Patrick Goodenough wrote in a May 4 CNSNews.com article:

Confronted by a tweet from former Vice President Joe Biden criticizing his response to the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump said Sunday the tweet was not written by Biden but “by a young man that got very good grades at a very good school.”

Trump, a prolific tweeter himself, was speaking during a “virtual town hall” event broadcast by Fox News.

Host Bret Baier drew his attention to a recent tweet on Biden’s Twitter feed responding to Trump’s criticism of the Obama administration.

“We left a playbook. He ignored it,” the tweet read. “We created an office for pandemics. He gutted it. We had CDC officials in China to detect and contain outbreaks. He pulled them out. Trump can try and shift blame all he wants, but the fact is his actions left us unprepared.”

“First of all, Joe Biden didn’t write that,” Trump retorted. “That was written from a young man that got very good grades at a very good school. That was not written by him. I promise you that.”

But Goodenough didn't tell you that Trump doesn't write all of his tweets either. As an actual news organization detailed, White House social media director Dan Scavinois believed to write about half of Trump's tweets:

If you look at Trump's Twitter page, you'll see, for one thing, a few sort of anodyne things: "I'll be at such-and-such a place at 1 o'clock." Trump's not writing that; Dan Scavino is.

Then you'll see other things that will say, "I'm not the corrupt one; Hillary Clinton is corrupt." And it will list three or four reasons why Hillary Clinton is the corrupt one, not Trump. Well, that's Trump, but it's Trump in "collusion," as it were, with Scavino, who will supply the litany of examples.

There are also some tweets that Trump will dictate to Scavino and Scavino will then polish them up, make sure there are no grammatical errors or anything like that. Trump will look at them and then say, "OK, that looks good," or "No, no. I want you to put this back in." Then he'll say, "Go ahead and hit send," and Scavino will do so. ...

There certainly are tweets that Trump himself writes in the dark of night or first thing in the morning that Dan Scavino sees when the rest of the world sees. That's probably about half of the tweets overall. But of the 37,000 or so tweets that Trump has sent out, Dan Scavino is responsible for — at least as a "co-conspirator" to — about half of those.

Goodenough did tiptoe toward doing a fact-check on Trump, which his employer is usually too dedicated to stenography to touch:

Trump then said that after he restricted travel from China in early February – doing something that nobody had wanted to do – “Joe Biden said, ‘he’s xenophobic. He’s a racist.’ They called me a racist.”

“And I saved hundreds of thousands of lives. And he actually apologized with a letter on a Friday night saying ‘he made the right move.’ It wasn’t well played by the press, but he said I made the right move.”

The Biden campaign has disputed in the past that the Democratic presidential candidate had written a letter and apologized.

Biden’s campaign did issue a statement a month ago, on a Friday, saying the candidate supported the travel ban that barred entry to any non-U.S. national who has visited China in the previous 14 days. He did not apologize.

Oh, so close. Actually, not only is there no evidence whatsoever that Biden ever apologized to Trump for anything regarding to Trump's attempt to stop travel from China , it's false for Trump to claim that Biden branded him "xenophobic" or "racist" for doing so; the Biden campaign says his reference to xenophobia was about Trump's long record of scapegoating others at a time when the virus was emerging from China.

It's unclear why Goodenough thought it was important to note that the Biden campaign's statement was issued "on a Friday."

Posted by Terry K. at 4:05 PM EDT

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I remember my late mother's saying: "Give a monkey a show, and it will always perform." There's a mountain of truth in her timeless axiom – especially when it comes to Brittney Cooper, who proves you can be as undesirable as a fat, greasy pig at a Muslim dinner party and still get a paycheck from Rutgers University.

It used to be that basket weaving was the most meaningless course one could take in higher education. During my undergraduate and graduate years, we laughingly referred to certain degree pursuits as being such because the degree wasn't worth the paper the ink was printed on.

Today basket weaving has been replaced by degrees in women's and gender studies, equally as useless as basket weaving unless, of course, the so-called professor teaching same is a wannabe commie loser enjoined to a plexus of hatred, crafted and controlled by parathion neo-Leninists.

If I were a black woman who was supposedly "down with the struggle" and committed to "keeping it real," the last area of academia I would seek degree in would be women's and gender studies. It's a more worthless curriculum of study than afro-centrism and pan-Africanism. It's a degree program for women, specifically black women, who are uncouth and intellectually incapable of pursuing real academic curricula.

[...]

Cooper has proven time and again that she's only marginally qualified to have a career in those areas of academic idiocy. She maintains credentialing based upon skin-color affirmative action and the lack of propriety that bigoted, white liberals expect and applaud from their in-house simians.

[...]

When Cooper was blaming President Trump for black women being obese, she should have been challenged pursuant to whether said claim was born out of jealousy for the countless number of beautiful black women who have the magnificent figure she does not.

Perhaps she was just angry that someone didn't tell her to put down the box of Twinkies and step back from the cupcake aisle. I can understand a person being embarrassed about being overweight. But, just because she wears what appears to be a 6X clothing and has jowls that cover her neck and the top of her chest, she doesn't get a pass to blame her appearance on President Trump.

[...]

COVID-19 ultimately will be looked back upon as the gateway for what is biblically prophesized to come. With that said, in the moment COVID-19 is a hard sell for those of us who are of sound mind and capable of thinking for ourselves. 

However, in order to promote the agenda of forced vaccination and social monitoring, which will usher in the zeitgeist necessary for the antichrist to thrive, there must be victims who fit into the Hegelian Dialectics bag of tricks skillfully deployed by Fabian Democratic Socialists.

[...]

Cooper is nothing more than a tool in the employ of nefarious globalists and population-control Lucifarians. I could pity her; because the one chance she has to find completeness and value she has blasphemed, calling God a white supremacist driven by patriarchy. She has railed that "God [Almighty] isn't the God [she] serves." Speaking of Jehovah, she said: "He might be 'biblical' but he's also an a**hole." 

-- Mychal Massie, May 4 WorldNetDaily column

(Unsurprisingly, Massie has issues with women who don't think like he does.)

Posted by Terry K. at 12:18 AM EDT

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Even though Barack Obama has been out of the White House for more then three years, he and wife Michelle are still living rent-free in the collective heads of the Media Research Center.

On April 20, Elise Ehrhard ranted, perhaps a bit jealous of the Obamas' post-presidency success:

The Obamas have created a very lucrative post-presidential life in the entertainment industry. Barack and Michelle Obama currently have a $50 million Netflix contract which they acquired with the help of a campaign contributor. Obama's former national security advisor, Susan Rice, is on Netflix's Board of Directors. The New York Post has even called Netflix "a propaganda machine for the Obamas."

So perhaps it is not surprising that the new Netflix series, BlackAF, from Kenya Barris, the creator of Black-ish, Mixed-ish and Grown-ish,praises the Obamas in about every other episode. Even the series' opening mixes images of the Obama family with African American heroes like Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ehrhard ranted further after it was noted on the show that the Obama daughters can't get away with anything:

Actually, the only presidential daughters who faced any serious consequences for their teenaged mistakes were Jenna and Barbara Bush. Both Bush daughters were arrested and charged with underage drinking. Their arrests ended up on the covers of newspapers and weeklies across the country. Jenna appeared in court for underage drinking and using a false ID. The Bush daughter was ordered to undergo counseling and serve community service. The clothes she wore in the courtroom -- including Capri pants, sandals and a toe ring -- were mocked and ridiculed all over the news. Malia Obama, on the other hand, faced no consequences for appearing to smoke marijuana.

You might recall that the ConWeb tried to blame everyone but the Bush daughters for the crime they committed.

In an April 21 post, Gabriel Hays suggested without evidence that there was a direct link between allegedly Democratic-arranged money to public broadcasting in a coronavirus stimulus bill and Michelle Obama having a new show reading classic children's books on a PBS subchannel:

One also might wonder whether there’s a bit of PBS/Democrat quid pro quo that got Mrs. Obama her PBS KIDS deal after the station’s parent company, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, received a massive bailout from the government, a provision stipulated by Democrats in Congress.

As Newsbusters pointed out, CPB received more government funding this year than ever before. It received $75 million in March on top of the $465 million already granted to the CPB, which was already $20 million more than it received last year.

CPB must sure be grateful to those Democrats. Giving Michelle Obama a cute kids show would certainly be a nice expression of their appreciation.

If you'll recall, the MRC tried to exploit the pandemic by using that money to CPB as a cudgel to demand that people's careers be destroyed by cutting off federal funding to public broadcasting entirely.

Hays returned for another meltdown on April 28, appalled that anyone would make a documentary based on a book that sold more than 10 million copies:

What many people are probably considering the lamest surprise reveal in modern history, the upcoming “top-secret” Michelle Obama Netflix documentary is coming sooner than expected and some in the media are dying of excitement to say the least.

Really though, who are they trying to convince?

The Hollywood Reporter revealed that the wait is almost over for the film adaptation of the Former First Lady’s best-selling memoir Becoming. The project, which the outlet indicated had been kept “top-secret for months” will debut on the streaming platform on May 6.

[...]

It’s quite clear that Michelle and her husband are cultivating a media empire at the moment. Not only have Obamas come out with Michelle’s number one book and this new documentary, their production American Factory won the Academy Award for best documentary earlier in 2020. She’s also the new smiling face of children’s public television, having just started a PBS KIDS show where she reads books to America’s youngsters.

Did we mention that the book has sold more than 10 million copies? Because Hays didn't.

Tim Graham -- who has a longstanding issue with being jealous of the Obamas' success --  complained about it again in his May 1 column:

So let’s get this straight. The Obamas were awarded a book deal worth an estimated $65 million for their memoirs, hers and then his. They also struck an estimated $50 million production deal with Netflix. (We don’t have actual numbers. Could someone in the media ask for a tax return?)

Now, with this self-aggrandizing documentary, the second deal is being used to accentuate the profits for the first. The buck-raking here is intense. Donald Trump surely admires their self-promotional moxie.

The Obamas quickly became super-rich. Vanity Fair celebrated these "Obamoguls" even as Mrs. Obama was hailed for her “saintly popularity.” This so-called saint doesn’t spurn the finer things. Last August, TMZ reported the Obamas were buying a $15 million mansion on the coast of Martha's Vineyard to match their $8 million D.C. mansion. Non-Fox network coverage? Zero. In December, they actually bought said mansion for $11.75 million. Non-Fox network coverage? Again, zero.

Graham is further annoyed that Ivanka Trump wrote a badly reviewed book (which he apparently hasn't read to back up his apparent view that it's secretly better than Obama's):

Not everyone famous is praised for self-help books for women. The current president’s daughter Ivanka Trump wrote one in 2017, and the New York Times was brutal: “It reads more like the scrambled Tumblr feed of a demented 12-year-old who just checked out a copy of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations from the library.”

There are never any Republican critics of Michelle Obama in the “news” these days. Sonia Rao’s Washington Post story on the documentary quoted Anita McBride, chief of staff to previous First Lady Laura Bush, who said Michelle was a “reluctant” First Lady, but then formed lasting public connections through her “extraordinary use of media and pop culture and television.”

Is that Michelle’s gift to the media? No, it’s the media’s gift to Michelle. The infatuated titans of “news” and entertainment media appear to have granted her every “extraordinary” wish in building this “billion dollar brand.”

The cheers are always presumed to be unanimous. Dissent from this party line is ignored. And no one asks about the profits. Greed, for the Obamas, is cast as just another inspiring voyage of self-discovery.

We suspect Graham has never talked about the Trump family's more obvious greed in this same disparaging manner.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:14 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, May 21, 2020 9:17 PM EDT

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CNSNews.com is pretty much on board for whatever will advance President Trump's re-election. The fight over former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn is one thing it has decided is relevant.

After Flynn's attorney released notes from FBI agents that she claimed showed them trying to catch Flynn in a lie -- you know, like the one Flynn pleaded guilty to -- CNS flooded the over the next couple days:

• Gen. Flynn's Attorney: Newly Revealed FBI Notes Show FBI 'Abuse of Authority'; 'Absolutely Appalling'
• Sen. Graham: FBI Notes on Flynn 'Reek of Criminal Misconduct'; Nunes: 'Set-Up'
• McConnell: Flynn Entrapped? It Would Be 'A Major, Major Error' by FBI's 'Top Leadership'
• Bongino on Flynn Case: ‘I Wish Police-State Liberals’ Understood ‘We Do Not Investigate People in Search of Crimes’
• Sidney Powell: Case Against Flynn 'Must Be Dismissed, Preferably for Gov't Misconduct'
• Rep. Jordan Asks, 'Why Didn't Chris Wray Tell Us?' Flynn's Attorney Has an Answer

That's six stories in two days devoted exclusively to pushing a pro-Flynn (and, thus, pro-Trump) narrative. They were followed a few days later with a couple more articles, one of which, "'Where's Chris Wray Been?' Rep. Jordan Asks Why Wray Didn't Tell Congress About 'FBI Misconduct'," follows in CNS' history of pushing the same exact pro-Trump talking point over multiple articles.

None of them even hinted that there's another side to the story:  that giving Flynn an opportunity to tell the truth or lie about his dealings is standard lawa enforcement procedure and that it was not entrapment. After all, if Flynn had simply told the FBi agents the truth, he could have avoided all this trouble.

When Trump's Justice Department announced that it would seek to dismiss its case against Flynn, CNS flooded the zone again:

• Justice Dept. Files Motion to Dismiss Case Against Gen. Flynn
• Trump on Obama Administration: ‘They’re Human Scum’
• Grassley: 'I Think There's More Shoes to Drop, and I Think There Will Be Prosecutions’
• Flynn's Attorney Slams 'Malevolent' Plot; Graham Will Invite Flynn to Testify About His Ordeal
• Geraldo: ‘Right On, Gen. Flynn…The Unraveling of the Coup Attempt’ Against Pres. Trump Begins
• Trump: Pulitzer Prizes on Russia 'Collusion' Should Be Returned, 'They Were All Wrong'
• ‘Schiff Wouldn’t Know the Truth if It Poked Him in One of His Bug Eyes,’ Gen. Flynn’s Attorney Says
• WH: FBI Exists to Investigate Crimes; in Flynn’s Case, It Tried to Manufacture One

That's eight more articles over another two-day span designed to push a pro-Flynn (and, thus, pro-Trump) narrative. This time, though, CNS did actually publish two articles noting that there's an alternate viewpoint:

• Sen. Kamala Harris: Barr Is 'Disrupting Justice in America'
• McCabe: FBI Had 'Incontrovertible Evidence' That Flynn Was a National Security Concern

Still, the bias is clear -- 14 articles pushing one viewpoint vs. two articles noting a different one.

And when the Trump White House began pushing the notion that then President Obama was behind all this, the CNS pro-Trump hype machine roared to life once again, with added Flynn-related content and attacks on the judge who won't immediately drop the Flynn case:

• Flynn's Attorney: 'Absolutely' This Goes All the Way to Obama
• Actor James Woods: #ObamaGate ‘Will be a Footnote to History’ Due to GOP #GutlessBlowhards
• Ken Starr: Barack Obama Has Opened Himself to 'Huge Questions'
• Fmr. Federal Prosecutor: Harvard Law Grad Like Obama Should’ve Known Better than to Make False Flynn Claims
• Levin: ‘What the Hell is this Judge Pulling?!?’ by Allowing Outside Input Before Ruling on DOJ Motion to Drop Flynn Case
• Sen. Graham: 'Did Obama Administration Use Unmasking as a Political Weapon?'
• Trump: ‘How Do You Know Nothing If You Are One of the Unmaskers?’
• Rep. Gaetz: 'Bad News for Joe Biden Ahead'
• Sen. Mike Lee: Obama Administration's Interference With Flynn 'Simply Stunning'
• Sen. Rand Paul: Illegal to Eavesdrop on Someone for Political Purposes
• Sol Wisenberg: Activist Judge Emmet Sullivan Trying to Force Trump to Pardon Gen. Michael Flynn
• McConnell: 'We'll Find Out What Did Happen' in the Flynn Case
• Mark Levin: Here’s What DOJ Must Do to Force Judge Sullivan to Grant Its Motion to Dismiss Flynn Case

That's 13 pro-Flynn (and, thus, pro-Trump) "news" stories between May 11 and 15. By contrast, just four that offer a different viewpoint:

• Biden Says Flynn Case 'Is All About Diverting Attention' From the 'Real Crisis'
• Rep. Schiff: Flynn Case 'Is the President's Effort to Distract'
• Clapper Says He'd Be 'Happy' to Testify--'After I've Been Vaccinated for COVID-19'
• Clapper Doesn't Remember Why He Made the Unmasking Requests: 'It's a Routine Thing'

So, to sum up: Between April 30 and May 15, CNS published 33 articles related to the Flynn case, only six of which didn't push pro-Flynn (and, thus, pro-Trump) narratives. That would seemm to be a violation of its mission statement that it "endeavors to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story."

To whom does one complain at CNS about this violation?

Posted by Terry K. at 1:12 AM EDT

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In the eyes of the Media Research Center, President Trump can do no wrong and anyone who accuses him of wrongdoing is obviously lying. The case of Rick  Bright, who says he was demoted as head of a federal agency because he refused to promote Trump's pet drug hydroxychloroquine, is one example.

Nicholas Fondacaro complained in an April 22 post that "the liberal media lit up with the new anti-Trump narrative about Dr. Rick Bright, who claimed without evidence that he was fired from his HHS position for opposing the use of hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malaria drug President Trump had touted as a possible treatment for the Chinese coronavirus," further grousing that the media did "no apparent vetting of what he claimed." Fondacaro then tried to play gotcha with a Politico article that he claimed "debunked the allegations" Bright made.

But that article claimed that "Three people with knowledge of HHS' recent acquisition of tens of millions of doses of those drugs said that Bright had supported those acquisitions in internal communications," and that "five current and former HHS officials" claimed that Bright's demotion "was more than a year in the making."Notice that none of those people are on the record -- they're anonymous sources of the kind that the MRC despises when they make claims against the MRC's favorite conservatives ... like Trump.

Hypocrisy aside, Fondacaro is simply wrong by claiming these anonymous sources have "debunked" Bright's story. There's no way to know that at this point, and an alternate telling of events does not "debunk" the first one -- even if you assumel ike Fondacaro apparently does that Trump and his administration never lies.

Nevertheless, Fondacaro insisted again the next day that Bright's allegations were "debunked." He made an even more false claim in another post the same day, declaring that "Bright’s accusations were discredited almost as fast as he made them." And on May 5, Fondacaro asserted that "Bright’s initial allegations were proven bogus within hours by Politico’s Dan Diamond."

(Then again, Fondacaro does have problems with the truth.)

Randy Hall took his own shot at boosting that anonymously sourced Politico article, claiming that a New york Times article "crumbled quickly" because of the Politico piece. Clay Waters dialed it back a bit in an April 29 post, linking to Hall's item to claim that "Politico made a compelling case that the Times' front-page scoop on Bright was bogus.

When Bright testified before Congess to make his claims, the MRC was ready to pounce again. Kristine Marsh linked to an earlier Fondacaro piece as proof of "evidence contradicting Bright's story," while Fondacaro returned to assert that Bright's claims "have already been disproven," even though he knows that's not true.

Posted by Terry K. at 7:40 PM EDT

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Stelter has a bit of a hobby of reading a lot into Trump's tweets. He has on more than one occasion spent an inordinate condemning Trump's Twitter typos, arguing that if "When someone can't get the little stuff right, it makes you worry about the big stuff."

-- Curtis Houck, Aug. 28 NewsBusters post

CNN’s Brian Stelter devoted an entire segment on Sunday’s edition of Reliable Sources to obsessing over President Trump’s spelling mistakes on Twitter. While he conceded that “everybody makes spelling mistakes,” Stelter seemed to think that the President’s Twitter typos deserve extra special scrutiny because “if you can’t get the small stuff,” such as spelling, “people worry about the big stuff.” The clear implication was that President Trump’s spelling habits have an impact on his ability to run the country effectively.

-- Ryan Foley, Nov. 19 NewsBusters post

* * *

On the “Issues” page of her official congressional website, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D.-Minn.) says that there are “over 11 million undocumented immigrations [sic] living in the United States.”

The top issue listed on the page is: “Immigration.’

That heading is followed by a paragraph that says:

“In Congress, I am committed to doing all I can to help the over 11 million undocumented immigrations living in the United States come out of the shadows and get access to rights and privileges they deserve.["]

-- Anonymously written April 15 article at CNSNews.com, NewsBusters' sister organization

Posted by Terry K. at 3:08 PM EDT

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WorldNetDaily is keeping up its conspiratorial reputation by coming to the defense of the stars of conspiracy- and misinformation-laden videos that have been heavily criticized on social media.

IN an April 27 article, WND touted a video by "two California physicians with advanced degrees in microbiology," Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi, who "contend that their testing of more than 5,200 patients along with public data show the coronavirus is no more deadly than the seasonal flu and that the sheltering-in-place policy in the United States and most of the Western world not only is unnecessary, it's harmful." WND didn't fact-check the video and, thus, tell readers that, as we detailed, actual experts say the doctors' patient sample was not representative of the general population, with one likening it to "estimating the average height of Americans from the players on an NBA court."

The next day, Art Moore wrote about how YouTube removed Erickson and Massihi's video,conspiratorially suggesting that it was removed for going against "World Health Organization recommendations" and failing to mention any of the actual experts who have discredited the video. Michael Brown cited YouTube's removal of the video in his April 29 column, conspiratorially adding that "disputed opinions offered by medical doctors (in this case, emergency room doctors) will be banned." He too failed to mention the experts who discredited the video.

WND then found a new person to play victim: Judy Mikovits, who once worked with Dr. Anthony Fauci and has made a video that was similarly removed by YouTube. An anonymously written May 6 article benignly describes Mikovits' video as arguing that "the isolate-everyone policy is a big mistake and claims officials have a financial incentive to implement mass vaccinations."

Because Mikovits seems to be running in the history of video-making charlatans WND has promoted in the past, it's giving her a platform without any of that pesky fact-checking WND isn't exactly known for. The article claims that "Mikovits claims Fauci was among the top health officials who framed her and destroyed her career because of her contrary views," adding:

She published a "blockbuster" study claiming "the common use of animal and human fetal tissues were unleashing devastating plagues of chronic diseases."

"Big Pharma" then waged struck back, destroying her "good name, career and personal life."

Mikovits, interviewed by Mikki Willis, says she was framed and arrested at her home, falsely accused of stealing intellectual property.

In fact, the "blockbuster" study was retracted by the journal that published it because its results could not be replicated by other researchers and that it appears her samples were contaminated. Further, while theft charges against her were eventually dropped -- not necesariliy because they weren't true but, rather, because the institute she worked for was embroiiled in other legal difficulties -- a lab employee signed an affidavit that he had removed notebooks from the lab and eventually delivered them to Mikovits.

WND also noted that Mikovits claims that a coronavirus vaccine "will kill millions, as they already have with their vaccines," before adding, "Mikovits emphasizes, however, she is not against vaccines, noting she is an immunologist." In fact, Mikovits is part of the anti-vaxxer community and once wrote a book with anti-vaxxer Kent Heckenlively.

As per usual, WND couldn't  be bothered to fact-check the video, even though it contains numerous false claims.

So ...  business as usual for WND. Which is a bad thing for WND, since that kind of business is what drove WND to its current state of barely being in business.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:04 AM EDT

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CNSNews.com is pretty much on board for whatever will advance President Trump's re-election. The fight over former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn is one thing it has decided is relevant.

After Flynn's attorney released notes from FBI agents that she claimed showed them trying to catch Flynn in a lie -- you know, like the one Flynn pleaded guilty to -- CNS flooded the over the next couple days:

• Gen. Flynn's Attorney: Newly Revealed FBI Notes Show FBI 'Abuse of Authority'; 'Absolutely Appalling'
• Sen. Graham: FBI Notes on Flynn 'Reek of Criminal Misconduct'; Nunes: 'Set-Up'
• McConnell: Flynn Entrapped? It Would Be 'A Major, Major Error' by FBI's 'Top Leadership'
• Bongino on Flynn Case: ‘I Wish Police-State Liberals’ Understood ‘We Do Not Investigate People in Search of Crimes’
• Sidney Powell: Case Against Flynn 'Must Be Dismissed, Preferably for Gov't Misconduct'
• Rep. Jordan Asks, 'Why Didn't Chris Wray Tell Us?' Flynn's Attorney Has an Answer

That's six stories in two days devoted exclusively to pushing a pro-Flynn (and, thus, pro-Trump) narrative. They were followed a few days later with a couple more articles, one of which, "'Where's Chris Wray Been?' Rep. Jordan Asks Why Wray Didn't Tell Congress About 'FBI Misconduct'," follows in CNS' history of pushing the same exact pro-Trump talking point over multiple articles.

None of them even hinted that there's another side to the story:  that giving Flynn an opportunity to tell the truth or lie about his dealings is standard lawa enforcement procedure and that it was not entrapment. After all, if Flynn had simply told the FBi agents the truth, he could have avoided all this trouble.

When Trump's Justice Department announced that it would seek to dismiss its case against Flynn, CNS flooded the zone again:

• Justice Dept. Files Motion to Dismiss Case Against Gen. Flynn
• Trump on Obama Administration: ‘They’re Human Scum’
• Grassley: 'I Think There's More Shoes to Drop, and I Think There Will Be Prosecutions’
• Flynn's Attorney Slams 'Malevolent' Plot; Graham Will Invite Flynn to Testify About His Ordeal
• Geraldo: ‘Right On, Gen. Flynn…The Unraveling of the Coup Attempt’ Against Pres. Trump Begins
• Trump: Pulitzer Prizes on Russia 'Collusion' Should Be Returned, 'They Were All Wrong'
• ‘Schiff Wouldn’t Know the Truth if It Poked Him in One of His Bug Eyes,’ Gen. Flynn’s Attorney Says
• WH: FBI Exists to Investigate Crimes; in Flynn’s Case, It Tried to Manufacture One

That's eight more articles over another two-day span designed to push a pro-Flynn (and, thus, pro-Trump) narrative. This time, though, CNS did actually publish two articles noting that there's an alternate viewpoint:

• Sen. Kamala Harris: Barr Is 'Disrupting Justice in America'
• McCabe: FBI Had 'Incontrovertible Evidence' That Flynn Was a National Security Concern

Still, the bias is clear -- 14 articles pushing one viewpoint vs. two articles noting a different one.

And when the Trump White House began pushing the notion that then President Obama was behind all this, the CNS pro-Trump hype machine roared to life once again, with added Flynn-related content and attacks on the judge who won't immediately drop the Flynn case:

• Flynn's Attorney: 'Absolutely' This Goes All the Way to Obama
• Actor James Woods: #ObamaGate ‘Will be a Footnote to History’ Due to GOP #GutlessBlowhards
• Ken Starr: Barack Obama Has Opened Himself to 'Huge Questions'
• Fmr. Federal Prosecutor: Harvard Law Grad Like Obama Should’ve Known Better than to Make False Flynn Claims
• Levin: ‘What the Hell is this Judge Pulling?!?’ by Allowing Outside Input Before Ruling on DOJ Motion to Drop Flynn Case
• Sen. Graham: 'Did Obama Administration Use Unmasking as a Political Weapon?'
• Trump: ‘How Do You Know Nothing If You Are One of the Unmaskers?’
• Rep. Gaetz: 'Bad News for Joe Biden Ahead'
• Sen. Mike Lee: Obama Administration's Interference With Flynn 'Simply Stunning'
• Sen. Rand Paul: Illegal to Eavesdrop on Someone for Political Purposes
• Sol Wisenberg: Activist Judge Emmet Sullivan Trying to Force Trump to Pardon Gen. Michael Flynn
• McConnell: 'We'll Find Out What Did Happen' in the Flynn Case
• Mark Levin: Here’s What DOJ Must Do to Force Judge Sullivan to Grant Its Motion to Dismiss Flynn Case

That's 13 pro-Flynn (and, thus, pro-Trump) "news" stories between May 11 and 15. By contrast, just four that offer a different viewpoint:

• Biden Says Flynn Case 'Is All About Diverting Attention' From the 'Real Crisis'
• Rep. Schiff: Flynn Case 'Is the President's Effort to Distract'
• Clapper Says He'd Be 'Happy' to Testify--'After I've Been Vaccinated for COVID-19'
• Clapper Doesn't Remember Why He Made the Unmasking Requests: 'It's a Routine Thing'

So, to sum up: Between April 30 and May 15, CNS published 33 articles related to the Flynn case, only six of which didn't push pro-Flynn (and, thus, pro-Trump) narratives. That would seemm to be a violation of its mission statement that it "endeavors to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story."

To whom does one complain at CNS about this violation?

Posted by Terry K. at 12:01 AM EDT

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The Media Research Center has this thing where it freaks out over any remotely positive reference to abortion in the media, yet it defends anyone who argues in favor of opening the economy even though it would likely expose more people to the coronavirus -- and, thus, kill a number of those exposed. That former part is continuing.

Gabriel Hays started an April 28 post by ranting that the hypocrisy was really on the other side: "It’s really sickening to think that the folks weaponizing a natural disaster’s death toll to bash conservative policies are also seeking to make abortion as accessible as making a phone call or ordering medication online." Yet, Hays apparently thinks it's not "sickening" to let more people die of coronavirus that could be avoided.

Hays complained that the New York Times did a story on doctors prescribing abortion medication online, with the goal of shaming those medical professionals and the women who seek abortion, sneering at one point about a report of more than 600 abortions completed by this procedure: "Wow, 600-plus dead babies in a week? Science is amazing, isn’t it?"

Because he can't help himself and apparently sees those people as less than human, Hays plays the Nazi card: "So, it’s not perfect ease of access, but you know lefties consider this to be pretty innovative. Yeah, innovative in the way Nazi doctor Josef Mengele was 'innovative.'"

On April 30, Alexa Moutevelis similarly played the hate-and-shame card by attackinga woman featured in a CBS report on abortion during the pandemic:

[Correspondent Kate] Smith also profiled a 20-year-old woman who is almost 19 weeks pregnant – that’s well into the fourth month of pregnancy. Weeks ago, her abortion appointment was canceled because non-essential procedures were banned in Texas. There was no explanation as to why she waited until her second trimester to seek an abortion except she was “out of work and unexpectedly pregnant” and “keeping the pregnancy wasn't an option.”

"I have rights," the woman groused. "I can't be a mother right now, and right now, I have the right not to be."

Sadly for her, an abortion doesn't stop her from being a mother, it just makes her the mother of a dead baby.

Moutevelis also attacked Smith as "biased" and "pro-abortion," apparently because she wouldn't shame that woman the way Moutevelis did.

Hays returned for another meltdown on May 7 because RuPaul's appearance on a special edition of "The Price Is Right" was a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood. In his tirade, Hays huffed that Planned Parenthood is "America’s largest baby-killing organization," that the program has "the suggestive themes of drag culture and the knowledge that more money is being raised for the killing of unborn children" (Hays absolutely hates drag queens) and the MRC hates and that the money "will go to the dismemberment of children."

On  May 8, Brad Wilmouth declared that Samantha Bee was "sick" and "abortion-obsessed" for offering advice on how women can get abortions at home. As ifthe MRC wasn't "abortion-obsessed" and likening women who get abortions to Nazis isn't "sick."

In a side issue, Karen Townsend complained in a May 15 post that an episode on ABC's "Station 19" featured an explosion at a clinic doing embryonic stem-cell that one character blamed on "anti-choice" activists. She declared it a "cheap shot," insisting that "Pro-life people want to save lives – all lives, including the lives of the unborn" -- but she didn't mention that there's a lengthy history of "pro-life people" bombing clinics and committing other acts of violence, including murder.

Posted by Terry K. at 7:26 PM EDT

Updated: Sunday, May 24, 2020 12:35 PM EDT

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We've documented how the Media Research Center has hypocritically promoted the sexual assault allegations Tara Reade made against Joe Biden, though it trashed E. Jean Carroll, the woman who made sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump. The contrast is even more stark at the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com.

As of this writing, CNS has published 25 "news" articles referencing Reade, with headlines like "Washington Post Calls on Biden to Answer Tara Reade's Sexual Assault Claim," "Report: Tara Reade Willing to Testify Under Oath About Biden's Alleged Sexual Assault" and "Tara Reade Alleges on Joe Biden: ‘He Said: “I Want to F**k You”’." Managing editor Michael W. Chapman devoted an article to how he "repeatedly contacted" the offices of 11 members of Congress "who vigorously support the #MeToo movement and who defended Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against Brett Kavanaugh" asking if they believed Reade and didn't get a response -- a point of view that got echoed in "news" articles like "McConnell: People Outraged Over Kavanaugh Allegations 'Seem to Have Little or No Interest' in Biden's Accuser."

CNS also served as a conduit for its parent's obsession with Reade. It touted MRC chief Brent Bozell's accusation that CNN is "colluding" with Biden to suppress coverage of Reade and his claim (on his buddy Mark Levin's show, natch) that the media is "refusing to investigate" Reade's claims. It also published two columns by Tim Graham repeating the MRC narrative.

CNS and the MRC want you to believe that the comparison on media coverage is with Christine Blasey Ford, who leveled sexual misconduct claims against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. But ther more accurate and direct comparison is with Carroll -- and that's where CNS' bias is most blatant.

CNS completely censored Carroll's claims, devoting absoultely no news articles to it. The only reference to Carroll at the time her claim was made public in mid-2019 was a column by Graham and Bozell attacking her claim: "Carroll's allegation, made after roughly 24 years of silence, comes with no photos or videotapes. There is no date for the encounter. No one could say whether Trump was in New York on whatever day that was. She says that at the time, she told two unnamed girlfriends in TV news about being assaulted. It would be nice if someone among them could find an actual date of this alleged attack."

As is the case with the MRC, CNS doesn't give a damn about Tara Reade -- she's only a tool to harm Biden. If CNS actually cared about reporting news instead of trying to be a pro-Trump propaganda operation, it would have treated Carroll the same way it's treating Reade.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:21 PM EDT

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We've documented the Media Research Center is raging against anyone who dares to find a "silver lining" in the coronavirus pandemic -- mostly environmental effects -- while its "news" division, CNSNews.com, keeps finding its own silver linings -- mostly that people are feeling more religious. That pattern is continuing ... but with a twist.

Scott Whitlock complained in a April 25 post that "The journalists at CBS This Morning on Wednesday celebrated Earth Day by finding the upside to a global pandemic killing hundreds of thousands and destroying the economy" by noting "the rapid and amazing environmental improvements taking place during the pandemic." He declared this to be "tone deaf" (like another MRC writer) and huffed: "To underline, 180,000 people are dead. The journalistic excitement over this COVID-19 'silver lining' is tacky at best and ghoulish at worst."

Whitlock grumbled again on May 13 about another CBS segment that is "finding the environmental 'silver lining' to a global pandemic that has killed almost 300,000 people and is destroying the economy" in which it "described the environmental rebound (less pollution, more animals moving freely) as a response to humans 'mucking everything up.'" He raged: "Do journalists not see how unseemly all this 'silver lining' talk sounds?"

Well, Whitlock might want to have a talk not only with his CNS co-workers down the hall, but also with his officemate Matt Philbin, who found his own silver lining in a May 5 post:

The left is salivating about using the pandemic crisis to force massive changes to American society. Average Americans, of course, just want to go back to work or to the mall or to … church. And those desires -- in particular the last one -- could present a formidable stumbling block in the sprint to the new progressive future. Despite years of eager predictions to the contrary, “the opiate of the masses” is not dead. In fact, it’s feeling better.

Since the pandemic began, secular progressives in the media have been spewing venom at Evangelical Christians, blaming their purportedly anti-science mindset for every setback in combating the virus and aghast at anyone worshipping something other than the environment or the state. (The communist Chinese government gets a pass, but fellow Americans trying to exercise religious liberty are smeared without mercy.)

All for naught, it seems. New Pew research published on April 30 found that “Some Americans say their religious faith has strengthened as a result of the outbreak, even as the vast majority of U.S. churchgoers report that their congregations have closed regular worship services to the public.”

Is Whitlock going to attack his co-worker for being "tone deaf" or acting "unseemly" for pointing oiut this "silver lining"? Unlikely -- the MRC is not exactly known for holding itself to the same standards it demands from everyone else.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:42 AM EDT

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Jack Cashill begins his May 8 WorldNetDaily column like this:

"The video is clear: Ahmaud Arbery was killed in cold blood," tweeted presidential candidate Joe Biden in regard to the recently released video of the February shooting death of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia.

In his shameless rush to judgment, Biden has taken a page straight out of Barack Obama's Trayvon Martin playbook.

The page reads as follows: In an election year, ignore all contrary evidence and recklessly indict a white (or white Hispanic) in the shooting death of an unarmed black man in the hope of stoking up the black vote.

Biden is in good company. All the usual suspects have rushed in to the judgment game, from LeBron James to Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump to the shameless propagandists of the mainstream media.

Of course the video is pretty darn clear regarding Arbery's death, and it's unclear what "contrary evidence" Cashill is talking about. But he's eager to play his own Trayvon Martin playbook on Arbery.

If you'll recall, Cashill trashed Martin as a wannabe thug and lionized George Zimmerman, the man who killed him, as a civil rights martyr. As Zimmerman's misbehavior and criminal acts continued, Cashill still stood by him and helped evade responsibility for his acts.

In following his playbook, Cashill takes faith in the district attorney who initially decliined to prosecute Arbery's killers:

A letter sent by George Barnhill, the district attorney for the Waycross Judicial Circuit, to the Glynn County Police, explains why Barnhill chose initially not to arrest the suspects.

Wrote Barnhill, "It appears Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael, and Bryan William were following, in pursuit burglary suspect, with solid firsthand probable cause, in their neighborhood, and asking/ telling him to stop."

As Barnhill explained, this was perfectly legal under Georgia law. Neither of the McMichaels was a felon, and both were openly and legally carrying.

William was following the McMichaels' truck in his vehicle and shooting the video in question, an unlikely strategy for the participant in a cold-blooded murder.

[...]

The media are portraying Arbery as an innocent jogger. Barnhill thought otherwise. He wrote, "Arbery's mental health records & prior convictions help explain his apparent aggressive nature and his possible thought pattern to attack an armed man."

Cashill didn't mention that Barnhill needlessly doggedly pursued a case against a black woman accused of committing vote fraud by showing a first-time voter how to use a voting machine, so his judgment appears to be a little skewed.Barnhill has since been criticized by a national organization of district attorneys for his refusal to prosecute the case and releasing the letter from which Cashill quoted, saying that it could influence possible jurors.

Cashillalso got the name of the man shooting the video wrong -- his name is William Bryan, and he now won't talk about why he shot it.

Cashill then calls on an old friend: "Filmmaker Joel Gilbert has been watching this case with interest. In his 2019 film, 'The Trayvon Hoax,' Gilbert showed how Attorney Benjamin Crump allegedly produced a false witness to get George Zimmerman arrested for shooting Martin in what was transparently self-defense." Yes, it's the charlatan filmmaker who made a film about Martin that nobody should trust given Gilbert's track record.

That's pretty much all Cashill has to offer -- his old tricks of race-mongering and  sketchy supporting characters.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:05 AM EDT

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The Media Research Center normally hates it when Catholic religious leaders get involved in politics --when it's not conservative, anyway. For instance, it loves to attack Jesuit priest James Martin for not advancing right-wing Catholic orthodoxy, Heathering him at one point as a "sorta-Catholic."

But if a prominent Catholic praises President Trump, the MRC is all for it. Gabriel Hays gushed in an April 29 post:

New York's Cardinal Dolan seems to think that President Trump is doing a good job at leading the country through the coronavirus crisis, and though we know there are many Catholics who would never do such a thing (the Obama-voting ones, we’re sure) Dolan also praised the pro-life and pro-religious freedom President for his outreach to religious communities during his administration.

The leader of the Archdiocese of New York appeared on Fox News on Monday, April 27, to relay the issues facing the Catholic community, in particular parochial schools. But he also took time to thank President Trump for his leadership.

“I really salute his leadership,” Dolan told the hosts of Fox & Friends. He also thanked New York leaders, Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio but went out of his way to mention that Trump had really been supportive of the religious community during this pandemic.

“Everybody has really come through, but the President has seemed particularly sensitive to the, what shall I say, to the feelings of the religious community,” the cardinal mentioned.

Dolan’s comments come after a conference call between Church leaders including the New York cardinal himself, the President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez, Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley and President Trump. The discussion covered a number of Church and community issues following the outbreak of the pandemic, in particular Catholic education.

Weirdly, Hays didn't embed the video from Dolan's "Fox & Friends" appearance in his post. Is he secretly ashamed of it?

Hays went on to tout the intertwining of Catholic hierarchy with Trump:

President Trump has also made acquiring Catholic voter support a bigger focus for his re-election bid. Earlier this month, the Trump re-election campaign launched the “Catholics forTrump” initiative aimed at courting more catholics with his “religious-freedom record and anti-abortion policies.”

At the end of their conference call, the President referred to Dolan a “great friend of mine,” and the cardinal replied “the feelings are mutual.” And while we can write it all off as political, it is a welcome change from the usual scene of liberal Catholic leaders ignoring Trump’s great pro-life record to hit his attitude on immigration and climate change.

The uber-Catholics at the MRC wouldn't be doing this if Dolan was endorsing a Democratic poiltician.

Posted by Terry K. at 3:15 PM EDT

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Remember that time CNSNews.com heavily lectured Bernie Sanders about praising some positive aspects of authoritarian regimes, followed by managing editor Michael W. Chapman praising Russia's authoritarian leader, Vladimir Putin, for hating the LGBT community as much as he does? Well, Chapman did it again.

You might recall that one of CNS' favorite right-wing authoritarian leaders is Viktor Orban of Hungary, whom it wants you to believe is just a misunderstood populist who's pursuing a heavily xenophobic anti-immigrant policy. But even CNS had to concede that Orban is such an authoritarian that he's exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to make a power grab that would allow him to rule by decree.

Chapman seems to be pretty cool with Orban's stranglehold on power, particularly if he uses it to spread the LGBT hate. Chapman gushed in an April 29 article:

Legislation making its way through the Hungarian Parliament and expected to become law would legally define a person's sex or gender as "sex at birth," meaning later in life a person could not legally change their gender. The proposal has angered many European Union leaders and LGBT activists.

As explained by Human Rights Watch, the bill would amend the Registry Act to "include a clarification regarding the word 'nem,' which in Hungarian can mean both 'sex' and 'gender,' to specifically refer to the sex at birth ('szuletesi nem') as 'biological sex based on primary sex characteristics and chromosomes.'"

Also, once the "sex at birth" is recorded, it cannot be changed.

Yep, right up Chapman's alley.

Chapman did note some criticism of the planned law -- in which he hinted that Orban is just a wee bit authoritarian -- but highlighted only that coming from LGBT sources in an apparent attempt to delegitimize it:

Prime Minister “Viktor Orban is using the Covid-19 health crisis as cover to push through discriminatory legislation that will be devastating to the lives of transgender people in Hungary,” Graeme Reid, the director of LGBT rights at Human Rights Watch, told The Independent.

“It is typical of the autocrats playbook to consolidate power by attacking the most marginalised," said Reid. "The EU should act.”

[...]

The pro-homosexual Pink News said that Orban's government is "brazenly homophobic" and had already banned gender studies from universities.

A transgender "woman," Amanda Malovics, said that Orbn and his Fidesz Party "believe being transgender is -- along with the whole LGBT+ community -- something that goes against the Hungarian Christian society and breaks fundamental values (such as children can have only heterosexual, cisgender parents)."

As before, Chapman didn't explain why it's OK for him to praise authoritarian leaders for things he thinks is positive while Sanders must be criticized for doing the same thing.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:26 AM EDT

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