MRC Keeps On Musk-Fluffing As 'Twitter Files' Slow Topic: Media Research Center
The saga of Musk-fluffing at the Media Research Center continued with a Jan. 20 post by Paetin Iselin hyping how "JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon dealt leftists a dose of energy infrastructure reality" by noting that thte world's oil and gas usage will not stop immediately and that "Billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk joined the conversation in support of Dimon." Autumn Johnson used a Jan. 27 post to dutifully parrot a new selective release of "Twitter files" given to Musk's hand-picked journlaists:
New Twitter Files show the pre-Musk, pro-censorship Twitter regime lacked “the guts to out” a watchdog group with ties to government officials that falsely labeled American accounts “Russian bots.”
Journalist Matt Taibbi detailed the reportedly fraudulent work of the Hamilton 68 dashboard, a project of the “neoliberal think tank” Alliance for Securing Democracy in the latest round of Twitter Files released today. Taibbi previously reported that FBI counterintelligence official Clint Watts created Hamilton 68, which describes itself as a "Tool to Track Russian Disinformation on Twitter." Hamilton 68 claimed to have a list of “600 Twitter accounts to Russian influence activities online.” In reality, most of the “Russian” accounts turned out to be American, British and Canadian accounts. “It’s a scam,” Taibbi summarized.
Hamilton 68 was “used as a source to assert Russian influence in an astonishing array of news stories” and “as evidence of the spread of ‘fake news’ on sites like Twitter,” he continued. “It was a lie.”
But as right-leaning Sinclair Broadcasting noted but Johnson wouldn't, the Alliance for Securing Democracy responded to Taibbi's (and, thus, Musk's) attacks on Hamilton 68, pointing out that it worked with right-wing websites like the Daily Caller to provide context -- namely, that it wasn't exclusively tracking Russian bots:
The ASD claims “members of the media, pundits and even some lawmakers often failed to include the appropriate context when using the dashboard’s data, despite ASD experts’ extensive efforts to correct misconceptions at the time.”
Those efforts included ASD voluntarily working with right-wing media publications like The Daily Caller to push back against how many media organizations were using, or misusing, the data. In an article titled “‘We don’t track bots’: what the media’s Russian bot coverage is getting all wrong” from April 9, 2018, Bret Schafer, the ASD’s then-communications director, said that most of the reporting on the dashboard was “inherently inaccurate” and “Most notably, and this is the most common errors, we don’t track bots, or, more specifically, bots are only a small portion of the network that we monitor.”
[...]
It is this point of nuance that the ASD repeated Friday in its fact sheet pushing back against Taibbi’s allegation and emphasized in its self-published guide to the Hamilton methodology. In the section “Understanding the Content” in the methodology guide, author J.M. Berger, an expert on extremism, writes “While the users in the network generally serve to promote Russian influence themes, the content within the network is complex and should be understood in a nuanced way.”
After that, there was another fallow period without new "Twitter files" to promote, so the MRC was reduced to lashing out at anyone who dared criticize Musk. P.J. Gladnick groused in a Feb. 5 post that a Politico article on Europe unifying aginst Russia in which "revelations about Twitter are transformed into just another rant against Elon Musk's takeover"-- that is, it pointed out Musk's pro-Putin leanings and how Twitter service in Ukraine has degraded during the Russian invasion. Ultimately, of course, Gladnick is mad that Politico wouldn't parrot the right-wing pro-Musk narrative: "Sniff! Gone are the glorious days of the FBI censors behind the scenes at Twitter, tragically replaced by someone who promotes the free speech that seems to be so despised by Politico and its fellow liberals. Goodbye cruel world!"
A Feb. 7 post by Renata Kiss hyped podcaster Joe Rogan complaining tha the "Twitter files" haven't gotten traction outside the right-wing media bubble and insisted that the story "as big a scandal as Watergate," going on to note that "YouTube even censored Rogan’s interview with Dr. Peter McCullough, a consultant cardiologist, for his criticism of the COVID-19 vaccines." Actually, that interview was filled with COVID misinformation, but the MRC defendedhim anyway.
Another post that day from Paeten Iselin expressed horror that Twitter "censored" a photo of a Republican senator posing with a dead animal he apparently shot, but praised Musk for fixing the situation:
On Tuesday, Twitter restricted Senator Steve Daines’s (R-MT) account when he shared a photo of himself and his wife antelope hunting — something he called their “Montana way of life.”
Daines thanked Twitter owner Elon Musk for stepping in to resolve the issue. “I am grateful Elon Musk reached out to me to resolve this issue and am glad that he recognizes that free speech is a bedrock of our country, and acted quickly to reinstate my Twitter account after being made aware of its suspension,” he said.
[...]
Even Musk admitted the censorship was ludicrous.
“This is being fixed,” Musk tweeted. “Policy against showing blood in profile pic is being amended to ‘clearly showing blood without clicking on the profile pic’. The intent is to avoid people being forced to see gruesome profile pics.”
Musk later added, “Going forward, Twitter will be broadly accepting of different values, rather than trying to impose its own specific values on the world.”
Note that Iselin only euphemistically described the photo as on involving "hunting" and didn't describe what it actually depicted, which was Daines posing with a dead animal.
CNSNews.com went into its second week of covering the discovery of classified documents in locations used by Joe Biden inbetween his stints as vice president and president the way it covered the first week -- with lots of attacks on Biden:
There was also a Jan. 24 column by Daily Signal writer Fred Lucas -- a former CNS reporter -- complaining that the National Archives "declined to answer whether anyone told the agency not to notify the public or Congress about the classified documents that were found to have been stored at the Penn Biden Center before the 2022 midterm elections in November" though it "issued 10 separate statements from January to December regarding documents it has not received from former President Donald Trump.." He didn't mention that Biden has apparently been cooperative through the entire process while Trump has been antagonistic and deceitful.
But when classified documents were discovered at former Vice President Mike Pence's home in Indiana, CNS' tone changed drastically from how it treated Biden. Melanie Arter blandly wrote about it in a Jan. 24 article:
Former Vice President Mike Pence notified the National Archives last Wednesday that a small batch of classified documents were found last week at his residence in Indiana.
According to Pence’s lawyer, the documents were “inadvertently boxed and transported” to Pence’s home at the end of the Trump administration, and the former vice president was “unaware of the existence of sensitive or classified documents at his personal residence.”
You will not be surprised to learn that CNS did not publish article after article of Democrats criticizing Pence's recklessness in harboring classified documents or fret about the national security implications. Instead, a Jan. 25 article by Susan Jones complained that the Pence discovery got Biden off the hook and showed a "systemic" issue:
Revelations that another vice president -- Mike Pence -- had classified documents at his home in Indiana is taking some of the media heat off former Vice President and now President Joe Biden -- just as the discovery of classified documents in Biden's possession took some of heat off former President Donald Trump.
"So now this appears systemic," Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), now a former member of the House intelligence committee, told MSNBC on Tuesday as the news about Pence broke while he was being interviewed.
"It certainly appears now that there's a systemic problem with former occupants of the presidency and vice presidency having classified information at their homes, when it shouldn't be there; or at their libraries or their university repositories," Schiff told host Andrea Mitchell.
That was followed by a Jan. 26 article by Craig Bannister noting that "the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) formally asked the presidents and vice presidents of the last six administrations to re-check their personal records for any classified documents or presidential records they may “inadvertently” have in their possession."
There was also a Jan. 25 article by Jones featuring Republican Sen. Marco Rubio quipping that "I think the executive branch needs to hire better movers" while referencing document issues involving Trump and Biden -- but not mentioning Pence.
But, really, CNS wanted to get back to keeping the classified-document focus on Biden. A Jan. 25 article by Jones stated:
"We're investigating the Biden family for influence-peddling," Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said on Wednesday, as the discovery of classified documents in the home of former Vice President Mike Pence home prompted media defenders of Joe Biden to describe the problem as "systemic."
MRC Writer Mad That Drag Queen Star Won't Go Away Topic: Media Research Center
We've documented how chief Media Research Center LGBTQ-hater Tierin-Rose Mandelburg melted down over drag queen Shangela being a contestant on "Dancing With the Stars." Well, Shangela has committed the offense of not going away, so Mandelburg's hateful head exploded again in a Jan. 17 post:
The word “cringe” couldn’t have been any more applicable.
Dancing With the Stars contestant D.J. Pierce, commonly known by his drag queen name, “Shangela,” went on Good Morning America Tuesday to talk about his upcoming “Fully Lit” tour and his push for drag queens and LGBTQ garbage across the nation. And the show hosts were head-over-heels excited for their special guest.
The segment started with co-host Robin Roberts literally jumping for joy waiting for "Shangela" to come out from backstage. After that, Roberts and fellow co-hosts Lara Spencer and Michael Strahan sat down with Pierce to talk about upcoming and past highlights of his life.
[...]
“We need that right now. We need that all the time but especially now [with] everything going on in the world,” Roberts interjected.
I can name about a billion things we need more of right now other than drag queens, but carry on.
And we need Mandelburg's obssessive hatred of drag queens even less. Yet she continued to whine anyway:
His added that biggest accomplishment was probably walking across the White House lawn in stilettos to watch President Biden sign the Respect for Marriage Act.
“It’s great to see, you know, our country in this way, the administration supporting the LGBTQ community, protecting the rights and the equal treatment of so many people. That is what matters in this world and I’m just happy to be a part of it and to experience it live and in person,” Pierce said.
Here’s the thing: if Pierce wants to dance in dress-up clothes, that doesn't affect me. And if GMA wants to use its air time to frivolously promote someone with clear delusion in his head, so be it. That’s honestly nothing new for GMA.
But the second "Shangela," or whatever he goes by on a given day, enters a space where children are present and tries pushing LGBTQ propaganda down little throats, that's a bridge too far.
Huh? Merely existing as a drag queen "where children are present" is "a bridge too far"? Not hating LGBTQ people is "propaganda"? Mandelburg has a seriouscomplex about drag queens -- and has clearly been indoctrinated to hate them.
We'd suggest she seek professional help, but her mental illness is currently paying her bills and she might see derailing her gravy train as a bit on the cringe side.
WND Columnist Joins ConWeb Writers Deploring Modern Art Topic: WorldNetDaily
We'venoted over the year a mini-trend of ConWeb writers complaining about modern art for being abstract and non-representational. Patrice Lewis offered her contribution in a Jan. 6 WorldNetDaily column by Patrice Lewis, which began by recalling an incident in a childhood art class in which a student who drew a "startlingly realistic" portrait who supposedly criticized by the instructor:
I never took an art class again. If art was so subjective that a highly talented student was in danger of failing because he didn't conform to the instructor's preference for abstract, then I wanted nothing to do with the art world. (Also, I finally recognized my artistic talent had plateaued around age 12.) Still, I felt very sorry for that student and hoped he wasn't too discouraged to continue practicing his skill.
This is a suitable junction to admit I'm a cultural cretin. The subtleties and nuances of art that send critics into raptures and turn investors into collectors absolutely baffles me. I have a few art books among our vast library, but any art fancier will scoff at my preferences (Maxfield Parrish? Norman Rockwell? Walter Brightwell?).
All of this is a lead-up to an opinion piece by Matt Margolis I read a few months ago entitled "Can't We Just Admit That Modern Art Is Garbage?"
That led to a rant bashing modern art as non-represetational and mostly lazy:
The verbiage used to describe modern art has long been mocked for its absurdity. Phrases such as "juxtaposing against the geometric perspective" and "representing the angst and energy oscillating through a metropolis" are thrown about in an effort to convince the viewer that the canvas in front of them is something more than squiggles, blotches, lines, or other output frequently executed by kindergartners.
While I don't care for the work of such modern artists as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, or Andy Warhol, at least these artists put some effort into their works. But click on the link to see Joseph Marioni's masterpiece "Yellow Painting." Yes, this is considered a serious work of art. Must have taken him five whole minutes to execute it.
The "plasticity" of modern art is such that hoaxes are not uncommon. In 1964, for example, Swedish journalist Åke Axelsson introduced a series of paintings by an unknown French avant-garde artist called Pierre Brassau that created a buzz among critics. The pieces were described as "painted with powerful, determined strokes" that yet "had the delicacy of a ballet dancer." However, these critics were forced to defend their assessments after learning "Pierre Brassau" was a 4-year-old chimpanzee.
Or how about the two teenagers in 2016 who, while visiting the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, spontaneously placed a pair of eyeglasses on an empty patch of floor? The new "exhibit" drew visitors who stared at, admired, and photographed the glasses as if they were witnessing something marvelous.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, tells you everything you need to know about modern art. It's neither "intense" nor "plastic." It's stupid.
"Modern art can be pretty much anything that consists of two ingredients," concludes Matt Margolis. "1) Zero talent and 2) a gullible audience convinced of its value." I'm forced to agree with him.
[...]
On the other hand, consider this: One of Piet Mondrian's abstract paintings (described as possessing a "serene sense of compositional balance and spatial order, and with superb provenance") just sold for $51 million, setting a new auction record for the Dutch artist's work. I guess P.T. Barnum had it right when he purportedly said there's a sucker born every minute.
MRC's Anti-Abortion Extremists Rage Against Abortion Pills Topic: Media Research Center
As befits an anti-abortion extremist, Media Research Center writer Tierin-Rose Mandelburg has been lobbying hard against abortion pills. A Nov. 18 post by Mandelburg cheered right-wing efforts to outlaw them:
The Conservative legal group, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), sued the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday over the FDA’s illegal approval of abortion pills. The group represents four healthcare organizations and four doctors in the first lawsuit of its kind.
ADF filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Pediatrics, the Christian Medical & Dental Associations and doctors Shaun Jester, Regina Frost-Clark, Tyler Johnson and George Delgado.
Supposedly the FDA approved the legalization of abortion drugs (mifepristone and misoprostol) in 2000 by characterizing pregnancy as an “illness,” as ADF’s report noted. The ADF report also indicated the FDA “never studied the safety of the drugs” before it approved them and disregarded evidence of the harm that these drugs can cause.
ADF Senior Counsel Members Julie Marie Blake said, “The FDA never had the authority to approve these dangerous drugs for sale. We urge the court to listen to the doctors we represent who are seeking to protect girls and women from the documented dangers of chemical abortion drugs.”
[...]
The fact of the matter is that abortion doesn’t just hurt the child who is killed, it also puts the life of the mother in danger. That’s what ADF is trying to get people to recognize and understand in order to help hurting mothers and children with their lives at risk.
As we pointed out when the MRC's "news" division CNSNews.com similarly promoted the ADF's lawsuit, the abortion pill is much safer than pregnancy.
When the Food and Drug Administration announcd a plan to allow pharmacies to provide the pills for anyone who has a prescription, Alex Christy complained in a Jan. 4 post:
The morning shows of ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN saw nothing controversial about the FDA’s new policy that allows pharmacies to provide abortion pills to anyone with a prescription.
The cast of CNN This Morning spent the most time on the matter as. Co-host Poppy Harlow kicked things off with an announcement, “the FDA is announcing a big move on access to abortion. We're talking about the pill or the medication for it. This comes, of course, after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. What's changed is that pharmacies, like your average ;pharmacy is now able to sell these abortion pills to people who have a prescription.”
[...]
The move clearly had an ideological motive, which means there is another perspective on the matter, but CNN did not provide that perspective. Nor did NBC’s Today, or CBS This Morning [sic] in their brief reports.
Later that day, Mandelburg served up her own rant against the new FDA policy:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Tuesday that it would permit retail pharmacies to offer abortion pills in the United States. From “corner drugstores to major chains,” obtaining a pill to end the life of a child just got that much easier, The New York Times reported.
Under the updated rule that stretched the two-pill combo (mifepristone and misoprostol) availability from a few mail-order pharmacies or specific doctors/clinics to places like CVS or Walgreens, more and more babies lives are going to end. Supposedly a prescription order is still needed but pharmacies are expected to have plenty of murder drugs on hand for when those orders roll in.
Other than the fact that “lethal poison” will be placed next to “antibiotics and allergy medication,” as Live Action’s Lila Rose put it, babies will be dying in masses and emergency rooms will likely be flooded with women who were injured from the pill.
Abortion pills can cause severe bleeding, infection, and require possible surgical intervention. In some cases they can kill the mother as well as the baby. In a letter to the FDA back in February, 2022, Senators James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) along with 125 colleagues presented the risks of the pill. Even so, 11 months later, the FDA yet again altered their rules in order to allow these pills to be more easily accessible.
Again, Mandelburg failed to tell her readers the fact that pregnancy kills more women than the abortion pill does.
Tim Graham even whined about it in his Jan. 4 podcast: "Then there are the pro-abortion hardliners in the Biden administration, with the Food and Drug Administration pushing for abortion pills to be more broadly available in pharmacies to make abortions more plentiful. The networks announce this news as if it's utterly non-ideological, non-political, and non-controversial. There is no pro-life view on abortion pills that anyone needs to hear."
Mandelburg spews more rage at abortion pills in a Jan. 18 post:
Isn’t it great when people we pay good money to do their jobs don’t know how to do their jobs?!
*crickets
According to a report by the National Review, most pharmacy workers who willingly distribute chemical-abortion drugs are unaware of the negative effects and risks of the abortion drug. Though the drug is extremely dangerous, pharmacists are passing them out willy nilly.
Earlier this month President Joe Biden’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made it possible for major chain drugstores like CVS, Wallgreens and Rite Aid to carry and distribute abortion pills. In order to obtain them it appears that a woman (or pregnant person lol) would need a prescription order but the pharmacies will be stocked and ready to fill those orders ASAP.
[...]
Oh lovely! So now pharmacies can pass out drugs that kills a child and has the potential to kill his or her mother too. No, literally, a chemical abortion is a “multi-day progression of bleeding, cramping, and contracting” that could take “up to 30 days to complete.” These drugs are “four times more dangerous” than surgical abortions and have reportedly increased abortion-related ER visits by 500 percent from 2002-2015. They are NOT safe whatsoever.
Regardless, according to the FDA, not only are women able to waltz into CVS to get their prescriptions, they also don’t even have to see a doctor in person in order to have a script written for them. They can virtually tell a doctor about how they want to abort their baby and that same day, visit a local pharmacy to pick up the lethal poison.
Graham clearly did notorder his subordinate Mandelburg to practice what he preaches to non-right-wing media and offer up an opposing view. Heck, Mandelburg didn't even disclose the right-wing tilt of National Review.And, again, Mandelburg censored the fact that abortion pills are much safer for women than pregnancy -- she has a narrative to perpetuate, after all.
New York just became the first city in the United States to offer free abortion pills at public clinics.
Just before the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade as well as the annual March for Life, NY Mayor Eric Adams announced free medication abortion to make it even easier for the women in New York to chemically execute their unborn children.
The city supposedly offered medication abortions at 11 public hospitals but the pills will now be free and accessible at four clinics across NYC.
The program is funded by a $1.2 million package for “sexual health services,” as reported by Yahoo News, money that could have been allocated to help pregnant mothers or provide resources other than murder for women in crisis pregnancies.
Thanks, Tierin-Rose, for admitting that you believe women who have abortions are committing muirder, which means you also presumably demand that women who have abortions be arrested, imprisoned and even executed for having one.Not that you'll admit that publicly, of course -- don't want to look too much like the extremist you are, right?
UPDATE: When PBS had on a doctor who pointed out the safety of abortion pills, Tim Graham spent a Jan. 7 post raging at both PBS and the doctor, bizarrely calling the pill's safety a "creepy talking points":
On Wednesday's PBS NewsHour, viewers received a bucket of happy talk about medication abortions from Dr. Jennifer Villavicencio. Twice, she insisted the use of mifepristone was "extraordinarily safe" -- but it's not safe for the unborn baby, who is expelled from the mother and killed.
PBS emphasized support for the Food and Drug Administration trying to "expand abortion access" after the Supreme Court's Dobbsdecision reversedRoe v. Wadeand returned the abortion issue back to the states..
[...]
PBS picked an expert that they presented as an objective media source, but it's easy to dig up that she's a hardcore abortion advocate. Planned Parenthood is a fan!
What Graham didn't do, of course, is go beyond spoiuting right-wing anti-abortion talking points to try and disprove Villavicencio.
Newsmax also put out a Feb. 11 "news" article by Lee Barney:
Since DirecTV dropped Newsmax on Jan. 24, AT&T's stock has fallen by almost 7%, wiping nearly $10 billion from its market value.
AT&T, the 70% owner of DirecTV, has come under fierce criticism after deplatforming Newsmax from its satellite TV systems — the second conservative channel it has removed in the past year, with OAN going last April.
Days after the Newsmax drop, former President Donald Trump called on Americans to cancel not only DirecTV but all AT&T services, including cellular and wireless services.
[...]
Since the removal of Newsmax, AT&T stock appears to be significantly underperforming the market while major stock indices have held steady during the past 12 trading days.
The S&P 500 actually rose 0.37% between Jan. 25 and Feb. 10, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined just 1.84% between those dates.
Unsurprisingly -- since the Newsmax agenda comes before facts -- Barney offered no evidence that deplatforming Newsmax had anything whatsoever to do with AT&T's stock drop, apparently unaware of the idea that correlation does not necessarily equal causation.Also note that Barney did not mention the actual stock price of AT&T, presumably because that would undermine his case. The stock price was $20.42 on Jan. 25, which then plunged to ... $19.07 on Feb. 10. The price on Jan. 25 was actually a six-month high, and it had been much lower -- under $15 -- last October, when Newsmax wasn't an issue.
Still, Newsmax found a way to invoke it as part of its victimhood ploy:
With the addition of these 25 article, this means that in the three weeks after DirecTV dropped it, Newsmax has run at least 170 articles attacking the decision -- and, as near as we can tell, only one of these articles (and one opinion column) reference the fact that DirecTV replaced Newsmax with another right-wing channel, The First, which negates its frequent claims that conservative views are being "censored" by Newsmax.
Meanwhile, a Feb. 14 column by Bernard Kerik complained that Fox News isn't supporting Newsmax in its victimhood:
Fox News, the network that claims to be "fair, balanced and unafraid," seems eerily silent as of late. This deafening silence seems to coincide with DirecTV's drop of Newsmax from the airwaves. DirecTV, it should be noted, is owned by AT&T.
The satellite provider, DirecTV, pulled the plug on Newsmax on Jan. 24 after refusing to go on paying a licensing fee to carry its programming.
DirecTV wouldn’t pay a penny — despite Newsmax being the fourth largest cable news channel in the nation, and having more viewers than most of the 22 liberal-leaning channels that it continues to air — and pay fees to.
You would think that censoring a fellow conservative outlet would stir outrage in Fox News, who — given the present political environment — could always be next.
However, you would be wrong.
According to The Daily Beast, Fox News "has only devoted 35 seconds of airtime to Newsmax getting the boot — via a brief mention from Howard Kurtz"on his Sunday morning media show.
"Where are you, Fox? How about you, Fox . . . We did it for OAN," said Newsmax host Eric Bolling, referring to One America News, another conservative outlet that was dropped by DirecTV last year.
Quite a difference from four years ago when Fox News offered a strong defense of a CNN reporter who was kicked out of a White House event for shouting questions at President Donald J. Trump.
Ther difference, of course, is that Newsmax is a direct competitor to Fox News, while it needs CNN around as a foil and a "liberal" punching bag. Kerik does eventually understand the former point, though he bizarrely invokes Martin Luther King Jr. in doing so:
Fox’s disgustingly transparent silence while AT&T’s DirecTV attempts to sabotage and destroy Newsmax, a major fellow conservative network, is painfully abhorrent, and raises serious questions of motiveandintent.
Why are they now cowardly? Why are they afraid to speak out?
Is this an opportunity to remain silent while DirecTV attacks and attempts to destroy their principal conservative competitor?
We can only speculate, but as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
For now, one thing is clear, Fox News is no longer a friend and supporter of conservatives, and more so, is no longer a staunch defender of our nation's First Amendment.
Kerik is deluded if he thinks Fox News ever cared about the First Amendment if it wasn't in its financial and political interest to do so.
As has been the trend inrecentmonths, the employment numbers have been so good that CNSNews.com -- which routinely labors to cherry-pick less impressive numbers when a Democrat is in the White House -- has trouble talking down the numbers. Indeed, the main article by Susan Jones on January's job numbers carried the unusually excited headline "160,138,000! Record Number of Employed in January; Labor Force Participation Up, Unemployment Rate Down," and Jones herself reflected that in the article intself:
The first employment report of 2023 shows robust strength in the labor market, as the Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates.
The Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics says a whopping 517,000 non-farm jobs were created in January, way above estimates of 183,000.
"Job growth was widespread, led by gains in leisure and hospitality (+128,000), professional and business services (+82,000), and health care (+58,000). Employment also increased in government (+74,000), partially reflecting the return of workers from a strike," BLS said.
In another headline number, the unemployment rate dropped a tenth of a point to 3.4 percent -- after remaining in the 3.5-3.7 percent range since March.
Sometime after Jones' article was posted, the headline was toned down without explanation to remove the exclamation point and simply read "160,138,000: Record Number of Employed in January." Presumably, Jones was also lectured by her bosses about not positively portraying news that makes a Democratic president look good.
The only form of criticism she could find is noting that the labor force participation rate -- her favorite cherry-picked alternative number -- "is now just one point below the Trump-era high of 63.4 percent recorded in February 2020, just before the COVID-prompted shutdowns."
There was no sidebar story this month, such as editor Terry Jeffrey reporting on manufacturing jobs. That also presumably is a function of CNS not wanting to make this news look too good for Biden.
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC Wanted Brittney Griner To Rot In Prison Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center whined that the purportedly "anti-American" WNBA player was released in a prisoner exchange with Russia -- and it censored the criminal record of the onetime Marine whom it preferred was released instead. Read more >>
MRC Licks Its Chops At Prospect Of GOP Investigations Of Hunter Biden Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has longbeenobsessed with destroying Hunter Biden as a means to destroy President Biden, and Republicans taking control of the House in the midterm elections had it licking its chops at the prospect of investigations designed to further smear him and, by association, the president. Which means it spent a lot of time after the election complaining that people were pointing out this Republican bloodlust. A Nov. 20 post by Kevin Tober lashed out at an ABC reporter for noting this:
After spending the past year cheering on Congressional Democrats in their seemingly never ending quest to investigate former President Donald Trump and his actions on and leading up to the January 6 riots, including the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate and presumably prosecute Trump, suddenly investigations and oversight are bad since it’s the GOP’s turn to conduct them.
The leftist media’s blatant and shameless hypocrisy was on full display during Sunday’s This Week on ABC when fill-in host Jon Karl interviewed former Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan about his take on politics and his new book which outlines solutions to America’s fiscal problems.
Karl fretted to Ryan that his book “which looks at the financial issues facing the country,” was “not part of this campaign.” Yet if it were part of the 2022 midterms, Karl would’ve tried his hardest behind the ABC News anchor desk to demonize his policy solutions just like the media did in 2012 when Ryan was the GOP Vice Presidential nominee.
Instead, Karl bemoaned how Republicans are talking about oversight investigations into Hunter Biden’s corruption and other reportedly illegal activities by the Biden crime family.
[...]
Karl then jumped in to smear the GOP once more before the show ended: “those that are saying hell no, they won't vote for Kevin McCarthy, they like chaos. I mean, that's not an argument against it. I mean, they want chaos.”
Tober didn't disprove anything Karl said.
Mark Finkelstein spent a Nov. 22 post trying to legitimize GOP probes of the Bidens after MSNBC host Joe Scarborough "suggested that today's Republicans are making a similar mistake in investigating what he repeatedly called "Hunter Biden's laptop.'":
That was a blatant mischaracterization. As Rep. James Comer, the chairman of the House oversight committee that will be conducting the investigation has made clear, this is an investigation of Joe Biden. The question is whether Biden was indeed "the big guy" who was skimming a share of the ill-gotten proceeds that Hunter obtained through his influence-peddling schemes.
Scarborough told Republicans "they're going to waste two years and lose big in '24."
It's through that lens that we therefore have to ask: why is the liberal media so intent on trying to dissuade the Republicans from investigating Hunter Biden's dealings and the possible connections to Joe Biden? One thing is certain: it's not out of MSM concern that by investigating, the Republicans will be hurting themselves politically! We all know that old adage about not stopping an enemy when he's in the process of destroying himself!
[...]
Note: as for Scarborough's claim that Republicans are exclusively focused on "Hunter Biden's laptop," to the exclusion of addressing issues of concern like crime, inflation, and the border. Comer made the point that Republicans can walk and chew gum at the same time, and that the great majority of House Republicans are not on the Oversight committee and will be addressing those other issues.
Alex Christy was similarly defensive in a Dec. 7 post: "House Republicans have not even taken the gavels yet and CNN’s Inside Politics warned them Wednesday not step out of line with voters by investigating Hunter Biden or wokeness. If only CNN had this segment when Democrats were pursuing Donald Trump’s taxes.
Finkelstein returned for a Dec. 12 post attacking "Morning Joe" again for questioning the validity of the investigation:
Mika Brzezinski broke out her violin, lamenting that Republicans are "going after Joe Biden's remaining son," and skeptically saying, "we've gone through this. Haven't we gone through this?"
Scarborough claimed "Every time they go down this path, and they want to investigate the investigators, they want to attack the FBI, they want to attack the CIA, they want to attack the intel community. It never pays off for them." So what Team Scarborough is doing now is just mocking the investigators, facts be damned.
Democrat apparatchik Adrienne Elrod even claimed that Hunter Biden's laptop is a "frivolous" and "meritless" matter and claimed Biden's approval rating will go up because he's "delivering for the American people." Question for Adrienne: if the Hunter laptop matter is so "frivolous" and "meritless," why have your fellow Democrats brought in slime merchant David Brock to threaten members of the Republican committee investing the matter with dishing dirt on them?
So, go ahead, liberal media. Keep trying to whistle past the graveyard of Hunter Biden's laptop. We'll see who's laughing when the investigations are done.
Yes, the MRC has previously complained that Brock is fighting back on Hunter's behalf. And if those committee members have nothing to hide, why is Finkelstein complaining about Brock investigating the investigators when it loudlycheered GOP special counsel John Durham for doing basically the same thing?
Apparently remaining in flip-flop mode over polls, Toberhyped one that fit the narrative in a Dec. 15 post:
According to a Fox News poll released late Thursday evening, voters in both parties support an investigation by the Justice Department into Hunter Biden's business dealings with foreign governments.
According to Fox News Digital, "Recent revelations about social media companies tamping down the story in the run-up to the 2020 election have not changed voters' opinions — just as many feel it is important to investigate Hunter Biden now as they did this past August."
[...]
The question remains, will the networks eventually cover this poll? Probably not considering the narrative that's been set that only Republicans care about Hunter Biden's crimes. This poll has set another leftist media narrative crumbling to the ground.
As we've documented, the MRC hyped numerous narrative-advancing polls prior to the midterm elections -- despite libelously accusing the media of fabricating polls in the 2020 election -- as evidence that "leftist media narratives" were being crumbled, only to have the midterms reveal much reduced support for Repubican narratives then it thought. And, no, it's not accusing those pollsters of fabricating their numbers like it did in 2020.
How Has WND's Brown Been Hating LGBT People Lately? Topic: WorldNetDaily
It's been a while since we checked in on WND columnist Michael Brown spewing hatred at LGBT people while pretending he doesn;t actually hate them. Let's see how that's going, shall we? Going back a bit, he used his Oct. 14 column to complain that churches weren't hating LGBT poeple enough:
For the last 40 years, with rare exception, I have been teaching in (and leading) ministry schools on a weekly basis, having the joy and privilege of pouring into the next generation of leaders. I now spend five days a month in Texas, teaching three days at a school in Dallas and two days at a school in Fort Worth. This week, after speaking about the church and LGBTQ+ issues and people, one of the deans made a striking comment to me: "The church's silence has hurt these people." She was absolutely right.
I devoted the class this past Monday to the subject of the church's calling to make a positive impact on society, to function as salt and light.
[...]
An older man said to me with pain in his voice, "Please pray for my daughter. She now identifies as a man. She has changed her name, she is taking hormones, and she had her breasts removed."
He told me she was 23 years old and had the mastectomy at the age of 21. Can you imagine how this father feels?
With his wife, he welcomed their precious daughter into the world, probably bouncing her on his knees and singing songs to her when she was a baby, only to see her make these tragic, self-destructive choices.
She was once their precious little girl, perhaps wearing cute frilly dresses for fun. Now she has mutilated her body and identifies as a man.
I encouraged him to watch the "In His Image" documentary that I had the privilege of hosting for American Family Studios. It gives hope to family members praying for their struggling ones, as well as hope to the struggler. And he gave me a piece of paper with her name on it, asking again for my prayers.
In his Oct. 17 column, Brown complained that right-winger Dennis Prager was too nice to transgender people by saying merely that they are "not necessarily blurring the distinction God made":
To be sure, we should show compassion to those who are genuinely confused about their gender identity. Absolutely.
But it is absurd to think that a bearded man who dresses like a woman has violated the Torah while a biological male who does his best to destroy biological reality and transform himself into a woman has not violated Torah law.
Really now, which is a greater assault on the fundamental distinctions established at creation by God? A man dressing up like a woman, or a man claiming that gender is a mental perception rather than a biological reality? The former makes a mockery of the male-female distinction. The latter seeks to obliterate that distinction entirely.
How about a woman surgically removing the healthy breasts God gave her, then mutilating her private parts and getting a male-looking add-on, then taking hormones for life that will daily fight against her God-given femaleness, now claiming to be a man? How is that not infinitely worse (and more in violation of God's design) than that same woman cross-dressing?
[...]
rager ends his article stating, "How God regards an individual who is convinced he or she is living in the wrong body is not addressed here. I believe God both has standards (that we never blur the male-female distinction) and compassion (for those few individuals who do not identify with their biological sex), and so should we."
It would have been far better to say, "While having compassion on those who are confused and pained over their gender identity, we must never affirm transgender ideology, since it undermines the male-female distinction."
Dennis, please do reconsider your position (Proverbs 1:5a).
Brown raged against drag queens in his Oct. 31 column:
Drag queens reading to toddlers in libraries and schools. Drag queens engaging in indecent acts with children in gay bars. Drag queens performing in our churches.
If anything was a sign that God has given America over to depravity, it is this.
Rampant porn addiction is bad enough, as is the redefining of the very meaning of marriage.
adical shouting their abortions and the government openly advocating for the chemical castration and genital mutilation of confused children is yet another telltale sign.
But the drag queen depravity goes one step further.
It celebrates that which is shameful and normalizes that which is perverse. And it does so in the most exaggerated, even overtly demonic form, with Drag Queens wearing Satanic horns while reading to tiny little children.
[...]
This is madness. This is depravity. This is perverse.
But this is what happens when God gives people over to their sinful imaginations. A clear and definite line is crossed, as people not only tolerate evil, they celebrate it.
That which is despicable is now honored, and that which is shameful is paraded openly. The conscience is seared and the folly revealed.
It is as if God said, "If that's what you want, then have at it, without restraint and without reserve. The seat belts are off and the brakes do not work. You are in free fall now. I will let the whole world see your folly."
Brown spent his Nov. 23 column denying that right-wing anti-LGBTQ hatred was a factor in a massacre at a Colorado Springs LGBT club and again pretending that he really doesn't hate them:
Although we still do not know if the massacre at a gay bar in Colorado Springs was a hate crime (as of this writing), it is always appropriate to denounce all acts of violence and hatred against the LGBTQ+ community. There is absolutely no justification for such acts no matter how deep the disagreements. You do not murder people because you differ with them.
All the more is this true for followers of Jesus. Acts of murder and hatred are totally antithetical to His character, His example and His teachings.
Unfortunately, before we know for sure what prompted the shooter to slaughter his victims in cold blood, the Washington Post and others are already assigning blame.
[...]
[Washington Post reporter Casey] Parks also cites Jay Brown, senior vice president of programs, research and training for the Human Rights Campaign, who claimed "that Americans can't, and shouldn't, separate those acts of violence from state-sanctioned efforts to limit LGBTQ rights."
He said, "We've seen more than 340 anti-LGBTQ bills filed this year alone. We've seen a huge increase in anti-LGBTQ rhetoric online and by politicians, and we've seen real threats."
But herein lies the problem.
If you oppose LGBTQ+ activism in any form, you are not only branded a hater. You are also accused of inciting violence.
If you object to drag queens indoctrinating toddlers, there is blood on your hands.
If you do not want a biological male sharing a locker room with your daughter, you are complicit in the Colorado Springs massacre.
If you oppose the chemical castration and genital mutilation of trans-identifying children, you are a murderer.
If you support your state's efforts to protect religious freedoms, thereby supporting "state-sanctioned efforts to limit LGBTQ rights," you contributed to the bloodshed in Colorado Springs.
Have not leaders like Jay Brown made themselves perfectly clear?
For more than 20 years now, ever since I started preaching on the theme of "Jesus Revolution," I have stated categorically that the Lord calls us to put down our swords and take up our crosses, devoting whole chapters to this subject.
I have shouted from the rooftops that we are called to overcome evil with good, hatred with love and lies with truth.
The Lord's kingdom cannot be advanced with carnal anger, hatred, violence and bloodshed. God forbid.
And as a leader in the culture wars since 2004, when I first felt called to push back against gay activism, I have made clear that all human beings, including those who identify as LGBTQ+, are created in God's image.
I have also stated that Jesus shed the same blood for gays as for straights.
And our mantra has been simple: "Reach out and resist," meaning, reach out to the LGBTQ+ community with compassion; resist the agenda with courage.
But today, if you dare resist the goals of LGBTQ+ activists, you are not just a hater. You are complicit in the shedding of innocent blood.
This leaves us with two choices.
We either sit back and allow LGBTQ+ activists and lawmakers and educators to reshape society, taking away our rights and indoctrinating our children, or we get branded an accessory to murder.
Brown then tried to articulate his dichotomy:
What, then, should we do?
First, we make clear in our words and attitudes that we categorically denounce all acts of violence and hatred against all those who identify as LGBTQ+.
Second, we do our best to demonstrate our love for the LGBTQ+ community on a personal level, letting them know who we really are.
Third, we stand our ground without flinching, knowing that opposing LGBTQ+ activism is a good and righteous thing to do.
To quote Brown, herein lies the problem. He seems oblivious to the fact that "LGBTQ+ activism" is, in part, a desire for basic rights, to not to be discriminated against or murdered. Thus, his purported compassion and "love" will always look phony because he ultimately wants them to be discriminated against and shunned.
MRC's Graham Again Whines That A Republican Narrative Got Fact-Checked Topic: Media Research Center
One of Media Research Center executive Tim Graham's standard complaints (donetodwindlingdegreesof success) involves right-wing falsehoods getting fact-checked. He did it again in a Jan. 11 column:
House Republicans carried out a pledge to vote to repeal a $71 billion increase in spending for the Internal Revenue Service that was included in Joe Biden’s so-called “Inflation Reduction Act.” Reporters called this a “messaging bill,” since there's no chance it will pass a Democrat-controlled Senate or be signed by President Biden.
Chief Washington Post “Fact Checker” Glenn Kessler broke out the “Four Pinocchios” rating under the headline “'87,000 IRS agents’ is the zombie falsehood setting the House agenda.”
The IRS never announced they would hire 87,000 agents to audit your taxes, although a Treasury Department report estimated they could hire 86,852 new full-time employees.
“We originally gave this claim Three Pinocchios because at least Republicans could point to a number in a Treasury report,” Kessler proclaimed. “But now, after repeated fact checks, there is really no excuse, and we are upping the rating to Four Pinocchios.” He called it “untethered from reality.”
Kessler reported the IRS has about 79,000 employees now, and “The Congressional Budget Office assumes, absent additional funding, IRS staffing would keep falling to about 60,000 in 10 years, so the funding would allow a doubling from that base.”
Fun fact: PolitiFact threw a “Mostly False” rating at Sen. Tom Cotton for saying, among other things, the Biden bill “doubles the size of the IRS.”
Doubling the IRS workforce obviously means the government will collect a lot more in taxes.
Note the deception Graham is using here: He's claiming it's correct to claim that IRS employment will double if you use a number from 10 years in the future, not the the current employment number most people assume is the case when Republicans push that talking point.
Graham went on to whine that the right-wing "87,000 IRS agents" was debunked as well:
Many of the “independent fact-checkers” rained fire on the claim the IRS would hire 87,000 new agents. Reporters like Mychael Schnell at The Hill asserted that the money would likely go for “customer service” or “computer science.” Others have suggested the hiring of janitors.
Kessler made a list of his allies in this anti-Republican crusade. PolitiFact threw a flag in August. Actually, it threw at least five “Mostly False” flags, because they couldn’t stand this GOP talking point. The Kessler list also included FactCheck.org, USA Today, Reuters, The New York Times, and Time magazine. He somehow left out the other tilted referees at the Associated Press and Snopes.com.
Graham doesn't actually dispute that debunking, which he tried to hide by attacking the fact-checkers as "tilted." But how "tilted" can they be if you can't dispute the accuracy of the fact-check?
Then, to further distract from the fact that the fact-checkers were correct, he played whataboutism:
By contrast, President Biden uncorked a series of lies and smears that voting laws like those passed by Republicans in Georgia were some version of “Jim Crow,” or made “Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle.” All these “fact checkers” took a nap on that hyperbolic excess, even after the voter turnout in Georgia in 2022 set new records.
Apparently, the “Jim Crow” lies result in heavier voter turnout, so “fact checking” in this case is....unhelpful. (Kessler flagged Biden for inaccurately claiming the Georgia bill “ends voting hours early,” but left the Jim Crow junk alone.)
Since Election Day on November 8, Kessler has a “perfect” record of checking only Trump and conservatives – on seven occasions – not counting “year in review” posts. This makes sense, since Kessler’s Twitter page celebrates how the leftist comic strip “Doonesbury” noticed his self-righteous aggression on Trump.
Graham has already admitted that he's trying to discredit fact-checkers by portray ingthe mere act of fact-checking anyone on the right as an inherently biased act, since he can't actually prove the fact-checkers wrong, and it's an narrative he repeated at the end of his column: "These fact-checkers describe themselves as 'independent,' but their seemingly inevitable leftward tilt and herd mentality make a mockery of the word. Even if their checks are factual, they appear to half of Americans as a vital cog in the Democratic Party’s messaging apparatus."
Or, you know, Republicans could simply not lie and deceive. Graham seems not to have thought of that.
CNS' Jeffrey Keeps On Implicitly Blaming Dems For Deficit Spending Topic: CNSNews.com
A partisanjournalistictradition at CNSNews.com is editor Terry Jeffrey implicitly blaming Democrats for deficit spending as he highlights tax collections, even though he refused to blame Republicans for deficit spending when they controlled the presidency and at least one chamber of Congress. Jeffrey made sure to keep up that tradition in the latter months of 2022. He wrote in a Sept. 14 article:
The federal government collected a record $4,408,452,000,000 in total taxes in the first eleven months of fiscal 2022 (October through August), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.
That was up $525,658,170,000—or 13.5 percent--from the then-record $3,882,793,830,000 (in constant August 2022 dollars) that the federal government collected in the first eleven months of fiscal 2021.
[...]
The Department of Health and Human Services led the federal government in spending in the first eleven months of fiscal 2022 with outlays of $1,467,475,000,000. The Social Security Administration was second, spending $1,168,870,000,000 in the first eleven months of this fiscal year. The Department of the Treasury was third, spending a total of $1,139,305,000,000—including $677,612,000,000 to pay the interest on Treasury securities and $461,693,000,000 on other expenses.
The Department of Defense-Military Programs was fourth, spending $649,261,000,000.
Jeffrey did a fiscal year roundup for an Oct. 21 article:
The federal government collected a record $4,896,119,000,000 in total taxes in fiscal 2022 (October 2021 through September 2022), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today.
That was up $518,302,170,000—or 11.8 percent--from the previous record of $4,377,816,830,000 (in constant September 2022 dollars) that the federal government collected in fiscal 2021.
Fiscal 2015—when the federal government collected $4,052,366,920,000 in total taxes (in constant September 2022 dollars)—ranks as the third highest year for total federal tax collections.
Again, Jeffrey complained that HHS and Social Security received a lot of money.
Jeffrey updated his humbers for the first month of the fiscal year in a Nov. 10 article:
The federal government collected a record $318,576,000,000 in total taxes in October, the first month of fiscal 2023, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today.
The Treasury set the previous record for October tax collections last year, when it brought in $305,918,360,000 in total taxes in constant October 2022 dollars.
The implicit blame came with all three article featuring photos of President Biden, usually with Nancy Pelosi.
Interestingly, Jeffrey stopped doing monthly articles on tax collections, which he had done for years. Instead, he wrote a Feb. 15 article that summarized the first four months of the fiscal year (which included October despite having already devoted an article to it):
Total federal tax collections in October through January, the first four months of fiscal 2023, were down from total tax collections in the October-through-January period of fiscal 2022,according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.
The federal fiscal year runs from October through September.
In the October-through-January period of fiscal 2022, the Treasury collected $1,614,169,570,000 in total taxes (in constant January 2023 dollars). In October-through-January of fiscal 2023, the Treasury collected only $1,472,842,000,000 in total taxes.
MRC Cooked Up Outrage Over Talk Of Gas Stove Regulations Topic: Media Research Center
As befits its role as a narrative manufacturer for right-wing political interests, the Media Research Center manufactured outrage over discussions of possible regulation of gas stoves -- then, as befits its role as a hypocritical whiner, complained when that manufactured outrage was called out. Alex Christy set the tone -- which is to say, the tone of a PR hack for the gas-stove industry -- in a Jan. 11 post:
CNN climate correspondent Bill Weir offered up a strange analogy on multiple Wednesday installments of CNN Newsroom when discussing the possibility of a ban on gas stoves. As Weir tells it, having a gas stove, particularly in small apartments, is akin to an idling car.
During the 9 AM Eastern hour reported that, “They’ve banned it in new construction in New York City, out west in California, Washington State, but a lot of states have preemptively banned gas bans and you can imagine they're usually red states and Texas leading the way, they want to stop this because it’s an existential threat to that business.”
However, “the science is showing us having a gas stove, in a small apartment especially with bad ventilation is like having a car idling there. And if you have young kids, it can affect cognitive abilities and, as well as asthma.”
[...]
Carbon monoxide from a car running in an enclosed space will eventually kill you. One can be concerned about childhood asthma and still see that they are different and, again, this is mostly a problem with poor ventilation. Other household appliances that emit carbon monoxide include your water heater and older dryer models.
Tierin-Rose Mandelburg took a break from hating drag queens and transgender people to attempt to play gotcha in a Jan. 12 post:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has become notorious for being a hypocrite.
Recently she took to Twitter to push for people to ditch their gas stoves, meanwhile she herself owns a gas stove.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has discussed stopping production of new gas appliances and encourage people to discontinue using them if they do have one in their home - supposedly for the environment.
Congressman Ronny Jackson (R-Tex.) took to Twitter, saying “I’ll NEVER give up my gas stove. If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands. COME AND TAKE IT!!”
AOC quote-tweeted Jackson’s tweet and said, “Did you know that ongoing exposure to NO2 from gas stoves is linked to reduced cognitive performance.”
AOC is Capitol Hill’s queen of drama.
[...]
What did she say again? That exposure is linked to “reduced cognitive performance?”
Well, well, well, I guess she too has been around gas stoves too much!
Boom roasted.
Because Mandelburg was more interested in going for the roast than imparting facts, she censored the fact that AOC later pointed out that her apartment is a rental and, thus, she was stuck with a gas stove, adding that "by that logic, these are the same people who would have said we should have never gotten rid of leaded gasoline just because someone may have driven a gasoline car."
Joseph Vazquez rantily insisted that the right-wing freakout was "legitimate" in a Jan. 16 post:
A babbling MSNBC analyst with a history of Trump Derangement Syndrome is in no place to throw the word “addiction” at legitimate concerns of government reaching into American kitchens.
MSNBC National Affairs Analyst John Heilemann kicked off Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a tirade on GOP opposition to gas stove bans. On the Jan. 16 edition of Morning Joe, he said “[The GOP is] addicted to this culture of lies and conspiracy theories that they have fomented, right?” Except, the proposed ban wasn’t fictitious nor conspiratorial.
Vazquez went on to declare that any talk of regulating gas stoves was "dystopian."
Nicholas Fondacaro went on thte warpath in a Jan. 16 post as he laughably tried to play fact-checker by citing a biased right-wing website to support his attacks:
Amid the blow-up last week after an unelected bureaucrat with the Consumer Product Safety Commission floated the idea of a national ban on gas stoves, NBC’s Today came out against your freedom of choice in how you cook your food. During their Friday news show, the liberal journalists pushed the debunked study that purportedly linked gas stoves to asthma and lobbied heavily for people to buy induction stoves, omitting the fact that they could cost over three times as much as a gas stove.
At the top of the segment, wealthy liberal anchors Hoda Kotb, Savannah Guthrie, and Craig Melvin shared a laugh at how people were outraged and decried the floated draconian measure[.]
"Wealthy liberal anchors"? We thought the MRC hated class wars. Fondacaro continued:
The first accusation against gas stoves he addressed in his report was the dubious link between gas stoves and asthma. Claiming there was “mounting research” that confirms the link, he pointed to “a recent peer-reviewed study from a prominent medical journal found nearly 13 percent of childhood asthma cases in the U.S., are attributable to gas stove use.”
Brock failed to be honest and note that the study flies in the face of a 2013 study from the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood that found “no evidence of an association between the use of gas as a cooking fuel and either asthma symptoms or asthma diagnosis,” as reported by the Washington Examiner.
Yes, Fondacaro is pushing a decade-old study in favor of a newer one. You know where that talking point came from? The American Gas Association, the trade group for the natural gas industry, which opposes any regulation.
Fondacaro further complained:
One of the study authors cited by Brock has even walked back their findings, telling the Examiner that the study “‘does not assume or estimate a causal relationship’ between childhood asthma and natural gas stoves.”
But what Brock did have was an anecdotal and non-scientific account from ONE mother who claims her son’s asthma improved after moving out of a house with a gas stove.
We remember that the MRC repeatedlypushed the claim that that a study concluded that Gmail disproprotionately marked political emails from Republican candidates as soam even though one of the researchers explicitly pointed out that was not what his study concluded, so it's hyporitical for Fondacaro to make that argument.
Clay Waters spent a Jan. 16 post whining not only that the New York Times pointed out the right-wing hysteria over gas stoves but also for arguing that it wouldn't be a bad idea to evolve from them:
The federal government banning gas stoves? What a deluded notion, sneered the New York Times. Yet a short time later the paper published articles outlining alternatives to hazardous gas stoves.
Thursday’s dismissive story by Elena Shao and Lisa Friedman appeared under the dismissive print-edition headline: “No, Biden Is Not Trying to Ban Gas Stoves.”
[...]
But the Times soon betrayed its own mocking spin with follow-up stories suggesting Biden should be banning gas stoves, despite the actual study (a meta-study sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Institute, which wants everything electrified).
Waters didn't mention that his fellow gas-stove defenders were taking their talking points from natural gas lobbyists.
Waters returned for a Jan. 24 post that again complained right-wing gas-stove hysteria was being called out:
National Public Radio’s Morning Edition tried to have it both ways Friday, both mocking right-wing concern over banning gas stoves and also suggesting a ban could be in the works after all.
The set-up was galling. Why would taking the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission seriously when he said a gas stove ban was on the table require the expertise of NPR’s “conspiracy theory” reporter to debunk?
The segment featured climate reporter Jeff Brady and Lisa Hagen, “who reports on how conspiracy theories work.” Co-host A Martinez identified a “cycle of outrage, mostly from the right,” and played a clip of Sean Hannity on Fox News claiming "not only is Biden coming for your paycheck, but he's also coming for your stove. You heard me right. The White House is now attempting to ban all gas ovens and burners."
Martinez actually validated concerns about a ban by assuming gas stoves were dangerous, asking Brady, “What do we know about the risks gas stoves pose to both the environment and public health?”
[...]
For evidence, we could always tell Morning Edition about....Morning Edition, which inveighed against gas stoves last October, asking "Will America ever give up the gas stove?" touting leftists who said "the stove is seen as a "gateway appliance" that drives the building of a vast fossil fuel infrastructure from wellhead to home." It's a gateway drug for petroleum addicts.
Suddenly, it’s bad when people pay attention to the news and take it seriously.
Waters didn't explain why it's such an offensive thing to raise questions about gas stoves. Is he on the natural gas industry's payroll too? Apparently so, because he spent a Feb. 3 post once again raging at the Times, this time for pointing that a prominent gas-stove advocate is on the industry payroll:
The New York Times was going all-out with its gas-stove “eliminationist rhetoric,” (to coin a phrase) putting this snotty headline over a front-page story Monday:“Gas Stoves Are Just Fine, Claims the Scientist Paid to Say So.”
The story was written by investigative climate desk reporter Hiroko Tabuchi, who has shown herself hypersensitive to the supposed corporate and even “white supremacist” corruption of scientific research, while ignoring all conflicts of interest on the left-wing, environmental side of the issue.
She’s uncovered a dissenter from the narrative and was trying to wreck her credibility by raising questions of funding or conflict of interest -- questions that never get applied to environmental organizations that could make a profit off of environmental regulations.
[...]
Tabuchi tellingly does not analyze that “study” (actually a meta-analysis of many studies) for possible conflicts of interest, even though its sponsor, the Rocky Mountain Institute (according to the Free Beacon) “boasts of its attempt to drive an ‘economy-wide transformation’ away from oil and gas in the name of the ‘climate crisis’ and is led by green energy executives who stand to profit from such a transformation.”
Waters did not dispute the results of that meta-analysis despite attacking its sponsor.
UPDATE: Waters also whined in a Jan. 22 post that on PBS, a correspondent "condescendingly mocked anyone who would dare not throw out their gas stoves and purchase more expensive induction stoves, given the obvious health hazards of natural gas (a danger the liberal press learned about a few days ago and won’t stop shrieking over)" further huffing that "No dissent appeared in the segment, certainly no mention of studies with opposite conclusions," like that decade-old study referenced above.
Newsmax Columnist Tries To Portray Capitol Rioters As Political Prisoners Topic: Newsmax
Jeff Crouere began his Jan. 3 Newsmax column by complaining:
Almost two years after the January 6, 2021, Washington D.C., protests that Democrats and the mainstream news media call an “insurrection,” the Department of Justice (DOJ) is still asking for the public’s help in identifying more people to arrest.
Of then 964 individuals charged with crimes for their participation in the protests of January 6, 2021, “hundreds” are still in Washington D.C. prisons today.
The conditions in these prisons are so horrific that 34 anuary 6th J6) prisoners asked for a transfer to the military terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (Gitmo). In their letter pleading for a transfer, the J6 prisoners said that Gitmo would provide what they are lacking in their D.C. prison, namely “nutritional meals, sunlight exposure, top notch medical care” and respect for “religious requirements.”
The fact that Crouere put "hundreds" in scare quotes tells us that he doesn't actually know how many are in jail; he's also blurring the line between how manyare in jail awaiting trial -- likely relatively few, given that most are out on bail -- and how many are serving prison sentences after being found guilty or admitting to guilt for their actions. Crouere also offers no proof that these arrested criminals are being treated any worse in jail than criminals who didn't take part in the riot (and note that he's not complaining about the conditions those poeple face).
Crouere went on to play whataboutism:
The harsh treatment of the J6 prisoners is in sharp contrast to the rioters who burned and looted in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020. These criminals destroyed over $2 billion worth of property, attacked countless police officers and participated in 574 violent riots throughout the country.
Some of the worst violence occurred in Minneapolis, where Floyd died. Rioters either partially or completely destroyed or burned 1,000 buildings. As a result of this violence, 520 misdemeanor citations were issued, but 95% were quickly dismissed. Only 17 individuals were charged with federal crimes related to either arson or rioting.
Neither Coruere nor the article he linked to in support of his claim offered any evidence that those whose misdemeanor charges were dismissed actually committed any crime -- indeed, the article points out that the dropped charges were against people who were merely engaging in peaceful protest, which is not illegal. That article also pointed out that many rioters facing charges incriminated themselvesby posting their acts on social media -- just like the Capitol rioters did.
Crouere then served up what he thought was an ideal case of persecution:
While hesitant to act regarding left-wing protesters, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is not restrained on the issue of J6 protesters. It is clearly the top priority for the DOJ.
For example, one J6 protester, Guy Reffittt, was charged with five felony counts and sentenced to seven years in prison. He did not enter the U.S. Capitol on that day, but he was with protesters on the stairs outside of the building.
This harsh approach is typical.
Note that Crouere refused to say what, exactly, Reffitt did. In fact, Reffitt -- a recruiter for a militia called the Three Percenters -- very much earned his prison sentence, as a real media outlet reported:
Reffitt “played a central role” at the head of a vigilante mob that challenged and overran police at a key choke point, a stairway leading up from the Lower West Terrace, before the initial breach of windows near the Capitol’s Senate Wing Doors at 2:13 p.m., prosecutors said. After the riot, Reffitt warned his son and 16-year-old daughter that “if you turn me in, you’re a traitor, and traitors get shot,” his son testified at the trial.
Conventional sentencing rules are of “inadequate scope” to account for the range of Reffitt’s obstruction, witness tampering and weapon offenses, prosecutors wrote in a 58-page sentencing memo.
[...]
Reffitt recorded himself at a rally led by President Donald Trump at the Ellipse saying he was ready to drag lawmakers including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) “out kicking and screaming,” with “[Pelosi’s] head hitting every step on the way down.”
A jury found that Reffitt traveled to D.C. from his home in Wylie, Tex., with an AR-style rifle and semiautomatic .40-caliber handgun and repeatedly stated his intention to come armed with a handgun and plastic handcuffs to drag lawmakers out of the building. After returning home from Washington, he threatened his children to ensure they did not turn him in to authorities.
That inconvenient truth interfered with Crouere's victim narrative, which is why he hid it from his readers.
Crouere went on to engage in the usual rigtt-wing defense of Donald Trump's actions befort the riot:
On January 6, 2021, President Trump did not commit or encourage any violence. He did not lead the charge into the U.S. Capitol and was not even present outside the building.
Prior to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, he told a massive crowd of his supporters to march “over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Despite his calls for nonviolence, Trump was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives for his actions on January 6, 2021. Fortunately, he was later acquitted by the U.S. Senate.
Crouere censored the fact that Trump also told the crowd to "fight like hell." He then whined about the House committee looking into the riot, using it to further portray Trump as a victim:
Despite his calls for nonviolence, Trump was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives for his actions on January 6, 2021. Fortunately, he was later acquitted by the U.S. Senate.
This exoneration did not prevent a U.S. House Select Committee from targeting Trump in their biased activities. The committee was composed of all Democrats and two Never-Trump Republicans. There was never anything close to a fair proceeding in their activities.
In essence, the committee conducted a “Kangaroo Court” by focusing solely on Trump. Their so-called investigations involved 10 public hearings, as well as reviewing thousands of documents, conducting hundreds of interviews, and issuing dozens of subpoenas.
Not surprisingly, the committee recommended to the DOJ that Trump be charged with four crimes: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make false statements, obstruction of an official proceeding and inciting an insurrection.
It remains to be seen what the DOJ will do with these charges, but there is already a Special Prosecutor who has been appointed to investigate Trump’s role in the J6 protests, along with the documents brought to his Mar-a-Lago home.
The unrelenting abuse of President Trump by his enemies is obvious. It must be investigated, along with the horrific treatment of the J6 protesters, by the new GOP leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Just like a Trump loyalist to take an investigate-the-investigators stance rather than support a full probe of his hero.
WND's Root Sets Up Rigged Lie-Detector Test To Push Anti-Vaxxer Narratives Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily columnist Wayne Allyn Root is a prolificCOVIDmisinformer, and he just won't let up. He ranted in his Dec. 16 column:
There is nothing left to debate. Anyone who is not brainwashed, or brain dead, can see that the COVID-19 vaccine was the worst mistake in America's history, world history, health-care history and the history of medicine.
The data is in from all over the world. You haven't seen it? I believe that's because the media are guilty of covering up mass death on a scale no one can even imagine. But it's only getting started. Wait for 2023.
But I have all the important data. Write me. I'm glad to send it, for free: WayneRoot@gmail.com.
We've noted that his "important data" is largely from dubious sources like anonymous Substack accounts, discredited "news" sources like LifeSite and the usual misinformer suspects like Steve Kirsch, Ryan Cole and Robert Malone, and it can be presumed that much of it is dubious, if not outright false.He continued with the usual vicious anti-vaxxer ranting:
No, I'm not a doctor, or a scientist. Yes, I'm a conservative TV and radio talk-show host. But I'm not brainwashed, gaslighted, delusional or easily scammed. I only search for raw truth – wherever it leads.
I have seen the data (i.e., factual evidence) from all over the world that the COVID-19 vaccine is the most dangerous and deadly vaccine in history – BY A MILE.
[...]
If you're not blind, you've noticed the media headlines of "sudden death." The numbers are shocking. Every day more famous people are "dying suddenly and unexpectedly." That's the tip of the iceberg. They represent thousands per day dying suddenly – a phenomenon never seen in history until the vaccines.
But it's not just death; it's a pandemic of disability. It's heart attacks, myocarditis, strokes, blood clots and an explosion of stage 4 cancer. Millions of Americans will never work again. Who will pay for all this?
This is a tsunami of death and disability – all because these innocent Americans trusted government, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, Big Pharma and Democrat [sic] politicians who mandated the vaccines.
Root then issued a challenge:
So, here's my challenge to all the liars, frauds, peddlers of propaganda, merchants of death and kings and queens of coverup and denial. It's simple ...
I believe the COVID-19 vaccine is deadly. This is now a crime scene. This is mass death on a grand scale. This vaccine death spiral is accelerating at warp speed. I believe we are about to experience the biggest mass die-off in world history, in 2023.
So, prove me wrong. Make me eat crow. Make me look crazy. All you have to do is take a simple lie detector test.
Never mind that lie detector tests aren't admissible in court. And he has a group of loaded questions designed to push his narrative. Among the first ones: "Does it protect against COVID-19?" and "Does it prevent transmission?" In fact, it reduces the risk of contracting and transmission; it also reduces the risk of hospitalization and death, but Root doesn't ask about that.
Another question: "In 1976 the entire swine flu vaccine program was suspended because 32 Americans died. Are you aware the VAERS list shows tens of thousands are dead from the COVID-19 vaccine, more than all other vaccines in modern history COMBINED?" Anti-vaxxers like Root love to deliberately misinterpret VAERS data and ignore the fact that none of the information in VAERS has been independently verified.
Then he moved on to dubious treatments:
No. 9: Were you aware that hundreds of studies show hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and ivermectin work very effectively versus COVID-19 and other viruses?
No. 10: Are you aware millions of lives could have been saved with HCQ, ivermectin and vitamin D3? However, if Big Pharma admitted any of them were effective versus COVID-19, they could not get emergency authorization to make billions of dollars with their experimental COVID-19 vaccines.
No. 11: Have you or your family ever used ivermectin?
In fact, most credible studies show that neither hydroxychloroquine nor ivermectin are an effective treatment for COVID. There are studies that suggest vitamin D may work as a treatment, while others do not.
Root, of course, knows his questions are loaded, and he's already predicting the results:
If I'm right, and the needle shows they fail every question, this makes them all complicit in fraud and mass murder. They all knew from the start. They all certainly know the truth now – yet they're still pushing the vaccine.
You can take the lie detector test and prove me a fool. I dare you. I double dare you.
But no one will ever take me up on my challenge.
That's because the debate is over. The jig is up. They can't hide it anymore. The "sudden deaths" are piling up. Now it's all about denial and coverup.
P.S. My favorite pronouns are "crimes/against/humanity," "mass/murder" and "prosecute/Fauci/and everyone involved."
That last part is a shoutout to Elon Musk for tweeting, "My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci."
Root then spent his Dec. 30 column merging his anti-vaxxer attitudes with his Trump-fluffing, epxlaining why he still supports Donald Trump despite the fact that he still supports vaccines:
Millions of conservatives who follow me on TV, radio, newspaper columns, books, social media (I'm back on Twitter again @RealWayneRoot) know me as "the Paul Revere" of the COVID-19 vaccine. I've warned louder and with more passion, from the highest mountaintops, about the dangerous, deadly COVID-19 jab – literally from the first day.
I believe this vaccine is the biggest disaster in health care history. It's a complete failure. It doesn't prevent COVID-19. It doesn't prevent the spread of COVID-19. And I have data and hard evidence from around the world showing the deaths, injuries, heart attacks, strokes and massive immune damage these vaccines have produced. The mortality rate is skyrocketing across America and around the world to the highest levels in recorded history, but only since the introduction of the jab ... and only among the vaccinated.
But Trump disagrees. He thinks the vaccines are a miracle of modern science. He believes they saved millions of lives.
Two people couldn't be further apart.
So, how can I support Trump for president? Well, I don't just support Trump, I support him 110%. I'm "all in" with Trump, even though we disagree on the COVID-19 vaccine. Why?
First, we agree 100% on every other issue. That puts us on the same team.
After more Trump-fluffing, Root revealed the one vaccine-related issuse where they both agree:
Now to the COVID-19 vaccine. Watch my interview. What's important is that Trump is against any COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Trump will never force anyone to take the jab. Period.
No cop will ever have to take the jab ... no fireman ... no nurse ... no private sector employee ... no government employee ... no pilot ... no soldier ... NO ONE. Bravo!
Trump also promised to reinstate any military member who was fired for refusing to take the jab – and give them back all their back pay. Even bigger bravo!
And then there's the children. With Trump as president, no child will ever be forced to take the jab to attend public school, or college. When it comes to children, Trump went further. He said, "Children shouldn't have them. They don't need them. It's terrible what they've done to children." Triple bravo!
That's all I need to hear. It's a free country. Trump can love the vaccine; I can hate it. But as long as no one is forced to take it, it doesn't matter.
If you want it, get it. Good luck. You'll need it. But I will never get it. I will encourage all my family, friends and fans to run away from it. That's freedom. That's what America is all about.
Remember, Root was a literal COVID superspreader, hiding the virus from all he encounted while on a book tour in late 2021.
The saga of Musk-fluffing at the Media Research Center continued with a Jan. 20 post by Paetin Iselin hyping how "JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon dealt leftists a dose of energy infrastructure reality" by noting that thte world's oil and gas usage will not stop immediately and that "Billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk joined the conversation in support of Dimon." Autumn Johnson used a Jan. 27 post to dutifully parrot a new selective release of "Twitter files" given to Musk's hand-picked journlaists:
CNSNews.com went into its second week of covering the discovery of classified documents in locations used by Joe Biden inbetween his stints as vice president and president the way it 
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Newsmax finished out the third week after being dropped by DirecTV whe, yes, even more victimhood:
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One of Media Research Center executive Tim Graham's standard complaints (
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As befits its role as a narrative manufacturer for right-wing political interests, the Media Research Center manufactured outrage over discussions of possible regulation of gas stoves -- then, as befits its role as a hypocritical whiner, complained when that manufactured outrage was called out. Alex Christy set the tone -- which is to say, the tone of a PR hack for the gas-stove industry -- in a Jan. 11 
Jeff Crouere began his Jan. 3 Newsmax 
WorldNetDaily columnist Wayne Allyn Root is a 
