MRC Ignores More Musk Troubles, Still Serves As His PR Shop Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center would rather whine that a comedian made fun of Elon Musk than engage in any serious discussion about how he's mismanaging Twitter (well, X). Thus, you'll hear no mention at the MRC over these recent controversies:
His attempt to counter criticism of his anti-Semitic turn (which the MRC couldn't be bothered to criticize despite its normally strong stance against anti-Semitism) by meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He tweeted a meme supporting the false Pizzagate conspiracy theory, though he was sufficiently shamed online that he eventually deleted it.
When Musk claim of a journalist being allegedly tortured in a Ukrainian prison was debunked -- becaue the guy is actually an online dating coach who was arrested in Ukraine for spreading Russian propaganda -- Musk raged about the Community Notes system that he introducted on his own website when it pointed out his falsehoods. He has a history of deleting Community Notes that correct his false or misleading tweets.
Musk not only restored the account of discredited conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, he appeared in an audio chat with Jones (along with Vivek Ramaswamy).
Despite all of that, the MRC still insists on working as Musk's PR shop. Thus, we have things like a Dec. 13 post by Catherine Salgado hyping another Musk-fluffer:
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) denounced multiple brands that pulled their advertising from X, but have refused to address the national security risks of Chinese-owned TikTok.
Rubio issued a press release announcing he sent letters to 18 companies that were too squeamish to advertise on Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter), but remain active on TikTok, which has Chinese Communist government ties. “I am appalled by the double standard of boycotting an American social-media application while maintaining a presence on a social-media application controlled by America’s greatest adversary,” Rubio wrote in the letter. He pointed out the biased censorship and prolific pro-terrorist content on TikTok, along with its ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government through its parent company, ByteDance. As the senator noted, China’s national security laws require all companies to share data with the government.
Salgado made sure not to bring up the fact that anti-Semitic content on Twitter and from its owner -- and that ads are being placed next to such content -- are the main reasons companies are fleeing from the platform.
It was Tom Olohan's turn to engage in Musk toadyism in a Dec. 21 post:
Independent journalist Tucker Carlson made clear that any chance of a free and fair election in 2024 rests on keeping Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) platform free of censorship.
When entrepreneur and tech investor David Sacks suggested to Carlson that the media would put Biden “over the top” in the 2024 election, Carlson pointed out that there is one large gap in the leftist monopoly on media and social media. On the Dec. 1 edition of All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg, Carlson responded, “Assuming that we have the same media that we had in 2020, that’s true. But that’s why you just gotta pray every night for Elon’s health.” He added, “I mean it, too. I mean it. [X is] the only platform at scale in the world that’s pretty — there’s censorship on it — but there’s not mass censorship actually, there isn’t and that’s the only platform of its kind, at scale, that’s the only one.”
Throughout the episode, Carlson continued to defend Musk, including by mocking CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin as a “fussy little douche” for his behavior during a since-viral interview with Musk. During this interview, Sorkin pressed Musk on his response to an anti-free speech advertiser boycott, but struggled to respond after Musk told anyone pressuring him to “go f*** yourself.”
First, the idea that a right-wing conspiracy-mongerer like Carlson should be considered an "independent journalist" -- as Olohan apparently wants us to believe -- is laughable. Second, Olohan failed to disclose that Sacks is a longtime Musk booster and part of his team of "yes men" to help Musk run Twitter following his takeover, so he's not exactly offering unbiased analysis. Third, Olohan, like Salgado, failed to mention that anti-Semitic conduct on Twitter and by Musk is what's causing advertisers to flee, not an "anti-free speech advertiser boycott"; of course, then he would have to explain how anti-Semitism must be consindered "free speech."
Rather than engage in honest reporting, Olohan chose to fluff Carlson some more:
Earlier in the podcast, Carlson cited Musk’s professed commitment to protect free speech on X as a potential reason behind the desire to bring more censorship to the Musk-owned platform. Tucker also pointed out that there are relatively few large media outlets, such as the three big broadcast channels and three large cable networks, presumably CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. He added that social media is dominated by a few giants “and they were all locked down.”
Carlson went on to mention that even his own former employer tried to control what information Americans could access, adding, “I’m not going to beat up on Fox News but there was kind of a fairly narrow band of acceptable views allowed on that channel. Is that control? Yes, it is. And so there really was no remaining place with scale where someone with a dissenting view could give it voice and that’s just crazy.”
This, Carlson explained, made him greatly appreciate Musk’s social media platform.
Jorge Bonilla similarly trieds to suggest that hate is "free speech" in a Dec. 31 post:
During a year-end wrapup segment on Face The Nation, CBS Senior Business and Technology Correspondent Jo-Ling Kent lamented that “the arguments and protections of free speech” prevent social media companies from engaging in further censorship and viewpoint suppression. Additionally, Kent took a shot at Elon Musk for his free speech reforms at X, formerly known as Twitter.
Watch as Kent also bemoans Musk’s gutting of the fed-embedded Twitter Trust and Safety Team, as aired on CBS Face The Nationon Sunday, December 31st, 2023:
[...]
The giveaway here is the intentional singling out of Elon Musk’s reforms at X. Kent cites the recently reinstated Alex Jones as a “conspiracy theorist” platformed by Musk- but conveniently leaves out those who were suspended but proven right over time, such as vaccine skeptics Robert Malone and Alex Berenson, and the continued platforming of Libs of Tik Tok despite the left’s repeated cancellation efforts.
Both Malone and Berenson are proven liars and misinformers who have not, in fact, been "proven right over time." And privately run social media platforms have every right to remove the accounts of those who promote hate, lies and misinformation.
WND's Brown Quibbles Over NAR Definition Topic: WorldNetDaily
In documenting WorldNetDaily columnist Michael Brown's defense of new House speaker Michael Johnson, we noted that both are a part of the New Apostolic Reformation, a right-wing evangelical movement, and how he accuses NAR critics of not understanding what NAR is. Brown devoted his lengthy Dec. 4 column to expanding that argument, insisting that the critics' NAR is not his NAR:
This article is not meant to provoke or insult or demean or antagonize or gaslight. Instead, it is meant to help readers understand why I continue to say that the "NAR" described by the critics does not exist.
Remember that I freely acknowledge the existence of the New Apostolic Reformation as articulated by Peter Wagner and, in certain ways, spearheaded by him.
I freely acknowledge that I have been a member and leader in the US Coalition of Apostolic Leaders (USCAL), but only after the name was changed from Apostles to Apostolic Leaders, which was subsequent to Dr. Wagner's involvement.
I freely acknowledge that I believe in the ongoing ministry of apostles and prophets in the church, holding to the view that there have been apostles and prophets operating in the church throughout history, even if not called by those names.
I freely acknowledge that I am friends with men like Lou Engle, Randy Clark and Sid Roth.
I freely acknowledge that I am an unashamed Pentecostal-Charismatic, that I have spoken in tongues since Jan. 24, 1972, and that I will gladly debate any qualified leader or scholar on the continuation of the gifts of the Spirit.
Why, then, do I say that the "NAR" of the critics is a fiction?
I'll do my best to explain.
He started off by noting a historian, Matthew D. Taylor, who he says "believes that there is a direct connection between the events of January 6 and the New Apostolic Reformation founded by Dr. Wagner." He went on to claim that "Dr. Taylor has come to recognize that I myself am not part of NAR. He also recognizes that men like Randy Clark are not part of NAR. And, like me, he takes issue with the scholarly methodology of some of the principal critics of the wider 'NAR,' while acknowledging some nuggets of truth in their work, as I also do":
In Dr. Taylor's own words, if you search online for NAR, "You'll find websites with literally thousands of names indexed of different Christian leaders who are supposedly part of 'the NAR.' … You will find writing about the New Apostolic Reformation that sounds like stuff out of a bad conspiracy novel – where NAR leaders are spookily manipulating political leaders like some sort of Charismatic Illuminati."
He adds, "You will also find people, reputable people, journalists, scholars, people who've done their research, pushing back and saying, 'Yes, there is such a thing as the NAR' and they can marshal a lot of evidence, much of it coming from Peter Wagner's writing and associations."
It is the former "NAR" whose existence I deny, the NAR that has become the charismatic boogeyman lurking behind every controversial tree, the global network allegedly numbering hundreds of millions of Christians, poised to take over the world. It is the "NAR" that is described so differently by different critics that many of the descriptions are mutually contradictory.
He went on to cite another critic of NAR and claim that its defintions of NAR are not what he considers NAR to be -- but it comes off as pedantically denying any criticism of NAR as invalid because he simply complains about others' defintions of NAR without trying to examine where those definitions come from. After all, those critics are drawing upon actual writings and statements whose existence Brown does not deny. He concluded:
Why do I deny the existence of "NAR" when I so freely affirm apostolic ministry today, when I recognize the existence of Dr. Wagner's NAR, and when I am an unashamed Pentecostal-Charismatic?
It is because the "NAR" of the critics is a fiction, and a dangerous one at that. For that reason, my appeal remains the same.
Ditch the unhelpful terminology, give up the exaggerated, fear-mongering, click-bait posts, and focus on actual abuses and problems. Then we can get some constructive work done for the glory of God and the good of His people.
Despite his opening claim that he wasn't trying to gaslight people, that's pretty much what he's trying to do here. More accurately, he's engaging in a version of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy, insisting that the definitions others have of NAR can't possibly be true because they don't apply to his own personal defintion of NAR. Yet he still recognizes the power of NAR branding enough, and not consider it tainted, to choose to remain affiliated with it and not try to redefine his beliefs under another term.
MRC Wants You To Know That Person Who Caused Hockey Player's Death Is Black Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center's Jorge Bonilla whined in a Nov. 14 post:
In a bizarre throwaway report, the kind that is used as a timestuffer towards the end of a newscast, NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt goes through the trouble of mentioning the arrest of a suspect in the gruesome death of an American hockey player, but has a most difficult time identifying the suspect.
Watch the report in its entirety, as aired on NBC Nightly News on Tuesday, November 14th, 2023:
LESTER HOLT: In England, an arrest in the death of an American hockey player who died after the blade of an opposing player's skate cut his neck. Adam Johnson, who once played for the Pittsburgh Penguins, was on a British team when the incident happened. Police did not identify the suspect but said he was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.
The report is opaque, and goes to great lengths to bifurcate the fatal slashing of Johnson from the manslaughter arrest. Was the arrestee, mayhaps, someone other than the opposing player who kung fu-kicked Johnson in the neck?
The problem here is that local authorities didn't really name a suspect. But that didn't deter Bonilla's whine:
The events were a kung-fu kick across the throat. South Yorkshire clearly identified a suspect before making an arrest, so it isn’t so much a lack of identification as a refusal to publish.
Even if the suspect wasn’t identified by South Yorkshire, the whole world knows that Matt Petgrave is the one who slashed Adam Johnson. Surely, Holt could’ve spared a second or two to provide that context. Reports like these, with critical information missing, do little if anything to inform the public.
Why is Bonilla so desperate for you to know that Petgrave was arrested in Johnson's death? Presumably because Petgrave is black.That's something that other right-wingers have seized upon has well; Petgrave gas been targeted with racist hate since the incident, portraying him as a murderer; Bonilla leaned into that narrative by accusing him of having "kung fu-kicked Johnson in the neck," heavily implying it was deliberate despite a lack of evidence to support that conclusion. Even though hockey fans love a good bad-guy enforcer, this tends not to apply to black players. Indeed, one writer argued that the situation would likely not be the same if the races were reversed: "If Petgrave had been killed by Johnson’s skateblade, do you believe he would have gotten arrested and charged with manslaughter, too?"
Bonilla doesn't want to actually say any of this out loud to keep a veneer of plausible deniability. His implication of racist motive is enough.
WND's Root Cranks Out More Conspiracy Theories Topic: WorldNetDaily
Wayne Allyn Root crammed a couple of conspiracy theories into his Nov. 10 WorldNetDaily column. First up, replacement theory:
Well, this is starting to feel like "Groundhog Day." The GOP lost again on Election Day earlier this week. This is my post-election analysis of what has happened to America and why the GOP keeps losing elections.
The first answer is simple: The No. 1 problem in America and the No. 1 problem for the GOP is open borders.
Republican voters are being replaced and erased. We are being outvoted. Thanks to Democrat traitors waving the whole world in, America is now a foreign nation to Americans. We're the strangers in our own land.
This open border is the greatest catastrophe in our nation's history – times 100,000 and squared.
This is "The Great Replacement" strategy at work. The citizens are being overrun and outvoted by illegal alien invaders. How do you think Democrats turned California from the land of Republicans like former Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and former Gov. Pete Wilson into a 100% deep-blue Democrat state? They kept adding illegal aliens by the millions until they outvoted California's legal citizens. Eventually no Republican could ever again win a statewide race.
Now Biden (and his boss Obama) are using the California model on the whole nation. Democrats keep waving in hordes of illegals. Then Democrats, unions, Soros-funded organizations, and I'm sure Catholic Charities too immediately show them two things: how to sign up for welfare and food stamps, and how to register to vote.
We are being overrun. This is the Alamo – Part Two. I don't know about you, but I didn't like Part One of the Alamo.
Until the GOP figures out how to stop this, we will keep being overrun … until America and the GOP are both gone forever.
After whining about how the Republican Party is being run under Ronna McDaniel, Root moved on to his old, never-proven election fraud conspiracy theory:
Next up on the brutal honesty list is rigged elections. Open borders and terrible leadership alone are not defeating the GOP. Democrats are cheating. We all know they rigged and stole 2020. Nothing has changed since then. Stop lying and trying to tell me we've made progress.
There is no difference between now and 2020. The system is rigged. Democrats are cheating. Or do you believe with this miserable inflation destroying the middle class, everyone in Virginia just raced to the polls to vote Democrat? Every poll shows 75% of voters hate the direction of America. Yet they voted for more of it? C'mon, I may have been born yesterday, but I wasn't born in the past 15 minutes.
Until the GOP finds a way to ban mail-in ballots with no voter ID, ballot drop boxes, ballot harvesting, dirty voter rolls and votes counted for days after the election (among many other problems), we aren't going to ever win again. Democrats have found a way to permanently rig and steal elections.
Finally, he raged that Democrats are effectively communist:
Are you aware, in world history, once entrenched in power, no one has EVER defeated a communist government at the ballot box. That's because voting isn't what matters in a communist country. All that matters is who counts the ballots.
We are there now. Except the dumb, weak, cowardly GOP is too stupid, blind or bribed to know it.
Then it was time for some Trump-fluffing:
Who is riding to our rescue? I only know one man (for sure) is on our side: former President Donald Trump. I know the deep state hates him. I know he's superhuman. I know he's a one-man army. But even Trump needs a little help. I'm sad to say, I think it's pretty clear now, with people like Ronna McDaniel in charge, the GOP is never going to give it to him.
So, we better come up with another plan. Fast.
I've got a half dozen more brutal reasons the GOP keeps snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. No one can be this stupid. It has to be intentional.
Get ready for Part Two next week.
But Root's column the following week did not offer any more of those alleged "brutal reasons" -- instead, he served up even more Trump-fluffing while sneering at his Republican competition by huffing that "the also-rans who think they're running against Trump in the GOP primary. ... In reality, they're running for vice president … or for bigger book deals and speaking fees … or they're running to represent the RINOs, D.C. swamp, or the deep state." He went on to rant that "Destroying Trump's life was a warning to intimidate every future GOP candidate. ... If we allow Democrats and the deep state to imprison or disqualify Trump, I believe America is finished. Because Democrats will have dictated who we are allowed to vote for. Our votes will be nullified."
MRC's Jean-Pierre-Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch: New Year, Same Old Hate Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center started off a new year with the same old hatred of White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Curtis Houck spent a Jan. 2 post complaining that non-right-wing outlets that interviewed her didn't heap Houck-esque slurs and abuse on her:
On Tuesday morning as more Americans returned to work, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN This Morning, and MSNBC’s Morning Joe partnered with their allies in the Biden administration to forcefeed viewers White House propaganda in the form of softball interviews with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
ABC shamelessly had a Jean-Pierre predecessor — co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos — interview her and billed it as a chance “to discuss President Biden’s priorities and challenges in the year ahead.”
[...]
Thanks to Stephanopoulos refusing to interject on her tome-sized answers, the Clinton official allowed her to run out the clock and left time for not a question, but acknowledgment of the border crisis: “Also tied up in those negotiations, border security. Many American cities now overwhelmed with this immigration crisis.”
Given the lack of time remaining, Stephanopoulos did nothing to challenge her answer ripping Governor Greg Abbott (R-TX) for making American less safe by bussing and flying illegal immigrants to major cities away from his state (which would, therefore, be an admission that illegal immigrant criminals should be taken off the street).
CNN presented the only sorts of challenges and, not surprisingly, they came from the left as fill-in co-host Audie Cornish brought up student loan debt and urged Biden to use more executive orders.
Tim Graham regurgitated all this in his Jan. 3 podcast:
The White House sent out press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for a round of softball TV interviews on ABC, CNN, and MSNBC on January 2. George George Stephanpoulos began: "A lot of the polls show him — especially in the battleground states — trailing or tied with Donald Trump. What does the White House think about that? How can you turn it around?"
As often happens, KJP unspools an answer for more than a minute, without interruption. Salesmanship is given space. She can claim Biden “has accomplished more in three years than any other President has been able to do in two terms,” and no one objects.
Sometimes, the host didn't even ask questions, just a sentence to move things along. How can anyone see this and think these networks do "news" instead of just offer publicity and spin? NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck explains the press-White House partnership.
CNN's Audie Cornish only wanted to challenge her from the left, that somehow "young voters" thought Biden wasn't doing enough to forgive their student loans without any authorization from Congress. Who cares about the balance of powers!?
Houck and Graham seem to have forgotten that they tossed nothing but softballs when they had the chance to interview former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany , so their ciomplaint here is utterly hypocritical.
Houck delved into gossip in a Jan. 5 post, cattily touting an Axios report that "the impressively incompetent Karine Jean-Pierre seems to be jealous and upset with having to share so many briefings with National Security Council spokesman John Kirby":
Why? It’s obvious as Kirby, unlike Jean-Pierre, has a grasp of the English language and shown a basic level of competence in handling of issues in his portfolio, such as Israel vs. Hamas war. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s even smacked down a few reporters for their pro-Hamas takes.
“They share a podium — and a mutual frustration. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and the National Security Council's John Kirby frequently split the podium at media briefings, but behind the scenes their relationship is fraught with tension, White House sources tell Axios,”Thompson began.
[...]
Kirby, for his part, has reportedly become “frustrat[ed]” by Jean-Pierre still calling on reporters for him to take questions from with Thompson’s sources stating another obvious point, which is it’s a sign of Jean-Pierre’s “insecur[ity].”
Instead of wondering if this was due in large part to Jean-Pierre’s incompetence, Thompson carried water and fretted Kirby’s role really hadn’t existed in previous administrations[.]
Houck offered no evidence for Jean-Pierre's purported incompetence that isn't grounded in his personal and partisan hatred of her.
As for the content of actual briefings, Houck lazily rolled them into a Jan. 8 post that made sure to repeat that cattiness:
Last week featured only two White House press briefings (Wednesday and Thursday), but it brought about more of the same as the National Security Council’s John Kirby helmed much of both installments when taking questions about foreign policy and the ever-inept Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre began 2024 with nothing but venom for Biden’s opponents on domestic issues.
Not so coincidentally, the two briefings came prior to a hilarious Axios item on Friday that revealed Kirby and Jean-Pierre reportedly have an icy relationship.
Houck then listed "the best and worst questions from the week"; unsurprisingly, the "best" questions were all from right-wing reporters, whom Houck refused to identify as such.
Newsmax Columnist Whines That It's Pointed Out That Islamophobia Exists Topic: Newsmax
Dennis Kneale followed in the Media Reserach Center's footsteps and spent his Nov. 17 Newsmax column pretending that Islamophobia is nothing to worry about, and perhaps should be actively encouraged, after Hamas attacked Israel:
We live in an upside-down world lately, where wrong is right, common sense is trumped by "feelings," and facts no longer matter. And so it is that the Biden White House, in the wake of the worst Islamic terrorist attack on Israel in the 75-year history of the Jewish State, has declared a first-ever National Strategy to Counter . . .
Islamophobia. "For too long," the White House says, Muslims in America "have endured a disproportionate number of hate-fueled attacks and other discriminatory incidents." This is patently and hilariously false.
"Not a joke," as President Biden might put it. Though it does sound like a punchline from the late Rodney Dangerfield and "I don't get no respect."
Kneale insisted that acknowledging Islamophobia exists is some sort of nefarious political strategy:
So, where is this supposed scourge of anti-Muslim hate?
This is a Democrat strategy, as I point out on my podcast, "What's Bugging Me." Sen. Elizabeth Warren kicked it off by tweeting on X on October 21st: "The United States Constitution is clear: Muslim civil rights are American civil rights. There is no exception. Hate has no place in America. Islamophobia has no place in America. We will not be silent."
This was so totemic it got her a new nickname on Twitchy.com: Pocohamas. By the way, the U.S. Constitution says nothing about "Muslim civil rights."
It says nothing about "Jewish civil rights" either, but Kneale didn't mention that. He went on to whine that "White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre, asked about antisemitism in the U.S., instantly pivots to Islamophobia" -- but he offered no reason why it should not be discussed along with anti-Semitism. Unless, of course, Kneale is all in favor of exploiting the Hamas-Israel war to push hatred of Muslims, even though he offers no evidence that every single Muslim in America is pro-Hamas.
WND's Double Standard On Massacre Coverage By Shooter's Race Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joe Kovacs spent a Nov. 19 WorldNetDaily article making the racist-adjacent argument that a black mass shooter deserved more attention:
A man who murdered four of his female relatives, including a teen, and left another teen critically injured, is dead after turning his gun on himself in Memphis, Tennessee, this weekend.
Now, some are hammering the national news media for their lack of coverage of the story.
It's a gun-grabber narrative that one would expect to make national news, but there is currently radio silence," notes J.D. Rucker at the Liberty Daily.
"The murderer was a black man with a rap sheet that dates back to 1996. Laws, if enforced, would have prevented him from owning the firearm he used to shoot women and girls. Therefore, it's not a story that most in corporate media will want to cover."
[...]
Rucker concluded: "There are two types of 'mass shootings' in the eyes of corporate media.
"Those that advance their gun-grabbing agenda get massive amounts of coverage that includes 'expert' commentaries, biased analysis, and emotion-driven calls for action. Those that do not advance their gun-grabbing agenda get buried."
The racist aspect is so important to Kovacs -- who, of course, makes sure to include a photo of the sooter so we all know that he was black -- that he refused to entertain two more likely factors in the purported lack of coverage of this story: the shooter's victims were family members so there was not a threat to the general public, and mass shootings have become so depressingly regular that a higher body count is needed to get additional media attention.
As you might imagine, WND's own coverage of mass shootings is much different when the shooter is white. Following October's mass shooting in Maine that killed 18 people, WND's coverage included an outside article seeking to blame it on the shooter's alleged mental illness -- as opposed to criminality, which Kovacs empasized for the black Memphis shooter -- and a Nov. 3 article by Bob Unruh touting how gun sales in Maine have increased since the massacre, in which the shooter's alleged mental illness was emphasized:
Democrats and other leftists may insist every time there's a shooting tragedy that it's the fault of the guns, that they have to be confiscated and destroyed, that the only way to prevent the shootings is to make sure people don't have guns.
In the recent Lewiston, Maine, tragedy, shooter Robert Card was found dead two days after. And evidence confirms he'd been treated for mental health issues, and had threatened to do just exactly what he ended up doing, meaning authorities knew that the danger was there beforehand.
But the Washington Examiner is reporting that Americans, millions of them, are on a path the other direction from Democrats.
Their opinion is that a defense against a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun, prompting a huge surge in gun sales in October.
Promoting gun sales is, of course, a right-wing narrative to keep people scared (largely of black people). In neither article was the shooter's race noted -- presumably because he was white and it doesn't suit right-wing narratives to acknowledge that.
NEW ARTICLE -- Slanties 2024: Slantenheimer Topic: The ConWeb
For the 21st time, it's time to honor (as it were) the worst ConWeb reporting and craziest ConWeb opinions of the year. Read more >>
MRC Wants You To Think There's Too Little Islamophobia To Care About Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has long discounted the existence of Islamophobia. In a September 2021 post, for example, Kyle Drennen complained that on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, "MSNBC decided it was a good time to remind viewers how racist America has supposedly been toward Muslim citizens since that horrific day" by interviewing "a panel of six Muslim Americans, many of whom were longtime left-wing activists." He called one panelist's claim that anti-Muslim sentiment has increased since then a "wild assertion," but he made no effort to actually disprove the claim.
After the war between Hamas and Israel started, the MRC again felt the need to downplay Islamophobia. A Oct. 13 post by Alex Christy complained that a fact-checker wanted to separate Muslims as a whole from alleged Hamas atrocities:
Former Al Jazeera producer turned Snopes fact-checker Nur Ibrahim warned on Thursday that discussions of Hamas beheading Israeli babies should be taken with a grain of salt and that “people should be wary of claims that echo Islamophobic rhetoric.”
[...]
Ibrahim was just getting started, “People should be wary of claims that echo Islamophobic rhetoric, or statements that compare the violence in Kfar Aza to ‘ISIS-style’ killings — i.e., beheadings that have taken place in a different context and were committed by a different group. Such rumors that emphasize specific, unverified acts of brutality against infants and that attempt to connect them to patterns of violence carried out by unconnected Islamist groups have the potential to become dangerous propaganda.”
How in the world is being outraged at beheadings “Islamophobic”? And what “context” is Ibrahim referring to? Terrorist beheadings are terrorist beheadings; it really is that simple.
Christy, however, wouldn't explicitly state that Hamas shouldn't be lumped in with Muslims as a whole; instead, he whined about "the hair splitting that seeks to discredit Israel and silence its supporters by crying Islamophobia by differentiating between different types of baby murder is appalling and no one should accept it." Christy sure seems to want to accept Islamophobia, though.
IN an Oct. 17 post, Tim Graham insisted that Islamophobia was a "narrative," not an actual thing:
After the shock of 9/11 wore off, the American media turned toward their natural disposition of worrying about Muslims being discriminated against -- and brutalized -- by ignorant Americans. Now, after what some call Israel's 9/11, we've reached the phase where the media turns once again to that American Islamophobia narrative.
One sign was Palestinian activist Rula Jebreal being invited on Jake Tapper's CNN show immediately after a story on the vicious stabbing death of a 6-year-old Muslim boy outside Chicago, now being investigated as a "hate crime." They want to blame it on talk radio.
Tapper explained it was an important time for Americans to distinguish between Hamas and all Muslims:
JAKE TAPPER: How important do you think it is for people in the media, for our political leaders, religious leaders to make this incredibly important distinction between Hamas, and not only the Palestinian people, but Arabs, and Muslims, all other people who somehow might unfairly and wrongly be lumped in with us?
Is that really a question? How important is it that we make this incredibly important distinction? It's a prompt.
Graham, of cousre, hasno interest in not acknowledging that the vast majroity of Muslims are not violent terrorists, because that doesn't fit his narrative.
Curtis Houck served up his own whine that Islamophobia was acknowledge alongside anti-Semitism in a Nov. 3 post:
This week on NBC’s Today, they went through quite the transformation from caring about anti-Semitism on college campuses (with only passing, almost faux attempts at bothsidesism with Islamophobia) to Thursday creeping toward bothsidesism to Friday pouting with pro-Hamas students being identified in public as terrorist sympathizers.
[...]
Reporting from Emory University, correspondent Blayne Alexander said she had “spoken to a number of students who say they have experienced a range of actions from chants being shouted across campus to troubling social media posts, even the defacing of a poster with Israeli hostages”.
Alexander then introduced bothsidesism (even though it’s only one side where students are being assaulted, chased, and signs being torn down):
Houck further complined that "The rest of the story painted Islamophobia as an equal problem," though he offered no evidence that it wasn't.
Clay Waters ranted in a Nov. 5 post that it was "offensive moral equivalence" to acknowledge that both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia exist:
Thursday’s PBS NewsHour indulged in offensive moral equivalence, pretending that Islamophobia in the United States was as big if not a bigger threat to public safety than the current wave of violent anti-Semitism hitting progressive big cities and college campuses, while also sliming Fox News hosts as endangering Muslims.
Host Geoff Bennett’s segment led with “Islamophobia,” even while Jews are under attack in America.
[...]
The White House’s warped priorities neatly cleaved with the bizarre news emphasis of tax-funded PBS. Not even a month after the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, the left is chasing the convenient phantom of “Islamophobia” to attempt to change the subject from anti-Semitism in the streets.
The idea that Islamophobia is "phantom" and can be ignored because there is also anti-Semitism runs counter to another MRC narrative -- that of making a point of denouncing late-term abortions even though there are so few of them. For instance , when one commentator pointed out that "third-trimester abortions are vanishingly rare," Brad Wilmouth huiffed in a Nov. 11 post that "the fact that Democrats support abortion at any time for any reason is a fact they can't acknowledge is real, or that it matters." If late-ter, abortion matters even though there are so few of them, Islamophobia should matter as well though there is allegedly more anti-Semitism.
But, of course, that's not the way the MRC thinks -- Muslims exist to be hated for a partisan agenda, after all -- so it continued to whine about Islamophobia being discussed. Graham returned for more complaining in a Nov. 12 post:
CBS News can often be described as a megaphone for the Left. But some times, it gets incredibly lazy. On Thursday afternoon, CBSNews.com published an article that can only be described as a press release for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim lobbying group that's been attached to Hamas. The headline was:
"Unprecedented surge" in anti-Arab, anti-Muslim bias incidents reported in U.S. since Israel-Hamas war, advocacy group says
[...]
CBS and its reporter/repeater Emily Mae Czachor made no attempt to seek an opposing view on Islamophobia, or how it compares to the surge in anti-Semitism everyone can see in big cities and leftist college campuses. Is every "request for help" or "report of bias" taken at face value?
Graham didn't explain what kind of "opposing view" he was after -- is it a fellow Islamophobe to claim all this anti-Muslim hate is "phantom"? Of course, Graham himself made no effort to disprove anything in the report despite suggesting it was false.
A Nov. 29 post by Waters actually seemed to argue that not hating Muslims means you're "pro-Hamas":
Who had Parents magazine on their bingo card as running one of the most one-sided stories on the Israel-Hamas war? The magazine of child-raising tips, online-only since 2022, has grown-up to be a home of ignorant rants like a smear against Moms for Liberty, “How 'Klanned Karenhood' Is Infiltrating Schools.”
Contributor Syeda Khaula Saad didn’t try to disguise her slant in “How To Talk to Kids About Islamophobia.” The sub-head served as a sample of Hamas-denial: “As attacks on Palestine intensify, anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence have increased worldwide. Here's some guidance on how to explain Islamophobia to children.” It’s a clumsy piece of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli propaganda under the guise of one of those sensitive “how to talk to your children” pieces.
Saad led with dubious statistics from one of the most notorious Islamic pressure groups, the Hamas-linked CAIR.
[...]
Saad skipped right over the terrorist attacks of 2001 to get to the true victims: Muslims in America. Not even comedian Amy Schumer was spared in her ridiculously thin and tiny roundup of Islamophobia from celebrities.
Waters not only made no effort to back up his assertion that the numbers from CAIR were "dubious," he didn't explain why we are apparently supposed to hate all Muslims because of Hamas and deny that Islamophobia even exists.
Newsmax Columnist Joins The ConWeb's Free-Derek-Chauvin Bandwagon Topic: Newsmax
Michael Dorstewitz joined the ConWebbandwagon to pretend that Derek Chauvin is innocent of killing George Floyd in his Nov. 20 Newsmax column:
Few multi-racial police encounters are based on race, despite the claims coming from the left — especially since the Obama presidency.
And recently released evidence suggests that the death of George Floyd, prompting the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and widespread violence and billions of dollars in property damage, was not what it appeared.
New evidence suggests that former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin did not murder George Floyd in 2020 — that he died instead as the result medical complications — possibly due to drugs.
What’s more, many of the prosecuting attorneys refused to participate in the trial, knowing that Chauvin and the three other officers were innocent.
Alpha News, a Minnesota-based publication, disclosed this new evidence, adding that prosecutors were under “extreme pressure” to indict the officers at the scene.
Note how Dorstewtiz benignly describes Alpha News as "a Minnesota-based publication"; actually, it's a far-right website that promotes conspiracy theories and lacks credibility. Still, he continued:
This was according to recently-released transcripts of depositions taken over the summer of former Hennepin County prosecutor Amy Sweasy, as part of an unrelated civil action she filed against her former boss.
She said that medical examiner Andrew Baker confirmed to her that Floyd had not been murdered. "He told me that there were no medical findings that showed any injury to the vital structures of Mr. Floyd’s neck. "There were no medical indications of asphyxia or strangulation," Sweasy swore under oath.
Nevertheless, Chauvin was found guilty of second degree murder, and the other three officers either pled to, or were found guilty of, aiding and abetting a manslaughter.
Dorestewitz omitted that, as a fact-checker noted, "Sweasy was clear in her deposition that she agreed with the decision to charge Chauvin in the death of Floyd," adding that Sweasy's deposition merely showed "there was internal strife within the prosecutor’s office and disagreement about which charges to level against Chauvin, not whether he should be charged." Nevertheless, Dorstewitz persisted:
Newsmax host Carl Higbee also addressed the autopsy report on "Frontline."
"Derek Chauvin wrestled Floyd to the ground," and "he used a department-approved method of restraint by placing his knee at the base of his neck," he said. [emphasis added]
"There was never any medical evidence that Derek Chauvin’s knee caused any trauma to kill George Floyd, according to section 3 of the autopsy report, quote, 'no life-threatening injuries identified.' Pretty clear."
So what was the cause of Floyd’s death? Higbee addressed that also.
"In section 6 of the same report from George Floyd’s blood work, he had a combined 16.5 milligrams of fentanyl in his system," he said. "Now according to the DEA, folks, just two milligrams of fentanyl is considered a lethal dose."
As the fact-chcker also pointed out, the medical examiner never determined that Floyd died of asphyxia or strangulation; it was a cardiac arrest caused by Chauvin's neck constraint.
Dorstewitz then changed to subject to Barack Obama commenting about police killings of black suspects:
Obama commented on Floyd’s death at a virtual town hall, saying, "I want to speak directly to the young men and women of color in this country, who . . . have witnessed too much violence and too much death.
"And too often some of that violence has come from folks who were supposed to be serving and protecting you."
Contrary to Obama’s preconceptions, a Crime Prevention Research Center study released during his last full year in office, using FBI data, found that white police officers are less likely than their black counterparts to use deadly force against black suspects.
But Obama did not specifically reference white police officers in the transcript Dorstewitz is referencing, meaning that Dorstewitz is dishonestly trying to change the subject. Meanwhile, the fact remains that black suspects are much more likely to be killed by police.
Dorstewitz concluded by whining that people complain about racially motivated police killings: "As long as race-baiters like the Rev. Al Sharpton, MSNBC's Joy Reid, and The Nation's Elie Mystal are given a platform every time a police officer has to use deadly force, we’ll never return to that 'shining city upon a hill' described by Ronald Reagan." But it's not "race-baiting" to suggest that black people killed by police deserved it?
MRC Tried To Dishonestly Blame TikTok For Spread Of Bin Laden Videos Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's war onTikTok -- and its desire to shut it down despite purporting to hate censorship -- continued by blaming it for something its users did. Nicholas Fondacaro huffed in a Nov. 16 post:
Disney-owned ABC put their profits ahead of America on Thursday after they refused to report that TikTok, the social media app controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), was promoting the writings of terrorist Osama Bin Laden. They ignored the story in order to promote their new amusement park in China themed after the movieFrozen. And not only did they ignore TikTok promoting the man behind 9/11, they actually ran a segment touting the app as a good thing.
On Wednesday night, the TikTok algorithm started promoting videos telling viewers to go read Osama’s “Letter to America” and that the 9/11 terrorist attack that killed nearly 3,000 innocent Americans was somehow justified. It was an intentional move that had possibly radicalized many impressionable American young people (along with other useful idiots) and created a national security concern.
Given Fondcaro's penchantforspreadinglies, it's no surprise that he offered no proof whatsoever that the TikTok algorithm allegedly promoting those videos was an "intentional move" -- indeed, his lies are the only thing that's demonstrably intentional here. He went to whine that ABC's"Good Morning America" highlighted a story in which TikTok played a positive role:
They were eager to praise the app because one user managed to find a kidney donor after posting videos about their struggle while waiting. “Back now with our Play of the Day. A lifesaving connection made on TikTok. Lara has the story,” washed-up NFL player Michael Strahan touted.
“It was this post that Katie Allen put up on TikTok that changed her life” added co-host Lara Spencer. “Katie finishes senior year and works as a reporter for the local radio station. She said she is so thankful to be alive, thanks to TikTok, everyone!”
One might have written off the segment as just a vapid human interest piece, but the fact that it paved the way for the network to be corporate whores for Disney’s new park in China arguably pointed to a need to downplay China’s poisonous influence as their dictator was touring America.
Apparently, Fondacaro would have been pleased to see this person die rather than benefiting from an app he irrationally hates for partisan purposes. Needless to say, he provided no evidence to back up his claim that ABC was following Chinese orders to promote this story.
Fondacaro followed up the next day by whining that a media outlet told both sides of the story -- specifically that TikTok pointed out how the bin Laden letter first started spreading on other platforms like, um, MRC favorite Elon Musk's Twitter/X:
After omitting the story on their morning and evening newscasts on Thursday, Friday was the day NBC’s Today finally decided that they should mention that the China-own social media platform TikTok had been promoting a letter written by late Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. But instead of piling on the criticism of the app used by the Chinese Communist Party to harm Americans, NBC senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson ran defense by parroting TikTok’s deflection to other platforms.
[...]
Stepping up to defend the Chi-Com app, Jackson added: “TikTok now stripping the hashtag #lettertoAmerica from its search function.”
In a statement on X, formerly Twitter, TikTok tried to claim the trend didn’t originate on their platform and tried to shift blame to their competitors (bolding theirs): “The number of videos on TikTok is small and reports of it trending on our platform are inaccurate. This is not unique to TikTok and has appeared across multiple platforms and the media.”
Fondacaro didn't dispute the accuracy of TikTok's defense -- he was just performatively outraged that TikTok was allowed to defend itself.
In antoher Nov. 17 post, Catherine Salgado hyped a right-wing congressman trying to exploit the story for his own partisan purposes:
As Communist Chinese government-tied TikTok spreads anti-Semitic hatred, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) emphasized the need to ban the popular app.
A fired-up Hawley joined Fox News's Hannity to blast TikTokers who launched a disturbing trend of promoting eliminated Al-Qaeda terrorist and 9/11 architect Osama Bin Laden’s anti-Semitic and anti-American “Letter to America” on the Communist Chinese government-tied platform. When host Sean Hannity asked Hawley why TikTok is even allowed in America at this point, the senator agreed, calling the social media platform an “espionage” and “propaganda” tool. “We ought to ban it,” Hawley declared.
Salgado was silent about the fact that Musk's Twiter/X is also a prolific spreader of anti-Semitism -- along with Musk himself -- but the likes of Hawley are not demanding that it be shut down.
The MRC also published a Nov. 19 column by Erick Erickson arguing that the bin Laden video controversy demonstrated that "TikTok really must be destroyed in its present form." Funny, we don't recall Foncacaro or Erickson demanding Twitter be destroyed because it's a fount of anti-Semitism.
WND Can't Stop Whitewashing The Crimes Of Capitol Rioters Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's attempts to whitewash the actions of Capitol rioters continued with a Nov. 20 article by Bob Unruh:
Stewart Parks, who had sought the GOP nomination for Tennessee's 5th congressional district seat just a year ago, now is facing eight months in jail for being in the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
But he charges the judge was in collusion with prosecutors in his case, and railroaded him.
"He is marked by the Left as an 'insurrectionist' on a conviction of five federal charges," all misdemeanors, explains a report in the Tennessee Star.
He just one of hundreds and hundreds of Americans facing similar charges even though many of them were invited into the Capitol by security officers, as documented in videos from security cameras now being released.
Those videos, in fact, have undermined the bogus narrative promoted by Democrats for years that it was an "insurrection" that day.
Actually, they have not -- given how that footage is cherry-picked and doesn't negate all the footage of the rioters being violent -- and all the reprinting of articles from the entirely unreliable Gateway Pundit, which Unruh linked to here, does not change that. After quibbling again about the defintion of "insurrection." Unruh got back to Parks:
The Star report explained Parks said "the evidence of his trial 'proved' he was not guilty. He claims [Judge Amit P.] Mehta, an Obama appointee, 'colluded' with the prosecutors and identified the defendant by the wrong name when sentencing him late Wednesday afternoon in the D.C. Court."
He has been sentenced to eight months behind bars for his misdemeanor offenses.
Unruh failed to mention that one of the charges against Parks was theft of government property, in whiich he stole a metal detecting wand.
WND lazily reprinted a dishonest Gateway Pundit piece in a Dec. 4 article by Jim Hoft (boldface in original):
Infowars reporter and "War Room" host Owen Shroyer was sentenced to 60 DAYS IN PRISON back in September in a D.C. kangaroo court for his actions on Jan. 6, 2020 and before.
Owen stood outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 and warned Trump supporters not to go inside the building.
Owen also frequently spoke out against the stolen 2020 election.
DOJ prosecutors sought prison time against Owen for his speech crimes and of course the DC Judge agreed.!
Judge Tim Kelly sentenced Owen to 60 DAYS IN PRISON in September!
Owen Shroyer pleaded guilty in June to a single Class A Misdemeanor of Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building or Grounds on January 6, 2021.
[...]
On Monday news broke that Owen will be released early from prison.
Owen may be home for Christmas after serving time for wrongthink.
As we pointed out the last time WND published a Gateway Pundit article defending Shroyer -- but, again, Hoft failed to do -- the reason Shroyer spent time in jail was because his presence at the Capitol violated a 2019 agreement with authorities, made after he interrupted a congressional hearing, that deferred prosecution because he agreed not to utter in "loud, threatening, or abusive language, or to engage in any disorderly or disruptive conduct, at any place upon the United States Capitol Grounds." Shroyer's purported "wrongthink" was not a factor at all, and Hoft offered no evidence to back up that assertion. Hoft also failed to mention that Infowars refused to pay Shroyer while he was in jail, which you'd think Hoft might be a little upset about. Still, Hoft added:
The next time some crazy, uninformed Democrat tells you about how Joe Biden is saving Democracy tell them to shove it where the son don’t shine tell them about Owen Shroyer’s unjust imprisonment.
Who's really the crazy, uninformed one? That would be WND, for continuing to publish factally deficient Gateway Pundit articles -- and further destroying what little credibility it has in the process.
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.
The Media Research Center would rather whine that a comedian made fun of Elon Musk than engage in any serious discussion about how he's mismanaging Twitter (well, X). Thus, you'll hear no mention at the MRC over these recent controversies:
In 
The Media Research Center's Jorge Bonilla whined in a Nov. 14 
Wayne Allyn Root crammed a couple of conspiracy theories into his Nov. 10 WorldNetDaily 
The Media Research Center started off a new year with the same old hatred of White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Curtis Houck spent a Jan. 2 
Dennis Kneale followed in the 
Joe Kovacs spent a Nov. 19 WorldNetDaily 
The Media Research Center has long discounted the existence of Islamophobia. In a September 2021 
Michael Dorstewitz joined the 
The Media Research Center's 
WorldNetDaily's 
Liz Cheney has 
Newsmax may have at least 
Last October, WorldNetDaily 
