CNS Pretends Roger Stone Isn't A Sleaze Topic: CNSNews.com
Susan Jones uses a Sept. 26 CNSNews.com article to portray Roger Stone as normally as possible. Under the innocuous headline "Trump’s Friend Roger Stone Blasts House Intel Committee: ‘This Is Cowardice’," Jones writes:
Denied his request for an open hearing before the House intelligence committee on Tuesday, Roger Stone, a longtime friend and adviser to Donald Trump, released both a video and printed version of his opening statement to the committee before entering the hearing room.
He was blunt, scornful and ticked off:
[...]
Stone described himself as a 40-year friend of Donald Trump and one of Trump’s first campaign consultants. He said he consulted for the Trump campaign for five months, until August 2015, and continued to advocate for Trump thereafter.
Stone firmly denied any involvement in the alleged – alleged -- collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, and he said just because the intelligence community has said there was coordination that doesn’t make it true. He listed various failings of the intelligence community and said it has become politicized.
Jones conveniently fails to mention that there was good reason for Stone to be investigation over Russian meddling; as actual journalists at Politico reported:
Stone became a focus of the Russia probe because he indicated in August 2016 that he had communicated with Assange through back channels. Later that month, he seemed to foreshadow the email dump when he prophesied that it would soon be “Podesta’s time in the barrel.” WikiLeaks began publishing Podesta’s emails in October.
Stone also revealed earlier this year that he’d been in contact with Guccifer 2.0, believed to be a Russian-affiliated hacker at the center of a separate hack of the Democratic National Committee.
The only hint of Stone's sleaze and extremism in Jones' article is buried in a photo caption, which mentions that the testimony Stone released went to "Alex Jones' Infowars."
Needless to say, there was no mention of the fact that Jones' boss, Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell, cheered (albeit belatedly) when Stone was banned from CNN and MSNBC for making offensive remarks -- the Trump flip sent that down the memory hole. Nor was there any mention of Stone's personal life, which Jones and the rest of the Media Research Center would be denouncing as immoral were he not a loyal Trump lackey.
Newsmax's James Hirsen rants against Jimmy Kimmel in his Sept. 25 column:
Kimmel's son had already had to battle congenital heart disease in his infant life. The Democrats apparently saw the opportunity to exploit Kimmel's family difficulties, using the hardship as a means to attack the Republican proposed legislation by feeding lies to the late-night host. Particularly underhanded was the reframing of the efforts by the GOP to repeal and replace Obamacare as a plan that would fail to protect people with pre-existing conditions such as the one Kimmel's son experienced.
[...]
Lost in the media coverage has been the truth that people with pre-existing conditions would not be denied coverage under the GOP’s proposed legislation. However, it appears as though Kimmel was fed purposely misleading information from Schumer and dutifully repeated the lines for his audience.
Kimmel was not lying. In fact, the proposed Graham-Cassidy bill would permit states to not cover pre-existing conditions, making coverage prohibitively expensive or even nonexistent.
Hirsen also complains that "the co-writer of Kimmel’s healthcare remarks was none other than U.S. Senate Minority Leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.," and that the two had been "coordinating behind the scenes to put a wrench in the Republican undertaking of repealing the failing healthcare system known as Obamacare."
We remember when Hirsen vociferously defended Mel Gibson after his anti-Semitic rantings came to light and enthusiastically promoted his film "The Passion of the Christ" at Newsmax without disclosing his personal and business connections to Gibson -- including that he ran a foundation on behalf of Gibson's father -- so any complaints about Kimmel's fact-finding arrangement ring hollow.
Speaking of Overwrought Hatefests... Topic: Media Research Center
Under the headline "An Overwrought Hatefest at the Emmy Awards," Brent Bozell and Tim Graham spent their Sept. 22 column ranting about, yes, the Emmys, declaring it "a boorish hourslong festival of Trump bashing and Hillary mourning" and a "screaming political spectacle."
The day before that column appeared, however, Bozell and his Media Research Center held their very own overwrought hatefest in the form of the 30th Anniversary Gala and DisHonors Awards. It had a theme (of a speakeasy) as if it was a high school prom, and it was held at a grand building that, ironically for the government-hating right-wingers at the MRC, owes its existence to the federal government.
How hateful was it? One of its so-called awards was given to literally "Every Single Person We Don’t Like in the Liberal Media." And anti-Muslim activist Brigitte Gabriel was on hand to sneer, "President Donald Trump is living at the White House, while Hillary is at Costco signing books in the milk aisle." (Though Hillary sold more books last week than Gabriel ever has.)
Nevertheless, the MRC thought its hatefest was so entertaining that its "news" division, CNSNews.com, devoted threeentirearticles to Joe Piscopo's routine there (which didn't seem all that funny or original -- but then, conservatives don't demand that their humor be funny, just conservative).
Of course, there was not a word breathed about the award the MRC didn't give out: The "Williiam F. Buckley Award for Media Excellence" that was to be given to Sean Hannity but withdrawn after the award was challenged by Buckley's son, presumably opposed to Hannity's irresponsible and un-Buckley-like conspiracy-mongering. The only thing the MRC ever said about it was a single tweet from Bozell claiming a scheduling conflict; but as former MRC employee Ken Shepherd noted, Hannity hosted his regular Fox News show as usual that night.
The MRC definitely knows how to throw an overwrought hatefest to rival the Emmys. If only they'd simply admit that's what they're doing.
Fake News: WND's Hohmann Baselessly Blames Dems for St. Louis Violence Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily writer Leo Hohmann took a break from lying and fearmongering about Muslims to lie and fearmonger about Democrats in a Sept. 20 article:
The St. Louis Young Democrats are working hand-in-hand with Black Lives Matter to organize protests in the city, now entering their sixth night, and the mayor says she is “listening.”
The Young Democrats tweeted Wednesday at about 12:20 p.m. that the next “protest” in response to the not-guilty verdict in the Jason Stockley trial was planned for Wednesday evening, instructing rioters where to show up and at what time, hashtagging #Black Lives Matter on the tweet.
While the Young Democrats can claim they are calling for peaceful protests, that claim is dubious at best, given their connections with Black Lives Matter, a known radical group that espouses violence and has been seen on video kicking in storefront windows, spraying unknown chemicals and throwing rocks at police.
More than a dozen police officers have been reported injured, and tens of thousands of dollars in damage has been caused to local businesses that had nothing to do with the Stockley verdict.
Now it comes to light that the Young Democrats are organizing the riots, which they call protests.
First: The only "evidence" Hohmann presents of the St. Louis Young Democrats "working hand-in-hand" with Black Lives Matter is the hashtag, which is not evidence of anything.
Second: Hohmann provides no evidence whatsoever that the St. Louis Young Democrats endorse or condone any violence at the protests Hohmann claims it's "organizing."
Third: Hohmann provides no evidence that anyone officially affiliated wiuth Black Lives Matter committed any violence or that the organization itself "espouses violence."
In place of any evidence, Hohmann serves up ranting from self-loathing black man Jesse Lee Peterson, who insists (also without evidence) that Black Lives Matter is "evil."
Real journalists provide evidence to back up the claims they make. HOhmann can't be bothered -- and WND has no problem with that.
MRC's Hypocritical Attack on Coverage of Puerto Rico Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Nicholas Fondacaro huffs in a Sept. 25 post:
Hurricane Maria hit the U.S. island territory of Puerto Rico last Wednesday and since then, there has been an ever-worsening humanitarian crisis. Most of the island was still without power, supplies slow to arrive, and the threat of a failing dam as of Monday. Despite the terrible news coming from the island, the Big Three Networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) have dedicated far more time since Sunday to President Trump’s spat with protesting athletes than to the Puerto Rican people fighting to stay alive.
Between September 24 and September 25, the Big Three Networks spent a total of 92 minutes and 33 seconds of airtime hyperventilating about Trump's feud with various sports athletes. Compared to the 25 minutes and 45 seconds of total airtime between the three for Puerto Rico, over those two days. That means the networks spent 3.6 times more airtime on Trump’s Twitter war than the humanitarian crisis.
Again, the MRC has chosen to focus only on TV networks with a limited amount of news space, completely and deliberately ignoring the cable news channels (after all, that ratio probably occurred at its beloved Fox News as well).
The big problem here, though, is the utterly hypocritical nature of the criticism. Because you know who else prioritized Trump's NFL spat over the crisis in Puerto Rico? The MRC.
At the same time Fondacaro's post went live, the front page of the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, contained 13 stories, columns and blog post and Trump's NFL spat, seven of which were at the top of the page -- with the lead story being MRC chief Brent Bozell's own NFL-bashing rant:
At the same time, there were no stories on its front page -- none -- about Puerto Rico. Indeed, the first article about Puerto Rico at CNS wasn't posted until a day after the MRC's so-called study was issued -- and it was a column from the Heritage Foundation whining that "American workers and businesses will not be able to play a major role in the reconstruction unless President Donald Trump overrules the Department of Homeland Security and issues an extensive waiver from the commerce-killing Jones Act." That was followed an hour later by a stenography piece by Melanie Arter in which Trump declares that the recovery efforts in Puerto Rico are going well.
Neither article offered anything more than a glancing mention of the growing humanitarian crisis in the country.
The MRC is criticizing the media for doing the exact same thing its own "news" outlet is doing. That's the height of hypocrisy.
Yes, A WND Columnist Called Trump 'The Great White Hope' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Last year, we noted WorldNetDaily columnist Jesse Lee Peterson's tendency to invoke his black-conservative privilege to say things that would be denounced as racist had they come from the mouth or pen of a white person -- for instance, calling a black woman a "Negress" or mocking Black History Month. Not only hasn't he stopped doing it, he's ratcheting things up.
We have the greatest president in the history of America. I thank God for President Donald Trump, “The Great White Hope”!
At long last, a white man with courage speaks the truth, and he takes no mess from America-hating, liberal black liars tearing the country apart.
Now, the phrase "great white hope" was coined in the early 20th century by writer Jack London, who wanted a white boxer to defeat Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion. At one point, London implored one white boxer to return to the ring and take on Johnson by writing, "The White Man must be rescued."
Peterson surely knows the racially charged origin of that phrase, yet he used it anyway. It's as if he thinks blacks who don't share his right-wing thinking need to be dominated like millions of racist whites thought Jack Johnson should be -- again, the sentiment of a white supremacist. Not unlike earlier this year, when Peterson proclaimed Trump our "white savior."
Peterson continued his rant, which once again sounded like it should have been published at VDARE:
If leftists cared about black lives, why don’t they encourage black men and women to marry before making babies out of wedlock? Blacks commit abortion at more than twice the rate whites do, killing nearly one-third of their children in the womb. (In New York City, some years, more than half of black pregnancies end in abortion.) This deadens blacks’ souls, making them an unhappy and cruel people, with no peace. Of the black kids who survive, 72 percent are born out of wedlock, most raised without their fathers by angry black mothers and grandmothers. Black boys and girls grow up angry, sexual and, in many cases, violent.
President Obama did nothing to help – but only made things worse, promoting homosexuality and transgender madness instead of morality and marriage, expanding abortion in the U.S. and abroad. Obama investigated the police instead of rampant black violence and black brutality. Obama pushed the false illusions of “racism,” blame and excuses for black failure and rioting. He divided the country and darkened the souls of black people.
These professional athletes fawn over Barack Obama, but they hate President Trump, who sets a good example as a man of truth with love for the people. Trump aims to help black Americans out of their hell. Yet phony Christians like NBA’s Golden State Warriors player Stephen Curry does White House photo shoots with Obama and then shuns President Trump.
If Peterson thinks Trump tells the truth and remains so angry at Obama -- not to mention invoking notoriously racist rhetoric against people the same skin color as him -- methinks the unhappy, cruel person with no peace is Peterson.
No, MRC, Levin Isn't Vindicated on Spying Claims Topic: Media Research Center
Craig Bannister harrumphed in a Sept. 19 CNSNews.com blog post:
In March, conservative pundit Mark Levin documented that the Obama Administration had wiretapped the Trump campaign. On Monday, CNN reported that, indeed, the FBI had wiretapped former Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, both before and after the election.
But, while CNN’s claim is based on unnamed “sources,” Levin made his case by citing quotes from eight separate news reports [...] to make the case that the Obama Administration spied on Trump.
At the Media Research Center's NewsBusters, Tim Graham insisted that CNN's revelation about the FBI wiretapping Manafort "means there are some major-media reporters who should apologize to conservatives who asked questions about Trump-team surveillance. In March,ABC’s Brian Ross repeatedly denounced Mark Levin as a 'conspiracy-loving talk show host' (a la Alex Jones) over three days of newscasts." Graham added that HBO host John Oliver "should also get Levin on the phone and apologize."
Levin's claims reportedly inspired Trump's assertion that Trump wiretapped him. But the truth is not necessarily on Levin's (and the MRC's) side.
As the Washington Post points out, the target was Manafort, not Trump. He was being monitored as early as 2014, many months before Trump had even announced his presidential campaign, and he was apparently not monitored during the brief time he was the manager of the Trump campaign. There is, however, no evidence that Obama personally ordered it, as Levin has suggested.
Three's no need for anyone to apologize to Levin just yet. There is, however, a fairly urgent need for the MRC to explain the details of its business arrangement with him so that we know how much Levin is paying it to promote him.
WND's Resident Artist Shocked To Discover Gays Appear In Art Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's resident purported art critic, Marisa Martin -- better known to the non-ConWeb world as April Kiessling -- is shocked, shocked we tell ya, to discover that gay-themed art exists and that it is being put on display in art museums. As betis someone who writes for WND, she thinks this is all a conspiracy:
Reinterpreting history via “queer theory” has been a major goal for universities, but it’s making a gaudy debut in museums this year. You can translate that as: It is virtually impossible to avoid drowning in homosexuality, if you venture into most art institutions.
Galleries and media enthusiastically pimp the gay lifestyle to all comers, but the regal state museums held themselves somewhat aloof for a spell. Repositories of a grand Christian history, they hold the relics of nations and kings. But Britain’s Tate Museum, the Prado in Spain, MOMA and the rest, are out sniffing the wind for fads, and waving cash like a mating signal.
Anyone with two connected brain cells knows the hoopla over homosexuality is merely promotion of a virtually unidentifiable minority. (In this this case, approximately 1.7 % of people self-identity as “gay,” according the U.S. 2010 census. Adding bisexuality, transwhatever, no-sex, temporary insanity, or “other” comes to a whopping 3.7 of the population.)
Forcing museum patrons into contorted “queer gazing” or “queer history” is a form of aggressive cultural imposition on the majority of a population. Other than gay propaganda, there is no discernable purpose. Slightly more of the art works center on homosexuality than the percentage of people viewing them, but that’s often from investments to push the lifestyle.
Of course, anyone with two actually connected brain cells whould know that being gay isn't a "lifestyle." Nevertheless, "Martin" goes on to push the right-wing smear that homosexuality and pedophilia are no different:
Alt-sex propaganda in Western museums benefits only a small minority, and even that wouldn’t matter if it didn’t harm a substantial number of children. Pederasty was rampant in Roman and Greek culture, and it’s the foundation of the glorious gay movement now. There isn’t space to run the mountains of research proving relationships between gay rape in childhood and the inordinate numbers of abuse victims who insist they must be “born that way.” A few years back it was a mantra that child abusers were much more likely to end up abusing children if they didn’t get help. But this is long forgotten, because homosexuality is now decreed to be a gift – and how you got it doesn’t matter (much like the diseases that so often accompany the lifestyle).
Curators don’t attempt to hide their fixation on gayness, rather than any particular works of art. Images of (non-sexual) intimacy and friendship among the same sex are implied to reek of homoeroticism. Rooting out “hidden homoeroticism” is one of the biggest things going in going in art scholarship now, as gay desires are projected randomly and promiscuously.
The last time we checked, nobody was forcing "Martin" to go to a museum to see this. It's not propaganda if it's not coerced. Unless, of cousre, "Martin" thinks any opinion contrary to hers is "propaganda."
MRC Seems OK With Violence Happening To Journalists Who Don't Like Trump Enough Topic: Media Research Center
Last year, we argued that the Media Research Center's attacks on NBC reporter Katy Tur helped to prime the pump for Donald Trump's attacks on her during the campaign, which resulted in concerns about her safety as Trump supporters became increasingly hostile toward her and other journalists.
It seems that fear is the preferred state in which the MRC would journalists to remain.
In a Sept. 12 MRC post, Kyle Drennen wrote dismissively of Tur's legitimate fears of violence against her and other journalists:
Promoting her new book about covering Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign, on Tuesday’s NBC Today, correspondent Katy Tur told co-host Matt Lauer that the then-presidential candidate’s public criticism of her reporting was “jarring” and “scary.” Lauer shared her fear as he recalled the “intense feeling” he got at Trump rallies when the Republican nominee would attack the liberal media.
[...]
Tur responded: “At first, he was very charming. And when he realized that his charm wasn’t going to change my reporting, he would go on the attack....What I did every day though...was go out and try and honestly report on what was happening and hold him accountable for the things that he said.”
Lauer continued to paint Tur as the victim: “You said you kept a diary. I would love to go back and read the entry in the diary on that day that he called you ‘little Katy Tur’ and you were ‘dishonest’ and things like that.” Tur melodramatically declared: “Well, that is in the book. And you can go back and read exactly what it felt like in that moment. It was jarring, it was scary, and it was one of those feelings that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to shake.”
The morning show host commiserated with her: “Yeah, I was at a few of his rallies when he would target the press. And although he never mentioned me by name, I do remember the entire room turning around and looking at the press pool....And it was a very intense feeling.”
Tur breathlessly explained: “We had to have armed security. And it wasn’t just NBC, it was the other networks as well. I think everyone except for Fox and CBS. The crowd would all – they would turn on us and they would yell. And he riled them up to do that.”
She clarified: “I’m not saying Donald Trump’s supporters were violent, angry people. Many of them were lovely and wonderful when you talked to them one-on-one.” However, Tur then warned: “The concern was what if there’s one person in that crowd who might take this too seriously? Who might feel like this is not just a show or part of the act and take it further.”
Earlier in the segment, the reporter laughably claimed that her lack of experience in political reporting before being assigned to cover Trump’s presidential run actually made her a fairer journalist:
That last link goes to a February MRC post in which Nicholas Fondacaro declares that her fears of violence against journalists are "vile," huffing that "It’s reporting like this that helps to create the circumstances for the violent rhetoric we’re seeing from the left, such as Madonna talking about blowing up the White House and Sarah Silverman calling for a military coup." Interesting that Fondacaro thinks reacting to the anti-media atmosphere Trump creates is "vile," but not the actual creation of it.
Drennen followed up the next day by seemingly justifying threats of violence against Tur because she doesn't like Trump:
“The room goes wavy. My stomach churns. I can feel the bile in the back of my throat.” That reaction to Donald Trump winning the 2016 election didn’t come from Hillary Clinton’s new memoir, it came from the pages of NBC correspondent and MSNBC anchor Katy Tur’s book about covering the campaign.
The Hill’s Joe Concha read through a copy of Unbelievable, in which Tur bemoaned Trump’s victory: “I’ve heard him insult a war hero, brag about grabbing women by the pussy, denigrate the judicial system, demonize immigrants, fight with the pope, doubt the democratic process, advocate torture and war crimes, tout the size of his junk in a presidential debate, trash the media, and endanger my life.”
Appearing on Tuesday’s Today show to hawk the book, Tur similarly described how “jarring” and “scary” it was when Trump would criticize her biased coverage during campaign stump speeches. “We had to have armed security,” she hyped.
Beyond recalling her nausea, Tur also pushed her bizarre fear that Trump would become a lifetime dictator: "I have a vision of myself at sixty, Trump at a hundred, in some midwestern convention hall. The children of his 2016 supporters are spitting on me.”
After expressing her loathing of the President in such detail, does anyone really believe Tur can be an objective journalist?
So Tur should be grateful to Trump for endangering her life and maliciously belittling her profession? Is that the way Drennen would treat someone who did that to him?
The hatred the MRC has for journalists, it seems, borders on the pathological.
Fake News: WND Resurrects Zombie Lie About Obama Topic: WorldNetDaily
Bob Unruh writes in a Sept. 19 WorldNetDaily article:
Instances of hostility to religion across America surged 133 percent during the last five years of the Obama administration, according to a new report that documents more than 1,400 incidents ranging from the Obamacare attacks on faithful Christians to various prison restrictions on Muslims and Sikhs.
Critics say it shouldn’t be a surprise, since the former president claimed that the United States never was a “Christian nation.”
Unruh is lying -- creating fake news, as it were. As we pointed out the last time Unruh peddled this lie, Obama never said the U.S. is not, or never was, a Christian nation; he said we are not just a Christian nation.
On a side note, it's ironic that Unruh admits that Muslims are facing hostility to their religion (though only the ones in prison, apparently), given that his employer is all about promulgating hostility to religion when it involves Muslims -- to the point that it attacks Muslims for using the same federal religious freedom law it praises Christians for using.
MRC Blogger Doesn't Know Who John Legend Is Topic: NewsBusters
Media Research Center blogger Jay Maxson already has a severe case of Colin Kaepernick Derangement Syndrome -- and it's getting worse.
Maxson went on a tirade in a Sept. 24 NewsBusters post against a post at Slate defending football players' kneeling protests, written by John Legend:
NFL protests have given the liberal media a newfound "appreciation" of patriotism and the Constitution. Media covering this movement suffer from selective amnesia about U.S. history, however. Slate's John Legend is a protest apologist and historical revisionist as well who strains credibility.
In his blog today, Legend argues "The NFL Protests are Patriotic." He writes, "The president of the United States loves to drape himself in the symbols of patriotism, but fails to respect the ideals at the core of our Constitution and national identity. Trump may love the flag, but he doesn’t love anything it’s supposed to stand for."
Legend then proceeds to launch into historical revisionism, if not downright fantasy.
[...]
The Slate progressive asks if there would have been a Civil Rights Act without the Birmingham protests when Bull Connor unleashed dogs and firehoses on Black children. Legend skips over the fact that Connor was a Democrat. Would the Act have passed without Republican support? No. Democrats Al Gore Sr. and Robert Byrd were among the 21 Democrats who voted against civil rights, but Legend gives credit for it anyway to President Kennedy and President Johnson.
Maxson seems to be unaware that Legend is not a staff writer at Slate. As the bio link to his name states: "John Legend is a 10-time Grammy Awards winner, an Academy and Tony awards winner, philanthropist, and founder of the FREEAMERICA campaign."
Also, in trying to hang Bull Connor and opposition to civil rights in the 1960s on the entire Democratic Party, Maxson conveniently fails to mention that this opposition was the last gasp of anti-integration southern Democrats in the party, and that Democrats who opposed the party's endorsement of civil rights eventually became Republican.
In other words, the Democratic Party of the 1960s is not the party of today. So who's engaging in historical revisionism again?
If Maxson can't figure out something as basic as who John Legend is, we can probably assume that the rest of his hateful ranting is just as ignorant.
WND's Hohmann Has Another 'Mega-Mosque' Freakout Topic: WorldNetDaily
Leo Hohmann, WorldNetDaily's chief Muslim-hater, uses a Sept. 14 article to not only go on another "mega-mosque" freakout, but also target a Virginia county board member for removal for approving it:
He’s accused of using abusive and intimidating tactics at a hearing that ultimately resulted in a permit being granted to a massive mosque in Nokesville, Virginia.
And now, after the contentious June hearing, a citizens group is determined to recall Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County Board of County Supervisors.
Kay Herrera of Save our Prince William County announced a petition drive at the Sept. 12 Board of County Supervisors meeting to remove Stewart from office. In question is Stewart’s handling of the June 27 public hearing, which included more than eight hours of public comment and stretched into the wee hours of the next morning.
When it was all over, the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, or ADAMS, mosque was granted a special-use permit that will allow it to construct a sprawling 22,400-square-foot facility in Nokesville, Virginia, near Manassas.
In fact, the mosque is not "massive" or "sprawling" at all -- as we've noted, this mosque would be the approximate size of an Aldi grocery store, and actual megachurches that Hohmannn would presumably approve of are 10 times that size.
Hohmann also gives the leader of the recall petition space to deny that it was motivated by the results of the vote that approved the mosque, but this rings hollow -- a Muslim-basher like Hohmann wouldn't have latched onto this story if it was merely about parliamentarian procedure.
MRC Wants Jimmy Kimmel to Shut Up Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's first reaction to ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel calling out the Graham-Cassidy plan to dismantle the Affordable Care Act for, among other things, making it permissible for states to eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions was to send Nicholas Fondacaro to pen a lengthy tirade attacking the "tirade" he claimed Kimmel made and declaring that Kimmel was "politicizing his son’s medical condition to push for socialized medicine." He also took Kimmel's self-deprecation of himself as only an expert on eating pizza and tried to turn it into an insult.
In the process, Fondacaro selectively edited out much Kimmel said about the Graham-Cassidy plan opening the door to elimination of pre-existing condition coverage, and Sen. Bill Cassidy's promise to him that any health care plan he backs would not do that.
Fondacaro also stuck to regurgitating Republican talking points about the plan, insisting that the millions who would lose coverage under it would be "primarily driven by people CHOOSING not to purchase healthcare."Fondacaro went on to rant (boldface his):
In a cry of desperation for socialized medicine, he championed the health care systems of other countries: “It’s unbelievable. Somehow Japan, England, and Canada, and Germany, France, they all figured healthcare out. And don’t say they have terrible healthcare because it’s just not true.”
But the pizza eating expert was 100 percent wrong on what good health care looked like around the world. All one has to do was look at the case of newborn Charlie Gard. Because of healthcare rationing, a British court put him on a long path to death because they didn’t want to waste their resources on him or allow the family to take him to America for treatment.
We're still waiting to see if Kimmel agrees with that aspect of socialized medicine if that were his son.
Fondacaro didn't mention that Gard suffered from an extremely rare genetic disease for which there is no known cure; Kimmel's son suffers from a much less rare heart defect that can be repaired through open-heart surgery.
The clear intent of Fondacaro and the MRC here was to shut up Kimmel before his attacks on Graham-Cassidy gained any traction, but it was soon reduced to whining about the attention it got:
Curtis Houck whined that CNN's Chris Cillizza, who wrote about Kimmel, failed to "fact-check" him.
Fondacaro once again huffed that Kimmel went on an "anti-GOP tirade" and "was willing [sic] politicizing his son’s medical condition."
Curtis Houck wrote a piece with the blaring headline "Ben Shapiro Eviscerates Jimmy Kimmel’s Health Care Tirades; ‘Egregious’ to Exploit His Son," complaining that Kimmel went on an "emotion-driven push to socialize health care."
When Graham-Cassidy failed after key Republicans failed to support it, Kyle Drennen attacked anyone who credited Kimmel for it.
Finally, Tim Graham whined that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumerwas among those who helped Kimmel respond to Graham-Cassidy: "ABC is being used for Democrat propaganda, and then wonders: why won't people see us as fair and balanced? Why do people call us 'fake news'?" Not only does Graham fail to identify anything Kimmel said that was "fake" or "propaganda," he apparently thinks that a late-night talk show is "news."
MRC Obsesses Over Dem Mayor Accused of Abuse, Silent on Conservative Cradle-Robber Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has taken an unusual interest in Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and the resurfacing of decades-old allegations of sexual abuse:
In April, Tom Blumer grumbled that the "establishment press" was insufficiently labeling Murray as a Democrat, purportedly because "Ed Murray is not just any Democrat, he's a progressive Democrat, and a "face of resistance" to Donald Trump." Blumer went on to accuse the Seattle Times of deliberately burying the allegations despite lacking evidence to back them up.
The next month, Blumer ranted that the Seattle media "didn't do its job to expose the accusations against Murray ... apparently giving him cover because he is a 'progressive' Democrat," adding: "If the Murray situation ends up going in the direction it appears to be headed, seeing how the Seattle Timesand the city's leftists try to explain away the fact that their permissive, 'gay-friendly' culture allowed a child molester to serve as their mayor for over three years, and as a state senator for the six years before that, should be quite a spectacle."
Blumer returned in July to once again grumble about Murray being insufficiently labeled as a Democrat as new accusations surfaced, cheering how Murray apparently now "fit the stereotype" of a child-molesting homosexual.
Following Murray's resignation earlier this month after more allegation surfaced, a self-satisfied Blumer declared that "Much of the press still insists on protecting the Democratic Party from its decades-long association with Murray." A companion post by Scott Whitlock similarly complained that the media was insufficiently identifying the party of the "liberal Democrat mayor."
Meanwhile, over at the MRC's "news" division CNSNews.com, managing editor Michael W. Chapman made sure to put "Gay Democratic Mayor" in the headline of his article about Murray's resignation. Chapman went on a scare-quote binge in noting that Murray is "married" and has a "husband," and he also touted previousarticles on Murray that also put "Gay Democratic Mayor" in the headline.
Meanwhile, both CNS and the rest of the MRC have been silent so far on serial untoward, if not predatory, behavior by one of its favorite conservative icons.
Earlier this month, conservative actor James Woods made the mistake of complaining on his voluable Twitter account about an upcoming film about a gay relationship between a 24-year-old and a 17-year-old.One of the film's actors, Armie Hammer, responded by tweeting at Woods, "Didn't you date a 19 year old when you were 60.......?"(Actually, she was 20 and he was 66.) Then actress Amber Tamblyn reminded Woods that he tried to pick her and a friend up when she was a teenage unknown: "He wanted to take us to Vegas. 'I'm 16' I said. 'Even better' he said."
Woods accused Tamblyn of lying, but Tamblyn went on to pen an open letter detailing the story and asking, "Are you and your history with women and girls a part of the problem, Mr. Woods?" This was followed by a New York Times op-ed by Tamblyn in which she takes umbrage at Woods calling her a liar: "What would I get out of accusing this person of such an action, almost 20 years after the fact? Notoriety, power or respect? I am more than confident with my quota of all three. Even then, why would I choose the guy from 'Scary Movie 2' to help my stature when I’m already married to the other guy from 'Scary Movie 2'?"
Despite the fact that the various MRC divisions lovetowrite about him and fawaningly quote his conservative-friendly Twitter rants -- sample headline: "James Woods Puts Traitor 'Brad' Manning In His/Her Place" -- no MRC website has breathed a word about Woods' serial cradle-robbing. While not the illegal offense Murray was accused of (albeit well outside the statute of limitations), it's increasingly creepy and unseemly as he apparently continues to like them barely legal even as he grows older.
This is just the latest example of the MRC turning refusing to hold its own side to the behavior it expects from the people it attacks.
In May, WorldNetDaily's Art Moore penned an article -- updated for unclear reasons on Sept. 14 -- touting the apparently upcoming trial over the WND-published book "Muslim Mafia." Needless to say, it's a puff piece for WND's side of the case.
To recap: Anti-Muslim activist David Gaubatz -- who has admitted that most anti-Muslim groups are in it for the money -- recruited his son, Chris Gaubatz, to get a job as an intern at the Council on American-Islamic Relations office in Washington, D.C., where he stole in Moore's words, "some 12,000 pages of documents that were headed for a shredder," the contents of which were turned into "Muslim Mafia" (co-written by discredited reporter Paul Sperry). CAIR sued the Gaubatzes as well as the Center for Security Policy, which helped the Gaubatzes with their little sting, accusing theft and other claims.
Moore rants of CAIR: "Lacking any grounds to rebut the overwhelming evidence that it actually is a Muslim Brotherhood front, the group amends it complaint then prolongs the case through frivolous motions until finally, after eight years, a trial is set to be scheduled." But Moore provides no evidence that CAIR did such a thing -- indeed, WND provides no links at all to any legal document from the case.
Meanwhile, the American Freedom Law Center, which is representing the CSP, sheds a little more light on the subject than WND does; as of 2014, it was trying to obtain a summary judgment against CAIR, which was mostly denied in 2015. Dragging that out doesn't seem to be CAIR's fault.
Now, we've been writing about this case since2009, and one sticking point remains that WND is still not eager to definitively answer. CAIR has claimed that Chris Gaubatz signed a confidentiality agreement upon his employment there -- something that, to our knowledge, Gaubatz has never explicitly denied.
Moore's article indicates this denial still doesn't exist in running down the defenses Gaubatz's legal team plans to use: CAIR doesn't legally exist, and the First Amendment trumps any privacy agreement.
Now, the last time a lawsuit involving WND dragged on this long, it was when a Tennessee car dealer sued WND for falsely portryaing him as a drug dealer. WND abruptly settled it shortly before it was to go to trial with a secret settlement that included a public apology to the car dealer for falsely defaming him.
Susan Jones uses a Sept. 26 CNSNews.com article to portray Roger Stone as normally as possible. Under the innocuous headline "Trump’s Friend Roger Stone Blasts House Intel Committee: ‘This Is Cowardice’," Jones writes:
Newsmax's James Hirsen rants against Jimmy Kimmel in his Sept. 25 
Under the headline "An Overwrought Hatefest at the Emmy Awards," Brent Bozell and Tim Graham spent their Sept. 22 
WorldNetDaily writer Leo Hohmann took a break from 
Last year, we 
Craig Bannister harrumphed in a Sept. 19 CNSNews.com 
WorldNetDaily's resident purported art critic, 
Last year, we 
Bob Unruh writes in a Sept. 19 WorldNetDaily 
Media Research Center blogger Jay Maxson already has a 
The Media Research Center's first reaction to ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel calling out the Graham-Cassidy plan to dismantle the Affordable Care Act for, among other things, making it permissible for states to eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions was to send Nicholas Fondacaro to pen a 
The Media Research Center has taken an unusual interest in Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and the resurfacing of decades-old allegations of sexual abuse:
In May, WorldNetDaily's Art Moore penned an article -- updated for unclear reasons on 
