CNSNews.con went back to an old Obama-era tactic in reporting on Septembner's employment statistics: downplay the decline in the unemployment rate by focusing on the labor force participation rate. Susan Jones pushed that in the headline of her main article on the numbers, "BLS: Labor Participation Rate Stalls, With 61.6% of the Civilian Noninstitutional Population Working":

September was a month of slow job growth, with a measly 194,000 nonfarm payroll jobs added -- the worst number of the year.

It was well below analysts' expectations of 500,000, and it follows the disappointing (revised) 366,000 payroll jobs added in August, the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday.

The unemployment rate fell, but so did the important labor force participation rate, which has remained within a narrow range of 61.4 percent to 61.7 percent since June 2020. And the number of people who are not in the labor force -- have no job and are not looking for one -- is the highest it's been since March.

Jones suggested that "pandemic-related unemployment benefits have ended," which should have pushed employment higher, but did note that "Labor Secretary Marty Walsh put some of the blame on the delta variant." Still, she also included a Republican congressman ranting that President Biden "has lost the confidence of the American people to lead the economy."

CNS didn't offer its usual sidebars on goverment employment or the jobless rates for Black or Hispanic workers. But it did publish a couple of follow-up articles that pushed its anti-Biden editorial agenda. An Oct. 11 article by Melanie Arter uncriticaly repeated Republican Rep.  Steve Scalise insisting that "President Joe Biden’s policies are to blame for last month’s disappointing job numbers." Arter did add that "Biden blamed the Delta variant" for those numbers, but did not quote Scalise making mention of that. She did note that Fox News host Chris Wallace said the numbers were disappointing even though extra unemployment benefits ended at the beginning of September, but quoting Scalise blathering about "other welfare programs."

That was followed by an Oct. 12 commentary by Nick Stehle of the right-wing Foundation for Government Accountability weirdly cheering over the end of the "job-killing federal unemployment bonus." Stehle was silent on the disappointing numbers, which in his theory should have been better due to the end of those extra benefits.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:33 AM EDT

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The Media Research Center's long tradition of embracing right-wing authoritarian leaders who hate "big tech" as much as the MRC does coninues in a Sept.9 post by Gabriela Pariseau:

Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro made a bold move, marking one up for free speech in his nation. The embattled president signed a provisional measure that will make it illegal for Big Tech to arbitrarily remove legal social media content.

The Government of Brazil claimed in a tweet thread that the law was sparked by concerns of Big Tech’s actions “that have been perceived as harmful to healthy debate and freedom of expression in Brazil.” The provisional measure “forbids selective deplatforming” and “the removal of content that may result in any kind of ‘censorship of political, ideological, scientific, artistic or religious order,’" according to the Twitter thread. The Brazilian government account said it “hope[s] [the law] will serve to help restore online political dialogue in the country.”

The measure protects freedom of expression but excludes illegal content “such as nudity, drugs and violence, or if they encourage crime or violate copyrights,” reported The New York Times. Tech companies also purportedly need a court order for permission to remove any other content, according to The Times.

Actually, Bolsonaro is more a threat to free speech than the champion Pariseau wants you to think he is. In 2020, Bolsonaro enacted a law that effectively opens his critics to arrest under the guise of "national security." Since then Bolsonaro revived a law from the country's dictatorship era to arrest critics of his response to the coronavirus pandemic. Interestingly, last year Facebook suspended a network of accounts it said were run by employees of Bolsoaro and his family to spread divisive political messages, so it's clear Bolsonaro knows his way around misinformation.

Still, Pariseau was determined to make him a part of the MRC's bogus "victimhood" narrative:

The Brazilian president is up for reelection, and like former President Donald Trump, has been repeatedly censored by Big Tech. YouTube removed 15 of his videos for so-called COVID-19 misinformation in July, according to the BBC. The New York Times reported that “[l]ast year, Facebook removed statements by Mr. Bolsonaro after he promoted hydroxychloroquine as a cure for the virus. Around the same time, Twitter deleted posts from the far-right Brazilian president for pushing [allegedly] false remedies and calling for an end to social distancing.”

In July, the MRC declared that Bolsonaro was "censored" for having "dared to question the liberal narrative concerning COVID-19" -- which translates into getting caught spreading COVID misinformation that the MRC will never admit is misinformatoin.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:31 PM EDT

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Jeremy Frankel repeated a right-wing conspiracy theory in a Sept. 13 Newsmax article:

During a trip to Boise, Idaho, on Monday for a briefing on wildfires with federal and state officials, President Joe Biden's feed was abruptly cut by the White House.

Biden said during the briefing he wanted to hear more from George Geissler of the National Association of State Foresters. Biden asked Geissler if he could ask him a question, and Geissler replied "of course."

Biden then said, "One of the things that I've been working on with some others is —," before his feed was cut. It was then replaced by a full-screen graphic saying, "Thank you for watching."

Biden's feed has been cut by the White House before. Last month, it happened when Biden was about to respond to a reporter's question concerning the military's withdrawal deadline from Afghanistan. It also occurred in March, during a virtual event, when Biden said, "I'm happy to take questions if that's what I'm supposed to do."

Politico reported last week, when Biden speaks in public, some White House staffers might "mute him or turn off his remarks," because they are "filled with anxiety that he's going to take questions from the press and veer off the West Wing's carefully orchestrated messaging."

But as we documented when the Media Research Center pushed this same Republican-hyped claim,this claim isn't true -- the feed was always planned to be cut off, which journalists covering the event knew because it was described beforehand as a "pool spray," in which the feed would end when Biden turned to questions.

But Newsmax never did a follow-up article to tell the truth, so Frankel's lie remains live and uncorrected.

Posted by Terry K. at 6:09 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, October 25, 2021 6:11 PM EDT

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CNSNews.com's favorite dishonest Catholic, Bill Donohue, spent his Sept. 15 column railing against Attorney General Merrick Garland for the commonsense comment that "We will not tolerate violence against those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services, physical obstruction or property damage in violation of the FACE Act." How dare Garland imply that anti-abortion protesters are violent, Donohue raged; unfortunately for him, in serving up his version of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy, reminded us of exactly that fact while pretending the violence wasn't representative of anti-abortion protesters:

If pro-life Americans are so violent, Garland should be able to rattle off the names of abortionists whom they have killed. In the 21st century, there have been four such killings: one in 2009 and three in 2015. Two men, both ex-cons, were responsible, and neither was assisted or associated with a pro-life group. They acted alone.

In 2009, Dr. George Tiller was killed by Scott Roeder. When it happened, I condemned it. "We have to get the message out that life means we have to respect all life," I told CBS Evening News, "including somebody as bad as Dr. Tiller was." 

Tiller, by his own admission, performed over 60,000 abortions. His specialty was killing babies in utero who were nearly born, or were partially born. Hence his nickname, George "The Killer" Tiller.

Roeder was a deranged man who was hardly representative of pro-life activists. He had been diagnosed as schizophrenic, and got into trouble when he stopped taking his medication. His wife testified that she thought he was bipolar, and his brother also spoke about his mental problems. He had previously been arrested for carrying explosives, and he spent time in prison for other violations.

In 2015, Robert Lewis Dear Jr. killed three people in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo. He had previously been arrested and convicted for carrying a "long blade knife" and illegally possessing a loaded gun. 

His mental state was worse than that of Roeder's. A judge ordered him to undergo a mental competency exam to see if he was sufficiently competent to represent himself. After fielding the results, the judge ruled that Dear was not mentally fit to stand trial: he cited findings that he suffered from a "delusional disorder." Dear was sentenced indefinitely to a Colorado state mental hospital.

Donohue is trying to have it both ways --  effectively endorsing Tiller's death for being a prolific "killer" while insisting that the man who killed him was an outlier who was "hardly representative of pro-life activists." In fact, as we've documented, Roeder had contacts with anti-abortion group Operation Rescue before he killed Tiller, and a phone number for the group was found in his car when he was arrested. He also did not mount an insanity defense at his trial and a psychologist found him competent to stand trial -- which kinds blows up Donohue's dismissal of him as a "deranged" schizophrenic.

As for Dear, he had undeniably absorbed the messaging of the anti-abortion movement. He was quoted as ranting about "no more body parts" -- a reference to a key storyline at the time involving undercover anti-abortion activists secretly taping and deceiving Planned Parenthood about purported trafficking in fetal parts .Just because Dear has been found incompetent to stand trial doesn't mean he was not influenced by mainstream anti-abortion rhetoric frequently skirts the line between activism and advocacy of violence.

Donohue waled that very line in his conclusion: "And lest we forget, while the killing of unborn babies is legal, the fact remains that abortion clinics are a much more deadly place for children than they are for those who do the killing. Think about that, Mr. Garland and Mr. Biden." Donohue will never admit it, but Roeder and Dear certainly didn't forget about that.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:37 PM EDT

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Who coiuld possibly find offense at a museum fund-raiser? The Media Research Center, of course.

The Met Gala is a fund-raiser for New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, though it's perhaps more notable for being a gathering for the rich and famous wearing outlandish or provocative costumes. And that's where the MRC can step in for some lazy right-wing virtue signaling to make fun of goofily dressed non-conservatives. Add in that one guest was the hated Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wearoing a dress stating "Tax the Rich," and the MRC was in virtue-signaling overdrive.

Krstine Marsh took a shot at AOC in a Sept. 14 post complaining that she was discussed on "The View":

None of them brought up the hypocrisy of a congresswoman who makes $174,000 a year attending a $30,000 dollar a ticket event lecturing the "rich." While “rich” is a relative term, (nearly all Americans would be considered rich compared to the rest of the world), even Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez is “rich” next to the average American. The Census Bureau’s latest report shows the Median household income (pre-coronavirus) was $68,703 in 2019.

AOC was a guest of the museum and didn't get to keep the dress, but why let inconvenient facts interfere with a fit of virtue-signaling? The MRC was ready to not only bash AOC but rich-shame anyone who defended her.

(It's also funny to see right-wingers switch frrom trying to shame AOC for having once worked as as bartender to trying to shame her for accepting the same salary every other member of Congress gets.)

Scott Whitlock whined in another post the same day:

Talk about tone deaf. The co-hosts at CBS This Morning touted socialist Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wearing a “tax the rich” dress, ridiculously insisting that it didn’t apply to them because “We ain’t rich.”

Duthiers gushed, “We are talking about style.... Starting with the biggest fashion moments at the night at the Met Gala in New York City. A-list stars were flashing some creative looks.... Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's gown game with a message. Can you see that?” Gayle King repeated the message, “Tax the rich.” 

Co-host Tony Dokoupil joked, “Were there any rich people last night?” Clueless Duthiers replied, “Not us. ‘Cause we ain't rich.” According to The Sun, co-host Gayle King is estimated to be worth $40 million. According to Bugle, co-host Dokoupil is worth $6 million. According to FamousIntel, Duthiers is worth almost a million. Nor rich? What do these journalists think rich means?    

Whitlock went on to rant: "In June, Dokoupil channeled his inner socialist, hyping a probably illegally-obtained ProPublica report about the wealthiest Americans." That would be the exact same report Whitlock's MRC co-worker Joseph Vazquez touted for exposing George Soros' financial information, and he didn't complain about the info being "probably illegally-obtained."

Yet another Sept. 14 post, this one by Kathleen Krumhansl, served up more AOC-bashing and how Spanish-language networks covered her:

The nation´s Spanish-speaking liberal media do a great job at keeping fatuous Latina congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez out of the news. And for good reason, as you will see in the following Telemundo News “interview” captured during her appearance at the red carpet of the $30k-a-plate Met Gala, where she donned a haute-couture gown with a printed message bashing those she was comfortably mingling with.

[...]

The irony of her theatrics not only escaped the anchors and reporters of the morning talk shows and midday news editions at both networks, but actually made them gush at her “genius”. In the words of Telemundo anchor Aranxta Loizaga “I liked those, I have to say, concealed political messages'.

In case you wonder how AOC, who earns a $174,000 salary subsidized by taxpayers, was able to dish out $30,000 for a high society event read on. According to a Tweet from the very own AOC, “NYC elected officials are regularly invited to and attend the Met due to our responsibilities in overseeing our city's cultural institutions that serve the public.” How conveniently hypocritical of the so-called socialist AOC.

Wedon't recall Krumhansl speaking out against Republican politicians getting tickets to events as a benefit of their position.

In the fourth (!) post of the day on the subject, Mark Finkelsten huffed:

CNN's New Day panel on Tuesday morning unanimously defended Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for wearing a "Tax the Rich" dress to the $30,000-a-ticket Met Gala. 

Maggie Haberman —a New York Times correspondent who doubles as a CNN analyst—suggested that it was brave of AOC to go an event filled with rich people wearing such a dress. Haberman claimed AOC's message was not "popular" with that crowd, and therefore that there was something " risky" in her wearing the dress.

To which we politely reply: baloney! The notion that a crowd of NYC elites was offended by the dress, and that it was brave of AOC to wear it, is absurd. Most in attendance were likely amused, and/or thrilled to have such a liberal celebrity in attendance! And of course she was hobnobbing! What better place to fish for big-time campaign donations than in a room filled with rich Manhattan elitists!? How many in attendance already were, or soon will be, on her donor list?

Finkelstein wouldn't even begrudge her not having to pay for the ticket: "If AOC was given a free ticket worth $30,000, why wouldn't that constitute a gift or a donation by the Gala?" Finkelstein apparently believes that AOC is so dumb that she wouldn't check House ethics rules before accepting the ticket.

So too, apparently, does Gabriel Hays, who cheered the inevitable right-wing ethics complaint in a post the next day:

Little Miss Champagne Socialist and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) could have violated congressional ethics with her recent attendance at the uber elitist Met Gala in her designer “Tax the Rich” ball gown.

[...]

The American Accountability Foundation asked the congressional office to “immediately open an investigation” into whether AOC received a ticket as an illicit gift.

AOC’s attendance at the gala was a wildly successful publicity stunt that paradoxically drew attention to her hypocrisy. Here was a politician, who constantly cries about rich people and their abuse of the system, going to one of their parties, schmoozing it up with them, and then telling people she was trying to hold said rich people accountable with the not-so-subtle “tax the rich” messaging on her dress.

Conservatives didn’t buy it, accusing the politician of enjoying elitist prestige while using her dress to virtue-signal against said privilege as a shield from criticism.

Hays concluded by sneering: "And even if it ends up being technically true that AOC was welcome to attend,  it doesn’t change the fact that AOC looks like a total hypocrite." Because nothing defines right-wing virtue-signaling more than accusing non-conservatives of hypocrisy -- ironic, given its treatment of that "probably illegally-obtained" financial information.

AOC wasn't the MRC 's only Met Gala target, though. Equally as hated is soccer player Megan Rapinoe, and John Simmons huffed in a Sept. 15 post under the overwrought headline "Megan Rapinoe Taunts America at Met Gala With Pro-Gay Messages":

Monday night’s Met Gala was a cesspool of rich politicians and celebrities showing off their wealth and status to compete for media attention. While Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stole the show a gown with the ridiculous message “Tax The Rich” painted on it, U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team star Meghan Rapinoe had an equally nauseating message to convey at the gala.

Rapinoe, a staunch supporter of LGTBQ+ rights and any message that is anti-America, walked into the gala in an American flagged-themed pantsuit holding a clutch bag that said, “In Gay We Trust.” It clearly was a jab at our nation’s motto, “In God We Trust.”

[...]

Gays are not oppressed people anymore. When you have an entire month of the year dedicated to celebrating you, businesses change their logos to rainbow colors, and sports leagues are hosting “Pride Nights,” you have lost the right to foolishly claim that you are oppressed. You are anything but.

In a nutshell, Rapinoe’s actions display classic leftist tactics to get their agenda approved: claim oppression, say America is the problem, and then get what you want.

First: If you're the sixth MRC post to whine about AOC's dress, it wasn't ridiculous and you helped achieve her goal. Second: Yes, Simmons really did equate being gay to being "anti-America." Third: Yes, Simmons really did melt down over Rapinoe's cluch bag. And fourth: Simmons sounds like a guy who desperately wants to make sure gays are oppressed again.

Posted by Terry K. at 5:01 PM EDT

Updated: Sunday, October 24, 2021 8:34 PM EDT

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Part of the multi-pronged war CNSNews.com has waged against Nancy Pelosi is a holy war -- bashing her for being insufficiently Catholic because she won't support the outlawing of abortion. CNS has ramped things up by serving as a stenographer to the archbishop of her San Francisco diocese, dutifully repeating his partisan attacks on her. Editor Terry Jeffrey wrote in a July 23 article:

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, whose archdiocese includes all of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s congressional district, issued a statement on Thursday rebuking Pelosi for a statement she made at her press briefing that day explaining why she is pushing for federal funding of abortion.

At her briefing, Pelosi had an exchange with a reporter about the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies appropriations bill for fiscal 2022 that is moving through the House and that, as the Appropriations Committee puts it, includes "repealing the discriminatory Hyde Amendment."

[...]

Later that day, Archbishop Cordileone put out a statement. It was headlined: “Statement of San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defending efforts to permit federal funding of elective abortions.”

“Let me repeat: no one can claim to be a devout Catholic and condone the killing of innocent human life, let alone have the government pay for it,” said the archbishop.

An anonymously written Aug. 6 article hyped Cordileone's attacks again under the hype-laden headline "Pelosi’s Archbishop Smacks Her Again for Supporting Tax-Funded Abortion: ‘Catholics Stand for Human Life’":

Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco, who presides over the archdiocese where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) lives, sent out a tweet on Sunday of a story in LifeNews.com that was headlined: “Nancy Pelosi Blocks Vote on Bill to Ban Taxpayer-Funded Abortions for the 55th< Time.”

“The Hyde Amendment saved 2.4 million innocent babies,” Archbishop Cordileone said in his tweet. “Catholics stand for human life and core human rights.”

A Sept. 6 article -- also anonymously written -- started to sound repititious in parroting Cordileone again:

Catholic Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, the diocese where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) resides, published a commentary in the Washington Post on Sunday stating that you cannot be a good Catholic and support the killing of unborn children through abortion.

“You cannot be a good Catholic and support expanding a government-approved right to kill innocent human beings,” said Cordileone. “The answer to crisis pregnancies is not violence but love, for both mother and child.”

Cordileone specifically addressed the response of both Pelosi and President Biden—both of who profess to be Catholics—to Supreme Court’s refusal to issue an injunction against a Texas law that bans the abortion of babies who have a detectable heartbeat.

CNS cranked up the biased attacks with a pair of Oct. 18 articles, both by managing editor Michael W. Chapman. The first hyped an anti-Pelosi prayer campaign the archbishop was promoting:

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, who has repeatedly implored pro-abortion Catholic politicians, especially House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), to accept the pro-life teaching of the Church, recently called on all Catholics to say some special prayers (and fast) every Friday for Pelosi to have a conversion of heart. 

[...]

“Speaker Pelosi speaks fondly of her children," he added. "She clearly has a maternal heart.  Pope Francis has called abortion murder, the equivalent of hiring a hitman to solve a problem.  The solution to a woman in a crisis pregnancy is not violence but love."

"Please join me in praying the rosary and fasting for a conversion of Speaker Pelosi’s maternal heart to embracing the goodness and dignity of human life not only after birth, but in the womb as well," said the archbishop.

The second promoted Cordileone saying that "While discussing his prayer and fasting for the conversion of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi," he called abotion a "Satanic practice."

This being a highly biased right-wing "news" outlet, CNS gave Pelosi no opportunity to respond to Cordileone's attacks. It did, however, publish a Sept. 23 article by Craig Bannister featuring Pelosi responding to the bishop:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that she and San Francisco’s archbishop “have a disagreement about who should decide this,” when a reporter asked her to react to Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s declaration that her abortion bill constitutes “child sacrifice.”

“This proposed legislation is nothing short of child sacrifice,” Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said in a Tuesday statement regarding the Women’s Health Protection Act (H.R. 3755).

[...]

Pelosi replied that “it’s none of our business” to tell others they can’t have abortions, that no one has the right to talk about the issue unless they’ve given birth – and that she and Archbishop Cordileone disagree about who should decide whether or not an unborn child is aborted:

Bannister featured several other anti-Pelosi quotes from  Cordileone, even though none of the Cordileone-promoting articles permitted a rtesponse from Pelosi.

CNS' mission statement states that it will "fairly present all legitimate sides of a story." It has failed to do so yet again.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:19 AM EDT

Updated: Sunday, October 24, 2021 12:27 AM EDT

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The Media Research Center hates Alec Baldwin -- for being a provocative liberal, for mocking Trump on "Saturday Night Live," and for generally just existing; a particularly hateful review of a Baldwin hosted talk show called it "A Bloated, Self-Aggrandizing Snooze-fest - Just Like Him." The MRC has even demanded that Baldwin's acting career be destroyed (a sign that its cancel-culture attacks on him have failed, and tha they'll admit it). It's even still mad at Baldwin for a 1998 fit of hyperbole about wanting to stone Henry Hyde during the Ciinton impeachment drama.

So after a tragic accident on a movie set in which a prop gun fired by Baldwin killed a cinematographer and wounded another person, it's sadly not surprising for the MRC to mock him. An Oct. 22 tweet by MRC executive Tim Graham -- pinned to the top of his Twitter feed, no less -- felt the need to make hay on the tragedy by repeating a 2006 statement by Baldwin in the wake of then-Vice President Dick Cheney shooting a hunting companion in which he called Cheney a "terrorist" and demanded that he go "into a courtroom to answer some direct questions."

Never mind that there's no evidence this was anything other than an accident or even that he was aware that the prop gun contained an apparently live round -- indeed, he was reportedly told the gun was safe before the incident. Never mind that Baldwin is fully cooperating with police. Graham has nothing but pure hate for Baldwin, and he decided it was his duty to exploit this tragedy for the sole purpose of taking a partisan shot at the actor.

Remember this the next time any MRC employee claims to have standards, scruples and morals.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:59 AM EDT

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Conspicracy-monger extraordinare Jack Cashill began his Sept. 8 WorldNetDaily column with the dedlaration, "Say the name, 'Roseanne Boyland.'"Unfortunately for Cashill, he needs to spell the name, and he spelled it wrong -- it's "Rosanne." Not a good start for his latest conspiracy theory:

Say the name, "Roseanne Boyland." On Jan. 6, 2021, the 34-year-old Boyland died under mysterious circumstances in a tunnel leading to the Capitol. According to the Washington Post, The D.C. Medical Examiner's office determined that Boyland died of "accidental acute amphetamine intoxication."

Emerging evidence suggests that this diagnosis is as suspect as the one that netted Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin a 22-year prison sentence in the death of George Floyd. What is undeniable is that one well-connected black activist was involved in both.

Although the medical examiner most associated with the Boyland case is Dr. Francisco Diaz, the chief D.C. medical examiner on Jan. 6 was Dr. Roger Mitchell, Diaz's then boss. Mitchell made something of a name for himself with his outrageous meddling in the Floyd case.

We'll spare you most of the details of this conspiracy, but it's in large part a rehash of his defense of George Floyd's killer, Derek Chauvin, attackkng a medical examiner who weighed in on the idea of neck compression by Chauvin as the cause of Floyd's death -- Cashill wants you to believe that Floyd was a complete reprobate who died of a drug overdose and totally deserved it -- who allegedly had a role in determining that Boyland died not from getting trampled but, rather from amphetamine intoxication.

Naturally, Cashill finds a conspiracy here, and he immediately starts stretching the truth:

Among the drugs in Floyd's system was methamphetamine, the drug that allegedly killed Boyland. At the time of his arrest Floyd was obviously and pathetically high. By contrast, Boyland was photographed walking and smiling on her way to the Capitol.

Unlike the Floyd autopsy report that was released within a week, it took three months for the D.C. Medical Examiner's office to rule on Boyland's death, and even then the office was sparing in details.

Actually, nobody has said that methamphetamine was the drug in Boyalnd's system. There are other forms of amphetamine, such as Adderall, which family members said she was taking; it's entirely likely she took a larger-than-prescribed dose of the drug, which on top of other health issues such as obesity and diabetes contributed to her death.

Cashill didn't mention Boyland's multiple health issues, of course. Nor did he mention Boyland's obsession with QAnon and other far-right conspiracies that drew her to take part in the riot in the first place. Instead, he cited antoher insurrectionist who accused law enforcement of using "toxins" and a "gas" that was "not tear gas" on the crowd that included Boyland, citing another far-right activist calling it "poison."

(You might remember Cashill rushing to the defense of two insurrectionists who allegedly contributed to officer Brian Sicknick's death by spraying him with bear spray, which was apparently totally cool with him.)

Cashill knows he must keep the conspiracy going rather than address his own inconsistencies, concluding by ranting that"Nothing that comes out of the office of the D.C. Medical Examiner can be trusted" and huffing that "America's two-tier justice system reaches all the way into the morgue, and Big Media would just as soon keep it that way."

That's the sign of an experienced conspiracy-monger -- that and all the failed, fraudulent conspiracies he has left in his wake.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:40 AM EDT

Updated: Saturday, October 23, 2021 1:00 PM EDT

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As it often does, the Media Research Center has had another meltdown over a profile of White House press secretary Jen Psaki that didn't express the same contempt for her that the MRC has. First up was Tim Graham in an Aug. 29 post complaining that the Washington Post pointed out how Psaki makes good use of partisan Fox News reporter Peter Doocy:

You can tell just how perfectly The Washington Post fits into the White House publicity apparatus when it posts articles proclaiming that they have Fox News reporter Peter Doocy exactly where they want him. He is a "useful foil," reports Philip Bump, and he's easily foiled.

The headline on this Friday analysis was "Biden escalates his efforts to puncture the Fox News bubble." Jen Psaki is that genius who regularly calls on Doocy because he's going to be lame and embarrassing.

[...]

Now ask yourself: can you remember a single viral "bang snap" in the Psaki briefing room from a Washington Post White House reporter? Or are they all cozy cooperators like Matt "I marvel at Biden's fortune cookie tweets" Viser? 

Bump then chronicled how Biden got the better of Doocy as he suggested Biden had failed in Afghanistan, and Biden oh-so-effectively suggested Trump had failed, too, and exposed Doocy for posing an "unsound" question.

[...]

Philip Bump-Bump was shaking the pom-poms. He concluded by equating Fox with a "hostile power" and with "misinformation."

Weirdly, Graham did not dispute anything in Bump's article, let alone the thesis that Doocy serves as a useful foil for Psaki -- he's merely complaining that it was said out loud in an apparent attempt to boost Doocy's "liberal media" victimhood.

Next, Clay Waters did the honors in a Sept. 19 post:

New York Times media reporter Michael Grynbaum devoted 2,300 words to profiling President Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki for Sunday’s edition, bragging in the online headline that normalcy (and a more compliant press corps?) had returned to the White House with Trump out: “Bully Pulpit No More: Jen Psaki’s Turn at the Lectern.”

Grynbaum’s piece reeked of cringy attempts to be hip, down to the Instagram-ready opening line in which we learn that "political fame hits different” (i.e., has a different effect on one than it did previously) with bad man Trump off the scene.

[...]

He let Psaki prevail while staging a social media smackdown against her “regular foil,” Fox News reporter Peter Doocy.

[...]

Grynbaum briefly noted critics “on the right,” but strove to neutralize their criticisms of the White House press corps, using Psaki herself.

Waters even whined that the article "also noted Breitbart White House reporter Charlie Spiering called her briefings "rehearsed, scripted, and boring." He seems mad that the Times deviates from the MRC's narrative  that Psaki is a sleazy mess and Doocy is America's hero.

Of course, if Waters and Graham actually want to see media pom-poms in action, they don't need to venture outside the building. They juast have to look at Curtis Houck's slobbering Sept. 27 writeup of an interview Doocy did with the MRC's favorite right-wing radio host, Mark Levin:

Fox News’s Peter Doocy gave a rare interview on his job as White House correspondent to legendary conservative author and talk radio host Mark Levin on his Sunday night FNC show Life, Liberty, & Levin and shared what it’s like to question President Biden on his ever-changing views, what goes into his questions at press briefings, and even what reporters at other outlets think about him.

Dubbed by Levin as a star “of modern day journalism,” Doocy began by saying that, when it comes to questioning Biden, his approach has been “think about what he is saying presently, and then how that is possibly not lining up with things that he has said in the past” and therefore “compare and contrast Joe Biden and Joe Biden.”

[...]

After a break, Doocy showed he’s all class and didn’t explode in the way others did with the Trump administration, conceding that he’s had “some times” in which the White House doesn’t give him straight answers and, when it happens, he realized “I am going to have to follow up on this...or just that, this is all we’re going to get[.]”

Doocy again took the high road when asked about Biden continuing to duck questions, saying that, going back to the campaign, there were times when Biden would “continuously...linger[ed] around...to see, ‘okay what’s that tall, blonde guy in the back barking at me about today.’”

Levin closed with illuminating questions about what Doocy’s colleagues think of him and last week’s kerfuffle in which the White House excused Biden not taking questions alongside U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson by blaming...Johnson (click “expand”):

[...]

Levin wrapped with quite the series of compliments: “And you really are, even at a young age, you’re demonstrating to so many people what journalism is all about.”

Between Doocy and correspondents like Aisha Hasnie, Bill Melugin, and Trey Yingst, the future of the news side of Fox News is bright (despite what CNN would want you to believe).

That's the very definition of a softball interview -- and a fawning recitation of said softballs. Since Levin is the MRC's close personal friend, they wouldn't dare call him out for peddling such embarrassing fluff.

Posted by Terry K. at 7:10 PM EDT

Updated: Friday, October 22, 2021 8:12 PM EDT

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WorldNetDaily was already spinning the results of the Arizona election audit to make it look better than it did. But to really make that spin desperate and dishonest, you gotta call in the big guy. So take it away, Joseph Farah, who insisted in his Sept. 30 column that the audit was "good news!":

The media did a number in their announcement last week that the Arizona Senate "affirmed" the results of the November presidential vote in Maricopa County.

It was a blatant attempt to cast aspersions on legislators who were challenging the claim that the BIG STEAL of the 2020 election did not occur.

The "affirmation" was based merely a recount of the total votes cast – illegal and legal – in Maricopa County.

Many who don't watch the news with full discernment didn't understand what was happening. And the reporting mostly was quick to point out the Joe Biden actually picked up a few votes. That was what the media played up big.

Here's what is actually happening in Arizona – and it's all good news!

The next stage of the review by the Arizona's attorney general will look at the illegally cast votes – totaling an unbelievable 57,734 ballots! That was the determination of Cyber Ninjas, who conducted the audit. Compare that with the 10,457 vote differential that gave Biden the "victory."

Maricopa County was ordered to "preserve all documents and data."

Like his WND minions -- indeed, he seemed to be copying-and-pasting from WND's "news" stories -- Farah went on to parrot the lies the audit officials spouted:

Ben Cotton, the founder of the digital forensics firm CyFIR, claimed in his presentation to the senators Friday that he has evidence that Maricopa County workers intentionally deleted data.

He said his team caught the election workers at the keyboards of computers in February purging results from the Election Management System the day before the audit began. His team, he said, captured screen shots and time stamps and has identified the workers.

That didn't happen, of course -- not that Farah will bother to tell the truth.

Farah even invoked the old Zuckerbucks claim: "Further, Facebook's leftist Mark Zuckerberg handed out some $350 million to mostly leftist local and state election officials for them to run their 2020 operations, raising the question of undue influence." Actually, the money was needed -- which was available to any election office, not just "leftist" ones -- because state and federal governments failed to adequately fund elections during a pandemic, and the money had no apparent impact on turnout.But who needs facts when there is fearmongering to be done?

Farah closed by admitting that he's trying to keep Trump's Big Lie alive:

Fake news and its masters in Big Tech, which also played a role in the greatest electoral hoax in American history, are as culpable as the Democrats in the 2020 swindle.

And most of all, we must pray for the country – and to keep Donald Trump at the top of his game!

Trump has chosen to believe and promote a lie. That doesn't sound like a guy who's at "the top of his game" -- unless Trump's "game" is suckering gullible right-wingers like Farah.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:35 PM EDT

Updated: Saturday, October 23, 2021 1:36 PM EDT

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The Media Research Center's Nicholas Fondacaro hyperbolically ranted in a Sept. 20 post:

Parroting the Biden White House’s use of “horrific” to describe the images coming out of Del Rio, Texas Monday, ABC and CBS drew viewers’ attention to the crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border. But no, they weren’t talking about the nearly 15,000 Haitian illegals living under the international bridge in squalid conditions. They were spreading misinformation and lies about Border Patrol agents purportedly using “whips” against the people trying to cross the river.

Actually, the liar here is Fondacaro -- at no point does he quote anyone from ABC or CBS describing anyone from the Border Patrol using "whips." From later in his post:

There are alarming images from the Texas border tonight. The White House pressed on them today, calling the images ‘horrific.’ What were some Border Patrol agents doing,” gawked ABC World News Tonight anchor David Muir, repeating his dubious question from his opening tease.

Downplaying how the Biden administration had been ignoring cries for help from Customs and Border Protection for months, ABC correspondent Kenneth Moton ignored statements made by CBP giving context to the images, equipment, and training their agents received:

Tonight, this new video of Haitian migrants at the southern border, the chaos and despair. Images showing Border Patrol agents on horseback as they try to stop them from crossing the river into the U.S. the White House seeking answers.

He followed up with a soundbite of Press Secretary Jen Psaki ignorantly spouting off. “I've also seen the video. I can't imagine what the scenario is where that would be appropriate,” she said.

[...]

But the truth didn’t matter to the CBS Evening News as they too spewed the lies. Correspondent Manuel Bojorquez even accused agents of targeting families and babies.

“A number of agents on horseback can be seen trying to keep migrates from crossing into the country while threatening them with what appears to be horses reins or ropes; including families like this one holding a baby when the agents get dangerously close,” he claimed.

He also whined about “A massive show of force by Texas Troopers crating a barricade along the border to stop the thousands of mainly Haitian migrants from arriving in Del Rio, Texas.”

Again: Fondacaro doesn't quote anyone declaring that the Border Patrol was using whips. That make him a liar -- eve as he accused others of telling "lies" he didn't actually identify. Yet so committed was Fondacaro to the false right-wing narrative that he spouted it again the following day:

For the second evening in a row Tuesday, ABC and CBS continued to peddle the debunked and malicious smear that mounted Border Patrol agents were “whipping” Haitian migrants that tried to cross into the United States illegally. While they either scoffed at or ignored the statements from knowledgeable sources explaining the training and basic horsemanship, NBC Nightly News again bucked the narrative and chose to talk about how violent some of the illegals were when they were being deported.

[T]he Department of Homeland Security is now launching an investigation into those disturbing images of some border agents on horseback, images the White House called ‘horrific,’” announced sensationalist ABC anchor David Muir on World News Tonight.

Further into the segment, ABC correspondent Kenneth Moton lauded the ridiculous investigation and President Biden’s ignorant comments:

MOTON: And tonight, amid questions over images, the white house called “horrific.” DHS now launching an investigation into these images, showing Border Patrol agents on horses, confronting migrants as they enter Texas from Mexico. Tonight, President Biden reacting to those chaotic scenes.

BIDEN: We will get it under control.

“The union representing Border Patrol agents saying, that's their training,” he scoffed at the facts. And as he wrapped his segment, Moton touted how DHS “right now, has agency monitors on the ground to make sure those policies are being followed.”

Over on the CBS Evening News, anchor Norah O’Donnell didn’t fear for the Del Rio community that was having their grocery stores cleaned out nor for the overworked and overwhelmed Border Patrol agents. “And there is growing concern about how the migrants are treated both in Mexico and the U.S.” she lamented.

The network was also out to warp reality, ignoring the situation surrounding the need to bring in mounted units. Disregarding how Border Patrol needed to use horses because of the terrain and for potent crowd control, CBS correspondent Manuel Bojorquez suggested they just wanted to be cruel.

“The Department of Homeland Security is now investigating this incident where Border Patrol agents on horseback are seen intimidating Haitian migrants at the southern border,” he reported.

Again, the reality warper is Fondacaro. despite accusing ABC and CBS of claiming the Border Patrol was "whipping" immigrants, he quotes nobody actually saying that.

But Fondacaro wasn't done pushing his false narrative. He wrote in a Sept. 22 post: "Border Patrol was already stretched dangerously thin but on Wednesday, ABC’s World News Tonight celebrated their job getting harder as multiple mounted agents were ordered to 'administrative duties' after the rabid left and liberal media smeared them with lies about using 'whips' on Haitian migrants." But nowhere in his post did he quote any ABC employee saying the word "whips."

Telling ridiculous and blatant lies is a Fondacaro staple -- but the MRC appears to be totally cool with one of his researchers spreading lies, since he still has a job there.

Posted by Terry K. at 6:22 PM EDT

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Bob Unruh peddles two anti-Biden conspiracies in a single Sept. 18 WorldNetDaily "news" article:

Joe Biden's openly failing mental abilities have been a common topic of discussion since long before his election.

He's frequently seen stumbling through statements, pulling cheat sheet notes out of his pocket, forgetting names and more.

So a related question has been just exactly who is making those decisions that come out of the Oval Office.

Now it's known that one of the major influencers is Planned Parenthood.

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, senior editor at the Federalist, has written on her organization's website that's because Biden is "flouting the law to push through a massive financial favor to the powerful and lucrative abortion industry that backed Joe Biden's presidential candidacy with tens of millions of dollars."

This being WND, Unruh offers no objective evidence that Biden has "openly failing mental abilities" or that anything Biden has done has occurred under the direct "instructions" of Planned Parenthood.

It takes Unruh several more paragraphs to (badly) explain (with bias) that all his biased invective is over a relatively minor policy change regarding the Affordable Care Act. In 2020, the Trump administration added a provision to the ACA to make billing for abortion services more cumbersome by requiring that coverage for such services be billed and paid for separately, rather than allowing them to be paid under a single bill, a practice that medical observers said was "expected to generate consumer confusion and potentially coverage losses" -- an observation even the Trump administration agreed with. The Biden administration is simply reversing that policy.

This also being WND, Unruh can't be bothered to balance his article with any countervailing view -- the entire article is a veiled opinion piece that censors dissent from its right-wing agenda.

This, by the way, is the kind of "news" content WND wants its readers to pay for and other websites to republish, at least if they can "provide a large audience." But if WND can't provide its own audience for such content, why would anyone else want to?

Posted by Terry K. at 4:18 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, October 21, 2021 4:20 PM EDT

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Brian Truesdell wrote in a Sept. 24 Newsmax article:

Auditors who reviewed voting results cast in Maricopa County, Arizona, in last November's election said Joe Biden's vote total was 99 more than officially certified — and Donald Trump's was 261 fewer.

But at the same time, they maintained they'd found multiple election anomalies, among them more than 17,000 duplicate ballots.

The findings of the audit, commissioned by Arizona Senate Republicans and conducted by Florida-based Cyber Ninjas, were both hailed and decried by Trump critics. At once, they said the review debunked the former president's claim of fraud, but also disputed other assertions of irregularities at the polls.

That was the only reference to "critics" or any other viewpoint Truesdell would make in the article. The rest of his article largely consisted of repeating claims about the audit by those who conducted it and by Donald Trump, who hyped its results. He wrote at one point:

Among others who testified was Shiva Ayyadurai, who identified himself as an expert in pattern recognition with more than 40 years of experience. He raised several issues with the county's signature verification system — particularly the mail-in ballots, including voters receiving more than one voter ID number.

Truesdell didn't tell his readers that, as we've noted, Ayyadurai mislead in his stated finding and appeared to have no knowledge of Maricopa County policies and procedures regarding the early ballot envelopes and signature verification.

Truesdell touted Trump's comments about the audit results but didn't mention that, as even a Newsmax article earlier in the day by Jeffrey Rodack admitted, a newspaper found the results misleading and factually dubious. The closest Truesdell got to noting that the audit would have no impact onthe 2020 election was an admmission that "The after-the-fact audit is not expected to change the election results retroactively" -- though he then promoted how "Trump supporters" have embraced the audit.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:09 PM EDT

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