NEW ARTICLE: MRC Defends An Extremist, But Hides Her Extremism
Topic: Media Research Center
Just like its "news" division did, the Media Research Center portrayed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as an innocent victim of "censorship" by social media while censoring the extreme views and offensive acts that got her in trouble. Read more >>

CNS Columnist Upset Minorities Aren't Competing With White People To Get COVID Vaccine
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com columnist Hans Bader is weirdly obsessed with making sure white people get the coronavirus vaccine. He wrote in his April 8 column:

The State of Vermont recently drew criticism for giving racial minorities priority in access to the COVID vaccine. Lawyers and law professors (including me) said that racial preference was unconstitutional. But at least Vermont didn't waste doses of the vaccine.

The state of Virginia did. It kept at least 11,000 doses of the COVID vaccine unused due to its extreme push for racial "equity." That will result in increased transmission of COVID-19 among Virginians of all races, notes James Bacon, the former publisher of Virginia Business.

In Danville, Va., so few local residents were getting shots from a COVID-vaccination clinic that people, mostly white, were driving in from out of town to avoid the long waits elsewhere. Danville is over 51% black; Virginia as a whole is only 20% black. The administration of progressive Gov. Ralph Northam became concerned about the “equity” implications of so many more white people getting vaccinated than blacks. So the Northam administration restricted access for out-of-town walk-ins. Only people separately scheduled through a state registration system would be allowed.

That largely shut down vaccinations in Danville. Danville’s vaccination clinic had the capacity to administer up to 3,000 vaccinations per day. But in early April, it was averaging only 184 shots per day, according to an article in the Danville Register & Bee. So the Northam administration's way of promoting “equity” in vaccinations was to prevent white people from getting them, even if that did not result in more vaccinations of black people.

Of course, Bacon isn't the puiblisher of Virginia Business anymore; it's apparently not enough of a deal to even mention mention on the bio page on his own blog. Beyond that, the estimate that 11,000 vaccine doses went "unused" is an estimate and not a reflection of actual reality.

Further, for all the whining that white people weren't getting the vaccines they are apparently entitled to, there was no explanation by either Bader or Bacon about whether they did their part to help people who are disadvantaged or lack the internet access needed to make an appointment to get a vaccine -- the main way of getting one at the time. Are those people on their own, where they will get trampled by better connected white people?

Bader went on a similar whine four days later:

Rhode Island excluded whites from vaccinations given out at Providence's Dunkin Donuts Center on April 10, where 3,000 doses were available. As a result, many of those doses were left unused.

As Erika Sanzi of Parents Defending Education notes, this vaccination "event was only for BIPOC residents of the state —they ended up with tons left over. So many people desperate to get one but can't because" of so-called "equity." To get the vaccine, you had to be "Black, Indigenous, Asian, Hispanic" or "People of Color."

The total exclusion of whites was unnecessary to help minorities. But Rhode Island has reserved for minorities only, in Providence and Woonsocket.

This was discrimination for discrimination's sake, so it was doubly unconstitutional. Rhode Island didn't have a "strong basis in evidence" for giving minorities a preference at all. But even if minorities deserved a preference, to ensure that they would get the vaccine, totally excluding whites made no sense, because that wasted many doses of the vaccine.

Bader's source for the unsubstantiated 3,000 "unused" claim is a tweet from a right-wing education activist. Bader then rehashed an argument he has made before to assert that minorities are not deserving of better access to the vaccine than white people:

Lower vaccination rates among blacks reflected reluctance to take the vaccine, rather than racial bias in administering the vaccine. Surveys showed blacks were far more reluctant than whites to take the vaccine when it first became available. Higher COVID rates among blacks and Hispanics in many states have resulted from occupational and other non-racial risk factors, rather than discrimination by state governments.

This is just victim-blaming on Bader'spart. As we noted the last time Bader made this argument, Blacks and Hispanics really are at risk of catching coronavirus, and  even if they are in occupations that expose them to greater risk of catching it, that's all the more reason to prioritize them for vaccines.

It seems Bader wants a more Darwinian process for vaccine access, where the well-connected get it immediately and everyone else must scramble for leftovers -- strange since conservatives normally don't like Darwininan concepts.

Insecure? Another Man In A Dress Causes Another MRC Meltdown
Topic: Media Research Center

Why is the largely male Media Research Center so insecure in its collective manhood? Late last year, it flipped out over a photo shoot of Harry Styles wearing a dress. Earlier this year, it was triggered over a study arguing that pollution may be shrinking male penises. Now, the men-wearing-dresses thing has resurfaced, and a very uncomfortable Gabriel Hays ranted about it:

Look, we don’t care if you’re Harry Styles or rapper Kid Cudi, you’re NOT GOING TO MAKE MEN’S DRESSES HAPPEN!

In another shock fashion statement aimed at making straight men feel uncomfortable and making lesbians even more confident in their mating decisions, Kid Cudi donned a white, floral patterned dress during his appearance on Saturday Night Live.

What’s worse is that straight guys can’t just ignore the emasculated exhibitionism of one confused hip hop artist, they have to deal with fashion media telling us that Cudi’s move is evidence that dresses for men are “becoming the norm.”

Pardon our French, but the hell they are!

[...]

Maybe, we are the type of people who don’t “get” high fashion, but come on, a grown man wearing spaghetti straps and a floor length gown does not look right, even in an avant-garde way. Sure, a man flexing his biceps while in a dress fit for his young daughter on Easter Sunday offends our sensibilities, but not in any sort of revolutionary way. It’s just dumb. 

Kid Cudi was actually paying tribute to Kurt Cobain, but you stay insecure in your manhood, Gabe. His ranting continued:

It’s about social engineering. For Tashjian and GQ, Styles and Cudi looking super girly is about tipping the scales towards the further feminization of culture. Tashjian is tired of the male suit being the standard for traditional society dress. Getting more men to wear dresses balances the scale. She wrote, “dressing gender-neutral or gender-fluid meant wearing something derived from the men’s suit. Now, the dress may be slowly usurping that role.” 

Oh yeah, take that, men! Your days of oppressing us with clean cut business attire are at an end. Despite the suit being a conservative look that is polished and flexible for both sexes, GQ needs the dress to be the new model for gender-neutral attire. “It’s relaxed and universally wearable, a Big Fit in just one garment,” they argued. 

The clothing designer who dressed Cudi for his appearance, Virgil Abloh, mentioned that the idea behind the rapper’s dress is to destroy gender norms. He told the magazine, “The beauty about now, is our generation, piece by piece, can dismantle norms. 2020 was a year of reckoning about how the system in place that governs us as people is out of date.” Well we guess that if 2020 was a year of hell on earth, then perhaps the ensuing fashion statements were going to represent that as well. Gross.

Just like a right-winger to be obsessed with enforcing "gender norms." We're so sorry this happened to you, Gabe.

CNS Censors Partisan Agenda of Right-Wing 'Honest Elections' Group
Topic: CNSNews.com

A group called the Honest Elections Project has gotten significant promotion at CNSNews.com of late:

• A March 24 column by Tim Graham of CNS' parent, the Media Research Center noted that "A recent survey by the Honest Elections Project, for example, found that 77% of respondents believe voters should be required to show a photo ID when they vote." (Graham also cited poll findings from McLaughlin & Associates but didn't tell readers it worked for Donald Trump.)
• An April 5 article by managing editor Michael W. Chapman stated; "As President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress push for passage of HR 1, a massive election reform bill that Republicans largely oppose because they see it as a way to allow voter fraud and entrench Democratic rule nationwide, the Honest Elections Project  reports that only 28% of Americans support the legislation, and that contrary to the bill, 77% of Americans want voter ID."
• An April 9 article by Craig Bannister repeated other poll findings: "Nearly three-fourths of U.S. states have some form of voter identification requirement that would be abolished, if Democrats’ “For the People Act” (H.R. 1) bill becomes law, a new study by the Honest Elections Project (HEP) warns. ... In conclusion, the report warns that H.R. 1 would 'permanently reshape elections in ways that weaken voting safeguards, put public trust in elections at risk, and ignore the desires of mainstream voters.'"
• An April 19 column by the Heritage Foundation's Mike Powell claimed: "Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project, said, 'Overall, the Georgia law is pretty much in the mainstream and is not regressive or restrictive. The availability of absentee ballots and early voting is a lot more progressive than what’s in the blue states.'"
• Chapman returned to tout the group in a May 6 article on changes to Florida election laws: "Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project, said of the new law, 'Every Floridian can request a mail-in ballot, vote early, or cast a ballot on Election Day. Anyone who reads this new law will see that it keeps voting easy, and makes cheating harder.'"

Interestingly, none of these articles explain what, exactly, the Honest Elections Project is. That's because it's a partisan right-wing, dark money-driven activist group. The Associated Press explains:

The Honest Elections Project was created in early 2020 to advocate for greater controls on elections. The group has drawn scrutiny in part because of Leo’s influence in conservative legal circles. As co-chairman of the Federalist Society, Leo helped spearhead the effort to appoint conservative judges to the federal courts.

The group does not disclose its donors and there will be no public reporting of how it spends its money until later this year, at the earliest.

Last year, Honest Elections was part of the GOP legal strategy to fight voting changes, many of which were aimed at making voting easier during the pandemic. It sued Michigan, forcing the state to clean up its list of registered voters, and blocked a settlement easing absentee voting rules in Minnesota.

The Guardian further reported that the group is a "backed by a dark money group funded by rightwing stalwarts like the Koch brothers and Betsy DeVos’ family" and denies that voter suppression exists -- a key claim of right-wing election activists. The group is actually "a legal alias for the Judicial Education Project, a well-financed nonprofit connected to a powerful network of dark money conservative groups," the Guardian reported.

Strange that a group calling for "honest elections" has no interest in being honest about itself. It's less strange, unfortunately, that CNS is censoring the partisan nature of the group in order to push for more restrictive voting regulations that right-wingers love.

WND's Farah (And Steve Bannon) Have A Crazy Idea To Put Trump Back In Power
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Joseph Farah's April 8 WorldDNetDaily column began with a wacky rant:

When Joe Biden took the oath of office to become president – or, should we say, presidential pretender – I was morose.

I was one of the million or so cheerleaders for Donald J. Trump in Washington, D.C., Jan. 5-7 – for what has become known as "the insurrection." Then it was over.

That was not easy to accept. I believe Trump was the greatest president in the history of the United States. That's right! His achievements in four years exceeded that of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. I loved them all. Reagan changed my politics. But Trump was one of a kind.

So, you can understand my disappointment – and to be replaced by Biden!

This was truly an outrage.

While Trump was the greatest president ever, Biden has been the worst – with a sample size of only three months.

Biden is sullen, his voice hurts my ears, he's cognitively challenged, he's incoherent, he falls a lot – and, worst of all, he's mean. He lies on a grand scale and he's hopelessly immoral.

The worst thing he has ever done is to commit a high crime against America by perpetuating election fraud against the greatest country the world as ever known.

He then recounted a January column in which he fantasized that in 2022 Biden and Kamala Harris would be impeached "for high crimes and misdemeanors – not phony ones like they had to manufacture against President Trump, but real, weighty crimes." He's assuming that Republicans will take the House that year, so that would make Kevin McCarthy president (since the House speaker is third in line), and he could then appoint Trump as vice president. McCarthy would then resign, making Trump president.

Farah went on to tout a speech by former Trump adviser and pardoned criminal Steve Bannon, who in a related fantasy of Republicans naming Trump speaker of the House after retaking it in the 2022 elections, after which Biden and Harris would be impeachedf or "his illegitimate activities of stealing the presidency." A right-wing mind-meld commenced:

I texted Bannon a message asking if he had read my column.

"I loved it," he said.

Could this be the way this turns out?

[...]

[T]he latest to join the campaign is Ed Martin, president of Phyllis Schlafly Eagles.

Martin told "Secrets": "I'm serious. We need the Trump voters. With the possibility of having Donald Trump as speaker, conservative voter turnout would be through the roof nationwide."

Let's make it a wave. Ride the wave. This is a MAGA moment!

Farah willingly believes the lie that the eleciton was stolen -- just as he willingly elieved the lie that Barack Obama's birth certificate wdas faked -- so of course he would think this is a plausible and desirable outcome.

Hunter Biden's Book Triggers The MRC
Topic: Media Research Center

As loyal pro-Trump sycophants, the Media Research Center went all in on the Hunter Biden laptop story before the election -- the point was to get Donald Trump re-elected after all, not tell the truth. Meanwhile, to this day the authenticity of the laptop has not been independently confirmed. But Hunter is not a real person to the MRC -- he's a target and a political weapon to use against his father. So when Hunter wrote a memoir, the MRC was predictably triggered. Scott Whitlock whined in a April 2 post:

Hunter Biden has a lucrative new book to promote, So now it’s okay to ask him basic questions about a missing laptop that may implicate his dad, the now-president, in business dealing with China and Ukraine. CBS will have a pair of interviews with Hunter airing on Sunday and Monday morning. CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King on Friday reacted to a preview of one by gushing, “What Hunter just said there I thought was — gave me goosebumps.

After Hunter said he wasn't sure whether the laptop was his, Whitlock huffed: "Perhaps the networks and other outlets should have been following the laptop story more closely last year during the presidential election. Instead they ignored or tried to debunk the story." Again, the story hasyet to be independently confirmed, and given that it was forwarded by Trump allies like Rudy Giuliani and the New York Post, there was (and is) plenty of reason to not accept the story at face value.

Bill D'Agostino similarly complained in an April 4 post:

Hunter Biden’s new book deal landed him a sympathetic interview on this weekend’s CBS News Sunday Morning with correspondent Tracy Smith. While the interview alluded to various political scandals plaguing the younger Biden (namely the Burisma controversy, the laptop scandal, and an ongoing active investigation into his finances), it provided viewers with barely any information about the scandals themselves, while giving him plenty of time to argue his innocence.

[...]

The Friday morning preview of this interview contained an admission from the younger Biden that the laptop “could be” his. Unfortunately, the full interview that aired on Sunday failed to provide anything else of note about the topic. Instead viewers were treated to another insinuation that the whole story was Russian propaganda:  “Last month, a declassified intelligence report said that before the election, the Russians had launched a smear campaign against Joe Biden and his family.”

That same day, P.J. Gladnick raged that a Politco article called Hunter a "noted locomotive expert" in an article because he once served on the Amtrak: "Does that mean that high speed rail conferences around the world are incomplete without the input of Hunter Biden, the "noted locomotive expert?" And how did Hunter gain such expertise on the subject to the extent to be on the board of Amtrak? Well, he did it by riding the choo-choo a lot."

Whitlock returned to huff: "CBS donated 25 minutes of air time to syrupy, softball interviews of Hunter Biden. Despite the massive amount of coverage, the journalists offered little in the way of curiosity about what was actually on the laptop Biden now admits 'certainly' could have been his." He further dismissed this as "Biden propaganda" and complained that Hunter's book was published by a division of the company that owns CBS.

Tim Graham devoted his April 7 column to complaining that Hunter -- and, by extension, Joe Biden -- wasn't being destroyed as a man while promoting his book, bashing one reviewer for saying that the book "humanizes Hunter." We wouldn't want that, would we, Tim? Graham further complained: "The most overlooked fact on the Hunter Biden book-and-sympathy tour is that he was committing many of these financial scams and behavioral debaucheries while his father was in the obscure job of... Vice President of the United States."

Curtis Houck touted pornography in an April 9 post:

Scandal-plagued First Family member Hunter Biden continued his book tour late Thursday with a softball-laden interview with ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who assisted him in not only dismissing the infamous laptop as “a red herring” because it came from Rudy Giuliani, but declare that he was eminently qualified to served on the board of Burisma.

Unsurprisingly, Kimmel and Biden did not address the breaking news from hours earlier when the Daily Mail published more of what they said were contents of Biden's laptop, including naked photos of Biden with prostitutes.

Like Graham, Houck groused that Hunter said he wrote the book to "humanize people suffering from addiction," and continued to treat Hunter as the less-than-himan he clearly believes the guy is: "While the interview started on a bizarre note before going to the softball portion, Kimmel ended with a retelling of how quickly Biden married his current wife less than a week after they met. Of course, there was nothing about how Biden dated his late brother Beau’s widow for a period of time."

(Also: The Daily Mail is even less credible than Giuliani and the New York Post, which Houck somehow forgot to mention.)

Graham devoted a podcast the same day to the Kimmel interview, in which he whined that Hunter wouldn't appear on Fox News and the Kimmel's interview was "uber-sympathetic, apologies to Uber." We wouldn't want anyone to think Hunter Biden is a human deserving of even a bit of sympathy, eh, Tim?

Graham whined further that Hunter Biden hasn't been subjected to fact-checking by PolitiFact while the Trump children have been. He forgot to mention that the Trump children, unlike Hunter, have been very politically active in service to their father and, thus, make political statements that are fact-check-worthy.

WND Columnist Falsely Defends Man Who Shot Protester
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Rachel Alexander devoted her April 5 WorldNetDaily column to defending "Christian crowdfunding site" GiveSendGo for serving as a platform for helping accused criminals like Kyle Rittenhouse and the Capitol rioters. Alexander lionized siblings Jacob Wells and Heather Wilson who founded the site, then tried for a tragic story to defend them and their operation:

The site could have ducked taking on fundraisers for controversial people like Rittenhouse, but once the siblings observed "death by deplatforming" they knew they had to take a stand. Jake Gardner was a Nebraska bar owner who committed suicide after being indicted in the fatal shooting of a black protester last year. The tragic series of events began during riots after the death of George Floyd. Gardner's dad pushed a protester who would not leave the area near the bar. The protester pushed back, and so the younger Gardner displayed his handgun. Two protesters jumped on his back, and he fired two warning shots. They left, but James Scurlock, a young black man who had been involved in vandalism earlier, tackled him and put him in a headlock. Gardner begged Scurlock to release him, but he didn't, so he shot him.

Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine wasn't even going to press charges at first, believing Gardner had acted in self-defense. But obviously due to public pressure, he asked a grand jury to review his decision. Meanwhile, Gardner was trying to raise money for his defense, but was being deplatformed everywhere. People like Nebraska State Sen. Megan Hunt piled on and incited more hate by calling him a white supremacist. His bar was known for hosting Republican events, which no doubt intensified the vicious reaction. But he wasn't a hateful person. In 2017 he went to the Trump inauguration and was interviewed about the Women's March, and he said they have a right to be out there protesting.

Gardner moved to California to escape the hate. A decorated veteran who had served two tours in Iraq, he suffered two brain injuries. He found out about GiveSendGo due to the publicity surrounding Rittenhouse, but it was too late. Just two days after the fundraiser was started, the jury indicted him for manslaughter and other felonies, and he killed himself. The Jake Gardner family has since set up its own GiveSendGo fundraiser.

Alexander is lying when she calls the charges against Gardner politically motivated. As an actual news outlet reported (as opposed to the right-wing opinion pieces Alexander cited), 60 witnesses were interviewed, and Gardner's claim that he killed Scurlock in self-defense was undermined by statements from Gardner himself. The special prosecutor noted evidence including texts from Gardner’s phone; messages from Gardner’s Facebook account; and Gardner’s interactions with bystanders prior to his contact with Scurlock, as well as surveillance video that showed Gardner and his father inside the bar.

But Alexander is too far in victim mode to care about the truth, declaring that "the left is trying to destroy alternative platforms like GiveSendGo," adding, "We must stay vigilant, shedding light on the situation and supporting those who dare to stand up to the woke crowd like GiveSendGo, because eventually they're coming for the rest of us, too."

Newsmax Columnist: Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports Are Ideas From Chinese Commies
Topic: Newsmax

The coronavirus and subsequent government response to the pandemic has been a disaster for most Americans' economic, mental, and physical well-being.

But the coronavirus has been wonderful for a certain handful of people: The would-be tyrants who derive their meaning in life from controlling people.

This is because they have wielded the pandemic to their own advantage and to grow government power. In doing so, these public "servants"  have inched America towards the kind of communism as seen in China.

Even though most lockdowns utterly failed on any reasonable cost-benefit analysis, that class of bureaucrats, government unions, and HR apparatchiks imposed them anyway.

Why?

Because these mandates fed the illusion that authorities had things under control. It indulged their sense that they were "pro-science." In truth, these tyrants had no other ideas about how to stop the spread. They were simply terrified of doing nothing at all.

But an overlooked reason driving these unthinkable power grabs was that our leaders now take cues from authoritarian China.

[...]

Quite simply, the virus is not nearly dangerous enough to justify coercive measures and stripping freedoms.

But tyrants want them anyway.

In many cases, safety appears irrelevant compared to the sheer glee of forcing the recalcitrant to submit or lose basic rights now recast as privileges.

Just like lockdowns and the coronavirus itself, vaccine passports are another toxic import from China.

Thse passports draw clear inspiration from the CCP’s sinister social credit system.

[...]

The right has a duty to resist these passports utterly. For any Republican seeking office in 2022 or 2024, opposing COVID passports right now is a basic litmus test.

It’s a test that Florida’s Ron DeSantis has passed with flying colors. He issued an executive order banning all vaccine passports late last month. 

Conservatives must monitor their own state and local leaders to make sure they do the same thing. Otherwise, we'll soon move beyond passports for vaccines, and into passports to monitor other areas of society that the left deems unsafe. 

The only thing that will protect America’s remaining freedoms from CCP wannabes who put America Last is perpetual vigilance, and legal action, from America First allies.

-- Catharine O'Neill, April 8 Newsmax column

CNS Didn't Report On Capitol Police Officer's Death Until It Couldn't Be Directly Blamed On Capitol Riot
Topic: CNSNews.com

Even though CNSNews.com is a right-wing operation that claims to care about the police, it curiously didn't have much to say about the death of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died after trying to defend the center of American democracy in the Jan. 6 Trump-inspired Capitol riot.

CNS did no articles specifically on Sicknick in the weeks after the riot; instead, he received only passing references on Jan. 8, Jan. 11, Feb. 3, Feb. 3 (again), Feb. 8, Feb. 15, and March 2. But as the original narrative of Sicknick's death was questioned in right-wing media and an autopsy wasn't immediately forthcoming, it was time for CNS to suddenly care.

Sicknick's name appeared for the first time in the headline of a CNS article in a March 3 piece by Susan Jones featuring FBI Director Christopher Wray being questioned by Republican senators about Sicknick's death, with Sen. Chuck Grassley citing "conflicting reports about his cause of death" and Sen. Ted Cruz also noting "conflicting reports about the circumstances of his death"; Wray responded that the investigation was ongoing. This was followed on March 5 with a column by Pat Buchanan, who wrote: "Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick died of a stroke the next day. Media reports that he had been hit with a fire extinguisher proved false. In the two months since Jan. 6, no one has been charged in his death."

Sicknick got another passing mention in an April 6 article by the mysterioius "A. Kim" about a Ben Shapiro radio rant. Then, on April 20, the results of Sicknick's autopsy was released, and Sicknick's name appeared in a CNS headlione for the second time, in an article by managing editor Michael W. Chapman pushing the result that it was "natural":

Contrary to the Jan. 8 U.S. Justice Department claim that Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick died because of "the injuries he suffered defending the U.S. Capitol, against the violent mob who stormed it on January 6th," the D.C. chief medical examiner, Dr. Francisco Diaz, announced today that Sicknick's cause of death was "natural." 

[...]

In layman's terms, Officer Sicknick died from strokes on Jan. 7.

[...]

Back on Jan. 7, 2021, one day after Sicknick died, the Acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen told the public in a statement,  “Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and fellow officers of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick, who succumbed last night to the injuries he suffered defending the U.S. Capitol, against the violent mob who stormed it on January 6th.  The FBI and Metropolitan Police Department will jointly investigate the case and the Department of Justice will spare no resources in investigating and holding accountable those responsible.”

Chapman unsurprisingly omitted a couple things: 1) the original account of Sicknick's death came from a Justice Department that was still under control of then-President Trump, and 2) the medical examiner also said that "all that transpired" at the Capitol riot "played a role in his condition." That can be interpreted as meaning that while no single incident from the riot directly caused Sicknick's death, the riot did contribute.

Nevertheless, an article by Jones the same day declared that the original story of Sicknick's death was a "media/Democrat narrative":

It took more than three months for the American public to learn that U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died of natural causes -- two strokes, the D.C. medical examiner disclosed in an email to media outlets.

So contrary to earlier reporting and Democrat claims, Sicknick was not killed by Trump supporters during the January 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol.

Yet the article of impeachment against Donald Trump, dated January 13, 2021, says Trump supporters "incited by President Trump...injured and killed law enforcement personnel..."

But it's not true. And there's no explanation for why it took so long for the D.C. medical examiner to say Sicknick died of natural causes, not as the direct result of a criminal act.

Jones buried the medical examiner's statement that "all that transpired" at the Capitol riot "played a role in his condition" in the 11th paragraph of her article.

Sicknick got one more passing mention that day, in an anonymously written article huffing that "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) is calling again for a federal commission to be created to analyze and report on what happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6."

Chapman followed up on April 23 with an article featuring a Republican senator questioning Capitol Police about "why its office claimed in a Jan. 7 press release that Officer Brian Sicknick died 'due to injuries sustained while on-duty' -- during the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol -- when the D.C. Medical Examiner announced on April 19 that Sicknick died of 'natural causes.'" The answer, of course, is in the question -- there was no reason not to believe on Jan. 7 that Sicknick died of injuries sustained in the riot, and the autopsy didn't come out until three months later. Again, Chapman failed to mention that the medical examiner also noted that  "all that transpired" at the Capitol riot "played a role in [Sicknick's] condition."

This is how in thrall to Trump CNS is -- it refused to exploit the death of a law enfoircement officer in order to protect him.

UPDATE: CNS also published an April 8 article by "A. Kim" bashing the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in D.C.; Kim apparently "specifically asked the OCME if it knows what caused Sicknick’s death," only to be accuratley told the case was still under investigation. Kim immediately went conspiratorial: "Thus, more than two months after Sickick’s body was cremated and buried, the OCME cannot—or will not—state the cause of his death." Kim's article was deleted without explanation at some point after its publication; the link to the story on the website states that it can't be found. But the internet is forever, and so is the Internet Archive.

MRC's Amateur Theologian Wages War on Warnock Over Easter Tweet
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Gabriel Hays has decided he's now a theologian. Despite no demonstrated expertise of theology, he belives he can lecture Sen. Raphael Warnock -- who, unlike Hays (as far as we know, anyway), is an ordained minister and holds degrees in theology -- over an Easter-related tweet from his account urging people to help each other. From Hays' hate-tinged April 5 sermon:

So a "pro-choice" Christian pastor who's also the radical leftist U.S. Senator from Georgia said something heretical about the Son of God on Easter Sunday of all days, and to be honest we aren’t the least bit surprised.

On Easter Sunday the radical preacher and newly-elected U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) composed an Easter message that actually denigrated the significance of the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Warnock’s disturbing and blasphemous tweet insisted that the most important event in the history of creation is cool and all, but it doesn't compare to how every man can save themselves every day through good works. Huh?

Warnock tweeted, “The meaning of Easter is more transcendent than the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Whether you are Christian or not, through a commitment to helping others we are able to save ourselves.”

Wow. Warnock needs to replace the “Reverend” on all his cheap business cards to “False Prophet” because this is a shocking heresy and an extreme insult to Christians everywhere. Man is only redeemed by Christ, and the only reason man’s good works help him is because they’re proof of an earnest cooperation with God’s gift of grace that was given to us through the Passion of His Son.

Remember, we have eternal life and freedom from sin because of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. To say that radical progressive politics or community organizing – of the kind that Warnock and Obama enjoy – gives us something greater than that is so arrogant and wrong.

It’s clear that Warnock believes earthly prosperity is ultimately more meritorious than Christ’s opening the gates of eternal life to us and reconstituting our relationship with God the Father. Warnock’s “faith” seems to have earthly priorities like social justice. It's all about making this world a better place because that’s all there is. 

Hays then laughably added, "We’ll try not to assume too much of course, but what else could Warnock mean by this tweet" -- even though he spent the entirety of his post up to that point assuming way too much things about what Warnock said.

ONe has to wonder: What church does Hays belong to, if any? Most Christian denominations make at least  a pretense toward helping people as part of their ministry; does Hays' church? Then again, Hays thinks he's an insult comic masquerading as a right-wing activist, and we can't think of a Christian denomination that tolerates such hate without him running constantly to confession to absolve his hate.

Hays' rant is just a continuation of the MRC's war on Warnock, which began with it serving as the oppo-research division of his Republican opponent in the Georgia Senate runoff. That seems to be crossing the line for what an organization like the MRC is allowed to do under its nonprofit tax status; the MRC has yet to address that issue publicly.

Hays concluded by pretending to be concerned about Warnock "for the sake of his soul and the souls of the ignorant who would listen to him." He might be better off being concerned about the state of his own soul, which has deteriorated significantly throughout his MRC employment.

NEW ARTICLE: CNS' Battle Against Biden Nominees
Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com is going all in on anti-Biden bias by promoting right-wing attacks on his nominees to Cabinet posts. Read more >>

WND Back to Peddling Bogus Election Fraud Claims
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily's brief period of correcting its false claims of election fraud appears to have ended -- and it's repeating bogus claims with impunity again.

An April 12 article by Bob Unruh highlighted how the Nevada state Republican Partycensured secretary of state Barbara Cegavske, "accusing her of failing to fully investigate the fraud allegations" made by Donald Trump in the 2020 election. He added: "The Gateway Pundit noted that besides the hundreds of ballots cast in the name of dead voters, more than 42,000 people in Nevada voted more than once."

Neither of those things are true. USA Today summarized how they are false:

The claim that 42,000 people voted more than once in Nevada is false. The allegation originates from testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee presented by Trump campaign attorney Jesse Binnall.

The evidence for Binnall's claims was not shown publicly and was partially obtained through Department of Motor Vehicle records, according to 8 News now.

Derek T. Muller, a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law, analyzed the origins of Binnall's 42,000 figure and found that the claim stemmed from a report by the Republican National Committee's chief data officer, Jesse Kamzol. The report lacked overall methodology and underlying data. 

[...]

Binnall's claim that dead people voted in Nevada's presidential election has been repeatedly debunked by election officials.

The district court said this claim was unfounded based on Nevada Deputy Secretary of State for Elections Wayne Thorley’s testimony on the process to “maintain voter rolls, including removing confirmed deceased voters."

In an April 19 article, Unruh touted MyPillow guy Mike Lindell's lawsuit against Dominion Voting Systems (without, of course, telling readers how crazy the lawsuit is). Unruh wrote:

Lindell was among the Trump supporters who claimed the results in key battleground states were affected by fraud, based on sworn statements of witnesses and huge dumps of ballots in the middle of the night in Biden's favor.

Nearly every legal case based on that evidence was dismissed not on the merits, but on technical grounds.

What has not been challenged is the fact that election officials in several states change polices and procedures without the permission of state lawmakers, to whom the Constitution assigns that authority.

Unruh offered no supporting evidence for that last claim. The one relevant case we're aware of took place in Pennsylvania, where its secretary of state made changes before the election; election law experts have said that the executive branch has the authority to decide how to implement election law, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the secretary of state's decisions. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case.

Peddling the Big Lie -- which, by the way, editor Joseph Farah has gone all in on -- is not going to make readers trust WND, whcih seems to have forgotten that its embrace of conspiracy theories is one big reason the operation has been teetering on bankruptcy for the past few years.

The MRC's Mini-War on Seth Meyers
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center hates it when late-night host Seth Meyers calls out conservatives. It's been hurling insults at him for years, trying to tag him as "socialist," "nasty" and a "liar" (weird, we thought fact-checking humor was a lame thing to do). But this year, the MRC has gone off on Meyers even more.

On Feb. 11, Alex Christy tried to hang another insult on him -- "unfunny hack" -- and complained that "former comedian turned Democratic hack" Meyers "alleged early Tuesday morning that allowing Bush officials off for their supposed wrongdoing led Trump to believe he could get away with similar wrongdoing. Is this really what anyone would come to at the end of the day before bed? It's certainly not funny."

Christy ranted at Meyers again on Feb. 26: "During his typically humorless monologue early on Thursday, Late Night  host Seth Meyers praised President Biden's vaccine distribution record, contrasting it with that of "President Outbreak Monkey." But, it was not all good news, as he also condemned Biden for not being far enough to the left."

Christy complained yet again on March 3:

Hey, conservatives and independents, you're just imagining all those attacks by the left and woke culture. Late Night host Seth Meyers alleged on Tuesday that conservatives may not be unified on the idea of Trump 2024, but if CPAC proved anything, it is that conservatives are united around stupid culture war issues that nobody cares about.

After discussing the results of CPAC's straw poll where Trump could not "even get above 55% with these wingnuts," Meyers noted that the "only truly unifying thing at CPAC, the beating heart of modern conservatism, were the dumb, invented culture war grievances, as evidenced by their complaints about total nonsense, like The Muppets and Mr. Potato Head."

[...]

If conservatives are detached for merely responding to the left's culture war offensive, what does that make Meyers' fellow leftists, considering they are now also trying to cancel Dr. Seuss?

Of course, the MRC was a loyal combatant in the wars of the Muppets, Mr. Potato Head and Dr. Seuss.

Krstine Marsh took over the insult part fo a March 9 post:

Is Late Night host Seth Meyers trying to win an award for the most obnoxious Democrat sycophant on late night TV? A valid question, considering his “Closer Look” monologue Monday night smearing Republican “sociopaths” for not supporting President Biden’s bloated “relief” bill might as well have been paid for by the Democrat party [sic].

[...]

The comedian had no shame in debasing himself for the Democrat party [sic], harping on how this dream bill was going to rescue Americans from poverty[.]

Nothing says "reliable research" like Marsh's deliberate inability to get the Democratic Party's name right.

Christy returned on March 11 to complain about a sketch featuring a Melania Trump impersonator mocking her post-presidency "Office of Melania Trump," of which he huffed, "None of this routine was funny." The MRC is quite protective of Melania.

IN a March 16 post, Scott Whitlock called Meyers a "FRAUD" and a "far-left hack host," grousing that Meyers refused to buy into the right-wing attack narrative against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo but "finally, belated" got with the program.Three days later, Kyle Drennen declared Meyers to be "UNHINGED" in complaining that "radical leftist host Seth Meyers spewed Democratic Party propaganda for 15 minutes straight during one of his notoriously hackish Closer Look segments, this time preaching the brazen effort by left-wing lawmakers to undermine election integrity. The unfunny shill, who abandoned comedy long ago, desperately argued that 'nuking' the filibuster in the Senate was a “moral necessity” in order to help Democrats rig future elections in their favor." He unironically complained that "In the mind of left-wing hacks like Meyers, a 'level playing field' is one in which the rules are always changed to make sure that Democrats never lose another election" -- even though Republicans are in the midst of changing state laws to make sure they never lose another election.

Christy returned once more on March 26 to huff that Meyers, "trying to compensate for his lack of comedic talent, spent his late Thursday show parading around his potty mouth, instead" by noting that "The modern conservative movement seems concerned above all else with preserving their solemn right to be dicks to everyone else around them." Has he forgotten all the insults he and his fellow MRCers have been hurling at Meyers? That's dickishness personified.

Whitlock huffed on April 15: "Late Night hack Seth Meyers pretends to be a comedian, but he’s really just a shill for the left, shifting his nightly harangues to whatever his Democratic bosses would like. So it’s no surprise that he’s suddenly excited about pulling troops out of Afghanistan, but wasn’t when Donald Trump was president." Whitlock didn't mention whether he did any research to see if conservatives who supported withdrawal with Trump proposed it now oppose it under Biden.

CNS Reporter Still Touting, Defending Trump
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com reporter Patrick Goodenough has been a longtime defender of Donald Trump, particularly championing his administration's moves in getting minor countries to sign normalization deals with Israel. He's also been doing nitpicking fact-checks of Presient Biden, something he never did of Trump. Even though Trump is out of office, Goodenough has continued serving as his champion and defender.

Despite the fact that he's ostensibly CNS' international correspondent, Goodenough is the one who wrote a Feb. 24 article on Trump appealing the suspension of his Facebook account, lamenting that "Thirty-three million Facebook followers have been denied access to Trump's views for more than six weeks." But it was not until the 18th paragraph that Goodenough noted the reason why Trump's account was suspended, and that occurred only because he was quoting an organization that note Trump's incitement to violence and that he "spread lies and false information on Facebook."

Goodenough gushed again over Trump's Middle East policy in a March 15 article:

A Trump administration vision moved ahead on Sunday when Kosovo became the first majority-Muslim country to open an embassy in Jerusalem, the city which President Trump in 2017 formally recognized as Israel capital despite broad international opposition.

[...]

The opening of Kosovo’s embassy came six months after the White House announced a U.S.-brokered deal whose main focus was a process of economic normalization between Kosovo and Serbia, the country from which Kosovo was carved in a bloody ethnic conflict late last century.

In an unconventional bit of diplomatic maneuvering overseen by Trump’s special envoy for the region, Richard Grenell, Kosovo agreed as part of the deal to recognize Israel – which reciprocated – and to open an embassy in Jerusalem. Serbia, meanwhile, agreed to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a step yet to be taken.

“Huge. Historic. Beautiful,” Grenell tweeted on Sunday of the embassy opening. “I can’t wait to see it in person.”

Goodenough served up even more Trmp-gushing in a Marcb 22 article:

Watch your back, @Jack?

Former President Donald Trump is exploring launching his own social media platform, months after censors at Twitter and Facebook/Instagram suspended his accounts, leaving his tens of millions of followers in the dark.

Jason Miller, a spokesman and former Trump presidential campaign senior advisor, told Fox News’ “Media Buzz” on Sunday that the former president’s new venture would be “the hottest ticket in social media,” and “completely redefine the game.”

Goodenough completely failed to tell readers why Trump was suspended from Twitter, complaining only that it came following "sparring with Trump for many months over posts relating to unrest in American cities, the coronavirus pandemic, and election results." No mention of the false claims and misinformation he spread.

Goodenough came to the defense of the Trump again in a March 31 article:

As the State Department released its annual report on human rights on Tuesday, a senior official was unable to say whether the Trump administration’s decision – now reversed – to drop a subsection on “reproductive rights” in recent years’ reports had any impact on reproductive health globally.

[...]

The Trump State Department said it had stopped including the subsection because the term “reproductive rights” has been interpreted and used by some activists around the world to encompass a “right” to abortion.

In an April 7 article, Goodenough got upset at the reversal of another Trump policy:

How many of the more than five million Palestinians who benefit from international funding to a controversial U.N. agency are actually refugees?

The decades-old issue remains a matter of dispute as the Biden administration confirmed Wednesday that it was restoring funding to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), two-and-a-half years after the Trump administration defunded the agency, describing it as “irredeemably flawed.”

[...]

Shortly before the end of the Trump administration, however, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argued on Twitter that “most Palestinians under UNRWA’s jurisdiction aren’t refugees.”

Goodenough is a bit obsessed with the idea of refugees.

There was more defense in an April 15 article noting that "the Biden administration on Thursday conceded that the intelligence community has only 'low to moderate confidence' regarding one of the issues that has been under review – claims that Russia offered terrorists bounties to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan," adding that "White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday dodged a question on whether the president now regrets that."Goodenough went on to complain that Biden called Trump "Putin's puppy" and highlighted that the claims were "denied by both Moscow and the Taliban." But as others have pointed out, "low to moderate confidence" in the story does not necessarily mean it was false, and paying bounties to kill U.S. soldiers is not exactly out of character for Putin.

Goodenough seems more interested in pushing a political agenda than doing straight reporting -- but that's not a surprise given that he works for CNS.

Media Matters Lives Rent-Free Inside Tim Graham's Head
Topic: Media Research Center

It appears that Media Matters (disclosure: our former employer) is living rent-free inside the head of Media Research Center executive Tim Graham.

Back in February, Graham called Media Matters a "creepy censorship group" because it has pointed out the far-right extremity of Fox News' content to advertisers, which tends to make companies not want to advertise there. Never mind, of course, that Graham's MRC has its own (less effective) clone of that operation and tags every post with the advertisers of the segment they're attacking with links for readers to contact them and, well, do what Media Matters does.

Graham devoted an entire March 30 column to complaining that the New York Times used Media Matters research on a story about anti-transgender content in right-wing media: "Suddenly, the Times is outsourcing its research on conservatives to a hard-left organization – one of the most toxic character assassins of the cancel culture -- and boasting about it. The Times is swimming in revenue, but somehow it needs help discovering that 'targeting transgendered people' is a hot conservative topic." Graham didn't explain what, exactly, Media Matters did to be smeared as a "character assassin" -- never mind, of course, that the MRC engages in character assassination pretty much all the time; indeed, it pays Gabriel Hays specifically to assassinate the character of people he doesn't like.

There's also the unspoken impliction that Media Matters' research is such good quality that outside organizations consider it reliable -- not something that can be said for the "research" of the MRC, which is so biased and opaque as to be nearly worthless outside of its use as a partisan weapon, and certainly no sentient person treats as an objective measure of anything.

And in an April 12 podcast devoted to bashing an episode of CNN's "Reliable Sources" for talking about Fox News, Graham groused that host Brian Stelter "turned to Matt Gertz from Media Matters because we had to conclude the whole half-hour ripping into Fox." Perhaps that's because, again, Media Matters does its Fox-monitoring job better than the MRC does in going after the so-called "liberal media."

Yep, rent-free.