CNS Tries To Mainstream Another Far-Right Member of Congress Topic: CNSNews.com
Marjorie Taylor Greene isn't the only newly elected extreme-right-wing Republican member of Congress CNSNews.com has been trying to mainstream. Rep. Lauren Boebert, like Greene, has expressed support for the QAnon, and she has also praised the thugs in the Proud Boys. And as with Greene, CNS has no interest in talking about her extremism.
Articles by Patrick Goodenough on Nov. 5 and Nov. 18 touted Boebert alongside Greene as the new "pro-life women" elected to the House. On Nov. 24, managing editor Micchael W. Chapman was quite giddy that Boebert "reportedly has asked what the rules are to carry a gun on Capitol Hill and in her congressional office," touting how she "is from a largely conservative district in western Colorado. She is a defender of the Second Amendment and operates a restaurant called Shooters Grill, in Rifle, Colorado. She is sometimes seen sporting a Glock pistol on her hip."
Susan Jones penned a gushy article about Boebert on Jan. 5:
Colorado's newly elected U.S. Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert on Tuesday described herself as "a 34-year-old woman who wants to protect herself in this dangerous city, here in our nation's capital" -- by carrying a gun.
"You know, it's very interesting that here in the United States of America that there is so much controversy over our Second Amendment rights," Boebert told "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday morning.
[...]
Boebert, the owner of a "gun-themed restaurant" in Rifle, Colorado (as the Denver Post described it) is allowed, as a member of Congress, to carry a gun in the Capitol, except in certain restricted areas.
In a post-riot Jan. 15 article, Melanie Arter featured how Boebert "called out Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) on Thursday for implying that she gave a tour of the U.S. Capitol building to 'insurrectionists' a day before the Capitol riots." It wasn't until the seventh paragraph that Arter got around to admitting that "Maloney didn’t name Boebert in his interview as the person who gave the tour."
None of these articles mention Boebert's extreme views, even though CNS is not shy about highlighting what it considers extreme views of Democratic politicians.
MRC's Mysterious Sports Blogger Melts Down Over Super Bowl Halftime Show Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center 's mysterious MRC sports blogger, Jay Maxson, loves to freak out over Super Bowl halftime shows. So when The Weeknd was announced as the lead entertainer for this year's Super Bowl, Maxson went into full meltdown mode:
It's official. The entertainer known as The Weeknd will provide the substandard gutter garbage, sexually explicit, vulgar rot. We're not talking about MTV or even the Grammy Awards here. He's actually the NFL's pathetic choice to headline the 2021 Super Bowl halftime show.
Abel Makkonen Tesfaye (seen in photo), a Canadian who passes as a so-called entertainer and who goes by The Weeknd moniker, has been chosen by The NFL, Pepsi and Roc Nation to keep the bar lower than low for this year's Super Bowl halftime disgrace.
During the recent CBS broadcast of an NFL game, shameless studio host James Brown delivered this “exciting news" to a world waiting for the identity of the next Super Bowl embarrassment, Feb. 7 in Tampa. Family entertainment, it's not. Not even close.
Maxson cied only obscure "lowlife garbage" from early in The Weeknd's career. No mention of anything that more likely landed The Weeknd the gig -- songs like the non-vulgar "Blinding Lights," universally considered one of the best songs of 2020. But Maxson is not here to talk about an artist's work -- he/she's here to spew right-wing rants:
This ongoing parade of trash halftime shows aptly demonstrates the NFL's diminished capacity to provide “family entertainment” under Commissioner Roger Goodell’s feeble "guidance.” The halftime stage has become a showplace for an exposed breast, crotch-grabbing, pole-dancing, twerking, grinding, edited profanities and a dance salute to the murderous Black Panthers.
Atlanta in 2019 provided another low point in Super Bowl history. Travis Scott and Big Boi provided the vulgar, N-wording, women-denigrating rap with the full approval of the National Football League. And a book by Mike Freeman demonstrates that abusing women is no big thing to the NFL.
Meanwhile, in the real world, The Weeknd has vowed to "keep it PG" for his halftime show.
That's not the only Super Bowl-related meltdown Maxson has had. In a Jan. 26 post, he/she lost it when a sports writer brought up the despised name of Colin Kaepernick:
The Feb. 7 Super Bowl is shaping up as a tale of two great quarterbacks: Kansas City’s young gunslinger Patrick Mahomes and Tampa Bay’s old G.O.A.T. Tom Brady. Great as their legacies are, neither can compare to the one preferred by The New York Times writer Kurt Streeter – Colin Kaepernick.
Yes, sad to say, Kaepernick’s notorious, undeserving name is snaking its way into media discussions about Super Bowl LV.
Kaepernick hasn’t played in an NFL game for more than four years. His mediocre career is over and done with, but the NYT’s Kurt Streeter is still an obsessive fanboy.
[...]
With an underwater career record of 28-30 as an NFL starter, Kaepernick isn’t deserving of a lofty legacy for what he did on the field.
Maxson and the MRC have a seriouscomplex about Kaepernick.
WND Promotes Another Coronavirus Conspiracy Theory Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily loves a good conspiracy -- and many bad ones. An example pf the latter surfaced in a Jan. 5 article by Bob Unruh:
The rate of influenza this season has cratered and now an epidemiologist is explaining why.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the cumulative positive influenza test rate from September through the middle of December was 0.2%, down from 8.7% a year ago.
"The weekly comparisons are even starker: This week one year ago, the positive clinical rate was 22%, where now it stands at 0.1%," reported Just the News.
So where has the flu gone?
Nowhere, explains epidemiologist Knut Wittkowksi. It's just being called something else.
"Influenza has been renamed COVID in large part," he said.
He's the former chief of biostatistics, epidemiology and research design at Rockefeller University.
"There may be quite a number of influenza cases included in the 'presumed COVID' category of people who have COVID symptoms (which Influenza symptoms can be mistaken for), but are not tested for SARS RNA," he said in an interview with Just the News.
Had Unruh bothered to fact-check Wittkowski's claim, he would have found it to be bogus:
In summary, no evidence supports the claim that flu cases are being misdiagnosed as COVID-19. Although both diseases share similar symptoms, probable COVID-19 cases must meet additional criteria besides the presence of disease symptoms, such as previous close contact with a COVID-19 case or a positive SARS-CoV-2 antigen or antibody test result. Social media posts questioning how public health measures can effectively limit the spread of flu but not COVID-19 are misleading as they fail to account for several factors, such as the differences in transmission between COVID-19 and flu. Experts suggest that the lower than usual flu activity this season is likely due to a combination of factors, including public health measures implemented to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and higher flu vaccination rates.
Wittkowski is a coronavirus misinformer whom WND has previously promoted, and notorious enough that Rockefeller University has issued a statement distancing itself from him.
Unruh did actually cite an epidemiologist who correctly and logically noted that COVID-19 mitigation is largely responsible for the decline in flu cases -- but he then let Wittkowski respond by claiming "there is 'no evidence' to support the idea masks would stop the flu." Again, Unruh didn't fact-check that either, thus censoring the fact that, yes, there is plenty of evidence masks help slow the spread, as the above fact-checker also noted:
Wearing face masks reduces the spread of COVID-19 by blocking the release of respiratory droplets from infected individuals. Therefore, wearing face masks likely reduces the transmission of other respiratory infections that spread in ways similar to COVID-19, including the flu. For this reason, Wittkowski claims that if face masks worked, then they should be able to stop both COVID-19 and flu equally. ... As we explain below, such interpretations are misleading, as they overlook the fact that COVID-19 spreads easier than flu. Furthermore, other factors besides the use of face masks may also contribute to reducing flu transmission, such as an increase in flu vaccination rates.
Unruh's article is the kind of factually dubious content WND thinks people will donate to its "News Center" to create.
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Crush On Kayleigh McEnany Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center -- mostly NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck -- spent the past several months gushing over President Trump's final press secretary, cheering every "walk-off" insult-fest and allegedly sick burn of the media. Read more >>
Uber-Catholics At CNS Attack Biden For Being Insufficiently Catholic Topic: CNSNews.com
The uber-Catholics who run CNSNews.com -- namely editor Terry Jeffrey and managing editor Michael W. Chapman, who think they're more Catholic than the pope -- has not been shy about seeking every opportunity to attack Joe Biden as insufficiently Catholic by refusing to force all Americans to submit to Catholic dictates, particularly on abortion.
Before the election, for instance, CNS dredged up a vice presidential debate from the 2012 election to complain that Biden said he "accepted that “life begins at conception” but would not interfere with women doctors aborting human lives in the womb," quoting him as saying on the Catholic Church's anti-abortion stance that "I refuse to impose it on equally devout Christians and Muslims and Jews, and I just refuse to impose that on others." And Chapman found a random Catholic priest to rant that the "Democrat Party [sic] is the Party of Death" and that Biden is its leader. (Weird how a Catholic priest who is supposed to be above politics is spouting deliberate right-wing misnaming of the Democratic Party.)
But Jeffrey's meltdown that Biden's victory speech interrupted a Notre Dame football game -- which he declared Biden, as a "devout Catholic," should have known about and thus should have waited until at least halftime to speak -- set the tone for CNS' post-election attacks on Biden's (purported lack of) faith, as did CNS' bashing of Catholic bishops who congratulated Biden on his win.
The attacks on Biden continued:
On Nov. 19, Chapman quoted a bishop who called on Biden "to 'repent' from his support of abortion and gay 'marriage' for 'his own salvation' and the good of the country." Curiously, Chapman referred to Biden as a "Democratic presidential candidate" even though by this time he was president-elect.
In a Dec. 3 article, Jeffrey dug up a 2015 interview of Biden where he "spoke of his admiration for Pope Francis and what this pope was doing for the church," quoting Biden saying that the pope was "the embodiment of the Catholic social doctrine I was raised with." Jeffrey hates Pope Francis for not being right-wing enough.
Two days later, Chapman found a bishop who thought Biden "should not receive Holy Communion" because of "his long history of supporting 'grave moral evils,' such as abortion."
CNS published a Jan. 5 column by Catholic activist CJ Doyle blaiming Biden for being personally responsible for millions of abortions because he voted against the Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork, who would have been an activist on the court to overturn Roe v. Wade (ironically demonstrating that Bork was unfit to be on the court).
On Jan. 14, Chapman found a bishop who proclaimed that Biden "ran on a platform avidly supporting this gruesome capital punishment for innocent pre-born babies."
In a Jan. 18 article, CNS found another bishop who thinks that any Catholic priest who gives Holy Communion to Biden "without clearly teaching the gravity of his facilitating the evil of abortion (and his approval of same-sex relationships), they do a serious disservice to their brother bishops and their people."
The same day, Chapman located yet another priest to claim Biden should be denied communion because he "has not repented of his avowed pro-abortion policies," and "has not sought God's forgiveness for them." Of course, the priest cannot possibly know that because the sacrement of confession is veiled in secrecy.
CNS gave a Jan. 26 column to anti-abortion activist Hugh Brown, who ranted that "There is no such thing as a liberal Catholic" and that anyone who thinks so, like Biden, "are the anti-Church spoken of by St. John Paul II."
On Jan. 28, dishonest Catholic Bill Donohue was given space to huff that "Biden has a real problem with the most basic moral teachings of his professed religion" and that "Biden's choice of Thursday [when Catholic bishops were holding a Vigil for Life] to announce his pro-abortion executive orders makes him look like a rogue Catholic."
Chapman penned a Feb. 1 article highlighting the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) condemned Biden's action rescinding the Mexico City policy, which had blocked U.S. support to foreign organizaitons that mentioned abortion as a choice for women, which was effectively a gag rule -- as furthering the "destruction of human lives in developing nations."
Chapman wrote in a Feb. 3 article: "African Catholic Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama, one of Nigeria's most powerful leaders, said that Democratic President Joe Biden's executive orders to promote abortion widely in the United States and abroad are contrary 'to reason' and they violate 'human dignity."' Chapman also proudly touted that Kaigama once explained "why it is morally right to imprison people who contract 'gay marriage.'"
None of these articles gave anyone a chance to counter the anti-Biden slant CNS is promoting, even though CNS' mission statement declares that it "endeavors to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story."
Odds And Ends: MRC Can't Stop Deflecting Over Capitol Riot Topic: Media Research Center
There are a few odds and ends we skipped over regarding the Media Research Center's defensiveness over the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Let's go over them, shall we?
In a Jan. 8 post, Alex Christy complained that CNN wasn't giving enough credit to Trump administration officials who resigned over the riot:
For years, CNN has exploited former Trump officials as they dumped on the old boss, from Anthony Scaramucci to Omarosa. But CNN thinks anyone resigning the wake of the Capitol Hill riot has no principles at all, and are just trying to "cleanse their reputation" It's too late to help CNN.
On Thursday's CNN Newsroom, Anderson Cooper noted among those resigning was deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger and chief of staff to the first lady Stephanie Grisham Regarding Grisham, Cooper took one last parting shot at the woman whose tenure began by getting involved in "an all out brawl" with North Korean security on behalf of the press, "Stephanie Grisham, the first lady's chief of staff who used to be the spokesperson of the White House and was one of the top liars while she held that position."
[...]
After tarring of anyone who worked in the White House for the last four years as a lying hack, Cooper and [John] Harwood couldn't give any credit to anyone resigning after the riots.
On Jan. 11, Nicholas Fondacaro continued the MRC's defense of Melania Trump, this time over the statement she issued afterwards. When ABC News pointed out that she turned attention to herself by grousing about "salacious gossip, unwarranted personal attacks, and false misleading accusations on me,'" Fondacaro huffed that "An important part of the statement that ABC and Bruce intentionally omitted from their reporting, was how the First Lady said she’ll carry with her the stories of those who had died at the Capitol."
Scott Whitlock ramped up the victimhood in a Jan. 13 post grumbling about late-night hosts were unfairly blaming all conservatives for a conservative-instigated riot:
The far-left Democratic activists posing as late night hosts on Monday night used last week’s violent assault on democracy as an excuse to smear all conservatives and Republicans as "sociopathic" and to mock Mike Pence, who was nearly murdered by the band of demagogic thugs.
They also dismissed any free speech concerns conservatives with Twitter and Amazon as nothing more than a bunch of “racists” on Twitter.
Christy returned to huff: "Americans of all races and political persuasions want those who rioted at the Capitol on Wednesday to be brought to justice, so it was disheartening, but not necessarily surprising when former Republican senator from Maine and Clinton Secretary of Defense William Cohen poured gasoline on the fire on Monday's Andrea Mitchell Reports by spreading the blame to 'white people' and their 'white rage.'"
Vice’s latest anti-life piece is proof that last week’s Capitol riot is a one-smear-fits-all bad PR event being used by the left to condemn all of its political enemies.
This time the hipster, soyboy lefty outlet is associating the entire anti-abortion movement with with the few identifiable anti-abortion activists who stormed the Capitol building on January 6. They want to convince readers that pro-lifers are in league with a “white supremacist” insurrection.
But again, we had to hear from the left all Summer, that violent BLM/Antifa protesters did not represent the millions of peaceful protesters who stood for racial justice.
After agreeing with that "hipster, soyboy lefty outlet" on the fact that one of the rioters had previously firebombed an abortion clinic, Hays wailed: "So because criminals who happen to be pro-life were at the rally, that means the whole pro-life movement is a collection of similar dregs of society? That’s stupid. The left sure loves its guilt by association game, BUT only when dealing with conservatives. Otherwise, according to them you should never judge a group by its worst actors."
Of course, Hays failed to mention that judging a group by its worst actors is exactly what his employer has done regarding Black Lives Matter -- or that violence and murder has been a non-insignificant component of the anti-abortion movement.
Newsmax Columnist Promotes Conspiracy Theory About Coronavirus Death Counts Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax seemed to understand that Mark Schulte's Jan. 12 column was a bit of bogus conspiracy-mongering -- that's why it starts with the disclaimer that "The author is a non-clinician." Indeed, Schulte's bio describes him as "a retired New York City schoolteacher and mathematician who has written extensively about science and the history of science."
Schulte's column is all about coronavirus death counts. After highlighting that 4,000 COVID-19 deaths were reported on Jan. 8 and noting that the average death count was much lower in the first four days of January than the next four days, he immediately went into conspiracy mode:
Therefore, the average daily increase in deaths, between Jan. 5 and 8, is 3,812, compared to an average of 1,999 between Jan 1 and 4.
This extraordinarily suspicious 91% average increase could have resulted from the departments of health, in Democratic-controlled cities and states, unscrupulously underreporting their death tolls in the first four days of 2021, and then overreporting their totals in the second four days.
Indeed, my first Newsmax article about the COVID epidemic, on April 16, 2020, extensively documented that the departments of health of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York Andrew Cuomo, were repeatedly “fudging” their overlapping deaths totals.
Or, you know, it's because the first four days of January took place over a holiday weekend, when reporting might be less than complete because people who were normally reporting numbers were off work.
As you might have surmised, Schulte's goal here is to push the right-wing conspiracy theory that COVID deaths have been artificially inflated:
Finally, that 4,000 Americans were killed by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, on two consecutive days last week, is just the latest “Fake COVID Epidemiology,” disseminated by completely untrustworthy Democratic politicians, including, Mayor Bill de Blasio, NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, and the governors and mayors of other dysfunctional Deep Blue states and cities.
No wonder Newsmax slapped a disclaimer on Schulte's column.
Schulte likes to play games with numbers, particularly on coronavirus. Here are a few more columns on the subject:
In his Jan. 28 column, Schulte complained that President Biden noted that coronavirus death toll reached the number of Americans killed in World War II, howling that was a "heinous" comparison because those dead from coronavirus were a smaller proportion of Americans than during World War II and are mostly elderly with a much lower "productive years of life lost" than the mostly young men killed during the way.
Schuilte has also forwardednumerousconspiracytheories about purported irregularities in the presidential election. In a Jan. 5 column, he complained that Joe Biden allegedly benefited from too much "anomalous turnout" during the election, adding, "Finally, if Democrats and their legion of cohorts in the 'Fake Liberal Media' are convinced that Biden won the election fairly, why are they so fanatically obstructing honest examinations of the legality of votes in four to six states?"
That's the caliber of columnist Newsmax has these days.
WND Plays Victim, Complains YouTube Demonitized Its Channel Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily managing editor David Kupelian quickly went conspiratorial in a Feb. 1 email to readers:
Big Tech is attacking WND again. Here’s their latest attempt to put one of the Internet’s oldest and most storied news organizations out of business:
Last Friday, outraged by the libeling and cancelling of prominent Trump supporter Mike Lindell and his company, My Pillow, WND’s Elizabeth Farah posted a short video in support of Mike. That video resulted in the demonetization of the entire WND YouTube account.
Although Lindell has now been permanently banned by Twitter, Farah focused her video on a libelous story appearing in the Daily Mail, which stated as fact (citing unnamed "friends") that Lindell had a torrid months-long affair with actress Jane Krakowski. Only problem was, both Lindell and Krakowski utterly deny the affair – or even knowing each other – and Lindell has already filed a defamation lawsuit against the Daily Mail.
What was WND’s crime? The usual: Telling the truth – and defending a staunch Trump supporter like “the My Pillow guy.”
Well, we watched that video -- a 13-minute "Farah on Fire" piece that was posted Jan. 22 -- and it is likely that Farah's defense of Lindell over the Krakowski rumors were not the issue (Lindell has since sued the Daily Mail over the story). We do, however, think it's entertaining that Farah and Kupelian are getting all worked up about this -- at one point, Farah declared her opposition to "libeling innocent individuals" -- considering that WND arguably spent eight years libeling Barack Obama by promoting false claims that he wasn't eligible to serve as president and actually did libel a Tennessee car dealer by claiming he was involved in drug dealing (that lawsuit got settled out of court for an undisclosed sum before it went to trial). And it's certainly not because Farah's video was wildly popular -- at this writing, it had only 342 views.
Nope, the problematic part starts when Farah likens Lindell to the Founding Fathers for putting his livelihood on the line to spout election fraud conspiracy theories, then played a segment of an interview Lindell did on Steve Bannon's podcast. A couple weeks earlier, YouTube had banned Bannon's channel because it had promoted false claims about election fraud.
WND could simply edit the Bannon segment out of Farah's video and probably get re-monetized. But Kupelian won't tell you that -- he's much happier playing the victim. And Kupelian was on a roll and in full conspiracy mode:
Let’s take two steps back and look at the big picture: As we have been urgently warning about for over four years, the lords of the Internet – Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and others – are finally making their big move for all-out, undisguised, totalitarian control of what you are allowed to read, watch, hear – and therefore think.
For Twitter to permanently ban the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump – who just last month a Gallup survey of Americans revealed to be the “most admired man in the world” and who had been nominated for multiple Nobel Peace Prizes – makes it pretty clear that Big Tech’s mask is off. Completely off.
No more congressional hearings where Big Tech oligarchs make excuses or blame “glitches” or mid-level employees for banning prominent conservatives, Christians and pro-lifers. Those days are over. Ever since the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol building – which the Left has equated with both 9-11 and Pearl Harbor – social media giants have abandoned their former pretense and are now wildly purging conservatives from the internet, as though we didn’t exist.
And then – no sooner did prominent conservatives announce they were quitting Twitter in favor of free-speech social media alternative Parler, than the Tech Giants ganged up to kill their competitor in the cradle.
[...]
Friends, we are fighters here at WND, and we still intend – as long as God allows us to exist as a news organization – to shout the truth from the rooftops and publish it from sea to shining sea! WND fully intends to continue to sound the alarm and expose the totalitarian left's efforts to completely take over America. That means everything from the Democrats' election-time specialty of voter fraud (and yes, despite what they tell you, the 2020 election was RIGGED), to the leftwing indoctrination of young voters at America's progressive brainwashing centers called colleges, to the Democratic Party's passionate love affair with abortion, to exposing all the outrageous lies of the corrupt "mainstream news media."
Needless to say, Kupelian concluded his email with a request for money for the nonprofit WND News Center.
MRC Defends MyPillow Guy, Censors His Election Fraud Lies Topic: Media Research Center
We'vedocumentedhow the Media Research Center kept a running tally of how many times Presient Trump has been "censored" on Twitter (never mind that slapping a label on his tweets pointing out that he's lying or reducing distribution of his lies does not constitute "censorship"), while also complaining that Joe Biden never suffered the same treatment (forgetting to explain that's beause he never violated Twitter's terms of service the way Trump has).
The last MRC article pushing that narrative was Jan. 4, when Corinne Weaver grumbled: "Twitter never took a holiday break when it came to labeling President Donald Trump’s tweets and the tweets of his campaign, @TeamTrump. In the past seven days, 42 labels have been slapped on tweets referencing elections, Georgia and any mention of fraud. Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden’s account and his campaign’s account have been left untouched by Twitter. President Trump and his campaign have been censored a grand total of 625 times since May 31, 2018."
Weaver huffed that MyPillow guy Mike Lindell's tweet that "@realDonaldTrump will be our President for the next 4 years!!!” got a label put on it (which, again, is not "censorship" no matter how much Weaver thinks it is): "For this particular message to be censored implies that Twitter has a double standard. Myriads of celebrities and figures have tweeted that Trump was not their president,."
That narrative stopped, of course, because Twitter banned Trump in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Also of course, the MRC attacked Twitter for that by hurling bogus narratives. And when Lindell got banned by Twitter last week, Kayla Sargent was on hand to recite the victim narrative:
Perhaps Twitter was losing sleep over the fact that it’s been a whole three days since it censored a prominent conservative.
Twitter banned MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, making him only the latest conservative censored on the platform this month alone.
“The account you referenced has been permanently suspended due to repeated violations of our Civic Integrity Policy,” a Twitter spokesperson told MRC TechWatch. However, Twitter did not respond to an inquiry about which specific tweets led to Lindell’s ban. Lindell has been an avid supporter of former President Donald Trump, a fact that many media outlets despise.
Sargent is lying when she claims that Twitter banned Lindell because "it’s been a whole three days since it censored a prominent conservative," and that "many media outlets despise" Lindell because he's "been an avid supporter" of Trump. Lindell was originally banned because he continued to spread the Big Lie that the election was stolen from Trump -- which Sargent played dumb about by not mentioning that relevant fact, or that Dominion Voting Systems has threatened to sue Lindell for promoting falsehoods about the voting-tech company. He's despised not for mere support of Trump; it's because he's been pushing lies. Indeed, Lindell has gone so far over the edge that an interviewer for conservative channel Newsmax TV literally walked off the set rather than put up with his ranting conspiracies any longer.
Sargent has demonstrated once again that at the MRC, the narrative is more important than the truth.
Even After The Capitol Riot, WND's Tomczak Still Supports Trump Topic: WorldNetDaily
In his Jan. 6 WorldNetDaily column -- written immediately after the Capitol riot -- Larry Tomczak was eager to spin the events of the day:
We are witnessing history.
The events of the past 24 hours will reverberate throughout the corridors of time. Their significance cannot be overstated. Because I lived 24 years in the D.C. area and 11 in Atlanta, Georgia, they have deep meaning for me personally.
First, what was described as the most consequential non-presidential election in our nation's history, two leftist-leaning Democrats won U.S. Senate seats, enabling the Democratic Party to seize control of our nation's governance. Their radical socialist agenda will now be implemented with blazing speed, catching scores of naïve citizens off guard wondering how this all could have happened in the "land of the free and the brave." It is indeed a dark day in the United States of America.
Second, under the banner of "Save America March," hundreds of thousands of patriots representing over 74 million voters for Donald Trump listened attentively as our president methodically laid out a comprehensive case exposing massive fraud and corruption in the recent election and passionately appealed for the preservation of our Constitution and honest elections in our republic.
"We will never concede. We will not take it anymore!" Mr. Trump declared as he and countless millions believe we are experiencing the greatest scandal in America's history.
Tomczak also happened to be at the rally that preceded the riot, where he and a partner "conducted nearly 40 on-the-spot interviews with people who came from across America to say by their presence something is seriously wrong and it must be addressed." He offered "three quick takeaways" on the riot, the first of which was to blame Antifa:
The gathered multitudes were a far cry from the boisterous, violent and destructive protests of Black Lives Matter, Antifa and far-left extremists.
There were some fringe elements and, we suspect, "planted" agitators whose mission was to gain media attention and discredit the law-abiding citizens in attendance. Watch how the corrupt, sympathetic and Trump-hating media (that characterized crazed looters and criminals as "peaceful protesters") will highlight incidents to continue demonizing our president and his "deplorable" supporters.
The mayor of D.C. is a leftist Trump-hater who might not mind disruptive chaos on the Capitol grounds where she has responsibility with Capitol Police to ensure adequate security and protection when there are large-scale events like this. Radical communist and socialist agitators are paid handsomely to infiltrate such gatherings to incite riots and demonize law-abiding citizens.
As we've noted, there is no evidence that Antifa played any role in instigating the riot.
In his Jan. 19 column, Tomczak was endeavoring to distance the rioters from those who attended the rally (which admitting that he actually didn't), and continuing to embrace election fraud conspiracy theories:
Recently, over 100,000 people, representing 74 million who voted to reelect President Trump, assembled legitimately and peacefully in Washington, D.C. I covered the event with a veteran news analyst who was on site while I worked from home.
Exercising First Amendment rights and appealing for further scrutiny of what countless millions believe was criminal activity (not "shenanigans") in the presidential election, masses (including myself listening from home) heard the president make a credible case and then encourage supporters to "remain peaceful"... to "walk down to the Capitol" and "cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women."
[...]
Amidst unbelievably lax security, a few hundred angry activists seized the D.C. moment Jan. 6 for political theater and venting hostilities. The riotous behavior was in stark contrast to years of Trump rallies. Who were the instigators? Why were authorities totally unprepared? Prior to the event, why were offers for increased security declined?
The Democrats and sympathetic media had a field day blaring giant size headlines like "Trump Supporters Storm the Capitol." Biden labeled them "domestic terrorists" as Democratic leaders (noticeably muted during months of mayhem, destruction, injuries to police officers and people plus the killing of a policeman) quickly launched another impeachment initiative stating that President Trump "incited an insurrection"!
This is an unfair fabrication not based in fact but political prejudice. And while the president could've been quicker to repudiate the violence like we all have, it's obvious the Democratic leaders want to humiliate the president and continue their four-year obsession to remove him from office.
Tomczak went Godwin, claiming that removing President Trump and other right-wing activists from social media for instigating violence and spreading lies "should remind us of Nazi Germany forcing Jews to wear Star of David patches during the Holocaust."
He then showed how much of a Trump dead-ender he is, gushing that Trump "used his business acumen to turn around our economy and unashamedly called out other nations taking advantage of us," among other achievements. He then begged his fellow right-wingers not to abandon Trump "in his hour of need":
The grass-roots MAGA movement is real and remains strong, and Mr. Trump is a major spokesman. The radical leftist, Marxist, socialist activists know we in the church and culture must be silenced and rendered ineffective to advance their progressive agenda. We collectively are "salt" that must not lose our saltiness to prevent decay or we'll be "good for nothing but to be thrown out and to be trampled underfoot by men" as Jesus warned (Matthew 5:13).
Here's the deal: I've shared from my heart and over 50 years in ministry what I believe to be an overview of what's really happening in America and it requires a courageous response.
Now is not the time to distance ourselves from our president, Donald Trump, for he has withstood horrendous opposition and with all his flaws remained rock solid in upholding the values that made America great, "for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith." I beseech you to pray for him and not abandon him in his hour of need.
CNS Goes On A Franklin Graham Stenography Frenzy Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman has long had a obsession with right-wing evangelical guy Franklin Graham, basically serving as his PR guy (although to a lesser extent than CNS serves as Mark Levin's PR operation). Chapman really cranked up his inner Graham fanboy recently, publishing 15 articles touting Graham's musings since the November presidential election, mostly on election fraud conspiracy theories, how evil liberals and gay people supposedly are, and howgreat a president Donald Trump was:
Because these are stenography pieces, no criticism is allowed. Therefore, Graham is not going to bring up Graham's unseemly and aggressive support for Trump -- or that there's a petition aiming to remove Graham from running the ministry of his father, Billy Graham, over it -- nor a counterpoint to his "30 pieces of silver" smear; one commenter noted that "Graham’s inference that Donald Trump is comparable to Jesus by asserting a parallel between the 10 Republicans and Judas is ludicrous at best and, at the worst, is sheer blasphemy."
It's another violation of its own mission statement, which claims that CNS "endeavors to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story." CNS should either live up to its mission statement ... or edit out anything that might suggest that it's fair and balanced.
Right-Wing Activist MRC Defended Was Arrested In Capitol Riot Topic: Media Research Center
In a Jan. 8 Media Research Center post sounding alarms ahat "The Blaze journalist Elijah Schaffer, who has put his own physical safety at risk to report on riots throughout 2020 has been shockingly deplatformed for unknown reasons," Alexander Hall also wrote," Activist Brandon Straka’s WalkAway foundation was also reportedly purged from Facebook. Schaffer commented in response: 'The Purge is not only here, it’s going to get worse. We’ve been predicting this for a while now. Get ready.'"
Facebook purged the WalkAway Campaign, a conservative movement, in the overall censorship fiasco that started with the complete shutdown of President Donald Trump from all tech platforms, according to the campaign’s founder.
Brandon Straka, the founder of the WalkAway campaign, tweeted on Jan. 8, “FACEBOOK has removed the #WalkAway Campaign and has BANNED ME and EVERY MEMBER of my team!!! Over half a million people in #WalkAway with hundreds of thousands of testimonial videos and stories is GONE.” The tweet included two screenshots: one purportedly from Facebook informing Straka that “Your account was disabled,” and one email purportedly from Facebook that stated, “Pages that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed.”
The platform explained, “A Facebook Page is a distinct presence used solely for business or promotional purposes.” The company warned Straka, “Continued misuse of Facebook’s features could result in the permanent loss of your account.”
Well, that victimhood may have been a bit premature. NBC News reports that Straka was arrested last week for his alleged role in the right-wing Capitol riot, on charges of impeding law enforcement officers during civil disorder, knowingly entering restricted grounds and engaging in disorderly conduct with intent to disturb a hearing before Congress:
Straka, 44, who describes himself as a "former liberal," was a scheduled speaker at a Jan. 5 "Stop the Steal" rally at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. The FBI received multiple tips about his presence at the deadly siege the next day, according to a federal affidavit, including a tip from a woman who claimed to be a relative of Straka's.
Special Agent Jeremy Desor detailed a series of tweets and videos Straka made during and after the attack. They have since been deleted.
In one tweet, he called on "patriots at the Capitol" to "hold the line!" according to the affidavit.
The affidavit says a video posted to YouTube by a witness shows Straka at the Capitol doors saying: "We're going in. They're saying we're going in. We're going in."
At one point, the crowd was challenged by a Capitol Police officer with a shield. Straka told them, "Take it away from him," according to the affidavit.
The clip ends with Straka at the top of the stairs, the document says.
Unsurprisingly, neither the MRC's NewsBusters operation nor its "news" division, CNSNews.com, have told their readers that a man the MRC defended just a few short weeks about has been arrested-- just like it has refused to tell its readers that another person it has portrayed as a victim, Marjorie Taylor Greene, is a far-right QAnon conspiracy theorist and hater.
WND's Bad Coronavirus Takes, Scary Vaccine Edition Topic: WorldNetDaily
The first COVID vaccine is rolling across the nation, but many Americans are not buying the hype. Despite months of nonstop publicity in the media, only about half of those polled say they will get the shot when it becomes available.
[...]
Assertions that the coronavirus vaccines are 90% or 95% effective are misleading. The term effectiveness is used by some to mean merely reducing the severity of the illness, rather than providing complete immunity.
Questions have been raised about the sufficiency of the testing data, and whether serious adverse effects such as Bell's palsy were misleadingly portrayed as being non-serious. Millions of Americans have allergies, and severe allergic reactions occurred among early recipients of the Pfizer vaccine in England.
The Pfizer vaccine is the first to use mRNA technology, which prompts a recipient's own biological cells to generate a protein in order to spark an immune response. Long-term effects of this new technology remain untested and unknown, as are its possible effects on reproduction.
Many Americans have legitimate questions about the novel vaccines being so heavily promoted. Even if the vaccines live up to their promise and do not prove to have unacceptable long-term side effects, thousands are dying NOW.
Bureaucrats ignore the fact that vaccines do not help people already sick with COVID. Sick patients need immediate combination prescription medications –which frontline physicians have been courageously doing since February, in spite of political, bureaucratic, and media opposition and intimidation.
It is past time for the media and elected officials pushing the vaccine agenda to admit their failures to educate the public about other treatment options that have been successful worldwide since March.
The true gift to the American people for this Christmas-Hanukkah season would be to widely publicize the successful early treatments, allow patients the freedom to choose one's treatment, and enable all Americans the freedom to choose to assemble, worship, work again and enjoy life. The early treatment options Sen. Johnson so courageously showcased in his two Senate hearings would indeed offer Americans a gift of hope – and a return to our core freedoms.
The trucks are rolling, bringing pallets of COVID-19 vaccine to distribution centers. If you are in the 1A allocation group, you'll be among the first to get the vaccine. Should you take some precautions?
[...]
Bell's palsy (paralysis of half the face) has occurred in four trial subjects out of about 22,000 who received the Pfizer vaccine; three of about 15,000 who received the Moderna vaccine; and one who received the Moderna "placebo" (a meningococcal vaccine known to cause frequent reactions). Although Pfizer claims this is about the same as the background rate (1/10,000 per year), this is 2/10,000 within a two to three month period, and is thus 8 to 12 times the annual background – and much higher if the paralysis occurred within a two-week period following the shot.
In most people, Bell's palsy is temporary, beginning to improve within a few weeks, with complete recovery in six months. Sufferers need to protect the eye that can't close properly.
The COVID vaccines are not recommended for women who are pregnant or might become pregnant. How long might a deleterious effect on pregnancy or ability to become pregnant last? We may know in a few years. There simply has not been enough time for long-term effects to emerge.
Manipulating the news is a standard propaganda technique for molding public behavior. Today it may be called "fake news."
It can be very hard to sort out the facts in the cacophony of conflicting statements on COVID-19. Dr. Anthony Fauci, perched as head bureaucrat at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since the 1980s, would make it very simple for you: "Just do what you are told." Don't wear a mask, or wear a mask. Go back to normal when there's a vaccine, or when 70% are vaccinated, no, when 90% are vaccinated, or maybe when 70 to 85% are vaccinated.
[...]
How do we sort out the fake news or scaremongering? The remedy for misinformation is openness and free discussion. But here are two means for promulgating errors or lies and protecting them against rebuttal:
First, under the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, section 1078, Operation Mockingbird was allegedly mobilized against U.S. citizens. This program purportedly could enable the Central Intelligence Agency to manipulate the news in the U.S. by channeling it through a foreign country – perhaps one that would benefit from destroying the U.S. economy. Federal agencies should not be funding news outlets and thereby influencing their content.
Second, social media outlets can control content with impunity under the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA, section 230), which protects them from tort liability. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., threatened to withdraw this protection if they did not de-platform certain views. AAPS filed a lawsuit asking the court to enjoin Schiff from coercing media outlets to censor information about vaccine risks. There are increasing calls to censor information that might cause "vaccine hesitancy" or "distrust of government," based on the opinion of non-accountable authorities or "fact-checkers."
[...]
Public health authorities are very worried about loss of public trust. There is good reason for distrust. Without open discussion, skepticism will only increase.
Newsmax Gets Defensive Over Being Accused (Accurately) of Pro-Trump 'Election Denialism' Topic: Newsmax
Eric Mack worked up a little outrage in a Jan. 17 article in which he claimed, "CNN is making no mistake about it: It wants to censor and close Newsmax from broadcasting as a cable news channel." Mack kept up the outrage:
Apparently jolted by the fact Newsmax has skyrocketed to become the 4th highest-rated cable news channel in the country, the liberal CNN is decrying what it calls Newsmax's "election denialism" and is seeking to have it "deplatformed" from cable and satellite systems across the nation.
Oliver Darcy, CNN's leftwing media critic, has been demanding cable operators drop Newsmax, which is currently carried by every major system in the nation. Newsmax is also streamed free by most OTT platforms and devices.
In a CNN column in early January, Darcy falsely claimed conservative media caused the protests at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
"After all, it was the very lies that Fox, Newsmax, and OAN spread that helped prime President Trump's supporters into not believing the truth: That he lost an honest and fair election," Darcy wrote.
Mack offered no evidence that Darcy is "leftwing" other that he criticized Newsmax.Instead, he continued to attack Darcy:
Darcy doubled down, advancing the McCarthy-like political witch hunt by tweeting a fresh demand cable operators which carry Newsmax consider closing down the outlet:
"Just a reminder that neither @Verizon, @ATT, nor @comcast have answered any questions about why they beam channels like OAN [sic] & Newsmax into millions of homes. Do they have any second thoughts about distributing these channels given their election denialism content? They won't say."
In his tweet, Darcy failed to note AT&T is the parent company of CNN, and by removing Newsmax from cable lineups it reduces serious competition for his network, especially as Newsmax continues to rapidly increase audience and is on a trajectory to overtake CNN in viewership.
In fact, AT&T no longer operates cable TV systems; it does currently offer a streaming TV service.
In a statement released Sunday, Newsmax said, contrary to Darcy's and Stamos' claims, Newsmax never denied the election results.
The network called all contested states for Biden as they were certified and accepted him as president-elect Dec. 14, after the meeting of the Electoral College.
Newsmax also noted, while it justifiably covered the president's allegations about the election, and interviewed his lawyers and supporters – as did Fox News and Fox Business News, it never said all allegations were true.
Newsmax won't tell you that it did, in fact, present those claims without question, never subjecting them to the kind of fact-checking one would expect from a legitimate news organization -- thus implying to its readers that the claims are true.
Newsmax columnists from James Hirsen to Dick Morris to Michael Dorstewitz have pushed bogus election fraud conspiracy theories, and Newsmax "news" article also uncritically forwarded baseless or false election fraud conspiracy theories without informing readers they were false.
To cite another example of that: A Dec. 23 "news" article by Sandy Fitzgerald touted how "President Donald Trump Tuesday night released a 14-minute long video through Facebook declaring the election had been stolen from him in favor of Joe Biden because of "monstrous fraud." ... He added that he has proof of "overwhelming election fraud." But Fitzgerald uncritically repeated Trump's claims; not subjecting them to any sort of fact-check.
Interestingly, Mack made no mention of his employer walking back its reporting on voting-tech companies Dominion and Smartmatic after receiving a legal notice from Smartmatic accusing it of publishing false and defamatory claims about the company -- one of the major pieces of evidence that Newsmax has engaged in "election denialism."
Instead, Mack closed with the final sentence of the Newsmax statement, whcih went into whataboutism mode: "The network did note, after years of CNN falsely claiming the Steele Dossier was valid and the Russian collusion claim against Trump was credible, it was never held accountable for its misreporting. Newsmax never called for CNN to be shut down." Newsmax provided no evidence that CNN actually did any of that.
NEW ARTICLE: Military-Grade Defamation Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily columnist James Zumwalt is spreading falsehoods and conspiracy theories about the election. He also smeared an official at a voting-tech company -- and it might get WND sued. Read more >>
Marjorie Taylor Greene isn't the only newly elected extreme-right-wing Republican member of Congress CNSNews.com has been trying to mainstream. Rep. Lauren Boebert, like Greene, has expressed support for the QAnon, and she has also praised the thugs in the Proud Boys. And as with Greene, CNS has no interest in talking about her extremism.
The Media Research Center 's mysterious MRC sports blogger, Jay Maxson, 
WorldNetDaily loves a good conspiracy -- and many bad ones. An example pf the latter surfaced in a Jan. 5 
The 
There are a few odds and ends we skipped over regarding the Media Research Center's defensiveness over the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Let's go over them, shall we?
Newsmax seemed to understand that Mark Schulte's Jan. 12 
WorldNetDaily managing editor David Kupelian quickly went conspiratorial in a Feb. 1 
We've
In his Jan. 6 WorldNetDaily 
CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman has 
In a Jan. 8 Media Research Center 
The first COVID vaccine is rolling across the nation, but many Americans are not buying the hype. Despite months of nonstop publicity in the media, only about half of those polled say they will get the shot when it becomes available.
