WND: 'Obama's Roots Are In Kenya'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily has never let go of its Obama birther conspiracies, and it occasionally likes to remind us of that fact.

In a July 31 email promoting an article on anti-abortion activist Alveda King attacking President Obama's eulogy of civil rights leader John Lewis as "more like a stump speech than a eulogy, taking America back to the segregated '60s," WND stated: "Do you remember the steady progress in America's race relations before Barack Obama became president? Compared to now, those were the good old days. Obama's roots are in Kenya, not the Deep South or America's civil-rights history ... no wonder he gets it so wrong."

That's an odd promo, given the article itself does not quote King blaming Obama for puported deterioration in race relations or question his "roots" or place him in Kenya. WND seems to have forgotten that Obama has never lived in Kenya, so claiming his "roots" are there is simply a figment of WND's overactive imagination.

It appears that one of the few remaining WND employees was suffering a flashback to the time when WND was making hay and lying with impunity about a black Democratic president. On the other hand, given WND's current dire financial situation, perhaps it's been paying for all those lies at last.

MRC Shills for Twitter Rival Parler, Censors Its Problems
Topic: Media Research Center

Like Gab, Parler is a Twitter wannabe that has gained a reputation as the place right-wingers go when they get kicked off Twitter for being too extreme. And like Gab, the Media Research Center has promoted Parler as a "free speech" alternative for right-wingers who are enjoy playing the victim by whining about how they got kicked off Twitter for their extremism.

While the MRC and its writers did not have the courage of their convictions by abandoning Twitter to join Gab, they are joining Parler (while hedging their bets by not quitting Twitter). The tipping point appears to be right-wing activist Dan Bongino buying a stake in Twitter. Alexander Hall gave Bongino and Parler some free promotion in a June 16 MRC post:

Bongino declared on the June 16 episode of The Dan Bongino Show that this platform is “the social media alternative to the tech tyrants which have declared war against conservatism, liberty, and everything we stand for.” He heavily cited founder and President of the Media Research Center Brent Bozell’s opinion piece at Fox News, which declared that the “fate of democracy” will be decided by how conservatives fight for free speech online.

Bongino explained his rationale for partnering with Parler: “When I see my problem I try to solve it. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. I didn’t like the political establishment I ran for office” He then cited how he “didn’t like what was out there in the podcast space, started my own.” Then cited how he “didn’t like what the Drudge Report was doing with their hard-left turn we started Bongino Report.com, why? ‘Cause talkers talk, and doers do.”

Bongino described how this spurred him to take action on his own, “So I’m putting my own skin in the game” with his Parler partnership because “I don’t like what Twitter is doing to us, and I don’t like what SnapChat’s doing to us, and I don’t like what Facebook’s doing to us, I don’t like what Reddit’s doing to us” citing how it banned r/The_Donald. “So I took an ownership stake in Parler and I’m going to put my own skin in the game, and I know, I know for a fact that we’re gonna succeed, I know it.”

A few days later, MRC writer and MNewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck announced he had started a Parler account, declaring (on Twitter) that Bongino's "urging on his show finally convinced me, along with Twitter deciding law and order is offensive." Houck didn't mention that because Bongino now owns a piece of Parler, it's in his financial interests to promote its use by others. The next day, MRC official Tim Graham announced he had joined Parler at Houck's urging.

Around the same time, the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, published an article touting how "conservatives are flocking to Parler, which considers itself an 'unbiased social media network,' after two conservative accounts were banned from Twitter earlier this week."

The MRC, however, won't tell you that Parler isn't exactly the "free speech" bastion it's been made out to be.

The Huffington Post reports that Parler's user agreement and community guidelines not only bans numerous forms of speech, users forfeit their right to sue Parler over posts and indemifies Parler in case a user gets sued over a post and requires the user to pay Parler's legal fees. That's the opposite of free speech, in the monetary use of the word. Parler is now trying to frame itself as something of a "good censor" who only kicks out people for good reasons, unlike Twitter.

Parler also has the issue of imposters and trolls posting under the names of famous people -- many of them Republican Party officials and politicians -- and it's turning into a right-wing echo chamber as liberals have declined to take part in the conservative migration.

Instead, the MRC is serving up Parler puff pieces. A July 31 post by Joseph Vazquez touted how Parler CEO John Matze appeared on Fox Business (of course)to talk about how "his site is doing its part to defend freedom of speech. Vazquez let Matze lie about the state of censorship on Parler by redefining the word: "There is no censorship of any kind. We do have clear rules about violence, any illegal activity — anything that you couldn’t do in public, you couldn’t do on Parler — but there is no ideological censorship or ideological bias of any kind."

Vazquez didn't mention how much Parler users have to sign away in order to use the platform, nor did he note any of the other problems Parler has. Then again, this was little more than a commercial for Parler.

CNS Censors Columnist's Ties to Trump
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com loves publishing columns by conservative activist Ken Blackwell. It does not, however, love disclosing the fact that he's a Trump campaign and administration adviser -- making his columns stealth campaign ads and CNS a publisher of partisan content that bumps up against what it and its owner, the Media Research Center, is allowed to do under its nonprofit status.

Blackwell served as President Trump's domestic policy adviser as part of the transition team, and he later served on a "Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity," which collapsed under allegations of secretive behavior and attempts to obtain sweeping election records from states for undisclosed purposes as it became clear the commission was little more than a partisan attempt by Trump to manufacture allegations of voter fraud to discredit electoral challenges to himself and other Republicans. Blackwell is a campaign adviser for Trump's 2020 re-election campaign and an official campaign surrogate, and as recently as a month ago, Blackwell said "he has counseled senior White House advisers on the need for the president to tweak his language around policing.

It seems pretty clear that Blackwell is a Trump campaign surrogate. But CNS never describes him as one, even when he is touting Trump and denigrating Joe Biden -- even as the end-of-column tags for him regularly change.

In his March 31 column, Blackwell gushed that "President Donald Trump is preparing the entire country for a rapid post-COVID economic resurgence, even while he works to provide state and local leaders the resources they need to fight the virus." The end-of-column tage stated that he "served as the mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, the Ohio State Treasurer, and Ohio Secretary of State. He currently serves as an adviser to the Family Research Council and on the board directors for Club for Growth and National Taxpayers Union."

On April 3, Blackwell claimed that in a coronavirus relief package, "Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats tried to include language making it easier to commit vote fraud with the ballots of our military stationed overseas." The end-of-column tag did not disclose that Blackwell served in Trump's discredited "election integrity" commission; rather, it stated that "Ken Blackwell is a Policy Board Member for the American Constitutional Rights Union and Protect Military Votes, and former Secretary of State for Ohio."

On April 7, Blackwell harrumphed that "President Donald Trump has shown the country that he is the tough leader America needs during this time of crisis. ... Trump's forward-thinking about China has been proven right, especially as we see the problems faced by outsourcing necessary medical supplies, which should be made by American companies. The tag stated that "Ken Blackwell is the Chairman of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). He is the former Treasurer of the State of Ohio and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission."

Blackwell's April 27 column accused Democrats of "exploiting the pandemic to instill fear in our electoral process" and  cheered "congressional guardians of the U.S. Constitution" for stopping measures that would allow for easier options other than in-person voting. Again, Blackwell's position on a partisan "election integrity" panel wasnot mentioned, stating instead that he "served as mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, Ohio Secretary of State and U.S. ambassador to U.N. Human Rights Commission. He currently serves on the National Leadership Council of the Save Our Country Coalition."

Blackwell ranted in his May 23 column that "Joe Biden and the Democrat [sic] Party have long sowed racial division and promoted identity politics in order to maintain power and control." It was not disclosed that Blackwell is a Trump campaign adviser, only that he "is the former Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission."

A May 29 column co-written by the late Herman Cain touted how "there has never been a president in the White House who has been more supportive of HBCUs and their mission than President Donald Trump." It described Blackwell only as former "mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, Ohio Treasurer, and U.S. ambassador to U.N. Human Rights Commission."

Blackwell's June 15 column was headlined "We're Not Buying Joe Biden’s ‘Tough on China’ Act" and declared that "Everyone knows about President Trump’s record of success in bringing China to the negotiating table through strategic counter-tariffs." It too was silent on Blackwell advising Trump, stating that he "served as mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio Treasurer, a U.S. Ambassador to the UN; he currently serves on the board of directors for Club For Growth."

Blackwell did more gushing in his June 17 column: President Donald Trump is taking unprecedented action to strengthen the relationship between law enforcement and their local communities by recognizing the need to invest more energy and resources in police training and by supporting efforts to bring the police and communities together," declaring that "President Trump is leading through his actions" and that "Joe Biden continues his campaign of “all-talk, no-action” by continuing to criticize the president from the comfort of his own basement." He's described only as "the former Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission."

A June 30 column in which Blackwell declared that Trump's restriction on employment visas "made about 525,000 jobs available so that the millions of unemployed Americans will have a better opportunity to return to the payroll, and to earn a fair wage so that they can support their families" stated only that "Ken Blackwell is the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights."

The only Blackwell column related to the presidential campaign in which CNS  disclosed his ties to Trump was a July 6 column in which he declared that "Biden’s extraordinarily mild criticism of the extremists who are trying to tear America apart does nothing but reinforce Biden’s inability to rein in the anti-American insanity that is now the driving force within the Democratic Party." It stated that Blackwell is "a member of the Advisory Board of Donald J. Trump For President, Inc."

CNS' almost complete refusal to disclose that a columnist's attacks on Biden and praise for Trump comes from someone who is actively a part of Trump's re-election campaign is journalistic malpractice -- an odd position from a "news" organization whose parent loves to attack the journalistic integrity of other news organizations.

MRC's Graham Rages Over Imagined 'Leftist' Tilt of '100 Reasons To Love America' List
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Tim Graham was in an especially whiny mood on the Fourth of July, spending his day spewing rage at People magazine for including allegedly liberal things on a list of "100 Reasons To Love America." Oh, did he whine:

Number one was “Peaceful Protests” against police officers. Protests are American, but these journalists only celebrate leftist protests, and they left out any mention of looting, rioting and police being injured and killed. No, they could only accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative:

[...]

Number two was“American Optimism,” by CBS This Morning host and Oprah Winfrey pal Gayle King. She, too, lauded the protests. “For the first time you see a very diverse crowd marching shoulder to shoulder, teenagers and twentysomethings challenging their parents….Young people are speaking up. Look at the best-seller list – nine of the top 10 are about race. There’s coast-to-coast solidarity.”

For the first time? Bunk. The Left ALWAYS celebrates their protests as "very diverse." It's nothing new.

People celebrated some seriously silly things as reasons to love America with a pandemic twist, including "Toilet Paper" and  "Tie-Dye" and "Stress Baking," but the magazine's leftist tilt came throughout the list:

Graham went on to list 13 more purportedly "leftist" things like, um, "workplace equality" and home-based pandemic broadcasts. That leaves 85 items that weren't"leftist" -- meaning that Graham is whining about a decided minority of items on the list, which is much less than the "list of leftist-media talking points" he claimed it was. Since he proves no actual bias here, this falls well short of his insistence that the list is "biased."

For Graham, apparently, any mention of something "leftist" renders the entire thing "leftist." This is the MRC.

WND's Brown: 'White Supremacist' Is The New 'Homophobe'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

My purpose in this article is not to compare "white supremacy" to "homophobia." Nor is it to deny the existence of white supremacists. Instead, my purpose is to expose tactics of intimidation, shaming and manipulation. In that regard, "white supremacy" is the new "homophobia."

[...]

In the recent past (and until today), the tactic was to brand everyone who opposed any facet of LGBTQ activism a homophobe. Do you have a problem with drag queens reading to toddlers? You're a homophobe! You don't want first-graders learning the definition of gender-queer? You're a hater and a bigot. Homophobe!

Now, if you like President Trump's Mt. Rushmore speech, it's because you're a white supremacist.

Forget the fact that he said, "We believe in equal opportunity, equal justice, and equal treatment for citizens of every race, background, religion, and creed. Every child, of every color – born and unborn – is made in the holy image of God."

Or that he said, "Our opponents would tear apart the very documents that Martin Luther King used to express his dream, and the ideas that were the foundation of the righteous movement for Civil Rights."

Or that he said, "We must demand that our children are taught once again to see America as did Reverend Martin Luther King, when he said that the Founders had signed 'a promissory note' to every future generation. Dr. King saw that the mission of justice required us to fully embrace our founding ideals. Those ideals are so important to us – the founding ideals. He called on his fellow citizens not to rip down their heritage, but to live up to their heritage."

It doesn't matter. The speech was delivered at the foot of Mt. Rushmore, a monument to white supremacy, by a white supremacist president. That says it all.

[...]

Along with other commentators, I have pointed to the current misuse of the term "white supremacy." But it's important that we compare it to the use of "homophobia," which continues to be an effective tactic for labeling and silencing those who differ.

Let's catch this early. Let's expose it. And let's reserve the term "white supremacy" for those who deserve it.

-- Michael Brown, July 13 WorldNetDaily column

MRC's Double Standard On 'Cancel Culture'
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center loves to denounce "cancel culture" -- a July 11 post by Gabriel Hays, for example, complained that a letter "signed by prominent leftists and liberals decrying Cancel Culture" asserted that "Cancel Culture doesn't exist" and declared cancel cluture to be a "free speech-killing phenomenon."

But Hays is a joyful proponent of cancel culture when it involves trying to cancel opinions he disapproves of. Hays ranted in a July 2 post:

Just in time for the BLM folks who are fed up Western Civilization’s depiction of White Jesus, a new film depicting Christ as a lesbian is currently looking for a major Hollywood distributor. The film’s premise is so noxious that nearly 300,000 people have signed a petition to make sure the “Christianophobic” film doesn’t get a wide Hollywood release.

Hundreds of thousands of people have signed a petition to prevent the wide release of the reportedly blasphemous film titled Habit. The movie which is currently eyeing Warner Brothers and Lionsgate as major distributors, depicts a female Jesus played by Paris Jackson, the late Michael Jackson’s daughter, who has her own modeling and film career. 

According to the petition, which has been gaining traction on Change.org, the film’s Jesus is not only female, which is heretical and subversive enough, she is a lesbian who may or may not have a relationship with the film’s main character, a nun played by former Disney Channel star Bella Thorne. 

The petition called Habit “blasphemous” and “Christianophobic garbage.” It stated, “A new blasphemous Hollywood film is predicted to come out soon depicting Jesus as a lesbian woman. The film ‘Habit’ stars Paris Jackson who plays the role of ‘lesbian Jesus.’” 

The page asked potential petitioners to help “spread awareness and wake people up to the Christianophobic garbage that is spread nowadays, but is somehow accepted and praised by society.” The good news is that the petitioner's goal of reaching “300,000 signatures” has almost been fulfilled. On July 2, the number of signatures reached 277,517.

Hays concluded: "Hopefully, the film, – which is currently in post-production – doesn’t see the light of day. Please sign the petition at Change.org, so that our Lord isn’t made a disgusting mockery by our own film industry." Not a word about cancel culture or a concern about killing someone else's free speech.

What a hypocrite.

CNS Touts One Mark Levin Fail, Censors Another
Topic: CNSNews.com

Intern John Jakubisin wrote in a July 17 CNSNews.com article:

On his nationally-syndicated radio show on Thursday, conservative host Mark Levin contrasted the coronavirus pandemic with the Obama-Biden administration's response to the 2009 swine flu epidemic, especially its decision to stop testing.

Levin replayed a C-SPAN clip from May 2019 in which Ron Klain, a former chief of staff for Biden, says that the Obama-Biden response team “did every possible thing wrong.”

We had a bunch of really talented, really good people working on it and we did every possible thing wrong and 60 million Americans got H1N1 in that period of time.”

"Well, why didn’t they prevent it?" Levin asked. "Why didn’t they have everybody hunker down?”

Because CNS is not terribly into fact-checking -- and, thus, wouldn't be bothering to teach its interns how to do it, especially not to a guy who gets so much uncritical coverage from CNS it may as well be contractually obligated to do so -- Jakubisin didn't tell his readers the full truth. According to actual fact-checkers, testing for swine flu was never completely stopped and continued for monitoring purposes, but indiviual testing stopped because it was no longer needed and provided no useful information; if a patient presented with flu-like symptoms, it was probably the flu.

The swine flu was also much less deadly than coronavirus is; of those 60 million cases, only 12,000 people died. By contrast, of 4.5 million coronavirus cases in the U.S., more than 150,000 have died. Levin's attempt to compare the swine flu to coronavirus is utterly bogus.

Speaking of utterly bogus, Levin totally botched things a few days earlier in another attempt to own Obama that fell utterly flat -- and which CNS has been completly silent about. Levin tweeted out a photoof a bottle of medicine that he called "Obama's hydroxychloroquine from 2008." The provenance of the photo is unclear -- there's no date on it, and one has to wonder how Levin got a hold of it, given how there are laws governing the privacy of medical records.

Except it wasn't what Levin said it was -- it was atovaquone, a medicine like hydroxychloroquine that is used to treat and prevent malaria. The bottle seems to date from July 2008, when, as one observer noted, Obama was visiting Afghanistan, which has a high rate of malaria. That also dates it a good decade before the existence of COVID-19, meaning he could not have possibly been taking it to treat the virus since 1) it didn't exist and 2) nobody has advocated the use of atovaquone to treat COVID-19.

Despite the tweet being completely destroyed, Levin has yet to delete it in shame -- and CNS has yet to tell its readers just how badly Levin screwed up.

MRC Likes Democratic History When It's Taken Out of Context
Topic: Media Research Center

At the Media Research Center, context is only for conservatives -- the MRC has no problem using facts out of context when it makes Democrats look bad.

Tim Graham, the MRC's chief context-complainer,  tried to play gotcha with USA Today in a June 26 post over a fact-check of a Facebook meme claiming that Democrats filibustered the 1964 civil rights bill for 75 days. As USA Today accurately pointed out, the filibuster lasted only 60 days, and it was only Southern Democrats who were filibustering. How dare USA Today include context, Graham nuffed: "This is why it’s maddening that 'authoritative' news outlets end up blocking or obscuring social media posts over 'distinctions' that remind voters – some of whom aren’t very wise about 1964 -- the Democrats used to have a pile of staunch racists in their caucus."

Graham isn't going to clearly explain to you that many of the Southern Democrats who took part in the filibuster eventually either stopped being racist (like Robert Byrd) or became Republicans (like Strom Thurmond). See, Tim? Context matters.

Scott Whitlock tried to pull another gotcha on USA Today in a July 1 post headlined "FAKE HISTORY":

Apparently, if you don’t like certain facts, you can just declare them false. That seems to be the thinking behind a USA Today “fact check” pretending that Democrats didn’t start the Civil War and found the KKK. But, they did. In a June 30 assertion USA Todayrated “false,” the paper began, “Claim: The Democratic Party started the Civil War to preserve slavery and later the KKK.”

The entire article essentially conceded that the Confederacy was run by Democrats, made up by Democrats, as was the KKK. But don’t blame the Democratic Party for that! USA Today writer Devon Link calls the claim “an oversimplified trope about the Democratic Party.”

The article is made up of “yes, but…” concessions. Link squirmed, “Historians agree that although factions of the Democratic Party did majorly contribute to the Civil War's start and KKK's founding, it is inaccurate to say the party is responsible for either.”

Despite offering no evidence whatsoever to disprove USA Today's claim that the KKK was never any official part of the Democratic Party, Whitlock insisted that there's a difference between the party and the actions of some individual members to be a "flimsy distinction," sneering: "Yes, the Democratic Party may not have officially started the Civil War, but the Confederacy was made up of strident Democrats."

Being a good MRC employee, Whitlock smelled conspiracy by complaining that one of the historians USA Today called upon to tell the truth about the lack of a link was "a Barack Obama donor. USA Today gets a Democratic donor to defend the party against its true, racist past."

Whitlock wasn't done harping on this. On July 7, he devoted a post to recounting a Fox News segment attacking USA Today for its "ridiculous — and false — 'fact check' claiming that Democrats didn’t start the Civil War and found the Ku Klux Klan." Whitlock is lying here; as he very well knows, the fact-check was about the Democratic Party and the KKK. And because he's complicit in spreading the lie, he's certainly not going to call out Fox News for getting it wrong.

The goal of Graham and Whitlock is to push some bogus history of their own: They want you to think that the Democratic Party of 1860 and 1964 is exactly like the Democratic Party of today, and that there was never a realignment of views that made Democrats the champions of civil rights and Republicans the new home of Souythern Democrats who wouldn't accept this shift.

Who's the one peddling "fake history" here? It isn't USA Today.

Ron Paul's Newsmax Denial Of Coronavirus Surge Didn't Age Well
Topic: Newsmax

Ron Paul spent his July 8 Newsmax column ranting against tightening health restrictions in Texas to fight the spread of coronavirus, depicting it as "fake news" based on a cnage in how it's defined:

On July 2nd, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order mandating the wearing of face masks across the state, whether indoors or outdoors, when six feet cannot be maintained between people. In the governor’s decree, he cited a rise in COVID-19 cases, a rise in test positivity, and a rise in hospitalizations as justification to force people to cover their faces in public.

The move is not only a violation of the civil liberties of all Texans.

Abbott may have based his executive order on inaccurate information about a "rise" in COVID-19 cases due to the Texas State Department of Health Services changing the definition of what constitutes a "COVID Case."

Thanks goes to Collin County Judge Chris Hill for blowing the whistle on what appears to be a move in mid-May to redefine what was a "COVID" case to open the door to a massive increase — all to match the mainstream media line that a "second wave" was on the way.

[...]

The "second wave" is driven by propaganda.

Across the country, COVID testing increased from about 150,000 to more than 700,000 per day. You can’t drive through Houston without seeing a flurry of signs advertising "Free Covid test! Results in 15 minutes!"

Last week Reuters reported that tests shipped around the country by the federal government were contaminated.

Deaths from coronavirus -- even the deaths "with" coronavirus rather than deaths "from" coronavirus — are down more than 90% since the peak in April. The decline in deaths continues. That means we are closer to the "herd immunity" that will finally kill this virus.

Yet Gov. Abbott and others across the country see this as a reason to lock the country back down.

Paul is hiding the fact that it has long been argued that coronavirus cases in Texas have long been undercounted, so the change in how cases are counted is more of a corrective measure than a deliberate attempt to overinflate the number.

Paul is also lying when he claims the current wave of coronavirus cases in Texas "is driven by propaganda."Between mid-June and mid-July, the state set coronavirus hospitalization records 31 times, and it was not until about a week ago that the hospitalization number started to slightly decrease -- none of which is driven by changes in the way cases are counted. And even then, the decrease might actually be the result of incomplete data and not becuase of an actual decrease.

Paul's conspiracy theory hasn't exactly aged well, has it?

Malkin Becomes More Extreme, And CNS Still Publishes Her
Topic: CNSNews.com

As right-wing columnist Michelle Malkin has gone even more fringe -- embracing white nationalist and anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories -- CNSNews.com has continued to publish her, a tacit endorsement of her extremism. That extremism has continued.

In her July 1 column, Malkin defended a Kansas State University student who made a sick joke about the death of George Floyd -- which she chortled was "edgy" and "snarky" -- proclaiming him to be an "unapologetic nationalist conservative student." CNS uncritically published it.

On July 22, Malkin ranted about "anarcho-tyranny," declaring: "The late conservative columnist Sam Francis first coined the term in 1992 to diagnose a condition of 'both anarchy (the failure of the state to enforce the laws) and, at the same time, tyranny — the enforcement of laws by the state for oppressive purposes.'"Malkin didnt tell you that Francis was also a virulent racist who edited the newsletter of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens. CNS didn't inform its audience that Malkin was approvingly quoting a racist.

Malkin's July 29 column was a eulogy for Mike Adams, a right-wing college professor who died and was known for being a hateful, sleazy jerk and who liked to play victim when that jerkishness was called out. Malkin hid that history, of course, gushing that he "wrote prolifically and fought valiantly against the forces of political correctness and pure evil." CNS had no problem with that one either; commentary editor Rob Shimshock promoted it on his Twitter account as a "tribute" to a "happy warrior."

The same day that column came out, Right Wing Watch reported that used a Periscope broadcast to defend the thuggish Proud Boys, a violent far-right hate group, proclaiming them to be "young patriotic, brave, strong, proud men" who "deserve medals for trying to save this country when it was still salvageable." No comment on this from CNS yet.

WorldNetDaily continues to publish Malkin's column too, but her white nationalism and anti-vaxxer conspiracies are more on-brand for WND.By contrast, CNS likes to pretend it's in the mainstream of conservatism, even as it slides into creeping WND-zation.

NEW ARTICLE: The Trump Talking Point Reinforcement Center
Topic: Media Research Center
If the Trump re-election campaign needs a talking point hammered home -- no matter how untrue it is -- the Media Research Center has demonstrated themselves to be partisan enough and lacking enough scruples for the job. Read more >>

WND's Dishonest Muslim-Hating Writer Is Back
Topic: WorldNetDaily

You might remember Leo Hohmann as the WorldNetDaily reporter who hated Muslims so much that he not only reguarly went into freakout mode, he spread lies about the purportedly Muslim-leaning refugee workforce at a Chobani yogurt plant in Idaho -- falsehoods that had to be quietly corrected months after the fact, presumably after Chobani's lawyers had a little chat with WND's managment.

Well, after being let go from WND in early 2018 when it hit those financial difficulties it has yet to get out of (and not, apparently, because of his Chobani lies), Hohmann is back.

In a July 9 WND article, Hohmann wrote in a fearmongering tone about how "An armed militia marched through an Atlanta-area suburban town toting AR-15 rifles and shotguns, shouting black-power slogans and demanding reparations from white motorists," going on to add that "an armed group of up to 300 “protesters” marched through the streets of Stone Mountain carrying weapons and yelling racially charged slogans." He further added: "This activity did not happen in a vacuum. The Atlanta area has been a hotspot for racial violence since the controversial shooting of Rayshard Brooks on June 12 in a Wendy's parking lot."

Because Hohmann still hates Muslims, he worked them into his article, even though they have no real connection to the scary black people that were the focus of his article:

What is known is that the Stone Mountain area contains one of the highest concentrations of Muslim refugees in the Southern United States and some of the marchers could be heard chanting “Alhamdulillah.”

“'Alhamdulillah' means 'Thanks be to Allah' and is not usually said except by observant Muslims," noted Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch.

Stone Mountain is known as the symbolic birthplace of the modern KKK. This makes it a flashpoint for a triggering event.

Hohmann's main source for this article is a man named David Bores, who he benignly described as merely "a retired police chief in Woodstock, a suburban community north of Atlanta." But he apparently hates Muslims as much as Hohmann does; according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Bores offers training to law enforcement that is "based in anti-Muslim rhetoric and conspiracy theories," portraying Muslims as inherently violent and prone to pedophilia, and his course materials describe as teaching how to "effectively deal with the various Islamic threats to subvert our Constitution."

In other words, exactly the kind of person Hohmann would consider a credible source.

But this isn't the only place he's resurfacing at WND. The current edition of the sparsely read Whistleblower magazine, with the theme of "Cancel America" -- which features more fearmonger about protests that have allegedly "been engineered and largely co-opted by openly Marxist/communist revolutionary groups including Antifa, Black Lives Matter and Refuse Fascism" -- includes an article headlined "America is experiencing Act 1 of an intended Marxist revolution. Act 2 is a lot worse." Sure, that sounds reasonable by Hohmann standards.

To sum up: WND's David Kupelian overlooked the fact that Hohmann apparently almost got WND sued into oblivion for false reporting in order to bring him back for a new round of hateful fearmongering. It seems Kupelian is not interested in proving that WND deserves to live.

Lying MRC Stands With Racist-Hiring Tucker Carlson
Topic: Media Research Center

Tucker Carlson needed a distraction from a wealth of bad news, and the Media Research Center was more than happy to help give him one.

When Carlson ranted about an upcoming New York Times story on him that he claimed would print his home address, Nicholas Fondacaro was all too willing to help him play the victim:

Fox News host Tucker Carlson closed out Monday’s edition of his show on an extremely serious note that pertained to the life and safety of his wife and four kids. For over two minutes, he exposed how the radically leftist New York Times had assigned a so-called “journalist” and photographer to hunt him down, find out where he lives, and print it for all his haters to find him. And according to Carlson, their mission was nearly complete with the publication happening later in the week.

[...]

This time, Carlson was fighting back, calling out the people targeting him by name. “The paper has assigned a political activist called Murray Carpenter [pictured above] to write a story about where we are now. They've hired a photographer called Tristan Spinski to take pictures,” he informed the world.

After noting that the story was “slated to run in the paper this week,” he blasted Times editors for knowingly putting the lives of his wife and kids in danger. “I called them today and I told them. But they didn't care. They hate my politics. They want the show off the air. If one of my children gets hurt because of a story the wrote, they won’t consider it collateral damage. They know it's the whole point of the exercise,” he exclaimed.

He added: “To inflict pain on our family, to terrorize us, to control we say. That's the kind people they are.”

Carlson offered no proof whatsoever of his claims, but Fondacaro didn't care -- he was just a slavishly willing stenographer, even helping Carlson with his alibi:

The Fox News host also predicted the sleazy paper would deny his claims, and he was correct. “While we do not confirm what we may or may publish in future editions, the Times has not and does not plan to expose any residence of Tucker Carlson’s, which Carlson was aware of before tonight’s broadcast,” they told left-wing Mediaite.

Carlson followed up by turning the situation around on The Times. “So how would Murray Carpenter and his photographer Tristan Spinski feel we told you where they lived, if we put pictures of their homes on the air,” he asked, also calling out media editor Jim Windolf. “We could do that. We know who they are.”

Fondacaro demonstrated that he's not a serious "news analyst" with his ridiculous description of the Times as "radically leftist." But then, he's a liar who apparently has Brent Bozell's approval to lie for the MRC.

Fondacaro was also careful to censor the fact that Carlson's distracting attack on the Timescame not only a couple weeks after Carlson was forced to fire his head writer,. Blake Neff, after he was exposed as a racist and misogynist (news the MRC has largely censored) but also came the very same day as news of the filing of a lawsuit against Carlson, Sean Hannity and other Fox News personalities alleging sexual harassmsent.

After Carlson's  segment -- and Fondacaro's fawning defense -- appeared, Carlson's fans did what Carlson said he hinted he would do and spread the addresses and personal information about the Times reporters, upon which the fans targeted them with harassment and threats. We can assume that Fondacaro was cheering whwen he erad about that, so irrationally obsessed is he with destroying a newspaper that fails to fawn over President Trump, Carlson and other right-wingers the way he does.

So in thrall was Fondacaro to Carlson's far-right charms -- andso consumed with rage at the Times, as MRC employees are inculcated into being -- that he took his rage to his personal Twitter account, where he lashed out further at the Times. REsponding to a post from the Times repeating its statement that it never planned to publish Carlson's address, Fondacaro hissed, "Lies. This paper is a rag for extremists."

Needless to say, Fondacaro is lying again. He has no proof the Times is lying, and  only a right-wing extremist like Fondacaro would nonsensically screech that the paper is "a rag for extremists."

In another tweet, Fondacaro ranted further: "Note the tacit admission that they (via @Murray_journo) did hunt down Carlson and have his address. NOW, they say they’re not going to publish it. But they’ll probably just leak it because they hate him so much and want to see him hurt. The Times are a bunch of thugs." More lies -- Fondacaro bizarrely thinks it suspicious that a reporter would have the haddress of the person he's writing about. And Fondacaro's acting more like a "thug" than anyone at the Times.

Even after all that, Fondacaro was not done spewing his rage. When the Washington Post's Erik Wemple did an article on the story a few days later pointing that Carlson's accusation that the Times was publishing his address was false, Fondacaro harrumphed: "They're not false accusations you hack. Just because he got them to stop doesn't mean the slimebags at the Times weren't planing to expose where he lives. You really shouldn't be writing about Tucker anyway since you have a lot of personal animosity towards him given history."

Again, Fondacaro offered no evidence that Carlson's accusation was "not false" or that he "got them to stop," making him a liar yet again. ANdf it's hilarious that Fondacaro -- who is so clearly and utterly filled with rage and personal animosity toward everyone he writes about -- lecturing Wemple about the issue.

Fondacaro repeated his lie again in a tweet to CNN's Brian Stelter -- who Fondacaro has even more personal animosity for -- when he promoted Wemple's story: "Just because he called them out and got them to stop doesn't mean they weren't planning to do it. Even if they didn't publish the address in full, they would've given enough detail to put the Antifa terrorists on his trail. Stop making caveats and just admit it's wrong." Once again, Fondacaro offered no evidence to back up his claim.

Fondacaro had some harassment help this time, from MRC co-worker Curtis Houck. He was less ranty than Fondacaro, but Houck was clearly writing from the MRC's right-wing bubble, where Fox News is perfect and everyone else is evil. Targeting Stelter -- the CNN-deranged writer was not following his co-worker's instant rules about writing about someone with whom you have personal animosity -- Houck huffed: I'm all but certain Brian and Erik know that even publishing pictures of #Tucker's house would be more than enough for Antifa and other lefty mobs in their base to find their address. They get rightfully upset when they're harassed, but they don't care when it's not their side." As far as we can tell, Houck joined Fondacaro in being silent about the doxxing and harassment of the Times journalists, so we can assume he approves of that and is simply offering token criticism here.

Houck asserted in another tweet at Stelter: "#Tucker has every reason to be worried about his family, but it's all a game for Brian and Erik. A family with a history of Antifa coming to their house and threatening them would be reason to be concerned, but Brian doesn't care."

Actually, it's a game to Houck and Fondacaro too. They just want to destroy, and they don't care whose lifes are ruined, as long as it's not on their side.

The MRC has pretty much stopped being about "media research" and is pretty now just a rage-blog spewing hate at anyone who tells the truth about Carlson, Trump and any other right-wingers.

UPDATE: As blogger Oliver Willis pointed out, Carlson is being utterly hypocritical about his house being potentially exposed, since he apparently had no problem with other publications writing about his purchases of other homes in which a way that are easy to find.

Terry Jeffrey Trump Deficit Blame Avoidance Watch
Topic: CNSNews.com

It's time once again for our monthly check-in on CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey complaining about the ballooning federal deficit but refusing to admit that a Republican president and Republican-controlled Senate is largely responsible for it. He served up the usual in a July 13 article:

The federal government set records for both the amount of money it spent and the deficit it ran in the first nine months of fiscal 2020 (October through June), according to data released today in the Monthly Treasury Statement.

During the October-June period, the government spent a record $5,004,372,000,000 while it collected $2,260,069,000,000 in total taxes.

The resulting deficit of $2,744,303,000,000 was the largest the federal government has ever run in the first nine months of a fiscal year.

As per usual, the words "Trump" and "Republican" appear nowhere in the article, and it's illustrated by a stock photo that includes Democrats -- in this case, Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer along with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence -- even though, again, Republicans and not Democrats are in control of the Senate and Pelosi controls only one-half of one branch of government.

This was followed by a July 15 column by Jeffrey that whined:

Back in fiscal 2019, which ended last September before COVID-19 hit, the federal government set two records.

It collected more money in individual income taxes than in any previous year — and then spent more.

Did the Americans who paid that record sum in income taxes get their money's worth?

Or were they ripped off?

[...]

Now assume all of that remaining $441,061,000,000 was used to help pay for the $600,706,000,000 the government spent on the Department of Defense and Military Programs in fiscal 2018.

After expending every dollar of remaining individual income tax revenue, the government would still need to find another $159,645,000,000 to fully fund the nation's defense.

Thus, after funding the "benefits and services for people with low income" that were counted in the Congressional Research Service report and the net interest on the debt and a portion of the Defense Department and Military Programs, there would be no revenue left from individual income tax collections to pay for such things as a Department of Justice or a Department of State.

Or a White House, House or Senate.

Again, Jeffrey failed to state the unambiguous fact that it was a Republican president and a Republican-controlled Senate that took the lead in allegedly ripping Americans off.

UPDATE: Jeffrey also failed to mention that he and his employer, the Media Research Center,  contributed to this growing federal deficit by accepting more than $1 million in Paycheck Protection Program money. That tells us that Jeffrey really doesn't have the courage of the conservative principles he likes to espouse.

MRC's Graham Doesn't Exactly Say He's Opposed To Wanting Journalists Dead
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has long been cravenly callous about the safety of journalists, smearking them as whiners when they note the threatening behavior they receive whenever President Trump attacks the media for not being completely fawning -- it even suggested that journalists ought to feel threatened for not being Trump sycophants. Yet the MRC has the temerity to complain when this is pointed out.

Thus, we have a June 29 post from Tim Graham, who whined that "Brian Stelter lamented that Facebook was “radicalizing” people with allowing all this divisive speech on its platform. Then he welcomed on longtime PBS omnipresence Bill Moyers, who suggested it was a popular T-shirt at Trump rallies to suggest journalists should be lynched."

When Moyers stated that the sparse crowd at Trump's Tulsa rally wasn't "engaged" until he attacked a reporter, Graham huffed in response: "WRONG. First, Trump mocked a supposed CNN reporter in minute 12, and the crowd was passionate before that. Second, he was mocking “the CNN anchor, you know, did a little shave job on the head…standing in front of a burning building, saying things are very peaceful here.” That’s not female, and not even CNN: it was MSNBC’s Ali Velshi."

After conceding that Trump got the network of the CNN reporter wrong, Graham then smeared Moyers as suffereing from old-age dementia, claiming he was "stumbling through false claims at age 86."

Moyers then claimed that a "popular T-shirt out in the Trump rallies" reads "Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some assembly Required," Graham lost it again: "Stelter didn't ask for any evidence for this smear, that this awful T-shirt is "popular." He just said “Thank you very much.  Great to hear your insight.” No time for fact checks!

Well, Graham had time for fact-checks, and he performed none, failing to disprove Moyers' claim. The shirt is certainly popular enough that people wear it on airplanes -- and, yes, it has been seen at Trump rallies.

Graham gets paid well to try and destroy journalists for failing to be good Trump-bots like himself, and then he gets mad when people point out that his virluent hatred of journalists has a logical extension -- which, by the way, he ever explicitly says he's opposed to, even as his headline screams that "Stelter Sets Up Moyers to Smear Trump Fans as Wanting Reporters DEAD."

Such is life at the MRC these days.