MRC Botches Facts In Bogus Attack On Major League Baseball Topic: Media Research Center
Let's pick apart the factual errors and misrepresentations in this Oct. 1 Media Research Center post by Jay Maxson, shall we?
The proliferation of American professional sports leagues sucking up to communist China continued this week. Major League Baseball is closing the Miken Sports plant in Caledonia, Minnesota, and moving operations to China. On Wednesday, Republican congressmen responded by aiming a legislative beanball at MLB’s head.
Miken Sports employs more than 1,000 Americans (more than a third of Caledonia’s population) who produce bats, helmets, gloves, bags and apparel, earning $11 million in revenue. Now the town is losing most of its jobsto cheap labor in China, a country with a notorious reputation for slave labor and oppressing its citizens’ freedom.
Based on an article from an actual news organization, we learn:
Major League Baseball does not own Miken Sports, nor did it make the decision to close it. Miken is owned by sporting goods giant Rawlings, in which MLB has an ownership interest of less than 20 percent and has no say in day-to-day business.
The Caledonia plant does not employ 1,000 people. Before the pandemic, it employed 150 people, a number that had decreased to 80 by mid-2021.
The batting helmets that the plant produced for MLB will continue to be made in the U.S., in a plant in Missouri. Production of bats made for softball -- not an MLB sport -- will be moving to China.
But the truth doesn't matter to Maxson -- this article has been up three months and has never been corrected. What matters is the political attack, and he (or she) concluded:
Caledonia is just 160 miles away from the field of dreams in Iowa, but unlike that feel-good town of Dyersville, Iowa, it’s fielding unemployment nightmares.
Thanks, MLB, for throwing the town of Caledonia out at the plate, and thanks for hitting a foul ball at the expense of American jobs. Job horribly done.
Maxson did an even more horrible job of putting a political narrative ahead of the facts -- which harms the MRC's credibility.
WND's Farah Wants His Fellow Right-Wingers To 'Occupy D.C.' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Back in September, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah started floating the idea of an "OCCUPY D.C." movement to fight back against President Biden with the goal of "peacefully occupying Washington. You can go anywhere you want, as long as it's legal. Don't go near the Capitol, though, until it is liberated." He gushed at the potential: "Do you think we can get a million people a day to win our freedom back? I think it's possible." A week later, Farah was cheering the rally for arrested Jan. 6 insurrectionists as a dress rehearsal for his plan, showing how "several hundred peaceful protesters gathered near the Capitol" could work. (Actually, as we noted, there were a couple hundred protesters at most.) He went on to enthuse: "Think of it! An OCCUPY D.C. movement by the deplorables! It's rich. Do you remember Occupy Wall Street? This should be the polar opposite."
Farah set his original deadline to start this so-called occupation on Nov. 8, but that clearly didn't happen. So he spent his Nov. 10 column trying to get readers exceited at the idea of it again, which might have worked had he not lied in the process:
I know. You're busy people. You work hard. There's little time for protests, demonstrations and rallies. But (do I need to remind you?), we're close to losing our heritage of freedom in America. And nowhere does this threat emanate more dangerously than from Washington – the belly of the beast, so to speak.
It's where the most momentous protests, demonstrations and rallies have taken place. Two quickly come to mind for me – Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech and the Jan. 6 rally for President Donald Trump, attended by somewhere near 1 million people earlier this year.
Speaking of Jan. 6, there are at least 100 people, maybe more, in solitary confinement still and far more detained and awaiting trial for drummed up on charges involving the fracas at the Capitol. Tucker Carlson's preeminent series called "Patriot Purge," available now on Fox Nation, delves into the cases of these so-called "insurrectionists."
Do we want the truth about that Jan. 6 rally, where hundreds of thousands peacefully gathered, to be remembered like King's speech? Or do we want it to be remembered like Nancy Pelosi and Liz Cheney would like to?
It's up to you. The Jan. 6 defendants are mostly in jail in Washington – in harsh conditions. They are political prisoners in every sense of the phrase.
In fact, the crowd at the Trump rally was not "somewhere near 1 million people" -- it was closer to 10,000 and maybe as many as 80,000. And there are not "at least 100" people arrested for their actions on Jan. 6 in solitary confinement -- the vast majority are not in custody while awaiting trial. The approximately 40 people imprisoned in the D.C. jail have an entire wing to themselves and have 5 1/2 hours a day to roam outside their cell. They're treated no worse then other jail inmates, which we don't recall Farah ever complaining about when the jail population didn't involve far-right white insurrectionists.
Farah rehashed parts of his earlier columns on the alleged movement, concluding:
But what I'm hoping to hear in Washington every day for the next year is the chant "Let's Go Brandon."
Can you dig it?
Shout it real loud – so it echoes around in Joe Biden's non-cognitive brain and through the Washington Correctional Facility that holds Jan. 6 political prisoners.
MRC Psaki-Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch, Year-End Laziness Edition Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck finished out 2021 with increasingly sporadic renditions of the Jen Psaki-bashing, Peter Doocy-fluffing antics he has been paid to do all year. After nearly a week's break, Houck returned for the Dec. 13 briefing with more of the same gushing over Doocy for pushing right-wing narratives:
On Monday’s abbreviated edition of The Psaki Show, Fox’s Peter Doocy came prepared (as always) with tough questions many of his colleagues refuse to ask, focusing this day on issues pertaining to the cost of the Biden administration’s Build Back Better (BBB) boondoggle, whether Vice President Harris is still in charge of combatting illegal immigration, and the role of liberal prosecutors contributing to rising crime.
Doocy led with BBB and whether President Biden would support the bill’s host of new social programs being “made permanent” despite the fact that, as per a new score from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in which “they assume that social programs are going to be made permanent and, in that case, it would add almost $3 trillion.”
Psaki roundly dismissed it, repeatedly calling it “a fake CBO score” since it’s “not based on the actual bill” led by an ask of the CBO by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (whom Psaki first referred to as a woman in a Freudian slip).
[...]
Closing with the terrifying issue of rising crime and smash-and-grab robberies, Doocy posed to Psaki a basic question: “Do you think it’s possible that big cities are dealing with these smash and grab robberies right now, an increase in criminal activity because some prosecutors are too soft on crime?”
Psaki said she wouldn’t “attribute the reasoning from here,” but she did the opposite as, before talking about the White House’s focus on “ensuring local police departments and cops have the funding they need,” she blamed the coronavirus as “we have seen an increase of crime over the course of the pandemic.”
Doocy followed up by blowing holes in this argument: “[W]hat good does it do if you’re going to give police departments extra money if they arrest bad guys and they bring them to jail and then they’re not prosecuted. They’re just right back out on the streets.”
After she doubled down on her previous answer, Doocy questioned whether Biden believes it’s “good governing” for those running New York City to have cases like “pickpocket[er] with more than 30 arrests” and the suspect in the burning of the $500,000 Fox Christmas tree both being allowed “back out on the streets.”
Psaki wanted nothing to do with this, stating she already had “spoke to the President’s concerns about retail theft.”
The Doocy-gasms continued for Houck for the Dec. 14 briefing:
Hours before Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s lame attempt at humor, Tuesday’s White House press briefing similarly featured moments of stupidity as liberal journalists hit Psaki from the left on gun control, January 6, cutting back holiday parties due to Covid, and, worst of all, the dark red voting tendencies of Kentuckians who lost their homes in violent tornadoes. However, it wasn’t all lost as Fox’s Peter Doocy brought the heat on Afghanistan and crime.
Doocy didn’t waste time in cutting to the chase after being called on: “Why is it that there are still Americans stranded in Afghanistan?”
Psaki insisted the U.S. has kept its promise to “help” any American “get out” seeing as how, since the country’s collapse, “we've directly assisted 479 American citizens” and “450 lawful permanent residents and SIV holders and SIV applicants” in “depart[ing] Afghanistan.”
Doocy pushed back, repeatedly noting that “479 left behind is a lot higher than the 100 to 200 that President Biden was talking about at the end of August.”
[...]
With his remaining time, Doocy went back to what she’s said about rising crime having come during “the pandemic” via “a range of reasons.” “Would you consider one of the reasons in the range prosecutors who are cutting people who are accused of many criminal offenses loose too quickly,” he asked.
Psaki demurred, arguing she wasn’t going to analyze the reasoning other than tie it to the pandemic.
Doocy’s final line of questioning stemmed from “reports that these smash and grab robberies are being organized on social media platforms” and whether “the administration is doing anything about that.”
After praising other right-wing reporters, Houck whined that a non-right-winger asked a question: "At the other end of the spectrum of insightfulness, Bloomberg’s Nancy Cook inquired about any plans for the White House “to commemorate January 6” (because everything has to be about January 6 for the media)."
Houck didn't check in again until the Dec. 23 briefing, which he started by insisting that his repeated references to "The Psaki Show" during the year weren't derogatory (after all, we don't recall him dismissing any of Kayleigh McEnany's press briefings as a "show" despite having shown much more affection for her than he has ever demonstrated toward Psaki):
Affectionately referred to here as The Psaki Show, Thursday featured 2021’s final White House press briefing and it served as solid encapsulation of the year as Fox’s Peter Doocy tangled with Press Secretary Jen Psaki on a variety of issues (with Covid and crime on Thursday’s docket) mixed in with other reporter questions that ranged from solid to inoffensive to boring to hitting from the left.
Doocy began by wishing Psaki a “Merry Christmas” and then got right to the questions: “So, why is the President saying about this new variant, ‘nobody saw it coming, nobody in the world’ if that's not true?”
Instead of trying to clean up what Biden said, Psaki largely doubled down by saying “how transmissible they would be,” or “what they would look like,” so they’ve spent this year “preparing for a range of contingencies.”
Drilling down on the questionable nature of that last part, Doocy wanted to know “why” has the administration “propos[ed] 500 million tests next month if you haven't even signed a contract to buy the tests.”
Psaki went on for a little while and insisted there’s “no concern about the contract being finalized” since “[w]e just announced” the ramp-up “two days ago,” so Doocy made sure to follow-up:
[...]
Before calling it a year on his end, Doocy asked two questions about crime in light of Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) being carjacked on Wednesday in south Philadelphia[.]
And with that, Houck also called it a year as well on his biased hackery. He did, however, serve up one last bit of obsequiousness in a Dec. 30 post recounting "Peter’s Top Briefing Room Tangles With Jen Psaki in 2021." That branding, though, clashes with his insistence that Doocy was "respectfully challenging an administration," unlike what enemy of the MRC Jim Acosta purportedly did during the Trump years. Houck then praised other right-wing reporters for asking "cordial yet probing questions" while refusing to admit their right-wing bias.
Big Bird Vaccine Derangement Syndrome Topic: WorldNetDaily
They are coming for the 5 to 11-year-olds.
That should be the realization of any critical thinker – with the FDA expanding its Emergency Use Authorization approval of the Pfizer "BioNTech" vaccine for children 5 to 11 years old and the unleashing of propaganda clearly aimed at those children – as well as the parents of that age group.
If the past is any predictor of the future, this "vaccine and mandate creep" is headed in the direction of the children – and the children are worth fighting for.
Over the weekend, Big Bird – a giant yellow puppet for the Public Broadcasting Station – came out to publicly push and propagandize for the vaccine.
"I got the COVID-19 vaccine today! My wing is feeling a little sore, but it'll give my body an extra protective boost that keeps me and others healthy," the puppet said. "Ms @EricaRHill (CNN) even said I've been getting vaccines since I was a little bird. I had no idea!"
It wasn't just the bird – Elmo, too, got into the cringe-worthy act – tweeting, it must be presumed, to parents as much as children: "Elmo was so happy to talk to @DrsanjayGupta (CNN) at the town hall today! Elmo learned that Elmo's friends can get the COVID-19 vaccine now, and soon Elmo can too!"
[...]
There are hills worth dying on – getting canceled over, losing your job or a potential client over or even offending a family member or a close friend.
The medical freedom of individuals– or children who are of little to NO risk from a disease– and the right of the parents to have a say so in the decision-making process when it comes to their child's health – is that hill. Now and, even more importantly, for the future.
[...]
From the president, to the media, to actors and actresses and now characters on "Sesame Street" – these people are vaccine salesmen and paid spokespeople. You and your child should have the right to refuse what they are selling.
This is not a strictly partisan issue. Between the timing and the nature of Operation Warp Speed, you can easily argue that the vaccines Biden sells now are indeed "The Trump Vaccines."
[...]
The hatchet aimed at individual freedom and bodily autonomy is in the air – it has already struck several blows.
The time to parry it is now – before it is too late.
MRC Sports Blogger Lashes Out At Magic Johnson For Not Dying Of AIDS Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center sports blogger Jay Maxson let his (or her) hate rage in a Nov. 8 post lashing out at basketball legend Magic Johnson. Maxson started out relatively nice at first:
Sunday was the 30th anniversary of Magic Johnson’s shocking announcement that he had HIV and was retiring from pro basketball. With NBA Commissioner David Stern and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar by his side, Johnson immediately volunteered to become a spokesperson and poster child for the virus.
Then and now, he was hailed as a sympathetic figure. In 1991, Sports Illustrated quoted him saying he had been merely “accommodating needy women”. Now SI praises him for “still doing lifesaving work.”
By the middle of the post, Maxson huffed that after Johnson's diagnosis, "the sex-addicted former athlete with HIV reaped adulation," going on to rage:
Johnson said Sunday that God has blessed him by keeping him alive. We will never know the fate of his many sex partners. Have any of them died of HIV? Did he ever apologize or tell any of them of his disease? Ethics and morality are seriously lacking from this ongoing story.
The fawning media and medical fanboys and girls ignore how Johnson got to this place. There is no talk of the married man’s faithlessness and his lack of discipline and restraint. Most importantly, there is absolutely NO consideration for the multitudes of women he may have infected with HIV. In comparison, another former athlete who took the high road sexually, Tim Tebow, is mocked and scorned.
In 1991, The Sporting News reported that Johnson’s closest friends said he frequently disclosed details about the “freaks” he had sex with across the nation.
Maxson concluded by suggesting that he (or she) fervently wished that Johnson had been fully punished for his behavior by dying of AIDS: "In a bygone era, Lou Gehrig contracted a fatal disease through no fault of his own. Magic Johnson lived the life of a stray dog and reaped what he sowed. Unfortunately, the media has a blind spot with Johnson and refuses to tell the full story."
By contrast, Maxson was totally cool with Aaron Rodgers lying about his COVID vaccination status and engangering the health of his teammates.
CNS Plays Whataboutism To Attack Omar Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com haslonghated Rep. Ilhan Omar for being 1) a liberal and 2) a Muslim. Susan Jones went the whataboutism rolute to attack Omar in a Dec. 6 article:
CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday gave Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar a platform to condemn the "hateful, bigoted comments" made about her by Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert. But Tapper never mentioned the "hateful, bigoted comments" for which Omar was forced to apologize in February 2019.
"So, I want to obviously start with those comments, Boebert comparing you to a terrorist suicide bomber," Tapper told Omar in an exclusive interview on "State of the Union." "What is it like to hear that kind of blatant bigotry, blatant Islamophobia coming from a fellow elected member of the House of Representatives?"
[...]
Tapper steered the interview in a direction that allowed Omar to describe the House Republican leader as "a liar and a coward" and to paint all Republicans as Islamaphobes:
"This is who they are," Omar said. "And we have to be able to stand up to them. And we have to push them to reckon with the fact that their party right now is normalizing anti-Muslim bigotry."
Jones then recited a litany of "anti-Semitic remarks" by Omar, most of which was merely critical of Israel and not actually anti-Semitic. Jones went on to lament that Tapper doesn't hate Omar like she does:
But none of that was mentioned by Tapper on Sunday, who helpfully asked Omar, "What do you think Nancy Pelosi and Democratic leaders should do, if anything, about this" (Boebert insult)?
"I think it's important for us to say, this kind of language, this kind of hate cannot be condoned by the House of Representatives," Omar said. "And we should punish and sanction Boebert by stripping her of her committees, by rebuking her language, by doing everything that we can to send a clear and decisive message to the American public that, if the Republicans are not going to be adults and condone -- condemn this, that we are going to do that."
Tapper played a hateful voicemail left for Omar, threatening her life.
Omar said she receives such threats all the time: "And we know that the kind of man who leaves that voice-mail for a member of Congress is not going to spare a young Muslim girl when he sees her taking the bus or walking home from school or when he runs into her at the grocery store.
Jones didn't criticize Boebert for maliciously likening Omar to a terrorist, let alone mention any of her other far-right comments -- as expected, since CNS is a major promoter of Boebert's extremist behavior -- nor did she expess any regret that Omar regularly receives death threats.
MRC Gloats Over CBS Evening News' Allegedly Low Ratings Topic: Media Research Center
CNN is not the only channel whose allegedly low ratings the Media Research Center engages in unseemly gloating over. The MRC attacked Norah O'Donnell when she took over as anchor of the CBS Evening News, then cheered that her ratings were not high. The low-ratings gloating continued in an Oct. 24 post by Nicholas Fondacaro that parroted a gossipy attack piece from the right-wing New York Post:
In 2019, NewsBusters reported that in her first six weeks at the helm of CBS Evening News, anchor Norah O’Donnell was floundering in the ratings. A couple of years later and things weren’t much better. And according to a Sunday report by The New York Post, she was “in danger of losing” her job “as cost-slashing execs at the broadcasting giant quietly search for her replacement,” and internal frustrations and backbiting mounted.
According to The Post via reporter Alexandra Steigrad, O’Donnell’s contract was “in the ballpark of $8 million a year” and the new network executives (co-presidents Neeraj Khemlani and Wendy McMahon) were getting tired of the newscast being “stubbornly stuck in third place” behind ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News, respectively.
Fondacaro was too busy gloating to disclose the New York Post's right-wing -- and, thus, anti-CBS -- bias. He went on to regurgitate the article's quoting of "CBS insiders" -- read: anonymous sources that the MRC hypocritically loves when trashing liberals but hates when criticizing conservatives -- attacking O'Donnell's purported "diva-like behavior" and elitist mentality."
Fondacaro didn't mention that O'Donnell's purportedly low ratings were still higher than any program on Fox News, nor did he provide any evidence that the Post tried to balance its gosspiy tone by talking to anyone who wasn't an anonymous critic. But liberal-bashing is clearly Fondacaro's and the MRC's idea of "balance."
An FBI SWAT team raided the home of an activist mother of four in Colorado on Tuesday, Nov. 16, knocking down her door, bursting into the house with guns and handcuffing her while she was homeschooling her children.
This is the first known case of the federal government making good on its promise to not only intimidate but actually carry out a raid on a mom who was involved in her local school board politics, said Brannon Howse, who interviewed Sherronna Bishop at Lindell TV Wednesday night.
The U.S. Department of Justice and Attorney General Merrick Garland issued an Oct. 4 memorandum directing federal, state and local law enforcement to look for parents to prosecute nationwide who may have made “threats” and made “harassing” phone calls to school board members nationwide, equating such parents to domestic terrorists.
Now a mother, Sherronna Bishop of Grand Junction, Colorado, has felt the brute force of the FBI’s heavily armed SWAT unit used against her family.
She was at home with her three children about 9:30 a.m. Tuesday when she heard someone pounding on the front door, then using a battering ram to break it down. She said the officers “manhandled” her 18-year-old daughter, pulling her up the stairs by her hoodie, while another officer put her in handcuffs and ushered her out of the house. They proceeded to search the entire house.
Hohmann is lying by linking the raid to the Department of Justice memorandum (and he's leaning into the false narrative about the memo pushed by WND and elsewhere in the right-wing media). It wasn't until the 10th paragraph that Hohmanngot around to hinting that other factors were involved.
She said the agents would not tell her why they were searching her home. They did leave behind documents related to the search warrant, saying they entered her home because she was suspected of causing “intentional damage to a protected computer, wire fraud and conspiracy to cause damage to a protected computer.”
“I don’t know anything about this. They couldn’t explain any of this,” she said. “I will tell you why: they were at my home to intimidate me, to shut me up, because I was using my First Amendment rights to advocate for [Mesa County Clerk] Tina Peters on the issue of Dominion [voting machines] and the damage done in our election. And they’ll never be held accountable. Instead they will criminalize this woman who has stood up.”
Instead of elaborating on that, Hohmann continued to push the bogus school link and portrayed Bishop as a victim, a "suburban housewife and mom" being "targeted" by the government, going on to rant: "Now, an activist mom has been targeted, raising the question: Has the FBI become the political shock troops for the White House, seeking to harass and intimidate anyone who speaks out against its policies?"
Hohmann is censoring the truth about the raid. Bishop is an associate of Tina Peters, the county clerk who gained notoroiety by taking part in a "cyber symposium" held by MyPillow guy Mike Lindell last august with the goal of uncovering election fraud (which didn't happen).She brought with her what she claied was proof that county election data was altered -- which turned out not only to ber not true, but also resulted in her getting fired from her job for allowing an unauthorized person to copy election-related hard drives and shutting off security cameras to hide that unauthorized copying.
On top of that, Bishop's story about a battering ram being used to enter her house -- treated as fact by Hohomann -- appears not to be true either. The Colorado attorney general and the local district attorney responded: "At no time was force used on Ms. Peters or her home. Ms. Peters was allowed to move around her home and fix herself breakfast while agents gathered items before departing....We are issuing this statement to clear up inaccuracies about what occurred during yesterday’s enforcement action."
Hohmann also failed mention that Bishop is a former campaign manager for Lauren Boebert, the far-right extremist who is now a congresswoman from the state. (It appears, however, that Bishop was unhappy with Boebert praising the district attorney's approach to the Peters investigation, so they're on the outs right now.)
It's clear that Hohmann couildn't be bothered to fact-check anything Bishop said -- bad move on his part. The fact that WND invited Hohmann back to write this dishonest piece demonstrates bad judgment on its part, and it proves yet again why nobody believes WND.
CNS' Donohue Serves Up More Bad Takes Topic: CNSNews.com
We've noted right-wing Catholic activist and CNSNews.com columnist Bill Donohue's dishonest campaign to blame homosexuality for Catholic priest sexual abuse of children (most of whom, he insists, were post-pubescent and purportedly weren't technically "children"), but that's not the only bad take he has served up lately.
Dononue attacked HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra in his Nov. 19 column for purportedly "trampling on religious liberty," adding: "In his capacity as California Attorney General, he sued the Little Sisters of the Poor for resisting the HHS mandate of the Obama Administration; it tried to force the nuns to provide for abortion-inducing drugs in their healthcare plans." In fact, as we've documented, Becerra sued the Trump administration in 2017 for broadening exemptions to contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act, and then the Little Sisters of the Poor filed to intervene and eventually became a party to the suit. In other words, Becerra didn't initiate legal action against the order, despite Donohu'ss dishonest suggestion.
In his Nov. 23 column, Donohue tried to claim Thanksgiving as a Catholic holiday because Squanto spent some time with monks in England (after he had been, um, kidnapped and sold into slavery):
Then there are the Catholic roots to Thanksgiving that Jensen and his ilk do not want to discuss. Author and host Eric Metaxas has done the best work on this subject, recalling the travails and triumphs of Squanto, a brave Patuxent Indian boy.
In 1608, when Squanto was 12 years old, he was kidnapped by English colonists and was taken to Spain as a slave. Fortunately for him, some monks bought him. They cared for him, taught him their language, and introduced him to Christianity. The monks knew the young Indian Catholic boy wanted to go back to America so they sent him to live with a London merchant, John Slanie, and his family. He learned English well, and after spending five years with the family, he boarded a ship to America.
Squanto arrived in Plymouth, Mass., which is where he grew up. He was stunned by what he found: everyone he knew was dead. Contrary to what left-wing liars say, they were not bludgeoned to death—they died of smallpox. According to Metaxas, the Pilgrims "basically adopted him." Lucky for them, he spoke English and was able to help them.
[...]
Meanwhile, let's all partake in "self-indulgent family feasting" on Thanksgiving and thank the Lord for our Catholic-rooted national holiday.
The fact that Donohue is citing a children's picture book by Metaxas as an authoritative source on the life of Squanto shows all one needs to know about Donohue's own research skills (that, and the fact that Metaxas has been exposed by historians for his shoddy biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer). Donohue also conveniently overlooks the fact that -- as numerousTwitter users roasted Donohue for -- the Puritans were fanatically anti-Catholic, which would seem to negate any Catholic claim to Thanksgiving that Donohue is trying to make.
Donohue served up another bad take in a Dec. 3 column:
He just won't leave Catholics and Jews alone. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is now telling Catholic and Jewish school employees that they must be at least partially vaccinated by Dec. 20. In Catholic schools, 88 percent of school employees are already vaccinated, making absurd the mandatory measure.
[...]
De Blasio's vaccination mandate on yeshivas and parochial schools is being done, he says, to treat religious and public school employees the same. This, however, ignores our nation's long history, grounded in the First Amendment, of extending religious exemptions from government edicts on a wide range of issues. To conflate public and religious institutions is constitutional nonsense.
This is just the updated version of the bad take CNS and editor Terry Jeffrey pursued at the beginning of the COVID pandemic -- that religious institutions are exempt from public health mandates. That's not true, of course; religious gatherings are not exempt from COVID spread simply because they are not religious. Similarly, Donohue offers no evidence of any faith-based objections to COVID vaccines. Instead, he ranted about purported "government overreach." And he went on to push a conspiracy theory about de Blasio:
There is something else going on here that is troubling. De Blasio's mandated vaccination for religious school employees begins Dec. 20. The last day of school in Catholic schools in the New York Archdiocese, before the Christmas break, is Dec. 23. De Blasio's last day in office is Dec. 31.
This is a ploy. De Blasio is intentionally leaving his successor, Eric Adams, with a lot of baggage. The mess he has created, on many fronts, will take months, if not years, for Adams to rectify. This is his parting shot. It is aimed not simply at Catholics and Jews, but at Adams and his new administration.
Donohue provided no evidence whatsoever that de Blasio has any specific animosity toward religious institutions or, again, that requiring religious schools employees to be faccinated is an attack on religion instead of a promotion of public health.
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Other Big Lie Topic: Media Research Center
For the past year, the Media Research Center has been promoting the fiction that Donald Trump was banned from social media because he called for "peace" after the Jan. 6 riot (which he helped to incite). It's also denying that what happened that day was an "insurrection." Read more >>
Newsmax's Hirsen -- A Longtime Buddy Of Mel Gibson -- Plugs Gibson's New Project Topic: Newsmax
You might remember how Newsmax columnist James Hirsen was an enthusiastic shill for Mel Gibson's various film projects and conservative politics and faith -- and defending Gibson following his anti-Semitic tirades -- while hiding the fact that he was not only Gibson's friend, he's also the founder of a legal group tied to an ultraconservative Catholic sect founded by Gibson's father. (He only bothered to disclose some of that when Gibson was busted again for using abusive language against an ex-girlfriend in 2010.)
Well, Hirsen has returned to the land of Gibson promotion in his Nov. 22 Newsmax column:
Mark Wahlberg and Mel Gibson are starring in an upcoming faith-based movie titled “Stu,” a biopic on the life of a man who was a boxer, actor, museum manager and ultimately an ordained Catholic priest.
The main character in the film, Father Stuart Long, was affectionately known as “Father Stu,” hence the movie title.
Wahlberg began working on the project two years following the passing of Father Stu in 2014. The upcoming feature was financed in part by Wahlberg himself and is currently in post production.
Wahlberg plays the lead role, and Gibson plays the part of Father Stu’s dad, Bill Long.
The rest of Hirsen's column actually fouses on Wahlberg, since the film is his project. Still, as usual, Hirsen refused to disclose his personal and business interests with Gibson in promoting his involvement with Wahlberg's film.
How Has MRC's Sports Blogger Been Hating LGBT People Lately? Topic: Media Research Center
It's been a while since we checked in on how Media Research Center sports blogger Jay Maxson has been spreading homophobia and transphobia from his (or her) NewsBusters perch. Let's see how that's going, shall we?
Maxson spent an Oct. 6 post whining about the existence of LGBT-themed baseball swag:
Peripheral topics scarcely related to the Major League Baseball playoffs are all the rage at SB Nation’s LGBT-obsessed Outsports blog. Writer Ken Schultz has ranked all 10 playoff teams according to their rainbow swag, and it’s no surprise that a Bay Area team emerged No. 1 on his pinkish list.
The San Francisco Giants earned the most love from Schultz, who admits to singing hosannas to them this summer for their “amazing Pride caps.” The team donated its Progress Pride cap to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and that means they “should finish No. 1 on this list,” he says.If it’s good enough for Cooperstown, it’s good enough for me,” Schultz raved.
[...]
All of this may seem trite and trivial, but it’s a subtle move by the alpha bet people to let professional sports know they’re under a microscope and expected to keep pleasing their needy LGBT masters.
Maxson seems mad that there aren't any homophobes as needy as he (or she) is.
Maxson repeated his (or her) attacks on transgender athletes, using an Oct. 8 post to cheer the right-wing Alliance Defending Freedom for "pursuing multiple lawsuits to challenge the administration’s insistence on turning female sports into a farce." On Oct. 15, Maxson accused Instagram of having "canceled a post undermining LGBT attempts to destroy the integrity of women’s sports" by removing "a post by biologist Colin Wright citing scientific studies proving that so-called male-to-female transgender athletes have clear-cut advantages over women," going on to sneer that "Instagram and its LGBT masters cannot handle the truth, and so they try to suppress it." On Oct. 27, Maxson complained that reporting on a new anti-transgender law in Texas made it so that transgender students are "banned from competing in sports," insisting that "The truth is that boys are eligible to participate in, or at least try out for, any boys team in Texas public schools."
Maxson spent a Nov. 23 post bashing basketball Dwayne Wade for the offense of refusing to hate his transgender child:
Want a “model” family that will make you a hero of the Left? Encourage one of your children to claim gender confusion and then tell the world how incredibly wonderful that is. This worked to perfection for former NBA all-star like Dwyane Wade, who said Tuesday night on Comedy Central's The Daily Show recently that his transgender son is developing into a beautiful young woman.
Papa Wade appeared with Trevor Noah on The Daily Show to promote his photo memoir, Dwyane, but the former basketball star’s support for the transgender movement is what was memorable. Noah asked him about his son Zaya (appearing at far left in photo), who assumed a female identity two years ago at the age of 12. Embracing the child’s gender confusion, Dwyane and his wife Gabrielle Union are considered among the best moms and dads ever by the Left.
[...]
Wade also said that when something like this happens to you, you have to look at in the face. Left unsaid was that he figuratively put his finger in the air to find out what reaction would get the best reaction from the LGBT Left, then go with the flow. Those folks are overjoyed and think he and his wife are parents of the year material.
Maxson concluded by accusing Wade of using Zaya "like a pawn for the transgender movement."
Maxson similarly melted down in a Dec. 22 post when the NFL similarly refused to hate non-heterosexual people:
The NFL wasn’t whistling Dixie earlier this year when it released a video identifying as gay, lesbian, queer and transgender. The NFL Network is following up on that bizarre PSA by running a GLAAD-pleasing feature right after Thursday’s 49ers-Titans game. The program, which replays Dec. 28, will profile five LGBTQ people on the impact of the Las Vegas Raiders’ Carl Nassib coming out of the closet earlier this year.
[...]
This NFL Network feature has got to be a very special achievement for Troy Vincent, a former pro football player and now the executive vice president of football operations for the NFL.
Vincent is practically the leader of the league’s virtue signaling to the LGBTQ cause. In October 2020, Vincent said to "all current players who are thinking of coming out, when you are ready, so are we." The NFL issued a video then as well, stating “it takes all of us.” Also, NFL Films has previously featured the "National Gay Flag Football League.”
There’s no doubt about it. The National Football League is having a gay old time.
Of course, Maxson's homophobia is a form of virtue-signaling as well -- not to mention the reason he (or she) has a job writing for the MRC. You might also recall that Maxson and othe MRC writers lashed out at Nassib ealier this year when he tried out for and made an NFL team at the beginning of the season.
WND Now Spreading Misinfo About European COVID Data Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has been one of thebiggestpurveyors of a particular bit of COVID misinformation: that the federal government's VAERS database is proven, verified documentation of direct links between vaccines and claimed side effects. In a Nov. 20 WND article, Art Moore is trying a new reinterpretation, deliberately misinterpreting numbers from a different database while reframing its VAERS conspiracy. He stated this way:
A total of 30,551 fatalities and 1.1 million adverse events due to COVID-19 vaccines have been reported by the European Union's official database.
The European Medicines Agency site's figures, through Nov. 13, are from reports regarding the Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AztraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines.
The U.S. reporting site, the the CDC's Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, or VAERS, has reported 18,853 deaths and 1.7 million adverse events through Nov. 12.
But as with VAERS, that claim -- made about EMA's EudraVigilance database -- is not true. As an actual fact-checker found:
Reuters presented the claims to the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which said: “The data circulating in many articles and social media posts are incorrect.”
[...]
“The collection of all reports of suspected adverse drug reactions is one of the pillars of the EU safety monitoring system,” the EMA told Reuters by email. “Spontaneous reporting serves as a tool to detect unusual or unexpected issues related to the use of a vaccine which may require further investigation and risk assessment.
“Reports of suspected adverse drug reactions (ADRs) alone are rarely sufficient to prove that a certain suspected reaction has been caused by a specific medicine, i.e. a COVID-19 vaccine. EMA’s detailed assessments take into account all available data from all sources (clinical trials, medical literature, observational studies, etc.) to draw a robust conclusion on the safety of the vaccine.
“For most medicines and vaccines, the vast majority of suspected side effects are not eventually confirmed as side effects. For cases with fatal outcome, it is difficult to state with certainty the real cause of death even if all data, including autopsy results, are available. Please note that it is not EMA’s role to adjudicate the cause of death.”
According to the EMA’s website, the safety of COVID-19 vaccines is continuously monitored and evaluated – and have been found to be “safe and effective”.
Moore followed that with grudgingly acknowledging that VAERS isn't what WND's conspiracy-mongerers have repeatedly insisted it was -- but he then tried to fashion a new conspiracy:
The U.S. Health and Human Services Department points out that a VAERS report is not documentation that a link has been established between a vaccine and an adverse event.
However, HHS also notes that VAERS is a "passive" system of reporting, and it "receives reports for only a small fraction of actual adverse events." Many health care workers have disclosed they are instructed by their superiors not to report to VAERS any harm caused by COVID vaccines.
And the website OpenVAERS, which compiles summaries of the data on VAERS, points to an analysis known as the "Lazarus Report," which concluded VAERS represents only 1% of vaccine injuries.
But that report covers only a period of time from 2007 to 2010, and says nothing about the reporting rate of suspected COVID vaccine side effects.And Moore's source for this claim, OpenVAERS, is a misinformation-laden website run by a California woman who won't talk to reporters that plucks unverified medical data out of contexts to cater to anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists like Moore.
That's not the only bit of misinformation Moore has spread regarding across-the-pond statistics. He wrote in a Nov. 23 article:
Vaccinated people under age 60 are dying from all causes at twice the rate of the unvaccinated in the United Kingdom, according to data compiled by the British government.
"I don’t know how to explain this other than vaccine-caused mortality," wrote former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson on his Substack page.
But Reuters also detailed how Berenson misled in pushing these statistics:
Indeed, of 1,521 over-80s who died from COVID-19 during this time, 1,272 were fully vaccinated, the data shows. Forty-three had received one vaccine dose, while 198 were unvaccinated. Meanwhile, 607 out of 801 70 to 79-year-olds who died from COVID-19 had received two vaccine doses (164 hadn’t been vaccinated) and of 411 60- to 69-year-olds, 258 were fully vaccinated (125 were unvaccinated).
However, the numbers alone miss the context necessary to understand the impact of COVID-19 vaccines. This data does not show that people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 are more likely to die from the virus.
When much of a population has been vaccinated, most infections and deaths are “expected to be among those vaccinated”, Dr Muge Cevik, a clinical lecturer in infectious diseases and medical virology at the University of St Andrews, previously told Reuters (here).
On Sept. 19, 64.9% of over-16s in England had received one vaccine dose, with 59.5% having also received the second, according to the document.
When adjusted proportionally to display the rate per 100,000 people in all age groups, the number of COVID-19 deaths is higher in the unvaccinated population than in the vaccinated population, the data shows.
This short of sloppy, rcredulous stenography is why Moore has become one of the leading COVID misinformers on the internet -- and one big reason why WND is continuing to circle the drain.
MRC Fawns Over Trump's New Social Media Operation, Censors Questions About It Topic: Media Research Center
If you're a right-wing social media site, the Media Research Center wants to give you some free (or paid, we don't know) PR. It did so for Parler -- even going so far as to censor the conflict of interest that chief Parler funder Rebekah Mercer is also a major funder of the MRC -- it did so for the MyPillow guy's operation, it did so for GETTR, and now it's doing so for Donald Trump's new social media operation.
In an Oct. 21 post announcing the creation of the operation, Autumn Johnson put "BREAKING" in the headline even though she was breaking absolutely nothing but, rather, repeating a report from another right-wing website:
Former President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that his new social media platform will be coming soon, The Daily Wire reported.
TRUTH Social will be released next spring under the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG). The platform will compete with Facebook and Twitter, like Parler and GETTR.
Trump said he is excited about the new platform’s potential.
“I created TRUTH Social and TMTG to stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech,” he said in a statement. “We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced. This is unacceptable. I am excited to send out my first TRUTH on TRUTH Social very soon.”
TMTG concurred with Trump’s statement, adding that the “mission is to is to create a rival to the liberal media consortium and fight back against the “Big Tech” companies of Silicon Valley”:
Johnson added that "Trump was permanently banned on Facebook and Twitter following the Jan. 6 riot in Washington D.C.," but made sure not to mention why.
Another thing Johnson refused to mention: questions about the operation itself. When the site launched, it was immediately overrun by trolls who snapped up registered names like "donaldtrump," "donaldjtrump," and "mike pence," and its terms of service are pretty tyrannical for a site purporting to "stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech." The app may also violate the terms of use of the open-source software it's built on. Then there's the fact that Trump in all likelihood did not "create" anything related to this venture beyond lending his name to it (for a presumably princely sum), given that TMTG refused to tell the Washington Post exactly what Trump's relationship with the company will be.
But Johnson is nothing if not an enthusiastic PR agent for Trump. In an Oct. 28 post on Trump losing a legal action against Twitter, she spent three paragraphs gushing over how he "just last week announced the creation of his own social media platform: TRUTH Social," linking to her earlier post.
Johnson returned to gush in a Dec. 5 post about the amount of capital TMTG claims to have:
A new social network being created by former President Donald Trump reportedly said it has $1 billion lined up in capital.
Trump announced his plan to create a new social network after he was banned from Facebook and Twitter. The network is a product of Trump’s new company, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), and he is the chair of the company.
TMTG plans to become a publicly listed company by merging with Digital World.
Digital World reportedly said $1 billion in capital has been lined up for the venture, while the company itself plans to invest $293 million.
Johnson was curiously incurious as to how a company formed less than two months earlier and has, as one observer noted, "no product, no users, no publicly identified executives, and no revenue," has access to such an astronomical amount of money, though there appears to be much shadiness to be investigated. Instead, she quoted from a press release, blandly stating that "Other investors have not been identified, but Digital World reportedly said the money will come from 'a diverse group' of investors."
But never mind that, there was another hot scoop to gush over. This time, Alexander Hall did the gushy honors on Dec. 7:
Is this the start of a big conservative splash in the tech sphere?? Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) will reportedly resign from his position as a congressman to join former President Donald Trump’s burgeoning Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG.)
Trump is out of the presidency, but his company has the potential to be a major player in the social media sphere, and it just gained one major power-player. “Trump Media & Technology Group ('TMTG') today announced that Congressman Devin G. Nunes has been selected to join the Company as Chief Executive Officer,” TMTG declared in a Dec. 6 press release. “Mr. Nunes will be leaving the U.S. House of Representatives and will begin his new role as Chief Executive Officer of TMTG in January 2022.”
Hall did surprisingly suggest the cronyism involved here, noting that "Nunes has a history of backing up Trump in the most high-stakes times of crisis" and that Trump "awarded Nunes the Presidential Medal of Freedom," while Nunes was "one of the 147 House Republicans who voted to challenge President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory" on the day of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Hall didn't however, mention Nunes' notirious litigiousness toward any critic on social media, including a parody Twitter account claiming to be Nunes' cow. Perhaps that ligitiousness is the real skill Nunes is quitting Congress to bring to Trump's operation (that, and all the potential grift to cash in on). Hall will never mention that, either.
Let's pick apart the factual errors and misrepresentations in this Oct. 1 Media Research Center post by Jay Maxson, shall we?
Back in September, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah started 
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck finished out 2021 with increasingly sporadic renditions of the Jen Psaki-bashing, Peter Doocy-fluffing antics he has been paid to do all year. After 
They are coming for the 5 to 11-year-olds.
Media Research Center sports blogger Jay Maxson let his (or her) hate rage in a Nov. 8 
CNSNews.com 
CNN is not the only channel whose allegedly low ratings the Media Research Center engages in unseemly gloating over. The MRC 
Leo Hohmann has been allowed back at WorldNetDaily in recent months where he has 
We've noted
You might remember
It's been a while since we checked in on how Media Research Center sports blogger Jay Maxson has been spreading 
The day before CNSNews.com was 
WorldNetDaily has been one of 
If you're a right-wing social media site, the Media Research Center wants to give you some free (or paid, we don't know) PR. It did so 
