CNS Unemployment Coverage Distortion Watch, Vacation Edition
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com did not serve up a summary of federal employment numbers for August because Susan Jones -- the biased CNS reporter in charge of that monthly duty -- was off that week. (You'd think that a "news" organization would have someone else write that story, given how it's "news" and all, and how it is a predictable staple of CNS coverage.) Instead, the only article was the usual sidebar from editor Terry Jeffrey on government jobs, complaining that "The federal government added 3,000 civilian employees in August."

Instead, Craig Bannister stepped into the breach with an article accusing Nancy Pelosi of spinning the "disappointing" numbers to push federal spending:

“Today’s job report is further evidence of the need to Build Back Better for our economy,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Friday, reacting to August’s steep drop in job growth from its year-long trend reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

As the BLS reported in its monthly Employment Situation Summary, August’s 235,000 job growth was less than half the average monthly job gain recorded so far this year, coming in at just  235,000. To-date in 2021, the U.S. economy has added an average of 586,000 per month:

Bannister didn't mention that the lower numbers were driven by the Delta variant harming restaurant and hospitality jobs.

WND's Kupelian Spreads Election-Fraud Lies On Ex-WND Columnist's Show
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The claims that the presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump presented in the most recent issue of WorldNetDaily's sparsely read Whistleblower magazine were easily disproven -- but that's not stopping WND managing editor David Kupelian from trying to promote it, something he rarely goes out to do. So we were graced with an Aug. 15 article pushing his dishonest PR:

At a time when even suggesting the November 2020 presidential election was unfair or rigged will get journalists censored, “fact-checked” and condemned – and perhaps fired – WND’s popular Whistleblower magazine apparently didn’t get the memo.

“Over at Whistleblower magazine,” announced TV host Dr. Gina Loudon on her popular “Dr. Gina Prime Time” show on America’s Real Voice network, “they devoted the entire issue this month to election fraud. The front cover says, ‘YES, THE 2020 ELECTION WAS STOLEN.’ That is putting it in no uncertain terms!”

Stop right there. WND offers no evidence that Loudon's show is "popular," and the article gets the name of the  channel wrong -- it's Real America's  Voice, not America’s Real Voice. Also, you might remember that Loudon is a former WND columnist who tried to armchair-diagnose President Obama as a psychopath and demonstrated some serious pathology of her own by spreading lies. YOu might also remember her for trying to make hay off her teenage daughter being in a relationship with a 57-year-old actor-- then later making sure WND deleted the column she wrote on it.

So Loudon was the perfect "popular" host to regurgitate Kupelian's lies. The article continued:

“David,” she said to her guest, Whistleblower Editor David Kupelian, “We’re not crazy! The election really was stolen. And that’s a big statement. We’ve heard it from some, but most people have been very, very reserved on this. If you say this, you’re branded crazy or a conspiracy theorist, David, though it’s looking more like those are compliments than insults these days.”

Asking Kupelian to highlight some of the many ways the 2020 election was rigged, Loudon first prompted Kupelian to explain how Google, with or without voter fraud, can and does swing American elections.

“For this issue of Whistleblower, Gina, we interviewed Robert Epstein, who’s the preeminent Google researcher,” said Kupelian. “He used to be editor-in-chief of Psychology Today, a very sharp guy – and by the way, a Democrat … so there’s no political motivation here. But he’s an honest man and he wants us to have free and fair elections.” Epstein, who has developed very sophisticated and accurate methodologies for measuring how Google sways public opinion and therefore elections, determined that Google, “because of its tainted search algorithm, swung at least 6 million voters to Joe Biden!” said Kupelian.

“We’re told that the election hinged on 44,000 votes total in three states,” added Kupelian, out of “161,000,000 votes, a record number of votes cast. Forty-four thousand votes – that’s a close election! Well guess what? Six million is a lot more than 44,000 votes, it’s like 130 times 44,000 votes!”

We've documented how Epstein's anti-Google reserarch is dubious at best. As for his star claim, as repeated by Kupelian, that  Google "turn[ed] an estimated 6 million 'undecided' voters to Biden," the Washington Post's Philip Bump noted: "Of course, the idea that people primarily base their decisions on what they learn from Googling candidates — particularly at the presidential level — is dismissible on its face. President Biden got a record level of support from Democrats even as Trump earned near-universal support from Republicans. Which of them was influenced by his or her search results?"

More from the article:

Citing another example from “YES, THE 2020 ELECTION WAS STOLEN,” Kupelian told how, after Twitter scandalously banned the New York Post’s devastating reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop just weeks prior to the election, “the Media Research Center polled Biden voters.” It turns out, Kupelian revealed, that “36% had never even heard about the Hunter Biden laptop story in the New York Post, thanks to Twitter, and listen to this: 4.6% of Biden voters said that they would not have voted for Biden had they known what was in this story – the dirt, the total corruption not just of Hunter Biden, but of Joe Biden. So that right there would have been enough to have given Trump 289 electoral votes and he would have been elected to his second term.”

As we've documented, the MRC poll was conducted by McLaughlin & Associates -- the same pollster employed by Trump's campaign -- so the trust factor is quite low. Kupelian added:

“Back in 2016, Gina, I did an article on five different Washington Post writers who explicitly compared Donald Trump to Hitler in the run-up to the election. And you ask yourself, why would they do that? It’s because, if you and I, Gina, were alive in Hitler’s Germany, would we cheat on an election in order to save six million Jews, to slay this dragon and stop a terrible war? Of course we would’ve cheated on the election! This was the left’s subliminal but undeniable message to America: It’s not only that it’s OK to cheat – it’s immoral NOT to cheat, if you’re getting rid of Hitler, the worst person to ever live, which is what they were saying about Trump.”

We've pointed out how WND -- which, again, Kupelian is an executive at -- repeatedly likened President Obama to Hitler and other Nazis and had no moral qualms about that. (Also, the Antichrist.) Is Kupelian saying that by doing so, it was immoral for WND NOT to lie about Obama's birth certificate and various other things during his presidency? It appears so, making him a raging hypocrite as well as a liar.

The article concluded:

Added Kupelian, who has been WND’s vice president and managing editor since 1999 and editor of Whistleblower the entire time, “I just want the gaslighting to stop. This was the most corrupt, dirty election, certainly in our lifetimes, and I believe anybody who reads this issue of Whistleblower – and I don’t care if they’re a Democrat or Republican – if they’re just decent, half-way fair-minded people, they will come away believing that this was a stinking, dirty election.”

Actually, the only person gaslighting here is Kupelian, and he has no intention whatsoever of stopping -- the grift is just too alluring, even as all those conspiracy theories have pushed WND to the edge of insolvency.

MRC Rushes To Defend DeSantis Over COVID -- Again
Topic: Media Research Center

Last year, the Media Research Center fawned all over Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for his hands-off approach to the coronavirus epidemic in his state -- then had to switch to defense mode when the state became an epicenter of COVID infection. Well, Florida has become an epicenter of the Delta variant this summer, and the MRC is back in defense mode.

Alex Christy complained on July 17 that CNN's Chris Cuomo spread "disinformation" by "insinuating" that DeSantis isn't encouraging people to get vaccinated, then made excuses for DeSantis' abhorrent behavior: 

DeSantis has been vocal in his opposition to vaccine passports, mandates, and is selling anti-Fauci merchandise, but has never said "don't get vaccinated." The anti-Fauci fundraising is about masks and lockdowns, not vaccines. If Cuomo can't understand the difference between being against mandates and being against vaccines, that's on him, not DeSantis.

Christy also falsely identified guest Leana Wen as "Planned Parenthood president" -- she hasn't worked there for two years, and even then was the group's president for only nine months. (the MRC is weirdly obsessed with tagging Wen as tied to Planned Parenthood even though it's irrelevant to her current TV appearances as a health expert.) Christy then justified people who refuse to get the vaccine by blaming others, not them, for their own behavior:

The people who remain unvaccinated need to be convinced and telling them that nothing will change regardless will just confirm their suspicions that restrictions will last forever, or worse, that the vaccines don't work. That is far more damaging to the vaccination campaign than any anti-Fauci beer koozie. 

Christy returned on July 31 to portray any criticism of DeSantis' handling on COVID as an effort to derail his potential 2024 presidential camapign:

It is obvious that the media view Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as a 2024 threat; hence every discussion about COVID and the Delta variant must include an implication that Florida is a uniquely dire situation.

On his Friday show, CNN's Chris Cuomo blamed Florida for the CDC's revised mask guidelines, saying the country was being "held hostage" because of DeSantis' anti-science governance.

Mark Finkelstein peddled the same angle in an Aug. 2 post:

As the number of COVID cases rises in Florida, opportunistic liberal talk shows are taking more pot shots at Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential 2024 presidential candidate. It's never too early to bury him.  

Morning Joe regular Dave Aronberg, the Democrat Palm Beach County State Attorney, twice claimed today that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's stance on Covid constitutes—of all things—"socialism." 

Mika Brzezinski melodramatically teed him up by suggesting you'd oppose DeSantis, too, if "you’re actually getting correct information on the science, and not a bunch of stupid, crazy, Trump-driven conspiracy theories that could kill you."

Clay Waters complained that New York Times columnist Paul Krugman "pointed out that over 10,000 Floridians are currently hospitalized with Covid, then blamed DeSantis," adding that "Krugman was obliged to note, but strenuously attempted to discount, the inconvenient fact that Florida is actually doing just fine with vaccinations." Waters then huffed:

Speaking of life, DeSantis kept Florida schools open, as the luckless children under blue state regimes suffered developmental setbacks and loneliness. How rejecting masks for the upcoming school year could possibly impact case levels in the present day is a baffler, but intellectual consistency has never been Krugman’s strong suit.

After MSNBC's Joe Scarborough pointed out that DeSantis' pandering to his right-wing supporters on COVID made him sound a bit like "Simpsons" character Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel, Finkelstein returned to sneer: "Was Joe Scarborough ever a good ol' Southern boy, as he still likes to portray himself? In any case, that persona has definitively disappeared. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough exposed himself as the worst kind of condescending Upper West Side snob."

As the COVID death toll mounted in Florida, Kristine Marsh helped DeSantis distract and play whataboutism while decrying a new nickname for the guy:

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has increasingly become one of the left’s favorite targets. So it should come as no surprise that he drew the ire of the media on Thursday after he fired back at President Biden for lecturing him on his coronavirus leadership.

After Biden publicly rebuked the governor for banning mask mandates in Florida schools, DeSantis slammed the president for allowing COVID positive illegal immigrants into the country and flying them to states like Florida. Both Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough and The View’s Sunny Hostin went after DeSantis this morning in a pathetic effort to defend Biden.

On The View, Hostin maliciously smeared the Governor as “directly” responsible for people dying from COVID. She touted debunked allegations that he “hid” the death toll in his state, calling him “DeathSantis:”

Christy then served up more defense for DeSantis on Aug. 5 by insisting that he's not terrible on COVID, he's merely average:

The media's obsession with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis continued on Tuesday as Katy Tur Reports guest host Geoff Bennett let gubernatorial candidate Nikki Fried spread multiple untruths about DeSantis' pandemic response. That Fried was allowed to spread such claims was not surprising as Bennett's questioning relied on similarly false premises.

Ironically, before the segment even started, Bennett showed why the segment should never even happened as he went to a commercial teasing, "Still ahead, summer surge. At least 42 states are seeing COVID infection rates spike over 100 percent in the last two, we’ll go live to the new pandemic epicenter which is Florida."

If 42 states are seeing over 100% increases, then it can not simply be boiled down to politics or the governor's policies, but that didn't stop Bennett from trying. Leading Fried with a false narrative he asked, "What's your take-away about what's to come?...Why are do you think so many Floridians still aren't vaccinated?"

Florida's vaccination rate is essentially the same as the national average. As of August 3, 58.2% of Floridians have received at least one shot compared to 57.9% of all Americans.

Christy is rather desperately understating the situation in Florida. As week after his post, Florida alone accounted for nearly 18 percent of all new COVID cases in the U.S. And if the vaccination rate of Florida and Texas had been higher, 70,000 hospitalizations and 4,700 deaths could have been prevented through July.

WND Promotes False Conspiracy Theory About 'Fake' Biden Photo
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Bob Unruh wrote in an Aug. 16 WorldNetDaily article:

An online posting that looks closely at a recent image released by the White House – of Joe Biden in a situation room, sitting alone at a large table, with a series of screen images on the monitor on the wall, is raising questions about photoshopping.

You know, that computer trick where you can insert the image of a person in a room where he actually isn't. Or you can remove someone from a picture of an event where he actually was.

And other assorted tricks.

It is Citizen Free Press that has posted several images, and pointed out that there is a problem.

Under the headline, "Did the White House use photoshop in Biden image?" the commentary openly wonders how much about the image is accurate.

Because the image shows London time at 16:29, and Moscow time as 19:29.

Of course the two cities are not in the same time zone.

Nor are they three hours apart, the Citizen Free Press explained.

"Moscow will not be three hours different than London until November 7, 2021," the report explained.

Citizen Free Press, by the way, is a far-right Drudge-esque news aggregator run by an anonymous person, so it hasn't really earned the right to be trusted. And it can't be trusted on this either.

Because Unruh has put WND's hate-Biden agenda before the truth, he dismissed the most obvious possibility: one of the clocks was wrong. As a fact-checker pointed out:

Moscow is sometimes three hours ahead of London. However, the United Kingdom is currently on British Summer Time, a period when the clocks are turned ahead an hour so that there’s more daylight in the evenings and less in the mornings. 

We found no evidence the photo was staged, and claims that say so ignore a more likely scenario – that the clock was not updated for British Summer Time.

But Unruh -- and WND as a whole -- clearly despise Biden so much, they'd rather embrace a conspiracy than report the truth.

Newsmax Columnist Defends Poland's Right-Wing Authoritarianism
Topic: Newsmax

Marek Jan Chodakiewicz wrote in an Aug. 16 Newsmax column:

A few weeks ago Brussels chastised Warsaw’s judiciary, media, and sexual issues as incompatible with EU law. The saga continues as Poland has passed a new law to regulate its media market with particular attention to foreign influences, including America’s Discovery Channel.

First, in an ongoing dispute over sovereignty, the EU’s top courts ruled that Poland’s Disciplinary Chamber, a judicial watchdog to counter corruption and maleficence in the courts, is incompatible with EU legislation because it is allegedly not independent.

Not so, says Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal. First, the verdict contradicts the Polish Constitution which is the supreme law of the land; second, the judicial watchdog is independent.

It has displayed independence in a number of its rulings vis-à-vis the ruling Law and Justice party. And it certainly is independent in comparison to Poland’s former rigged post-Communist judicial system which never attracted the ire of the EU.

In other words, Brussels, go fly a kite. The government of Poland was democratically elected. The courts are democratic and so is the Constitution. Its letter is binding for the nation.

Actually, there's plenty of evidence that the Disciplinary Chamber lacks full independence. Just ask Igor Tuleya, who was disciplined by the chamber, opening him up to criminal charges, for allowing media to cover a politically sensitive case. Additionally, the Disciplinary Chamber's legitimacy has been rejected by the Polish Supreme Court itself. At any rate, it's now a moot point because the day after Chodakiewicz's column appeared, Poland agreed to shut down the Disciplinary Chamber.

Chodakiewicz wasn't done, going on to somewhat defend Poland's efforts to squelch media dissent. He admitted that efforts to force partial Polish ownership of media outlets in the country is "silly" and that state-controlled media "are little more than [Law and Justice Party] propaganda loudspeakers." Still, he criticized the channel TVN -- owned by a branch of the U.S.-run Discovery Channel -- should switch to right-wing propaganda anyway:

Currently, its liberal message is hardly distinguishable from the American leftist narrative. In the Polish context it is particularly repellent and loathsome because it is perceived as a foreign media entity attacking Poland’s Christianity, patriotism, and tradition.

To add insult to injury it is done in Polish by woke hirelings. And they are much more sophisticated, better funded, and more internationally connected than the Polish public TV apparatchiks.

Poland’s leftist opposition, the EU, and the Discovery Channel have already made it about freedom of the press. Ultimately, however, it is about sovereignty.

Discovery should drop its woke programming and switch to Christian and patriotic offerings. It would corner the market in Poland in no time and defeat in ratings the nation’s public TV. But that would not be congruent with EU legislation, would it?

Chodakiewicz offered no examples of the "liberal" and "woke" content he claims TVN offers, let alone that said content attacks the country.

CNS Repeats Harassment Claims Against Cuomo -- But Belittled Or Hid Those Made Against Trump
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com dedicated three articles to specific allegations made by women accusing former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment, all of which were anonymously written:

• The first repeated a claim that "Cuomo 'grabbed the butt' of a state employee."
• The second repeated a claim that "Cuomo 'grabbed' the breast of one of his female assistants.
• The third, published Aug. 9 but mysteriously deleted without explanation sometime later -- CNS seems to have forgotten that the internet is forever -- recounted how former Cuomo executive assistant Brittany Commisso recounted "two instances when she alleges Cuomo sexually harassed her at the New York state governor’s mansion."

By contrast, when Stormy Daniels revealed that Donald Trump paid her hush money to keep quiet about their extramarital affair, CNS at first treated her as She Who Must Not Be Named, then moved to belittling her for revealing the affair and hush money, and finally decided to give Trump a pass because "Trump's womanizing hardly comes as a shock to the American people" and merely talking about it advances "the politics of personal destruction."

Around the same time, an Aug. 5 article by Susan Jones stated:

Given the mostly softball questions normally tossed to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, this one was surprising:

"A lot of men in politics have been accused of sexual harassment, a reporter told Psaki on Wednesday:

"President Biden was accused by female Secret Service agents of skinny dipping in front of them, offending them, according to former Washington Post reporter Ronald Kessler, who's an author as well. His former Senate aide Tara Reade accused him of sexual assault. The Washington Post and the New York Times published multiple accounts of women who objected to the way President Biden touched them.

"Should there be an independent investigation of allegations into the President as there was into Governor Cuomo?"

Jones complained that "Psaki gave a non-response response."

Actually the question was not surprising at all, given that the questioner was Steven Nelson of the New York Post, a notoriously right-wing, anti-Biden newspaper. And we recall how much CNS heavily hyped Reade's accusations, parroting its Media Research Center parent -- while it effectively censored news of E. Jean Carroll's accusation that Trump sexually assaulted her.

In other words: Only women who make sexually related accusations against a liberal are considered news at CNS. If a woman makes similar accusations against a consevative, she is belittled and denigrated, at least when she's not being completely ignored.

MRC Runs The Larry Elder Defense Committee, Part 2
Topic: Media Research Center

We've detailed some of the Media Research Center's defense of right-wing California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder -- and burying of credible claims of misbehavior with women -- and it has continued. But first, Rich Noyes rehashed a complaint about how the media covered the 2003 recall in California: "Arnold Schwarzenegger is no conservative, but the liberal media are smearing him as if he were." But the MRC also defended Schwarzenegger as if he were, playing Clinton whataboutism to complain that it was "last minute dirty tricks" for the media to cover accusations of alleged sexual misbehavior (and  Schwarzenegger praising Hitler).

Gabriel Hays whined that actors are donating money to Newsom:

Hollywood is dead. The movies are derivative and most of the industry’s big name personalities have destroyed their popularity with their incessant leftwing politics. Though that doesn’t seem to stop them. In a mad dash to kill off whatever remaining dignity any of them had, several actors, producers and showbiz moguls are campaigning for Gavin Newsom (D-CA), one of the worst governors in American history.

[...]

Conservative talk radio host Larry Elder, who has a sizable lead in polling, could become the governor of one of the bluest states in the union. Though Newsom is still slightly favored to survive the recall, Elder as California governor is a terrifying prospect for the leftists in Hollywood.

Actually, the article Hays linked to back up his claim stated that "only about a quarter of the electorate supports" Elder, which would not be a "sizable lead" in any real election. Also, Hays is the guy who can't even correctly define what a "Hollywood film" is, so maybe he should sit this one out.

Kyle Drennen complained that MSNBC "brought on far-left Los Angeles Times columnist Jean Guerrero to hurl invective at the organizers of the effort and leading Republican contender Larry Elder. She ranted that the recall was fueled by “anti-immigrant nativists” who would spell doom for California and the Democratic Party," adding that she "was particular aghast [sic] that the conservative Republican wanted to rollback radical left-wing policies like sanctuary laws, driver’s licenses, and in-state tuition for illegal immigrants." Drennen complained that "Guerrero was never challenged on any of her outrageous rhetoric against Elder or Republicans in general" -- though he didn't dispute anything Guerrero said either.

Kristine Marsh groused that MSNBC host Joy Reid couldn't hide her disdain for black conservative radio host Larry Elder, on her show last night while talking about California’s upcoming recall election. The Chicken Little commentator panicked that if Elder was elected governor, the state would go to hell in a handbasket (as if it wasn’t already?) and turn into “nightmare” states California [sic: Florida] and Texas."

Marsh returned on Sept. 9 to try to make a big deal out of someone throwing an egg at Elder:

The big three networks this morning didn’t seem to care that a black man running for office was assaulted by a white woman in a gorilla mask yesterday. Probably because that man was conservative radio host, Larry Elder, running for governor in the blue state of California.

Only ABC and CBS covered part of the vile incident on their morning shows Thursday, while NBC ignored it all together.

[...]

This attack surely would've been labeled as racist by the media had Elder been a Democrat running in a red state.

This was followed by Curtis Houck giving Ben Shapiro a platform to complain about "the liberal media refusing to give real airtime to the egg attack

We would remind Houck and Marsh that the MRC has amply demonstrated its indifference to the safety of journalists who aren't also right-wing activists, so perhaps they should sit this one out as well.

Tim Graham served yet another Brian Stelter whine-a-thon in a Sept. 12 post:

Brian Stelter just adores new Los Angeles Times columnist Jean Guerrero. He put her on his Reliable Sources podcast and now he's put her on his Reliable Sourcesshow to keep repeating her smears of black conservative California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder. On Sunday, she repeated the slur that he's the "black face of white supremacy."

[...]

Stelter never asks Guerrero to explain herself on this bizarre comparison. But then, Stelter doesn't push back when his guests suggest Donald Trump will kill more people than Hitler, Stalin, and Mao combined. 

Then again, Graham spent the past four years attacking fact-checkers for daring to fact-check Trump while refusing to concede that Trump ever lied about anything, so he needs to do some sitting down as well.

None of these posts, by they way, mentioned the credible accusations of sexual harassment and gun-waving made by an ex-girlfriend of Elder. The MRC is doing quite a job of trying to shove that down the memory hole.

WND's Farah Walks A Fine Line On His COVID Vaccine Conspiracy
Topic: WorldNetDaily

As befits someone who's best known as a conspiracy theorist, WorldNetDailiy editor Joseph Farah loves his COVID conspriacy theories. But in his July 27 column, he tried to walk a fine line -- praising Donald Trump for the COVID vaccines, but trying not to step on WND's fearmongering over it:

Yes, there are vaccines apparently capable of mitigating though not negating the effects of the deadly virus, developed in record time in the first year of the pandemic to the credit of ONE MAN – President Donald Trump. These mRNA vaccines arguably would be appropriate for protecting the most vulnerable in the population, meaning the very elderly and people with other conditions of high risk – but only when each person can freely evaluate the risks and benefits of the vaccine and receive it if they so choose.

But instead of that very American, commonsense approach, we've listened to “experts” who are demanding that little children get the still-experimental vaccine – even though school-age children face at worst a .07 in 100,000 risk for contracting COVID.

Meanwhile, while Trump shut our southern border, but Joe Biden has opened it up wider than ever – during the surge of a more contagious variant of the virus!

So the vaccine is great, but only as long as nobody is mandated to take it.Got it.

Then, as he has before, Farah made his way to Fauci Derangement Syndrome:

Then there's the equivocal Dr. Anthony Fauci, who certainly shares a lot of responsibility and blame – yet who remains on this nation's payroll as the most highly paid of experts. He invested American taxpayers’ money in the Wuhan biolab's monstrous experiments that should be investigated as bio-warfare.

Of course, Biden shows no interest in that – neither does he show any effort to discourage immigration from around the globe. He has refunded, with our tax dollars, China's best coverup tool – the World Health Organization.

Do I have this about right?

Could there be a greater contrast between the Trump and Biden administrations? Absolutely not!

Actually, even the U.S. intelligence community has rejected the idea that COVID-19 was developed as a bioweapon.

From there, Farah descended into yet another bout of Biden Derangement Syndrome, followed by begging for cash to keep WND alive. It's nothing we haven't heard before.

CNS Commentary Editor Rants Against Grad School
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com commentary editor Rob Shimshock's Aug. 20 column is headlined "Smashing the Grad School Shibboleth," and in the process, he perpetuates a shibboleth of his own:

If education is preparation to make it in the world, why is it that in 1940, almost 95 percent of Americans were prepared by age 18, whereas in 2017, only 66 percent could say the same, with a third of the country choosing to spend at least four extra years of valuable youth having their wallets plundered to the tune of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars by a viciously partisan apparatus which incubates in impressionable minds far-left mantras that then spread far and wide to Congress, Hollywood, the media, Silicon Valley, etc.?

“Modern professions require that much more schooling” is an arrogant answer. Alexander Hamilton served as a brilliant lawyer despite having never stepped foot in a law school. Harvard started the world’s first Master of Business Administration (MBA) program in 1908; are we to believe that multiple millennias’ worth of 22 to 24-year-old entrepreneurs, merchants, and the like missed out on some special “secret sauce” that could only be imparted by someone with a “professor” before his name?

It’s time to face the facts. Academia is postponing the age by which Americans are deemed ready to begin giving back to the world and accumulate wealth, all the while saddling them with the huge financial negative of student debt and perhaps even larger moral negative of anti-Christian and anti-white bias.

[...]

Holding both a bachelor's degree and graduate degree will become the norm and, soon enough, these two will be accompanied by yet another special hundred-thousand-dollar piece of paper, this one requiring you to withstand left-wing agitprop until age 26 or later. 

There will come a day when schools, banks, media outlets, and other parties with a vested interest in seeing debt soar will hype PhDs or Super Graduate Degrees equally as pricey, time-consuming, and rife with indoctrination as the new baseline gateway to the upper echelons of American society.

Shimshock may have a point on the cost of grad school, but the idea that colleges exist only to indoctrinate students to be "far-left," anti-Christian and anti-white" is a long-held right-wing talking point that has no real basis in reality. Actual educators know that it's difficult to get a student's mind to open up at all.

As far as indoctrination goes, Shimshock appears to be both victim and perpetrator. It's clear that he was fed that right-wing nonsense about colleges churning out brainwashed liberals ... even as he touts his bachelor's degree from the University of Virginia in his bio. But the CNS commentary section he manages carries only right-wing and libertarian writers -- there nary a liberal columnist in sight. Isn't he engaging in the kind of indoctrination he purports to despise? What is Shimshock so afraid of that he won't let a liberal opinion sully his commentary section?

Seems like Shimshock may need to head back to college ... to take a remedial course or two in journalistic fairness and balance.

NEW ARTICLE: The WND Funding Crisis Du Jour
Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah put out a lot of bluster and conspiracy theories to cajole readers into keeping his company alive -- though he had to stealthily extend his self-imposed deadline a couple weeks in order to (barely) meet his goal. Read more >>

MRC Runs The Larry Elder Defense Committee
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center is undoubtedly happy Larry Elder came along to be the leading Republican canddiate in the California governor recall election. Otherwise, it would have to continue to fight its transphobic urges as it played defense for Caitlyn Jenner.

The MRC began by touting Elder's chances against the incumbent facing recall, Democrat Gavin Newsom. On July 28, Scott Whitlock gushed that Fox News was touting Elder was emerging as the frontrunniner ina "perfect storm" against Newsom (and that non-right-wing media outlets weren't reporting on an state election that was a month and a half away). On Aug. 12, Kyle Drennen complained that non-right-wing outets weren't repoirting that Newsom "was beginning to crack under the pressure of an upcoming recall election that looks increasingly likely he may lose." Kristine Marsh wrote on Aug. 16 that CNN "tried to help out the embattled Democrat Governor Newsom with a puff piece that completely ignored his critics and glossed over his failures" while it "actually helped Newsom attack his conservative competitor, radio host Larry Elder, as the next Trump." Marsh didn't dispute that characterization.

But as Elder started drawing more attention -- much of it negative -- the MRC got upset. On Aug. 18, designated New York Times-hater Clay Waters whined that the paper was "smearing the idea of the recall and Newsom's leading conservative opponent, black conservative talk show host Larry Elder" and that it was "calling Elder a liar for accurately stating that no one knows how much human action contributes to rising global temperatures." Brad Wilmouth then came to Elder's defense over a sexist view he espoused that CNN correspondent Kyung Lah highlighted:

After showing a couple of clips of Elder -- one complaining that welfare has hurt women, and the other complaining about the many accusations of racism and sexism made by the left -- Lah read from a piece published by Elder in May 2000 in which he asserted that women are less informed about political issues than men. The CNN correspondent recalled: "In May 2000, Elder penned this editorial, writing, 'Women know less than men about political issues, economics and current events,' adding, 'The less one knows, the easier the manipulation.'"

But Lah omitted Elder's few sentences which demonstrated that his claim wasn't just an unsubstantiated opinion, but that it had been verified by a recent University of Pennsylvania study involving left-leaning researcher Kathleen Hall Jamieson.

As criticism of Elder mounted, the MRC made sure to emphasize the more strident ones, thus suggesting that all criticism of Elder was outlandish:

• Tim Graham complained of the "mudslinging tactics" of a Los Angeles Times columnist Erika D. Smith that called Elder "the Black face of white supremacy." Graham he huffed that "No 'fact checker' will check any of this lying garbage," but he identified no "lies" that needed to be fact-checked.
• Marsh claimed that an MSNBC guest and newspaper columnist painted Elder "as an apostle of white nationalism who would “make life harder” for black and Latino Americans," going on to smear the commentator as someone Divorced from any sort of rational analysis" and "believes voters can’t think for themselves," and adding that she shows "just how far removed liberal journalists are from the average American" (though she's a columnist, not a journalist).

But even the MRC couldn't ignore accusations about Elder's history with women -- so it was time to downplay those claims. Waters was first up complaining that an ex-girlfriend's claim that Elder showed a gun to her while high on marijuana was merely "personal attacks and speculation in a way that under-substantiated allegations made against Democrats never get (see: Tara Reade)." Does this mean we can say the MRC was indulging in "personal attacks and speculation" when it uncritically repeated and breathlessly touted Reade's accusations?

Graham similarly played Reade whataboutism -- and 30-year-old Anita Hill whataboutism -- in an Aug. 26 post:

NPR's public editor Kelly McBride confessed in 2020 that NPR was slow to address Tara Reade's sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden. But NPR wasn't slow at all to highlight an ex-fiancee's allegation that black conservative California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder waved a gun at her while high on marijuana during a breakup in 2015. It dominated their segment on the California recall on Wednesday's Morning Edition. 

It's easy to recall that NPR jumped first on the unproven allegations from Anita Hill that Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her. Their California expert, Scott Shafer from San Francisco affiliate KQED, implied there was probably more dirt on Elder they hadn't dug up yet.

Graham added: "The ex-fiancee is Alexandra Datig, who has endorsed Republican Kevin Faulconer in the recall election. Politico's Carla Marinucci first reported Datig's claims on August 19. What about the timing? California expected counties to begin sending mail-in ballots on August 16." Funny, we don't recall Graham or anyone else at the MRC questioning Reade's motivations or her timing.

Marsh returned on Aug, 27 to mock Smith for highlighting the hate mail she received about her "Black face of white supremacy." Jeffrey Lord followed with an Aug. 28 column attacking Smith and another Los Angeles Times columnist, and he too played Anita Hill whataboutism -- while being completely silent about the accusations Elder's ex-girlfriend made.

CNS Repeatedly Promotes Anti-Vaxxer's Months-Old Anti-Mask Screed
Topic: CNSNews.com

Back in March, CNSNews.com published a commentary by Jim Meehan -- a anti-vaxxer, QAnon-supporting doctor in Oklahoma with no professional experience in epidemiology (he's an ophthamologist by trade) -- promoting that untrue claim that healthy people should not wear masks to protect themselves from coronavirus and the utterly false claim that "Surgical and cloth masks do nothing to prevent viral transmission." We detailed Meehan's conspiratorial, medically unsound views at the time and wondered why CNS went full WND in giving Meehan a platform.

Months later, CNS is still promoting Meehan's medically unsound column on Twitter. Multiple times a week, CNS' Twitter account has promoted Meehan's false claims. For instance, here are the days CNS has done so over the past month or so:

• August: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26, 30
• September: 1, 5, 6, 8, 9

Reminder: Meehan's commentary was published in March, and it has been utterly discredited. It's hihgly unusual for any Twitter user to promote an old article without a news hook -- particularly one that claims to be a "news" organization. And it's an especially bad look for a "news" organization seeking credibility, since this appears to prove that CNS isn't really about reporting "news" at all.

MRC Got Mad Apple Store Removed Anti-Vaxxer Dating App
Topic: Media Research Center

How determined is the Media Research Center to align itself with the worst, most extreme people to perpetuate its dubious (and false) narrative of conservatives being deliberately and solely "censored" by social media? It's complaining that an anti-vaxxer dating app was removed from the Apple store. Autumn Johnson wrote in an Aug. 2 post:

Apple has removed a dating app from its App Store for violating its COVID policies.

Unjected, a dating app focused on partnering individuals who are opposed to getting the COVID vaccine, was removed from the store.

Shelby Thomson, the founder of the app said the removal was deliberate censorship on Apple’s part.

“Apparently, we are considered ‘too much’ for sharing our medical autonomy and freedom of choice,” she said in a video.

“[W]hen one report gets you deleted off every platform instantly. We must be doing something right,” the app’s Instagram page posted with a screenshot of an article discussing the app.

Because Johnson is so busy defending the app's right to exist, she didn't mention that it was busted for spreading COVID misinformation. She linked (but didn't otherwise acknowldge the contents of) a Bloomberg article that apparently got the app the boot, which noted the bogus conspiratorial claptrap the app was promoting: "A routine update to the app triggered a review by Google Play that found it hadn’t sufficiently policed user-generated content for misinformation. In emails to Unjected, Google flagged posts that included claims of vaccines being 'experimental mRNA gene modifiers,' 'bioweapons' and 'nano-technology microchips' used to link people to the 5G network."

But because she want to paint the app's makers as victims, Johnson doesn't point out the obvious regarding Thomson's defense: If your app is so irresponsible that "one report gets you deleted off every platform instantly," you are not "doing something right" -- your wrongness and irresponsibility is simply that obvious.

The inability of Johnson and the MRC to see that an anti-vaxxer dating app is such an objectively bad idea that it shouldn't be defended shows just how far down the victimization rabbit hole they have descended.

WND's Massie Goes The COVID Vaccine Misinformation Route
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Mychal Massie loves to melt down about various things, and especially LGBTQ people. He's now expanded his meltdown repertoire to COVID vaccines. He ranted in his Aug. 9 WorldNetDaily column:

It would be impossible for me to be any clearer regarding my personal and family position regarding the hyper-aggressive tactics being employed to force legal U.S. citizens to be injected with an experimental drug. My position has been and remains that there is no scenario, zip-nada-none, that will force me to permit the infecting of myself or family member with same. None!

I concede that there's a flu of quasi-questionable origins that has been responsible for certain deaths in the United States. However, I will not concede that the flu alone is killing people.

More than a dozen of my personal friends and acquaintances have had this flu and recovered just fine. Some have shared it was very unpleasant, while others said it was little more than a mild cold. It's important to note that only two of them got the experimental drug.

[...]

My resistance is due to the falsity involved in this faux pandemic. If this were the monstrously deadly, death-resulting juggernaut it is being made out to be, there would be no need to make up numbers. There would be no need to encourage and reward Hitlerian practices of spying on neighbors and secret tip-lines where people can call and report those they determine to be violating whatever edicts were set in place.

My refusal to be infected with an experimental drug is in great part because the government, i.e., politicians and their harlots of agitprop, have created a zeitgeist of fear, panic and borderline insanity over a flu.

No, Mychal, COVID is not the flu. But wait, there's more repetition of the greatest hits of both WND and Massie:

They claim there's insufficient data to know if ivermectin should be considered a treatment for this flu. But the wholly untested and unproven, debilitating and death-inducing experimental drug is being pushed. Hydroxychloroquine has been safely and successfully used decades with virtually no side effects – but it's rejected for this flu?

Why isn't this administration going after illegal aliens who are known carriers of prolific diseases long ago successfully eradicated in America that are now being reintroduced in some instances at factually epidemic levels? Why isn't the media breathlessly blathering about this factoid?

I am familiar with the Tuskegee experiments where blacks were secretly experimented upon with syphilis. The so-called study, which was to last three years, went on for 30. What about the LSD experiments on prison inmates? Visit VFW posts and ask how many Vietnam veterans are suffering from unknown diseases contracted from tests performed on them. What about Maafa 21, which exposed the secret sterilizations of black women in the South?

Actually, as we've noted, "Maafa 21" is a dishonest anti-abortion propaganda film. Then he gets even more weird:

Why would there be unambiguous censorship against anyone who raise a single kernel of disagreement based upon real science? Why are many of the most prolific and world-renown medical scientists in the history of medical science being censored and ignored because they are sounding warning alarms against people poisoning their systems with this experimental drug? Why has Stanford University been silenced in its findings that facemasks are ineffective and actual can cause severe health deterioration and death? Why is the public only being told the absolute worst when in fact this flu was manageable from the start?

I'm not telling anyone what he or she should or shouldn't do. However, I would be remiss as a minister, if I didn't remind people that the buildup to the anti-christ and the Mark of the Beast as referenced in the Revelation begins well ahead of the Great Tribulation. Then again, the only ones who need be concerned about this yet to be fulfilled biblical prophecy are those persons who won't be gathered with Christ Jesus when He gathers us in the air with Him.

Actually, Stanford disavowed the study, and its conclusions have been discredited.

Massie kept up the counterfactual ranting in his Aug. 16 column:

How many more men, women and children must die before the Biden-Fauci cabal is recognized as an existential threat to the foreseeable future of America? What is the Biden-Fauci cabal's plan, if the horrific "vaccine" side effects we are witnessing this early explode exponentially within the next two years?

Americans (and the world), are being lied to and intentionally misled into voluntarily having an experimental drug injected into them. Only fools believe otherwise.

[...]

The only things different with this global coup being perpetrated upon the people are the lengths the Biden-Fauci cabal and Big Tech are willing to go to ensure every single person is infected with these poisonous drugs.

As I was writing this piece, a dear acquaintance contacted me to share that three friends had received the experimental drug and died. That's three people in this person's sphere of personal association who received the drug and died after being injected!

[...]

I raise the question that begs an answer: If the dirty little secret of Obamacare was an attempt to save Medicaid from going belly up, as Neil Cavuto and I discussed on his show, what is this flu-demic and the deadly toxins being promoted as vaccines for a flu that isn't a threat designed to conceal?

What if the population-control crowd, like Bill Gates et al. isn't in it for the money or personal gain? What if they are perpetrating genocide on the gullible public for a much more nefarious reason?

Massie is a conspiracy theorist like many other WND writers, so he sees "nefarious" things everywhere.

MRC Psaki-Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch, Bombing-Psaki Edition
Topic: Media Research Center

Media Research Center writer Curtis Houck buries any news of a #PsakiBomb -- he'd rather bomb Psaki. Amid the fall of Afghanistan, Houck showed he was mnre interested in taking partisan shots than suypporting America with his near-orgasmic glee over White House press secretary Jen Psaki taking tough questions from reporters on the subject -- and without his man-crush Peter Doocy on duty. Houck harrumphed after the Aug. 17 briefing:

Though most of it didn’t make the Tuesday network evening newscasts, the White House press corps made an effort to raise tough questions with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Press Secretary Jen Psaki amidst the collapse of Afghanistan, showing that neither had the answers to basic questions about how they’ll ensure the safe departure of American citizens and Afghan allies, the plight of Afghan girls, and what this means for our commitments around the globe.

[...]

With Fox’s Peter Doocy not in the room, the most effective reporter fell to his colleague Jacqui Heinrich (who only questioned Psaki) and, surprisingly, CBS’s Weijia Jiang, who did the opposite of Shear with short, pointed questions.

Doocy was back for Houck to swoon over (anlong with fellow right-winger Philip Wegmann) for the Aug. 23 briefing:

To go along with two horrendously bad Pentagon press briefings and another at the State Department, the White House joined in Monday afternoon with a shellacking at the hands of the press corps on Afghanistan. For this installment, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Press Secretary Jen Psaki took fire from all angles, ranging from Fox News to NPR.

Led by Fox’s Peter Doocy and Real Clear Politics’ Philip Wegmann, Team Biden was grilled about whether Americans have been “stranded” by their own government, whether Americans outside Kabul will be rescued, and how can the U.S. take to heart anything that emanates from the Taliban.

[...]

Fast-forward a few minutes to the one-two punch of Doocy and Wegmann, which featured the latter telling Sullivan that Biden “has criticized his predecessor,” “the Afghan army,” and “the Afghan government for all of their failures,” but not the Taliban.

It was a full-on Doocy-gasm, however, for the Aug. 24 briefing:

Appearing almost four hours late in the White House Briefing Room, Press Secretary Jen Psaki faced more excellent questions Tuesday afternoon over the Biden administration’s handling of Afghanistan. As was the case on Monday, Fox’s Peter Doocy led the way with questions about vetting Afghan refugees, whether she’d take back her claim that people aren’t “stranded” in Afghanistan, and whether the Taliban now has “the same kind of influence over military planning as” Biden.

Called on sixth, Doocy got right to work: “Is there any concern that maybe trying to reach this deadline and get everybody out, mistakes are being made, now that there is a report that at least one of the Afghan evacuated to Qatar has suspected ISIS ties?”

Psaki replied there’s “a stringent vetting process which includes background checks before any individual comes to the United States” and thus is something the administration has taken “incredibly seriously.”

Psaki also had a Baghdad Bob moment as she proclaimed that “this is now on-track, Peter, to be the largest airlift in U.S. history” and thus “I would not say that is anything but a success.”

Houck's beat ( or, perhaps, the beating off) continued for the Aug. 25 briefing:

After almost an entire week away on vacation (aside from an August 23 briefing), The Psaki Show hasn’t exactly gone swimmingly for the Biden administration and, like Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday was no exception as Press Secretary Jen Psaki had little in the way of friendly reporter questions as Fox’s Peter Doocy had the cavalry on his side in pressing on issues surrounding the collapse of Afghanistan.

In Doocy’s case, he called out Biden cracking a joke about the humanitarian disaster, why did Biden spend so much time on Tuesday talking about his Build Back Better, and does the U.S. still have a policy of not negotiating with terrorists since we’ve had to lob constant pleas at the Taliban to not attack U.S. troops or those fleeing the country.

Doocy led off with how Biden had brushed aside NBC reporter Peter Alexander’s Afghanistan question hours earlier during a pool spray about cybersecurity by saying this when asked what he’d do for Americans still in Afghanistan after the August 31 deadline: “You’ll be the first person I call!”

Doocy posed a simple question: “So, what’s so funny?”

Houck thinks it's quite hilarious any time he can denigrate Psaki. That does seem to be where he gets his jollies these days.