WND Columnist Doesn't Like Trump Being Likened To A 'Mob Boss' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Michael Master serves up an odd defense of President Trump in his April 20 WorldNetDaily column:
In promoting his new book, former FBI Director James Comey referred to Trump as being like a “mob boss.”
Al Capone was a mob boss. The FBI tried in vain for years to catch Capone at breaking the law as a mob boss so they could lock him up. The FBI failed at the task at hand and so looked for some other way to get Capone. The FBI solicited help from the IRS and indicted/convicted Capone for tax evasion – but nothing for Capone’s actions as a mob boss.
The general population accepted the actions of the IRS/FBI collusion against Capone because the popular thought was that Capone was a bad guy who should be removed from society.
And how did the general population learn about Capone? From the media and the information leaked to the press from the J. Edgar Hoover led FBI. That was the same J. Edgar Hoover who kept private files about politicians that he used as blackmail to keep Congress and presidents from interfering with his FBI, including files about the female escapades of JFK, RFK and Martin Luther King Jr..
Now, the FBI is doing the same thing to Trump. McCabe, Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein … all part of the FBI deep state. Why did Rosenstein give so much latitude to Mueller? Why did McCabe leak information to the press? Notes kept by Comey to be used against Trump? Comparisons of Trump to a mob boss? All deliberate. What do they have on Attorney General Sessions? What do they have on members of Congress?
For Comey to refer to Trump as a mob boss says it all. Capone had people killed. His mob brought drugs into the U.S. Prostitution. Bootlegging. Gambling. Did Trump do any of that?
Master seems to have forgotten that Trump used to own casinos emblazoned with his name. He also ignored that Comey explained his "mob boss" statement by highlighting how Trump demands loyalty to him over even loyalty to the country.
Master's column comes to its expected conspiratorial end by stating, "Trump a mob boss? hardly. The real threat to America is them … the deep state.
MRC Didn't Get The Message About Lackluster Job Numbers Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Julia Seymour complains in an April 10 post:
A fuzzy animal, faulty directions and famous murderers all outranked the latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The BLS announced on April 6, that the U.S. added 103,000 jobs in March and unemployment remained low. However, the more than 25 million combined viewers of the broadcast networks' evening shows weren’t notified that night.
Seymour apparently didn't notice how her colleagues at the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, covered the story of March's job numbers. The 103,000 number was considered such a disappointment that it wasn't even mentioned until the 11th paragraph of CNS' main story on it; instead, the CNS headline claim was that a record number of women were employed. Other CNS stories promoted increasing manufacturing jobs and declining government jobs -- not the total number of jobs created.
It seems the networks may have been doing the Trump administration a favor by not reporting on the lackluster job numbers. Seyour and her fellow pro-Trumpers at the MRC should probably be thanking them.
WorldNetDaily's Bob Unruh tries for a little drama in an April 5 article:
Principals at schools across the country already have exhibited various levels of support for students who have walked out of class to protest guns.
The protests culminated recently in an anti-Second Amendment rally in Washington attended by tens of thousands.
Soon, school officials will be notified of another walk-out demonstration.
This one is to object to the “pornographic” curriculum used by many schools in “anti-bullying” programs that many parents don’t even know about.
It’s being organized online at Sex Ed Sit Out, and it’s already gone international.
Despite quoting people and groups warning about how "children are being taught how to have anal and oral sex, masturbate one another, and question one’s gender," as well as "gender-bending ideology and anal sex tutorials," Unruh is light on specifics, and he can't be bothered to talk to any supporters of sex education -- so much for those "highest standards of journalism" Unruh's boss, Joseph Farah, loves to claim WND has.
Unruh followed up on April 19 with an article that focused on right-wing legal group Liberty Counsel complaining that "43 states have exemptions from obscenity laws" for educational material, which means that they "effectively protect porn" and, somehow, results in the 4.5 million U.S. school students who "will experience sexual abuse at the hands of a school employee." Neither Unruh nor Liberty Counsel provide any evidence to support the direct link they allege.
The article is another of Unruh's one-source wonders; as with the earlier article, he can't be bothered to talk to anyone with a different view.
The same day, anti-Kinsey obsessive Judith Reisman served up a WND column endorsing the Sex Ed Sit Out, insisting that sex education is "planned pedophile grooming." Needless to say, she went into an anti-Kinsey rant, including her long-discredited notion that Kinsey was a pedophile.
The right-wing Benham brothers also endorsed the Sex Ed Sit Out in their April 22 WND column, claiming that some sex education appears as anti-bullying efforts but that "the only bullies here are the teachers, administrators and undisclosed organizers (Planned Parenthood, NARAL, HRC) forcing their agenda on the minds of our children." The Benhams went on to liken critics of sex education to Martin Luther King and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
So what happened with the Sex Ed Sit Out? Not much -- WND didn't report on how many people took part, which suggests that very few did. And a youth group countered the miniscule protest by serving up sex ed on social media.
CNS' Jones Injects More Opinion Into A 'News' Story Topic: CNSNews.com
We've documented how CNSNews.com reporter Susan Jones loves to inject her (usually pro-Trump) opinion into stories that are ostensibly "news." She did it again in an April 10 article:
In a heavily edited and unenlightening television interview that aired Monday night, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch didn't say anything we haven't already heard about her secret meeting with former President Bill Clinton at an Arizona airport, which happened at the same time Hillary Clinton was under FBI investigation for her email practices.
The only news nugget to emerge from Lynch's interview with NBC's Lester Holt was this: Lynch described former FBI Director James Comey's announcement that the Clinton case should be closed without prosecution as an "unusual move," hinting that she was not happy with Comey's unilateral actions.
[...]
Holt noted that Bill Clinton's wife was under investigation by the Justice Department when Bill came onboard Lynch’s private plane: "Did you have any moment where you said, Mr. President, this is probably not appropriate or this is going to look bad?" Holt asked Lynch.
“Well, I will say that in the course of the conversation, we spoke and it seemed that we were going to say hello, hi, how are you and move on and then the conversation would continue," Lynch responded.
Conversation would continue? What does that mean? Did it continue? We'll never know, because that's all NBC was willing to share of Loretta Lynch's response.
Still, Jones somehow managed to generate 18 paragraphs out of something she dismissed as "unenlightening."
Ilana Mercer's Back At WND, Still Standing Up For White People Topic: WorldNetDaily
After more than a year away, Ilana Mercer -- the South African expat who's still pining for apartheid -- returned last fall as a WorldNetDaily columnist. She's behaving as usual; a November column fretted about the overstated fear of black on white violence in the country and asserted that South Africa "was the creation of British and Dutch settlers and their descendants" and the black majority currently running the country are "dismantling it." She further lamented that "Empowering political majorities in Africa has helped, not hindered, the propensity of hostile masses to exact revenge on helpless minorities."
Mercer also stated that "Like South Africa, America is a creation of (northwest) European settlers," bringing her racial philosophy to this country. She furthers that in her April 19 column fretting about the decline of whites in America and blaming on all those brown people:
If white lives mattered at all to the liberal establishment, an inquiry would ensue:
Is it possible that an enormous influx of legal and illegal migrants over decades is playing a role in the decline of America’s founding population? (A similar, sad fate was visited on their predecessors, the Amerindians.)
On the one hand, we have the drastic, ongoing decline of America’s white population; on the other, a massive, incessant inpouring of minority immigrants, since 1965. A correlation between the two is not impossible.
[...]
Declining birthrates have long been the excuse advanced by immigration central-planners for sticking with mass immigration policies. The aging white population is not replacing itself, say proponents of doomsday demographics. Young, Third World immigrants are essential to shore-up the welfare state.
However, the now-waning West became great not because it was more populated than the rest of the world and outbred it. The West was great because of its human capital – innovation, exploration, science, philosophy; because of superior ideas and the willingness to defend such a civilization.
America doesn’t need more people; it needs to allow its own people to recover.
WND's Farah Is Still Getting Syria Wrong Topic: WorldNetDaily
Last year, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah displayed his ignorance about the Syrian civil war by falsely declaring that "There are two warring parties in Syria – the Syrian government, which is attempting to repulse an invasion and partial occupation of Syrian territory, and ISIS, a terrorist plague on the entire world, not just Assad’s regime." In fact, there are multiple warring parties, and the Syrian government under Bashar al-Assad actually built up ISIS in the country in an attempt to discredit the political uprising against his regime.
Well, Farah is still having problems figuring out the whole Syria thing. In his April 9 column, he did concede that gas attack was likely perpetrated by the Assad regime, lamenting that "It appears Syria’s war on ISIS has become a war on its own people – a war not only on Sunni Muslims but Kurds." He's more interested, though, in alleged Turkish attacks on Kurds in the northern part of the country.
Farah followed up on April 16 by casting doubt on the effectiveness of President Trump's reltaliatory bombing of Syria for the gas attack, and he finally admits he doesn't really know what's going on:
What is the real problem in Syria? What continues to drive people into refugee status? How can the killing fields and ethnic cleansing be stopped?
I’m not sure I know the answer. But Russia, Iran and Turkey – a new axis of evil – are firmly entrenched in Syria. Bashar Assad, the titular leader of Syria, is merely a pawn of all three.
If the U.S. does not have a plan for Syria, Russia, Iran and Turkey surely do.
[...]
Does America have any friends in the Middle East?
Yes, it does. And we need to help them defend themselves to the greatest extent possible.
I believe those friends include Israel, the Kurds, the Christians and other ethnic and religious minorities that are all caught in the crossfire of this conflict. We should never forget them.
No one, including the axis-of-evil coalition, wants to see this conflict spiral out of control, certainly not at this moment.
Neither of Farah's columns mention the fact that there is an anti-Assad opposition in Syria, to whom the U.S. has provided some support. Infighting among the various rebel factions, however, is diminishing their effectiveness, as well as the military support the Assad regime has received from Russia and Iran.
Again: Farah portrays himself as an expert on international affairs and issues an "intelligence resource," the G2 Bulletin, for which he charges a whopping $99 a year. His portrayal of the situation in Syria still doesn't reflect reality, so what good is he?
CNS Reporter Lets Trump Get By With Another Misleading Claim Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com's Melanie Arter was in stenography mode again for a March 29 article:
During a speech in Richfield, Ohio, President Donald Trump said his administration has delivered on its promises, created 3 million jobs and eliminated job-killing regulations.
“We’re keeping our promises, and the results are in: 3 million new jobs since Election Day - 3 million. And if I would have said that to you during the campaign, where we had tremendous support in this great state, state of Ohio, if I would have said, 3 million jobs, they would have said-- the fake news -- he’s exaggerating,” he said.
“Unemployment claims are their lowest level in 45 years - 45 years. African-American unemployment has reached the lowest level ever recorded. Remember? Remember I said, ‘what do you have to lose?’ What do you have to lose? And I’m so happy about that,” Trump said.
Arter doesn't mention that since Trump is counting from Election Day in November 2016, he's taking credit for jobs he didn't have any role in creating, given that Trump didn't assume the presidency until January 2017. Arter also doesn't mention that fewer jobs were created in 2017 than in 2016, the last full year of President Obama's term.
Arter further declined to note that the lower black unemployment rate is simply the continuation of a trend begun under Obama.
But then, putting stenography before actual reporting -- and letting the Trump White House peddle misleading claims without challenge -- is pretty much Arter's job these days.
Newsmax Touts Shoddy, Conspiratorial Right-Wing 'Documentaries' As The 'Top' Topic: Newsmax
Troy Anderson begins an April 4 Newsmax article claiming to document "Newsmax's Top 25 Conservative Documentaries of All Time," which he claims "will give Newsmax readers a discerning guide to the highest-grossing and most impactful conservative documentaries." But some of the most prominent films on Newsmax's list are shoddy hack jobs designed to destroy, not enlighten.
For instance, No. 3 on the list is Dinesh D'Souza's anti-Obama attack film "2016: Obama's America." But a fact-check showed that the film's thesis -- that Obama was heavily influenced by his father's anti-colonial beliefs -- "is almost entirely subjective and a logical stretch at best." For instance, according to the fact-check: "In Hawaii, D'Souza asserts with no evidence, Obama sympathized with native Hawaiians who felt they had been marginalized by the American government when Hawaii was becoming a state. D'Souza also asserts — again with no evidence — that Obama had been coached to hold those views at Punahou, the prestigious prep school he attended in Honolulu."
No. 5 on the list is "The Clinton Chronicles," about which Anderson fawningly writes: "In this documentary film that grossed $10 million ($17 million in today’s money), producer Patrick Matrisciana examined various alleged improprieties of former President Bill Clinton while he was serving as governor of Arkansas. The film is widely considered the turning point in the 1994 Republican Revolution." In fact, the conspiracy-laden film was "overflowing with demonstrably false accusations" and baselessly suggested that Bill Clinton had his enemies and critics murdered.
No. 8 is the Ben Stein film "Expelled," which according to Anderson "argues that the scientific establishment suppresses those who believe in intelligent design and that the contemporary evolutionary consensus is part of a 'scientific conspiracy to keep God out of the nation’s laboratories and classrooms.'" But the film features a number of deceits, such as selectively quoting Charles Darwin to portray him as evil, and scientists who were lied to about appearing in the film.
Then again, factual accuracy was not a criterion for appearing on Newsmax's list -- the only criteria cited are "films that generated the highest box office totals and made a 'significant impact.'"
Newsmax doesn't explain why discredited films that peddle paranoia and hate are worthy of being elevated.
What LGBT Stuff Is The MRC Freaking Out About Now? Topic: Media Research Center
It's time once again to ask the musical question: What LGBT stuff is the Media Research Center freaking out about now? Because freaking out about LGBT stuff is kinda what the MRC does.
Gabriel Hays is freaking out about a gay person on TV, in the form of a new Netflix show:
It seems that 2018 is the year for John Hughes-esque teen dramedies to make a come back. This time with the full force of LGBT appeal. Hoping to gain a following with fans of the film, “Love, Simon,” Netflix has announced a new gay teen romantic comedy for it’s streaming service that will appear in June, just in time for the nation’s major Pride festivities.
[...]
The main character, Alex Truelove, is a “well-rounded senior with a wonderful girlfriend named Claire, and a bright future ahead of him.” Logo states that, “as Alex works towards achieving one last teenage milestone -- losing his virginity -- he meets Elliot, a handsome, charming gay kid from the other side of town.” It’s not hard to see how the rest of this story plays out.
To Hollywood, this is the new normal.
[...]
Anyways, if last year’s Call Me By Your Name was any indication, these progressive coming-of-age stories should be avoided at all costs by conscionable viewers. Yeah, you get “lighthearted” gay dramedies like this (not that there’s anything trite about promoting gay sex) but at the same time, Hollywood promotes vile (and very graphic) stories about pedophilic sex under the same inclusion umbrella.
The only hope in all this is that more and more viewers recognize this propaganda for what it is and choose more wholesome entertainment with their movie tickets. Thankfully, MRC Culture found that Love, Simon’s debut was surpassed by Christian film, I Can Only Imagine.
For the moment, however, an undeterred Hollywood will continue force feeding the public these gay propaganda movies. Let’s just pray that their plan will implode on its own when casual viewers start to realize that a story about a pansexual boy scout’s romantic wilderness adventure might not be all that relatable.
Lindsay Kornick complained that one TV show had a storyline about a transgendered military member:
It’s just like a liberal program to work in a sappy story for the cause. They even managed to insert Donald Trump without mentioning his name. After all, Trump was the one who recognized that it might be more important for the military to protect the United States than worry about diversity quotas. To the far left, he might as well have reignited the Third Reich, even though the military is already highly discriminatory and the law, as they say, was never enacted. It doesn’t matter since the narrative of “Trump hates the LGBT community” hasn’t moved an inch.
[...]
But one thing is clear. This was a moment of pure propaganda. We see the struggle of this one officer and assume any argument against transgendered people serving must be bigotry. There are no facts regarding the small amount transgendered people who serve in the military or the potential health cost of enlisting more. All we have is heartfelt platitudes and a Trump jab. Color me shocked that minds won’t be changed.
Dawn Slusher lamented that a Catholic-raised teen you on the show "Rise" had a "fall ... into temptation" as he "shares a kiss with male student Jeremy, quickly followed by Simon proposing sex to fellow student Annabelle (Shannon Purser) in an attempt to deny his attraction to Jeremy." Slusher is apparently so repulsed by this gay kiss that she times it and knows all about other gay kisses on TV:
We’ve seen the gay plot point between Simon and Jeremy building since the first episode, but it was still shocking to see it play out, nonetheless. Only about seven minutes into Tuesday’s episode, Simon temporarily gives in to his attraction to Jeremy and the two kiss passionately for 8 seconds in the high school parking lot as the music swells. It’s definitely the first time I’ve ever seen such an explicit kiss between two homosexual minors on network television, but apparently it's happened a few times before on Fox and ABC.
Hays had another freakout over the GLAAD Media Awards and GLAAD leader Sarah Kate Ellis "demanding that the LGBTQ+ community push for 100% representation in American culture," adding: "Well Sarah Kate Ellis certainly has the right people on her side to “accelerate acceptance,” or at least jam gay propaganda down the average American’s throat -- the major television news networks." Hays concluded by huffing that with "much of the weight of the mainstream media on her side, the propaganda is going to remain ever in conservatives’ faces."
And for good measure, Hays dropped a sneering reference to "the insufferable It Boys of Olympic homosexuality, Adam Rippon and Gus Kenworthy."
Farah's Remarkably Self-Unaware Rant About Mueller Probe Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah writes in his April 10 column:
When Donald Trump became president, I feared for the safety and security of him and his family.
With all the hatred drummed up against Trump personally and his ideas, I thought his life could be in danger. I still do.
One thing I never saw coming was Special Counsel Robert Mueller, a law unto himself, who apparently will go to any length to destroy a duly elected president.
The self-unawareness here is astounding. Has he forgotten that he spent eight years going to just about every length -- including publishinglies -- to try and destroy the duly elected President Obama? Did he never consider that his eight-year campaign of hate against Obama may have put Obama's life in danger? Did he hope it would?
Farah then goes on to rant about the expanding scope of Robert Mueller's investigation of Trump:
What does Stormy Daniels have to do with Mueller’s mandate of investigating Russian collusion? Is Stormy Daniels a Russian agent? Was she a Russian agent eight years before the 2016 campaign, the last time she alleges any relationship with Donald Trump?
The case of Stormy Daniels, of course, is a civil matter. It’s not a criminal case – or even a potential criminal case, except for the possibility of charging Cohen with an illegal contribution to his client’s campaign. She had no connection with the campaign except to have signed a sworn affidavit denying any relationship with Donald Trump.
This investigation has become a circus – a very dangerous circus, one that treads heavily on the foundation of U.S. law and legal tradition.
Funny, we don't recall Farah ever complaining about independent counsel Kenneth Starr's mandate expanding far beyond the Whitewater investigation. Indeed, Farah compained that Starr didn't take down the Clintons, despite that greatly expanded mandate, on anything more serious than fudging the truth about having an affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Oh, and the whole "Is Stormy Daniels a Russian agent?" thing just makes Farah sound even more like a paranoid conspiracy-monger.
CNS' Obama-Bashing Hot Take on Comey Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com apparetly would like to be one of the cool internet kids with their hot takes, so it tries one regarding a TV interview with James Comey in an April 16 article:
Former FBI Director James Comey in an interview broadcast on Sunday night that he “deeply” respects former President Barack Obama “and his higher loyalty to the values I care a lot about” but that current President Donald Trump is “morally unfit” to be president.
When Obama, who Comey believes has a “higher loyalty to the values I care a lot about,” served in the Illinois state legislature, he repeatedly opposed a bill that would have treated babies who survived late-term abortions as “persons” who have the same constitutional rights as any other person.
In addition to being a really dumb hot take, it's highly misleading. As we've documented, Obama has said he opposed those bills because the law would likely have been struck down in the courts for giving legal status to fetuses, a requirement that a second doctor be present at abortions, and their lack of a "neutrality clause" to make sure the bill would not affect current abortion laws, and the bill in question would have required any fetus who survives an abortion who cannot survive outside the womb to receive medical care (the state already requires post-viable fetuses to receive medical care).
The link CNS used to back up the claim is a video made by anti-abortion activist Jill Stanek that similarly misleads about the bill.
WND's Farah Stands By His Convicted-Felon Ex-Congressman Buddy Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've documented WorldNetDaily's love of former Republican Texas Rep. Steve Stockman -- to the point where it was effectively serving as Stockman's PR shop during Stockman's single term in Congress from 2012 to 2014 and his ill-fated primary run for a Senate seat against incumbent Republican John Cornyn. Stockman had responded in kind, giving away copies of a WND-published anti-Obama book written by then-WND reporter Aaron Klein to his fellow members of Congress.
But even Stockman's recent conviction on numerous fraud charges isn't shaking WND's faith in him.
An anonymously written April 12 WND article offered up a mostly straight, if vaguely written, account of Stockman's conviction on 23 charges "related to financial crimes," with the details of the offenses limited to claiming that "Essentially, he was charged with using charitable donations for projects and activities unrelated to the charities to which they were donated." WND spent more space recounting Stockman's right-wing-friendly record -- i.e., noting that "he called for a congressional investigation into Alfred Kinsey’s 1948 writings about men and sex after learning that Kinsey included in his study the data from the diary of a pedophile" -- then on the details of the charges for which Stockman is currently in the news.
The truth is that Stockman used that money from donors for a wide variety of strange and eclectic purposes, including to "spy on political rivals with Inspector Gadget-style tools, to pay off his credit card debt, to go on dolphin boat rides, and to buy up copies of pop-up Advent books published by his brother." Stockman pledged to use the money to establish a center for conservative interns in Washington, which never happened.
But the truth doesn't matter to WND editor Joseph Farah, who used his April 15 column to proclaim Stockman innocent, despite the overwhelming evidence against him:
I’ve known Steve for many years. There’s not a corrupt bone in his body. Don’t believe anything else you read about this case anywhere – including Fox News, which hung him out to dry.
Steve went to Washington to do one thing – defeat the Deep State.
There’s an old saying about the feds: If they want to get you, they have an unlimited budget and unlimited power to do so. Knowing what we now know in more graphic detail than ever before, are you surprised?
Farah then quoted Stockman's wife supporting her husband:
I haven’t talked to Steve, who is in lockup awaiting sentencing. But, according to his lovely and loyal wife, Patti, he’s doing fine under the circumstances, which I am gratified to hear.
[...]
It seems Steve has already made lots of friends – guards, warden, doctors, nurses, staff. He’s one of the friendliest, most down-to-earth guys I ever met. Everybody’s laughing because Steve is as funny as any stand-up comic you ever heard.
Patti was just happy to see him laughing.
“After a moment of pain, we had a wonderful visit,” she related. “Steve had a rough start at that facility health-wise, but things seem to be under control now. He’s been furiously writing things he’s been wanting to write for several years now and is excited about how easily it is just pouring out of him.”
Someday, we’ll get the whole story, it seems. But not today or tomorrow, for sure.
Fartah concluded his column by publishing Stockman's address in prison and a request from Stockman's wife for prayers, adding "In closing, let me say I hope President Trump pardons Steve Stockman like he pardoned Scooter Libby. I can’t say any more. I’m too choked up."
So a criminal friend getting busted chokes Farah up, but not publishing fake news and pretending that the actual truth is fake does not. Got it.
MRC Pretends Williamson Lost Writing Job For Being A Conservative Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck rants in an April 5 post:
In another sign of extreme cowardice and censorship of conservatives, The Atlantic and editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg decided to firemconservative and former National Review writer Kevin Williamson on Thursday after just over two weeks since the announcement following vicious backlash to the hiring.
The excuse was holding a pro-life position about women aborting children facing the death penalty, but the reality is that it only served as an excuse to pull the trigger.
Goldberg made the announcement in a Thursday memo to staff that Williamson “is not the best fit for his talents, and so we are parting ways” because his view in a podcast and previous tweets about women who have abortions and the death penalty were “contrary to The Atlantic’s tradition of respectful, well-reasoned debate, and to the values of our workplace.”
The cowardly EIC argued that he thought “Kevin would represent an important addition to our roster of Ideas columnists, and I addressed the controversy surrounding some of his past tweeting and writing” because “no one’s life work should be judged by an intemperate tweet, and that such an episode should not necessarily stop someone from having a fruitful career at The Atlantic.”
Of course, Goldberg peddled fake news when he made that argument as the views Williamson has on abortion were the exact reason that will prevent him “from having a fruitful career at The Atlantic.”
The gutless Goldberg claimed that Williamson’s stance “was also a centerpiece of a podcast discussion in which Kevin explained his views on the subject of the death penalty and abortion” and that Goldberg, in his infinite wisdom, realized that the former National Review correspondent’s stance was “his carefully considered views”and not a one-off tweet.
[...]
To recap, The Atlantic still maintains far-left writers such as Peter Beinart, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Adam Serwer, and Alex Wagner, but Williamson was fired solely because of his conservatism. Nevermind the fact that he was anything but a Trump supporter; the reality that he was still let go shows how the left’s censorship has no limits.
A couple things here. First: Houck provides no evidence that executing women who have an abortion is a mainstream "pro-life" view. He cites no mainstream anti-abortion activists who hold that view --indeed, the mainstream anti-abortion movement regularly denies that it has a goal of doing so. That makes Williamson's view an extreme one, and one for which Williamson was justly fired.
Which brings us to our second thing: Houck is engaging in lies and projection by falsely painting Williamson's firing as a larger attack on conservatives. He has no facts on which to base his claim that Goldberg was issuing "fake news" on the reason for Williamson's firing, and calling Goldberg "cowardly" and "gutless" is simply classless name-calling. Houck's gratutious attacking of other Atlantic columnists as "far-left" is one that the MRC has engaged in to the point of meaninglessness. He cites no instances of those columnists advocating the execution of people engaging in currently legal behavior.
Houck rants about "the left’s censorship," but his employer's "news" division, CNSNews.com, has no columnists, let alone employees, who are anything but conservative. Houck should address bias on his own home turf first before casting stones elsewhere.
Newsmax Profiles Eric Bolling, Ignores His Sexual Harrassment Scandal Topic: Newsmax
The April 9 Newsmax item "5 Minutes With ... Eric Bolling" is as fluffy as they come:
You may know Eric Bolling from his time on TV as a financial analyst on CNBC and Fox Business, or maybe as a regular on Fox News shows like “The Specialists” or “The Five.”
The 55-year-old is also a New York Times best-selling author, and a familiar face of the opioid epidemic as he works to push awareness among parents and their children after losing his own son, Eric Chase, to an accidental overdose last year.
The commodities trader-turned-media commentator also counts President Donald Trump as a personal friend, and he’s been known to get the occasional shout-out on the presidential Twitter feed.
Missing from that description, as well as any of the questions that follow: The important fact that Bolling was fired by Fox News (euphemistically described as "amicably" parting ways) following allegations of sexual harrassment surfaced against him. The firing occurred the same day as his son's overdose.
The death of Bolling's son is sad and tragic, but it should not overshadow how Bolling lost his job -- espeicially since it appears that Bolling appears to be using this opioid awareness campaign as a way to rehabilitate his own image.
CNS Turns Single Question to Pompeo Into Two Articles Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com typically ignores a lot of news, particularly when it doesn't advance its right-wing agenda. Yet when it wants to, it can give a ridiculous amount of focus on a single thing.
And so it goes with a question to Mike Pompeo during his confirmation hearing to be secretary of state, as asked by Sen. Cory Booker, on whether Pompeo thought that gay sex was a "perversion." CNS reporter Patrick Goodenough managed to squeeze two entire articles out of this single question.
The first focused on the question itself. Goodenough admitted that "did not answer directly when asked several times by Booker" about the issue, then explained that the question derived from a speech Pompeo gave at a church in which he quoted a partisan prayer claiming that "We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle." Goodenough touted how the so-called prayer was also read in state egislatures and had been "read out on radio stations and from pulpits across America. He then reproduced the entire "prayer," which also claimed that "We have worshipped other gods and called it multi-culturalism" and "We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare."
The second article by Goodenough was a political attack, bashing the Council on American-Islamic Relations for praising Booker over the question by noting a decade-old statement by a lower-level CAIR official criticizing homosexuality (but not explaining that it's really no different that how his boss, Michael W. Chapman, feels about it). He also wrote that "Islamic doctrine frowns on homosexuality" and that "countries where the death penalty for homosexuality is applied or codified in law are all Islamic."
These are literally the only two original articles CNS generated on Pompeo's confirmation hearing -- both focused on a single question.
Goodenough later followed up with an article on CAIR's opposition to Pompeo's nomination, complaining that CAIR "was thrilled when Democrats on the Senate panel grilled Pompeo last week over his views on Islam." He did not similarly note what lines of questioning from Republican members of Congress "thrilled" conservative boosters.
Michael Master serves up an odd defense of President Trump in his April 20 WorldNetDaily column:
The Media Research Center's Julia Seymour complains in an April 10 
WorldNetDaily's Bob Unruh tries for a little drama in an April 5 
We've 
After more than a year away, Ilana Mercer -- the South African expat who's still 
Last year, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah 
CNSNews.com's Melanie Arter was in stenography mode again for a March 29 
Troy Anderson begins an April 4 Newsmax 
It's time once again to ask the musical question: What LGBT stuff is the Media Research Center freaking out about now? Because freaking out about LGBT stuff is kinda what the MRC does.
WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah writes in his April 10 
CNSNews.com apparetly would like to be one of the cool internet kids with their hot takes, so it tries one regarding a TV interview with James Comey in an April 16 
We've 
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck rants in an April 5 
The April 9 Newsmax 
CNSNews.com typically ignores a lot of news, particularly when it doesn't advance its right-wing agenda. Yet when it wants to, it can give a ridiculous amount of focus on a single thing.
