Topic: Media Research Center
After Republicans selected Mike Johnson as House speaker, the Media Research Center became angry that his right-wing extremism was accurately reported upon. That continued days after Johnson's selection:
- The Atlantic Reports Mike Johnson's Great Great Great Grandfather Was an Insurrectionist
- On Colbert Show, Kinzinger Compares Mike Johnson To The Taliban
- Colbert Continues To Smear 'Awful' Johnson In Buttigieg Interview
- Leftist Journos Push Hamas Propaganda as Fact, Compare GOP Speaker to David Duke
- MSNBC's Jen Psaki's Curious Bible Hangup With Speaker Johnson
When it was revealed that Johnson shares "accountability software" with his teenage son that alerts the other party if one of them views pornography, Alex Christy spent a Nov. 7 post complaining that people on TV pointed out how creepy that is:
Sarah Silverman returned to Comedy Central for round two of temp hosting The Daily Show on Monday and spent the majority of the program attacking Speaker Mike Johnson, including for putting porn accountability software on his and his son’s phones. Meanwhile, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel did the same, labeling it “strange.”
Silverman introduced the story, “And finally let’s move on to Washington, D.C., where the new Speaker of the House just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
In a montage of news clips, Johnson was shown in 2022 explaining that, “My accountability partner right now is Jack, my son, right? And, so, he's 17, so he and I get a report of all the things that are on our phones or all of our devices once a week. If anything objectionable comes up, your accountability partner gets an immediate notice.”
Also included in the series of clips was an ad from the software Covenant Eyes which featured a man in a superhero costume proclaiming, “Every superhero has his strengths and weaknesses. My superpower: strength. My weakness: porn,” with the last bit showing the superhero transforming into just a regular guy.
Silverman thought this was all very odd, “Wow, these Marvel movies are really running out of ideas. Why is he a superhero whose weakness is porn, like, what is that origin story, did his parents die masturbating to horny MILFs? Was he hit with a radioactive money shot?”
[...]
Kimmel, meanwhile, was less gratuitous, but still was greatly confused, “Meanwhile, our new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, is giving us plenty to talk about… It’s very, very strange to ask your teenage son to be your porn accountability partner. I mean, I get it -- you don't want them watching, but how about this. You know, Mike, if you have nobody else in your life to do this with, I will gladly be your porn accountability partner.”
Concluding, Kimmel compared Johnson to another Republican, “I'm pretty sure we can do it cross-country. I'm very open minded. Whatever weird stuff you're watching – I don’t know, clown porn, cosplay, stepmom, foot fetish, the stuff with the tentacles -- no problem. I don't judge. What happens between you Mike and your Johnson is your business. But let’s get your son out of this. I didn't think it was possible, but Mike Johnson makes Mike Pence look like Mike Tyson.”
There’s lots of debate in comedy about what is considered “too far” or offensive, but mocking virtue and how people take steps to avoid temptation is a pretty good indication that you’ve gone to far.
Christy didn't explain what, exactly, where the "virtue" is in Johnson including his teenage son in his porn "accountability" software.
The MRC even managed to find a way to include Johnson in its war on Google, as outlined in a Nov. 15 post by Dan Schneider:
Who is the better person, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi or newly minted Speaker Mike Johnson? Google’s artificial intelligence tool, Bard, has answers that might surprise those unfamiliar with the company’s long history of left-wing bias.
Google's A.I. chatbot Bard provided skewed results just like its search engine has become known for. In searches performed by MRC Free Speech America shortly after the Republican presidential primary debate, researchers first searched for “What can you tell me about Speaker Nancy Pelosi?” and then asked the same question about Speaker Mike Johnson.
For San Francisco darling Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Bard described her work in affirming, virtuous ways while using derogatory terms to describe Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) achievements.
Even more telling is the fact that Bard’s competitor, ChatGPT, did not show this evident discrepancy when MRC researchers presented it with identical queries.
[...]
It seems, however, that Google, not Johnson, is the one out of touch with the American people. As MRC President Brent Bozell put it, “Google treats Nancy Pelosi, arguably the most divisive and radical leftist House Leader in history, like a conquering hero while relegating Speaker Johnson to being a part of a fringe ‘faction’ with ‘ultraconservative’ views. Somebody ought to remind Google that the great bulk of Americans, especially women, favor limits on abortion -just like Mike Johnson - and that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton originally ran for president supporting traditional marriage - just like Mike Johnson.”
Bozell added that “[t]he majority of Americans call themselves Christians, opposed Obamacare when it was forced on them, and still think deficit spending is destroying our economy - just like Mike Johnson. Google is trying to brainwash America.”
Rather than explaining why anyone should trust anything that comes from any AI chatbot -- or even that anything Bard said about Johnson was inaccurate -- Schneider rehashed the MRC's dubious attacks on Google: "Google’s history of rigging its algorithms to achieve its political ends has been well documented by MRC Free Speech America."
