Topic: Media Research Center
When it wasn't working the debates for his benefit, the Media Research Center's DeSantis Defense League continued to promote and defend its favorite Republican presidential candidate. Clay Waters was angered in an Oct. 3 post by the New York Times pointing out that DeSantis' anti-immigration platform is unrealistic:
The New York Times continued to paint Republicans as the extremists on the immigration issue, even when it’s the Democratic Party who seems eager to welcome a surge of migrants and perhaps even give them the vote.
The online headline over the story by Nicholas Nehamas and Eileen Sullivan didn’t even nod toward objectivity: “With Unrealistic Immigration Proposals, DeSantis and Trump Try to Outdo Each Other.”
Campaign reporter Nehamas is notoriously hostile to DeSantis, and Sullivan's previous misleading reporting captures her siding with illegal immigrants, so this anti-DeSantis screed comes as no surprise.
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The Times piled on details to make it seem an impossible mission to enforce U.S. law, making the unbearable status quo, which is causing protests in even liberal New York City, seem inevitable.
Waters is notoriously hostile to the Times -- bashing it was once his exclusive job at the MRC -- so perhaps he should be disregarded the way he thinks we should ignore Sullivan. Also, Waters is too busy bashing the Times to even bother to explain why DeSantis' eagerness to deport all undocumented immigrants has any basis in reality.
Luis Cornelio served up DeSantis stenography in an Oct. 9 post, cheering how he adhered to his employer's talking points:
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) did not mince his words against the leftist Silicon Valley giants and the onslaught of free speech in response to the Supreme Court agreeing to hear a case involving a 2021 Florida anti-censorship law.
DeSantis blasted Big Tech platforms' role in blocking information from the American public during an interview with Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday on Oct. 8. “We have to grapple with the fact that these Big Tech companies colluded with the federal government to stifle dissent on COVID,” DeSantis said. “If you put up an article in COVID in March of 2020 saying COVID came from the Wuhan Lab, they would take it down and censor it. If you criticized lockdowns, they would take it down. They censored the Hunter Biden laptop story at the behest of the federal government.”
Indeed, MRC Free Speech America exclusively unveiled over 800 instances of COVID-19-related censorship in 2022.
Kevin Tober groused in an Oct. 10 post that "Correspondent Lisa Ling’s first assignment for CBS Mornings Tuesday after leaving CNN was to smear the AP education standards and accuse conservatives like Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis of not teaching the full history of the United States, especially when it comes to slavery." Tim Graham followed with an Oct. 16 post complaining that "60 Minutes" pointed out the negative effects of DeSantis' policies in Florida:
Two years ago, CBS reporter Sharyn Alfonsi unloaded a 60 Minutes hit piece on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his COVID-vaccine rollout. She said it sounded like....The Hunger Games. Alfonsi went to a DeSantis press conference and fought with him, and then edited out his rebuttal in their hit piece. On Sunday, CBS and Alfonsi uncorked another one.
Remember DeSantis flying migrants to Martha's Vineyard? CBS promoted a Democrat sheriff in Texas who says DeSantis committed a crime.
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First, she turned to local lefties, like tavern owners Larkin and Jackie Stallings. Jackie speaks Spanish, so she claimed all the migrants were touting what work they could do. Alfonsi wouldn't tell viewers Jackie Stallings tweeted that DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott should be in prison!
Graham went on to complain that the show quoted a Texas sheriff who said "it was wrong for the Florida governor to fly illegal immigrants from Texas to Massachusetts," but Graham never explain what was right about it. Graham continued to rage about the "vicious attack piece" on DeSantis in his Oct. 16 podcast.
A Nov. 3 post by Mark Finkelstein touted that MSNBC's Joe Scarborough "conducted a lengthy interview with Ron DeSantis. A wide range of issues, foreign and domestic, were discussed, with DeSantis displaying an impressive breadth and depth of knowledge." He expressed surprise that "the overall tone was respectful, with Scarborough even praising DeSantis for being forthright about his views."
The MRC, meanwhile, did not want to discuss DeSantis' apparent preference for wearing lifts in his shoes to make himself look taller.
