MRC Learns To Love The UFC
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center is slowly becoming fans of the brutal sport known as the Ultimate Fighting Championship -- if only because its fellow right-wingers are hanging out at its events and its officials are forward right-wing anti-media narratives.

Back in April, Veronica Hays praised how UFC president Dana White "doesn’t back down from any fights, especially not with the media," when he declared that "Most of these people are full of s--- and have no place writing or talking about anything." Hays went on to gush:

White’s hostility towards the media comes as no surprise. He has been targeted by ill intentioned new outlets on many occasions. White caught heat from New York Magazine because of his positive relationship with President Trump and especially during the initial Covid-19 lockdowns of 2020. White continued to schedule fights contrary to CDC recommendations and completely disregarded directions from federal and state governments, even amidst an onslaught of negative media attention. Clearly the man does what he wants. 

[...]

White’s fearless confrontation with journalists is commendable, especially now that they have become more emboldened in their efforts to manipulate and misinform the public. 

Donald Trump popped up at a UFC event in July, and systerious sports blogger Jay Maxson channeled right-wing sports guy Jason Whitlock in being upset that this didn't get played up in the media while having yet another episode of ESPN Derangement Syndrome:

ESPN’s television coverage of Saturday’s UFC fight between Connor McGregor and Dustin Poirier blacked out former President Donald Trump’s arrival to a rousing reception by fans. Jason Whitlock says it has everything to do with ESPN waging a “cold war” with traditional sports fans.

[...]

UFC fans are the people who don't look down on Trump as a pariah like Big Media and Big Tech do. They don't buy into the Jan. 6 "insurrection" narrative created by CNN, MSNBC and the Democrats. ESPN is a big part of the left-stream crowd, despite hollow denials that it is not a political organization.

Trump friend and UFC president Dana White is the antithesis of the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball, whose commissioners “would run from Trump as if he were a pack of Wuhan bats,” Whitlock added. He’s more like former NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle, who marketed the league in support of traditional American values. Now, though, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell guides the league in a polar-opposite direction.

ESPN is one of many U.S. corporations bent on antagonizing the customers. Whitlock criticized the network’s “zero concern” for giving customers what they want. Everyone knows Barack Obama would have been highlighted to the hilt if he had attended UFC 264. Unlike Trump’s actual appearance there, Obama would have been interviewed by ESPN.

Hays returned to salute another celebrity guest at the the UFC event:

Two alphas met both inside and outside of the ring at Saturday’s UFC match. 

UFC 264, Connor McGregor vs. Dustin Poirier was the place to be Saturday night. The star-studded event drew massive attention on social media especially with President Trump making a grand entrance to the sold-out arena. Upon Trump’s arrival alongside UFC President Dana White, the crowd went wild and broke out in chants, “USA USA.” One viral moment captured on video shows actor-director Mel Gibson saluting the President in greeting as he walks by. The novelty of such an exchange was not lost on the public.

Shortly after, sour Twitter users who have too much time on their hands with too little senses of humor, dragged Gibson for having the audacity to show deference to a former President. Old accusations of antisemitism and racism were reprised to insult the Oscar-winner.

Weird how accusastions of bad behavior get dismissed by the MRC as "old" when they involve right-wingers. By contrast, the MRC is still attacking Dan Rather over his story on then-President George W. Bush in 2004 -- even older than the anti-Semitism and racism accusations against Gibson. No MRC employee who wants to keep his or her job will ever dismiss the Rather story as "old" and thus no longer worthy of attack.

NEW ARTICLE: CNS' Holy War on Joe Biden
Topic: CNSNews.com
The uber-Catholics who run CNSNews.com are all too eager to slam President Biden as insufficiently Catholic for supporting abortion rights in America. Read more >>

WND Videomaker Spreads False COVID Conspiracies
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Last fall, we caught WorldNetDaily video maker Daniel Joseph apparently arguing that a coronavirus vaccine would be the mark of the beast (though, since we have better things to do with our lives, we didn't watch his entire 90-minute-long video to learn the answer, though the fact he was asking it seemed to indicate he would be answering in the affirmative). In a July 30 video, which WND headlined "The mRNA vaccines are out for our blood -- literally," Joseph was at it again. This time, we actually broke down and watched the thing.

Joseph began with insisting that "if you take this vaccine, you could be seriously doing harm to yourself," invoking the idea that the vaccines used aborted fetal cell lines, and even if they weren't, "they have other stuff scriptually which is forbidden, which we're not even supposed to put in this holy temple of God." He then played a video of aCanadian doctor, Charles Hoffe, claiming that the vaccines that utilize messenger RNA cause blood cots. But actual medical experts say this isn't true. This was followed by a video of another doctor, Jane Ruby, on the show of podcaster Stew Peters -- who was recently banned from Twitter apparently over his false COVID fearmongering -- who purported to show images of blood cells being damaged in people who have been given the vaccine, which led to her pushing the claim that the vaccines contain graphene oxide, which has been discredited.

Joseph absolutely swallows all this disinformation, declaring that Lucifer is "going to go after the blood, he's going to go after the life of the flesh. And this entire thing -- I kid you not, this entire thing is Luciferian, all across the board, every aspect of this is Luciferian. This thing is literally covered in lies." What came next was atorrent of various bogus conspiracies , including the lie that the VAERS adverse effect reporting system is definitive proof that the vaccine is killing people and fearmongering about health workers going door-to-door offering vaccines.

By contrast, Joseph doesn't particularly bothered about the 600,000-plus Americans who have died from COVID: "While I do care that people are dying, I will never stomach that," and "we will need to care wher people are going, whether heaven or hell. Our concern needs to be for that." He spike of peopple giving into fear and intimidation even though he is the one spreading it.

He then touted the  Great Barrington Declartion, followed by a clip of serial COVID misinformer Peter McCullough promoting hydroxychloroquine as a COVID treatment and pushing conspiracy theories about why it hasn't been approved, as well as the discredited claim that mRNA vaccines generate spike proteins that cause blood clots.

Joseph's podcast is called "On the Corner Fringe," and that's exactly where he is vis-a-vis reality. Sadly, it's not a surprise that WND is giving such an egregious misinformer like Joseph a platform to spread his crazy, bogus conspriacy theories.

MRC Pushes Dishonest Narrative In Freaking Out Over Efforts To Curb COVID Misinformation
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center sure seems to love misinformation, as we've seen from its attempts to deliberately muddy the waters by trying to redefine the word into a subjective, politically charged word that is subject to partisan interpretation. -- otherwise, it wouldn't be fighting so hard against efforts to curb misinformation.

So when the Biden administration said it wanted to work with Facebook to crack down on disinformation abaout COVID vaccines, the MRC went into full freak-out mode. A July 15 post by Kayla Sargent screamed "CENSORED!" in its headline:

The Biden administration continued its rampage against what it deems to be "misinformation" about COVID-19. White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced that the administration is “flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation” to blatantly use Big Tech to censor Americans.

This was the second day in a row where Psaki admitted the administration is either considering or taking action against free speech. Today surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy declared he was “urging all Americans to help slow the spread of health misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.” Murthy warned in a massive advisory that such “health misinformation is a serious threat to public health.”

Psaki followed that up with the fact that the Surgeon General’s Office is “flagging posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.” She said the administration has a four-point plan to restrict COVID-19 content it didn’t agree with.

She explained that, “there's also proposed changes that we have made to social media platforms, including Facebook, and those specifically are four key steps.” Those included publicly sharing the impact of “misinformation”; “a robust enforcement strategy”; “faster action against harmful posts”; and promoting “quality information sources.”

Note Sargent's dishonest framing. It's not the White House wanting to address clear, unambiguous misinformation, according to her -- it's "what it deems to be 'misinformation'" and "content it didn’t agree with." She refused to concede that the White House "didn’t agree with" that content because it's lies and misinformation.

Sargent also served as a stenographer for her boss: "Media Research Center founder and president L. Brent Bozell III warned how dangerous the Biden plan really was: 'Biden’s team is trying to collude with Facebook to censor the whole internet. If you’re not scared yet, you should be.'" What a dumb statement: Facebook can't "censor the whole internet," it can only address content on Facebook.

Neither Sargent nor Bozell explained why right-wingers must have the right to spread lies and misinformation without consequences.

Curtis Houck pushed the narrative the next day by complaining about the Biden administration's purported "collusion with Facebook and the rest of Big Tech to crack down on dissent (under the guise of fighting misinformation about coronavirus vaccines)." Houck offered no evidence that any sort of "dissent" was being considered, nor did he explain how lies and misinformation could be considered  "dissent." A July 16 post by Autumn Johnson on the subject put "misinformation" in scare quotes.

When President Biden said misinformation on Facebook was "killing people," the MRC took offense, beause it hates Biden even more than social media. Tim Graham whined:

The president suggested Facebook’s a pile of killers, and on Friday night, the pro-Biden networks just blandly passed it along. Facebook had a statement denying they were killers, but there was zero political rebuttal or fact-checking.

Naturally, NBC was the most expansive. Reporter Gabe Gutierrez did note "Late today, Facebook fired back, saying it will not be distracted by accusations which aren't supported by the facts." The social-media sites offered statistics on how much COVID "misinformation" they removed -- which probably includes anything on the theory that the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.

Needless to say, Graham offered no evidence that was the case.

Sargent returned to come to further defense of Facebook against Biden arguing that Biden should have had Facebook's back because the company allegedly gave most of its politial donations to Democrats:

The Biden administration has appeared to turn its back on Facebook after the platform worked hard to censor the American people for the last year and a half.

Facebook VP of Integrity Guy Rosen whined about the Biden administration’s rampage over so-called misinformation about COVID-19 in a blog post. However, Facebook has very little room to complain, as the company and its subsidiaries donated nearly eight times more money to Democrats than Republicans in the 2020 election cycle.

But Sargent was misleading about the political donations. As she later noted, the donations she was citing came from not onbly the company but also "its employees and its affiliates," lumping individual employee donations with the company.

She also invoked a conspiracy theory by claiming that "a Facebook-funded organization may have helped swing the election in Arizona to then-candidate Joe Biden," linking back to a March post on the issue citing a report from the right-wing Foundation for Government Accountability. In fact, the foundation funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg made money available to all election agencies, which was used for various purposes, and even the FGA report offered no substantive evidence the money was used for partisan purposes, let alone that alleged get-out-the-vote efforts "influenced voter turnout in favor of Democrats," let alone swung the state for Biden.

Sargent also huffed that "Rosen also took the opportunity to brag about the platform’s constant censorship," adding that "Facebook could, alternatively, have upheld freedom of speech on its platform, but it chose to censor content that it disagreed with instead."Again, she did not explain why she has equated lies and misinformation with "dissent."

Charlotte Hazard went fully down the rabbit hole in a July 19 post, weirdly blaming Biden for lower than expected COVID vaccination rates despite the fact that one of the groups with the most resistance to getting vaccinated is Republican men:

On Friday, desperate to deflect blame from his administration's failure to increase vaccination rates across the country, President Biden recklessly accused Facebook of “killing people” due to the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines on various social media platforms. On Monday, MSNBC's Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski rushed to agree with the President's attempted scapegoating.

[...]

Brzezinski immediately sided with Biden and claimed that Facebook was to blame for the country not meeting the administration's vaccination goal by the 4th of July. “You know what? Facebook is definitely a part of the reason the goal was not mixed,” said Brzezinski, who added: “And Facebook is a large reason why Trump's lies have festered across this country.”

Staying on the corporate narrative, Hazard falsely claimed that Brzezinski's endorsement of efforts to stop disinformation meant she actually said that "social media companies should censor speech they don’t like," further misleading that "It’s so great that the media is pro-censorship and is siding with the President that Facebook is 'killing people.'"

In a July 20 post, Sargent portrayed the White House's clarification on what exactly it's doing with Facebook as a "FLIP-FLOP" (her all-caps, not ours), making sure to use the biased "so-called 'misinformation' terminology. concluded by ranting: "The White House could encourage free speech online. Instead, it has continually changed its tune and endangered the free speech of Americans. Even if the administration has 'not asked Facebook to block any individual posts,' as Psaki claimed, the fact remains that the Biden administration has no qualms about censoring the speech of its citizens."

Of course, she failed to explain how lies and misinformation -- which typically lack legal defenses or First Amendment protection -- are "free speech."

CNS' Hot Pestering Intern Summer, Round 7
Topic: CNSNews.com

The next round of CNS' interns pestering members of Congress with gotcha questions designed to forward right-wing narratives focused on the infrastructure bill, asking them: "Will you read all 2,702 pages of the infrastructure bill before voting on it?" Some senators got this follow-up question: "And do you believe any of your colleagues will read all pages before voting?" But this approach may not have  worked out for CNS narrative-wise as much as it would have liked.

The first victim was Republican Ted Cruz, who responded by ranting, "Nope, I’m going to vote no, and I don’t need to read 2,700 pages to know why I’m going to vote no."CNS may have thought that this showed Cruz as being opposed to more spending -- the intern framed it as Cruz having "expressed his concern over how the bills would affect the current and future state of the nation’s economy" -- but it instead showed him to be a kneejerk right-winger who has no interest in reaching common ground to help Americans and will oppose anything Democrats propose simply because Democrats proposed it.

As usual, there were numerous other senatorial targets, most of whom pointed out that they have staff members who read those bills:

• Roger Wicker (R)
• Bob Casey (D)
• Mike Rounds (R)
• Sheldon Whitehouse (D)
• Mike Braun (R)
• Ron Johnson (R)
• James Lankford, Joni Ernst and Mike Crapo (R)
• Richard Shelby (R)
• Dick Durbin (D)
• Marco Rubio (R)
• John Kennedy (R)
• Dianne Feinstein (D)
• Josh Hawley (R)
• Richard Blumenthal (D)
• Roy Blunt (R)
• Chuck Grassley (R)
• Steve Daines (R)
• Tammy Baldwin (D)
• Pat Toomey (R)
• Chris Van Hollen (D), Raphael Warnock (D) and Jerry Moran (R)
• Brian Schatz (D)
• Joe Manchin (D)
• Tom Carper (D)
• John Boozman (R), Tim Kaine (D) and Bill Cassidy (R)
  

The question is disingenuous because lengthy bills have always been a part of legislating on the federal level, members of Congress are busy enough that they can't possibly read every single piece of legislation that goes through Congress, and they have staffs to do the reading and related research that they don't have time to do. CNS knows all this -- but the narrative is more important than the truth, which is why the interns were sent out to badger senators with it.

MRC Backs 'Leftist' Anti-Vaxxers To Push 'Censorship' Narrative
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's penchant for embracing the most fringe, extreme figures to further its highly flawed victimization narrative of "censorship" by "Big Tech" even extends to a group it can (falsely) portray as "liberal."

Under a "Fight for Free Speech" headline, Kayla Sargent wrote on May 6:

An alleged “vaccine safety” organization has fought to have its case against Facebook censorship heard in court. 

The Children’s Health Defense (CHD) appeared in court May 5 to fight a motion to dismiss its lawsuit against Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg and several of the platform’s fact-checkers for censorship. San Francisco, California Senior District Judge Susan Illston heard arguments from Facebook and CHD as to whether the lawsuit should be dismissed. “A ruling is expected soon,” according to the release on PR Newswire.  

CHD’s complaint centered around an alleged First Amendment violation. The organization argued: “This is a case about how an officer and an agency within the U.S. Government ‘privatized’ the First Amendment by teaming up with Facebook to censor speech which, under the Bill of Rights, the Government cannot censor.”

Sargent repeated CHD's claims that "Facebook’s fact-checking does not accurately describe the website’s content" -- then admitted it has made false claims, while also trying to tag the group as liberal because of its "leftist" founder:

CHD was established by its leftist president, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The organization falsely claimed on its website that “vaccines can and do cause injuries including autism and many other adverse health outcomes.” It also claimed that 5G technology “poses health risks, encourages debris-generating satellite collisions, causes depletion of the ozone layer by the huge number of launches planned and is a major factor in the weaponization of space.”

But no mainstream liberals endorse Kennedy and CHD -- indeed, even Kennedy's relatives have renounced his anti-vaxxer activism. So it's wrong for Sargent to suggest he's a mainstream "leftist"when he has no consitituency there.

Why has Sargent embraced a group even she admits spreads falsehoods?Because she can exploit it for the MRC's narrative. She went on to laughably declare: "Facebook has the power to choose who can participate in debate in the public square." If Facebook were the only way to participate in the public square, she might have a point -- but there are myriad ways to participate in the public square without Facebook. And she's also forwarding the argument that Facebook, as a private company, has no right to have terms of service for its users, let alone be able to enforce them.

Sadly for Sargent, CHD's lawsuit failed. She lamented in a June 30 post:

In a second major legal win for Facebook this week, a federal judge dismissed another lawsuit that would have held Facebook accountable for censoring content it disagreed with.

California Senior District Judge Susan Illston dismissed the leftist Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD) lawsuit against Facebook. CHD had alleged that Facebook violated the First and Fifth Amendments by “labeling CHD’s content ‘False Information,’ and taking other steps to effectively to censor or block content from users,” according to the ruling.

Illston ruled that Facebook’s application of fact-check labels to CHD’s page did not violate the First Amendment because the government did not direct Facebook to do so. “CHD does not allege that Schiff (or anyone from the government) directed Facebook or Zuckerberg to take any specific action with regard to CHD or its Facebook page,” the ruling explained.

She copied-and-pasted the paragraph about Kennedy being "leftist" and CHD making false claims, which would seem to also undermine the lawsuit.

Apparently, Sargent believes that "free speech" means never having to be held accountable for falsehoods and misinformation -- a theory that can't be found anywhere in the First Amendment. But she's advanced her employer's narrative, even if she had to effectively endorse another extremist to do it.

CHD got even more narrative-advancing love in a July 23 post by Gabriela Pariseau:

YouTube applied its so-called “medical misinformation” policy more broadly than ever when the platform removed and then later restored content criticizing laws allowing 11-year-olds to be vaccinated without parental consent.

The platform removed an interview that Family Research Council President Tony Perkins had with liberal anti-vax group Children’s Health Defense (CHD) President Mary Holland.The two discussed a recent law bypassing parental consent for vaccines in Washington, D.C. FRC’s legislative affiliate FRC Action reported that YouTube flagged the video for allegedly spreading “‘medical misinformation.’” “‘[T]ech giants, like YouTube, are allowing social media to be weaponized by the Left to eliminate all counter views,’ Perkins said in a press release. 

Holland told Perkins that CHD filed a lawsuit against the city for its Minor Consent for Vaccinations Amendment Act of 2020. The law, Perkins summarized, allows 11-year-old children and older to receive federally recommended vaccines "without parental knowledge or consent if the health care provider believes the [minor] is capable of meeting the informed consent standard."

Again: CHD is not a "liberal" group. Its anti-vaxxer agenda happened to cross over with right-wing narratives claiming parents have total control over their children and that they must not be allowed to do anything without parental consent, even when those parents are potentially harming the child by denying them vaccines.

Pariseau omitted the fact that Perkins and Holland falsely fearmongered over COVID vaccines, with Holland falsely claiming they have caused 9,000 deaths and ranting that "your child could die" from the vaccine, neither of which Perkins pushed back against  -- which would seem to be the actual reason the video may have been removed.

Holland also ranted against HPV vaccines and the alleged need for religious objections to getting one. If you'll recall, the MRC went anti-vaxxer on HPV vaccines because they would purportedly turn children promiscuous.

How Has WND Columnist Brown Pretended He Doesn't Hate LGBTQ People Now?
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily columnist Michael Brown has a history of bashing the LGBTQ community while laughably pretending he's not doing so, or that he's doing so out of love. Let's take a look at how that has manifested itself lately.

In his May 19 column, he "lovingly" attacks Demi Lovato over her declaration that she's nonbinary:

I do not write this to be cruel or judgmental. And I certainly don't want to hurt anyone. To the contrary, I want to help. But I do write with a sense of urgency, both to the nation and to confused individuals like celebrity Demi Lovato, the latest to identify as non-binary and to want to be called "they."

To the nation, I say this: Wake up! We are losing touch with reality and engaging in dangerous semantic and ideological games. Worse still, we are not providing the real help that struggling people need.

To Demi Lovato, I say this: You are not non-binary, existing outside the realm of male or female. You are a confused woman needing help from the inside out. That's why I will not refer to you as "they." And I truly say this in love.

Even as he insisted that "scorn or mockery" were "the furthest thing from my mind," he was quick to make a political, anti-LGBTQ attack: "America, wake up. We are descending rapidly into cultural madness." That's not love, Michael -- that's hate.

Brown spent his May 24 column cheering how "The morally based, rationally grounded resistance is rising. More and more people are saying enough is enough." And how was that accomplished: by attacking transgender athletes, cheering that a few people are regretting their transition, among other anti-transgender attacks. At the same time, he called for "greater compassion for those who do struggle" -- something he apparently doesn't have.

In his June 4 column, Brown ranted about "LGBTQ indoctrination," declaring that "that LGBTQ+ activism will not grow by biological replication, in other words, by having large families (which is a major factor in the worldwide growth of the more conservative branches of Islam, Judaism and Christianity). Instead, it will grow by ideological indoctrination, seeking to change hearts and minds, thereby encouraging more people to affirm, embrace, or explore non-heterosexual identities and practices." It's apparently a bad thing in Brown's eyes that some people fail to be heterosexual.

Brown devoted his July 2 column to trying to square the circle of his rhetoric -- spewing hate at LGBTQ people while simultaneously claiming to love them. But he can't quite do it, claiming he's only opposed to "gay activism" and not gay people. Still, he can't pull it off, such as in this section:

I've also interacted with lesbian moms who seem as committed to their children as any heterosexual mother I know. And I've heard them explain why they live clean lives and seek to raise their children with good morals.

Of course, I grieve for these children, since they are being deprived of having their fathers in their lives.

But I say this to emphasize that not every gay person is consciously thumbing his nose at God and morality. For me, that is all the more reason to pray for them with a broken heart rather than to put on some kind of twisted, self-righteous display by calling them the worst of names and leveling every imaginable insult against them.

[...]

Yet, as much as my heart goes out to those who feel that same-sex attraction is as natural for them as heterosexual attraction is for me, I cannot for a second affirm the broader goals of the LGBTQ+ agenda.

Yet he never explains what, exactly, is this "agenda" and while he opposes it -- or why he only feels pity for anyone who's not as heterosexual as he is. He concluded his column with more of his confused logic:

One day it was, "Just allow us to be who we are in public." The next day it was, "You need to give our relationships legal recognition." Then, "You need to celebrate our relationships." Now, it's, "You will suffer serious consequences if you do not affirm and celebrate every aspect of LGBTQ+ pride."

One day it was, "You need to understand the bullying we endured as kids." The next day, it's drag queens shaking their hips for toddlers and straight kids being told to keep their views to themselves in middle school.

One day it was, "We will not be silenced." The next day it was, "All opposition to our agenda must be silenced."

One day it was, "Don't shame a boy who is not a macho jock." The next day it was, "A 15-year-old boy will be sharing the bathroom and locker room with your daughter and competing against her in sports."

And on and on it goes.

Indeed, we are still only 52 years removed from Stonewall and just six years removed from Obergefell, yet the cultural descent becomes more rapid by the month.

That's why I will stand against the bullying and mistreatment of those who identify as LGBTQ, I will call for their equal treatment under the law, and on an interpersonal level, I will show love and grace and kindness. Anything less than that would be a denial of my faith and a rejection of love for my neighbor.

At the same time, I will stand against LGBTQ activism and theology. Anything less than that would be denial of my faith and a rejection of love for my neighbor.

Brown doesn't seem to realize that his purported defense of LGBTQ people while being vehemently opposed to their purported "agenda" is really just another form of bullying and mistreatment.He also doesn't seem to realize that his version of what he claims is the ultimate goal of LGBTQ activists is the flip side of how LGBTQ people have been treated for millennia.

There's no reason to believe Brown genuinely sees them as real people and not merely reclamation projects who must be converted to his brand of Christianity.

As if to hammer home the point that he can't square that circle, Brown used his July 7 column to repeat a anti-LGBTQ story: "Recently, a man who identifies as a woman shocked patrons at a local spa when he exposed himself to the women and girls there. This led to protests condemning his behavior as well as defending his "rights," with one protest turning violent thanks to the presence of Antifa." But as we've documented, that incident appears to have been a hoax. While Brown was eager to hype the alleged presence of antifa at protests surrounding the incident, he didn't mention that the right-wing Proud Boys thugs were also protesting.

Nevertheless, Brown seized on the purported incident to fearmonger about the "trajectory" things are allegedly taking:

So, the trajectory of which I am speaking is not that there will suddenly be an epidemic of biological males who claim to be females exposing themselves to women and girls. (Sadly, this has happened in the past, and it's another reason why biological males should not have access to women's bathrooms and locker rooms and the like.)

The trajectory of which I speak is the trajectory of social madness, resulting in headlines like this, from the Daily Mail: "Violent clashes break out in L.A. between rival protesters after viral video showed customer complaining about transgender woman exposing their penis to children in upmarket spa's steam room."

Just look at this four-word phrase: "woman exposing their penis" (and yes, never forget that he did this in the presence of girls). What kind of madness is this?

[...]

The reality – yes, let's focus on reality – is that something is terribly wrong with the direction our society is going. If we don't make a very serious about face, our children and their children will pay dearly.

Will we let this happen on our watch?

This overwrought, hateful response is presumably what the apparently hoaxsters wanted to provoke, and Brown happily obliged. Does this sound like a person who genuinely cares about the LGBTQ community as people?

 

MRC Psaki- (And Biden-, and Jean-Pierre-) Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch
Topic: Media Research Center

Unsurprisingly, the Media Research Center is part of the right-wing anti-mask movement because personal inconveniences are more important than working toward the common good of slowing the spread of COVID. Curtis Houck embodied that in yet another Jen Psaki trash-fest regarding her July 27 White House press briefing:

When there’s a White House press briefing in which the press corps doesn’t appear friendly with the Biden administration, you know it was a tough day at the office. Tuesday’s briefing was one of those rare days as Fox’s Peter Doocy was joined by over a half dozen colleagues in asking tough questions Press Secretary Jen Psaki refused to answer about the return of masks, even for vaccinated Americans.

The Associated Press’s Alexandra Jaffe didn’t wait for Doocy, leading off the Q&A by wondering “how will the White House get Americans to start wearing masks when they’ve gone for more than two months without them,” and if it was a mistake to say July 4 all but marked our “independence” from the virus.

After Psaki insisted we must respect CDC scientists and remember that we’re living in unprecedented times, Jaffe followed up by questioning whether the back-and-forth was “wise...considering [this] could make it tougher for Americans to take” the pandemic “seriously.”

Psaki’s answer undermined the edict to mask up, insisting that everyone should get vaccinated to be “protected from serious illness or hospitalization” while the government does what’s best “to protect more people and save more lives.”

As Mediaite's Tommy Christopher noted, this was little more than a gotcha session over masks -- but since this feeds into right-wing narratives, Houck clearly approved.

Houck was able to resume his Peter Doocy man-crushing for the July 29 briefing:

When it seemed like only a few of his colleagues were still outraged at the Biden administration’s decision to bring back indoor masking for much of the country (compared to with White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and President Biden over the regime’s inconsistent (and arguably misleading) messaging masks. 

And in the case of the exchange with President, Doocy’s fact-checking and questioning brought out the angry Biden (as opposed to the forgetful or whispering Biden).

Houck accused Jean-Pierre -- whom he had previously denigrated as an apparent diversity hire -- of offering "word salad," despite his never objecting when his beloved Kayleigh McEnany did so. He then gushed over Doocy's ambushing Biden on the mask issue:

Fast-forward to the press conference and Doocy repeatedly tried to shout a question to Biden, but unsurprisingly, he wasn’t interested.

But as Biden walked away, Doocy caught his attention: “Mr. President you said if you were fully vaccinated, you would no longer need to wear a mask?”

Doocy tried to say more, but Biden angrily cut him off with this false claim: “No, I didn't say that.”

Doocy hit back with, “you did,” but Biden realized mid-thought he had been caught: “I said if fully vaccinated in an area where you do not have — well, let me clarify that.”

This gave Doocy an opening: “In May, you made it sound like a vaccine was the ticket to losing masks forever.”

The President replied that his statement was “true at the time” as he believed the vaccination rates would be higher than they are now and he didn’t know about the Delta variant.

As Christopher also pointed out -- but Houck didn't -- this exchange came after Biden praised Fox News for getting on board the pro-vaccination bandwagon, and that Biden's statements was not as false as Houck and Doocy want you to think it was, because "the whole reason the mask guidance has changed is that people aren’t getting vaccinated."

For thet July 30 briefing, Houck decided that because the non-right-wing media had come to understand that  the Delta variant has changed the mask game, it was some kind of "liberal media" plot:

After a week that consisted of vehement pushback against the Biden administration’s new mask edict and threats of bringing back crippling Covid restrictions, the liberal media decided on Friday to fall in line during the White House press briefing with only Fox News’s Peter Doocy remaining skeptical about this sudden change.

And on the misinformation front, numerous reporters parroted Biden administration line of using a Covid outbreak earlier this month in Provincetown, Massachusetts to justify masking and other mitigation measures when, in reality, that highly debaucherous event isn’t representative of the American populace.

This is a homophobic smear; Houck is trying to blame the outbreak on filthy LGBT people who were allegedly in Provincetown for a "bear week" event. In fact, the study covered many tourists in Provincetown over a longer period than that particular event, and it turned out that three-fourths of those who tested postive for COVID were fully vaccinated -- meaning that the people in Provincetown are much more "representative of the American populace" than Houck woiuld like to admit. Nevertheless, Houck reveled in pushing the homophobic smears:

For the unaccustomed, “bears” could be defined as larger, masculine gay men with plenty of hair. And “Bear Week” in the Bay State has a reputation of involving plenty of poor life choices, including plenty of making out and gay sex.

But sure, let’s dictate public health policy off of that in the same way we’d make changes based on the inside of a frat on a Saturday night or hotel rooms during spring break in Florida.

Yes, Houck really thinks failure to be heterosexual is a "poor life choice."

ConWeb Treats Satirical Pro-LGBT Video As Deadly Serious
Topic: The ConWeb

The ConWeb -- particularly the Media Research Center -- loves to complain when right-wing "satire" is treated as fact and fact-checked accordingly (because right-wingers tend to think that what they read at the Babylon Bee is the truth and promote it as such). But a  piece of liberal satire that conforms with what conservatives believe about liberals gets treated as deadly serious.

Such is the case with a video released by the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus last month that mocks anti-LGBT right-wingers with lyrics like "We'll convert your children/Happens bit by bit/Quietly and subtlely/And you will barely notice it." The MRC's Gabriel Hays -- who absolutely hates LGBT people -- had a massive homohobic meltdown over the video, declaring it to be "grotesque" and a manifesto for the LGBT movement:

Sure, one could guess that this was going to be more LGBTQ propaganda. But viewers probably had no idea how shameful and nefarious the song was going to be.

One young, smug gay entertainer began singing: “You think we’re sinful. You fight against our rights, you say we all lead lives you can’t respect. But you’re just frightened, you think that we’ll corrupt your kids, if our agenda goes unchecked.”

(Though, in our defense, we have seen a Pride month this year featuring LGBTQ propaganda aimed at kids and even toddlers, so it’s a legitimate concern.)

And, as if to validate that concern, the choir members segued into their song’s creepy chorus: “Fine — just this once, you’re correct. We’ll convert your children. Happens bit by bit. Quietly and suddenly, and you will barely notice it.” 

Oh really now? They’re not even trying to hide it anymore, are they? It seems this was the Pride Month where the mask truly slipped.

Hays concluded by ranting, "This is what the LGBTQ movement is doing and everyone needs to be aware." Yes, Gabe, we all need to be aware of how satire works, especially since you apparently aren't.

A WorldNetDaily article by Bob Unruh did seem to understand there was a bit of satire going on, acknowledging that "The messaging is cast in a light that portrays anyone with moral or biblical objections to homosexuality as being unfair and intolerant" -- given that they are, an accurate interpretation. But he repeated anti-LGBT groups' overly serious interpretations of the video and falsely called the "we coming for your children" lyric a "threat" in the headline.

Meanwhile, at the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com,  homophobic managing editor Michael W. Chapman called on equally homophobic religious-right activist Franklin Graham to denounce it and ignore the satire:

The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus posted a video last week about how they are "coming for your children," and will "convert" them, "bit by bit." In response, Christian leader Franklin Graham said they were proclaiming the "truth about" their agenda, which is a real "threat" to families and society.

In a July 10 post on Facebook, Rev. Graham wrote, "This gay group says they're 'coming for your children' -- and they’re telling the truth about it. We knew it, but I’m surprised they admitted it."

The video was pulled after threats of violence and doxxing came in, which Graham seems pretty cool with:

"After outrage from viewers on YouTube, the group took the video down, and tried to say it was an attempt at some kind of humor," said Graham.  "I don’t see any humor, and neither do a lot of other parents and grandparents, but I see a driving agenda and a threat that is real."

Apparently, Chapman and Graham are quite OK with LGBT people being harmed or killed because of who they are. They probably see much more humor in that.

CNS Can't Stop Lazily Attacking Rob Reiner As 'Meathead'
Topic: CNSNews.com

Like its Media Research Center parent, CNSNews.com loves to lazily dismiss any political opinions expressed by director Rob Reiner by associating him with Mike Stivic -- who was nicknamed "Meathead" by bigoted lead character Archie Bunker -- the role he played on "All In The Family" 50 years ago and hasn't played since 1978. It hasn't stopped doing so over the past year, even though Reiner has done many more things in the ensuing 40-plus years.

An August 2020 article by Craig Bannister put "Meathead" in the headline and described Reiner as a "producer and left-wing activist" who "starred as a character nicknamed “Meathead” in the iconic sitcom 'All in the Family.'" In an October 2020 article, Bannister described Reiner as a "political activist and Filmmaker" but surprisingly did not mention his "All In The Family" role.

An anonymously written Jan. 18 article, complaining that Reiner called Donald Trump a "lifetime criminal," described Reiner as having "played Archie Bunker’s son-in-law (“Meathead”) on “All in the Family” and went on to become a Hollywood movie director" and illustrated it with a black-and-white still shot of Reiner and Carroll O'Connor, who played Archie Bunker, in a scene from "All In The Family" -- then irrelevantly added that "Reiner explained in a 2012 interview with the Huffington Post that he does not practice a religion." The anonymous writer didn't mention that Trump doesn't practice a religion either.

A Jan. 28 article by Bannister called Reiner a "liberal Filmmaker" (though he didn't explain why he capitalized "filmmaker") but didn't mention "Meathead" as he complained that Trump's second impeachment trial was a choice between democracy and racism. Bannister repeated the "liberal Filmmaker" tag in a Feb. 1 post unhappy that Reiner said that Trump "committed the single worst Crime against Democracy in our Nation’s history."

An anonymously written Feb. 22 post about Reiner's comments on the death of Rush Limbaugh, however, returned "Meathead" to the headline and described Reiner as "the actor who played Archie Bunker’s son-in-law Meathead on 'All in the Family,'" but illustrated the article with a file photo of Reiner with Hillary Clinton.

In an April 14 article complaining that Reiner called Republicans "secessionists" who "stand for nothing but White Nationalism." Bannister described him as a "liberal activist and Hollywood producer." But an anonymously written July 21 article calling Trump a "criminal sociopath" returned to describing Reiner as having "played the son-in-law of Archie Bunker on 'All in the Family'"and was illustrated with another "All in the Family" file photo.

It appears CNS is still having issues separating an actor from a role he hasn't played in more than 40 years.

MRC Gushes Over Trump Social Media Lawsuit, Offers To Help
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center alsmost couldn't contain itself when Donald Trump sued the social media platforms that suspended him, as Kayla Sargent demonstrated in a July 7 item under the headline "SEE YOU IN COURT!":

Big Tech corporations have a notorious history of silencing conservatives on social media platforms, but their tyrannical practice of censoring opinions that they disagree with may come back to haunt them. Former President Donald Trump has decided to fight back and take legal action against the Big Tech platforms that banned him earlier in the year.

Trump announced that he would file lawsuits against Facebook, Google and Twitter, as well as their top executives Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and Jack Dorsey at a July 7 press conference. “We’re asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to order an immediate halt to social media companies’ illegal, shameful censorship of the American people,” Trump said in the press conference.  

Trump discussed the actions the lawsuit would ask the court to take. He said that the lawsuit “seeks injunctive relief” and is “asking the court to impose punitive damages on these social media giants.” Trump stated further: “In the end, I am confident that we will achieve a historic victory for American freedom, and at the same time, freedom of speech.”

Sargent also repeated a couple of old MRC chestnuts in claiming that "Big Tech’s vendetta against Trump dates back several years. The first was the misleading assertion that "Twitter censored Trump 625 times between May 31, 2018, and Jan. 4, 2021, before he was kicked off the platform. ... Twitter did not censor President Joe Biden at all during the same period of time." The more accurate way to say it is that Trump violated Twitter's terms of service 625 times while Biden did not violate them at all. Sargent also declared that "Trump was also banned from at least nine other platforms after he called for 'peace' following the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol" -- a lie that the MRC has pushed for months; calling for peace had nothing whatsoever to do with his suspension.

The next day, Sargent gushed further over Trump's Wall Street Journal op-ed explaning why he filed the lawsuit:

Big Tech has made a habit out of silencing conservatives for too long, but former President Donald Trump decided to fight back, launching lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter and Google. 

Trump put Big Tech on blast in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal. He described the internet as “the new public square.” And the former president called out Big Tech companies for being “increasingly brazen and shameless in censoring and discriminating against ideas, information and people on social media—banning users, deplatforming organizations, and aggressively blocking the free flow of information on which our democracy depends.” 

Trump’s class action lawsuits against Big Tech could help restore free speech rights of Americans. “One of the gravest threats to our democracy today is a powerful group of Big Tech corporations that have teamed up with government to censor the free speech of the American people,” wrote Trump. “This is not only wrong—it is unconstitutional. To restore free speech for myself and for every American, I am suing Big Tech to stop it.”

No mention, of course, of any criticism of Trump's lawsuit -- particularly his nonsensical claim that social media companies violated the Constitution in suspending him; as one critic noted, "this is the former President of the United States arguing that private companies violated HIS 1st Amendment rights by conspiring with the government HE LED AT THE TIME to deplatform him." Others have noted, where Sargent didn't, that Republicans are using Trump's lawsuit to raise money, making the whole venture look more than a little grifty. Sargent also copied-and-pasted her bogus claims about Twitter having "censored" Trump 625 times and that he was suspended for calling for peace over the Capitol riot he helped instigate.

Autumn Johnson was boldly shilling for Trump and his lawsuit in a July 9 post:

Members of the class-action lawsuit filed by former President Donald Trump are looking for stories from other social media users who have had their content censored by Big Tech companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google.

An Instagram post by Austen Fletcher, who is involved in the suit, asked users to post about their experiences with Big Tech censorship. The post had over 15,000 likes and 3,500 comments on its first day.

“Have you been banned, censored, or shadowbanned by Big Tech?” the post reads. “Comment your story below.”

“This is not a drill! Tell me your story below,” the caption adds. “This class action lawsuit is about YOU, the people. If you’ve been shadowbanned, censored, or deleted off from any of your social media platforms tell us about it in the comments. BE SPECIFIC! I think we will have thousands upon thousands of examples! This will be the largest class action lawsuit in this country’s history!”

And wouldn't you know it, the MRC is eager to help out by serving up examples, as Sargent explained in a July 14 post:

Big Tech’s war against conservative voices has reached new heights. But MRC Free Speech America’s CensorTrack team has exposed the left’s  online censorship by amassing 2,500 individual cases to hold Big Tech accountable. 

The CensorTrack database has cataloged 2,500 cases of Big Tech silencing conservatives online since March 2020. In that time, Big Tech has booted a sitting president, silenced members of the free press like the New York Post for its reporting on Hunter Biden and shut down free speech-oriented platforms like Parler.

Twitter censored and Facebook suppressed a story from the New York Post that claimed to expose the alleged corrupt dealings of now-President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in Ukraine. Not only did Twitter ban users from posting the link to the story, but it also locked the Post’s account for 17 days. A post-election poll conducted by MRC found that 36 percent of Biden voters were not aware of the story, and 4.6 percent would not have voted for him if they had known about the scandal, which could have swung the outcome of the election.

Sargent didn't mention that poll was conducted for the MRC by Trump's pollster, so there's no reason to trust its accuracy, or that the pro-Trump New York Post deserves the benefit of the doubt for its dubious October surprise about Hunter Biden. She did, however, repeat once again the bogus assertion that Trump was suspended for calling for peace.

The same day, Alexander Hall promoted a Wall Street Journal op-ed championing Trump's lawsuit by Vivek Ramaswamy, whom Hall obliquely identifies only as a "Philanthropy Roundtable board member," though he's actually a right-wing activist.

Casey Ryan touted the success of this effort in a Aug. 5 post:

Former President Donald Trump and everyday Americans are now piling on Big Tech for their egregious acts of censorship. Trump has amended his lawsuits against Big Tech corporations and executives to include comments from what appears to be a huge grassroots army of 65,000 Americans.

The nonprofit America First Policy Institute (AFPI) announced that Trump’s amended complaints were filed in late July. Trump said that he launched his lawsuits against Big Tech “in conjunction” with the AFPI in an op-ed that he recently wrote for The Wall Street Journal.

The organization explained that it allowed people to submit examples of how Big Tech has censored them and that 65,000 Americans submitted their stories. “According to the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), Trump’s July 7 lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter, and Google is adding ‘additional censorship experiences’ from some of the nearly 65,000 people who submitted them to the institute,” The Epoch Times reported.

How many of those were supplied by the MRC? Ryan doesn't say. Perhaps he should have, so that we can see the extent that the MRC is playing partisan politics -- and pushing right-wing victimhood.

WND Gets On GETTR, Hides Its Extremism And Insecurity
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily proudly declared in an anonymously written July 15 article:

In just 11 days, the new social media site GETTR already has 1.5 million users – and WND is one of the news sites now posting its best stories and commentaries.

The platform's CEO is former Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller, and it has gained quick traction among supporters of the 45th president.

According to the Washington Examiner, a recent poll found that two-thirds of Republicans who have heard of GETTR are either on the site already or planning to sign up.

[...]

Launched on the Fourth of July, GETTR is one of the leading new social media sites pledging to counter Twitter and Facebook by promising to be a place where free thought and freedom of speech are honored.

[...]

As one of the first news sites to be flagged and shadow banned by Facebook and victimized by Google's biased search algorithms, WND is pleased to join the GETTR community. Sign up at GETTR.com and then be sure to follow WNDNews.

What you won't hear much about at WND, however, is all the problems WND has had with security and extremist content. A week before this announcement, WND did publish an article noting that GETTR had been "attacked by hackers" -- bnut even that article didn't cover the full extent of GETTR's early problems, which -- as we've noted -- also included security issues, typos on the app store pages for the app, and allowing a "Hitler" account.

Also, it turns out that that early user number WND touted was a lie. According to a report from the Stanford Internet Observatory Cyber Policy Center (h/t Wonkette),  GETTR didnt' actually reach 1.5 million users until the first week of August. In addition, not only is GETTR filled with pornography, Islamic terrorists have accounts there and post videos of beheadings. WND has reported on exactly none of this.

There's the "free speech" website you wanted, WND. Enjoy!

NEW ARTICLE: Crasser With Crowder
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center supports right-wing "comedian" Steven Crowder's vicious homophobia and hate-filled attacks because they tend to get him suspended from social media, which gives the MRC a chance to further its "victim" narrative. Read more >>

CNS Mildly Fearmongers Over Door-To-Door Vaccines
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com's coverage of the Biden administration's efforts to offer COVID vaccines door-to-door didn't reach the fearmongering heights of WorldNetDaily, but it had its moments of unfairness and a twinge of fear. Susan Jones set the mildly ominous tone in a July 8 article:

Two days ago, President Joe Biden announced that his administration's vaccination push may come right to your front door:

“Now we need to go community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, and oftimes door-to-door, literally knocking on doors to get help to the remaining people protected from the virus,” the president said.

The door-to-door plan is getting pushback from some Americans, who see door-knocking as intrusive and none of the government's business. Oh yes it is our business, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told CNN on Thursday morning[.]

Later that day, Melanie Arter surprisingly gave White House press secretary Jen Psaki to shoot down right-wing fearmongering by pointing out that "the people who are going door-to-door to encourage people to get vaccinated are not federal government employees, but are community volunteers and clergy members" and that "the federal government does not have a database showing who has been vaccinated and who has not, and it has no plans to do so in the future." The next day, Arter gave even more uncritical space to Psaki, this time to shoot down fearmongering South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, who was ranting about "government vaccination teams showing up unannounced or unrequested at the door of ‘targeted’ homeowners or on their property":

When asked Friday to respond to McMaster and explain what is being done in the vaccination outreach, Psaki said, “Let me first say that the failure to provide accurate public health information, including the efficacy of vaccines and the accessibility of them to people across the country, including the people of South Carolina, is literally killing people, so maybe they should consider that.

[...]

>“It’s something that’s been going on since April, and it’s something where we’ve seen an impact in states where there are lower vaccination rates, so it is something that we will continue to work with local groups to do, and it’s a disservice to the country and to the people who may lose their lives, who may lose family members to provide inaccurate disinformation at a moment when we’re still fighting a pandemic,” Psaki added.

CNS then turned its attention to Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, whose state had seen low vaccination rates and an increasing COVID caseload. Two articles showed who was serious about health and who just wanted to fearmonger: Jones' article hyped Hutchinson blaming the government for "conservative" skepticism over vaccines, while Arter's article focused on Hutchinson claiming that the state already has "community organizations and churches going into people’s homes to make sure that those who are 'bedridden' have access to the vaccine."

CNS, however, couldn't stay away from McMaster's fearmongering -- despite already having given Psaki a chance to respond to it -- so a July 12 article by Julia Johnson hyped it again. Johnson waited until the 10th paragraph of her article to mention Psaki's criticism, then followed it up with McMaster's partisan response.

This was followed up with a July 14 column by Tony Perkins, who was in fiull fearmongering mode:

Most people were shocked when the president wanted to go door-to-door with his vaccine campaign -- but that's only the half of it. According to a Pentagon spokesman, the White House is also planning to go barracks to barracks -- requiring the men and women of our voluntary military to involuntarily surrender their freedom and take an unproven shot some of them don't want.

Actually, miilitary members are already mandated to have numerous vaccines. And Perkins' insistence that the COVID vaccine is "unproven" clashes with a rant later in his column, in which he whined about "2020's Democrats, who spent months sowing doubts about the shots, just because they were created while Donald Trump was president. At one point, Biden openly questioned whether a vaccine approved by Trump's agencies would be safe. They are the ones who stoked fears and undermined the scientific progress. Now, suddenly, they want to flip a switch, undo that damage, and blame all of the hesitancy on conservatives. You can't have it both ways. It was their politicking that put people's lives at risk. And now, their heavy-handedness threatens to do the same -- to our freedoms."

Perkins can't have it both ways either. The vaccine can't have been perfectly fine when Trump was promising it as a re-election ploy but suddenly "unproven" when the political party in the White House switched.

MRC Tries To Smear Texas Dems As 'Superspreaders' Because Of COVID Cases
Topic: Media Research Center

Here's more evidence that the Media Research Center stopped being about "media research" -- if it ever was -- and is all about pushing right-wing narratives no matter how false. We've already noted how the MRC's Curtis Houck promoted the Republican-approved talking point -- as ably regurgitated by Fox News' Peter Doocy -- that Texas Democrats making a trip to Washington, D.C., to break quorum in the state legislature to stop a a voting-restriction bill was a "superspreader event" because six of the 60 legislators -- who had all been vaccinated against coronavirus -- had tested positive for COVID. But Houck wasn't the only MRC writer to push this GOP-approved narrative.

Scott Whitlock made sure to put "SUPER SPREADER" in all caps in the headline of a July 19 post while complaining that non-right-wing media didn't cover this story to his satisfaction: "On Sunday night, the CBS Weekend News DIDN’T cover the super spreader Democrats. Instead, they touted the Texas voting rights legislation separately with NO mention of the Covid spike amongst the Democrats."

Houck made the RNC proud on July 21 when he repeated the narrative:

World News Tonight felt the need to defend the Lone Star State lawmakers by omitting them in a segment about the other D.C. cases.

Sensationalist anchor David Muir teased that the newscast would cover “fully vaccinated staffers from the White House to Nancy Pelosi's office, testing positive,” but when it came to conducting basic journalism, Muir and White House correspondent Rachel Scott didn’t see a need for that.

Muir later added in the lead-in to Scott: “And one more note on the virus tonight. In Washington tonight, some fully vaccinated staffers from the White House to Speaker Pelosi's office have now tested positive.”

Instead of spend the whole segment on why the superspreader happened, Scott never gave an explanation for how a Pelosi aide and White House official contracted the virus[.]

Houck again failed to mention the fact that the Texas legislators were fully vaccinated at as well.

The same day, Clay Waters whined about the New York Times pointing out how Republicans are more vaccine-hesitant than Democrats, huffing in reference to the Texas legislators that "a Democratic super-spreader event wasn’t identified as such."

Kathleen Krumhansl referred to  "Super-Spreading Texas Democrats" in a July 22 post attacking Spanish-language media for not smearing them the way she is:

Now that the publicity stunt by Texas Democratic lawmakers who fled to Washington, D.C. to boycott that state's election security laws backfired, with six of them testing positive for COVID-19, the Latino nets are doing their best to erase them.

After the news of the fiasco broke through, the previously heralded heroes and saviors of voting integrity and justice for both Univision and Telemundo somehow morphed into anonymous aides, officials and advisors to be referred to indirectly and in passing.

Watch as anchors and reporters from both networks save face for the reckless super-spreaders - –they exposed members of the Congress and the White House staff with the virus- who appear to be saved from any guilt by being “fully vaccinated”, as if that would make things any different[.]

The MRC is utterly hypocritical about this, of course. When it came to an actual superspreader event -- last September's Rose Garden introduction of Supreme Court judicial nominee Amy Comey Barrett by then-President Trump, where most attendees were unmasked (pre-vaccine) and after which several attendees, incuding Trump himself, came down with COVID -- the MRC didn't want to talk about it:

• Houck complained at the time that it was a "narrative" to point out the indisputable fact that few people wore masks, adding in an attempt at whataboutism: "While it’s admirable to stress masking-wearing and social distancing, CNN and the left writ large lost the chance to credibly lecture anyone on public health after having shown little to no issue with packed, should-to-shoulder Black Lives Matter marches and protests."
• Kristine Marsh also tried to downplay it by being outraged at a host on "The View" calling it the "Rose Garden massacre," insisting that just "a handful of people out of 150 present have tested positive for coronavirus," omitting the fact that among that "handful" were the president of the United States, his wife, aides and other politicians. She added: "Neither host seemed to understand that contracting a virus which the majority of people have recovered from, isn’t a death sentence."
• John Shannon groused that "in what felt like a strange combination of ESPN and murder-mystery, Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski constructed an in-depth play-by-play of events at the nomination ceremony for Judge Amy Coney Barrett at the White House, the “super-spreader” event that many in the media consider to be ground zero for many positive cases, including that of the President.
• Clay Waters unironically ranted that "The New York Times efficiently channeled the hypocritical left-wing rage over President Trump’s late-September Garden ceremony introducing his Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, which may have helped spread coronavirus among White House staff and others who have since tested positive."

In other words, just as hypocritical as the MRC's right-wing rage over the Texas legislators.