As Liz Cheney Promotes Her New Book, MRC Heathers Her Again Topic: Media Research Center
Liz Cheney has long been a Heathering target of the Media Research Center because she refused to march lockstep with right-wing ideology, instead holding Donald Trump and other Republicans accountable for their role in inciting the Capitol riot. When Cheney returned to the spotlight with a new book, the MRC -- just as it did with Adam Kinzinger, another Republican who committed the similar offense of holding Repubicans accountable for their behavior -- lashed out with a new round of Heathering. Jorge Bonilla complained in a Dec. 3 post:
On CBS Sunday Morning, correspondent John Dickerson sat down with former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who has a book to promote. But they also have a shared interest in pushing the idea of Republicans as authoritarians. Predictably, the interview was pillow-soft.
Watch as Cheney dutifully takes Dickerson’s bait, and dutifully offers that Republicans defending Trump do not support the Constitution:
[...]
Oddly enough, and by “oddly” I mean quite customarily, you never hear Acela Media frame a vote for Joe Biden as a vote against the Constitution, despite the fact that his administration is currently being sued for literal First Amendment violations, and has tagged parents opposed to the sexualization of children in schools as “domestic terrorists”.
In this warped worldview, the only authoritarians are Trump and his supporters, who must be stopped by any means necessary. This narrative frame is then turned upon Speaker Mike Johnson, who Cheney singles out in her book. Here, she suggests that Johnson cannot be trusted to preside over an electoral count, and that only a Democrat House can guarantee the 2024 election.
Note that Bonilla made no attempt whatsoever to defend Trump -- perhaps because even he, a committed right-wing activist, cannot credibly do so -- and instead played whataboutism. He did use the outdated term "Acela media" twice, however, whining that "The Acela Media’s obsessions with January 6th and with the 'authoritarianism' narrative will ensure that Cheney remains in front of their cameras, long after her constituents decided that they’d already heard enough." He did not explain why Americans should suddenly stop caring about an attempted insurrection incited by the former president.
The next day, Tim Graham did his own bit of whining that Cheney is promoting her book like every other author does:
The Liz Cheney book tour has begun, and it’s very pleasing to Democrats to hear her demand everyone vote against Republicans. On the second hour of Monday’s Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie gave Cheney nine-and-a-half minutes of book promotion -- for this "staunch conservative," as she put it.
The first six minutes (and seven questions) were along the expected line of “please underline how dangerous Trump and his GOP enablers are.” This portion had all the “if Trump wins, democracy ends” bluster.
It was more interesting when Guthrie pressed her on just how much she wants Democrats to win. “You said the Republican Party of today has made a choice, has not chosen the constitution. Do you think Democrats, it would be better for Democrats to regain control of Congress in 2024?” Cheney said yes. Some "staunch conservative," pushing for an all-Democrat Washington.
Given that Graham's definition of "staunch conservative" is unquestioning support for a criminally indicted candidate -- even if he, like Bonilla, is too scared to publicly defend him -- Cheney is mor honestly owning that description that Graham or any other MRC employee.
In another Dec. 4 post, Bill D'Agostino complained that MSNBC "teed up faux Republican Charlie Sykes to amplify faux Republican Liz Cheney’s claim that if Donald Trump was elected, he would seize the White House for a third term." He at least attempted a defense, however lame: "Donald Trump is not imbued with some unique immunity to constitutional checks and balances, as we saw numerous times throughout his presidency." Graham returned to whine some more about Cheney in his Dec. 4 podcast:
It's not just another Republican Debate week. It's Liz Cheney Book Week, and it's going to be insufferable. CBS and NBC touted Liz Cheney as a big "conservative' even as she called for Trump and the Republicans to be denied office in 2024. The staunch conservatives want Democrats to win everything? How does that compute?
On CBS Sunday Morning, Jane Pauley introduced the feature with "Call her a very concerned conservative." On NBC's Today, Savannah Guthrie began by touting "a staunch conservative who voted with Trump 90 percent of the time"...while he was president.
CBS interviewer John Dickerson set the table just as Cheney wanted. Gee, Republicans can't back the Constitution and back Donald Trump, can they? Why, no. Only voting for the Democrats preserves democracy and the Constitution. Cheney said the country was "sleepwalking toward dictatorship," and later on Face the Nation, CBS host Margaret Brennan bizarrely presented that as a "fairly straight assessment."
Graham did not indicate in his writeup whether he attempted to defend Trump or just continued to whine about Cheney.
Nicholas Fondacaro picked up the whining baton for a Dec. 5 post as part of his daily hate-watch of "The View":
Tis the Christmas season, so naturally the liberal ladies would be praising the birth of their “savior,” but it wasn’t Jesus they were praising, on Tuesday. It was former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney who announced that she was thinking about running as a third-party candidate if former President Trump won the GOP nomination in 2024, with the goal of spoiling the election in favor of Democrats.
“Former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney continues to ring alarm bells about keeping you-know-who from ever getting back in the White House. She's holding members of her party accountable and claims she's even willing to split a third-party ticket,” announced moderator Whoopi Goldberg at the top of the show.
Faux conservative and former Trump staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin agreed with Cheney that the worst was coming for America. “If you thought the first term of Trump was bad, buckle up,” she warned.
She did disagree with Cheney on how imminent the danger was. “Liz Cheney said we're sleepwalking into dictatorship. I’d say we're careening into it,” she critiqued. “Donald Trump is telling us what he’s going to do in a second term and we need to listen to it.”
Like his co-workers, Fondacaro made no attempt to defend Trump.
Bonilla returned for more Cheney-bashing (and non-Trump-defending) in his own Dec. 5 post:
It was one thing to hear our friend Curtis Houck refer to MSNBC’s Deadline White House as “Rich Liberal Wine Mom Story Hour” but hoo boy, it’s entirely another to actually sit through an episode of this dreck. Beyond dreck, today's episode featured extremely dangerous rhetoric.
Today’s episode featured Nicolle Wallace hosting A HALF HOUR of Liz Cheney’s book tour: just a couple of Bush alumni doing the “look at us” meme, comparing the Capitol riot of January 6th, 2021 to the Al-Qaeda terrorist attack on September 11th, 2001, and as you’ll see in this clip below- bemoaning the lack of a domestic equivalent of the Patriot Act with which to persecute domestic political opponents.
Bonilla then tried to twist Cheney's words, bizarrely claiming that her warning of violence is itself incitement of violence:
The rhetoric advanced here is extremely dangerous, and the talk of violence will actually beget violence. It wasn’t that long ago that a deranged, MSNBC-binging Sandernista shot up a baseball field full of GOP congressmen, nearly killing Rep. Steve Scalise. The constant threat of violence and demonization of half the country as dangerous extremists may very well end up creating a permission structure for political violence towards conservatives.
Look very closely at the transcript. The proposal to emerge from this exchange is “tools” with which to “address the threat” from “enemies”, and “enemies” is defined as those who “collaborate with the former president”. That’s half the country. In very short order, we’ve gone from “bucket of deplorables” to denouncing half the country as domestic terrorists. Small wonder Cheney didn’t propose sending Trump voters to Gitmo.
Authoritarianism is already here, under the guise of “protecting democracy”. Chilling.
Bonilla, of course, was silent about the violent and bigoted words spoken by Trump himself and whether they will beget violence. Perhaps that's because he is such a committed right-wing activist, he sees Trump's hateful words as comforting instead of "chilling" like a normal person would. Also note that Bonilla offered no evidence whatsoever of inciting rhetoric on any MSNBC show that could possibly have incited the guy who shot Scalise; it's just a bogus version of the never-proven claim (which the MRC loves to make) that Rachel Maddow somehow inspired the shooter.
Newsmax Promoted Pro-Musk Takes On His Lawsuit Against Media Matters Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax may have at least somewhatbalanced in reporting on Elon Musk's battles with the ADL and the exposure of his own anti-Semitism, but it was quite happy to revert to form in pusshing his narrative after Media Matters exposed Twitter (well, X) placing ads from major advertisers next to anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi content.
A Nov. 17 article by Nicole Wells noted growing criticism of Musk and Twitter's condoning of anti-Semitism on its platform, as illustrate in part by the Media Matters report:
The left-leaning nonprofit Media Matters for America published a report on Thursday that found Apple ads were being placed next to pro-Nazi content on the platform. Other affected brands reportedly included Bravo, IBM, Oracle and Xfinity.
In response to the report, X "did a sweep on the accounts that Media Matters found and they will [no] longer be monetizable," an executive at the social media company told Axios Thursday. The specific posts mentioned will also be labeled "Sensitive Media."
"The X system is not intentionally placing a brand actively next to this type of content, nor is a brand actively trying to support this type of content with an ad placement," the executive continued in the emailed statement.
Newsmax published a Nov. 18 wire article on Musk's threat to file a "thermonuclear" lawsuit over it -- b ut it changed the headline from the Reuters original "Elon Musk, under fire, threatens lawsuit against media watchdog" to "Elon Musk Vows 'Thermonuclear Lawsuit' Against Liberal-Biased Media Matters." In fact, the wording "liberal-biased" appears nowhere in the Reuters article, which described Media Matters only as a "liberal watchdog group." That was followed by a Nov. 20 wire article in which Newsmax did not add editorial comment, as well as a another article (unbylined but credited to Newsmax at the end) on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton planning to investigate Media Matters on behalf of Musk.
A Nov. 22 article by Eric Mack played damage control for Musk, claiming he was by donating to good causes in the Middle East:
Democrats and liberal activist group Media Matters have attacked X owner Elon Musk, alleging he is profiting from a platform for free speech, including for antisemites, but Musk is undercutting their narrative.
"X Corp will be donating all revenue from advertising & subscriptions associated with the war in Gaza to hospitals in Israel and the Red Cross/Crescent in Gaza," Musk wrote Wednesday on X.
[...]
X sued the watchdog group Media Matters on Monday, alleging it defamed the platform after it published a report that said ads for major brands had appeared next to posts touting Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party.
That was followed by Newsmax guests trying to justify Musk's attack on Media Matters. First up was a Nov. 21 article by Nick Koutsobinas:
Former Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell stated on Newsmax that Media Matters' legal entanglement with Elon Musk was a "real gift" because it would reveal the organization's corruption to the public on a mass scale.
"Look, I think it's a real gift to have somebody like Elon Musk be the target of this lawfare because he personally begins to know just how ridiculous it is," Grenell tells "Rob Schmitt Tonight."
Grenell explains that what Media Matters does is "they target you, they lie about you, and then they really, really peddle this information to all of the news outlets that support them, and so it becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy within the press newsrooms, and it's all just a big lie."
There was no explanation of how, if true, this is any different than how right-wing groups like the Media Research Center operate.
A Nov.23 article by Luca Cacciatore promoted another Trump lackey uncritically repeating Musk's talking points:
Matthew Whitaker, a former acting U.S. attorney general, applauded X owner Elon Musk and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for going after Media Matters.
Appearing Thursday onNewsmax<'s "Rob Schmitt Tonight," Whitaker laid into the left-leaning media watchdog group for targeting members of the conservative movement and trying to get them fired.
"I think it has a lot of merit," Whitaker said of X's defamation lawsuit against Media Matters, alleging that it engaged in deceptive practices to make the social media platform look like it was boosting pro-Nazi content.
"The evidence that Media Matters created was completely manufactured," he continued, adding that the indicting images it produced are "not what's being seen by ordinary users. They had to manipulate the algorithm."
Cacciatore offered no evidence, if any, Whitaker had to back up his attack, but he did surprisingly add a comment from the other side of the story:
While Musk and X CEO Linda Yaccarino have defended the suit, Media Matters President Angelo Carusone characterized it Monday as "frivolous" and "meant to bully X's critics into silence."
"Media Matters stands behind its reporting and looks forward to winning in court," Carusone said.
A Nov. 28 article by Cacciatore noted that a judge recused himself from the lawsuit.When another state attorney general started his own partisan probe of Media Matters, Michael Katz wrote it up on a Dec. 11 article:
Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey on Monday accused left-wing media outlet Media Matters for America of fraudulently soliciting donations from Missourians in its efforts to target X, formerly Twitter, and is launching an investigation.
"We have reason to believe Media Matters used fraud to solicit donations from Missourians in order to trick advertisers into pulling out of X, the last platform dedicated to free speech in America," Bailey said in a news release. "Radicals are attempting to kill Twitter because they cannot control it, and we are not going to let Missourians get ripped off in the process.
"I'm fighting to ensure progressive tyrants masquerading as news outlets cannot manipulate the marketplace in order to wipe out free speech."
Katz claimed to have tried contacting Media Matters for a response:
Newsmax reached out to Media Matters for comment. But in response to Musk's threat of a lawsuit, Media Matters President Angelo Carusone said Nov. 18 in a statement on the company's website: "Far from the free speech advocate he claims to be, Musk is a bully who threatens meritless lawsuits in an attempt to silence reporting that he even confirmed is accurate.
"Musk admitted the ads at issue ran alongside the pro-Nazi content we identified. If he does sue us, we will win."
WND Still Pushing Idea Of 'VAIDS' (Which Doesn't Exist) From COVID Vaccine Topic: WorldNetDaily
Last October, WorldNetDaily tried to hype the purported existence of "VAIDS" -- immune deficiency purportedly caused by the COVID vaccine -- despite the fact that there is no such thing. It tried to pull that stunt again in a Dec. 11 article by Bob Unruh:
Researchers at Cambridge University have released a study showing that about one-fourth of those people who were given the mRNA shots during the COVID panic now have VAIDS, or Vaccine-Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.
It's long now been known that there sometimes have been horrific side effects from the mRNA treatments that were described as and delivered to people as COVID vaccinations during the pandemic.
Many have died, prompting Iceland to ban them, a plan endorsed by many experts.
Now a report at Slay News describes the results of a Cambridge study that found 25% of all people given the COVID mRNA shots now have Vaccine-Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.
According to the report, "The scientists note in their paper that the 'unintended immune response' was 'created by a glitch.'"
Unruh didn't dislcose that Slay News has been exposed as untrustworthy due to its promotion of "conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, right-wing propaganda, poor sourcing, lack of transparency, failed fact checks, and blatant plagiarism" -- of course, that same description applies to WND as well. Meanwhile, an actual, credible news organization examined the claims and found that the Slay News article -- and, thus, Unruh's article -- is false, citing the actual authors of the Cambridge study in question:
However, the study's lead author, James Thaventhiran, an immunologist at Cambridge University, told AFP on December 20, 2023, that "humans regularly encounter unintended proteins and generate harmless immune responses" (archived link).
"Our latest study does not affect the safety assessment of existing mRNA COVID vaccines," he said. "The data are clear: there is no evidence linking unintended proteins and harmful immune responses."
Lance Turtle, a co-author of the study, also said the claim circulating online had no basis (archived link).
"[This statement] is simply made up," the clinician scientist from the University of Liverpool told AFP on December 20, 2023.
"There was absolutely nothing about immunodeficiency in our study…There's nothing immunodeficient about this, it is the immune system responding to a foreign protein."
The fact-check quoted experts pointing out that VAIDS "does not exist."
Because this is WND and it doesn't typically correct anything unless there's a threat of a lawsuit, don't expect it to correct the record; indeed, Unruh's article remains live and uncorrected.
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC Lies To Stop Scrutiny Of Disinformation, Part 1 Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center melted down over plans for a "Disinformation Governance Board" -- so much so that it spread the lie that the board would act like an Orwellian "ministry of truth" and attacked the woman who would have headed it. Read more >>
The MRC then did another bit of rehashing by cranking out a second attack on Soros' son, Alex, in a Nov. 15 post that took Joseph Vazquez, Tom Olohan and Dan Schneider to write:
George Soros — the most notorious leftist billionaire in American politics — has chosen a successor to take over his $25-billion nonprofit empire. Thirty-seven-year-old Alex Soros is replacing his father and, based on his political history, he will be even worse.
The elder Soros named his self-proclaimed “more political=” son Alex as the new leader of the Open Society Foundations in June. This follows after Alex was= chosen to lead his father’s enormous political action committee — Democracy PAC — in 2022. Alex then oversaw at least $32,648,000 spent during the midterm elections to support leftist candidates.
Alex’s extreme views are evident because of the politicians and organizations he supports. He could well be more radical than his father on everything from abortion to climate change to the weaponization of race to demonize his political opponents.
As we pointed out after the MRC's previous attack on Alex Soros, his views aren't "extreme" -- they're pretty standard liberal takes. They only look "extreme" if you're as far-right as the people who work at the MRC. The post used the word "radical" 10 times, but no evidence was offered that anything or any view attached to that label actually was. All this ranting was made into a fancy-looking PDF, but there's no evidence that anything new or noteworthy has been added -- it's just more Soros derangement.
A Nov. 16 post by Luis Cornelio hyped the PR effect of the MRC's Soros derangement, courtesy of its buddies at Fox News:
Leftist billionaire George Soros and his heir Alex Soros came under further scrutiny by Fox News following the release of the second installment of an MRC Business exposé into the Soros empire 2.0.
During a segment on disturbing theft reports, Fox Business Washington correspondent Grady Trimble on Wednesday drew attention to Republicans attributing the alleged skyrocketing crime to extremist left-wing district attorneys, and most strikingly, the individuals financing their campaigns. Trimble — citing an MRCB report on Alex Soros — highlighted the empire’s new plan to interject itself into U.S. politics, in line with the elder Soros’ disturbing vision of bending the “arc of history” to fit his ideal:
[...]
Trimble’s reporting specifically cited MRCB’s bombshell report into Alex Soros’ demonstrably more draconian and grotesquely partisan nature. Notably, Alex Soros, who inherited the Open Society Foundations in June, admitted that he is “more political” than the elder Soros, potentially marking the beginning of a new era of even greater political meddling.
Again, the MRC demonstrated nothing beyond Alex Soros holding standard liberal views and certainly nothing "draconian and grotesquely partisan." It should be noted that Trimble couldn'rt be bothered to allowed Soros or anyone else to respond to his report -- so much for "fair and balanced."
Olohan hyped a new parson to spout anti-Soros talking points in a Nov. 22 post:
Spanish Vox Party President Santiago Abascal heavily criticized leftist billionaire George Soros’ activities in Europe during an interview with independent journalist Tucker Carlson.
Abascal told Tucker during a Nov. 17 interview that Soros had not only met with current Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sánchez but had also funded groups contributing to the flood of illegal immigrants into European countries. After Tucker asked why Soros had become so involved in Spanish politics, Abascal responded that, “George Soros is Hungarian. Not only is he unloved in Hungary, he’s not well regarded in other countries around the world, because he tries to exert his influence. George Soros was the first person to meet with the president of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, when he was elected.”
When Tucker responded with disbelief, Abascal added, “Exactly, that’s the news that was published in Spain and the government has never denied it. When I questioned President Sánchez about that meeting, he never answered before Parliament. He has never answered clearly.”
Sánchez also met with George Soros’ son, Alex Soros, at the United Nations in 2019. Alex Soros has spoken with at least 43 world leaders, including many European heads of state or government like Sánchez.
Olohan didn't disclose that Absacal and his party are on the far right, and he laughably portrayed Carlson as an "independent journalist" despite his unambiguous right-wing activism.
The same day, Schneider appeared on a far-right channel to screech about Alex Soros some more:
MRC Free Speech Vice President Dan Schneider warned of the threat posed by the new chair of the Open Society Foundations (OSF), Alex Soros on OAN's Real America Tuesday.
When Ball suggested during a Nov. 21 interview that Alex “was going to take the radical agenda to a whole new level with daddy’s money,” Schneider agreed, pointing out that Soros could have chosen someone else to run the OSF, even a different son, but George chose Alex. Schneider said, “Look, the father had different sons to hand the keys to and he chose the most radical, the most political of all his kids to say, here you go, here’s billions and billions, dozens of billions of dollars to go continue changing the world in the most heinous ways possible and Alex Soros is already on his path to do just that.”
[...]
Still, Schneider offered One America News viewers a bit of hope, “It is a disaster, but the good thing is that, while they’ve got all the money, we’ve got all the smarts. We’ve got people who understand common sense solutions so the people have to fight back against this radical empire.”
Only committed right-wingers like Schneider would think there's anything "heinous" about standard liberal opinions. And really, how smart can Schneider be if he's reduced to appearing on a tiny right-wing channel to spew his hatred of Soros?
Olohan returned for a Dec. 1 post dutifully taking stenography for a right-wing radio host's anti-Soros rant:
Syndicated radio host Dan Bongino called out Alex Soros, the son of leftist billionaire donor George Soros. for misleading his followers about the effects of his father’s destructive criminal justice goals.
Blasting Alex Soros as a “propaganda machine,” Bongino laid into a recent Soros post on X (formerly Twitter) that said, “Where Are Murder Rates Actually Higher? Not in progressive cities” on the Nov. 28 edition of The Dan Bongino Show. Bongino said that Alex Soros was “straight up lying and he knows it.”
Bongino cited the Community Note that was pinned to Soros’ post at that time, pointing out that five out of five of the cities with the highest murder rate, St. Louis, Baltimore, New Orleans, Detroit and Cleveland were run by Democrat mayors.
Bongino did not stop there, noting the role that Alex Soros and his father George Soros have played in making Americans less safe through funding leftist prosecutors across the country.
Soros was actually repeating an article from a progressive publication making that argument, and neither Olohan nor apparently Bongino addressed any specific claims made in that article. But Bongino is repeating all the right talking points, so Olohan stayed in stenography mode:
“They have this obsession, it’s a bizarre obsession with chaos in liberal cities. They love the idea of criminals running wild,” Bongino said of the Soros duo. Earlier in the show, Bongino drew attention to Alex Soros’ more active role in funding leftist politicians. “The son of George Soros, Alexander Soros, this guy is like a propaganda machine and he’s not as quiet as his dad. His dad was more kind of behind the scenes, influencing races, supporting this candidate and that candidate. The son is out there — like way out there — and he’s gonna take over for the dad, which is big trouble because they’ve got a lot of resources to make a lot of far-left stuff happen.”
Just another reminder that at the MRC, narrative is more important than facts. As long as Bongino stayed on narrative, Olohan was certainly going to make no effort to fact-check anything he said.
Newsmax Devotes Multiple Articles To A Single Trump Speech Topic: Newsmax
As a reliably pro-Trump website, Newsmax loves giving all the free publicity it can to him. Not only does it regularly air his campaign speeches, it devotes several articles on its website to each speech -- coverage it does not usually give to other Republican presidential candidates (ones that aren't buying airtime on Newsmax TV, anyway). Let's take a look at a few examples of how this has played out at Newsmax over the past several months:
IN a normal news operation, Trump's speeches would warrant one article at most, since they're largely stump-style speeches filled with his usual trash talk. But because Newsmax is such a big Trump booster, it feels it must generate multiiplearticles from a speech -- whether or not its news value justifes doing so -- to have a block of Trump headlines on its website.
MRC's Toto Complains That People Are Offended By Right-Wing 'Comedy' Topic: Media Research Center
Christian Toto has been trying to portray hateful right-wing comedy as somehow brilliant and cutting-edge. He continued to do that in his Oct. 7 Media Research Center column, whcih began with this amazingly stupid claim:
“Lenny Bruce would be impossible today.”
So says Svetlana Mintcheva, the director of programs at the National Coalition Against Censorship. Mintcheva shares that observation in a compelling new docu-short called “Crossing the Line in Comedy.”
The video hails from the Free to Choose Network, a group established “to build popular support for personal, economic and political freedom.”
But there is not need for a Lenny Bruce today because there already has been one. And Toto, had he been around in the 1960s, would be among those reactionaries who relentlessly hounded Bruce for his profane anti-establishment humor.
The video Toto is promoting is from the Free to Choose Network, which complains that people are offended by certain comedians, which the implication that they are right-wing comedians who want to make fun of liberals. Toto himself emphasized that narrative:
The video arrives at a chilling time in western culture. The woke revolution has scared many people into silence, fearing the “wrong” opinion could cost them their jobs or make them social pariahs.
Just ask J.K. Rowling. Or Dave Chappelle.
Comedians are routinely censored by Big Tech platforms under dubious circumstances. Others face professional blowback for uttering the “wrong” jokes targeting the “wrong” demographics. Sometimes fellow comedians are the ones trying to shut them down.
But Rowling isn't a comedian -- she is a rich author who spews hate at transgender people. Chappelle's anti-transgender "humor" simply wasn't funny enough to overcome its offensive nature, and Toto offered no evidence otherwise. (Note that Toto's two poster people for violating "woke" standards involve people who intensely hate transgender people; he offered no explanation for why transgender people are acceptable targets.) Interestingly, we haven't seen Toto defend Chappelle when, a couple weeks later, when he made comments critical of Israel during one standup appearance that caused at least one member of the audience to leave.
Toto went on to huff that "Groups like PEN America railed against so-called 'book bans,' ignoring the obvious issues with sharing pornographic books in schools nationwide." His evidence here is a link to the right-wing Independent Women's Forum, which disonestly potrays all allegedly offensive content as "pornography" and evern denies that books are being "banned" -- thus furher showing that he would have been among the moral prude who censored and hounded Lenny Bruce. Meanwhile, Florida schools are removing dictionaries and encyclopedias from schools ("for further review," they claim) out of fear of purportedluy offensive content. Toto is probably not going to demand that comedians make fun of that. And despite all that, Toto made another conterfatual claim:
Free speech is now a partisan issue.
Conservatives, by and large, support more expression and less guard rails on speech. Progressives, many beholden to militant Leftists, demand censorship to suppress “hate speech” or “misinformation.” And, since the Left controls the U.S. government, the media, academia and Hollywood, it has a unique ability to suppress speech as it sees fit.
That's not really true. Conservatives don't want to be called out on the hate and lies they like to peddle, so they frame any criticism of them as "censorship" -- that's the entire premise behind the MRC's attacks on social media moderation. Further, inadvertently showing how far-right he has moved, Toto illustrated this point by embedding a tweet by Lara Logan, the disgraced former "60 Minutes" correspondent who has moved even farther right than him.
Toto closed by quoting Mintcheva saying, "'I'm offended' has become an argument for 'shut up.'" He won't mention that his fellow right-wingers are doing exactly that in an attempt to shut up anything they don't like.
WND Continues With Its Capitol Riot Revisionism Topic: WorldNetDaily
Last year, as part of its Capitol riot revisionism, WorldNetDaily hyped the release by Tucker Carlson of cherry-picked video from the Capitol riot, even though experts pointed out that the selectively edited footing of rioters not rioting doesn't negate all the footage of them, you know, rioting. Bob Unurh hyped the latest version of this in a Nov. 17 article:
The House Subcommittee on Oversight on Friday announced a new online viewing room where the thousands of hours of surveillance video from the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is being made available to the public.
Some portions had been released to a few recipients earlier, and we know because of that, for example, that many of those accused of breaking the law to enter the Capitol during that protest-turned-riot actually came through a wide open door that was left unguarded.
The congressional announcement said:
"Today, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (GA-11), Chairman of the Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, announced that United States Capitol Police video footage from January 6, 2021 will be made available to the public through two methods, a new online viewing room and in person at the subcommittee’s offices in Washington, D.C.
"Starting today, all video footage previously released to media outlets will be uploaded to an online viewing room for public access. This includes all videos released to Tucker Carlson and other media. Following the initial tranche of footage, the Subcommittee will continue to populate the viewing room with additional footage for public view."
Of course, the fact that a door to the Capitol was allegedly left unguarded did not make it OK to enter that door since doing so broke the law whether or not it was guarded.Unruh went on to repeat bogus claims from Carlson's video release:
At the time, video aired showing Capitol Police officers escorting one protestor, the “QAnon shaman,” through the halls of the building. Tucker Carlson also showed video of Republican Sen. JoshHawley of Missouri being escorted with other members of Congress from the Capitol, saying the Jan. 6 Committee selectively edited it to target Hawley.
In fact, prosecutors said of that cherry-picked footage that the "QAnon Shaman," Jacob Chansley, was "facing off with officers for half an hour outside the Senate chamber or when Chansley refused to be escorted out of the Capitol by an officer and only left after being forcibly removed," adding that "Chansley was not some passive, chaperoned observer of events for the roughly hour that he was unlawfully inside the Capitol." Unruh went on to whine about the riot being called an insurrection:
The controversy that erupted that day still continues, as Democrats are using "lawfare" to try to make certain President Donald Trump cannot win the 2024 presidential race. He's far and away the leading GOP candidate, and recent polls have shown him leading Joe Biden, the presumed Democrat nominee despite his extensive history of mental flubs, fumbles and failures.
Democrats claim that day was an actual "insurrection," in which a mob was intent on destroying the current government and replacing it with a government of its own making, in a scheme that would involve taking over control of the military.
Experts have said that's unrealistic, and it actually was a protest that turned into a riot by hundreds who broke doors and windows and vandalized parts of the building.
Democrats, however, make the "insurrection" claim because they believe then that Trump is barred from holding office again, an argument multiple judges and most experts have rejected as inapplicable.
Notice that Unruh pits "Democrats" against "experts," though he names none of the "experts" allegedly denying that it was an insurrection. An anonymously written Nov. 21 article served up more cherry-picked cliips:
A multitude of reports have been coming out since the House Subcommittee on Oversight recently announced that surveillance video from the U.S. Capitol during that Jan. 6, 2021, protest-turned-riot was being made available to the public.
For the first time, Americans have an opportunity to see for themselves what happened, not just what Democrats on Nancy Pelosi's partisan committee investigating that day decided to show.
[...]
One video posted online shows officers shooting a tear-gas grenade. And while it was aimed at the crowd, the winds apparently blew the gas back onto officers, leaving them scrambling for air and coughing.
It also likely triggered the crowd to move, too, as the gas swept across the concrete plaza at the Capitol.
But it's not news that tear gas was used during the riot -- after all it was reported the day of the riot. The anonymous writer went on to complain that "Another video reveals protesters being fired upon by police with no warning":
The poster said, "J6 protestors were fired upon with NO warning. USCP Chief Waldow lied saying he gave warnings but never did."
It records officers demanding, "more f****** munitions," and telling each other to "F******* shoot them!"
"Shoot! Shoot!" an officer is telling another.
The anonymous WND writer did not explain why that is not a reasonable response to a violent mob by law enforcement, or why such a mob deserves a warning before action is taken to disperse them.
A Nov. 29 article by Unruh tried to rehash an old conspiracy theory revived by a right-wing writer:
There's growing evidence that violence by police officers themselves triggered the crowd of protesters, some of whom later turned into rioters, during that infamous confrontation at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Those are the events Democrats continue to claim were an actual insurrection, a plot to take over the government, its operations, its military, and install new leaders, as an insurrection is defined.
hey make those claims in their lawfare campaigns to try to prevent Donald Trump from running for president in 2024, a race that so far he leads by significant numbers.
To cover up the officers' violence, according to key Jan. 6 investigative reporter Julie Kelly, police created the story line that officer Brian Sicknick died as a result of the riot.
[...]
Kelly concluded that police were desperate to cover up their own "brutality" that day, and so they launched the Sicknick death claim, "a fabricated story" and "intentionally" planted to cover up the deaths of four Trump supporters that day.
Unruh did not note if Kelly had any actual evidence that early reports regarding Sicknick's death were intentionally fabricated. He continued:
One of those was Ashli Babbitt, who was shot point-blank by a police officer and died. Three other Trump supporters also died, and Kelly explained at least two of those deaths were due to "police excessive force."
Then authorities cremated the victims' bodies, without family permission, so that no evidence would remain.
In fact, Babbitt's body was not hastily cremated; her body was held onto by authorities until investigations could be completed, then was cremated according to her wishes. No family member is on record as complaining about her cremation.
UPDATE: WND also republished a Nov. 19 article by the discredited Gateway Pundit hyping the cherry-picked videos, baselessly insisting that they mean "the bogus narrative propagated by the government and mainstream media surrounding the 'insurrection' is crumbling."
MRC Trots Out Right-Wing Economists To Spout Talking Points Without Disclosing Their Bias Topic: Media Research Center
One of the things the Media Research Center loves to do when talking down the economy for partisan gain is to call on economists to repeat those right-wing talking points without explaining that they are also partisan actors as evidenced by their employment with right-wing think tanks. Joseph Vazquez dutifully did just that in an Aug. 24 post:
The Washington Post’s third-rate “fact-checker” Glenn Kessler butchered the facts when he claimed that the sky-high inflation brought on by Bidenomics barely made a dent in Americans’ spending power. Economists interviewed by MRC Business were having none of it.
Kessler went after presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) for his nuanced assertion during the GOP presidential primary debate that the average American family has lost “$10,000 of spending power” in President Joe Biden’s economy. “This seems wildly overstated,” objected Kessler. He then attributed Scott’s argument to an analysis by Heritage Foundation Research Fellow EJ Antoni, estimating that American families have lost roughly $7,000 in spending power since Biden first took office. Without being specific, Kessler vaguely pointed to some string of “economists we contacted [who] were dubious about the math, which relied on a change in purchasing power and a change in borrowing power.” But Kessler’s true-to-form retort to protect Biden would be fallacy-riddled and devoid of context that would actually blow up his argument.
MRC Business reached out to Antoni, who, in his response, didn’t mince words about Kessler’s shoddy argument. Kessler’s assessment of the numbers is “just flat-out wrong,” rebuked Antoni. Kessler “should know better,” Antoni reproached. “I literally explained [my calculations] to him both on the phone and via email in a previous conversation. I explained how these figures are actually calculated.”
[...]
Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Brian Riedl was blunt in comments to MRC Business that Scott was correct in his assessment and Kessler was wrong:
I understood Sen. Scott to suggest that inflation has cost the typical household roughly $10,000 in higher prices over the past two years. Using the economist rule of thumb that each 1% of higher inflation costs the typical household $650 annually (which renews the next year as prices remain elevated) produces a figure of roughly $10,000 in higher prices (compared to under the typical 2% inflation) since Biden took office. Sen. Scott is correct,[emphasis added].
Vazquez faild to disclose ythat both the Heritage Foundation and the Manhattan Institute are both right-wing institutions whose paid economists would be expected to follow right-wing talking points.
Vazquez pulled the same stunt again -- using one of those very same economists -- in a Sept. 19 post:
Philadelphia Inquirer national columnist Will Bunch gaslit the American public in an outrageous full-throated defense of “Bidenomics.”
Bunch’s Sept. 14 column headline speaks for itself: “The problem with ‘Bidenomics’? It didn’t go far enough.” The columnist doubled down on his absurd logic in the sub-headline: “New census data shows how ‘Bidenomics’ was helping America's working class and poor — until a key anti-poverty program was killed.” Economists interviewed by MRC Business showed why the argument was nonsense.
[...]
“If [not expanding the Child Tax Credit] were the only reason [for the increased poverty rate], then poverty rates would’ve simply returned to the level they were at before Biden’s expanded child tax credit,”Heritage Foundation economist EJ Antoni told MRC. “Instead, poverty rates greatly increased. What changed was inflation.”
Antoni ripped Bunch for deceiving readers into believing that anything other than the inflation crisis was responsible for the spike in poverty:
[...]
Center for Freedom and Prosperity President Dan Mitchell pointed MRC Business to three analyses he conducted illustrating why Biden’s “per-child handouts” Bunch haphazardly celebrated were a textbook case of government stupidity, not benevolence. “The bottom line is that the United States already has a big problem with government dependency. Per-child handouts will make a bad situation even worse,” Mitchell wrote in a June 27, 2021 blog post. Mitchell also directed MRC Business to an X post by American Enterprise Institute Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility Director Scott Winship<, who directly addressed the propaganda Bunch was pushing: “You'd be wrong if you think the expiration of the expanded CTC was the most important factor in raising SPM child poverty or if you think child poverty would have fallen had it not expired.”
The Center for Freedom and Prosperity is also a right-wing group, which Vazquez failed to disclose. He also included a quot from the Wall Street Journal editorial board, which of course is also right-wing -- and whose political slant went undisclosed.
Tom Olohan touted another right-wing economist repeating right-wing talking points in an Oct. 30 post:
Economist Stephen Moore pointed out Monday that despite government subsidies and companies pushing electric vehicles (EVs), Americans are rejecting them.
Moore told Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney on the Oct. 30 edition of Varney & Co. that extremely generous federal and state subsidies for electric cars have not been enough to push Americans towards them, simply because “car buyers do not want” electric vehicles. After mentioning that only 10% of cars being sold “off of lots” are electric vehicles, Moore said, “I’ve talked to dealers around the country, auto dealers, and they are telling me they have lots full of EVs, Stuart, and people come in and they say, ‘Wait a minute, I want to buy a gas car where are they?’ ‘Oh we don’t have many of those, but are you interested in this EV over here?’ And people say, ‘No, I don't want it.’”
As usual, Olohan didn't disclose Moore's partisan bias. Instead, he hyped how Moore used a separate column to "compare[] the present push to electric vehicles to the disastrous launch of the Ford Edsel Sedan." Olohan didn't bother fact-check Moore, otherwise he would have known Moore got basic facts wrong, starting with the name "Ford Edsel sedan." In fact, Edsel was a separate nameplate Ford tried to launch in the late 1950s; there was never anything called a "Ford Edsel," and the nameplate offered a full range of vehicles, not just sedans. In the column Olohan referenced, Moore falsely claimed only 10,000 Edsels were sold; in fact, about 116,000 were sold over the three years the nameplate existed. Moore also blamed Edsel's failure on company executives not "bother[ing] to ask car buyers what THEY thought of the new car"; more prominent factors include the fact that the cars were overhyped prior to launch, Edsel's place in Ford's brand hierarchy was not well defined, and the brand was introduced during a recession at a time the U.S. auto market was undergoing a brand shakeout.
Vazquez trotted out Antoni again in a Dec. 13 post for more recitation of talking points:
There seems to be no end in sight for the media gaslighting on President Joe Biden’s abysmal economy. One economist has had it.
Business Insider had the audacity to publish an asinine piece of economic propaganda Dec. 3 that reeked of a public relations stunt by Biden’s press team: “After 3 years of pain, America has finally achieved economic nirvana.” The author, Renaissance Macro Research Head of Economics Neil Dutta, celebrated how supposedly “[t]he signs of a well-balanced economy are everywhere.” He continued: “Current economic data is consistent with a soft landing for the economy — a situation in which inflation cools without causing a recession or sudden spike in unemployment.”
But Heritage Foundation Public Finance Economist EJ Antoni laid waste to Dutta’s argument in an exclusive interview with MRC Business: “Articles like that can only be written by those who are woefully ignorant of the data at every level.”
Antoni was right on target.
“The most obvious example” of Dutta’s illusory “nirvana” was “the slowdown in inflation,” cherry-picking how core consumer prices — which excludes food and energy — allegedly rose at “an annualized rate of 2.8 percent since June.” Of course, nowhere did Dutta mention that prices are still up 17.6 percent since Biden took office.
It's ironic that Vazquez called Dutta's piece "economic propaganda" -- even though he and Antoni are being paid to push their own economic propaganda that is deliberately designed to hurt President Biden's chances of re-election.
In none of these posts were the targets of the MRC and its favored economists given an opportunity to respond to their criticism.
WND Pushes Right-Wing Crusade To Defend George Floyd's Killer Topic: WorldNetDaily
Apparently following the lead of columnist Jack Cashill, WorldNetDaily is getting on the Derek Chauvin-saving bandwagon. An anonymously written Nov. 16 article states:
Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer in prison for two decades for the death of George Floyd during an arrest in 2020, says he was deprived during his trial of evidence that reveals the real cause of Floyd's demise, and his conviction should be overturned.
Floyd died as Chauvin held him down with a knee on his neck for several minutes during the arrest.
[...]
His court filing asks that the conviction be overturned and a new trial ordered, or at least an evidentiary hearing be held.
The evidence is outlined as a determination from Kansas doctor, William Schaetzel, explaining that after a review of the Floyd autopsy records, he believes Floyd died from a complication from a rare tumor that can trigger an adrenaline surge that can be fatal.
Floyd, in fact, had multiple underlying health and drug issues at the time he died.
As we pointed out when Cashill pushed this argument, Schaetzel did not examine Floyd's body but merely read the autopsy report, and the unproven claim that an "adrenaline surge" and not Chauvin's neck compression sounds a lot like the dubious "excited delirium" defense that officers originally cited as an excuse to subdue Floyd.
The anonymous author stated that Schaetzel informed Chauvin's attorney of his opinion but that the attorney "never informed Chauvin about the pathologist or his theories." But it has been reported that as a condition of his guilty plea, Chauvin forfeited his right to an appeal except under the condition of asserting that his defense attorney was inadequate or incompetent to represent him, and no evidence has been offered to back up the credibility of Schaetzel's claim.
MRC Can't Stop Lashing Out At Jankowicz For Fighting Online Disinformation Topic: Media Research Center
We've documented how the Media Research Center has continualllyattacked Nina Jankowicz even after the "disinformation governance board" at the Department of Homeland Security she was to head was shut down due to liestold by the MRC and its fellow right-wingers. Unsurpriringly, those attacks continued many months after the board was shut down. A Sept. 8 post by Luis Cornelio whined that Time magazine added her to one of its lists:
TIME is laying the groundwork for a return of the embattled warlord of the defunct Ministry of Truth.
TIME awarded Nina Jankowicz, Biden’s disgraced disinformation czar, with a puff feature piece on the first edition of then TIME 100 AI list, which lists individuals influencing the rapid growth of artificial intelligence. The piece, first published on Sept. 7 by TIME staff writer Astha Rajvanshi, falsely portrays Jankowicz as a victim of so-called “disinformation” and touts the infamous Biden administration Ministry of Truth called the Disinformation Governance Board (DGB).
Ignoring the real reasons for the backlash against the DGB, TIME engaged in revisionist history. “[H]ours into her appointment, the then 33-year-old became the target of a sustained disinformation campaign herself,” Rajvanshi claimed of Jankowicz. “Right-wing trolls on the internet waged continuous attacks that included allegations that she was transgender and infertile.”
However, the truth is that Jankowicz resigned from her position amid a relentless outcry from Americans concerned about the government’s role in censoring free speech online. Through the defunct DGB, Jankowicz had positioned herself to be the arbitrator of truth despite her own contentious trouble with spouting disinformation. But don’t expect TIME to report on any of this.
Don't expect Cornelio to ever admit that the "Ministry of Truth" smear is an outright lie; the board would have done no such thing. That means Cornelio is the one engaging in "revisionist history."
Catherine Salgado spent a Sept. 14 post whining that "The Biden Pentagon awarded a contract to a disinformation researcher who celebrated Big Tech’s election interference by suppressing the 2020 Hunter Biden bombshell scandals." Now, this wasn't Jankowicz, but this person apparently bears the taint because she has "ties" to Jankowicz. This gave Salgado an opportunity to repeat the MRC corporate line: "A 2020 Media Research Center poll found that censorship of the Hunter Biden scandal helped steal the election for Joe Biden, since 4.6% of Biden’s total vote wouldn’t have voted for him if in possession of all the facts. Kaplan approved that election-altering censorship, making her recent DoD contract questionable." As we've documented, that poll was conducted by a polling firm founded by Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, casting doubt on its accuracy and raising the specter of bias and bad-faith "media research."
A Nov. 12 post by Tim Graham whined that Jankowicz (accurately) called out right-wing election misinformation as a threat:
On Friday night’s ludicrously titled All Things Considered, NPR devoted almost seven minutes to the whining of left-wing social-media censors – or as NPR put it, “the people working to safeguard voting” – complaining that the 2024 election won’t be as free of “election lies” as 2020 because conservatives are fighting back.
[...]
NPR even interviewed Nina Jankowicz, the foiled federal censor. She's not in the radio story, but she is there in the online story:
As Nina Jankowicz sees it, the opening salvo came in the spring of 2022, when a right-wing campaign quickly snuffed out a Department of Homeland Security initiative called the Disinformation Governance Board...
After a barrage of death threats and abuse, Jankowicz resigned, and DHS scrapped the board altogether. Jankowicz told NPR that the timid effort by the federal government to defend her or push back against the allegations sent a clear message.
"That showed ... that it was open season on researchers, on civil servants, on anyone who was working in this space," Jankowicz said.
So leftists trying to keep Trump and his "MAGA extremists" out of office are "researchers and civil servants," not terribly disguised campaign operatives who "fortify elections."
[...]
It's fair to be alarmed about the "Trump won in a landslide" messagers. But NPR and other liberal media outlets obsess over that and ignore all the other cases where social-media giants censored conservative narratives that have turned out to be true.
Graham listed "the Hunter Biden laptop" and "the Chinese lab-leak theory of the Covid pandemic" as examples of those "conservative narratives." But as we've also noted, the New York Post failed to offer any independent verification of the Hunter laptop that might have assuaged reasonable fears that the story was Russian disinformation being spread by a biased pro-Trump rag. And the idea that the COVID virus originated in a Chinese lab has yet to be proven.
Clay Waters complained in a Nov. 19 post that NBC defended Jankowicz in a story on GOP efforts to shut down anti-disinformation efforts on social media by dishonestly crying "censorship":
They even defended would-be-censorious songstress Nina Jankowicz, who would have headed the Biden Administration’s Orwellian “Disinformation Governance Board” but had her own problems spreading disinformation about Hunter Biden’s laptop, complaining she “quickly became the target of a debilitating harassment campaign.”
Waters didn't deny that Jankowicz faced (and still faces) a right-wing harassment campaign -- or disclose that his employer is one of her chief harassers.
NEW ARTICLE -- Michael Brown's Deceptive Anti-LGBTQ Attacks, Part 6: Hate As Virtue Topic: WorldNetDaily
The WorldNetDaily columnist condones lies to forward his anti-LGBTQ agenda and thinks homophobes like him are the real victims in culture wars. Read more >>
MRC's Year Of Talking Down The Ecomony To Hurt Biden Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center spent a good part of last year talking down the ecomony -- despite the fact that, by most traditional measures, it's doing well -- because such factually dubious trash talk is mandated by its right-wing anti-Biden agenda.After all, talking down the economy under Democratic presidents is what the MRC does, even when the economy is clearly improving. Let's take a trip down memory lane and see how this has taken place.
A Feb. 21 post by Renata Kiss, for example, hyped one economist who foretold economic doom:
Former President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council Director sounded the alarm on the Federal Reserve’s inability to tame inflation and warned about “a collision or crash down the road.”
Economist Larry Summers warned the public in a Saturday interview with Bloomberg TV that the Fed’s interest rate hikes aren’t enough to cool inflation, yet he advised against hitting the brakes too hard. “The Fed’s been trying to put the brakes on and it doesn’t look like the brakes are getting much traction,” Summers said. “And when your brakes don’t get much traction, two things happen. You can be moving too fast: that’s the inflation pressure, and you can be setting yourself up for kind of a collision or crash down the road. And both of those things, I think, are real risks in this environment,” he continued.
That prediction didn't age well, since further interest rate hikes did slow inflation enough that the Fed is now mulling the idea of lowering rates.
When it was noted that the media plays a role in talking down the economy, Kevin Tober complained in a Feb. 26 post:
On ABC's This Week, co-moderator Martha Raddatz aired more of World News Tonight's exclusive interview with President Joe Biden during which anchor David Muir displayed how out of touch he is with the economic reality everyday Americans are facing due to Biden's rampant inflation and incipient recession. Not to be outdone, a "reporter" from America's state media, NPR, named Asma Khalid claimed the economy is improved from where it was six months ago.
During the Biden/Muir interview, Muir asked Biden about the economy and seemed befuddled why Americans weren't feeling good about their financial standing. Of course, Muir made sure to add every seemingly favorable metric he could come up with: "unemployment now at its lowest level in 50 years, but you've also seen the polls. Our latest ABC News poll shows 4 in 10 Americans say they're worse off than when you were elected. Only 16 percent said they were better off. So why is that? Why aren't Americans feeling this?"
Biden incoherently explained that Americans aren't feeling good because "it goes well beyond the economy." The octogenarian President blamed the constant negative stories Americans see when they turn on the news: "can you think of anything when you turn on the television that makes you think, God, that makes me feel good? Almost anything. Everything is in the negative."
Has there ever been a time when the news wasn't negative? Not to our memory. That's why there's the saying "no news is good news."
Tober pffered no proof that Biden and only Biden is responsible for "rampant inflation," and his prediction of a "incipient recession" has fallen flat because economists now predict that the economy will come in for a "soft landing" without a recession.
When Stephanie Ruhle made the same argument, Alex Christy lashed out in a June 3 post:
MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle is not if not consistent in her efforts to blame the news media for the lack of confidence in the economy. On Friday’s The 11th Hour, Ruhle claimed that “we instilled this fear and unhappiness in people” right before going on to blame consumers for inflation.
During a panel discussion on the economy, REVOLT Black News anchor and managing editor Mara S. Campo made the normal observation that people do not feel confident in the economy because it does not reflect their everyday experience, “But I don't know if the messaging is getting through. Because I don't know that people feel it. You know, eggs still cost $8 a carton. A box of cereal is $10. Your credit card bills are going up every month by hundreds of dollars because the Fed keeps raising interest rates.”
Other than a gratuitous call for gun control, Campo summed up the problem with trying to convince voters the economy is doing great, “The housing market seems frozen because mortgage rates are at high sky high rates. We’re all afraid of getting shot by some lunatic with an AR-15 because no place feels safe. So, there are a lot of things that people are just feeling that don't feel good. But maybe when it comes to the economy it's not reflecting the messaging and the reality, but people are not really very enthusiastic.”
Ruhle wasn’t buying it, “But we, being the media, are somewhat responsible for that, right? Gas prices is the perfect example. When gas prices are up, like they were last year, every news organization and every reporter were standing in front of the gas station talking about it.”
Alternatively, consumers don’t need a reporter to tell them gas or egg prices are high because they see it themselves when they fill up their car or go to the store. Additionally, the media constantly tried to spin away inflation by repeating Ruhle’s point that the economy was actually doing rather well.
The MRC continued to bash the economy and anyone who noted it wasn't really as bad as right-wingers (are paid to) portray it:
The MRC was still pushing the bad-economy argument in an Oct. 23 post by Joseph Vazquez:
Liberal journos like Vox co-founder Matthew Yglesias continue to treat struggling Americans as stupid for not giving President Joe Biden kudos on his so-called “great” economy.
Yglesias published a ludicrous Oct. 22 op-ed for Bloomberg Opinion with a headline that was nothing short of comical: “Biden’s Economy Is Great Everywhere Except in the Polls.” In Yglesias’s condescending, escapist worldview, those darn average Americans just don’t know what’s good for them: “Like a lot of world leaders, the US president must contend with voters who remain unhappy even as economic conditions improve.”
Yglesias even outrageously attempted to make Biden out to be a victim of unfair public perception, despite his administration’s policies largely contributing to the inflation crisis that crippled the U.S. economy: “This is undoubtedly a frustrating situation for the president, his campaign and Democrats overall.”
Utterly “silly,” Heritage economist EJ Antoni told MRC Business of Yglesias’ argument. “It is reminiscent of when football commentators say an NFL team is better than its record,” Antoni added. “That may be true in the initial weeks of the season, but at some point, your record is your record, and it is indicative of the team’s performance. The American people have judged Bidenomics and found it wanting.”
Vazquez didn't disclose that Antoni is a highly biased right-wing economist whose job at the right-winbg Heritage Foundation is to talk down Biden's economy in order to boost Republians' chances of getting elected, so his arguments should be seen as partisan attacks, not sound economic analysis.
WND's Brown Whitewashes Mike Johnson's Extreme Right-Wing Christian Views Topic: WorldNetDaily
Count Michael Brown as among the WorldNetDaily columnists eager to downplay the right-wing extremism of new House speaker Mike Johnson, which he did in his Nov. 15 column:
There are few things more frightening to leftist Americans than a Christian conservative who has political power. That's why the unexpected, out of the blue rise to power of Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., sent shock waves through the left, as if to say, "These religious fanatics are trying to take over the country! Soon they'll be imposing the Christian version of Shariah on every American! Danger!"
Johnson even had the temerity to say this in an interview with Sean Hannity: "I am a Bible-believing Christian. Someone asked me today in the media, they said, 'It's curious, people are curious: What does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?' I said, 'Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That's my worldview.'" Oh, the horror!
To be sure, countless political leaders in American history, including many of our presidents, also extolled the Scriptures. In the words of Abraham Lincoln in 1864, when presented with a Bible by "loyal colored people" in Baltimore, "In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Saviour gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it. To you I return my most sincere thanks for the very elegant copy of the great Book of God which you present."
When Johnson's ties to the right-wing New Apostolic Reformation were noted, and that Johnson has a certain flag hanging outside his office, Brown served more downplaying:
This would be the "Appeal to Heaven" flag, of which Rolling Stone says, "Historically, this flag was a Revolutionary War banner, commissioned by George Washington as a naval flag for the colony turned state of Massachusetts. The quote 'An Appeal to Heaven' was a slogan from that war, taken from a treatise by the philosopher John Locke. But in the past decade it has come to symbolize a die-hard vision of a hegemonically Christian America."
I first heard about this flag with the publication of books by Dutch Sheets, "An Appeal To Heaven: What Would Happen If We Did It Again?" (2015) and Jennifer LeClaire, "The Next Great Move of God: An Appeal to Heaven for Spiritual Awakening" (2017) – yes, a spiritual awakening, not a Christian takeover. The concept was that American leaders in the past looked to God for mercy and help in times of need, recognizing that our only appeal was to heaven. The same must happen again in our day – there must be a fresh move of God, another great awakening – if our nation is to survive. Our only hope is an appeal to heaven!
[...]
The truth to be told, reports of the nefarious activities of "NAR" are grossly exaggerated, both in terms of numbers, influence and goals. (I write this as someone who knows many of the alleged leaders of "NAR"; for a more accurate assessment, go here.) And while I certainly have differences with some of the leaders referenced in Rolling Stone (see a statement I co-authored here and note my book "The Political Seduction of the Church"), most of the Christian leaders I know who work in politics are no different than their colleagues on the left.
Both are working within the political, democratic system to advance their values and goals. Those on the left have their vision for what is best for America, while those on the right have a different vision. But I do not personally know a single, significant, evangelical leader who wants to impose a theocracy on America. Not one.
As for Christians working to change the educational system, that's exactly what the left has been doing for decades, with disastrous results. But that's what every group does. We seek to convince others that our convictions and beliefs and values are in the best interest of the nation, and we do our best to live those values out and to influence others. What is so wrong about that?
What Brown won't make clear, however, is that he has been a longtime apologist for the NAR. Holly Pivec and Doug Geivett note how Brown lashed out at them for writing a book critical of the NAR, even denying that any such thing existed (though his own organization uses the term); they sum up what Brown did in a way that sounds familiar:
In short, Brown's article was careless. He didn't interact with the reasons we've presented. He didn't acknowledge the evidence we've brought to bear. Rather, he mischaracterized and oversimplified our case.
And Brown has done the very thing he accused of us. He puts all critics in the same basket: they all misunderstand what NAR is. This can be seen in the way he opens his article. He gives a lengthy description of NAR from a critic of the movement. But he doesn't identify the critic; he doesn't produce his source. The implication is that this critic speaks for all NAR critics.
Pivec wrote in 2023 of Brown's continued dishonesty about NAR: "In short, by denying the existence of NAR and directly supporting individuals like Mike Bickle, Brian Simmons, and Bill Johnson, Brown has compromised his claim to represent the charismatic/Pentecostal mainstream, squandered the opportunity to offer a well-informed and realistic appraisal of NAR, and relinquished all moral authority to speak for most continuationists. ... The more Brown defends NAR leaders and portrays them as mainstream charismatics, the more he alienates mainstream charismatics who know better—and that number is growing." Brown tried to defend Bickle a couple weeks earlier after he was accued of sexual misconduct.
Brown unsurprisingly concluded by once again whitewashing Johnson's extreme brand of Christianity:
Without a doubt, Johnson is a deeply committed, Christian conservative (for his views in his own words, go here.) And without a doubt, he would love to see more Americans embrace the best aspects of our national Christian heritage.
But, aside from praying for God's intervention in our nation – this is something every generation has done – he is committed to working within the political process. Even his attempts to challenge the results of the 2020 election were done in this spirit, ultimately stepping back from that pursuit as the courts refused to reexamine the elections.
In today's climate, however, Johnson is the most dangerous speaker of the House we have ever had, part of a conspiratorial plot to take over the nation and impose a fundamentalist version of Christianity over every American.
You can expect this fear-mongering, alarmist approach to become more shrill in the days ahead. Be prepared to respond with patience and with truth. Perhaps, over time, our fellow-citizens will realize that the alarmists are just crying wolf.
Is that like how his fearmongering about LGBT people has been repeatedlyexposed as hateful and alarmist?
MRC Fails In Recycling Old, Discredited Attack On J6 Committee Witness Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Clay Waters tried to revive an old controversy in a Sept. 29 post:
Even on a newscast preceding Wednesday night’s GOP presidential debate, the tax-supported PBS NewsHour kept its focus on former president Donald Trump, inviting former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson for a ten-minute interview to promote her book, Enough, about her traumatic experiences in the Trump White House and how dangerous it would be for Trump to win a second term of office.
You may remember Hutchinson as the left’s break-out star at the January 6 Committee hearings for the outlandish claims she made, though some of her most alarming allegations against Trump were denied by others. PBS took her at her word, after having spent weeks denying allegations against the Bidens as "unsubstantiated" or lacking evidence.
[...]
The PBS host forwarded as fact Hutchinson’s fiercely contested account of what Trump did on January 6:
Nawaz: Cassidy, one of the most explosive moments from your testimony was when you shared the story about, on January 6, Mr. Trump insisting he wanted to go to the Capitol, then trying to grab the steering wheel to get the Secret Service to take him there. What do you think he wanted to do there? What do you think he would have done if he made it to the Capitol?
Note the distinct absence of PBS reporters crying “unsubstantiated” or “no evidence” when it comes to a serious accusation against Donald Trump, though Nawaz and company deploy those phrases when defending Democrat Joe Biden. Nawaz took Hutchinson’s single-sourced account as the undisputed truth despite denials from sources close to the Secret Service[.]
It seems that Waters has forgotten that this line of attack against Hutchinson didn't age well. As we documented, the Secret Service agents who declared they would testify to the January 6 Committee that Hutchinson was lying -- who have been identified as Trump loyalists and yes men -- quickly lawyered up and refused to testify; when one finally did testify, he conveniently couldn't remember key details. Meanwhile, other witnesses corroborated key parts of Hutchinson's testimony. Given that, Waters' insistence that Hutchinson's account was "fiercely contested" completely deflates, since those doing so have not been found to be credible.
Note that Waters offered only anonymous "sources close to the Secret Service" as an attempt to discredit Hutchinson, as noted in a post by Curtis Houck that he linked to; doesn't the MRC hate anonymous sources? Waters also complained in the headline that there were "no fact checks on her testimony," which is false -- her testimony has been corroborated, so PBS did not need to do any further fact-checking.
Waters went on to whine that "For an eager PBS audience, Hutchinson described her White House time in melodramatic terms of an 'oppressive environment' that made loyalty more important than anything else." Waters didn't even bother to offer any sort of rebuttal, perhaps because he knows (or should know, since it's pretty common knowledge) that Trump is obsessed with loyalty.
Liz Cheney has long been a Heathering target of the Media Research Center because she refused to march lockstep with right-wing ideology, instead holding Donald Trump and other Republicans accountable for their role in inciting the Capitol riot. When Cheney returned to the spotlight with a new book, the MRC -- just as it did with Adam Kinzinger, another Republican who committed the similar offense of holding Repubicans accountable for their behavior -- lashed out with a new round of Heathering. Jorge Bonilla complained in a Dec. 3 post:
Newsmax may have at least 
Last October, WorldNetDaily 
The Media Research Center continued cranking out its anti-George Soros hits into November:
As a reliably pro-Trump website, Newsmax loves giving all the free publicity it can to him. Not only does it regularly air his campaign speeches, it devotes several articles on its website to each speech -- coverage it does not usually give to other Republican presidential candidates (ones that aren't buying airtime on Newsmax TV, anyway). Let's take a look at a few examples of how this has played out at Newsmax over the past several months:
Christian Toto has been 
Last year, as part of its 
One of the things the Media Research Center loves to do when 
Apparently following the lead of columnist 
We've documented how the Media Research Center has 
The Media Research Center spent a good part of last year talking down the ecomony -- despite the fact that, by most traditional measures, it's doing well -- because such factually dubious trash talk is mandated by its right-wing anti-Biden agenda.After all, talking down the economy under Democratic presidents is 
Count Michael Brown as among the 
The Media Research Center's Clay Waters tried to revive an old controversy in a Sept. 29 
