Without New 'Twitter Files' To Promote, MRC Engages In Musk-Fluffing Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's electively released "Twitter files" to Elon Musk's hand-picked journalists continued with a Jan. 16 post by CatherineSalgado declaring that "The latest Twitter Files showed Big Pharma “directly” pressured Twitter to help censor users offering any alternative treatments to COVID-19 besides Big Pharma’s vaccines." Salgado didn't mention that "alternative treatments" like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin don't really work in treating COVID.
After that was a bit of a fallow period. Even without any new selectively released "Twitter files" to promote, the MRC's Elon Musk stenography continued with Gabriela Pariseau being stuck summarizing previous releases in a Jan. 16 article:
The Twitter Files have uncovered the internal mess that Twitter has become over the last six years as the company has interfered in American elections, directly colluded with federal government agencies and censored Americans.
Thanks to new Twitter owner Elon Musk, some of the platform’s past misgivings have been laid bare for all to see. To date, 15 Twitter Files have been published by 6 nonpartisan journalists. Musk’s release of the Twitter Files has given us a closer look at what exactly happened when the platform mass-censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, interfering in the 2020 election. The files have revealed Twitter’s deep entanglement with numerous federal government agencies and how those agencies used Twitter to censor speech that they themselves could not. Finally, the files pulled back the curtain on Twitter’s internal conversations about censorship and complete disregard for free speech.
“Twitter did everything they could to deliver the 2020 election to Joe Biden,” said Media Research Center President Brent Bozell. “Now we need Congress to investigate the rest of Big Tech and uncover the same for Facebook, Google, and the rest.”
Neither Bozell, Pariseau nor the rest of the MRC has ever questioned why nearly all the files Musk has selectively release conveniently advance right-wing narratives against "big tech," or why Musk doesn't give those "Twitter files" to journalists who aren't right-wingers -- they're just happy to be subservient to Musk and advance those narratives.
The next day, Autumn Johnson cheered that a class-action lawsuit by former Twitter employees was dismissed, supporting the idea they deserve to have to be forced to go through arbitration:
A federal court judge ruled on Friday that five former Twitter employees from the old censorship-obsessed regime must pursue their claims against the company in arbitration.
The layoffs, which heavily impacted the platform’s content moderation team, were part of Musk’s changes to save the company money while turning the platform into one that supports free speech. However, five former employees disputed Musk’s terms for severance pay and alleged he failed to provide adequate notice before the layoffs, according to The Verge.
[...]
Twitter employees from the pro-censorship regime have to realize they can’t always get their way as many content moderation and Trust and Safety employees formerly did, according to the Twitter Files.
Geoffrey Dickens served up yet another complaint that non-right-wing media are not obsessing about this right-wing-bubble story:
The bombshells from the Twitter files keep on coming, yet the liberal media elite keep ignoring them. Last month when Tesla founder and Twitter owner Elon Musk began tweeting out former Rolling Stone editor Matt Taibbi’s explosive reporting on how Twitter (under pressure from government agents) suppressed the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story in the final days before the election.
[...]
Of course the tiny amount of network coverage of the Twitter files story does a disservice to the scope and depth of Taibbi’s reporting on how the government forced Twitter to censor the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.
Note how Dickens describes Taibbi as a "former Rolling Stone editor" in an attempt to create some sort of mainstream credibilty for him, even though any association with Rolling Stone -- as well as his history of being a sexist creep -- would be mentioned only in a disparaging way if Musk ever allowed him to report on "Twitter files" that didn't advance right-wing narratives. (Also, Musk was not the founder of Tesla.)
Johnson had more pro-Musk stenography to crank out, this time in the service of bashing an organization of "elitists":
Independent journalist Michael Shellenberger said Tuesday that Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is a significant obstacle to the radical World Economic Forum’s agenda.
Shellenberger, who has reported on batches of Twitter Files exposing the FBI exerting pressure on Twitter’s censorship operations, joined Blaze Media podcast host Glenn Beck to discuss the pro-free speech changes Musk has made to Twitter since he acquired it last year, including an end to one-sided censorship.
"He's basically said ordinary people should be on an equal platform...and we should stop censoring ordinary folks because the elites demand it," Shellenberger said on the Jan. 17 edition of The Glenn Beck Program, referring to elitists in organizations like the World Economic Forum (WEF).
The WEF is a leftist organization that promotes Orwellian initiatives, such as the “recalibration” of “free speech” online. The WEF is also the same radical organization that legitimized an insane idea of microchipping children.
Pro tip for Johnson: If Schellenberger is Elon Musk's errand boy and running to right-wing radio host to uncritically repeat those errands in a forum where he knows he will get only softballs and will not be seriouslly challenged, he's not an "independent journalist."
P.J. Gladnick spent a Jan. 19 post raging that someone said something less than laudatory about Musk:
On Tuesday, New York magazine published a looooooong hit piece on what a horrible boss Elon Musk supposedly is at Twitter yet the biggest revelation was its admission that it favors censorship. This admission by the authors Zoë Schiffer, Casey Newton, and Alex Heath appeared innquot;Twitter’s staff spent years trying to protect the platform against impulsive ranting billionaires — then one made himself the CEO."
Before getting around to slamming Musk, the New York authors celebrated the early free speech era of Twitter before absurdly claiming it was somehow ruined by Orange Man Bad.
[...]
So just one man, the "tyrant" Donald Trump, caused Twitter to give up on free speech and embrace censorship.
And this was the reason that Musk bought Twitter; to return to its era of free speech by ditching the censorship which was blamed on Trump. For this embrace of free speech, Musk earned the derision of New York magazine -- including the bizarre charge that although he approves free speech for the platform, he disapproves of it in the workplace, when he was letting go of staff who liked everything censorious:
When the article pointed out Musk's tyrannical treatment of Twitter employees, Gladnick huffed in response: "Psst! It's a private company owned by Elon Musk. A lot of bosses have rules for the office that have nothing to do in relation to how it treats the customers or, in this case, the Twitter users." We don't recall anyone at the MRC offering the "it's a private company" defense to Twitter before Musk bought it.
Gladnick even defended Musk and his lackey Taibbi publishing the names and emails of now-former employees involved in communications with government officials as part of the "Twitter files" releases, which resulted in harassmsent and abuse targeting them: "The names but not the homes or phone numbers were revealed. Hardly the doxxing as practiced by Taylor Lorenz." In fact, as we've documented, Lorenz identified the operator of the hate site Libs of TikTok, Chaya Raichik, through publicly available information, and only briefly linked to her real estate license that included an address and employer, which was also publicly available. Gladnick didn't explain why such publicly available information was off limits.
When Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate was raided by the FBI in search of classified documents he refused to return, CNSNews.com's coverage was filled withright-wing spin that symatheticially portrayed Trump as a victim of bias. When classified documents were discovered at offices Joe Biden used between his stints as vice president and president -- which he returned with incident -- CNS made sure to crank up the outrage machine over such possession (which it didn't do regarding Trump). Susan Jones set the tone in a Jan. 10 article:
After all the fuss about top secret documents found at President Donald Trump's Florida estate, it turns out that former Vice President Joe Biden also had documents "with classified markings" in his possession.
The classified documents were discovered in office space formerly used by Joe Biden at the University of Pennsylvania's Biden Center in Washington, D.C., on November 2, 2022 -- six days before the general election.
But we're just hearing about it now, from a statement released by the White House Counsel's Office, which reads as follows:
Jones then went on to uncritically quote Republicans eager to insist that this was somehow much worse than Trump's situation:
Democrats say Biden's case is different than Trump's because Biden's attorneys volunteered the information and sent the documents -- fewer than Trump had -- to the Archives without being asked. Trump reportedly failed to cooperate with the Archives' repeated demands for the return of classified documents in his possession.
But Republicans say Biden has just as much to answer for, as the following tweets from Republican politicians indicate:
-- “Biden stole classified documents and stored them at his think tank while he was VP. The VP does not have any authority to declassify classified documents. And this “think tank” received $54 million in funding from the CCP," Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) tweeted on Monday.
-- "Re. Biden and classified documents: there can't be separate standards for Republicans and Democrats. The same rules must apply to everyone," Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) tweeted.
-- "Joe Biden stole classified documents. This is a very serious crime. DOJ & NARA can’t sweep this under the rug AND persecute Trump," Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) tweeted on Monday.
[...]
-- "It’s just been discovered that Biden had HIGHLY CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS that were improperly stored in one of his private offices. INCREDIBLE! WHERE is the FBI? WHERE is the dramatic raid? We have two systems of justice in this country: one for them and one for us," Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) tweeted.
CNS then fired up its right-wing talking points machine over the next several days:
Another of these articles, by Jones, quoted Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a" Michigan Democrat who formerly worked as a CIA analyst," as pointing out how Republicans are seizing on the the Biden documents as a "political talking point" -- but then immediately followed it with a statement from House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy laughably denying any political motivation "in his choppy fashion."
It wouldn't be CNS if it wasn't mounting some weird, tangentally related attack of Biden over this, and Craig Bannister obliged in a Jan. 13 article:
Despite his insistence that Americans embrace electric vehicles, President Joe Biden treasures his gasoline-powered 1967 Corvette Stingray so much that he stored it next to the documents marked “classified” found at his Delaware home.
Two batches of documents marked “classified” kept by Biden have reportedly been discovered, the second of which Biden says had been kept next to his Corvette in a garage.
Biden admitted at a press conference on Thursday that he had kept documents that bore classification markings next to his Corvette in what he called “a locked garage” at his Delaware home.
The admission prompted the Oil and Gas Association to tweet out a photo and a few facts about Biden’s coveted Corvette – including that it’s not electric:
CNS regularlyparrots talking points sent out by the oil and gas industry.
UPDATE: There was also a strange Jan. 13 column by Josh Hammer, who went straight for a "deep state" conspiracy theory:
But perhaps the most pressing question is: Why? Why was there a leak to CBS News just now, over two months after Biden attorneys discovered the first tranche of classified documents deep in the bowels of a Penn Biden Center office? Why has there been such a slow, drip-drip, dramatic leaking and reporting of various classified document tranches throughout this whole week?
It is thoroughly unsurprising that the federal law enforcement apparatus and the corporate media buried the news of Biden's malfeasance on the precipice of the midterm elections. The "Democrat-Media Complex," as the late Andrew Breitbart called it, demands nothing less than such complicity.
But the timing of the leak from various federal law enforcement actors now, just as Biden is beginning his second term, suggests there is real internal turmoil over at the Democratic National Committee. Perhaps someone at the DNC instructed deep state spooks that now would be a particularly propitious time to leak sordid details to the media. Perhaps someone at the DNC thought that Joe Biden did his job by shepherding his party through the midterms without succumbing to the much-feared "red wave," but that he is now disposable and should be replaced at the ballot in 2024 by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA). Loath though I am to speculate, it is difficult to think of a sounder explanation as to why, only now, all of this is coming out.
MRC Hides Factual Basis Of Colbert Joke It Bashed Topic: Media Research Center
As part of the Media Research Center's complaining that non-right-wing media pointed out how far-right the Republican opposition to Kevin McCarthy as House speaker was, Alex Christy served up a side complaint about a joke in a Jan. 10 post:
The Late Show host Stephen Colbert tried and failed during his Tuesday show to use Republican infighting during the Speaker battle to play the sexism card by suggesting there was a double standard present.
Recalling the fourteenth and penultimate ballot, Colbert recalled, “After that, all pluperfect hell broke loose. A furious [Kevin] McCarthy got out of his seat, walked up the aisle, and got into a yelling match with [Matt] Gaetz.”
Advertising for a parodic show, Colbert moved on with an exaggerated McCarthy impression, ‘You can catch all the drama on the new Bravo hit: The Real House Guys of D.C. No, no. No! uh-uh, I'm not here to make friends. Because I'm Kevin McCarthy, and no one will be my friend.’”
While showing some C-SPAN footage, Colbert recalled, “then it got even dramatic-er, when McCarthy ally Mike Rogers approached the scrum and then-- where it is, right here-- and appeared to lunge at Matt Gaetz, and then was quickly pulled away.”
Colbert reacted to this confrontation with fake horror, “Oh, my god. I don't know if men should hold political office. They're just too emotional! You know what I mean? They're just... hormones, I guess. I just-- it's just-- it's the damn-- it's their damn hormones.”
The point Colbert is trying to make is not literally that men should be banned for public office because of testosterone. He is trying to ironically suggest a double standard, arguing that less sophisticated people believe women are not as qualified because they are hormonal. Of course, he cannot point to anyone of any relevance to back up this accusation or rebut the obvious point that most people vote based off party label. As it is, the man who called Kellyanne Conway “Satan’s trophy wife” should hold off on accusing other people of sexism.
Christy either didn't do his research or did research and hid it -- but it turns out that Colbert's joke has a basis in fact. CBS reported on a 2019 study on Americans' attitudes toward female politicians:
A Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) analysis of the General Social Survey, a broad study of attitudes and opinions conducted every two years, found that 13 percent of Americans still have serious doubts about women's emotional suitability for political office. And while that number represents a substantial decline in the bias against women in politics since the 1970s, it still represents a real hurdle for women running for office.
Republicans were almost three times as likely as Democrats to believe that men were better suited emotionally for politics than women.
[...]
Case in point: Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. Clinton marketed herself as the most experienced candidate to ever run for president, but was dogged by questions concerning her temperament and general likability.
It was a problem female candidates commonly face: Women in politics need to be strong and decisive, but doing so risks making voters uncomfortable by pushing the boundaries of typical gender norms, according to CEW.
A successful, powerful woman could risk coming off as shrill and demanding. At the same time, she could read as too soft on serious issues facing the country such as national security or defense.
That's right -- the idea that a woman is not emotionally fit to hold office is more likely to be held by a Republican than a Democrat. So Christy's right-splaining the joke in an attempt to make it less funny backfired because a full explanation actually shows it to be quite a hoot.
WND's Farah Still Embracing Bogus Claims Of Election Fraud In Brazil Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've documented how WorldNetDaily has embraced unproven claims of fraud made by Jair Bolsonaro, the right-wing former president of Brazil who, like Trump, can't accept that he lost an election. Since then, Bolsonaro emulated Trump in another way: his supporters ransacked government buildings in an attempted insurrection. WND left coverage of the riot itself to a pair of outsidearticles, but editor Joseph Farah -- who pushed the bogus fraud claims in November -- did so again in his Jan. 10 column:
For all of December, the election was contested. Millions of people filled the streets, peacefully, in the some of the largest demonstrations in the world.
But guess what?
Outside of Brazil, the demonstrations went virtually unseen, including in the United States. They were blacked out.
On top of that, Joe Biden, months before the election, sent an unusual message to Bolsonaro. He told him, in no uncertain times, not to contest the election if he lost.
You can imagine what Bolsonaro thought of that warning – coming from Biden. Bolsonaro remembered clearly the 2020 election in the U.S. He knew it had been fixed, rigged, stolen.
Another thing you should know about the Brazilian election. They didn't use paper ballots – at all. They used just machines. One of the ways people knew it was rigged, aside from the activity by the Chinese Communists, was some of the regional results. In heavily contested areas, the supposed results revealed no opposition to "Lulu." None! He received all of the votes.
That's why the people amassed in some of the greatest peaceful protests in the history of the world.
Just look at them! But keep in mind that the people in Brazil knew the protests were not seen outside of Brazil because of the fake news media in the U.S. and in Brazil!
Flash forward to what is being called the Jan. 6 style riots in Brazil, on Jan. 8. They include break-ins at the Brazilian Congress, the presidential palace and the Supreme Court
And by contrast, look at the pictures!
This week, of course, Joe Biden condemned the unruly protests and offered his full support for Lula after the two spoke by phone. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro, a very good man, is in the U.S. but can be easily extradited. Biden called the unrest, familiarly, an "assault on democracy."
In a tweet on Sunday, Biden said supporters of Brazil's former President Bolsonaro were attacking the peaceful transfer of power in the nation, and again cast his support behind President da Silva.
Does any of this surprise anybody?
Did you expert Biden to change his tune with the change in the House of Representative?
Is this whole pattern of rigged elections getting old?
Is it clear to you how it's all done, with the help of the cooperative media and the Big Tech tyrants?
Brazil is the largest county in South America. China has long had its eyes on it – in fact, all of Latin America. It's their big prize. And now Beijing's man is president.
Again, Farah provided no evidence that Lula is "Beijing's man." And he didn't explain why the U.S. shouldn't recognize the winner of an election in which no credible evidence has surfaced to not do so.
MRC's Jean-Pierre-Bashing Watch Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center continued its attacks on White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, portraying her as incompetent for not answering questions to its satisfaction over the discovery of classified documents by President Biden outside the normal places they should be (which the MRC has also obsessed over). For the Jan. 17 briefing, Curtis Houck cheered that the "inept" Jean-Pierre was peppered with question from non-right-wing reporters even as he complained that she ignored right-wing outlets:
Tuesday’s White House press briefing marked another installment of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for the inept Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre as, while she ignored journalists from the Daily Caller, Fox News, and Newsmax about President Biden’s classified documents scandal, she ran into a proverbial buzzsaw from outlets such as ABC, the AP, CBS, CBS News Radio, NBC, and NPR with fiery questions about the scandal.
Houck complained further that Jean-Pierre wouldn't take the bait in his writeup of the Jan. 18 briefing, praising not only a current Fox News employee but a former one as well:
As we’ve documented over the last week (see here, here, here and here), Wednesday’s White House press briefing marked yet another tough day at the office for the empty and inept Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre as she kept up her stonewalling on President Biden’s classified documents scandal, while reporters from the likes of the ABC, the Associated Press, CBS, the Fox News Channel, Gray Television, NBC, and even an independent journalist from Angola fired off hardballs.
The AP’s Josh Boak led off the unsuccessful questioning by wondering if Jean-Pierre could give a justification “against visitor logs for” Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home “given the frequency with which [he] works” there, but Jean-Pierre only told him to review statements from the White House counsel and Secret Service.
Formerly with Fox News Radio, Gray Television’s Jon Decker brought the hardball a little later, invoking Biden’s September 60 Minutes interview where he denounced Trump hoarding classified documents as “irresponsible”: “[D]o you think it was proper for President Biden to comment on an ongoing DOJ investigation?”
[...]
After not being called on Tuesday, Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich had a turn and focused on more public press access seeing as how “we’re in sort of an information blackout.” When Jean-Pierre said “no” to whether she’d have someone speak at a briefing, Heinrich tried once more before returning to the previous concern raised about any national security concerns.
Houck did not offer evidence to back up his claim that Jean-Pierre declining not to answer questions made her "inept."
Meanwhile, Tim Graham gleefully touted criticism of Jean-Pierre from anonymous White House reporters (funny how anonyous sources are suddenly credible when they're spouting right-wing narratives, eh, Tim?) as reported by CNN's Oliver Darcy, whom the MRC normally hates and whom Houck himself obsessively denigrates as a "Benedict Arnold" for for the sin of escaping the right-wing media bubble. Graham went on to whine:
Then Darcy added a comical rebuttal from an anonymous White House source in a statement to CNN: "A lot of this sounds more like theater criticism than concern about ability to report facts for the American people’s benefit." Wrong! Reporters in this case are upset over lies about the Biden documents scandal.
[...]
Anyone watching the briefing in recent says [sic] isn't really seeing a question-and-answer session as much as a question-and-stonewall session.
[...]
Can Jean-Pierre last at the White House if this document scandal goes on for months? Surely, Team Biden wishes they had a more talented stonewaller like Jen Psaki to handle the newly angered press corps.
We don't recall anyone at the MRC complaining when their beloved Kayleigh McEnany stonewalled reporters -- but then, her stonewalling was for the conserative cause.
Despite the MRC previously denying that Jean-Pierre was being attacked as a diversity hire, Kevin Tober did exactly that in his writeup of thte Jan. 23 briefing:
During Monday’s White House press briefing, a handful of members of the White House press corps continued pressing the incompetent diversity hire, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre over the fifth batch of classified documents found in President Joe Biden’s home in Delaware and his regime’s lack of transparency over the scandal.
First out of the gate on this topic was a series of spicy barbs thrown by ABC’s Mary Bruce who asked Jean-Pierre: “You have said though from this podium many, many times over the last two weeks that this President takes the handling of classified material very seriously, and yet we continue to learn about more documents being found and discovered at his home.”
Due to those facts, Bruce asked: “Why should the American people believe that this President takes classified material seriously and the handling of it?”
Of course, Jean-Pierre, like all the prior times she’s been asked, had no real answer. “The American people heard from the President directly on this when he was asked by your colleagues at least twice now about how he sees this process,” she mumbled.
Houck surprisingly whined more about a reporter who dared to deviate from questioning about Biden documents than about Jean-Pierre for the Jan. 24 briefing:
Tuesday afternoon’s White House press briefing brought about plenty more hardballs on President Biden’s classified documents scandal that the ever-inept Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to answer, but along the way, Angolan reporter Hariana Veras temporarily brought the briefing to a halt with two long stemwinders of leftist commentary demanding gun control.
The next day, Houck once again tried to dunk on Jean-Pierre by praising a national security expert who was brought in, though he too was denigrated as a "crutch":
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre brought in National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby Wednesday afternoon to serve as a crutch amid weeks of hardballs on the Biden classified documents scandal and, sure enough, Kirby ended up exposing Jean-Pierre’s repetitive, tiresome answers by actually providing general explanations for why handling classified information is incredibly serious.
ABC’s MaryAlice Parks went first and cited “bipartisan outrage and frustration over the last few days that there are just more and more disclosures of classified documents showing up in places where they were not supposed to be.”
[...]
Jean-Pierre eventually had a turn, but she went back to shutting down, refusing to answer questions from AP’s Aamer Madhani on whether “all former presidents” should “scrub...their homes and offices” for classified documents and ABC’s MaryAlice Parks on whether the Biden-Harris administration would commit to ensure they’d leave office with no classified documents.
Any excuse to take a shot at Jean-Pierre, it appears.
Newsmax's Victimhood Train Keeps Rolling Topic: Newsmax
Newsmaxcan'tstopcomplaining that its TV channel was dropped by DirecTV in a business dispute of licensing fees, which it is dishonestly framing as "censorship" (even though DrecTV replaced it with another right-wing channel, obliterating any claim to viewpoint censorship), and it's continuing to call back seemingly everyone who ever appeared on the channel to perform a little outrage over it. Here's how if finished out its second week of victimhood:
By our count, that's at least 111 "news" articles Newsmax has published complaining about getting deplatformed, attacking DirecTV and threatening to sic the government on the company over a business decision.
Newsmax columnists have opined as well. Tom Borelli parroted the pro-Newsmax line in a Feb. 3 column:
To the uninformed, DirecTV’s claim it got rid of Newsmax based on a business decision seems reasonable on the surface; looking deeper, it’s clear an intimidation campaign by U.S. House Democrats was a driving force behind its move to get rid of Newsmax.
In a February 2021 letter from Reps. Anna G. Eshoo, D-Calif., and Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., to companies that distribute TV news programs through streaming, satellite or cable, pressed those companies on their justification for providing Fox News, Newsmax and OANN to their customers.
Reps. Eshoo’s and McNerney’s opening paragraph didn’t pull any punches; it accused AT&T and DIRECTV of being responsible for "disseminating misinformation to millions."
The congresspersons followed up by asking the companies a number of questions including how "moral and ethical principles" play into deciding which channels to distribute and do they require "content guidelines."
They also asked if actions were taken against the TV channels regarding "the November 3, 2020 elections, the January 6, 2021 Capital insurrection or COVID-19 misinformation."
The last question served as a direct assault on the companies business decision demanding to know if they planned to continue to carry Fox News, Newsmax and OANN and "If so, why?"
Translation?
We want you to cancel Newsmax and other conservative outlets because we don’t agree with their content because it makes Democrats look bad in the eyes of the public.
Borelli censored the fact that bot Newsmax and OAN did, in fact, broadcast falsehoods and misinformation regarding the 2020 election, particularly about election tech firm Dominion, who is suing both of them. Borelli also wrote:
It may well be argued that AT&T and DirecTVare feeling the sting of GOP wrath because they just added a new conservative outlet, The First, to its offerings.
Perhaps that reflects an obvious clean up aisle five move in an effort to placate the political outrage it created.
The best solution for all is for AT&T and DirecTV to bring back Newsmax.
That, as far as we can tell, is only the second reference at Newsmax to the fact that DirecTV did, in fact, replace it with another right-wing channel -- which, again, obliterates the argument that what DirecTV did is viewpoint censorship. The first apparent reference was in a Jan. 27 article.
James Hirsen devoted his Feb. 6 column to blaming Newsmax's deplatforming on DirecTV's parent, AT&T, somehow being "woke" (translation: not filled with right-wingers):
In a nutshell, the world's largest telecommunications company (and third largest provider of cellphones) has insidiously morphed into a far-left organization that poses as a service company.
According to OpenSecrets, during the time period between 1989 and 2019, AT&T was the 14th-largest donor to United States federal political campaigns and committees, contributing tens of millions of dollars, a majority of which went straight into Democrat hands.
As Newsmax contributor Jeffrey Lord reported in the American Spectator, the company's leaders have backgrounds that link them with politicians of the liberal Democrat kind.
AT&T’s board of directors includes a chairman of the board that previously served as FCC chair, and was appointed by former President Bill Clinton. This same chairman of the board was an ambassador that was appointed to the position by former President Barack Obama.
Two board members are reliable contributors to prominent Democratic candidates, including one individual who was an adviser and supporter of former President Bill Clinton, as well as being the co-chair of the left-leaning Brookings Institution.
[...]
Did corporate heads at AT&T via its DirecTV subsidiary set out to suppress the speech of Newsmax? And was the company following the dictates of its fellow left-leaning politicians, media apparatchiks and radical activist groups?
The pieces of the puzzle seem to be falling into place.
Hirsen didn't explain how not being filled with right-wingers makes as company "woke." Nor did he disclose that DirecTV replace Newsmax with another right-wing channel, which undermines his conspikracy theory that the company was "following the dictates of its fellow left-leaning politicians, media apparatchiks and radical activist groups."
(Updated to note a previous reference to The First.)
NEW ARTICLE -- Anti-Semitism And The MRC: The Virus Spreads Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center was as squishy on the anti-Semitism of Kyrie Irving and on Donald Trump's dining with anti-Semites Kanye West and Nick Fuentes as it was on Ye's anti-Semitism. Read more >>
CNS Can't Stop Making Petty Attacks On Nancy Pelosi Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com may have shifted to petty attacks on the House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, but that doesn't mean it's done with petty attacks on the previous leader, Nancy Pelosi. We've already noted how CNS briefly obsessed over a tiny provision in the omnibus budget bill naming a building after her and that she noted that money in the bill will help LGBTQ youth, but there's much more.
A Dec. 1 article by Craig Bannister complained that Pelosi marked World AIDS Day and reminded us (with boldface!) that most AIDS victims are icky gay people who presumably don't deserve health equity because they're icky gay people:
Democrats remain committed to creating “health equity” when it comes to AIDS, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday, in a statement commemorating this year’s World AIDS Day, December 1.
AIDS “disproportionately” infects LGBTQ communities, those of color and the poor, Pelosi says in a statement posted on the speaker’s website:
[...]
But, as HIV.gov emphasizes with bolded text, behavior, not health discrimination, appears to be at the root of the disproportionately high HIV rates among some subpopulations, as “ gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM) are by far the most affected group in the US”:
An anonymously written Dec. 23 article carried the headline "Nancy Pelosi: ‘As Speaker of the House, I Have Awesome Power’" -- as if to portray her as a power-mad megalomaniac (despite the fact that she was in the middle of voluntarily stepping down from House leadership). The anonymous writer did put her words in context in the article:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) reflected during her last speaker’s press conference on Thursday on how much power she has enjoyed in that position.
“As Speaker of the House, I have awesome power,” said Pelosi.
“Now transitioning to a different role, I expect to have strong influence, but not on my Members, just in terms of encouraging more women, for example, to run,” she said.
“But the Speaker of the House is a very big job, and just wrapping it up will take time, with the Library of Congress for the papers, with the Historian of the Capitol–of the Congress–in terms of interviews and the rest of that,” said Pelosi.
CNS continues to disapprovingly note (anonymously, of course) whenever Pelosi references her Catholic faith:
The latter article made a point of adding: "In May 2022, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco notified Pelosi that because she persisted in advocating legalized abortion she could no longer receive Holy Communion in the Catholic Church. In doing so, Cordileone cited an instruction that then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had sent to the Catholic bishops of the United States in 2004." The anonymous writer failed to note that Pope Francis generally disapproves of denying Communion to Catholic politicians.
Another anonymously wreitten article, on Jan. 6, impllicitly took Pelosi to task for invoking the Catholic holy day of Epiphany to criticize the Capitol riot:
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.), the former speaker of the House, put out a statement on Jan. 6—which is the Catholic Feast of the Epiphany--calling on people to pray to ensure that this day remains an “epiphany” for America based on what happened on Jan. 6, 2021.
The statement was headlined: “Pelosi Statement on Two Years Since January 6th Insurrection.”
“Two years ago today, our nation watched in horror as a terrorist mob stormed the Capitol grounds in a violent attempt to subvert the peaceful transfer of power,” said Pelosi in her statement.
“January 6th marks the Feast of the Epiphany in the Catholic tradition,” Pelosi said. “As we commemorate two years since the insurrection, let us pray that this day continues to serve as an epiphany for our nation: to heal the wounds that remain and to preserve American Democracy, what Lincoln called ‘the last best hope of earth.’”
Three days later, CNS managing editor Michael W. Chapman wrote an article trying to whitewash the effects of the riot.
A Jan. 9 article -- anonymously written, of course -- complained that Jeffries said nice things about Pelosi:
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D.-N.Y.) said in a speech from the podium at the front of the House chamber on Saturday that Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) was the “greatest speaker of all time.”
“Before I proceed any further, let me begin by acknowledging the distinguished Gentlelady from the great state of California, the iconic, the heroic, the legendary Speaker Emerita, Nancy D'Alesandro Pelosi,” said Jeffries.
“And without question in my mind, Speaker Emerita Pelosi will go down in history as the greatest Speaker of all time,” he said.
Pelosi, who was in the chamber, acknowledged the praise of her successor with a broad smile.
CNS apparently thinks this is a bad thing.
On Jan. 20, yet another anonymously written article groused about Pelosi's selection of quotes from Martin Luther King:
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) sent out a pair of tweets on Martin Luther King Day in which she quoted King as saying that God did not intend for a one class “of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth.”
[...]
Earlier that day, Pelosi had sent out a tweet that said: “Dr. King wrote: ‘God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others live in abject deadening poverty.’
“Let us draw strength from these words,” Pelosi said, “as we strive to realize Dr. King & Coretta’s glorious vision of justice, equality & peace.”
Kaepernick Derangement Syndrome Lingers At The MRC Topic: Media Research Center
Despite the fact that he hasn't played in the NFL since the2016 season, Colin Kaepernick continues to liverent-free in the collective heads of the Media Research Center. It's not that the MRC doesn't know that fact. In a September 2020 post, Jay Maxson pointed it out in ranting that Kaepernick (whom Maxson called a "vastly overrated SJW" in the headline) was being added to that year's edition of the Madden NFL video game:
Aiming to cash in on social justice warrior dollars, EA Sports is bringing Colin Kaepernick back to Madden video football as a featured quarterback in the Madden NFL 21 edition of the game. He hasn't played in the National Football League since 2016 and is the only long-time inactive quarterback included in the video game.
Not only is Kaepernick's name on the Madden 21 player roster, but his player rating parallels that of past Super Bowl champion Ben Roethlisberger. It's also surprisingly better than that of Cam Newton and Jared Goff.
Why aren't Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck and Tony Romo and other recently retired former quarterbacks included in Madden 21? There's no SJW dollar to be made off those good citizens who never shamed their country when they played.
[...]
To the radical Left, Kaepernick is the second coming of Muhammad Ali and a useful idiot for Black Lives Matter. His sycophants just can't stop talking about him, and the media won't stop pressuring teams to sign him. Any mention of Kaepernick's name or forum to make him visible has been regarded as vindication for his disgusting behavior.
You'd think that Maxson and Co. would want to studiously ignore Kaepernick. Instead, they have continued to lash out at any mention of him , or at anyone who dares to say anything nice about him, in the (non-right-wing) media. Here are the posts the MRC devoted to attacking Kaepernick just in in 2021:
That's a total of 30 articles in two years -- a half-decade after Kaepernick last played in the NFL -- talk about Kaepernick Derangement Syndrome. And these are just the ones that reference Kaepernick in the headline; there are numerous others that reference him in the post itself that aren't counted here.
Kapeernick Derangement is already off and running at the MRC for this year. A Jan. 27 post by Maxson whined:
Football pariah Colin Kaepernick seems to have given up on tweeting endless workout videos in favor of his true calling: smearing America and law-enforcement. After bombing in a tryout with the Las Vegas Raiders last year, Kaepernick appears to be less interested in returning to the NFL, more focused on producing woke television documentaries and taking potshots at cops.
Kaepernick’s next documentary is a three-part series, “Killing County,” targeting the Bakersfield, Calif., police department. People Magazine reports the series debuts Feb. 3. Kaepernick and ABC News Studious teamed up on the series featuring the story of Jorge Ramirez Jr., who was killed by police.
Peoplesaid the documentary covers the story of the Ramirez shooting at a hotel and how it catapulted his family toward “a struggle for justice and answers in their loved one's death.”
The People story by Tristan Balagtas describes the documentary as an exploration of distrust by the Ramirezes and other families toward police officers. Kaepernick is all about distrust of cops.
Maxson didn't demand that the police stop doing things that engender distrust; instead, he (or she) complained that Kaepernic "has compared them to slave patrolmen" -- a not-inaccurate claim.
WND's Orient Tries To Exploit NFL Player's Collapse To Fearmonger About Vaccines Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've shown how WorldNetDaily columnist Jane Orient of the fringe-right Association of American Physicians and Surgeons has bought into the conspiracy theory that people -- particularly athletes -- are dropping dead because of the COVID vaccines, despite a complete lack of credible evidence to back it up. When NFL player Damar Hamlin collapsed during a game. Orient made sure to shoehorn that into her conspiracy, writing in her Jan. 5 column:
Millions of people saw Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin collapse on the football field on Jan. 2. He was tackled, fell down and at first stood up. Even to aficionados of the sport, this looked no different from what usually happens throughout the game. But then his heart stopped, and he collapsed. At this moment, Hamlin is reportedly in critical condition despite vigorous CPR on the field. In all likelihood, his promising career is over.
There is an outpouring of sympathy for this young man and his family, suddenly struck by a terrible tragedy. And also a flood of social media posts from both sides of the political narrative: It must have been the COVID shot, or the "safe and effective" COVID shot had nothing to do with it.
People are learning from well-polished presentations about commotio cordis, an extremely rare event. A sudden impact to the chest throws the heart into a fatal rhythm disturbance. Classically, it occurs in young boys not wearing protective gear who get hit in the chest with a baseball or similar projectile traveling around 40 mph – not an older, well-protected football players. Still, Hamlin did get hit in the chest.
By now, people have noticed that a lot of athletes have been collapsing on the field, and a high percentage of them die. Many are not even engaged in contact sports. Sudden death when engaged in strenuous activity that triggers a surge of adrenalin is not new. Certain congenital heart conditions, such as hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy, predispose to it, and aspiring athletes should be carefully screened for this. There are also several possibilities for which screening is not ordinarily done.
Is sudden death occurring more commonly, or is it just getting more attention?
Of course, Orient offered no proof that the former is happeningh; the real situiation is the latter, fed by anti-vaxx conspiracy theorists like her.
Even though Orient offered no proof whatsoever that what happened to Hamlin had anthing to do with a vaccine, she demanded that we get "serious about avoiding future tragedies in case the COVID shots just might play a role" through things like "Suspend[ing] further injections until damage from the shots can be ruled out" and doing "a study that screens a large population of vaccine recipients with cardiac enzymes (troponins), ultrasound, and MRI to check for inflammation." She concluded by invoking another conspiracy: "Which, after all, is more important: the hearts of our people, or the profits of the vaccine purveyors?"
Orient tried to exploit Hamlin's condition for her conspiratorial cause again in her Jan. 24 column:
Cases like Hamlin's, however, may be the stimulus for very important research. It is not only that the spectacular collapse of an NFL star or other celebrity attracts a lot of sensational media coverage. It's not just the individual tragedies. The actual number of cases is increasing at such a disturbing rate that the public is finally noticing it.
A surge of adrenalin with extraordinary exertion may trigger the fatal rhythm disorder. A surge of hormones just before awakening might explain how young people die in their beds. But what makes the heart's electrical system more irritable?
The current spike in reports of SCD just happens to coincide with push to get everybody injected with COVID-19 vaccines. Although your vaccination status must be made known to ticket takers at a concert, it seems to be too sensitive to include in news reports on sudden cardiac death.
What can impair your heart's electrical system? The differential diagnosis includes trauma, a congenital (birth) defect, infection, inflammation, autoimmune damage, toxic effect and drug effect. Damage from the spike protein that COVID injections cause your body to make, and/or the immune response to it, is a plausible mechanism. How to demonstrate it? Patients who die should have an autopsy, with tissue preserved for tests, such as histopathological staining or chemical analysis for toxins, that may become available later. An autopsy should be standard in all unexpected deaths, but is rarely done, for financial reasons. This should be a priority for SCD research funding.
[...]
The COVID products are so different that some say they should not be called vaccines. However, all vaccines affect the immune system, by design. Immunology is extremely complex, varies greatly in individuals and is not well understood.
Instead of speculating about climate change, gas stoves, minuscule increases in dust particles in the air, 5G, plastic bottles, etc., let's try to find an answer to an age-old but dramatically increasing problem.
Again, Orient couldn't be bothered to offer any actual evidence there's any link between vaccines and Hamlin's collapse. But then, fearmongering about vaccines is the point, and actual evidence would complilcate her agenda.
How Has The MRC Been Fluffing Trump Lately? Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has remained fairly loyal to Donald Trump, even after the Capitol riot -- and it's still doing the occasional puff piece for him to help distract from other things.
In mid-December, the big news in Trump World was a "MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT" he saidhe would make... which turned out to be NFT trading cards (issued as the NFT market was crashing) that even his allies criticized as unusually money-grubbing even for him. But you read nothing about that at the MRC's NewsBusters; instead, Gabriela Pariseau served as a servile Trump stenographer for something he released the same day in a Dec. 15 post:
“The censorship cartel must be dismantled and destroyed and it must happen immediately,” former President Donald Trump said in a recent video announcing his policy stance on Big Tech’s approach to free speech.
“Today, I’m announcing my plan to shatter the left-wing censorship regime and to reclaim the right to free speech for all Americans,” he said. Trump added that he would ban Big Tech-government collusion to censor Americans, as well as fire and investigate government officials who previously colluded, break up Big Tech and revise Section 230.
Trump committed to take immediate action to protect free speech if Americans elect him as president in 2024.
“Within hours of my inauguration, I will sign an executive order banning any federal department or agency from colluding with any organization, business, or person, to censor, limit, categorize, or impede the lawful speech of American citizens,” Trump said.
[...]
Trump made these statements in the wake of Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s release of the Twitter Files, which among other things revealed Twitter’s internal and political collusion to censor the New York Post’s Hunter Biden bombshell and to ban then-President Trump.
Speaking of censoring, Pariseau censored any mention of the NFT debacle.
(Newsmax similarly promoted this policy sdtatement, though it did also promote the NFTs while censoring criticism.)
Meanwhile, Jay Maxson served up his (or her) own Trump sycophancy in a Jan. 23 post:
Former President Donald Trump won a senior golf tournament over the weekend and used the occasion to take a driver to President Joe Biden’s physical ability to lead the nation.
Following his victory Sunday in the Senior Club Championship at his own Trump International Golf Club, the ex-prez boasted on Truth Social media:
“A great honor to have won the Senior Club Championship at Trump International Golf Club, one of the best courses in the Country, in Palm Beach County, Florida.”
The 76-year-old former commander in chief then chipped away at his rival President Biden’s physical and mental fitness.
“Competed against many fine golfers, and was hitting the ball long and straight,” Trump said. “The reason that I announce this on fabulous TRUTH is that, in a very real way, it serves as a physical exam, only MUCH tougher. You need strength and stamina to WIN, & I have strength & stamina – most others don’t. You also need strength & stamina to GOVERN!”
These remarks are obviously aimed at Biden, says Outkick blogger Mark Harris. President Biden did not keep his promise to release the results of his 2022 physical examination.
Biden has been too confused in some of his public appearances to remember promises made or where he’s supposed to go and what he’s supposed to do when the cameras are rolling. This has been evident during sports-related events at the White House, too.
It’s also evident that the president’s handlers often have to provide instructions for him in his ability to function.
Maxson didn't mention, however, that Trump played only half of the tournamemt he claims to have "won"; he spent one day of the two-day tourney attending the funeral of Diamond of Trump-fluffing Diamond and Silk notoriety (where he gave a bizarre eulogy in which he admitted he hardly knew her). It was so egregous that even the right-wing Daily Mail pointed it out. Trump apparently substituted that day's play with a round he played a few days earlier, which might be acceptable but for the fact that Trump is a notorioius golf cheat.
But then, that would have negated the purpose of Maxson's Trump-fluffing.
CNS Managing Editor Tries To Spin Capitol Riot Topic: CNSNews.com
We've documented how CNSNews.com uncritically repeated unproven conspiracy theories from Donald Trump and his supporters that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, then was briefly shocked into being a fair and balanced news organization after the Capitol riot, though it eventually descended into whataboutism over protests against police brutality. For the second anniversary of the riot, CNS managing editor Michael W. Chapman worked to spin the events of the riot in a Jan. 9 article:
Contrary to the claims and inferences by Democrat [sic] Party leaders and many people in the left-wing media, not one Capitol Police officer was killed during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
However, three Trump supporters at the event died, two by natural causes and one by accident. Also, a fourth Trump supporter, Air Force veteran Ashlii Babbitt, was shot and killed by Police Officer Lt. Michael Byrd.
In a Jan. 6, 2023 tweet, House Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, commented, "Thinking of the families of law enforcement officers we lost that dark day."
On Jan. 5, 2023, President Joe Biden at a public event said, "Jill and I have mourned police officers in this Capitol rotunda not once but twice in the wake of January 6. Once to honor Officer Brian Sicknick, who lost his life the day after the attack. The second time to honor Officer Billy Evans, who lost his life defending the Capitol as well.”
As the autopsy report by the D.C. Chief Medical Examiner documents, Officer Brian Sicknick died of "natural" causes on Jan. 7. He died from "acute brainstem and cerebellar infarcts due to acute basilar artery thrombosis," states the report. In layman's terms, Officer Sicknick died from strokes. The "manner of death" was officially declared "natural."
Police Officer Billy Evans did not die "defending the Capitol" on Jan. 6, 2021. He was deliberately hit by a car at the Capitol on April 2, 2021; the driver of the vehicle was Noah Green, a "vocal defender of the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan."
We've noted how CNS largely ignored Sicknick's death until after that medical examiner's report came out blaming his death on "natural causes."Then as now, CNS censored the fact that the medical examiner also said that "all that transpired" at the Capitol riot "played a role in his condition."
Chapman further complained:
Speaking on the House floor on Jan. 2, 2023, newly elected Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) stated, "We are gathered here to honor their memory and acknowledge with deep gratitude the tremendous bravery of the hundreds of officers who defended us at this citadel of democracy that fateful day."
"As a result of the events on January 6, the lives of five heroic officers were lost," he added.
Yet not one police officer was killed (or died) on Jan. 6, 2021.
Chapman went on to list thet names of those officers who committed to make the point that they did not die the day of the riot. But again, he censored the fact that the suicide of at least one officer has been ruled a death in the line of duty.
Chapman then invoked ranty Fox News host Tucker Carlson to defend Babbitt and attack Byrd:
Commenting on Babbitt's death, Carlson said on Jan. 6, 2023, "Two years ago today, a Capitol Hill police officer called Michael Byrd shot an unarmed woman in the neck. At the time of that killing, Byrd had a documented history of gross negligence with a firearm. He left a loaded Glock pistol in a public men's room at the Capitol, which for a law enforcement official is a firing offense.
"But for some reason, Michael Byrd was still on the force that day. The woman he killed was called Ashli Babbitt. Babbitt was a married 14-year veteran of the US military. She ran a pool cleaning company with her husband in San Diego. Physically, she was tiny. She was also unarmed.
"Michael Byrd later admitted he had no indication at all that Babbitt was carrying a weapon. She posed no visible threat. He killed her anyway.
"Under normal circumstances, Byrd would have been fired immediately and charged with murder, which he clearly committed, but that's not what happened.
"After doing essentially no investigation into the shooting, Nancy Pelosi's congressional police force declared Byrd a national hero and the media strongly agreed."
In February 2019, Officer Byrd left his gun, a Glock 22, in a bathroom in the U.S. Capitol. It was found later that day in a routine security sweep. Byrd said the incident was a "terrible mistake" and he "was penalized for it."
Byrd's shooting of Babbitt was the first time he had discharged his weapon in 28 years as a policeman.
Neither Carlson nor Chapman explained why Babbitt was climbing through a broken window, nor did they mention any of the other acts ofviolence that day that made law enforcement less inclined to give domestic terrorists the benefit of the doubt. Neither was it explained why they are being so harsh on Byrd when these law-and-order conservatives normally stick up for law enforcement no questions asked.
MRC Continued Hypocritically Hammering On Biden Classified Documents Story Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's gloating over President Biden's classified document kerfuffle -- and complaining about people continually pointing out that it's nothing like Donald Trump's document hordading -- continued from where we left off, even though it laboredmightily to work the deflect-and-defend angle when the FBI raided Donald Trump's estate last year to retrieve classified documents he refused to return.
Jeffrey Lord gleefully declared that it was a "media misfire" that Biden got a special counsel to look into his document situation the way Trump got one for his in his Jan. 14 column:
Joe Biden’s Trump-hating liberal media allies can take a bow. By their insistence that a Special Counsel be appointed to investigate Trump because he had classified documents at Mar a Lago, the revelations that Biden did exactly the same thing - three times over! - has now won their hero a Special Counsel of his own, plus a congressional investigation. All this along with the revelation that his Penn Biden Center has been financed by millions in Chinese dark money. And also raising the question, of course, of how much of that Chinese money was laundered through the Biden Center before going in the Big Guy’s pocket.
The MRC played up a couple more instances of non-right-wing media criticizing Biden over this (oblivious to the fact that it discredits its narrative that these outlets are hopelessly biased):
Then it was back to whining that people keep pointing out the difference between the Biden and Trump situations. Bill D'Agostino huffed in a Jan. 16 post:
The rapidly unfolding nightmare of President Biden’s document scandal prompted desperate talking points from Democrat-friendly cable networks last week, the most prominent of which was the claim that Biden’s classified document issues bore “night and day” differences to those of former President Trump.
Pundits were clearly rankled that Republicans were drawing comparisons between Biden and Trump, and they endeavored at every turn to point out the differences between the two cases.
D'Agostino didn't dispute that there is a difference; instead he parroted Lord by noting that "despite the corporate media’s protests, a Special Counsel has been appointed. One suspects he will not receive the same high praise with which the media routinely showered Robert Mueller."
Public television’s idea of a balanced political debate: Friday's PBS NewsHour punditry found little daylight between “conservative” New York Times columnist David Brooks and liberal Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart, nodding in agreement that the new Biden classified document controversy had no comparison to Trump’s.
[...]
The Post’s Jonathan Capehart pretended the relative raw number of top secret documents found in the possession of Biden as compared with Trump was a significant comparison, though we don’t yet know what was in the Biden documents, calling the comparison "apples and basketballs."
[...]
Capehart tried to compare Biden’s woes favorably to Trump, saying the Biden team “have been cooperating. They have been transparent….The former president [Trump] stands accused basically of obstruction of justice. That is not what is happening with President Biden.”
Despite complaining that it was said, Waters also didn't dispute the accuracy of the assessment.
Curtis Houck repeated the MRC's sub-complaint, that it's being pointed out how Republicans are hypocritically using the discovery to attack Biden:
The Biden documents scandal entered its second week Monday and, on the flagship broadcast network morning news shows, ABC’s Good Morning America remained in a defensive mode for Team Biden by repeatedly insisting the White House will be cooperative and transparent with the special counsel, fretting “Republicans...are now pouncing,” and boasting Republicans will never be able to find out who’s been visiting Biden at his Wilmington, Delaware home.
Senior White House correspondent Mary Bruce may have tried to seem tough, but she was her usual self in falling on the grenades. She noted that “the White House is hardly being forthcoming,” but then said in the next sentence that “[t]hey are being extremely cautious” and fretting a “sense of drip, drip, drip” has set in.
After passing along the weekend’s developments with more documents found last week at Biden’s personal residence having triggered “more questions,” Bruce went into attack mode: “Republicans, who have shown little interest in investigating Donald Trump's handling of classified documents, are now pouncing on the President.”
It's "attack mode" to point out Republican hypocrisy?
Alex Christy sounded like a PR flack for a Republican congressman in a Jan. 17 post: "It is still unknown what exactly was in the documents, how they ended up at the Penn Biden Center and his Delaware home, and why it took months for the public to be made aware of the documents’ discovery. Those are real questions that have nothing to do with the Trump case that deserve answers." Yet we do't recall Christy demanding similar answers from Trump.
Houck returned to repeat his narrative: "ABC’s Good Morning America fought a surprisingly lonely battle Tuesday in carrying water for President Biden and the White House amid their classified documents scandal, repeatedly touting the administration as 'firing back' at Republicans wanting to learn more and making requests of the regime because...Donald Trump." Again, despite the complaints, Houck made no attempt to argue that there wasn't hypocrisy. More complaints followed:
While most normal people had moved on by this point, the MRC wasn't going to yet, as evidence by Brent Bozell rushing to Fox Business for a softball interview to desperately keep the story alive:
Media Research Center Founder and President Brent Bozell joined the Wednesday edition of the Fox Business Network’s Varney & Co. to sound off on the liberal media’s coverage of President Biden’s classified documents scandal and, for Bozell, it boiled down to six stages of behavior.
Host Stuart Varney began with highlights from Tuesday’s firecracker of a White House press briefing before asking Bozell: “[H]as the media finally turned against the White House, in your judgment?”
[...]
The scandal only grew, meaning a stage three with the press “turning reluctantly against Biden after the first — after the second group of — of — of boxes were found.”
Bozell added stage four had the liberal media becoming “even more skeptical of Biden” last Thursday when Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel ahead of five and six: “Stage five is the interesting — this is where there are right now. They've grown frustrated with the White House. They know the White House is stonewalling. They know the White House is not forthcoming. Stage six is what's going to happen next.”
If there was any mention of Trump's document scandal, it was not deemed important enough to be referenced in the item.
But even that last-ditch effort didn't help, and the MRC got bored with it too, as the posts on it slowed to a trickle over the next few days:
Morris, Newsmax Made Sure Trump Got Credit For McCarthy's Speakership Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax's coverage of the House leadership battle didn't start out on a promising note: A Jan. 3 article by John Gizzi started by delaring that "Despite facing at least a solid 10 "no" votes, Kevin McCarthy will prevail Tuesday and become House Speaker. But his close supporters in the House told Newsmax it will likely come on the second ballot."
That didn't age well at all. Thatr forced Gizzi to take a more pessimistic tone for a Jan. 5 article:
After six ballots and still not being any closer to the speakership than when the votes began on the House floor, Kevin McCarthy may be poised to finally break the impasse that has kept him from his longtime dream of wielding the speaker's gavel.
Sources close to the embattled House Republican leader said his campaign team agreed Wednesday night to a proposal floated by the conservative Club for Growth to win over enough of the 20 House Republicans who have continuously voted for candidates other than McCarthy for speaker — and thus denied the Californian the 217 necessary to win.
It has been suggested that the Club for Growth deal could move about 10 votes to McCarthy. While not enough to make McCarthy speaker, it would give him tremendous momentum.
Later in the piece, Gizzi quoted a Republican congressman vaguely referencing an earlier incident:
Speaking to Newsmax on Wednesday afternoon, Michigan Rep. John Moolenaar underscored why McCarthy will remain in the race until he wins.
"In 2015, after he said some unfortunate things on TV about how the hearings on the massacre at Benghazi [when the U.S. ambassador was killed in Libya] and was widely attacked by Democrats, Kevin suddenly withdrew from the race for speaker because he felt it was the right thing to do for our country," recalled Moolenaar.
"Now he will stay in the race — and continue to have the unwavering support of 202 of us — because he feels it is the right thing to do for the country," he continued.
What the "unfortunate" thing McCarthy said? Gizzi won't tell us. In fact, he told the truth (known in DC parlance as a Kinsley gaffe) that the purpose of the GOP-led Benghazi hearings were to drive down Hillary Clinton's poll numbers.
As the speaker battle dragged on, it became time to put a pro-Trump spin on things. Dick Morris obliged in another Jan. 5 article:
"I've been talking to Trump, and he's getting really mad about this. He's annoyed," Morris told Newsmax on Thursday afternoon, while appearing on "American Agenda" with another segment guest, former Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, a Republican.
"[Trump's] mad [the 20 GOP holdouts who refuse to vote for Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.] are holding out, embarrassing the party, standing for absolutely nothing," Morris continued. "There's no substantive demand that hasn't been met. And [Trump] thinks they're absolutely fouling up the process."
From Morris' own perspective, the GOP holdouts — a group headlined by Reps. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., Dan Bishop, R-N.C., and Mary Miller, R-Ill. — are "killing" their political careers by continually fighting McCarthy's speakership bid.
"They probably couldn't get elected as dog catcher in their district. For the party, as a whole, 'chaos' was always a Democrat thing. The Republicans were typically the grown-ups in the room, there to restore order; and now, it's completely flipping," reasoned Morris, author of "The Return: Trump's Big 2024 Comeback."
Morris followed up the next day with some (presumably Trump-approved) sucking up to McCarthy:
Political analyst Dick Morris told Newsmax on Friday the skills Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., used to get fierce opponents of him as speaker back on his side shows promise for when he finally assumes the role.
A new agreement among House Republicans earlier Friday broke a logjam in the fight for the speakership, as 15 of the 20 holdouts flipped to McCarthy's side. But after the 13th round of balloting, the California Republican still fell short of the 218 votes needed to become speaker. (Newsmax reported Republicans believe they have the votes for McCarthy in the 14th round, which was set to take place at 10 p.m. EST Friday.)
"I think that this demonstrates that McCarthy will be a very good speaker," Morris said on "Rob Schmitt Tonight.""To navigate everything he's navigated and to succeed at it and go through it and get those votes one at a time, I think it was an act of juggling that would have made Sam Rayburn, the historic speaker of the House, proud."
Well, the 14th vote failed too. But McCarthy ultimately won on the 15th ballot, and Newsmax's Eric Mack knew who to credit in a Jan. 7 article:
Former President Donald Trump was derided for having some of his staunch supporters holding out against House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., but Trump's dramatic call to House chamber to Reps. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., is credited for closing the deal.
"Thank you Kevin," Trump posted Saturday morning to Truth Social, along with video of the newly tapped speaker hailing Trump's late-night call. "It was my great honor!"
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., an advocate for the rights of the imprisoned Jan. 6 defendants, tweeted photos of the callsfrom Trump to the six holdouts standing firm against McCarthy through the 14th failed vote.
"I do want to especially thank President Trump," McCarthy, once a critic of Trump from Jan. 6, 2021, told reporters after his speaker acceptance speech and the swearing-in of members. "I don't think anybody should doubt his influence. He was with me from the beginning. Somebody wrote the doubt of whether he was there. And he was all in. He would call me and he would call others.
"He really was — and I was just talking to him tonight — helping get those final votes."
Morris returned for a victory lap later that day to make sure Ron DeSantis got no credit whatsoever:
The high drama early Saturday morning in the House concluded after former President Donald Trump closed the deal with a phone call, not Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, presidential adviser Dick Morris told Newsmax.
"I think it was enormous," Morris told "Saturday Report" about Trump's last-second call to avert an adjournment to Monday and bringing a 15th vote that would elect Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as House speaker. "I think what we really just witnessed was the new Republican leadership team: McCarthy and Trump, Trump and McCarthy."
[...]
DeSantis, who once served in the House with many of those GOP members, would not have had the political cachet to pull off what Trump did at the stroke of midnight, according to Morris.
"And for those who like Ron DeSantis, he couldn't have done this," Morris said.
It is McCarthy's House and still Trump's Republican Party, according to Morris.
"They work beautifully together, despite centrifugal forces," Morris admitted, saying even some staunch Trump supporters were never McCarthy, but ultimately stepped aside to allow the centrist to become speaker of 118th Congress.
Wayne Allyn Root Trump Sycophancy Watch Topic: WorldNetDaily
When last we checked in on Wayne Allyn Root's Trump sycophancy, he was trying to deflect from donald Trump dining with anti-Semite Kanye West and anti-Semite and white supremacist Nick Fuentes by insisting that he merely hung out with a "celebrity acquaintance" and a "stranger." For his Dec. 23 WorldNetDaily column, Root re-watched "Braveheart" and decided that it is somehow "the story of America today – with the middle class fighting for its very survival ... and one man standing in the way: Donald J. Trump":
Trump is today's embodiment of Sir William Wallace.
Trump believes in cutting back the power of the corrupt D.C. swamp and deep state. He wants to give more power, freedom and opportunity to the people – and that scares the swamp and deep state to death.
The evil villain of "Braveheart" is the king of England: Edward Longshanks. Today the embodiment of King Edward is this Biden administration – which is clearly run by Obama, back for his third term.
I call this two-headed monster "O'Biden."
Just like King Edward, O'Biden believes the citizens' money belongs to government. Just like King Edward, O'Biden believes every decision should be made by government, every conversation should be listened to, and the people's rights and weapons must be confiscated as a threat to government's rule.
I believe that, just like a tyrant, this O'Biden administration uses the FBI to rig and steal elections. Just like a tyrant, this O'Biden administration uses the FBI to frame and raid political opponents – even the former president of the United States.
Just like a tyrant, this O'Biden administration orders social media companies like Twitter and Facebook to censor, suspend and ban anyone who disagrees with their agenda. They even order the media to change the news feed to suppress any negative stories about O'Biden's corruption.
Always remember this administration wanted the FBI to arrest PTA parents. Now they've added 87,000 new IRS agents to act as enforcers and intimidate the people.
We give away $100 billion to Ukraine (the most corrupt country in the world) to protect their border from an invasion, while they leave our border open to an invasion of millions.
[...]
History repeats. It's all happening today ... in America. Trump is the only thing standing between us and them. Between freedom and serfdom.
They only attack Trump. Not DeSantis. Not any other Republican. Just Trump. What does that tell you?
Trump is taking our slings and arrows. He is being attacked from a thousand directions. He is being framed, demonized, slandered and destroyed. They want him in prison. The entire deep state is assembled against him. Think what he faces every day. Think what he has given up. For us.
This is a war to save the heart and soul of America: the great American middle class. Trump is our war general. Don't let the con men of the D.C. swamp and deep state turn you against Trump. Ever. He's all we've got.
This Christmas, please understand and appreciate that Trump is our Braveheart.
But Root shockingly disagreed with Trump for his Jan. 6 column:
McCarthy is a prime example of a UniParty fraud: He is a D.C. swamp, deep-state RINO fake who backstabbed former President Donald Trump and then raised money to attack and defeat Trump-backed, America First, MAGA candidates in the 2022 election. He is the worst kind of fraud, coward and pansy.
Trump argued with me on my Real America's Voice TV show "America's Top Ten Countdown" last week that Sen. Mitch McConnell is even worse and that McCarthy would be better than a lot of other horrible choices for House speaker. Basically, Trump was arguing "everyone in the D.C. swamp sucks, so let's settle for the best of the worst."
I disagree 110%.
I want to remind Trump of how he became one of the wealthiest and most famous human beings in world history. By never settling. By aiming for the stars. By never accepting less than No. 1. No one – including Trump – ever got famous by aiming for the lowest common denominator. You aim for the stars; you don't aim for the curb.
Kevin McCarthy is the curb.
Being "the best of the worst" is not something to vote for. I'm a Republican-conservative patriot. I want conservative, America First, MAGA patriots to lead my party. I want a general to lead us into battle. Not a wishy-washy, middle-of-the-road, RINO fraud who never fails to disappoint conservatives, but always caves to Democrats. That's McCarthy.
[...]
The entire U.S. media is gaslighting you, trying to convince you that McCarthy must be the House speaker ... his election must be rammed through ... the entire saga is a "humiliation" to the GOP ... and those 20 holdouts are "insurrectionists."
Nope. They're heroes of American patriotism, American exceptionalism, capitalism and conservative values.
Why is it acceptable to be a "Never Trumper," but not a "Never Kevin"? Since when does voting against someone who gets an "F" rating when fighting for your own top priorities make you an "insurrectionist"?
Root then rehashed one of his earlier sycophantic ideas:
I hate to say, "I told you so," but ...
President Donald J. Trump should have been our House speaker.
I was the first to publicly propose that idea on Jan. 30, 2021. I was the first to ask Trump about it. And I was the first to urge Trump to go after the House speaker position in my one-on-one interviews. I was right.
That's the solution. That's how we break this logjam. We need Trump now more than ever. Trump is the man to lead the battle. We can't wait until 2024. This is how we get Trump today.
Step up, Mr. President.
Of course, Trump is too lazy to actually do something like that (not that Root will admit it, of course).So, in his Jan. 14 column, he reframed things to portray McCarthy's eventual election as speaker as a victory for Trump:
I told you so. My plan worked. It just worked in a way I never imagined.
Like Martin Luther King Jr., I had a dream. My dream was former President Donald Trump as House speaker. I was the first in America to propose the idea in a commentary on Jan. 30, 2021. Then I talked about it nonstop for months on my nationally syndicated radio show. I personally lobbied Trump in numerous appearances on my radio and TV shows.
But Trump made it clear he never really wanted it. Trump is always No. 1. The chairman of the board. The five-star general. He doesn't take orders from anyone. I think he always looked at Nancy Pelosi, Paul Ryan and John Boehner (the last three House speakers) as errand boys and girls. Order takers. So, Trump never wanted the job. Not enough star power for him.
And who can blame him? Look at Trump's life. Trump has had the greatest life on Earth. He became not only a billionaire, but the most famous billionaire on Earth. The celebrity of all celebrities. With the most famous celebrity estate: Mar-a-Lago. And the most famous reality TV show, "Celebrity Apprentice."
Who'd give that life up?
Trump did. To save America and the forgotten middle class. To fight the D.C. swamp and the deep state. To make America great again. He gave up his one-in-a-billion life for you and me!
Now he wants to be president again. Trump never saw House speaker as his calling. He was flattered by my idea, but he never wanted the job. House speaker takes up too much time. Trump needs to be free to run for president again.
Trump plays chess at a much higher level. My idea was a good one. Trump just made it happen in a different way. You see, Trump is the newly elected House speaker – just not in name. In name, the title goes to Rep. Kevin McCarthy.
But guess who got McCarthy elected? Trump. And guess who controls McCarthy's every move as House speaker? The MAGA, America First, loyal Trump members of the Freedom Caucus.
MAGA has McCarthy by the short hairs. McCarthy can't take a bathroom break without asking the Freedom Caucus for permission. So, guess who's actually running Congress? De-facto House Speaker Donald J. Trump.
This is "the House that Trump built."
Root concluded by praising Trump's laziness some more:
Yes, Trump took my idea and ran with it. Trump is now the de-facto House speaker … without any of the day-to-day work that would prevent him from running for president. Nothing in Congress will happen without Trump's approval. And Trump runs the whole show, direct from Mar-a-Lago.
The Media Research Center's electively released "Twitter files" to Elon Musk's hand-picked journalists continued with a Jan. 16 post by CatherineSalgado declaring that "The latest Twitter Files showed Big Pharma “directly” pressured Twitter to help censor users offering any alternative treatments to COVID-19 besides Big Pharma’s vaccines." Salgado didn't mention that "alternative treatments" like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin don't really work in treating COVID. 
When Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate was raided by the FBI in search of classified documents he refused to return, CNSNews.com's coverage was 
As part of the Media Research Center's 
We've documented
The Media Research Center 
Newsmax
CNSNews.com may have shifted to petty attacks on the House Democratic leader, 
Despite the fact that he hasn't played in the NFL since the2016 season, Colin Kaepernick 
We've shown
The Media Research Center has remained fairly loyal to Donald Trump, even after the Capitol riot -- and it's still doing the occasional puff piece for him to help distract from other things.
We've documented
The Media Research Center's gloating over President Biden's classified document kerfuffle -- and complaining about people continually pointing out that it's nothing like Donald Trump's document hordading -- continued from 
Newsmax's coverage of the House leadership battle didn't start out on a promising note: A Jan. 3 
When last we checked in on Wayne Allyn Root's 
