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Tuesday, June 26, 2018
MRC Whitewashes Roseanne Barr's Nazi Lie About Soros As Merely An 'Anti-Soros Tweet'
Topic: Media Research Center

Like WorldNetDaily, the Media Research Center had a chance to correct a lie regularly spread in right-wing media circles. Like WND, it chose not to.

The MRC's Julia Seymour used a June 12 post to follow in WND's footsteps by summarizing a Washington Post interview with George Soros. Because the Post let Soros speak for himself rather than follow the reflexive Soros-bashing agenda the MRC does, Seymour huffed that "the article was flattering to Soros," adding:

The only Soros critics Kranish included were either promoting conspiracy theories about Soros, already controversial or downright reviled — for example, he mentioned a recent anti-Soros tweet by Roseanne Barr, as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s complaint that Soros is a “threat to the fundamentals of the constitutional system.”

But Barr's tweet was not merely "anti-Soros" -- it repeated the malicious lie that Soros collaborated with the Nazis during World War II when, in fact, he was a teenage Jew trying to avoid detection by the Nazis. The Post article specifically stated that about the Barr tweet, yet Seymour felt the need to whitewash it as merely "anti-Soros."

While we could find no instance of the MRC spreading this lie, it would have been the responsible thing for Seymour to point out that Barr's tweet was, in fact, a lie instead of whitewashing it. But then, that might have interfered with the demonization campaign the MRC has waged against Soros for years, which at one point denigrated Soros as "the godfather of the left" and used the vaguely anti-Semitic "puppet master" graphic shown above.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:45 AM EDT
Updated: Sunday, June 13, 2021 1:46 PM EDT
Monday, June 25, 2018
Newsmax Image Rehab Project Bolling Gets A New Job
Topic: Newsmax

The heavy lifting for Newsmax for the Eric Bolling image rehab project is apparently over, as the credibly accused sexual harasser scored a new show at right-wing CRTV, with his regular appearances on Newsmax TV drying up around the time his new job started. But that doesn't mean Newsmax won't have him around on occasion -- after all, its image rehab for Bolling is arguably a success.

A June 8 article by Todd Beamon touted Bolling's recent Newsmax TV appearance, in which he dubiously advocated that President Trump "should break all existing multi-lateral trade agreements and negotiate new accords with individual nations." Beamon weirdly described Bolling only as an "author" -- not "a credibly accused sexual harasser who left Fox News in disgrace" or even a host on a competing right-wing media outlet.

Then, a June 19 article promoting Newsmax's "Troopathon" fundraiser listed Bolling among the "amazing array of guests" taking part. The list also included Bill O'Reilly -- another Newsmax image rehab project -- and a host of other right-wingers ... and fake-news purveyor Jack Posobiec.

It's difficult for Newsmax to present itself as credible when it's trying to whitewash credibly accused sexual harassers and associating with right-wing nutjobs.


Posted by Terry K. at 8:50 PM EDT
CNS Lets Another Trump White House Lie Stand Uncorrected
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com reporter Melanie Arter has a bad habit of repeating Trump White House falsehoods and misinformation without correcting them. She does it again in a June 14 article:

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to reports Tuesday that she was planning to leave her White House post at the end of the year, asking if CBS News knows something she doesn’t know about her plans and her future.

“Does @CBSNews know something I don’t about my plans and my future? I was at my daughter’s year-end Kindergarten event and they ran a story about my ‘plans to leave the WH’ without even talking to me. I love my job and am honored to work for @POTUS,” Sanders tweeted Wednesday.

But Arter failed to highlight the fact that Sanders is lying. She even includes a quote from the CBS article (to which she curiously failed to link) explicitly nothing that Sanders failed to respond to "repeated requests for comment before this story was published." Which means that contrary to Sanders' claim, CBS did try to talk to Sanders; she simply refused to respond to the request, then dishonestly complained that CBS ran its story without talking to her.

As the Washington Post points out, the Trump White House regularly uses this tactic as a way to discredit media outlets.

It would be nice if Arter reported facts instead of taking dictation from the Trump White House.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:00 PM EDT
WND's Farah Plays the Satan Card To Raise Money For His Book
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Fundraising is not going well to get Joseph Farah's book published, and Farah has decided to blame Satan himself for it.

In a June 15 email to the WorldNetDailiy mailing list carrying the headline "Satan evidently doesn't want you to read this email," Farah wrote:

I'm not joking when I say Satan doesn't want you to read this email.

I’ve been sending emails to our hundreds of thousands of subscribers for more than 20 years, but I’ve never had such a tough time getting one delivered as I have with this one.

It must be as important as I believe it is.

So, here’s my third try …

Farah went on to write that "We are far short of our goal of $400,000 with time running out" to "print the massive quantities of this book the marketplace is demanding." But as always, Farah does not demonstrate where exactly that demand is, or why he can't leverage that alleged demand to publish a smaller initial print run then use the profits from that to finance additional print runs.

Two days later, Farah sent out the same letter with the same headline.

On June 21, Farah dropped the ambiguity, affirmatively declaring in the headline that "Satan doesn't want you to read this email." He went on to write: "I don’t make this claim lightly: Satan is pulling out all the stops in subverting plans for the release of the most important book I have ever written. ... But the opposition comes in all forms – health challenges, financial crises, technology issues, you name it!"

Farah is so invested in this particular bit of victimhood that he rehashed in his June 21 WND column -- headlined "Satan doesn't want you to read this column" -- in which he sorta likens himself to Jesus in the process of shilling for money:

But, of course, who was it that opposed Jesus – who tempted Him in the wilderness? Who is it that hates the Gospel more than anyone?

And that’s the kind of opposition I am experiencing. It’s palpable. It’s not like anything I have ever before witnessed in my own life.

Why am I baring my soul like this publicly? Because I know I am talking to the widest audience of friends I can reach. I desperately covet your prayers to strengthen me for this challenge.

After all, that is the greatest weapon Jesus has given us. It is what He Himself relied upon during His earthly ministry. 

[...]

What I will not do is go into many specifics about the opposition I am experiencing – the kind that affects everyone around me. It comes in many forms – from financial crisis to health challenges to technology breakdowns to a multitude of distractions.

Well, you know, if you're claiming that Satan is at the root of your troubles -- particularly those that require other poeple to give you money to get out of -- perhaps you should provide some details so readers can judge if that is indeed the case.

Farah concluded: "Thank you. And please act quickly! I am besieged." He didn't mention that he brought no small part of this besiegement upon himself by publishing fake news and bogus conspiracy theories.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:42 AM EDT
Sunday, June 24, 2018
MRC's Double Standard on Exploiting A Parent's Grief
Topic: Media Research Center

An anonymously written post credited only to "MRC Latino Staff" states:

Once again, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos proves that no argument is off limits so long as it advances the network’s gun control agenda, not even a conspiracy theory with no basis in fact.

A recent edition of Sunday political affairs talker Al Punto featured an interview with Manuel Oliver, father of Joaquín, who perished in the horrific school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

Watch as Ramos goads Oliver into indicting the National Rifle Association as a conspirator in the Parkland shooting, as aired on Univision's Al Punto on Sunday, May 13, 2018:

[...]

To be crystal clear: we have no issue whatsoever with Mr. Oliver, who has an absolute right to process his grief as he and his family see fit as they continue to process this tragedy. To suddenly and senselessly lose a child under those circumstances is a parent’s absolute worst nightmare. The parents of those lost to school shootings our fullest measure of love, empathy, and understanding. To that end, Mr. Oliver has nothing but our prayerful support.

We do take exception, however, with the manner in which Ramos chooses to publicly exploit this grief in furtherance of a long-standing gun control agenda.

But when Republicans and Donald Trump exploited the grief of Pat Smith, whose son was killed in the attack on Benghazi, in the furtherance of an agenda by having her spew her raw hatred at the 2016 Republican National convention, the MRC took exception to said exploitation being called out. Curtis Houck ranted:

From the moment that Pat Smith concluded her Monday night speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC) about how her son was murdered in the 2012 Benghazi terror attack, MSNBC had their marching orders to annihilate, demean, and smear Smith for her attacks on Hillary Clinton that left the assembled cast of liberals confused at the “gross accusation” that’s “ruined” the entire night.

"Annihilate, demean, and smear"? How is that different from what Smith did during her speech?

The MRC then whined that the media wouldn't play along with Smith's exploitation, then exploited her grief some more by giving her space to hate even further.

The MRC should stop its own exploitation of people's grief for political purposes before criticizing others for it.


Posted by Terry K. at 8:50 PM EDT
WND Columnist Cites Fake-News Site To Push Idea of 'Deep State' Coup
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily columnist James Zumwalt has a definite love for fake news. He demostrates that once again in his June 13 column, in which he responds to former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens' idea the the Second Amendment is a relic of another time. Zumwalt argues that there are times when citizens may need to lead a coup against the government, speculating on two recent examples. The first was the Watergate scandal, in which "the abuse of power during Watergate could well have led to a coup." He then writes:

The second incident during Stevens’ lifetime involves an actual attempted coup, evidence of which we see unfolding today. It is clear, 19 months after the 2016 presidential election, that high-level U.S. government players worked to manipulate events to secure the election of Hillary Clinton and, failing to do so, manipulate the ouster of President Donald Trump. The dust has yet to settle from all the activity involved, but when it does the American public will be shocked to learn how a coup attempt may well have been imposed upon it by the Deep State. Had it succeeded, it may have been an armed citizenry left to restore liberty.

Zumwalt's source for the "attempted coup" claim is a pro-Russia conspiracy website called WhatDoesItMean.com. It a notorious fake-news promoter that's been busted repeatedly. The website even admits that a significant portion of its content is fake: "Some events depicted in certain articles on this website are fictitious and any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental. Some other articles may be based on actual events but which in certain cases incidents, characters and timelines have been changed for dramatic purposes. Certain characters may be composites, or entirely fictitious."

In addition to the conspiratorial ranting, the WhatDoesItMean.com article to which Zumwalt links contains a blatant bit of fake news, by including a graphic claiming that CNN used pictures of "the same girl in 3 different Refugee Crisis pictures being saved by 3 different men." In fact, all the images are from a single incident, and there's no evidence CNN ever portrayed them as representing anything else.

Zumwalt's embrace of fake news simply further WND's longstanding reputation as being a promoter of such.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:38 PM EDT
Saturday, June 23, 2018
CNS Gives Platform to Heritage Columnist to Cheer Authoritarian Hungarian Leader
Topic: CNSNews.com

We've previously noted CNSNews.com's love for right-wing authoritarian Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, painting him as merely a Trump-esque "populist" while whitewashing his racist and xenophobic traits. The whitewashing continued in a May 23 CNS column by the Heritage Foundation's Mike Gonzalez:

Hungary’s maverick prime minister, Viktor Orban, is once again stirring the pot of goulash.

Four years ago, Orban gave his critics ammunition when he said he was constructing an “illiberal democracy.” This month he doubled down, declaring liberal democracy dead and urging other European leaders to stop trying to revive the corpse.

Instead, Orban exhorted them to get busy invoking a new democracy based on Christian principles.

[...]

For many reasons, Orban deserves our attention when he says his ambition—“now we want to hunt really big game” is precisely how he put it—is to change the course of Europe.

He is flushed with an electoral victory in which his party last month captured more votes than all of the opposition combined. He has defeated German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the important philosophical debate over immigration (Orban says it should be lowered). And he has vanquished the leftist billionaire George Soros, who just announced his NGO is leaving Hungary.

Most importantly, the question of values is the fundamental issue confronting the continent. Unlike the United States, modern European states are not founded upon creedal documents that lay out the constituting character and culture of the nation, and how to preserve them.

Gonzalez didn't mention Orban's history of removing governmental checks and balances, turning public broadcasating into propaganda outlets and the whiff of anti-Semitism surrounding his Soros-bashing obsession (despite the fact that a Soros-funded scholarship paid for Orban's college education).

Gonzalez waits until the 12th paragraph to concede that Orban is perhaps not an American ideal, though he whitewashes Orban's ultra-nationalism in the process:

But first it is important to note obvious downsides. Orban is no Thomas Jefferson, and his emphasis on ethnicity, not civic nationalism contained within borders, is sui generis.

If you believe that all men are created equal, are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that governments are instituted “to secure these rights” and “the blessings of liberty,” then the type of state that Orban wants to build is likely not your bag.

[...]

Most important, securing individuals’ liberties is most assuredly not the central purpose of the state he is busy creating. As he said, again, in the 2014 speech:

“The new state that we are constructing in Hungary is an illiberal state, a non-liberal state. It does not reject the fundamental principles of liberalism such as freedom, and I could list a few more, but it does not make this ideology the central element of state organization, but instead includes a different, special, national approach.” (Emphasis added.)

There is good reason why ethnic, rather than civic, nationalism gives us pause. Though ethnic nationalism is unassailable from a natural rights perspective, it does de-emphasize the individual’s agency by making citizenship (belonging) non-volitional.

Still, Gonzalez is not terribly bothered by all this, declaring that "this is less of an indictment of Orban than one would think" because "he’s building a state for Hungarians, not Americans—and we must remember that even though safeguarding freedom must be our central animating spirit, to do that, we too, must preserve America’s unique culture."

And Gonzalez concludes with a more full-throated endorsement of the authoritarian: "By attempting to reintroduce the Judeo-Christian ethic into a secularized Europe, Orban arguably is giving Europe a chance to do just that. Even if the ethnic model he and his electorate may be pursuing is irreplicable in America or most of Western Europe, the values model could have a lot to offer.­­­"

Gonzalez -- and, thus, CNS -- has to overlook a clear history of authoritarianism and anti-Semitism to reach this gushy conclusion.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:25 AM EDT
Updated: Saturday, June 23, 2018 10:27 AM EDT
WND's Massie Clings To His Obama Derangement
Topic: WorldNetDaily

President Obama has been out of office for well over a year, but WorldNetDaily columnist Mychal Massie is still clinging to hoary, nasty, never-proven Obama conspiracies.

In his June 11 column, Massie reference "Obama’s alleged immoral behavior in the seamy underbelly of Chicago’s bathhouses." He offered no proof of this, of course -- after all, if there was actual proof, it almost certainly would have surfaced by now. Massie reference the same bogus claim a few months back, using the utterly discredited Larry Sinclair as a backup and falsely asserting that Sinclair had died.

Massie went on to rant about another Obama conspiracy theory: "What has Obama ever accomplished or built? We are told that Bill Ayers – the radical communist and anarchist whose wife spent time on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List – ghostwrote Obama’s book(s)." In fact, not even gossipy biographer Christopher Andersen backed away from any assertion that Ayers "ghostwrote" Obama's book(s).

Massie's Obama derangement continued:

The facts cannot be denied; Obama was a disaster as president.

Obama didn’t build anything or run anything before taking office. He was a community organizer, which is tantamount to being a “mobster.” Community organizers promise they won’t destroy your property or stir up disturbances in exchange for a company or property owner succumbing to their extortion threats.

It can be argued that the only promise Obama kept was that he would “fundamentally change America” – and that he did. It is not ipse dixit to say his health-care program was an unmitigated disaster. His international dealings were pleasing to the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran and other terrorist Muslim groups, but they weren’t favorable to Israel or to America. Was forcing public facilities and schools to allow men to use women’s bathrooms an accomplishment? He stirred the caldron of skin-color discord on a level not witnessed since white Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan.

[...]

It is clear to all who are honest that Obama accomplished next to nothing for the good of America as a whole, and the facts support my assertion. 

Yet Massie offered no facts to support said assertion.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:33 AM EDT
Friday, June 22, 2018
MRC's Graham Finally Finds A Fact-Check He Likes -- When It Goes After Bill Clinton
Topic: Media Research Center

The point of the Media Research Center's "fact-checking the fact-checkers" campaign, as we've documented, is nothing more than a politically motivated attack on fact-checkers for pointing the falsehoods and outright lies of President Trump and his administration.

The MRC's Tim Graham demonstrates that grudge once again in a June 5 post, which begins by huffing that "Washington Post 'Fact Checker' Glenn Kessler has concentrated most of his firepower on Donald Trump. A June 1 blog posttouted 'President Trump has made 3,251 false or misleading claims in 497 days.'" Graham doesn't dispute this; he's simply complaining that this particular truth has been made public.

Graham then changed his tune, cheering "a tiny nod toward balance" because the Post fact-checked Bill Clinton about his claims of deep debt upon leaving the presidency and finding them wanting. For no other apparently reason than that it engages in some right-wing-friendly Clinton-bashing, Graham proclaims that "We have rated this Washington Post 'fact check' as The Real Deal."

Which further exposes the agenda of Graham's fact-check-bashing enterprise. Only facts that support the MRC's right-wing, pro-Trump agenda are accepted; any media outlet who writes something negative about Trump -- no matter how true it is -- cannot be trusted.

As we've said before: Real journalists check facts; partisan activists attack the fact-checkers.


Posted by Terry K. at 2:21 PM EDT
WND Columnist Pretends That Ranting About 'Transanity' Isn't Intended To Demean Transgenders
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Longtime trans-basher Michael Brown writes in his June 15 WorldNetDaily column:

We’ve been saying for years that there will be a pushback against LGBTQ extremism. And it’s not because people are uncaring. Or intolerant. Or bigoted. Or unfair. Instead, the pushback comes as a rational reaction to the rising tide of transanity.

For those not familiar with my use of the term “transanity,” I’m not demeaning the struggles of those who believe they are trapped in the wrong body. Rather, I use the term to describe the denial of biological verities, the idea that reality is whatever you perceive it to be, and the extremist agenda that flows from this mindset.

So, while I have compassion on those who struggle, I stand against the extremist agenda.

Brown is not telling the truth: he does not have compassion for transgender people. We've noted how Brown loves to portray transgenders as cross-dressing boys whose goal is to perv on girls in the bathroom and sneered that "Caitlyn Jenner is just a man in a dress."

And tossing around the term "transanity" is inherently demaning, no matter how Brown tries to spin it.

This particular column by Brown cheers the "pushback against transanity" by refusing to let people use bathrooms by their gender identity,huffing that "girls would just have to overcome the discomfort of seeing male genitalia in their bathrooms and locker rooms. Transanity indeed." Brown offered no evidence that transgender females are eager to display their "male genitalia" in a bathroom.

Brown concluded his column by stating: "May the opposition rise up and do the right thing. And may we continue to study the question of transgender identity, working for a compassionate solution to help people find wholeness from the inside out." Again: If you're rooting for anti-trans "opposition" to "do the right thing" by shutting down any public expression of transgender behavior, you're seeking the opposite of a "compassionate solution."


Posted by Terry K. at 12:16 AM EDT
Thursday, June 21, 2018
CNS Does 13 Articles On IG Report, None of Which Report Finding of Anti-Hillary Bias
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com can cover stories when it feels like it (and when doing so advances its right-wing, pro-Trump editorial agenda). Upon the release of the Department of Justice inspector general's report on the FBI investigation of events regarding the 2016 election, CNS churned out a whopping 13 articles over the following day or so:

So dedicated was CNS to putting a pro-Trump spin on the IG report that none of these 13 articles reported that report also uncovered the fact that Comey acted in a biased manner that helped Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton before the election. The report specifically stated that then-FBI director James Comey made a "serious error of judgment" by announcing shortly before the election that he was reopening the email investigation against Clinton.

CNS claims in its mission statement it "endeavors to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story." That apparently doesn't apply if your last name is Clinton.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:51 PM EDT
MRC Desperate To Tar New Facebook Shows As 'Left-Wing'
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Ashley Rae Goldenberg spent an entire June 8 post lashing out at programming Facebook plans to air: "This summer, Facebook is debuting its own slate of original programming, funded by the tech giant. Out of the seven original shows announced, five have clear left-wing agendas." But Goldenberg's definition of "left-wing agenda" is dubious at best.

For instance, among the evidence she cited to claim that an ABC News program would be  "left-wing" is ... JoyBehar's comments about "accusing Vice President Mike Pence of being mentally ill for hearing the voice of G-d." Behar is on "The View," which for most of its history was a product of the entertainment side of ABC but moved to a production company under the ABC News umbrella in 2014. Goldenberg also attacked an ABC News reporter as "explicitly political" for reporting that Democratic women were running for office.

Goldenberg then complained that a CNN-related show will 'explicitly feature liberal anchor Anderson Cooper." Among her evidence to back that up: that Cooper "praised former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for her yoga routine."No, reallly.

Goldenberg went on to grouse about a show to be made by viral video producer ATTN:, huffing that "ATTN: has an entire series dedicated to “America Vs,” which is intended to show how much worse off America is than other places around the world" and "even just bluntly 'America should do more to protect its children.'" So protecting children is a "left-wing" position now?

Goldenberg did, however, find a couple shows she didn't find abhorrently "left-wing":

There are only two channels slated to appear on the new Facebook-funded Facebook Watch feature that do not necessarily promote liberal politics. Fox News’ show will be hosted by Carley Shimkus during the weekday morning, Shepard Smith during the weekday afternoon, and Abby Huntsman on the weekends.

Advance Local’s show will be led by the Alabama Media Group, which has brands such as AL.com and It’s a Southern Thing. John Archibald, a writer for AL.com, won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary for writing about the U.S. Senate race between Democrat Doug Jones and Roy Moore.

Goldenberg couldn't quite bring herself to admit that Fox News is reflexively conservative (at least when Shep isn't on, anyway). And she doesn't seem aware that Alabama Media Group publishes three major newspapers in Alabama, which under MRC rules makes it hopelessly "liberal" by definition.


Posted by Terry K. at 2:37 PM EDT
WND Can't Stop Pushing Right-Wing Legal Group's Obama-Bashing Non-Story
Topic: WorldNetDaily

We've documented how WorldNetDaily has played stenographer for the right-wing American Center for Law and Justice in trying to turn a molehill of a story into a bogus, Obama-bashing mountain. They're still at it.

An anonymously written June 12 WND article is the latest stab at this:

The U.S. government was informed of the overtly political agenda of OneVoice Israel and OneVoice Palestine – to defeat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – but gave the groups American taxpayer money anyway.

The report from the American Center for Law and Justice comes in its ongoing Freedom of Information Action case against the government over the Obama administration’s granting of taxpayer funds to groups trying to intervene in the election of a close U.S. ally.

[...]

“These are the nonprofit organizations that used digital infrastructure built with U.S. government funds to orchestrate an attempt to unseat the government of Israel in 2015,” ACLJ explained. “The records we obtained include further confirmation of the bias of the OneVoice organizational leadership against Israel and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and in favor of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas.”

First: The ACLJ is engaging in some serious fallacious bias by portraying criticism of Netanyahu as being "against Israel." 

Second: Any political position OneVoice had for the purposes of the money it received is irrelevant, since that project was unrelated to the Israeli election.

Third: WND and the ACLJ continue to gloss over the fact that a congressional investigationfound that OneVoice fully complied with the terms of the original grant, no grant money was used in the election, and the State Department placed no limitations on the post-grant use of those resources. (The ACLJ's manufactured outrage involves the fact that resources paid for in the original grant were later used in an anti-Netanyahu campaign.)

Fourth: WND and the ACLJ continue to whine about the fact that the son of Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas was an official with OneVoice -- something the ACLJ has portrayed as a recent revelation but has been publicly known since 2003 -- even though the group also included members of Netanyahu's Likud party.

Obama left office nearly two years ago, guys. Time to give up the obsessive hate.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:55 AM EDT
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
MRC's Double Standard on Pedantry
Topic: NewsBusters

In a June 7 MRC NewsBusters post, P.J. Gladnick bashed CNN's Jim Acosta as "a pedant on steroids" for pointing out that President Trump didn't get his facts quite correct when he said to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that Canadians burned down the White House during the War of 1812. Gladnick was quick to declare that "Trump was right" -- even though he also conceded that Canada was not an independent country at the time and the White House was burned by British-led troops. Still, he felt the need to rail against "over-zealous fact-checkers."

Speaking of pedantic, overzealous fact-checkers, Gladnick appears not to have noticed that his NewsBusters colleague, Tom Blumer, was exactly that a couple days earlier. First, he complained that the Associated Press said the Supreme Court "narrowly" ruled in the case of a Colorado baker who refused to bake a cake for a same-sex marraige, asserting that, since the vote was 7-2 and not 5-4,  "the justification for this characterization is thin"-- even though the ruling applied only in this particular case and refused to address the larger issue of discrimination for religious reasons.

Blumer then went even more pedantic by attacking the AP for describing said narrowness by writing that ""the big issue in the case, whether a business can refuse to serve gay and lesbian people," has not been decided:

The AP wants readers to believe, based on its use of "whether," that it's likely that future courts will rule that providers of good and services can never refuse to serve gays and lesbians under any circumstances. The Court has clearly stated that "religious and philosophical objections" represent clear and legitimate exceptions to that otherwise true statement, allaying fears that its 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges same-sex marriage ruling might be used to banish any right to exercise those objections, or even express them, out of the public square.

The AP should have written that "the big issue in the case, when (i.e., under what circumstances) a business can refuse to serve gay and lesbian people on religious and philosophical grounds," remains undecided. It appears that the degree to which those objections can be "limited" is far smaller than state and local so-called "civil-rights" enforcers had assumed.

Blumer apparently won't admit that discrimination on religious and philosophical grounds is still discrimination, and that the AP's wording, while a little too broad for Blumer's taste, is accurate.

So it seems pedantry is perfectly fine at the MRC -- as long as it's done in service to its ideological agenda.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:09 PM EDT
CNS Dismisses Legal Argument That Contradicts Its Pro-Trump, Pro-Levin Agenda
Topic: CNSNews.com

We've detailed how CNSNews.com ran with right-wing radio host Mark Levin's declaration that the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate President Trump is unconstitutional, as if the CNS and its Media Research Center had a business deal with Levin to do so. We overlooked one item from the initial blitz -- a June 4 article by Susan Jones that touted a Trump tweet echoing Levin's argument, then rehashed the entire argument.

Meanwhile, George Conway -- as it happens, the husband of Trump White House adviser Kellyanne Conway -- posted an article that effectively dismantles the argument made by Levin and conservative attorney Stephen Calebresi that Mueller's appointment is unconstitutional.

You'd think that given the amount of space CNS had devoted to advancing Levin's argument -- a whopping nine articles and columns -- it would want to give a fair and balanced airing to an opposing argument. Nope.

A June 14 article by Jones rehashed Trump's 10-day-old tweet before pivoting to an interview Fox News' Laura Ingraham did with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani to further Levin and Calebresi's argument.It's not until the ninth paragraph that Conway's rebuttal is mentioned -- but only for the purpose of giving Giuliani the opportunity to shoot it down without specifically addressing anything Conway wrote:

In her Wednesday night interview with Giuliani, Ingraham noted that Kellyanne Conway's husband George has written an article debunking arguments that Mueller's appointment as special counsel is unconstitutional.

"Is there any concern about that at the White House?" Ingraham asked Giuliani.

"No concern about it," Giuliani said. "That is not as clear an argument as, let's say, their inability to indict, even their inability to subpoena," he added. "However, I would think it's an undecided question. So how can Conway decide the question?" Giuliani asked. "Maybe he wants to be on the Supreme Court, but I don't think he's going to get the appointment."

Neither Jones nor Giuliani address any specific points made by Conway; Jones simply regurgitates Giuliani's outright dismissal. Jones then concluded her article by repeating yet again specific arguments Calebresi made in support of his view.

CNS' mission statement claims that it puts "a higher premium on balance than spin" and "endeavors to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story." It seems to be doing all it can to violate that mission with a very unfair and unbalanced presentation of a legitimate point of view that interferes with its pro-Trump, pro-Levin agenda.


Posted by Terry K. at 2:55 PM EDT

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