WorldNetDaily has long embraced the "Clinton body count" -- a list of allegedly suspicious deaths of people even just tangentally related to the Clintons that can purportedly be blamed on the Clintons themselves -- even though it's been long discredited. Heck, WND even put Seth Rich on the "body count" list, darkly suggesting Hillary Clinton herself was complicit in his death. (She wasn't.)

Because a good -- or bad -- conspiracy theory never dies, WND is irresponsible to bring it up again in a June 25 article:

The news that someone who might have incriminating information against Bill Clinton was injured in jail lit up the internet.

Manhattan financier Jeffrey Epstein, who faces charges of molesting underage girls and sex trafficking, was found in his Manhattan jail cell Tuesday in a semi-conscious state with bruising on his neck. Authorities are trying to determine whether the injury was self-inflicted or the result of an assault.

Newsweek reported “tens of thousands of tweets,” mostly from “right-wing conspiracy theorists,” were “reigniting pernicious, false accusations that former President Bill Clinton and wife, one-time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have covered up dozens of murders made to look like suicides.”

At no point does WND act like the responsible news organization it should in order to avoid going out of business and report that the conspiracy theory is discredited. Instead, they fully embrace it:

WND has complied a list of 33 of the “most mysterious deaths.”

They include attorney Shawn Lucas, 38, who helped serve the DNC with a lawsuit claiming then-DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz “rigged the [2016] primary for Hillary Clinton” and days later was found dead in his bathroom. The cause of death wasn’t determined.

Another was former U.N. official John Ashe, founded dead in his New York home. Officials said it was a heart attack, but local police said his throat had been crushed by a barbell.

Another man, an MI6 spy who had illegally hacked secret data on Bill Clinton, was found dead, naked, padlocked and stuffed in a duffel bag in a London hotel bathtub.

Scotland Yard said it was a suicide.

If WND must continue to embrace a bogus conspiracy theory because of its institutional hatred for the Clintons rather than report the "real news" it falsely claims it does, then perhaps it doesn't deserve to live.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:55 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, August 7, 2019 9:13 AM EDT

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It wouldn't be the Media Research Center if it wasn't trying to exploit last weekend's massacre to push its anti-media agenda, and it lives down to that.

When CNN announced it would host a townhall later this week like it did after the Parkland massacre in 2017, the MRC's Nicholas Fondacaro went unhinged -- after all, a big part of the MRC's anti-media narrative is to attack CNN at every possible opportunity. "CNN Announces New Anti-Gun Show Trial, Hosted By Antifa Backer," he sneered in the headline of an Aug. 5 piece. He whined:

The victims of the El Paso and Dayton mass shootings were set to become the next soapbox for CNN to stand on and shout at Second Amendment supporting Americans. On Monday, CNN announced they will host yet another anti-gun town hall on Wednesday to emotionally exploit grieving families. If that wasn’t slimy enough, the town hall was going to be moderated by Prime Time host and Antifa supporter Chris Cuomo.

[...]

The last time CNN hosted one of these town halls, for the school shooting Parkland, Florida, it immediately degenerated into a show trial with “moderator” Jake Tapper sitting back while loudmouth students assailed Republican Senator Marco Rubio (FL) and then-NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch.

Really, Fondacaro was just mad that pro-gun activists like Loesch were in the unusual position of being criticized to their faces. In his post on that townhall, Fondacaro attacked Parkland survivor Cameron Kasky with pejoratives, claiming he "smeared" and "spat" and "browbeat" and "chided" -- seemingly obliviious to the fact that he had just survived a massacre and arguably earned the right to be a tad upset. Fondacaro huffed at the end of his post: "This is CNN. No objectivity. Just a naked ratings grab and gun ban push."

But Fondacaro wasn't done pre-ranting about the upcoming townhall. He then aimed his venom at the moderator, Chris Cuomo:

The other disgusting thing about CNN hosting this new town hall was the fact that the “moderator” was going to be Chris Cuomo. He’s the same CNN host that insisted last year that the left-wing terrorist group known as Antifa was “morally” superior. He also equated the terrorists with the soldiers who stormed the beaches at Normandy in WWII.

“There's a lot of about what-aboutism and spin going on. And it's kind of sickening to me,” Cuomo argued, “But I argue to you tonight, all punches are not equal morally." He would go on to suggest that there was no "moral equivalent" between Antifa and those they were targeting. "And in a clash between hate and those who oppose it, those who oppose it are on the side of right," he proclaimed.

Fondacaro is deliberately taking Cuomo's words out of context to suggest that Cuomo supports recent violent events involving Antifa, which Cuomo has not said he supported (something Fondacaro undoubtedly knows). As the link supplied by Fondacaro shows, Cuomo was speaking about Antifa activists at an alt-right "Unite the Right" rally last year who, the MRC gleefully reported, attacked an NBC reporter covering it. (Funny how the MRC cares only about a journalist's safety when non-conservatives are inciting violence against them.) Weirdly, Fondacaro offered no condemnation at all of the alt-right neo-Nazis who created the rally that Antifa was protesting in the first place -- you know, kind of like the person who perpetrated the El Paso massacre. Does his silence equal approval? You be the judge.

Needless to say, Fondacaro's boss, Brent Bozell, is fully on board with this unhinged hate, puling his own publicity stunt to call the townhall "a partisan political ratings stunt" that will "politicize this tragedy for ratings." As if Bozell isn't going to be all over right-wing media in the next 24 hours screeching these attacks and bashing the townhall afterwards no matter what actually happened during it.

To paraphrase Fondacaro: This is the MRC -- not letting a couple dozen murders get in the way of getting on Fox News to push its anti-media narrative.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:17 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, August 22, 2019 9:20 PM EDT

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CNSNews.com -- as it usually is when someone serves up testimony that might make conservatives or President Trump look bad -- went on the attack when special counsel Robert Mueller testifed before Congress. CNS had already put a pro-Trump spin following the release of his report investigating various Trump-related activities and Mueller's subsequent statement, and it would crank up the bias even higher here.

In the week before Mueller's testimony, CNS gave space to Republican Rep. Devin Nunes twice -- first to promote his never-proven conspiracy theory that Mueller was "back-channeling" with Democrats before the hearings, then later to complain that he will "expect the worst" and repeat the less-than-true claim that the Mueller report showed there was "no collusion" and "no obstruction" on Trump's part and was just "an obstruction of justice trap." (Pro-Trump CNS reporter Susan Jones wrote both of these articles, so fact-checking of Nunes was never going to happen.) Jones also dialed up another Republican congressman to prebut the hearing as "another round of what we already know."

In what passes for balance at CNS, Jones also wrote a preview article on Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler's views on thte hearling -- but she inserted her own attacks and bias, grousing that "Democrats, concerned that Americans have not read the report, believe that having Mueller tell the story on television may galvanize opposition to the president" and weirdly complaining that the hearing came "at the height of summer vacation time." She also uncritically repeated rage from Trump and other Republicans complaining that Mueller would be joined by his chief of staff on the Trump probe.

When it came to the hearling itself, CNS operated on two tracks of bias. The first was portraying Mueller as bumbling or inept -- or, failing that, absolutely clearing Trump -- in these articles:

• Mueller: We ‘Did Not Establish That Members of the Trump Campaign Conspired With the Russian Government’
• Mueller Says He Attended 'Very Few' of the 500 Witness Interviews
• Mueller Incorrectly Says President Bush Appointed Him to Be US Attorney for Massachusetts
• Mueller Did Not Know Strozk [sic] Said FBI Had No Case for Collusion 10 Months into Investigation
• Mueller: ‘I Cannot’ Recall Another Person – Other Than Trump – DOJ Did Not Presume Innocent

CNS also elevated grandstanding Republicans who attacked Mueller in their questioning:

• Gohmert to Mueller: ‘You Perpetuated Injustice’
• Rep. Gaetz to Mueller: ‘You Weren’t Interested in Whether or Not Russians Were Interfering Through Christopher Steele’
• Rep. Stewart: ‘Every Single One’ of 25 Leaks from Mueller’s Office ‘Designed to Weaken or Embarrass President’
• Jim Jordan to Mueller: Report Says Man Who Started This Whole Thing Lied to You – Why Not Charge Him?
• Republican Ratcliffe: It Was Not Mueller's Job to 'Conclusively Determine Donald Trump's Innocence or to Exonerate Him'

How biased was the coverage? CNS did not name any Democratic members of Congress in headlines regarding their questions.

Jones also wrote an article on a congressman identified in the headline only as "Democrat on Judiciary Committee" pushed for concise questions. Jones added: 'Unlike many congressional hearings, where members use their questions to grandstand and show off, Democrats want the focus today to be on Mueller." Of course, CNS rewards such grandstanding when Republicans do it.

After the hearing, CNS devoted three articles to pushing Republican spin about it:

• Message From Republicans: 'It Is Definitely Time to Move On'
• Ratcliffe: 'Democrats Paid a Heavy Price'; Hearing Showed Mueller Was Not in Charge
• Graham: 'People Around Bob Mueller Knew He Was in a Weakened State'

By contrast, CNS published only one article on what Democrats had to say.

And Craig Bannister played clean-up by gushing over how Trump "tweeted a video montage of 'The Media’s Mueller Meltdown'" taken from Fox News.

That's the way CNS' right-wing, pro-Trump bias works.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:15 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, August 6, 2019 4:55 PM EDT

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Stephen Colbert postulated that "reality has a well-known liberal bias." Accuracy in Media's Brian McNicoll seems to be offering up a corollary: If the facts make your side look bad, it's a hit job.

"Strip Club Rents Doral, Setting the Stage For Another Fahrenthold Hit Job" was the headline on McNicoll's July 10 piece. His complaint: The Washington Post's Blake Farenthold wrote a story about a strip club hosting an ostensible charity golf tournament at a Trump-owned course in Florida. McNicoll cited no factual errors in Farenthold's story; instead, he complained that "Fahrenthold stuck to the Trump-bashing angle and seemed not to notice a more troubling aspect of the story."

The "more troubling aspect" is apparently not, according to McNicoll, that a strip club is involved, or even that "the Trump organization has stooped to holding such events because of financial reasons." It's that the beneficiary of the event was to be a youth basketball club, which apparently wasn't all that bothered by the strip-club involvement.

McNicoll didn't bother to update his story to note that the basketball club pulled out of the event and the Trump club subsequently canceled it.

No "hit job" here -- just solid, factual reporting that had consequences. Not that McNicoll will ever admit that fact, of course.

Posted by Terry K. at 7:55 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, August 5, 2019 7:56 PM EDT

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What happens when someone writes abgout something they clearly know nothing about? You get a July 10 NewsBusters post by Matt Norcross:

Most Japanese animation, or “anime,” that comes out is weird, but it can be very fun to watch. Other movies and shows made in this technique, however, may make you want to take a shower once you’re finished watching. The Netflix re-release of the influential 1995 series Neon Genesis Evangelion on June 21 started off as the former, but then turned out to be the latter in one of the most nihilistic shows I've ever seen.

The show focuses on three teenagers struggling with mental illness, Shinji Ikari (Casey Mongillo) with daddy issues, Asuka Langley Soryu (Stephanie McKeon) with depression and mommy issues, and Rei Ayanami (Ryan Bartley) who realizes she’s a God-like being. All three have been tasked by a division of the United Nations (of course the UN is made a hero) called NERV to save the world from monsters (called Angels) with giant robots known as the Evangelion.

It starts off as your standard giant robot cartoon, only with the robots bleeding. But after episode 18 it all goes downhill in terms of content by getting darker and more cynical as it progresses. It’s no wonder many reviewers have compared it to the graphic novel, Watchmen. Episode 19, titled Introjection, actually begins with Shinji threatening to kill everyone at NERV after his estranged father forced him to injure his friend.

But the 26-episode series is nothing compared to the confusing and trippy theatrical movie which serves as the show’s conclusion, The End of Evangelion. That movie has body dismemberments, blood splatter, sexual content (the film actually begins with the young teenage main character masturbating), brief showings of drawings of body dismemberments done by abused children, and ends with Shinji destroying the world by wishing everyone would die.

We at ConWebWatch are anime nerds, and at the risk of sounding like obsessive fanboys (though we are not huge fans of this show), Norcross has completely missed the entire point of "Evangelion." It's a messed-up show in many ways, just not in the way Norcross thinks it is.

The reason there's a lot of "bleeding" is that the Evas are biological in origin, not the giant robots we are led to believe they are at the beginning of the series. Also, Rei is not a "God-like being"; she's the reincarnation of Shinji's mother whose soul is transferred to a different body (several clone bodies are kept in a vat) every time she dies. And while NERV is nominally a U.N. agency, it faces much more influence from a separate organization called SEELE, which has a separate agenda. Reducing Shinji and Asuka to their respective "daddy issues" and "mommy issues" also misses the point; it's in part about the show's creator working thorough his own depression, and in part about what happens when kids with such issues are forced to save the world.

But understanding the story isn't why Norcross hate-watched "Evangelion"; it's to attacking anyone who praises the show. but he has to go far afield to find that, bashing an anime fan magazine for "gushing over the show’s love for the UN and misuse of Christianity." Of course, given that Christianity is a small minority in a Japan that's dominated by Shinto Buddhism, it's misused in anime in general. But Norcross overlooked another line in that same fan magazine article that counters his view of the show:

Still, it’s too easy to read Evangelion as pure nihilism. Yes, Anno created Evangelion while battling depression, and Shinji’s self-hatred, timidity, and frequent refusal to “just pilot the robot” will feel all too familiar to anyone who’s experienced depression. But in the end, all of the robots and the monsters and the allusions to Christianity exist to guide Shinji out of his spiral of self-hatred. In one scene Shinji’s father is described as being “not adept at living,” and it’s a concept that rings out throughout the series. Ultimately, Evangelion is about learning to live, even when things seem utterly bleak. Even at the end of the world.

(This may be the first time that the MRC has painted an anime fan magazine as a purveyor of "liberal bias.")

Again, Norcross has no interest in understanding "Evangelion," concluding his piece by glibly dismissing it as "an ultraviolent Japanese animated cartoon with mentally ill teenagers as heroes" and huffing: "Overall, if you don’t like confusing content, flashing lights (there are a LOT of them throughout the show), bizarre imagery, ultraviolence, glorification of mental illness, and getting depressed, this is definitely not the series for you."

Nor is the series for you if, like Norcross, you have absolutely no interest in spending time understanding why its story is the way it is, or you refuse to break out of your right-wing media bubble to understand even the basics of anime.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:32 PM EDT

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WND appears to have brought back its "WND Staff" byline -- those articles are still anonymously written, but now there's an official anonymous byline for them. It doesn't stop WND's record of fake news, of course. A July 25 "WND Staff" article states:

A clip from an Al Jazeera television interview last year has been unearthed showing Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., claiming America should be afraid of “white men” rather than Islamic jihadis.

Because, after all, it’s white men who are causing most of “the deaths,” said the Muslim freshman congresswoman.

Al Jazeera asked her about fear of Muslim terror attacks such as those at Fort Hood and San Bernardino.

“I would say, uh, uh, our country should be more fearful, um, of, of, white men across our country because they are actually causing most of the deaths within this country,” Omar said. “We should be profiling, monitoring, um, and, uh, and, and, creating policies to fight the radicalization of white men.”

But as an actual news outlet documented, the video WND based its attack article on was didshonestly edited, removing Omar's statement qualifying her statement about being fearful of white men, saying that it applied "if fear was the driving force of policies to keep America safe, Americans safe inside of this country."

The anonymous WND article went on to attack Omar over the essentially accurate statement that white men do commit more terrorist attacks in the U.S. than Muslim extremists (since 9/11, anyway), citing anti-Muslim activist Robert Spencer to spin that the tally "ignored the many, many foiled jihad plots, and the fact that jihadis are part of an international movement that has killed many thousands of people, while right-wingers and white supremacists are not," and that some deaths attributed to white nationalists "were perpetrated by people who were obviously deranged psychopaths devoid of any ideology."

Posted by Terry K. at 1:14 AM EDT

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The Media Research Center had high hopes for the "social media summit" at the White House -- after all, the MRC took part in it. Alexander Hall gushingly previewed the summit in a July 10 post, while also hitting the MRC's narrative that social media discriminates against conservatives:

The Thursday Social Media Summit at the White House will rally supporters of free speech. 

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who plans to attend the summit, has commented that he is “concerned there are people who work at the major technology platforms who want to put their thumb on the scale.” 

“All we want is a fair fight,” said Gaetz. “I guess in a sense if highlighting experiences and instances of bias will result in fewer moderations that present as bias, all the better.”

Hall ignored the fact that social media outlets routinely suck up to conservatives to counter the narrative, which, strangely, doesn't stop the narrative.

Hall weirdly added at the end of his article: "According to The Wall Street Journal, attendees will include high profile free speech advocates like the Media Research Center’s Brent Bozell, Prager U, the Claremont Institute, and more." Hall had to cite a news article to confirm that his own boss was attending? Didn't he know that already?

Meanwhile, the summit itself had little impact. The MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, didn't even bother to cover it, despite its employees taking part in it. doing only a preview article featuring President Trump touting how "Fake News is not as important, or as powerful, as Social Media." How important could the summit have been if its own "news" division didn't consider it to be news? Even the MRC's video site, MRCTV, offered nothing but clips of a couple of speeches at the summit (only one of which disclosed that the MRC took part in it).

Having offered up no coverage of its own, the MRC was left to attack the coverage others did. Alex Christy served up defensiveness about the extreme views of some of the invitees, combined with whataboutism:

On Thursday's MSNBC Live host Ali Velshi was joined by NBC reporter Ben Collins and Syracuse Professor Jennifer Grygiel to talk about the social media summit President Trump had at the White House. Just like conversations on the news media, the liberals insist there is no bias against conservatives in social media. Collins denounced the summit as a a gathering of "disinformation peddlers writ large" and " This isn’t about censorship. This is about building a coalition of dirty tricksters on the internet to get ready for 2020."

The Media Research Center was among the groups invited to the summit, since our TechWatch project exposes bias and censorship in social media. Smearing everyone in the room as a disinformer is....disinformation.

Collins began by stating that nobody at the summit has actually been banned from social media -- which is only true if it means a permanent ban. It doesn't count censorship like Prager U has experienced where they're put in a "restricted" backwater, or count temporary account takedowns (which has happened to people at MRC). He condemned the White House for inviting people such as Jim Hoft to the summit because Hoft is a spreader of false information. Collins declared that "This is the kind of thing that they are trying to protect at the White House going to 2020. This allows them to create innuendo against specific candidates they don’t like, against parties they don't like."

[...]

Trump should not have invited conspiracy peddlers to the White House, but it would be nice if NBC held itself to similar standards on disinformation. MSNBC has employed racial hoaxster Al Sharpton for eight years now. 

Christy then surprisingly admitted that there's no actual evidence conservatives are being systematically discriminated against, then spun this lack of evidence as not being "the point":

Velshi later asked Collins if conservatives have any proof of social media bias. Collins declared that, "No. They don't have data and they will say this." Here Collins misses the point. It is not detailed spreadsheets that are proof of social media bias, but the rules that govern their terms of service that again bring up the age-old problem of what constitutes"hate speech." In a day where everyone that disagrees with the left is deemed this-ist or that-phobic, the rules of the game are inherently slanted against people who diverge from left-wing orthodoxy.

In other words, the narrative is set, it must be adhered to, and the MRC isn't going to let a little thing like lack of evidence get in the way.

Aiden Jackson, meanwhile, was slavishly devoted to the narrative. A Jimmy Kimmel joke about the extremism of the attendees was deemed a "vicious attack" and "nasty rhetoric" against "the silencing of ideas that dissent from social media companies’ liberal worldviews." When Kimmel pointed out that no representatives from social media companies were invited, Jackson huffed: "The truth of the matter is the liberal media are only too happy to censor conservative speech while freely promoting a left-wing agenda and coarsening the public discourse."

Jackson did not, however, mention his colleague's admission that there's no actual evidence to back up the narrative, nor did he disclose that the MRC took part in it.

Hall, meanwhile, returned to claim that the accurate claim that summit participants included conspiracy-obsessed extremists like Hoft was itself a "narrative," effectively denying that anyone there was extreme. Hall praised the work of anonymous troll CarpeDonktum, gushing that "CarpeDonktum has been retweeted by the president multiple times for his cartoonish meme videos which often lionize Trump and or make the media look foolish," and that criticism of him was merely the media's "spiteful way of showing they are still salty over being hilariously parodied." Hall did disclose that "The Media Research Center also attended the summit, as the organization's purpose has been to expose biases among liberally dominated platforms and media."

Ryan Foley whined:

MSNBC host Chris Hayes devoted a two minute-long monologue to trashing President Trump’s social media summit on Thursday’s edition of All In. According to Hayes, “instead of social media companies like Twitter and Facebook, they invited a pack of Trump-supporting, race-baiting conspiracy theorists.” Hayes also described the event as an “ice cream social for trolls.”

For the record, attendees at the event included Lila Rose of the pro-life group Live Action, Senator Marsha Blackburn, Congressman Matt Gaetz; all well-established voices in the conservative movement.

For the full record -- which Foley does not want to acknowledge -- the attendees also included Hoft, notorious hoaxer James O'Keefe (who even the MRC has denounced), extremist Bill Mitchell. Far-right cartoonist Ben Garrison had also been invited to the summit, but was disinvited after someone realized that someone who trafficked in anti-Semitic tropes wouldn't help things -- something unmentioned in any of the MRC's defense of the summit's participants.

Foley also repeated Rose's suggestion that Pinterest shut down Live Action's account because it shared "pro-llife content"; in fact, it was because Live Action used the account to push health misinformation.

It also included the MRC's Christian Robey and Ed Molchany -- which, curiously, no MRC post on the summit identified as attending. In other words, Hall cited fake news in his preview post, which he could have easily corrected by asking around the office.

The MRC's resident New York Times basher, Clay Waters, complained about the Times' story on the summit because it accurately described many of the attendees as "right-wing trolls," which Waters euphemistically insisted were just "conservative social media activists." Waters also whined that the reporter failed to adhere to the right-wing narrative because he "didn’t question whether conservative accounts are being banned, suppressed, or otherwise treated unfairly by the liberal-dominated social media platforms."

P.J. Gladnick went full whataboutism in a post that responded to Vox pointing out that the summit disproved itself by getting a lot of social coverage by ... devoting half his post to attacking Vox writer Carlos Maza for prompting YouTube's "demonetizing not only Steven Crowder's YouTube channel but many other conservative-oriented channels as well." Gladnick didn't mention Crowder's homophobic attacks on Maza, which forced Maza to take action. (Remember, the MRC thinks Crowder's nasty attacks on Maza are totally cool because he's allegedly a comedian.)

Even chief MRC partisan snarker Tim Graham weighed in with an Aug. 4 post cheering that Playboy reporter Brian Karem had his White House press pass suspended for "his behavior at Trump's social media summit on July 11, where he verbally attacked Trump's conservative guests:"This is a group of people that are eager for demonic possession." He snarkily added: "Two executives of the Media Research Center attended, and neither needed an exorcism." Weirdly, Graham didn't identify who those "executives" were so we could judge the state of their souls for ourselves.

Yet for all these complaints about the coverage of others, the MRC offered up none of its own to hold up as a "fair and balanced" view of it. Which, arguably, gave it little basis on which to complain.

Posted by Terry K. at 3:16 PM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, August 17, 2021 11:01 PM EDT

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An anonymously written July 16 CNSNews.com article reads:

The resolution that has been proposed in the House of Representatives to condemn President Donald Trump for racism holds up two slave-owning Founding Fathers as philosophical role models whose understanding of America should be emulated.

The first paragraph of the resolution states:

“Whereas the Founders conceived America as a haven of refuge for people fleeing from religious and political persecution, and Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison all emphasized that the Nation gained as it attracted new people in search of freedom and livelihood for their families;

[...]

As reported by the Encyclopedia Britannica, both Madison and Jefferson owned slaves while Hamilton did not.

A report on “Slaveholding Presidents” by Gleaves Whitney for the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies indicates that Jefferson owned “about 200” slaves and Madison owned “more than 100.”

That's a curious attack, given that CNS in the past has sought to deflect from criticism of Jefferson's slaveholding.

For instance, CNS published a July 2017 syndicated column by Walter E. Williams criticizing attempts to "rewrit[e] American history" by taking a more critical view of slavery: Slavery is an undeniable fact of our history. The costly war fought to end it is also a part of the nation's history. Neither will go away through cultural cleansing. ... Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and there's a monument that bears his name — the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. George Washington also owned slaves, and there's a monument to him, as well — the Washington Monument in Washington. Will the people who call for removal of statues in New Orleans and Richmond also call for the removal of the Washington, D.C., monuments honoring slaveholders Jefferson and Washington?"

Williams similarly complained in an October 2017 column published by CNS, calling attacks on Jefferson an evil liberal plot: "What goes unappreciated is just why America's leftists' movement attacks the Founders. If they can delegitimize the Founders themselves, it goes a long way toward their agenda of delegitimizing the founding principles of our nation. If the leftists can convince the nation that men such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were good-for-nothing slave-owning racists, then their ideas can be more easily trashed. We find the greatest assaults on our founding documents on the nation's college campuses."

A June 2017 column by the Heritage Foundation's Jarrett Stepman complained about the "savage attacks" against Jefferson over his slaveholding "show how little distinction is made between various politically incorrect historical targets out of step with the milieu of the time." And in August 2017, CNS eagerly touted the views of close personal friend and right-wing radio host Mark Levin that removing statues of Jefferson over slavery would cause the country to "be divided in ways that I’ve never even contemplated."

But because a Democratic-led resolution invokes Jefferson, CNS must now suddenly reject its previous rhetoric and denounce Jefferson as a slaveholder. Way to own the libs, CNS!

Posted by Terry K. at 11:27 AM EDT

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Jay Maxson, the Media Research Center's mysterious sports blogger, absolutely hates the U.S. women's soccer team in general, and star player Megan Rapinoe in particular, for being too gay -- which is to say being gay at all, not a surprise given Maxson's anti-gay activism. Now he's serving up perhaps the most bizarre attack on Rapinoe he could conjure. In a July 29 post, Maxson complains that because Rapinoe says she didn't fell bullied by President Trump's tweets attacking her, Trump thus could not have been trying to bully her:

The truth is coming out. Soccer firebrand Megan Rapinoe is not the poor little victim of presidential bullying that her media enablers have been making her out to be. In a Vox Recode interview with Kara Swisher (in photo) she goes to the extreme of claiming membership in the "Squad" as a victim of President Trump's bullying. Trying to have it both ways, Rapinoe tells Swisher that Trump's tweets made her famous and spurred Team USA onto World Cup victory.

Rapinoe is a Colin Kaepernick-inspired social justice warrior who said this spring she refuses to honor America during the playing of the national anthem as a ''big F-you" to President Donald Trump. During the World Cup, she told a reporter she would not go to the "fucking White House" if the U.S. won the championship. Trump responded on Twitter that she should win first before talking White House, then invited the team win or lose. To many in the media, Trump was the villain, Rapinoe the damsel in distress.

Of course, whether Rapinoe ultimnately felt bullied is irrelevant to the apparent intentions of Trump in attacking her.

Obsessing again over Rapinoe's sexuality and triggered by Colin Kaepernick Derangement Sydrome, Maxson went on to huff that  "Rapinoe the role model indicates her inspirations are Kaepernick and wine. And her significant other, WNBA player Sue Bird, whose virtues were extolled by CNN's commie Van Jones," adding further freakout-level annoyance at a writer who noted that "This power couple has surpassed Ellen DeGeneres and her partner."

Anti-gay freakouts, sadly, are very much on-brand for Maxson and the MRC.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:54 AM EDT

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Even as WorldNetDaily continues to flounder financially, managing editor David Kupelian is sticking with the conspiracy theories. He wrote in a July 25 letter to WND's mailing list:

Dear WND Reader,

What I am about to tell you is an objective fact.

Google not only censors WorldNetDaily (WND.com). It goes further to filter us out of their search results so no one can find us unless they specifically search using our name.

But don't take my word for it.

After you finish reading this quick message and perhaps helping us with a contribution today so WND can continue publishing news and commentary for our many conservative readers free of charge, go to Google and search some of these topics:

"Christian news media" – even though WND is the oldest online journalism organization in America and still one of the most popular, and at the same time is the largest Christian website on the internet, WND isn't mentioned once in the top 100 results.

"Conservative news media" – no results of WND, but plenty for liberal news sites like Politico. . . The Washington Post. . . The Huffington Post. . . and the ultra-radical left Daily Kos.

"Idiot" – President Donald Trump appears as the third result in the search and appears dozens of times in page after page of search results.

"Racist" – All Trump All Day Every Day!

And if you specifically search for "WND" or WorldNetDaily, the results return not only links to our website, Twitter feed, Facebook page, etc., but they also include lots of links from WND-hating anti-Christian publications like the Washington Post, Media Matters for America, Salon, and The Huffington Post...

...Organizations that smear WND in their stories and take pleasure in knowing that we are struggling to stay alive financially now that Google and Facebook have dried up virtually all of our advertising revenue.

What Kupelian ignores is another objective, if inconvenient, fact: WND is not a reliable and accurate news source, and Google searches prioritize reputable and credible news sources.

WND has long published fake news and conspiracy theories, and it still has yet to apologize to Seth Rich's family for its promotion of fake news and conspiracy theories about his death, even as it's been demonstrated to have received a huge boost from Russian meddling. Even as WND has continued to financially flounder, it has remained dedicated to pushing conspiracy theories and anti-vaxxer misinformation.

As we've come to expect, such conspiratorial rants are accompanied by pleas for money, and Kupelian did not deviate from the pattern: "Your gift will allow WND to deliver the news to our readers across the country free of charge, and also maintain our status as our nation's original pioneering online news source for fair, accurate, courageous and insightful "real news" reporting, delivered to millions of pro-Constitution, pro- American, pro-Christian readers like you every day."

WND's fake news is not "real news." Its track record is well established, and it doesn't involve fairness or accuracy. A true Christian "news" operation does not behave the WND does. Kupelian smearing WND's critics as "anti-Christian" is desperate and, like a lot of WND pushes, counterfactual; he can't be bothered to actually prove anything the critics have said to be wrong (and has never done so to us for the 19 years we've been monitoring WND).

Kupelian, quite simply, has yet to prove that WND deserves to live.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:22 AM EDT

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The Media Research Center hates journalism so much, it get triggered if a journalist receives an award.

In a July 10 post, Randy Hall dumped on NBC's Lester holt over an award

Even though many individuals in the “mainstream media” get annoyed when they’re accused of producing “fake news” and are called “the enemy of the people” by President Trump, their fellow liberals have no problem showering them with praise and honors for their “caring, fact-based journalism.”

The latest person to benefit from this practice is Lester Holt, anchor for the weekday NBC Nightly News program, who is set to receive the 2019 Walter Cronkite School Award for Excellence in Journalism at Arizona State University in Phoenix on November 4, the late newsman’s birthday.

[...]

A study by the Media Research Center’s Rich Noyes found that the Democratic debates, which Holt co-hosted, were essentially a two-night donation to liberal goals. Noyes wrote, “A Media Research Center analysis finds 70 of the 102 distinct questions at the two debates echoed liberal talking points or were framed around a liberal world view, vs. only 13 that challenged liberal/Democratic assumptions.” 

Holt’s Nightly News has also started a series called “ My Big Idea.” Essentially, it’s Democrats getting softball questions about whatever far-left agenda they want to put in place.

We can only hope that the graduates will be more “insightful” and “fact-based” than the NBC newsman getting this year’s award.

As we've documented, the MRC's tally of "liberal" questions is biased and meaningless because no methodology is shown as to how it assigned ideology to questions.

This was followed five days later by a little hyperventilating by Kyle Drennen, under the not-biased-at-all headlline "NBC’s Andrea Mitchell Getting Award for Lifetime of Bias":

On Monday, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences announced that longtime liberal NBC News journalist Andrea Mitchell would be receiving a lifetime achievement award during the News & Documentary Emmys in September.

In a statement announcing the decision, Academy president and CEO Adam Sharp hailed: “Andrea Mitchell's groundbreaking career has earned the respect of journalists around the world who aspire to match her standard of excellence. She is an icon.” He particularly applauded her for “building esteem and trust with colleagues, world leaders, and most importantly, the viewers she informs.”

[...]

A write-up on NBCNews.com touted past liberal media winners of the honor: “The award’s previous recipients include media mogul Ted Turner, television personality Larry King, veteran broadcast journalist Barbara Walters, and former ‘Nightline’ anchor Ted Koppel.”

Given Mitchell’s long track record of biased reporting, she’ll fit right in with that group.

Drennen then stated that "When Mitchell marked 35 years at the network in 2013, the Media Research Center compiled an extensive look back at some of her most partisan promotions of liberals and nastiest attacks on conservatives." It should go without saying that a few dozen short, out-of-context excerpts of reporting and commentary cherry-picked from a 35-year career is evidence of nothing beyond the MRC pushing its anti-media narrative.

This is how petty the MRC is -- that merely being given an award is just another excuse to unload its partisan attacks.

Going back a little earlier, Gabriel Hays was severely triggered in May by CNN's Don Lemon receiving an award from GLAAD:

Following the GLAAD Media L.A. awards show in March, the gay entertainment lobby hosted another evening in New York City to ensure that several other of the culture’s most putrid influencers wouldn’t go without their LGBTQ advocacy trophies.

Hosted by drag queen Shangela, the New York event awarded entertainers and “news” people for their work in flattering LGBTQ sensibilities. Award recipients included Samantha Bee, Madonna, and CNN host Don Lemon.

[...]

CNN host Don Lemon was awarded with “Outstanding Journalism Segment” for his reporting on “Same Sex Couple Reacts to Supreme Court Ruling.” If you recall, this was the infamous case where the Christian baker was demonized for declining to bake a cake for a gay wedding. Though SCOTUS ruled in favor of the baker, progressive media, including Lemon, took the side of the LGBTQ victims, the gay couple who cried, “Homophobia!” Lemon adds this bauble for helping slime the business owner to his trophy case full of GLAAD awards.

Hays didn't even bother to examine the content of the Lemon segment -- he attacked him simply for reporting on it because persecuted anti-gay Christians is a narrative right-wingers -- and, thus, the MRC -- must perpetuate.

In April, Kristine Marsh caught a case of Acosta Derangement Syndrome that's flowing through the MRC headquarters, having a meltdown over the "obnoxious" Jim Acosta receiving an awardfor the "unprofessional behavior" of standing up to the journalism-hating occupants of the White House.

Marsh then accused Acosta of "bullying, over-inflated ego, and petty meltdowns," apparently unaware that those words can also be used to describe her and the MRC's nasty, petty war against Acosta for refusing to be a pro-Trump shill (like the MRC itself).

Posted by Terry K. at 3:04 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, August 15, 2019 9:53 PM EDT

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CNSNews.com reporter Susan Jones has ably demonstrated her ability to turn "news" articles into partisan attacks or right-wing cheerleading. She did the latter once again in a July 18 article that she effectively turns into a press release for a declared Republican opponent to Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Under the gushy, servile headline "Meet the Candidate Who Will Challenge AOC..." Jones plays stenographer after said candidate's Fox News appearance:

Scherie Murray, a New York Republican, has just announced her intention to run for the congressional seat now occupied by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

In her first television interview, Murray told Fox News's Sean Hannity she believes that AOC, caught up in the "limelight," has neglected issues of importance to New York's 14th congressional district:

Jones uncritically repeated Murray's claim that Ocasio-Cortez "went on to kill the Amazon deal in New York, which would have put some 25,000 jobs in Queens" -- in fact, numerous other New York politicians joined her in opposing the massive incentives that were trying to lure the company to New York.

Instead of fact-checking, Jones was too busy quoting Murray spout the typical right-wing narrative:

Murray also took her campaign to Twitter on Wednesday, writing:

There’s a crisis in Queens and it’s called AOC. She isn’t worried about us - she’s worried about being famous. That’s why I’m running for Congress.

Murray also tweeted:

I‘m a Jamaican immigrant. And I love America. Not the America radical socialists want to see, but the America that is a land of opportunity for all. That’s what I’m fighting for.

In contrast to Jones' loyal stenography, other right-wing sites aren't nearly as excited about Murray. The Washington Examiner, for example, points out that Murray's campaign is doomed given that "no Republican congressional candidate has cracked more than 21.6% of the vote this century" in the district and, more distressingly, theres "far more compelling evidence that Murray is not actually conservative" in the form of (gasp!) Murray congratulating Ocasio-Cortez on her eleciton. And the New York Post noted that Murray voted for Barack Obama for president and, perhaps more importantly, doesn't even live in the district. Oh, and there are four other Republicans running for the nomination, which Jones didn't even mention.

Of course, Jones wasn't being paid to fully and accurately report on Murray -- it was her job to give Murray a platform to attack Ocasio-Cortez, which CNS has been doing for months.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:32 AM EDT

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The Media Research Center's Corinne Weaver misleadingly rants in a July 16 post:

Google users can’t buy and sell guns on the platform. But they can buy and sell violent propaganda from the dangerous street thugs known as “Antifa.” 

Fox News reported that an armed member of Antifa, specifically, the Puget Sound John Brown Club,  threw “fire bombs” on July 15 at an immigration center in Tacoma, Washington. Willem von Spronsen opened fire on police officers and shot “several times,” and was shot down by the officers. 

Disturbingly, the search query “antifa bomber” results in merchandise geared toward the violent far-left movement. Among the hats and flags marked with the international Antifa symbol, a bag and a phone case were being sold with the product description, “Riot Fuck Cops Tattoo Freedom Antifa Hooligan Nato Bombing Acab Blood Hardcore.” 

Simply type in the word “antifa” in the search bar, and the first result is a T-shirt with the description, “LeftFist John Brown LEFTISTS Own Guns Too Shirt | Socialist Rifle Gun Club Communist Anarchist Antifa AntiFascist.” 

Google also sells, under the same search result, a T-shirt that has a guillotine on it. The product description states: “LeftFist Guillotine Shirt | Eat The Rich, anticapitalist, Antifa AntiFascist Action T-Shirt Tee Shirt Leftist Leftism Marxist Socialist Communist.

In addition, under the search results for the query, “milkshake antifa,” Google provides T-shirts and hats with the labels, “Auntie Fa’s finest milkshakes,” “join the milkshake revolution,” or a hand-stitched embroidered item with a molotov cocktail.

Weaver is falsely claiming that Google "sells" or "provides" these items. It does not. For instance, the link she provides for the "LeftFist" item goes to someone's Etsy shop, not to Google, while the "Riot" link goes to a store called Tops Tee -- again, not Google.

This is all under the headline "Google Shopping Sells Antifa ‘Riot F**k Cops’ Merchandise." To repeat: Google "sells" none of this, nor does it play any role in providing these goods that offend Weaver so much -- it provides links to them sold at other places that show up in Google searches.

Weaver also seems to have failed to see if Google "sells" similar far-right-friendly goods, so she could offer a balanced view of the issue instead of a partisan hit piece.

Either this is very sloppy and badly edited writing, or Weaver doesn't know how tech works, despite her job being "staff writer for MRC TechWatch."

Posted by Terry K. at 8:57 PM EDT

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CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey continues to have a problem singling out President Trump and the Republicans who run much of the government for the current deficit-laden state of the federal government.

Jeffrey laments in a July 11 article:

The federal government spent a record $3,355,970,000,000 in the first nine months of fiscal 2019 (October through June), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today.

Prior to this fiscal year, the most the federal government had ever spent in the October-through-June period was in fiscal 2018, when the Treasury doled out $3,199,795,700,000 in constant June 2019 dollars. Before last year, the most the federal government had ever spent in the first nine months of the fiscal year was in fiscal 2009, when it spent $3,176,577,910,000.

Fiscal 2009 was the year that President George W. Bush signed the Troubled Asset Relief Program legislation to bailout failing banks and President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, his economic stimulus plan.

While Jeffrey name-checked Bush and Obama, at no point do the words "Trump" or "Republican" -- you know, the folks currently in charge of the federal government -- appear in his article. As he has before, he has included a caption-free stock photo of Trump with Nancy Pelosi in an implicit attempt to make her partially culpable for these deficits, even though she heads only one-half of one branch of government.

So determined is Jeffrey to push blame onto Pelosi, in fact, that all the Trump-Pelosi stock photos he has used thus far appear to come from the same undated event of them walking down steps to a waiting limo, since Pelosi appears to be wearing the same outfit in all of them.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:22 AM EDT

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