MRC Mad People Said Nice Things About Biden's Visit To Ukraine
Topic: Media Research Center
As it regularly does, the Media Research Center got mad again when people say nice things about something President Biden does -- in this case, paying a surprise visit to Ukraine. Kevin Tober was first up in a Feb. 20 post, which also issued another regular complaint that historic things are being called "historic" (and, of course, a dash of whataboutism):

On Monday night, the three evening network broadcasts went ga-ga over President Biden's "historic" trip to Ukraine. Each of the three networks (ABC's World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, & NBC Nightly News) got weak-kneed over the trip and made no snide comments or said anything at all negative about Biden or his Ukraine visit. This is in stark contrast to how they treated both former Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump when they visited the U.S. troops overseas. 

ABC's World News Tonight anchor David Muir drooled at "President Biden's secret and historic trip into Ukraine, a daring act by a sitting president visiting a war zone. And one where no American troops are serving." Muir added that "the journey planned in secrecy and unannounced, playing out in the overnight hours, and it comes just as the world is set to witness the one-year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine."

Contrast this with how ABC's former Good Morning Americaco-host Charles Gibson framed Bush's 2003 Thanksgiving visit to the troops in Iraq: 

Tober seems to have missed the fact that Biden was not visiting U.S. troops stationed abroad but, in fact, the war zone of an American ally that was being targeted by a hostile invader.

A couple hours later, Tober whined further about a "phony historian" who praised Biden but still knew more than Tober:

On Monday night, MSNBC's The ReidOut continued an all-day theme in the leftist media of swooning over President Biden's trip to Ukraine, which he took despite failing to pay a visit to his own citizens suffering in the working-class town of East Palestine, Ohio that had been poisoned by a toxic train derailment. Regardless, MSNBC's pseudo-historian Michael Beschloss wants you to believe Biden's trip to Ukraine was the bravest thing a president has done since Abraham Lincoln visited a Civil War battleground in 1864. Yes, the same Biden that took five deferments from serving in Vietnam was brave according to Beschloss.

When asked by host Joy Reid what he thought of Biden's Ukraine excursion, Beschloss pompously claimed "what Biden did today goes straight through two centuries of proud American history." 

"To find a day of this kind of presidential bravery in a war zone, you got to go all the way back to 1864, July, when Abraham Lincoln as President went to see confederate soldiers were firing on Washington, D.C," Beschloss claimed.

[...]

The idiocy of Beschloss's comparisons should be self-evident. For those who don't grasp it, comparing a presidential visit in the year 2023 with all the modern-day Secret Service protection and other protective measures to Lincoln, Madison, and Washington's visits to battlegrounds where there was little to no security is like comparing apples and oranges.  

The same Joe Biden who refused to fight for his country in Vietnam wasn't going to risk his life to visit a country engulfed in a war the United States has little to do with, other than giving billions in aid.  

Funny, Tober didn't note that Trump also got five military deferments and refused to fight for his country in Vietnam when praising him for visiting the troops.

Mark Finkelstein joined the whine-fest the next day:

Morning Joe was all aboard the Sycophant Express today, turning the gush meter to 11 as it unleashed a string of superlatives to praise Biden's visit to Ukraine.

"Incredible, staggering, historic...absolutely stunning...extraordinary...incredibly moving."

Joe Scarborough twice put Biden's bravery in the same category as that of Lincoln visiting Union troops during the Civil War.

At one point, Scarborough emoted over Biden's "excruciating 10-hour train trip." You want an excruciating train trip, Joe? Try riding the NYC subway at rush hour, with the ever-present danger of being pushed onto the tracks by a maniac.

When Scarborough noted that even Fox News defended Biden's trip,  Fibnkelstein returned in a Feb. 23 post to complain about that too:

Fox News is the network that Morning Joe loves to hate. Similar to the way the show will often refuse to even mention Donald Trump by name, referring to him only as "the former president," Morning Joe will often make a sneering reference to "certain networks," while obviously targeting Fox.

So it was what we could call a Sudden Respect moment when today's Morning Joe praised Fox News in general, and Brit Hume in particular, for their defense of President Biden's trip to Ukraine before making a possible visit to East Palestine, Ohio in the wake of the train derailment there.

Morning Joe played a clip of Bret Baier mentioning that it has not been historically common for Transportation Secretaries to visit the site of train derailments, especially when there are no fatalities. Baier pointed out that during the Trump administration, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao didn't visit train-disaster sites, including ones involving loss of life, whereas there was no loss of life in East Palestine.

Morning Joe then played an extended clip of Hume opining that a president's key duty is to the security of the United States, and in that context, Biden's visit to Ukraine took precedence over a visit to East Palestine.

Scarborough and Willie Geist praised Hume's comments, with Scarborough saying that Hume had made a "very good point," and Geist saying that Hume understood the importance of Biden's visit to Ukraine and Eastern Europe since "he's been around for more than five minutes."

MRC employees are generally not allowed to criticize Fox News (lest it jeopardize their chances of getting on the channel), so Finkelstein didn't actually criticize Hume for deviating from the right-wing hate-Biden narrative.

Tim Graham devoted his Feb. 24 column to a full-on whine about historic (non-conservative) things being called historic (by non-conservatives):

One of the worst glorifications of journalism is to call it “the first rough draft of history.” At least old Washington Post boss Philip Graham once blustered about “our inescapably impossible task of providing every week a first rough draft of history.”

Some events are so catastrophic – think September 11 – that you know it’s historic in real time. But most of history cannot be proclaimed within the day it occurs. The adjective “historic” is often used to boost leaders and themes in a way that sounds like advertising instead of journalism.

When Kevin McCarthy took over as Speaker of the House a few weeks back, that wasn’t “historic.” On PBS, Washington Week host Yamiche Alcindor spoke discouraging words about his “rocky, rocky week” with Republican “hardliners.” But Hakeem Jeffries and the Democrats who lost the majority were boosted as the “new historic group leading the Democratic Party in the House.”  

When President Biden made a surprise trip to Kiev, MSNBC quickly put these words on screen: “Biden Makes Historic Trip to Ukraine.” How on Earth do they know this is dramatic history in the making? Will this be seen as “historic” in two years? Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is historic, but we don’t know whether Biden’s five hours in the capital are crucial.

Graham cobncluded by huffing: "This is why cable 'news' sounds more like hour after hour of partisan spin control rather than an objective recounting of facts. We have no idea when or whether Russia will admit defeat and withdraw from Ukraine, but we do know Biden will be painted as a heroic G.I. Joe well into 2024." You can be sure that Graham is not accusing Fox News of serving up "hour after hour of partisan spin control" in his indictment of "cable 'news'."

WND Hypes Misleading Attack On Dominion, Censors Company's Response
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Bob Unruh tried to keep up the anti-voting-machine conspiracy theory in a Feb. 22 WorldNetDaily article:

Voting machines have played an inordinate role in headlines in the last few years, since the oddly anomalous results of the 2020 presidential election were revealed to give Joe Biden narrow victories in states that appeared to be majority Republican.

Naturally there were questions about the accuracy of the counts by those machines, especially after some clearly wrong results were admitted, and corrected.

ommentators made accusations about failures and one of the voting machine behemoths, Dominion Voting Systems, immediately went to court, suing them for defaming the company's reputation. Some defendants responded with their own lawsuits against Dominion.

And now, as a result of one of those legal actions by Dominion against Fox News, it's been revealed in a report by Just the News that one of Dominion's own executives knew the system had failed.

It was Dominion Director of Product Strategy and Security Eric Coomer who admitted in an email that his company's technology was marred by a "*critical* bug leading to INCORRECT results."

"It does not get much worse than that," he said.

The comments were revealed as a part of the discovery process in Dominion's lawsuit against Fox. Dominion is demanding $1.6 billion for "defamation."

His comments were made public in a legal brief filed by the news outlet.

Further, the details provide that in 2019, Coomer lamented that "our products suck."

He explained that "almost all" of the tech failings by Dominion were "due to our complete f--- up in installation."

The information was filed in a defense brief by Fox in the case.

Coomer's comments came in 2018, and later in 2019, the report said, when he added, "We don't address our weaknesses effectively."

In the days just before the 2020 vote – where suspicion landed on the accuracy of the voting machines – Coomer said, "Our sh-t is just riddled with bugs."

Further, the report explained, "Mark Beckstrand, a Dominion Sales Manager, testified in a deposition that 'other parties 'have gotten ahold of [Dominion's] equipment illicitly' in the past."

The defense arguments explain, "Beckstrand, identified specific instances in Georgia and North Carolina and testified that a Dominion machine was 'hacked' in Michigan" and "confirmed that these security failures were 'reported about in the news.'"

Unruh is just a stenographer who writes what he's told -- here, rewriting a biased story from Just the News -- and he cranks out what's politically expedient in the moment and will never do follow-up reporting if it blows up the original story. And that's what happened here. Dominion responded in a March 8 brief in support of its motion for summary judgment in its lawsuit against Fox News for spreading false information about the company after the 2020 election in a footnote that called out Fox News' mischaracterizations:

Other examples of Fox’s mischaracterizations of the record abound, though none matter to this motion’s resolution. For example, in the fact section of its answering brief, Fox quotes a portion of former Dominion employee Eric Coomer’s text message as evidence that “He lamented that ‘[a]lmost all’ of Dominion’s technological failings were ‘due to our complete f--- up in installation.’” FNN.Opp.p.17. But Coomer’s text message actually said “Almostall of it was due to...” with the preceding text message referring to “Texas, unanimous denial.” In other words, Coomer was attributing a single event—the denial of certification in Texas—to Dominion’s “f--- up in installation” (i.e., problems with the installation for Dominion’s demonstration of its equipment for Texas certification). Fox omitted the word “it” (referring to the Texas certification denial) and instead suggested, incorrectly, that Coomer was talking about “technical failings” at the company more broadly. See H3.

Fox also distorts Dominion witnesses’ deposition testimony, for example, by stating that Mark Beckstrand testified that a voting machine was “hacked” in Michigan, even though Beckstrand defined a “hacking instance” as “an attempt at hacking or somebody gets ahold of our equipment illicitly.” The immediately preceding and ensuing deposition transcript pages (which Fox failed to provide the Court) show that Beckstrand was talking about an aberrational event from 2022 in which a Michigan county lost custody of a Dominion voting machine, which ended up being turned over to Goodwill and sold on eBay. Beckstrand made clear in his testimony that the county losing custody of the machine had nothing to do with an issue with Dominion or its equipment, and with respect to the machine being on eBay, “nothing can happen to it, nobody can do anything with it.”

In any event, Dominion internal documents and witness testimony about events are irrelevant to Fox employees’ state of mind unless they knew about those documents or events at the time (and they did not).

Nah, Unruh will never tell his readers about this. He's too much of a hack.

MRC Gushes Over Joe Rogan Smearing Stelter As 'Prostitute' For Hanging With WEF 'Lizard People'
Topic: Media Research Center

We've shown how the Media Research Center's Brian Stelter Derangement Syndrome didn't fade after he left CNN, then intensified after he took part in a panel at the World Economic Forum, a regular target of right-wing conspiracy theories. That happened again in a Feb. 18 post by right-wing movie critic Christian Toto, which began with the usual partisan attacks on Stelter:

Podcaster Joe Rogan hasn’t forgotten Brian Stelter’s reign of error at CNN.

Stelter, former host of the far-Left channel’s “Reliable Sources” program, got fired last year after new CNN CEO Chris Licht allegedly vowed to bring balance to the news network.

Conservatives routinely skewered Stelter for his cartoonishly biased approach to the news. The analyst focused much of his ire against Fox News, for example, while all but ignoring the Left’s ideological network, MSNBC.

The Free Press’s Bari Weiss skewered Stelter, and his inability to call out the media, to his face during a 2021 appearance on “Reliable Sources.”

Toto eventually got to the point of his derangement -- complaining that Stelter didn't go away after leaving CNN and repeating Rogan's attacks on Stelter for taking part in that WEF panel:

Now, he’s landed a gig at Harvard University as the school’s Walter Shorenstein Media and Democracy Fellow. He also snagged a high-profile moderating gig at last month’s World Economic Forum.

The subject? Battling misinformation in the modern age, a subject Stelter knows all too well. Except he’s incapable of calling out his sins, or those committed by his former employer or a media landscape that buried the biggest news story of the 2020 presidential election.

The Hunter Biden laptop scandal.

Instead, Stelter tag-teamed with other WEF officials to demand more censorship, not less. And that’s why Rogan and journalist Matt Taibbi let him have it.

The two pounded Stelter on the latest episode of the “Joe Rogan Experience,” heard exclusively on Spotify.

“[Stelter] looked very comfortable there, didn’t he?” said Taibbi, a left-leaning journalist aghast at mainstream media corruption.

“Of course he does. He’s with evil lizard people that are trying to control the world. That’s his bosses… I’ve been around the evil lizard people,” Rogan said.

“He looked as happy as maybe he’s ever been,” Taibbi said.

“He’s supposed to be a journalist, but he’s not even good at that. So what he’s doing now is, he’s holding water for the evil leaders of the world who want to institute hate speech policies nationwide and centralized digital currencies, and they want everybody to eat bugs, and you will own nothing, and you will be happy,” Rogan said. “This is the f***ing people he’s working for now. He’s basically a prostitute.”

Tot is apprently cool with Rogan promoting the fringe "lizard people" conspiracy theory and maliciously smearing Stelter as "basically a prostitute." He didn't explain why misinformation shouldn't be countered, and he certainly didn't mention that Rogan has a history of spreading misinformation (which the MRC vociferously defended).

And because Toto and the rest of the MRC are Stelter-haters and Rogan-defenders, they censored the fact that Stelter shot down Rogan's attack on him. Mediaite reported:

Former CNN host Brian Stelter shot back at podcaster and comedian Joe Rogan after being accused of working for the “lizard” people behind the World Economic Forum.

Rogan discussed the global summit in Davos, Switzerland held last month with journalist Matt Taibbi when Stelter’s name came up, both men mocking Stelter’s appearance on a panel, which came just shortly after his Reliable Sources was canceled at CNN.

According to Stelter, he had no “bosses” at the panel like Rogan’s mocking suggested. Stelter went to Davos at his own expense.

“Joe Rogan got it all wrong, again. The World Economic Forum did not ‘hire’ me to ‘work’ in Davos. I went there on my own dime to write about the conference,” Stelter tweeted in response to a Mediaite article covering the Rogan and Taibbi interview.

Stelter also responded to a story from the New York Post about Rogan’s comments, telling Rogan to “call” him if Rogan “wants to tell his listeners the truth.”

“I normally ignore Rogan’s rants. But the @nypost wrote a story and asked for comment, so I said, if Rogan wants to tell his listeners the truth, he can call me,” he tweeted.

But telling the truth doesn't advance MRC narratives, so Toto doesn't want his readers to know about it.

CNS Complained That Right-Wing Attacks On Buttigieg Were Called Out
Topic: CNSNews.com

Part of CNSNews.com's political exploitation of the train derailment in Ohio was to attack Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for purportedly not responding soon enough to the disaster (despite the fact that it took CNS 11 days to write its first article on it). When there was pushback on the right-wing attacks on Buttigieg -- whcih CNS also did in December in an attempt to blame him for airline flight delays over the Christmas holidays -- CNS made sure to complain. Melanie Arter groused about the pushback in a Feb. 23 article:

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday defended Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited East Palestine, Ohio, on Thursday, three weeks after the train derailment that led to hazardous chemicals being released into the environment.

When asked if Buttigieg was in Ohio at the president’s direction, the press secretary said, “Secretary Pete went because he believed that it was important for him to go there at this time.”

As to whether it was the right time to go, Jean-Pierre said, “I think what’s important is that he was there. I think what’s important is that we saw the Secretary of the Department of Transportation there. 

“I do want to say one thing, though, which is there’s been a lot of bad-faith attacks on Secretary Buttigieg, and the reason why we believe it’s bad faith is — if you remember Elaine Chao, she was — you know, she was the head of Department of Transportation, and where — when there was these types of chemical spills, nobody was calling for her to be fired, and nobody was calling for what they’re calling on Mayor — Secretary Pete,” she said.

<“It is pure politics.  This is pure political stunts, what they’re doing.  You have seen an administration that has — because of the leadership of this president that has taken action and multi-agency action to deal with the needs that we’re seeing on the ground with the community of East Palestine,” the press secretary said.

When NBC White House Correspondent Peter Alexander tried to ask the press secretary about China, she turned the subject back to Buttigieg again.

Arter served up a more straightforward account of Buttigieg the next day:

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told MSNBC’s “The Reidout” on Thursday that it was “ironic” that former President Donald Trump visited the scene of the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, accusing him of watering down regulations and weakening the Biden administration’s power to deal with freight train companies.

“It was definitely an ironic thing to do. You take down regulations. You water down regulations, you weaken the power of the administration to deal with freight railroad companies, and then you show up wanting to be a great friend of the people who have been impacted by a rail disaster,” he said.

Arter did go on to note that "Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) called for Buttigieg to be fired, saying he was missing in action on the train derailment for three weeks," though she did add that "Buttigieg responded by claiming that Rubio had asked for the Biden administration to weaken its inspection practices."

An anonymously written March 2 article complained that the Washington Post noted the homophobic nature of right-wing attacks on Buttigieg:

The Washington Post published a story on Wednesday that carried the headline “Republicans seize on train derailment to go after Buttigieg” and then stated that some conservatives and Republicans had used the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment as an "opportunity to wrap [Transportation Secretary Pete] Buttigieg’s sexual orientation into their criticism, leading to allegations that the post-derailment criticism stems in part from homophobia."

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines “homophobia” as “irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or gay people.”

The anonymous writer appeared to confirm the Post's reporting by not only illustrating the article with a picture of Buttigieg kissing his husband but also going on to obsessing over him being gay and adopting kids:

According to the Britannica website, Buttigieg is “gay” and “married.” It says: “In June 2015 he came out publicly as gay in an essay published in the South Bend Tribune. He later married (2018) Chasten Glezman, a schoolteacher.”

As reported by The Guardian, Buttigieg and his husband have adopted two babies.

A Sept. 1, 2021 story posted by the Guardian carries this headline: “Pete Buttigieg and husband Chasten announce the birth of adopted twins.”

“The Buttigiegs announced last month that they were engaged in the adoption process,” the Guardian reported. “Sharing a picture of the babies on Saturday, they said they were ‘beyond thankful for all the kind wishes since first sharing the news that we’re becoming parents.’”

The anonymous writer didn't explain why "gay" and "married" were put in scare quotes.

CNS' homophobic hate of Buttigieg started when he ran for president in the 2020 campaign and continued when he was nominated as trasportation secretary.

MRC Kicked Off The New Year With More Transgender Hate
Topic: Media Research Center

In addition to promoting a discredited attack on a transgender clinic (which it refuses to retract or correct), the transphobes at the Media Research Center found other ways to lash out at transgender people since the beginning of this year. Chief transphobe Tierin-Rose Mandelburg ranted in a Jan. 10 post:

Don’t let that door hit ya on the way out. 

Rynn Willgohs, a 50-year-old transgender woman, is trying to figure out ways to leave the United States and seek asylum abroad due feeling targeted and attacked within the nation. WIllgohs started TRANSport to help others do the same.

Willgohs told VICE that theres “like 30 states” that he would not feel comfortable driving in due to the “increasingly hostile national climate.” He also added, “All you need to do is look at the news and see how bad it’s going to get in the country. We’re accused of being pedophiles and of grooming children. We’re being accused of being a social contagion that makes every child think they are in the queer community. That’s the farthest from the truth.” 

Maybe he’s disregarding the plethora of transgender/lgbtq teachers who specifically target their students to be part of the gender spectrum. I’d consider that a “social contagion” but maybe that’s just me. I'm sure TRANSport's European destinations are more enlightened.

[...]

Presently the group has about 30 people who have expressed interest in seeking asylum abroad. Running as a non-profit organization, TRANSport can accept donations, which it plans to use to  help people legally change their gender prior to fleeing the U.S, as well as help with passport and travel fees. 

I’d be lying if I said that I hate this idea … it’s not terrible and I’ve always been an advocate for the mentality of leaving a place if you hate it so …

Mandelburg went into mocking mode in her Jan. 11 "Woke of the Weak" podcast:

This week we got to witness a transgender lady complain about feeling “sick.” Essentially he had to call out of work after feeling ill and thinks that the pain he’s experiencing is due to a sort of menstrual cycle. He’s a biological man getting pumped with female hormones and is now complaining about cramps. 

Kinda funny considering he’ll never get a period or be an actual woman, not to mention asked for some sort of negative affect on his body when he chose to try to medically change his gender.

For a Jan. 30 post, Mandelburg hyped a claim by "Ex-prisoner Amanda Benson" who "revealed she was terrified of being raped by violent transgender females during her time behind bars." Mandelburg didn't mention why Benson was in prison -- according to a UK source Mandelburg cited, she has previous convictions for assault, so it's likely she would have been able to adequately defend herself (unless she's the kind of person who delights in bullying and assaulting poeple she thinks are weak).

Matt Philbin had a freakout over fictional transgender people in a Feb. 1 post:

They’re just not gonna let kids grow up normal. If the groomers can’t get ‘em in school, they reach out and get ‘em in video games.

According to Fox News Digital: "'The Sims 4,' which calls itself 'the ultimate life simulation game' on its website, announced Tuesday that it would allow players to give characters 'top scars' that come from breast removal surgery."

Here’s the best part: the game is for kids as young as 12, so tweens can contemplate double mastectomy scars, binders, “shapewear” (tucking or stuffing, I guess) and something called “medical wearables.”

All this makes sense, given that the kiddies have been able to use “they/them” pronouns since last May. Now, in the words of Libs of TikTok, “They’re teaching young healthy girls that it’s ok to chop off their breasts.”

It’s a depraved new world.

Philbin didn't mention that the Fox News Digital article was written by Jeffrey Clark, one of the parade of former MRC employees who now works for Fox News. Looks like all that Fox News-fluffing pays off for the MRC!

Mandelburg spent a Feb. 3 post raging that transgender people would like a refuge from hatred spewed by people like her:

What could be better than a Trans mommy/daddy having two trans kiddos? Pretty much anything else.

A transgender “mother,” Amber Mum, recently testified in front of the Minnesota House regarding House File 146 to advocate for ... transgender services for kids. 

Ms. Mum testified in a pink shirt that said something about trans rights, a pink necklace that looked like it was from the dollar store, a Walmart hoodie and hot pink lipstick. He was a real sexy lady.

In his speech he said, “I am also a proud trangender woman but more importantly, a mother of two wonderful transgender and gender expansive children.”

Pause right there. A transgender having two transgender children?! Projecting much? What a Rockwell painting that house must be.

We'll pause further to note that we don't recall Mandelburg attacking women who adopt children because they can't or choose not to have biological children. You may continue your rant, Tierin-Rose:

Mum wants to castrate children, and we’re the barbaric ones. 

We're so backward that Mum and his “trans partner” have discussed plans to “flee the country.”

Toodles!

Towards the end of Mum’s spiel, he explained that it was “barbaric” and “morally repugnant” for parents and healthcare providers to get in trouble for helping innocent children transition. Yeah, the ones who don’t want kids getting mutilated are the “morally repugnant” ones. GOT IT!

This MAN needs to shut up for one, stop advocating for child abuse and have his own kids taken away. He, and people like it, are the emulation of the threat of the left on our kids.

Yes, Mandelburg thinks any action a parent takes toward helping their child that strays outside the rigid heteronormative ideology she follows is "child abuse." She offers no evidence that Amber Mum is a bad parent outside of her existence as transgender.

Elise Ehrhard whined about more fictional transgender people in a Feb. 7 post:

Last night, NBC's Quantum Leap reboot pushed a radical trans agenda, promoting inclusion of biological males in girls' sports and female locker rooms.

Monday's episode, "Let Them Play," was a full hour of trans propaganda. The show ignored, dismissed or derided the pain felt by young female athletes who have had their sports and privacy invaded by biological males.

[...]

This woke turn is disappointing for a show which had seemed to be avoiding the reboot curse and actually produced interesting story lines with engaging narrative arcs.

Let's hope the show returns to what makes it work and does not repeat another week of left-wing lecturing.

Philbin spent a Feb. 8 post repeating an evidence-free claim from the right-wing Daily Caller that plastic surgeons oppose anti-transgender laws because they make too much money performing genbder-affirming surgery, sneering, "Nice bread if you can make it."

On Feb. 10, Kathleen Krumhansl huffed that a Spanish-language interviewer promoted an transgender musician:

The need to remain relevant is so pressing for Univision's veteran anchor Jorge Ramos, that he has now incorporated the erasure of women under the cover of 'trans visibility' to his campaign against the traditional values of the public he claims to champion and represent.

This became evident in an interview with Puerto Rican trans urban music performer Villano Antillano (Antillian Villain), that aired over Ramos's Al Punto talk-show last Sunday, February 5th, where the key take-away was: Feminism’s new frontier lies at the threshold of the (100% machista) reggaeton -- and in the hands of women -- like her.

Watch how women- possibly Univision's most valuable demographic -- get swiftly canceled by Ramos in the name of “trans visibility”:

[...]

Reggaeton is notorious for lyrics that objectify women, something that to 'her' credit, Antillano rectified with “(reggaeton) is not very much for empowering women”, adding that “It's us women who are now like taking it in that direction.”

In what direction, we wonder. For while Ramos elevated deep-voiced Antillano to the level of feminist trailblazer- “a reggaeton and urban music singer who is breaking stereotypes and who by raising her voice with great courage, is opening spaces in music and a society that until very recently were closed to many,” it turns out that 'her' courage stems from elsewhere: revenge. 

Yes, Krumhansl really is mad that a transgender artist is trying to make reggaeton less misogynistic. She needs to rethink her priorities.

Newsmax Snaps Into Trump Defense Mode Over (False) Claim His Arrest Was Imminent
Topic: Newsmax

The Trump stenographers at Newsmax sprung into action when Donald Trump proclaimed on March 18 (without evidence, of course) that he would be "arrested" the following Tuesday. Eric Mack wrote:

Former President Donald Trump expects to be arrested Tuesday in a case brought by the Manhattan district attorney's office and called on his supporters to protest in a Truth Social post Saturday.

"Illegal leaks from a corrupt & highly political Manhattan district attorney's office, which has allowed records to be set in violent crime & whose leader is funded by George Soros, indicate that, with no crime being able to be proven, and based on an old and fully debunked (by numerous other prosecutors) fairytale, the far & away leading Republican candidate & former president of the United States of America, will be arrested on Tuesday of next week," Trump wrote.

"Protest, take our nation back!" Trump said.

Mack made no effort to try and fact-check Trump's claim beyond noting that the New York Times called it speculation. Nevertheless, Newsmax called onits usual torrent of right-wingers to profess horror over a development they coudln't prove was actually happening over the next day or so:

• Alan Dershowitz to Newsmax: Indictment 'Political Circus' to 'Get Trump'
• Huckabee to Newsmax: Dems Should Object to Trump Charges
• Rep. Comer: Timing of Possible Trump Charges 'Odd'
• Pam Bondi to Newsmax: Statute of Limitations Could Stop Trump Case
• Rep. Fallon to Newsmax: Trump Charges About 'Silencing Dissent'
• Chris Christie: Trump Indictment Doesn't Help Anyone
• Trump: Unprecedented 'Witch-Hunt' Is 'Election Interference'
• Whitaker to Newsmax: Charges Against Trump Will Backfire
• Biggs to Newsmax: Left Tries to 'Disarm MAGA' With Trump Claims
• Grenell to Newsmax: Trump Charges a Distraction for Biden Woes
• Ben Carson to Newsmax: Trump Charges Should Worry Everyone
• Giuliani to Newsmax: I'd Say 'Go to Hell' on Trump Charges

That's 12 attack articles on March 18 and 19. That's comparied with a single March 19 article by Mack on the district attorney who has purportedly issuing that indictment, Alvin Bragg, calling for claim and saying that he works "evenly and fairly"-- though much of it is made up of an attack on Bragg by convicted felon Bernard Kerik.

The right-wing attack articles on any possible Trump indictment (with an added comedian) continued on March 20:

• Blaine Holt to Newsmax: Avoid 'Crazy Protests' If Trump Arrested
• Whitaker to Newsmax: Trump Charges May Be 'Wag the Dog Moment'
• Bernie Kerik to Newsmax: Dem 'Conspiracy' to 'Take Trump Out'
• Parody Site Mocks Manhattan DA's Trump Probe
• Trump Lawyers Attack Georgia Grand Jury
• Rep. Tenney to Newsmax: Trump Prosecution 'Malicious'
• House GOP Chairs Seek Manhattan DA Bragg's Testimony
• DeSantis Denounces 'Manufactured Circus' by Manhattan DA
• Chris Rock: It's 'Stupid' to Arrest Trump
• Pollster McLaughlin to Newsmax: This Is a 'Political Indictment'
• House GOP Chairs Seek Manhattan DA Bragg's Testimony
• Rep. Jordan: Trump's N.Y. Case About a 'Bookkeeping Error'
• Matt Schlapp to Newsmax: Trump an 'Amazing Unifier' for GOP
• Rep. Lesko to Newsmax: Trump Indictment, 'Totally Political'
• Giuliani to Newsmax: Bragg Probe the 'Final Straw' on Dem Corruption
• Dershowitz to Newsmax: In Trump Case We're "Losing Our Rule of Law"
• 'Rob Schmitt Tonight': US Becoming 'Banana Republic' With Trump Case
• Lawyer Tacopina to Newsmax: It's a Dem 'Grandstand' to See Trump in Cuffs

A March 20 column by Jeff Crouere helped Trump play victim:

The vicious political persecution of Trump is akin to what occurs in “banana republics.” No longer is our country too advanced for such shenanigans to occur here. With partisan Democrats prosecuting in “blue states” and in the Department of Justice, there is an ongoing, ruthless campaign to obliterate Trump politically.

 

Their goals are not only to destroy Trump, but also to destroy what he represents, the “America First” agenda. The political establishment and Deep State do not want the needs of Americans at the forefront. Instead, their priorities include international affairs, global wars, and funding for the military industrial complex.

[...]

His “America First” agenda threatens very powerful interests. Thus, he has become the first American president to endure government surveillance, two impeachments, an FBI raid, and a presumed arrest. The banana republic has arrived.

Um, wouldn't a banana republic actually keep a leader who committed crimes from being held accountable for them?

But Newsmax also ran an unbylined article claiming that "A law enforcement source told Fox News Monday that authorities do not expect former President Donald Trump to face arraignment until next week as a Manhattan grand jury — which has been meeting secretly over allegations of hush money paid to a porn start to silence claims of an affair with Trump years ago — apparently has another witness on Wednesday."

Despite that effectively defusing the story, Newsmax issued more right-wing panic on March 21, the day Trump claimed he would ba arrested:

• Sen. Paul: Jail DA Bragg for 'Abuse of Power'
• Rep. Steil to Newsmax: Trump Probe Should Raise Questions for Everyone
• Sen. Mullin to Newsmax: Bragg Should Defend Findings
• Rep. Tenney to Newsmax: Dems Want Reason to Get Trump
• McCarthy: Trump Case 'Just Political,' Was 'Personal Money'
• Alina Habba to Newsmax: Trump Will Move Forward Unafraid, If Indicted
• Giuliani to Newsmax: DA Bragg Abusing Prosecutorial Powers
• Dershowitz to Newsmax: Cohen Not a 'Star Witness' in Trump Case

That's 38 articles over four days about something that notonly didn't happen but lacked evidence beyond Trump's highly dubious word that it would. That's a lot of airtime and website space for what was iultimately just pro-Trump propaganda masquerading as "news." But it also published a goalpost-moving article on March 21 by Mack, who cited the right-wing Daily Mail to claim that Trump "is likely to be indicted Wednesday, with his surrender and arraignment coming next week." Mack didn't mention Trump's false claim.

That, of course, kept the Trump-defense fires stoked at Newsmax. More on that soon.

WND Magazine Rages Against 'Wokeism' (Whatever That Is)
Topic: WorldNetDaily

February's issue of WorldNetDaily's sparsely read Whistleblower magazine is dedicated to attacking "wokeism" and portraying it as a purported "state religion" that is somehow taking over America. The essay by managing editor David Kupelian labors to define the amorphous word in his usual fearmongering manner by portraying fairness and diversity as un-Christian and un-American:

Although one would never guess it based on the increasingly vicious and open attacks on Christians by this nation’s ruling elites, America was for many generations the most Christian nation on earth – the true secret of its greatness.

In fact, Christianity has unquestionably been the most powerful, consequential and benevolent force in all of world history. Nothing else even comes close.

Yet today, in the United States of America, a new religion has somehow become the country’s de facto official church.

Mind you, this new faith is not like a religion; it’s not cult-like. It’s a complete and total life religion, influencing every aspect of the true believer’s existence. And right now, it is being forcibly imposed on the entire American populace by virtually every major societal institution, from government, media and big tech; to academia (preschool through grad school); to entertainment and sports; and perhaps most surprisingly of all, by most of this nation’s biggest and wealthiest businesses.

This new state religion overtaking the United States of America – and increasingly, much of the Western (and formerly Christian) world – is Wokeism.

To most outsiders, the expression “being woke,” or “going woke,” conjures up notions of a person or entity claiming to be acutely sensitive (“awake”) to “systemic social and political injustice” in every form. The “injustice” being condemned by Wokeism is not simply alleged widespread bigotry against black people, but also – as noted in Joe Biden’s Jan. 20, 2021 White House Executive Order – “Latino and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.” Of course, the “persons who live in rural areas” bit was thrown in as a cynical pretense of caring about blue-collar, working-class, mostly Trump-supporting Americans, when the elites couldn’t care less about them, as their deplorable non-response to the toxic disaster in rural East Palestine, Ohio, demonstrates.) On the other hand, rest assured that the expansive “LGBTQ+” population includes every child-grooming “trans” school teacher, purple-haired, heavily pierced, “nonbinary” TikTok recruiter and mentally ill cross-dresser seducing your toddler in “drag queen story hour” events.

Bear in mind that all of these people, deemed victims of societal bigotry, are therefore regarded as intrinsically more virtuous and moral than the shameful oppressor class – primarily heterosexual white Christian males.

As a white heterosexual Christian male, Kupelian is understandably shook by the idea that he and his forebears will be held accountable for their behavior. Kupelian's manufactured horror stories continued:

Most ubiquitously of all, there is the rampant racial discrimination in employment, college admissions and every other area of life, as seen in today’s mass corporate embrace of DEI, or “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion,” which, stripped of its sanctimony and guilt, amounts to hiring people based on their skin color rather than their qualifications. Not only is such racial discrimination both immoral and flagrantly illegal – remember the 1964 Civil Rights Act? – but it’s also killing people. That’s what happens when, for example, you hire airline pilots and surgeons based on their skin color, rather than their abilities. And it’s happening everywhere.

Kupelian offered no evidence that diverfsification inherently means loss of quality -- indeed, he seems more than a bit racist in suggesting that minorities cannot possibly be as good as white people in the airline or medical professions.

After explaining how great Christianity is, Kupelian tried to portray"wokeism" as a religion, despite nobody actually doing so:

However, believe it or not, in the bizarre and deranged world of Wokeism, America’s new official national religion promises much the same thing as Christianity.

Wokeism promises to make sinful human beings (especially heterosexual white men) justified and free, not only from their own sins, but from the curse of the sins of their forefathers, a sinfulness that clings to white Americans like the stain of Adam and Eve’s Original Sin, no matter how many generations pass since the end of slavery and Jim Crow. It’s systemic, you see; we’re born with it.

This leads us to Wokeism’s formula for “salvation” and “forgiveness of sins,” whereby the guilt, the burden, the stain of all of our sins and those of our ancestors are lifted and washed clean, replaced by freedom, innocence and righteousness.

He then ranted that people pushing "wokeism" just want money and power:

How extraordinary that the Creator of the Universe demonstrated the greatest love imaginable, sending His own Son to suffer and die to save a broken and sinful human race – or as Paul expressed it, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). And yet, multitudes today are turning away from that shining path to true freedom, only to jump into the astonishingly destructive, unjust and – in some ways, worst of all – unbelievably stupid religion of Wokeism.

Surprise. It’s all an act.

Oh, one more thing: Our dive into the official state religion of Wokeism wouldn’t be complete without pointing out that, though there are multitudes of true believers, and though tens of millions of lives are currently being disrupted, sabotaged and in many cases destroyed by Wokeism, in truth America’s top-tier political leaders – and I’m talking now about those wielding the real power over Americans – don’t believe in any of this. It’s all just a big act for them.

They pretend to care about inner-city black families, equal rights for Pacific Islanders, and “trans” men who brag about having periods and getting pregnant, but they do not care. Not a bit. They just play-act, while exploiting the ever-expanding wokeness craze for their personal benefit, so they can build and consolidate their own power, wealth, privilege and glory.

[...]

So, even though the crazy Marxist college professors and their sadly indoctrinated students might believe in the religion of Wokeism, the powerful politicians, the elite class, the deep-staters, the super-rich CEOs and the globalist schemers do not. They just pretend, and play along, because it confers a veneer of morality and righteousness onto very immoral, unrighteous and utterly self-serving sociopaths. It disguises their real agendas. And it serves to keep “the rabble” off balance, confused, divided, fearful, intimidated, reacting to one another, afraid of being “cancelled” and losing their friends, livelihood, everything – the perfect cover for the left’s “long march.”

Most of all, it is a potent tool for amassing ever more POWER and GLORY to themselves – which, of course, is their real religion.

As if Kupelian isn't also after money and power by attacking "wokeism" to keep WND's dwindling reader base fearful and subscribing -- and, thus, keep him gainfully employed.

NEW ARTICLE -- Classified Document Double Standards at the MRC: The Trump Defense
Topic: Media Research Center
When the FBI searched Donald Trump's compound to collect classified documents he had taken, the Media Research Center reflexively came to his aid. Read more >>

MRC Tried To Distract From Michigan State Shooting By Attacking A Prosecutor
Topic: Media Research Center

It's standard practice for the Media Research Center to distract from gun massacres by focusing on anything else but guns and lashing out at anyone who points out the central role of the gun in the massacre. When a shooter killed three people on the campus of Michigan State University, the MRC followed that pattern again, beginning with a Feb. 14 post by Kevin Tober:

Late Monday night, a deranged gunman opened fire on students at Michigan State University, killing three and leaving five others in critical condition. On Tuesday evening, the three evening news broadcasts were quick to jump to their usual playbook of overblowing how frequent mass shootings in the United States are and turning to guests or victims to plea for gun control.

All three networks used completely dishonest and inflated statistics that there have been 67 mass shootings in the United States in 2023. Yet ABC's World News Tonight, CBS Evening News & NBC Nightly News had no interest in reporting that the gunman had his prior gun charge dismissed by a George Soros-backed prosecutor in the name of "race equity."  

The only mention of the gunman even having a criminal history that banned him from owning a weapon came from NBC Nightly News when Maggie Vespa reported that "investigators highlighting Mcrae's record, most recently pleading guilty to a misdemeanor weapons charge in 2021."

The "completely dishonest and inflated statistics" Tober is referring to come from the Gun Violence Archive, which describes its methodology for the numbers it uses so it cannot possible be dishonest; the MRC has attacked the GVA numbers before because it makes gun activists look bad. (Also, it's the height of irony for an organization that made up "secondhand censorship" to complain about someone else's "dishonest and inflated statistics.")

Tober uncritically quoted the right-wing Free Beacon in accusing the prosecutor in question, Carol Siemon, of reducing Anthony McRae's original felony charge of concealed carry of a gun without a permit to a misdemeanor charge in which he served probation. (Conservatives actually favor permitless concealed carry, so you think the MRC would be cheering this.) The Free Beacon article put "race equity" in quotes as a reason McRae's charge was reduced, but at no point did it quote Siemon or anyone else saying those exact words in relation to McRae's case (or at all, in fact, raising questions about the article's overall credibility). As Siemon has pointed out, McRae was a first-time offender, who typically see reduced sentences, and plea bargains are commonplace, meaning that what she did was not out or the ordinary. But because she had tangental links to Soros -- whom the MRC constantly demonizes -- she too became a target for right-wing demonization even if her attackers can't identify any deviation from standard procedure.

Alex Christy served up the gun-distraction narrative in a Feb. 15 post, complaining that Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost (whom the MRC weirdly hates) "continued the old tradition of claiming that the only reason why major gun control legislation fails in Congress is because of the National Rifle Association."

Nicholas Fondacaro opened a Feb. 15 post by grumbling that "In the wake of the tragic shooting at Michigan State University earlier this week, the unhinged gaggle of gals on ABC’s The View unleashed some truly crazy takes. Joy Behar was so unhinged that she seriously blamed Republicans wearing gun-shaped lapel pins for causing mass shootings." As we noted, the MRC didn't think it was "unhinged" to accuse members of Congress of acting "demonic" for wearing lapel pins expressing support for abortion rights.

Fondacaro returned to the blame-the-prosecutor angle in a  Feb. 16 post:

During a Thursday appearance on CBS Mornings, Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio put liberal co-hosts Gayle King and Nate Burleson in their place after the former tried to suggest he was fine with continued mass shootings, and the latter misrepresented his stance on gun laws. Of course, this was all in service of the anti-gun rights narrative.

The topic of guns in America was sprung on Rubio as he was there speaking about the Chinese spy balloon and “objects” breaching American airspace. Near the end of the hostile encounter, King hinted that Rubio might not be tired of seeing mass shootings and only gave him 30 seconds to respond:

Senator Rubio, aren't you tired of this story, too? In less than 30 seconds. It's clear what we have on the books now isn't working. Aren't you tired of these stories, as we all are?

He immediately shot back; calling out “the reasons why it's not working is because we don't enforce these laws” and pointed to the Michigan State University shooter’s 2019 felony gun charge was dropped by a progressive prosecutor for a less one, allowing him to still have access to buying a gun.

Fondacaro went on to uncritically quote Rubio claiming that McRae "actually had gun charges in the past," suggesting there were multiple cases; in fact, there was just the one. He also didn't note that conservative gun activists support permitless concealed carry, the charge McRae originally faced.

WND Parrots Questionable Witness Testimony On Purported Election Fraud
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily continues to promote false narratives about election fraud, despite an utter lack of credible evidence. Bob Unruh cranked out this Luddite gem for a Feb. 17 article:

A computer programmer who previously has testified to Congress on the integrity of voting machines has warned lawmakers in Arizona never to trust them.

"Don’t use machines, because you can never, ever trust them to give you a fair election. There are too many ways to hack them. You can hack them at the level that I did when you first build them, you can hack them from the outside, you can hack them with programs that load themselves on the side. It’s impossible to secure them. You will never beat the programmer. The programmer always owns the universe," explained Clinton Eugene Curtis to the Arizona Senate Election Committee, a report from the Tennessee Star said.

He's a Democrat to has worked as a programmer for NASA, the Department of Defense and other government agencies. He had testified in 2007 to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee that he could program voting machines so he could manipulate the results, and he'd never be detected.

His testimony included confirmation that he could use only a few lines of code to change the results of an election.

"He said county election officials would not be able to detect it unless they had access to the source code or could compare the count to the paper ballot count," the report explained.

He said, "Nothing happens on that machine that the programmer doesn’t make happen. … I control the vote, you guys don’t. I’m here to address the lies and to show basically, how my program works and how any other program can work."

He said, "Twenty-four lines of code can change it and there’s nothing you can do. You can’t catch it. You can’t find my module, and it can erase itself right after it does."

The article by the right-wing Tennessee Star on which Unruh's article is based was written by Rachel Alexander, a WND columnist and election denier. In it, she attached a video of what she called "2007 testimony to Congress" about election fraud (which Unruh uncritically repeated, because he doesn't fact-check anything that echoes his employer's narratives). In fact, as a real fact-checker found, the video is from 2004, and Curtis' main accusation during the testimony was that he accused Republican then-state representative (and later congressman) Tom Feeney of paying him to write a program. According to the fact-checker, Feeney denied any knowledge of the software or even meeting Curtis --who ran against Feeney in 2006 -- and Curtis himself says he has no knowledge that the software he claimed to have written was ever used.

Meanwhile, another media outlet more interested in facts pointed out that at the time of the purported scheme 2000, Florida didn't use electronic voting, and that a computer expert noted that there is no such thing as "one-size-fits-all software" and that a programmer would have to have specific knowledge about a specific vendor's system and software -- which Curtis didn't have in 2000 because electronic voting wasn't used in Florida until two years later.

Needless to say, none of this appears in Unruh's article -- he simply parrots the stenography Alexander did in her article. Is that the kind of "journalism" WND thinks readers should pay it for?

Newsmax Returns To DirecTV -- But Has To Walk Back Its Previous Attacks
Topic: Newsmax

After more than 258 articles attacking DirecTV for dropping its TV channel and trying to goad Republican politicians into demanding government interference into a business decision, Newsmax mysteriously stopped the attacks after March 10. The apparent reason why later became clear: Newsmax was in serious negotiations to get back on DirecTV. When that return was announced on March 22, Newsmax published not a biased news article crowing about it defeated the evil DirecTV  and its "censorship" but, rather, a press release apparently written by DirecTV (if its insistence of putting DirecTV in all caps is any indication) in which Newsmax was made to walk back its incendiary anti-DirecTV rhetoric and emphasize that it was, in fact, a business dispute over carriage fees:

DIRECTV and Newsmax Media, Inc. announced today that they reached a business agreement for a multi-year distribution deal that will return the Newsmax channel to DIRECTV, DIRECTV STREAM and U-verse on March 23, 2023.

When the two companies were initially unable to agree on financial terms to extend their carriage agreement, DIRECTV lost the rights to distribute the programming on Jan 25, 2023. Unfortunately, this is a common occurrence in the pay TV industry, and often consumers are caught in the middle.

“Newsmax recognizes and appreciates that DIRECTV clearly supports diverse voices, including conservative ones,” said Christopher Ruddy, CEO of Newsmax. “As a standalone company, DIRECTV gave Newsmax its start nearly a decade ago as it continues to do with upcoming news networks, which is why we are pleased to reach a mutually beneficial agreement that will deliver our network to DIRECTV, DIRECTV STREAM and U-verse customers over the next several years.”

“This resolution with Newsmax, resolving an all-too-common carriage dispute, underscores our dedication to delivering a wide array of programming and perspectives to all our customers,” said Bill Morrow, Chief Executive Officer for DIRECTV. “Through our persistent negotiations, we reached a resolution under mutually-agreeable business terms allowing us to deliver the conservative news network at the right value – a reflection of the free market at work.”

[...]

This agreement marks DIRECTV’s latest successful resolution of a carriage dispute, an unfortunate but increasingly frequent occurrence involving nearly every pay TV and streaming provider attempting to keep rising consumer costs in check. Over the past five years alone, the industry has endured no less than 140 distinct disputes pitting programmers or station groups against their primary distributors. While some resolve in as little as a few hours to days or weeks, others last several months to more than a year. During that same timeframe, DIRECTV has resolved public disputes with approximately 50 programmers or station groups, typically lasting a few days or weeks, but routinely extending to several months in some instances.

It appears that one of the conditions for Newsmax to return to DirecTV was that it had to walk back its weeks of attacks over purported "censorship." As we've noted, Newsmax rarely noted that DirecTV replaced Newsmax with another right-wing channel, The First, since doing so would undermine that argument.

Newsmax published a minimum of crowing about the restoration from the same folks it called out to attack DirecTV -- but even then, it counteracted the rhetoric to stick within the terms of that apparent agreement. An article touting how Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said that Newsmax's return means a “victory for free speech over powerful corporations that want to put their thumbs on the scale of the national conversation” also includes the Ruddy quote about how DirecTV "supports diverse voices, including conservative ones." Other articles did the same thing:

• W.Va. AG: Newsmax Back on DirecTV 'Win for America'
• Gov. Abbott: Newsmax Back on DirecTV 'Huge Win'
• National Religious Broadcasters Hails Newsmax Return to DirecTV
• Sen. Ted Cruz to Newsmax: Return to DirecTV 'Big Victory for Free Speech'

Another piece of evidence suggesting that the walkback was mandatory: For a few days after its return, Newsmax ran a message in its top-of-page breaking-news banner space stating: "Newsmax returns to DIRECTV, a leader in conservative news. DIRECTV never sought to limit conservative voices."

The banner also linked to the press release announcing Newsmax's return. After that, Newsmax began running a box on the right side of its home page stating an almost identical message.

In the end, it's not sure what was gained was worth the cost. Newsmax got its place back on Newsmax, but it's unclear whether it got an licensing fee -- the press release stated that it's returning "at no additional cost to customers," sugesting it's not getting one -- but it's clearly being forced to tone down its rhetoric and previous malicious attacks on DirecTV in doing so. Of coruse, given the legal trouble Newsmax has found itself in over the past couple years regarding its false and incindiery rhetoric, that's not exactly a bad thing.

CNS' Jeffrey Desperately Tries To Blame Pelosi For Federal Debt Approved In Part By Trump
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com continues to have a hard time weaning itself away from attacking Nancy Pelosi as she stepped down from House Democratic leadership. Showing how desperate the situation is, an anonymous Jan. 27 post claimed that "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent out a tweet on January 22—the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s now-reversed Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion a right—that said the “Republican-controlled Supreme Court” was jeopardizing women." Yes our anonymous writer still thinks Pelosi is speaker.

Meanwhile, editor Terry Jeffrey -- who has something of a psychological block regarding the fact that the federal debt increased significantly during Donald Trump's presidency -- desperately tried to spin things after President Biden pointed out that fact by making Pelosi the villain in a Feb. 9 article -- though he first had to concede that Biden was right:

During the two periods that Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) served as speaker of the House, the total federal debt increased by $14,762,858,559,299.17, which is 46.93 percent of the total debt of $31,455,106,801,791.45 that the federal government held as of the close of business on Tuesday.

President Joe Biden in his State of the Union Address on Tuesday drew attention to the significant increase in the debt that took place when President Donald Trump was in office.

“Nearly 25 percent of the entire national debt that took over 200 years to accumulate was added by just one administration alone—the last one,” said Biden. “They’re the facts. Check it out. Check it out.”

In fact, when Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017, the total federal debt was $19,947,304,555,212.49, according to the data published on the Treasury Department’s “Debt to the Penny” webpage.

When Trump left office four years later on Jan. 20, 2021, the total federal debt was $27,751,896,236,414.77.

Thus, during Trump’s administration the total federal debt increased by $7,804,591,681,202.28.

That is 24.81 percent of the total federal debt of $31,455,106,801,791.45 that the government maintained as of Feb. 7, 2023, the day Biden delivered his State of the Union Address.

However, the debt increased far more during the Trump administration when Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) was speaker of the House than it did when then-Rep. Paul Ryan was speaker.

Jeffrey then went into further spin mode by blaming COVID spending for the most of the  debt increase under Trump:

Almost three quarters—74.61 percent—of the $7,804,591,681,202.28 that the debt increased during the Trump administration occurred when Nancy Pelosi was speaker. Only 25.39 percent occurred when Ryan was speaker.

One cause for the escalation in federal spending—and the resultant debt—in the second half of the Trump administration was the COVID-19 pandemic, which first hit the United States in early 2020.

In March and April of that year, Congress enacted four laws in response to the pandemic that the Congressional Budget Office estimated would increase the deficit by a combined $2.404 trillion from fiscal 2020 to fiscal 2030.

These COVID-19 response laws included the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES), which CBO estimated would cost $1.721 trillion; the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, which CBO estimated would cost $483 billion; the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which CBO estimated would cost $192 billion; and the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, which CBO estimated would cost $8 billion.

But the debt that accumulated during the Trump’s administration was significantly less than the debt that accumulated during the two periods when Pelosi served as speaker.

Jeffrey left unspoken the fact that Trump was president and had ultimate authority over all that spending. Of course, not only did Jeffrey not give Biden that same pass, he attempted to portray Pelosi as wildly powerful on spending matters even though she led only one branch of Congress and was never the president who had final authority:

The total of $14,762,858,559,299.10 that the federal debt increased during Pelosi’s two periods as speaker of the House equals 46.93 percent of the federal government’s total debt of $31,455,106,801,791.45 as of Feb. 7.

As speaker of the House, Pelosi had considerable constitutional leverage over federal spending. Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution states that: “No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” No federal law can be enacted unless it is approved by the House of Representatives that the speaker leads.

Since Biden was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2021, a little more than two years ago, the federal debt has increased by $3,703,210,565,376.68—rising from $27,751,896,236,414.77 to $31,455,106,801,791.45.

This slightly-more-than-two-year increase in the debt under Biden equals 11.77 percent of the entire federal debt.

Jeffrey's article concluded with the usual tagline that "The business and economic reporting of CNSNews.com is funded in part with a gift made in memory of Dr. Keith C. Wold." Woudl Wold really approve of such biased and dishonest reporting?

MRC Gushes Over Gutfeld -- But Excludes Him From Its Late-Night Analyses
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center just loves right-wing Fox News late-night host Greg Gutfeld, and it continues to tout how much better ratings reportedly are compared with other late-night hosts:

• A Sept. 13 post by Elise Eharhard complained that the Emmys ignored "non-woke" late-night hosts: "Notably absent from the list of nominees was the man whose late-night talk show ratings beats them all, Fox New's Greg Gutfeld."
• An Oct. 8 post by Tim Graham touted how "Joseph Wulfsohn at Fox News reports that audiences are leaving the Old Media late-night "comedy" shows now the Trump era is over," going to quote Wulfsohn whoring for his employer by noting that Colbert is "losing his title as King of Late Night in recent months to Fox News host Greg Gutfeld, whose show 'Gutfeld!' has edged out the CBS rival with 2.2-2.4 million viewers as of late." (Of course, the MRC would never call out Fox News for this blatant example of corporate whoring that it routinely attacks non-right-wing networks for doing.)
• An Oct. 16 post by Kevin Tober whined that CBS noted how Jon Stewart was a trailblazer for liberal-leaning late-night hosts: "This is obviously comical since the left is even failing in the late-night ratings to the new king of late-night Greg Gutfeld."
• The MRC's Curtis Houck gushed in a Dec. 11 appearance on Fox News that the "venom" shown by the likes of Jimmy Kimmel "is exactly why your lead-in, Greg Gutfeld, is just destroying the competition. ... [Y]ou look at the ratings. Kimmel down 28 percent. You have Fallon down 48 percent. Colbert down 17 percent as of late. You know, as my colleague Alex Christie said, you can take Kimmel out of The Man Show but you can’t take The Man Show out of Kimmel."
• Chrstian Toto complained in a Dec. 31 post that an end-of-year New York Times review of late night TV ignored Gutfeld: "Gutfeld! quickly established itself as a sly alternative to the other, hard-Left showcases. This year, Greg Gutfeld’s showcase finished either first or second in the late-night ratings race. A cable-based show with no A-list stars or fawning media coverage became the format’s biggest news story since David Letterman hung up his mic."

So if Gutfeld is such a late-night powerhouse that his presence shouldn't be ignored, why does the MRC studiously ignore Gutfeld when it purports to evaluate late-night content? A Nov. 14 post by Alex Christy complained about late-night guests being too liberal:

The late-night comedy scene has been reliably liberal for a long time, but the 2022 midterm election was a regular messaging machine for the Democrats, a NewsBusters study has revealed.

MRC analysts found that during the fall campaign, from Labor Day through the Monday night before Election Day, liberal guests outnumbered conservative guests 47 to 0. It was 100 percent liberal and/or Democrat.

The study looked at the daily six late night comedy shows: ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The Late Late Show with James Corden, and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Fox's Gutfeld! was not included.

Christy did not explain why he refuse to evaluate the highest-rated late-night show. He did, however, take time to explain why he listed Anthony Fauci as a partisan: "despite serving under both parties, [he] was listed as a Democrat due to him taking on a new role as President Biden’s chief medical advisor." Which is nonsensical because being a medical adviser is about as nonpartisan as it gets.

Christy repeated his selective exclusion for a Feb. 6 post:

The late-night comedy shows ended 2022 with a unanimously liberal guest count and that trend continued until the very last day of January, a NewsBusters study has revealed.

MRC analysts found that from Labor Day through January 31, liberal guests outnumbered conservative guests 93 to 1. It was 99 percent liberal and/or Democrat. The one exception was My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell who Jimmy Kimmel put on to mock.

This is follow up to MRC’s late night guest election campaign study.

The study looked at the daily six late night comedy shows: ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The Late Late Show with James Corden, and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and 2023 guest hosts. Fox's Gutfeld! was not included.

Again, Christy refused to explain why the highest-rated late-night host was deliberately excluded from his analysis. But he did explain that "George Conway and Adam Kinzinger are identified as liberals for their active opposition to Republicans" -- never mind that they apparently remain Republicans though they harshly criticize Donald Trump and his apologists. Apparently, criticizing Trump in any way makes one a "liberal."

Thus, once again, narrative trumps facts at the MRC. Adding Gutfield to its late-night evaluation would skew the guest disparity numbers and make them much smaller, and the MRC needs that distorted number for clicks (just like the made up "secondhand censorship" metric). Gutfeld is useful only for ratings fodder, not for "media research."

Indeed, Christy's research blind spot was followed by a Feb. 10 post by Joseph Vazquez chortling over how "Fox News host Greg Gutfeld had a field day roasting the leftist C-suite hacks at the disenchanted Walt Disney Company for their ongoing obsession to out-woke themselves despite their bottom line taking a financial beating." That was followed by a Feb. 13 post by P.J. Gladnick mocking "Daily Show" creator Lizz Winstead over "the very true fact that Gutfeld leads in the late-night ratings for comedy" and because she inadvertently exposed how including the show in MRC "research" would skew things, noting that if she ever appeared on Gutfeld's show, she "would just get trolls in your Twitter field from here to eternity." Gladnick huffed in response: "You know what else is gross, Lizz? Your Daily Show which are in the basement, which is why you have such rage against Greg Gutfeld who has overwhelmed your old TV show in the late-night ratings."

Gladnick didn't mention that Winstead hasn't been involved with "The Daily Show" since 1998, though she did appear as a guest last month.

WND's 'Clinton Body Count' Discredited Again
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily's lingering case of Clinton Derangement Syndrome is such that it blames any death of anyone even remotely associated with Bill and Hillary Clinton on a conspiracy theory of the couple targeting their enemies (never mind all evidence to the contrary). Last June, WND tried to cynically add another name to the list, and Bob Unruh updated this ghoulish conspiracy in a Feb. 22 article:

A former Clinton aide who signed Jeffrey Epstein into the White House multiple times was found dead in 2022 with a gunshot wound to his chest, an extension cord tied around his neck and attached to a tree.

No gun was found in the vicinity.

But his death now has been determined to be a suicide, according to a report assembled by the Daily Mail.

It's just one of a long list of suspicious deaths that have been documented among those who were in the circle of people that included Bill and Hillary Clinton.

[...]

Newsweek said the "Clinton Body Count" "conspiracy" dated to the 1990s when a now-deceased attorney "railed against the Clinton administration's deadly 1993 Waco, Texas, siege of the Branch Davidian church that resulted in more than 75 deaths."

The late talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh discussed the "Clinton body count" in 2016, citing a report from Rachel Alexander at Townhall.com titled "Clinton body count or left-wing conspiracy? Three with ties to DNC mysteriously die."

Limbaugh said at the time he recalled Ted Koppel, then anchor of ABC News' "Nightline," routinely discussing the issue following the July 20, 1993, death of White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster.

Just one problem: The Daily Mail published an article the next day that debunked the conspiracy theory that it and WND had been pushing:

A shotgun WAS found near the body of the Clinton White House aide who killed himself on a ranch in Arkansas, the local sheriff is now saying. 

And more details of how cops now believe Mark Middleton killed himself have been released. 

Papers released earlier by Perry County sheriff Scott Montgomery said deputies who were called to the Heifer Ranch in Perryville, an hour west of Little Rock, after an abandoned BMW SUV was found there specifically said there was no gun in the car.

But now a further set of papers has been released to DailyMail.com that says a weapon – a Stoeger 12-gauge coach gun – was found on the ground 30 feet from Middleton’s body.

In the new papers, Sergeant Keenan Carter gives a detailed explanation of how he believes Middleton – an aide who signed pedophile Jeffrey Epstein into the White House several times during Bill Clinton’s presidency – took great lengths to ensure his suicide bid was successful - after writing a text to his wife saying he had ‘found a perfect place for a nap in the sun.’

[...]

Carter said in this report that the gun landed so far from Middleton’s body ‘due to the recoil from the discharge and the height and angle of the ground.’ 

‘This officer didn’t find any evidence to indicate that there was anyone else present with Mr. Middleton at this scene or any evidence that there was any type of struggle and or foul play.’ 

WND has not updated or retracted Unruh's article, nor did it published a separate article with the evidence that debunked it. Similarly, the Daily Mail never updated its original story to add the correct information debunking its premise.

Nevertheless, Unruh repeated other purported entries on the so-called "Clinton body count." One was "former U.N. official John Ashe, founded [sic] dead in his New York home. Officials said it was a heart attack, but local police said his throat had been crushed by a barbell." As Snopes detailed, Ashe -- who is on the alleged list because he was about to go on trial on corruption charges, which WND had previoiusly misleadingly portrayed as linked ot Hillary Clinton -- did indeed die in a barbell accident, and his death was originally erroneously reported as from a heart attack.

Unruh also cited "attorney Shawn Lucas, 38, who helped serve the DNC with a lawsuit claiming then-DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz 'rigged the [2016] primary for Hillary Clinton' and days later was found dead in his bathroom. The cause of death wasn't determined." In fact, Lucas' cause of death has been determined: a medical examiner called the death accidental due to the "combined adverse effects of fentanyl [a synthetic opioid pain medication], cyclobenzaprine [a muscle relaxant], and mitragynine [better known as kratom]."

Unruh went on to mysteriously reference "Another man, an MI6 spy who had illegally hacked secret data on Bill Clinton, [who] was found dead, naked, padlocked and stuffed in a duffel bag in a London hotel bathtub. Scotland Yard said it was a suicide." Unruh is referring to Gareth Williams, who died in 2010, and he's misleading about what Scotland Yard said about Williams. It reported that Williams had unorthodox sexual tastes and had apparently visited bondage and sadomasochism websites, including several related to claustrophilia, a desire for confinement in enclosed spaces. A source close to the inquiry said that "They have been unable to find any trace of anyone who should not have been in the flat and every reason to believe that Gareth may have climbed into the bag himself and been unable to get out."

WND leaned into this direction regarding thet death of Dana Hyde, who worked in both the Clinton and Obama, as the result of an in-flight incident. It reprinted a March 7 article from the Western Journal (which began life as a right-wing nonprofit founded by WND editor Joseph Farah) under the headline "Another Clinton official dead"; though the article itself did not push any Clinton conspiracy, a reader poll attached to the article asked, "Does working for the Clintons increase anyone's chances of dying mysteriously?" A reprinted March 26 Western Journal article on the full cause of Hyde's death, however, carried a headline identifying her only as an "Obama official."

The "Clinton Body Count" was discredited a long time ago, well before we did our first exploration of it way back in 2005.

Comedy: MRC Exec And Fox News Lover Graham Frets Over Decline Of Media Objectivity
Topic: Media Research Center

It always makes for great unintentional comedy when the Media Research Center -- which runs the highly biased "news" operation CNSNews.com -- demands objectivity from all media outlets outside the right-wing bubble, and Tim Graham did jsut that in his Feb. 1 column:

The establishment media have shuffled forth to announce that their Objectivity is dead. They don’t realize that it’s like announcing that Jack Benny is dead. It’s not “news.”

Former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie was the announcer, proclaiming that he and former CBS News president Andrew Heyward surveyed 75 sources in the media elites and found a “generational shift.” Voila, no one is objective any more.

The headline was “Newsrooms that move beyond ‘objectivity’ can build trust.” Objectivity is in scare quotes because it was always corrupt, according to this enlightened white male.

The people who loathe “bothsidesism” are fervent believers in “one-sideism,” and seek to enforce the media norm that there should be no space or respect granted to the “wrong side” of climate change, LGBTQ+, “Black Lives Matter,” and so on, and so on. There’s no right and left, only Right and Wrong.

[...]

Downie laments that the Old Media are “coping with economic and digital disruption” and “increasing competition from misinformation on cable television and the internet.” This is how the “mainstream” media define the conservative media – they are bluntly categorized as “misinformation” that is harming their market share.

Obviously, when you make everyone painfully aware you will avoid “false balance” and exclude the “wrong side” from your “news” stories -- unless you’re destroying them and their favorite leaders -- the “wrong side” goes out in search of journalism that addresses their concerns.

Note that Graham never references right-wing media like Fox News when he demands "objectivity." That's because he actually doesn't want objectivity -- he wants all media outlets to have the same right-wing bias as Fox News. He'll never genuinely call out Fox News -- even when they are caught red-handed lying to its viewers -- because he and his MRC subordinates appear on the channel and need the PR from it, but it will nitpick the "liberal media" for every perceived slight. And if Graham really cared about media objectivity, he would marching down the hall at MRC HQ to CNS' newsroom and demand that Terry Jeffrey and crew clean up their act and start following the rules of objectivity he demands of others.

Instead, Graham concluded by whining:

The more they’ve dumped objectivity, the more the public trust in the press has plummeted. Last October, Gallup found only 34 percent of Americans trust the mass media to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly,” and that’s because 70 percent of Democrats say they trust them.

Earth to the media: You spurned the “wrong side” as undeserving of your attention, and you received the distrust that you wanted. Try to make profits by only serving the “marginalized.”

Graham didn't mention that his employer spends millions of dollars every year to undermine trust in the media and to hype biased media like Fox News that pushes the same right-wing narratives it endorses. No sane media observer agrees that Fox News covers things "fully, accurately and fairly," amd Graham is certainly never going to criticize it for doing so -- indeed, it lashes out anytime Fox News inadvertently deviates from those narratives.

You want us to believe you care about media objectivity, Tim? Criticize right-wing media for having a right-wing bias. Of course, we already know he'll never do that because fealty to the partisan narrative that pays his salary is more important than intellectual consistency.