MRC Relentlessly Hypes Democratic Links Of Fallen Crypto Billionaire Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has a bit ofan obsession with making sure that, when a person caught doing something bad who could be plausibly described as having links to Democrats or liberals, that link is screamed from the rooftops. We saw that again with Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto billionaire who lost it all (as well as lots of money from other people) when his cryptocurrency exchange collapsed. Bankman-Fried wasn't even on the MRC's radar until last May, when Jeffrey Clark complained that he was planning to donate tons of money to help keep Donald Trump from getting elected in 2024:
A leftist crypto billionaire is hinting at throwing a billion dollars, give or take, to keep former President Donald Trump from winning the 2024 presidential election. Trump has not officially announced his bid for the presidency.
Sam Bankman-Fried has roommates, drives a Toyota Corolla and might seem like a pretty normal guy — except that he’s dedicating north of $1 billion, potentially, to preventing Trump from winning the next presidential election.
Cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried appeared on the May 24 edition of the podcast What’s Your Problem?” to discuss politics and “how to save humanity from extinction,” according to podcast host Jacob Goldstein.
The billionaire gave an estimate of just how much money he would plow into the next election to stop Trump from becoming president again: “I would guess north of 100 million.” Beyond that, Bankman-Fried said he would consider $1 billion “a soft ceiling” and might give more or less, depending on who runs in 2024.
And this wasn’t the billionaire’s first rodeo in Democratic politics. Bankman-Fried was “one of the biggest donors to President Biden’s 2020 campaign. More recently, he donated over $10 million to support a candidate in a Democratic primary for a congressional seat in Oregon.”
Ooooh, shades of George Soros! But after FTX collapsed in November amid fraud accusations, the MRC had adjust its narrative on Bankman-Fried. A Nov. 11 post by P.J. Gladnick began the shift of cheering that his fortune got wiped out and complaining he wanted to help Democrats:
On Friday, the Washington Free Beacon reported that Democrat megadonor and cryptocurrency scion Sam Bankman-Fried lost his entire $16 billion fortune.
If you are extremely wealthy and want to receive over-the-top praise from Politico, the answer is simple. Simply donate millions of dollars to Democrat candidates. Such was the case with Bankman-Fried, whose liberal largesse had Politico singing paeans to him a few months ago.
See this August love song written by Elena Schneider, "How the newest megadonor wants to change Washington."
[...]
The Politico tune about Bankman-Fried sharply changed just this week when it was discovered he was no longer useful for the Democrats, when his fortune vanished.
Tim Graham spent part of his Nov. 16 podcast whining that "the media didn't want to mention that ... Sam Bankman-Fried was the second largest donor to Democrats in this cycle, as well as a donor to liberal media groups.
A Nov. 17 post by Bill D'Agostino hyped a full-blown "STUDY":
Sam Bankman-Fried, the embattled CEO of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was a massive donor to the Democratic Party. But you wouldn’t know it from the reporting on the big three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC), who have so far almost completely hidden that salient detail from their audiences.
MRC analysts examined all FTX coverage between November 11 and November 17 on those broadcast networks’ flagship morning and evening news programs. We found that neither CBS nor NBC even mentioned Bankman-Fried’s status as a Democratic megadonor, while ABC spent only three seconds (a single mention) on it.
All told, discussion of Bankman-Fried’s extravagant bankrolling of the Democratic Party comprised just 0.2 percent of the combined 21 minutes and 17 seconds of FTX coverage across all three networks, and 0.5 percent of ABC’s 9 minutes and 7 seconds of coverage.
D'Agostino didn't explain how Bankman-Fried's politics are relevant to any possible criminal liability in FTX's collapse, other than to whine that "It goes without saying that, if a pivotal Republican donor were embroiled in a financial scandal of this magnitude, his political affiliation would be front and center in the media’s reporting." (Except at the MRC, of course.) And as usual, D'Agostino refused to include documentation of Fox News' coverage of Bankman-Fried for comparison purposes.
A Nov. 25 post by Gladnick seemed to be pleased that Bankman-Fried was admitting he suckered enough people with his claimed altruism that he got away with FTX's apparent fraud for so long:
During a Twitter DM interview by Kelsey Piper of Vox with FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried last week, something remarkable happened.
Bankman-Fried ditched his annoyingly sanctimonious "monk-like" mask and revealed his true self: a greedy cynic who is laughing at the world, including the gullible media, for believing his phony "effective altruism" shtick as you can see in the section of the interview below.
And among the suckers who completely bought into the "dumb games we woke westerners play" Bankman-Fried was the host of the video below who was lionizing the FTX CEO because he was saying "all the right shibboleths so everyone would like" him.
But as gullible as the video host was, it was no worse than the many many news sources that sung the praises of Bankman-Fried not only because he saying "all the right shilobeths" but especially because he was the second biggest donor to the Democrats this past year.
No mention, of course, of how people like Kanye West got great press from the MRC and others in the right-wing media bubble for saying "all the right shilobeths" about family and abortion -- to the point that it was highly reluctant to criticize West when he took a hard anti-Semitic turn.
MRC boss Brent Bozell got into the act as well with a new angle to flog, as detailed in a Dec. 2 post by Brian Bradley:
As news outlets showed no indication Thursday that they planned to return millions of dollars in reported donations by disgraced FTX owner Sam Bankman-Fried, MRC founder and President Brent Bozell called for at least five media organizations to return those contributions.
"It's not just politicians who should be giving back donations from Sam-Bankman Fried,” Bozell said in a statement. “All of the media outlets that took his money should do the same."
The Daily Mail reported on Friday that Bankman-Fried dumped millions of collective dollars into at least five news companies through his cryptocurrency firm’s philanthropy arm. Any company’s retention of funds donated by Bankman-Fried could be ethically questionable amid open allegations that the cryptocurrency boss may have misusedFTX customer funds.
MRC Business asked those companies whether they plan to return the funds Bankman-Fried donated to them. At the time of publication, none had stated they intend to return the funds.
More than a month after the FTX collapse, the MRC was still ragging on Bankman-Fried, this time in a Dec. 16 column by Graham:
The collapse of the crypto-currency company FTX could be as massive a scandal for Democrats as the Democrats insisted the Enron debacle was for President George W. Bush. The man who took over the wreckage of Enron is now in charge of managing the end of FTX.
But our largest national media outlets are going to bury the point that FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was the second largest donor to the Democratic Party in the 2022 election cycle, with over $40 million in contributions, second only to socialist agitator George Soros. The former crypto king made one of the largest donations to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020, a cool $5.2 million.
[...]
The most obvious evidence of journalistic skullduggery perpetually emerges in coverage of scandals. Republican scandals are hyped to the skies, and Democrat scandals are buried or carefully elided. The media elite’s transparent partisanship is at the center of why they’re not trusted by most Americans.
If Graham and the rest of the MRC had been even half as hard on Kanye West as they have been on Bankman-Fried, he might have a point.
WND Columnist Peddles False Narrative That Nazis Were Socialists Topic: WorldNetDaily
Hanne Nabintu Herland used Kanye West's anti-Semitism to try to reinforce a right-wing narrative in her Dec. 7 WorldNetDaily column:
The famous musician Kanye West recently declared his admiration for Adolf Hitler in an interview with Alex Jones. West said he sees "redeeming qualities" in the Nazi dictator. And of late, the entertainer has expressed anger toward Jewish Hollywood leaders and Jews in general.
So, what did Hitler stand for? Elitist nationalism coupled with socialism was the national socialism ideology that dominated the German democracy prior to World War II. NAZI is the abbreviation for "Nazionalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei," namely the National Socialist German Workers' Party. Thename itself declares it a socialist movement.
The Nazi party stood for strong centralization of government, a rigid culture of consensus, few individual liberties, strict media censorship and propaganda. Simply by observing the old photographs of the multitudes greeting Hitler with Nazi salutes, one gets a glimpse into the immense group-think social pressure. You were not allowed to keep your hand down. Everyone was to have the same political opinion; the only accepted view was that of the ruling Nazi elites.
Today, few seem to recall that the Nazi party was left-wing socialism. Among many, author Jonah Goldberg has pointed this out in his book "Liberal Fascism."
Yeah, no. Even though right-wingers insisting on portraying the Nazi movement as socialist as a way to own the libs, that's not even close to being historically accurate.As researcher Ronald Granieri pointed out:
Although the Nazis did pursue a level of government intervention in the economy that would shock doctrinaire free marketeers, their “socialism” was at best a secondary element in their appeal. Indeed, most supporters of Nazism embraced the party precisely because they saw it as an enemy of and an alternative to the political left. A closer look at the connection between Nazism and socialism can help us better understand both ideologies in their historical contexts and their significance for contemporary politics.
The Nazi regime had little to do with socialism, despite it being prominently included in the name of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. The NSDAP, from Hitler on down, struggled with the political implications of having socialism in the party name. Some early Nazi leaders, such as Gregor and Otto Strasser, appealed to working-class resentments, hoping to wean German workers away from their attachment to existing socialist and communist parties. The NSDAP’s 1920 party program, the 25 points, included passages denouncing banks, department stores and “interest slavery,” which suggested a quasi-Marxist rejection of free markets. But these were also typical criticisms in the anti-Semitic playbook, which provided a clue that the party’s overriding ideological goal wasn’t a fundamental challenge to private property.
Instead of controlling the means of production or redistributing wealth to build a utopian society, the Nazis focused on safeguarding a social and racial hierarchy. They promised solidarity for members of the Volksgemeinschaft (“racial community”) even as they denied rights to those outside the charmed circle.
Granieri went on to describe what Herland and others are doing in perpetuating this false claim "historical 'gotcha'" as well as "historical and political sophistry that attempts to turn effect into cause and victim into victimizer."
Oddly, even though West's anti-Semitism was the jumoing-off point for her column, Herland never actually criticizes West, referencing him again only at the end while trying to reinforce her bogus narrative: "It has been quite an accomplishment by the left to hide the fact that Hitler was socialist. Therefore, what exactly Kanye West means by offering his admiration for this man remains to be explained."
Newsmax's Hirsen Joins In Right-Wing Hero Worship Of Elon Musk Over Twitter Buy Topic: Newsmax
Like other right-wingers, Newsmax columnist James Hirsen has become a simp for Elon Musk over his purchase of Twitter. He gushed over Musk's long-delayed completion of his Twitter purchase in his Oct. 31 column:
Tesla founder Elon Musk currently owns the singular status of being the wealthiest person in world.
Back in April of 2022, amid a modest amount of fanfare, he purchased a 9.2% stake in Twitter. This caused the keepers of the predominant media narrative to come unglued.
Amusingly, he was able to explain his motives on the very platform that he was in the early stages of acquiring.
[...]
He had already secured a significant degree of celebrity status, having previously grabbed headlines numerous times over and had even taken to the iconic “Saturday Night Live” stage to perform host duties.
Now it looks as though he has become a historical figure of sorts, due in large part to his $44 billion purchase of the company he has characterized as “the de facto public town square.”
Along with the entire world he had watched as a small group of corporations worked hand-in-hand with the government, under the guise of eliminating “misinformation.”
It was a warped process at a minimum, one in which people were stripped of the ability to engage in the free exchange of ideas, something that Americans had previously enjoyed and had even taken for granted.
[...]
Although what Twitter will ultimately become still remains to be seen, the new chief has been using his account to celebrate the personal ownership of the platform.
A recent message posted by the entrepreneur perhaps best captures feelings on the part of a vast majority of Twitter users.
Elon tweeted the liberating song lyrics of the late great B.B. King, “Let the good times roll.”
Elon Musk just welcomed back to the Twitter-verse former President Donald J. Trump.
In the process, the social media site owner and self-described “Chief Twit” showed exactly what he’s made of, principles-wise.
The official reversal of Trump’s lifetime Twitter ban, along with the restoration of his more than 80 million followers, was implemented over the past weekend. The handle @realDonaldTrump was reactivated, and users on Twitter are once again able to tag the former president in posts.
[...]
As the present world’s most successful entrepreneur, Elon understands that business accomplishments are the fruits of a free-flow exchange of ideas.
When free expression is stifled, weeds of stagnation are able to take root. They have the capacity to choke off discussion, interaction, creativity and ultimately personal as well as collective achievement.
Rather than admit that Trump was kicked off Twitter for helping to incite the Capitol riot, Hirsen pretended that Trump actually tried to calm things down:
His tweet history stands as a testament to his social media mastery. The brevity and wit are unmatched by anyone, except perhaps the Chief Twit himself.
Two posts that Trump made just before he was banned illustrate the point.
At his January 6 rally, after he called on people to act “peacefully and patriotically,” he followed up with a plea for peace via his Twitter account.
“Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!” he posted.
This admonition was buttressed with another tweet.
“I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!”
Hirsen censored the fact that Trump did absolutely nothing for more than three hours as the riot raged choosing instead to watch TV (and he certainly wasn't going to mention that he himself spread lies about purported election fraud). Instead, Hirsen remained in gooey gush mode:
It took a lot of courage to do what Elon did in returning Trump to the Twitter platform.
It also took a whole lot of integrity, something society desperately needs yet too frequently gets in its civic and corporate leaders.
The man is a genuine free speech devotee who is determined to rebuild the digital town square.
For the sake of our country, pray that he succeeds.
Hirsen unsurprisingly latched onto Musk's release to hand-picked reporters of selective internal Twitter documents, trying to turn right-wing actor James Woods into a victim in his Dec. 5 column, doing the usual tell of srarting by reciting Woods' resume to enhance his victim status:
James Woods is well known for his accomplishments in the entertainment arts.
Consummate actor of stage and screen, he gained a considerable degree of fame for his role in the film adaptation of Joseph Wambaugh’s 1973 non-fiction book “The Onion Field,” a crime thriller extraordinaire.
Over the years James has had the opportunity to work with many a legendary Hollywood director, a distinguished roster that includes the names of David Cronenberg (“Videodrome”), Oliver Stone (“Salvador” and “Nixon”), Richard Attenborough (“Chaplin”), and Martin Scorsese (“Casino”).
In addition to the big-screen circuit, he has taken strolls down the TV road, playing characters the likes of America's Mayor in the film “Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story.”
Industry trophies stand as a testament to his achievements. Among other accolades, he has two Oscar nominations and two Emmy wins to his credit.
Most recently, James has become a focal point of the so-called Twitter Files, the first in a series of documents released to journalist Matt Taibbi by Twitter CEO Elon Musk.
The files detail the behind-the-scenes communications surrounding Twitter’s content moderation decision-making (under previous ownership), which involved, among other things, the suppression of a 2020 New York Post story about President Joe Biden’s son Hunter and Hunter’s notorious laptop.
[...]
Files also reveal that Twitter seemingly complied with the Democratic Party’s directives in suppressing the accounts of select celebrities, quite strikingly the account of James Woods.
In the words of Taibbi, “Celebrities and unknowns alike could be removed or reviewed at the behest of a political party.”
James has stepped forward to lead a class action lawsuit against the social media platform as well as the DNC over damage done to his personal civil rights, reputation and career.
Hirsen failed to mention that the thing that really got Woods in trouble with Twitter was that he tried to post pictures of Hunter Biden's penis allegedly taken from the laptop. Hirsen laughably headlined his c column "We're All James Woods Now," which is indisputably false because we all weren't depserately trying to post Hunter Biden's penis on Twitter.
Hirsn was back in full Musk hagiography mode for his Dec. 12 column, portraying Musk as a selfless hero for releasing internal Twitter documents:
The radically intolerable judgmental left is in full takedown mode, characterizing Elon’s actions as those of an ambitious billionaire who seeks ever more wealth and power.
But how does one even begin to evaluate the sincerity of the motives and/or actions of fellow human beings?
One of the ways is to ask the question, What’s in it for them? That is, What do they have to gain?
Equally or even more telling is the question, What do they have to lose?
When we look at Elon’s position in the business world, it’s fairly obvious that he has a whole lot to lose in terms of tangible things. After all, he’s the richest person on the planet.
There’s also the matter of his reputation, an immaterial possession that many value even more than all of the material combined.
Yes, it could easily be said that Elon has risked everything in order to bring this important story to light.
[...]
No exaggeration. Elon is risking his life, fortune and sacred honor.
Yes, it is a exageration. Hirsen is conveniently silent on how Musk's Twitter has suspended accounts that made fun of him as well as journalists who report on him -- which bolsters the case that his purchase of Twitter is driven by ego and not altruism. But those are acceptable targets who apparently need to be slienced, so Hirsen will continue to stay silent.
CNS Jim Jordan & Mark Levin Stenography Watch Topic: CNSNews.com
Along with Ted Cruz, CNSNews.com loves to give lots of free publilcity to another Republican congressman, JimJordan (though, unlike with Cruz, a child of editor Terry Jeffrey doesn't work for him). Here are the fitsd of stenography CNS has served up for Jordan in the final three months of 2022:
CNS pace of Jordan stenography slowed in the last half of the year despite a strong start; with these eight articles, he concluded 2022 with 34 articles dedicated to him. Of course, none of them mention his alleged failure to do anything about a doctor who had been accused of sexual abuse by wrestlers on a college team where Jordan was a coach -- a scandal CNS has consistently censored.
Another CNS fave who saw diminishing stenographical love over the year is right-wing radio host Mark Levin. Here's his tally for the last three months of 2022:
With these 11 articles, Levin finished out 2022 with 45 articles dedicated uncritically repeating his rants. While that seems lie a lot, it's less than the 52 articles he got in 2021 and a far cry from 2018, when there were a whopping 135 articles devoted to him.
MRC Blames Media, Schools Refusing To Hate Transgender People For Existence Of More Of Them Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Tierin-Rose Mandelburg continued her war on (and ignorance of) transgender people in an Oct. 7 post than embraced the social-contagion theory of transgenderism -- that because people are suddenly wanting to be transgender because media depictions of them aren't portraying them as evil the way Mandelburg demands:
In 2020, there were roughly 24,000 new diagnoses of gender dysphoria from kids aged 6-17 but in 2021, that number has nearly doubled in size to more than 42,000 cases. Reason being? The media and society recruiting today’s impressionable kids to force the leftist, progressive narrative and facilitate delusions of gender dysphoria.
Author David Marcus tweeted an image of a graph from Komodo Health analyzing the findings of an October 6 Reuters report. Reuters cited The National Institutes of Health -- the numbers are staggering. Again, in 2021 there were 42,167 new diagnoses of gender dysphoria. What's more, 17,683 children have started on puberty-blockers or hormones in the last five years, 5,063 of them in 2021. Reuters noted that “These numbers are probably a significant undercount since they don’t include children whose records did not specify a gender dysphoria diagnosis or whose treatment wasn’t covered by insurance.”
Oh great! Even more trans kids!
Yep.
The Reuters article mentioned a quote from Dr. Rachel Levine the assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, oh and if you didn’t know, Levine is transgender. (And, in case you doubt the media complicity in creating this social contagion, note that Levine was named a USA Today "Woman of the Year" for 2022.)
"Gender-affirming care for transgender youth is essential and can be life-saving," Levine noted.
That’s exactly why we have an issue with this sudden surge of transgender youth. The current administration is not only enabling but encouraging its staff, Big Tech, legacy media and schools to push any and all narratives that promote this gender delusion to kids.
In other words: The media doesn't portray transgender people as freaks anymore, and Mandelburg absollutely hates that. She then cited "nine examples accumulated from various MRCTV articles from just the last 12 months that prove who is at fault for this attack on our kids," which, again, largely amount to complaining that the non-right-wing media and schools won't spew hate at transgender people of the kind Mandelburg is used to hearing (and sewing) in her right-wing bubble. Bullet points include:
School districts buy and push books emphasizing transgenderism
Other than books, schools present lessons on transgenderism
Children’s programing pushes the trans agenda
The media glorifies transgender youth
Mandelburg never expained what this "trans agenda" supposedly is, of course. Another bullet point was "Children’s hospitals provide puberty-blockers and hormone therapy," which mesh with her tacit approval of threats and violence against children's hospitals who provide gender-affirming care to transgender youth (based on a falsehood by homophobic Libs of TikTok operator Chaya Raichik).
Yet another bullet point is "Media is silent on many crises that arise as a result of gender dysphoria," citing a single case in which "transgender activist Eli Erlick was accused of sexually assaulting people after illegally distributing hormone pills. The media never blinked an eye." Mandelburg didn't explain why this person is apparently representative of all transgender people; her silence suggests she wants to dishonestly use this single case to smear all transgender people as perverts.
More bullet points followed:
Celebrities encourage transgenderism
Big Tech pushes transgender ideology (again, Mandelburg failed to explain what "transgender ideology" purportedly is)
Drag performers have become normal entertainment for kids
Ah, yes, drag performers (which is a completely different thing from transgenderism). Mandelburg used that point to whine that "As of late, a drag queen serves as a contestant on Dancing With The Stars which airs on Disney+." We've documented her hate-filled freakout over this.
I could go on all day with the dozens of example on how the left is pushing the transgender ideology. The takeaway is that all of these tactics are normalizing transgender youth. Kids see it on TV, at church, in their classrooms, and even from their doctors, so it’s no surprise that the numbers are on the rise. Furthermore, it's become more popular for woke parents to validate this delusion to "fit in" with the progressive crowd than be strong, rooted moms and dads.
Kids are being exploited by unscrupulous people for nefarious ends, and most of the nation couldn’t care less.
This is all performative outrage, of course -- the MRC pays Mandelburg to rant, so rant she does, speaking in right-wing code words she never has to explain to anyone outside her right-wing media bubble. Meanwhile, in the real world, actual researchers have not found a "social contagion" narrative to increasing numbers of transgender youth. The research did find that gender-diverse youth are bullied at much higher rates than other youths -- an outcome Mandelburg seems comfortable with, if not outright encouraging.
What Mandelburg won't tell you is that she is among those "unscrupulous people" exploiting ftransgender people -- but as enemies of the state who shouldn't even be considered human -- and her "nefarious ends" are to advance right-wing narratives that hate everything even remotely LGBTQ, with the goal of shame, censorship and destruction. In Mandelburg's view transgender people are more useful as dehumanized pawns to be beaten up than as actual people who deserve compassion or the right to live their lives as they see fit.
CNS Gives Tulsi Gabbard The Floor Again Topic: CNSNews.com
The Tulsi Gabbard fan club at CNSNews.com added even more gushing when she officially quit the Democratic Party (which hadn't been a loyal member of for years anyway, though it gave cover for CNS to dishonestly portray her views as potentially Democratic). Craig Bannister gave Gabbard the floor again to uncritically spew transphobia in a Nov. 30 article:
“Today’s fake feminists” are doing all they can to “erase women” by denying objective truth and forcing women to compete against men, former Democrat [sic] congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard says.
In particular, liberal fake feminists are negating the 50 years of progress women have enjoyed, courtesy of Title IV, Gabbard says in a video she posted on social media Tuesday:
“Today’s self-proclaimed feminists will not define what a woman is and are, unfortunately, actively seeking to erase the progress that Title IX has made over the last 50 years, by essentially trying to erase women as an entire category of people.”
“50 years ago, feminists fought to pass Title IX so women didn’t have to compete against men. Today’s fake-feminists are undoing Title IX so women are forced to compete against men. They deny objective truth, and are doing all they can to erase women,” Gabbard tweeted Wednesday, introducing video of her Tuesday night interview with Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson.
As usual, Bannister refused to let anyone counter her attacks.
MRC Stayed Bitter About Herschel Walker's Loss Topic: Media Research Center Even days after Herschel Walker lost the Georgia Senate election (twice), the Media Research Center still couldn't let go of it. Gabriela Pariseau fed Walker into a pre-existing (and bogus) narrative in a Dec. 12 post:
Google once again tried to manipulate undecided voters with slanted search results.
This time the Big Tech company’s tactics seem to have benefited incumbent Democrat Senator Raphael Warnock in the hotly contested Georgia runoff Senate race against Republican candidate Herschel Walker. "Google at it again trying to swing the election,” MRC founder and President Brent Bozell said. “Google needs to be held accountable for interfering in elections."
MRC Free Speech America analyzed Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo search results from searches conducted on Dec. 3 in one majority Democrat precinct, one majority Republican precinct and one swing precinct in Coweta County, Georgia.
In a very telling revelation, MRC Free Speech America researchers found that Google’s results favored Warnock in the swing precinct where greater proportions of undecided voters likely reside. Warnock’s campaign website appeared third in Google search results, but the platform scrubbed Walker’s website from the first page of results altogether.
But as it has donebefore in trying to manufacture a right-wing narrative of Google search bias, the MRC's approach lacks a basis in reality. The serarch terms used -- "Herschel Walker Senate Race 2022" and "Raphael Warnock Senate Race 2022"-- are not ones normal people would use in seeking information about the race, no explanation was given as to why those terms were used or why they whould have returned the results the MRC demanded.
There's one other interesting twist. Pariseau noted that "MRC Free Speech America worked with David Carlson, executive director of American Virtue, who oversaw the search tests used in this analysis." American Virtue is a white nationalist-adjacent organization that has tried to tone that stuff down in a bid for mainstream respectability. Political Reserarch Associates reported on the group after a conference it held last summer:
From its beginnings, American Virtue has strained to distance itself from White nationalist Nick Fuentes and his Gen-Z America First/groyper movement. They have attempted this by toning down overtly racist, male supremacist, and antisemitic rhetoric in a bid for mainstream conservative respectability, even as they mimicked many aspects of groyper ideology and style.
[...]
While Fuentes’ unfiltered antisemitism, White nationalism, and incel-infused male supremacy has made him a liability for many conservative leaders, American Virtue continues to take a more circumspect route, flirting with groyper politics and aesthetics while carefully avoiding crossing red lines like antisemitism, positioning themselves within the bounds of mainstream conservative respectability. “We believe that America is a Christian nation,” proclaimed American Virtue Managing Director David Carlson during Friday’s conference, encapsulating the group’s militant Christian nationalism. “We believe that America has one culture, a shared identity, a shared heritage, and a shared tradition—and that people trying to supplant that tradition, trying to destroy what made us America, are fundamentally opposed to us in every single way, and they must be stopped.”
Pariseau didn't explain why the MRC considers an extremist like Carlson to be a credible person to collaborate with for this biased experiment.
Curtis Houck spent a Dec. 19 post whining that the the guy who beat Walker (twice), Raphael Warnock, was interview without being assaulted by Houck's favorite right-wing talking points:
Monday’s CBS Mornings didn’t cover part six of the Twitter Files released on Friday, but they did spend eight minutes and 22 seconds sucking up to Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) over his latest election victory, asking him to run for president in 2024, and pushing him from the left on “voter suppression,” prosecuting former President Trump, and the border.
Of course, nothing came up about his alleged violent behavior toward his ex-wife, allegations of missed child support, misconduct at a church camp he had helped oversee, and evictions from apartments owned by the church he pastors (which are in rancorous conditions).
Houck forgot to mention that he and his employer spentmonths insisting that similar scandals against Walker -- with the addition of purchasing multiple abortions for galpals -- were not newsworthy and attacked any non-right-wing media outlet that covered them.
NEW ARTICLE: WND's Ivermectin Chronicles, Part 3 Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily continues to cling to the discredited narrative that ivermectin is an effective treatment for COVID, but it also had to say goodbye to one of its favorite ivermectin-hawking docs. Read more >>
MRC Gets Mad That Non-Right-Wing Media Won't Parrot Pro-Musk Narratives Topic: Media Research Center
After salivating over the first release from Elon Musk of internal "Twitter files," the Media Research Center eagerly anticipated the next installment of selective documents given to hand-picked reporters. Until then, an anonymous writer expressed glee in a Dec. 6 post attacking Twitter's now ex-lawyer for doing his job:
As a top lawyer for Twitter, Jim Baker had a duty to his client to put Twitter’s ethics above his own.
But he apparently failed.
Twitter had intended to publish its second batch of internal files on the company’s handling of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal last weekend but ultimately didn’t. That’s because former Twitter Deputy General Counsel Baker complicated their release, independent journalist Matt Taibbi tweeted Tuesday.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk fired Baker on Tuesday, Taibbi reported.
“I don’t see how Jim Baker could have represented his client and met his ethical obligation as a member of any state’s bar,” MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider said. “His state bar association should immediately investigate this matter to determine whether Baker’s license should be suspended or even revoked. Michael Avenatti is in prison today for taking advantage of his clients. Jim Baker should not be allowed to escape justice.”
[...]
Though news that Baker had been reviewing the “Twitter files” shocked everyone involved, “reporters resumed searches through Twitter files material – a lot of it – today,” Taibbi tweeted. The next installment of the Twitter files will appear on journalist Bari Weiss’s Twitter page, Taibbi wrote. “Stay tuned.”
Reviewing internal documents before public release sounds exactly like the thing a company's lawyer ought to be doing -- most normal people would call that a requirement for someone in his position, not someone who had "failed" -- which means Musk fired Baker for doing his job. Rather than explain how corporate lawyering works, our anonymous writer went into conspiracy mode:
Baker was FBI general counsel from 2014-2018. A controversial figure, he helped initiate the bureau’s investigation of former President Donald Trump’s supposed ties with Russia, helping to link his friend and Democratic operative Michael Sussmann with FBI investigators, according to The Washington Times. Other accusations included the propagation of claims that Trump had a secret communication channel with Alfa Bank, based in Russia, according to National Review.
The anonymous writer filed to mention that Sussmann was acquitted of any criminal wrongdoing despite facing a biased right-wing prosecutor in John Durham and the MRC's own cheerleading for his conviction. Also, the anonymous writer describing Taibbi as a "independent journalist" obscures the fact that he was hand-picked by Musk to peddle these documents, as well as his sleazy, misogynistic behavior toward women while working as a correspondent in Moscow (h/t Jill Filipovic).
Meanwhile, Tim Graham spent his Dec. 7 column whining that non-right-wing media outlets weren't marching in lockstep with the right-wing pro-Musk narrative:
At 3:39 on Friday afternoon, Elon Musk announced he’d release internal documents exposing how Twitter went about heavily suppressing the New York Post and its mid-October 2020 scoops from Hunter Biden's laptop.
Journalist Matt Taibbi began tweeting out documents three hours later, and not surprisingly, there was no time for it on the evening news shows, including the PBS NewsHour – which airs in Washington at 7 pm.
They also skipped it on PBS's reporter roundtable Washington Week at 8 pm. No one started preparing anything in the afternoon? Maybe these shows were recorded before 6:30?
Alex Christy served up some whining too, this time at MSNBC host Chris Hayes for advancinbg the entirely logical and rational idea that Musk bought Twitter to advance an ideological agenda -- though he had to admit Hayes is probably right, then cover up that admission with whataboutism:
Nobody who works at MSNBC should be accusing Elon Musk of purchasing Twitter as a vehicle to advance his ideological agenda, but All In host Chris Hayes did just that on Tuesday’s edition of Late Night with Seth Meyers on NBC.
Switching from sarcasm to seriousness, Hayes addressed Musk’s purchase of Twitter, “I mean, I'm not in the books, but I think pretty much-- sounds like pretty much -- no, it's been pretty disastrous. I mean, I -- I -- think the thing -- the thing that I actually have -- that has been clarifying for me, I think there was -- first of all, it felt a little bit like an impulse purchase.”
Hayes then added that there was more than an alleged midlife crisis at hand:
I think that what he's been doing with the platform now is actually very clarifying to me because it wasn't about the business and it wasn't an impulse purchase, it was an ideological purchase and as long as there have been rich people, and as long as there have been rich people and capitalism, plus a free press, there have been rich people who buy media outlets for ideological purposes. This is a story as old as time and once I sort of saw it as that, I was like, ‘Oh! That's what this is.’ He -- he wants to own Twitter because he wants to pursue his vision because he's the world's richest man.
Hayes isn’t entirely wrong. Musk does have an ideological commitment to free speech, but the type of ideologically driven media he is referencing is much more like MSNBC. Free speech means people, like Hayes and Meyers, are allowed to disagree with Musk, but good luck being a conservative and getting a show on MSNBC or a comedy show on NBC.
Then it was time for a Musk PR piece from Catherine Salgado:
“[E]verything we find will be released,” new Twitter owner Elon Musk assured Americans, after co-founder and former CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey, who oversaw the massive Hunter Biden laptop censorship scandal, called for the Twitter censorship files be made fully public.
Dorsey responded on Dec. 7 to Musk’s Dec. 3 announcement, “Looks like we will need another day or so” to release “Twitter Files” Episode 2. Dorsey tweeted, “If the goal is transparency to build trust, why not just release everything without filter and let people judge for themselves? Including all discussions around current and future actions? Make everything public now. #TwitterFiles.”
Musk replied, “Most important data was hidden (from you too) and some may have been deleted, but everything we find will be released.” Musk previously said that promoting “free speech” was one of the reasons he bought Twitter.
Curtis Houck joined the whining over non-right-wing media ignoring the narrative:
Journalist Matt Taibbi published a 10-tweet thread Tuesday afternoon as a supplement to last Friday’s first batch of the Twitter Files, explaining its rollout was hamstrung by meddling from Twitter Deputy General Counsel, former CNN analyst, and Swamp creature Jim Baker. In conjunction with the thread, Musk said Baker was fired upon being alerted to the fact that Baker had (somehow) stuck around.
Of course, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC remained fully engaged in censorship denialism with zero mention on their flagship morning and evening shows of this new revelation about Twitter’s 2020 censorship of the reporting on Hunter Biden. On Taibbi's initial thread from December 2, the networks have similarly been out to lunch with only 26 seconds on the December 5 CBS Mornings.
In contrast, actual newscasts such as the Fox News Channel’s Special Report and NewsNation’s Early Morning and Morning in America had full stories Wednesday on this new twist.
In the right-wing media bubble that Houck lives in, you're only an "actual newscast" if you uncritically parrot right-wing narratives.
Graham attacked Hayes anew in his Dec. 9 column, this time for poiinting out the rifght-0wing narrative being pushed by Musk (and the MRC):
Like almost everyone else in the leftist bubble, MSNBC host Chris Hayes has not been engaging in the “Twitter Files” revelations about how, in October 2020, Twitter squashed all references to the New York Post scoops about Hunter’s left-behind laptop. But on Twitter, he argued this is just another conservative schtick.
Hayes announced, “What’s become really clear in the last few weeks is that all the ‘Big Tech’ anger from the right is really just the latest iteration of the ‘liberal media’ critique that stretches back to Goldwater, and indeed New-Deal-Era right-wingers.”
He added: “There’s no new analysis or structural insight. It’s just ‘the media is run by libs!’ Story old as time.” Hayes allies tweeted along, that this is more “ref-working” and conservatives trying to “jerry-rig” Big Tech to their advantage.
The real bone to pick with Hayes is that there is no new “structural insight.” Hayes, who poses on television as a brainiac, can’t seem to distinguish between “news” media and social media. In “news” media, liberal outlets often brutalize conservatives and offer their targets little or no rebuttal. In social media, Big Tech has offered conservatives a forum for constant rebuttal, but after being torched by the Left for allowing “misinformation” (like the Hunter laptop), they ham-handedly squash the rebuttal.
In both cases, Hayes is attempting to deny that liberal bias exists, that the conservative tactic is a sham. It’s deeply silly, since anyone watching MSNBC for an hour isn’t going to discover an oasis of objectivity.
Meanwhile, Graham -- a longtime resident of the right-wing media bubble -- wants you to deny that Fox News and other right-wing outlets have any sort of bias. Remember, he's the boss of the guy who thinks only "actual newscasts" spout right-wing narratives.
CNS Less Hateful Toward Brittney Griner Than Its MRC Parent Topic: CNSNews.com
Unlike its Media Research Center parent, CNSNews.com largely ignored the first several months of WNBA star Brittney Griner's detention in a Russian prison on trump-up drugs charges; publishing only a few articles in that time, mostly in July and August:
At this point, CNS pretty much stayed clear of following its MRC parent's footsteps of cheering Griner's imprisonment because she's a black non-heterosexual who exercised her First Amendment rights of criticizing her country's flaws (which the MRC insists is "anti-American").
When Griner was released in early December, CNS finally got interested in the story. Susan Jones offered a relatively straight account of the release in a Dec. 8 article:
We'll keep negotiating in good faith for Paul's release," President Joe Biden said today, as he announced a prisoner swap -- a Russian arms dealer for a WNBA star -- that will bring Brittney Griner home to her wife, but leave American Paul Whelan in a Russian prison.
"This is a day we've worked toward for a long time," Biden said Thursday morning, announcing that with the help of the United Arab Emirates, Brittney is now on a flight to the United States.
"We never forgot about Britney, we've never forgotten about Paul Whelan who's been unjustly detained in Russia for years," Biden said.
"This was not a choice of which American to bring home. We brought home Trevor Reed when we had a chance, earlier this year. Sadly, for totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Paul's case differently than Brittney's, and even though we have not yet succeeded in securing Paul's release, we're not giving up. We will never give up.
Susan Jones went there later in the day, however, uncritically quoting Republican Rep. Michael Waltz disparaging Griner and championing Whelan:
So my heart breaks for the Whelan family. I think, you know, a lot of people are asking, and rightly so, so what was his crime -- not being a celebrity? Not checking enough boxes for Hollywood? The fact that we left a U.S. Marine behind and made this choice. And I don't buy the Biden administration and President Biden saying we didn't have a choice.
Jones made sure to hype that Waltz is "the first Green Beret to be elected to Congress"-- but she censored, as her MRC colleagues did, that Whelan is a criminal who was kicked out of the Marines on a bad-conduct discharge following a court martial for attempted larceny, false statements and dereliction of duty, among other things. In other words, he actually committed crimes that were much worse the Russia accused Griner of doing (having a couple vape cartridges of cannabis oil).
Arter followed with an article proving Waltz wrong, with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre again pointing out that Russia did not the U.S. an opportunity to free Whelan.
Patrick Goodenough kicked CNS' Dec. 9 coverage with a pair of articles: The first hyped how Russian officials were praising Bout's release, while the second pondered what prisoners the U.S. might have to facilitate an exchange for Whelan. That was followed by an article by Jones sneering at Nancy Pelosi for noting that Griner is married to a woman while promoting the Respect for Marriage Act (which CNS absolutelyhates):
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi proclaimed Thursday to be a "glorious day here in the House."
"I mean, the joy, the pride, the euphoria that we feel today, having passed 'The Respect for Marriage Act,' a landmark decision, landmark law, changing the law for full equality," she effused. "Now the federal government will never stand in the way of anyone marrying the person you love."
Pelosi was among those noting the perfect timing of the bill's passage on Thursday -- the same day that lesbian WNBA star Brittney Griner was heading home to her wife, after President Joe Biden struck a deal to free her in exchange for a notorious arms dealer known as "the merchant of death."
"How wonderful is it that on the same day that Brittney Griner is going to be free -- thank you, President Biden. Thank you to Secretary of State and other national security people, and to my -- our colleague Greg Stanton, who represents Arizona -- Phoenix, Arizona in the Congress.
"He has brought her here. We had met her when she was here playing and -- basketball, and now today she is free; free to go home to her wife on the same day that we passed the Marriage Protection Act. So we are -- Respect for Marriage, the Respect for Marriage Act!
"So we are just -- her freedom is a gift to the world, to all of us. Our gift to her is this legislation that her marriage is protected wherever she may -- she may live. Her wife Cherelle and she and their family will have a holiday season without worrying about whether their marriage is protected."
Arter followed that with concern trolling from another Republican congressman that the prisoner exchange "sends the wrong message to U.S. adversaries - that you can take an American citizen hostage to get leverage over the United States." A Dec. 9 column by Lee Kessler, meanwhile, labored to make Griner feel guilty for being freed (bolding in original):
This is my prayer for you, Ms. Griner. As an American, I am happy you are home, and reunited with your family. You are an American, and you have a right to be back in the United States of America. It is my understanding that Viktor Bout's family is equally joyous at his return.
What I want you to understand, though, is that Americans will die as a result of this exchange. You are now free to pursue your American Dream--the NBA, where you play basketball. Mr. Bout is now free to pursue his dream, which is to kill Americans.
[...]
Make no mistake, Americans will die in the future as a result of your freedom. You will not know their names, nor will I, for some time. But your experience in Russia must have established for you a new reality on the difference between true freedom--however flawed you view it--and true oppression. Mr. Bout will ensure, directly or indirectly, that Americans die.
So, please, honor them now in advance. Men and women--and possibly children--will pay the price for your freedom. Their families will never be "reunited" because their loved one will have perished. The government of the United States has decided to spare you, in exchange for the future death of American citizens.
It is my prayer that you be grateful for the sacrifice the countrymen you have disparaged will make in the near future for you. And that you will show the same grace and compassion for them and their beliefs as they, fellow Americans, have shown to you today.
Kessler did not identify any American Griner has "disparaged," or what those purportedly disparaging words supposedly were.
CNS' focus turned away from Griner over the next few days:
Then it was Griner-bashing time again in a Dec. 13 column by technically-not-a-convicted-felon Olver North (who normally writes at WorldNetDaily):
We learned Thursday Women's National Basketball Association player Brittney Griner was released from a Russian prison after being arrested 10 months ago on drug charges. It's become almost irrelevant the "reasons" totalitarian regimes use to lock up Americans. What is relevant here is the "negotiated exchange" resulting in her release and return.
A black, LGBTQ+ celebrity was exchanged for Russian arms dealer Viktor "The Merchant of Death" Bout. It's interesting to note, Griner first made news by kneeling through the playing of our national anthem during WNBA games to show solidarity with Black Lives Matter -- a self-professed Marxist organization. Meanwhile, Bout was in a U.S. federal prison for selling arms to groups wanting the weapons to kill Americans. Now, Griner and Bout can return, respectively, to hating America and killing Americans.
North did not explain how Griner taking a stand against racial injustice equals "hating America."
MRC's Graham Continues To Whine That His Fellow Right-Wingers Are Being Fact-Checked Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center executive Tim Graham's dubiouswar onfact-checkers continued as part of the MRC's biased coverage of the midterm elections -- mainly in the form of complaining that Republican candidates were being fact-checked. He grumbled in a Sept. 18 post:
Keep an eye on how PolitiFact uses its "Truth-O-Meter" in the congressional races this fall. It's going to be obvious that they'll "finesse" their so-called "independent fact-checking" in favor of the Democrats, as they typically do.
Take the Ohio Senate race: this is how Democrat [sic] congressman Tim Ryan has been rated over the years: 12 "True" or "Mostly True" ratings, two "Half Trues," and one "Pants On Fire" rating back in 2011. That's basically a 12-to-1 True tilt.
By contrast, PolitiFact has five evaluations of Republican J.D. Vance: one "Mostly True," versus one "Mostly False," two "Falses," one "Pants on Fire." That's a 4-to-1 False tilt. And the Mostly True is from 2018. It's all False this year.
As usual, Graham offered no evidence (other than picayune nitpicking) that any of the fact-checks were false, or that Ryan and Vancetell falseoods and the same rate in a way that warrants equivalent coverage.
Graham complained some more in a Sept. 28 post, this time that right-wing attacks on President Biden were being fact-checked:
This week, the Poynter Institute and their PolitiFact website are hosting their "United Facts of America" conference to "celebrate facts" with a cast of liberal journalists, including PBS anchor Judy Woodruff, NPR TV critic Eric Deggans, CNN "misinformation" reporter Donie O'Sullivan and CNN legal analyst Joan Biskupic.
We've also found the "fact checking" at PolitiFact has a liberal tilt. Earlier this year, a NewsBusters study of Biden’s first year in office – from January 20, 2021 through January 19, 2022 – found Biden was fact-checked 40 times, while Biden critics were checked on 230 occasions. In other words, they’re much more sensitive about someone mangling the truth about Biden than they are about Biden mangling the truth.
Now MRC analysts have updated the research to include another eight months to the count. The pattern continues. From January 20 to September 19, 2022, we counted 18 PolitiFact checks on Joe Biden, compared to 108 “fact checks” of Biden critics. That's exactly a six-to-one ratio.
Put it all together, and over his first 20 months in office, Biden had 58 fact-checks, while Biden critics were checked 338 times. Overall, there were 5.8 fact checks of Biden critics for every one of the president.
Why shouldn't false claims about Biden be fact-checked, as Graham suggests? He doesn't explain -- even though that's the clear implication of his complaint.
Graham spent a Nov. 28 post complaining that fact-checkers keep finding that Republican Herschel Walker -- whom the MRC has repeatedlydefended throughout his failed Georgia Senate camapaign -- says things that aren't true:
On a daily or on a yearly basis, it’s not hard to find those "independent" critics at PolitiFact telling the public that Democrats are factual and Republicans are liars.
Take the Georgia Senate race: Sen. Raphael Warnock’s ratings in 2022 are three “Mostly True” checks and one “Half True.” Not a single rating in the False category:
[...]
Then look at Warnock’s challenger, Herschel Walker, and you get the exact opposite. In 2022, Walker drew two "False" ratings, two "Mostly False" ratings, and one "Half True." There was no rating on the "True" side.
Rather than, you know, find a false statement by Warnock that PolitiFact missed, Graham instead spouted his cynical talking point that fact-checking Republicans too much is evidence of bias:
Graham then gave away the game:
As we often point out, these "Fact Checkers" don't have to be wrong about the facts to be biased. It's obvious in their "target selection" that they're helping out the Democrats, defending their records and blatantly attacking Republican talking points. PolitiFact is often Exhibit A.
But that's a classic, dishonest heads-I-win-tails-you-lose argument. if Walker lies much more than Warnock, as appears to be the case -- and which Graham makes no effort to disprove -- there's no reason to enforce artificial parity on fact-checking.
Graham doesn't want Repubicans to be held accountable for making false and misleading claims -- period. To do that, he must try to discredit fact-checkers. He hates journalism and accountability, and all who stand for that must be targeted by his MRC through the sowing of microaggressions designed to engender mistrust and portray the mere act of fact-checking a Republican is insidious "bias." That's all he's doing here -- he's certainly not acting in good faith.
WND's Farah Blames Everyone But Herschel Walker For Walker's Election Loss Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah was quick to dismiss the normal, reality-based reasons Herschel Walker lost both the Georgia Senate election and the runoff in his Dec. 7 WorldNetDaily column:
It broke my heart that Herschel Walker was "defeated" by Raphael Warnock in the Georgia Senate race.
Everybody's got excuses for it.
Here are just a couple of the most infuriating ones:
"He was not the best candidate," we're hearing now. This is absurd, insulting, it's merely Monday-morning quarterbacking. It's blaming the man who stepped up to the line and DID run. And he proved himself worthy. He's a national hero for giving it all he had and leaving it all on the field of play.
"He was not the most articulate candidate," some say. He ran twice and came razor close in both. Nonsense! He was genuine. He performed admirably. He was a SOLID candidate.
It's just not fair to Herschel.
What apparently is fair to Herschel, apparently, is for Farah to blame others and invent conspiracy theories:
Perhaps, we should examine who were the consultants for the Republicans – the "experts" who managed the race and who micromanaged it.
[...]
Now let me tell the three problems Herschel faced in this second race.
He was outspent – at least three to one that we know about, probably more. Why did Raphael Warnock have at least $100 million to spend on a short campaign? Do we think that had a deleterious affect on the race? What were the Democrats doing with that kind of money – again? Giving it away? Was it worth the money? Absolutely. Does money talk in politics? Yes, it screams.
And what was the media doing? They were trashing Herschel at every turn. Just examine the coverage. It was appalling.
Shameful. Pathetic. And the Associated Press was there to make the call on the race. Even Fox News gave Warnock a big push on the last day of the campaign, as if he needed it.
And last but not least, as I've been telling you – till I'm blue in the face for at least five years now – we aren't living in a free society, with a free press, with free speech anymore. Big Tech is having its way with us. Twitter, under Elon Musk, has blown the doors open on that. Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and the rest of the pirates have stolen all away from us! It's obvious now.
Farah didn't mention that voters may have been turned off by Walker's history of domestic violence and the fact that he paid for two abortions for girlfriends (that we know of), or why he's giving a pass to such sordid, immoral behavior. Nope, there was nothing wrong with this candidate at all:
Herschel didn't lose anything. This was an election that was stolen by a one-party system, defying expectations and bringing about our worst nightmares. That's what we have to wrap our minds around.
Don't blame Hershel Walker!
He did the best he could. He exceeded expectation!
It's going to take us years to fix this rigging.
Then it was another version of the same old discredited election-denier conspiracies:
If it can happen to Kari Lake and Blake Masters and Abe Hamadeh and Mark Finchem and Adam Laxalt and Dr. Mehmet Oz, to name a few, from the election of 2022, it can happen to all of us. The money class, the fake news media and Big Tech, with the help of the FBI and the Deep State, have us doubting ourselves.
There has never been a candidate as qualified, better equipped, as able as Kari Lake. Did she "lose"? Would you accuse her of that? Did Donald Trump "lose" to Joe Biden in 2020? Come on, man!
Elections are being stolen left and right. It's happening all over the world. Just look at Brazil.
Communists like Raphael Warnock are the model for our new future. You had better be prepared.
Farah unironically concluded: "Life's about to get more challenging for us. Stop blaming others. See the patterns that are so obvious. Buckle up. We're in for a very rough ride." Says the guy who blames everyone but himself for the precarious financial state of WND and can't see the obvious patterns of WND's conspiracy-fueled editorial agenda being a prime contributor to that impending demise.
MRC's Jean-Pierre-Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch, Year-End Edition Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center continued its recentpattern of increasingly sporadic attacks on White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (running out of insults, perhaps?) into December. Houck's writeup of the Dec. 5 briefing was centered on the first "Twitter files" release that the MRC had been aggressively hyping:
Over the course of Monday’s 48-minute-long White House press briefing, Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich was the only member of the press corps called on who asked the ever-stammering Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about Friday’s release of the Twitter Files by Twitter boss Elon Musk and journalist Matt Taibbi. Whether it be reporters for the Associated Press, CBS, or USA Today to name a few, they all remained silent.
Not surprisingly, Jean-Pierre dismissed the matter as a “distraction...full of old news” as Twitter’s facing “very serious questions about the rising volume of anger, hate, and anti-Semitism” that “they're letting...happen” (which Musk has vehemently denied).
Heinrich broached the subject by first highlighting the fact that Jean-Pierre said last week that the Biden administration would be “keeping a close eye on” Musk and then asking: “Is it the White House’s view that decisions at Twitter were made appropriately in terms of decisions to censor reporting ahead of the election?”
Jean-Pierre feigned outrage and ignored her question, lamenting she “mischaracterize[d], actually, what I — what I actually said took it out of context” when what she meant was “we follow also what's going on just like you guys are reporting and just like you guys are seeing and what I was commenting to is, like, yes, we're — we’re seeing what’s happening with Twitter.”
[...]
Jean-Pierre then leveled the false claims about Musk and illustrated how the administration is indeed dead set on surveilling Musk:
And at the same time, Twitter is facing very real and very serious questions about the rising volume of anger, hate, and anti-Semitism on their platform and how they're letting it happen. And you know, the President said last week more leaders need to speak out and reject this and it's a very alarming and very dangerous.
Instead, she argued, Biden is focused on “helping...American families” and job creation since talking about censorship is (allegedly) “won't do anything to help a single American improve their lives.”
Actually, Musk "vehemently denying" the claim that hate and anti-Semitism have increased on Twitter since he took over is not the same thing as that claim being false (it isn't).
Houck returned to his old, malicious incompetent-diversity-hire narrative in his writeup of the Dec. 19 briefing, complaining thatJean-Pierre was dodging biased questions from right-wing reporters:
Shortly before Chief Justice John Roberts stepped into temporarily thwart the end of Title 42, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre fumbled her way Monday afternoon through the latest briefing with basic questions from reporters about the administration’s plans to (allegedly) deal with their ongoing crisis they’ve exacerbated.
The ladies representing Fox News brought the heat, however, with Jacqui Heinrich drawing her ire on the border and Hillary Vaughn having Jean-Pierre dodge a question about the truly bombshell findings of Twitter Files part seven.
Amid all the border questions, Vaughn’s Twitter files question was whether the administration is concerned the intelligence community squashed “a legitimate news story”:
VAUGHN: The latest Twitter Files show that the intelligence community was actively involved in discrediting the Hunter Biden laptop story. Does it bother the President & those at the White House that a govt agency like the FBI was involved in suppressing a legitimate news story?
JEAN-PIERRE: Again, I'm just going to refer you to the FBI. I'm not going to comment from here about that.
[...]
A few moments after Jean-Pierre swatted down a reporter’s queries about whether Biden would visit the border, Heinrich started with a simple request for reaction to “El Paso’s Democratic mayor...declar[ing] a state of emergency” because “he felt he could no longer keep his community or the asylum seekers safe.”
Jean-Pierre insisted that “Biden has taken steps to reduce disorderly migration while expanding legal pathways for orderly migration” since being inaugurated, but Heinrich wasn’t having it and noted border facilities are well beyond capacity with one being stretched by a factor of four.
Houck finished out the year with a wrap-up item of his favorite Karine-bashing and fluffing of various Fox News reporters pushing their biased narratives over the past 12 months:
Inside the White House Briefing Room, 2022 began with more mountain-sized word salads and dodges from Jen Psaki before shifting in May to former MoveOn.org spokeswoman and former MSNBC contributor Karine Jean-Pierre, who made waves for her stunning ineptitude and using her binder as a life raft.
Dozens of NewsBusters blogs were dedicated to the topic, so it was a challenge to narrow down to 12-ish examples, but we did our best to sift through the many Doocy Times and Jacqui Times and moments from other reporters across the spectrum.
Houck's beloved Trump press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, also heavily relied on a briefing binder, but he would never dare to suggest she used it as a "life raft."
CNS Still Trying To Make Mayra Flores Happen Topic: CNSNews.com
We've documented how CNSNews.com fell in partisan love with Republican Mayra Flores, who briefly filled a vacant House seat in Taxas and was promoted as part of a new wave of Hispanic conservatives. She lost the general election race for her seat in November -- something CNS still hasn't told its readers -- but it's still hyping Flores even as a lame duck. Melanie Arter wrote in a Dec. 7 article:
Rep. Mayra Flores (R-Texas) told reporters at a Capitol Hill press conference on the Border Patrol suicide rates on Wednesday that Border Patrol agents feel abandoned by the Biden administration.
“I’m a wife of a Border Patrol agent, and it is an honor standing here today on behalf of all those who can't speak out for themselves - our heroes, our Border Patrol agents. Abandoned. Those are the exact words so many Border Patrol agents have talked to me about. They feel abandoned by this administration, abandoned. This shouldn't be political. This shouldn't be about Republican or Democrat,” said Flores.
Flores’ was speaking at a Capitol Hill press conference on the Border Patrol suicide rates. As of Dec. 4, 14 Border Patrol agents have committed suicide since January, which is more than any year in over a decade, CBP confirmed to The New York Post.
Arter didn't tell her readers that Flores lost her race and would be out of Congress by the end of the month, making her words somewhat meaningless.
WND Unsurprisingly Embraces Kari Lake's Election Denierism Topic: WorldNetDaily
As failed Arizona governor candidate Kari Lake became the new face of election deniers after the midterm elections, WorldNetDaily -- which was already hyping claims of purported election fraud -- unsurprisingly bought into her narrative. Bob Unruh uncritically repeated her claims in a Nov. 22 article:
That there are illegal shenanigans in American elections cannot be seriously disputed. And there are allegations that this year's performance in Arizona surpassed what American voters already have put up with.
Commentator Katie Pavlich at Townhall, for example, pointed out that Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich "is demanding answers from Maricopa County election officials after a number of voters were unable to cast their ballots on election day."
Pointedly, she noted 25% of the vote tabulation machines in the state's most populous county were not working on election day, "causing widespread voter disenfranchisement."
She reported that Brnovich told Maricopa County elections chief Thomas Liddy, "The Elections Integrity Unit ('Unit') of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office ('AGO') has received hundreds of complaints since Election Day pertaining to issues related to the administration of the 2022 General Election in Maricopa County. These complaints go beyond pure speculation, but include first-hand witness accounts that raise concerns regarding Maricopa’s lawful compliance with Arizona election law. Furthermore, statements made by both Chairman Gates and Recorder Richer, along with information Maricopa County released through official modes of communication appear to confirm potential statutory violations of title 16."
Now Kari Lake, the Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for governor, who purportedly lost that race by a tiny number of ballots, is promising that she will keep up her fight for election integrity.
In an online statement, she explained the problems included, "Printer problems, tabulation errors, 3-hour lines or longer, and confusing instructions given by election officials made this election day the most chaotic in Arizona's history."
She cited the half of voting centers that were "not operational or had significant failures."
"Would you get on a plane if HALF of the engines didn't work? Would our friends in the media be able to broadcast their nightly propaganda if HALF of their studio equipment was not working?"
Calling the election "botched and broken beyond repair," she said her fight is for "our sacred right to vote, a right that many voters were, sadly, deprived of on November 8th."
There's clear evidence that Maricopa County has suppressed votes in violation of Arizona law and of the federal Help America Vote Act, and the only solution is to hold another election under the supervision of a court, contends longtime Republican activist and publisher Floyd Brown in a Twitter dispatch from Phoenix.
"The elections in Maricopa have not been certified," he wrote. "and I have received dozens of calls asking me, 'Does Kari Lake still have a path to victory?' I also have been asked, 'What can I do to help?'"
Answering the questions, Brown, publisher of the Western Journal, said the vote count in Maricopa County in 2022 is "irredeemably flawed."
"Thousands of voters that showed up to vote were turned away. Other voters were given instructions by officials which contradicted policy, and resulted in ballots being cast, but not counted," he said.
In fact, Maricopa County election officials said no voter with a valid ID was turned away from the polls. (Also, you might recall that the Brown's Western Journal began life as the Western Journalism Center, founded by future WND editor Joseph Farah.)
The next original WND story on Lake was a Dec. 12 article by Aert Moore pushing more dubious fraud charges:
In her lawsuit contesting the official results of the Nov. 8 election, Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake cites a cyber expert who concludes the extraordinary malfunction of voting machines on Election Day could not have occurred without "intentional misconduct."
"This didn't just happen, and we all knew that," Lake said in an interview Monday with Steve Bannon on "War Room."
The cyber expert, Clay Parikh, worked for the company that Maricopa County uses to test its voting equipment, Runbeck.
In addition, Lake said, Maricopa County "loosened up every procedure and every safety that we have to make sure that the mail-in ballots were only the [valid ones] were being counted."
That was followed two days later by a column from Farah begging readers to pray for the success of Lake's challenges:
The eyes of all Americans are riveted, or should be, on Arizona and the lawsuit filed this week by GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.
The election was a fiasco, the result of intentional misconduct, fraud.
How many illegal votes did it involve? They far exceeded 17,117, according to Lake in the suit.
[...]
Testimony by whistleblowers and witnesses with firsthand knowledge shows that Maricopa County officials violated chain-of-custody laws for hundreds of thousands of mail-in votes.
The Lake suit also claims that Maricopa officials permitted the counting of tens of thousands of mail-in and drop-box ballots that did not satisfy signature verification requirements.
On and on it goes in great detail.
[...]
So, what can you and I do as the lawsuit progresses? Pray!
Moore uncritically rehashed Lake's claim while touting the upcoming trial over them in a Dec. 20 article:
"Christmas came early yesterday," declared Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake to an enthusiastically supportive gathering in Phoenix on Tuesday.
She was referring to a judge's ruling Monday that her legal challenge to Democratic Governor-elect Katie Hobbs election victory will be heard by a jury.
"We are going to trial," she told the audience at America Fest 2022, hosted by Turning Point USA.
"This is so historic, and you know what, I couldn’t have done it without you," said Lake.
"Katie Hobbs is going to have to put her hand on the Bible and swear to tell the truth."
Hobbs, as the current Arizona secretary of state, oversaw the election, which she won by 17,000 votes, according to the certified tally. Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer also will be required to testify.
But neither Moore nor anyone else at WND covered the trial itself or its outcome -- probably because she lost. One feature of the trial was that the "cyber expert" whom Lake had previously touted, Clay Parikh, turned testy when pushed to admit facts and also had to disclose that his current meal ticket is MyPillow guy Mike Lindell. WND published only a few paragraphs of a Fox News story on the charges being dismissed.
The Media Research Center has a bit of an obsession with making sure that, when a person caught doing something bad who could be plausibly described as having links to Democrats or liberals, that link is screamed from the rooftops. We saw that again with Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto billionaire who lost it all (as well as lots of money from other people) when his cryptocurrency exchange collapsed. Bankman-Fried wasn't even on the MRC's radar until last May, when Jeffrey Clark complained that he was planning to donate tons of money to help keep Donald Trump from getting elected in 2024:
Hanne Nabintu Herland used Kanye West's anti-Semitism to try to reinforce a right-wing narrative in her Dec. 7 WorldNetDaily 
Like other right-wingers, Newsmax columnist James Hirsen has become a simp for Elon Musk over his purchase of Twitter. He gushed over Musk's long-delayed completion of his Twitter purchase in his Oct. 31 
Along with Ted Cruz, CNSNews.com loves to give lots of free publilcity to another Republican congressman, 
The Media Research Center's Tierin-Rose Mandelburg continued 
The 
Even days after Herschel Walker lost the Georgia Senate election (twice), the Media Research Center still couldn't let go of it. Gabriela Pariseau fed Walker into a pre-existing (and bogus) narrative in a Dec. 12 
After 
Unlike its Media Research Center parent, CNSNews.com largely ignored the first several months of WNBA star Brittney Griner's detention in a Russian prison on trump-up drugs charges; publishing only a few articles in that time, mostly in July and August:
Media Research Center executive Tim Graham's 
Joseph Farah was quick to dismiss the normal, reality-based reasons Herschel Walker lost both the Georgia Senate election and the runoff in his Dec. 7 WorldNetDaily 
The Media Research Center continued its 
We've documented
As failed Arizona governor candidate Kari Lake became the new face of election deniers after the midterm elections, WorldNetDaily -- which was 
