The MRC's Loud And Lame War On NewsGuard Continues Topic: Media Research Center
For the past couple of years, the Media Research Center hasrepeatedlyattacked website-ratings service NewsGuard for committing the sin of pointing out how unreliable right-wing media is, demanding that outlets like Newsmax and OAN -- which are currently being sued for defamation by voting-tech firms Dominion and Smartmatic after they made false claims of ballot manipulation and election fraud -- be rated higher than they are. Despite all that whining, the MRC has never presented any evidence to argue that those right-wing media outlets be ranked higher than they are.
Well, the MRC's loud and lame war on NewsGuard is contining. Joseph Vazquez ranted in a Jan. 6 post:
Discredited leftist website ratings firm NewsGuard has had a year to prove that its ratings system isn’t prejudiced against conservative media, but it’s failing miserably. A new analysis shows that liberal media outlets were rated 25 points higher on average than right-leaning media outlets illustrates how NewsGuard’s self-projection as a credibility gatekeeper is a complete joke.
MRC Free Speech America analyzed the NewsGuard ratings of media outlets based on a list compiled by AllSides that classified their “bias” on a left-to-right scale. The average NewsGuard score for the “left” and “lean left” outlets — which included leftist outlets like USA Today — was a “green shield” rating of 91/100. USA Today was embroiled in a scandal after former reporter Gabriela Miranda was found to have fabricated sources. While the average rating for “right” and “lean right” outlets — which included Fox News, The Daily Wire and New York Post — was a low 66/100.
That’s a 25-point disparity.
As we've noted, USAToday dealt with the situation with that reporter in a forthright manner by identified the problem and corrected the situation while explaining to readers what happened. By contrast, the MRC still has yet to make any sort of public statement about the Brent Bozell ghostwriting scandal or how one of its bloggers used white nationalist links to flesh out his posts. Also, AllSides is hardly an objective observer; it's a right-leaning fact-checker that uses sloppy labeling, and the MRC has previously praised it for leaning into its "liberal bias" narratives.
Vazquez continued:
NewsGuard’s bias has barely budged in over 365 days of ever-changing nutrition labels either praising or demonizing the “credibility” of news outlets. But NewsGuard as an organization is in no place to virtue-signal about “credibility” given that its CEO Steven Brill tried to cast the now-verified Hunter Biden laptop scandal as a Russian “hoax” just prior to the 2020 presidential election. Even after the emails from the laptop were verified, NewsGuard maintained perfect scores for outlets like Politico, The Washington Post and USA Today, which all interfered in the 2020 election by trying to bury the Biden family scandal as some kind of disinformation operation.
Only in the right-wing bubble would refusal to report an unverified story be considered election interference. Note that Vazquez is blaming non-right-wing media for not parroting the story and not the New York Post -- a right-wing outlet that was in the tank for Trump's re-election in 2020 -- for failing to provide any sort of independent verification of the laptop story that would have elevated it above the October surprise-grade attack it clearly appeared to be. Vazquez clearly does not understand that it's good journalistic practice to not amplify an unverified story.
The worst thing Vazquez could apparenlty come up with regarding the Washingon Post's purported unreliablity is that it "was recently caught stealth-editing a report that falsely labeled journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss as “conservative.” The erroneous characterization came after both reporters’ separate coverage exposing the internal communications behind Twitter’s massive campaign to censor speech and ban former President Donald Trump." Vazquez offered no evidence to support his claim that Taibbi and Weiss are not conservative, and his description of them offering "separate coverage" of Twitter ignores the fact that both were hand-picked by Elon Musk to write about selective releases of internal Twitter documents to push a right-wing narrative of "censorship" under previous owners.
Vazquez again ranted that "BuzzFeed News continues to host the bogus January 2017 Steele dossier it published that made erroneous claims about alleged collusion between Trump and Russia. However, NewsGuard still gives the outlet a perfect 100/100 score" -- censoring the fact that BuzzFeed never claimed the dossier was accurate, told readers it was unverified and explicitly stated that it published the dossier "so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the US government."
Vazquez went on to attack USA Today again for an accurate fact-check on history:
In a so-called June 30, 2020, “fact-check”, the outlet tried deflecting from the historical fact that Democrats started the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan and were responsible for the Civil War by drawing a flimsy distinction between the Democratic Party and Democrats:
Historians agree that although factions of the Democratic Party did majorly contribute to the Civil War's start and KKK's founding, it is inaccurate to say the party is responsible for either.
The headline for the propagandistic fact-check was deceptive: “Fact check: Democratic Party did not found the KKK, did not start the Civil War.” The Democratic Party may not have officially started the Civil War, but the Confederacy was indisputably made up of strident Democrats, which USA Today arbitrarily glossed over to protect the left. In fact, one of the KKK’s founding members was Confederate veteran Nathaniel Bedford Forrest, a Democrat. But according to NewsGuard’s nutrition label, “[A]voids deceptive headlines” and “[g]athers and presents information responsibly.”
Note that Vazquez actually concedes that USA Today was correct by pointing out that the KKK was not "officially started" by the Democratic Party. He didn't explain how it was "propagandistic" to state something even he admits is accurate.
The results of MRC Free Speech America’s latest analysis are especially damning in light of NewsGuard’s latest expansion into rating TV shows. Variety reported Dec. 1 that NewsGuard’s ratings of “140 cable, streaming, and network television shows and networks will be available to advertising agencies, marketers, and others starting January 2, 2023.” NewsGuard’s TV show ratings are structured based on a 0-10 scale as opposed to the 0/100 scale used for websites. NewsGuard scored Fox News’s Tucker Carlson Tonight at rock bottom, giving the show a 0/10. NewsGuard claimed Carlson’s show “regularly advances false, misleading, and unsubstantiated claims on topics of importance such as COVID-19 and U.S. and international politics.”
By comparison, CNN’s Inside Politics received a NewsGuard rating of 9/10, because host John King supposedly provides “multiple viewpoints in his reports, mostly through his own summary of dissenting views on a story, and interviews with prominent Republican lawmakers, pollsters, and consultants.” But King is blatantly biased. For example, King and his panel recently used Trump’s dining with Ye (formerly known as “Kanye West”) and Ye’s guest, white supremacist Nick Fuentes, and the GOP’s quiet response to imply that Republicans are an anti-Semitic party that encourages hate crimes. King ignored the fact that Trump is transparently pro-Israel, while certain Democrats consistently spread anti-Israel rhetoric.
That's right -- just a few paragraphs after getting mad that USA Today wouldn't equate Democrats who founded the KKK with the entire Democratic Party, Vazquez got mad that the leader of the Republican Party hanging out with anti-Semites was elevated to reflect the entire Republican Party. Be consistent in your arguments, Joey! Also, one can criticize Israel without being anti-Semitic, and one can harbor anti-Semitic sentiments (Trump frequently invokes anti-Semitic tropes when talking about Jews) while also supporting Israel as part of a political agenda.
The MRC's anti-NewsGuard propagandagot repeated in a Feb. 6 podcast in which she declared that "I exposed NewsGuard and its checkered past of bias" by parroting her employer's earlier attacks. She even repeated one of the MRC's lamest attack lines: "NewsGuard also rated several Chinese Communist Party-controlled media outlets as more credible than independent American outlets such as One America News Network (OANN), Newsmax and LifeNews." Again, Newsmax and OAN are being sued for defamation, while anti-abortion proaganda operation LifeNews has reported numerous falsehoods.
With these 14 articles, Newsmax has published at least 205 "news" articles attacking DirecTV for dropping it in the four weeks since it happened on Jan. 25.
Newsmax's columnists similarly whined as well. Steve Levy complained in a Feb. 17 column:
But the best way the left believes it can defeat evil in the world is to shut down the few remaining safe spaces for open thought — one being Newsmax. So they pressured the corporate board rooms they now control to do their dirty work.
And spare me the nuance that this isn’t a First Amendment issue because DirecTV’s owner AT&T is a private company. While this isn’t a constitutional issue, the company’s actions are without question anathema to free expression as espoused by the aforementioned founders of western civilization.
Today's liberals supporting Newsmax’s canceling would be well served to look back at one of the most significant Supreme Court cases in America's history: National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie (1977).
Younger progressives may be surprised to learn that it was the ultra-liberal ACLU which led the fight< to allow a group of neo-Nazis to obtain a permit to march down Main Street.
They were wise enough to know that acquiescing to the banning of a group, even as vile as the neo-Nazis, could one day lead to the quelching of their own speech.
So today's liberals shouldn’t support Newsmax because they agree with its programming. They should support Newsmax because to do otherwise may one day make their own freedom of expression less viable.
You know, maybe portraying Newsmax as akin to persecuted neo-Nazis isn't the best analogy he could have used.
Jerry Newcombe similarly complained in a column the same day:
Free speech and a free press. It’s American as apple pie — or so it used to be.
In 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant, declared: “Let us all labor to add all needful guarantees for the security of free thought, free speech, a free press.”
But today the left seems to have free speech in America by the throat. We see this in the recent example of corporate giant AT&T cutting off the conservative network Newsmax from satellite distribution through DirecTV, about which I commented recently. This appears to the tip of the iceberg.
Both Newcombe and Levy failed to mention the fact that DirecTV replaced Newsmax with a different right-wing channel, The First, meaning that no viewpoint discrimination is going on here, or that Newsmax is readily available on streaming, meaning that its speech has not been abridged.
CNS Managing Editor Loves Putin For Hating LGBT People Topic: CNSNews.com
Conventional wisdom says that if you share views with a murderous dictator who's currently waging war on a neighboring country causing the deaths of thousands, you should rethink those views. CNSNews.com apparently is unaware that such conventional wisdom exists, because it's supporting Russian leader Vladimir Putin. It appeased Putin at the start of his war on Ukraine, and it continues to support him because he hates LGBT people at least as much as CNS does. Managing editor Michael W. Chapman, CNS' chief homophobe and longtime fan of Putin's anti-LGBT policies, uncritically gushed over Putin's latest crackdown a Dec. 12 article:
In an apparent attempt to strengthen the traditional Christian beliefs and practices of Russia, President Vladimir Putin signed into law on Dec. 5 legislation that will further ban pro-homosexual propaganda throughout the country.
In 2013, a law was passed to protect children from pro-LGBTQ materials. The new law expands those provisions to people age 18 and older.
The law prohibits the promotion of LGBTQ materials in advertising, the media, online, and in books, films and cinema, reported the Daily Mail.
It also prohibits the promotion of LGBTQ relationships or expressions that seek to depict homosexual couplings as normal. And it bans materials promoting pedophilia and gender transition.
Further, the law can be used to prevent "gay pride" marches or LGBTQ demonstrations. The legislation was approved by both legislative chambers before Putin signed it.
In a sermon on homosexual marriage, Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, said the trend of legalizing “gay marriage” is “a very dangerous sign of the apocalypse.” It “means people are choosing a path of self-destruction,” reported Fr. John Peck, the pastor of All Saints of North America Orthodox Church.
[...]
Russian political philosopher Alexander Dugin, speaking in August, said there is a spiritual war going on.
"[W]e are Holy Russia, as His Holiness the Patriarch says, and we are confronted by forces of absolute global historical evil," said Dugin. "Hence, more and more often we are talking about Armageddon, the end times, and the Apocalypse. This is all taking place before our eyes. We are taking part in the final (maybe the penultimate -- no one knows) and very important battle. Without a spiritual, ideological, intellectual dimension, we cannot win."
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus Christ says, "And whoever welcomes a little child like this in My name welcomes Me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world for the causes of sin."
A anonymously written Jan. 23 article (though one must assume that Chapman had a hand in it) cheered Putin bashing "Western elites" in a speech given five months earlier while he touted his illegal annexations of parts of Ukraine:
Russian President Vladimir Putin ave a major address on Sept. 30, 2022 in which he attacked what he called “the dictatorship of the Western elites,” whom he accused of rejecting the traditional family and pushing transgenderism.
Putin gave the speech to mark Russia’s annexation of four regions of the Ukraine—Luhansk, Kherson, Donetsk and Zaporizhia.
“Now they have completely moved to a radical denial of moral norms, religion, and family,” Putin said in his attack on Western elites.
“Such a complete denial of man, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, the suppression of freedom acquiring the features of a “reverse religion” [the opposite of what the religion is] – outright Satanism,” said Putin. “In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ, denouncing the false prophets, says: By their fruits you shall know them. And these poisonous fruits are already obvious to people – not only in our country, in all countries, including many people in the West itself.”
The anonymous author offered no criticism or response, even though there was more than enough time to locate one.
A Feb. 21 article by Chapman served up more uncritical praise of Putin for raging against Western culture in general and LGBT people in particular:
In his speech before the Federal Assembly in Moscow today, Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized the Western powers, particularly the United States, about their ongoing "destruction of the family," and added that Russia will protect its children "from degradation and degeneration."
“Look what they are doing to their own people," President Putin told a large crowd assembled in Gostiny Dvor, Moscow. "It is all about the destruction of the family, of cultural and national identity, perversion and abuse of children, including pedophilia, all of which are declared normal in their life." (Gostiny Dvor is a large exhibition center.)
"They are forcing the priests to bless same-sex marriages," said Putin. "Bless their hearts, let them do as they please. Here is what I would like to say in this regard. Adult people can do as they please. We in Russia have always seen it that way and always will: no one is going to intrude into other people’s private lives, and we are not going to do it, either."
Chapman failed to mention that Putin's anti-LGBT laws do, in fact, intrude into people's private lives. Inatead, he included pictures of LGBT pride parades and President Biden officiating at the marriage of a same-sex couple and called out a Christian denomination that failed to hate LGBT people to his liking to advance Putin's narrative:
The Anglican Church, the Church of England currently is considering using "gender-neutral terms to refer to God," reported the New York Times. The Church of England also recently voted to bestow church blessings on homosexuals married in a civil court.
Putin further said, “Millions of people in the West realize that they are being led to a spiritual disaster. Frankly, the elite appear to have gone crazy, and it looks like there is no cure for that. But like I said, these are their problems, while we must protect our children, which we will do. We will protect our children from degradation and degeneration.”
Chapman then cited a pro-Russia professor to help Putin basgh the U.S. for helping Ukraine:
John Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, and a leading scholar of realpolitik, said "the United States has tied its own reputation to the outcome of the conflict" in Ukraine.
"President Joe Biden has labelled Russia’s war in Ukraine a 'genocide' and accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being a 'war criminal' who should face a 'war crimes trial,'" said Mearsheimer in Foreign Affairs. "Presidential proclamations such as these make it hard to imagine Washington backing down; if Russia prevailed in Ukraine, the United States’ position in the world would suffer a serious blow.
Despite previous criticism of Kirill at CNS, Chapman has also praised him. An Oct. 13 article touted how Kirill said of Putin, "God put you in power so that you could perform a service of special importance and of great responsibility for the fate of the country and the people entrusted to your care." Chapman uncritically wrote in a Nov. 2 article:
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a "fighter of the Anti-Christ," a view that is not surprising given that Putin has said he and Mother Russia are fighting against the "outright Satanism" of the West.
Patriarch Kirill made his remarks about Putin in a speech opening the 24th Congress of the World Russian People's Council in late October, reported the Washington Examiner.
In addition to describing Putin as a "fighter of the Anti-Christ," the patriarch said that Russia is battling against a "unipolar world," globalism, and "the essence of this phenomenon is the creation in the world of conditions for the emergence of a sole ruler, who will be the Antichrist."
And, yes, Chapman went on to approvingly quote Putin ranting abaout Western culture again:
The Russian president also denounced gender ideology and sex-change surgery as manifestations of Western moral decay.
"Do we really want, here, in our country, in Russia, instead of 'mum' and 'dad', to have 'parent No. 1', 'parent No. 2', 'No. 3'? Have they gone completely insane?" said Putin.
He continued, "Do we really want ... it drilled into children in our schools ... that there are supposedly genders besides women and men, and [children to be] offered the chance to undergo sex -hange operations? ... We have a different future, our own future."
On Oct. 26, Newsweek reported that Alexsey Pavlov, assistant secretary of the security council of the Russian Federation, calling for the "de-Satanization" of Ukraine, which, he claims, has been overrun by "hundreds of sects."
Chapman offered no criticism of Kirill or Putin, which tells us he approves of their actions.
NEW ARTICLE -- The MRC Flips Over Elon Musk, Part 7: Twitter File Fails Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's hyping of Elon Musk's selectively released "Twitter files" (and annoyance that non-right-wing outlets weren't biting) was joined by cheering how he suspended the Twitter accounts of journalists who criticized him. Read more >>
MRC Making A Space As PR Agent For DeSantis' Upcoming Presidential Bid Topic: Media Research Center
After serving as a pressagent for Ron DeSantis' re-election campaign for Florida governor, the Media Research Center has moved on to serving as the press agent for DeSantis' presumed 2024 presidential campaign as part of the rapid-response team to lash out at any perceived criticism. That started on New Year's Day with a post by Kevin tober complaining that "newly elected radical leftist Congressman-elect Maxwell Frost" (a descriptor Tober didn't substantiate) noting how he crashed a DeSantis event, which Tober described as him "accosting" DeSantis with [checks notes] questions:
Frost claimed he “didn't stand up and yell and curse” at DeSantis. “I just stood up and said, Governor, what's your plan to end gun violence? We're dying.”
“So we came to him more with a plea and what I got in return, was nobody wants to hear from you. Getting dragged out by security. Having popcorn thrown at me and people yelling curse words and racial slurs,” Frost added to make himself seem like a victim despite willingly going to a private event where he wasn’t welcome in order to further his radical gun-grabbing agenda.
Instead of challenging Frost and scolding him for his divisive and uncivilized behavior like he would if a Republican candidate for Congress behaved in this manner, [ABC interviewer Jonathan] Karl seemed to approve:
The next day, Tober complained that DeSantis' culture-war obsession was called out, again by Frost:
During the first show of the new year, MSNBC’s The ReidOut host Joy Reid brought on radical leftist Congressman-elect Maxwell Frost to let him smear Florida Republican governor Ron DeSantis for daring to protect children from degenerate drag shows. During his rant, he went on to make the outrageously false claim that DeSantis “is more concerned with children going to drag shows than he is with children getting shot in their classrooms.” Reid’s only response to that smear was to smirk, make goofy faces, and nod along as he spewed more bile.
After appeasing Frost’s entitled whining that he’s somehow too poor to afford an apartment despite being less than 24 hours away from starting his $174,000-a-year job, Reid asked him about DeSantis cracking down on delinquent parents who bring their children to sexually explicit drag shows.
“He is now using the resources of the state when he could be fixing the insurance crisis in that state, and the affordability crisis in that state, he's investigating a holiday drag show in my former county,” Reid cried.
Reid added that DeSantis is “threatening the people who take children to a drag show with them can have the kids -- have intervention from child protective services.” She never explained why child protective services shouldn’t be called on parents who bring their children to drag shows.
Again, Tober didn't explain what makesFrost a "radical leftist" -- unless he thinks that anyone who criticizes DeSantis is one.
Alex Christy joined the defense brigade in a Jan. 5 post:
If MSNBC Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough’s new year’s resolution was to avoid the death of irony, he has already failed. On Thursday’s show, Scarborough took aim at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s inaugural address and wondered what kind of idiot believes him because such talk is what causes Republicans to lose elections. Again, this was in response to an inaugural address after DeSantis won by nearly 20 points.
[...]
Scarborough was not deterred by the chyron that read in part, “Gov. Ron DeSantis sworn into second term.” Instead, he brought back the bad impression and alleged, “They're talking to each other. And for most Americans when Ron DeSantis says 'when the rest of the country consigned freedom to the dustbin of history blah, blah, blah,' they're like, what's he talking about? Is he talking about North Korea? Is he talking about Putin's Russia? Is he talking about Belarus? Oh, no, he's talking about California and Texas and Georgia and Kentucky.”
He was clearly referring to COVID lockdowns and other restrictions. When MSNBC and Democrats (but who can tell the difference?) talk about the loss of freedom, are they talking about North Korea, Russia, or Belarus? No, they’re talking about pro-life states, sometimes arguing they make North Korea look good by comparison.
Clay Waters spent a Jan. 15 post complaining that the New York Times pointed out his petulant refusal to talk to a media outlet that won't fawn over him:
New York Times media reporter Michael Grynbaum pouted about Florida’s governor and potential Republican presidential candidate thumbing his nose at the “national nonpartisan” (!) media, in “Can Ron DeSantis Avoid Meeting the Press?” on Wednesday. None of these people have the faintest idea that skipping a beating from the national press endears you to GOP voters.
Grynbaum sympathized with a poor young ABC News reporter who couldn’t get a DeSantis interview, and actually forwarded praise of Trump to make DeSantis (the new threat to Democrats and their press allies) look bad:
[...]
New York Times, please define “national nonpartisan news organization.” They can't be talking about themselves, since they have published the notion that he's an "optical illusion."
Surely they don’t mean CNN and MSNBC, which are partisan in favor of liberal Democrats. Grynbaum found it ominous that DeSantis wasn’t giving the liberal press a target for their typical abuse of any Republican threatening to run for president.
Waters even defended a member of DeSantis' comm staff after making a statement suggesting she wanted violence against journalists:
He misled in his attack on former DeSantis press secretary Christina Pushaw, who sparred very effectively with the press on social media, by pretending that a piece of urban slang Pushaw slung online was somehow dangerous. ... “Drag them” is in fact a slang term.
Mark Finkelstein got mad that MSNBC's Joe Scarborough mocked DeSantis' presidential ambitions in a Jan. 20 post:
Are we in 2023? Or are we back in 2015? Because Joe Scarborough is back to touting Donald Trump as a juggernaut, as the heavyweight boxing champ of Republicans. This is the same pundit who couldn't stop calling Trump a "fascist" not too long ago.
On today's Morning Joe,Joe Scarborough suggested that DeSantis and his appeal is akin to Jeb Bush in 2015: someone loved by the big-business donor class, but who can't stand up to Trump. Scarborough predicted that DeSantis will decide not to run in '24 and skip the Trump "meat grinder," and instead finish his gubernatorial term with sky-high approval ratings, then start preparing a run in 2026 when he doesn't have to worry about facing Trump.
[...]
People would line up to bet Joe that DeSantis will run for the 2024 nomination. The reasons are obvious: this is DeSantis's moment. He's just coming off a tremendous re-election victory. He's got a ton of money in the campaign bank, with donors lining up to give more. He's established himself as the unquestionable leader in pushing back against the woke establishment. It looks like strike-while-the-iron-is-hot time for Ron DeSantis.
Finkelstein then appeared on Tim Graham's podcast later that day to repeat his criticism.
While the MRC hasn't given up on fluffing and defending Trump, it's definitely making sure it has a space on the DeSantis bandwagon as well.
WND Played Whataboutism To Deflect From Santos' Lies Topic: WorldNetDaily
Much like the Media Research Center, WorldNetDaily played whataboutism to try and distract from how newly elected Republican Rep. George Santo's claimed resume was pretty much a total fabrication. Laura Hollis piled on the whataboutism in her Dec. 29 column:
Once upon a time, this would have produced outrage. Now, it barely registers. A "senior GOP leadership aide" reported to the New York Post that Santos' – ahem – "embellishments" of his background were well-known and a "running joke" with Republicans.
Democrats, of course, are demanding that Santos resign. But they are in no position to point fingers. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, infamously claimed to be a "native American" on the basis of her family stories. She continues to serve as a United States senator and even ran for president.
Speaking of presidents, Joe Biden has made a career out of lying. He has said he graduated at the top of his law school class at Syracuse University (he graduated in the bottom 10%); that he was the Outstanding Political Science student at the University of Delaware (he wasn't); that he received a commission to the Naval Academy (nope). He plagiarized a paper in law school. He later plagiarized a speech originally given by former British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. He claimed to be the first in his family to go to college (he wasn't). He said he got arrested in South Africa in the 1970s trying to see Nelson Mandela (he didn't). He exploits public sympathy for the tragic deaths in his family, claiming that his son Beau died in Iraq (he died of cancer in a Maryland hospital) and that a drunk driver killed his first wife, Neilia, and their 1-year-old daughter, Naomi (the other driver was not drunk, and Neilia Biden was at fault in the crash).
No consequences.
[...]
His press secretaries lie. His appointees lie.
No consequences.
This is how American politics devolves. Although Republicans have played their share of dirty pool, the Democratic Party has taken the lead eroding political standards, after which Republicans scramble to play along.
[...]
This somehow ended up with Simpson spouting discredited election fraud conspiracy theories:
The latest rule changes involve not just mailed-in ballots but "ballot harvesting," which must be viewed in tandem with the Biden administration's allowing millions of illegals to enter the country. Why? Because Democrat activists and lawyers are also busy fighting election-integrity laws in state after state. When identity and citizenship cannot be verified, improper ballots will not be able to be disqualified.
Do the math.
Or take Maricopa County, Arizona, where anywhere from 20% to 48% of voting machines jammed on Election Day, affected by ballots that had – inexplicably – irregular-sized images and text, creating long lines and wait times of hours for voters – disproportionately Republicans – who opted to vote on Election Day. Thousands of people were impacted. But apparently, as long as it looks like just stupidity and incompetence, again, no consequences.
Nicholas Waddy complained in his Jan. 3 column that Republicans were held accountable for their role in instigating the Capitol riot while not explaining what that had to do with Santos:
What Democrats forget is that lying, while unethical, is protected speech in these United States, and, if we were ever to criminalize lying, or throw everyone out of Congress who has prevaricated, its halls would be empty – of Democrats, in particular.
Many have already exhaustively documented the countless misrepresentations Joe Biden has made about his record, his family background and his opponents. Biden routinely says things that aren't true. Either Biden is deliberately lying, or his mind is so addled by senility or self-regard that he lacks the ability to discern what is true and what is false. Either way, Biden would seem to be disqualified as a potential public figure, much less as the leader of the free world. And yet, according to progressives, Biden is a true American hero! None of this adds up.
Democrats' hypocrisy on matters of truth and falsehood goes far beyond their high regard for the serial liar Joe Biden, however. The modern Democratic Party and the progressive movement are built on a tissue of lies. This can be seen with ample clarity in their disingenuous claims and tactics in the recent midterm elections, which even CNN has criticized.
For starters, Democrats castigated their Republican opponents as "insurrectionists" and traitors, even though no insurrection took place in January 2021 and not a single person has been charged with, or been convicted of, insurrection. The sole purpose of the January 6 committee was to misrepresent what happened on that fateful day in order to vilify Republicans, to conceal the share of responsibility borne by congressional Democrats for the frightful lack of security on Capitol Hill, to conflate honest questions about the conduct of the 2020 election with violent opposition to American "democracy" and to capitalize politically on a national tragedy. Nancy Pelosi excluded Republicans nominated by the Republican leadership in the House from the committee precisely because she did not want anyone on it who might challenge the falsehoods and misrepresentations that would pervade its work. (Presumably, Democrats and progressives everywhere adore censorship for the same reason: They hate it when anyone points out that they are wrong.)
[...]
All in all, George Santos' résumé-building fabrications pale in comparison to the complex web of falsehoods that undergirds the Democratic Party and its progressive ideology. Santos should apologize every chance he gets – and he should stay in office, to join in the work of rebuilding the public's trust in the effectiveness and integrity of the federal government. It is the Democrats who, over the last two years, have left this trust hanging by a thread.
James Zumwalt cranked out Biden whataboutism in his Jan. 4 column:
Whether it was embellishment or lying, what Santos did was clearly wrong. However, what is disingenuous is the reaction of Democrats who mercilessly attack Santos for lies that pale in comparison to the whoppers that have poured out of Joe Biden's mouth during a political career spanning a half century and that continue on through today.
[...]
Biden became such a proficient liar he really seemed to believe he could get away with it. Yet, even after learning he could not, he continued to try. The plagiarism he committed in law school failed to discourage his later plagiarism as a senator in using others' speeches as his own. He took this to the extreme of even using the original speaker's words to falsely make claims about his own life simply because those words appeared in the original text – words such as he was the first member of his family to go to college. (Biden lied as his grandfather had gone to college.) Biden later had to drop out of his 1988 presidential campaign for lying about having graduated in the top half of his law school class when he really graduated 76 out of 85.
Now occupying the Oval Office and still undeterred about telling untruths, Biden can claim the title of Liar-in-Chief. While some may choose to dismiss his lies as the result of an 80-year-old mind lacking clarity on issues, it ignores the fact he has followed this pattern since age 29.
But what is astounding is to hear Democratic voices rant against Santos that have been woefully silent about Biden. Nor, for that matter, did we hear those voices speak out about Sen. Elizabeth Warren's, D-Mass., false claim of Native American ancestry. The claim put her on an inside career track both to get a teaching opportunity and to run for the U.S. Senate.
In fact, there's no evidence Warren knowingly lied when she claimed Native American ancestry,
As an aspiring senator in 2004, the greatest bamboozler of them all punched his ticket into the club, telling America in his breakthrough speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, "My parents shared not only an improbable love. They shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation." Not a word of this was true.
At the 2008 Democratic convention, Sen. Barack Obama once again mined the apocryphal family saga. "Four years ago," he told his audience, "I stood before you and told you my story – of the brief union between a young man from Kenya and a young woman from Kansas who weren't well-off or well-known, but shared a belief that in America, their son could achieve whatever he put his mind to."
Obama knew he was living a lie, but he had no choice other than to persist. He had built a highly successful campaign around what biographer David Remnick called his "signature appeal: the use of the details of his own life as a reflection of a kind of multicultural ideal."
[...]
Obama finessed that life story to suit his purposes. Even on his most delusional day, Santos would not have told a whopper like the nearly blasphemous one Obama told on a March 2007 day in Selma, Alabama.
Obama had just declared for the presidency a month earlier. The fact that veterans of the celebrated 1965 Selma civil rights march were in attendance did not rein in his conscience.
In his best faux black preacher cadence – better, at least, than Hillary's – Obama wove his own corrupted life story into the larger narrative of the black struggle. Said Obama for the ages:
"But something stirred across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks were willing to march across a bridge. And so they got together, and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I'm not coming home when I come to Selma, Alabama. I'm here because somebody marched for our freedom."
As Obama explained, the Kennedys were so moved by the march they organized an airlift "to start bringing young Africans over to this country." His father "got one of those tickets," which enabled him to meet Obama's mother, and "Barack Obama Jr. was born."
As it happens, Obama Sr. came to America when Eisenhower was still president, and miraculously, Obama's birth occurred nearly four years before the Selma march.
And we're supposed to be appalled by Santos?
Cashill clearly is not, because his obsessive hatred of Obama blinds him to worse things being done by his fellow right-wingers.
MRC Merges Soros Obsession, Musk-Fluffing Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center writer Joseph Vazquez brought his George Soros obsession into his employer's Musk-fluffing, lashing out in a Feb. 6 post at a Soros-funded group that called out Elon Musk for interacting with right-wingers on Twitter:
A George Soros-funded group targeted Twitter owner Elon Musk for daring to interact with “right-wing accounts” following acquisition of the platform.
The leftist Institute for Strategic Dialogue spewed nonsensical agitprop in a Jan. 31 blog. ISD railed against Musk’s exchanges with “right-wing Twitter users” and claimed that his interactions with these accounts increased a so-called “staggering 1,690 percent after October 27, from 1.1 percent of his total interactions to nearly 20 percent.”
The “right-wing” accounts that ISD blacklisted included satire site The Babylon Bee, Psychologist Jordan Peterson, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, and social media influencer Ian Miles Cheong. ISD even attempted to label noted left-wing Glenn Greenwald as a “right-wing account.”
ISD whined that Musk was supposedly “signaling to his followers and other Twitter users that these ideas are acceptable on the platform, likely inviting more hate on Twitter, and creating space for actors to spread disinformation and harmful ideologies.”
Not only did Vazquez fail to justify tagging ISD as "leftist" beyond receiving Soros-related money, he didn't explain why those right-wingers shouldn't be accurately identified as such, let alone why they are not right-wing. Greenwald has been shiftingrightward for some time now -- why else would he go on Fox News so much?
Vazquez went on to tout Musk siding with the standard "they're just posting videos" defense of Libs of TikTok:
The Soros-funded group even labeled Libs of TikTok, which simply finds left-wing extremists’ videos and reshares them to its various pages, a “prolific spreader of hate.”
The organization attempted to justify its arbitrary claim by slamming Musk for liking one of Libs of TikTok’s tweets. “Posting publicly available videos isn’t harmful, hateful or dangerous,” the tweet read. “You know what is harmful though? Confusing kids about their identity, stealing childhood innocence, exposing kids to adult sexual entertainment, giving kids porn in school, and sterilizing and mutilating kids.”
Apparently, per ISD’s logic, Libs of TikTok’s rebuke of the sexual exploitation of children is an example of “hate.”
In real life, however, Libs of TikTok purveyor Chaya Raichik has amply demonstrated herself to be a vicious homophobe, and her videos have inspired violent threats that she has never disavowed, which tells us that she has a bigger agenda than "just posting videos."
Vazquez went on to whine that "The organization also smeared Ian Miles Cheong and Townhall writer Scott Morefield as 'two conservative journalists' that are supposedly 'known to spread disinformation and amplify hateful right-wing talking points,'" but again, he offered no evidence to disprove that description. He then went into the usual MRC whataboutism:
ISD’s feigned outrage against so-called “hate” and “disinformation” on Twitter is laughably disingenuous. The organization said nothing about the anti-Semitic Ayatollah Khamenei or Chinese Communist Party-affiliated accounts which have been allowed to spread their respective bile for years under Twitter’s old regime. A 2010 tweet by Khamenei, for example, raged that “Israel Is A Hideous Entity In the Middle East Which Will Undoubtedly Be Annihilated.” Would ISD be suffering the same conniption if Musk was interacting with those accounts instead? The CCP in particular is currently conducting religious- and ethnic-based genocide against the Uyghur Muslims, is running an authoritarian surveillance state and was starving its own people under “zero-Covid” policies. But how dare Musk associate with “right-wing” accounts, eh ISD?
Yet all of these Twitter accounts are apparently still active, and Musk has done nothing to remove them. Shouldn't Vazquez be criticizing Musk instead? Also, his feigned outrage over right-wingers being accurately identified as such is even more laughably disingenuous.
Vazquez concluded by grousing that "The group continued ranting against Musk interacting with those so-called “prominent superspreaders of election disinformation” like Tim Pool and Dinesh D’Souza." Again, he offered no evidence to counter that accurateassessment.
So when Dungy got busted touting a false story about litter boxes being placed in classrooms for students who identify as cats, Craig Bannister ran to his defense in a Jan. 19 article:
The first African American head coach to win a Super Bowl deleted a tweet mocking school gender identity policies on Wednesday, following backlash from liberal websites and social media users claiming he was promoting a debunked urban myth.
On Wednesday, NFL Hall of Famer Tony Dungy tweeted a comment mocking Minnesota State Rep. Sandra Feist for saying schools should be required to provide menstrual products in boys’ bathrooms – because “not all students who menstruate are female.”
Replying to a Daily Wire video of Rep. Feist making the claim, Dungy tweeted:
"That's nothing. Some school districts are putting litter boxes in the school bathrooms for students who identify as cats. Very important to address every student's needs."
Denounced and accused of perpetuating a conservative urban myth, rather than just making a joke, Dungy deleted the tweet by the end of the day.
Bannister offered no evidence Dungy was "just making a joke." Indeed, Dungy himself offered no such defense in apologizing for the tweet: "As a Christian I should speak in love and in ways that are caring and helpful. I failed to do that and I am deeply sorry."
Bannister then took things one step further, effectively arguing that Dungy is right because somebody somewhere once identified as a cat:
Regardless of whether or not schools are providing bathroom litter boxes, some women actually are identifying as feline.
A social media post by one such cat-lady was a featured video at last year’s Media Research Center Gala. In it, she provides examples of her various meows and their meaning, including her cat mating call.
“Overall, we’re a very happy kitten family,” she says.
Apparently, cat-identification is nothing new. In 2016, a Norwegian woman named Nano claimed to be a cat. She said she really believes she is a cat. In a video interview with a local reporter, the then-20 year-old said she first realized she was a cat at 16 years old.
"I think I will be cat all my life," she predicted.
After clearing that up, an article the next day by editor Terry Jeffrey touted Dungy speaking at the annual anti-abortion March for Life:
Tony Dungy, who coached the Indianapolis Colts to a victory in Super Bowl XLI in 2007 and is now a football analyst for NBC, spoke at the March for Life in Washington, D.C. on Friday and said that the march was more important than the ongoing NFL playoffs.
“It is great to be here,” Dungy said. “Can’t tell you how much excitement [my wife] Lauren and I have to be here today--even though this march is taking place right at the biggest time of my profession, the NFL Playoffs. This is way, way, way more important.”
Jeffrey said nothing about Dungy discrediting himself a coule days earlier by spreading a fake right-wing story.
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Year Of (Still) Hating Transgender People Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center spent 2022 spewing even more hatred at not only those who are transgender but also those who refuse to hate them as much as it demands. Read more >>
Newsmax Columnist Pushes Conspiracy Theory To Bash Capitol Riot Committee Topic: Newsmax
Like his fellow Newsmax columnist Jeff Crouere, Michael Dorstewitz was not happy with the House committee that looked into the Capitol riot, complaining in his Jan. 6 column that the committee "illustrates why we have an adversarial system of justice."
Dorstewitz gets a couple things wrong right off the bat. First, it's a legislative committee that never claimed to be anything else, which means that the "adversarial system of justice" does not apply. Second, Republicans were given the opportunity to appoint members to the committee, but then-House minority leader Kevin McCarthy refused to participate at all after then-House leader Nancy Pelosi refused some of his appointees for being pro-insurrection. (Would Dorstewitz have demanded that members of Al-Qaeda be appointed to the 9/11 Commission?)
Dorstewitz the complained that some witness testimony will not be made public, which prompted him to go into conspiracy mode:
Would they include the testimony of former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, who said it was the failures of the Pentagon, FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security that led to the tragedy of Jan. 6?
Would those records include informationthat someone from the inside had to have opened "the 20,000-pound Columbus Doors that lead into the Rotunda" that "are secured by magnetic locks that can only be opened from the inside using a security code"?
All of this and more would have been public record had the Jan. 6 Committee been formed as an adversarial body, as committees normally are.
As evidence of Sund's claims, Dorstewitz linked to an article featuring ... Sund promoting his new book in which he presumably detailed exactly that, arguably making release of his testimony redundant. Regarding the Columbus Doors stuff, that's a bogus conspiracy theory. As a fact-checker found:
No evidence exists to support the claim that an electronic mechanism locks the doors from the inside. For one, the eavy damage sustained by the interior rotunda doors does not indicate that the doors were willingly unlocked to permit the rioters’ entry. And while the Capitol Police declined to comment to The Dispatch Fact Check on security measures at the U.S. Capitol, other sources have suggested that the doors could not have been locked from the inside because of fire evacuation and safety rules.
It wasn't until nearly the end of his column that Dorstewitz finally admitted McCarthy's snit about refusing to participate in the committee after Pelosi rejected his pro-insurrection nominees, which he benignly described only as "strong Trump supporters." He then declared: "Although he was criticized for this, McCarthy was right in pulling his remaining committee choices."
Dorstewitz concluded by whining; "It’s un-American when any 'fact-finding' body acts as judge, jury and prosecutor, and the results are always predetermined." Yet pro-insurrection Republicans never set up a credible alternative, something Dorstewitz makes sure not to mention.
CNS' Donohue Still Spewing Hate At LGBT People Topic: CNSNews.com
In addition to his usual bad takes, the Catholic League's Bill Donohue hates LGBT peopole. His Jan. 13 CNSNews.com column touted a "report" he put out -- actually, just a list of right-wing bullet points unsupported by evidence -- purporting to show a "future agenda" attacking "parental rights." One alleged example was that "Biden’s CDC was encouraging LGBT youth to engage with Q Chat Space. This online chat space, where youth can discuss sex, polyamorous relationships, the occult, sex change operation, and activism, is designed with a 'quick escape' feature so it can easily be hidden from parents." Yes, he's equating being LGBT to "the occult."
Donohue spent his Jan. 17 column attacking gay marrage in general and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg's marriage in particular:
Does Buttigieg really have a husband? Of course not. He may love Chasten but he can never be his husband. Why not? Because he has been disqualified by nature.
It is true that Buttigieg is legally married, but that is a legal fiction. The Britannica Encyclopedia defines a legal fiction as “a rule assuming as true something that is clearly false.” The idea that a man can have a husband is clearly false—he can only have a wife—despite claims to the contrary.
Buttigieg’s “marriage” is recognized by the positive law, or by what lawmakers and judges posit, but it is not recognized by the natural law. The natural law, which was first promulgated by Aristotle and Cicero (and later amended by Aquinas), holds that morality is a function of human nature, and that we can arrive at moral strictures on the basis of observation and reason.
[...]
No man can have a husband anymore than a man can bear a child. He can say he does but that doesn’t make it true. If someone introduced his uncle to a stranger, saying, this is my aunt Joe, no one would believe him. Those who have blue eyes can claim they have brown eyes, but that doesn’t change reality. A left-handed person can claim to be right-handed, but observation tells us otherwise. Gorillas do not give birth to kangaroos.
Nature can be stubborn. It is not a social construct. It is fixed. The sooner we learn this truth, the better off our society will be.
So what should we call Chasten, if he is not Buttigieg’s husband? His partner. The two of them may not like it, but truth is not determined by what is popular. It is determined by what makes sense according to nature and nature’s God.
Donohue has long falsely blamed homosexuals for the Catholic Church's child sex scandal even though investigators in a study commissioned by the churchfound no link between sexual identity and sexual abuse.
How Is WND's Farah Playing Victim These Days? Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has been spending the past several years playing victim by insisting that outside forces are conspiring against WND to cause it to reside on the brink of failure (and not WND discrediting itself by publishing fake news and conspiracy theories). Let's see how that's been going lately, shall we? Farah wrote in a Dec. 26 column:
Listen to this.
I haven't had email for a month. Can you believe it? I can't.
For 30 years, I have depended on email so much I took it for granted.
I have used Rackspace, based in San Antonio, for more than 25 years, virtually since I started WND.
On Dec. 1, I tried to log in – nothing. What the deuce? Did I forget my password? It's entirely possible having had five strokes in 2019. But, no, it wasn't that. I asked my wife to check her account. Same thing. She didn't have access either.
What was going on? There has been a major system disruption on Rackspace's hosted secure domain – a major hack for 26 days – and there's no end in sight. It's a calamity. Unthinkable. No way for people to reach me on my trusty old email address – jfarah@wnd.com.
As an email addict, this is nuts.
Despite the fact that the outage had nothing whatsoever to do with WND -- Rackspace was the target of a ransomware attack -- Farah still managed to turn it into a rant about WND's self-inficted situation:
Technology has been like that – a blessing and a curse.
Twenty-five years ago, when I started WND as the first independent news site on the internet, I thought it was the sure-fire cure for media bias. But 20 years later, I realized the internet was had become a THREAT to freedom of the press. That's what Google, Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft, Amazon, etc., proved to be – just as Twitter was exposed to be. Google and YouTube, for instance, recently demonitized WND – permanently. Why? Because we were skeptical about the results of the 2020 election and the COVID vaccine. Were we proved right? Yes. But it didn't matter.
Actually, he weren't proven right about either of those things. Still, he added a money beg at the end.
Farah went back to ranting about Google in his Dec. 28 column:
Meet the "intelligence" officials who demonetized WND months ago. Finally, we know who those people are.
It was the badly misnamed Google Trust & Safety team. (Censors always use euphemistic names.)
That's right. It was three members of the Deep State – those who control "misinformation and hate speech."
It was all blatantly illegal – in direct violation of the First Amendment.
On top of that, Google is still riddled with high-ranking "intelligence" agents – 165 to be exact. They include former members of the CIA, 27; the FBI, 52; the NSA, 30; the DHS, 50; and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 6.
Farah then complained about one Google official who posted "a series of anti-white tweets, plus a couple of others. He then whined:
So now we know how Google made the decision to demonetize us. They used left-wing nut jobs formerly with the CIA to "cover" themselves. While WND was tanking, going broke and suffering for telling the truth, as we have for 25 years as a news agency, they were yucking it up.
We just don't have any money left to sue them, which is what they deserve.
Maybe now that people realize we didn't do anything wrong – in fact, we did what was right – others will find it in their hearts to support us. There's no way we can support ourselves. Look what they have done to us!
As we've documented, Google didn't "demonetize" WND -- it simply chose to no longer do business with a company that publishes fake news and conspiracy theories, as any private company is allowed to do. And, yes, there was another money beg at the end.
Farah rehashed his Google attacks yet again in his Jan. 13 column, citing the selectively released "Twitter files" Elon Musk gave to his handpicked journalists as proof of a conspiracy against it:
WHY is Google continually targeting WND in this way?
Now we know for sure, after the Twitter admissions. The Deep State, in all of its censorious history, its blacklisting ways, its fascist actions and its fondness for the FBI, CIA and other three-letter anachronisms, has been teaming up with Big Tech to suppress truth.
Indeed, the question is easy to answer: In Google's eyes, in Big Tech's eyes, in most of what we call the mainstream media's eyes, we at WND are just bigots, science deniers, conspiracy theorists and election deniers.
Which is true, of course, but Farah insisted that the lies he publishes are really true through dishonest reframing:
Here, then, are WND's three supposed BIG LIES that caused Google to throw everything they have at us. (Please note the key element here: Not only are none of these BIG LIES actually lies at all; they are, in stark contrast, probably the three most important and consequential BIG TRUTHS of the Joe Biden era.)
BIG LIE #1: Google tells WND, "We do not allow content that: incites hatred against, promotes discrimination of, or disparages an individual or group on the basis of their race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, age, nationality, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or other characteristic that is associated with systemic discrimination or marginalization." They put it is WRITING!
Translated, that means when WND dares to report honestly and forthrightly on the fantastically deranged transgender agenda – where beautiful American kids are indoctrinated, seduced, groomed, recruited and enabled to "transition to a different gender" by taking puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and even undergoing double mastectomies and castration – when we report on this horror show, which we do daily, to Google we are "inciting hatred" and "promoting discrimination." In reality, of course, we're defending and protecting the most innocent, helpless and precious among us – the children who will make up America's next generation. That's not "hatred. it's love. It's truth. And we'll never stop telling it for any amount of blood money.
BIG LIE #2: Says Google, "We do not allow content that: makes claims that are demonstrably false and could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process."
Translation: When we document the obvious and provable fact that the 2020 election was one of the most corrupt, tainted, manipulated and RIGGED elections in American history, well, that makes us extremists, terrorists, insurrectionists, conspiracy theorists, supporters of QAnon (whatever that is) and "semi-fascists" who are undermining democracy and the electoral process.
BIG LIE #3: According to Google, "We do not allow content that: promotes harmful health claims, or relates to a current, major health crisis and contradicts authoritative scientific consensus."
Translation: When WND reports with total accuracy on the Biden administration's catastrophic mismanagement and cynical exploitation of the COVID pandemic – from imposing vaccine mandates that have thrown tens of thousands of military members, nurses, paramedics, police, firemen and other frontline heroes out of work, to suppressing inexpensive and effective early outpatient treatment of COVID, to pretending "natural immunity" isn't real even though almost a hundred studies prove it's superior to vaccine immunity, to insisting that infants and toddlers be needlessly injected with the experimental "vaccines," to the almost daily reports of healthy young people who either died or manifested serious heart disease immediately after receiving the COVID shot – well, such reporting as ours is simply not allowed. It's anti-science, and it "contradicts authoritative scientific consensus" – aka Anthony Fauci.
These, then, are the reasons Google has given us for wanting to shut WND down. Again, this is not my opinion: I am quoting from the reasons Google has put in writing to explain our permanent demonetization.
Such delusion and cognitive dissonance on Farah's would seem to more than justify Google no longer wanting to do business with WND. And if that list and delusional defense sounds familiar, it's because his lieutenant, David Kupelian, did the same thing months ago.
Of course, there's a money beg at the end: "Please prayerfully consider making a generous tax-deductible donation to the Christian nonprofit charity, the WND News Center. You can make either a one-time donation or a monthly recurring donation. Either way is enormously appreciated."
MRC Drops Biden Classified Doc Obsession After Classified Docs Were Found At Pence's House Topic: Media Research Center
After a solid twoweeks of attacking President Biden over classified documents found at his properties, the Media Research Center was angry to see all that go to waste when classified documents were discovered at the home of former (and Republican) Vice President Mike Pence. Kevin Tober complained in a Jan. 24 post:
Like a bunch of five-year-old children, CBS Evening News anchor Norah O'Donnell and chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes appeared to be beside themselves with excitement Tuesday over the news that former Vice President Mike Pence had about a dozen classified documents at his home in Indiana. Since they presumably see their jobs as serving as apparatchiks of the Biden regime and the Democrat Party at large, O'Donnell and Cordes were clearly relieved to know Pence was also reportedly guilty of having mishandling classified documents.
"In a pair of letters to the National Archives, lawyers for former Vice President Mike Pence said they searched his home in Indiana last week out often an abundance of caution. There, they discovered a small number of documents bearing classified markings that were inadvertently boxed and transported to Pence's home at the end of the last administration," Cordes breathlessly reported.
Cordes then jumped at the chance to portray Pence as dishonest by noting how "the search came just days after Pence assured multiple journalists, including CBS's Robert Costa, that he had been more responsible about documents than President Biden was."
Once Cordes was done with her report, O'Donnell was giddy with excitement when bringing Cordes in to discuss the story further: "Nancy Cordes joins us now from the White House. So did they say anything there today about all this?"
Equally ecstatic, Cordes replied that "publicly, the White House had absolutely no reaction, but behind the scenes, several officials actually expressed relief that Mr. Biden is now not the only former Vice President to discover that he had some classified documents stored in an unsecure area."
You can be sure that the leftist media will use the Pence situation to shield Biden from his own irresponsibility in mishandling documents. Since there's no excusing Biden's behavior, leftist activists like O'Donnell and Cordes will point to Pence in order to distract the public from the Biden documents scandal.
Of course, by that definition, the MRC has been acting like a bunch of five-year-old children in spending two weeks hyping Biden's document issues while portraying Donald Trump as a victim for refusing to cooperate with archive officials to such an extent that an FBI raid became necessary to retrieve the documents he took. Tober made sure not to bring up Trump's name here.
But Tober and the rest of the MRC didn't really want to talk about Pence either. Thus, a Jan. 25 post by Nicholas Fondacaro based on yet another hate-watching of "The View" tried to turn the focus on a co-host he particularly hates for not loving Trump enough:
Faux conservative and co-host of ABC’s The View, Alyssa Farah Griffin used to work for the Department of Defense and former Vice President Mike Pence during the Trump administration. And on Wednesday, after it was reported that Pence had classified documents at home, Farah Griffin had the spotlight of scrutiny (jokingly) placed on her. But she couldn’t confirm nor deny that she had classified documents there.
The cast wasn’t critical of Pence retaining classified documents in an unsecured location; after all, this helped to provide cover for President Joe Biden and they chalked it up to him having to frantically pack after January 6 and the “hang Mike Pence” chants from the rioters.
“I think it was the chaotic nature of the transition. When I resigned in December, staff was being threatened, don't look for new jobs, don’t pack your offices. Because they were not preparing for a transition,” Farah Griffin recalled.
Farah Griffin assumed the documents ended up with Pence’s personal things as a result of a “staff error” due to “last-minute” packing.
Kathleen Krumhansl served up further whining that the Pence discovery undermined right-wing narratives in a Jan. 26 post:
To take it from Joseph Malouf, Telemundo's in-house “Constitutional Law Expert”, Christmas came a month late for Donald Trump on January 23 when classified documents were found at former Vice President Mike Pence's Indiana home.
“Now that you have three people -- three people recently serving the country -- with classified documents; it's the best news Trump could have asked for; it's Christmas for him,” Malouf told D.C. correspondent Cristina Londoño the day after the story of Pence's documents broke.
[...]
Does “Christmas for Trump” lead to Springtime for Biden? Telemundo sure seems to think so!
As it turns out, the Pence discovery so deflated the MRC that it has not done any more posts focused on Biden's classified documents for the next few weeks -- and it certainly did no more on Pence's classified documents. Still, the MRC was desperate enough for any possible anti-Biden dirt it could find that Curtis Houck did serve up some really thin gruel, however, in a Feb. 16 post:
Late Wednesday, CNN’s Paula Reid revealed the FBI had conducted multiple searches of President Biden’s records at the University of Delaware from his Senate tenure (and “documents...sent...in recent years") that have been held in secret since their donation in 2012. While they reportedly didn’t find any classified documents, it was worth sharing as it marked another chapter in his classified documents scandal, but CBS Mornings saw no reason to mention it on their Thursday editions.
ABC’s Good Morning America wasn’t much better as they snuck in an 11-second brief on the search, which topped the 18 seconds spent on their overnight show, America This Morning. In contrast, NewsNation’s flagship AM show Morning in America had a full report in each of their three hours.
Yes, Houck really demanded full wall-to-wall coverage of a search in which nothing was found, just because right-wingers could use it to bash Biden. That's how we know the MRC is first and foremost a partisan political organization, not anything seriously dedicated to "media research."
SHOCKER: WND's Hirschhorn Cuts Back On Anti-Vaxx Fearmongering Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joel Hirschhorn has one of WorldNetDaily's greatestpurveyors of misinformation and fearmongering about COVID and its vaccines. So it's a bit of a shock to see him actually address the subject in a more straightforward and factual way. His Jan. 19 column didn't start out promising, though:
Regular readers of this truth-telling publication already are well-informed about the many ill effects of COVID vaccines. But there is always more to understand as medical research keeps unfolding.
First, to summarize the ugly reality it is important to recognize what the great Dr. Peter McCullough has noted. Roughly 15% of vaccine recipients develop a health problem after taking a COVID-19 vaccine. Compared to decades of previous vaccines, that is a huge number that previously would have caused the government to take such a shot off the market.
Hirschhorn didn't mention, however, that the percentage of people who catch COVID and have lingering symptoms is at least that high and arguably have more severe symptoms, such as loss of taste or smell. (He also didn't mention that, contrary to his "great" description, McCullough is actually a even bigger misinformer.)
What followed, however, was a surprisingly straightforward summary of a study published in an actual, credible, peer-reviewed medical journal examining why some people, mostly young men, suffer myocarditis after receiving the vaccine, which the study attributed to spike proteins that evade detection. He did try to fearmonger a bit at the end:
Here is the key point: The spike protein they had in their bodies had evaded the apparently sufficient library of antibodies (from the vaccine or previous infection) that were supposed to neutralize it. Thus, it is possible that some persons do not make specific neutralizing antibodies after injection, and thus, the spike protein is able to circulate and damage the body, specifically the heart muscle and possibly other organs, including the brain. Other research has found that harmful impacts can happen many weeks or months after booster shots. Scars in heart muscle could explain serious impacts and deaths.
In summary, this study shows potential age-related differences in the processing of vaccine-derived spike protein that may explain the relatively higher frequency of myocarditis in adolescents and young adults, and a potential role for unbound circulating spike protein in the myocarditis, which suggests that for patients in whom spike antigenemia is detected, administration of antibodies to spike protein could potentially prevent or reverse the pathology. However, given the relatively small number of participants analyzed in this study, these conclusions need to be confirmed in large cohorts.
That expert also noted that "myocarditis has also been observed in response to other vaccines, such as vaccines against influenza and smallpox, and non-mRNA vaccines against COVID-19." Which tells you that the whole myocarditis thing is just a ginned-up scare tactic from anti-vaxxers.
Congratulations, though, to Hirschhorn for actually trying to stick to established facts. It's not something WND is known for.
With these 21 articles, Newsmax has run at least 191 articles attacking DirecTV for dropping it since it happened on Jan. 25.And none of these articles mentioned that DirecTV replaced Newsmax with another right-wing channel, The First, which means no viewpoint "censorship" is happening.
Meanwhile, Newsmax unironically ran a wire service story on Feb. 15 stating how that "For the first time ever, U.S .adults will spend more time this year watching digital video on platforms such as Netflix, TikTok, and YouTube than viewing traditional television, Insider Intelligence forecast Wednesday." Newsmax has pointed out that "it offers its feed for free on its website, on YouTube and on multiple streaming platforms such as Roku, so viewers with DirecTV service will still be able to watch it -- which would seem to show that Newsmaxdoesn't actually need to be on DirecTV and that everyone who really wants to watch it has found a way to doing so.
Newsmax also continues to have columnist complain on its behalf. Kenny Cody ranted in a Feb. 14 column:
Nearly one year after removing the conservative leaning One America News Network (OANN), from their channel lineup, DirecTV decided to drop Newsmax, a conservative-leaning outlet.
While DirecTV is arguing that both decisions were based upon non-negotiable contractual terms, the sense from Newsmax is that the provider wanted conservative voices, reporting, and voices silenced across their medium and perhaps thinks that both the Biden administration and other Democratic politicians had a significant influence regarding its decision to remove the network from its channel lineup.
Cody censored the fact that DirecTV replaced Newsmax with another right-wing channel, so no "conservative voices" are being "silenced." But the victimization narrative is a hard one to break, so Cody just kept ranting, with an added bit of pretending it's not government interference into private business matters if the government looked into this particular private business matter:
While it can be argued that Big Tech is working against conservative voices, a proper investigation should be launched to ensure if there was actual interference or influence by federal government officials, over companies like DirecTV.
It's not pro-big government to investigate the connection between government and private companies if it means they have a political bias, a bias demonstrated by impinging upon speech platforms.
It would be a giant step forward for the GOP if this connection were probed and proven by both U.S. Senate and U.S. House Republicans.
Dennis Kneale cheered Newsmax's strategy of screaming loudly over being on the bad end of a business decision in his Feb. 15 column:
By now, AT&T must be regretting the decision by executives at its DirecTV service to oust the Newsmax network from the 13-million-subscriber platform. The Newsmax response has been vociferous and effective, enlisting a platoon of conservative allies to side with the cable network.
Newsmax has fought back against its much larger foe by running a non-stop barrage of on-air stories about the clash, and online coverage on its website, and referrals to a new fight website. It also has used Twitter as a megaphone and a rallying point for supporters.
What AT&T and DirecTV brass may have viewed as a negotiation over new fees has blown up into a fight against Big Tech censorship. And with good reason.
DirecTV canceled a smaller conservative network, OAN, last April, after a few Democrats called on media platforms to pull the plug on conservative networks for spreading "misinformation." Now this?
He too failed to disclose thatDirecTV replaced Newsmax with another right-wing channel.
For the past couple of years, the Media Research Center has repeatedly attacked website-ratings service NewsGuard for committing the sin of pointing out how unreliable right-wing media is, demanding that outlets like Newsmax and OAN -- which are currently being sued for defamation by voting-tech firms Dominion and Smartmatic after they made false claims of ballot manipulation and election fraud -- be rated higher than they are. Despite all that whining, the MRC has never presented any evidence to argue that those right-wing media outlets be ranked higher than they are.
Newsmax is not going to stop 
Conventional wisdom says that if you share views with a murderous dictator who's currently waging war on a neighboring country causing the deaths of thousands, you should rethink those views. CNSNews.com apparently is unaware that such conventional wisdom exists, because it's supporting Russian leader Vladimir Putin. It 
After serving as a 
Much like the 
Media Research Center writer Joseph Vazquez brought his 
Former NFL football coach Tony Dungy has long been praised by CNSNews.com for injecting his right-wing Christianity into sports. For instance:
Like his fellow Newsmax columnist 
In addition to his 
WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has been spending the past several years playing victim by insisting that outside forces are conspiring against WND to cause it to reside on the brink of failure (and not WND discrediting itself by publishing fake news and conspiracy theories). Let's see how that's been going lately, shall we? Farah wrote in a Dec. 26 
After a solid 
Joel Hirschhorn has one of WorldNetDaily's 
The 
