The Month In CNS Obsessing Over Calls to Release Trump's Tax Returns
Topic: CNSNews.com

In addition to her extensive collection of Trump stenography, CNSNews.com reporter Susan Jones has obsessed over calls for President Trump to release his tax returns. That obsession has continued through the month of April.

On April 6, Jones complained that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said that Trump, as president, doesn't have a right to privacy regarding his tax returns. Jones huffed: Democrats believe they’ll find information damaging or embarrassing to the president in his tax returns. They have sought to delegitimize him, at the very least, since he was elected. Some Democrats have even raised the prospect of impeachment."

In response to Rep. Richard Neal pointing out that presidents releasing their tax returns is "custom and practice" and "settled tradition," Jones parenthetically huffed: "For the record, it is also 'custom and practice' to confirm qualified candidates for the Supreme Court, but Democrats in the Senate are now bucking that 'settled tradition.'"Funny, we don't recall Jones making that point last year when undeniably qualified candidate Merrick Garland was nominated to the Supreme Court.

The next day, Jones did another article about how Sen. Ron Wyden asked IRS commissioner John Koskinen about Trump's tax returns, grumbling, "Every year around this time, the Senate Finance Committee holds a hearing on the tax filing season. But this is the first time a committee member has asked the IRS commissioner about a president’s tax returns."

On April 18, Jones tried to play gotcha with a Democratic congressman:

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I) has co-sponsored a bill that would require U.S. presidents and vice presidents to release their tax returns, and now Whitehouse has agreed to do what he’s demanding of others -- for the very first time.

The Providence Journal, quoting a spokeswoman for Whitehouse, said the senator and his wife “have in the past kept their personal tax return private to protect the privacy of their children,” who are now 23 and 27.

[...]

Many congressional Democrats and other anti-Trump Americans – looking for conflicts of interest or other potentially damaging information -- have demanded that President Trump release his tax returns, which he has so far refused to do.

Jones' boss, CNS managing editor Michael W. Chapman, even got in on the fun in an April 19 article quoting his favorite gay-hating, Muslim-hating right-wing pastor:

Commenting on the liberal media's demand that President Donald Trump release his tax returns, evangelical leader Franklin Graham said, "No Way!" and added that it would become "a media frenzy, which is exactly what his enemies want."

"Should President Donald J. Trump release his tax returns?" asked rev. Graham in an April 19 post on Facebook. "A lot of liberals keep demanding it."

"The President hasn’t asked for my advice, but I would say—No way!" remarked Rev. Graham.

"Even if these were published, the average American -- or the average politician, including Senator Chuck Schumer, for that matter -- wouldn’t be able to understand them," said Graham. "President Trump is a billionaire with multiple businesses in multiple states, using our very complicated and corrupt tax code that Congress is responsible for writing—that should be scrapped."

"It would just be another huge distraction, and a media frenzy, which is exactly what his enemies want," said Rev. Graham.

"We don’t need distractions," he said. "We need to let President Trump focus on what America elected him to do."

"We need to get on with the business of solving the problems facing our nation," he said. "Forget the tax returns! We need a simple tax code that all Americans can understand."

Did Graham ever say that President Obama need to be protected from "distractions" about his personal life? Nope -- Graham pushed birther conspiracies. Of course, Chapmann won't tell you that.

Anti-Vaccine WND Blames Measles Outbreak On Muslims, Because Of Course It Would
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Two years ago, the vaccine conspiracy theorists at WorldNetDaily refused to blame a measles outbreak on anti-vaxxers like itself but, rather, on President Obama and immigrants. It's happening again.

Leo Hohmann writes in an April 28 WND article, under the clickbait headline "Quran blamed in new U.S. disease outbreak":

An outbreak of measles is sweeping through a community of Somali refugees in Minnesota and the growing number of cases may be starting to test the limits of the Hennepin County healthcare system.

According to reports from the health commissioner’s office, there are now 30 cases of children in Hennepin County who have been diagnosed with measles, and 28 of them are Somali children who have not been vaccinated. All of the cases involve children 5 years of age and younger.

[...]

Measles were declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, But Minnesota and other states see sporadic cases, typically linked to international travel and the influx of Third World refugees and asylum seekers.

At no point in his article does Hohmann specifically make the headline's claim that the Quran says not to vaccinate people. He does, however quote an anti-Muslim activist suggesting something similar:

Dr. Andrew Bostom, M.D., an academic internist specializing in general internal medicine who has also authored several books about the history of Islam, said Muslim communities often prove difficult to convince that vaccinations are appropriate for their children.

“The case against vaccinations is first an Islamic one,” he said, citing a 2011 article by Dr. Majid Katme, spokesman for the Islamic Medical Association in the United Kingdom.

“We are giving our innocent children haram [forbidden] substances and harmful chemicals that destroy their natural immune systems, causing disease, suffering and death,” Dr. Katme wrote.

But as blogger Richard Bartholomew points out, Hohmann is conflating Somali Americans with Somali refugees. He also notes WND's anti-vaccine attacks, adding:

Further, in 2007 WND‘s tie-in print publication Whistleblower ran a special issue on “Scary Medicine: Exposing The Dark Side of Vaccines”. Contributors included one Dr Sherri Tenpenny, who is on the board of directors of the “International Medical Council on Vaccination”. The council has a website, which includes among its resources… the very screed by Majid Katme quoted by Hohmann and Bostom!

Oops. Is WND renouncing its previous anti-vaccine activism? Or is it only doing so when it can blame someone other than anti-vaxxers for outbreaks? Given WND's history of fundamental dishonesty and Hohmann's obsessive hatred for Muslims, it's likely the latter.

MRC's Hatred of Anita Hill Continues
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has spent the past quarter-century hating Anita Hill for exposing Clarence Thomas' issues with female co-workers, and it't not going to stop now.

In an April 20 post, Kyle Drennen complained that NBC used the Bill O'Reilly sexual harassment scandal to "resurrect the unsubstantiated 1991 smear campaign against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Astonishingly, the numerous sexual harassment claims against former President Bill Clinton were never mentioned."

The same day, the MRC's Scott Whitlock similarly whined:

In the wake of Bill O’Reilly’s exit from Fox News,  USA Today on Thursday decided to highlight a woman who endured sexual harassment from someone powerful and is now the “torchbearer in the decades-long fight against sexual harassment.” Unsurprisingly, that woman is not Paula Jones or one of the women who stood up to Bill Clinton’s sexual harassment. It’s Anita Hill and her efforts to take down Clarence Thomas. 

USA Today writer Jessica Guynn praised, “Though some dismissed her testimony against Thomas as a partisan attack, for many Hill is a torchbearer in the decades-long fight against sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the workplace.”

[...]

Nowhere in the April 20th article did the journalist point out that Hill’s outrage at sexual misconduct is rather selective. On September 28, 1998, she came to the defense of then-President Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Hill wrote an op-ed for the New York Times that decried the “moral fundamentalism” of those who would demand she hold the Democrat accountable. 

Funny how Whitlock doesn't describe Paula Jones, et al, as having the goal of trying to "take down" Clinton.

 

Newsmax's Hirsen Blames Venezuela Crisis On ... Hollywood?
Topic: Newsmax

The headline of James Hirsen's April 24 Newsmax column reads, "Hollywood Inflames Crisis in Venezuela." Huh?

Hirsen rehashes the key right-wing trope about the situation in Venezuela these days -- namely, that it's a direct result of Hugo Chavez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, being socialists. In fact, it has more to do with authoritarian behavior by Chavez and Maduro combined with mismanagement of both the country's oil industry and its economy as a whole.

And somehow "Hollywood" is responsible for that? Hirsen sort of backs off the headline's blanket indictment, instead targeting just a few people he doesn't like:

This is a country that is now being devoured by chaos. Looking back, though, liberal celebrities such as Sean Penn, Harry Belafonte, Jamie Foxx, Danny Glover, Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Oliver Stone, and Naomi Campbell supported Chavez while he ransacked the country, and/or they oftentimes lent their influence to assist his chosen replacement Maduro.

Some of the Hollywood glitterati actually traveled to Venezuela multiple times to aid Chavez’s socialist oppression. Penn acted as a surrogate for Chavez during the dictator’s campaigns. Moore praised the despot for redistributing oil company profits. And Campbell gave kudos to Chavez, even referring to him as a "rebel angel."

[...]

The Hollywood left continued its support for handpicked socialist successor Maduro, who doubled down on Chavez’s failing policies. Penn explicitly endorsed the new dictator Maduro, and Foxx appeared at a staged media event for Chavez’s replacement.

The Chavez-Maduro fans in Hollywood have been unusually quiet as news from Venezuela becomes increasingly grim.

It is time for the far-left in Hollywood to speak out against an ideology built on the greed and egos of power hungry elites, one fueled by the envy and resentment manipulatively induced in the poor and disenfranchised.

Notice that Hirsen uses "liberals," the "left" and the "far-left" interchangeably. Words mean things, but Hirsen doesn't seem to think so. Who, exactly, does Hirsen want to speak out?

It's also worth noting that Hirsen's sudden concern about "the greed and egos of power hungry elites" seem to have went AWOL when Donald Trump was running for president. Hirsen has repeatedly defended Trump in his column.

What LGBT Stuff Is The MRC Freaking Out About Now?
Topic: Media Research Center

The LGBT freakouts are continuing at the Media Research Center.

Alex Nitzberg -- who we last saw having a transgender freakout -- complained that "CBSNews.com published propaganda pieces promoting the radical left’s perverted LGBT agenda" by discussing gender identity. He ranted: "In the twisted logic of the choose-your-own-gender world of contrived gender identities, boys can be girls, girls can be boys and anyone can declare themselves to be something in between, a combination of both or something entirely foreign to the male/female dichotomy." He says it like that's a bad thing.

Sarah Stites huffs in an April 1 post noting awards given out by GLAAD: "When it comes to media portrayal, the LGBT community has one mission – promoting complete and total acceptance. Tolerance is no longer enough." She went on to complain about a "burgeoning movement of beauty vloggers working to de-stigmatize male makeup usage."

Nitzberg struck again in an April 8 post whining that "NBCNews.com’s pro-LGBTQ propaganda arm “NBC OUT” recently announced that it will create a “#Pride30 List” for “Pride Month” this June," complaining further how "many media outlets jettison journalistic standards by blatantly promoting and celebrating the LGBT movement." Does that mean the MRC jettisons any journalistic standards it pretends to have by attacking the LGBT movement at every opportunity?

Lindsay Kornick grumbled that the ABC show "Imaginary Mary" featured a plotline in which a high school student stages a rival version of the musical "Grease" starring her brother in the lead female role.

That was followed by a Sarah Stites freakout over Dove soap putting a "transgender 'mother'" in an ad, as well as "a large number of transgender-themed ads within the beauty sphere."

And Matt Philbin turns in a reliable freakout over a claim that Timon and Pumbaa might be a same-sex couple in an upcoming live-action remake of "The Lion King":

That whirring sound you hear is Walt Disney spinning in his grave, or his cryogenic vault, or whatever his final resting place really is.

[...]

Disney is on a big gay roll. Having won props from the left for making this year’s live action Beauty and the Beast reboot the studio’s “gayest film ever,” why shouldn’t it give The Lion King a similarly fabulous makeover?

And with at least a dozen live action remakes on the slate, it looks like Walt won’t be getting rest anytime soon.

And neither will anyone at the MRC, if their goal is to attack any and every instance of suspected gayness in the media.

WND Changes Chobani-Bashing Article Months After Publication
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Earlier this week, Chobani yogurt sued far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for promoting false claims about refugees that work for its plant in Twin Falls, Idaho. But WorldNetDaily reporter Leo Hohmann has also attacked Chobani as well over doings in Idaho. Why isn't he being sued?

The short answer: WND corrected his false attacks.

We've already noted that Snopes debunked Hohmann's unsubstantiated claim in a January 2016 WND article that the Chobani plant in Idaho "is in line to receive about 300 refugees this year, many of them Muslims from Syria. But there were other issues with that article as well.

It started with the way WND promoted it, with the headline "American yogurt tycoon vows to choke U.S. with Muslims." Numerous media outlets that documented the right-wing war against Chobani and founder Hamdi Ulukaya for encouraging refugees to work in his facilities claimed that this was the original headline on Hohmann's article. We could find no evidence of that; the article was, however, promoted in the carousel on WND's front page with that headline (an screenshot of which is above).

That's not to say the original headline on Hohmann's article -- "American yogurt billionaire: 'Hire more Muslim refugees'" with the subhead "Calls on biggest U.S. companies to join Islamic surge" -- didn't have issues. The chief one is that at no point does Hohmann quote Ulukaya saying "Hire more Muslim refugees," and he doesn't even quote Ulukaya explicitly calling for the hiring of Muslim refugees over other refugees.

Hohmann also wrote that refugees in Idaho are "sent there, many of them, to work in the world's largest yogurt factory" and that Ulukaya "has stepped up efforts to hire as many refugees as he can at his yogurt plants, where they currently account for 30 percent of the total workforce."

But sometime between March 29 and April 3, 2016, the  main headline of Hohmann's article was changed to "U.S. Yogurt billionaire asks businesses to hire more foreign refugees." And between June 7 and and June 29, other changes were made:

• The subhead became "Calls on major American companies to 'step up and do more'."
• Hohmann's assertion that refugees are "sent there, many of them, to work in the world's largest yogurt factory" was changed to "Many of them end up working in the worlds largest yogurt factory."
• HOhmann's assertion that Ulukaya "has stepped up efforts to hire as many refugees as he can at his yogurt plants, where they currently account for 30 percent of the total workforce" was changed to read "Currently refugees account for about 30 percent of the total workforce at Ulukayas yogurt plants."
• The article also gained an "editor's note" stating that "This story has been updated since the original posting to clarify certain parts."

WND didn't tell its reader that these updates were made six months after Hohmann's article was first published. And, thus, there's no mention at all of the only logical reason why one would even bother making such significant updates to an article six months after publication: WND heard from Chobani's lawyers.

Hohmann's and WND's walkback seems to have saved WND from a lawsuit from Chobani. It also apparently made WND much more sensitive about pushing dubious claims about Chobani and refugees. A June, 30, 2016, article by Hohmann now states: "Editor’s note: Originally this story indicated Chobani was going to increase hiring of refugees above the already high 30-percent level, based on a report by Bloomberg News.  Bloomberg later scrubbed all references to additional Chobani hiring of refugees."

Unfortunately, a lawsuit threat is usually the only way to get WND to correct a false or malicious story on its website.But Chobani knows that and -- good for them -- is not afraid to go there. Now if only WND were capable of being more honest about having to make those corrections...

MRC Bashes Anyone Attacking Ivanka Trump ... Except Fox News
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center started off the week in full Ivanka Trump defense mode:

Nicholas Fondacaro complained that media outlets "hype[d]" -- read: reported on -- Ivanka getting booed during an appearance in Germany, further whining: They had the option to simply note the heckling and move on to what else she said about women in business. But they chose to hyper-focus on the most sensational and inconsequential moment."

Dawn Slusher grumbled about an Ivanka joke on the new TV show "Great News," huffing that "the left" would never do such a thing about Chelsea Clinton. "So much for children of presidents being off-limits," Slusher added, apparently unaware that Chelsea never worked in the White House as a senior presidential adviser to anyone, let alone her mother.

But when Fox News' Jesse Watters made the creepy comment that Ivanka was in Germany, "I really liked how she was speaking into that microphone," the MRC couldn't be moved to express any outrage. Indeed, it tok the MRC nearly two full days to respond -- and it sought to distract from the incident.

In an April 27 post, Kristine Marsh declared Watters' comment to be "offhanded" and "innocuous" and blamed the media for covering it:

That offhanded comment has thrown the media in a tailspin of ridiculous accusations of oral sex innuendo, riding on the heels of O’Reilly’s departure from the network.For example last night on CNN, host Don Lemon hosted a whole panel segment on the throw-away comment as if it were an actually newsworthy controversy. 

[...]

Watters explained shortly afterwards that the comment was about how Ivanka’s cadence reminded the panel of how smooth jazz radio hosts crooned, and was in no way a blow-job joke, as the media has spun it.

It’s no surprise that CNN would want to continue the Fox News sex scandal storyline as long as they can after O’Reilly and Ailes ousting. But to read something sexual in Watters’ comment is just plain grasping at straws.

Marsh offers no reason why we should take Watters' denial of malicious sexual intent in his Ivanka comment at face value -- and she also didn't mention the hand gesture he made while saying it. (Nor did Marsh feel the need to embed a video clip of Watters' comment so we could judge for ourselves.)

Instead, Marsh rants about "faux-outrage from the left" and offered "small sampling of actually misogynistic comments made on-air by liberal tv hosts about Ivanka Trump" and others. Marsh labels a couple clips "incest joke about Trump and Ivanka," failing to mention that Donald Trump's own comments about his daughter invited such a response.

It seems that the MRC's Fox News-shaped blind spot is current coalescing into the shape of Jesse Watters. Is the guarantee of talking-head time on Fox worth all this hypocrisy?

WND Has Mixed Feelings On O'Reilly's Departure From Fox News
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily, it appears, can't quite figure out how to feel about Bill O'Reilly's firing from Fox News and the allegations of sexual harassment that caused it.

WND did dutifully serve up a list of "all 12 leer, stare, grunt and grab claims against O'Reilly," and editor Joseph Farah's first column on O'Reilly after his departure was a typically self-aggrandizing account of "My recollections of the late, great Bill O'Reilly" reminding us that O'Reilly's syndicated column was started at WND.

For his next column, though, Farah decided he wasn't ready to throw O'Reilly under the bus after all, with a rant in which he rather stupidly likens sexually harassing women to ... being gay:

However, let’s think about this in the context of leftist ideology. It generally insists that people are who they are sexually and there is generally nothing they can do about it. Someone who is “gay” can’t change. Someone who is bisexual can’t change. Someone who was born anatomically a male could really believe he is a female, and we should all understand his need to live out that fantasy.

They can’t help being what they are – and sex drives and predilections are impossible to change, the left tells us.

Do I have this right so far?

If so, what if Bill O’Reilly can’t help himself?

Aren’t there lots of men and women prone to adultery?

Aren’t there lots of men and women prone to sleeping around?

Should there not be some consideration and tolerance for men and women who are simply being who they are sexually?

Or is it only homosexuals, bisexuals, lesbians and “transgenders” who have the right to be who they are? What about the poor male slob who just can’t stop hitting on women?

Jesse Lee Peterson joined in the bluster, asserting: "O’Reilly’s departure from Fox News had little to do with sexual harassment. The firing of O’Reilly is about silencing a straight, white, powerful, Christian man who had the backbone and decency to treat Donald Trump fairly."

Peterson added that "I don't believe" O'Reilly is guilty of the allegations against him, and that even if he was, the punishment doesn't fit the crime and blamed it all on "man-hating feminists." Recall that Peterson said pretty much the same thing about Bill Cosby.

Mychal Massie followed by asking, "what makes Bill O’Reilly worse than Bill Clinton?" adding, "O’Reilly should be a lesson to all men, especially those in the political arena. The adulterous leftists use sex to buy and own politicians, and they also use it to destroy those they hate."

The so-called news side of WND flipped as well. On April 23, Art Moore expressed concern that Rupert Murdoch's "politically progressive son" James was looking to create a global news brand that would make Fox News look more like --gasp! -- CNN. And an April 26 article by Chelsea Schilling fretted that Fox News employees were being ordered to attend sensitivity training.

Looks like WND is having trouble trying to thread the needle of protecting O'Reilly while also trying not to be too hypocritical about it.

CNS Columnist Blames Victim's 'Culture of Entitlement' In Airplane Incident
Topic: CNSNews.com

WorldNetDaily columnist Sean Harshey isn't the only ConWeb writer who wants to blame that guy for choosing to be dragged off that United Airlines plane.

CNSNews.com columnist Lynn Wardle joins the victim-blaming in his April 18 column with a lot of complaining about a "culture of entitlement":

His behavior seemed to be deliberately intended to maximize the stress and trauma for everyone – including not just the United employees and airport police but also all of the other passengers on the plane.

He succeeded in doing that.  Somehow he got back on the plane and had to be removed a second time. 

Apparently that passenger claimed to be a doctor who had patients to see the next day.  Certainly that is a relevant consideration.  But is it really dispositive?  Are doctors really so much more (that much more) important than other passengers?

Are doctors somehow morally superior to other passengers who are teachers, students, public employees, and business men and women who are working hard to provide for their families?  Are they more important than moms and dads who are trying to get back to their families, to help their children get off to school the next morning?

The passenger was described as a 69-year-old man.  Perhaps his age had something to do with his behavior.  Older people sometimes can be grumpy and difficult. (I say that sheepishly as an older person myself.)

[...]

Perhaps other factors contributed to his disturbing behavior.  The incident exemplified what could be called a “culture of entitlement.”  While it can be found in many (probably all) nations and cultures, it seems to be in abundant supply in the United States today.

It is a “pound-your-fist-on-the-table-and-stand-on-your-rights” mentality.  It says: “I paid for this service so I am entitled to have it without any disruptions or inconveniences.” 

Sadly, this incident contributes to a public perception that doctors consider themselves to be better than other people.  It fosters the perception that doctors are arrogant, superior, and think that they are above the common inconveniences of life that other people have to experience from time to time.

Wardle does aver that "it also could be argued that the United employees and the airport police displayed a “culture of entitlement” in the way they dealt with the situation." But much of his ire is directed at the doctor, and he's weirdly oblivious to the fact that, yes, there is something of an entitlement to paying for an airline ticket and going through all of the hoops necessary to actually get seated on the plane -- one has paid for a service and one does not expect to be randomly kicked off the plane after one has been seated on it, for no reason other than the airline wanted to put its own employees on instead.

Wardle claims to be a law professor, and he doesn't seem to know about any of the legal ramifications of any of all this, which go beyond questions of "entitlement"?

New WND Columnist Has An Identity Problem
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily's newest columnist seems to be having a bit of an identity crisis.

When he joined WND last month, he was presented as "entrepreneur, speaker, author and commentator Mason Weaver." But his personal website calls him Clarence A. Mason. And some of his books -- one of which is titled "It's OK To Leave the Plantation: The New Underground Railroad" -- carry the oddly quoted name Clarence Mason "Weaver." We could find no expanation on his website for the multiplicity of names. But unquoted Weaver he is at WND, apparently.

WND also curiously omits that Mason -- er, Weaver claims to be something right-wingers love: a black liberal turned conservative. A 2016 Daily Caller article portrays Weaver as a "formerly hate-filled, Berkeley Black Panther liberal" who was "so filled with hatred towards white people in America, that he broke up with a girlfriend who had a white dog" but now insists that "Barack Obama hates America" and that people who don't agree with him "have a vested interest in staying stupid."

In other words, he's a Jesse Lee Peterson type. WND already has one of those, so perhaps it was trying to forge a separate identity for Weaver.

However, Weaver goes full Jesse in his April 20 WND column, in which he asks, "What happened to you white people?"

All they have to do is call you a name and you apologize for being white. Can you imagine the names I am called for being a black conservative? Get over your guilt; it is killing us.

They forced affirmative action down your throats, and you sat silently. They forced your children out of jobs and gave them to others, and you thought it was noble to pay for your fathers’ sins.

Maybe there is something else going on with you. Maybe some of you really consider yourselves having “white privilege.” Wake up! White privilege does not exist. Stop apologizing for having a culture. Start proclaiming that what works for you will work for anyone.

[...]

So, white folks! What happen to you Vikings? Where are the Roman Legions? And please go find the heart of the British Empire. Yes, I am a black man living in America, and I know the history of white folks. But the changes in America and the world never would have happened without the help of those same white people. White people manned the Underground Railroad, opened to doors at the safe houses and help escaped slaves when they reached the North.

Now you allow the enemy to look you in the eye and announce that illegals will not only have sanctuary cities but will also have welfare, housing and less-expensive college tuition than your out-of-state child. And your response is SILENCE? You accept the term “metrosexual” and actually watch as society tries to get you to question what a male is. Every commercial, talk show, movie or comedy act portrays white men as stupid, weak, racist and needing women to tell them how to be men. Aren’t you tired of that?

Now we must stand together as we face new and more powerful opponents. Black conservatives cannot withstand this new onslaught while you guys are apologizing for white privilege. It is difficult for us to have a united front if you cannot get over that slavery thing.

Weaver, or whoever, seems to know a lot about white identity for a guy who can't even give a consistent name to his own.

MRC Bashes 'Girls' From Its Right-Wing Media Bubble
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center loves to indulge in the logical fallacy that a TV show that is not massively popular cannot possibly be very good. The latest is Sarah Stites, qwho spends her April 18 post bashing the TV show "Girls" upon the end of that series:

The media love to analyze Girls. Somehow, despite its low viewership, Lena Dunham’s raunchy show about four millennial women finding their way in New York City captured the fancy of the journalistic world – from Jezebel to the New York Times. Now, in the wake of the final episode, writers and critics are “mourning the end of an era” with the loss of the “influential” HBO series.

But, amidst all the ruminations on the show’s legacy, no one is asking: what does the journalist-hype for Girls say about the media?

[...]

The final season’s debut was watched by only 519,000 viewers, Hibbard noted, with a poor Nielsen rating of .2 among adults ages 18-49.

But the writers who loved it, really loved it. And even if they didn’t love it, they wrote extensively about it. In other words, ratings didn’t seem to mean much.

[...]

The media has promoted the idea that Girls is a reflection of our culture today. In reality, it’s more a reflection of a distinct segment of society: the bubble of liberal, feminist writers.

“I'm sure there are people who watched this show who didn't see a reflection of them or their lifestyle,” HBO CEO Richard Plepler conceded, “but there were millions and millions of people who did.”

What kind of people? The young, New York-based writers working for feminist outlets? The liberal journalists immersed in the progressive culture Girls promotes? 

Of course, Stites would never admit that she's bashing "Girls" from her own bubble: that of right-wing activist media critics.

She would never admit that films that pleased people like Stites and her MRC co-workers for conforming to their political agenda -- such as "For Greater Glory," "13 Hours" and the "Ben-Hur" remake -- were low-quality films because they were box-office failures. To the contrary: they would somehow blame the "liberal media" for the films' failures. Heck, the MRC never even admitted that the films were unpopular.

That bubble is just as real as the one Stites accuses the "liberal, feminist writers" of being in.

Stites makes her contempt for "Girls" more than clear:

Let’s be clear. Girls normalized avoidable messiness. It promoted free sex and wild living. It encouraged irresponsibility by suggesting that it’s just a phase, instead of encouraging young women to strive for better.

So to Girls I say: good riddance.

Let's be clear: Just because Stites didn't like the plot doesn't mean it's a bad show or an artistic failure.

WND's Kupelian Rants Others Are Doing To Trump What WND Did To Obama
Topic: WorldNetDaily

One has to admire, sorta, the strategic lack of self-awareness at WorldNetDaily. WND managing editor David Kupelian writes in an April 13 column:

Yet, ever since Trump emerged the surprise victor in Nov. 8’s historic election, it has been the Democrats who have refused to accept the electorate’s choice, with over 60 Democrat members of Congress boycotting the Inauguration and multitudes of demonstrators marching in the streets carrying “Not My President” signs. Since then, Trump opponents have tried in every conceivable way to undermine – and if possible, reverse – the results of the election:

• First there was Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s demand for a vote recount. Though she won only 1 percent of the popular vote and zero electoral votes, nevertheless Stein asked for – and the Clinton campaign backed – a full vote recount in several states. This pointless and expensive exercise was completed in early December and accomplished little beyond giving Trump even more votes in Wisconsin;
• Later that month, Democrats pursued a campaign to persuade Electoral College delegates to betray the voters they were entrusted to represent and vote against Trump, denying the president-elect the office he won fair and square. But only two Trump electors (from Texas) ended up heeding the siren call to go “faithless”;
• Next was the suggestion that Trump didn’t really win the election because he prevailed only in the Electoral College and not in the popular vote. At the very least, congressional Democrats and the big media insisted, since he didn’t win the popular vote. This despite the fact that the Electoral College has been Americans’ system for electing presidents since 1787, spelled out in the Constitution;
• Then there have been all the calls for Trump’s impeachment. That’s right – even before Inauguration Day some Democrats, including Rep. Maxine Waters, were demanding his removal from office. On what grounds? The California congresswoman told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that if it turned out the Russians had fed Trump his favored nickname for Hillary Clinton (“Crooked Hillary”) or had influenced him to mention her health problems (“she’s ill, something’s wrong with her energy”), then such “collusion” would constitute impeachable offenses. Yes, she really said that.” So, you think you can commit an impeachable offense before you take office?” Matthews asked Waters.”Well, I think that at the point that investigations discover and confirm and can document any of [the Russians’] role in helping to strategize – they had a role in attempting to determine the outcome [of the election],” Waters said, before veering off into even more incomprehensible territory. “What I have learned or heard about the dossier,” continued Waters, referring to the universally discredited intelligence “dossier” that Matthews himself conceded was total “misinformation”: “It’s about his involvement with women. It’s probably prostitutes that are involved and those kinds of things. And he has sounded that way. He has acted that way, and it gives you reason to think maybe something is to this and we need to find out more.”

In short – from excruciatingly unhinged members of Congress like Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren, to the George Soros-funded “Women’s March” right after Inauguration Day, featuring large numbers of women wearing costumes resembling female sexual organs, to the media's hypnotic fixation with fake news about Russian collusion – Democrats and the establishment press continue to demonstrate openly pathological responses to the election and presidency of Donald Trump.

What Kupelian won't tell you: WND had many of these exact same "openly pathological" responses to, and "hypnotic fixation" with, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Kupelian has appareently forgotten that, as we've documented, the website he runs lobbied Electoral College members in 2008 to betray the voters they were entrusted to represent and not vote for Obama. Or that his boss, Joseph Farah, was the original "Not My President" guy, declaring that "Obama has never been my president. I have steadfastly refused to acknowledge him as such." Or that WND was not only touting the impeachment of Hillary Clinton before the election took place, it was doing so before she even started running.

Kupelian also devoted part of his column to trying to distract readers from the growing links between Russia and the Trump campaign, insisting dagainst all evidence that the evidence is "unfounded" and that the real story is that HIllary Clinton "agreed to give control of one-fifth of America’s uranium reserves to Russia in return for millions of dollars going to the Clinton Foundation and directly to her husband Bill" -- a quid pro quo that has never been proven.

MRC Suggests Birth Control Is Eugenics
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Sarah Stites devotes an April 19 post to complaining that the National Geographic channel is producing a documentary about birth control.Despite the program still being in production -- meaning she can't possibly have seen it yet -- Stites was quick to assert that "a biased perspective is likely" from the documentary.

One of the people to be featured, Stites writes, is "Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, a noted advocate of eugenics."

Huh? Is Stites suggesting that birth control is a form of eugenics? She provides no other reason from mentioning that otherwise-irrelevant claim. While the MRC loves to lie about Sanger, she was an advocate of eugenics, though Stites conveniently omits the fact that it was a popular view in America during her early lifetime.

To equate birth contol with eugenics, as Stites is apparently doing, is malicious and counterhistorical since nobody is forcing women to take it. Is that the standard at the MRC these days?

NEW ARTICLE: Religious Freedom For Me, But Not For Thee
Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily loves it when Christians invoke a federal law designed to stop zoning discrimination against religious institutions. It's much less happy, however, when Muslims make use of the very same law. Read more >>

MRC Tries to Spin Away Dem Nearly Winning Seat In GOP Congressional District
Topic: Media Research Center

Jon Ossoff came very close to winning a majority of the vote in a multi-candidate race for the seat in Georgia's 6th Congressional District formerly held by Rep. Tom Price, now President Trump's Health and Human Services secretary. But the Media Research Center wants to make sure it's perceived by its right-wing readership as nothing more than a loss.

Kristine Marsh complained that ABC "used the race’s closeness as a reason to bash Trump while political analyst John Avlon spun that Democrats had 'an emotional victory.'" Marsh added: "Ironically, the ABC chyron was more accurate than what was actually said during the report. It read: 'Democrat fails to win after Trump endorsement.'" But Trump didn't endorse any of the 11 GOP candidates; he merely encouraged Republicans to vot and attacck Ossoff.

Kyle Drennen huffed: "Despite acknowledging that the media’s chosen candidate in Georgia’s special congressional election on Tuesday, Democrat Jon Ossoff, had fallen short of the 50% threshold necessary to avoid a runoff, on Wednesday, NBC’s Today touted the failed liberal effort as a near win that would send an 'ominous sign' to Republicans."

Scott Whitlock grumbled that MSNBC "hyp[ed] John Ossoff’s failed effort to win outright against 11 Republicans" and "have been doing their best to salvage the non-win." LIke the MRC isn't doing its best to salvage the near-loss.

Drennen then promoted White House press secretary Sean Spicer's spin on the race insisting that "They said on the record that their goal was to win this race. They lost. And the reaction has somewhat been, you know, that they almost won. No, they lost."

Randy Hall was also in propaganda mode, cheering a CNN appearance by Ossoff's runoff opponent, Republican Karen Handel. Hall put in boldface type Handel's assertion that Ossoff doesn't live in the district, but failed to mention that it's not a requirement that he do so and that numerous members of Congress don't live in the districts they represent.

Brad Wilmouth dissembled when CNN portrayed the district as solidly Republican: "While it is true that the seat could be accurately described as 'traditionally Republican' since there is a history of Republican presidential candidates performing well there through 2012, districts can change, and it is at least debatable whether the district should still be considered 'deeply Republican.'"

Nicholas Fondacaro, meanwhile, fretted that "the Republican vote was dangerously split between 11 different candidates" and whined that "NBC embarrassed themselves the night of the election with how much they gushed over" Ossoff.

Clay Waters complained that Ossoff "may have failed to take advantage of glowing media coverage and huge out-of-state donations by falling short in a special election to fill a congressional seat," but the New York Times "hyped Ossoff optimism even after he failed to win on Tuesday." Waters made sure to add that Ossoff, "despite great publicity and enormous spending outlay failed to attain the 50% mark necessary to avoid a runoff."

Finally, apparently oblivious to the his own right-wing spin and that of his employer, Curtis Houck groused that USA Today "continued the liberal spin about the Georgia congressional special election" and called the race a "non-win" for Ossoff.

That's nine posts by eight different MRC writers to spin this race the way conservatives want it spun. Talk about an all-hands-on-deck effort.