MRC Hypes Chicago Crime To Distract From Gun Massacre In Chicago Suburb
Topic: Media Research Center

When right-wingers bring up crime in Chicago, it's usually to advance a narrative or deflect from something. The Media Research Center's "news" division, CNSNews.com, loves to do it, mostly for the former. The MRC itself did it for the latter -- specifically, to distract from and minimize the July 4 gun massacre in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, which it has already been doing. Mark Finkelstein showed how it's done in a July 7 post:

Over the July 4th weekend:

• Seven people were shot to death in Highland Park, a Chicago suburb.
• Ten people were shot to death in Chicago .

One is rare, and the other is routine. But some liberal outlets are noticing the attention gap.

The Washington Post ran a front-page story on Thursday that lamented "There are no crowdsourced charity drives raising millions for victims’ families in Chicago, where the holiday weekend death toll reached at least 10 with 62 injured — numbers that exceed the toll in Monday’s mass shooting at a July 4th parade in nearby Highland Park, Ill. In that affluent lakeside suburb, the violence was an anomaly. Here, it is a grimly regular occurrence."

But on her MSNBC show on Tuesday, Nicolle Wallace focused exclusively on the seven Highland Park shooting deaths. Not a word about the 10 shooting deaths in Chicago. Note that in 2021, there were  3,561 shooting incidents in Chicago, and 797 homicides.

Finkelstein went on to complain that Wallace and her guest Peter Strzok, the Trump-hating, ex-FBI agent, focused on the race of the Highland Park suspect," while there was "no mention of the age or race of the Chicago shooters. Wonder why?" Wonder why Finkelstein is so sensitive about people pointing out the fact that the perpetrators of recent gun massacres are young white men.

Later that day, Curtis Houck highlighted a Washington Post story that followed the MRC's Chicago distraction narrative:

In a front page and above-the-fold story for Thursday’s print edition, The Washington Post discovered a reality that dozens of people are shot and killed every week and weekend in Chicago, Illinois, but there’s barely any national attention given to the plight of Chicagoans in contrast to the equally horrifying mass shootings in suburbs and other more economically prosperous areas.

Reporter Robert Klemko penned the story under the print headline “Toll on South Side eclipsed suburb’s, but drew no furor” (and “With little outcry, Chicago’s bloody weekend eclipsed Highland Park toll” online) that gave away the media game of fixating on certain acts of gun violence, but not others.

Of course, the Post wasn't using the Chicago ahootings to distract from the Highland Park massacre like Houck is.

On July 10, Kevin Tober similarly praised a non-right-wing outlet for pushing its narrative:

On CNN’s State of the Union, host Jake Tapper confronted Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker on a common theme that even casual observers of leftist politicians and media have noticed. That is they always focus on tragic one time incidents like mass shootings, yet ignore the daily shootings in Chicago which cause more deaths on a weekly basis than mass shootings. 

After discussing the terrible mass shooting in Highland Park on Independence Day with Pritzker, Tapper correctly noted that “the fourth of July weekend death toll in Chicago, as you know, surpassed the Highland Park shooting.”

[...]

The fact of the matter is the American people are paying more attention to the Highland Park shooting not because of the weapon used but because the media focuses on mass shootings more than the deadly shootings that occur every weekend in Democrat run cities like Chicago, Los Angeles or New York City. 

All these incidents are tragic and should be given equal treatment.

Actually, Tober doesn't want any attention at all given to the Highland Park massacre because it outlines the destruction caused the conservative movement's all-guns-everywhere-no-questions-asked policy and its glorification of gun culture that emboldens disaffected young men.

The MRC only cares about Chicago violence when it serves its purposes to do so -- and the proof of that is that it devoted only one more article related to the Highland Park massacre, a July 10 item by Finkelstein complaining that "the media's favorite youthful gun-grabber David Hogg" argued that the massacre's perpetrator was a "white nationalist" and brought up "the trauma and PTSD that black and brown communities have from experiencing a disproportionate about of gun violence" and historical issues like redllining. Rather than try to prove Hogg wrong, Finkelstein sneered, "Why do liberals always want to have 'conversations around' issues? Anyhow, bonus woke points to Hogg for working redlining into his spiel."

Of course, conservataives like Finkelstein and his fellow MRC writers want no conversations at all about gun violence lest they lose on the facts.

SHOCK: CNS Actually Does Balanced Story On Ben & Jerry's, Occupied Territories
Topic: CNSNews.com

Earlier this year, we caught CNSNews.com punctuating its coverage of Ben & Jerry's ice cream deciding not to sell its ice cream in occupied Palestinian territories to protest Israel's treatment of the Palestinians with an article by managing editor Michael W. Chapman falsely claiming that the decision is directly link to a drop in the stock price for the company's owner, international conglomerate Unilever. CNS tiptoed back into the story with a July 8 article by Ben Kelley:

On July 5, Ben & Jerry’s filed a lawsuit against its parent company, Unilever, in an attempt to block the sale of their Israeli business to an Israel-based licensee. Ben & Jerry’s founders stopped selling their product in the disputed territories in July 2021. A new licensee would essentially reverse that policy and permit the ice cream to be sold in those areas.

“The complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan said the sale announced last week threatened to undermine Ben & Jerry’s brand integrity, for which its board retained independence to protect when the Unilever conglomerate acquired it in 2000,” reported Haaretz.

The story is actually well balanced, much more so than the usual CNS "news" story. The only failure is that Kelley didn't take the opportunityto correct the record about the earlier false claim linking the withdrawal to Unilever's stock price drop. Still, it's a better journalistic record that his fellow CNS interns this summer.

MRC's Double Standard On Alleged IRS Misbehavior
Topic: Media Research Center

When it was revealed that both former FBI director James Comey and ex-FBI deputy James McCabe were targeted with IRS audits after being fired from their jobs under the Trump administration -- events considered highly suspicious -- the Media Research Center, no fan of the IRS, rushed to its defense in a July 7 post by Nicholas Fondacaro complaining that the media was reporting the story despite "no evidence" to support it:

On Wednesday, The New York Times via Washington correspondent Michael Schmidt published a fairly weak article suggesting former President Trump had ordered the IRS to conduct audits of former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Despite the blatant inconstancies and admitting there’s “no evidence,” the liberal media’s ‘it rings true’ barometer carried the day on Thursday’s Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC.

“So, what are the chances of two Trump foes getting audited by the IRS? Well, it's about one in 82 million according to a New York Times calculation,” Mitchell pompously announced as she came back from a commercial break.

Well, since, she brought it up. In his article, Schmidt hid the fact that McCabe’s audit didn’t begin until “October 2021, nine months after Mr. Trump left office.” It was a key fact he didn’t get around to mentioning until paragraph 44 (of 54). Comey’s happened in 2019.

The supposed connection was Trump-appointed commissioner, Charles Rettig, who still runs the agency and has denied involvement. And something Schmidt failed to address in his article: if Trump was brazen enough to order an IRS audit after he left office, then why hasn’t he ordered them to drop the audit he’s allegedly been facing for years?

Because Trump repeatedly used that as an excuse to never release his tax returns while president and demanding that the audit end would remove that excuse and that talking point? Just a guess, and something Fondacaro apparently never considered.

Fondacaro also seems to have forgotten that his employer and other right-wing organizations spesnt years playing the victim over the IRS under President Obama purportedly targeting conservative nonprofit groups for investigation without any real evidence. The truth was that the IRS was also investigating progressive nonprofit groups as well amid a flood of such groups seeking nonprofit status. Nevertheless, Curtis Houck ranted in 2017: "What about the IRS until President Barack Obama? Try Google searching for why Lois Lerner is living a comfortable life in secrecy nowadays. Conservative groups were unfairly targeted by the IRS when applying for tax-exempt status and it occurred on Obama’s watch. Plain and simple." Because conservatives squealed the loudest, the conservative groups got a settlement, which the MRC touted as "VINDICATION."

The MRC was accusing the IRS under Obama of being directed by him to harass conservative groups (which, despite Houck's assertion, wasn't really true). Yet Fondacaro wants us to believe that Trump's IRS is incapable of doing something equally terrible in demanding audits of Trump's political enemies? Please.

NEW ARTICLE: 25 Years Of Mendacity At WND
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah marked the silver anniversary of his website by begging for money and rewriting history by portraying his most biased, dishonest and outright false reporting as something noble. Read more >>

MRC Tries To Deflect From Guns Again After Highland Park Massacre
Topic: Media Research Center

As it did after gun massacres in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, the Media Research Center spent the days after the gIndependence Day gun massacre at a parade in Highland Park, Ill., trying to blame everything else but guns for the massacre, even though the shooter would not have been able to kill so many people if he had not had a gun. In a July 5 post, Curtis Houck whined that TV shows had on the mayor of Highland Park to talk about gun regulation:

In the aftermath of Monday’s Fourth of July shooting in Highland Park, Illinois that left six dead and dozens hurt, CBS Mornings and NBC’s Today partnered Tuesday with Mayor Nancy Rotering (D) as the latter called for the discussion of the suspect’s disturbing social media history (and thus the missed warning signs) and instead focus on banning “weapons of war.”

Rotering first appeared on NBC and, after being asked to provide an update on the case, co-host Hoda Kotb noted that, nine years ago, Rotering “signed an assault weapons ban that was in place and is in place,” >meaning it didn’t prevent the shooting.

[...]

Rotering went unchallenged as she lashed out at those who disagree with her city’s views on gun control, smearing Americans as having “values” that “are askew” to the point that millions of Americans robbed them of happiness on the Fourth of July.

“[B]ecause of this gun culture, our nation turned its back on us and turned its back on our celebration. We, as a country, have to have a very strong conversation with ourselves...[I]t’s one of those things where you ask yourself: If this reflects the values of who we are, then what does that say about us as a nation,” she added.

Kotb tried to turn the focus back to the investigation, but Rotering not only dismissed the idea of talking about the warning signs, but she called for discussion of the suspect’s social media to “be diminished.” What’s clear, Rotering argued, was that the deranged individual “had a — a mental breakdown” and “weapons of war” allowed him to escalate his hate.

Houck didn't dispute the accuracy of Rotering's words, instead using his leadline to label her a "lefty" despite offering no evidence to back it up other than her criticism of guns, as if that in and of itself is a reliable indicator of political preference,

John Simmons attacked Australian-born baseball player Liam Hendricks for speaking from experience in his own country and having opinions that didn't conform to right-wing pro-gun orthodoxy by pointing out that "suicide rates dropped drastically, our gun-related homicides dropped infinitely" after the country instituted a gun ban following a massacre:

To be fair, Australia has had only one mass shooting since the government implemented their mandatory buy-back program in 1996 (note the word “mandatory,” something Hendricks did not mention). But the low number of mass shootings has come at the expense of Australians being able to defend themselves from an overreaching, tyrannical government. 

Australia had some of the strictest lockdown restrictions in the world. They enforced an incredibly draconian stay at home order for several months, and police officers would go to people’s houses to make sure they were staying inside. The government could afford to oppress its citizens in large part because Australians would not be able to resist in any meaningful way since they had no access to firearms. 

This is why the Second Amendment is such an important right for Americans. Men much smarter than Hendricks saw that tyrannical governments can easily oppress citizens who cannot defend themselves, which is why each American has a constitutionally protected right to own firearms. Of course, mass shootings happen and those are undeniably tragic, but to say that taking guns away to stop them from happening will leave its citizens at the mercy of its government to treat them fairly, which history shows is not a good course of action.

Hendricks really missed the strike zone on this assessment.

Simmons didn't explain why commonsense health measures to try and mitigate a deadly pandemic that has killed millionps of people around the world were "tyrannical"; then again, he is a rabid anti-vaxxer.

Emma Schultz asserted that CNN's Laura Coates "tried to whip the audience into a hysteria" and "pushed her personal overly concerned thoughts and phobias on the audience" by accuirately noting that the masacre might make some people afraid to go out in public.Schulta also claimed that Coates "introduced fabricated data from the anti-gun rights Gun Violence Archive to back up her opinions stating that “there have been 319 mass shootings just this year and 17 in the first four days of July.” As we've documented, those numbers aren't "fabricated" at all -- those people are still dead -- they are just counted in a way that the MRC disapproves of because the higher number makes guns look bad.

Nicholas Fondacaro complained that CNN's Alisyn Camerota "proposed Orwellian laws designed to monitor and profile gun owners and bar them from exercising their Second Amendment rights." He didn't mention that his employer has endorsed the Orewllian monitoring of women to make sure they don't cross state lines to have an abortion.

Kevin Tober ranted that coverage of a gun massacre focused on the inescapable gun part and pointed out that right-wingers like him don't want to talk about said gun part:

On Wednesday night's episode of MSNBC's All In, host Chris Hayes and leftist journalist Aaron Rupar admonished Fox News for not covering the shooting in Highland Park, Illinois in the manner they demand. To Hayes and Rupar, if you don't cover mass shootings from the leftist gun control perspective, you aren't covering the story properly. Any solution other than gun control is inadequate according to them. 

"There is a ritual that is set in on the right in the wake of the horrifying and regular spectacle of mass gun violence. In the aftermath, Republicans and right-wing media have a series of decisions to make about what to do to take attention away from what is the most obvious source of the problem" Hayes proclaimed.

Tober went on to grouse after red-flag laws were discussed: "As always, the solution to leftist policy failures is more of the same. Double down and when it continues to backfire, blame conservatives and Fox News for pointing out how the left's agenda has failed."

Brad Wilmouth whined that another logical point was made, that cities with tough anti-gun laws are undermined by surrounding jurisdictions where gun laws are much looser, claiming that itwas irrelevant because the shooter's guns were bought in Illinois, further whining that "Journalists and other liberals like to blame the more conservative state of Indiana for crime in Illinois, which has been run by Democrats continuously since after the 2002 elections." In fact, one of five recovered guns used in crimes in Chicago came from Indiana.

CNS Publishes More Extremist Rhetoric From Far-Right Jewish Anti-Abortion Group
Topic: CNSNews.com

We're trying to write about the extremist anti-abortion rhetoric employed by the far-right Jewish Pro-Life Federation, which is in turn amplified by the biased editors at CNSNews.com. but we keep getting distracted by managing editor Michael W. Chapman adding (or deleting) excerpts from the group's Supreme Court amicus brief in the decision that ultimately overturned Roe v. Wade that are factually inaccurate. Let's see if we can stay on point this time, shall we?

In a March 14 post, Chapman highlighted foundation leader Cecily Routman making a exceedingly tone-deaf rant seemingly suggesting that Ukraine deserved to get invaded by Russia because the country didn't hate abortion enough:

In an email about the destruction and death resulting from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Jewish Pro-Life Foundation criticized the chief rabbi of Ukraine and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, also a Jew, for denouncing the war's consequences but not saying anything about the estimated 75,000 Ukrainian children who were killed by abortion in 2019.

"Why doesn't President Zelensky urge Jews to shout against the ongoing holocaust against preborn Ukrainian civilians?" said Cecily Routman, president of the Jewish Pro-Life Foundation, in an email.

"Perhaps because preborn Ukrainians don't vote nor do they have the sympathy of a mostly secular Ukrainian citizenry that fails to recognize an existential threat until they themselves are in the enemy's sights," she wrote.

[...]

Routman also noted that Rabbi Moshe Reuven Asman, the chief rabbi of Ukraine, denounced the war but apparently has not said anything about the extermination of children by abortion in Ukraine.

Chapman did not indicate that Routman made any criticism of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Nevertheless, Chapman gave Rothman another platform to make specious comparisons in a March 29 article:

While speaking against a proposed amendment to Connecticut's constitution that would permit nearly unrestricted abortion, the head of the Jewish Pro-Life Foundation emphasized that "Judaism prohibits abortion," and explained that the language and laws used by the Nazis to perpetrate the Holocaust "provided sanction for systemic racism and genocide in current American abortion law."

"Abortion was weaponized against Jews in the Holocaust in pursuit of the Final Solution," said Cecily Routman, president of the Jewish Pro-Life Foundation, in remarks before Connecticut's Government Administration and Elections Committee on March 25.

"Legal slaughter of ‘sub-human parasites’, as we were deemed, codified systemic racism and genocide," she said.  "This language and legal precedent provided sanction for systemic racism and genocide in current American abortion law. Every Jew and every person of conscience ought to oppose SJ 30 because it viciously attacks innocent victims and maximizes another existential threat to Jews in the future."

In contrast to Rothman's assertion that "Judaism prohibits abortion," there are Jewish teachings that do not view a fetus as having a soul until it is born and that the fetus belongs to the mother's body until birth. Chapman let Rothman rant further:

"Easy access to the chemical abortion pill RU-486 increases life threatening risks to women and teens. Originally manufactured by a subsidiary of IG Farben, the chemical company that manufactured Zyklon B used to eradicate Jewish ‘parasites’ at Auschwitz, RU-486 is now the favored method of killing ‘parasites in the womb’ - at a huge profit for abortion providers with no accountability for medical malpractice or malfeasance."

Rothman mangled her corporate history here. IG Farben ceased to exist after World War II because the conglomerate was broken up into its original component companies (which included Bayer and BASF). Another one of those component companies, Hoechst, had partial ownership of a French company that developed RU-486 in 1980. Thus it's a giant stretch for Rothman to claim that the company that made Zyklon B also made RU-486.Also: Nobody calls the drug RU-486 anymore outside of anti-abortion activists who want to demonize then ame; it's better known today by its generic name, mifepristone.

(An aside: That Supreme Court brief Rothman's group filed made the utterly false and malicious claim that RU-486 was "originally called Zyklon B.")

In the wake of the leak of a draft opinion (in the Supreme Court case Rothman's group filed the bref in) that would ultimately reverse Roe v Wade, Chapman let Rothman rant in a May 6 article at a non-right-wing Jewish group for not hating abortion while launching another specious abortion-Holocaust comparison:

In its weekly newsletter released today, the Jewish Pro-Life Foundation sharply criticized the "abortion radicals" at the National Council of Jewish Women as sounding like Nazis in Germany who opposed closing the "concentration camps and the mass extermination of the Jews."

The Foundation also condemned abortion in general, explaining that real Judaism "in no way sanctions child murder, and that saving a life is the paramount value of Judaism."

"No difference between 99+% of abortions and the ovens of Auschwitz," reads the newsletter, written by Cecily Routman, founder of the Foundation. She then notes her organization's "unease and distress as we watch and listen and read Jewish abortion radicals protesting abortion limits."

Actually, there is no possible way to link the two since an abortion clinic is not Auschwitz and an abortion provider is not Josef Mengele. Additionally, Chapman refused to give the National Council of Jewish Women an opportunity to respond to Rothman's smears, further cementing his status as a propagandist instead of the journalist he thinks he is.

MRC Not A Big Fan Of Juneteenth
Topic: Media Research Center

With the first celebration of Juneteenth this year as a federal holiday, the Media Research Center lashed out at it seemingly because Republicans hadn't thought of it. Wallace White grumbled about the holiday, the Juneteenth flag and its creator in a June 15 post:

There’s a flag for nearly everything left-wing nowadays, and now the newly Biden-mandated federal holiday “Juneteenth” has one of its own. Vox reports the flag has been around since the 1990s, but of course, no one cared until now, as the left pushes the faux holiday upon all Americans.

Juneteenth was christened as a federal holiday by no other than Joe Biden in 2021. The holiday falls on the anniversary of Union Forces reaching slaves in Southwest Texas in 1865 to deliver the news that they were finally free. The holiday, largely unknown outside Texas, came to national prominence during the Trump presidency, where it was used to attack Trump. 

The creator of the flag, Ben Haith, told Vox that he was “just doing what God told me.” Apparently, then, God must have also told him that he should oppose a gay couple starting a foster home for two young boys in 1985, and God spoke through him when he said that it was “it ultimately as a breakdown of the society and its values and morals.”

The flag itself is nothing remarkable. A simple red and black bisected rectangle with a star and asymmetrical burst surrounding it. Some leftists, according to Vox, take issue with its use of the colors of America, instead of the pan-African colors, since America was the oppressor. The left eating their own, what else is new?

In a June 20 post, Nicholas Fondacaro was offended at the idea that Juneteenth could ever be considered on a par with July 4 -- especially if the hjated hosts of "The View" were suggesting it was:

The new national holiday of Juneteenth is worth acknowledging because it marks when the last of the slaves were emancipated years after the Civil War. But the left is seemingly trying to elevate this commemoration above that of July 4 and the birth of the country. This endeavor was on full display during Monday’s Juneteenth episode of ABC’s The View, with co-host Sara Haines arguing it was the “more authentic” “celebration” of “American freedom” than the Fourth of July is.

Haines began by opining about how she (and assumes others) “go into autopilot for a holiday” and don’t think about why they’re celebrating something, “even Fourth of July.” “That we were celebrating Fourth of July which was freedom of America, when freedom of American people didn't happen until Juneteenth,” she whined. “So, in some ways, the celebration feels more authentic on Juneteenth.”

Ironically, Haines said she feels “really silly at times;” not about what she just said but rather that she didn’t know about Juneteenth until relatively recently.

Fondacaro didn't mention when he first heard of Juneteenth.Instead, he reminded us of his issues with women by smearing co-host Sunny Hostin as "mentally unstable" over an anecdote in which she got revenge on a boyfriend.Perhaps a guy who consistently and hatefully describes the "Vew" hosts as a "coven" has no moral standing to judge women.

WND's Cashill Touts Charlatan Filmmaker's Latest Obama Hit Job
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The last time we checked in on Jack Cashill's Obama obession, he was hinting about a new film by charlatan filmmaker Joel Gilbert -- who made a 2014 film that pushed the immediately discredited claim that Barack Obama's mother posed nude for longtime Obama conspiracy target Frank Marshall David -- claiming that Michelle Obama will run for president in 2024. Cashill gave Gilbert's latest factually questionable hit jjob the full promotional treatment in his July 6 column:

With prominent Democrats – Hillary Clinton, Gavin Newsom, Amy Klobuchar – openly jousting for the Democratic 2024 presidential nod, it seems a little bit suspicious that the Dems are not promoting their most formidable candidate, Michelle Obama.

Suspicious, that is, to everyone but Los Angeles filmmaker Joel Gilbert, producer of the stunning new documentary and complementary book, "Michelle Obama 2024: Her Real Life Story and Plan for Power."

[...]

Gilbert's slogan speaks to the vulnerability of Michelle's candidacy: "Only the truth can stop her." The truth is not Michelle's best friend. Gilbert makes the case that she has been pretending to be something she is not since she first emerged on the national scene as her husband's demure helpmate in 2004.

From the beginning, Gilbert argues, Barack's handlers have positioned Michelle as the "South Side" girl, the descendant of slaves, the ordinary, everyday black working mom in contrast to her husband's airy elitism.

In fact, as Gilbert shows, Michelle has been running from the black community her whole life and, when not running from it, exploiting it.

Unlike most pundits on the right, Gilbert pounds the pavement to get his story. With chutzpah to spare, he talks about Michelle to people most oppositional journalists would not dare approach, including her mother, her hairdresser and, perhaps most tellingly, Michelle's thesis adviser at Princeton with whom he had three lengthy conversations.

[...]

Unfortunately for Michelle, Gilbert did his homework. It wasn't easy, but he discovered that the guidance counselor who discouraged Michelle from Princeton was a highly respected black female educator who knew Michelle intimately.

And the counselor was right. Michelle was not Princeton material. Her test scores were not good at all. She floundered academically before finding refuge in Afro-American studies. Her godawful senior thesis confirmed her counselor's caution.

"To describe it as hard to read would be a mistake; the thesis cannot be 'read' at all, in the strict sense of the verb," said the late great Christopher Hitchens. "This is because it wasn't written in any known language."

Barack Obama won the presidency promising racial healing. At that task, he failed spectacularly. Michelle will run implicitly threatening racial strife if she loses. At that, she might have more success. Only the truth can stop her.

Unfortunately for Gilbert, he's not known for caring about the truth. This is a guy, after all, who was revising the promos for his anti-Obama film on the fly as its claims were discredited, and whose claim that Obama's wedding ring contains Arabic writing turned out to be so demonstrably false that even birthers were moved to debunk it.

The truth is also not a friend to Cashill, who inexplicably stands by Gilbert despite his lengthy and inescapable record of mendacity. Then again, he's a lot like Cashill in that he's also a conspiracy freak who has trouble with basic facts (remember when he spent a column attacking the wrong newspaper?).

MRC's Jean-Pierre-Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch
Topic: Media Research Center

Curtis Houck spent his writeup of the July 18 White House press briefing cheering that right-wing reporters pushed their biased narratives -- and, of course, keeping up his narrative of smearing Karine Jean-Pierre as an incompetent diversity hire:

During Monday’s White House press briefing (which was the first in six days due to President Biden’s Middle East trip), White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and National Economic Council (NEC) member Jared Bernstein would have emerged unscathed if it weren’t for tough questions from Peter Doocy, James Rosen, and Philip Wegmann about gas prices, inflation, and the Vice President comparing the end of Roe to slavery.

Wegmann had the first track of this trio, asking Bernstein a simple question of whether there’s “an estimate for how much the administration’s regulatory changes have combated or contributed to regulation — to inflation.”

Bernstein insisted they’ve “been talking about a lot of that already” with “the E15 ethanol waiver” and release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve having been benefits, but he otherwise ignored the question.

[...]

Skip ahead to Jean-Pierre’s latest attempt at trying to not embarrass herself, she did her best “the dog ate my homework” impression as Doocy asked whether President Biden agreed with Vice President Harris that ending a supposed nationwide right to abortion was akin to slavery[.]

[...]

After an exchange on whether Jean-Pierre herself heard President Biden ask the Saudi Crown Prince about the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, Doocy zoomed out: “[U]ltimately, we get back from this trip, there’s no new peace talks in the Middle East, there’s no new commitment to increase oil production in the Gulf, so what was the point of this trip?”

Like the lazy press secretary that she is, Jean-Pierre replied that she “just read out earlier, Peter, of all of the things that had occurred,” including the acknowledgment that the Middle East is “a critical region” worth visiting.

Doocy wasn’t impressed: “Why not insist on a commitment though? He gets back with no commitment, and the price of oil per barrel shot up. Is that what the President wanted, to go there and have the price of oil get more expensive?”

Jean-Pierre again trotted out the line about “34 straight days” of lower gas prices, but Doocy returned fire with the hard truth about how prices remain crippling[.]

For the July 19 briefing, Houck switched tactics and cheered that Jean-Pierre was being his "from the left" (of course, any reporter who's not as far right as Doocy, Rosen and Wegmann is on "the left" as far is Houck is concerned):

With scorching heat across the globe and the climate change drumbeat ramped back up, the White House press corps acted in kind during Tuesday’s briefing as they repeatedly grilled Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and senior adviser John Kirby from the left by demanding the administration do more to force through their side’s far-reaching agenda.

CNN’s Jeff Zeleny went there first, trying to appeal to Kirby’s ego by boasting that he’s “long talked about how climate change is a national security issue for the country.”

[...]

Moving ahead to Jean-Pierre’s portion, the Associated Press’s Will Weissert opened her Q&A with climate: “It doesn’t look like we’ll be getting a climate emergency announcement this week. I want to make sure that’s still on the table and I wanted to ask if the White House has any concerns that the President might be relying on executive action too much.”

The Washington Post’s Ashley Parker was also on the case, plainly stating her complaints:“First, why did the White House decide that tomorrow is not the day to declare a climate emergency?”

After Jean-Pierre said Biden’s “going to do everything that he can to take action” to thwart the “climate crisis” (so thwart the rising seas, stop major hurricanes, etc.), Parker followed up: “If and when it does happen, can you talk a little bit about what specific tools it would then give the administration and what specifically you would use it for and do?”

Houck dished out more hatred of Jean-Pierre in his writeup of the July 21 briefing:

Thursday wasn’t supposed to feature a White House press briefing due to a presidential visit to Pennsylvania, but President Biden’s positive COVID-19 diagnosis meant Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was thrown before the press corps and, like most stays, she stepped on plenty of rakes.

Over the course of the briefing, she failed to answer and scoffed at basic questions about how the President contracted the virus, whether she herself is a close contact, and why the administration has kept Biden’s personal physician from reporters. And worse yet, the questions came from reporters across the ideological spectrum.

The hits came early from a reporter in the Associated Press seat, who had perhaps the most benign question of the briefing: “Where exactly was the President infected?”

[...]

The Washington Post’s Ashley Parker was also in this camp as she inquired about “[w]hat precautions did you take for the person who filmed” a short video of President Biden on the White House balcony updating the public on his positive test.

Jean-Pierre actually answered this question well, saying the person “wore an N95 mask,” was six feet away from Biden, and that it was safe because it was taped outside.

Going back to the nonsensical answers, The Wall Street Journal’s Catherine Lucey drew out a rather silly response when all she wanted to know was Biden’s testing regiment [sic].

If Houck can't get his own words right -- or have a copy editor who can d o that for him -- perhaps he's in no position to constantly attack Jean-Pierre.

WND Hypes Colbert Staffers' Arrest
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Like the Media Research Center, WorldNetDaily hates Stephen Colbert enough to be gleeful that several of his staffers were arrested for allegedly being in a Capitol office building without authorization. But Bob Unruh took it to a new level in a June 21 article portraying comedy show writers filming skits as being just like the right-wing Capitol insurrection:

Hundreds of protesters were arrested for being in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, without authorization. Democrats have claimed their actions were an attempt to overturn the government of the United States, and many of the apparent trespassers remain in jail – more than a year after the fact – on what ordinarily would be considered minor charges.

Now a team of employees of leftist entertainer Stephen Colbert have been caught in the same predicament – being in the Capitol without authorization.

And GOP members of Congress are insisting that Capitol police provide them with all the reports, witness statements, surveillance footage and photographs concerning the arrests.

"These individuals were arrested and charged with unlawful entry after causing 'disturbances' at the offices of several Republican members, including 'banging' on their office doors," the letter to the police agency from Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rodney Davis, R-Ill., said.

[...]

CBS officials said the crew was at the Capitol for authorized interviews with members of Congress.

However, Fox News said the crew members were arrested about 8:30 p.m. last Thursday in the Longworth House Office Building and charged with unlawful entry.

The report said they had, earlier in the day, done interviews with members of the Jan. 6 Select Committee, including Schiff, Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla, and Auchincloss, D-Mass.

But they didn't have the proper press credentials and were removed from the building.

[...]

"Much has been made lately about unauthorized access to House office buildings, including debunked Democrat allegations that Republican members led so-called reconnaissance tours of the Capitol Complex in advance of January 6," the letter said.

"Unlike the Democrat allegations of reconnaissance tours, however, the events on June 16 actually resulted in arrests for unlawful entry," the Republicans wrote.

Of course, Unruh is quite delusional if he thinks that filming comedy skits without authorization is exactly the same as invading the Capitiol with the intent of murdering the vice president to keep him from authorizing the resuults of an election that Donald Trump (still) can't admit he lost.

WND was just like the MRC, though, in censoring the fact that all charges against the Colbert staffers were being dropped a month latert because they didn't "invade" the building as Unruh suggested but, rather, were legally let in by a congressional aide. Apparently, following up on a story that didn't turn out the way he wanted was a skill Unruh lost when he turned his back on real reporting to make a career out of right-wing hackery.

CORRECTION: WND did publish a story on the dropping of the charges against the Colbert staffers. More here.

CNS Loved Greitens' Violent RINO-Hunting Ad
Topic: CNSNews.com

Craig Bannister lovingly and uncritically wrote in a June 20 article:

Sporting a shotgun and backed by armed, camouflage-clad “soldiers,” Missouri Republican Senate candidate Eric Greitens, a former Navy Seal and Missouri governor, invites viewers to get a “RINO hunting” permit  in a new campaign video.

“We are sick and tired of the Republicans in Name Only surrendering to Joe Biden & the radical Left. Order your RINO Hunting Permit today!” a Monday post on Greitens’ Twitter page says, introducing the video.

“I’m Eric Greitens, Navy SEAL - and, today, we’re going RINO hunting,” he says, cocking his weapon, at the opening of the video.

The RINO [Republican In Name Only] feeds on corruption and is marked by the stripes of cowardice,” Greitens says, as a team of rifle-wielding soldiers break down a door and throw a smoke bomb into a building, which they enter, posed to fire.

“Join the MAGA crew: get a RINO hunting permit,” Greitens invites viewers. “There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit – and, it doesn’t expire until we save our country.”

“GET YOURS TODAY AT WWW.ERICGREITENS.COM,” the graphic at the end of the video says.

The video describes Greitens as a “conservative,” “outsider,” and “Navy SEAL.”

Bannister was apparently so enamored with the ad that he did not question how Greitens could plausibly portray himself as an "outsider" when he was once the governor of Missouri. That's because Bannister censored Greitens' sordid history. As we noted when CNS' Media Reserach Center siblings had trouble unequiovocally criticizing the ad, Greitens was forced to resign as governor because of campaign finance shenanigans and, more disturbing, an abusive sexual affair with shades of blackmail. Earlier this year, Greitens' ex-wife came forward with new accusations of domestic abuse against him -- something that caused even Newsmax  to back off him.

It wasn't until the end of the article that Bannister expressed some level of concern about Greiten's violent imagery -- ironically, by citing an ad from a different right-wing extremist whom CNS also loves:

In 2020, during her successful run for Congress, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) riled liberal media and politicians by releasing a less-menacing campaign video, in which held a semi-automatic rifle while warning ANTIFA terrorists to “Stay the hell out of northwest Georgia.”

“You won’t burn our churches, loot our businesses or destroy our homes,” Greene said in her video.

But, while Greene was issuing a warning to terrorists, Greitens’ video portrays hunting – of fellow Republicans.

Still, Bannister refused to criticize the ad. That arguably suggests that he's cool with the violent imagery against people over relatively minor political differences.

NEW ARTICLE: New Press Secretary, Same MRC Hate
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck despises Karine Jean-Pierre even more that he did her predecessor in the White House briefing room, Jen Psaki -- and he has already constructed a malicious narrative of her as an incompetent diversity hire. Read more >>

MRC Cheers Win By Hispanic GOP Candidate, Tries To Hide Her Far-Right Leanings
Topic: Media Research Center

When Republican Mayra Flores won a special election for congressional seat in Texas, the Media Research Center stopped doing "media research" and went into right-wing cheerleader mode. Curtis Houck gushed in a June 15 post:

On Tuesday night, history was made in southeast Texas as Republican Mayra Flores won a special election in Texas’s 34th Congressional District, becoming the first Mexican-born woman to be elected to Congress and did so by winning a district President Biden won by 13 points in 2020. 

But not surprisingly, it fetched scant attention Wednesday morning on the English and Spanish broadcast networks with ABC’s Good Morning America (GMA) and NBC’s Today hiding from viewers this ominous sign for liberals.

[...]

Over on Univision’s ¡Despierta América!, Flores only got six seconds in a brief via Satcha Pretto: “Finally, the Texas special election gives Republicans a House seat.”

In the past, the networks certainly have covered past special elections, but, of course, they were either a D-to-R flip or because they were enamored with the Democrat.

Of course, if a Democrat had won the seat, Houck and the MRC would have censored all mention of it. Nicholas Fondacaro kept up the gushing -- and attacking anyone who wouldn't gush like him -- later in the day:

The cast of ABC’s The View was in something of a panic Wednesday after several congressional primaries revealed which Republican candidates would be squaring up against Democrats in November in what’s likely to be a massive red wave victory for the right. But the coven was in such denial that they aggressively shot down any mention of the red wave and completely ignored the historic win by Latina Republican Mayra Flores in a special election flipping a seat occupied by Democrats for over 100 years.

“I'm a conservative. I'm a Republican. And listening to Russell Fry who unseated Tom Rice, a principled conservative who voted to impeach Donald Trump,” whined guest co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin. “But here's what I would warn. The red wave is coming. Republicans are going to win the midterms short of something unforeseen that I cannot predict now.”

However, Houck and Fondacaro were censoring the fact that Flores is much farther to the right than they would have readers believe: Flores used QAnon hashtags in posts on Facebook and Instagram, despite hollow denials that she's a conspiracy theory enthusiast. When MSNBC's Joy Reid pointed out this inconvenient fact and called her "QAnon-curious," it was up to Aidan Moorehouse to go into damage-control mode and pretend her denials were meaningful in a June 16 post:

Apparently, Reid still thinks Q is relevant — which is hilarious on its own — but what makes her claim all the more ridiculous is that the only connection between Flores and Q seems to be, according to The Texas Tribune, the use of Q-related hashtags in social media posts already containing a shotgun blast of conservative hashtags meant to generate clicks on the right, such as putting #secondamendment on an Instagram post about COVID-19. 

Flores herself has said, “I’ve always been against any of that [QAnon]. I’ve never been supportive of it,” but of course, that’s just smoke and mirrors. After all, everyone knows a hashtag equals full and total endorsement (#sarcasm).

For a June 18 post by Jorge Bonilla, the MRC was back into denial-and-censorship mode, cheering that "a Univision newscast spoke glowingly of the election of a conservative" and "closed out the report on the election of a Texas Republican with 'Latino pride'. A huge shift is underway."

Bonilla returned on June 28 with a bizarro-world complaint: Flores' Democratic opponent in the general election, Vicente Gonzalez, sounded like a Republican when he pointed out that Flores is an immigrant who came the U.S. at age 6 while he"was born in South Texas, the son of a Korean war veteran." Bonilla would normally cheer such remarks, but he melted down here:

So not only does “real Texan” González attack Flores for being an immigrant, but he then tries to clean it up by saying that he was actually calling her out over her stance on immigration- which he did by coming really close to an accusation of race treason. Now, where’s the corporate Latino media on this? Because if an Anglo Republican had said that he was the “Real Texan” in a contested race against an immigrant from Burgos, Tamaulipas, Mexico, I guaran-dang-tee you that Univision and Telemundo run multiple A-block cycles on the story and would’ve led their newscasts with it on the day that Carrasquillo’s piece first ran. 

“Anti-immigrant rhetoric” is their bread and butter. It’s what they do. Any rando yelling “speak English” at a Latino immigrant is virtually guaranteed three minutes on any Univision or Telemundo national newscast. Remember the outrage when Jorge Ramos got himself thrown out of candidate Donald Trump’s press conference in Iowa?

[...]

Where is the rally to Mayra Flores’ defense? Where are the outraged opinion columns and A-block segments denouncing what is clearly, by Latino corporate media standards, “anti-immigrant rhetoric”? Is she not “one of our own” due to the R next to her name and thinks unauthorized thoughts on such matters as abortion or immigration?

I renew my call to Univision and Telemundo’s national news divisions. Live by the rules you've created and call out this blatant anti-immigrant rhetoric. Or forever stand complicit.

We'd ask why Bonilla isn't living by the anti-immigrant rules created by his employer, but we already know that at the MRC, trying to own the libs takes precedence over ideological consistency. Indeed, he rehashed his complaint on Tim Graham's July 1 podcast.

In a June 30 post, Kathleen Krumhansl embraced the right-wing clickbait of Nancy Pelosi purportedly elbowing Flores' child at her swearing-in:

The national Latino networks exist to serve the Latino community first and foremost, right? Wrong. Hispanics actually come a distant second behind their corporate interests, as was confirmed with their coverage of the historic swearing in of Congresswoman Mayra Flores (R-TX) by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

During a photo op following the ceremony, a sneering Pelosi was caught on camera elbowing one of Flores’s daughters. This display got ample coverage from the mainstream media, along with Pelosi's lame excuse that she was only making sure that the little girl was not hidden from the camera. 

At the Spanish-speaking newsrooms however, the on-camera humiliation of a little brown girl by the second person in line to succeed the president of the United States, was edited out from the videos as Univision, CNN En Español and Estrella TV wiped the incident from their reports while Telemundo bypassed the historic ceremony (and Nancy's wickedness) altogether. In other words, they all appeared to agree that covering for Pelosi was infinitely more important than saving face for the family of a Republican Latina.

Krumhansl completely ignored the fact that the truth is much more benign: Pelosi was trying to make sure the child would be visible for the cameras.But Krumhansl's seething hatred for Pelosi blinded her to anything that mightmake the House speaker less evil.

When the New York Times cited Flores' QAnon-curious activism to call her a "far-right Latina," Bonilla greivance-mongered in a July 7 post ranting that the Times was trying to "other" Flores:

The purpose of yesterday’s disgusting New York Times hit job on Texas congressional candidates Cassy García, Mónica de la Cruz, and Congresswoman Mayra Flores (R-TX34), titled “The Rise of the Far-Right Latina”, was to signal them as race-traitors to the rest of the Acela Media, and have that as the frame of how they are covered going forward. But such efforts are not likely to succeed.

[...]

Take notice of the things that are flagged for Times readers: adjacency to Trump (including a direct comparison to Georgia firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene), the appeals to “God, family, country”, and policy specifics on abortion and school choice. These, in this order, are meant to represent to Times readers that the Texas Trio are well outside of the Hispanic mainstream (as imagined by the Times).

[...]

The NYT piece creates a permission structure for the rest of the Acela Media and their customers to vilify and racially disqualify the Texas Trio, in a manner reminiscent of the vile treatment of Justice Clarence Thomas since the Dobbs ruling. But such efforts are likely to fail.

Univision and Telemundo, which have far greater reach in South Texas than The New York Times, made sure to run glowing “Latina Pride” stories when Flores won her special election. Immigrant success stories usually get top billing on these networks, and to hide the historic election to Congress of a woman born in Burgos, Tamaulipas, Mexico would have constituted a grave departure from their norms. 

As the election heats up, you should expect more of these pieces to run in the Acela Media and on cable. But now you know why they run.

Yes, Bonilla used the term "Acela media" three times as if that means anything to people outside his right-wing, anti-media bubble.

The MRC's designed Times' hater, Clay Waters, cranked out his own whining piece on the Times article two days later, this time invoking his employer's hatred for the new White House press secretary:

Latina Republican Mayra Flores’ historic win in a Texas congressional district in the Rio Grande Valley was greeted by the Times not with celebration but bitterness and denial. This is the same newspaper that loves to mark such supposed ethnic milestones on the Democratic side, as shown in the nauseating tributes to Sen. Kamala Harris and Biden press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

While both Bonilla and Waters block-quoted the part of the Times article that pointed out Flores' use of QAnon hashtags, they didn't comment on them further or try to downplay it -- which would seem to be a quiet, grudging acceptance that the "far-right Latina" descriptor is, in fact, not inaccurate.

WND's Brown Continues To Not Support Trump
Topic: WorldNetDaily

It took the Capitol riot for WorldNetDaily columnist to finally abandon his justification for right-wing evangelical loyalty to Donald Trump. It's something he has largely stuck with since. In his June 22 column, Brown stuck with it again, declaring that he would not support Trump as a 2024 presidential candidate:

According to a new poll, a majority of Americans do not want either Joe Biden or Donald Trump to be their presidential candidates in 2024. Count me in among that majority.

As for Biden, I cannot imagine him running again at his advanced (and diminished) age. Plus, his presidency thus far has been a disaster, and I strongly oppose many of his core values and goals.

More broadly, unless there is a fundamental revolution in the Democratic Party, I cannot imagine voting Democrat.

As for Trump, simply stated, he has too much baggage.

If Trump is the Republican candidate, that means that we will be replaying the 2020 elections as much as trying to win the 2024 elections. Not only so, but loyalty to Trump will require embracing the stolen-election narrative.

Why add this into an election that could easily be a landslide in 2024? Why alienate other, potential voters? And why make the election more about personal loyalty to the person (meaning, Trump) rather than picking the right person with the right platform?

Having Trump as the candidate also brings the baggage of Jan. 6, 2021, and the many charges leveled against him (whether true or not). Why open that door again? Why give your opponents more leverage? Why start out with all kinds of arrows in your back and roadblocks in your way?

Without a doubt, any Republican candidate will be savaged and demonized by the left-wing media. But handpicking Trump is asking for trouble.

As for January 6, in my view, Trump was not legally responsible for what happened on that fateful day. But he was morally responsible in that his incendiary rhetoric leading up to January 6 caused his followers to believe that their country was being taken from them for good. "We will never have a free and fair election again! It's time to fight!"

In addition, his failure to read the crowd and address the irresponsible rhetoric of other speakers who preceded him is inexcusable for the commander in chief.

Most of all, having Trump as the candidate brings the baggage of the man himself. His divisiveness (still throwing Mike Pence and others under the bus). His nastiness. His fashioning himself to be the savior of religion in America. (In a recent speech, he reiterated his theme that no one did more for religion in America than he did. In reality, he did fight for religious freedoms and causes; he also brought lots of reproach to religion.)

Personally, I would rather have a less abrasive and reckless candidate who might disappoint me on a minor issue here and there (not quite having Trump's backbone) then Trump himself.

Shocker! We assume that didn't go down well at WND HQ. He continued:

Last December, I wrote an article titled, "Trump Knocked the Door Down; Let Someone Else Walk Through It."

In it, I opined that, "Donald Trump's greatest accomplishment as president may not have been the policies he enacted or the justices he appointed. Instead, as important as those accomplishments were and are, it is possible that the most important thing he did as president was to say to the political world, 'I will not play your games. I am the champion of the people, not a member of the good old boys club.'

"But now that he has broken the mold, thrown out the old rule book, and forged a new path of leadership, it will be best in 2024 for another conservative leader with backbone and conviction to take the lead. Trump simply brings too much collateral damage with him (and, I remind you, I voted for him in 2016 and 2020)."

It really is best that we move on.

WND, won't be moving on from Brown and his Trump heresy since Brown remains a reliable LGBTQ-hater.

 

Newsmax Bashed Hutchinson Over Capitol Riot Committee Testimony, Touted Trump's Attacks On Her
Topic: Newsmax

Like a loyal right-wing "news" operation, Newsmax made sure to attack former Mark Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson over her testimony before the House committee investigating the Capitol riot. First up was Eric Mack being a servile stenographer for Donald Trump's smears of Hutchinson:

As a staffer for White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was the surprise witness Tuesday for the House Jan. 6 Select Committee, former President Donald Trump shot back at her, calling her "a total phony and 'leaker'" and disgruntled castoff after Trump left office.

"I hardly know who this person, Cassidy Hutchinson, is, other than I heard very negative things about her (a total phony and 'leaker'), and when she requested to go with certain others of the team to Florida after my having served a full term in office, I personally turned her request down," Trump wrote on Truth Social as the testimony was being heard.

"Why did she want to go with us if she felt we were so terrible? I understand that she was very upset and angry that I didn't want her to go, or be a member of the team. She is bad news!"

Mack made no apparent effort to fact-check Trump.

Next was an anonyously written article claiming that Secret Service agents "are prepared to go before Congress to flatly contradict the aide's story of an enraged Trump determined to get to the Capitol as a security breach was taking place there" by having "lunged at a driver inside a presidential car and demanded that he be taken to the Capitol." Funny thing, though: More than a month later, the Secret Service agents who declared they would testify to the committee that Hutchinson was lying have yet to do so; instead, they have lawyered up and refused to testify, and they have been identified as Trump loyalists and yes men.

This was followed was a June 29 article by Jay Clemons:

The House select committee overseeing the hearings for the Jan. 6, 2021 unrest at the Capitol has yet to contact the U.S. Secret Service about challenging Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony from Tuesday — even though USSS officials have publicly volunteered to speak with the committee, as a means of presumably rebutting Hutchinson's claims against former President Donald Trump, according to James Rosen, Newsmax's chief White House correspondent.

Citing a sourced report from Rosen, the Secret Service agents who were present with then-President Trump on Jan. 6, 2021 in the presidential motorcade vehicle, dubbed "The Beast," are "ready and "eager" to speak with the House panel. 

Again, that has yet to happen, and the agents have lawyered up. There is unlikely to be much more Secret Service cooperation with the committee after it was revealed that the agency deleted texts from the phones of its agents related to the riot that could have shed further light on what happened that day.

An article by Nick Koutsobinas complained that "Cassidy Hutchison's attorneys say their client is sticking with the testimony she gave to the Jan. 6 panel in a public hearing on Tuesday despite pushback from Republican lawmakers and others involved in events that day," adding that "Hutchinson said she learned of the motorcade incident from Tony Ornato, Trump's deputy chief of staff" and that "Several news outlets have reported that Ornato is prepared to testify and dispute Hutchinson's claim." But Ornato has not testified to date, and he has lawyered up; he also has a record of lying about things on Trump's behalf.

Newsmax hurled more attacks at Hutchinson over the following days:

• Neb. Gov. Ricketts to Newsmax: Hutchinson's Testimony 'Third-Hand at Best'
• Report: Jan. 6 Witness Hutchinson Lauded Trump Admin in 2018 College Paper
• Megyn Kelly: '1st-Year Law Student' Could Have Discredited Hutchinson
• Former White House Lawyer Disputes Hutchinson Testimony on Note
• Rep. Norman to Newsmax: Jan. 6 Hutchinson Hearing a 'Sham'

But Newsmax's main focus was on Trump's increasingly unhinged -- and never fact-checked -- rantings on Hutchinson.He appeared on Newsmax to rant about her, as detailed in a June 30 article by Sandy Fitzgerald:

Former President Donald Trump, in an exclusive interview with Newsmax, pushed back hard against claims made by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who had worked for Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows, calling her testimony to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, incidents at the U.S. Capitol "absolutely crazy."

[...]

"This lady, yesterday — is there something wrong with her?" Trump said, not repeating Hutchinson's name. "She said I jumped from a car, I started strangling a Secret Service agent? I grabbed the steering wheel of a car? Said I wanted guns at my rally? I didn't want guns. I have to speak, too."

He pointed out that the Secret Service has come out and called Hutchinson's story "totally false."

"The woman is living in fantasy land," said Trump. "She's a social climber, if you call that social. I think it's just a shame that this is happening to this country, and we don't have any Republicans up there to dispute it. We have one who quit [Adam] Kinzinger, we have another one who's down by 35 points in Wyoming [Rep. Liz Cheney]. She's a total disaster, she's a train wreck, but think of it. Nobody to cross-examine."

Later that day, a stenography article by Mack hyped Trump's call for Hutchingon to be investigated for "lying under oath." Mack was Trump's stenographer again for a July 4 article:

After a new report of text messages from the House Jan. 6 Select Committee's "surprise" witness showed Cassidy Hutchinson called the investigation "bs," former President Donald Trump has come out to shed light on the irony.

"Lyin' Cassidy Hutchinson, who the fake news media refuses to properly reveal, recently called the January 6 Unselect Committee 'B.S.' Gee, that wasn't reported by LameStream!" Trump wrote Monday on Truth Social.

Trump was at it again days later, and Jeffrey Rodack was the stenographer this time in a July 12 article:

Former President Donald Trump ripped into the Jan. 6 select committee on Tuesday, calling it "political hacks and thugs."

He also took special aim at former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who had testified before the panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

Trump's comments came in posts on his Truth Social platform as the panel was set to meet for one of its open sessions to hear additional testimony.

Trump wrote: "Can anyone even imagine the Unselect Committee, which was formed solely for the purpose of bringing down my 'numbers,' or worse, relying on the Fake and made up stories, already largely debunked, of a female scam artist, Cassidy Hutchinson, who desperately wanted to go with the Trump Team to Florida long after January 6th, and went 'crazy' when she was told no. They called her a 'leaker' and worse, didn't want her!"

As usual, there wasn't a fact-check to be found.