MRC Glosses Over Nasty Conservative Tweet To Bash 'The View'
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Kristine Marsh complains in a Nov. 16 post:

Friday on The View, the hosts slammed conservatives as racists that were “obsessed” with the media’s favorite Democrat socialist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. While they brought up the topic because of a stupid tweet from a conservative writer which mocked Cortez for her clothing choices, they used that tweet to accuse the entire conservative movement of having a racist agenda and obsession with the new congresswoman.

Notice how quick Marsh is to gloss over that "stupid tweet," as if it merits none of the scrutiny the MRC would give a stupid tweet from a "liberal" writer. Even the video clip accompanied Marsh's post omits any direct reference to the tweet.

Marsh won't tell you that the tweet was from Eddie Scarry, a reporter for thet conservative Washington Examiner -- with whom the MRC has a deal that started in 2012 to promote a weekly "Mainstream Media Scream" through columnist Paul Bedard -- who tweeted a picture of Ocasio-Cortez wearing a business suit and snarked: "I’ll tell you something: that jacket and coat don’t look like a girl who struggles" -- an implication that she should not have dressed so nice for her new job, which goes well beyond Marsh's claim that he "mocked Cortez for her clothing choices." Scarry was pilloried for it online, and even his fellow Examiner co-workers distanced themselves from him. In the wake of the tweet, the Examiner pulled Scarry off the "news" side (raise your hand if you didn't know that the Examiner had a "news" side where there there was purportedly not to be any bias exhibited) to the commentary side.

One can't help but think that Marsh was protecting Scarry in order not to have to criticize a publication with which her employer has a promotional deal and, thus, jeopardize that deal.

But Marsh wasn't done complaining, going on to insist that conservatives aren't really obsessed with ocasio-Cortez at all: "While no one at the table mentioned it, the media is far more obsessed with Cortez than conservatives are. Even the hosts of The View were enamored with her when she appeared on their show months ago."

Actually, conservatives in general, and Fox News in particular, are very much obsessed with Ocasio-Cortez. The Ocasio-Cortez derangement syndrome is so prevalent among conservatives that Washington Times columnist (and former WorldNetDaily reporter) Cheryl Chumley ranted that politicians like her with socialist leanings "don't belong in American politics" and that allowing her to serve in the House is "an abomination to the Constitution."

That's what you call obsession. Marsh simply doesn't want to admit it.

Jesse Lee Peterson vs. 'Evil'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily columnist Jesse Lee Peterson loves to trotsout the word "evil" to attack anyone he disagrees with that he has rendered the word almost meaningless from overuse. To wit, his work in just the past couple months:

• But to evil people like [Media Matters writers] Talia [Lavin] and Madeline [Peltz], truth sounds like lies, and love sounds like hate. So they describe my content as a “torrent of anti-black, anti-gay, and misogynistic hate.” -- Sept. 9
• In fact, many women are evil – especially “educated” liberal women. ... The Democratic Party is evil. ... The evil #MeToo movement unearthed a pro-abortion participant of the Dirty Women’s March – a liberal California psychology professor. This evil liar emerged from the gates of hell to accuse the judge of “attempted rape.” -- Sept. 23
• Look at the women who are aggressively going after Brett Kavanaugh: Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. (a nasty old woman who helped orchestrate the attack on Kavanaugh); Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. (wants to run for president); Kamala Harris, D-Calif. (wants to run for president); and Mazie Hirono, D-Hi. (wants men to “shut up”) are all evil. ... The Democrats are evil and they crave power. -- Sept. 30
• We watched evil, egotistical university students violate the rights of conservative classmates who peacefully protested on behalf of the judge’s innocence. ... What is the root of all this cowardly pandering by males, and the blind rage of evil women? Unforgiveness. ... Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., made concessions for evil after angry activist women confronted him in an elevator. ... Political correctness is evil. -- Oct. 7
• Until Trump, the country was nearly swallowed up by evil. He’s standing against the madness, and now evil is desperate. ... The Democratic Party is evil, and anyone who votes for Democrats supports evil. ... We’ve all seen how extreme and evil the media is – CNN, New York Times, Washington Post and other leftwing outlets. -- Oct. 21
• The Democrat Party is evil. They are worse today than ever before – worse than during slavery, Jim Crow, lynch mobs, or the heyday of the KKK. ... I’ve written about Oprah Winfrey before. Like most people, she’s doing the best she can. But she is on the side of evil – she is a deceitful, weak, wicked person. -- Nov. 4
• [Detroit School] Board member LaMar Lemmons (an evil, lying man), told Washington Post that having Dr. Carson’s name on a school is “synonymous with having Trump’s name on our school in blackface.” -- Nov. 18

That's a lot of evil -- and, conveniently, they are all Peterson's political enemies. He, of course, does not see his own evil in his obsessive hatred of President Obama, his issues with women (note how many of his "evil" targets above are women) and his insistence on sounding like a white supremacist.

CNS Rushes to Defend Acting Attorney General
Topic: CNSNews.com

Lots of questions were raised about President Trump's appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general. But despite being a self-proclaimed "news" organization, CNSNews.com wasn't going to raise them -- to the contrary, its goal was to defend Whitaker's appointment and his conservative bona fides, particularly in opposition to Robert Mueller's Trump-Russia investigation.

• A Nov. 7 article by managing editor Michael W. Chapman highlighted how Whitaker has "stressed that the Special Counsel was limited to investigating 'matters that involved any potential links to and coordination between two entities -- the Trump campaign and the Russian government,' and Trump family finances are outside that instruction."
• On Nov. 12, Melanie Arter touted how Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said that Whitaker was "appropriately appointed legally" and does not need to recuse himself from the Mueller probe despite being highly critical of it because "you don't recuse somebody because they have opinions different than the people they are overseeing."
• Chapman returned to gush that Whitaker once made the conservatively correct statement that "judges at the federal level, especially the U.S. Supreme Court, should have 'a biblical view of justice' and a proper understanding of 'natural law and natural rights.'" Chapman failed to note Whitaker's implication that only Christians should be judges and Jews, Muslims and atheists should not be.
  
• The next day, he cheered that Whitaker "said in a 2016 interview that there is enough evidence 'in the public domain' to warrant the appointment of a 'special prosecutor' to investigate the Clinton Foundation."
• Arter called on former Attorney General Michael Mukasey to claim that Trump has the right to appoint who he wants as the interim attorney general 'within certain limits.'"

CNS did note some of the controversy around Whitaker's appointment and his dubious past, but framed it as partisan criticsm rather than legitimate concern by having the criticism come out of the mouths of Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.

So we're not going to see a lot of in-depth reporting on the shady wingnut-welfare nonprofit he ran (CNS published a 2017 article highlighting a statement Whitaker made as head of that nonprofit) or his involvement in and even more shady patent-promotion company. That would hurt the narrative, after all.

WND's Farah Claims His Book Is 'Sold Out' -- But Is It Really?
Topic: WorldNetDaily
After months of begging for hundreds of thousands of dollars from his readers to print a massive first printing of his new book citing demand he never substantiated -- money which he apparently failed to receive -- WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah is doing what a smart businessman would have done in the first place: printing what he could and then claiming they sold out in an attempt to induce demand by invoking scarcity.

The script goes to plan in a Nov. 15 WND article:

Where’s all the Good News?

It’s everywhere – not just in the New Testament, but in every book of the Old, documents a new red-hot holiday title.

In fact, “The Gospel in Every Book of the Old Testament” is SOLD OUT, says the author, Joseph Farah – unlikely to be back in stock in a major supplies before the New Year.

But with interest in the book peaking, Farah sees a great opportunity for believers everywhere to help spread the Good News.

“Spreading the Gospel is participatory,” Farah says. “Jesus commanded all of His followers to take part personally in this work. And we are encouraging believers to do just that with their support of this book, which shows the often-overlooked redemptive, restorative, merciful and graceful side of the Hebrew Scriptures we should expect from one unchanging Creator.”

Just one little problem: there doesn't seem to be an actual problem obtaining Farah's book right now. The page for it at the WND online store does not state that it's sold out, and Amazon (which the WND store curiously links to) not only has it in stock, it also lists at this writing 35 new copies and 31 used copies through independent sellers. And, of course, there's the digital edition of the book, which never goes out of stock.

Yet Farah insists on making the scarcity case:

Partnering with missions organization Gospel for All Nations, WND and Farah are asking churches, individuals to make tax-deductible contributions and grants to keep this book widely available and in print.

“We need help,” says Farah. “There’s a demand for hundreds of thousands of copies right now in the marketplace but we can’t keep up with it. That’s not because of any special skills on my part but rather the uplifting message that reveals the miraculously consistent character if a loving God.”

As before, Farah offers no substantiation for the claim that "there’s a demand for hundreds of thousands of copies right now in the marketplace." And if Amazon's sales rankings are any indication, that demand doesn't exist; the hardcover version is ranked at No. 10,168, and in the Kindle store, where it's No. 43,848 overall and even in the incredibly narrow category of "Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Religion & Spirituality > Christian Books & Bibles > Bibles >More Translations," it's still ranked only 26th.

The article closes with the usual appeal to give a tax-deductible donation to Gospel for All Nations to support the book (WND has never released the details of the agreement that permits this), give directly to WND, or "order it in unlimited number of digital e-book copies or wherever the hardcover can be found."

But it looks like hardcover copies can be found pretty easily -- and Farah is merely playing his same money game, just from a slightly different angle.

MRC's Gayle King Derangement Syndrome
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has never liked "CBS This Morning" co-host Gayle King because she's not a conservative and because she's friends with Oprah Winfrey and the Obamas. The MRC's obsession with King has really ratcheted up in the past month.

An Oct. 31 post by Curtis Houck sneered that King was a "Oprah Winfrey gal pal, and Obama donor and family friend" and complained about a "syrupy" and "gushing" profile of her in the New York Times. The next day, Scott Whitlock complained about "CBS’s Tangled Conflict of Interest With Oprah, Gayle King, and Democrats," since Winfrey is also a CBS contributor by way of "60 Minutes" who occasionally steps away for political work.

Houck returns to claim there were "seven instances" in which King showed her "liberal bias" during her coverage of the midterm elections. These included King pondering whethercelebrity endorsements helped Democratic candidates and pointing out the fact that many people don't think President Trump was telling the truth when he fearmongered about the migrant caravan, neither of which are "liberal bias."

On Nov. 12 Whitlock went on a tirade against both King and Winfrey:

Just 12 days after CBS special correspondent Oprah Winfrey “stepped away” to campaign for Democrat Stacey Abrams in Georgia, Winfrey is back on the network and you’ll never guess what she’s doing: Praising a Democrat. Winfrey’s best friend, Gayle King, introduced Oprah on Monday's CBS This Morning to reveal the next book club selection: Michelle Obama’s new autobiography. 

Just to reiterate, Gayle King, an Obama and Democratic donor, introduced Winfrey, an Obama and Democratic donor to talk about how great Michelle Obama’s new book is. 

Whitlock also complained about King's "lack of transparency"in not disclosing that she's an editor for Oprah's magazine -- an ironic and hypocritical claim since the MRC's own promotion of Bill Donohue regularly fails to disclose that MRC chief Brent Bozell is on the board of advisors of Donohue's Catholic League.

Two days later, Whitlock had upgraded that "conflict of interest" to full-on "collusion," grousing that "Democrat Winfrey and Democratic donor/co-host Gayle King have devoted 22 minutes and 44 seconds (since Monday) to the former First Lady’s new book, Becoming."

And on Nov. 26, Whitlock returned to King derangement mode, this time managing not to include Winfrey or the Obamas:

CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King on Monday prompted Senator Bernie Sanders, hyping his liberal policy prescriptions and encouraging him to attack Republicans. None of the co-hosts bothered to identify Sanders as a socialist or even a leftist. Instead, co-host Norah O'Donnell introduced the leftist as a “political independent,” touting: “Sanders, who was just reelected as a political independent, is pushing a bold agenda that includes protecting DACA recipients and comprehensive immigration reform.” 

Whitlock and the rest of the MRC is never this critical of Fox News hosts who have conflicts of interests and give gushy interviews to President Trump and other conservatives.

WND's Klayman Blames 'Jewish Left' For Synagogue Massacre
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Larry Klayman knows who to blame for the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, and it is the Jews. Well, certain Jews.

Klayman began his Oct. 30 WorldNetDaily column by outlining his convoluted religious views: "Let me get one thing clear up front. I am a proud Jew and Zionist! Jesus spoke to me on three occasions when I was very down and out and going through a very difficult period in my life, so I also became a proud Christian. That’s why I call myself a Jewish Christian." Messianic Jews are mostly seen as a tool for evangelical Christians to lure Jews by claiming they can cling to their Jewish heritage while also embracing Jesus, even though Judaism as a whole does not recognize Jesus as the son of God.

He then throws in the tired right-wing lie about George Soros:

It is not in dispute that to save their own skin, under the “tutelage” of his father, “Little Leftist George” collaborated with the Nazis during World War II to confiscate the property of fellow Jews headed for Hitler’s gas chambers and ovens. Since then Soros has not done anything discernible to even apologize for this heinous act. I, for one, would have rather gone to my own death in a Nazi concentration camp than sell out my fellow Jews.

Actually, it is so in dispute that it is a documented lie to make that claim about Soros. Apparently Klayman is rooting for one more Jew to have died in the Holocaust.

But on to the big smear. Klayman went on to huff that for "non-leftist Jews" like himself --  "the ones who truly are in sync with the Jewish masses here and in Israel – President Trump has proven in just two short years in office to be the biggest friend of Jewry there ever was in the White House," adding without proof that former President Obama was "truly anti-Semitic." And then he dropped this bomb:

And here is the rub. Evil neo-Nazis like the murderer of 11 Jews at the Pittsburgh synagogue, in racist rants on social media, in effect pointed to leftist Jews as furthering the immigration of Muslims into the country. This domestic terrorist in effect justified this unjustifiable heinous massacre as a reaction to the Jewish Left aiding and abetting the influx of Muslims into the United States.

While most Jews, including yours truly, are not in favor of banning all Muslims from our shores, it is ironic that many in the Jewish Left will vilify President Trump as the cause of the Pittsburgh tragedy, but not look into the mirror and recognize that their reflexively anti-Trump actions may have provoked this neo-Nazi maniac to kill 11 of our fellow Jews.

Here’s the bottom line: The Jewish Left, particularly in this country, is not representative of the overwhelming majority of Jews here, in Israel and worldwide. But regrettably, they are giving professed sick cause to lunatics like the Pittsburgh shooter to work their evil.

Klayman concluded by delcaring that "to combat the Jewish Left, I am today forming Freedom Watch’s 'Coalition of the Jewish Right,' which I urge all like-minded Jews and fellow Christians to join to combat the Jewish Left."

Shocker: CNS Managing Editor Doesn't Support A Trump Action. Not A Shocker: It Involves Gay Judges
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com's gay-hating managing editor, Michael W. Chapman, has struck again. This time, in a Oct. 31 article, Chapman finds the rare Trump action he clearly can't support:

President Donald J. Trump recently nominated the openly gay lawyer Patrick J. Bumatay to serve as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Curcuit, historically a liberal legal redoubt. The Ninth Circuit covers federal appeals for Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and a few other districts.

[...]

Bumatay has worked at the Department of Justice and in the office of the deputy attorney general. He earned his B.A., cum laude, from Yale University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a member of the National Filipino American Lawyers Association, the Tom Homann LGBT Law Association, and The Federalist Society.

The Tom Homann LGBT Association "is dedicated to the advancement of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues throughout California and the nation," states its website.  Its founder, Tom Homann, was a strong advocate for ensuring that explicit, hardcore pornography was available to the public and that topless bars were not not burdened by too many city rules, according to the website. 

Bumatay is Trump's second openly gay nominee to a federal bench. In June, Trump picked Mary M. Rowland to serve as a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

[...]

Rowland, 57, earned her B.A. from the University of Michigan and her J.D. from the University of Chicago. Rowland is a member of the Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago and has done pro bono work for Lambda Legal. She is "married" to Julie E. Justicz and they have two children. 

For added insult, Chapman included a picture of Rowland and her spouse, putting "wife" in scare quotes.

Chapman also rewrote Homann's achievement for maximum inflammatory effect. He translated a statement from Homann's bio that he "fought with the city to prevent it from shutting down the F Street adult bookstores or limiting the materials they sold" and " fought city efforts to license and restrict the operations of topless bars" into an endorsement of "hardcore pornography" and licentiousnews at topless bars. Funny, we figured that Chapman, as a dedicated Trump Republican, would be totally down with making sure that a legal business was "not burdened by too many city rules."

AIM Serves Up Revisionist History on Lewandowski Incident To Attack Acosta
Topic: Accuracy in Media

Accuracy in Media's Carrie Sheffield is trying to use the Jim Acosta-White House controversy to relitigate the 2016 incident in which then-Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski manhandled conservative reporter Michelle Fields at a Trump campaign event. From her Nov. 15 AIM post:

The mainstream media has shown a double standard in how it has rallied behind CNN’s Jim Acosta and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, even though both men were accused of physically brushing off young women in the workplace.

[...]

In March 2016, former Breitbart News reporter Michelle Fields accused Lewandowski of grabbing her arm during a campaign event, yet authorities in April declined to formally prosecute Lewandowski on a charge of simple battery. Lewandowski’s lawyer submitted a draft of a short apology from Lewandowski, according to Palm Beach County state attorney David Aronberg, and Palm Beach County assistant prosecutor Adrienne Ellis told reporters that the charges against Lewandowski, according to New York Magazine “were undermined by the fact that, in the moments before the infamous arm-grab, Fields had entered a “protective bubble” maintained by Secret Service agents, and made incidental contact with the candidate himself.

Sheffield ignored that the two incidents are not equivalent. Fields released a photo of bruises on her arm where she said Lewandowski grabbed her, while Acosta had no such contact with the White House intern trying to take his microphone while asking Trump a question. Sheffield curiously doesn't mention the video tweeted out by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders that was doctored to present the Acosta incident as more violent than it was.

Further, while Sheffield claims there was a draft of an apology made, the fact is that Lewandowski ultimately refused to apologize to Fields.

Sheffield complained again in a Nov. 26 post by repeating her false equivalence:

Acosta’s physical aggression — swatting away a young woman, an intern who was doing her job — indicated his total disrespect for her. Where is the feminist media outcry, like the 16 conservative female journalists who called for Lewandowski’s firing?

The way Acosta diminished her humanity was evidenced by her subsequent humiliated crouching on the ground. Saturday Night Live might mock this young woman, but in the age of #MeToo, SNL and the mainstream media are missing the power play Acosta pulled here.

Sheffield again falsely claimed that "Lewandowski apologized." She then displayed her anti-Acosta bias: "Though today a federal judge ordered the White House to reinstate CNN correspondent Acosta’s press pass, case law clearly indicates there is no absolute First Amendment right for a specific journalist to access the White House. As was the case with other rulings in favor of the White House, I believe this case will be successfully appealed by the president’s team."

MRC Again Whines That An Far-Right Social Media Outlet Was Shut Down -- But It Never Cultivated An Alternative
Topic: Media Research Center

We've highlighted how the Media Research Center lamented the deplatforming of right-wing Twitter clone Gab, despite the fact that the MRC never offered its content on Gab despite its longtime campaign against Twitter for supposedly censoring conservative voices.

The MRC's Alexander Hall complained about another deplatforming in a Nov. 15 post:

“Go create your own website” has been a common reply to conservatives concerned about Big Tech censorship, but now Leftists can shut them down even when they do that.

Bitchute has marketed itself as the Free Speech alternative to Youtube, but has recently been blacklisted by PayPal. Bitchute founder Ray Vahey announced that PayPal shut down his website’s ability to receive funding through its payment service, effective immediately.

It should be noted that BitChute does have community guidelines about removing content that is truly illegal, violent, or qualifies as a call for violence.

Hall didn't mention what content on BitChute might have resulted in PayPal cutting off its services. As one website documents:

The front page of BitChute greets visitors with videos on very specific topics: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, censorship and conspiracy theories like "PizzaGate." Conspiracy videos capitalize on recent tragedies, alleging that survivors of the Parkland high school shooting are crisis actors. ... It’s the type of content that, if they were on YouTube, advertisers wouldn’t want their ads placed on.

[...]

It’s important to acknowledge who some of the biggest proponents are for platforms like BitChute and DTube are. They have the support of prominent alt-right voices, like ["ultra-nationalistic, xenophobic" videomaker Dave] Cullen; Stefan Molyneux, who is best known for his stance on eugenics and white supremacy; Mike Cernovich, one of the founding leaders of the alt-right; Jack Posobiec, a DeploraBall inauguration party organizer and a pro-Trump figure who headed multiple misinformation campaigns; Ethan Ralph, best known for helping to spearhead the hateful GamerGate movement; and conspiracy theorist Paul Joseph Watson.

Hall went on to complain:

When conservatives have previously voiced their concerns about the deplatforming of various Youtubers, many leftists and libertarians often smugly reply that in a free market, companies have a right to deny service, and that conservatives should build their own platforms. The issues with this line of thinking are twofold: 1) It is extremely difficult to build alternative platforms (consider how Google+ with all of their parent company’s resources and reputation, failed to provide a remotely competitive alternative to Facebook) and 2) Payment processors that keep platforms up and running can deny their services with no repercussions.

But mainstream conservatives are generally not affected by deplatforming -- far-right extremists are. And if the MRC were truly concerned about YouTube censoring content, it wouldn't have its own YouTube channel that, as far as we know, no content has ever been censored by YouTube (we certainly would not have heard the end of it if it had).

Once again, the hollowness of the MRC's deplatforming complaint is exposed. Just as the MRC never quit Twitter to move to Gab, it never abandoned YouTube to join BitChute. It has no standing to complain about deplatforming of social media outlets it never bothered to cultivate or support, let alone provide any content to. After all, it's easier to complain about Twitter on Twitter, and complain about YouTube on YouTube, than from another platform for which an audience has to be built.

It's saying something about the content on Gab and BitChute that even the MRC didn't want to associate itself with it -- which makes it cynical for the MRC to denounce their deplatforming without telling its readers about the content that caused the deplatforming.

Farah Just Can't Stop Prevaricating About Vince Foster, Obama's Birth Certificate
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Joseph Farah keeps his birther and conspiracy-theorist credentials alive in his Nov. 14 WorldNetDaily column.

Farah begins by recounting a "crazy run-in" with CNN's Jim Acosta, which apparently began as an argument about Farah's conspiracy-mongering about Vincent Foster:

According to my contemporaneous notes from that ambush interview, the first question posed by Acosta was the following: “Now back in the 1990s, you said that Bill Clinton’s deputy counsel, Vincent Foster, was murdered. Do you still believe that?”

How did I respond?

“I never said any such thing,” was my response. “I’ve written many thousands of words on the subject, given dozens of interviews over years and never made any such statement.”

Acosta was taken aback.

He had not done his homework.

Once again, Farah is being too clever by half. As we pointed out the last time he did this, if you doubt the official finding that Foster committed suicide, as Farah does, the only other possible option is that he was murdered. Farah is hiding behind a flimsy semantic argument that because he allegedly never explicitly said the words, he can't possibly have advanced that view.

Later in the column, Farah got too clever again:

“Now, you say Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States,” he said. “Why do you believe that?”

I replied: “I’ve never made that claim or assertion. I’m a journalist. I ask questions. I don’t accept at face value the words of politicians and government officials. I think they should be accountable to the people and provide documents to prove what they say.”

I wish I had the entire recording. It went on for more than an hour, but not even one second of it ever aired.

Farah is once agian engaging in revisionism. Farah has, in fact, forcefully argued that Obama was not born in the United States.

But Farah wasn't done reliving, and revising, his very profitable birther years:

The simple release of Obama’s birth certificate would have to wait a few more years thanks to the total lack of inquisitiveness of the establishment press that served virtually as Obama’s own palace guard. It would take two intersecting forces to get Obama to release what he claimed was his long-form birth certificate:

• A book called “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” written by Jerome Corsi and published by WND Books became the No. 1 best-seller in 2011.
• A billionaire named Donald Trump entered the arena of political controversy for the first time in his life by calling on Obama to release his birth certificate.

Just like that, Obama “found” a document that couldn’t previously be found. In fact, the nation had been told it didn’t even exist. Then, without even examining it, the nation’s establishment media blessed it, accepted it, celebrated it and continued the witch hunt on those, like me, who demanded it.

Farah is lying -- Corsi's book appears nowhere on USA Today's list of top selling books for 2011, let alone as "the No. 1 best-seller in 2011." In fact, WND claimed in a lawsuit against Esquire magazine for a parody article claiming that the book had been withdrawn from the market because Obama released his "long-form" certificate that the parody "suppressed sales" of the book.

Farah is also lying when he claimed Obama's long-form birth certificate "couldn’t previously be found," and he offers no evidence that anyone claimed it didn't exist. It was always in the Hawaii state archives, but Obama didn't feel the need to release it because the state-certified certificate of live birth he originally produced should have been sufficient evidence of his birth in Hawaii -- and it was, for everyone except Farah, Corsi and other birthers.

Farah concluded with an "update" that "President Trump booted Acosta from the White House" and "Jerome Corsi is expressing fears he will be imminently indicted in matters related to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of so-called 'Russian collusion' in the 2016 presidential election," adding: "Strange how these things work out, huh?"

Strange indeed. Farah hasn't exactly run to Corsi's defense in the wake of his current troubles -- perhaps because he knows that Corsi BSed about the birth certificate as much as he did and, thus, it's entirely likely that Corsi did lie to Robert Mueller.

Farah never cared about the truth regarding Obama's birth certificate -- otherwise, he would have published all the evidence debunking WND's birther conspiracy theories. Instead, he was more interested in turning the birth certificate into Obama's Vince Foster.

Farah didn't care about the truth then, and he certainly doesn't now. No wonder WND has trouble staying alive.

CNS Has A New Favorite Right-Wing Authoritarian Leader
Topic: CNSNews.com

As we've seen in its fawning over Hungary's Viktor Obam, CNSNews.com just loves right-wing authoritarian leaders who spout Trump-esque populist sentiments, even if they're better known for things as, say, anti-Semitism. CNS managing editor Michael W. Chapman found a new right-wing authoritarian to fawn over in a Nov. 1 blog post headlined "Brazil's New President is Pro-Life, Pro-Family, and Strong Supporter of Israel":

Jair Bolsonaro, the newly elected president of Brazil -- his four-year term starts in January 2019 -- is a Catholic married to an evangelical Christian and he is a strong supporter of Israel.

During his victory speech on Oct. 28, broadcast from his home, there was a Jewish menora in the background. Bolsonaro's middle name, Messias, is the Arabic word for messiah.

[...]

As for the Brazil, Bolsonaro has said, "God above everything. There is no such thing as this secular state. The state is Christian and the minority will have to change, if they can. The minorities will have to adapt to the position of the majority."

He has also said, "Brazil before everything, and God above all."

Jair Bolsonaro is a former military officer and he has served in Brazil's Chamber of Deputies since 1991. Bolsonaro's politics in general are those of a traditional, right-wing conservative.

He does not consider himself "far right" but simply "right wing," according to Estado.com. He is pro-life, pro-family, and he opposes gay marriage, homosexuality, affirmative action and secularism.

To nobody's surprise, Chapman papered over the more unsavory aspects of Bolsonaro's farright views. Time reported that in an interview he with the publication, Bolsonaro "advocated the possibility of unbridled state violence; equated homosexuality with pedophilia; and defended Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, whose henchmen raped women with dogs, as well as Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has boasted of personally killing criminal suspects." Time added that "Bolsonaro has stated that he would rather his son die in an accident than be gay, and would punch two men if he saw them kissing in the street.

Given how much Chapman virulently hates anyone who is not heterosexual, these are clearly sentiments he's down with. No wonder Chapman loves Bolsonaro.

Yes, A WND Columnist Likened Trump To Michelangelo
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The list of people to whom fawning WorldNetDaily columnists have likened President Trump is a long one -- the Messiah, biblical hero Cyrus, Aristotle, and robber baron Cornelius Vanderbilt (but in a good way), among others. Now we can add ... Michelangelo?

Yep. Barry Farber writes in his Nov. 20 WND column:

Now along comes Donald Trump, who reminds me of Michelangelo. A friend asked that Renaissance champion how he managed to produce a work of art as breathtaking as his sculpture of David. “I entered my studio and gazed upon the block of marble across the room. Then,” confided the master sculptor, “I lifted my tools and chopped away everything that wasn’t David!”

So now they are picking up their tools and chopping away at Trump. Maybe you Never-Trumpers don’t deserve to live in a country led by Donald Trump!

Trump, I suspect, gazed upon this great American nation and chopped away all the stuff that was not great, leaving us with the best growth in GDP, the lowest unemployment, a bashed and battered ISIS, a discarded deal with the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, a new embassy in Jerusalem to replace the old one in Tel Aviv, plus 28 single-spaced pages of other Trump accomplishments great and near-great.

If it’s Trump vs. the media, I cry foul. It’s a mismatch. The major media can’t handle Donald Trump.

Farber went on to gush that "President Donald Trump has delivered on promises he never even made and over-delivered on the ones he did. America seems to be in great shape and getting better."

NEW ARTICLE: Rep. Jim Jordan, R-MRC
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center loves the conservative congressman so much that it campaigned for him to become House GOP leader -- while also burying and censoring claims that ignored sexual abuse in a previous job as a coach. Read more >>

WND Columnist Aims Conspiracy Theory At Colo. Governor-Elect
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Conspiracy-obsessed Erik Rush rants in his Nov. 7 WorldNetDaily column:

As a result, on Tuesday, Coloradoans elected Jared Polis, a Democrat, as their governor. What’s being celebrated is the fact that he is the first openly gay man to be elected as governor of a state. This in itself evidences the superficial level at which we currently operate.

Far more significant is that Polis, formerly a U.S. representative, had long been recognized by conservatives as one of the most dangerous socialists in Congress. Polis changed his surname years ago, in part to shield himself from a documented charge of workplace violence against a woman, and in part because his surname sounded just a little too much like the Yiddish slang for semen.

It’s a safe bet that most Colorado voters had no knowledge of any of this, however. The conservative press in Colorado is practically nonexistent, and the state has been positively deluged with outside money provided by leftist power players over the last decade, among them billionaire activist and former Nazi collaborator George Soros.

Polis is a very shrewd player and correctly reasoned that if an ugly black guy with highly questionable politics and a dark back story could get elected president if he marketed himself correctly, then an ugly gay guy with highly questionable politics and a dark back story could certainly get elected as governor of Colorado.

Ignoring the obsessive Obama-hate -- he's had Obama Derangement Syndrome for years -- let's unpack what Rush said, and got wrong, about Polis. Rush appears to be regurgitating a right-wing attack ad funded by dark money hyping that "documented charge of workplace violence against a woman." The truth, as one would expect, diverges greatly from Rush's (and the attack ad's) summary of the incident.

According to an actual news outlet, what actually happened is that Polis' personal assistant, tried to leave after deleting computer files and taking company documents and business contracts with her, and Polis tried to physically stop her from leaving with those documents. The assistant later pleaded guilty to theft of trad secrets. Also, a $700,000 ad buy was done for the ad, belying Rush's claim that Colorado voters likely never heard of it.

Rush is correct that Polis changed his last name from Schutz, but as that actual news outlet reported, the claim Polis changed his name a year after the incident to distance himself from it is "a popular conspiracy among Republicans since the police report first came to light after a right-wing news outlet first published the police report. Polis has said he changed his name to honor his mother’s maiden name."

Not that the actual truth matters to Rush, of course; he just loves a good (or bad) conspiracy theory.

MRC Plays The (Lame And Hypocritical) Neil Munro Card to Attack Acosta
Topic: Media Research Center

As part of its current jihad against CNN's Jim Acosta, the Media Research Center got an assist from its favorite media outlet. Fox News. In a Nov. 13 post, Ryan Foley noted a segment featuring conservatives talking about Acosta -- no complaint, of course, that the panel was unbalanced for lacking a non-conservative. Foley got to invoke the MRC's favorite conservative media critic, Joe Concha:

Concha brought up the media’s reaction to Neil Munro, then a staffer for The Daily Caller, interrupting one of President Obama’s speeches. Concha read aloud some headlines written in response to Munro’s interruption of President Obama.

A headline from Politico read “Obama Interrupted by Heckling Reporter,” a headline from The Atlantic asked “Who is Neil Munro and Why is He Interrupting the President?” In the final example of a blatant double standard, Concha read aloud a headline from Mediaite: “CNN White House Reporter: Obama Heckler Let Him ‘Sound Passionate.’” As the segment came to a close, Concha remarked “I don’t hear anybody calling Jim Acosta a heckler now.”

As we've noted, the MRC never criticized Munro's behavior, even as it apparently concedes that his behavior was no different from that of Acosta, about which it has spilled a torrent of anger. The MRC never complained that Munro crossed the line between reporting and editorializing by heckling President Obama during a news conference, there was no declaration that Munro was an activist masquerading as a journalist, or that Munro embarrassed himself and his profession, or that Munro is operating outside the confines of honest journalism, or that conservatives who expect fair and honest journalism should ignore Munro.

Indeed, one MRC writer accused Munro's critics of "flaming, presidential boot-licking hypocrisy."while another offered this defense: "Henceforth the Obama administration might want to signal when questions will be allowed from the media and when reporters will be expected to emulate statuary."

Of course, the Trump White House has signaled its question-statuary ratio by issuing new post-Acosta rules. Needless to say, the MRC is far from outraged by these rules: Curtis Houck cheered the "brief but simple guidelines" made necessary because of "bombastic, self-centered behavior."

Houck, his boss Brent Bozell and the MRC would have been screaming if these very same rules had been issued by the Obama White House in the wake of Munro's heckling. It's hypocritical for them to condone Trump's actions now.