MRC Parrots Convention Of States' Softball interview, Anti-Soros Propaganda
Topic: Media Research Center

A Sept. 30 Media Research Center post by Jeffrey Clark detailed the softball inter view his boss, Brent Bozell, gave to the head of a group that wants a constitutional convention (but con't call it that):

Convention of States president Mark Meckler torched the George Soros-funded, anti-American organizations working to undermine his mission of “restor[ing] a culture of self-governance in America and to curtail federal overreach.”

“All the America-hating, baby-killing, communist, socialist organizations in America are against” a Convention of States, Meckler told MRC founder and President Brent Bozell in a Sept. 29 interview. “All the conservatives are for it.”

A “Convention of States” is a process found in Article V of the U.S. Constitution that “gives states the power to call a Convention of States to propose amendments. It takes 34 states to call the convention and 38 to ratify any amendments that are proposed.” 

Meckler cited a 2017 statement signed by “over 230 leftist organizations.” That effort, Meckler said, was “led by Common Cause and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.” The catch? Both groups are “Soros-funded policy orgs,” Meckler explained. The press release whined how supposedly “[a]n Article V convention is a dangerous threat to the U.S. Constitution, our democracy, and our civil rights and liberties.”

The need to tie any critics of Mecker's group to Soros was not explained -- aside, of course, from the kneejerk demonizing of Soros endemic in right-wing circles -- nor did Meckler offer proof that all 230 organizations who signed the statement were "leftist."

Clark then tried to served as Meckler's apologist by (badly) explain why the Convention of States Meckler is agitating for is not a constitutional convention, even though the goal of both would be to rewrite the Constitution:

Convention of States is a group that aims to call a Convention of States under Article V of the U.S. Constitution to propose amendments to the Constitution and “bring power back to the states and the people, where it belongs,” according to the organization’s website. 

The Soros-tied coalition’s press release went so far as to twist the words of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to make it appear that he, too, historically opposed a Convention of States. “Scalia also warned of the dangers of a constitutional convention,” the press release noted. “‘I certainly would not want a constitutional convention. Whoa! Who knows what would come out of it?,’ Scalia said in 2014.” 

Here’s the problem: a Convention of States is not a “constitutional convention.” CoS itself defines it as “a convention called by the state legislatures for the purpose of proposing amendments to the Constitution. They are given power to do this under Article V of the Constitution. It is not a constitutional convention.” [Emphasis added].

It seems like a distinction without a difference, though Clark is too busy sucking up to Meckler to explain it clearly.

Aside from this agitating for a constitutional convention in all but name, Convention of States is also known for the polls on right-wing issues it feeds to its fellow activists in the right-wing media bubbl. Those polls are conducted by the Trafalgar Group -- which, as we've noted, is one of the worst and most biased pollsters out there.

WND Columnist Keeps Serving As A Putin Apologist
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily columnist Jim Darlington was an apologist for Russia shortly after that country's invasion of Ukraine, and he has continued to be one. He wrote in his Oct. 7 column, justifying the invasion as a response to Ukraine considering joining NATO:

One, Russia wanted Ukraine to be permanently off-limits to membership in NATO … as a promise made and then denied through decades of Russia's repeated, insistent assertions that keeping just such a promise was critical to their national security.

Two, the U.S., under the Obama-Biden rule, was complicit in the 2014 replacement of one president less hostile to Russia with another that was less hostile to paying off the approved parties, and willing to initiate a low-profile war against its own (mostly Russian) people in the provinces bordering Russia in eastern Ukraine.

Three, any willingness to negotiate on this one issue would have prevented this war. And further negotiations early on could have stopped the war, but agreements on the table were withdrawn by Zelensky at the behest of the then U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, on orders from Biden and Company that the war should continue, to punish and finally to remove Vlad Putin.

Darlington didn't mention that it was Putin's unwillingness to negotiate that directly led him to a completely unprovoked military invasion. Instead, he complained:

In the present production of anti-Russian agit-prop, playing everywhere, every night, we have Vlad Putin, aka Hitlerian Fiend, Destroyer of Democracy. His agents are everywhere clawing at our very foundations. OK, well, that would actually be the Chinese (if we weren't paralyzed with the fear of being called names: racist, xenophobe, whitey, etc.). More reliably (maybe) are reports of bad things happening to Putin's opponents. No doubt, a few here and there, might have wished they'd been better friends. The World News Oligarchs happily report any such suspicions, whether fact or anonymous fantasy, while ignoring China's daily and massive human rights transgressions.

Let's bottom line this. U.S. allies need not be nice, but their allegiance needs to be in line with American interests. Russia should be our friend and most appropriate fellow warrior, against Islamism and Communism. Promises to keep NATO from her doorstep should have been honored.

Darlington whined further in his Oct. 14 column:

Some of us Unpatriotic Putin Apologists have been found committing treasonous thought crimes and have been publicly condemned. (Well … you know, by a handful of avid commenters.) Never mind the notion of measured and reasonable discourse, or that wholly antiquated innocent-until-proven-guilty thing. Wherever the great finger of the 95% media is pointed, shame and cancellation must follow. Name-calling is so much more fun than critical thought.

All right, so we might be whining a tad, but let's get serious. Some of us, in trying to come to a balanced conclusion, try to see ourselves, as though wearing the shoes of the Other. This was once known as part of the process of "understanding." In the case of the Ukrainian "Special Military Operation," otherwise known as the brutal Russian invasion of its faultless neighbor, we might even be inclined toward some small measure of sympathy for Putin's predicament. There it is. The confession. How right and righteous the finger pointers are proven to be!

But whether Ukraine has been warring against its own enclaves of Russians, since the U.S made them part of the Obama-planned and supported Orange Revolutions, in 2014, or whether the areas Putin wants to annex are overwhelmingly populated by Russian-speaking people, or whether the Ukraine's military point-of-the-spear is actually a cadre of rabid Hitlerian Nazis, waving swastikas and proudly wearing SS insignia, or whether agreement with Putin's position would have averted, and could now immediately end, this atrocious war, rather simply and painlessly, is truly not the real concern of those opposing this war. We, who are apparently post-Soviet Russian assets, prove to be pretty fickle when it comes time to hug the Russian Bear. We love you, Comrade Vlad, sort of, kind of, once in a while, but, whatever sympathies we may be accused of harboring, the terminus of these "affections" is finalized in this: We don't care what's happening over there! We care about what's happening right here in the USA.

He then strayed into well-worn (and discredited) conspiracy theory territory:

Every thinking American knows perfectly well that the 2020 election was a national travesty, corrupted in every available manner, and more than half of us have now stopped lying about that. It's a tough one to look at squarely, especially for those of us who were deniers of the Big Steal, but we must. The usurpers of our democracy demonize any who speak out truthfully, and have made it plain that they are willing to use "any means necessary" to advance their globalist aims.

You, who are participants in the government-mandated boosterism of a war that drains us to the point of real and deadly vulnerability (as such Democrat-initiated involvements have in the past) may want to reconsider exactly who the useful idiots really are.

Darlington apparently really hates to have his Putin-loving side called out, because he started his Nov. 8 column this way:

It's shocking! But it's everywhere! So many people discovered to be "Russian Assets"!

One might hope, briefly, that for all of us called "racists" and "xenophobes" and "homophobes" and "fascists" and "evil white supremacists," etc., that all the previously popular denominations of slander might now be simplified to fall under the single sobriquet of "Russian Assets," but no such luck. The left can't get tired of adding to their arsenal of verbal slings and arrows, any more than they can limit their ever-growing list of important newly discovered genders.

But for those of us who don't hate everyone who's different, and have no secret urge to be other than a good ol' binary man or woman God made us to be, and who even care about the United States of America … well, becoming a Russian Asset may turn out to be a real temptation.

It got weirder from there:

No! Ukraine was not the world's most corrupt government and breeding ground of corporate graft. No! Obama's CIA had nothing to do with the 2014 overthrow of a government that was getting along with Vlad. No! There wasn't a huge majority of Russian-speaking people in the Crimea. There had been no "quiet war" against the Russian provinces since 2014. The Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk and Luhansk did not increase exponentially, each day, in the week prior to the Russian aggression.

Strange, indeed, how many of us who were enlightened by Miss Information, and steadfastly viewed the torch she held high as one and the same as that held up by the Statue of Lady Liberty, have now been seduced by what's maybe "the best trick yet" of the globalist warmongers.

All you patriots demanding an immediate negotiated end to the Ukrainian-Russian war have been taken down a notch. The left suddenly flips, and now you must join them in cheering for war. And, if not, you have taken the first steps in becoming a real, honest to goodness Russian Asset.

Blaming Ukraine for instigating military conflict against Russia is actual Russian propaganda. So it seems we should believe Darlington when he tells us who he says he is.

MRC Hyped Polls That Pushed Right-Wing Narratives -- But Won't Criticize Them For Being Wrong
Topic: Media Research Center

Before the midterm elections, the Media Research Center got mad when MSNBC's Joy Reid accused Reuiblican pollsters of flooding the zone with polls of dubious quality to create the impression of a coming "red wave" -- even though the MRC effectively accused the "liberal media" of not just doing the same in 2020 but that those polls suggested that Joe Biden was farther ahead of Donald Trump than the election results ultimately showed were "deliberately wildly wrong" -- that is, made up, a potentially libelous accusation. Needless to say, the MRC took part in that zone-flooding by hyping polls that conform to right-wing narratives. Let's look at some of those polls, shall we?

Gabriela Pariseau wrote in a Sept. 9 post: "Eighty-two percent of American parents are concerned about Big Tech’s influence on their children’s lives, according to a new poll by child advocacy nonprofit Parents Defending Education. The survey found that 'over two-thirds of parents (68%) are not comfortable allowing their kid to use TikTok without adult supervision, including 73% of parents aged 18-34.'" Parents defending education is a right-wing group that's obsessed with attacking critical race theory.

A Sept. 13 post by Joseph Vazquez hyped:

The Trafalgar Group, in conjunction with Convention of States Action, released a survey Sept. 12 of 1,084 likely 2022 election voters spelling possible doom for leftist candidates who support Biden’s legally dubious plan to cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for anyone making less than $125,000 (or $250,000 for couples filing jointly). 

Specifically, 55.6 percent of voters said they are “less likely” to vote for candidates that back Biden’s plan. Even worse, this figure included a whopping 64.6 percent of independent voters who said they were less likely to support candidates who champion the student debt scam. A sizable plurality (49 percent) of all voters surveyed stated they were “ much less likely ” to vote for candidates who backed Biden on the student debt issue.

We've previously noted Trafalgar's record of dubious and biased polling.And it turns out that Trafalgar was also the main polling company pushing the (discredited) idea of a "red wave" in the midterms.

A Sept. 28 post by Scott Whitlock complained that the media "ignored good news for Greg Abbott, the strongly pro-life governor of Texas," citing an Emerson College/The Hill poll claiming that Abbott was the "candidate they align with most on the issue of abortion rights" over Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke.

Brad Wilmouth spent an Oct. 1 post whining that CNN wouldn't use a poll more favorable to right-wing narratives on Republicans busing or flying migrants to other cities, claiming that using a different poll was all about "doing its part to spread misinformation to undermine the GOP on the issue.

An Oct. 10 post by Vazquez rehashed old news about Hunter Biden's laptop, claiming that "A 2020 MRC poll found that 45 percent of President Joe Biden’s voters weren’t fully aware of the New York Post story precisely because the media and Big Tech whitewashed it." As we documented, the MRC bought those poll results from The Polling Company, which was founded by Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, which certainly makes it look biased. 

An Oct. 14 post by Vazquez complained that Yahoo Finance was "blaming pro-lifers for the diaper shortage," huffing in response: "Yahoo! didn’t bother mentioning CRC Research’s August poll that reportedly found that both Republicans and Democrats are 'in agreement that pro-life clinics should receive government assistance, with 70 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of Republicans strongly favoring their public funding.'" It's unclear who paid for the poll -- CRC Research is a Canadian firm that, presumably, would not be conducting a lot of polls in America on its own -- but Students for Life also hyped it, which suggests that anti-abortion activists bankrolled it.

Tim Graham used an Oct. 24 post to claim that that "the public is ardently bored" with anyone who focuses on the Capitol riot, citing polls that fail to actually make that specific claim.

Jorge Bonilla touted poll results that meshed with his narrative in a Oct. 30 post:

We’ve often said that the nation’s Spanish-language corporate media are unequivocally the biggest source and spreaders of Spanish-language disinformation to a vulnerable audience that relies on these news divisions for information on the events of the day. A recent poll has now arrived at the same conclusion, thus confirming our long-held thesis.

The Bienvenido-WPA poll published on October 25th finds both that viewers of Univision and Telemundo newscasts are frequently misinformed on a number of key issues, and that these levels of misinformation are directly attributable to the networks’ unbridled activist impulses- which in our experience has often cast the wildest left-wing frame on any given story.

Bonilla didn't disclose that Bienvenido is a right-wing group, which you can tell from the refenence to "preserv[ing] constitutional values" in its euphemistically written "about" page.

A Nov. 4 post by Rich Noyes noted: "A poll released this week showed a whopping 45 percent of registered voters said inflation was their top concern going into the election." This poll was paid for by NewsNation, the news operation that has been hyped by the MRC for its purported lack of bias -- but it's actually being run by former Fox News operatives.

Given how the "red wave" hinted at by these polls was a failure, you'd think the MRC would be lashing out at the pollster for  being "deliberately wildly wrong" the way it did in 2020. But you'd be wrong -- those wrong polls served the MRC's purpose of advancing their preferred narratives, and it's not about to start criticizing them now in case it needs those same results manufactured in 2024.

CNS' Jeffrey Yet Again Bemoans Federal Debt Under Biden, Censors How Much It Grew Under Trump
Topic: CNSNews.com

One of CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey's partisan schticks this year is to blame Biden for increases in the federal debt while remaining silent about how much federal debt was racked up under Donald Trump. He did this again in his Nov. 2 column:

President Joe Biden has been in office a little more than 21 months, but during that brief period he has managed to increase the federal debt by more than $3.4 trillion.

On Jan. 20, 2021, the day Biden was inaugurated, the total federal debt was $27,751,896,236,414.77, according to the Treasury.

On Oct. 31, 2022, the latest day for which the numbers have been published, the total federal debt was $31,238,301,149,359.52.

That equals an increase of $3,486,404,912,944.75.

How does one put that in perspective?

Well, in 2019, the last year for which the Internal Revenue Service has published its Statistics of Income report, Americans filed 104,005,800 "taxable returns" with the IRS.

"A taxable return,"the IRS explains in its Statistics of Income Bulletin, "is a return on which the taxpayer reports total income tax greater than zero dollars."

Thus, there were 104,005,800 income taxpayers in the United States as of 2019; and, in Biden's first approximately 21 months in office, the increase in the federal debt of $3,486,404,912,944.75 equaled approximately $33,521.25 per each of those taxpayers.

In making this attack, Jeffrey deliberately omitted perspective that undermines his argument -- specifically, that Biden came into office with a large federal deficit racked up on the previous president whose name went unmentioned by Jeffrey, Donald Trump. Trump added $7.8 trillion to the national debt during his presidency; using that rough number and dividing it by the 104,005,800 taxpayers Jeffrey cited, this means Trump's federal debt stuck taxpayers with $74,995.82 for each of them.

An article by Jeffrey detailing that fact does not exist at CNS, just as he refused to call out Trump by name during his presidency for the debt he racked up. That's partisan cowardice, information censored because it displeases his overlords and his narratives.

That's no way to engender trust in your "news" organization.

WND Does What It Does, Blames Election Fraud (And Global Warming) For GOP Midterm Losses
Topic: WorldNetDaily

After briefly entertaining thte idea of serious analysis of why Republicans did so poorly in the midterm elections, WorldNetDaily quickly got back to doing what it usually does: invent conspiracy theories about purported election fraud. Editor Joseph Farah went full bore on this in his Nov. 11 column:

They're playing games again in Maricopa County, Arizona. In Clark County, Nevada, as well – indeed around the country.

The Democratic Party is proving once again that they are capable of stealing elections – even though, overall, Republicans outperformed them in the midterms.

In Arizona last night officials kicked out some of the free press covering the governor's race between Kari Lake and Katie Hobbs. This was a stark indication things are about to get real serious. A representative of Real America's News and the Gateway Pundit were blocked from the Maricopa County vote center. They were told officials are not interested in the First Amendment.

Expect to see, in the coming days, the blatant theft of the election from Kari Lake, U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters, secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem and Attorney General candidate Abe Hamadeh. The steal is the Democrats' window dressing behind the heroic performance of the Republican team in 2022. The Democrats and the fake media will sell the idea that this is how the Republicans' Big Red Wave died an ugly death.

Over in Nevada, expect to see Adam Laxalt's victory for U.S. Senate potentially snuffed out as well.

This is a travesty – an apocalypse for America.

Yes, Farah would think that having the country run by anyone but far-right conspiracy theorists like himself is a "travesty." After ranting about mail-in ballots, Farah concluded:

Yes, Democrats have been experimenting with voter fraud for years. And it's happening right now – in far more nationally consequential races – like Lake's, Masters' and Laxalt's. Not to mention President Donald Trump's just two years ago.

This is a nightmare! Are we going to accept this?

Don't fall for the fake media's narrative. Once again, our election is being stolen, rigged, ripped off – in plain sight!

Brad Lyles pushed the same narrative in his own Nov. 11 column:

Democrats cheated in 2020, and they're cheating again right now – and why wouldn't they? It does not require a Ph.D in Skinnerian Behaviorism to understand that: a) given that Democrats were rewarded handsomely for their cheating in 2020, and b) given that they suffered no punishment for their treachery, it follows that c) they cheated more in 2022 than in 2020, but this time they were two years more practiced at it.

Moreover, given that the most accurate polling predicted a huge Republican win, Democrats were fully aware they were facing a decisive defeat up and down the ballot. In such a case, is it really so paranoid to suspect they did not simply wait to be overcome – that they would not hesitate to deploy their proven skills at winning ballots instead of votes? Really?

Logic dictates they did not hesitate for one millisecond. Unless one believes Democratic leadership were somehow transfixed by ethical constraints in the interim, then a) given that they knew they would be crushed in 2022, and b) given that they possessed the skills to thwart that ignominy, it follows that c) of course they would cheat again, but now would have become so adept at it they would be capable of stealing the more tedious down-ballot races, in contradistinction to the singular race for president in 2020.

And, while it is true the RNC deployed legal and logistical interventions as we approached Nov. 8, they were, per usual, late to the party.

Lyles then suggested taking extralegal and possibly violent action against those whom he has baselessly attacked: "Our only option, now, is to defeat them utterly – and in every possible manner – without mercy, and to punish them beyond their defeat."

Craige McMillan served up a more general rant against mail-in ballots as evidence of "election corruption":

Take Election Day. Go ahead – take it. They did. The U.S. Post Office was enshrined into the U.S. Constitution. What part did the Oost Office play in Election Day before the anathema of "mail-in voting"?

Well, um … ah … none, I guess. People were far more spread out during our early days than they are today, yet voting day mandated they travel sizable distances to cast their ballot at a fixed location on Election Day. Could it be than when the founders mandated that people travel to a fixed location to cast their ballot, they understood the moral failures of corrupt, career politicians who could have formed networks of corruption within our governing structure, from local to state to federal offices? Could they have been concerned about the possibility of the political party in power using corrupt processes to control the results of the elections in one or more states? Could they have feared one party rule?

Today entire states – Oregon, for instance – mandate mail-in ballots for everyone. Blank ballots mailed to wherever the voter says, then filled out, signed and returned by mail to government offices where the ballots are counted and winners and losers determined by employees loyal to the party in power. Is there room in that system for fraud? Yes, that is why mail-in ballots are used. It's almost as if the voter becomes irrelevant to the process – because we are.

And who is to say what voter turnout really was – when there is none? Impossible to judge sentiment for one candidate over another when we don't see the crowd and talk to one another. It's easy for the corrupt to win elections when their fellow corruptocrats control the entire electoral process.

A Nov. 14 column by Jonathon Moseley managed not to invoke purported election fraud but a different (but similarly wacky) excuse for Republicans losing -- too many Americans believe climate change is real and not enough Republicans are climate deniers:

Imagine if Republicans had picked up another 8% of votes, what the Republican "red wave" would have looked like in the Nov. 8 election. Exit polling showed that roughly 8% of voters ranked non-existent "climate change" as their No. 1 issue when going to vote last Tuesday in the midterm elections. (See: Karlyn Bowman, "The 2022 Exit Polls: A-Z," Forbes, Nov. 9, 2022.

Since 1974, Republican and business leaders have been too afraid to address the clearly false superstition that humans are changing or ever could change the temperature or climate of gigantic planet Earth. Because they thought it would just go away if they ignored it, we now have actual, real votes for Congress changed based upon a myth.

But now we see that real votes for real House members and U.S. senators are being affected by the climate cult. This is not just something we can shake our head at and go back to real things. This myth is actually harming our nation … and the world.

As proof that global warming doesn't exist, Moseley served up ... this:

The entire climate change hypothesis is that CO2 increased in the atmosphere. Then the planet's temperature increased. Therefore, more CO2 caused Earth's planet-wide, global temperature to increase.

But that's not science. A happened then B happened does not mean that A caused B. There is no evidence that CO2 causes higher planet-wide temperatures. It's never been tested. Note that opinions are not experiments. Papers are not experiments. Studies are not experiments. Published articles are not experiments. Experiments are experiments. Science runs on experiments, not on conjecture and speculation.

Here is science that explains how this works. Maybe Moseley should read it sometime.

Andy Schlafly returned to the prevailing conspiracy theory in his Nov. 15 column:

The midterm election confirmed rampant ballot manipulation by Democrats to overcome their deficit in the polls. RealClearPolitics, the premier forecaster, predicted a 53-47 Republican majority in the Senate based on its careful analysis of all the polling and historical data.

States that maintain some election integrity, such as New York, Ohio, Texas and Florida, reported outcomes consistent with polling. In Florida the top vote-getter was the Trump-supporting Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody, at 61%, who sided with Trump in challenging the 2020 election.

But in states lacking election integrity, such as permitting dumps into drop-boxes totaling hundreds of thousands of ballots that are not verified in any meaningful way, the outcomes changed, and Democrats claimed pivotal victories in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada. "Drop-box Dems," they might be called, stuff the ballot box without monitoring.

Schlafly has no credible evidence to support any of those claims. Instead, he concluded:

Donald Trump is the leader in calling for election integrity, and this recent election shows how much our nation needs him. "We will restore the vital civic tradition of in-person voting on Election Day," he pledged at the Jan. 6 Capitol rally.

Looks like someone forgot what else happened that day.

NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's (Bought-And-Paid-For) War on TikTok
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center posts videos on Facebook it knows will get deleted so it can play victim -- while promoting anti-TikTok talking points that came from a Republican PR firm hired by Facebook to malign its competition. Read more >>

MRC Whined That Media Accurately Reported GOP Failures In Midterms
Topic: Media Research Center

After spending so much time peddling Republican narratives before the midterm elections, ther Media Research Center was severely disappointed that Republicans severely underperformed -- at least, that's what we can assume from all the whining it did about news coverage pointing out that fact.

Election night started out promising for the MRC, though, as noted in a Nov. 8 post by Kevin Tober declaring that "MSNBC began losing it over the strong early results" for Republicans Ron DeSantis and Marco Rubio in the Hispanic county of Miami-Dade, which was a reliably solid Democrat [sic] county." But as the night looked more favorable for Democrats, the whining kicked in. Curtis Houck complained:

After spending hour after hour sticking to horse race results and CNN’s magic walls, the liberal network’s first piece of analysis reminded us of why they’re still a laughing stock of a network as a trio of lefties marveled at Democrats winning back governors' mansions in some of the deepest blue states with “stellar” Wes Moore in Maryland and lesbian Maura Healey in Massachusetts.

Inside Politics Sunday host Abby Phillip swooned that “[t]here’s a lot of history that could be made tonight” with Healey becoming “the first openly gay governor in that state — or the first lesbian in the entire country” and could have company later in the night if Democrat Tina Kotek won in Oregon.

As for Moore, Phillip gushed over him as “someone who Democrats agree is perhaps the future of the party” and “a huge rising star.”

Who’s Talking host Chris Wallace joined in on this pointless exercise and touted Moore as “an enormously impressive candidate” and noted that Healey and Moore won in “deep blue states” after eight years of “moderate, moderate Republicans, Larry Hogan and Charlie Baker, both very popular.”

However, they both had little in the way of challengers because the GOP nominees were “hard right candidates.” Of course, Wallace never mentioned how Democrats meddled in the GOP primaries to boost said candidates.

Yes, the MRC is still complaining about that, even thought it cheered Republican meddling in Democratic primaries as urged by Rush Limbaugh. And he's not about to give Democrats any credit for the tactic being a success.

The next morning, Alex Christy grumbled:

Joe Scarborough and the rest of the cast of MSNBC’s Morning Joe spiked the football on Wednesday as they opened the show by laughing at the GOP’s disappointing results. Scarborough, specifically inflated GOP expectations so he could compare Kevin McCarthy to Liz Truss, despite the results still being unknown.

In front of a live studio audience, Mike Brzezinski kicked off the show by noting, “It’s the morning after the election and control of Congress still hangs in the balance. The big news overnight—”

Scarborough then interrupted and after Brzezinski sarcastically expressed shock that he did so, he began his taunt, “No, but Republicans, I mean, historically, I don't know if you know this or not but I follow politics. Like, historically they’re up going 40, 50, 60, 70 seats, right? Right, Michael Steele, we talked about this yesterday.”

If Republicans won 50 seats, that would’ve made for their largest majority since the 1928 election while 60 would have been the largest since 1920. While Tuesday’s results were certainly underwhelming, not breaking a record over a century old is not the great historical counter-trend Scarborough made it out to be.

Christy was silent about the fact that Republican pundits like Dick Morris were, in fact, confidently predicting a 60-seat gain in the House.

Houck whined some more about "gloating" (read: reporting accurately on GOP failures) and whining about the attack on Paul Pelosi being linked to Republican extremism:

Following a disappointing night full of failures (and some highs) for Republicans, the Wednesday morning’s broadcast network news shows each moments of gloating and outright laughter that included claims such as country was reminded to not “bet against Joe Biden,” that January 6 mattered, and voters bought the narrative that Republicans were tied to the Paul Pelosi attack.

On CBS Mornings, White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe had just finished arguing that President Biden did well in areas where candidates embraced him and poorly in areas where he didn’t go (which wasn’t true considering his stops in Florida for the hapless Democratic ticket) when he argued Tuesday’s takeaway was “don’t bet against Biden.”

[...]

NBC’s Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd had an explanation for why Democrats did so well and Republicans so poorly. While many prognosticators have blamed Donald Trump, Todd’s other point showed the liberal media’s poisonous propaganda despite no evidence to support it:

There was the attack on Paul Pelosi. And I don't think that was an insignificant moment for a lot of voters. We actually saw a tone change with voters in our poll, post-the attack where voters in their message say — they said what message would you send with your vote? And they said, hey, end — end — end the partisanship, try to tone things down. Even Republicans were saying that in previous to the Pelosi attack, we weren't — it was only a one-sided conversation. 

While the alleged attacker ranted about censorship and Q-Anon on his blog, the mentally ill, former Green Party supporter, and nudist who argued there are half-alien, half-human creatures in our midst had nothing to do with House Republicans.

The MRC has been quite desperate to distance Republicans from the attack, even though the MRC helped make Paul Pelosi a target.

Mark Finkelstein devoted another post to complaining about "Morning Joe" election takes:

Be careful what you wish for, liberal media: you might get it.

Morning Joe was in a great good mood today, glorying in the absence of a midterm red wave. And Joe Scarborough wasted no time in taunting Donald Trump.

With his trademark lack of class, Scarborough called out: "hey Trump! Hey Donald Trump! Meet Boris Johnson" —a reference to the former British Prime Minister who was recently pushed out of office He added: "Massive victory down there. Right? Unfortunately, Donald Trump lost the rest of America."

But if Scarborough and company are right, and Ron DeSantis is poised to replace Donald Trump as the dominant force in the Republican party, then, who knows? The liberal media might be singing a very different—and sorry—tune, in two years come Election Night 2024. 

Kevin Tober added his two cents on allegedly "gloating" newscasts:

On Wednesday evening, after a disappointing showing for the GOP in Tuesday's midterms, the three leftist evening news broadcasts sought to further alienate the few right-leaning viewers they have by gloating over Democrats exceeding expectations by not getting wiped out as is common during a president's first midterm election. CBS went the extra mile by virtue signaling over the first openly-lesbian governor elected in the United States.

On ABC's World News Tonight, anchor David Muir was the gloater-in-chief for his network's newscast, gushing about how "the results defied expectations overnight and history for the party in the White House. There was no red wave, as some had predicted. Instead, a split decision across this country." 

Muir then mentioned Biden's embarrassing press conference in which he described the results as a "good day for democracy and a good day for America."

[...]

Meanwhile, on NBC Nightly News, anchor Lester Holt used his frequently dramatic and condescending opening monologue to bloviate that "It was a good day for democracy. President Biden's first public reaction to yesterday's midterm elections in which Democrats defied the gravity of broad voter dissatisfaction and history itself to avoid massive losses in that widely predicted Republican wave." 

The boys at the MRC have been so indoctrinated inside their right-wing media bubble for so long, they think any accurate reporting of negative news about Republicans is biased "gloating."

WND Still Cynically Pushing Seth Rich Conspiracy Theories
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily cynically peddled lies and baseless conspiracy theories about the death of Democratic staffer Seth Rich -- things WND almost certainly knew were lies -- for the sole excuse of having something else with which to attack the Clintons. WND somehow avoided being sued by Rich's family for the malicious lies it spread -- though outlets like Fox News did -- and WND censored news of those lawsuits and the settlements those outlets were forced to make to atone for those lies. Throughout it all, WND has refused to apologize or correct the record, even as it tries to further those bogus conspiracy theories. WND's latest attempt at ghoulish cynicism came in a Nov. 2 article by Bob Unruh that contradicts itself right out of the gate:

Virtually all of the details of the death of Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee worker who was shot and killed as he walked to his Washington, D.C., home about 4 a.m. on July 10, 2016, remain a mystery.

There was evidence of a struggle, with his hands, knees and face bruised, yet he had two shots in his back. Police said it was a robbery, but his wallet and other items weren't taken.

That's a lot of information for something that he had just called a "mystery." Unruh went on to rehash:

Two weeks later, WikiLeaks began releasing DNC emails damaging to Hillary Clinton, and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange mentioned Rich on Dutch TV: "Whistleblowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often very significant risks. There's a 27-year-old, works for the DNC, was shot in the back, murdered just a few weeks ago for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington."

Assange has never offered any proof that Rich leaked those DNC emails to him -- indeed, the evidence is clear that the Russians stole those emails and gave them to Assange. That was followed by more rehashing:

To further the mystery, the FBI earlier released a tidbit of information, a cryptic note about the idea that someone would "pay for his death."

that's based on a 2021 article Unruh wrote. As we noted, blogger Emptywheel explained that the claim proves nothing; the document in which the "pay for his death" statement appears "may reflect the FBI investigation into allegations that someone tried to hack Rich’s email." Indeed, the whole tranche of FBI documents being referenced isn't worth much since the FBI didn't do the primary investigation into Rich's death.

Not that Unruh will tell you any of this, of course -- he's too committed to his employer's lies. Besides, he has a new thing to peddle:

Now Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, has written a commentary at Stream.org pointing out the additional mystery of why "does FBI want Seth Rich records sealed for 66 years?"

He pointed out at one time, the FBI claimed to have "no records" relating to Rich's murder.

"Now they’re asking a federal court for an order to seal the records that they said they didn’t have — they have them, all right — for 66 years," Huckabee explained.

Huckabee's source for this claim is a report from an obscure, sketchy-looking site called Slay News, which in turn references a paywalled story by the Epoch Times, best known for being pro-Trump stooges and spreading lies and misinformation about COVID vaccines. Neither of these sources appear trustworthy, and Unruh made no apparent effort to fact-check anything they wrote; instead. Unruh went on to rehash conspiracy theories peddled by Ty Clevenger, who we've documented is in it because he hates the Clintons, not because he cares about facts.

Meanwhile, in related happenings: A book about Rich's death, by Andy Kroll, has been published that reveals the false and hateful conspiracy theories spread about it, and Rich's parents have given interviews about the ordeal they have been put through because of the lies and conspiracy theories spread about their son's death peddled by the likes of WND. Unsurprisingly, WND has hidden these events from its readers.

UPDATE: And that's not all. An Oct. 31 column by Scott Lively portrayed Rich as the victim of murder by a vindictive Hillary Clinton:

Enemy No. 1 was not, surprisingly, Donald Trump. It was Seth Rich, because he was the Benedict Arnold of the Army of the Dems – the one who (I am convinced) ratted her out to WikiLeaks and created the fatal email-scandal that she never really recovered from. Ironically, "Bernie Bot" Seth Rich was (I am convinced) seeking revenge on Hillary for her seriously dirty tricks against the Bern-Meister in the 2016 Democratic primary. (Remember that charnel-house chapter of the internal Democrat civil war? Wow!)

Technically, Seth Rich was murdered on July 10, 2016, four months before the election, but the sin for which he was struck down did not bear its ultimate fruit until Nov. 3. Rich's murder (to use the satirical term I invented during law school) was an act of "anticipatory retaliation" on Hillary's part (allegedly).

Needless to say, Lively offered no evidence whatsoever to support his bizarre conspiracy theory.

MRC Keeps Up The Performative (And Possibly Paid-For) Outrage Against TikTok
Topic: Media Research Center

Since the last time we checked in, the Media Research Center has continued to throw hate at TikTok. One was a Sept. 1 post by Gabiela Pariseau:

The Chinese Communist Party-tied TikTok is muzzling conservatives and free thinkers by shutting down their accounts, typically with no explanation.

Using our exclusive CensorTrack database, MRC Free Speech America researchers found that TikTok canceled accounts associated with no fewer than 11 pro-free speech organizations since January 2019. Satire accounts, various pro-free speech groups and commentators, pro-life groups and even the MRC’s own MRCTV account, are among those that TikTok shut down. 

[...]

Censorship doesn’t belong in America, but TikTok seems to think it does.

The platform has deep ties with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP has a board seat at TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, which also sold a 1-percent stake to WangTouZhongWen Technology, a Beijing company owned by three Chinese state entities, according to Reuters.

Pariseau's description of the groups being "banned" is inaccurate. All are right-wing groups and individuals, and few of them support "free speech" when it supports non-conservative causes, like the existence of LGBTQ people.

Unsurprisingly, Pariseau censored the fact that Facebook has paid a Republican PR firm to spread attacks against its competitor TikTok  -- attacks the MRC has dutifully repeated. That paid shilling undercuts the MRC's anti-TikTok narrative, even if there might be some truth behind it.Finally, shre refused to explain how pulling the MRC's video makes TikTok inherently "anti-American." Afer all, it's not like the MRC is any sort of official ambassador for the country.

Also unsurprisingly, MRC executive Tim Graham used a Fox News appearance later that day to parrot the complaint, adding: "When they don't like freedom, when they don't like videos that attack communism, you might just guess it’s a communist channel.”

In a Nov. 9 post, Pariseau served up some performative outrage about yet another MRC video getting "censored" by TikTok:

Chinese Communist Party-tied TikTok censored the latest episode of MRC’s free speech video series on Monday, the day before Election Day. 

Paiten Iselin, host of MRC Free Speech America’s CensorTrack with Paiten, reported on the leftist media’s absolute meltdown after Elon Musk purchased Twitter and started restoring free speech on the platform.

MRC posted the episode to TikTok on Friday, and the anti-American app allowed the content to remain for three days before removing it just in time for Election Day. 

The platform claimed that “This video violates our Community Guidelines,” when it notified MRC of the removal. “We remove content and accounts that involve spam or fake engagement, impersonation, or misleading information that causes significant harm,” the platform notification only vaguely attempted to explain.

It’s unclear how exactly MRC’s video exposing anti-free-speech leftists who complained about Twitter’s free-speech makeover qualifies as “spam” or “impersonation.” But the platform also forbids “misleading information that causes significant harm,” which could refer to literally anything the platform does not approve of. It appears the leftist, CCP-tied TikTok disapproves of MRC Free Speech America’s latest video.

Pariseau didn't explain why it has a TikTok account in the first place if its video repeatedly get "censored" -- unless it's done for the express purpose of writing about the videos getting pulled to push its anti-Big Tech narrative.She also censored the fact that Facebook funneled anti-TikTok attacksto it through a Republican PR firm.

Meanwhile, the presumably-paid-for attacks on TikTok continued, usually with emphasis on the company's alleged ties with the Chinese government -- a talking point pushed by the GOP PR firm hired by Facebook:

• Hatred of Whites Tolerated, Celebrated on Racist TikTok Account
• CensorTrack with Paiten: CCP-Tied TikTok Triggered by Free Speech
• TikTok Helps Spread Tips On Illegal Border Crossing
• 47 Days Before Elections! Chinese Communist Gov’t-Tied TikTok Tinkers with Political Accounts
• Even Pro-Leftist Org CEO WARNS: U.S. TikTok Users Are ‘Literally Dancing with the Enemy’
• ‘TikTok, Time’s Up’: GOP Lawmakers Call to Ban CCP-Tied App
• Heritage’s Kara Frederick: TikTok Is a CCP ‘Spy App,’ Must Be Banned
• TikTok CEO: Content Moderation (Censorship) Is a ‘Top Priority’
• Rep. Gallagher: CCP-Tied TikTok Is ‘Digital Fentanyl’ for US Kids
• Governor Kristi Noem Bans CCP-Tied TikTok in South Dakota for Gov’t Employees
• CCP-Tied TikTok Accounts Backed Dems, Bashed GOP Before Election

The MRC seems not to understand that it has tainted its brand by being fed anti-TikTok narratives by Facebook, if it hasn't accepted money directly itself --just like its attacks on Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen were also fueled by Facebook, which similarly enlisted right-wing advocacy groups to slime her. It's clear that its performative outrage against TikTok is as phony as its complaints whenever TikTok pulls an MRC video (which is the whole point of posting them) -- and until the MRC can come clean and admit it was bought off by Facebook, there's no reason to believe its anger at TikTok is anything but bought and paid for.

Two Days After Midterms, CNS Finally Admits How Bad Repubilcans Did
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com spent the day after the midterm elections largely sticking to pro-Republican narratives and praising the GOP candidates who did won. It wasn't until the day after that, on Nov. 10, that it got around to acting less like an arm of the Republican National Committee and more like the "news" organization it likes to claim it is by actually going somewhat in-depth on how bad Republicans did in the midterms compared with typical expectations.

First out of the gate in the morning was Susan Jones, who led with GOP cheerleading on how "Republicans are jockeying for leadership positions" in the House, but the headline quoted one Republican saying that "I actually believe the outcome would have been better last night if the voters trusted Republicans." Jones then touted weirdly sour grapes from Republicans who actually won and blamed Democrats for GOP underperformance:

Sen. Marco Rubio says his Democrat opponent out-raised him 2 to 1, but he easily won re-election in bright red Florida Tuesday night. Republicans elsewhere did not fare as well, and it's no wonder, Rubio told Fox News's Sean Hannity:

"Literally everything in our society and culture is aligned against Republicans. It's a miracle Republicans win anywhere. Virtually every major television and media outlet in America is against us. All the celebrities. All the movie actors. I mean, you name it. It's just constant. The tech companies. The list goes -- now major American corporations.

“So it's amazing that Republicans are even competitive, much less winning these seats. Look, I think we're going to win the House. We still have a real chance. We're going to win Nevada. I think Arizona.”

Rubio called the delayed vote totals in Arizona "an embarrassment," especially compared with the state of Florida, which "had every vote tabulated" on election night.

Following Rubio on Hannity's show, Sen. Ron Johnson said "lies," amplified by the media, account for his narrow victory over a leftist Democrat.

Then came some actual Republican laments (for the most part) in an article by Lauren Shank:

The talk of a “red wave” coming to the polls and pivoting the election results to a landslide Republican majority did not live up to expectations as final congressional races are called.

[...]

A major upset in the lack of an apparent “red wave” caused a variety of responses from the GOP, attempting to identify why Republican-sweeping results did not turn out.

President of the Heritage Foundation Kevin Roberts tweeted, “The lesson thus far from the non-wave election: bold leadership, with a clear policy plan, matters. Conservatives, as I’ve said all year, needed a bolder plan, and much earlier.”

I understand things didn’t go as well as we wanted them to last night, but I find the utter depression I’m seeing to be a little melodramatic and unhelpful,” conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey tweeted. “1) We had some great wins last night and 2) Jesus is the same yesterday, today, & forever (Heb 13:8).”

[...]

Texas Congresswoman Mayra Flores suggested, “The RED WAVE did not happen. Republicans and Independents stayed home. DO NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT THE RESULTS IF YOU DID NOT DO YOUR PART!”

As we've noted, Shank failed to mention that Flores lost her election.

CNS still made sure to tout a couple more GOP wins:

• Conservative Katie Britt Elected the First Female Senator from Alabama
• DeSantis Crushes Crist in Election, Says ‘Freedom is Here to Stay’

Shank then took a nasty shot at winning Democrat John Fetterman, under the headline "Fetterman Wins PA Senate Race, Victory Speech Consists Mostly of ‘Thank You’":

Democrat John Fetterman beat his Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz, and claimed the title for Pennsylvania’s next senator. Fetterman gave his winning speech Wednesday, focusing mostly on thanking everyone who helped him secure the win.

Supporters cheered Fetterman as he stood on stage in his infamous hoodie attire, and began his speech with, “Yeah, I uh – I’m – I’m not really sure really what to say right now, my goodness,” and “I am uh – yeah.”

“Yeah, I mean, uh – so I am – I’m so humbled, thank you so much, really, thank you, thank you,” Fetterman said.

Shank didn't mention that Fetterman is recovering from a stroke, but she didn't have to. She was parroting the nasty attacks on Fetterman by CNS' parent, the Media Research Center.

For her first article on Nov. 11, Jones did what CNS hasn't done for years -- make Donald Trump look like the crazy, unstable person he is by accurately quoting him:

In a flurry of statements on Thursday, former President Donald Trump dumped on his possible Republican rival, whom he has branded Ron "DeSanctimonious"; he slammed CNN and other media outlets; and he called Pennsylvania a corrupt state.

Then he sent an email to supporters, asking: "Would you vote for me a THIRD TIME?"

Trump has teased a "big announcement" on November 15th, when he's widely expected to announce a third run for president.

His statements came after The Wall Street Journal declared that "Trump is the Republican Party's biggest loser" in the midterm elections; and after the New York Post hailed Gov. Ron DeSantis as "DeFuture" of the Republican Party, sidelining Donald as "Trumpty Dumpty."

Shockingly, Jones included no spin at all. Will that cost her her CNS job?

MRC Gets Mad When The Right-Wing 'Skyrocketing Crime' Narrative Is Exposed As Bogus
Topic: Media Research Center

In early October, Washington Post writer Philip Bump documented how coverage of crime increased on Fox News, creating the perception of a rampant crime wave that didn't mesh with reality -- and, thus, helped to elevate crime as a issue with Fox News' conservarive viewers. Unsurprisingly, the Media Research Center bought into that narrative as well -- their goal is to help conservatives get elected, after all -- and they got huffy any time someone pointed out the flawed narrative and the manipulation behind it. An Oct. 31 post by Brad Wilmouth labored to spin away an uncomfortable crime-related truth, that crime rates are higher in red states than blue states:

On Tuesday, MSNBC hosts Nicolle Wallace and Chris Jansing both picked up on misleading statistics trying to link high crime levels to Republicans. Without informing viewers that even Republican-leaning states have crime-ridden cities run by Democrats, both anchors recited a list of the top 10 states by crime rate in which most of the states are run by Republicans statewide.

Speaking with gun control activist Fred Guttenberg on Deadline: White House, Wallace brought up the topic: "When you look at Republicans running on crime, the most deadly places to live in America -- the places where gun crime is the worst, where you have the greatest risk of dying, are all states run by Republicans. So I just don't understand how we communicate that in the two weeks left to go before the midterms."

Guttenberg accused Republicans of promoting a "big lie" on the crime issue, and blamed them for more shootings:

[...]

Over at HotAir.com, Buck Sexton recently responded to a similar argument against Republicans made by liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, with Sexton noting that the crime-ridden areas in Republican states tend to be run by Democrats, and citing a Washington Post op-ed by Marc Thiessen..

Wilmouth didn't disclose that both Sexton and Thiessen are right-wing commentators, which makes the argument more partisan than factual.

Kevin Tober used a Nov. 1 post to try and shout down CNN's Jake Tapper for telling the trth about crime:

On Tuesday's CNN Tonight host Jake Tapper gave an in-kind contribution to the Democrat Party [sic] by kicking off his low-rated program insisting that crime is not skyrocketing across the country. Despite all available reputable evidence crime is indeed up. Tapper can't admit that because that would upset his friends in the Democrat Party.  

"The notion that violent crime is on the rise has left millions of Americans scared," Tapper moaned. Adding that the GOP is trying to "harness the power of that fear" for political gain.

Going into sanctimonious lecture mode, Tapper asked "is life in America actually more dangerous than it used to be?" 

The question was rhetorical of course since he then claimed that "after years of decline, national rates of violent crime did rise during the COVID-19 pandemic."

[...]

He ended his fact-free monologue by lecturing Americans that their personal experiences aren't based on reality. "Your personal experiences might not be reflected in data. If you don't feel safe, if you or someone you care about has been accosted or assaulted, that's your experience. Fear is primal. It's a crucial emotion."

Tapper is basically saying: Who do you believe? Me or your neighbors who informed you that your house was broken into when you were at work? 

Of course, Tapper is wrong. Crime rates continue to surge even according to the flawed crime report from the FBI that Tapper quoted from.

The question, of course, is not whether crime has increased; it's whether that increase matches the hype Fox News and the MRC have been spouting.

Clay Waters got mad at the New York Times in a Nov. 4 post for pointing out the Fox News-GOP hype on crime with ... COVID whataboutism:

The front page of Friday’s New York Times admitted voters were worried about crime, which may bode well for Republicans in Tuesday’s elections – but the reporters also did their best to chip away at that argument in “Fear of Crime Looms Large for Voters, to Republicans’ Advantage.”

After anecdotes from three crime-concerned voters from across the country, reporters Julie Bosman, Jack Healy, and Campbell Robertson consistently worked to deflate the Republican arguments, as if the American people were suffering false consciousness and just imagining a crime wave around them.

The report even suggested crime wasn’t really affecting most people, just those in certain cities, or their “friends and neighbors”:

[...]

Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake was also found guilty of baselessly scaring voters: “Ms. Lake often accuses Democratic-run cities like Phoenix or Tucson of failing to support the police and of coddling criminals. But her attacks are less about data than about stoking voters’ feelings of unease”.

The real irony, though? It's that this came from the paper that has been trying to scare readers with COVID hysteria for almost three years.

Nicholas Fondacaro went on a tired in a Nov. 5 post when NBC's Lester Holt pointed out the difference between GOP hype and reality:

With Election Day just four days away, NBC Nightly News anchor Lester “Fairness Is Overrated” Holt was desperate to keep Democrats afloat. So desperate that his last option on Friday was to tell Americans not to trust their lying eyes and ears and that the nationwide crime wave didn’t actually exist. He openly scoffed at Republican campaign messages and suggested fears of crime were not “fueled” by “reality” but rather “by videos,” as if they weren’t real. And he leans on a “civil rights attorney” he failed to disclose was a liberal activist.

As is Holt’s way, he opened the segment with one of his holier-than-thou lectures. “As candidates fine-tune their closing messages ahead of Tuesday's vote, an issue finding traction for many campaigns is voter worries about crime. But as we found, the state of crime in America is not always what it appears to be,” he began.

At the top of the video report he filed, Holt lamented that “fear is on the ballot. Crime now the centerpiece of campaigns across the country.” He then played a soundbite of New York Congressman and Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin campaigning to crack down on crime. But Holt openly scoffed, saying, “[Fear] fueled, some argue, not by reality but by videos of rampant lawlessness … and some unsettling headlines.”>

Is Holt saying the viral videos showing swarms of people looting stores, people getting pushed onto subway tracks, carjackings, and drive-bys are all fake? Does he think they’re staged? Zeldin was nearly assassinated at a campaign event and his family was almost shot in their home. He knows first-hand that crime is a problem in New York.

Fondacaro made no effort to prove Holt wrong. Instead, he lashed out at an interviewee who said "Any candidate who tells you that bail reform is causing crime is lying to you," trying to smear her as "a far-left-wing group that advocates for destructive bail reform policies" without proving any of that to be true either. Then again, name-calling is what passes for "media research" at the MRC these days.

The Post's Bump recently pointed out how references to crime on Fox News dropped substantially after the midterms -- further proving that it was only a narrative. The MRC hasn't said a thing about that.

Newsmax's Morris Still Trump-Fluffing -- But Won't Talk About Trump's Latest Scandals
Topic: Newsmax

Even as he was making his grandly incorrect prognostications about how well Republicans would do in the midterm elections, Newsmax pundit Dick Morris made sure to plug his (Newsmax-published) pro-Trump book as well during his Newsmax TV appearances. An Oct. 22 appearance sucked up to Trump by lamenting the trouble Steve Bannon created for himself:

It was "tragic" for Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, to be sentenced to four months behind bars for defying the Jan. 6 committee's subpoena, political strategist Dick Morris said on Newsmax Saturday. 

"Steve is one of my heroes," Morris, the author of the bestselling "The Return: Trump's Big 2024 Comeback" told Newsmax's "Saturday Report." "He is one of the most brilliant people I've ever met."

Bannon was behind Trump's winning election strategy in 2016 to focus on voters in the nation's so-called "flyover country," or "what Hillary [Clinton] called the 'deplorables,' the high school graduates, working-class voters, who don't live on the coasts," said Morris. 

"Trump discovered these people and said their needs have not been made public, and that 'nobody's focusing on them, but I am,'" Morris continued. 

And while those voters were being mocked as "deplorables, clinging to their guns and Bibles," Trump said he'd pay attention to them and put them first, said Morris. 

"That strategy came right out of the fertile brain of Steve Bannon," he said. "I once told him he and I belonged to a very exclusive club of about five people who are still alive who ran the successful campaigns of people for president. I've got such respect and admiration for him. It's tragic that he's going to have to go to jail."

[...]

"This is designed to distract everyone from inflation, crime, immigration, [President Joe] Biden's failures," said Morris. "Abortion is fading, so this gives them something to talk about. Jan. 6 gives them some talking points that they can use."

Morris rehashed one of the pain theses of his book -- that Hillary Clinton will run against Trump in 2024 -- in a Oct. 25 appearance:

Dick Morris, a best-selling author, TV host, and adviser to former Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, has a simple explanation for Hillary Clinton's seemingly out-of-the-blue rant about the Republicans, or "right-wing extremists literally" having a plan to "steal" the 2024 presidential election.

From Morris's perspective, Hillary Clinton will pursue the Democrat [sic] Party nomination two years from now — regardless of President Joe Biden's final determination of his own plans.

"By Hillary getting out here and saying this, it means she's running for president," Morris told Newsmax on Tuesday afternoon, while appearing on "American Agenda" with hosts Bob Sellers and Katrina Szish.

Morris did even more pre-election Trump-fluffing in an Nov. 6 appearance in which he had to play cleanup after Trump insulted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as "Ron DeSanctimonious":

"The key thing is that the day after tomorrow, all of Trump's candidates will win," said Morris. "That will send a message to the Republican Party that Donald Trump cannot be beaten in a Republican primary."

Further, anyone thinking about running will understand that "Trump is going to win that nomination," said Morris. "If they get in his way they just can be destroying their own political career."

In fact, not that many Trump-endorsed candidates won, and even those that did underperformed. Nevertheless, Morris spun further for Trump in anticipation of his announcement he was running for the 2024 nomination. After the announcement, he served up even more Trump-fluffing in a Nov. 19 appearance:

Dick Morris, adviser to former Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, told Newsmax Saturday that Trump can and will make history in his third run at the presidency.

Responding to a question from "Saturday Report" on whether Trump will get the Republican nomination in 2024 and make "history," Morris said, "yes and yes."

"I predicted this in my book 'The Return,'" Morris says. "I think he'll win the nomination. I do not think he will have a serious primary. I think DeSantis and all the others will take one look at the polls and run screaming."

"I think Trump will win the election," Morris continued. "I think the economy is further falling apart. I think that, basically, any Republican can win in '24, and certainly, Trump can win."

Morris did more of the same in a Nov. 21 appearance:

Author and advisor to former presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, Dick Morris, told Newsmax Monday that Attorney General Merrick Garland's appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Trump "won't make a damn bit of difference" in his 2024 candidacy, or with his supporters.

"[Democrats are] taking this nonsense with an all-Democratic grand jury in Washington, D.C. Twist them and shape them so that they could actually find a real violation of law and indict Donald Trump," Morris said during "American Agenda" Monday. "I don't think it's going to make a damn bit of difference. Republicans are going to recognize this for what it is, which is an attempt to manipulate the [2024 presidential] nomination."

A few days later, however, it was revealed that Trump had dinner at his Mar-a-Lago compound with not only anti-Semite Kanye West but also white supremacist Nick Fuentes. Since that revelation on Nov. 25, however, Morris has discussed Trump (in a way that warranted a article, anyway) just once -- in a Nov. 28 appearance in which he complained about the Department of Justice appointing a special counsel to take over its investigation of Trump -- and was not asked about the dinner.

Unsurprisingly, Morris has also not weighed in on Trump demanding the suspension of the Constitution so he could be re-installed as president.

WND Briefly Attempts Serious Post-Election Analysis
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Before the results of the midterm elections came in, Larry Tomczak declared in his Nov. 8 WorldNetDaily column: "Knowing that the only hope for America in our dark time is another Great Awakening, we should celebrate the midterm elections as a sign of God's intervention to set our nation back on the right track as we follow "the General's" example of personal passion for God that helps ignite nationwide revival and reformation." Well, that didn't quite work out -- there was no "red wave" as Tomczak and other WND denizens were fervently hoping for.

Joseph Farah set the tone in his Nov. 9 column by going Luddite and making harder for people to vote:

Do you remember the days when elections were normally settled in one day?

Whatever happened to those days?

Kari Lake, the most important leader to emerge in 2022, said it best: "Another election run by clowns, and we're not gonna take it anymore."

The other most sensible observation of an insane Election Night came from Tucker Carlson: "What happened today in Maricopa County [Arizona] where some huge percentage of voting machines, electronic voting machines … 30 percent, they claim these are Dominion voting machines, but it almost doesn't matter. Electronic voting machines didn't allow people to vote apparently. And that, whatever you think of it, the cause of it, it shakes people's faith in the system. That is an actual threat to democracy. And it points up the core problem, which is, we're not really very serious about democracy if we're using electronic voting machines, or not requiring photo ID to vote. We could have secure elections. But until we do, you're going to have these moments where everybody in the country fears volatility, because one side doesn't believe the result is real."

Bingo!

What's wrong with our election system?

No more election machines! Get rid of them. They're insecure. They're dangerous. They don't deliver reliable results under the best of circumstances. What's wrong with paper ballots? No more "ranked choice" gimmicks to help people like the corrupt Lisa Murkowski of Alaska remain as perpetual incumbents. Make certain only U.S. citizens vote. And, we ought to outlaw routine mail-in ballots other than absentees. Period.

Actually, the main reason why Arizona election results were slower to come in was an influx of mail-inballots dropped off at voting locations in Election Day instead of being mailed in in advance as they were intended. And the only "voting machines" the state uses are tabulation machines that count votes, and even when they malfuncrtion, all votes will still be counted eventually, just not immediately.

Michael Brown attempted his own spin:

For a number of reasons, I would have preferred to see the Republicans take back both the House and Senate in fairly decisive ways. This would have effectively thwarted the implementation of what I believe to be a very destructive leftist agenda. And I voted accordingly in my own state.

But I am not in the least bit discouraged or downcast, since the "red wave" I am really looking for is a spiritual one, not a political one. As I tweeted on Oct. 20, "I have voted Republican for many years, but my vision for a 'red' America is for a nation washed in the blood of Jesus."

Laura Hollis' Nov. 10 column on "8 key takeaways from the midterms" was heavy on sore-loser takes like "Early voting is problematic" and "Democratic Party is deliberately running candidates who are empty shells, absent from (or disastrous on) the campaign trail and/or demonstrably incompetent." but she was getting tired of Donald Trump's antics:

Trump's policies as president were immeasurably superior to those of the present administration. Trump continues to draw tens of thousands to his rallies, and he is at his best when his focus is on the issues that concern huge swaths of Americans: crime, illegal immigration, the economy, inflation. But when he attributes a candidate's success or failure to loyalty to him personally, the message falls flat. His jabs at failed Republican Senate candidates Don Bolduc and Joe O'Dea are examples. This self-absorption is mildly amusing when Trump's candidates win. But Tuesday has even diehard Trump supporters rethinking the future. Support within the MAGAverse on Twitter was shifting toward DeSantis even before the implosion of Republicans' midterm hopes. Now the sentiment is spreading that DeSantis' approach worked; Trump's didn't.

Odds are Trump will be announcing his candidacy for the presidency in 2024 next week. A Trump-DeSantis ticket presents interesting possibilities. But if Trump thinks he's going to parlay "Ron DeSanctimonious"-style barbs into a preordained anointing as nominee, I think he's mistaken. Trump already faces powerful headwinds from every institution controlled by the left: the Deep State, the media, academia, woke CEOs, Hollywood. If he fragments his own base into chunks, he'll go down and take the party with him. It would be an unforced error of catastrophic proportions to hand such a victory to the left.

Nicholas Waddy lamented in his Nov. 11 column that "the Dems' big bet on abortion in their ad spending was not in vain, and the GOP effort to make crime a centerpiece of the 2022 election fell somewhat flat. Again, the pre-election polling mostly suggested it was the Dems who were barking up the wrong tree, but electoral realities do not always take shape in the way pollsters predict." He added that "played an outsized role in helping Republicans to choose some of their most important candidates, and some of those candidates were demonstrably flawed." He was also critical of Republicans as a whole:

Republicans must heed their own warning signs. Even before the 2022 election was finished, Donald Trump had begun to direct criticism at DeSantis, who he understandably perceives as a potential rival. That Trump intends to run again appears obvious. That many Republicans, especially in the leadership of the party, have grown weary of Trump and fear that he could lead them to abject defeat in 2024 is equally obvious. Whether DeSantis, or someone else, can best Trump in the primaries, however, is doubtful, given the immense leads Trump has in virtually every poll of Republicans' preferences.

Whoever emerges as the GOP nominee in 2024, there is a strong possibility that candidate will be scarred by a long, vicious internecine battle that may damage the party fundamentally. Tens of millions of Republican voters are loyal and passionate Trumpers – and whether they would continue to vote in support of a party that spurned their idol is the $64,000 question that Republican Party leaders, and potential candidates like Ron DeSantis, now have to weigh. In other words, Republicans and conservatives need to ask themselves: Can Trump win in 2024? And, if the answer is no, then the next question has to be: Can anyone else on the Republican side win, absent Trump's blessing and enthusiastic support?

But such sober analysis was sparse at WND, which ultimately did what it usually does and blamed Republican failures on Democrats cheating. More soon.

NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Fetterman Fail
Topic: Media Research Center
Once it realized it could exploit his stroke to help his Republican opponent, the Media Research Center waged war on Democratic Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman -- and even whined that Oprah endorsed him. Fetterman won anyway. Read more >>

MRC Complained That Biden Trying To Lower Gas Prices Was An Election Ploy
Topic: Media Research Center

We've documented how the Media Research Center repeatedly blamed President Biden for high gas prices but refuses to give him credit for gas prices dropping. That hypocritical narrative continued as the midterm elections neared. Curtis Houck spent an Oct. 19 post attacking Biden for trying to lower gas prices and dismissed it as an election ploy:

Hours before President Biden’s formal announcement that he’s releasing a puny 15 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), the major broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC heralded this nonsensical effort to take oil from a collection meant for serious emergencies and use it to try and rescue Biden and his party’s chances in the midterm elections.

ABC’s Good Morning America was most enthused. Co-host Robin Roberts gushed in a tease that they’ll cover “[h]ow President Biden is taking on” and “tackling” “rising prices and the other major issues taking center stage as we count down to the midterm elections.”

Tossing to senior White House correspondent Mary Bruce, Roberts reported with the same objectivity as if she was a staffer with the Democratic National Committee: “[W]e’re going to begin with President Biden set to address the issue of gas prices later today announcing action from the administration in an effort to drive prices down with inflation, as we know, rising across the board.”

Always one to peddle Team Biden’s narratives, Bruce shared that Biden would “be announcing more steps to try to ease gas prices and voters’ concerns about rising costs” with 15 million barrels of oil from reserves even though the U.S. goes through “about 20 million barrels every day.”

Houck didn't mention how his post readlike he was a staffer with the Republican National Committee.

Houck repeated his attack on Biden (and the media who wouldn't follow his right-wing talking points) in a post  the next day:

For yet another day, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC used their Thursday morning news shows to fluff the White House up in their hapless attempt (which some argue is purposeful) to save their party’s midterm prospects and lower gas prices through a puny release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

ABC’s Good Morning America again played the starring role, offering praise akin to what you see on state-run media in authoritarian countries. Co-host Michael Strahan had this embarrassing tease: “Gas price push. President Biden taking action to ease the pain at the pump. What he says could come next as he gets set to hit the campaign trail ahead of midterm elections.”

[...]

White House correspondent Kristen Welker said “there’s a lot of concern about gas prices which have ticked up a bit over the past month” before hilariously claiming “it’s not clear” if the SPR release “will have a big impact on gas prices.”

She added that it does give Biden a political talking point to insist he cares about struggling Americans. Better yet, the proof she presented was clownish: “I talked to the White House chief of staff Ron Klain. What’s the first thing he does every morning? Check gas prices”.

Talk about being stenographers for power.

You mean like Houck and the rest of the MRC was during the Trump presidency?

Alex Christy contradicted Houck's description of the SPR release as "puny" by calling it a "raid" in an Oct. 20 post:

During his opening monologue on Wednesday’s All In, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes defended President Biden’s decision to raid the Strategic Petroleum Reserve because gas prices have to be lowered in order to save American democracy from Republicans and their allies in Saudi Arabia and the fossil fuel companies.

The SPR exists to provide an oil infusion in case of emergency, but for Hayes, it exists to save him from the consequences of his terrible energy policy and lack of diplomatic skill, “You know, there is not a lot that American presidents can do to control gas prices, even though their political fate often depends on whether they’re going up or down. They do have the one trick up their sleeve. ... It’s known as the Strategic Petroleum Reserves... a kind of emergency source to protect the U.S. from having to deal with a sudden supply crunch, which is basically what we’re dealing with now.”

[...]

After playing a montage of presidents of both parties being criticized for high gas prices, Hayes claimed Republicans actually want high gas prices, “Republicans for their part are pretty mad about Biden’s move because of course, they don’t want lower gas prices, they want to be able to attack Democrats on the price of the pump. And again, there’s good reason for that. There is really robust evidence the price of gas is one of the -- if not the most important factors in a President’s approval rating.”

No, Republicans are mad because Biden is using the SPR as his electoral plaything.

[...]

Or maybe, if Biden had better energy policies and wasn’t a lousy diplomat, we could have lower prices without having to raid the emergency stockpile.

In typical MRC fashion, Christy refused to identify any Biden energy policy he could blame for a specific increase in oil and gas prices.

Houck returned for a Nov. 1 post whining that oil companies were being called out for their exhorbitant profits this year:

ABC's Good Morning America did its best Tuesday to earn brownie points from its friends in the Biden White House as they touted their hapless attempt to trash oil companies and threaten them with new taxes if they don’t (artificially) lower prices and surrender their profit margins.

As we’ve repeatedly covered ... multiple attempts from Fox’s Peter Doocy, Jacqui Heinrich, and Edward Lawrence to point out either they can’t simply lower prices (to whatever Biden views as reasonable), that there hasn’t been price gouging, or explain why the administration’s stance toward fossil fuel companies have harmed domestic production. But that didn’t matter to ABC.

“Biden versus Big Oil. The President accusing companies of war profiteering, his new threat, and the response from Big Oil,” boasted co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos.

Fellow co-host Michael Strahan also did his part and gushed that “President Biden is trying to take on Big Oil, threatening to impose new taxes on the industry's record profits,” since there’s “just seven days until those midterm elections” and half of voters saying in a new ABC News poll that the economy and inflation are their top issue.

Houck didn't dispute that oil companies were making record profits, which would indicate that they do indeed have some say over pricing.