MRC Defends First Trump-Free GOP Presidential Debate
Topic: Media Research Center

The first Republican presidential debate received its fair share of defense from the Media Research Center, even though Donald Trump refused to take part. Nicholas Fondacaro served up some pre-debate defense (and a touch of Brian Stelter Derangement Syndrome) in an Aug. 23 post:

Fox News Channel has long been the cable news king that blows MSNBC and CNN out of the water in terms of ratings most hours of the day. And when a TV news outlet hosts a major political event like the Republican primary debate on Wednesday night, they’re set to rake in millions of more views than they normally do. With that as the backdrop, MSNBC’s Alex Wagner ended the Tuesday night edition of her eponymous show by literally begging her viewers not to change the channel to watch the debate.

The discussion of debate ratings was delved into by her guest, former CNN media janitor Brian Stelter when he clownishly predicted that Fox News (his favorite hate object) was only going to get a small bump in viewership because former President Trump was skipping the debate:

Trump is going to cut the debate ratings in half. That's the virtual guarantee. The ratings were 24 million back in 2015 when Trump was on stage – center stage – as you point out last week insulting Megyn Kelly. 24 million. Fox will be lucky to have four to five million viewers watch this debate. And so, Trump's absence is going to be felt.

Thinking he was being insightful, Stelter noted that “most people will just skip it” as what happens with debate no matter who hosts it.

After the debate, Bill D'Agostino whined about how MSNBC talked about the debate and criticized not only Ron DeSantis but Vivek Ramaswamy as well:

Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki hosted MSNBC’s midnight hour of post-debate coverage, and she invited a predictably dullard-ridden panel to join in the festivities. Among them was Vanity Fair writer Molly Jong-Fast, who laid into not just the candidates themselves, but the Republican voter base as well.

[...]

MSNBC analyst Anthony Coley hammered the candidates for supposedly lying about abortion — though he neglected to provide any specifics: “There were a lot of lies tonight, a lot of extreme positions, lies particularly on abortion.”

Jong-Fast then chimed in with her take on the debate: “It was just a mess. I mean, it was a dumpster fire.”

She smeared the voters in the audience while attempting to make sense of Vivek Ramaswamy’s performance:

My theory about Vivek is that he is on Earth 2. He will say the crazy, populist, Q-anon stuff that the base loves. But these other people are too genteel, and maybe they’re too interested in winning a general, so they won’t say that stuff. But Vivek said stuff that was completely insane, and from another planet. And that’s the stuff Trump says. And so I think they got excited, because they were like, “This is a guy like our guy.”

Later, Psaki wheeled in MSNBC Republican David Jolly to trash Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s performance: “David, you’ve actually been at candidate forums with Ron DeSantis… what did you think of his performance, and was anything about it surprising to you?”

“No, nothing surprising,” Jolly replied, adding, “He’s a weird dude. I mean, that’s the bottom line. He’s just a weird guy, and America saw that tonight.”

Mark Finkelstein similarly complained that "Morning Joe" "was very tough on Vivek Ramaswamy" after the debate:

With perhaps the nastiest line of the morning, in a double swipe at Vivek and the GOP, Charlie Sykes of The Bulwark said:

"The reality is, he is a shallow, shameless, facile demagogue. Which means he's probably going to get a bump in the polls, in the Republican polls."

Making a boxing analogy, Al Sharpton piled on Vivek, saying that Vivek had good early rounds, but that he couldn't take a punch, and that Nikki Haley scored a TKO on him. That was a reference to Haley hitting Vivek with this line during the debate: "you have no foreign policy experience, and it shows." Ouch.

Nicholas Fondacaro grumbled that ABC's George Stepanopoulos called out Nikki Haley making a crack about Biden's purportedly mental deterioration:

Possibly because of the strong showing from most of the GOP field during their first debate the previous evening, ABC Good Morning America co-anchor George Stephanopoulos was in a sour mood on Thursday and took his rage out on candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. Her crime? Bringing attention to President Biden’s advanced age, how it’s obvious that he’s slipping mentally, and how that’s not good for America to have a leader like that.

Getting way over his skis with the fate of former President Trump, Stephanopoulos pressed her on, “Why would you vote for a convicted felon to be president of the United States?” Haley responded that she was “not comfortable with a President Kamala Harris becoming president. I think we would be in a far worse situation.” She also told Stephanopoulos that he was getting ahead of himself.

Alex Christy groused that non-right-wing outlets found the debate to be rather meainingless since Trump didn't take part:

When it comes to elections, the media should be pro-debate, especially when no votes have officially been cast, but the post-non Trump debate coverage on Thursday’s Good Morning America on ABC and CBS Mornings dismissed the whole thing as a “fantasy land” that resembled a “job interview” in which the candidate has already been selected.

On GMA, chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl summarized the previous evening’s festivities, “we got to see a world, maybe it's a fantasy land. We got to see a world where Donald Trump was not a candidate, for a moment, for about 90 minutes in that debate you saw eight other Republicans debating. His name was not mentioned.”

[...]

Wednesday’s debate does not have to be a “fantasy land” or sham job interview. The media could have substantive discussions on domestic and foreign policy or give the non-Trump candidates more air time, but they choose not to.

Tim Graham spent his Aug. 25 column complaining that the non-right-wing media pointed out how much the debate sucked:

The first Republican presidential debate was feisty and substantive, because Fox News overwhelmingly focused on policy issues that voters care about. A debate was seriously overdue, because the television networks have shut out coverage of policy issues like they were protecting the public from a deadly plague.

Even so, the same journalists who uncork grand proclamations about how democracy is precious seem to suggest this debate was a waste of time. Donald Trump is so far ahead in very premature polling, why bother? This neatly lines up with Team Trump’s talking points.

[...]

If journalists really cared about democracy and voting, they wouldn’t be so mercilessly quick to declare everyone except Trump is toast. If they all think Trump is “dangerous to democracy,” as CBS morning co-host Tony Dokoupil insisted to Nikki Haley, why do they sound like debates (with or without Trump) are beside the point?

Christy returned to huff that it was pointed out that the candidates didn't want to talk about the one who wasn't there:

MSNBC The 11th Hour guest host Ali Velshi, Washington Postcolumnist Jennifer Rubin, and presidential historian Michael Beschloss were all greatly distressed on Thursday as they reacted to the “weird” GOP primary debate from the night before that focused on policy differences between the candidates instead of obsession over Donald Trump and “the anti-democratic tendencies that have taken over the party.”

Beginning with Rubin, Velshi proclaimed “it was weird that they were starting to have sort of what sounded like some policy discussion when, actually, the split screen here is that while you were all debating, becoming president of the United States, the guy who is trouncing you all is indicted and going to be arrested again.”

A group of Republicans who want to replace Trump talking about why voters should choose them instead of Trump was not weird in any way, but that didn’t stop Rubin from claiming: “It is and I found the coverage of the debate terribly concerning and unserious. It doesn't matter whether one candidate got a little bit more time or one guy, maybe will go up in the polls.”

Jeffrey Lord's Aug. 26 column tried to protect Trump from both the media and the other republican candidates:

Taken all together, the media coverage is all over the lot.  Which, in fact, says something about the state of the GOP race in the media. History records that when there is an overwhelming verdict from a debate or an election, the media, left or right, is quick to react. Celebrating for the victors, complaining for the losers.

And, of course, there is the curious fact that the more legal troubles Trump has, the more his poll numbers go up.  It is safe to say that there are Americans aplenty who see the arrest and charging of Trump as a serious assault on the Constitution and their own freedoms. The media become angry when Trump's challengers join Trump in decrying Democrats weaponizing the legal system in a blatant campaign to get Biden re-elected. They want the challengers to join them in cheering on the indictments.

But it’s August of 2023. A full year-plus from the 2024 election. Presidential elections no matter who is involved or in which election cycle they appear are challenging, to say the least. It is far more challenging in this year of mixing primary dates with court dates.

Lord seemed to be frustrated that there was "no media consensus" that he could reliably peg a right-wing column on.

WND Freaks Out Over (Theoretical) Lower Alcohol Guidelines
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily doesn't need actual reasons to peddle hatred of President Biden -- mere rumors are enough. An anonymous WND writer complained in an Aug. 24 article:

For many Americans, this might be the final straw: There's a report that the Joe Biden administration wants to start setting drinks limits for everyone.

He's already deciding what kind of car you need to drive, what kind of appliances you must buy, what ideology you must provide for your children through their public schools, for whom you can vote, who (taxpayers) must pay for abortions and mutilating, sex-change surgeries, and more.

Now it is the Daily Mail that is reporting there are expected to come "strict new alcohol guidelines" that will urge people "to drink no more than two beers a week."

It is George Koob, "Biden's health czar," who told the publication he's looking at new restrictions being implemented in Canada – with interest.

"If there's health benefits, I think people will start to re-evaluate where we're at [in the U.S.],' he told DailyMail.com.

The government's present guidelines suggest up to one bottle of beer, a small glass of wine or a shot of spirit per day. Two for men.

But, the report said, "Those guidelines are up for review in 2025."

The anonymous WND writer provided no evidence this is actually happening -- nothing is offered by copy-and-pasted speculation from a right-wing content mill. The writer also failed to dispute claims that there is no health benefit to drinking alcohol, nojr was anyone from any government agency contacted for a reaction (probably the writer knows that there is nothing actually happening here).Nevertheless, Barbara Simpson spent her Aug., 25 WND column ranting about it:

Who would have thunk it?!

Good old Joe has in mind stricter regulations as to how much alcohol American citizens can drink.

I thought that went out with Prohibition! But then, what do I know?

So pardon me, on this 100 degree day, while I put down my chilled beer and think about what is going on in Washington.

It's thanks to the U.K.'s Daily Mail that Americans find out that there are "official alcohol guidelines" for us in Washington.

Who knew?!

And who knew that President Biden has an "alcohol czar" – Dr. George Koob, who told the media that the U.S. has alcohol guidelines that are soon to change, to match those of Canada. In that country, people are advised to have just two drinks per week. Koob said that because there are health issues involving alcohol consumption, he thinks "people will start to reevaluate where we're at in the U.S."

As with the anonymous WND writer, Simpson -- who cited the same right-wing content mill -- offered no evidence this is actually happening, and she didn't prove her claim that Biden would somehow force people to drink less or do anything beyond issuing guidelines and recommendations.

Sunny Hostin Talks About Race, So MRC's Fondacaro Smears Her As A 'Racist'
Topic: Media Research Center

A while back, Media Research Center "media researcher" Nick Fondacaro got tired of us pointing out that his main evidence that "The View" co-host Sunny Hostin is a "racist" -- a label he sticks on her every time he hate-watches "The View -- involves his failure to understand how metaphors work, so he directed us to a tweet in which he claimed to list all the ways that Hostin is "racist." As one would imagine, it's much more about whining that Hostin talked about race in a way right-wingers like Fondacaro disapprove than her actually being "racist." Let's go through his list, shall we?

Indeed, his first example, "Says white women are like roaches,"is the thing we've ridiculed him over. What Hostin actually said is that "white Republican suburban women are now going to vote Republican," which she said is "almost like roaches voting for Raid." Again; it's a metaphor; Hostin is simply arguing that women are voting against their own interests -- she specifically referenced health care issues -- by voting for Republicans who don't really care about such things. Fondacaro did not dispute Hostin's argument -- he simply close to be deliberately obtuse (and throw out some right-wing clickbait) by dishoenstly portraying an obvious metaphor as Hostin being "racist."

Example No. 2: "Says white women are subservient." Here's what Hostin actually said, which is just a variation on her earlier argument that white women vote against their best interests by support Republicans:

I think that women, white women in particular, want to protect the patriarchy here, because it's to their benefit. They want to make sure that their husbands do well. They want to make sure that their sons do well. They want to make sure that their children do well. And they want to make sure that they do well. Most of the women in some of these studies are married white women and they do fall in line with what their husbands are doing, what their husbands are voting.

[...]

I think with white female Republicans, you have a Republican Party that is taking away your health right to decide for yourself. You have all of these things that are against women.

Again, Fondacaro didn't attempt dispute her argument, though he noted that co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin -- whom he dismissed as a "self-proclaimed conservative," an allusion to all the Heathering he and the rest of the MRC have done to her -- "pushed back" on it.

Example No. 3: "Says the problem with American gun owners is that they're white." ;In his hate-watching write-up, Fondacaro asserted that Hostin "spewed her toxic racism again when she suggested the problem with gun owners in America was that they had white skin and were 'radicalized' by Fox News, thus a danger to the country." What Hostin actually said was that of gun owners, "largely they're men and they're largely white men." In fact, statistics show that white men own guns in a greater proportion than men of other races. Fondacaro did respond that "during the pandemic there was a surge of minorities who became first-time gun buyers, including black and Asian Americans, and they oppose gun control. And they’ve been welcomed into the gun rights community." He didn't mention that one motivating factor may have been the increase in anti-Asian hate crimes, driven in part by right-wingers like Fondacaro and Donald Trump branding COVID as a "China virus."

Example No. 4: "Say white people are still benefitting from slavery." Hostin did indeed say that "white people really benefitted the most and continue to do so today," adding that "it's so upsetting when people say, 'But I didn't have anything to do with it. I didn't own slaves.' No, but you continue to reap the benefits of it!" Again, Fondacaro made no attempt to dispute the accuracy of Hostin's statement, choosing instead to maliciously smear her as a "racist" for saying it. In fact, as writer Andre Henry points out, there remains a massive asset gap between white America and black America, made possible in part by wealth generated by slavery.

Example No. 5: " Falsely claims Nikki Haley is using a fake name to seem white and calls her a racial 'chameleon.'" In fact, Hostin never claimed Haley used a "fake" name -- that's Fondacaro's word -- but she simply noted that Haley is not using her "real name," which can reasonably interpreted as not using her given first name (which is Nimarata; Nikki is her middle name), and that "if she leaned into being someone of color it would be different" for her in Republican politics. Fondacaro went on to play an attempted gotcha:

Haines stepped up and shot back: “Sunny! You go by a different name!”

That’s right! Sunny’s real name is Asunción Cummings Hostin. And according to her, she doesn’t use that name because Americans are too stupid to pronounce it correctly. “Because most Americans can't pronounce Asunción because of the under-education in our country,” she sneered.

This conversation didn’t sit well with Whoopi Goldberg, whose real name is Caryn Elaine Johnson, and she put an end to it.

Fondacaro then touted how Haley responded by claiming that "It's racist of you to judge my name." He obviously doesn't see himself as a racist for judging Hostin's name -- he has clearly exempted himself from the standards he uses to judge others.

Example No. 6: "Says white GOPers only vote for women and minorities to control them." Again, "control" is Fondacaro's word, not Hostin's. The context of the discussion is the twice-failed Georgia Senate campaign of Herschel Walker, whom the MRC enthusiastically supported despite the fact that he was a walking scandal factory; Hostin said that "these white guys" in the Republican party were "using him. I think he knew it and he looked relieved almost" when he lost, adding that Republicans "made that race about identity politics. They tried to find a black man because there was another black man running," Democrat Raphael Warnock. Yet again, Fondacaro made no effort to refute anything Hostin said, just play the "racism" card to shut down discussion.

Example No. 7: "Suggests black/Latino Republicans are race traitors." Fondacaro put words in Hostin's mouth again; at no point did she say the words "race traitors." What Hostin actually said is "I feel like that's an oxymoron, a black Republican," adding that "I don’t understand black Republicans and I don't understand Latino Republicans."

The fact that Fondacaro has to put words in Hostin's mouth to portray her as "racist" -- and to insist that merely bringing up the subject of race is a "racist act -- shows what an utterly dishonest, amoral and cravenly partisan person he is. Then again, if he wasn't all those things, the MRC wouldn't be employing him.

WND Continued To Ironically Promote RFK Jr.'s Presidential Campaign
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily's enthusiastic promotion of Robert Kennedy Jr.'s presidential campaign continued over the summer and into the fall -- because it might hurt President Biden's re-election, not because it actually wants him to win. An anonymously written June 22 article hyped that "A newly posted video of an interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Democrat candidate for the 2024 nomination for president, reveals how it was Barack Obama who actually made Big Pharma a part of his political party. And, he said, it was when Obama 'made a golden handshake with the devil.'" Bob Unruh helped Kennedy attack Biden in a July 24 article:

Evidence of alleged corruption by Joe Biden has been piling up for some time already: The claims of bribes and other huge transfers of money that could be payoffs. The financial deals with America's detractors around the globe, and more.

And there have been a lot of people calling for investigations of what appears to be corruption.

Now a popular Democrat is joining those requests.

Just the News reports that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a candidate for the Democrat [sic] nomination for president in 2024, now is demanding an investigation into possible corruption by Biden.

[...]

"I have avoided criticizing the president because I’m trying to bring people together and end some of the vitriol, the poison that’s made politics so poisonous," Kennedy told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo's "Sunday Morning Futures."

But, he said, "I think though the issues that are now coming up are worrying enough that we really need a real investigation of what happened. I mean, these revelations where you have Burisma — which is a notoriously corrupt company that paid out apparently $10 million to Hunter and his dad — if that’s true, then it is really troubling."

On Aug. 14, WND not only promoted an interview Kennedy did with Tucker Carlason, it published an anonymously written article that repeated his complaints that he's being criticized online:

A court hearing has been scheduled this week for a case being brought by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. against the powers of the internet that are censoring him.

He's contending for the Democrat nomination for president in 2024, and while the Democrat party [sic] machinery – apparently – still is behind Joe Biden, the Kennedy name certainly has the potential to disrupt the Deep State's best-laid plans for that vote.

The Hill explains that even though his name is associated with one of the most powerful Democrat families over the years, he's being targeted now.

The opinion piece said, "Not a day goes by that he is not vilified by a left-leaning news site. The vitriol these outlets direct at Kennedy is often far more inflammatory than what they launch against the 'hated' former President Donald Trump on a regular basis."

The commentary said it's because he's been considered for years a "charter member" of the "Democratic/liberal/progressive community" and he knows the "shadowy inner workings" of the Democrat machine better than most.

But during COVID-19, he "strayed." He criticized COVID policy and practice as well as treatments. And he defended doctors, nurses, police, firefighters and more who opposed the mandated shots, and paid a penalty for that.

Which is why a hearing Wednesday before a federal magistrate judge on his request for a temporary restraining order barring Google from censoring his comments on YouTube takes on a huge significance.

It was not mentioned that Kennedy has a history of spreading lies and misinformation about COVID and its vaccines that social media works to eradicate.

After Kennedy started making noise about running as an independent, Unruh helped push the idea in a Sept. 26 article:

Joe Biden could be facing a disastrous defeat in the 2024 presidential election, assuming he's still in the hunt then, if Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would offer voters a third-party candidacy.

That's according to a report from Newsweek, which revealed that one-third of Democrat voters likely would support him.

The results, from Rasmussen Reports, confirmed that combination of factors would undoubtedly hand the White House to President Donald Trump, who then would become only the second president to be re-elected ever to serve non-consecutive terms.

The survey said 57% of likely Democratic voters plan to support Biden in the Democratic primaries, to the 25% committed to Kennedy.

Unruh didn't mention that Rasmussen Reports has a right-wing bias, making polls like this a bit untrustworthy.

Kennedy was also continuing to get support from WND's columnists. Putin apologist Richard Blakley portrayed Kennedy, along with Donald Trump, as an alleged victiim of "persecution" by Biden in his Aug. 17 column:

While the main thrust of Biden's assaults have been against his main rival, former President Trump, Biden has also refused Secret Service protection for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as Kennedy is dealing with death threats while running for the Democratic presidential nomination. This is the first time in history this protection has been denied for a candidate with 20% in the polls, according to RFK Jr.

All of these persecutions of presidential candidates show we have entered into a new era of demise for the United States, where tyrannical rulers are able to wield their power to persecute their opposition.

Blakley offered no evidence that Biden is personally blocking the Secret Service from protecting Kennedy. In fact, the Secret Service provides protection only for "major" candidates, which Kennedy has not proven himself to be.

CNN Has A New Leader For The MRC To Hate (And Zucker Derangement To Nurse)
Topic: Media Research Center

On top of its weirdly continuing Jeff Zucker Derangement Syndrome, the Media Research Center was upset that his replacement as head of CNN, Chris Licht, left after his mismanagent of the channel was exposed; the MRC was cheering Licht's efforts to force CNN to take a rightward turn and be more Fox News-esque. Tim Graham exhibited both in an Aug. 28 post that complained about the resurfacing of Don Lemon, who was fired by Licht (and whom the MRC has always hated):

Justin Baragona at the leftist Daily Beast was very excited that fired CNN host Don Lemon surfaced to discuss his ouster on Kara Swisher's Pivot podcast. The big takeaway was that Lemon felt "vindicated" that CEO Chris Licht was let go after letting him go. In other words, the boss who claimed a devotion to changing CNN's tone to be less viciously anti-Trump and anti-Republican was defeated by the remaining internal forces of Jeff Zucker.

Swisher wondered if Lemon felt vindicated over Licht’s departure in June. Lemon brought up the massive Tim Alberta piece on Licht: 

“Yes, I do,” Lemon replied. “Read the story, and you speak to the people who are there, and I think people get what happened. All you have to do is read The Atlantic story, read the subsequent stories that came out, and you know, how it played out. They’re gone now. So do I feel vindicated in that sense? Yes, I do.”

Swisher's on Team Lemon on this. In June, she argued on her podcast that CNN overlord David Zaslav "needs to get the f—k out of the way" and "let the professionals take over" and try to fix CNN.

[...]

Lemon, who Baragona underlined " has vacationed with Zucker recently and retained Zucker’s girlfriend (and former CNN executive) Allison Gollust as a comms specialist," predictably gushed over Zucker’s Trump-trashing regime at CNN and said nobody could run the network better.

Graham didn't explain why he and the MRC are still obsessed with Zucker -- he hasn't been with CNN for nearly two years.

When a replacement for Licht was named -- longtime media executive Mark Thompson -- Curtis Houck spent an Aug. 31 post ranting about him, with an added dose of Zucker derangement (though failing to include Thompson's full name):

Publicly revealed on Wednesday, WarnerBros. Discovery tapped former BBC Director-General and former CEO/president of The New York Times Company to lead CNN as it continues to struggle not only with ratings, but improving its image from the days of the Jeffrey Zucker-led circus that lived for spewing venom at Donald Trump and the GOP writ large.

Word had leaked out Tuesday night, thanks to Puck “partner” (and former CNN media reporter) Dylan Byers, who gushed that the man “with a reputation for restructuring legacy media assets and pursuing innovative growth strategies” will look to fix the “disastrous thirteen-month run” caused by Chris Licht (when it was arguably due to much of the blood-thirsty workforce out to avenge their Dear Leader Zucker’s ouster).

[...]

In a story at the said paper, former Times executive editor Dean Baquet praised CNN for making “the perfect hire” of someone who “understands change” and will feel “very comfortable.” For his part, Thompson reportedly said in a note to CNN employees that he’s optimistic about CNN given its “great brand and the strength of its journalism.”

If you haven’t laughed at yet at all this, this is your cue to do so.

Houck then had to go back more than a decade to find something to attack Thompson with:

A trip through the NewsBusters archives brought up some interesting findings. Shortly after he left the BBC (which ran from 1979 as an entry-level staffer until his departure as top boss in 2012), it came to light that longtime personality Jimmy Savile had sexually abused hundreds of people (including underage children and while on the job) with allegations people at the network knew and covered it up.

Thompson insisted he had no knowledge of Savile’s behavior and was also not involved in the network’s spiking of an investigation into Savile that was set to air in October 2011 on BBC’s flagship news magazine, Newsnight.

By contrast, the MRC refused to condemn longtime Fox News chief Roger Ailes for the culture of pervasive sexual harassment he allowed to persist there. Rather than remind people of its double standard, Houck concluded: "Given this track record, look for CNN’s far-left inmates who currently run the asylum to feel right at home and continue their heavily divisive, Trump-centric, and toxic rhetoric."

A Sept. 16 post by Graham complained that CNN is moving on from Licht:

In a new interview for a cover story in People magazine, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper talked about the brief Chris Licht era, that “morale was hurt by all the drama, and that’s unfortunate, but I think things feel like they are back on track.”

Cooper says incoming CEO Mark Thompson "sounds great." He said  “It's never great to be in a place where you read the paper in the morning and there are stories about where you're working.” 

None of this was actually in the magazine (it was online). The cover story was all about Cooper's "bliss" with his two young preschool sons at age 56...as well as some plugs for Cooper's podcast and his forthcoming book on the Astor family.

[...]

Two weeks ago, Cooper was more candid in the New York Times Magazine about his distaste for Licht's apparent crusade for a less crusading approach to Trump and the news. "I don’t know what Chris Licht’s analysis was. I don’t have much confidence that I actually know what he was thinking….I mean, I read things in the paper, but I’m not sure what the point of it all was."

When asked if Licht failed to explain his vision to his stars, Cooper acknowledged he understood it. But hey, Cooper thinks he’s objective!

Then again, Graham thinks Fox News is objective, so he's not exactly one to judge.

Graham returned for an Oct. 10 post to whine that Thompson wasn't going to be as pliable as Licht to the MRC's anti-CNN narratives:

Wall Street Journal reporter Isabella Simonetti underlined how new CNN chief executive Mark Thompson is cozying up to the Jeff Zucker-loving bias brigade at CNN. On his first day on Monday, he spoke to employees in a video message. He said CNN needs to step up its digital game, saying conventional TV “can no longer define us,” and said its journalists shouldn’t be "distracted" by debates about balance or false equivalency.

“For most people under retirement age, the first place they turn for news is their phones, not their TVs. And news players who can’t or won’t respond to that revolution risk losing their audience and their business,” Thompson said, adding "this company is still nowhere near ready for the future...TV is vital and there’s urgent work to do there, especially as we rebuild prime time. But TV is also too dominant at CNN and digital too marginal.”

Thompson urged CNN to define the news, not just react to it. “And let’s not second guess ourselves or get distracted by complicated arguments about balance or whataboutism or false equivalency. Let’s cover political news proportionately and fairly, but not be frightened of our own shadows.”

Whatever criticism CNN employees are absorbing from the right or from the center, the on-air product hasn't displayed any serious tendency to abandon its Zuckeresque tilt against Trump and Republicans in general. 

Graham concluded by huffing, "CNN has a left-wing partisan Democrat base that needs to be pleased, and that's who CNN's journalists are looking to please."  We don't recall Graham ever criticizing Fox News for having a right-wing partisan base that needs to be pleased. Indeed, Fox News was trying to do exactly that when it lied to its viewers about election fraud -- lies that caused FoxNews to pay $787 million to Dominion in a defamation  lawsuit -- but Graham handwaved those lies because the channel is so effective in appeasing that base of which he is a part.

Partisan Dick Morris: Can't We All Just Get Along?
Topic: Newsmax

Dick Morris is known for a lot of things: fluffing Donald Trump, attacking President Biden, being wrong a lot. So it was odd to see Morris play the can't-we-all-just-get-along card in his Thomas Jefferson-invoking Aug. 22 Newsmax column:

In his first inaugural address in 1800, after a bitter election that Jefferson, himself, called a "revolution," Thomas Jefferson made a plea for national unity and social harmony that we all should strive to adopt in 2024.

So rent was the country by partisan strife as Republican Jefferson faced Federalist John Adams for the right to succeed George Washington, that many feared that an armed conflict, a civil war, might break out.

Friends on opposite sides of the partisan divide stopped speaking to one another, families broke apart, neighbors fought with a savage intensity.

Admidst all this kumbaya, Morris still managed to take a shot at  Biden:

In his inaugural address, even as he was scheming to try to impeach Trump even on his way out of office, Biden called for a unity that proved the exact opposite of his real intentions.

But, now, when the issue of the election is still unresolved, let's all really work to restore the "social harmony" of which Jefferson spoke.

Let's do it in our own homes, our entertainment, our social events, when we go out for dinner or have couples over.

Ban politics for the night.

We will never be able to convince each other and the dinner table makes a bad rostrum.

By restoring social harmony or, as Jefferson put it "social intercourse" we can make a start at healing America.

Of course, another way Morris could restore social harmony is to condede certain incontrovertible facts -- such as that the 2020 election is, in fact, resolved and his buddy Trump lost. A significantpart of today's social disharmony, after all, is the result of Trump and his supporters -- of which Morris is one -- refusing to acknowledge reality, or that impeachment was an appropriate response to a president who incited a violent riot.

You want to heal America, Mr. Morris? Stop being so aggressively partisan to the point where you deny reality. He might want to spread that message to his Newsmax co-workers, which aren't known for telling both sides of the story on its outlets.

WND's Messianic Rabbi Melts Down Over 'Barbie' Movie
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily didn't do a whole of right-wing bashing of the "Barbie" movie when it came out over the summer, limiting the attacks to reprinted articles from elsewhere. It made up for that, though, with an Aug. 20 article by Joe Kovacs hyping claims about thte movie by WND's onetime cash cow, and favorite messianic rabbi prophet, Jonathan Cahn:

"Could a doll from the 1950s and a Hollywood movie be connected to an ancient, Mesopotamian goddess and to the end times?"

"Could there actually be a dark mystery behind 'Barbie'?"

These are just two of the questions raised by best-selling biblical author Jonathan Cahn in a new video probing the origins of the blockbuster film starring Margot Robbie as the popular doll come to life.

"The fact that Hollywood could take that doll and turn it into an attack on half of the human race, on marriage, on life itself is a sign of just how sickened our culture has become," says Cahn in is video titled: "The Mystery Of Barbie, Ishtar, and Smashed Babies!"

Get ready for a lot of biased, humorless analysis of a movie that was filled with humor. Take, for example, Cahn's rant about the film's juxtaposition of Barbie's female-centric world and the real world they stumble into that's controlled by men:

"This has to be the most widely distributed anti-man movie ever made," Cahn explains.

"Never before has there been a major motion picture directed at children, girls, to the effect of indoctrinating them against men. Just a few years ago this motion picture could not even have been made as a children's movie, but it shows you how rapidly our culture is changing, or rather, deteriorating."

He says the dialogue of the movie itself gives away the radical feminist messaging.

"It comes from the lips of Barbie herself. She says: 'By giving voice to the cognitive dissonance required to be a woman under the patriarchy, you robbed it of its power.'"

Cahn opines: "What kind of human communication is that? It's not. It's certainly not normal human communication. It's the kind of sentence you find in a handbook of radical feminism or a film made by Josef Stalin's revolutionary council or the arts for the propagation of Marxist doctrine."

"It's not about fun. If it were, you would never have such words and phrases and sentences."

[...]

"The movie depicts men as evil or dangerous. At best, they're presented at the beginning just as jerks, useless, inferior creatures with no real purpose. ...

"Now imagine a movie aimed at boys that depicted women as inferior, useless and evil creatures that had to be conquered, and boys or men had to separate themselves from them. What would be the reaction? And yet Hollywood is vilifying half the human race, and it's OK?"

Aren't there plenty of movies that are all about men being study and women being inferior? Cahn clearly doesn't know his Hollywood history. He also failed to see humor in the film's opening sequence that paid homage to "2001: A Space Odyssey," which depicted the arrival of the adult Barbie in a world where girls had only baby dolls to play with:

"In Kubrick's film, the apes represent the primitive. So in 'Barbie,' girls who play with baby dolls are represented as primitive, unenlightened. In other words, motherhood is primitive. Women as mothers, mother and child, it's a primitive, unenlightened, negative state. Again, the doctrines of radical feminism."

He mentioned another key similarity between the two films.

"As the ape lifted up the bone to kill an animal or an ape, the one girl lifts up her baby doll that she's been caring for. And what does she do? She smashes the baby doll against another baby doll and against the rocks. The head of the baby cracks open, explodes. You see the decapitated ahead of a baby against a rock."

Cahn does not mention the Holy Bible itself provides similar baby-smashing imagery in the book of Psalms, where the heads of the children of evildoers are smashed against rocks: "Happy is the one who takes your babies and smashes them against the rocks!" (Psalm 137:9 NLT)

Finally, we get to the Mesopotamian goddess stuff:

"What does Barbie have to do with an ancient Mesopotamian goddess? I wrote of this key in 'The Return of the Gods.' When a civilization turns away from God, it doesn't become neutral or empty. When it turns away from the Spirit of God, other spirits enter into it."

"One of the most ancient of these spirits that I reveal in the book is that of a goddess known in the Bible as Ashtorah or Ashtoreth."

This goddess was also known by the name of Ishtar in Babylon.

"Ishtar was the goddess of sexuality, sexual immorality. She was always depicted as a young woman, she was depicted as a young woman on her own, independent," Cahn said.

She was often depicted as taking roles traditionally assumed by men. She was not the goddess of marriage. She was rarely linked to marriage; her ways were generally averse to marriage or motherhood. She was the goddess of women who were overall not married. Her ancient literature was pornographic."

Cahn also notes that just as Barbie famously has her boyfriend Ken at her side, the pagan goddess Ishtar is well-known for her boyfriend Tammuz.

"Tammuz was always a secondary character, always in the shadow of Ishtar in effect, an accessory to Ishtar's mythology," Cahn said.

"Ishtar dominates and subjugates her lover. She even destroys Tammuz. In the movie, 'Barbie,' Ken is vanquished along with the other men."

It's not explained why a strong woman is a bad thing.

We've already noted that WND editor Joseph Farah cited Cahn's video in bashing "Barbie" as bein "disgusting from beginning to end" and claiming thte opening sequence is about abortion and "hatred of children."

NEW ARTICLE -- The MRC's Childish War On CNN: The Chris Licht Saga, Part 1
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center pestered CNN chief Chris Licht to pull the channel to the right and complained that a town hall it did with Donald Trump wasn't more sycophantic -- then demanded that Licht fire a CNN reporter who criticized the town hall. Read more >>

MRC's Defense Strategy On Trump's (Fourth) Indictment Also Included Hypocrisy
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center did its usual distraction-and-whataboutism routine (with added conspiracy theories) when Donald Trump faced his fourth (yes, fourth) indictment. But a number of other Trump advisers and hangers-on were also indicted with in this Georgia-based indictment, and Mark Finkelstein spent an Aug. 17 post huffing that schadenfreude was exhibited regarding one of them:

On Thursday, it was [Joe] Scarborough's turn to indulge in unseemly gloating, with the target this time being Rudy Giuliani.

Morning Joe opened with clips of Rudy, back in the day as a federal prosecutor, talking about his extensive use of RICO statutes. The show then rolled a current clip of Rudy criticizing the use of RICO statutes in his Georgia election case. Said Scarborough:

"It's sort of fascinating, the perfect circle. This is, of course, what Elton John would sing about in The Lion King: this is the circle of life. "Live by the sword, die by the sword, another way to say it."

If anything is going to stir the Trump base, and even begin to make some non-Trumpists consider whether the liberal establishment is seeking vengeance and not justice toward Trump and his associates, it could be this kind of distasteful reveling.

Asif the MRC doesn't engage in distasteful reveling every time something salacious is reported about Hunter Biden. Clay Waters served up more hypocrisy in another Aug. 17 post:

So just what was then-president Trump thinking when he called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in early January 2021, and asked him to “find 11,780 votes” in Georgia, which if really there, would have put Trump over Biden in the close Georgia race?

NewsHour congressional reporter Lisa Desjardins seemed confident she knew just what Trump was thinking in her Tuesday evening report -- that he knew “he was short of votes,” but still asked Raffensperger to change the outcome.

Desjardins: [Fulton County District Attorney Fani] Willis launched the investigation in February 2021, a few weeks after audiotape revealed Trump knew he was short of votes in the state, but asked Georgia's secretary of state to change the outcome anyway.

Donald Trump, Former President of the United States: All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have.

Compare that blunt declaration of Trump’s guilt with a segment on Tuesday’s edition of Amanpour & Co., which airs on andCNN International. Fill-in host Bianna Golodryga certainly isn’t a Trump fan, but she at least applied a shred of journalistic skepticism, leaving the question of Trump’s mindset open -- a potentially vital part of his legal defense -- while speaking with Darryl Cohen, a former Fulton County (GA) Assistant District Attorney.

We don't recall Waters chastising his co-workers for assuming that every tiny shred of alleged evidence that makes Joe or Hunter Biden look bad is incontrovertible evidence of guilt even though they, unlike Trump, have never been charged with a crime.

Tim Graham spent his Aug. 18 podcast complaining that CNN's Jake Tapper rebutting  Fox News' Laura Ingrahamwhining that the non-right-wing media allegedly took too much joy in Trump's indictment by reminding her of how Fox News was exposed as lyting to its viewers and had to pay $787 million to Dominion for those lies:

Fox News host Laura Ingraham led off her Ingraham Angle show Wednesday night suggesting CNN and MSNBC were so excited -- and they just can't hide it -- that Trump faces serious legal peril in four indictments. They're aglow, because they're expecting.

CNN's Jake Tapper sent a savage tweet over Laura Ingraham's video tweet on the leftist media "humiliating themselves" and reveling in Trump indictments and mug shots. Jake was miffed! Fox was wildly unfair to CNN!

[...]

But the worst part was Tapper touting the "*facts*" of CNN. When it comes to defamation, Jake Tapper sat back when a Parkland High School kid compared Marco Rubio to the mass shooter at Parkland. Tapper sat back when Julia Ioffe said Trump "radicalized so many more people than ISIS ever did." Tapper sat back when Nancy Pelosi denounced new Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch in her CNN town-hall meeting: "If you breathe air, drink water, eat food, take medicine, or in any other way interact with the courts, this is a very bad decision."

In other words, Tapper doesn't really believe in "fact checking in real time." Not with these smear campaigns.

Graham didn't discuss that Tapper reference to Fox News' defamation settlement either in his podcast writeup or his podcast -- remember, he gave a pass to Fox News' lies because it does such a great job of pushing right-wing narratives that facts don't matter.

Finkelstein returned to an earlier indictment in an Aug. 20 post when Scarborough argued that Trump's constant attempts to delay his various trials makes him look guilty:

On Friday's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough argued that Donald Trump's attempt to push his federal trial related to January 6th back to 2026 is evidence of his consciousness of guilt. It's "not how an innocent person acts,"

[...]

Really, Joe? Defendants don't get to rule on whether they're innocent or not. Juries do. On MSNBC, Trump is presumed guilty as soon as he's indicted (well, it didn't take an indictment).

Would he have advised Hillary Clinton to rush to court in 2016 if she'd been indicted on her email scandal? If Scarborough were Trump's lawyer, even if he firmly believed in his innocence, would he really be advising him to "get to court as quickly as possible?"

Kevin Tober reached back more than a decade -- to the 2012 presidential campaign -- to find a whataboutism card to play when NBC's Chuck Todd fretted that no candidates are calling out Trump for his mounting indictments:

NBC's Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd opened his program on Sunday with a mini temper tantrum due to the majority of the 2024 Republican presidential hopefuls and even President Joe Biden steering away from attacking former President Donald Trump in the manner Todd demands. Of course, the icing on the cake was Todd's insistence that Republicans staying "silent has left a massive moral vacuum in our fraying democracy." 

"It used to be that extramarital affairs, campaign trail tears, forgetting a cabinet agency, even a weird scream could end a presidential campaign," Todd bemoaned. "Now Donald Trump has been criminally indicted four times in as many months, faces 91 felony counts, and he still leads the Republican field nationally by nearly forty points."

Todd should look in the mirror. It's ironic that he's fretting over 2012 GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry "forgetting a cabinet agency" was considered a scandal, when his own networkurged Perry to drop out of the race due to his brief brain freeze.

Of course, Tober was also silent on the moral peril of Trump.

Graham was on the anti-schadenfreude beat in another Aug. 20 post:

When Jake Tapper tried to claim it was wildly wrong for Fox host Laura Ingraham to suggest liberal networks were reveling in the Trump indictments, he should have imagined MSNBC regulars sounding giddy at Trump being arraigned in Georgia in "a really dirty, dangerous scary place," where he could end up "really freaked out."

Graham did not explain why Trump should be treated differently from any other accused criminal. Meanwhile, Graham's Aug. 21 podcast noted how "A new MRC evening-news study by Rich Noyes found that Trump's share of Republican media coverage is twice as big a share of the overall percentage as the last time the primary was open eight years ago," and that "Coverage of the Republicans was dominated by Trump's four indictments and the E. Jean Carroll charge of department-store rape." Graham didn't explain why Trump's legal troubles should not be covered.

Graham rehashed the study again in his Aug. 23 column to complain once more that Trump's legal troubles are being covered:

Then reporters say Trump is “stealing the spotlight” from his rivals, as if they aren’t among the ones who manage the spotlight. Voicing over a screen that read “Trump To Surrender After Skipping Debate,” NBC’s Garrett Haake touted Trump as “poised once again to steal the spotlight this week from the party he seeks to lead.”

After eight years of this onslaught, it seems amazing that Republicans are so supportive of Trump in the early polls. Wildly negative coverage of Trump has never hurt him much with Republicans, and in some quarters it drives a sympathy vote. But the pro-Biden media clearly hope independents and Cheney-Kinzinger Republicans will accept their messaging and turn out in droves for Biden.

Network newscasts paired their Trump’s Impending Arrest stories with gushy chronicles of Biden touring Maui displaying his “signature empathy.” Their “news judgment” can be defined as “whatever makes the Republicans look terrible and the Democrats look wonderful is news.”

Graham made no mention of how his favorite right-wing channel, Fox News, covered all of this. Apparently, Noyes never examined it in his study -- even though Fox News's right-wing bias is presumably the MRC's benchmark for how political things ought to be covered -- and no explanation was provided for why the channel was excluded.

Newsmax Pushes Idea Independent RFK Jr. Candidacy Hurts Biden
Topic: Newsmax

We've noted how Newsmax loved giving Robert Kennedy Jr. a platform over the summer to promote his presidential bid in the hope that it might hurt President Biden's re-electin plans -- not that these pro-Trumpers actually want him to win, of course. That continued into September, and Kennedy became even more vocal about how Democrats were supposedly treating him (and revealing just how much he has been depending on right-wing media to fuel his campaign):

• RFK Jr. to Newsmax: We Need a Democratic Party Debate
• RFK Jr. Calls Democrat Primary 'Rigged'
• RFK Jr. Campaign: Biden, DNC Moving to Shut Us Down
• RFK Jr. Slams Biden Border Policy

A Sept. 20 press release-esque article by Eric Mack crowed how "Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a member of one of the most famous political families in history, was seen on social media with one-hit wonder, country-folk singer Oliver Anthony" of "Rich Men North of Richmond" fame, declaring that "RFK Jr.'s presidential platform shares its working-class message with Anthony's song."

In the wake of those complaints, Newsmax started teasing that Kennedy was planning to quit the Democratic primary and run as an independent. Michael Katz touted the plan in a Sept. 29 article that gave space to Kennedy's complaints, then speculated who might be affected by it:

What effect Kennedy's independent run will have on the 2024 election is unknown. Although popular within the liberal bloc that makes up the Democratic Party, he also is popular with Repbulicans, considering his stance on COVID-19 vaccines, his views on the deep state, and his ideas for protecting the southern border.

Still, Kennedy, Green Party candidate Cornel West, and whoever is nominated by the No Labels unity party could peel more votes away from Biden than the Republican nominee, who at this point will be former President Donald Trump, some media outlets have concluded.

Newsmax then decided to push the narrative that an independent Kennedy run would hurt Biden. Luca Cacciatore did just that in another Sept. 29 article:

Matt Schlapp, chair of the American Conservative Union, told Newsmax that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to run as an independent could harm President Joe Biden.

[...]

However, Schlapp acknowledged, Kennedy "has taken some positions that a lot of conservatives like," including opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandates and illegal immigration.

"I think it's a very open question as to who it harms. My guess is it really harms Biden," Schlapp concluded. "It just sends another message to this Democratic coalition [that] it's pretty fractured. It's pretty fragile. I think it could break up."

An Oct. 1 column by John Gizzi noted the difficulty an indepdendent candidate would have in getting on the ballot in all 50 states and gaining enough support to qualify to appear in a debate,but he found people to insist that this would hurt Biden:

As for Kennedy's potential strength in November, [New Hampshire election operative Tom] Rath said "the most I could see for him would be to hurt one of the major party candidates in key states where a state could be won by less than a 50 percent share. I suppose in that regard, Kennedy would be more of a problem for Biden because he could make it possible for the Republican candidate to win the state with a plurality as opposed to a majority of the vote."

Bill Ballenger, editor of the much-read, online newsletter on Michigan politics The Ballenger Report, agreed. In his words, "I would think RFK Jr. would hurt Biden more because of the Kennedy name. His policy positions that might be attractive to conservative Republican voters have someone else to vote for with similar positions — Trump!"

"He's likely to hurt Biden more," concluded G. Terry Madonna, long considered the premier pollster in Pennsylvania, "He's no threat to Biden but could earn some votes from Biden's base. Biden has had a huge lead over Kennedy in the polls [of Democrats]."

Gizzi did quote another campaign operative who admitted that there are "anti-Trump Republicans who might wish to cast a protest vote for RFK Jr."

Trump-fluffer Dick Morris unsurprisingly declared in an Oct. 1 column that an indepdendent Kennedy runwould indisputably hurt Biden:

As long as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. focuses his ambitions on a Democratic primary challenge to President Joe Biden, he will do little damage to him.

But if Kennedy runs as an independent on a third-party line, Biden's chances of winning reelection next year are over.

Pollster John McLaughlin shows in a recent survey Kennedy winning 15% of the vote in a Democratic primary.

But the McLaughlin survey also shows that in a general election Kennedy draws 2-to-1 more from Biden's voters than he does from former President Donald Trump's.

 

Indeed, I believe any third candidate would likely drain whatever life is left in a Biden reelection.

[...]

Were he to run as an independent, he would harvest bushels of votes from those who already have decided to vote against Trump, but at the same time don't like Biden and are deeply concerned about his fitness for office.

Were Biden not the incumbent, Kennedy would pose a real challenge in the primary.

But with the Democratic party faithful paralyzed by fear of Trump, few feel free to throw their support behind Kennedy.

But if Kennedy runs as third party candidate, Biden's support will crack — and all the king's horses and all the king's men won't be able to put his candidacy back together again.

Morris did not disclose that McLaughlin is Trump's campaign pollster and his polling shouldn't be trusted as objective.

Larry Bell pushed similar pro-Kennedy arguments in his Oct. 2 column:

With incumbent Joe Biden lagging former president Donald Trump in recent polls by as much as double digits as terrifyingly reported in a Sept. ABC-Washington Post survey, Democrats have valid reasons to worry about even bleaker prospects ahead with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. further draining their voter base as an independent competitor.

RFK Jr. was previously polling as a Democrat primary candidate with about 15% support before switching parties for the ’24 run.

Kennedy and leaders of his former party have had major policy disagreements which became particularly rancorous regarding mandated Biden administration COVID-19 vaccinations which he believes to be unsafe as well as ineffective.

A more recent dust up involved the Department of Homeland Security’s refusal to detail Secret Service protection to Kennedy as customary policy for a major presidential candidate.

This denial ignored special considerations that both his uncle, former President John. F. Kennedy and father, a presidential candidate, were assassinated, and that an armed man impersonating a police officer falsely claiming to be a member of his security detail was arrested at a recent Los Angeles campaign event.

In fact, the Secret Service offers security details only to "major" presidential candidates -- something Kennedy has yet to prove himself to be. Bell then conceded the cynical calculation he and other right-wingers are making in boosting Kennedy:

Whereas Biden’s age is often cited as an important detraction, inferred senility, incompetence and a long career history of dishonesty are painfully obvious to all who are paying attention.

In stark contrast, RFK, Jr. comes across as an intelligent, articulate, principled and deeply committed competitor for dwindling Democrat support.

Above all, majority voters on all sides, Democrat, Republican and independent, appear most agreeably concerned regarding two key issues, the economy and illegal migration, with neither disaster likely to improve prior to 2024 balloting.

[...]

Can Kennedy actually win against Trump? I seriously doubt it.

But with his welcome help, America can.

Thanks for admitting it's all about getting Trump back in the White House, Larry.

Newsmax did slip in a rare dissenting view, though, in the form of a Sept. 19 article featuring John F. Kennedy's grandson calling RFK Jr.'s candidacy "an embarrassment." 

MRC Complains That Quack Doctor Got Banned By YouTube For His Lies
Topic: Media Research Center

Catherine Salgado complained on behalf of a quack doctor in a Sept. 13 post:

YouTube censored a doctor making videos about COVID-19. When the doctor sued, the judge in the case sided with the censorship happy platform.

YouTube censored over a million videos for allegedly spreading COVID-19 “misinformation,” but later quietly changed its policy after some of this supposed misinformation turned out to be true. Dr. Joseph Mercola, who previously had hundreds of thousands of followers on YouTube, argued that the platform violated an implied contract with him by its anti-free speech purging of his channels. Unfortunately for Mercola, a judge recently sided with YouTube, noting that users agree to YouTube’s Community Guidelines. Without addressing the issue of First Amendment rights, the judge asserted that the platform is “not require[d]…to host content.” 

The Sept. 4 ruling noted that YouTube “terminated” Mercola’s account because his content violated the platform’s COVID-19 medical misinformation policy. But it seems the platform did not ban Mercola according to its usual three strikes and you're out policy. As reported by Reclaim the Net, Mercola accused YouTube of silencing him without prior warnings and even refused him access to his own content.

Mercola’s legal team sought restitution for damages and access to the banned content. The team argued that “the termination breaches YouTube’s terms of service [and] violates the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing,” according to the ruling. 

But YouTube won its anti-free speech case and the judge claimed that a user checking a box and agreeing to the platform’s terms of service allows YouTube to censor free speech.

Salgado censored the fact that Mercola is a discredited quack doctor. As we've noted, Mercola is a seller of health supplements who opposes immunization, fluoridation of water, and mammography; claims that amalgam fillings are toxic; and makes many unsubstantiated recommendations for dietary supplements. He's also been ordered by the FDA to stop making illegal claims about his supplements. And Mercola has, in fact, spread false and misleading claims about COVID and its vaccines. WorldNetDaily unsurprisingly loves Mercola and has touted his most bizarre claims, such as that Will Smith's slap of Chris Rock at the Oscars was designed to sell prescription drugs and his hypocritical "mass formation psychosis" theory.

How ironic that Salgado is censoring relevant information while accusing someone else of "censorship."

Salgado made no effort to demonstrate that any Mercola claim that YouTube ruled to be misinformation was actually not. She also didn't explain why YouTube, as a private company, does not have the right to refuse a platform to dishonest grifters and quacks like Mercola, or why she is apprently demanding that it host such content.

The MRC complained last November when YouTube banned Mercola, but again, it refused to vouch for any his claims, whining instead that he was banned for spreading "so-called COVID-19 'misinformation.'"

WND's Blakley Ratchets Up Putin Apologist Mode
Topic: WorldNetDaily

It's been a while since we last checked in on how WorldNetDaily has been taking Russia's side in its war against Ukraine (though we have noted Joseph Farah spreading Russian propaganda and Scott Lively misleading people). Richard Blakey -- a top WND Putln apologist -- has been very busy on that front. He complained in a July 18 column that Ukraine (and, by extension, the U.S.) didn't want to negotiate with Russia over a war that Russia unilaterally started:

It seems that with the olive branch extended last Christmas someone would want to talk with Putin and ask questions. For example, what are your "national interests?" What are "the interests of your citizens?" And how do you explain your view that the West is trying to "destroy Russia?"

Perhaps Putin's interests include eliminating U.S. funded Ukrainian bio-labs, or immoral stances the West has taken on marriage and gender. Who knows what his points are, if you refuse to talk with him.

Instead of speaking with Putin, CIA Director William Burns stated that while most conflicts end in negotiation, Russia was not serious about real talks. An adviser to Zelensky stated Putin needed to return to reality and acknowledge it was Russia that did not want talks.

So, by Dec. 25, 2022, Putin said he wanted to talk, but the West and Ukraine said Putin does not want to have peace talks. It seems like if you can stop the killing, everyone would jump at the idea.

Blakley didn't mention that if Russia wanted peace, it could simply withdraw from Ukraine. Instead, he weirdly chose to blame Democrats because "the 2024 elections are fast approaching, and the Democrats will need more funds – for their political coffers." He also didn't explain why, if Putin is so concerned with "immoral stances," he's waging war on a neighboring country, killing thousands of people for no reason.

Blakley continued being a Putin apologist in his Aug. 1 column, in which he blamed unrest in the region on the CIA (and not, you know Russia), then justified Russia's taking of Crimea because the toppling of corrupt Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych in 2014 was purportedly engineered by the U.S.:

ast-forward to February 2014. Joe Biden, Obama's point man in Ukrainian affairs, was in Kyiv and "watched anti-government protesters fill the streets in what became known as the Maidan revolution." "Masked militants" demanded a change in government and constitution. Duly elected Ukrainian President Yanukovych was accused of being pro-Russian and anti-European with his policies, because he refused to sign an EU agreement. He had been elected "in balloting that international observers considered reasonably free and fair." According to filmmaker Oliver Stone's four-hour interview with Yanukovych, a deal that Yanukovych had agreed to was tossed aside "when well-armed, neo-Nazi radicals forced him to flee the country with repeated assassination attempts." The next day, "a new pro-Western government was established and immediately recognized by the U.S. (as in the Chavez 2002 coup)."

Prior to this, Russian intelligence intercepted a telephone call between Victoria Nuland, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, and Geoffrey Pyatt, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. This call detailed their selection of Yatsenyuk as prime minister once Yanukovych was ousted. The telephone call was leaked to the international media.

Unfortunately, in this Maiden revolution, protesters and police officers lost their lives. The slain activists are known as "the Heavenly Hundred." Stone stated it "seemed clear that the so-called 'shooters' who killed 14 police men, wounded some 85, and killed 45 protesting civilians, were outside third-party agitators."

"Many witnesses, including Yanukovych and police officials, believe these foreign elements were introduced by pro-Western factions – with CIA fingerprints on it." Stone compared this overthrow to the 2002 and 2014 Venezuela protests. He stated the plan is to "create enough chaos, as the CIA did in Iran '53, Chile '73, and countless other coups, and the legitimate government can be toppled." Continuing, Stone stated, "It's America's soft power technique called 'Regime Change 101.'"

This toppling of the Ukrainian government forced Putin to respond. While Crimea was part of Ukraine, Russia had an agreement with the former Ukrainian government to use Crimea as a warm-water port. With the toppling of the government, Russian military annexed Crimea. Putin felt Russia's national security was threatened, because Russia's two main warm-water ports are Tartus in Syria and Sevastopol in Crimea.

Blakley again claimed that Putin -- who, again, unilaterally started the war against Ukraine -- really wants to be a peacemaker:

On Dec. 25, 2022, and again, on Jan. 6, 2023, Putin offered peace talks, but instead of speaking with Putin, Biden-appointed CIA Director William Burns stated that while most conflicts end in negotiation, Russia was not serious about real talks.

July 10, 2023, Biden said that Ukraine is not ready to join NATO. This is very odd since Biden had been pushing Ukrainian membership in NATO since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Even stranger, while this is what Putin wanted to address with Biden before the war began, Biden refused to talk with Putin, stating that Ukrainian NATO membership concerns were a non-starter for negotiations.

With this overreaching CIA and bumbling Biden administration mess, what's the objective now?

Blakley didn't explain why the U.S. and Ukraine shouid negotiate with a terrorist. Still, he pushed Russia's case again in his Aug. 28 column:

Recently, I learned that Russia feels betrayed that NATO is involved in Ukraine, for Moscow views this is in violation of promises made at the negotiations for the reunification of Germany. Apparently, Feb. 9, 1990, Secretary of State James Baker, under President George H.W. Bush, told Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev that "if we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO's jurisdiction for forces of NATO 1 inch to the east."

Blakley didn't explain why Russia has any reason to be threatened by a defensive alliance like NATO. He went on to assert that "there are many reason [sic] that Russia invaded Ukraine" and once again complain that nobody wants to try and make peace with a warmonger like Putin, blaming the U.S. for trying to make money off the war:

July 30, Putin stated Russia is ready for peace with Ukraine, but in mere hours after he spoke, there was a drone attack on Moscow damaging two office blocks. Does this sound like an escalation or de-escalation of the war?

As noted, a few weeks ago, Saudia Arabia held a peace conference without Russia in attendance. Real peace talks involve the warring countries. What could these talks have been about? U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters, "We are not looking at these talks as generating any concrete deliverables," but instead, it is "'a chance for a number of countries around the world' to hear directly from Ukraine 'about the horrors their country has suffered at the hands of Russian aggression.'" So these "peace negotiation" were not "peace negotiations" at all. What could they have been for?

Let's see, in November of 2022 Ukraine was told to act like they wanted peace, so they could get more money, and seven days later Biden asked for money for Ukraine. Well, what do you know, six days after the Russia-uninvited "peace negotiations," on Aug. 11, 2023, Biden called for another $24 billion for Ukraine.

Then on Aug. 18, Biden approved F-16s for Ukraine. Does this sound like an escalation or de-escalation of the war?

Is Ukraine really looking for peace, or is Ukraine and U.S. operatives looking for more money they can channel to who knows where?

At no point does Blakley postulate that since Russia started the war, it's Russia's responsibility to de-escalate its war.

For his Sept. 7 column, Blakley called on a couple fellow Putin apologists to help make his pro-Russia case:

Recently, Tucker Carlson spoke in Budapest, Hungry, noting that Russia has a population of 143 million, while Ukraine has a population of 43 million, meaning, in a war, Ukraine is probably going to run out of people first. Having a modern military with sophisticated weaponry, Russia is also a nuclear power, while Ukraine is not. So, will Russia allow itself to lose this war? Is Ukrainian membership in NATO worth world annihilation? If Vladimir Putin is evil, should he begin to lose, just what might he do?

Carlson also interviewed Col. Douglas MacGregor. Counter to fake-news coverage, the colonel stated Ukraine is losing the war. He said 400,000 Ukrainians have died and only 50,000 Russians. MacGregor believes the Ukrainians are running out of men, and when Zelensky loses his last soldier, he will retire to one of his resort homes purchased from siphoning off U.S. money.

On that basis, Blakley fearmongered that U.S. troops will soon be drawn into fighting in Ukraine:

When Zelensky runs out of soldiers, who do you think is going to fill the boots? If it is United Nations peacekeeping forces, the soldiers will largely be U.S. troops. Fake-news-swayed popular opinion has resulted in an August 2023 Newsweek poll in which 47% of age 18-26 (Gen Z) support sending U.S. troops to Ukraine. They are the ones who would go. Will they be adept at dodging the cluster bombs?

President Biden has already sent more U.S. troops to Europe. The prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, stated that Western boots on the ground in Ukraine means World War III has begun, and Hungary's people realize how very dangerous this situation is.

[...]

America will have to decide what it wants. Are we callus enough that it doesn't matter who's dying as long as they are not Americans? Are we ready to continue ratcheting up this war to start World War III? Are we ready for missile strikes on America? Are we all lost in the maze of the Ukrainian war and not observing what China is doing in the meantime? Is Ukrainian NATO membership worth U.S. boots on the ground in Ukraine?

Again, Blakley offered no reason why Russia should not end a war it chose to start.

Blakley spent his Sept. 20 column complaining that every single penny of the U.S. money going to Ukraine hasn't been completely accounted for:

Sept. 4, 2023, the New York Times asked, "Where is the money?" concerning Ukrainian funds. Wow! What a surprise. Money is missing! Giving billions to a known corrupt money-siphoning group of people ended up with money going missing. Where was the New Times when Reuters reported $37 billion missing in Ukraine in 2014? Well, it could have been worse. It only took the New York Times nine years to wake up to reality.

In a February USA Today article, John Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, said, "When you spend so much money so quickly, with so little oversight, you're going to have fraud, waste and abuse." In fact, concerning this he said there would be "massive amounts." Ukraine only scored 33 out of 100 in the annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), which is near the worst third of 180 countries.

Of course, the Pentagon has said it made an accounting error and the missing $6.2 billion the Times cited is simply due to the Defense Dpartment overpriced the value of military equipment sent to Ukraine. So, the Pentagon does not know how much equipment costs, so it is overpriced by billions? Boy, doesn't that make you want to pay taxes? If they can't get the price right now, what makes you think they ever got the price right? Remember that this is your taxpayer money that funds the Pentagon "budget."

[...]

Maybe we should spend less on Ukraine and more on problems killing Americans. Even a CNN poll stated the American people oppose more aid for Ukraine.

Blakley weirdly didn't mention Russia at all in his column, let alone the fact that one sure way to stop sending U.S. money to Ukraine is for Russia to stop waging a vicious, destructive war against it.

MRC Adds Conspiratorial Twist To Defense Strategy On Trump's (Fourth) Indictment
Topic: Media Research Center

As with his first three indictments, the Media Research Center ran to Donald Trump's defense on his fourth indictment with its usual distraction-and-whataboutism strategy. The first mention of Indictment No. 4 came in an Aug. 15 post by Curtis Houck, who predictably whined that it was being covered and suggested a conspiracy theory that the indictments are some kind of scheme to hide right-wing narratives about alleged Biden scandals:

It’s like clockwork with the liberal media and their friends in government as, following more bad news and new allegations of bribery, corruption, and malfeasance from the Biden family, another Trump indictment dropped Monday night with this one emanating out of Fulton County, Georgia and far-left District Attorney Fani Willis. On Tuesday morning, the morning news shows of ABC, CBS, and NBC shoveled off 33 minutes and 17 seconds for the indictment.

Not surprisingly, the prospect of the indictment in the days leading up to it and the January 6 case gave the liberal networks all the excuses in the world to ignore the Bidens with zero seconds since Sunday morning on CBS and then Monday morning on ABC and NBC.

[...]

[ABC] Senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott was ebullient at the Trump frenzy (likely seeing as how she doesn’t have to talk about the Bidens, the economy, education, or any other issue that’d be a lefty pitfall), boasting Trump “very likely...could be spending more time in the courtroom than campaigning” in 2024.

Houck offered no reason  for labeling Willis as "far-left."

Nicholas Fondacaro complained that MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell "took to her eponymous show on Tuesday to openly fret that former President Trump’s “opponents” might be suffering from “indictment fatigue” after the district attorney of Fulton County, GA indicted him for the fourth time. Of course, the crux of her concern was that the harm to Trump’s presidential campaign would be minimized." Kevin Tober bizarrely framed Trump's multiple indictments as "election interference" instead of justice:

On the day after former President Donald Trump was indicted for a fourth time by a partisan prosecutor, NBC Nightly News admitted that these indictments were having the effect of full-blown election interference that benefitted the Biden campaign and Democrats in the 2024 election. 

“This fourth indictment puts Mr. Trump's legal troubles on even more of a collision course with his campaign. So far, it appears to have boosted the Republican front-runner,” anchor Lester Holt proclaimed. 

Picking up where Holt left off, senior congressional correspondent Garrett Haake optimistically reported that “the historic fourth indictment of Donald Trump tonight shaking up the 2024 campaign.”

[...]

NBC, like the rest of the left-wing media, was clearly happy that a former President and current candidate was under a constant barrage of indictments. 

They should be careful what they wish for. As Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro wrote on Twitter on Tuesday morning, “Whatever you think of the Trump indictments, one thing is for certain: the glass has now been broken over and over again. Political opponents can be targeted by legal enemies. Running for office now carries the legal risk of going to jail--on all sides.”

Tober offered no evidence that Biden or any other Democrat has committed offenses on a level to which Trump has been credibly accused.

Mark Finkelstein claimed that "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough "took a surprisingly more sober view" of the latest indictment:

In particular, he said that he was concerned that the indictment was brought in heavily Democratic Fulton County.

Scarborough wondered how people would react if, say, a prosecutor in Holmes County, in the Florida panhandle, which voted 87 percent for Trump in 2020, indicted a Democratic president. Joe pondered why the case couldn't have been brought in another county, and if perhaps prosecutors elsewhere declined to proceed.

And if Scarborough's concerns were valid when it comes to Fulton County, which went 72.65 percent for Biden in 2020, how much more so in Washington, D.C., where Jack Smith has brought his January 6th case against Trump? The District of Columbia went for Biden over Trump by the overwhelming margin of 92 percent-5 percent!

Greg Bluestein of the liberal Atlanta Journal-Constitution made the case for the indictment being brought in Fulton County, noting that many of the facts alleged in the indictment, including the infamous "perfect" phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, took place there.

[...]

Scarborough was careful to maintain his liberal street cred by saying no fewer than three times that he found Trump's activity in Georgia "abhorrent," adding, "and appears illegal."

Tim  Graham spent his Aug. 16 column trying to portray Trump as a victim of partisan prosecutors:

Here we go again. The Democrats have unfurled a fourth indictment of former President Donald Trump, this time in Fulton County, Georgia. The number one media-bias complaint on this trend – other than how these indictments “flood the zone” and devolve the Republican presidential primary into a hyperbolic courtroom drama – is that reporters typically fail to identify the prosecutors as Democrats.

The big Associated Press dispatch on this indictment by reporters Kate Brumback and Eric Tucker doesn’t identify District Attorney Fani Willis as a Democrat. They just quote her overzealous copy about how “the defendants engaged in a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia’s presidential election result.”

In the penultimate paragraph, the AP duo noted Trump “is campaigning and fundraising around these themes, portraying himself as the victim of Democratic prosecutors out to get him.” But that’s general and not specific.

[...]

This has happened over and over again. New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg isn’t described in media accounts as an elected Democrat who ran on getting Trump. New York state Attorney General Letitia James, who sued Trump over business fraud, isn’t described as an elected Democrat who ran on getting Trump. They don’t talk about Jack Smith’s wife, the filmmaker who made a Netflix gushfest for Michelle Obama.

In this case, Fani Willis ran for D.A in 2020, and almost immediately began an investigation of Trump. All of these Democrat politicians are drawing adulation from Democrats – at the same time as reporters present them as nonpartisans.

Graham didn't explain why it's a bad idea for a prosecutor to voe to bring criminals to justice, or why Trump should be exempt from facing justice even if he committed crimes. He also fails to acknowldedge the flip side of his argument: A Republican prosecutor who refused to prosecute Trump for his crimes should, by his definition, also be accused to acting in a partisan manner.

P.J. Gladnick whined that John Dean appeared on TV to liken Trump's indictments to Watergate:

It's all too predictable. A scandal or merely an apparent scandal involving Republicans happens and one of the Watergate people, usually John Dean or Carl Bernstein, is brought aboard by the media to perform their "Worse than Watergate!" or "Bigger than Watergate!" shtick.

There's nothing at all unusual about Dean invoking Watergate for the umpteenth time as part of his media circus act. Why bring on this 84-year-old pundit, if that's not the point? Dean wrote a book in 2006 that mild-mannered George W. Bush was Worse Than Watergate. Last summer, Dean was the star of a four-part CNN special titled Watergate: Blueprint for a Scandal.

In the case of the indictment of Donald Trump in Fulton County, Georgia (after it was prematurely announced before the grand jury even finished deliberating) CNN's Kaitlan Collins inducted John Dean to perform his "Bigger than Watergate!" act.

Gladnick made no effort to disprove Dean, though.

Nicholas Fondacaro served up another time-count post, complete with conspiratorial suggestion that the indictment "gave the liberal media another excuse to move past and ignore the bribery and corruption allegations swirling around President Biden and his family," though as with Houck, he didn't explain why the Trump indictment shouldn't be covered.

Graham rehashed all of this in his Aug. 16 podcast:

It didn't take long for ABC, CBS, and NBC to devote an hour of stories to obsessing over the fourth Trump indictment -- from Fulton Country, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis. Reporters typically avoid mentioning Willis is an elected Democrat who's made it her primary mission to put Trump in jail. She had help with her indictment from a grand jury selected in Fulton County, which voted Biden over Trump by a margin of 73 to 26 percent. 

CNN and MSNBC obsess over this hour after hour. On networks like NPR, the only person aired criticizing Willis as a partisan is Donald Trump, a man they consider self-discrediting. Congressional Republicans somehow don't have a newsworthy opinion.

NewsBusters Associate Editor Nick Fondacaro joins the show to share the climbing numbers of indictment stories, and MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell worrying out loud about "indictment fatigue" and how voters just hear "white noise" in all the endless cable chatter about Trump. Bill Clinton used to suggest anyone obsessing over scandal wasn't doing the people's business. That spin is nowhere to be found today.

Graham didn't explain in the writeup why anyone should consider Trump as anything but "self-discrediting."

WND Promotes Yet Another Bogus Petition With A Hidden Agenda
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily has a long history of promoting petitions advocating certain fringe-right beliefs that it claims are signed by experts in the subject but are, in fact, signed almost exclusively by activists and non-experts. That happened again in an anonymously written Aug. 29 "news" article:

One of Joe Biden's ideologies is that there is a climate "emergency."

That's why he's tried to destroy America's fossil fuels industry by banning drilling and pipelines, demanded Americans buy electric cars and imposed all sorts of new requirements for "efficient" appliances.

Now, however, the idea that that "emergency" exists has been debunked.

By more than 1,600 scientists including two Nobel winners.

Just the News has documented a declaration from 1,609 scientists from around the globe stating "there is no climate emergency."

They also state they "strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy" that climate emergency activists are now claiming is needed.

The statement from the scientists does not deny that greenhouse gases can be harmful, but challenges the related "hysteria."

The statement comes from CLINTEL, the Global Climate Intelligence Group, which urges that "Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific," Just the News reported.

As with the other petitions WND has promoted, it has been signed mostly by people with no expertise in the subject. Inside Climate News reported:

“Looking at the list of signatories, there are a lot of engineers, medical doctors, and petroleum geologists and almost no actual climate scientists,” said Zeke Hausfather, a longtime research scientist at Berkeley Earth, a non-partisan nonprofit that specializes in analyzing climate data, and the former director of climate and energy programs at the Breakthrough Institute, another independent environmental research firm.

[...]

[Brendan] DeMelle, who has been investigating CLINTEL since it was founded in 2019 by retired professor of geophysics Guus Berkhout and journalist Marcel Crok, said the group has circulated identical petitions almost every year. What he’s uncovered so far is that CLINTEL, and its co-founder Berkhout, have strong political, professional and financial connections to the fossil fuel industry and influential right-wing and libertarian think tanks, many of which are known for working tirelessly over the years to thwart climate action. Those include organizations like the Heartland Institute and the Cato Institute, both of which are funded by Koch Industry money and promote unobstructed free market ideals, including unfettered fossil fuel development.

Euronews similarly reported:

When looking closer at the list of signatories, there are precisely 1,107, including six people who are dead. Less than 1% of the names listed describe themselves as climatologists or climate scientists.

Eight of the signatories are former or current employees of the oil giant Shell, while many other names have links to mining companies. 

One of the signatories is Ivar Giaever, a joint winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1973 for work on superconductors. However, he has never published any work on climate science. 

According to an independent 2019 count of the declaration's signatories, 21% were engineers, many linked to the fossil fuel industry. Others were lobbyists, and some even worked as fishermen or airline pilots.

WND is not going to tell you any of this, of course, or that CLINTEL appears to be largely funded by fossil-fuel interests, which means trying to pretend climate change isn't a thing is an agenda item that's a condition of its funding.

MRC's Graham Hypocritically Misleads About Government-Media Revolving Door (But Silent On MRC-Fox News Revolving Door)
Topic: Media Research Center

Media Research Center executive Tim Graham began his Aug. 18 column by declaring, "No one in the media elites today is alarmed at a 'revolving door' between the 'objective media' and partisan politics. Politics seems more like a qualification than a disqualification." Graham is being utterly hypocritical about this, of course, given that there is a revolving door between the MRC and Fox News; as we've documented, several former MRC staffers are currently employed as writers and editors at Fox News, many of whom were hired directly out of the MRC. Since Graham is censoring that news, we don't get to hear him explain how Fox News could possibly be "fair and balanced" when it's hiring so many partisan activists. Instead, Graham played guilt-by-association in attacking new NBC "Meet the Press" host Kristen Welker because her parents donated to Democrats:

Welker registered as a Democrat in Rhode Island and then D.C., and her mother and father Julie and Harvey, have donated tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates. It’s close to $20,000 to Barack Obama alone. There was also $3,300 for Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign and $2,100 for Hillary Clinton’s doomed 2016 run against Trump. Her mother unsuccessfully ran in the Democrat [sic] primary for Philadelphia City Council in 1999.

Graham did not explain what possible relevance Welker's parents' political donations have to her work. And he's being hypocritical here too; during the 2016 presidential campaign, the MRC complained a lot that the extremism of Ted Cruz's father was pointed out (as well as a rumor that he hung out with Lee Harvey Oswald).

Graham went on to whine about former Democratic White House  press secretaries getting TV jobs, then claimed that Republian press secretaries are different:

MSNBC is becoming the home of former Biden-Harris spokespeople. Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki hosts a show on Sunday, and former Kamala Harris spokeswoman Symone Sanders has a show on Saturday. Alicia Menendez, the daughter of Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) has a show on both weekend days. Rev. Al Sharpton never actually revolved – he keeps his racial ambulance-chasing job on weekdays.

CNN must be jealous. They just hired Biden communications director Kate Bedingfield right out of the White House, and also picked up Jamal Simmons from the Kamala Harris press shop. CNN reported in February that Bedingfield was “expected to be a consultant to Biden’s anticipated reelection campaign,” but they talked her into a different kind of public relations.

Republicans do this, too, but differently. Bush White House press secretary Dana Perino joined Fox News – after Bush left office. Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany joined Fox News – after her president left office.  All of these newly arriving Bidenites are salted in cable news to share the Democrat [sic] talking points while their Biden-Harris team runs for re-election.

Graham is lying via cherry-picked examples. He avoided noting that Trump's first press secretary, Sean Spicer, got a Newsmax show in March 2020, while his former boss was still in office, and that his successor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, got a Fox News commentator gig in August 2019, just two months after leaving the White House. Graham also conveniently omitted the fact that both Perino and McEnany worked through the end of their respective White Houses (though not quite in the case of McEnany, who abandoned her job after the Capitol riot), making it impossible for them to get a TV gig to advocate for an active administration.

Graham also complained about the daughter of former Obama White House adviser Valerie Jarrett getting a job as a co-host of NBC's "Today." But he was silent not only about how the daugher of former Republican President George H.W. Bush, Jenna Bush Hager, is also a "Today" co-host (check out her queso recipe!) but about another in-house example: The daughter of the editor of the MRC's former "news" division CNSNews.com, Terry Jeffrey, works for right-wing Republcan Sen. Ted Cruz, which resulted in CNS publishing dozens of articles promoting Cruz before its shutdown earlier this year.

Graham concluded with one more hypocritical whine: "The only real question is whether the former Biden publicists sound any more like Biden publicists than the 'objective' folks who came up the ranks in an 'old-school' way, with a decade or three inside the 'news' business. It’s often hard to tell the difference." But Graham and the MRC do not practice what they preach, which makes Graham's partisan moralizing even more hollow.