MRC Whines Networks Didn't Parrot Right-Wing Narrative On FBI Whistleblowers
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Kevin Tober whined in a May 18 post:

On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the weaponization of the federal government against its citizens. A sad occurrence that has become more frequent as the government continues to grow out of control. During the hearing, numerous whistleblowers testified about being retaliated against by the FBI for coming forward to report either corruption or abuse of power by the government or its affiliated agencies.

Being members of the fourth estate that were supposed to report on government and its excesses, you would think the big three evening news broadcasts would jump at the opportunity to report on this hearing and the shocking accounts that were revealed. Sadly, like most stories of any consequence these days, the big three networks ignored it because they rightly believe coverage would hurt the Biden administration. 

Instead, all three networks: ABC’s World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News decided to keep their viewers in the dark and waste precious airtime on stories like a fire at a North Carolina construction site or a security scare at the Vatican.

But Tober gave a gold star to Fox News for dutifully embracing the narrative:

Meanwhile, Fox News Channel’s flagship newscast Special Report kicked off the broadcast with the news that was made from the congressional hearing. 

“Witnesses told members of Congress stories of retaliation and intimidation because they questioned a prominent investigation,” correspondent David Spunt explained. 

One of the whistleblowers who testified under oath was a former FBI agent named Marcus Allen who “was punished for questioning the official narrative of what happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

“He lost his security clearance two weeks ago, though it was suspended in January 2022,” Spunt noted. 

Tober, complained, though, that Fox News reported a small piece of the other side of the story, which he immediately dismissed:

In an attempt at damage control, the FBI released a statement to Fox News that tried to smear Allen, reading: “Mr. Allen used his FBI email to send multiple colleagues, quote: Links to web sites and urged recipients to exercise extreme caution and discretion in pursuit of any investigative inquiries or leads pertaining to the events of January 6.”

Tim Graham similarly complained in a May 19 post that the Republican narrative wasn't uncritically presented and that questions were raised about the whistleblowers:

Last night, we reported that the nightly newscasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC completely skipped any mention of a House Judiciary Committee hearing on FBI whistleblowers. Since the hearing was organized by Republicans, it was somehow not news. Fox's Special Report had it. The PBS NewsHour and NPR's All Things Considered also failed to consider the hearing. 

The trend continued on Friday's morning shows, with no FBI whistleblower coverage on ABC's Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, and NBC's Today. Even a "jam-packed Morning Joe" couldn't locate the story on MSNBC. NPR's Morning Edition also offered nothing. CNN This Morning did offer a brief piece, making it sound like a very messy hearing, as Democrats (like Del. Stacey Plaskett) insisted that these weren't real "whistleblowers" on the FBI, because the FBI insisted they were not. 

Collins began "Meanwhile, in Washington, lawmakers on Capitol Hill got into a pretty explosive argument yesterday over whether or not those three self-proclaimed FBI whistleblowers are actually whistleblowers."

Collins at least aired soundbites from two whistleblowers, and then followed with the FBI line: "It is also important to note that before the hearing, the FBI actually sent a letter to Congressman Jordan's subcommittee. In it, the agency said that officials stripped two of those three men that you saw there who testified of their security clearances after multiple violations and security concerns. The agency says that both men also expressed alternate theories about the attack on the Capitol."

Graham further whined that non-right-wing outlets reported a fuller story about the whistleblowers:

That's not to say that Ken Dilanian missed the FBI whistleblower hearing. Online, Dilanian and Ryan Reilly wrote up a story larded with pro-FBI spin: "GOP witnesses undermined Jan. 6 cases with conspiracy theories, FBI says". You have to get about 15 paragraphs down before the pro-whistleblower side gets a quote or two.

[...]

The Washington Post actually covered the hearing on page A-4 under the headline "FBI agents who testified on alleged abuses had security clearance revoked." 

This is how liberal media outlets play: any criticism of Democrats are described as "alleged abuses" from "self-proclaimed whistleblowers."

Graham didn't explain why the full story of the self-proclaimed whistleblowers should be censored, nor did he explain why FBI agents who refused to do their jobs should be trust. Graham didn't tell his readers that, according to the NBC News article he cited, the FBI stated that one of the agents, Steve Friend, "told his bureau management in Florida he would not work Jan. 6 cases and "refused to participate in the execution of a court authorized, search and arrest," and that Allen "'espoused alternative theories' about Jan. 6 to co-workers and also "'failed to provide relevant information' to an FBI special agent about a Jan. 6 suspect who was later discovered to have physically assaulted U.S. Capitol Police officers." Graham also failed to mention that Friend received money from Trump ally Kash Patel, who provided Friend with a job at a right-wing think tank after he was suspended by the FBI.

Rather than reveal the full truth about these whistleblowers, Graham continued to whine about this in his podcast the same day:

NBC is a national news network. So why would it skip House GOP hearings into whistleblowers being punished by the FBI, and obsess instead over small-town right-wing school board members pushing a "dangerous" curriculum? We call it "bias by story selection." They pick the narratives they want to enforce, and avoid the narratives that aren't helpful to Democrats.

Of course, Graham is engaging in his own bias by story selection by censoring the full story about the whistleblowers' misdeeds.

It will not surprise you to learn that the MRC does not treat all whistleblowers as sacrosanct truth-tellers who must always be believed. It repeatedly tried to discredit Frances Haugen for telling how Facebook did little to stop misinformation on its platform, attacking her as "a far-left activist and AOC donor" -- while failing to disclose the fact that it wasadhering to the talking points of Facebook management, who had reached out to conservative organizations to plant those attacks.

WND Rages At New CDC Director For Following Standard Medical Advice On COVID
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily's Peter LaBarbera spent a July 31 "news" article ranting that the new director ofthe CDC will (gasp!) follow the science instead of right-wing anti-vaxxer narratives when it comes to COVID (bolding in original):

The CDC will soon recommend annual COVID shots, much like the current annual flu shots, said Dr. Mandy Cohen, the embattled federal health agency's new director, in an interview Thursday.

President Biden picked Cohen, the former head of North Carolina's Department of Health and Human Services, to replace the controversy-prone Rochelle Walensky to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost a month ago despite Republicans' objections.

Asked by a Spectrum reporter if the CDC were moving toward recommending one COVID shot per year for Americans, Cohen said, “Well, we’re just on the precipice of that, so I don’t want to get ahead of where our scientists are here ... but yes, we anticipate that what COVID will become is similar to flu shots, where it's going to be: you get your annual flu shot and you get your annual COVID shot.”

LaBarbera offered no evidence that Cohen is wrong about the coming need for an annual COVID vaccination; instead, he simply parroted right-wing attacks on her as "unfit for the position" for purportedly  "engaging in partisan left-wing politics," also uncritically quoting from an attack piece by the anti-vaxxer Epoch Times, which LaBarbera claimed "laid out her North Carolina record, which is in line with other states that applied overbearing mandates and policies for fighting COVID."

So LaBarbera is mad that Cohen did what every other responsible state medical official did in response to COVID by supporting vaccines and other measures to slow transmission? That just shows how out of the mainstream both medically and politically WND is -- and just how desperate it is to smear anyone who refuses to go out on that fringe with it.

MRC's Imaginary 'Secondhand Censorship' Metric Ensnares Twitter Fact-Checkers
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center now believes fact-checking is "censorship," as we learned in an Aug. 3 post by Heather Moon that includes Twitter's Community Notes crowdsourced fact-checkers in its made-up and meaningless "secondhand censorship" metric:

Big Tech’s continued censorship of free speech on platforms creates real-world harm, not just to the users being censored, but to anyone who should have seen the censored messages. Nowhere is that more clear than when Big Tech platforms either silence or place spin on posts by candidates in what is otherwise nothing short of election interference.

Since MRC Free Speech America began tracking secondhand censorship in the first quarter of 2022, we have counted a total of at least 881,700,573 times that users have been harmed through the tactics used by Big Tech platforms. MRC Free Speech America researchers recorded 231 documented cases of censorship in the second quarter (Q2) of 2023, down from 363 cases in the first quarter (Q1).

Beginning with Q2 we began tracking Twitter’s Community Notes feature as a form of< censorship much like fact checks. (Twitter was re-branded as X in July.) Community Notes represent Twitter’s efforts to influence the perception of certain tweets and stand as a gatekeeper between content creators and their followers. This feature was used heavily on tweets from accounts with millions of followers. Therefore, the total secondhand censorship for Q2 jumped up 489 percent from Q1, with Big Tech harming users 484,498,858 times during the second quarter of 2023. This number follows the 82,249,700 times that users were harmed through secondhand censorship in the first quarter.

Twitter’s rampant use of Community Notes touched heavily on issues related to the presidential campaigns. As a result, users following accounts that were censored over content related to campaign issues suffered the most in Q2. Transgenderism also continued to be one of the topics enduring the most harm from secondhand censorship in the second quarter of 2023, surpassing its first quarter numbers.

Moon acknowledged that Community Notes have been used on claims made by President Biden (which we presume was not made a part of the "secondhand censorship" metric), but she was much more upset that it was used on claims made by Republican presidential candidates, as it usually is:

Community Notes had the greatest impact on followers of President Joe Biden’s official accounts, several of which have more than 30 million followers. His followers made up the largest segment of users harmed through secondhand censorship in the second quarter. MRC Free Speech America documented nine tweets that were censored by Community Notes from just one of Biden’s accounts. This totaled 283,600,000 times Twitter harmed users through secondhand censorship.

Each Community Note begins by stating that “[r]eaders added context they thought people might want to know.” In one example, a tweet from @JoeBiden claimed, “I make no apologies for being the most pro-union president in American history.” The Community Note read, “On December 22, 2022, President Biden signed a bill to block the railroad union from striking.” In another example, the account tweeted, “12,700,000 jobs,” with an attached infographic that read “12,700,000 jobs added under President Biden.” The Community Note read, “While Biden’s claim of 12.7 million new jobs in his term is accurate, the large majority of these new jobs can be attributed to economic recovery after COVID-19.”

But Twitter has also applied Community Notes to other campaign accounts. The @TrumpWarRoom Twitter account tweeted, “Fake News @marcthiessen is spreading outright lies. President Trump won BIG in Iowa. And will win again in 2024.” The Community Note read, “Ted Cruz won the 2016 Iowa Caucus with 27.6%. Donald Trump finished second with 24.3%.” This note does not address Trump’s wins in the general elections of 2016 or 2020. The Trump War Room Twitter account suffered a total of 23,400,000 users harmed through secondhand censorship just from the 13 Community Notes documented at CensorTrack.org.

Moon also ranted that Robert Kennedy Jr. -- who's an MRC darling for being a possible spoiler to Biden, not because it actually wants him to be president -- also faced "censorship" (by having his false claims moderated):

But Twitter is not the only Big Tech platform engaging in election interference. YouTube has deleted no fewer than seven videos that featured interviews with Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., while Instagram also temporarily banned a new account Kennedy create campaign ad that explained why Trump is the only candidate who can "make America great again" starting on day one. The YouTube “context” label discussed the results of the 2020 election, despite the ad not mentioning the 2020 election. LinkedIn also censored Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy ’s account. The platform restricted his account, reportedly citing “misleading or inaccurate information” in several of his posts relating to climate change and President Joe Biden’s relationship with China. LinkedIn claimed this action was taken “in error” and reversed the censorship.

Moon also huffed that transphobic hate was "censored," which she dishonestly framed as merely "content critiquing so-called 'transgenderism':

MRC Free Speech America continues to monitor Big Tech’s ongoing war waged against users who post content that does not affirm the left’s so-called “transgender” ideology. Unfortunately, although this type of censorship has lessened on some platforms, it is unlikely to go away completely any time soon. Since we began tracking secondhand censorship, Big Tech harmed users on content critical of the left’s “transgender” narrative more than ever in Q2.

MRC Free Speech America tallied at least 36,830,787 times that Big Tech harmed users by hindering them from seeing content critiquing so-called “transgenderism” in the second quarter of 2023. This number is higher than the number of transgender-related secondhand censorship for Q1, which previously showed the highest numbers for that category. Q1 of 2023 saw 21,471,808 times users were harmed through secondhand censorship.

Censorship of posts critical of the "transgender" ideology exploded in Q1 as a result of the infamous "Trans Day of Vengeance," making the number of times Big Tech harmed users through secondhand censorship skyrocket. But in Q2, Big Tech harmed an even greater number of users who criticized “transgender” ideology. This would still be true even in the absence of the 12,900,000 users harmed through Twitter’s Community Notes feature censoring tweets related to “transgenderism.”

Moon did not explain why she insists on calling being transgender an "ideology" and an "ism." She concluded with defending thte bogus metric an drepeating herself on how fact-checking is somehow "censorship":

Secondhand censorship represents the domino effect of how Big Tech harms users with its efforts to silence or reframe messages shared by users. Big Tech censorship of campaigns, candidates and/or of important policies or cultural events is tantamount to election interference. Americans must be allowed the freedom to speak their minds and to do their own research and come to their own conclusions. When Big Tech places its thumb on the scales through the use of things like fact checks, Community Notes, content deletion or account suspensions, free speech — and by extension, American democracy — is under attack. All such suppression of constitutionally-protected speech and election interference must be called out and stopped.

MRC Free Speech America calls on Americans to push tech companies to end their efforts of election interference.

Moon did not explain how, exacrly, "American democracy" is "under attack" because people are being fact-checked, or how fact-checking is "election interference."

NEW ARTICLE -- The Trump Stenographers At Newsmax: (Second) Indictment Edition
Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax served up the usual barrage of attack-and-defense pieces when Donald Trump was indicted a second time -- and as usual, criticism of Trump was hard to find. Read more >>

MRC Concerned About Dubious Musk Moves -- But More Bothered That Twitter Fact-Checked Him
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center looks at Elon Musk and Twitter only through the lens of whether its fellow right-wingers are allowed to spout hate, misinformation and falsehoods without getting fact-checked or moderated (what it dishonestly calls "censorship"). As non-Musk Twitter executives realize that Twitter being filled with hate and lies is a bad thing, the MRC's Catherine Salgado went on an anti-"censorship" tantrum in an Aug. 10 post:

X (formerly Twitter) CEO Linda Yaccarino boasted August 10 of how her platform’s safety tools can censor content while supposedly allowing free speech.

Yaccarino tried to reassure the public that Twitter does in fact still censor so-called “hateful content” when asked about "brand safety" in a CNBC Squawk on the Streetinterview with Co-Anchor Sara Eisen. Yaccarino broadcasted the full interview in a Twitter

Space Thursday. “If it is lawful but it is awful, it’s extraordinarily difficult for you to see it,” Yaccarino bragged, explaining how X censors content and assures advertisers their ads will only appear with content they like. Yet Yaccarino also pretended loyalty to “free expression.”

“By all objective metrics, X is a much healthier and safer platform than it was a year ago,” Yaccarino claimed. “We have built brand safety and content moderation tools that have never existed before at this company.” She specifically cited the new policy that X owner Elon Musk and Yaccarino call “freedom of speech, not reach” as part of this content moderation (i.e. censorship).

The X CEO gleefully announced that big brands “are protected from the risk of being next to that content.” She didn’t seem worried about protecting users’ First Amendment right to free speech.

Salgado was too enraged that right-wing Twitter hate might get monitored under Musk that she didn't mention that Yaccarino is lying -- Twitter regularly places ads by major advertisers next to offensive and hateful content. Others also pointed out how detached from reality Yaccarino's answers were. But Salgado didn't care about those blatant falsehoods; rather, she continued to whine about Yaccarino claiming to act responsibly, and she also lashed out at the interviewer:

Yaccarino was particularly proud to report that, after a post is labeled, 30 percent of users “staggeringly” take it down themselves. “Reducing that hateful content from being seen is one of the best examples of how X is committed to encouraging healthy behavior online,” Yaccarino bragged of the censorship, claiming that “99.9 percent” of impressions on Twitter “are healthy.”

Eisen self-righteously lectured about “conspiracy theories” and hysterically cited Kanye West and Musk himself. Yaccarino then gave a hypocritical nod to free speech. “You might not agree with what everyone is saying,” she told Eisen. “Free expression at its core will really, really only survive when someone you don’t agree with says something you don’t agree with.”

[...]

Unfortunately, Yaccarino’s views are unsurprising since she came to Twitter from woke NBCUniversal and the anti-free speech World Economic Forum. 

The MRC has already expressed its hatred of Yaccarino for caring more about making Twitter a sustainable and profitable business than right-wing culture wars.

Heather Moon was outraged that that a Musk-instituted Twitter changed was used to fact-check Musk in an Aug. 18 post, laughably headlined "Did Musk Just Get Censored on His Own Platform?":

In a bold twist, Twitter’s Community Notes censored Elon Musk and had the gall to tell him what he can and cannot do with his own platform.

Community Notes, the crowdsourced fact-checking system for X (formerly known as Twitter) that has been characterized as “censorship by a different name,” took aim at owner Musk’s announcement that he will soon remove X’s block feature. The Note attached to his post, however, claimed that he is forbidden from making such a change.

Proving that no one using X is immune from censorship, the platform applied a Community Note to one of Musk’s own posts.

In his announcement today Musk posted what immediately proved to be one of the most controversial moves he has made since taking over the company. “Block is going to be deleted as a ‘feature,’ except for DMs,” he posted.

The Community Notes team quickly came up with a Note rebuking the latest potential change that now appears below Musk’s post. The Note reads: “Elon Musk cannot do this. The feature to block someone on the site is REQUIRED as a social media app to be allowed on the App Store and the Google Play store.” It also provides links to the app guidelines for both the Apple App Store and the Google Playstore as proof.

Moon didn't mention Musk's complete hypocrisy on the issue; after getting into an argument with right-wing actor James Woods via Twitter over removing the block feature, Musk blocked Woods. The MRC thinks Community Notes are just fine when liberals are fact-checked but are tantamount to "censorship" when a conservative (or Musk) gets the same treatment. -- yes, the MRC thinks that fact-checking someone is "censorship." Moon remained committed to the fact-checking-is-censorship narrative by invoking the MRC's made-up and meaningless "secondhand censorship" metric:

Musk has made many changes to X since he purchased it. One of the more controversial changes was a global rollout of what is known as Community Notes in December of 2022. MRC Free Speech America’s CensorTrack recently reported that this new form of censorship caused Secondhand Censorship to soar in the second quarter of 2023.

Luis Cornelio was similarly outraged that  Twitter would want to reduce hate and lies in an Aug. 21 post (note his placing of "disinformation" in scare quotes, as if there was no objective definition of it):

The so-called warriors of election “disinformation” could be back in town, just in time for the 2024 presidential election.

X (formerly known as Twitter) is allegedly eying a chief election manipulator to lead its Civic Integrity/Elections Team. Political commentator Kristen Ruby first caught the news, which ignited a wave of criticism aimed at X and its choice to use recruiter Aaron Rodericks. Rodericks apparently voiced support for the Department of Homeland Security’s CISA and the Biden administration’s defunct Disinformation Governance Board through a series of RTs and likes on X.

Rodericks announced the new role on August 11. The listing even alluded to the fact that new hires on the “Civic Integrity/Election Team” may influence election outcomes. “Are you passionate about building innovative products that connect people and enable conversations on a global scale?” X further asked before adding: “Do you want to be part of a dynamic team that influences how the world communicates?” As content moderators of specifically election-related content, how could “Civic Integrity/Election Team” not influence elections?

Does Cornelio not think that people who spread political falsehoods and misinformation are also trying to influence elections? Shouldn't elections be based on factual information and not falsehoods? As usual, Cornelio doesn't explain why hate, lies and misinformation should be allowed to spread unchecked.

Autumn Johnson expressed furter doubt about Twitter changes under Musk in an Aug. 23 post, referring to Musk as an "eccentric billionaire" and not in a good way):

Eccentric billionaire Elon Musk originally said he wanted to purchase Twitter to promote free speech, but times may be changing with the questionable changes he has made since acquiring the platform.

A new change under platform owner Musk’s direction will require users to manually add text to links that they share. Without the added text, the post will only include an image and an overlay of the URL, on “X,” formerly known as Twitter.

Musk acknowledged on Tuesday the seemingly random change by responding to a user’s post detailing the move.  “This is coming from me directly,” Musk admitted on X. “Will greatly improve the esthetics.”

MRC Free Speech America has reported on Musk’s questionable changes to the platform since the contentious purchase, including choosing Linda Yaccarino, an anti-free speech former NBCUniversal executive, to be the CEO of the company.

Musk also pushed forward with Twitter Community Notes, a questionable crowdsourced form of fact-checking and censorship. 

In November of last year, Musk described X’s speech policy as “freedom of speech, not reach,” indicating that users would be censored for certain views labeled as “hate speech.” Musk never clarified what he believes constitutes so-called “hate speech.”

Johnson didn't explain why she apparently thinks hate speech is subjective and something that is merely "labeled" as such.

WND's Brown Appalled That Google Shows Images Of Interracial Couples
Topic: WorldNetDaily

A couple months back the white nationalist website VDARE published a rant complaining about too many black people in TV commercials, calling it "mental reprogramming designed to convince whites of their eventual demographic demise." Michael Brown felt the need to dabble in similar territory in his Sept. 4 column. He began by touting a book that helped make such an argument:

In his 2019 book, "The Madness of the Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity," Douglas Murray exposed the cultural insanity that has gripped so much of the modern world. He pointed out that, no sooner was there more equality than ever between the sexes that the war on men was launched. And no sooner was there more equality than ever between the races that the war on whiteness was launched.

Murray brought a wide array of arguments to support his theses, but none was more striking than the images that came up on Google searches for specific terms and phrases. It was hard to deny what you could see with your own eyes.

[...]

Murray had pointed out that when you searched Google for gay couples, you would see a host of images with gay couples, as expected. When you searched for black couples, you would see a host of images with black couples, again, as expected.

But if you searched for straight couples or white couples or straight white couples, the results were anything but what you would expect.

This book by British right-winger Murray essentially argues that racism and sexism would no longer be an issue if liberals didn't point out the persisitence of racism and sexism. Brown didn't tell his readers any of this, of course; rather, he decided to try and replicate Murray's Google search experiments to see what happened:

Let's start with black couples, clicking on Images. My search yielded row after row of black couples. What do you know!

Now we'll switch to gay Couples. What did the Google search engine produce? The same thing. Row after row of images of gay couples, some with their kids, but all male-male or female-female. The only exception was the occasional image of a throuple, but here too, all three participants were gay.

How about black gay couples? Yet again, exactly what you asked for: Every image is of a black gay couple, with "gay" specifically meaning "male."

Now let's try white couples. What comes up in the search?

The first couple features a white man and a black woman. The same with the second image (I'm not making this up). The fourth image is that of a black man and possibly a Hispanic man (the image links to the website, "Loving Interracial Couples"), and the fifth that of a white woman and a black man.

I tried this on different days and the results were shockingly similar. What in the world is going on?

When I searched for straight couples, there was at least one image of a same-sex couple on each of the first three rows, some of the images linked to an article on what straight couples could learn from gay couples.

When I searched for straight white couples – to repeat, I am not making this up – the very first image that came up was that of a gay interracial couple. Chew on that for a moment – a white man and a black man. To repeat, this was searching for "Straight White Couples."

[...]

While the search for black and gay individuals and couples produced the expected results, the search for white couples yielded the exact opposite. Out of the first six images, every single one featured a multi-racial couple. At the risk of being redundant, I kid you not!

Of the next six images, again, only one featured an all-white couple and one featured an all-black couple. This is beyond insane.

Brown refused to explain why, exactly, seeing pictures of interracial couples upset him so. Instead, he ranted:

Talk about political correctness on steroids and beyond. Talk about mass manipulation, especially when you realize that the vast amount of manipulation is not so obvious and blatant.

Put another way, the manipulation can be so powerful because you don't know you're being manipulated, since you're actually searching for information in order to learn and be informed. Not everything is as it seems!

As much as a raging homophobe Brown is, he rarely touches on issues of race, so it's unclear why he felt the need to weigh in here. But if you starting to sound like VDARE, you should probably rethink your approach -- not to mention your overall thought process.

MRC Cheers Actors, Writers Strikes For Stopping Non-Right-Wing 'Propaganda' On TV
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Elise Ehrhard spent a July 28 post cheering that the strike by actors and writers will result in more reruns and unscripted reality-style entertainment for the time being, because it means she will be less likely to encounter non-right-wing points of view on TV:

So, for the first time in years, viewers won't be inundated with the latest pro-abortion rants from Shonda Rhimes' on Grey's Anatomy or Station 19. ABC comedies like The Connors won't be pushing toxic leftist narratives on a weekly basis.

CBS is also replacing much of its fall lineup with reality shows and bringing content from its Paramount+ streaming service to the linear channel. Its usual staple of network shows will be delayed.  Gone will be September premieres of popular franchises such as the FBI shows that portray a perfect agency utterly devoid of any corruption. Audiences will have to wait for a new season of scripts about evil, racist white people on shows like The Equalizer. How will Americans know what they are supposed to think without such Hollywood fare?

Ehrhard wants the FBI to be portrayed as corrupt? We thought right-wingers supported law enforcememnt. Her whine continued:

Only NBC has a few scripted shows ready to go due to schedule completions prior to the strike, but many of their most well-known series have been pushed back with no premiere date in sight. Viewers will still be able to find a steady diet of propaganda on newer shows like Quantum Leap, which pushed both child transgenderism and anti-Christian attacks last spring. However, well-established franchises such as the Law and Order shows won't be available to push left-wing sacred cows for the foreseeable future.

Maybe this hiatus will be a time of reflection for network writers, and they'll return after the strike with less woke and formulaic content. More likely, this break will reinforce for dwindling network audiences that left-wing Hollywood entertainment was never really worth watching in the first place.

It's almost funny that Enrhard is dismissing any opinion she doesn't like as "propaganda," given that the MRC is paying her to be a propagandist for right-wing narrratives. Maybe Ehrhard should use the strikes as a time of reflection on why she is so eager to censor any point of view that doesn't mesh with the right-wing ieology she slavishly follows.

Hunter Biden Derangement Syndrome, Wayne Allyn Root Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

There are five things almost everyone who isn't blind, deaf or really dumb knows at this point ...

No. 1: President Joe Biden is the most crooked, corrupt and compromised politician in the history of the presidency.

No. 2: The Biden crime family operated as an organized crime organization.

No. 3: Biden and his Biden crime family extorted tens of millions of dollars from companies like Burisma and countries like China and Ukraine when Biden was vice president of the USA.

No. 4: Biden made decisions as president that directly benefited the countries or companies he was bribed and compromised by.

No. 5: Biden and the Biden crime family are owned lock, stock and barrel by our No. 1 enemy, China and the CCP (Chinese Communist Party).

[...]

I believe Biden and his cronies stole a minimum of $900 million from taxpayers with one deal – and maybe as much as $1.1 billion.

It's a very simple story. A fan of my national radio and TV shows contacted me. He is in the business of importing medical supplies. More specifically, he imported COVID-19 test kits from a Chinese company. He paid $1 per test kit for 100,000 kits at a time.

Common sense, or any rudimentary understanding of business, would tell you the more test kits you buy, the lower the total cost. If you buy 200,000 kits, it should cost less than $1 per kit. If you buy 1 million test kits, the price should go to perhaps as low as 50 cents each.

But what if our government buys over 400 million COVID-19 test kits? Could the price go to 30 cents each? How about 20 cents? 400 million is an awful lot of test kits.

Well last year the Biden administration bought over 300 million test kits from a Chinese company. And then they came back and quickly bought 100 million more. That's 400 million COVID-19 test kits.

And here's where the story gets really interesting. Biden bought the EXACT same test kits from the EXACT same Chinese company as my fan in the import business did. We are talking apples to apples. This is an exact match.

So, even if you assume $1 per kit – the same price my fan paid for 100,000 kits – the bill for 400 million kits would be $400 million.

[...]

Knowing the lifetime of corruption Biden has likely been involved in ... and Hunter Biden's laptop with proof of crimes, extortion and bribery ... and proof that Biden himself is "the big guy" ... and knowing that the Bidens accepted $10 million from Burisma ... and knowing Rep. James Comer says his committee's investigation shows Biden stole $40 million as vice president in multiple deals ...

… does anyone doubt that Biden and the Biden crime family got all or some portion of this $900 million to $1.1 billion overpayment? Perhaps the Big Guy got $100 million as a 10% commission. Maybe he split it 50/50 with the Chinese company (which is undoubtedly owned by the CCP). Or maybe Biden just kept the whole billion dollars of taxpayer money for himself.

-- Wayne Allyn Root, July 1 WorldNetDaily column

On the cocaine found in the White House recently, Trump said, "I think it's probably for both of them (Hunter and Joe). Watch Joe. At the beginning of his speeches, he's OK. By the end, he's a disaster. He can't find his way off the stage. ... They prop him (Joe) up. I think (the cocaine) is for both of them (Joe and Hunter). We can't have a president on cocaine when you're dealing with nuclear weapons. ... This is dangerous. This country has never been in danger like this. ... We have a man who has no clue what's happening."

-- Wayne Allyn Root, July 14 WND column

MRC's Jean-Pierre-Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch, 'Return Of The King' Edition
Topic: Media Research Center

It was a light month for Karine Jean-Pierre-bashing in August because there were fewer White House press briefings due to President Biden being on vacation. That didn't stop KJP from living rent-free in the collective heads of the MRC, of course. Tim Graham spent an Aug. 17 post whining that Snopes pointed out that a claim attributed to Jean-Pierre was coming from a satire website; Graham conceded that Snopes was correct but whined about purported "selection bias" anyway:

The "independent fact-checkers" have a knee-jerk pattern of rushing to the defense of Team Biden. They're not always wrong about the facts. But their selection bias is obvious. Jordan Liles had to decry a satire site that might convince some dullards in an article titled: 

Did Karine Jean-Pierre 'Admit' Biden Won't Visit Maui After Fires Because 'It's Not a Swing State'?

That headline should be obvious. Any competent press secretary would never say such a thing out loud if that were the internal calculation. (Now insert the joke that Karine Jean-Pierre isn't one of those.)

[...]

The byline on this bogus piece is "Flagg Eagleton, Patriot," which ought to put your tongue in your cheek.Then they turn to their own fake White House correspondent, named "Tara Newhole."  There's no video for evidence. As Snopes explained, there is no one at Telemundo named Joseph Barron. The Dunning-Kruger Times describes its content as containing "parody, satire, and tomfoolery."

So the fact check is accurate -- in Biden's defense.

But conservatives have raised the point that Biden has yet to live up to his pledge to visit East Palestine, Ohio after the toxic train derailment there.

But the Snopes fact-check did not mention East Palestine, so there's no reason for Graham to bring it up here other than to play whataboutism.

When the press briefings restarted later in the month, Curtis Houck was unable to hide his hero-worship for the return from paternity leave of his favorite biased right-wing reporter, under the embarassing headline "Return of the King," in his writeup of the Aug. 28 briefing:

Fox White House correspondent Peter Doocy finally made his return to the White House Briefing Room Monday after paternity leave and, given his long time away, he came out guns blazing on Biden family corruption and even the latest attempt by the federal bureaucracy to further encroach on the lives of ordinary Americans. On both counts, he made Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre look even more inept.

Following pleasantries between the two (with Jean-Pierre insisting, “I’ve missed you”), Doocy led with a question he predicted she “probably [was] not expecting”: “Does President Biden want to limit Americans to two beers a week?”

Jean-Pierre was exasperated: “I — I — where is this coming from? Maybe I did — maybe I didn’t miss you so much. Where is this — where is this coming from?”

Doocy then explained it came from “Dr. George Koob, who is the director of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism,” who “says the U.S. may soon follow Canada and recommend just two beers a week.”

Asked how the administration “think[s] that’s going to go over,” Jean-Pierre ducked, saying “what I’m not going to get in involved in” is “that question right there” and instead she’d cede to “the experts.”

Doocy then pivoted to Hunter Biden and his life of ruin with two simple questions that, in classic Doocy fashion, led to a larger narrative. The first? “The Secret Service is paying $16,000 a month now to stage near Hunter Biden in Malibu. Who’s paying for that?”

Houck couldn't stop gushing further over Doocy -- adding his biased correspondent wife into the mix as well -- in his writeup of the Aug. 29 briefing:

After Monday’s smashing return to the White House Briefing Room, Fox’s Peter Doocy had a new topic to do battle with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre over. Monday’s foray concerned Biden family corruption and another example of the expanding nanny state, but Tuesday focused on a captured ISIS sympathizer that had been working to smuggle people across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Prior to Doocy’s back-and-forth, Jean-Pierre was also under the gun from Doocy’s wife, Hillary Vaughn of the Fox Business Network, over transgenderism continuing to infect women’s sports. Vaughn started by wondering if Biden agreed with 2024 GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley that transgenderism encroaching on girls sports “is the women’s issue of our time.”

Jean-Pierre wasn’t amused based on her answers. Lamenting “we’ve talked about this many times” and “[t]he Department of Education proposed a rule...that gives schools the flexibility to establish their own athletics policies” on a topic that’s “a complicated issue.”

Of course, it isn’t. And Vaughn made that clear: “The President has granddaughters. Does he care that girls are allowed to compete in sports without the fear of injury? Does he think it’s fair for girls to have to compete against biological males?”

Jean-Pierre stammered some before reiterating the cockamamie assertion that this “is a complicated issue” and “[t]here is no yes or no answer to this.”

Doocy closed the briefing with his exchange, starting with a simple question: “How is it possible that an ISIS sympathizer is sneaking people into this country?”

Houck slobbered over Doocy's bias even more in his writeup of the Aug. 30 briefing:

During Wednesday’s Doocy Time at the White House press briefing, one of the questions from Fox White House correspondent Peter Doocy drew looks of incredulousness and disgust from liberal journalists seated next to and behind him. Doocy’s crime? Asking White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre if the response to Hurricane Idalia was smoother vs. the Hawaii wildfires because President Biden wasn’t on vacation.

Doocy was blunt: “[I]t seems like the hurricane response so far is robust. Did you guys realize that the initial Hawaii wildfire response was not that good, or is it just easier for people to get help from the White House when the President is not on vacation?”

As he finished, NBC’s Peter Alexander closed his eyes and raised his eyebrows as if he couldn’t believe Doocy’s query and, behind them, liberal reporter Annie Linskey of The Wall Street Journal did the same before briefly squinting in Doocy’s direction.

Jean-Pierre, not surprisingly, was also taken aback and told him that she “disagr[eed]” with “the premise of your question and the way you pose the question.”

[...]

Spoiler alert: Of course Hawaii’s governor and two senators would sing Biden’s praises given they are, in fact, Democrats, and it’s what partisans do for each other.

And Graham wonders why Snopes needs to point out satire that can easily be treated as "news" in the right-wing bubble.

Note also that Houck made a point of identifying the Wall Street Journal correspondent as a "liberal reporter," but he has never explicitly labeled Doocy as "right-wing" or "conservative" reporter -- ironic given how much the MRC loves to lecture others about labeling bias.

UPDATE: The boys at the MRC are such Doocy stans that Kevin Tober wrote an overly excited Aug. 7 post ("HE"S BACK!") gushing that Doocy popped up on "Fox & Friends" during the midst of his paternity leave, where he "showed pictures of his daughter" and noted that she was wearing a presidential onesie ("Peter said he had gotten it from someone who works at the White House. Though he wouldn't say who exactly"). Tober closed by drooling: "From all of us here at NewsBusters, welcome back, Peter! And congratulations to you and Hillary on the new baby!" You can't make this stuff up, folks.

Newsmax Columnist Has Opinions About 'Masculine Men'
Topic: Newsmax

You may remember Alexandra York as the Newsmax columnist who has opinions about modern art (spoiler: she doesn't like it, because it's directly representational of anything, especially "Western heritage"). In her Aug. 1 column, she has opinions about "masculine men" becauser "it happens to be a hot emotional subject right now," particularly "Feminists’ demonization of "toxic" (masculine) men." Thus, she declared, "a fresh rational look at the subject in the American-led Western civilizations’ current sex-obsessed context is important." But she had to note a bunch of stipulations before getting there:

At the outset, we must stipulate that a "masculine" man is not an "Alpha" male who (like primates) establishes physical dominance and territorial dominion over all others under his control.

We are addressing humans not animals, and although this analogy between humans and primates has been both promoted and denigrated for decades it can be laid aside as irrelevant. Evolution is significant but does not pertain to the contemporary state of humanity.

For present purposes, we also confine ourselves to human males who have passed through childhood and achieved adult physical maturity as men.

Masculinity (as with femininity), however, is not a physical state alone. These terms are used to describe the physical, mental, and behavioral state of human adults, and the descriptions have changed throughout the ages as knowledge and understanding of human nature progresses.

[...]

Finally, we must in no way dismiss validity for any and all individual behavioral preferences or practices by adults. "To each his own" is applicable here as it is with all personal choices in life.

York declared that, among other things, "a masculine man will be self-confident in the abilities and fitness of his biological body and mental acuity," "will stand strongly for personal values but be sensitive to opinions of others," and "also will be emotionally sensitive and sharing with intimates. Above all, he will be a "protector" of his loved ones, his chosen woman, and his children (if he has them)."

For those waiting for the eventual anti-feminist attack and right-wing defense of men, York got there:

American Feminists have long attempted to emasculate men in order to dominate them — "toxic" is only the latest derogatory term — just as elites now try to do by promoting notions that some boys may be happier if they mutilate their bodies to become pseudo "women" — easier to dominate.

Adult men, secure in their biologically given and individually achieved masculinity, are needed today more than ever before to stand firm against authoritarian-lustful governmental-social elites who would control not only global resources but also the world’s populace.

Women can fight courageously and successfully against oppression, but genuinely masculine men exude a distinctive aura of unrelenting power sensed by all, an inner stability that causes pause on the part of predators. Thus, it is likely that masculine men are needed to lead the fight against wannabe dictators like schoolboard members, doctors, federal-state-local legislators, bureaucrats, and elites who would rob us of liberty and individual agency.

In America’s present cultural malaise, it would seem we need more masculine men in a world where it seems there are fewer.

Ah, yes, school board members are "wannabe dictators" in York's world. Where does she live, exactly?

WND Gushes That Quack Doctor Is 'Super-Popular'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

We've noted how WorldNetDaily was upset that quack doctor Joseph Mercola had to seek out a new bank to do business (while hiding all evidence of his quackery). Peter LaBarbera wrote a follow-up article on Aug. 7, gushing that Mercola is "super-popular" and was "victimized" by the bank:

JP Morgan Chase Bank has a growing reputation as a "woke" bank that shills for leftist social causes even as it openly discriminates against conservatives, most recently shutting down the business and personal accounts of COVID-19 dissenter Dr. Joseph Mercola, a super-popular proponent of alternative medicine and marketer of natural health products.

But it didn't stop there: as WND reported, on July 13 Chase also shut down the accounts of Mercola Market's CEO, CFO and even those of their respective spouses and children. Chase gave one employee some more time to find a new bank because shutting down her account disrupted her ability to provide care for her bedridden husband with dementia.

"This is just not fair at all. She has nothing to do with this!" he said in an interview.

Now the victimized doctor who "triggered" pro-COVID-vaccine progressives is warning that the "social credit system" – exemplified by Communist China, which monitors and controls people through digitized money – is already here, and now threatens everyone.

What we’re seeing is the weaponization of finance, where people whose views or actions go against the official narrative are cut off from basic financial services," Mercola said in an extended tweet ("X") Monday.

"This is the social credit system at work and, soon, it will be used against everyone."

Needless to say, LaBarbera said nothing about how Mercola has spread misinformation about COVID and its vaccines, and he has been repeatedly warned by the Federal Trade Commission for selling dietary supplements of dubious value about which he makes illegal claims regarding effectiveness -- more than earning being called a quack. LaBarbera was also silent about the fact that private business can choose not to do business with such an obviously shady quack like Mercola. Instead, he hyped the lazy, unproven argument that Mercola was dropped by Chase because of politics, despite quoting a Chase spokesperson specifically denying it, and hyped a new right-wing bank that would welcome quacks and extremimsts:

Mercola told [podcaster Del] Bigtree he is now pursuing a banking relationship with Old Glory Bank, created by conservatives like country star John Rich and GOP presidential candidate and longtime WND columnist Larry Elder as a haven for patriotic conservatives.

Old Glory states: "We are the bank for Middle Americans who hold tight to their beliefs of liberty, faith, family, security, privacy, and love of country, with a deep appreciation of the military and law and order."

It's not "patriotic" to lie to and scam people like Mercola does, and LaBarbera doesn't explain why ahe thinks it it is. And why would he? Promoting an agenda is more important to him than reporting facts. He also made no effort to fact-check anything Mercola said -- another sign he's a stenographer and not a real reporter.

NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Lingering Obama Derangement, Part 2
Topic: Media Research Center
Barack and Michelle Obama left the White House in 2017, but they continue to live rent-free in the collective heads of the Media Research Center -- even whining about Barack doing a podcast with Bruce Springsteen. Read more >>

MRC Tries To Clean Up After, Deflect From RFK Jr.'s Anti-Semitic Remark
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center began its runup to Robert K. Kennedy Jr.'s appearance before Congress by trying to do some cleanup of an inflammatory comment he made. Ana Schau was stuck playing whataboutism in a July 18 post:

CNN This Morning host Phil Mattingly had Representative Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) on Tuesday morning’s program to discuss several different issues, notably the recent anti-Semitic statements from Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA). Together they lamented Republicans calling out Democrats and tried to tie the anti-Semitic comments from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to House Republicans despite him running for president as a Democrat.

Mattingly introduced the subject by asking Slotkin about Jayapal and “the statement that she made about Israel being a racist nation.”

But Jayapal's statement is not "anti-Semitic" -- it's simply critical of Israel. Not all criticism of Israeli is anti-Semitic, and Schau made no effort to prove Jayapal's statement is. By contrast, Schau did not repeat the statement Kennedy made -- that the COVID virus was "ethnically targeted" not to infect Jews -- which is much more clearly anti-Semitic.

Also, it's quite easy to associate Kennedy with Republicans given that they are the only ones actively promotiing his candidacy -- and that includes the MRC. Schau didn't mention that inconvenient fact, of course. (It's also a sign that he's serving Republican purposes that Fox News barely mentioned his Jewish conspiracy theory, which is not something he would ignore if he were a genuine Democratic candidate.) Instead, she labored to counterfactually distance Kennedy from Republicans, even though they ewere the ones who invicted him to the upcoming hearing:

Mattingly was the one who put the name to the person when he asked specifically about Kennedy’s invitation to testify from Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), seeming to think that this invitation linked them together in an anti-Semitic ideology somehow.

He said that, despite McCarthy’s statement that he disagreed with Kennedy’s opinion on the matter, “there’s a difference between censoring somebody and inviting them to testify at a hearing,” and asked Slotkin if the Republicans were not as “uneasy” about Kennedy’s statement as they should have been.

The assumption that McCarthy and the other House Republicans agreed with Kennedy simply because they had invited him for a testimony in a case is an absurd assumption. It would be like assuming that Jack Smith or any other investigator for the January 6th hearings agreed with Trump simply because they had some of his supporters there to testify in the case.

If Kennedy is not serving Republican desires by running, why is Schau working so hard to distance his anti-Semitism from Republicans?

The next day, Gabriela Pariseau ramped up the MRC's victimhood narrative, whining that Kennedy had been "censored" -- then cheered McCarthy for not disinviting him from the hearing over his anti-Semitic remarks:

Big Tech has censored 2024 Democratic Party presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at least 10 times over a span of three months, but apparently, that is not enough for the left.

Kennedy is no stranger to censorship. Big Tech companies have already interfered in the 2024 presidential election and have censored Kennedy no fewer than 10 times between April and June 2023, according to MRC’s exclusive CensorTrack.org database.  YouTube committed the majority of the censorship as it removed no fewer than eight videos from its platform for violating its “Community Guidelines.” In the videos, Kennedy repeatedly spoke on controversial topics like COVID-19 and claimed that the CIA killed his father. Twitter additionally added context or Community Notes to two of Kennedy’s posts. 

Kennedy is set to testify at a House Judiciary hearing on censorship Thursday, but he has recently come under fire for comments claiming that COVID-19 was an ethnically targeted bioweapon that does not affect certain Jewish and Chinese people. As a result, Congressional Integrity Project Executive Director Kyle Herrig and over 100 members of Congress have all called for Kennedy to be uninvited from speaking to the committee, arguing that Kennedy has a history of making offensive claims. But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, in the spirit of free speech, has not caved to the left’s pressure.

Pariseau also got mad that Twitter's Community Notes were used to call out a Kennedy lie:

Twitter has also posted Community Notes under a couple of Kennedy’s posts. In one case, Kennedy was actually drawing attention to the fact that ABC had censored portions of an interview he gave them. “47 USC 315 makes it illegal for TV networks to censor Presidential candidates but Thursday, ABC showed its contempt for the law, democracy, and its audience by cutting most of the content of my interview with host Linsey Davis leaving only cherry-picked snippets and a defamatory disclaimer,” Kennedy tweeted.

The Community Note, however, claimed that Kennedy misunderstood the statute he referred to. "47 USC 315’s censorship prohibition applies only when candidates 'use a broadcasting station'. The law explicitly exempts newscasts & news interviews, which are allowed to censor," the note read.

The MRC considers Community Notes to be "censorship" when used to correct falsehoods made by right-wingers (and Kennedy).

Alex Christy tried to do more cleanup via whataboutism of Kennedy's anti-Semitic remark, again invoking Jayapal's non-equivalent criticism of Israel, in a July 21 post:

A befuddled Scott Jennings was forced to correct Rolling Stone’s Jay Michaelson on Thursday’s CNN Tonightw hen the former claimed that he couldn’t recall someone with “such anti-Semitic ideas getting this kind of platform” when referring to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee. Jennings politely reminded Michaelson that “It's platformed every day in the Democrat conference.”

Alluding to Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s remarks that Israel is a racist state, Michaelson, who is also a non-denominational rabbi, alleged, “But it's outrageous that there is, I think, perhaps a double standard that when somebody who spouts anti-Semitism is useful to a party in power, they get a platform. And when someone says something which may or may not, maybe sort of anti-Semitic, thinking, you know, the congresswoman from last week, you know, they get censured.”

Michaelson added, “So, this is a shocking display, I think, of -- I can't think of someone who has espoused-- someone-- such anti-Semitic ideas getting such this kind of a platform.”

There is no doubt that RFK Jr. is a kook and that his latest comments about COVID being “ethnically targeted” to protect Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people is just the latest example of that, but host Sara Sidner noticed Jennings wasn’t buying the larger point, “Scott, you made a face and don't think I didn't notice it.”

If Kennedy is such a "kook," why is the MRC so desperate to defend him and deflect criticism from him? Christy didn't answer that question.

When Michaelson pointed out that Japayal's remarks were not, in fact, anti-Semitic like Kennedy's, Christy helped Jennings push his narrative:

Michaelson then tried to defend himself, claiming that Jayapal’s comments are not even close to as bad as Kennedy’s, “Scott, there is no comparison between a statement, which I think was out of line, saying Israel is a racist state. That is a political statement. It is not one that I agree with. I think it's extreme and I've said it again in the column for CNN why I think that's incorrect… But to compare a sort of extreme political statement with, again, a thousand-year-old claim that Jews somehow engineered plagues to kill non-Jews, that's a crazy false equivalence. They're totally different.”

Jennings shot back by informing Michaelson that he was moving the goal posts, “No, your statement was you had never heard of anti-Semitism being platformed like this in the U.S. Congress. It's platformed every day in the Democrat conference.”

Again, Michaelson tried to suggest Jayapal’s remarks were different, “That's only if you agree that a statement about Israel which, again, I'm not agreeing with that statement or endorsing it, is anti-Semitic. It's a political statement… And so, for this guy to get on, you know, to get a platform after saying that like the Jews are immune and that this was targeted and it's some sort of a bioweapon, I'm sorry, but to compare that to one statement saying Israel is a racist state, that's no comparison.”

It is not just Jayapal, as Jennings recalled, “It's not one statement. That corner of the party makes repeated statements, but sorry.”

Jennings is, of course, correct. Elected progressives say anti-Semitic things routinely under the guise of criticizing Israel and, unlike RFK Jr., they actually hold positions of power.

Christy did not explain how, exactly, Jayapal's remark was anti-Semitic, and he offered no examples to support hs contention that Jennings "is, of course, correct."

Newsmax Hyped 'Sound of Freedom,' Hid QAnon Ties
Topic: Newsmax

Like other ConWeb outlets, Newsmax embraced the anti-child trafficking film "Sound of Freedom," based on the story of Tim Ballard, as a way to advance right-wing political narratives. James Hirsen unspririsingly gushed over the film in his July 3 column:

During one of the many dramatic scenes in the film, Ballard alludes to a passage from the Gospel of Luke.

“It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than you should ever hurt one of these little ones,” Ballard says.

In the Bible, Jesus himself instructs us about the inherent value of each and every child.

When in the film Ballard is asked why he has taken up this arduous mission, he replies, “Because God’s children are not for sale.”

[...]

For me personally, another passage from the Bible comes to mind. It is that of the Good Shepherd.

The shepherd has 100 sheep in his flock. But if one single sheep goes missing, he leaves the 99 in search of the one.

At least in prayer, may people of conscience continue to strive to be like the Good Shepherd.

And may God in his goodness send more Tim Ballards to rescue the one in need.

Like those other ConWeb outlets, Hirsen wasn't about to admit that the film leans into conspiratorial QAnon narratives about trafficking -- in which global elites are purportedly trafficking children for the purpose of harvesingt a chemical called adrenochrome from their blood to stay young -- or that star Jim Caviezel has become a serious QAnon adherent, or that Ballard himself has refused to distance himself from QAnon.

Hirsen gushed over the film again in his July 11 column -- "The public loves the film, giving it the highest CinemaScore rating possible, an A+. And movie fans who weighed-in on the Rotten Tomatoes website gave it a 100% rating" -- but then undermined that praise by enlisting two less-than-stellar people to help him endorse it:

In order to get more people to pay attention to the violations of human dignity with which the film deals, Dana White, President of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (the global mixed martial arts organization) posted a video on social media.

White spoke out on the importance of “Sound of Freedom” and the chilling nightmare of human trafficking. He was joined by legendary actor and director [Mel] Gibson, who urged people to see the movie.

The White and Gibson video footage has gone viral, providing some powerful promotion for the movie.

During the video, White said, “There is a new movie out there called 'Sound of Freedom' and it’s about human trafficking. More importantly, about the trafficking of children. This is a disgusting, horrific issue that’s happening all around the world. And it’s not getting better, it’s getting worse.”

The UFC CEO is utilizing his own company in an effort to get the word out.

As we've documented, White is something of a thug who defied COVID protocols duringthe pandemic to continue UFC matches and who was caught on camera slapping his wife during an argument. Gibson, of course, is the close friend and promoter of Hirsen that he has been trying to rehabilitate publicly ever since he was exposed as a raging Jew-hater. Hirsen mentoned none of this, of course, and he continued to censor the QAnon ties of the film and its principals.

Newsmax also gave the film other promotion as well:

• Film Studio Boss to Newsmax: 'Sound of Freedom' Exposes Child Trafficking
• Movie Distributor Purdie to Newsmax: 'Sound of Freedom' Resonates With Viewers
• Dean Cain to Newsmax: Why Is 'Sound of Freedom' Being Suppressed?
• 'Sound of Freedom' Shows Power in Conservatives' Pockets
• Goya CEO Unanue to Newsmax: 'Hand of God' All Over 'Sound of Freedom' Film
• Breitbart: 'Sound of Freedom' Tops 'Mission Impossible'
• 'Sound of Freedom' Continues Boom Up to $125 Million
• Trump: Death for Human Traffickers, 'Modern-Day Slavery'
• 'Sound of Freedom' Projected to Hit $150M in Revenue
• 'Sound of Freedom' Adds Theaters for Fourth Weekend in Row
• Ballard, 'Sound of Freedom': Trafficking Incentivized
• Jim Caviezel Joins Anti-abortion Prayer Rally in Ohio

(All those articles on how well the film is doing would seem to disprove Cains claim that it's being "suppressed.")

The only time the film's QAnon links were somewhat seriously addressed came in a July 9 article by Eric Mack that dishonestly addressed the issues by blaming "the liberal media" for bringing it up:

The biopic of Tim Ballad, a man leaving government work to hunt down child sex-traffickers in Colombia, is getting rave reviews by the public, while being trashed by the liberal media – a dichotomy not entirely lost on some.

While Rolling Stone magazine, The Washington Post, and The Guardian have denounced "The Sound of Freedom," to varying degrees, as a dog whistle for QAnon conspiracy theorists, it is making noise as a box office smash, raising an estimated $40 million in six days, according to Deadline.

[...]

Rolling Stone's meltdown titled "Sound of Freedom' Is a Superhero Movie for Dads With Brainworms" had Bryan Chai of the Western Journal taking particular note of critics minimizing the issue of child-sex trafficking to dis the film as a QAnon conspiracy spreader.

"Ballard, Caviezel, and others of their ilk had primed the public to accept 'Sound of Freedom' as a documentary rather than delusion by fomenting moral panic for years over this grossly exaggerated 'epidemic' of child sex-trafficking, much of it funneling people into conspiracist rabbit holes and QAnon communities," Rolling Stone's Miles Klee wrote. "In short, I was at the movies with people who were there to see their worst fears confirmed."

The Journal's Chai shot back that, despite Klee's dismissal, "child sex-trafficking is an objectively heinous, monstrous and evil stain on humanity."

Mack refused to tell his readers that Caviezel is a QAnon adherent or that Ballard won't distance himself from QAnon.

FLASHBACK: An Interlude Of Stelter Derangement Syndrome
Topic: Media Research Center

As part of this flashback series, we've shown how the Media Research Center worked hard to falsely smear a proposed anti-disinformation initiative in the Department of Homeland Security as a Orwellian "ministry of truth" -- while also smearing its leader, Nina Jankowicz -- then gleefully danced on its grave when officials caved to the nonsense and shut it down. And because this is the MRC, it also spent time lashing out at then-CNN host Brian Stelter, whom it irrationally hates for interfering with its right-wing talking points, for telling the other side of the story. Kevin Tober chortled in a May 2022 post that served up stenography for an insult-fest:

On Monday night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson once again proved why he has the number one show on cable news when he did a brutal takedown of CNN’s Brian Stelter for his sadness over the demise of Biden’s Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) also known as the Ministry of Truth. 

Carlson started off by expressing his amusement over the former head of the DGB, Nina Jankowicz. “So, by far the most entertaining person Joe Biden has appointed to anything was that Nina woman he put in charge of the Ministry of Truth. She was so ridiculous and provably so that she’s out,” Carlson said. 

He then turned his attention to CNN and Brian Stelter: “but at CNN, they are sad. They wanted her there forever.”

[...]

Carlson surmised that “Brian Stelter is in fact, assuming he's a real person, basically lifted directly from the pages of 1984, the Orwell novel.”

Needless to say, Tober fact-checked nothing Carlson said. Iinstead, he embarrassingly gushed: "Ouch! Tucker Carlson does not miss."

When stelter had Jankowicz on his show to tell her side of the story -- which is apparently forbidden in the right-wing bubbile -- Tober lashed out anew in a July 10, 2022, post:

On Sunday's Reliable Sources on CNN, host Brian Stelter spent the opening monologue of his show in a tizzy over the amount of disinformation on the internet and in American politics in general. So naturally, Stelter decided to bring the former head of President Joe Biden's Ministry of Truth Nina Jankowicz to help her rehabilitate her image. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jankowicz spread disinformation herself during the interview. 

Predictably, Stelter opened the segment by sucking up to her and failed to correct her on any of her lies. "The sympathetic view, to you, is that the disinformation board was the victim of disinformation. Is that how you feel?" 

Jankowicz responded that "it absolutely was the victim of disinformation. All of these narratives, that the disinformation governance board was going to be this Orwellian Ministry of Truth and all of the harassment and disinformation that was directed against me, was based on that falsehood. Based on that falsehood that was knowingly peddled by many people in the conservative media ecosystem and on Capitol Hill." 

[...]

Stelter teed her up to play victim about all the personal attacks she allegedly had to endure: "These critics, there were many of them, they were incredibly loud. They say you are just a giant liberal, could never be appropriately hired for this job because you posted disinformation on Twitter yourself."

In response Jankowicz went through a laundry list of grievances many of which were false:

[...]

She purposefully lied about former President Trump's ties to the Russian Alfa Bank and that he had two secret email servers to communicate with the Russians. Both claims were and are flat-out false. Screenshots are forever, Nina! Of course, Stelter never confronted her about this either. Stelter is a fake journalist at a fake news network.

Tober offered no evidence Jankowicz "purposefully lied" about the Alfa Bank story; just because something later turns out not to be true doesn't mean it was a lie to report the original claim. By contrast, the MRC continues to falsely claim that an invfestigation into ties between Russia and Donald Trump was a "hoax" though most normal people -- even Republicans -- agree there was more than enough evidence to justify an investigation. Also note that Tober made no effort to defend the disonest attacks on the board and on Jankowicz, suggesting that he agrees that her criticism of those attacks are accurate.

Tim Graham served up one more bit of needless mockery in his podcast the next day:

The liberal media paint themselves as the forces of Truth, and the conservatives as an army of misinformation. On his Sunday show, CNN host Brian Stelter brought on former "Disinformation Governance Board" leader Nina Jankowicz and asked softball questions about her feelings, and sugggested she was wronged by the right-wingers. The only tough questions dwelled on how the Department of Homeland Security didn't fight the conservatives hard enough.

Graham is certainly not going to concede that Jankowicz is right and his side is wrong.