MRC Still Flip-Flopping On Denouncing, Defending Trump Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center still can't get its act together regarding whether it should denounce or defend Donald Trump.
In a March 1 post, Ken Shepherd praises the Daily Beast for uncovering Trump denouncing Ronald Reagan as weak in 1987. Shepherd adds his own denunciation of Trump for good measure:
There's always a willing audience for doom-and-gloom populists who insist that only they have the key to restoring American "greatness," all the while heaping praise on other, less democratic regimes for supposedly being smarter, more successful, and potentially more enduring than our constitutional regime.
Trump's answer has always been electing the right hard-nosed bully, not in trusting the genius and greatness of the American people to fuel the nation's economic progress.
Kudos to Daly for reminding us all just how wrong, and consistently wrong, Trump has been with his simplistic populist messages and denunciation of real conservatives.
Then literally three hours and 27 minutes later, MRC Latino's Edgard Portela rushed to Trump's defense over the whole KKK thing:
The portrayal of Donald Trump as a racist continues full bore on Univision and Telemundo.
On Monday evening, the national evening newscasts of both networks craftily played up Trump’s stumbling Sunday morning answer to CNN’s Jake Tapper on the question of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke’s endorsement.
It’s clear that both networks committed journalistic malpractice by completely ignoring Trump’s unequivocal rejection of Duke’s endorsement just the Friday before, as well as his repetition of his rejection of the endorsement both Sunday afternoon on Twitter and Monday morning on NBC’s Today show.
In their woefully incomplete coverage of the important matter, the agenda of portraying Trump as a KKK-embracing racist could not be more patently manifest.
Portela conveniently ignored what exactly Trump did during the Jake Tapper appearance: he said nothing stronger than "I don't know anything about David Duke, OK?" even after Tapper asked him three times to disavow Duke and the KKK.
It's interesting, however, that the MRC is not going after Tapper for asking the question -- even they realize he was as fair as one could be about it, giving him three full chances to answer. So Portela had to bash outlets for reporting it and not all the times Trump wasn't a racist.
Which seems to contradict the MRC's whole anti-Trump vibe. You'd think Shepherd, as NewsBusters managing editor, would be cool with Trump being portrayed as a racist.
WND Brings On Dubous AAPS Docs For Misguided Rant About STDs Topic: WorldNetDaily
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons is thoroughly discredited pretty much everywhere in the medical and secular world -- except for WorldNetDaily, where AAPS officials are the go-to guys for medical advice despite much of said advice being wrong or dangerous, not to mention putting politics over medicine.
And so, we have a Feb. 25 WND article by Paul Bremmer about the federal government removing three rare and obscure sexually transmitted diseases from the conditions that keep foreigners out of the country. Cue the right-wing AAPS making it political:
Jane Orient, M.D., executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, said this new rule shows the Obama administration’s disregard for its own constituents.
“I think it’s one more piece of evidence that they are reckless, irresponsible and unconcerned about the welfare of the American people – especially women,” Orient told WND. “It’s kind of a war on women to let in people who might be infecting women with a loathsome disease.”
Orient, an occasional WND contributor, noted Obama has lately been admitting large numbers of “refugees” from primarily Muslim countries that could be said to have a “rape culture.” When a penchant for rape is combined with the possibility of carrying STDs, it creates a scary situation for American women.
“Here we have immigrants who follow an ideology in which the rape of infidel women is actually acceptable,” Orient said. “And these migrants, when settled in places like Sweden, are causing an epidemic of rape, certainly of sexual molestation and assault on women, and so you have people who not only think rape is acceptable, but who have infectious diseases to boot. It sort of compounds the problem.”
[...]
[Former AAPS official] Lee Hieb, author of “Surviving the Medical Meltdown: Your Guide to Living Through the Disaster of Obamacare,” also trembles when she thinks about the type of person this new rule will allow into the country.
“If people are coming in with this, what that does is it doesn’t open the gates to three-year-old girls; this opens the gates to, in my opinion, the 18-year-old gangbangers who couldn’t get in because of these diseases,” Hieb said. “Think about it. It’s not little girls that can’t get in because they have chancroid; it’s young men. Why are we bringing in all these potential-problem young men into our country?”
Hieb, a periodic WND columnist, rejects the idea that this is another attempt to increase the pool of cheap immigrant labor.
“Don’t tell me this is a labor force issue, unless we’re short of gangbangers,” said Hieb, who recognizes “gangbangers” is a politically incorrect term. “These are not your engineers and rocket scientists that are coming in with these [diseases]. The people that get these are unlikely to be the people we would want in our workforce to begin with. It’s unnecessary.”
Even if the nation’s leaders do want people with these STDs to come and work, Hieb said they should insist the immigrants receive treatment for their diseases before they enter the country. She claimed it would be much cheaper to send the necessary drugs to the endemic areas than to deal with an STD outbreak in this country.
So the new rule serves no humanitarian purpose in Hieb’s mind. She wonders if it might be a simple political ploy from a Democrat administration trying to bring more Democrat voters into the country.
“What is the possible benefit of doing this?” Hieb asked again. “Is it to get voters? I mean, really? Are you willing to sacrifice our young women for the point of getting more voters for some party?
“If you tell me that’s not it, then what is it? What is the point? Because I can’t come up with one.”
Well, that certainly went far afield from medical concerns, didn't it?
At no point does Bremmer bother to quote directly from, or link to, the actual Health and Human Services document announcing the change; instead, he features the anti-immigrant Center for Immigration Studies paraphrasing it, then speculating that "this move proves once again that for the Obama administration more immigration is the most important goal, all costs aside."
Thus, because Bremmer quotes only critics of the change and can't be bothered to seek out an alternate view, WND doesn't tell its readers why the change was actually made. It's summarized here:
HHS/CDC notes that, according to the analysis provided in the notice of proposed rulemaking, the incidence and prevalence of these STIs is declining globally and so the potential for introduction and spread of these diseases to the U.S. population is considered to be low. By removing the three STIs which no longer pose a threat to public health, the medical examination will be able to focus on the other communicable diseases which are considered more serious risks to the United States. Removing these 3 STIs does not mean that persons will not be treated for these infections if the infections are found during the medical examination. Removing these 3 STIs means that persons who have these infections are no longer considered inadmissible to the United States.
But that would have blown up all the AAPS ranting, and Bremmer wouldn't have an article.
The MRC's Trump-Media Conspiracy Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has been obsessing over the amount of time network news (but never the cable news channels) devote to covering Donald Trump. The endgame of that obsession is clear: a conspiracy theory that the "liberal media" is plotting to get Trump the Republican nomination so that he will be trounced by the likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, in November.
The MRC's Curtis Houck expresses the conspiracy clearly in a Feb. 29 post:
By essentially deleting his opponents from their airwaves, the networks (and cable outlets) have been employing a visible strategy to force the billionaire on GOP primary voters and through to the general election against Clinton or Sanders.
My colleague Rich Noyes brilliantly highlighted this very problem as it was evident for months with the month of January seeing Trump be bequeathed 60 percent of the total GOP race airtime on the network evening newscasts (with Cruz well behind at 30 percent and Rubio at four percent).
The Media Research Center’s Bias the Minute writer Mike Ciandella outlined the same pattern on CNN in an even shorter window as between August 24, 2015 and September 4, 2015, Trump was the topic of discussion in over 77 percent of their primetime election segments. For reference, Jeb Bush came in second for this study but only attracted roughly 12 percent.
MRC chief Brent Bozell and right-hand man Tim Graham echoed the conspiracy in their March 2 column:
These supposed opponents of "Big Money" dominating our democracy have spent month after month giving the lion's share of their political coverage to the billionaire reality TV host. Through Feb. 25, Trump's presidential campaign has received 923 minutes of coverage on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts, nearly five times given to Ted Cruz (205 minutes) and seven times the amount of coverage provided to Marco Rubio (139 minutes).
The tone of Trump coverage is routinely negative. But it still plays into Trump's strategy of saying outrageous things to starve the other candidates of any oxygen from the establishment press. The billionaire pledged to self-fund his campaign but has spent little. It's being fueled almost entirely by free TV airtime.
But there's one thing Trump doesn't want covered, and again the networks are complying. In that overflowing tank of news hours, only a small amount (14 minutes, or 1.5 percent of Trump's total) were spent talking about Trump's past record of support for liberal positions and liberal politicians. Put that number in this perspective: Twice as much time was devoted to Trump's negative comments about Fox News host Megyn Kelly. Almost an hour was dedicated to Trump's proposed (temporary) ban on Muslim immigration.
[...]
It used to be said that when the GOP field is winnowed from 17 to about six, Trump would no longer dominate. Wrong. On the night before Super Tuesday voting, the networks obsessed over Trump with more than 15 minutes of coverage, compared to just two for Rubio and less than a minute for Cruz.
The accusation should be made. The liberal media want this vulnerable, blabby billionaire with the high unfavorable numbers to be the Republican nominee.
Employing the Occam's Razor approach to the issue -- which the MRC is steadfastly refusing to do -- most objective media analysts would argue that Trump is being covered because he is, in fact, the most popular Republican running and has been for months. Trump dominated Super Tuesday coverage because he won the most states.
The idea that Trump is being "forced" onto voters is belied by the fact that the voters don't seem to mind. And Bozell and Graham would be screaming about "negative" coverage of any other Republican, so their claim that "negative" coverage of Trump is part of the conspiracy is ridiculous.
Further, the entire MRC conspiracy coterie has been silent about the one media outlet that has done more to promote Trump than any other: Fox News, which effectively established his campaign by giving him more than $30 million in free airtime in 2015. And the night before Super Tuesday, Sean Hannity devoted half his show to an interview with Trump.
The MRC's absolute refusal to scrutinize Trump's symbiosis with Fox News is not just a huge blind spot in its so-called media research, it's also self-serving. As they've shown in their selective outrage over how various media outlets have conducted GOP debates -- slobbering all over Fox-hosted debates and bashing everyone else -- Bozell and Co. don't want to go after Fox because it's their main TV outlet. Bozell has a weekly spot on Hannity's show, and he and others pop up regularly on Fox News and Fox Business.
One of the things the rise of Trump has exposed is the hollowness and shoddiness of the MRC's "media research." So Bozell and crew must continue to blow smoke about the "liberal media" so his fellow conservatives don't figure that out.
Chumley Takes Her Scalia Conspiracy Theories Outside WND Topic: WorldNetDaily
Cheryl Chumley has been promoting conspiracy theories about the death of Antonin Scalia as "news" at WorldNetDaily. Why doesn't she get to wildly speculate about it at WND as well?
Instead, Chummley does this at some website called People's Pundit Daily, which can't be bothered to disclose who runs it (its "Meet [the] Team" page is "under construction"), is filled with right-wing ranting, and is seemingly desperate for content while also offering the opportunity for sponsored content and advertorials. It's a glorified content mill, basically.
Others put it differently. Comedian and social justice activist Dick Gregory put it this way: “You know they murdered him, right? … One of the most powerful people in the world and he ain’t got no bodyguard, man?”
Radio giant Michael Savage put it this way: “Was Scalia murdered? We need a Warren Commission-like investigation. This is serious business.”
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump put it this way, first on a Savage show that was later widely quoted: It’s “pretty unusual” Scalia was found with “a pillow on his face.”
[...]
Look, Scalia’s sudden and shocking death could be nothing more than that – a sudden and shocking albeit natural death. But the fact that so many questions have gone unanswered, and that those in position to answer those questions are shrugging their shoulders –a la “Questions? What questions?” – is suspicious in and of itself. An autopsy could have quieted all the whispers. Unfortunately, historical accounts of Scalia’s life and his considerable list of accomplishments, both in and out of court, are now going to be marked with a giant asterisk that overshadows and prods: But was his death really natural?
The only reason we can think of is that WND wants to maintain the fiction that there's a difference between "news" and "opinion" on its website and that Chumley, as a "news" reporter, shouldn't be seen writing "opinion." Yet that doesn't hold water either, as Chumley currently has a piece in WND's opinion section lauding Donald Trump for "tapping into a surging conviction of the American voter that expresses both disgust with and distrust of Capitol Hill."
Or maybe Chumley thinks every word she writes is so important that it must have an outlet. If so, she may be forgetting the historical relationship between quantity and quality.
UPDATE: Chumley points out that her Scalia-death piece was also posted at the Glenn Beck-operated The Blaze and the right-wing News With Views, where many of the same pieces she posted at People's Pundit Daily also appear. That's a lot of extra media outlets for someone who is employed by a different one.
MRC Lets Bill Donohue Peddle Lie Linking Catholic Priest Sex Scandal To Gays Topic: Media Research Center
Last time we saw the Catholic League's Bill Donohue writing for the Media Research Center, it was a NewsBusters post complaining about the film "Spotlight," which focuses on how the Boston Globe exposed sex scandals among Catholic priests and whining that other random sex scandals weren't getting the same media attention.
Now that "Spotlight" has won an Oscar for best picture, Donohue is back in distraction mode. NewsBusters published a Feb. 26 post by Donohue complaining that "Hollywood has no interest in turning its cameras on itself, which is why the public's eyes have been shut tight from seeing a movie that documents child rape in Tinseltown." Donohue doesn't even mention "Spotlight" after the second paragraph.
After the film's Oscar win, an updated version of Donohue's rant appeared at CNSNews.com, with a new beginning:
The politicization of "Spotlight" began even before it won the Oscar for Best Picture. Actor Mark Ruffalo held a rally outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels; 20 persons showed up. He said he stood by victims of priestly sexual abuse. On stage, screenwriter Josh Singer exclaimed, "Pope Francis, it's time to protect the children and restore the faith."
Apparently, these men are unaware of the fact that the homosexual scandal occurred mostly between 1965 and 1985, and that no institution in the United States has less of a problem with this issue today than the Catholic Church. That's because Pope Benedict XVI made it hard for practicing homosexuals to enter the priesthood. But no matter, the propaganda experts cannot resist trying to keep the scandal alive.
Donoue is lying when he claims that the priest sex scandal was exclusively "homosexual." As we've documented, a report by John Jay College commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops explains that "there is no causative relationship between either celibacy or homosexuality and the sexual victimization of children in the Church. Therefore, being celibate or being gay did not increase the risk of violating children. So, blaming the clergy abuse crisis in the Catholic Church on gay men or celibacy is unfounded."
Donohue is simply engaging in homophobia, which suits the anti-gay MRC just fine.
The CNS version of Donohue's column omits an important disclosure included on the NewsBusters version: that MRC chief Brent Bozell serves on the board of advisors for the Donohue's Catholic League. You can thank us for guilting the MRC -- parts of it, anyway -- into finally admitting that.
WorldNetDaily signaled that it was going to revive fake Clinton scandals to try and take down Hillary Clinton. It's now chosen one of the fakest of them all to re-litigate: the death of Vince Foster.
Leo Hohmann dramatically writes in a Feb. 28 WND article:
It’s been 23 years since Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster was found dead in a Virginia park, setting off one of the biggest controversies of the Clinton administration.
Foster, a close friend and former law partner of Hillary Clinton’s, was discovered on July 20, 1993, lying in Fort Marcy Park with a fatal gunshot wound.
Two investigations, the first led by Robert Fiske and the second by Kenneth Starr, concluded Foster suffered a single, self-inflicted wound. A simple suicide. Case closed.
But newly discovered evidence unearthed from boxes stored deep in the National Archives lend credence to theories about foul play and cover-up that have been hinted at by at least three books and countless articles.
Actually there were more than two investigations. As Starr's investigation points out, there were two congressional inquiries that also concluded Foster committed suicide.
The "newly discovered evidence" Hohmann is going on about is "a two-page letter of resignation and a 31-page memo both written by Starr’s lead prosecutor, Miguel Rodriguez." Actually, it's not all that new; Rodriguez's resignation letter has been floating around on the Internet since at least 2009, and the memo has been around since 2013.
So if it was really the "smoking-gun information" Hohmann claims it is, somebody other that Clinton-hater conspiracy sites would have picked it up long before this. Instead, it reeks of desperation (and, of course, the Clinton derangement that helped build WND).
Curiously, Hohmann didn't mention one interesting bit of gossip about Rodriguez that might very well discredit him in WND's eyes: It's rumored that he is now a transgender woman named Michelle. (And we know how much WND hatestransgenders.) We haven't been able to independently verify this, so we're categorizing it as rumor for now.
If Hohmann knows this, he's in denial; his article states that "WND reached out to Miguel Rodriguez, who is now a U.S. attorney in Sacramento, California, but the calls were not returned."
Hohmann also quotes Patrick Knowlton, a claimed witness to events at Fort Marcy Park prior to the discovery of Foster's body, repeating his claims of a cover-up and that he "also reported in the appendix to Starr's report about repeated acts of harassment and "intimidation" by what he believes were agents of the U.S. government. Up to 25 'well-dressed men' approached him on the streets of Washington, glaring at him and pulling on their coat sleeves. He said these strange encounters were witnessed by several others including his girlfriend, his sister, a reporter and his attorney."
Hohmann didn't mention that Knowlton sued all of those "well-dressed men" -- unidentified, of course -- who purportedly intimidated him. As USA Today reported in a story on the Supreme Court refusing to take up the dismissal of the lawsuit, "A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in September 1999, saying the FBI agent who questioned Knowlton about the car accurately reported that Knowlton believed the car was not the same as Foster's car. The judge also said Knowlton did not show there was any agreement to interfere with his testimony or that the 26 other people even knew each other."
So this is the best WND can come up with after all these years? Sheesh.
In the article, Hollingsworth complains that "A group of voting rights activists is up in arms after the executive director of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) told elections officials in three states that they could require residents to provide documented proof of U.S. citizenship when using federal forms to register to vote." She leaves out some important information because it confllicts with her bias.
She writes that "On January 29, EAC executive director Brian Newby sent letters to the chief election officials in the three states approving their requests, stating that they could start requiring proof of U.S. citizenship - such as a birth certificate, naturalization papers, or a passport - on their national mail voter registration forms." One of those states is Kansas. But she omits the fact that Newby is a former crony of Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state who been a champion of highly restrictive voting rights, and who benefits directly from Newby's ruling.
Hollingsworth completely ignores the possibility that Newby is the real "activist" here, not the voting-rights people who oppose the decision.
Hollingsworth concludes her article with an attempt to boost the rationale behind Newby's action: "A 2014 study by researchers at Virginia’s Old Dominion and George Mason Universities found that 'some non-citizens participate in U.S. elections, and that this participation has been large enough to change meaningful election outcomes including Electoral College votes, and Congressional elections.'"
But Hollingsworth doesn't mention that the study has severe methodological issues. As the Washington Post details, the study uses data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, which was an opt-in Internet survey, and the research are dubiously assuming that non-citizens, who volunteered to take online surveys administered in English about American politics, are somehow be representative of the entire non-citizen population.
Further, the lead researcher himself admits problems with the data and says more research is needed.Yet that data was good enough fort Hollingsworth since it reinforces her pro-voting-restriction agenda.
WND Columnist Cheers Trump's Appeal To Whites Topic: WorldNetDaily
Kent Bailey is another WorldNetDaily columnist, like Theodore Roosevelt Malloch, who is in the tank for Donald Trump in a weirdly disturbing way -- made even more disturbing by his use of authority to push it (not unlike another friend of WND, Andrew Hodges). He's a retired college psychology professor who has written a textbook on "human paleopsychology," and he makes sure we know he has a Ph.D.
He has touted Trump as "the unapologetic, quintessential warrior male of yore capable of vanquishing any and all opposition in his way." A few weeks later, he slobbered over his own mythology-making, declaring that "It is encouraging that my paleopolitical analysis of Trump’s sudden and amazing rise touched so many people" and that Trump's "daddy party" approach beats that of Hillary Clinton and the "mommy party." He has also favorably likened Trump to robber baron Cornelius Vanderbilt while denigrating President Obama as among "fem-thinking girly girls and girly men" and "the fluffy baby chicks of the Democratic Party" who purportedly "offer little help at all in a world overrun by warrior hawks."
Bailey has gone on to defend Trump's anti-immigrant zeal by asserting that "xenophobia is one of nature’s most natural and adaptive traits. These are normal traits, and to depict them as 'evil' or 'immoral' is downright silly. Had those traits not existed, then there would be no human race." He followed that with a column actually titled "In defense of conservatives' xenophobia," in which he sneers that its opposite, xenophilia, "is a biologically superficial but intoxicating cultural invention of the liberal mind that serves as the conceptual foundation for affirmative action, diversity, multiculturalism, open borders, mass immigration and on and on," adding: "liberals begin to look like xenophobic conservatives when under 'survival stress' due to terrorism. That is, liberals tend to 'phylogenetically regress' toward conservatism after major instances of terrorism!"
But Bailey manages to top himself in Trump-worship by inadvertently foreshadowing Trump's inability to distance himself from the racist (and Trump-supporting) likes of David Duke and the KKK. In his Feb. 22 column, he outlines Trump's racist appeal:
It all has to do with race, friends, and if you are one of those brain-dead whites who thinks we are past race, then go ahead and sit helplessly by as Caucasians of European Descent (COEDs) race to minority status by 2041 and probable extinction by the end of the century. Not only is the Internet ablaze with postings on the “end of the white race,” but the tone is often one of great joy, as if to say “why has it taken so long?” For example, Noel Ignatiev argued in an issue of Harvard Magazine that “abolishing the white race” is so desirable that only “committed white supremacists” would oppose it.
[...]
Then in walks Donald Trump, the tall, blond and Nordic “warrior extraordinaire” who apparently has to resort to the tanning booth to keep from looking too white! He is the imposing, loud, profane, Viking warrior who is simultaneously a rich and powerful celebrity and a vicarious hope for the legions of struggling white guys out there.
I am often turned off by Trump’s pettiness, girlish tweets and brash New York style, but I am his fan when, like ISIS with sledge hammers in a museum, he destroys the cherished artifacts of political correctness and annihilates their high priests in the media. Indeed, he speaks for the “silent majority” of working-class white males out there who have been shushed and marginalized for the past 70 years.
Also important is the stark contrast between the racial jingoist, globalist and socialist demigod of the left, Barack Obama, and the Nordic capitalist, entrepreneur, builder and playboy, Donald Trump. If Barack Obama is matter, then Donald Trump is anti-matter, racially and in just about every other way.
I believe that much of Trump’s amazing success is based on the vast difference between him and Obama. Obama set out to transform America from a “colonialist” superpower to a multicultural and diverse version of a failing, immigrant-ridden Europe. This required that white and Christian America had to be shoved, by all means possible, out of the way. By contrast, Trump, as the slogan goes, wants to “Make (white and traditional) America Great Again.” Viva la difference!
[...]
Whites in America like to think they are “post-racial” – in fact, we are becoming just “post” as a race and as a people. This is what happens when a particular people – Caucasians of European Descent – have no protective warrior class to fight for them in the Oval Office, the Congress, or anywhere else in our feminized American society. And now with the great Supreme Court warrior Antonin Scalia no longer with us, it seems that only Donald Trump and Franklin Graham are left to take on the pagan cultural forces of the ideological left.
The Washington Post’s Kathleen Parker suggests that Donald Trump just may be the beleaguered white guys’ long-awaited “white knight” and, ultimately, the “White Man’s last stand.” Donald Trump knows the country is in serious trouble and that we have no time for political correctness and, implicitly, for gratuitous social experimentation. This is music to the ears of many Americans and the last vestige of hope for the working-class white male.
We can't wait to hear how Bailey will explain how Trump really isn't that kind of racist, and we hope it will be more creative than Trump'sown attempt to blame a "lousy earpiece."
MRC Blogger: Chris Rock Brings 'Racism' To Oscars Topic: Media Research Center
Only at the Media Research Center could Chris Rock's monologue at the Oscars hitting on how no black actors were nominated for major awards and Hollywood's genteel racism could be nothing but "racism" and "race jokes." Behold Alexa Moutevelis Coombs' NewsBusters rant on the subject:
Comedian Chris Rock was under a lot of pressure to "speak truth to power" in his second turn as host of the 88th Annual Academy Awards. The lack of black actors and actresses nominated has dominated Oscar coverage again this year, with pledges from Will and Jada Pinkett Smith and Spike Lee to boycott and the Academy to change the racial makeup of its members. Rock reportedly even rewrote his opening monologue after the Oscar nominations were revealed in mid-January and the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag started trending. So you pretty much knew Chris Rock would be out with some hard-hitting racial jokes he’s known for. But who knew that pretty much the entire 10 minute monologue would be solely dedicated to race jokes?
Update: Chris Rock ended the Oscars broadcast by shouting, "Black Lives Matter!" Racism from beginning to end.
NEW ARTICLE -- Out There, Exhibit 63: The ConWeb's Favorite Environment-Destroying Chemical Topic: The ConWeb
ConWeb writers want to bring back DDT to kill mosquitoes and bedbugs, despite the fact that most mosquitoes and bedbugs are now immune to its effects. Read more >>
MRC Demands Media Bias Against Trump, Then Complains When It Happens Topic: Media Research Center
Nicholas Fondacaro devoted a Feb. 24 NewsBusters post to ranting about what he declared was NBC's Chuck Todd's claim that it's the job of opposing campaigns, not the media, to vet Donald Trump -- and get it completely wrong:
MSNBC’s Chuck Todd washed the media's collective hands on Wednesday evening by claiming the other campaigns could use all the previous media coverage to cobble together into attack ads:
“A common criticism you’ve heard is that Trump's rise is the media's fault, because we have enabled his rise. But, folks, you could argue that the media has also provided all the material that normally a campaign would want to put together an attack against Trump.”
[...]
Todd’s analysis feigned objectivity while barely scratching the surface. This kind of coverage of Trump is nothing new. A recent MRC study found that most coverage of Trump has little to do with his old, self-admitted, liberal positions or any vetting of his past of any kind.
A proper vetting is probably something they are waiting to do until after Trump is the GOP presidential nominee – all the better to assist the Democratic nominee – a technique that was unitized against past GOP nominees John McCain and Mitt Romney. During the 2012 presidential campaign the media dug into every corner of Romney’s past. They ran story after story about the Romney family dog being caged on the roof of their car during a road trip. The media even dug up a story about a bullying incident from when Romney was in high school.
For Chuck Todd to insinuate that it’s not the media’s job to dig into a candidate’s past or fully vet a candidate for the public is just plain ridiculous. Todd laid the this duty at the feet of the other candidates stating “Folks, those are all inconsistencies that a normal campaign that was running against Donald Trump would probably put together, into TV ads and try to see if it would leave a mark with voters.”
For a member of the media to advocate for campaigns alone to do the vetting is an abdication of journalistic duty.
Fondacaro's interpretation is wrong -- so wrong, in fact, that Todd himself complained to the Media Research Center, resulting in a editor's note added to the top stating that the post's headline had been changed from "Chuck Todd: It's not the media's job to vet Trump's past," agreeing with Todd that "it wasn't an accurate sense of his statements."
What Todd said is that the media has put critical information about Trump out there -- contrary to Fondacaro's assertion -- and the campaigns of Trump's opponents have plenty of ammuntion should they decide to use it. He's right; for instance, the Washington Post reported on the scammy nature of Trump University way back last September -- CNN was reporting on it as far back as 2013 -- but it was not until the most recent GOP presidential debate that any of his opponents called him out on it.
(Not that you'll see that mentioned at the MRC, which apparently thinks "the media" is just the evening news on the three broadcast networks, and put out a piece by Mike Ciandella following that debate whining about the lack of coverage there.)
Fondacaro is effectively demanding that the media be biased against Trump. So why is the MRC so mad when there's anti-Trump bias in the media?
Two days later, Tim Graham complained that a Washington Post editorial pointed out that Trump's campaign declaration to deport all illegal immigrants would be " a forced movement on a scale not attempted since Stalin or perhaps Pol Pot." You'd think that would be the kind of comparison Graham would favor since his boss, Brent Bozell, is avowedly anti-Trump.
But Graham instead laments the Post's "unhinged comparisons that make no historical sense," then quickly changed the subject to Clinton-bashing, perhaps remembering that it's not really company policy to be defending Trump at all.
The man who continually insists he’s a good Christian yet who rarely goes to church, who consistently avoids commemoration of Christian holidays, but who bends over backward to pay homage to Islam.
The man who made an official visit and speech to Georgetown University – a Roman Catholic University – yet insisted that every piece of art, crucifix, image and artifact that portrayed Christianity or Jesus be covered so that it wouldn’t be seen in any camera coverage of the man during his appearance and speech.
Yeah, that’s him. Barack Obama. The man who says one thing and does another – and does it with a straight face.
He indeed did it again!
Barack Obama made his first official visit to a mosque in this country.
[...]
There was no need to go to a mosque – a controversial one, at that – unless Obama’s political agenda concerning Muslims and Islam were the real reason.
Do you think it had anything to do with the fact that Obama is in the midst of importing thousands of Muslim Syrian so-called refugees into the country and deliberately scattering them in every state, without notifying state officials as to where they’ll go or how to provide for them?
[...]
Obama may have made some political points with his Muslim buddies but free, thinking Americans know better.
Until Obama supports the U.S., Christians and Jews as fully as he does Muslims and Islam, we know exactly which side he’s on – and his constant telling us he’s a “Christian” becomes as transparent as he is.
In seven short years, he nearly doubled the national debt. He weakened our military. He kicked sand in the face of our friends and strengthened our enemies. He opened our borders and created an atmosphere of lawlessness. He further divided the races. He took over one-sixth of our economy. He kicked the rungs out from under the ladder of opportunity, put more people on the public dole and abused the power of his office.
With little or no push-back from the weak-kneed Republican leaders in Congress, it is little wonder there is a general feeling of helplessness among so many. They are willing to give up what’s left of their freedom to a leader who will promise to give them something – anything – for nothing.
Barack Obama’s perennially Orwellian rhetoric is not only a function of his political designs; it is an integral component to international socialist subjugation of the West. To the rational mind, it appears that this can only end in chaos, but the chaos itself is meant to give rise to the global socialist state – or at least a hard-line socialist collective of developed nations.
For my part, I can say that an insurrection in America – which would at least carry some hope of defeating the international socialists and their Islamist surrogates – would be far superior to Americans existing in the state of fear and increasing bedlam to which citizens are being subjected in Scandinavia and Germany, with the grimy followers of a verminous cult raping and pillaging at will, and the vile creatures who govern rushing to excuse this behavior at every available opportunity.
Try to imagine Obama having even one good friend with whom he had strong political disagreements. It’s hard to see, isn’t it? Obama’s not interested in free-wheeling debate. He’s not really intellectually curious. He doesn’t care about understanding why others have different points of view. He’s not even interested in understanding them. He’s ideologically rigid, genuinely intolerant, anti-intellectual and close-minded.
In other words, Obama and Scalia represent polar oppositions in many ways.
So it didn’t surprise me that Obama was a no-show at the funeral.
And yet, instead of seizing the day and reducing the divisiveness surrounding Scalia’s death and vacancy filling, like a dog that returns to his vomit, Obama couldn’t resist reeling back to his narcissistic and divisive modus operandi.
Since early in his presidency, Obama confessed that he’d like to “bypass Congress and change the laws on my own.” He added, “Believe me, the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting. I promise you.”
He doesn’t need to promise us. We believe him, because we’ve been watching his rogue and discordant behavior since the moment he entered office.
And we, conservatives, are the factional and close-minded fools?
At the risk of giving life to yet another wholly unfounded conspiracy theory, we’ve known for decades that people can be subtly manipulated through subliminal messages on television. Audiogenic seizures (those caused by sound) have been known to scientists for a long time, and some years back, they even discovered that the stroboscopic effects in some video games can induce seizures in humans.
So, what might the starry-eyed, nouveau riche elitist and Obamaphile [Mark] Zuckerberg have in mind for VR consumers – a segment that is likely to explode as VR equipment prices come down and the technology improves? In Barcelona, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook’s proprietary streaming technology would soon be incorporated into Samsung’s VR hardware and that Facebook had created a “social VR team” to explore how people can connect using VR technology.
Why, that sounds strikingly similar to announcements Obama has made about exploratory “teams” he has deployed to gather data on such things as mass scale behavior prediction. Should we be concerned that surreptitious mind control via virtual reality headsets is in store for our future?
MRC Responds To 'Union Propaganda' With Anti-Union Propaganda Topic: NewsBusters
Curtis Louder whines in a Feb. 23 NewsBusters post:
In this week's episode of Wal-Mart, I mean Superstore, we get to one of the issues we've all anticipated since the show's premiere: labor unions. As Cheyenne (Nichole Bloom) goes into labor at work, the chaos is comical but the dialogue is obviously meant to persuade the viewer that it's the store's responsibility to take care of the 17-year-old pregnant girl. Almost makes you think that having Cheyenne as a pregnant character was all about making political statements (i.e. abortion) and now paid maternity leave.
Jonah lectures the other employees, "This is ridiculous. She shouldn't have to kill herself to have a baby. Did you guys know that in every other first-world nation, paid maternity leave is just automatic?"
And how will the employees force the company to pay? By starting a union, of course!
This is how the left always works. Create problems, build sympathy, then propose a solution.
Is Louder saying that Cheyenne got pregnant in order to create the "problem" of needing maternity leave? Weird.
Louder then peddles well-worn right-wing tropes against labor unions:
Wal-Mart is the largest employer in the universe. Over a million people collect a check from wallyworld and sure it isn't always $15 an hour but it isn't brain surgery either. And if it was $15 an hour then Wal-Mart wouldn't be the biggest and cheapest retailer. It's called capitalism. Not perfect, but better than anything else.
Labor unions are not inherently evil. They may have done some great things a century ago but they have also stymied innovation. For example, Uber has had to fight taxi unions in order to serve in certain areas. They have also led to violence at times and we all know they are a giant Democratic Super PAC.
Labor unions haven't done anything for a century? Really? Others beg to differ.
Louder concludes by cheering that the Cloud 9 superstore in "Superstore" acted like its real-world doppelganger, Walmart, when faced with employees seeking better treatment from their employer: by firing them all. "Harsh truths for the Cloud 9 employees. Certainly not the result they were all expecting," he smugly adds.
Do Kathleen Willey And WND Endorse Roger Stone's Sleazy Sexism? Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Jerome Corsi gave Kathleen Willey's latest rantings an uncritical platform in a Feb. 22 article that touts the unsubtly named "Rape PAC," which has a goal of attacking Hillary Clinton's campaign. Corsi adds: "Roger Stone, a confident of former presidents Nixon and Reagan, and author of the 2015 bestselling book 'The Clintons’ War on Women,' has been working with Willey to create the anti-Clinton Rape PAC."
Rsther than explain on what planet Stone's book is "bestselling" -- Amazon ranks it at No. 5,359, hardly a bestseller -- Corsi then quotes Stone whining about "the Clintons’ chronic abuse of women and how Hillary has destroyed any woman who has potentially gotten in the way of their lust for power and wealth.
Corsi failed to mention Roger Stone's own abuse of women, which makes him a very ironic representative of Kathleen Willey.
Just this week, Stone was banned from appearing on CNN for his vicious attacks on Republican strategist Ana Navarro, whom he has called a "Diva Bitch" and "Borderline retarded," and insulting her looks by stating that "Black beans and rice didn't miss her."
Stone has also hurled sexist epithets at other women, including "muff-diver," "elitist c*nt," "professional Negro," and "all around bitch."
And we haven't even gotten to his proud swinger lifestyle which includes possibly more sexual partners than Bill Clinton.
Or that the co-author of Stone's book, Robert Morrow, has some bizarre and creepy sexual fantasies about Hillary. By associating herself with Stone, Willey is associated with this guy too.
How does Willey feel about teaming with a sleazy political operative who has waged his own war on women? Corsi doesn't seem very interested in finding out the answer, and Willey -- whose latest campaign to get Clinton-haters to buy her a house to make up for her apparently terrible financial management skills has stalled out at a paltry $6,795 of the $100,000-plus she wants -- hasn't publicly addressed the issue.
MRC Uses Man-In-Women's-Restroom Incident To Freak Out About Transgenders Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has a habit of freaking out about transgenders in general, as well as pushing the right-wing "bathroom myth" -- in which allowing transgenders to use the restroom or locker room of their gender identity will somehow create perversion and danger to women -- regardless of the facts.
Mairead McArdle gives the myth another go in a Feb. 19 NewsBusters post, derisively referring to the issue as "confused commodes." She howled about how "a cisgender man invaded a women’s locker room last week" in Seattle. But the article McArdle cites about the incident does not describe the culprit as "cisgender" -- indeed, McArdle later flip-flops and admits that "this particular man seemed only to be making a clumsy statement about the new rule and did not try to identify himself as a woman."
McArdle goes on to baselessly claim that the incident -- even though it had nothing to do with gender identity and may, for all we know, been perpetrated by a right-wing activist protesting the idea of using the bathroom of one's gender identity -- as a "dangerous precedent" and "The man could just as easily have been a predator pretending to identify as a woman."
Well, no. McArdle refuses to acknowledge that there's simply no evidence to support the right-wing claim that allowing transgenders to use facilities consistent with their gender identity opens the door to predators.
But, apparently, hating transgenders gets clicks at the MRC, so expect McArdle and others to keep forwarding their factually deficient propaganda.
The Media Research Center still can't get its act together regarding whether it should denounce or defend Donald Trump.
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons is 
The Media Research Center has been 
Cheryl Chumley has been 
Last time we saw the Catholic League's Bill Donohue writing for the Media Research Center, it was a NewsBusters post 
WorldNetDaily 
Barbara Hollingsworth is a 
Kent Bailey is another WorldNetDaily columnist, like 
Only at the Media Research Center could Chris Rock's monologue at the Oscars hitting on how no black actors were nominated for major awards and Hollywood's genteel racism could be nothing but "racism" and "race jokes." Behold Alexa Moutevelis Coombs' NewsBusters 
The man who continually insists he’s a good Christian yet who rarely goes to church, who consistently avoids commemoration of Christian holidays, but who bends over backward to pay homage to Islam.
Curtis Louder whines in a Feb. 23 NewsBusters 
WorldNetDaily's Jerome Corsi gave Kathleen Willey's latest rantings an uncritical platform in a Feb. 22 
The Media Research Center has a habit of 
