MRC Demands Biden Response On Cuomo, Then Dismisses It As 'Lame' Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has been hypocritically hammering on sexual harassment allegations against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo despite its record ignoring or mocking similar claims made against President Trump. It even tried to drag President Biden into the story -- then deemed his response not good enough, as detailed in a March 15 item by Scott Whitlock:
Joe Biden late on Sunday was finally forced to offer an opinion on the Andrew Cuomo scandal as it spirals out of control. But the networks on Monday allowed mere seconds to his lame, calculated reply, one that really said nothing. ABC, CBS and NBC devoted just 51 seconds total (within larger stories on the Democrat) to Biden’s take on his scandal-ridden friend.
Here’s the sum total of the President’s comments on Sunday: “I think the investigation is underway, and we should see what it brings us.” Rather than call that a slimy non-answer, Good Morning America allowed a scant eight seconds on Biden in their 43 second total story on Cuomo. Reporter Stephanie Ramos sounded like a Democratic operative: “President Biden asked over the weekend whether Cuomo should resign, and he agreed we should wait to see the investigation's outcome.”
Of course, the MRC was sounding like a Republican operative in attacking Biden and the media. The MRC is an arm of the Republican Party, after all, not a legitimate "media research" organization.
Needless to say, Whitlock didn't explain exactly why Biden needed to comment on Biden in the first place, or what he thought would have been an appropriate response. (We don't recall Whitlock having any problem with the many "slimy" things Donald Trump has said.) His only goal was to attack Biden and try to link him to Cuomo.
CNSNews.com loved to quote Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, because he's so eminently quotable in pushing right-wing talking points. Some examples over the past year:
That last article appeared on March 25, a few days before it was revealed that the Department of Justice is investigating whether Gaetz had an inappropriate relationship with a 17-year-old giril and whether it constituted sex trafficking.CNS was initially quick to defend Gaetz, with a March 31 article by Susan Jones that uncritically recounted Gaetz defending himself in an appearance on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show:
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), an outspoken conservative and a supporter of President Donald Trump, says he's being smeared by The New York Times and extorted by a former Justice Department official over what he calls a false allegation of sex trafficking.
"It is a horrible allegation and it is a lie," Gaetz told Fox News's Tucker Carlson Tuesday night:
But Jones buried the odd exchange in which Gaetz brought up a dinner he attended with Carlson and "a friend of mine, you'll remember her, and she was actually threatened by the F.B.I., told that if she wouldn't cop to the fact that somehow I was involved in some pay-for-play scheme, that she could face trouble."
And that's the last time Gaetz has been mentioned in a CNS article. That means CNS readers don't know that the DOJ official has denied Gaetz's extortion claims, about reports that Gaetz showed photos of nude women he claims to have slept with, or that the House Ethics Committed has launched an investigation into Gaetz.
It appears that if it's bad news about a conservative, it's not news at CNS.
MRC's Graham Still Trying To Insist Trump Had A Vaccine Distribution Plan Topic: Media Research Center
Two months after Donald Trump left the White House, the Media Research Center was still defending him and his dubious behavior.
We've already documented how the MRC rushed to Trump's defense when the Biden administration accurately pointed out that the Trump administration had no plan forcoronavirus vaccine distribution beyond shipping the vaccines to state. Yet Tim Graham dedicated his March 17 column to attacking Vice President Kamala Harris for pointing that out. "Team Biden has a persistent lying problem when it comes to the Trump administration’s supposedly terrible record on vaccines," he asserted, then acted as the second coming odf Kayleigh McEnany:
Were vaccines “moving at a snail’s pace”? On January 15, the week before Biden was sworn in, 10.6 million Americans had received a COVID vaccine under Trump, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Did they fail to order enough vaccines? The federal government, as of last December 31, had contracted to buy at least 800 million COVID-19 vaccine doses with delivery by July 31.
Was there “no real plan” for vaccine distribution? Last September 16, the Department of Health and Human Services released a report to Congress, outlining a strategy for vaccine distribution and a playbook for states and localities “on how to plan and operationalize a vaccination response.”
The Trump administration encouraged a flexible and federalist approach to coronavirus restrictions, and also to coronavirus vaccines. Leftists would say letting states control anything instead of the federal government equals “no national strategy.”
Graham lept from that to rehash the MRC's old arguments:
The Democrats and the media have decried Trump for "politicizing" the pandemic, which is a bad joke, since they were clearly politicizing it soon after their first impeachment attempt fizzled. Trump called their political exploitation a "hoax," and then they claimed he called the virus a "hoax." Even today, Team Biden is relentlessly slamming Trump as the scapegoat for everything that's ever gone wrong.
Um, didn't Trump blame Obama for everything that went wrong under his administration>
Remember: For Graham and the MRC, the narrative is everything, facts less so.
Farah's Biden Derangement Syndrome Leads To Rant Against Biden Speech Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has a raging case of Biden Derangement syndrome, and he served up a concentrated example of it in his March 12 column, in which he ranted about a speech Biden gave on the coronavirus pandemic. Farah purported to highlight the "lies and errors" in the speech, but instead just served up another anti-Biden rant, with a lot of declaring "Stop the tape!" to inject more ranting and petty personal attacks -- and serving up his own lies and errors in the process. Let's break it down, shall we?
"A year ago, we were hit with a virus that was met with silence and spread unchecked, denials for days, weeks, then months."
Stop the tape! It was not met with silence nor spread unchecked (except in New York) nor denials for days, weeks, then months. What you left out was where it originated. Not with Donald Trump, but with China.
[...]
"While it was different for everyone, we all lost something – a collective suffering, a collective sacrifice, a year filled with the loss of life and the loss of living for all of us. But in the loss, we saw how much there was to gain in appreciation, respect, and gratitude. Finding light in the darkness is a very American thing to do."
Stop the tape! I know what you lost: Your mind! You have done everything humanly possible to make it worse, including stealing the election.
[...]
"The first date, the family reunions, the Sunday night rituals. It all has exacted a terrible cost on the psyche of so many of us. For we are fundamentally a people who want to be with others, to talk, to laugh, to hug, to hold one another. But this virus has kept us apart. Grandparents haven't seen their children or grandchildren. Parents haven't seen their kids. Kids haven't seen their friends."
Stop the tape: Yes, all these things made people depressed. There has been an epidemic of suicides as a result – among children! Who's to blame? You and your Democratic friends and the teachers unions.
"At this very moment, so many of them, our fellow Americans, they're on the front lines of this pandemic trying to save lives, and still, still, they are forced to live in fear for their lives, just walking down streets in America. It's wrong, it's un-American, and it must stop."
Stop the tape! Vicious hate cries against whom? Where did you get that? It's a lie. You mean Americans chased down Asian Americans because COVID was started in China? Please share the details of this fantasy.
"We continue to work on making at-home testing available, and we've been focused on serving people in the hardest hit communities of this pandemic, Black, Latino, Native American, and rural communities. So what does all of this add up to? When I took office 50 days ago, only 8% of Americans after months, only 8% of those over the age of 65 had gotten their first vaccination. Today that number is 65%."
Stop the tape: Must everything be about race with you?
(When people of color have been the hardest hit by the pandemic, why not?)
"Secondly, at the time every adult is eligible in May we will launch with our partners new tools to make it easier for you to find the vaccine and where to get the shot including a new website that will help you first find the place to get vaccinated and the one nearest you. No more searching day and night for an appointment for you and your loved ones. Thirdly, with the passage of the American Rescue Plan, and I thank, again, the House and Senate for passing it, and my announcement last month of a plan to vaccinate teachers and school staff, including bus drivers, we can accelerate massive nationwide effort to reopen our schools safely. And meet my goal that I stated at the same time about 100 million shots of opening the majority of K-8 schools in my first 100 days in office. This is going to be the No. 1 priority of my new secretary of education, Miguel Cardona."
Stop the tape: Was that the American Rescue Plan that was full of pork and foreign aid? Was it the one that had only 9 percent for COVID relief?
(In fact, more than 20 percent went toward coronavirus-related public health efforts, and that "foreign aid" is targeted toward coronavirus relief efforts internationally.)
"I say it to foreign leaders and domestic alike. It's never, ever a good bet to bet against the American people. America is coming back. The development, manufacturing, and distribution of vaccines in record time is a true miracle of science. It's one of the most extraordinary achievements any country has ever accomplished. And we all just saw the Perseverance Rover land on Mars. Stunning images of our dreams that are now reality."
Stop the tape: Yes, Joe, and it was Donald Trump's triumph getting those vaccines out. YOU HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT!
"This is the United States of America and there's nothing, I believe this from the bottom of my heart, nothing we can't do when we do it together.
"God bless you all and please, God, give solace to all those people who lost someone. And may God protect our troops. Thank you for taking the time and listening. I look forward to seeing you."
Stop the tape: God help America survive the Biden presidency.
Well, at least Farah is acknowledging that Biden is president, which is a step up from him falsely claiming that Biden stole the election.
MRC Lies Again About What Harris Said About Vaccines Before The Election Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Reserarch Center can't stop lying about Vice President Kamala Harris and what she said about the coronavirus vaccine before the election.
IN a March 16 post, Kristine Marsh ranted that "Kamala Harris and other Democrats spent months leading up to the November election spreading dangerous vaccine misinformation with the media’s help," adding:
In September, the big three networks touted Kamala Harris sowing doubt about the safety of a “Trump vaccine.” The journalists at ABC, NBC and CBS failed to hold the VP candidate accountable for trying to ruin public trust over the important vaccine effort.
In fact, the networks aided Democrats' message you couldn't trust a vaccine with Trump in office. On September 17's GMA, ABC's White House correspondent Cecilia Vega was aghast at the President's correct prediction we’d have a vaccine by end of the year: “Now people in this country are forced to choose whether to believe the President or the nation’s top health experts!” Vega vented. She also touted Joe Biden politicizing the vaccine while Good Morning America co-anchor George Stephanopoulos claimed Trump was “pressuring” the CDC to come up with an unsafe vaccine in record time: “Can Americans still trust what they're hearing from the CDC?” he asked.
Marsh is being dishonest. As we'vedocumented, Trump was cynically using the promise of a vaccine as a re-election ploy, an given Trump indisputable record of telling lies, there was ample reason to doubt him. Marsh also censored what Harris said at the time: that she "would not trust Donald Trump" given his reputation for muzzling health officials who spoke publicly about inconvenient facts, and that she would require "a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability" of a vaccine.
In other words, Marsh is lying when she claimed Harris and other Democrats spread "dangerous vaccine misinformation"; they pointed out that Fauci and other actual medical experts were the ones to be trusted on a vaccine, not Trump.
Further: If Harris and Democrats really did spread "dangerous vaccine misinformation," why is the group most likely to reject getting a vaccine white Republicans? Were they listening to Harris? Unlikely.
Harris was telling the truth; Marsh is not. That makes the MRC look like partisan hacks.
Back in January, WorldNetDaily spread fake news by falsely trying to link a drop in a company's stock price to a boycott. Joe Kovacs tried something similar in a March 9 WND article, under the headline: "Massive layoffs at Huffington Post after it pushed to deplatform right":
After having pushed for the deplatforming of conservative voices, the left-leaning Huffington Post announced massive layoffs of its workforce on Tuesday – 47 U.S. writers including eight in management – and entirely shuttering its Canadian operation.
The decision was made to "fast-track the path to profitability," enabling the company to break even this year and eventually turn a profit, according to Jonah Peretti, the CEO of BuzzFeed which acquired HuffPost from Verizon Media just three weeks ago.
[...]
ome opinion writers at HuffPost have been extremely vocal against those on the political right.
Last summer, commentary writer Imran Ahmed wrote a piece indicating "Deplatforming Works," with a subtitle stating: "Some deride deplatforming as a sign of an emerging 'cancel culture' and an attack on free speech. But inaction is dangerous too."
Kovacs seemed to concede that there's no link between some HuffPost writers' calls for "deplatforming" others and the layoffs, but he stuck with that framing anyway.
Of course, Kovacs wasn't going to mention that his own employer underwent massive layoffs at the start of its current ongoing financial crisis.
Back in May 2017, CNSNews.com reporter Susan Jones got quite the charge out of Donald Trump's "covfefe" tweet. "With six words – only five that make sense – President Donald Trump’s midnight tweet took the Internet by storm early Wednesday morning, even though no one is sure what he meant," she wrote, adding: "Before the tweet was removed, Twitter users had fun with 'covfefe,' some joking it's Russian for “I resign”; and others suggesting it may be the nuclear code."
But on March 15, an anonymous CNS writer felt the need to devote an entire article to highlighting a typo in a tweet by Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar:
Rep. Ilhan Omar made an obvious mistake in basic English grammar in a tweet she sent out on Monday afternoon.
She used the noun “abolition,” when she should have used the verb “abolish.”
Shortly after she sent the tweet with the grammatical error, Omar tweeted out a correction—apparently lamenting that Twitter did not allow her to correct her mistaken tweet.
The anonymous CNS reporter then felt the need to mock Omar's education, which it didn't do to Trump:
Omar earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Studies from North Dakota State University. In a question-and-answer sheet posted on the North Dakota State University website, Omar was asked: “How did NDSU prepare you?” She responded: “NDSU provided an open and tolerant learning environment in which I was able to form my own independent and informed opinions with the help of a great faculty, student body and curriculum.”
CNS has previously given disproportionately negative attention to Omar before, hyping controversial remarks she made while downplaying similarly controversial remarks by a Republican congressman. It even put an inflammatory, negative headline on an article that was surprisingly fair to Omar.
MRC Psaki-Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch Topic: Media Research Center
CurtisHouck'stemplate for review White House press secretary Jen Psaki's briefings is a rigid one: Psaki is invariably evil, rude and deceptive, and the Fox News reporters asking her hostile questions are invariably heroes. On March 5, Houck didn't have his man-crush Steve Doocy, but another Fox News reporter was the hero with Psaki, of course, as the pinata:
With the border crisis only continuing to grow, Friday’s White House press briefing featured multiple reporters pressuring Press Secretary Jen Psaki for answers on detention facilities, the number of illegal immigrants crossing the border, and whether the Biden administration has decided if it’ll allow an unlimited number of people to come across the U.S/Mexico border.
Fox News White House correspondent Kristin Fisher led the way, calmly but aggressively hammering at Psaki for answers on basic statistics about the crisis and, on a different topic, the nursing home and sexual harassment scandals facing White House ally and Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY).
Fortunately for Houck, he was able to crush on Doocy some more on March 10:
Wednesday’s White House press briefing served as another failure by the Biden administration to come clean on the illegal immigration crisis at the U.S./Mexico border and was bolstered by two rounds of questioning from Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy. During one exchange, Press Secretary Jen Psaki scoffed at Doocy’s concerns, prompting him to informing here that “it’s not funny.”
But rather than do a straightfoward presentation of the discussion that led to that, Houck buried most of it in a transcript and pretended to read Psaki's mind by declaring that she "made clear she was already tired of Doocy" while "Doocy waited her out," then accusing Psaki of "misdirection" and declaring that "Psaki became even more annoyed, turning her head and even chuckling at Doocy’s question, calling it 'a little bit of mixing different circumstances.' Normally calm, Doocy’s face became red with disgust, telling Psaki: 'It’s not funny.'"
Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy was firing on all cylinders on Thursday afternoon, delivering a thorough evisceration of White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki over the Biden administration’s lax immigration policies, their double standard requiring COVID testing for international fliers but not for illegal immigrants, and the regime’s affinity for green jobs.
Doocy started by quoting Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s insistence that illegal immigrants see Biden as “the migrant President”and this “flow” of people needed to “be tackled” and asking whether“the White House take[s] that as a compliment.”
Seemingly under the impression that Doocy was misleading her, Psaki asked for more context, but Doocy promptly read the full, unambiguous quote.
Psaki spun her usual web about how “the majority of people who come to our border will be turned away” despite the fact that they’ll be ferried out across the country as part of their “human approach”to children.
[...]
Two words to describe Psaki’s answers ever since this issue began, dear readers: Word salad.
Actually, “word salad” works for just about everything she’s said from the podium when it comes to answering tough questions.
Houck's beloved Kayleigh McEnany playedword games with reporters, but he never called her out on it like he does with Psaki.
Houck gushed some more on March 13 that "Doocy again went toe-to-toe with Press Secretary Jen Psaki on the border crisis and school reopenings, but in a sign that patience might be wearing thin with some liberal journalists, Doocy had assistance from multiple reports on the border as well as hard-hitting questions of their own on the coronavirus and Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY)." And he more Pska-sneering, whining that "Psaki took the easy way out, refusing to deviate one iota from her previous talking points." Again, the same thing could be said of his beloved McEnany.
WND Touts Book Of AAPS-Affiliated Fringe Pusher Of Dubious COVID Meds Topic: WorldNetDaily
You may remember Joel S. Hirschhorn for his imaginary "indictment" of Anthony Fauci by a "grand jury" impaneled in his own fevered brain. That craziness, though, may be the thing that keeps WND publishing him. Affiliated with the fringe-right Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Hirschhorn got WND to publish an excerpt from his new book which is also a screed against Fauci for failing to buy into the right-wing hype over dubious medications like hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for coronavirus. He conspiratorially declared:
This book does more than describe the pandemic blunder, particularly in terms of the influence of Dr. Anthony Fauci. It can help Americans protect their lives by not being victimized by disinformation and propaganda from leftist media. Pandemic management has failed because of corrupt forces aiming to make billions of dollars from expensive medicines and vaccines. There has been widespread dereliction of duty on the part of many local, state and federal government officials.
Hirschhorn went on to cite what he claimed were "credible sources" on thealleged efficacy of hydroxychloroquine. They include Simone Gold of another fringe group, America's Frontline Doctors -- of which Hirschhorn is also a member -- and who we last saw taking part in the Capitol riot; and Zev Zelenko, an early pusher of HCQ that WND and AAPS heavily promoted last year.
Hirschhorn then sounds like he's auditioning for a job at the Media Research Center:
The first thing is to depend on information from “conservative” sources and avoid paying attention to COVID information from leftist, mainstream sources. In the former category are shows on Fox News, especially Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. There are a multitude of conservative websites, many of which have been identified in the previous parts of this book. Of particular note are websites that have published pandemic articles by this author; they include WND.com, lifesitenews.com, globalresearch.ca, unz.com, opednews.com, nolanchart.com. Another important website is americasvoice.news, which airs the Steve Bannon War Room show that has often given reliable information on the pandemic.
For data on the pandemic for the U.S. and other nations, there is worldometers.info/coronavirus/.
Perhaps more importantly, ignore and discount COVID information that amounts to disinformation and propaganda on all the major leftist media, including the Washington Post and New York Times, as well as CNN and MSNBC. Stay away completely from social media for reliable information. …
Hirschhorn then went on to rant against studies showing that HCQ and ivermectin -- another dubious medication embraced by the likes of WND and AAPS -- are ineffective and, thus, interfere with his activism (and, presumably, his current income stream):
Briefly, here are some points to remember if you hear about or read for yourself medical studies that conclude that HCQ or IVM is unsafe and ineffective.
Many such studies have used these drugs too late in the process of COVID infection. Mostly such studies have wrongly used what should be considered valid early treatment for hospitalized patients whose infection has progressed beyond the early virus replication stage. Although there have been many studies showing HCQ or IVM effective for hospitalized patients, the key is whether those patients were given the medicines early enough to be effective. But the majority of negative studies on HCQ or IVM gave the medicines too late to be effective.
In some other negative studies, the dosages of HCQ or IVM have been too high, or generally inconsistent with what positive studies have used successfully. Another shortcoming of many negative studies is that there was no use of zinc. Often negative studies include very small numbers of participants using the tested drug.
He added, "A website particularly useful for getting information on prophylaxis is COVID19criticalcare.com. It tends to focus on the use of IVM rather than HCQ." This website is operated by something called the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, which was formed to push unapproved treatments like ivermectin and HCQ.
In other words, if you've read Hirschhorn's rantings at WND, it seems you've pretty much already read his book.
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Post-Riot Cleanup Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center labored hard to distance conservatives from the right-wing, pro-Trump Capitol riot -- even though MRC chief Brent Bozell endorsed the anger behind it and the election-fraud conspiracy theories that led up to it. Read more >>
CNS Somehow Gets 5 Stories Out Of Biden Tripping On Stairs Topic: CNSNews.com
It's part of CNSNews.com's editorial agenda to spread the narrative that President Biden is going senile. So when Biden tripped on the stairway to Air Force One, CNS was ON IT, somehow cranking out five stories' worth of related content, four of which appeared on March 19, the day of the incident.
An anonymous CNS employee -- why is that employee withholding their byline for this apparently important story? -- breathless reported in the lead story:
President Joe Biden fell three times while trying to board Air Force One this morning to fly to Atlanta to speak about the horrible murders that took place there this week.
Video footage shows Biden leaving Marine One and walking a short distance across the tarmac to the stairs leading up to Air Force One.
As he tries to climb those stairs, he falls three times.
After the third fall, he manages to keep his feet and climb the remainder of the stairs into the airplane.
Biden will turn 79 on November 20.
Emphasizing Biden's age is another way CNS tries to feed into the right-wing Biden-is-senile narrative.
This wasw followed by another anonymously written story highlightig that "A video posted on YouTube by the Reagan Library, shows then-President Ronald Reagan walking down the stairs from Air Force One—while not holding the railing—and then walking back up the stairs, while occasionally not holding the railing, and responding to reporters yelling questions at him. The video was made on Aug. 10, 1982 when Reagan was 71 years old." This anonymous writer also complained that "When Reagan was running for President at 69 years of age, the New York Times repeatedly reported on assertions that he was 'too old' for the job."
When President Joe Biden gave his nationally televised address on Thursday announcing that on Friday his administration would achieve his goal of delivering 100 million COVID-19 vaccination shots in his first 100 days in office, he called Vice President Kamala Harris “President Harris.”
The next day, Biden would trip three times while climbing the stairs of Air Force One.
the anonymous writer did not explain how these tywo events are connected.
The fourth story that day did, surprisingly, carry a byline, that of Craig Bannister. He's apparently proud enough of his attempt to dunk on Biden to put his name on it, unlike his fellow CNS employee[s]:
On Friday, President Joe Biden made headlines and viral video by falling three times while trying to climb stairs boarding Air Force One. But, last September, Candidate Biden mocked the way President Donald Trump navigated stairs.
Visiting West Point for a commencement ceremony last September, Biden claimed to be more agile and vigorous than Trump. "Look at how he steps and look at how I step,” Biden urged.
[...]
On Friday, however, it was Biden who stumbled, multiple times, as he tried to run up the stairs. As CNSNews.com reported, video footage shows Biden leaving Marine One and walking a short distance across the tarmac to the stairs leading up to Air Force One. As he tries to climb those stairs, he falls three times.
Bannister concluded: "Biden will turn 79 years old on November 20."
Bannister returned on March 23 to uncritically help Donald Trump try to dunk on Biden:
Former President Donald Trump said he expected President Joe Biden to take the type of tumble he did last Friday on stairs boarding Air Force One.
“I expected it,” Trump said in an interview Monday with Newsmax TV, when he was asked if he was shocked when Biden fell three times on the stairs while boarding the plane:
[...]
Trump recalled how media attacked him last year, when he carefully and slowly descended an icy ramp at West Point. “The last thing I wanted was to take a tumble, like Biden did,” Trump said, noting that the “lamestream media” virtually ignored the news when Biden actually did fall:
Given that Trump traversed that ramp in June, the claim that it was icy doesn't hold water (or ice). The ramp, despite Trump's claims to the contrary, was not particularly steep.
By contrast, a search of the CNS archive reveals that it devoted exactly zero articles about Trump's awkward walk down the ramp at West Point or his even more awkward attempt to drink water there. It did get a passing mention in an article four days after the incident that quoted Nancy Pelosi referencing it.
MRC Writer Pushes Biased Economists To Attck 'Liberal' Claims About Economy Topic: Media Research Center
You know you've ticked off the Media Research Center in making a logical point when it essentyially does duplicate posts to attack you.
Back in February, New York Times columnist David Leonhardt made the logical observation that the econom, as judged by GDP growth and job creation, does better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones, adding that "the pattern is so strong and long-lasting that coincidence alone is unlikely to be the only explanation." Enter MRC writer Joseph Vazquez, who huffed in a Feb. 4 post:
Three economists lambasted a New York Times op-ed claiming that the Democratic Party is better for the economy than the GOP.
Times senior writer David Leonhardt’s main argument was that “The American economy has performed much better under Democratic administrations than Republican ones, over both the last few decades and the last century.” Economists ripped apart the op-ed as “nonsense,” “intellectually sloppy,” and filled with “numerous false claims.”
The piece further argued that Democrats have been more “pragmatic” by being “willing to heed economic and historical lessons about what policies actually strengthen the economy, while Republicans have often clung to theories that they want to believe — like the supposedly magical power of tax cuts and deregulation.”
But Leonhardt wildly missed the mark. Economists Daniel Mitchell, Chris Edwards and Brian Riedl all hammered the op-ed for arbitrarily zeroing in on party affiliation, while dubiously brushing aside more important economic factors. Mitchell stated in a tweet that Leonhardt’s article was “intellectually sloppy for one obvious reason (failure to properly account for business cycles) and one completely overlooked reason (policy direction matters, not partisan affiliation).”
Vazquez, however, failed to disclose (beyond embedded links on their names) that these economists are not objective but, rather, quite biased. Mitchell is co-founder of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a conservative think tank that loves flat taxes and offshore tax havens; Edwards is with the libertarian Cato Institute; and Riedl works for another right-wing think tank, the Manhattan Institute. In other words, these are exactly the positions anyone would expect them to take.
For some reason, Vazquez was so annoyed by Leonhardt's op-ed that he attacked it again a month later in a March 11 post, apparently because he scored an "exclusive interview" with Riedl, one of the (biased) economists he had previously cited:
An economist ripped the media for pushing the false idea that Democratic administrations are better for the U.S. economy than GOP administrations.
New York Times senior writer David Leonhardt had written that Democratic administrations have been more “pragmatic” by being “willing to heed economic and historical lessons about what policies actually strengthen the economy, while Republicans have often clung to theories that they want to believe — like the supposedly magical power of tax cuts and deregulation.”
Economist and Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Brian Riedl rebuked Leonhardt and the media for living in an “ideological cocoon” and pushing talking points on behalf of Democrats. “This is just partisan nonsense,” Riedl said of Leonhardt in an exclusive interview with the Media Research Center.
While Vazquez did identify Riedl's employer, he did not explain its political slant and, thus, Riedl could just as easily be described as living in his own ideological cocoon.
Vazquez concluded by whining that "Leonhardt has not been the only one to advocate on behalf of the Democrats, however," citing other assessment reaching the same conclusion. Of course, Vazquez would never describe himself or Riedl as "advocating on behalf of the Republicans," even though that's exactly what they're doing.
This wasn't the only time Vazquez called on biased economists to attack a viewpoint deemed "liberal." In January, he trotted out Mitchell to help him rant against Washington Post article he ripped as "propaganda that former President Donald Trump’s economy was terrible for minorities." In a March 3 post, he called on Cato's Edwards to bash Times columnist Paul Krugman for having "attacked capitalism for promoting 'too much choice' for American consumers,'" touting how "Edwards ripped Krugman for blaming American capitalism while ignoring that government deserves much of the blame for making life more complicated for American consumers." As before, Vazquez didn't explain the bias from which Edwards and Mitchell are operating.
CNS Continues To Hide Pro-Trump Columnist's Links As Trump Adviser Topic: CNSNews.com
We'vedocumented how CNSNews.com has allowed Ken Blackwell to advocate on behalf of President Trump while rarely disclosing that he was an official Trump surrogate and adviser to his re-electrion campaign. Trump may be gone, but Blackwell is still defending him -- and CNS is still not disclosing his ties to Trump.
In a Feb. 8 column, Blackwell attacked "Democrat Sen. [sic] Pat Leahy" for presiding over Trump's second impeachment trial, declaring that "Leahy’s usurpation of [Chief Justice John] Roberts’ role in the second impeachment trial of Trump highlights how this whole affair is unconstitutional." The end-of-column bio described him as "a Distinguished Fellow for Human Rights and Constitutional Governance at the Family Research Council, and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission."
In a column the next day, headlined "Election Integrity: The Case For Trump's Acquittal," Blackwell did actually admit he was a Trump adviser, if only because he was complaining that Trump didn't take his advice not to use the term "law and order" because it turned off black voters and "suburban white voters" and hoping Trump takes his advice on how to argue that the presiential election may have been stolen from Trump by focusing on "massive irregularities" and not "wide-eyed conspiracy theories."
Blackwell spent his March 16 column huffing that the New York Times was using "its hatred of all things Trump" to fight against Republican-led "election integrity" efforts:
In the wake of a presidential election marred by widespread lawlessness that produced unprecedented levels of public distrust, the Times struggles to conceive of efforts to rectify the problem as anything other than acts of obeisance to Donald Trump. In the minds of most leftists, it seems, the term “election integrity” — when used by Republicans — is merely code for “voter suppression.” Bad faith on the part of GOP legislators is simply assumed.
In reality, conservative voters and lawmakers have many legitimate reasons to question the security of our electoral process after watching leftist officials participate in an extra-legal public-private partnership with Big Tech billionaires and progressive activists that involved casually disregarding duly-enacted laws that had been put in place for the express purpose of ensuring free and fair elections.
CNS returned to not mentioning Blackwell's Trump ties, with the end-of-column bio stating only that he "is a senior Fellow for Human Rights and Constitutional Governance at the Family Research Council" and "former Secretary of State of Ohio."
Newsmax Columnist Has Fauci Derangement Syndrome Topic: Newsmax
You know you're in for a doozy when Newsmax feels compelled (as it has before) to top a column with the disclaimer "The following is authored by a non-clinician." And indeed, Bill Robinson's March 9 column is little more than a screed against Anthony Fauci:
I never liked Dr. Fauci, his diminutive stature, gravelly voice or Napoleonic, tough guy attitude. He seemed to me the consummate phony. His actions have all but confirmed this to be true.
When the pandemic first began in earnest, Fauci was packaged up and sold to the president and worried American populace as "the foremost epidemiologist in America" and innumerable other permutations of this outright falsehood.
Based on the past year, Anthony Fauci is nothing of the sort; he’s not even close to the "foremost," "most prominent" or "most respected" epidemiologist this country has.
Those titles would go to Dr. Ian Lipkin at Columbia University, who traveled to China to investigate the Wuhan virus in February of 2019 when Dr. Fauci was still calling cable media outlets scheduling his countless appearances.
Or, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University, whose been questioning and shattering Fauci’s flip-flopping and dangerous advice to Americans from the beginning. Dr. Bhattacharya is also a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration which is a foundational document laying out precisely how the cure was worse than the virus and why we have been taken to the cleaners in listening to those only wanting to keep us inside, masked up and economically decimated.
Ah, yes, the Great Barrington Declaration, which argued against lockdowns and in favor of promoting herd immunity against coronavirus -- even though nobody can predict exactly who would die from what would essentially be a global chicken pox party.
But Robinson has more anti-Fauci hate to spew:
Whether intentional or not, Fauci has been a willing and intentional pawn of the Marxist Left in this country. Regardless of his intent, he’s been a failure in every respect.
And of course, he still had false adulation ladled on him by our mainstream media like a well-basted Thanksgiving turkey throughout all his decades of quiet fiascoes.
Yet, in spite of it all, Fauci is the highest paid government employee in the country—more than the president—and his lightning-quick conversion to "chief medical advisor to President Biden," shows not only his utter lack of any loyalty but that his previous decrees were highly suspect.
As Fauci’s reign of blundering and misinformation comes to an end, there’s little doubt that all Americans have a tough lesson to be learned from all this chicanery.
Don’t automatically trust or assign any credibility whatsoever to a doctor or politician. Is this case, Fauci was both.
Not sure what coronavirus has to do with the "Marxist left," but then, we've never spent any time with Robinson to find out.
WND's Farah Is Trying To Whitewash The Capitol Riot Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has tried to whitewash the Capitol riot before, throwing his daughter under the bus in the process. He's still at it. In a Feb. 28 column, he complained about what the riot was being called:
"The Capitol Insurrection," "the Siege," "the armed insurrection in Washington, D.C." It's also been described as a "military-style formation" of "anti-government right-wing fringe organizations," "the storming of the Capitol," "the Capitol riot," "armed" protests, and even "a medieval battle."
And now it's been called "the Capitol bombing." A bombing! By no less an authority than the next attorney general, Merrick Garland.
This is getting ridiculous.
It was bad enough when someone decided to call it the "Capitol Insurrection." It was not a good choice. I don't know who it was – maybe Nancy Pelosi. But it was not appropriate to call it an "Insurrection." It never rose to the meaning of that word, which conjures up dire synonyms like "Insurgence," "Revolt" and "Rebellion."
Do any of those words sound like a conflict that took just one life – a woman who was gunned down by an as-yet-unnamed Capitol policeman? I hardly think so. Do any of those synonyms suggest a conflict that lasted only a few hours? No.
It was a bad name and we all knew it the first time it was used. It was designed to inflame, to divide, to confuse. And indeed, it has inflamed and confused people to the point that Biden's AG pick rachets up the rhetoric to "bombing."
Oddly, Farah did not offer a word he thinks accurately describes the event.
In his March 17 column, Farah tried to push the idea that Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick really didn't die as a result of the riot because the initial reported cause -- that he was hit by a fire extinguisher -- may not be true. Farah ranted that this was a "lie" promulgated by the New York Times, though he offered no evidence to support his suggestion that the Times or anyone else knowingly "lied" about Sicknick's death.
He then complained that two people charged with assaulting Sicknick with chemical spray -- and, thus, perhaps contributing to his death -- may be innocent:
It remains to be seen if Officer Sicknick was exposed to tear gas, widely used Jan. 6 by police that day – as was pepper spray.
Once again, what is the Justice Department doing here? We know they are attempting with their charges to promulgate a "domestic terrorism" case or cases. Will they make a victim of "domestic terrorism" out of a man who was "in good spirits" the night after his "attack"? Has he become the only "convenient" death of a police officer? Death by pepper spray – hardly a deadly weapon when employed elsewhere by civilians or cops?
Officer Sicknick was a good man. He was a supporter of President Trump. He was well-liked by one and all. It's bad enough his death was used in a lie – once – and maybe a second time.
Are they deliberately stacking the deck against [George] Tanios and [Julian] Khater, a couple of fast-food managers? Are these two desperadoes a threat to Americans everywhere?
The next day, Farah tried to whitewash Ashli Babbitt, shot and killed by Capitol Police during the riot:
Babbitt was a 14-year Air Force veteran, an unarmed woman who attended the protest of the inexplicable election snafu. Over two months after her death at the hands of a Capitol police officer, no information or details have been released.
[...]
Maybe there is an explanation of the only shooting death – for that matter, the only shooting incident – in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
It comes from the unnamed officer who shot Babbitt, by way of his attorney, Mark Schamel. It's not much of an explanation given there were hundreds of people at the Capitol, perhaps as many as 1 million for the rally.
Apparently, Babbitt's backpack raised alarms. They compounded the fears of the officers. There were three other officers closer to Babbitt.
But Officer X, we'll call him, decided that his most prudent course of action was to fire a shot at Ashli Babbitt in a crowded room because she wore a backpack. In the off chance it contained a bomb or weapon, Officer X would take her out.
What did Ashli have in the backpack?
It was a wool sweater and a scarf.
We continue to hear horrific tales from Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Gen. Russel L. Honoré about that day at the Capitol. We've heard about the "insurrectionists." We've heard about the "domestic terrorists." We've heard about the "white supremacists."
The truth is, at the end of the day, it apparently was a backpack that defined the story for Ashli Babbitt – that took her life.
The Media Research Center has been hypocritically hammering on sexual harassment allegations against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo despite its record ignoring or mocking similar claims made against President Trump. It even tried to drag President Biden into the story -- then deemed his response not good enough, as detailed in a March 15 item by Scott Whitlock:
CNSNews.com loved to quote Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, because he's so eminently quotable in pushing right-wing talking points. Some examples over the past year:
Two months after Donald Trump left the White House, the Media Research Center was still defending him and his dubious behavior.
WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has a 
The Media Reserarch Center can't stop lying about Vice President Kamala Harris and what she said about the coronavirus vaccine before the election.
Back in January, WorldNetDaily 
Call it a tale of two typos.
Curtis
You may remember Joel S. Hirschhorn for 
It's part of CNSNews.com's editorial agenda to 
You know you've ticked off the Media Research Center in making a logical point when it essentyially does duplicate posts to attack you.
We've
You know you're in for a doozy when Newsmax feels compelled (
