MRC Can't Stop Denying That Univision's Trump Interview Was A Puff Piece
Topic: Media Research Center

When we last left off, the Media Research Center's Jorge Bonilla was trying to insist that Univision's softball interview of Donald Trump (which he won't admit it was) was a great thing -- but somehow also meaningless because he has to keep up the narrative of Univision being left-wing reprobates. But as the criticism of the softball interview continued to grow, other MRC writers felt the need to weigh in. Jeffrey Lord spent his Nov. 25 column complaining about the critics, with a dash of whataboutism:

The Hispanic network Univision is getting whacked by liberals. Why? Because they had the temerity to sit down for an interview with the former President of the United States who also happens to be the leading-by-a-lot candidate for the 2024 GOP nomination.

That would be, of course, Donald Trump.

[...]

Univision was created to model the left-leaning American broadcast networks. Which are nothing if not leftist propaganda machines. Univision was specifically designed, according to its ex-president, to be a Spanish-language version of those left-wing propaganda networks. 

And now? Now the new leadership of Univision chose to arrange an interview with…..Republican former President Donald Trump. Ohhhhhh, the horror.

On top of which Blaya accuses Univision and Trump of spreading -- you guessed it -- propaganda. As if he's never watched an American network slobber over Barack and/or Michelle Obama.

[...]

It is not news to note that Democrats view the Hispanic community not as a diverse, thoughtful community but rather as the political property of progressives. In which  contrary thought to the progressive mindset is not allowed. Univision, in that mindset, was built to be on the liberal plantation. And with this Trump interview the network had the audacity to step off of that plantation.

The all-American holiday season is now officially upon us. Serious politics will emerge once past the Christmas rush.

Lord ignored the fact that much of the criticism comes from the softball nature of the interview, not that it was done at all.

Bonilla returned for a Nov. 26 post whining that longtime Univision anchor Jorge Ramos pointed out the softball nature of the interview:

It was a matter of time before Univision senior anchor and Special Editorial Advisor to the CEO Jorge Ramos weighed in on the controversy surrounding Televisa’s interview of former President Donald Trump. And, in a manner similar to his own interactions with Donald Trump, he made it all about himself.

The Trump interview happened nearly three weeks ago, but the Ramos response ran on Ramos’ website during a holiday weekend. Was The New York Times pitched but not interested? Or did Ramos wait for the holiday to drop his column? Weird timing.

The column, titled “The Danger of Not Confronting Trump”, wastes no time in going to the heart of the matter, which is Jorge Ramos.

When Ramos pointed out that he has never interviewed Trump but was limited to asking a couple questions at a 2015 campaign stop in Iowa, Bonilla huffed that it was "a performative confrontation" -- as if Peter Doocy and other right-wing reporters don't do the same in the White House briefing room. Meanwhile, Bonilla still wouldn't admit that the crux of the issue was that it was a softball interview, and he again tried to insist that it means nothing to his designated anti-Univision narrative:

The media’s narrative surrounding the Televisa interview of Trump is not one of a corporate parent trying to restore balance to a property gone horribly wrong that has lost significant trust within its own viewing cohort, but of Univision’s brave struggle for editorial independence. But again, and so we’re crystal clear, by “independence” we mean the independence to remain a repository of Democrat [sic] talking points. Nothing else.

When actor John Leguizamo used a "Daily Show" segment to point out the softball nature of the interview, Bonilla again ignored that salient criticism and clung even harder to his Univision-is-evil narrative in another Nov. 26 post:

Leguizamo, who last made news by race-whining over actor John Franco’s casting as Fidel Castro, saw fit to post a video somewhere and call for a boycott of Univision over its deviation from its normal editorial standards, which is to be a reliable Democrat talking point regurgitator. And now, we suffer this obnoxious rant which aired on the desiccated husk of The Daily Show.

The media ran with Leguizamo’s initial video, oohing and aahing at these calls to counter an editorial shift THAT NEVER HAPPENED. There is no shift at Univision. There may be the perception of a shift, but there is no actual shift. And the fact that the media continue to amplify denunciations of a nonexistent shift means that none of these people that supposedly care so much about Univision ever even watch Univision. In fact, the Venn diagram of people who saw Leguizamo’s dopey rant and watch Univision regularly is two circles, a thousand miles apart. The woke anglos in the studio whooped and hollered, but no one who might actually be affected by an editorial shift at Univision actually saw any of this nonsense.

In the end, this is just a tantrum meant to create the illusion of an editorial shift. Don’t believe the hype of a shift unless Jorge Ramos and President of News Daniel Coronell either tender their resignations or are the subjects of a press release wishing them all the luck in their future endeavors.

Bonilla was still cranking out performative outrage at anyone daring to point out the softball Trump interview. He played whataboutism in a Dec. 4 post:

There’s been a lot of recent Acela Media and Professional Latinx outrage over 2024 presidential candidates doing what they perceive to be softball interviews with Spanish-language media. Case in point, the kerfuffle over former President Donald Trump’s interview with TelevisaUnivision. Not surprisingly, they don’t share the same concern for President Joe Biden’s interview with a radio network owned and operated by the foundation previously overseen by his campaign manager.

[...]

This interview of Joe Biden aired just before Thanksgiving on a radio network owned and operated by the family of his campaign manager, as the left were still in full meltdown mode over the Trump-Univision interview. This whining is not about “disinformation”, but about the left’s perceived loss of monopoly power and control over what Spanish-dominant audiences see and hear as news content.

Note that Bonilla still refuses to admit the Trump interview was softball-laden, conceding only that it was "perceive to be" a softball interview (while ignoring that this perception is correct).

When Univision President of News Daniel Coronell defended the Trump interview, Bonilla hyped it another Dec. 4 post (while, of course, still clinging to the corporate anti-Univision narrative):

Coronell defends both the style and substance of an interview, and explains the history behind the interview. He explains Enrique Acevedo’s approach to the interview, which was to get full answers from Trump. Coronell also addresses the issue of Joe Biden’s ads.

The record reflects, with crystal clarity, that we are no fan of Coronell. Much of Univision’s descent into open partisanship happened under Coronell’s watch, and I don’t think that a one-shot interview with Trump will suddenly undo years of institutional decay. The left are making much ado about nothing.

The whole episode is a reminder that the left only care about having the power to decide what news and information Hispanics see and hear. The perceived loss of control, although having no basis in fact, is what triggered the left's manic outcry over this interview. 

We publish Coronell’s remarks here because they are relevant to the controversy, they address critics’ concerns, and are therefore in the public interest. Furthermore, the Acela Media parachuting into this story wouldn’t even know where to begin to look for Coronell’s remarks. You’re welcome.

More than a month after the interview, Bonilla was still at it, this time raging in a Dec. 12 post at a New York Times article on the interview:

The idea that the onetime home of Walter Duranty should be taken seriously on anything pertaining to an editorial shift, or concern over an editorial shift at any other media outlet, is laughable. But, alas, here we are. The Old Grey Lady is the latest to weigh in on the Acela Media’s collective panic over Univision’s interview of former President Donald Trump specifically, and over a perceived editorial shift at Univision generally.

[...]

As with the other pieces, this article conveys the left’s sense of mourning over an ongoing Hispanic shift away from the Democrat Party. Is Univision’s shift real? As I’ve stated before, personnel is policy, and it’s hard to imagine Univision completely shifting to the center with the personnel that are currently in place- chief among them Jorge Ramos. 

Univision’s so-called shift may come down to that old Michael Jordan proverb: “Republicans buy sneakers, too”. It turns out that they also buy ads.

Once more, Bonilla absolutely refused to admit the Trump interview was a puff piece and insisted that its existence doesn't change the anti-Univision narrative he's paid to spout.

Newsmax Still Parroting False And Biased Attacks Against NewsGuard
Topic: Newsmax

Newsmax continued its parroting of right-wing attacks against website-rating service NewsGuard witha Dec. 9 article by Eric Mack featuring another right-wing outlet complaining that their shoddy work was called out:

The Biden administration could not get around the First Amendment in silencing dissent, but it has effectively found a way through the State Department paying NewsGuard to defund conservative media, according to a trio of researchers from the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER).

The First Amendment is "is so clear that only a politician could manage to miss the point," AIER senior researchers Phillip Magness, James Harrigan, and Ryan Yonk wrote in the New York Post this week.

[...]

The Post and AIER have been targeted by NewsGuard — founded by Steven Brill, a Democrat activist and donor, in 2018. Newsmax has reported it has been, too.

NewsGuard's rankings have since been used by advertising agencies to target and block conservative media from obtaining advertising revenue.

The complaints from Mack and AIER are generalized as to subject but don't get too deep into specifics,  suggesting that it's simply playing a partisan game rather than engaging in any sort of good-faith criticism.

A Dec. 13 article -- which was later deleted from the Newsmax website without explanation, though it lives in the Internet Archive -- featuring one of NewsGuard's most dishoenst critics, the Media Research Center (which posted its own version of the segment):

NewsGuard, the ensorship giant self-tasked with rating media outlets on reliability, has “for years been silencing conservatives, directing ad revenue to liberals instead,” said Dan Schneider, vice president of Media Research Center’s Free Speech America.

The biased company has been "choking off the life blood of conservative media outlets, all because of their zeal to defeat Donald Trump and any conservative that wants to stand for basic American principles," he told Newsmax.

“NewsGuard has one standard, that is defeat conservatives, promote liberals,” Schneider said Wednesday during an appearance on Newsmax TV’s “Chris Salcedo Show.”

Media Research Cente [sic] on Tuesday released a study that found that NewsGuard “overwhelmingly favored left-leaning outlets over right-leaning ones.”

Using AllSides, an organization that classifies media outlets by their “right” to “left” bias, “MRC researchers determined that NewsGuard provided a stellar average ‘credibility’ rating of 91/100 for ‘left’ and ‘lean left’ outlets (e.g., The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, Vox),” wrote MRC researchers. Meanwhile, “right” and “lean right” outlets, such as Fox News, the New York Post, and The Daily Wire, were given “an outrageously abysmal average score of 65/100.”

Schneider also criticized left-leaning news outlets for covering up the Hunter Biden probe “because he’s part of the Biden bribery scandal.”

“This is how Joe Biden and his family have been making money for a long time. And NewsGuard is covering for it. NewsGuard is not going to go back and re-rate all those media outlets that said the Hunter Biden laptop was a hoax. … Their bias is so extreme that the left is willing to give our taxpayer dollars, millions of our taxpayer dollars, to NewsGuard and other outlets just like it.”

Newsmax did not allow anyone from NewsGuard to respond to Schneider.

A Dec. 11 article by Mark Swanson hyped a Republican attack on NewsGuard:

House and Senate Armed Services committees last week concluded their negotiations on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Republicans have won a significant victory opposing woke censorship programs that impact Pentagon recruiting.

The Democrat-led Senate has agreed with Johnson’s demand the annual defense spending bill not allow Pentagon dollars to be spent with ad agencies that use "misinformation" media monitors.

Left-wing groups such as NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) have been used by major advertising agencies to block military recruitment ads on many conservative media outlets.

The new NDAA provision expressly prohibits any advertising agency the Defense Department contracts with from using services that engage in "determinations of misinformation."

The new law would also require the Pentagon to inform the House and Senate Armed Services committees any time the recruitment division directly contracts with NewsGuard, GDI or a similar entity.

Swanson did let NewsGuard respond -- though it took him three days to update his story to include that response -- but he continued to attack the group anyway, engaging in nitpicking over Hunter Biden's laptop:

In an email to Newsmax, NewsGuard disputed that it “was not a ‘vocal advocate’” of claims that the Hunter Biden’s laptop “represented Russia misinformation.”

However, the New York Post reported that NewsGuard CEO [Steve] Brill was a leader in declaring the Hunter Biden laptop story a “hoax.”

Also, NewsGuard’s board adviser, General Michael Hayden, a former director of the CIA, was a principal advocate for asserting the laptop was Russian disinformation, and was one of 51 signatories to a now discredited letter made public in October 2020 making such a claim.

Despite the false claims about the laptop being a “hoax,” neither Brill nor NewsGuard has offered a retraction.

swanson offered no evidence that either Brill or Hayden were speaking on behalf of NewsGuard when they made those statement, and he failed to disclose that the New York Post offered no independent verification of the laptop at the time it introduced the story on it that would have addressed reasonable concerns about its authenticity.

Newsmax parroted the MRC again in a Dec. 14 article by Michael Katz:

NewsGuard, the left-wing media ratings group, continues to target conservative news outlets, a new study by the Media Research Center (MRC) finds.

In its annual review of NewGuard's rankings, an MRC Free Speech America study found that for the third year in a row NewsGuard continues to significantly outrank liberal and far-left news outlets over conservative ones.

"NewsGuard is just another leftist group trying to censor conservatives," MRC President Brent Bozell said in a statement. "We have the proof."

Note that Katz put a "left-wing" label on NewsGuard but no ideological label on the MRC despite its  clear right-wing bias.

Katz did let NewsGuard repsond -- then let the MRC respond to the response:

"The analysis in question is highly flawed, relying on a cherry-picked sample of just 66 ratings out of more than 9,500 NewsGuard has issued, less than 0.7%.," NewsGuard's Matt Skibinski told Newsmax.

"In fact, NewsGuard's apolitical process has resulted in many conservative publications outscoring similar left-leaning publications and vice versa — for example, The Daily Caller outscores The Daily Beast, The Daily Wire outscores the Daily Kos, and FoxNews.com outscores MSNBC.com."

MRC told Newsmax that these "outscores" have not always reflected the rankings for conservative media like The Daily Caller, The Daily Wire, and Fox News.

It also noted that outspoken conservative critics of NewsGuard, like Newsmax and The Federalist, have also been targeted for extremely low scores.

Neither Katz nor the MRC offered evidence that NewsGuard downgrades a media outlet solely for criticizing it. Swanson returned to tout another right-wing attack on NewsGuard in a Dec. 21 article:

Florida CFO Jimmy Patronis announced a consumer protection bill Thursday that would prevent state agencies from using taxpayer funds to contract with media censorship companies like NewsGuard.

Florida HB 939 mirrors similar federal legislation that moved to strike the Pentagon from contracting with advertising agencies that use NewsGuard to blacklist conservative publications.

"We've got state agencies throughout Florida trying to reach the public to provide critical services, and we need to make sure advertisers who partner with the state are doing their very best to reach the specific groups," Patronis said in the announcement.

"NewsGuard's technology, however, is working its way into the advertising world, and effectively blacklisting media outlets who don't measure up to their ratings."

The legislation comes on the heels of Patronis' letter to NewsGuard in March, warning then he would "not hesitate to use the full force of my office to shed light on the organization you're running."

Swanson is lying by calling NewsGuard a "media censorship companies," and later in the article he falsely called NewsGuard "far-left."

MRC Attacks Film On Mosque Arson, Still Won't Admit Islamophobia Exists
Topic: Media Research Center

Fresh off effectively denying that Islamophobia exists, the Media Research Center wants to make a documentary about a arson at a Texas mosque about anything but the actual arson. Clay Waters complained in a Nov. 26 post:

The latest PBS Independent Lens film program, “A Town Called Victoria,” was a three-hour report on the January 2017 firebombing of the Victoria Islamic Center mosque in the small town of Victoria, Texas. Predictably, there was a deeper left-wing political message within this documentary, part of the “Exploring Hate” series by NYC-based public television station WNET.

[...]

Documentary director Li Lu tried the usual film-making moves, opening with an audio montage of former presidents mentioning Islam (like President G.W. Bush after 9-11). But she snuck in partisan and ideological jabs with her source seelction, going beyond the awful crime itself to score political points against President Trump or Republicans in general -- blaming Trump’s temporary ban on travel from seven majority-Muslim countries for the arson attack.

Waters whined that the film was allegedly "going beyond the awful crime itself to score political points against President Trump or Republicans in general -- blaming Trump’s temporary ban on travel from seven majority-Muslim countries for the arson attack" -- but he didn't mention the fact that the arson occurred literally just hours after Trump signed that ban, making it a reasonable point to bring up.

Waters went on to complain that the film portrayed the crime as an act of white supremacy even though a Latino man committed the arson, then took a couple irrelevant shots at longtime MRC target and Texas politician Beto O'Rourke:

Lu was much nicer to Democrats, like Sen. Cruz’s failed 2018 Democratic opponent Beto O’Rourke. Documentary star Omar Rachid introduced O’Rourke at a local rally.

Rachid: When asked if I would introduce Beto, I said, are you kidding me? I mean this is like a dream come true! And it gives me the microphone! Beto O'Rourke!

Rachid took Beto’s eventual loss hard, and petulantly blamed the anti-Muslim atmosphere among his neighbors before leaving town for good. Apparently not voting for a liberal Democrat with who's served just three terms in Congress makes one automatically anti-Muslim. (And Beto went on to lose a presidential bid, and a gubernatorial bid.)

What Waters didn't do, however, was condemn the arson in any meaningful way or explain the Islamophobic motivation of the perpetrator Marq Vincent Lopez, as federal prosecutors did:

Testimony at trial detailed how Perez conducted what he described as “recon” by breaking into the mosque a week before he set it on fire. Evidence presented at trial showed Perez communicated with someone through Facebook about breaking into the mosque a second time, the same night of the fire. A witness who was with Perez on the night of the fire described how Perez used a lighter to set papers on fire inside the mosque and how excited Perez was upon seeing the mosque in flames just minutes later.

The witness testified that Perez said that he burned down the mosque, because he wanted to “send a message.”

During the execution of a search warrant, federal agents recovered stolen property taken from the mosque the night of the fire in Perez’s home. Several witnesses at trial also testified about Perez’s animus towards Muslims and that he often used anti-Muslim slurs.

Of course, Waters and the MRC don't think Islamophobia exists, so these facts would have caused cognitive dissonance with their narratives -- which is why Waters chose to lash out at O'Rourke instead. Indeed, Waters' hit job was so sloppy that he couldn't even be bothered to get the name of the documentary right in the headline -- it's "A Town Called Victoria," not "A Town In Victoria," which doesn't even make sense.

WND Repeats Bogus Story That Photojournalists Embedded With Hamas
Topic: WorldNetDaily

An anonymous WorldNetDaily writer dutifully parroted a conservatively correct narrative in a Nov. 8 article:

A new report about the images that came out of the Oct. 7 terror attack by Hamas on innocent Israeli civilians is raising questions about the actions of photographers apparently employed by AP, CNN, Reuters and the New York Times.

The charge is that the photographers were "EMBEDDED" with the Hamas terrorists.

They "accompanied the terrorist group into Israel. They knew the attack was coming and participated in it."

It is at Honest Reporting the details are spelled out.

"Hamas terrorists were not the only ones who documented the war crimes they had committed during their deadly rampage across southern Israel. Some of their atrocities were captured by Gaza-based photojournalists working for the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies whose early morning presence at the breached border area raises serious ethical questions," it explained.

[...]

A report from Pam Geller, commentator and activist, said, "We need war tribunals to prosecute these war criminal news orgs. The names of the photographers, which appear on other sources, have been removed from some of the photos on AP’s database. Perhaps someone at the agency realized it posed serious questions regarding their journalistic ethics."

One social media commenter said, of the positioning of the photographers alongside Hamas, "Yes, this is real."

But it wasn't. As we documented when the Media Research Center pushed this same claim, HonestReporting eventually admitted it had no evidence to back up its claim of embedding -- it was playing the "we're just asking questions" card. The news organizations accused of embedding all denied HonestReporting's claim as well.

Despite the fact that the story wasn't true, WND insisted on continuing to promote it anyway. Bob Unruh wrote in a Dec. 7 article:

Congress has begun investigating various media outlets that had reporters "embedded" with Hamas during the terror organization's attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

That was when terrorists, likely drugged up and with instructions to commit atrocities against Israeli civilians, did just that, beheading babies and burning entire families alive.

Further details revealed after the attack that killed an estimated 1,400 show that the terrorists raped both men and women, and murdered them in stunningly brutal fashion.

Having reporters embedded with an event is a common occurrence for media organizations, such as at protests, parades and such. But the legal and ethical questions of allowing reporters to knowingly accompany terrorists on a murder spree raise red flags the size of the state of Texas.

Unruh failed to tell readers that the claims were disproven and HonestReporting never had any evidence to back it up.

It's shoddy reporting like this that makes WND utterly untrustworthy.

MRC Defends Univision's Softball Interview Of Trump -- But Still Wants You To Believe Univision Is Still Liberal
Topic: Media Research Center

A couple months back, Univision did an interview with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in which he faced no tough questions and was fawned over by interviewers. The Media Research Center's Jorge Bonilla spent a Nov. 10 post claiming to be shocked by the interview -- but, as a right-winger, the softball nature of it was a good thing ("totally normal," he called it in his headline), though it blew up his narrative that Univision has a liberal bias:

I sat down and watched TelevisaUnivision’s interview with former President Donald J. Trump, expecting fiery exchanges and contentiousness and I am in complete shock for there were no such things. Instead, viewers watched a calm, rational dialogue between Trump and Televisa N+ anchor Enrique Acevedo. And I can't quite figure out why.

[...]

This was the tone throughout the entire interview. History, too extensive to get into here, suggests that this should not have been the case. From the moment Trump descended the gilded escalator at Trump Tower, Univision (at the time not a wholly owned subsidiary of Mexico’s Televisa but owned by a private equity group headed by Hillary Clinton megadonor Haim Saban) set out to cast him as a monster, and depict him as such to their viewing audience. And this was the editorial course that Univision charted right up until they were bought out by Televisa in 2022. 

I was always told, by sources within Univision, that the network wanted to pursue a different editorial tack so as to avoid being perceived as a foreign-owned Democrat talking point regurgitator. But the on-screen product never quite caught up to those lofty promises. Until tonight's apparent shift.

I was struck by the choice of anchor. Enrique Acevedo is no stranger to the MRC, and we’d covered him extensively both as Univision anchor and as 60 Minutes correspondent. He recently returned to Mexico, post-merger, and took over as anchor of Televisa’s prime time evening newscast. There were plenty of people at Univision HQ in Doral (OK, a handful) who could’ve done the interview but the choice of Acevedo intrigued me. I began to suspect that the whole op was run from Mexico City.

[...]

One thing to watch for going forward: will Trump (or Republicans in general) begin to garner different coverage on Univision, or is this a one-off for both Trump and Univision? And, if so, why?

Another thing: exactly how much “internal grumbling” is there within Univision’s news division, which has now been very publicly and visibly defenestrated?

In a Nov. 15 post, however, Bonilla was in narrative-salvaging mode, insisting that the softball interview (though he still won't call it that) was a one-off and that Univision is still as purportedly left-wing as ever:

One constant throughout my conversations with those who work in local media (particularly local media serving Hispanic communities) is the contemptuous tone reserved for the “parachute media”: that is, members of the elite Acela Media (“media reporters” and such) who “parachute” into a subject matter they know nothing about, fart out their reports, and then return to D.C. or New York. I’ve thought about that quite a bit as I consider the quality of reporting subsequent to Televisa’s interview of former President Donald Trump.

The common thread to emerge from coverage of the interview and subsequent reaction is that the interview is somehow representative of Univision shifting to the right. I assure you, this is the fakest of fake news.

[...]

One swallow does not a summer make, despite both the irrational exuberance of my MAGA friends and the irrational anguish of my friends on the left. One interview, planned and executed by Univision’s corporate parent, does not constitute a major editorial shift. But Acela “media journalists” unable to distinguish between Doral and Mexico City would have you believe that.

Univision has not shifted to the right, and is not suddenly willing to grant a fair hearing to conservatives. Univision is still the same corporate immigration client of the Democratic Party, and is as willing as ever to foist the rest of the leftwing policy pupu platter upon its viewers. That’s my assessment of the facts as they stand today. So long as [Univision anchor Jorge] Ramos and [Televisa news director Daniel] Coronell are in place and in charge, Noticias Univision will remain what it has always been- a reliable left-wing cesspool.

When former Univision anchor María Celeste Arrarás pointed out that the softball, unchallenging nature of the interview misleads voters, Bonilla chose in a Nov. 19 post to dishonestly frame that has her claiming that "Latinos are unable to view and process facts as presented to them, without media 'context' and 'nuance'":

Let me translate this for you. When she says “no matter how intelligent they are”, Arrarás really means that Hispanics are “not intelligent enough” to be trusted to analyze the news of the day for themselves, and therefore need it spoon-fed and filtered to them with a Democrat lens through approved gatekeeper institutions. Although one always suspects that the media have deep-seated contempt for their viewing public, it is nonetheless surprising to hear someone express that contempt out loud. 

This is the main argument against the Televisa-Trump interview- this perceived loss of air supremacy on a cornerstone institution of the Latino Grievance Industrial Complex. What Arrarás is arguing for is for Spanish-language media to continue to alter the perceptions (and therefore, the reality) of their viewers; unchecked, unabated, and unopposed. 

Arrarás’ bit on foreign undue influence is also hilarious, primarily because no one bothered to complain about “undue foreign influence” when Univision was out there doing all the disinformation on behalf of Democrats. But book ONE interview with Donald Trump and everyone loses their minds.

Funny how Bonilla was demanding balance when he claimed that Democrats were dominating Univision, but he wants no such balance for a softball Trump interview.

As people continued to question why Trump was given such a softball interview, Bonilla continued to whine about the complainers. He did that in condescending fashion in a Nov. 20 post:

As I’ve stated many times, the Latinx Grievance Industrial Complex is up in arms over the perceived (and, perhaps, imagined) loss of air supremacy on one of its cornerstone institutions- Univision. Which is how we end up with Ana Navarro, on The View, DEMANDING to know how and why this is happening.

After having to endure this segment, I’ve gained an even greater appreciation for our friend Nick Fondacaro, who watches this nonsense on a daily basis so you don’t have to. Anyway, heeeeeeere’s Ana:

[...]

Univision, a reliable Democrat talking point regurgitator for decades, is both a gatekeeper institution into the Latino community, as created and organized by the left, and an approved purveyor of information to the community. Thus, the Trump interview is seen as a major breach. Univision is perceived to have breached its fiduciary responsibility towards the rest of the Professional Political Latinx class, by having the temerity to allow Donald J. Trump to sit down with a journalist and answer questions in a normal, conversational tone.

This is the basis upon which Navarro, John Leguizamo, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, along with the rest of the Latinx Industrial Complex, have demanded that Univision reverse course and go back to being a reliable Democrat talking point machine- which it never stopped being in the first place. Had the shoe been on the other foot, these very groups would be denouncing these activities as a gross attack upon a free and independent press.

I use such words as “imagined” and “perceived” because there is no actual editorial shift at Univision, and no substance to the conversation beyond what I described in the previous paragraph. And so it is that we have to endure five minutes of the Viewteratti’s discourse on Univision- which, honestly, felt like five hundred.

Yes, Bonilla is still defending the softball interview while insisting it doesn't change his narrative. He did it again in a Nov. 21 post:

It’s the dopiest of dopey cycles, this Acela Media and Professional Latinx crusade against the most reliably left-wing outlet in all domestic news media, which is Univision. And yet, here we are. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has now joined the fray, and exposes the real rationale behind this attack against Univision.

Watch as Maddow reveals the truest, purest victim of a so-called “rightward shift” at Univision: Joe Biden’s electoral prospects.

[...]

This isn’t about “preventing disinformation”, because as we reported at the time, a study showed that Univision is one one of the biggest purveyors of misinformation to the Hispanic community. It isn’t about protecting freedom of the press, because the Acela Media and Professional Latinx are actively trying to interfere with Univision’s editorial decision making processes. Adding fuel to the fire, the Congressional Hispanic Censorship Caucus is now demanding to meet with Univision executives.

What this episode proves conclusively is that none of the people howling about Univision have never once sat down and actually watched Univision’s news product. If they did, MSNBC would promptly begin taking notes on how to leftwing bias harder.

Bonilla's professed concern about misinformation in Spanish-language media is rather cute, given that he was briefly employed by one of the biggest Hispanic media misinformers -- Americano Media, which tried to be the Latino Fox News until its financial collapse -- for a few months as a talk show host before returning to the MRC. And that "study" he cited was actually just a poll conducted by a right-wing Latino group.

(Tim Graham repeated Bonilla's complaints on his Nov. 22 podcast.)

Bonilla has made it clear that the only interviews with Republicans he wants to see are softball ones, even if he refuses to use that accurate term to describe what happened in the Univision interview.

WND's Schlafly Thinks Ballot Initiatives Are 'Mob Rule'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Right-wingers are all for people making decisions about their lives -- until they make decisions that don't adhere to right-wing narratives. Thus, we have Andy Schlafly spending his Nov. 14 WorldNetDaily column whining that ballot initiatives are "mob rule" in the wake of Ohio voters approving abortion rights:

The "will of the people," as expressed by outcomes of heavily funded ballot initiatives, is a canard that should be rejected by Republicans. Direct democracy was feared and opposed by our nation's founders, who established a representative government for the United States and guaranteed "a republican form of government" to each of its member states.

Yet Republican candidates who participated in last week's third presidential debate seemed to misunderstand this crucial point, as reflected by their senseless responses to questions about a recent ballot initiative that just passed in Ohio. Ron DeSantis, for example, unjustifiably blamed the pro-life movement for being "caught flat-footed" by Issue 1, the abortion initiative, without mentioning that God-given rights should not be decided by a popular vote.

Republicans should be defending representative government against misuse of the ballot initiative process, which allows out-of-state industries and liberal billionaires to pass laws contrary to the informed decision-making by each state's elected representatives. Ohio's Issue 1 will benefit the billion-dollar abortion industry, while Issue 2 will profit the expanding marijuana industry by invading Ohio with a predicted $4 billion worth of pot.

Schalafly went on to cheer how Republican politicians will deliberately ignore what the people want:

Fortunately, some members of the Ohio Legislature are rising up against this misuse of ballot initiatives to change the culture of the Buckeye State. Ohio's elected representatives should not take a back seat or bow down to ballot initiatives contrary to what has been the well-established tradition of Ohio and our Constitution.

The passage of the radical Issues 1 and 2 in Ohio are an assault by out-of-state industries and billionaires to transform the state, and its Republican-controlled General Assembly should strongly resist this invasion. Four out of five Republicans voted against Issues 1 and 2, and that is to whom the Republican legislators should be listening, rather than a multi-million-dollar barrage of television ads.

Legislators should not be deterred by chants in the media that "the people have spoken." Representatives exist to resist tyranny by a misled majority, and Republican officials should not abandon the pledges they campaigned on for the benefit of Ohio.

Schlafly didn't why Republicans should ignore the majority of Ohioans who supportted the bill. He then started getting nonsensical:

Caving in to ballot initiatives is a betrayal of representative government, and of voters themselves. By denying the rights of voters to elect representatives to protect their state's way of life, Republicans give residents an incentive to move to Texas and other states that prohibit mob rule through ballot initiatives.

[...]

More Midwesterners will inevitably respond by moving to Texas, where leftists are not allowed to override the legislature. But families in Ohio and Missouri should not have to move to protect their way of life.

If a ballot initiative has been approved by voters, taht means voters have spoken and haven't been "betrayed." He went on to try an advance the argument that people are too stupid to support their own interests and need politicans -- preferably right-wing ones -- to tell them what they need:

Republicans reject the call for a National Popular Vote to pick our president, and instead that office is filled by the Electoral College. Republican candidates for president should campaign on defending our republican form of government against the progressive strategy of direct democracy.

Our Declaration of Independence stands entirely against infringement on God-given rights by popular vote or by any other means. That timeless document describes the concept of unalienable rights as a "self-evident" truth, yet Trump's rivals for president seem to think everything is fair game for ballot initiatives.

Actually, the Constitution, not the  Declaration of Independence, runs our country, and Schlafly offered no evidence tha the Constitution prohibits state ballot initiatives.

MRC's DeSantis Defense Brigade Watch, Gavin Newsom Edition
Topic: Media Research Center
We've shown how the Media Research Center's softball interview with Ron DeSantis in early November -- effectively an in-kind donation to his presidential campaign -- landed with such a thud that it basically ignored him for the rest of that month (even its very own DeSantis Defense Brigade). The Brigade didn't come alive again until after DeSantis' Nov. 30 Fox News debate with Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom. A Dec. 1 post by Curtis Houck served up the usual complaint that non-right-wing networks didn't sound like Fox News when talking about DeSantis:

Friday’s CBS Mornings did its best to all but ignore Thursday night’s fiery debate on the Fox News Channel between Governors Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Gavin Newsom (D-CA) by stashing it in the Eye Opener (which we at NewsBusters don’t formally account as most of it’s teases for segments), but the others stepped up to the plate with full stories on ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today.

They took different approaches, however, as ABC used three-time bestselling Trump author Jonathan Karl to trash Trump’s lead 2024 GOP primary opponent while NBC’s Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker largely treated it like a substantive debate.

Karl began with the platitudes, boasting “it was billed as the red state versus blue state debate” and “preview[ing] perhaps of some of the issues, if not the candidates, we could see debated in next year's general election campaign.”

The professionalism ended there as Karl quickly dismissed the entire event and channeled both Newsom and DeSantis’s opponents, which made sense given how financially lucrative Trump has been for him in terms of book sales.

“At the start of the debate, California Governor Gavin Newsom, who isn’t running for president, taunted Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is running, but trailing badly with a reminder that neither of them would likely be on the ballot next fall,”“neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024.”

Karl briefly touched on the fact that each candidate represented their party’s message on the economy, but went back to trashing DeSantis, who took on his employer’s parent company, Disney.

Despite his insinuations, Houck offered no proof that Karl is a Disney lackey, nor did provide evidence that anything in Karl's Trump-related books is false.

Tim Graham used his Dec. 1 podcast to nitpick a fact-check of the debate:

The Sean Hannity-moderated debate between Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis drew a predictable outcome from PolitiFact. They tried to ignore the raw numbers on Californians leaving Florida (and the reverse) and proclaim Newsom wasaccurate by using a "per capita" measurement for America's most populous state. That's playing with "alternative facts."

In all of PolitiFact's checking since they started in 2007, Newsom has 29 fact checks, and DeSantis has 54. But Newsom has 13 of 29 (almost half) that are True or Mostly True. DeSantis has 12 of his 54 (22 percent) True or Mostly True. Newsom has only 6 of his 29 as Mostly False/False/Pants on Fire, DeSantis has 32 of 45 (or almost 6o percent). This is what PolitiFact does, writ large. Republicans are 60 percent wrong, Democrats are 20 percent wrong. That’s why Newsom is excited to see the report!

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Lord ranted in his Dec. 2 column:

The event of this past week that drew a great deal of attention was Fox’s Sean Hannity hosting a debate between the Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis and California’s Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom.

One of the striking features of this face-off was the regularity with which the two governors accused each other of lying. Which raises an obvious couple of questions.  Where is the media? And will the media do their job in 2024?

It surely can’t be that difficult for journalists to dig into the obvious question. That would be: Was DeSantis really lying about this or that? Or was Newsom? As President John Adams famously said in the long ago, facts are stubborn things. And that they are. But if journalists are going to ignore and not report on facts because they are uncomfortable or make Democrat X (can you say Joe Biden?) look bad then suffice to say the 2024 campaign will not be a good one, with each party held accountable for the facts of their record.

Alex Christy spent a Dec. 14 post complaining that Newsom went on late-night TV to talk about the deabte and DeSantis, complaining that he said that DeSantis is "out there talking about anti-woke, and I mean this, for me it's not anti-woke, what he really means is anti-black he's out there censoring historic facts, he's rewriting history. He was out there, you know, he eliminated AP African American Studies. He said slavery was somehow a workforce development program and he doubled down on that." Christy huffed in defense that "Florida’s standards say that slaves learned skills that were later useful in life, not that slavery was some sort of benign job training program." As we've noted, most examples served up by Florida education officials in defense of DeSantis' claim about this were either people who were never enslaved or who never actually used skills learned in slavery later in life.

The fact that the MRC didn't talk much about the contents of the debate itself is a likely indicator of how it knows how badly it went for DeSantis -- indeed, Newsom shredded DeSantis in discussing how their respective states responded to the COVID pandemic.

NEW ARTICLE: Newsmax Cheerleads For RFK Jr., Part 2
Topic: Newsmax
After heavily (and ironically) touting Robert Kennedy Jr.'s presidential campaign, Newsmax started losing interest when he moved from running as a Democrat to an independent. But it found a new Democratic candidate to tout in Dean Phillips. Read more >>

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.

Olohan didn't mention that Fox News got busted for lying to its viewers about election fraud, which tells us that the range of "acceptable views" on the channel is not as narrow as Carlson and Olohan want you to believe.

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 Nation on 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.