MRC's Anti-'Censorship' Operation Censors Us
Topic: Media Research Center

Back in September, the Media Research Center set up something called "Free Speech America," which claims to be "designed to push back against Big Tech’s abuse of power." It includes a website called CensorTrack, which claims to be "an archive of incidents of bias, as well as a resource for people interested in the issue or writing about it." It's designed to work with the MRC's tech-monitoring operation that is largely responsible for pushing the increasingly bogus narrative that Twitter and Facebook are "censoring" conservative -- and only conservative -- websites and accounts by enforcing their terms of service against extremism.

It was a momentous enough occasion that the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, was called in to do an article on it. Managing editor Michael W. Chapman did his corporate duty, uncritically quoting his boss, Brent Bozell, dishonestly declaring that "Every platform coming out of Silicon Valley today is censoring conservatives. ... Our position is, if they can do it to the president of the United States, they can do it to anyone, and in fact that is exactly what’s happening. And it’s starting to happen worldwide to conservatives."

Interestingly, a guest on the Zoom call at which the initiative was annouced was Robert Epstein, whose dubious research pushing the narrative that Google uses its search results to push anti-conservative bias has been embraced by the MRC. So much for Epstein's defense that he's a Hillary Clinton supporter.

But we didn't see any evidence that CensorTrack has tracked the "censoring" of our Twitter feed -- even after we asked nicely to be put on it -- because we accurately quoted Rush Limbaugh's smear of Sandra Fluke. Of course, the mere existence of that blows a hole in the MRC's narrative.

Speaking of destroying a narrative: The Twitter page for the Free Speech America operation has, uh, censored us, as the above screenshot shows. How strange for a new operation to pre-block us, we thought -- but the page states that it was created in October 2010, which tells us it's simply a renamed page.

Still, it's a bad look for an operation that purports to be all about "free speech" that's trying to silence its critics.

CNS Gotcha-Question Time, Abortion Edition
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com already forced its interns this fall to pester members of Congress with an anti-transgender gotcha question. But it also tried to squeeze in one more gotcha question before the holidays. TYhe first victim was Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy in a Dec. 8 article:

Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who said he is “pro-choice” on abortion, also said that President-elect Joe Biden (D) “might be right” in his view that “life begins at conception.”

On several occasions, Biden has said that “life begins at conception” but he would not interfere with doctors who abort human lives in the womb.

At the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, CNSNews.com asked Senator Murphy, “Do you agree with Joe Biden that life begins at conception?”

Sen. Murphy said, “I’m pro-choice, I think it should be up to, you know, every woman and every individual to make that choice on their own.”

CNS News then asked, “Well, but Joe Biden’s stated position is that life begins at conception.”

Murphy then replied, “Okay, I mean I don’t know. He might be right.”

Two days later, the CNS intern went after another Democratic senator:

When asked whether she agreed with Joe Biden’s position that “life begins at conception,” Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said, “I’m not going to answer the question.”

Biden has said in several interviews that he believes “life begins at conception,” and even expressed this view in the Oct. 11, 2012 vice presidential debate.

At the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 8, CNS News asked Senator Feinstein, “Do you agree with Joe Biden that life begins at conception?”

Feinstein initially said, “Oh, my god, I can’t believe you,” and her aide interjected, “That’s not an escalator question!”

She then said, “I’m not going to answer the question.”

“I don’t think it is necessary for what I do or part of it,” the senator added.

CNS News then said that Biden has “stated that he’s in favor of repealing the Hyde Amendment and using federal funds to pay for abortion services.”

Feinstein then replied, “Well, let me try and find out what’s going on.”

Of course, getting members of Congress, especially Democratic ones, perturbed by gotcha questions is pretty much the point of this exercise -- it's all about the clicks. After all, one CNS intern who made Nancy Pelosi mad managed to parlay it into a job at Fox News.

These were apparently the only two victims, though. It seems the interns ran out of time or the members of Congress have gotten better at avoiding reporters acting in bad faith.

MRC Defends The Honor Of Pandemic-Defying Bar Owner (Who Ran Over A Police Officer)
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Gabriel Hays ranted in a Dec. 7 post:

Pete Davidson is at it again, mocking freedom-loving, everyday Americans from the comfort of his cushy “SNL” gig.

A year or so after Pete Davidson landed in hot water for mocking then-U.S. Congressional candidate Dan Crenshaw’s (R-TX) war injuries on an episode of SNL, that actor/comedian made insensitive remarks about average Americans protesting strict lockdown orders, as if they were selfish dummies rather than Americans desperate to earn a paycheck.

Talk about smug elitism.

On the December 5 segment of the NBC series’ sketch “Weekend Update,” Davidson gave his flippant and disrespectful opinion on New Yorkers protesting the closing of local bars and restaurants due to the state’s strict China plague lockdown orders. Last week, one defiant Staten Island pub owner of Mac’s Public House re-opened his restaurant despite Governor Andrew Cuomo’s latest lockdown orders. 

The bar’s open defiance, which has drawn the attention of NY’s Governor, mayor and law enforcement, has inspired many like-minded New Yorkers and Staten Island residents fed up with NY’s lockdowns to come up in crowds and protest the government’s COVID overreach.

But for a smug elitist like Davidson, who hasn’t had the misfortune of losing his livelihood, the Staten Island protests have become a topic of derision. The star of The King of Staten Island mocked the protestors as “babies” and indirectly called them the worst people of Staten Island, by deriding himself as no longer the “worst thing about Staten Island.” 

Though that’s ironic because these protestors are demonstrating against the very idea of being coddled by the mommy state, which has convinced the real idiots -- like Davidson -- that the virus requires Americans to cancel their entire lives for as long as they’re told.

Davidson was "flippant and disrespectful"? Hays must be jealous, because that what the MRC pays him to be and he probably doesn't like anyone horning in on his territory.

But Hays somehow forgot to mention in the middle of his tirade that the day before his item was posted, owner of the bar, Danny Presti, was arrested for running down a sheriff's deputy while trying to avoid arrest for his bar violating the mask mandate. Seems a bit flippant and disrespectful on Presti's part, but that's just us. We don't recall Davidson ever doing anything like that, no matter how much Hays loathes him for failing to be a kneejerk right-winger like himself.

This is the guy Hays thinks we should admire and emulate. And we thought the MRC was a "Blue Lives Matter" kind of place ... but apparently the police too can be thrown under the (metaphorical) bus if they don't fit in with the narrative du jour.

Smug elitism indeed.

UPDATE: The MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, also attacked Davidson for criticizing Presti and Staten Island bars -- and also failed to note that Presti was arrested for running over a sheriff's deputy.

Newsmax Downplays Another Legal Entanglement
Topic: Newsmax

While Newsmax has gotten increased attention as a Trump loyalist, it's also received attention of the negative kind as well: lawsuits and threats of lawsuits over its content. But Newsmax is largely hiding that from its readers.

On the Nov. 30 edition of right-winger Howie Carr's radio show, which Newsmax TV simulcasts, right-wing lawyer Joe DiGenova went on a tirade against Christoper Krebs, the former head of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agencywhom Trump fired after he stated that the presidential election was secure. "That guy is a class A moron," diGenova said. "He should be drawn and quartered, taken out at dawn and shot."

That's a pretty clear threat -- so much so, that Krebs quickly filed a lawsuit against DiGenova and Newsmax for defamation. Newsmax responded in a CNBC article with an attempt to distance itself from diGenova:

Newsmax said: “Newsmax TV airs the The Howie Carr Show, a Boston-based syndicated radio program it licenses, as a simulcast for one hour each weekday. Mr. diGenova appeared by phone on that simulcast as a guest and made comments that were inappropriate. Mr. diGenova is not a paid contributor to Newsmax and has no official ties to him.”

“Mr. diGenova has appeared on Newsmax since then on two occasions stating he made the comment ‘facetiously’ and apologized,” the right-wing media outlet said.

“He stated that he intended no harm to Mr. Krebs. Newsmax believes that claims made by Mr. Krebs in his suit of a ‘conspiracy’ and defamation against him are a threat to free speech and his legal action endangers all media organizations that seek an open discourse of ideas and news.”

You won't read that at Newsmax, however -- it has censored news of the lawsuit. The only reference you'll find to the controversy is a Dec. 5 article by Eric Mack in which DiGenova appeared on a different Newsmax TV show to walk back his threat against Krebs, insisting that it was "made in complete jest" and "a poor attempt at humor. They were hyperbole during a political discussion," adding, "I meant no suggestion of harm or intention to harm Mr. Krebs or his family, and I apologize for any misunderstanding of my intentions."

Actually, diGenova's intentions were all too clear -- and that's why Krebs is suing him and Newsmax.

CNS Does Stenography For White House Press Secretary
Topic: CNSNews.com

Melanie Arter wrote in a Nov. 30 CNSNews.com article:

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany accused the Washington Post of pushing “blinding” propaganda by reporting that former Vice President Joe Biden has selected an “all-female senior White House press team.”

McEnany pointed out that the Trump administration already has an all-female senior communications staff.

McEnany tweeted Monday “President @realDonaldTrump already has an ALL FEMALE Senior White House Press Team.

So does @VP

So does @Flotus

So does @SecondLady

The completely DISCREDITED @washingtonpost once again reveals their blinding propagandist Fake News proclivities”

As we pointed out when CNS' corporate bretheren at the Media Research Center similarly uncritically repeated this narrative, McEnany is wrong -- two press secretaries in Trump's office are actually men. Indeed, as the hated Washington Post noted, this is all a picayune argument over the definition of a "senior" comms job, which obscures the fact that three comms jobs currently held by men under Trump will be held by women under Biden.

That's not the only worship of McEnany CNS has done. On Dec. 1, Arter was in full stenography mode in uncritically repeating another McEnany claim, that "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Democrats have been trying to undermine the U.S. election system for years by allowing illegals on the voting rolls and fighting against signature matching." She also repeated McEnany's bogus complaint about Biden getting credit for an all-female comms team.

In a Dec. 3 post, Craig Bannister gushed that McEnany used a White House press briefing for "subjecting" attending reporters "to a video montage of prominent Democrats violating the very COVID-19 restrictions they’ve imposed on others."

On Dec. 8, Arter uncritically repeated how "McEnany is disputing reports that the Trump administration turned down a chance to buy additional coronavirus vaccine from Pfizer beyond the 100 million doses that was contracted and now has to wait until the summer to get more." In fact, Scott Gottlieb, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner and current Pfizer board member, confirmed that the Trump administration turned down an offer from Pfizer last summer to obtain an additional 100 million doses of its vaccine.

NEW ARTICLE: Conspiracy-Mongering For Trump
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center constructs its own elaborate conspiracy theory to prove President Trump should have won re-election -- through hiring Trump's own pollsters and bizarrely claiming that pre-election media polls showing Trump losing big were faked. Read more >>

Newsmax's Election Conspiracy-Mongering
Topic: Newsmax

Joe Biden’s policies would certainly be devastating to our constitutional republic but so would his illegitimate rise to power should he be elected president.

Fair and honest elections have been the bedrock of our constitutional republic.

The power of the government derives from the consent of the governed.

Biden has refused to accept the irregularities in the 2020 Election.

[...]

Biden’s refusal to acknowledge the profound questions of the 2020 election is evidence of his radicalization. Only a radical leftist who has joined communist revolutionaries like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., wouldn’t be alarmed by all of this.

Democrats spent $40 million taxpayer dollars and over 2 years investigating the 2016 election. Why isn’t Biden demanding an investigation in the 2020 election?

The entire Democratic Party was up in arms about election interference and they now have widespread proof of it and they’re silent.

The American people are entitled to an honest and transparent election.

Any legitimately elected American president would want a good-faith effort to verify and validate the results. Only a socialist, like Hugo Chavez, for example, would assume power through widespread voter fraud.

-- Jason D. Meister, Nov. 24 Newsmax column

One month after the still-unresolved Nov. 3 presidential election, the proverbial elephant in the living room of ongoing election challenges in six states is the pre-meditated attempt to corrupt the election process through unprecedented, inherently corrupt mail-in ballots.

In Pennsylvania during election week last month, I officially observed manifestations of this deliberate attempt to corrupt the election process, which former Speaker of the U.S. House Newt Gingrich has declared, "an open invitation to theft."

I also observed widespread election fraud.

[...]

The direct and circumstantial evidence already presented publicly by the Trump litigation team on Nov. 19, 2020, is enough to rebut any presumption of government regularity.

In this light and considering the inherent nature of mail-in ballots, the U.S. Supreme Court should direct the State legislatures at issue to: (a) disregard all mail-in ballots; or (b) if feasible, hold new elections without mail-in ballots.

-- Joseph Schmitz, Dec. 3 Newsmax column

Is there sufficient evidence of fraud for courts to overturn the results that one or more states reported for the 2020 presidential election?

While that may be the question the law requires President Trump's legal team to address, it's the wrong question for America.

Those of us able to apply common sense and logic untethered to legal presumptions and requirements can ask a more basic question: Is our electoral system structured to provide free and fair elections? Anyone willing to take an honest look at the process understands that the answer is "no." The American election system is riddled with invitations for fraud.

[...]

In other words, the entire American electoral system lacks structural credibility.

The question America should be asking itself is not why many people believe that the 2020 election was stolen. The question is how anyone could believe that a system structured to invite fraud at every turn nevertheless yielded an honest and accurate result.

-- Bruce Abramson, Dec. 4 Newsmax column

Think of it as a bank heist, one in which armed robbers crash through the front doors and hightail it to different sections of the building.

One approaches a teller and shoves a gun in his face.

One sneaks over to the main computer and hacks away. Another goes into the vault and locks it behind him, so he can swap out real hundies with counterfeit ones when no one is looking.

That pretty much sums up what the Democrats did, election-style.

The 2020 presidential election was stolen out from under the American people.

And the crooks used a number of means to bring their devious plan to fruition.

Evidence of fraud is there for anyone to see, but the corporate media seem to be engaging in one of three strategies: stating that none exists; ignoring it altogether; or subjecting it to a "fact-checking" process.

-- James Hirsen, Dec. 7 Newsmax column

Should Lawyers For Smartmatic, Dominion Contact WND Next?
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Now that Fox News and Newsmax have acceded to Smartmatic's lawsuit threat and walked back the false smears it published about the company as part of the pro-Trump election fraud conspiracy theories it has promoted, perhaps it's time for Smartmatic to work its way down the right-wing media food chain. After all, WorldNetDaily has joined those outlets in uncritically reporting false claims about Smartmatic. Let's take a look:

"We have sworn witness testimony of why the software was designed. It was designed to rig elections," [Sidney] Powell said of the Smartmatic software in Dominion voting machines.

"They did this on purpose, it was calculated, they've done it before. We have evidence from 2016 in California, we have so much evidence I feel like it's coming in through a fire hose," Powell continued.

-- Nov. 15 

[Rudy] Giuliani explained that “Dominion has a software that it gets from a company called SmartMatic. SmartMatic is a Delaware company, but it’s owned by Venezuelans, Venezuelans who are close to Chavez and Maduro. They actually count the vote. They count the vote in Barcelona, Spain. So the vote goes from here to Barcelona, Spain. They count it and then they give it back to us.”

“Can their software change the vote?” Giuliani asks rhetorically. “Any way they want. Absolutely.”

Giuliani provided some background on SmartMatic. The company “was actually established by Chavez. And the whole purpose of it was to steal elections. That's their expertise: stealing elections.”

“As far as we can tell, SmartMatic owns Dominion. There’s a company in between called Indra. So, we’re basically having our votes counted by Venezuelans who are close to our enemy Maduro.”

-- Western Journal article, Nov. 17

Attorney Sidney Powell says that her battle over the Nov. 3 election is far from over, saying that the evidence she is gathering could turn into a major racketeering case under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

Powell appeared Thursday on Lou Dobbs' Fox Business News program and explained what she has found.

Four names, she said, were central to her investigation: Jorge Rodriguez, a former minister for communications for Venezuela; Khalil Majid Mazzoub, whom Powell identified as a link to the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hezbollah; Gustavo Reyes-Zumeta, a computer programmer; and Antonio Mugica, CEO of the elections technology company Smartmatic, which has been linked in some accounts to Dominion Voting Systems.

-- Western Journal article, Dec. 14

Meanwhile, Eric Coomer, security director at Dominion Voting Systems -- a company falsely linked with Smartmatic and regularly named in election-fraud conspiracy theories -- has sued Newsmax, One America News Network and others because he has been falsely named in those conspiracy theories, leading to death threats and forcing him into hiding. Coomer might want to include WND on his lawsuit list because of a Dec. 2 column by James Zumwalt:

As Antifa raised its ugly head, a founder of the Faith Education Commerce United, Joe Oltman, infiltrated the group. He heard a conversation involving Antifa members and "Eric from Dominion" in September 2020. In that conversation, Eric encouraged Antifa to "keep up the pressure." When a member asked, "What are we gonna do if f****** Trump wins," Oltman said Eric responded: "Don't worry about the election. Trump's not gonna win. I made f****** sure of that!"

Oltman researched Dominion to find out who Eric was. He discovered an Eric Coomer joined Dominion as its vice president of U.S. engineering and was later promoted to voting systems officer of strategy and security. He served as a director, as well, although that information was later scrubbed.

Coomer was no casual Antifa acquaintance. In fact, he posted the entire Antifa manifesto on his Facebook page, which included endless disturbing anti-Trump rants. Additionally, he had installed updated software on more than 30,000 Georgia voting machines just before the election.

When criticized for failing to conduct adequate security testing on the software upgrade or obtain certification from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, Coomer responded the change was minor and did not require recertification. (Meanwhile, a Dominion machine involved in Georgia's third recount effort has crashed, resulting in Dominion personnel rushing to repair it, at best, or remove evidence, at worst.)

Coomer's outrageous anti-Trump bias should have left him nowhere near those voting machines.

Oltmann -- who, according to Snopes, has refused to offer proof of his claims or a copy of the sworn court affidavit he claims to have filed regarding Coomer -- is another person Coomer is suing; Coomer he has denied any connection with Antifa.

Seems like Zumwalt and WND had better be chatting with their attorneys soon.

UPDATE: WND has published an article on the Coomer lawsuit -- but it's from the Daily Caller, not the product of WND. Therefore, there's no mention of Zumwalt using a WND column to repeat Oltmann's false attacks on Coomer.

MRC Whines That Falsehood-Filled Far-Right Conspiracy Site Is Being 'Censored'
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Alexander Hall wrote in a Dec. 8 post:

Censoring the New York Post’s Biden bombshell was just the beginning. Now National File's Editor-in-Chief said Facebook is censoring its outlet.

National File said that Facebook has used a treacherous new tactic to censor him and his outlet. Rather than simply censoring National File, Pappert stated that Facebook has removed him, the page’s administrator, preventing him from being able to manage the page. “Facebook demoted me to a moderator of the National File Facebook page,” Pappert tweeted Dec 2. He later added that Facebook “removed me as the owner of the Flyover Media LLC business account that owns National File.” Pappert summarized: “Facebook has locked a news outlet out of its own Facebook page with no recourse.”

“These two moves combined effectively ban the National File Facebook page without our readers even knowing what happened,” Pappert explained in an email. He surmised that, now, users may get the false impression that “we simply stopped using Facebook,” or that “we've stopped publishing entirely, despite the fact that we have broken critical stories relating to the Arizona and Georgia presidential election.”

What Hall didn't tell you: National File is a right-wing conspiracy site. Midia Bias/Fact Check lists the website as pushing "tin foil hat" levels of conspiracies and pseudoscience. It's curently being sued by Arizona Sen.-elect Mark Kelly after it published photos it falsely claimed were of Kelly dressed in a Hitler costume.

In other woreds: There are good reasons Facebook is "censoring" the National File -- it's an operation that publishes lies, lacks credibility and shouldn't be taken seriously by anyone. But Hall wants you to think it's a mainstream conservcarive website being unfairly punished by "big tech."

Because the MRC's conservative victimization narrative must be maintained even as it proves increasingly false, Hall and his fellow anti-"big tech" writers will continue to push it, no matter how extreme the supposed victims are and how much they actually deserve to be "censored."

WND Columnist Invents 'Constitutional Receivership' For States
Topic: WorldNetDaily

If a WorldNetDaily columnist can empanel a grand jury in his own brain to "indict" Dr. Anthony Fauci, why can't one invent a constitutional concept for the partial purpose of helping President Trump stay in the White House. Thus, we have Craige McMillan devoting his Nov. 20 WND column to inventing "constitutional receivership" for states:

One of the hallmarks of failed states is that they have elections, but the votes of citizens are meaningless. The current regime is always reelected. This happens either because there is no meaningful (or long-lived) opposition candidate, no real discussion of the issues (media control), and the ruling political party runs the machinery that counts the votes.

Do I have your attention yet? Did you think it would never happen here?

Would it surprise you that America's Constitution actually has a clause that deals with failed states? They weren't talking about Venezuela. What they were thinking about was states that might want to be a part of the United States, but with a form of government that was different than republican.

[...]

That's what makes Article IV, Section 4, of our Constitution so interesting: It doesn't say who guarantees a republican form of government; only that each state shall have one. The U.S. Supreme Court had two opportunities to become involved in having a say in this, but it declined both times. The court said it was a matter either for the Congress or the president.

[...]

But if you live in a failed state, just what are you requesting? I've called it "Constitutional Receivership." It's a term from the business world, not as severe as bankruptcy (although it can lead there).

A state placed into Constitutional Receivership by the president would have someone assigned to run the state's affairs and clean things up until new leadership could be elected by the citizens.

If there were riots, the Receiver would call for the National Guard to restore order. If there were corrupt elections, the Receiver would launch an investigation, probably in conjunction with the U.S. attorney for that state. The guilty would face trial and be sent to prison for their crimes. There are a lot of federal assets a Receiver would have immediate access to, and without the say-so of state officials.

Corrupt or incompetent businesses aren't allowed to go on forever. They are either turned around by a Receiver, or their assets are disposed of in bankruptcy and given to their creditors. Article IV, Section 4, can be used this way.

[...]

So-called battleground states now control the national elections through corrupt election practices in just their states. Secret voting agreements with one political party, vote-switching machines entrusted with providing honest totals that are pre-programed for the desired election outcome, and counting rooms with the opposition party's monitors placed at impossible observation distances or completely removed during the vote counting process. The level of corruption in the media, big tech and most blue states election efforts indicates there will never be another chance to change this. Their corruption threatens the very existence of the American republic.

As President Trump has said on numerous occasions, "This can never be allowed to happen to another president, ever again!" I would add, "This can never be allowed to happen to another citizen, ever again," as well.

Whether it does happen again depends on what we do to stop it now. Forget social media for now. Talk to your friends and neighbors. Find the influencers in your community. Meet with your public officials. Get the ball rolling, today. We owe it to our posterity. We owe it to those who sacrificed so much to give us a republic, not a monarchy or a dictatorship. Will you call for Constitutional Receivership now? There won't be another chance.

Anything to keep Trump in the White House, eh?

In The Tank: CNS Promoted Frivolous Pro-Trump Texas Election Lawsuit
Topic: CNSNews.com

The fact that all of President Trump's legal efforts to overturn an election he lost have failed in court has not stopped CNSNews.com from uncritically promoting them. The attempt by the state of Texas to interfere in the elections of other states through a lawsuit it brought straight to the Supreme Court was no exception.

A Dec. 9 article by Susan Jones uncritically repeated Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton touting the lawsuit on Fox News. Two days later, another article by Jones admitted that Paxton faced "blistering criticism" for filing the lawsuit and actually detailed the responses from the states being sued -- but led off with Paxton delcaring (on Fox News, of course) that "we ought to have the chance to be heard at least once."

After the Supreme Court swiftly rejected the lawsuit, CNS didn't do a story on it. instead, two days later, Jones rehashed a Fox Business appearance by Paxton lamenting that "I don't know what else we could have done, other than ask the court to at least hear our arguments." Details on what the Supreme Court said in rejecting the lawsuit were buried in an unbylined article that cited Nancy Pelosi describing the lawsuit as an example of how "Republicans are engaged in an election subversion that imperils our democracy." That was followed by an stenography piece by Melanie Arter in which she detailed Trump's ranting that "it's not over" despite the court's swift rejection of the Texas lawsuit.

CNS also published a Dec. 14 op-ed by Zack Smith of the right-wing Heritage Foundation claiming the Texas lawsuit raised "serious issues regarding election integrity and constitutional law that ought to be addressed going forward."

CNS was pushing Trump's narrative elsewhere as well. In a Dec. 14 article, Jones touted how Republican Rep. Jim Jordan demanded that Congress debate the presidential vote on Jan. 6, the day when it is supposed to sign off on the election. But even Jones conceded the Republicans' effort at obstruction would be doomed: "A simple majority vote in both the Senate and the House is required for any objection to a state’s electoral results to stand. Because the House is controlled by Democrats, that certainly would not happen."

Even the Electoral College officially declaring Biden the winner couldn't be reported straight. Jones dismissed Biden's speech after the Electoral College vote as "an attempt to bolster his legitimacy as the next president," then complained: "Biden repeated that he will be president 'for all Americans,' many of whom remain bitter about the expansion of ripe-for-fraud mail-in voting; affidavits alleging vote fraud; changes in voting laws made not by state legislatures but by election officials; and vote tallying that was shielded from view -- or conducted in the absence -- of election observers." (The article was originally headlined "Biden, Voice Hoarse, Praises 'Honest,’ ‘Free’ & ‘Fair' Election, 'Integrity' of Election Workers.")

An anonymously written article was devoted to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell lamely conceding that "the Electoral College has spoken." Craig Bannister huffed: "Hillary Clinton, who lost the 2016 presidential election despite winning the popular vote, cast an electoral vote for Joe Biden on Tuesday – then, called for abolition of the Electoral College, which cost her the presidency."

Melanie Arter uncritically wrote about how Ken Blackwell, initially identifed only as "former Ohio Secretary of State," insisted that "the clock didn't stop" with the Electoral College vote; it wasn't until the fourth paragraph that she noted that Blackwell is "a Trump elector."She didn't mention at all that Blackwell was a Trump campaign surrogate who also served in Trump White House posts, which meshes with CNS' overall lack of disclosure when it publishes Blackwell's pro-Trump columns.

MRC's Mysterious Sports Blogger Parrots Trump's Election-Fraud Conspiracy Theories
Topic: Media Research Center

The mysterious Jay Maxson is usually hectoring athletes and sportswriters for injecting politics into sports in his Media Research Center writings (when he's not going on anti-LGBT tirades, anyway). But Maxson has become an MRC leader in pushing wildly dubious claims of election fraud by the Trump campaign.

On Nov. 13, Maxson grumbled that USA Today sportswriter Christine Brennan asked golfing legend Jack Nicklaus -- who endorsed Trump before the election -- to  offer advice to the president on "how to accept defeat." Maxson huffed that Brennan "blew off the whistle blowers and -- like other media lemmings -- dismissed any evidence of voter fraud," adding: "Many in the media derided Republicans for using a landscaping business in Philadelphia last weekend to announce forthcoming election-related lawsuits. But now a left-stream media lemming is pathetically trying to use a golf tournament and an octogenarian golfer to settle the outcome of a disputed presidential election."

In a Nov. 28 post, Maxson complained that the Washington Football Team "mocked President Donald Trump on their uncensored Twitter account Thursday. The team's political statement about an election night remark by Trump prompted Newsweek magazine to pile on and promote the left-stream media theme that there is no evidence of election fraud," further whining that Newsweek was trying to "perpetuate the left-stream lie about Republican efforts to prove election fraud." Maxson then started channeling his/her inner Sidney Powell:

Victory according to whom? Biden's compliant media, of course.

Dead people voting is of little concern to left-stream media, who attempt to deny it.

Disenfranchising millions of Americans who cast legitimate ballots is of no concern to Cancian, either. They think that only Black voters are disenfranchised.

A lack of transparency for GOP election observers over mail-in ballots? A trifling matter.

Hundreds of eyewitness accounts of troubling polling place irregularities get a pass, too.

This is further proof that sports media should stick to sports.

[...]

There is plenty of evidence and eyewitness testimony on election fraud, but many in the media prefer to ignore it and stick it to the president.

In a Dec. 8 post, Maxson accused legendary Washington Post sportswriter Thomas Boswell of "guzzling the Democrats’ spiked fair election Kool-Aid" by arguing that Trump should just admit he lost the election:

Boswell insists each generation improves the methods of monitoring cheating. Especially when it comes to preventing voter suppression and re-districting, oft-cited diversions used by the far Left party. He omitted dead voters and says it’s just about counting votes (rather than manufacturing and re-counting illegitimate ballots).

As a matter of Boswell’s checkered facts, America is “damn good” at preventing election cheating. Republican and Democrat election observers are allegedly making sure of that. Except for polling places in Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and other locations where irregularities have been reported, where GOP observers were out-numbered, harassed and removed. Hundreds of thousands of regular, decent people are maintaining the honesty of the process, if one doesn’t believe testimony to the contrary in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada and Arizona."

One might say that Maxson's blatant shilling for the Trump campaign is further proof that sports media should stick to sports.

Newsmax Walks Back Attacks On Smartmatic After Getting Legal Notice
Topic: Newsmax

Last week, Newsmax was among right-wing media outlets who received a legal notice from Smartmatic, an election technology company that his been named in various election fraud conspiracy theories, demanding a retraction of false and defamatory claims made about the company. Newsmax has censored news of Smartmatic's letter on its website, but it defended itself in a statement to CNBC:

Newsmax, in a statement, said that “Newsmax itself has never made a claim of impropriety about Smartmatic, its ownership or software.”

“Individuals, including plaintiff’s attorneys, Congressmen and others, have appeared on Newsmax raising questions about the company and its voting software, citing legal documents or previously published reports about Smartmatic,” Newsmax’s statement said.

“As any major media outlet, we provide a forum for public concerns and discussion. In the past we have welcomed Smartmatic and its representatives to counter such claims they believe to be inaccurate and will continue to do so.”

But late on Dec. 19 (a Saturday night, a news dead zone), it quietly published an unbylined article, credited only to "Newsmax Wires," headlined "Facts About Dominion, Smartmatic You Should Know."

Newsmax began by stating that "Newsmax would like to clarify its news coverage and note it has not reported as true certain claims made about these companies." Then, the walkbacks began:

There are several facts our viewers and readers should be aware. Newsmax has found no evidence either Dominion or Smartmatic owns the other, or has any business association with each other.

We have no evidence Dominion uses Smartmatic’s software or vice versa.

No evidence has been offered that Dominion or Smartmatic used software or reprogrammed software that manipulated votes in the 2020 election.

Smartmatic has stated its software was only used in the 2020 election in Los Angeles, and was not used in any battleground state contested by the Trump campaign and Newsmax has no evidence to the contrary.

Dominion has stated its company has no ownership relationship with the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's family, Sen. Dianne Feinstein's family, the Clinton family, Hugo Chavez, or the government of Venezuela.

Neither Dominion nor Smartmatic has any relationship with George Soros.

Smartmatic is a U.S. company and not owned by the Venezuelan government, Hugo Chavez or any foreign official or entity.

Smartmatic states it has no operations in Venezuela. While the company did election projects in Venezuela from 2004 to 2017, it states it never was founded by Hugo Chavez, nor did it have a corrupt relationship with him or the Venezuelan government.

Newsmax has uncritically forwarded false attacks on Smartmatic and Dominion. On Nov. 15, for instance, Eric Mack uncritically quoted Rudy Giuliani ranting: "Dominion, when you look into it with just a little bit of investigation, you find out that Dominion uses a software, Smartmatic, which is a company that goes back to 2004. It was founded by two Venezuelans and Cesar Chavez. It has a terrible history of having fixed elections in Argentina, having fixed elections in Venezuela. It was all outlined in 2008 by the House of Representatives."

On Nov. 17, it uncritically quoted Dick Morris saying on a Newsmax TV show, "I do not necessarily believe it was a retail fraud, you know, vote by vote, count by count. ... I think it may well have originated in the Dominion software, in the Smartmatic software that the polling people, voting people used."

One can even go back to 2016, when a Newsmax article documented an appearance on Fox News by Trump supporter Betsy McCaughey, who claimed that "More investigation is needed to be made into Smartmatic, a British voting machine company that is 'very involved' with billionaire George Soros' 'left wing globalist enterprises." McCaughey went on to claim that there is "airtight case against Soros to tilt this election," as he's "very close to Hillary Clinton."

Like Fox News -- which did a similar walkback after receiving a similar legal notice from Smartmatic --  Newsmax does understand the power of a threatened lawsuit over something it couldn't possibly defend.

UPDATE: Newsmax TV host John Tabacco read on the air the article Newsmax posted on its website. 

WND Publishes Fake News About 'Suitcase' Ballots In Georgia
Topic: WorldNetDaily

As part of its conspiracy-mongering about the presidential election, an anonymous Dec. 4 WorldNetDaily article claimed:

State senators in Georgia on Thursday were handed a hot political potato: a video showing election workers being sent home before supervisors pulled out hidden boxes of ballots from under a table and counted them.

The video, posted on Twitter by the Trump campaign, was introduced at a hearing held by the Georgia State Senate on allegations of vote fraud.

[...]

A Twitter user who posted the video said it shows a "lady telling Republican watchers (and everyone) to leave for the night," but then four individuals remain.

Just one problem: the video is not what WND claims it is. Numerous fact-checkers have debunked right-wing claims about the video; in fact, as FactCheck.org summarized, the ballots in question were opened and prepared for counting earlier in the night in full view of observers, and affidavits from Republican field organizers discredited the claim that GOP poll watchers were directly told to leave. Georgia election officials also debunked claims made about the video by WND and others, pointing out that the video has been investigated and shows normal ballot processing.

A few days later, WND stole a commentary from the right-wing site The Federalist loudly insisting that the fact-checks aren't real because "relying solely and uncritically on government officials’ claims" was something fact-checkers shouldn't have done.

Presenting debunked information as factual is not making WND look good (just as it never has).

MRC Drags 'Big Tech' Into Its Stolen-Election Conspiracy Theory
Topic: Media Research Center

Remember when Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell flogged his conspiracy theories about the election purportedly being stolen from President Trump by declaring, "what we're going to break next week is going to blow you away." Well, it took two weeks for that revelation, and frankly, we felt little more than a mild breeze.

A Dec. 17 "special report" by Corinne Weaver expanded the MRC's conspiracy theory to "big tech":

Big Tech companies, outraged at President Donald Trump’s win in 2016, put everything they had into ensuring that he would lose in 2020.

In seven key swing states, one in seven Biden voters (14 percent) said they primarily relied on sites such as Facebook or Twitter for their election news, according to a survey from the Media Research Center conducted by The Polling Company, which polled 1,750 Biden voters in seven swing states. But on Twitter and Facebook, conservatives, Trump supporters, and news that damaged the Biden campaign were regularly stifled, especially in the months leading up to the 2020 election.

Campaign messages only have value when they are heard. Trump and his campaign suffered the most in the censorship melee. Before the election, Twitter and Facebook had censored them 65 times but left former Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, unscathed. Twitter was the bulk of the problem, with 98 percent of all the instances of censorship.

[...]

The denial of facts from the liberal media left voters in the dark. Many Biden voters were not aware of the broad censorship Big Tech companies used to silence conservatives and Trump supporters.  Thirty-four percent of Biden voters were not aware that Trump had been censored by Twitter and Facebook, while Biden was not censored at all, according to the poll from The Polling Company. Fifty-two percent of Biden voters were not aware that Antifa pages were allowed on Facebook, while many conservative pages had been taken down. Sixty percent of Biden voters were not aware that Facebook and Twitter prevented users from mocking or posting satire of Biden and his campaign.

The not-so-special "special report" is just a rehash of the MRC's anti-"big tech" victimization narratives over the past year -- much of which we've already discredited. The complaint that Twitter "censored" Trump and his campaign while not doing the same to Biden overlooks the inconvenient fact that the MRC has never provided evidence that Biden violated Twitter's terms of servie the way Trump has and, therefore deserved to be "censored" (in reality, Trump's violating Twitter posts are simply flagged as false and remain visible to readers).

Oh, and The Polling Company was founded by Kellyanne Conway, former Trump adviser, so its fairness and accuracy can be reasonably questioned. Not that Weaver will mention that, of course.

Weaver is clearly gaslighting with this victimization narrative -- but then she accuses others of gaslighting by pointing out that there's no evidence social media outlets are exclusively targeting conservative content:

But Big Tech denies it censors conservatives every time while finding new ways to suppress, label, and remove information posted on their platforms. The liberal media insist that tech companies are not removing content, but still urge Facebook, Twitter, and Google to do more to remove ideas and opinions that go against their established narrative. From criticism of mail-in ballots to satirical posts about Biden, Big Tech took them all down. YouTube’s latest policy that will ban content that contests the 2020 election results is proof of the overwhelming direction toward censorship.

The Gaslight Strategy

The liberal media covered up the fact that Big Tech companies censored conservatives. “Republicans and right-wing media outlets have been all too happy running with the narrative that social media companies are censoring conservatives, regardless of the facts,” stated CNN Senior Media Reporter Oliver Darcy. Vox Associate Editor of Politics and Policy Aaron Rupar tweeted in 2018: “.@foxandfriends gave @GOPChairwoman a platform to tout, without any pushback, hoax stories about conservatives being ‘censored’ on Twitter.” Popular Information founder Judd Legum tweeted in 2019: “The core claim, that conservatives are being censored on social media IS TOTALLY MADE UP.” Media ignored Big Tech censorship reports, hearings in the House and Senate, and labeled censorship concerns as a “conspiracy theory.” The strategy was to make it seem as if censorship wasn’t happening.

Weaver aded more conspriacy-mongering:

Companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter picked sides before the election and used all their power to further the win. 

Ninety percent of donations from Twitter and Facebook employees went to Democratic campaigns, according to OpenSecrets.org. Facebook contributed 91.68 percent ($2,409,464 out of $2,628,040) of its donations to Democrats collectively between individual donations ($2,400,269) and PAC donations ($234,000) equaling $200 or more. Affiliates of Alphabet, Inc., Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple donated $10,243,589 to the Biden campaign during the 2020 presidential race, according to OpenSecrets. Trump received only $427,047 from the aforementioned Big Tech companies.

When the left embraced mail-in ballots, so did Big Tech. But that meant a hasty suppression of any criticism of mail-in voting. A letter from the Biden campaign, obtained by Axios, proclaimed that Donald Trump Jr.’s public statements of concern over mail-in voting were dangerous to democracy itself. Biden specifically condemned the platform for allowing “this dangerous claptrap to be spread to millions of people.” The liberal media, including CNN and TechCrunch, previously had warned about the dangers of mail-in ballots. “Yet votes cast by mail are less likely to be counted, more likely to be compromised and more likely to be contested than those cast in a voting booth, statistics show,” wrote The New York Times in 2012. 

Trump was fact-checked by Twitter for condemning “Mail-In Ballots” as “substantially fraudulent” in May 2020. GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel called out Twitter for censoring critiques of mail-in voting earlier this year: “Twitter falsely claims there is no evidence of mail-in ballot fraud.” She added: “That’s odd since NJ’s all-mail primary this month was ‘plagued’ by fraud concerns, with 3,000 votes set aside.” The censorship seemed to come as a response to criticism from the Biden campaign.

Weaver is -- as the MRC has long done this year -- falsely conflating political donations by individual employees of a company with corporate donations. And Weaver ignored McDaniel's hyping of alleged fraud in a local election in New Jersey showed that the system for detecting such possible fraud worked ... and demonstrated exactly how difficult it would be to do so on a national scale without detection the way Trump's "censored" Twitter posts have claimed.

Weaver concluded by fully buying into to Trump's false stolen-election narrative: "If liberal Big Tech companies have so much power and influence to manipulate an election, can any election really be fair? That’s the question that both political parties, Congress and the federal government must address. Before the next election." Because the MRC has decided that the very integrity of elections must be undermined -- desipte no solid evidence to back it up -- in order to preserve Trump's legacy.