NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's War on Jen Psaki (And Man-Crush On Peter Doocy), Part 3
Topic: Media Research Center
In April, the Media Research Center's Curtis Houck crushed harder (on Fox News' Doocy) and raged more viciously (against Psaki) than ever in his writeups of Psaki's White House press briefings. Read more >>

CNS Is Mad Again That CPAC Doesn't Hate LGBT People Enough
Topic: CNSNews.com

Back in February, CNSNews.com was quite angry that the Conservative Political Action Conference was committing the offense of not hating LGBT people by giving an award to an "openly gay" man. With the summer edition of CPAC in July, it was outraged again. An anonymous CNS writer complained in a July 10 article:

The 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference, which is being held this weekend in Dallas, Texas, will feature two speakers who are self-professed gays.

Former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell, who also served as ambassador to Germany, had an on-stage “conversation” with American Conservative Union President Matt Schlapp on Saturday morning. Radio talk show host Tammy Bruce will moderate a panel discussion on Sunday that is entitled “Fuel for Thought” and will look at energy policy issues.

The anopnymous writer never explained why Grenell's and Bruce's appearances were problematic beyond singling out their sexual orientation, though the headline of the article put "Conservative Political Action Conference" in scare quotes without further explanation. CNS managing editor Michael W, Chapman, a notorious homophobe, singled out Grenell's appearance at the February CPAC, making sure to note that Grenell "is gay" and "lives with his long-time partner Matt Lashey." CNS also attacked Grenell's sexual orientation during his moves through the Trump administration.

The only coverage CNS gave the actual CPAC itself was for Donald  Trump's speech,  which somehow warranted two articles from Susan Jones:

• Trump Jokes That CNN, MSNBC Will Endorse Him Just to Boost Their Low Ratings
• Trump: 'All We Talk About Is Race...We Don't Talk About Our Country Being Great Anymore'

Neither Jones article noted what actual news outlets did: that Trump repeated his usual false and never-proven claims that the presidential election was stolen from him.

MRC's Double Standard on Rooting Against America
Topic: Media Research Center

Under the headline "CBS Roots for Team USA to Fail at Olympics," Scott Whitlock complained in a July 26 post: "According to CBS guest William Rhoden, arrogant Team USA need to be “humbled," and maybe losing several medals at the Olympics was the way to do it. Appearing on CBS This Morning, Monday, the liberal sports journalist derided the opening ceremonies as too nationalistic, saying they reminded him of 'white nationalism.'" He added that "Seeming to root against the U.S., the former New York Times columnist took pleasure in the American basketball team’s struggles," going on to criticize the "trashing of American athletes."

You know who else has been trashing American athletes and rooting against America at the Olympics? The MRC.

We've already documented the seething hatred the MRC has for any athlete -- particularly American ones -- who aren't heterosexual, and one got the sense they were rooting for the failure of these athletes at the Olympics solely because of this.

Jay Maxson explicitly did in a July 11 post exactly what Whitlock accued Rhoden of doing -- taking pleasure in the American basketball team’s struggles:

How the mighty – and the woke – have fallen! The dominant international men’s basketball powerhouse forever, Team USA, suffered a shocking, embarrassing pre-Olympic exhibition game loss to lowly Nigeria on Sunday. The NBA’s wokeness sure doesn’t fly on the world hoops stage.

Ranked 22nd in world, Nigeria downed the Americans 90-87. It was the USA’s first-ever loss to an African team. The USA is now 54-3 since NBA players took over U.S. Olympic basketball, and the team had won its last 39 games. In two previous games against Nigeria, the USA had won by a whopping 127 points combined.

Greg Popovich (at right in photo), the most woke and politically outspoken coach in the NBA, coached the U.S. to this disaster. It’s certainly a red alert for him and all the American NBA players who have been disgracefully carrying on about social justice, Black Lives Matter and Donald Trump in recent years.

[...]

Once again, we see that all the money and wokeness in the world - and the complacency that can come with it - doesn’t always beat heart, hunger and desire.

This was followed by a July 21 post in which Matt Philbin took immense pleasure in the U.S. women's soccer team losing its Olympic opener:

The U.S. Women’s National soccer team lost 3-0 to Sweden in their Olympic opener on Tuesday. That probably hurts the team’s chances for the gold. But let’s not forget that this was a victory of sorts too. The U.S. ladies proved they could maintain a busy schedule of politicized grousing, kvetching and posturing, and still find time to lose a soccer game. You really can have it all, gals!

Just in case sports fans forgot how deeply the team feels the world’s every injustice, they and their opponents knelt before the game to strike a blow against racism or something. Then they got down to the business of being trounced.

[...]

Oh sure, they missed the net and maybe the ball sometimes. But the Angry Amazons for Equity have other targets dead in their sights: “ racist infrastructures,” sexism, and reality based economics. And attractive women’s lingerie is toast.

The same day, Tim Graham used his podcast to ask: "How do we feel about kneeling American Olympians? Should Americans root for them anyway....or root for them to lose?" He admitted that MRC staff members "tend to root for these Americans to lose, even though they're Americans," but he didn't name any MRC staff members who believe that "Americans should always root for Americans." Graham then declared his "swishy Susan Collins-type centrist" position that "I root for the Americans, but I'm not going to be too upset if Megan Rapinoe loses."

So, yeah, the MRC is utterly hypocritical about this.

CNS Touts McCarthy Noting That Confederates Were Dems, Hides That 120 Republicans Voted Against Removing Confederate Statues
Topic: CNSNews.com

Susan Jones wrote in a June 30 CNSNews.com article:

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 285-120 on Tuesday to remove more statues of Confederates from the U.S. Capitol.

Sixty-seven Republicans voted with 218 Democrats in support of the bill, and one of those voting for removal was House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who seized the occasion to note past Democrat racism, even as he condemned present Democrat attempts to stoke racial division in the United States.

"The bill we're voting on today we voted (on) before," McCarthy said in a floor speech. "And I supported it. I support it now. But let me state a simple fact: All the statues being removed by this bill are statues of Democrats," McCarthy said.

(The House resolution removes statues of John C. Calhoun, Charles Aycock, and James P. Clarke, all of whom defended slavery and fought for the Confederacy. And it replaces a bust of the late Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, author of the Dred Scott decision, with one of Thurgood Marshall, the first African American Supreme Court justice.)

McCarthy noted that the Confederate portraits removed from the Capitol one year ago were all of Democrats as well. And he noted that the statues identified in the House resolution were sent to the House of Representatives by states controlled by Democrats.

What Jones was careful not to mention: All Democrats voted for the statues' removal, and that all 120 "no" votes on this removal were cast by Republicans, which would seem to  drive home the point that Democrats have repudiated its history or racism, while Republicans have picked up that mantle. While Jones gave McCarthy space to declare that "I'll vote for this bill today, just as I voted for it before," she gave no explanation for why 120 Republicans voted against it (and the leader of their caucus).

Jones went on to uncritically quote McCarthy making the case for Democrats changing the name of their party despite it not being germane to the issue of removing Confederate statues:

Just a few years ago, then-Vice President Joe Biden praised Democrat Senator Robert Byrd [D-W.Va.]. He was the exalted cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan. In his eulogy for Byrd, he said, for a lot of us, he was a friends, a mentor, and a guide.

Another leading Democrat who praised Byrd at the time was Speaker Pelosi. She called Byrd a friend, a great person, and a great American patriot.

Jones censored the fact that Byrd repeatedly apologized for his KKK involvement, and even the NAACP acknowledged upon his death in 2010 that he"went from being an active member of the KKK to a being a stalwart supporter of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and many other pieces of seminal legislation that advanced the civil rights and liberties of our country."

Newsmax Cheers Evidence-Free Attempt to Defund NPR
Topic: Newsmax

Charles Kim complained in a July 5 Newsmax article:

National Public Radio (NPR) is in a bit of hot water after posting an article during the Independence Day holiday Sunday that claimed the Declaration of Independence was “a flawed” document with “deeply ingrained hypocrisies,” leading to yet another call from people on the right to defund the organization.

“I’ve seen enough,” Republican Congressional candidate Irene Armendariz-Jackson said responding to the NPR post on Twitter. “Defund NPR.”

The article NPR posted Sunday included its tradition of staff members reading the document of America’s founding, a custom of some 32 years on the radio station, but also referred to the riots of last summer and the need to understand that the document contained things that some find offensive, like referring to Native-Americans as “merciless Indian savages.”

But Kim did not explain what was factually wrong with NPR's interpretation, nor did he quote anyone who did. Instead, he touted the history of right-wingers trying to defund NPR.

Meanwhile, even obsessive NPR hater Tim Graham at the Media Research Center didn't see enough in NPR's interpretation to devote a post to it. Instead, all it warranted is a couple paragraphs in his July 7 column trying to blame the "liberal media" for dividing America":

So-called National Public Radio tweeted out a thread of the original Declaration of Independence, blasting it as "a document with flaws and deeply ingrained hypocrisies." It says “‘that all men are created equal’ — but women, enslaved people, Indigenous people and many others were not held as equal at the time.”

See? You can’t see the text as a statement of idealism, a promise to be fulfilled in time. The Declaration is painted as a lie perpetuated by malignant, propertied white men...with your taxpayer dollars. 

Graham conveniently omits the fact that it took the better part of 200 years for indigenous people to be treated as full Americans -- probably because that would bolster NPR's case.

Cashill Tries To Rewrite History Of Waco Siege, Tulsa Massacre
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Jack Cashill served up a little, um, alternative history in his June 2 WorldNetDaily column:

"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.

f 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.

At Tulsa on Tuesday, Biden repeated his blood libel that "terrorism from white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today." Biden's goal at Tulsa, indeed the goal from the day he announced his candidacy, has been to frighten blacks into remaining within the Democratic fold.

[...]

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.

In Tulsa the blacks had better odds than they did at Waco. The initial encounter between black and white mobs left 10 whites dead and two blacks. A 2001 commission confirmed a total of 26 black dead and 13 whites, notwithstanding Biden's insistence that "the likely number is much more than the multiple of hundreds."

Actually, while the commission was only able to confirm the 36 dead, it also stated that "credible evidence makes it probable that many people, likely numbering between 100-300, were killed during the massacre." In other words, Biden is correct.

Of course, it's ridiculous for Cashill to try and diminish the Tulsa massacre by invoking the Waco siege. He, of course, leaves out inconvenient facts to the Waco narrative. For instance, he omitted nearly all mention of David Koresh, whom even former Branch Davidians admit was highly controlling and had sex with girls as young as 12. (There is dispute about whether Koresh could be accurately described as a cult leader.) Whatever mistakes federal officials made in handling the Waco siege, there's also evidence that the Davidians lit the fire that destroyed the compound and killed Koresh and his followers, but Cashill doesn't want to remind you of that either. Indeed, he still wants to whine:

For Biden and other Democrats, it is now axiomatic that black lives matter only when they are politically useful. As Biden has proved since his election, blue lives matter only when they, too, are politically useful.

The police are to be defended when serving the interests of the Deep State against the white supremacist hordes. So the killer of Ashli Babbitt remains unknown, and Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick is elevated to martyrdom though dying of natural causes.

In fact, the medical examiner pointed out that "all that transpired" at the Capitol riot "played a role in his condition" and led to SiIcknick's death. And Cashill is on the wrong side of history yet again, defending Babbitt, a domestic terrorist who was engaged in criminal acts as the time she was killed while breaking through a window inside the Capitol.

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 continues to defend 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.

We've caught Harrington pushing bias during her tenure. She was one of the original reporters who added right-wing spin to CNS' unemployment data reporting, and she wrote several articles suggesting that any government money spent on researching LGBT-related issues was a waste.She also ambushed Sandra Fluke with a question about vulgarities used against Sarah Palin while censoring the fact that Rush Limbaugh used vulgarites against Fluke, and she misleadingly wrote about light bulb efficiency standards. We also busted her pushing a highly misleading claim about the number of food stamp recipients and putting words in a government official's mouth (more than once).

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:

• Josh Hawley (R)
• Gary Peters (D)
• Charles Graaley (R)
• John Cornyn (R)
• Tim Scott (R)
• Ed Markey (D)
• Rand Paul (R)
• Bob Menendez (D)
• John Boozman (R)
• Elizabeth Warren (D)
• Cynthia Marie Lummis (R)
• James Lankford (R)
• Debbie Stabenow (D)
• Raphael Warnock (D)
• Mike Braun (R)
• Ted Cruz (R)
• Sherrod Brown (D)
• Ron Johnson (R)
• Tommy Tuberville (R)
• John Kennedy (R)

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.