MRC's DeSantis Defense Brigade Watch, Softball Interview Edition Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's DeSantisDefenseBrigade hasn't exactly helped Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign, as it's still mired in the lower end of polling. So the MRC tried one last-ditch effort to boost DeSantis: a softball interview. Curtis Houck detailed the agenda-promoting softness in the nearly 16-minute interview in a Nov. 3 post:
This week, Media Research Center Founder and President L. Brent Bozell spoke with 2024 Republican presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis about a whole host of issues and, naturally, it included exchanges about the repeated, years-long barrages of attacks from the liberal media.
Bozell began by noting the MRC has “monitored how they’ve treated you and how they’ve treated all the Republican candidates” and, while “all the focus is always on — on how awful they are to Donald Trump,” “[t]hey’re just about just as awful with you.”
Bozell cited an August NewsBusters study by our Rich Noyes on 2024 coverage from the network evening newscasts on ABC, CBS, and NBC that “78 percent of the coverage of you has been negative” before asking how that’s “not election interference when the networks are deliberately trying to derail Republicans.”
DeSantis didn’t hesitate in emphasizing that “there’s no question that they have...a partisan agenda...trying to advance a victory for the Democratic Party” that “you guys have pointed this out...for a number of years.”
He added why the liberal media have “been so negative on me is because they do see all the success that we’ve had in Florida” and fear the possibility that, if elected president, his “model from Florida” could be “implemented nationally” and deal a huge blow “to their friends on the political left.”
[...]
Bozell reacted with effusive praise:“Of all the candidates out there and perhaps even all public figures out there today when it comes to dealing with vicious attacks from the media and doing it on the spot, I really don’t think there’s anyone who’s better than you are...It’s extraordinary.”
A few hours later, a post by Luis Cornelio detailed more softballs for DeSantis:
FIRST ON MRC: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) joined MRC Founder and President Brent Bozell to speak about how Google is interfering in elections by manipulating its search results to highlight Democratic candidates ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
DeSantis, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president, did not mince words in response to the MRC Free Speech America study revealing that Google buried the websites of GOP candidates. “So, of course, it’s something that is being done to change elections,” DeSantis said, before pledging to take “principled” measures, if elected president, against the potentially illegal censorship to ensure “everybody is treated equally.”
DeSantis appeared to agree with Bozell’s reasoning that Google’s censorship likely constituted illegal campaign contributions. “Is this something that a President DeSantis would be looking at?” Bozell asked DeSantis, to which the governor answered, “Yes, we could. I mean, I think that, you know, you have FEC. You have all this stuff, and those have been ineffective bureaucracies.” He added, “But I think that these guys have gotten a pass. I do think they're using corporate resources to be able to influence elections, and that is just not something that you can do without reporting under our system.”
Over at the right-wing blog that used to be the MRC's "news" division CNSNews.com, Craig Bannister was given his own interview segment to tout in a Nov. 6 post:
In an exclusive on-camera interview, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) discussed with Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell the dangers of media bias, especially when it comes to U.S. elections and Israel’s war on Hamas terrorism.
Gov. DeSantis, who is seeking the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, was asked about how bias liberal media are interfering with U.S. elections. DeSantis said there’s no doubt the media have a partisan agenda and are “trying to advance a victory for the Democrat Party,” as MRC has documented “for a number of years.”
That was joined the same day by one more bit of softball stennography from Bannister:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should ignore the anti-Israel media attacks and demands for a cease-fire to Israel’s effort to wipe out Hamas terrorists, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis told Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell this week.
In an exclusive interview, the GOP presidential hopeful said that, as soon as he heard Hamas had attacked a music festival in Israel on October 7 – killing 1,400 people – he knew the media would start attacking Israel.
If Bozell asked a question of DeSantis that was even remotely challenging, it doesn't appear in any of these articles.
Because all this looked very much like an in-kind campaign contribution -- not unlike its DeSantis Defense Brigade crusade over the past several months -- the MRC felt compelled to add an editor's note to each piece: "All major 2024 candidates polling above one percent nationally across the spectrum — Republicans, independents, and Democrats — have been invited to participate in similar sit-downs. Our offers remain on the table." To date, no other candidate has -- even with the implied promise of a cushy, fawning interview by Bozell, which suggests the less-than-lofty status the MRC apparently has in the right-wing media bubble. That, and the fact that no other candidate has felt the need as of yet to take the MRC up on its softball-interview offer, leaves the unmistakable impression that this was created to be an in-kind contribution to DeSantis.
The interview landed with such a thud, in fact, that the MRC didn't publish another post centered on DeSantis for the rest of November.
Newsmax Parrots MRC's Attacks On NewsGuard Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax is parroting the Media Research Center's loudandlamewar on website-rating service NewsGuard, repeating the dubious narrative that NewsGuard exists solely to suppress right-wing views. Theodore Bunker huffed in a March 10 article:
NewsGuard, a left-wing media monitoring organization which claims to rate the credibility of news websites, was awarded nearly $750,000 from the Department of Defense in 2021 according to publicly available records.
The revelation comes in the latest "Twitter Files" post by Matt Taibbi.
Bunker offered no proof that NewsGuard is "left-wing"; instead, he copy-and-pasted the MRC's attacks:
The Media Research Center has examined NewsGuard's "ratings" system and found the service continually favors left-wing and liberal news outlets as "trusted" and negatively rates conservative ones as not reliable.
Newsguard negatively rates leading conservative outlets like Washington Times, Newsmax, Breitbart, Federalist, Epoch Times, Red State, Prager U, Daily Wire, and others.
We've documented how the MRC's purported examination of NewsGuard's rating system is actually all about how the shoddiness of right-wing media is being exposed by NewsGuard and how it's demanding that NewsGuard mandate false ratings parity.
Newsmax parroted other right-wing attacks on NewsGuard around that time as well:
As the right-wing war on NewsGuard heated up in the fall, Newsmax was happy to take part, such as in an Oct. 20 article by Mark Swanson:
Elon Musk railed against the left-wing media fact-checker NewsGuard on Thursday, calling the ratings company a "scam" and saying it should be "disbanded immediately."
Musk's reaction came in the aftermath of a series of posts on his social media site X, formerly known as Twitter.
One came from Foundation for Freedom Online executive director Mike Benz, who claimed NewsGuard, led by adviser and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, worked with the European Union on a disinformation code that would prompt governments to bankrupt alternative news sites.
Benz highlighted NewsGuard's business model, which he said combines "disinformation compliance services with censorship laws it promotes."
[...]
Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy months ago called out NewsGuard — and the Global Disinformation Index — for exerting their influence to silence conservative voices. Ruddy said they present themselves as independent fact-checkers.
This turned into a circular promotion with Musk, which Newsmax was only too happy to tout in an Oct. 22 article by Sandy Fitzgerald:
Elon Musk Sunday responded to a Newsmax article concerning his objections to left-wing media fact-checker NewsGuard, agreeing that it is "not cool" for it to push a "political agenda" with its ratings.
"Yeah, it’s not cool. Pushing a political agenda in the name of “guarding” the public," Musk posted on his social media site X, formerly Twitter, in a response to Newsmax's article, published Thursday after he called NewsGuard a "scam" and said it should be "disbanded immediately."
In neither article was any proof offered to back up the claim that NewsGuard is "left-wing."
An Oct. 23 article by Swanson touted another attack on NewsGuard:
The publishers of the foreign policy news website Consortium News filed a lawsuit against the left-wing media fact-checker NewsGuard Technologies, Inc. and the U.S. government on Monday in New York federal court, claiming First Amendment violations and defamation.
The publisher, Consortium for Independent Journalism, accused NewsGuard of defaming Consortium News and the government for colluding with the self-proclaimed media "watchdog" to violate the First Amendment.
The publisher also is accusing an alliance between NewsGuard and the government — specifically the Pentagon's Cyber Command — of coercing news organizations to "alter viewpoints" that differ or dissent from policies of the United States and its allies," via a program called the "misinformation fingerprints" project.
And just as the MRC did, Swanson failed to tell readers that Consortium News is a liberal-leaning site, since doing so undermines the right0wing narrative that NewsGuard is uniquely biased against right-wing website. And, again, Swanson offered no proof to back up his claim that NewsGuard is "left-wing."
Then, presumably in the hope of setting off another round of circular promotion, a Nov. 23 article by Luca Cacciator and Michael Katz hyped another Musk attack on NewsGuard:
Elon Musk's social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, issued a new warning Wednesday about the left-wing ratings company NewsGuard.
In a post on the site, X said it was the latest organization to be targeted by NewsGuard, which has systematically targeted conservative media.
"NewsGuard is about to publish a 'report' on misinformation on X. As a for-profit company, they will only share the data that underpins their purported research if you pay," X explained.
X then highlighted NewsGuard's strategy in going after the platform — the same strategy it has employed on dozens of other companies.
NewsGuard "uses these reports to pressure companies to buy their 'fact-checking' services. It's a profit over any principle model," X said.
"X has not seen any of the data in their report. Before publishing, we encourage all media outlets to request the data underpinning their claims."
After the X posting, Elon Musk himself weighed in on the matter, posting to his account, "In other words, 'NewsGuard' is a propaganda shop that will produce any lies you want if you pay them enough money."
Cacciatore and Katz failed to note that Twitter/X is also ostensibly a for-profit company that will only share the data that underpins its purported research in defense of the company. That was demonstrated with the "Twitter files," in which Musk released selective data and documents to hand-picked writers whose job it was to push Musk's preferred narrative about "censorship" at Twitter by pre-Musk management. Of course, they also failed to offer any evidence that NewsGuard is "left-wing."
MRC -- Which Loves To Smear People As 'Digital Brownshirts' -- Complains About Nazi References Topic: Media Research Center
Alex Christy served up a little hypocritical outrage in an Oct. 31 post:
On October 7, the Jewish people suffered their greatest single-day loss of life since the Holocaust in a horrific massacre that should cause people to think twice before comparing someone or something to Hitler, the Nazis, or their crimes. Unfortunately, the news media only seem to apply that standard to one side.
Based on Godwin's Law -- which states the longer an internet conversation goes on, the likelihood that someone or something will be compared to Adolf Hitler or the Nazi Party approaches one -- NewsBusters analysts looked at all news programming on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, and MSNBC from October 26, 2022 through October 26, 2023, to compare how the media treats Nazi analogies on the right and left. (October 26 is Mike Godwin's birthday.)
[...]
Joe Scarborough is tied for the media personality who is mostly likely to invoke a Nazi analogy. If Scarborough is the king of Nazi analogies on television, his queen is frequent MSNBC guest Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the New York University professor billed as an expert on authoritarianism,
Of their combined 20 analogies, 18 were either about Donald Trump or the Republican Party in the general sense. One particularly ironic exception was Scarborough on May 8 lamenting a lack of gun control by comparing it to a challenge the U.S. has to overcome, like the Nazis. The other involved Scarborough going after Sen. Josh Hawley and Steve Bannon talking about disaffected males in his I'm-not-saying-I'm-just-saying way of speaking.
MSNBC presidential historian Michael Beschloss was a close third with nine Nazi analogies, all about Trump or Republicans.
[...]
In total, there were 192 Nazi analogies made by media personalities, guests, or political figures that were reported on. Of these,88 were attacks from the right, of which 80 (90.9 percent) were condemned during the segment. Of the uncondemned eight, three were recollections of how current Sen. J.D. Vance used to compare Trump to Hitler and another was Trump suggesting Hitler would support 2024 rival Gov. Ron DeSantis.
By contrast,104 were attacks from the left and only 29 (27.9 percent) of which were condemned during the segment. However, when one removes reports on statements made by Democratic-turned-independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on COVID-era mandates and vaccines, only 4 of 79 (5 percent) left-wing attacks were condemned.
Christy went on to claim that "Robert F. Kennedy's history of anti-vaccine activism predates COVID, so his attacks were still considered to be from the left despite the media typically associating the issue with the right," even though that anti-vaccine activism is largely a right-wing phenomenon and his employer aggressively and ironically promoted his presidential campaign when he was running as a Democrat in the hope that he might spoll President Biden's re-election efforts, then effectively abandoned him when he moved to run as an independent candidate.
He also stated that the terms he analyzed were “Nazi,” “Nazism,” “Hitler,” “Gestapo,” and “Holocaust"; it's also a given that he exempted his employer from scrutiny even though it too is a prolific hurler of Nazi analogies. The MRC's favorite Nazi smear is the word "brownshirts," which Christy conveniently didn't cover. In 2023 alone, the MRC used it eight times to smear anyone who is trying to fight the spread of lies and misinformation on social media (here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here). For instance, in a May 3 post, Catherine Salgado raged against "eco-obsessed 'digital brownshirts' clamoring for Google to censor content that undercuts climate change alarmism" and approvingly quoted her boss, Brent Bozell, huffing that "Digital brownshirts are attacking conservative organizations for daring to have an honest debate on climate policy." The MRC is so unashamed of the smear that "digital brownshirts" appears several times in the headline of the post.
The MRC is also not afraid to thow around the "Gestapo" smear. Mysterious sports blogger Jay Maxson was a regular spreader of it:
A May 2021 post called critics of the Gadsden flag the "PC gestapo."
An August 2021 post complained about the "sports nickname gestapo."
A September 2021 post referred to sports governing bodies requiring athletes to get COVID vaccines a "vaccine gestapo."
A March 2022 post approvingly quoted Breitbart's John Nolte calling tennis officials a "Woke Gestapo" for allegedly requriing Russian tennis player Daniil Medvedev to denounce Russia's invasion of Ukraine before being allowed to play.
Meanwhile, A March 2021 post by Veronica Hays called those who exposed old bigoted posts made by singer Camilla Cabello a "woke gestapo." And Tim Graham whined in an August 2022 post that Republicans were criticized for calling the FBI raid on Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago to retrieve stolen classifed documents a "Gestapo" move.
The MRC also enjoys likening people to Joseph Goebbels (which also wasn't one of Christy's analyzed terms). A May 2022 column by Cal Thomas falsely likened a proposed anti-disinformation offiice in the Department of Homeland Security to Goebbels' "Nazi propaganda effort," among other things. A Feb. 3 post by Nicholas Fondacaro approvingly noted that "The View" co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin invoked it to attack Rep. Ilhan Omar’s "ridiculous suggestion that the U.S. and Israel were like Hamas and the Taliban, and how she used the same anti-Semitic tropes proliferated by Nazi propaganda master Joseph Goebbels."
Graham promoted Christy's hypocritical work in his Nov. 1 podcast:
Alex's study of a year of Nazi and Hitler analogies on TV found that not only did MSNBC "excel" in Nazi excess, but the top three abusers of the Nazi analogies were MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, and leftist historians Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Michael Beschloss. Overall, there were 192 Nazi analogies. Eighty-eight were attacks from the right, of which 80 (90.9 percent) were condemned.
By contrast, 104 were attacks from the left and only 29 (27.9 percent) of which were condemned. But if you remove reports on statements made by presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on COVID-era mandates and vaccines, only 4 of 79 (5 percent) left-wing attacks were condemned.
Christy joined Graham on the podcast to hype the study, but they did not discuss all times their co-workers went Godwin; however, he did unironically say: "The point of this is not to say my Nazi analogies are better than yours;it's to say can we stop with this and apply one standard to it all." That was followed by Graham unironically smearing Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler as "Herr Kessler," which in the context of the discussion is effectively a Nazi reference.
NEW ARTICLE -- WND Remains Obsessed With Obama: The Conspiracy Theories Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily wants you to believe Barack Obama murdered his chef as well as the rantings of his bitter half-brother, and it thinks the completely discredited Larry Sinclair is telling the truth about an alleged long-ago drugs-and-sex encounter with Obama. Read more >>
MRC Complains That Media Finds Mike Johnson's Porn 'Accountability' With His Teenage Son To Be Creepy Topic: Media Research Center
After Republicans selected Mike Johnson as House speaker, the Media Research Center became angry that his right-wing extremism was accurately reported upon. That continued days after Johnson's selection:
When it was revealed that Johnson shares "accountability software" with his teenage son that alerts the other party if one of them views pornography, Alex Christy spent a Nov. 7 post complaining that people on TV pointed out how creepy that is:
Sarah Silverman returned to Comedy Central for round two of temp hosting The Daily Show on Monday and spent the majority of the program attacking Speaker Mike Johnson, including for putting porn accountability software on his and his son’s phones. Meanwhile, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel did the same, labeling it “strange.”
Silverman introduced the story, “And finally let’s move on to Washington, D.C., where the new Speaker of the House just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
In a montage of news clips, Johnson was shown in 2022 explaining that, “My accountability partner right now is Jack, my son, right? And, so, he's 17, so he and I get a report of all the things that are on our phones or all of our devices once a week. If anything objectionable comes up, your accountability partner gets an immediate notice.”
Also included in the series of clips was an ad from the software Covenant Eyes which featured a man in a superhero costume proclaiming, “Every superhero has his strengths and weaknesses. My superpower: strength. My weakness: porn,” with the last bit showing the superhero transforming into just a regular guy.
Silverman thought this was all very odd, “Wow, these Marvel movies are really running out of ideas. Why is he a superhero whose weakness is porn, like, what is that origin story, did his parents die masturbating to horny MILFs? Was he hit with a radioactive money shot?”
[...]
Kimmel, meanwhile, was less gratuitous, but still was greatly confused, “Meanwhile, our new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, is giving us plenty to talk about… It’s very, very strange to ask your teenage son to be your porn accountability partner. I mean, I get it -- you don't want them watching, but how about this. You know, Mike, if you have nobody else in your life to do this with, I will gladly be your porn accountability partner.”
Concluding, Kimmel compared Johnson to another Republican, “I'm pretty sure we can do it cross-country. I'm very open minded. Whatever weird stuff you're watching – I don’t know, clown porn, cosplay, stepmom, foot fetish, the stuff with the tentacles -- no problem. I don't judge. What happens between you Mike and your Johnson is your business. But let’s get your son out of this. I didn't think it was possible, but Mike Johnson makes Mike Pence look like Mike Tyson.”
There’s lots of debate in comedy about what is considered “too far” or offensive, but mocking virtue and how people take steps to avoid temptation is a pretty good indication that you’ve gone to far.
Christy didn't explain what, exactly, where the "virtue" is in Johnson including his teenage son in his porn "accountability" software.
The MRC even managed to find a way to include Johnson in its war onGoogle, as outlined in a Nov. 15 post by Dan Schneider:
Who is the better person, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi or newly minted Speaker Mike Johnson? Google’s artificial intelligence tool, Bard, has answers that might surprise those unfamiliar with the company’s long history of left-wing bias.
Google's A.I. chatbot Bard provided skewed results just like its search engine has become known for. In searches performed by MRC Free Speech America shortly after the Republican presidential primary debate, researchers first searched for “What can you tell me about Speaker Nancy Pelosi?” and then asked the same question about Speaker Mike Johnson.
For San Francisco darling Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Bard described her work in affirming, virtuous ways while using derogatory terms to describe Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) achievements.
Even more telling is the fact that Bard’s competitor, ChatGPT, did not show this evident discrepancy when MRC researchers presented it with identical queries.
[...]
It seems, however, that Google, not Johnson, is the one out of touch with the American people. As MRC President Brent Bozell put it, “Google treats Nancy Pelosi, arguably the most divisive and radical leftist House Leader in history, like a conquering hero while relegating Speaker Johnson to being a part of a fringe ‘faction’ with ‘ultraconservative’ views. Somebody ought to remind Google that the great bulk of Americans, especially women, favor limits on abortion -just like Mike Johnson - and that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton originally ran for president supporting traditional marriage - just like Mike Johnson.”
Bozell added that “[t]he majority of Americans call themselves Christians, opposed Obamacare when it was forced on them, and still think deficit spending is destroying our economy - just like Mike Johnson. Google is trying to brainwash America.”
Rather than explaining why anyone should trust anything that comes from any AI chatbot -- or even that anything Bard said about Johnson was inaccurate -- Schneider rehashed the MRC's dubious attacks on Google: "Google’s history of rigging its algorithms to achieve its political ends has been well documented by MRC Free Speech America."
Morris used an Oct. 12 column to rant that "It's becoming increasingly obvious that the Hamas attack on Israel is directly due to Biden’s relaxation of Donald Trump’s oil embargo on Iran," adding that "Biden’s weakness and senility serve to disguise effectively his pro-Iranian bias inherited from the Obama administration."
Morris has also been eager to pounce on any little thing to declare Biden's re-election campaign to be over. In an Oct. 31 column, it was that he wouldn't be on the primary ballot in New Hampshire due to a squabble between state and Democratic officals over which should be the first primary state:
Biden will not appear on the New Hampshire presidential primary ballot and will have to depend on write-ins to generate a showing.
It was exact same situation in 1968 when Lyndon Johnson did not appear on the New Hampshire ballot but appealed to write-ins. His performance was so pathetic that he was forced out of the race a month later.
[...]
But once Biden is humiliated in New Hampshire, and everybody sees that the emperor has no clothes, recovery will be difficult.
I doubt Biden can overcome such a strategy and I think he may be out of the race before or immediately after super Tuesday, March 5, 2024.
Then sit back and watch for any Democratic pretender to the throne to be roasted and eaten alive by the party’s carnivorous progressive wing.
In a Nov. 7 column, Morris declared that "The recent New York Times/Sienna College Poll makes it clear beyond doubt that Donald Trump is headed for a landslide defeat of Joe Biden," and joined the rest of Newsmax in touting Dean Philliips as a Biden spoiler (now that it wound down its cheerleading for Robert Kennedy Jr.'s campaign since he moved from Democrat to independent):
The Minnesota Democratic Congressman could upend the plan by winning or doing well in the first-in-the nation New Hampshire primary.
Biden, stupidly, will not be on the ballot. He removed himself to protest the legislature’s decision to stay first in the nation, frustrating Biden’s plan to put South Carolina ahead of it.
With Phillips on the ballot, and Biden having to depend on write-in votes, we may face a rerun of 1968 when Lyndon Johnson depended on write-ins and did not appear on the New Hampshire ballot, opening the way for another Minnesotan, Eugene McCarthy, to draw 42% of the vote, a stunning performance that led to Johnson’s withdrawal.
Phillips has a brilliant campaign message.
He says the only difference between he and Biden is age and physical condition.
He states the obvious truth — that only he is likely to be able to finish a second term.
Such an appeal — loving Biden while opposing him — is likely to draw lots of votes.
[...]
In the beginning, Phillips won’t be able to raise any money, but he doesn’t need to, running against Biden. The president’s failure to defeat Trump in the polls will demonstrate sufficiently that the party needs a new candidate and Phillips is as good as anyone to fill the void.
So, it will be a surprise Biden withdrawal at the last minute.
Morris didn't forget to suck up to the guy he really wants as president: "In the meantime, Trump will continue to wage his brilliant campaign of new, important, and attractive ideas, as well as compelling rally speeches."
Morris made more wild claims in a Dec. 9 TV appearance:
President Joe Biden is potentially going to be voted into an official House impeachment inquiry this week, which can expose him as being on the China payroll, according to presidential adviser Dick Morris on Newsmax.
"Biden was essentially not just seeking bribes, but on the payroll of the Chinese Communist Party," Morris told "Saturday Report." "They gave the University of Pennsylvania $58 million as a grant at the start of Biden's term and set up the Institute for Global Engagement and hired Joe Biden as the professor.
"At the end of his term as vice president when he was unemployed, China basically gave him a job."
In fact, Penn says it "never solicited or received any gifts from any Chinese or other foreign entity" for the Biden Center, which is funded entirely by university funds.
Chuck Norris Devoted His WND Column To Spreading Discredited COVID Vaccine Conspiracy Theories Topic: WorldNetDaily
For some reason, Chuck Norris has chosen to take a deep dive into COVID vaccine conspiracy theories in his Nov. 13 WorldNetDaily column:
Over the past several months, I've been barraged with scientific studies and previously undisclosed government documents which have shown that COVID vaccinations led to millions of deaths, and continues to.
I was compelled to pass this research along to Americans and all the people of the world, whom I love dearly, to allow them to make up their own minds. Especially important is the video at the end of this column by an international banker who is dying from the COVID vaccines, along with his mother. Please watch it after you read the below evidence that gives the exact reasons he says what he does in the video.
Here's just a small sample of recent studies and reports showing the detrimental effects of COVID vaccines around the country and world:
Most of Norris' links to claims about the vaccines come from the Epoch Times, a prolific spreader of COVID vaccine misinformation -- and indeed, much of what Norris links to has been debunked. For example, he linked to an Epoch Times article headlined Researchers Find COVID Vaccines Linked to Increased Mortality in 17 countries." But this article was debunked by Health Feedback: Apart from the fact that correlation alone cannot demonstrate a causal relationship, it neglected to account for the fact that these spikes in excess mortality corresponded to surges of COVID-19 deaths. This means that these spikes were very likely due to COVID-19, not the vaccines. Norris hyped another Epoch Times article citing a study showing that vaccine mRNA can appear in breast milk, but as we noted, there's no evidence that this is causing any health issues.
Norris touted another Epoch Times article stating that ""People who received a new COVID-19 vaccine booster were more likely to contract COVID-19 than people who received no COVID-19 vaccine doses, according to a new study of prisons in California." In fact, the study found "low infection rates in both the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups, with a small absolute difference between the two across age groups," and infection rates in vaccinated people could be largely attributed to the emergence of theOmicron variant that previous boosters were designed to tackle, adding that "the risk of severe breakthrough infection with the Omicron variant remains low, especially among individuals who have received a booster vaccine dose."
Norris also quoted from a journal study with these claims: "Both countries achieved high vaccination rates, with 84.9% in Italy and 92.9% in Costa Rica. A higher proportion of AEFIs occurred in females in both countries, with 53% and 65% in Naples and Costa Rica, respectively. Most adverse effects following immunization were observed in individuals aged 18-64 years. ….Naples reported a higher incidence of serious events per 100,000 inhabitants." The ellipsis Norris put in censored this claim that completelyu debunks his thesis: "The rate of serious adverse reactions was lower in both countries than the international average."
Norris linked to a Rumble video in which "Wall Street analyst" Edward Dowd claimed that COVID vaccines are "greatest fraud in history." Actually, the fraud here is Dowd, who has no medical expertise and has been caught spreading COVID-related misiinformation before. He also referenced claimed by Robert Malone and Peter McCullough, who are also prolific misinformers. He also linked to an Epoch Times article complaining that Dr. Sherri Tenpenny's medical license was suspended over her COVID misinformation -- but he didn't tell readers that Tenpenny was making wildly false claims such as that the vaccines magnetize recipients and interface with 5G cell towers.
Norris went on to tout a video purporting to claim "how Dr. Fauci and mainstream media painted vaccinations as "highly effective" in the beginning then plunges to virtually ineffective and detrimental in most recent news reports." But as we've documented regarding a similar video promoted by Elon Musk, the headlines are taken out of chronological order and context, ignoring that specific vaccine variants react differently to specific virus variants.
Norris concluded by peddling one more conspiracy theory:
As a result of all the above and more, Truth Justice recently posted a 4-minute must-watch video on X with a capitalized caption: "GOVERNMENT MASS MURDER."
Truth Justice explained their video: "International banker who is dying from the COVID vaccines along with his mother calls for the immediate arrests of Bill Gates, WHO executives, WEF politicians, Klaus Schwab, Big Tech leaders and Pfizer for poisoning humanity leading to millions of deaths. He and his mother are triple vaccinated with the Pfizer lethal injections classified as bioweapons. He calls for the billions of vaccinated people to stand up and fight for justice."
You can watch the video on Truth Justice's X feed or on Rumble.
Please share this column and evidence with everyone you know and let them make up their own minds as well.
In that video, retired banker Pascal Najadi wildly demands that Swiss authorities arrest everyone at the World Economic Forum and the World Health Organization because it promoted the vaccines, which he called a "bioweapon" due to something he calls "nano lipids," ranting that "we cannot tolerate any entity that promotes poison to be injected into humanity." No proof is offered that either he or his mother are "dying from the COVID vaccines," and Norris apparently sought none.
Norris is embarrassing himself by promoting such bizarre conspiracy theories and trusting sources who are known for spreading blatant misinformation about COVID vaccines -- and he's apparently incapable of fact-checking anything that appears under his name, making him look even more clownish.
NEW ARTICLE: Debate Patrol At The MRC Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center (plus the DeSantis Defense Brigade) not only tried to shield Republican presidential candidates from criticism after the first debate, it defended Donald Trump hanging out with Tucker Carlson instead of taking part. Read more >>
MRC Heathers Adam Kinzinger For Rejecting GOP's Pro-Insurrection Narrative Topic: Media Research Center
As with Alyssa Farah Griffin, the Media Reserarch Center is playing its Heathering games against former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger for failing to stick to theright-wing script and admitting that Donald Trump is a bad person. Kevin Tober had a small meltdown last January when Kinzinger became a CNN commentator:
In the most predictable breaking news possible, on Wednesday evening, CNN host Erin Burnett announced on her eponymous program Erin Burnett OutFront that former anti-Trump Republican and Pelosi-picked January 6 committee member Adam Kinzinger had been hired as a "senior political commentator" on the network. This, of course, makes perfect sense because other than our friends Scott Jennings and Stephen Gutowski, Adam Kinzinger is the type of "Republican" voice that gets a lot of airtime on CNN.
[...]
Kinzinger, if you recall, was redistricted out of his Congressional seat by Democrats despite doing everything he could to suck up to them and act as their puppet.
This, of course, is Kinzinger's reward for abandoning his own party and helping to legitimize Nancy Pelosi's January 6 show trials. He can't keep his seat in Congress, but he gets a cushy commentator job on a failing cable news network.
As NewsBusters Managing Editor Curtis Houck summed up perfectly on Twitter, "the fact that Chris Licht's CNN has hired liberal wine mom simp Adam Kinzinger as not only a political commentator but senior political commentator is proof that nothing has changed at CNN from Zucker. By and large, CNN still hates a large part of the country."
Right-wingers like Tober and Houck used to reliably hate the part of the country that were credibly accused or convicted criminals, though that all changed when Republicans staged an insurrection on behalf of credibly accused criminal Donald Trump, another Republican.They also alienate the part of the country annoyed with so-called "media researchers" who spew insults like "liberal wine mom simp" rather than actually trying to substantiate their criticism.
It wasn't until later in the year, though, that the MRC began seriously Heathering Kinzinger for failing to be a right-wing shill. Tim Graham spent a Nov. 1 column ranting about Kinzinger's new book:
Former congressman Adam Kinzinger has a new book out for Halloween titled Renegade. This implies he’s a daring rebel against Republicans, instead of simply switching parties. In some dictionaries, “renegade” is defined as “a person who abandons a cause or organization, usually without right,” like a “mutineer.” That fits.
When asked by liberal interviewers, Kinzinger volunteers he voted for Democrats in the midterms and will vote for Biden and Democrats in 2024. He says it’s a simple decision between democracy (Democrats) or authoritarianism (Republicans). That fits the Democrat narrative perfectly.
He'll claim he's still a Republican. Professionally, Kinzinger is now a “CNN Republican,” just as for his last two years in Congress, he was a “Pelosi Republican” on her personally-picked panel on January 6. She was his leader. He followed her orders. Just like those hearings, his book interviews are all pre-packaged anti-Republican talking points.
ABC and NPR and other liberal media outlets were eager to interview him and promote his book. When you draw a softball interview with Clinton press secretary George Stephanopoulos, you look like a Democrat. When you’re celebrated on the Stephen Colbert hootenanny, it’s the same look.
Even at a time when Hamas terrorists can slaughter hundreds of innocent people and still cause “professional” journalists to refrain from using the T-word, Kinzinger knew he could call conservative Republicans “terrorists” and get rewarded for it.
Graham made no attempt to rebut anything Kinzinger said or even why he's not allowed to criticize the far-right drift of Trump and his fellow Republicans -- it was all about the Heathering.
It was Alex Christy's turn to whine that Kinzinger was not spreading the required right-wing talking points in a Nov. 2 post:
Former GOP congressman turned CNN political analyst Adam Kinzinger likes to say that his move away from the party is because of Donald Trump, January 6, and election denial, but on Wednesday, he took his book tour to CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert where he compared Speaker Mike Johnson’s statements that his worldview is found in the Bible to the Taliban.
Colbert has been harping on the idea that Johnson’s statements that the Bible is the foundation for his worldview is particularly scary on Wednesday was no exception, “Now, one of the things that Mike Johnson has said is that if you want to know his worldview, like how he feels about issues specifically, you should go pick up a Bible. I pick up Bibles all the time. I'm a big fan. It's a very good book, but what do you make of the Bible as a legislative tool?”
Indeed, Colbert will frequently cite the Bible to defend left-wing economics so he knows that there is a big difference between imposing a theocracy and pursuing policies you believe are in line with the Word of God, but when it comes to Republicans he plays dumb and pretends that theocracy is imminent.
As for Kinzinger, he suggested that Johnson doesn’t know how America works, “The Bible is what—the Bible is something that, you know, for me, I use it as a guide for my life. I'm a Christian, right? The Bible shows me how to live my life, but I think this country was founded on the idea that a representative represents not just people that share his faith or her faith but people that you represent-- 700,000 people that I represented, they all don't believe the same thing I do.”
Johnson isn’t suggesting that everybody should be forced to go to church or anything like that, but Kinzinger still reached for the Taliban card[.]
[...]
Kinzinger was first elected to Congress in 2010 when same-sex marriage was not yet legal in all 50 states, was America like the Taliban then? Is protecting the integrity of women’s sports like the Taliban? Is believing that a man is a man even if he thinks and says he is a woman like the Taliban? Is the downfall of Roe v. Wade like the Taliban, because Colbert thinks it is.
The Heathering baton moved later that day to Clay Waters:
The Adam Kinzinger media lovefest rolls on, as the former Republican congressman sells his book boasting about how he became a "traitor" to Republicans, serving on the House January 6 committee (hand-picked to serve by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
He retained his anti-Republican talking points on Wednesday’s Amanpour & Co., which airs on taxpayer-funded PBS. The liberal media’s ideal Republican, groomed for CNN, the former Illinois congressman now votes Democrat and wants you to to as well, warning in his new book Renegade: My Life in Faith, the Military, and Defending America from Trump's Attack on Democracy that the Republican Party no longer believes in democracy.
Is it any wonder the mainstream media is so eager to talk to him as the 2024 presidential campaign approaches?
Host Christiane Amanpour called Kinzinger “an outcast in his own party” while setting up his talk with journalist Michel Martin, who quizzed him about the election of Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana as Speaker of the House. Martin noted Johnson “was one of the 147 House and Senate Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election,” setting up the former congressman to call it “a frightening moment.”
[...]
Kinzinger again admitted he’s not really a Republican any more (even as the press treats him as the conscience of the party) and urged listeners to vote Democrat in 2024.
Waters didn't discuss the fact that -- as the transcript showed but he didn't highlight, let alone try to disprove -- Kinzinger said he's voting Democratic because "because in my mind, there's only one issue on the ballot, that issue is, do you believe in democracy or do you not believe in democracy? If you don't, I got a party for you. If you do, right now, there's only one party that shows a real commitment to democracy."
Waters followed that an hour or so later with another complaint about Kinziner appearing on another PBS show,. huffing that he has become "the liberal media’s ideal 'Republican,' one who votes Democrat and urges you too as well." Waters didn't explain how Kinzinger's refusal to endorse the Capitol riot and Trump's incitement of it warranted putting "Republican" in scare quotes.
Graham returned to rehash all this Heathering of Kinzinger in his Nov. 3 podcast:
Plus Adam Kinzinger smears Republicans on his liberal-media book tour. No "fact checkers" moved a mental muscle.
On NPR's All Things Considered, Kinzinger described the conservative House Republicans as a "terrorist caucus" taking "hostages." On CBS's Late Show with Stephen Colbert, he compared House Speaker Mike Johnson to the Taliban. On NPR'sFresh Air, he compared the GOP to "fundamentalists" like ISIS. And everywhere, he said the Republicans were the party of authoritarianism, not democracy.
You can suggest conservatives are all authoritarians, or they represent "Jim Crow 2.0," and the fact-checkers don't lift a finger. This slime is considered fair game.
You know who else didn't fact-check Kinzinger? Graham and his MRC subordinates, no matter how much they whined about his words. And Graham would not want anybody fact-checking its narrative that Kinzinger isn't a real Republican because he opposed the Capitol riot and Trump's wannabe authoritarianism.
Newsmax, WND Slobber Over Trump's Allegedly Increasing Net Worth Topic: Newsmax
When Forbes magazine dropped Donald Trump from its list of the 400 richest Americans in October, Newsmax gave Trump space to whine about it, baselessly calling the magazine "very badly failing" and dismiss the list as a "very dated and discredited 'antique'" and insisting that the magazine is "China-owned" though it's actually owned by a 28-year-old American tech bro. (UPDATE: The sale to the tech bro fell through, which means it's apparently still owned by a Hong Kong-based investment group, which Forbes denies has any ties to China.) But when a different magazine put Trump on its own list of rich people, Newsmax devoted a Nov. 7 article by Lee Barney to gushing over it:
Trump’s fortune has grown by $500 million to $3.1 billion since leaving office in 2021, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Bloomberg attributes this primarily to the real estate boom in Florida, which has bolstered two of Trump’s best-known properties, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach and the Doral golf resort in Miami.
In addition, having sold his Washington hotel and paid down loans, Trump has more cash and less debt than at any point in the past decade, according to Bloomberg, which has been estimating Trump’s net worth since 2015.
Actually, Bloomberg didn't make that claim about Trump having "more cash and less debt" -- it simply quoted Eric Trump saying it. Barney then slipped into Trump PR mode, claiming that Bloomberg's estimation of his real estate properties does not take into consideration the impact of the Trump brand on their values, the historical significance of some of the properties," making a particular case for a certain property:
Perhaps the most controversial piece of real estate being dissected in the trial is Trump’s penthouse apartment at Trump Tower, which his company valued at $131.3 million in 2021, and Bloomberg says is worth $40 million today. The court has no estimation.
[...]
Between 2011 and 2016, Trump said his penthouse was 30,000 square feet, but New York state says it is only 10,996 feet.
What the A.G. nor Bloomberg have not admitted is that New York real estate law permits developers and real estate agents to include measurements of common areas of a building, like the basement, elevator shaft, hallways, roof, etc., in an apartment’s square foot calculation.
Plus, if Trump’s penthouse were to go on the market, there would be a premium price for it because of the 45th president’s name. “There would be a Trump premium because the person that would want the property is likely to be a Trump supporter,” says Eli Beracha, director of the Hollo School of Real Estate at Florida International University.
Barney didn't explain how counting hallways and elevator shafts and basements (which, by the way, a penghouse apartment wouldn't even have) equated to tripling the size of Trump's apartment. He concluded by gushing further:
So, while there’s a $1.4 billion differential between Trump’s $4.5 billion claim and the Bloomberg Billionaires Index’s $3.1 billion peg, the index points out reasonable factors why Trump could be worth all that — or far more.
Further, nowhere does the article acknowledge the monumental, game-changing impact Trump has had on real estate, particularly New York real estate, since he began developing it in the 1970s.
Perhaps because what Trump did 40-plus years ago (with the fortune left to him by his father) has little bearing on his current numbers.
WorldNetDaily similarly gushed over Trump's placement on this list in a Nov. 8 article by Bob Unruh that began by rehashing old grievances:
President Donald Trump's corporate worth is an issue now because the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who campaigned on the platform of getting him, is claiming in a civil case he inflated the values of his properties.
She is insisting on $250 million in damages is owed. And she wants the courts to kill Trump's business entities entirely.
udge Arthur Engoron already has ruled there was "fraud," even though there's no evidence of any loan defaults, any complaints from business associates or anything like that.
Further the paperwork involved in Trump's real estate deals included a disclaimer, telling purchasers, or sellers, they should do their own due diligence on property values, which is a standard clause in many contracts.
But now that Engoron, on his own, wildly ruled that Trump's Mar-a-Lago home was worth only about $18 million, drawing dropped jaws and laughter from experts in real estate, a report has appeared with documentation.
But Engoron didn't reach that conclusion "wildly" or "on his own" -- it's the value of Mar-a-Lago for tax assessment purposes. Nevertheless, Unruh went on to cite a report from the right-wing Epoch Times quoting a real estate agent claiming that 'Trump's Mar-a-Lago is worth more than Bloomberg's estimate, and way more than Engoron claimed.'"
MRC Writer's Assertion That Sunny Hostin Is 'Amti-Semitic' Is As Bogus As His Claim That She's Racist Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center writer Nicholas Fondacaro, whose main job is to hate-watch "The View," has taken in recent weeks to smearing co-host Sunny Hostin as "anti-Semitic." But as with his smear of Hostin as "racist" -- which is based on her merely talking about racism and his failure to understand how metaphors work -- this latest smear appears to be based mostly on Hostin merely talking about the war between Israel and Hamas. Fondacaro helpfully summarized his attacks in a Nov. 2 post:
Since the start of the current war between Israel and Hamas, NewsBusters has documented the festering antisemitism leaking from The View’s Sunny Hostin as she has blamed Israel for the October 7 terrorist attack against them, decried Israeli anger at Hamas as “terrifying,” pushed Hamas’s propaganda, and suggested it was Israel that was committing acts of “terror” and “war crimes.”
Let's take a closer look at those allegations. For the first allegation, that Hostin "has blamed Israel for the October 7 terrorist attack," liked to his writeup of the Oct. 9 episode, in which she he quoted her saying nothing of the kind. Fondacaro quoted Hostin noting that "this was a highly coordinated and wide-scale attack by Hamas," then asking ABC reporter James Longman, "What do we know about the timing of this, and what was the impetus for this to happen now?" Longman responded by accurately pointing out that the current government in Israel is "the most right-wing government in this country's history" adding that there's "a sense perhaps that many Palestinians that any kind of political way out of this, is behind them because some of the right-wing elements of the government have been very incendiary in their rhetoric about Palestinians." Despite the fact that Hostin said absolutely nothing that blamed Israel, Fondacaro claimed otherwise: "It was predictable that Hostin would take that position since it bought into Hamas’s narrative that Palestinian land was being occupied by colonizers. She likely sympathizes with that stance since she’s chronically aggrieved and supposedly “oppressed” (as she put it), despite being a multimillionaire. She had even demanded 'reparations' from the United States."
For his second example, from the Oct. 10 episode, Fondacaro did actually quote Hostin saying that "“What is terrifying to me also is that there is so much anger on the Israeli side”; Hostin went on to say that "But now you have a defense minister that is saying we are going to close the Strip and put 2.2 million innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip and we're going to launch an offensive against those 2.2 million people, half of which are children; providing no food, water, or electricity. There are losers on both sides of this, and they're civilians." Not even Fondacaro disputed that there is "so much anger on the Israeli side," and it's also factually accurate that there are many civilians in harm's way in Gaza. Nevertheless, Fondacaro huffed that Hostin engaged in 'anti-Israel/anti-Semitic hate and propaganda" and smeared her as a "racist colonizer."
His third example came from the Oct. 11 episode, in which he accused Hostin of "openly pushing Hamas terrorist propaganda about Israel carrying out collective punishment against Palestinians and how they should “look at some restraint here” after 1,200 Israeli civilians were slaughtered." But the first thing Fondacaro quoted her saying was the ract that the residents of Gaza "have not had a democratic election since 2007 … They did not vote in these people currently vote in Hamas" -- not excactly "Hamas terrorist propaganda." Since he couldn't dispute that fact, he then tried to falsely conflate Palestinians elsewhere with the residents of Gaza: "So, Sunny, answer this: If Palestinians didn’t support the actions of Hamas, then why were they out celebrating in the streets and parading around the bodies of their victims? Why were they so emboldened as to have pro-terrorist rallies across the globe, even here in America?"
Fondacaro then wrote that "Hostin followed that up by pushing Hamas propaganda about how Israel was supposedly violating international law and dishing out collective punishment against Palestinians. This caused the rest of the cast to revolt against her, calling out Hamas for using human shields and storing weapons in schools and noting the Israeli Defense Force warned civilians before striking targets." He didn't accuse "the rest of the cast" of pushing Israeli propaganda.
Fondacaro's final alleged piece of evidence came from his Oct. 13 episode writeup, which he began by complaining that Hostin said "Hamas has been designated a terror organization just like many other terror organizations have had this designation, like the Proud Boys here in the United States"; he made no effort to dispute the accuracy of her description. Then he raged:
Hostin followed up by using Hamas talking points suggesting Israeli military actions were“retaliation against innocent civilians collectively” which were acts of “terror” and “war crimes.” Continuing to draw false equivalencies, she grossly compared Israel to Russia despite the fact Israel did not start the war:
And again, those are not my words, those are the words of the law. And the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said, just last year when we were talking about Ukraine, she said Russia's attacks against civilian infrastructure, especially electricity, are war crimes. Cutting off men, women, children of water, electricity, and heating with winter coming, these are acts of pure terror, and we have to call it as such.
Hostin responded by doubling down on the anti-Israel smears, proclaiming, “They should really refrain from committing war crimes or terror because they're going to lose the goodwill that they have.”
In fact, civilians have died in Gaza at a higher rate than in other recent conflicts, most of the civilians killed in Gaza due to Israeli bombing have been women and children. Further, nearly half of the bombs Israel has dropped in Gaza have been unguided, which causes a greater threat to civilians. No less than Amnesty International is discussing the possibilty that Israel's apparent disregard for the lives of civilians in Gaza constitute a war crime.
Despite the fact that there is nothing anti-Semitic about questioning the tactics Israel is using in Gaza, Fondacaro screeched in the beginning of his post that "We can now add anti-Semite as an accurate descriptor for The View ’s racist co-host, Sunny Hostin." (and, no, Fondacaro still doesn't understand how metaphors work.) In the Nov. 2 post that contained his list, Fondacaro tried to mock Hostin for responding to being falsely smeared as anti-Semitic:
In a segment featuring MSNBC regular Donny Deutsch, Hostin began her comments by whining that she doesn’t like talking about the war because she gets called out for being an anti-Semite. Her defense? She had a Jewish family member:
And I've explained that even as a person of Jewish ancestry – my grandfather is Jewish – Which in my view, is someone who hates Jews. I would have to hate my family.
“However, there is a difference between an anti-Semite and being someone that speaks out against Israel's -- some of Israel's policies,” she argued.
But as noted above, she wasn’t just speaking out against Israeli policy, she was speaking out against them even being angry about the terrorist attack that killed 1,400, including babies, and blaming them for it.
Unsurprisingly, Fondacaro did not explain how that supposedly equates to anti-Semitism. He then noted that "Deutsch even explained it to Hostin in simple terms that it was in Israel was indeed trying to minimize casualties and noted that it was in their best interest to do so" -- but, of course, he wonldn't label Deutsch as repeating Israeli propaganda the way he smeared Hostin for spreading "Hamas propaganda."
NEW ARTICLE: WND Remains Obsessed By Obama Topic: WorldNetDaily
Barack Obama left the White House years ago but WorldNetDaily's Obama Derangement Syndrome never ended, as writers continue to push birtherism and express their fears that Michelle Obama might have presidential ambitions. Read more >>
Tim Graham, meanwhile, spent an Oct. 14 post complaining it was pointed out that initial doubts about the veracity of the Hunter laptop story were reasonable:
In the latest episode of What Liberals Won't Ask, Fox Special Report host was interviewing Obama's former CIA director (and former Democrat congressman) Leon Panetta about the latest developments in the Israel-Hamas war. But before it was over, Baier said "I'd be remiss" not to ask about the 2020 campaign and "that letter you signed onto from [51] former intelligence officials saying that the laptop and e-mails had all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."
Baier noted the original New York Post story that was so energetically suppressed by the news media and social media. Later, The Washington Post investigated and acknowledged in 2022 the laptop was authentic (as did The New York Times). Baier asked: "Do you have regrets about that now looking back, knowing what you know now?"
Panetta replied: "Look, Bret, I was extremely concerned about Russian interference and misinformation, and we all know intelligence agencies discovered that had Russia had continued to push disinformation across the board, and my concern was to kind of alert the public, to be aware that these disinformation efforts went on. Frankly I haven't seen any evidence from any intelligence agency that that was not the case."
"You don't think that it was real?" Baier asked him, incredulous.
"I think that disinformation is involved, here," Panetta claimed. "I think Russian disinformation is part of what we're seeing everywhere. I don't trust the Russians. And that's exactly why I was concerned that the public not trust the Russians either."
Baier was stunned enough to kick the tire on more time: "I don't want to dwell on this because we have bigger things to talk about and bigger urgency, but obviously Hunter Biden said it was his laptop and this investigation continues. So you don't have any regrets about doing what you did?"
Panetta smiled and said "No, I don't have any regrets about not trusting the Russians."
In his headline, Graham called the letter a "fraud," despite offering no evidence that anyone who signed it had knowledge to that effect -- as we've documented, there was little reason to trust the story at face value when it first appeared, given the New York Post's status as a pro-Trump organ, the shady pro-Trump operatives like Rudy Giuliani who were promoting it, and the Post's failure to provide independent evidence to prove the laptop's vertacity that would addressed such doubts. Graham also failed to directly challenge anything Panetta said; instead, he quoted his fellow right-wingers who appeared in a later "Special Report" segment ranting about the "Russian fallacy" -- which, of course, wasn't a fallacy given that even a Republican-led congressional report agreed that there was sufficient evidence of regular contacts between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives to warrant an investigation.
When Hunter committed the offense of defending himself in a USA Today op-ed, Curtis Houck had a meltdown -- as the MRC tends to do whenever he defends himself -- in a Nov. 2 post:
On Thursday, USA Today partnered with Hunter Biden for a cartoonishly dumb op-ed that accused Republicans, Fox News, the New York Post, and Biden critics writ large of “demoniz[ing]....addiction,” arguing he’s the victim of “a vile and sustained disinformation campaign” that threatens the sobriety of addicts writ large.
Talk about a rich case of low-brow politics by USA Today to have a story such as this inside the column, proving how the liberal media are shameless about their 2020 election interference and look to do so in 2024: “Conspiracy theories: GOP's Hunter Biden hysteria makes even less sense after plea deal gets put on hold”.
The headline was gag-worthy: “I fought to get sober. Political weaponization of my addiction hurts more than me.” The subhead with even dumber with Biden whining that “[m]y struggles and my mistakes have been fodder for a vile and sustained disinformation campaign against my father, President Joe Biden, and an all-out annihilation of my reputation.”
[...]
Biden then flipped the script, stating explicitly that he’s “not a victim” because, “[b]y any standard, I grew up with privilege and opportunity, and fully accept that the choices and mistakes I made are mine, and I am accountable for them and will continue to be.”
Clearly, he hasn’t accepted responsibility since he's fighting charges tooth and nail and filing lawsuits.
Feigning concern for average Americans, he proclaimed in a skyscraper-sized strawman that he’s “trouble[d]” by “the demonization of addiction” and “human frailty” from the American public.
Wait, so he’s claiming anyone condemning him means they’re also smearing anyone suffering or suffered through addiction of some sort?
We don't recall Houck ever accusing Donald Trump of not "accepting responsibility" for his actions because also "fighting charges tooth and nail and filing lawsuits,": and he doesn't explain why Hunter is not allowed to defend herself. Houck further complained that Hunter called out his attackers:
Biden went onto whine about “being bombarded by the denigrating and near-constant coverage of me and my addiction on Fox News (more airtime than GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis) and in The New York Post (an average of two stories a dayover the past year).”
[...]
Biden even addressed the laptop from hell: “My recent haircut turned into a wild conspiracy to evade drug tests, tabloids steadily splash nude pictures of me on their covers, and even a member of Congress displayed revenge porn of me on national television.”
Houck didn't even bothter to justify posting the vicious right-wing attacks on HUnter, such has posting nude images of him online -- but he bizarrely insists that Hunter's a whiner for pointing that out. It's almost as if he knows that the right-wing jihad against Hunter is all about vicious personal destruction; he and his fellow right-wingers would be dancing in the streets if Hunter was driven to overdose or suicide as is their goal.
Graham similarly mocked Hunter for defending himself in his Nov. 3 podcast:
USA Today published a ridiculous column by Hunter Biden claiming Republicans were somehow demonizing all addicts with their investigations of his business dealings with Dad. "What troubles me is the demonization of addiction, of human frailty, using me as its avatar and the devastating consequences it has for the millions struggling with addiction," he claimed.
Don't investigate the Biden influence-peddling business! It will "devastate millions of addicts"!
[...]
He kept returning to his ridiculous thesis: "It is already a near-impossible decision for addicts to get sober, and the avalanche of negativity and assault of my personal privacy may only make it harder for those considering it." He praised his family for giving him the space for "sincere redemption," and then, as if it's impossible to ignore, he drags in his brother Beau's death from brain cancer in 2015: "After what I have gone through since my brother died in 2015, and the perpetual public humiliation of me, I am now certain I can survive anything (except a drink or a drug)."
Graham didn't explain why it was "ridiculous" for Hunter to defend himself, nor do we recall him ever similar judgment on Trump's actual ridiculous defenses against the criminal acts he appears to have committed.
MRC's Anti-Abortion Extremists Mad That Ohio Voters Support Reproductive Rights Topic: Media Research Center
The anti-abortion extremists at the Media Research Center unsurprisingly supported efforts to make passage of a constitutional amendment in Ohio supporting abortion rights more difficult -- and when that failed, they tried to the amendment itself. Chief extremist Tierin-Rose Mandelburg whined about the amendment getting enough signatures from voters to make the ballot in a July 5 post:
I don’t know what Ohio is typically known for - but I do know that it seems its residents want it to be known as a land of abortion.
On Wednesday morning a truckload of petitions appeared at the Ohio Secretary of State’s office. Signatures urged for all pro-life laws in Ohio to be removed, facilitating the state to become an entirely anti-life state.
The coalition who initiated the petitions, Ohioans United for Reproductive Freedom, want an amendment to be added on the November ballot to enshrine abortion into the Ohio constitution. This would, in essence, make abortion legal in the state up until birth.
The Ohio Right to Life group released a statement following news of the arrivals of the numerous boxes with an estimated 700,000 signatures advocating for dead babies.
Mandelburg went on to complain that the signature collection process went pretty much like all of them do:
ACLU Ohio supposedly collected signatures for roughly 12 weeks and reached all 88 Ohio counties yet, its unlikely all those people knew what they were signing. One signature collector evenmadmittedthat he wa s knowingly collecting invalid signatures so he could get paid.
It's heartbreaking that so many Ohio citizens blindly signed something either without knowledge of what it actually supports or just to help someone “get paid.”
It’s also heartbreaking to realize that many Ohio citizens knew the damage an amendment like this would cause and knowingly signed it.
Of course, as any promoter of ballot initiatives knows, you collect signatures over and above the number required to get on the ballot because some will inevitably be invalid for whatever reason.
After the initiative made it on the ballot, anti-abortion activist Republicans quickly rushed its own initiative to the ballot as a countermeasure -- to raise the initative approval threshold to 60 percent. Kevin Tober spent an Aug. 8 post complaining that it was accurately pointed out thatthe attempted change to the approval threshold was designed to thwart the will of POhio residents on reproductive rights:
As the polls were set to close in the special election in Ohio to decide whether to raise the ballot initiative threshold to 60 percent in order to amend the state constitution, ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News each ran segments worrying that if the ballot initiative was successful, it would make it harder for abortion advocates to protect so-called “abortion rights.”
On ABC’s World News Tonight, fill-in anchor Mary Bruce hyped the “huge turnout in Ohio for a special election.” She then used the leftist lingo “abortion rights” and worried that they “could be at stake.”
[...]
Meanwhile, on NBC Nightly News, the highly partisan Ali Vitali was given the assignment to report from Ohio. Much like Bruce and Presha, Vitali was just as obnoxious: “High turnout for a highly charged special election that could determine the fate of abortion rights here.”
“It's all against the national backdrop of Republicans in red states losing referendums on abortion in the past year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade,” Vitali proclaimed.
She then ended her report similarly to the way Presha did by setting the media narrative early that if the ballot question failed, it meant the pro-life cause was in trouble nationally: “Results in this typically red state will provide a road map for other states, either for future efforts to stymie abortion access or to paint Republicans as out of step on this issue.”
Democrat activists in the media like Vitali would do everything in their power to make sure that happened.
Tober was silent on Republican activists in the media pushing thse anti-abortion measures.
That attempt failed, and the MRC turned its attention to trying to shame anyone who supports reproductive rights. Mandelburg returned for an Oct. 6 post touting how "A bipartisan group of black pastors signed a letter Tuesday urging Ohio voters to oppose a measure that would enshrine abortion into the state Constitution." That included rehashing of old, false attacks against the founder of Planned Parenthood:
The letter also brought up the racist regime that is run by Planned Parenthood. Years ago, eugenicist Margaret Sanger set up Planned Parenthood locations purposefully in minority neighborhoods, targeting black babies “before they entered the world.”
As we've documented, there's no evidence that Sanger had any racist motive in establishing Planned Parenthood, and the majority of abortion clinics are actually located in white neighborhoods. But those lies adhere to Mandelburg's narrative, so no fact-checking was forthcoming from her.
Mandelburg spent a Nov. 1 post claiming that "more than 12 churches have experienced incidents of vandalism along with schools and cemeteries" in Ohio, going on to sneer:
Pro-aborts have a tendency to throw temper tantrums when they feel that their so-called “right” to kill kids is being threatened.
Issue 1 is an extreme pro-abort law that, if passed, would allow abortion up to the time of birth. Naturally, pro-lifers are opposed to this ballot initiative. No child in the womb should be killed at any point, never mind at a point where said child can feel pain, can live outside the womb on his or her own, has fully functioning limbs and is fully developed. But that's what pro-aborts in Ohio want.
Pro-Abort Ohioans want residents to vote yes on Issue 1 so bad that they took it upon themselves to vandalize and attack religious related buildings as a way of protest.
Tim Graham spent a Nov. 3 post complaining that an Ohio Republican politician who claimed without evidence that the Ohio initiative would supercede parental consent laws:
Take a look at the actual language of Issue One, and you can see it's quite easy to see it's for abortion rights for all "individuals," in any trimester, which would include 12-year-old girls.
[...]
So how hard is it to argue this would enable 12-year-old girls with 21-year-old boyfriends (or even rapists) from "exercising this right"? There's no mention of parental consent. [PolitiFact reporter Adam] Edelman and his cast of "nonpartisans" underline that Ohio already has a parental-consent provision for "abortion care."
Graham then whined that "Edelman, like other 'fact checkers,' is trying to declare conservative spin as 'false,' just as they claimed you couldn't say in 1992 that Bill Clinton would raise taxes -- and he promptly did." Graham didn't explain why someone's opinion can't be fact-checked when there is evidence to prove it wrong.
The next day, Alex Christy grumbled at the existence of pro-choice Republicans was reported:
Next Tuesday, Ohioans will decide whether they want abortion to be a constitutionally-protected right and to help the pro-abortion side out, Friday’s edition of NBC Nightly News interviewed a trio of Republicans who tried to claim that being pro-abortion is conservative.
Former state lawmaker Joan Lawrence stated that “I think it's up to the individual, not the government to decide what to do about a pregnancy.”
She also declared that, “It's not a partisan issue, it really isn't. And Republicans are making it a -- trying to make it a partisan issue.”
Christy didn't prove any of these people wrong, but instead ranted: "Republicans are pro-life and conservativism will never be pro-abortion, just like NBC will never do a puff piece on pro-life Democrats who think abortion without limitations shows how their party is out of touch."
Graham grumbled about another fact-chec in a Nov. 5 post, annoyed in particular by the writer noting that abortions later in pregnancy — what anti-abortion groups often call 'late-term" abortions'": "It's always amusing to see leftists finding it weird you would describe a late-term abortion as a 'late term abortion." What's it supposed to be called, 'a well-considered choice'?" Graham, if you'll remember, is offended people call fetuses by the medically accureate term "fetus."
The initiative passed handily -- despite efforts by Republican officials in state office to game the vote, such as an unannounced voter purge and forcing anti-abortion bias into the ballot language -- which caused Mandelburg to engage in a bout of performative sadness in a Nov. 8 post, in which she laughably called the initiative's 12-point margin of victory a "close call":
It was a devastating day in Ohio on Tuesday when voters approved Issue 1, making abortion a so-called “right” in the Catholic state. Life-affirmers were heartbroken at the sobering news.
Ohio voted 56 percent to 44 percent to Issue 1. While it was a close call, ultimately Issue 1 passed. Unfortunately, the result isn’t surprising.
[...]
Now in Ohio, Issue 1 will trump the formerly instituted 22-week restriction by not defining the word “viability.” This will give abortion providers the chance to interpret the word on their own and perform abortion at any point on a case-by-case basis. This is a radical, pro-abortion policy and is heartbreaking for the innocent lives that will be lost as a result.
That sentiment was shared among pro-life individuals across the nation who expressed their heartbreak on social media.
After derisively describing those who supported the measure as "pro-aborts," Mandelburg concluded by lamenting:
Ultimately, it’s a sad and devastating day for pro-lifers in Ohio and the nation at large, but it’s an even more sad day for the babies that will be victim to this decision. On the one hand, this is what the overturn of Roe did. It pushed decisions back to states. But now the battle lies in getting people to wake up and realize what happens during an abortion and why it's a complete and utter grave evil so that our nation can become one that actually honors liberty and justice for ALL.
Perhaps one way to start is for anti-abortion extremists like Mandelburg to stop portraying anyone who isn't as extremely anti-abortion as they are as not just wrong but evil.
MRC's Elon Musk Sycophancy Continues As It Ignores His Controversies Topic: Media Research Center
After giving a pass to his anti-Semitism and cheering his petulant and vulgar dissing of advertisers, it's clear that the Media Research Center will never hold Elon Musk accountable for any of his numerous missteps in running Twitter (well, X). Clay Waters spent a Dec. 3 post lashing out at a news report that did outline those missteps:
The liberal media knives are out for entrepreneur Elon Musk, who has been steering the liberal-dominated blue-check bastion social media platform formerly known as Twitter toward free speech and increased diversity of opinion since taking it over a year ago. Thursday’s edition of the PBS NewsHour devoted almost six minutes to attacking the space and technology impresario.
The conversation between National Public Radio’s tech reporter Bobby Allyn and PBS host Geoff Bennett was keyed to a threatened “advertising freeze” from virtual-signaling corporate entities like Disney and Apple, after controversy over a Musk reply to a tweet on X that was perceived as anti-Semitic (and which he later apologized for), and Musk’s vulgarity-laden response to his corporate critics at a New York Times-hosted business conference.
“Increasingly unhinged” was the descriptor bestowed on Musk by Allyn, who pitched a tantrum against Musk on Twitter earlier this year. His employer NPR left the platform in a huff over Musk labeling it “US state-affiliated media.”
The two tax-funded journalists engaged in performative offense-taking against Musk’s F-bombs, practically panting that the outburst would mark the beginning of Musk’s long-awaited downfall (and presumably flock to Mastodon or Threads, two would-be Twitter replacements everyone’s already forgotten about).
In fact, that tweet wasn't just "perceived as anti-Semitic" -- it actually was anti-Semitic -- and Musk didn't merely "reply" to the tweet, he endorsed his message by calling it "the actual truth." And it wasn't until more than two weeks later, during the same event at which he lashed out at his advertisers, that he bothered to offer some sort of apology; that endorsement tweet remains live as of this writing, suggesting that his so-called apology wasn't terribly sincere. Waters seems to have forgotten that Musk's labeling of NPR's feed was completely arbitrary and violated Twitter's own labeling standards, falsely likening it to propagandistic state-controlled media organizations in other countries, and the move backfired so badly that Musk dropped all labeling of "state-affiliated media" feeds on Twitter.
Waters didn't actually rebut anything Bennett and Allyn said about Musk, instead whining that "Bennett relegated Musk’s ambitious technological achievements, which the Biden Administration is depending on, as quasi-blackmail material stored up by Musk" and that "Allyn also portrayed Musk as a mad scientist with his hooks into the power structure."
The MRC kept up its sycophancy with a Dec. 4 tweet thanking Musk for the "Twitter files," which are nothing but cherry-picked documents selectively given to journalists hand-picked by Musk to sydcophantically write about them.
A Dec. 8 post by Luis Cornelio served up more Musk sycophancy:
Facebook and Instagram are under legal scrutiny stemming from a lawsuit filed by New Mexico, accusing the companies of inexplicably facilitating “prime locations” of child sex abuse content—and X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk is blasting the inexplicable silence from advertising companies that have boycotted ads on X over accusations of anti-Semitism.
The disturbing allegations, brought forth by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, accused the Mark Zuckerberg-owned social media platforms of turning a blind eye to the spread of sexual content involving sexual “coercion” of children, through “prostitution” and/or the “sale of [Child Sexual Abuse Material].” Specifically, the attorney general’s office alleged that Facebook and Instagram “served” streams of “sexually explicit images” to children and reportedly “enabled” adults to “find, message, and groom minors, soliciting them to sell pictures or participate in pornographic videos.”
Musk pressed Disney CEO Bob Iger on whether Disney would pull ads from the Meta-owned platforms. Notably, Iger in recent weeks pulled ads from X over dubious accusations that Musk’s platform placed ads near or next to racist and anti-semitic content. "Why no advertiser boycott, Bob Iger [sic]? You are endorsing this material!" Musk wrote in a fired-up X post. In a follow-up post, Musk added, “[W]hy do their Chief Marketing Officers endorse child trafficking!? Let’s ask them.”
Musk’s criticism came in response to Disney’s decision to pull ads from X after the release of a dubious report accusing the platform of placing ads near or next to alleged anti-Semitic or racist posts. Musk then took legal action.
Seemingly without questioning the evidence, notable companies such as Apple and Disney quickly pulled ads. However, neither company has yet decided to take similar action following the new accusations from the New Mexico attorney general.
Actually, the evidence that Musk did this is pretty clear. But Cornelio is falling into the MRC pattern of refusing to acknowledge that this evidence was gathered by Media Matters, the MRC's more liberal watchdog rival. Cornelio merely stated that Musk "took legal action" but not against who, and he didn't explain why anyone should be "questioning the evidence" when it's so well documented.
Christian Toto similarly defended Musk in his Dec. 9 column:
Plus, Disney recently yanked advertising from X, Elon Musk’s free speech friendlier version of Twitter.
That’s an overtly political move.
Musk is a left-leaning soul, but he’s been drifting to the Right given the Left’s quest to silence free speech. Iger’s Disney followed a false narrative that Musk is an anti-semite and pulled ads from the platform in response.
Meanwhile, TikTok promotes Osama bin Laden’s rhetoric and other social media giants teem with hateful content.
Why single out X?
We know why. Iger and co. haven’t gotten politics out of their system yet. Talk is talk until we see real action behind it. The ball’s in your court, Mr. Iger.
It's almost cute how Toto pretends Musk is "left-leaning" despite all the evidence to the contrary. He also failed to offer any evidence that Musk's anti-Semitic leaning is a "false narrative."
The Media Research Center's DeSantis Defense Brigade hasn't exactly helped Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign, as it's still mired in the lower end of polling. So the MRC tried one last-ditch effort to boost DeSantis: a softball interview. Curtis Houck detailed the agenda-promoting softness in the nearly 16-minute interview in a Nov. 3 post:
Newsmax is parroting the Media Research Center's 
Alex Christy served up a little hypocritical outrage in an Oct. 31 
Newsmax pundit Dick Morris kept up his attacks on President Biden as the year wound down, as Newsmax pays him to do:
For some reason, Chuck Norris has chosen to take a deep dive into COVID vaccine conspiracy theories in his Nov. 13 WorldNetDaily 
As with 
When Forbes magazine dropped Donald Trump from its list of the 400 richest Americans in October, Newsmax gave Trump 
Media Research Center writer Nicholas Fondacaro, whose main job is to hate-watch "The View," has taken in recent weeks to smearing co-host Sunny Hostin as "anti-Semitic." But as with his 
The Media Research Center's 
The 
After 
