Bill Clinton hasn't been president for more than 20 years, but that's not keeping the Media Research Center from continuing to have meltdowns every time he appears on TV. Which brings us to a June 7 post by Scott Whitlock:

Given that a former Bill Clinton operative, George Stephanopoulos, is a co-host of Good Morning America, it’s no surprise that the morning show asked the controversial Democrat zero tough questions. But even for ABC, this was insane. Co-host Michael Strahan offered no follow-up when Clinton fantasized about being president for life. 

Strahan offered this softball: “Do you miss being president?” The man who exemplified Me Too before the term existed, rhapsodized, “The real answer is I loved being president.” He offered his bizarre admission: “I loved the job. It's a good thing we had a two-term limit or I would have forced the American people to defeat me or take me out in a pine box.”

No follow-up from Strahan. Instead, the co-host acted as a stenographer for the Democrat, touting the new novel he has written with James Patterson: “The President and Patterson wrote their latest thriller over the course of the pandemic, using their time in quarantine for some self-reflection.” 

What was the self reflection? Was it about his treatment of Monica Lewinsky or the numerous other women who have accused him of sexual harassment or abuse? Strahan didn't ask. 

Once again, liberal journalists don’t really care about Me Too abuses, so long as a Democrat is involved.

By contrast, the MRC didn't care about Me Too abuses when President Trump or Fox News hosts and executives were involved.

The MRC similarly melted down during publicity efforts for Clinton and Patterson's previous novel in 2018.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:19 PM EDT

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WorldNetDaily columnist Jack Cashill remains determined to stay on the wrong side of history by choosing to defend, um, certain people.

In his May 26 column, Cashill complained that attorney Benjamin Crump "cleverly framed George Zimmerman in the 2012 Florida death of Trayvon Martin" -- never mind that nobody has ever disputed that Zimmerman killed Martin. Cashill went on to rant that "Crump flagrantly corrupted the most racially charged trial since O.J. Simpson's," repeating the uncorroborated claim from charlatan filmmaker Joel Gilbert that a witness on behalf of Martin was an imposter. He then complained that Gilbert's film got no tractiion in right-wing media:

Having no vested interest in the success of Gilbert's film, I persuaded Gilbert that I could make a more objective case to the media, especially in Florida, than he could. So I tried.

I should have recorded the conversations. They would have dashed any hope anyone might have that the mainstream media can be reformed. The fear I encountered, often covered by hostility, was palpable.

I wish I could say the higher-level conservative media filled the void, but I cannot. From what I can tell, they are just as frightened as Big Media, maybe more so.

So the story of the greatest judicial fraud of the last half-century remains unknown to the vast majority of the American people. And if the president knows, as Crump might say, he ain't tellin'.

Cashill is lying about having "no vested interest in the success of Gilbert's film" -- he said himself he served as a consultant on the film and he heavily promoted it upon its release, as well as having written a book lionizing Zimmerman as a martyr and martin as a scary black thug in training, a narrative Gilbert's film reinforces. He's also delusional if he thought he could "make a more objective case" about the film; Gilbert's sleazy reputation precedes him, and there's no real way to overcome that, and Cashill would have to stay in serious denial of that in order to attempt to make that case. Not to mention Cashill's own reputation as a conspiracy-mongerer, making it even less likely anyone would consider anything he says as "objective."

In his June 2 column, Cashill took the side of a creepy cult leader:

"Some injustices are so heinous, so horrific, so grievous they can't be buried no matter how hard people try," said President Joe Biden in Tulsa on Tuesday.

Biden knows something about burying injustice. On April 19, 1993, he was serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee when a Democrat-controlled, FBI-led tank assault on the Mount Carmel religious community outside of Waco, Texas, left 74 people dead, more than half of them racial minorities.

As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Biden had the responsibility to redress the injustice that took place at Waco. He passed on that responsibility.

Of the 74 killed that day, six were Hispanic. Six were of Asian descent. And 27 were black. The victims ranged in age from 6 to 61. And no, this is not something I read on the internet. I found a verifiable list of the dead, broken out by age and ethnicity, and counted them.

[...]

Truth be told, Waco represented the single greatest federally orchestrated one-day slaughter of racial minorities on American soil since Wounded Knee in 1890, and there, at least, the Indians fought back, killing more than 30 American cavalry.

Cashill gives only a single, end-of-column mention of the person who led that group, David Koresh, who was a cult leader whom people who grew up in the compound said he molested them as children -- and to whom his followers, regardless of ethnicity, were so in thrall they apparently didn't have the common sense to flee a burning building.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:01 AM EDT

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The last time we checked on the Media Research Center's weird fixation on "The Bachelor," Curtis Houck was sympathizing with contestant Rachel Kirkconnell over the exposure of her racially charged past (and support for QAnon) and with host Chris Harrison for making the mistake of rushing to Kirkconnell's defense before knowing the full story.

When Chris Harrison officially left the show after the incident, Houck went on a June 11 tirade agains the "woke mob" that supposedly got him fired:

On Tuesday, ABC and Warner Brothers Television announced that it had officially cut ties with Chris Harrison, the longtime host of ABC’s The Bachelor and The Bachelorette following a truly childish and pathetic act of cancel culture.

However, Harrison may have had the last laugh thanks to numerous reports revealing that he demanded (and fetched) an eight-figure buyout or risk Harrison exhuming any and all bodies the franchise, network, and production company had buried.

To recap, Harrison found himself being burned at the stake by the woke mob in February when he insisted on there be grace for Bachelor contestant Rachael Kirkconnell when it was discovered that, among other sins, attended an antebellum-themed party in college. And because he said these things to an incensed Rachel Lindsey on Extra (who was the first Black Bachelorette), Harrison had to go.

Worse yet, he spoke out against the “woke police” that seemed hellbent on permanently ruining Kirkconnell’s life. And when the mob wants to make someone miserable, they’ll stop at nothing to do so.

[...]

Along the way, Harrison provided a textbook example of how the cancel culture mob will never be satisfied and thus anything from genuine apologies to public self-flagellation will remain a waste of time.

Note that Houck dishonestly, um, whitewashed Kirkconnell's offenses to mention only the most benign one, censoring that she also allegedly bullied girls in high school for liking black men and spread far-right QAnon memes on social media. Also it's quite rich that Houck bashed the "woke mob" for "cancel culture" and  "never be satisfied and thus anything from genuine apologies to public self-flagellation will remain a waste of time" -- because those are the exact same tactics he and his MRC co-workers use against anyone in the "liberal media" who doesn't sound or behave like they're working for Fox News or OAN. It has never treated, say, Dan Rather or Brian Williams with the same spirit of forgiveness that Houck is demandingfrom everyone regarding Harrison. In other words, they actually are the "woke mob" they pretend to warn others about.

Houck also expressed glee that Harrison got an eight-figure payout to kee quiet about "the motherload of dirt" he supposedly had on the show and was "willing to dish as a final screw-you to the mob unless they ponied up to meet his demands." So Harrison is getting well paid to go away, so he doesn't really need anyone's sympathy.

A few days later, Houck found a weird thing to be proud of in the new season of "The Bachelorette," while still not able to let go of the past:

ABC’s Bachelor and Bachelorette franchises have been in the headlines quite a bit as of late as the woke mob had decided to infiltrate one of reality TV’s earliest shows, turning what’s already a dumpster fire of drama and adding a side of wokeism. 

But on Monday’s Bachelorette, conservatives achieved a small victory when contestant Mike Planeta revealed his virginity during a group date that challenged each guy to be “sex-positive” in a skit meant to woo lead Katie Thurston and, despite Thurston’s outspokenness on sex, gave him first place for the date.

So the "woke mob" "infiltrated" the show and forced Kirkconnell to do stupidly racist stuff?That's a bizarre interpretation of what happened.

Meanwhile, the MRC's homophobic wing weighed in on another show-related issue. Take it away, Veronica Hays:

Queerness is so en vogue at the moment! So trendy and cool — now a former Bachelor is cashing in and coming out. Wednesday on ABC's Good Morning America, former Bachelor Colton Underwood did just that. Of course, the public will be dying to know every ounce of detail regarding his incredible story of self-realization. Fortunately for the culture, Netflix will be providing just what the world so desperately needs, a new reality series starring Underwood, the latest gay man. 

And predictably, GMA co-host Robin Roberts treaded lightly in all-but ignoring Underwood's creeper and stalker-like behavior toward now-ex-girlfriend Cassie Randolph.

Underwood sent shockwaves when he came out as gay to Roberts, who's a lesbian: “I’ve ran from myself for a long time. I’ve hated myself for a long time, and I’m gay. I came to terms with that earlier this year and have been processing it and the next step in all of this was sort of letting people know. Still nervous but, yeah, it's been a journey for sure.”

Stunning. Brave.

Would Hays be bringing up Underwood's alleged "creeper and stalker-like behavior" if he hadn't come out? Doubtful. And Hays is especially hateful and ignorant if she thinks people reveal who they are sexually only because of the possibility of "cashing in."

Hays completed her screed by huffing, "Unfortunately, the time when The Bachelor features an out member of the LGBTQ community may not be far off." Um, so what? It's on her that she hates LGBT people much that this possibility squicks her out so much.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:16 PM EDT

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It's summer intern time again, and CNSNews.com is doing what it usually does: sending those interns to the Capitol to pester members of Congress with gotcha questions designed to feed right-wing narratives. This year's first round of gotcha questions centered on the federal budget, with a two-part question:

• “President Biden has presented Congress with a budget that proposes running $14.5 trillion in deficits over the next decade. Will Congress ever balance the budget?”
• "What year will Congress balance the budget?"

Articles detailing the answer included this biased boilerplate:

Under Biden's budget proposal, the federal government will continue to deficit spend (accumulate debt) for at least the next 10 years, with total borrowing hitting a combined $14.5 trillion in 2031.

The New York Times has reported, "President Biden would like the federal government to spend $6 trillion in the 2022 fiscal year, and for total spending to rise to $8.2 trillion by 2031. That would take the United States to its highest sustained levels of federal spending since World War II, while running deficits above $1.3 trillion through the next decade."  (Emphasis added.)

CNS did not show this level of concern about federal budget deficits when a Republican president and Republican-controlled Senate were the ones creating them.

Here are the senators CNS interns snagged, with the article dedicated to every. single. one of them:

• Rick Scott (R)
• Ted Cruz (R)
• Patty Murray (D)
• Chuck Schumer (D)
• Roger Marshall (R)
• James Lankford (R)
• Elizabeth Warren (D)
• Dick Durbin (D)
• Patrick Leahy (D)
• Mark Kelly (D)
• Joe Manchin (D)
• Mark Warner (D)
• Ed Markey (D)
• Dianne Feinstein (D)
• Marsha Blackburn (R)
• Mike Braun (R)
• Todd Young (R)
• Tom Carper (D)
• Marie Cortez Masto (D)
• Chris Murphy (D)
• James Inhofe (R)
• Ben Cardin (D)
• Mitt Romney (R)

Of course, this is all a biased partisan exercise, designed to give Republicans a platform to virtue-signal on the evils of budget deficits and to shame Democrats for realistically noting that ending federal deficits isn't like flipping a switch and that taxes may need to be raised. Helpfully, Craig Bannister pointed this out in a June 16 summary:

Generally, Republicans said that the U.S. definitely should balance its budget, but they were less certain about when that might happen.

Democrats – such as Senators Dianne Feinstein, Elizabeth Warren and Mark Kelly – said it would take more tax revenue to balance the budget. Others tended to be more skeptical, with some saying the budget will never be balanced and others saying that, if it ever is, it won’t be balanced any time soon.

Needless to say, none of these articles mentioned the role of a Republican president and a Republican-controlled Senate in running up deficits in the previous four years.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:11 PM EDT

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The Media Research Center likes to make a big show about supporting "free speech," but it just can't handle it when Taylor Swift exercises her First Amendment rights -- particularly when she uses that right to not hate LGBT people. Abigail Streetman is the latest in a long line of MRC writers melting down over Swift saying something, in a June 2 post:

On June 1, the first day of “Pride Month,” Taylor Swift announced that the next brave step in her journey as a left-wing propagandist is to join GLAAD in it’s #summerofequality. Of course, this is just another phrase to describe the ongoing efforts of the Democrats to force the Equality Act through the Senate. How courageous of Swift to use her voice to support every other Hollywood celebrity who has been screeching about H.R. 5 for the past several months.

GLAAD is the speech police for all things gay, and it spends a lot of time demanding that gays and the rest of the alphabet be outrageously over-represented on TV and in movies. One of its recent projects includes a documentary on transgender athletes that seeks to demonize conservative politicians who don’t support males being permitted to participate in female sports.

Of course, Streetman is the one who is acting as speech police, lashing out at Swift for saying something. Or, as Streetman snidely put it: "Swift tweeted how “proud” she is to be joining GLAAD. Someone should ask her how comfortable she would be in a private restroom with a full grown male who’s pretending to be a woman." That's not how transgenderism works, but Streetmen advancing a narrative, not telling the truth.

Streetman concluded with a homophobic screed against the H.R.5:

Calling this insane piece of legislation the “Equality Act” is just the left manipulating emotions and obfuscating its true aims. How are we supposed to protect our First Amendment right to freedom of religion if citizens are forced to accept beliefs that go against their morals? Not only is it unconstitutional but it also flies in the face of the science that leftists have been telling us to trust.

There are only two genders, and biology agrees with that.

And we can all agree that Streetman is pushing an agenda rather than engaging in any sort of reasoned discussion.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:53 AM EDT

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You might remember Theodore Roosevelt Malloch as a supposed descendant of Theodore Roosevelt who wrote a lot of Donald Trump fanfiction for WorldNetDaily before the 2016 election with enough chutzpah to beg Trump to name him vice president ... and then kinda disappeared after it was revealed that he had exaggerated his life in his WND-published autobiography, which may have extended to his claiming he was Trump's preferred pick for ambassador to the European Union (he wasn't). He has also been accused of falsely overstating his assets to obtain millions of dollars in bank loans (which he later filed for bankruptcy in an attempt to get out of paying back.He did pop up once more in 2018, when he was detained and questioned by the FBI and subpoenaed by Robert Mueller for his investigation.

Well, Malloch has popped up again at WND, in a June 8 article by Bob Unruh that rehashes a column Malloch wrote for another right-wing website:

Accusations of racism are thrown about these days like confetti at a Super Bowl parade. Math is racist, religion is racist, elections are racist, kids are racist and more.

But Theodore Roosevelt Malloch, a scholar and diplomat who now heads the The Roosevelt Group, has explained in a column at American Greatness the force in the country that has done more to prosper racism than any other:

The Democrat Party.

Actually, Malloch used "Democratic Party"; Unruh is injecting bias by using a derogatory, intentionally false right-wing term instead of accurately reporting what Malloch wrote.

The rest of Unruh's article is transcribing what Malloch said about the history of the Democratic Party, as if the party of the 1830s, 1860s or even the 1950s is exactly the same as the Democratic Party of today. He also wrote:

"The Democratic Party was founded in 1828 by the backers of General Andrew Jackson, a Southerner and ardent racist who owned slaves and thought nothing wrong with the practice. Jackson, who became the 8th president, earned his fortune in a cotton industry based entirely on slaveholding," he explained. "'Old Hickory' as his troops called him, was one tough son of a b----. Compromise was not in his lexicon. Aside from his attitudinal superiority over blacks, Jackson is also famous for the 'Trail of Tears' which forced Native Americans off their ancestral lands. These are the seminal beginning roots of the Democratic Party tradition in America."

Malloch didn't mention that Trump is such an admirer of Jackson he had Jackson's portrait installed in the Oval Office.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:07 AM EDT

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At the Media Reserarch Center it's not just Whtie House press sedretary Jen Psaki who musdt be abused and denigrated on a daily basis -- anyone who doesn't treat her with that same off-the-charts level of contempt must be targeted as well. In that vein, we have a June 6 item by ragebot Nichoals Fondacaro that is one giant screed against CNN's Brian Stelter for refusing to hate Psaki as much as he does:

As a feature during Sunday’s so-called “Reliable Sources,” CNN host Brian Stelter flaunted a pre-taped interview with White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki where he came off as a bootlicker for the Biden administrations. Stelter ultimately embarrassed himself with softball question after softball question that added up into a huff piece for the Press Secretary. He even invited her to lash the media for getting stuff wrong with their reporting on the administration.

Stelter’s first question out of the gate was him asking Psaki to rip the press of inaccuracies in their reporting about Biden. “Busy summer ahead, infrastructure, election reform, what does the press get wrong when covering Biden's agenda, when you watch the news, when you read the news what, do you think we get wrong,” he begged her.

It was just last year that Stelter and the rest of the liberal media would treat Trump Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s criticisms of the press as a threat to the First Amendment.

Either way, Psaki suggested that the media’s journalistic “muscles have atrophied a little bit over the last few years” because of former President Trump. She even quipped that the media had a bad long-term memory for how legislation got passed. Of course, Stelter just sat there and laughed.

[...]

But Stelter was now proud CNN had an insider as part of the Biden press office. And Psaki credited “sitting on set” with partially helping her to prepare for the role. “So, I tap into a lot of things. I had the honor and pleasure of doing in the past, including being a CNN commentator, including serving at the State Department and I know that helps me in the briefing every day,” she said.

The most critical Stelter got was when he was groveling for Biden to do more press conferences and asked if the lack of them was a strategy to project normalcy.

This is CNN.

Of course, McEnany's  criticisms of the press" were actually abject hatred for any non-right-wing media outlet who tried to hold the Trump administration accountabe -- and the MRC got off on it every simgle time she ranted about the scrutiny. This is the MRC, and Fondacaro won't admit it.

For the June 7 NewsBusters podcast, Fondacaro and Curtis Houck -- who had a major crush on McEnany -- continued to spew hate against McEnany and Stelter. Houck ranted that the interview was "cockamamie BS" and "bat guano nonsense," adding,

I don't think it's a stretch to say these people don't care about you. this is what they do with their free time instead of asking substantive questions here. ...  I think this rhetoric is really dangerous -- and I want to talk about this -- because I think it could really get someone hurt. Because these people go on and on and on bellyaching about the need for conservatives to watch our tone and our words matter. Fine. But we at NewsBusters condemned what happened at CNN when they had bombs sent to them by a Trump supporter. And I don't even want to see people like Jim Acosta threatened. We're gonna make fun of them, but we don't want anything bad to happen to them. And I said this at the time, and it's still true: These goobers deserve to live in peace. Their politics are messed up as it is, they should just be allowed to live their lives. But we're not Maxine Waters here, people. That's thte kind of thing we call out here at the MRC and NewsBusters. That's who they are; again, that's not who we are.

The problem is these people assume the worst and assume the worst motives of people they disagree with. You know, they seem to really enjoy this notion that families are tearing themselves apart, people cutting themselves off from family members and co-workers and what have you because they disagree with them.

Well, let's look at the record: The MRC was much more interested in shielding President Trump from responsibiility for inspiring the attempted bombing than denouncing the bombs themselves. Houck himself ranted at CNN for having "lashed out at Trump, insinuating his guilt and deeming his remarks insufficient" (though he did concede that "it’s inexcusable and unacceptable for that to happen to anyone in this country"). He also whined that CNN commentators "smeared conservative media for overwhelmingly being responsible for our country’s worsening discourse," insisting that right-wingers like himself merely "bring you the latest liberal media bias," not their actual job of trashing and denigrating them day in and day out.

Nevertheless, Houck continued: "Do they even see their political opponents as human beings? Do they believe in and relish the free exchange of ideas that Chris Matthews believed in?" Well, we know Houck and his MRC co-workers don't see non-right-wing reporters as human; their response to reporters being concerned about their safety after years of Trump (and, yes, MRV) demonization was to mock them as self-centered. Yes, thinking someone might murder you for doing your job does tend to make one "self-centered." Houck concluded by suggesting that any TV host who doesn't sound like Fox News doesn't love America -- so much for relishing the free exchange of ideas.

Houck even more laughably defended the MRC's attacks on CNN because "it's important to lower the temperature by identifying what's wrong." But accusing your ideological opposites of hating America is a temperature-lowering claim?

Speaking of lowering the temperature, Houck's buddy Fondacaro amply demonstrated in a June 17 post that the MRC isn't actually interested in doing that by absolutely loving a profane tirade by podcaster Joe  Rogan:

During a very fiery segment on Thursday’s edition of The Joe Rogan Experience, the prolific eponymous podcaster and progressive YouTuber Kyle Kulinski tore into CNN media journalist and Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter for his bootlicking interview with White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki a couple of weeks ago. The two also teed off on CNN in general for not acting like “real people” and also calling for the “censorship” of their opponents.

Speaking about Stelter’s interview, Rogan was flabbergasted by what he saw. “Brian Stelter talking to the press secretary saying ‘what are we doing wrong?’ What are we doing wrong,” he exclaimed to Kulinski. “Like, hey motherfucker, you’re supposed to be a journalist!”

[...]

Rogan went further and thrashed CNN for thinking “they’re entitled to viewers” and failing to get them. “This is because the market has spoken and your show’s fucking terrible,” he chided. “That’s right. They suck. They’re terrible at it,” Kulinski agreed.

And despite Rogan comments going viral online, by the publication of the piece, Stelter had not publicly responded.

Why would Stelter respond to such a vile, obscene, vicious tirade? And why does Fondacaro think he's turning down the temperature by hyping Rogan calling Stelter a "motherfucker"?

Then, the next day on the podcast,  Fondacaro gushed that Rogan "made a fool of Brian Stelter," while Houck added, "that was something else." No mention of any of that temperature-lowering he was lecturing about a week or so earlier. Apparently conservatives never raise the temperature with anything they say, no matter how vile. Perhaps Houck can explain some time how that works.

Houck and Fondacaro inadvertantly demonstrated why nobody should ever take the MRC's bad-faith "media criticism" seriously.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:43 PM EDT

Updated: Friday, July 9, 2021 10:30 PM EDT

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Art Moore wrote in a May 19 WorldNetDaily article, under the headilne "Black Lives Matter sides with Hamas terrorists":

Expressing "solidarity" with "Palestinian liberation," the Black Lives Matter movement declared support for Hamas as the Iran-backed terrorist organization ruling Gaza continued firing rockets at Israel citizens.

"Black Lives Matter stands in solidarity with Palestinians," BLM said in a tweet Monday. "We are a movement committed to ending settler colonialism in all forms and will continue to advocate for Palestinian liberation. (always have. And always will be). #freepalestine"

[...]

Human rights lawyer Brooke Goldstein pointed out Hamas' values.

"I hope you mean #FreePalestine from Hamas that executed gays, throw political opponents off the roof and uses children as shields."

[...]

Hamas counts 215 Palestinian deaths from the Israeli airstrikes responding to the more than 3,000 Iranian-financed rockets aimed at Israeli citizens.

However, the Israel Defense Forces say that figure includes 120 members of Hamas and 25 members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Also, some 20% of the Hamas rockets have failed, landing inside Gaza.

The Biden administrations is urging Israel to wind down its defensive operations after nine days of Hamas attacks. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to "continue striking the terrorists ... for as long as it takes to restore calm" in Israel.

Just one problem: BLM said nothing about Hamas, and one can support "Palestinian liberation" without supporting Hamas.So Moore was forced to ever-so-quietly walk it back and stick a correction at the top of his article:

CORRECTION May 23, 2021 at 10:26 a.m. ET: An AFP fact-check noted that Black Lives Matter expressed solidarity with Palestinians but made no mention of supporting the terrorist group Hamas, as was stated in WND's original story. The original headline has been amended from "Black Lives Matter sides with Hamas terrorists" to "Black Lives Matter sides with Palestinians." The lead sentence of the story has also been amended to make it clear BLM is endorsing "Palestinian liberation" and not Hamas.

but Moore still tried to rather lamely link Hamas to Palestine in his rewritten lead paragraph: "As Hamas, the Iran-backed terrorist organization ruling Gaza continued firing rockets at Israel citizens, the Black Lives Matter movement has declared its support for 'Palestinian liberation.'"He also left the other references to Hamas in his article despite their irrelevance to the facts.

This is the kind of lazy, shoddy reporting -- which Moore in particular does a lot of -- that Joseph Farah wants you to give him money to fund.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:22 PM EDT

Updated: Friday, July 9, 2021 1:28 PM EDT

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An anonymous CNSNews.com reporter wrote in a May 30 article:

Record low temperatures are hitting the Washington, D.C. area this Memorial Day weekend, according to the National Weather Service.

On Saturday, according to NWS, the Baltimore Washington International Airport recorded a record-low daily “high” temperature of 56 degrees. The previous record had been 57 degrees. BWI is located south of Baltimore, Md., and about 32 miles north of the U.S. Capitol building.

“The new record low high of 56 degrees broke the old record of 57 degrees set in 2014,” said the NWS report.

The article carried the headline "Global Warming?" -- as if a two-day blip in a single city disproved decades of research proving that the entire planet is indeed warming.

By contrast, when a heat dome appeared over the Pacific Northwest, resulting in all-time record high temperatures, CNS reported absolutely nothing about it, completely censoring that news from its readers.

Why? Because CNS is beholden to right-wing interests and oil and gas companies who deny that global warming exists. Not only has its parent, the Media Research Center, received donations from oil companies (not to mention oil and gas financier T. Boone Pickens), it has published numerous articles that advance the agenda of the oil and gas industry.

So CNS' bias once again favors those who give it money. Is anyone surprised?

Posted by Terry K. at 1:11 AM EDT

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We noted how the Media Research Center's Curtis Houck did his best to flog the supposed scandal in the release of Anthony Fauci's emails in his White House press briefing reviews. But he wasn't the only one desperate to push this non-story. Nicholas Fondacaro wrote in a June 2 post under the desperate headline "Nets CENSOR Scandalous Fauci E-Mails Showing What He Really Knew":

Thanks to the use of the Freedom of Information Act, the American people gained access this week to thousands of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s e-mails and revelations that he knew the National Institutes of Health may have funded gain-of-function research for coronaviruses, that COVID-19 may have come from a lab, and that masks didn’t work. And in an attempt to cover up the truth, ABC’s World News Tonight and the CBS Evening News ignored the scandal completely.

But for NBC’s part, Nightly News featured fill-in anchor Kate Snow picking the more benign topic of probing the origin of the virus and weakly asking Fauci to defend the government.

Fondacaro cited "the reporting of Jerry Dunleavy at the Washington Examiner" -- a biased right-wing reporter for a biased right-wing outlet. By the MRC's own theory of biased reporting, he shouldn't be trusted. A more objective source found nothing too earth-shattering in Fauci's emails.

Houck tried to pile on in a non-Jen Psaki-releated post the next day:

On Wednesday night, NewsNation fill-in host and former Fox News correspondent Leland Vittert did what few national news outlets have done in subjecting the NIH’s Dr. Tony Fauci to a challenging interview. In this case, he focused on this week’s dump of thousands of Fauci e-mails from the early days of the coronavirus pandemic that showed a woeful lack of judgement, distrust of masks, and an almost blind trust in communist China.

As has been the case whenever he’s been challenged, Fauci reacted with a combination of anger, annoyance, dismissal, and disgust. Unfortunately for him, it stood in stark contrast to softball interviews hours earlier with MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace and NBC’s Kate Snow.

Of course, the MRC has designated Fauci to be an enemy of the people because he refused to be a Trump sycophant, so it's Houck's job to portray him as filled with "anger, annoyance, dismissal, and disgust." While Houck did acknolwedge that Vittert used to work for Fox News -- a red flag for bias -- he also refused to acknowledge the right-leaning bias of NewsNation, which is being run by former Fox News executive(and short-lived Trump White House communications director) Bill Shine.

Kristine Marsh got mad on June 4 when "The View" accurately pointed out what the right is trying to do to Fauci:

Dr. Anthony Fauci is under renewed scrutiny after a Freedom of Information Act released thousands of his emails from the early days of the pandemic, raising questions about Fauci’s cozy relationship with China and conflicting messaging on masks, among other controversies. But Fauci’s friends at The View refused to criticize the public figure, and attacked Republicans, instead.

[...]

Friday co-host Ana Navarro also dismissed any criticism as a “distraction.”

“I think Republicans have chosen Fauci to be the target of their ire and to be a distraction,” she sneered before defending the doctor as being under a lot of stress: “Some of these emails are from last year when Fauci was drinking out of a water hose. He was drinking out of a fire hydrant. Understand, He was in the midst of dealing with the virus.”

Marsh did not dispute that Republicans were targeting Fauci for political reasons.

Kyle Drennen got even more perturbed when it was accurately pointed out that right-wing media were taking Fauci's emails out of context:

While NBC’s Today show on Friday finally discovered the controversy swirling around Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails from the early days of the pandemic in which he and his colleagues dismissed the possibility of COVID-19 leaking from a Wuhan lab in China, the broadcast touted his defense that the exchanges were “ripe for being taken out of context.” The network worried that Fauci was “under fire from conservatives” as a result.

Watching the tease at the top of the show, viewers might have expected a report hammering Fauci, as co-host Savannah Guthrie proclaimed: “Under Fire. Dr. Anthony Fauci facing new scrutiny as his e-mails from the early days of the pandemic go public. What they reveal about his handling of the investigation into the origins of the virus, and how he and the White House are responding.”

However, minutes later, senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson made it clear the network coverage would run defense for the doctor: “The nation’s top infectious diseases doctor now facing fire from some Republicans and defending the broader context of those e-mails, newly released, from more than a year ago. Fauci says these messages are ripe for being taken out of context...” Notice that he was exclusively “facing fire from some Republicans,” suggesting the criticism was just politically motivated.

Drennen did not provide any evidence that criticism of Fauci's emails was not politically motivated.

On the June 4 NewsBusters podcast, guest co-host Fondacaro rehashed the MRC posts and insisted that the emails are "completely in context."

And .. then not much afterward. The MRC pretty much dropped the story, perhaps finally realizing there was not there there, save for a June 9 post by Alexander Hall attacking his emails to "disgraced medical official Dr. Anthony Fauci." But even that ludicrous description of Fauci couldn't reignite the story. Another post by Hall that same day whining that "Instagram reportedly censored a comical satire article claiming Dr. Anthony Fauci wants Americans to cover their eyes with masks, so they can't read his exposed emails" didn't help either.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:44 PM EDT

Updated: Saturday, September 25, 2021 1:27 PM EDT

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Like fellow Newsmax columnist Conrad Black, Bernard Kerik was graced with a pardon from President Trump for the felonies that sent him to prison for years. And like Black, Kerik is sucking up to Trump in an apparent effort to continue to justify that pardon.

In a June 7 appearance on Newsmax TV, Kerik defended the highly partisan "audits" of election ballots in Arizona and attempts to do them in other states:

"I'm telling you: The president is right," Kerik told Monday's "John Bachman Now" about former President Donald Trump's speech Saturday which levied claims of criminal voter fraud to be revealed in the coming months.

"Those investigations that are continuing to go on today are going to reveal overwhelming evidence of fraud, criminality, and other things that resulted in Joe Biden being put in the White House.

"It just takes time. This stuff doesn't happen overnight.

The media and Democrat narrative that those seeking to investigate fraud and audit elections are merely doing so to "overthrow" or "overturn" Biden's election is a smokescreen for the important work of protecting the integrity of honest elections, Kerik added to host John Bachman.

"Anybody that pushes against the president or pushes back against the president, or me, or [Rudy] Giuliani, or anybody else who was there, they basically say, 'you're trying to overthrow the election, overturn the election,'" Kerik said. "No, no, that's not what we're trying to do. What we're trying to do is get to the bottom of the election. We're trying to identify what really happened.

"And what really happened is not what was suppose to happen, and I have probably 2,000 or 3,000 sworn affidavits, sworn under the penalty of perjury – no different than walking into a federal grand jury – there's 2,000 to 3,000 sworn affidavits of people that witnessed criminal conduct in these voting polls in different states: Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and elsewhere."

Kerik then devoted his June 15 column to defending the Arizona audit by claiming how good its security supposedly is:

Democrats and the mainstream media have been aggressively denouncing the Maricopa County, Arizona election audit from the beginning.

At, first I didn’t understand why.

I thought that it was because they were afraid of what the results would be, but I now believe it’s something far worse.

The Democrats aren’t “just” afraid of the outcome – but they’re afraid that the audit results will be irrefutable and unimpeachable. They know that their efforts to discredit the audit process in Arizona will not stand up to scrutiny and here’s why.

The Arizona audit is being run impeccably, utilizing security and surveillance procedures with a longstanding track record of effectiveness.

To say that I was impressed after viewing the audit process for myself would be a massive understatement. I’ve spent decades working in security and law enforcement at the highest levels, and this is exactly the level of conscientiousness and attention to detail that I would demand for a sensitive or high-profile investigation.

They’re not trying to reinvent the wheel; they’re using the same methods casinos have used for decades to catch cheaters.

Kerik is actually lying to you. Therehave been many security issues with the audit -- to the point that Maricopa County will replace all the county's voting machines at a cost of millions of dollars because the machines' chain of custody has been violated by the folks conducting the audit. The head of the company conducting the audit, Cyber Ninjas -- which has no experience working in the elections space -- has promoted pro-Trump conspiracy theories about the eleciton, and there's every reason to believe the audit is being conducted in a similarly biased manner.

Kerik also tried to discredit anyone who pointed out those security lapses:

After being briefed, visitors must forfeit cell phones, cameras, and any writing implements they might be carrying before they can be escorted to the audit floor. That’s why the Democrats’ claims of seeing auditors wielding blue and black pens are so implausible.

Actually, they're completely plausible. Observers found at least two instances of black pens on the conuting floor -- an issue because black or blue pens can be used to alter ballots. If Cyber Ninjas had experience working with elections, it would have known that.

Kerik continued his denial or reality:

If every state performed an audit like this one after every election, public faith in our democracy would be absolute and unshakable.

The audit process being used in Arizona has accuracy, integrity, and accountability, and there’s no way to cheat because everything is captured on film.

What Kerik didn't tell you: The livestream video of the audit is controlled by right-wing outlet One America News -- where reporters are fund-raising for the audit, a clear conflict of interest. That's yet another reason not to trust the audit.

But Kerik continues to support the audit becuase he thinks it will generate the biased result he wants -- which, of course, is yet another reason not to trust it.

Posted by Terry K. at 6:40 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, July 8, 2021 7:18 PM EDT

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Marilyn Singleton is a prominent member of the fringe-right Association of American Physicians and Surgeons' misinformation crew about coronavirus and other subjects to whom WorldNetDaily has given a free rein without fear of fact-checking or balance. She hasn't stopped.

Singleton started her May 21 column by stating, "One of Albert Einstein's many aphorisms, 'three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed,' is particularly apt in the COVID-19 era." Needless to say, she didn't consider the misinformation peddled by herself and her AAPS cronies to be part of that; instead, she predictably lashed out at Anthony Fauci, the government and vaccine makers:

Patients and physicians have a choice. Despite the vaccine über alles narrative, only 60% of Dr. Fauci's staff have taken "the shot." The NIH's COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines are not mandates. Patients can opt for early treatment at a cost of $10 to $125 per entire course with effective repurposed generic drugs supported by real-time worldwide evidence. Sadly, as Kaiser Health News noted, despite being a "godsend" to reduce death and hospitalizations, "drug companies have no incentive to spend millions to test new uses for cheap, off-patent drugs."

The people are not stupid, merely ill-informed. Media outlets were increasing ratings at the expense of the truth; the drug companies were rolling in dough; researchers were letting politics guide their outcomes; and social media were censoring experts who disagreed with the wizards at WHO, NIH and CDC, and medical journals funded by Big Pharma.

Of course, Singleton is letting her right-wing political views guide the outcomes she wants -- not that she'll admit it.

In her June 3 column, Singleton led with an irrelevant right-wing rant against the critical race theory and gender identity, then tried to justify Black Americans' fear of the coronavirus by dredging up the infamous Tuskegee experiment -- bizarrely and maliciously suggesting that's what the coronavirus vaccines are -- while pushing her old (and dubious) favorites:

Black American slaves used to have some version of Simon Legree as their master. Now the woke white liberals have assumed that role. Even President Biden views BIPOCs as helpless morons whom only the government can rescue.

Of course, little BIPOCs are the perfect unsuspecting targets. Despite parental objections, new school curricula include Marxist inspired Critical Race Theory that teaches children to hate others based on skin color. Instead of learning the 3 R's, kindergarteners are encouraged to explore their gender identity and question the family structure. The latest data show that only 35% of fourth graders are proficient in reading and 41% are proficient in math. Instead of learning the necessary skills to race to the top of the ladder of success, they have the tools to win the victim triathlon. The prize: dependency on government resources.

COVID-19 added a new ingredient to the melting pot. Brown-skinned Americans fare more poorly with COVID than whites. Some reasons are sociological, such as crowded living conditions, working in service jobs that cannot be done from home and inconsistent access to health care. Some reasons may be physiological. Studies have shown racial differences in the body's ACE-2 receptors. These receptors help control inflammation, especially in cells lining the blood vessels. These are the sites where the "spike" protein of the SARS-Co-V-2 virus (that causes COVID-19) enter and infect healthy cells throughout the body. Notably, there may be more ACE-2 receptors in patients with hypertension, diabetes and coronary artery disease – conditions plaguing black Americans. Moreover, people with brown skin have lower levels of Vitamin D, a factor in the risk of contracting a SARS-Co-V-2 infection and the severity of COVID-19.

Knowing the higher risk, the DEI folks should have launched an education campaign informing BIPOCs about non-prescription supplements like quercetin, zinc and vitamin D, as well as prophylaxis or early treatment with inexpensive medications (hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin and fluvoxamine, among others) that can significantly reduce symptoms and prevent hospitalizations and deaths.

Instead, the public-health gurus waited for vaccines. The guise of "vaccine equity" drew attention away from legitimate concerns about the shots. Despite the increased susceptibility to COVID-19, black Americans remain skeptical of the shot. Folks still remembered the instances where the underserved were "helped" by the government. The 1932 Tuskegee syphilis study denied a group of black men treatment for 40 years. Without informed consent, an experimental measles vaccine was administered to babies starting in 1987. After too many African and Haitian children deaths to ignore, the program was halted.

Able to read, BIPOCs learned about the serious side effects that include sometimes fatal blood clots, facial paralysis, possible menstrual problems, heart inflammation, among others. They wondered why the less effective Johnson & Johnson vaccine was sent to underserved neighborhoods. They wondered why the government had to offer $116 million in prizes, trucks and customized firearms to encourage people to get the shot. They wondered why the government was going door to door to find BIPOCs to whom to give shots.

Singleton seems much more interested in spreading fear and mistrust than helping patients. That makes her a bad doctor -- albeit a member in good standing of AAPS.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:41 PM EDT

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When President Biden went to Tulsa, Okla., to speak on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, CNSNews.com did what it usually does when coverng a Biden speech: cherry-picking his words in an effort to distort them and/or make him look like a doddering idiot.

Susan Jones complained under the headline "'Guys Like Me': Biden Finds Common Ground With Black Victims of White Supremacists":

President Joe Biden said he went to Tulsa on Tuesday "to shine a light, to make sure America knows the story" of a white mob viciously attacking a successful black community one hundred years ago.

Biden told the story in great, gory detail -- how "one night changed everything -- everything changed."

The "guys like me" remark that so offended Jonesgot relegated to a speech transcript in which BIden (accurately) noted that the Ku Klux Klan was anti-Catholic as well as racist.

Jones then groused that "Biden talked a lot about 'hate,' using the word at least ten times in his speech, as he reopened very old wounds" -- falsely suggesting that Biden was actually endorsing the massacre, which he most defintely was not, as the transcript Jones attached to her article demonstrated.

In another article, Jones seemed annoyed that Biden tried to relate the Tulsa massacre to modern events:

President Joe Biden spent much of Tuesday urging the nation to focus on hatred, especially white-on-black hatred, or what he called "the stain on the soul of America."

Biden was speaking in Tulsa, Oklahoma, commemorating a violent attack by a white mob on the black community of Greenwood 100 years ago.

He drew a "line" from what happened in Tulsa way back then to hatred that "exists today still."

He also asserted that "terrorism from white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today -- not ISIS, not al Qaeda -- white supremacists."

In her third article on the speech, Jones huffed that Biden brought up voting rights with a biased view of Democrat-promoted election reform bills:

On a trip to Tulsa where he focused on racial hatred and division, President Joe Biden brought up voting rights and the Democrats' push to pass H.R. 1, a bill that would relax voting rules and give the federal government more control over how states and localities run their elections.

Democrats continue to make the case that Republican state legislatures are specifically trying to suppress the black vote by requiring voter identification, for example, or by eliminating the unsolicited mailing of ballots to everyone on the voter registration rolls, which often are outdated.

Jones then went into right-wing-activist mode by defending Repubican-promoted election changes:

Texas is among the Republican-led states that has come under leftists' fire for election reforms it has so far been unable to pass.

As Gov. Greg Abbott described it, the bill, which he declared to be an emergency measure, would "prevent election officials from jeopardizing the election process and encouraging voter fraud through the abuse of mail ballots and drive-thru voting.” The bill also would promote transparency at the polls by ensuring that poll watchers in Texas are not obstructed from observing the counting of ballots.

"Our objective in Texas is to ensure that every eligible voter gets to vote and that only eligible ballots are counted," said Governor Abbott in a March news release. "In the 2020 election, we witnessed actions throughout our state that could risk the integrity of our elections and enable voter fraud, which is why I made election integrity an emergency item this session."

(Biden in a news release called the Texas bill an attack on "the sacred right to vote" and an "assault on democracy.")

[...]

But to Biden and his fellow Democrats, rules like the ones mentioned above will suppress the vote, even though American voters have never had so many options for early voting, absentee voting, and in-person voting.

These articles were followed by one from Melanie Arter pushing CNS' "cognitive decline" narrative by noting that Biden talked to a couple of young girls about ice cream before the speech:

Before giving his speech in remembrance of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre - considered to be one of the worst incidents of racial violence in U.S. history - President Joe Biden wandered off stage to see if two white girls want ice cream.

As soon as the president was introduced, he stepped up to the podium, asked the predominantly African-American crowd to have a seat.

“Please if you have a seat, sit down, and I gotta make one check,” he said.

The president walked over to the two little girls who were seated in the front row off to the side of the stage and talked to them and their mother.

He walked back on stage, and announced, “I just had to make sure that two girls got ice cream when this is over.”

“Imagine how excited you’d be when you’re 4? 5?” he asked their mother. “Almost 5 years old coming to hear a president speak. My Lord, in my faith we call that purgatory.”

That's not news -- that's a political attack done to push a malicious partisan point.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:19 AM EDT

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In a June 4 Media Research Center post, Kristine Marsh complained that an ABC reporter "almost seemed disappointed to hear pro-life conservatives weren’t the hateful bigots the media portrays them to be" in responding to a Texas student's "pro-abortion valedictorian speech attacking a Texas abortion law" that "is getting major praise from the liberal media." That reporter -- and Marsh -- needn't have worried; she and her MRC co-workers more than made up for any perceived deficit of hate, devoting a whopping seven posts in three days to the subject.

Abigail Streeman kicked off the hate parade on June 3 by maliciously branding the teen as "pro-baby killing":

Celebrities and journalists are rallying around Texas teen Paxton Smith for giving an unapproved pro-abortion commencement speech during Lake Highlands High School’s graduation ceremony. Among those who are showing their overwhelming support for the young teen are Olivia Wilde, Adam Scott, Molly Jong-Fast, and many, many more. It truly is hard being pro-baby killing isn’t it?

[...]

Smith ended her rant by emphasizing that she “cannot give up this platform to promote complacency and peace when there is a war on my body and a war on my right. A war on the rights of your mothers, a war on the rights of your sisters, a war on the rights of your daughters. We cannot stay silent.” Really??

Marsh whined in a separate post:

The liberal media is in love with a Dallas high school student who used her valedictorian speech to wail about a Texas law restricting abortions. Of course, the hosts of The View were enamored as well with the “brave” teen “making a stand” holding up "democracy" and “speaking truth to power” ie: the Republican party.

[...]

It shows what the media’s priorities are, when every year they largely ignore the massive gathering of pro-life young people at the March for Life in Washington, D.C. Yet at the same time, they’ll give all kinds of attention and praise to one young woman abusing her school’s platform to give a political message fear mongering about women’s rights under attack by the GOP. 

In her post on the ABC reporter, Marsh also denigrated Smith's speech as a "tirade" and complained she was "getting no punishment from her school for giving a highly political, unapproved graduation speech."

Kyle Drennen joined the hate parade as well:

After arguing weeks earlier that a new pro-life measure in Texas was a “public health threat,” on Thursday, NBC’s Today show hailed a high school valedictorian in the state for using her graduation speech to launch into a pro-abortion tirade trashing the law. While the policy protecting unborn children was labeled “controversial” in the report, the student’s nasty political screed was touted as a “powerful” address greeted with “positive reaction.”

[...]

If you’re a radical leftist, you get instant adulation from the media and tweets of encouragement from Hillary Clinton. If a conservative student stood up to support the law, they would likely be ignored or attacked.

Scott Whitlock contributed his own meltdown, grumbling that the CBS morning show "began by hailing a Texas teen who hijacked her graduation speech to complain about the law. Gayle King marveled, 'wow.'"

Alex Christy ranted about the teen making a TV appearance, where he claimed she sounded "more like a partisan than a non-political, controversy-avoiding high schooler":

On Thursday afternoon's CNN Newsroom, co-host Victor Blackwell welcomed on newfound liberal darling Paxton Smith, the Texas high schooler who, according to CNN's chyron, went "off script, on a mission" during her valedictorian address to blast Texas' heartbeat bill. Predictably, Blackwell had nothing but praise for the allegedly non-political Smith and tried to turn her into a celebrity with a political career ahead of her.

[...]

Unfortunately, viewers wanting to see CNN interview and sing the praises of a valedictorian who goes viral using their speech to condemn abortion should not hold their breath.

Brad Wilmouth further complained:

Hosting his late night MSNBC show, disgraced former NBC News anchor Brian Williams made obvious his pro-abortion bias by taking the time to cheer on a high school valedictorian in Texas who lied about what her speech would be about so she could speak out against her state's new law against abortion.

In the last few minutes of The 11th Hour show on Wednesday, Williams played almost two minutes of a speech given by a Texas high school senior, Paxton Smith, who used her valedictory speech to attack the state's new heartbeat law that protects unborn babies after a heartbeat can be detected.

Lauding Smith as having more "bravery" than most politicians, Williams also admired her dishonesty in slipping her speech into her speaking slot by lying about its content as the MSNBC host oozed:

[...]

Then, almost two minutes of Smith's speech aired in which she complained about the possibility of not being able to get an abortion if she became pregnant by accident, and suggested that giving birth might ruin her life. She wrapped up by claiming that there was a "war" on her body by pro-life supporters.

Smith even got trashed in audio form on the June 4 NewsBusters podcast. Guest co-host Curtis Houck declared that Smith "ma[d]e it all about herself by going on a sort of abortion rant," then pretended the MRC doesn't hate her for not acquiescing to its right-wing agenda: "The problem isn't that she was pro-abortion -- no, we would wish her views were different, but this is America. The issue is she took over a day wait for and work their whole lives for, where families are there to celebrate their family members and loves ones' achievement of graduating college -- or graduating high school, excuse me. Graduating high school isn't quite what it used to be in terms of the pinnacle of one's education, but it's still important. So the idea that this girl hijacked it here is pretty narcissistic, to borrow a term here."

But if a high school student used her graduation speech to make an anti-abortion statement, Houck and his MRC buddies would never denigrate her as a narcissist who hijacked the ceremony.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:39 PM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, July 7, 2021 9:51 PM EDT

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