MRC's Graham, Bozell Also Try To Discredit Trump Sexual Assault Accuser Topic: Media Research Center
We've documented how the Media Research Center worked to assail the credibility of E. Jean Carroll, who accused President Trump of a sexual assault against her in 1994. That comes from the top, as demonstrated by the June 26 column by Tim Graham and Brent Bozell.
They sneered that Carroll "vaguely guesses" when the assault took place then, after a noncommittal disavowal of the incident, played the Clinton Equivocation card:
That sounds horrible. We should all agree we want to have a president who is not a rapist. The liberals and the Trump haters turned the page back to when Juanita Broaddrick accused Bill Clinton 20 years ago, insisting that conservatives made her a cause celebre.
Yes, that's true. But there's at least one important difference: the speed of the journalism.
[...]
Myers thoroughly investigated the allegation and had placed both Broaddrick and Clinton at the alleged location on that day — April 25, 1978, at the Camelot Hotel. Three female friends said Broaddrick had told them of this assault, and that she had a black and swollen lip. Liberals energetically attempted to ignore or knock Broaddrick's story in 1999.
But Graham and Bozell forget one key piece of evidence: Not only did Broaddrick spend 20 years denying that any such "rape" occured, she made a sworn affidavit to that effect to the Ken Starr independent counsel investigation of Clinton. As George Conway points out, Carroll's allegation sits on a much more solid foundation that Broaddrick's because of that sworn affidavit, as well as "the sheer number of claims that have now surfaced against Trump — claims in which women have accused Trump of engaging in unwelcome or forcible sexual conduct or assault against them."
Graham and Bozell didn't mention Conway's analysis, Broaddrick's sworn affidavit or the fact that at least 24 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct -- much more than the accusations against Clinton, whom they would like to assure you is the supposed gold standard for presidential misconduct.Instead, they whine that this story somehow proves that "most Americans think the 'news' media are partisan hacks who define what is "news" and what is not 'news' based on how it can advance (or inhibit) the left's crusade to fundamentally transform America."
Of course, they did not think that the things that discredit Broaddrick were "news" worth telling their readers.
Graham followed up the next day with a post bashing a newspaper article for asking why Carroll's accusation had little impact, complaining that it "made absolutely no reference to Carroll's strange interviews, like her insisting to Anderson Cooper that "most people" thought the concept of rape was 'sexy.' That kooky outburst seemed to cool the media's ardor for the story."
Needless to say, Graham did not mention Broaddrick or her credibility issues. Instead, he whined that the paper didn't initially publish "even though Clinton ended up settling with Jones for $850,000." Does this mean Graham is conceding that Trump committed adultery with a porn star because he paid her hush money?
Graham played the Clinton Equivocation further in a July 1 post complaining about CNN's Brian Stelter discussing Carroll's accusations: "Stelter set up Carroll with a very negative tweet from Donald Trump Jr called her a "nut job" -- instead of asking her skeptical questions about her wildly controversial claims. (He didn't recall that poor, patriarchy-oppressed Hillary called Monica Lewinsky a 'narcissistic Looney Tunes.')" Of course, if Lewinsky was to be believed, shouldn't Graham also beleive Carroll?
Nah -- that would require him putting the truth ahead of politics.
After Attack-Filled CNS Columns, Charlie Daniels Wants Us To Reject The 'Politics of Division' Topic: CNSNews.com
By dint of his friendship with Brent Bozell, Charlie Daniels has always been the Media Research Center's exception to its shut-up-and-sing policy regarding entertainers with political opinions. It helps, of course, that Daniels reliably spews right-wing talking points with a fair amount of venom; that's why he has a regular column at the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com.
Take, for example, Daniels' attack on President Obama in his June 24 column:
I don’t think Barack Obama really wanted to see America be all it could be. I believe Obama saw America as a bully, as an expansionist nation forcing our will on the world at large, a repressive tyrant that needed to be brought down a notch or two and take its place in the New World Order, a placating, passive nation of repentant supplicants, forever apologizing for our greatness and paring it down by sharing it with the world.
I think the statements Obama made to describe those he so disagreed with and feared – the ones about people clinging to their “guns” or “religion” and that America is “no longer just a Christian nation” – most clearly define the disparity of his ideas about America.
Most all the people I associate with believe in Almighty God and own guns that they will never give up without a fight. And I don’t know where President Obama got his stats, but America is still, by and large, a Christian nation.
Daniels then gushed over Donald Trump, "a New York real estate developer and former television star – brash, abrasive, pugnacious, plain-spoken, and afraid of no one – who could trade punches with any politician or pundit, and who was willing to stand toe to toe with any detractor and insist that his concept of America was totally different from Obama, Clinton, et al. ... He was pro-gun, pro-Israel, embraced Christianity and told us that with the easing of regulations and some sane tax policy that the manufacturing jobs we had lost, or basically given away under Obama could be brought back on shore." Daniels seems bamboozled into thinking Trump has genuine convictions and is not simply doing what he thinks will get him votes and clicks.
I can’t bring myself to believe that there aren’t enough Americans alive who still remember the reality and abject failure of socialism and the wide path of human deprivation and suffering, shattered societies and failing dictatorships all socialist governments eventually morph into.
[...]
But behind all the high-flying phraseology and the inflated promises lies a world that actually differs little in philosophy from the plantation days, when a hand full of the elite who wield the power live in splendor with different health care plans, different benefit and retirement packages, different pay scales and different privileges than the lumped-together, one size fits all, numbered but unnamed masses who live under their thumb.
God forbid that that day should come, but the indications are strong that we are headed in that direction – a socialist America.
We could end up another deceived nation on the scrap heap of history.
But after peddling all that hate, Daniels suddenly decided he wanted to tone it down, trying to go all kumbaya in his July 1 column headlined "Can We All Put Aside Our Differences, Recommit Ourselves to Each Other, Our Nation?" which concluded:
In my opinion, what separates America today is that we dwell too much on the things we disagree on and not enough on the things we have in common, on what’s wrong instead of what’s right.
Yes, America has a lot of problems. Yes, there is injustice, inequality and unnecessary human suffering. Yes, there are many inequities, but we will never solve them as a divided people.
Can we just stop for a minute, put aside our differences, count our blessings, ignore the politics of division and recommit ourselves to each other and to our nation?
So, let’s start with me.
But before he got there, he was somewhat less than interested in setting aside differences, complaining that "the American dream has tarnished, which he blamed in part on how "the wanton taking of unborn human life is treated as casual as having a manicure." And that put-aside-our-differences blather differs greatly from the politics of division that dominated his two previous columns, which makes us wonder about his sincerity.
You want people to put aside their differences and ignore the politics of division? You first, Charlie.
MRC Attacks Anyone Who Dares Criticize Trump's July 4 Speech Topic: Media Research Center
At the Media Research Center, President Trump is He Who Must Not Be Criticized. And when it came to his self-aggrandizing July 4 speech and military display in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the MRC decreed that it was downright unpatriotic to criticize Trump for it.
President Trump has organized a special Fourth of July event to take place on the National Mall which he dubbed “a salute to America,” and the liberal broadcast networks were not pleased with it. Combined, ABC’s World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News insisted Trump is set to divide the country, make it all about himself, and veterans are angry about it.
ABC came off as seemingly afraid of our troops when fill-in anchor and White House correspondent Cecilia Vega suggested there was “ growing backlash” to the “parade, a concert, and a show of military force taking place in the nation's capital.”
[...]
Because the VIP list reportedly included Republican donors (as if President Obama didn’t invite his donors and celebrity friends to such events), [ABC correspondent Hallie] Jackson elevated “critics” who were “concerned the President's high jacking the holiday, putting politics over patriotism, and forcing taxpayers to foot the bill. One Democrat deriding it as a ‘vanity’ project.”
Alex Christy huffed that "CNN carnival barker and American Urban Radio Networks correspondent April Ryan came up with a new objection: the purpose of the parade is so that Trump can look like a dictator." (Wait, we thought Jim Acosta was the "carnival barker.") Christy then added; "One should be allowed to criticize the idea of having tanks roll down the streets of D.C. for a parade or holiday without being called unpatriotic, but the media always take things to eleven which turns criticism into hysteria and genuine concerns into scaremongering." Of course, the whole point of the MRC's exercise is to paint any criticism of Trump over this as unpatriotic.
Wish that President Trump would not have inserted himself into Washington, D.C.’s Fourth of July celebrations, allowing A Capitol Fourth to remain on its own? Fine. But to declare the President’s plans “un-American” and a sign he wants to make America like North Korea or the former Soviet Union? That’s nonsense, folks.
And as evidenced by those hot takes on Tuesday’s Hardball with MSNBC host Chris Matthews and his three panelists, we have yet another example of what Trump Derangement Syndrome can do to your well-being.
Emma Fantuzzo complained that "Three days before the Fourth of July, Chris Hayes and the liberal media took it upon themselves to inform the American public that the President’s planned Fourth of July celebration has ulterior, unpatriotic motives. " After Hayes pointed out the VIP section taht would be filled in part by his political supporters, Fantuzzo sneered, "Perhaps Hayes is upset because he won’t be among the VIPs." Hayes guest Charles Pierce (the guy the MRC still falsely accuses of praising Ted Kennedy) pointed out that Trump's stunt was "extraordinarily cheap and tacky and grifty," but she was oddly more bothered that Pierce "was wearing a Hawaiian shirt on national television." Fantuzzo concluded by playing the patriotism card: "Well it’s a good thing MSNBC is doing their part in spreading constant negativity and a lack of patriotism, that’s sure to win over the American people."
Randy Hall groused that "MSNBC and the networks will not carry [Trump's] Fourth of July address to the nation," then cheered that Fox News "will cover the entire event during a two-hour edition of that evening’s Special Report With Bret Baier that will begin at 6 p.m." While Hall identified the networks not running Trump's speech live as "liberal," he applied no ideological label to the right-wing, Trump-loving Fox News.Hall also included some misinformation from the right-wing Daily Mail, uncritically repeating a claim that instead of Trump's speech, "“NBC will have on NBC Nightly News With Lester Holt and Extra during the time slot, and CBS will run its nightly newscast and Inside Edition.” In fact, both "Extra" and "Inside Edition" are syndicated programs, not network shows; the Daily Mail apparently treated a CBS and NBC affiliate's lineup as applying to the entire network, and Hall never caught the error.
Ryan Foley weighed in with a defense of the president: "It seems like the media always want to attribute the worst possible motives to President Trump; rather than entertaining the idea that he might simply want to celebrate America." Foley did not further explain why anyone should take Trump's motives at face value.
After the speech, Houck went hyperbolic again, portraying even the mildest criticism of Trump as utterly unhinged:
Well, that was something. Over the course of about 28 minutes of airtime (including commercials) following the President’s Fourth of July event A Salute to America, CNN’s The Situation Room put on one of the most disgraceful displays of liberal media bias, Trump hatred, and slights at America you’ll ever see.
Attacking the President like bitter preschoolers, a cast of CNN personalities bashed the Trump speech as a “rudimentary” “eighth grade history” report ripping off of Schoolhouse Rock and Wikipedia to create a work of “jingoism and militaristic virtue.”
Houck is sounding not unlike a bitter preschooler himself.
Drennen complained that one reporter "snidely" pointed out an embarrassing error by Trump bizarrely referring to the military “taking over airports” during the Revolutionary War. Drennen didn't admit that if Obama had made such an error, the MRC would never stop snidely obsessing over it.
Bill D'Agostino completed the MRC's anti-media hatefest by summarizing various media figures' "numerous false predictions" about the speech, while inadvertently damning the speech itself with the faint praise of it being "largely patriotic" and "unobjectionable."
WND Still Taking Birther Potshots At Obama Topic: WorldNetDaily
If you played a major role in a fake-news campaign, you likely wouldn't want to remind people of that fact. But then, you're not WorldNetDaily.
WND was the leadcheerleader in the promotion of Obama birther conspiracy theories -- none of which turned out to be true and which likely played a key role in WND's ongoing dire financial situation. Despite the fact that none of its conspiracy theories was ever proven true, WND still can't stop taking shots at Obama about it.
This happened again in a July 1 WND article by Joe Kovacs, which originally carried the scare-quoted headline "Obama cashes in on being a U.S. 'citizen'":
Former President Barack Obama, whose status as a “natural-born citizen” in the United States became a years-long controversy, is now tapping in on his status as a citizen to urge Americans to “take a stand against one of the most critical issues our democracy faces,” specifically voting manipulation.
In an email Monday with the subject line “Citizen to citizen,” Obama issued a fundraising plea on behalf of the National Redistricting Action Fund.
Of course, Kovacs provides no evidence that Obama is personally "cashing in" on being a citizen; he's simply headlining a anti-gerrymandering group's fundraising pitch. Perhaps that's why the headline was changed to the not-much-better "Surprise! Obama suddenluy fighting voting manipulation," even though Kovacs also made no case for this happening "suddenly."
And Kovacs failed to mention that one big reason birtherism because a "years-long controversy" is because his employer fanned the flames and studiously censored evidence that disproved its conspiracy theories.
WND still isn't acting like a "news" organizaton that deserves to live.
MRC Won't Credit Obama For Bulk of Economic Recovery Topic: Media Research Center
Joseph Valle complained in a July 2 Media Research Center post:
The U.S. officially entered its longest economic expansion ever July 1, boasting 121 straight months without a recession beginning in June 2009. This broke the previous record stretching from March 1991 to March 2001.
MarketWatch reporter Jeffry Bartash cheered the U.S.’s entrance into its “record-shattering 11th year of expansion.” He described how “stocks have enjoyed a bullish run-up” from the strong economy, and noted that the S&P 500 Index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the Nasdaq Composite Index have all gained by more than 200 percent “since the start of June 2009.”
And yet, the three broadcast evening news shows found no reason to celebrate the good economic news. In fact, ABC’s World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News provided exactly zero coverage on the record-breaking streak of growth. Their Spanish-language counterparts, at Univision and Telemundo, also chose to ignore the blockbuster news.
The nation's top broadcast networks did release each of their own articles online acknowledging the economic expansion, but they twisted it to make it sound bad for consumers.
Though he doesn't mention President Trump, Valle's implication is that Trump should be given all the credit for the expansion. But he also doesn't mention the name of the man who was president during the first 7 1/2 years of the expansion: Barack Obama, a Democrat.
CNS Columnist Defends Anti-Gay Soccer Player Topic: CNSNews.com
We'venoted how the ConWeb has praised soccer player Jaelene Hinkle for blowing up her career because she's so homophobic that she refused a callup to the U.S. women's soccer team so she wouldn't have to wear a rainbow-themed jersey. The latest is John Stonestreet, who wrote in a June 27 CNSNews.com column:
Hinkle’s saga began back in 2015 after the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex “marriage.” Hinkle posted the following on Instagram: “I believe with every fiber in my body that what was written 2,000 years ago in the Bible is undoubtedly true … . This world may change, but Christ and His Word NEVER will.”
As you can imagine, this made Hinkle a marked woman, especially among soccer fans who identified as LGBT.
Then, in 2017, Hinkle chose to withdraw from the national team rather than wear a U.S. team jersey sporting rainbow numbers in order to celebrate gay pride.
Hinkle explained her decision, “I just felt so convicted in my spirit that it wasn’t my job to wear this jersey … I gave myself three days to just seek and pray and determine what (God) was asking me to do in this situation. If I never get another national team call-up again then that’s just a part of His plan, and that’s okay. Maybe this is why I was meant to play soccer, to show other believers to be obedient.”
Well, her obedience came at a price. Playing for the North Carolina Courage team in the National Women’s Soccer League, Hinkle is the recipient of boos and jeers almost every time she touches the ball.
And in the run-up to this year’s Women’s World Cup, U.S. Coach Jill Ellis invited Hinkle to try out for the team. After three days of workouts, Ellis, who is gay and “married” to her lesbian partner, cut Hinkle, citing “footballing reasons.”
Many were skeptical that the best women’s fullback in the country—something even her pro-LGBT critics admit—isn’t good enough to play on the U.S. Women’s World Cup team. According to SB Nation’s Kim McCauley, who by the way called Hinkle a “vocal homophobe,” “there isn’t a better pure tactical fit available [for the U.S. team] than Hinkle.”
[...]
Hinkle’s saga is only the most recent evidence that American Christians need to develop a theology of getting fired, or if you happen to be in Hinkle’s profession, a theology of getting cut from the team.
It’s simply more likely than not that we too will face a choice at some point between our career and our convictions. We aren’t the first Christians who have had to face this choice, and thank God the choice isn’t our life and our convictions, as it is for our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world.
Jaelene Hinkle chose well. Will we?
Stonestreet doesn't mention that there several players on the U.S. women's soccer team who consider themselves Christian and, unlike Hinkle, are not afraid to associate with people slightly different from them. Would Stonestreet argue that these non-hateful Christians did not choose well?
USWNT team member Ashlyn Harris also shot down Hinkle's insinuation that the team isn't welcoming to Christians because it allegedly wouldn't put up with her homophobia: "Your religion was never the problem. The problem is your intolerance and you are homophobic. ... Don’t you dare say our team is ‘not a welcoming place for Christians’. You weren’t around long enough to know what this team stood for. This is actually an insult to the Christians on our team."
Talent is one thing, but team chemistry is another. If Hinkle thinks so little of her would-be USWNT teammates, it would be hard for her to fit in, no matter how good a player she is. Stonestreet appears not to have taken that into account.
The MRC's Pro-Trump Apparatchiks Attack Woman Who Accused Trump of Sexual Assault Topic: Media Research Center
As a kneejerk defender of all things Trump, the Media Research Center knew what it had to do when writer E. Jean Carroll came forward in late June to accuse President Trump of sexually assaulting her in a department store dressing room 24 years ago: destroy her and paint her as crazy and non-credible. Let's take a look at how.
Jorge Plaza started the MRC attack by questioning her motives for going public when she did: "The timing of this allegation is suspect. Why didn’t she come forward with her story after the release of the infamous Hollywood Access [sic] tape? At that point, accusations were coming out left and right. ... Instead, Carroll waited until she had published her book -- almost 3 years after the Hollywood Access [sic] tape -- to make her claim." Plaza then criticized celebrities who bashed Trump over the allegation, huffing that they're driven by "an all-consuming rage that inhibited their rational ability to smell a fishy story. Carroll's story fit into their preconceived notion of Trump as an evil rapist, so her story must be true without any investigation."
This was followed by Emma Fantuzzo bashing MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell for reporting onit: "O’Donnell and the liberal media quickly ate up the allegations without any skepticism, with O’Donnell spending over half of his hour-long program on the story." After O'Donnell pointed out that Trump lied when he claimed that he never met Carroll as shown by a photo of the two of them,Fantuzzo sneered: "One photograph from the early 90’s in no way confirms that Carroll was later raped."
Joseph Chalfant then played the victim card after a CNN interview with Carroll: "The interview was reminiscent of the firestorm Justice Brett Kavanaugh received when the media launched a barrage of unsubstantiated claims against him in his youth, or how the press treated Justice Clarence Thomas during the Anita Hill hearings. The left has a long history of using sexual assault claims as a club to beat conservatives with." He added: "Should sexual assaulters be robustly condemned? Of course, but they need to be proven guilty in a court of law before angry mobs form to declare them guilty in the court of public opinion."
We should remind Chalfant that his employer was a leader of the angry right-wing mob that portrayed President Clinton as a serial sexual assaulter despite the lack of a guilty verdict against him in a court of law.
Kristine Marsh played up Carroll's supposed "very odd behavior" in a CNN interview, in the form of Carroll saying that there are people who think rape is sexy, but was more mad that the media accurately reported that Trump insisted that Carroll is "not my type" and "pointing out past comments Trump had made about an accuser’s appearance." This was followed by Scott Whitlock obsessing over the "weird turns" in the Carroll interview with CNN.
Gregory Price also used the CNN interview against Carroll, whining:
If you are a woman, and accuse any notable Republican of sexual assault, you will immediately become the darling of the liberal media for at least a day no matter how little evidence there may be to back up the allegations. Over the last few days, the press have paraded around gossip writer E. Jean Carroll, who, in her new book, accused President Trump of raping her in the dressing room of a New York City department store in the 1990s.
>All accusations of sexual assault should be treated and investigated with the utmost seriousness. For MSNBC's Morning Joe, however, serious #MeToo journalism was once again thrown out the window.
[...]
Rape is a horrific crime, allegations of which should be taken very seriously. E. Jean Carroll, however, has followed up her rape allegation by making several bizarre statements, none of which were mentioned onMorning Joe.
After host Joe Scarborough referenced Juanita Broaddrick, who level a rape accusation against President Clinton in the late 1990s, Price groused that "the media trashed Juanita Broaddrick and the rest of Bill Clinton’s accusers back in the ‘90s." Price appears not be sufficiently self-aware that he's doing the exact same thing to Carroll.
Chalfant joined in wielding the interview as a cudgel, complaining that a different CNN show "refrained from airing the portions that may not portray the President’s accuser in the most appealing light. ... Rather than air a clip that may cast doubt on Carroll’s credibility, they swept it under the rug." He concluded by huffing: "If Trump committed an act of sexual assault he should be wholeheartedly condemned, but until he’s proven guilty it’s important for the media to depict the situation objectively in fairness to both the President and to Carroll." Again, not a standard the MRC ever applied to allegations against Clinton.
Clay Waters also played the Carroll attack/Clinton equivocation card, responding to the New York Times' claim that it was overly cautious in reporting Carroll's allegations by claiming that "the paper risks being caught in a whipsaw, if Carroll’s credibility as an accuser suffers, or she keeps making bizarre comments like the one she made Monday night to CNN host Andersen Cooper, which only right-leaning outlets have noticed" and that "The Times had a far different reaction to an old rape accusations against a president back in 1999, after Juanita Broaddrick came forward with her story of being raped by Bill Clinton."
Curtis Houck served up his own version of that attack, grousing that MSNBC host "and Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferer Nicolle Wallace falsely claimed that there’s never been a presidential 'candidate to be credibly accused of sexual assault as violent as the rape described by E. Jean' before Donald Trump," citing "the history regarding any and all of Bill Clinton's accusers (most notably Juanita Broadrick) as well as Ted Kennedy’s sordid history with women." He also gleefully highlighted "the now scatterbrained story of E. Jean Carroll" and "her bizarre claims."
Ryan Foley took issue with late-night host Samantha Bee claiming that NBC's Chuck Todd offered Trump a "softball" interview because he didn't ask the president about the Carroll allegations, huffing that "Apparently, Bee didn’t watch the interview, or she would have known that the interview was loaded with tough questions" (because the MRC had complained about Todd trying to "confront the president from the left") and dismissing her complains as a "typical tirade."
Carroll came for further attack in another post by Plaza after she stated in an interview about her book that "the world is a very, very merry place without men" and that men are so terrible that they should be sent to a "secret place" for "special retraining" while women are left to rule the world.Plaza cheered that "the media has distanced itself from the alleged victim, opting to focus simply on the allegation’s “impact.” adding: "The more distance between Carroll and her allegation, the better. The media loves the rape accusation against Trump. Carroll’s bizarre comments and flagrant man-hate? Not so much."
Barry Farber's Substitute Pushes Bogus Talking Point on Trump and Charlottesville Topic: WorldNetDaily
Barry Farber parceled out his July 2 WorldNetDaily column to "friend and associate" Stu Tarlowe, who uses the space to recycle right-wing complaints about coverage of last year's white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., starting with it being called a "white nationalist rally":
But I have much more than “mixed feelings” about the manner in which the events at Charlottesville were, and still are, reported. I have serious issues with the way almost every mainstream “news outlet” (newspapers, TV and radio) has chosen to report that Fields’ crimes were committed at a “white nationalist rally.” That phrase is repeated over and over to describe the gathering at Charlottesville that day.
But it was not a “white nationalist rally.” The events unfolded in reaction to the city’s plan to yield to the pressures of political correctness and historical revisionism and take down a statue of Robert E. Lee, and to re-name the eponymous park where it stood.
As we've noted, the Washington Post has pointed out that the rally to protest the possible removal of the Lee statue was, in fact, "partly organized by a well-known white nationalist, Richard Spencer, and included both neo-Nazis and white supremacist groups" and, thus, "was clearly not one for your average supporter of Confederate monuments."
Nevertheless, Tarlowe doubled down:
Why do these mainstream “news providers” seem to march in lockstep in the way they choose to characterize the events in Charlottesville? Why are all their stories framed with a common terminology?
They do so for the same reason they’ve hung onto the term “collusion” even long afterthose charges have been shown to ring hollow. They do it because there’s an agenda at work, and that agenda is to perpetuate and further promulgate a falsehood. But there’s a further agenda, because acceptance of that original falsehood lends credence to the additional, even more deceitful canard that President Donald Trump excused, praised and even endorsed those white supremacists, KKK’ers and neo-Nazis when he remarked that “there were very fine people on both sides,” despite that his words, when reported verbatim, clearly and definitively show that he did no such thing.
This blatant lie, the leftist, anti-American falsity that Trump spoke glowingly of such bad people, and that his remarks prove that he is a racist and anti-Semite, has been utterly exposed as a hoax (see, for example, Joel Pollak’s refutation of it on Breitbart News) to any clear-minded, reasoning person who takes the trouble to actually read the full text of Trump’s remarks that day, in which he was adamant in pointing out, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally …,” and in a later statement he labeled those and related groups as “criminals and thugs … that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”
And yet there are still enough who are complicit in furthering its dark agenda to keep that lie rolling merrily along.
But Pollak's column simply repeats the claim that Trump was talking about the protests over the statue -- which, again, was largely organized by white nationalists and neo-Nazis.
Tarlowe also complained that the plot tyo remove Lee's statue was part of "an epidemic of virtue-signaling by way of vilifying and literally tearing down all symbols of the Confederacy, starting with the Confederate Battle Flag (the “Stars ‘n’ Bars”) and going so far as to call for the razing of Stone Mountain, known as “The Mount Rushmore of the South,” adding that if that had happened, "it would have been comparable to the cultural and historical revisionism wrought by the Taliban in the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan in 2001."
Tarlowe made no mention of the fact that all these Confederate monuments were made in honor of people and institutions that waged war against the United States.
MRC: Won't Someone Think Of The Poor, Marginalized Fossil-Fuel Corporations and CEOs? Topic: Media Research Center
We can thank the Media Research Center to make sure that those poor, marginalized fossil-fuel corporations and their CEOs have a voice -- presumably due in no small part to the millions said fossil-fuel interests have donated to the MRC over the years.
Joseph Vazquez III devoted a June 6 post to bringing us the important (and not terribly surprising) news that fossil-fuel CEOs oppose the Green New Deal:
Democratic presidential front-runner, former Vice President Joe Biden gave Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ Green New Deal a big bear hug, with the release of his 22-page climate plan June 4.
The Atlantic called it a “ mini green new deal” and Biden claimed it will create around 10 million jobs while reducing U.S. net-emissions to zero by 2050. Sure. The media might hit Biden over plagiarism in the plan, but don't expect them to challenge the feasibility of a Green New Deal as business leaders have.
The liberal media have either promoted a Green New Deal (like the Atlantic) or ignored the kooky plan (like the networks), but politicians continue to peddle its economic and carbon fantasies. However, quite a few CEOs have been critical. That included prominent liberals like Microsoft CEO Bill Gates who said, “It’s not realistic.” Possible presidential candidate Howard Schultz of Starbucks fame called it “fantasy.”
[...]
Many business leaders have complained about the economic harm or expense of a Green New Deal. Even though the original resolution promised “economic security,” “guaranteed jobs” and “millions” of well-paying jobs, corporate leaders from tech, to banking, to energy production aren’t buying the positive economic claims of Green New Deal enthusiasts.
Unlike the Democratic field and left-wing media, business leaders aren’t wrapping their arms around it.
Vazquez went on to quote CEOs from fossil-fuel companies American Resources and ExxonMobil denouncing the plan, though he did quote others bashing it as well.
This was followed by a June 27 post by Joseph Valle denouncing "Left-wing Guardian columnist George Monbiot" for criticizing Royal Dutch Shell. Sounding like a paid PR shill for Shell, Valle huffed that Monbiot's "oil is evil attitude ignored all that the form of energy did to enable modern civilization’s existence and improve human life," then lectured him on how the oil business works:
What was infuriating to Monbiot was patently obvious from a business perspective. Shell has to make profits to reinvest or go out of business. Since oil and gas is still making lots of money for Shell because it supplies the vast majority of the world’s energy needs, of course the company would be mostly investing in the areas he so despises.
[...]
Monbiot’s left-wing extremism regarding climate and energy prevented him from admitting all the good oil and gas did the world for many years.
Written like Valle's auditioning for a job in Shell's PR shop.
Because June's unemployment numbers came out in the middle of a four-day July 4 weekend, CNSNews.com didn't devote the usual breadth of coverage. Still, it was as slanted as usual. Susan Jones' lead story was typical pro-Trump rah-rah:
After the Fourth of July fireworks, the fifth of July brings another reason for Americans to celebrate.
A record 157,005,000 people were employed in June, the most since February and the 19th record of Trump's presidency, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday.
And the economy added a strong 224,000 jobs in June, well above the estimate of 160,000.
The unemployment rate, the lowest in 50 years, ticked up a tenth of a point to 3.7 percent.
Jones also spun away the relatively low labor force participation rate after years of obsessing over it under President Obama. While Jones did concede that June's 62.9 percent is below the highest figure under Trump, she gushed over its slight uptick from July, adding, "The payroll taxes paid by people who participate in the labor force help support those who do not participate, so the higher this number, the better."
The only other story this time around was an article by Craig Bannister n the Hispanic unemployment rate, which "inched up to 4.3% from its record-low the previous two months." Editor in chief Terry Jeffrey did not contribute his usual sidebars on manufacturing jobs and government employment, presumably because of the long holiday weekend.
MRC: Women Seeking Abortion Deserve An Invasive Pelvic Exam Topic: Media Research Center
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow has attacked the pelvic exams that the state of Missouri requires all women getting an abortion to have as a "state-mandated sexual assault." Indeed, the procedure is highly invasive; as described by the Washington Post, "The invasive practice requires a doctor to insert a speculum into a patient’s vagina to examine her cervix and to insert fingers into that patient’s vagina while pressing her abdomen to feel her reproductive organs."
But as intern Emma Fantuzzo writes in a June 25 NewsBusters post, that's no big deal, and besides, women who are having an abortion deserve that kind of invasive humiliation:
In the age of the #MeToo movement, claiming that Planned Parenthood is being forced to “sexually assault” it’s patients is a bizarre claim. Especially considering this medical procedure is not at all sexual in nature and is really only a minor inconvenience to a woman considering ending the life of her. Then again, the whole point of abortion is convenience.
[...]
But the victims of abortion are not even a thought in Maddow’s brain, the real inhumanity and source for liberal outrage were the 100 women who had to suffer through the “unnecessary” pelvic exams. These poor women and their 100 unborn children were forced to go through an inconvenient exam forced to: “…take off their clothes, let a doctor insert an instrument inside their body because of a policy the state now reversed.”
This was apparently so traumatic that as Maddow states: “Planned Parenthood is calling for the state health director of Missouri, Randall Williams, to be fired, over what happened to those hundred-plus women on his orders, which he now says was a mistake.”
Completely unacknowledged are the 100 children that were aborted three short days after this “sexual assault” of an exam.
At no point did Fantuzzo explain any actual medical justification for the pelvic exams, nor did she describe exactly how it takes place. She's apparently cool with the punishment aspect.
An anonymously written July 5 WorldNetDaily article states:
Two British judges have delivered a second slapdown to activist and Muslim critic Tommy Robinson, finding him guilty of contempt for posting a video taken outside a court during the trial of Muslims who eventually were convicted of gang rape.
Robinson had been sentenced to 13 months for contempt when he posted an interview with individuals outside the court in 2018. He appealed and was released for two months, but prosecutors re-filed charges.
Reuters reported Friday two judges found Robinson, the co-founder of the English Defense League, in contempt for making the video recordings outside a courthouse in Leeds. The video revealed the identities of some of the defendants who were charged with grooming and sexually exploiting young girls.
The case ended in the convictions of more than a dozen Muslims for sexual offenses against girls in what has become known as the Huddersfield grooming gang case.
The grooming and sex abuse happened between 2004 and 2011, and the 20 defendants were convicted in three different trials in 2018.
Critics claimed the court’s censorship rules amounted to a “cover-up” of the fact that the perpetrators were Muslims.
Robinson was arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to 13 months all within three hours. His appeal, however, was successful, and he was released after two months. The government’s chief legal adviser, Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, then restarted proceedings against him.
WND is leaving out a lot of information here, creating the false impression that Robinson was convicted for acting like a journalist -- which, of course, is Robinson's intent.
As we've noted, Robinson -- whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon -- is much more than a "Muslim critic"; his English Defense Leagueis a far-right group with a history of provoking anti-Muslim violence.
WND waited until the final paragraph to vaguely acknowledge one key point: "The United Kingdom’s rules differ from those in the United States. In the U.K., courts can suppress information about trials, and they can prosecute anyone not affiliated with the court or any party in the case for revealing information the judges want withheld." That's the central fact of the charges against Robinson.
WND never named any of the "critics" who claimed that the UK's rules on trial coverage "amounted to a 'cover-up' of the fact that the perpetrators were Muslims" -- perhaps because the claim is bogus. As Leon Wolf and Aaron Colen wrote in a commentary for the conservative website The Blaze, the crimes in question "had been public knowledge for more than a year — including extensive reporting by the BBC, which is literally funded by the British government," adding: "If the British government was really trying to cover up these crimes, as Robinson has claimed to a credulous United States audience, then they might have made a smarter play than having their government-funded press organ repeatedly cover them."
Robinson's video jeopardized the legal proceedings against the men because jurors could have seen it, resulting in a mistrial, Wolf and Colen wrote. They concluded:
Robinson is not being jailed for the crime of journalism, as he claims.
He is being jailed because he almost allowed men who committed heinous crimes to go free.
Furthermore, he is no hero, as he claims. He is a repeat criminal and a repeat fraud whose main interest throughout the course of his career has been his own self-aggrandizement by feeding off the fear and ignorance of others.
That's a truth WND will never tell its readers about Robinson.
MRC Writer Plays Art Critic To Go On Liberal-Bashing Tirade Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Jorge Plaza has decided to play art critic in a June 21 post that's basically an extended attack on a notorious 19th-century painting of a woman's nether regions:
Yesterday, guest writer Lilianne Milgrom published an article for the Huffington Post describing her experience with the 19th century Gustave Courbet painting L’Origine du monde (The Origin of the World). The title of the article is “How An Encounter With The World’s Most Famous Vagina Painting Changed My Life.” This “vagina painting” is pornography. Full stop.
Unlike other nude paintings, there are no hands, no figs leaves, and no blurred lines to obscure the image in Courbet’s painting. In fact, there isn’t a face, legs, nor arms in sight. The painting is just a woman’s torso with a full-frontal view of her vagina -- pubic hair and all. The subject’s anonymity is dehumanizing and it emphasizes the work’s erotic nature.
It’s no wonder that the painting was not available for public viewing until 1991. Quite frankly, the work is grotesque, just as a similar painting of a penis would be. In 1994, French police removed copies of the novel Adorations perpétuelles from bookstore windows; the novel used L’Origine du monde as its cover. A similar event occurred in 2009 when Portuguese police confiscated copies of the book Pornocratie from bookstore windows; the book also used Courbet’s painting as a cover. When a French teacher posted the painting on his Facebook in 2011, the site immediately shut down his account for posting pornographic material.
Despite the clear graphic content of the piece, it is on full display at the Musée d’Orsay, one of the largest museums in the world. Since its public debut, the piece has garnered a gross appreciation from the artistic world.
Graphic and explicit? Undoubtedly. (That's why we illustrated this post with a self-portrait of Courbet and not the artwork in question.) Pornography, "full stop"? Only if you're an agenda-driven conservative who thinks that any artistic depiction of genitals is pornographic. It's been argued that the painting's craftsmanship, along with its nonerotic setting, means that it goes beyond pornography to an artistic statement.
But Plaza wasn't done judging both the painting and the woman who wrote about it:
Milgrome’s bewilderment over the women’s disturbance clearly reflected her own views on the work. Though she later asks the reader if the painting was “sacred or profane? Beautiful or repulsive? Threatening or empowering,” her own opinions bled through with obvious snobbery.
This is the typical crass and juvenile “resistance” we have come to expect from the left. Pro-choicers choose to express their opinions through “pussyhats” and vulgar slogans such as “this pussy grabs back.” Radical feminists paint portraits of President Trump using period blood as protest. Liberal “comedy” reviewers celebrate Amy Schumer for her gross-out vagina humor.
They can’t win by appealing to reason, so they appeal to passion.
As if Plaza isn't working from a position of passion and snobbery by extrapolating his personal dislike for a painting into a blanket attack on "liberals." And he forgot who said he enjoyed grabbing women by the pussy, demonstrating who the vulgar one really is here.
Fake News: WND Falsely Fearmongers About Calif. Resolution Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily cranked up the anti-gay fearmongering in a June 21 article:
California, which already demands that public schools only portray homosexuality in a positive light and banned counselors from telling troubled youth they don’t have to be gay, now is moving against pastors and other spiritual leaders.
They, apparently, are guilty of telling homosexuals and others that the Bible teaches something else.
The dispute was revealed by columnist and commentator Todd Starnes, who recently interviewed Dr. David Gibbs of the Christian Law Association.
He explained that churches and pastors are just trying to help LGBT people.
But Assembly Concurrent Resolution 99, Starnes reported, calls on “counselors, pastors, religious workers, educators” and institutions with “great moral influence” to stop saying something is wrong with LGBT identities or sexual behavior.
“The proposed resolution also condemns attempts to change unwanted same-sex attraction or gender confusion as ‘unethical,’ ‘harmful,’ and leading to high rates of suicide,” Starnes reported.
While it is just a non-binding resolution for now, Gibbs said that does not mean it will stay a resolution.
In fact, the resolution doesn't sasy what WND claims it says. As Right Wing Watch documented, ACR 99 calls upon religious leaders to approach LGBTQ issues with love, compassion and knowledge of the harms caused by conversion therapy, and calls upon Californians “to embrace the individual and social benefits of family and community acceptance.” It also calls upon the people and institutions of California “to model equitable treatment of all people of the state.”
WND does admit it's a nonbinding resolution but fearmongered about it anyway, quoting nobody but Starnes and Gibbs. As usual, WND couldn't be bothered to talk to the state legislator who introduced the resolution or offer any other kind of fairness or balance to its story.
The same day, Michael Brown penned a column that fearmongered even more:
Put another way, these legislators are telling pastors and spiritual leaders to throw out the Bible, disregard the Lord’s will, ignore the testimony of thousands of ex-gays and conform to extreme political correctness – or else.
This is one of the most frontal attacks on our religious freedoms in memory (or perhaps in our nation’s history). And it confirms what I have said for the last 15 years: Those who came out of the closet want to put us in the closet. This is nothing less than that ancient spirit of Jezebel trying to silence God’s messengers through fear and intimidation.
There is one way to respond to such spiritual and legal attacks: First, stand up against the bill in order to expose its bias and bigotry; and second, if the bill should actually pass (which might be a long shot even in California), defy it.
[...]
Should we proclaim God’s love through the cross for every human being? Without a doubt.
But we must not refrain from declaring what God’s Word plainly says: Homosexual practice is contrary to His will, and He does not bless or recognize same-sex “marriages.” And when it comes to transgender identities, biology is not bigotry, and the best solution for people struggling with gender confusion is to help them find wholeness from the inside out.
Should this draconian bill actually become law, the strategy is simple: The Sunday after the bill is passed, every true pastor in California should preach a love-drenched message on what the Bible says about LGBT people and issues.
At no point did Brown acknowledge that ACR 99 is a nonbinding resolution and compels nobody to actually do anything.
(Right Wing Watch has also busted Brown for his false fearmongering about the resolution.)
WND followed up with a June 26 article attacking a chaplain at a Christian college for endorsing the resolution, quoting anti-gay right-wing legal group Liberty Counsel bashing him for having "become a prop for the LGBT agenda by directing pastors and counselors to reject biblical views of sexuality and deny counseling for those struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction or gender confusion." WND also bashed the school itself, Azusa Pacific University, for having allegedly "drifted" from its original mission." The article failed to tell readers that the resolution is nonbinding.
MRC's Double Standard on The Comedian Defense, Part 2 Topic: Media Research Center
Last week, we noted how the Media Research Center defended right-winger Steven Crowder's homophobic trolling of gay journalist Carlos Maza as being the work of a "comedian" -- then attacked actual comedian Seth Meyers because he makes fun of President Trump.
The double standard continued in a June 19 post by Jorge Plaza -- two days after the defense of Crowder. In it, Plaza ranted against comedians he declared were "unfunny" because ... they didn't mock gay people, or something:
On June 19, The Hollywood Reporter fashioned a list of the top 40 “most powerful people in comedy” for 2019. It’s a predictable gaggle of reliable lefties and reads more like a wanted poster for the gang that ruined comedy.
The first big-name entry was Sacha Baron Cohen of Borat fame. Though since the 2006 blockbuster hit, the liberal Cohen has struggled to reclaim his “glory” days. His go-to gag is to ambush conservatives to make them look dumb, actively pandering to a lefty audience.
Unfortunately for Cohen, everyone recognizes his oddly oblong face and lanky body from Borat, so his disguises don’t work anymore. Now, whenever Cohen disguises himself to trick a conservative into saying something stupid, he embarrasses himself.
For this next entry, THR was kind enough to provide the readers bits of the comedian’s hilarity. For the description of comic Hannah Gadsby from Nanette, THR explained that the Netflix “comedy” special “was framed as Gadsby’s farewell to a decade-plus career in comedy, as she tackles misogyny, homophobia (including the internalized variety) and mental illness.” Ah yes, because people go to comedy clubs for gender studies lectures, right?
[...]
Of course, late-night propaganda shows are prominent on the list. But tellingly, THR didn’t bother to distinguish between them, simply listing them as “The Late-Night Hosts.” Can’t blame the site. The repetitive Trump-hate and liberal applause fodder Colbert, Kimmell, Fallon, Oliver, Bee, and co. slop out every night is largely indistinguishable.
[...]
In the left’s PC crusade against comedy, these are the people that we are left with to harold as comedic geniuses: washed-up gross-out artists that depend on crude vulgarity for laughs. Gone are the days of boundary pushing comedians like George Carlin and Dave Chappelle. Welcome to the age of “Woke Comedy.”
Ah, to pine for the days of un-woke "comedians" like Crowder and their wacky homophobia...
We've documented how the Media Research Center worked to assail the credibility of E. Jean Carroll, who accused President Trump of a sexual assault against her in 1994. That comes from the top, as demonstrated by the June 26 column by Tim Graham and Brent Bozell.
By dint of his friendship with Brent Bozell, Charlie Daniels has always been the Media Research Center's exception to its shut-up-and-sing policy regarding entertainers with political opinions. It helps, of course, that Daniels reliably spews right-wing talking points with a fair amount of venom; that's why he has a regular column at the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com.
At the Media Research Center, President Trump is He Who Must Not Be Criticized. And when it came to his self-aggrandizing July 4 speech and military display in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the MRC decreed that it was downright unpatriotic to criticize Trump for it.
If you played a major role in a fake-news campaign, you likely wouldn't want to remind people of that fact. But then, you're not WorldNetDaily.
Joseph Valle complained in a July 2 Media Research Center 
We've
Barry Farber parceled out his July 2 WorldNetDaily 
We can thank the Media Research Center to make sure that those poor, marginalized fossil-fuel corporations and their CEOs have a voice -- presumably due in no small part to the millions said fossil-fuel interests 
Because June's unemployment numbers came out in the middle of a four-day July 4 weekend, CNSNews.com didn't devote the usual breadth of coverage. Still, it was as slanted as usual. Susan Jones' 
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow has attacked the pelvic exams that the state of Missouri requires all women getting an abortion to have as a "state-mandated sexual assault." Indeed, the procedure is highly invasive; as 
An anonymously written July 5 WorldNetDaily 
The Media Research Center's Jorge Plaza has decided to play art critic in a June 21 
WorldNetDaily cranked up the anti-gay fearmongering in a June 21 
Last week, we 
