The Media Research Center just couldn't get enough of the kerfuffle over President Biden calling sainted Fox News reporter Peter Doocy -- so much, in fact, we couldn't contain it in only one post. Picking up from where we left off: Tim Graham spent his Jan. 26 podcast insisting that the kerfuffle "is not tthe biggest thing in the world ... it's kind of a one-day story," even though by this time the MRC was on Day 3 of writing about it, and Graham's podcast was the 10th NewsBusters post referencing it. He then gave a pass to Donald Trump calling NBC's Chuck Todd a "sleeping son of a bitch" because he purportedly did it "to get laughter and claps at a rally," going on to whine that journalists think they're immune from criticism. This from a guy who runs an organization taht repeatedly runs to the defense of Fox News because it thinks the channel should be immune from criticism.

Keeping up that pattern, Graham lashed out at people like Seth McFarlane and Jimmy Kimmel for criticizing Doocy (he's immune from criticism like every Fox News employee, after all). He then defended Doocy as polite in his right-wing biased, especially compared with longtime MRC enemy Jim Acosta: "Peter Doocy is no Jim Acosta. Jim Acosta was the guy who said obnoxious things. Peter Doocy asks questions, and he generally asks questions respectfully. He's a lot more respectful of Joe Biden than Jimmy Kimmel's been ever resectful of anybody with an R after their name." He then rehashed the MRC's earlier false attack on CNN's Jake Tapper for saying Fox News wouldn't come to his defense by citing examples of Fox News defending CNN -- but Tapper didn't reference defending CNN, just himself.

In the 11th post referencing the story, on the fourth day of the MRC covering, Curtis Houck devoted a Jan. 27 post to bashing NBC's Seth Meyers for arguing that Republicans have been "triggered" by the Biden-Doocy story:

Even though President Biden and Fox White House correspondent Peter Doocy have both moved on after the former called the latter “a stupid son of a bitch” on Monday, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel and NBC’s Seth Meyers decided on Thursday to spend nearly 15 minutes falsely claiming that the Republican Party has spent the week obsessing over Biden’s expletive when, in reality, it’s the far-left “comics” who seem to have nothing else to talk about.

Later that day, P.J. Gladnick grumbled that a Politico piece argued that Biden should do more trash-talking: "Right now Joe Biden and his administration are deeply unpopular . So how to reverse this situation? Return to enforcing immigration laws at the border? Cut wild spending in order to rein in inflation? Open up the Keystone pipeline and encourage drilling to lower the cost of gasoline? Naw! The secret is... TRASH TALK!"

On day 6 of the MRC's coverage, Graham devoted his Jan. 28 column whining about the kerfuffle he earlier insisted was just a one-day story:

When Joe Biden called Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy a “stupid son of a bitch,” he didn’t need to borrow from a speechwriter. But he’s not “well-equipped” to demonstrate decency or empathy to a journalist who isn’t obsequious to him.

[...]

When Trump called the press “fake news” or mocked individual reporters as terrible people, Jim Acosta & Co condemned this was not only somehow undemocratic, but would lead to violence against reporters. The problem with Biden’s angry cursing at Doocy is that it violates that campaign promise of decency. It also allows conservatives to remind liberals that this used to be painted as a violence-inducing offense against the First Amendment.

People sticking up for Doocy don’t have to insist that Trump was civil with reporters. It’s just that they all pretended Biden was going to be so much more “pro-press,” which is transparently false, both in tone and in media access.

Even more than a week later, Graham couldn't let this"one-day story" go.In a Jan. 31 post, he whined that a New York Times reporter called it s feel-good monent," huffing further: "The most annoying part of this spin is how it exploits Doocy's willingness to shrug it off, and not pose righteously as some sort of Wronged Statue of Liberty like Jim Acosta." And on Feb. 3 -- 12 days after the story began -- Graham cranked up the whining in the 14th post referencing it, this time over a game show referencing the story:

National Public Radio airs a weekly game show on Saturdays called Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me! Over the years, we've found liberals on that show making fun of ads promoting Jesus and church-going, smearing George W. Bush as a White House drunk, and playing along as Obama adviser David Axelrod "joked" that socially conservative Miss California Carrie Prejean was tried out for White House dog. The latest episode included jokesters adoring President Biden calling Fox News correspondent Steve Doocy a "stupid son of a bitch."

Regular host Peter Sagal was off, so they replaced him with Negin Farsad, an Iranian-born Muslim comedian -- oh, but she defines herself as a "social justice comedian." That's apparently the funniest kind. 

The first game was called "Who's Bill This Time?" Announcer Bill Kurtis -- formerly an anchor for CBS News -- impersonates a public figure saying something in the news. So they started with "stupid son of a bitch," and predictably, the liberals joked that many thousands of people agree Doocy is an idiot:

[...]

The panelists then made jokes about Biden's angry insult. Josh Gondelman, who writes comedy for Desus & Mero on Showtime, said "I was surprised. Like, I feel like Joe Biden's public persona is so folksy. Like, you could run over his foot with a motorcycle, and he'd just be like, 'taffy on a stick,' you know?"

Alzo Slade of Vice News added "I feel like Joe Biden is that old dude that just can say whatever he feels like saying, and because... Of his age, nobody is going to care. It's like, yeah, just - you know, that's Uncle Joe. Just let him be. And sometimes you got to call it like it is. If you think he's a son of a [expletive]..."

This is exactly how the liberal media have dismissed Biden's gaffes -- isn't Uncle Joe a character?

Remember, Graham is the guy who gets mad that right-wing satire site Babylon Bee gets fact-checked (but hides the fact that it gets fact-checked because right-wingers have a bad habit of present ingits satire as fact).

Graham concluded by adding, "NPR is paid for by ... you." But he offered no proof that any tax money actually went to the show's production.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:58 PM EST

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CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman is virulently anti-LGBT, so it's no surprise that he came out against Canada's new law banning anti-gay conversion therapy. He wrote in a Jan. 25 article touting fellow homophobes:

After Canada passed a law banning conversion therapy for people who may want to escape homosexuality, an estimated 4,000 Christian leaders in Canada and the U.S. spoke out on Jan. 16 against the ban, describing it as "totalitarian" and a clear threat to religious freedom.

Many Canadian pastors expressed concern about what they could now say in public about the Bible's admonitions against homosexual behavior, and U.S. pastors warned that similar draconian measures are coming to America.  Violating the new law in Canada could lead to a five-year prison sentence. 

Pastor John MacArthur, head of Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, sent a letter to pastors about the new law and warned of its consequences. "I am eager to support our Canadian brothers and to preach on biblical sexual morality on January 16, and I invite you as a faithful pastor to do the same," he wrote.

"Our united stand will put the Canadian and the U.S. governments on notice that they have attacked the Word of God," he added. "We are all well-aware of the evil power and destructive influence of the homosexual and transgender ideology. Our government is bent on not only normalizing this perversion, but also legalizing it, and furthermore criminalizing opposition to it."

What Chapman, didn't do, of course, is report why conversion therapy was banned: it doesn't work and tends to be harmful to the therapy target. As a less biased news organization pointed out, medical associations around the globe have discredited it, given that it's based on the false premise that sexual orientation and gender identity can or should be "cured."

Chapman offered on explanation for why LGBT people must be turned into heterosexuals -- forcibly if necessary. Instead, he quoted other anti-LGBT pastors ranting about "totalitarianism" and the purported destruction of "Western civilization," nad he tossed in his favorite non-Catholic preacher, Franklin Graham, warning of "legal oppression." Chapman closed by quoting anti-gay Bible verses.

This is what CNS considers to be "news."

Posted by Terry K. at 4:31 PM EST

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Newsmax is continuing its recent history of making questionable hires. One of them was announced in a Jan. 26 article:

Newsmax Media Inc. announced Wednesday that 21-time Emmy Award-winner Wendy Bell on Saturday will premiere her new show, "Wendy Bell Common Sense," which will examine the news of the day with a lively approach to national issues.

The 28-year broadcast veteran of nationally syndicated and network affiliate news will delve deep into topics and concerns with interviews and roundtables in her weekly show airing 4:30 p.m. ET Saturdays on Newsmax. The show also will air Sundays at 3:30 p.m. ET.

"People are hungry for common sense in this country, and that's what this new program is about," Bell said. "Telling the truth, having great conversations, talking about what really matters. It's going to be outstanding."

[...]

"Wendy Bell has had a remarkable career as a television journalist and radio host, and throughout it all has been an advocate of common sense and American values," Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy said. "We are glad to have her on the Newsmax team." 

While the article noted Bell's previous radio gigs, it didn't tell the whole story about her. As the Daily Beast detailed, she has a history of making inflammatory statements on radio in Pittsburgh:

Bell was fired by WTAE in March 2016, after nearly 20 years at the station, over comments she made on Facebook that sparked accusations of racism. Following a deadly mass shooting at a Pittsburgh-area cookout, she wrote: “You needn’t be a criminal profiler to draw a mental sketch of the killers who broke so many hearts two weeks ago... they are young black men, likely in their teens or early 20s.”

While opining that the shooters likely “have multiple siblings from multiple fathers and their mothers work multiple jobs,” Bell—who is white—also praised a Black teen she said she saw working hard in a local restaurant. “He’s going to Make It,” she wrote.

 [...]

After landing at KDKA-AM radio, Bell sparked controversy again in September 2020 when she was yanked off the air after openly advocating for park rangers to shoot “on sight” protesters who pull down problematic monuments. 

Newsmax has also hired Bianca de la Garza as a co-host of a midday show. Prior to that, she had worked on TV in Boston, then moved on to TV production and other various business ventures. But as the Daily Beast also detailed, "de la Garza’s lifestyle and production company were financed by millions worth of embezzled funds": A close friend, Richard Hajjar, embezzled $30 million from the shoe company where he was chief financial officer, and more than half of that went to de la Garza in the form of money transferred to her and gifts and vacations lavished on her. She was never charged, and she denied knowledge of where all the money came from. Pretty much all the money was spent, and she r"eached a confidential settlement" with the shoe company to return what little was left.

The Daily Beast also noted that de la Garza's job status at Newsmax is a bit under the radar: "The network never publicly acknowledged de la Garza’s hiring. Despite anchoring the midday broadcast, she is not currently under contract with Newsmax, suggesting she’s trying out with the network in a freelance capacity."

Newsmax sure knows how to pick 'em, doesn't it?

Posted by Terry K. at 2:07 PM EST

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Art Moore wrote in a Jan. 10 WorldNetDaily article:

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky acknowledged Monday the premise on which advocates of a pandemic response of "focused-protection" rather than universal restrictions have relied -- that the vast majority of deaths from COVID-19 are among people who already were seriously ill.

"The overwhelming number of deaths, over 75%, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities," she said Friday in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America.

"So really these are people who were unwell to begin with," Walensky said.

The CDC chief's remarks drew considerable criticism on social media from people who thought she was minimizing the deaths of people who are critically ill.

However, her statement was spotlighted by epidemiologists who have been calling for "focus protection" of the vulnerable in light of the fact that age and underlying conditions are a significant risk factor, and the healthy have a minuscule risk.

Except that's not what she said. ABC edited out the fact that Walensky was summarizing a study of 1.2 million vaccinated people , in which severe COVID later occurred in .003 percent of patients, or 189 of them, and of those, 36 died; it's from that number that the 75 percent figure is pulled as having four or more comorbidities, for a total of 29.

Moore did something interesting: He stealth-edited his article to try and make it less wrong -- without noting that the article had been edited and even retaining the original timestamp -- but he still managed to get it wrong. He changed the headline from "CDC chief: 75% of COVID deaths in people already seriously ill" to "CDC chief: 75% of vaccinated people who die of COVID already seriously ill," which still isn't quite right; it's 75 percent of an extremely tiny number of people who caught severe COVID after vaccination who died with several preexisting omorbidities. Moore's rewritten article made the same factual error:

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky's remarks characterizing the health of vaccinated people who die from COVID-19 stirred controversy over the weekend.

"The overwhelming number of deaths, over 75%, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities," she said Friday in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America.

"So really these are people who were unwell to begin with," Walensky said.

Her reference was to a recent CDC study of vaccinated people, but a clip of her interview that left out that qualification was regarded by many on social media as an admission that the vast majority of deaths from COVID-19 are among people who already were seriously ill.

In fact, critics of the federal government's response to the pandemic pointed out more than one year ago that the data on the CDC website indicated that only 6% of all recorded COVID-19 deaths were from COVID alone, with 94% having an average of 2.6 comorbidities.

That last paragraph is one talking point WND likes to harp on -- but it ignores the fact that the vast majority of those people with comorbidities would likely still be alive if they hadn't caught COVID, meaning that COVID did, in fact, kill them. That attitude also devalues the lives of those people, and we thought WND was "pro-life."

If WND can't even get a basic correction right -- let alone disclose to readers the fact that the article in question was corrected -- it's no wonder that WND is in deep trouble.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:04 AM EST

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The Media Research Center -- led by Curtis Houck -- has spent the past year being embarrassingly fawning over Fox News reporter Peter Doocy's biased, hostile questions at Jen Psaki's White House press briefings. Most recently, Houck fawned again over the hostile questions Doocy fired at President Biden. So when Biden muttered a few days later that Doocy was a "stupid son of a bitch," you know the MRC had days of manufactured outrage to come over it (despite its embrace of the "Let's Go Brandon" insult and cheering Joe Rogan calling Brian Stelter a "motherf*cker").Houck kicked off the faux outrage by setting the scene:

Early Monday evening, following remarks at the start of a White House Competition Council meeting, President Biden lashed out at Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy as “a stupid son of a bitch” and mocked inflation as “a great asset” to the economy.

It began when Biden finished his opening remarks and gave way to White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Brian Deese, who appeared to have hinted off-mic the press pool gathered would be leaving before the meeting could continue.

[...]

CBS’s Ed O’Keefe and The Wall Street Journal’s Catherine Lucey could be heard trying to ask about Ukraine, but Doocy stuck to the economy since that was the reason they were in the room to begin with: “Will you take questions on inflation then? Do you think inflation is a political liability ahead of the midterms?”

Biden barely hesitated in shooting back as White House aides kept shouting for reporters to leave: “That’s a great asset. More inflation? What a stupid son of a bitch.”

Houck was in full Doocy-fluffing form here, touting how Doocy later went on Fox News to offer "his first-=person account," and even lauding his press briefing appearace earlier in the day, where he hurled more biased questions at Psaki.

The next day, Houck ramped up the Doocy smarm by portraying the biased repoirter as a mature man:

Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy continued to show on Monday night a level of class, light-heartedness, and professionalism most of the liberal media lack as he shared that President Biden called him to “clear the air” after blasting him as “a stupid son of a bitch” earlier in the day. In fact, Doocy told Sean Hannity that, now Biden said it was “nothing personal, pal,” it was “enough” and time to “move on.”

Yes, nothing says "class" and "professionalism" like Doocy rushing to talk about the incident with the hateful, hyperpartisan Hannity.

The MRC's "Editor's Pick" on Jan. 25 was an article from the right-wing The Blaze whining that CNN's Brian Stelter wouldn't make the insult the federal case that right-wingers want it to be. That was followd by Scott Whitlock complaining that "All three networks on Monday night and Tuesday morning offered sympathy for Joe Biden" over the insults, going on to sneer, "As Biden’s gaffes and 'hot mic' moments pile up, look for the networks to continue to argue for understanding and empathy towards our “frustrated” and sometimes bewildered President."

Houck returned later that day with a serious piece of dishonesty:

Appearing on Monday’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, CNN host Jake Tapper falsely claimed to the eponymous ABC host that Peter Doocy’s employer in Fox News “would never come to my defense” if a president called him “a stupid son of a bitch” as President Biden did hours earlier to the Fox White House correspondent.

Tapper’s claim was not only a lie, but laughable one given the fact that Fox News repeatedly stood with CNN when the Trump administration repeatedly tried to bar them from events and even denounced Trump’s use of the term “enemy of the people.”

But Tapper referred to himself in the first person -- not CNN as a whole. Houck is being very dishonest by trying to play gotcha by deliberately misreading what Tapper said.

Nicholas Fondacaro mixed his Doocy-fluffing with sexist insults:

Even with Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy being a class act and asking everyone to “move on” from President Biden calling him a “stupid son of bitch,” the cackling coven on ABC’s The View kicked off Tuesday’s show by suggesting Doocy got what was coming to him because he asks “endless stupid questions,” with unhinged co-host Joy Behar predicting Doocy would be “fired pretty soon” for acting like an adult in response to Biden’s childishness.

[...]

Behar had her own immature outburst against Doocy last week when she mocked his name as Peter “Douchey.”

Is that more or less immature than referring to "The View" hosts as a "cackling coven"? Fondacaro didn't elaborate.

Fondacaro had more insults to hurl later in the day:

Of course, the liberal hacks and Democratic Party lackeys at CNN thought Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy had earned President Biden’s insult. And that’s exactly the argument CNN’s anti-Fox hatchetman Brian Stelter made on Tuesday’s CNN Newsroom, suggesting Doocy’s question about inflation and the midterms was a “provocation” as he lamented “Biden took the bait.”

According to Stelter, “ the question was less a question and more a provocation” to elicit that kind of reaction from the President.

[...]

After co-hosts Alisyn Camerota and Victor Blackwell, and Stelter sympathized with Biden over having “hot mic” moments, Stelter compared Biden’s insult to the ones former President Trump would throw out and not apologize for.

It's quite difficult for Fondacaro to be credibly outraged over biden's insult when he can't stop insulting people who say things he doesn't like.

Jorge Bonilla took the faux outrage to Spanish-language media, first being complemetary that "For a brief moment Univision, the nation's leading Spanish-language network, showed moral clarity by reporting a story unfavorable to Democrats in an unbiased manner" before devolving into whining whataboutism regarding the channel's alleged "framing of Fox as being constantly critical of Biden, as if we are somehow expected to forget Univision's behavior over the past decade."

Whitlock went full whataboutism in a Jan. 26 "flashback" post:

Don’t look to Chuck Todd to speak truth to a swearing Joe Biden. The MSNBC journalist on Tuesday offered no response to the President lashing out at Fox reporter Peter Doocy as a “stupid son of a bitch.” He tweeted nothing about it. This is quite the contrast from when then-President Donald Trump spewed his own vulgarity in 2018.

[...]

Now, it’s true that Trump unloaded public vulgarities much more frequently than Biden. Also, what he said was about Todd. But on MTP Daily Todd has nothing (so far) to say about the January 24th exchange between Biden and Doocy[.]

Houck may have been slacking off on his self-appointed job of Doocy-fluffing and Psaki-bashing so far this year, but his writeup of the Jan. 26 briefing only referenced the insult in passing in order to fluff Doocy anew about how "it was back to business Tuesday in the White House Briefing Room a day after President Biden called Fox’s Peter Doocy 'a stupid son of a bitch' and then called him to hash it out. Doocy led the way in shifting focus back to the news, battling Press Secretary Jen Psaki over illegal immigration and the crisis at the Russia-Ukraine border."

But the MRC still wasn't done obsessing over this. More shortly.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:33 PM EST

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Like its ConWeb compatriots at Newsmax, the Media Research Center and CNS, WorldNetDaily spent the anniversary of the Capitol riot playing defense and distraction and whining that the coverage might make people think bad thoughts about Donald Trump and Republicans. Unlke them, though, WND tried to cram a lot of it into a single article. Bob Unruh set up the premise in a Jan. 6 article that's ostensibly a "news" story about President Biden's speech that day:

Joe Biden on Thursday, the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, unleashed a vitriolic attack on "former president" Donald Trump, but ignored the evidence that there were, in fact, issues coming out of the 2020 presidential election that should cause concern for Americans.

Those issues are that a review of the impact of the decision by leftist legacy and social media companies to suppress accurate reporting about Hunter Biden and his foreign dealings, some apparently involving Joe Biden, revealed that had those reports been carried more widely, enough people would have withheld their vote for Joe Biden to keep Trump in the White House.

Further, an analysis confirmed that the $420 million that leftist Mark Zuckerberg of Meta handed out to mostly local election officials often with instructions to recruit Democrat voters changed enough results to turn the White House over to Biden.

What followed was a lengthy rehash of various and sundry pro-Trump, anti-Democrat grievances WND has been peddling oer the past year:

• He complained that "Biden described last year's events as an 'armed insurrection,' when the rioters were neither armed nor have they been charged with 'insurrection.'" The police officers who were beaten by rioters using fire extinguishers and flagpoles would beg to differ on them not being "armed."
• Another complaint: "Vice President Kamala Harris, whose office has been beset in recent weeks by multiple departures of key staff members, likened the riot, for which some 700 Americans are facing mostly trespassing and vandalism charges, to the thousands of Americans killed on Dec. 7, 1941, and Sept. 11, 2001." Unruh didn't explain the relevance of mentioning turnover issues in Harris' office, n or did he explain how there were different from turnover issues throughout the Trump White House.
• He whined that "While GOP legislatures in states have been working on election integrity laws, Democrats in Washington are demanding that they be given authority to control all elections nationwide."
• He touted Trump's response to the speech, in which he "noted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's partisan special committee to "investigate" the Jan. 6 events, which is recognized by many as a Democratic way to incorporated those circumstances into their campaigns against Republicans, and wondered why it was not investigating the full events of the 2020 race."

Unruh also rehashed a weird attack involving another right-wing bugaboo, the moneyFacebook's Mark Zuckerberg made available through his foundation to help fund the 2020 election:

WND reported earlier when research revealed that Zuckerberg handed over a total of $419.5 million to the Center for Technology and Civil Life and the Center for Election Innovation and Research leading up to the 2020 presidential election, and the two groups used it to buy Democrat [sic] votes.

Essentially.

With that money, a person could purchase 137,540,983 Chick-fil-A sandwiches. Or 276,550 new Ferrari F8 Tributos, or 278 homes in San Francisco. Or one presidential election.

The warning came from William Doyle, a principal researcher at Caesar Rodney Election Research Institute in Irving, Texas, who explained his findings in a report at The Federalist.

He said Zuckerberg's money was used "to turn out likely Democratic voters."

The fact that the Caesar Rodney Institiute made its presentation about the so-called "Zuckerbucks" at the right-wing Federalist is all you need to know about the report's bias. The fact that Unruh felt the need to quickly add the word "essentially" to his claim that the money was used "to buy Democrat [sic] votes" also shows that's not what the money actually did. As we've noted, Zuckerberg made money available to all election agencies regardless of political leanings, which was used for various purposes, and even a report from the right-wing Foundation for Government Accountability offered no substantive evidence the money was used for partisan purposes.

Unruh noted that the Caesar Rodney report claimed that "in Wisconsin, for example, 'vote navigators' helped voters 'to answer questions, assist in ballot curing … and witness absentee ballot signatures,'" but didn't explain why this was a bad thing or why it equatd to turning out Democrats. He further groused:

The report noted of 26 grants of $1 million or more that CTCL gave to cities in Arizona and six other states, "25 went to areas Biden won in 2020."

In Wisconsin, "The CTCL funds boosted Democratic-voting Green Bay resources to $47 per voter, while most rural areas still had the same $4 per voter. Similar funding disparities occurred near Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Flint, Dallas, Houston, and other cities that received tens of millions of dollars of CTCL money."

He didn't mention that, again, money went to both Democratic and Republican-leaning counties, and the distribution is reflective of who applied for the money. Republican-leaning counties could have applied to receive money but chose not to.

Unruh had another right-wing talking point to push:

WND also reported that more than one-third of voters who chose Joe Biden were not aware of the evidence linking the former vice president to corrupt financial dealings with China through his son Hunter.

Had they known, according to the survey commissioned bv the Media Research Center, President Trump would have won at least 289 Electoral College votes.

The survey found that 13% voters of the voters who said they were unaware of the scandals would not have voted for Biden had they been made aware.

That amounted to 4.6% of Biden’s total votes.

As we've documented, that survey was done for the MRC by McLaughlin & Associates -- which worked as the pollstert for Trump's 2020 campaign. That means the poll is hardly an objective representation of things.

The fact that Unruh is all about tired, copied-and-pasted talking points and nothing about actual journalism is one more reason why WND is going down the tubes.

Posted by Terry K. at 5:42 PM EST

Updated: Tuesday, February 22, 2022 5:43 PM EST

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The sucking up to Donald Trump continues apace at Newsmax, which is quite desperate to remain in his good graces.

For his rally in January in Arizona, he got a Dec. 31 article from the apparently unironically named Charlie McCarthy announcing it. McCarthy proclaimed that "Trump and his allies have said that voter fraud in several key battleground states, including Arizona, gave Biden the election," which was surprisingly followed with a little bit of pushback: "A Republican-backed review of the 2020 presidential election in Maricopa County, Arizona's largest county, ended without proof that the election was stolen." A Jan. 11 article by Nicole Wells followed up by touting how "Trump announced the program speakers Tuesday for his first 2022 rally in the battleground state of Arizona."

The rally itself generated a barrage of "news" articles, even though the rally could easily have been summed up in a single article:

• Trump: 'In 2024, We Are Going to Take Back the White House'
• Trump Vows 'Our Own Investigations' of Events of Jan. 6
• Trump Blasts Treatment of Jan. 6th Protesters at Arizona Rally
• Trump Decries Cancellation of OAN

These were all straight stenography pieces, with no attempt to fact-check anything Trump said, even though his history of being truthful is less than stellar.The same for a Jan. 17 article featuring an interview Trump did with Newsmax TV host John Bachman before the rally.

As the interview showed, Newsmax is continuing to work hard to be symbiotic witih Trump. A Jan. 20 article touted how good Newsmax's ratings were for its rally coverage:

Donald Trump may have left the White House a year ago, but ratings for Newsmax’s live coverage from his recent Arizona rally suggest the former president is as popular as ever.

Newsmax’s start-to-finish broadcast of Trump’s Jan. 15 rally in Florence, Arizona, drew 2.9 million viewers in total audience reach on cable alone, according to Nielsen.

A total of more than 5 million Americans watched the Trump rally when OTT streaming platforms that carry Newsmax are included, network data shows.

The new year and Joe Biden’s falling approval ratings seem to be increasing interest in the 45th president.

Newsmax’s cable audience for the rally was up almost 40% over his last rally, held in Iowa on Oct. 9.

Newsmax did the same thing for Trump's rally in Texas the a couple weeks later: a story on the speaker list, then one touting that Newsmax would air it, complete with an "IMPORTANT" note at the end: "Get a reminder about the rally time and latest Trump news from Newsmax, just text REMIND to 39-747 and you’ll be on the Trump List!" Then another barrage of articles on the rally itself:

• Trump: MAGA Is 'Greatest Political Movement' in History
• Trump Teases Boycotts of Platforms Canceling Conservative Voices
• Trump: Boycott 'Radical Left Lunatics' of AT&T, DirecTV, 'Concast'
• Trump Talks 'Pardons' for Jan. 6 Prisoners 'Treated Unfairly'

Again, that was followed by an article touting the rally's ratings, this time with a focus on trying to own Fox News:

Newsmax was the big ratings-winner with its exclusive cable coverage of former President Donald Trump's rally in Texas last weekend.

Some 2.9 million cable viewers tuned in to watch the event live from Conroe — and 1.1 million of them were adults ages 35-64, the demographic craved by advertisers.

Though Newsmax is carried in 20 million fewer homes than Fox, total audience impressions for both networks during Trump's speech was almost at parity, both drawing around 1.4 million viewers per minute, according to Nielsen.

Reporter Bill Hoffmann even promoted a  Washington Post article that detailed how ridiculous its coverage was:

"Newsmax treated the Texas rally like a Super Bowl, with pre-game coverage and postgame analysis from Bill O'Reilly and Ben Carson — both former Fox News personalities — as well as an on-screen poll asking viewers whether they want Trump to run again," the Post's media reporter Jeremy Barr wrote.

Hoffmann doesn't seem to realize the Post may have mocking Newsmax for such over-the-top coverage. Or maybe he did: he didn't reproduce a statement in the article noting that "At one point, the network split the screen between Trump’s rally and an advertisement for Newsmax-branded hats."

Posted by Terry K. at 1:47 PM EST

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The uber-Catholics who run CNSNews.com love to call on right-wing Catholic bishops to parrot anti-abortion attacks and other right-wing, anti-Biden narratives. Let's see how that campaign has been going recently.

Managing editor Michael W. Chapman invoked a bishop to complain about Biden in a Nov. 12 article:

By saying he rejects the fact that life begins at conception, President Joe Biden -- who is portrayed as a devout Catholic by the liberal media -- is not just dissenting from church teaching, but is "explicitly dissenting" from "sound science," said Salvatore Cordileone, head of the Archdiocese of San Francisco. 

"[I]t’s not a matter of religious belief when life begins," said the archbishop in an interview with America magazine. "Science tells us life begins at conception. The church affirms that. So he [Joe Biden] is explicitly dissenting not only from church teaching but from sound science."

Another article the same day by Chapman again hyped Cordelione -- whom Chapman and CNS love to quote for his dedication to bashing Nancy Pelosi -- this time elikening abortion to lynching because both involve "the killing of innocent human beings." Both articles come from the same interview in America magazine; there seems to be no journalistic reason for Chapman not to have combined them into a single article.

Chapman found a ranting bishop for a Dec. 20 article:

By signing into law a bill that repeals the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker has granted a "victory to evil" and, like a "hit man," has "promoted and facilitated murder," said Catholic Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki, head of the Diocese of Springfirled in Illinois.

“Governor Pritzker’s signing of HB 370 [on Dec. 17], the deceptively titled Illinois Youth Health and Safety Act, which repeals the Parental Notice of Abortion Act, marks a dark and disgraceful moment in the history of the State of Illinois," said Bishop Paprocki in a statement.

"Those legislators who promoted and voted in support of this legislation, and the governor who signed this unjust law, have granted a five-part victory to evil in our state," said the bishop. 

Chapman returned on Jan. 17 for another bishop bashing another governor for signing a bill protecting abortion rights:

After New Jersey's Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, a Catholic, signed a bill into law last Thursday that essentially allows abortion across the board, Catholic Bishop Joseph Strickland said Murphys is "not a good Catholic," and had "bowed to the culture of death."

The Catholic bishops of New Jersey also issued a statement condemning New Jersey's Freedom of Reproductive Choice Act, "which codifies into state law an individual’s right to an abortion, including late-term abortions."

"This new legislation absolutely and forthrightly extinguishes the human and moral identity of the unborn child," added the bishops.

Chapman waited until the seventh paragraph to note that Strickland is is actually the bishop of the diocese of Tyler, Texas -- more than 1,500 miles away from New Jersey, making his opinion jurisdictionally irrelevant.

Chapman kept up his agenda in a Feb. 2 article:

In response to Rep. Susie Lee's (D-Nev.) recent commentary in defense of abortion, the Catholic bishop of Las Vegas, George Leo Thomas, has called on all pro-abortion Catholic politicians in the Diocese of Las Vegas to voluntarily stop receiving Holy Communion. 

"If a politician from the Diocese of Las Vegas finds himself or herself at odds with the church's teaching on the sacredness of human life, I ask him or her voluntarily to refrain from the reception of Holy Communion while holding public office."

Chapman went on to quote retired Pope Benedict -- a favorite of right-wing Catholics -- advocating excommunication as permissible of Catholic politicans who aren't sufficiently anti-abortion.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:57 AM EST

Updated: Tuesday, February 22, 2022 1:17 AM EST

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The Media Research Center's Joseph Vazquez has a biased tradition of bashing President Biden when employment numbers don't look so good, then staying silent when jobs numbers improve the following month. He's determined to keep that tradition going.

When December's job numbers came in below expectations, Vazquez was quick to post a Jan. 7 item attacking CNN for allegedly spinning things:

CNN just can’t catch a break in its crusade to spin President Joe Biden’s atrocious economy in a way that benefits his image.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released an awful jobs report showing that the economy only added a “dismal” 199,000 jobs against a 422,000 projection by economists. That’s a miss of 223,000. The labor force participation rate remained stagnant from November at a low 61.9 percent. CNN scrambled to spin the news in it’s write-up headlined, “Jobs disappoint in December, but unemployment falls to 3.9%.” After conceding that the “fewest jobs added in any month of 2021” was a “major disappointment,” CNN put asinine spin on the news: “Even so, 2021 will go down in history as a year of record-breaking jobs growth: America added 6.4 million jobs last year, the most since records started in 1939. Every single month brought jobs gains.” Ironically, CNN included a graph in its article that undercut its entire argument. [Emphasis added.]

The graph tracked the trend of the recovery of the jobs market following the February 2020 freefall. However, the caption for the graphic read, “The United States lost a total of 22 million jobs in March and April of 2020. By December 2021, the number of jobs were 3.6 million shy of February 2020 levels.” CNN is saying the quiet part out loud. No, the jobs market is not experiencing “growth” because it hasn’t even fully recovered the jobs it lost in 2020. In fact, Biden’s disastrous economic policies may be why the jobs market still hasn’t been able to fully recover.

Vazquez's evidence that Biden's economic policies are "disastrous" and suppressing job growth is a less-than-biased editorial from the right-wing New York Post. Also, it is undeniably true that 6.4 million jobs were added last year -- not that Vazquez will concede that. Indeed, on Jan. 17 Vazquez found someone to push the right-wing media's preferred narrative that those jobs somehow don't count because they weren't additions to pre-COVID Trump-era numbers:

A top economist at the ADP Research Institute slapped down the asinine leftist narrative that the United States is experiencing explosive jobs growth. ADP Chief Economist joined CNBC Squawk Box following the shocking news Jan.12 that inflation had spiked a whopping 7 percent year-over-year in December, the highest level since 1982.

After noting that real wage earnings, “which are  negative,” Richardson said whatever wage increases the media has been propping up as a bellwether for a peachy economy was driven by “labor shortages.” Richardson then dropped the hammer: “The economy — and this is an important point — hasn’t added one single job from the 2019 high watermark. Not one. All the jobs that we have seen gained are recovered jobs that were lost.” She continued: “We are not yet producing new jobs. In fact, we’re still about nearly four million jobs short. So these wage gains are coming on top of a shrinking workforce.” 

So much for CNN’s recent whitewash of poor December jobs numbers. “Even so,2021 will go down in history as a year of record-breaking jobs growth: America added 6.4 million jobs last year, the most since records started in 1939. Every single month brought jobs gains,” CNN wrote earlier this month. Yikes. [Emphasis added.]

Vazquez curiously didn't mention who was president in 1982 when inflation was so high.

Needless to say, when a whopping 467,000 jobs were added in January, Vazquez followed his extablished pattern and stayed silent -- it's against MRC policy to say anything nice about a Democrat if doing so doesn't advance right-wing talking points.It took a few days for Vazquez to figure something to attack, andhe found it for a Feb. 9 post:

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board threw a big wrench into the media machine celebrating President Joe Biden’s so-called win on the better-than-expected January jobs report.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics published a Feb. 4 report showing the economy added 467,000 jobs, which blew past estimates. The media swallowed the news whole. CNBC’s headline was: “Payrolls show surprisingly powerful gain of 467,000 in January despite omicron surge.”

ABC News salivated: “US economy defies omicron and adds 467,000 jobs in January.” But The Journal had a surprisingly different take, and it was an eye-opener: “Who knows what to make of Friday’s report on January jobs? The employer survey showed a blowout of 467,000 net new jobs for the month, but the numbers were skewed by major Labor Department revisions for the U.S. population and civilian employment.”[Emphasis added.]

Here was The Journal’s bombshell conclusion: “Without those changes, the jobs number would have declined.” It continued: “Add the complexities of adjusting for winter weather and Covid’s Omicron variant, and no one should make too much of this one monthly report.” [Emphasis added.]

Of course, none of the ABC, CBS and NBC evening news shows thought The Journal’s narrative-shattering context was worth mentioning when they touted the jobs numbers on their Feb. 4 evening broadcasts.

Actually, the only person swallowing things whole is Vazquez. The Journal editorial in which those assertions were made provided no evidence to back up the claim. In the absence of such evidence, that makes this an opinion, not fact.

Meanwhile, MRC colleague Kathleen Krumhansl was playing whataboutism to distract from those numvbers. in a Feb. 9 post, she grumbled that in a Univision report on the January numbers, "not a word was said about how many of the new “over 460,000 jobs” were actually for Hispanics- their actual audience." Then it was Trump whataboutism time:

Let's take a look back to the Trump jobs miracle. As MRC Latino noted in 2018, the lowest ever Hispanic unemployment rate was IGNORED by the Spanish-speaking media. Never mind that at the moment, the 4.6% unemployment rate among Hispanic in the United States had reached its lowest level in the 45 years since the agency first started keeping records on the statistic, back in 1973.

One would think that such a historic achievement would be heralded over the nation’s leading Spanish-language television news programs, but that was not the case despite Hispanic unemployment dropping to around 3 percent, with a booming economy and record numbers of Hispanics entering the workforce. In fact, Latino-interest media didn't focus on a Trump jobs report until the Covid-induced employment collapse of April 2020.

The MRC just can't let Trump go, it seems.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:24 PM EST

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Bob Unruh subserviently wrote in a Jan. 21 article:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's partisan congressional committee assigned to review the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot hasn't put her on the schedule for questioning.

And they're not likely to, as they apparently are trying to send the message that all of the fault rests with President Trump.

But Trump said it's Pelosi who actually holds a responsibility for the events of that day.

He said during an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, according to a report from Just the News, that he authorized 20,000 National Guard troops to be on hand that day.

But Pelosi refused them.

The 20,000 troops would have handled, easily, the few hundreds who went to the building and broke windows or doors, and entered and vandalized. Many hundreds others simply walked through open doors, sometimes held for them by security officers, to walk around and take selfies.

Hannity asked Trump if he authorized use of the National Guard for that day.

"100%," Trump said. He said there are many witnesses to that decision.

He continued, "They turned it down. Nancy Pelosi turned it down."

[...]

Trump said he wanted 10,000 Guard members available, and upped that to 20,000 based on a suggestion from Kash Patel, chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense.

"I wanted to have soldiers and/or National Guard, and Nancy Pelosi turned it down, and if she didn't turn it down, you would not have had any problem," Trump said.

Unruh is not going to tell yuou that Trump's claim is false. As one fact-checker wrote, "There is no evidence Trump made any formal request about deploying 10,000 National Guard troops before the rally":

A government memo about the events leading up to Jan. 6, statements from Pelosi’s office and the Pentagon and testimony from the former House sergeant-at-arms show Trump did not request 10,000 troops ahead of the rally.

Drew Hammill, Pelosi's spokesperson, told USA TODAY that Pelosi’s office was not consulted or contacted regarding any request for the National Guard ahead of Jan. 6, and he noted the speaker of the House does not have the power to reject that type of request.

Trump's claim that Pelosi was in charge of security at the Capitol on the day of the riot is also not true: "The Capitol Police are overseen by a number of entities and individuals, none of whom are Pelosi."

The fact that Unruh has no interest in reporting is one major reason why WND is going down the tubes.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:05 PM EST

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The Media Research Center's Clay Waters wrote in a Jan. 18 post:

The New York Times is concerned about media censorship and bias -- in Serbia. “Eastern Europe Tests New Forms of Media Censorship,” by Andrew Higgins from Belgrade, appeared in Monday’s paper and it was both ironic and rich to see the Times devote 1,500 words to a story of how governments in Serbia, Poland, and Hungary are leaning on independent media outlets that don’t toe the government line.

Meanwhile, Times has long embraced Big Tech squelching supposedly offensive viewpoints cross the pond, with their reporters taking the role of self-appointed hall monitor of internet speech.

Conservatives in the United States might recognize some parallels between the kinder, gentler state-thuggery in Eastern Europe and the myriad ways (documented at MRC's #FreeSpeech America) Silicon Valley tech leaders at Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Amazon, etc., try to control the nation’s political conversation by suppressing voices that displease the liberal elite.

What's an example of an "offensive viewpoint" promoted by conservatives? This is pretty much all Waters had: "While in the United States, there was timely social media censorship of an accurate story (the contents of Hunter Biden ’s laptop) inconvenient to the Democratic presidential campaign on the eve of a presidential election. How is that not electoral inference?"

In fact, only right-wing sources are claiming the laptop story is "accurate,"and it was a sketchy enough story that even Fox News wouldn't break it (that honor went to its Murdoch corporate sibling, the New York Post).To this day, no ironclad proof of the laptop's provenance and chain of custody has emerged, and there's still no reason to treat it as anything other than the sketchy October surprise it was, incessantly hyped by right-wing outlets desperate to derail Joe Biden's election.

Waters offered up another example: "In the U.S., Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has funneled money to Democratic counties in the name of helping 'election administration,' through the Center for Tech and Civic Life." In fact, the foundation funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg made money available to all election agencies regardless of political leanings, which was used for various purposes, and even a report from the right-wing Foundation for Government Accountability offered no substantive evidence the money was used for partisan purposes.

Waters conmtinued to whine:

Over here, Big Tech has outsized power over American politics and uses it to muzzle or limit distribution of stories and ideas it doesn’t approve of, with skepticism about masks, vaccine mandates, and lockdowns serving as particular targets for online censors.

Noting the plight of the one independent channel in Serbia, Higgins wrote: “A huge new housing area under construction for security officials near Belgrade, for example, has refused to install SBB’s cable, the company said.”

Over here, there are calls for cable providers to remove conservative media outlets like One America News and Newsmax, even conservative chat sites like Parler. Calls for media personalities that offer independent viewpoints on Covid, like uber-popular podcaster Joe Rogan, to be squelched in the name of public health.

Note that Waters pulled that criticism out of context for what they were being criticized for, in order to falsely suggest these outlets and plaforms were being attacked for merely being conservative. According to the Washington Examiner article to which Waters linked, OAN, Newsmax  and Parler were criticized beause they amplified false information about election fraud and helped incite an attempted insurrection at the Capitol. And Rogan was, in fact, hurting public health by uncritically promoting misinformation about COVID.

Waters concluded: "The parallels between Eastern Europe government censorship and U.S. Big Tech censorship aren’t exact. But even for the typical reporter who loathes the conservative press, aren’t they far too close for comfort?" In fact, they're not close at all. Those authoritarian leaders are actively supprssing dissent for simply dissenting; conservatives are playing victim because they get caught spreading misinformation and face consequences for doing so.And the fact that right-wingers have uinelashed a slew of social-media apps prove that they're not being "censored" at all.

One other note: the MRC has previously praised the authoriterian leaders of Poland and Hungary for criticizing "big tech" despite their aggressive censorship attempts on their own people.

Posted by Terry K. at 5:53 PM EST

Updated: Tuesday, February 22, 2022 5:23 PM EST

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Now that a Democrat is president, CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey is all about being a deficit hawk again and blaming Biden for the increasing national debt. Read more >>

Posted by Terry K. at 1:17 PM EST

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In the eyes of the Media Research Center, Donald Trump can do no wrong -- especially when he's bashing the "liberal media." So when Trump petulantly hung up NPR reporter Steve Inskeep rather than questions he didn't want to answer about his false claims regarding election, MRC executive Tim Graqham went into spin mode in a Jan. 12 post, pinning most of the blame on Inskeep for committing the offense of asking questions of Trump while an NPR employee and playing whataboutism over previous NPR interviews of Democratic presidents:

In his first presidential campaign and during his presidency, Donald Trump was interviewed by many liberal outlets but he never granted an interview to NPR and PBS. He understood that he was running as a populist and they are elitist channels. They’re taxpayer-funded, but sound like they’re Democrat-owned.

That streak just came to an end as Trump granted an interview Tuesday to NPR morning anchor Steve Inskeep. They planned a 15-minute interview – and Trump ended it at nine minutes. Inskeep began by asking Trump about the coronavirus and vaccines, but soon shifted into a battery of inquiries about the 2020 election and how Trump has not been able to prove he somehow won in a landslide. That went on long enough that Trump decided he had said enough:

[...]

There are two takeaways from Inskeep's presidential interviews: 

1. For the most part, Steve Inskeep's questions to Trump were hardballs, but fact-based hardballs. Other than nudging Trump that the election was all about him -- as if the pro-Biden media didn't run it that way? -- he didn't lecture Trump. He presented quotes and information to Trump. Full transcript here.

2. For the most part, Steve Inskeep's many "unusually relaxed" interviews with Obamaoffered softballs. His overall record remains tough on Republicans, soft on Democrats. See Inskeep's gush over radical-left failed Biden nominee Soule Omarova. Then see him get offended when a pro-life guest used the word "abortionist."

Even Graham couldn't find fault with Inskeep's line of questioning -- but he has committed the original sin of being an employee of NPR and, thus, must always be criticized.

When personal enemy Brian Stelter of CNN claimed that "It is exceedingly rare for Trump to talk to any broadcaster who isn't a MAGA media loyalist. It basically never happens," Graham ranted in response:

What? "It basically never happens?" Lesley Stahl? Lester Holt? Long nasty town hall with Savannah Guthrie? Stelter should tell us how many interviews Biden has granted to conservative media. Trump has obviously granted more interviews to liberal media over his presidency than Biden has been doing. President Biden has not granted an interview yet to NPR or PBS. But we can guess it will be soft whenever it arrives.

Graham thinks any interviewer who doesn't suck up to Trump the way he accuses "liberal media" journalists of sucking up to Democrats is automatically biased. He has never criticized a right-wing journalist for softball interviews of Trump.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:55 AM EST

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Back in November, WorldNetDailiy touted COVID misinformer Robert Malone's claim that promotion of COVID vaccines was nothing but "mass formation psychosis," his version of the madness of crowds. That's not really a thing, of course -- it's not a legitmate psychological term -- but it sounds good coming from a guy who's trying to sound smart in peddling his misinformation, and WND ate it up. Michael Schisler manufactured a definition for it in his Jan. 6 column:

In humans, Mass Formations, whether naturally occurring such as the case within plagues, or synthetic constructs such as witnessed in Nazi Germany, have often been exploited for political gain.

Mass Formation theory holds that the left's insistence that only two binary categories of vaccination status exist (i.e., a person is either fully vaccinated or is unvaccinated) is a tactic to pit various segments of the population against each other in an effort to coerce the unending compliance of all.

Which, of course, is a political end goal of a greater plan.

Also, according to Mass Formation theory, the more absurd the narrative becomes, the more strongly many believers of the narrative cling to the absurdities. This phenomenon occurs because believers are so fearful of the pre-narrative threat that going along with any absurdity is preferable as long as it is accompanied by a promise of delivery from the threat.

That's a definition that fits anti-vaxxers like Malone and WND much closer than vaccine advocates. But no, Schisler says:

Mass Formation thought says to deny the existence of early treatment regimes.

Mass Formation thought says to withhold all treatment until the disease has progressed to the final phase, and then give oxygen and blood thinners.

Mass Formation thought says only to administer anti-virals after viral replication is complete and the body so weakened that it cannot withstand the toxic effects of the administered anti-viral.

Would medicine ever advocate for ineffective vaccines and extremely aggressive screening, only to send each and every patient having stages one, two and three cancer home, and completely refuse any and all treatment until the disease has progressed to stage four? And then only give them chemo known not to work, some heparin and some oxygen?

This is exactly what is happening with COVID patients due to Mass Formation thought.

A Jan. 25 article by Bob Unruh hyped how ex-guitar god and current anti-vaxxer Eric Clapton has bought in as well:

Famed rock guitarist Eric Clapton says he was duped into taking one of the experimental COVID-19 jabs by "subliminal messaging" and "mass formation hypnosis" and others shouldn't fall for it.

Clapton's recent comments came in an interview posted to a YouTube channel called the Real Music Observer.

Clapton, 76, described the "disastrous" side effects he sustained after taking the jab, explaining his hands were "either frozen, numb or burning, and pretty much useless.

Unruh surprisingly admits thatClapton has been mock for his anti-vaxxer activism,quoting one critic as saying, "When virologists and epidemiologists start playing a killer version of 'Layla,' I'll start listening to Clapton on science."

Scott Lively touted the nonexistent psychosis and Malone's promotion of it in his Jan. 31 column, adding, "My point in this article is not primarily to help spread the word about this important topic but to caution everyone on the right that people on BOTH sides of a polarized society are susceptible to mob psychology. My greater purpose is to remind/explain how an authentic biblical worldview provides immunity from this psychosis." He, unsurprisingly, turned things to his own homophobic obsession:

Dr. Malone uses "mass formation psychosis" to explain the behavior of the left in their intellectual surrender to the official COVID-19 narrative. I would argue that their surrender to the LGBT agenda, especially the truly insane aspects of transgenderism, is a better example.

I would also argue that the QAnon narrative is an example of the same phenomenon on the right, and is very likely driven by the exact same puppet masters from their alphabet-soup agency bunkers. (I'm still getting occasional emails from QAnon holdouts – or agents pretending to be holdouts – predicting imminent mass arrests of the Biden administration and its co-conspirators)[.]

Lively, however, did not criticize anti-vaxxers as an example of "mass formation psychosis," even though they have chosen to believe things that are so easily disproven.

Andy Schlafly praised Malone for promoting it in his Feb. 8 column:

In Rogan's Dec. 30 interview of Robert Malone, M.D., the respected scientist likened mass vaccination to "mass formation psychosis," in which "anybody who questions" the prevailing narrative is attacked. Liberals forced removal of that podcast from Spotify and YouTube, but Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, placed a transcript in the Congressional Record where Nancy Pelosi has not censored it.

Again, if it applies to anyone, it applies to anti-vaxxers who attack anyone who conflicts with their false "prevailing narrative."

Posted by Terry K. at 1:06 AM EST

Updated: Monday, February 21, 2022 1:09 AM EST

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The Media Research Center cares nothing about journalism -- it cares only about owning the libs. So when President Biden held a press conference on Jan. 19, Curtis Houck's summary piece was all about right-wing reporters -- not that he identified their ideology -- hurling hostile questions:

In a press conference Wednesday that ran nearly two hours, President Biden faced over 60 questions from 24 different reporters, but it wasn’t a surprise that the most contentious moments and questions that were most probing came from reporters that usually give Press Secretary Jen Psaki a run for her money in Fox’s Peter Doocy, the New York Post’s Steven Nelson, Real Clear Politics’s Philip Wegmann, and newly-minted Newsmax correspondent James Rosen.

Biden was ready to give up 77 minutes into the affair when he wondered: “How — how many more hours am I doing this? I'm happy to stick around.”

Doocy was then spotted by Biden, who offered the quip that Doocy “always ask[s] me the nicest questions” even though “none of them make a lot of sense to me.”

Doocy said he has “a whole binder here” and, though Biden would only grant him one quesiton, he made it count: “New year. Why are you trying so hard in your first year to pull the country so far to the left?”

Biden replied to this scorcher by saying he’s “not” because he doesn’t “know what you consider to be too far to the left if in fact we're talking about making sure that we have the money for COVID, to put together the bipartisan infrastructure, making sure we were able to provide for those things that...would significantly reduce the burden on working class people.”

[...]

&Two reporters later, Rosen received his first crack at Biden. Saying he wanted “to raise a delicate subject, but with utmost respect for your life accomplishments and the office you hold,” the former Fox journalist invoked questions about Biden’s cognitive health:

A poll released this morning by Politico/Morning Consult found 49 percent of registered voters disagreeing with the statement, Joe Biden is mentally fit. Not even a majority of Democrats who responded strongly affirmed that statement. 

“Well, I’ll let you all make the judgment whether they're correct, thank you,” said Biden.

Rosen wasn’t done as he invited him to speculate about “why...such large segments of the American electorate have come to harbor such profound concerns about your cognitive fitness.”

With a smirk, Biden blurted out that he had “no idea.”

Houck didn't mention the reason why Rosen is a "former Fox journalist."

When Biden made a verbal stumble suggesting he might allow a "minor incursion" by Russia into Ukraine to go unpunished, Kevin Tober cheered that "all three evening news broadcasts were flabbergasted" by the misstatement from the "geriatric president," going on to huff: "This is stunning candor from the networks. The networks must’ve known there was no way to hide these comments from their viewers, so they were forced to report on them. We applaud them regardless."

The next day, Houck returned to take "a look at the other questions from more establishment, (supposedly) objective, and/or traditional outlets." Of course, no right-wing outlet asked any of the "worst" questions, and his "best" question came from a reporter from 'the delightfully objective and refreshing NewsNation." As we've noted, the idea that a "news" operation run by former Fox News executive (and short-lived Trump White House communications director) Bill Shine and featuring ex-Fox Newsers like Leland Vittert is no reaonable person's definition of "objective."

On Jan. 21, Houck joined his boss Tim Graham's podcast to slobber over Doocy and the other right-wing reporters -- Graham would only describe them as "our side of the media, as they would see it," and not having an unambigious bias. Graham fawned over Doocy's highly biased gotcha question: "This question, Curtis, is a perfect summation of the kind of questions conservatives in general put to Biden. It putt the whole onus of the Demcodratic Party as a part of the left, you as president has been a part of the left. ... What on earth is Build Back Better? That's not a capitalist bill."

Houck nonsenically insisted Doocy's gotcha question was "about important issues of the day." Houck also sneered that Biden "is clearly not in charge of his faculties," which led to both of them cheering Rosen's question, and Graham complained that this would be treated as a "Brian Stelter question," adding that it was "a challenging question. It could be seen as a rude question, but it was stated politelyas the way James Rosen typically does these things." He too failed to mention why Rosen slid down the right-wing media food chain from Fox News to Newsmax -- apparently, sexual harassment is totally cool with Graham and Houck as long as the offender is polite about it. They also praised NewsNation without, again, mentioning that ex-Fox News staffers run it.

This was capped off with a Jan. 22 column by Jeffrey Lord declaring that Rosen "was doing his job as a journalist" with his hostile question about Biden's mental fitness, going on to whine that similar questions were asked about Donald Trump, which were not based on "facts in a poll" but on people's opinions. He added in another fit of whataboutism: "This is real journalism, something that was rarely to be seen in the Trump years as CNN and others spun, for example, the fantasy tale of Trump-Russia collusion." Lord didn't explain why, if there was no Trump-Russia "collusion," the Trump campaign met with Russian operatives dozens of times during the 2016 campaign. He too failed to mention the sexual harassment claims against Rosen.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:32 PM EST

Updated: Monday, April 4, 2022 12:27 AM EDT

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