MRC Hypocritically Defends Russell Brand Following Rape, Assault Allegations
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center used to hate Russell Brand -- until he started spouting right-wing-friendly narratives, after which it proclaimed him to be a champion of "free speech." Since then, Brand has whined about being "censored on YouTube" for what Brand euphemistically described (and uncritically repeated by MRC writer Catherine Salgado) as “changing narratives around COVID[-19], the pandemic and COVID treatments.” But as we learned later, this apparently involved him falsely claiming that the FDA had approved ivermectin to treat COVID. Still, the MRC put this in its completely made-up "secondhand censorhip" metric even though everyone involved, including Brand, agreed that his claim was false.

As we learned with Kanye West, the MRC will give you a lot of slack for offensive behavior if you're been offering lip service to its preferred right-wing narratives. When people started to back away from Brand after numerous allegations of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse surfaced, the MRC rushed to portray him as a victim despite the seriousness of the allegations. Luis Cornelio huffed in a Sept. 19 post:

YouTube appointed itself judge, jury and silencer in the kangaroo court of public opinion preemptively punishing individuals subjected to leftist cancel culture or accusations — but only in some cases.

YouTube announced on Tuesday that comedian and actor will no longer be able to monetize his videos amidst sexual assault allegations brought against him. According to the New York Post’s Page Six, YouTube acknowledged that the punishment — despite no arrest or criminal convictions — followed “serious allegations against the creator.” The decision drew the ire of prominent voices who blasted YouTube’s unilateral decision and pointed out the disproportionate punishment as YouTube has turned a blind eye to accusations raised against Democrats and media members on the left.

In recent years, Brand has become a voice against Big Tech’s attack on free speech and has been subject to YouTube’s censorship in the past. It isn’t immediately clear whether YouTube’s targeting of Brand, which applies to “all channels that may be owned or operated by the actor,” has been applied to leftist individuals who have also faced damning allegations of sexual misconduct.

Catherine Salgado hopped board the anti-cancel culture bandwagon in a Sept. 21 post:

Rumble has refused to follow YouTube’s example in preemptively silencing Russell Brand amidst new allegations of sexual assault, touting “the vital cause” of a “free internet.”

Video platform Rumble has insisted on standing for free speech in the wake of calls to demonetize Brand. Rumble responded to an anti-free speech letter Caroline Dinenage by stating, “Although it may be politically and socially easier for Rumble to join a cancel culture mob, doing so would be in violation of our company’s values and mission. We emphatically reject the UK Parliament’s demands.”

[...]

"Rumble is right to reject and rebuke the U.K. or any other 'Cancel Culture Mob' demands to demonetize its customers," said MRC Free Speech America Director Michael Morris. "American social media companies should also be exporting the American principles of freedom, free speech and expression to the four corners of the earth, not importing the anti-American censorship ideals of totalitarian governments overseas."

Rumble posted a letter on X (formerly Twitter) in response to the U.K. letter sent to Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski. “While Rumble obviously deplores sexual assault, rape, and all serious crimes, and believes that both alleged victims and the accused are entitled to a full and serious investigation, it is vital to note that recent allegations against Russell Brand have nothing to do with content on Rumble’s platform,” Rumble explained. Rumble further noted that it is dedicated to “the vital cause of defending a free internet,” where individuals cannot arbitrarily demand censorship of other users.

You will not be surprised that all of this fretting about cancel culture on the MRC's part is totally hypocritical. When singer Lizzo was accused of sexual harassment of her backup dancers, Teirin-Rose Mandelburg wrote an Aug. 2 post under the headline "‘About Damn Time’ Lizzo Got Canceled" that began by gloating, "Cancel culture looks like it’s about to strike again. The latest victim is a big one … pun intended." (Remember, the MRC thinks that making fat jokes about Lizzo is the height of comedy and "media research; Mandelburg also referenced Lizzo's supposedly "morbidly obese body.")

The MRC published a Sept. 23 syndicated column by Ben Shapiro, who dubiously claimed that Brand has traken "heterodox positions on matters ranging from COVID-19 to the Ukraine war," then absolves Brand of guilt because he supposedly is no longer the same person who committed those offenses:

Full disclosure: I’ve interviewed Russell and been interviewed by him at length. I consider him a friend. You can never truly know another person well enough to rule out vile, despicable, criminal behavior in their past; I didn’t know Russell during his most debauched period, and I assume that if I had, we wouldn’t have gotten along. And the allegations, as Brand himself says, are incredibly serious. Presumably we will find out all the facts as time goes on.

There is a question worth asking here, aside from the obvious question about Brand’s alleged crimes: What prompted the media to begin digging into Brand? It was an open secret in Hollywood that Brand was a sexual degenerate throughout the 2000s; the media were utterly unconcerned about such matters. In fact, the same media outlets now investigating Brand were happy to make money off of him as he engaged in overtly vile behavior he himself would now be ashamed of.

So what changed? Brand did. He began taking political positions that contradicted many of the most cherished assumptions of the media class. He spoke out on a variety of issues that were considered taboo. He abandoned his past embrace of debauchery and began promoting more honorable personal behavior.

[...]

This is dangerous stuff, no matter what emerges about Brand. If he’s guilty, he will pay for his crimes. But the preemptive destruction of his career makes for a truly ugly incentive structure. And it is now just one more reason for those who do have heterodox opinions to avoid speaking up.

The fact remains, however, that Shapiro is all too willing to give Brand a pass for apparently criminal behavior because he's spouting conservatively correct things now. He would not be so generous if Brand had not moved to the right.

Salgado continued the MRC's cancel culture hypocrisy in a Sept. 26 post:

In the latest instance of anti-free speech cancel culture, several companies have pulled their advertising from Rumble for its refusal to buckle to censorship pressure.

The anti-free speech left frequently uses financial or government pressure to demand censorship of individuals or content, even resorting to canceling shows, products or people by cutting off advertising funds. Burger King, HelloFresh, Asos and The Barbican are the latest to do just that.

The four companies withdrew ads from pro-free speech video platform Rumble when the latter refused to demonetize Russell Brand over as-yet unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misconduct. The group The News Movement, which is tied to a group funded by climate activist James Murdoch, was behind the advertising pressure, Reclaim the Net reported on Sept. 23.

Salgado then tried to argue it's not cancel culture when right-wingers do it:

The Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon explained the difference between consumers boycotting companies and companies or government officials exerting pressure to cancel opponents in an X (formerly Twitter) post. “I didn't see conservatives calling on stores and venues to stop carrying Bud Light. They just stopped buying it,” Dillon posted on Sept. 21. “They applied market pressure, but they didn't cancel anything. It's like the difference between changing the channel when a show you don't like comes on and calling the advertisers/network to try and get the show taken off the air entirely.”

Dillon apparently didn't mention the right-wing activists twisting the arms of those consumers for partisan political benefit.

Salgado played whataboutism in a Sept. 27 post complaining that YouTube CEO Neal Mohan defended the platform suspending Brand:

"If creators have off-platform behavior, or there's off-platform news that could be damaging to the broader creator ecosystem, you can be suspended from our monetization program,” he claimed. YouTube demonetized Russell Brand quickly after as-yet unsubstantiated allegations of sexual assault first began to circulate in the media, allegations which Brand denies. Yet, YouTube continues to platform former CBS News journalist Charlie Rose and former Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) despite their own sexual harassment and assault allegations. Mohan’s defense thus seems hypocritical.

Salgado didn't explain why her co-worker Mandelburg cheered Lizzo falling afoul of "cancel culture" despite no criminal charges being filed against her.

Remember, the MRC has a very long record of embracing and defending right-wingers who engage in atrocious behavior or embrace extremism because it doesn't believe what they do, no matter how henious, discredits the narratives they peddle.

Another Sept. 27 post by Salgado cheered Rumble's continued hosting of a credibly accused sexual assault perpetrator:

Rumble continues to defy government officials, media outlets, and companies fiercely pressuring the pro-free speech video platform to censor Russell Brand.

Rumble has refused Russell Brand could be banned under the UK’s new anti-free speech online safety laws. “[O]ur staff has never been more prepared and ready for whatever comes at us,” Rumble announced in a Sept. 27 post on X formerly Twitter).

“Rumble has been under relentless attack from governments and the mainstream media on various fronts,” the platform posted. “What they fail to understand is that every attack only emboldens our community and makes us stronger.” Rumble added that it “was built for pressure and built for these types of moments,” and that its “infrastructure,” “ad system,” and “staff” have “never been more prepared and ready for whatever comes at us.”

Then again, Rumble CEO Pavlovski regularly associates with far-right and anti-Semitic poeple on his platform, so that's not quite the win Salgado thinks it is.

Salgado listed the Brand situation as one of the "Five Shocking Examples of Big Tech Censorship" that happened in September in an Oct. 3 post, rehashing her complaint that "YouTube constituted itself judge, jury, and hangman by demonetizing comedian and actor Russell Brand almost immediately when as-yet unproven sexual assault allegations began circulating." Of course, demonetizing is not "censorship," given that Brand has not been prohibited from posting anything.

WND's Alexander Tries To Salvage John Eastman As He Faces Disbarment
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Rachel Alexander is a true believer that there was election fraud in 2020 -- despite the utter lack of credible evidence to prove it -- so it's not a surprise that she's running to the defense of the lawyer who manufactured a legal basis for overturning the 2020 election, John Eastman, as he faces a disbarment trial before the California bar. She wrote in her Sept. 4 WorldNetDaily column:

Former Republican Jennifer Rubin wrote an opinion piece for The Washington Post last week criticizing Trump attorney John Eastman's defense in the California bar disbarment trial against him. Unlike her, I've watched every minute of the trial, which is going into the third week. The bar is desperately trying to show there was no legal authority for Eastman to advise Trump that Mike Pence could have rejected electoral slates from states suspected of election fraud, but as more evidence comes out, their case is getting weaker and weaker.

But all Alexander is doing is nitpicking the prosecution without landing any serioius punches. She started by going after greg Jacob, former attorney for then-Vice President Mike Pence, who assered that it was "gravely irresponsible for you to entice the president with an academic theory that had no legal viability," but she claimed he "contradicted himself" by "that "scholars disagree" whether it's the vice president's responsibility to substantively deal with accepting electoral slates" and that the Constitution is "at best ambiguous." but as another, more honest reporter pointed out:

But Jacob made clear that while there are certainly reasons to quibble over some of the fine points of the Electoral Count Act of 1887 and the 12th Amendment — the two pillars of American government that lay out the Jan. 6 electoral vote counting process — there’s simply no basis in history or law that Pence would have had authority to determine the outcome of the election himself — or even to jumpstart a state-level process that would have the same effect.

Alexander then went way into the weeds to discuss elections from 150 years ago to try and impugn another prosecution witness:

Rubin also claimed that a 91-page report authored by the bar's expert witness Matthew Seligman somehow destroyed Eastman's defense. The report from Seligman, who has probably been illegally practicing law without an active license while assisting the California bar on this, was all over the board on that issue. Rubin said his report found that the 12th Amendment, the Electoral Count Act of 1887 and congressional precedent show that "the Eastman positions were so devoid of support that 'no reasonable attorney exercising appropriate diligence in the circumstances would adopt them.'"

However, Miller got Seligman to discuss the legislative debates of the 1876 election, where Republicans wanted the vice president to decide competing sets of electoral slates from some Southern states, but Democrats did not. There, a deal ultimately was reached by a special commission, allowing Republican Rutherford Hayes to become president, and Democrat Samuel Tilden conceded. No Republicans were prosecuted nor their attorneys disciplined.

If Seligman thought Eastman's position was so outrageous, why does he prominently feature a debate between Eastman and progressive legal scholar Lawrence Lessig about it on his website? One of the scholarly articles that Seligman wrote, "Disputed Presidential Elections and the Collapse of Constitutional Norms," discussed how a political party could have deserted "constitutional norms" "while staying within the strict bounds of the law" to "steal the presidency in 9 of the 34 elections since 1887 and the opposing party would have been powerless to stop the theft." Tellingly, Seligman wrote the article in 2018, shortly after Hillary Clinton claimed she lost to Trump due to election fraud.

Alexander's claim that Seligman was "has probably been illegally practicing law without an active license" linked to an article she wrote elsewhere obsessing over how his his law license was inactive because he was working as a teacher.

Alexander concluded by ranting that any discipline Eastman might face, in this case as well as in Georgia, will overturned by a biased right-wing Supreme Court:

The criminal prosecutions will likely go on for years, since the left wants to drag them out to damage Trump during the presidential race. But it is not likely that the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold a conviction sending Trump – or the others – to prison; not only does the current court lean to the right, but several of the justices were appointed by Trump. They won't stand for sending a president to prison over politics. Nor will they allow Eastman, a fellow legal academic who once clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas, to be disbarred over the First Amendment.

Rubin gleefully discussed the indictment of Eastman, but failed to discuss how a good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, failed to discuss how RICO laws are so vague and broad they can be used to get anyone, and failed to discuss how attorneys regularly represent some of the most heinous criminals on earth and protect their lies. "Your honor, my client could not have been there bombing all those people since he was with a friend at the time."

Everyone already knows how Disciplinary Judge Yvette Roland, who contributed recently to Democrats while serving as a judge, is going to rule. Can't wait for the grown-ups – SCOTUS – to take over.

Meanwhile, in reality, Eastman's defense continues to do poorly. His first defense witness was Michael Gableman, a Wisconsin activist who had no experience in election law and said he did not have "any understand of how elections work" when Wisconsin Republicans -- mad that Biden won the state in 2020 --  chose him to look for evidence of rampant election fraud in the state (which he didn't find because there was none). Not an auspicious start -- not that Alexander will admit it, of course.

MRC Complains Gmail Bias Lawsuit It Encouraged GOP To File Got Tossed Out Of Court
Topic: Media Research Center

Last year, the Media Research Center hyped a study it claimed showed that the spam filter on Google's Gmail is purportedly biased against conservative fundraising emails by marking more of them as spam -- though it hid that the study also found that the alleged bias largely disappears as users read emails and mark them as spam on their own and the Gmail learns from that behavior. The MRC also censored the fact that a study co-author called out right-wingers for misrepresenting the results of the study. Nevertheless, the MRC's misleading narrative helped goad the Republican National Committee into suing Google over the purported bias.

Well, the case got tossed out of court, and Luis Cornelio spent an Aug. 30 post ranting about it:

A federal judge tossed a Republican National Committee lawsuit that alleged Google buried fundraising emails.

In a major loss for free speech, U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Calabretta dismissed an RNC lawsuit seeking to hold Google accountable for what Republicans described as email suppression. The RNC alleged that Google's Gmail intentionally sent  20 million Republican campaign emails to spam over the course of 6 days. However, Calabretta, a Biden appointee, claimed on August 24 that Section 230 shielded Google from the lawsuit. You read that correctly. The judge ruled that, “[w]hile is a close case,” the RNC failed to show “Google acted in bad faith” in suppressing emails, “and that doing so was protected by section 230,” according to standards set forth in a previous Supreme Court case.

[...]

In October 2022, the RNC filed a lawsuit against Google, citing a study that found that the Big Tech giant’s algorithms buried GOP emails in an apparent attempt to thwart the political party’s fundraiser emails. At the time, the RNC argued that Google pushed “millions of RNC emails en masse to potential donors’ and supporters’ spam folders during pivotal points in election fundraising and community building.”

Google maintained its innocence through the lawsuit. “The RNC is wrong,” Google claimed in a filing, reported by The Washington Post on August 24. “Gmail’s spam filtering policies apply equally to emails from all senders, whether they are politically affiliated or not.” The judge agreed, going as far as demanding that the RNC fix the suit to demonstrate — despite the growing evidence showing otherwise — that Google acted with a “lack of good faith.”

Of course, Cornelio and the rest of the MRC have acted in bad faith by making Google a political scapegoat so it can push its right-wing victimhood narrative, making it a poor judge of what it calls "bad faith" on Google's part. He also censored the finding from ther original study that the biases disappear as users engage with Gmail.

Cornelio also dutifully quoted the head of the RNC sticking to the narrative:

“This case is not over,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in reaction to the lawsuit. “The judge has given us leave to amend and re-file our complaint. This suit represents a crucial action against Big Tech’s anti-conservative bias. We look forward to filing our amended complaint and continuing this fight.”

Most ludicrously, Cornelio touted the MRC/RNC allegations as a "BOMBSHELL" in the headline of his post. If that so-called bombshell gets tossed out of court for lack of evidence, it's not a "bombshell" -- it's a failed and frivolous lawsuit.

NEW ARTICLE: A COVID Misinformer Struggles To Move On
Topic: WorldNetDaily
As the COVID pandemic wound down, Jane Orient, head of the fringe-right Association of American Physicians and Surgeons -- and a WorldNetDaily fake-news favorite -- had to scout around for other things to peddle in order to stay relevant. Read more >>

As COVID Cases Grew Over Summer, MRC Whined About Masks Again
Topic: Media Research Center

When the number of COVID cases increased over the summer, the MRC leaned into its conspiracy toolbox and started whining about the idea of wearing masks again. Alex Christy complained in an Aug. 1 post:

MSNBC is, if nothing else, totally committed to self-parody as Tuesday’s Jose Diaz-Balart Reports took a break from incessant coverage of all things Donald Trump to talk about another one of their favorite obsessions: masks and why you need to “bring them out again.”

Even by the segment’s own reporting, the conclusion was absurd. As Diaz-Balart kicked things off by admitting the sky is not falling, while also trying to gin up fear, “If you've noticed more of your friends, neighbors, loved ones are testing positive for COVID, you’re not alone. According to the CDC, COVID-19 hospitalizations are up 12 percent from last week and while we’re nowhere near previous levels, it’s still raising concerns.”

Christy didn't explain what, exactly, was "absurd" to be concerned about increasing COVID cases.

Clay Waters whined in an Aug. 8 post:

After three and a half years, there’s still no immunity from COVID hysteria at the New York Times or PBS NewsHour. A slight, predictable summer uptick in COVID cases (up from very low levels) caused a mini-frenzy in the liberal media, which were always eager to enjoin citizens to “mask up” and get their umpteenth booster shot while shunning other people. Both outlets relied on epidemiologist and dedicated mask-pusher Katelyn Jetelina.

Jetelina appeared on the taxpayer-supported NewsHour Thursday evening to comment on what host Geoff Bennett called the “COVID-19 summer surge….John Yang looks at the growing concerns.”

[...]

Of course, Jetelina’s advice also included masks, masks, masks, prodded by Yang, who ran down the tedious list of pandemic precautions:

[...]

The New York Times’ notorious COVID reporter Apoorva Mandavilli made her own pandemic plea in Friday’s edition. It was less hysterical than her usual output, but still leaned into overzealous precautions: “Amid Signs of a Covid Uptick, Researchers Brace for the ‘New Normal.’”

Jetelina made her appearance warning that “Covid is still a thing” that we should never be allowed to move beyond.

It's not the New York Times' fault that COVID refuses to completely go away, something Waters doesn't seem to understand.

Nicholas Fondacaro had his own mask meltdown in an Aug. 14 post:

During Monday’s CBS Mornings, the liberal crew lamented that Americans were “letting down their guard” with COVID and weren’t masking anymore, leading to a small summer spike in cases. Even though the pandemic was officially over and most Americans wanted life to return to normal, the pearl-clutchers at CBS demanded a return to masking in indoor public spaces and for people to get more booster shots.

Without giving any form of context or underlying numbers, co-host Gayle King hysterically warned that “Hospitalization rates, they are up more than 12 percent in the most recent weeks surveyed by the CDC.” She added that “COVID has been found in a rising number of wastewater samples. The virus is usually detected in wastewater up to a week before people start actually start testing positive.”

King then looked to CBS medical contributor Dr. Celine Gounder to tell people to snap out of their post-pandemic apathy and bust out their masks again. Gounder bemoaned about “people letting down their guard” and trying to go back to normal:

[...]

Possibly hoping for a grim update, co-host Nate Burleson wondered if the latest cases were leading to more serve hospitalizations. But Gounder admitted, “They are on average not more severe right now. If you look at sort of ICU admissions, they're probably stable.”

Christy returned for an Aug. 23 post with more huffing about masks:

It may be August of 2023, but the media still can’t quit COVID alarmism. The latest COVID freak out came on Wednesday’s CNN This Morning as the assembled cast wondered whether it was time to bring back masks.

Co-host Poppy Harlow got things started by asking, “With COVID cases rising, some people are masking up. You have probably seen that in your neighborhood, work, etcetera. What does it mean for you and what does it mean for people at higher risk of severe illness?”

She then introduced chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta and asked, “I keep thinking this, when I see people with masks on ‘am I making a mistake? What should I do?’ What should we do?”

Gupta began his response with “the good news,” proclaiming that when “you look at the map of the country and look at the CDC recommendations, most of the country is considered low risk right now. It's mostly green.”

Indeed, as Gupta was speaking, CNN put up the map in question and it was overwhelming green with several states regardless of whether they be red, blue, or purple, being entirely green.

[...]

Gupta further cited “a lot of the experts” as reason to bring back masks including media favorite and classic narcissist “Peter Hotez, for example, he said he’s gone back to masking.”

Christy's evidence that Hotez is a "classic narcissist" was a 2022 post he wrote complaining that Hotez portrayed politically motivated attacks on Anthony Fauci as attacks on science in general.Christy then complained that "the media tries to pretend it is still March of 2020" -- never mind that his employer loves to fearmonger when it's politically expedient for it to do so, i.e., its obsession with the "Biden border crisis."

John Simmons devoted a Sept. 8 post to grousing that some California high schools canceled football games "because of a COVID-19 outbreak at least one of the schools in these matchups," unironically adding, "What’s really rough is that in 2023, we’re still cancelling sporting events because of COVID." Rather than the anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories among his fellow right-wingers that scared people away from vaccines and, thus, helped COVID continue to spread, Simmons blamed the vaccines for purportedly not working:

California had some of the strictest vaccination laws in the country during the pandemic, and a high majority of Californians had to get the jab. So one would think that if the vaccine prevents COVID that stuff like this shouldn’t be happening two years after the vaccine craze was at its peak.

Or, maybe the vaccine doesn’t do what the government said it would do, and this is just the latest example proving that point.

Or, you know, it's because one needs regular boosters, like with flu vaccines. But for Simmons, partisan conspiracy theories come before scientific fact.

When Fauci made a TV appearance, Kevin Tober went into conspiracy overdrive in a Sept. 10 post:

On Sunday's This Week on ABC, co-moderator Jonathan Karl dredged up the disgraced former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Tony Fauci to discuss the reported uptick in COVID cases in the United States. While Fauci didn't explicitly push for mask mandates and boosters, when pressed by Karl he did advocate for their effectiveness despite the fact that nearly everyone who wore a mask and was fully vaccinated became infected with COVID.

Needless to say, Tober offered no evidence whatsoever to back up his claim that Fauci is "disgraced" or that "nearly everyone" who was vaccinated caught COVID. Instead, he whined further that Fauci said that vaccines work and that "There’s a lot of good data that masks work," while, again, refusing to offer any evidence to the contrary.

Newsmax Columnist Cherry-Picks Numbers To Attack Colo. Governor
Topic: Newsmax

We've documented how Newsmax columnist Mark Schulte loves to dishonestly massage COVID-related statistics (and other numbers) to push right-wing narratives. He was at it again in his Aug. 30 column:

Democrat Colorado Gov. Jared Polis performed atrociously during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the state's percentage increases in deaths from all causes, annually between 2020 and 2022, were significantly higher than the national averages.

But this colossal failure and others were ignored in an interview with the governor, conducted by veteran journalist John Stossel, which was published on the opinion page of the New York Post on Aug. 4, and in FrontPage Magazine on Aug. 10>.

In 2019, the first year of Polis' tenure, Colorado suffered 39,400 deaths from all causes. But in 2020, there were 47,600 deaths, or a disastrous 21% increase.

In 2021, there were 49,100 deaths in Colorado, or a calamitous 25% increase from 2019.

And in 2022, there were 47,700 total deaths, or another 21% increase from three years earlier.

By contrast, America had 2,855,000 deaths from all causes in 2019, and 3,390,000 deaths in 2020, or a 19% increase.

There were 3,472,000 deaths in 2021, or a 22% increase from 2019.

In 2022, there were 3,288,000 deaths, or a 15% increase from three years earlier.

Thus, America's average annual increase in fatalities is 19%, while Colorado's is an even more abominable 22%.

In neighboring Kansas, the average annual increase in deaths from all causes is 11%, or one-half of Colorado's deplorable rate.

In fact,according to CDC numbers, the COVID death rate in Coloradio is actually lower than that of Kansas. Schulte then tried to play gotcha with education scores, which ... remained higher than national numbers:

Secondly, in the recent interview, Stossel didn't confront Gov. Polis about the massive learning losses in Colorado public schools on the 2022 Nation's Report Card.

On the 4th grade math and reading tests, Colorado students totaled 997 points, or 23 points fewer than the 1,020 points in 2019. Since 12 points equal one-grade level, they regressed by 1.9 years.

Nationally, the total score in 2022 for all 4th and 8th graders was 987 points, or 19 fewer than the 1,006 points three years earlier.

Schulte then did the same thing forunemployment numbers, which similarly showed Colorado on par with the nation:

Polis hypocritically chimed-in that "our businesses reopened really early."

In fact, Colorado's unemployment rate was 12.1% in April 2020 and 6.4% in April 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The national average dropped from 14.7% to 6.1% over this one year.

Nevertheless, he closed by insisting: "Undoubtedly, Colorado Gov. Polis has joined the infamous list of influential Americans, including Dr. Anthony Fauci and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, who have unsuccessfully attempted to erase their egregious failures during the COVID-19 pandemic." He had to cherry-pick a lot of numbers to reach that conclusion, and one can assume he did the same thing to attack Fauci and Weingarten.

WND Misleads On Trump's (Fourth) Indictment, Lazily Repeats Attacks On Prosecutor
Topic: WorldNetDaily

As with his first three indictments, WorldNetDaily was in full defense-and-victimhood mode when Donald Trump's fourth indictment was handed down. It lazily reprinted another outlet's news story on the indictment itself -- surprisingly, from hated "liberal media" org NBC News. Then the usual WND nuttery kicked in; bob Unruh wrote in a Aug. 15 article:

A partisan Georgia prosecutor has unleashed an encyclopedia of charges against President Donald Trump and more than a dozen others who raised concerns about the 2020 election results.

Fani Willis, in fact, "threw a bunch of stuff at the wall trying to get something, anything to stick," according to a Twitchy commentary on Tuesday.

And the fact that she was reaching, far, for something to make a crime was evident in her results.

On social media, it was explained that she now is making illegal:

• Asking people for phone numbers
• Reserving rooms in a Capitol building
• Telling people to watch TV
• Holding meetings
• Calling people
• Setting up phone calls

And much, much more.

[...]

Explained the commentary: "Asking for phone numbers? Reserving rooms in a Capitol building? TELLING PEOPLE TO WATCH TV. Bro, we're all getting charged at this rate."

Unruh is lying. The indictment does not claking that making phone calls is illegal; rather, it listed those calls and other activities as part of the "overt acts" that formed the conspiracy that Trump was charged with. Nevertheless, Unruh repeated his lie in an Aig. 18 article that peddled a different conspiracy therory:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has released a bombshell about the latest indictment, from the state of Georgia, of President Donald Trump.

That indictment, which critics have charged makes it illegal to make a phone call or hold a meeting, claims that Trump and more than a dozen others engaged in illegal actions to contest the 2020 election results.

Now, a report at PJMedia explains that Gingrich confirmed a "reliable source" told him orders came from Washington, D.C. for Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis, to bring charges against Trump.

The explanation, the report said, was that "they" needed a distraction "from the 'screw-up' involving David Weiss," who recently was appointed special counsel to continue the government's years-long investigation of Hunter Biden on tax and gun charges.

Gingrich is simply repeating gossip that he can't back up -- even he admits it's nothing but "hearsay" -- but Unruh won't tell you that.

Unruh touted partisan attacks on Willis in an Aug. 24 article:

Members of the Republican Party in Congress have notified Fani Willis, the leftist Georgia prosecutor who unleashed a multiple-count indictment against nearly 20 people who allegedly conspired with President Trump during the 2020 election by making "phone calls" and such that they want answers about her agenda.

The Federalist has reported it is GOP members of the House Judiciary Committee who wrote to Willis demanding answers.

"Your indictment and prosecution implicate substantial federal interests, and the circumstances surrounding your actions raise serious concerns about whether they are politically motivated," the letter warns.

WND offloaded news about Trump's arraignment to another outside article. Meanwhile, Unruh regurgitated another attack on Willis the next day:

The DA in Georgia prosecuting President Donald Trump for his election doubts, and his statements about those, has been revealed as having her own doubts about elections, and making public statements about those.

Trump was booked Thursday on counts in an indictment created by Fani Willis, who is a hard-left activist who is fundraising on her agenda against Trump.

It's one of four indictments pending against Trump, and has been described as possibly the most political of the four, as it appears to make criminal the act of making a phone call or having a meeting.

After the process, Trump tweeted his booking photo and the statement, "Never Surrender."

[...]

Now a report at the Post-Millennial has documented Willis' own agenda to undermine trust in elections.

The report explained it was Benny Johnson, who broke news on X that Willis, "is heavily partisan."

The report explained, "Johnson shared a post from Willis' Facebook page in which she was 'feeling annoyed' on November 4, 2020, election day. 'Georgia could determine who is our next president,' she wrote, 'A TEAM of lawyers needs to watch them count every single VOTE. They can start in Fulton where we are having water leaks. What ballots are they throwing out? Georgia lets (sic) give an honest accounting. No stunts!"

Unruh did not mention that Willis did not incite an insurrection over losing anelection and that she has apparently accepted investigations into the Georgia vote that found no anomalies.

Unruh went on to repeat more right-wing attacks on Willis and the indictment:

• Court precedent: Georgia prosecutor should have been banned from Trump case
• Report: Georgia prosecutor filed Trump charges while holding exonerating evidence

Of course, Unruh is just doing stenography here -- there's no actual reeporting involved. Rewriting others' content is not the same as generating your own, so it's unclear what value there is in WND doing it, aside from it being cheaper for the cash-strapped "news" organization to do.

NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Gun Defenders, 2023 Edition
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center will rush to defend guns -- never mind the carnage they play a key role in creating. Read more >>

At Trump's Arraignment, MRC Complains That Mughots Were Taken, Trump's Fantasy Weight Was Mocked
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's aggressive defense of Donald Trump over his (fourth) indictment cointinued when he traveled to Georgia to be arraigned and have his mugshot taken. Bill D'Agostino whined in an Aug. 24 post that non-right-wing networks covered the story while purportedly obsessing over mugshots:

Over the past 24 hours, CNN and MSNBC have gleefully brandished the mugshots of Donald Trump’s co-defendants like grim trophies for their audiences to gawk at.

MRC analysts examined all coverage on CNN and MSNBC from 6:00 p.m. on August 23 to that same time the following day. During that 24-hour span, the two cable networks displayed mugshots of former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, former Trump administration Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and the other defendants a whopping 188 times, amounting to a combined 83 minutes of airtime.

MSNBC led the pair in both total on-screen displays and screen time; they showed the mugshots 122 times, for a total of 56 minutes and 23 seconds. CNN showed the images 66 times, which amounted to 27 minutes and 12 seconds of screen time.

[...]

If these journalists want to get offended when they’re accused of publicly enjoying this latest Trump indictment, then they should probably stop publicly enjoying it. For a start, they could quit waving around the latest mugshots like excited baseball card collectors.

Strangely, D'Agostino and his "MRC analysts" didn't offer a count for how many times the mugshots appeared on Fox News, even though its right-wing bias is the gold standard by which it measures all media coverage.

Serving up the complaetely opposite view, Kevin Tober complained that some argued that Trump would use his mugshot a a political tool:

During CNN’s live coverage of Trump’s motorcade to the Fulton County, Georgia jail for the former President’s booking on Erin Burnett OutFront, fill-in anchor Kaitlan Collins and correspondent Sara Murray fretted that Trump would use his new mugshot “to his political advantage” and fundraise off the photo to help his presidential campaign. 

“Trump himself has been not downplaying this. I mean, he is certainly seeing how he uses these exact moments to his political advantage,” Collins kvetched.

Murray then jumped in to agree that Trump “uses these for fundraising, he uses these to rally his base.” Due to this, she openly regretted the plan to release Trump’s mugshot.

Tober then insisted that refuisal of some channels not to air Trump's post-arraignment remarks was "election interference":

In a case of blatant election interference, both CNN & MSNBC refused to air Trump’s remarks live on the tarmac after his arrest in Fulton County, Georgia. In stark contrast, Fox News did air Trump’s comments live where he lashed out at being arrested for a fourth time in as many months. 

Just like earlier in the evening, both CNN & MSNBC aired wall-to-wall coverage of Trump’s every move to and from the Fulton County, Georgia jail where he was fingerprinted and got his mug shot taken, both networks had cameras rolling while Trump got out of his limousine and walked to the cameras. Despite this, they kept Trump’s volume down and continued with their panel discussions.

But Tober gave Fox News a cookie for helping the Trump campaign: "Fox News Channel’s Jesse Watters Primetime did broadcast the former President’s remarks in its entirety."

Nicholas Fondacaro spent an Aug. 25 post being mad that Trump's overly self-aggrandizing height at weight self-presented at his arraignment was justifiably mocked:

Never let anyone in the liberal media claim they’re not gleeful that former President Trump was booked and had his mugshot taken at a Fulton County jail. Nearly 40 minutes after concluding their opening segment about Trump surrendering to authorities in Georgia, the cast of CBS Mornings revisited the topic in their “What to Watch” segment so they could make fun of Trump’s “self-reported” height and weight, and say he’s fatter than he claimed. They even compared his build to NFL players.

Coming back from the commercial break, CBS led into the segment by broadcasting their intentions with the song Body by Megan Thee Stallion, which has these enlightened lyrics:

Body-ody-ody-ody-ody-ody-ody-ody/Ody-ody-ody-ody-ody-ody-ody (mwah)/Body-ody-ody-ody-ody-ody-ody-ody (ah, ah, ah ah)/Ody-ody-ody-ody-ody-ody-ody

“Body body body!” co-host Tony Dokoupil sang along. “Perfect song!” co-host Gayle King proclaimed, with Dokoupil agreeing it was a “Very perfect song!”

They immediately went to correspondent Omar Villafranca to mock Trump for claiming he was 6'3" and 215 pounds. They wanted to really have fun with it so they matched the former President up against young and muscular NFL players:

[...]

Was Trump exaggerating how light he was? More than likely. Did it require an entire segment with special graphics to mock it? Definitely not. Were there better things they could have used the time for? Yes, like the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into Biden family corruption.

We don't recall Fondacaro passing up the opportunity to mock a liberal he thought deserved it because there were "better things" that should be covered.

Fondacaro joined Tim Graham's podcast the same day to whine about this (and the mugshots) further:

The media's Trump-indictment obsessives engaged in all kinds of glee out of Fulton County mug shots of Donald Trump's "co-conspirators" in the Georgia election aftermath, and the glee only grew once Trump's mug shot was released...except CNN lamented Trump would use the image for his "political advantage." 

Associate Editor Nick Fondacaro joins the show to talk mug shots and debates.

[...]

Nick also reported CBS Mornings mocked Trump for reporting he was 6-foot-3 and weighed 215 pounds, which does not seem accurate. They compared him to professional NFL footballers at that height and weight. It's probably not a wise idea for Gayle King to mock someone else's size, but when you're the queen of CBS in the morning, no one tells you what you shouldn't say.

Graham didn't explain why he tried to insinuate a fat joke about King. See what we mean about the MRC never missing an opportunity to mock someone, no matter how mean or petty?

WND Tries To Fearmonger About COVID Vaccines Again
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Misleading about COVID and its vaccines is what WorldNetDaily does, and it took another stab at it in a Sept. 7 article by Bob Unruh:

The Food and Drug Administration is charged with making sure products, including medicines, delivered to American consumers have been tested for safety.

And a Pfizer booster shot that delivered in 2021 purportedly to help consumers fight off the COVID-19 pandemic was.

On 23 people.

That stunner comes from Judicial Watch, which reported on its access to 58 pages of records from the FDA.

They revealed "a Pfizer study surveyed 23 people in 2021 to gauge reactions to its COVID vaccine booster before asking the FDA to approve it."

 But as a credible meida outlet reported, this isn't that big of a deal:

The FDA's decision to consider Covid boosters without human data is in line with how it evaluates modified vaccines for influenza each year. Clinical studies in humans aren't required for the approval of seasonal influenza vaccines, even when they're reformulated for strain changes, said Dr. Jesse Goodman of Georgetown University, a former FDA vaccine chief.

In other words, the COVID vaccine itself has already been tested and found safe, so there's no need to do comprehensive testing of the vaccine's safety again when the only thing that has changed is the strains being targeted, which is how flu vaccines are run. But rather than tell readers this relevant fact, Unruh simply chose to serve up fearmongering stenography: "Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch chief, noted that the public "would do well to examine these troubling documents" because of the 'shotgun approach' to earlier boosters, in light of the Biden administration's new push for more shots."

Misleading stories like this do nothing to make anyone want to trust WND.

MRC Helps Praying Football Coach Play Victim
Topic: Media Research Center

We've previously highlighted the story of Joe Kennedy, an assistant football coach at a high school in Washington state who made a big show out of praying at midfield after the game. The school district asked him to stop, citing concerns about separation of church and state, and he was fired when he refused. He then decided to enter the right-wing victim portal, suing the school district and claiming his rights were violated. Despite reports that players felt pressured to take part in his prayers and fearing consequences if they didn't, as well as concerns over the Establishment Clause and his refusal to work with the school district to find a mutually acceptible accommodation, the Supreme Court sided with Kennedy and he was reinstated as a coach.

Kennedy returned to the football team this fall -- then quit after one game. The Media Research Center's John Simmons tried to make him a victim againin a Sept. 7 post:

Joe Kennedy’s second tenure as an assistant football coach at Bremerton High School (BHS) in Washington State was short lived, as he has offered his letter of resignation.

Last year, the Supreme Court had ruled that BHS wrongly terminated Kennedy from his position in 2015 after the school discovered he was praying on the football field after games. Kennedy won a settlement with the school in March and was reinstated to his position that same month, but things had taken a drastically negative turn since his return.

Kennedy said in his resignation letter that it became “apparent” that his “reinstatement ordered by the Supreme Court will not be fully followed after a series of actions meant to diminish my role and single me out in what I can only believe is retaliation by the school district.” He was able to help coach one game, but that seems to be all he will do for the immediate future.

Simmons made no attempt to find out exactly what Kennedy is accusing the school district of -- he chose totake Kennedy's word at face value and amp up his victimhood and baselessly accuse the school district of being "petty":

What those actions were specifically remains unclear, but it prompted a strong response from his legal team that helped him through his seven-year fight to have his First Amendment rights protected.

[...]

If you looked up the definition of “petty” in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of BHS right next to it. Unwilling to graciously accept the fact they were wrong, the school is actively ostracizing Kennedy even after the Supreme Court ruled in his favor.

Some people just don’t know when they’ve been beat. We don’t know if Kennedy will continue to pursue legal action against BHS, but if he does, hopefully justice can be served once again.

But Simmons is omitting other, more likely reasons Kennedy is quitting. As the Fox News article he cited noted (but he didn't), Kennedy currently lives in Florida, and it makes no sense to commute across the country for a low-paying seasonal part-time job.Plus, he's apparently making more money playing victim than he ever did coaching football; as another news outlet reported (but Simmons didnt), Kennedy is writing a book about his victimhood, and a movie is supposedly being made about it.As Wonkette commented:

What are the chances he purposely tanked the coaching job he allegedly yearned to get back in order to boost his book sales and his speaking fees, and giving himself a nice little new story of his martyrdom that he can spread to the faithful about how the godless heathens of Bremerton High School are still persecuting him for his faith?

We’ll say 100 percent, and take the over.

Simmons is certainly not going to intrude on Kennedy's grift, since it helps advance the right-wing narratives he gets well paid to promote.

NEW ARTICLE: WND's 'Charlottesville Lie' Lie Just Won't Die
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Years later, WorldNetDaily still can't stop falsely defending Donald Trump over his statement about a violent 2017 white supremacist protest over the removing of a statue of a Confederate general. Read more >>

MRC Whines That Interview Of Pro-Musk Book Author Wasn't Positive Enough
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's methods of defending Elon Musk have been a bit extreme lately -- for example, calling on racist cartoonist Scott Adams to defend Musk's attacks on the Anti-Defamation League for pointing out anti-Semitism on Twitter (well, X) and cheering death threats (that Musk helped incite) against former Twitter offical Yoel Roth for doing his pre-Musk job and  refusing to be a Musk toady. And it continues to lash out at anyone who won't uncritically repat the pro-Musk narrative. Clay Waters spent a Sept. 16 post complaining that PBS asked tough questions of Walter Isaacson, author of a new, largely favorable biography of Musk:

Two shows that air on tax-funded PBS, the NewsHour and Amanpour & Co. (which also airs on CNN) invited journalist and Amanpour regular co-host Walter Isaacson to discuss his new biography of entrepreneur Elon Musk, who now owns X (formerly Twitter).

This was not the usual journalist-to-journalist validation, with the reliably liberal Isaacson getting testy over some of the questions and feeling the need to defend his treatment of Musk, a figure loathed among journalists and the left -- or is that redundant? Over the two interviews, Musk was accused of racism, sexism, and even supporting Vladimir Putin.

On NewsHour, host Amna Nawaz unloaded on Musk:

Elon Musk is one of the most famous people on the planet, for the tech companies he's founded and acquired, and he's one of the wealthiest. But Musk is also among the most controversial public figures because of his behavior, including the spread of misinformation, racist and sexist remarks, and his political ideas….

After a squabble over Isaacson’s reporting about the details of Musk refusing to let Ukraine use his Starlink satellites to guide their submarine drones to attack Russian forces, Nawaz hurled a pro-Putin accusation at Musk.

[...]

Isaacson discussed Musk being bullied as a child and how it may have shaped him. Nawaz was merciless.

Nawaz: Walter, a lot of folks have traumatic childhoods, right? And they don't always turn into people who are abusive towards their staff, or, as he has done, tweeted racist, or sexist, or offensive things. He has a very huge platform. He's a very powerful man and a very, very wealthy man. And I wonder if you think he's also a potentially dangerous man because of those combinations.

Isaacson actually pushed back a bit: Well, I won't agree with all of the characterizations you put on some of the tweets….

Isaacson also appeared with Christiane Amanpour on Thursday. Amanpour called Musk “a villain to some and a genius to others,” and brought up criticism from lefties who found Isaacson’s book had insufficient” pushback” and didn’t “make judgments” against Musk.

By contrast, Luis Cornelio was in full stenography mode, spending a Sept. 21 post touting a Republlican congressmasn spouting right-wing pro-Musk narratives at aGOP-led House hearing:

A defiant Attorney General Merrick Garland stumbled over his words Wednesday when faced with tough questions about his alleged targeting of X owner Elon Musk.

In a contentious five-hour-long hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, Garland endured scorching criticism related to the motives behind two investigations against Musk.

Specifically, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) pressed Garland over allegations that the Department of Justice is targeting Musk as a result of the politically damning evidence revealed in The Twitter Files. “These look like mafia tactics,” a fired-up Massie said.

“Elon Musk was a Democrat who admittedly supported Biden but then he became a critic of the administration and exposed the censorship regime,” Massie continued, likely referring to the Twitter Files, which exposed a disturbing web of censorship collusion between the social media company and the federal government. “Now, per public reports, the DOJ has opened, not one but two investigations of Elon Musk.”

The Kentucky lawmaker made reference to a Wall Street Journal report alleging that federal prosecutors in New York are scrutinizing perks Musk received during his tenure as the owner of electric car company Tesla. As reported by The Journal on Sept. 19, the DOJ probe, led by the U.S. District Attorney for the Southern District of New York, comes in addition to a Securities and Exchange Commission civil investigation into the same matter.

Cornelio did not note whether there is anything beyond mere coincidence to the conclusions Massie is leaping to -- perhaps because there is no substance to the attack. Cornelio's stenography continued:

Massie drew attention to the disparate treatment of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose financial involvement in the 2020 presidential action triggered the ire of Republican lawmakers and numerous governors. “Mark Zuckerberg, on the other hand, spent $400 million in 2020, tilting the elections secretly for Democrats—no investigations whatsoever,” Massie remarked.

Corneilo refused to fact-check Massie, so we will (with a little help). Money was made available by a Zuckerberg-funded noprofit to government election offices across the country to help them conduct the 2020 elections, affected by the COVID pandemic. Some of that money was used by governments for get-out-the-vote efforts,but there is no evidence of political favoritism in how the money was distributed or spent, and the giveaway did not violate election laws.

IN other words: Massie is basically lying byat Zuckergurg's money "titled" the election to Democrats, but Cornelio won't call out the lie because it serves pro-Musk narratives.

Agitprop Master Massie Rages Against 'Agitprop' He Doesn't Like
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Mychal Massie has long been a prolific spreader of hateful agitprop -- his entire right-wing media career, which has now mostly dwindled to a WorldNetDaily column, was built on it -- so it's highly ironic to see him complain about others doing the same in an Aug. 28 column headlined "Too many people succumb to Trump-hating agitprop." After approvingly quoting serial bomber Ted Kaczynski, of all people, ranting about "university intellectuals" who are supposedly "incapable of independent thought," Massie got to the Trump-as-victim narrative:

Those who control the flow information are only moderate threats. Those who decide what the information shall be are the true threats, and they're threats who go unchallenged. For decades they went sight unseen. That is, until Donald J. Trump ripped control from their hands with the help of you and me.

That they underestimated him and We the People the first time was "shame on them." But, they're determined to make sure that doesn't happen again.

Massie actually got something right bynoting that "Fox News isn't the friend of truth and/or factualism" and explaining why:

What is always missed is what I call the soap-opera addiction effect. That's a formula that has successfully glued watchers to soap operas since the very first one aired going back to 1937, if you count radio. People watch news and information programming for the same reason some watch soap operas; there's a formula in place that brings them back night after night. Just like soap-opera viewers, these viewers are addicted to the idea that they must hear what happened today. They must hear what so and so program host has to say about whatever event.

They fail to realize that they're being programmed to believe whatever they're told. They fail to realize that there are catch words and phrases used repeatedly that cause persons to receive and correlate certain information about a political candidate and/or a social issue.

But he then blew up that insight by lamenting that Fox News wasn't programming its viewers to believe Trump is a great guy:

Enter President Trump. It's a foregone conclusion that the leftists hate him. Much less apparent, however, is the extent that so-called right-wing conservatives hate him even more. You see, President Trump simply defeated the Democrats; but, in the mind of elite Republican, from their governing bodies to the elected to the shadowy wraiths micro-managing from the fog – Donald Trump is viewed as betraying them in the most unacceptable way possible. He actually puts us and America first.

The brainwashing of the voters is an alchemy of lies, innuendo and distortion. Repeated enough, people view the claims as words of wisdom by talking heads who are loathe to admit they've hidden agendas, not least of which is wealth and backslapping from their owners and handlers.

This is what the voters miss. Many think they get it, but in reality they are fallen prey to agitprop.

Of coruse, Massie's claim that Trump "actually puts us and America first" is agitprop as well -- in reality, there's little evidence that Trump cares about anyone but himself.Massie concluded with more agitprop:

There's a reason President Trump is hated by the powers on both sides of the aisle. It's because the same dark forces control both sides. This is missed by voters who after the past six years should realize it. He's the one who threatened the spigots of dollars the "owners of the order" feast upon.

Any candidate both sides are so determined to crush is someone worth supporting. If President Trump were the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan or head of some other subversive terrorist group, Democrats would love him. If he were a brown-nosed loser who talked tough and never accomplished a thing, Republicans would love him – as long as he helped them raise massive amounts of cash in so doing.

But, he's neither, which why we love him.

Spoken like a true agitprop master. Ironic, huh?

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.