Topic: CNSNews.com
In the last half of 2020, CNSNews.com continued to try and put a pro-Trump spin on U.S. unemployment numbers ... until it decided not to. Read more >>
Thursday, April 1, 2021
NEW ARTICLE -- CNS Unemployment Reporting: The Pandemic Flip-Out, Part 2
Topic: CNSNews.com In the last half of 2020, CNSNews.com continued to try and put a pro-Trump spin on U.S. unemployment numbers ... until it decided not to. Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:00 AM EDT
Wednesday, March 31, 2021
How Has The MRC Been Freaking Out About The Muppets Lately?
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center once attacked the Muppets for being conservatively incorrect in having an oil tycoon as a villain in a movie, so recent moves in the Muppetverse were sure to set the MRC off. Gabriela Pariseau complained that some episodes of the 1970s "Muppet Show" being rerun on Diskey+ now have disclaimers at the beginning warning viewers of outdated offensive content:
We would remind Pariseau that, again, her employer didn't think it was being "lightheartedly offended" through its choice of a villain for one film. The MRC then took offense for being mocked for taking offense at this. A March 3 post by Alex Christy raged at NBC late-night-host Seth Meyers for calling out right-wingers pushing "invented culture war grievances" like the complaints over the Muppets, insisting that conservatives are "merely responding to the left's culture war offensive" and huffily adding: "Meyers, sounding like the political hack he is, of course omitted that it is the left's culture warriors, who motivated by "invented" grievances," urge content advisories for The Muppets on Disney+ and the turning of Mr. Potato Head into a genderless spud." MRC executive Tim Graham similarly went into defense in his March 5 column, just like he did regarding Dr. Seuss: "Our family watched The Muppet Show every Saturday night when it originally aired. These defined the words 'family entertainment.' Conservatives are mocking the Left for attempting to turn wholesome products into loathsome products." Then, Liondsay Kornick spent an entire March 25 post being mad that "Sesame Street" is adding two African-American Muppets:
And the MRC will claim it's racial pandering.
Posted by Terry K.
at 8:57 PM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, March 31, 2021 9:12 PM EDT
Michael Reagan Inaccurately Rants About Dr. Seuss Being 'Banned'
Topic: Newsmax Kenny Cody wasn't the only Newsmax columnist to play politics over Dr. Seuss. Michael Reagan (and co-writer Michael Shannon) ranted in a March 2 column:
As we know, that's not true -- the Loudon County schools did not "ban" Dr. Seuss books -- it de-emphasized them for more diverse selection, following similar priorities from Read Across America Day. But Reagan doesn't care about facts as long as he has an argument to make. He declared that "All we ever detected was general hilarity and borderline chaos in the Seuss’ books" and rehashed the storyline of "Green Eggs and Ham," which nobody was complaining about, and accused critics of the racism in some books of "wanting to deprive children of the Dr. Seuss experience," which nobody is actually trying to do.
Posted by Terry K.
at 6:04 PM EDT
CNS-Mark Levin Stenography Watch
Topic: CNSNews.com CNSNews.com kicked off 2021 the same way it conducted itself in previous years: giving copious (unpaid?) promotion to the Media Research Center's favorite right-wing radio host, Mark Levin. Here's what CNS published to boost Levin in the first tw0 months of 2021:
That's 14 articles to kick off 2021, and it gets CNS back on pace to do around 100 Levin articles this year. It had achieved that level from 2017 to 2019 but fell off the pace a bit last year with only 86 Levin articles.
Posted by Terry K.
at 2:30 PM EDT
Chuck Norris Turns His Column Into A Paid Ad, And WND Helps
Topic: WorldNetDaily In a blatant abuse of editorial content for profit-making purposes, Chuck Norris turned his March 10 WorldNetDaily column into a commercial for the gold-selling company he just became a spokesman for:
And so Norris did, all the way down to "our most prized personal use of gold. On very special occasions, giving gold coins to someone has proven much more valuable than other gifts. Gold and silver gifts are not only personal and tangible, but also provide a great memory and sentimental moment that increases their net worth as well." He also tossed innumerous exhortations that gold will skyrocket -- with the implicit claim that his readers should buy their gold at the company that hired him to say all that. As if that wasn't enough blatant shilling, WND's Bob Unruh followed up with a "news" article that tried to play up Norris' history of paid endorsements as some kind of seal of approval:
Unruh then rehashed Norris' column, concluding with a few random "Chuck Norris Facts." Hopefully Goldco threw some ad money WND's way -- lord knows they need it -- for this embarrassing episode of pretending that a commercial is "news."
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:09 AM EDT
Tuesday, March 30, 2021
MRC Back To Hiding Marjorie Taylor Greene's Far-Right Extremism
Topic: Media Research Center The last time we checked in, the Media Research Center was finally forced to stop hiding the extreme far-right views of QAnon adherent and newly minted U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene after they became too well known to ignore. It's been a few weeks since then, and the MRC has apparently decided it can hide those extreme views again now that she's in the news for more MRC-friendly reasons. One of those is hating transgender people. Mark Finklestein groused in a Feb. 26 post about an MSNBC interview with Democratic Rep. Marie Newman, which was "was devoted to what has been described as a feud between Newman and Greene. Newman, who has a transgender child, put a transgender flag in the hallway outside her House office, which happens to be located directly across from Greene's office. Greene responded by putting up a sign saying 'There are TWO genders MALE & FEMALE. ‘Trust the science!’' Greene also made a tweet referring to Newman's 'son,' Quinn, who now identifies as a female named Evie." Donovan Newkirk similarly complained that "left-wing" Newman appeared on CNN, while taking the side of the far-right Greene:
Clay Waters grumbled that the New York Times "focused on controversial Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in a childish spat with Democratic Rep. Marie Newman, reframing the debate to make the transgender activist side 'emotional' and sympathetic and the biological reality side 'ugly' and abhorrent." On March 4, fact-checker-basher Tim Graham melted down when PolitiFact invoked the Newman-Greene skirmish to point out that gender is not the same as gender identity:
From there, it was on to other things. Gabriel Hays backslid in a March 12 post by admitting Greene's extreme views -- but only to claim it's somehow not crazy or extremist to hyperbolically describe abortion as genocide:
Alexander Hall returned to an old defense of Greene in a March 19 post complaining that her Twitter account was briefly suspended (accidentially, it turned out). Hall lamented that this "alleged attempt to silence Greene" came "as her political future hangs in the balance," as she faced an effort to oust her from Congress. Hall made no mention of why Gomez introduced that resolution: because she promoted conspiracy theories that "advocated violence against our peers, the speaker and our government." You know, the same conspiracy theories that the MRC was (finally) running from just a month and a half earlier.
Posted by Terry K.
at 8:40 PM EDT
Updated: Tuesday, April 6, 2021 12:25 AM EDT
WND Columnist Cheers Extremist GOP Members of Congress
Topic: WorldNetDaily W. Scott Magill -- who we've caught spreading coronavirus conspiracy theories and maliciously lying about Anthyony Fauci -- gushed in his March 4 WorldNetDaily column:
Of course Magill -- who once asserted that protests for racial justice were part of a "continuing Revolution to utterly overthrow America and permanently suspend our Constitution by the Domestic Enemy" -- to side with two far-right women who have endorsed QAnon conspiracy theories and a man who lied his way into Congress. Magill didn't mention Greene's far-right loyalities in further defense of her, he laughably described Cawthorn as someone who "stood up for truth":
Magill concluded by actually invoking the language of QAnon: "Progressives and the liberal media may have the 'Squad,' but a conservative alternative – the 'Storm' – is brewing."
Posted by Terry K.
at 6:40 PM EDT
Updated: Tuesday, March 30, 2021 7:19 PM EDT
Disgraced Ex-Cop Cheers Disgraced Ex-Governor
Topic: Newsmax Bernard Kerik gushed in his March 12 Newsmax column:
The only hint that Greitens might not be the shining example of manhood that Kerik depicts him as came in this brief paragraph: "No surprise then that a Soros-funded prosecutor attacked him. Greitens has now been fully exonerated and those who perpetuated the witch hunt against him are being prosecuted. They are facing seven felonies for going after a MAGA-warrior." Kerik didn't explain what, exactly, Grietens had been "fully exonerated" of -- perhaps because he actually hasn't been. Greitens was accused by a woman he allegedly had an affair with of taking a photo of her in a compromising position for blackmail purposes. The "Soros-funded prosecutor," Kim Gardner, didn't "attack" him over this -- she launched an investigation of the claim after it became public, and a grand jury indicted him on felony invasion of privacy charges. The charges were dropped not because he was "exonerated," but because a private investigator Gardner hired in the case was accused of perjury and withholding information (and is the person facing the "seven felonies" Kerik referenced). The alleged compromising photo was never found, but it was discovered that thousands of files had been mysteriously deleted from Greitens' phone. Greitens was also accused of misusing a donor list from a nonprofit he once headed in his political campaign, but the investigation was ultimately droppednot because he was "exonerated," but because Greitens resigned as governor. Separately, the Missouri Ethics Commission fined the Greitens campaign $178,000 over other misdeeds. People then "go after" Greitens for being a "MAGA-warrior" -- they went after him because he's a sleaze. Given that Kerik is a convicted felon for deeds commited while New York City police chief, it seems that he has found a kindred spirit.
Posted by Terry K.
at 3:44 PM EDT
CNS Keeps Up Right-Wing Attacks On HHS Nominee Becerra
Topic: CNSNews.com A Feb. 20 CNSNews.com article by managing editor Michael W. Chapman touted how right-wing activists "launched a $2 million-plus campaign to expose how President Joe Biden's call for "unity" in the country is questionable given the radical left background of some of his executive branch nominees, who are pushing extreme agendas that mirror the desires of the dark money donors who put Biden in office." It seems CNS may have gotten some of that money, because it joined in the attacks on one of the group's targets, Health and Human Services nominee Xavier Becerra. We've already documented how CNS bashed Becerra upon his nomination, and it kept up those attacks as his confirmation hearing approached. A Feb. 5 commentary by Bill Donohue -- who had previously ranted that Becerra is ""an enemy of the Catholic Church" -- listed "16 reasons why Becerra should not be confirmed," one of which was that "he brought charges against pro-life activists who went undercover to film Planned Parenthood officials trafficking in aborted baby parts. He brought felony charges against them." In fact, a jury ruled in 2019 that Daleiden should pay Planned Parenthood $870,000 in punitive damages for his attempt to try and destroy the organization under false pretenses. Donobhue also claimed that "Few Attorneys General in the United States fought more ferociously to deny the Little Sisters of the Poor their religious rights than Becerra." In fact, Becerra initiated no legal action against the religious order; Becerra sued the Trump administration in 2017 for broadening exemptions to contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act, and the Little Sisters of the Poor later filed to intervene and chose to become a party to the suit. Donohue repeated his bogus attacks on Becerra in a Feb. 24 column, huffing that "Becerra is no victim of anti-Catholicism. In fact, he is a master sponsor of it." The same day, editor Terry Jeffrey highlighted hostile Republican questions to Becerra during his confirmation hearing:
In a Feb. 26 article, Emma Riley touted how "63 pro-life leaders urged the lawmakers to reject Becerra, stating he is “an enemy to every pro-life policy and law, and has demonstrated complete disregard for the religious and moral convictions of those opposed to the brutal act of abortion.” Similarly, a March 11 article by Quinn Weimer highlighted how "some conservative leaders told CNS News why they oppose Becerra. Pro-life leader Lila Rose, in particular, stressed that, “Becerra is a pro-abortion activist and friend of the abortion industry, with no medical background.” Weimer didn't mention that most HHS secretaries have had no medical background; like Becerra, their background is in government. CNS acknowledged Becerra's confirmation only in a March 18 article by Melanie Arter that began with an attack on on him by Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, "saying he is 'woefully unqualified to lead that department,' because he has no medical or science experience or in logistics, having 'never so much as distributed French fries at a McDonald’s.'" Arter didn't mention that the HHS secretary under Trump, Alex Azar, also has no medical or science degree (though he was the former head of drugmaker Eli Lilly). Riley returned with some conservative sore-loser complaining the next day, repeating how "pro-life leaders denounced the vote, stating that the confirmation is a 'blow to all Americans who value religious liberty and the sanctity of life.'" There was no mention of the $2 million campaign right-wing activists ran against Becerra, let alone that it could only be described as a failure.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:23 AM EDT
Monday, March 29, 2021
MRC Plays Down Sexual Harassment At Washington NFL Team
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center has long been weirdly defensive of the name of the Washington Redskins, and considered it a sign of weakness that it finally abandoned that now-offensive name. In a March 3 post, the MRC's Matt Philbin is bizarrely angry that the Washington Football Team (the interim name of the team) is switching out its cheerleaders for a coed dance team:
But it wasn't until the sixth paragraph that Philbin got around to hinting why the team made the move (while somehow blaming it on a newspaper, for some reason):
Actually, the settlement involved only one female employee who wasn't a cheerleader. Philbin isn't going to tell you the cheerleader-related incidents weren't any sort of run-of-the-mill sexual harassment -- there were things like a secret video of outtakes from a calendar photo shoot that captured the cheerleaders in the nude. It seems like Philbin is bizarrely wistful for the days when men could objectify women without consequence.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:05 PM EDT
Updated: Monday, March 29, 2021 10:16 PM EDT
NEW ARTICLE -- CNS Unemployment Reporting: The Pandemic Flip-Out, Part 1
Topic: CNSNews.com CNSNews.com's reporting on employment numbers has been aggressively pro-Trump, but even it couldn't hide reality when the coronavirus pandemic caused rates to skyrocket. Plus: CNS' double standard on reporting the "real unemployment rate." Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 2:29 PM EDT
WND And Its Dubious Docs Tout Another Dubious COVID Treatment
Topic: WorldNetDaily As if hydroxycloroquine wasn't enough, WorldNetDaily and its columnists found another dubious treatment for coronavirus to embrace: ivermectin. The dubious fringe-right docs at the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons -- who touted hydroxychloroquine -- were another the top backers:
Non-physician WND columnist Dennis Prager declared on Feb. 8 that "I put my medicines where my mouth is. I have been taking hydroxychloroquine and zinc (as well as vitamin D and selenium) on a regular basis for half a year, and ivermectin for the past three months," adding, "Given how safe hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin are, what could we have possibly lost by allowing millions of people to take these medicines?" WND writer Art Moore has also contributed to the pro-ivermectin propaganda. In December, he cheered how a doctor in a Republican-led Senate hearing on COVID treatment claimed that "another blocked drug that is inexpensive and widely available, ivermectin, prevents infection and saves lives." Later that month, Moore claimed to cite "many health experts who decry the politicization of COVID-19 treatments such as the cheap, proven and widely available drugs hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin." Moore then gushed in a Feb. 25 article:
But Moore has yet to report what happened next: A week later, the journal withdrew the article before actual publication, stating that it contained unsubstantiated claims and violated the journal’s editorial policies. The study was manufactured by something called the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, which was formed to push unapproved treatments like ivermectin. The journal that ultimately rejected the study noted that the authors, who are key officials at FLCCC, "promoted their own specific ivermectin-based treatment which is inappropriate for a review article and against our editorial policies." Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration has taken a pretty solid stance against ivermectin absent genuine, objective research:
But that's not what WND wants to hear, unless that opposition can be twisted into an anti-government stance. The narrative is more important than the truth at WND.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:35 AM EDT
Updated: Monday, March 29, 2021 1:56 AM EDT
Sunday, March 28, 2021
MRC Forgets It Tried To Cancel Dr. Seuss First
Topic: Media Research Center "Cancel Culture Comes For Dr. Seuss," intoned the headline on Lindsey Kornick's March 1 Media Research Center post, attacking a newspaper columnist who argued for rethinking Dr. Seuss. Kornick said of the columnist, "Imagine someone in the world finding 'One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish' offensive" -- even though the columnist never mentioned that book, let alone expressed offense at it. Kornick also repeated a bogus attack claiming a Virginia school district "took steps to “cancel” Dr. Seuss in their annual “Read Across America” event on Dr. Seuss' birthda" before walking it back.she then huffed: "This ignores the fact that Theodore Geisel was a liberal Democrat in life and supported many left-leaning policies and causes including in his books (read: The Lorax) which should deem him anything but 'racist.'" Thus, Kornick inadvertently admitted that the MRC are the ones who have been trying to cancel Dr. Seuss. She linked to a 2012 MRC post raging against a movie version of "The Lorax" because if offered environmental tips for children alongside the film, thus appeasing "thousands of left-wing zealots." (The MRC also complained that the movie indulged in "liberal indoctrination" for pointing out that plastic water bottles are wasteful.) But that's not the only attempt: In 2019, the MRC tried to blame Dr. Seuss for a massacre in El Paso because the alleged shooter referenced "The Lorax" in a manifesto. But that has to go down the memory hole because it currently serves the MRC's political agenda to portray Dr. Seuss as a victim. For instance, Curtis Houck whined that Biden press secretary Jen Psaki wouldn't give a straight answer addressing "the woke mob’s canceling of Dr. Seuss." But the MRC also got a little defensive about the whole Seuss thing. Alex Christy complained that NBC's Seth Meyers pointed out conservatives' obsession with culture war issues, adding, "If conservatives are detached for merely responding to the left's culture war offensive, what does that make Meyers' fellow leftists, considering they are now also trying to cancel Dr. Seuss?" Christy followed by grousing that "MSNBC Live host Stephanie Ruhle on Wednesday smeared conservatives for caring about cancel culture, calling it unimportant" and pointing out that it was Seuss' publisher and the Seuss estate that agreed to pull six lesser Seuss books (out of the dozens he published) for outdated racial imagery. He retorted, "While Ruhle is correct that it was Dr. Seuss' publisher that suspended the books, they did so because left-wing culture warriors have saying for years that some of his books are racists." Houck returned to rant that "Thursday’s ReidOut featured more radicalizing rhetoric meant to send MSNBC viewers into a fury of hatred against anyone on the right, falsely claiming the Fox News Channel and the GOP are exclusively obsessed with cancel culture and controversies surrounding Mr. Potato Head and Dr. Seuss." But Houck offered no evidence that anyone said Fox News was "exclusively obsessed" over Dr. Seuss, citing as evidence the claim was false a thread from his Twitter account featuring various random screencaps from Fox News talking about other things. But when Reid pointed out that Fox News had done "33 segments since Monday on Dr. Seuss" -- which has a basis in fact -- Houck offered nothing in rebuttal. Tim Graham similarly complained in his March 5 column: "The hottest theme in liberal punditry is mocking conservatives for their objections to Woke Culture doing its long march through American entertainment conglomerates. It's not 'real news.'"Needless to say, Graham didn't mention the times it tried to cancel Dr. Seuss over "The Lorax." Graham complained further: "This debate needs more precision, not less. What pages in the Dr. Seuss books are objectionable? TV stories on it won’t show any images. Some images of African savages clearly seem like antiquated stereotyping, but others are more debatable. You can’t debate it if no one will show it." Well, nothing's stopping the MRC from publishing those images. And doesn't the MRC operate a "news" division, CNSNews.com, that also played the "cancel culture" card on this story while not showing any of the actual images in question? Yes, it did. Gabriel Hays touted how usually-despised late-night host Jimmy Kimmel "warned that cancel culture’s current destruction of once-thought innocent pop culture staples like Dr. Seuss, Mr. Potato Head and The Muppets will get Trump elected a second time." Like his boss Graham, hays didn't mention that his employer played the cancel-culture card on Dr. Seuss first. Duncan Schroeder ranted in a March 8 post where he was defensive about the conservative obsession over this, while also falsely blaming President Biden for it:
Schroeder is the one with the fake outrage here. As we've noted, Biden didn't metnion Dr. Seuss because Dr. Seuss is no longer exclusively associated with Read Across America Day -- the contract giving the Seuss estate exclusivity for the event ended in 2019. And, of course, Schroeder didn't mention the MRC's attempts to cancel Dr. Seuss.
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:50 PM EDT
CNS' New Anti-Trans Narrative: Describe Trans Women As 'Biological Males'
Topic: CNSNews.com Is CNSNews.com bucking for a social media ban it can exploit? On Feb. 3, CNS published a column by its favorite dishonest Catholic, Bill Donohue, raging that Twitter temproarilty blocked the account of right-wing Catholic "news" outlet Catholic World Report because reporter Matt Hadro (a former staffer at CNS' parent, the Media Research Center) referred to transgender Biden HHS nominee Rachel Levine as ""biological man identifying as a transgender woman." Apparently taking inspiration from that -- and furthering its hateful transgender freakout -- CNS has used "biological male" phrasing in many of its transgender-related articles, when it didn't before:
So far, it appears social media hasn't taken CNS' bait, depriving it of an opportunity to play victim to boost its right-wing anti-trans cred.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:19 PM EDT
Updated: Sunday, March 28, 2021 12:29 PM EDT
Saturday, March 27, 2021
MRC's Graham: Anti-Biden Claim Isn't 'False,' It Just 'Isn't ... Very Factual'
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center's Tim Graham thought he had a pretty good gotcha in a Feb. 26 post:
But then Graham had to concede that PolitiFact's fact-check was correct. He wouldn't go so far as to admit the claim is "false," of course, instead setting for "isn't ... very factual":
That turn of phrase reminds us of Graham's attempt to dismiss Trump's barrage of falsehoods during his presidency: He's not a liar, he just has "a casual relationahip with the truth." In most non-MRC settings "isn't ... very factual" is the same thing as "false." But in Graham's fevered, hate-filled brain, proving that a claim about Biden is no different than being on the Democratic Party payroll, so he went on to whine that "PolitiFact underlined that the fact-checker community as a bloc was rushing to defend Biden,"further complaining:
Yes, that's what Graham is whining about -- that PolitiFact stopped a lie in its tracks before it could gain traction in the larger right-wing media sphere. Not that Graham and the MRC would have ever told its readers this was false absent this whining about PolitiFact. (Also note that Fox News is suspiciously absent from his Nexis search.) This is the problem with Graham's war on fact-checking -- he doesn't actually care about facts, only in pursuing right-wing gotchas that gets clicks. The fact that he left this post up tells us he doesn't understand what an utter failure this attempt was. Then again, he's failed before, so he's apparently used to the feeling.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:27 AM EDT
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