Tim Graham's Hunter Biden Derangement Includes Lashing Out At Fact-Checker Topic: Media Research Center
Tim Graham served up his own twist on his employer's Hunter Biden Derangement Syndrome in a May 13 post complaining that a fact-checker brought up an old MRC poll while fact-checking Donald Trump's CNN town hall:
Washington Post "Fact Checker" Glenn Kessler somehow thinks it's a terrible idea to do a poll asking about how the 2020 election could have turned out differently. That's odd, since The Post did polls for several years asking if the Russians made the 2016 election turn out differently. Robert Mueller didn't find that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians, but that didn't stop the incessant journalism promoting that idea.
After the CNN "town hall" with Trump, Kessler took on something Trump said about the Hunter Biden laptop story suppression, and veered into attacking our Media Research Center poll, which Trump didn't mention. On all the social-media censorship and media bias by omission, Kessler asserted "there’s no evidence it made a difference in the election result."
Twitter briefly blocked users from sharing the New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop — a decision officials later said was a mistake. We’ve previously examined a poll often cited by Trump allies that suggests telling the tale would have swayed the election. The poll was done by the Polling Company, a conservative pollster founded by Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, on behalf of the Media Research Center. Our analysis found that the poll conveniently supported a line that Republicans are pushing — that a lack of media coverage related to the Hunter Biden laptop made a difference in the presidential election.
But when you dig into the results, which are swayed by aggressively misleading questions, it shows that for all but a tiny percentage of Biden voters, the story would not have made a difference — even if framed as a still-unproved scandal. The questions in the poll are similar to messages the Trump campaign used in the final weeks before the election — and it still fell short.
As Rich Noyes explained at the time, we asked about some negative Biden themes and positive Trump themes that the media didn't want to discuss.
Graham strangely didn't even link to the Kessler fact-check of Trump he's criticizing here. But he's really complaining about how, back in February, Kessler called out the poll the MRC bought after the 2020 election in an effort to prove that the election was "stolen" from Trump because the Hunter Biden laptop story wasn't sufficiently covered whan that poll was referenced by Republicans during an GOP-led anti-Biden hearing. Note that Graham stayed silent when Kessler pointed out the wildly biased poll questions (except to huff that they were purportedly questions that "the media didn't want to discuss," though that in itself is a biased assessment) and the bias of the pollster. He also didn't mention that the MRC bought this biased poll even as it was screeching about pre-election media polls purpotedly being "deliberately wildly wrong" because they showed Biden winning bigger than he ultimately did. (By contrast, the MRC never lashed out at pollsters in 2022 when their midterm polling showed a "red wave" that never happened.)
Instead, Graham went on to play victim, baselessly suggesting that Kessler was targeting the MRC because it "regularly criticizes The Fact Checker." He also responded to Kessler pointing out the biased nauture of the poll by noting that "some polls are structured to produce the desired result," by playing whataboutism: "Oh, that never happens at The Washington Post polling shop?" And he got really mad when Kessler argued that Biden's own campaign messaging trumped the right-wing laptop narrative:
Kessler doesn't seem to fathom that the liberal media obviously felt that the Hunter Biden laptop story could be a defining story in the election. Doesn't all the suppression suggest their fear of its impact? But you can only laugh when Kessler claims that blaming media bias is a "stretch."
But all of the lines that were tested were staples of the Trump campaign’s messaging. MRC suggests that media bias prevented those messages from getting through to voters and changing their minds to vote for Trump or even not vote at all. As we noted, that’s a stretch, because it assumes the Biden campaign was not offering its own messages to woo voters that, in the end, were more compelling.
Funny, I thought "Democracy dies in darkness" when the Washington Post isn't putting its big thumbs on the scale.
We don't recall Graham complaining that the New York Post was putting a thumb on the scale when it put out the original laptop story. Nor has he complained that the New York Post botched things by failing to provide independent verification of the laptop that would have overcome objections to the October-surprise nature of a story promoted by a pro-Trump publication and sourced to pro-Trump partisans.
More than two years after the fact, Graham is unable to admit the likelihood that the laptop story simply wasn't strong enough to overcome voters' concerns about an increasingly unstable Trump, and he absolutely will not admit that the MRC's own polling to manufacture its version of a "stolen election" conspiracy theory is simply too biased to be treated as a reliable indicator of anything, as he demands. He's putting narrative before facts -- which is what he's being paid to do.
WND's Herland Falsely Portrays Orthodox Church Issues In Ukraine Topic: WorldNetDaily
Hanne Nabintu Herland complained in her April 26 WorldNetDaily column:
The forced politicization of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine may easily backfire. As the Ukrainian government is now engaged in a militant, atheistic, Soviet Union-type of manhunt and persecution against traditional Orthodox Christians, despite their pledged loyalty to Ukraine, this may be a mistake that will impact the Russia-Ukraine war in unexpected ways. What happens domestically when you begin attacking your own history? "The Ukrainian authorities are sadly ignorant of the spiritual laws that govern the universe. Instead, they spit upon the Church and the saints," says Metropolitan Luke of Zaporozhye. Almost half of the Ukrainian population adhere to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
[...]
The world-famous Monastery of the Caves, the Holy Dormition Kiev Caves Lavra, dates back to the 11th century. It is the holiest site in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and now at the center of attention, as the current government has decided to expel the church from this site, pledging to take its hundreds of years old holy relics and turning these over to museums. The thousand-year-old monastery is to be a place for arts, crafts and military rehab.
Herland is being quite vague about what is happening here. At no point did she note that, as we've documented, the Ukranian Orthodox Church continues to have ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, which is headed by a stauch ally, Patriarch Kirill. A breakaway sect, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, has formed independent of Moscow -- the existence of which Herland doesn't mention at all (also, Russia refuses to recognize the church). The Ukranian government took over the monastery because the UOC continues to remain affiliated with Moscow despite pledges to the contrary.
Still, Herland insisted on whining: "When the Western-affiliated government follows atheistic Soviet tactics of harassment and persecution of the Ukrainian Church, they ignore the very greatness of their own history that made Ukraine such a center for spirituality in the East." Again, she falsely portrayed the UOC as be persecuted for their religion when, in fact, they are facing consequences for continued links to Russia at a time when Russia is waging war on Ukraine.
That's just rank dishonesty -- but then, we're used to that from Herland.
MRC Lashed Out At E. Jean Carroll (Again) Over Trump Rape Trial Topic: Media Research Center
We've documented how the Media Research Center mocked and denigrated E. Jean Carroll for claiming that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in a department store dressing room more than 20 years ago (while lionizing Tara Reade for making unsupported claims that Joe Biden engaged in sexual misconduct). As a civil trial on Carroll's allegations approached, the attacks continued.
Tim Graham's April 26 podcast complained that a PBS newscast did "eight minutes of negative coverage about the civil rape trial of Donald Trump as alleged by journalist E. Jean Carroll," adding:
Their Trump-trashing story was titled "Trump faces civil trial in rape and defamation case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll." They not only touted Carroll's unproven story of rape in the Bergdorf Goodman department store (she can't remember which year it was), they added other witnesses. "Jessica Leeds alleged Trump groped her on the flight in 1979. And People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff has accused him of groping her in 2005 at Mar-a-Lago while she was there to interview him."
An April 30 post by Mark Finkelstein bristled at the idea that sexual assault victims should be trusted:
This is what passes for an MSNBC legal "analyst." On Jonathan Capehart's Saturday morning show, MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner said that cross-examining people who claim to be sexual assault victims, such as Trump accuser E. Jean Caroll, is a "disservice."
Kirschner grudgingly acknowledged that the Sixth Amendment—that inconvenient thing!—gives defendants the right to confront and cross-examine their accusers. But Kirschner said that as a former prosecutor, it was "heartbreaking" for him to see sexual assault victims "falsely accused of making stories up."
But how is a jury supposed to decide who is being "falsely accused"—the accuser or the person being accused—unless the accuser is subjected to cross-examination? And who made Kirschner the arbiter of who is telling the truth and who is "making stories up?"
The real "disservice" would be to justice—if Kirschner's notion were ever adopted, and sexual assault accusers were simply taken at their word.
For that matter, what if Tara Reade, who has accused Joe Biden of having sexually assaulted her, decided to bring suit? Think Kirschner would go on television to bemoan the right of Biden's lawyers to cross-examine her? Rhetorical question.
Then again, the MRC has been silent about questions that have been raised about Reade, and its own reference to Reade defecting to Russia is in a June 1 post by Curtis Houck that is otherwise mostly about his usual attacks on White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Graham served up more whining in his May 3 column:
Liberal outlets rushed to make time for the latest courtroom testimony from Trump rape accuser E. Jean Carroll. It doesn’t matter that she’s like Brett Kavanaugh’s sketchy primary accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, in failing to know the date of this alleged assault. But her Monday testimony drew six minutes on the PBS NewsHour and drew stories in both The Post and The Times. But there was nothing for little Navy Joan or her mother.
Tara Reade whataboutism came up again in a May 8 post about a new Newsmax show featuring MRC buddy and right-wing radio host Chris Plante:
On the inaugural episode of Newsmax’s Chris Plante: The Right Squad, conservative talk radio star Chris Plante and his assembled panel tore into the leftist media for ignoring the credible allegations of sexual assault of Tara Reade by then-Senator Joe Biden, in favor of non-stop coverage of the flimsy allegations by E. Jean Carroll against former President Donald Trump.
Plante wasted no time getting into the well-deserved media bashing. Plante opened the show by pointing out the media’s hypocrisy: “While the media is focused in a laser-like way on the E. Jean Carroll and her civil trial against former President Donald Trump. Everyone has apparently forgotten all about Tara Reade.”
“She's accused President Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her and she has pretty good standing here,” Plante noted.
When Trump was found to be liable for sexually abusing Carroll, the MRC unsurprisingly complained about that too. Houck whined in a May 10 post:
Between Monday night and Tuesday morning, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC spent 43 minutes and 47 seconds on former President Trump being found liable for sexual abuse in a New York civil suit brought by lefty advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. At one point in those roughly 44 minutes, Carroll let slip that CBS Mornings co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King admitted off-camera she said “hooray” Tuesday when she heard the verdict.
Tsk, tsk to E. Jean as she let slip an answer to a question many wonder: Do liberal journalists openly cheer or high-five when something goes their way?
We can assume there was lots of booing in the MRC offices over the fact that Carroll won her lawsuit against Trump. Indeed, as the trial was getting started, Houck wrote in an April 25 tweet: "How warped is E. Jean Carroll? Remember how she even creeped out Anderson Cooper when she said in 2019 that "most people think of rape as sexy"? Utterly deranged and spoke volumes about her pscyhe." In fact, Carroll has explained her comment by noting that "we are saturated with entertainment shows which continually show rapes to gather an audience."
Graham returend to complain in his May 12 podcast that the CNN town hall with Trump "obsessed over scandals" initially, including the Carroll trial. A May 23 post by Finkelstein complained that an MSNBC host was "touting vigilant Trump litigant E. Jean Carroll attempting to add new cash demands every time Donald Trump calls her a 'wack job' on television -- in this case, on the CNN town hall."
Graham wasn't done yet, however, spending a June 4 post complaining that Carroll is planning to work on a book with a dissident Trump family member whom the MRC also happens to hate:
You might think the liberal snobs who dominate the audience of National “Public” Radio would look down on the romance novel. But NPR can’t resist hyping a romance novel…when it’s written by heroes of the #Resistance.
On Friday night’s All Things Considered, NPR reported Donald Trump’s bitter niece Mary Trump is writing a romance novel and posting it in chapters on Substack. This story dominated the ATC web page on Friday:
[...]
Openly gay Mary Trump claimed she's never read a romance novel, and now she's writing one. The plot of The Italian Lesson sounds very typical; "An American woman goes to a hill town in Tuscany, opens a café, meets this hunk."
She’s getting by with a little help from her friends….who are also renowned for being “hypercritical” of Trump.
Graham didn't explain why his website was effectively censoring the fact that its favorite sexual-assault accuser had defected to a hostile foreign country.
With Help From Trump, Newsmax Trashes DeSantis' Botched Twitter Launch Topic: Newsmax
Despite being total Donald Trump sycophants, Newsmax surprisingly promoted Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign announcement on Twitter. A May 23 article by Eric Mack favorably touted it, an article the next day by Solange Reyner featured Texas politician Rick Perry calling it "pretty cool" in a Newsmax TV appearance, and even perpetually wrong Newsmax pundit Dick Morris stated that it was a good move. But Mack also wrote a pre-launch article featuring Trump's political action committee attacking the launch as "one of the most out-of-touch campaign launches in modern history."
After the glitch-filled launch, however, Newsmax changed its tune. Mack touted the issues in a May 24 article:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' Twitter Spaces 2024 GOP presidential campaign launch failed, but he tweeted his announcement before the technical issues and embarrassment for the candidate and Twitter CEO Elon Musk.
"I'm running for president to lead our Great American Comeback," DeSantis tweeted Wednesday before his Twitter Spaces campaign presentation, which started with technical difficulties and was crippled for more than 20 minutes after the scheduled launch.
[...]
The original Twitter Spaces link ended after 21 minutes and 17 seconds. Musk tweeted another event, but it was not immediately available.
The event kicked back up at an undisclosed location on Twitter, with DeSantis reading his opening remarks off what sounded like a prepared script. More disparaging articles followed:
There was also a May 25 article by Mack repeating DeSantis spinning away the glitches during a Newsmax TV appearance. But again, this is Trump Central, so Newsmax made sure Trump got his licks in. First up was a May 24 article by Michael Katz:
Former President Donald Trump joined the chorus of critics who roasted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday for multiple technical glitches that hampered the unique launch of his candidacy on Twitter for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
"'Rob,' My Red Button is bigger, better, stronger, and is working (TRUTH!), yours does not! (per my conversation with Kim Jung Un, of North Korea, soon to become my friend!)," Trump posted on his Truth Social account.
Trump added another post on Truth Social showing a video of him at a rally interspersed with a shot of Elon Musk's account in Twitter Spaces with the caption "Preparing to Launch." A voice can be heard saying things such as, "We are kind of melting the servers." And he posted another video titled "Ron! 2024."
Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump's MAGA Inc. PAC, tweeted: "Ron DeSantis's campaign announcement is a historic train wreck. #Trump2024"
That was followed by a May 25 article by Sandy Fitzgerald featuring more trashing from Trump:
Former President Donald Trump, after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's campaign announcement Wednesday, tore into him with a series of posts to his Truth Social account, mostly ridiculing the GOP governor's glitch-filled Twitter Spaces launch with billionaire owner Elon Musk that added a 20-minute delay to the proceedings.
"I know Ron," Trump said in one post. "The way he handled his announcement, he will handle the country!"
In another post, the former president quipped: "Is the DeSantis launch FATAL? Yes!"
[...]
The final post of the night came with a mocked-up "Twitter Spaces" page featuring generated voices of DeSantis, Musk, Adolph Hitler, George Soros, World Economic Forum Chair Klaus Schwab, Dick Cheney, Satan, and an FBI agent offering commentary through a "campaign launch."
At the end of it, a voice representing Trump pops in, saying "The devil, I'm gonna kick your a** very soon. Hitler, you're already dead. Dick Cheney, sounds like you'll be joining Hitler very soon. Ron DeSanctimonious can kiss my big, beautiful 2024 presidential a**."
Nicole Wells followed with a May 25 article noting that DeSantis planned to visit several states "following a glitch-plagued Twitter Spaces campaign launch," and he also appeared on Eric Bolling's Newsmax TV show later that day.
WND Pushes Conspiracy Theory White House U-Haul Incident Was 'False Flag' Topic: WorldNetDaily
An anonymously bylined May 23 WorldNetDaily article stated:
An arrest was made shortly after a driver barreled a U-Haul truck into some barricades at the White House Monday night, but that did almost nothing to squelch concerns that the stunt was a set-up.
A report from Revolver News explained, "We deserve better false flags. It’s as if the FBI isn’t even trying anymore. That’s the consensus from most conservatives, who are calling 'BS' on the latest 'Nazi' stunt that unfolded in D.C., and are calling it just another poorly-orchestrated FBI psyop."
What is being reported is that the Secret Service officers detained the driver of a U-Haul box truck after the vehicle hit a White House barrier.
No injuries were claimed. And the investigation continues.
A spokesman said it appears the driver intentionally hit the security barriers, and charges are pending.
"And right on cue, a Nazi flag was pulled from the cab of the truck and perfectly laid out on the ground for everyone to see," the Revolver report said.
The driver was identified later as Sai Varshith Kandula, 19, from St. Louis and a native of India.
Revolver's report include a comment, "Let me get this straight… so you are telling me a guy with a Nazi flag in an empty U-Haul truck randomly plowed into a White House barricade at low speeds, then gave up immediately and got arrested, and the FBI laid out the flag in front of the truck for the perfect photo op?"
The report itself said, "There are countless legit reasons why conservatives don’t buy this incident, starting with the disgraced FBI’s involvement in orchestrating the Russia Hoax, suspicions surrounding FBI’s involvement in January 6th, and the FBI’s proven involvement in the sketchy 'Whitmer kidnapping' plot, just to name a few.
"In addition Joe Biden, who was best buddies with a KKK Grand Dragon named Robert Byrd, just delivered yet another divisive speech, where he declared 'white supremacy' was the most dangerous threat facing the United States."
WND hasn't touched this story since -- presumably because there's more evidence that Kandula was, in fact, influenced by Nazi ideology. (Also, Byrd spent the last few decades of his life apologizing for his KKK involvement, to the point that even the NAACP mourned his death.) Investigators found in a journal a speech Kandula planned to give if his attempt to overthrow the government had worked that would have announced the end of democracy:
The memo quotes a passage of the journal, which the defendant described as a "green book," that describes a post-democratic U.S. He addresses "my fellow citizens of America" in prescribing historic change.
“As I am familiar with the [unknown] of this country being a democratic nation, and this will no longer be the case," the passage reads, according to the memo. "There shall be consequence if civil unrest happens. To make it clear Any opposition will be met with death penalty to make it clear: (kill president) As you have seen, we will declare martial until the situation has been [unknown]. We will rebuild this world."
The defendant, who allegedly grabbed a Nazi flag from the cargo area of the rented U-Haul just before he was apprehended, ended the passage with the words "Sieg hail," echoing but misspelling the Nazi motto that means "hail victory."
Kandula then exited the vehicle and unfurled a red and white flag featuring a Nazi swastika, according to charging documents. Prosecutors also revealed Friday that Kandula asked officers on scene whether the media would cover what happened.
“He intended to overthrow the government and replace it with an authoritarian regime fueled by Nazi ideology,” said Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Schneider.
[...]
Kandula told investigators his plan was to “get to the White House, seize power and be put in charge of the nation.” He told them he would “kill the president if that’s what I have to do and would hurt anyone that would stand in my way.”
Kandula told investigators he purchased the Nazi flag online because the “Nazi’s have a great history.” Kandula told them he looked up to Adolf Hitler and called him a “strong leader” and said he admired the Nazis’ authoritarian nature and support of eugenics.
But because facts are less important than unproven conspiracy theories, WND will never tell you about this. WND would also have to admit that its original report, lazily copied from other far-right sources, is wrong, and it usually takes a lawsuit or the threat of one for WND to correct anything on its website.
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Drag Queen Targets Topic: Media Research Center
One doesn't even have to be a drag queen to be a target of hate from the Media Research Center -- one can also be someone with a flamboyant wardrobe or even just a guy in a dress. Read more >>
MRC Hunter Biden Derangement Syndrome Watch Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center hasbeendesperatelytrying to make Hunter Biden happen, and they blame anything and anyone but the complete lack of an actual story for that failure to happen. Geoffrey Dickens seemed to think it might start happening in a May 1 post:
Stunningly, the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks are actually getting out of their censorship mode (for a while) to actually cover the Hunter Biden scandal.
On April 19 The Wall Street Journal reported that a whistleblower who works in the IRS’s criminal investigation division came forward to reveal that the Biden administration is allegedly giving Hunter Biden preferential treatment and has tried to stonewall the investigation into the alleged tax crimes Hunter committed.
Then on April 20, the New York Post reported that now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken was the catalyst behind the debunked and infamous October 2020 letter from former intelligence officials dismissing the surfacing of Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation.
These incredible revelations actually woke ABC, CBS, NBC out of their Joe Biden-esque sleepy slumber to devote, on their evening, morning and Sunday roundtable shows, a total of 24 minutes, 56 seconds to the Hunter-related scandals from April 19 to April 23. The nets then quickly dropped the story and haven’t even mentioned Hunter's name in 8 days.
[...]
The whistleblower story was covered by all three networks.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the earth-shattering news that Blinken was behind the 2020 letter of former intelligence officials that debunked Hunter’s laptop as Russian disinformation.
Since the networks initially bought into this lie it’s not too surprising they’d be reluctant to report on this bit of embarrassing (for them) news.
Dickens didn't mention that 1) the laptop really did look like Russian disinformation, and 2) the pro-Trump New York Post, which first pushed the laptop story, refused to offer any indepdendent verification of the laptop that might have made the story less susceptible to being dismissed as the partisan October surprise it was.
For the rest of the month, it was back to whining that the story remained stuck in the right-wing bubble and cheering occasional outbreaks of it:
It wouldn't be the MRC ifit wasn't trying to run up the numbers on purported Biden scandals. Thus, we have a May 11 post by Dickens headlined "11 Brand New Biden Family Scandals the Networks Are CENSORING." (It's also in Spanish.) By our count, the MRC hasnow claimed to identify 56 separate and distinct "scandals," mostly centering on Hunter, which doesn't seem accurate.
Meanwhile, a May 12 article by Clay Waters complained that the New York Times pointed out that despite all of these partisan accusations against Hunter in particular and the Bidens in general, there has been very little in the way of actual evidence to prove anything:
The same front page featured this blurb to a story on page A18 that had the political scandal roles reversed and the treatment was quite drastically different:
“G.O.P. Lacks Proof on Bidens --After months of investigation and many public accusations of corruption against President Biden and his family, an inquiry by the House G.O.P. has yet to find evidence of misconduct.
The Times’ negative aggression toward Republican oversight of a Democratic president is amazing, especially after years of the paper’s giddy coverage of Trump scandals, with Democrats like Rep. Jamie Raskin and Rep. Eric Swalwell were hailed as heroes in its pages, even if they're not truthful themselves.
As The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd pointed out, the headlines are also factually inaccurate. The GOP may not yet have proof of Biden family misconduct, but they’ve laid out plenty of “evidence.”
The fact that Waters puts "evidence" in scare quotes suggests that he knows what Republicans have put out so far isn't really evidence of anything.
WND's Schlafly Rages Against Texas AG Impeachment -- But Won't Talk About Why He Was Impeached Topic: WorldNetDaily
Following the impeachment of corrupt Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Andy Schlafly aggressively defended him in his May 30 WorldNetDaily column:
The ambush impeachment and removal of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was a shocking and undemocratic assault on the will of the voters. Paxton won reelection by 800,000 votes last November, yet merely one legislative chamber was able to override those votes with a scheme hatched in secret and sprung as a last-minute surprise.
Imagine if Congress could force the removal of a president by secretly plotting an impeachment, suddenly executed a few days later without a single public hearing. The American people would not stand for what the New York Times called "unexpected – as of a week ago there was little public indication that an impeachment could be imminent."
Who really plotted this unprecedented theft from voters remains a closely guarded secret. Donald Trump led the way by truthing his opposition: "Hopefully Republicans in the Texas House will agree that this is a very unfair process that should not be allowed to happen or proceed – I will fight you if it does."
Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, who was elected by pandering to Democrats, "kept this under wraps until the end, there wasn't a lot of time for Paxton's defenders to react," observes Rice University political scientist Mark Jones. It was obviously improper to deprive the voters of an elected official without first informing the public and hearing from them.
As pointed out during the brief debate on the Texas House floor, there was no justification for concealing the plot to remove Paxton from office until shortly prior to the vote. Paxton has been the leader in litigating against open borders and other unlawful policies of the Biden administration, and two months ago he opened an official investigation of Pfizer over its COVID-19 vaccine.
Note how Schlafly downplays the fact that Phelan is a Republican by claiming without evidence that he was "elected by pandering to Democrats." Instead, he tried to manufacture a conspiracy theory about those who voted for Paxton's impeachment:
On TruthSocial, Trump exclaimed to thunderous support by tens of thousands, "MISSING IN ACTION! Where is the Governor of Texas on his Attorney General's impeachment?"
The silent Republicans share something in common. In addition to Abbott's shamefully going AWOL, Trump's presidential rivals have likewise been silent, as has the senior U.S. senator from Texas, John Cornyn.
All these Republicans depend on heavy support by dark money mega-donors, who are mostly globalist billionaires seeking their own self-serving agenda that includes an open border. DeSantis, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley and wannabe Senate Majority Leader John Cornyn all depend on millions from this network to fuel their political ambitions.
Most of the 60 Texas Republicans who voted for Paxton's removal probably feared retaliation by the dark money globalists, as there are no campaign donation limits in Texas. Gov. Abbott himself has been a frequent attendee to the Koch network donor confabs, whose members funnel money to those who back their agenda and try to punish those who get in their way.
Schlafly, however, is completely silent on exactly why Paxton is being impeached.As a more honest news organization reported, Paxton has been accused of a "yearslong pattern of corruption, including abusing his office’s powers, retaliating against whistleblowers and obstructing justice." Given that investigations of Paxton have been going on for years, Schlafly is being more than a little dishonest by complaining that the impeachment vote was relatively quick. He also didn't reveal the vote total of the impeachment -- 121-23, which tells us that a majority of Republicans in the Texas House found Paxton's corruption too significant to ignore.Indeed, one GOP House member said that "The evidence is substantial. It is alarming and unnerving."
Schlafly spent the final part of his column ranting against a Convention of States some right-wingers want to see happen, claiming that Texas Republicans who endorsed the idea were under the influence of "globalist mega-donors."
MRC's Toto: New Indiana Jones Film Is 'Woke' Because A Woman Is Set To Take Over The Franchise Topic: Media Research Center
Christian Toto is a film critic who thinks he's a right-wing pundit -- and the Media Research Center is giving him space to indulge that. For instance, we've caught him complaining about a film about early abortion rights activists, whining about cartoon shows being too black, having a fit of Brian Stelter Derangement Syndrome, cheering Bill Maher and Elon Musk for ranting about the "woke mind virus" (whatever thatis), and trying to exempt "Bosom Buddies" from right-wing culture wars against transgender people and drag queens. As a right-wing pundit, Toto is compelled to spout right-wing talking points -- the chief one these days being labeling everything that doesn't neatly fit in his highly biased worldview as woke. He rushed to hang the "woke" label on the new Indiana Jones movie in a May 27 column -- never mind that he had not seen the movie yet:
Social media hasn’t been kind to “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” despite no one having seen the fifth film in the franchise.
It’s woke, users cried, citing early snippets, test screening rumors and other minutiae. Co-star Phoebe Waller-Bridge of “Fleabag” fame is the new Indy, they cried, supplanting Harrison Ford’s beloved hero to appease Hollywood’s female empowerment mandate.
Except no one had actually seen the finished film to confirm those rumors, and director James Mangold indirectly refuted the film’s replacement theory.
That changed this week.
The sequel’s Cannes Film Festival premiere allowed select film critics to screen the movie, slated for a June 30 release. And the early notices are less than kind.
And what purportedly makes the movie "woke"? It sets up someone who isn't a white male and not as studly-looking as Harrison Ford to take over the franchise. No, seriously, that's it. Toto was soi shook up by this development that it declared it a "fear":
Variety confirms what many suspected about the belated sequel – it’s a vehicle for Disney, Inc. to replace Ford’s Indy with Waller-Bridge’s heroine.
[...]
Others feared Waller-Bridge’s character would be Hollywood’s latest Mary Sue figure — a flawless heroine lacking the shades of gray that make heroes pop off the screen. Think both Rey and Rose Tico from the recent “Star Wars” sequels.
Here’s The Hollywood Reporter confirming those fears, too.
[...]
Jones may be riding off into the sunset, but the reviews suggest his replacement has already been found. Now, will audiences embrace Indy’s goddaughter, or will she become the latest example of a woke figure alienating the masses.
Toto needs to talk with a mental health professional if feels so threatened by someone who isn't a white male being an action hero.
Toto spent his July 8 column gloating that the film is unlikely to make back its production and marketing costs (which even he admits were overly high), going on to rant that "elite Hollywood news outlets leave out critical reasons for the film’s failure. Again" -- which is to say that the film is "woke" because it sets up somone who isn't a white male to take over the franchise:
The film endured reshoots during the production process, which isn’t abnormal in La La Land, so it’s possible that baton-passing ending got nixed in the end.
Team Disney could have handled those rumors better. Instead, director James Mangold attacked “trolls” for spreading misinformation.
It’s Marketing 101. Don’t insult your audience. The “Ghostbusters” crew learned that lesson the hard way.
Those “Destiny” rumors registered with both conservatives and die-hard Indy fans. Early reviews, even from liberal outlets like the BBC, shared how Waller-Bridge’s character dominates the action at Indy’s expense.
“Destiny” turns Ford’s character into a “Damsel in Distress” waiting for Helena to rescue him during another sequence. She even decks Indy with one punch at a critical moment in the film.
Did reporters mention these worries in their post-game analysis, which traveled at the speed of social media for months on end? Of course not.
Did Toto mention that Ford is pushing 80, so it makes little sense to force him to do stunts and other action-hero things the way he did 40 years ago? Of course not.
Toto never explains how, exactly, not having a white male take over the franchise is "woke" (let alone his definition of "woke" in general) or why it offends him and the "Red State USA" he purports to be speaking for. Instead, he closed with another rant:
You are 100% correct, we are sick of this woke trash.
Maybe now Disney will clean out Lucasfilm and get people in there with some fresh ideas, they’ve ruined Star Wars and Indy. It’ll be too bad they’re going to leave the place a mess.
Toto thinks Star Wars got "ruined" by "woke trash" because "Disney turned one of film’s most iconic heroes, Luke Skywalker, into a burned-out hermit who rebelled against The Force in 'The Last Jedi.'" He's clearly not a fan of storytelling that conflicts with his narrow right-wing worldview -- a close-mindedness that would seem to make him a bad movie reviewer.
WND Blames 'Elites' For 'War On Free Speech' -- But It Created Its Own Problems Topic: WorldNetDaily
The May issue of WorldNetDaily's sparsely read Whistleblower magazine carried the theme "The Elites' All-Out War On Free Speech" -- ironic, since WND has abused its free-speech rights by publishing fake news and bogus conspiracy theories. Still, WND made sure to milk things for full victimhood. So important was this issue considered to be that Joiseph Farah devoted his May 24 column to plugging it:
Are you sick and tired of being called an election denier, a science denier, a climate-change denier, a conspiracy theorist, accused of using hated speech, a purveyor of hate speech, a follower of fake news, a practitioner of disinformation, misinformation and malinformation?
It comes from the very top – conjured up by America's elites. That's right. The conspiracy mongers are right in front of us all. The result is censorship, like our country has never before seen or known – in the greatest nation founded by mortal men, great men and women, under the influence of God Almighty.
Now, in a 48-page color magazine, unusual these days as they dwindle among the fast-moving controlled media, WND brings you a historic special edition of Whistleblower magazine that blows the cover off this story of the most important kind – one that could never be brought to you any other way.
Farah promoted his own pet conspiracy theories, as well as lionizing Tucker Carlson:
Sometimes, as with many of the approximately 1,000 Americans arrested after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, decent people are unjustly incarcerated as in brutal Third World dictatorships, simply for holding – and expressing – political views condemned by the ruling elites.
This issue of Whistleblower focuses on Tucker Carlson, hands-down the most popular commentator in America, ousted by Fox News Channel's ruling Murdoch family on Monday, April 24, with no prior notice nor reason given. The cable news giant has been seriously hemorrhaging viewers ever since. Recently, insider reports have claimed that despite official denials from all sides, Carlson's expulsion was part of Fox's $787.5 million out-of-court settlement of the Dominion voting machine lawsuit.
Tucker freely expressed the still-forbidden, though wildly obvious, truth that the 2020 presidential election was rigged. After all, totally aside from the mountain of proven election "irregularities" (the last-minute unconstitutional rule changes, the unsavory "ballot harvesting," the double-counted ballots and so much more), Elon Musk's public release of the previously suppressed "Twitter files" prove conclusively that the "Deep State" colluded with Big Tech to alter the outcome of the 2020 election. Period. Just weeks prior to the election, the guardians of the internet knowingly suppressed overwhelming evidence of rampant corruption and criminality on the part of the Biden family, very much including "the big guy." Post-election polling revealed that Biden would have lost and Trump would now be president had Americans simply been allowed to hear the truth about Joe Biden before they cast their ballots.
Carlson also exposed the Biden administration's supremely reckless Ukraine policy of sending gargantuan amounts of taxpayer money and advanced weaponry to the epically corrupt eastern European country with no accounting required, while secretly pursuing the overthrow of Russian President Vladimir Putin – that is, a war of regime change in Moscow – thereby risking all-out global nuclear war.
[...]
He likewise exposed some of the many outrageous lies and injustices associated with the January 6 Capitol riot, dramatically airing for the first time long-suppressed surveillance video from that fateful day, the aftermath of which saw thousands of essentially innocent people accused of being terrorists, insurrectionists, white supremacists and Nazis.
The multifaceted and entirely unprecedented attacks on Americans' most cherished First Amendment freedoms – and how best to fight back – are illuminated as never before in the May issue of WND's critically acclaimed Whistleblower magazine, titled "THE ELITES' ALL-OUT WAR ON FREE SPEECH."
Managing editor David Kupelian ramped up the victimhood in a May 29 column that serves as the issue's lead essay:
These malevolent yet essentially meaningless expressions, such as “election denier,” “science denier,” “climate-change denier” and “conspiracy theorist,” are accompanied by open attacks on everything conservative and Christian as “hate speech,” “disinformation” and “misinformation.” There’s even a newly manufactured subvariant no one ever heard of before: “malinformation.”
And of course, there’s the favorite, back-of-the-hand catchall insult of the elites: “fake news.”
For example, Wikipedia lists WND as a "far-right fake news website ... known for promoting falsehoods and conspiracy theories." That's from a website that daily publishes actual “fake news,” “falsehoods” and “conspiracy theories” on every major political and cultural topic affecting America’s future. In fact, Wikipedia’s massive 29,000-word article on Joe Biden includes only two sentences on Hunter Biden and the massive and overwhelmingly documented level of Biden family corruption and criminality. Here they are: “During the 2020 presidential campaign, Trump and his allies falsely alleged Biden had engaged in corrupt activities in Ukraine related to his son, Hunter. A joint investigation by two Republican Senate committees released in September 2020 found no wrongdoing, nor did a Republican House Oversight committee investigation by May 2023.”
But WND does, in fact, publish fake news and misinformation. We'vemeticulouslydocumentedit, and WND has never disputed any of our documentation.Kupelian also complaioned about Carlson's firing:
Take Tucker Carlson, the most trusted news personality in America according to a recent poll, yet ousted by Fox News Channel’s ruling Murdoch family on Monday, April 24 with no prior notice nor reason given. The cable news giant has been seriously hemorrhaging viewers ever since. Multiple insider reports have claimed that despite official denials from all sides, Carlson’s expulsion was part of Fox’s $787.5 million out-of-court settlement of the Dominion voting machine lawsuit.
Regardless, many of America’s elites were delighted to see Fox News kill off its top show, since in their minds, the host was a purveyor of extreme rightwing conspiracy theories, an “election denier,” an ally of Vladimir Putin, and – of course – a racist.
Kupelian tried to conlcude on a rah-rah note:
In the end, the elites’ obsession with “election denialism,” “pro-Putin disinformation,” “white supremacist MAGA conspiracy theories” and other cruel absurdities is really just the playing out of their ongoing internal war with reality. Truth is virtually the only speech the “rulers of this world” cannot endure, since it tends to cause them unbearable conflict, seeing as it fans the flame of their conscience – the truth of God’s moral laws “written in their minds and hearts” – but with which they are at war.
Fortunately, there are still many millions of good, decent Americans – truly the best people on earth. Hundreds of thousands fought to protect this nation and many were wounded in battle – and of course many families have members who paid the ultimate price to defend this nation. They’re horrified at what is being described here. But they still love their country – and they want it back.
A good start in that effort is to speak the truth – boldly, kindly, clearly, joyfully, and without rancor or hate. It’s therapeutic to speak the truth with love. After all, you’re not insane, deplorable, irredeemable or racist, as they insist. You’re an American, with a God-given and constitutionally guaranteed right to speak your mind, come what may.
Kupelian's problem is that WND doesn't speak the truth -- its track record is one of spreading lies and disinformation. Lies and misinformation are not protected by the First Amendment, and the "constitutionally guaranteed right to speak your mind" doesn't keep you from facing the consequences of doing so, especially if you spread lies and misinformation. And, really, that's what's been happening to WND over the past few years -- people are tired of reading an untrustworthy website and businesses are tired of supporting one, so its finances have suffered accordingly. Yet WND sees no reason to change things, and it's continuing to publish the same old stuff that has brought it to the brink of non-existence.
WND has not been victimized by "elites" -- Farah, Kupelian and Co. have brought all this on themselves. And trying to turn their self-made issues into yet another conspiracy theory is more evidence that they have aggressively refused to learn from their mistakes.
UPDATE: Farah also promoted the issue in his May 26 column, claiming that Carlson getting fired from Fox News is "why I maintain free speech in America is obsolete. It's gone." He also claimed of the magazine: ". What our veteran staff and contributors meticulous unmask is the left's broad conspiracy, something they've been working on for decades – now literally on overdrive." We'd be more inclined to believe that WND staff is actually meticulous if Farah's misspelling of "meticulously" hadn't slipped past editors (if, indeed, WND still has copy editors).
MRC Hypes Paid Propagandist Matt Palumbo Topic: Media Research Center
Matt Palumbo has been a favorite of the Media Research Center over their shared hatred of both fact-checkers and George Soros. But as we'vedocumented, Palumbo has spent the past few months discrediting himself by writing (paid, one would hope) propaganda on behalf of Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, which were in turn published as paid content on websites like Newsmax and Gateway Pundit, taking time away from his day job working for right-wing radio host Dan Bongino. (Mother Jones has a new article examining some of this.)
Meanwhile, the MRC has promoting Palumbo's work for quite some time:
An August 2020 post by Tim Graham touted how "Matt Palumbo at Bongino.com took issue with the extremely biased nature of PolitiFact's 'Truth-O-Meter' in assessing 'facts.'"
An October 2020 post by Graham noted Palumbo defending his nominal boss, right-wing radio host Dan Bongino, over accusations he had been spreading unfounced misinformation that liberals planned to riot if Donald Trump won the election.
A June 2021 post by Joseph Vazquez referenced Palumbo whining that Soros advocates higher taxes for the wealthy though he paid no income tacxes himself.
In January, an MRC report obsessing over Soros' spending on causes he likes referenced an attack by Palumbo, followed by a post by Vazqueztouting how "Bongino Report Content Manager Matt Palumbo peeled back “the layers” of leftist billionaire George Soros’ global political and media influence during a recent interview with The Epoch Times."
A Feb. 1 post by Vazquez hyped a New York Post editorial calling Soros "the mosdt dangerous man in America," approvingly citing attacks from Palumbo.
An April 10 post by Vazquez noted Palumbo complaining about right-wingers being called out for trying to discredit Trump prosecutor Alvin Bragg by linking him to Soros.
As Palumbo ramped up his moonlighting propaganda for Guo -- which one would think is disqualifying -- the MRC continued to promote him. Curtis Houck gushed in an April 18 "editor's pick":
Writing in Tuesday’s print edition of the New York Post, our friend Matt Palumbo of the Bongino Report took a blowtorch to the liberal media-selected, so-called fact-checkers for their latest antics and lies in order to defend far-left Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in his efforts to prosecute former President Trump.
“So-called fact-checkers know more about spinning the facts than checking them,” Palumbo began, citing Bragg as the latest proof they’ll go to any length “to circle the wagons and ‘debunk’ actual truths.”
[...]
Taken together, Palumbo argued that “[a]nyone can see exactly what happened here — yet the fact-checkers were more than happy to further demolish their credibility in arguing the contrary with pure semantics” and while one could argue these acts of mental gymnastics are comical, they’re actually disturbing as the intent is “to censor” dissent.
Houck did not mention how Palumbo was destroying his credibility by writing paid propaganda. A post three days later by Tom Olohan touted Bongino citing his employee in making the same argument.
A May 2 post by Olohan hyped Palumbo attacking a "George Soro lackey" for critiicizing right-wing attacks on prosecutors for allegedly having linksto Soros. A May 22 post by Vazquez cited Palumbo in promoting a right-wing Rasmussen poll claiming that a bare majority of Americans have an "unfavorable" view of Soros -- thus show how the millions of dollars spent by the likes of the MRC and Palumbo to spread anti-Soros hate are paying off.
Vazquez ran to Palumbo's defense in a June 15 post:
The George Soros-funded Southern Poverty Law Center threw a temper tantrum over Bongino Report Content Manager Matt Palumbo for his criticism of the group’s leftist financier.
The SPLC grumbled in a June 8 "Hatewatch" how Soros “has been that boogeyman for right-wing pundits, politicians and TV personalities.” SPLC then tried to launch nonsensical hyperbole in order to shield Soros from criticism and cast any opposition as being anti-Semitic in nature: “Soros has become the extreme right’s go-to antisemitic trope, and its ubiquity speaks to the mainstreaming of antisemitic rhetoric in the United States.” The SPLC then turned its sights on Palumbo and his book The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros (2022) as an anecdote, and smeared his work as “antisemitic-trope laden” without citing any evidence to support the allegation.
SPLC, of course, omitted from the blog any disclosure that Soros’ organizations funneled at least $160,000 to its coffers between 2016 and 2019 alone. Palumbo mocked the SPLC for its absurdity in comments to MRC Business, stating: “I’m shocked that an organization funded by George Soros would resort to such absurd lies to defend him!” Palumbo is right on target.
Vazquez then tried to help Palumbo perpetuate the false anti-Semitic smear that Soros is a Nazi sympathizer:
The SPLC twisted the facts around an April interview of Palumbo with Daily Wire host Candace Owens. SPLC claimed: “[Owens] suggested that ‘because of his contempt for Americans,’ it was ‘plausible’ that George Soros, a Holocaust survivor, was actually ‘sympathetic to the Nazis.’” The leftist organization accused Palumbo of agreeing with the notion.
However, the SPLC characterization of the discussion was completely devoid of context. Owens cited Soros’ own apathetic admission, saying “No,” that he had no feeling of guilt for being even tacitly connected to the Nazi confiscation of property from the Jewish people as a young teenager during the former’s occupation of Hungary during World War II.
“It seems very bizarre that he has such hatred for — really — the people that liberated him. Right? If he believes that the Nazis were so backwards and were so awful, how could he then spend his life having such contempt for Americans,” Owens asked. She continued: “Why would he be trying to foster the end of America? Why would he be wanting the cities to be crime-filled and releasing criminals onto the streets via his district attorneys? It doesn’t make sense.”
Owens then asked: “Is it plausible that he was actually sympathetic to the Nazis because he was taken care of and he was protected and maybe he saw them through a different vein?” Palumbo correctly pointed out that the question surrounding Soros’ indifference and motivation against America is difficult. “The Occam’s Razor answer is the simplest one, which is: He’s just an evil guy. And what the exact, you know, reason was, we don’t exactly know.” But even broaching the topic in order to explain Soros’ creepy apathy is supposedly anti-Semitic, according to the SPLC’s logic.
Soros also happens to be notorious for using his fortune to fuel anti-Israel causes.
But Vazquez, Palumbo and Owens omitted important context as well: A teenage Soros was posing as the nephew of a Hungarian official who was inventorying property already seized from the Jews, and that the Nazis found out his Jewish identity, he would likely be sent to a concentration camp and killed. In other words, he was trying to survive, and Vazquez and Co. appear to be demanding that he feel guilty for surviving the Nazis.
As with many other right-wingers who similarly irrationally hate Soros, it seems that Vazquez, Palumbo and Owens wish that the Nazis had executed just one more Jew.
And, needless to say, Vazquez made no mention of Palumbo's side gig writing pro-Guo propaganda -- propaganda he is continuing to write. A June 20 article at Gateway Pundit -- paid content listed as a "sponsored post" by "NewNoah," presumably a Guo front group -- complained that Guo was "unjustly denied" a hearing related to the fraud charges he facees, "adding yet more evidence that the system is rigged against him." He ended the article in full propaganda mode:
In the interest of judicial fairness, it is essential that Guo be granted bail. By bestowing upon him the freedom to combat the baseless accusations hurled his way, we ensure the preservation of bedrock principles like due process and the right to mount a defense. The mistreatment suffered by Guo serves as a chilling reminder of the potential for power abuse within our judicial system. The time has come to prioritize truth, fairness, and the safeguarding of individual liberties, by granting Guo the opportunity to champion his innocence.
By the way, Palumbo's new (Bongino-published) book is out this week, which is dedicated to attacking fact-checkers as being too far "left." When you can't attack the facts, you attack the fact-checkers -- and why would anyone trust a paid propagandist to be honest about facts?
Newsmax's Reagan Melts Down Over Hate Crime, Red Flag Laws Topic: Newsmax
Minnesota fascists hope to be making a list in the near future and checking it twice.
State Rep. Samantha Vang, D-Dist. 38B, wants to change state law and make statements she doesn’t like grounds for putting people she doesn’t like on a North Star State "bias list."
We tried to tell gullible Republicans in the past that voting for a hate crime law was volunteering to schedule yourself for the left's enemies and canceled lists.
Hate crime laws are really "thought crime laws" because the law criminalizes thought instead of action.
That didn’t stop "Rep. Gomer Pyle" from supporting the laws and it didn’t motivate Republicans to repeal the laws if they gained power.
Bias crime lists are just another avenue to criminalize and marginalize people the left doesn’t like and also wishes to punish.
[...]
Minnesota also has a red flag bill advancing through the legislature that takes guns away from people deemed to be dangerous without a trial.
If you aren’t dangerous, you still have to spend money on a lawyer to get your weapons returned.
Another example of the process being the punishment.
Here’s how the bills could work together:
Angry sister-in-law has had it with her MAGA ("Make America Great Again") brother-in-law.
She sees him wearing his MAGA hat in his car and he inadvertently drives past the "Saint" George Floyd Memorial in Minneapolis.
She calls the bias registry and anonymously reports her brother-in-law. That puts him on Big Brother’s list.
A month later at a family gathering, brother-in-law starts talking about the clot (COVID-19) shot and he wonders aloud why people harmed by shot side effects don’t grab a gun and demand accountability from Big Pharma.
That’s all she needs.
Sister-in-law calls the state police and makes a red flag report on her brother-in-law claiming he’s making violent, threatening statements and is a danger to the public.
The state police check Big Brother’s big bias spreadsheet and low-and-behold brother–in–law is already on the list!
Two strikes and he can kiss his guns goodbye.
The left’s conservative-targeted laws don’t work in isolation; the laws are an all-out, all fronts attack on political enemies. Which would be you.
Summer Fashion Tips For Ladies, From Larry Tomczak Topic: WorldNetDaily
Would you take fashion tips from someone who bills himself as a "cultural commentator with over 50 years in vocational ministry"? That person, Larry Tomczak, thinks you should, since he devoted his entire May 23 WorldNetDaily column to discussing how people -- well, women -- ought to dress.
He began by noting tweets attacking bikinis and yoga pants, then asking: "Are these unreasonable perspectives? Are they biblical? We can avoid legalism and it really does matter." He then went into lecture mode:
Scripture clearly reveals the direction Jesus gave us to never "look on a woman to lust after her" (Matt. 5:28) and Ps. 101:3 tells us, "I will set no wicked thing before my eyes." What follows are six guidelines pertinent to women but having application for men as well.
• We are to "present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, and acceptable to God, which is [our] reasonable service of worship ... [and] "not be conformed to this world [pop culture] but be transformed by the renewing of [our] mind[s]" (Rom. 12:1-2a).
We should look sharp, not seductive. We can dress cool without appearing cheap. Let's draw attention to our countenance and eyes (which Jesus said are the "lamp of the body," as opposed to body parts and flesh that often show where a person's heart and focus really are). Let's not rationalize either ("I get a better tan line, and guys shouldn't be looking anyway").
• We know that we should never wear clothing that draws lustful looks, causing others to "stumble" into sin (see Matt. 18:6) or commit adultery in their heart by fantasizing after viewing us dressed provocatively or immodestly (Matt. 5:28), as in wearing a swimsuit akin to walking around in revealing underwear. Let's get real: Is some beach attire a bathing suit, or almost a birthday suit? We must not allow ourselves to become desensitized to the message of modesty today.
• Modesty is a positive principle emphasizing inner beauty and character over outward vanity and cheapness. "I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly" (1 Tim. 2:9a, NASB). Sprayed-on yoga pants or see-through, braless blouses don't get a thumbs-up here.
If men are not supposed to "look on a woman to lust after her," it shouldn't matter what women wear, so Tomczak's demand that women "never wear clothing that draws lustful looks" is a bit nonsensical. Nevetheless, he conluded:
Here's the deal: When there is a question raised (by yourself, a parent or a faithful friend) concerning an article of clothing, length of a skirt, level of a neckline, tightness of pants, message on a shirt, follow the following:
• Doubt – do without (Rom. 14:13)
• Flee from youthful lusts" (2 Tim. 2:22a, NASB)
• Honor your father and your mother" (Eph. 6:2a, MEV)
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Let's help our young women learn to discern the deception of pop culture advocating "empowerment." Remember, modest attire starts in the heart, not a dress code. Let's focus on the abundant life Jesus promised!
Yet the entire point of Tomczak's column is to demand that women follow a dress code of which he approves.
NEW ARTICLE -- New Press Secretary, Same MRC Hate: April-May 2023 Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center continued to praise conservative reporters who dutifully hurl biased questions on the right-wing talking point du jour to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Read more >>
MRC Both Sad And Happy That CNN's Licht Got Fired Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center was rooting for Chris Licht to humiliate anyone at CNN who wasn't sufficiently pro-Trump, while pressuring him to force the channel to become a Fox News clone. When not only none of that came to pass but Licht effectively got fired -- which threw a wrench in the MRC's hope that Oliver Darcy would get fired for telling thetruth about CNN's town hall debacle with Donald Trump -- the MRC managed to be both sad and gleeful. Chief cheerleader/tormentor Curtis Houck wrote in a June 7 post:
In news first broken Wednesday morning by former CNN media reporter Dylan Byers of Puck, embattled CNN chief executive Chris Licht is stepping down from the network and parent company Warner Bros. Discovery after a tumultuous tenure marked by his inability to have buy in from a far-left employee base still loyal to their former puppetmaster, Jeff Zucker.
Warner Bros Discovery chief executive David Zaslav told staff of the change and said in a statement that he has “great respect for Chris, personally and professionally” and correctly added that “[t]he job...was never going to be easy, especially at a time of huge disruption and transformation.”
According to The Washington Post and others, longtime CNN executives Amy Entelis, Virginia Moseley, and Eric Sherling will lead the network with newly-minted chief operating officer David Leavy also playing a key role.
Licht, who was hired in March 2022 and began a month later by killing off the bloated CNN+ after hilariously low interest at its launch. It was all downhill with Licht promising to change the culture at the network after years of ardent, vicious punditry and a singular obsession with Donald Trump and, well, not much else (despite umpteen other stories around the world).
All the while, he made a litany of mistakes. Along with refusing to clean house of Zucker loyalists, Licht’s drab scheduling changes failed to improve ratings.
Yes, we remember how bizarrely giddy the MRC was when CNN+ was shut down after little more than a month, which was more a function of new owners deciding to kill it before it had a chance to be successful than any faults of its own. And, yes, Houck is still hanging the anti-Semitic "puppetmaster" slur on the Jewish Zucker.
As he did in his review of the massive Atlantic profile of Licht that ended up being the final nail in his CNN coffin, Houck insisted that Licht was doing the right thing, just not hard and fast enough, attacking anyone at CNN who missed Zucker and resisted Licht's changes as being part of a "mob":
In the end, Licht’s public promises and perhaps too-eager expounding on his applaudable view of what journalism should look to The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta like was a death knell as he and Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav refused to clean house of a employee base still fixated on being told what to do and follow the snobbery Zucker micromanaged from his control room and newsroom office.
Refusing to accept the fact Licht hammered home that their network’s brand and trust had taken a hit and needed to be restored, the mob was allowed to grow.
Zaslav’s challenge going forward will be whether he can find someone that, a, wants the job and, b, concurs with his vision (shared by influential shareholder John Malone) that CNN spent recent years throwing away its reputation in the name of feigning outrage and a fixation on destroying Trump.
By contrast, we don't recall Houck ever criticizing the micromanagement of Fox News executives such as Roger Ailes, and he certainly hasn't complained that Fox News is "throwing away its reputation" in the name of feigning outrage and a fixation on destroying President Biden (and Hunter). He concluded by whining that "In the interim, expect CNN employees to feel liberated to return to flashing more of their visceral hatred for Trump and conservatives," while remaining silent about Fox News hosts expressing their visceral hatred of Biden and liberals.
Houck then appeared on Tim Graham's podcast later that day, where he repeated his previous talking points on Licht and CNN while refusing to apply those same standards to Fox News. Both Graham and Houck made sure to keep up its nasty attack on Darcy as a "Benedict Arnold" because he escaped the right-wing media bubble.
Jeffrey Lord spent his June 10 column complaining about Lichts' firing and laughably portraying CNN's content as "far-left":
Suffice to say, as the dismissal of CNN CEO Chris Licht this week illustrates vividly, CNN staff and employees are long gone from Ted Turner’s founding vision. The star at CNN now is supposed to be woke leftism, not journalism. In today’s world the entire point of CNN’s woke lefties existence is to present the news in a decidedly far-left fashion. And if you disagree with that - as Chris Licht did - they are coming for you.
[...]
The entire Atlantic piece, not to mention the magazine itself, is all about virtue signaling woke leftism. That’s fine as far as it goes. Free speech is a good thing. God Bless America.
But the problem vividly illustrated both in the Atlantic article and the firing of Chris Licht mere days later as a result is that the American left is intolerant of dissent. It is populated by would-be media totalitarians who will brook no dissent in the world of what they see as an exclusive left-wing platform. It is no small thing that when Licht had CNN host a town hall with Donald Trump, CNN’s ratings soared. And CNN’s employees rebelled.
Graham returned for a June 11 post to complain that CNN deserves competent management:
Fox News media reporter Brian Flood reported that former New York Times columnist and podcaster Kara Swisher proclaimed Warner Bros. boss David Zaslav "needs to get the f—k out of the way" and "let the professionals take over" and try to fix CNN.
Zaslav's pick as CNN CEO, Chris Licht, was pushed out this week after the CNN employees were in revolt after CNN's town hall with Donald Trump. After that show, CNN's ratings dipped even lower, losing to Newsmax on some nights.
"I think they can be news without having to declare constantly they're centrist," Swisher said on her "Pivot" podcast for New York magazine. "That was… very much David Zaslav. Let me just say, I think Chris was a proxy for him."
[...]
Swisher recently tweeted Rupert Murdoch and his "minions" are a "coven of toxic ghouls."
Graham made no effort to disprove that last point.
Houck served up a June 15 post whining that CNN employees are happy Licht is gone (complete with Zucker "puppetmaster" smear):
Puck’s Dylan Byers ended last week with some scuttlebutt on his ex-employer following the axing of CNN boss Chris Licht that, as we’ve repeatedly documented (see here and here), came down to a Mean Girls-like disgust and smear campaign by the litany of CNN employees Licht and Warner Bros. Discovery head honcho David Zaslav not only failed to jettison for loyalty to former puppetmaster Jeff Zucker, but gain buy-in for CNN to be more centrist and less toxic.
According to Byers, the inmates are ebullient over Licht being canned and replaced (at least for now) with a triumvirate of longtime CNN executives that have left them with “feelings of relief and optimism” and able to return to how they behaved during the Trump presidency. What children.
The thin-skinned CNN employers were said, as per Byers, to be nearly uniform in possessing “widespread feelings of relief and optimism, a sense that their long national nightmare has finally come to an end.”
How self-important are these people? Byers added that “[s]ome” CNNers cited “the lifting of the” smoke in New York from Canadian wildfires “as a fitting metaphor for their own condition.”
[...]
Despite Byers reminding readers Zaslav and those around him haven’t shown any signs of wanting CNN to change (for the better), it’s nonetheless a eye-rolling endeavor for anyone who has to stomach this network.
Of course, Houck's idea of CNS changing "for the better" means turning it into another Fox News. Houck did eventually concede that CNN employees did learn to hate Licht for good reasons that had nothing to do with alleged loyalty to Zucker:
Earlier in the piece, Byers added new color on why Licht initially lost trust as, after CNN had insisted they would be immune from layoffs by their parent company (except for CNN+), Licht was clotheslined by news from corporate that, actually, CNN would have to lay off scores of employees in late November.
This, Byers explained, caused CNNers to see Licht as “a hypocrite, a leader who could not be trusted, maybe even a patsy.”
So maybe Houck hates Zucker to obsessively to be able to see past him and perform an honest, unbiased examination of things at CNN that are divorced from his employer's desires to destroy the network for not being Fox News.
The MRC also published a June 19 syndicated column by Cal Thomas lamenting that Licht's firing "makes my point" that the media is too liberal -- but he refused to attack Fox News as too conservative.
Tim Graham served up his own twist on his employer's Hunter Biden Derangement Syndrome in a May 13 post complaining that a fact-checker brought up an old MRC poll while fact-checking Donald Trump's CNN town hall:
Hanne Nabintu Herland complained in her April 26 WorldNetDaily 
We've documented
Despite being total Donald Trump sycophants, Newsmax surprisingly promoted Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign announcement on Twitter. A May 23 
An anonymously bylined May 23 WorldNetDaily 
The Media Research Center 
Following the impeachment of corrupt Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Andy Schlafly aggressively defended him in his May 30 WorldNetDaily 
Christian Toto is a film critic who thinks he's a right-wing pundit -- and the Media Research Center is giving him space to indulge that. For instance, we've caught him 
The 
Matt Palumbo has been a favorite of the Media Research Center over their shared hatred of both fact-checkers and George Soros. But as 
Minnesota fascists hope to be making a list in the near future and checking it twice.
Would you take fashion tips from someone who bills himself as a "cultural commentator with over 50 years in vocational ministry"? That person, Larry Tomczak, thinks you should, since he devoted his entire May 23 WorldNetDaily 
The Media Research Center was 
