MRC Still Fluffing Musk, Insists That Anti-Semitism Isn't Hate Speech Topic: Media Research Center
The bad news continued to come for Elon Musk's Twitter:
Musk threatened to censor users who use the word "cisgender," inexplicably insisting that it's a "slur."
He tried to make Twitter less accessible by introducing new limits on tweet views for anyone who won't pay the billionaire $8 a month, and many ussers had problems accessing Twitter at all.
Twitter's attempt to mimic TikTok's "swipe up" feature is showing viewers graphic and conspiracy-theory-laden videos featuring gun violence, police brutality, physical altercations and vaccine misinformation.
The Media Research Center will tell its viewers about none of this, of course -- Musk's de facto PR operation would never do that. Instead, it was all about Musk-fluffing. A June 19 post by Gabriela Pariseau hyped an interview he did with an obscure podcaster in which he did his usual pontifications about "free speech." We suspect the podcaster lobbed only easy softballs as Musk. A June 28 tweet on the NewsBusters Twitter account obsequiously wished Musk a happy birthday.
Peter Kotara insisted that anti-Semitism and other hate on Twitter is not hate speech but "so-called hate speech" in a June 28 post raging that people want Musk to do something about it, starting with issuing a personal attack on the head of the Anti-Defamation League:
On Wednesday’s Morning Joe, ADL Vice President Yael Eisenstat joined MSNBC hosts Willie Geist and Jonathan Lemire to demand social media companies tighten the noose of political censorship online, cry about Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, and even call for the government to become involved in online censorship.
Eisenstat, a far left censorship proponent, appeared on the segment to push forward the thesis that so-called “hate speech” has been increasing online, and that social media companies needed to censor it, as well as that the government needed to pass legislation forcing them crack down on it if they won’t do so on their own.
[...]
So, who is Yael Eisenstat? Apart from being the Vice President of the ADL, a partisan organization dedicated to demonizing right-wingers and labeling them “anti-semites” based solely on their opposition to woke ideology, she was a former Facebook employee, CIA analyst, and National Security Adviser to then Vice President Joe Biden.
According to Influence Watch, Eisenstat “argued that speech she considers to be misinformation or hateful that does not violate any laws should still be subjected to censorship.” Here Eisenstat showed her true malevolent nature, that she wished to destroy any political speech she disagreed with by classifying it as “hate speech”.
Kotara didn't explain why anti-Semitism shouldn't be considered hate speech, nor did he cite any actual examples of Eisenstat "destroy any political speech she disagreed with by classifying it as 'hate speech'." He concluded by huffing:
This MSNBC propaganda segment highlighted the ever-expanding attempts by the left to use “hate speech” to silence dissent and centralize power under themselves both through governmental legislation and private corporations. Their real enemy was never hate; it was the First Amendment.
Again Kotara didn't explain why online hate should and must be allowed to spread unchecked.
Tim Graham used a July 8 post to complain that the Washington Post got an apparently fake account banned of an apparently nonexistent person who spouted views presented as,liberal, insisting the account was really brilliant satire:
Among the Twitter bot accounts that the liberal media hate most are the fake liberal bots who make liberals look like obnoxious idiots -- or who are a little too clumsy and inartful, and make liberals think it must be a conservative plot. It's like a version of banning The Babylon Bee because its satire hits too close to home.
Consider the case of "Erica Marsh," who tripped the liberal alarms with a June 29 tweet after the Supreme Court upended race-based admissions at Harvard. “Today’s Supreme Court decision is a direct attack on Black people. No Black person will be able to succeed in a merit-based system which is exactly why affirmative-action based programs were needed."
As Legal Insurrection noted, this caused a wave of outrage, particularly among black conservatives like Candace Owens, Bo Snerdley, Leo Terrell and others.
On July 4, Drew Harwell of The Washington Post reported their inquiries to Twitter caused the "Erica Marsh" account to be suspended after her Supreme Court tweet was viewed more than 27 million times.
[...]
Harwell noted what he and the other liberals -- sorry, the "misinformation experts" were thinking: "For months, Marsh’s account had raised suspicions among online misinformation experts due to her lack of a real-world footprint and her devotion to attention-grabbing viewpoints one called “cartoonishly liberal.” For example, Harwell noted, last month she said she still wears “2 masks whenever I go out and support Ukraine.”
Most Twitter users -- at least the ones outside the censorious left -- find parody accounts amusing, but you want to know what is a parody account and what's not. You might wonder if @AOC is a parody, and not the AOC parody accounts. When Harwell turned back to his expert on "rage" and Twitter, did he consider that the left-wing side is also vulnerable to rage bait?
Funny, we don't recall Graham ever liking a tweet from The Onion. And Graham offered no examples of right-wing rage-bait to which liberals have been "vulnerable."
How Has WND's Brown Been Hating LGBT People Lately? Topic: WorldNetDaily
We're continuing to catch up on Michael Brown's animus toward LGBT people (which he wants you to believe is only against "activism") with his June 2 WorldNetDaily column, in which he again cheered right-wing anti-LGBT hate and again complained that the Los Angeles Dodgers honoreed the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence for their community service:
For many years I have been saying that LGBTQ+ activists will overplay their hand, resulting in a moral and cultural revolution in the opposite direction. The May 31 headline story on DrudgeReport, "War on Pride," with a "No" graphic to two men, says it all. The accompanying headlines read, "Anti-Target Rap Tops iTunes"; "Revolt on Chick-Fil-A"; "Bud Light Sales Down 30%"; "Gays Leaving Florida."
Drudge also could have added some of the backlash to the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrating the Catholic-mocking Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to the list. This was yet another step too far.
The pushback is accelerating, and for good reason.
Of course, to those (or to you) who identify as LGBTQ+ (and to LGBTQ+ allies), all this is the latest manifestation of hatred and bigotry, and people like me are leading the homophobic, biphobic, transphobic charge. We are haters and bigots in your eyes, narrow-minded, uncaring, religious fundamentalists, moral hypocrites who are obsessed with people who do not conform to our norm.
Brown once again claimed against all evidence that his anti-LGBT hate isn't hate and is somehow noble becaiuse he is right and LGBT people are evil:
Yes, I get it. And yes, it grieves me that millions of Americans who get up in the morning and go to work and school and take care of their families – everyday people living normal lives – will feel hurt and personally attacked by the very pushback I celebrate. That gives me no joy or sense of triumph.
But that's the whole point.
It is not bigotry or hatred that drives me (and others of like mind). It is the incessant, unavoidable, ever-increasing attack on our most basic human values that drives us.
It is bombarding toddlers and young children with the idea that they could be a boy one day and a girl the next.
It is female students fearing to use their own school bathrooms because of the presence of boys who identify as girls.
It is males competing against females in athletic competitions and men wearing women's swimsuits in ads.
It is drag queens not only reading books to little children but shaking their hips (and worse) in their presence, even to the point of physical touching.
It is the chemical castration and genital mutilation of minors.
It is educators and school counselors undermining family values and going behind parents' backs.
It is forcing a radical agenda on those who disagree and penalizing them for their failure to comply.
It is celebrating extremist, deeply offensive groups like the anti-Catholic Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
Brown then bizarrely insisted that homophobes like him are the real victims - then, even more bizarrely, likened the group to white supremacists:
But this is what you have to remember: They endured years of LGBTQ+ Pride nights without speaking out. They didn't rock the boat, even though they might have been personally offended. It was only when the activists went a step too far. That's when they spoke out.
[...]
Can you imagine the uproar if the Dodgers honored a group of white supremacists wearing blackface and called "The Brothers in the Hood"?
Or a group of Gentile anti-Semites wearing Hasidic Jewish garb and called "The Rabbis of the Foreskin"?
Or a group of gay-hating women dressed as effeminate men and called "The Swishers"?
Or a group of Islamophobes dressed as imams carrying AK-47s and called "Allah's Holy Messengers"?
These scenarios are so absurd as to be completely unimaginable. Yet, as the inevitable result of decades of LGBTQ+ activism, the Dodgers are celebrating and honoring nun-mocking, Catholic-despising drag queens.
For his June 5 column, Brownonce again tried (and failed) to explain that he attacks only "activism" and not people:
For almost 20 years now, I have been guided by this principle when it comes to LGBTQ people and issues: Reach out to the people with compassion; resist the agenda with courage. But how, exactly, is this done? And how does it play out in terms of the people we are called to reach and the agenda we are called to resist?
There are Christians who avoid the culture wars because they are too toxic, fearing that any involvement will only turn LGBTQ-identified people away from the faith. "Let's just love them like we love everyone else," they reason, "building relationships with them, not being offensive in our speech or conduct, and leading them to Jesus."
[...]
How can we love people in such a way that they recognize our love for them while we reject their personal perceptions and most fundamental values? And how can we love people in a genuine, Christlike way while openly opposing the things they fight for?
Many Christians still use the old adage of, "Love the sinner but hate the sin," thinking this is a good way of describing our attitude towards LGBTQ-identified people.
But, as many an ex-gay, ex-trans person has told me, they heard those words as, "You hate me." That's because, for them, being gay (or trans) was not something they did but who they were. (In the same way, I do not do heterosexual; I am heterosexual.)
On the other hand, in many cases, no matter how much we love people as people, unconditionally and with a genuine heart, if we do not affirm their expressed sexual orientation or gender identity, we will be considered hateful.
Brown went on to complain that a Twitter poll he conducted showed that "85% of those who identified as pro-LGBTQ believe that there is no way I can lovingly say, 'I believe homosexual practice is sinful' or 'I don't affirm transgender identity.'" He then claimed without evidence that "We fully understand the human issues involved, most all of us having friends or family members or colleagues who identify as LGBTQ.," though he went on to note that "A trans-identified relative of mine cut me off years ago because of my public stands on the relevant issues, despite my appeal to him to meet with me privately and tell me his story, just so I could better understand the pain he had lived with." Then, after declaring "compassion," he framed that in his certainty that he is right and LGBT people are wrong (if not evil):
As I have often said, we need hearts of compassion and backbones of steel.
So, on the one hand, if you cut us, we should bleed love. On the other hand, we will not be moved.
This is the holy tension with which we live. May God give us the grace to reflect His heart and mind.
We've noted how Brown's June 7 column weighed in on the tiny meltdown over a crew member for the Chrtistian TV show "The Chosen" displaying a small pride flag, in which he insisted that anti-LGBT hate be treated as some kind of virtue. For his Jne 12 column, he was back to cheering that very anti-LGBT hate:
As I've stated elsewhere, these Americans didn't sign up for the increasingly radical cultural madness, for the assault on children, and for the stripping away of the rights of others. That's why so many are now pushing back against "Pride."
And it's not just the conservative, Bible believers. It's the average drinker of Budweiser beer. It's the average shopper at Target. It's the average parent with a kid in school.
They're not going for the blur-gender, omnigender, pregnant man, menstruating males, castrate-the-kids nonsense.
And they're not going for the constant, in your face exaltation of everything gay and trans and queer related. As Matt Walsh tweeted on May 30, "As you prepare for Pride Month, we must also remember to celebrate:
"Bisexual Health Awareness Month International Transgender Day of Visibility National LGBT Health Awareness Week National Transgender HIV Testing Day Non-Binary Parents Day Lesbian Visibility Day International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, & Biphobia Harvey Milk Day Pansexual & Pan Romantic Awareness & Visibility Day Non-Binary Awareness Week International Drag Day LGBTQ History Month (not to be confused w/ Pride Month) International Lesbian Day National Coming Out Day National LGBT Center Awareness Day Asexual Awareness Week International Pronouns Day Transgender Parent Day Pansexual Pride Day Gay Uncles Day"
Did he miss any?
[...]
The camel has gotten its nose in the door of the tent, and everything else has followed in its wake. As a result, millions of Americans are saying, "This is too much."
They wanted to embrace common kindness. They ended up with cultural craziness.
The fact that Brown is approvingly quoting a vicious homobphobe like Walsh shows where his sympathies lie and where his claimed "compassion" does not. Indeed,he went on to embrace another hater:
As Joe Rogan said to his massive podcast audience, "So we're seeing that now where we never saw that before, where people are going 'Enough! Enough! Stop shoving this down everybody's throat.'"
Precisely so. (For those who do not know Rogan, he is not a born-again, Bible-waving Christian.)
He continued, "When I go to Target I don't want to see like [expletive] tuck pants, like they're designed to help you tuck your [expletive]. Hey, that's not normal, I don't want that right in front of everybody. It's weird."
He's right. It's weird. It's unnatural. It's harmful to suggest this for kids. And, from a business point of view, it's only relevant to a tiny percentage of the society. Why on earth make it front and center in your store unless you are driven by a radical social agenda?
And that's why this Pride Month is different than past Pride Months. Americans are coming to their senses. As I recently tweeted, what began for many as the embrace of common decency ("I treat my gay friends and coworkers with fairness and respect") has become a celebration of deviancy ("Long live the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence!").
The bottom line is that LGBTQ+ activists have basically said, "No matter how much ground you give us and no matter how much you embrace us, it is never enough. We will continue to push the envelope."
Millions of Americans have responded by saying, "Enough is enough."
Brown does not explain why his enthusiatic support for anti-LGBT hate shouildn't be assumed to apply to people and not "activism."
MRC's Graham Mad That Media Won't Inject Anti-LGBTQ Hate Into News Stories Topic: Media Research Center
In a June 17 post, the Media Research Center's Tim Graham insisted it was an "objectivity scandal" that there was a controversy over a Michigan TV station issuing a memo stating that its reporters "get both sides" of LGBTQ issues because "conservative viewers" didn't like that being covered at all:
Can you believe that? "We apologize for the misguided people who believe reporting on two sides of an issue, which shows disrespect for the marginalized LGBT community. Those aren't our values!"
[...]
Oh no! Someone expressed concern about the conservative viewers! This better be fixed! Someone dared to question the newsworthiness of drag brunches and burlesque troupes!
[...]
The people who preach "expansive and inclusive" journalism mean the exact opposite. WOOD-TV is now posting happy one-sided propaganda about "The evolution of gay pride in Michigan."
Graham doesn't explain what, exactly, the other side of "LGBTQ issues" he wants in every story on the subject. That's because it involves portraying non-heterosexual people as evil and unclean and are going to hell if they don't repent of their wicked ways. He also doesn't explain why saying nice things about LGBTQ people is "propaganda" and spewing hate at them is not -- or why "conservative viewers" are such snowflakes that they can't handle the fact they non-heterosexual people are human beings who deserve basic respect and that news about them be censored. It's also unlikely that Graham will demand that "both sides" be told on any news story on "Christian issues."
Graham also referenced the incident in his June 20 column, in which he whined that news coverage "shows 'respect for....some members of the [LGBTQ] community." Again, he didn't explain what level of anti-LGBTQ hate he demands be put in any news story about them.
Ultimately the two top news directors at the station were fired, along with two producers accused of leaking the memo to the public.
What's Mychal Massie Melting Down Over Now? Topic: WorldNetDaily
Once again Joe Biden failed miserably to support and advance the cause of women and income equality. Biden made quite the show of presenting a letter he received from a little girl who expressed grave concerns about income disparity per the gender wage gap.
[...]
The secret to success if you are a no-talent, hate-filled Negress who has been taught so-called white people haven't paid their debt for having slavery in America, is to lie, just as Biden made a successful career of doing – a talent Nikole Hannah-Jones copied with great success. Biden should have told the little girl that the trick to big-money success comes from speaking appearances that promote divisiveness and acrimony. It's receiving praise from the rough-edged bathroom tissue called The New York Times. It's found in patterning after Jones by writing the worst lies found in the binding of one book in quite possibly publishing history, which is exactly what Jones did and precisely what her "1619 Project" is.
The other missed opportunity was to tell the little girl, who must herself be a Negress, how bad "coloreds" have it. A Negress because everyone knows one of the most consistent extortive laments is how the under-performing schools are failing the inner-city children juxtaposed to the far superior academic bastions the privileged so-called white children attend.
That said, the only difference between Biden and Jones is that unlike him, she can find her behind with two hands due to the over gargantuan proportions of same; whereas Biden can't find his butt with two hands and an instructional manual on how to find it. The other difference being that he's so decrepit and unbalanced that he cannot even fall down steps, he must fall up steps. With the jello-belly she's carrying around, Jones, on the other hand, could belly flop down steps and stick a perfect marshmallow landing.
Of course, I'm being facetiously sarcastic, but my point is correct. Wanna be successful and make big money without putting forth any real effort? Write a book that portrays marginally evolved coloreds as victims of evil so-called white folks, especially Christian white folks, and make sure it's revisionist lies from cover to cover. And voila, you're a superstar.
But, then we have Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, better known as AOC, which I would argue is short for a trampish heathen who personifies dumb as a roll of bathroom tissue and is worthy of the same purpose. Cortez has "announced that parental rights are fascism in America."
[...]
It takes only a brief glance to see what government participation in the life of young people has done to Cortez and her troupe of whorish child-killers, who are promoting mental insanity through inculcation of debaucherous sexual fantasies they promote as real.
How is it fascist for parents to teach their children the Word of God? How is it fascist for parents to teach their children that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, which include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? How is it fascist for parents to teach their children moral standards that renounce sexual sin, teaching them that God created male and female, i.e., he and she, not he-he and she-she? How is it fascism for parents to teach their children to love America and what America stood for until the demonic Cortez types usurped office?
The domestic terrorists of today seek positions and are specifically installed into said positions for the express purpose of destroying those who are deemed a threat to their wraith-like benefactors who operate out of the shadows and sulfuric mists of the demonic world the Apostle Paul spoke of in his epistle to the Ephesians (6:10-17 KJV).
The most conspicuous of these domestic terrorists at present are Alvin Bragg, Manhattan district attorney; Leticia James, New York attorney general; and Kim Gardner, district attorney, St. Louis, Missouri – to mention but three. Bragg and James are committed to destroying anyone and everyone their demonic grand wizard instructs them to persecute – in this case President Trump. Gardner has been directed to destroy people of means who legally own firearms and use same to protect their private property and families.
They have all been financially backed by their puppet-financier George Soros whose objective is to destroy the foundations of America, i.e., the church, the family, the schools and the armed forces. But, most important to realize about these minions of Erebusic blackness is that they are necrophagous organisms consumed with a blood lust to destroy those they condemn as "rich and white."
But, today the sexual abomination called transgenderism is replacing skin-color as the viscous lubricant.
People identifying as such are emotionally maldeveloped and suffering from hebephrenic schizophrenia. The longtime pets of the Democrat Party are now being pushed to a new 'back-of-the-bus" in favor of the now debaucherous deviants being popularized today.
It was Obama, however, who the week before being elected to his first term in the White House said: "In five days we will begin to fundamentally change America." And thus he did. I said "The devastating effect of Obama will not be felt until he leaves office, and that effect is being addressed by only a very small number of statesmen who see and understand the true threat of Obama."
I was right. What we see today with Dylan Mulvaney and Biden's secretary of health Richard Levine and all of the other sexual deviant insanity place was fast-tracked by Obama.
It began with his men in women's bathrooms and vice-versa. Obama publicly fantasized about having sex with men according to his own admission. It was Obama who pushed for children in kindergarten to be taught about anal sexual devices, homosexuality and lesbianism. Whether or not Obama's commitment to forcing homosexualism upon children was born out of his own depraved thirst for sexual intimacy with "older white-men" or something far more demonic is unclear. What we see today is being forced upon children because of Obama.
One of the greatest deceptions embraced by the gullible was the insanity of social distancing, masks, forced isolation and mandated injections of unidentified toxic compounds. We were called conspiracy theorists, deniers, anti-vaxers, etc. We were told being injected with the deadly toxin was the loving thing to do. Funny, they claimed the same thing about murdering babies. Just as I fail to understand how the murder of children is a display of love, I fail to reconcile how harming myself, including the prospect of death, is showing love for my family or others.
The public bought the lies and boasted of embracing the deadly deceptions of the political and social grifters pushing fear and toxins. Now, the larvae of these lies are hatching, and people are suddenly dropping dead. Young athletes in impeccable health are dying on the playing fields. Pilots, on-air hosts, performers ad nauseam are suddenly dropping dead. And the grifters want us to believe there's no connection between the toxin, death, heart disease, nerve pain, cancer and more?
MRC Cheers Montana's Unenforceable TikTok Ban Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center assumes that anyone who defends TikTok, as well as all of its millions of users, are stooges for "communist China" -- even though the MRC is acting like a stooge for Facebook, which paid a Republican PR firm to spread anti-TikTok talking points in right-wing media (much like the ones the MRC has been using). For instance, a March 23 post by Curtis Houck complained:
Ahead of Thursday’s House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing featuring TikTok CEO Shou Chew, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC had their flagship morning news shows spouting off tales of possible despair and financial ruin from TikTok influencers the Chinese-owned social media app paid to fly to Washington to appear as props.
Always game for the superficial, ABC’s Good Morning America was at the forefront of the pressure to keep the app that’s dumbing down the country alive. Co-host Robin Roberts teased that “creators lobb[ied] lawmakers, saying a ban would threaten their livelihoods.”
Houck showed no concern for those who make their living off TikTok -- they're just collateral damage. He also doesn't explain that companies flying in people to testify on their behalf in Congress is hardly a novel thing; activists on both sides do it.
So when Montana actually issued a ban on the use of TikTok in the entire state , the MRC was incredibly giddy. Gabriela Pariseau gushed in a May 18 post:
In a first-of-its kind ordeal, the state of Montana has sent the communist Chinese government-tied TikTok platform packing.
Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signed SB 419 into law Wednesday, May 17, prohibiting TikTok from operating “within the territorial jurisdiction of Montana. “To protect Montananas’ personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party, I have banned TikTok in Montana,” wrote the governor in a tweet Wednesday.
Montana banned the app from government devices in December, but it is the first state to ban the app outright on all devices.
Aside from the usual "national security" talking points, Pariseau went on to quote a right-wing activist claiming that one argument for banning TikTok is that "it pushes critical race theory." We thought the MRC opposed censorship of ideas.
And, really, censorship is what the Montana law is about -- and the MRC is effectively arguing that it's not censorship when right-wingers do it. It's also unconstitutional, as one observer noted:
First off, it’s a clear bill of attainder, which is explicitly barred by the Constitution.
Second, it violates the 1st Amendment rights of TikTok, in that it’s no different than the government banning a magazine from printing in the state, or seizing their printing press.
Third, it violates the 1st Amendment rights of app store operators, who have the right to determine what they do and don’t distribute.
Fourth, it violates the 1st Amendment rights of users of TikTok who want to use the app to communicate with others.
Fifth, it violates the the Dormant Commerce Clause in regulating interstate commerce.
And as another observer noted, the law is unenforceable because the internet can't be stopped at state borders: "The only way to enforce Montana’s ban is to build this system and begin massive surveillance of all U.S. internet-connected devices, reporting precise location and the contents of all phones to any law enforcement at will. Sound familiar? That’s because that is the surveillance state in China."
But because the MRC cares only about hating TikTok and not complications like constitutionality, it will ignore such messly little complications. Indeed, a May 19 post by Catherine Salgado complained that "Some users of the communist Chinese government-tied TikTok are suing the state of Montana for banning the app that poses a serious data security hazard" labored hard to play down that stuff:
The lawsuit claims the ban is beyond Montana’s legal authority, while the state attorney general’s office said it is “fully prepared to defend the law,” according to the [New York] Times.
The lawsuit attempts to make the TikTok ban a violation of the First Amendment, The Times noted. It claims Montana “can no more ban its residents from viewing or posting to TikTok than it could ban The Wall Street Journal because of who owns it or the ideas it publishes.” But it’s not a matter of “disliking” TikTok’s content or owners. Based on evidence the CCP can access detailed TikTok user data, many lawmakers and experts have labeled TikTok a national security risk.
Salgado did not explain how Montana can possibly enforce the law.
When TikTok filed its own lawsuit against the ban, Luis Cornelio ranted in a May 23 post:
The communist Chinese government-tied TikTok is hypocritically lashing out at Montana for protecting its citizens’ data security.
Days after Montana became the first state to ban the Chinese Communist Party-tied app, TikTok launched legal warfare against the state government in court in an effort to continue sweeping up Americans’ data for its communist overlords in Beijing.
TikTok dubbed the ban “unconstitutional” in a Monday tweet, claiming the lawsuit will “protect” their business and “the hundreds of thousands” of TikTok users in Montana. What a joke.
[...]
Media Research Center Founder and President Brent Bozell praised Montana in a May 18 tweet: “TikTok is a spy tool of the Chinese Communists. Kudos to Montana for banning it. More states need to follow suit,” said Bozell, who was echoed by MRC Free Speech America & MRC Business Director Michael Morris.
Cornelio did not bother to explain how the Montana is constutitional and can be enforced; instead, he did a lot of screaming about the CCP.
Salgado returned for a supposed gotcha in a June 28 post:
TikTok influencers just let the cat out of the bag with a lawsuit against Montana for banning the social media platform.
Multiple states have banned or restricted the popular app TikTok, which is tied to the Communist Chinese government, as concerns rise that the app is spyware. As Montana’s ban on TikTok from operating in the state is set to take effect Jan. 1, TikTok is seemingly growing desperate.
The Chinese-tied app not only filed its own lawsuit but also finally acknowledged that it was financing a lawsuit against Montana from five creators, according to The New York Times.
Five Montana TikTok influencers sued Montana last month, claiming the ban not only exceeded the state government’s authority, but even undermined their First Amendment rights. TikTok reportedly dodged questions about its potential involvement, opting instead to file its own lawsuit. But then two of the suing TikTok creators admitted to The Times that TikTok was financing their case.
TikTok spokeswoman Jodi Seth reportedly tried to justify TikTok’s backing as a free speech effort. “Many creators have expressed major concerns both privately and publicly about the potential impact of the Montana law on their livelihoods,” Seth claimed. “We support our creators in fighting for their constitutional rights.”
Seth did not, of course, address the issue of TikTok as potential spyware, as the social media platform has connections to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Salgado did not explain how TikTok is behaving any different from any other organization in defending its rights, nor did she bother to explain why the law is not constitutional or how it could possibly be enforced (jailing teenagers, perhaps?). And, like Houck, she offered no concern for the livelihoods of TikTok creators in Montana -- perhaps she too assumes they're nothing more than dumb CCP stooges (just like Facebook told her to think).
Newsmax's Reagan Rages At Garth Brooks For Not Hating Transgender People Who Drink Beer Topic: Newsmax
Michael Reagan ranted in his June 17 Newsmax column:
We don’t know if Garth Brooks personally drinks Bud Light, but we can assure you he’s an avid, two-fisted drinker of leftist Kool-Aid.
Brooks recently made the news when he announced his new bar, "Friends In Low Places Bar & Honky Tonk" — located in Nashville, Tennessee — will be proudly (no pun intended) serving Bud Light.
This after a Bud Light marketing campaign embraced female impersonator Dylan Mulvaney who is famous for his manic woman-face portrayals of real women.
The resulting boycott of Bud Light by normal beer drinkers has the marketing team wondering if sinking to the same market share as non-alcoholic beer would be a bad thing after all.
What’s surprising is a man who made his living in the music field can be so tone deaf in his own city. Brooks is cozying up to the same insane gender ideology that produced the Covenant Christian School shooter in the same city where the murders happened!
Reagan didn't explain why he and his fellow right-wingers are such snowflakes that they can't emotionally handle a transgender person drinking bear. Instead, he raged at Brooks for refusing to hate transgender people as much as he does:
Brooks gives all the sanctimonious leftist-approved excuses for embracing the culture’s slide into perversion. Yahoo News has the quote, "I get it, everybody's got their opinions. But inclusiveness is always going to be me. I think diversity is the answer to the problems that are here and the answer to the problems that are coming. So I love diversity."
And if "diversity" means inclusivity for sexual miscreants, well, the more the merrier!
What Brooks has evidently missed is that "diversity" is an ideological Procrustean bed that forces all to conform to one ideology. And that ideology is not one that Country Music fans support. In other words, Brooks, unlike colleague Alan Jackson (of "Gone Country" fame) chose to go beyond crazy left.
Brooks urges customers — assuming there are any after this — "So, here's the deal, man …come in. But come in with love, come in with tolerance, patience. Come in with an open mind, and it's cool."
Which sounds like the governing motto of every PRIDE festival held this month.
Why must having an "open mind" include sane people associating with disturbed people and giving a big old hug to decadence?
Why does culturally imposed "diversity" force us to live in Sodom with electricity?
Why does Reagan think that failure to hate people who aren't like him is an "ideology"? And why doesn't he admit that, by the same argument, that kind vicious hatred is an "ideology" as well? We may never know.
WND's Haynes Spreads More Education Consipracy Theories Topic: WorldNetDaily
The last time we checked in on WorldNetDaily columnist Carole Hornsby Haynes, she was blaming the Nashville school massacre on sex education in Hungary (no, really). In her June 6 column, she had another conspiracy to peddle, blaming the United Nations for the current state of education:
Since the mid-1800s idealists have dreamed of a socialist world government while some envisioned a totalitarian world government. The movement by elitists culminated in the founding of the United Nations, with communist leaders holding the U.N.'s highest military post for decades. Knowing there would be resistance to abolishing national sovereignty and replacing it with a world government, the U.N. adopted a program of gradual change with monitoring of progress toward the ultimate goal.
Change would begin with young children who, elitists believed, were being infected with extreme nationalism by their parents. UNESCO was created as the education arm of the U.N. to guide schools in creating division between children and parents. Next came the World Health Organization (WHO), which would implement international mental health policies and guide nations in changing and monitoring citizens' worldviews.
And, yes, Hungary came up again:
The roots of radical sex education for children go back to a Marxist program implemented in Hungarian public schools nearly a century ago in a scheme to destroy Christianity in Western Europe and pave the way for a communist takedown. The curriculum included sex lectures and graphic instructional materials about free love and sexual intercourse. Students were encouraged to ridicule and reject Christian moral ethics, monogamy, and parental and church authority. Hate was turned toward parents, clergy and all dissenters.
With continued exposure to atheism, radical sex education and rebellion against authority, the Hungarian students turned into bullies, thieves, murderers, sex predators and sociopaths who disrespected authority.
Gradually, the Hungarian tactics have been introduced into American government schools with the same results.
But as we documented, the "Hungarian tactics" introduced by Georg Lukacs weren't that radical, and they weren't that long-lived.
By then, however, Haynes was ready to move on to other conspiracy theories:
This brings us to the recent public furor over Target, with calls for boycotting the store over its rainbow flag T-shirts, chest binders, "tuck-friendly" undergarments and products by U.K.-based Abprallen clothing line, which promotes satanism, drugs and violence.
Public rage exploded with news that Target has partnered for a decade with Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and donated more than $2.1 million. Target's vice president of brand marketing, Carlos Saavedra, serves as treasurer at GLSEN.
As we've also documented, "tuck-friendly" swimsuits were not marketed to children, Target sold nothing related to "satanism" (and the designer's "satanism" was satire). Haynes then ranted:
During a 2007 speech to Planned Parenthood, Barack Obama said he believed sex education should be provided to kindergarteners. Once in office, Obama brought in a gay founder of GLSEN, Kevin Jennings, to serve as his assistant deputy secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools at the U.S. Department of Education. Jennings used his federal perch to implement pornography in public schools.
In fact, the "sex education" Obama advocated would be age-appropriate, which for kindergartners would involve discussing things like inappropriate touching. And Haynes offeres no proof that Jennings, who was Obama's safe-schools czar and a target of right-wingers, "used his federal perch to implement pornography in public schools."
Haynes then descended into further conspiracy-mongering:
Schools have become mental health clinics with psychologists, mental health clinicians, case managers, behavioral interventionists, social workers and others to analyze student behavior and provide treatment.
Social and Emotional Learning programs, federally mandated, indoctrinate children by embedding radical sex education and Critical Race Theory into lessons throughout the school day.
The result is mentally destabilized students, in need of counseling, who are encouraged to become political activists against supposed systemic racism. Some join Antifa and Black Lives Matter. Others rage through school halls or other low-security locations, heavily armed and looking for victims.
Using the purposely created mental health crisis and the need to provide "safe schools," leftists goad federal and state legislators to pass gun control with red flag laws and universal background checks for the unstated purpose of disarming the American people for a New World Order.
[...]
By destroying Western Christian and moral foundations, elitists are creating a Great Reset for a U.N.-driven New World Order. Americans have a window of opportunity to stop woke corporations and the Great Reset. Will we?
All of this makes Haynes an unreliable writer -- but an ideal WND columnist.
NEW ARTICLE -- The MRC's DeSantis Defense Brigade: Pudding Patrol Topic: Media Research Center
There is apparently no accusation so minor that the Media Research Center won't defend Ron DeSantis against -- even a claim that he eats pudding with his fingers. Read more >>
MRC Plays The Clinton Equivocation Card To Distract From Trump's (Second) Indictment Topic: Media Research Center
In addition to general deflection tactics and hypocritically defending a Trump-appointed judge against bias accusations, the other main way the Media Research Center defended Donald Trump against his (second) indictment was to play the ol' ClintonEquivocation. Kevin Tober set up the equivocation in a June 11 post:
Two days after the unsealing of the 37-count indictment against former President Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home, ABC's This Week co-moderator George Stephanopoulos was full of partisan sanctimony. After a highly-partisan opening monologue and subsequent panel discussion of Trump's legal woes, the former Clinton administration official turned to Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. It did not go well for him.
"Donald Trump has said repeatedly that he did nothing wrong," Stephanopoulos noted. Do you believe that?"
The Senator didn't take the bait and instead turned it around on the Democrat activist. "Well, here’s what I believe. We live in an America where if you’re the Democratic candidate for President, Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, you can set up a private server in your basement to conduct government business," Graham said before getting rudely cut off.
Graham angrily shot back: "No, let me finish!"
Shoving his leftist bias back in his face, Graham rebutted "I am trying to answer the question from a Republican point of view. That may not be acceptable on this show."
Tober went on to quote Graham saying that "Hillary Clinton did very similar things and nothing happened to her."
But Tober won't tell you that Graham is wrong -- Clinton's case and Trump's case are not remotely the same. As Dean Obedallah explained at CNN:
After an investigation lasting nearly a year, then-FBI Director James Comey announced that he would not recommend filing any criminal charges against Clinton, who was the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee at the time.
Comey stated that in looking at previous Department of Justice investigations concerning “mishandling or removal of classified information” there was always some combination of the following: “clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice.”
Comey concluded, “We do not see those things here,” although he criticized Clinton for being “extremely careless” in the handling of sensitive, classified information.
In contrast, allegations of repeated intentional conduct are at the heart of the case against Trump. For starters, 31 of the 37 felony counts that Trump faces are for willful retention of national defense information in violation of the Espionage Act.
The fact that the comparison has no basis in reality didn't keep the MRC from repeating it, of course. Nicholas Fondacaro huffed in a June 12 post:
In a grade-A example of CNN not caring about its credibility as a news organization during Monday’s Inside Politics, the network trotted on disgraced former deputy director of the FBI turn CNN analyst, Andrew McCabe, who was fired for leaking to the press lying to investigators about it. He was tapped to defend two-time failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for keeping classified information on her personal e-mail server.
[...]
McCabe proceeded to downplay the fact that Clinton had classified material on her server, arguing that they weren’t hard copies of documents but rather communications of sensitive topics:
In addition to those, we found thousands more emails that she exchanged with people, the total classified materials seized from that review, were essentially 55 email conversations, strings of emails in which eight were classified top secret, 37 secret, and 10 confidential.
Now, it's important to remember those weren't classified documents that was simply the content of email exchanges that was later deemed to be classified. These weren't documents with classified stampings on the tops and bottoms and cover sheets and all that kind of stuff.
“Should it would have happened? No. But what we didn't have was evidence that Hillary Clinton had intentionally exchanged or withheld classified information. And that's just what we could and could not prove at the end of the day,” he asserted, omitting the fact that Clinton’s hard drive and cellphone were not properly disposed of.
Fondacaro did not mention that the charges against trump center on his refusal to return classified documents and deceiving officials about having them.
Alex Christy attacked those trying to set the record straight:
MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle used Monday’s edition of The 11th Hour to deliver a solemn monologue “for fact’s sake” to attempt to discredit the “misinformation” being spread by Republicans that seeks to compare President Trump’s classified documents indictment to classified documents-related scandals that did not result in indictments. However, Ruhle left out several bits of information and rewrote the law in question when seeking to defend the decision not to charge Hillary Clinton for her e-mails server.
Beginning her pretentious fact-check, such as it was, Ruhle addressed the audience, “Okay, so, let's give you some facts. President Biden is currently under investigation for storing classified documents in his Wilmington, Delaware, garage. McCarthy and other Republicans are just deflecting here, and they're asking, why Hillary Clinton, why Mike Pence? And Biden, why aren't any of them charged?”
As for Pence and Biden, “Well, for fact's sake, here is why that argument is flat out wrong. In the cases of Joe Biden and Mike Pence, aides from both men found classified documents, immediately contacted authorities, turned them over, and allowed the searches of their properties. The Justice Department closed the Pence case without an indictment. The Biden investigation is still ongoing.”
Moving on to Clinton, Ruhle recalled, “Former FBI Director James Comey never brought a case about her emails because he said no reasonable prosecutor would. That is partially because they couldn't determine if there was any intent. As for Donald Trump, the federal government had to subpoena him because they suspected he had not turned over all of his classified documents.”
Ruhle omitted four things in that explanation. First, the law does not only mention intent, but also “gross negligence”. Second, she deliberately deleted all her e-mails under the justification that they were not work-related, but the FBI eventually recovered some e-mails that were work-related, including some that were related to the 2012 Benghazi attack. Third, e-mails are not tangible objects like boxes full of paper. Fourth, the Clinton camp used hammers and BleachBit on the server.
Christy concluded by huffing, "As the fact-checkers might say, this claim is 'missing context.'" But he omitted important context himself -- namely, that very few of the emails in Clinton's server that contained classified information were actually marked as classified, unlike with Trump.
A June 14 'flashback" post by Bill D'Agostino refreshing admitted he didn't know what he was talking about as he n evertheless tried to play the Clinton Equivocation:
This piece was not written by a lawyer, and it will contain no Venn diagram-style analysis comparing the mishandling of classified information by former President Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. At issue here is the media’s stubborn refusal even to try to frame either case fairly.
For Trump, the allegations in the indictment are themselves proof of his guilt. In fact, his guilt was assumed long before the indictment was even a twinkle in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s eye. For the media, the prosecutorial process is a spectacle to be enjoyed in the aftermath of the Justice Department finally “getting” the bad orange man.
Not so for Mrs. Clinton. It’s not just that viewers weren’t bombarded with long lists of Clinton’s many malfeasances — though, of course, they weren’t. But the media were so resistant to discussing Clinton’s emails that many refused even to admit that there was a scandal.
If you were watching TV news back at the height of the email saga in 2015 and 2016, you were subjected to daily lectures about why nobody actually cared about Hillary’s emails, and why you shouldn’t either.
[...]
So while the facts of Trump’s and Clinton’s cases were indeed different, they were far more similar than the media’s handling of them.
Tuesday’s edition of the tax-funded PBS NewsHour aired a segment on Trump’s latest indictment, over classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate, that was devoted to neutralizing Republican accusations of a double standard between the political parties over document-related prosecutions, using an unlabeled Democratic lawyer and operative as cover.
Republicans have counterattacked the Biden Justice Department by bringing up the case of Hillary Clinton’s term as secretary of state and the thousands of emails, dozens of which were classified, that she irresponsibly hosted on her private home server. She deleted thousands of e-mails using the justification that they weren’t work-related, but the FBI eventually recovered many that were. A hammer was used to destroy government phones that showed evidence of the private email service, and her server was wiped with a file cleaning program called BleachBit.
[...]
Then came the source to explain it all: A Democratic national security attorney! Mark Zaid is a familiar face on the, previously explaining why the mishandling of classified documents by former President Trump and current president Joe Biden (while serving as Barack Obama’s vice-president) were “incredibly different.” Now that the case against Trump has been elevated to felony stature, Zaid’s humming the same Democratic tune.
The guy singing the Republican tune stuck to the songbook by complaining about Zaid but not countering it -- not even the part where he pointed out that much the classified information on Hillary's server was deemed so after the fact.
Tober was back to spread the misleading talking point again in a June 18 post hyping Mike Pence's appearance on "Meet the Press":
Pence complained that Trump being indicted while Hillary Clinton is allowed to roam free is “one more example of a two-tier justice system that we've been living through for seven years.”
“I mean I have to tell you after seeing Hillary Clinton given a pass,” Pence noted before getting cut off by an irritated Todd.
“By your Justice Department. It was by a Republican,” Todd said frazzled. “Jeff Sessions had another U.S. Attorney look into everything with the Clinton Foundation and didn't bring charges.”
Pence correctly responded that “Hillary Clinton was given a pass and then, we went two and a half years through a Russia investigation, that we now know from the Durham Report should’ve never been begun.”
Tober was not about to admit that Todd is right, or to mention that Hillary's case is much different from Trump's -- he's paid to spread right-wing narratives, not tell the truth.
WND's Kupelian Adds New (Bogus) Grievances To Another Old Book Topic: WorldNetDaily
As he did with his 2005 book "The Marketing of Evil," WorldNetDaily managing editor David Kupelian has put out a revised edition of his 2015 book "The Snapping of The American Mind." Both were originally published by WND's now-defunct book division, but the revised edition are being released by Republic, a publisher founded by longtime right-wing book publisher Alfred Regnery. Kupelian explained what the revised edition contains in a March 27 article:
Turbocharged by the presidency of Barack Obama – one of the most radical, destructive and utterly dishonest chief executives in American history – and continuing into our current time under the demented and epically corrupt Joe Biden, long-coalescing forces of the political, cultural and sexual Left have finally succeeded in bringing about their long-promised “fundamental transformation of America.”
But there’s more – much more.
The bigger story is, this revolution is also causing a “fundamental transformation” of Americans, as I explore in the new edition of my book, “The Snapping of the American Mind: Healing a Nation Broken by a Lawless Government and Godless Culture.” In this newly revised and expanded paperback edition, I reveal how the radical Left – which today dominates virtually all of America’s key institutions – is accomplishing far more than just enlarging government, redistributing wealth, de-Christianizing the culture and generally wrecking our country. With its wild celebration of sexual anarchy, its intimidating culture of “woke” political correctness, its perverse incomprehension of the fundamental sacredness of human life, and – as is increasingly evident – its blinding hatred of Almighty God, our leader class is not only negatively transforming the greatest nation in history. It is also actively promoting widespread dependency, debauchery, family breakdown, violent crime, corruption, suffering, addiction, mental illness, despair and suicide. This is what I explore in the new edition of "Snapping," which includes brand-new chapters illuminating the astonishing "1984"-style attacks on America taking place under the deranged presidency of Joe Biden.
In other words: He's trying to retool his animus toward Obama to make it fit as an attack against Biden, as well as rehash his pro-Trump activism by continuing to justify abandoning his sense of morality in order to support him. Indeed, a excerpt from the book published at WND on June 4 shows how much he is willing to lie and mislead in order to prop up Trump and attack Democrats:
Truth be told, the Democratic Party has long smiled on election fraud and abuse.
Democrats’ indefensible opposition to Voter ID laws, their expansion of Election Day into “Election Month,” their flat-out unconstitutional alteration of state election laws such as occurred in 2020, their promotion of universal vote-by-mail with the simultaneous abandonment of traditional safeguards, their advocacy of the fraud-plagued practice of “ballot harvesting,” their perverse opposition to cleaning voter rolls, their insistence that ballots mailed late be counted, and a multitude of other strategies all testify to their love affair with election fraud.
Meanwhile, conservatives who support the most basic, commonsense, universally accepted standards like Voter ID are gaslighted as racists and white supremacists, and, as Joe Biden repeatedly told the nation, rabid promoters of “Jim Crow 2.0.” This despite the fact that a large majority of black and Hispanic voters in the U.S. insist they favor Voter ID laws!
The key to understanding how Democrats can feel morally superior about encouraging and abetting election fraud – which is both a crime and a mortal assault on the most essential foundation of a civilized society – is recognizing that they tend to regard their opponents not just as wrong, but as evil. As legendary columnist Charles Krauthammer put it, “To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.”
That's a highly ironic claim given how Kupelian clearly believes that anyone who's not as far-right as he is is not just wrong but evil. Kupelian followed that with another hypocritical rant:
Or perhaps worse than evil, if such is possible: Indeed, for many decades, Democrats have likened Republican presidents to Adolf Hitler, arguably the most reviled human being in world history.
Columnist and talk host Larry Elder recounts a few highlights of this practice, leading off with Minnesota attorney general and former congressman, Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democrat and a Muslim, “compar[ing] then-President George W. Bush and 9/11 to Adolf Hitler and the destruction of the Reichstag, the German parliament building: ‘9/11 is the juggernaut in American history and it allows ... it’s almost like, you know, the Reichstag fire,’ Ellison said. ‘After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it, and it put the leader of that country (Hitler) in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted.’”
Sound insane? Just wait. “Comparing Republicans to Nazis has long been a national pastime of the Democratic Party,” explains Elder:
[...]
Notwithstanding the Democratic Party’s long history of concocting outrageous Hitler parallels with Republicans, the U.S. president eliciting the most extreme and widespread Hitler comparisons – by far – has been Donald J. Trump.
House Majority Whip James Clyburn echoed the Hitler comparison, telling CNN, “This president and this attorney general seem to be doing everything they possibly can to impose Gestapo activities in local communities.” CNN’s Don Lemon compared Trump to Hitler on-air, as did Democratic presidential candidate Robert “Beto” O’Rourke. The truth is, throughout Trump’s presidency, Democrats and media personalities continually likened the 45th U.S. president to Hitler, demonized Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers as Nazi guards, and border detention facilities as “concentration camps.”
Since the only moral response to the real Hitler was to try to assassinate him (there were 16 known plots to end Hitler’s life), merely lying, deceiving and cheating in elections would seem to be not just morally acceptable – but a moral imperative, according to this worldview.
Aswe'vedocumentedevery time Kupelian does this, likening President Obama to Hitler or other Nazis was practically astaple attackat WND. It had a columnist,Hilmar von Campe, who practically reveled in doing so. Kupelian's boss, Joseph Farah,demandedthat a minister not give the invocation at Obama's inauguration, citing Obama's "evil policies" and adding, "I'm sure you would not want to invoke God's blessing on the inauguration of a figure like Adolf Hitler, whose rise to power brought the destruction of millions of lives." Farah even worked an Obama-Hitler comparsion into his bogus birther crusade,declaringthat tyhey were similarly ineligible to hold their leadership positions.WND-published author Anita Dittman loved the comparison too, insisting that "Liberals’ blind idolization of Obama mirrored Germany’s hypnotic fascination with Hitler, Dittman said of the racist tyrant whose vitriolic rhetoric dehumanized the Jewish people as a prelude to his attempts at total annihilation." It even published acolumndefending the smear and insisting that those who complained about it "are out of ideas or have too much time on their hands." We don't recall Kupelian ever fretting about inciting violent attacks on Obama whenever he published these smears, which tells us he believed that the only moral response to Obama was to deceive and lie about him -- for instance, Kupelian and WND spread eight years of lies about where Obama was born.
Kupelian went on to assert again that Democrats are not just wrong but evil and demonic:
To understand what’s truly occurring on the deepest level in today’s America requires a shift away from the conventional political terminology of “left-right,” “liberal-conservative,” “Democrat-Republican.”
Indeed, everything being explored here ultimately boils down to matters of good and evil.
As mega-bestselling author of “American Marxism” and talk-host Mark Levin observed, Joe Biden has led the “most diabolical presidency and most diabolical Democratic Party, probably since slavery.”
“Diabolical,” of course, means “characteristic of the Devil, or so evil as to be suggestive of the Devil.” And in light of the Bible’s memorable characterization of the Devil as “the accuser of the brethren” (Revelation 12:10), it’s chilling to consider that good and decent Americans, the vast majority self-identifying as Christians, have never ever been falsely accused of so much evil by their own diabolical leader class as they are in the current era.
Kupelian didn't explain how this argument didn't run afoul of his own complaint that Democrats believe Republicans are not just wrong but evil.
Hypocrisy: MRC Tries To Find Ways Not To Criticize Chick-fil-A For Embracing DEI Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has gleefully attacked companies that violate right-wing narratives like not hating LGBT people (Bud Light, Target). But when those companies have a reputation for catering to conservatives, they get treated differently. A June 2 post by Tom Olohan started out with righteous anger:
After Chick-fil-A drew attention to its diversity, equity and inclusion program, prominent figures across Twitter reacted to the news while leftist media exaggerated criticism or missed the problem entirely.
On Tuesday, May 30th, many Twitter users noticed that Chick-fil-A had created a “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” page on its website and spread the word about Chick-fil-A promoting Erick McReynolds to Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the restaurant chain.
Following a quote by Erick McReynolds, the DEI page includes this line: “Chick-fil-A, Inc.'s commitment to being Better at Together means embedding Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in everything we do.” Twitter users from Michael Knowles, to Allie Beth Stuckey, to Jack Posobiec, Erick Erickson, and Charlie Kirk reacted to the hire, criticizing Chick-fil-A and DEI more broadly.
Olohan is misleading by claiming that Chick-fil-A wasn't the one that "drew attention" to its DEI program -- as he admits, it was "many Twitter users." But having done this, he seems to want to distract from it:
Leftist news sources like The Hill exaggerated this criticism, uplifting smaller accounts calling for a boycott, while others like The New York Times and CNN aggressively missed the point on what DEI is and why conservatives object to it.
This uproar also led to many accounts sharing a video from 2020 where Chick-fil-A owner, Dan Cathy, shines the shoes of rapper Lecrae Moore, while telling white people to do likewise with a “contrite heart, a sense of humility, a sense of shame, a sense of embarrassment, beget with an apologetic heart.”
But if DEI is so evil, how can The Hill (which, contrary to Olohan's assertion, is not a "leftist" publication) be exaggerating the issue? Olohan doesn't explain. Instead, he called on vicious transphobe Michael Knowles to try and absolve Chick-fil-A fiurther:
Daily Wire columnist, Michael Knowles, agreed with the idea that creating a DEI department is a problem in and of itself. On his show Wednesday, Knowles told his audience, “The exact verbiage does not exactly matter. It’s all pretty much just gobbledygook anyway. The disconcerting thing is not the exact wording. The disconcerting thing is that Chick-fil-A has embraced DEI at all, and now while some conservatives are calling for a boycott of the openly religious, generally relatively conservative company, as far as I’m concerned this story has almost nothing to do with Chick-fil-A.”
Knowles went on to add that this incident demonstrates the ubiquity of liberal ideology in our culture.
Most conservatives who mentioned a boycott, spoke in opposition to it. Radio host Erick Erickson opposed a boycott, suggesting that adding a boycott of Chick-fil-A would discredit conservatives with the general public and before noting by omission that Chick-fil-A’s DEI page does not promote gender theory.
Actually, Erickson didn't say that. Here's what he actually said: "Y’all really gonna boycott @ChickfilA? When you start boycotting every business as “woke” the average American will think you’re full of crap," adding that the company's stated mission is to "glorify God," later stating that conservatives need "discernment in your targets." In other words, he was pointing out that conservative anger in general was discrediting thenm. But wouldn't carving out an exception for Chick-fil-A also discredit them when it targets other companies for doing the same thing? (We caught WorldNetDaily doing this as well.)
And that attitude is why the MRC was completely silent when it was revealed that Cracker Barrel -- another restaurant chain beloved by right-wingers -- has embraced DEI and not hating LGBT people.
It seems that, despite Olohan's headline, the media did not miss the point, and Olohan is the one who nmeeds to explain why he's hyocritically giving certain "woke" companies a pass based on their past friendliness to conservative agendas.
NEW ARTICLE: CNS' Nitpicky War on Kamala Harris Topic: CNSNews.com
Just as it did to President Biden, CNSNews.com took the vice president's words out of context to make her look ridiculous, obsessed over the words she said -- and even lied about a claim she made. Read more >>
MRC -- Which Attacked Trump Prosecutor As 'Soros-Backed' -- Complained That It Was Pointed Out Trump Trial Judge Was Appointed By Him Topic: Media Research Center
After months of attacking Alvin Bragg, the district attorney who's behind Donald Trump's first indictment, as a "Soros-backed prosecutor," the Media Research Center is aghast that anyone who would point out that Aileen Cannon, who will oversee Trump's second indictment (which the MRC has been defending Trump against), was appointed to her position by Trump and might be biased toward him. Alex Christy whined in a June 9 post:
Gone are the days when questioning whether a judge in a Trump indictment case can be truly impartial is said to be unacceptable because the cast of MSNBC's Friday special coverage on the matter sounded the alarm whether Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon can truly be fair and neutral given some of her previous rulings.
Diaz-Balart presented the news to NBC senior executive editor for national security David Rohde and asked for his thoughts, “And now NBC can confirm indeed that Judge Aileen Cannon will be presiding over this case. Just thought, your reaction to that?”
Not thrilled with the news, Rohde declared that “I'm concerned and if she, you know, handles it through the trial she made some very unusual rulings in the course of the litigation surrounding the search warrant.”
Rohde is alluding to Cannon’s decision to appoint a special master back in September.
Christy didn't mention that legal experts questioned Cannon's movefor a special master, seen as a move designed to benefit Trump and which a federal appeals court later overruled.Christy pretended this wasn't evidence of bias: "Cannon was presented with an unprecedented and politically sensitive case involving a former president who is currently running again, she issued a ruling, it got reversed, that isn’t definitive proof of partiality.
P.J. Gladnick whined about the criticism in a June 11 post:
On Friday, MSNBC acted "concerned" over the news that Aileen Cannon was chosen as the judge to oversee the Trump documents case. However, the MSNBC reaction was mild compared to the sheer panic over Cannon in an article published by Slate magazine that same day. Mark Joseph Stern, Slate's senior writer on legal matters sounds like he will spend many sleepless nights over his extreme fear that "Judge Aileen Cannon Can Absolutely Sink the Federal Prosecution of Trump.
[...]
EEEK! And what gives Stern nightmares is that this case hasn't been assigned to a liberal judge who can be counted on to pressure the jury into the desirable outcome of convicting Trump.
[...]
GASP! She gave a decision favorable for Trump. Not permitted in a world where the federal government has largely been politically weaponized. You can't fight weaponizers! Stern notes Smith has the option of requesting a different judge, although "Trump would surely fight such a request, and it’s impossible to say where the 11th Circuit would come down."
It's not impossible to say where Mark Joseph Stern and his fellow media liberals would come down. And is there a Xanax bottle big enough to calm him down if Judge Cannon remains on the case?
Mark Finkelstein used a June 12 post to complain that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough questioned the odds that Cannon would end up with this case, but cheered that "both of Scarborough's expert guests—neither being in any way a Trump fan—shot down Joe's fevered fantasy."
Cassandra DeVries huffed the same day, with added Sonia Sotomayor whataboutism repeated for the MRCs defenses of Clarence Thomas:
During Monday’s CNN This Morning, host Erica Hill and senior legal analyst Elie Honig attempted to stigmatize and discredit Judge Aileen Cannon, who will preside over former President Trump’s indictment in the classified documents scandal. They doubted her ability to be impartial since Trump appointed her to the federal bench and discussed possible reasons for the Department of Justice to pressure her to recuse herself from the case.
[...]
While Honig concluded that there was not enough substance to recuse Cannon, Hill and Honig repeatedly highlighted her appointment by Trump, clerkship for a conservative judge, age, and previous rulings to undermine her credibility. They openly discussed reasons she might not be fit to preside and implied she should recuse herself because of her conservative ties. However, CNN did not have a problem with liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor refusing to recuse herself from a case directly involving the publisher of her book. Once again, CNN evaluated conservatives with hasher standards.
Peter Kotara spent a June 15 post whining that Scarborough criticized Cannon again:
Seething MSNBC host Joe Scarborough on Thursday’s Morning Joediscovered that there was in fact, no limit to the depths he would dig to smear Judge Aileen Cannon, who will be presiding over former President Trump’s criminal trial. Putting aside how Trump had appointed her to the bench, the gist of Scarborough’s criticism was that she was too young and too dumb, thus she couldn’t be trusted to oversee the trial.
Scarborough’s vendetta against Judge Cannon, one that was shared by the rest of the liberal media, stemmed from the fact that she made a prior ruling in the case that favored Trump, and was overturned by the Federal 11th Circuit Court. This case was the media’s chance to “get Trump” before the election, and they couldn’t stand the fact Trump didn’t get a hostile, left-leaning judge.
[...]
Their absurd argument was that because she hasn’t been a judge as long as some other judges have, she cannot run the trial. Scarborough even admitted that Judge Cannon being selected for the case was “assigned randomly,” which was standard procedure in the courts. Her being on the case was just a normal part of the way the judiciary system works, an impartial process, but it wasn’t enough.
Kotara concluded: "For someone who claimed to support the justice system in America and that Trump’s guilt was certain, Scarborough should stop crying that the dice didn’t roll his way and let the trial play out." We don't recall anyone from the MRC saying that about Bragg.
Christy returned to complain some more in a June 16 post:
MSNBC spent 93 percent of Tuesday discussing former President Trump’s arraignment on Tuesday and it appears some at the network think that number is too low. One of those voices belongs to contributor, professor, and former Solicitor General Neal Katyal, who joined Thursday’s edition of The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle to demand that Judge Aileen Cannon work with Chief Justice John Roberts to televise the trial.
His remarks also come as the network tries its hardest to discredit Cannonby doubting her ability to be impartial, so not only is MSNBC demanding the judge rule certain ways, but also that she consider their programming demands, “To me, the most important order, Steph, that she should be issuing is a request to the Chief Justice of the United States to get this televised.”
Christy then demanded that the media not turn a Trump trial into a circus, even though Trump is the one who would likely be responsible for doing that:
Katyal isn’t wrong to say this case will be “one of the most important” in the nation’s history, which is why it must be taken seriously and not turned into a sports-like spectacle with networks mashing together montages of the most “dramatic” moments to recap the proceedings for viewers that don’t watch cable news all day, every day and that are more geared towards attracting viewers than legal education.
A post by Christy later that day cheered a Republican congressman complaining that Cannon's status as a Trump-appointed judge was called out:
Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett (R) joined CNN Primetime host Kailtan Collins on Thursday for a discussion that included a tense back and forth about whether CNN is creating “doubt in the mind of the public” by attacking Judge Aileen Cannon in the case of former President Trump’s second indictment with an exasperated Burchett telling Collins “I mean, come on, you're CNN, we know that, it’s just the game we all play.”
While lamenting that networks like CNN are attempting to try the case on air, Burchett also condemned the network for having “already started attacking the judge.”
Elaborating, Burchett claimed, “you’ve already started attacking the judge prior to this… if she'd have been a Biden appointee, you'd have been okay with it. So, I mean, you obviously, throwing doubt into the whole judicial system anyway.”
Collins pushed back, “I didn't attack the judge.” Burchett challenged her by pointing to segments earlier in the show and accusing her of throwing “doubt upon her by saying she was a Trump appointee. Why would you say that unless you had doubt about her and you’re creating the doubt in the mind of the public.”
[...]
Despite Collins’s claims to the contrary, Burchett is correct. By attacking the judge by bringing up rulings they don’t like, who appointed her, and her age, they are setting her up as a potential target for condemnation should Trump not be convicted.
Neither Christy nor any other MRC writer admitted that the did the exact same thing he accused CNN of doing when attacking Bragg. Nevertheless, Christy invokved this in crying hypocrisy in a June 22 post:
On June 15, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) accused CNN’s Kailtan Collins of referring to Judge Aileen Cannon as “Trump-appointed” in order to instill doubt in the Trump documents case and questioned whether she would do the same if the judge was appointed by Barack Obama. Collins defended herself by saying “We talk about who judges were appointed by all the time.” Now, less than one week later we have proof from two separate Wednesday stories: one involving a Republican-appointee and one involving a Democratic appointee that shows that isn’t true.
Judge James Moody Jr. is an Obama appointee and he recently issued the radical ruling that Arkansas’s ban on transitioning minors violated the Constitution, but any reference to Obama or the Democratic Party was missing from any CNN report on the matter.
If the president who appointed a judge is irrelevant -- as the MRC is arguing when it comes to Cannon -- why make a big deal of who appointed the Arkansas judge?Christy offered no evidence why it was the Arkansas judge's ruling over turning the anti-transgender law was "radical" and not the actual law itself.
Newsmax Joins Right-Wing Transphobic Bandwagon To Attack Target Topic: Newsmax
Like others inthe ConWeb, Newsmax jumped on the transphobia bandwagon targeting Target for not hating LGBT people. It was in on the war early:
A May 11 article stating that "With Pride month right around the corner, Target is letting its rainbow flag fly with a new LGBTQ+ clothing line that includes breast binders and packing underwear," citing the virulently transphobic Matt Walsh.
A May 19 article by Wells repeated a right-wing Daily Mail report that "Target is offering a 'tuck-friendly" bathing suit in this year's LGBTQ Pride clothing collection, which is seemingly designed for children," again citing Walsh. In fact, the tuck-friendly swimsuits were never marketed for children.
A May 23 article by Eric Mack declared that "Target is partaking in campaigns to capitalize on LGBTQ messaging and merchandise and critics are lashing out on social media with calls for boycotts, leading to fears of a Bud Light-like public relations hit."
A May 24 article by Sandy Fitzgerald noted that Target was "removing some of its Pride Month collection items after this year's promotion led to threats to the safety of its workers."
A May 25 article by Theodore Bunker peddled a false attack that it had to eventually admit was false:
Conservative Political Action Coalition Chair Matt Schlapp on Thursday hit out at Target for partnering with artist Erik Carnell and accusing him of being a "satanist."
Schlapp, in an open letter to Target, claims that Carnell is "a self-declared 'satanist,'" who "openly flaunts his anti-Christian agenda posting that 'Satan respects pronouns,' selling items with phrases like, 'Trans Witches for Abortion,' and participating in a 'satanic flea market' in London called an 'anti-Christmas fayre.'"
Carnell, a British designer, created a collection for Target that included shirts, pins, and bags with pro-LGBTQ+ messages. Some contained references to Satan, such as a pin that reads, "Satan respects pronouns," which Carnell told the Daily Dot "I don't believe in Satan. I don't believe in the Bible … . It's a metaphor," he said.
While Bunker did admit that Carnell is not a Satanist, he failed to tell his readers that none of the merchandise created for Target carried any sort of "Satanic" theme.
Another article the same day, by Lee Barney, cheered that Target's market value dropped over the "backlash over its LGBTQ kids clothes," claiming that "the line included 'tuck friendly' swimsuits for transgender females to hide their private parts" while failing to tell the truth that those swimsuits were not marketed to children.
A May 26 article by the apparently unironically named Charlie McCarthy parroted another right-wing attack on Target: through an LGBT advocacy group:
Now, Target’s close ties with K-12 group GLSEN has come to light.
GLSEN is an organization that pressures school boards to allow children to secretly transition without their parents' consent and make sexually explicit books available in classrooms.
The group also instructs teachers about how they can alter classes to be "more inclusive of trans and non-binary identities," including the use of "they/them" pronouns, Fox News reported.
McCarthy offered no facts to back up his wildly biased, Fox News-approved description of GLSEN.
A paywalled May 26 article by Marisa Herman cheered that "Companies rolling out campaigns in support of June's Pride Awareness Month may take a more "nuanced" approach following consumer backlash to recent initiatives from Bud Light and Target, marketing and branding experts predict." An article by Charles Kim noted a bomb threat at a Target story. Another article by Michael Katz hyped that "A conservative investment fund reported it has sold its shares in Target and has slapped the retailer with a "refuse to buy" label over its Pride Month collection." (We thought right-wingers believed that investing shouldn't be based on ESG-style goals.) He repeated the false claim that "Target had transgender 'tuck-friendly' bathing suits seemingly designed for children."
Meanwhile, an article by Luca Cacciatore gave a platform to a right-wing senator to spew hate:
Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, criticized Target for its LGBTQ+ Pride Month collection on Friday, saying the company has "decided to wage war" on its loyal customers.
"Target could have decided to stay out of the culture wars, instead it decided to wage war on a large share of its customer base," Vance tweeted. "I no longer shop at Target, and it seems many families are doing the same."
The senator retweeted a post by journalist Benny Johnson stating, "Target stock has just COLLAPSED to its lowest trading value in a YEAR with no end in sight."
Newsmax did, however, publish a wire article noting that Carnell "has seen a surge in demand for his pins, prints, stickers and T-shirts after U.S. retailer Target Corp pulled his products amid a backlash by some customers to its Pride collection."
Newsmax then tried to pretend Target wasn't the victim of a hateful and partisan political campaign. A June 1 article by Barney claimed that Target's finances were hurt by "customers’ intense backlash against its Pride collection." In fact, it was only right-wing activists with media megaphones who disapproved, not "customers" as a whole.
WND Misleads About Yet Another COVID Vaccine Study Topic: WorldNetDaily
Bob Unruh found another COVID vaccine-related study to mislead about in a May 31 WorldNetDaily article:
A study done during the COVID pandemic, preliminary at the time, charged that people actually were more likely to get COVID if they'd had multiple vaccine doses.
But it was dissed widely by political leaders and health industry officials because it had not been peer-reviewed.
Now it has. And it is delivered the same stunning verdict: "The risk of COVID-19 … varied by the number of COVID-19 vaccine doses previously received. The higher the number of vaccines previously received, the higher the risk of contracting COVID-19."
It was Joe Biden, among others, who tried to shame and coerce Americans into taking the experimental shots.
It wasn't until the 10th paragraph of his article that Unruh got around to quoting from the actual study:
The results documented by Open Forum Infectious Diseases said, "The association of increased risk of COVID-19 with higher numbers of prior vaccine doses was unexpected."
It suggested a "simplistic" explanation is that those who got more doses were more likely to be at higher risk.
But, it said, "the majority of subjects in this study were generally young individuals and all were eligible to have received at least 3 doses of vaccine by the study start date, and which they had every opportunity to do. Therefore, those who received fewer than 3 doses (46% of individuals in the study) were not those ineligible to receive the vaccine, but those who chose not to follow the CDC's recommendations on remaining updated with COVID-19 vaccination."
It continued, "One could reasonably expect these individuals to have been more likely to have exhibited higher risk-taking behavior. Despite this, their risk of acquiring COVID-19 was lower than those who received a larger number of prior vaccine doses."
Much of the rest of Unruh's article quoted from an unhinged commentary at the right-wing PJ Media, which insisted on calling vaccine supporters "COVIDians," whined about the "sponsored-by-Pfizer media" and ranted that "The pharmaceutical companies’ ill-gotten blanket immunity from damages caused by their products needs to be retroactively revoked because they were granted on fraudulent premises." Unruh couldn't be bothered to talk to one of the actual researchers about the significance of that finding, like a fact-checker did:
Incorrect claims about the paper have been circulating since before it was peer-reviewed and published. Recently, a widely viewed social media post jumped to the conclusion that the study shows that “a higher number of COVID-19 vaccine doses received increases the risk of infection with COVID-19.” Another widely viewed post sharing the study results incorrectly concluded that the vaccines were a “failed experiment.”
The original COVID-19 vaccine series was initially very effective against infection and without question “saved a lot of lives,” co-author Dr. Nabin Shrestha, an infectious disease physician at the Cleveland Clinic, told us. Determining whether getting more doses of the COVID-19 vaccines can later cause greater susceptibility to infections “wasn’t the point of the study,” he said.
Shrestha said he did not know the explanation for the findings. The paper mentions immunological mechanisms that “have been suggested as possible mechanisms whereby prior vaccine may provide less protection than expected.” But Shrestha said that the result could also be from a confounding factor — some characteristic of people who got more vaccines that led them to have a higher number of positive tests.
[...]
Observational studies like the Cleveland Clinic one can turn up associations between things, but it can be difficult to assess what caused these patterns.
Shrestha said the finding in his study on prior doses and infection risk “should certainly give us some pause.” But he also said that “a study like this, one study, is not going to prove any cause-effect relationship.” The goal in presenting the findings, he said, was to prompt other researchers to also look at the relationship between past doses and infection risk.
In other words: The study didn't prove what Unruh claimed it did, nor was it designed to -- it was an observation that calls for additional research. Of course, misleading and fearmongering about COVID vaccines is what WND does.
The bad news continued to come for Elon Musk's Twitter:
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Once again Joe Biden failed miserably to support and advance the cause of women and income equality. Biden made quite the show of presenting a letter he received from a little girl who expressed grave concerns about income disparity per the gender wage gap.
The Media Research Center assumes that anyone who defends TikTok, as well as all of its millions of users, are stooges for "communist China" -- even though the MRC is acting like a stooge for Facebook, which 
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Bob Unruh found another COVID vaccine-related study to mislead about in a May 31 WorldNetDaily 
