MRC's Jean-Pierre-Bashing, Hunter Biden Derangement Edition
Topic: Media Research Center

Curtis Houck did his best to suck up to a right-wing reporter who wasn't Peter Doocy -- and insert a dose of Hunter Biden Derangememnt Syndrome -- in his writeup of the June 26 White House press briefing:

Real Clear Politics’s Philip Wegmann closed out Monday’s White House press briefing as the only reporter in the press corps to grill ever-inept Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre over what’s, at minimum, a questionable lack of ethics by President Biden having son Hunter attend last week’s state dinner for the Indian prime minister with Attorney General Merrick Garland.

“It’s not unusual for presidents to invite members of their family to official White House functions, like the State Dinner last week. I’m curious, though, in light of some of the recent legal controversy, if the President communicated to members of his family not to conduct business on White House ground,” he asked.

He added on a more specific addendum: “Can you tell us a bit about any kinds of guardrails that are up?”

Jean-Pierre started with the usual caveats that she need to “be...very mindful” because it concerns a Justice Department case.

[...]

Wegmann re-upped the part about whether he or anyone has called for there to be “guardrails” for the First Family when they conduct business, but Jean-Pierre scoffed, twice saying she wouldn’t “speak to anything that’s related to this case” except to say “ethics” are “take[n] that very, very seriously here in this administration.”

The next day, Houck took shots at a Jean-Pierre stand-in (as well as a former stand-in who wasn't even there) as the right-wing Hunter derangement continued:

Sadly depriving the public of the comically partisan White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates, the Biden regime trotted out Principal Deputy Press Secretary Olivia Dalton on Tuesday to fill in for Karine Jean-Pierre. In turn, Dalton faced some hardballs about the Biden economy, a faux-hardball from a Team Biden apple polisher, and new queries about Hunter Biden’s life of corruption.

The Fox News Channel’s Jacqui Heinrich greeted Dalton with questions about Hunter Biden, a topic the press corps had let go of after Friday.

“What message is the President trying to send to the American people when he invites his son to the state dinner and Camp David as we saw this past weekend amid everything he’s going through,” Heinrich first asked.

[...]

Always one for hardballs to Team Biden, the New York Post’s Steven Nelson invoked reported interference in the Hunter probe as well as rumored comments former President Obama gave to Biden in 2020 almost begging him to not run for president (click “expand”):

And that was pretty much it for the month, aside from Tim Graham touting in his June 28 podcast how he and guest (and subordinate) Nicholas Fondacaro "took some time to mock White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for skipping out on ABC’s The View for the lamest reason possible." Which tells you just how much a need to incessantly mock and smear this woman dominates their lives.

Newsmax Columnists Also Boosting RFK Jr.'s Presidential Bid
Topic: Newsmax

Newsmax's "news" side isn't the only part of the organization to give Robert Kennedy Jr.'s presidential campaign a boost in the hope that it might interfere with President Biden's re-election plans -- its columnists have been happy to hype him as well. Jeff Crouere used his May 1 column to defend Kennedy over a TV outlet declining to air his anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories:

ABC News obviously did not care for the claims that Kennedy was making about vaccines and the pharmaceutical industry. According to Kennedy, “47 USC 315 makes it illegal for TV networks to censor presidential candidates but Thursday, ABC showed its contempt for the law, democracy, and its audience by cutting most of the content of my interview.”

The censorship involved Kennedy’s comments about the government’s actions during the COVID pandemic. He said, he will be “happy to supply citations to support every statement I made” and lamented that “Instead of journalism, the public saw a hatchet job. Instead of information, they got defamation and unsheathed Pharma propaganda.”

In his response to such blatant censorship, Kennedy asked, “How can democracy function without a free and unbiased press?” If elected President, Kennedy promised to “free FCC from its corporate captors and force the agency to follow the law by revoking the licenses of networks that put the mercantile ambitions of advertisers ahead of the public interest.”

Of course, a "free and unbiased press" also means that the media is allowed to choose what it publishes and airs. Crouere would freak out if Newsmax was ordered to air all points of view.

In his May 2 column, Daniel McCarthy touted how President Biden "has to contend with a real Kennedy for next year's Democratic presidential nomination," then hyped how he went conspiratorial over assassinations of family members, noting that "He's convinced Sirhan Sirhan did not fire the fatal shots" that killed his father and that "He also holds the CIA culpable for the murder of his uncle in Dealey Plaza 60 years ago." McCarthy then insisted that Kennedy's penchant for conspiracy theories is somehow noble and that his family name legitimizes them:

Robert Kennedy Jr.'s penchant for "conspiracy theories" leads Biden-friendly commentators and political strategists to dismiss him.

He threatens to spoil their myth that Republicans are the crazy party, whether or not he poses any risk to Biden.

But in fact conspiracy theories have as much of a home in the Democratic Party as in the GOP, if not more of one.

The difference is that Democratic conspiracy theories, such as those alleging Russian responsibility for the election of Donald Trump in 2016, often come with the imprimatur of prestigious media outlets.

RFK Jr., on the other hand, is a Democrat whose conspiratorial beliefs don't dependably align with the elite media's prejudices.

He's long believed that vaccines contribute to autism. And he's a fiery critic of Anthony Fauci and the response by government and the medical establishment to COVID-19.

Views like those are supposed to be the province of QAnon, not Democratic primary voters, according to the commentators who routinely burnish the party's image — and tarnish the GOP's.

But the guardians of the Democratic Party's respectability are in for a rude awakening.

The Kennedy name, Biden's weakness and the profound distrust millions of Americans feel toward institutions such as the CIA, the media and the pharmaceutical companies will make RFK Jr. formidable.

McCarthy concluded by insisting that RFK Jr. is the real "Kennedy dream":

Biden, leader of a party whose liberalism is very different, hid behind the Kennedy dream.

RFK Jr. takes that away. And the bottomless sense of betrayal that animates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an epitaph for a generation.

Boomer Democrats loved the American dream. But they failed the real America.

A May 12 syndicated column by Mona Charen, however, deviated from the agenda. She noted Kennedy's penchant for conspiracy theories and his offensive claim that COVID vaccine mandates were like the Holocaust, adding that "he cost tens of thousands of Americans their lives thanks to minimizing the seriousness of COVID." She declaring that he "belongs in the select company of major figures who have used their power for harm. Perhaps he isn't quite right in the head. Who knows?" But she also admitted that he "appeals to significant numbers of Americans, and particularly to those who have always been on the other side of the aisle." Unlike with Crouere's and McCarthy's columns, though, Newsmax felt the need to stick a disclaimer at the top of it stating that "The following is not an endorsement, on the part of Newsmax, of any political candidate, or political party" -- even though it's clear she was not endorsing Kennedy.

WND's Farah Still Can't Stop Indulging In Election Fraud Fantasies
Topic: WorldNetDaily

After all these years of being proven wrong, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah still can't let go of his 2020 election truther fantasies. He huffed in his May 10 column:

The Democrats don't seem very concerned that they will inevitably lose the 2024 presidential election – probably because they plan to cheat again.

That makes me wonder what they have up their sleeve. Is Joe Biden actually running? Is Kamala Harris actually running? Will there be a late surprise from Michelle Obama? Or are they depending on China for another pandemic? How about another indictment of Donald Trump? They're not yet giving anything away.

[...]

Biden has made a mess of the economy. He made a mess of the Afghan withdrawal. He's made a mess of the border. He's made a mess of everything. Some 48% of Democrats don't even want him to run again.

So, what does he do for an encore to save his illegitimate administration? Or will he just lose in 2024 fair and square with Trump on the verge of a seismic victory – even an electoral realignment?

Will it be a "2000 Mules" replay? The Dems are just playing cool for now – just too cool. They keep arresting more and more Jan. 6 bystanders and calling them "insurrectionists." They keep indicting Trump on bogus charges. They make a mockery of our two-party state, playing their advantage with media, hyping Big Tech, using the Deep State and turning America into a laughingstock. And now Tucker Carlson has been summarily dismissed as the nation's highest-rated anchorman by Fox News.

No wonder Biden isn't worried. Somehow the fix is in. That's what he is thinking in his obviously cognitively challenged state.

If Farah thinks "2000 Mules" is credible, that nobody was violent at the Capitol riot or that Trump never committed any crimes, it's clear who the real "cognitively challenged" person is here.

Farah was still at in his May 22 column:

Google, Facebook, Bing and the "mainstream media" insist that real Americans shouldn't even whisper that elections were rigged.

It's become naïve. It's superstitious to be talking about vote fraud – the one thing you can't discuss about elections. Of course, we know it has not always been this way.

Democrats, who accuse Republicans uniquely of harping on the 2020 election, forget all the times they questioned previous races – including the 2016 presidential race, which Hillary Clinton lost. They even try to block out of our minds all the times the U.S. fixed foreign elections as well.

The U.S. is no stranger to interfering in the elections of other countries. Back in 2016, in fact, the Los Angeles Times featured one professor's database citing 81 different attempts by the United States to subvert foreign elections in a range of countries. No one questioned that rhetoric, let alone Big Tech, back then.

Of course, that was then and this is now.

Back then, it was President Barack Obama who slapped Russia with new penalties for meddling in the U.S. presidential election, kicking out dozens of suspected spies and imposing banking restrictions on five people and four organizations the administration says were involved.

The CIA accused Russia of interfering in the 2016 presidential election by hacking into Democratic and Republican computer networks and selectively releasing emails. There was never any proof offered.

Actually, there is much more proof of 2016 Russian hacking with the goal to influence the 2016 election than there is that the 2020 election included massive amounts of voting fraud (which is to say, virtually none).

After an irrelevant diversion into U.S. attempts to influence foreign elections, Farah decided to blame Barack Obama for this nonexistent voting fraud because he and Biden are "still in charge of the Deep State throughout 2020 and still today":

Do you recall Zuckerbucks? Did you watch "2000 Mules"? Remember, these are the people who have no shame calling fellow Americans the greatest threat America faces. They're telling you just what they think. They were telling you when they coalesced around Joe Biden in the late stages of the election of 2020.

Yes, it was Obama who did this to us, again. I wonder what he has planned for 2024?

Why, yes, we do recall "Zuckerbucks" -- which means we remember that any election office could have gotten that money if they had simply requested it. The fact that some election offices used that money to reach out to voters and help make it easier for them to vote during a pandemic does not mean that money "stole" the election. It is not illegal to want more people to vote, and Farah is lying by suggesting "Zuckerbucks" were an attempt to steal the election.

But then, no amount of evidence will dissuade dead-enders like Farah from their fantasies. It also shows who among us really has cognitive issues.

NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Trump Indictment Distraction Game
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center played all its usual cards in the face of Donald Trump's (first) indictment -- distraction, whataboutism and outright dismissal -- along with more attacks on the prosecutor as "Soros-backed." Read more >>

MRC's DeSantis Defense Brigade Went Into Cleanup Mode After Botched Twitter Launch
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center all day on May 24, the day Ron DeSantis officially announced his presidential campaign on Twitter, in full DeSantis Defense Brigade mode, despite the fact that there was little that actually needed to be defended. But the launch turned out to be a mess -- the Twitter Spaces server that was to host it crashed repeatedly, and DeSantis gave served up rote right-wing talking points instead of having any sort of real conversation with voters. Which means the MRC had to seriously spin the disaster away the next day. First up was Alex Christy, who complained that DeSantis was fact-checked, first serving up the Soviet-esque claim that teachers are teaching critical race theory even if they don't know they are:

How many PolitiFact fact-checkers does it take to fact-check a presidential announcement? Apparently four, as that is how many reporters it took to assess seven statements from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s Wednesday campaign launch on Twitter Spaces.

The first claim the intrepid quartet checked was “We eliminated critical race theory from our K through 12 schools.”

PolitiFact responded by claiming Critical Race Theory is a non-controversy, “University of Missouri education professor LaGarrett King previously told us that the problem is blown out of proportion. ‘The majority of teachers are not even familiar with what critical race theory is, nor do they teach it in their classrooms,’ King said.”

That doesn’t debunk DeSantis at all. It doesn’t matter if the majority of teachers are unfamiliar with CRT, because that ignores that one does not need to use the literal words “Critical Race Theory” to teach its worldview and that there is more to schools than what goes on in classroom, such as teacher trainings.

Christy then baselessly ranted that anyone in themilitary who defends President Biden's miliary policies is by definition "Democratic" and that "wokeness" is a barrier to recruitment despite the fact that nobody can actually identify anyone dissuaded from joining because it was too "woke":

In non-education policy, DeSantis argued “Biden’s politicized the military and caused recruiting to plummet.”

Fact-checkers have used Democratic service secretaries to fact-check Republicans on military matters before, but PolitiFact did it again, citing Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, “wokeness in the military or the COVID vaccine mandate, for example, those were relatively low on the list of barriers to service.”

A low barrier is still a barrier.

Curtis Houck grumbled that the eminently newsworthy failures at DeSantis' launch were treated as news by news organizations:

On Thursday morning, the major broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC were ebullient at the initial technical failures of Twitter Spaces for Governor Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) 2024 presidential campaign announcement, seeking to kill DeSantis’s campaign and clear the GOP field. 

Over five different segments, they barely touched on what DeSantis said and instead reveled in the “mess” that was “roundly mocked” and was a sign of “rough...waters” for his campaign against Donald Trump, who “[had] a field day.”

NBC’s Today was brutal. Co-host Hoda Kotb bragged in a tease of a “[r]ough rollout,” “troubled launch,” and “chaotic start to the Ron DeSantis presidential campaign, marred by technical glitches on Twitter.”

She added ahead of the first report that the server issues with Twitter left “the campaign scrambling on day one.”

[...]

Over on the Disney-owned ABC, there was never any doubt as to whetherGood Morning America would join in. 

After co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos described the launch as “marred” and “riddled with technical difficulties,” chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl conceded DeSantis is “the most formidable Republican challenger to Donald Trump” with some “advantages.”

Aside from that, it was more of the same.

[...]

Socialist CBS Mornings co-host Tony Dokoupil came with jokes: “[I]t was billed as a great American comeback, those are the words of Ron DeSantis and you could set your clock by it, but you could not set your clock by that Twitter event.”

Note that Houck did not criticize Musk for the botched launch, though it was arguably his fault that Twitter was not robust enough to handle the launch's traffic. (Houck has irrelevantly decided that Dokoupil is a "socialist" solely because he did a news report a few years back on income inequality. Really. That's it.)

Houck also didn't disclose his personal interest in DeSantis' candidacy. The day before the launch, he gushed about it on his Twitteraccount: "Great move making the announcement with @ElonMusk. Heads on all sides will explode." he also took place in a launch-related event the day of the announcement, which he also touted: "The great folks at @FLVoiceNews (led by @BrendonLeslie) are doing a Twitter Spaces after @RonDeSantis's 2024 announcement with @ElonMusk. I'll be joining the action -- lots to discuss!"

Kevin Tober was also on cleanup patrol -- this time for his fellow right-wing writers as well as DeSantis:

On Wednesday, Florida Republican governor Ron DeSantis made his long-awaited presidential campaign announcement during a Twitter space with Elon Musk followed by numerous appearances on cable news and radio. Later on Wednesday evening, DeSantis held a call with members of conservative media where they asked the governor questions about how he’ll beat Donald Trump and what he’ll do if he’s elected President. 

The call which was helpfully transcribed by Mediaite showed leftwing propagandists like The View’s Alyssa Farah Griffinand Puck News’s Tara Palmeri were wrong about DeSantis hiding from the press or simply only speaking to “friendly press” since the call with conservative reporters frequently challenged the governor on a wide range of issues. 

DeSantis kicked off the call by addressing the elephant in the room which was the Twitter space that crashed a few times during his announcement event with Musk: “We are at a internet-breaking start with Elon Musk. You know, he offered me the ability to do either a SpaceX rocket or Twitter. I just figured Twitter would be safer. Turns out that we had too many people that tried to join. So in some respects, you know, that’s a that’s a good sign.”

Despite not citing any actual challenging questions -- in fact, most were softballs and not very probing at all -- Tober insisted this was somehow a victory for right=wing media:

This call shows that conservative media by and large can be trusted to hold their own side’s feet to the fire and ask probing questions. 

That’s not something you see from reporters on the left who simply give their favorite candidates and politicians a foot massage.

Only in Tober's right-wing bubble can Farah Griffin -- whom the MRC irrationally hates -- be considered a "leftwing propagandist." And the fact remains that DeSantis refused to talk to anyone who wasn't from a right-wing media outlet, which that he is, in fact, afraid to venture beyond a "friendly press."

WND Attacks Wash. Post After Durham Report -- But Doesn't Back Them Up
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Bob Unruh complained in a May 17 WorldNetDaily article:

The Washington Post, the personal newspaper of Amazon billionaire and noted Democrat donor Jeff Bezos, says it is standing by its Trump-Russia stories, and the Pulitzer Prize they won.

That's even though a 300-page report from Special Counsel John Durham this week confirmed what President Trump has argued all along, that the reporting essentially was a "witch hunt," about a conspiracy theory based on zero evidence.

The now-debunked claims were begun and funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and contended that Trump, somehow, was obligated to Russia for his campaign. Actually, those on Clinton's payroll to create the allegations, to divert the public's attention from her own decision to post national secrets on an unsecure email system, used their own Russian sources to fabricate their claims.

The trouble is that the New York Times and the Washington Post both were given Pulitzers for their reporting on what now is known to be fiction.

Only the Pulitzers weren't in the "fiction" category.

Unruh's report is essentially a rewrite of a right-wing Daily Mail article making the same claim. But Unruh offered no evidence of anything in the Post's reporting that was proven wrong by Durham's report -- not even anything claimed in the Daily Mail story. Further, Unruh is falsely claiming that the investigation into Trump was "begun and funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign." As Washington Post writer Philip Bump documented, a timeline of events shows that there were plenty of shady events -- Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort giving campaign data to a Russian operative, Trump saying surprisingly nice things about Vladimir Putin -- that didn't involve the Clinton campaign at all, and Bump argued that the Durham report actually undermines right-wing efforts to blame Clinton for the investigation. But Unruh continued to whine anyway:

Durham's conclusion was blunt: "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."

Yet the prize-winning reports were based on the false assumption there was evidence.

Unruh offered no proof of this.

Unruh also noted that "A Post spokesman claimed a Pulitzer board review claimed no elements of the stories 'were discredited by facts' at that time," but said nothing more about it. In fact, Unruh misled about who the Pulitzer board review said. Here's a fuller quote as reported by the Post:

In an unusual move, it authorized two independent reviews of the articles submitted by the newspapers — and essentially recertified the results.

“The separate reviews converged in their conclusions: that no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes,” it said in a statement.

Unruh also claimed that "Not not ago, the Columbia Journalism Review released a scathing report that specifically targeted the Times for its reporting." But as critics have pointed out, that report was little more than revisionism that ignored inconvenient facts while advancing Trump's self-serving criticism of the investigation.

We know that WND these days is little more than a content mill and that Unruh just rewrites stuff and doesn't do any actually reporting, but this is a serious hack job even for him -- he just repeats partisan assertions and provides no evidence to back them up. Is this laziness what WND News Center donors are paying for?

MRC Does Guest Ideology Counts For Late-Night Shows -- But Not Gutfeld
Topic: Media Research Center

Alex Christy's main job at the Media Research Center is to complain that late-night TV isn't right-wing enough. this meams that, in addition to be a comedy cop, he's also complaining about the guests who appear on the shows. So when late-night hosts departed their shows in recent months, Christy was quick to churn out posts complaining their guests were somehow too liberal. When Trevor Noah left "The Daily Show," Christy had his complaints ready for a Dec. 9 post:

During his seven-year tenure as host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, Trevor Noah brought a reliably liberal bias to the program, a NewsBusters study has found.

MRC analysts found that from when Noah began hosting The Daily Show on September 28, 2015 through his final show on December 8, 2022, Noah had on 159 partisan guests including 109 unique individuals. Of these 159 guests, 137, or 86.16 percent, were Democrats or in some way affiliated with the Democratic Party.

When James Corden's late-night show ended, Christy had a very similar complaint ready:

During his eight-year stint as host of CBS’s The Late Late Show, James Corden could be counted on to use the show to advance the electoral interests of the Democratic Party, a NewsBusters study has found.

MRC analysts found that from March 23, 2015, through April 27, 2023, Corden had on 26 partisan guests including 17 unique individuals, 100 percent of whom were Democrats or in some way affiliated with the Democratic Party. At CBS, Stephen Colbert is far more aggressive in booking Democrat politicians, but Corden has a "perfect record."

The most memorable of these softball sessions was Nancy Pelosi’s April 2020 appearance where Corden fell in love with her freezer full of expensive ice cream. It ended with him asking Pelosi about her opinions of individual Republicans, holding up their pictures. He ended with a picture of Darth Vader, and Pelosi quipped “Even the party has gone beyond Darth Vader.” Corden shot back: “Darth Vader? I thought it was Dick Cheney!”

The British transplant would also give solemn monologues trashing America for a lack of gun control, declaring the country to be "one of the most backward places in the world,” and on abortion, declaring Dobbs to be "the biggest rollback of human rights in modern U.S. history."

It's worth noting that the MRC dishonestly plays both sides of the fence here: It has a history of encouraging conservatives to not appear on shows deemed too "liberal," then attacking those very same shows for not having conservatives on.

When the late-night shows shut down production due to the writers' strike, Christy had another guest count in a May 19 post under the headline "Good Riddance":

With the Writers Guild of America going on strike, it is likely that America has seen the last of the first half of 2023’s late night comedy shows. Whether America wants them to return is an open question as 95 percent of their 2023 guests have been liberal, a NewsBusters study has documented.

MRC analysts found that from January 3 through May 1 (the last night of shows before the strike ended production of new episodes), liberal guests outnumbered conservative guests by 77 to 4.

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 (up through its April 27 termination), and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. FNC's Gutfeld! was not included.

That's right -- Christy once again excluded Gutfeld's show from scrutiny, even though his job is presumably to evaluate all late-night snows. That's presumably because he doesn't want to be caught demonstrating the fact that Gutfeld is at least as biased to the right as he claims the other shows are to the left.

Christy also laughably whined that "Zero guests from Fox News appeared on any of the programs" -- though he identified no person associated with another network who ever appeared on Fox News.He also put "comedy" in scare quotes in the headline of his post because he has decided that these comedians are making fun of right-wingers like him, they cannot possibly be funny. That makes him a good right-wing activist, but a poor judge of comedy.

FAKE NEWS: WND Republishes False Infowars Story About London Mayor
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily has an unfortunate tendency to publish fake news, but even it should know better than to republish anything from the notorious conspiracy site Infowars. Yet that's exactly what it did with a May 23 article:

London Mayor Sadiq Khan revealed in his new book, Breathe, he suffered a heart attack during the 2021 COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

Khan explained as he spoke to the COP26 crowd, “out of nowhere, I felt a knot in my chest – a kind of tightening” and he had to be “carried off the stage” while “barely conscious.”

The book stated, “My shirt was drenched with sweat and I felt like I was on fire.”

That's all of the article WND published -- indicating that it was stolen from Infowars -- but it still contains a major error. As a fact-checker pointed out Khan did not suffer a heart attack at the conference -- and there is no mention of a cardiac arrest in Khan's book, from which this story is derived.

It's also mentioned in the headline of WND's version of the article that Khan's purported cardiac event "days after [a] COVID booster." The Infowars article pushed a baseless conspiracu theory:

Just twelve days after taking both a Covid booster and flu shot on the same day, Khan suffered the heart attack.

It’s likely the health scare was kept from the public until now as it would have surely created more skepticism of the experimental mRNA jabs.

Needless to say, no evidence was presented to link the two events. Like WND, Infowars doesn't need no stinkin' facts when there are malicious and false narratives to promote.

Even Before Twitter Campaign Launch, MRC DeSantis Defense Brigade Was Fully Mobilized
Topic: Media Research Center

In a May 14 post, Mark Finkelstein complained that "Rick Wilson of the disgraced Lincoln Project" besmirched Ron DeSantis' chances in a presidential race, and took particular offense to a prediction of how Donald Trump will treat him:

Wilson began by attacking DeSantis's personality, claiming that he "doesn't like humans, has to pretend to be human." He insisted DeSantis has a "mean streak." Yes, Rick Wilson said that, without any introspection about his own behavior.

In contrast, despite being sure to get on record that he dislikes everything about Trump, Wilson argued Trump does have "charisma" and "energy." 

In a particularly gruesome metaphor, Wilson then predicted that in a debate, Trump would "tear Ron DeSantis's head off and kick it around like a soccer ball."

Again, this could well just be Wilson trying to tear down DeSantis because he and the Dems see him as the biggest threat to Biden.

Note: Imagining DeSantis's head being torn off and kicked around is in keeping with Wilson's creepy penchant for violent fantasies about Republicans.

Turns out DeSantis didn't need an assist from Trump on his campaign launch -- he and Elon Musk botched things all by themselves. On the day DeSantis' campaign was to launch his campaign in an Twitter event, on May 23, Finkelstein returned to defend both DeSantis and Musk:

Morning Joe was on brand as a daily DNC messaging board. There wasn't a positive word on tonight's anticipated Ron DeSantis campaign announcement on Twitter this evening with Elon Musk. From Mika Brezinski to Jonathan Lemire, Willie Geist, Katty Kay, and Elise Jordan, all expressed their energetic reservations and criticism of the DeSantis strategy.

Sykes also mocked DeSantis for somehow going "all in on Elon" and described Musk as displaying "brain worms"—whatever that means.

[...]

Sykes did see one upside to DeSantis making his announcement with Musk, claiming that it will "throw a certain amount of chaos into MAGA world." 

One thing Sykes failed to mention was the contrast in announcement styles between DeSantis and Biden. When the latter announced his re-election bid, he did so via a carefully scripted and produced video. No live speech in which Biden's inevitable fumbles would be on full display. In contrast, DeSantis will reportedly be doing a live chat with Musk: no training wheels necessary!

Finkelstein also complained that Sykes said that DeSantis was "bowing the knee to a tech oligarch, somebody who has been very publicly decompensating, an erratic narcissistic megalomaniac like Elon Musk."

Curtis Houck tried to pre-frame criticism of DeSantis' launch plans in a post headlined "They're Terrified," with a particular obsession about the Trump-related books the correspondents had written:

On Wednesday morning ahead of Governor Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) 2024 presidential announcement with Twitter owner Elon Musk, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC lambasted DeSantis from the left and touted former President Trump’s attacks, all in an attempt to bury DeSantis before he officially enters the race.

CBS chief campaign and elections correspondent Robert Costa — whose stock rose culminated in a book with Bob Woodward — painted a picture on CBS Mornings that DeSantis’s campaign is already on death’s door: “Our latest polling shows Governor DeSantis trailing former President Donald Trump by more than 30 points. The question now is can he close that gap. But doing so will not be easy.”

[...]

Over on Disney-owned ABC, Good Morning America had chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl on the case.

Karl — who cashed in on the Trump hysteria with two New York Times bestsellers about Trump (here and here) and recently announced plans for a third — made sure to downplay DeSantis’s unique launch: “But DeSantis’s campaign team says the official statement will come with an audio-only discussion on Twitter with Elon Musk. The first campaign appearance not planned until next week[.]”

Noting DeSantis has already made stops in early-voting states, Karl jabbed the Florida governor as having spent time in Iowa and New Hampshire “trying the person-to-person campaigning he is not known for” and, on a trip overseas, “he awkwardly avoided questions about running for president.”

Likely fearful of losing his money spigot, Karl again attacked: “His challenge now is to try to find a way to beat Trump without alienating Trump supporters. In his first campaign for governor, DeSantis ran as a clone of Donald Trump.”

Karl even closed with the Trump team’s response and how “Trump has already spent millions of dollars on television ads attacking DeSantis” to the point of “having spent more money attacking DeSantis than they spent in the entire 2022 midterm cycle supporting Republican congressional candidates.”

Nicholas Fondacaro had his daily meltdown over "The View" in another pre-announcement post, unable tounderstand that Whoopi Goldberg was joking when she suggested that an image of DeSantis in a teaser video shot almost entirely from behind was a body double, then ranted at her further:

She even had a Luddite moment and shared her irritation that DeSantis was going to announce his campaign via Twitter. “And look, you know what, this idea of announcing on Twitter, I’m – I'm old and I'm okay being old, do that on television. Okay?” she shouted. “I want to see you do it on television. I want to see you actually take real Americans' questions. That's what I want.”

Goldberg’s comments spiraled into the unhinged as she stoked the audience’s hatred of DeSantis, suggesting he “dislike[d] people of color.” She even seemed to threaten him, saying “gay folks” would rise up and come for him:

Then in his podcast recorded before the actual Twitter debacle, this was all rehashed, with the help of Fondacaro.

The MRC also published a May 24 column by Ben Shapiro headlined "Will Elon Musk Break the Legacy Media Stranglehold?" in which he crowed that DeSantis’ decision to launch his campaign on  Twitter "represents yet another blow to the power of the legacy media." He concluded by gushing further: "Conservatives no longer need the approval of reporters at The New York Times. They no longer need to suffer the indignities of skewed grilling at the hands of partisan hacks who work for the alphabet networks. Times have changed. And DeSantis’ Twitter launch is just the latest evidence." What that actually means, of course, is that Shapiro and other Republicans don't want their candidiates to face any scrutiny outside the right-wing bubble, even though they must eventually face voters who don't live there.

Newsmax Gives Congressman's Falsehood A Pass
Topic: Newsmax

Sandy Fitzgerald wrote in a May 17 Newsmax article:

This week's House Administration Oversight subcommittee hearing on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol revealed an "absolute failure of leadership with the Capitol Police on that day," Rep. Greg Murphy, one of the congressmen grilling Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger, said Wednesday on Newsmax. 

Murphy, a North Carolina Republican, also told Newsmax's "Wake Up America" that he thinks some of the "obstruction of justice" by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office on that day became "almost like an invitation for a riot to occur."

"There was a refusal to allow the National Guard to come in with the anticipation that this could get rowdy," said Murphy.

However, he said he thinks with new leadership in place, including with the Capitol Police, "a lot of those mechanisms of the line of order have been corrected. ... I'm a lot more optimistic about the role of the Capitol Police as we move forward, but the last leadership was absolutely derelict in their duty."

In fact -- as we documented when WorldNetDaily pushed this same claim -- the conservative website the Dispatch reported that Donald Trump gave no order to deploy the National Guard, and not only did Pelosi not reject a request to deploy them, she was not in a position to because she wasn't in the chain of command -- in Washington, D.C., the National Guard can be deployed only by the president.

Not only did Fitzgerald refuse to fact-check Murphy's false claim, the Newsmax TV host didn't either, responding only, "Yeah, absolutely." Not exactly a good sign for journalism at Newsmax.

WND Touts A Dubious Study Attacking Masks
Topic: WorldNetDaily

If there is a study that touches on COVID vaccines or face masks, it's pretty much a certainty that any reporting WorldNetDaily does on it will be highly misleading or false in a way that falsely demonizes them and ignore flaws in the study that have been identified by others. For one recent study, WND started off with an April 23 article it stole from the Daily Mail, with the provocative claim that "Face masks may raise the risk of stillbirths, testicular dysfunction and cognitive decline in children." This was so alarming -- and so clickbait-y -- that Bob Unruh cranked out his own article on the study on May 10:

A new study suggests that those COVID masks, pushed on the American public by the likes of Biden medical adviser Anthony Fauci and multiple state and local officials, actually caused problems with high blood pressure.

And they "reduced thinking ability."

And "increased respiratory problems."

And more.

Essentially, they were having people "effectively poisoning oneself by breathing in too much carbon dioxide."

"What can breathing too much carbon dioxide do to you? The authors write that 'at levels between 0.05% and 0.5% CO2,' one might experience an 'increased heart rate, increased blood pressure and overall increased circulation with the symptoms of headache, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, dizziness, rhinitis, and dry cough.” Rates above 0.5 percent can lead to 'reduced cognitive performance, impaired decision-making and reduced speed of cognitive solutions.' Beyond 1 percent, 'the harmful effects include respiratory acidosis, metabolic stress, increased blood flow and decreased exercise tolerance,'" explained a City Journal report.

It was based on a study from Germany that quantifies "the harms" from wearing masks.

You will not be surprised to learn that the study's results are being overstated and may not actually hold up. As a fact-checker found:

Experts told us the article is flawed.

Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said the review article relied partly on studies of animals that are chronically exposed to carbon dioxide. 

Those studies are not applicable to humans intermittently wearing face masks, he said.

Jeremy Howard, a scientist at the University of San Francisco, said the review article overestimates by 60 times the amount of carbon dioxide people breathe when wearing masks.

[...]

Scientists have found little evidence that the kind of masks worn by schoolchildren negatively affect oxygen or carbon dioxide levels. Scientists also say contamination levels on masks are no worse than contamination levels on other common objects.

Studies have not found significant health problems even from prolonged mask wearing.

But Unruh cares about fearmongering, not facts, so he uncritically repeated partisan claims from the right-wing City Journal that "Evidence continues to mount that mask mandates were perhaps the worst public-health intervention in modern American history" and that wearing masks "ignored centuries of Western norms, the best medical evidence, and common sense."

NEW ARTICLE: The Soros Deflection In Service Of Trump
Topic: Media Research Center
As prosecutor Alvin Bragg geared up to indict Donald Trump, the Media Research Center labored hard to tie him to George Soros -- then got mad it was pointed out that doing so was arguably an anti-Semitic dog whistle. Read more >>

MRC Continued To Peddle Lies About Target's Pride Merchandise
Topic: Media Research Center

We've shown how the Media Research Center repeated and amplified lies from vicious transphobe Matt Walsh to start a phony attack on Target over selling pride-related merchandise. Tim Graham repeated those lies in a May 26 column that tried to blame the victim, insisting that it's somehow Target's fault for making right-wingers lie about it:

Some might claim that Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal is part of his “right-wing media machine,” but not when it comes to the news pages. The front page on May 25 included an article headlined “Target Is in Bull’s-Eye Of the Culture Wars.” Inside the paper, it’s “Culture Wars Snare Target.”

One of the most annoying tendencies of liberal journalists is defining the term “culture wars” as conservative resistance to the left-wing war on America’s Judeo-Christian heritage. Target has lowered itself from typical progressive “Pride Month” pandering to partnering with a British Satanist to push an agenda in their stores.

Satanists aren’t culture warriors, only the Christians are? Target isn’t engaging in culture war, but Hobby Lobby is?

“Trans man” Erik Cornell’s Abprallen brand sells apparel that includes satanic imagery, including pentagrams, horned skulls, and references to the devil. One design on their T-shirts and pins carries the message: “Satan respects pronouns.”

Last year, Cornell wrote on his brand’s Instagram account: “Being called a demon is something I can cope with, and the idea of a trans demon is pretty damn cool, most of my work focuses on gothic or dark and satanic imagery juxtaposed with bright colours and LGBT+ positive messages.”

Cornell is not a Satanist, but Graham couldn't be bothered to telling his readers that. He did grudgingly admit that "The edgy Satanic gear isn’t on sale at Target," but insisted on blaming Target or it anyway: "Are their executives so dense that they can’t imagine this Satanist-adjacent promotion might be a publicity problem?" Graham also failed to mention that this war on Target was not organic but manufactured by people like Walsh -- a fact one of his writers gleefully touted.

Graham also conceded that no "tuck-friendly" swimsuits were ever marketed to children, but Target was again somehow to blame because someone under the age of 18 might wear one:

The Target story first kicked into prominence when the Associated Press and PolitiFact “fact checkers” rushed in to defend Target against those anti-groomer right-wingers who were spreading “misinformation.” They insisted that the swimsuits being sold with “tuck-friendly construction” were only in adult sizes. But it should be obvious that many teenaged children would fit into adult sizing.

Then it was also shown that swimsuits for younger children were tagged in the store as “thoughtfully fit” for “multiple gender expressions.” Obviously, young male children don’t have as much need for a “tuck-friendly” suit.

Graham concluded by raging that not hating transgender people is somehow making people want to be transgender:

The number of youth identifying as transgender has doubled in recent years, and all these leftists want to pretend that none of this happened because of their crusades waged on the Internet and their urgent “Pride” marketing from “woke” corporations.

The Left pretends this surge of gender confusion and amputation is “organic,” that it’s just people finding their “true selves” by the thousands. But it’s the result of a gender-denying culture war.

In fact, social contagion is not causing more youths to be transgender. Graham didn't explain why transgender people must always be hated and vilified in the media.

Alex Christy tried to play whataboutism with right-wing attacks on  Target in a May 26 post:

Apparently, colleges just hand out PhDs to anyone who wants one because on Thursday’s The 11th Hour on MSNBC, economics Prof. Justin Wolfers wondered if Target is “cowardly” for backing off slightly on the store’s display of LGBT products for children or simply the victim of “economic terrorism.” Meanwhile, the pot called the kettle black as senior reporter Ben Collins called the Target boycott a “terminally online” phenomenon.

Host Stephanie Ruhle led Wolfers by warning, “if you’re Target and you cave here, this is a slippery slope because this anti-LGBTQ movement, they’re not going to stop here. They want to sue every company out there that has any sort of diversity and inclusion initiative.”

Wolfers agreed, “I think there is something really quite scary here and it comes from the Target CEO saying the reason they were backing off is they were worried about the safety of their employees.”

For Wolfers, there are only two options, “it could be they're cowards and used that as protection and a smokescreen so they could make a cowardly decision, or it could be that they're actually genuinely concerned about the well-being of their employees and have had credible threats.”

[...]

Wolfers almost certainly did not refer to the left pressuring Target to remove Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage from their website as “literally terrorism” or "cowardly." Only conservative-inspired boycotts get such treatment.

Christy didn't mention that Schrier's book is a poorly written work that advances right-wing anti-transgender narratives at thet expense of actual science.

Christy then trampled on his employer's messaging, complaining that  Collins(accurately) identified Walsh as the "leader of the movement," though he did make sure to tout Walsh as a "MRC Bulldog winner." But then he complained that "Collins’s entire job is to submerse himself in the deepest backwaters of the internet and claim those weirdos represent and have outsized influence on the Republican Party." If Walsh is such a fringe "weirdo," why did the MRC see fit to give him a major award?

Another May 26 post, by Nicholas Schau, attacked non-right-wibng media outlets for reporting accurately on the furor while repeating those right-wing lies (again):

While the rest of America was busy being appalled, leftist media hacks celebrated Target’s disturbing line of LGBTQ-themed merchandise designed by an avowed Satanist.

Various news outlets, including TheStreet, NBC, CNN and Forbes, went to bat for Target and its woke antics. TheStreet provided an absurd defense of Target’s CEO and the Satanic designer it partnered with, saying that the CEO thinks that “inclusion is just good business.” NBC came out in full support of the disgusting merchandise. CNN’s coverage of the situation zeroed-in on the right-wing backlash, mourning that it harms Target’s cause. Forbes tried to attack reasonable laws against drag shows for kids, which the outlet cites as a reason that Target tries to sell its despicable merchandise.

Target’s despicable merchandise advertised for “pride month” included onesies, “tuck-friendly” swimsuits, mugs, books with LGBTQ messages for babies, and t-shirts with the word “queer,” sometimes featured with obscene messaging. This is consistent with Target’s past  wokeness, including the 2016 “transgender” bathroom policy. Fortunately, common-sense Americans kicked back against the evil attack on children, and the woke corporation is beginning to pull some of this grotesque merchandise. Target losta whopping $9 billion in market value following the controversy. But media outlets seemed more intent on erroneously painting Target as some kind of victim.

Schau's lies continued:

CNN similarly wrote a blatantly biased piece claiming that “Target is being held hostage by an anti-LGBTQ campaign.” In its absurd article, CNN blames “right-wing personalities” for creating this campaign which “became hostile.” CNN defended Target’s actions and claimed that “the campaign misrepresented Target’s ambitions,” adding that much of the totally reasonable criticism was based on “misinformation.”

In another report, CNN buried Target’s partnership with the Satanist in the ninth paragraph. The outlet also buried any mention of the abhorrent pride-themed merchandise marketed to children in the tenth paragraph.

Only in the MRC's right-wing bubble is it "absurd" for a media outlet to report facts. Indeed, despite all his ranting, Schau did not dispute a single fact in any article he attacked.

WND's McMillan: 'Deep State' Is 'Fighting Against God'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The Deep State is desperately trying to create chaos around the globe, whether by pestilence or war. Chaos and its accompanying "emergencies" are their best friends: They love to sidestep constitutional processes and govern by emergencies (which appear nowhere in the Constitution, because the founders were smarter than that). They also love big wealth transfers, from those who earned it to those who steal it, because that is who they are. They are not going to love this wealth transfer God has in store for them. The devil is going to begin the tribulation woke and broke.

All the front-lines turmoil the Deep State has been working on to steal the world and humanity from our Creator God is now being turned against them and will cause their ultimate destruction. God's game plans were already available to them in the Old Testament, but perhaps they thought, "That was then and this is now!" God's view is, "There is nothing new under the sun." I guess we will see which view prevails.

The Deep State does go back a long time. When Nehemiah received permission from the Babylonian king to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, Deep Staters appeared to stall the work, even if it meant killing the rebuilders. The rebuilders stationed guards on the wall at the building sites, ignored pleas for meetings and instead continued on with the rebuilding work.

I don't think today's Deep State is smart enough to realize they have ended up fighting against God. Let's not the rest of us make that same mistake in judgment. God intends to finish off these people and annihilate their efforts to take over the earth, humanity and the rest of His creation. Don't let the gates of hell hit you in the a** on your way inside, boys. Eternity is a very long time, indeed.

-- Craige McMillan, May 5 WorldNetDaily column

Newsmax Promotes RFK Jr.'s Presidential Campaign Because It Might Hurt Biden
Topic: Newsmax

Like other ConWeb outlets, Newsmax is trying to boost the presidential campaign of Robert Kennedy Jr. Not because it actually wants him to be president, of course -- he's running as a Democrat, despite spouting right-wing views and conspiracy theories -- but because he could act as a spoiler to President Biden's re-election by running on his family name. (Also, Newsmax is sympathetic to his anti-vaxxer conspircy theories; for example, a 2015 article uncritically forwarded them.)

When Kennedy made his ambitions known, Newsmax surprisingly published an April 10 article noting that the rest of the Kennedy family opposed his candidacy because of penchant for conspiracy theories involving vaccines and other things. But that was quickly forgotten as it became clear how useful he to be to the right-wingers at Newsmax. Shortly after announcing his candidacy, Kennedy landed an interview on a Newsmax TV program to bash Democrats:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a 2024 Democratic candidate for president, told Newsmax that the party appears to have lost its will and capacity to fix the United States.

Joining "The Record with Greta Van Susteren" on Tuesday, Kennedy Jr. criticized the direction of the party his family has contributed to for over 100 years.

[...]

Kennedy Jr. further lambasted the Democratic Party's role in ignoring the country's heartland, like East Palestine, Ohio, and facilitating the destruction of the middle class.

"The Democratic Party seems to have lost its bearings and, you know, lost its will or even the capacity to think about changing the system," Kennedy Jr. explained.

Newsmax gave Kennedy another platform to bash Democrats on May 2:

Democrats are engaging in censorship and enveloped in a "woke" culture that's "about canceling people rather than engaging them in discourse and having no boundaries on the things we're allowed to talk about," said Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"I feel like I'm a traditional Democrat," Kennedy said Friday during an appearance on Newsmax's "American Agenda."

Kennedy appeared again on May 4:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a 2024 Democratic presidential candidate, told Newsmax that the party should allow primary debates even with President Joe Biden running again.

Joining "Rob Schmitt Tonight" on Thursday, Kennedy said he should be able to challenge Biden publicly on foreign wars, Wall Street regulations, and the censorship of ordinary Americans.

A May 6 article by Nick Koutsobinas hyped how Kennedy "will make his debut appearance as a presidential candidate at a cryptocurrency conference in Miami later this month." A day later, Newsmax noted Kennedy claiming that there's "overwhelming evidence" that the CIA killed his uncle, President John F. Kennedy.

Newsmax even hyped Repubican Devin Nunes complaining that Democrats and the "propaganda fake news" were ignoring Kennedy. It also promoted polls that made Kennedy look good:

• Emerson Poll: RFK Jr. Nets One-Fifth of Voters
• Rasmussen Poll: Dems Like RFK Jr., but Would Vote for Biden

Trump sycophant and terminally wrong Newsmax pundit Dick Morris basically gave away the game by using a May 2 Newsmax appearance to explain how Trump should exploit Kennedy's campaign for his own benefit:

A campaign for the 2024 Democrat presidential nomination by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has "struck a chord" with the establishment's left and is making people nervous, and former President Donald Trump would do well to use that to his advantage, including in his upcoming CNN town hall, political strategist Dick Morris said Tuesday on Newsmax.

"I think the anger is just nervousness," Morris, a former presidential adviser and host of Newsmax's "Dick Morris Democracy," said on "John Bachman Now." "I have some advice for Trump that I'd like to give you over the air and I'll give to him over the phone. I believe that Robert Kennedy has struck a chord that could be enormously attractive to potential voters for Trump, particularly those who watch CNN."

Morris said Kennedy is using the "same rhetoric" against the deep state, Big Government, and high tech that conservatives use.

"He talks about genetic engineering, genetically modified foods, pesticides, forced vaccinations, and all kinds of stuff like that," said Morris. "These are issues that Donald Trump believes in. Those are issues where he would agree with Robert Kennedy, and they're issues that cut completely across the political spectrum."

Morris that while most assume that the political spectrum is flat, "it's not. It's round."

"The left and the right join against the center, and I think that is the formula that Trump needs to use to attract the 'anti-Trumpers' who are not really anti-Trump," said Morris. "They watch CNN and could well be persuaded because he's willing to go with other studies," including on big pharma.

On May 10, though, Newsmax had to report Kennedy's denial that he might share a ticket with Trump.