Irony: MRC's Graham Complains About Another Group's Finding Of Media Bias
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center really does seem to believe that it's the only one capable of detecting "media bias," even though it bias detector is so incredibly skewed. Thus, we have a June 19 post from Tim Graham ranting that abortion rights activists find media coverage of abortion to be rather skewed. Graham unironically complained:

In our experience, the “objective” media tilt dramatically in favor or abortion advocates. But amazingly, it’s not biased enough for them. NARAL Pro-Choice America released a “media analysis,” a "deep dive" this week on the way journalists cover abortion. They hired the Global Strategy Group, a Democratic polling and PR firm, to do the study. 

So a Republican, pro-Trump organizaiton like the MRC is the only "experience" about media bias that should be trusted?

Graham linked only to the press release about the NARAL report, not the actual report itself, so it's unclear how closely he actually read the thing.

Graham's general response to the NARAL study is to attack it for complaining that the abortion debate is framed in right-wing-friendly terms and to bash the women who seek abortion and the doctors who carry them out. A sample:

“Abortion is covered as a political issue, not a health issue.” That’s because it IS a political issue! Their introduction to this report actually screams “the right to abortion has never been more at risk.” But this complaint keeps coming...

“Political coverage elevates political voices and excludes those most impacted by abortion: doctors and those who seek abortion care.” They complain that politicians are quoted in political stories, when they want sensitive profiles of women who really needed to exercise their “right to choose” and the doctors who relieve them of their “burdens.”   

[...]

“Reporters characterize the abortion debate as divisive, furthering the perception of profound conflict on the issue.” They complained “around 17 percent of the articles described abortion as “divisive, debatable, charged, controversial, or other similar terms.” Abortion kills an unborn human being. They want it to be covered like pimple removal. 

This leads to the real gem:

“Charged rhetoric from anti-abortion advocates are included in coverage, often with minimal context.” Nearly half of all articles included "anti-choice" terms NARAL would deem unworthy of inclusion, including “infanticide,” “partial-birth abortion,” and “heartbeat bill.” They fussed that only four articles alluded to the notion that a “fetal heartbeat” isn’t a heartbeat, but electric pulses in a forming heart. It’s “fetal cardiac activity.” Weasel words.

Graham even ranted about the study's methodology: "How flawed is it? Start with how they read the media: “A random sample of more than 300 abortion-related articles were elected for study across ten major news outlets...from January through June of 2019.” It would be much more accurate to pick just one media outlet and read every article." This is from the organization that selectively examines only "explicitly evaluative statements" from a tiny sliver of the media and proclaims that to be a sweeping indictment of "liberal media bias," so maybe Graham isn't the best judge of how to conduct a study.

WND Columnists Serve Up Rioting Conspiracy Theories
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Lowell Ponte wrote in his June 4 WorldNetDaily column:

Co-mingled with law-abiding protesters in the wake of George Floyd's murder by one rogue Minneapolis policeman, instigators are causing massive violence.

Who are these mostly-white masked men dressed in black, and why are they attacking and killing police, looting and torching black-owned stores, and spreading terror?

This is Antifa, whose name ironically means "anti-fascist." This terrorist coalition arose in Europe to fight Adolf Hitler – not to save democracy or freedom, but because – then as today – these Marxists want Stalinist-style Communist totalitarianism to dominate the world.

Their aim, says their Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement, is to "destroy the state, police, military, corporations and all those who run the American plantation … by any means necessary."

"In a crowd you can pick [these professional instigators] out," says Lara Logan, veteran investigative reporter formerly with CBS.

But as we now know, there's virtually no evidence Antifa has been involved in the unrest -- in fact, there's more evidence that right-wing extremists are fomenting violence. And given that Logan has fallen for numerous Antifa-related hoaxes, she's hardly an authoritative source on the issue.

Ponte went on to accuse right-wing bogeyman George Soros of having ties to Antifa, citing the research of Matthew Vadum of the Capital Reserarch Center, a guy who onced accused up of inciting civil unrest for fact-checking him.

Barbara Simpson repeated the false Antifa claim in her column the next day in the midst of ranting about other conspiracy theories:

There has been a tsunami of hate directed at the police, the military, all white people and, of course, President Trump. Add to that the people who have established and grown successful businesses. The looting of businesses and destruction of their premises is a clear indication that there was intent to loot and destroy and it had nothing to do with George Floyd. His death was a good excuse to unleash the devastation. 

It was a directed and planned attack on all that makes this a free country. It is no accident that the attacks were coordinated across the country in so many states – and in Europe, of all places. Rioting in Europe over this death? That isn't an accident.

Many of the people involved in the rioting were not residents of the states where they did their damage. Who coordinated that, who were they, why were they there, and who paid for it all? They were equipped with clothing and radios and weapons. None of that is free. No matter how you look at it, it was a planned and coordinated attack on the United States. Any American who does not see that is a fool.

[...]

We have been attacked by anarchists – people who want to create disorder and revolt against the established laws. We have seen up close and personal, as they say, exactly what that means, and it isn't pretty. They have an intent to bring us down, and we must not allow that to happen.

[...]

The bottom line is that the movement behind all this is Antifa and the monied people funding them. Their goal is to destroy all things American, but it can only happen if we allow it. The Democrats' attacks on Donald Trump are part of the plan because they feel if they prevent Trump from being reelected, they will have control of the country – on their terms.

Think about it.

We did, Barbara, and we know you're just fearmongering.

W. Scott Magill -- who we caught advancing coronavirus conspiracy theories at WND -- tried to do the same for the unrest in his June 12 WND column, hitting the usual conspiratorial name-checks of the last decade or so:

What we have been watching the last few weeks is not merely protests or even riots. Rather, it is the continuing Revolution to utterly overthrow America and permanently suspend our Constitution by the Domestic Enemy. As explained by '60s domestic terrorist and Obama booster Bill Ayers, "Always remember the issue is never about the issue; the issue is always about the Revolution." Like Ayers, both Antifa and Black Lives Matter are firmly rooted in the Communist Party with reported ties to anti-American socialist billionaire George Soros.

Do not be hornswoggled into believing this is about George Floyd, or "words that work" such as "systemic racism," "police racism," or "police brutality." America is the least racist nation on earth. Those racist terms were first listed in Ayers' book, "Prairie Fire Manifesto," (dedicated to Sirhan Sirhan) and the "Black Panther 10 point plan," as "words that work" to be weaponized by the left. The wrongful and indefensible death of George Floyd has provided the operatives on the left, less interested in justice than revolution, the hoped-for trigger to fire off a well-engineered and organized domestic battle plan against America and its current top defender, President Trump. Only through such distractions can our domestic enemies finally achieve their Maoist-Marxist "Long march through the institution" – a 125-year march that, if successful, will kill the "last best hope for mankind on earth" and replace it with a new dark age for humanity of absolute tyranny under the rule of despots.

[...]

We are witnessing the coming to fruition of Bill Ayers' "Prairie Fire Manifesto" and the "Black Panther 10 point plan." Conjointly, they have converted "words that work" from weapons on the invisible battlefield of ideas into weapons used within the unconcealed Revolution against the American culture.

When in doubt, invoke Bill Ayers and George Soros. it's the WND way.

MRC's Kaepernick Derangement Syndrome, George Floyd Edition
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has always despised Colin Kaepernick. Now that his kneeling protests against police brutality have proven prescient in the wake of the police-custody death of George Floyd, the MRC will absolutely not give him credit.

The MRC's chief Kaepernick-hater, the mysterious Jay Maxson, asserted on May 30 that Kaepernick was "blatantly defending the riots and the arson"; in fact, all he did was tweet (which Maxson called "damning") that "when civility leads to death, revolting is the only reaction."

Maxson whined on June 4 about the sportswriters pointing out Kaepernick's prescience: "With multiple stories dedicated to social justice, Colin Kaepernick, racist team nicknames, anti-police hit pieces and the like, this left-stream publication's sports page is nothing more than a politicized, left-wing gripe publication."

In a June 4 post, Alexander Hall complained that Twitter's donation of $3 million to a Kaepernick-run "activist fund" was evidence of how "Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has gone out of his way to alienate himself from conservatives in the name of social justice" and his "his far-left plunge into identity-driven politics." Hall did not explain how the fund's stated purpose of "advanc[ing] the liberation and well-being of Black and Brown communities through education, self-empowerment, mass-mobilization and the creation of new systems that elevate the next generation of change leaders" was a "far-left" initiative.

Maxson returned to grouse on June 6: "NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on Friday issued a video statement apologizing for the league's refusal to listen to players protests of police brutality. USA Today called it an exoneration of Colin Kaepernick's pathetic behavior in 2016 and demands he be signed by an NFL team. Deadspin says the commissioner didn't go nearly far enough and should have issued a lengthy apology to Kaepernick."

Jonas Wells then offered right-wing revisionism of Kaepernick's activism:

The problem with Kaepernick was never that he thought police brutality was bad. It was not even that he was unwilling to stand for the National Anthem (although it is easy to see how many would take offense to that, and his avenue of protest could be improved.) The real problem was an assertion that he gave in an interview after he first knelt, "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color."

First, he would have a legitimate cause if the problem was truly racial. But the numbers just do not pan out that way. 

Secondly, by saying this, Kaepernick essentially claimed that the collective is at fault for racist acts of individuals. And from a historical perspective, he also makes a subliminal assertion that everyone must now pay penance for the sins of their ancestors.

Maxson branded Kaepernick an "America hater," then ranted against Kaepernick's new prominence:

Colin Kaepernick spewed volumes of hate and anger with his knee during the 2016 NFL season, and the America hater is about to rev up the volume on his rhetoric through a San Francisco publishing company. Kaepernick will join Medium's board of directors in addition to writing about race and civil rights.

Bloomberg reported Thursday that Kaepernick, for five seasons a quarterback with the San Francisco 49ers until he left the team in the spring of 2017, is linking his personal publishing label with the blogging and essay platform Medium and joining its board. Kaepernick's radical politics since the start of the 2016 NFL season turned off many football fans, and teams have avoided him like the plague.

Maxson also gave play to right-wing sportswriter Jason Whitlock's unsupported claim that there was no conspiracy among NFL owners to keep Kaepernick from continuing to play in the NFL, insisting that was because of his own "boneheaded decisions, overvaluing of his worth, race-baiting girlfriend and lack of genuine desire to play kept him out of the NFL."

Maxson further complained about one sport's columnist effort to reacquint fans with Kaepernick's football prowess so a team would hire him,muttering about the quarterback's allegedly "badly tarnished off-the-field public image."

Matt Philbin sneered that legendary NFL quarterback Brett Favre apparently "took a couple too many shots to the head for saying that Kaepernick could be considered a hero, adding: "Colin Kaepernick is an anti-American jackass who walked away from a contract with the 49ers and has been trying to get back into the NFL ever since. He’s been unsuccessful because teams understand that most paying football fans are patriotic Americans who don’t don’t like seeing a millionaire athlete disrespect the nation that gave him everything."

CNS Still Promotes Candace Owens, Still Censoring Her Extremism
Topic: CNSNews.com

We've documented how CNSNews.com has become enthralled with right-wing activist Candace Owens, promoting her declarations while whitewashing or hiding completely her more extreme claims, even falsely crediting her with creating the so-called "Blexit" movement to encorage Blacks to become Republicans. That enthrallment has continued this year as well -- including her claim that Hitler would have been OK if he didn't have "dreams outside of Germany."

CNS -- mostly blogger Craig Bannister -- has remained a dutiful stenographer for Owens' pronouncements this year as well:

• Candace Owens: ‘The Left Is Becoming a Doomsday Cult’
• Candace Owens: Either Mandate COVID-19 Testing or ‘Stop Wasting Our Time,’ ‘Let Americans Get Back to Work’
• Candace Owens to AOC: ‘You’re a Racist, Radical Communist…Using Plight of Minorities to Fulfill Your Sick and Twisted Goals’
• Candace Owens: ‘Every 4 Years the Black Community Takes the Media Bait'
• Candace Owens: ‘Best Video on the Internet’ Is a Black Patriot ‘Not Falling for the Media’s Narrative’
• Candace Owens: #BLM Movement ‘Is About Black Anarchy – And, I Will Never Bend a Knee to That’
• Candace Owens: CEOs Should ‘Grow a Spine,’ Stop Caving to Radicals’ Extortion and ‘Playing by the Left’s Rules’

While CNS was touting Owens' right-wing-friendly declarations, it was censoring her controversies:

• After the death of black jogger Ahmaud Aarbery at the hands of white vigilantes, Owens suggested he had it coming because he was "caught on camera breaking into an unfinished property ... Avid joggers don’t wear khaki shorts & stop to break into homes."
• Owens ranted that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, was a "dicator" for locking down much of the state to try and prevent the spread of coronavirus.This got her briefly suspended from Twitter (which made CNS' cohorts at the Media Research Center very unhappy).
• Owens also declared she would not get a possible coronavirus vaccine -- while fearmongering about other vaccines -- and will refuse to wear a mask to help prevent coronavirus spread.
• She advanced more coronavirus conspiracies, claiming that the death toll from the virus was being inflated for "financiai incentive."

Owens is a liar, conspiracy-monger and grifter, yet CNS continues to give her a platform.

MRC Complains That Media Treated Trump's Candidacy As A Joke, Censors That It Did Too
Topic: Media Research Center

A June 16 Media Research Center post by Rich Noyes carried the headline "Five Years Ago, Media Mocked Trump’s Announcement as a Joke" and complained: "Five years ago today, when billionaire businessman Donald Trump announced his presidential campaign on June 16, 2015, the savants in the news media weren’t just skeptical — they were openly disdainful of the man who would go on to win the Republican nomination and the presidency."

You know who else was openly disdainful of Trump's presidential run? The MRC.

As we documented, the MRC so dismissed Trump's chances that it ignored Trump's complaints of media bias against him (though they were against Fox News, which is a sacred cow at the MRC). MRC chief Brent Bozell so opposed Trump's candidacy -- his preferred candidate was Ted Cruz -- that he penned an article for National Review declaring that Trump does not "walk with" conservatives, and his MRC was complaining that media coverage of Trump insufficiently covered his Trump University scam.

But Trump kept winning, and the MRC eventually flip-flopped to become an aggressive Trump defender, excusing his every action no matter how offensive.

This happened even as Trump apparently lied about Bozell himself. In his 2019 book with Tim Graham, "Unmasked," he claimed that a Trump tweet after the Bozell piece came out said that Bozell had previously "came to my office begging for money like a dog" when he did not ask for money during the visit (though Trump had donated to the MRC anyway). But it's also a sign of how Trump has co-opted Bozell that he handwaved the lie as "just another day at the office for Trump."

Bozell also admitted the transactional nature of his (and the MRC's) relationship with by stating of his National Review denunciation: "I stand by what I wrote, without apologies. It was true. It is also true that since taking the oath of office President Trump has walked with conservativces as well as Ronald Reagan and in some respects even more than the Gipper did."

More importantly, though, Trump and the MRC share the same anti-media agenda; Bozell proclaimed how "Donald J. Trump understood that the news media were his most powerful enemy , hell-bent on preventing his election and, when that failed, destroying his presidency."

Trump has effectively bought the loyalty of Bozell and the MRC -- which results in posts like this one that censors the MRC's own early history of opposing and disdaining Trump's candidacy.

WND Dredges Up Dense, Old Antifa-Bashing Report To Promote Again
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily is inserting this linked boilerplate copy into some of its articles:

FREE SPECIAL INVESTIGATIVE REPORT ON ANTIFA! What exactly is ANTIFA and what are its real goals? Why does it viciously attack America at every opportunity, prompting President Trump to label it a "domestic terror group"? WND is offering an original, in-depth investigative report on ANTIFA – absolutely FREE! Sign-up here for your copy of this powerful 22,000-word e-book exposing ANTIFA, which will be delivered to you immediately!

The link goes to a page promising, "In-Depth Investigation Reveals Shocking Truth About ANTIFA – FREE!" adding, "WND is offering its readers, FREE, an in-depth, 22,000-word original investigative report on "Antifa." All yo have to do is give WND your email address -- which makes this little more than an email harvesting operation.

If this sounds familiar, it should. This appears to be the same "investigative report" on Antifa that WND first peddled in 2017. And you can read it here without the risk of finding yourself on WND's mailing list.

As we documented at the time, this report carries no author's name, despite it being densely written perhaps to the point of being above the reading level of the typical WND reader. It's largely an exercise in Antifa fearmongering, which comes across as more than a bit hollow given that, as we've noted, there's little evidence that any Antifa activists have been involved in the unrest following the police-custody death of George Floyd.

But, hey, the book has been paid for, it costs virtually nothing for WND to promote it again, and Antifa fearmongering is a WND staple, however detatched from reality it may be. So, win-win?

MRC Defends Right-Wing Channel Its Employees Appear On
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Matt Philbin got all huffy in a June 16 post:

The left’s fit of insensate rage keeps turning this way and that, smashing whatever comes to hand -- a statue here, a corporate exec there. Professional sports have been thoroughly politicized, and now the destruction is coming to big-time college football. Because somebody doesn’t like a T-shirt.

According to Sports Illustrated, somebody at a website covering Oklahoma State University sports posted a picture of Cowboys head football coach Mike Gundy on a fishing trip “wearing a t-shirt promoting the conservative news network One America News. Shortly after that, the Cowboys All-American running back Chuba Hubbard came out,” and mau-maued the program. 

"I will not stand for this," wrote Hubbard on Twitter. "This is completely insensitive to everything going on in society, and it is unacceptable. I will not be doing anything with Oklahoma State until things CHANGE." 

NCAA players are apparently just like other coddled college kids, only more so. As we all know, until things change means until any political opinion I don’t like has been purged from OSU football -- maybe OSU Athletics. And why not a 100-square-mile zone around the campus? 

And, of course, Hubbard is getting support from the millionaire malcontents in the NFL.

Philbin benignly framed OAN as merely "conservative" when, in fact, it tends to traffic in right-wing, pro-Trump conspiracy theories.

But Philbin waited until the second-to-last paragraph of his 12-paragraph item to fully disclose why he was running to OAN's (and Gundy's) defense:

OAN’s opinion shows have, you know, opinion (several Media Research Center staffers, including the author, regularly appear on them). But it’s a news network. Hubbard and his supporters care nothing for the facts. They’re feeding their outrage.

Philbin certainly didn't care enough about the fact to tell readers exactly how far-right OAN is.

Jonas Wells further the MRC's defense of OAN the next day, again underselling its far-right agenda: "OAN does tend to emphasize the 'straight news reporting' that much of the mainstream media, on both sides of the aisle, tend to forget about. In an interview done with [OAN anchor Liz] Wheeler, she addressed the format of OAN, and how there are merely three hours of commentary, versus 21 hours of straight news."

Wells offered no proof of this. He also -- in an item describing someone's "mistakes" in criticizing Gundy and OAN -- made the mistake of failing to disclose the MRC's conflict of interest in defending OAN.

Then, in a June 19 post, mysterious sports blogger Jay Maxson called on right-leaning sports pundit Jason Whitlock trying to play whataboutism to handwave OAN's extremism:

Whitlock said he had gotten tweets accusing OAN of peddling "dangerous, irresponsible and racially divisive conspiracy theories." He turns it around on the left-stream media and asks, "Isn’t that what cable news networks do?"

Whitlock looked up the definitions of "conspiracy theory" to make sure he understood it correctly and found this explanation: "A belief that some covert but influential organization is responsible for a circumstance or event."

Maxson then gave Whitlock free rein to rant that the non-right-wing-media portrayals of Colin Kaepernick and Black Lives Matter are based on conspiracy theories. Whitlock then huffed: "Are we sure OAN is the lone media outlet propagating dangerous, irresponsible and racially divisive conspiracy theories? Or are these theories the lifeblood of the modern mainstream media?"

It seems Whitlock has joined Maxson as being so far right that right-wing conspiracy theories are normal and mainstream media are the purveyors of conspiracy theories. (Oh, and Maxson failed to disclose that MRC employees regularly appear on OAN.)

CNS Returns To the Weekend-Shooting Distraction Again
Topic: CNSNews.com

We've documented how CNSNews.com managing editor likes to distract from bad news for conservatives by randomly bringing up the number of weekend shootings in Chicago. With unrest over police brutality in the news, Chapman went for the same distraction but a different city in a June 10 article:

The Los Angeles Police Department Headquarters tweeted on Tuesday that during last week (May 31 - June 6), homicides went up 250% and the number of victims shot increased 56% when compared to the previous week.

"The week of 5/31 to 6/6, homicides went up 250% and victims shot went up 56% compared to the previous week," said the tweet from the LAPD HQ.

"The past 24 hrs has seen 4 shootings, one of those resulting in a homicide," the tweet added. "Detectives are following leads to ID & arrest the suspects -- but we’re also asking for your help."

Chapman made sure to add that "Black Lives Matter, which has participated in many of the protests across the United States over the last two weeks, demands 'a national defunding of the police.'"

Craig Bannister joined the sudden, agenda-driven concern in a June 29 article invoking yet another city: "More than five hundred people have been shot in New York City so far this year, but the city is considering cutting the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) budget by as much as $1 billion."

Bannister apparently didn't consider the idea that the extra billion didn't keep those 500 people from being shot, so perhaps that money could be better used elsewhere.

MRC Learns To Love 'Harry Potter' Series Author After They Share Hatred For Transgenders
Topic: Media Research Center

We've documented how the Media Research Center stopping hating Ricky Gervais once he starting mocking transgender people. Now the MRC has flip-flopped on another pop-culture figure -- ironically, for similarly going anti-trans.

The MRC has generally tried to find ways to hate J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, for seemingly as long as she's been writing the books.

A 2007 post by Mark Finkelstein melted down over Rowling's revelation that series character Dumbledore is gay, adding, "Somewhere, Jerry Falwell is smiling." Robert Knight huffed that Rowling "has to succumb to political correctness and 'out' Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore," adding that "my guess is that she made her shocking revelation in order to pander to the cultural elites who regard celebration of homosexuality as a mark of sophistication."

A 2016 MRC post groused: "When busy Tweeters compared Trump to Voldemort, J.K. Rowling defended the racist, mass-murdering villain of the Harry Potter series, saying, 'How horrible. Voldemort was nowhere near as bad.'" Another post complained that Rowling opposed Brexit and also "took the opportunity to slam U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as a “fascist in all but name,” for saying Britain should exit the EU." Yet another post complained that Rowling expressed an opinion on Brexit.

In 2017, Corinne Weaver grumbled that Rowling "is still accusing Trump of ignoring a disabled child and calling the POTUS 'stunning and horrible'" though a full video allegedly proved a "deceptively edited video" false. 

The MRC was even angry that actors in Harry Potter projects expressed political opinions.

The MRC did offer up one early defense, though: a 2016 post by Matt Philbin stated in his usual jerkish fashion that Rowling "is in heap-big trouble for not being sufficiently sensitive to the diversity within the 'Native American wizarding community,'" concluding: "So Rowling has played fast and loose with American Indian stuff, in the same way she played fast and loose with dozens of other traditions in the name of entertaining children and making some money. Some crime. You’d think she played for the Red Skins or something."

But what really turned the MRC into a group of Rowling fanboys was her dismissal of transgender community. Gabriel Hays sneered in a Dec. 19 post:

Turns out Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling might not be as progressive as she thought. Recently, the fantasy writer angered radical LGBTQ folks on social media for tweeting a defense of a person fired for believing that there are only two genders. The author has since been called a “transphobe,” or more specifically a “TERF” (trans exclusive radical feminist.)

For a woman who was once so woke that she officially altered the sexuality of one of her series main characters to appease lefty fans, this is a bit jarring.

[...]

But such is the scourge of social justice. The ruling [upholding the firing of a British official for anti-trans views] was so disgusting that even the woman who retroactively turned Dumbledore gay to appease her LGBTQ fans found limits in her PC code of ethics. And the internet let her have it.

Clay Waters asserted that a New York Times reporters "joined the mob against Harry Potterauthor J.K. Rowling for transgender wrong-think" by "merely affirming there are in fact two sexes."

Christian Toto cheered how Rowling "refused to apologize for comments deemed “transphobic.” and " refused to go on a GLAAD-orchestrated Apology Tour,' cheering that "Rowling hasn’t been officially canceled in any discernible way."

When Rowling said in June that only women menstrate, the MRC rushed to her defense again. Waters lamented that Rowlinbg has been "long targeted by radical transgender activists on Twitter for her stubborn adherence to the biological reality that men are men and women are women" and complained that a New York Times article on the controversy "actually contained the slur 'terf,' a derogatory and decidedly un-journalistic acronym employed by trans activists to smear their feminist opponents."

Hays proclaimed that Rowling "appealed to a more concrete view of human anatomy" with her statement and huffed that "Several blue checks accused the author of being “transphobic” and an “asshole” because Rowling affirmed that no matter what they call themselves or how they “identify,” only women have periods, period." Hays concluded: "This pseudoscience adds to the confusion, which is undoubtedly the real reason as to why trans folks have such difficult lives. Stay with it, J.K.!"

That's how you get the MRC to like you: share a common enemy, prefereably transgenders.

Allen West's Empty Attack on the Great Society
Topic: CNSNews.com

Allen West wrote in his June 15 CNSNews.com column:

The bottom line is simple:  The Great Society – the grand endeavor of the progressive, racist President Lyndon Baines Johnson, has failed. Fifty-five years later, we are witnessing the -- shall I say it --“chickens coming home to roost.”

The Great Society, also known as the infamous War on Poverty was launched as every other government top-down solution is, with great promise and “noble” intention. It was an updated version of Roosevelt’s “chicken in every pot” solution.

What Johnson and his ilk believed was that they could manipulate the outcomes in the lives of individuals and create equality. They embraced the notion that the government could “level the playing field,” and with a plethora of government subsistence programs, all would be well.

In reflection, we should all agree, and stop whistling past the graveyard, that this was a program intended to do one thing -- create economic enslavement, dependency.

The Great Society blunder has resulted in the modern-day 21^st century economic plantation in which American inner-cities have absolutely cratered.

Strangely, at no point did West cite any specific program that purportedly created the failure he depicts. In fact, there's a solid argument that Great Society programs like Medicare and Head Start have been quite successful, as well as the fact that they weren't nearly as radical or extreme as West suggests they were.

Nevertheless, West insisted that "It does not take a PhD level study to grasp this," despite his freshman-level error of failing to back up his claims.

That, however, didn't stop WorldNetDaily columnist and ranter Mychal Massie from embracing West's claims in his own June 15 column:

The Great Society Initiatives were harmful to all, but no group was harmed more than blacks. Johnson's not so-veiled government dependency agenda cemented the decline of American civilization, specifically for blacks.

Within the Great Society construct came the abolishment of the nuclear family, accompanied by the reinvention of same to elevate and accommodate sexual sin. This now includes debaucherous sexual deviancy masquerading as a family unit.

The Great Society Initiative construct empowered government to define the needs of the people. Through the late 1960s and early/mid 1970s, women and specifically those who were black and Puerto Rican were rewarded for having children out-of-wedlock. Government provided subsidized housing, food stamps, health care and spending money. All they had to do was continue to have illegitimate children. The caveat was that in order to receive the financial government provisions there couldn't be a man in the house – this included the father of the children. I personally know women who were evicted from their apartment in the Projects because the night watchman caught the father in the apartment.

Like West, Massie fails to identify the specific programs he claims caused this, let along prove they were Great Society initiatives.

NEW ARTICLE: Narrative Over Truth, Abortion Edition
Topic: The ConWeb
After a new documentary revealed that Roe v. Wade plaintiff Norma McCorvey said she became an anti-abortion activist because she was paid to do so, the ConWeb's anti-abortion activists sought to discredit the film. Read more >>

Trump Family Sycophancy Watch, 'Presidential historian' Edition
Topic: Newsmax

Our nation's first daughter's latest cause, providing food to needy families, has resulted in one billion meals to America’s poor.

The president could see that his resilient economy was indeed roaring back from the coronavirus shutdowns.

However, some were not able to get work and income quickly enough.

When Trump announced a bridge program "farmers to families" he asked Ivanka to take the lead.

In a curious way, this program cements Ivanka Trump’s own role as a figure in history.

She is not just one of the most extraordinary presidential daughters to have worked in the White House, she has entered a rare pantheon of women humanitarians.

Audrey Hepburn, used her beauty to raise money for UNICEF to feed the hungry.

Lady Di used her fame to show us how to embrace the victims of AIDS.

Melinda Gates uses her wealth to promote women in the workforce, including technology.

Ivanka Trump adds the power of her White House office to promote a long list of issues that would have been neglected without her.

[...]

The national media has been stubborn about awarding any recognition to Ivanka.

In the process of its condescending coverage has often ended up with egg on their faces.

Such as their rush to judgment about total jobs created by Ivanka, versus net jobs created during the same time period.

By any measurement, Ivanka Trump’s work has resulted in many hundreds of thousands of jobs for Americans.

-- Doug Wead, June 24 Newsmax column

WND's Mercer Has A Soft Spot For the Confederacy
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Ilana Mercer, in addition to having a soft spot for apartheid, apparently has a similar soft spot for the Confederacy as well. She wrote in her June 18 WorldNetDailiy column:

Steve Hilton is a Briton who anchors a current-affairs show on Fox News.

Mr. Hilton made the following feeble, snowflake's case for the removal of the nation's historically offensive statues:

It's offensive to our Africa American neighbors to maintain statues in public places that cause not only offense, but real distress. And it is disrespectful to our Native American neighbors to glorify a man who they see as having committed genocide against their ancestors. None of this is to erase history. Put it all in a museum. Let's remember it and learn from it.

"What's wrong with Camp Ulysses Grant," Hilton further intoned sanctimoniously. He was, presumably, plumping for the renaming of army installations like Fort Bragg, called after a Confederate major general, Braxton Bragg.

Sons of the South – men and women, young and old – see their forebear as having died "in defense of the soil," and not for slavery. Most Southerners were not slaveholders. All Southerners were sovereigntists, fighting a War for Southern Independence.

Not so much -- the Civil War really was about slavery. Her claim that Southerners died in the Civil War "in defense of the soil" is linked to an anonymously written column that proclaimed Confederate generals "heroes" who deserve the statues built in their honor and the "Charlottesville debacle" resulted in "countless right wingers excoriated by their peers and persecuted by the law unjustly."

Mercer went on to cheer a man named Thomas J. DiLorenzo as "the country's chief Lincoln slayer" and dismissing historian Doris Kearns Goodwin as "a pseudo-intellectual." Turns out DiLorenzo is a fan of the Confederacy as well; he tried to disassociate himself from the right-wing, white nationalist League of the South despite admitting to speaking before the group and endorsing its social and political views.

MRC's Graham Goes A-Heathering Against George Will
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has been on a bit of a Heathering streak as of late. George Will is an unambiguous conservative but a never-Trumper, so that makes him the enemy to Tim Graham:

George Will is just another pseudo-conservative pundit at The Washington Post. He’s Jennifer Rubin with shorter hair. His latest column seals this image, explicitly calling for a rout of congressional Republicans, much to the delight of the liberal media. He compares Senate Republicans to Vichy collaborators with the Nazis:

[...]

He also compares them to affection-starved dogs:“Voters must dispatch his congressional enablers, especially the senators who still gambol around his ankles with a canine hunger for petting."

Graham never explains why Trump and his supporters must never be criticized, especially by fellow conservatives. Instead, he throws a tantrum that CNN employees -- another MRC enemy -- liked Will's column. But Graham wasn't done with his anti-Will tantrum:

This column absolutely demonstrates Will is not a conservative. Demanding a “rout” of the Republican Party is enabling Democrats making noises about a radical agenda of “Medicare for All,” a “Green New Deal,” government-funded abortion, ending border enforcement, taking tax-exempt status away from churches and organizations that refuse to recognize same-sex marriage…and so much more.

It should be obvious that Will is supporting this agenda by advocating the removal of any obstacles to it.

[...]

Will is so cocky about Trump’s defeat he told [NPR anchor Rachel] Martin that Biden could win just by staying in his basement until November:  “It's Biden's to lose. And if he stays in his basement, he won't lose it…. I think he's one of the beneficiaries of the great lockdown. He leaves the national stage to the president, and the president is using it in a way very injurious to himself.”

All of this insulting talk of shedding principles, of sacrificing dignity, of being “soft wax” for powerful men, can just as easily be applied to George Will, pleasing his employers at The Washington Post. He’s melted butter for Bezos.

It’s certainly ludicrous to call him a “conservative”….when making the path straight for a leftist “revolution” is what he’s advocating.

Remember that Graham is so invested in seeing no flaws in Trump that he just blithely handwaves Trump's legacy of lies by ranting that Trump gets fact-checked and weakly claiming that he "has a casual relationship with the truth." Graham is so committed to the lie that he can no longer see the truth.

CNS' Jeffrey Absurdly Tries To Blame Pelosi For Federal Deficits
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey has ramped up his efforts to blame anyone but President Trump for exploding budget deficits.

Jeffrey served up his usual monthy articles on federal spending on June 10 -- the first on how "The federal government set records for both the amount of money it spent and the deficit it ran in the first eight months of fiscal 2020" and the second on how "The debt of the federal government topped $26 trillion for the first time." As usual, the words "Trump" and "Republicans" appear nowhere in the article even though they signed off on all that debt, and the articles are illustrated by stock photos of President Trump with Nancy Pelosi -- once again trying to saddle Pelosi with blame even though she controls only one-half of one branch of government.

But in his June 24 column, however, Jeffrey ridiculously placed all the blame on Pelosi:

In the 2,000 days that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has now served as the leader of a division of the federal government that the Constitution gives authority over all appropriations, the federal debt has increased by a record $9,655,515,485,628.06.

That is more than all the debt the federal government accumulated ($8,670,596,242,973.04) under all of the House speakers who served before Pelosi first took that position on Jan. 4, 2007.

The record $9,655,515,485,628.06 in federal debt amassed during Pelosi's first 2,000 days as speaker works out to an average of $4,827,757,742.81 in added debt per day.

None of her predecessors comes close to that mark. She is, indisputably, this nation's Queen of Debt.

It will mark her place in history.

Jeffrey is deliberately leaving out a lot of context. For instance, Pelosi's six years as House speaker coincided with two financial crises -- the 2009 recession and the coronavirus pandemic -- that required large infusions of emergency federal spending to rejuvenate the econony. 

Jeffrey also forgot to mention that four of Pelosi's six years as speaker were under Republican presidents, meaning that Republicans also signed off on all that spending for which Jeffrey is solely and absurdly blaming Pelosi for.

The word "Trump" doesnt appear, of course. The word "Republican" appears only in the final paragraph, when he huffed, "Americans should hope that when Pelosi leaves the speakership, she is not succeeded by someone who shares her ability to borrow and spend — even when serving with Republican presidents." Jeffrey made sure to ignore the fact that Republicans are an equal or greater partner with Pelosi on the spending Jeffrey claims to abhor and could have objected to it or blocked it -- but chose not to.

In addition to censoring inconvenent history, Jeffrey also got some of his numbers wrong; an editor's note buried at the end of the column states that "The debt numbers from the tenure of former Speaker Dennis Hastert were incorrect as initially reported in this column and have been corrected."

Getting facts straight -- especially when they run counter to his narrative -- is not Jeffrey's strong suit, apparently.