How Is MRC Sports Blogger Hating Gays Now?
Topic: Media Research Center

Jay Maxson, the Media Research Center's mysterious sports blogger who has no internet presence outside the MRC and may not even be a real person for all we know, is still feeling the anti-LBGT hate as much as ever.

Maxson complained in an Oct. 12 post:

Black Lives Matter protest is so passé now that the National Football League's weekend focus Sunday was on "National Coming Out Day." The league released a 30-second long "National Coming Out Day PSA" on YouTube Saturday, which aired during early-game Fox broadcasts Sunday.

[...]

Let's be real here. Sports leagues frequently suck up to the LGBT pressure groups' agenda, to stay on their good side, to prevent boycotts and nastiness. They're fearful of being labeled "homophobic."

Now it's not important to just be a great athlete. By coming out of the closet NFL players are sure to get the Jason Collins treatment. The president, commissioners, coaches and athletes fawned all over the former NBA player for cravenly coming out as he retired from the NBA in 2014.

Maxson is clearly not fearful of acting like a homophobe, as exhibited by his depiction of an athlete's coming out as "craven."

On Oct. 21, Maxson whined that the teams in the World Series, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays, were being noted for catering to their LGBT fan bases, sneering that they earned " LGBTQ alphabet points" and that "Tampa's lesbian mayor" threw out the first pitch at a game, adding that "The Dodgers were one of the first baseball teams succumbing to pressure to feature Pride Nights, hosting what is believed to be the first Gay and Lesbian Night in August of 2000."

Maxson ranted against transgenders in a Nov. 6 post:

Boise, Idaho, you can kiss your inclusion in March Madness next spring good-bye. The NCAA prefers a different version of inclusion for its host sites, one that doesn't ban males from participating in female sports like Idaho does. College sports fans, trans inclusion is rolling down the tracks and little can stop it.

SB Nation Outsports reports that the NCAALGBT hasn't yet rescinded its agreement for NCAA Tournament games in Boise, but the sport's governing association is in the tank for transgenders.

[...]

As if social justice activism hasn't ruined people's enjoyment of sports enough, it's just a matter of when college sports become more defined by the letters NCAALGBT than by biological gender and notions of fairness.

On Nov. 16, Maxson retorted against an article noting that longtime baseball coach Tonny Lasorda refused to acknowlege his son is gay by declaring him to be on his deathbed:

Can't a 93-year-old critically ill man be allowed to die in peace? Not if he is Hall of Fame former baseball manager Tommy Lasorda. Then SB Nation Outsports will dog him to his dying day because he never admitted his late son was homosexual.

Outsports writer Dawn Ennis goes lower than low in a shameful assault on Lasorda (seen in photo delivering his Hall of Fame speech), who managed the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1976-1996, won 1,599 games and two World Series. Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1997, Lasorda is currently in an intensive care unit in a Los Angeles-area hospital.

[...]

Tommy Lasorda is not a "legend" because he didn't get on his knees to the LGBT fascists and say his son was homosexual. Ennis is a "legend" for contributing to cancel culture with her crassness, disrespect and lack of civility.

That's what passes for sports commentary at the MRC.

CNS-Mark Levin Stenography Watch
Topic: CNSNews.com

For unexplained reasons (but probably having something to do with the lack of a student intern), CNSNews.com published no Mark Levin stenography for just over a month, from Aug. 14 to Sept. 16. But with an election coming up (and a new fall intern in the building), CNS didn't want to ignore Levin's right-wing rants any longer. Let's look at the Levin stenography CNS published in September and October:

• Levin: Despite Highest Taxes and Toughest Regulations, California Is 'Burning' and 'Going Bankrupt'
• Levin: Biden Blaming Trump for Every Coronavirus Death ‘Demonstrates What a Loathsome Demagogue He Truly Is’
• Levin Slams DC Public Schools' 23% 8th Grade Reading Proficiency, Despite Shelling Out $30k Per Student
• Mark Levin: Democrats Are Telling Us They Want to Control Supreme Court, Destroy Senate and Electoral System
• Trump on Forest Fires: Dems 'Don't Want to Talk About Management' (Levin guest)
• Levin’s ‘Note to Chuck Schumer’: Here’s What We’ll Do if You Add SCOTUS Seats and States, Eliminate Filibuster
• Levin: 'It Feels Like 1860 All Over Again'
• Pompeo to Levin: 'Tide Has Turned' on Nations Recognizing China as a Threat
• Levin: Chris Wallace Knows Better than to Let Biden Get Away With These Four ‘Whoppers’
• Cruz: We Need Justices Loyal to the Constitution, Not Cocktail Parties (Levin guest)
• Levin to Bongino: NYT Writer Who Accused Us of Inciting Violence ‘Must Not Be Following News on Her Own Damn Newspaper’
• Levin Blasts Dems' Plan to 'Destroy' Medicare and Social Security
• Pence to Levin: Biden Never Condemned Cuomo for Returning COVID Patients to Nursing Homes
• Levin: Left Is Using ACB Appointment as Excuse to Pack Court
• Mark Levin to Dems: 'Keep Your Damn Hands Off' SCOTUS, Senate, Electoral College, Constitution

Despite the late start, that's 15 articles over the two-month period. That makes for a total of 76 articles in 2020, a little off the pace of the past three years, when it devoted at least 96 articles annually to Levin.

CNS also gave Levin space to whine on Oct. 5 that Facebook had restricted the visibility of"constitutional scholar, best selling author, and conservative talk-radio host" Levin over his promotion of fake news. Interestingly, the article by Lucy Collins doesn't explain exactly what the content was that got his page restricted. A couple days later, Craig Bannister followed up by repeating Levin's assertion that Facebook "backed down on censorship of his page."

MRC Attacks Reagan Film It Hasn't Seen
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has a long tradition of attacking the alleged content of TV shows or movies it hasn't actually seen. A new Showtime documentary about Ronald Reagan is another example. The show didn't debut until Nov. 18, but the MRC already had its knives out. Brent Baker huffed in a Nov. 13 post, personally attacking the film's director, Matt Tyrnauer, since he couldn't credibly go after content he hadn't seen:

The Showtime pay cable channel, owned by ViacomCBS, has become the latest media outlet to promote specious leftist attacks meant to destroy the credibility and respect for a political leader admired by conservatives.

On Sunday night at 8 PM EST (repeating at 11:30 PM and 1:30 AM EST, matching times in the West coast feed) Showtime will debut a four-part documentary series, The Reagans, devoted to smearing President Ronald Reagan as an anti-civil rights user of racist “dog whistles” who, in the words of its director, served as a tool of “plutocrats” who “in many ways paved the way for Trump.”

[...]

Reciting a series of mendacious liberal cliches, Tyrnauer asserted: “What really happened during the Reagan presidency is ignored: the advancement of the system of the one percent, the dismantling of the New Deal social safety net. He may not have seen himself as a cruel man, but when you look at the effect of his policies, he was, and he got away with it because he knew how to manipulate the media-industrial complex with his myth. It’s time to take a fresh look at it.”

No surprise that Tyrnauer come out of a liberal political background. In his Thursday review for the New York Times, Adam Nagourney recalled: “I met Tyrnauer while covering the 1988 presidential campaign; he was an assistant at the Boston headquarters of Michael Dukakis, the Democrat who would lose to George H.W. Bush.”

WND Finally Launches Subscription Option, Is Still Lying To Its Readers
Topic: WorldNetDaily

It's taken nearly two years after the start of its current, ongoing financial crisis, but WorldNetDaily has finally -- finally -- created a formal subscription option for readers.

As described in a Nov. 18 article, the "WND Insider" program offers ad-free content for a minimum of $50 a year, with higher subscription levels offering things like discounts at its online store and subscriptions to its sparsely read Whistleblower magazine. Of course, in making that announcement, WND made sure to portray itself as a victim of "Big Tech":

WND is currently under greater attack than ever by Big Tech, which wants to destroy the internet’s oldest independent news website.

But we have a solution.

First, a few of the latest assaults:

• Since early September, Facebook has massively suppressed WND’s traffic – down to about 10% of what it was previously on Facebook. This hurts us tremendously. When asked repeatedly why WND has been put in “Facebook jail,” the social media giant’s reps offer no reason – ever.
• During the same period, three major online advertising companies – TripleLift, AppNexus/Xander and Teads – all simultaneously “canceled” their engagement with WND, citing vague breaches of their terms of service (one company said WND engages in “hate speech”), which has seriously reduced the ad revenue on which we rely to fund WND’s operation and pay our journalists.
• Google has written WND out of its search algorithm so thoroughly that unless you specify “WND.com” in your search terms, a WND story rarely shows up.

Other examples abound but you get the idea.

WND is deliberately vague about exactly why it faces such issues -- because it publishes fake news, as we point out every time WND insists that it doesn't. But it's still trying to gaslight its readers by insisting that it's the non-right-wing media that's the real "fake news" and that WND is the "desperately needed counterbalance":

For those who may be somewhat new to WorldNetDaily (WND): Since 1997, before almost all other online news sites even existed, WND has provided a desperately needed counterbalance to the one-sided, dishonest and ever more unhinged fake news media. WND is staffed by veteran professional journalists who, unlike most of today’s media, are unapologetically Christian, pro-American and pro-Constitution. In the last two decades, we have broken many huge stories, defended the Constitution, championed Americans’ God-given rights, boldly upheld the sanctity of life, exposed corruption and abuse, and endeavored to fulfill the Founding Fathers’ notion of a truly free press.

The Founding Fathers probably didn't support a "free press" that is as blatantly biased and has published as many falsehoods as WND.

 

MRC Thinks Conservative Misinformation Is Just Asking 'Honest Questions'
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center is in active denial about Facebook's attempts to mollify conservarives -- and now it's simply lying to itself about it and denying that conservartive misinformation about the presidential election was misinforming anyone. Alexander Hall ranted in a Nov. 10 post:

A liberal tech writer has blasted Facebook for allowing conservatives to ask honest questions about the controversial 2020 election. He also lamented that Facebook has allowed conservative posts to become wildly popular.

New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose tweeted screenshots of multiple trending stories on Nov. 9 that showed allegations of voter fraud. Roose lamented above the screenshots: “Facebook is absolutely teeming with right-wing misinformation right now.” He followed up by later conceding that “The tricky thing, for Facebook, is that some of the most viral stories aren't strictly false.” He continued to complain: “But they are feeding a stolen election narrative that is going to be hard to dial back.” 

Yes, Hall actually claimed that deliberate conservative misinformation was merely asking "honest questions" about the election. He then crowed that "Roose was then scorched by The Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon for brazen hypocrisy," but all Dillon actually did was play whataboutism, whining that Roose "never mentions 'left-wing misinformation.'"

Hall went on to portray conservative misinformation as normal -- note his biased dichotomy between conservatives "swaying public opinion" and "far-left influencers indoctrinating" people"-- but he's also forced to concede that not only does Facebook not actually censor conservative views to the extent the MRC insisted it has, conservative posts dominate the site:

Roose was disturbed not only by the fact that conservative news outlets are able to speak, but also at how popular they are. He mentioned what he called, “A Newsmax video full of debunked voter fraud conspiracy theories (dead people voting, poll watchers barred, software glitches)” and remarked on how it “is the 3rd most-shared post of the past three days. 15 million views, 345,000 shares.”

Roose acknowledged that Facebook has labelled conservative posts in an attempt to discredit them, but derides that tactic as useless:

[...]

To Roose, it seems that any conservative swaying public opinion is radicalizing people, whereas far-left influencers indoctrinating them is just creating upright citizens. He has frequently tweeted lists of Facebook’s trending topics and users, complained that the platform is often dominated by conservative commentary. 

Having admitted that, Hall then labored to return to the misleading right-wing narrative by huffing that "Contrary to Roose’s recent accusation of Facebook enabling conservative election skeptics, Facebook has cracked down on conservative information in the past year." But he cited only one example, that of the New York Post's dubious Hunter Biden story -- and he won't even vouch for the veracity of the story, stating that it was based on "purported emails."

It appears that Hall wants conservatives to be able to mislead and lie with impunity.

UPDATE: Hall did the same thing in a Nov. 12 post claiming that "A Biden campaign staffer is furious that conservatives are still allowed to question the integrity of the 2020 election online" and was "slamming the platform for giving conservatives a voice." In fact, the staffer accurately pointed out that "Donald Trump voter fraud and election victory lies represented 17 of the top 20 posts on FB between 11/3-11/8. While Twitter disabled sharing of Trump’s election disinformation, Facebook continued to actively promote the posts in feeds." Hall again claimed that "Contrary to liberal critiques, Facebook has cracked down on conservative information in the past year, specifically that which could hurt former Vice President Joe Biden’s bid for the presidency," but again he cited only the New York Post story.

CNS' Jones Uncritically Pushes Pro-Trump Election Narratives
Topic: CNSNews.com

One of the leaders at CNSNews.com of perpetuating biased pro-Trump narratives in the immediate aftermath of the presidential election was reporter Susan Jones.

Jones was very busy on Nov. 9. First, she complained that Joe Biden has "been declared the winner by major news outlets," then gave Republican Sen. Roy Blunt space to refuse to acknowledge Biden won and huff that "the media doesn't get to decide who the winner is. There is a canvassing process."

Of course, Jones couldn't admit Biden won either. She demonstrated that denial in another article that day transcribing President Trump taking credit for the first announcement of a coronavirus vaccine, which she wrote "comes six days after the election that Democrats insist Joe Biden won, despite the continuing vote count and legal challenges in a few swing states."

After that, Jones indulged in pushing the right-wing (and CNS) narrative that Biden getting a record number of votes doesn't really matter because Trump got nearly as many: "Democrat Joe Biden won more than 75 million votes, the most of any presidential candidate; but President Donald Trump won 70 million votes, the second highest total in history."

Jones continued to promote pro-Trump narratives over the next few days, with minimal pushback if any, regarding the president's increasingly desperate challenges to vote counts across the country:

• Gov. Noem: 'If Joe Biden Really Wants to Unify this Country,' He Would Let Election Process Play Out
• Sen. Ted Cruz: 'The Fundamental Question Is, Are We Going to Follow the Law?'
• McConnell: 'Quit All the Handwringing'; Don't Act Like Legal Challenges Are 'Extraordinary'
• Rep. Gaetz: 'I Have Every Confidence We Will Expose Fraud'
• Sidney Powell: 'We're Fixing to Overturn the Results of the Election in Multiple States'

It wasn't until Nov. 19 that she wrote her first article on the reality of Trump's failing election challenges, under the headline "Georgia Secretary of State: 'We Have Not Seen Any Widespread Voter Fraud'." But even then she wasn't willing to competely give up the conspiracy theories, complaining that "partisan host Jake Tapper" pointed out that speculation about election software allows certain people to change vote tallies is "frankly crazy stuff, tin foil hat stuff."

MRC Hypocritically Attacks CNN For Doing What Fox News Does
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center will never inflict on Fox News the journalistic scrutiny it regularly inflicts on CNN and MSNBC, despite the fact that it's at least as guilty, if not more, of the things it regularly attacks those other news channels of doing. Note the whataboutism Joseph Norris uses in deflecting uncomfortable criticism in a Nov. 6 post:

Leftist-aligned CNN, noted Biden sympathizers, are now calling out Fox News for their pro-Trump reporting.  This coming from party of the DNC controlled media that has spent the past four years trying to tear the President down. Rather than take a look in the mirror, CNN host Jake Tapper goes on the offensive: “So if you are a Fox reporter or anchor, somebody not on the opinion side and you're going to abide by this crazy instruction, you might as well hand in your press credential at the same time because you can't be taken seriously as a journalist.”

In a move that smacks of jealousy, CNN is taking the time to insult their leading competitor. And to do so with yet another unnamed source that the leftist media seems so fond of using. Leftist CNN anchor Brian Stelter joined the 9:00 am ET hour to discuss to memos he allegedly received from Fox that has requested the people on air to refrain from calling Joe Biden the “President-Elect” till the election is fully resolved in the courts.

Actually, that claim was not based on an "unnamed source" but internal memos that CNN obtained copies of. (And, as we've noted, the MRC has no problem hypocritically using anonymous sources when doing so advances its right-wing agenda.)

Of course, CNN showed its usual bias, dismissing these cases as “frivolous lawsuits.” Instead, they outright accuse Fox of “Fox still assumes he's telling the truth, promoting voter fraud innuendo, they are denigrating cities like Philadelphia, and they are treating these long-shot lawsuits like they are serious pursuits.” I believe that is called reporting the news, something CNN could learn from.

So uncritically repeating anything Trump does is "reporting the news," even if it's obviously false or doomed to failure? We suspect that this MRC reporting standard will change when Joe Biden takes office.

Norris whined further:

These facts did not stop CNN correspondent Abby Phillip from joining the attack: “Fox is acting as an arm of the Trump campaign. And Trump is treating Fox as an arm of the campaign. … The Trump campaign wants Fox to get in line, and it sounds like, based on Brian's reporting, they are getting in line.”

Given how CNN has vastly favored their own preferred candidate and their ruthless attacks on Trump for the past four years, they should be taking a hard look in the mirror before making these attacks. The hypocrisy on display is astounding. But it is not surprising.

If this sort of media bias is a bad thing -- and Norris is, by letting CNN's statements about Fox News being an arm of the Trump campaign pass unrebutted, effectively admitting those accusations are true -- why won't Norris criticize Fox News? Perhaps because not only is the MRC also an arm of the Trump campaign, MRC staffers tend to appear on Fox News and it doesn't want to do anything to jeopardize that relationship. At the top of that not-to-do list is anything that might document how Fox News uses the exact same "bias" techniques it bashes CNN and MSNBC for using.

Which makes the "astounding" hypocrisy on display here that of Norris and the MRC, not CNN.

Hate-Filled CNS Editor Smears Biden As 'Evil,' His Supporters As Lazy, Godless Heathens
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey's hatred of Joe Biden is so unhinged that not only did he petulantly rant about a Biden speech interrupting a football game, he vented his anger at Catholic bishops who dared to congratulate only the second Catholic in history to be elected president. It turns out Jeffrey's irrational anger extends to anyone who voted for Biden as well, spending his Nov. 11 column smearing Biden voters as lazy, godless heathens, since an exit poll shows more people who don't work full time, aren't married and don't attend church voted for Biden:

Based on these polls — and looked at purely from a political perspective — there are certain cultural trends in the United States that would be good for Republicans and bad for Democrats (and vice versa).

If more people decided to work full time to earn a living, that would be bad for Democrats — and good for Republicans. If more people decided not to work full time to earn a living, that would be bad for Republicans — and good for Democrats.

If more people got married and stayed married, that would be bad for Democrats — and good for Republicans.

If more people started going to church or religious services, that would be bad for Democrats — and good for Republicans.

Indeed, in a nation where every voter went to church or attended a religious service at least once every four weeks, Trump would have won. Such an America would have been too religious for Biden to carry.

[...]

The ideal electorate from the Democratic political point of view would be dominated by unmarried people in their twenties and thirties who do not work full time and never go to church.

From the Republican point of view, it would be dominated by people who had experienced at least another 20 years in life, gotten married, found a permanent job and joined a church that they regularly attend.

Which electorate do you think would do a better job of keeping this country prosperous and free?

Jeffrey wasn't done with the smears. In his Nov. 18 column, he painted Biden as "evil" for supporting abortion rights and transgender rights in listing "five things candidate Biden promised to do as president can fairly be described as evil," and he's especially outraged (and hate-filled) by the transgender stuff:

The fourth evil act Biden has planned is to force public schools to treat biological males as females and biological females as males.

"By creating the human being man and woman, God gives personal dignity equally to the one and the other," says the Catholic Catechism. "Each of them, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity."

Rather than accept the God-given "sexual identity" of human beings, Biden plans to advance something he calls "gender identity."

"Biden believes every transgender or non-binary person should have the option of changing their gender marker to 'M,' 'F,' or 'X' on government identifications, passports, and other documentation," says his website.

He will also guarantee that "transgender students have access to facilities based on their gender identity."

"On his first day in office," says Biden's campaign website, "Biden will reinstate the Obama-Biden guidance revoked by the Trump-Pence administration, which will restore transgender students' access to sports, bathrooms, and locker rooms in accordance with their gender identity."

Under Biden's plan, an 18-year-old boy who says he is a girl can play on the girls' field hockey team and use the girls' locker room.

The fifth evil item on Biden's agenda is what he would force insurance companies and health care providers to do to such a boy.

CNS maliciously -- and falsely -- portrayed Biden as suffering from "cognitive decline," and the editor who greenlighted that unfair and highly biased coverage wrote the above hate-filled screeds.

Sore Losers: MRC Is Bitter About Trump's Loss
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has not taken Donald Trump's election loss well as Joe Biden's victory became more apparent. That bitterness was demonstrated in a Nov. 6 post by Alex Christy in which he lashed out at CNN for acknowledging Joe Biden's win:

With Joe Biden on the verge of being declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election, CNN's Friday afternoon coverage took the time to insist that all Americans should celebrate the historic glass-shattering moment of Kamala Harris becoming vice president. In addition, one of their elitist, leftist partisans informed us that we must also subscribe to the electoral conclusion that Biden has a mandate while ignoring the Democratic Party's horrid performance in House and Senate races.

The same day, Nicholas Fondacaro huffed in defiance of reality (and Trump's mutual defiance of same): "As the ballot counting dragged on Thursday in key states around the country and President Trump continued to fight for a second term, the partisan “journalists” at NBC News had grown obviously irritated that they couldn’t declare their candidate the winner. At no time was this more blatant than their primetime coverage when they demanded Trump be 'conciliatory' and handle his concession like former Vice President Al Gore did in 2000." Fondacaro went on to call the request that Trump concede "ridiculous" -- a description in itself has become more ridiculous as Biden has expanded his lead over Trump by, as of now, more than 6 million votes, which contradicts Norris'

Fondacaro served up more bitterness: "The Sunday after Democratic nominee Joe Biden was declared the apparent president-elect, ABC’s Good Morning America was working really hard for their nominee. While ignoring Biden’s history of demonizing his opponents, they celebrated him as a great uniter that would end the rancor. They also trotted out Cindy McCain to urge the current president to concede to her nominee."

Curtis Houck added: 

Despite the fact that it was not a victory speech as news outlets had yet to declare him the 46th President, CNN reacted Friday night with nothing but admiration for Joe Biden, calling their candidate's remarks a “big,” “optimistic,” “presidential,” and “soaring” speech “about America” that “applauded democracy.”

This all stood in stark contrast to their collective meltdown over President Trump's Thursday night remarks, which were widely condemned by figures such as CNN senior political commentator and former Senator Rick Santorum and Fox News Channel host Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum (and with a level of sobriety most Zuckerville residents lack).

Houck linked back to a earlier post he did on CNN's response that, in fact, made no mention of Baier's and MacCallum's response to Trump's speech. Perhaps he, as NewsBusters managing editor, can look into that reporting gap and detail that "level of sobriety" for us.

The MRC was also embittered by the idea that Biden did well enough to have a mandate from the American people or that Trump was in any way repudiated:

• Joseph Norris whined that "Despite the razor-thin election results, CNN is still trying to promote the fake news narrative that Tuesday's election was a "huge rejection" of President Trump." Again: A 6-million-vote lead is not "razor-thin."
• Brad Wilmouth complained that one commentator "insisted Democrats have a 'mandate' to do as they see fit." Curtis Houck similarly complained about another commentator who "proclaimed" that Biden had "'a mandate' to implement his agenda."
• The MRC also published a Nov. 12 column by Ben Shapiro, who huffed:"On Saturday evening, presidential frontrunner Joe Biden — who doesn't actually become president-elect until vote counts are certified — gave a preliminary victory address. In that address, he spoke of his mandate to govern: a mandate, he said, that extended to marshalling the 'forces of decency ... fairness ... science ... hope.' Which is a pretty vague mandate, as it turns out."

The MRC also defended Trump's increasingly desperate efforts to deny the fact he lost by launching specious legal attacks over vote counts in states. Duncan Schroeder grumbled that "On Sunday evening’s CNN Newsroom, host Ana Cabrera and national security analyst Samantha Vinograd nastily attacked President Trump for daring to question their candidate’s vote counts. Cabrera accused Trump of “a dangerous attempt to undermine” voting and Vinograd vehemently declared that “someone needs to FedEx President Trump a copy of the Constitution.”Schroeder also asserted that Cabrera was "crazily ranting that Trump desires 'to undermine' voting" -- as if it was perfectly sane for Trump to try to disqualify millions of votes.

Norris returned to complain: On CNN’s New Day, the leftist network completely dismissed Donald Trump’s claims of voter fraud and election interference in the 2020 presidential election. Rather than report on the ongoing investigation, we are apparently supposed to trust CNN’s judgement and credibility on this one." Norris offered no evidence that any of Trump's claims about election fraud were, in fact, credible; he played a mixture of handwaving and whataboutism by adding that "it remains to be seen if there is any more validity to the claims of voter fraud and misconduct, than there was about the litany of other scandals and claims made about Trump."

Clay Waters groused:

President Trump’s refusal so far to concede Election 2020 to Democrat Joe Biden, nine whole days after Election Day and with over two months left in his first term, and with the official Electoral College count still over a month away, terrified the New York Times into comparing him to a motley crew of world dictators, in a repellent report on the front page of Thursday’s edition: “Trump Borrows Election Tactics From Autocrats,” by reporter Andrew Higgins.

[...]

Higgins continued adding to his monster rally of dictators to shame Trump into conceding less than two weeks after the election, with votes still uncounted and the Electoral College meetings in December: “Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who seized power in 1973 in a military coup in Chile, accepted defeat in a 1988 constitutional referendum that would have allowed him to stay in office, and relinquished the presidency in 1990 after an opponent won a presidential vote.”

Waters didn't dispute the accuracy of the comparison, only complained that it was made.

Bill D'Agostino tried to falsely compare this year's situation to the 2000 presidential when, he claimed, "TV journalists indulged losing candidate Al Gore’s protracted attempts to overturn the election, treating his lawsuits and requested recounts with great respect." In fact, the 2000 elected was determined by a 537-vote margin in Florida (which Gore lost, despite winning the popular vote), while Trump is actively trying to throw out thousands of votes across several states.

Meanwhile, the MRC continued to indulge Trump's protracted attempts to overturn the election. P.J. Gladnick responded to one commentator's concern that Trump was trying to steal the election by retorting, "It's not 'stealing' if legal challenges throw into serious question the way the voting was conducted."

WND's Cashill Switches From Obsessing Over Obama To Slandering Biden
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily columnist Jack Cashill has managed to take a break from obsessing about Barack Obama (temporarily, anyway) to obsess about Joe Biden.

In his Oct. 21 column, Cashill complained about Biden's 2011 speech in Moscow at a time when the U.S. was trying to reset relations with Russia. He then rehashed the conspiracy theory about Russians gaining control of Uranium One at a time when "a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation" -- a claim pushed by right-wing activists that has been largely discredited.

On Nov. 4, Cashill declared: "As she has watched the events of the past month unfold – or, more accurately, not unfold – Hillary Clinton had to have been seething. If Big Media, Big Tech and the deep state had provided her the cover it provided Joe Biden, she would have shattered the glass ceiling in 2016 and swanned her way into the White House." He added: "Hillary had to know she was an awful candidate, but Biden was magnitudes worse. He was the guy caught on video groping little girls, not her. He was the guy who (allegedly) digitally raped a Senate staffer, not her. He was the guy who could not remember what office he was running for, but Hillary never forgot."

Cashill was in slander mode in his Nov. 18 column, smearing Biden as "a senile old pedophile who could not attract a thousand people to a rally" who stole the election from Donald Trump. The longtime conspiracy theorist then laughably complained that "the media filled the empty heads of their audience members with any number of conspiracy theories that the National Enquirer would have passed on." He then slandered some more, along with following the WND corporate line about election theft:

Biden was a serial groper of little girls and a credibly accused sexual predator. We also knew that Biden's mental faculties were fading fast. The major media and the increasingly oppressive Big Tech shielded their audiences from the obvious.

[...]

Driven by the fear and hatred the media generated, 70 million Democrats would have voted for an Anthony Weiner-Casey Anthony ticket had they been running against Trump.

Blissfully preserved by the same media in their ignorance, the remaining few million went to the polls not even knowing just how corrupt and perverted was the man they hoped to elect president.

Had the media shared the truth about Trump and Biden, the election would not have been close enough to steal. "Analysts" who explain the outcome in any other way are lying to themselves.

Cashill is lying to himself if he thinks accusing others of pushing conspirach theories will make people forget his amply demonstrated love of same.

Obama's New Book Makes The MRC Melt Down
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has long been envious of Barack and Michelle Obama's success after leaving the White House and tried to tear them down whenever possible -- hence it took time out in the middle of runup to the presidential election to do a commercial for a "comedic play" by right-wing filmmaker Phelim McAleer called "ObamaGate" (which isn't actually a thing) that featured "the embarrassing and conspiratorial text messages of “FBI Lovebirds” Peter Strzok and Lisa Page." So when the publicity machine for Barack Obama's new presidential memoir got fired up, the MRC melted down.

On Nov. 12, Kristine Marsh huffed that "CNN journalists let former President Obama take a turn at spewing hate towards President Trump and the millions of Americans who voted for him ... he bashes Trump voters as racists and praises his former Vice President, Joe Biden."

Rich Noyes whined that "CBS News will roll out their red carpet for the former President on Sunday, helping him sell the first volume of his memoirs on Sunday Morning and 60 Minutes. The rest of the media will surely follow." He then rehashed how the media liked to say nice things about Obama.

Scott Whitlock ranted that it was "COLLUSION" that "Gayle King, who vacationed with the Obamas and is a Democratic donor, will score the first interview with Barack Obama as he promotes his new book." He later complained of the then-upcoming interview that "The early indications are not positive if you care at all about objectivity. The co-host encouraged Obama to lash out at Donald Trump."

Getting past the prebuttals to the actual interview, Nicholas Fondacaro grumbled that King "conducted a gooey interview" and proclaimed that "CBS’s insistence on letting King (someone who also donated to Democrats) shows they’re not a serious news organization."

Under the headline "GAG," Marsh returned to huff: CBS’s 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley gave Gayle King a run for her money in who could be the most obnoxious, sycophantic journalist interviewing Barack Obama for his new book on Sunday. After Pelley prompted the former president to compare President Trump to a dictator who had weakened our country before our adversaries, he buttered up Obama as actually too nice to Trump and claimed Americans wanted Obama to be nastier to the sitting president."

Whitlock came back to whine: "Who needs a PR machine when you have CBS News? That’s certainly the case when it comes to Barack Obama and his new book. In less than 24 hours, CBS promoted the Democrat’s new book for 48 minutes over multiple programs."

Marsh found another network to attack over Obama: "Like the obedient lap dogs they are, MSNBC immediately took up Barack Obama’s call for the mainstream media to fight conservative media misinformation when Joe Biden is in the White House." She disingenously added regarding former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs' appearance on the channel: "Gibbs immediately went to low-hanging fruit by bringing up birther conspiracies about President Obama from the fringe as if to suggest this was the kind of news being spread by most conservative media outlets, (when actually Hillary Clinton supporters actually started these conspiracies about Obama in 2008.)" In fact, the MRC passively endorsed Obama birtherism and only spoke out against it in 2016 when the eligibility of Ted Cruz -- MRC chief Brent Bozell's preferred Republican presidential candidate that year before doing the big Trump flip -- was questioned.

Joseph Norris chimed in with a claim that "In two separate segments on Monday morning’s New Day, CNN hosts Alisyn Camerota and John Berman gushed over former President Obama being invited to trash President Trump during a pair of softball CBS interviews on Sunday" and "continued to swoon over Obama’s upcoming book and media appearances," going on to grouse, "While the words of a former President should be reported on, they should not be treated with the weight and deference the partisan network provided, especially given the blatant partisan motivation behind the remarks."

Whitlock returned to whine again, this time about Gayle King having "cheered the “powerful message” of Mrs. Obama going after Donald Trump again."

And Tim Graham -- who expressed much of the envious jealousy over the Obamas' post-presidency success -- devoted a column to huffing about "the media's incessant and aerobic adoration of former President Barack Obama" and rehashing the complaints his MRC underlings were paid to issue about the interviews:

After four years of reflection (and a reported $65 million his and hers book advance), the Almighty Barack Obama has come forward to bless the media with a 768-page memoir — and it's only volume one, with another one expected to follow. This takes the Obama-loving reader through the victorious takedown of Osama bin Laden in May 2011.

[...]

These are only the interviews granted before this doorstop of a book is available in stores. But we can already see that, as Bernard Goldberg memorably described in his book title, this "slobbering love affair" never ends.

Graham added: "Obviously, conservatives believe that the job of holding the news media accountable is ineluctably connected to the media's alleged watchdog role." Of course, the MRC's own "news" division, CNSNews.com, is exempt from the MRC's scrutiny, having embarsssed itself as a pro-Trump sycophant with no interest whatsoever on serving as a watchdog on its fellow conservatives.

UPDATE: Marsh had yet another Obama meltdown, sneering "Gross" in the headine and ranting that "Late Show host Stephen Colbert practically bowed down before Barack Obama during a sit-down interview with the former President on his Tuesday night CBS show," while denouncing the interview as filled with "liberal smugness."

WND's Klayman Rants Against Jews While Denying He's Anti-Semitic
Topic: WorldNetDaily

When you feel you have to explain you're not anti-Semitic before going on an anti-Jewish tirade, you're losing. And that's what Larry Klayman -- who once accused a judge of being biased against him because she's a Jew and not, you know, because of his own terrible lawyering -- does in his Nov. 12 WorldNetDaily column:

Let me get this up front! I am a proud Jew and a Zionist who believes in our Savior Jesus Christ, Yeshua, the truest Jew there ever was! Let me also make this clear: The overwhelming majority of Jews in this nation, Israel and spread throughout the world are not followers of self-hating Jews such as the inventors and later disciples of communism Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Saul Alinsky, Bernie Sanders, George Soros or anyone else of the Jewish left. Among all peoples, Jews – as the most persecuted minority in world history, losing over 6 million good souls at the hands of Hitler who many think also had self-hating Jewish roots by way of one of his grandfathers – understand what an oppressive centralized government stranglehold on the populace means in terms of one's life expectancy.

Ever since I founded Judicial Watch on July 29, 1994, conceived to be a conservative-oriented public interest watchdog meant to fight against corruption in government and the legal system, I have been attacked primarily by leftist Jews in the media. Among these hateful hacks and followers if not apologists of and for socialism and communism are people such as Jeffrey Toobin, the now disgraced legal analyst of CNN and recently fired reporter of The New Yorker Magazine. Today, I sent out a tweet and Parler message, tongue in cheek, that at least we now know that Toobin has a private part, since I have never seen any evidence that the Jewish left is so endowed.

[...]

Indeed, the Jewish left is sick and as destructive of Jews and all they stand for as the vile felonious Muslims Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who now infest our Congress and are given a huge megaphone by the Jewish left. The Jewish left, which not only dominates if not controls Hollywood – the beautiful people of Tinseltown – but also the mainstream media as a whole, will, if left unchecked, generate a wave of increased anti-Semitism by those who do not understand that they do not represent the Jewish people. That is sure to happen if conservatives and other Jews, the majority of whom are conservative or libertarian, do not strongly oppose them!

As a further example, just look at the makeup of the "Communist News Network," also known as CNN. From the head of the network on down, Jeff Zucker, to Jake Tapper, to Wolf Blitzer and a host of others, the network is effectively dominated by the Jewish left, spewing forth hate against President Trump, not coincidentally the biggest supporter of Israel the Jewish state has ever seen in an American president, and a supporter of conservatives, libertarians and people of faith in general. It is no coincidence that Chris Wallace, the leftist face of Fox News, is a card-carrying member of the Jewish left.

To make matters even worse, the Jewish left, not just in the United States, but also in Israel, is bent on taking down the Jewish state. If you want proof, just Google the daily articles of not just the New York Times in this country but also its equivalent leftist rag in Israel, El Haaretz.

And, then there are the Jewish leftist so-called professors in our universities, who teach Jewish students to hate their own heritage, brain washing innocent students with trash that Israel is an "apartheid state," effectively extolling the virtues of Palestinian terrorism over our God's land of Zion.

[...]

I am writing this column shortly after I had to sue another hack on the Jewish left, Josh Gerstein of Politico, for a dishonest hit piece he recently did on me. Go to www.larryklayman.com to view the complaint. Let it be said that I will not turn the other cheek as my own so-called people, now with their "champion" self-hating Jew Bernie Sanders wanting to be secretary of labor in the incoming Biden-Harris administration, work to steer the nation into a socialist/communist state the likes of which would make Karl Marx proud.

There it is! A proud Jew has said it, and it's not the first time I have done so in a WND column. Indeed, in my very first article for this fine publication that allows the truth to be told, even if unpleasant, was "The ethical decline of liberal Jewish intelligentsia."

It is time for real Jews to speak up before the Jewish left inflicts more harm on the Jewish people, Israel, the United States and the world. In so doing, we must make it clear that they do not represent us, the overwhelming majority of Jews who believe in freedom, liberty, capitalism, religious liberty and free speech, untainted by Marxism and other self-hating strains of tyranny.

Yeah, pretty much what you'd expect from Larry Klayman.

CNS' Stenography of Lindsey Graham Doesn't Hold Up
Topic: CNSNews.com

Stenography done by a "news" operation tends not to age well. But that didn't stop Melanie Arter, CNSNews.com's chief pro-Trump stenographer, for uncritically transcribing a Fox Business appearance by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham in a Nov. 10 article:

When asked to react to the media declaring former Vice President Joe Biden the next president, Graham said, “Well number one, this is a contested election. The media doesn't decide who becomes president. If they did you'd never have a Republican president forever, so we're discounting them. 

“So, what happened? The Trump team has canvassed all early voters and absentee mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania, and they've found over 100 people they think were dead, but 15 people that we verified that have been dead who voted, but here’s the one that gets me. Six people registered after they died and voted. In Pennsylvania, I guess you're never out of it," he said.

But as others have pointed out, that 15, even if proven to be fraud, falls far less than the thousands of votes that Trump was behind in the state. And it turns out that at least one case was not fraud: one woman listed as having voted but died before the election had filled out a mail-in ballot two days before her death, according to her daughter. And who did she vote for? Trump.

Arter went on to transcribe:

Host Maria Bartiromo asked Graham about a postal worker who has a sworn affidavit saying that supervisors were back-dating ballots.

[...]

Graham sent a letter to Attorney General Bill Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray saying that he received the affidavit from Richard Hopkins, the postal worker in Erie, Pa.

It turns out that after the Graham interview, Hopkins disavowed the affidavit, which he says was written by Project Veritas, the discredited right-wing activist group. Project Veritas then claimed that Hopkins recanted his recantation claiming he was coerced by Postal Service investigators, but the released audio doesn't demonstrate that.

Needless to say, neither Arter nor anyone else at CNS has reported on these developments, leaving Graham's discredited claim to stand uncorrected and not updated. It's just another piece of CNS' highly biased pro-Trump coverage after the election.

MRC Tries To Lecture Biden On Being Catholic
Topic: Media Research Center

We've noted how the Media Research Center's "news" division, CNSNews.com, loves to lecture even Pope Francis on how to be Catholic. That tendency has spilled over to the MRC proper, where Gabriel Hays spent a Nov. 12 post whining about how Joe Biden, a lifelong Catholic, isn't Catholic enough because he doesn't hate gay people like Hays does and won't make abortion illegal:

One of the left’s grossest tricks is to convince weak-minded Catholics that Biden is a good Catholic man. One outlet’s latest attempt at getting readers duped into believing in Biden’s piety is saying that he’s a “Pope Francis Catholic,” whatever that means. 

On Thursday, The Huffington Post tried to sell apparent President-elect Joe Biden’s saintliness by praising his Catholic faith and talking about its similarities to that of Pope Francis. Though anyone who has had any serious Catholic upbringing knows this is complete BS, mainly for the fact that Joe Biden needs to actually give a damn about Catholic teaching in order to be in line with anything the pope believes. 

The piece ceremoniously touted Biden as the “second Roman Catholic politician” in the nation’s highest office. That’s such an achievement, right? Not if Biden is Catholic in name only. Still, we were waterboarded with the fact that Biden carries a rosary and how his faith keeps him going. The piece gushed, “Biden, an Irish Catholic who carries a rosary in his pocket, spoke often on the campaign trail about how his faith has led him through periods of suffering in his life.”

Considering Biden is a radical pro-abort, pro-LGBTQ politician who has helped target religious groups like the Catholic “Little Sisters of the Poor” during the Obama administration, for example, he’s completely at odds with Catholic teaching and Pope Francis, but of course, in the media’s eyes, both men bring a nice and more “humble” approach to the faith.

So, if anything, Huffington Post was just reinforcing the fact that Biden is a hypocrite.

Actually, Gabe, nobody "targeted" the Little Sisters of the Poor; it refused to abide by the religious acommodation provided in the Affordable Care Act regarding coverage of contraceptives for its lay employees -- it did not qualify for a religious exemption because it employs non-religious people -- and was the instigator in filing a lawsuit to insist that checking a box on a firm infringed upon their religious rights (with apparently no concern for the rights of their lay employees).

Hays' tirade continued:

The media also love to make it look like prominent Catholics approve of un-Catholic practices. They love that a “Catholic” president is cool with officiating a gay wedding, for example, and they love it when the pope gives an unwieldy, taken-out-of-context quote< about homosexual "civil unions" as if that's a sign of a future evolution of church teaching.

Spoiler alert, Huffington Post: No matter what Joe Biden does, and no matter what the pope gives as his personal opinion, Catholic teaching maintains that it stays the same forever.

He finally concluded by sneering that "Joe Biden is a fake Catholic." Hays did not explain what expertise in Catholicism he has to determine who is a "fake Catholic."

But Hays is not the only uber-Catholic at the MRC in Heathering mode. Sergie Daez spent a Nov. 12 post having a fit that the Jesuits -- a Catholic order nobody can crediibly accuse of being "fake Catholic" -- committing the apparent sin of not hating Biden for not being Catholic enough:

Jesuits used to be known as the shock troops of the Counter Reformation. Nowadays in America, these Catholic priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus are little more than sycophants to liberal Catholic politicians.

The Jesuit magazine America recently published an article that touted presidential candidate Joe Biden as a practicing Catholic whose faith was a “gift.” Many of his supporters say that “Nothing was more sacred to [Mr. Biden] than his church,” among other things. Proof of Biden’s piety includes his Mass attendance and carrying a Rosary.

That may all be true, but Biden’s political and private life has seen him endorse enough anti-Catholic behavior to make a Muslim shake his head. This includes support for abortion, same sex-marriage, Obamacare in all its anti-religious freedom hideousness, and prosecution of nuns for following their religious beliefs. He even officiated a gay wedding.

But liberal Catholics believe that Biden is the greatest thing to happen to the Church and America since Dorothy Day.

Daez further complained that "Biden isn’t willing to spread Catholicism to others, even though God said to “go and make disciples of all nations” in the bible," even though that's not Biden's job as president; he has to serve all Americans, not just Catholics.

Daez attacked the Jesuits again in a Nov. 18 post because its magazine argued that Catholic bishops shouldn't "alieniate" Biden by freaking out over his abortion stance the way Daez is:

Are the Jesuits interested in saving souls, which is their principal duty as priests and brothers, or running for political office? They seem to be heavily invested in government issues. Since when have these problems, like climate change for example, become equal in importance to ending infanticide? They need to get their priorities straight.

America not only wanted the bishops to tolerate Biden’s stances toward abortion, they also maintain the laughable lie that Biden is a good Catholic. America resented the idea of preventing Biden from receiving Holy Communion. Labeling such tactics as a “political weapon,” they then asked, “If Mr. Biden is denied Communion, should the same happen to the millions of Catholics who voted for him?”

[...]

The U.S. bishops and the Catholic community are supposed to love God above all else and then love others. If Biden’s social justice comes at the cost of more infant lives, then it won’t matter how much racial justice is achieved or global peace is obtained. 

Apparently, the only good Catholics are those to the right of the dishonest and hateful Bill Donohue of the Catholic League (on whose board Daez's boss, Brent Bozell, sits).

Newsmax's Hirsen Latches Onto Bogus Election Conspiracy Theories
Topic: Newsmax

If smirky Newsmax columnist James Hirsen was complaining about "moral projection" before the presidential election, it's fair to say that the pro-Trump writer was clearly engaging in amoral projection afterwards.

Hirsen went all-in on election fraud conspiracy theories in his Nov. 9 column, falsely declaring that "Last minute rule changes, software glitches, count halts, ballot dumps, and statistical anomalies made their ugly appearances this election-go-round, all to the benefit of one party only" (italics in original). As a purported example of this, he claimed: "In Michigan, Democratic presidential candidate Biden at one point received a block of 138,000 votes. Nearly all of the votes added to his tally. This is a statistical impossibility." In fact, that was a typo that was quickly fixed.

Hirsen also asserted:

Dominion Democracy Suite software was used for tabulating ballots in Michigan’s Antrim County. A reported "glitch" caused at least 6,000 Republican votes to be counted as Democrat votes, according to Michigan GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox.

When corrected, the miscalculation, which was first reported by a county clerk, changed the results of the county from candidate Biden to President Trump.

Forty-seven other counties in Michigan may also have suffered a similar glitch, due to the same software. If each of these counties, when corrected, were to have a switch-over of 6,000 votes, it would result in President Trump receiving 282,000 additional votes, likely changing Michigan’s election results.

In fact, the "glitch" was a human error, not a problem with the Dominion software, and nothing similar happened in the 65 other Michigan counties (not 47, as Hirsen claimed) that used Dominion software.

Hirsen was still in conspiracy-theory mode in his Nov. 16 column, demanding that states override the popular vote and get Trump re-elected:

Despite repetitive denials emanating from a multitude of Democratic and media sources, it's clear that there has been unprecedented and widespread voter fraud as it relates to the all-important 2020 presidential election.

Although several lawsuits have been filed and are in the process of being adjudicated, the ultimate antidote for the toxin that has infected our electoral system does not rest in a state or federal judiciary.

Instead it rests in the state legislature.

[...]

President Trump’s supporters need to keep the faith — in the Constitution, in the truth, and in him.

Hirsen got all emo in his Nov. 23 column by couching his conspiracy theories in what he insisted was a "dark night of the soul" for America:

In essence, half the population is now being told to reject what they have seen with their own eyes, heard with their own ears, and know in their own hearts; that on election night, the vote counting of several states was halted, with no explanation given.

When it once again commenced, suddenly there were massive quantities of votes that came in for the Democratic presidential candidate.

In congressional, state, and local races, voters turned away from Democratic candidates, yet they still managed to vote for the Democratic candidate for president.

In record numbers, Black Americans chose the Republican candidate.

Nevertheless, the Democratic presidential candidate somehow received 11 million more votes than former President Barack Obama did in 2008.

[...]

And the same people who spread false information about Russia-gate and Ukraine-gate are now urging folks to move on, claiming that there is nothing to investigate and that the American people should graciously accept their candidate of choice.

First: Those "record numbers" of Black voters for Trump still meant that only 8 percent of Black voters voted for him. 92 percent did not.

Second: there are more Americans than there were in 2008 and 2012, and many of them were motivated to vote against Trump, so it makes sense that Biden got more votes than Obama.

Hirsen tried to end on an optimistic note: "What follows the lowest of low points is an unexpected breakthrough that enables the protagonist to overcome seemingly impossible odds and secure victory. I like to think of it as 'The Bright Light of the Spirit.'" The problem, of course, is that he believes that the dishonest, amoral, reality-denying Trump is the protagonist.