Allen West ranted in his July 13 CNSNews.com column:
“Useful idiots” is a phrase attributed to Vladimir Lenin, who supposedly used it to describe communist sympathizers in Western Civilization.
It is a very appropriate descriptor when it comes to the so-called “woke” mob of the so-called “resistance” that has overtaken the streets of America. Well, let me rephrase that: They have overtaken the streets of major population centers in America. The infestation of wokeness and idiocy seems concentrated in the very places where progressive socialist policies have failed in America.
[...]
America’s useful idiots want to embrace a philosophy of governance that is the antithesis of the liberty and freedoms that they enjoy. Do not believe me? Well, how about our woke little temper tantrum kids take a trip to Hong Kong. There you will find young people resisting the very ideology that our young people want to live under. How about our useful idiots talk to those Venezuelans who now reside in the United States, like former Miss Venezuela Carmen Maria Montiel, and learn just how awesome socialism truly is.
America’s useful idiots are busy searching and destroying anything that they claim is connected to systemic racism. Then why are these little cherubs aligning themselves with the Democrat [sic] Party? If we were to do a truly historical analysis of the Democrat [sic] Party, you would find the real purveyors of systemic racism in our country. I could go on, but think about the history of a political party that voted against the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. A political party that created our first domestic terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan -- oh, yeah, they created the second one also, Antifa.
As fact-checkers have pointed out, the Democratic Party did not not create the KKK, and West provides no evidence that Antifa is a Democratic Party creation. But as his deliberate misnaming of the Democratic Party demonstrates, the real useful idiot here is West.
His main function in the Republican Party is as a black man in an overwhelmingly white party, and it's unlikely that CNS' parent, Media Research Center, would name him a "senior fellow"(despite having no relevant experience in the "media research" realm) or give him a weekly column if he didn't hold that rare distinction -- something he has tried to exploit to benefit Republicans.
In his June 22 column headlined "A Black Man’s Letter to Black Lives Matter," West self-aggrandized: "There is a high possibility that I have forgotten more black history than some may ever learn -- or certainly know. I just authored a book titled, “We Can Overcome, An American Black Conservative Manifesto.”I do not need to “qualify” my being Black based upon some pre-determined ideological agenda." He went on to huff:
I am tired of our Nation cowering, appeasing, acquiescing, and surrendering to this absurd organization calling itself Black Lives Matter (BLM). There is nothing true or sincere about this ideologically aligned progressive socialist, cultural Marxist organization.
BLM is just another leftist organization created by the same ilk of progressive socialists who created the NAACP. When one reviews the goals and objectives of BLM, they have nothing to do with the real issues facing the Black community in America. The focus of BLM is to cleverly advance the leftist ideological agenda under the guise of a witty name that forces people into guilt, shame.
I do not need any white person in America to kneel before me, apologize, wash my feet, or as the insidious comment of Chick-fil-A CEO, Dan Cathy, shine my shoes. I did a doggone good job of shining my own boots during my career in the US Army -- that was my individual responsibility, in which I took great pride.
West also went on a tirade against Planned Parenthood: "Planned Parenthood was founded by a known white supremacist, racist, a woman who spoke at Ku Klux Klan rallies -- Margaret Sanger. Planned Parenthood has over 70 percent of their “clinics” located in black communities across America." West is lying' Sanger was not a "known white supremacist," and most of its clinics are not in "black communities."
But West gets away with those lies because it benefits his political ideology and his fellow ideologues will not hold him accountable for it.
If American Blacks are to truly overcome, the time has come for them to stop being driven into irrational emotionalism.
Somehow, in the Black community, reason and rational thought have taken a backseat to the acceptance of thoughts, perspectives, and ideologies that are not consistent with the “proclaimed” principles and values over which many in the black community shout “hallelujah” on one particular day of the week -- Sunday.
Why are we watching a community self-implode but go right along “whistling past the graveyard” in addressing its real, true issues.
One of those issues, West claimed, is black-on-black crime. West chose to attack the NAACP over the issues, claiming that "I have yet to hear the NAACP voice any concerns about the rampant shootings, black on black, in our American urban population centers." West obviously couldn't be bothered to do basic research, because the NAACP has spokenoutnumeroustimes on black-on-black crime.
West served up more right-wing talking points: "The bottom line is that the left has once again coopted a title for an organization that dupes Blacks into believing that white liberal progressive socialists care. The only thing they care about is power. The only thing they care about is maintaining a victim class for political patronage." Because that, ultimately, is what the MRC is paying him to do.
MRC Embraces QAnon To Own The Libs Topic: Media Research Center
We've already caught the Media Research Center siding with far-right extremists at Reddit because they claim to be pro-Trump, whitewashing their hate and endorsement of violence as being merely "politically incorrect." The MRC is finding more extreme right-wingers to defend.
In a July 20 post, Duncan Schroeder complained about how CNN analyst John Avlon "hypocritically accused the Republican Party of promoting extremism and conspiracy theories through discussing the QAnon conspiracy theory." Rather than concede that QAnon followers are pretty extreme, Schroeder shifted into whataboutism mode, ranting that "CNN has promoted multiple “nonsense” conspiracy theories about Trump," declaring that "If Avlon was not a Democratic hack, he would discuss how Democrats have directly pushed misinformation and conspiracy theories," and whining that "CNN was also involved with awarding the bogus 1619 Project a Pulitzer," which he declared to be "leftist fan fiction."
Schroeder's ranting was not done: He concluded by ranting, "CNN has become an enabler of dangerous, radical, far-left extremism, but will hide that fact by attacking a few extreme right wingers. Facts do not matter for the network, it has an election to win."
That's a rant written by someone who feels like he has an election to win -- and his silence about QAnon speaks volumes.
Two days later, Alexander Hall had a sad that QAnon-related accounts were deleted by Twitter. He actively downplayed their extremism, declaring these deleted accounts to be "pro-Trump":
Twitter declares war on QAnon theorists! Thousands of Pro-Trump accounts have been purged as Twitter targets theorists on the right while ignoring radicals on the left.
“We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm,” Twitter declared in a July 21 post. It specified that “this week we are taking further action on so-called ‘QAnon’ activity across the service.” A Twitter spokesperson told NBC News that around “150,000 accounts” will be affected in one form or another. The same article explained that the company has removed 7,000 QAnon accounts in the past few weeks for allegedly breaking Terms of Service rules about targeted harassment.
Twitter wrote that, going forward: “We will permanently suspend accounts Tweeting about these topics.” The company made clear that it will “[n]o longer serve content and accounts associated with QAnon in Trends and recommendations.” It will even “Block URLs associated with QAnon from being shared on Twitter.”
The closest Hall got to noting what QAnon actually does is repeating a New York Times description of the "ideology" of the group as being that Trump "ran for office to save Americans from a so-called deep state filled with child-abusing, devil-worshiping bureaucrats." Hall censored the Times' further description of QAnon's extremism and serial harassment of their targets, regarding how they believe that "the president’s enemies are prominent Democrats who, in some telling, extract hormones from children’s blood" and their link to the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which led to a "vigilante gunman" showing up at a Washington, D.C., pizzeria and firing an assault rifle inside it.
Instead, Hall went the whataboutism route, complaining that "The presence of far-left extremists like Antifa groups is strangely tolerated online" while not presenting any compelling evidence that they are.
Andy Schlafly's Mask Meltdown Topic: WorldNetDaily
A stark difference between the approach of President Trump and the newly radicalized Democratic Party is revealed by the issue of mandatory face masks. The "mask police" mentality of the Dems is inciting an Orwellian society of snitches and bullies.
Democrats are now insisting that everyone be required to wear masks and that anyone seen not wearing a mask be reported to the authorities. This is despite how leading liberal television commentators, including Chris Cuomo of CNN, were spotted outside without masks while they were being quarantined for COVID-19.
The wearing of masks in public places causes harm beyond COVID, which is why face coverings have long been against the law in many U.S. states and in other countries. There is no substitute for seeing the faces of strangers on the street and in stores.
A witness cannot give proper evidence in court while masked, for example. Reading a witness' face is essential to determine his credibility.
The idea of a faceless society has long symbolized descent into totalitarian control, but that is where we are headed. The mask police are determined to exploit the COVID crisis to turn us into a faceless society.
A woman with a medical condition preventing her from wearing a mask recently entered a Walmart in Summit County, Utah, where masks are mandatory. In that Utah county, residents are required not only to wear masks, but to report on anyone seen without a mask so that the police can rush out and give the person a summons or ticket.
Is this what our society should become? With all the violent protests occurring, one would think that local authorities have better ways to spend their scarce resources than to be mask police.
[...]
President Trump is right to reject wearing a mask in most places. Bandits and anarchists wear masks, not the leader of the free world.
MRC's Houck Still Lacks The Courage Of His Convictions Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center writer and NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck is pretty vocal on Twitter, usually in meltdown mode over some imagined slight on CNN. But he's also a coward -- he refuses to translate his opinions into NewsBusters content when they deviate from right-wing orthodoxy, like the slightest, entirely justified criticism of President Trump.
One thing Houck has been vocal about on Twitter is his struggles with depression. That's a courageous thing for him to do -- he even has a thread about his struggles pinned to the top of his Twitter feed. In an Aug. 5 tweet, Houck noted a CBS report on Michelle Obama talking about her current struggle with depression, and responded somewhat sympathetically: "Even though she's very well off with places to live, things to do, and resources to help, I still think it's great @MichelleObama spoke out about her feelings of depression during this coronavirus pandemic. Good on @MargBrennan for covering it. We need all voices to #EndTheStigma."
Because we've been observing Houck and the MRC for as long as we have and understand how it works, we tweeted in response: "Yet you’ll still probably have @gabrieljhays write a @newsbusters post mocking Obama for being a “very well off” woman who’s complaining about being depressed, right?"
Sadly, it turns out we were right. The very next day, Gabriel Hays had a post sneeringly headlined "Michelle Obummer: Former First Lady's Podcast Blames Trump for Her ‘Depression,’" and he did exactly what we said he would do:
Michelle Obama may be many things, a mega-millionaire, emerging media personality, bestselling author and former White House resident, but complete happiness has been eluding her lately, and shocker, it’s because of a certain sitting president.
During the latest episode of her fancy new Spotify podcast, the former first lady told her guest that President Trump has given her a mild bout of “epression” due to his unrelenting “hypocrisy.”
Cue up the melancholic violins for this Zoloft-sponsored performance of “Orange Man Bad.”
[...]
Oh and there it is. Though when it comes to helping along some of her depression for the racial strife, she could look at some crime stats to reassure herself that cops aren’t out hunting black people, or take a breather and realize that America isn’t an inherently racist country, as the left/BLM wants us all to believe. As far as the Trump problem goes, well she might have to sit tight.
“So I’ve kind of had to give myself that,” Mrs. Obama stated, demonstrating that she’s allowing herself to feel “dispirited” over Trump and racism that’s not really occurring. Again. Isn’t that wonderful? America is under assault from vicious lies about its character and a street mob physically enforcing them. But rather than Michelle seeking the balanced approach, she’s letting leftwing talking points encourage her depression. How is this Trump’s fault exactly?
That's right -- Houck allowed Hays to make a mockery of a very personal issue to him. It's almost as if he's not actually managing anything at all as managing editor and just obediently taking marching orders from Brent Bozell and Tim Graham. Being forced to be a rage-bot and apparently forbidden to inject a little humanity into the increasingly hate-driven NewsBusters can't be helping Houck's mental health.
CNS Complains That Drag Queen Got Federal Relief Money, Censors That It Did Too Topic: CNSNews.com
Craig Bannister complained in a July 17 CNSNews.com article:
Walter Cole, aka “Darcelle,” says that not even the coronavirus and Black Lives Matter riots in his city can force his Darcelle XV Showplace theater to close after 53 years in business – thanks to the coronavirus relief loan he got from the government.
“We’ll never close,” Cole, thought to be the world’s oldest drag queen, told The Oregonian on Thursday, responding to local news reports that his Portland, Oregon theater might have to shut its doors:
[...]
But, thanks to the federal pandemic relief loan, Cole says he’ll be able to continue to pay his staff, which has been cut by nearly two-thirds, and keep his nightly drag show going.
What Bannister didn't tell his readers: His employer, the Media Research Center, took more than $1 million in Paycheck Protection Program money -- the same program, apparently, that Cole took advantage of.
That means the same federal funding that's keeping Cole's theater alive is also keeping Bannister employed. It also means that Bannister has no moral standing to attack Cole. And it also means that CNS' frequent complaints of excessive government spending ring increasingly hollow since it's now on the record as directly benefiting from that very same spending.
In Midst Of Pandemic Surge, MRC Remained A Florida Apologist Topic: Media Research Center
We've documented how the Media Research Center praised Florida and its Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, earlier this year for low coronavirus infection numbers -- but when those numbers started spiking this summer, it had to go into defense-and-deflection mode by throwing out a lot of whataboutism regarding New York's case numbers. That deflection has continued apace.
A July 14 post by Kathleen Krumhansl (also available in Spanish) complained about Latino news networks, where allegedly "numbers are routinely bent to fit their ongoing glorification of New York, and demonization of Florida and other Republican states." The whataboutism came hot and heavy: "According to data from the CDC, in New York City alone, the fatality rate is 277.7 deaths per hundred thousand; for the whole state of Florida, total deaths reach 19.9 deaths per hundred thousand."
The same day, Duncan Schroeder huffed that "CNN co-host John Berman brought on Miami Beach’s Democratic Mayor Dan Gelber to spread liberal propaganda about Florida's response to COVID-19. Throughout the segment, Berman bashed the state's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and attempted to make Gelber’s handling of the pandemic look better." He also huffed whataboutism: "Attacking DeSantis is nothing new for Berman. He's repeatedly savaged the Republican, but refused to hold Democratic governors such as New York’s Andrew Cuomo accountable for their mismanagement of the virus."
Kristine Marsh pounced on a report about "inflated, erroneous positive infection data"in Florida because it counters "the media’s determination to vilify Florida as the new coronavirus epicenter," going on to tout how Fox News shows like "Fox and Friends as well as the FNC’s primetime lineup shared and discussed the report Tuesday, and Monday night, respectively. Laura Ingraham said the report exposed a 'potentially massive scandal brewing regarding the way hospitals, labs, and others are reporting the percentage of positive test results.'" But as an actual fact-checker pointed out, while there have been discrepancies in reporting numbers, they don't explain away the surge in Florida coronavirus cases, as Marsh seems to be suggesting.
Schroeder also complained that a doctor who appeared on CNN was bashing Republican governors like DeSantis for their mismanagement of the pandemic, grousing that he should "have noted that California had more deaths than Texas and Florida yesterday."
Krumhansl returned to complain (in Spanish as well) that Univision provided "sympathetic coverage of a lawsuit filed by Florida's largest teacher’s union against DeSantis" over opening schools in the fall, ranting that "Univision’s viewers did not hear from Hispanic parents who want schools to open, nor from experts with views on how to safely make that happen, nor from anyone from the DeSantis Administration. She went on to assert that Univision "supports and advocates for infinite lockdowns," though she offered no alternative idea for stopping the spread of coronavirus.
Adter that, though, the MRC seemed to finally tire of defending Florida and DeSantis, apparently realizing the situation there was too dire for even diehard partisans to defend.
NEW ARTICLE: Whitewashing A Black Right-Winger Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com loves to promote black right-wing activist Candace Owens -- and to censor the numerous controversies she's been in and the extreme statements she has made. Read more >>
MRC's 'Facts Feared by Leftist Media' Short On Actual Facts Topic: Media Research Center
Last month, the Media Research Center started a thing called "Facts Feared by Leftist Media," which are just a list of right-wing talking points on particular issues -- which, it turns out, are themselves a bit on the fact-deficient side.
In a post on how Planned Parenthood was "founded on racism and eugenics," Kyle Drennen wrote: "Planned Parenthood was founded by enthusiastic eugenicist Margaret Sanger in 1916. Sanger’s racist views were well-established, declaring that 'minorities (including most of America’s immigrants) are inferior in the human race, as are the physically and mentally handicapped.'"
But that quote is not from Sanger; it's from a 2017 Washington Times column by right-wing activist (and onetime director of communications at WorldNetDaily) Rebecca Hagelin, who we can assume (and Drennen should assume) is more than a bit biased against Planned Parenthood.While Sanger was very much a eugenicist, there's no evidence explicit racism drove her beliefs.
In a post on Black Lives Matter, Drennen ranted that "what reporters don’t want people to know is that the group was founded by self-avowed 'Marxists' who demand 'revolution' and seek to unmake American society." As we've documented, the MRC has been on a tear trying to brand BLM as "Marxist" because of its founders, despite the fact that even other conservatives admit BLM as it's currently constituted is not pursuing Marxist goals.
In a July 23 post on how the Democratic Party is "rooted in racism," Drennen huffed: "On Wednesday night, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News both promoted a blatant lie from presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who claimed Donald Trump was America’s 'first racist president.'" But Drennen doesn't deny that Trump is racist -- just that he's the "first racist president."
Drennen added: "Despite DNC operatives in the media routinely attempting to tar Republicans and conservatives as 'racist,' history shows it’s the Democratic Party that has to answer for the nation’s worst racial atrocities – from the birth of the Confederacy, to the founding of the Ku Klux Klan, and right through the Jim Crow era." Or course, the media is talking about what's happening today; nobody's denying that there was racism in the Democratic Party up until the 1960s -- when it began supporting civil rights legislation and those Democrats who wouldn't became Republicans.
Drennen also whined: "Even with this mountain of damning evidence, many in the leftist press still try to conceal the truth of the Democratic Party’s racist history. On June 30, USA Today attempted to do just that with a fake 'fact-check' that pretended Democrats weren’t responsible for the Civil War or founding the KKK." Drennen is lying; the fact-check specifically responded to the claim that the Democratic Party, not individual Democrats, were responsible for the Civil War or the KKK.
Drennen concluded with more huffing: "The next time some sanctimonious reporter or Democratic politician accuses any Republican or conservative of racism, someone should ask them if they’ve ever opened a history book." Drennen might want to consider opening one as well so he can get a fully rounded view of American history and not just cherry-pick things that advance his employer's right-wing agenda.
On Aug. 4, Drennen did a lot of ranting about the "scandals and unhinged agenda" of "Squad" members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley." They're all negative attacks that read like an Republican opposition research document; he won't mention, for instance, that a Republican congressman slurred Ocasio-Cortez as a "fucking bitch."
Drennen ultimately came up with some boilerplate for his mission: "The Media Research Center is committed to telling the truth about the left, unlike the compliant press that push its extreme views." But only certain truths, of course; inconvenient facts will be censored.
Newsmax Columnist Attacks Fauci With Dubious Coronavirus Statistics Topic: Newsmax
Tawfik Hamid -- whose expertise is apparently in hating Muslims, given that he's written a book called "Inside Jihad: How Radical Islam Works, Why It Should Terrify Us, How to Defeat It" -- complaine in a July 14 Newsmax column that Dr. Anthony Fauci said that he didn't know where President Truump got his assertion that 99 percent of coronavirus cases are "not a problem":
Yet even basic research on coronavirus statistics confirms beyond doubt that President Trump is correct.
For example, if anyone consults Worldometer’s coronavirus statistics, he or she can easily see, in the first box on the left of the page, about active cases of coronavirus, the essential statistics showing how many among those active cases have developed only mild symptoms and how many of them have developed more severe or serious conditions.
According to Worldometer’s statistics, 99% of coronavirus infections constitute mild cases, and only 1 percent are in serious or critical condition.
Therefore, Worldometer’s statistics fully support President Trump’s assertion.
Well, we consulted Worldometer’s coronavirus statistics and found that he 1% number referred only to current cases, not all cases. It also does not provide a definition of what it considers to be a "mild" case, and that numerical assertion appears to be contradicted elsewhere on the site. In a page that dates to April, Worldometer reported on a group of 72,314 coronavirus cases in China, where it found (bold in original):
80.9% of infections are mild(with flu-like symptoms) andcan recover at home.
13.8% are severe, developing severe diseases includingpneumoniaandshortness of breath.
4.7% as criticaland can include:respiratory failure,septic shock, andmulti-organ failure.
in about 2% of reported cases the virus is fatal.
Worldometer also stated that of the 12.7 million closed cases, more than 707,000, or 6 percent, resulted in death.That seems to be much higher than 1 percent.
Hamid is simply massaging statistics in a desperate attempt to boost Trump. Yet he went on to rant: "I find it difficult to understand why Dr. Fauci has ignored such clear and unmistakable statistics, which are available to anyone who wants to track coronavirus cases. Let us express our appreciation to President Trump for providing the American people with the correct statistics about coronavirus."
We've caught WorldNetDaily columnist W. Scott Magill spreading lies about Anthony Fauci and going all conspiratorial. He (with co-writer Larewnce Allen) took the conspiracy stuff up to eleven in his July 14 WND column:
Few who were alive at the time can forget the moment the first plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City on 9/11. Over the intervening 18 minutes, people remarked that there were 10,000 people in those buildings on any given workday. And some talked about a B-25 that crashed into the Empire State Building in dense fog in 1945. Nearly all were wondering how those kinds of accidents can still happen in the 21st century. In those tense minutes, everyone knew something was terribly wrong, but they were in a First Tower Mentality.
When the second plane hit the South Tower, everyone suddenly had a Second Tower Mentality. They didn't need to hear about the Pentagon or Flight 93 or see reports about who al-Qaida and the Taliban were. That would come later. All knew when that second plane hit – America was under attack.
Many feel precisely the same way today: Americans and our constitutional republic are under attack. But not from strange foreign adversaries with names that took practice to pronounce. Instead, it's an attack from "Enemies Domestic" right here at home – household names like CNN, Nancy Pelosi, Seattle Mayor Durkan, California Gov. Newsom, your local faceless city council members, Soros-selected district attorneys and the usual suspects of academics, race hustlers and deep state operatives at all levels of government. Like al-Qaida, they are working to rob you of the blessings of your birthright, your liberty, your livelihood. Their goal is to: destroy your safety and security; burn down our nation; erase Western civilization history; and destroy our way of life so they can enforce their tyrannical form of government in a socialized world without borders.
We are under attack.
A mere five months ago, we had a roaring economy. A bottom-up economic boom, by which all boats were being floated. Average Americans saw their wages grow for the first time in two decades. All minorities were seeing rising economic stability, and black American unemployment was at an all-time low. All while America was disentangling itself from costly mistakes abroad and getting our allies to pay their fair share.
The Democratic Party had just put on three sideshows – their candidate debates, the unsuccessful Russian hoax debacle and failed impeachment. Some traditional Democratic interest groups were already looking favorably upon the Trump economy and sincerely asking themselves: yeah, so what do I have to lose? Meanwhile, other Democratic interest groups, like Wall Street, the Deep State, RINO Republicans, entertainment industry personalities, big tech corporate executives, media and academia, all knew they were going to be more soundly defeated November 2020 than they were in November 2016.
With three of their weapons having failed them, they needed a new one. For them, something had to be done, and done fast, to destroy the freest country and the most powerful force for good in the history of humanity.
And then it happened. The left weaponized COVID-19.
Magill goes on like this for a while, ranting further about "Enemies Domestic" and a "Second Tower Moment" and dropping a Goebbels reference, ultimately declaring that "Only the truth is the mortal enemy to the lies permeating the American culture today." Ironic, since he's been proven to be a liar.
Who Is The MRC's Graham Heathering Now? Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has been on quite the Heatheringbinge lately -- attacking well-credentialed conservatives for the sin of being insufficiently conservative, as defined by a refusal to criticize anything Presient Trump does, no matter how petulent or non-conservative he acts. That hasn't stopped.
Tim Graham devoted his July 15 column to bashing conservative Michael Gerson:
Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson has a Republican pedigree and an evangelical Christian background. He wrote profound speeches for former President George W. Bush, who was mocked as a mangler of the English language. Today, he sounds like a speechwriter for the gaseous opening of the Brian Stelter show on CNN.
The headline of a recent Gerson column was "Trump has taken up residence in an alternate political reality." Gerson writes the most urgent national challenge is how "the president inhabits a different country from the rest of us."
One of the most consistent (and consistently annoying) tropes of Stelter's CNN is how the network claims its opinionated hot takes are "reality," that it deals in Facts. When the president disagrees with its opinionated hot takes, he's living in an "alternate reality."
[...]
Consider how "reality-based" Gerson describes Trump's current belief system about our country: "It is a land where the novel coronavirus is harmless. Where hydroxychloroquine is still a miracle drug. Where President Trump's handling of the pandemic is an example to the world. It is a land where Black Lives Matter is a movement of looting and violent subversion. Where the Confederacy is part of 'our heritage.' Where police brutality is the desired norm."
That, in "reality," is not an objective description of Trump's beliefs. It's a hostile political cartoon, like so much of CNN's reporting from "reality."
Graham also found a way, as he usually does, to excuse Trump's constant stream of lies by adding some whataboutism: "It is obvious to everyone that Donald Trump boasts and exaggerates about his greatness. Just as it was obvious that former President Barack Obama never needed to boast or exaggerate about his greatness; he had CNN and the rest of the "objective" media gang to do it for him."
Graham defended Trump further, even while conceding that Gerson has a point: "Gerson was making a larger and less cartoonish point about the president being unwilling to consider opposing points of view, even within his circle of advisers. Every president should be pressed to consider dissenting views and advice. But you can hardly say Trump isn't faced with that dissent everywhere, and even within his team, he has to wonder which adviser is going to burn him anonymously in Gerson's newspaper."
When unambigously right-wing Fox News host Chris Wallace conducted a relatively tough interview of Trump, Graham spent a July 20 post attacking Wallace by going the whataboutism route, complaining that a interview he did withJoe Biden wasn't similarly tough:
When President Trump complains about Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace pushing hard questions on him, the natural curiosity is to go back and look at how Wallace pressed Joe Biden. He interviewed Biden on March 1, 2020, which was not a common occurrence. At the end, Wallace joked "Please come back in less than 13 years, sir."
The interview began with a lot of horse-racey stuff about battling Bernie Sanders for the nomination. Then he asked if the socialist Sanders could hurt the party down the ballot, and Biden in a vague way said Yes. Then came the bizarre part, when Wallace sounded just like a Chuck Todd. He insisted Biden was a "moderate," which Biden didn't really want to accept!
[...]
Wallace did fact-check Biden in one question on his bizarre lie about getting arrested trying to see Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
[...]
ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NBC and PBS all failed to air or note this Soweto tall-tale exchange after the Fox News Sunday interview. There were no stories hailing Wallace for an "A-plus accountability interview." Chris Wallace is only making news when he's challenging Trump, not Biden.
And Graham only writes about his fellow conservatives when they haven't drunk the same amount of Trump Kool-Aid that he has.
CNS Compares COVID Death Numbers To April Peak To Downplay Current Surge Topic: CNSNews.com
The coronavirus pandemic is swamping Republican-led states like Florida. What's a good Republican lackey-slash-arm of the Trump re-election campaign like the Media Research Center to do? At the MRC proper, they're using a lot of New York whataboutism to distract from the disaster in Florida. And at the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, reporter Susan Jones is achieving the same narrative in a different way, by cherry-picking numbers and making the current surge sound minor by comparing it to the pandemic's peak earlier this year.
Jones wrote in a July 7 article in the first of this series, under the headline "CDC: COVID-19 Deaths Peaked in Mid-April; Down 86% by Week Ending June 20":
The number of deaths involving COVID-19 in the United States peaked at 16,394 in the week ending on April 18, 2020, according to the provisional COVID-19 death counts published by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), which is a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
By the week ending on June 20, deaths involving COVID-19 had dropped to 2,287--a decline of 86 percent from the peak of 16,394.
[...]
The weekly COVID-involved death count, as reported by the CDC, has been steadily dropping since it hit its peak in mid-April, based on the numbers reported by NCHS.
While Jones leads with those numbers, the last half of her article carries a bunch of caveats -- specifically, that the most recent numbers are not set in stone and are subject to revision; as she wrote, "CDC also noted that states report at different rates, although 63 percent of all U.S. deaths are reported within 10 days of the date of death."
Indeed, the CDC's current number for COVID-19-related deaths for the week ending June 20 stands at 3,673 -- a more than 50 percent increase from the number Jones reported. That tells you that Jones' reporting here is politically driven to downplay the current surge.
Jones followed this with a July 14 article with the blaring headline "CDC: COVID-19 Deaths for Week Ending June 27 Down 91.9% From Mid-April Peak," oging on to state that "In the week that ended on June 27, there were 1,363 deaths in the United States involving COVID-19, which was a 91.9 percent drop from the peak of 16,895 COVID-involved deaths reported for the week that ended on April 18." The CDC's current death count for that week is 3,534 -- more than double the number Jones reported.
On July 21, Jones touted under the headline "CDC: COVID Deaths for Week Ending July 4 Down 83% From Peak; Down 9% From Prior Week": "In the week that ended on July 4, 2,818 people in this country died from the COVID-19 virus, which is an 83.36 percent drop from the peak of 16,941 COVID-involved deaths reported for the week that ended on April 18." The current CDC number for that week is 3,957.
Joens did bow to reality a little in her July 27 article, conceding that numbers are going up and revising the previous week's numbers upward -- while still portraying that as below the April peak:
After falling for ten straight weeks, COVID-involved deaths in the United States began rising again during the week that ended on July 4 and continued to rise in the week that ended on July 11, according to data published by the CDC.
However, even with the rising number of deaths in those two weeks--as counted by death certificates submitted to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics--the number of COVID-involved deaths in the week ending July 11 was still 77.5 percent below the mid-April peak.
In the week ending July 4, 3,689 people died from COVID-involved illness, a 9 percent increase from the 3,384 who died in the week ending June 27.
In the week ending July 11, the provisional COVID death count was 3,814, a 3.4 percent increase over the week ending July 4.
But the 3,814 COVID-19-invovled deaths in the week ending on July 11 was 77.5 percent below the peak of 16,970 in the week that ended on April 18.
The CDC is currently reporting that 4,450 people died in the week ending July 11.
The most recent death certificates submitted to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that COVID-involved deaths in this country declined in the second half of July.
Based on CDC's preliminary data, 4,081 people died of COVID-involved disease in the week ending July 18. That is an 8.29 percent decrease from the 4,450 who died of COVID in the prior week. And it is 75.97 percent below the mid-April peak of 16,985 COVID-involved deaths.
Jones did concede in the third paragraph that "as CDC notes, data in recent weeks is more likely to be incomplete. The numbers change as more death certificates come in, but it now appears to be a declining trend for the second half of July."
It's in her employer's political interests that the "declining trend" be the narrative, even if future numbers say otherwise.
MRC Thinks Far-Right Hate Speech On Reddit Is Merely 'Politically Incorrect' Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has a bad habit of endorsing the worst content from right-wing creators and social media -- like PewDiePie's racism, hate-mongering extremists like Laura Loomer and Tommy Robinson and coronavirus conspiracy theories -- in the name of its verion of "free speech" where right-wingers are never held accountable for what they say or do on social media and must never be blocked from saying whatever they want no matter how hateful or untrue.
One thing it has been defending is Reddit's r/The_Donald subreddit. Corinne Weaver wrote in a February post:
Reddit will once again crack down on users and communities it considers undesirable.
Buried in Reddit’s 2019 Transparency Report was a concerning update to its policies. Users who consistently upvote “policy-breaking content” in “quarantined communities,” like r/The_Donald, “will receive automated warnings,” followed by consequences like temporary and permanent suspensions. “We hope this will encourage healthier behavior across these communities,” wrote [Reddit CEO Steve] Huffman.
Weaver, however, was curiously vague about the content that got r/The_Donald put on the warning list beyond a reference to it being quarantined for "significant issues with reporting and addressing violations of Reddit’s rules against violence." Meanwhile, other have documented how the subreddit has been notorioius for "its promotion of racism, anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories, and violent memes starring a cartoon frog," adding:
r/The_Donald has been a pain point for Reddit for years. It was created in June 2015 to discuss and promote Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and quickly became a hotbed for extreme political rhetoric. Members of the subreddit amplified the Pizzagate conspiracy theory in late 2016, and in August 2017, they promoted attendance at the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The Southern Poverty Law Center published a detailed report on r/The_Donald in April 2018, highlighting the subreddit’s paranoia about “white genocide” and its support of ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Myanmar, its vicious antiblack racism and anti-Semitism, and its fascination with imagining violence against the media. Still, the community was a favorite of Trump himself, who hosted a question-and-answer session there during the Democratic National Convention in 2016 and to pull content directly from the subreddit to use in his tweets.
When Reddit shut down for good in June, the MRC still wouldn't admit that there was any problem with it other than supporting Trump. A June 29 post by Alexander Hall declared that it was "conservative speech" and a "popular political platform" being shut down for being "politically incorrect."
Hall also weirdly took offense with a Reddit rule arguing that "people who are in the majority" lack some protections on the forum. He ranted that this was a "double standard on who is allowed to be openly hated," adding, "Essentially, a person who is in the 'racial minority' may call somebody in the racial majority 'sub-human and inferior' with impunity."
Hall touted how "The r/The_Donald community, exiled from Reddit, can be found at the new TheDonald.win forum website" and also threw in a call to action: "Contact Reddit admin and demand that the platform mirror the First Amendment: Tech giants should afford their users nothing less than the free speech and free exercise of religion embodied in the First Amendment as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court."
The MRC has also continued to attack a former Reddit CEO over "free speech" issues, despite the fact that she left the company in 2015 and was only CEO for eight months. In a May 2019 post, Weaver complained that Ellen Pao "slammed the existence of subreddits like The_Donald. She also strongly emphasized the need for tech companies to regulate in order to rid themselves of bullies and allow 'actual conversation.' Pao also expressed the belief that tech companies lived in 'fear' of their users, especially when it came to conservative groups." Weaver groused in September 2019 that "Pao has been lobbying for Twitter to suspend the president’s account for two years. Now, she’s using the latest tweet uproar to push one last time for a suspension."
In a April 14 post, Hall huffed that Pao "took a swing at President Donald Trump during a time of crisis" by pointing out that what Trump has called "fake news" is usually accurate but makes him look bad. Hall offered only whataboutism in response: "Pao does not have a leg to stand on when it comes to criticizing leadership. As CEO of Reddit, Pao cracked down on speech she found offensive. One of the most infamous rules she implemented was using off-site behavior as an excuse to ban users from Reddit itself. "
All these attacks on Pao referenced the r/The_Donald subreddit -- but made no mention of the offensive content it had become known far. That kind of censorship is at least as bad as what MRC accuses others of doing.
Today's "essential workers" include grocery clerks, Walmart greeters, and Home Depot employees.
If a liquor store is essential, a public school should be also.
If a private school teacher is essential, a public school teacher should also be.
The only difference between public and private schools is a union — and a Democratic governor who cares more about defying Trump than protecting the country's most vulnerable population.
Keeping schools closed is institutionalized child abuse. Open them up.
If there is one fact regarding the WuFlu that everyone should be able to agree upon, it’s that bat-soup syndrome discriminates based on age. The older you are, the harder you’re hit.
That’s why at first glance the debate on re-opening the schools seems so bizarre.
So far this year four times the number of school-age children have been killed by the regular flu than the Flu Manchu and schools don’t close en masse for the seasonal flu.
[...]
So why are teachers, administrators and politicians opposing school re-opening this fall?
Two words — Donald Trump.
Keeping school age children at home also keeps at least one parent at home. If schools remain closed the economy can't fully reopen.
If the economy can’t recover then Trump’s chances for re-election begin to plummet.
[...]
Others contend the pressure of lockdowns and the kids at home create a volatile situation. We aren’t ready to jump on the reopen the schools because kids-shouldn’t-be-left-alone-with-their-potentially-deadly-parents bandwagon.
We want the schools open because that is the best way for children to learn.
Online learning for elementary, middle and high school students is a proven disaster —nationwide.
-- Michael Reagan and Michael Shannon, July 18 Newsmax column
It's reasonable that some of these adults are wary of being exposed to a virus that has not yet been tamed by science, and which is still wreaking havoc in some parts of the country. I know that the uncertainties attached to this disease give one pause, and provide significant challenges to reopening the schools. And yes, I am fully aware that there is not enough money, time, or even initiative at the local level to guarantee a fool-proof, completely sanitized, thoroughly germ-free environment.
But by the same token, the only ones I see engaging in finger pointing and "end-times" sort of rhetoric are teachers who do not want to return to the classroom, and their supporters.
[...]
I don’t mean to dismiss the real concerns of teachers who might feel particularly vulnerable to infection, including those who are older, have pre-existing conditions or don’t want to expose vulnerable family members to what they perceive as a risk.
But that is not what we have been doing, because some people see this as just another opportunity to attack a president they despise, or advance some agenda that has absolutely nothing to do with their own health, or the welfare of children.
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.
Allen West ranted in his July 13 CNSNews.com column:
We've already caught the Media Research Center 
A stark difference between the approach of President Trump and the newly radicalized Democratic Party is revealed by the issue of mandatory face masks. The "mask police" mentality of the Dems is inciting an Orwellian society of snitches and bullies.
Media Research Center writer and NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck is pretty vocal on Twitter, usually in 
Craig Bannister complained in a July 17 CNSNews.com 
We've 
Last month, the Media Research Center started a thing called "Facts Feared by Leftist Media," which are just a list of right-wing talking points on particular issues -- which, it turns out, are themselves a bit on the fact-deficient side.
Tawfik Hamid -- whose expertise is apparently in hating Muslims, given that he's written a book called "Inside Jihad: How Radical Islam Works, Why It Should Terrify Us, How to Defeat It" -- complaine in a July 14 Newsmax 
We've caught WorldNetDaily columnist W. Scott Magill 
The Media Research Center has been on quite the 
The coronavirus pandemic is swamping Republican-led states like Florida. What's a good Republican lackey-slash-arm of the Trump re-election campaign like the Media Research Center to do? At the MRC proper, they're using a lot of 
The Media Research Center has a 
The science is settled and it's time to end the debate on school closures. Open them in the fall.
WorldNetDaily has never let go of its Obama birther conspiracies, and it occasionally likes to remind us of that fact.
