MRC Rushes to Limbaugh's Defense (Again) Topic: Media Research Center
Is there anything Rush Limbaugh can do that the Media Research Center won't defend? It seems not.
The headline of a Sept. 7 MRC item by Tim Graham declares: "Al Roker Uncorks False Charge That Rush Limbaugh Said Irma Was 'Fake,' Not 'Dangerous'." Actually, it's Graham who's making the false charge: The Roker tweets Graham includes in his post makes it clear that he was saying that Limbaugh was downplaying warnings about Hurricane Irma, not that the entire hurricane was "fake." Nevertheless, Graham goes on to rant:
Neither of these tweets stand up to an actual reading of the Tuesday Limbaugh transcript. Read it. Nowhere did Limbaugh say Hurricane Irma was "fake" or "not a dangerous storm." He never told anyone to "ignore" the forecasts. No one should expect the liberals at PolitiFact/PunditFact to award Roker with a big "FALSE" on the "Truth-o-Meter." But he deserves one.
Actually, as the Washington Post's Callum Borchers summarizes:
Limbaugh, a fellow Trump booster, didn't say the deep state causesstorms, but he did say “you have people in all of these government areas who believe man is causing climate change, and they’re hellbent on proving it, they’re hellbent on demonstrating it, they’re hellbent on persuading people of it.”
Limbaugh didn't say the deep state directsstorms toward major cities, but he did say “hurricanes are always forecast to hit major population centers because, after all, major population centers is where the major damage will take place and where we can demonstrate that these things are getting bigger and they’re getting more frequent and they’re getting worse — all because of climate change.
Thus we have two of the president's biggest promoters in the media [Limbaugh and Alex Jones] telling people that news about a storm — or perhaps even the storm itself — is fake. There could be serious consequences to Trump's ceaseless effort to lower trust in institutions such as the government and the press — consequences that the president and his team might not have fully considered.
But tell that to Graham, who was too far into full Limbaugh defense mode -- with an added healthy dose of mindless media-bashing -- to be concerned by the facts:
As for the "profit" part, Limbaugh also drew media ire for suggesting the local media and local advertisers profit from driving panic about an incoming storm: "the TV stations begin reporting this and the panic begins to increase. And then people end up going to various stores to stock up on water and whatever they might need for home repairs and batteries and all this that they’re advised to get, and a vicious circle is created. You have these various retail outlets who spend a lot of advertising dollars with the local media."
Limbaugh told listeners that you can't find any bottled water in his Palm Beach area, days before an accurate storm track. He talked about his experience of living in Florida since 1997 and he wasn't just talking about Irma, or Harvey, but about both the storm forecasts that are real, and those that turned out to be overhyped, because the hurricane track moved or the storm weakened.
But the media always take offense when someone says they profit from tragedy. Broadcasting before a hurricane or a snowstorm is a public service....and it naturally causes a big ratings increase. It naturally also causes a run on the stores for supplies. All of that is true. It's just....insensitive to suggest anyone consciously benefits from tragedy -- or the fear of tragedy. As the old Don Henley song "Dirty Laundry" implied, the media thrive daily on the worst news...because it's much more interesting than planes landing safely on time.
The Left certainly accused the major media of putting profit ahead of stopping the election of President Trump. Was that a bizarre conspiracy theory, that the media's dramatic and heavy coverage of Trump meant profit came ahead of public service?
Of course, Graham and the MRC repeatedly complained that the media wasn't publishing enough bad news about Democrats, real or fake. (Graham and the MRC never did apologize or correct the record after enthusiastically promoting Fox News' fake-news story before the election taht Hillary Clinton's indictment was imminent.)
Meanwhile, Limbaugh didn't have the courage of his own words to ride out the hurricane whose threat he downplayed; he evacuated from Florida before Irma hit.
WND's 'Sanhedrin' Freakout -- And Fail Topic: WorldNetDaily
Leo Hohmann complains in an Aug. 31 WorldNetDaily article:
The state of Israel’s religious establishment is taking its persecution of Messianic Jewish believers in Jesus to a new level.
A rabbinic court, or Sanhedrin, has ruled that a Jew who believes in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah is no longer considered a Jew for purposes of marriage in Israel. This makes it impossible for two Messianic Jews to get married inside the country.
“An Israeli couple who are Messianic Jews cannot marry in a traditional Jewish religious ceremony in Israel because they are considered converts to Christianity, a rabbinical court ruled on Tuesday,” according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
It was the first time a rabbinical court has ruled on the issue of the status of Jews who believe in Jesus as Son of God, after a Messianic couple requested they be married in Israel according to Jewish law or "halacha."
But Hohmann gets one key fact wrong. As religious blogger Richard Bartholomew explains, the Israeli rabbinical court that made this ruling is not a "Sanhedrin" -- a Sanhedrin handles criminal matters, and this is a civil matter -- and does not use that word to describe itself. Bartholomew adds: "Hohman (or an editor) perhaps chose the word 'Sanhedrin' because of its Biblical connotations – reflecting a Christian Zionist tendency to conflate modern and ancient Israel, and in the context of rabbinical hostility to Messianic Jews perhaps also recalling the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin as described in the New Testament."
Despite this wrong terminology, WND perpetuated it. Editor Joseph Farah ranted in a Sept. 1 column:
Everyone knows I love Israel.
I lead some of the largest tour groups from America every year.
I spend about 5 percent of my time there.
I have been there six times in the last five years, usually for at least two weeks.
But when Israel makes a mistake, I’m the first to admit it. And the Israeli Sanhedrin, or rabbinic court, made one this week – just as it did nearly 2,000 years ago when it condemned the one and only legitimate candidate for the Jewish Messiah.
But if Farah is the Israelophile he claims he is, wouldn't he know that the rabbinical court is not a Sanhedrin?
Apparently not. In a Sept. 5 column, Farah documents his email exchange with the webmaster for "the nascent Sanhedrin." But this is not the Sanhedrin that made the ruling; we we've noted, this is a group of extremist rabbis with links to the banned, violence-tolerating Kahane movement and an intent to replace secular law with Torah law.
Farah cheered the group's existence earlier this year when it bashed the United Nations, going so far as to declare himself "in total agreement with Israel’s Sanhedrin, which not only sees this issue the way clear-thinking people on earth do, but understand the way it is viewed by the Creator-God, who sees the beginning from the end and the end from the beginning."
(The Sanhedrin webmaster, however, did get Farah to back off his suggestion that today's nascent Sanhedrin was the same one that condemned Jesus to death. And he curiously didn't disabuse Farah of his incorrect notion that the rabbinical court that issued the ruling is not the Sanhedrin.)
Why isn't Farah in "total agreement" with the Sanhedrin, or whatever, now? Preobably because WND columnist Michael Brown is a "messianic Jewish scholar" -- WND's original article and Farah's first column on the subject quote him -- and apparent WND buddy Zev Porat is a messianic rabbi in with a ministry in Israel seeking to convert Jews into believing Jesus is the Messiah. Also, WND's favorite terrible lawyer, Larry Klayman, also claims to be a messianic Jew.
Hohmann gave Porat a platform to rant about the "Sanhedrin" in a Sept. 6 WND article, in which he "issued a direct challenge to the regathered Sanhedrin, or rabbic council."In true WND tradition, Hohmann could not be bothered to contact a member of the issuing council to offer its views its decision -- or explain to him why they're not the Sanhedrin.
Irony: CNS Relies on Liberal Media to Cover Hurricane Topic: CNSNews.com
As much as the Media Research Center loves to bash the "liberal media," its "news" division, CNSNews.com, has relied on it -- for instance, being a longtime subscriber to the Associated Press, which was discontinued earlier this year for unexplained reasons.
CNS' weekend coverage of Hurricane Irma is another example. Now that CNS can no longer repeat the right-wing talking point about the length of time between "major" hurricanes hitting the U.S., it has to find other ways of covering news (and, no, taking stenography from the Trump administration does not count). A Sept. 10 article promised "Live Coverage of Hurricane Irma."
But the article, credited to "CNSNews.com Staff," states only:
For live coverage of Hurricane Irma, you can go to the websites of:
That's right: This right-wing "news" organization must rely on the normally despised "liberal media" -- WTFS is an ABC affiliate, and the Miami TV station linked to above is owned and operated by CBS -- to cover actual news.
Apparently, the MRC doesn't think the evil "liberal media" isn't that evil after all. But will they ever say so in public?
WND's Crowdfunding For Film Project Is A Fail Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's attempt to crowdfund its campaign to push Seth Rich conspiracy theories has been a dismal failure, raising a paltry $4,358 (as of this writing) of its $100,000 goal. Which makes it strange that WND is trying the crowdfunding route again.
This time, it's for WND's film division to make a movie of Anna Dittman's WND-published memoir "Trapped in Hitler's Hell." Dittman, you might remember, earned WND's love by smearing President Obama as purportedly exhibiting Nazi-esque tendencies -- something she strangely denied applied to Donald Trump.
One article touting the campaign states: "It’s a timely story that offers plenty of lessons for us in our present age. All the critical issues young Anita faced in the 1930s and ’40s are resurfacing today. Fake news is being pushed, just like Nazi propaganda in the days of old." Needless to say, the article doesn't mention how much of that fakenews is coming from WND.
WND is seeking $120,000, none of which would actually go toward making the film; instead, it wouid cover "legal expenses, business operations, marketing plans and materials (promo reels, websites, posters and press kits) as well as pre-production budgeting, scheduling and location scouting." WNDS adds: "After this preliminary work is done, the film can be pitched to investors who will be able to supply the money necessary to begin production and filming."
The GoFundMe page for the project states: 'The math is simple. If 2% of our WND audience of 6-8 million monthly visitors each donates $10 (that's less than two cappuccinos, or lattes, or mochas from Starbucks), we'll reach our film investor package goal of $120,000." That argument would seem to be less than persuasive, given that the typical WND reader likely doesn't frequent Starbucks and that WND despises the latte purveyor. For instance, columnist Rita Dunaway urged WND readers to boycott Starbucks over its support for Planned Parenthood, and WND cheered another boycott attempt over Starbucks' failure to hate gays like right-wingers do.
Another WND promo tried to steal a little glory from a much more successful film than anything WND has ever produced, pushing the idea that this film project would be just like the film "Dunkirk":
In the hit movie “Dunkirk,” British soldiers are trapped between the English Channel and the impending onslaught of the German army.
At stake is the capture or slaughter of 400,000 soldiers, the end of the British empire, and the conquest of Europe by Hitler’s Third Reich. All of this is a certainty unless a miracle happens.
In the same way, the true story of Holocaust survivor, Anita Dittman, involves an equally miraculous rescue. Her story is told in the book “Trapped in Hitler’s Hell: A Young Jewish Girl Discovers the Messiah’s Faithfulness in the Midst of the Holocaust.”
[...]
This is the powerful story that WND Films is endeavoring to make. And we need your help to tell it. Just like “Dunkirk” is reminding a generation that freedom is not free … it costs everything. Anita’s story will help restore belief in God’s providence … and that He alone has paid true freedom’s cost.
Actually, if you don't have a $100 million budget and Christopher Nolan as director, you're probalbly not going to end up with another "Dunkirk."
And it's pretty clear that won't be happening anytime soon. WND's GoFundMe campaign has raised just $5,273 as of this writing a full month into the campaign.
We've noted how Accuracy in Media likes to help former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka overcompensate by insisting on calling him "Dr. Sebastian Gorka," despite the fact that he's not a medical doctor (giving only medical doctors the "Dr." honorific is standard journalistic style) and his academic credentials (his doctorate is from a Hungarian school) have been question.
Now Newsmax is helping Gorka overcompensate as well.
During an appearance by Gorka on the Aug. 31 edition of Newsmax TV's "The Joe Pags Show," host Joe Paglliarulo repeatedly privileges Gorka with the "Dr." moniker. This is mostly repeated on the Sept. 4 edition of Newsmax TV's "America Talks Live," in which host Miranda Khan similarly gives Gorka the "Dr." moniker, though on-screen text more correctly identifies him as "Sebastian Gorka, PhD."
Newsmax also referred to "Dr." Gorka in articles on April 4 and Aug. 31 -- interestingly, both are about the right-wing Jewish group Zionist Organization of America running to Gorka's defense.
Newsmax also continues to privilege anti-abortion activist Alveda King with the "Dr." honorific, but this case is even more egregious because King's doctorate is honorary, not earned.
Art Moore writes in a Sept. 7 WorldNetDaily article:
The discovery that more than 6,000 people used out-of-state driver’s licenses to vote in New Hampshire last November bolsters Donald Trump’s claim he lost the state because thousands of Massachusetts residents came in to vote.
Trump claimed in February that out-of-state voters tipped the New Hampshire election, both against him and incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte. The Boston Globe at the time dismissed his allegation as “groundless.”
But the vast majority of the 6,000 voters have neither obtained an in-state license nor registered a motor vehicle since the November vote, according to an inquiry by Republican Speaker of the New Hampshire House Shawn Jasper, the Washington Times reported.
Hillary Clinton defeated Trump in New Hampshire by 2,736 votes while Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan defeated Ayotte by 1,017 votes.
The records from the Department of State, which oversees elections, and the Department of Safety show 6,540 people voted using out-of-state licenses. But as of Aug. 30, only 1014, about 15 percent, had been issued New Hampshire driver’s licenses.
Of the remaining 5,526, only 3.3 percent had registered a motor vehicle in New Hampshire.
But as actualnewsoutlets have pointed out after Kris Kobach, head of the White House's voter fraud commision, repeated the claim, there's no there there. There are these things called college students -- Dartmouth, for instance, is located in New Hampshire -- that have out-of-state driver's licenses and no need to get one in the state, or who don't have driver's licenses at all. New Hampshire does not require voters to have in-state driver's licenses.
Further, as the Washington Times article (which Moore curious fails to link to) points out, the numbers being presented are raw and have not been analyzed to see if college students make up most of them.
In other words, this is fake news, something WND is sadly proficient at.
CNS Attempts A Slightly Less Lame Right-Wing Attack on SPLC Topic: CNSNews.com
An anonymously written Aug. 25 CNSNews.com "news" article highlights how "Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia criticized the Southern Poverty Law Center for falsely labeling the Alliance Defending Freedom as a 'hate group,'" specifically defending anti-gay group Alliance Defending Freedom.
In addition to the usual boilerplate defense of ADF, the anonynous CNS writer surprisingly goes beyond previous ConWebattacks on the SPLC -- though it presents ADF's description of itself as fact instead of opinion -- and actually cites the SPLC document that makes the group's case against ADF:
The Alliance Defending Freedom is a non-profit legal organization dedicated to “advocating for religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center has labelled the ADF an “anti-LBGT [sic] hate group.”
On its website, the SPLC has posted a timeline of things the ADF has said and done over the years that the SPLC believes has earned it the label “hate group.”
The timeline starts in 2000 with this item: “The ADF helps fund and strategize the filing of a key amicus (friend of the court) briefs on behalf of the Boy Scouts of America in Dale v. Boy Scouts of America, in which a gay assistant Scoutmaster sued the BSA for expelling him because of its ban on gay members and leaders.”
The SPLC’s timeline goes on to state that in 2014: “ADF sends a letter to school districts around the country stating that no school is legally beholden to implement trans-inclusive policies and allow trans students to access bathrooms and locker rooms of the gender with which they identify. The letter denies the gender identity of such students and claims that such inclusive policies are allowing opposite sex students to access the facilities, which is ‘dangerous.’ ‘It is simply unfathomable that a school district would cave to activist demands that students have access to restroom and locker room facilities dedicated to the opposite sex.’”
Of course, CNS is cherry-picking the more benign examples from SPLC's timeline. No mention of, say, the assertion by former ADF leader Alan Sears that the campaign for gay rights is "a war of propaganda, just as Hitler did so masterfully in Nazi Germany," its pushing of the discredited link between homosexuality and pedophilia, or Sears' saying of gays that "there is no room for compromise with those who would call evil 'good.'"
The anonymous CNS writer went on to cite "a blog posted on the ADF website" that "hit back at the SPLC," but did not mention that the blog post does not refute any of the evidence the SPLC cites against it.
Now, WND is proudly proclaiming that fake news is a part of its "path to greatness." From a Sept. 6 article:
Sept. 6, 2016: After then-Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton suffered the worst coughing fit of her 2016 campaign just two months before the election, a mysterious man seen by her side for many months on the campaign trail suddenly appeared on her plane.
As WND reported, Clinton suffered two coughing fits on Labor Day 2016 – one during a speech in Cleveland, Ohio, and a second one during a press conference on her plane.
In the past, the same man had been spotted helping Clinton up stairs and holding what appeared to be a Diazepam pen. Some observers referred to the man as Hillary’s “mysterious handler.”
[...]
WND did ask the Hillary Clinton campaign about the identity and role of the man in the photos but never received a response.
At an earlier campaign appearance, the same man was reportedly seen carrying a long object that some claimed resembled a Diazepam pen.
As we documented when WND first published this a year ago, it's a pack of lies; WND perpetuated the story by deliberately ignoring all the established facts that proved it wrong. Later updates further confused things, but the bottom line is that WND published a lie, knew it was a lie when it was published, and tried -- and is continuing to try -- to con its readers into believing that lie.
This fake-news story is what WND considers a "milestone" on its "path to greatness." That's why it doesn't understand why it's on the path to oblivion.
MRC's Graham Loves Fox News Poll Question Equating Media, White Supremacists Topic: Media Research Center
You could almost hear the Media Research Center's Tim Graham grinning as he wrote in a Sept. 3 post:
Allahpundit at Hot Air pointed out Fox News did a poll asking a question liberal journalists would surely find revolting: Who's the bigger threat to America? White supremacists, or the news media? Overall, white supremacists won, 47 to 40 percent, but as usual, there's a dramatic partisan split. Democrats went with white supremacists, 76 to 12 percent, while Republicans picked the news media, 69 percent to 18. Independents were almost evenly split, 43 percent racists to 39 percent media (people could also pick that the threat was equal).
This from a guy who helps run an organization that is incredibly quick to whine about any slight to the reputation of conservatives -- i.e., calling them "far right" and pointing out that they're hostile to facts.
Then again, Graham thinks the mere act of a journalist asking questions is inherently liberal and he basically cheered a GOP candidate's physical assault of a reporter -- and employs a researcher who is incapable of telling the difference between journalists and "the left" -- so equating the media to white supremacists is only a tiny mental leap for him.
Farah Brings Back WND's Favorite Zombie Lie Topic: WorldNetDaily
Aside from the birther stuff, the biggest bit of fake news WorldNetDaily has perpetuation over the past decade is that Barack Obama's 2008 reference to a "civilian national security force" was something sinister, an allusion to creation of a police state. Despite us having debunked it at the time -- Obama was actually referring to a beefed-up diplomatic corps -- WND claimed it again and again and again.
Since the predicted police state never surfaced during Obama's presidency, WND ould have exhibited a sense of shame and admitted they were wrong and were simply pushing a bogus talking point in order to smear Obama. But then, WND never corrects anything unless there's a threat of a lawsuit, so the only obvious choice for WND was to double down.
Which brings us to WND editor Joseph Farah's Sept. 4 column. He began this way:
Way back on July 2, 2008, Barack Obama issued a declaration that made my head spin, yet no one, and I mean no one, took notice untilI wrote about it several days later.
Then it caught fire. That fire has never been quenched.
In a long campaign speech, he dropped this little bomb: “We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”
Over the years, I’ve wondered what became of that idea – a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded as the U.S. military.
Farah is lying. We caught him in this lie nine years and two months ago. He knows Obama was never talking about establishing a police state, but he pretended otherwise as part of WND's failed scorched-earth campaign against Obama. It was a lie then, and it's a lie now.
And like any shameless, inveterate liar, Farah won't admit he was wrong, and he expands on his zombie lie, inventing a new, bogus interpretation of what "civilian national security force" means:
Lately, I’ve been getting inquiries from readers about whether we’re now seeing the realization of Obama’s concept in the streets of America – from Berkeley to Charlottesville.
Could the antifa thugs, anti-Semite leftists and Black Lives Matter racists represent what Obama had in mind? There’s little question these groups are being paid, though not necessarily with our tax dollars. Don’t be surprised, however, if we find out years from now that government transfers of wealth have actually found their way into some of these group’s coffers. But we know some of George Soros’ billions have.
We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded as the U.S. military, Obama said.
Could it be this monstrosity of violent chaos and disruption is what he had in mind?
True, Obama is out of power. But let’s keep in mind his new job is national community organizer in chief. He’s the counter-president. He’s the leader of the opposition to the new president. And we know about his closeness to Soros – and their shared goals.
And it started early – like the day of the inauguration.
A month later, tens of thousands of agitators trained by an Obama-tied activist group to protest Trump’s policies hit Republican lawmakers supporting those policies when they returned home for the congressional recess and held town hall meetings and other functions. Remember that?
Organizing for Action, a group founded by Obama and featured prominently on his new post-presidency website, began distributing a training manuals to anti-Trump activists that advised them to bully GOP lawmakers into backing off support for repealing Obamacare, curbing immigration from high-risk Islamic nations and building a border wall, reporter supreme Paul Sperry reported.
[...]
Keep in mind, Obama’s OFA boasts more than 250 offices nationwide and more than 32,000 organizers, with another 25,000 actively under training. And that’s just Obama’s command center. I suggest the shock troops, the “Marines,” the special forces, the infantry are antifa, BLM and the leftist anti-Semites.
It’s right out of the pages of Obama’s hero (and Hillary’s) Saul Alinsky, “the father of community organizing” and the author of “Rules for Radicals,” originally dedicated to Lucifer – the ultimate radical. Michelle Obama quoted from the book when she helped launch OFA.
“Understand that I’m going to be constrained in what I do with all of you until I am again a private citizen, but that’s not so far off,” Barack Obama said last year. “You’re going to see me early next year,and we’re going to be in a position where we can start cooking up all kinds of great stuff.” (Emphasis added.) “I promise you that next year Michelle and I are going to be right there with you, and the clouds are going to start parting, and we’re going to be busy. I’ve got all kinds of thoughts and ideas about it, but this isn’t the best time to share them. Point is, I’m still fired up and ready to go, and I hope that all of you are, as well.”
So, we haven’t heard the last of Obama. We may still find out if this new “civilian national security force” is what he had in mind all the time.
NEW ARTICLE: The Life and Death of A Right-Wing Talking Point Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com loved to suggest global warming doesn't exist by highlighting the amount of time between "major" hurricanes hitting the U.S. -- until Hurricane Harvey put an end to that narrative. Read more >>
WND Still Thinks 'Alt-Left' Exists, Farah Still Wants Credit For Naming It Topic: WorldNetDaily
Last time we checked, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah was demanding credit for inventing the term "alt-left," despite the fact that the "alt-left" is not a thing. So WND suddenly had a momentous task: Prove "alt-left" is a thing.
Thus, we have an anonymously written Aug. 27 article trying to do just that:
Progressives haven’t stopped with tearing down Confederate statues: The Founding Fathers, Christopher Columbus and even Abraham Lincoln are all under attack by masked extremists.
Trump supporters, people waving the American flag and even completely random white people have been stabbed or attacked by ironically named “anti-fascist” groups, or “antifa,” who accuse everyone who is not a communist of being a Nazi.
Just weeks after Republican lawmakers narrowly escaped a massacre at the hands of an unhinged Democrat, the leftists are doubling down on violence.
President Trump pointed out it was the left-wing extremists who initiated the violence in Charlottesville by attacking a legally sanctioned demonstration. And he called the “Antifa” the “alt-left,” forever branding this growing group of radicals.
But what is the alt-left? The mainstream media is claiming there is no such thing. Yet close observers of American college campuses are not surprised by what is happening nationwide.
The “alt-left” has not only been a force in American higher education; it practically runs the campuses. Violent, extremist and viciously anti-white gangs have shut down classes, chased dissenters off campus and engaged in property destruction and wholesale riots that have reduced entire colleges to places that more closely resemble open-air asylums than institutions of higher learning.
The "news" article, though, is actually just an ad for books and videos for sale in WND's online store.
Meanwhile, Farah was still demanding credit for inventing the term. He ratcheted up the self-aggrandizement in his Aug. 27 column:
As the fake news media kept pounding on the “alt-right” label, I decided to coin the term “alt-left.” I’ve coined many terms throughout my career, but I’ve actually been credited with this one. But, unlike the alt-right disinformation artists beginning with Hillary Clinton, I actually defined it, supported it with a factual foundation and explained the phenomenon.
Two days later, Farah took things to absurd lengths, as he is wont to do:
Take a look at your computer keyboard. Look to the bottom rung of keys and over to the left.
What do you see?
If you have a Microsoft keyboard, you probably see to the extreme left bottom an abbreviation for the word “control.” “Control” on any true ideological spectrum is on the left – be it communist, socialist, fascist. They are all left-wing ideas, and they all demand strict government control. That’s the common denominator, even though socialists have disputes with communists and communists have disputes with fascists. The common denominator is they are all of the left.
If you look past through that Microsoft flag next to the control key you will see the world “alt.” Both keys are neatly positioned on the left side of the keyboard and, ironically, on the bottom rung.
(If you have, as I do, an Apple keyboard, the “alt” key is appropriately called “command.”
So, one keyboard juxtaposes control and “alt,” and the other juxtaposes control and command.
What does that suggest? Maybe I misnamed the “alt-left.” Maybe a more accurate and comprehensible moniker would be “ctrl-left.” Because, ultimately, that is what the left is all about – control.
Just a thought. Any significance?
Not really. And Farah makes sure not to mention that most Microsoft and Microsoft-compatible keyboards (for instance, this one) have "alt" and "control" keys on the right side of the keyboard as well. But that would have blown up his wacky little analogy, so he had to censor that information.
MRC Tries to Put Words In Trump's Mouth Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Nicholas Fondacaro complained in an Aug. 27 item:
With the remains of Hurricane Harvey still threatening the communities and lives of the people living along the coast of Texas, the liberal media still couldn’t put their obsession with President Trump aside. In a segment of CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday, host Brian Stelter wanted to talk about Trump’s description of political journalists as “sick people” from earlier in the week. But his panel twisted Trump’s words to connect them to those reporters covering the hurricane and those in war zones.
Wait a minute. Trump never specifically said he was singling out "political journalists" in his Phoenix speech, nor did he specifically exclude non-political journalists; he repeatedly refers to "the media" throughout the speech. Trump's reference to "sick people" was arguably framed as an attack on journalists who criticize his tweets, but even that did not specifically single out "political journalists."
Which means Fondacaro is putting words in Trump's mouth, insisting that his criticism of "the media" is limited to only national political journalists when he has never specifically made that distinction.
He went on to complain about the "conflation between the national political reporters and local news people" when, again, Trump has never specifically excluded "local news people" from his repeated attacks on "the media," concluding that the "Reliable Sources" panelists "politicized a natural disaster, which had taken lives, for political gain." How so? By defending the honor of journalists from a critic who's using a broad-brush smear?
Fondacaro went on to complain that one "Reliable Sources" panelist pointed out that Sean Hannity wasn't on the ground in Houston, "while ignoring the fact that Sean Hannity was just a political commentator and not a journalist." But Hannity has, in fact, called himself an "advocacy journalist" earlier this year, and he said he was a "journalist" in 2008 when he was relentlessly attacking Barack Obama.
Last fall just before the election, WorldNetDaily and the Media Research Center both tried to create a fake-news scandal about Andrew McCabe, an FBI official who was taking part in the agency's investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails whose objectivity was purportedly compromised because a PAC run by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe donated money to a campaign by McCabe's wife for a Virginia state legislative seat. But as Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler explained, the donations by McAuliffe's PAC to Jill McCabe's campaign were made well before her husband was named to an FBI team proving Clinton's emails -- three months after McCabe lost her election, in fact -- and there was no way "McAuliffe would know that the husband of someone he was supporting in a Virginia legislative race was going to be promoted months later."
Well, discredited WND freelancer Paul Sperry didn't get the message that there's no scandal here, so he spends an Aug. 28 article trying to stoke the witch hunt against McCabe:
Politically compromised deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe continues to run an investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged “collusion” with Russia, bureau sources familiar with the probe say – even though it overlaps with the special counsel’s investigation, and even though McCabe, whose wife is a Democratic activist, is under investigation for political conflicts of interest.
As the subject of no fewer than three separate investigations of his own, McCabe is operating under a growing ethical cloud, critics inside the bureau complain.
Yet, he is “still running that investigation,” an FBI source said. “He didn’t recuse himself from the Hillary Clinton case, and he won’t recuse himself from the Russian matter.”
Though Special Counsel Robert Mueller took over the Russia investigation from the FBI in May, McCabe continues to oversee a parallel investigation through the bureau’s national security division, sources say. And he maintains a lead role in the case, despite being replaced Aug. 2 as acting FBI director by Trump appointee Christopher Wray.
The allegations Sperry makes against McCabe are either anonymously made, unsubstantiated, or both. And nowhere does Sperry mention that McCabe didn't join the Hillary investigation until three months after his wife's political campaign ended.
The fact that Sperry had to descend to his fellow discredited conspiracy-mongerers at WND to get his nasty, politically motivated story published tells you all you need to know about its shady, empty nature.
CNS Unemployment Coverage Distortion Watch, Now With Slightly Less Distortion Topic: CNSNews.com
Apparently, even the big Trump flip on unemployment reporting at CNSNews.com -- in which CNS switched from being relentlessly negative under President Obama to relentlessly positive under President Trump despite the jobless numbers trending roughly the same way -- has its limits.
For her main article on August's unemployment numbers, Susan Jones did what she usually did under Obama and has rarely done under Trump -- lead with unpleasant statistics about the relatively low labor force participation rate:
Heading into the Labor Day weekend, the latest jobs report is a disappointment.
Tthe number of Americans over age 16 who are not in the labor force – for whatever reason – remained stubbornly high in August, at 94,785,000. That is partly attributed to the rising number of retirements among Baby Boomers.
Of course, Jones rarely mentioned the Baby Boomer factor in playing guilt-by-assocation in blaming low labor force participation on Obama.
CNS editor in chief Terry Jeffrey contributed his usual article on manufacturing jobs, but he remained on message in dishonestly blaming a decline in them on Obama and crediting Trump's election for an increase:
When Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, there were 12,561,000 people employed in manufacturing in the United States. But in the next month, February 2009, manufacturing employment dropped to 12,380,000. Manufacturing employment would eventually dropped to 11,4530,000 [sic] in February and March of 2010.
Last November, at the time Donald Trump was elected president, there were 12,325,000 employed in manufacturing. That rose to 12,343,000 in December—and since then has climbed to the 12,480,000 it reached in August, an increase of 155,000 since last year’s election and 137,000 so far for this calendar year.
Jeffrey doesn't mention that the country was in the middle of a recession when Obama took office, nor does he explain why Obama doesn't get credit for the increase of nearly 2 million manufacturing jobs between the 2010 low and the election (or afterward, since it's unlikely that any action Trump has taken can be directly attributed to the increase).
Jeffrey also contributed his usual article on the number of government jobs. Managing editor Michael W. Chapman added for only the second time under Trump his regular Obama-era feature on black unemployment vs. white unemployment; Chapman finally concedes that high black unemployment is a longtime trend, though he'll only admit that it's been since 2007 (as we've noted, it's been that way since statistics were first compiled in 1972).
Is there anything Rush Limbaugh can do that the Media Research Center won't defend? It seems not.
Leo Hohmann complains in an Aug. 31 WorldNetDaily 
WorldNetDaily's attempt to crowdfund its campaign to 
We've 
Art Moore writes in a Sept. 7 WorldNetDaily 
An anonymously written Aug. 25 CNSNews.com "news" 
This year marks WorldNetDaily's 20th anniversary, and one of the things it's doing is a daily on-this-day-in-history thing that purports to highlight a "milestone" in WND's "path to greatness." So far, WND's "path to greatness" has included 
You could almost hear the Media Research Center's Tim Graham grinning as he wrote in a Sept. 3 
Aside from the birther stuff, the biggest bit of fake news WorldNetDaily has perpetuation over the past decade is that Barack Obama's 2008 reference to a "civilian national security force" was something sinister, an allusion to creation of a police state. Despite us having 
Last time we checked, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah was 
The Media Research Center's Nicholas Fondacaro complained in an Aug. 27 
Last fall just before the election, 
Apparently, even the big 
