WND Helps Its Dubious Doc Play The Bogus Ebola Card on Border Crossings Topic: WorldNetDaily
Dubious WorldNetDaily doc Jane Orient of the far-right Association of American Physicans and Surgeons plays both sides of the fearmongering fence -- not only does she fearmonger about vaccines, she fearmongers about the diseases allegedly being brought into the country by unvaccinated people (which could largely be eradicated by, you know, the vaccines she opposes). She does the latter in a June 10 WND article by Bob Unruh:
Border Patrol agents are accustomed to dealing with illegal aliens trying to enter the U.S. And to handling drug dealers, or at least those who haul contraband into the U.S. There even are occasional shootings at the agency’s facilities.
But there’s probably nothing to trigger a surge in adrenaline for one of those federal workers as realizing that the person you just encountered may be infected with tuberculosis, or measles, or chicken pox.
Or Ebola.
It’s an issue that needs a lot more attention than it is getting, according to an expert, the executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Jane Orient.
She told WND Monday that things that immigration officers need to know about those coming into the country are whether they have communicable diseases, where they’ve been and who they’ve encountered, where they’re going and who will they encounter, and if they are getting – or should be getting – had medical treatment for various exposures.
“All of these things we really don’t know,” she said. “Deliberately.”
[...]
Orient was concerned.
“The problem is bringing in people who may have a disease you don’t know about. You don’t know where they’ve been, or where they’re going, who they’ve been in contact with,” she said.
Sometimes people are contagious with a communicable disease without showing symptoms, and can transmit a virus.
That, she warned, “can be fatal.”
She cited the Ebola cases found in the United States only a few years ago. Then, one patient just showed up at a Dallas hospital.
In fact, there is no outbreak of Ebola at the southern border -- it's basically impossible since Ebola has an incubation period of 21 days and Africans who turn up on the border have typically been in transit for months before they get there. Further, the case of Ebola involved a man who entered the U.S. legally from Liberia but failed to tell officials of his contact with an Ebola victim before his flight to the U.S.
Unruh also let Orient claim without evidence that "most immigrants may have" latent tuberculosis, failing to mention that Orient, as the managinging editor of the AAPS' Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, published a 2005 article that falsely claimed cases of leprosy in the U.S. have exploded because of immigration. Orient and the AAPS have yet to issue a correction.
Unruh didn't help his credibility by citing a second, even more dubious source: "Kalen McBreen reported at Infowars that 'hundreds' of newcomers today have come from an area in the Congo in Africa to San Antonio, and hundreds more are en route." It tells you someting about the state of journalism at WND that it considers Infowars a credible source.
Needless to say, neither Unruh nor Orient made any mention of vaccines that might help curb any actual disease outbreak they could blame on filthy immigrants.
MRC's Graham Mad That Conservative Put Logic Before Politics Topic: Media Research Center
Tim Graham is the Media Research Center's designated hate-listener to National Public Radio, and his NPR-related posts are largely dedicated to ranting that David Brooks, who appears on a fair-and-balanced weekly panel discussion, isn't ranty and shouty and kneejerk pro-Trump and far-right like Sean Hannity. In a May 26 post, Graham gave National Review's Ranesh Ponnuru -- subbing for Brooks on the weekly panel -- the same treatment, accusing him of the crime of being reasonable and logical:
National Public Radio has rotated some other pundits to sit in the "conservative" chair of David Brooks on their Week in Politics review on All Things Considered on Friday nights, often leading to a better, stronger representation of the conservative viewpoint. Sadly, on Friday, Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review was very Brooks-ish, throwing scorn on the declassification of intelligence that might explain the Russian collusion narrative. It's like he doesn't read Andrew McCarthy at NRO, who argues "Russiagate has always been a political narrative masquerading as a federal investigation."
It tells you a lot about Graham's right-wing worldview that he thinks conspiracy-monger McCarthy is the reasonable one.
Graham went on to grouse that Ponnuru "actually underlined that the Attorney General has lost any credibility to be seen as neutral. He said nothing about whether the FBI was neutral in 2016, or whether the media has ever been neutral on this." He further huffed:
No one expects a conservative pundit to agree with the administration on everything. But it would be nice to at least push back against the liberal narrative on taxpayer-funded broadcasting, that there is "no evidence" of wrongdoing in the Russian "collusion" shenanigans, and to note the fascinating take that the Left and the media suddenly oppose more transparency and declassification.
For representing the side of National Review, Ponnuru deserves a "high degree of skepticism on substance."
But Graham is very much expecting -- nay, demanding -- that Ponnuru be an unblinkingly defender of all things Trump, because Trump equals conservativism equals Republicanism, and no one is allowed to deviate from the path.
After Ponnuru responded to Graham at the National Review website by pointing out that Graham didn't actually respond to any point he made on NPR, Graham just had to sneer in response:
Let's start with this: Ponnuru is bringing more passion to attacking me than he did in offering any critique of liberals on NPR. This was the point.
Ponnuri is a whip-smart analyst. He shouldn't pretend he doesn't understand what I was saying, or what "going full David Brooks" means. Let's spell it out: Ponnuru, in tone and content, couldn't be distinguished from the liberal pundit, or the liberal NPR anchor. They all sounded the same.
No article would have been written if he had told the NPR anchor "the Russia-collusion story is over" or anything contentious. Why couldn't he call a liberal less than lucid on NPR? Is he afraid of not being invited back?
The inclusion of the word "collusion" was in reference to Hillary's campaign colluding with Russians on the Christopher Steele dossier, which was used to begin surveillance on Carter Page. [Sabrina] Siddiqui insisted there was "no evidence" of improper monkey business there. Ponnuru offered no rebuttal.
No, Tim, the Clinton campaign was not "colluding with Russians"; it paid Fusion GPS, who in turn paid Christopher Steele for opposition research, who uncovered the Trump-Russia links. All of which is legal.
Graham seems not to have considered that Ponnuru offered "no rebuttal" to Siddiqui is because there really is no "monkey business." To claim otherwise is to demand that Ponnuru promote a conspiratorial right-wing narrative, no matter how loony or bogus it is.
In short, Graham seems to be mad at Ponnuru because he has integrity in putting logic and facts ahead of a dubious political narrative.
Again? WND -- Which Loved To Diagnose Obama As Mentally Ill -- Complains When Others The Same to Trump Topic: WorldNetDaily
An anonymously written June 16 WorldNetDaily article complains:
Psychiatrist Bandy Lee, a Yale faculty member who repeatedly and unashamedly has announced a psychiatric diagnosis for President Donald Trump even though she’s never met him, and who previously has condemned him as unstable, dangerous and in need of being locked up, is at it again.
This time the member of the Yale department of psychiatry gave an interview to a writer expressing blatantly anti-Trump comments at Salon.
Chauncey DeVega sets up his Salon article by asserting that the report from FBI special counsel Robert Mueller presented to the nation a set of “damning” facts: “Donald Trump obstructed justice. Trump and his inner circle both publicly and privately sought to collude with Russian agents to influence the 2016 presidential election.”
[...]
From there, Lee explained how she convened a panel to evaluate Trump “based upon his behavior as detailed in the 448-page Mueller report.”
Wrote DeVega, “Their definitive conclusion: Trump is mentally unfit, a threat to the United States and the world, and as such should have his powers severely restricted while he is put under a doctor’s care.”
[...]
She’s not alone among psychologists who, never having examined Trump, have openly violated their own “Goldwater Rule” and labeled the president with frightening diagnoses ranging from “psychotic,” “narcissistic,” “paranoid,” “hypomanic,” “emotionally unstable” and “delusional” to “psychologically isolated.”
As we documented the last time WND issued a similar complaint, its own writers had no reticence about making armchair diagnoses about President Obama, including but not limited to ,"pathological narcissist" and "psychopath," not to mention engaged in "the date-rape of America." And WND continues to sell a book by psychiatrist Lyle Rossiter that makes a blanket armchair diagnosis of all liberals as mentally ill.
This is just another example of WND's projection in complaining that people are doing to Trump what it did to Obama.
NEW ARTICLE: At CNS, It's Buttigieg-Bashing Time Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com, a "news" organization filled with gay-bashers, is unsurprisingly eager to repeatedly remind you that Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is gay. Read more >>
NewsBusters Blogger Concerned About Notorious Prison ... When A Trump Associate Was Set To Go There Topic: NewsBusters
The Media Research Center, it seems, is concerned about prison conditions only when it's feared a prominent Trump supporter might end up in one.
Mark Finkelstein spent a June 10 NewsBusters post ranting at MSNBC's Joe Scarborough for being cheerful about the possibility that convicted felon Paul Manafort, onetime Trump presidential campaign manager, might be sent to a New York City prison whose reputation precedes it:
The liberal media feigns horror over "lock her up" refrains. But when it comes to a Trump associate actually being locked up in a notoriously awful jail, well, that's a cause for mirth and hilarity.
And thus it was that on today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough joked about Paul Manfort being confined at Rikers Island, which has been described as a "hellhole," as here, here, and "the most notorious jail in America."
[...]
At the end of the segment, there was more ribbing by the panel of Lemire's clothes. Meacham facetiously spoke of "the Paul Manafort Collection." Responded Scarborough: "available at Rikers Island." The panel found that amusing, with laughter all around.
A regular laugh riot, that Joe. Wonder if he's ever visited Rikers? Keep this one in mind next time you hear Scarborough or another member of the liberal media expressing righteous indignation about "lock her up."
It will not surprise you to learn that the MRC is not been concerned about conditions at Rikers Island before now. In 2014, Tim Graham cheered conservative actress Stacey Dash's retort to Kanye West's likening of paparazzi to rape that "maybe he needs to spend some time on Rikers Island. Go to Rikers for a little while and then he'll know what rape is." And in 2018, Randy Hall denounced the "progressive" leanings of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, expressed in part by his criticism of New York City's plans to take 10 years to build new jails to replace Rikers.
Manafort, though, escaped his Rikers fate after Trump's Department of Justice curiously and unusually intervened and had him placed at a less notorious NYC facility. Finkelstein has yet to provide a follow-up about that.
WND's Peterson Falsely Claims He Doesn't Spread Hate Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jesse Lee Peterson spent his June 9 WorldNetDaily column complaining about alleged censorship and demonitization of himself and fellow "conservative and independent voices." He claimed that "YouTube demonetized my channel minutes after taking down two of my videos condemning anti-Jewish hatred by Muslim Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and fringe white extremists who hate Jews." Given that Peterson has spewed nothing but hate at Omar -- in one Facebook video headlined "How Did White America Allow a Muslim into Congress?" Peterson called Omar an "evil, nasty refugee ... from another country" who only "pretend[s] that they like America in order to get into your government" -- we'll accept YouTube's judgment.
Among those other Peterson listed as "conservative and independent voices" like him who are allegedly censored and demonetized by YouTube were Stefan Molyneux and Gavin McInnes -- the former a white supremacist and the latter the founder of the thuggist misogynistic hate group the Proud Boys (which Peterson thinks is just a "fraternity"). Peterson then claimed:
My channel and many others demonetized by YouTube do not spread hate. Every day on my daily radio broadcast (streamed live on YouTube) I tell people to stop blaming and hating others. I repudiate all hatred, blame, and victimhood. In fact, I wrote an entire book on how to overcome it. I rebuke callers on my radio show who harbor hatred toward Jews, whites, blacks or any other group. I encourage them to drop their anger and forgive so they can go free.
Peterson concluded his column with more gay-bashing, including the declaration that "We all know YouTube’s latest adpocalypse is an attempt to silence the truth and purge conservatives in order to appease far-left LGBT activists."
MRC's Graham, Bozell Push False (But Trump-Approved) Mueller Report Narrative Topic: Media Research Center
It's never a good sign when the first column you write following the publication of your new book contains a demonstrable falsehood. But the Media Research Center's Tim Graham and Brent Bozell do just that in their June 5 column, a day after their media-bashing book "Unmasked" dropped:
Color us surprised. The nightly news obsession over nonexistent Trump-Russia collusion isn't abating. It's actually growing! They cannot be shamed. They cannot be shaken by inconvenient facts. It's been established there was no collusion, no obstruction, no high crime that's impeachable, and so what? The media are hammering this collusion theme more than ever.
Color us surprised too -- that Graham and Bozell are sticking to the much-less-than-true pro-Trump narrative that the Mueller report found "no collusion, no obstruction, no high crime that's impeachable."
As the Mueller report pointed out, collusion is not a specific crime but conspiracy is, and Mueller himself said that "If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so" -- which he did not, and which arguably opens a path to an impeachment inquiry. Even one of the MRC's friends at Fox News, Bret Baier, agreed by saying that "This was not, as the President says time and time again, no collusion, no obstruction. It was much more nuanced than that." Funny that Graham and Bozell made no note of that, even as they go on to falsely claim that "Mueller cleared Trump completely on the charge of collusion while stating there was not enough evidence to indict him on obstruction of justice."
As we've noted, Graham took a different viewpoint when the investigation target had a different last name and political affiliation, insisting that a lack of evidence to indict Hillary Clinton for perjury in the White House travel office probe of the 1990s didn't mean she was "cleared completely" and did nothing wrong, though "the Clintons always suggest that if they’re not indicted, then they have 'done nothing wrong.'"
But our dynamic right-wing duo have a narrative to advance. They accuse the media of "irrational behavior" in reporting on Mueller's nuance and whining, "What a waste of our time, this incessant speculation of doom from the press, repeated thousands of times ad nauseam."
CNS' Bannister Can't Be Bothered to Fact-Check Trump Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com just loves to uncritically repeat whatever President Trump has to say regardless of whether it's true -- and it's certainly not going to strain itself bothering to fact-check the president for the benefit of its reading audience. This happened again in a June 5 post by Craig Bannister:
Asked if he believes in climate change, President Donald Trump told “Good Morning Britain” Host Piers Morgan that he believes in weather change.
“Do you personally believe in climate change?” Morgan asked Trump in an interview Tuesday during Trump’s visit to the U.K.
“I believe that there is a change in weather. And, I think it changes both ways,” Trump responded, reminding Morgan that climate activists used to make the specific claim that the planet was warming. But, now, they invoke the broader term, “extreme weather,” which includes all types of weather events, such as tornados and hurricanes:
But as an actual fact-checker (not Bannister) pointed out, Trump's words ranged between unclear and completely wrong:
If Trump is referring to a change in weather over many decades, then he’s describing climate. If not, he’s simply stating that weather — which is inherently variable — changes. That would be correct, but it also isn’t saying much. And it’s not commenting on climate change. Either way, his response is potentially misleading, and touches on a common failure to understand the difference between climate and weather.
[...]
Trump also contends that the terminology surrounding climate change has purposely shifted over the years, starting first as “global warming,” morphing into “climate change” and finally becoming “extreme weather.” This misrepresents the history of the terms.
As we explained in 2016, when Ted Cruz made the same argument about “climate change” and “global warming,” the two terms both go back decades in the scientific literature, and technically refer to slightly different concepts, although they are often used interchangeably.
Global warming, according to NASA, specifically means the warming of the Earth over the last century or so, because of the burning of fossil fuels.
Climate change is a broader concept, in that it includes higher temperatures as a result of global warming, but also other changes that result from that warming, such as sea level rise, shifting precipitation patterns and yes, some extreme weather.
[...]
Extreme weather has become a more commonly talked-about feature or example of climate change, but it is not used by scientists in place of “climate change” or “global warming.” In 2014, for example, the National Climate Assessment stated, “Changes in extreme weather and climate events, such as heat waves and droughts, are the primary way that most people experience climate change.”
“Extreme weather” on its own simply means highly unusual weather. Extreme weather can include heat waves, drought, heavy downpours, floods or other storms. Not all types of extreme weather have been linked to climate change, and it’s difficult to say any particular event was affected by climate change.
Nevertheless, scientists have made progress in what’s called attribution science, and are increasingly more confident about linking individual storms or events to climate change. In these cases, scientists are not saying that climate change caused the event, but that climate change made conditions more likely or more severe.
That wasn't that hard to do -- it just required someone interested in reporting the truth, which you'd think someone employed by a "news" organization would want to to. Bannister apparently isn't.
MRC Finds A Way to Hate Gayle King Topic: Media Research Center
Who couldn't possibly like the eminently likeable "CBS Ths Morning" co-host Gayle King? The Media Research Center, apparently.
Scott Whitlock spent a June 11 post complaining that the Washington Post did a "gushing, 3,000 profile [sic] of King, huffing that "The gushing language used in the piece was so adulatory that it might have been out of place in a press release." Whitlock further complained that the article did not "identify King as a Democratic donor. Instead, readers are simply told about how loyal the host is to her 'public friends,'"whining: "King isn’t just friends with the Obamas, she vacationed with them. But there’s no reason she can’t still be objective, right? Just because she’s donated thousands of dollars to Democrats?"
Whitlock then declared that "King’s world view is so far left that she doesn’t even realize she’s out of touch with half the country.
Two days later, Whitlock was incensed that the Post article was highlighted on the show:
CBS This Morning co-hosts on Wednesday read aloud the glowing praise Washington Post and quoted the gushing praise about the “soothing voice of reason.” King listened along as Dokoupil cheered, “I thought I might talk about a little article I found today.”
Not exactly showcasing his colleague’s modesty, he told viewers: “Not only does she have a Washington Post cover but a Hollywood Reporter cover. You’re our cover girl this morning. And a choice quote from the Washington Post article which I think sums you up well here.”
As before, Whitlock groused that the Post article "never mentioned that King was a Democratic donor" and that "King also vacationed with the Obamas and openly lobbied the very liberal Oprah Winfrey (her good friend) to run for President. Apparently, CBS doesn’t have a problem with any of this."
Pride Month Derangement Syndrome At WND Topic: WorldNetDaily
It's LGBT Pride Month, and the homophobes at worldNetDaily hasn't taken it very well.
Michael Brown began his June 10 column denying that he's a homophobe, then insists the reasons he opposes Pride Month have nothing alt all to do with "hatred or fear":
First, I do not accept the categories of LGBT as fixed and definite categories, worthy of special recognition.
Put another way, why should there be a special month to celebrate people based on their sexual desires and romantic attractions? Or based on their gender identity perceptions?
The very fact that we’ve gone from G (as in gay) to LG, to LGB, to LGBT, to LGBTQ, to LGBTQI to LGBTQIP (and beyond) indicates that these are hardly fixed categories.
Or, to zero in on the letter B, why should I celebrate someone who is attracted to both males and females? Why should I put them in a special category (like Hispanic or Asian or black)?
If the person happens to be a courageous firefighter, I’ll celebrate him for that. If the person happens to be a cancer survivor with an amazing story, I’ll celebrate her for that.
They are fellow human beings, and if they deserve honor or commendation, I’ll gladly give that to them. But I won’t celebrate their bisexuality. Why should I?
And that leads to my second point.
If I’m convinced that homosexual practice is contrary to God’s design, why should I celebrate it?
If I personally know people whose same-sex attractions were the result of childhood sexual abuse and rape, why should I celebrate those attractions?
[...]
Third, and finally, I do not celebrate LGBT pride because there is an agenda attached to it.
In other words, this is not just a matter of me appreciating LGBT people as people, or recognizing their accomplishments for the sake of their accomplishments.
Instead, to celebrate LGBT pride is to recognize and embrace a larger cultural agenda.
[...]
Again, from the LGBT viewpoint, LGBT pride is all about coming out of the closet. It’s about saying, “We’re just as good and as gifted and as normal as anyone else, and rather than being ashamed of our LGBT identity, we are proud of it. The days of being mistreated are over. That’s what LGBT pride is all about!”
Again, I understand these sentiments, and if it was a matter of caring for people as people, I’d march side by side with them.
But it’s not just that. It’s about creating new categories and foisting them on the society. It’s about celebrating something that should not be celebrated. It’s about a larger agenda.
For those reasons, I do not celebrate gay pride, even though it makes me a hateful bigot in the eyes of many LGBT people and their allies.
Of course, if you can't recognize the humanity of the LGBT community, think they merely have "gender identity perceptions" and are driven only by an malicious "agenda," you're very much a hateful bigot.
Mychal Massie similarly used his June 10 column to insist that "I do not hate homosexuals, transgenders, transsexuals, or whatever they choose to self-identify as next. But I hate without apology the act of homosexuality and all such sexual perversion." Needless to say, what followed was a massive tirade of hatred against homosexuals:
Homosexuality is not an ethnicity nor is it a species; it’s a deviant lust of the flesh. The practice of homosexuality is unnatural, amoral and destructive to the spirit, soul, mind, psyche and the personal health of those who choose to become involved in same.
It’s men lusting in their souls to sodomize other men and women who lust after other women for sexual defilement.
As with all things of Satan, sin always metastasizes into more extreme behavior. Thus we witness homosexuality metamorphosing into the mutilation and butchering of bodies in the foolish belief the person will become another gender.
Despite fallacious statistics promoted as fact, the percentage of homosexuals and lesbians have not exploded in number. It’s the number of people accepting perversion as natural and normal that has exploded, which is a massive indictment of the church.
[...]
As I said, I don’t hate the individuals taken in this sinful deviancy. I love them enough to pray for them and to be there to share Christ with them. But I will never be there to condone and or appease their chosen lifestyle.
[...]
Families must decide to stand in obedience to the word of God or surrender to the devil. Satan is a deceiver. He’s the evil imitator of God – thus the reason homosexuality is being advanced as love between two people. It is not love; it is lust and the wicked deceitfulness of the heart.
Those promoting and practicing sexual sin will not escape the judgment of God for leading children into sinful lifestyles, nor will they escape judgment for blaspheming God’s promise to never destroy the earth by flood again, turning the rainbow into a symbol of rabid debauchery.
Erik Rush followed by approvingly citing a CNSNews.com article by homophobe Michael W. Chapman citing right-wing "Latina Mama" Ana Samuel attacking Pete Buttigieg, lamenting that "It is a sad commentary that with the “normalization” of homosexuality in the public square, even many conservative Americans have either accepted the notion that the attendant ideology (as Samuel put it) is not harmful to society at large, or they just don’t press the point anymore." Rush continued:
The danger of a guy like Pete Buttigieg (and the difference between him and his “husband” versus a homosexual couple living quietly in their community) is that Buttigieg is a socialist activist promoting the LGBTQ agenda. As such, he already knows that his ideology is dangerous – at least in the eyes of those who hold traditional values.
Do not doubt that the LGBTQ agenda has as much to do with the civil rights of LGBTQ people as the agenda of reparations for blacks has to do with the long-term well-being of black Americans – this being none at all.
Like Dr. Ana Samuel, we need to start making the distinction between people in minority groups and the socialist power structure that exploits them – and fast. Following this, we need to act accordingly. If you oppose the preteen drag queen festival being proposed at your child’s public school, you know that this is not the same thing as being in favor of shipping homosexuals off to concentration camps.
Which doesn't negate the fact that Rush, in all likelihood, would like to ship gays off to concentration camps if he thought he could get away with it.
Finally, Jack Cashill turned in a bizarre column about how "A leftist Rip Van Winkle, waking after just 30 years, would be flabbergasted to see his comrades slicing and dicing a vice president of the United States for his administration’s decision not to fly rainbow flags over U.S. embassies" and how this is leading to 'men claiming to be women are competing against women in women’s sports."
MRC's Graham Goes the TV Tropes Route To Bash Molly Ivins Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Tim Graham is such a terrible media critic that he's now invoking TV Tropes.
In a June 7 post, Graham complained that the Washington Post is sponsoring a screening of a film about "radical-left columnist" Molly Ivins at a local film festival. Needless to say, Graham offered no evidence Ivins was "radical-left"; instead, he complained about the satirical barbs she sent the way of conservatives of her time. Which brought us to this statement:
The trailer hailing her as the cliched voice of the voiceless also features Ivins mocking Newt Gingrich as the "draft-dodging, dope-smoking deadbeat dad who divorced his dying wife." That's infected with some fake news, as the Post's own Paul Farhi noted in 2011: "[Jackie] Battley wasn’t dying at the time of the hospital visit; she is alive today."
On TV Tropes, this is called "I Take Offense to That Last One!" In other words, Graham is apparently conceding the accuracy of the whole "draft-dodging, dope-smoking deadbeat dad" part of Ivins' quip.
But the last item is also not as false as Graham would have you believe. According to the Farhi article he's referencing, Battley did say that Gingrich did insist on discussing divorce in the hospital, where she was recovering from a surgery to remove a benign tumor -- the third surgery in a treatment for uterine cancer -- reportedly to sign off on a list of items related to the divorce. While not actually dying, she was seriously ill.
But Graham doesn't want you to think that Gingrich is that terrible of a person, apparently. Or that Ivins, by being mostly factual, wasn't so "radical-left" person as he wants you to think she is.
CNS Still Censoring Trump Officials' Crimes to Focus On Minor Crimes By Federal Employees Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com has a peculiar idea of "news." We've documented how CNS did no straight reporting on legitimate stories such as Trump associate Paul Manafort being convicted and sentenced on fraud charges, and it still has yet to report anything about the burgeoning scandals at the National Rifle Association despite having NRA board member Allen West as a columnist and senior fellow for its parent, the Media Research Center.
So what does CNS consider to be news? Relatively minor crimes committed by federal employees.
A May 16 blog post by Craig Bannister focused on how "A Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) attorney habitually shoplifted, admitted to the crimes, but was never prosecuted, a Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General’s report published Monday finds." And an anonymously written June 6 article claimed that "An unnamed Department of Justice attorney stored and transmitted 'sexually explicit images' on a DOJ-issued laptop and cellphone, according to an investigative summary released today by the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Justice."
CNS similarly obsessed last year over the minor crimes of federal employees while ignoring much more serious offenses allegedly committed by Trump administration officials.
These incidents would not warrant the kind of coverage CNS give them if they were to appear in a local newspaper. It seems that CNS is simply trying to denigrate federal workers because it can -- though it has to censor other crimes in order to do it.
MRC Vaguely Admits Acosta Has A Point, Still Can't Stop Hating Him Anyway Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Nicholas Fondacaro began a June 9 post with a relatively nuanced -- by MRC standards -- take on the media: "The liberal media are certainly not “the enemy of the people”, as President Trump often suggests, but they do operate as though they’re part of an opposition party in how viciously they cover him."
But then Fondacaro's Acosta Derangement Syndrome kicked in, and his post into yet another hatefest. He ranted that "showboater" Jim Acosta conducted a "vomit-inducing interview" with CNN's Brian Stelter to promote his new book, "Enemy of the People." He deliberately misinterpreted Acosta's statement that he wished his media colleagues challenged Trump's "enemy of the people" slur -- something even Fondacaro admits is a slur -- by claiming that Acosta had really "said he regretted how the media wasn’t more hostile against the President." Fondacaro then sneered: "At no point did Acosta say he regretted being a showboater and grandstander in the White House briefing room (or elsewhere)."
Then, again ignoring what he wrote in the very first sentence of his post, Fondacaro declared the title of Acosta's book to be "silliness" and huffed that "Acosta fell back onto the disgusting assertion that Trump had created an environment that could get journalists killed" -- even though he quoted Acosta saying that he gets death threatsand pointing out that someone mailed a pipe bomb to CNN headquarters.
We've documented how the MRC is shockingly callous about the safety of journalists who aren't kneejerk Trump shills, attacking them as self-centered to be so concerned.
If an MRC writer can't even last one sentence before descending into hate and childish insults, what good is it as a purveyor of "media research"?
CNSNews.com is so dedicated to pro-Trump stenography that it's news when it even implicitly criticizes President Trump -- for instance, managing editor Michael W. Chapman has a sad whenever Trump fails to hate the LGBT community as much has he does. This happened again when CNS turned on a lawyer nominated by Trump for a federal judgeship for a statement it deemed to be anti-Catholic (remember, Chapman and other CNS staffers consider themselves to be more Catholic than the pope).
President Donald Trump has nominated to a federal judgeship a lawyer who argued in court against a Catholic farmer who would not allow same-sex weddings to take place on his farm because same-sex marriage violates his Catholic beliefs.
Michael S. Bogren, the lawyer in question, represented the City of East Lansing, Mich., against the farmer, Steve Tennes.
In a document presented in court, Bogren equated a Catholic refusing to allow a same-sex wedding on his farm to a KKK member refusing to allow an interracial wedding.
The article went on to complain that "Bogren finally said that he did stand by his comparison," even though it also included a transcript of questioning from a Republican senator in which Bogren pointed out that "I represent clients, not causes. This is not ideological."
But CNS decided otherwise, and using its new crop of summer interns, sent them out to pester threeRepublicansenators and a Democratic one on whether they thought Bogren should withdraw his nomination because he "equated a Catholic family declining to host same-sex weddings on their farm to a KKK member engaging in racial discrimination."
CNS ultimately got its wish. Chapman happily wrote on June 11 that Bogren "withdrew his nomination to be a judge for the Western District of Michigan today." Chapman included a screenshot of the announcement made by Bogren's cousin, Margot Cleveland, which noted that the withdrawal was "a Pyrrhic victory at best." Chapman was silent on that, instead rehashing right-wing criticism of Bogren.
In fact, Cleveland pointed out that Bogren "made clear" that "his words were not his personal views, but his legal advocacy," adding:
I have seen people I respect calling Mike an anti-Catholic bigot. And that is shameful. You might disagree with his decision to represent a client, or the arguments made, but unjustly slandering a good man, is something we should never do in the defense of religious liberty. Judgeship or none, is of no matter; but reputation is. As I was asking my son to pray for Mike this weekend, and he asked why, I simplified the situation, and in his innocence he asked, "Why doesn't he tell people he likes Catholics?" Life isn't that simple-you can't repair a man's reputation tarnished by soundbites with a simple statement of the truth.
CNS couldn't be bothered to report the full story, so played a lead role in that slander.
UPDATE: CNS also followed up in a June 13 article by Mark Jennings, which misleadingly reduced the debate to claiming that "Bogren had compared Catholicism to KKK racism." Jennings didn't explain how active discrimination against a same-sex couple is a core tenet of Catholicism.
Drag Queen Story Hour Derangement Syndrome Topic: Newsmax
No child should be forced to confront radical ideas and controversial social movements before they are able to use the potty by themselves. We are talking about children who are settling in at the library to hear about Peppa Pig and Horton hearing a Who. This is a time when the little ones should be held in their mothers’ laps, sipping chocolate milk or juice from their sippy cups as they become mesmerized by the magic of carefully chosen words.
This is not a time when some man in spandex, tulle, and glitter should be confusing them with the sight of a dude with an Adam’s Apple and well-developed biceps touching up his makeup and hitching up his brassiere.
There is a concerted effort afoot to normalize the whole idea of gender fluidity.
[...]
Bill Lorraine, a physician and resident of Haverford Township, said he became very concerned when he first heard of Drag Queen Story Hour.
“Gender dysphoria is a serious psychological condition. It is not genetically determined, but rather is influenced by environmental factors,” Lorraine said. “Therefore exposing young children to something like drag queen story hour can predispose them to the development of gender dysphoria and the many negative consequences that go with it.”
[...]
Reading the web page of Drag Queen Story Hour, it is clear that this whole program is designed to normalize gender fluidity and make “drag queens” just one of many accepted expressions of our “identity.” To me, that is nothing more than adults trying to shove their agendas down the throats of little kids.
Dubious WorldNetDaily doc Jane Orient of the far-right Association of American Physicans and Surgeons plays both sides of the fearmongering fence -- not only does she fearmonger about vaccines, she fearmongers about the diseases allegedly being brought into the country by unvaccinated people (which could largely be eradicated by, you know, the vaccines she opposes). She does the latter in a June 10 WND article by Bob Unruh: 
Tim Graham is the Media Research Center's designated hate-listener to National Public Radio, and his NPR-related posts are largely 
An anonymously written June 16 WorldNetDaily 
The Media Research Center, it seems, is concerned about prison conditions only when it's feared a prominent Trump supporter might end up in one.
Jesse Lee Peterson spent his June 9 WorldNetDaily 
It's never a good sign when the first column you write following the publication of your new book contains a demonstrable falsehood. But the Media Research Center's Tim Graham and Brent Bozell do just that in their June 5 
CNSNews.com just loves to uncritically repeat whatever President Trump has to say regardless of whether it's true -- and it's certainly not going to strain itself bothering to fact-check the president for the benefit of its reading audience. This happened again in a June 5 
Who couldn't possibly like the eminently likeable "CBS Ths Morning" co-host Gayle King? The Media Research Center, apparently.
It's LGBT Pride Month, and the homophobes at worldNetDaily hasn't taken it very well.
The Media Research Center's Tim Graham is such a terrible media critic that he's now invoking TV Tropes.
CNSNews.com has a peculiar idea of "news." We've documented how CNS did no straight reporting on legitimate stories such as Trump associate Paul Manafort being 
The Media Research Center's Nicholas Fondacaro began a June 9 
CNSNews.com is so dedicated to pro-Trump stenography that it's news when it even implicitly criticizes President Trump -- for instance, managing editor Michael W. Chapman 
No child should be forced to confront radical ideas and controversial social movements before they are able to use the potty by themselves. We are talking about children who are settling in at the library to hear about Peppa Pig and Horton hearing a Who. This is a time when the little ones should be held in their mothers’ laps, sipping chocolate milk or juice from their sippy cups as they become mesmerized by the magic of carefully chosen words.
