Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com has never stopped being dedicated to pro-Trump stenography, and that behavior didn't change during the government shutdown.
A Jan. 2 article by Susan Jones uncritically rehashed several Trump tweets, including claims that Obamas have a "ten foot Wall around their D.C. mansion/compound" and that the idea of a concrete wall "was NEVER ABANDONED." In fact, as an actual news outlet reported, there is no "ten foot Wall" around the Obamas' house but, rather, chain link fencing and security fencing on top of an existing retaining wall; and Trump has wavered on the kind of wall he wants built.
Meanwhile, Jones was much more opinionated about Democrats she featured. She huffed that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer highlighted "their plan to end what they call the 'Trump shutdown'" (you know who else called the Trump shutdown? Trump himself) and going on to opine: "One of President Trump's harshest critics in the liberal media, MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski, began Wednesday's "Morning Joe" with a sneer, proving that 2019 is beginning with the same anti-Trump venom that thrived in 2018."
Jones didn't mention that she and the rest of CNS were beginning 2019 with the same pro-Trump stenography that they embraced in 2018.
A Jan. 8 article by Craig Bannister touted how trump sent Department of Homeland Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen's (whose name Bannister misspells as "Nielson") presentation on "the threat of illegal immigration" arter "Democrat [sic] leaders refused to hear it at the White House," then repeated many of the numbers in it. But as another actual news outlet reported, several of the numbers are misleading or unsubstantiated; for instance, thte claim that "Illegal drugs at the southern border experienced a dramatic spike FY17-FY18" omits the fact that most of those drugs are seized at ports of entry.
The same day, Jones gave a pass to Nielsen (whose name was spelled correctly this time) for refusing to say exactly how many suspected terrorists cross the border because "the exact number is sensitve," then played up her assertion that "I am sure all Americans would agree that even one terrorist reaching our borders is one too many. As a fact-check pointed out, "the terrorist watch list doesn’t mean these are terrorists. It means their names were similar to those of people on the list." The fact-check added: "If any of these people was actually a terrorist, you can bet that we would know by now."
On Jan. 9, Melanie Arter devoted an article to Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham slobbering over Trump's Oval Office address, proclaiming it "the most presidential" he has seen Trump. Arter did not permit any dissenting opinion.
In a Jan. 14 article, Bannister highlighted how Trump "described the horrors of women who are bound and gagged by traffickers, crammed into vehicles “three, four, five, six at a time,” and smuggled against their will into the U.S.," adding that "Human traffickers don’t enter through official U.S. checkpoints – they go through unsecured areas on the border that don’t have a wall or steel barrier – Trump said." In fact, as another fact-checker documented:
[H]uman-trafficking experts and advocates for immigrant women have said they are perplexed by this increasingly repeated story in Trump’s repertoire — and are at a loss for where he got his information. It was not from them, they say; in fact, they have no idea what he is talking about.
[...]
In interviews with The Washington Post this week, nine aid workers and academics who have worked on the border or have knowledge of trafficking there said the president’s tape anecdote did not mirror what they have seen or heard. A separate story reported in the Toronto Star cited several additional experts who said Trump’s lurid narrative — migrant women bound, gagged and driven across the border — does not align with their known reality.
When Trump offered concessions in the form of temporary extensions of DACA and TPS policies for undocumented immigrants already in the country as an enticement for Democratic negotiation, Arter devoted an article to summarizing the proposal, then publishing the entire speech. Bannister, meanwhile, only vaguely noted Trump's "concessions to Democrats on the issues of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for asylum-seekers." Neither of them told readers that Trump was giving up nothing; as TPM reported, "it was the Trump administration that attempted to terminate DACA in the first place, and the Trump administration that has aggressively sought to end Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for the vast majority of foreign nationals currently living legally in the United States with the designation."
In a Jan. 24 article, Arter quoted only Republicans in attacking Democrats for failing to support a bill that would have allowed the federal government to continue paying federal workers furloughed by the shutdown -- but she didn't explain why Republicans would support paying someone for work that wasn't being done, nor did she clarify that that bill would not have ended the shutdown at all, since the workers would still be forbidden to work.
Another article by Arter the same day was only slightly less biased: Sixteen of its 18 paragraphs were devoted to Republicans attacking Democrats for refusing to negotiate on border security until the shutdown ended.
When Trump did finally cave and permit the reopening of the government while border negotiations continued, CNS didn't want to admit he caved, at least at first. Arter's initial story on Trump announcing the end of the shutdown quoted only Trump, but it waited until the next day (a Saturday) to publish another, anonymously written article highlighting Schumer's speech on the Senate floor before the body voted to reopen the government, conceding in the headline that "Schumer Claims Victory."
