CNS Plays Gotcha With Kerry (Briefly) Not Wearing A Mask On A Plane Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com likes to playgotcha with Democratic politicians (but never Republican ones). This happened again in a March 18 article by Patrick Goodenough:
President Biden's special climate envoy John Kerry dismissed as “malarkey” a social media kerfuffle sparked by a photo showing him not wearing a mask while on an American Airlines domestic flight on Wednesday.
“Feels like there’s some St. Patrick’s day ‘malarkey’ afoot on Twitter,” Kerry tweeted on Wednesday night. “Let’s be clear: If I dropped my mask to one ear on a flight, it was momentary. I wear my mask because it saves lives and stops the spread. It’s what the science tells us to do.”
Goodenough then followed with five paragraphs of criticism of Kerry, plus two more paragraphs consisting of a statement from "the passenger who purportedly took the photo" -- but all he did for the sake of balance is note in passing that "Other Twitter users defended President Biden’s climate czar, suggesting that he may have been about to eat or drink." (Could Goodenough not be bothered to verify that information?) That was follwed with several paragraphs of Goodenough rehashing airline and Biden administration policies on masks.
Goodenough did concede, however, that "Scientists say that masks, correctly warn, capture coronavirus-containing droplets that are emitted when a person speaks, sneezes or coughs, and that wearing one reduces the chances of transmitting and catching COVID-19." But he didn't mention that his employer has been claiming the opposite -- eight days earlier, CNS published a fringe doctor's claim that "healthy people should not be wearing surgical or cloth masks." So there's a mixed message here.
This is not "news" -- it's a political hatchet job. CNS did not treat the Trump administration's disdain of masks with the same derision.
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's War on Trump Fact-Checkers Topic: Media Research Center
Led by Tim Graham, the Media Research Center spent much of the Trump presidency complaining that Trump was being fact-checked, eager to smear fact-checkers as biased and "liberal" for doing so. Read more >>
WND's Brown Back To Hating LGBT People Again Topic: WorldNetDaily
With his feelings about Donald Trump settledat last, WorldNetDaily columnist Michael Brown has been able to get back to what he does best: hatingLGBTQpeople.
In his Feb. 26 column, Brown complained about a poll showing that one in six Generation Z adults identified as LGBT, trying to put most of the blame on people "being influenced by the society around them, and so they perceive themselves to be gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender at a much higher rate. This would suggest that LGBT identity is not simply inborn and innate. It can simply be a matter of perception." Brown went on to blame the existence of non-hateful portrayals of LGBT people in the media:
Instead, this spike should be seen as the result of the constant, pro-LGBT bombardment of children, beginning with the school system literally brainwashing children from their earliest days regarding LGBT identity. Put another way, do you really think that kids who were exposed to drag queens when they were toddlers might not be more inclined to wonder if they themselves might want to be drag queens too?
[...]
Among those 18-29, the estimate was put at 29.9%, meaning that this age group thought that almost 1 in 3 Americans were gay or lesbian. And where, pray tell, did they get such an idea?
Perhaps the disproportionate representation of (and celebration of) LGBT characters on TV and Hollywood and comic books, not to mention the talking points in children's schools, contributed to this misperception?
[...]
When we also recognize the "cool" factor, meaning, that it's often considered trendy and cool today to identify as something beyond (or different than) heterosexual, Gallup's latest poll is not surprising in the least.
All the more, then, do we need to hold fast to solid, biblically based, sexual and family values, also showing greater compassion to those whom the culture has so strongly (and wrongly) influenced.
On March 3, Brown attacked a Christian adoption agency for working with LGBT parents: "Please reconsider your decision to provide services for gay and lesbian couples wanting to adopt. Please ask yourselves again: Is this decision truly honoring to the Lord in whose name you work? Is it truly in the best interest of the children whose lives you seek to better?" He then hufffed: "We all know that there are many, deeply devoted, caring same-sex couples. But that does not mean for a second that placing a child under their care is the best choice for that child, let alone what God would desire."
This week, a Canadian father, Robert Hoogland, was jailed for the crime of referring to his 14-year-old daughter as his daughter. That's right. Because this concerned father referred to his daughter as female, thereby violating a court order, he has been arrested and put behind bars.
You say, "Obviously, there's something missing from this story. Did he abduct her? Is she not really his daughter? What else happened?"
In reality, the story is worse than you can imagine.
Actually, it's not. Hoogland was under court order not to discuss anything about his child's case in public -- not just talking about the child's gender -- and he violated that order. Nevertheless, Brown went on to rant about "infamous, truly detestable drag queen events," gboing on to declare: "I will always grieve over the pain that has been experienced by those who identify as transgender. But I will not collaborate with child abuse. This is madness. This must stop."
For his March 31 column -- with the reality-defying headline "No, trans-identifying kids are not 'under attack'" -- Brown attacked actress Sophia Bush for defending transgender youths, declaring the children are too stupid to know what they feel: "But do kids really know who they are? Is that the reality of human life?"
First, this is now how life works. The children do not inform the parents about what is real and what is not. (And again, I'm not talking about a child experiencing physical pain or sickness.)
[...]
The reality is that the kids do not, in fact, get to tell us who they are so we can support them. If that were the case, they would be the parents and we would be under their supervision. They would be the ones driving the cars and we would be in car seats in the back. They would be the ones teaching and we would be doing the homework. They would be the doctors and we would be their patients.
Sadly, when children are allowed to tell their parents who they are, as in, "I'm really a boy, not a girl," and when the parents support these sentiments, this only reinforces the child's gender confusion. As a leading psychologist explained at a lecture I attended, if you start dressing a boy in girl's clothes at a young age, affirming him as female, it will be much harder to free him from those misconceptions when he is older.
So, by trying to help, the parents only make things worse. And shall we ignore the high suicide rates among those who have had sex-change surgery? Do their problems suddenly disappear?
Brown went on to cite "Dr. Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins fame" calling helping transgender teens transition "child abuse," while not mentioning that (as we'venoted) McHugh's anti-trans work has been widely discredited.
MRC Sides With Racist 'Bachelor' Contestant, Mocks Host For Backing Off His Defense Of Her Topic: Media Research Center
Even "The Bachelor" isn't safe from the Media Research Center's right-wing concern-trolling.
In February, Tierin-Rose Mandelburg complained that "Bachelor" contestant Rachael Kirkconnell was "canceled" for a "racism controversy," in which it was revealed that she allegedly bullied girls in high school for liking black men -- though she omitted that Kirkconnell also spread far-right QAnon memes on social media -- but she was really upset that "Bachelor" host Chris Harrison was criticized for initially coming to Kirkconnell's defense, though he later backpedaled. Mandelburg groused that "the blame and woke police are after Harrison," and that "Harrison knew cancel culture would be after him which is probably why he had such an eloquent apology prepared."
On Feb. 14, Alexa Moutevelis mocked Harrison for his "pathetic" backpedaling and for leaving the show:
There’s more The Bachelor drama off-screen than on this season, much of it centering on host Chris Harrison and racism. Harrison’s already done one apology tour, but it wasn’t enough of a sacrifice to the woke gods, so now he’s “stepping aside” from the show as a sign that he’ll be walking the straight and narrow on the “path to anti-racism” from now on.
[...]
The following day, Saturday, Harrison issued his second groveling apology in a week in which he announced on Instagram he “will be stepping aside for a period of time and will not join for the After the Final Rose special.”
It was such a weak, sniveling apology he actually included the line, “I humble myself before all of you.”
Moutevelis also whitewashed Kirkconnell's offenses, falsely suggesting that the only thing she did was take part in an "antebellum plantation-themed fraternity ball" while in college.
On Feb. 22, Gabriela Pariseau huffed that Harrison was targeted because he "had defended a contestant, Rachel Kirkconnell, against allegations of racism which, according to the Twitter mob, was the wrong thing to do." Pariseau did not offer any guidance on when defending someone's racism is ever the right thing to do. She further attacked "Bachelorette" contestant Tayshia Adams for holding Harrison accountable:
In Adams' eyes, Harrison’s chance to “prove himself” began with his ridiculous apology but does not stop there. He must show that he is ashamed of his behavior. To regain respect and approval, Harrison must be a weak man, take his undeserved beating, and re-educate himself on the intricacies of racism that he does not understand. Once he comes back from ‘rehab for racists’ he can rejoin the vanguard of progressive society and hopefully one day Bachelor Nation. Although, cancel culture is the most unforgiving weapon lately.
Gabriel Hays also downplayed Kirkconnell's racism in a March 4 post, citing only the "college photo of her at an 'antebellum-themed' party" and that "she had 'liked' an image of people posing with a Confederate flag" -- conveniently omitting the high school racism and QAnon embrace.His main goal, though, was to join in the mocking of Harrison for not embracing his defense of a racist:
The most pathetic and emasculating part of Harrison’s interview came when he assured GMA audiences that he had been undergoing racial sensitivity training. “I sought out leading scholars, teachers, faith leaders, people like Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, who I am so grateful for, and I've also been working closely with a race educator and strategist. I thank them all,” Harrison stated.
What a tragic sight. The poor Bachelor host went and “deprogrammed” himself in front of millions of people. This is what our woke masters expect us to do if we want to be relevant in this society.
"Bachelor" superfan Curtis Houck had his own take after the show's finale, which began by defending Kirkconnell:
The 25th season of ABC’s The Bachelor came to a dramatic end on Monday with star Matt James selecting Rachael Kirkconnell and, with taping having wrapped months ago, we learned that James had become an insecure, woke leftist and kicked Kirkconnell to the curb after social media posts showed Kirkconnell attended an antebellum-themed plantation party in college.
And when brought face-to-face with Kirkconnell for the first time, James dismissed a sobbing Kirkconnell’s apologies because he doesn’t “wanna be emotionally responsible for those tears.”
Though they weren’t discussed on the show, other “crimes” included Kirkconnell having been born in Georgia and then for having allegedly bullied someone in high school for liking Black men, engaged in “brownfishing,” showed a belief in Q-Anon by posting about human trafficking, and liked pro-Trump social media posts (including posts about Prager U). Before the season even started, Reddit was out for blood.
At no point did Houck (or anyone else at the MRC) disavow Kirkconnell's racist and extremist behavior. Instead, he cheered how "Kirkconnell came off as contrite, insisting in her solo segment that “I don't wanna...sit here and victimize myself” and rejected ["woke FS1 host" Emmanuel] Acho’s invitation to blame her education, family members, or hometown as having contributed to her lack of wokeness." He further whined that Kirkconnell suffered a "woke beatdown" from the titular bachelor for this season -- who, by the way, was the first-ever black bachelor -- then concluded by huffing: "Somewhere, Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi must have been watching this and, upon seeing Kirkconnell’s life destroyed, felt a sense of warmness in their hearts."
In the headline of his post, Houck called this a "dumpster fire." Perhaps the real dumpster fire is at the MRC, where he and his fellow employees won't call out racist behavior and sympathize with the perpetrator.
CNS Columnist Hides Full Story Of Mom Trying To Assert Rights Over Estranged Transgender Teen Topic: CNSNews.com
Mason Beasler of the right-wing American Family Association spent a March 11 CNSNews.com column ranting about parental rights, citing this case:
Take, for example, the story of Anmarie Calgaro and her teenage son, who was referred to by the media as E.J.K.
Although no legal emancipation had taken place, E.J.K. was not living with his parents. In 2015, he acquired a letter from the Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid Clinic, not the court system, that said he was an emancipated minor. The clinic never spoke to E.J.K.’s mother before taking this action.
However, E.J.K. was not legally emancipated, and his mother had not lost her parental rights.
Regardless, E.J.K. showed that “letter of emancipation” to his school principal, which led to the high school cutting Calgaro off from any participation in her son’s education, without so much as notifying her of her removal.
The 16-year-old was also able to obtain a sex-change procedure, irreversible surgeries and services provided without any parental consent whatsoever.
“This is an unacceptable situation for any parent,” said Erick Kaardal, Special Counsel for the Thomas More Society, “and a serious violation of parental and due process rights. It’s a parent’s worst nightmare. Anmarie Calgaro’s child, while a minor, was steered through a life-changing, permanent body-altering process, becoming a pawn in someone else’s sociopolitical agenda and being influenced by those who have no legal or moral right to usurp the role of a parent.”
Keep that last part in mind - “those who have no legal or moral right to usurp the role of a parent.”
Shockingly, E.J.K. wanted to change his name to J.D.K., but the court disallowed this name change on the grounds of E.J.K. not being legally emancipated.
Regardless, E.J.K. was still able to receive sex-change services from Park Nicollet Health Services and Fairview Range Hospital in Minneapolis, without his mother’s consent, whose parental rights were still completely intact.
Beasler is rather deliberately hiding the full truth. As wedocumented when WorldNetDaily pushed this case, the teen faced abuse from the mother after coming out as gay at age 13, moved out of her house at 15 and had been living apart from the mother for several months, was earning her own money, while Calgaro made no apparent attempt to bring her home or contact her. Those who promote this case never seem to explain why such a neglectful mother was suddenly demanding that her alleged rights be respected -- or why the child was listed as a defendant in the case, meaning that the mother is suing her own child for acting on her own, which doesn't seem to be a very loving act.
Beasler is outright lying in claiming that Calgaro's "parental rights were still completely intact"; the teen turned 18 in 2017, meaning the mother no longer has parental rights to exercise, though that didn't stop her and her legal team from the right-wing Thomas More Society from trying to take the case to the Supreme Court in 2019.
This is just part of CNS' anti-transgender bent in the past few months.
MRC's Wannabe Insult Comic Just Looks Like A Jerk Topic: Media Research Center
Gabriel Hays isn't a "media researcher" for the Media Research Center -- he's a wannabe insult comic (though none of it is as funny as he apparently thinks he is). His job is to generate clicks by making assholish remarks about liberals. (What a job!) A prime example of Hays' dickishness is a March 11 post in which he pretends to be aghast that anyone would praise a speech by President Biden:
Democrats and far lefties have been so desperate for a president that’s not Donald Trump that they were literally crying tears of joy during the first presidential address to the nation by a mushmouth, low-energy, septuagenarian dinosaur named Joe Biden.
Biden might actually be driving the country into the ground. But his fans are talking him up as if he is an American messiah, rescuing us from a time of Trumpian darkness and incivility. The level of Biden butt-kissing done by Hollywood during the president’s speech was extremely high, so high that celebrities like Rob Reiner referred to the sluggish, meandering speech as an event that moved them to tears.
Really? The only thing people should have been crying about was that the almost 25 minute long speech from the stutterer-in-chief wasn’t half that long. People are going to insist they were inspired and moved to tears by a half hour Biden snoozefest? Come on, man!
But, yes, it really is as pathetic as that. The director of When Harry Met Sally actually tweeted during the televised speech, “Thank God we have a real President. It makes you cry.”
There are no words for just how sappy this tweet is. Reiner’s just looking for attention. Who in their right mind could see Joe Biden as some inspirational U.S. leader?
[...]
It seems like the Biden administration gives the American people complete garbage and expects us to put up with it. They tell us we need unity, and Biden’s signing radical leftist policy. He tells us he’s a man of faith, and he’s advocating for the dismemberment of unborn babies. He vowed to be the president for “all Americans” but he can’t make time for an address to the public nearly 50 days after being sworn in. It has literally been at least 100 years since the last president who did that. And when he does do his first prime time national address, he practically sells the vaccine accomplishments of the last administration as his own.
Who in their right mind would be inspired by this pathetic leader, much less moved to tears?
Of course, Hays was clearly very much inspired in his assholery by the last president -- and, we can assume, moved to tears by just how much of a jerk he could be.Meanwhile, nobody finds Hays' dickishness inspirational -- we just see a pathetic show of wannabe manhood.
Another WND Columnist Won't Accept That Biden Won The Election Topic: WorldNetDaily
In the event you visit Washington, D.C., this summer – when school is out and the kids can travel again – drop by Pravda on the Potomac and say hello to President Jefferson Davis Biden. If the barbed wire is up again, protecting our faithful government servants, no worries. Any competent tour guide in D.C. can direct you to the underground tunnels and secret entrances our public servants use for their religious services, sacrifices and secret comings and goings.
[...]
Jefferson Davis Biden is really the product of today's fake news media. Rather than reporting the day's events, fake media prefer to spin their own narrative, one that supports their globalist partners, and then adjust and shape any news events they might choose to report so those events support those carefully concocted narratives. "Well, it must be true, Mable. They're all reporting the same thing."
The news events from the 2020 election were massive Trump rallies, sometimes several times per day, almost all attended by tens of thousands of supporters. The competing news was the Democratic challenger to President Trump holding reporter rallies inside socially distanced circles painted on the floor and limited to about six people per rally, usually held in his basement.
The news on election night did not fit the globalist narrative, however. America went to bed with a massive Trump reelection victory, and awoke to a false media narrative of tens and often hundreds of thousands of Biden ballots having magically appeared in the electoral systems of battleground states. GOP observers were not permitted to observe these ballots, because fake elections die in the light of transparency.
No one was happy with the election. The globalists were not pleased, because they didn't get what they paid their media talking heads to deliver. In fairness to their expectations, any other Republican president would have done their bidding and conceded the election, because the elites own both parties. Trump still refuses to concede a corrupt, foreign-influenced election.
[...]
The globalists are operating on two fronts of resistance, however. First, they have really, really, really pi--ed off God. Passover is coming up soon. For a reality check on what it looks like when God gets really pi--ed, read the book of Exodus. Yeah, I know, it's ancient history, but remember that God lives outside of time.
Second, the globaists have told 80 million Americans that they are delusional; Biden won in a landslide, and only a Deplorable would doubt that! Despite a news and social media blackout that is the envy of the Chinese Communist Party, almost nobody here believes that.
Honestly, though, as bad as having 80 million people pi--ed off at you would be, having the Creator God in that condition would be worse. Even when it gets as bad as it gets, that would still be worse. The "perpe-traitors" imagine that their religion and their secret societies will save them. Read how God dealt with the Egyptians when they tried to hold onto those Israeli slaves once God decided he wanted them freed.
The effect of this globalist plot against God has been the creation of dual presidencies. Jefferson Davis Biden is president of a nation that is $30 trillion in debt and afraid of its own citizens. They have no more money to buy anyone off. Donald Trump is the leader of 80 million Americans who want to see justice done and who want their country back.
MRC Psaki-Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch Topic: Media Research Center
Let's not pretend that Curtis Houck is doing anything important with his daily critiques of press secretary Jen Psaki's daily briefings. He has a click-generating template he slavishly follows -- Psaki must be trashed every. single. day, and Fox News reporters like Peter Doocy must be lionized every. single. day.
On March 15, Houck gleefully wrote about a purportedly "struggling" and "visibly peeved" Psaki:
Amid the constant buzzing of her cellphone on the podium, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki faced an onslaught of immigration questions on Monday from Fox News’s Peter Doocy and some liberal reporters about the Biden administration’s denial of the border crisis.
And in the case of Doocy’s colleagues, they brought the heat by grilling Psaki over the White House’s shameful defense of Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) in refusing to call for his resignation and/or condemn his handling of nursing homes.
Houck went on to complain that Psaki wasn't "admitting that they have an open borders policy." That would be because there isn't one -- but Houck gets paid to insist that there is.
With another day in the books in which the Biden border crisis continued to spin out of control, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki found herself Wednesday under the gun from multiple reporters at the daily briefing, including Fox News’s Kristin Fisher and questions about journalists being denied ride-alongs and whether there’s a cap for illegal immigrant children being allowed into the United States.
Instead of responding to them, Psaki went personal and attacked Fisher on the latter question and asked her whether she would want to send ten-year-olds back to Latin America on another dangerous journey.
[...]
Instead of admitting there won’t be a cap, Psaki sought to box Fisher in by questioning her humanity: “Should we send some kids who are 10 back at a certain point? Is that what you’re asking me?”
Whereas Jim Acosta would have lost his mind, Fisher calmly rebutted Psaki and re-asked the question.
We don't recall Houck ever complaining when his p[revious crush, Kayleigh McEnany, went "personal" on reporters.
On March 18, Houck sadly didn't have a Fox News rpeorter to root for. But he found another right-wing hurler to gush over:
With no one from Fox News in the White House Briefing Room, it fell to others on Thursday to pick up the slack. Along the way, Press Secretary Jen Psaki engaged in quite the Freudian slip that there was indeed a “crisis on the border,” Real Clear Politics’ Philip Wegmann asked tough questions on masks and religious freedom, and one reporter grossly tied attacks on Asian Americans to criticizing communist China.
CBS White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe had asked Psaki about whether the U.S. sending AstraZenca vaccines to Mexico had any strings attached in terms of border assistance when Psaki replied that there weren’t any preconditions of vaccines in exchange for help “in dealing with the crisis on the border.”
Psaki’s slip went unaddressed for almost 15 minutes until Wegmann took notice:“When you were talking a moment about how to go about diplomatic negotiations between the United States and Mexico, you said ‘crisis on the border.’”
Wegmann asked if that “reflect[ed] any change in the administration’s view of things,” but Psaki stated three times in a row that it didn’t and made clear their definition for the border crisis would instead be called a challenge.
Houck will never tell you this, but Weghmann and Real Clear Politics have a right-wing bias.
WND's Dubious Doc Falsely Fearmongers About COVID Vaccines Topic: WorldNetDaily
For someone who loves plugging unproven medications like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin to treat coronavirus, dubous WorldNetDaily doc Jane Orient of the fringe-right Association of American Physicians and Surgeons sure loves to fearmonger about coronavirus vaccines, whose wfficacy is much more thoroughly documented. Orient served up more fearmongering in her March 18 column, which was also filled with falsehoods under the guise of "a few facts that you should know before getting in line." First up in her bullet points:
The products are not vaccines in the usual sense – the dictionary definition had to be changed to call them that. They are experimental biologic agents, a form of gene therapy.
Orient is lying -- mRNA vaccines like the ones from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech are not gene therapy because the RNA does not stay in the body.
Public health authorities state that none of the 1,637 post-vaccine deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) as of March 8 are provably caused by a COVID vaccine. But the deaths cluster in the first few days (see graphic below) instead of being evenly distributed, and the rate is many times higher than for other vaccines.
In fact, the rate of adverse effects from coronavirus vaccines are comparable to other vaccines.
It is too soon to evaluate long-term adverse effects, such as autoimmune diseases, cancer, birth defects, impairment of fertility, or antibody-enhanced disease from later virus infection.
Did Orient evaluate the long-term adverseeffects of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin before promoting them?
Deaths in the vaccinated population may be higher than if they had gotten the disease. Analysts in Israel calculate that in the five-week mass immunization period, 40 times more elderly people and 260 times more younger people died than the disease would have killed during that period.
Not true. it's a misinterpretation of data leading to flawed conclusions.
In German nursing homes there were many times more deaths in the two months after the vaccination campaign started than in the entire prior year (see graphic).
Orient offers only an unverified chart from a random German Twitter account in support, but it appears that's not true either.
Orient the lists among "further information" a column she wrote for the AAPS' journal in which she pretends she and the AAPS aren't anti-vaxxers: "Since many physicians will dismiss without consideration any information from a source tarred with an “anti-vax” label, one must state from the outset that AAPS does not oppose vaccination. AAPS does not endorse or oppose specific measures but favor medical interventions, including drugs, surgery, vaccines, or other modalities that have benefits exceeding risks in an individual patient, to which the patient has given informed consent." But in contradiction to that declaration, Orient also went on a rant against Bill Gates for advocating vaccination efforts.
Orient followed up in her March 31 WND column in which she again attacked the mRNA vaccines, in which she uncritically repeated the outlandish claim that the vaccines "constitute 'human experimentation,' which was and still is in violation of the Nuremberg Code."
CNS Still Thinks Kevin Sorbo's Bogus Claims Must Be Amplified Topic: CNSNews.com
For some reason, CNSNews.com writer Craig Bannister justloves enshrining the utterings of far-right one-time "Hercules" actor Kevin Sorbo. In February, for instance, Bannister gave him space to spew a painfully unfunny "Jen Psaki impression," with things like "Yea I’ll have to circle back on that but in the meantime did you know we have a pansexual accountant?"
After Facebook banned Sorbo later that month, Bannister let him complain that "being a Christian and a conservative in Hollywood, that’s kind of like being a double-leper" -- but censored the fact that Facebook banned him because he spread misinformation about coronavirus, with Bannister falsely claiming instead that Facebook "banned him as part of liberals’ Cancel Culture censorship movement."
In a March 1 article, Bannister let Sorbo's wife, Sam -- an activist against public eduction -- falsely and hyperbolically claim that "Kevin just got digitally assassinated by Facebook" for posting his conservative views -- again censoring the fact that he was removed for spreading lies. Ironically, this was part of a radio appearance in which the Sorbos asserted that leftists, in Bannister's words, "debase and degrade language in order to render it useless."
Bannister then used a March 18 article to amplify a bogus meme Sorbo pushed:
Were former President Donald Trump’s “mean tweets really that bad?” Actor and conservative Filmmaker Kevin Sorbo asked on Thursday, sharing a photo of a gas station charging more than five dollars a gallon.
While Trump was criticized for harsh tweets as president, before his account was permanently closed by Twitter, Pres. Joe Biden is currently being criticized for his anti-energy policies, such as canceling the Keystone XL oil and gas pipeline project.
“Were the mean tweets really that bad?” Sorbo tweeted, embedding a viral photo, shared on social by Donald Trump, Jr., of a gas station with prices ranging from $5.55 for regular to $5.75 for supreme, and $5.85 for diesel.
But as Bannister eventually admitted, the photo was of a gas station that regularly charges exorbitant prices and the actual average price of fuel in the U.S. is nowhere near that high. Of course, that's not in the headline -- Bannister doesn't repost Sorbo in order to correct him, after all.
Promoting bogus claims is not how a "news" organization builds credibility.
MRC Again Whines About Babylon Bee Getting Fact-Checked ... While It Fact-Checks A Satirical Headline Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center loves to complain that fact-checkers look askance at right-wing satire site Babylon Bee even though it fact-checks jokes. And it can't stop doing either.
Satire is not meant to be taken seriously. Yet Big Tech and its tools find a way to label any humor coming from the right as disinformation or fake news.
The Babylon Bee has been repeatedly victimized by this tug of war. In a public history page known as a “Talk” page on Wikipedia, editors with anonymous tags or usernames discussed whether or not the conservative satire site could “legally be considered ‘satire’?” The alleged Twitter account for Bee managing editor Joel Berry tweeted a thread about this Wikipedia incident on Feb. 18.
“There has been an ongoing effort to classify The Babylon Bee as ‘disinformation’ rather than satire,” reportedly said Berry. “They desperately want The Babylon Bee to be censored. I wonder why… .”
This was followed on March 21 with Clay Waters whining that the New York Times waslooking into the Bee:
The headline at the New York Times, was promising: “For Political Cartoonists, the Irony Was That Facebook Didn’t Recognize Irony -- As Facebook has become more active at moderating political speech, it has had trouble dealing with satire.” It appeared on the front of Saturday’s Business Day section as “Facebook Just Does Not Get Satire.”
Would it be a long-overdue defense of the Babylon Bee, which has suffered instances of “moderation” in the form of ham-handed censorship from Facebook, blocking a Babylon Bee story claiming a Democratic senator had accused Amy Coney Barrett of witchcraft during her Senate hearings?
Of course not. In fact, technology reporter Mike Isaac uncorked another Times attack on the satire site, again ludicrously attacking it as “misinformation,” an angle the paper would never consider with the leftist satire of The Onion.
Isaac flattered these crude cartoonists as sophisticated ironists, revealing that the only social media censorship the paper disapproves of is when left-wingers get clipped, although such squelching happens on a regular basis to the right.
What the MRC doesn't want to tell you is that right-wingers -- even Donald Trump and Ted Cruz -- tweet the alleged satire at the Babylon Bee as realnews -- much more than liberals are prone to treating anything from the Onion as real -- and that's why it gets fact-checked as "news."
Of course, the MRC's complaining wouldn't matter if it didn't do what it attacked others for doing. But it does, which is why we have a March 11 post by P.J. Gladnick complaining about an obviously hyperbolic headline in Vanity Fair:
Sorry, Vanity Fair. We know you want to get eyeballs on your site but publishing a completely fake news headline is not the way to go.
Since Vanity Fair is no Babylon Bee it doesn't even have the excuse of pretending to be satire, especially since the article below the headline is dead serious. "LINDSEY GRAHAM: I’M WILLING TO OVERLOOK THE FACT THAT TRUMP HAS PROBABLY BEATEN A FEW HOMELESS PEOPLE TO DEATH."
Nowhere in the rather angry Tuesday article by Bess Levin is there even a hint of what is absurdly proclaimed in the headline.
In addition, the Axios On HBO video upon which she bases her story also has nothing about what Graham supposedly claimed in the fake news headline. She could only claim "Lindsey Graham, though, is not like most people, which is why he‘s apparently willing to overlook the fact that Donald Trump is a remorseless monster."
Okay, we get it, Bess. You really, really hate Trump. However, does that excuse Vanity Fair putting a fake news headline on your story?
[...]
So where is the part where Graham stated, as claimed in the headline, that he is willing to overlook that Trump has probably beaten a few homeless people to death? Oh, it is not true? So Vanity Fair, by putting that in their headline, is guilty of... FAKE NEWS.
Satire may be in the eye of the beholder, but it appears lack of humor about satire is as well.
CNS Still Touting Far-Right Boebert, Won't Tell Readers Her 'Origin Story' Is A Lie Topic: CNSNews.com
We've documented how -- on top of its work promoting far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene -- CNSNews.com has tried to mainstream another extremist Republican member of Congress, Lauren Boebert. While CNS has effectivelystopped promoting Greene when her extremism could no longer be ignored or whitewashed, it's still touting Boebert despite her expressed support for the far-right QAnon movement.
We already noted that in February, CNS promoted a statement by Boebert falsely blaming wind and solar energy for the Texas power crisis in February. Craig Bannister gushed over Boebert in a March 4 article:
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) is going to force Democrats’ entire, pork-laden so-called “COVID relief” bill to be read aloud in the Senate before it’s voted on – and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) thinks that’s such a great idea that all bills should be read aloud in Congress so Americans can know what’s in them.
“Every single bill should be read aloud so the public can hear very clearly what’s in it,” Rep. Boebert tweeted Wednesday in response to news that Sen. Johnson will require the full bill to be read aloud. “Joe Biden thinks many people are too dumb to get on the internet, so by his racist standards no one should be expected to read bills online,” Boebert added.
“The Left attack women who are too strong for their liking every single day, then claim there’s a ‘war on women,’” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) says.
“Well, there is, but they’re the ones leading it!” Boebert added in a Tweet thanking Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) for explaining how the Left is even more hostile to conservative women than it is to conservative men.
Boebert's and Bannister's invocation of Gaetz is a little awkward now given the sex scandal he's involved in (that CNS has been studiously censoring). And Bannister didn't mention that the reason Boebert has been criticized by "the left" is not because she's a "conservative woman," or even because she likes to show her "support for the Second Amendment" by promiscuously brandishing weapons, but that she has supported extremist movements like QAnon.
Speaking of censoring, there's another story CNS won't tell its readers. As an actual news outlet reported:
We’re often interested in the “origin stories” of politicians — regular lines that they use over and over to explain their political motivations.
Boebert is a strong booster of gun rights. She arrived in Congress this year after leveraging her fame as the owner of a restaurant, Shooters Grill of Rifle, Colo., where the wait staff often serve customers with open-carry firearms. A sign outside tells customers that guns are welcome.
Over and over, Boebert says she started allowing her staff to carry guns after a man was killed outside her restaurant. But we’ve obtained police and coroner reports that show her story is mainly fiction.
[...]
Boebert tells the story of a man who was beaten to death outside her restaurant. Police considered it a possible homicide but quickly concluded that the man died of a drug overdose. There was a fight, but it took place blocks away from her restaurant; the man merely ran near her business before collapsing.
So her basic origin story is a sham. Why won't CNS tell its readers the truth?
WND Plugs Crowdfunding Campaign For Wannabe Google Competitor Topic: WorldNetDaily
Doing ads for Chuck Norris' new gold-company sponsor is not the only way WorldNetDaily is trying to make itself relevant. It's also promoting a new search engine ... that needs money at least as badly as WND does. An anonymously written Feb. 10 WND article gushed:
Emphasizing free speech and privacy, a tech entrepreneur who has been developing a search engine for the past decade plans to roll out a platform that will include the features of Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
Find.com, says Jeffrey Sisk, will begin with a messaging platform similar to Twitter then add the search, social networking and video features, putting them together in one app.
"It's the convergence of an amazing brand name, innovative technology and a public that is desperate to find any new way to help win this war on truth," he told WND.
Sisk said he is inviting the millions of Americans who are seeking an alternative to the Big Tech giants to join him in funding the venture.
The article is an ad for Sisk, complete with links to his GoFundMe page. His previous claim to fame -- conveniently for right-wing tech-victim narratives -- was launching a previous search engine called Zeekly, whcih allegedly had "millions of pageviews and positive feedback from users buyt was mysteriously "demonetized by Google's ad network and several others." Same thing with Zeekly TV, which was allegedly shut down by "severe denial of service attacks from an unknown source."
WND editor gushed further in his Feb. 14 column, touting that Sisk "is building a search and social-media platform under one app that will do much of what Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter do – except without controlling speech in America and around the world." Farah added: "I have known Jeffrey Sisk for quite a few years. He's been involved in some neat projects. He has bigger projects in his future. Right now, he's driven by the determination of our Founding Fathers. What's holding us back? Here it is! The solution to the Big Tech nightmare in our grasp!"
Farah plugged Sisk's project again in his March 5 column: "This project is taking off! Are we up to the challenge? YES! Brave men like Jeffrey Sisk need our support. I urge you to stand with him. Maybe then we can raise up something resembling what we had for nearly 245 years in America."
Farah took credit for the alleged success of Sisk's crowdfunding in his March 11 column:
Here's one free speech app that is taking off on GoFundMe in a campaign started on WND.
Jeffrey Sisk is the pioneer behind the Find.com. His company is building a search and social-media platform under one app that will do much of what Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter do – except without controlling speech in America and around the world.
Why is this an existential threat to the control-obsessed robber barons who think they're in charge of fair elections and the free press in America? Because anyone can be censored, canceled or suppressed by the official "mainstream media" and its masters ruling from atop Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter – even a sitting president, Donald J. Trump, can be silenced! Remember, he still doesn't have his Twitter handle back! Maybe he won't need it.
Farah went on to claim that Sisk and Find.com "have received in their GoFundMe.com account the record-setting amount of $3,252,240!" But the page currently shows the project at a little over $1.2 million of its declared $5 million goal. Where did that $2 million go?
Sisk's project got another boost in an anonymously written March 31 article featuring a podcast interview in which he declared that "Americans should be 'honoring' their Founding Fathers by protecting free speech and privacy."
The last time Farah was this excited about someone else's project, he was trying to give away cryptocurrency to donors in a desperate bid to save WND. He has still not told WND readers how that turned out -- which is a track record Sisk might want to take heed of.
NEW ARTICLE -- CNS On Impeachment: The Second Time Around Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com did a lot of complaining that Donald Trump was going to face a second impeachment -- then largely refused to report on the impeachment trial itself. Read more >>
Doing ads for Chuck Norris' new gold-company sponsor is not the only way WorldNetDaily is trying to make itself relevant. It's also promoting a new search engine ... that needs money at least as badly as WND does. An anonymously written Feb. 10 WND article gushed:
Emphasizing free speech and privacy, a tech entrepreneur who has been developing a search engine for the past decade plans to roll out a platform that will include the features of Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
Find.com, says Jeffrey Sisk, will begin with a messaging platform similar to Twitter then add the search, social networking and video features, putting them together in one app.
"It's the convergence of an amazing brand name, innovative technology and a public that is desperate to find any new way to help win this war on truth," he told WND.
Sisk said he is inviting the millions of Americans who are seeking an alternative to the Big Tech giants to join him in funding the venture.
The article is an ad for Sisk, complete with links to his GoFundMe page. His previous claim to fame -- conveniently for right-wing tech-victim narratives -- was launching a previous search engine called Zeekly, whcih allegedly had "millions of pageviews and positive feedback from users buyt was mysteriously "demonetized by Google's ad network and several others." Same thing with Zeekly TV, which was allegedly shut down by "severe denial of service attacks from an unknown source."
WND editor gushed further in his Feb. 14 column, touting that Sisk "is building a search and social-media platform under one app that will do much of what Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter do – except without controlling speech in America and around the world." Farah added: "I have known Jeffrey Sisk for quite a few years. He's been involved in some neat projects. He has bigger projects in his future. Right now, he's driven by the determination of our Founding Fathers. What's holding us back? Here it is! The solution to the Big Tech nightmare in our grasp!"
Farah plugged Sisk's project again in his March 5 column: "This project is taking off! Are we up to the challenge? YES! Brave men like Jeffrey Sisk need our support. I urge you to stand with him. Maybe then we can raise up something resembling what we had for nearly 245 years in America."
Farah took credit for the alleged success of Sisk's crowdfunding in his March 11 column:
Here's one free speech app that is taking off on GoFundMe in a campaign started on WND.
Jeffrey Sisk is the pioneer behind the Find.com. His company is building a search and social-media platform under one app that will do much of what Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter do – except without controlling speech in America and around the world.
Why is this an existential threat to the control-obsessed robber barons who think they're in charge of fair elections and the free press in America? Because anyone can be censored, canceled or suppressed by the official "mainstream media" and its masters ruling from atop Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter – even a sitting president, Donald J. Trump, can be silenced! Remember, he still doesn't have his Twitter handle back! Maybe he won't need it.
Farah went on to claim that Sisk and Find.com "have received in their GoFundMe.com account the record-setting amount of $3,252,240!" But the page currently shows the project at a little over $1.2 million of its declared $5 million goal. Where did that $2 million go?
Sisk's project got another boost in an anonymously written March 31 article featuring a podcast interview in which he declared that "Americans should be 'honoring' their Founding Fathers by protecting free speech and privacy."
The last time Farah was this excited about someone else's project, he was trying to give away cryptocurrency to donors in a desperate bid to save WND. He has still not told WND readers how that turned out -- which could be a cautionary tale Sisk might want to take heed of.