MRC Hypocritically Accuses Biden Of Delegitimizing An Election Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has worked arm-in-arm with Donald Trump to delegitimize the 2020 presidential election, and it will never admit that Joe Biden beat Donald Trump fair and square, so it would be utterly hypocritical for the MRC to accuse others of trying to delegitimize an election. But because the MRC is filled with hypocrites, that's exactly what happened.
When President Biden accurately noted that Republicans were changing election laws to help Republicans and disadvantage Democrats, the MRC went into overdrive attacking the president. Brian Bradley demanded in a Jan. 20 post that Biden be censored:
Facebook and Twitter are doing nothing to curb flagrant disinformation spouted by President Joe Biden. During his press conference yesterday, Biden falsely claimed conservatives are already manipulating the 2022 midterm elections.
Biden on Wednesday said that Republicans are engaging in “unconstitutional” attempts to “stack the election and subvert the outcome.” He was apparently referring to legislative efforts by 19 states to bolster election integrity.
Biden’s communications team posted a video of the president’s press conference to the White House Facebook page Wednesday afternoon. But as of 3:39 p.m. EST on Thursday, Meta still hadn’t flagged the recording for election disinformation, contradicting the company’s recent vows to crack down on “election interference.” Facebook didn’t respond to a request for comment.
[...]
Facebook’s and Twitter’s lack of intervention belies the platforms’ efforts to censor conservatives who questioned the process and results of the 2020 election.
Facebook removed the “Stop the Steal” group in the aftermath of the 2020 election, announced an indefinite suspension of former President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and suppressed the distribution of an October 2020 New York Post story outlining alleged corruption between Ukraine and Joe and Hunter Biden.
Bradley didn't mention that, because the 2020 election wasn't stolen, the pro-Trump "Stop the Steal" campaign was fraudulent.
Later that day, Nicholas Fondacaro kept up the hypocritical outrage as he cheered news outlets bashing White House press secretary Jen Psaki for defending her boss:
In addition to making headlines by giving Russia the green light for a “minor incursion” into Ukraine during a press conference on Wednesday, President Biden dropped jaws when he declared the 2022 midterms would be illegitimate if the Senate didn’t pass the federal takeover of elections. And it was a declaration that raised serious concerns on both sides of the aisle as White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was relentlessly grilled by both CNN and Fox News Channel on Thursday.
That morning, Psaki took one for the team as she ran into the rhetorical buzz saw that was America’s Newsroom >co-hosts Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino on FNC. “Last night, on the eve of his anniversary in office, those reforms failed. So, I'm curious if he will continue to say that those 2022 elections will be illegitimate,” Perino pointedly asked.
Psaki responded with her usual word salad stating that “the President [had spoken to her] a lot about this and he absolutely is not predicting that the 2022 elections would be illegitimate” and how “the point he was making the former president asked a number of states, seven or more, in fact, to overturn the outcome of the election.”
Fondacaro didn't mention that both his employer and Trump labored mightily to delegitimize the 2020 election.
Alex Christy was similiarly uniroinically outraged in a Jan. 21 post lashing out at CNN pointing out Republicans' hypocrisy in attacking Biden for making that claim:
Host Alisyn Camerota wondered what the big deal was, after all there are Republicans "who supported Trump's false election claims won elections to serve as local judges and election inspectors. This is what President Biden was referring to, I think."
Politico White House correspondent Laura Barron-Lopez agreed and claimed the entire controversy is simply because Biden gave inartful response: "Yeah, I agree with you, Alisyn. And look, should the president have been more clear and careful in his statement? Yes. Should the press seek clarification and the White House has sought to clarify what he meant, which was to talk about election subversion? Yes. They should do that."
Fonodacaro went misogynistic in another Jan. 21 post, smearing a group of outspoken women -- the hosts of "The View" -- as a "coven":
The unhinged coven on ABC’s The View busted out their tinfoil hats on Friday, as they peppered White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki with crackpot conspiracy theories suggesting the 2022 midterm elections would be illegitimate because Republicans were stealing away voting rights from black people. All of which are false.
Loopy CNNer and co-host Ana Navarro was the most direct in demanding Psaki answer discredit the elections that were 10 months away. She even seemed frustrated that President Biden had walked back his claims at a Wednesday press conference where he asserted the 2022 results should not be trusted:
Again, Fondacaro didn't mention that the MRC tried to delegitimize the 2020 election and that Trump still is -- doing the "dangerous conspiracy theory peddling" that he accuses the "View" hosts of doing, and which the MRC has refused to distance itself from, let alone call out as dangerous.
WND Hypes Embalmer's Dubious Story Of COVID Vaccine Blood Clots Topic: WorldNetDaily
Prolific COVID misinformer Art Moore wrote in a Feb. 13 WorldNetDaily article:
Amid indications from many different sources of a dramatic rise in the sudden onset of serious illnesses following COVID-19 vaccination, a veteran embalmer is reporting that he and more than a dozen colleagues in the industry have been noticing strange blood clots in most of their cases.
Richard Hirschman, with more than 20 years of experience in the funeral industry in Alabama, says that in mid-2021, he began noticing odd blood clots in arteries and lungs he had never seen before.
In an interview with Steve Kirsch, Hirschman said that last month, he found that 65% of his cases exhibited the clots. He told Kirsch that every one of the 15 people in the industry with whom he has spoken has observed the same alarming trend.
Kirsch is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has applied his skills in data analysis to the pandemic, forming a group called the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, where he serves as executive director.
Hirschman said that with only one exception, he hasn't seen any cases in which the strange clots were seen in an unvaccinated person. The exception was an unvaccinated person who had received a transfusion.
Kirsch is also a prolific COVID misinformer, so what is being passed along here should be considered questionable at best -- and, indeed it is. PolitiFact has noted that Hirschman has been making the rounds of COVID conspiracy operations with his tales, but argued that that the stories shouldn't be treated as anything beyond anecdotal and definitely not authoritative:
The National Funeral Directors Association, a U.S. professional organization, told PolitiFact that embalmers in its network have noticed similar abnormalities in COVID-related deaths, but among both the vaccinated and unvaccinated.
"It’s only anecdotal evidence, and there’s no scientific evidence to draw any conclusions," said Jessica Koth, director of public relations for the association.
Embalmers typically do not know the vaccination status of those they are embalming, according to the experts PolitiFact spoke to. "It is not on the death certificate," said Dr. Hari P. Close, national president of the National Funeral Directors & Morticians Association.
Politifact went on to explain that actual medical professionals -- which Hirschman is not -- point out that blood clots are linked to COVID itself, but not to most vaccines:
Experts we talked to say there’s something to the claim about a greater incidence of blood clots, but they dismiss the idea that it’s linked to the vaccines. What embalmers are noticing, they say, could well be the effects of COVID-19 infection itself, and those effects are occurring in people who are vaccinated and unvaccinated.
More than 900,000 people in the U.S., and nearly 5.8 million worldwide, have died of COVID-19 or related causes. This could explain why funeral home workers are encountering more bodies that show effects of a COVID-19 infection, which include blood vessel inflammation, damage to very small vessels, and blood clots.
Moore knew the PolitiFact fact-check was problematic, so it enlilsted Kirsch's help in trying to shout it down:
Politifact challenged Hirschman's belief that the blood clots are caused by the vaccines. Fact checker Naseem Ferdowsi, who has no medical experience, Kirsch noted, said she was told by an embalmer in Phoenix, Arizona, that "dark clots have been found in COVID victims long before vaccinations were available."
However, the clots Hirschman is observing are white fibrous material.
And Kirsch pointed out that the number of COVID deaths in Houston County, Alabama, where Richard works, is miniscule.
Moore didn't address PolitiFact pointing out that the funeral directors group pointed out that enbalmers typcailly don't know the vaccination status of the person they're enbalming. Further, as a former "Silicon Valley entrepeneur," Kirsch has no medical experience either.
MRC Expresses Glee At Alleged Non-Success of Bisexual Superman Comic Topic: Media Research Center
Last fall, the Media Research Center's resident gay-basher (well, one of them, anyway) Gabriel Hays had a meltdown over a new Superman series in which the son of the Man of Steel failed to be heterosexual. In a Jan. 27 post, Hays took unseemly glee over the series' allegedly lackluster sales:
Look, down in the sewer! It's a rat! It's a turd! No, it's woke Superman sales!
Perhaps not all is lost. The decline of woke comic book sales is a hopeful omen that the progressive utopia will not be achieved.
According to nerd culture outlet BoundingIntoComics.com, DC Comics’ recent attempts to turn beloved character Superman into a progressive pansy who’s too ashamed to fight for truth, justice and the American way (it’s now “truth, justice and a better tomorrow”), are flatlining, at least according to 2021 sales comic books sales data. Woke Superman is not a hot ticket item.
ICv2.com, a comic book sales tracking website, revealed that the new flagship Superman series – in which Kal-el’s bisexual son has taken up the mantle of the caped crusader – didn’t even crack the top five comic book category for last November. It placed sixth.
But if that sounds like a subpar performance for a flagship comic based on the most popular superhero in history, the December sales for Son of Kal-El were so much worse. According to the website, that month’s issue, “Superman: Son of Kal-El 2021 Annual #1,” didn’t even make it into the top 50 comic book range for December 21 in terms of units sold.
Just to put it into perspective, the new Superman doesn’t even sell as well at Batgirl, Spawn and Moon Knight. Who the heck is Moon Knight?
That is selective reporting on Hays' part. The first five issues of the "Son of Kal-El" series -- including issue #5, in which said lack of heterosexuality was revealed -- got reprints last fall.Hays went on to rant:
Of course, let’s remind ourselves why America’s greatest superhero is quickly becoming irrelevant. Again, they made Kal-El, a hero Americans have loved for decades, step down for his millennial son. Yeah so now we’re privy to stories about Superboy having to leave his avocado toast behind in order to save the day, or perhaps we’ll have to suffer reading about him taking a “self-care” day, while the world burns.
Hey, no one should complain about that. Enough with the mental health stigma, guys!
They also made him bisexual. Within the first five editions of this new “flagship” DC series, the new Superman is dating a male reporter. Zip! Bang! Crash! What an exciting development!
[...]
Get the globalist BS outta here. The only thing gay Superman is fighting for is the deepest, darkest corner of the local used bookstore’s free book bin.
By the way, Hays also didn't mention that Bounding Into Comics is a right-wing comics site (we didn't realize there was such a thing, yet we're not surprised) that is apparently a leader in what has been dubbed Comicsgate, a right-wing movement to shout down liberal themes in superhero comics. We assume Hays is fully on board with this censorship campaign.
CNS Still Loves DINO And Russia Fan Tulsi Gabbard Topic: CNSNews.com
It seems that CNSNews.com was so inspired by our highlighting how it has embraced Democrat-in-name-only Tulsi Gabbard that it posted two articles about her in the two days after our item appeared. A Jan. 13 article by Craig Bannister gave uncritical space to a Gabbard rant:
President Joe Biden’s vile characterization of Americans who disagree with his agenda is worse than Hillary Clinton’s infamous slur calling them “a basket of deplorables,” Former Democrat [sic] presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard said Wednesday.
While Cinton’s insult was divisive and disgusting, Biden taken insults to a new low by suggesting that dissidents are terrorists, traitors and racists, Gabbard tweeted.
The next day, Bannister served up another anti-Biden rant from Gabbard:
President Joe Biden promised to unite all Americans, but he’s actually tearing the nation apart by smearing and targeting anyone who disagrees with him, former Democrat -sic] presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard says.
In a video posted on her Twitter page, Gabbard says she and millions of others supported Biden’s campaign for president because he vowed to put an end to divisiveness – but, he’s now doing the opposite by “fueling the fires” of discord and animosity:
Bannister was the servile stenographer for Gabbard again -- this time bashing Hillary Clinton -- in a Feb. 15 article:
The White House is dodging questions about allegations, stemming from Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation, that a tech executive exploited access to the White House server to find incriminating evidence against former President Trump – but, former Democrat [sic] presidential candidate and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) is speaking up.
“What is being revealed here, Jesse, is the truth: Hillary Clinton and the power elite in this country manufactured this Russian collusion lie actively undermining our democracy and stoking the fires moving us into this new Cold War with Russia,” Gabbard said Monday in a Fox News Channel interview with Host Jesse Watters.
Actually, there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives in 2016.
As Russia invaded Ukraine, CNS found a different way to use Gabbard, a longtime Russia supporter -- to the point that both CNS and its Media Research Center parent felt compelled to defend her against allegations of being too close to Russia -- in pushing the argument that CNS columnists like Pat Buchanan have pushed, that the U.S. should have capituated to Russia's demand that Ukraine be blocked from being admitted to NATO. This appeared in a Feb. 24 article by Patrick Goodenough:
A different take came from Democrat Tulsi Gabbard, a former presidential candidate and member of Congress for Hawaii – and Iraq War veteran – who has been sharply critical of U.S. involvement in foreign wars.
“This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO, which would mean US/NATO forces right on Russia’s border,” she tweeted.
Goodenough highlighted Gabbard again in a March 4 article when a spokesman for China's foreign ministry brought her up in a anti-NATO argument:
He then cited the critical views of three Americans – the late diplomat George Kennan, political commentator and author Thomas Friedman, and Democratic former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard – on the question of NATO expansion and the impact it would have on relations with Russia.
“Those who created the problem should be the ones to undo it,” Wang said. “They should earnestly shoulder due responsibilities and take real actions to ease the situation and resolve the problem instead of shifting the blame to others.”
It's not a good look when you're on the same side as China, but Goodenough didn't criticize her. Neither Bannister nor Goodenough mentioned Gabbard's previous fealty to Russia, or that even after the invasion she was blaming Biden for it and defended Russia's "legitimate security concerns"-- and that even Fox News' Sean Hannity was advising her to back off the Putin-love a it.
MRC Gives A Pass To Book Banners Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Alex Christy complained in a Jan. 27 post that CNN was trying to "portray Republicans as a bunch of dictator-loving book burners" but he didn't really do much to dispel that image.
Christy used his post to complain that "Trumper-turned-Never Trumper Joe Walsh" was calling out Republicans in Florida and elsewhere trying to censor school content purportedly in order to keep children from feeling "discomfort" about issues such as race and the Holocaust. He went on to grumble:
Walsh's reference to the Holocaust was the original premise of the segment. A Tennessee school board voted to remove Maus from its eighth-grade reading list for profanity and nudity, but it is a stretch to say that they even banned it and irresponsibly false to say they banned it because they do not want to educate students about the Holocaust.
Christy then linked to a statement from the school board that banned it -- if you're prohibiting a book from being taught, it's a ban; because it's apparently not a total ban doesn't make it less of a ban -- that complained about the book's purportedly "unnecessary use of profanity and nudity and its depiction of violence and suicide."
Ironically, a few years earlier, a 2014 MRC post touted the graphic novel edition of right-winger Amity Shlaes' revisionist, anti-FDR retelling of the New Deal years, "The Forgotten Man" as a classic on par with "Maus": "But graphic novels can be very sophisticated. Shlaes mentioned Maus: A Survivor’s Tale which is a critically acclaimed Holocaust narrative that won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992."
Kevin Tober used a Feb. 1 post to wonder why students were allowed to read books he didn't llike:
On Tuesday night, NBC Nightly News decided it was a good use of airtime to dedicate an entire segment complaining about how a school district in Katy, Texas has removed sexually inappropriate books from their library.
Anchor Lester Holt opened the segment by tossing to NBC News correspondent Antonia Hylton who proceeded to interview a young student by the name of Iris Chang who, according to Hylton, "identifies as queer always loved learning about the world from her hometown of Katy, Texas, until this fall when her district started banning books."
Chang told Hylton that "students of color and queer students are especially taking this hard", referring to the banning of her favorite book The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan.
Hylton claims "an NBC News investigation found that the Katy Independent School District is one of at least a dozen Texas districts that have removed books about race, gender, and sexual identity after a statewide surge of parent complaints."
But the question remains, why were books about gender and sexual identity allowed in school libraries in the first place?
Tober didn't explain why the books must be censored.
Tober went on to huff that "Katy Texas isn't the first public school to have sexually inappropriate books on its shelves." But it's clear that his definition of "sexually inappropriate" involved anything that didn't promote heterosexuality.
Clay Waters tried to play whataboutism in a Feb. 1 post:
Monday’s front-page New York Times story -- headlined “Politics Fuels Surge in Calls For Book Bans” -- did liberal Democrats a favor, posing them in their flattering former costumes of fierce free-speech advocates. Meanwhile, today’s actual left-wing is a hive of free-speech squelchers and book banners, including the Times’ own reporters, who have an unseemly and anti-journalistic eagerness to “deplatform” voices they don’t like...when they're conservative "bigots."
But that's a false comparison. Public libraries being forbidden from making certain books available to a certain audience is not the same thing as a private business seeking to enforce standards and terms of service on its platform to battle lies and misinformation. Yet the whataboutism continued: "Besides the daily double standards of restrictions on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, Amazon.com pulled a book on transgender issues from its online shelf, and Netflix tried to cancel comedian Dave Chappelle for offensive jokes about transgenders."
We could play whataboutism too, pointing out that the MRC has long raged against "censorship" of social media while tacitly endorsing it at school libraries. Wonder what Waters would say about that?
WND's Farah Can't Stop Pushing Trump's Big Lie Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah reminds us that he's still a Big Lie dead-ender in his Jan. 25 WorldNetDaily column, headlined "Why do so many believe the 2020 election was stolen?" Instead of offering a truthful answer -- because people have been lied to by Trump, WND and Farah himself -- he went right into the conspiracy-mongering:
Are these Americans nothing but mind-numbed robots? Or are they duly outraged voters deeply suspicious of what happened?
That has affected people's confidence in the electoral system overall, and it hasn't gotten any better as time has gone by.
The previous year has demonstrated what Joe Biden can do as president. It has not been pretty. Trump has not had much to add to the controversy. He's smart enough to know when to get out of Biden's way.
His record includes repression, hundreds of "domestic enemies" rounded up, almost a year of vaccine mandates, threats, the Jan. 6 witch hunt by Democrats in Congress – not to mention the Afghanistan debacle, widespread open illegal immigration, around 2 million strong from over 100 countries without vetting nor vaccines during a pandemic, inflation not seen for 40 years, supply-side snafus and impending war with Russia.
Despite this, the media stand by his side. Even worse, Big Tech stifles coverage of the 2020 election on Google, Facebook and Twitter. WND and other conservative website have been systematically demonetized and get no traffic from Google, which has a virtual monopoly of advertising and ad servers on the internet.
Even Fox News doesn't talk about the 2020 election. The Wall Street Journal doesn't touch it. It just didn't happen – not on their watch.
[...]
Real Americans see hope in Donald Trump, a real election for Congress this year and, frankly, God.
In the meantime, Trump is not going to stop talking about the rigged election – his favorite subject.
Farah then referenced a letter Donald Trump wrote to the Wall Street Journal in October complaining about a story it did that, in Farah's words, "tried to legitimize the election in Pennsylvania by saying there weren't enough votes to swing the election in Trump's favor." The letter was so filled with falsehoods that even the Journal was shamed into fact-checking it after publication. Not only did Farah not mention the fact that the letter's claims have been discredited, he went on to quote some of those discredited claims:
"Actually," wrote Trump, "the election was rigged, which you, unfortunately, still haven't figured out. Here are just a few examples of how determinative the voter fraud in Pennsylvania was:
"* 71,893 mail-in ballots were returned after Nov. 3, 2020, at 8 p.m. … None of these should have been counted, according to the U.S. Constitution.
"* 10,515 mail-in votes from people who do not exist on the Pennsylvania voter rolls at all.
"* 20,000 excess voters not yet accounted for by the Pennsylvania Department of State – far more votes than voters!
"* Hundreds of thousands of votes unlawfully counted in secret … while GOP poll watchers were thrown out.
"* 39,771 people voted who registered after the Oct. 19 deadline."
As one fact-checker summarized regarding these claims:
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court permitted the counting of those mail-in ballots because they were postmarked by 8 p.m. on Nov. 3. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the counting of those ballots.
There were not "far more votes than voters" in Pennsylvania, nor were there "excess voters" -- there are 9 million registered voters in the state and 7 million who cast votes in 2020.
No votes were "unlawfully counted in secret"; only was the vote count fully observed by representatives of both parties, it was livestreamed as well.
Farah didn't tell his readers that Trump's claims have been found to be false and discredited. Nevertheless. he concluded: "Do you still wonder why Americans are clinging to the only hope they have for righting a bogus 2020 election?" No, we don't -- as long as dead-enders like Farah keep repeating Trump's lies, people will continue to be bamboozled.
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC Adds Another Sports Anti-Vaxxer Topic: Media Research Center
Newly minted Media Research Center sports blogger John Simmons has joined Jay Maxson in lashing out at COVID vaccines and vaccine mandates, as well as defending athletes who hurt their team by refusing to get vaccinated. Read more >>
CNS Intern Senator-Pestering Season, Spring Semester Edition Topic: CNSNews.com
It's a new semester, which means that CNSNews.com has a new intern, Emily Robertson of right-wing Liberty University. And as is mandated of every CNS intern, Robertson has been tasked with going to Capitol Hill and pestering membersof Congress with loaded and biased questions designed by CNS editors to trap liberal politicians and give conservative ones an opportunity to virtue-signal to the right-wing CNS audience.
Robertson's first question this semester was: "The U.S. trade deficit with China in 2021 was more than $300 billion for the tenth year in a row. Can the United States have free trade with a communist country?"Her targets:
Note that nearly all of Robertson's targets are Repiublicans. That's a lot of virtue-signaling.
Her next question was taken from a Feb. 14 grievance article by editor Terry Jeffrey complaining that federal data showed too many babies (in his view) being born to mothers who are unmarried and poor: “According to the CDC, 42% of the babies born in America in 2020 were born on Medicaid. Is that a good thing?” That came with a follow-up: “40.5% of the babies were born to unmarried mothers. Do you think that’s related to the high number born on Medicaid?” Here's the heavily Republican guest list, with many repeats from the first round:
Inexplicably, Robertson identified Peters as "pro-choice" in her headline and made a point of stating that he "supports abortion." By contrast, the anti-abortion views of the Republicans she quoted lamenting the birth of babies to poor and unmarried mothers was not mentioned.
MRC Tries To Deflect From The Fact That Ex-CNN Chief Created Donald Trump Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's creepily unseemly glee over the demise of CNN chief Jeff Zucker -- filled with anti-Semitic "puppetmaster" labeling and stunning lack of self-awareness given that his downfall is similar to that of Fox News chief Roger Ailes -- didn't end when Curtis Houck stopped dancing on his professional grave after three days. There were other issues to deal with -- like the fact that Zucker essentially created their beloved Donald Trump when "The Apprentice" was developed under his watch at NBC. Scott Whitlock rushed into whataboutism in a Feb. 3 post:
NBC on Thursday discovered the most disgraceful thing that ex-Today show producer Jeff Zucker did, now that he’s resigned from CNN after a sex scandal: Zucker hired Donald Trump back in the ‘90s.
The fact that Zucker also secured the career success of alleged sex abuser Matt Lauer went unmentioned by the Today show.
You know, perhaps Whitlock shouldn't be mentioning Trump in the same breath as Lauer -- unless he's tacitly conceding that Trump is just as much of a creep as Lauer.
P.J. Gladnick didn't play Whitlock-like whataboutism when he complained about the same issue in a Feb. 5 post, but he insisted that anything he did at CNN was much worse:
She doesn't know precisely why CNN boss Jeff Zucker was forced out, but Washington Post columnist Margaret Sullivan wrote on Friday that "Jeff Zucker’s legacy is defined by his promotion of Donald Trump." All of CNN's horror-movie coverage was never enough.
[...]
So all of CNN's trashing Trump as a Russian tool, an American Hitler, a journalist-endangering dictator (and later a COVID mass murderer) wasn't enough? It's never enough.
Jeffrey Lord, meanwhile, devoted a Feb. 5 column to pondering whether CNN was "imploding" -- a think piece we don't recall Lord doing upon Roger Ailes' ignominious departure from Fox News amid a culture f rampant sexual harassment -- claiming that "with the arrival of Jeff Zucker, it seemed that CNN was slowly heading in a different direction altogether. Which is to say, there was more and more opinion, less and less hard news."Lord appears not to have read the MRC's own study finding that Fox News airs even less "news" than CNN or MSNBC.
The MRC also continued to be upset that CNN employees continued to say nice things about Zucker. Kevin Tober whined in a Feb. 6 post:
Need a good laugh? Well we’ve got you covered here at NewsBusters. On CNN’s Reliable Sources, host Brian Stelter had on Media Studies Professor David Zurawik who made the preposterous claim that CNN was part of the fire wall that has helped “save democracy.”
[...]
While he was on the topic of misinformation and disinformation, Zurawik decided to gaslight the CNN audience and suck up to Brian Stelter by ludicrously claiming “CNN is one of the stations of all the television broadcast networks and cable channels it pushed harder from 2016 to 2020 against Trump and it was part of the fire wall that I think has saved democracy this far under Jeff Zucker.”
Nicholas Fondacaro similarly ranted in a Feb. 7 post:
Jeff Zucker was the venomous boss behind all of CNN’s toxic content poisoning American discourse but he was also everything to primetime host Don Lemon. He made that perfectly clear during Friday’s Don Lemon Tonight when he was so overwhelmed with emotion that he almost broke down crying on-air.
[...]
“Jeff Zucker may not have launched this network but he revived it, he made it relevant again. He steadied it for the last decade. He left us with a very good blueprint going forward,” he reassured them.
Ironically, under Zucker, CNN is experiencing their ratings bottom-out across the board; plus, their credibility has been left in tatters because of the extreme liberal bent obvious to any honest observer and their abdication (bordering on contempt) of journalistic ethics.
Houck returned in a Feb. 8 post to attack CNN host Alisyn Camerota for saying Zucker's ouster was affecting her mental health, sneering: "In other words, they're a cult." The next day, Houck yet again hung the "puppetmaster" slur on Zucker:
Monday on his eponymous NewsNation show, longtime TV news personality and legal expert Dan Abrams hammered CNN’s Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter over his behavior regarding the ouster of now-ex-CNN boss and puppetmaster Jeff Zucker, calling Stelter “dishonest” for his defense of CNN as a legitimate news network and “reckless” for targeting John Malone, the top share in CNN’s future parent company Discovery.
We don't recall anyone at the MRC complaining about just how little Fox News covered the scandals of its founder and boss, Roger Ailes.
Fondacaro cheered that "Zucker's lover" -- i.e., the subordinate with whom Zucker was having an undisclosed relationship that was the stated cause of Zucker's departure -- had also left CNN in a Feb. 16 post, going on to hype gossip about Zucker's relationship with Chris Cuomo, who departed CNN a few months before. When Zucker's replacement -- former CBS "Late Show" showrunner Chris Licht -- was named, Fondacaro returned to hurl more darts at CNN in a Feb. 26 post:
In an interesting “scoop” published Saturday, Axios reported that CBS’s EVP of Special Programming Chris Licht, who was tapped to replace ousted CNN boss Jeff Zucker to lead the third-place cable network, wants to get back to CNN being a straight news outlet and cut back on the liberal screeds that dominate prime time and their newscasts in general.
The Axios headline said it all: “CNN to dull its liberal edge.” “Under new chief Chris Licht, CNN will dial down the prime-time partisanship and double down on the network's news-gathering muscle,” reported Mike Allen and Sara Fischer.
According to Axios, Licht was picked by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav because “[r]atings are secondary to credibility[.]”
Both of which are foreign concepts to CNN currently.
Of course, Fondacaro is perfectly happy to see Fox News throw away credibility for the sake of ratings, and he has never demanded that Fox News "dull its conservative edge." As a loyal MRC apparatchik, he does not want "middle of the road" coverage, since he has bought into the MRC party line that anything even slightly less right-wing than Fox News is irredeemably "liberal."
After a slow year of Mark Levin stenography in 2021, CNSNews.com is starting the new year just as slowly. In the first two months of 2022, there were just six Levin stenography articles:
As has become CNS tradition, four of these six articles were written by its new spring intern, Emily Robertson. The year's first was published on Jan. 10 -- the first since Nov. 12, a surprising gap of nearly two months.
Oh, and regarding that Feb. 7 item of Levin complaining that "the left-wing activists who invaded the Capitol during then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation hearing" weren't "rounded up": Unlike the Capitol insurrectionists, those protesters obtained tickets for the hearing, entered peacefully and protested without causing millions of dollars in property damage. Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters who occupied a Senate office building -- not the Capitol itself -- were indeed "rounded up" -- that is, arrested for unlawfully demonstrating, and even then there was no massive property damage akin to what was seen in the Capitol.
Robertson didn't report those facts to her readers -- but then, facts aren't the point of Levin stenography at CNS.
Newsmax Still Bashing Fox's Carlson For Supporting Russia -- But Airs Its Own Pro-Russia Rhetoric Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax has continued to lash out at Fox News' Tucker Carlson for effectively taking Russia's side in the Ukraine conflict -- but it has also forwarded some pro-Russia, anti-Ukraine rhetoric of its own.
Dick Morris has been Newsmax's chief Tucker-basher, and he did that again in a Jan. 21 article by Charlie McCarthy:
Former presidential adviser Dick Morris ripped Fox News host Tucker Carlson Friday for "helping to join the Putin people" who are trying to scare Americans into believing that defending Ukraine against Russia will lead to a long, costly war.
Carlson on Tuesday tweeted, "America is moving towards war with Russia, and the media is encouraging it." On his program Thursday night, he told viewers that the U.S. defending Ukraine "serves no American interest."
Morris slammed Carlson's hyperbole and told Newsmax a war between the U.S. and Russia will not happen.
"He should know better, that economic sanctions can accomplish [stopping Russian aggression]," said Morris, a former adviser to then-Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.
"I can't believe that Tucker Carlson is so willing to throw away the entire legacy and work of President Ronald Reagan," he said, noting Reagan's success is liberating Eastern Europe from communist subjugation.
Republican senators say they are not moved by Fox News host Tucker Carlson's recent rants in favor of Russia's Vladimir Putin while deriding support of Ukraine.
Carlson has been on a tirade rationalizing Russia's aggression toward Ukraine and downplaying its relevance to U.S. national security.
But major Republican figures are not afraid of taking on Fox's top-rated host for what they believe is dangerous thinking, if not outright propaganda.
[...]
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said lawmakers' actions are more important than TV hosts' opinions.
"Our allies around the world — obviously after Afghanistan — are doubting our credibility, our reliability," Cornyn said.
Dick Morris, a veteran political strategist and Newsmax analyst, has worked on Ukrainian elections and believes Carlson is deceiving the public.
Morris bashed Carlson again on Newsmax TV on Feb. 22:
Those who have been apologists for Russia and Vladimir Putin – like Fox News' Tucker Carlson – are woefully "short-sighted" about this "takeaway" by the "expansionist" regime, starting a "de facto world war," according to political strategist Dick Morris on Newsmax.
"Tucker Carlson, amazingly, on Fox News, said that he would choose Russia over Ukraine – I mean, how short-sighted could you be?" Morris told Tuesday's "America Agenda."
After Russia invaded Ukraine, Morris used his Feb. 24 column to beat up on Carlson some more:
But as war now rages in Europe with Russia’s reckless and unwarranted invasion of Ukraine, everything we feared about Vladimir Putin is coming true.
Still Fox’s top host is doubling down on his own support of the Russian dictator and even claims he would back Russia over innocent Ukraine.
Carlson is making claims which are patently false.
As I have written before, he's smarter than this.
I don’t know what his motive is, but I do know it’s a problem that he's seeking to win over normally sane rational Fox News viewers, and by osmosis, some Newsmax viewers.
[...]
We are watching pure 1930s-style appeasement in action on Fox News and in Carlson’s show. It’s not an invasion. It’s an incursion. It’s not important. Ukraine is not a vital ally. It’s none of our business. It’s Europe’s problem. They’re corrupt.
Such talking points must be dear to Putin’s heart as they split the conservative freedom-loving Republicans in America and sap the very limited reservoir of courage and resolve in Joe Biden’s heart.
Offering a coward a way out is like buying a drunk a drink.
Newsmax chief Christopher Ruddy even issued a company statement bashing Carlson's support for Putin:
Newsmax believes Russia has made a major transgression and this should be condemned strongly by all people. I think we are seeing for conservatives a clarity moment where Fox News’ main host is stating categorically he is siding with Putin and Russia in support of the invasion. Newsmax supports President Biden’s efforts to stop this invasion, if anything we think he is not being strong enough. We believe there is a bipartisan consensus in opposition to this dangerous aggression.
But as Mediaite noted, "Ruddy’s statement raised eyebrows across the media world, however, as Newsmax’s content in the past week and even 24 hours has been both highly critical of Biden and dismissive of the severity of Putin’s invasion," adding:
The conservative news network released the statement some twelve hours after Michael Savage appeared on Newsmax and condemned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “puppet of George Soros” who “provoked” Putin. Earlier on Thursday night, host Greg Kelly excused Putin’s invasion of Ukraine by comparing it to the U.S. invasion of Iraq under George W. Bush and went on to claim the U.S. should get rid of term limits, arguing Putin’s lengthy reign has benefitted Russia.
Meanwhile, another Newsmax TV host, Rob Schmitt, got a dressing down by none other than John Bolton for giving too much credit to Donald Trump for containing Russia, as Mediaite also reported:
Former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton corrected and scolded Newsmax host Rob Schmitt on Monday evening over the assertion that Vladimir Putin didn’t invade Ukraine while Donald Trump was president because his administration was “very tough” on Russia.
[...]
“In almost every case the sanctions were imposed with Trump complaining about it, saying we were being too hard,” said Bolton. “The fact is he barely knew where Ukraine was.”
“He once asked John Kelly, the second chief of staff, if Finland were part of Russia,” Bolton continued. “It’s just not accurate to say that Trump’s behavior somehow deterred the Russians.”
[...]
Toward the end of the interview, Schmitt said that credit is nevertheless due, and claimed Trump was the first to warn Europe about the dangers of relying on Russian gas and oil.
“The first person to tell the Europeans not to rely on Russian oil and gas was Ronald Reagan,” said Bolton, which elicited a “Fair enough,” from Schmitt.
Newsmax needs to work a bit on unifying its messaging.
WND Interviews Fringe COVID Doc -- And Tries To Cash In On Him Topic: WorldNetDaily
The only bit of original "reporting" that WorldNetDaily has done in recent months is a series of video interviews reporter Art Moore has done with prominent COVID misinformers like Robert Malone. But Moore has been adding some less prominent misinformers to his interview slate -- and one with a money-grubbing twist.
For a Feb. 8 article, Moore interviewed Viadimir Zelenko, an early proponent of the questionable drug hydroxychloroquine whom WND enthusiastically promoted early in the pandemic despite a lack of proper documentation for his claims. Moore touted how Zelenko "has developed an over-the-counter formulation to treat COVID-19 called Z-Stack that contains zinc, quercetin, vitamin D and vitamin C," adding, that "Zelenko has explained that the key virus killer is zinc, which has a known antiviral effect, and it's drugs like hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin and quercetin that "open the door to the cell and let the zinc in." In fact, there's little evidence that zinc works against COVID, and there's little evidence that Zelenko's supplement works as advertised.
But it's not until the end of the article that it's revealed the whole thing is a cross-promotional deal:
IMPORTANT NOTE: WND IS NOW OFFERING DR. ZELENKO’S FAMED over-the-counter treatment Z-STACK: An early champion of hydroxychloroquine for combatting COVID, even advising President Trump about its use, Dr. Zelenko saved hundreds of lives even during the earliest months of the pandemic. As his reward, he was banned from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, vilified by the media, and New York’s governor blocked his patients’ access to hydroxychloroquine.
But Zelenko didn’t stop. He kept researching and working – and discovered a way to help people with an over-the-counter solution he calls Z-Stack.
[...]
If you’d like to try Z-Stack, Dr. Zelenko has made available a special link for WND readers. By purchasing through this link, you’ll also be supporting and benefiting WND.
Order Z-Stack today for immune system support – and use code WND for a discount!
In other words, there's a reason Moore didn't ask Zelenko any challenging questions -- the're both trying to sell you something.
Note to Moore and WND: If you're effectively running press releases as a fund-raiser to keep your website alive, you've stopped being a "news" operation.That fact that it has taken sides on the COVID debate for money means its "journalism" cannot be trusted (though, frankly, it hasn't been trustworthy for years before this).
MRC Dances On Jeff Zucker's CNN Grave, Smears Him As 'Puppetmaster' Again Topic: Media Research Center
Jeff Zucker has long been a nemesis of the Media Research Center, where Curtis Houck has repeatedly smeared the Jewish Zucker with the anti-Semitic "puppetmaster" trope -- putting him on the same level of hate that it places GeorgeSoros. When Zucker resigned as CNN chairman last month over an improper relationship with a subordinate, Houck was positively gleeful in response, repeating his immature sniping at CNN's ratings and hurling the "puppetmaster" slur again:
On Wednesday morning, CNN president, longtime overlord, and puppetmaster Jeff Zucker resigned effective immediately from the failing, far-left network after nine years over what he called “a consensual relationship with my closest colleague” with fellow CNN executive Allison Gollust that he had failed “to disclose...when it began.”
[...]
It remains to be seen who will take over the network (which has lost ratings battles to the likes of a Hallmark movie, Moonshiners, My 600 Pound Life, and Pepa Pig [sic]) in this surprising move ahead of its merger with Discovery but, almost a year ago, former CNN media reporter Dylan Byers reported Gollust was a frontrunner.
Houck also huffed: "Given CNN's recent track record of alleged and verified allegations of sexual misconduct, one could give them a new slogan offered up by NewsBusters deputy managing editor Nick Fondacaro: This is CNN, the most pervy name in news.
Needless to say, both Houck and Fondacaro memory-holed -- along with the rest of the MRC -- the pervasive sexual misconduct at their favorite channel, Fox News, and its longtime leader, Roger Ailes.
A couple hours later, Houck lashed out at CNN anchor Brian Stelter for praising Zucker's work at CNN, even though Stelter, as a CNN employee, is much more familiar with it than he is:
Playing the role of Baghdad Bob after the 2003 fall of the Iraqi capital to U.S. troops, CNN’s Reliable Sources host and chief media correspondent Brian Stelter crawled out of his shell to spinelessly shill for Jeff Zucker moments after his resignation from CNN and “pioneering figure” and their “rock” who’s left them in “a stunner.”
As if some national hero had passed on, Stelter coached those watching inside CNN to continue covering “the news” as he would want them to do.
CNN has been anything but in Zucker’s nine years and instead a shell of itself, having become one of American’s most hated media organizations and hemorrhaged viewers in both prime time and total day since he took over in January 2013.
By contrast, when the Ailes scandal broke, one NewsBusters blogger insisted that Ailes shouldn't be blamed for the pervasive culture of sexual harassment at Fox News, and another claimed it was "liberal bias" for anyone to even discuss Ailes' sexual harassment issues -- or, for that matter, anything remotely critical about him, no matter how accurate.
Houck's obsessive attack on any CNN employee who praised Zucker continued the next day:
CNN spent Wednesday in mourning as if CNN boss Jeff Zucker had passed away when, in fact, he was pushed out for having carried on an inappropriate relationship with fellow CNN exec Allison Gollust, calling him “incredible,” “remarkable,” “larger than life,” and “singular” person who brought “a clarity of mission” to the network.
In other words, it was something North Korean news reader Ri Chun-hee would have found creepy.
With praise so gushy and reports those inside CNN are some combination of despondent and enraged over Zucker’s ouster, it’s safe to wonder whether CNN can ever be saved as a serious, sober news organization considering their desire to stay the course from what Zucker made them.
Houck again called Zucker a "puppetmaster."
If Houck wants to read obsequiously gushy praise for a terrible person, all he needs to do is read his boss Bren Bozell's sickening tribute to Ailes upon his death in 2018, which fawned that "The good Roger did for America is immeasurable" and censored all the harassment stuff.
Houck entered his third day -- yes, the third day -- of shrieking at CNN employees for praising Zucker in a Feb. 4 post (and, yes, he hurled the "puppetmaster" slur again):
Through a series of stories this week, it was evident CNN’s current staff have no interest in being salvaged as a serious news organization and anything other than a far-left propaganda outlet worthy of being some combination of mocked and ignored. Instead of seeking to move on from their disgraced former boss Jeff Zucker after his Wednesday ouster, they’ve tried to canonize him as a tent pole of American democracy.
[...]
To underline the level in which Zucker was some combination of puppetmaster and hand-holder for these sheep, he quoted chief political correspondent Dana Bash as having said “the punishment didn’t fit the crime” and it went against Zucker’s morals in giving people“a second chance.”
Without a sense of irony for how CNN has shown nothing but hate in seeking to treat conservatives as enemies of the state, chief political analyst Gloria Borger lamented Zucker wasn’t given “a lot of dignity”with Kasie Hunt fretting the Zucker news will cloud the launch of CNN+.
Houck is clearly lacking irony for how his obsessive hatred for all things Zucker and CNN makes his rantings look like an unhinged hatchet job and not "media research."
Houck called those who praised Zucker part of a "cult" in the headline of his piece, and that theme was also pushed in Tim Graham's Feb. 4 podcast: "We were all sitting around reading these stories saying, CNN should never again try to talk about somebody else as a cult, whether it's the followers or Trump or anyone else, because these people, when they talk about Zucker, it's just kinda creepy." Of course, Graham and his fellow MRC employees are all cultish followers of Trump -- not to mention cultishly devoted to Ailes desipte his disgrace -- so he's a little sensitive on the issue.
Michael Brown's COVID Agony, Part 2: Keeping The Wishy-Washy Status Quo Topic: WorldNetDaily
Even after being sick for several days with a moderate case of COVID, WorldNetDaily columnist Michael Brown couldn't stop waffling on the issue of vaccination (he wasn't, which likely made his case worse than it needed to be) and misinformation (because free speech, or something). And the waffling hasn't stopped. In his Jan. 17 column, Brown joined the Media Research Center in praising tennis star Novak Djokovic for sticking to his anti-vaxxer guns, which cost him a spot in the Australian Open. While conceding that "the Australian Open has the right to determine what vaccination policies it will follow, and players can choose to comply and play or not," Brown added, "But was it right to deport him simply because of potential thought crimes? Was this yet another shocking example of Australia's draconian efforts to combat COVID?" He continued:
Once again, I am not for a second belittling the very real dangers of COVID, as I said repeatedly for almost two years now. And I am not minimizing for a moment the difficult decisions that governments must make during this pandemic.
But to ban one of the world's top athletes from playing in your country simply because his personal choice not to be vaccinated might influence others is to set a very dangerous precedent, confirming the worst fears of many within Australia. How far will this go?
Brown took a different approach in his Jan. 24 column, pondering the spiritual dimension of COVID, which included the purportedly demonic feeling fighting the disease some feel as well as knowing people who have died from it. Brown admitted to "tormenting thoughts" while fighting COVID, adding:
Again, there could be a perfectly natural explanation to this. And it's even possible that COVID affects the body in such a way that one's emotions are impacted as well. After all, the brain is part of the body.
I can't comment on that possibility at all because of my lack of medical knowledge.
But I can say this. I do know my relationship with the Lord. I do know the reality of my faith. And I do have some understanding of the spiritual realm.
That's why I don't discount for a moment the demonic nature of some of these fears and emotional assaults. (By demonic, I mean originating with the devil, who is as real as you and I are, and actualized by demons, who are also quite real.)
After all, one of Satan's greatest tools is fear. And the greatest fear of all is the fear of death (and, in some cases, fear of what is coming beyond death).
But even after all of this, Brown still couldn't bring himself to take a stand. He pondered in his March 7 column:
For those in the pro-COVID-vaccine camp, there is a two-fold concern for those who choose not to be vaccinated. First, they are endangering their own lives. Second, they are potentially endangering the lives of others should they get infected and spread the virus.
For those who are skeptical about the vaccines, there is also a two-fold concern. First, do these vaccines really work? Second, long term or short term, could these vaccines do more harm than good?
ccordingly, there has been passionate debate about these issues, with many in the pro-vaccine camp seeking to censor or deplatform those who raise questions about the vaccines. After all, the pro-vax camp reasons, with your anti-vax misinformation, you are dissuading people from getting vaccinated, and that could be fatal.
I'm not here to weigh in on these issues (other than to say that everyone should be allowed to present their relevant views publicly without fear of censorship). I want to focus instead on something far more dangerous than alleged vaccine misinformation, namely, our active promoting of unhealthy foods that lead to obesity and death.
Yes, he shifted the debate from COVID to obesity:
In this case, we know for a fact that obesity is deadly. We also know for a fact that much of our American diet contributes to obesity and premature death. Yet we celebrate our unhealthy culture with a constant bombardment of sumptuous ads on TV and internet, calling us to feast afresh on the latest decadent meals.
Or do you actually think that a steady diet of sugary drinks (like Coke), pizza, donuts, ice cream, pasta, burgers and fried foods is not dangerous, but COVID is?
That's not the issue, and Brown knows it. Getting vaccinated and struggling to deal with body issues and orienting oneself toward healthy eating are two wildly different things. He finally acknowledged that at the end of his column:
That being said, I know how powerful food addictions can be, and I do not sit in judgment of you or your weight or your lifestyle. Not for a split second.
I'm simply saying that with today's hyper-charged atmosphere when it comes to alleged COVID misinformation (on either side of the debate, understandably so), I find it quite ironic that, at the same time, we advertise and celebrate a decadent lifestyle that is undeniably deadly.
Perhaps this deserves more attention.
Of course, nobody's seriously claiming health benefits from junk food, and most poeple understand how advertising works, as well as that junk food is not good for you in the long run. By contrast, anti-vaxxers are promoting demonstrably false and misleading claims about COVID vaccines, and people have been misled into believing it. The problem here that Brown still doesn't really want to do anything about COVID misinformation -- a presumably non-insignificant portion of his audience is anti-vaxxers, and he doesn't want to take a stand lest he lose them.
Such wishy-washiness serves neither him nor his audience well.
Newsmax Defends Trump Against Conservatives At National Review Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax remains firmly in Trump suck-up mode, and that was made clear again in a Feb. 6 "news" article by Eric Mack defending Donald Trump against the conservatives at National Review, complaining that "the magazine ran a lead editorial criticizing the Republican National Committee for censuring Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., calling the move "both morally repellent" and "political malpractice of the highest order." Mack huffed in response: "National Review did not criticize the House Democrats for not seeking accountability for the one in charge of Capitol security on Jan. 6 -- Pelosi."
In fact, Pelosi was not in charge of the Capitol police nor a member of any committee supervising it at the time of the Capitol riot.
Mack further complained: "While National Review has embraced progressive talking points on the Jan. 6 protests, it has not excoriated Democrats to the same degree for embracing months of violent George Floyd protests, nor has it called for Congressional hearings into the mayhem." In fact, the vast majority of protests against police brutality in 2020 were peaceful.
Mack also grumbled: "Last year, National Review's lead legal writer and Fox News contributor, Andrew McCarthy, even called for Trump's conviction after Democrats brought forth a politically motivated impeachment on legally dubious grounds." Mack didn't mention that McCarthy agreed that Trump's impeachment was "politically motivated" -- as all impeachments are -- he would have voged to impeach because "Impeachable conduct for which condemnation is warranted did in fact occur."
Meanwhile, Charlie McCarthy lived up to his name by uncritically mouthing Trump's words in a Feb. 8 article:
Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday morning said President Joe Biden wouldn't have needed to threaten closure of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if he had continued Trump administration policy.
Biden on Monday warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that the U.S. would "bring an end" to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if Russian troops invade Ukraine.
"Well, I stopped it, but I stopped it differently," Trump said Tuesday during an interview on Fox Business. "I stopped it with the threat of tariffs and with various other things. And it was stopped. It was dead. It was absolutely dead.
"Biden came in and he opened it. And he killed our pipeline, Keystone XL. But I stopped it. I had it stopped … I didn't know what he was doing, he came in and he said, 'Proceed with that [Nord Stream] pipeline.' "
In fact, the Trump White House, through then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, issued guidance that exempted the project from sanctions measures passed by Congress in 2017; at the time, Trump was trying to cozy up to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. It wasn't until later in his administration, Decmeber 2019 -- after the pipeline continued construction for three years during his administration -- that Trump sanctioned the entities building the pipeline, effectively stopping construction on it. The project was restarted in late 2020 as the entities found a way around the sanctions; Biden lifted the sanctions after he took office because it was clear they would no longer stop the project, and they were replaced in July 2021 with an agreement that the U.S. and Germany would impose costs on Russia regarding the pipeline if it harmed Ukraine or other European countries -- which is what happened when Russia invaded Ukraine.
The Media Research Center has worked arm-in-arm with Donald Trump to delegitimize the 2020 presidential election, and it will never admit that Joe Biden beat Donald Trump fair and square, so it would be utterly hypocritical for the MRC to accuse others of trying to delegitimize an election. But because the MRC is filled with hypocrites, that's exactly what happened.
Prolific COVID misinformer Art Moore wrote in a Feb. 13 WorldNetDaily 
Last fall, the Media Research Center's resident gay-basher (well, one of them, anyway) Gabriel Hays 
It seems that CNSNews.com was so inspired 
The Media Research Center's Alex Christy complained in a Jan. 27 
Joseph Farah reminds us that he's still a Big Lie dead-ender in his Jan. 25 WorldNetDaily 
It's a new semester, which means that CNSNews.com has a new intern, Emily Robertson of right-wing Liberty University. And as is mandated of every CNS intern, Robertson has been tasked with going to Capitol Hill and 
The Media Research Center's 
After a 
Newsmax has 
The only bit of original "reporting" that WorldNetDaily has done in recent months is a series of video interviews reporter Art Moore has done with prominent COVID misinformers like 
Jeff Zucker has long been a nemesis of the Media Research Center, where Curtis Houck has 
Even after being sick for several days with a moderate case of COVID, WorldNetDaily columnist Michael Brown 
