Bozell's Conspiracy Theory: Polls Showing Biden With Big Lead Were Faked Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center' Brent Bozell is not taking the possiblity that Joe Biden may win the presidential election very well. He issued a statement concocting a conspiracy theory that polls about the election were "deliberately wildly wrong" in order to "suppress the vote" for Trump:
“While votes are still being counted and the outcome of the election is undetermined, there is one thing we can say with certainty: once again, the polls weren’t just wildly wrong, they were deliberately wildly wrong.
This was no mistake. These were the same pollsters who predicted the same thing four years ago, day after day after day: there was no way Donald Trump could win. It was clear then that they were attempting to suppress the vote. The pollsters denied it, of course.
Here we go again four years later. Same pollsters, same prediction, day after day after day: Trump could not win. This time it’s indisputable. They did it on purpose. They knew exactly what they were doing. Just as with Clinton four years ago, they were firmly vested in Biden’s election.
There needs to be a federal investigation. This is clearly election tampering. At the very least, this is a violation of federal election laws.
So many of these pollsters worked for the national ‘news” media.’ It’s yet another reason why Americans should never believe these hucksters again.”
Needless to say, Bozell offers no evidence to back up his paranoid conspiracy theory.
Bozell also issued a video claming that the MRC is "going to show the supression that took place," as well as other conspiratorial claims to be made in an upcoming "explosive report" that will purport to prove that "the national news media stole the 2020 campaign."
CNS Does Damage Control For Trump Chief of Staff Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com worked until the very end to play damage control and cleanup on behalf of President Trump's re-election.
On Oct. 25, Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows got himself into a spot of bother when he admitted on CNN that "We are not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation areas." That didn't go over well -- a fact reinforced by CNS, which ignored the remark at first. It took nearly two full days after Meadows said it for CNS to acknowledge it, apparently requiring that long to come up with a way to spin it. That angle -- blaming Joe Biden for taking Meadows out of context -- debuted in an article by Susan Jones:
Giving a speech near his home in Delaware Monday, Vice President Joe Biden said, "Look, yesterday White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows went on television to admit to the country his administration wasn't even trying -- trying anymore to deal with the pandemic." He said, and I quote, 'We're not going to control the pandemic.'"
Yes, Meadows used those words. But clearly, Meadows did not mean the Trump administration is giving up.
Here's what Meadows actually told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, in context:
[...]
So clearly Meadows meant that the contagious virus is impossible to control, absent a job-killing lockdown, until therapies and vaccines are able to keep it at bay. Meadows did not mean the Trump administration doesn't care about controlling it.
Jones further complained that "Biden made that comment after reporters asked Mark Meadows about his 'we're not going to control the pandemic' remark on Monday morning," in which he did his own damage control.
This was joined by an article from Melanie Arter attacking MSNBC host for noting Meadows' remarks (and referencing Jones' attempt at damage control):
MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell on Monday compared the Trump administration’s approach to the coronavirus to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt saying during his re-election campaign that we’re not going to win WWII.
On MSNBC’s “Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell,” O’Donnell was referring to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadow’s comments over the weekend, saying that we’re not “we’re not going to control the pandemic. We’re going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation areas.”
As CNSNews.com reported, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden twisted Meadows’ words, claiming that Meadows “went on television to admit to the country his administration wasn't even trying -- trying anymore to deal with the pandemic."
That's basically all CNS had on this. It seems even they didn't think it was all that defensible.
AAPS' Dubious Doc Shills For Trump And HCQ, Attacks Fauci Topic: Newsmax
Dubious doctor Jane Orient of the fringe-right Association of American Physicians and Surgeons spent her Oct. 28 Newsmax column touting President Trump's "America First Healthcare Plan" -- despite the fact that it's not an actual replacement for the Affordable Care Act and Trump hasn't really tried to implement it beyond a few executive orders -- and fearmongering about what she claims Joe Biden will do to healthcare.
Orient also gushed over how Trump "mentioned hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) favorably" as a treatment for coronavirus -- not a surprise, since we last saw her touting a fake study purporting to defend the efficacy of the drug --But she didn't mention that Trump apparently did not take HCQ during his recent bout with the virus.
Also unsurprisingly, Orient attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci for committing the sin of insisting on rigorous medical standards:
Dr. Anthony Fauci has been very negative about early COVID-19 treatment as "unproved," and Biden has declared Trump as being "totally irresponsible" for taking HCQ for a time until last May.
At age 80, Dr. Fauci himself may not be in his position much longer, but he exemplifies the mindset of federal bureaucracies.
He was in charge early in the AIDS epidemic. In 1987, when patients were dying of pneumocystis pneumonia, activists pleaded with Dr. Fauci to issue guidance that suggested prophylactic treatment with Bactrim, a safe sulfa drug, based on studies done in transplant patients in 1977.
Dr. Fauci refused, insisting on the "gold standard" of randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
Since the National Institutes of Health refused to fund trials, activists raised the money themselves. By the time the results were ready, two years later, 17,000 patients had died needlessly. Since efforts to develop an HIV/AIDS vaccine have so far failed, the standard of care is now pre-exposure and post-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP and PEP).
In a 2020 re-play with COVID-19, Dr. Fauci disregards the experience of thousands of physicians who treat patients worldwide, demanding RCTs.
In referencing Fauci and AIDS, Orient is parroting an attack from Harvey Risch, a Yale professor turned HCQ obsessive. But Risch's advocacy has been discredited.
MRC Gives Dubious Anti-Google Researcher Another Platform Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center absolutely loves Google-hating researcher Robert Epstein for his conspiracy theories about Google secretly gaming search results to steer users toward Democrats and against Republicans -- never mind that others have discredited him. So with another election coming up, it called on him again in an Oct. 13 item by Corinne Weaver:
The social media researcher who warned about Google’s power to shift the election said that the company may be focusing on a new solution: the United States Senate.
Dr. Robert Epstein, senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, told the Media Research Center that Google is “now focusing most of their vote shifting power on the Senate races, where big-margin outcomes will be hard to contest.” Thirty-five seats in the Senate are up for election on Nov. 3, 2020. Out of those races, 23 seats currently belong to Republicans.
Epstein theorized that Google had the power to “mobilize the base supporters of Democratic candidates to register to vote and then to vote; they can discourage some Republican voters from registering to vote or voting.” He wrote that the company had “at least 9 million undecided voters they can still play with.”
[...]
Why would Google put so much effort into manipulating votes in order to flip the Senate? Epstein said, “That will guarantee a Democratic Senate, which will leave a Trump presidency powerless.”
Needless to say, Weaver was silent about how Epstein's previous research was based on just 21 undecided voters and that he employed dubious methodology in determining the alleged bias of a given website. But he's saying what the MRC wants to hear to advance its war against social media and "Big Tech," so Weaver isn't going to bother herself with such details.
Kupelian Lies Some More About WND Reporting The Truth Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily managing editor David Kupelian loves to tell the lie that WND reports the truth, usually as a ploy to get people to give him money to keep WND afloat. He did both things again in a Nov. 1 column that was also sent out to WND's mailing list.
First, he declared that "No matter how this election charade ends, the media landscape will be forever changed. Most so-called “mainstream journalists” have disgraced themselves beyond repair, having proven they are no better – and no different – than Pravda, the pretend “newspaper of record” in the former Soviet Union that was actually just a craven, lying, servile propaganda operation for that totalitarian regime’s ruling elite." Of course, WND has been quite the craven, lying, servile propaganda operation for the Trump regime, but Kupelian won't tell you that.
Then it was time for Kupelian to play the victim:
WorldNetDaily fully intends to remain a key part of America’s truth-proclaiming free press in the days, months and years to come. Indeed, our motto since 1997 – long before most of the rest of the online media pack even existed – has been “A Free Press for a Free People.”
Unfortunately, I’m sorry to say powerful forces are hard at work attempting to destroy us. Recently, three major international online advertising companies that had long served ads on WND – our main source of revenue and sustenance – all suddenly decided, at the same time, to cancel WND in the run-up to the most important presidential election of our lifetimes. The ad companies blacklisting WND – namely, TripleLift, AppNexus/Xander and Teads – all cited vague breaches of their terms of service (i.e. “any content that is illegal or otherwise contrary to any applicable law, regulation, directive, guideline or order, including without limitation any misleading, unethical, obscene, defamatory, deceptive, gambling-related or hateful content,” etc.). You get the idea: If they don’t like your politics, you’re cancelled.
Even worse than losing key ad companies: A few months ago Facebook suddenly decided to massively suppress WND’s traffic on their platform – which forms a key part of our overall reader engagement, since WND has close to a million Facebook friends. Why is Facebook massively suppressing WND? No reason given, despite repeated attempts to find out from them. As a result, WND’s overall traffic, and therefore our revenue, is down significantly and painfully from what it was a few months ago.
[...]
So WHY do they do this to WND?
It’s not because we are “conspiracy theorists” or “white supremacists” – or as one of the three advertising companies that just blacklisted us alleged, because we engage in “hate speech.”
It’s because we dare to publish the truth, something basically forbidden in today’s leftwing-dominated news and information culture.
That’s right, the truth – what a concept! The truth about Joe Biden’s decades-long family corruption, serial plagiarism, continual lying, dismal half-century track record, growing dementia and more. The truth about Kamala Harris being rated by the nonpartisan GovTrack.us as the most leftwing member of the U.S. Senate – further left than Bernie Sanders (not to mention being one of the most dishonest, vacuous, insincere, abrasive, condescending and excruciatingly unlikeable candidates for high office in our lifetime). The truth about the Chinese coronavirus – about what real science actually says about masks, about lockdowns, about medications like hydroxychloroquine, about school openings, about the importance of early treatment and much more. The truth about Hillary Clinton being the actual villain at the heart of the whole Trump-Russia collusion hoax. And much more – including the truth about America’s “mainstream media” having morphed fully into the militant, continually lying propaganda wing of the Democratic Party.
All this, however, was a setup for Kupelian making his most dire comments about WND's future in the hope that you'll send some cash his way:
Please help us. We have been hit hard. It’s very difficult for us to pay our terrific and dedicated journalists, all of whom have taken major pay-cuts and missed paychecks entirely.
I won’t prolong my request: If WND dies, the world will go on, but (and hopefully you would agree) it will have lost something valuable and needful. And I can promise you, the Left – from Big Tech and the “mainstream media” to the Democratic Party and their rioting street goons – would be overjoyed to gloat over the demise of America’s original, pioneering, independent online news source, now in its 24th year.
[...]
One final thought: Whatever happens in Tuesday’s election, the good people in America are going to need to stick together. As I said, even if Trump wins, the left will go crazy. (Yeah I know, they’re already crazy – but I mean crazy violent.) If Biden wins … well let’s not go there. Either way, expect the media to lie their heads off like never before.
But if you want honest news reporting by journalists who honor God, America and the Constitution, please help us out now, so we can be there for you in the months and years to come. In other words: Let’s help each other.
Kupelian won't tell you that the last time WND tried that, it gave away a cybercurrency to donors that turned out to be something of a scam.
MRC Bogus Trump-Coverage 'Study' Watch Topic: Media Research Center
Election season is almost over, which means it's time for yet another bogus Media Research Center "study" of media coverage. Whine away, Rich Noyes:
Four years ago, the Big Three broadcast evening newscasts tried to destroy Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign with historically negative press coverage. This year, those newscasts are doubling down, with coverage that is even more hostile to the Republican. Meanwhile, his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, is enjoying mostly positive coverage and a friendly media that’s virtually ignoring all topics — such as the scandal swirling around his son, Hunter — that might harm his prospects.
For this study, the MRC analyzed all coverage of President Trump and former Vice President Biden on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts from July 29 through October 20 (including weekends). This is the same time period examined by the MRC four years ago, in advance of that year’s election.
This time around, it’s obvious that the networks are pouring their energy into confronting and criticizing the President, not equally covering both campaigns. During the twelve weeks we examined, Trump received 839 minutes of coverage, compared to just 269 minutes of airtime for Biden, a three-to-one disparity.
Even more lopsided, our analysts found ten times more evaluative statements about Trump than Biden: 890 comments about the President, of which 822 (92.4%) were negative, vs. 68 (7.6%) that were positive. Note that these totals do not include statements about the candidates’ prospects in the campaign horse race (i.e., standings in the polls, chances to win, etc.), nor does it include partisan statements from the candidates or their surrogates.
It focuses only on a tiny sliver of news -- the evening newscasts on the three networks -- and falsely portrays it as indicative of all media.
It pretends there was never any neutral coverage of Trump. Indeed, the study explicitly rejects neutral coverage -- even though that's arguable the bulk of news coverage -- dishonestly counting "only explicitly evaluative statements."
It fails to take into account the stories themselves and whether negative coverage is deserved or admit that negative coverage is the most accurate way to cover a given story.
It fails to provide the raw data or the actual statements it evaluated so its work could be evaluated by others. If the MRC's work was genuine and rigorous, wouldn't it be happy to provide the data to back it up?
Noyes went on to whine further that the media pointed out negative things Trump did:
The topics tell the story: Trump’s coverage during these crucial 12 weeks has been dominated by the coronavirus (424 minutes — 284 minutes spent on policy and 140 minutes on the President’s own diagnosis), his comments about mail-in voting (87 minutes) and the ongoing protests in major American cities (63 minutes). Notable controversies include The New York Times’reporting on Trump’s apparently stolen tax returns (23 minutes), and the hotly-disputed Atlantic story about the President supposedly calling U.S. war casualties “suckers” and “losers” (19 minutes).
The newscasts are airing practically nothing about controversies that could jeopardize Biden’s lead in the polls. Topping the list: the former Vice President’s age and health, with 10 minutes, 33 seconds of coverage — a tiny fraction of the airtime devoted to President Trump’s health following his coronavirus diagnosis (140 minutes).
The criticism that Biden and his running mate, California Senator Kamala Harris, would pursue left-wing policies outside of the mainstream was given a mere five minutes, 43 seconds of airtime over the past 12 weeks, or barely two percent of the Democrat’s total coverage.
Noyes is, in effect, saying that he wants false balance -- that positive and negative coverage should be balanced, regardless of whether that reflects reality. At no point does he argue that any of the negative Trump coverage regarding his tax returns or his handing of the coronavirus pandemic wasn't deserved; he wants positive coverage about him (and negative coverage about Biden) to be manufactured -- and, more to the point, that it reflects the partisan priorities of the MRC. And because he's so far to the right, Noyes thinks that accurate reporting about Trump is "liberal":
But the basic premise of our democracy is that voters are presented the facts about both sides, and then make up their own minds based on their own values and their own views of the candidates. What we’ve seen in this campaign, and over the past four years, is the establishment media choosing to abandon its traditional role and become combatants on behalf of liberal politicians.
Noyes is a combatant on behalf of Trump, which makes his defense of this bogus "study" even more suspect.
WND Columnists Shill For Trump One More Time Topic: WorldNetDaily
Last week, popular evangelical pastor John Piper made his case for Christians not voting for either Donald Trump or Joe Biden.
[...]
So what’s the problem? Piper is concerned that Trump’s personal failings, specifically four things – his “unrepentant boastfulness,” his “vulgarity,” his “factiousness” and his past “sexual immorality” – are also, like abortion and socialism, “deadly,” even potentially “nation-corrupting.” Therefore, he said, he will not vote for either candidate.
Putting aside Piper’s odd moral equivalence between rampant abortion and boastfulness, does the good pastor not realize that when you vote for a president, you are not choosing only one leader and his policy agenda, but a multitude of leaders and policies in every area of life, and therefore a whole “future” for the country, as Franklin Graham put it? Most prominently, you are choosing a vice president who may well become president (as has happened 14 times in U.S. history). You are also choosing Cabinet and department heads. And you are choosing federal judges, including Supreme Court justices with lifetime tenure who will decide issues of stupendous importance that affect every American. And you are choosing thousands of other people – about 4,000 federal government appointees in all – who will profoundly shape the nation in which your children and grandchildren will live for a long, long time – whether for good or for ill.
[...]
It’s simple math: The only vote that effectively opposes and works against America’s great national sin – the abomination of violently snuffing the life out of the next generation at the rate of about 1 million per year – is to support the reelection of Donald Trump and Mike Pence.
Trump is not a perfect person. Neither am I and neither are you. Get over it.
Friends, we are blessed to be citizens of the greatest nation on earth. Our forefathers came here at tremendous risk to life and limb to establish a free Christian nation and many died in the process. I’m not asking you to risk your life – just to vote. And you need to vote for the presidential and vice presidential candidates who will champion life and not death; freedom and not socialist totalitarianism; traditional values and not progressive-left “there-are-100-different-genders” sexual anarchy; freedom of speech and religion, not censorship and “cancel culture”; Rev. Martin Luther King’s vision of a color-blind society and not Black Lives Matter’s vision of revenge, destruction and revolution.
Life is full of tough decisions. Voting in 2020 is not one of them.
A Democratic victory in the White House, Senate and House would bring cataclysmic, life-altering changes so serious that America would never be the same. I'm not like the 10 spies who only saw the giants in the land and caved in cowardice, but rather like Caleb and Joshua who saw the same things but put their trust in God to stay strong and victorious. The following points are taken from the Democratic platform, policy pledges and political campaign promises.
1. A Biden/Harris victory represents a clear and present danger to our American way of life.
[...]
5. Joe and Kamala's San Francisco/Nancy Pelosi style politics insures continued redefinition of sexuality and gender based on fluidity, causing more confusion and destroying marriages and families.
[...]
7. Additional far-left Democratic "progressive" plans that would advance an apocalyptic judgment for America.
[...]
Amidst all the unprecedented shaking of this year, God has brought us to our day of decision. It's time to repent, return to God, revere Him and His Word, reclaim our Christian heritage and resist this radical, anti-God, socialist revolution.
Anybody with eyes to see knows that the globalist whores had nearly destroyed America since they took over both political parties. Trump rebranded the Republican Party in 2016. When he started it was half the globalist cartel, in bed with all those self-identified elites who wanted to run the world for their own benefit. In 2020 Trump is rebranding the Democratic Party as the corruptocrats, who never met a dictator or tyrant they didn't like … provided he had sufficient money to spread around to "the family."
Just like 2016 this election comes down to evangelical Christians. You know, the ones who don't like the way Trump tweets, even though he did move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, something the foreign-policy globalists have cautioned against for decades. Maybe a roughshod tweet here and there is a reasonable cost to bear for doing God's bidding in international affairs?
The electoral field is like any other battlefield: It is what it is; deal with it. If Trump has been busy destroying Israel and starting endless wars in the Middle East to keep the industrial complex happy, then vote for the Democrats. At least some of them will get rich from the effort, although I doubt they will thank you for it.
If you appreciate seeing God's agenda advanced in the world, then vote for the Republicans and reelect Trump. There is every indication the rest of us who aren't corruptocrats will see our fortunes rise in a second Trump term, based on hard work and fresh ideas.
The election really is in your hands, evangelicals. If you still don't like Trump's tweets when you go into the voting booth, take a moment to ask God what he thinks about them. If God tells you he can live with the tweets for the good that Trump is doing in the world, then give him another four years.
There has never been a greater champion of our constitutional republic than Donald Trump since the generation of the founders themselves. A man who speaks the truth about the enemies of our nation and its liberties plainly and boldly. A man who has not only kept most of the promises he made while campaigning, but has exceeded them – despite the most aggressive, malicious and relentless campaign to discredit and force him from office ever seen against a president in America.
And there has never been a man more obviously disqualified to lead this nation in all our history than Joe Biden. He is as devious as H.W. Bush, as sleazy as Bill and Hillary Clinton and as dishonest and morally corrupt as Barack Obama – none of whom were, as he is, debilitated by rapidly advancing dementia and drowning in multiple emerging heavily documented scandals of the highest criminal import.
[...]
I wouldn't be surprised to see a major terror attack on U.S. soil to instill terror and keep everyone at home watching the news instead of voting. The Russian Collusion Hoax, the Impeachment Scam, the Plandemic, the Antifa/BLM riot campaign have proven to us that this election is for all the marbles, and the globalist left will do ANYTHING to stop Trump.
We, therefore, must do the ONLY thing that can thwart them. We must generate not just a Red Wave, but a Red Tsunami that will drown them (politically speaking) like Pharaoh's armies were crushed by the collapsing flood waters of the Red Sea. Let NOTHING stop you – and everyone you can drive to the polls – from voting Trump!
CNS Still Portraying Biden As Senile Topic: CNSNews.com
We've documented how CNSNews.com has pushed the Trump-approved narrative that Joe Biden is suffering from some sort of cognitive decline, while getting all huffy when President Trump's cognitive skills are questioned. That hasn't stopped.
Craig Bannister served as a Trump stenographer in an Oct. 9 article: "Former Vice President Joe Biden is in “no condition” to be Democrats’ candidate for president, President Donald Trump said Friday in an appearance on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show."
Bannister hyped on Oct. 12 how "Democrat [sic] presidential candidate Joe Biden declared that he is running 'for the Senate'- repeating a mistake he made earlier this year."
Patrick Goodenough uncritically repeated another Trump attack in an Oct. 13 article gushing that "President Trump came out guns blazing against Joe Biden during his first post-coronavirus diagnosis campaign trip to Florida on Monday, comparing his Democratic challenger’s mental acuity unfavorably with those of autocratic leaders presidents have to contend with," saying that "the leaders of China, Russia and North Korea have '100 percent sharp minds' while Biden’s was not even 60 percent."
An unbylined Oct. 26 article highlighted Biden saying in a "60 Minutes" interview that "people should compare his 'physical and mental acuity' to those of President Donald Trump." The same day, though, Susan Jones took Biden out of context to falsely make him look addled:
Here's one of the Monday morning tweets from President Donald Trump: "Joe Biden called me George yesterday. Couldn’t remember my name. Got some help from the anchor to get him through the interview. The Fake News Cartel is working overtime to cover it up!"
Biden, along with his wife Jill, was addressing an "I Will Vote" concert via video on Sunday when he made the point that this is a most consequential election:
"Four more years of George, uh -- George uh -- he, uh --we're going to find ourselves in a position where, if Trump gets elected, we're going to be in a different world."
In fact, Biden was speaking to his interviewer, George Lopez. Jones has yet to update or correct her article.
CNS also wants you to think that Biden is a creep. An Oct. 7 article by Bannister proclaimed that "Video of Democrat [sic] presidential candidate Joe Biden calling girl dancers at cultural center “beautiful” and telling them he wants to see them dancing “when they’re four years older” has gone viral. Needless to say, Bannister didn't mention Trump's history of creepiness with women.
As usual, CNS didn't take it well when questions were raised about Trump's mental acuity. In an Oct. 9 article, Jones huffily wrote about Nancy Pelosi saying that "The President is, shall we say, in an altered state right now" due to the medication he was taking to recover from coronavirus, further complaining: "Press reports say Pelosi intends to establish a commission on presidential capacity -- a committee of medical experts who would assess the president more objectively, supposedly, than members of his own Cabinet would."
To call Jake Tapper's Sunday interview with Lara Trump contentious may be understating it.
The CNN anchor was impatient, rude and angry as he brought the interview to an abrupt end.
Tapper accused Lara Trump, the president's daughter-in-law, of mocking Joe Biden's stutter, even though she said she had no idea that Biden overcame stuttering; and Tapper also accused Lara of diagnosing Biden's cognitive decline without a medical license.
Jones declared this to be "an interview that leaves no doubt about partisan media activists working hard to defeat Trump and elect Biden." She won't admit publicly she has left no doubt that she's a partisan media activist working hard to defeat Biden and elect Trump, in part by elevating sleazy smears about Biden's purported mental state.
The Trump Lapdogs At The MRC Push The Hell Out Of Hunter Biden Story Topic: Media Research Center
It's a sign of how desperate it is to get President Trump re-elected -- and of how seriously it takes its role as the media arm of the Trump campaign -- that the Media Research Center has referenced Hunter Biden in a whopping 150 NewsBusters posts (as of this writing) since Oct. 14, when the New York Post published its dubious story agout the contents of his alleged laptops. The MRC really needs this story to be true to advance its agenda -- not unlike the Tara Reade story -- so it's been doing what it can to advance the story by all means necessary. Let's look at a few samples.
On of th first things it did was to deny the story was Russian disinformation, despite the murkiness about how these laptops and their alleged content came to light. Kyle Drennen gushed over the "bombshell" story, then whined that some media outlets "rushed to play defense for the Democratic nominee by claiming the reporting was part of a 'disinformation campaign' or declaring it 'false' without evidence." Drennen then huffed, "Given the number of supposed 'bombshells' the left-wing press reported on throughout its promotion of the Russian collusion conspiracy theory that were either wildly misleading or completely untrue, you would think reporters would at least investigate the story about Biden." Nicholas Fondacaro similarly complained that non-right-wing media outlets were "arguing, without evidence, that the information was stolen from Hunter Biden by the Russians to tilt the election."
Tim Graham tried to play down the obvious political hit-job angle with the story coming from the pro-Trump New York Post and Rudy Giuliani by playing whataboutism: "When the [Washington] Post – owned by leftist media tycoon Jeff Bezos – reports against Trump, it often fails to acknowledge its sources might have an axe to grind. They all have an axe-grinding party.
When Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe -- who has previously released Russian disinformation to help Trump -- declared without evidence that the Hunter Biden story wasn't Russian disinformatio, the MRC treated this as if it came directly from God. Fondacaro proclaimed that Ratcliffe "shot down" the media's "fictitious claims," tjen did so again under the headline "DOJ, FBI Destroy Media’s Lie Hunter Scandal Is Russian Disinformation," citing reporting from, yes, Fox News, which Murdoch owns alongside the New York Post. Bill D'Agostino loved this storyline so much he made a video attempting to foward it:
For almost a week, liberal cable and broadcast networks have ignored the FBI saying it has “nothing to add” to DNI Ratcliffe’s assessment that the alleged Hunter Biden laptop is not part of a Russian disinformation campaign. Despite these statements from both Ratcliffe and the FBI, TV journalists continued to warn viewers that the entire story looks like a Russian intelligence op.
[...]
As election day draws near, the pro-Biden media have grown even more shameless in protecting their candidate. Evidently their latest defense is to conceal the intelligence community’s own assessment from voters and dismiss the entire scandal as Russian propaganda.
Like the others, D'Agostino gives us no reason anyone should trust at face value a clearly politicized DNI and FBI.
And just a couple weeks after the MRC lectured the media for questioning Trump's mental health, Tim Graham bashed NPR for caring about Hunter Biden's mental health by noting that he has a history of drug issues and the right-wing media's vicious attacks on him could cause him "shame and isolation." Graham whined "So Hunter Biden's behavior is not a 'character defect,' but attacking him is," adding, "So the Trumps are so cruel, they make the fathers of dead addicts cry." Graham then tried to sic his readers on NPR reporter Brian Mann: "Perhaps the taxpayers who fund this emotional propaganda should contact NPR public editor Kelly McBride about the potential conflict of putting a reporter who's lost family members to addiction on a politically sensitive story like this right before an election -- especially if he leaves out all of the other elements of the Hunter Biden story." Graham made no mention of the conflict of interest at the New York Post and Giuliani supporting Trumpt while trying to personally destroy the son of Trump's opponent.
The MRC, of course, also did its usualso-calledstudies complaining that the non-Fox News media wasn't covering the story enough. It conveniently ignored how much coverage Fox News did devote to it, which was a lot.
Newsmax's Hirsen Lectures Us About 'Moral Projection' And Trump Topic: Newsmax
In my assessment, which results from my academic coursework, professional background, and ethics studies, there is another kind of projection that exists, which takes place within the moral realm of human consciousness, one that I term "moral projection."
Moral projection occurs when an individual experiences feelings of guilt over acts that he or she has committed or omitted. This individual may subsequently find the uncomfortable feelings difficult to confront and/or manage. The conduct, or lack thereof, which evoked the feelings of guilt, also frequently becomes very difficult for an individual to own.
Using the defense mechanism concept, an individual may assign to another individual or group the same attitude and behavior that initially generated his or her own attendant guilt.
In other words, take your blame and pin it on another.
Moral projection has been used extensively by Democrats in their ongoing war against anyone who would get in the way of their agenda du jour.
It continues to be wielded as one of their main political and propaganda weapons.
[...]
Here are but a few examples of the moral projection arrows that the Democrats have recently pulled from their quiver and shot at adversaries:
—In order to deflect from the fact that the Democrats and their media allies have for months enabled violence in cities across the country, they falsely claim that the violence was caused by, as Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden recently said, "white supremacist groups menacing our communities."
—In order to distract from candidate Biden’s numerous mental lapses, Democrats publicly accused President Donald Trump of having mental focus issues following his medical treatment for Covid 19.
—Democrats and the complicit media are fomenting fears over whether President Trump will accept the results of the upcoming election, while former 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton publicly advises Biden not to do so "under any circumstances" and the campaign hires hundreds of lawyers to go to court to contest election results.
I am not sure where the Democrats and their media cohorts can go to get their consciences back. But I do know where the American people can go to get their country back.
(We would remind folks that Hirsen is engaging in his own form of "moral projection" here. He pretends to be a judge of the morality of others when he has insufficiently apologized for being a longtime defender of Mel Gibson at Newsmax -- even after his notorious anti-Semitic tirades -- while failing to disclose that not only was he a close friend of Gibson, he ran an organization linked to an ultraconservative Catholic sect run by Gibson's father. Both of those are serious violations of journalistic ethics.)
MRC Whines That Medical Journals Are Turning Against Trump For Mismanaging Pandemic Topic: Media Research Center
President Trump has mismanaged the coronavirus pandemic so badly that even scientific journals are taking the rare step of endorsing a presidential candidate (that isn't Trump). And the Media Research Center, being the media arm of the Trump campaign, is just not having it.
In a Sept. 17 post, Alex Christy complained about Scientific American magazine endorsing Joe Biden, "as if Science was opposed to Donald Trump."Christy went to the old MRC well in attacking "the magazine's new editor-in-chief Katie Helmuth, who has worked at The Washington Post and the leftist website Slate. That might explain the sudden decision to endorse a presidential candidate for the first time."
Christy noted how CNN's John King read from the magazine's editorial noting Trump's failures and Biden's plans, then hufffed:
King left out the hypocritical passages such as when they condemn Trump on masks, even though Biden campaign has been forced to rescind its mask mandate over constitutional issues.
Nor did he mention that the magazine hailed Biden's allegedly great plans involve wanting "to spend $2 trillion on an emissions-free power sector by 2035... partly paid by eliminating Trump's corporate tax cuts."
Finally, King left out that some of Scientific American's allegations against Trump have nothing to do with science, "Although Trump and his allies have tried to create obstacles that prevent people from casting ballots safely in November, either by mail or in person, it is crucial that we surmount them and vote."
[...]
Of course, science does not actually tell you why raising taxes is better for the environment, but such logic could be expected from a magazine whose editors are Democratic donors.
Christy didn't explain why he thought it was a bad thing for people to vote and a good thing for Trump and Republicans to stop them. Also, his proof that the magazine's "editors are Democratic donors" was a tweet by his boss, Tim Graham, highlighting three donations by lower-level editors totaling ... just over $1,000, including "$250 to Obama in 2008."
In an Oct. 9 post, Randy Hall ridiculously ranted that the prestigous New England Journal of Medicine went "far left" by endoring a presidential candidate for the first time ever:
Another medical and science publication is going far left. The New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday endorsed Joe Biden, calling for the incumbent to be voted out of office because he and his administration have "failed at every step” when responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to an article posted by Lydia O’Connor, a reporter for the liberal HuffPost website, the “rare political statement from a scientific journal” was the first such recommendation in the publication’s 208-year history.
[...]
Lancet Oncology also has endorsed Biden, ripping Trump for opposing ObamaCare. Journalists portraying all of this as simply just for “science,” is simply not accurate. It's politics.
But Hall didn't seem to believe his own words, simply reciting the journal's criticism of Trump without bothering to rebut it. That suggests to us that he knows the scientists have a point, even if he won't say so out loud.
WND Columnist Thinks That Men 'Persuade' Their Wives To Vote For Trump Topic: WorldNetDaily
Liberals count on "suburban women" to carry Biden to a victory denied to Hillary Clinton four years ago. The theory is that many of the suburban women who voted for Trump last time have changed their minds and are pulling the lever against him this time.
That false prediction is a stepchild of the gender-gap theory of politics, which was all the rage in the media in the 1980s as they tried, unsuccessfully, to oust Ronald Reagan from the White House. Reagan was supported by men even more than by women, and supposedly that gap in support was going to be his downfall.
[...]
Married couples typically vote for the same candidate in elections, and it would be silly for them to go to the trouble of voting just to cancel each other out. The strong support for Trump by men has the effect of pulling married women to his side despite all the media bias.
Studies show that women, as a group, are more influenced by the media and thus have been pulled away from supporting Trump by the slanted reporting against him. That has artificially depressed Trump's approval rating throughout his presidency, particularly among women.
But when it finally comes time to vote, serious conversations begin between husband and wife. It becomes more like their joint decisions to buy a home, raise a child, and plan for the long-term future.
A response to a pollster is a decision that people make willy-nilly in reply to a surprise phone call. It can embody an unhappiness at that time, or an opportunity merely to complain.
[...]
Feminists may hope that the suburban wives persuade their husbands how to vote, but that is not what happened in 2016 or prior elections. Instead, often husbands are more persuasive than the media in influencing their wives for whom to vote, leaving only the unmarried women with a gender gap voting against the Republican.
Trump nearly prevailed with married women in 2016, and there are more married women than the unmarried women who opposed him then and now. Today some explain Trump's better polling among married women as being due to the issue of safety against crime, but that issue would matter as much to unmarried women.
Instead, it is the institution of marriage that enables Trump and other Republicans to continue winning despite the array of media and big money against them. Married men see through the liberal bias, and easily persuade their families to vote for Trump, too.
MRC Demands Media Follow Trump-Approved Narrative About '60 Minutes' Interview Topic: Media Research Center
Since the Media Research Center is the media arm of the Trump re-election campaign, it had to spin away the obvious takeaway from President Trump's walking out of an interview with Lesley Stahl of "60 Minutes": that he couldn't handle tough questions from Stahl and bailed instead of manning up. So it did its Trump-mandated duty and treated Trump's whining and wimping out as a noble act furthered by the Trump campaign releasing its own video of the interview before it aired, peddled whataboutism, and tried to make it all about Joe Biden and his son. Kyle Drennen did the Trump campaign press release:
During an interview with CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl for a segment scheduled to air on Sunday’s 60 Minutes, President Trump repeatedly called out the left-wing journalist for refusing to cover the corruption scandal swirling around Joe and Hunter Biden. In a video of the entire exchange that the President posted to Facebook on Thursday, Stahl can be heard denying that any Biden scandal even exists.
In the middle of the hostile interrogation, Trump remarked: “I wish you would interview Joe Biden like you interview me. It would be so good.”
[...]
Of course, 20 years ago, in the midst of the 2000 presidential election, Stahl and 60 Minutes had no problem pushing outrageous unverified claims against Republican presidential candidate and then-Texas Governor George W. Bush.
One wonders, if Trump didn’t post the full video of interview ahead of time, would the discussion of the Hunter Biden scandal have ever made it to air?
The next day, when the hosts of "The View" pointed out the obvious -- that Trump is a whiner who couldn't take the heat -- Kristine Marsh rushed to admonish them for not embracing the Trump-approved narrative:
The hosts of The View slammed President Trump for releasing the CBS interview he did with 60 Minutes’ correspondent Lesley Stahl yesterday, before it airs on television this Sunday, because it exposed how biased the journalist was. However, the liberal hosts claimed they saw nothing wrong with the interview and the only thing they saw wrong was how Trump behaved.
Of course the hosts completely avoided talking about the most important part, where Stahl repeatedly denied the corruption scandal surrounding Biden and his son Hunter.
Co-host Ana Navarro claimed the interview actually made Stahl look good and Trump gave her a “gift.” To leftists like Navarro, the media abdicating their responsibilities as journalists to act as left-wing hacks only affirms their credibility. She slammed Trump for acting like a “colicky baby with a persecution complex:”
[...]
While co-host Sara Haines claimed Trump doesn’t want to answer tough questions:
“He also starts the interview saying, when she says, 'are you ready for some tough questions?' He said, ‘no.’ So maybe we got what he warned us about,” she mocked. Does Haines think this hostile CBS interview or his NBC town hall or his ABC town hall were walks in the park? Meanwhile Trump's opponent literally hides in his house from the media.
SHOCKER: WND Adds Correction Admitting Conspiracy-Obsessed Virologist Has Been Discredited Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily -- remaining true to its conspiracy-theory-driven nature -- got a lot of mileage recently out of a Chjinese virologist named Li-Meng Yan and her claims that the COVID-19 coronavirus was created in a laboratory:
A Sept. 11 article breathlessly wrote how Yan "says she has evidence COVID-19 is man-made and plans to publish it soon." On Sept. 16, WND hyped how Yan appeared on Fox News to claim that "the Chinese Communist Party manufactured and intentionally released the COVID-19 virus that led to mass shutdowns and deaths around the world."
An Oct. 6 item repeated a claim from unreliable fringe-right webstie ZeroHedge that Yan "says that the Chinese Communist Party has arrested her mother." The same day, a column by Andy Schlafly went into full victimization and conspiracy mode for Yan:
Though downplayed in the media, suspicion grows that COVID-19 was produced in a lab in Wuhan, which makes it a weapon of mass destruction different from past pandemics. Li-Meng Yan, a Chinese virologist who was a researcher at the Hong Kong School of Public Health, has explained why she believes the virus was made in a military laboratory by combining two bat coronaviruses.
If you have not heard of Dr. Yan, then it is probably because Twitter has censored her, too. As reported by Newsweek, Twitter suspended her account in mid-September without public explanation, despite her nearly 60,000 followers.
The Communist Chinese have recently arrested her mother as retaliation. But Joe Biden and Democrats are silent about this human rights abuse and remain unwilling to hold China accountable for causing so much harm.
Just one little problem: Yan's claim -- which runs counter to what actual experts have said for months -- keeps getting discredited, culminating in a summarization at CNN of howYan is linked to ex-Trump adviser (and current arrested criminal) Steve Bannon and finding that her research was "built on what appears to be the same theories, similar passages and identical charts presented by an anonymous blogger whose writings were posted on a website linked to Bannon months earlier," and that "three co-authors of Yan's paper used pseudonyms instead of their real names, a practice frowned upon in scientific and academic work."
So much so, in fact, that even WND has grudgingly admitted it. On Oct. 11, WND added an editor's note to its Sept. 11 article:
Appearances by Dr. Li-Meng Yan on media outlets in Britain and the United States have come under fresh scrutiny in connection with her ownpre-print(an unpublished draft of a science paper) on the website Zenodo claiming to provide evidence that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was created in a laboratory and is not of natural origin. Yan's pre-print, which was not peer-reviewed by other experts in the field, claims that some unique characteristics in the SARS-CoV-2 genome prove that the virus is man-made. However,experts disputedYan's pre-print for being flawed and containing unsubstantiated claims. The exact origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus remains unknown. Dr. Yan claims to prove that the SARS-COV-2 virus originated in a lab, but a careful analysis of her pre-print actually shows this claim is unsubstantiated.
Unfortunately, WND did not feel this was a serious enough correction to do an entirely new article about how Yan has been discredited, nor did it append this correction to its other articles on Yan, nor did it otherweise call attention to the correction. So unless you stumbled across this article, which had long since disappeared from WND's home page, you wouldn't know of WND's half-hearted attempt to correct the record.
Well, it's a start -- if 23 years after its founding constitutes an appropriate learning curve for how to handle errors -- for a "news" organizaiton that usually doesn't publish corrections unless a lawsuit has been threatened.
MRC's Double Standard On Presidential Candidates' Alleged Cognitive Decline Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center, like its "news" division CNSNews.com, loves to question whether Joe Biden is all there mentally:
Tim Graham complained: "Just as CNN's Brian Stelter lurched from attacking President Trump's "mental fitness" to defending Joe Biden's, Yahoo News politics editor David Knowles located three Trump-bashing psychologists to demonstrate the same partisan reflexes. The March 5 article was headlined 'Trump's mental state — not Biden's — is the real concern, mental health professionals say.'"
Mark Finkelstein declared that a "more balanced view would be that Biden's recent outbursts against voters are indicative of someone who—lacking the cognitive resources to respond substantively when challenged—resorts to schoolyard slurs."
Nicholas Fondacaro insisted that questions about Biden's cognitive state are "a serious concern for a man Biden’s age" and declared that a Fox News reporter was "fair enough" in asking Biden about it.
Jeffrey Lord hyped "the constant stories of Biden experiencing “cognitive decline” -- aka dementia."
Michael Dellano huffed of MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell and Joy Reid: "The fact that Reid and O’Donnell just glossed over Biden’s obvious cognitive decline is sickening."
Christian Toto asserted that "Biden’s own cognitive skills are clearly in decline, another subject comics are loath to mention, let alone mock."
When Biden gave an answer to a question about cognitive decline that the MRC didn't like, Scott Whitlock retorted that "journalists have a responsibility to follow up on this and ask more questions about Biden and cognitive decline."
Fondacaro grumbled that a reporter "did his job of defending Biden from accusations of cognitive decline by ignoring how Biden had misremembered how many grandkids he had."
But, like CNS, they get really mad when President Trump's mental state is question. In July, Duncan Schroeder was mad that "CNN co-hosts John Berman and Alisyn Camerota shed their poor guise of being objective journalists in order to seek political revenge against President Trump and deflect questions about Joe Biden's cognitive ability," ranting that minor verbal taffes showed that Biden was the real candidate in cognitive decline:
If Berman cared about being a journalist and not just campaigning for Biden, he would have discussed Trump’s very reasonable concerns about Biden’s cognitive state. He forgot the words to the Declaration of Independence, twice said that the long-deceased Margaret Thatcher condemned Trump, said that “poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids,” couldn't even remember the number for donating to his campaign, told an autoworker that he was “full of s***” and that he did not need an “AR-14,” said that “you ain’t black” if black Americans do not vote for him, said that coronavirus has killed 120 million Americans, and that gun violence has killed another 150 million.
In an Oct. 9 post, Kyle Drennen ranted that questions about cognitive decline are politically motivated ... when they're made about Trump:
On Friday, all three network morning shows decided to do the Democratic Party’s dirty work as they hyped House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s wild claims that President Trump was in an “altered state” due to coronavirus medication and her push to create a so-called “Commission on Presidential Capacity” to promote the false partisan narrative.
NBC’s Today show co-host Craig Melvin touted the attack line as he spoke to White House correspondent Hallie Jackson: “...the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, she’s also making some headlines this morning, bringing up the 25th Amendment.” Jackson eagerly touted the ridiculous and blatantly political stunt:
[...]
As much as left-wing politicians and media activists claim they believe in science, they’re happy to push wild, fact-free claims about the President’s health if they think it will hurt him in the upcoming election.
Needless to say, Drennen did not admit that his co-workers' repeated questioning of Biden's mental state was similarly "sleazy" and "false" just as much of a "ridiculous and blatantly political stunt."