How Has WND Columnist Brown Pretended He Doesn't Hate LGBTQ People Now?
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily columnist Michael Brown has a history of bashing the LGBTQ community while laughably pretending he's not doing so, or that he's doing so out of love. Let's take a look at how that has manifested itself lately.

In his May 19 column, he "lovingly" attacks Demi Lovato over her declaration that she's nonbinary:

I do not write this to be cruel or judgmental. And I certainly don't want to hurt anyone. To the contrary, I want to help. But I do write with a sense of urgency, both to the nation and to confused individuals like celebrity Demi Lovato, the latest to identify as non-binary and to want to be called "they."

To the nation, I say this: Wake up! We are losing touch with reality and engaging in dangerous semantic and ideological games. Worse still, we are not providing the real help that struggling people need.

To Demi Lovato, I say this: You are not non-binary, existing outside the realm of male or female. You are a confused woman needing help from the inside out. That's why I will not refer to you as "they." And I truly say this in love.

Even as he insisted that "scorn or mockery" were "the furthest thing from my mind," he was quick to make a political, anti-LGBTQ attack: "America, wake up. We are descending rapidly into cultural madness." That's not love, Michael -- that's hate.

Brown spent his May 24 column cheering how "The morally based, rationally grounded resistance is rising. More and more people are saying enough is enough." And how was that accomplished: by attacking transgender athletes, cheering that a few people are regretting their transition, among other anti-transgender attacks. At the same time, he called for "greater compassion for those who do struggle" -- something he apparently doesn't have.

In his June 4 column, Brown ranted about "LGBTQ indoctrination," declaring that "that LGBTQ+ activism will not grow by biological replication, in other words, by having large families (which is a major factor in the worldwide growth of the more conservative branches of Islam, Judaism and Christianity). Instead, it will grow by ideological indoctrination, seeking to change hearts and minds, thereby encouraging more people to affirm, embrace, or explore non-heterosexual identities and practices." It's apparently a bad thing in Brown's eyes that some people fail to be heterosexual.

Brown devoted his July 2 column to trying to square the circle of his rhetoric -- spewing hate at LGBTQ people while simultaneously claiming to love them. But he can't quite do it, claiming he's only opposed to "gay activism" and not gay people. Still, he can't pull it off, such as in this section:

I've also interacted with lesbian moms who seem as committed to their children as any heterosexual mother I know. And I've heard them explain why they live clean lives and seek to raise their children with good morals.

Of course, I grieve for these children, since they are being deprived of having their fathers in their lives.

But I say this to emphasize that not every gay person is consciously thumbing his nose at God and morality. For me, that is all the more reason to pray for them with a broken heart rather than to put on some kind of twisted, self-righteous display by calling them the worst of names and leveling every imaginable insult against them.

[...]

Yet, as much as my heart goes out to those who feel that same-sex attraction is as natural for them as heterosexual attraction is for me, I cannot for a second affirm the broader goals of the LGBTQ+ agenda.

Yet he never explains what, exactly, is this "agenda" and while he opposes it -- or why he only feels pity for anyone who's not as heterosexual as he is. He concluded his column with more of his confused logic:

One day it was, "Just allow us to be who we are in public." The next day it was, "You need to give our relationships legal recognition." Then, "You need to celebrate our relationships." Now, it's, "You will suffer serious consequences if you do not affirm and celebrate every aspect of LGBTQ+ pride."

One day it was, "You need to understand the bullying we endured as kids." The next day, it's drag queens shaking their hips for toddlers and straight kids being told to keep their views to themselves in middle school.

One day it was, "We will not be silenced." The next day it was, "All opposition to our agenda must be silenced."

One day it was, "Don't shame a boy who is not a macho jock." The next day it was, "A 15-year-old boy will be sharing the bathroom and locker room with your daughter and competing against her in sports."

And on and on it goes.

Indeed, we are still only 52 years removed from Stonewall and just six years removed from Obergefell, yet the cultural descent becomes more rapid by the month.

That's why I will stand against the bullying and mistreatment of those who identify as LGBTQ, I will call for their equal treatment under the law, and on an interpersonal level, I will show love and grace and kindness. Anything less than that would be a denial of my faith and a rejection of love for my neighbor.

At the same time, I will stand against LGBTQ activism and theology. Anything less than that would be denial of my faith and a rejection of love for my neighbor.

Brown doesn't seem to realize that his purported defense of LGBTQ people while being vehemently opposed to their purported "agenda" is really just another form of bullying and mistreatment.He also doesn't seem to realize that his version of what he claims is the ultimate goal of LGBTQ activists is the flip side of how LGBTQ people have been treated for millennia.

There's no reason to believe Brown genuinely sees them as real people and not merely reclamation projects who must be converted to his brand of Christianity.

As if to hammer home the point that he can't square that circle, Brown used his July 7 column to repeat a anti-LGBTQ story: "Recently, a man who identifies as a woman shocked patrons at a local spa when he exposed himself to the women and girls there. This led to protests condemning his behavior as well as defending his "rights," with one protest turning violent thanks to the presence of Antifa." But as we've documented, that incident appears to have been a hoax. While Brown was eager to hype the alleged presence of antifa at protests surrounding the incident, he didn't mention that the right-wing Proud Boys thugs were also protesting.

Nevertheless, Brown seized on the purported incident to fearmonger about the "trajectory" things are allegedly taking:

So, the trajectory of which I am speaking is not that there will suddenly be an epidemic of biological males who claim to be females exposing themselves to women and girls. (Sadly, this has happened in the past, and it's another reason why biological males should not have access to women's bathrooms and locker rooms and the like.)

The trajectory of which I speak is the trajectory of social madness, resulting in headlines like this, from the Daily Mail: "Violent clashes break out in L.A. between rival protesters after viral video showed customer complaining about transgender woman exposing their penis to children in upmarket spa's steam room."

Just look at this four-word phrase: "woman exposing their penis" (and yes, never forget that he did this in the presence of girls). What kind of madness is this?

[...]

The reality – yes, let's focus on reality – is that something is terribly wrong with the direction our society is going. If we don't make a very serious about face, our children and their children will pay dearly.

Will we let this happen on our watch?

This overwrought, hateful response is presumably what the apparently hoaxsters wanted to provoke, and Brown happily obliged. Does this sound like a person who genuinely cares about the LGBTQ community as people?

 

MRC Psaki- (And Biden-, and Jean-Pierre-) Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch
Topic: Media Research Center

Unsurprisingly, the Media Research Center is part of the right-wing anti-mask movement because personal inconveniences are more important than working toward the common good of slowing the spread of COVID. Curtis Houck embodied that in yet another Jen Psaki trash-fest regarding her July 27 White House press briefing:

When there’s a White House press briefing in which the press corps doesn’t appear friendly with the Biden administration, you know it was a tough day at the office. Tuesday’s briefing was one of those rare days as Fox’s Peter Doocy was joined by over a half dozen colleagues in asking tough questions Press Secretary Jen Psaki refused to answer about the return of masks, even for vaccinated Americans.

The Associated Press’s Alexandra Jaffe didn’t wait for Doocy, leading off the Q&A by wondering “how will the White House get Americans to start wearing masks when they’ve gone for more than two months without them,” and if it was a mistake to say July 4 all but marked our “independence” from the virus.

After Psaki insisted we must respect CDC scientists and remember that we’re living in unprecedented times, Jaffe followed up by questioning whether the back-and-forth was “wise...considering [this] could make it tougher for Americans to take” the pandemic “seriously.”

Psaki’s answer undermined the edict to mask up, insisting that everyone should get vaccinated to be “protected from serious illness or hospitalization” while the government does what’s best “to protect more people and save more lives.”

As Mediaite's Tommy Christopher noted, this was little more than a gotcha session over masks -- but since this feeds into right-wing narratives, Houck clearly approved.

Houck was able to resume his Peter Doocy man-crushing for the July 29 briefing:

When it seemed like only a few of his colleagues were still outraged at the Biden administration’s decision to bring back indoor masking for much of the country (compared to with White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and President Biden over the regime’s inconsistent (and arguably misleading) messaging masks. 

And in the case of the exchange with President, Doocy’s fact-checking and questioning brought out the angry Biden (as opposed to the forgetful or whispering Biden).

Houck accused Jean-Pierre -- whom he had previously denigrated as an apparent diversity hire -- of offering "word salad," despite his never objecting when his beloved Kayleigh McEnany did so. He then gushed over Doocy's ambushing Biden on the mask issue:

Fast-forward to the press conference and Doocy repeatedly tried to shout a question to Biden, but unsurprisingly, he wasn’t interested.

But as Biden walked away, Doocy caught his attention: “Mr. President you said if you were fully vaccinated, you would no longer need to wear a mask?”

Doocy tried to say more, but Biden angrily cut him off with this false claim: “No, I didn't say that.”

Doocy hit back with, “you did,” but Biden realized mid-thought he had been caught: “I said if fully vaccinated in an area where you do not have — well, let me clarify that.”

This gave Doocy an opening: “In May, you made it sound like a vaccine was the ticket to losing masks forever.”

The President replied that his statement was “true at the time” as he believed the vaccination rates would be higher than they are now and he didn’t know about the Delta variant.

As Christopher also pointed out -- but Houck didn't -- this exchange came after Biden praised Fox News for getting on board the pro-vaccination bandwagon, and that Biden's statements was not as false as Houck and Doocy want you to think it was, because "the whole reason the mask guidance has changed is that people aren’t getting vaccinated."

For thet July 30 briefing, Houck decided that because the non-right-wing media had come to understand that  the Delta variant has changed the mask game, it was some kind of "liberal media" plot:

After a week that consisted of vehement pushback against the Biden administration’s new mask edict and threats of bringing back crippling Covid restrictions, the liberal media decided on Friday to fall in line during the White House press briefing with only Fox News’s Peter Doocy remaining skeptical about this sudden change.

And on the misinformation front, numerous reporters parroted Biden administration line of using a Covid outbreak earlier this month in Provincetown, Massachusetts to justify masking and other mitigation measures when, in reality, that highly debaucherous event isn’t representative of the American populace.

This is a homophobic smear; Houck is trying to blame the outbreak on filthy LGBT people who were allegedly in Provincetown for a "bear week" event. In fact, the study covered many tourists in Provincetown over a longer period than that particular event, and it turned out that three-fourths of those who tested postive for COVID were fully vaccinated -- meaning that the people in Provincetown are much more "representative of the American populace" than Houck woiuld like to admit. Nevertheless, Houck reveled in pushing the homophobic smears:

For the unaccustomed, “bears” could be defined as larger, masculine gay men with plenty of hair. And “Bear Week” in the Bay State has a reputation of involving plenty of poor life choices, including plenty of making out and gay sex.

But sure, let’s dictate public health policy off of that in the same way we’d make changes based on the inside of a frat on a Saturday night or hotel rooms during spring break in Florida.

Yes, Houck really thinks failure to be heterosexual is a "poor life choice."

ConWeb Treats Satirical Pro-LGBT Video As Deadly Serious
Topic: The ConWeb

The ConWeb -- particularly the Media Research Center -- loves to complain when right-wing "satire" is treated as fact and fact-checked accordingly (because right-wingers tend to think that what they read at the Babylon Bee is the truth and promote it as such). But a  piece of liberal satire that conforms with what conservatives believe about liberals gets treated as deadly serious.

Such is the case with a video released by the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus last month that mocks anti-LGBT right-wingers with lyrics like "We'll convert your children/Happens bit by bit/Quietly and subtlely/And you will barely notice it." The MRC's Gabriel Hays -- who absolutely hates LGBT people -- had a massive homohobic meltdown over the video, declaring it to be "grotesque" and a manifesto for the LGBT movement:

Sure, one could guess that this was going to be more LGBTQ propaganda. But viewers probably had no idea how shameful and nefarious the song was going to be.

One young, smug gay entertainer began singing: “You think we’re sinful. You fight against our rights, you say we all lead lives you can’t respect. But you’re just frightened, you think that we’ll corrupt your kids, if our agenda goes unchecked.”

(Though, in our defense, we have seen a Pride month this year featuring LGBTQ propaganda aimed at kids and even toddlers, so it’s a legitimate concern.)

And, as if to validate that concern, the choir members segued into their song’s creepy chorus: “Fine — just this once, you’re correct. We’ll convert your children. Happens bit by bit. Quietly and suddenly, and you will barely notice it.” 

Oh really now? They’re not even trying to hide it anymore, are they? It seems this was the Pride Month where the mask truly slipped.

Hays concluded by ranting, "This is what the LGBTQ movement is doing and everyone needs to be aware." Yes, Gabe, we all need to be aware of how satire works, especially since you apparently aren't.

A WorldNetDaily article by Bob Unruh did seem to understand there was a bit of satire going on, acknowledging that "The messaging is cast in a light that portrays anyone with moral or biblical objections to homosexuality as being unfair and intolerant" -- given that they are, an accurate interpretation. But he repeated anti-LGBT groups' overly serious interpretations of the video and falsely called the "we coming for your children" lyric a "threat" in the headline.

Meanwhile, at the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com,  homophobic managing editor Michael W. Chapman called on equally homophobic religious-right activist Franklin Graham to denounce it and ignore the satire:

The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus posted a video last week about how they are "coming for your children," and will "convert" them, "bit by bit." In response, Christian leader Franklin Graham said they were proclaiming the "truth about" their agenda, which is a real "threat" to families and society.

In a July 10 post on Facebook, Rev. Graham wrote, "This gay group says they're 'coming for your children' -- and they’re telling the truth about it. We knew it, but I’m surprised they admitted it."

The video was pulled after threats of violence and doxxing came in, which Graham seems pretty cool with:

"After outrage from viewers on YouTube, the group took the video down, and tried to say it was an attempt at some kind of humor," said Graham.  "I don’t see any humor, and neither do a lot of other parents and grandparents, but I see a driving agenda and a threat that is real."

Apparently, Chapman and Graham are quite OK with LGBT people being harmed or killed because of who they are. They probably see much more humor in that.

CNS Can't Stop Lazily Attacking Rob Reiner As 'Meathead'
Topic: CNSNews.com

Like its Media Research Center parent, CNSNews.com loves to lazily dismiss any political opinions expressed by director Rob Reiner by associating him with Mike Stivic -- who was nicknamed "Meathead" by bigoted lead character Archie Bunker -- the role he played on "All In The Family" 50 years ago and hasn't played since 1978. It hasn't stopped doing so over the past year, even though Reiner has done many more things in the ensuing 40-plus years.

An August 2020 article by Craig Bannister put "Meathead" in the headline and described Reiner as a "producer and left-wing activist" who "starred as a character nicknamed “Meathead” in the iconic sitcom 'All in the Family.'" In an October 2020 article, Bannister described Reiner as a "political activist and Filmmaker" but surprisingly did not mention his "All In The Family" role.

An anonymously written Jan. 18 article, complaining that Reiner called Donald Trump a "lifetime criminal," described Reiner as having "played Archie Bunker’s son-in-law (“Meathead”) on “All in the Family” and went on to become a Hollywood movie director" and illustrated it with a black-and-white still shot of Reiner and Carroll O'Connor, who played Archie Bunker, in a scene from "All In The Family" -- then irrelevantly added that "Reiner explained in a 2012 interview with the Huffington Post that he does not practice a religion." The anonymous writer didn't mention that Trump doesn't practice a religion either.

A Jan. 28 article by Bannister called Reiner a "liberal Filmmaker" (though he didn't explain why he capitalized "filmmaker") but didn't mention "Meathead" as he complained that Trump's second impeachment trial was a choice between democracy and racism. Bannister repeated the "liberal Filmmaker" tag in a Feb. 1 post unhappy that Reiner said that Trump "committed the single worst Crime against Democracy in our Nation’s history."

An anonymously written Feb. 22 post about Reiner's comments on the death of Rush Limbaugh, however, returned "Meathead" to the headline and described Reiner as "the actor who played Archie Bunker’s son-in-law Meathead on 'All in the Family,'" but illustrated the article with a file photo of Reiner with Hillary Clinton.

In an April 14 article complaining that Reiner called Republicans "secessionists" who "stand for nothing but White Nationalism." Bannister described him as a "liberal activist and Hollywood producer." But an anonymously written July 21 article calling Trump a "criminal sociopath" returned to describing Reiner as having "played the son-in-law of Archie Bunker on 'All in the Family'"and was illustrated with another "All in the Family" file photo.

It appears CNS is still having issues separating an actor from a role he hasn't played in more than 40 years.

MRC Gushes Over Trump Social Media Lawsuit, Offers To Help
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center alsmost couldn't contain itself when Donald Trump sued the social media platforms that suspended him, as Kayla Sargent demonstrated in a July 7 item under the headline "SEE YOU IN COURT!":

Big Tech corporations have a notorious history of silencing conservatives on social media platforms, but their tyrannical practice of censoring opinions that they disagree with may come back to haunt them. Former President Donald Trump has decided to fight back and take legal action against the Big Tech platforms that banned him earlier in the year.

Trump announced that he would file lawsuits against Facebook, Google and Twitter, as well as their top executives Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and Jack Dorsey at a July 7 press conference. “We’re asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to order an immediate halt to social media companies’ illegal, shameful censorship of the American people,” Trump said in the press conference.  

Trump discussed the actions the lawsuit would ask the court to take. He said that the lawsuit “seeks injunctive relief” and is “asking the court to impose punitive damages on these social media giants.” Trump stated further: “In the end, I am confident that we will achieve a historic victory for American freedom, and at the same time, freedom of speech.”

Sargent also repeated a couple of old MRC chestnuts in claiming that "Big Tech’s vendetta against Trump dates back several years. The first was the misleading assertion that "Twitter censored Trump 625 times between May 31, 2018, and Jan. 4, 2021, before he was kicked off the platform. ... Twitter did not censor President Joe Biden at all during the same period of time." The more accurate way to say it is that Trump violated Twitter's terms of service 625 times while Biden did not violate them at all. Sargent also declared that "Trump was also banned from at least nine other platforms after he called for 'peace' following the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol" -- a lie that the MRC has pushed for months; calling for peace had nothing whatsoever to do with his suspension.

The next day, Sargent gushed further over Trump's Wall Street Journal op-ed explaning why he filed the lawsuit:

Big Tech has made a habit out of silencing conservatives for too long, but former President Donald Trump decided to fight back, launching lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter and Google. 

Trump put Big Tech on blast in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal. He described the internet as “the new public square.” And the former president called out Big Tech companies for being “increasingly brazen and shameless in censoring and discriminating against ideas, information and people on social media—banning users, deplatforming organizations, and aggressively blocking the free flow of information on which our democracy depends.” 

Trump’s class action lawsuits against Big Tech could help restore free speech rights of Americans. “One of the gravest threats to our democracy today is a powerful group of Big Tech corporations that have teamed up with government to censor the free speech of the American people,” wrote Trump. “This is not only wrong—it is unconstitutional. To restore free speech for myself and for every American, I am suing Big Tech to stop it.”

No mention, of course, of any criticism of Trump's lawsuit -- particularly his nonsensical claim that social media companies violated the Constitution in suspending him; as one critic noted, "this is the former President of the United States arguing that private companies violated HIS 1st Amendment rights by conspiring with the government HE LED AT THE TIME to deplatform him." Others have noted, where Sargent didn't, that Republicans are using Trump's lawsuit to raise money, making the whole venture look more than a little grifty. Sargent also copied-and-pasted her bogus claims about Twitter having "censored" Trump 625 times and that he was suspended for calling for peace over the Capitol riot he helped instigate.

Autumn Johnson was boldly shilling for Trump and his lawsuit in a July 9 post:

Members of the class-action lawsuit filed by former President Donald Trump are looking for stories from other social media users who have had their content censored by Big Tech companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google.

An Instagram post by Austen Fletcher, who is involved in the suit, asked users to post about their experiences with Big Tech censorship. The post had over 15,000 likes and 3,500 comments on its first day.

“Have you been banned, censored, or shadowbanned by Big Tech?” the post reads. “Comment your story below.”

“This is not a drill! Tell me your story below,” the caption adds. “This class action lawsuit is about YOU, the people. If you’ve been shadowbanned, censored, or deleted off from any of your social media platforms tell us about it in the comments. BE SPECIFIC! I think we will have thousands upon thousands of examples! This will be the largest class action lawsuit in this country’s history!”

And wouldn't you know it, the MRC is eager to help out by serving up examples, as Sargent explained in a July 14 post:

Big Tech’s war against conservative voices has reached new heights. But MRC Free Speech America’s CensorTrack team has exposed the left’s  online censorship by amassing 2,500 individual cases to hold Big Tech accountable. 

The CensorTrack database has cataloged 2,500 cases of Big Tech silencing conservatives online since March 2020. In that time, Big Tech has booted a sitting president, silenced members of the free press like the New York Post for its reporting on Hunter Biden and shut down free speech-oriented platforms like Parler.

Twitter censored and Facebook suppressed a story from the New York Post that claimed to expose the alleged corrupt dealings of now-President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in Ukraine. Not only did Twitter ban users from posting the link to the story, but it also locked the Post’s account for 17 days. A post-election poll conducted by MRC found that 36 percent of Biden voters were not aware of the story, and 4.6 percent would not have voted for him if they had known about the scandal, which could have swung the outcome of the election.

Sargent didn't mention that poll was conducted for the MRC by Trump's pollster, so there's no reason to trust its accuracy, or that the pro-Trump New York Post deserves the benefit of the doubt for its dubious October surprise about Hunter Biden. She did, however, repeat once again the bogus assertion that Trump was suspended for calling for peace.

The same day, Alexander Hall promoted a Wall Street Journal op-ed championing Trump's lawsuit by Vivek Ramaswamy, whom Hall obliquely identifies only as a "Philanthropy Roundtable board member," though he's actually a right-wing activist.

Casey Ryan touted the success of this effort in a Aug. 5 post:

Former President Donald Trump and everyday Americans are now piling on Big Tech for their egregious acts of censorship. Trump has amended his lawsuits against Big Tech corporations and executives to include comments from what appears to be a huge grassroots army of 65,000 Americans.

The nonprofit America First Policy Institute (AFPI) announced that Trump’s amended complaints were filed in late July. Trump said that he launched his lawsuits against Big Tech “in conjunction” with the AFPI in an op-ed that he recently wrote for The Wall Street Journal.

The organization explained that it allowed people to submit examples of how Big Tech has censored them and that 65,000 Americans submitted their stories. “According to the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), Trump’s July 7 lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter, and Google is adding ‘additional censorship experiences’ from some of the nearly 65,000 people who submitted them to the institute,” The Epoch Times reported.

How many of those were supplied by the MRC? Ryan doesn't say. Perhaps he should have, so that we can see the extent that the MRC is playing partisan politics -- and pushing right-wing victimhood.

WND Gets On GETTR, Hides Its Extremism And Insecurity
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily proudly declared in an anonymously written July 15 article:

In just 11 days, the new social media site GETTR already has 1.5 million users – and WND is one of the news sites now posting its best stories and commentaries.

The platform's CEO is former Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller, and it has gained quick traction among supporters of the 45th president.

According to the Washington Examiner, a recent poll found that two-thirds of Republicans who have heard of GETTR are either on the site already or planning to sign up.

[...]

Launched on the Fourth of July, GETTR is one of the leading new social media sites pledging to counter Twitter and Facebook by promising to be a place where free thought and freedom of speech are honored.

[...]

As one of the first news sites to be flagged and shadow banned by Facebook and victimized by Google's biased search algorithms, WND is pleased to join the GETTR community. Sign up at GETTR.com and then be sure to follow WNDNews.

What you won't hear much about at WND, however, is all the problems WND has had with security and extremist content. A week before this announcement, WND did publish an article noting that GETTR had been "attacked by hackers" -- bnut even that article didn't cover the full extent of GETTR's early problems, which -- as we've noted -- also included security issues, typos on the app store pages for the app, and allowing a "Hitler" account.

Also, it turns out that that early user number WND touted was a lie. According to a report from the Stanford Internet Observatory Cyber Policy Center (h/t Wonkette),  GETTR didnt' actually reach 1.5 million users until the first week of August. In addition, not only is GETTR filled with pornography, Islamic terrorists have accounts there and post videos of beheadings. WND has reported on exactly none of this.

There's the "free speech" website you wanted, WND. Enjoy!

NEW ARTICLE: Crasser With Crowder
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center supports right-wing "comedian" Steven Crowder's vicious homophobia and hate-filled attacks because they tend to get him suspended from social media, which gives the MRC a chance to further its "victim" narrative. Read more >>

CNS Mildly Fearmongers Over Door-To-Door Vaccines
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com's coverage of the Biden administration's efforts to offer COVID vaccines door-to-door didn't reach the fearmongering heights of WorldNetDaily, but it had its moments of unfairness and a twinge of fear. Susan Jones set the mildly ominous tone in a July 8 article:

Two days ago, President Joe Biden announced that his administration's vaccination push may come right to your front door:

“Now we need to go community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, and oftimes door-to-door, literally knocking on doors to get help to the remaining people protected from the virus,” the president said.

The door-to-door plan is getting pushback from some Americans, who see door-knocking as intrusive and none of the government's business. Oh yes it is our business, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told CNN on Thursday morning[.]

Later that day, Melanie Arter surprisingly gave White House press secretary Jen Psaki to shoot down right-wing fearmongering by pointing out that "the people who are going door-to-door to encourage people to get vaccinated are not federal government employees, but are community volunteers and clergy members" and that "the federal government does not have a database showing who has been vaccinated and who has not, and it has no plans to do so in the future." The next day, Arter gave even more uncritical space to Psaki, this time to shoot down fearmongering South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, who was ranting about "government vaccination teams showing up unannounced or unrequested at the door of ‘targeted’ homeowners or on their property":

When asked Friday to respond to McMaster and explain what is being done in the vaccination outreach, Psaki said, “Let me first say that the failure to provide accurate public health information, including the efficacy of vaccines and the accessibility of them to people across the country, including the people of South Carolina, is literally killing people, so maybe they should consider that.

[...]

>“It’s something that’s been going on since April, and it’s something where we’ve seen an impact in states where there are lower vaccination rates, so it is something that we will continue to work with local groups to do, and it’s a disservice to the country and to the people who may lose their lives, who may lose family members to provide inaccurate disinformation at a moment when we’re still fighting a pandemic,” Psaki added.

CNS then turned its attention to Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, whose state had seen low vaccination rates and an increasing COVID caseload. Two articles showed who was serious about health and who just wanted to fearmonger: Jones' article hyped Hutchinson blaming the government for "conservative" skepticism over vaccines, while Arter's article focused on Hutchinson claiming that the state already has "community organizations and churches going into people’s homes to make sure that those who are 'bedridden' have access to the vaccine."

CNS, however, couldn't stay away from McMaster's fearmongering -- despite already having given Psaki a chance to respond to it -- so a July 12 article by Julia Johnson hyped it again. Johnson waited until the 10th paragraph of her article to mention Psaki's criticism, then followed it up with McMaster's partisan response.

This was followed up with a July 14 column by Tony Perkins, who was in fiull fearmongering mode:

Most people were shocked when the president wanted to go door-to-door with his vaccine campaign -- but that's only the half of it. According to a Pentagon spokesman, the White House is also planning to go barracks to barracks -- requiring the men and women of our voluntary military to involuntarily surrender their freedom and take an unproven shot some of them don't want.

Actually, miilitary members are already mandated to have numerous vaccines. And Perkins' insistence that the COVID vaccine is "unproven" clashes with a rant later in his column, in which he whined about "2020's Democrats, who spent months sowing doubts about the shots, just because they were created while Donald Trump was president. At one point, Biden openly questioned whether a vaccine approved by Trump's agencies would be safe. They are the ones who stoked fears and undermined the scientific progress. Now, suddenly, they want to flip a switch, undo that damage, and blame all of the hesitancy on conservatives. You can't have it both ways. It was their politicking that put people's lives at risk. And now, their heavy-handedness threatens to do the same -- to our freedoms."

Perkins can't have it both ways either. The vaccine can't have been perfectly fine when Trump was promising it as a re-election ploy but suddenly "unproven" when the political party in the White House switched.

MRC Tries To Smear Texas Dems As 'Superspreaders' Because Of COVID Cases
Topic: Media Research Center

Here's more evidence that the Media Research Center stopped being about "media research" -- if it ever was -- and is all about pushing right-wing narratives no matter how false. We've already noted how the MRC's Curtis Houck promoted the Republican-approved talking point -- as ably regurgitated by Fox News' Peter Doocy -- that Texas Democrats making a trip to Washington, D.C., to break quorum in the state legislature to stop a a voting-restriction bill was a "superspreader event" because six of the 60 legislators -- who had all been vaccinated against coronavirus -- had tested positive for COVID. But Houck wasn't the only MRC writer to push this GOP-approved narrative.

Scott Whitlock made sure to put "SUPER SPREADER" in all caps in the headline of a July 19 post while complaining that non-right-wing media didn't cover this story to his satisfaction: "On Sunday night, the CBS Weekend News DIDN’T cover the super spreader Democrats. Instead, they touted the Texas voting rights legislation separately with NO mention of the Covid spike amongst the Democrats."

Houck made the RNC proud on July 21 when he repeated the narrative:

World News Tonight felt the need to defend the Lone Star State lawmakers by omitting them in a segment about the other D.C. cases.

Sensationalist anchor David Muir teased that the newscast would cover “fully vaccinated staffers from the White House to Nancy Pelosi's office, testing positive,” but when it came to conducting basic journalism, Muir and White House correspondent Rachel Scott didn’t see a need for that.

Muir later added in the lead-in to Scott: “And one more note on the virus tonight. In Washington tonight, some fully vaccinated staffers from the White House to Speaker Pelosi's office have now tested positive.”

Instead of spend the whole segment on why the superspreader happened, Scott never gave an explanation for how a Pelosi aide and White House official contracted the virus[.]

Houck again failed to mention the fact that the Texas legislators were fully vaccinated at as well.

The same day, Clay Waters whined about the New York Times pointing out how Republicans are more vaccine-hesitant than Democrats, huffing in reference to the Texas legislators that "a Democratic super-spreader event wasn’t identified as such."

Kathleen Krumhansl referred to  "Super-Spreading Texas Democrats" in a July 22 post attacking Spanish-language media for not smearing them the way she is:

Now that the publicity stunt by Texas Democratic lawmakers who fled to Washington, D.C. to boycott that state's election security laws backfired, with six of them testing positive for COVID-19, the Latino nets are doing their best to erase them.

After the news of the fiasco broke through, the previously heralded heroes and saviors of voting integrity and justice for both Univision and Telemundo somehow morphed into anonymous aides, officials and advisors to be referred to indirectly and in passing.

Watch as anchors and reporters from both networks save face for the reckless super-spreaders - –they exposed members of the Congress and the White House staff with the virus- who appear to be saved from any guilt by being “fully vaccinated”, as if that would make things any different[.]

The MRC is utterly hypocritical about this, of course. When it came to an actual superspreader event -- last September's Rose Garden introduction of Supreme Court judicial nominee Amy Comey Barrett by then-President Trump, where most attendees were unmasked (pre-vaccine) and after which several attendees, incuding Trump himself, came down with COVID -- the MRC didn't want to talk about it:

• Houck complained at the time that it was a "narrative" to point out the indisputable fact that few people wore masks, adding in an attempt at whataboutism: "While it’s admirable to stress masking-wearing and social distancing, CNN and the left writ large lost the chance to credibly lecture anyone on public health after having shown little to no issue with packed, should-to-shoulder Black Lives Matter marches and protests."
• Kristine Marsh also tried to downplay it by being outraged at a host on "The View" calling it the "Rose Garden massacre," insisting that just "a handful of people out of 150 present have tested positive for coronavirus," omitting the fact that among that "handful" were the president of the United States, his wife, aides and other politicians. She added: "Neither host seemed to understand that contracting a virus which the majority of people have recovered from, isn’t a death sentence."
• John Shannon groused that "in what felt like a strange combination of ESPN and murder-mystery, Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski constructed an in-depth play-by-play of events at the nomination ceremony for Judge Amy Coney Barrett at the White House, the “super-spreader” event that many in the media consider to be ground zero for many positive cases, including that of the President.
• Clay Waters unironically ranted that "The New York Times efficiently channeled the hypocritical left-wing rage over President Trump’s late-September Garden ceremony introducing his Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, which may have helped spread coronavirus among White House staff and others who have since tested positive."

In other words, just as hypocritical as the MRC's right-wing rage over the Texas legislators.

What Does This Article Even Mean?
Topic: CNSNews.com

An anonymously written July 16 CNSNews.com article states:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) held a press conference in Los Angeles on Thursday to celebrate the first payments of the Biden Child Tax Credit and twice during that press conference, according to the transcript Pelosi published of the event, she declared: “Oh, my God.”

“The Child Tax Credit in the American Rescue Plan provides the largest Child Tax Credit ever and historic relief to the most working families ever--and as of July 15th, most families are automatically receiving monthly payments of $250 or $300 per child without having to take any action,”explained a statement on the White House website.

At the event, Pelosi mentioned the Paycheck Protection Program and Rep. Maxine Waters (D.-Calif.) efforts in promoting it.

[...]

Pelosi also said “Oh, my God” in response to a question a reporter asked her about the spike in drug overdose deaths over the past year.

We're having trouble figuring out why this article exists. Is it an attack on Pelosi? If so, it's a bizarre one. "Oh, my God" is a common enough expression that it shouldn't be particularly offensive to anyone, even the uber-Catholics who run CNS and have deemed Pelosi insufficiently Catholic because she's not anti-abortion.

But some anonymous someone at CNS was apparently so offended by Pelosi's use of this common expression that he or she even made screenshots of the transcript of Pelosi's presser with the words "Oh, my God" highlighted. Yet that person was not so offended that he or she couldn't be bothered to explain to readers exactly why. It's lashing out for no good or obvious reason -- which may serve as a demonstration of how much CNS hates Pelosi than of any actual news value.

Consider this a very strange entry in CNS' multi-pronged war against Pelosi.

Newsmax's Black Actually Thinks Trump Can Be Calm And Moderate
Topic: Newsmax

The political scene is evolving so quickly that I presume to offer some advice to President Trump: He can now win in 2024 by being the potential candidate of calm and moderation.

The Democrats have become a Babel of contending extremists, suddenly and implausibly blaming the Republicans for defunding police forces and miraculously discovering the virtues of voter identification, after having denounced it for six months as the resurrection of Jim Crow.

[...]

Thus far, the one great accomplishment of the Biden administration, apart from a rising stock market, has been the reduced decibel level of the Biden White House — something gratefully appreciated by many Americans.

The constant tumult of the Trump years grated on almost everyone, although Trump’s assailants often were equally, if not chiefly, responsible for the clangorous quality of those years.

But the increasing concern about the human wave of illegal immigration across the southern border, about sharply rising rates of violent crime and inflation, will soon attract the interest of even the most slavishly anti-Trump media, however tepidly. And Democrats already are showing their nervousness over those and other foreboding prospects.

[...]

While the Democrats’ pseudo-legal harassment of Trump — the Russia collusion fraud, the two spurious impeachments, the hysterical COVID-19 smears (replete with early charges that no vaccine developed under Trump’s auspices could be trusted), the accusations of him instigating an organized, heavily armed insurrection by his supporters at the Capitol on Jan. 6 — continues.

It has spiraled down to Speaker Pelosi's pathetic commission with Rep. Cheney as a sorceress’s apprentice. They will make a last political stand to try turning the hooliganism at the Capitol into something on the scale of Pearl Harbor or 9/11, as suggested by many in politics and the media.

The fact that the former president has come through all of this is a great personal victory and a true wonder of political staying power.

Now, as time passes, the public irritation with Trump’s bombastic behavior, of his being in the nation’s face day and night for four years, will recede and gradually be replaced by the spectacle of a comatose Biden administration, floundering and dissembling, fecklessly struggling with the various crises it has created.

There will be, soon enough, nostalgia for Trump instead — and if he is wise, he can become a winning figure of comparative Olympian serenity.

-- Conrad Black, July 19 Newsmax column

(Black has never actually observed Trump, has he?)

WND Fearmongers, Misinforms About Door-To-Door COVID Vaccine Effort
Topic: WorldNetDaily

If there's one thing WorldNetDaily is good at -- aside from publishing falsehoods and misinformation -- it's fearmongering, and the Biden administration's attempt to increase the number of Americans vaccinated against coronavirus by having health workers go door-to-door provided another opportunity to do that.

A July 6 article by Art Moore introduced the idea in a surprisingly fair manner -- but then he called on notable COVID misinfomers to shoot it down. He repeated Peter McCullough's wildly wrong claim that "The Delta variant is the mildest one we've seen so far" with a "very low mortality," followed by Harvey Risch's utterly disproven assertion that "This is a very mild variant, and the cases are going to go up ... whereas at the same time the mortality is flat, near zero."

Bob Unruh ramped up the fearmongering in a July 9 article:

When President Biden's latest extreme COVID move – a door-to-door visit to Americans to promote the vaccines – was announced, one of the reactions was from South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, who said those decisions are "personal" for his residents to make.

"Enticing, coercing, intimidating, mandating, or pressuring anyone to take the vaccine is a bad policy which will deteriorate the public’s trust and confidence in the state’s vaccination efforts," he said.

One member of Congress openly suggested while the door knocks this year may concern COVID vaccinations, those next year might be about collecting Americans' guns.

But a a report from Press California explains Oregon already is considering ways to implement Biden's agenda, and "one tactic could be to send out the National Guard to neighborhoods."

The state actually has some 70% of is residents vaccinated, but "that’s not enough, according to zealous public health bureaucrats," the report said.

Surprisingly, Unruh did balance out his artile withh a view from the other side -- albeit in the very last paragraph -- auoting White House vaccine coordinator Jeffrey Zeints as saying that "organizations that are feeding misinformation and trying to mischaracterize this type of trusted messenger work" are "doing a disservice to the country and to the doctors, the faith leaders, the community leaders and others who are working to get people vaccinated, to save lives and help to end this pandemic."

A July 12 article by Unruh tried to portray instructions to the door-to-door workers as somehow sinister and Nazi-esque:

It's not taking long for President Biden's plan to dispatch federal representatives to your front door to ask you about your COVID vaccine to become reality.

One county in Illinois already has posted instructions for those interrogators on how to act when they confront you, including for them to ignore "No soliciting" signs.

No mention, however, of whether they're supposed to ignore "No trespassing" directives.

"We went from 15 days to slow the spread, to Biden's gestapo knocking door-to-door to see your papers," wrote Jenna Ellis. "Who did Nazi that one coming?"

[...]

There's no mention of possible conflicts with HIPAA, the federal medical information privacy requirements which are supposed to prevent an individual's medical details from being released to members of the general public, like a door-knocker.

In fact, it is not a HIPAA violation to ask whether a person has received the COVID vaccine.

On July 14 Unruh touted how "A new national poll has found Americans giving a thumbs down to Joe Biden's agenda to send strike forces 'door-to-door' across America to convince people to take the COVID vaccinations." Unruh didn't explain why he called health workers giving vaccinations "strike forces." Later that day, Unruh rampted up the fear and hateful rhetoric:

The newest version of Joe Biden's "Big Brother" agenda, which already features strike forces going door-to-door asking people about their COVID vaccinations, now has members of a coalition knocking on doors and giving shots on the spot.

A report from PJMedia explains, "Joe Biden wasn’t kidding. When his spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the Biden administration would send people door-to-door to convince people to get the COVID shot, there was a chill sent down the spines of freedom-loving Americans everywhere. Many people took it as a threat.

"Now those door-to-door COVID-shot salespeople are here and they've brought back-up: injectors," the report said.

It was not explained why health workers offering vaccinations would not have the vaccines with them when doing so, or why that is a "threat."

Unruh devoted a July 16 article to invoking Karl Rove to manufacture a sinister political motive to the plan:

But now longtime political analyst Karl Rove is suggesting that there is an unwelcome political influencer making the decisions on what campaign is being done where.

"If you’re in the White House and you’re attempting to solve this problem, do you really want to pollute it with a big draw-up of highly partisan and ideological groups rather than focusing on the mission at hand? Are these people around in, let’s say, Nebraska? Are these people around in let’s say Rhode Island?" he said.

"In fact, the list I’ve seen is virtually only states that are swing states, close states from the 2020 election. Somebody in the White House and somebody at the Department of Health and Human Services has to be held to account. Who’s making these decisions? Who’s allowing politics to enter into something that ought to be as far away from politics as possible?"

A commentary at The Gateway Pundit was blunt: "Are Joe Biden's vaccine teams going door-to-door in swing states doing more than promoting vaccines? Americans need to know."

Of course, all this scaremongering from Unruh -- complete with Nazi references -- is just parroting right-wing narratives designed to keep their followers afraid of the government, not to report truthfully on what is actually happening.

Unruh really needs to go back to Zeints' criticism of fearmongerers like himself and ask whether the fearmongering and misinforming he's doing is actually doing a disservice to the country and its health workers -- and whether that's worth doing for a website that's on the precipice of failure.

MRC Hurls Hate At Another Interview of Psaki
Topic: Media Research Center

Part of the Media Research Center's unhinged hatred of White House press secretary Jen Psaki is that any interviewer who won't trash her the MRC demands must also be trashed. We saw this with CNN's Brian Stelter, and Nicholas Fondacaro ramped up the childish insults and condescension in a June 24 post on another Psaki interview under the deliberately hateful headline "SPIT SHINE: MSNBC’s Wallace Tries to Beat CNN in Licking Psaki’s Boots":

MSNBC Deadline: White House host Nicolle Wallace apparently saw Brian Stelter’s bootlicking interview with White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki and thought ‘challenge accepted.’

And during a Thursday interview with Psaki, Wallace rhetorically told Stelter to hold her beer as she gushed about how the mostly liberal press pool gave her “high marks,” including “some of the President's detachers” who give her “grudging respect.”

Wallace began the doting interview by opining about how she’s spoken to “folks on the frontline of trying to protect not just voting rights but avoid voter nullification which a lot of people feel is the most ominous and haunting parts of these voter suppression bills.”

[...]

The grossest praise for Psaki came when Wallace tried to relate to her. “Jen, I've walked in similar shoes to the ones you walk in together probably 23 and half hours a day. I’m guessing. How do you feel like it's going,” she wondered, speaking with the cadence of a ditzy high school girl.

Wallace seemed to up the ante from Stelter’s request to have Psaki knock around the press a bit by just telling the Press Secretary how great she was, and suggested even the opposition bowed to her grace:

[...]

At different points in the interview, Wallace expanded her bootlicking to President Biden. “He is very popular not just in the Democratic Party but, I know he and you all point out, with Republicans in the country who supported the COVID relief package overwhelmingly, whose support likely contributed to Republicans coming to the table on infrastructure,” she gushed.

Adding: Would he play a similar role in bringing Republicans to the White House to work on a bipartisan compromise on voting rights?”

This isn't "media research" -- it's partisan bile, pure and simple. It seems as if there is a contest inside MRC headquarters regarding who can hurl the most immature insults at its political enemies and the non-right-wing media. It's unprofessional and embarasssing, and if Fondacaro was capable of the emotion, he should be ashamed.

The sin of not trashing Psaki extended to a July 1 post by Geoffrey Dickens complaining that "lefty journos" committed the offense of having "sucked up to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki with the likes of CNN’s Brian Stelter asking her 'what do we [journalists] get wrong?' and MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace gushing, 'You get such high marks from the vast majority of the people in the [press] room.'"

If the MRC had ever complained about suck-up interviews at Fox News to the likes of Kayleigh McEnany, it might have a point.

Newsmax's Hirsen Fluffs Ex-'Superman' Actor, Censors How Ignorant His Captain America Criticism Was
Topic: Newsmax

James Hirsen began his July 12 Newsmax column by sucking up to Dean Cain:

Dean Cain gained a whole lot of fame when he starred in the hit 1990s television series “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.”

Cain played the dual role of the understated Clark Kent and his alter-ego Superman, with actress Teri Hatcher co-starring as Lois Lane.

At the height of its popularity, “Lois and Clark” brought in roughly 15 million viewers per show. Its influence spawned a series of novels, trading cards, and a comic book, which all worked to solidify Cain's brand as a major player in the “Superman” legacy.

Not only does Cain have the looks to take on the Man of Steel role, he’s got the athletic cred under his belt to make the media magic believable.

All this sucking up, though, was an attempt to build credibility for the actor to justify his right-wing attacks on the new Captain America comic series. Hirsen obliquely introduced this section by stating that "Cain recently became the subject of a Twitter trend, due to some statements that he made about a new Captain America comic book series." Hirsen didn't note, of course, that the reason Cain became a Twitter trend was beause he never read the comic he was criticizing -- and, thus, probably didn't understand much about Superman, the character he played on TV for a few years, around which Hirsen was trying to build his critical cred. It appears Hirsen has not only not read the comic as well -- he only quotes the one line that his drawn right-wing ire but omitting the entirety of what Captain America actually said on the subject -- his own research into Cain was factually deficient, crediting a Hollywood Reporter story on Cain's remarks when, in fact, the Reporter was detailing was said on Fox News:

The new sub-patriotic comic book character states that the American Dream is really “…two dreams. And one lie,” adding that for some, it “isn’t real.”

Cain has a sense that the change of direction for the title character is anti-American in nature and appears to be shoehorned into the content of the comic book.

Quoted in the Hollywood Reporter Cain says, “I love the concept of Captain America, but I am so tired of this wokeness and anti-Americanism.”

“In my opinion, America is the greatest country in history. It’s not perfect. We are constantly striving for a more perfect union, but I believe she’s the most fair, equitable country anyone’s ever seen, and that’s why people are clamoring to get here from all over the globe,” he adds.

Cain wonders aloud about whether today's U.S. critics realize what life is like in other countries around the world.

“Do these people ever travel outside of America?” he asks. “Do they go to other countries where they have to deal with governments who aren’t anywhere near as fair as the United States? I don’t think they do. I do it all the time, and I kiss the soil when I get back.”

But as the Twitter folks who demolished Cain's remarks pointed out, superheroes tend to be woke creatures, with Superman in canon helping the disadvantaged and repeatedly taking down the empires of evil capitalist Lex Luthor. Also, Captain America fought Nazis.

It managed to be even more stupid than the Media Research Center's meltdown over Captain America. Maybethat's why Hirsen concluded his column with more Cain-fluffing, laughably insisting that "he has generally been private about his religious convictions" despite most of his recent film projects he listed being made with an explicit right-ring and/or religious.

NEW ARTICLE: WND And The 'Charlottesville Lie' Lie
Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has repeatedly defended Donald Trump over his comment that there were good people on both sides of the Charlottesville violence -- but censors one important fact that undermines it. Read more >>