CNS Stenography By the Numbers: Mark Levin and Franklin Graham Edition Topic: CNSNews.com
If CNSNews.com has been known for anything in 2017, it was servile stenography. Mostly that was of the Trump administration, but it also covers the various rantings of CNS' favorite commentators. Two of those commentators who regularly get CNS love are right-wing radio host Mark Levin -- with whom CNS' parent, the Media Research Center, has had (and may still have) a cross-promotion deal -- and increasingly right-wing pastor Franklin Graham, whose anti-gay and anti-Obama rants WND managing editor Michael W. Chapman has given much love (and stenographic promotion) in the past.
We've looked through the CNS archives, and here's a tally by month of the articles CNS devoted to Levin and Graham in 2017.
Mark Levin
Jan: 10
Feb: 6 (plus 1 on Levin guest)
March: 6 (plus 1 on Levin guest)
April: 5
May: 7 (plus 2 on Levin guest)
June: 14 (plus 2 on Levin guest)
July: 10
Aug: 16
Sept. 7 (plus 1 on Levin guest)
Oct: 9
Nov: 8 (plus 1 on Levin guest)
Dec: 4
Total: 102 (plus 8 on Levin guests)
Franklin Graham
Jan: 2
Feb: 6 (plus one on Anne Graham Lotz, Franklin's sister)
March: 5
April: 7
May: 7
June: 4
July: 3
Aug: 3
Sept: 6
Oct: 3
Nov: 4
Dec: 4
Total: 54
The pace for Graham is a little slower in the past -- we've noted that Chapman devoted 46 articles to Graham's rantings in one previous six-month period -- but it's still a lot for someone who's known mostly for hating gays and loving President Trump.
CNS' promotion for Levin, meanwhile, didn't stop with serving as a transcription service. It promoted Levin's "new best-seller" book in a July interview with CNS editor in chief Terry Jeffrey, and a November post by Michael Morris was basically a lightly rewritten press release on Levin's new show on Fox News -- so lightly rewritten that Morris simply copied-and-pasted the last three paragraphs of the press release to fill out his article.
The fact that CNS has outsourced such a singificant part of its content to right-wing ideologues is a big indicator of how much of a non-factor it's becoming.
Newsmax's Hirsen Repeats Old Smears of Anita Hill Topic: Newsmax
The Media Research Center isn't the only ConWeb outlet still seeking to smear Anita Hill 25 years after the fact for committing the offense of forwarding allegations of sexual harassment against a conservative icon.
Like the MRC, Newsmax columnist James Hirsen was outraged that Hill was chosen to head a panel examining sexual harassment in Hollywood, and he devoted his Dec. 18 column to rehashing those old smears:
The problem for Hollywood is that Hill failed to tell the truth. Her behavior was inconsistent with someone who had been a victim of sexual harassment. Hill followed Justice Thomas from one job to another, made numerous personal telephone calls to the man she claimed had sexually harassed her, and the calls continued even after she was no longer working for him. She denied having ever made the calls but changed her story after phone records were produced.
Hill initially asked that her name not be mentioned when the accusations were presented to Justice Thomas. The accusations referred to events that were supposed to have occurred when only she and Justice Thomas were in the same room, so if the allegations were true, Justice Thomas would certainly have known who had made them. The anonymity request only made sense if the charges were false.
Does Hirsen agree that all women to want to remain anonymous in forwarding sexual harassment allegations are lying? We don't recall being outraged when, as a Dec. 15 MRC NewsBusters post, a woman who accused NBC's Matt Lauer of sexual harassment was "terrified" that the network would leak her identity and cause her to be "hounded and harassed."
Of course, identifying the accuser would allow people like Hirsen to personally attack her, as he did with one woman who accused Roy Moore of perving on her as a teen. Then again, Hirsen would never try to smear one of Lauer's accusers, and he certainly never tried to attack any of the accusers of, say, Harvey Weinstein who chose to remain anonymous or demand that they go on record. There's also no evidence that Hirsen has held any woman making harassment allegations against a Hollywood figure to the same exacting standards of veracity he holds Hill.
It seems that, like the MRC, Hirsen just can't let go of his quarter-century-old anger.
The MRC's 'Soros-Funded Journalism' Fail Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center has longbeenobsessed with George Soros as some kind of liberal string-puller through his funding of allegedly liberal groups (despite the fact that the MRC has a string-pulling moneybags benefactor in the form of the Mercers). We see this again in Aly Nielsen's Dec. 13 post, in which she writes:
Soros-funded journalism is coming to seven states in 2018, thanks to ProPublica. The liberal journalism nonprofit announced on Dec. 9 it had chosen journalists in Louisiana, West Virginia, Oregon, New Mexico, Indiana, Illinois and Florida to receive year-long stipends to pursue ProPublica-approved investigations.
Nielsen's article is accompanied by a chart of dubious origin -- no source is given, but it's apparently taken from the MRC's apparently dormant "Buying Bias" website, which claims to track "the funding sources behind non-profit journalism" and where a version of Nielsen's post first appeared in October -- purporting to show donors to ProPublica over an unspecified period of time, but unfortunately for Nielsen's "Soros-funded journalism" angle, it shows that Soros' Open Society Foundation donated only $737,411, while five other foundations donated more than $1 million, and the biggest donor, the Sandler Foundation, utterly dwarfed OSF's conrtibutions with a whopping #44 million donation.
Yet, even though Soros' foundation donated less than 1/33 of the money of ProPublica's biggest donor, Nielsen's headline claim is "Soros-funded journalism."
The MRC has done this before. For example, a 2013 post about ProPublica calls it a "Soros-funded news operation," and Nielsen herself did it again last January, using a similar chart that curiously omitted the Sandler Foundation's donations -- presumably to not undermine her Soros-bashing argument.
Nielsen also huffed that "ProPublica has a history of liberal alliances and reporting," but she cited random, cherry-picked examples and offered no comprehensive research on ProPublica's coverage.
Divine Donald Watch, WorldNetDaily Edition Topic: WorldNetDaily
Mueller’s problem is that he is fighting against the Lord God of Hosts, also known as Yahweh, the God over the armies of Israel. I believe He’s the one who placed Trump into the Oval Office.
If I am correct, then there are two important questions to consider:
If God is omniscient and actually knows the end of a matter before its beginning, then wouldn’t you think He would have foreseen Robert Mueller being appointed special counsel before it happened on May 17, 2017?
If that is so, wouldn’t you also think God would have something in mind to handle Mueller and his investigation?
[...]
Do you realize it has been 50 years since all of Jerusalem came under Israel’s control in the Six-Day War of 1967?
In all the time since then, how many American presidents have done the obvious by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital? Not one until President Trump did it on Dec. 6, 2017.
Now, does anyone really believe God placed Trump in the White House to carry out His plans for Jerusalem and then would allow him to be embarrassed at Mueller’s hands?
There is not a gnat’s chance in the universe of that ever happening.
So, if I were Special Counsel Robert Mueller, I’d constantly look over my shoulder, wondering how God will vindicate President Donald Trump in this so-called Russian collusion case.
How can I offer such a ridiculous warning to Mr. Mueller?
Nehemiah’s life was an example of leadership and organization. He gave up a comfortable and affluent position in Persia to return to the fractured homeland of his ancestors, and he united the people to reconstruct Jerusalem’s wall. In the face of opposition, he used wise protection measures for the security of the people.
Donald Trump is likewise comfortable and affluent, and has a zeal and desire to protect the American people by way of building a border wall of protection to keep America safe.
[...]
If God ordained walls to be built for the protection of Jerusalem, how could this same strategy be wrong for America? Do we not have the right to protect our homeland from not only jihad, but also from any foreign enemy that would do us harm? How many times must nations, including our own, be attacked by enemies – Islamic or otherwise – before someone will stand up against terrorism and protect America?
I believe that building the wall of protection is singly the most important act that can be accomplished for the protection of our great nation. Every human being that comes to the United States of America should be thoroughly background checked.
I believe our borders absolutely must be guarded for the protection of the citizens of the United States of America. And when I look into the faces of my innocent grandchildren, I believe that any dereliction of the duty to protect them and the American people should be a legally actionable offense.
President Trump, in this case, is a modern-day, biblically based Nehemiah.
CNS Doesn't Disclose Its Link To Group Run By Bozell's Son Topic: CNSNews.com
Craig Bannister dutifully types in a Dec. 19 CNSNews.com blog post:
On Tuesday, in anticipation of final passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, ForAmerica President David Bozell issued a statement touting the tax reform plan’s benefits.
“The American people should be pleased to see the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act cross the finish line. Congratulations to the Trump Administration and Congress on their accomplishment,” Bozell said.
Bozell declared the bill “a home run for the middle class,” as well as for small businesses:
[...]
ForAmerica is an award-winning, national grassroots organization whose mission is to use social media to reinvigorate the public with the principles of American exceptionalism: freedom, prosperity and virtue, be it in its educational efforts, the support of legislation or the support of public policy.
Despite writing for what purports to be a "news" operation, Bannister breaks a basic rule of journalism by failing to disclose a major conflict of interest. As we've noted, David Bozell is the son of Brent Bozell, CNS publisher and head of the Media Research Center, which owns CNS. Brent Bozell also founded ForAmerica, and the group shares a building with the MRC.
Further, a look at the ForAmerica website reveals it's filled mostly with posts copied from various MRC divisions, including CNS and NewsBusters.
So, yeah, it's pretty integrated with the MRC. Bannister should've told his readers that -- but journalistic ethics isn't a big deal these days for the Trump stenographers at CNS.
Fake News: WND Still Misquoting Obama As A Current Supporter of Erdogan Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has endeavored on occasion to portray former President Obama as a current supporter of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by quoting out-of-context statements by Obama that were actually made before Erdogan turned authoritarian and instituted a brutal crackdown following an attempted coup in 2016.
That misinformation -- fake news, one might call it -- is still going on. In a Dec. 12 WND article on allegedly anti-Semitic statements Erdogan made, Art Moore wrote: "President Obama praised Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as 'a man of action' and one of the five world leaders with whom he had the strongest bond." The "man of action" quote comes from a statement attributed to Obama by former national security adviser in 2011; the New York Times noted the quote in a 2016 article pointing out how the relationship between Obama and Erdogan deterioriated after Erdogan "began tilting in the direction of authoritarianism" and that "Obama has periodically warned Erdogan to curb his authoritarian tendencies."
The "strongest bond" statement is a relatively accurate interpretation of what Obama said, but Moore didn't mention that Obama said that in 2012 -- which, again, was before Erdogan turned authoritarian.
Then, in a Dec. 27 WND article, Bob Unruh uncritically quotes Joel Richardson -- who once wrote a WND column headlined "What Obama and the Antichrist have in common" -- getting the timeline right but still blaming Obama anyway: "As recently as 2012, President Obama named Turkey’s current President Erdogan as one of his top three closest friends among world leaders. A quick five years later, Erdogan has emerged as one of the most dangerous dictators of our day.”
Actually, Obama never said Erdogan was among his "closest friends"; that's a beyond-the-facts extrapolation of the "strongest bond" statement, and it also ignores the fact that the Obama-Erdogan relationship deteriorated during those five years.
This fake-news link between Obama and Erdogan that WND is trying to spread ignores the fact that just a year ago, then-WND reporter Jerome Corsi was cozying up to Erdogan by pushing the unproven narrative (via anonymous "trusted sources close to the Turkish government") that the coup attempt was inspired by Fetullah Gulen, a Turkish spiritual leader who currently lives in the U.S. and whom WND has tried to link to the Clintons for some reason.
It seems WND's stance on Erdogan depends on whatever political agenda it's pursuing on a given day.
MRC Writers Attack Mueller Probe As Biased, Ignore Ken Starr's Partisanship Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center just hates it when conservative media bias is called out. And they're really put out that the right-wing media's attacks on Robert Mueller's investigation into Trump-Russia links are being exposed for what they are.
In a Dec. 15 post, the MRC's Curtis Houck responded to CNN's Wolf Blitzer and "rabble rouser" Jim Acosta calling out those right-wing attacks by insisting that they're just asking questions and aren't trying to discredit the FBI at all:
What’s interesting was that the pair seemed to give zero thought to the possibility that this matter should be thoroughly examined in both the interest of transparency and the benefit of the investigation.
One prevailing thought in the media has been if the President has nothing to hide, then he should be more cooperative with the Special Counsel. Using that logic, the same should be expected of the FBI when it comes to snuffing out claims of political bias. Most reasonable people should and do believe that the FBI (and CIA) are among the country's most cherished institutions. Simple questions don't harm that credibility.
The other tidbit is how the media have defended the Mueller probe to the ends of the earth, but did the opposite with the Ken Starr investigation into the Clintons. My colleague Rich Noyes published a fascinating story that showcased the press’s viciousness roughly two decades ago when the subject of a special counsel investigation was a Democratic President.
In stark contrast to their supportive coverage of Mueller, the media’s treatment of Starr in the 1990s was savage. Almost as soon as he was named — and long before the Lewinsky story broke — Clinton-friendly journalists tried to discredit him as an unfair partisan.
[...]
The media’s Starr-as-partisan mantra was merely the first step. At the same time Bill Clinton was running for re-election in 1996, Starr was putting his ex-business partners, James and Susan McDougal, on trial for fraud uncovered during the Whitewater investigation. Again, Clinton’s friends in the press raced to innoculate the President from the damaging scandal.
[...]
It is, of course, impossible to imagine one of today’s journalists scolding Robert Mueller for distracting President Trump from important national business, or suggesting his investigation has become a partisan mission to destroy a President whom the Washington Establishment has never liked.
The double standard is obvious to anyone who will look.
That double standard is even more obvious at the MRC. Starr actually was the partisan the MRC insists Mueller is. As Joe Conason -- who covered the many bogus Clinton "scandals" in the 1990s -- explains, Starr "had served as solicitor general under President George H.W. Bush, who considered him for a Supreme Court nomination; he had raised funds for Republican candidates; he had served as a stalwart of the Federalist Society, the high-powered organization of right-wing Republican lawyers; and he had nearly run for the U.S. Senate in the 1994 Virginia Republican primary." He also provided legal advice to a conservative women's group in support of the Paula Jones lawsuit against Clinton. Starr was placed as independent counsel by Republican-appointed judges apparently upset that the original counsel, Robert Fiske, was going to clear Clinton in the Whitewater alleged scandal, Conason adds.
Needless to say, neither Houck nor Noyes mentioned that fears about Starr's partisan affiliations -- none of which, by the way, can be found with Mueller -- were well-founded. Neither did the MRC's Tim Graham and Brent Bozell, who whined in their Dec. 13 column that "among the 15 Mueller lawyers, nine are Democratic donors — several of whom contributed to Clinton's 2016 campaign" and complained that "Back then, anti-Kenneth Starr commentary wasn't 'shocking.' It was mandatory."
Just as it is currently mandatory for MRC writers to issue anti-Mueller commentary.
WND Brings Back Fabulist Author To Rant About 'Luciferianism" Among 'Elites' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Paul Nehlen is not the only WorldNetDaily-published author to have gone off the deep end this week. But while Nehlen is spouting white nationalist and anti-Semitic rhetoric -- about which WND has yet to publicly address despite its heavy promotion of him earlier this year -- this author's extreme rhetoric is more in line with WND's conspiracy-obsessed agenda.
Theodore Roosevelt Malloch is a Trump fanboy who was reportedly up for nomination as President Trump's ambassador to the European Union until he was busted for exaggerating his biography in, among other places, his WND-published autobiography. (It turns out that, apparently, Malloch was never even seriously considered for the ambassadorship.)
WND didn't say anything about Malloch's self-fabulism at the time, but apparently all is forgiven, because a Dec. 25 article approvingly quotes Malloch peddling conspiracy theories on (where else?) Alex Jones' show, asserting that "global elites" are being influenced by "Luciferianism." Then, it was a full-on descent into the zombie-lie territory WND is very well known for:
Malloch said the leaked emails of John Podesta, as revealed by Wikileaks, contain powerful evidence there is something sick and wrong in America’s political class.
The emails contain bizarre references to the occult and possible allusions to child abuse using coded language.
“They prove he is involved, very deeply involved, as a committed Luciferian,” Malloch intoned. “Among other things is the invitation by Marina Abramovic to what is called a ‘spirit cooking’ ritual, which I think is the most revealing.
“This is a ritual in which participants use the vilest human body fluids in order to summon spiritual energies for assistance and favor. To any sane person, this sounds completely ludicrous. But to a Luciferian, this is the practice of enlightenment. This is something that initiates them. It’s something that they understand.
“The whole idea is to be possessed by Lucifer himself. And these practices of a Luciferian religion, of an anti-Christianity, I would argue are the absolute inversion of Christianity.”
Malloch further contended cannibalism and pedophilia are “common practices amongst Luciferians.”
As we pointed out the last time someone at WND claimed this, Podesta took part in no such thing.
Malloch then went on to falsely claim that Saul Alinsky made a "dedication" of his book "Rules for Radicals" to Lucifer -- even as the article goes on to quote from the book in which it's made clear that Alinsky's "over the shoulder acknowledgement" of Lucifer as "the very first radical" was not a dedication (the book is actually dedicated to "Irene") and Jones is quoted as conceding that the reference was, in the words of the anonymous WND writer, done "in a cheeky way, simply meant to provoke."
But zombie lies and false biography-gilding are acceptable behavior at WND, even if it would not be at any genuinely legitimate news organization.
CNS Reporter Keeps Up Stenography for WH Press Secretary Topic: CNSNews.com
We've documented how CNSNews.com reporter Melanie Arter devoted a whopping 26 articles in September and October to whatever White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders had to say. Well, it's time for another count.
In November and December, Arter added another 10 articles to that total:
The lower count can be blamed on more holidays during the month, plus the fact that Arter as been off work since Dec. 15 -- menaing that the total is actually for just a month and a half.
It also means a stenographical story from Arter every three days or so. Which is not really journalism at all.
NEW ARTICLE: Fake News At WND, Zombies and Trolls Edition Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily keeps zombie lies alive long after they've been discredited. It also fell for a Russian troll pro-Trump Twitter account and profiled a pro-Trump merchandiser who doesn't appear to actually exist. Read more >>
MRC's Persistent Fox News-Shaped Blind Spot on Sexual Harassment Topic: Media Research Center
We've repeatedlyhighlighted the Media Research Center's Fox News-shaped blind spot on the issue of sexual harassment -- harping on allegations everywhere else but ignoring the ones at the MRC's favorite TV channel. And they keep piling up.
Tim Graham and Brent Bozell's Dec. 20 column highlights the "stunning announcements and admissions about the serious alleged sexual misbehavior of Harvey Weinstein and others." "Others" is the closest Graham and Bozell get to referencing the scandals at Fox News.
Graham and Bozell spend the rest of their column parsing the definition of sexual harassment. At first, it seems incongruous that they're giving something of a pass to certain allegations against hated enemies like Chris Matthews ("he's a pig, not a harasser") and Matt Lauer (regarding a woman who had an affair with Lauer she now says was an abuse of power (italics theirs): "You were a 24-year-old woman. Act your age. If he's a scoundrel, so are you").
The reason becomes clear later in their column: They're trying to set up a defense against allegations made against Donald Trump. Here's how they attack one Trump accuser:
Speaking of makeup artists, Jill Harth filed a sexual harassment suit against Donald Trump in 1997 and renewed her allegations in the fall of 2016. John Solomon at The Hill reports that she repeatedly sent Trump gushing emails during his presidential campaign offering to do his makeup and even testify about how wonderfully he treated women. "I also want to put it out there that I would be willing to say at a rally or somewhere how DJT helped me with my self-confidence and all positive things about how he is with women to counter any potential negativity that may come out at some point in the campaign," she wrote.
(We're not watching CNN rushing to the president's defense.)
Then there's the old notion of cashing in on allegations. Solomon added that Harth's lawyer, Lisa Bloom, "eventually started a GoFundMe.com fundraising effort to help Harth and located a donor that paid off Harth's mortgage on her Queens apartment in New York City."
Imagine that.
Yes, imagine that. It's as if Graham and Bozell hae forgotten that Clinton accuser Kathleen Willey also tried to crowdfund paying off her mortgage. And for all we know, Willey may have found a donor to actually do so: Donald Trump.
The blind spot was even more obvious in Jeffrey Lord's Dec. 23 NewsBusters column, in which he served up a lengthy list of how "across the media landscape one player after another fell" by, among other things, "having let loose their private sexual demons on unsuspecting colleagues or others." Curiously missing from that list: anyone from Fox News.
That Fox News-shaped blind spot hasn't shrunk a bit.
WND Silent On Its Author/Candidate's White Supremacist/Anti-Semitic Bent Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've detailed how WorldNetDaily has heavily promoted Paul Nehlen's campaign to run against Paul Ryan in the 2018 Republican primary in Wisconsin -- so enthusiastically, in fact, that it just might violate campaign law. After all, WND did publish Nehlen's anti-"globalist" book "Wage the Battle" in July and is selling his anti-Muslim film "Hirjah" in its online store.
But WND hasn't done a lot of promotion of Nehlen lately. Near as we can tell, the last time Nehlen got an article to himself on WND was Sept. 14, in which Paul Bremmer touted Nehlen's declaration that "America demands a wall. You cannot effectively deport a criminal without a wall."
As much as we'd like to think that it suddenly expressed concern about election law after our first piece was published, the truth may be a little more inconvenient: Nehlen has been descending into white nationalism and anti-Semitism.
Nehlen has been caught unironically using triple parentheses around a Jewish name -- a trope that white nationalists use to harass Jews on Twitter -- and he has strongly suggested his critics are being paid by Jews to attack him.He has also embraced other white nationalist memes. It's so bad that Breitbart, which has been an even more enthusiastic booster of Nehlen than WND, has reportedly dropped its support of him (or maybe not).
Meanwhile, it's been crickets from WND. While it hasn't promoted him since mid-September, it also hasn't said a peep about the controversies surrounding him. You'd think that as the publisher of Nehlen's book and seller of his Muslim-bashing film, it would have something to say.
Then again, WND is weirdly proud that it can keep its racism relatively covert, at least to the point that Google doesn't threaten to pull its advertising over race-baiting.
This is the second WND-linked writer in trouble for racially charged rhetoric in recent months. We've already noted how WND-promoted contrarian investor Marc Faber got caught saying that he thanked God that "white people populated America, and not the blacks. Otherwise, the U.S. would look like Zimbabwe."
UPDATE: It appears Breitbart now has definitively cut ties with Nehlen after he tweeted about he was enjoying an anti-Semitic book. We've contacted WND Books for a statement about its relationship with Nehlen; we'll let you know if we hear back.
CNS Reporter Serves Up Pro-Trump Rant As 'News' Story Topic: CNSNews.com
The general decline of standards at CNSNews.com over the past year or so, plus its determination to be a pro-Trump stenographer, has led to embarassing things no real "news" operation would ever publish -- like a Dec. 15 "news" article that's more political rant than news. Jones huffs:
Impatient to get President Trump out of the office to which the American people elected him a year ago, media liberals on Monday re-introduced some of the women who have accused Trump of harassing them sexually years ago.
The women first spoke to Megyn Kelly on her cable show, then they held a news conference organized by a group called Brave New Films, which produces liberal propaganda on issues such as "justice," "inequality" and "gun violence."
The re-emergence of Trump's female accusers fits neatly into the script written by Democrats, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who said after the complainants' news conference that President Trump simply must resign.
We don't recall anyone at CNS or its Media Research Center parent similarly portraying the emergence of the women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment and worse as stunts to drive the Republican political agenda. Indeed, MRC chief Brent Bozell and Tim Graham used them to deflect from Trump's offenses when they first surfaced before the 2016 election.
So, apparently, it's OK for only one side to exploit sexual harassment charges for political purposes as far as Jones and Bozell are concerned.
Still, Jones continued to whine, grumbling on the Trump White House's behalf that "Trump's female accusers were among the topics at the White House press briefing on Friday, as spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders fielded questions she's answered before." She concludes that the story is being pushed by reporters "biased against trump" for the sole purpose of trying to get Trump on something since the Russia scandal purportedly isn't panning out:
One biased-against-Trump reporter insisted that Sanders answer her question about Trump's accusers, "because this is spinning and it's focused on him now and--"
Sanders interrupted, noting that Trump has already addressed the issue directly with the American people.
The reporter persisted: "But will he -- it's coming up new and afresh and more people are now speaking out. Will...the president address the nation on this? This is a huge issue, Sarah," the reporter insisted.
As Trump himself noted, that other huge issue -- the special counsel's investigation into the Trump campaign's possible coordination with Russia -- so far has produced no clear evidence implicating the president, which seems to be the point of the investigation.
So cue the Trump accusers...
Again, the complete opposite of the way CNS and the MRC has portrayed Clinton's accusers, which it has never accused of being political pawns though they were certainly no less so than CNS and the MRC accuse Trump's accusers of being.
Being a CNS reporter, it seems, means never having to be held to journalistic standards.
WND Ambushes Donna Brazile With Conspiracy Theories About Seth Rich Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily reporter Alicia Powe begins her Dec. 17 article this way: "Former DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile appeared incoherent and agitated when WND approached her at a Tuesday book signing to ask her questions about murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich."
Unmentioned by Powe: That is likely a logical reaction to a writer for a fringe-right-wing website invading a book signing to pester her with conspiracy theories over Rich's death.
Indeed, that's exactly what Powe did, trying to pin Brazile down on arcane details on her book regarding Rich, which Powe framed as "conflicting statements about Rich's murder." She then mocks Brazile -- and demonstrates the malicious intent of her ambushh of her -- by whining that Brazile "appeared lost for words and made bizarre and rambling statements."
Powe included Brazile's answer, which doesn't sound rambling at all. Perhaps Powe found it bizarre when Brazile called out soulless conspiracy theorists like herself: "I don’t practice the conspiracy theories that people have used to scar Seth’s memory, to hurt his family. I have been to Omaha. I have been to his synagogue. I have cried because of him. I love that boy."
Of course, Powe and WND only love Seth Rich to the extent that they can cynically exploit his death to further their near-pathological hatred of Hillary Clinton. Powe has never been to Omaha, where Rich is from, nor has she been to his synagogue. Rich is not a person to anyone at WND -- just a tool.
Powe's article also includes the requisite reference to WND's dishonest crowdfunding effort to investigate (read: perpetuate conspiracy theories about) Rich's death. That effort continues to be a failure, having raised only $4,630 after nearly seven months.
MRC Wrongly Calls Wash. Post Reporter 'Liberal' Topic: Media Research Center
Ex-Media Research Center researcher Brad Wilmouth huffs in a Dec. 15 NewsBusters post:
Some liberal journalists just can't get the notion out of their minds that George Wallace was a Republican, even though the former segregationist governor of Alabama was a lifelong Democrat. On Friday's Washington Week on PBS, host Robert Costa -- also a Washington Postreporter -- suggested that Wallace was a part of the Republican party's "past" as he recalled that some black voters in Alabama are worried about the direction the GOP is taking. Costa:
I spoke to a lot of African-American voters when I was down there, Jeff, and they said that they're worried that the Republican Party -- broadly speaking -- is turning back to its past. They cited the former governor of Alabama, George Wallace, a segregationist, and they say, in Roy Moore -- sometimes even in President Trump -- they hear echoes of a past that makes them uncomfortable.
Not one of the four panel members jumped in to correct the suggestion that Wallace was ever a Republican as CNN's Jeff Zeleny, CBS's Nancy Cordes, NBC's Kristen Welker, and Vice News's Shawna Thomas got their turns to speak.
In fact, Costa is not a "liberal journalist." He came to the Washington Post from National Review, and the MRC regarded his work so well at the time that a 2013 NewsBusters post celebrated Costa's hiring by crediting Post owner Jeff Bezos for "encouraging his staff to think outside the box" by hiring someone from "a right-leaning publication."
How quickly the MRC forgets that Costa was once their guy.
Further, Wilmouth's freaking out about the mere suggestion that Wallace was a Republican seems rather silly given that both Wallace and Trump share certain traits in exploiting peope's fears and promoting racially tinged populism.
If CNSNews.com has been known for anything in 2017, it was servile stenography. Mostly that was of the Trump administration, but it also covers the various rantings of CNS' favorite commentators. Two of those commentators who regularly get CNS love are right-wing radio host Mark Levin -- with whom CNS' parent, the Media Research Center, has had (and may still have) a cross-promotion deal -- and increasingly right-wing pastor Franklin Graham, whose anti-gay and anti-Obama rants WND managing editor Michael W. Chapman has given much love (and stenographic promotion) in the past.
The Media Research Center isn't the only ConWeb outlet 
The Media Research Center has 
Mueller’s problem is that he is fighting against the Lord God of Hosts, also known as Yahweh, the God over the armies of Israel. I believe He’s the one who placed Trump into the Oval Office.
Craig Bannister dutifully types in a Dec. 19 CNSNews.com 
WorldNetDaily has 
The Media Research Center just hates it when conservative media bias is called out. And they're really put out that the right-wing media's attacks on Robert Mueller's investigation into Trump-Russia links are being exposed for what they are.
Paul Nehlen is not the only WorldNetDaily-published author to have gone off the deep end this week. But while Nehlen is 
We've documented how CNSNews.com reporter Melanie Arter devoted 
We've 
We've 
The general decline of standards at CNSNews.com over the past year or so, plus its determination to be a pro-Trump stenographer, has led to embarassing things no real "news" operation would ever publish -- like a Dec. 15 "news" 
WorldNetDaily reporter Alicia Powe begins her Dec. 17 
Ex-Media Research Center researcher Brad Wilmouth huffs in a Dec. 15 NewsBusters 
