CNS Has A New Favorite Right-Wing Authoritarian Leader Topic: CNSNews.com
As we'veseen in its fawning over Hungary's Viktor Obam, CNSNews.com just loves right-wing authoritarian leaders who spout Trump-esque populist sentiments, even if they're better known for things as, say, anti-Semitism. CNS managing editor Michael W. Chapman found a new right-wing authoritarian to fawn over in a Nov. 1 blog post headlined "Brazil's New President is Pro-Life, Pro-Family, and Strong Supporter of Israel":
Jair Bolsonaro, the newly elected president of Brazil -- his four-year term starts in January 2019 -- is a Catholic married to an evangelical Christian and he is a strong supporter of Israel.
During his victory speech on Oct. 28, broadcast from his home, there was a Jewish menora in the background. Bolsonaro's middle name, Messias, is the Arabic word for messiah.
[...]
As for the Brazil, Bolsonaro has said, "God above everything. There is no such thing as this secular state. The state is Christian and the minority will have to change, if they can. The minorities will have to adapt to the position of the majority."
He has also said, "Brazil before everything, and God above all."
Jair Bolsonaro is a former military officer and he has served in Brazil's Chamber of Deputies since 1991. Bolsonaro's politics in general are those of a traditional, right-wing conservative.
He does not consider himself "far right" but simply "right wing," according to Estado.com. He is pro-life, pro-family, and he opposes gay marriage, homosexuality, affirmative action and secularism.
To nobody's surprise, Chapman papered over the more unsavory aspects of Bolsonaro's farright views. Time reported that in an interview he with the publication, Bolsonaro "advocated the possibility of unbridled state violence; equated homosexuality with pedophilia; and defended Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, whose henchmen raped women with dogs, as well as Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has boasted of personally killing criminal suspects." Time added that "Bolsonaro has stated that he would rather his son die in an accident than be gay, and would punch two men if he saw them kissing in the street.
Given how much Chapman virulentlyhates anyone who is not heterosexual, these are clearly sentiments he's down with. No wonder Chapman loves Bolsonaro.
Yes, A WND Columnist Likened Trump To Michelangelo Topic: WorldNetDaily
The list of people to whom fawning WorldNetDaily columnists have likened President Trump is a long one -- the Messiah, biblical hero Cyrus, Aristotle, and robber baron Cornelius Vanderbilt (but in a good way), among others. Now we can add ... Michelangelo?
Yep. Barry Farber writes in his Nov. 20 WND column:
Now along comes Donald Trump, who reminds me of Michelangelo. A friend asked that Renaissance champion how he managed to produce a work of art as breathtaking as his sculpture of David. “I entered my studio and gazed upon the block of marble across the room. Then,” confided the master sculptor, “I lifted my tools and chopped away everything that wasn’t David!”
So now they are picking up their tools and chopping away at Trump. Maybe you Never-Trumpers don’t deserve to live in a country led by Donald Trump!
Trump, I suspect, gazed upon this great American nation and chopped away all the stuff that was not great, leaving us with the best growth in GDP, the lowest unemployment, a bashed and battered ISIS, a discarded deal with the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, a new embassy in Jerusalem to replace the old one in Tel Aviv, plus 28 single-spaced pages of other Trump accomplishments great and near-great.
If it’s Trump vs. the media, I cry foul. It’s a mismatch. The major media can’t handle Donald Trump.
Farber went on to gush that "President Donald Trump has delivered on promises he never even made and over-delivered on the ones he did. America seems to be in great shape and getting better."
NEW ARTICLE: Rep. Jim Jordan, R-MRC Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center loves the conservative congressman so much that it campaigned for him to become House GOP leader -- while also burying and censoring claims that ignored sexual abuse in a previous job as a coach. Read more >>
WND Columnist Aims Conspiracy Theory At Colo. Governor-Elect Topic: WorldNetDaily
Conspiracy-obsessed Erik Rush rants in his Nov. 7 WorldNetDaily column:
As a result, on Tuesday, Coloradoans elected Jared Polis, a Democrat, as their governor. What’s being celebrated is the fact that he is the first openly gay man to be elected as governor of a state. This in itself evidences the superficial level at which we currently operate.
Far more significant is that Polis, formerly a U.S. representative, had long been recognized by conservatives as one of the most dangerous socialists in Congress. Polis changed his surname years ago, in part to shield himself from a documented charge of workplace violence against a woman, and in part because his surname sounded just a little too much like the Yiddish slang for semen.
It’s a safe bet that most Colorado voters had no knowledge of any of this, however. The conservative press in Colorado is practically nonexistent, and the state has been positively deluged with outside money provided by leftist power players over the last decade, among them billionaire activist and former Nazi collaborator George Soros.
Polis is a very shrewd player and correctly reasoned that if an ugly black guy with highly questionable politics and a dark back story could get elected president if he marketed himself correctly, then an ugly gay guy with highly questionable politics and a dark back story could certainly get elected as governor of Colorado.
Ignoring the obsessive Obama-hate -- he's had Obama Derangement Syndrome foryears -- let's unpack what Rush said, and got wrong, about Polis. Rush appears to be regurgitating a right-wing attack ad funded by dark money hyping that "documented charge of workplace violence against a woman." The truth, as one would expect, diverges greatly from Rush's (and the attack ad's) summary of the incident.
According to an actual news outlet, what actually happened is that Polis' personal assistant, tried to leave after deleting computer files and taking company documents and business contracts with her, and Polis tried to physically stop her from leaving with those documents. The assistant later pleaded guilty to theft of trad secrets. Also, a $700,000 ad buy was done for the ad, belying Rush's claim that Colorado voters likely never heard of it.
Rush is correct that Polis changed his last name from Schutz, but as that actual news outlet reported, the claim Polis changed his name a year after the incident to distance himself from it is "a popular conspiracy among Republicans since the police report first came to light after a right-wing news outlet first published the police report. Polis has said he changed his name to honor his mother’s maiden name."
Not that the actual truth matters to Rush, of course; he just loves a good (or bad) conspiracy theory.
MRC Plays The (Lame And Hypocritical) Neil Munro Card to Attack Acosta Topic: Media Research Center
As part of its currentjihad against CNN's Jim Acosta, the Media Research Center got an assist from its favorite media outlet. Fox News. In a Nov. 13 post, Ryan Foley noted a segment featuring conservatives talking about Acosta -- no complaint, of course, that the panel was unbalanced for lacking a non-conservative. Foley got to invoke the MRC's favorite conservative media critic, Joe Concha:
Concha brought up the media’s reaction to Neil Munro, then a staffer for The Daily Caller, interrupting one of President Obama’s speeches. Concha read aloud some headlines written in response to Munro’s interruption of President Obama.
A headline from Politico read “Obama Interrupted by Heckling Reporter,” a headline from The Atlantic asked “Who is Neil Munro and Why is He Interrupting the President?” In the final example of a blatant double standard, Concha read aloud a headline from Mediaite: “CNN White House Reporter: Obama Heckler Let Him ‘Sound Passionate.’” As the segment came to a close, Concha remarked “I don’t hear anybody calling Jim Acosta a heckler now.”
As we'venoted, the MRC never criticized Munro's behavior, even as it apparently concedes that his behavior was no different from that of Acosta, about which it has spilled a torrent of anger. The MRC never complained that Munro crossed the line between reporting and editorializing by heckling President Obama during a news conference, there was no declaration that Munro was an activist masquerading as a journalist, or that Munro embarrassed himself and his profession, or that Munro is operating outside the confines of honest journalism, or that conservatives who expect fair and honest journalism should ignore Munro.
Indeed, one MRC writer accused Munro's critics of "flaming, presidential boot-licking hypocrisy."while another offered this defense: "Henceforth the Obama administration might want to signal when questions will be allowed from the media and when reporters will be expected to emulate statuary."
Of course, the Trump White House has signaled its question-statuary ratio by issuing new post-Acosta rules. Needless to say, the MRC is far from outraged by these rules: Curtis Houck cheered the "brief but simple guidelines" made necessary because of "bombastic, self-centered behavior."
Houck, his boss Brent Bozell and the MRC would have been screaming if these very same rules had been issued by the Obama White House in the wake of Munro's heckling. It's hypocritical for them to condone Trump's actions now.
WND's Anti-Gay Activists Hate Film Exposing Anti-Gay Conversion Therapy Topic: WorldNetDaily
The new film "Boy Erased" tells the fact-based story of a teen boy's encounter with a conversion therapy program to which his parents sent him to stop him from being gay. And WorldNetDaily's anti-gay columnists don't like it one bit.
Linda Harvey's Nov. 8 WND column complained that the movie is "a tale of mean Christians forcing a boy to be un-'gay.'," going on to doubt author Garrard Conley's personal experience and insisting that forcing people not to be gay is a good thing:
In the dream worlds of “LGBT” activists and their Tinseltown allies, Christians who help people struggling with same-sex attractions actually use methods of coercion, intimidation and physical torture – or so they apparently imagine.
They hope, hope, hope it’s like this or kind of like this, so the film “Boy Erased” won’t go down in flames as another ridiculous leftist fraud.
“Boy Erased” claims to be a memoir about actual events. I and others doubt that what is portrayed in this film ever happened, in Tennessee or anywhere. We continue to wait for those who might know to confirm or deny these allegations of terrible abuse.
Unfortunately for the producers, this film will make history – as a vehemently Christian-bashing, deceptive, unjust portrayal of what actually does happen when people are quietly and sensitively counseled about unwanted homosexual feelings. Quite often, those feelings are the rotten fruit of sexual molestation.
Not inborn and natural, but imposed and troubling.
It is totally possible to leave homosexual attractions behind because the awesome mercy and healing power of Jesus Christ changes desires, lives and destinies.
At the end of her column, Harvey is still complaining: "I think the American Christian church can see right through this. Even though this propaganda piece is sure to rank undeservedly high at the Academy Awards, it’s not true, and it’s not a reason to endorse homosexual behavior." As if what Harvey is offering isn't also propaganda.
Larry Tomczak similarly complains in his Nov. 12 WND column as he likens homosexuality to alcoholism:
The movie is convincing and communicates a compelling story. It will influence millions to accept homosexuality as normal while Christian attempts to encourage people (as Alcoholics Anonymous does) to yield totally to God and admit their inability to overcome their struggles in their own strength are obviously evil, manipulative and totally ineffective. The credits roll reminding us that there are still over 30 states that still allow this type of degrading conversion therapy.
And, like Harvey, Tomczak denies the reality depicted in the film and insists forcing people to stop being gay is a good thing:
Throughout America there are compassionate and skilled counselors who are committed to helping those struggling with same-sex attraction. They convey God’s unconditional love and His design for men and women so they can live in freedom and enjoy the “abundant life” (John10:10) Jesus promised all who follow His way.
They work tirelessly assisting people identify root causes; how to deal with ongoing temptation; plus, guide them graciously to walk victoriously in the power of God’s grace amidst supportive, authentic Christian community.
When a person genuinely repents and perseveres in the process, he or she experiences the incontrovertible truth of the glorious freedom and a new life in union with Christ. “Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things have passed away. Look, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
[...]
This movie unfairly and blatantly portrays a treatment center as a sterile boot camp with a cult-like leader and heartless, abusive figures engaged in behavior modification and manipulative techniques. Forcing young people to publicly confess intimate sexual sins in a mixed setting of guys and girls will repel average moviegoers who lack discernment. The shameful bullying and beating of unrepentant teens by bashing them with Bibles in exorcisms not only strains credulity but makes one wonder how much of this young person’s journey was embellished to disgust impressionable and uninformed people.
Here’s the deal: “Boy Erased” is a superbly produced and acted presentation of propaganda. It will unfortunately mislead multitudes to reject attempts at helping those struggling with same-sex attraction plus reinforce the notion that change isn’t really possible.
Tomczak then rants: "Do you know that Scotland just became the first country in the world to mandate full LGBTQ curriculum be taught all children in all public schools? As salt we must counter the deception with truth!" Tomczak doesn't seem to recognize the truth that LGBT people are people too. Oh, and all is happening here is that Scotland will include lessons about LGBT history and equality and addressing anti-LGBT bias.
MRC Outraged That Avenatti Abuse Allegations Were Fact-Checked Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has long been triggered by Michael Avenatti, lawyer to Stormy Daniels, mostly because he helped expose the fact that President Trump paid off Daniels to keep their alleged affair from hurting his presidential campaign, to the point that it can't stop calling him a "creepy porn lawyer" because the collective MRC mind is apparently 11 years old.
Well, Avenatti has found himself in a spot of legal trouble, and the MRC is triggered again. After Avenatti was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence, the MRC's Nicholas Fondacaro was immediatedly demanding wall-to-wall coverage on all news channels and was outraged when that didn't happen:
At 5:45 p.m. Eastern Time Wednesday, TMZ first broke the news that Democratic lawyer and 2020 presidential hopeful Michael Avenatti was arrested by Los Angeles police on domestic violence charges. Despite the fact that Avenatti granted them over 200 combined appearances on their networks, both CNN and MSNBC downplayed the charges. MSNBC brushed over it while CNN spent part of the time correcting TMZ and touting people who claimed Avenatti wouldn’t hurt anyone.
As Fondacaro later admitted in his post, one of those "people" vouching for Avenatti was his ex-wife, which you'd think would elevate her above Fondacaro's suggestion that those defending Avenatti are just random people.Bizarrely, Fondacaro was even more outraged that one outlet pointed out that TMZ got key details wrong:
Disturbingly, CNN spent an additional one minute and one second correcting the TMZ article (despite TMZ’s own corrections) and touting a statement from Avenatti’s ex-wife who said he wouldn’t hurt anyone. “This is Lisa Avenatti and when I spoke with her on the phone … she also said that he is somebody who wouldn't ever hit anyone,” [CNN correspondent MJ] Lee professed.
“Also, just a key sentence here from that statement,” Lee added. “‘My client states that there has never been domestic violence in her relationship with Michael and that she has never known Michael to be physically violent toward anyone.’”
Only at the MRC would someone find it "disturbing" to get facts straight.
The next day, Scott Whitlock complained that two cable TV morning shows "managed a total of 67 seconds on the felony abuse arrest charges against Michael Avenatti. This is despite their previous fascination with the porn lawyer and Democratic antagonist to President Trump." Another Whitlock post grumbled that the New York Times "buried [Avenatti's] domestic abuse accusations on page A-22 of the paper."
When there was a new development in Avenatti's case a few days later, Fondacaro demanded blanket coverage of that too:
After being arrested on felony domestic violence charges last week, there was a new chapter in the saga of Michael Avenatti’s alleged abuse late Monday night when news broke that New York actress Mareli Miniutti had filed a domestic violence restraining order against him. Both CNN and MSNBC couldn’t be bothered to mention the development on air that night.
Fondacaro vaguely alluded to the fact that TMZ originally got the story wrong: "This was the first time we were able to put a face to the original felony domestic violence charges. Prior to Monday, it was thought that Avenatti’s ex-wife was the one who made the claims. She denied it was her and praised her former husband as a non-violence person, much to the relief of the liberal media who touted her defense." He didn't mention his outrage that TMZ's story had to be corrected.
A day after Fondacaro's post appeared, prosecutors announced that they would not pursue felony domestic violence charges against Avenatti -- which tells us that the MRC's obsession with this story has been overblown. Neither Fondacaro nor anyone else at the MRC found that development to be newsworthy.
CNS Editor Still Won't Blame Trump For Growing Federal Deficit -- But Blamed Obama For Debt Under His Watch Topic: CNSNews.com
We've documented how CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey loves to bemoan the federal deficit but won't place any blame on President Trump and Republicans for its current state, even though he was quick to blame Barack Obama for the deficit while he was president. Jeffrey does it again in a Nov. 14 article stating that "The federal government collected record total tax revenues of $252,692,000,000 in October" but "the government still ran a deficit of $100,491,000,000 for the month—because it spent $353,183,000,000." As before, the words "Trump" and "Republican" are absent, even though a Republican-controlled Congress passed, and President Trump signed, a tax cut bill earlier this year that blew up the deficit.
By contrast, Jeffrey implicitly blamed Obama for deficits that happened under his watch. A November 2016 article that, like the above article, focused on federal revenue in October did not mention Obama's name but did include a picture of Obama giving the 2016 State of the Union address. There was no similar picture of Trump in Jeffrey's Nov. 14 article.
Indeed, most Jeffrey articles referencing the federal deficit and debt in mid- to late 2016 pointedly invoked Obama, usually in the headline:
Another Jeffrey article, from Ocober 2016, didn't blame Obama in the headline, but he did lament that Obama "signed the “Bipartisan Budget Act,” a spending deal he had cut with the Republican leaders in Congress," adding that "The day Obama signed the budget deal, the total federal debt jumped from $18,152,981,685,747.52 to $18,492,091,120,833.99—a one-day climb of $339,109,435,086.47."
Jeffrey wrote an equivalent of that article on Oct. 1, highlighting htat "The federal debt increased by $1,271,158,167,126.72 in fiscal 2018" and "The total federal debt started the fiscal year at $20,244,900,016,053.51 according to the Treasury, and finished the fiscal year at $21,516,058,183,180.23." Jeffrey added:
The $1,271,158,167,126.72 in debt accumulated in fiscal 2018 made fiscal 2018 the eighth fiscal year in the last eleven in which the debt increased by at least one trillion dollars.
The $1,271,158,167,126.72 increase in the federal debt was also the sixth largest fiscal-year debt increase in the history of the United States.
Again, Jeffrey refused to tell his readers that a Republican president and a Republican-controlled Congress presided over that large increase in debt.
Newsmax Still Won't Disclose It Published Corsi's Book Topic: Newsmax
We've seen before that as conspiratorial writer Jerome Corsi gets deeper into trouble as part of Robert Mueller's Trump-Russia investigation, Newsmax is reluctant to admit that it, under its Humanix Books division, published his most recent book, "Killing the Deep State."
And so it is again in a Nov. 12 Newsmax article by Jason Devaney noting that Corsi "revealed in a new interview he expects to be charged with a crime stemming from the Russia investigation." Regarding Corsi's book, Devaney vaguely wrote only that "His most recent book, 'Killing the Deep State: The Fight to Save President Trump,' is a New York Times bestseller." It did, however, link to an offer promoting the book.
On Nov. 23, though, Newsmax followed up with a message to its mailing list under its "Moneynews" banner exploiting Corsi's legal troubles to sell his book:
We told you this would happen. Now he’s terrified — afraid for his life.
Look, they’re after him big time — the Deep State.
America’s shadow government is gunning hard for the man who exposed the truth...
The highly respected author and commentator who revealed the dark money trail in Washington — from Clinton to Obama to Comey to Lynch and scores of others in the highest-ranking positions in Washington.
[...]
What are you waiting for? This is, quite possibly, the most explosive book on Washington ever written.
It’s so shocking and so revealing we decided to foot the bill and just GIVE IT TO YOU — FREE.
Listen, you’d better get it here now because Corsi is at the very epicenter.
Mueller’s team says he knew too much...
What exactly does Corsi know?
[...]
It was only a matter of time something like this would happen — surely a travesty of justice.
One thing’s for sure…
Mueller’s office has emails and phone records.
As Corsi has insisted…
He just put all the pieces together, connected all the dots.
Seriously — it’s what he does best and anyone who follows Corsi knows this.
Corsi’s only “crime” was putting them in a tell-all book.
And, you know, perjury. But Newsmax won't tell you that -- or, again, that it published Corsi's whacked-out conspiracy book.
In Mr. Acosta’s case against President Trump, is there reasonable grounds to conclude that the president is guilty of some high crime or misdemeanor for maintaining order and decorum during press conferences over which he personally presides? Just as judge’s have the prerogative to maintain order in their courtrooms, so the president must maintain order in the White House. If federal judges forget their duty to honor the prerogative they themselves require, president’s may remind them that the disorder they inflict implies disorder they will have to endure.
Indeed, it would be best to remember that demanding respect for officials who represent the U.S. government’s authority in all three branches is the prerogative of the people whom they are supposed to represent and serve. Disrespecting any such officials brings the sovereign self-government of the people into contempt. Those who demand the right to show such disrespect are not exercising their freedom. They are demanding license to degrade and overthrow our liberty.
First, “hot off the press,” there is the ruling of the Honorable Timothy J. Kelly, incredibly granting a temporary restraining order in the lawsuit filed by CNN against the president and his staff for revoking the White House press pass of the “Communist/Clinton News Network’s” Jim Acosta for improperly touching a White House female intern. Incredibly, and most tellingly, CNN was supported by Fox News, which increasingly has been moving left thanks to its new chiefs, the Murdoch sons, both of whom are dyed-in-the-wool liberals. (See Adriana Cohen, “Bill O’Reilly: Fox Has Gone to the Dogs,” Boston Globe, Nov. 15.) More importantly is the sellout by this Trump-appointed Judge Kelly in ordering the president to give the vile Acosta back his press pass.
Not only is there clearly no First Amendment constitutional right to own a White House press pass – as CNN is free to send another, hopefully this time respectful reporter to cover the administration, among many other legal grounds for Kelly to have denied the CNN complaint – but this incredible ruling underscores what I have been preaching about the federal judiciary in particular for many years since I conceived of and founded Judicial Watch in 1994.
Since the arrival of the World Wide Web of deceit and disinformation, CNN has moved from reporting the news to framing the news. Now, their unattributed claim to fame is, “First to tell you what to what to think about the news that’s actually reported elsewhere.”
Mr. Acosta, it seems, is sort of a newsroom efficiency guru during his working hours. He jumps into the situation personally, creates a controversy, and thereby creates news. Once he has made the news, he then tells his viewers what to think about it. Very innovative, really. But quite useless when it comes to informing the public about what matters.
Judges require journalists to treat courthouses and court proceedings with extreme deference, but President Trump has been made powerless to regulate who can roam freely inside his own home. Let’s hope the president makes the White House Great Again by posting a burly security guard next to Jim Acosta with orders to remove him the next time he misbehaves.
MRC Promotes Report on Media Bias That Reflects The MRC's Biases Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Corinne Weaver writes in an Oct. 17 post:
Is Google News neutral? Not according to a new report that studied the issue and determined that its results were skewed liberal.
AllSides, a media technology group, spent two weeks analyzing Google News’ homepage and determined that news outlets with a left-leaning bias were always at the top of the list. The study determined that out of 123 individual measurements, 65% of the news links provided were liberal, while only 16% of the links were conservative. That’s a 4-to-1 ratio. 20% of the links given were considered to be from a middle perspective.
The study pointed out that the positioning of the news was very important. Overall, left-wing news tended to be in the top two results, and right-wing news was always below the fold, 12 positions down.
AllSides wrote, “The numbers are so significantly strong and consistent in favor of news media sources from the left that the overall conclusion of a leftward bias is well justified.” Later on in the study, it stated, “AllSides analyzes the news on a daily basis and have often found it difficult to find perspectives from the right when using Google News.”
In the methodology, AllSides noted that sites like ABC, Buzzfeed, CBS, CNN, NBC, NPR, Politico, Time, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Huffington Post were heavily favored, while sites like Breitbart, The Blaze, The Daily Caller, Fox News, and the National Review were almost always below the fold. Even some of the news considered to be in the center wasn’t necessarily neutral, as the study included NPR, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, and BBC.
91% of the 123 measurements “indicated at least some preference for news media with a left bias over sources with a right bias.” It went even further: apparently 80 percent of the 123 measurements preferred left-wing news over news from a center source.
First: Note how Weaver conflates "liberal," "left-leaning" and "the left," as if they all mean the same thing. Second, any "report" that buys into the MRC's ideological idea that any news outlet that is not blatantly conservative must be on "the left" is suspect. And this one certainly is.
AllSides claims to be about eliminating "filter bubbles" so people "can better understand the world — and each other." But its media bias rating system questionable. It states that it uses "patented media bias detection and display technology," but it also incorporates public opinion as well. That's problematic in an age when organizations like the MRC spend millions of dollars a year to perpetuate the notion of "liberal bias" in the media and the president denounces anyone who fails to report on him less than positively as "fake news" and "enemies of the people." That sort of propaganda can't help but skew the results.
AllSides' report, like Weaver, occasionally differentiates between "lean left" and "hard left" but more often not just uses "left," as if there was no difference between the New York Times and Mother Jones. The report apparently did not rate the alleged bias of individual articles highlighted in Google News, just that of the outlet.
AllSides also clearly buys into the right-wing idea that because most journalists are liberal , news outlets are therefore liberal:
There are far more news sources on the left than on the right, and it is well documented that individual journalists (that the Google algorithm might automatically recognize as more credible, and therefore their clicks and linking behavior would have greater-than-average influence on Google’s relevancy score) are much more likely to have views on the left, to the left of the average American. This would likely skew search results toward the left.
Considering the fact that online news consumers tend to be younger and lean farther left than the rest of America, that would also likely skew search results toward the left.
AllSides, like conservative anti-media activists, ignore the idea that liberal journalists working for a mainstream media outlet do generally endeavor to be fair and balanced in their reporting, while conservative journalists working for conservative outlets feel no such constraint.
This report seems to have swallowed whole much of the MRC's guiding anti-media philosophy. No wonder Weaver liked it.
Former first lady Michelle Obama reportedly rips President Trump's spreading of the "birther" conspiracy theory against her husband in her upcoming book.
In excerpts from her memoir “Becoming" obtained by The Washington Post, Obama says she will "never forgive" Trump for the "xenophobic" claims that her husband, former President Obama, was not actually born in America.
"The whole thing was crazy and mean-spirited, of course, its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed," the former first lady writes. "But it was also dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks."
“What if someone with an unstable mind loaded a gun and drove to Washington? What if that person went looking for our girls? Donald Trump, with his loud and reckless innuendos, was putting my family’s safety at risk. And for this I’d never forgive him," she continues.
WorldNetDaily copied-and-pasted this article onto its own website -- but only the first three paragraphs, not the one about Michelle Obama fearing for her and her family's safetyover the birther conspiracy. Perhaps because WND knows just how complicit it is.
WND was, of course, the planet's most enthusiastic and prolific promoter of the Obama birther conspiracy, and to this day it has refused to admit any of it was wrong, even as others haveproven it so. It was also feeding those bogus conspiracies to Trump in 2012, when Fox News gave him an unchallenged platform to spout them.
That means when Obama is blaming Trump for endangering her family, she's also blaming WND.
Given that the copied-and-pasted Hill article -- selectively edited to remove the offfending text -- is the only reference we've been able to find regarding Obama's statement at WND, it's a good bet that Joseph Farah & Co. feel no guilt whatsover about endangering their lives. It's made them a lot of money over the years (until it didn't) and got them a lot of attention (most of it bad), and since they utterly despise the Obama, they are almost certainly not heartbroken by this development. In fact, it's likely they were rooting for the outcome Obama feared and would not have minded if such an attack actually happened.
To WND, the birther conspiracies were never more than a political cudgel, the equivalent of Vincent Foster for President Clinton.
That's why Farah's move to presenting himself as a pious Christian rings hollow. He was always a right-wing partisan before being a Christian, and his amorality and lack of care for the consequences belie any Christian compassion he claims to hold.
If Farah were a true Christian, he would be apologizing to Michelle Obama for playing a major role in creating an atmosphere that caused her and her familiy to fear for their safety. But we know enough about Farah to know that will never happen.
CNS Rooted For Failure Of CNN's Lawsuit Over White House Ban of Acosta Topic: CNSNews.com
As befits a "news" operation operated by the Media Research Center -- which already has a vendetta against the guy -- CNSNews.com's coverage of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta's tussle with the White House over his questioning of President Trump and its subsequent suspension of his White House press pass was never going to be fair and balanced. We already saw that with CNS' difficultly in admitting the simple, indisputable fact that a video released by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was doctored to show an encounter between Acosta and an White House intern trying to take a microphone away from him as more violent than it was.
When CNN sued the White House for reinstatement of Acosta's press pass, CNS' anti-Acosta bias shifted into overdrive.
Not at first, though. Melanie Arter's story on the lawsuit is unusually balanced for a CNS piece, giving relatively equal space to supporters and critics of CNN. She didn't, however, note that the White House had changed its rationale for pulling Acost's press pass -- it had originally blamed Acosta's (doctored) contact with the intern, but was now blaming Acosta's alleged general failure to yield the floor.
Arter also wrote an article focused on the White House's legal response to CNN's lawsuit -- but she waited until the seventh paragraph to note that the RMC's favorite news outlet, Fox News, fiiled an amicus brief on behalf of CNN, which you'd think would be the more newsworthy of the two.
In addition to running a column by the guy who runs CNS, Brent Bozell (along with the guy who actually wrote it, Tim Graham), purporting to cite "6 Reasons the CNN-Acosta Lawsuit Is Lame," CNS also called in the usual suspects in attacking the lawsuit in general and Acosta in particular, with special attention given to a guy to whom CNS has already spent more than 100 articles so far this year promoting:
There were, of course, no posts uncritically arguing the merits of CNN's lawsuit.
So sure was CNS that the fix was in against CNN, in fact, that it touted the bias of the judge reviewing it. Arter was practically salivating in a Nov. 14 article when she wrote: "The judge in the case--Timothy J. Kelly--was appointed to this judgeship by President Trump and before that worked on the staff of Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R.-Iowa). Prior to that he was an assisant U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia during the adminisration of President George W. Bush." Strangely, otherarticles Arter wrote in anticipation of Kelly's ruling failed to mention that he is a Trump appointee.
But when Kelly granted CNN's request to at least temporarily restore Acosta's press pass, Arter came off as a bit dejected, turning in another unusually balanced article that again failed to note that the judge is a Trump appointee. She did follow up, though, with an article giving heavy play to the White House's claim that it was drawing up "rules and regulations" for reporter conduct.
CNS couldn't stop the bias, though -- one article touted right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro, who has a law degree but no apparent expertise in media law, insisting that "no major precedent was set" in the ruling, and another quoting Trump saying the ruling is "not a big deal" (though this one did admit Kelly was a Trump appointee). Another post, by managing editor Michael W. Chapman, called on former CNN host Larry King, whose current show airs on Russian propaganda channel RT -- something Chapman curiously failed to tell his readers -- to complain that CNN "is not a news network" anymore.
Still, CNS' animus toward Acosta is such that it published a Nov. 19 article -- anonymously written under the "CNSNews.com Staff" byline -- trying to suggest that Acosta told an actionable lie when he stated in a court filing "under penalty of perjury" that he "politely" questioned Trump.
WND's Zumwalt Tries His Hand At Smearing Murdered Journalist Topic: WorldNetDaily
James Zumwalt went full Horowitz in smearing murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi in his Oct. 24 WorldNetDaily column. Like the Horowitz-run FrontPageMag, Zumwalt rehashed old links between Khashoggi and Osama bin Laden and the Muslim Brotherhood, treating them as if they were current. Then he declared:
Because of his friendship with bin Laden and his support for bin Laden’s Islamic extremist ideology – perhaps even knowing about 9/11 beforehand – Khashoggi was killed on Oct. 2 after entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, the apparent victim of a Saudi rendition attempt gone wrong. He was no moderate Muslim, nor was he a supporter of the U.S. and its values. For all intents and purposes, Khashoggi was a bin Laden ideological clone who preferred the pen to the sword in promoting a religion mandating Islam’s ultimate world domination.
While Khashoggi’s death may have been ordained by senior Saudi officials – an extrajudicial act which the U.S. cannot condone – it must also be recognized that the man was no innocent victim. The world he sought to create was one in which sharia ruled supreme and non-Muslims pay a price for rejecting conversion – either monetarily or with one’s life.
Zumwalt is engaging in paranoid, misleading speculation. As an actual news outlet reported:
While Khashoggi was once sympathetic to Islamist movements, he moved toward a more liberal, secular point of view, according to experts on the Middle East who have tracked his career. Khashoggi knew bin Laden in the 1980s and 1990s during the civil war in Afghanistan, but his interactions with bin Laden were as a journalist with a point of view who was working with a prized source.
Zumwalt then argued that Khashoggi's death should not interfere with the U.S.-Saudi relationship because it's need to stop Iran:
There have been several times in the course of world events when the U.S. allied itself with less-than-perfect partners to further U.S. interests. For example, in World War II, Stalinist Russia was an ally; during the Vietnam war, Philippines’ President Ferdinand Marcos was more dictator than elected president, but his country’s military bases were critical to our operations in the region; and, later, during the Cold War, we befriended China in a power play against the Soviet Union.
The role the Saudi government played in the death of Khashoggi awaits clarification, and we may not like the results. But, based on the grave threat that Iran poses not only in the Middle East but worldwide, it is critical we maintain a close U.S./Saudi alliance.
Looking behind the liberal dissident mask the media has affixed on Jamal Khashoggi will help us make wise decisions regarding that alliance.
Even though President Trump ultimately embraced that view, Zumwalt has affixed a false extremist mask to Khashoggi and dishonestly claiming it's the real thing and insists that the entire U.S.-Saudi relationship be judged by that mask.
MRC Misfires On Getting People To Trash CNN's Acosta Topic: Media Research Center
As part of its current war on Jim Acosta for failing to be a pro-Trump suck-up, the Media Research Center is doing compliation pieces filled with people who say how terrible Acosta purportedly is.
The headline of a Nov. 15 item by Geoffrey Dickens declared, "Even Acosta’s Reporter Peers Think He’s Gone Too Far." He insisted: "It’s not just President Donald Trump, White House press secretaries Sean Spicer and Sarah Huckabee Sanders who think Jim Acosta is out of control. Even some of his journalist colleagues think his antics are bad for journalism."
In other words, not really a "reporter peer" at all beyond being in the same general profession.
Dickens also cited anonymous CNN co-workers attacking Acosta in a Politico article. Wait -- doesn't the MRC normally despise anonymous sources? Only when they don't benefit the MRC's agenda, apparently.
The same day, there was an anonymously written piece noting how "we at the Media Research Center reached out to conservative leaders around the nation" to get reaction to Acosta, and "hese leaders responded with frustration at CNN’s dramatic publicity stunt." Among the responses was this:
The Acosta-intern video shows what it shows, whether CNN likes it or not. We can disagree over how to characterize the video, but any claim that there was no contact is akin to, as CNN would put it, calling an apple a banana.
James O’Keefe Founder Project Veritas
Yes, that James O'Keefe -- whose very brand is publicity stunts and doctored videos -- apparently defending the doctored video sent out by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders showing Acosta's contact with a White house intern trying to take a microphone away from him as being more brutal than it actually was.
Maybe the MRC should screen its signatories closer before promoting them.
As we've seen in its fawning over Hungary's Viktor Obam, CNSNews.com just loves right-wing authoritarian leaders who spout Trump-esque populist sentiments, even if they're better known for things as, say, anti-Semitism. CNS managing editor Michael W. Chapman found a new right-wing authoritarian to fawn over in a Nov. 1 blog post headlined "Brazil's New President is Pro-Life, Pro-Family, and Strong Supporter of Israel":
The list of people to whom fawning WorldNetDaily columnists have likened President Trump is a long one -- 
Conspiracy-obsessed Erik Rush rants in his Nov. 7 WorldNetDaily 
As part of its 
The new film "Boy Erased" tells the fact-based story of a teen boy's encounter with a conversion therapy program to which his parents sent him to stop him from being gay. And WorldNetDaily's anti-gay columnists don't like it one bit.
The Media Research Center has long been 
We've 
We've 
In Mr. Acosta’s case against President Trump, is there reasonable grounds to conclude that the president is guilty of some high crime or misdemeanor for maintaining order and decorum during press conferences over which he personally presides? Just as judge’s have the prerogative to maintain order in their courtrooms, so the president must maintain order in the White House. If federal judges forget their duty to honor the prerogative they themselves require, president’s may remind them that the disorder they inflict implies disorder they will have to endure.
The Media Research Center's Corinne Weaver writes in an Oct. 17 
The Hill 
As befits a "news" operation operated by the Media Research Center -- which already 
James Zumwalt went 
