Fake News: WND Uncritically Pushes Obama 'Shadow Government' Conspiracy Theory From Trump's Attorney Topic: WorldNetDaily
An anonymously written June 25 WorldNetDaily article breathlessly asserts:
Yet another major Obama administration scandal has been uncovered.
This one centered on then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper leaking classified information that endangered national security “in an attempt to undermine President Trump,” according to the American Center for Law and Justice.
ACLJ’s Jay Sekulow said Clapper changed policy to make it easier to share intercepted information among intelligence agencies, according to documents obtained through several Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against the ODNI and the National Security Agency.
They revealed that Clapper, in the latter days of his tenure as ODNI, “rushed” put new procedures in place.
“The documents also reveal that ODNI’s Robert Litt told Office of the Undersecretary of Defenses’ Director of Intelligence Strategy, Policy, & Integration (and also USDI’s Liaison to ODNI): ‘Really want to get this done … and so does the Boss.”
The documents show the plan was approved by Clapper and then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
“It was not immediately clear just how significant these revelations were. Now we know,” ACLJ said.
“Consider what we now know about the nature and degree of Deep State opposition to President Trump. With the public revelations about the infamous disgrace known as the Steele dossier, FISA abuse and the underpinnings of Crossfire Hurricane, as well as former-DNI James Clapper’s open hostility to President Trump and intentional leaking by senior law enforcement and intelligence actors – all of which appears to show a coordinated effort across agencies to oppose the Trump administration – the picture is coming into focus,” ACLJ said.
Except -- as with a lot of things WND publishes -- that's not exactly true. We'll let Wonkette explain what WND won't:
Here's the back story. In July 2008, outgoing President Bush modified a 2004 executive order (which was itself a modification of a 1981 EO signed by Ronald Reagan) on intelligence sharing. The new executive order made it easier for the National Security Agency (NSA), to share the vast quantities of data it was collecting with other members of the intelligence community (IC), particularly the CIA and FBI. Reasonable people can argue, as Edward Snowden did, that the NSA is amassing dangerous amounts of data and needs to be reined in. But after 9-11, the IC was roundly blamed for failing to share information that might have prevented the attacks. So George W. Bush, a Republican, ordered the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Defense to put their heads together and come up with some procedures for intelligence sharing between the agencies. These are the procedures Jay Sekulow is pretending were instituted to enable the DEEP STATE to spy on Donald Trump.
Which makes no goddamn sense, but HEY HELLO have you seen this email from Office of the DNI's General Counsel Robert Litt saying, "Really, really want to get this done ... and so does the Boss"? What if you knew that SOMEONE sent an email saying, "We could have a signature from the AG as early as this week, certainly prior to the 20th Jan?" Would you then be convinced that these plans which had been in the work for eight years were part of a sinister plot to tapp Trump's fraying, orange wires?
[...]
Check out the 26 pages of procedures for unaccountability to provide "classified information" to those "bureaucrats" at the FBI and CIA who have satisfied legally binding criteria establishing their need for it and undergone extensive training on how to keep it secure. Pretty nefarious of James Clapper and Loretta Lynch to want to get this signed before leaving office, huh Jay?
[...]
Moreover, as Marcy Wheeler points out, Trump could have rescinded that executive order any time in the past two-and-a-half years if he thought it was a license to spy on him. But he didn't give a damn until his lawyer managed to cherry-pick three pages from a document dump -- uploading them as three, separate PDFs with zero context is a nice touch -- and launched himself into a rant about DEEP STATE OBAMA FBI CONSPIRACY ARGLEBARGLE HENGHHHHHH.
And WND forgets to inform its dwindling reader base that Sekulow is also wearing the hat of Trump's attorney, which makes the validity of the claims -- which WND could not be bothered to verify -- even more suspect.
Burt why let the truth get in the way of a good conspiracy theory, right, WND?
New Book Sends MRC's Acosta Derangement Syndrome Into The Stratosphere Topic: Media Research Center
CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta's new book, "The Enemy of the People," was sure to set the Media Research Center's already highlevels of Acosta Derangement Syndrome into the stratosphere, and darn it if that isn't exactly what happened.
Tim Graham kicked off the MRC's Acosta book attack with a May 29 post complaining that Acosta used anonymous sources to back up assertions about Trump: "This is exactly the kind of anonymous sourcing that's irresponsible, just protecting someone taking a pot shot. Did either of these sources -- or it could be the same person -- work for President Obama? That would color the quote, wouldn't it? " Of course, the MRC doesinvoke anonymous sources when it serves its right-wing agenda to do so (and to attack Acosta).
On June 9, as we've noted, Nicholas Fondacaro actually agreed with Acosta that the media are not the "enemy of the people" before his ADS kicked in and he huffed about a "vomit-inducing interview" he did to promote the book.
Graham returned to sneer in a June 11 post after Acosta said in another interview that "I have never witnessed a concerted effort by any news organization to take a stand one way or the other on a political issue, to damage one particular party or help another," retorting in response: "This is about as plausible as saying 'I have never witnessed any person eating a hamburger.'"
Graham served up more mocking a couple days later and was too busy sneering at Acosta for serving up "bipartisan-unity talk" to fully acknowledge that Acosta was being interviewed by a conservative, Hugh Hewitt. He sneered that Acosta's worry about President Trump's repeated attacks on the media endandering journalisdts is just a "tale" and adding: "Yes, when you think of unifying people -- the kind that want to grab a Coke bottle and teach the world to sing in perfect harmony -- it's not Jim Acosta. If you wonder why Acosta doesn't sound like this on CNN, the answer is simple. CNN isn't television for Republicans. It's Resistance TV."
Then Curtis Houck, the MRC's Acosta-hater-in-chef, weighed in with a hate-filled rage that was extreme by even his standards. Under the headline "BEHOLD the Worst Quotes from Jim Acosta’s Narcissistic Book of Hogwash," Houck worked up all the smug right-wing nastiness he could muster:
CNN chief White House correspondent and cartoonishly self-centered Jim Acosta released on Tuesday his 354-page work of narcissism, The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America. And, folks, it’s everything you thought it would be and then some.
From defending his showboating to admitting that he’s at times belligerent on purpose to conceding that fellow journalists loathe him, Acosta’s conceited argle bargle showcased Acosta at its worst and the dangers of the liberal media’s belief that the First Amendment only concerns them, neglecting how it also gives Americans the right to chant “CNN sucks.”
So, without any further adieu, check out this Notable Quotable-style package of quotes. And with 96 Post-It notes in the book obtained by NewsBusters, the following only represents a sampling of the nonsense.
In other words, you’re welcome, America.
Yes, Houck did link to a photo from his personal Twitter account showing how many sticky notes he put in Acosta's book while "reading" it.
Houck toned things down just a bit for a post the next day in which he proclaimed that Acosta was a "narcissistic Looney Tune" and included more samples from the book, whining at one point that "On pages 14 and 15 in his 354-page screed, Acosta dithered away for seven paragraphs about how he was incensed that, on the eve of the 2016 election, then-candidate Donald Trump 'refused the time-honored tradition for a presidential candidate of posing in front of the plane for a photo with journalists covering his or here campaign.'"
It seems that if anyone's acting cartoonish here, it's Houck in his way-over-the-top hate for Acosta. Does the MRC pay him by the gallon of bile he spews?
Interesting, that last Houck post was the last time the MRC has devoted a post to Acosta, about his book or him in general. Has it finally realized how ridiculous it has looked with its obsessive Acosta-hate?
Where Are They Now? CNS' 'Protester' Intern Now Writes for Fox News Topic: CNSNews.com
You might remember a few years back that a CNSNews.com intern named Sam Dorman got a bit of attention for asking a anti-abortion gotcha question to Nancy Pelosi that piqued her anger, then stoked right-wing outrage about being described as a "anti-abortion protester" over the question and demanded that he be acknowledged as "a credentialed member of the press" (though he later admitted that his question was designed to provoke hostility toward him). The folks who run CNS, the Media Research Center, then tried to raise money over the manufactured controversy, which told us that the question was, in fact, an act of protest.
Well, it appears Donman has managed to parlay that incident into a career: he's now a reporter for Fox News, which like CNS has similarly blurry lines between reporting and advocacy.
Much of his output is the usual right-wing stenography that woldn't look out of place at CNS; typical is a July 3 piece headlined "Ilhan Omar promotes ex-Hillary aide's unhinged anti-Trump attacks." He also penned a Jun 12 piece falsely privileging "Dr. Alveda King," ignoring the fact that her doctorate is honorary and not earned.
It appears that the MRC granted Dorman an entry into right-wing journalism by helping him manufacture a controversy, and he has exploited that to further his own career. Congratulations, or something.
Friday’s New York Times showed the paper again trying to falsely link the publicly harmful anti-vaccination movement to political conservatism. Reporters Julie Bosman, Patricia Mazzei, and Dan Levin drew the strands together for “Celebrities, Conservatives and Immigrants in Disparate Groups of Skeptics.”
It’s not the first time the paper has tried to falsely smear “conservatives” as the main thrust of anti-vaccine action, even though the most recent polling on the matter suggests it’s more of a left-wing cause. In fact, two “red states” often mocked as backward, Mississippi and West Virginia, are nationwide leaders in getting their children vaccinated.
Amazingly for a story whose headline blasts “conservatives” for being anti-vaccine, the first sentence features the anti-vaccine conspiracist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., of the famous uber-liberal Democrat political family.
[...]
Robert F. Kennedy, who falsely believes that vaccines cause autism, was not even identified as part of the liberal Kennedy clan, though he is the son of the late Democratic Attorney General (in the administration of his brother John) and a Democratic U.S. Senator.
At no point does Waters prove that RFK Jr. is a "liberal," despite playing guilt-by-association, as it were, by invoking the politics of his family -- in fact, the Kennedy family has distanced itself from him on the issue of vaccines -- nor does Waters link him to any anti-vaccine movement on the left. To the contrary: When RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine activism first became known, it was right-wing outlets like WorldNetDaily and Newsmax -- not liberal outlets -- that gave him an uncritical platform. Indeed, Waters unironically illustrates his piece with a screenshot of RFK Jr. on ... Fox News in 2017, where Tucker Carlson fed him softball questions and did not challenge his anti-vaxxer beliefs.
Waters' evidence that anti-vaccine activism is "more of a left-wing cause" is a 2014 article on the right-wing Real Clear Science website sorting states with the highest vaccine exemption rates by the margin by which a presidential candidate won in 2012 -- which, of course, is an imprecise measure because it says nothing about the individual political views of those seeking exemptions. After all, while New York is considered a liberal state, this year's measles outbreak occurred mostly among unvaccinated people in an ultra-Orthodox enclave in New York City not known for liberal politics.
And, of course, Waters also forgets that the publisher of his blog posts was anti-vaxxer at one point, fearmongering that HPV vaccines like Gardasil had "dangerous" side effects and even encouraged children to have sex.
Pride Month Derangement Syndrome, Scott Lively Edition Topic: WorldNetDaily
The original goal of the LGBT movement in the 1950s was tolerance, what Dale Jennings of the Mattachine Society called “The right to be left alone.”
But exactly 50 years ago, in the Stonewall riots, homofascism was born – when the movement set its sights on replacing family-centered society with sexual anarchy. Activists’ detailed agenda was published soon after as “The 1972 Gay Rights Platform,” and they launched a united national campaign for “sexual freedom” to be recognized as a constitutional right.
[...]
Having fulfilled his globalist mission to establish “Gay Supremacy” in America, [Anthony] Kennedy recently retired from the court after (I strongly suspect) assuring that his legacy would be preserved by the nomination of his former clerk Brett Kavanaugh to fill his vacancy. (I sincerely hope I am wrong about Kavanaugh and will apologize profusely if in future cases he shows integrity in helping to reverse Kennedy’s errors.)
So here we stand in 2019, four years after Obergefell and the LGBTs instant pivot to “transgenderism” (and pedophilia), watching small children being deliberately infected with hyper-sexual transgender insanity to the applause of the entire leftist bloc, and Congress seriously debating the so-called Equality Act to criminalize Christianity in America.
Throughout this decades-long process, America has been pushed inexorably by the leftist elites through the five stages of homofascism until today celebration of all things LGBT is the norm, forced participation in “gay” culture is increasing rapidly, and punishment of dissenters is a virtual mandate of social justice in the minds of the millennials. God help us!
Can this process be reversed? I believe it can, but only if conservatives, including our presumed five-member majority on the Supreme Court, remember what it is that conservatism exists to conserve: the God-fearing, family-centered, constitutional republic our founders fought a bloody revolution to secure for us.
CNS Still Wants You To Know That 'Beto' Isn't O'Rourke's Real Name Topic: CNSNews.com
A whole back, we documented how CNSNews.com's coverage of Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke is so petty that it feels it must emphasize at every opportunity that Beto is not his given name (despite him going by that name since he was a child). That hasn't stopped.
A May 22 article by Patrick Goodenough begins: Democrat presidential hopeful Robert 'Beto' O’Rourke used the first question in a CNN town hall on Tuesday to accuse President Trump of calling immigrants 'animals' and an 'infestation,' and stating that the president tried to “ban all Muslims” from entering the U.S."
Goodenough was in an unusually fact-check-obsessed mood with this article -- unlike for, say President Trump -- for he immediately wrote afterward: "All three claims, made within minutes of the start of the CNN event in Des Moines, Iowa, have been contested. None were challenged by CNN’s moderator, Dana Bash." And when O'Rourke claimed that Trump tried to "ban all Muslims" from entering the country through executive orders, Goodenough huffed: "As CNSNews.com has reported, they apply to citizens of a small minority of Muslim-majority countries."
Susan Jones took her own shot in a May 28 article: "'Most asylum-seekers pose no threat or danger to the United States,' Robert 'Beto' O'Rourke told CBS's 'Face the Nation' on Sunday." Like Goodenoughh, she referred to O'Rourke as a "Democrat presidential candidate" -- a misuse of the word "Democratic" done when owning the libs is more important than correct grammar.
Jones also referenced "Robert "Beto" O'Rourke" in a separate May 28 article.
Craig Millward threw in as well in a June 17 article, though he got his grammar correct: "Speaking on CNN’s 'State of the Union' on Sunday, Democratic presidential candidate and former Rep. Robert Francis 'Beto' O’Rourke said he does not think the law regarding making illegal border crossings a crime should be repealed."
Shockingly, in a June 27 article, Jones let "Beto" stand without editing when quoting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez referencing him.
MRC Adds False Attack On CNN Anchor to False Trump Defense Topic: Media Research Center
We documented how committed the Media Research Center is to a pro-Trump agenda by pushing the falsehood that President Trump saying he'd listen to a foreign government offering dirt on a political opponent is exactly the same as Democrats and the Hillary Clinton campaign paying for the Steele dossier. Joseph Chalfant regurgitated his version of the falsehood in a June 14 post:
On Friday's New Day, coverage again returned to a recent ABC News interview in which President Trump expressed a willingness to accept foreign information about political opponents. A panel of guests gathered around to spew their takes on the situation, with host Alisyn Camerota livid at Fox News and Republicans for pointing out that the Clinton campaign received dirt on Trump from Russia in 2016.
Camerota was blind to the correlation between the DNC-funded Steele dossier and the situation Trump described during his interview. Christopher Steele, a former British spy, was employed by Fusion GPS to obtain information on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. Steele used Russian sources to gather this information. The fact that it’s a crime for a foreign national to provide information of “value” to a candidate to influence an election is a violation of federal law was lost on the host:
[...]
CNN’s senior political analyst John Avlon stated that there was “no comparison” between Steele dossier and working with a “hostile foreign government.” CNN again forgot the Russian sources used for Steele’s report, as well as the fact that legally there is no difference between the two.
As we pointed out, there is very much a legal difference between the two -- the difference between paying someone to conduct opposition research in a foreign country about a candidate's connections in that country (which is what the Steele dossier was) and receiving information of dubious origin with the expectation of something in return, which is what Trump was proposing.
But Chalfant wasn't done. He added:
Co-host John Berman echoed this sentiment when he spouted: “Christopher Steele is not a country. Check the map. He is not a freaking country and Russia is.”
Berman urged the panel to move on from the topic, so Camerota helped wrap up the segment by saying this: “I think it's our job also to give people, the viewers, ways to shut it down if they are intrigued by that argument because they make it so often.” Camerota is wildly incorrect on what the function of her job is. An “objective journalist” should be striving to let the facts stand for themselves, not attempting to teach her viewers ways to debate with conservatives.
This point was emphasized under the headline "CNN's Camerota: 'It's Our Job' to Teach Viewers To 'Shut Down' Conservative Arguments."
But as we have proven, the "conservative argument" in question is false, and Camerota is right to challenge it. Chalfant is falsely putting words into Camerota's mouth, because she said nothing about the political orientation of what she was trying to "shut down."
The MRC still hasn't figured out how bad it looks to get pushing false narratives.
We've documented CNSNews.com's obsession with right-wing radio host Mark Levin (or his guests or guest hosts) and treating pretty much everything he says or does as wisdom from on high that cannot be disputed (and not at all because Brent Bozell, whose Media Research Center runs CNS, is a close buddy of Levin). That fealty has continued as usual over the past two months. Here's the breakdown:
That's 17 items in May and June. Add that to the total from the first four months of 2019, and that's a total of 60 items for the year so far.That's slightly off the 2018 pace, which saw CNS publish more than 135 Levin-stenography items.
Additionally, a article touted how President Trump tweeted "a video clip from Levin’s Sunday episode of “Life, Liberty and Levin” on Fox News Channel" attacking the Mueller report in which "the two constitutional scholars agree that the special counsel’s report is merely 'a bunch of crap.'" You know they're real "constitutional scholars" when they use scholarly terms like "a bunch of crap."
MRC Pushes A Hillary Whataboutism Lie To Deflect From Trump Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Nicholas Fondacaro and Curtis Houck did their best to play Hillary whataboutism in trying to deflect from President Trump's admission he'd take opposition research from foreign powers in a June 13 post:
President Trump made more headlines Wednesday night after he told ABC chief anchor George Stephanopoulos that he would be fine with taking “oppo research” on his 2020 opponent from foreign countries. This comment drew criticism. But during their almost two hours and 30 minutes of prime time coverage, or hair-on-fire panic, neither CNN nor MSNBC cared to mention that that’s exactly what the Clinton campaign did in 2016 with the now-infamous dossier.
[...]
While these networks spent all this time railing against President Trump, they failed to decry the Clinton campaign’s use of former British spy Christopher Steele to obtain dirt on Trump from Russian sources.
Sorry, dudes, but there's no actual equivalence between the two. The Washington Post explained:
Steele was hired by Fusion GPS to see what links might exist between Trump and Russian actors. Those connections, built during his service for the British government, were why he was valuable to Fusion GPS. It’s akin to a campaign looking to investigate an opponent’s history of real estate deals in Mexico: Hiring a Mexican firm that’s familiar with the available records would be perfectly legal, if the firm were paid with legally raised campaign contributions.
By contrast, these foreign countries would be coming to Trump unsolicitied and would presumably want something in return. Or, as Wonkette further explained:
Paying Fusion GPS -- which it should be noted again is an American company -- and therefore indirectly paying Chris Steele? Legal, because money is going out. Taking things of value from foreigns -- not just our sworn enemies, it's just that Trump likes to hang with America's sworn enemies, because let's be honest the president of the United States is America's sworn enemy? ILLEGAL. And what Russia provided Trump, which Junior clearly thought he was going to get from the Trump Tower treason meeting, but ended up coming through WikiLeaks releases, wasstolen goods.
The only way it could possibly be the same is if Hillary Clinton or the Democrats had hired foreign nationals to commit crimes. You know, like, say, for instance, hacking into their computers to steal their emails. Like Russia did for Trump.
We know Fondacaro and Houck have to forward a pro-Trump agenda as part of their job, but they don't get to lie, no matter how many times theyhave heard their fellow conservatives say the same thing. Isn't is their job to, you know, research things before publishing them?
Pride Month Derangement Syndrome, Linda Harvey Edition Topic: WorldNetDaily
Have you had your fill of “pride” yet?
Corporations, government agencies, online sites, schools. AT&T, Walmart, Kellogg’s, Nationwide, Ikea. I was already on rainbow overload when I opened the mail.
An unmarked letter contained a flyer listing Bible verses ( “Love your neighbor” etc.) followed by, “We’re praying for you!” and signed, “Happy Pride!”
The envelope was full of multi-colored glitter. Which I was providentially able to contain and throw right in the trash.
Whatever god these people pray to while denying the true gospel message about homosexuality provokes no fear in me, nor in any of us who understand the truth. We are witnessing cultural destruction under the arc of these rainbow imposters, yet the original is still the Almighty’s magnificent sky symbol, reminding us of both His mercy and power.
He never intended it to be a jarring logo for proud sin, a signpost for child corruption, or the banner for targeting and harassing faithful Christians.
God destroyed the world once and will again at the end of time. How close is that? Sometimes I wonder.
MRC's Double Standard on The Comedian Defense Topic: Media Research Center
At the Media Research Center, anti-gay humor is cool because it's humor, but Trump-bashing jokes aren't, because it's Trump.
In a June 17 post, Joseph Chalfant gave Steven Crowder the comedian's pass over his homophobic shots at gay journalist Carlos Maza, while complaining about CNN host Poppy Harlow's treatment of the story:
After the interview concluded, Harlow then turned attention to the videos conservative YouTube comedian Steven Crowder and host of Louder With Crowder, made about Vox journalist Carlos Maza:
Guys, YouTube has taken a lot of heat also for these homophobic videos, specifically ones aimed at this Vox journalist, that are still on, even after the new guidelines. I asked him directly, why is that still there, are you going to take them down? They are in the middle of reviewing their guidelines, again meeting with outside groups and they’re considering it, but they don't know at this point. But I mean, if this is fundamental to their business, they have to make a decision about where that line is between hate and free speech.
Crowder, who is, again, a comedian, made jokes at the expense of Maza. Maza, upset that someone would dare make fun of him, then led an attempt to get Crowder de-platformed, but he only succeeded in getting Crowder’s channel demonetized. The fact that Crowder was telling jokes about Maza seemed to be entirely lost on Harlow.
The very next day, however, Kyle Drennen gave no such pass to late-night comedian Seth Meyers, apparently because Trump is a less acceptable comedy target than the LGBT community:
On Tuesday, liberal Late Night host Seth Meyers appeared on NBC’s Today show, where he was greeted with congratulations from the cast for five years of using his show to promote Democrats and bash Republicans. The morning show crew was impressed with Meyers bringing his left-wing “point of view” to the late night landscape – not that politics was lacking in that arena.
Co-host Craig Melvin particularly praised a regular segment featured by Meyers: “Congrats, by the way....Five year anniversary. That’s a big deal....My favorite segment on the show has been A Closer Look....You do it a few times a week and you take sort of this deep dive into an issue that a lot of comedians might stay away from.”
Meyers touted the series, which amounts to nothing more than to a long list of anti-Trump screeds that he has delivered on his show over the years:
[...]
Night after night, Meyers’ liberal audience does receive the latest Democratic Party talking points and a healthy dose of bashing conservatives.
It seems the fact that Meyers was telling jokes about Trump was entirely lost on Drennen.
So, to sum up: 'Trump-bashing screeds" by a non-conservative comedian are a horrible thing at the MRC, while gay-bashing screeds by a conservative comedian are totally cool.
CNS Serves Up 'Liberals Pounce' Frame On Trump Endorsing Foreign Campaign Interference Topic: CNSNews.com
The Media Research Center likes to complain about what it calls the "conservatives pounce" tactic in the "liberal media" -- framing a story around not by what allegedly controversial remarks a person said but, rather, by how others react to it. But apparently it's not so detestable a tactic that the MRC's "news" division won't use it.
CNSNews.com didn't think it was news that President Trump admitted to ABC's George Stephanopoulos that he would listen to a foreign governmnet that claimed it had dirt on his election opponent -- but it was news that he was criticized by the usual suspects for saying it. The first article on the story, by Susan Jones, carried the headline "Liberal Fury, After Trump Says He Might Take Info on His Opponent From 'Foreigners'" and pushed the "liberals pounced" narrative:
Anti-Trump cable news channels and politicians erupted Wednesday night and Thursday morning, after President Donald Trump told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that he just might listen to a foreign government that claimed to have dirt on his opponent.
One House Democrat said it may be time to pass a law requiring political candidates to tell the FBI if they are offered such information from a foreign government.
Then, like a loyal Trump stenographer, Jones suggested -- without evidence to back it up, natch -- that Stephanopoulos had a political motive for asking the question: "In asking Trump those questions, was Stephanopoulos running interference for former Vice President Joe Biden? When Biden emerged as a potential rival to President Trump, various news outlets, including The New York Times, raised questions about Biden, his son Hunter, and their business dealings with Ukraine."
Jones joined with Melanie Arter to do a follow-up "liberals pouned" story headlined "'Disgraceful!' Schumer and Pelosi Blast Trump for His Comments on Foreign Interference," seemingly bothered by the idea that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "said the Democrats are putting forth legislation that requires 'a duty to report' when someone from a foreign entity offers opposition research on another political campaign."
CNS then switched into kneejerk-Trump-defense mode. An article by Arter touted how "House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Thursday called out the Democrats for giving money to a foreign entity to dig up dirt on President Donald Trump and using that false information to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Americans" -- a reference to the Steele dossier, which McCarthy attacked as containing "false accusations" and "lies" and accusing the Democratic National Committee of having made it up. But as a real news operation pointed out, the Steele dossier was never presented as anythingbuty raw, unverified intelligence.Further, the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign did bnot give money to a "foreign entity" for the dossier -- it paid American firm Fusion GPS, which in turn paid former British intelligence officier Christopher Steele to gather information.
Arter added:
“If you or one of your colleagues was approached by a foreign power --” a reporter asked.
“You would say like Adam Schiff? … I think what you’re asking right here is a hypothetical, so let’s go and look at what actually did happen. Adam Schiff got a phone call that he willingly thought was a foreign individual, and he took it. Yet, what action did he take after the fact?” McCarthy said.
Arter failed to mention the action that Schiff did, in fact, take: he called the FBI.
Meanwhile, Jones uncritically repeated "indignant tweets" from Trump that pushed back on liberal outrage over his comments to ABC's George Stephanopoulos:
The president also singled out Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), saying they took information from Russian operatives and didn't call the FBI.
"The fact is that the phony Witch Hunt is a giant scam where Democrats and other really bad people, SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN! They even had an “insurance policy” just in case Crooked Hillary Clinton and the Democrats lost their race for the Presidency! This is the biggest & worst political scandal in the history of the United States of America. Sad!"
Jones didn't mention that both Warner and Schiff went to the FBI after those contacts -- something Trump suggested he might not.
Jones then found her way to the "liberals pounced" narrative, complaining that "Democrats and liberal media operatives condemned Trump harshly and personally, which is a daily occurrence." She followed that up with a defense of Trump from a Republican (Mitch McConnell) and a right-wing media operative (Fox News' Laura Ingraham).
NEW ARTICLE -- Out There, Exhibit 73: Body-Slammed At The MRC Topic: Media Research Center
Mysterious Media Research Center sports blogger Jay Maxson rages against ESPN magazine's "Body Issue" featuring naked athletes -- then dances on the magazine's grave. Read more >>
How Is CNS' Managing Editor Hating Gays Now? Topic: CNSNews.com
Michael W. Chapman, CNSNews.com's LGBT-hating managing editor, has kept up his agenda, with an extra emphasis on portraying them as filthy, disease-ridden degenerates.
As he has before, Chapman had a bit of a sad in the grim duty of reporting that President Trump doesn't hate gays as much as he does, noting in a June 7 article that Trump "applauded gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans in a recent tweet" and that 'his administration has launched an international campaign to "decriminalize homosexuality' worldwide." Chapman's response to that was spend six paragraphs of his article highlighting statistics that "Gay and bisexual men are the population most affected by HIV," including an entire paragraph on the hazards of anal sex.
Chapman did the same thing in a June 27 article highlighting a poll showing that "the percentage of non-gay Americans aged 18-34, who are considered allies of the LGBT community, fell from 63% in 2016 to 45% in 2018. He devoted the final three paragraphs to once again rehashing LGBT health risks, empahasizing that "anal sex is the highest-risk sexual behavior for HIV transmission."
Chapman went on to cheer a Catholic bishop for ordering his parishioners not to attend any Pride Month-related events, calling them "contrary to Church teachings on faith and morals," as well as another Catholic bishop who defended the other bishop by insisting that "that preaching the truth of the Gospel is not homophobic." Chapman added: "Unlike the unitive and generative nature of heterosexual coitus between a married man and woman, homosexual intercourse is non-unitive and non-generative."
Chapman also jumped aboard the MRC corporate bandwagon and denounced the Cartoon Network for failing to hate gays the way he does and for marking Pride Month. Chapman added another editorial comment: "June is celebrated as "Pride Month" in honor of the Stonewall riot in 1968, when gay partiers fought back against the police during a vice raid on the homosexual bar, the Stonewall Inn, which was then owned by the Mafia." Chapman didn't explain the relevance of pointing out who owned the bar.
And, for the heck of it, he touted one of his favorite anti-gay pastors, E.W. Jackson, denouncing "the fact that some U.S. embassies around the world are defying the order of the president to not fly the gay-rainbow flag next to or below the U.S. flag, an act in itself that is blasphemous, he said, and the equivalent of 'shaking your fist in God's face.'"
WND Columnist Tries To Puff Up Trump's Rally Crowd Numbers Topic: WorldNetDaily
Brent Smith gushed in his June 21 WorldNetDaily column:
Trump kicked off his reelection campaign with an oversized rally in Orlando, Florida, this past Tuesday. The Amway Center Arena, with a capacity of around 20,000, was filled to the rafters.
As various news agencies reported, people started lining up outside the facility up to 40 hours in advance. This type of loyalty is only reserved for major rock stars and once in a lifetime movie events. Certainly not for politicians, and most definitely not for second-termers.
But President Trump has been attracting these kinds of crowds for years now, and it appears his popularity has not waned.
[...]
Those thousands who line up for Trump rallies know exactly why they are there – camping out sometimes in the cold, snow or rain. It doesn’t seem to matter and never seems to dampen their spirits. And most times, double or triple the number of people show up than can be accommodated by the arena or other venue.
Except that's not quite true. As a real news outlet reported, while there were people camping in line outside the arena before Trump's event, the arena easily acommodated them, there were some empty seats in the arena when Trump started speaking, and an overflow area was virtually empty.
Smith then attempted a comparison:
Historically, the only way leftists can even hope to fill a venue of any size, or draw any crowds at all, is to pay them. Soros, Media Matters, public/private sector unions, etc., have all paid for crowds to gather. We’ve also seen where, if they’re not paid, sycophantic leftist virtue signalers are told via Twitter or Facebook to just show up at an event, where they are then given instructions as to what to do and say.
[...]
In response to this, leftists love to point to President Obama as a comparison who, back in 2008, packed every arena he booked. But that’s where the similarity between Trump and him ended. As Rush Limbaugh recently pointed out, in 2012 the leftist media had to go out of their way to prevent the television viewer from seeing what pathetic turnout there was during Obama’s reelection bid.
Smith offered no evidence that "Soros, Media Matters, public/private sector unions, etc." had ever paid for an audience? But you know who did? Donald Trump. His campaign paid actors $50 for three hours of work to act like enthusiastsic Trump supporters at his campaign announcement. And while Obama's 2012 campaign kickoff occurred at a less than full arena, by the end of the campaign he was drawing big crowds. He was also outdrawing Mitt Romney.
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Brent Smith gushed in his June 21 WorldNetDaily 
