NewsBusters Forgets Dershowitz Is A Sleazy Porn Lawyer Too Topic: NewsBusters
P.J. Gladnick complained in an April 22 NewsBusters post: "Compare the legal backgrounds of Harvard's Alan Dershowitz versus sleazy porn lawyer Michael Avenatti. Who has the more distinguished career? Yet CNN chose Avenatti over Dershowitz for the go-to person for legal analysis of the Trump-Russia collusion probe."Gladnick went on to reference "sleazy Michael Avenatti."
But Gladnick forgot that Dershowitz has his own sleazy-porn-lawyer record as well.
As we've noted, Dershowitz has served as a lawyer for Jeffrey Epstein, known for his political connections and his sex-trafficking scandal. Dershowitz has also been accused by one of Epstein's underage victims of engeging in sex with her (which Dershowitz has denied).
NewsBusters loved to talk about the Epstein scandal when Bill Clinton's name came up with it, but since it turns out Donald Trump had ties to Epstein as well -- he liked to hang out at Mar-a-Lago to the point that he picked up one of his victims there, who was working as a towel girl -- blogger Mark Finkelstein can't change the subject fast enough.
Somebody need to tell Gladnick that Dershowitz and Avenatti aren't that different after all.
WND's Double Standard On 'Naked Refusal' To Accept Election Results Topic: WorldNetDaily
An anonymously written May 5 WorldNetDaily article states:
The Democrats’ “naked refusal” to accept the 2016 election results triggered a recent Senate rule change on approving judicial nominees, according to a lawyer for a public-interest law firm.
“Something had to be done to restore the original constitutional vision. Adopting the two-hour standard was sadly necessary to put the brakes on persistent partisan obstruction on judicial nominees,” wrote Ken Klukowski of the First Liberty Institute wrote.
Here we have yet another example of WND complaining about something that happened under Trump that it championed under President Obama. As far as "naked refusal" to accept election results go, we need only to go back to a 2014 column by WND editor Joseph Farah in which he ranted: "Obama has never been my president. I have steadfastly refused to acknowledge him as such. He is undeserving of the honorific. To this day, I am unconvinced he is even eligible for office."
WND beat Democrats to the "not my president" mantra. If only it would honestly acknowledge its history on the subject.
CNS Cheers Gay-Bashing of Buttigieg Topic: CNSNews.com
The anti-gay activists in charge of CNSNews.com will not let you forget that Democratic presidential candidtate Pete Buttigieg is gay. CNS also loves it when someone -- preferably right-wing political pastor Franklin Graham -- attacks Buttigieg for being gay.
So when Graham lashed out at Buttigieg for proclaiming his Christian faith, CNS managing editor Michael W. Chapman -- who loves Graham as much as he hates the LGBT community -- was on it, complete with scare quotes for Buttigieg's marriage:
Reverend Franklin Graham criticized Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg, who is openly gay and "married" to another man, for stressing that God does not belong to a political party while ignoring God's commandments against homosexual behavior and so-called gay marriage. Without following God's Word, he said, we have no moral foundation and are at risk of "eternal damnation."
Pete Buttigieg, 37, is the mayor of South Bend, Ind. He is a graduate of Harvard University and Pembroke College, Oxford. Buttigieg is "married" to Chasten Glezman, a teacher.
In an April 23 post on Facebook, Rev. Graham wrote, "Presidential candidate and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg is right—God doesn’t have a political party. But God does have commandments, laws, and standards He gives us to live by. God is God. He doesn’t change. His Word is the same yesterday, today, and forever."
Chapman filled out his article with selected gay-bashing Bible verses and a statement from St. Bernardine. But he was silent on Graham's hypocrisy in bashing Buttigieg but lending his political and religious support to a thrice-married adulterer who pays hush money to porn stars.
The next day, Chapman gave attention to a rant from "Ana Samuel, Ph.D., a research scholar at the Witherspoon Institute and founder of the marriage movement CanaVox," a "Latina Mama" who hates gays as much as Graham does:
But this "cuts both ways," wrote Samuel, specifically naming "policies that undermine our parental rights and duties by seeking to indoctrinate our children in progressive sexual ideology without our consent and sometimes in spite of our explicit protest."
These policies, she said, include reading assignments in the public schools that are explicitly designed "to normalize LGBT lifestyles"; sex education classes that promote abortion, masturbation, condom use, sex toys, and rectal intercourse; "[p]ediatricians who ask to see our teenagers alone and then push to prescribe them contraceptives or ask them about sexual behaviors that we find offensive"; "public library programming where unicorns, rainbows, gingerbread persons, drag-queen story hours, and other symbols of progressive sexual ideology make an appearance, so that we must regularly steer our toddlers clear of the propaganda"; and promotion of transgender propaganda in the schools.
"Mr. Mayor, it is hypocritical for you to cry foul about policies that 'harm you and your family' while your side pushes for government intrusions into the parent-child relationship at the most fundamental levels," said Samuel.
[...]
As for the gay lifestyle itself, Samuel said, "It is not a good idea to tell society that you don’t need a member of the opposite sex to have a baby or that kids don’t need a mom and a dad because they will do fine in any kind of arrangement. That’s not true, and there’s plenty of empirical data to prove it."
[...]
"Ask yourself: is the lifestyle you are setting up as a pattern for others to follow replicable and sustainable?" said Samuel. "Or does it further destabilize the family form that has provided the greatest financial and social stability to women, children, and the poor? The evidence consistently points to the latter."
"The weight of the past 50 years of social science evidence is virtually unanimous in its conclusion: children—and societies—do best when kids are raised by their married, stable, biological parents," said Samuel.
[...]
In conclusion, Samuel said, "Speak up! Do not let the gender ideology of the Left destroy our family values! Do not stop exercising your rights as mothers! Mamas of the world, unite!"
A few days after that, CNS' Craig Bannister complained when Buttigieg once again invoked religious values:
Morals and values are “grievously missing” from the White House today, gay Democrat Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg said Monday night.
[...]
But, Christian leaders, such as Reverend Franklin Graham, say that, by practicing homosexuality and gay marriage, Buttigieg is behaving immorally and violating Christian values.
As previously reported by CNSNews.com, Rev. Graham recently rebuked Buttigieg for “ignoring God’s commandments against homosexuality”[.]
Like Chapman, Bannister also failed to point out that Graham's political hypocrisy in bashing Buttigieg while gushing over the amoral Trump.
MRC's Graham Melts Down Over WH Correspondents Dinner Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Reserach Center hates journalists -- to the point that it mocks them for worrying about their safety after President Trump's MRC-endorsed denunciations of them as the "enemy of the people" -- and perhaps no MRC employee hates journalists more than Tim Graham. He demonstrates that again in a couple posts about the White House Correspondents dinner.
First, he mocks the head of the White House Correspondents Association as a "drama queen" for being justifiably concerned about his safety and suggesting journalists deserve to have violent acts committed upon them for not being loyal Trump stenographers:
The White House Correspondents Dinner was again a hostile zone for President Trump, underlining it's no mystery why the president skips it. White House Correspondents Association president Olivier Knox of Sirius XM Radio first paid tribute to the group's lawyer, who filed a brief against CNN screamer Jim Acosta being denied his press pass for a few days. "No president should get to pick and choose who covers him!" And then Knox went full Drama Queen:
OLIVIER KNOX: That gets us in an admittedly roundabout way to this president. I don't want to dwell on the president. This is not his dinner, it is ours, and it should stay ours. I do want to say this -- in nearly 23 years as a reporter, I have been physically assaulted by Republicans and Democrats, spat on, shoved, had crap thrown at me. I have been told by senior officials of both major parties that I will never work in Washington again. There was a brief moment in Afghanistan when I thought a soldier not quite old enough to shave would shoot me dead for the crime of taking a picture inside the presidential palace.
And yet, I still separate my career into the period before February of 2017, and what came afterwards. And that's because February 2017 is when the president of the United States called us the enemies of the people. A few days later, I was driving my then 11-year-old son somewhere, probably soccer practice, when he burst into tears and asked me is Donald Trump going to put me in prison?' At the end of a family trip to Mexico, he mused that if the president tried to keep me out of the country, quote 'at least uncle Josh is a good lawyer and he'll get you home."
If you are the son of Olivier Knox, your friends will probably rib you pretty bad at school on Monday. Why do journalists still do this? Talk about Fake News! Even Brian Stelter admitted all these conspiracy theories about dictator moves didn't turn out. So why keep talking about them? Yes, "enemy of the people" is a harsh term. We prefer "the opposition party." You can be sure this room was 99 percent Democrats. (Sean Spicer was there.)
But it's still in fashion to say criticizing journalists could get them killed....and they never wonder if calling Trump Hitler might endanger him.
In another post, Graham whines that the speaker at the dinner, Ron Chernow, failed to suck up to Trump the way Graham ovbiously would:
The White House Correspondents Association somehow thinks it has improved its annual dinner by removing the pompous liberal comedian and replacing that with a pompous liberal historian. On Saturday night, historian Ron Chernow kissed every ring in the room by insisting the assembled scribes to "the noble work of preserving democracy." Is that what they call 200-plus interviews for crooked Michael Avenatti?
RON CHERNOW: You folks in the media write the first drafts of history, and we historians the later one. Your work gives freshener, color, and immediacy to our sagas. I know how embattled you feel at this critical juncture as you combat the mistrust of a significant portion of the American electorate. I think you do noble work to preserve democracy at a time when a rising tide of misinformation masquerading as news threatens to make a mockery of the First Amendment. [Applause]
There are so many journalistic fakes and forgeries out there that the genuine article can become devalued and debased. You must also deal with the pervasive world of social rife with self-appointed pundits who search out news outlets that only strengthen their pre-conceived views.
Let's guess he doesn't mean CNN/MSNBC viewers. Read this as an attack on Fox News, conservative talk radio and conservative blogs. There's noting dumber than a meeting of self-appointed pundits going after "self-appointed pundits." Unless it's people who make "news" to strengthen liberals pre-conceived views attacking "news outlets" that "strengthen pre-conceived views."
Graham wants all media outlets tohave the same slobbering pro-Trump bias as the MRC's own "news" division, CNSNews.com. After all, the MRC never makes CNS follow the anti-bias standards it demands from the "liberal media."
What CNSNews.com gave up in breadth of coverage of April's employment numbers -- only two articles this time around -- it more than made up for in gushiness. See how Susan Jones started her main story:
Not since 2000 has the number of unemployed Americans been this low.
That drop -- to 5,824,000 in April from 6,211,000 in March -- helped lower the nation's unemployment rate two-tenths of a point to 3.6 percent, the lowest rate since 1969.
The Bureau of Labor statistics counts people as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the past four weeks, and are currently available for work.
Jones thenturned to the not-so-good news, which would have been the lead and headline of her article if Barack Obama was still president:
However, not everyone who is jobless is unemployed. A growing number, including retirees, are counted as not in the labor force, meaning they are not working and are not looking for a job. That number increased by 646,000 last month to 96,223,000.
The number of employed Americans, which has set 18 records so far in the Trump presidency, dropped slightly in April to 156,645,000 from 156,748,000 in March.
The economy added a strong 230,000 jobs last month, beating analysts' estimates of +190,000.
But the labor force participation rate dropped two tenths of a point to 62.8 percent, below the Trump-era high of 63.2 percent.
The only other story CNS did was its usual sidebar from Craig Bannister on Hispanic employment, which was similarly gushy. CNS editor in chief Terry Jeffrey did not contribute his normal sidebars on manufacturing jobs and government jobs.
This was, however, apparently replaced by another column by the Heritage Foundation's Timothy Doescher in full gush mode:
It’s time to celebrate: We have the lowest unemployment rate in 49 years, and wages continue to rise—especially for lower-wage workers.
On Friday, the Bureau of Labor statistics reported that in April, the economy created a whopping 263,000 jobs, and the U-3 unemployment rate—the one commonly cited—fell from 3.8 percent to 3.6 percent. The alternate measure for unemployment, the U-6, which includes those discouraged and underemployed as well, remained unchanged at 7.3 percent.
This is consistent with the larger pattern we’ve been seeing of the economy booming: Over the last year, our economy is averaging 213,000 jobs per month, and we now have 103 consecutive months of job creation.
Doescher waited until the 13th paragraph of his column to mention that it's "a little more troubling" that "the falling unemployment rate might be partially fueled by a decrease in the labor force participation rate."
Another column, by Hans Bader, was similarly gushy, proclaiming that "The Trump administration has helped fuel economic growth by bringing an end to the flood of red tape issued by the Obama administration." Bader identified no specific instance of red tape removal that could be tied to a specific impact on the economy.
WND's Dubious Doc Can't Stop Fearmongering About Vaccines Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jane Orient is a medical misinformer who leads the fringe-right Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and her current crusade is ranting aghainst compulsory vaccination by peddling misleading fearmongering about their safety. WorldNetDaily has been giving Orient a platform for this -- particularly during the current measles outbreak -- and did so again n a May 2 column, in which she mocks the proven concept of herd immunity:
It’s about the need for herd immunity, they say. We need a 95 percent vaccination rate for herd immunity to measles. With only 91 percent or so, we are having outbreaks! If we could just vaccinate another 4 or 5 percent!
Mayor De Blasio has a point about vaccinating everyone. Adults are getting measles because their shots have worn off. It is likely that we have survived for decades with a large part of the adult population vaccinated – but not immune. So where do the mandates stop?
Outbreaks have occurred in populations with a near-100 percent vaccination rate. Was it vaccine failure? Or was the vaccine not refrigerated properly? Or was a claimed outbreak real? One in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was called off when a special test, a reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) showed a vaccine-strain measles virus rather than a wild-strain measles virus. Some 5 percent of vaccinees may get an illness that looks like measles, but it is just a “vaccine reaction.” Can they shed live virus? Yes. Should you keep your immuno-compromised child away from recently vaccinated people? Just asking.
Like all medical treatments, vaccines are neither 100 percent effective, nor 100 percent safe. Read the FDA-required, FDA-approved package inserts.
Does Orient really want to stop all vaccinations until they can be 100 percent effective with no side effects? That's irresponsible -- even as she admits that no medical treatment is totally safe. She can't even admit that vaccines help the vast majority of people.
Orient did attempt a conciliatory note at the end of her column:
The threat of infectious diseases is real and increasing. We need more robust public health measures, better vaccines, and improved public knowledge and awareness. Deploying vaccine police and shutting down debate will erode trust in health authorities and physicians, although more people may get their shots. But such heavy-handed measures will not defeat the enemy – measles and worse diseases.
But Orient is not interested in "debate" -- she just cares about irresponsible fearmongering that is solely designed to convince people to act against their best health interests.
MRC Demands Round-The-Clock Coverage of Biden's 'Grabby Hands' Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center is so obsessed with Joe Biden's history of being a little too grabby in public with women -- a story that has already been thourghly covered by the media -- that it's outraged that it's not mentioned every single time Biden appears in the media.
MRC bigwigs Tim Graham and Brent Bozell set the whining tone in their April 2 column:
The Democrat-media complex has suddenly decided that Joe Biden has a creepiness problem. Why now? Why not when he was Vice President for eight years? Does anyone remember the allegedly fierce White House press corps pelting the press secretary with questions, asking when Obama would tell his understudy to stop putting his hands on women – and little girls, too – and putting his face uncomfortably close to theirs?
They then descend into a paranoid rant about how the "Democrat-media complex" want Biden out of the way because he's purportedly not liberal enough.
By the time Biden actually announced his candidacy for president, though, the MRC's whining had reframed to demanding that Biden's grabbiness wasn't being sufficiently reported to conform to its right-wing agenda -- which is to say, being reported all the time.
An April 23 post by Geoffrey Dickens complained that "liberal journalists have rushed to the defense of Biden’s grabbiness," as well as "laughing off or completely burying most of his numerous gaffes."
On April 25, Scott Whitlock griped that "CBS This Morning on Thursday covered the launch of Joe Biden without ever mentioning any of his gaffes, including his habit of being grabby with women," proclaiming this to be a "scandal."
The same day, Dickens huffed that TV networks devoted a "tiny (1 minutes, 52 seconds) amount of time ... to the former Vice President’s grabbiness in their coverage of his campaign’s official launch." He further complained that "Even when reporters briefly mentioned Biden’s female problems, they couched it in the most favorable terms."
Dickens -- who has apparently been named the MRC's Biden obsessive -- griped in yet another post, in which the word "scandal" was again used:
The Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks have cleared the path of any nagging stories about Joe Biden’s grabby hands – having all but wiped clean the stories of women complaining about their uncomfortable encounters with the former VP.
In just three days of coverage (Tuesday evening through Friday morning) the broadcast evening and morning shows have devoted a hefty 47 minutes, 4 seconds of combined coverage to Biden’s official entrance into the 2020 race. But they could only find 2 minutes, 21 seconds of time to spend on Biden’s roaming hands.
In terms of total coverage NBC news has led the way with 19 minutes, 27 seconds spent on the Biden announcement, with just a skimpy 56 seconds on complaints from women. ABC has spent 16 minutes, 37 seconds on the Democratic frontrunner’s entry but only 50 seconds on Biden being overly-friendly with women. CBS offered 10 minutes, 58 seconds to the Biden launch and just a meager 35 seconds on the former Senator’s touchy-feely ways.
Dickens appears to be more obsessed with Biden's hands than Biden is.
AIM Tries To Brand Synagogue Shooter As A 'Left-Winger' Topic: Accuracy in Media
Accuracy in Media's Brian McNicoll was in spin mode in an April 30 post, asserting that John Earnest -- accused in the shootings at a synagogue in California -- is "a left-winger who despises Trump."
Not so much. Actually, Earnest expressed hatred of Trump only regarding his relationship with Jews, denouncing him as a "Zionist, Jew-loving, anti-White, traitorous c*cksucker." And far from being a "left-winger," he was a devout church-goer associated with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, a right-wing evangelical group founded to counter liberalism in the mainline Prebyterian church.Earnest's manifesto spouted "cogent Christian theology" alongside his virulent anti-Semitism, with one pastor calling it "a frighteningly clear articulation of Christian theology in certain sentences and paragraphs."
But McNicoll didn't mention any of that. The remainder of his column is dedicated to bashing a New York Times article on right-wing extremism in California and complaining that Earnest "did not belong to any of the right-wing hate groups law enforcement officials have identified."
WND Still Pushing Conspiracy on Notre Dame Fire Topic: WorldNetDaily
Being the irresponsible conspiracy-mongers they are, WorldNetDaily has enthusiastically pushed the idea that the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral was intentionally set, probably by Muslims. So committed is WND to this conspiracy theory that it's doing something that's become increasingly rare given its current dire financial state: original reporting.
WND's Art Moore made a phone call to France and he told us all about it in an April 28 article:
When the Fox News Channel’s Shepard Smith hung up on French politician and media analyst Philippe Karsenty during live coverage of the Notre Dame Cathedral blaze, authorities already were speculating the catastrophe that gripped the world was caused by an accident.
Although speculation is the coin of the cable-news realm, an indignant Smith wanted nothing to do with Karsenty providing context to the April 15 fire – nearly 2,000 attacks on French churches in two years – that would suggest an alternative cause should be considered.
And, in fact, as Karsenty pointed out in a phone interview from France with WND, a former chief architect of the Notre Dame – whose analysis has been virtually ignored – believes the accident theory makes no sense.
Karsenty told WND he was “shocked” when Smith abruptly ended the interview.
“I just wanted to put it in context,” he said, referring to the surge of attacks on churches. “And then I said, nevertheless, the media are lecturing us an hour after it started, saying it can only be unintentional.
“I didn’t say it was a terrorist attack. I didn’t say it was criminal,” Karsenty recalled to WND.
[...]
Karsenty observed a pattern in such incidents – particularly if it might have something to do with Islam – of authorities, without having investigated, immediately telling the public it was an accident.
“If you come out and say, ‘Wait a minute, there may be another explanation,’ it’s not [allowed],” he said.
“You don’t have the right to think freely.”
Moore also complained that Fox's Smith has a "reputation as a left-leaning counter to the network’s conservative commentators and hosts.
WND being WND, of course, Moore allowed no countervailing view -- can't interfere with the conspiracy theory, y'know.
MRC's Bozell Made Last-Ditch Effort To Save Moore's Fed Nomination Topic: Media Research Center
When President Trump first presented Herman Cain and Stephen Moore as possible nominees to the Federal Reserve board of governors, the Media Research Center didn't do all that much to boost them other than complain that the media was accurately reporting on the sleazy personal lives of both men -- Cain's sexual harassment, Moore's mistreatment of his ex-wife. Cain dropped out of the running soon after, leaving only Moore, whose scandal-ridden past was exposed further as his long history of comments denigrating women was documented.
Only then did the MRC feel the need to step things up a bit. An April 30 article at, of all places, Newsmax (and curiously not a MRC-operated outlet) touted an "exclusive statement" from MRC chief Brent Bozell:
The conservative Media Research Center on Tuesday unveiled a highlight reel of economist Stephen Moore’s strongest media appearances that may help explain the tempest over his expected nomination to the Federal Reserve Board -- his effectiveness communicating Trump’s economic policies.
On ABC News’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” Sunday, Moore noted the initial objections to his nomination focused on his credentials. Once that effort collapsed, he says, Plan B for Trump administration antagonists was to resort to a “sleaze campaign” focusing on “character assassination,” he said.
The longtime columnist said at least half a dozen mainstream media reporters are now sifting through everything he’s ever written, including columns that he says were written as provocative spoofs.
Those columns have now been used to link him to views that now sound antediluvian, such as questioning the advisability of having women receive equal pay. Moore now admits those tongue-in-cheek remarks were not funny, and has apologized.
Are Newsmax and Bozell claiming Moore's misogynist views were not "antediluvian" when he said them? Anyway, back to the video:
The video released Tuesday of recent appearances by Moore across the media spectrum provides voters a chance to see Moore defend his own record free from the filter of the mainstream media.
“The media’s broadside against Steve Moore is no surprise,” MRC founder Brent Bozell told Newsmax on Tuesday in an exclusive statement. “Moore’s pro-growth vision has been proven right by the booming economy.
“The liberal media’s mentality is we must stop any success coming from conservatives,” he added, “so they have launched a smear campaign against Moore that is unprecedented against a Federal Reserve Board nominee -- before he has even been nominated.”
The video -- posted at the MRCTV account on YouTube, but apparently not at MRCTV itself -- is just a clip package of Moore talking about his economic experience and criticizing the Fed for its recent monetary policy decisions.
Newsmax then quoted Bozell saying of the video: "Watching him make the TV rounds, I don’t think there is a more articulate promoter of the Trump economy than Moore." Of course, Moore's job on the Fed board would have been about making sound monetary policy, not being a "promoter of the Trump economy."
Meanwhile, at the MRC's "news" division CNSNews.com, a similarly half-hearted effort took place to boost Moore, whose column CNS publishes. An April 24 column by Phil Kerpen complained that "The dishonest criticisms of Moore's qualifications and independence are almost as bad as the desperate personal attacks," ignoring the fact that Moore's fealty to Trump is being touted by conservatives as his most salient qualification. Still, Kerpen insisted that "Moore's effectiveness as an advocate for Trump should not be mistaken for a lack of independence" and that he has an "impressive track record of getting it right when so many others got it wrong." Actually, being wrong is kinda Moore'sthing.
CNS managing editor Michael W. Chapman was then drafted to write a piece compiling how "numerous economic conservatives praised the White House and the economic forecasting of Stephen Moore." Chapman was silent on Moore's personal scandals.This was followed by a May 1 column by Ken Blackwell complaining that Moore was "savaged by the liberal press—and not for his economic knowledge or his views of domestic monetary policy—but via personal attacks on him and his family," further whining that "We have clearly reached a troubling point in American politics in which Republican presidential nominees are no longer reviewed based on the quality of their credentials (Moore’s are sterling) or the merits of their ideas (ditto), but are squeezed through a gauntlet of brutal, vicious attacks on their personal lives, reputations, and actions dating back as far as ten years."Blackwell didn't explain how this was different from the way Republicans have treated nominees under a Democratic president.
Alas, all this partisan political boosterism -- which would seem to bump up against the limits of the MRC 501(c)3 nonprofit tax status -- was too little, too late: Moore withdrew as a nominee. Curiously, CNS didn't find this to be newsworthy enough to report.
More White Nationalism Links At WND Topic: WorldNetDaily
We documented the other day how a BuzzFeed News profile on apparent former alt-right white nationalist Katie McHugh exposed that the Media Research Center hired an activist with the racist, misogynist Youth for Western Civilization, Tim Dionisopoulos, to run its social media accounts for four years. It turns out there's a link here to WorldNetDaily as well.
The article states that McHugh -- while still an alt-right white nationalist -- worked for WND for a few months in late 2017 but, according to her WND supervisor, "let go for performance issues." This, by the way, was a few months after she was fired from Breitbart for a string of racially charged tweets culminating in one stating, "There would be no deadly terror attacks in the U.K. if Muslims didn't live there." Clearly, the Muslim-haters at WND had no problem with that tweet.
But there's another WND-white nationalist link here as well. McHugh's boyfriend for a few years in the mid-2010s was Kevin DeAnna, founder of Youth for Western Civilization. In February 2012, DeAnna became the "marketing coordinator" for WND.
WND was actually proud of this connection for a while. A May 2012 article touted how DeAnna, along with three other WND writers, were placed on a Southern Poverty Law Center list of "the 30 most dangerous activists in the country." The article noted DeAnna was founder of YWC but did not describe the nature of the organization. DeAnna also wrote several articles for WND before his apparent departure in October 2012; we noted at the time that DeAnna defended Russian leader Vladimir Putin's persecution of the punk band Pussy Riot.
DeAnna also wrote an article promoting Bilderberg conspiracy theories; as it so happens, Dionisopoulos also wrote an article for WND around the same time featuring "citizen journalists" protesting outside of a Bilderberg Group gathering in Virginia (which we also noted at the time).
This is far from the first time WND has been caught dallying with white nationalism and barely disguised racism -- from Colin Flaherty to Paul Nehlen to Scott Greer, that thread has been running through WND for years.
CNS Didn't Get The Joke, Or The Point Topic: CNSNews.com
Craig Bannister grouses in an April 25 CNSNews.com blog post:
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) took a shot at the heritage of President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara, on Thursday after Mrs. Trump said German Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision in 2015 to allow more than a million migrants into the country was "one of the worst things that ever happened to Germany."
Responding on Twitter to an article by The Hill reporting on Lara Trump’s comments on Fox Business Channel earlier in the day, Rep. Swalwell took issue with Mrs. Trump’s German heritage:
“But what about her German-born grandfather-in-law?”
In an interview with Fox Business’ Stuart Varney, Lara Trump said her father-in-law, President Donald Trump, is trying to avoid Germany’s mistake by securing the U.S. southern border:
“It was the downfall of Germany, it was one of the worst things that ever happened to Germany. This president knows that, he’s trying to prevent that from happening here.”
Bannister not only missed that Swalwell was making a little joke, he missed the entire controversy that's happening here. Swalwell's tweet alluded to Trump's claim a few weeks earlier that his father was born in Germany -- which, like a lot of things Trump says, is not true.
Bannister also pretends Lara Trump's comment that Germany allowing refugees into the country was "one of the worst things that ever happened to Germany" and the country's "downfall" is not controversial or ridiculous. Many online have pointed out that the comment seems to downplay the whole Nazi thing, not to mention that other world war the Germans played a role in starting.
For Bannister to twist a joke over an outrageous comment into an attack on someone's ethnic heritage requires a lot of deliberate ignorance of reality. And he succeeds a little too well.
Newsmax Pushes Speculation That Notre Dame Fire Was Intentional Topic: Newsmax
An April 25 Newsmax TV report by John Bachman -- hidden behind a "Platinum" paywall on the Newsmax website but also posted at its YouTube page -- tries to push the idea that the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral was intentionally set.
Bachman's "cutting-edge" report by first getting the name not quite right -- using the English prounciation of Notre Dame instead of the proper French one -- then touting speculation challenging the "unusual immediate declaration of an accident when almost no investigation had been thoroughly conducted," then conceded that "many of the most radical theories have been debunked." He then took a huge, distracting logical leap, declaring that "one can make a clear case that Christianity is clearly under attack from extremists" and first citing ... the terrorist attcks in Sri Lanka. Bachman offersd no evidence whatsoever that terrorist attacks in non-French locations, or even any of the church vandalism incidents inside France, have any thing to do with what happened at Notre Dame. Still, he insisted that "it's easy to understand why many people are wondering and questioning French authorities as to why they were so quick and how they were able to declare the Notre Dame fire an accident without a full investigation."
Notre Dame fire conspiracy theories are expected from the likes of conspiracy-happy WorldNetDaily, but with the Media Research Center and now Newsmax leaning into it, there must be some right-wing narrative being built.
MRC Complains That Media Pointed Out Trump Made A Dumb Suggestion During Notre Dame Fire Topic: Media Research Center
At the Media Research Center, it's forbidden for anyone in the media to criticize President Trump -- even when he says something universally recognized as dumb. Take it away, Nicholas Fondacaro:
On Monday, the world watched in horror as the famous Notre Dame Cathedral burned. A deeply concerned President Trump put out a tweet urging for water-tanker helicopters to be used to put out the blaze. We later learned that French authorities didn’t use them because the weight of the water could cause further destruction. Despite many other people thinking the same thing, members of liberal media used it as an opportunity to score cheap points against Trump. But not all did.
For ABC’s World News Tonight, chief White House correspondent Jon Karl dug into Trump for offering “some unsolicited advice” to French firefighters. “Would that work? A veteran American firefighter told David it would not,” he chided.
He added: “Later, the French Civil Defense Agency said essentially the same thing. In its one and only tweet of the day in English. ‘All means are being used, except for water-bombing aircrafts which, if used, could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral.’”
During CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront, comedic reporter Jeanne Moos mocked the President’s idea for getting shot down:
JEANNE MOOS: President Trump offered advice, “perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it must act quickly.” Jersey City’s fire chief threw cold water on that.
CHIEF STEVEN MCGILL (Jersey City Fire Department): Water is very heavy and if it hits a structure like that, out of a tanker, it could cause further collapse.
Contrary to Fondacaro's opinion, it's not "mocking" Trump or "cheap points" to point out his idea was stupid -- that's just factual reporting. And the MRC hates it when the facts have a liberal bias.
WND's Brown In Denial About Hating Buttigieg Because He's Gay Topic: WorldNetDaily
Michael Brown began his April 17 column by taking a shot at Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg:
Go ahead. Ban be. Block me. Get out your nasty dictionary and vilify me. Call me obsessed. Hateful. Bigoted. Have at it.
The fact is, there are a million things I’d rather write about, but the state of the world leaves me no choice. To be silent is to give tacit approval. To be silent is to accept. To be silent is to capitulate. And that’s not going to happen.
A Democratic leader announces his presidential candidacy and then turns to kiss his same-sex partner. And the crowd celebrates.
Sorry, but I’m not celebrating.
After more ranting about transgenders, Brown added:
It is love that motivates me and moves me. Love for God. Love for America. Love for the coming generations. Love for what is best.
You can call it hate. You can brand me a Nazi. That will only encourage me to speak up all the more clearly.
We'll call it hate, since we're not seeing any love in Brown's motivation. After all, he spent his May 3 column explaining how we must hate Buttigieg because he's a gay Christian:
How then has he surged up in the polls? Why has he become the darling of the left?
It’s because he is gay. And he is “married” to his partner. And he is a professing Christian. And he is challenging sacred biblical and church traditions. What more could the left ask for?
But there’s a nuance to this we cannot miss.
Mayor Pete and his partner are the perfect poster boys for the gay agenda, a culmination of years of messaging and marketing.
They seem like really nice guys (and might well be).
They seem wholesome.
They are churchgoing.
They care about the poor.
To the best of our knowledge, they are not frequenting gay bars looking for anonymous sex encounters.
They are like your ideal neighbors, just a little different.
Brown complained about that purported "gay agenda" of homosexuality being "just another thing," asserting that this meant that he couldn't then demonize them as filthy sluts -- or, as he put it, "As for negative aspects of homosexuality (such as higher rates of promiscuity and STDs or “open” marriages), those should be hidden from the public eye."
Brown then demonstrated more a nimosity toward Buttigieg and his husband -- again while denying he is doing any such thing:
It could well be that Pete and Chasten are really nice guys. That they’re really committed to each other. That they would be very nice neighbors.
But two men (or two women) “marrying” will never equal a man and woman marrying. Two dads or two moms will never equal a mom and a dad (nor will they ever be able to reproduce themselves physically in their offspring). Sex distinctions, established by God at creation for the good of the human race, still matter.
Consequently, while I do not have the slightest animosity towards Mayor Pete (or Chasten), what I will celebrate is the miracle of a man and a woman coming together as one. A couple joined in romantic and sexual union, reproducing the unique byproduct of their emotional and spiritual and physical lives – a literal, new creation.
That’s the real first family, and it represents the fullest expression of God’s heart.
Gay families will take these words as hate-filled and denigrating, for which I’m truly sorry. I’m simply saying that God’s ways are truly best.
Pro tip for Brown: If you are devoting an entire column to defending the idea that Buttigieg and his husband must not be taken seriously -- and, indeed, be rejected as aberrant freaks -- because they are gay, you are denigrating them with a large degree of animosity.
P.J. Gladnick complained in an April 22 NewsBusters post: "Compare the legal backgrounds of Harvard's Alan Dershowitz versus sleazy porn lawyer Michael Avenatti. Who has the more distinguished career? Yet CNN chose Avenatti over Dershowitz for the go-to person for legal analysis of the Trump-Russia collusion probe."Gladnick went on to reference "sleazy Michael Avenatti."
An anonymously written May 5 WorldNetDaily 
The anti-gay activists in charge of CNSNews.com 
The Media Reserach Center hates journalists -- to the point that it mocks them for worrying about their safety after President Trump's MRC-endorsed denunciations of them as the "enemy of the people" -- and perhaps no MRC employee hates journalists more than Tim Graham. He demonstrates that again in a couple posts about the White House Correspondents dinner.
What CNSNews.com gave up in breadth of coverage of April's employment numbers -- only two articles this time around -- it more than made up for in gushiness. See how Susan Jones started her 
Jane Orient is a 
The Media Research Center is so obsessed with Joe Biden's history of being a little too grabby in public with women -- a story that has already been thourghly covered by the media -- that it's outraged that it's not mentioned every single time Biden appears in the media.
Accuracy in Media's Brian McNicoll was in spin mode in an April 30 
Being the irresponsible conspiracy-mongers they are, WorldNetDaily has 
When President Trump first presented Herman Cain and Stephen Moore as possible nominees to the Federal Reserve board of governors, the Media Research Center didn't do all that much to boost them other than 
We 
Craig Bannister grouses in an April 25 CNSNews.com 
An April 25 Newsmax TV report by John Bachman -- hidden behind a "Platinum" paywall on the Newsmax 
At the Media Research Center, it's forbidden for anyone in the media to criticize President Trump -- even when he says something universally recognized as dumb. Take it away, 
Michael Brown began his April 17 
