CNS Managing Editor Promotes Another Message of Hate Topic: CNSNews.com
We've detailed how CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman is particularly fond of sharing his hatred of all things LGBT. He shares the hate once again with a June 20 blog post touting how WorldNetDaily columnist Jesse Lee Peterson literally thinks gays are the devil's spawn and parents who teach respect and tolerance for others don't love their children:
Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson, who runs BOND, which is dedicated to "rebuilding the family by rebuilding the man," said the people who are celebrating June as LGBTQ pride month are deceived because they actually are "celebrating sin," and contrary to their claims about being "children of God," they are "children of the lie" whose father is the "Devil."
He added that parents who allow their children to be indoctrinated in school with LGBT propaganda do not truly love their children, but turn them over to be "brainwashed."
[...]
"This month is so-called homosexual month -- can you imagine -- the whole entire month is dedicated to celebrating quote on quote wrong, celebrating sin, isn't that amazing?" said Peterson.
"We are all not children of God," he continued. "I don't know where that idea came from -- oh, from the children of the lie."
"We are not all children of God," said Peterson, "and this man Michael [who called in], this male Michael calls himself a preacher, so a lot of people are going to believe that lie simply because he says he’s a preacher."
"You're not all children of God," said Peterson. "You're children of your father, the Devil."
[...]
Peterson then explained how some parents do not truly love their children because they allow them to be exposed, indoctrinated in pro-LGBT propaganda in the schools.
"Most or many parents do not love their children today," he said. "They don't. They sacrifice their children to the children of the lie."
"They allow their children to be sacrificed for evil, and I'm mentioning this because this whole month of June they're celebrating homosexuality in schools and playgrounds and everywhere else, and there's no outcry about it anymore," said Peterson.
Chapman did not repeat Peterson's words because he disapproves of them -- he's repeating them because he agrees that gays are the devil's spawn.
Anti-Transgender Pastor Laughably Calls for 'Responsible Rhetoric' Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily columnist Michael Brown is on a reasonableness kick again.
In his June 16 column, Brown surprisingly holds both sides to account for extreme political rhetoric, concluding: "It’s time we speak with greater responsibility, measuring our words carefully, considering the implications of our accusations and pushing people to constructive, rather than destructive, action." And his his June 30 column, Brown argued against the right-wing urge to defend every utterance President Trump makes, particularly his vile slurs of Mika Brzezinski, stating that "for us to defend his every tweet is to make ourselves into stooges more than supporters, helping no one in the end."
Which is all very well and good -- the world needs more commentators who don't play favorites when the chips are down. Problem is, Brown can't bring himself to do that consistently.
Brown's rhetoric is much less responsible when it comes to LGBT-related issues -- he did, after all, write an anti-gay book called "A Queer Thing Happened to America" -- engaging in lazy stereotyping, inflammatory rhetoric ("Transanity!") and pushingfalsehoods.
Brown's rhetoris is also less than responsible when it comes to the subject of Islam. He huffed in a May 24 column:
And we need to call on Muslim leaders across the world to denounce Islamic terror and to combat it, without caveat or qualification. That means that if a Muslim suicide bomber blows up people in Israel or England or France, the action must be condemned unequivocally.
Islamic theologians and political leaders must unite and say, “That is not Islam, and that is a hell-bound murderer, not a martyr.”
While some Muslim leaders have done this with consistency (although, more rarely when it comes to attacks against Israelis) all too many others have not.
[...]
Only Muslim leaders can end this debate. If Islam is not, by nature, a violent religion, then the top Muslim voices across the world must denounce it and combat it. And they must help the West combat it. Is this too much to ask?
Nope. But apparently it's too much to ask for Brown to do some basic research before making such a claim. A Muslim college student has compiled a 712-page list of Muslim leaders denouncing acts of terrorism (posted online here).
Responsible rhetoric is a good thing. Brown just needs to walk the walk a lot more than he does before he starts lecturing the rest of us about it.
MRC Justifies Trump's Nasty Tweets -- Then Complains Media Is Covering Them Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center went into freakout mode last month when CNN's Anderson Cooper said of Trump defender (and NewsBusters columnist) Jeffrey Lord: "if he took a dump on his desk, you would defend it." But the MRC does that too -- and it just demonstrated a prime example.
Trump took a Twitteresque dump on MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski, and the MRC defended it.
Its first reaction -- as to be expected from an organization that joinedRush Limbaugh in smearing Sandra Fluke as a slut and attacked women who lodged sexual harassment allegations against 2012 Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain -- was using its NewsBusters Twitter account to justify Trump's attack by sending out a series of supposedly mean things Brzezinski said about Trump:
The MRC didn't mention that its leader, Brent Bozell, likened President Obama to a "skinny ghetto crackhead" but Obama did not respond in kind.
MRC official Tim Graham joined in the justification-fest by rudely asserting in a tweet: "Let's guess @PolitlFact won't check whether Mika had a facelift. Too rude to check."
The next day, however, the MRC had something of a change of heart -- after defending Trump's sleazy smears, it moved to attacking the fact the media covered them at all.
A June 30 post by Nicholas Fondacaro conceded that Trump "egregiously mocked" Brzezinski, then complained that the media -- once again narrowly defined as only the network evening news shows -- coveredd Trump's tweets much more than how, "in two bipartisan votes, the House passed both Kate’s Law and a measure to punish sanctuary cities."
Later that day, Kyle Drennen featured another narrow sliver of the media, the network morning shows, to complain that they "devoted a staggering 52 times the amount of coverage to the President’s social media attack than to Kate’s Law passing the House.
We'll leave it to CNN's Chris Cillizza to explain why the MRC's attack on coverage is so lame:
Here's the thing: Theonlyreason that the networks dedicated so much coverage to the Trump tweets is because it was the President of the United States cyberbullying a female journalist based on her looks.
That's a BIG story. Particularly when First Lady Melania Trump has spoken about the dangers of cyberbullying and how she wants to work to stamp it out during her time in the White House. And when it's part of a pattern of inappropriate and sexist comments over a period of years by Donald Trump.
The MRC thought it was a BIG story too -- until it realized that the blowback Trump was getting from his nastiness was universal, meaning it was time to shift into deflect-and-distract mode.
The MRC finally realized it had to stop defending the Trump dump. No word on whether Jeffrey Lord will do the same.
Islamophobic WND Tries to Deny Islamophobia Exists Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've seen it before: The Islamophobes at WorldNetDaily rush to blame all Muslims for an act of terrorism committed by an extremist, but is desperate to dismiss acts of terrorism committed by a white person as an isolated (see: Dylann Roof).
This happened again after last week after Darren Osborne, a white man, mowed down people leaving a mosque with his car, killing at least one. WND's Art Moore goes into serioius spin mode in a June 19 article, insisting that Osborne is not reflective of Muslim-haters like his fellow WND denizens because Islamophobia isn't actually a thing:
While politicians often are reluctant to assign motives to major violent attacks until an investigation is at least underway, British Prime Minister Theresa May quickly branded the man who plowed a van into a crowd of British Muslims exiting the Finsbury Park Mosque in London as a product of “Islamophobia.”
Alluding to two recent terror attacks carried out by Muslims, May said the incident early Monday in which one person was killed and at least 10 injuredwas “a reminder that terrorism, extremism and hatred take many forms; and our determination to tackle them must be the same whoever is responsible.”
“As I said here two weeks ago, there has been far too much tolerance of extremism in our country over many years – and that means extremism of any kind, including Islamophobia,” the prime minister said.
But counter-terrorism expert Andrew McCarthy contends 47-year-old Darren Osborne is not an “Islamophobe.”
“Islamophobia,” writes McCarthy for National Review, is “a smear label dreamed up by the Muslim Brotherhood, designed to demagogue any legitimate concern about Islamic doctrine as irrational fear and, of course, as racism.”
Osborne, he said, “is a vile specimen of anti-Muslim hatred.”
“His hatred does not render Islamophobia real. It does not convert into hysteria our worries that a sizable percentage of Muslims — for reasons that are easily knowable if one simply reads scripture and listens to renowned sharia jurists — construes Islam to endorse violence against non-Muslims and to command the imposition of oppressive sharia,” said McCarthy, who as an assistant U.S. attorney led the terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Moore goes on to quote other Muslim-haters -- whom he baselessly portrays as "experts" -- insisting there's no such thing as Islamophobia, even quoting anti-Muslim activist Robert Spencer insisting the mosque attack is somehow May's fault because her purported "supine response to jihad."
CNS Takes Trump's Side on His Insulting Tweets Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com is taking its Trumpstenography to new heights, effectively justifying President Trump's insulting tweets about MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski by publishing only the Trump administration's defense of them.
CNS' first article on the tweets was by Susan Jones, who uncritically recounted the tweets (but at least conceded they were "insulting"). Jones also tried to justify the tweets by calling Brzezinski "a liberal Democrat who has been particularly hard on Trump, saying outright, repeatedly, that he is a liar, incompetent, and probably mentally unstable"; Jones also sneered at her co-host, Joe Scarborough, dismissing him as someone who "also holds liberal views, although he calls himself a conservative."
Despite bipartisan criticism of Trump's tweets throughout the day, the only thing CNS found newsworthy was the Trump administration's defense of the insults. A later article by Jones touted White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders' unequivocal defense of the sleazy tweets, as well as right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh's praise for Trump's aggressiveness against his critics.
From there, it was full stenography time. An article from Melanie Arter simply transcribed an exceprt from a Huckabee Sanders press briefing. Arter uncritically repeated Huckabee Sanders' claim that "The president in no way, form or fashion has ever promoted or encouraged violence," despite the fact that the statement is a baldfaced lie.
Arter also wrote up another transcription of the Huckabee Sanders' presser, this time trying to avoid answering a question about whether she thinks Trump's tweets are acceptable behavior by asserting that the only "perfect role model" is God.
In none of their articles did Jones and Arter mention the bipartisan barrage of criticism Trump has received for his malicious tweets. Being a loyal Trump stenographer is apparently more important to them than acting like a journalist, apparently.
UPDATE: Jones wasn't done blaming the victim, asserting in a June 30 article that Trump's "insulting tweets" were "provoked by their own insults of the president" and complaining that Scarborough and Brzezinski, in a Washington Post op-ed responding to Trump, "never addressed their own rantings and deeply personal insults directed at the president."
WND Pushes Fake-News Poll To Boost Trump Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has a long, enduringlove of bogus polls, whether they be bought-and-paid-for results or meaningless opt-in polls that can be easily skewed.
That love pops up again in a June 23 WND article in which Liam Clancy touts the latter:
True, it’s an unscientific, anyone-welcome-to-vote poll.
But it’s on the Drudge Report, one of the most influential websites.
A stunning 92 percent of the respondents believe President Trump is doing a “great” or “good” job six months into his presidency, despite intense criticism and virtually a total-opposition approach Democrats and the establishment media.
Likely not indicative of the U.S. at large, the poll does suggest President Trump continues to hold strong support from his conservative base.
The percentage favor Trump varied by only fractions of a point as the response total rose to well over a quarter of a million over the day Friday.
The shocker here is that Clancy admits the poll is bogus up front, though he doesn't concede that Drudge is a highly biased right-wing operation.
Still, it seems that WND is so insecure about Trump's standing with the American public that it's reviving its old tactic of pushing bogus polls.
Another Day, Another Meaningless MRC Study Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Rich Noyes huffs in a June 27 item:
How much has the media’s obsession with the ongoing Russia investigation smothered the rest of the Trump policy agenda? A Media Research Center study of every broadcast network evening newscast in the five weeks since the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller on May 17 found a whopping 353 minutes of airtime devoted to the Russia probe, or 55 percent of all coverage of the Trump presidency during those weeks.
The networks’ relentless coverage of Russia meant little airtime was spent on important policy topics, as the investigation garnered 20 times more attention than the new health care bill, 100 times more attention than the administration’s push to improve the nation’s infrastructure, and a stunning 450 times more coverage than the push for comprehensive tax reform.
The first problem with this so-called study, as with many of these MRC reports, is that 1) it focuses only on a tiny sliver of "the media" -- the network evening news -- and ignores right-leaning media like Fox News. Second, there is no objective baseline provided as to what Noyes considers a proper level of coverage to the Russia story; therefore, any conclusion made is necessarily subjective. Noyes is obviously insinuating that the amount of coverage is excessive, but he can't or won't provide any evidence to prove it.
Noyes does concede that Trump's "ubiquitous tweets" on the Russia story demanded coverage, but then whined that "it’s not as if reporters felt compelled to cover all of Trump’s utterances." But Noyes will not admit that the Russia story as a whole deserved any media coverage whatsoever.
Indeed, Noyes complains that the Russia stories are hurting Trump, although he's doing so by hiding behind polls claiming the investigation is hurting the country:
TV’s obsession with the Russia investigation flies in the race of what the public says it actually cares about. According to a Harvard-Harris poll released late last week, “a majority of voters believe the Russia investigations are damaging to the country and are eager to see Congress shift its focus to healthcare, terrorism, national security, the economy and jobs.”
Given the disconnect, it should be no surprise that half of all voters see the media as biased against Trump, compared to only four percent who think the media are pro-Trump, according to a recent Rasmussen poll, with two-thirds of Republican respondents (68%) saying media coverage of the President is “poor.”
Noyes apparently has not considerred the possibility that Trump has earned the negative media coverage he's received.
This is just the latest biased and meaningless study from the MRC.
WND Censors Alt-Right Ties of Stabbing Victim Topic: WorldNetDaily
An anonymously written June 21 WorldNetDaily article tries to push the narrative it wants:
Trump supporter Tony Foreman is in intensive care after he was stabbed nine times following a “free speech rally” in Santa Monica, California, on Saturday.
Now some are claiming the June 17 stabbing is a hate crime because they claim Foreman was targeted for his pro-Trump views. The stabbing reportedly came after he left a sanctuary-city protest.
Foreman works as a bodyguard for Tim Gionet, an Internet personality known as“BakedAlaska,” his Twitter handle. He is also a member of Oathkeepers, a group of veterans who provide security at pro-Trump rallies.
“This was politically motivated,” Omar Navarro told Fox 11. “That’s a concern because he’s a good friend of mine. I’m just really shocked someone would do this. What happened to free speech?”
[...]
Gionet told the news station, “We don’t know if it was politically motivated, but we do know there were some racial slurs for him being white that were said to him.”
He added: “It’s been pretty heartbreaking. He’s lucky to be alive getting stabbed nine times.
Gionet, who claimed the assailants shouted “white boy & cracker,” tweeted: “LAPD detective tells me the last thing Tony heard before blacking out was: ‘You’re getting the shank White Boy.”
WND clearly wants to leave the impression that Foreman was stabbed by a mainstream Trump critic. But as usual when WND is pushing a narrative that conforms to its right-wing agenda, it omits inconvenient facts.
Gionet, it turns out, is more than an "Internet personality"; he's a prominent alt-right figure. Business Insider describes Gionet (aka Tim Treadstone) as a onetime "kind but often lonely social-media genius" and former BuzzFeed employee who embraced the alt-right "in a desperate quest to fill the void of loneliness with fame and attention — irrespective of the cost." He made anti-Semitic remarks that got him disinvited from the alt-right "Deploraball" held in conjunction with Trump's inauguration.
Also, the Oath Keepers that Foreman is a member of is more than "a group of veterans who provide security at pro-Trump rallies" -- it's a far-right militia group that recruits current and former military members, as well and police officers and first responders, to pledge allegiance only to the Constitution, not the government. As we've noted, the Oath Keepers push anti-government conspiracy theories, and WND itself has touted the anti-Obama hate rampant in the Oath Keepers, and members of the group even suggested that the presidential election would be delayed and that mass terrorism and riots would follow.
On top of all of this censorious whitewashing, the anonymous WND reporter also buries the fact that Foreman seems to have provoked his own stabbing. It's not until late in the article that it's mentioned via a Santa Monica police spokesman that the two people arrested in Foreman's stabbing "had been leaving a parking structure when Foreman 'made a comment to the suspects which led to an argument.' The three men got out of their cars, Rodriguez said, and a fist fight ensued."
WND also buries the fact that, contrary to Gionet's assertions, police say they have no evidence the attack was politically or racially motivated.
Call this another fake-news story from an organization responsible for somany of them.
Hostility to Film About Transgender Teen Spreads Across Entire MRC Topic: Media Research Center
CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey wasn't done having a freakout about the documentary about a transgender teen, "Real Boy," which recently aired on PBS.
Jeffrey's June 14 column cites the mere existence of "Real Boy" as a reason tocut off federal funding for public broadcasting. Why? He doesn't really say, beyond making the unsupported assertion that the show is something Americans"do not want."
Meanwhile, irrational anti-LGBT hatred for "Real Boy" appears to be an agenda item across the entire Media Research Center. A June 20 post by Callista Ring complained about the documentary appearing on "liberal taxpayer-funded PBS." Ring showed particular hostility for the transgender teen, sneering that he can now take "a college class on toxic masculinity" and huffing at the teen's assertion about needing to take time to heal from the pain he's gone through: "Because having the support of a famous musician, PBS, and millions of viewers like you apparently wasn't enough."
And the original transgender freakout king himself, Tim Graham, weighed in along with MRC chief Brent Bozell in their June 23 column whining about the film's "gushy music" andthat the film purportedly censors anyone with a "binary" view of gender.
Of course, to Graham and Bozell, any film that doesn't tell transgenders they are dishonoring God and going to hell merely for existing is "propagenda":
Shaleece Haas, the maker of “Real Boy,” is upset that there aren’t a glut of pro-transgender propaganda films, and claims the media part of the cultural revolution isn’t sufficient. “It does not solve the problem of homophobia and transphobia, of all the various forms of hatred.... alongside storytelling, we really need to be working to create safe, inclusive spaces, in our schools, communities, in our institutions.”
The cultural revolution will be televised ... and then it will be imposed. Dissenters will pay for the privilege of being denounced. Then the Left complains that the conservatives hate democracy.
Well, Graham and Bozell have certainly demonstrated that they hate anyone who doesn't look or think like them.
WND Freaks Out Over Hotlines To Report Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes Topic: WorldNetDaily
The idea that someone should be able to call a hotline to report hate crimes, especially against Muslims, has sent WorldNetDaily into yetanother anti-Muslim freakout mode.
A June 21 WND article by Leo Hohmann on a new hotline in Minneapolis touts right-wing former Rep. Michele Bachmann denouncing the hotline as, in Hohmann's words, "a form of fascism in which citizens are encouraged to turn in their neighbors for holding opinions deemed forbidden by the state" and "a stealth move ... to impose Islamic anti-blasphemy laws on non-Muslims."Hohmann doesn't quote anyone explaining why hatred of Muslims must be protected.
Then, a June 26 article by Art Moore complained that "The Council on American-Islamic Relations, an unindicted co-conspirator in a terror-financing plot, has launched a mobile phone app called 'Making Democracy Work for Everyone' that enables Muslims to quickly and efficiently report 'hate crimes.'" Like Hohmann, Moore doesn't explain why hatred of Muslims is somehow a protected right, other than to vaguely claim that "many incidents the organization has reported as hate crimes are found to be misreported or even fabricated."
Moore cited WND's own reporting for that claim, despite its earned reputation as a purveyor of fakenews.
Annals of Random Coverage Comparisons At the MRC Topic: Media Research Center
We've noted how the Media Research Center loves to compare coverage of things it doesn't like to other, random things. TheMRC's Matt Philbin makes his contribution in a June 22 post whining about media coverage of Melissa McCarthy's "Saturday Night Live" skits as Sean Spicer:
Between inauguration day and the season’s end on May 20, the ABC, NBC and CBS news programs couldn’t get enough of Melissa McCarthy’s Spicer. In fact, the networks dedicated 10 minutes and 49 seconds of airtime just to the impression. But while they were enjoying partisan satire that fit neatly with their biases, there was actual news they could have been reporting.
Baltimore, for example. According to a Reuters reportfrom May 2, “homicides in Baltimore have reached such alarming levels that the mayor is getting federal assistance and requesting more support from the FBI. For the first time in nearly 20 years, the city of Baltimore, Maryland, has experienced more than 100 murders before the end of April.” The networks haven’t reported once on the carnage or the mayor’s unprecedented plea for help. Baltimore crime received just four minutes and 18 seconds of attention on the networks – most of it reporting the hunt for “Baltimore’s Public Enemy #1,” an alleged arsonist who firebombed a home in March.
Perhaps Philbin's rant would be more effective if he had bothered to show how his own employer's very own "news" outlet, CNSNews.com, covered the Baltimore story. Oh, wait, it didn't -- we found no reference to high homicide levels in Baltimore in the CNS search engine dated within the past two months.
If the MRC led by example, Philbin's random comparison might make some sense. But it doesn't, so it doesn't.
AAPS-Affiliated Doc Rants Against Health Care As A Right Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily loves to provide a platform to doctors linked to the fringe-right Association of American Physicians and Surgeons -- such as Jane Orient, Lee Hieb and Elizabeth Lee Vliet -- whose ideas on the subject of health care are, shall we say, a bit peculiar.
The latest AAPS-affiliated doc to opine at WND is Alieta Eck, whose June 19 column bashes AAPS' much larger rival, the American Medical Association, for considering a resolution on whether health care is a human right. Eck opines in the negative:
Unlike the unalienable rights listed in our Declaration of Independence, a right to “health care” is not self-evident. The rights to life, liberty, and property ownership (or “pursuit of happiness”) are endowed by our Creator – not the AMA or the government. These rights belong equally to all. My right to liberty does not diminish yours.
“Health care” is not like that. Speaking against the Resolution, AMA delegate Dr. Ralph Kristeller of New Jersey correctly asserted that health care is a responsibility of each individual. People must develop good health habits of diet, exercise, avoiding substances that harm the mind and body, and avoiding risky behavior. Getting early screening for deadly diseases is also the responsibility of the person who would gain most by early detection – the patient. Seeking professional counsel – and following the advice – is also the patient’s responsibility.
Calling health care a human right is clearly misleading. It is generally taken to mean medical services and payment for these services.
Before Big Government entered the medical arena in the U.S., there were many independent physicians in every town. In the 1950s, an office visit was $10, and the doctor earned a good living. When a child became ill, parents knew where to go for help, and payment was a secondary consideration. Many doctors waited for payment or, knowing the family, provided the services for free. Hospitals were local institutions, established by the town fathers. They were operated and staffed by well-trained doctors and nurses, who took part in helping the medical schools train the next generation of professionals. Charity fundraisers and robust volunteer services kept the hospitals places where kindness was the rule. Medical care was local, and the federal government had no role.
In 1965, with the passage of Medicare and Medicaid, the huge infusion of taxpayer dollars caused an explosion in the cost of hospitalizations, and the commoditization of medical services ensued. MBAs, instead of retired physicians, took over the administration of hospitals, and today they command seven-figure salaries. Electronic medical records became a vehicle for exploiting the system as well as for attempts to control rampant fraud. Today, big hospital conglomerates are buying up independent medical practices to harness the revenue and thus control what the doctors do for their patients.
Once a service, paid for by somebody else, is declared a “right,” it becomes immediately obvious that it cannot be an unlimited right, but only a claim on those services deemed appropriate by authorities or planners. Nor is everyone equal. Everything that is given to some must first be taken from someone else. My “right to health care” diminishes your right to liberty – such as your right to use your own earnings to buy a medical service you need to preserve your own life.
Medical services may be necessary for those who are ill, but food, clothing and shelter are necessary for all. If these were declared to be rights, it would mean the provision of food, clothing and shelter for every American: socialism in every part of the economy. How much food? How lavish a wardrobe? How big a house? And how much medical service can a citizen demand from others? Constant conflict and eventual shortages and impoverishment are guaranteed.
Somehow, we doubt that the creation of Medicaid caused doctor's visits to stop being 410.
NewsBusters' Sports Blogger Spews Hate At Obama And Non-Conservative Pro Athletes Topic: NewsBusters
Mysterious NewsBusters sports blogger Jay Maxson has a knack for oozing contempt for anyone who doesn't hold the same right-wing views that he does. He (or she; Maxson's gender is not immediately clear, since his/her NewsBusters bio has no photo and includes no personal information) does so again in a June 8 post cmplaining about a Politico article on former President Obama's closeness to pro athletes. Maxson dismissed the article as "Kool-Aid" being dispensed to a "politics lite audience" and huffed that the article "demonstrates how Obama used jocks to further his agenda. And the gullible athletes were all too willing to be used."
Maxson's contempt for Obama and the pro athletes who like him drips from every word of his post:
Bryant says the ex-prez helped make locker rooms more “politically aware” (worth a separate wing in the Obama Presidential Library?) and he “did help athletes progress beyond just asking questions or just being angry, and asking why something is the way it is.” It’s unsaid in the article, but Obama unwittingly taught athletes the art of the boycott. At times Obama spent more time with them than meeting with his President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, which he boycotted for at least a year.
Obama was famous for his love of basketball, even scrimmaging with pro players on occasion.”Wow, those scrimmages rank right up there with President Reagan’s fame for ending the Cold War and demanding and getting the destruction of the Iron Curtain.
Strauss touted LeBron James for doing a PSA video encouraging people to enroll in the failure that became ObamaCare.
As Americans gave up seeking employment by the tens of millions, basketball and being “cool” became “critical” to Obama’s political image, Strauss writes. Pickup games on the campaign trail “undermined Republican efforts to portray Obama as foreign, suspicious, or someone who ‘pals around with terrorists.’” Nothing like style over substance.
[...]
Obama also used NFL players for political purposes, too, Strauss pointed out. Richard Sherman and Russell Wilson recorded propaganda videos for Obama’s socialized health care. And some former football players are running for political office now (and losing).
Strauss also gave love to Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign, which “promoted sports and brought partnerships with pro leagues.” It’s about time we had an administration in Washington that did so much for the world of sports, especially amid the terrorism around the world – and the violence in Detroit and Chicago.
Can you be an effective and viable media critic when all you have to offer is hate and contempt? The MRC needs to ask this question about Maxson . And while they're at it, they should also supply information about Maxson to prove he/she is an actual person and not a coward hiding behind a fake name like former NewsBusters blogger "Bruce Bookter."
WND Columnist Hides Facts on Transgender Teen Case Topic: WorldNetDaily
Michael Brown's June 7 WorldNetDaily column is more of his usual anti-gay blather, this time using isolated incidents in Canada to fearmonger about the federal government wanting to "snatch" children away from parents who taught them to hate gays. He writes:
First, are the people of Canada unimportant? Does something matter only if it affects America? Surely you won’t say, “Who cares if Christian families in Canada have their children seized by the government? I’m OK here in America.”
Second, we’ve seen how LGBT activism has become the principle threat to our freedoms of speech, conscience and religion here in the States. Canada is just one step ahead.
Third, already in America, “A federal district court judgea mother’s lawsuit, essentially upholding Minnesota’s very harmful and unconstitutional ’emancipation statute’ that allows minor children — with the aid of outside groups — to leave their families whenever there is conflict, as long as the child is living independently and can support himself or herself.”
In the case at hand, the mother’s minor son had “decided to be treated with hormones in an effort to ‘change’ his biological sex and to change his name.” The mother opposed this, which was one of the reasons the child sought “emancipation.” Now, the government (here in America!) is helping to underwrite his “transition,” and there’s nothing his mother can do to prevent it.
Brown is hiding the full story of this case. As we documented when WND pushed this story, the mother had essentially abandoned her child and made no effort to bring her home or reported her as a runaway, and that she showed no interest in her child's current situation until she started taking hormones. The mother lost her lawsuit against her child. Brown offers no evidence to support his claim that Minnesota's emancipation statute is either "harmful" or "unconstitutional."
Brown concludes his column by declaring, "This madness must be stopped." The lying and deception should too.
Graham Mad That MRC's Hostility to Fact-Checking Was Called Out Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Tim Graham complains in a June 9 post:
Alexios Mantzarlis at the journalism website Poynter.org reported "Conservative websites are far more likely to attack fact-checkers than their liberal counterparts." That almost sounds like "Conservative websites more hostile to facts." Something called the Duke Reporters' Lab issued a study of ten "partisan" websites and determined that the conservatives were much more hostile to the fact-checkers, while the liberals were overwhelmingly supportive.
"Conservative websites more hostile to facts"? Hey, if the shoe fits, Tim. As part of its anti-media agenda, the MRC has been waging a partisan war against fact-checkers for years for committing the sin of fact-checking conservatives -- a war the MRC has ramped up to defend chronic liar Donald Trump.
Tellingly, Graham doesn't link to the Duke study he's bashing; instead, he whines that his operation was accurately identified in the study as the MRC instead of NewsBusters. Surely Graham is aware that most MRC content appears at NewsBusters these days, so his complaint is a distinction without a difference.
After noting that the Poynter writer argued that conservative attacks on fact-checkers may be "further undermining the capacity of building a public discourse on shared facts," Graham goes on to rant:
"Shared facts" is exactly the field of combat here. Liberals insincerely insist that's all they want, but what they really want is to insist they own the facts and that they are the ones who determines they are factual, and anyone who challenges their sweaty grip is uncivil.
When a study finds that conservative sites offered 86 percent of the negative comments and liberal sites offered 85 percent of the positive ones, academics can properly speculate that "fact checkers" are perceived as liberal by both sides.
Note that Graham refuses to concede that there is such a thing as "shared facts."
To him, it's not about facts -- it's all about control of the political narrative. The entire existence of the MRC, after all, is dedicated to de-legitimizing any media outlet that doesn't uncritically promote the conservative agenda.
If, as Graham claims, the partisan split on the perception of fact-checkers means that they should be considered liberal, it also means we can properly speculate that conservatives are running a coordinated, targeted campaign to smear and denounce fact-checkers.
Indeed, Graham cheerfully highlights how one right-wing critic likened one fact-checking site to a "Bangkok hooker" -- then huffs that identifying liars as liars "risks undermining public discourse."
And Graham's MRC has such an aversion to "shared facts" that one of his writers keepsinsisting that Steve Scalise didn't give a speech that he apologized for giving.
So, yes, Tim, "shared facts" should be a thing. You and your organization should check them out sometime -- and not just when it's to your political advangate to do so.
You're just mad that your fact-averse agenda was exposed as the partisanship it is, and that it has nothing whatsoever to do with concern about journalism.
We've detailed how CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman is particularly fond of sharing his hatred of all things LGBT. He shares the hate once again with a June 20 blog post touting how WorldNetDaily columnist Jesse Lee Peterson literally thinks gays are the devil's spawn and parents who teach respect and tolerance for others don't love their children:
WorldNetDaily columnist Michael Brown is on a reasonableness kick again.
The Media Research Center 
We've seen it before: The 
CNSNews.com is taking its 
WorldNetDaily has a 
The Media Research Center's Rich Noyes huffs in a June 27 
An anonymously written June 21 WorldNetDaily 
CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey wasn't done 
The idea that someone should be able to call a hotline to report hate crimes, especially against Muslims, has sent WorldNetDaily into 
We've 
WorldNetDaily loves to provide a platform to doctors linked to the fringe-right Association of American Physicians and Surgeons -- such as 
Mysterious NewsBusters sports blogger Jay Maxson has a knack for 
The Media Research Center's Tim Graham complains in a June 9 
