MRC Tried To Baselessly Link White House Cocaine To Hunter Biden Topic: Media Research Center
It was a bit of a slow time for news around the Independence Day holiday, so when news of a small amount of cocaine being discovered in the White House was reported, the Media Research Center latched onto it like, well, an addict on a bender and -- as a manifestation of its HunterBidenDerangementSyndrome -- it rushed to blame Hunter for it despite having absolutely no evidence to support such a claim. Curtis Houck kicked off the madness in a July 5 post:
Believe it or not, but the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC each covered on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning the disturbing discovery of cocaine inside the West Wing of the White House with a news brief, partial segment, or full report. But despite the six minutes and 25 seconds of coverage and even a few jokes, there hasn’t been a mention of Hunter Biden.
CBS and NBC, however, have dutifully accepted the spin of the Biden regime put out in the press, which is the implication that the cocaine had to have been left by a tourist on a trip around the White House and not, say, the First Family, a staffer, or even — gasp — a journalist. If this happened under a Republican president, there’s no doubt this would be covered differently.
Later in the day, Ana Schau complained that CNN didn't treat the story with the gravity she insisted it deserved (and wouldn't rush to blame Hunter):
CNN News Central’s Wednesday morning coverage of the cocaine found at the White House over the weekend was short, but telling of their opinion of the matter. After anchor John Berman discussed selective aspects of the matter with White House correspondent Priscilla Alvarez, anchors Sara Sidner and Kate Bolduan joked about the matter and made light of it, saying that it’s not “too soon” for them to poke fun about it.
The segment began with Berman breaking the news of the lab confirmation that the white powdery substance discovered in the White House was, in fact, cocaine. He was quick to note, however, that President Biden was not present at the White House when it had been discovered, seeming to dismiss any relation between Biden and his family and the cocaine.
[...]
Considering that Hunter Biden, a known and self-acknowledged drug addict, had recently spent time at the White House before these drugs had been found, it seemed like it shouldn’t be too difficult to speculate where they may have come from. Something like this likely would have been their first guess if Donald Trump was still president.
Despite the fact that the White House is probably the most intensely video-surveilled building on the planet, an official with the investigation wants us to believe that the public shouldn't expect the discovery of the culprit who left cocaine there just this past weekend. At least that is what the utterly skepticism-free Politico reporter Daniel Lippman is relaying to his readers on Wednesday in "White House cocaine culprit unlikely to be found: Law enforcement official."
While Gladnick didn't actually reference Hunter by name, his post was illustrated with a photo of Hunter and received a "Hunter Biden" tag.
Kevin Tober served up his own demand for a rush to judgment on Hunter:
After predictably ignoring Hunter’s possible role in the appearance of a small bag of cocaine found inside the West Wing of the White House, the “big three” evening newscasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC kept up their silence on Hunter Biden. Failing to mention his name once during each of their reports Wednesday evening. This was despite the fact that the son of the President was a well-known user of cocaine and was reported to be at the White House approximately 48 hours prior to the discovery. Despite the refusal to broach the subject of Biden’s crackhead son, there was plenty of water carrying for the Biden regime’s various explanations and speculation about how cocaine was brought into the White House.
Despite a new update Thursday in the ongoing "cocainegate" scandal in which a small bag of cocaine was left inside with West Wing of the White House in a different location than was originally reported, ABC's World News Tonight and CBS Evening News both lost interest in the story, while NBC Nightly News only managed to dedicate 41 seconds during their evening newscast. The three networks often have a habit of moving on quickly from any scandals involving Democrats. You can be certain if Donald Trump Jr. was a well-known crackhead and a bag of cocaine was found in the Trump White House, this story would still be leading the three evening newscasts.
Nicholas Fondacaro somehow managed to avoid referencing Hunter in a July 7 post:
The White House is one of the most secure and surveilled facilities in America but apparently, the Secret Service may be unable to determine who left a baggie of cocaine in the West Wing. Being unable to determine who was responsible was an insane proposition that left CNN This Morning unfazed Friday as co-anchor Poppy Harlow and White House correspondent Priscilla Alvarez primed their viewers to not expect someone to be held accountable.
Needless to say, none of these writers provided a scintilla of evidence linking Hunter to the cocaine. That's irresponsible partisan activism, not "media research."
After Alleged Pay-For-Play Exposed, Newsmax Attacks Ramaswamy Topic: Newsmax
Over the weekend, Semafor reported that Newsmax told the campaign of Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy that if it wanted better coverage of the canddiate, it should buy more ads on the channel. (Newsmax has denied this.) Semafor, and later Media Matters, cited the case of Perry Johnson, who is running well behind Ramaswamy in polls (he didn't even qualify for the first Republican debate) yet gets loads of favorable coverage on Newsmax. It presumably helps that Johnson pays Newsmax to run a reality-style show about his campaign.
While Newsmax has not addressed the Ramaswamy allegations on its website, it has ramped up its negative coverage of him. Around the time Semafor's story was posted, Newsmax posted a column by Dick Morris attacking Ramaswamy over his stance of cutting U.S. aid to Israel:
Whenever an inexperienced neophyte runs for president and ventures into foreign policy, he almost always puts his foot in his mouth due to ignorance and lack of preparation.
Now Vivek Ramaswamy, an interesting candidate, has made a big blunder by calling for a cut in U.S. aid to Israel.
He even wants its hostile Arab neighbors to get U.S. aid equal to what Israel gets.
[...]
He dangerously argues that Israel should not get any more U.S. aid than neighboring Muslim countries.
On what basis is that fair? Israel's aid package should be determined by what we give terrorist state Syria?
This being Morris, he then turned his attack into yet another endorsement of Donald Trump: "there is no reason to bet on an amateur when we have a seasoned 'pro' like Donald Trump."
That was followed by an Aug. 21 article by the apparently unironically named Charlie McCarthy claiming that Ramaswamy "is doubling down on his criticism of U.S. aid to Israel, now arguing that all military support should be cut off by 2028," adding tha t"Ramaswamy’s stance regarding Israel has drawn criticism" and citing Morris' column. That was followed by more attacks over his israel stance:
An Aug. 22 article credited only to "Newsmax Wires" launched a different attack on Ramaswamy:
Vivek Ramaswamy didn't tell the truth about the real reason he took money from the family of George Soros.
After criticism for receiving a $90,000 grant from the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship to attend Yale Law School, Ramaswamy claimed that he did so only because he "didn't have the money" pay for it.
But in 2011, the same year he started Yale, Ramaswamy reported he made $2.2 million in income, according to his tax returns reviewed by Fox News.
His returns also show for the the three years before 2011 he made over $1.1 million income working as a hedge fund analyst.
Ramaswamy's connection with Paul Soros, the brother of the controversial George Soros, has raised eyebrows in Republican circles.
An Aug. 23 article by Charles Kim noted that Ramaswamy "called CNN host Kaitlan Collins a 'petulant teenager' in a social media post Tuesday following a contentious interview on the network" over his apparent conspiracy theories about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but pointed out that "Collins, however, kept her question narrow to the point that he said federal agents were on the planes on 9/11."
Following the Aug. 23 Republican presidential debate, Newsmax published an article on an exchange between Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis, followed by two articles featuring attacks on Ramaswamy by other candidates:
At The MRC, The Bashing Of Anita Hill Never Ends Topic: Media Research Center
It's been more than 30 years since she made claims of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas, but the Media Research Center justcan'tstopobsessing over Anita Hill. Clay Waters served up yet another complaint that she exists in a June 23 post:
On Monday’s edition of the tax-supported Amanpour & Co., airing on PBS and CNN International, host Christiane Amanpour interviewed Anita Hill, a professor and of course the woman who accused now-Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.
Hill has been hailed in the liberal media since her nationally televised 1991 confrontation with the U.S Senate and Thomas, and Amanpour shoehorned her into her show, ostensibly to talk about the African-American emancipation holiday Juneteenth, but really to bash the Supreme Court and claim affirmative action was a civil right.
First, Amanpour furthered the lie that black history wasn’t being taught in some schools because of conservative backlash to Critical Race Theory.
Actually, in the quote Waters provides to back this up, Amanpour said only that "an honest appraisal of black history is impossible in many school districts in the country today" and did not mention critical race theory. But back to complaining about Hill:
After Hill said she had tried to put herself in her enslaved ancestor’s mindset, thinking about voting rights and education and sexual harassment, a list of issues that gave Amanpour a convenient lead-in to bring up the alleged “assault on voting rights, the reversal of women’s rights” happening today as if there was any comparison to the slavery era and 2023.
Waters sneered that "Hill conflated preferential racial treatment under affirmative action to a 'protected right,'" then complained that "Amanpour asked Hill about Justice Clarence Thomas’s current “ethics questions,” as if Hill could possibly provide an objective viewpoint on Thomas." Yet Waters seems to want us to believe that he's offering an objective viewpoint on Hill despite his employment with a right-wing activist organization.
A July 1 "flashback" post by Geoffrey Dickens rehashed right-wing grievances about Hill:
Conservatives certainly remember the awful treatment Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas faced at his 1991 confirmation hearings, including the endless media coverage granted to utterly unproved charges of sexual harassment by a former employee, Anita Hill. At the time, Thomas referred to the televised hearings as a “ high tech lynching” perpetrated by those who would torpedo the conservative jurist’s nomination.
[...]
Given the media mindset of the moment, it was no surprise news organizations leaped to elevate Anita Hill’s harassment allegations, which appeared only after the confirmation hearings had officially ended and Thomas’s nomination had been sent to the Senate floor for what seemed like certain approval. Joe Biden’s Judiciary Committee quickly scheduled new hearings — a last gasp for liberals to try and torpedo the nomination.
And so it goes. The MRC needs to hate Hill in order because right-wingers must have enemies -- and because she criticized an ideologue it loves, Hill is a designated enemy.
WND Continued To Fret Over Tucker Carlson's Firing Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily continued tohave a sad over Fox News' firing of Tucker Carlson well into June. Regular Tucker-fluffer Ilana Mercer kept it up in a June 1 column:
Your columnist's April 25, live, "HARD TRUTH" podcast, recorded a day after Tucker Carlson's dismissal, got it right. Tucker, like Trump, we contended, is transformational. Fox was finished (we chuckled). This forecast was echoed in a column whose lead said it all, "Fix News is finished, having just fired their only attraction, Tucker Carlson!" Clearly, if not "finished," Fox News is sorely diminished. Joy!
I mean, who, pray tell, wants to watch Bret Baier's "Common Ground" sanctimony – where the neoconservative anchor gloms Democrats and Republicans together? What treacle! MAGA men and women – we're a "minority," said Asa (Who?) Hutchinson to CNN's Erin Burnett, on May 30 – will only ever reach across the aisle if it is to grab a member of the Treason Class by the scruff.
"Sacking Tucker Carlson has put a dent in Fox News's ratings," The Economist finally admitted, on May 16, when the truth could no longer be withheld. The consensus is that, "Fox News is currently down by more than a million viewers per show per night."
King Tuck clearly carried the network and its nits.
[...]
Tucker Carlson is planning to launch a new show on Twitter in the service of unfettered speech and a search for truth. That announcement on Twitter has been viewed 133.1 million times to date.
Rupert Murdoch will be remembered as the Money Man who fired Tucker Carlson and, by so doing, sank his network.
Actually, that viewing metric is all but meaningless as an accurate way to know who actually viewed the announcement.
In addition to linking to pretty much every new video Carlson posted on Twitter, more "news" articles followed throughout the month, by both WND writers and those republished from other sources like the right-wing Western Journal:
Editor Joseph Farah -- who urged Carlson to move to the fringe-right channel Real America's Voice in the immediate wake of his firing -- touted the channel again in his June 23 column as a stopgap fix for those missing Tucker:
I love Tucker Carlson so much I am going batty without him. When is he going to have a real nightly show again?
In the meantime, I have a sterling recommendation for you. Are you ready?
Grant Stinchfield at 7 p.m. Eastern on Real America's Voice, if you're lucky enough to get it or have Dish Network, on Channel 219. The network's content also streams live on its website. Real America's Voice also carries Steve Bannon and lots of other programs, including Gina Loudon, John Solomon and Bill Henry.
You might remember Loudon as the former WND columnist to tried to capitalize on her teenage daughter dating a 57-year-old man. WND helpfully deleted that column a few years later, presumably at her request as she sought credibility in Trumpworld.
Farah went on to insist that the folks at Real America's Voice are "real journalists" -- never mind the fact that actual media monitors find it wildly biased and barely credible. Farah's dubious judgment here should make people wonder how he runs WND.
How Is The MRC Hating Transgender People (And Those Who Won't Hate Them) These Days? Topic: Media Research Center
It's not enough for the Media Research Center to hate transgender people -- it must also hate anyone who doesn't hate them as much as it does. Thus, we have a May 4 post by Curtis Houck raging at the Kansas City Star newspaper -- which he laughably and hypocritically called "hate-filled" in his headline -- for correctly identifying a right-wing group as "anti-trans":
On Tuesday, the far-left Kansas City Star uncorked a 1,800-word-plus tome of punditry masquerading as a news story melting down over the Kansas legislature’s passage of a bill that seemed unnecessary five or ten years ago in ensuring everyone’s clear on what is a man and a woman.
Worse yet, they oversimplified the mission of the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) (a member of the MRC’s Free Speech Alliance) and smeared them as simply an “anti-trans” organization, never quoted them, and, as NewsBusters can report, spiked a column in support of the bill.
In “Kansas will legally define gender as sex at birth. What that means for transgender rights,” activist reporters Kynala Phillips and Katie Bernard touted six opponents of basic biology over ten quotes (and 11 indirect quotes) but none in support of the measure except that label of IWF.
It came in paragraph three: “The national anti-trans group Independent Women’s Forum has been pushing for this law and similar variations across the country. They say the law is meant to prevent judges from interfering with existing single-sex public spaces.”
Houck failed to explain why the Star must be labeled "far-left" simply by not viciously hating transgender people the way he does. And for all his complaining that the paper "oversimplified the mission" of the IWF, he didn't dispute that it is, in fact, "anti-trans."
Houck went on to huff that a Star article on the bill was "teeming with disdain" -- then displayed his own disdain by sneering that an article from a transgender college student was written by "a woman pretending to be man."
A May 5 post by chief transphobe Tierin-Rose Mandelburg complained about criticism of a anti-transgender bill in Florida, so she stuck to approved right-wing talking points and narratives in describing it:
Since the left is only going to present its side of what the bill does, here are the actual details.
Broadly, the bill prohibits minors from receiving “gender-affirming care.” That’s in quotes because when a child is chemically or surgically castrated, their body endures unnecessary and sometimes permanent damages, and that isn’t and shouldn’t ever be referred to as care. Now, the so-called “kidnapping” aspect comes in as the bill would allow a court to temporarily remove a child from his or her home if it's found that they've been provided with these damaging procedures.
[...]
The bill also affirmed that a child's biological sex on his or her birth certificate cannot be modified to affirm a “perception” that a child’s gender is inconsistent with their actual, biological sex.
The bill was set to keep kids safe from parents who allow their children to live a dangerous delusion. But, as mentioned, the left has touted it as the “kidnapping bill.”
The next day, Clay Waters whined that NPR did a story on states passing biologial definition laws that didn't buy into anti-transgender narratives:
Wednesday’s edition of All Things Considered on National Public Radio showcased the latest in a long line of stories from tax-funded NPR trying hard to blur obvious biological lines, to further the cause of transgender activism.
The online version of the report -- under the odd headline “These states are narrowly defining who is 'female' and 'male' in law” -- began with a laughable sentence, especially given NPR’s self-image as educated science believers, that implied common biological terms were some kind of bizarre, made-up jargon:
Lawmakers in Montana, Tennessee and Kansas have voted in the past few weeks to narrowly define who is "female" and who is "male" in state law using such terms as "gametes," "ova," "sex chromosomes,"
Ah yes, those obscure terms that define the actual building blocks of life!
Waters returned for a May 13 post effectively complaining that PBS won't hate transgender people enough:
Tax-supported PBS has attracted heat of late for indoctrinating children on “queer,” transgender, and related issues, including through its PBS LearningMedia brand used in schools, under the rubric “Understanding LGBTQ+ Identity: A Toolkit for Educators.”
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt vetoed funding for the state’s PBS station for “indoctrination and over-sexualization” of children. Citizens Defending Freedom also called on PBS to be defunded for promoting an LGBT ‘toolkit’ for schools, and cited videos included in the package, including “All Oppression is Connected,” one of many examples of left-wing “intersectionality” propaganda in the education toolkit, which was initially created by the NYC Department of Education.
[...]
Such radical tax-funded PBS content supports the argument that public broadcasting is pushing gender agendas onto children.
Waters didn't explain why it's "indoctrination" and an "agenda" to not hate transgender people.
A May 16 post by Waters mocked NPR for pointing out how Florida is creating a hostile atmosphere for transgender people:
More taxpayer-supported “gender-affirming” propaganda, full of cringy sentimentality, came courtesy of National Public Radio’s misnamed All Things Considered news program Thursday: “As conservative states target trans rights, a Florida teen flees for a better life” The hagiographic tale under the guise of news was told by Stephanie Colombini, a health reporter for Tampa Bay’s NPR-member station WUSF.
(Colombini, naturally, has pronouns in her Twitter bio. She took the photo that accompanies the story.)
The rearranged print edition of the radio story captured the melodramatic tale of Josie, a teenager forced to “flee” the burgeoning authoritarian regime of….Florida, to start a new life in the free state of Rhode Island.
[...]
NPR even provided two trans-related phone numbers “for support.” Now close your eyes and imagine an alternate universe where NPR provides phone numbers for a pro-life rescue ministry, and realize how far-out the publicly funded radio network has gone out on the limb of "gender affirmation."
Waters didn't explain why it's "propaganda?" to not hate trangender people, while his clear and vicioius hatred apparently is not.
Alex Christy used a May 18 post to attack a parent for understanding her child's transgender identity:
As Texas moves to ban “gender-affirming care” for minors, MSNBC’s Jose Diaz-Balart asked a parent, simply known as Rachel, on Thursday if Republicans were being hypocrites. Naturally, Rachel agreed and claimed that they were and that her daughter (son) knew she (he) was a girl before reaching the age of five.
With some bad moral relativism, Diaz-Balart wondered, “So what parental rights do you think -- are there any limits to parental rights and I'm just wondering because you do -- there are inconsistencies, right in what people define as parental rights.”
[...]
While Rachel did not intend to argue for medical treatment for 5-year olds, she did advocate for “social transition,” claiming “So, the vast majority of transition is social. It is allowing children to be able to show the rest of the world who they are on the inside, and for my daughter, that meant growing her hair out, wearing dresses, and changing her name. So, it’s—there’s really not any kind of medical intervention until puberty and, you know, puberty blockers are totally reversible.”
That assertion is contentious, at best, but parental rights wasn’t the only issue Rachel alleged Republicans were being hypocrites on, “These are used for a variety of different healthcare reasons, not just for transgender youth and that's how we know this is a deeply discriminatory bill, because it is only banning the same healthcare that is accessible to non-transgender children and only, only targets trans kids.”
Yeah, because Johnny thinking he’s Susie is not the same thing as treating someone for precocious puberty or idiopathic short stature.
Christy didn't explain how he -- who, as far as we know, is neither a medical expert nor a parent -- could possibly know better than this mother about her child, or why that attitude doesn't conflict with the usual right-wing posturing that parents always know best when it comes to their children.
Waters spent a May 19 post complaining that the New York Times pointed out how right-wing activists are exploiting a handful of people who detransitioned from being transgender as a tool for anti-transgender activism:
A front-page story in Wednesday’s New York Times fiercely defended trans rights, reducing concerns that activists are leading children to make irrevocable surgical decisions, because they were “born in the wrong body,” to political cynicism: “G.O.P. Focuses On Testimonies Of Trans Regret.” (An earlier version really pressed the editorial thumb to the scale: “G.O.P. Focuses On Rare Stories Of Trans Regret.”)
This “news” attack on those who choose to detransition -- to stop identifying or to stop taking actions towards being transgender -- was reported by Maggie Astor, who stands out even among the paper’s woke staff for her devotion to the transgender cause. Previously she blamed Donald Trump for violence against transgenders, a story which opened with almost a parody of wokeness that had to be corrected later: “Transgender women of color led the uprising at the Stonewall Inn…”
[...]
Astor criticized Chloe Cole, a girl who lived as a transgender male and tragically got a double mastectomy at the age of 15, before detransitioning. Astor defined Cole’s detransition as “returning to her female identity,” not as returning to “biological reality.”
Waters also huffed that "Astor heaped skepticism on the detransitioner 'minority,' something she doesn’t do for people who are convinced they were born in the wrong body."
Newsmax Again Invokes Trump For Dishonest Promotion Of Newsmax-Published Book Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax is not shy about merging a little self-promotion into its Trump-fluffing. During Donald Trump's first indictment, it hyped Trump referencing a "final battle" and turned it into a promotion for a book by that same title by David Horowitz -- though it didn't disclose that Horowitz's book was published by Newsmax's book division, Humanix. Eric Mack performed that synergystic promotion again in a July 3 article:
A new campaign ad for former President Donald Trump warns of the 2024 presidential election as the "Final Battle" and vows to "liberate America" from "villains" in the country.
"This is the final battle," the ad begins with Trump's lines from a past campaign rally, referencing the David Horowitz book "Final Battle: The Next Election Could Be the Last."
"With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state," Trump's voice-over continues with the stern-faced former president walking down the hall toward the camera. "We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists, and fascists.
"We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.
"We will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all."
[...]
Horowitz's "Final Battle" has been frequently mentioned by Trump in campaign rallies, including in a campaign statement on his flight to New York before he was arrested by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg this spring.
As before, Mack failed to disclose the conflict of interest of Horowitz's book being published by Newsmax.
WND's Norris Peddles False And Dubious Claims As Declaration 'Facts' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Chuck Norris' July 3 WorldNetDaily column claimed to offer "7 little-known facts about the Declaration of Independence," but some of them weren't, um, factual. LIke this:
7. All 56 signers of the Declaration paid a price for their rebellion and our freedom.
For a number of years, an email widely circulated with some history, some legend and some falsehoods about what happened to the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. But here's the real scoop, as I detailed in my Official Chuck Norris Fact Book, where I also cite the sources.
At least 12 signers had their homes and property taken, ransacked, occupied, or burned. Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of William Ellery, George Clymer, Lyman Hall, George Walton, Button Gwinnett, Thomas Heyward Jr., Edward Rutledge and Arthur Middleton.
Robert Morris' home was overtaken as well, and Philip Livingston lost several properties to the enemy. John Hart's farm was looted, and he had to flee into hiding.
Francis Lewis had his home and property destroyed. The enemy then jailed his wife, and she was held for months before being exchanged for wives of British soldiers.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, lost his ships and cargo to the British navy.
Thomas McKean wrote to John Adams in 1777 that he was "hunted like a fox by the enemy, compelled to [move] my family five times in three months."
Five signers were captured by the British as prisoners of war and had to endure deplorable conditions as such. One signer lost his son in the Revolutionary Army, and another had two sons captured.
On Nov. 30, 1776, one signer, Richard Stockton, a lawyer from Princeton and longtime friend of George Washington, was captured in the middle of the night by loyalists and jailed by the British. Stockton endured weeks and months of brutal treatment and starvation. When he was finally released, his health would never be the same. He is actually the only signer to recant his endorsement of the Declaration, followed by him swearing his allegiance to King George III.
In fact, as fact-checks have found, these claims come from an email that has been circulating for years and his been largely debunked:
There is no evidence that the five signers were treated any worse than any other prisoner of war.
Carter Braxton's ships were captured by the British because ships were key military targets, not because he signed the Declaration.
Thomas McKean had not yet signed the Declaration at the time he claimed he was being hunted by the British.
While Francis Lewis did have "his home and property destroyed," there's no evidence it was done specifically because he signed the Declaration.
There's little evidence that those 12 signers who "had their homes and property taken, ransacked, occupied, or burned" were victims of retaliation, given that the homes of much more prominent signers in areas occupied by the British were not looted or vandalized.
Looks like Norris needs to issue a revised edition of his "Official Chuck Norris Fact Book."
But Norris wasn't done. His July 10 column served up "5 more little-known facts about the Declaration of Independence," in which he cited "historian David Barton" to claim that the American Revolution was about "trust in God and commitment to the American cause" and not taxes. You might recall that Barton saw his book about Thomas Jefferson withdrawn from the market because of factual inaccuracies (only to be republished, largely uncorrected, by WND). So if Barton is being cited, it's unlikely that facts are involved.
NEW ARTICLE: The Clarence (And Ginni) Thomas Defense Center Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center works hard to protect the right-wing Supreme Court justice and his activist wife -- even when their actions raise clear ethical questions. Read more >>
The MRC's Stelter Derangement Syndrome Continues Topic: Media Research Center
Brian Stelter left CNN months ago, but the Media Research Center continues to suffer from the same level of Stelter Derangement Syndrome it had when he was still in CNN's employ, lashing out at him any time he pops up in the media. Curtis Houck, though, was surprisingly non-hostile to Stelter in a Feb. 24 post after he did a podcast with right-wing media critic Steve Krakauer:
Former CNN’s Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter made a rare return to a microphone Friday as he interviewed Megyn Kelly Show executive producer and Fourth Watch Podcast host Steve Krakauer about his new book, Uncovered: How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People. In just under an hour, the pair had a engaging and fascinating discussion about the media, CNN, Fox News, January 6, and his post-CNN life.
But for readers here, the newsiest topic came when Krakauer cited the New York Post reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop as an answer to this question from Stelter: “What are the ones that stand out most to you? What — what — what did me and my colleagues at CNN screw up the most, in your view?”
Krakauer first explained the reasoning, starting with the revelations from the Twitter Files that showed “a real suppression of that story, not just by tech platforms in conversation with — with government entities like intel agencies, like the FBI, but also from media organizations.”
[...]
To his credit, Stelter made his case at the end for the necessity of journalists to do more of “show[ing] that we’ve walked all the way around the block before we’ve started to write about the block and, you know, that’s my way of saying let’s be fair to everybody...because if you’re only writing about the story from the back yard, then you’re missing a big part of the story.”
Tim Graham referenced Krakauer's interview with Stelter during his March 24 podcast in which he interviewed Krakauer:
Krakauer kicked off his book tour by bringing Brian Stelter to interview him on his own podcast. Typically, Stelter said to Krakauer that the press wasn't the problem with democracy, it was the "press bashers." But he told Krakauer he liked how he was a "constructive" media critic, where apparently most of us are "destructive" media critics. Destructive to democracy? Or just destructive to the reputations or brands of CNN, or PBS, or The New York Times?
Graham and threst of the MRC repeatedly lashed out at Stelter anytime he was critical of Fox News; was Graham afraid Stelter was destructive to Fox News' brand?
Graham served another attack on Stelter in an April 18 post:
Michael Luciano at Mediaite promoted Brian Stelter's interview with Dan Abrams on NewsNation Tuesday evening. Stelter claimed he didn't know why he was fired (well, when other red-hot Trump haters stayed).
[...]
Abrams wondered: “Do you think you represented the kind of opinion – particularly from the left – that Chris Licht wanted to distance himself from? Because I think that's why he ended up letting you go."
“Well, I’m just gonna let you say it then,” he replied. “I think we were doing fantastic journalism at CNN for the nine years that I was there. And I also think Fox News really enjoyed making me a target and using horrible names about me and all that sort of stuff that happens in the cable news wars.”
He told Abrams: "I appreciate that shows like yours rise above that. But Fox, they often take the low road. They enjoyed making into a target and I think they enjoyed seeing me leave CNN."
It's a little funny for Stelter to talk about "taking the low road" when he's most infamous for bringing on a guy claiming Trump would kill more people that Stalin, Hitler, and Mao combined. That's a little lower than Greg Gutfeld mocking Stelter about his weight.
Graham seems to think fat jokes about Stelter are justified solely because he once brought on a guest who criticized Fox News. (There's Graham protecting Fox News' brand again!) He didn't explain how he justified this, though.
Kevin Tober spent a May 9 post complaining that Stelter criticized the MRC-beloved Tucker Carlson after his firing from Fox as well as Elon Musk's management of Twitter:
Shortly after former Fox News host Tucker Carlson announced on Twitter that he would be bringing his popular show to the social media platform, Tom Costello while guest hosting NBC News NOW’s Hallie Jackson NOW, brought on ousted former CNN host and media janitor Brian Stelter to assist in smearing Carlson, Twitter, and CEO Elon Musk.
“Twitter was already under fire for misinformation, disinformation, all-out lies, anti-semitism, racism before Elon Musk took over and now it’s gotten kind of crazy, right? Seemingly unmoored, if you will,” Costello sneered to Stelter.
“Will anybody be able to police what Carlson says? Or is this the point? It's just a free-for-all?” Costello asked.
Stelter, of course, agreed claiming “It is a free-for-all” because “it’s what Elon Musk wants to provide.” He then proclaimed that “This move by Tucker may cement the idea of Twitter as a right-wing website, and we see some users trying to go off to other sites instead.”
[...]
It’s fitting that NBC would drag Stelter back onto television to throw barbs at Carlson. When Stelter still had his Sunday morning media analysis program on CNN, Carlson was always a frequent target of Stelter. And of course, Carlson found him amusing and frequently mocked him.
Despite alluding to insults, Tober failed to dispute anything Stelter said.
Following the firing of CNN Chris Licht -- who had fired Stelter from the channel -- Stelter made a TV appearance to talk about it, which drew the ire of Alex Christy in a June 7 post:
Former CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter journeyed over to CNBC’s The Exchange on Wednesday to react to Chris Licht stepping down as CEO of CNN and to claim that he and others opposed to Licht’s vision were simply “advocating for the truth.” Meanwhile, in other humorous developments, CNBC.com media reporter Alex Sherman condemned Licht for killing off CNN’s “north star”: CNN+.
[...]
One of those who was not onboard with that vision was Stelter, which is why he was sacked by Licht and was now appearing on CNBC. He explained that “A lot of us when we were at CNN in the Trump years felt we were advocating for the truth, advocating for reality. Others felt that was left-leaning.
Others felt that way because it was and Stelter was one of the biggest voices for that activist approach. Unwittingly confirming his critics correct, Stelter argued that it is almost impossible for CNN to follow a “just the facts” sort of journalism, "I think it is right to have this desire to have a much more calm, less controversial political environment that CNN can then cover, but we don't live in that world. In fact, if anything it’s only going to get more chaotic with Donald Trump as the leading contender for the GOP nomination."
Stelter followed up by claiming that CNN cannot be “all things to all people” because that means “you’re not anything to anybody and that’s the CNN challenge, it always has been, for 40 years, to just try to be the plain vanilla news, well, in an environment where people don't just want plain, vanilla news.”
While it was nice of Stelter to admit that when forced to choose between its hysterically anti-Trump audience and “vanilla news,” CNN chose the former, Sherman would later bring in some comedy.
He argued that “there needs to be more of a vision than just ‘you got to take down the breaking news, we got to turn down the knob here.’”
Of course, as we noted in documenting the MRC's disappointment that Licht lost his job, the MRC would never demand that Fox News abandon its "activist approach" and become "vanilla news."
WND Can't Take A Joke From Biden Topic: WorldNetDaily
Bob Unruh chose to exploit a joke told by President Biden as an excuse for a partisan attack on him in a June 27 article:
Joe Biden's perspective of America's national security took on a whole new dimension this week when he said, "I sold a lot of state secrets and a lot of very important things…"
He then paused, and added, "All kidding aside … look," suggesting that he considers America's national security a joke.
[...]
A report at the Gateway Pundit explained the comment from Biden came during a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google chief Sundar Pichai.
It described Biden as "very confused" when he said, "I was just thanking the … anyway … I started off without you … and I sold a lot of state secrets and a lot of very important things we shared."
Online commenters suggested the comment actually revealed a very bad scenario.
"Freudian slip or he just doesn't really cares (sic) to deny it anymore?" said one, with another adding, "That was not a Freudian Slip! That was his conscious talking! He knows it and cannot his (sic) it any longer."
And another, "So THAT's what Hunter was collecting bags of cash for."
Another, on the topic of whether Biden was joking, said, "Hard to tell."
"Is this for real? If he did what he says he did, then isn't this treason?" added another. And, "Dementia patients often reveal secrets they've kept deep in their closets for years. Ask any competent nursing home CNA/LPN."
Unruh didn't explain why he thinks anonymous "online commenters" have anything meaningful to contribute to a news story. Then again, he is a highly biased "reporter," and he's being paid to make Biden look bad whether it's warranted or not, which means he's getting paid to follow the right-wing crowd and refuse to find any humor in Biden's obvious joke.
Newsma's Reagan Rants About Many Things Topic: Newsmax
In recent months, we'vedocumented some of the wacky and extreme things Newsmax columnist Michael Reagan has ranted about (with help from co-writer Michael Shannon). But he has ranted about many other things as well:
In his April 8 column, he raged against ranked-choice voting, calling it "Rigged Choice Voting" because it allegedly increases the chance that Democrats might win.
On April 18, Reagan cheered that the president of West Texas A&M University canceled a drag show on campus, proclaiming that he "is not intimidated by the 'Rainbow Reich.'"
Reagan used his May 19 column to whine that special counsel John Duruam "didn’t produce one indictment or criminal referral" though he purportedly documented things that "far exceeds the criminality of the Watergate Scandal of the 1970s," allegedly showing that "The Deep State was essentially attempting a slow-motion coup of an elected president." He went on to huff that "this DOJ is simply the armed wing of the Democratic Party" and that "The entire Department of Justice is an arm of the left and it exists to serve only the left."
In his May 30 column, Reagan blamed Democrats and "pressitutes" for drama over the federal debt ceiling and possible government shutdowns, asserting that "Stopping the growth of out-of-control spending is the issue now," adding, "Insist on cuts that are quantifiable and enforceable. Anything less is a defeat."
Reagan's July 11 column ranted about people toying with the idea of finding ways to block the sun's rays to reduce global warming: "Fresh off killing and injuring thousands with a "safe and effective" vaccine, our science overlords now want to take on the weather."
Reagan also likes to spread dubious medical advice; he has done so over COVIDvaccines. He spent his Feb. 10 column raging against the idea of using the diabetes drug metformin to treat childhood obesity, attacking allegedly money-grubbing pharmaceutical firms (even though metformin is a generic drug) and the very idea that obesity could be considered a disease:
Obesity isn’t a disease and children don’t catch it like they do a sore throat.
Obesity begins with poor lifestyle choices, either on the part of the parents or the child.
Eliminating sugary drinks, fast food and candy can do the work of drugs and at much lower cost.
Other examples include: parents exercising with their children. Taking walks, playing basketball, pickleball or even catch can introduce the child to a healthier lifestyle.
Better advice than taking drugs would be for the parents and child to attend the calorie equivalent of AA. That is, assuming one exists.
[...]
Of course, changing a child’s eating habits and lifestyle is a group project with parents and the child participating.
So Big Pharma can just butt out. Please.
Reagan's column was topped with an editor's note stating that "The following article has been authored by non-clinicians."
WND Continues To Gush Over RFK Jr.'s Presidential Campaign Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily is an enthusiastic promoter of Robert Kennedy Jr.'s presidential bid -- as a spoiler for President Biden, not because it actually wants him to won, and it's continuing to do so. In his June 22 podcast, Jack Cashill cheered that Kennedy is a "a bit of a conspiracy theorist" and argued that his conspiracy theory that the CIA was involved in the assassination of his father was "a more credible argument." Cashill also declared that "I admire his stand on -- his really upfront attack on Anthony Fauci and the whole medical-industrial complex," but he needed to change his views on climate change to mesh with that conspiratorial narrative.
Wayne Allyn Root spent his June 23 column fawning yet again over Donald Trump and insisting that his odds of winning the presidency in 2024 would increase if he teamed up with Kennedy:
RFK Jr. just announced he's running for president a few weeks ago. There's a total blackout and blacklist of RFK in the mainstream media. His interviews are banned on YouTube. The DNC has announced there will be no Democratic presidential debates – denying RFK any platform to reach the voters. Yet RFK Jr is tied for No. 1 most popular politician in America? How can this be?
The answer is, as James Carville would say: "It's the COVID-19 vaccine, stupid."
RFK Jr. knows what I have known for two and a half years, and he boldly says out loud what I have said on my national radio and TV shows for two and a half years: The COVID-19 vaccine is the biggest failure, disaster and cover-up in the history of health care. It never worked. It is dangerous and deadly. It is a killing machine. Except it's a "silent killer" – because the mainstream media refuse to report about COVID-19 vaccine deaths and injuries. The COVID-19 vaccine deaths are covered up by the media as tightly as Hunter Biden's laptop.
And the one and only candidate for president talking about this deadly health care disaster and fraud is RFK Jr.
[...]
Trump's only weakness is the COVID-19 vaccine.
And I have the strategy to turn his weakest link into a huge win. Trump doesn't need to change his views 180 degrees.
Trump simply needs to pledge (as soon as he's back in the White House) to name a special counsel to lead a massive investigation of the COVID-19 vaccine controversy; Dr. Anthony Fauci's role; the false claims about the effectiveness of the vaccine; the dangerous side effects that were never disclosed; the trial results that were covered up; the deaths and injuries that were covered up; the role of Big Pharma and government agencies in misleading the American people and in paying off the mainstream media; the demonization of effective drugs ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine; and the silencing, banning and censorship by social media of any dissent about the COVID-19 vaccine.
All of this needs to be investigated and if proven true, prosecuted – so this can never happen again.
And I happen to know of the perfect attorney who can lead this investigation. To make sure this is carried out honestly; and not whitewashed; and Big Pharma can't bribe their way out of it; and it's seen as bipartisan ...
Trump needs to pledge he will appoint RFK Jr. as special counsel to lead this massive corruption investigation.
The beauty of my strategy is that Trump doesn't need to change his opinion of the COVID-19 vaccine. He only has to acknowledge the controversy, commit to investigate and let the chips fall where they may.
This investigation will be about truth and facts. Either the vaccine killed and injured millions around the world, or it didn't. Either politicians, government bureaucrats, medical experts and the media were bribed to cover up the deaths and injuries, or not. Either Fauci is an evil criminal and fraud who misled Trump and the American people, or not. Let's find out, once and for all.
But there's only one way to ensure this massive investigation is carried out honestly and without being whitewashed ...
Pledge to put RFK Jr. in charge.
This is a simple strategy for Trump to turn his biggest weakness – the COVID-19 vaccine – into a huge win-win.
Pledge this special counsel investigation; pledge to put RFK Jr. in charge; show that you're open to seeing what really happened; and Trump wins back the presidency by a landslide.
An anonymously writtten July 11 article uncritically repeated Kennedy's dubious attacks on Anthony Fauci in a Fox News appearance:
Anthony Fauci, a former federal health official advising Joe Biden on COVID-19, now in a lucrative teaching job, 'caused a lot of injury" during that pandemic, according to Democrat [sic] presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Fauci, in fact, was behind a lot of the masking requirements, the demand for experimental and highly speculative shots for citizens, the bans on ordinary treatments like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, which proved effective, and more.
During his tenure, more than a million Americans died of COVID. Kennedy pointed out that America has 4.2% of the world's population, and suffered 16% of the COVID deaths.
Now RFK Jr., in an interview with Jess Watters, charged that the Biden administration is uninterested in punishing China for allowing what now is widely considered to be a lab leak of the pandemic, because it would reveal the National Institutes of Health "funded bioweapons programs."
A report at Summit.News reported he said, "I think the CIA was involved certainly in this research. They were funding it through USAID. And NIH, I think, in the end gave about $26 million in funding to the Wuhan lab. But USAID, which was functioning as the CIA surrogate, gave over $64 million. The Pentagon also gave a lot of money."
Kennedy said of Fauci, "I think he caused a lot of injury. I think that he particularly by withholding early treatment from Americans we racked up the highest death count in the world. We only have 4.2% of the globe’s population but we had 16% of the COVID deaths in this country and that was from bad policy."
He pointed out that nations that allowed ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine "had 1/200th of our death rate."
The anonymous writer made no effort to fact-check anything Kennedy said. For instance, there's no evidence that either works, and the U.S. COVID death rate was higher than other countries largely because fewer people were vaccinated (in part because of anti-vaxxers like Kennedy).
When Kennedy got caught arguing that COVID is "ethnically targeted" to affect "attack Caucasians and black people" and that "the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese," WND did a lazy bit of cleanup by reprinting an article by the notoriously unreliable Gateway Pundit, which insisted that the reporter who broke the story "read into Kennedy’s quote more than what was actually said. That’s unfortunate." It's even more unfortunate that WND thinks Gateway Pundit is a credible source of, well, anything.
MRC Defends Moms For Liberty After Its Extremism Is Exposed Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Reserach Center has long been a fan of the right-wing group Moms for Liberty. The group made it into the MRC's victim narrative in an August 2022 post after its PayPal account was briefly frozen. Catherine Salgado and Gabriela Pariseau euphemistially descried it as a "grassroots, anti-woke education group" and insisted that "This is not the first time Big Tech giants have censored Moms for Liberty." So when the Southern Poverty Law Center identified Moms for Liberty as "extremist," the MRC flew into a rage against the SPLC. Tom Olohan played the Soros card in a June 7 post:
A group funded by radical billionaire George Soros is smearing a group of concerned mothers as being somehow filled with hate and MSNBC was just tickled pink over it.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) repeated on Tuesday its pathetic tradition of smearing groups that speak out against the left's preferred narrative by placing the pro-parent education group Moms for Liberty on the same “hate map” as violent and racist groups, such as neo-Nazis and the Klu Klux Klan. MSNBC’s host Nicole Wallace invited SPLC President and CEO Margaret Huang on to the June 6 edition of Deadline: White House where Huang and Wallace both spewed propaganda at Moms for Liberty. Wallace referred to Moms for Liberty as “reactionary,” while Huang called them “right wing-ideologues.” But what was missing from MSNBC’s coverage was any mention that the leftist SPLC was connected to Soros, who has a sordid history of supporting anti-family initiatives.
The Soros-funded SPLC website claims that Moms for Liberty “spread[s] hateful imagery and rhetoric against the LGBTQ community.” The SPLC engages in guilt by association to smear Moms for Liberty, while downplaying the insane leftist political agendas the group opposes, such as critical race theory and radicalized gender ideological indoctrination of children.
Note that Olohan simply spouted right-wing talking points about what Moms for Liberty claims to do "rather than actually respond to the SPLC's claims, choosing instead to rant that the SPLC is"anti-parent and anti-family."
When a Moms for Liberty chapter was caught a couple weeks later quoting Hitler in a newsletter (which wasn't the first time), the MRC was silent. It took a couple weeks for it to even mention the incident, which came in a July 3 post by Clay Waters, who dismissed taht inconvenient fact as "opposition research":
New York Times reporter Jonathan Weisman, who has a history of sketching conservatives as racist and/or bigoted extremists, gleefully went after the newly influential Moms for Liberty, founded to oppose school closings and mask-vaccine mandates in schools and which now targets the teaching of Critical Race Theory principles in schools.
In the first paragraph of his story “Moms for Liberty’s School Board Antagonism Draws G.O.P. Heavyweights,” Weisman swerved right toward Hitler references. You have to dwell on the opposition research and find the embarrassing detail:
Waters went on to baselessly claim that the reporter "lost more credibility when he cited the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center." Waters cited an attack on the SPLC by the right-wing site the Federalist, which doesn't exactly boost Waters' credibility.
Another post by Waters the same day criticized others for criticizing Moms for Liberty:
Friday’s edition of the tax-funded PBS News Hour> took a jab at the influential new conservative parents’ rights group Moms for Liberty, which drew some Republican presidential candidates to its convention last week. Moms was founded to oppose school closings and mask-vaccine mandates in schools and which now targets the teaching of Critical Race Theory and gender identity in schools.
Online, the segment was introduced with slanted labeling: “GOP presidential candidates appear at far-right Moms for Liberty event.” This is only one of many NewsHour segments posted online including a “far right” tag. By contrast, there is not a single story in the News Hourarchive with a “far left” tag. (Coincidentally, Twitter owner Elon Musk has recently mentioned the media’s “far-right” tic.)
Host Geoff Bennett opened the show claiming "Republican presidential candidates appear at an education event run by a group with increasing ties to far-right extremists," before introducing Laura Barron-Lopez’s news report in hostile fashion.
Waters did not explain why Moms for Liberty is not "far-right."
The MRC also published a July 26 column by John Stossel attacking the SPLC for, among other things, criticizing Moms for Liberty, "calling them anti-government extremists because they oppose sexually explicit content in schools, and seek school board seats."
None of these writers mention Moms for Liberty's record of extremism in harassing school officials and secrecy about its funding.
WND Still Trying to Dishonestly Rebrand Anti-LGBT Conversion Therapy Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has laboredhard to rebrand anti-LGBT conversion therapy as something different to hide its nature., and it's still doing so. A Feb. 2 article by Bob Unruh used right-wing rhetoric to portray being LGBT as a "lifestyle" that one must "leave":
Pro-LGBT activists have worked with pro-LGBT lawmakers in multiple locations across the United States to create a legal ban on certain talk counseling.
Their scheme allows counselors to encourage the LGBT lifestyle, but bans any therapy that seeks to support people who want to leave the LGBT lifestyles.
Those who leave the lifestyle, of course, undermine the entire movement which is based on the ideology that people are "born that way."
Now, however, a federal appeals court has blown up that argument.
A report from Liberty Counsel reveals that the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals "has ruled that the Tampa ordinance that prohibited licensed counselors from providing voluntary talk therapy to minors seeking help to reduce or eliminate their unwanted same-sex attractions, behaviors, or identity, is unconstitutional under the First Amendment."
[...]
Jung had demolished the pro-LGBT talking point that it is "conversion therapy" involved.
That's a term that activists and the media frequently use.
Unruh was at it again in a June 27 article in which he didn't use the term "conversion therapy" at all:
For at least the fourth straight Congress, Democrats have introduced the "Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act," trying to criminalize and destroy talk therapy that offers help to members of society with unwanted same-sex attractions.
They insist that such help to those who want it is illegal.
A leftist diatribe about the issue, published online, claimed, within once sentence, the treatments are a "discredited practice" and a "discredited practice."
But what is discredited are the long-discontinued practices of forced electric shocks and the like that had been used by America's medical industry in years gone by.
The therapy now involves only talk, and that has been affirmed in some federal courts across the U.S.
Unruh is being dishonest here. Electroshock therapy has been discredited for decades; conversion therapy in recent years -- typically conducted by anti-LGBT activists who are not licensed practitioners -- has included techniques such as shaming, hypnosis and induced vomiting, and those who are subjected to it (typically minors forced to undergo it by their parents) see higher rates of depression, substance abuse and suicide.Nevertheless, Unruh kept up the charade by injecting editorial comment into his "news" story:
The report claimed it is supported by the "false belief that LGBTQ identities are pathologies that need to be cured."
However, the bigger issue is that when there are those who voluntarily leave the LGBTQ lifestyle, it decimates that community's arguments that they are "born that way," that they need privileges in society because of their status.
Unruh didn't explain how being LGBTQ is a "lifestyle," nor did he detail the alleged "privileges" they "need... in society."b He also failed to explain why he avoided the term "conversion therapy" even though it was valled exactly that in a Hill article to which he linked in support of his story.
MRC's Hypocritical Rage Over TV Show's 'Grooming' Excludes Right-Wing Groomers Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Dawn Slusher complained in a July 6 post:
As conservatives across the nation fight to protect children from predators who want sexually explicit books in schools and children exposed to perverted and sexually explicit behavior, Hollywood is busy trying to help the predator cause with attempts to normalize grooming.
HBO’s Sex and the City reboot, And Just Like That, joined in the cause with their latest episode, “Chapter Three,” which MAX aired on June 29. In the episode, a “MILF list” created by a teenage boy is discovered at a prestigious private school that main character Charlotte’s (Kristin Davis) children attend.
Of course, such a thing is normal for hormonal teenage boys as most will have a crush on an older mom, teacher, nurse, etc. at least once in their teen years. What’s not normal is an adult hoping to be the object of that sexual desire, as moms Charlotte and Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker) did when they found out about the list.
Rather than being mature, normal moms with feelings of maternal protectiveness, they instead became gleefully excited to place second and third on the list, seeing it as a form of flattery despite what “MILF” stands for.
[...]
Think about what kind of message this show is sending to pedophiles and groomers. Especially teachers who have been arrested for sexualizing and raping their students. Parents need to be more watchful than ever in this pedophile-friendly culture because they’re coming for your children, and they’re not even trying to hide it anymore.
If you ever needed a reason to homeschool, this is it.
Aside from the bizarre logical leap of claiming that a TV show is sufficient reason to pull a child out of school, there's another reason Slusher's rant falls flat: She says nothing about right-wing enthusiasm for pedophilia and sexualizing children.
When it was revealed that right-wing transphobe Matt Walsh -- who received a "Bulldog Award" from the MRC earlier this year for his anti-LGBT hate -- declared it was normal for teenage girls to be pregnancy because that's when they're "most fertile" and that "biologically and metaphysically and with everything in their body, they want to settle down, they want to start a family," the MRC said nothing. And it stayed silent when Walsh's employer, the Daily Wire, spent money to promote those comments to claim that he was a victim of "cancel culture."
We've documented how the MRC touted how Andrew Tate was "a popular and controversial social media influencer" who was a victim of "censorship" because Instagram blocked some of his misogynistic post, meaning that it "kept information from all 4,700,000 of Tate’s Instagram followers. But Tate has long bragged about haviing sex with teenage girls -- presumably there's some grooming involved in that -- and he and his brother were recently arrested on charges of rape and human trafficking, and the MRC has had little to say about that. A July 17 post by Kevin Tober touted how Tucker Carlson's current Twitter videos "have mostly included his trademark monologues as well as interviews with newsmakers," adding as an aside: "Most recently social media influencer Andrew Tate, who has been accused of human trafficking by the Romanian government."
It was a bit of a slow time for news around the Independence Day holiday, so when news of a small amount of cocaine being discovered in the White House was reported, the Media Research Center latched onto it like, well, an addict on a bender and -- as a manifestation of its Hunter Biden Derangement Syndrome -- it rushed to blame Hunter for it despite having absolutely no evidence to support such a claim. Curtis Houck kicked off the madness in a July 5 post:
Over the weekend, Semafor 
It's been more than 30 years since she made claims of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas, but the Media Research Center 
WorldNetDaily 
It's not enough for the Media Research Center to 
Newsmax is not shy about merging a little self-promotion into its Trump-fluffing. During Donald Trump's first indictment, it 
Chuck Norris' July 3 WorldNetDaily 
Brian Stelter left CNN months ago, but the Media Research Center 
Bob Unruh chose to exploit a joke told by President Biden as an excuse for a partisan attack on him in a June 27 
In 
WorldNetDaily is an 
The Media Reserach Center has long been a fan of the right-wing group Moms for Liberty. The group made it into the MRC's victim narrative in an August 2022 
WorldNetDaily has 
The Media Research Center's Dawn Slusher complained in a July 6 
