MRC's Double Standard On Politician Health Conspiracy Theories Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Kristine Marsh complained in a Nov. 27 post:
Tuesday night at a rally, President Trump blasted the media for spreading rumors about his health, specifically that he may have had a heart attack recently. CNN host Brian Stelter shot back at the President on Twitter, claiming he was “lying” and the media never did that. Perhaps Stelter should see a doctor for memory problems because he did this very thing just 3 days ago.
At a rally Trump railed against the media for suggesting he’d had a “massive, unbelievable heart attack.” Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter took to Twitter to deny this accusation before sneering at the President’s “strange lie:”
[...]
However the media DID run conspiracy theories about the President’s health recently, gossipping he may have had a heart attack, without any proof or reason to. Brian Stelter himself did two segments on this very topic!
[...]
Compared to in 2016 when Stelter warned the media, "Do Not Give Oxygen To "Conspiracy Theories" That Hillary Clinton Is "Secretly Ill," despite her strange medical episode being caught on tape. On CNN, Stelter blamed attention on Clinton's health as sexist.
Marsh is mildly misquoting what Trump said. He did not say the media "suggested" he had a heart attack; he said the media reported it -- not the same thing. And Marsh is totally lying that some in the media (not the entire media, as she claimed) had no "reason to" speculate about Trump's health after a surprise visit to Walter Reed Medical Center; given Trump's lengthy record of lying to the American people, there's no reason to take anything that comes out of his White House at face value, and speculation is a given.
Marsh also hides a double standard: The MRC justified -- and added to -- speculation about Hillary Clinton's health in 2016. The link she provided to prove that Stelter said speculation about her health was sexist went to a Curtis Houck post that also pushed the conspiracy theory that her having "admitted to not remembering a whole host of important details in her July 2 FBI interview about her e-mail scandal" was a legitimate reason to speculate about her health, and thar refusal to speculate was, according to Houck, "the latest and most despicable example of the media covering for a liberal."
As we also documented at the time, MRC blogger Jeffrey Lord declared that a long-ago book claiming that Hillary had trouble keeping up with her energetic husband, Bill Clinton, in the early days of his presidency was somehow evidence that she "would have even more stamina problems a full 23 years later" and, thus, justified speculation about her health.
So, yeah, the MRC is once again being hypocritical. So what else is new?
WND's Kupelian Touts Bogus Letter Denying Climate Change Topic: WorldNetDaily
David Kupelian's article for the current issue of WorldNetDaily's sparsely read Whistleblower magazine -- with the theme of the Green New Deal being "the Democratic Party's ultimate coup d'etat -- is a lot of ranting and getting things wrong about climate change.
He tries to discredit the idea of climate science by citing views about the climate from the 19th century, as if education and knowledge about the subject hasn't changed over the past 125 years. Then he touts non-experts as experts; at one point he devotes several paragraphs to how "Village News Publisher Julie Reeder explained" how "the earth, ironically, is getting greener every day." But Reeder has no apparent background in environmental science; she runs a small-town newspaper in California.
Kupelian then highlighted:
Indeed, in late September, more than 500 scientists and professionals in climate and related fields signed a letter to the United Nations saying "There is no climate emergency."
"Climate science," their declaration reads, "should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address the uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real benefits as well as the imagined costs of adaptation to global warming, and the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of mitigation."
The scientists added: "There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent. However, CO2-mitigation measures are as damaging as they are costly. For instance, wind turbines kill birds and bats, and palm-oil plantations destroy the biodiversity of the rainforests."
Since there is no "climate emergency," they conclude, "there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050."
But that letter is meaningless. As actual experts point out, few of the signatories are professionals in biology, ecology, or environmental science, and the claims cited in it ranges from being cherry-picked to misleading to just plain wrong.
But telling the truth is not on Kupelian's agenda -- propping up a right-wing narrative is. And a key part of that is attacking the bogeyman that is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Green New Deal she's championing with a big ol' WND-style conspiracy theory:
But wait.
What if the Green New Deal is not about remedying the supposed catastrophic effects of climate change? What if it's all just a ploy, a Trojan horse designed to bring about a full-scale socialist revolution in America?
It turns out, that's exactly what Ocasio-Cortez' own former chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti – widely acknowledged as the brains behind the socialist New York congresswoman – revealed during a recent media interview: The real purpose of the Green New Deal is to turn America socialist.
In a story reported by the Washington Post, Chakrabarti stunningly admitted: "The interesting thing about the Green New Deal is it wasn't originally a climate thing at all. Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?" asked Chakrabarti. "Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing."
We are beholding one of the greatest hoaxes in world history.
Make no mistake. It may be tempting to dismiss Ocasio-Cortez, whose arrogance is exceeded only by her ignorance. But just beyond this colorful public character with the bright red lipstick is the entire elite globalist left, which for decades has been dreaming and scheming about implementing their precious socialist new world order.
And they think now is finally their time.
But first, they have to get rid of the great disrupter of their plans: President Donald J. Trump.
Spoken like a guy who's worked at WND for a couple decades.
NEW ARTICLE: The Trump-MRC Narrative on Impeachment Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's idea of "media research" on President Trump's Ukraine scandal and impeachment investigation is to slavishly repeat pro-Trump talking points. Read more >>
CNS' Coverage Of 4 Impeachment Legal Experts Ignored 3 Of Them Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey spent his Dec. 11 column complaining that Democrats aren't interested in finding the whole truth about "what Trump was trying to do with the Ukraine":
If the House Democrats were intent on getting firsthand testimony of what Trump was trying to do with the Ukraine, they would pursue testimony from White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, former national security adviser John Bolton and Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.
But they are not.
Professor Jonathan Turley of The George Washington University Law School last week presented the House Judiciary Committee with a powerful argument against impeachment.
He does not support Trump but thinks what the House is doing is wrong.
"First, this is a case without a clear criminal act and would be the first such case in history if the House proceeds without further evidence," he said in written testimony.
"As I have stressed, it is possible to establish a case for impeachment based on a non-criminal allegation of abuse of power," Turley testified. "The problem is that this is an exceptionally narrow impeachment resting on the thinnest possible evidentiary record."
"In the current case, the record is facially insufficient," Turley said. "The problem is not simply that the record does not contain direct evidence of the president stating a quid pro quo, as Chairman Schiff suggested. The problem is that the House has not bothered to subpoena the key witnesses who would have such direct knowledge. This alone sets a dangerous precedent."
Strange that Jeffrey cites only Turley here -- or maybe not so much. In covering the Dec. 4 hearing in which legal experts testified about the issues involving impeachment, CNS complaetely ignored the testimony of the three experts chosen by Democrats. It did, hjwever, devote two articles to the arguments of Turley, the expert chosen by Republicans:
Not only did CNS ignore the testimony of the Democrats' chosen witnesses, CNS' Susan Jones tried to baselessly cast aspersions on their qualifications. In one article, Jones dismissed them as "three liberal witnesses, billed as constitutional and legal experts." By contrast, Turley was repeatedly and uncritically described with full credentials as a "George Washington University Law School professor" who, as Jones highlighted in another article, was "not a Trump supporter."
The only article CNS did about the hearing that featured a Democrat in the headline had nothing to do with the hearing's content at all or anything said at it by a Democrat or one of the Democrats' witnesses; the piece by Melanie Arter featured how "Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) took to the House floor Wednesday to complain that 'not one person of color' is represented among the constitutional scholars testifying at the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry hearing."
The fact that Jeffrey's column quoted only the one expert who supports his preconceived notions about impeachment of a Republican president is further proof he's falling down in his duty as a self-proclaimed journalist to report the truth.
With such biased, incomplete reporting, it appears that Jeffrey and CNS are the folks who, as Jeffrey's headline stated, "don't want to know the truth." And they falsely present themselves as journalistswho claim to be interested in the truth -- remember, CNS' mission statement claims that it "endeavors to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story," and once again it couldn't be bothered to do so here.
Image Rehab: Newsmax Tries To Insert Dershowitz Into Impeachment Debate Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax is so dedicated to the rehabilitation of Alan Dershowitz's image in the wake of his links to Jeffrey Epstein that it's trying to insert him as a forgotten legal expert -- not to mention an aggressively pro-Trump voice -- in the Trump impeachment debate.
Newsmax chief Christopher Ruddy complained in a Dec. 5 column:
The House Judiciary Committee heard testimony all day Wednesday from four legal scholars who were called to explain to the members what acts would be considered impeachable offenses under the U.S. Constitution.
Three were called by Democratic committee members and just one, Prof. Jonathan Turley, was called by Republicans.
But noticeably missing was arguably the most famous constitutional lawyer and acclaimed civil libertarian in the nation: Alan Dershowitz.
In 1967, he became the youngest full professor in the history of Harvard Law School and has made waves, big ones, ever since.
Like Dershowitz, all four testifying were politically liberal to far-left Democrats, who did not vote for President Donald Trump in 2016.
Why was Dershowitz not invited then?
The simple answer is House Democrats do not like his views.
Ruddy did not mention the fact that Dershowitz is a former lawyer for notorious teen sex trafficker Epstein, or that he has been accused of having sex with one of Epstein's trafficking victims.
Newsmax also published a Dec. 11 article by Solange Reyner stating that "Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., thinks President Donald Trump should add Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz to his impeachment defense team." Reyner also failed to mention Dershowitz's ties to Epstein.
In between, Dershowitz was given a platform to complain about being excluded due to his Epstein links in a Dec. 8 article by Eric Mack:
Accusations emanating from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal railroaded civil liberties legal expert Alan Dershowitz from testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on the constitutional grounds for presidential impeachment.
"Just because there is an accusation out there, the decision was made not to use me," Dershowitz, who testified against former President Bill Clinton's impeachment before Congress, told Sunday's "The Cats Roundtable" on 970 AM-N.Y. "Also, because the Republicans are only given one witness. If they had been given two witnesses, probably I would've been used along with Turley. Jonathan Turley did a good job."
Weirdly, Mack did not detail what exactly those "accusations emanating from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal" were that have kept him from being involved.
Newsmax has also been publishing columns by Dershowitz himself. In a Nov. 15 column, he groused that "the 92nd Street Y would not allow me to speak this year because I had been accused of having sex with a woman associated with Jeffrey Epstein, who I represented 13 years ago," accusing the facility of "McCarthyism" in doing so.
In his Dec. 4 column, Dershowitz again attacked his accuser, Virginia Giuffre, who has also accused Prince Andrew of sexual improprieties, complaining that a BBC interview of the prince "does not focus on the credibility of his accuser — a woman with a long history of making up provably false stories about prominent men." He even attacked her claim to have been underage while involved with Epstein, claiming that "her own employment records prove that she was well over 17, which is the age of consent in most jurisdictions where she said she had sex."
The next day, Dershowitz offered up his impeachment goods, in which he sounds more like a pro-Trump partisan than a legal scholar in bashing the legal experts House Democrats selected to testify:"The three Democratic experts would place congress over the constitution. They would effectively “amend” the words of the Constitution to make them mean what these experts believe would be “better” criteria for impeachment. But the Constitution cannot be amended through stretched academic interpretation. ... All presidents are accused by the opposing party of abusing the office, and many have. The remedy for such perceived abuse is not impeachment. It is election."
Newsmax has touted Dershowitz's pro-Trump, anti-impeachment arguments in otherarticles as well.
That, it seems, is the real reason Ruddy and Newsmax are working so hard to rehab Dershowitz.
MRC Protects Barron Trump -- But Gave A Pass To Right-Wing Insults Of Children of Democratic Presidents Topic: Media Research Center
When legal scholar and Trump impeachment hearing witness Pamela Karlan made a mild pun on the name of President Trump's son Barron -- that "while the president can name his son Barron, he can’t make him a baron" -- the Media Research Center was apoplectic:
Curtis Houck dismissed Karlan as a "far-left Stanford University Professor," attacked her "clear example of incivility," claimed her apology was "half-hearted" and huffed: "Sure, some have made the case that this was a play on words, but it nonetheless invoked a minor who has nothing to do with this impeachment charade."
Nicholas Fondacaro asserted that Karlan was "lashing out" in her "attack" on Barron Trump and dismissed her "so-called 'apology.'" Fondacaro repeated his claim that she "lashed out" in another post.
Scott Whitlock declared that Karlan issued an "ugly" and "out-of-the-blue" shot at Barron, further complaining that "CBS completely skipped the nasty remark. ABC insinuated it was witty, calling the comment a “quip.”
Kristine Marsh attacked Karlan's "smug, rage-filled performance" at the hearing, insisting that she was "making an ugly joke at Barron Trump's expense," further calling it "ugly" and a "cheap shot."
Clay Waters huffed that Karlan "bizarrely named Trump’s 13-year-old son Barron to make some unrelated point," touting how it "inflamed Republicans."
But when it came to much more nastier insults against the minor children of Democratic presidents, the MRC had much less to say.
When Rush Limbaugh used his 1990s TV show to liken Chelsea Clinton to the White House dog, the MRC apparently said little at the time (that we can find, anyway), but MRC NewsBusters blogger Noel Sheppard used posts in 2009 and 2011 to engage in some serious revisionism by claiming Limbaugh insulted Chelsea by accident. Which ignores one important point: Limbaugh's TV show, to out knowledge did not air live -- it was taped earlier in the day and syndicated to stations for broadcast, usually in a late-night slot. If it was an accident, Limbaugh could have simply redone the segment. He didn't do that. Which makes Sheppard's revisionism utterly disingenuous.
To cite a more recent example: In 2011, then-radio host (and current Fox News hot) Laura Ingraham attacked the looks of a daughter of President Obama by sneering that she "apparently is not living in a food desert." We found no reference to the remark in the archives of NewsBusters, let alone any criticism of the nasty personal remark.
And the MRC has the audacity to get bent so out of shape over a mild pun about Barron Trump's name that didn't attack him personally? How hypocritical.
WND's Cashill Desperately Promotes George Zimmerman's Klayman-Fueled Lawsuit Topic: WorldNetDaily
Conspiracy-obsessed columnist Jack Cashill has been leading the charge at WorldNetDaily regarding a new film by similarly conspiracy-obsessed charlatan Joel Gilbert about the death of Trayvon Martin, in which he pushes yet another conspiracy theory. Interestingly, the latest escalation in this story has been banished from WND's "news" pages and confined to the opinion section.
Thus, the announcement that Zimmerman and his terrible lawyer, the equally conspiratorial Larry Klayman was filing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against various people based on Gilbert's film first surfaced at WND in Cashill's Dec. 4 column:
On Tuesday, Dec. 3, Klayman filed suit on behalf of Zimmerman in the Circuit Court of Florida's 10th Judicial Circuit. Zimmerman is bringing this action against Trayvon's mother, Sybrina Fulton, his father, Tracy Martin, the family attorney, Benjamin Crump, the real phone witness, Brittany Diamond Eugene, and the fraudulent stand-in, Rachel Jeantel.
Also named in the suit are the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), the State of Florida, former state attorneys Bernie de la Rionda, John Guy and Angela Corey, and HarperCollins, the publisher of Crump's defamatory new book, "Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People."
The state attorneys and the FDLE are being sued for malicious prosecution and abuse of process. All the defendants save for HarperCollins are being sued for civil conspiracy. Crump and HarperCollins meanwhile are being sued for defamation.
Cashill declared at the end: "On Thursday, Dec. 5, at noon, Klayman, Gilbert and Zimmerman will hold a joint press conferenceat the Coral Gables Art Cinema with a showing of "The Trayvon Hoax" to follow. The media will have to work especially hard to ignore the power of this story as it unfolds." Actually, it's not that hard at all, given that the two people driving this story -- Gilbert and Klayman -- are unreliable conspiracy theorists.
Klayman devoted his own Dec. 6 WND column to a work titled "We are all George Zimmerman now." We all murdered a black teenager? We seemed to have missed when we did that.Klayman is self-serving as usual: "As I told the media this week, the filing of George’s complaint, based on newly discovered evidence of witness fraud that could have wrongfully convicted him, is not only to obtain justice for my client. It's for all those, including African Americans, who have fallen victim to a legal system rife with injustice."
Cue another Cashill column complaining that "The left has responded to the suit in unabashedly Stalinist fashion: Shut down dissent and, if that doesn't work, slander the dissenters." He baselessly claimed that "the left" forced the cancellation of the screening and huffed of one talk show's description of the principals: "Gilbert was a 'nonsense conspiracy theorist,' Zimmerman 'a sick desperate man addicted to the spotlight,' and Klayman 'a raging lunatic.'" All of that is pretty much true, of course, but Cashill will never admit it -- after all, he helped Gilbert with his project.
Still, he insisted, "The Zimmerman case represents a dark turn in leftist history. Progressives now seem comfortable with declaring the conspicuously innocent 'guilty.'" Never mind the fact that a court of law found Zimmerman not guilty of murder.
Cashill won't talking about Gilbert's filmmaking charlatanism and Klayman's legal bullying, nor will he mention that Zimmerman himself is a troubled man. If Cashill can't explain why we shouldn't judge all of these people -- including himself -- by their track records, he will forever be stuck ranting at a rapidly dying website.
MRC Still Won't Talk About Conservative Revenge Porn In Katie Hill Scandal Topic: Media Research Center
We've documented how the Media Research Center was so in favor of forcing out Democratic Rep. Katie Hill for ethical violations involving an affair with a member of her staff that it effectively approved the revenge-porn aspect of the scandal, in which conservative websites RedState and the Daily Mail published nude photos of Hill. It's now moved on to actively denying the revenge-porn angle.
On Sunday’s no-so “Reliable Sources,” CNN host Brian Stelter helped to defend disgraced former Congresswoman Katie Hill by lying about why she had to resign from office at the end of last month.
“Well, former California Congresswoman Katie Hill is remaining very visible and she’s speaking out against what she calls right-wing media smears. Hill resigned at the end of October after admitting she had an inappropriate relationship with a campaign staffer before coming into office,” he claimed.
It was just another excuse for him to attack “right-wing media.” “The story came to light after a Conservative blog called RedState release intimate photos of Hill with an unnamed female campaign staffer and made other allegations against her. Then, The Daily Mail piled on with other photos as well,” he whined.
He intentionally omitted a key fact from his crash course summary of the events. One of the “other allegations made against her” was that she was sleeping with one of her congressional staffers, which was against House ethics rules.
Beyond his quoting of Stelter, Fondacaro refused to address the revenge-porn aspect further.
Scott Whitlock did much the same thing in a Dec. 9 post:
Good Morning America on Monday spun Katie Hill, a California Democrat who resigned in the wake of a bizarre sex scandal, as a victim of bullying. The story by reporter Linsey Davis never mentioned her political affiliation and tried to mislead viewers into believing Hill was smeared.
Hill resigned after nude pictures of her appeared online, some with what appeared to feature a World War II Nazi-era tattoo. She admitted to an affair with a campaign staffer, but denied a relationship with a congressional staffer. Yet, Davis left out the first part, portaying Hill as the victim: “The one-time rising political star says she contemplated suicide after nude photos of her surfaced online along with allegations she had an improper relationship with a congressional staffer, which she denies.”
Whitlock didn't address how, exactly, those nude photos of Hill "appeared online" -- because they were published by conservative websites. Whitlock actively tried to hide that fact; his link on the words "World War II Nazi-era tattoo" (because that was even more scandalous than the nude photos for the selective prudes at the MRC) went to celebrity gossip site Uproxx -- which, in turn, cited the Daily Mail.
If the MRC refuses to discuss the conservative-fueled revenge porn aspect of the Hill scandal out of fear of violating organization standards against criticizing fellow conservatives and/or needing a way to own the libs, having an honest conservation about it is impossible.
CNSNews.com writer Susan Jones' lead article on November's unemployment numbers includes the usual pro-Trump rah-rah over jobs created and how "158,593,000 Americans were working in November, the 24th record of Trump's presidency," as well as devoting half of the article to rehashing employment numbers from 2018. It also includes this statement:
Of that civilian non-institutional population, 164,404,000 were participating in the labor force, meaning that they either had a job or were actively seeking one during the last month. This resulted in a labor force participation rate of 63.2 percent.
The labor force participation rate has never been higher than 67.3 percent, a level achieved in the early months of 2000. The Trump-era high was set last month at 63.3 percent. Economists say retiring baby boomers account for some of the decline since the turn of the century.
As we've documented, when President Obama was in office, CNS obsessed over the relatively low labor force participation rate -- because it could use the number to misleadingly attack the economy under Obama as sluggish -- and rarely explained to readers that the rate was driven down in part because of retiring baby boomers.
CNS also served up the usual sidebars on Hispanic employment and manufacturing jobs. Craig Bannister also did what appears to be a new monthly feature of featuring the response by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stating that the numbers offer "little solace to the farmers and hard-working families who are struggling to stay above water with the costs of living rising and uncertainty surging" even though, in Bannister's pro-Trump view, "the number of Americans employed set a new record high for the sixth straight month and the unemployment rate fell to a 50-year low."
MRC Latino Has A Transgender Freakout Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's obsession with transgenders -- its dismay that they appear in the media at all and its glee when they are mocked and denigrated -- has spilled over to MRC Latino, the operation that looks at Hispanic media.
An Oct. 28 post by Kathleen Krumhansl denounced Univision for the offense of doing a story on a medical clinic that caters to transgenders because there are too few transgenders to deserve news coverage:
In their scramble to help secure votes for the Democrats and fulfill their leftist policy vision, Univision News continues to expand its “Latino Agenda”. The network is now openly advocating for the political platforms of leftist Democratic presidential hopefuls, and pushing for issues and policies that are completely out of tune with the reality of the Latino population to which they cater.
[...]
According to a Pew Research Center survey, 5% of LGBT respondents identify primarily as transgender; as the study states, “this is roughly consistent with other estimates of the proportion of the LGBT population that is transgender. Although there is limited data on the size of the transgender population, it is estimated that 0.3% of all American adults are transgender. This begs the question: of that 0.3% of the population, how many are Hispanics to whom this issue can be of any interest?
[...]
From their excitement about the non-existent word “Latinx”, to this recent example of the network ́s liberal rhetoric, there is no doubt about the political motivations of the nation's leading Spanish-speaking news network, and they have nothing to do with the audience they represent.
We're sorry that Krumhansl thinks so little of transgenders that she thinks their existence in media must be eradicated.
MRC Latino director Jorge Bonilla had a similar freakout in a Dec. 2 post:
It is known that immigration advocacy is the cornerstone of Univision’s “Agenda Latina,” the first issue among many others for which the network advocates. Transgenderism is also one such issue, and the network is not above inserting its agenda into its coverage by any means necessary.
Watch below as Univision’s English-language broadcast, UNews, used National Adoption Month as a means with which to highlight a transgender teen:
[...]
As the report mentions, “Ariella” is still in foster care. Present tense, which means that “Ariella” is still a CHILD. How does this particular showcasing help “Ariella” overcome what appears to be a long, painful history of trauma?
Given the network’s extensive history with Planned Parenthood, both in partnerships and favorable coverage, it reasonable to infer that Univision doesn’t actually care about adoption. The very odd mention of National Adoption Month here is merely a fig leaf with which to justify its shameful exploitation of a vulnerable teen.
None of that matters, and nothing else matters to Univision, a liberal PAC with a broadcast license, except its agenda- even if it means aiding and abetting the exploitation of an abused and vulnerable child. Indeed, a new cynical low.
Looks like Bonilla won't be opening up his judgmental heart to this child anytime soon.
WND's Massie Has Another Michelle Obama Meltdown Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily columnist Mychal Massie has always irrationally hated Michelle Obama, whom he has spread lies about and whom he disturbingly loved to call "Buttzilla." He manages to refrain from doing that in his Nov. 25 column, but he finds other ways to be insulting and condescending.
Massie began his column by huffing, "For a person who despises white people, it certainly bothers the Obama woman that according to her so few of them want to be around her." The insults just kept on coming:
"bitter harridan"
"obnoxious woman"
"the Obama woman" (which he largely uses instead of her first name, which he uses only once outside of the headline)
"frighteningly unattractive, envious and mean-spirited"
"disgustingly unflattering and ill-mannered"
"She is unlikable because she is vengeful and self-absorbed"
Envious? Mean-spirited? Unlikable? Vengeful? Self-absorbed? Are we sure Massie's not talking about himself?
MRC Can't Deal With Impeachment Witness Demanding Fox News Apologize For Smearing Him Topic: Media Research Center
We've highlighted how the Media Research Center couldn't deal with Fox News hosts and guests being criticized for falsely smearing Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman as conducting "espionage" for Ukraine because he testified in the Trump impeachment hearings. Now it can't deal with the fact that he's demanding Fox News apologize for the lie.
The MC's Kristine Marsh complained in a Nov. 22 post:
The Democrats’ star witness Tuesday for President Trump’s impeachment hearing has threatened legal action if Fox News does not retract an opinion segment that was critical of him from a few weeks ago.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman sent a letter through his lawyer to the news network demanding a "retraction or correction" for an October 28 segment on Laura Ingraham's show. His lawyers charged FNC was “liable for punitive damages” for “false and defamatory allegations it published about LTC Vindman, knowing they were false.” The letter also called out Donald Trump Jr. and FNC host Tucker Carlson for “inflammatory” statements.
The letter was focused on that Oct. 28 show where FNC host Laura Ingraham and guest John Yoo criticized Vindman.
Marsh failed to mention the fact that Ingraham and Yoo falsely accused Vindman of espionage. Also, while she repeated a Fox News statement that Yoo "has subsequently done interviews to clarify what he meant," she didn't link to any of them. (While Yoo did walk back his false attack, he apparently didn't do so on Fox News, and Ingraham apparently hasn't walked back asything.)
Marsh then played the conservative victim card: "But the media didn’t share this same perspective when President Trump threatened legal action against other cable news networks like CNN, which network called a 'desperate PR stunt' that doesn’t 'merit a response.'" Perhaps because it was a desperate PR stunt and was seen more as an attempt by a powerful government official to silence a critic.
Marsh concluded by ranting: "The media as a whole have used the 'freedom of the press' as a cover for their biased and frequently false reporting about the President." She offered no substantiation for her claim that reporting on Trump is "frequently false."
This wouldn't be the MRC if it wasn't being hypocritical about things, and sure enough, a few days later, Randy Hall was cheering the type of lawsuit Vindman was threatening befause a conservative was filing it:
There are times when it seems that obviously liberal outlets in the “mainstream media” get away with producing “fake news” without facing any consequences for their poor reporting.
That situation may change after Thanksgiving, when California Republican Devin Nunes -- one of the press’s favorite targets during the “impeachment inquiry” held recently in the U.S. House of Representatives -- fights back in federal court against “demonstrably false” articles that have appeared on CNN and the Daily Beast website.
According to an article Washington Times reporter Rowan Scarborough, the items accused Nunes “of meeting with a former Ukraine prosecutor in a hunt for dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden.”
[...]
He also stressed that “it is not OK to work with someone who has been indicted on serious federal crimes to build a media narrative and dirty up a member of Congress” with “demonstrably false and scandalous stories.”
By contrast, the MRC thinks it's perfectly fine to "dirty up" a member of the military when he won't support the MRC's political agenda.
Unfortunately for Nunes, news broke that phone records show he did, infact, spend time on the phone with Rudy Giuliani's indicted Ukranian buddy Lev Parnas -- something for which he has offered not-very-convincing explanations. The MRC has largely ignored that unflattering piece of evidence, aside from a Jeffrey Lord column ranting that Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff was engaging in "abuse of power" in releasing those phone records.
CNS Is Sad Chick-fil-A Stopped Hating Gays As Much As CNS Does Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com used to love fast-food chain Chick-fil-A -- mainly because it hated gays as much as CNS does. It was just earlier this year that it gave Hans Bader column space to claim that the chain was facing a "First Amendment violation" because it was barred from opening a branch in an airport because of the company's support of groups like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Salvation Army who in Bader's words "support and defend marriage as defined by the natural law and Christianity -- one man and one woman for life." And just a couple months ago that managing editor Michael W. Chapman was cheering how "continues to experience tremendous sales and growth despite opposition and boycotts from LGBT activists" over the company's financial support for groups that oppose "gay marraige" (scare quotes are his), adding that "Despite the protests from the homosexual left, Chick-fil-A is doing well.
But a month after Chapman touted Chick-fil-A's gay-hate, the company pulled back on its gay-hating, restructuring its charitable donation strategy to focus on specific causes such as hunger, homelessness and educationand no longer giving to other groups including FCA and the Salvation Army.
As you might imagine, CNS is very sad about this. A Nov. 20 article by Chapman misconstrued the policy to claim that Chick-fil-A made a "corporate decision to stop donating to groups that support marriage between one man and one woman and quoting right-winger Mike Huckabee accusing the chain of having "made a "very big, big mistake" in thinking it could appease the left and LGBTQ activists," going on to quote right-wing activist Tony Perkins ranting that the chain "helped legitimize the Left's labeling of these groups." Chapman also lazily copy-and-pasted Bader's description of FCA and the Salvation Army.
CNS also published a torrent of commentary attacking Chick-fil-A for the change in his funding strategy and justifying the gay-hate:
Daniel Davis declared that "many loyal Chick-fil-A supporters feel betrayed, and they’re letting Chick-fil-A know" and the change in strategy "tells [LGBT activists] they can win, if they just bully Christian organizations for long enough."
John Horvat II huffed that the change in donation strategy "shocked many conservatives" and that "With Chick-fil-A’s fateful decision, it became clear that even those who do not sympathize with the LGBTQ+ agenda are expected to bow to pressure and fear."
The Heritage Foundation's Kay Coles James insisted that "Christians do not hate gay people; our faith teaches us to love everyone" -- even as she criticized Chick-fil-A for "caving to the bullying of a minority of radical activists" and "bullies who will never be satisfied with compromise." (The Heritage Foundation knows a thing or two about not being satisfied with compromise.)
JP Duffy complained that the company "cut off future donations to the Salvation Army and sent a check to the Covenant House, a group that has hosted a local Drag Queen Story Hour and celebrates LGBTQ pride." He wants the company to go back to hating gays: "I would say follow the example of three of the most courageous biblical figures — Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. They refused to bow to King Nebuchadnezzar’s image and as a result were thrown into a fiery furnace where God protected them from any harm. Their reverence for God was so strong that it overwhelmed fear. By following their example, you will be better equipped with the courage to glorify God in all you do."
Chapman wasn't done grousing, though, writing in a Nov. 27 article: "The number three fast-food chain in the United States, Chick-fil-A, which prides itself on being founded on biblical principles, donated $2,500 to the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The SPLC maintains a "hate map" on its website and its listing of the Family Research Council (FRC) as an"anti-LGBT" hate group was cited by domestic terrorist Floyd Corkins in his FBI interview after he shot-up the FRC in August 2012." Actually, it turns out that the donation was made by a volunteer for the company's charitable foundation, not by the foundation itself; Chapman has not corrected his article.
Chapman was still sad that Chick-fil-A stopped hating gays as much as he does, lamenting that "Chick-fil-A has made donations to the pro-abortion group The Pace Center for Girls; the pro-LGBTQ YWCA; the pro-LGBT child welfare service Chris 180; and the left-wing New Leaders Council."
MRC Tries To Prop Up GOP's Ukraine Conspiracy Theory Topic: Media Research Center
Just like its "news" division CNSNews.com, the Media Research Center proper has been pushing pro-Trump talking points on the Ukraine scandal and impeachment hearings. So dedicated to those talking points is the MRC, in fact, that it's even pushing the conspiracy theory pushed by Trump and other Republicans that Ukraine meddled as much, if not more, in the 2016 U.S. presidential election as Russia did.
But it wasn’t an “unfounded” “conspiracy theory” as they would like you to believe. According to then-Politico reporters David Stern and Ken Vogel, “Donald Trump wasn’t the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country.”
[...]
Their reporting also found that Ukraine’s influence did have consequences. “The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race,” they wrote, “helping to force Manafort’s resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia.”
But as we've pointed out, Ukranian officials' anti-Trump efforts were mostly limited to going after his campaign manager, Paul Manafort -- who later went to prison for bank and tax fraud regarding the millions of dollars he was paid for his work in Ukraine -- and an op-ed. There was none of the systematic disruption approved by the central government that Russia engaged in, and it's a lie to suggest otherwise.
Alex Christy huffed in a Nov. 25 post that "just because CrowdStrike is a conspiracy theory and that Russia did interfere, does not also mean Ukraine didn't," adding: "Second, it is simply not true that Republicans deny Russian interference in 2016 as all the congressional reports on the topic that came out in the aftermath of 2016 would have had to come out of Republican-controlled committees." But Republicans are falsely conflating what Ukraine did -- which was mostly limited to blogs and op-eds -- with the systematic meddling conducted by Russia.
(The admission that CrowdStrike is a conspiracy theory is a slight change of MRC policy; it has previously largely pretended that Trump wasn't pushing a conspiracy theory by referencing the idea CrowdStrike was stashing a hacked DNC server in Ukraine.)
And when Republican Rep. John Kennedy pushed the conspiracy theory on "Meet the Press," the MRC rushed to prop his claims up.
Curtis Houck followed up with a Dec. 2 post complaining that "CNN sided with Todd that Kennedy’s a puppet for Vladimir Putin pushing “conspiracy theories” (which are true) about Ukraine and the 2016 election."
Houck also complained that "Borger invoked the tiresome piece of fake news about '17 intelligence agencies' having the same conclusion about Russia and 2016, which was ironic since she had just bemoaned that we’re debating 'when is a fact a fact.'" He linked back to a 2018 MRC post on how "the liberal media screwed on Trump-Russia in 2017" to claim that "only three agencies (FBI, CIA and NSA) had reviewed the intelligence, which was then issued by a fourth, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence." But as an actual fact-checker pointed out, the Office of the DNI speaks on behalf of those 17 intelligence agencies, and none of those agencies has expressed disagreement with the conclusion.
Tim Graham huffed that "Sen. Kennedy acknowledged Russians were meddling, but just added Ukrainians were meddling, too. Todd repeatedly insisted that Kennedy was like a Russian agent for adding these inconvenient truths to the narrative." Graham refused to admit the inconvenient fact that nothing Ukraine did was on the scale of Russian meddling.
CNS Is Still Publishing -- And Promoting -- Increasingly Extremist Michelle Malkin Topic: CNSNews.com
In August, we noted that CNSNews.com published Michelle Malkin's dishonest defense of the white nationalist group VDARE, while its sister site NewsBusters did not. Interestingly, NewsBusters skipped a few other Malkin columns after that before stopping completely; the last one at NewsBusters appeared on Oct. 30.
Meanwhile, CNS is sticking with the increasingly extremist Malkin -- well, mostly. It declined to publish her Nov. 27 column in which she went full anti-vaxxer by ranting about "government-coerced immunization" regarding mandates for children to get immunized against human papillomavirus, dismissing it as "usually harmless" despite the fact that it's a leading cause of cervical cancer and obsessing over isolated cases of adverse side effects to falsely smear it as unsafe.
CNS apparently embraces Malkin's increasing vicious anti-immigrant rhetoric, such as her Dec. 5 column huffing that the U.S. is being "fundamentally and permanently transformed into United Nations refugee camps full of welfare dependents and tax burdens."
Shockingly, CNS remains so infatuated with the extremist Malkin that it touted an award she received. A Dec. 6 article by Craig Millward gushed:
Upon receiving an “Impact Award” from United in Purpose on Wednesday, Dec. 4, syndicated columnist and best selling author Michelle Malkin said, “I am an extremist when it comes to telling the truth.”
Malkin was one of 10 conservative leaders to receive an “Impact Award” in a ceremony held at Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C. on Wednesday.
[...]
“Because we all share a common zeal, an extreme zeal -- I embrace that word – yes, I am an extremist when it comes to telling the truth,” said Malkin. “And I know that each of the honorees here has been able to effectively use their powers of communication to do good and make an impact.”
Millward didn't mention that Malkin is also an extremist when it comes to white nationalism and anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories.
CNS should explain why it's continuing to align itself with such an extremist, even though its sister publication has stopped doing so.
The Media Research Center's Kristine Marsh complained in a Nov. 27 post:
David Kupelian's 
CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey spent his Dec. 11 
Newsmax is 
When legal scholar and Trump impeachment hearing witness Pamela Karlan made a 
Conspiracy-obsessed columnist Jack Cashill has been 
We've 
CNSNews.com writer Susan Jones' 
The Media Research Center's obsession with transgenders -- 
WorldNetDaily columnist Mychal Massie has always irrationally hated Michelle Obama, whom he has 
We've 
CNSNews.com used to love fast-food chain Chick-fil-A -- mainly because it hated gays as much as CNS does. It was just earlier this year that it gave Hans Bader 
Just like its "news" division 
In August, we 
