MRC's DeSantis Defense Brigade Watch, Debate Edition
Topic: Media Research Center
Where there are Republican presidential candidates, the Media Research Center's DeSantis Defense Brigade will be there too -- and it was active during the first debate, giving him treatment above and beyond the defnse it gave to the debate in general. A pre-debate post by Clay Waters complained that the New York Times pointed out that in previous debates, Ron DeSantis has been "known to bristle under criticism. His opponents will hope to score viral moments highlighting his defensiveness and casting him as awkward and robotic." Then came defense mode: "Reading the Times’ coverage of DeSantis, one could be amazed how this bumbler won two elections for governor of the third-largest state -- the last by almost 20 percentage points."

The MRC's first post-debate post was press release-style DeSantis stenography courtesy of Tom Olohan:

George Soros did not attend the Republican Presidential Primary, but that didn’t stop DeSantis from airing out the billionaire’s dirty laundry. 

Republican 2024 presidential candidates duked it out on the debate stage Wednesday, each trying to convince Americans that he or she has what it takes to resurrect the economy, fix the border crisis and can bring America forward. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis touted his record of going after George Soros for spending money to elect radical pro-crime district attorneys in Florida. "These hollowed out cities, this is a symptom of America’s decline. And one of the biggest reasons is because you have George Soros funding these radical left-wing district attorneys. They get into office and say they're not going to prosecute crimes they disagree with.”

Kevin Tober whined about more criticism of DeSantis in the second post-debate post:

Just minutes into MSNBC’s post-GOP debate analysis late Wednesday night co-hosts Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, and Alex Wagner declared Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis one of the night’s losers. 

“Can I just say something? I think DeSantis was absolutely terrible,” Maddow proclaimed as if anyone on the Republican side of the aisle cared what she had to say. 

Wallace chimed in to pile on: “What’s happening is that he has lost the fancy donors who were like DeSantis is gonna answer our Trump coup plotter problem.” “No, he’s not! He didn't do anything tonight to change that,” Wallace added.

[...]

Wagner jumped in to agree with Maddow and Wallace and proclaimed DeSantis is “so bad at politics.” 

She said this despite presumably knowing that DeSantis won reelection in Florida by 20 percentage points.

When the New York Times dropped a story during the debate on DeSantis' college years at Yale, pointing out that he is "rail[ing] against his own Ivy League degrees while milking them for access and campaign cash," Waters returned to complain:

As the opening round of the 2024 presidential campaign kicked off Wednesday night with the first Republican debate, Tuesday’s lead New York Times story was a 7,500-word investigative epic by Nicholas Confessore, Times reporter and MSNBC political analyst, on the highest polling Republican on the lectern that night.

The mission was clear from the headline: 2024 presidential candidate, Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, was an elitist hypocrite. “How Ron DeSantis Joined the ‘Ruling Class’ -- and Turned Against It,” it read.

[...]

Confessore relayed some lurid details of the “hell week” held by DeSantis’s old fraternity which, if applied in nonpartisan fashion by the press, would surely embarrass a good number of sitting politicians. He uncovered a bogus insight into DeSantis’s psyche:

….Today, some of the former brothers and pledges regard Mr. DeSantis’s behavior as foreshadowing a comfort with power -- and with using it to bully others.

Waters didn't explain why that observation was "bogus," given DeSantis' clear bullying behavior toward Disney and the LGBTQ community in Florida.

WND Can't Stop Pushing Capitol Riot Conspiracy Theories
Topic: WorldNetDaily

As its revisionism and obsession with Ray Epps have demonstrated, WorldNetDaily has little interest in the actual facts surrounding the Capitol riot. It's also clining to the conspiracy theory that there were federal agents planted among the crowd who encouraged rioters; a version of that showed up in an anonymously written Aug. 22 article:

A new video has been uncovered by Revolver News that adds to the already-significant evidence that there were federal agents at the Jan. 6, 2021, protest-turned-riot at the U.S. Capitol egging on the unhappy crowd.

So far, about 1,000 people have been arrested and charged with offenses often including trespassing from that day.

There have been innumerable accusations that federal agents were in the crowd, egging people on, demanding they go into the Capitol, advocating violence against Capitol Police officers.

There has yet to be, however, documentation from the government on exactly who were its agents there that day and what was their assignment.

That's more than likely because such documentation doesn't exist because those those agents provocateur don't exist.But lack of evidence has never stopped conspiracy theorists before, so this anonymous writer obsesses over someone the conspiracy-mongers have dubbed "Fence Cutter Bulwark":

he report said, "Take a look at this man coolly and methodically cutting down and then rolling up 'restricted area' fencing around the Capitol lawn. He had no Trump gear on, and made sure to wear dark sunglasses on a cloudy day. He was not angry. He was dispassionate, calm, and professional, like he was just there to do a job."

The report explained the suspicious elements of the video.

[...]

The report pointed out, "By removing the barrier fencing before the massive crowds arrived at the Capitol, individuals like Fencecutterbulwark were effectively creating one of the nation’s largest legal booby traps in history, inviting thousands of people to unwittingly cross into the restricted zone whereupon they became vulnerable to indictments for 'trespassing.'"

The report explained the identity of the man remains unknown and he remains unindicted.

"In fact, the FBI does not even appear to even be looking for him. He is wholly absent from the FBI Capitol 'Most Wanted List.' There is no reward for information leading to his arrest," Revolver charged.

The report noted a significant factor is that the person was photographed "pre-positioned right at the initial decisive 'Ray Epps Breach Site'" long before the actual breach developed.

You knew Ray Epps was going to be worked in there somewhere.

Interestingly, a month later someone claiming to be Fence Cutter Bulwark did an interview with the right-wing Epoch Times in which he insisted he was not a government agent and said he cut the fence over safety concerns.

Despite Initial Criticsm, MRC Cheered Trump's Debate-Evading Interview With Carlson
Topic: Media Research Center

In the midst of defending Donald Trump over his (fourth) indictment as well as the Republican presidential debate, the Media Research Center also had to deal with Trump skipping the debate to do an interview with disgraced ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson. An Aug. 21 post by Nicholas Fondacaro was surprisingly critical of Trump for doing so, but it still criticized that the snubbing was covered in non-right-wing media:

Showing disrespect for Republican primary voters, former President Trump announced Sunday night that he would not be attending the first Republican primary debate later in the week with reports suggesting he was planning to counterprogram the event with an interview with Tucker Carlson. ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS Morningswelcomed the internal party drama on Monday as they hyped Trump’s attempt to upstage the GOP debate.

“Donald Trump has been back and forth on this. With just 48 hours to go, the former President clear he will not only skip the first Republican debate but even suggesting he might sit out future debates, too,” boasted senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott.

Fondacaro then tried to explain away a poll showing Trump with a huge lead over his Republican challengers:

In much the same way, CBS Mornings co-host Tony Dokoupil noted, “Donald Trump is saying he will not appear in the first Republican debate this week. And in fact, he may not appear in any of the debates during the Republican primary.”

Dokoupil proclaimed the findings of a new CBS News/YouGov poll “might help explain why” Trump decided to avoid facing his primary challengers. “Our survey found 62 percent of likely primary voters support Donald Trump. Governor Ron DeSantis is second, just 16 percent in his column. Others in single digits,” he claimed.

It’s worth noting that the margin of error was 5.7 percent. While the math might make it seem as though things were still pretty stable in terms of candidate positioning, the high MoE meant there was a fundamental problem in how the poll was conducted.

Given that the poll shows Trump ahead of his nearest challenger by 46 points, quibbing about the poll's margin of error being roughly one-teneth of that is irrelevant.

Later that day, Fondacaro whined again that CNN noted that Trump was skipping the debate, bizarrely blaming CNN for reporting it (not Trump for skipping it),sniping at the channel under the headline "Ankle Biter":

Chronically the third-place cable news outlet, CNN was the little goblin biting at the ankles of Fox News, the cable news giant. So, of course, it brought CNN great joy to see that former President Trump had chosen to avoid taking part in the first Republican presidential debate, which was hosted by their rival. Senior media correspondent Oliver Darcy beamed on Monday as he boasted about Trump’s absence possibly hurting Fox News’s ratings.

“In two days, Republican presidential hopefuls are set to take the stage in the first primary debate. This one's in Milwaukee. But the front-runner, former President Trump, he will not be there,” announced co-host Victor Blackwell.

Blackwell also noted that Trump would be attempting to do some counter-programming. “Sources tell CNN the former President plans to sit down for an interview with former Fox host, Tucker Carlson instead. The interview is set to air on X, formerly known as Twitter, around the same time as the debate,” he added.

Being CNN’s toy-sized attack dog, Darcy yipped about how much Trump’s absence was supposedly going to hurt the first-place network:

The MRC irrationally hates Darcy because he escaped the right-wing media bubble and started doing actual journalism.

All was forgiven, though, when Trump spouted the MRC's pet narratives during the Carlson interview, as Tim Kilcullen crowed in an after-interview post:

Former President Donald Trump touted an MRC poll that exposed Big Tech’s nefarious role in stealing the 2020 election through relentless censorship.

Trump didn't mince words when talking with independent journalist Tucker Carlson about the Biden family laptop scandal, rampant Big Tech censorship and the infamous 2020 election Wednesday night. “By the way, you’re talking about cheating on the election?” Trump asked Carlson. “McLaughlin & Fabrizio—great pollsters—they said a thing like that, plus other things, meant anywhere from 10 to 17% of the vote would change.”

Commissioned by the MRC, the poll revealed that one in six voters (17%) for then-candidate Joe Biden would not have voted for the scandal-plagued career politician had they been made aware of his misconduct and Trump’s successes. 9.4 percent of those surveyed would have changed their vote based on the laptop scandal alone. The study surveyed 1,750 Biden voters in seven swing states which would have gone for then-President Trump had Big Tech not censored these crucial stories.

Kilcullen didn't mention that the MRC bought these polls from Trump's own election pollster, McLaughlin & Associates, and a polling firm founded by former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, the Polling Company, to manufacture thesepolls, raising questions about their accuracy and bias.(And, yes, he called Carlson an "independent journalist" with a straight face.)

Kevin Tober followed that with a post promoting the "wildest moments" from the interview:

In the only newsworthy counterprogramming of the first GOP presidential debate Wednesday night, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson interviewed former President Donald Trump on his show "Tucker on X." While the sitdown lasted over 46 minutes, there were a few wild moments that are sure to grab headlines. 

"Why aren’t you at the Fox News debate tonight in Milwaukee?" Carlson asked Trump in his first question of the interview. In response, Trump explained that "a lot of people have been asking me that, and many people said you shouldn’t do them. But you see the polls that have come out and I’m leading by 50 and 60 points, and some of them are at one and zero, and two. And I’m saying do I sit there for an hour or two hours?"

"Whatever it’s going to be and get harassed by people that shouldn’t even be running for President? Should I be doing that? And a network that isn’t particularly friendly to me, frankly they were backing Ron Desanctimonious like crazy and now they’ve given up on him. It’s a lost cause," Trump explained.

The MRC's DeSantis Defense Brigade was curiously absent, refusing to call out Trump for mocking their favorite candidate.

In an Aug. 24 post, Tober talked up the MRC's favorite deadbeat dad defending his boss:

During a special edition of Meet the Press on NBC News Now, anchor Chuck Todd decided to ask Trump campaign senior advisor Jason Miller if former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump were embracing the idea of violent conflict during a sitdown chat between the two on Twitter. Miller didn't take Todd's biased questioning lying down and told Todd he was "framing it incorrectly" and that it was "an idiotic question."

"I want to ask you about this questioning from Tucker Carlson. I guess sort of—talking up the idea of a violent—some sort of violent conflict over this campaign," Todd proclaimed. "Is that something the former President is embracing?"

Miller told Todd the answer was no and that "I think you are framing it incorrectly." 

"Respectfully that's an idiotic question to even go in," Miller added.

Tober concluded by hyping that "As of publication, the video has over 107 million views" on Twitter -- but censored the fact that Twitter's view counter is utterly meaningless.

Tom Olohan served up his own post gushing over Trump spouting conservatively correct narratives during the interview:

Former President Donald Trump went after the reduced quality of life and narrowed choices that accompany environmentalist proposals hard last night.

Trump skipped the Republican primary debate Wednesday and sat down with podcast host Tucker Carlson on X to discuss the state of the race, election interference by Big Tech, and whether or not Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. During this discussion, Trump pointed out the threat environmentalists pose to the American way of life and how he dealt with that during his presidency. After making clear that the left wants to limit our choices, Trump said, “The new thing is your heating systems in the house. They don't want you to have a modern day heating system. They want you to use a heating system that will cost you at least $10,000 to buy and won't work very well. You know, none of this stuff works as well.”

[...]

Finally, Trump broke down how he confronted the Environmental Protection Agency over regulations negatively affecting Americans' way of life. In particular, Trump referenced restrictions on water usage for showers, washing machines, sinks, and dishwashers, saying that “and I voided all of that,” while discussing the damage done by the regulation.

Olohan didn't say how much Trump paid him for this campaign ad.

Matt Taibbi Went On Newsmax To Defend A False RFK Jr. Tweet
Topic: Newsmax

Matt Taibbi threw away a lot of the credibility he had as a journalist by acting as  Elon Musk's stenographer for his selectively edited "Twitter files." He has thrown away even more by appearing on Newsmax to defending Robert Kennedy Jr.'s anti-vaxxer conspiracies -- just one more part of Newsmax's summer of defending Kennedy amid his presidential run. Jeremy Frankel summed up one appearance in a July 20 article:

Democrats who insist on censoring "disinformation" do not seem to understand the First Amendment or what free speech is, journalist Matt Taibbi told Newsmax on Thursday.

Taibbi, having testified before the U.S. House's Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government earlier this year about the Twitter Files, censorship, and the First Amendment, told "Eric Bolling The Balance" that it felt like "dejà vu" watching Democrat presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. testify at Thursday's hearing before that same subcommittee.

"I had dejà vu watching the video because I obviously sat in that very same chair and testified in front of that same committee and met a lot of the same hostility from the same members who, similarly, didn't want to hear anything about censorship, didn't engage in the topic at all," Taibbi said.

[...]

"Judges over the years have specifically made the bar for intervention, government intervention in speech extremely high ... the standard is incitement to imminent lawless violence, which Robert F. Kennedy is nowhere near that, he hasn't even gotten anything wrong," Taibbi said. "As he points out, he's being criticized for something called 'malinformation,' which the Department of Homeland Security talks about, which is true information, but has a message they don't like very much.

Taibbi elaborated further in another Newsmax appearance, summed up in a July 24 article by Nicole Wells:

Independent journalist Matt Taibbi told Newsmax on Monday that the governmental entities that pushed censorship through Twitter prior to Elon Musk's ownership had to come up with a new category of misinformation to flag things like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s tweet about suspicious deaths that were potentially linked to COVID-19 vaccines.

"They had to create a new genre of misinformation to cover things like RFK's tweet," Taibbi said during an appearance on Newsmax's "The Record with Greta Van Susteren." "They call it mal information, which is really, basically, true information that has what they think is an adverse political outcome, that might result in people not getting vaccinated. But there's no wrong fact in there, necessarily, which I think is a particularly dangerous form of censorship."

A new batch of Twitter Files released on Friday reveals that Twitter processed a request to review Kennedy's tweet in 2021 at the request of a law firm acting on behalf of Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii.

The message included a screenshot of RFK Jr.'s tweet and said, "Hi team can you take a look at this tweet against our covid policy please?"

Note that Wells did not repeat the content of the Kennedy tweet in question -- in which he blamed the death of baseball great Hank Aaron on a COVID vaccine. And contrary to her assertion, Aaron's death was never "suspicious"; he died of natural causes at age 86. Taibbi lied as well by describing Kennedy's tweet as "basically, true information that has what they think is an adverse political outcome, that might result in people not getting vaccinated." It was never true that Aaron died of COVID, and Kennedy was deliberately misinforming people by suggesting otherwise.

(A few days earlier, Newsmax uncritically repeated Republican Rep. Jim Jordan's bogus claim that Kennedy's tweet was just 'pointing out facts.")

Wells also called Taibbi a "Twitter files journalist" -- in fact, he left the project months earlier amid an acrimonious falling-out with Elon Musk -- and an "independent journalist," even though there was nothing indepdendent about his doing Musk's bidding.

WND Republishes Gateway Pundit Screed Exploiting Death Of Capitol Rioter
Topic: WorldNetDaily

For its coverage of the ongoing aftermath of the Capitol riot -- specifically, how its participants are faring in the legal system -- WorldNetDaily has recently taken to reprinting articles by the notoriously unreliable Gateway Pundit, who is currently being sued for defamation by two Georgia election workers whom the website falsely accused of adding election ballots from a suitcase. This happened again with a republishsed Sept. 2 article by the Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft:

22-year-old Nejourde Meacham died on August 28, 2021, two weeks after the Biden regime charged him with four misdemeanor crimes for walking inside the open doors on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The Marxists arrested Jorde for this display

Jourde was just 22.

Another day of celebration on the left.

Jourde died on August 28th.

This will be another death ignored by Republican lawmakers.

In addition to getting the year of Meacham's death wrong -- it was 2023, not 2021 -- and offering no evidence whatsoever that anyone on "the left" is celebrating Meacham's death, Hoft undermined his manufactured outrage by embedding a tweet by author Ryan J. Reilly pointing out that Meacham was arrested for "four basic misdemeanors that often result in plea deals and probationary sentences."In other words, the legal peril Meacham faced was not all that great; he was simply facing the consequences of his actions, and we thought right-wingers like Hoft supported criminals facing justice.

While Meacham's suicide is tragic, most people don't commit suicide over misdemeanor charges, suggesting that there may have been other mental health issues involved that haven't been disclosed. Hoft and WND, meanwhile, are perfectly happy to exploit Meacham's death to further the lie of election fraud in 2020 and falsely portray criminals as "political prisoners" -- which may be the greater, and more avoidable, tragedy.

NEW ARTICLE -- The MRC's Childish War On CNN: The Chris Licht Saga, Part 2
Topic: Media Research Center
After a profile in The Atlantic blew the lid off Chris Licht's mismanagement of CNN and sealed his fate, the Media Research Center was somewhat sad to see him go -- then it relapsed into Jeff Zucker Derangement Syndrome. Read more >>

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.