MRC Lashes Out At CNN's Darcy Over Trump Town Hall Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's defense of Donald Trump following the CNN town hall included taking shots at a CNN reporter the MRC obsessively hates. Nicholas Fondacaro started things in a May 13 post:
Following the airing of CNN’s town hall with former President Trump Wednesday evening, many bloviating pontificators in the liberal media registered their outrage at the network for daring to give the Republican candidate a platform. A surprising voice to register their disproval came from inside CNN’s house in the form of senior media reporter Oliver Darcy via the so-called “Reliable Sources” Newsletter. According to reporting from Puck News on Friday, CNN boss Chris Licht responded to Darcy’s insubordination by putting “the fear of God into him.”
With the dust still settling from the rowdy event, Darcy clutched his pearls into diamonds as he fired off the newsletter proclaiming this at the top: “It's hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday evening.”
He touted the performance of his colleague Kaitlan Collins by calling her “as tough and knowledgable [sic] of an interviewer as they come. She fact-checked Trump throughout the 70-minute town hall.”
[...]
Darcy even called Licht out by name. “CNN and new network boss Chris Licht are facing a fury of criticism — both internally and externally over the event,” he stated, airing their laundry and leaving it an open-ended question of how Licht would respond to criticism.
Well, according to former CNN media reporter Dylan Byers, Darcy would soon learn how Licht dealt with critics firsthand.
[...]
What’s obvious from Puck’s reporting was that the Jeff Zucker weed runs deep and it would require a lot of work from Licht to pluck it out root and branch.
Only an authoritarian-adjacent right-winger like Fondacaro would think that honest, factual reporting (he cited no inaccuracies in Darcy's work) should be treated as "insubordination."
The MRC's chief Darcy-hater, Curtis Houck -- who loves to smear Darcy as a "Benedict Arnold" because he escaped the right-wing media bubble -- doubled down in a May 15 post:
Two days after Puck's Dylan Byers reported that CNN’s Oliver Darcy was shaken by the proverbial call to the principal’s office for insubordination, Darcy defenders pushed back Sunday night and comically tried to downplay the notion that it was bad news for Darcy to have been called to CNN boss Chris Licht’s office to discuss his analysis trashing his own employer for hosting a town hall with former President Trump.
Darcy’s allies and Semafor may try to have you think otherwise, but other than being told you were being promoted, receiving an award, or discussing, say, a loss in the family, receiving a summons to the office of the president of your company with other executives is never a good sign.
Semafor’s Max Tani had the details in co-founder Ben Smith’s weekly media newsletter: “Two people with knowledge of the meeting told Semafor that Darcy was not pleased with the depiction of the meeting, which noted that Licht told Darcy that he was emotional and had ‘put the fear of God’ in the CNN media correspondent.”
Earth to Darcy: How does it feel to perhaps have received a taste of your own medicine? Not so fun having anonymous sources denounce you, is it?
Houck concluded by begging Licht to make an example of Darcy:
Tani did have a kicker in which he shared “Darcy has wondered to colleagues whether he should resign or if he will be fired.”
And there it is. If Darcy were to be fired, it’d be a strong signal to CNN employees, media watchers, and viewers that Licht is intent on materializing calls from his Warner Bros. Discovery bosses to haul CNN back to the center and away from obsessions with Fox News and anti-conservative venom.
Houck, of course, was silent about Fox News' obsession with CNN, and he did not demand that Fox News tone down its anti-liberal venom.
In addition to being a homophobe and a Vladimir Putin stan, Scott Lively is also a Trump dead-ender who believes the conspiracy theories about election fraud. He pushed the bogus narrative again in his May 8 WorldNetDaily column:
A few days ago, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton gave a brilliant short talk at the Heritage Foundation explaining how the Democrats pulled off the election coup of 2020/21 and why the most insidious element of it can't technically be proven. In appreciation for his courage and to help that video get more attention, I am dusting off and refreshing an article I first published two weeks after the (literally unbelievable) "Biden landslide." Sarcasm alert, here goes:
Election fraud is the art of stealing or trying to steal an election by cheating.
When it is done by an individual it is called voter fraud. When it is done by a group of extremely powerful people conspiring together to take down Donald Trump it is called "the most secure election in U.S. history."
Conspiracies are usually very difficult to prove because the people doing them work super hard to hide the evidence so they don't get caught. The best way to get away with it is to do it in places where all the people who could expose or punish you, such as the police, judges, news reporters, election officials, etc., are your friends. Groups of friends with expertise in election fraud all networking together are called "Defenders of Our Democracy."
Democrats really, really like having those kinds of friends, so the places that have the most election "intervention" are cities which have the most Democrats in power.
Lively then listed the ways he thinks elections are stolen: voting lists that are not continally purged (though overagressive purging tends to remove eligible voters as well as dead ones), mail-in voting (which doesn't actually increase election fraud no matter what Lively wants you to think), and electronic voting. Regarding the latter, Lively claimed without evidence that one can "stop the vote counting in the middle of the election night and change the software to help your guy catch up – AFTER everyone saw that the other guy won." He concluded:
But, that won't really matter much in the long run so long as you get that election "certified" by Congress with the help of strategically placed co-conspirators. It might cost you a few pence you didn't expect to spend, but once you've firmly taken dominion over the seats of power there will be lots more ethically flexible people who will want to be your friends. And eventually you'll be SO strong that no one can stop you even if they know exactly how you're cheating.
So, that's how it works. Happy voting!
Nope, that's not how it works at all. But then, Lively isn't being paid to tell the truth.
MRC's Jean-Pierre-Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch Topic: Media Research Center
Kevin Tober served up the Media Research Center's ritual hatred of White HOuse press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre over the June 5 press briefing:
They say politics makes strange bedfellows. Monday’s White House press briefing held by the always incompetent White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (KJP) and National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby proved that when both Daily Caller White House correspondent Diana Glebova and CBS senior White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe asked about the allegations that then-Vice President Joe Biden was involved in a bribery scheme.
Along the way, Tober embarassingly gushed that biased Newsmax reporter James Rosen displayed a "line of questioning worthy of an Ivy League lawyer" (no mention that Rosen was forced to ply his skills at Newsmax because he got canned from Fox News for serial sexual harassment) and sneered that there was "what WMAL radio host Vince Coglianese refers to as the children’s press briefing hosted by KJP" that involved questions that don't advance right-wing narratives.
For the next day's briefing, Tober hypocritically cheered a Fox Business writer for going the children's briefing route:
At Tuesday's White House press briefing, the inept Biden White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (KJP) was grilled by NewsMax’s James Rosen on Biden’s frequent falls. What started as a simple question turned into a full blown argument over whether Biden frequently stumbling is an issue to Americans.
The briefing started off on a humorous note with Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich asking KJP if humans are alone on planet Earth:
On UFOs, real quick though. This whistleblower report, alleging that the US military has been retrieving craft of non-human origin for at least several decades. Are we alone? And if we were not, would you even tell us?
There were chuckles in the room from the other reporters. As per her usual arrangement, KJP dodged the question. “I would refer that question to Department of Defense and let them answer that question for you,” she replied.
Tober then devoted four paragraphs to gushing over how Rosen "wasn’t playing around" in his biased questioning, whining about Jean-Pierre's response: "KJP once again played dumb: 'you've paid a lot of attention to that particular situation. I Actually, did not see that. I was with him in Hiroshima so this is something that I was not aware of, so I can't speak to that particular moment.' She then listed off a number of Biden’s accomplishments in an attempt to deflect from Rosen’s actual question." He then complained when Jean-Pierre had enough of Rosen's bias:
KJP then got nasty and sneered: “You're asking me if we're going to change anything from here, the Chief of Staff has asked for it to change anything from here. And here's the thing, here's the thing. We are not. Things happen. Other Presidents have had similar situations.”
She then walked off and ended the press conference like a petulant child.
Funny, we recall when the MRC called them "mic drops" and cheered when Kayleigh McEnany did that.
Curtis Houck returned for more Karine-bashing in writing about the June 7 briefing, attacking a Voice of America reporter for asking about Pride Month:
Along with PBS and NPR, there’s another taxpayer-funded outlet in the White House Briefing Room many Americans probably forget about: Voice of America. And why it matters is, in part, Wednesday’s briefing revealed how they’re just as far to the left as VOA reporter Anita Powell put a softball question about Pride Month on the tee for Press Secretary (and heralded lesbian) Karine Jean-Pierre.
Powell mentioned that Thursday would feature a Pride Month event at the White House, but fretted this would “provoke some political or politicized pushback, especially from, you know, some of the states that have passed legislation targeting sexual minorities or from countries that have done the same.”
In turn, Powell askedif she “could...just hear from you why does the White House feel that this event is important, especially in this context.”
Puketastic. Worthless media we have.
Houck apparently believes that media outlets have worth if they share his right-wing bias and hate LGBT people as much as he does.
Houck's writeup of the June 13 briefing complained that Jean-pierre called out a biased reporter for using a question to attack transgender people:
Transgenderism was the center of attention for key moments in Tuesday’s White House press briefing as Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre denounced the “disrespectful,” “not appropriate,” and “unacceptable” behavior of a transgender woman (a man pretending to be a woman) flashing their upper region at a White House pride event, while also trashing pro-life reporter Owen Jensen for an “irresponsible” question about girls being forced to compete against biological men.
The Jensen exchange came near the end of the briefing, starting with Jensen citing a tweet from Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) that “having biological males in women’s sports is unsafe, unfair, and wrong” and a letter from “72 elite female athletes” denouncing being forced to compete “against biological males is not only unfair, it is discriminatory and illegal.”
“So, in the light of this administration’s proposed changes to Title IX, does the White House worry about the physical safety of females directly competing against males in sports,” Jensen asked.
Jean-Pierre insisted this was “a complicated issue” with “a wide range of views,” but nothing was set in stone to have the Department of Education force schools into putting men who identify as women in women’s sports.
Jensen pushed back:
[...]
Jean-Pierre was incensed, blasting him for “saying that transgender kids are dangerous.” Jensen repeatedly denied it, but Jean-Pierre didn’t care: “Well, you’re saying — you’re saying that their safety is — isn’t — is at risk?”
She added that Jensen was “laying out a broad — kind of broad example or explanation of what could potentially happen” and thus describing transgender people in a way that was “dangerous” to them.
“[T]hat’s something that I have to call out. And that is — that is — that is — that is irresponsible. I have just laid out how complicated this issue is. I have just laid out why it’s complicated,” she said.
Houck also hyped another anti-LGBT question from a different right-wing reporter: "Heinrich also had a question about how they displayed of the pride flag at said event in a way that violated the U.S. flag code, but Jean-Pierre brushed that aside as a discussion meant to 'distract us from' supporting LGBTQ people."
Because Houck and Tober care only about trashing Jean-Pierrre and promoting right-wing reporters without identifying their ideological bias, so they failed to write about the June 14 briefing in which she mocked Fox News for its ridiculous chyron calling Biden a "wannabe dictator," laughing and declaring that "there are probably about 787 million things that I can say about this."
Newsmax Still Defended Trump After Arraignment Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax aggressively defended Donald Trump on arraignment day for his latest indictment, though it had to throw in some actual news for balance. Afterward, Newsmax returned to being mostly about being in attack-and-defend mode. Here's what it published on June 14 and 15 the two days after the arraignment:
Newsmax columnists rushed to Trump's defense as well. Jeff Crouere huffed in a June 14 column:
Eight years of abuse of President Donald Trump culminated in the 37 felony count indictment that was unsealed on Friday. The 49-page document alleges the mishandling of classified documents after he left the White House.
President Joe Biden was found to have classified documents at his home, in his garage and in his office, which received communist Chinese donations, and nothing has happened to him. In fact, the special counsel named to investigate this issue has been quiet and has not even interviewed Biden.
In contrast, Trump's special counsel, Jack Smith, has been aggressive and subpoenaed dozens of employees at Trump's Mar-a-Lago home. At his press conference on Friday, Smith ludicrously said that "We have one set of laws in this country. They apply to everyone."
Really? Hillary Clinton was not prosecuted for sending and receiving 33,000 emails, including top secret and classified materials, using an unsecured computer.
While former President Trump faces 400 years in prison, Clinton received a pass from former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey who infamously claimed that "Although there is evidence of potential violations regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case."
In fact, there is no reasonable comparison between Trump and Hillary on this issue. Neverthless, he continued whining:
He was charged under the Espionage Act, which has never been used against a president in our 247-year history. Yet, unhinged prosecutors in the Biden administration do not care about precedent or dividing the nation. They are determined to prevent Trump from getting elected president again.
In contrast, House Republicans are too scared to impeach a President who deserves it more than any other in our nation's history. If Biden is not impeached, House Republicans should abdicate their power and turn it back over to the Democrats.
The one disruptor is facing the mighty weight of the federal government against him. His only true allies are the 75 million Americans who voted for him.
The latest witch hunt will only embolden his voters. Too bad House Republicans do not possess similar courage.
It's not a "witch hunt" if there are actual witches -- and again, there are tapes.
WND Joins MRC Touts Dubious AllSides Work To Push 'Liberal Media Bias' Narrative Topic: WorldNetDaily
One big way you can tell that "media solutions company" AllSides has a right-wing bias is by looking at who is promoting its work. The Media Research Center is a big promoter, of course, but another is WorldNetDaily. An anonymously written May 4 article stated:
Conservatives looking for an alternative to Google news to escape the leftist ideological bent need not look at Bing for an answer, according to a new report.
The Daily Signal, citing an AllSides study, said Bing skews even further left than Google.
"People completely underestimate the dangers of bias when it comes to search engines. They think they are getting balanced information, and they’re not," John Gable, co-founder and CEO of AllSides, the organization that conducted the study, explained to the Daily Signal.
"Instead, they’re being thrown into divisive filter bubbles that make them confidently ignorant."
AllSides dedicates itself to presenting balanced news, and analyzed Bing during March.
"The analysis found that 83% of the articles on Bing News’ homepage came from media outlets AllSides rates as Lean Left or Left, while only 13% came from media outlets rated Center, and 0% came from sources rated Lean Right or Right," the Daily Signal reported.
As we documented when the MRC promoted this same "study," AllSides offers no evidence that the content of the individual stories themselves have any sort of bias -- it's just a broad-brush attack on outlets it doesn't like -- and it proclaims major news outlets as the New York Times, CNN, CBS, ABC and Politico to be "left-leaning," something it even admits is subjective.
Joseph Farah invoked this study in his May 5 column as an excuse to whine yet again how WND has been demonetized:
Slowly but surely, the leftists got their way and happily and effectively destroyed the First Amendment in one lifetime. Poof, and it was gone.
They did this through monopolizing advertising and search results for leftist sites while denying conservative ones. When that didn't work, sites like WND were PERMANENTLY DEMONETIZED, severely inhibiting our ability to participate in the online advertising world.
Google not only controls the flow of advertising and search results, but its No.2 competitor, Bing, the Microsoft-owned search engine, is arguably worse, according to a recent study.
[...]
This fascinating portrait of the state of the cyber media was done by Tyler O'Neil, the managing editor of the Daily Signal.
Is this what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they crafted the Constitution and made the First Amendment the shrine of our bill of rights, the most important of our freedoms? No.
It cannot be an accident or chance. WND does not come up at all in Bing searches. We're considered fringe – though we arguably speak to the biggest populous movement in the U.S., the MAGA community.
In March, a Google spokesperson countered the earlier survey's results, claiming AllSides' "methodology is deeply flawed" and arguing that the study "cherry-picked a few topics and ran for a very brief period of time, presenting a misleading picture of Google News."
Google News is a very important tool of the search engine. Before Donald Trump became president as the "biggest threat to freedom in the United States," WND often found its news reports prominently placed in those Google reports. Obviously, not anymore as our nation continues marching toward fascism.
[...]
Google is failing the nation. Period. And Bing skews even further left than Google.
Farah concluded:
To quote Gable, again: "People completely underestimate the dangers of bias when it comes to search engines. They think they are getting balanced information, and they're not. Instead, they're being thrown into divisive filter bubbles that make them confidently ignorant."
That's the state of the nation – becoming confidently ignorant. And that's the intent. Better to manipulate us. They're having their way with America.
Given the amount of fakenewsandmisinformation WND publishes -- which is the real reason WND has been demonetized by people like Google who don't want to be associated with such shoddy work -- it seems that Farah is the one who wants his readers to be "confidently ignorant."
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Winter of Hunter Biden Derangement Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center continued to be mad that its Hunter Biden obsession hadn't escaped its right-wing bubble -- and it repeatedly whined that the the media was covering actual Donald Trump scandals instead. Read more >>
MRC Defends Trump After CNN Town Hall Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's main complaint about Donald Trump's town hall on CNN last month was that it didn't suck up enough to him. Afterwards, it defended him from all criticism. A May 11 post by Alex Christy nitpicked a CNN fact-check of Trump because it "did not accurately portray" Hillary Clinton's beliefs on abortion -- but had to put words into Hillary's mouth to do so:
Washington correspondent Sunlen Serfaty joined Thursday’s CNN This Morning to fact-check some of the claims former President Donald Trump made on Wednesday night’s town hall including the claim that Hillary Clinton supports late third trimester abortions. Serfaty would defend Clinton against the charge, but she did not accurately portray Clinton’s beliefs.
Serfaty claimed that Trump’s “comments were very misleading” for accusing “Democrats and specifically Hillary Clinton of supporting abortion late into the third trimester.”
[...]
First, what Roe allowed is not necessarily the same thing as what Clinton supported. Secondly, Serfaty omitted half of Clinton’s position. In 2016, Clinton did indeed say that third trimester abortions should be legal for reasons relating to the health and life of the mother, but she also added:
I have met with women who have, toward the end of their pregnancy, get the worst news one could get. That their health is in jeopardy if they continue to carry to term. Or that something terrible has happened or just been discovered about the pregnancy. I do not think the United States government should be stepping in and making those most personal of decisions. So you can regulate if you are doing so with the life and the health of the mother taken into account.
What is Clinton’s definition of “terrible” and what could be discovered that justify a third trimester abortion? Clinton didn’t say.
Nicholas Fondacaro complained it was pointed out that the town hall audience was too biased in favor of Trump:
The liberal ladies of ABC’s The View were in a tailspin from the get-go during Thursday’s episode, as the majority of them fumed over CNN’s town hall with former President Trump the previous evening. But instead of keeping her animosity trained on Trump, co-host Joy Behar immediately started taking swings at the average Americans in the audience. Their crime? Being Republicans and fans of the former President, or as she called them “not American.”
P.J. Gladnick also groused that Politico (accurately) predicted that Trump would lie:
"Litany of lies."
Is there any way that you would ever hear Politico describe any Democrat, such as Adam Schiff of the fake news Trump-Russia collusion hoax fame, that way? Of course not.
However on Wednesday, just hours ahead of Donald Trump's town hall on CNN, Politico Playbook used another alliteration to brand him as a liar. "Farrago of falsehoods."
Kevin Tober was upset that even other CNN anchors didn't like how the town hall turned out:
Exactly twenty-four hours after CNN’s town hall with former President Donald Trump Wednesday night, CNN host Anderson Cooper responded to the unhinged leftist outrage that immediately spread on Twitter in the immediate aftermath of the town hall. Instead of trying to calm his left-wing audience down, Cooper poured gasoline on the fire during Thursday's AC360 by telling them they'd be right if they wanted to ditch CNN for good.
“Many of you have expressed deep anger and disappointment. Many of you are upset that someone who attempted to destroy our democracy was invited to sit on a stage in front of a crowd of Republican voters to answer questions, and predictably, continued to spew lie after lie after lie,” Cooper opened his show.
Adding: “I get it. It was disturbing. It was disturbing to see and hear that person refer to a black law enforcement officer as a thug, an adjective he used many times to describe black men and called Kaitlan Collins, the moderator nasty, which is what he calls any woman who stands up to him."
[...]
Cooper's rant showed that CNN boss Chris Licht had a major problem on his hands as the on-air talent was seemingly attempting something of a mutiny. The Hill's media and politics columnist, Joe Concha urged for heads to roll at CNN once again, and not just Cooper's.
Strange that Tober thinks the problem is with longstanding CNN personnel who understand the network and not with the new guy.
Fondacaro raged at "The View" hosts again, this time for pointed out how CNN host Kaitlan Collins got steamrolled by Trump:
In the opening theme music of ABC’s The View, the lyrics proclaim: “This is for my girls all around the world. Stand up with your head up. Own your power. Speak your truth.” But on Friday’s edition of the show, fill-in moderator Joy Behar and racist co-host Sunny Hostin toss the women empowerment mantra out the window as they lashed out at CNN town hall host Kaitlan Collins for not being imposing enough to stop former President Trump. Hostin went as far as to hint a man would have done a better job.
Tim Graham ran to the defense of Trump in his May 12 podcast:
It was a banner week for bias, with a lot of shameless behavior. Media liberals were outraged at CNN's Trump town hall (including CNN liberals), with the constantly interrupting questions and the MAGA-pleasing answers. We predicted Kaitlan Collins could come in with her hair on fire, and we were right. She didn’t shriek, she tried to remain calm. But on many questions, the former president was not really allowed to finish a sentence.
During his last tour of Fox News, Trump was allowed eight-minute answers. CNN didn't want to give him more than eight words.
The CNN town hall with Trump roughly breaks down to three portions. The first 25 minutes obsessed over scandals: Election denial, January 6, the E Jean Carroll rape allegations. Then came a half hour on issues: Inflation, debt ceiling, guns, abortion, immigration, and Ukraine. At the end, there was more election denial, and a squabble over the Mar-a-Lago documents. Collins couldn't mention the federal raid. Then in the aftermath, CNN stars line Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper whined about all the lies....that they just platformed.
Jeffrey Lord spent his May 13 column complaining about "the fury vented by CNN staffers in the wake of the CNN Town Hall with former President Donald Trump," declaring that "it is, it is very safe to say, representative of the mindset of so many elites not just inside CNN but well beyond into the larger media. It might be said that while this episode appears to be about CNN employees versus America, in reality it is emblematic of the liberal media versus America."
A May 14 post by Tober touted a Fox News talking head coming to Trump's defense:
Fox News Channel’s MediaBuzz host Howard Kurtz used the opening monologue of his show to slam the leftist media for melting down over CNN hosting a town hall for former President Donald Trump. Proving again that those at media outlets like MSNBC, The Washington Post, New York Times and others want total subservience to the radical left-wing agenda, Kurtz even aired a clip of MSNBC’s resident racist demagogue Joy Reid who lashed out at CNN.
[...]
He then made the obvious point that it’s not like Trump went unchallenged during the event, in fact, quite the opposite: “This wasn't a rally where he just gets to pop off. And whatever you think of Trump and his stormy tenure, shouldn't journalists question him as part of the campaign?”
“As it turned out, the town hall turned into an absolute train wreck, even many people at CNN being sharply critical. But the alternative, banning Trump from the airwaves, is suppression of speech, and that is not journalism,” Kurtz said.
Tober didn't mention that Kurtz works for a network that wants total subservience to the right-wing agenda.
WND Still Shilling For Tucker Carlson Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily continued to be Tucker Carlson's PR division as it touted everything it could about his plans after Fox News fired him. In addition to publishingarticles it took from the right-wing Western Journal, it has published its own articles as well:
An April 26 article by Peter LaBarbera claimed that Carlson's firing "has drawn renewed attention to one of his detractors, the self-proclaimed 'Never Again Trumper' and former Republican House Speaker, Paul Ryan, who sits on the Fox Corporation's Board of Directors."
An anonymously writen May 4 article hyped that Carlson "has considered running his own GOP candidate forum for the 2024 presidential election."
A May 9 article by Joe Kovacs touted Carlson's decision to post videos to Twitter. WND has linked to nearlyeveryCarlsonvideoposted since they began appearing in early June.
A May 11 article by Kovacs cheered that Carlson "did, in fact, tell a reporter this week that he would be running for president and announcing his candidacy this week. But then, within moments, Carlson admitted he was just joking." Kovacs attacked the reporter Carlson pranked as having a "leftist ideological slant" for no actual reason beyond that he accurately reported on leaked internal text messages showing Carlson to be the jerk we all knew him to be.
An article it stole from right-wing site Just the News hyped that Carlson's first video "had more than 100 million views in less than two days since its launch." In fact, Twitter's "tweet view" counter is so broad that it counts merely scrolling past a tweet as a "view," making it utterly unreliable as a viewing metric.
A May 16 article by Bob Unruh touted: "An undercover video obtained by OMG News, run by James O'Keefe, shows a Fox insider revealing that Tucker Carlson's dismissal was part of the settlement with Dominion Voting Systems."
A June 8 artlcle by Unruh noted the legal wranting between Carlson and Fox News, followed by a June 12 article complaining about a cease-and-desist letter Fox sent to Carlson.
Then there was a May 25 article by Peter LaBarbera carrying the declarative statement "Tucker is Americans' most trusted news source." But the poll LaBarbera said nothing about "trust," as he seemed to concede in his opening paragraph: "A new survey by Gallup and the Knight Foundation reveals that Tucker Carlson, recently ousted by Fox News despite being their top show host, is the 'most followed or watched public figure in the United States for information,' dominating legacy media news names like NBC's Lester Holt and ABC's David Muir." Being "followed or watched" does not equal trust. LaBarbera went on to botch his version of the list, getting a couple numbers wrong and list NBC's Lester Holt twice. (Apaprently, having a competent copy editor is an expense WND can no longer handle.)
Meanwhile, Joseph Farah and Wayne Allyn Root weren't the only WND columnists who weighed in on Carlson's firing. Jim Darlington's April 28 column was "An open letter to Tucker haters about the truth he taught us" in which he repeated not "truth" but Carlson's misinformation and propaganda:
You know the election of 2020 was an exercise in treason. You were there. You saw what was done. We all did. You can say there is no God, but He will disagree. You can say the election was fair and honest. Or you can say the vaccines were safe and effective.
You know that Joe Biden is a corrupt and thoroughly compromised puppet, who was selected as our presidential figurehead solely by virtue of his willing ascent to every lie placed before him and his unique and in-your-face talent for delusional embellishment. You know his presence in the White House is a purposeful mockery, telling us of our impotence to even know who is truly governing us.
You know that it is impossible for us to avoid the most obvious. That every policy of this administration has been directed at our destruction and that every implausible justification is pure rot.
[...]
We didn't need to gift the Taliban with $80,000,000,000-plus worth of U.S. military equipment. We didn't need to gift the Chinese the biggest military airbase in the region, fully equipped. We didn't need to move the military out before securing the evacuation of American civilians and the Afghans who had been our allies.
[...]
You know Ukraine was one of the prime troughs of corruption, at which the Biden crime family fed. You know that the U.S. State Department squashed efforts, early in the war, for a cease-fire, then amenable to both sides in the conflict. You can't pretend to be ignorant of the unbeatable odds that millions, if not billions of the U.S. "aid" going to Ukraine are finding their way back into the coffers of the American left, for the purposes of buying additional elections.
We didn't need to become a nation confused over what a man is and what a woman is, or whether 7-year-olds need an insane rationale for choosing which sex to be, training manual to follow.
[...]
We didn't need the House speaker's refusal to honor the president's request for the National Guard to control the expected protests January 6. We didn't need the incitement of the Capitol Police lobbing stun grenades into peaceful crowds. We didn't need for a host of coordinated operatives to lead the breach of the Capitol. We didn't need the unanswered killing of U.S. citizens, by those same police. We have not needed the attribution of "white supremacy" to a racially mixed crowd of protesters, for whom the Capitol Police opened doors. We didn't need two and a half years of political persecution and unlawful imprisonment of those who stood in the gap against the coup that has taken us to the brink of chaos.
To correct just a couple of Darlington's falsehoods: Ther U.S. didn't leave $80 billion in military equipment to the Taliban, Trump made no request to Pelosi to activate the National Guard the day of the Capitol riot (and it was not in her power to activate them even if he had), and Ashil Babbitt was committing an act of domestic terrorism when she was killed by law enforcement inside the Capitol.
WND also posted a May 3 video by messianic Jew and onetime WND gravy train maintainer Jonathan Cahn titled "Was Tucker Carlson actually removed by the spirits?" After a lot of gobbleldygook about spirits and "demonic powers" and transphobic ranting, he declared that Carlson "stood in [the spirits'] way" and, thus, was targeted, citing Carlson's anti-abortion rantings likening abortion to "child sacrifice" and alleged exposure of the "dark trinity." Cahn also shoehorned in lots of promotion for his latest book.
Another Gun Massacre, Another MRC Deflection Topic: Media Research Center
With the May gun massacre at an outlet mall in Texas, the Media Research Center continued its pattern of refusing to actually talk about the gun's central role. Nicholas Fondacaro tried to steer things toward mental health, not guns, in a May 8 post:
Following yet another mass shooting where the shooter showed warning signs of struggling with his mental health, on Monday, the ladies of ABC’s The View denied that there was a mental health crisis in America as they turned their nose up at efforts in Texas to address it. They even went so far as to suggest mass shooters weren’t mentally ill and wildly assert that “war weapons” and murders only exist in America.
After playing a soundbite of Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott vowing that his state was “working to address that anger and violence by going to its root cause, which is addressing the mental health problems behind it,” the cast sat silently in disgust.
First to speak up was faux conservative co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, who chided that “[t]here's a disconnect between what the American public wants to see on gun safety and what elected officials in Washington and states want to see.”
Fondacaro then played games with polls:
Citing an outlier poll from Fox News, Farah Griffin opined that “87 percent of Americans support background checks for guns.” Background checks already existed and are required in all states, they're federally mandated. She also boasted that “81 percent support raising the minimum age to get a buy a firearm to 21,” which would effectively make many adults second-class citizens who can’t exercise their constitutional rights.
Meanwhile, a recent ABC News Washington Post poll lost month showed growing oppositionto so-called “assault weapon” bans. Interesting how they ignored that one.
That's right -- Fondacaro is trusting a poll from the hated "liberal media" instead of his beloved Fox News because it better fits his narrative. Oh, and he also raged at co-host Sunny Hostin for being "mentally unstable and racist" because he doesn't understand how metaphors work.
A few hours later, he lashed out at "The View" again, this time for pointing out reports of the shooter's white supremacism despite apprently being of Hispanic heritage:
As a follow-up to their earlier conversation on Monday where they denied that mental illness played a key role in mass shootings, even proclaiming that the mentally ill were immune from committing mass shootings, the radical cast of ABC’s The View dove to a new level of lunacy as faux-conservative co-host Ana Navarro proclaimed that blacks and Hispanics were not “immune” from “being a white supremacist.” It’s an accusation that has been leveled at black and Hispanics just for voting Republican.
Returning from a commercial break that ended a heated shouting match between co-host Sara Haines and Sunny Hostin, moderator Whoopi Goldberg whined about the focus on mental health. “We're talking about the insanity of people not recognizing that there are very specific issues,” she said. Of course, the issue she wanted to focus on was race.
“Race apparently turns out to be an issue in a lot of these killings,” she proclaimed, citing the Charleston, South Carolina church shooting from 2015. “We've seen it. People getting shot because they're black. We've seen people getting shot because they're there. We've seen them getting shot because they're Latina.”
[...]
Hostin, a taunch racist, was “glad” Goldberg “brought up the race” angle. And without providing evidence, she pushed the narrative that the Hispanic man responsible for the Allen, Texas shooting was a white supremacist. “But this shooter who happened to be Hispanic and Latino, which is very bizarre to me, had a white supremacy moniker on him,” she said.
Fondacaro then whined that an authority on law enforcement was referenced:
Before doing her habitual quotation of FBI Director Christopher Wray, she lashed out at those who call out her racism. “And so, you know, Christopher Wray – These are not my words. So people don't start with the I’m a race-baiter crap!”she spat.
“Christopher Wray said the biggest threat to our democracy is white supremacy and domestic terrorism. He testified before Congress,” she declared before lashing out again, this time at Republicans for trying to tackle mental health instead of curtailing gun rights, saying they “should be ashamed of themselves.”
Also latching onto the race angle, Navarro made her proclamation on white supremacy. “Look, being Hispanic or being black does not – or being anything, does not make you immune from being racist, from being radicalized, from being a white supremacist, from being evil, from being homicidal,” she asserted.
Fondacaro waited until the final paragraph of his post to concede that Navarro "was right that non-white people can be most of those other horrible things she listed; particularly racist." But he immediately played whataboutism by whining that "she wouldn’t dare call out Hostin for her history of making racist remarks."
In fact, the shooter had Nazi tattoos and a fascination with neo-Nazi ieology, so Fondacaro looks like slightly less of a clown for making his concession. Fondacaro didn't want to talk about that any further, though.
Then it was time to move on to other anti-gun control narratives, with a post by Curtis Houck cheering how a Republican congressman enter the "far-left lair" of "CBS This Morning" to spout those narratives. Houck even dismissed the fact that one massacre victim's face was blown off, callously declaring that it "would be the case with any gun if they’re shot point blank or enough times."
The vast majority of Americans are not as weirdly blase about gun violence as Houck.
CNS Blogger Pouts That 'Comer Caves' Topic: CNSNews.com
Craig Bannister wrote a very pouty June 8 CNSNews.com blog post under the even poutier headline "Comer Caves, Allowing Media/Dems to Lie About Contents of FBI Records Alleging Biden Bribery Scheme":
On Monday, House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer (R-KY) warned that, if he doesn’t take possession of the FBI document alleging a bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden, media and Democrats will deny his reports and label them crazy conspiracy theories.
On Wednesday, Comer canceled Thursday’s scheduled contempt of Congress vote against FBI Director Christopher Wray, who continues to refuse to turn over the document containing the “highly-credible,” long-time FBI source’s allegations.
But, on Monday, Rep. Comer told reporters that he wouldn’t cancel the contempt of Congress vote, unless he had the document “in hand,” because that was the only way he could get the media and Democrats to admit what it reveals.
“Mr. Chair, why do you need the document in hand?” one reporter asked Comer, questioning the need to “move forward with contempt when the FBI says they are cooperating in good faith.”
Without the physical document to show to the public, media will continue to parrot the Biden Administration’s “conspiracy theory” claims and dismiss the source as unverified, Comer explained:
Bannister wants us to believe that Comer is operating in good faith -- which seems unlikely given that he has released no documentation of his numerous claims about the Biden family. He's also making claims based on a document he doesn't even have poseesion of, which makes those claims -- including his assertion that the source is "highly-credible" -- even more dubious. It can be argued that given the lack of evidence behind his claims, Comer is the one who's peddling crazy conspiracy theories.
If Comer can't back up what he says, he shouldn't be sayhing anything at all -- and Bannister shouldn't treat him as anything other than a partisan actor with an agenda.
MRC Transgender Hate Watch Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's transphobicwar continues apace. Chief transphobe Tierin-Rose Mandelburg found another child to attack in a March 31 post:
“I’ve known I was a girl so long that I don’t remember life as a boy.”
Well kid, you have your whole life ahead of you to blame your parents for that.
9-year-old Sunny Bryant gave a speech at the Texas State Capitol building this week protesting a TX bill that would prohibit kids from permanently damaging their bodies.
Senate Bill 14 would ban physicians from providing puberty blockers, hormone therapy or surgeries for children. These acts of, what the left calls “gender-affirming care,” are extremely dangerous for anyone, especially children who haven’t fully developed yet. The ban would save many children from life-altering damage. Yet activists and even some kids like Sunny disagree.
At the start, the moderator asked “you are against the bill?” The child had to look to his mother to verify his answer before turning back to the mic. Clearly this child was confused.
[...]
Hearts should break for this kid. As his mother stood next to him, coaching him on the speech she wrote, he stood and presented lie after lie. He’s not to blame though. His parents and whoever else helped feed a delusion are at fault. Let the child be a child and worry about Christmas presents or who’s going to be “it” first in tag or who can hold their breath longest in the pool. A child shouldn’t be worrying about things like this because they shouldn’t be involved in things like this.
Any child, especially a nine-year-old, that thinks he or she is “transgender” is a victim of child abuse. Period.
Jay Maxson called on America's greatest transgender-hating transgender person for an April 6 post (but not before misgendering her and attacking her for being transgender, of course):
Can you imagine if Bruce Jenner had gone the transgender route before he won the Olympic decathlon in 1976? He would have thoroughly demolished all female competition, it would have made a mockery of women’s competition … and I think he knows it. Now known as Caitlyn, Jenner has launched the Fairness First PAC to fight against males wreaking havoc in female athletics.
The man who fathered six children with three wives vaulted out of the closet as a “transgender woman” in 2015. But, like Martina Navratilova, he’s a famous ex-athlete who wants to prevent males from destroying the integrity of female sports. Jenner announced his new political action committee Tuesday, and tweeted his belief that equality should take precedence over inclusion:
[...]
The former Olympic champion has heard all the vitriol before and continues to stand courageously against the radical alphabet mob. He won’t back down in his fight for present and future generations at risk from the insidious trans movement.
Maxson called on a Republican presidential candidate whose campaign thet MRC helped launch in an April 7 post:
To all woke advocates of transgender madness: try justifying this. Fallon Fox, a male transgender who fights over-matched women, broke the skull of one of his victims. Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who posted a video of the male mauling that woman, was rightly outraged in calling transgenderism a “cult” and a “mental health crisis.”
The horrible beat-down happened in 2014, but Ramaswamy is citing this as Exhibit A for why men do not belong in women’s athletic competitions. He also criticized Bud Light and Nike for entering into partnerships with a trans activist, citing it as an example of large corporations' consistent push to engage in "the worst kind of woke capitalism.”
To make this travesty of justice worse, male trannie Fallon Fox tweeted in 2020, “I enjoyed it. See, I love smacking up TEFS (sic) in the cage who talk transphobic nonsense. It’s bliss!”
Maxson didn't mention until much later in the article that the sport involved here is mixed martial arts, where broken bones are not uncommon. Also, Fallon's 2014 opponent, Tamikka Brents, didn't suffer a skull fracture in the fight (though she did have an orbital bone fracture and a concussion).
The next day, Clay Waters huffed: "On National Public Radio’s Morning Edition Wednesday, new show host Michel Martin invited a Kansas-based reporter to join her in a rhetorical frenzy against an 'extreme' transgender bill recently passed by the Kansas legislature that 'basically erases' transgenders by refusing to indulge the fantasy that one's biological sex is based on personal belief." He later whined, "No one at NPR -- host or guest -- feels the need to explain common-sense opposition to spreading gender dysphoria. It's just a useful tool for Republicans."
An April 10 post by Mandelburg hyped how "A worried mother from Maine is suing her local school board for keeping her child’s “transgender” identity a secret from her," adding: "Schools and so-called “trusted adults” have been on the prowl for vulnerable young kids and teens so that they may imprint their indoctrination methods and facilitate and army of LGBTQ people. The amount of groomers in schools these days are too many to count and the school where [the mother's] innocent daughter attended is no exception." Mandelburg didn't mention that the school district has called the stories circulating about the case "a grossly inaccurate and one-sided story" and that is prohibited by confidentiality requirements from publicly responding. She also failed to explain how any of this qualifies as "grooming." Mandelburg had another transphobic meltdown the following day:
Gone are the days where only little girls dream of being ballerinas. Now, grown men can pursue dreams of being “female” ballet dancers too.
Sophie Rebecca, a former IT technician and biological man, was accepted to the prestigious Royal Ballet Academy back in 2017 as the company’s first transgender artist. Recently, amid the transgender firestorm in the world, Rebecca’s story has sparked more controversery.
According to Reduxx Magazine, the 6ft, 3in Rebecca biological man passed his Royal Academy of Dance Intermediate Foundation ballet exams in 2017 with a Merit and reportedly has performed in the United States professionally ever since.
Supposedly he once said, “I knew from a young age that I was trapped in the wrong body.”
Guess what? He still is, according to his standards.
A number of users called out Rebecca for his unfair advantage and the fact that he really sucks as a ballerina.
[...]
It’s not only unsafe for this man to be parading as a woman as his body is the shape of a man and isn’t designed for female ballet moves, but its also unfair for the actual women who’ve worked their whole lives to get to even the most minimal of roles or positions. Rebecca did none of that.
Not to mention the fact that he’s getting all this special attention and treatment simply because he’s pretending to be a woman.
This is disturbing and, frankly, insulting.
Most normal people, meanwhile, find Mandelburg rabid transphobia highly disturbing and insulting. But the MRC apparently pays her by the insult, so insulting is what she does.
Another MRC transphobe (until he mysteriously lost his job a week later), Matt Philbin, complained in an April 14 post that transgender people point out how they're victimized by people like him:
The Washington Post’s Anne Branigin wants you to know that “The surge of anti-trans attacks has made the stakes higher than ever for trans storytellers and performers.” The attacks are almost too heinous to recount: the nine-year-olds shooting up drag bars; the NCAA swimmer who, with malice aforethought, tried to say hurtful things about brave transgender athletes who just want to compete as the women they weren’t born to be.
As for the stakes – well, that sounds dramatic, but it really isn’t. This installment of the The Post’s “Trans in America” is just a reminder that, no matter what your eyes and ears tell you, trans people are still victims. “Trans rights are being rolled back around the country,” Branigin writes, “and some trans creators are facing fervent backlash against their work.”
We’ll have to take her word for it on those “rights,” and it really stinks that people don’t like your solipsistic books or movies or whatever. (At some point, even the most skilled self-portraitist slams into the laws of supply and demand.) But being misunderstood is an important part of the victim ethos.
[...]
But here’s the thing: when you go from a dockside bar to Nike spokes-whatever, you’re gonna get pushback from people who respect biology, theology and 5,000 years of civilization. You can accuse those people all you want of being the aggressors in the culture wars, but it doesn’t make it so. And it doesn’t make trans people victims.
Philbin also thinks the new "Peter Pan" film isn't white enough, so maybe nobody should take his opinions seriously. (Us pointing that out may very well be the reason he's out of his MRC job.)
Newsmax Gushed Over Trump's Performance at CNN Town Hall Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax, as a loyal Trump sycophant, is excited about all things Trump, was particularly excited on the town hall he did on CNN May 10. The day before, Jeffrey Rodack previewed things from a pro-Trump point of view:
Former President Donald Trump is touting his scheduled Wednesday appearance on CNN.
In a post on Truth Social on Tuesday, he wrote: "I'll be doing CNN tomorrow night, LIVE from the Great State of New Hampshire, because they are rightfully desperate to get those fantastic (TRUMP!) ratings once again. They made me a deal I couldn't refuse!!! Could be the beginning of a New & Vibrant CNN, with no more Fake News, or it could turn into a disaster for all, including me. Let's see what happens? Wednesday Night at 8:00!!!”
Its first article on the town hall itself, an overall summary, was a balanced wire article, and a second wire article focused on the E. Jean Carroll defamation lawsuit he had lost the day before . These were followed by a couple of Newsmax-generated articles by Solange Reyner touting other claims Trump made:
Rayner also werved up her own summary of the town hall, which quoted only trump and didn't note any criticism or offer any fact-checks.
The next day, an article by Rodack cheered how Trump dominated and made CNN look bad:
Liberals were left fuming over CNN's town hall with Donald Trump as the former president firmly took control of the event.
The town hall, hosted by CNN's Kaitlan Collins, aired Wednesday night from New Hampshire.
Progressives such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., directed their anger squarely at CNN.
[...]
The Times also reported CNN Chair Chris Licht defended the network from the backlash it is receiving.
On a network-wide editorial call on Thursday, Licht complimented Collins, on "a masterful performance," the Times noted. "We all know covering Donald Trump is messy and tricky, and it will continue to be messy and tricky," he said. "But it's our job.
Newsmax also gave space to its fellow Trump sycophants to praise his performance. A May 11 article claimed:
Conservative talk show host Dan Bongino said former President Donald Trump's performance during a CNN town hall was so good Wednesday night that he effectively wrapped up the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
"I'm going to say after last night, I don't know what you guys think, the primary is over," Bongino said during his opening monologue Thursday of "The Dan Bongino Show" podcast.
"It's over man. ... Trump was in rare form last night and just lit CNN on fire to the point where CNN was questioning CNN at the end of the night.
Another sycophant parroted that in a May 12 article:
Former President Donald Trump's performance on CNN's town hall this week resulted in a win for both him and the network that President Joe Biden, if he were in the same situation, could never match, Rep. Matt Gaetz said on Newsmax Friday.
"President Trump showed a comfortable command of the room," the Florida Republican said on Newsmax's "Eric Bolling: The Balance." "He had an exquisite knowledge of the facts. He brought receipts to counter some of the false narratives that have been put out by a lot of mainstream media and he interacted with people asking questions in a very warm and comforting and almost host-like way."
But Biden, Gaetz told Bolling, "could not do 90 minutes with Kaitlan Collins without needing a nap in the middle and a drool rag at the end of it."
A May 15 article by the apparently unironically named Charlie McCarthy let Trump take a victory lap:
Former President Donald Trump said he's surprised by how "traumatized" CNN employees were after his town hall on the network last week.
CNN employees and liberals were fuming after Trump firmly took control of the event held in New Hampshire on Wednesday.
"I was surprised by the level of hostility," Trump told The Messenger. "I thought they would be neutral and even better than that so they could get the viewers back. And they had one of the best [viewership] days in years. So you would think they would claim success.
McCarthy went on to uncritically repeat numerous boasts by Trump without any attempt to fact-check him.
WND Criticizes Convictions Of Proud Boys Over Capitol Riot, Fret Trump May Be Next Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has something of an affinity for violent extremist groups and trying to downplay their violent extremism. It tried to soften the violent-thug image of the Proud Boys before the Capitol riot -- which didn't age well -- though it then mostly threw them under the bus to protect Donald Trump. It also laughably insisted that both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers as "groups that mostly have acted in patriotic situations" -- as if the Capitol riot violence was somehow "patriotic" -- and it also tried to whitewash the Oath Keepers in an attempt to defend a politician who affiliated himself with the group.
But as members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys went on trial for their roles in the Capitol riot, WND stayed largely silent. WND gave attention to the arrest of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes in early 2022 on seditioius conspiracy charges, with one article gave space to a conspiracy theorist to rant about why it took a year to arrest him, and a June 2022 article hyped Rhodes claiming from prison that "the partisan committee set up by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lied to the American people" about the riot. But it offered no original coverage of Rhodes' trial, and even his conviction on seditious conspiracy charges in November was noted only by a wire article it stole from the Associated Press.
Similarly, WND offered no original coverage of the trial of several Proud Boys members earlier this year, but its writers started weighing in after the defendants were convicted. Peter LaBarbera fretted in a May 4 article that the convictions could lead to Trump being prosecuted for instigating the riot, which LaBarbera downgraded to a "melee":
Critics and supporters of Donald Trump said the government's successful prosecution of four "Proud Boys" J6 protesters on "seditious conspiracy" charges in a Washington, D.C. court could pave the way for him being criminally prosecuted in the same, Democrat-friendly court system.
After seven days of deliberation, a D.C. jury containing members with openly leftist sympathies Thursday found ex-Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio and three other other members of the anti-left group guilty of "seditious conspiracy" and other related charges for their actions in the "Stop the Steal" melee on Jan. 6, 2021 at the nation's Capitol.
"The legal maximum penalty for either seditious conspiracy or obstruction charges is 20 years in prison," the Washington Post reported. Further details of the ruling can be found at UnCoverDC.com, which called the verdict a "highly politicized miscarriage of justice."
Julie Kelly, the leading conservative pundit chronicling what she calls the Biden administration's "abusive" J6 prosecutions and extremely harsh treatment of J6 prisoners, tweeted Thursday: "A rogue judge, dirty prosecutors, and biased DC jury just handed Merrick Garland's handpicked special prosecutor the biggest gift of his career: a roadmap to indict Trump on seditious conspiracy and other crimes."
LaBarbera then complained that "Liberal corporate media leaned heavily on the left's "violent insurrection" narrative to report on the Proud Boys conviction and huffed that there was "extreme bias" during the trial.
LaBarbera's article was illustrated by a smiling photo of Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio taken by Matt Keener, who wrote one of those WND attempts to soften the group's image -- a fawning November 2020 profile of Tarrio dewsigned to counter perceptions of the group as a bunch of white supremacists (never mind that there is a notable Proud Boys faction that is quite proud to be white supremacist and anti-Semitic).
Rachel Alexander -- who usually sticks to manufacturing conspiracy theories about Arizona elections -- attacked the convictions in her May 8 column, similarly fretting that Trump might be next:
Five Proud Boys were convicted by a jury last week for criminal acts related to Jan. 6, 2021, but no one really believes they did anything more violent than BLM and Antifa. Thousands of the latter cases involving violence have been dismissed. U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly allowed the Proud Boys to be portrayed to the heavily biased jury using language selected for its incendiary value to portray a distorted picture, including telling the jury about actions by others that weren't even taken by the five.
It didn't help that the mainstream media includes language in most articles about J6 as "storming the Capitol" instead of a "mostly peaceful protest." The five could have easily done the latter, because they brought no weapons, assaulted no officers, and Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio wasn't even at J6.
Prosecutors repeatedly played clips of Donald Trump in an effort to manipulate the Trump-hating jury. Trump said, "Stand back and stand by" and encouraged supporters to come to J6 with, "It will be wild." Neither of those sound like a call to violence; Trump frequently talks in hyperbole. But one juror admitted afterward when asked why he voted to convict, that Trump's remarks were "part of it."
Alexander then insisted that Tarrio's call to his followers of "whatever happens ... make it a spectacle" -- arguably evidence of premeditation -- was meaningless: "Tarrio's instruction to create a 'spectacle' at the Capitol was used to make jurors think he intended violence – but the Proud Boys are well-known for their pattern of reacting to violence, not starting it." She then tried to claim that the lack of violent reaction to the convictions somehow proved that the right isn't violent:
It's now being ignored that there was no violent reaction across the country in response to the verdicts. The irony here is that it's really the left that engages in violence when they don't get their way; the facts have to be distorted and provocateurs planted within right-wing protests to attempt to portray the right as violent.
The Proud Boys may not be the preferred style for most folks on the right. But that's why the left is targeting them; it's easier to distort their actions and fit them into a crime than it is the rest of us, so left-wing prosecutors are picking them off to establish precedents that are a gross abuse of the law, precedents that can then be used against anyone on the right.
Never mind, of course, that Alexander herself is distorting people's actions and trying to fit them into a crime by invoking Black Lives Matter and Antifa as shorthand for alleged violence on "the left."
NEW ARTICLE: COVID Misinformation Continues At The MRC Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center just can't stop portraying spreaders of COVID vaccine falsehoods as "victims" for being held accountable -- and it can't stop spreading its own false or dubious COVID-related claims. Read more >>
MRC's Durham Defenders Back In Business After Final Report Released Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center spent a goodchunk of last year hyping John Durham's investigate-the-investigators probe attacking previous probes of Donald Trump, repeatedly hyping his work even as both prosecutions he attempted in court resulted in aquittals of the accused. When Durham issued a final report of his investigation -- in which he complained that Trump was investigated but did not recommend new charges or even offer recommendations on how to handle future investigations -- the MRC rushed to Durham's defense yet again. Nicholkas Fondacaro spent a May 15 post complaining that the Durham probe was essentially (and property) dismissed as a nothingburger:
On Monday, Special Council [sic] John Durham’s long-awaited report into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation fell out of the blue. The report faults the FBI and says they should never have opened Crossfire Hurricane since it was entirely based on “leads provided or funded by Trump's political opponents.” Despite how Durham spelled out the fact that the Trump-Russia probe was based on “raw, unanalyzed and uncorroborated intelligence,” ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News stood behind it.
ABC chief Justice correspondent Thomas reported that Durham’s report found the FBI “never should've launched a probe in the first place, since ‘neither U.S. law enforcement nor the intelligence community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion.’”
He noted: “The bureau relied on ‘raw, unanalyzed and uncorroborated intelligence.’ Noting that ‘there was significant reliance on investigative leads provided or funded (directly or indirectly) by Trump's political opponents.’” He even admitted the infamous Steele Dossier was part of that effort.
But Thomas still insisted that then-candidate Donald Trump provided all the evidence the FBI needed to open the investigation:
Fondacaro praised a different reporter for spoutng a conservative-friendly narrative: "In stark contrast, on CBS Evening News, senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge didn’t hold back on Durham’s swipes at the FBI. She noted he called out how 'senior FBI personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor' and 'relied on investigative leads provided or funded by Trump's political opponents.'"
The next day, Alex Christy groused about another commentator pointing out the failure of the Durham investigation:
MSNBC Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough reacted to Special Counsel John Durham’s report that was fiercely critical of the FBI and the Trump-Russia probe by dismissing it as a waste of taxpayer money and that the main takeaway of the report is how bad Durham and Republicans look.
In one of his typical rants, Scarborough tried to find a silver lining, “The only good news is at least his four-year taxpayer funded boondoggle, that was funded by working Americans, paying him to walk through the fevered swamps of Trumpism is over.”
[...]
Bursting MSNBC’s bubble is not the same thing as destroying one’s reputation, but after a ranting about the GOP’s poor relationship to the FBI and at no point considering the demise of the Russia collusion narrative might have something to do with that, Scarborough returned to Durham, “Four years, millions and millions of dollars, and nothing to show for it but some really bad, humiliating headlines for pro-Trump newspapers.”
Curtis Houck similarly whined that pro-Durham narratives weren't followed in non-right-wing media:
Trump-Russia probe Special Counsel John Durham’s report dropped late Monday afternoon and, with only one criminal conviction (via a plea agreement), the liberal media were ebullient in celebrating the lack of mass indictments some billed as a foregone conclusion. It was nonetheless damaging as it found “neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”
On CNN and MSNBC, they were only missing in their initial coverage was champagne bottles as they falsely claimed “there’s absolute nothing new here,” there was still Trump-Russia collusion, and Crossfire Hurricane was wholly necessary.
Hours after the Department of Justice released the long-awaited report from Special Council [sic] John Durham into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, finding the FBI had no evidence and no reason to open the investigation to begin with, former FBI deputy director-turned-CNN senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe finally crawled out from his hidey-hole Monday night to address the story. Of course, AC360 host Anderson Cooper gave him the floor to freely lash out at Durham and continue to lie about the investigation.
Going to McCabe only a couple minutes into his timeslot, Cooper noted that McCabe’s “name comes up 58 times in the Durham report” and tried to spin the fact that the Durham report found “the FBI never had evidence of collusion.” He asserted “[t]hat's not a legal term” when everyone understood that to be shorthand for Donald Trump being a Russian asset.
“What's your response?” Cooper simply teed up McCabe to defend himself, with little citation from the report to press his guest on. McCabe was fired for lying to federal investigators about his leaking to the press regarding the Hillary Clinton-e-mail probe.
Actually, McCabe was fired by Donald Trump just days before his retirement in a fit of retaliation over, and he was eventually awarded his full pension. But Fondacaro continued his attacks, huffing that "Cooper gave McCabe free rein to lash out at Durham and the investigation. McCabe proclaimed that Durham’s work 'was never a legitimate investigation,' just a 'political errand' for Trump."
Houck returned to rant about another person who didn't adhere to right-wing narratives:
In much the same way he did hours earlier on Monday’sNBC Nightly News, NBC Justice correspondent Ken Dilanian — who should be known as CIA Ken for his fealty to the agency — surfaced on Tuesday’s Today show to further spin for his real bosses in the intelligence community on Special Counsel John Durham’s report on the Trump-Russia probe.
Dilanian was shameless from the get-go in dismissing the report that found the Trump-Russia collusion investigation should have never even be launched: “Durham’s report is filled with blistering criticism of the FBI...but critics say Durham’s investigation ultimately fell flat, even though it lasted more than a year longer than the actual Russia investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.”
Channeling the criticisms of the Clinton special counsels on their length, Durham similarly tut-tutted over the fact that “Durham brought just two criminal cases that ended in acquittals and his report called for no major changes.”
[...]
[ABC's Pierre] Thomas closed by implying the probe was a waste: “Durham’s investigation, which cost more than $6.5 million, falls far short of proving that there was a deep state conspiracy against Trump. Durham only convicted one lower level FBI official of misconduct...and two major trials ended in acquittal.”
Worse yet, he further justified the hounding of Team Trump based on the Trump Tower meeting.
So, was it the Trump Tower meeting, Trump calling out to Russia to “find” Hillary Clinton’s missing e-mails, or George Papadopoulos? Hard to keep it all straight!
Houck didn't explain to his readers what the Trump Tower meeting was, let alone why it should not have resulted in an investigation.
The MRC also published a May 17 column by Ben Shapiro defending Durham, as well as a May 20 column by Jeffrey Lord claiming that Pulitizer Prizes awarded to the New York Times and the Washington Post for their work exposing connections between the Trump campaign and Russia were somhow invalidated by Durham's investigation, though he offered no specific claim in any of that work that Durham contradicted.
The Media Research Center's defense of Donald Trump following the CNN town hall included taking shots at a CNN reporter the MRC obsessively hates. Nicholas Fondacaro started things in a May 13 post:
In addition to being a homophobe and a 
Kevin Tober served up the Media Research Center's ritual hatred of White HOuse press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre over the June 5 
Newsmax 
One big way you can tell that "media solutions company" AllSides has a right-wing bias is by looking at who is promoting its work. The 
The Media Research Center's 
WorldNetDaily continued to be 
With the May gun massacre at an outlet mall in Texas, the Media Research Center 
Craig Bannister wrote a very pouty June 8 CNSNews.com 
The Media Research Center's 
Newsmax, as a loyal Trump sycophant, is excited about all things Trump, was particularly excited on the town hall he did on CNN May 10. The day before, Jeffrey Rodack 
WorldNetDaily has something of an affinity for violent extremist groups and trying to downplay their violent extremism. It 
The Media Research Center spent a 
