MRC Still Inexplicably Defending Crowder's Hate Amid Removal From TikTok Topic: Media Research Center
There's a boatload of misinformation in a June 28 Media Research Center post, in which Alexander Hall inexplicably continuestodefend hateful right-wing ranter Steven Crowder, under the headline "China Strikes":
TikTok can be subservient to the genocidal Chinese government, but the platform’s real offense was allowing conservative commentators, a leftist organization said.
“Comedian and conservative commentator Steven Crowder has been banned from China’s TikTok viral video platform,” Reclaim The Net reported June 26. Leftist organization Media Matters proclaimed it was behind the purge: “Far-right internet personality Steven Crowder has been banned from TikTok following a June 8 Media Matters report highlighting his bigotry on the platform,” the organization wrote in a June 24 update. “A TikTok spokesperson confirmed to Media Matters that Crowder’s account had been removed for violating its community guidelines.”
Media Matters leadership has received extensive funding from leftist megadonor George Soros, the record shows. Soros’ Foundation to Promote Open Society (OSF) tax forms has shown five separate donations between 2010 and 2014 totalling $1,575,000. Soros gave the organization money every other year during that time. The leftist group released a report earlier in June sliming Crowder for “using TikTok to spread hate to a younger audience.”
First: Hall offers no evidence that the Chinese government even knows Crowder exists, let alone that it ordered TikTok to remove him from the platform, as he suggests -- or, for that matter, that the Chinese government is so involved in TikTok that it polices all users or eve the those in America.
Second: Hall's complaint about Media Matters receiving funding from Soros interests is a red herring. He offers no evidence that any of it was used to target Crowder -- highly unlikely, since even its own documents notes that the last bit of Soros funding came in 2014. It's also a pittance compared to the money the MRC receives from rich conservatives like the Mercers.
In addition to claiming that Media Matters "slim[ed]" Crowder, Hall also asserted that it "spread fearmongering rhetoric about Crowder’s popularity" ... by pointing out his record of hateful rhetoric. Hall did not prove anything Media Matters said about Crowder to be false or misleading. Hall also laughably claimed that noting TikTok's "young user base" meant that "Media Matters may have also revealed the main reason why liberals are terrified of conservative commentators accessing platforms like TikTok to spread right-wing humor." The MRC likes to portray what Crowder does as "humor" -- giving him the comedian defense it won't offer to those whose sense of humor is farther to the left -- but offers no evidence that any of it is funny.
Indeed, Hall didn't quote anything from Crowder Media Matters found offensive -- just like it didn't directly quote the nastiness that got Crowder suspended from YouTube in May.
Crowder's TikTok suspension also made the June roundup of what the MRC claims is the "WORST censorship"; Casey Ryan laughably called Media Matters an "extreme far-left organization" and repeated Hall's complaint that it "spread fearmongering rhetoric about Crowder’s popularity."
It's just another reminder that Media Matters lives rent-free inside the collective heads of the MRC -- perhaps because it does its job more effectively than the MRC does.
WND Columnist Mad That Victoria's Secret, NFL Will Seek Customers Beyond Heterosexual Men Topic: WorldNetDaily
Wayne Allyn Root spent part of his July 5 WorldNetDaily column melting down over Victoria's Secret ratcheting back on catering to lustful men (like himself?)
This is stupidity. This is insanity. This is suicide. American companies and institutions are purposely destroying themselves. They're ripping apart billion-dollar brands that have taken decades of hard work to build. And they're doing it in a matter of days.
They're marching off cliffs like sheep.
Keep in mind sheep are idiots. They have no brainpower. They can't think for themselves. If one sheep walks off a cliff, they'll all happily follow. Did you ever imagine CEOs of billion-dollar companies could be as dumb as sheep?
Who committed suicide this week? Some of the biggest brand names in America.
Let's start with Victoria's Secret. I have a secret for them. You just killed your business. How clueless can you get? Victoria's Secret sells lingerie, bras, bathing suits. This isn't brain surgery. Those products are sold by beautiful female models. Always have been, always will be. They're so beautiful they're called "angels." And here's another secret for clueless Victoria's Secret: Men open up their wallets for beautiful women.
Most women want to look like angels, too. Even if only for one night with dim lights on. Even if only while wearing Victoria's Secret lingerie.
[...]
They've decided to fire all their sexy, gorgeous, skinny, busty models. The angels are being replaced by overweight, unattractive, feminist icons and transgender models.
Even if you personally believe this leftist, feminist drivel, that's fine. Be a Stepford wife in private. But to attach this insanity to your billion-dollar brand is suicide. No one will buy clothing, let alone bras, panties and lingerie from unattractive, overweight feminists and transgender models. Your business is ruined, thanks to your radical, absurd, insane political philosophy.
But that's not all. Root is also enraged that the NFL is trying to expand its audience beyond aggressively heterosexual men (like himself?):
But the NFL could be even more stupid and reckless than Victoria's Secret. Have you seen the latest TV ad for the NFL? It says, "The NFL is gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender." Insanity does not even begin to describe how clueless this is. I'm Exhibit A. I'm the prototype for your typical NFL fan.
I've loved the NFL since I was 5 years old. I live for Sundays to watch NFL football. I live and die with my Dallas Cowboys. I love America, faith, family, freedom, my fiancee and my NFL. That's not a brand. That's a religion. The NFL is part of my life. It's the DNA of America.
Why would the NFL ruin its brand by getting involved with politics? And not just any politics, but the most controversial and radical politics possible.
[...]
The NFL is about sports, gambling and violence. It's a perfect mix that attracts mostly macho, straight males – a majority of whom are conservative, Christian and unabashed patriots. I'd bet my life's fortune that a large majority of the fans sitting in the stands at NFL games voted for former President Donald Trump.
Like it or not, that's your audience. Like it or not, a majority of the NFL's paying customers have conservative views and values. They go to church; they believe in God; they own guns; they vote Republican; and they idolize Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone and Donald Trump.
Why offend your customers? Why get involved in politics at all? But if you do, why pick a stand that alienates a majority of your most loyal fans? I have nothing against lesbians, bisexuals or transgenders, but how many pay for NFL season tickets? Maybe a dozen in a stadium that seats 75,000? Maybe.
Is the NFL trying to attract 0.0000000001% new fans while driving away 60% of their current fans forever? Is that a smart business decision? Actually, this is business suicide.
The NFL shouldn't hate gays, lesbians or transgenders. I don't. But what does anyone's sexuality have to do with football? Will there be a straight male Pride Month? Will future NFL television ads say: "We are macho, straight, Republican and proud"? I doubt it. But why not? That's your audience. That's who buys the tickets.
Actually, Root is very much showing his hatred for the LGBT community by insisting they don't deserve to be football fans.
Trump's New Spokesperson Is A Former CNS Reporter Topic: CNSNews.com
The Media Research Center loves to whine about the "revolving door" between the media and politics -- but only when it involves the "liberal media," not Fox News and the Trmp administration, and most definitely when it involves its own "news" division, CNSNews.com. We've documented how the revolving door works at CNS, and its current editor, Terry Jeffrey, is a former political operative, having worked for Pat Buchanan's presidential campaigns in the 1990s.
The current beneficiary of that revolving door is Liz Harrington, Donald Trump's new spokesperson and former spokesperson for the Republican National Committee. But from 2011 to 2013, Harrington was a reporter for CNS.
So, yeah, there's a fundamental dishonesty there that makes her a perfect spokesperson for the fundamentally dishonest Trump. Just don't expect the MRC to mention this the next time it rants about "revolving doors."
MRC Mocks Toobin's Return, Silent On Fox News Host Accused Of Sleazy Sexual Behavior Topic: Media Research Center
When legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin returned to CNN following a leave of absence after he got caught masturbating on a Zoom call with colleagues at the New Yorker, the Media Research Center was all too eager to make hay from it. Curtis Houck declared in a June 10 post that didn't skimp on details (which we don't feel the need to repeat):
CNN showed its aversion to decency, ethics, and journalistic principles on Thursday afternoon as the Jeffrey Zucker-led network officially welcome back chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin for an absolutely cringeworthy interview seven months after he was caught masturbating on a Zoom call with fellow journalists.
[...]
And with a “I’m trying” from Toobin, Camerota’s nearly 14-minute-long interview from hell was over.
And in the process, CNN made clear that while Fox News is the news outlet without shame, the WarnerMedia outfit has shown the world that, if you’re the right person who holds left-wing political views, all can be forgiven, no matter the sin.
Houck also rehashed Toobin's return in the NewsBusters podcast the next day, including regurgitating his lament of CNN portraying Fox News as"is the news outlet without shame."
Funny you should mention Fox News and its lack of shame, Curt. We've documented how the MRC largely censored the story of accusations of sexual harassment against Fox News hosts and executives; indeed, so lacking in decency was the MRC that it not only gave Bill O'Reilly space to respond to harassment charges against him, Tim Graham appeared on the final episode of what was Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show.
More importantly, the MRC completely censored all mention of charges of disturbing behavior against Fox Newshost Charles Payne; former right-wing talking head Scottie Nell Hughes accused him of coercing her into a sexual relationship with him. It was serious enough that Fox News suspended Payne for a couple months, but he was allowed to return. As we also noted, not only did the MRC omit mention of his suspension and return, it was so completely lacking in decency that the MRC's Joseph Vazquez did a suck-up softball interview with Payne that made no mention of the sexual allegations against him, and Vazquez declared afterward that it was "an honor and privilege of mine" to do the interview.
While the MRC is nonplussed by Payne's disturbing personal life, it feels free to mock Toobin for his:
A June 18 post by Abigail Streetman claimed a politician almost went the "full Toobin."
A June 23 post by Mark Finkelstein declared Toobin was "continuing his comeback tour after his Zoom-masturbation suspension."
On July 2, Alex Christy called Toobin a "disgraced" analyst.
Brad Wilmouth reminded us on July 16 that Toobin "masturbated on a Zoom call, but wasn't fired by CNN."
Finkelstein asserted on July 20: "Will it ever be possible to hear the name "Jeffrey Toobin" without you-know-what coming to mind?"
Meanwhile, Payne's sleazy sexual behavior isn't keeping the MRC from treating him as an honored elder statesman.
NEW ARTICLE: WND's Ivermectin Chronicles Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily reporter Art Moore misleadingly promoted a dubious study from a pro-ivermectin group touting the drug's alleged effectiveness against COVID-19 -- and he pushed misinformation and fearmongering about vaccines. Read more >>
CNS Mindlessly Attacks School Board For Letting Parents Know About Child Tax Credit Topic: CNSNews.com
We documented how CNSNews.com intern Elizabeth Nieshalla followed marching orders and churned out an article pushing right-wing narratives against a Virginia school board discussing "pro-transgender" policies for its students (without any mention of the fact that CNS' parent, the Media Research Center, helped incite the volatile atmosphere at one board meeting). A few days later, Nieshalla attacked the school board again for no real reason at all:
Two days after their controversial June 22 school board meeting, Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) sent out an email to families detailing and promoting President Joe Biden’s Child Tax Credit under the American Rescue Plan, which was signed into law in March of this year.
The LCPS School Board has been under harsh criticism by many parents who are concerned about the implementation of many of the board members’ progressive ideologies, such as a transgender policy that requires the illogical use of pronouns in reference to a person’s selected gender, as well as concerns about the anti-American Critical Race Theory and its variants.
Neishalla didn't explain why the school board informing parents about a new child tax credit is so offensive. Nor did she explain what the child tax credit has to do with the other initiatives that right-wingers have targed the school board for.
(She also didn't explain how critical race theory is "anti-American" either or why referring to a student by their preferred pronoun is "illogical," but then, she's just regurgitating right-wing talking points.)
Informing parents of a benefit they may be able to take advantage of is a responsible act by a school district, not a partisan act. The use ot a photo of a woman holding up a sign declaring "Education Not Indoctrination" is quite illogical in this instance, because the child tax credit is not tied to anything the school district does, and information is not indoctrination.(Not hating transgender people and informing students of racism in American history isn't either, but again, Nieshalla is all about right-wing narratives, not facts.)
Articles like this may help get Nieshalla find a job at a right-wing website, but legitimate news outlets would likely stay far away from someone who puts such blatant partisan propaganda before facts.
WND Pushes Unproven Claims About Arizona Audit Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has endorsed the dubious Arizona ballot audit and hid its many issues from readers, so it's no surprise that WND's "news" operation is following along. Bob Unruh wrote in a July 15 WND article:
The state Senate audit of the Maricopa County, Arizona, 2020 presidential election results has taken, so far, months, and the first stunning numbers were released on Thursday.
It was during a Senate hearing to listen to the auditors, from Cyber Ninjas, the company hired for the review, which revealed that, according to election records, more mail-in ballots were counted than were mailed out.
A lot more. In fact, 74,243 ballots were counted for which there is no corresponding record that they were mailed out.
[...]
Officials from Cyber Ninjas also said there were 3,981 people who voted who were registered to vote after an Oct. 15 deadline, there were 11,326 people who voted who were not on the rolls on Nov. 7, but were on Dec. 4, and some 18,000 voted, but were removed from the rolls after the election.
[...]
Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan explained, "Based on the data we’re seeing, I highly recommend we do the canvassing because it’s the one way to know for sure whether the data we’re seeing are real problems."
Meanwhile, a fact-checker found that there are questions about where its numbers came from, and that Logan would not explain:
A spokesman for Logan would not explain how he reached his 74,000 figure. But the number appears to have come from a lack of understanding of the data contained in early voting reports that state law requires counties to provide to political parties. Counties must provide two reports: EV32 reports, which show daily early ballots requests from voters, and EV33 reports, which show early ballot returns by day.
State law only requires counties to provide EV32 reports through the deadline for requesting early ballots by mail, while they must provide EV33 reports through Election Day. Some counties continue providing reports on early ballot requests after the deadline, but Maricopa County cut them off at the Oct. 23 deadline, said Sam Almy, a strategist with the Democratic campaign consulting firm Saguaro Strategies.
The EV33 reports would show the returns for all early ballots cast in-person at early voting centers through Election Day, but in Maricopa County there were no corresponding reports showing which voters requested early ballots at those centers after Oct. 23, Almy said.
Unruh went on to complain that "While Democrats up and down the ladder of government influence have tried to close down the audit, the media has not been on the sidelines. The Associated Press has characterized the Arizona state Senate's audit of 2020 presidential election ballots in Maricopa County as an effort prompted by the 'fraud fantasies' of Republicans." He didn't tell readers that a hosts and reporters for the right-wing One America News channel have been raising money to pay for the audit, which places right-wing media directly on the playing field in a much more active way than Unruh accuses the Associated Press of being.
Unruh has not corrected his article, nor is there an update on the audit correcting the misinformation anywhere at WND.
PROPAGANDA: MRC's Websites Aggressively Promote Levin's New Book Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has always been buddy-buddy with right-wing radio host Mark Levin -- a reliable promoter and defender of his work and reliable hider of his messes -- but the weekend of July 9-11 was a full-on Mark Levin Weekend at the MRC.
Levin had just released a new book, "American Marxism," your typical right-wing polemic against anything that's not pro-Trump conservativsm. But someone decided the book needed a publicity boost, and the MRC was amenable. Cue MRC chieef Brent Bozell doing an interview with Levin. A clip of the interview first surfaced at the MRC's NewsBusters on July 9, in which "Levin cautioned about the censorship of those who would dare oppose the modern-day Gestapo." (Gee, we thought the MRC believed that Nazi references were too over-the-top.) This was followed about three hours later with another clip, in whic "Bozell asked Levin about his chapter on "Propaganda, Censorship, and Subversion," adding that "You can read Bozell's positive book review at Breitbart, where he called it Levin's most important book ever."
A half-hour after that, were were graced with "the FULL discussion between Bozell and Levin, in which the two discuss the book, the propagandistic media, and the threat to our nation" -- which clocks in at a little under 15 minutes, so it's not all that extensive. Bozell was in full gush mode, touting Levin as a "wise man" who engages in "full scholarship," frothing over the book as "so timely, so important, so thorough." Ironically, the embedded video of the interview came from YouTube, which the MRC wants you to think is constantly censoring conservatives for everything. Apparently not.
And then an interesting thing happened: That interview remained the top story at NewsBusters all weekend, even though the website normally rotates new articles in the top spot as they are published. And that's not the only place in the MRC-verse where that happened.
Over at CNSNews.com -- which devotes dozens of "news" articles each year to uncritically repeating thet pearls of wisdom that pour forth from Levin's mouth -- a July 9 article by Craig Bannister featured a clip from the Bozell-Levin interview, followed by a link to the entire interview -- which sycophantically called Levin "The Great One" in the headline and embedded the YouTube version of it -- and that remained the top story there all weekend.The same day, CNS republished Bozell's fawning Breitbart review of the book (which, given what we know about the MRC's history, was probably ghost-written by Tim Graham). Then, MRCTV -- the MRC's video-focused website, posted (the YouTube cliip of) the Bozell-Levin interview and made it its main story all weekend as well; it also posted a separate item from Gabriel Hays touting another clip from the interview.
We contacted the MRC for an explanation of the unusual promotion and whether Levin's publisher paid the MRC for the privilege, but it never responded.
That wasn't the end of the MRC's aggressive promotion of Levin and his book:
A July 12 CNS article by Ashilanna Kreiner plugged Lein plugging his own book on his Fox News TV show.
A July 14 CNS article by Craig Bannister gushed that "Former President Donald Trump is praising Constitutional Scholar and Author Mark Levin’s new book, 'American Marxism,' for pulling the veil off the Marxist ideology being deceptively peddled in the U.S. - not just by Democrats and the Biden Administration - but by schools, media, corporations and entertainment." Bannister didn't mention, however, that Trump's plug was largely a copy-and-paste of the publisher's promotional copy (as he is wont to do).
MRC executive Tim Graham dedicated his July 16 column to rhapsodizing over Levin's bnook and whining that CNN's Brian Stelter criticized it.
Both NewsBusters and CNS published columnist David Limbaugh's endorsement of the book.
It's ironic that a book claiming to be about Marxism is being promoted by the MRC in such a Marxist way, in which we are told what to believe about the book, no criticism of it is allowed and those who offer any are attacked and denounced.
CNS' Hot Pestering Intern Summer, Round 4 Topic: CNSNews.com
For its fourth round of gotcha questions to unsuspecting members of Congress, CNSNews.com interns asked them, "Should public schools and colleges be able to mandate that students be vaccinated for COVID-19?" The senatorial targets this time:
Of course, the point of this exercise is to give an opportunity for Republican senators to virtue-signal against mandates while excoriating Democrats who support local decisions and reliance on what the science shows.
Some of these articles added fearmongering about the vaccine: "Since April 21, 2021, over a thousand cases of myocarditis and pericarditis, heart inflammatory diseases, have been reported in young people after getting the COVID-19 vaccine, as is reported on the CDC’s website. However, the CDC is still encouraging children 12 and up to get the vaccine, claiming the benefits outweigh the risks."
Ambushing politicians with gotcha questions might be a good way to pad an intern's resume, but they don't learn much about fair and objective journalism by doing this.
The MRC Is Ready To Rumble Topic: Media Research Center
Just as it has with Gab and Parler, the Media Research Center has been promoting another new "free speech" platform -- with "free speech" actually meaning "friendly to far-right activists."
A November post by Kayla Sargent claimed that "Just as many conservatives are leaving Facebook and Twitter for Parler, some have also begun to leave YouTube for a different video-sharing platform," adding that Rumble," adding that "has experienced massive growth in the weeks following the election." In December, Alexander Hall touted how far-right TV outlet One America News "proclaimed that it will switch to Rumble, a free speech alternative to YouTube," going on to claim that YouTube "has actively undermined OAN as a news organization" by "violating YouTube’s COVID-19 misinformation policy and for expressing concern about alleged presidential election problems.
Of course, that requires translation from right-wing-speak as well.Hall linked to previous posts noting that OAN was dinged for uploading a video promoting a false cure for the COVID-19 virus, and OAN videos falsely claimed that "Trump won."Hall also claimed that YouTube had "undermined OAN as a news organization" by stating that it "does not consider OANN an authoritative news source" -- which, of course, is a statement of fact that Hall made no effort to counter in any of those posts.
In January, a post by Sargent began with the lie that "The left is trying hard to shut down free speech-oriented social media platforms like Parler and Rumble," then touted how Rumble was suing Google for not giving it special treatment in its search engine. In February, Casey Ryan highlighted how "Donald Trump Jr. decided to lead the charge in combating Big Tech by joining YouTube alternative Rumble," going on to claim that YouTube has "increasingly cracked down on conservative content in recent months." But as with its other attacks on "Big Tech," Ryan never proves that YouTube has ever exclusively targeted mainstream conservative content.
It took both Sargent and Michael Morris to write what was essentially an April 23 press release for their employer (which some people might call whoring):
In response to Big Tech's continued onslaught of censorship against conservatives, the Media Research Center has decided that we've had enough and so we've created a channel on Rumble to promote the use of free-speech-oriented platforms.
Rumble, an established video platform as a free-speech-oriented alternative to YouTube, will be yet another avenue for conservatives to see the work of the MRC.
MRC founder and President L. Brent Bozell said about the move: “I am proud to announce that the Media Research Center is officially on Rumble. As Big Tech uses its monopolistic grip over speech to silence conservatives, it is ever more important to adopt and support social media platforms that defend our freedom of speech. Starting now, you can find MRC’s video content on Rumble. Follow us and help us fight back against Silicon Valley’s leftist agenda!”
While Sargent and Morris declared that "Rumble is important because YouTube’s censorship is particularly egregious," no evidence was again offered that YouTube is exclusively "censoring" mainstream conservative content.
On May 20, Sargent touted investment from rich right-wingers in Rumble (not that she bothered to identify their ideology in her piece):
Free speech-oriented alternatives like Rumble have grown in popularity as Big Tech companies like YouTube have increasingly censored conservative voices. And Rumble’s newfound popularity has particularly attracted the attention of a couple notable investors.
PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance have both made investments in the free speech-oriented video platform Rumble. Thiel and Vance’s investments have appeared to garner support from other conservatives and right-leaning groups for the platform as well. The Wall Street Journal (The Journal) reported: “The investment is being led by Narya Capital, a Cincinnati-based venture-capital fund co-founded by Mr. Vance and Colin Greenspon, and by Mr. Thiel, who is also a Narya investor, in a personal capacity. Colt Ventures, the family office of Dallas investor and former Trump adviser Darren Blanton, is also part of the investment group.”
[...]
Rumble saw a massive increase in downloads in November following the presidential election. The Media Research Center (MRC) also joined Rumble in April in response to Big Tech’s continued onslaught of censorship against conservatives. Rumble has established its video platform as a free speech-oriented alternative to YouTube.
In a June 27 item, Autumn Johnson giddily squealed in her headline, "He's BACK!":
Former President Donald Trump has joined YouTube alternative Rumble.
Trump’s account is verified and has just one video so far, an upload of Saturday’s rally in Ohio.
Several prominent conservatives have also joined Rumble. Charlie Kirk, Sean Hannity, Dan Bongino, and Donald Trump Jr. all have accounts.
YouTube suspended the former president’s official YouTube channel in January.
Johnson went on to declare, "YouTube has been a long-time enemy of the former president." How does YouTube enforcing its terms of service, which every user of the platform must follow, make it an "enemy"?
How Is WND (And CNS) Columnist Ilana Mercer Being A White Nationalist These Days? Topic: WorldNetDaily
It's been a while since we checked in on WorldNetDaily (and CNSNews.com) columnist Ilana Mercer -- and we see she's continuing her slide into full-blown white nationalism. She ranted in her May 6 column:
Institutionalized, systemic anti-whiteness, yoked to white-hot hatred of whites: That is the creed that is fast becoming entrenched across state and civil society in the U.S.
Chiseled down, these are also the building blocks of Critical Race Theory, a specious, sub-intelligent concoction, originated by sub-par intellectuals.
The Critical Race project now pervades private and political life.
A further twist of the screw (or the shrew) was delivered recently by Vice President Kamala Harris, who insists on yammering about white America's historic racism.
In practice, whites are being singled out for a punishing, institutionalized program of reeducation, subjugation and continued intimidation.
She went on to invoke her native South Africa, complaining that "As an organizing principle, however, South Africa's political, economic and social institutions are firmly anti-white. They imperil whites as a principle." She conveniently omitted mention of South Africa's decades of apartheid, when the country's political, economic and social institutions are firmly anti-black. (Remember, Mercer is trying to have it both ways on apartheid, denouncing it as a racial tool but making an intellectual case for it as an anti-communist tool.)
In her May 27 column, Mercer continued her argument that critical race theory must be stopped to save white people:
Nobody will utter the words "anti-white," or articulate the "anti-white" essence of Critical Race Theory. CRT is always euphemized as things other than a hatred of whites and a resolve to blacken them. Always.
White kids are Critical Race Theory's innocent targets in schools. Yet not one of the anointed critics of the critical-race bile has stated the obvious, and that is that, while white kids are brow-beaten, black and brown kids are buoyed by Critical Race Theory. They come up smelling like roses and punching like knock-out game champions.
Not one of Critical Race Theory's conscientious objectors has said, "Whites. White kids": The true victims of the critical race miseducation are white kids, as they are the sole repository of hate and aggression in this critical-race blitzkrieg.
[...]
Critical Race Theory's central project is to make whites accept dhimmitude, not socialism. (If the practitioners of anti-whiteness, who already practice capitalism as consumers and producers in a market economy, were converted to theoretical capitalism – would their anti-whiteness dissipate? Naturally not.)
"Dhimmi" -- a word that refers to the ancient Muslim practice of allowing those to decline to convert to Islam to live -- is a word almost exclusively invoked today by anti-Muslim activists to suggest that the practice is going on now to some extent. Here, Mercer's use of the word is weirdly suggesting that CRT advocates want to make white people second-class citizens -- or, as she continued to huff, "Differently put, white lives matter less."
In her June 10 column, Mercer raged against a psychiatrist named Aruna Khilanani -- who she renamed "KhilaWhiteMan" because "It's apropos – and 'white privilege' makes it hard for me to pronounce her name" -- expressing a fantasy to kill white people:
For her murderous fantasies against the pigmentally deficient, Dr. KhilaWhiteMan ought to have been criminally profiled by the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. This primitive reptilian brain might be a danger to the community waiting to happen.
Instead, morality has been inverted. Rather than being hobbled by her deviant views and disgusting demeanor, Dr. KhilaWhiteMan has been approved and elevated at every step of her privileged romp through America's institutions.
Someone in authority invited such scum of the earth to give a talk to the nation's top university, Yale, an intellectual s**thole, really.
Someone high-up approved of, even liked, the topic of this vile woman's address, which was, "The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind."
A system designed to marginalize white Americans selected Khilanani to train as a healer, a psychiatrist, ministering to vulnerable others.
This mental pigmy, whose expressed aspiration is to terrorize whites, has been put through America's professional ringer. Khilanani is a proud product of America: She has emerged from an educational system that has approved of her at every step of the way. Prestigious medical bodies and institutions have given her the go-ahead to ply her profession.
In the meantime, Mercer has postedvideos of interviews she did with right-wing British blogger and politician David Vance -- who was kicked off Twitter last fall for a history of racism. The company you keep and all that.
UPDATE: In her June 17 column (also published at CNS), Mercer cheered that Charles Murray -- a social scientist who's best known for pushing the racist idea that other races are inferior to whites -- allegedly confirmed the "analytical truths" in her book. She declared that "generalizations about certain group characteristics are, in aggregate, valid," then rehashed an August 2020 WND column in which she wrote that "Systemic racism is most certainly not 'the only plausible explanation' for the lag in the fortunes of African-Americans, although, as it stands, systemic racism is inferred solely from one single fact: In aggregate, African-Americans trail behind whites in assorted academic and socio-economic indices and achievements." She concluded: "It is what it is. Aggregate group differences in achievement, athleticism and inhibition-control are here to stay."
MRC Psaki-Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch, Holiday Edition Topic: Media Research Center
It was a slow week for the Media Research Center's Curtis Houck after Independence Day -- he didn't have Peter Doocy to man-crush over at the White House press briefints, which seemed to make him less interested in full-out bashing of Jen Psaki. So his offering for the July 6 White House press briefing could be summed up this way: I can't man-crush on Peter Doocy, but I can spew hate at other reporters!
With Fox’s Peter Doocy away from Tuesday’s White House press briefing, interest shifted elsewhere for NewsBusters and, thankfully, CNN political analyst and Grio correspondent April Ryan beclowned herself with questions from the left on civil rights, voting, and white supremacists. This included the insane assertion from Ryan to Press Secretary Jen Psaki that voting rights have “collapsed” with GOP laws and the failure of the For the People Act.
Houck's only other entry for that week was for the July 9 briefing, where he did latch onto other right-wing reporters:
Friday’s White House press briefing featured an important and welcome surprise as CBS senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang used her front-row spot in the Briefing Room to repeatedly question Press Secretary Jen Psaki about the administration’s role in the upcoming sale of Hunter Biden’s art collection in New York City.
And besides Jiang, the other notable questioners were less surprising (but nonetheless equally important) as Real Clear Politics’s Philip Wegmann asked about critical race theory and the origins of the coronavirus while the New York Post’s Steven Nelson asked about the extent to which President Biden was involved in his son’s shady business dealings.
Houck went on to complain about a "far-left voting rights question," though he never equivalently identified Wegmann or Nelson as "far-right."
Life is apparently dull for Houck when he can't man-crush on Doocy.
WND Touts Retracted, Discredited Study On COVID Vaccines Topic: WorldNetDaily
An anonymously written July 4 WorldNetDaily article stated:
Those mask mandates imposed for the COVID pandemic could be hurting kids, and the vaccines could be killing them, according to a new Just the News report that cites several medical journals and studies.
"Measured carbon dioxide content in 'inhaled air,' observed in a study of masked German schoolchildren, was at least three-fold higher than German law allows, according to a research letter published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics," the report said. And, "Last week, the journal Vaccines, affiliated with the American Society for Virology, published research that estimates every three COVID-19 deaths prevented by vaccination are offset by two deaths 'inflicted by vaccination,' using Israeli and European data."
Masks and vaccines -- and lockdowns -- have been among America's main responses to the virus that likely originated with a Chinese lab in Wuhan that works with the Chinese Communist Party's military.
Those defensive strategies were adopted over treatments with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine that some studies have suggested are effective against the virus.
[...]
The report said the review in Vaccine estimated the "number needed to vaccinate" (NNTV) to prevent one COVID-19 death, using a million-person Israeli field study and "the most prominent trial data from regulatory phase 3 trials."
It looked at fatal side effects and more.
"Simply put: As we prevent three deaths by vaccinating, we incur two deaths," according to the paper, though looking at phase 3 trial data alone, the "optimum case" is four deaths caused and 33 lives saved by vaccines, Just the News reported.
WND soft-pedaled questions about the Vaccines study, stating only in the final paragraph of the article that "The publication days after releasing the results expressed doubts about what it documented, and said it was investigating." In fact, the fallout has been much more devastating.
Several vaccinaologists and virologists resigned from the journal's editorial staff in the wake of the study, with one of them pointing out that "The data has been misused because it makes the (incorrect) assumption that all deaths occurring post vaccination are caused by vaccination." It was also noted that none of the paper’s authors is trained in vaccinology, virology, or epidemiology. The journal retracted the paper on Julyi 2 -- two days before the WND article was published -- agreeing that data was misinterpreted. Fact-checkershavenoted how thehighly flawed paper is being used by anti-vaxxers (like, you know, WND) to spread fear about COVID vaccines.
Again, all this happened before WND's article was published -- meaning that WND was simply too lazy to do any actual reporting and just copied-and-pasted the 3-day-old report from the dubious right-wing operation Just the News. As of this writing, the WND article has not been corrected, and there's no correction anywhere else on the website.
But there's someone else that comes off just as bad, which WND also copied from the Just the News report:
Jane Orient, chief of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, said the Vaccine paper "is an excellent and much needed analysis."
But she thinks the risk-benefit ratio is likely to be "much worse" than the paper's authors estimate.
Yeah, that didn't age well. Neither has the idea that WND wants people to pay for the privilege of reading such shoddy journalism. It's especially embarassing (or it would be if Joseph Farah was capable of shame) as WND begs yet again for money to keep it alive.
UPDATE: Oh, about the other study promoted in the article, which claimed that the carbon dioxide levels in the inhaled of masked German schoolchildren? That one's been retracted too:
In the retraction notice, the journal editors cited "numerous scientific issues," that also included questions over the applicability of the CO2 measurement device and the validity of the study conclusions.
"In their invited responses to these and other concerns, the authors did not provide sufficiently convincing evidence to resolve these issues, as determined by editorial evaluation and additional scientific review," the notice read. "Given fundamental concerns about the study methodology, uncertainty regarding the validity of the findings and conclusions, and the potential public health implications, the editors have retracted this Research Letter."
The study quickly fell under criticism after it was published. Joseph Allen, MPH, DSc, who studies the impact of carbon dioxide on human health at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, called the study "terribly flawed" and predicted on Twitter that it would be retracted. His key complaint was that the study failed to account for the outside air that would flood in when the children inhaled.
So WND has gone 0-for-2 on bogus reporting in a single article. Needless to say, it has not told this to its readers. Instead, it also promoted the bogus German study in a July 9 article by Bob Unruh.
MRC Flip-Flops, Trashes Tax Study It Had Praised When It Criticized Soros Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's designed Soros-hater, Joseph Vazquez, served up more hate in a June 9 post:
Liberal billionaire George Soros signed an open letter in 2019 calling on 2020 presidential candidates to adopt the infamous “wealth tax” on the rich. But he reportedly paid no federal income tax three years in a row.
Soros-funded outlet ProPublica published a report exposing how “Soros paid no federal income tax three years in a row.” A Soros spokesman reportedly told ProPublica: “‘Between 2016 and 2018 George Soros lost money on his investments, therefore he did not owe federal income taxes in those years. Mr. Soros has long supported higher taxes for wealthy Americans.’” But as The Dan Bongino Show’s Matt Palumbo noted, “the performance of Soros Fund Management, the fund responsible for Soros’ massive wealth, gained 5% in 2016, 8.9% in 2017, and 0.9% in 2018. Where exactly is the loss that they’re speaking of?” [Emphasis added.]
Soros signed an open letter in 2019 calling on presidential candidates to adopt a wealth tax on the top one-tenth of one percent. The letter reeked of left-wing propaganda: “Those of us in the richest 1/10 of the richest 1% should be proud to pay a bit more of our fortune forward to America’s future. We’ll be fine — taking on this tax is the least we can do to strengthen the country we love.” In essence, it appeared Soros was being hypocritical.
Vazquez and Palumbo, however, offer no evidence that Soros Fund Management is the same thing as Soros' personal wealth -- indeed, Soros Fund Management is in the business of managing other people's money, not Soros' money aloone -- and Soros advocating for higher taxes while taking advantage of current tax laws to shield his money from taxes is not hypocritical, just good business sense. If Donald Trump is allowed to take tax deductions for financial losses on investments -- which the MRC had no problem with -- why not Soros?
Vazquez also falsely suggested that the story was only about Soros -- it actually looked at the tax returns of several other prominent billionaires as well, such as Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett. (He also glossed over the fact that it says a lot about ProPublica's editorial integrity that the "Soros-funded outlet" was willing to take on Soros.)
So it was strange to see that a mere nine days later, Vazquez was trashing this very ProPublica study because it, um, exposed how billionaires not named George Soros weren't paying taxes, pulling his usual trick of invoking biased right-wing economists to back him up:
CATO Director of Tax Policy Studies Chris Edwards joined Fox Business to dismantle a leftist argument from the Soros-funded ProPublica that the rich don’t pay their fair share in taxes.
Edwards ripped ProPublica’s recent report that used selective data to claim that “[e]xperts have long understood the broad outlines of how little the wealthy are taxed in the United States.” He retorted on the June 17 edition of Kudlow: “ProPublica summarized data on just 25 tax returns of selected wealthy people, but they were unrepresentative of the broader group of wealthy people in America.” Edwards lambasted the outlet for being “very selective in what they’re releasing here.”
[...]
Edwards also tore apart other misleading claims from ProPublica. “ProPublica’s claim that if you add in payroll taxes, people in the middle pay higher tax rates than the 25 taxpayers at the top is totally wrong,” Edwards rebuked. “There’s Congressional Budget Office data [that] shows that people at the top pay more than twice as much in income and payroll taxes than people in the middle.”
Fox Business host Larry Kudlow chimed in that ProPublica was blurring the line between income and wealth in its analysis and accused ProPublica of “chicanery.” Edwards agreed: “Capital gains is not income. It’s a separate thing. So, for example, in the national income or GDP accounts, capital gain is not included in income.” He continued: “No country in the [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] — all 35 or so countries — no country taxes capital gains on a so-called accrual or mark-to-market basis like ProPublica is sort of claiming that we should.”
Edwards argued that ProPublica’s policy prescription, based on its confusion between income and wealth, was nonsensical. “Taxing people on fluctuating asset values, like ProPublica is implying, makes absolutely no sense for many reasons,” Edwards said. Kudlow then accused ProPublica of having “jimmied” the numbers.
Vazquez didn't mention he had praised this very same report nine days earlier for exposing Soros. Does he think that only Soros should have to pay his fair share in taxes while other non-liberal billionaires get away with it?
That wasn't the only flip-flop at the MRC. The same day Vazquez praised the report for attacking Soros, Scott Whitlock ranted that "Super wealthy CBS This Morning co-host Tony Dokoupil channeled his inner socialist on Wednesday as he hyped a likely illegally-obtained ProPublica report that exposed the IRS documents of the 25 wealthiest Americans. At no time did the mega-rich Dokoupil worry about the ethics of how this were done or mention if he’d like his tax filings revealed." He then cited the right-wing Heritage Foundation to hiss that "The foundation of the ProPublica report is false."
In our last bimonthly summary of CNSNews.com's stenography for right-wing radio host Mark Levin, we noted that CNS stopped doing its Levin stenography for more than a month, apparently because of a lack of interns to perform the drudgery. A May 11 article by Craig Bannister touting how Levin would be taking part in "a virtual event paying tribute to the nation’s 2021 graduating class of high school seniors planning to enlist in the U.S. military" was CNS' first Levin reference since April 1. But it wasn't until the summer interns were fully on board in late May that the Levin stenography fully ramped up. Here's what was published for the May-June period:
That's just eight stenography articles for both May and June, bringing the total to just 29 articles for the year -- well off the pace of previous years.
You'd think Levin would have more pull at the MRC to not have his pearls of wisdom left to the mercy of interns.
There's a boatload of misinformation in a June 28 Media Research Center post, in which Alexander Hall inexplicably continues to defend hateful right-wing ranter Steven Crowder, under the headline "China Strikes":
Wayne Allyn Root spent part of his July 5 WorldNetDaily 
The Media Research Center loves to whine about the "revolving door" between the media and politics -- but only when it involves the "liberal media," 
When legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin returned to CNN following a leave of absence after he got caught masturbating on a Zoom call with colleagues at the New Yorker, the Media Research Center was all too eager to make hay from it. Curtis Houck declared in a June 10 
We 
WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah 
The Media Research Center has always been 
For its fourth round of gotcha questions to unsuspecting members of Congress, CNSNews.com interns asked them, "Should public schools and colleges be able to mandate that students be vaccinated for COVID-19?" The senatorial targets this time:
Just as it has with 
It's been a while since we checked in on WorldNetDaily (
It was a slow week for the Media Research Center's Curtis Houck after Independence Day -- he didn't have Peter Doocy to man-crush over at the White House press briefints, which seemed to make him less interested in full-out bashing of Jen Psaki. So his offering for the July 6 White House 
An anonymously written July 4 WorldNetDaily 
The Media Research Center's 
In our 
