Kathleen Krumhansl comlained in a March 6 MRC Latino post that an CNN en Español anchor described Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz's stunt of wearing a gas mask on the House floor a "clown move":

As COVID-19 continues to spread, so do the insidious comments by the likes of CNN En Español anchor Juan Carlos Lopez, who turned a report on the correct preventive measures to take against the virus into an opportunity to call U.S. Rep Matt Gaetz a clown for wearing a gas mask to work. 

Take a look at this video from Directo USA´s March 5, 2020 edition, featuring Surgeon General Jerome Adams as he addressed The Latino Coalition:

[...]

Two things stand: First, that instead of passing on the valuable information offered by the Surgeon General, CNN En Espanõl opted to mock a Republican congressman  who evidently believed he was doing the right thing, that is preventing the spread of the virus hyped by the media trying to blame Trump for its spread.

Second, anchor Juan Carlos Lopez snarkily exemplifies the liberal media’s pettiness. In this case, CNN En Español deliberately displays their political agenda- in direct conflict with the safety and wellbeing of the very public they serve.

Krumhansl is apparently giving Gaetz a pass for his gas-mask stunt because she thinks he "evidently believed he was doing the right thing" by mocking the media's purported overhype of coronavirus concerns. But subsequent events have made it clear that the media was correct in warning of the danger of coronavirus and that mocking it was, indeed, a clown move.

The clownish nature of Gaetz's stunt was further borne out by the fact that just a few days later, a person living in his congressional district died from coronavirus, and shortly after that Gaetz himself went into self-quarantine after possibly being exposed to coronavirus at CPAC, a prominent conservative gathering.

Don't expect Krumhansl to update her post or admit that events have shown that Gaetz really was a clown for doing this.

Posted by Terry K. at 3:51 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Jerry Newcombe complained in his March 3 WorldNetDaily column:

After President Trump named Vice President Pence last week to lead the nation's battle against the coronavirus, many in the media decried the choice because supposedly Mike Pence "doesn't believe in science." How could he? He's a Christian. So the logic goes.

They mock along the lines of: Maybe he just wants to pray the virus away.

Late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel quipped, "Why is Mike Pence in charge? What is his plan to stop the virus, abstinence?"

Writing for mediaite.com (Feb. 26), Reed Richardson noted, "President Donald Trump's decision to task Mike Pence with heading up the federal government's coronavirus response triggered an immediate backlash as critics noted the vice president's record of doubting scientific evidence and his role in exacerbating an HIV outbreak in Indiana while he was governor."

Richardson argues that Pence allegedly did a poor job in quelling the HIV outbreak in Indiana because for two days, he canceled a needle-exchange program, and supposedly during those two days, the HIV "infection rates exploded." After praying about it, Pence relented. An explosion of new cases in just two days?

Newcombe is lying -- that's not what the Mediaite article said. This is what it said:

Trump said Pence has “a certain talent for this” and specifically cited the “Indiana model” in the Wednesday evening press conference where he named his VP to run the coronavirus response. But as this extensive New York Times report detailed in 2016, the staunch conservative Pence’s health policies helped ignite a massive public health crisis in his state when he shut down a needle exchange program that had severely curtailed the spread of HIV. Virus infection rates exploded, and Pence — two days after he said he would pray on the matter — relented and reinstated the program.

The article very clearly states that HIV infection rates "exploded" after he shut down a needle exchange program -- and before Pence took his two-day prayer sabbatical to  decided to reinstate it. But the situation was actually worse: As researchers reported in Politico, victims could not easily learn their HIV status because Pence supported budget cuts to a Planned Parenthood clinic that happened to be the only HIV testing provider in the area, the state took more than a month to inform local officials about an HIV surge, and it was not until a month after that that Pence finally approved a needle exchange -- which he then undermined by signing a bill that increased punishment for people carrying needles and made possession of a syringe wiht intent to commit an offense a felony. A preventable HIV outbreak was mismanaged, researchers concluded.

The rest of Newcombe's column was dedicated to defending Pence against the "canard that Christians are somehow anti-science," insisting that "The founder of every major branch of science was a Bible-believing Christian of one stripe or another."

Posted by Terry K. at 12:58 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

The Media Research Center has accused the media of politicizing the coronavirus outbreak for so long, it can now be credibly accused of politicizing the outbreak itself by pushing the "politicizing" narrative -- after all, the only reason the narrative exists is to protect its beloved President Trump, since it doesn't want you to believe there's no evidence that he downplayed the signfigance of the outbreak until he could no longer do so.

Let's take a look at how the MRC has pushed this narrative:

• The MSM's line o' the day is that coronavirus should not be politicized. But liberal media partisans like Chuck Todd just can't help themselves. -- Mark Finkelstein, Feb. 27
• CNN has clearly made a conscious decision to politicize the coronavirus story to trash the Trump administration and claim it's starkly opposed to "science." -- Alex Christy, Feb. 28
• During national emergencies such as natural disasters or outbreaks of disease, the news media can serve as a valuable source of information for the public. Yet when it came to their coverage of the coronavirus on Thursday, CNN largely put their Trump-bashing agenda ahead of that important role. ... It’s bad enough when Democrats and Republicans politicize national emergencies, but for the self-ordained Facts First Network to do the same is nothing short of outrageous. This isn’t what journalists are supposed to do during a national health crisis. -- Bill D'Agostino, Feb. 28
• In an interview with Vice President Mike Pence, aired during Sunday’s Meet the Press, NBC host Chuck Todd grew extremely irate and combative when addressing how President Trump’s allies were calling out his colleagues on the left for politicizing the coronavirus (COVID-19). After demanding Pence show him evidence of their politicization, Todd refused to hear more than one example and tried to make the pushback from the right the problem. -- Nicholas Fondacaro, March 1 
• In reality, what Trump dismissed as a hoax were efforts by Democrats and liberal media to politicize the global health crisis. -- Kyle Drennen, March 2
• Put a check mark on the PBS NewsHour for politicizing the coronavirus. -- Tim Graham, March 2
• New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, respected economist turned classless Democratic hack, demonstrated his unseemly willingness to politicize crises, in his Tuesday column “Paranoid Politics Goes Viral.” The text box: “When everything is a liberal media conspiracy.” -- Clay Waters, March 5
• What Trump has called a hoax is the attempt by Democrats to politicize the disease. [MSNBC's Joy] Reid unwittingly gave a good example of the phenomenon with her scaremongering this morning. -- Mark Finkelstein, March 7
• While hacks in the liberal media were quick to claim no one on their side was politicizing the spread of the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19), NBC political director Chuck Todd spent a part of Sunday’s Meet the Press musing about how the virus could be President Trump’s version of the Iran Hostage Crisis, where President Jimmy Carter showed such poor leadership the public voted in President Ronald Reagan. -- Nicholas Fondacaro, March 8
• Despite the media’s empty words insisting they are not politicizing the coronavirus, they keep doing just that. -- Kristine Marsh, March 9
• [Nicolle] Wallace again politicized the health scare, by commending the novel virus for “shaking the confidence” of the president’s base for the upcoming election[.] -- Kristine Marsh, March 10
• While many in the media have feigned outrage at the notion they are politicizing this pandemic, [comedian Pete] Dominick admitted proudly that they are, because Trump "doesn't care about us" or "science." -- Kristine Marsh, March 11
• Eager to join the rest of the media in politicizing the coronavirus, on Monday’s CBS Late Show, liberal host Stephen Colbert sought to use the disease to attack President Trump. -- Aiden Jackson, March 11
• Shortly after The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg insisted that the media wasn’t politicizing the coronavirus on Wednesday’s show, her co-host, Joy Behar did just that, predicting that the virus would keep Trump from getting re-elected. Kristine Marsh, March 11
• Seemingly daily, CBS Evening News includes a segment railing against the response of the Trump administration and boosting Democratic politicization of the virus.-- Nicholas Fondacaro, March 11
• The unhinged media is still politicizing the spread of COVID-19, and pointing fingers at President Trump after he addressed the nation last night. -- Kristine March, March 12
• Is the Coronavirus Donald Trump’s Hurricane Katrina? Is it his Iran hostage crisis? If you thought journalists hadn’t politicized this health crisis enough, get ready for another example. -- Alex Christy, March 12
• [Peter] Wehner is careful to warn liberals not to politicize coronavirus outbreak as a weapon to attack Trump...before then absurdly going on to use coronavirus as a political weapon to attack Trump. -- P.J. Gladnick, March 14
• CNN on Sunday continued the network’s efforts to politicize the coronavirus and blame Donald Trump. -- Scott Whitlock, March 16
• On Tuesday, ABC’s White House correspondent Jon Karl attempted to scold President Trump for having “lashed out” at Democrats who were politicizing coronavirus. Trump shut down the line of questioning by pointing out he has to “respond” since liberal politicians “have the media on their side.” ... Missing from Karl’s question was any acknowledgment of how Democrats have worked to politicize the pandemic response. -- Kyle Drennen, March 17

And the MRC gets real mad when that narrative gets turned on them. In a Feb. 28 post, Kyle Drennen complained that an MSNBC anchor was "attacking Fox News. Why? Because the competing cable channel was calling out attempts in the press to blame the Trump administration for the spread of the disease." Hehuffed in response: "Missing from the Fox-bashing segment was any mention of how 'irresponsible' the liberal media have been in their own effort to 'politicize' coronavirus." In other words, the same whataboutism we've come to expect from the MRC.

Kristine Marsh did much the same thing in a post the same day: "Despite a NewsBusters study showing Trump-bashing takes center stage on CNN's coronavirus reporting, CNN Newsroom host Brooke Baldwin and media reporter Oliver Darcy raged that Fox was putting the public in danger by sowing skepticism over their anti-Trump reporting on the coronavirus." That "study" would be the one where the MRC failed once again to show its work and refused to consider whether criticism of Trump was justified.

Deflecting these attacks was the narrative of the day on Feb. 28. Randy Hall took a shot in his post that day:

It’s easy to predict how Brian Stelter, host of the Sunday Reliable Sources program on CNN, will respond to any disagreements with President Trump and the anchors on the Fox News Channel. He simply dismisses anything they say as simply being wrong.

That was obviously the case on Friday, when the network’s chief media correspondent was a guest during a segment of the At This Hour program as hosted by Kate Bolduan. He dismissed the network's claims of the left weaponizing the virus against President Trump, “reprehensible” and an attempt “to make this all about Trump and politics when that’s really not the arena this is being fought in.”

Like the others, Hall never actually explains why any criticism of Trump is "politicizing" the issue but Fox News' blatantly partisan attacks on the media for criticizing Trump is not.

Finally, also on the same day, Tim Graham gave space to a lengthy Rush Limbaugh rant denying that  his conspiracy theory that the coronavirus was created to destroy Trump was "politicizing" the issue.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:46 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Pro-Trump rah-rah was the order of the day for CNSNews.com's reporting on February's employment numbers. Susan Jones' lead article carried the headline "Near Record Employment: 159,759,000 Working in U.S.A.," and Jones was in full gushing mode:

Forty-five thousand more people were employed in February than in January, bringing the total number employed -- 158,759,000-- to the second highest level in the nation's history.

The only time more people have been working in the United States was in December 2019, when there were 158,803,000 employed.

The number of employed has broken 25 records so far in the Trump presidency.

This was joined by the usual sidebars: Craig Bannister cheering a record number of Hispanics employed and editor in chief Terry Jeffrey touting how manufacturing jobs "have now increased by 519,000 since President Donald Trump took office."

This was joined, however, by a March 6 op-ed by Kay Hymowitz of the right-wing Manhattan Institute weirdly complaining that women are too well educated and make too much money to settle for a typical man, thus leading to "family decline":

Women have made enormous inroads in education and the labor market over the past few decades. They are now the majority of college graduates and are more likely than men to have earned a postgraduate degree.

The story for men, particularly low skilled men, is one of decline. Alarming numbers of male prime aged workers are simply MIA from the labor force. This gender gap goes a long way toward explaining family decline among the less educated. Women continue to want to marry men who earn at least as much as they do.

Women without a college degree and minority women are increasingly finding that impossible, forcing them to choose between single motherhood or abstaining from having children altogether. 

Hymowitz seems to be implicitly blaming women for this situation; in her congressional testimony to which she links as support for this article, she called for "a re-affirmation of the importance of fathers and male contributions to the household" and complained that "Society has come to accept single motherhood; in fact, it is the norm in many disadvantaged communities," which she claimed "has had unintended effect of telling boys and men that their contributions to family life and the household economy are of no great consequence."

Posted by Terry K. at 1:47 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Remember: The mission of the Media Research Center these day is to protect President Trump from media criticism. Another example of that is this bit of "media research" in a Feb. 28 post by Bill D'Agostino:

During national emergencies such as natural disasters or outbreaks of disease, the news media can serve as a valuable source of information for the public. Yet when it came to their coverage of the coronavirus on Thursday, CNN largely put their Trump-bashing agenda ahead of that important role.

MRC analysts identified 44 guest interviews on CNN between 6:00 am and 11:59 pm EST on February 27, 2020. Out of 136 questions that hosts asked about the epidemic, 82 (60%) invited guests – even medical specialists – to criticize the Trump administration’s handling of the epidemic. Questions asked of CNN-affiliated reporters and analysts were not included in this total.

Hosts often pressured guests who were reluctant to attack the administration.

[...]

It’s bad enough when Democrats and Republicans politicize national emergencies, but for the self-ordained Facts First Network to do the same is nothing short of outrageous. This isn’t what journalists are supposed to do during a national health crisis. How bad must the epidemic get for CNN to stop taking what even Democrats network have called “cheap shots?”

Absent from  D'Agostino's alleged analysis -- as it is from pretty much all MRC "studies" -- is a list of those 136 questions and how they were classified so readers can judge for themselves how "negative" or "cheap" they are. D'Agostino repeated only two questions in his post.

D'Agostino also appears to have failed to consider context -- that Trump does, in fact, deserve criticism of his administration's response to the outbreak. Perhaps that's because the apparebnly official policy at the MRC is that Trump does nothing wrong and all criticism of him is "liberal."

The MRC's "media research" is hard to take seriously when it's so utterly biased.

Posted by Terry K. at 7:02 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, March 19, 2020 4:09 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

If there's one thing we can count on from Scott Lively, it's that he'll hate gay people regardless of the politics. That means while conservative media has mostly forgotten that Richard Grenell, President Trump's new acting director of national intelligence, is gay and that they forced his resignation from his spokesman job for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign over said gayness, Lively has not.

Thus, Lively ranted in his Feb. 21 WorldNetDaily column:

There comes a time in the evolution of the progressive agenda when true conservatives should stop using the "slippery slope" argument because the place we've degenerated to should be condemned as is. That's our situation today where the hero we're rallying behind to fight the progressive agenda has embraced one of its most insidious and destructive tenets. I'm talking about President Trump's appointment of open and unrepentant homosexual Richard Grenell to the position of acting director of national intelligence.

The insidious and destructive tenet of progressivism I'm referencing is "Sexual Orientation Theory" – a fake science invented by progressive political strategists for the purpose of normalizing LGBT lifestyles and de-normalizing the natural family. It has even less legitimacy than "climate change science."

Frankly, if Richard Grenell kept his sexual proclivities to himself and told people to mind their own business about his private life, I'd be more inclined to consider the "merit based" arguments for his nomination (though at first glance his resume falls far short of qualifying him for this position). But the minute he went public about his homosexual domestic partnership, he became a Marxist change agent, his very presence in public life an argument that a homosexual "orientation" is equivalent to normal sexuality. (Who in American history has ever wanted that goal? It wasn't the conservatives!)

When Grenell did that, he crossed the line from expecting reasonable tolerance from our genuinely magnanimous live-and-let-life society to demanding public acceptance. And in taking that step he also implicitly endorsed the progressive strategy of celebrating his "out" lifestyle as social progress, forcibly integrating it into society, and punishing those who object.

[...]

Let me be clear. I'm not saying that a homosexual can't be a conservative. I've known many. What I'm saying is that openly declaring oneself homosexual instead of keeping one's sexual issues private is a Marxist tactic for forcing social change, and whoever does that from inside the conservative movement is a Trojan Horse – an espionage agent – carrying the progressive agenda behind enemy lines even if they don't intend to be. The mainstreaming of sexual sub-cultures is NOT "progress" to anyone but "progressives." 

Richard Grenell is a Trojan Horse. President Trump should not trust him and neither should we Deplorables.

Lively doubled down in his Feb. 24 column, declaring that "I'm been about as strong a Trump supporter as you can find," but that Trump showed he doesn't hate gays to Lively's satisfaction by appointing Grenell:

HOWEVER, the one issue that calls everything else into question is President Trump's apparent spiritual blindness on the question of homosexuality. Now I've mostly given him a pass on this issue over the past three years, rationalizing that he's just being politically savvy in a dangerous area of public policy that is (not accidentally) extremely emotionally inflammatory to the youngest generations of public school graduates and the most passionate of the street activists of the left. He's also been working diligently to peel away voters from all the constituencies of the Democratic Party, including the "gays," and I'm actually glad to see that many self-identified homosexuals are now pro-Trump. 

My argument is not that he is being politically strategic, but that he is doing it in a way that unnecessarily serves the very Marxist agenda he's trying to defeat. 

President Trump could easily maneuver the LGBT minefield without endorsing homosexuality itself. But he is purposefully approving it. On Feb. 21, in the build-up to his upcoming rally in India, he praised "Bollywood," its film industry, for releasing its first movie promoting homosexuality, retweeting a tweet about the production with the word "Great!" What is the message to the world when the president of the United States – a self-proclaimed Christian – applauds a morally conservative nation for abandoning its principles to celebrate homosexuality? What kind of mentality justifies the normalization of homosexuality to an entire nation's children as a political tactic? I feel nauseous just thinking about it.

Is this a partial payoff to openly homosexual Richard Grenell for his willingness to be the president's hatchet-man in the house-cleaning of the intelligence agencies? If so, it's a devil's bargain he never should have entered into.

Meanwhile, Lively is upset that Trump hasn't read his attacks on Grenell. something something sodomy:

Of course, President Trump probably never saw my article, but he shouldn't have had to, since my arguments should have been no-brainer, intuitive deductions by anyone with a genuine biblical worldview in the Trump inner circle. A simple policy pivot from an emphasis on decriminalization to an emphasis on ending violence against homosexuals would have sent just as powerful a message without endorsing the regressive leftist view that discouragement of sodomy through public policy is a bad thing. Discouraging the public health and morals menace of sodomy through law was an unassailable conservative policy position less than a quarter century ago in our country! Now we're supposed to flip 180 degrees and embrace Obama doctrine instead?

Lively then complained that Vice President Mike Pence, as "the highest-ranking Christian in the Trump administration," is apparently not teaching Trump how to hate gays, and he doubts that Trump is even "saved" (despite the fact he has never claimed to be and certainly acts otherwise to the contrary):

Every Christian sins in matters of personal conduct, and we have a remedy from God for that called confession and repentance. In contrast, taking public policy positions that directly contradict the clear instructions of God is a spiritual problem of a much higher magnitude. Every Christian leader with access to the president and an opportunity to do so has a duty to speak that truth to him.

His endorsement of homosexuality even raises the question of whether Donald Trump is actually saved. There are lots of "religious leftists" running around saying they're Christians based on belief in a non-biblical Jesus who condones and even approves what the Bible condemns. I argue that one can't be saved by belief in a false Christ. Which Jesus does the president put his faith in?

Whatever God will get him elected, but Lively will likely never concede that.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:34 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

The Media Research Center is weirdly obsessed with bashing Taylor Swift for the sin of having opinions it doesn't agree with (and refusing to hate LGBT people as much as it thinks she should). Since Swift refuses to conform to the MRC's right-wing agenda, she remains an MRC target.

In November, P.J. Gladnick mocked Elizabeth Warren for taking Swift's side against her former record company regarding control of the music she recorded for it -- and, of course, mocked Swift herself for committing the offense of being a "multi-millionaire" who wants to have a say in how the music she helped create is being used:

Justice for Taylor Swift!

Yeah, now that's a cause that your average working American can get behind. And it is also a cause taken up by presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren which has resulted in widespread mockery. Okay, the mockery hasn't quite reached the levels inspired by the reaction to her hyping of a DNA test last year that revealed that Warren is maybe 1/1024 Native American but it is up there.

Warren tweeted her support for Swift in the multi-millionaire's contractual dispute with other millionaires that we should somehow care about as reported by Variety on Saturday in, "Elizabeth Warren Backs Taylor Swift in Big Machine Battle."

[...]

There is a lot more of that in reply to Elizabeth Warren on Twitter so break out the popcorn and take a look for yourselves because the entertainment value is much greater than listening to Taylor Swift singing (or whining).

Gladnick apparently doesn't think that having control over what you create is something your average working American can understand. 

In January, Swift's chief MRC bully, Gabriel Hays, melted down over the singer receiving an award from pro-LGBT organization GLAAD through exhibiting the gay-bashing the MRC is known for in once again complaining there are too many gay people on TV:

Although Taylor is less of a hero, and more so just another spoiled celebrity being paraded out by special interest groups in order to condescend to people who are reluctant to join progressive causes. She’s a leftwing android more or less. She promotes all the boilerplate gay lobby crap and bashes Donald Trump supporters as scary racists.

Swift made her abrupt shift left in 2018, when she blasted then Senate-candidate Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) for her conservative campaign. Taylor claimed her record “appalls and terrifies me.” In April 2019, Swift donated $113,000 to the Tennessee Equality Project, a legal group aggressive in pushing LGBTQ legislation in the state.

[...]

Though really, she’s just another one of the left’s anti-intellectual, propaganda mouthpieces that helps GLAAD bully people into submission. GLAAD has used its influence to put an over-representation of LGBTQ folks in TV/film entertainment and has successfully sicced the media on companies with traditional family values via an obnoxious and dishonest victimhood strategy.

Hays returned in a Feb. 28 post to sneer at Swift's new music video (and the song it's for):

The far left reboot of Taylor Swift is continuing her work of alienating conservatives and most other normal folks from her fanbase. The singer unveiled her music video for her misogyny-crushing anthem “The Man,” featuring her play-acting as a man and doing all the things your typical toxic white male gets away with that women can’t.

Like smoking cigars while manspreading on subway cars, or behaving like an arrogant jerk on a yacht with models? Well if your info comes from a Swift music video, these are the problems with guys these days.

Swift’s video for “The Man” premiered online on February 27, and of course it was a slick, polished production. Swift’s got the best entertainment people working for her, and their politics are predictable. “The Man” is a cheap feminist anthem about double standards.

Her lyrics for the song’s chorus sum up her views on sexism. She sings, “I'm so sick of running as fast as I can. Wondering if I'd get there quicker if I was a man. And I'm so sick of them coming at me again, 'cause if I was a man then I'd be the man.” Yes, so sad, and her $300 million doesn’t put her about 99% of most men on earth, but we digress.

Of course the music video makes her points even dumber than they were in writing.

Hays then unironically wrote: "Swift must see her product as more of a joke, because it’s too cartoony to be a political statement. " We wonder if Hays sees his product as a joke, because it's too cartoonishly hateful to be taken as legitimate criticism.

Posted by Terry K. at 5:26 PM EDT

Updated: Sunday, March 15, 2020 5:28 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

We documented that CNSNews.com's first week of major coverage of the coronavirus crisis was largely dedicated to minimizing the threat and defending the Trump administration's response to it.

Since then, CNS' coverage has featured even more minimization and Trump defense:

• US Still Has the Lowest Per-Capita Coronavirus Rate of the 10 Countries With Most Cases Reported
• WHO Chief Praises Trump for Leading Coronavirus Response From the Top
• Trump: Virus Causing People to Stay in U.S., Spend Money Here: 'I Like That'
• Majority of Gov’t Workers Say Media, Dems Weaponizing Threat of Coronavirus ‘to Hurt Pres. Trump’
• Dr. Ben Carson: 'Everybody Doesn't Need a Test' for Coronavirus
• CDC: Your Pets Pose No Threat of Giving, Getting Coronavirus – Even if They’re from China
• Stephanopoulos Challenges Dr. Ben Carson for Saying People Should Take Responsibility and Think for Themselves
• Here's Why Coronavirus Stats Are Fake News
• Linking the Coronavirus to China Is ‘Racist’? Numerous Diseases Have Been Named For Places
• Graham: Dems Seizing on Coronavirus to Grow Government; Trump Wants to 'Help the Economy'
• WHO: Most Infected People Will Recover, As Have More Than 70% of Chinese Patients
• BBC Buries the Lead in 8th Paragraph: Coronavirus Death Rate Only 0.7% in S. Korea Due to Thorough Testing
• Trump ‘Not Concerned’ About Contact with Brazilian Aide Who Tested Positive for Coronavirus
• NY Gov. Cuomo: ‘The Facts Do Not Justify the Fear’

CNS' Susan Jones (of course) even devoted an article to how Nancy Pelosi "pulled out a tissue and wiped her nose" during her weekly press conference at which she talked about coronavirus.

But as the week went on -- and the coronavirus threat became impossible to ignore or downplay -- CNS remembered it was supposed to report news and added a dose of reality to its coverage:

• Former Homeland Security Adviser: Coronavirus Can Kill 10 Times More than the Flu
• Trump’s CDC Back Visit on After CDC Worker Tests Negative for Coronavirus
• Priest with Coronavirus Shook Hands with Hundreds of Worshippers, Officials Say
• Wash. Gov.: State Testing for Coronavirus Up 20-Fold
• Top Health Insurance Execs Agree to Waive Co-Pays, Extend Coverage for Coronavirus Treatment
• 22-Year-old Vaper Hospitalized With Coronavirus
• Pence: ‘We'll Have Thousands of More Cases Across This County’
• Fauci: Testing System Is Failing; Azar: 'Has Not Worked As Well As We Would Like'
• Are We Prepared for a Rush to Hospitals, Ventilators? Azar Responds
• Sen. Lindsey Graham in Self-Quarantine for Possible Coronavirus Exposure

CNS even noted Fox News host Tucker Carlson's criticism of the Trump administration's failure to take the coronavirus crisis seriously. But it also gave space to Fox Business host Trish Regan's unhinged rant that coronavirus was "impeachment all over again."

Still, even the stories that initially present as balanced are full of pro-Trump bias. A March 12 article by Melanie Arter carries the benign headline "McCarthy on Coronavirus Legislation: ‘I Think We Can Get This Done in 24-48 Hours’," but it consists solely of Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy attacking Democratic proposals and failed to quote any Democratic response. And a March 10 article by Jones withthe headline "Rubio: 'There Could Be a Shortage of Critical Drugs in This County'" was actually a talking-point piece featuring the Republican senator pushing "the United States to take back the pharmaceutical production we 'gave away' to China."

The old CNS agenda staples continued: another attempt to make Joe Biden look goofy, in an anonymously written headlined "Joe Biden Advises Americans to Stop Hugging Each Other," and another rant from its favorite right-wing radio host, Mark Levin.Craig Bannister cheered capitalist profiteering in a March 13 post headlined "Enterprising Teen Sent Home, Gets Detention for Selling Squirts of Hand Sanitizer to Fellow Students."

CNS even touted writers trying to exploit the coronavirus outbreaks to advance their own agendas. Actor wife Sam Sorbo was given a column to rant that public education was a bad thing on par with coronavirus:

Caution is the better form of valor, and goodness knows we want our children to be safe, but we miss the bigger picture. Infecting the minds of our youth with what passes today for education but what clearly has morphed, over the years, into simple indoctrination, may have a worse effect than illness. There is, after all, the strong potential of recovery from illness, but the disease of liberalism — intolerance of the truth, and a reluctance to learn (all promoted in our government schools and institution of “higher learning”) — is much more threatening. It poisons its victims with dangerous assumptions about political correctness, unearned self-worth, and gender confusion, not to mention the academic confusion resultant from the coerced Common Core agenda.

[...]

Parents who demand protection for their children from the infection of the body may realize they can simultaneously guard them from the degradation of thought rampant in our schools and colleges. Home education should figure among their options, as homes are deemed safest by health authorities. My book can help explain how easy it is to educate your child in a truly safe environment.

There is already a virus in your local schools, and its deadlier than the coronavirus.

Sorbo will never admit that homeschooling involves at least as much indoctrination as she claims public education does.

And homophobic CNS managing editor did an article promoting a fellow homophobe:

Bishop E.W. Jackson, a Marine, Harvard Law graduate, and great-grandson of Virginia slaves, said that promoting homosexual behavior is destructive and constitutes a "violent attack" on the family, especially in the black community, which faces many "family formation" problems including the absence of many real fathers. 

He added that, though it will spark criticism, the gay movement is "the homovirus for the family." It is not like the physical coronavirus, he said, but it is damaging in a "spiritual and psychological" sense and is "the last thing you need in a community that is beset by gangs, and drugs, and violence, much of which can be traced back to the absence of fathers in the home."

The news may change, but not CNS' bias in covering it.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:40 PM EDT

Updated: Sunday, March 15, 2020 9:46 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

The Media Research Center generally hates LGBT people and thinks the fact that they're allowed to be on TV is evidence of some sort of "agenda." A couple recent posts fed that "agenda" obsession.

A Feb. 18 post by Lindsey Kornick complained about a documentary about LGBT representation on TV, denigrating them as "depraved" people engaged in "perversions":

Apple TV has truly hit the peak of progressiveness, and there’s no turning back. The five-part documentary series Visible: Out on Television spells out the true agenda behind LGBTQ representation on television. Namely, the idea that “television is at its best” when it’s being used as a tool for the gay community.

All five parts, which premiered on February 14, lay out the history of LGBTQ representation on television. It begins with the first reference to homosexuality in McCarthy hearings from 1957 and moves to the present day with every major TV event in between those times. The premiere episode “The Dark Ages” dives into this record with their agenda front and center, summing up all the details and posturing we'll be hearing for over five hours. That includes the notion that television is only "at its best" with several LGBTQ characters.

Considering the second episode is literally called “Television as a Tool,” it’s safe to say that the goal is clearly indoctrination and normalization of LGBTQ lifestyles. Even in the documentary, there’s no hiding that many forms of gay representation became excuses for “liberal diatribes” to millions of viewers. There is even special attention given to the gay activist groups such as Act Up and GLAAD, noting that “using TV and the media was the whole game.” Referencing these groups alone removes all doubts of this being anything but political.

[...]

Seeing the scope of television move from simply placing gay characters on screen to openly celebrating every perverted thing they can do is jarring enough, but it gets worse. The show goes so far as to co-opt other characters from popular shows to simply act as gay representation for them. And here I thought liberals didn’t like appropriation.

[...]

CNN calls Visible: Out on Television “a reminder how far both TV and society have come.” In a way, I agree. It shows us how far television has fallen to blatant propaganda and depraved activists. And it’ll never be far enough for the progressives.

MRC chief Brent Bozell, meanwhile, used a Feb. 20 post -- presented as "a side on the website The Rift" -- to deny he's a homophobe while he demands that the Disney Channel ban all LGBT characters:

There should not be more homosexual characters in animated Disney movies and there should not be fewer. There should be none.

Nor should there be anti-homosexual characters. Nor Catholics or anti-Catholics, nor Jewish people or anti-Semites, nor climate change proponents or climate change deniers. Any character’s identity and back story that doesn’t propel a simple children’s tale reflects the preoccupation of adults.

This debate is not about presenting characters that are homosexual. This is about presenting characters as homosexuals. This is about promoting the gay lifestyle. But why do either?

[...]

Please, please: Don’t accuse me of being homophobic. That dog just won’t hunt. Most every adult watching Paul Lynde on Hollywood Squares, or David Hyde Pierce on Frasier, or Charles Nelson Reilly on Laugh-In knew the actor was gay… and no one cared. All were there as comedians who happened to be gay.

Victimology. I tire of it.  I am a Roman Catholic. There are 51 million of us. We demand that Disney actively and only positively promote Catholic characters!  65% of Americans are Christians. Disney must have 65% of its characters portrayed as Christian role models!

Disney would never allow that. Disney won’t allow a single Catholic character in its animated films. I wonder if you can find a single Christian. That, you see, is the projection of an agenda.

So for Bozell, being gay is a "don't ask, don't tell" kind of thing?  Because you know that if Lynde or Reilly had admitted on TV they were gay, he would be agitating to ban them from the airwaves.

Bozell then complained that Disney removed the "Siamese Cat Song" from its remake of "Lady and the Tramp" because of its perceived racism: "Did a single child anywhere on the face of Planet Earth ever listen to that song and find racist overtones? What about the song that followed, an Italian song about Italian food sung by two characters parodying Italians? Why is that still there? Out, out, OUT!"

Bozell conlcuded by huffing: "None of this has anything to do with entertaining kids and everything to do with indoctrinating them into leftwing ideology. Adding more LGBT characters to Disney movies just moves the company further from its purpose." Bozell's purpose, meanwhile, is to censor all traces of LGBT representation from the public airwaves, so his complaint about "indoctrinating" is wildly hypocritical -- and, yes, Brent, that's quite homophobic.

Posted by Terry K. at 3:32 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., is a pathetic hater whose greatest measurable achievement is serving 14 terms in Congress.

According to his Wikipedia page, his South Carolina congressional district includes nearly all of the mostly black precincts in and around Columbia and Charleston, as well as almost the entire rural region within South Carolina. In those areas he has successfully turned pimping hatred, skin color and an annual fish fry with white bread, into the viscous substance that lubricates his political flim-flam machine.

[...]

Clyburn calls President Trump a racist, and scorns the unqualified success his agenda has been for all Americans on every quantifiable level, and specifically for black Americans.

But Clyburn steadfastly supports and defends Joe Biden whose 1994 crime bill many argue led to mass imprisonment of black people. Clyburn calls President Trump anti-black, but he stolidly defends Biden's comments at a New York fundraiser, when he boasted about working with segregationists. Clyburn defended him even as other black Democrats condemned Biden for his remarks.

Clyburn's claim that the massive economic gain by blacks under President Trump somehow compares to slavery is the Erebusic rhetoric of a loser.

Some years ago during a BBC interview, Oprah Winfrey said, "Older white people who were born, bred, and marinated in prejudice and racism should die if racism is to disappear." Winfrey was inexcusably wrong to say that. It's not old white people who need to die; it's people like James Clyburn who must disappear, never to be heard from again, if the inculcating of blacks with pernicious acrimony is to end.

-- Mychal Massie, Feb. 24 WorldNetDaily column

(Bonus points for working in his favorite highfalutin word, "Erebusic.")

Posted by Terry K. at 1:39 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

The Media Research Center tried to merge its abject hatred for CNN with its recent glee that Democratic Rep. Katie Hill was forced to resign from her seat in part because conservative websites published revenge porn of her in a March 2 post by Kristine Marsh:

CNN host Brian Stelter and his network go after Fox News, constantly, claiming their hosts and analysts are cronies working for President Trump. But Stelter has been caught in his own conflict of interest predicament.

The Reliable Sources host, along with two of his reporter colleagues, was seen at a party with disgraced former Democrat congresswoman, Katie Hill in New York over the weekend, according to Page Six. This, after Stelter has had Hill on his show and his network has worked overtime to try to rehabilitate the Democrat’s tarnished reputation.

Page Six’s Oli Coleman reported Saturday that Stelter and CNN senior media reporters Oliver Darcy and Vicky Ward were seen attending a book signing party for the Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markey and Asawin Suebsaeng.

[...]

Last November, Stelter had Hill on his show so he could label her a victim of “right wing media smears” in a sympathetic interview where he asked her if it was “an out of body experience” to be “called names” by Fox News personalities.

Besides trying to rehab Hill’s reputation on Stelter’s show, CNN also tried to push Hill’s gender discrimination narrative with puff pieces defending her on their website.

Stelter’s attendance showcases just how involved the media is with the Democrat party.

Not only did Marsh did not bother to contact Stelter and Darcy for ar esponse, she failed to update her post to note that Darcy and Stelter did, in fact, respond to the accusation when her attack was similarly parroted by RedState (ironically, one of the conbservative websites that published the revenge porn on Hill). Both said they did not "party" with Hill -- Darcy said he didn't even see her at the book party -- and pointed out that staffers from Fox News were also at the party.

Whoops! No wonder there was no update -- the MRC is a criticism-free zone for Fox News (unless you were Shepard Smith), and acknowledging that Fox News staffers were also at this party would undermine the narrative.

Also note that Marsh refused to use the proper name of the Democratic Party, opting instead for the incorrect right-wing insult version "Democrat party." The MRC should explain to its readers why its stylebook demands that incorrect information be given to its readers.

Posted by Terry K. at 4:27 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

CNSNews.com wasn't just attacking Bernie Sanders in its news articles -- it was also going after him in opinion pieces as well. One of the nastiest attacks came in a Feb. 25 column by David Rubin, who has written a book called "Trump and the Jews." And he basuically argues that Sanders isn't a real Jew because he's not as right-wing as Trump:

In 2016, Sanders largely avoided mention of his Jewishness. This time around, he’s been less elusive and even came out with a “Proud to Be Jewish” campaign video, in which he talks about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism and concludes that President Trump is responsible for the rise in anti-Semitic attacks in recent years, even though the most shocking rise in anti-Semitism has come from Bernie’s supporters like Rep. Ilhan Omar or Linda Sarsour on the far left, or in movements such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa.

[...]

A Jew who is really in touch with his heritage is proud to be a member of the people who provided the moral basis for Western Civilization in the form of the Ten Commandments and the Hebrew Bible. The concepts of honoring parents, of humility, of the Sabbath as a day of rest and family bonding - Those are the foundations for the same eternal values that many of the founders of the United States so deeply admired. Noteworthy is the rebirth of Israel as a sovereign nation again after two thousand years of exile from its homeland. These are all symbols of real Jewish pride. Yes, it’s important to know about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, but it’s not a badge of pride for Jews, rather it’s a badge of shame for those who allowed such atrocities to happen.

As for Bernie’s charge that Donald Trump has fomented anti-Semitism, the truth is just the opposite. Unlike Bernie Sanders, President Trump’s actions have enabled genuine Jewish pride, not as campaign spin to get votes, but as a sincere show of love for the Jewish people. This has included his bold recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, followed by the important recognition of the strategic Golan Heights as part of sovereign Israel, as well as halting support for the Palestinian Authority until it stops funding terrorism, and finally, leading the fight against a nuclear Iran. All of these were courageous actions taken by Trump in close coordination with the Israeli government and were supported by most Israelis from right to left.

That being the case, why is it that a majority of Jewish Americans would support Senator Sanders, who says that most of Israel’s leaders are racist, against President Trump, who has made such strong efforts to strengthen ties between the United States and  the Jewish State of Israel?

The sad truth is that those liberal/socialist Jews in America are as disconnected from their Judaism as is Bernie Sanders! We Jews in Israel, as well as the minority of religiously connected Jews in America, care deeply about Jewish survival and the future of our people. Our high marriage rate and large Jewish families reflect that. Bernie has done nothing in his personal or public life that would indicate to us that he shares those concerns.

There actually is a very sad, but relevant joke about the Jewishness of Bernie Sanders: What is the difference between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump? The answer? Donald Trump has Jewish grandchildren!

Sure, it’s just a joke, but it’s true. All of the research cited in my book, Trump and the Jews," indicates that among those American Jews who strongly identify as Jews, a clear majority strongly approve of President Trump’s job performance. The pattern is clear. The more positive the Jewish identity, the stronger the support for President Trump.

[...]

Jews who care about their Judaism, as well as Gentiles who care about Israel, would be wise to examine the facts on the ground. If Sanders continues his surge and, indeed, becomes the nominee, his Jewishness will certainly not be a reason to vote for him.

Rubin seems to have forgotten that Trump once tweeted an image showing Hillary on a pile of cash with a Star of David shape reading, "Most corrupt candidate ever!" which originated from a white nationalist, anti-Semitic Twitter account.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:39 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

The Media Research Center demands context when reporting on President Trump (not so much for anyone else). So when Trump spoke ambiguously about coronavirus and hoaxes, the MRC was ON IT to insist that the president spoke perfectly.

Curtis Houck, in the middle of gushing over how Trump delivered a "SCORCHING CPAC Address" that was "a comedy routine for the ages," referenced, as he is apparently contractually obligated to, "the Trump-hating liberal media, which have been working to convince the public that the President views the coronavirus as “a hoax” when he used that term Friday to condemn the liberal spin about his response to the virus."

The MRC minions thus had their talking point marching orders. Nicholas Fondacaro huffed that an NBC host "continued to push the long-debunked accusation that President Trump called the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19) a 'hoax' at a Friday campaign rally in South Carolina," despite the fact that Trump himself said it only two days before and it hadn't been "long-debunked" by the MRC until Houck's post that appeared just  an hour earlier. A few hours after that, Fondacaro complained that another NBC host "continued to spread the left-wing lie that Trump had called the virus a 'hoax'." And then a couple hours later, Fondacaro raged at CNN because "According to CNN Inside Politics host John King, one didn’t need to believe the fact that President Trump was describing the Democratic and media fearmongering of his administration’s handling of the coronavirus (COVID-19) as a 'hoax;' 'you can read this how you wish' and believe he said it about the virus."

Of course, Fondacaro has his own a la carte approach to the facts.

Kyle Drennen then picked up the baton, huffing that "NBC News senior business correspondent Stephanie Ruhle keep pushing the now-debunked claim that President Trump labeled the coronavirus a 'hoax.' In reality, what Trump dismissed as a hoax were efforts by Democrats and liberal media to politicize the global health crisis." That was followed by Clay Waters grousing that the New York Times "left open the lie that Trump called the coronavirus a hoax."

Corinne Weaver touted how the Daily Caller's fact-checking operation rated the claim as false, but only grudging admitted in passing, through quoting someone else, that the Daily Caller is conservative. (The MRC then reprinted the Daily Caller's fact-check.) Tim Graham declared that "President Trump never called the coronavirus a 'hoax,'" then whined that Snopes wouldn't unambiously declare it false because Trump was in the middle of downplaying the severity of the coronavirus outbreak: "'Downplaying the severity of the outbreak' is not at all the same as calling coronavirus a 'hoax.'"

Waters returned to complain that Times columnist Paul Krugman "is spreading a lie above; Trump never said the coronavirus was a hoax." Aiden Jackson grumbled that Hillary Clinton "perpetuated the widely discredited 'hoax' falsehood." Mark Finkelstein went into full defense mode: "President Trump has not called coronavirus a hoax. To the contrary, the President has mobilized a team to combat the spread of the disease. And the administration is offering daily briefings on its efforts."

Alexander Hall recounted how "Donald Trump, Jr. retweeted multiple conservative commentators who were calling out Twitter for allowing a Biden campaign video which itself appears to be deceptively edited in that it claimed that Trump was calling the coronavirus a hoax," then complained that Hillary "pushed the fact-checked false liberal narrative that Trump had called the coronavirus a 'hoax.'"

By contrast, the MRC had no problem whatsoever taking President Obama's "you didn't build that" remark out of context to a highly dishonest extent.So, yeah, its complaint about coverage of Trump rings more than a little hollow.

Posted by Terry K. at 5:06 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

We've noted that CNSNews.com develops selelctive amnesia when reporting relevant details about conservatives but will flood the zone when it comes to negative news about non-conservatives. After cranking out eight stories about Nancy Pelosi ripping up her copy of President Trump's State of the Union address, CNS has done it again.

When Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer said at an abortion-rights rally while the Supreme Court was hearing a case on the issue that Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh "have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price," CNS dutifully toed the Republican line by portraying Schumer's words as a threat against the lives of the justices and flooded the zone accordingly with the usual suspects for maximum right-wing outrage:

• Sen. Schumer Threatens Pro-Life Supreme Court Justices; Rep. Scalise Asks: 'Where’s the Media Outrage?'
• Chief Justice Roberts: SCOTUS Won't Be Intimidated by Schumer's Threats
• Republican Senator Says He'll Try to Have Schumer Censured for SCOTUS Threat
• McConnell Reads Schumer's 'Shameful' Threats Into the Record; Schumer: 'I'm From Brooklyn'
• Rep. Collins on Schumer’s SCOTUS Threat: “The Only Ones ‘Paying the Price’ are the Unborn”
• Pelosi Says She Agrees With Schumer That His Remarks About SCOTUS Justices Were ‘Not Appropriate’
• Landmark Legal Requests Senate Ethics Investigation of Schumer for Threatening Supreme Court Justices
• Mark Levin: Schumer Should Be Disbarred, Admonished by Senate, Investigated by Ethics and DOJ
• Rev. Graham: Schumer's Threats 'Can Feed Hate and Can Lead to Violence'

Five days later, CNS pulled its usual trick of sending interns out to pester congressment in a March 9 article by Bruce Truax in which he was forced to ask a Democratic senator what he thought of Schumer's remarks.

That's a total of 10 articles -- none of which note the fact that Schumer was simply repeating language that the justices themselves have used. As an actual news outlet (and Wonkette) pointed out, Kavanaugh attacked Democrats who opposed his nomination, claiming that they have "sowed the wind for decades to come. I fear that the whole country will reap the whirlwind."

Seems like relevant context, but CNS didn't tell its readers about it. Nor did it apparently report Kavanaugh's original remarks, let alone treat them as a threat.

By contrast, CNS published nothing about a threat by Republican Rep. Ken Buck in a video showing him holding an assault rifle and daring Joe Biden and Beto O'Rourke to take it away from him -- heavily implying he would shoot them dead if he did so.

This is what passes for "news" at CNS.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:25 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, March 12, 2020 7:11 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink