Topic: The ConWeb
As the web the ConWeb weaves continues to spread under new writer Donald Trump, it's time once again to highlight the worst ConWeb reporting and craziest ConWeb opinions of the year. Read more >>
Monday, January 14, 2019
NEW ARTICLE -- Slanties 2019: Into the Slantie-Verse
Topic: The ConWeb As the web the ConWeb weaves continues to spread under new writer Donald Trump, it's time once again to highlight the worst ConWeb reporting and craziest ConWeb opinions of the year. Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:26 AM EST
Sunday, January 13, 2019
MRC's Acosta Derangement Syndrome
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center absolutely despises CNN correspondent Jim Acosta. So it's no surprise that it spend the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 nurturing that hate. The MRC's leading Acosta-basher, Curtis Houck, served up a year-end article on the "worst Acosta moments of 2018," unprofessionally sneering in the headline, "Jimmy, Jim, Jim" and rehashing thte MRC's cheering on attacks on Acosta by the Trump White House and attendees at Trump rallies. In a Jan. 8 post, Nicholas Fondacaro huffed that it was "obnoxious" for Acosta to point out that, in reference to President Trump's prime-time address calling the situation at the souther border "a crisis of the heart, a crisis of thte soul," the Trump administration's policy of jailing children seized on the border was heartless and soulless.Fondacaro further whined: "CNN has become so entrenched in their Trump Derangement Syndrome, that they’re 'fact-checking' whether or not the President has feelings and emotions like a normal human being." On Jan. 10, P.J. Gladnick insisted that Acosta underwent a "hilarious self-owning" by pointing out that there were parts of the U.S.-Mexico border that did not have a steel-slat fence and there was no "national emergency" there.Gladnick concluded: "Exit question: How long before @realDonaldTrump retweets Acosta accidentally making the case for why a border wall (or steel slat fence) is needed?" Gladnick got his wish, and pathological Acosta-hater Houck couldn't have been happier, unable to stop gushing:
Houck concluded of Trump's bashing of Acosta: "Oh snap!" Is such juvenile ranting and derangement any way for a professional "media researcher" to behave? Houck further showed his immaturity in a post headlined "Watch Tucker Carlson Mercilessly Lampoon Jim Acosta for His Epic Self-Own at the Border," which slobbered voer "Carlson’s Hall-of-Fame-worthy tomfoolery." What Hall of Fame? Houck never enlightens us -- he's more obsessed with finding any excuse to attack Acosta then to raise even the meekest objection to Carlson's sympathy for white nationalism. UPDATE: We missed one bit of Acosta derangement from Houck last week. Under the clickbaity, hyperbolic headline "BOOM! Kellyanne Conway Nukes ‘Smart***’ Jim Acosta When He Delivers Low Blow," Houck declared:
Interesting that Houck doesn't think Conway's insult of Acosta was a "low blow," and that Acosta didn't "nuke" Conway by accurately pointing out her "alternative facts problem." That's what Acosta Derangement Syndrome does, apparently.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:23 PM EST
Updated: Friday, January 18, 2019 5:57 PM EST
Your Monthly CNS Stenography Tally, Year-End Edition
Topic: CNSNews.com How did CNSNews.com finish out the year in stenography for its favorite sources? Let's tally up the numbers for December. Judicial Watch: 0 Franklin Graham: 2
Plus a bonus item rehashing a 2014 post quoting Graham's father, Billy Graham. Mark Levin: 6
In addition, CNS published two posts touting the merger of Levin's CRTV with Glenn Beck's The Blaze (though without mentioning controversial CRTV hosts like Gavin McInnes and Eric Bolling), as well as Levin receiving an "Impact Award" from the right-wing group United in Purpose, which was so important to CNS that it reported this a day before before reporting on its publisher, Brent Bozell, receiving the same reward. White House press secretary, by Melanie Arter: 2
(Arter reported on the only press briefing Sanders held in December.) Year-end totals for 2018
One has to wonder: How much did Levin pay CNS to tout him at least once every three days?
Posted by Terry K.
at 4:01 PM EST
Updated: Sunday, January 13, 2019 4:02 PM EST
Saturday, January 12, 2019
What LGBT Stuff Is The MRC Freaking Out About Now?
Topic: Media Research Center The anti-LGBT freakouts at the Media Research Center keep on piling up. Annie Piper complained that the Thanksgiving episode of "This Is Us" "was a heartwarming Thanksgiving episode - that is, until one head-turning scene." That would be when, according to Piper, a 10-year-old character apparently came out as gay, though all that actually happened was that an adult said to the girl that she's growing up and could talk to her about her "first boyfriend," to which the girl responds, "or girlfriend." Nevertheless, Piper went into freakout mode: "It isn’t enough for TV shows to push the LGBTQ agenda on adults, now they’re pushing it on kids who really shouldn’t be trusting their inhibitions and feelings at such a young age." Gabriel Hays got all huffy over Angela Ponce, the transgender contestant from Spain at the Miss Universe Pageant: "Regardless of how anyone feels about Ponce’s gender-bending campaign, betting on her is probably a smart move, considering the showbiz industry is doubling down on an LGBTQ agenda by the hour. Ponce herself has claimed that such a whirlwind victory would be of utmost importance “to promote gender diversity and equality.” When Ponce failed to place, Karen Townsend was around to complain not only that she "was awarded her very own segment during the show" but that it wasn't fully in English, as apparently all meaningful TV is supposed to be: "Plus size supermodel Ashley Graham narrated a segment about Ponce’s time in the spotlight and subtitles were used as Ponce only spoke in Spanish. It’s all about diversity and acceptance, y’all." Townsend then lectured: "Contrary to what Miss Spain claims, a person’s body at birth does indeed determine the sex of a child. It’s all pretty basic science. You might even say that this science is settled. There are only two sexes of human beings. An operation that mutilates body parts doesn’t change that." But the MRC still wasn't done whining about Ponce: Brad Wilmouth intentionally misgenders her in complaining that one show "took the time to celebrate the first time that a transgender contestant has gotten to participate in the Miss Universe pagent even though he ended up losing." Wilmouth later complained that "On NBC Nightly News on Christmas night, the show devoted a full report to the story of a lesbian couple in Illinois whose gay pride flag was stolen from outside their home." That's pretty much all there is to that, though Wilmouth does go on to whine that this story was covered while "ignoring the story of a Muslim who is also black committing a hate crime." The mysterious Jay Maxson was outraged that a writer criticized Chick-fil-a's sponsorship of the Peach Bowl because it supports, in Maxson's words, "organizations devoted to God’s design for sexual intimacy through the context of marriage." Maxon then huffed that the writer thinks "Chick-fil-A's sponsorship of the Peach Bowl and events like the Pittsburgh Marathon represent a sports world that puts money over the well-being of a demographic whose suicide rate and rate of self-harm should be alarming to everyone. As if Chick-fil-A is responsible for the individual decisions made by people who choose not to follow biblical values."
Posted by Terry K.
at 11:01 AM EST
Transgender Derangement Syndrome, WND Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily
-- Michael Brown, Dec. 31 WorldNetDaily column
-- Mychal Massie, Dec. 31 WND column
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:05 AM EST
Friday, January 11, 2019
CNS Managing Editor Omits Crucial Info In Contraceptive Article
Topic: CNSNews.com CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman does his best to ramp up the dread in a Jan. 2 blog post:
Chapman obviously seized upon this item to indict all contraception as harmful. Just one problem: Marwick's story doesn't actually fit Chapman's narrative.One hint of that is Marwick's message about her experience, which Chapman waits until the final paragrapf of his host to note: "I just want to warn other women and encourage them to be careful and to go straight to the doctor’s if they have any unusual symptoms at all." But the key piece of evidence is something Chapman ignores completely. Both the New York Post and Daily Mail articles to which Chapman links make this important note: Marwick is now taking a different contraceptive pill, which she says "seems to be fine." In other words, Marwick's incident was an unfortunate side effect of a specific pill -- indeed, packaging for Gederel 30/150 lists a slightly elevated risk of a blood clot as a possible side effect. Chapman's attempt to implicitly smear all oral contraceptives as dangerous by withholding crucial information from his readers shows that he cares more about advancing a right-wing agenda than telling the truth.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:53 PM EST
WND Touts 'Neo-Nazi Lawyer's' Frivolous Lawsuit Against SPLC
Topic: WorldNetDaily The headline on the anonymously written Jan. 3 WorldNetDaily article sure sounds ominous: "SPLC sued for targeting, destroying lawyer's career." The lead paragraph goes even further: "The far-left Southern Poverty Law Center, which recently paid out millions of dollars to a target of its 'anti-hate' campaigns, has been sued by a lawyer who claims SPLC paid for stolen documents in an attempt to get him fired and destroy his future work prospects." After that big beginning, things get strategically vague. There's a lot of ranting about "stolen documents" regarding the lawyer in question, Glen K. Allen. It's not until the eighth paragraph that WND gets somewhat close to identifying the issue at hand:
At no point in the article doees WND explain what the National Alliance is, or exactly why Allen is denying he's racist or the whole "neo-Nazi lawyer" thing (the rest of the article is mostly a rehash of right-wing attacks on the SPLC). As the SPLC details, the National Alliance is an aggressively neo-Nazi group whose founder wrote a book called "The Turner Diaries," which inspired Timothy McVeigh to blow up a federal building in Oklahoma City. The lengthy PJ Media article does a somewhat better job than WND of tying all this together (albeit remaining one-sided and unbalanced). In short: An accountant for the National Alliance gave the group's records to the SPLC, which included the fact that Allen was a dues-paying member of the National Alliance for years, donated at least an additional $500 to the group and purchased a Holocaust denial DVD and entry to a Holocaust denial conference held by the group, and that at one point he was identified as the group's lawyer. Allen contends that the membership information is stolen property and his association with the group should have remained confidential, and that the revelation of the link has effectively ended his career as a lawyer. Allen also insists that his association with the National Alliance was a "mistake" and denies he's a racist, though PJ Media never presses him on his Holocaust denial beliefs; instead, it whitewashed (as it were) his record by touting how Allen has done work for black youths and tried to volunteer "for a pro bono project to help Holocaust victims obtain compensation." But PJ Media got strategically vague as well. Of Allen's association with the American Eagle Party, it wrote that the SPLC "also slammed the American Eagle Party as racist, which the lawsuit denounces as a 'fraudulent characterization.'" In fact, the SPLC describes the American Eagle Party as "an offshoot of the racist American Freedom Party" that embraced conspiracy theories but was also "promoted heavily on Stormfront." So. basically, Allen is not denying his neo-Nazi leanings -- despite his protestations that he's not a racist and that his "present outlook... is a mixture of Ron Paul Libertarianism, First Amendment advocacy and civil debate," his apparently still current American Eagle Party ties appear to belie that -- but, rather, he's mad that they were made public and he can't get a job as a lawyer as a result. Of course, if you're a neo-Nazi and a lawyer, "neo-Nazi lawyer" is not an inaccurate descriptor. In most cases, the truth is an absolute defense. Allen doesn't seem to understand that, and WND cares only about using Allen's lawsuit to launch a dubious attack on tthe SPLC.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:59 AM EST
Updated: Friday, January 11, 2019 9:24 AM EST
Thursday, January 10, 2019
MRC Roots Through Reporter's Instagram Account To Attack Him As 'Socialist'
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center's Tim Graham was in fine whining mood in a Dec. 23 post, ranting that a Washington Post profile on Adam McKay, director of the new movie about Dick Cheney, "Vice," was somehow another example of the paper publishing "the most embarrassing laudatory dreck supporting its favorite socialist elites," because McKay considers himself a democratic socialist. But it wasn't enough for Graham to attack a newspaper or a person it featured. He then went needlessly personal attacked the article's author, Jeff Weiss. Graham declared that "Weiss is such a socialist he posted a happy picture of himself posed with statues of his heroes Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels at the Marx-Engels forum in Berlin, created under the East German communist regime." Graham apparently spent no small amount of time rooting through Weiss' personal Instragram accounty until he found the photo. Graham provided no other evidence that Weiss is a "socialist" -- indeed, Weiss' Instragram feed shows him to be a music obsessive rather than a political ideologue -- and seems to have discounted the possibility that Weiss was merely a tourist who posed ironically with the statues. This is how terrible a media critic Graham is -- he has to smear a journalist based on a single Instagram photo in order to own the Washington Post.
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:36 PM EST
CNS Managing Editor: Furloughed Gov't Workers 'Essentially On Vacation'
Topic: CNSNews.com CNSNews.com has closely following President Trump's rhetoric in playing down the effects of the government shutdown. Now, managing editor Michael W. Chapman is directly attacking the furloughed workers themselves. Chapman's Jan. 4 blog post first complains that the furloughed workers have jobs to return to, unlike regular folks who get fired or laid off (emphasis in original):
Of course, virtually none of those who were fired or laid off were being used as pawns in a political argument, but Chapman isn't going to mention that inconvenient fact. Chapman then attacks the furloughed workers -- who, again, are not being allowed to work and earn a paycheck through no fault of their own -- as lazy people who are "essentially on vacation" (with a bonus potshot at Sen. Chuck Schumer for defending federal workers):
To drive home the whole "vacation" thing, Chapman includes a stock photo of a beach, despite offering no evidence that any furloughed government worker is vacationing at a beach this very moment. Chapman sure is judgmental about how others make their money for a guy sponging off wingnut welfare -- that is, other people's money.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:40 AM EST
Updated: Thursday, January 10, 2019 6:17 PM EST
Wednesday, January 9, 2019
WND Cranks Up The Anti-Vaxxer Conspiracies
Topic: WorldNetDaily We've noted WorldNetDaily's recent return to pushing anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories following a brief attempt at falsely blaming Muslims for hating vaccines. The conspiracy continues in an anonymously written Dec. 30 article that rehashes the old trope about vaccines causing autism:
The video of the triplets allegedly becoming autistic is hosted on a video platform called Brighteon; it has an Infowars channel, which tells you all you need to know about the kind of content that exists there. WND couldn't be bothered to find any independent verification of the claims -- then again, we could find none ourselves. Meanwhile, supposed medical doctor Orient, as befits her longtime association with the anti-vaxxer AAPS, is being irresponsible and borderline fraudulent by claiming no research is being done on the alleged link. Plenty of research has been done to disprove the link, and the one piece of research claiming such a link has been refuted and retracted. Rather than offering any actual scientific proof, WND lets Orient rant about "thousands of case studies" and "the medical industry's shot agenda." Giving space to such factually deficient rants without the same space devoted to debunking it belies WND's claim to be "credible" (as does much of WND's existence, but that's beside the point).
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:47 PM EST
MRC Mocks Coverage of 'World's Most Racist Haircut'
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Reserach Center's Bill D'Agostino devoted a Dec. 27 post to bashing "liberal media outlets" for reporting on a incident in which a (black) New Jersey high school wrestler getting a ringside haircut of his dreadlocks on orders of a (white) referee. He sneers that this was "the world's most racist haircut," then tries to pretend there's no issue here:
Not only does D'Agostino provide evidence that ringside haircuts are "fairly commonplace," he also omits a couple of inconvenient facts in recounting his version of the story. Notably, the lawyer for the boy's family stated that the boy had wrestled the week before without any incident. Referees are also expected to report any possible rules violations before thte start of the meet, but the referee arrived late and missed the weigh-in period when such things would be addressed. Instead, D'Agostino mockingly noted that one reporter "shrewdly observed that the teenager had been given no such trouble for his hair during matches earlier in the season. That's certainly a strike against the referee in question – unless, of course, the student’s hair had grown since then, as hair sometimes does." D'Agostino did concede that "the same referee previously was accused of using a racial slur at a social gathering [in] 2016," so that's something.
Posted by Terry K.
at 4:37 PM EST
Fake News: WND Pushes False Claim Obama Favored Muslim Candidate in Nigeria
Topic: WorldNetDaily An anonymously written Dec. 29 WorldNetDaily article states:
Since WND can't be bothered to tell the other side of the story, its readers won't know that Jonathan's claim is false. Obama's video did not advocate for one candidate over another; he asked "all leaders and candidates to make it clear to their supporters that violence has no place" in the election process, and he urged "all Nigerians from all religions, all ethnic groups and all regions to come together and keep Nigeria one." Further, Russell Brooks, an officer at the U.S. Consulate in Nigeria, pointed out that Jonathan mischaracterized what the Obama administration for Nigeria, that the 2015 elections were, in fact, free and fair, and that the U.S. supports the democratic process, not a particular candidate. WND, in its current decimated state, made the mistake of relying the right-wing Breaking Israel News for its claim, specifically a highly biased article by anti-Muslim Raymond Ibrahim ranting about a "genocide" of Christians in Nigeria and that Buhari is "facilitating jihad." While one Christian group declined to endorse Buhari for re-election later this year, another Christian group has endorsed him. WND also uncritically repeated Ibrahim's claim that nomadic Fulani Muslims are killing Christian farmers in the country in the name of jihad; in fact, the Fulani themselves insist the conflict is about cattle, and one imam helped to save the lives of Christians in the conflict. WND still hasn't learned that publishing bogus claims doesn't help fix its credibility issues.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:30 AM EST
Tuesday, January 8, 2019
CNS Unemployment Coverage Distortion Watch
Topic: CNSNews.com It's pro-Trump rah-rah time again with December's employment numbers at CNSNews.com. Susan Jones gushed in her lead story:
By contrast, when writing about December 2016 employment numbers under President Obama, Jones obsessed over the labor force participation rate, waiting until the seventh paragraph to report that the number of employed Americans had reached a new high. CNS editor in chief Terry jeffrey not only served up his usual sidebar about manufacturing jobs under Trump, he wrote a second one proclaiming that "The U.S. economy added 284,000 manufacturing jobs in 2018, according to the employment report released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is the largest increase in manufacturing jobs in the United States in 21 years." We also got a sidebar from Craig Bannister touting how "The national seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate for Hispanics and Latinos in the U.S. labor force hit itslowest level on record in December of 2018." CNS' Media Research Center quickly exploited that in an anonymously written MRC Latino piece complaining that Spanish-language networks weren't reporting this. Additionally, CNS published a column by Mickey Levy gushing over the "exceptional" employment numbers and how "labor market performance surpassed expectations in 2018."
Posted by Terry K.
at 8:18 PM EST
WND Columnist Hopes Shutdown Will Stall Democratic Investigations of Trump
Topic: WorldNetDaily Right-wing lawyer Andy Schlafly is indifferent to the lives of hundreds of thousands of federal workers whose lives have been disrupted by the government shutdown. Indeed, Schlafly uses his Jan. 1 column to cheer on the shutdown for a selfish, partisan reason: it might keep Democrats from investigating the Trump administration. No, really:
Only for a partisan like Schlafly would holding the Trump administration accountable be a "bad thing."
Posted by Terry K.
at 6:29 PM EST
Double Standard: MRC Whines Trump Being Called A 'Draft Dodger,' But Had No Problem Calling Clinton One
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center's Gabriel Hays complains in a Dec. 27 post:
So if you're "hateful and petty" for pointing out that Trump was a draft dodger -- Hays conveniently leaves out the important context of a news report the day before claiming that a doctor diagnosed Trump with bone spurs as a favor to the Trump family in order to keep him out of the draft during the Vietnam War -- what does that make Hays' employer, which has made hay (pun intended) out of sliming Bill Clinton as a "draft dodger"? For instance, a July 2015 NewsBusters post by Jack Coleman carried the headline "Maddow Cites Bill Clinton's 'Student Deferments' (Translation: Draft Dodging) as '92 Campaign Issue," in which he complained that "Clinton's student deferments were not an issue that nearly derailed his first presidential campaign -- it was his evasion of the draft." And on Dec. 13, the MRC published a column by R. Emmett Tyrell declaring Clinton to be "a proven draft dodger." And MRC chief Brent Bozell has previously ranted about "Clinton's draft-dodging past." Hays never disputes the "draft dodger" charge against Trump, by the way -- he only complains that it was voiced. That seems to show he's just as hateful and petty as the celebs he's projecting upon.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:24 AM EST
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