
Democrats demanded a special prosecutor to investigate the bogus accusation of Trump colluding with Russians to affect the 2016 election. Liberals refuse to accept the results, that Mueller found no evidence to support that accusation. So who is going to investigate what happened with the elections in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Nevada? Where is the special prosecutor/investigator who is outside of the control of Congress or the president who will investigate this, as Mueller did the Russia hoax?
There was no "attempted" voter fraud nor was there any "attempt" to steal the election from President Trump, because there was voter fraud and the election was stolen. That is the factual reality. If there were an "attempt" we wouldn't be having this conversation.
That which I have just said is of paramount importance to understand, because it happened in America, not some Third World banana republic with a GDP lower than the value of the shoes in my wife's closet.
This took place in America. It was perpetrated by Americans, and it was perpetrated against the duly elected occupant of the highest office in America and the most powerful office in the world. Let the gravity of that sink in for a moment.
[...]
The magnitude of what has happened should enrage you; it should also make you assess where we send our children to school and what we involve them in. It should make Americans realize if this can be done with impunity here, is there anything they won't or cannot do wherever they please?
America needs a man like President Trump. Let's join him in fighting to take what the thieves have stolen. It's ours, and we have the right to claim what is ours.
And yes, there is some evidence that a nationwide conspiracy to steal the election actually occurred. Indeed, a statistical analysis of the election data show Republicans performing incredibly well in some swing states down ticket, but, strangely, the vote count for Trump plummets. The idea the Republicans would have the highest voter turnout in history and vote for everyone from dog catcher to Congress, but then not cast a vote for Trump, flies in the face of everything we know about elections, not to mention Trump's popularity with Republicans. This, I believe, is evidence that someone hacked into the system in key swing states and moved votes from the Trump to the Biden column, but didn't bother altering the down ticket races.
If this can be proven, it will go down in history as the largest election fraud ever, and people will be sent to prison. However, the Trump team needs to bring in cyber-hacking experts and gain access to some state datebases in order to prove this occurred. They may have to convince a judge to grant them such access.
And that's one of the dilemmas we now face. Most courts, and certainly not the Supreme Court, will not entertain cases unless there is concrete evidence of fraud. While I'm convinced the Trump team has solid evidence proving that thousands of dead and out-of-state voters voting illegally, that may not be enough to change the election results. The fraud may be much more extensive than that, but to prove the existence of a nationwide conspiracy to steal the election via a sophisticated software program, the court will demand evidence that will be difficult to obtain without a court order giving the Trump team access to state voter databases. It's difficult to prove fraud unless the court first acts, but they won't act until you prove fraud. It's a big circle.
If that occurs and the judicial branch does not cooperate with uncovering this massive fraud, and the various state recounts and audits fail to uncover the bulk of the fraud, then the Trump grassroots movement needs to switch gears and create a massive pressure campaign to persuade state legislators to intervene. Indeed, state legislators actually have the constitutional right to reject electors chosen in fraudulent elections. The liberals claim electors must vote for Biden if the popular vote for that state favors him, but they're wrong; the Constitution clearly gives the legislators the power to seat a different group of electors who will vote for Trump. This should be done in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia at a minimum, all of which have legislatures controlled by the GOP.
"I never say anything I can't prove." Sidney Powell was cool, calm, collected and fierce in her on-air interview with Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo last Sunday where she laid out the case purporting massive voting fraud in this year's presidential election. Powell, a former federal prosecutor, has a storied career and is most prominently known for rallying conservatives across the nation as she came to Gen. Michael Flynn's defense earlier this year. Stepping in to replace what turned out to be a grossly incompetent, if not willfully negligent, defense team, Powell, working deftly and diligently, completely turned the tables on the government prosecution exposing their legal malpractice and duplicitous actions in their case against the three-star general. Now, Powell is on the forefront of the Trump campaign's legal battle fighting for a free and fair election.
This is not the first time a patriotic woman rose up to fight against powerful forces to save her country and change the course of history. France was in dire straits and its troops were demoralized and desolate when Joan of Arc, a poor young peasant woman, emerged on the scene in 1429. Inspired by visions of saints and angels, Joan took up the sword and the banner of France to fight the ostensibly invincible English forces, reclaiming French territories. Joan led the French army to victory over the English at Orléans, which historians today recognize as "a momentous victory … that repulsed an English attempt to conquer France during the Hundred Years' War."
[...]
Powell's fierce determination, unwavering resolve and uncanny ability to achieve success against powerful, deep-seated, corrupt government forces sparks a glimmer of hope in the hearts of American patriots as she takes the reins in Trump's fight against election fraud. Sidney Powell's battle for democratic freedom in the United States today mirrors the battle Joan of Arc fought on behalf of her country so many years ago. If there's any person who can prevail against these seemingly indomitable forces, it might just be Sidney Powell, and she has an army of truth-loving American patriots cheering her to victory.
MRC Misleads Again About Twitter Political Donations Topic: Media Research Center
We've previously caught the Media Research Center making false headline claims about Facebook and Twitter purportedly dedication a vast majority of corporate political donations when the fine print showed that it was individual employees making those donations. Well, they did it again.
Under the headline "Shhh: Twitter Donations to Dems Now Exceed 99 Percent," Joseph Vazquez began a Nov. 5 post by hyperventilating, "The harbingers about Twitter’s Orwellian censorship of President Donald Trump and conservatives during the election have already come true. Donation records may help explain the reason."
That sounds like corporate donations, right? But it's not, as Vazquez quickly concedes:
A recent study found that Facebook employees/PACs and Twitter employees contributed over 90% of their contributions of $200 or more to Democrats. Twitter employees, in particular, have since increased their donation disparity in favor of Democrats to almost 100 percent.
[...]
Oh, but the donation records don’t stop there. For “congressional candidates” alone, Twitter employees donated $352,016 to Democrats and a laughable $624 to Republicans, or 0.15 percent of the total Twitter employee donations to congressional candidates.
Despite establishing no emperical connection between Twitter employees' individual and private political donations and Twitter corporate policies,Vazquez continued to whine:
It appears that the platform will do anything to help Democrats attain victory. A recent MRC study found that Twitter had censored the president (including his campaign accounts) 64 times since he was elected, while Biden (including his campaign accounts) wasn’t censored at all.
A report from yesterday also found that Twitter was censoring at least six top conservative verified accounts while the election was underway, including the president and his campaign. Others that were censored included The Daily Wire writer Matt Walsh, actor James Woods, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton and Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk.
But as we pointed out, Twitter enforcing its terms of service on those who violate them is not "censorship," and the MRC offered no evidence backing up its suggestion that Biden violated those terms to the extent that Trump has. Further, the MRC admitted in most instances all that happened was that a filter was placed over the offending tweet and comments were turned off -- which is not "censorship" by any normal definition of the word.
CNSNews' Susan Jones does her best to put a positive pro-Trump spin on last month's employment numbers under the headline "Post-Election Gains":
October marked the sixth straight month of post-pandemic employment gains, as the economy added 638,000 jobs and the nation's unemployment rate dropped to 6.9 percent, a point below September's 7.9 percent and far lower than the record-shattering, COVID-induced 14.7 percent in April.
The Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 149,806,000 people as employed in October, which is 2,243,000 more than September's number, but 8,997,000 below the record 158,803,000 people employed in December 2019, just before the pandemic erupted.
Interesting that Jones is touting December 2019 as the relevantpre-pandemic high, given that the pandemic didn't affect employment numbers until March.
Jones also noted the low laboe force participation rate, but was quick to explain it away, something she rarely did when Barack Obama was president: "BLS notes that this "not in the labor force" number has been steadily increasing in recent years as more baby boomers retire, and certainly the COVID-related business closures have accelerated the increase as more people drop out of the workforce."
CNS also served up the usual sidebars. Craig Bannister tried for pro-Trump rah-rah by claiming that "The unemployment rate for Hispanics and Latinos improved for the sixth consecutive month in October as the nation’s businesses continued reopening from the coronavirus-prompted shutdown." Government-hating CNS editor Terry Jeffrey, meanwhile, gloated that "The number of people working for government in the United States declined by 268,000 in October even as overall employment in nation increased," then had to admit, "The decline of government workers occurred as temporary Census workers were let go and employment dropped in government schools."
MRC Still Portraying Twitter Enforcing Terms Of Service Against Trump As 'Censorship' Topic: Media Research Center
The last time we checked on the Media Research Center whining that social media companies enforcing their terms of service on President Trump was "censorship," it was featuring both Twitter and Facebook. Perhaps because portraying Facebook as uniquely biased against conservatives is utterly divorced from reality, the MRC has now decided to focus solely on Twitter (despite accompanying graphics still blaming plural "tech companies"). Corinne Weaver complained on Nov. 9:
Through its rampant censorship, Twitter has done its best to silence President Donald Trump. However, neither former Vice President Joe Biden nor his campaign have received any labels or filters of any kind.
Election Day brought with it a huge spike in Twitter’s censorship. The company’s arsenal used against Team Trump included labels, filters, blocking URLs and preventing users from commenting on certain tweets. This same treatment was also handed to the Trump campaign Twitter account. Since Nov. 3, Trump’s personal Twitter account was censored 35 times as he tweeted about ballots and election counts. Overall, Twitter has censored Trump since May 31, 2018, a grand total of 111 times. In contrast, Biden and his campaign have received no forms of censorship or suppression.
Twitter has gone off the rails when it comes to censoring President Donald Trump and his campaign account. But meanwhile, Joe Biden and his campaign accounts remain untouched.
The president’s account and the account of Team Trump received 83 labels on their tweets between Nov. 9 and Nov. 16, as of the time of this piece’s publication. These tweets included retweets of statements from figures like X Strategies CEO Alexander Bruesewitz, Fox political analyst Gregg Jarrett, and actors Kevin Sorbo and Jon Voight. Overall, since May 31, 2018, Trump and his campaign have been censored 194 times.
Between Nov. 2 and Nov. 9, Trump’s personal Twitter had been censored 36 times. Between Nov. 9 and Nov. 16, Trump’s personal account received 64 labels. This marks a 77 percent increase in censorship over the previous week. By contrast, none of Joe Biden’s tweets have been given any sort of label.
In neither post did Weaver cite a Biden tweet that should have been "censored," nor did she coherently explain why any of the Trump tweets should not have been. She did sort of try on that last part though, asserting that in one "censored" clip, "Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo discussed with Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) the concept of 'dead people voting.' Twitter labeled this video with 'This claim about election fraud is disputed.' Yet, according to 2012 research done by the Pew Center on the States, 1.8 million deceased people were registered as voters. This topic has been discussed broadly by both sides in the past 10 years."
But dead people on the voting rolls is not the same as "dead people voting." Weaver did not note whether Bariromo or Graham offered any verifiable of evidence of "dead people voting," let alone that it has been an significant issue in the presidential campaign.
That's the kind of baseless, factually unsupported ranting Weaver doesn't think should be disciplined by Twitter.
UPDATE: After the election, Kayla Sargent similarly complained that Twitter "censored tweets from at least six conservatives’ verified accounts, including President Donald Trump. In five of the six instances, the platform placed an interstitial, or filter, over the tweets, and in five of the six cases, it turned off comments and likes. Twitter still allowed quote tweets for the posts, however." But if you can still easily see the tweets simply by turning off a filter, it's not "censorship," is it? Sargent didn't explain why it is.
At the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, CNSNews.com asked the speaker, “In 2000, Democrat Al Gore was allowed to press his legal challenge against George W. Bush for 37 days, do you think the same type of patience should be afforded to President Trump in his legal challenges?”
Pelosi said, “In 2000, the delayed ascertainment caused many difficulties, the Bush Administration was outspoken about what was happening in the country. And, as [Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)] said, this is a completely different situation, we are talking about one state.”
Gore had challenged to [sic] vote count in Florida and the case was eventually decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
That's an overly simplistic distillation of what happened in 2000, but that's not the issue here. The issue is what appears after that statement: an image of a Washington Times front page proclaiming, "PRESIDENT GORE," described as a screenshot from YouTube. Here's a screenshot of the fake image as it appears in the article:
Just one problem: That image is afake, and it's unclear where the image originated. As the newspaper itself tweeted, "Those photos have been doctored. The Washington Times never ran a 'President Gore' headline."
It's been nearly a week, and CNS has let that image stand uncorrected and without context. That's not how "news" organizations -- which CNS claims to be -- establish credibility.
MRC Promotes Parler, Censors Financial Backer's Tie To The MRC Topic: Media Research Center
We've noted the Media Research Center's recent enthusiasm (as well as its "news" division, CNSNews.com) for right-wing Twitter alternative Parler, even as it descends into a conspiracy hub. Turns out there's a reason for that -- one it has yet to tell its readers.
It was revealed this week that conservative financier Rebekah Mercer is a key investor in Parler -- so much so that she's considered a co-founder. If that name sounds familiar, it should: As we documented, not only is Mercer's family donated millions of dollars to the MRC over the years, making it one of its largest benefactors, Rebekah Mercer sits on the MRC's board of directors.
But the MRC has never revealed that conflict of interest to its readers, even as its promotion of Parler has ramped up around election time:
On Nov. 2, Joseph Vaquez gushed over how Parler CEO John Matze "warned Americans on CNBC about Big Tech’s Orwellian censorship against President Donald Trump that will continue right into election night.
Vazquez fawned over Matze and Parler again in a Nov. 11 post: "A conservative exodus to Parler from liberal Big Tech platforms has taken place since the chaotic election. The rising social media platform had skyrocketed to become the top app on the App Store."
The same day, Kayla Sargent cheered how Parler "hasn’t yet bowed to pressure from the left," adding, "With the rampant censorship on Facebook and Twitter, many conservatives have turned to the Parler platform."
On Nov 13, P.J. Gladnick mockingly wrote of "Parler's great sin of acting as a platform, and not a publisher, which engages in neither censorship nor placing warning or advisory labels on posts.
In complaining in a Nov. 17 post about a CNN reporter that platforms like Parler spread misinformation and hate, Alexander Hall even admitted that "Rebekah Mercer, daughter of conservative mega donor Robert Mercer, is among the company’s financial investors" -- but censored the fact that Mercer is also on the MRC's board.
On Nov. 18, Heather Moon argued that "Parler is not as dangerous as experts .... make it out to be, but she too censored the Mercer connection.
This lack of disclosure further affects what little credibility the MRC has.
AIM Morphs Into Project Veritas With Hidden-Camera Stunt Topic: Accuracy in Media
Accuracy in Media's president, Adam Guillette, came to the organization from the discredited Project Veritas. So perhaps it was inevitable that he would bring some of his former employer's stunts to AIM.
Before the election, it went after Democratic Iowa Senate candidate Theresa Greenfield. In the video, Guilllette ranted about how Black Lives Matter is a "radical, violent organization," then touted how AIM secretly taped Greenfield's husband stating that his wife supports BLM, as well as Greenfield herself. Guillette did not explain how his secret taping was legal, or why he was so desperate to pull this stunt that he had to go to Iowa to do it.
Guillette proclaimed himself to be "morally outraged when politicians say one thing to one group of people and another thing to another group of people," though we doubt he will ever do this same thing to a Republican politician despitethe fact that many of them are also two-faced. Guillette then promised more of this shady behavior: "Accuracy in Media hidden-camera investigators exposing lying, two-faced politicians. Accuracy in Media will also be exposing exposing lying, two-faced journalists."
So can we also expect AIM to self-destruct with bogusattacks the way Project Veritas has this election season?
WND Unsuprisingly Drags Soros Into Its Election Conspiracies Topic: WorldNetDaily
It wouldn't be a fullconspiracy for WorldNetDaily over election results if it couldn't drag George Soros into it. Doing the honors here is "Frank Wright, Ph.D." of D. James Kennedy Ministries, and he brought in another old friend:
Richard Poe, co-author with David Horowitz of "The Shadow Party," a probing look at George Soros' far-reaching influence, says the left-wing billionaire is staging a revolution.
"George Soros is trying to steal the election," Poe told D. James Kennedy Ministries, which produced the new, nationally aired documentary, "Radical Billionaire: George Soros and the Scheme to Remake America." Poe claims Soros "has a whole crack team of experts, the top experts in the world. … And they are absolutely trying to steal this election."
There's no question that Soros is determined to remove President Donald Trump. He assured elites at Davos in 2018 that Trump is a "purely temporary phenomenon that will disappear in 2020, or even sooner." $70 million, at last report, into Democratic coffers to help evict Trump from the White House.
And Soros is no amateur at regime change. He has an established record of driving leaders from power. Horowitz and Poe assert that "Soros' Open Society Foundations have facilitated coups and rebellions in many countries, always ostensibly in the interests of 'democratization.'
[...]
The risk is very real, Richard Poe told D. James Kennedy Ministries:
"They think this is their moment. George Soros and his colleagues who have broken many countries around the world … are now instituting a revolution here in the United States. And they believe that it can work this time. This is their big moment to overthrow our lawful government, to destroy our culture, to destroy our customs, to destroy our Constitution, to destroy our people, to destroy everything that is important in our lives."
So what to do? Pray diligently for God's mercy. And stand with elected leaders and police who face Soros-inspired efforts to "mobilize civil society" to oust President Trump.
You might remember Poe as a purveyor of conspiracy theories about not just Soros but Hillary Clinton, perpetuating discredited claims (in a WND-published book) that the Clintons had their political opponents murdered. We had no idea he was still around, let alone still pushing those hoary old conspiracies.
Perhaps instead of praying diligently for God's mercy, Wright should be praying for more competent and less discredited henchmen to help him push his conspiracy theories.
MRC Pretends Pro-Trump 'Herd Immunity' On Coronavirus Is Scientifically Sound Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center just hates when the media invoke actual science to criticize President Trump's actions on coronavirus. Mark Finkelstein got all huffy in an Oct. 14 post:
CNN seems happiest when it can accuse the president of not merely being reckless with the coronavirus response, but being guilty of "mass murder."
The president has tweeted in favor of more reopening of states. Yahoo News reported White House aides cited something called the Great Barrington Declaration, which states "The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity." Yahoo cautioned that "It is unclear how far Trump and his administration will go to push states to adopt a herd immunity approach to the virus."
But on Wednesday morning's New Day, they brought on former Harvard professor Dr. William Haseltine to drop rhetorical bombs. What provoked the prof was the possibility the prez might be adopting some form of "herd immunity" approach to the pandemic. It's something that the president's science adviser, Dr. Scott Atlas, has been suggesting.
According to Haseltine, adopting the herd immunity approach would cost nothing short of two to six million American deaths . . . every year!
Of course, that ignores the realistic prospect that by June or so, an effective vaccine will be widely available. It also flies in the face of the New York Times report that "Experts are saying, with genuine confidence, that the pandemic in the United States will be over far sooner than they expected, possibly by the middle of next year. "
In that light, the prof's prediction of 2-6 million American deaths every year seems wildly pessimistic. But the left will never overlook an opportunity to cast President Trump in the worst possible light.
Note that Finkelstein doesn't actually try to defend the idea of herd immunity on coronavirus -- perhaps because the vast majority of virus experts don't think it's a good idea, given that it will require more people to die before a vaccine becomes widely available, as well as the fact that, since COVID-19 is such a new virus, nobody knows for sure what the herd immunity threshold is for it.
Duncan Schroeder similarly whined in an Oct. 23 post:
On Wednesday afternoon’s CNN Newsroom, host Brianna Keilar collaborated with medical analyst and former Planned Parenthood president Leana Wen to attack one of the liberal media's most hated targets in White House adviser Scott Atlas and discredit herd immunity. Wen lied by claiming that herd immunity “goes against the consensus of entire medical, scientific and public health community” and Keilar proclaimed that “it’s not a public health strategy.”
[...]
Wen flat out lied about the “consensus” about herd immunity. Atlas himself is an esteemed scientist for one so his opinion certainly bares some weight. Furthermore, the strategy is supported by esteemed Harvard professor of medicine Martin Kulldorff as well as other medical experts from Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford. Furthermore, the strategy was proven as effective in Sweden, as cases and deaths have dropped dramatically there. In fact, by September, Sweden averaged one COVD death per day.
The MRC has previously defended Atlas, and while he might be an "esteemed scientist,"his specialty is in neuroradiology, not epidemiology or other viral studies that would be relevant in combating coronavirus, and the university where he was based, Stanford, has distanced itself from his views, calling them "inconsistent with the university's approach in response to the pandemic."
Further, Schroeder appears to have spoken too soon about Sweden's alleged success with herd immunity, as new cases have exploded over the past month to the point that the country is aggressively restricting public gatherings to slow the spread.
Schroeder then took a gratuitous shot at Wen because of her former Planned Parenthood leadership -- something else the MRC is weirdly obsessed with, despite the fact she had the job for less than a year. When Wen said that "to hear the President say that he wouldn't do things differently when there are over 220,000 Americans who have died, I mean, that's shocking, it's unbelievable," he sneered in response: "A rather ironic statement coming from a former president of Planned Parenthood. Is she as concerned about the hundreds of thousands of babies that Planned Parenthood murders every year?
Schroeder implored us in his headline to "listen to the science." But it's clear he only "listens to the science" when it supports his pro-Trump bias.
NEW ARTICLE: Cashill's Cornucopia of Obama Conspiracies Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily columnist Jack Cashill has a new book out in which he apparently rehashes every single Obama-related conspiracy theory, no matter how discredited. Read more >>
We noted how CNSNews.com's Craig Bannister referenced a discredited case in which it was alleged that ballots in Maricopa County, Ariz. (which Bannister wrongly claimed was in Florida) were rejected because votes were marked with a Sharpie pen. But CNS also devoted a full article to this nonsense.
Pro-Trump stenographer Melanie Arter devoted a Nov. 6 article to rehashing right-wing claims in the case:
A lawsuit in Arizona claims 80 percent of voters at a polling location in Maricopa County, Ariz., had their ballots rejected because of a Sharpie issue.
[...]
Election law attorney Christian Adams, who serves as president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation and once served as general counsel and former DOJ voting section attorney under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, is representing the plaintiffs in the case.
“This is a case to get somebody's right to vote vindicated. Mrs. Aguilera attempted to vote, and she watched this happen. She watched her ballot rejected because of the Sharpie. I know a lot of people want to try to debunk the Sharpie issue. These are sworn affidavits. People say there's no evidence of this, Maria. These are affidavits of an election official,” Adams told Fox Business’s “Mornings with Maria Bartiromo” on Friday.
Arter was so busy transcribing the Fox Business segment that she censored the fact there's another side to this story. As an actual news outlet reported:
Rumors began to spread on social media Wednesday that voters in the battleground state of Arizona who used Sharpie pens on their ballots wouldn't have their votes counted. That confusion prompted state officials, election monitors and a top Trump administration official to push back on "#SharpieGate" rumors.
"Don't promote disinfo! Stop spreading #SharpieGate claims," tweeted Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Christopher Krebs on Thursday morning, reminding people that election jurisdictions allow voters to mark ballots with a variety of writing instruments, including Sharpies.
Maricopa County officials said poll workers were trained to require voters to use Sharpies at voting sites because the ink doesn't smudge as ballots are counted. An informational video was posted in a Maricopa County Elections Department tweet that said, "New offset columns on the ballots means bleed through won't impact your vote!"
So, yes, Sharpies are actually encouraged for voting in Arizaona. But Arter isn't going to tell you this -- despite the fact that this debunking was published the day before her own article was published -- because she has a pro-Trump narrative to push. And neither Arter nor anyone else at CNS has bothered to update the story.
That's not the only election-related issue Arter misled about to Trump's benefit. A Nov. 5 article featured how "Election officials are forcing poll watchers to stand 30 feet away to observe ballot counting in Philadelphia, citing concerns about the coronavirus, Corey Lewandowski, senior advisor to the Trump campaign, told Fox Business on Wednesday." Arter was too busy quoting Lewandowski to make it clear that Democratic poll watchers were no closer.
WorldNetDaily has done a lot of conspiracy-mongering over the presidential election results. Let's look at one specific conspiracy. Steve Baldwin wrote in a Nov. 16 column pushing various election conspiracies:
It's not enough for the Media Research Center to disagree with their political enemies; it must belittle them as well whenever possible. Thus, we have an Oct. 30 
Catholic officials are acknowledging that Joe Biden, a Catholic, won the presidential election, and the pro-Trump CNSNews.com is not having it.
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck got all worked up in a Nov. 9 
As loyal pro-Trump foot soldiers who put sycophancy before facts, WorldNetDaily's columnists have 
We've 
CNSNews' Susan Jones does her best to put a positive pro-Trump spin on last month's employment numbers under the headline "
The last time 
We've noted
Accuracy in Media's president, Adam Guillette, came to the organization from the discredited Project Veritas. So perhaps it was inevitable that he would bring some of his former employer's stunts to AIM. 
The Media Research Center just hates when the media invoke actual science to criticize President Trump's actions on coronavirus. Mark Finkelstein got all huffy in an Oct. 14 
We 
