MRC Can't Quite Criticize Trump For Dinner With Anti-Semites
Topic: Media Research Center

When Donald Trump had dinner with anti-Semite Kanye West and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, the Media Research Center handled it badly at first, just as it did with West's turn to anti-Semitism after years of praising him for going full MAGA. Mark Finkelstein, in a Nov. 27 post, was more mad that the silence of Republicans was being called out -- and that Fox News was the one doing it -- than he was about the dinner:

Guest-hosting Fox News Sunday, Jennifer Griffin suggested to Jonathan Swan that Donald Trump's dinner with Nick Fuentes had triggered something of a wave of criticism of the former president among prominent Republicans.

But liberal reporters like Swan are trying to draw out fiercer criticism, including nudging Gov. Ron DeSantis to slam Trump. Swan dissented from Griffin's take:

"There actually haven't been that many prominent Republicans who have come out against Trump . . . Which tells me there is still a fear among Republicans, even ones who want to oppose him potentially in 2024, that Trump still commands a serious, meaningful proportion of the base, and they don't want to cross him yet."

Then again, by adding that "yet" at the end of his comment, Swan seemed to suggest that criticism of Trump by prominent Republicans is a matter of when, not if.

[...]

Note the graphic in the screencap: "Democracy 2024."That sounds like something you'd expect to see on CNN or MSNBC--not Fox News Channel. More evidence that the Murdoch empire is moving away from Trump?

Finkelstein not only didn't criticize Trump's dinner, he didn't even explain that Fuentes is a white nationalist. He did acknowledge Fuentes' odiousness, however, in a post the next day:

Don Lemon has unwittingly let CNN's cat out of the bag. Guests aren't there to engage in an actual discussion. They're brought on to express a specific opinion. And if they try to stray from CNN's script, they will be shut down.

Lemon gave a perfect illustration of the phenomenon on Monday's CNN This Morning. The guest was Len Khodorkovsky, a former Trump administration official, who is Jewish.  And in Lemon's mind, the clear purpose of Khodorkovsky's appearance was to have him criticize Trump for hosting a dinner with Nick Fuentes and Kanye West.

In fact, in a variety of ways, Khodorkovsky did just that. He began with: " Let's just call Nick Fuentes for who he is. He is an antisemite, he's repulsive, his views are disgusting. And no one of any substance should give him any forum"

But when he tried to expand the conversation to include antisemitism among elected Democrats including Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, AOC, and President Obama, Lemon shut him down. No one was allowed to discuss them.

[...]

Note: Wouldn't you have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Lemon got ahold of the producer who arranged for Khodorkovsky's appearance? Can't you imagine Lemon unloading along these lines: "what the hell were you thinking in inviting this guy? I was looking for someone to trash Trump, not start throwing examples of Democrat antisemitism back in my face!"

Finkelstein censored the fact that Khodorkovsky refused to explicitly condemn Trump for having dinner with West and Fuentes, making that appearance less successful than Finkelstein would have you believe.

A Nov. 28 post by Curtis Houck threw a fit that people were making logical conclusions about the Republican Party based on a dinner by the party's leader and the refusal of other Republicans to criticize it:

CNN’s Inside Politics host John King has long been seen as one of the more even-keeled CNN mainstays, but when he has an itch, he becomes just as partisan as the rest. Such was the case Monday when he and his panel used former President Trump’s brazen dining with virulent racists and anti-Semites Kanye West and Nick Fuentes and the GOP response as proof that the party is content with being an anti-Semitic party encouraging hate crimes.

“To American politics now and to this sad, sad but recurring reality: Donald Trump associates himself with conspiracy and hate and all but a few Republican leaders say nothing,” King began, restating the details of the Trump dinner before whining there’s been “silence” from the GOP minus “a few willing to call this out.”

[...]

Going to break, Bash suggested that, by not meeting the media’s satisfaction of distancing itself from Trump, Republicans are allowing anti-Semites and white supremacists to believe now is the “time to act.”

Houck himself did not denounce Trump's dinner -- unless we're supposed to believe that calling it "brazen" was a criticism -- nor did he cite any Republicans who did, which would seem to prove King right despite all of Houck's whining.

Something similar is also missing from a Nov. 29 post by Jason Cohen complaining about similar logical conclusions:

Salon’s Amanda Marcotte is on to you, Republicans. She can see right inside your pasty white scalps and into your racist brains. She knows you’d be fine with Trump dining with white supremacists, as long as it did not hurt your election chances. 

As part of that, she had a piece out titled “ Republicans don't care that Trump's a white supremacist — just that he's indiscreet about it.” 

In it, Marcotte not only condemned right-wing politicians as racist bigots but also contemptibly categorized their voters similarly. She wrote, “GOP base voters, who either fully agree with Trump's racist views or don't care enough to hold it against him, dig in their heels and refuse to reconsider their cult-like worship of the former president.”

Marcotte then went on to call Trump an “overt white nationalist.” Does she not know what “overt” means or is Marcotte purposely misleading her readers?

[...]

Does Marcotte believe the right does not view white supremacy as disgusting and that they do not care about mass murders motivated by this sick ideology? 

She then did a little concern-trolling, lecturing Republicans that “white supremacist views offend some number of Americans who might otherwise be inclined to vote for their party. In the end, GOP leaders send the message that the problem with Trump's overt racism is not that it's wrong or damaging, but that it's inconvenient to white conservatives.”   

It is 2022, and except for a small fringe, Americans detest these imbecilic ideologies. But the left is so brainwashed with hatred that they generalize this to half of the country.

Funny, we recall that Cohen tried to justify West's anti-Semitism a month earlier, then gave a pass to the anti-Semitism of NBA star Kyrie Irving by playing whataboutism.SO it seems hedoesn't believe anti-Semitism is as "inbecilic" as he claims. He also didn't actually criticize Trump over the dinner.

Another Nov. 29 post, by Kevin Tober, finally offered something approaching explilcit criticism of Trump (albeit though noting that other Republicans have criticized him) while serving up the same familiar whine about Republicans being called out for tolerating anti-Semitism:

On MSNBC's low-rated show The 11th Hour, host Stephanie Ruhle during a segment on former President Donald Trump's dinner with white supremacist Nick Fuentes and anti-Semite and degenerate rapper Kanye West, Ruhle decided to smear the entire Republican Party by suggesting they are the party of racists and anti-Semites despite the fact that Republicans from all corners of the party have rightly condemned Trump for keeping bad company. 

After airing a clip of former President George H.W. Bush condemning former KKK grand wizard and then-candidate for Governor of Louisiana David Duke for his racist and anti-Semitic views, Ruhle referenced a tweet by Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy which strongly criticized Trump's dinner with Fuentes and West.

She then whined that "he was responding to the Trump dinner saying this is not who the Republican Party is. But here's the thing. We just listened to George Bush. It might not be who the Republican Party was. But it's absolutely who they are today."

Tober then whined that "Not only did she fail to offer any evidence to back up her hateful smear of half the country, but she was defiant. When called out on Twitter shortly after she made those comments, she refused to apologize or retract what she said."He then posted an exchange between him and Ruhle in which he called her a "dunce" -- not the way to engender good faith and invite an enlightening dialogue. Ruhle knew Tober was a bad-faith hater, and she pithily dissed in response: "Thanks for tuning in Kev." He continued to rant at Ruhle, which she understandably ignored.

Also note that Tober is calling West a "degenerate rapper" --  which comes full circle to the insults the MRC hurled at West before he struck up a bromance with Trump and started spouting right-wing anti-abortion rhetoric, which the MRC loved.

Finkelstein returned for yet another post on the subject -- not to actually criticize Trump himself, of course, but to mock "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski for grudgingly acknowledging that Trump's former vice president, Mike Pence, criticized Trump.

WND Hit A Conspiracy-Theory Dry Hole On Paul Pelosi Attack
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily's first story on the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, an Oct. 28 piece by Bob Unruh, was surprisingly balanced by WND standards, though he did make sure to add a claim by the right-wing website Twitchy that Pelosi's assailant is ""a former Castro nudist protester." Things moved back toward normal WND standars in an Oct. 31 article by Art Moore complaining that hateful right-wing rhetoric against his wife, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, incited the attack:

Despite conflicting reports and many unanswered questions, President Biden and other Democratic Party leaders have used the assault by a hammer-wielding, apparently mentally ill, illegal alien on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband to rally midterm voters, casting the violent act as an inevitable result of right-wing, "election denier" rhetoric.

And Monday afternoon, announcing attempted-murder charges against 42-year-old David DePape, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins affirmed to reporters that prosecutors believe the attack was politically motivated.

But on closer inspection, the suspect – an illegal alien from Canada who was a member of the far-left Green Party and lives in a dilapidated bus on the Berkeley, California, property of "nudist drug abusers" who support Black Lives Matter and purportedly of late was circulating QAnon conspiracies – comes across more as a homeless, mentally unstable drug addict than a determined ideologue.

Nevertheless, establishment media aligned with the Democrats' narrative, with CBS correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti, for example, tying DePape's actions to "the January 6 Capitol Hill mob" because he allegedly shouted, "Where is Nancy."

Unruh has so far failed to correct his story to reflect actual facts instead of right-wing conspiracy theories. He did, however, return to the WND norm of spreading conspiracy theories in a Nov. 1 article:

What is known about a confrontation in the San Francisco home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is that a person arrested for injuring her husband, millionaire Paul Pelosi, was "mentally unstable" with a brain "addled by long-term drug use."

He is a former "pro-nudist activist, convinced that 'he was Jesus for a year,' who lived in a bus on a semi-commune and has embraced conspiracy theories from the left and right," according to columnist David Harsanyi at the Federalist.

So why, then, are so many questions remaining unanswered, including reports that Pelosi won't turn over home security footage of the fracas.

[...]

It is the Republic Brief that reported on one of the many unanswered questions about the event, that "there is no security footage being released to the general public, and the left is trying to pretend that it is no big deal and that everyone should just move along."

The Republic Brief is a right-wing site nobody has heard of that hides who runs it, so there's no reason for anyone to trust what it says. In fact, thte Capitol Police have a surveillance feed at Pelosi's home (thought nobody was watching it at the time of the attack), and there's no legitimate claim that Pelosi won't turn it over."

Unruh went to hype salacious "new details" in a Nov. 4 article:

A series of alarming details have emerged following the police investigation into an attack on Paul Pelosi, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, at their San Francisco home while she was in Washington.

Among them was that Paul Pelosi, apparently calm, "never let on to responding officers that he was in distress just seconds before he walked back into his house where an intruder bludgeoned him with a hammer."

The details are emerging in a report from the Daily Mail, which cited NBC.

Police already have identified and charged the intruder, David DePape, 42, a onetime nudism advocate and BLM supporter who was known by associates as diving into various conspiracy theories.

Earlier reports said DePape wanted Nancy Pelosi as a hostage, or to break her kneecaps.

While Unruh went on to note that "After posting the report, NBC abruptly removed it, citing its 'standards'", his story has yet to be updated to reflect the ract that NBC retracted the story.Instead, he took a sharp tangent to shoehorn in his own personal obsessions that have little to do with the attack:

WND has reported that despite the conflicting reports and unanswered questions, Joe Biden and other Democrat leaders are using the assault to try to rally midterm election voters to their agenda which mostly consists of abortion and transgenderism.

They also are characterizing Republicans as Nazis and claiming voters that a vote against Democrats is a vote against democracy.

WND largely abandoned the story after that -- apparently, it failed to live up to conspiracy-theory potential. Unruh gave it one last shot, however, in a Nov. 16 article that focused on the NBC story he previously refused to acknowledge had been retracted:

It's true that crimes often don't have simple explanations, but the incident in which Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was attacked in their San Francisco home seems to be extreme.

Fox News has revealed that a report from NBC News that explained Pelosi had opened the door for police, and then went back into his house where he was bludgeoned with a hammer attack, was withdrawn for not being up to reporting "standards."

However, Fox noted, "A new NBC Bay Area report about the assault on Paul Pelosi last month includes several of the same details in NBC News' retracted national report that suggested Pelosi may not have been in immediate danger when police arrived prior to his attack."

That's lame even by WND standards -- even with the assistance of Fox News. No wonder it gave up on the story, and even WND's columnists couldn't workup much interest. Editor Joseph Farah's Nov. 1 column gushed over how right-wing Fox News host Tucker Carlson "pointed out that Nancy Pelosi is using the terrible hammer attack on her husband, Paul, last Friday morning for political theater. It's disgusting the way the media treated it." A Nov. 1 column by Andy Schlafly embraced the bogus video conspiracy: "Releasing the evidence concerning the attack on Paul Pelosi will help the public assess the Democrats' politicized narrative about it. Trump and Musk are right to question whether there is more to this story than the government admits, and Republicans should demand that the evidence be made public."

But as the Washington Post's Philip Bump noted: "The requests for video footage of the Pelosi attack, like the request for footage from the Capitol riot, is not primarily about the footage. It is primarily about using the request for the footage as a way to imply that something is being hidden." Indeed -- it's just conspiracy-mongering by another name.

Newsmax's Hirsen Whines That Comedy Is Too Liberal, Gets Help From Right-Wing Comedy Writer
Topic: Newsmax

James Hirsen -- not known for having anything remotely resembling comedy chops -- spent his Nov. 7 Newsmax column complaining that Jimmy Kimmel is too liberal to be funny:

A lot of folks have been wondering what’s up with Jimmy Kimmel. The late-night comic has become more and more vicious in his politics and extreme in his one-sided humor.

As a result, the ratings for his TV show have really taken a hit.

Here’s a theory about how Jimmy’s comedy got wrecked and how his once-popular program fell into a rating’s ditch.

James Christian Kimmel was raised a Catholic. In his youth, he was fervent enough in his faith to step forward and serve at Mass as an altar boy.

Now, both in his politics and joke delivery, he appears to back every left-wing narrative that the dominant media and reigning powers-that-be are pitching, including a load of Dem-devised policies antithetical to his own faith heritage.

As host and executive producer of Jimmy Kimmel Live, he has consistently been serving as sort of a polar opposite altar boy for the Democratic Party.

Hirsen's theory, such as it is, is that Kimmel is atoning for all the deliberately politically incorrect and misogynist humor he did a couple decades earlier on "The Man Show" -- though it's more likely that Kimmel simply evolved and even shock comics get tired of shocking. Still, Hirsen remained committed to his bit in order to fit his partisan agenda:

By committing the above cultural violations over the years, he has broken a whole host of woke rulebook provisions, many of which were memorialized on video.

Maybe he has been trying to do penance as it relates to his newfound woke religion. Or maybe his kowtowing to the left has been the means in which he has avoided the cancellation of his prized television show and reputation.

In any event, although things seemed to have worked for him up until now, the past has a funny way of catching up with a person.

Or in Jimmy’s case, maybe a not-so-funny way.

By contrast, in his Nov. 15 column, he praised a comedy writer who turned right-wing and hasn't done anything notably funny in years:

Humor is David Zucker’s specialty.

Not the lazy blue variety that passes for comedy these days, but the laugh-out-loud kind that makes your sides hurt, your eyes water and the world disappear.

The mega-successful film director, producer and screenwriter is best known for the legendary spoof flick “Airplane!” and the side-splitting “Naked Gun” and “Scary Movie” franchises.

He happens to be one of our culture’s current reigning experts on all things funny, and he’s sounding an alarm bell for all to hear.

Lucky for us he has joined the ranks of other comedy greats who have issued similar warnings: Dennis Miller, Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Gilbert Gottfried, Mel Brooks, Adam Carolla, Steve Harvey and John Cleese.

The giants of humor are all saying pretty much the same thing; that Tinseltown’s head honchos and their like-minded fellow residents of the New Woke Hollywood are virtually strangling comedians, comedy writers and comedy itself.

Zucker was recently featured in a video posted by PragerU, where he shared some reflections on his trademark comedy.

Yes, right-wing PragerU is truly the place where one goes to talk about comedy -- which sets up the complaint that comedy is too liberal for Zucker and establishes that Zucker is a right-winger. The achievements of Zucker that Hirsen cites are decades ago. More lame politicking ensued:

He is often asked whether his most iconic film could be made today.

“When we do screenings of 'Airplane!' we get the question if we could do 'Airplane!' today,” he said. “The first thing I could think of was, ‘Sure, just without the jokes.’”

According to Zucker, although in the current comedy climate freedom may be taking a hit, the future actually looks bright.

“Comedy is in trouble, of course, but I think it’s going to come back,” he said. “There’s a pendulum, and the pendulum will swing back. I’d like to see comedy filmmakers do comedies without fear.”

Zucker has gone against the grain in liberal Hollywood. He has even worked on political ads for the GOP and directed a political parody film at the expense of Michael Moore, titled “An American Carol” (2008).

Pretty much nobody thought "An American Carol" -- basically an tantrum against Michael Moore for making "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- was funny. Also, since "Airplane!" already exists, there is no need to make it today.

The whole thing has a whiff of staleness, with Zucker whining plblaming politics forhis increasing irrelevance when it's actually the fact that he stopped being funny -- and, thus, why he has to run to the biased PragerU to complain about it. Hirsen, however, is not about to call Zucker out for this; it fits neatly into the right-wing victimhood narrative, after all.

CNS Sends Interns To Pester Senators With Loaded Question On Gay Marriage
Topic: CNSNews.com

We've moved into the part of CNSNews.com's coverage of the Respect for Marriage Act where it sends its interns out to Capitol Hill to ask politicians loaded questions on the issue.  And that's what fall interns Lauren Shank and Peyton Holliday got stuck doing -- and even Republicans have gotten wise to the gotcha, as a Nov, 30 article by Holliday illustrated:

When CNSNews.com asked Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R.-Wyo.) on Tuesday whether a baby has a right to a mother – in light of the Senate then debating a bill to codify same-sex marriage into federal law – Lummis (R-Wyo.) declined to answer the question and said she did not like where she thought the question was going.

Later that day, Lummis joined with 11 other Republican senators and 49 Democrats in voting for the Respect for Marriage Act, which passed 61-36 (with 3 senators not voting).

At the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 29, CNS News.com asked Sen. Lummis: “The Respect for Marriage Act recognizes a right to same-sex marriage. So, does a baby have a right to a mother?”

Senator Lummis answered: “I don’t know where you're going with this but I don’t like it.”

As for supporting the pro-same-sex marriage bill, Lummis told HuffPost, “The concern that people have expressed to me is that my views run counter to God’s definition of marriage. And I’ve tried to distinguish the fact that I support God’s definition of marriage but now there’s a second definition of marriage―it is secular and established by the [Supreme Court's] Obergefell decision―and it deserves respect, too.”

She added, “I hope that message will resonate. So far it’s been a tough sell.”

The article's headline in the screenshot is the original; it was later changed to the more boring "Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis Won't Say If a Baby Has a Right to a Mother" without an explanation to readers.

Another Republican senator had a similar reaction, even though he voted against the bill:

When asked whether a baby has a right to a mother, Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kans.), an OB/GYN who has delivered more than 5,000 babies, said he did not “understand the question,” and added, “It sounds too technical.”

At the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 30, CNS News asked Marshall, “The Respect for Marriage Act, which passed the Senate yesterday, recognizes the right to same-sex marriage – I’m with CNS News. So, does a baby have a right to a mother?”

Sen. Marshall replied, “I guess I didn’t understand the question.”

CNS News then said, “Well, the question of – so, if we have same-sex marriage now legalized, so that means some children will be without a mother. So, do children have a right to a mother?”

Marshall replied, “Gosh, I just don’t get the question. I hear what you’re asking, but I don’t – I don’t get it.”

CNS News then said, “Okay. Well, just like, a baby – each baby has a right to a mother and a father, correct?”

Marshall said, “Yeah, I – I think I’m just going to pass on this. It sounds too technical, but thank you for asking.”

The interns did ask two other Republican senators -- Tommy Tuberville and James Lankford -- who fully understood the virtue-signaling opportunity they were being handed and gave the answers their political ideology demanded (which was yes). No Democratic senators were ambushed with the question, even though part of the point of this exercise is to use those gotcha questions to make them look bad.

Shank followed this exercise with a Dec. 2 article repeating criticism of the bill from right-wing senators and activists, some of whom trashed the Republicans who supported it:

Conservatives are worried about the future of religious liberty, for individuals and institutions, since the Senate passed the Respect for Marriage Act by a vote of 61-36 --  legislation that President Joe Biden has indicated he will sign into law.

[...]

“Twelve spineless, useless, weak, old, nasty cowards who call themselves Republican, as if that means anything anymore – voted (yea) because they were too scared of what they might be called: homophobic,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales said in a video.

Fro good measure, Shank included a screenshot of a 2016 tweet from then-Vice President Biden showing him officiating at a same-sex marriage ceremony.

MRC Did What It Could To Try And Salvage Herschel Walker In Runoff
Topic: Media Research Center

After a slow start, the Media Research  Center ramped up its defense of abortion-loving Herschel Walker as he faced a runoff against Raphael Warnock for a Georgia Senate seat. When Walker was criticized for an ad that went for the base-motivating low-hanging fruit of anti-transgender feamongering, Jay Maxson -- who is very much a transphob despite having a name and so little public information that we can't tell his or her sex or sexual orientation -- rushed to his defense in a Nov. 23 post:

U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s latest campaign ad exposed his Democrat rival, Sen. Raphael Warnock, for supporting the transgender threat to women’s sports. Angered LGBT propagandists lashed out, accusing Walker of dehumanizing people who are psychologically confused about their gender and by trying to tie him to a horrible shooting at an LGBT club in Colorado.

[...]

Several states have been legislating against the kind of unfairness Walker and Riley highlighted in the recent ad. But when politics are involved, the opponents of radical LGBT demands must be demonized. It’s part of the Left’s playbook.

Rich Noyes whined in a Nov. 26 post that reasonable assessments of Walker were being made on TV:

As early voting began Saturday in the run-off election in Georgia for the final U.S. Senate seat up for grabs in 2022, MSNBC’s Velshi brought on left-wing media personality Roland Martin to talk up the importance of voting for Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock while hurling insults at GOP challenger Herschel Walker.

“Herschel Walker is grossly unqualified and has no business being anywhere near the United States Senate,” Martin seethed, while condemning Republican voters as uninterested in character. “It doesn’t matter what Herschel Walker has done when it comes to paying for abortions. I mean, look at one of the women who says she has an audiotape of him as well; that had barely a ripple. Republicans do not care. They do not care.”

Noyes did not dispupte the accuracy of Martin's assessment.

After someone else criticized Walker's anti-trans ad, Kevin Tober rushed to defense mode:

Much like the rest of the leftist media, CNN has a difficult time grasping the concept of biology and science. This basic fact was once again on full display on the network’s Sunday show State of the Union when co-moderator Dana Bash took issue with Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s ad criticizing men competing with women in sports, in this case competitive swimming. Bash thought Walker’s ad “targets” trans people. 

[...]

The basic science and biology that CNN doesn’t understand is that men are naturally stronger physically than women and it’s unfair to let men compete with women in sports and pretend that there will be an even playing field. 

It’s not an attack on transgender people to point that out.

Noyes cranked yet another coverage study for a Dec. 1 post:

In an election year where the liberal media pounded Republicans with while rewarding Democrats with a favorable news agenda, no race has seen more manipulative national media coverage than the Georgia Senate race between incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker.

With the decisive run-off just days away, a new study by the Media Research Center finds the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts have blasted the GOP candidate with 88 percent negative coverage, while the Democratic incumbent has enjoyed 71 percent positive press. More than half of the coverage (nearly 46 minutes, out of 87 minutes total) has consisted of personal allegations against Walker, vs. a mere 11 seconds spent on personal accusations against Warnock.

Abortion was the only policy issue to receive significant airtime (just under four minutes), and network reporters unanimously employed the “abortion rights” labels preferred by the Left, using it to tar Walker as a threat to women while concealing Warnock’s extremism on the same issue.

[...]

Walker’s coverage was dominated by claims — denied by Walker himself and not proved by any media outlet — that he paid for abortions for two girlfriends decades ago (36 minutes, 21 seconds of airtime). The networks also provided a combined four minutes, 28 seconds to the flap over Walker’s display of an honorary police badge at his debate with Warnock; two more minutes on accusations he’s an absentee father; plus another two minutes, 50 seconds for other personal controversies.

The combined 45 minutes, 40 seconds spent on this cornucopia of charges against Walker amount to half (51%) of all network evening news coverage of the Georgia Senate race since September 1. Compare that to the meager 11 seconds — on ABC, October 16 — spent on relaying an allegation against Warnock that he’s failed to pay adequate child support.

The media’s silence cannot be justified — reporters covering the race knew about Warnock’s child support problem for the entire campaign.

Noyes offered no evidence that Warnock's alleged scandals were the equivalent of Walker's actual scandals, and thus warranted equal coverage.

Noyes' dishonesty continued, as he went on to whine about Warnock's alleged "abortion extremism," but defined "extremism" citing only right-wing writer Rich Lowry. Painting any position on abortion that isn't as far-right as its own as "extreme" is an MRC narrative.

As with most MRC "studies," Noyes pretended "spin" is something that could be objectively evaluated, pretended that neutral coverage didn't exist even though that's a large part of media coverage, and excluded Fox News from scrutiny. He's also demanding false balance -- even though he failed to provide an example of how Walker's abortion scandal or multiple-baby-mama scandal should have been given "positive" coverage.

In contrast to its cheering for the anti-trans Walker ad, the MRC's Clay Waters spent a Dec. 1 post raging at a Warnock ad making Walker look bad that got praise from the New York Times, huffing: "So much for the Times’ former tut-tutting about negative campaigning." He went on to get his anti-Warnock talking points in: 

Speaking of indulging partisan desires, the Times has barely broached allegations about Warnock’s failure to provide child support payments to his ex-wife, which would seemingly invite journalistic charges of religious hypocrisy against a man of the cloth like Rev. Warnock.

The Times certainly hasn't ignored allegations that Herschel Walker paid for abortions for two women, but has issued several detailed accounts.

Waters didn't explain why Walker's abortion scandal should not have been covered.

Curtis Houck had a fit of Obama Derangement Syndrome in a Dec. 2 post:

Just a day after our latest study showing a cavernous divide in the liberal media’s treatment of Senator Raphael Warnock (D) versus Republican Herschel Walker in Georgia’s Senate runoff, Friday’s CBS Mornings further proved our point by leading with former President Barack Obama’s campaign rally for Warnock filled with “zingers” and fixating on more negative headlines for Walker.

Co-host, Democratic donor, and Obama family friend Gayle King started the newscast with her friend’s trip to the Peach State: “Senator Raphael Warnock is getting some prominent help in trying to fend off a challenge from Republican Herschel Walker. Former President Barack Obama hit the campaign trail in Atlanta to make a very forceful argument on Warnock's behalf.”

[...]

Two more Obama clips later, she boasted Obama “took another jab at Warnock's opponent, Herschel Walker” as juvenile. Obama’s evidence? Walker joking during a speech two weeks ago that he’d want to be a werewolf instead of a vampire.

But the link Houck supplied to portray Walker's remarks as "joking" -- from the UK Guardian, which the MRC likes to dismiss as liberal -- said no such thing, instead calling it part of "rambling remarks."

WND Goes Recycling For New Magazine Attack On Soros
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Back in 2010, WorldNetDaily devoted an issue of its sparsely read Whistleblower magazine to attacking George Soros, under the title "George Soros and his Evil Empire," which featured a rant by managing editor David Kupelian: "if it's immoral, subversive or harmful to America, Soros favors it, organizes it and funds it. If it's noble and freedom-producing, like free markets and small government, he despises it and creates organizations to undermine and ultimately destroy it. This issue of Whistleblower shines intense daylight on all of this."

Twelve years later, Kupelian is apparently so devoid of magazine ideas that he's doing it again, this time under the title "The Billionaire Who Thinks He's God." Kupelian even recycled an article from the 2010 issue: “Soros: This is ‘when my character was made’” by Art Moore, described as "revealing the Jewish billionaire investor’s chilling Nazi-occupation drama." We haven't been able to find an online version of the article, so we'll just assume that Moore hates Soros enough to peddle the lie that Soros was a Nazi sympathizer and, thus, wishes that the Nazi had murdered just one more Jew.

The essay for the issue by Kupelian also recycles a lot of the irrational right-wing hatred for Soros:

For decades, however, Hungarian-born leftwing “billionaire philanthropist” George Soros has supported, advocated and bankrolled everything rotten, subversive, destructive, hateful and evil.

[...]

In short, if it's immoral, subversive and anti-American, Soros favors, organizes and funds it. If it's noble and freedom-producing, like free markets, fair elections and constitutional government, he sets up and funds organizations to undermine and destroy it.

Why? What is really going on inside the mind and soul of George Soros?

Even though conservatives generally regard him as akin to the evil emperor in "Star Wars," the empire's shadowy and malevolent behind-the-scenes power, George Soros simultaneously represents the lifeblood – indeed, life itself – to hundreds of organizations on the far left. They see him as a messianic figure, a revered leader, a godfather – almost a god, who provides good things for his children.

Indeed, Soros admits he wants to re-create the world in his image – like a god. That characterization is not opinion, hyperbole or rhetorical flourish: Living out “messianic fantasies” and openly likening himself to a “some kind of god” is precisely how George Soros – ironically, an atheist and self-hating Jew – describes himself in his more candid moments.

Of course, nobody should trust a malicious hater like Kupelian to examine what's "really going on inside the mind and soul of George Soros" in a fair and objective manner.He just wants an excuse to generate some desperate clickbait by playing the oldies against an old enemy.

MRC Sports Blogger Can't Stop Sadistically Hating Brittney Griner
Topic: Media Research Center

Before her release, the Media Research Center -- mostly mysterious sports blogger Jay Maxson -- lustily cheered WNBA basketball star Brittney Griner's imprisonment in Russia on trumped-up drug charges, claiming she deserved it because she purportedly doesn't love America enough. That pattern continued in the month before her release. Maxson sadistically expressed joy over her situation in a Nov. 9 post:

It just gets worse for woke WNBA all-star Brittney Griner. Imprisoned in Russia since February for drug smuggling, she’s now being transported to a dreaded penal colony, aka “forced labor camp,” with potentially hellish conditions. Someday, the anthem protester will return home to the United States and hopefully with a new appreciation for the country she loathed. 

Griner was nabbed by Moscow police in February while trying to board a plane with vape cartridges containing cannabis. She was jailed, convicted, sentenced to nine years of prison and has exhausted her appeals. CNN reported this morning that “the process of taking a person to a penal colony is conducted in secrecy in Russia, with relatives and lawyers often unaware of where a prisoner is being sent for several days, according to Amnesty International.”

[...]

The U.S. government has flailed and failed to gain a prisoner swap agreement with Russia to bring Griner home to the States. 

That would be the home of the brave and the land of the free – where Griner was allowed to freely protest the U.S. flag and national anthem without fear of being jailed as a dissident. Which is the case with Russians who speak out against their government. Griner had the luxury of freedom in the USA, but she demanded the WNBA stop the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner prior to its games. 

One can hope the conditions are not overly harsh for Griner, that she can stand up to the horrors of a labor camp … and that upon her return home someday she’ll fully appreciate how good she had it in America.

Maxson spent a Nov. 28 post attacking a college professor for not hating Graner the way he (or she) does:

A liberal Baylor University professor is demanding that Christians stop hating homosexuals and that the Baptist school should lead the charge of protest against Russia’s imprisonment of lesbian basketball player Brittney Griner. 

Greg Garrett, the Carole McDaniel Hanks Professor of Literature and Culture at Baylor, wrote on Baptist News Global that “we don’t talk about Brittney” and “We should.” The Baptist university in Texas should be yelling the loudest on her “wrongful imprisonment,” but that’s not happening, he groaned. 

Griner is the 6-foot-9-inch center who led Baylor to a national championship in 2012 while keeping her lesbian sexuality to herself. She came out of the closet upon getting drafted by the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury. Last February, she was arrested in Moscow for attempting to take cannabis onto a plane flight. Griner was convicted of a drug smuggling crime in Russian court, and very recently, she was transported to a penal colony/labor camp to begin a nine-year sentence. 

Professor Garrett is using this story to condemn Christians and Baylor University for not loudly protesting the imprisonment of a lesbian. He believes Christians are apathetic to Griner’s plight because she is lesbian and has protested the American flag.:

Garrett is correct, of course, but Maxson will still attack him becausehomophobic right-wing narratives demand it:

In shilling for the LGBT movement, Garrett demanded that Christians set aside scripture on unnatural relations and celebrate unrepentant sin. They need to read the Bible differently, too. Apparently, LGBT folks should receive a free pass on biblical sin. Especially Brittney. 

Garrett also claims some Christians believe Griner got what she deserved for breaking Russian law, and says she represents “that family member we don’t talk about.” 

The hateful attitudes of evangelicals toward homosexuals are a great impairment to spreading the Gospel, says the liberal professor who says forget about the Gospel. Baylor’s allegiance to biblical teaching is harming Baylor’s closeted LGBTQ faculty, staff and students, Garrett insists. 

Garrett neglected to mention in his LGBT puff piece that Griner has previously accused the United States of systemic racism, called for the national anthem not to be played before WNBA games, and this far-Left basketball league is extremely unpopular with mainstream America.

Maxson doesn't prove anythinghe (or she) accres Griner of saying to be wrong. He (or she) just wants Griner to be destroyed by the Russian penal system for expressing her freedom of speech.

Maxson is a very sick person for lusting over  Griner's punishment for holding opinions that are different from his own (or her own).

NEW ARTICLE: Dick Morris Rides The Trump Train
Topic: Newsmax
The perennially wrong Newsmax pundit wrote a book making the low-stakes prediction that Hillary Clinton will run against Donald Trump in 2024. Newsmax is even playing the "censorship" card on the book because it's not on the New York Times best-seller list. Read more >>

MRC Cheers Musk Restoring Twitter Accounts of Trump, Transphobes
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center saw its Trump-fluffing and Musk-fluffing campaigns merge when Musk restored Donald Trump's Twitter account, which had been suspended after repeated violations of the site's terms of service, which including using it to help incite the Capitol riot. Autumn Johnson was in full gush mode in a Nov. 19 post:

On Saturday, Twitter boss Elon Musk reinstated former President Donald J. Trump’s Twitter account after 52 percent of voters in a Twitter poll he created voted that the former president should come back. Over 15 million users voted in the poll.

“The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated,” Musk tweeted. “Vox Populi, Vox Dei.”

Last January, Twitter permanently suspended Trump from the platform following the January 6 riots.

“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter said at the time.

Musk’s decision to reinstate Trump’s account is part of his plan to dedicate the platform to free speech.

In response to concerns about Twitter’s unfair censorship of conservatives, he announced that a “content moderation council” with “widely diverse viewpoints” would be formed to address concerns.

Johnson didn't explain why she gave Musk a pass for reinstating Trump before forming that "content moderation council." Nor did she mention that Musk himself has admitted that bots and trolls heavily populate his polls, which severely undercut his "vox populi" claim.

Kevin Tober whined in a Nov. 20 post that Musk's decision was being criticized:

When the news broke late Saturday night that Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced that he reinstated former President Trump's Twitter account, MSNBC predictably lashed out over the decision and played the race card, apparently unaware that Musk is South African. 

On Saturday night, during MSNBC's low-rated show Ayman, hosted by Ayman Mohyeldin, the show quickly turned sour when the Trump Twitter news broke. Turning to left-wing Daily Beast writer Danielle Moodie, Mohyeldin asked for her "thoughts on Trump reinstated back to Twitter with Elon Musk? Joking aside, how do you see this? You can joke if you want. I'm just saying I'm giving it to, you, however, you want to take it." 

Moodie was in a mood during her appearance and cried "I am absolutely disgusted. But what else do we expect from very white privileged cis hetero men protecting each other? Because we always mistake wealth and inheritance for genius."

Tober didn't explain what Musk being South African had to do with anything -- which is probably just as well, given that Musk benefited from growing up as part of the privileged white elite in apartheid-era South Africa.

The day before Musk restored Trump's account, he restored the accounts of two other right-wingers, the "satire" site Babylon Bee (which the MRC loves to defend) and activist Jordan Peterson -- both of which had been suspended for spewing transphobia. Brian Bradley was assigned the cheerleading duties for that one:

Twitter reinstated the accounts of The Babylon Bee, comedian Kathy Griffin and psychologist Jordan Peterson after their accounts had previously been banned from the platform, Twitter owner Elon Musk announced Friday afternoon.

“Kathie Griffin, Jorden Peterson & Babylon Bee have been reinstated,” he tweeted. “Trump decision has not yet been made.”

Twitter locked The Babylon Bee account in March when the satire site named epartment of Health and Human Services Assistant Health Secretary Rachel Levine The Bee’s “Man of the Year.”

“We’re back,” The Bee tweeted at about 1:30 p.m. ET on Friday. “Let that sink in.”

Twitter suspended Peterson, now a Daily Wire+ host and author of 12 Rules for Life, in June after he tweeted: “Remember when pride was a sin? And Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal physician.”

Page no longer goes by the name “Ellen,” but goes by “Elliot” now. Users speculated that Twitter suspended Peterson because of his use of the actor’s former name instead of the latter name.

Peterson said in an interview with The Daily Wire that the platform at the time said he must delete the tweet to regain access to his Twitter account.

Bradley surprisingly hinted that Griffin was suspended unfairly: "Twitter suspended Griffin earlier this month supposedly for impersonating Musk using a verified parody account not labled as parody." He didn't mention, however, that Musk was the person behind her suspension -- can't interfere with the pro-Musk narrative, after all.

That narrative was shaken, however, when Johnson realized that Musk's Twitter content policies would be the same as pre-Musk in a Nov. 20 post:

Elon Musk says Twitter’s new speech policy is “freedom of speech,” not “freedom of reach.”

Musk made the announcement Friday on his Twitter account.

“New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach,” he tweeted. “Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet.”

While Musk was asked to define “hate speech,” he did not clarify how he personally defines the vague term. Technology experts and legal scholars have found it notoriously difficult to do so.

Musk added that the new policy would only apply to single tweets and “not the whole account.”

[...]

It should be noted that Musk’s comments unfortunately seem to mirror views ultimately expressed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

So concerned was Johnson at this turn of events that she added contact info at the end of her post: "Contact Twitter: (415) 222-9670 or mail to 1355 Market Street Suite 900 and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on 'hate speech' and equal footing for conservatives."

Johnson got over that quickly, however, and the next day she was back to dishonestly portraying content moderation as "censorship":

Thierry Breton, the European Union’s internal market commissioner, said the bloc will require Elon Musk to add moderators in Europe to censor content.

Bloomberg News reported Friday that Breton criticized Musk’s decision to lay off moderators as well as his new pro-free speech changes to the platform. Breton said the government must “have control” over the content users post on the platform.

“He is in the process of reducing a certain number of moderators, but he will have to increase them in Europe,” Breton said, according to Bloomberg. “He will have to open his algorithms. We will have control, we will have access, people will no longer be able to say rubbish.”

Notably, the EU as a whole has favored more content moderation to prevent the spread of so-called “misinformation.”

Notably, Johnson did not reference her post from the day before in which Musk effectively endorsed this approach by emphasizing "freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach." That too would have interfered with the Musk-fluffing narrative.

CNS Melts Down Over Republicans, Jewish Groups Supporting Same-Sex Marriage
Topic: CNSNews.com

Earlier this year, CNSNews.com lashed out against Republicans that stopped hating LGBT people as much as it does and came out in favor of a bill to include same-sex marriage -- or "homosexual marriage," in CNS' biased nomenclature -- as being covered in federal law. As the bill wound its way toward passage, CNS ramped up the hate. Homophobic managing editor Michael W. Chapman used a Nov. 4 article to attack "liberal" Jewish groups for endorsing the bill and cited his favorite group of hateful right-wing rabbis to criticize them:

At least 108 liberal Jewish organizations have signed on to a letter to U.S. senators expressing their strong support for the "Respect for Marriage Act," which would codify gay marriage into federal law. This position, however, is strongly opposed by many orthodox and traditional rabbis who say gay marriage is contrary to Judaism.

In a letter to all 100 senators, the Union for Reform Judaism, Keshet, and 108 other Jewish organizations said, "On behalf of the 110 undersigned national, state, and local Jewish organizations, we write to express our support for the Respect for Marriage Act (S.4556). Driven by our Jewish values, we are committed to supporting laws that protect the civil rights and individual liberties of all people."

[...]

According to the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), representing more than 2,000 traditional, Orthodox rabbis in American public policy, gay marriage is incompatible with Jewish teaching.

According to the Rabbi Yaakov Menken, managing director of the CJV, told CNS News in June, "Marriage is described in Genesis as directly connected to having children. So even without reference to clear prohibitions in Leviticus, it is obvious that a same-sex union is foreign to Judaism.”

The Book of Genesis, part of the Torah, teaches, "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.  God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'"

Note that Chapman didn't hang a political label on the CJV like he did the "liberal" groups, describing it only as "traditional" and "orthodox."Chapman also copy-and-pasted a list of the groups at the end of his article, like he did with the Republicans who support the bill.

Susan Jones complained that the bill was moving forward in a Nov. 16 article, keeping up CNS' weird attacks the Democratic Senate majority leader over his non-heterosexual daughter while throwing a little shade at a Republican who was not being homophobic enough:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters on Tuesday that Democrats plan to move ahead with their agenda in the lame-duck session and beyond, on a "bipartisan basis" where possible.

First up is the so-called "Respect for Marriage Act," a bill that would codify same-sex marriage.

"I know passing the Respect for Marriage Act is as personal as it gets for many senators and their staffs, myself included," Schumer said.

"My daughter and her wife are actually expecting a little baby in February. And so, it matters a lot to so many of us to get this done, and we're going to hold our first procedural vote on the bill tomorrow (Wednesday). After that, I hope that both sides can work quickly together and move this bill forward on to the president's desk."

(Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters on Tuesday he "hasn't announced" how he'll vote on the marriage bill.)

After the bill passed the Senate, Jones ramped up the rage in a Nov. 17 article, again calling out Republicans by name who refused to march in lockstep with CNS' homphoobia:

In a statement someone wrote for him on Wednesday, President Joe Biden hailed the Senate's 62-37 vote to advance the "Respect for Marriage Act," a bill that says no state may prohibit marriage between two individuals on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin of those individuals.

The bill codifies same-sex marriage, a right conferred by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015.

"Love is love, and Americans should have the right to marry the person they love," Biden said in his statement.

[...]

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a lesbian Wisconsin Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill, said Wednesday's vote gives "millions of loving couples the certainty, dignity, and respect that they need and deserve."

 

The Republicans voting to advance the bill are: Roy Blunt of Missouri; Richard Burr of North Carolina; Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia; Susan Collins of Maine; Joni Ernst of Iowa; Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming; Lisa Murkowski of Alaska; Rob Portman of Ohio; Mitt Romney of Utah; Dan Sullivan of Alaska; Thom Tillis of North Carolina; and Todd Young of Indiana.

Jones weirdly refused to identify any of the people who came out against the bill as "heterosexual" the way she identified Baldwin as a "lesbian."

An anonymously written Nov. 17 article quoted Republican Sen. Mitt Romney supporting the bill, which made sure to describe him as "the losing Republican presidential nominee in 2012." This was followed by an article by Lauren Shank featuring GOP Sen. James Lankford disparaging the bill while including no disparaging descriptions of him.A Nov. 21 article by Shank was a fairness-free roundup of right-wing attacks on the bill:

The U.S. Senate voted 62-37 on Nov. 16 to invoke cloture and move forward to a vote on the Respect for Marriage Act. While 12 Republican senators voted in favor of cloture, conservatives denounced the bill as an attack on religious liberty, particularly for individuals.

If signed into law, which President Biden is expected to do, the Respect for Marriage Act would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and essentially codify “gay marriage” into federal law. For federal purposes, marriage would no longer be defined as being between one man and one woman. 

[...]

"Gay marriage" was declared constitutional by a liberal majority (5-4) of the Supreme Court on June 26, 2015.  In a dissent, conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote that "the Constitution leaves that question" of marriage "to be decided by the people of each State," not by the federal government.

"The Constitution says nothing about a right to same-sex marriage," wrote Alito. "Today's decision usurps the constitutional right of the people to decide whether to keep or alter the traditional understanding of marriage. The decision will also have other important consequences."

An article by Shank later that day attacked the Mormon Church for supporting the bill -- and, unlike her previous article, featured an opposing view:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which abandoned polygamy in the 1890s, announced on Nov. 15 that it supports the pro-LGBTQ Respect for Marriage Act, which codifies “gay marriage” into federal law. The Mormon church in a statement said, “We believe this approach is the way forward.”  

While the Utah-based church holds fast to God’s design of marriage – specifically and only between one man and one woman – the church voiced its support to protect gay-marriage rights and suggested such arrangements will not compromise the Biblical truth that same-sex marriage is against the Christian faith.

[...]

In 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled (5-4) in favor of gay marriage, evangelical Christian leader Franklin Graham said on Hannity, “Our country has been slipping every year further and further away from the God of the Bible -- the foundation that our nation was built on. We’re slipping away from that. And I believe that we need to do everything we can to warn people of the consequences of sin.”

“Homosexuality is sin,” said Graham. “Same-sex marriage is a sin against God. Now, people who don’t believe in God don’t care about that, but at the same time, Sean, God is going to judge sinners, so I love them enough to warn them of the consequences of sin.”

“And I want everyone who’s listening -- I’m not here to throw stones at you because you want to marry someone of the same sex -- I just want to warn you, and I do this in love, that God will judge sin,” said Graham. “God takes sin very seriously. God cannot tolerate sin in his presence.”

An anonymously written Nov. 28 article returned to the biased nomenclature with the headline "Senate Homosexual Marriage Bill: ‘No Federal Recognition of Polygamous Marriages’."

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.