The Fall Intern Congressman-Pestering Season Has Arrived At CNS Topic: CNSNews.com
We've noted that CNSNews.com fall intern Megan Williams asking some congressmen with questions about refugees from Afghanistan, but that was just the her initiation into CNS' tradition of pester members of Congress with leading, biased questions designed to forward the "news" organization's right-wing agenda.
That beginning was followed with another leading question: “The federal deficit through the first 11 months of this fiscal year was $2.7 trillion and the federal debt is now $28 trillion. Will the Biden administration do anything to balance the budget?” That came with a follow-up: “Do you believe they will take any action to?” That's a setup designed to let Repubicans virtue-signal about the evils of deficit spending -- and it omits the fact that deficit spending has grown even under a Republican president. Those questions snared the following senators:
Not that all but three of the 12 senators queried are Republicans, which gave ample space for them to virtue-signal. However, both Booker and Casey made sure to point out in their answer how deficits increased under President Trump.
Williams' next round of gotcha was a reprise of a question asked over the summer: "“The ‘Build Back Better Act’ the House Budget Committee approved is 2,465 pages long, will you read the entire bill before you vote on it?” These members of Congress got ambushed with it:
Seth Moulton (D) (who smacked down Williams by pointing out that "your question shows some real naivete about politics--because that’s why we have teams to read and digest the bills. No one here ever reads an entire bill")
Tom Rice (R) (who pulled a Ted Cruz by showing his unwillingness to do his job by declaring “I don’t have to because I know the numbers, and I couldn’t possibly support it")
Yes, another biased, Republican-heavy lineup. The next round served up more virtue-signaling opportunities under the qestion "Should Facebook be allowed to restrict speech on its platform?" Here's who got stuck this time:
Williams' boilerplate claims in each article claimed that "Leading up to the 2020 elections, Facebook was placed in the spotlight for its apparent mishandling of information, specifically its push to censor conservative voices on its platform" -- a statement that advances CNS owner Media Research Center's fraudulent narrative about conservatives and only conservatives being "censored" on Facebook and ignores the fact that as a private business, Facebook has the right to run things as it pleases, a privilege conservatives normally grant to other private companies.
MRC Labors To Keep Va. GOP Governor Candidate Far (But Not Too Far) From Trump Topic: Media Research Center
In its campaigning for Republican Virginia governor candidate Glenn Youngkin, the Media Research Center has had a bit of a task on its hands: defend him from accusations he's a Trump clone -- for even the MRC understands there's a certain amount of radioactivity that comes from associating with a guy who still refuses to admit he lost the election -- but not not distance him from Trump completely (because despite his denial and derangement, Trump still controls the Republican Party).
Back in May, Kyle Drennen was setting up the frame that "reliable Democratic Party hack Chuck Todd" was "attacking the GOP candidate with talking points that perfectly matched DNC tactics. He spent the entire segment trying to tar Youngkin as a dangerous radical" who had to be "Trumpy" to win the GOP nomination, asserting that it was "hacky" to point that out. Drennen made no effort to debunk anything Todd said, though.
On Sept. 28, Drennen rehashed his attacks on Todd in once again framing the claim that liniking Yoiungkin and Trump is nothing but "Democratic spin" -- but, again, he fails to offer any counterargument that would debunk the claim. If you're spinning a fact as "spin," you're losing.
Kristine Marsh complained in a Sept. 30 post that Youngkin's Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, "has repeatedly accused Youngkin of being the next Trump and the CNN host was happy to bolster that claim," adding that CNN played a "montage of both Republicans speaking out against critical race theory, defunding the police, and the radical left. Wow, how uncanny! Two Republicans speaking on the same hot button issues that hit home with the Republican base!"
In an Oct. 15 post, Curtis Houck defended Youngkin against his clear links to the event beause "Youngkin wasn’t there and slammed the stunt as 'weird and wrong.'" The same day, Tim Graham helped to dig Youngkin out of a controversy in which participants at an event held in support of his campaign pledged allegiance to a flag that was allegedly flown during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot (which Graham himself is now trying to downplay), declaring that MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace was "false" in claiming that Youngkin "is somehow an 'insurrectionist' who 'wouldn’t say' whether he would have voted to certify the 2020 election."
First, Graham misleadingly described the event, calling only "a rally in Virginia featuring Donald Trump where Youngkin was not present" but omitting the fact the rally was for Youngkin's benefit. Second, Graham was forced to admit that Youngkin actually waffled on the question of whether he would have voted to certify the election, apparently hainging his "false" claim on the fact that Youngkin clarified his answer the next day -- which, of course, doesn't erase the original waffling.
In yet another Oct. 15 post -- yes, that makes three, which shows the urgency in which the MRC believed Youngkin's gaffe needed immediate cleanup -- Mark Finkelstein tried to rebut claims that Youngkin hold Trumpian "wlid" and "dangerous" views: "While the Democrats have aerobically tried to tie Youngkin to Trump, Youngkin has run a happy-warrior campaign with a lot of positive TV ads." He followed that a lengthy insistence that Youngkin is no Trumpy extremist:
So what were the "wild and dangerous" views that Geist claimed that Youngkin holds? Kaine exclusively cited Youngkin's focus on election integrity. The segment began with a clip from a Virginia rally in which people pledged allegiance to a flag reportedly used during the January 6th Capitol riot.
However, as Geist himself acknowledged, Youngkin "pretty clearly distanced himself" from the rally, and issued a statement calling it "weird, and wrong, to pledge allegiance to a flag connected to January 6th."
Kaine also tried to make the case that since Youngkin allegedly "promote[d] the big lie," by "questioning the results of November 2020," he is "responsible for the consequences of the big lie."
But even the Washington Post —which has endorsed McAuliffe—has acknowledged that Youngkin:
Has said there wasn't widespread fraud in Virginia.
Said he would have certified results of the presidential election.
Has acknowledged the legitimacy of Biden's election.
So who's lying now, Senator Kaine?
And in any case, is this really the standard that Kaine wants to set: that candidates are responsible for the statements and actions of all of their supporters? Would Kaine and other Dems really want to be held responsible for the actions of BLM, the defund-the-police crowd, the looters and rioters, etc?
But hasn't the MRC been spending the past year and a half portraying any liberal who supports the ideas of racial justice and police reform as official members of Antifa? Also: Like Graham, Finkelsteing censored the fact that Youngkin initially waffled on whether he would certify the election. Finally, Finkelstein conveniently omitted the fact that the Post article he so highly praised also noted that Youngkin has sounded largely like Trump on "election integrity" issues, including having "called for an audit of voting machines to help voters feel confident in elections."
Nicholas Fondacaro made his way back to the MRC's original narrative in an Oct. 24 post, complaining that "the networks adopted the talking points of the McAuliffe campaign as they railed against Youngkin as some kind of Donald Trump mini-me" -- though he, like Drennen before him, failed to explain exactly why Youngkin shouldn't be thought of that way, even after condeding that Trump has endorsed Youngkin.
For WND's Farah, The Big Lie Must Be Perpetuated Topic: WorldNetDaily
As I pointed out in my last column, the midterm elections are coming up soon – November of next year.
It's late September a year before, and the issue hasn't been touched: that is, the lack of election integrity.
Granted, there are powerful new media that have arisen, but it sure didn't help in California. Maybe that's because our candidate didn't believe in it – massive election fraud in 2020. That's unfortunate – in fact, it's a tragedy. Because no one is going to believe him now. So, I guess we'll have to write off 2022 in California. I can't say if the recall election was a steal or not. I can only say it was not what I expected – an apparent rout by Gavin Newsom, an apparent landslide.
[...]
How many illegal aliens voted in 2020? How many mail-in voters voted? The answer may be "just enough to put on a good show."
That's too many. What we don't know about 2020 can instantly turn us into a banana republic. And that is how we remain today!
We need to get back to a REAL VOTE – the American way.
You're going to be hearing a lot about the debt ceiling over the next few days. Don't believe anything you hear in the fake media. I have experience with them that goes back to 2011 days. They lie. And they have friends in Big Tech, don't you know? And it's even worse now since they helped STEAL THE 2020 ELECTION FROM DONALD TRUMP!
Guess what kind of lead Donald Trump has over Joe Biden in a second-chance election for president?
Less than a year after the 2020 election, he leads 51% to 41% in a recent poll. Think of it! Do you need more of a reason to think that Trump was cheated last November?
A Washington Examiner columnist calls it "a stunning turnaround." But even though some Biden voters are indeed horrified at his lies, incompetence and multiple betrayals as president, on a deeper level the polls don't reflect so much "a stunning turnaround" or "buyers' remorse," as the core reality that Americans preferred Trump then, and they prefer him today.
The election was stolen – and millions of Americans are outraged!
[...]
By the way, I'm getting sick of all these Fox News people pretending they just don't believe the election was rigged in 2020. They will look bad if they don't turn their hosts loose as this farce goes much further.
You can only pretend so long that Joe Biden got 80 million votes. No one in my space ever believed that.
MRC Labors To Keep Va. GOP Governor Candidate Far (But Not Too Far) From Trump Topic: Media Research Center
In its campaigning for Republican Virginia governor candidate Glenn Youngkin, the Media Research Center has had a bit of a task on its hands: defend him from accusations he's a Trump clone, but not not distance him from Trump completely.
Back in May, Kyle Drennen was setting up the frame that "reliable Democratic Party hack Chuck Todd" was "attacking the GOP candidate with talking points that perfectly matched DNC tactics. He spent the entire segment trying to tar Youngkin as a dangerous radical" who had to be "Trumpy" to win the GOP nomination, asserting that it was "hacky" to point that out. Drennen made no effort to debunk anything Todd said, though.
On Sept. 28, Drennen rehashed his attacks on Todd in once again framing the claim that liniking Yoiungkin and Trump is nothing but "Democratic spin" -- but, again, he fails to offer any counterargument that would debunk the claim. If you're spinning a fact as "spin," you're losing.
Kristine Marsh complained in a Sept. 30 post that Youngkin's Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, "has repeatedly accused Youngkin of being the next Trump and the CNN host was happy to bolster that claim," adding that CNN p[layed a "montage of both Republicans speaking out against critical race theory, defunding the police, and the radical left. Wow, how uncanny! Two Republicans speaking on the same hot button issues that hit home with the Republican base!"
In an Oct. 15 post, Curtis Houck defended Youngkin against his clear links to the event beause "Youngkin wasn’t there and slammed the stunt as 'weird and wrong.'" The same day, Tim Graham helped to dig Youngkin out of a controversy in which participants at an event held in support of his campaign pledged allegiance to a flag that was allegedly flown during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot (which Graham himself is now trying to downplay), declaring that MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace was "false" in claiming that Youngkin "is somehow an 'insurrectionist' who 'wouldn’t say' whether he would have voted to certify the 2020 election."
First, Graham misleadingly described the event, calling only "a rally in Virginia featuring Donald Trump where Youngkin was not present" but omitting the fact the rally was for Youngkin's benefit. Second, Graham was forced to admit that Youngkin actually waffled on the question of whether he would have voted to certify the election, apparently hainging his "false" claim on the fact that Youngkin clarified his answer the next day -- which, of course, doesn't erase the original waffling.
In yet another Oct. 15 post -- yes, that makes three, which shows the urgency in which the MRC believed Youngkin's gaffe needed immediate cleanup -- Mark Finkelstein used an Oct. 15 post to rebut claims that Youngkin hold Trumpian "wlid" and "dangerous" views: "While the Democrats have aerobically tried to tie Youngkin to Trump, Youngkin has run a happy-warrior campaign with a lot of positive TV ads." He followed that a lengthy insistence that Youngkin is no Trumpy extremist:
So what were the "wild and dangerous" views that Geist claimed that Youngkin holds? Kaine exclusively cited Youngkin's focus on election integrity. The segment began with a clip from a Virginia rally in which people pledged allegiance to a flag reportedly used during the January 6th Capitol riot.
However, as Geist himself acknowledged, Youngkin "pretty clearly distanced himself" from the rally, and issued a statement calling it "weird, and wrong, to pledge allegiance to a flag connected to January 6th."
Kaine also tried to make the case that since Youngkin allegedly "promote[d] the big lie," by "questioning the results of November 2020," he is "responsible for the consequences of the big lie."
But even the Washington Post —which has endorsed McAuliffe—has acknowledged that Youngkin:
Has said there wasn't widespread fraud in Virginia.
Said he would have certified results of the presidential election.
Has acknowledged the legitimacy of Biden's election.
So who's lying now, Senator Kaine?
And in any case, is this really the standard that Kaine wants to set: that candidates are responsible for the statements and actions of all of their supporters? Would Kaine and other Dems really want to be held responsible for the actions of BLM, the defund-the-police crowd, the looters and rioters, etc?
But hasn't the MRC been spending the past year and a half portraying any liberal who supports the ideas of racial justice and police reform as official members of Antifa? Also: Finkelstein conveniently omitted the fact that the Post article he so highly praised also noted that Youngkin has sounded largely Trump on "election integrity" issues, including having "called for an audit of voting machines to help voters feel confident in elections."
Nicholas Fondacaro made his way back to the MRC's original narrative in an Oct. 24 post, complaining that "the networks adopted the talking points of the McAuliffe campaign as they railed against Youngkin as some kind of Donald Trump mini-me" -- though he, like Drennen before him, failed to explain exactly why Youngkin shouldn't be thought of that way, even after condeding that Trump has endorsed Youngkin.
MRC Psaki-Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch, Pinch Hitter Edition Topic: Media Research Center
Spewing hate pays off when you're a Media Research Center employee. Curtis Houck got promoted to a day shift in the wake of the retirement of the MRC's Rich Noyes. Between that and taking vacation the first week of October, his hateful tirades against White House press secretary Jen Psaki -- and his man-crushing over Fox News reporter Peter Doocy -- were largely MIA in the first couple weeks in October. So it was up to Tim Graham to fill in on the man-crushing front in writing up the Oct. 4 briefing:
In Monday's White House briefing, Fox reporter Peter Doocy prompted White House press secretary Jen Psaki to restate that the massive "progressive" spending package being debated costs "zero."
Doocy asked this: "You said the president's gonna have a virtual meeting with House Progressives to talk about how this 'Build Back Better' package is now gonna be smaller than $3.5 trillion. You had been saying that it cost zero, so are you now admitting that the plan does not cost zero or is it less than zero?"
"Let's not dumb this down for the American public here," Psaki replied.
[...]
It's too easy to mock this argument that if it's paid for, it costs zero. If I go get a haircut and pay for it, it costs....zero? It didn't cost me a dollar?
"Just to not dumb it down then," Doocy continued, "does the plan cost nothing, or is the plan free?"
Graham then found someone else to man-crush over: "Minutes later on Fox News Channel, former Bush strategist Karl Rove pulled out his whiteboard to mock Psaki and her defense of the Biden plan."
But Houck was back to Psaki-bash and Doocy-crush for the Oct. 8 briefing:
The Psaki Show went into the weekend on Friday with a bang as Fox’s Peter Doocy and a cadre of liberal White House reporters blasted away at Press Secretary Jen Psaki with questions over the disappointing September jobs report and continued concerns over gas prices, inflation, job openings, and even shipping lanes affecting the supply chain.
Of course, there were still a few eye rollers with questions about the U.S. axing Columbus Day and even a surprise with none other than Brian Karem interjecting to question President Biden’s health.
But first, Doocy time.
Houck continued to fluff Doocy some more:
The Fox reporter’s final exchange was most interesting as he honed in on Biden having claimed on Thursday that he, in Doocy’s retelling, “cold-called a Pennsylvania hospital to ask the desk-receiving nurse why it was taking so long for a good friend's wife to be seen.”
Psaki insisted there was nothing untoward since Biden told the story to highlight the pressure medical workers are feeling with Covid cases and especially among the unvaccinated.
Doocy kept pushing: “But setting aside the privacy of the individual, how often does President Biden call around trying to help his friends cut the line?”
Psaki counted with “that was certainly not his intention” and rather him being concerned about “a friend.”
Her condescending side came out as Doocy closed by wanting to know whether staffing issues at the hospital stemmed from a vaccine mandate: “I would love for you to account for me where that is the issue over — more so than number of unvaccinated who are filling emergency rooms, filling ICU beds. That is the problem in hospitals across the country.”
Of course Houck thinks Psaki is being "condescencing" to Doocy -- he's incapabnle of admitting that Psaki might be right and Doocy's being the jerk.Meanwhile, a more honest, less scyophantic reporter noted that the White house had just released a report "showing the effectiveness of vaccine requirements, which also showed very few people refusing to comply."
Doocy wan't in the house for the Oct. 12 briefing, but Houck found some other right-wing reporters to suck up to:
Tuesday saw a return of The Psaki Show and, without Fox’s Peter Doocy< and questions from Real Clear Politics’s Philip Wegmann<, someone had to bring the heat to Press Secretary Jen Psaki and that came thanks to the New York Post’s Steven Nelson, who brought questions about the ever-corrupt Hunter Biden and allegations that President Biden owes back taxes.
Nelson began by bringing up one of the Post’s latest pieces of excellent reporting which“said on Friday that the First Son had sold five prints of his artworks for $75,000 each and that a team of lawyers is reviewing the prospective buyers who are going to be allowed into an upcoming New York show.”
Houck is fluffing other reporters while his man-crush is away! What would happen if Doocy found out about this?
Houck went on to gush that Nelson asked "an extremely long question about the President and back taxes," but buried Psaki's response that the story is "debunked" and that Biden has released "many years of his tax returns so people can check them out" in a collapsed transcript excerpt that fewer people will read. That's how Houck does it when he knows Psaki is right but is afraid to admit it.
He picked a different reporter to fawn over for pushing partisan talking points during the Oct. 14 briefing:
With Thursday’s White House press briefing continuing to focus on the supply chain crisis amid rapid gains in inflation triggering price increases on basic necessities affecting all Americans, Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich blasted Press Secretary Jen Psaki over Chief of Staff Ron Klain’s “tone deaf” tweets from Wednesday agreeing with a statement that such problems are “high class issues.”
Heinrich began the first of two Klain questions by noting that Klain tweeted over “a message yesterday, not once but twice, that inflation and supply chain issues are ‘high class issues’” despite the fact that“some of the sharpest price increases...included products that every American buys: beef products, chicken, eggs, regular, unleaded gasoline, laundry equipment, furniture, clothing, the list goes on.”
“Why would Ron Klain tweet that and would you agree that’s a little bit tone deaf,” Heinrich added.
Psaki made clear that she was going to go the condescending route: “Do you think two tweets means more? Just curious. So, just for context, what — what Ron Klain retweeted was a tweet from the former Chairman of Economic Advisers, Jason Furman[.]”
She continued to defend Klain by informing Heinrich she instead needed to report the“full context which, I think, is important” in that things would be “much worse” “if the unemployment rate was still 10 percent”
After Psaki argued things were more expensive because the economy was such in great shape, Heinrich hit back and wondered if there were any plans for Klain to cut back on his Twitter use[.]
Houck and his MRC used to hate it when White House reporters obsessed over tweets during Trump's presidency. Wonder what changed...
WND Misleads, Censors Story On Purported 'Child Porn' School Assignment Topic: WorldNetDaily
Bob Unruh wrote in a Sept. 15 WorldNetDaily article:
Members of a school board in Ohio have been told to resign after they utilized an allegedly obscene instruction guide that told students to write about an "X-rated Disney scenario."
Or "ten euphemisms for sex," or "a roomful of people who want to sleep together," or "a sex scene you wouldn't show your mom" or "the first time I killed a man" or "your favorite part of a man's body using only verbs."
The controversy has developed in Hudson, Ohio, where Cleveland.com said Hudson Mayor Craig Shubert and parents of students in the district are demanding the school board and teachers leave because of the book used in Liberal Arts II writing.
The book involved is called "642 Things to Write About."
"It has come to my attention that your educators are distributing essentially what is child pornography in the classroom. I’ve spoken to a judge this evening and she’s already confirmed that. So I’m going to give you a simple choice: either choose to resign from this board of education or you will be charged," Shubert warned.
But Unruh is hiding two important facts. First, he waited until the eighth paragraph to note that "The book is used in a class that supports a college credit, and is offered by association with Hiram College." In other words, this was not a garden-variety high school class -- it was designed for upper-level students around age 18 who could presumably handle such things, as a course for college credit would indicate.
Second, and more importantly, as an actual journalist found out, none of those supposedly offensive things were ever assigned to students to write about -- which put the lie to Unruh's headline that "kids" were "told to write 'child porn.'" Seems important to mention, no? Unruh didn't think so.
In other words, there's no actual story here. But Unruh and WND would rather create outrage instead of perform journalism, so this story remains on its website live and uncorrected. And WND thinks you should pay for the privilege of such biased, misleading and shoddy journalism.
AIM Goes On Anti-'Woke' Tirade Against General Topic: Accuracy in Media
John Ransom goes off the rails quickly in a Sept. 28 Accuracy in Media column:
As the military’s top general, Mark Milley, prepares to testify in front of a Senate committee tomorrow about the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, it’s important that we remember the media’s complicity in the disaster.
Too often the media has been willing to let incompetence slide, if that incompetent someone is ideologically safe, as is U.S. Gen. Mark Milley.
It’s especially alarming now given the cognitive decline in the White House.
That escalated quickly! But the only evidence of "cognitive decline" is an anti-Biden op-ed at Forbes that doesn't even reference "cognitive decline" until the third-to-last paragraph. Not exactly the proof that one would need to live up to the whole accuracy-in-media thing.
Ransom's osensible real point here is to attack Milley for acknowledging thing like systemic racism, citing another flawed item -- a Fox News article that quoted only anonymous people -- claiming that Milley andhis staff "spend time each week meeting about 'culture war' issues while never meeting about U.S. military readiness." He continued:
And in these activities, much of the media cheered them on.
For example, they reported on the partisan aspects of teaching Critical Race Theory in the military under Milley and other woke-enabled group-think, especially when Milley illogically tied them to events like the January 6 riots or the riots in Lafayette Park to discredit conservatives.
The media hurrahed the creation of Milley’s new military, a political military that could help progressives defeat conservatives.
Never mind that these activities had nothing to do with successfully advancing the actual mission of the military to protect the country, the citizens and ultimately the military itself.
“Until recently, critical race theory was anything but a household phrase,” NPR told readers as a cover for Milley when he defended the force-feeding of the radical CRT to U.S. troops, while pretending he didn’t understand what the fuss was about — even as he apparently ignored Afghanistan.
Ransom didn't explain why cracking down on extremism in the military ranks is a bad thing. And Milley specifically said he wanted to understand "white rage" -- which we assume Ransom is exhibiting here -- to figure what drove "thousands of people to assault this building [the Capitol] and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America." Doesn't Ransom think that's worth figuring out?
Ransom then weirdly listed Rep. Liz Cheney as among those receiving "the get-out-of-jail-free card issued by the liberal press to anyone smart and brave enough to regularly denounce conservatives, as Milley does." What crime is Ransom accusing Cheney of committing? Last time we checked, it was not a crime to hold Donald Trump accountable for his behavior.
Yep, lots of accuracy missing in Ransom's media missive.
CNS Editor Takes Lazy Shot At California Over Unemployment Rates Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey intoned in a Sept. 30 article:
Nine of the sixteen U.S. metropolitan statistical areas with the highest August unemployment rates, as ranked this week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, were in California.
The El Centro metropolitan area, which sits in Imperial County, California, just north of Mexicali, Mexico, led the nation’s 389 metropolitan areas in August with an unemployment rate of 19.4 percent, according to BLS.
That compared to a national unemployment rate for August of just 5.3 percent.
It's unclear why Jeffrey wrote this article, beyond a quick and dirty shot at California -- all he does is recite BLS statistics. An intern could have done that.He made no effort to investigate why these areas have high unemployment; perhaps his goal is to suggest that Californians are lazy bums. So he's not going to tell you that the El Centro region had a poor economy before the pandemic (and under President Trump). An actual news outlet reported in 2019:
While the United States is enjoying the healthiest job market in half a century, the metropolitan El Centro area has what the U.S. Labor Department says is an unemployment rate of 16.2%, the highest in the nation. By comparison, the rate for the country as a whole is 3.6%.
[...]
Many of the jobs here are agricultural: The Imperial Valley is home to thousands of acres of farms that grow cauliflower, potatoes and spinach and require a large seasonal workforce. Some of the farmworkers live here; many others cross the border from Mexico a few miles away to work every day.
Once they become too old to work in the fields, however, few jobs are available other than retail and fast food.
[...]
"Our economy is not diversified. It's a very narrow economy. It's either farm or government or teaching or low-income, with a few other exceptions," says Sara Griffen, executive director of the Imperial Valley Food Bank.
Jeffrey went on to wrote that "The Yuma metro area, which sits on the Mexican border in southwest Arizona, had the nation’s second-highest unemployment rate this August. It was 18.2 percent." Again, Jeffrey couldn't be bothered to explain why. but as it turns out, Yuma's economy is much like El Centro's -- impoverished, undiversified, overly dependent on farming, and has been that way for years.
But telling readers that would have required doing actual research and reporting. Jeffrey just wanted to perform stenography for a lazy, partisan shot. It doesn't inspire much confidence in CNS' brand of journalism.
MRC's 9/11 Meltdown: Mad When It's Pointed Out That Real Extremism Is On The Right Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center spent the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks whining that it was pointed out that the biggest terrorist threat today comes from the American right. Clay Waters huffed in a Sept. 10 post:
Respected economist turned partisan Democratic hack Paul Krugman marked the 20th anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks in his own inimitable fashion in his column Friday by playing his usual despicable partisan games: “Foreign Terrorists Have Never Been Our Biggest Threat.” The text box: “Before 9/11, domestic fanaticism was already on the rise.”
Instead of trying to rebut Krugman's arguments -- even as he insisted that Krugman "offensively suggested the real enemy to American democracy was within" -- Waters simply rants: "Krugman is the last person on earth with the moral authority to lecture anyone on 9-11, given how shamelessly he’s abused the tragic anniversary in the past."
Alex Christy had a meltdown over a similar point in a Sept. 11 post:
Never let the marking of a dark historical day go to waste, right? On Friday's edition of The 11th Hour, MSNBC's resident partisan hack historian Michael Beschloss declared that we should remember the heroes of 9/11 and honor their memory by fighting back against GOP efforts to suppress the vote and possible attempts to steal congressional seats.
It all began with guest host Chris Jansing asking an appropriate enough question, "What’s the importance, Michael, of marking these moments of history, of preserving these stories? And frankly, bringing people together around them?"
Instead of giving the appropriate answer of never forgetting or hailing the values of selfless sacrifice, Beschloss went political, "Because all of us should be able to unite around the idea that we're saving our democracy. That's what those people were doing, those heroes were doing on Flight 93 and elsewhere 20 years ago tomorrow. Our democracy tonight is as much in danger, I think, as it was in 1860 before the Civil War and in 1940 before Pearl Harbor."
Rather than any coherent response, Christy simply huffed: "The right to vote is not being taken away and Beschloss is among those undermining the legitimacy of elections by saying that it is."
Tim Graham, meanwhile, used the 9/11 anniversary to downplay the violence at the Jan. 6 pro-Trump Capitol riot:
On the night before the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the PBS NewsHour pundit team agreed on the proposition that Trump's backers are a bigger terrorist threat than ISIS. Jonathan Capehart proclaimed "I think MAGA and the domestic terror threat is much more worrisome than any foreign threat we could face," and David Brooks nodded in assent.
The liberal elites (including Brooks) love to commingle 9/11 and 1/6, and even sometimes insist 1/6 was worse. They can't imagine beyond the horror of the riot at the Capitol that factually it's not comparable to 3,000 Americans dying with jets being used as weapons. You can look at the people pleading guilty to charges that aren't murder, but for the offense of taking videos for social media inside the Capitol:
[...]
That's not a violent offense. One man pleaded guilty after texting he wanted to put a bullet in Nancy Pelosi's head. That's at least an actual threat. But they're all "domestic terrorists" in Capehart's telling.
Apparently, it's not a big deal to Graham that Americans looted and destroyed the seat of American government in an atempt to overturn an election. That's not what he believed immediately after the riot; he's apparently adopting the view of his boss, Brent Bozell, that the riot was justified.
Being offended that other things were compared to 9/11 (and downplaying Jan. 6) was a thing at the MRC. A Sept. 10 post by Gabriel Hays whined:
September 11, 2001 is the single worst day in U.S. history -- other than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor perhaps. That day saw 2996 innocent Americans killed on U.S. soil by a foreign enemy. Serious people know and respect this. But many in corporate media aren't serious people. They cheapen it with ridiculous comparisons meant to smear people and political movements they don’t like, i.e. President Donald Trump. Media have embraced the dismal trend of selling every new threat to their dominance as worse than the worst day in our history.
That should get Americans concerned.
[...]
In order to get Americans to do the ruling class’ bidding on climate change, gun control, white supremacists and of course the bogeyman, Donald Trump himself, commentators for far left rags and for idiotic cable news talk shows have claimed that each one has presented as bad or worse a threat than 9/11.
Can you believe that? Climate change, white supremacist terrorists, and a duly elected American president are worse than that terrible day the towers fell and we lost 3000 Americans? Well if you love CNN, MSNBC or Huffington Post, maybe you do believe it.
Of course, Hays simply wants to shut down debate over the behavior of Trump and right-wing activists.He also discounted what happened on Jan. 6: "Sure, only one person, (a Trump supporter) died at the scene at the Capitol, not to mention that the FBI found scant evidence that the riot was organized by antigovernment groups, but according some, the 6th deserves to go down in history on par with 9/11." The riot sure caused a lot of damage for being "unorganized," eh, Gabe? Imagine what an "organized" right-wing attack on the Capitol would have accomplished.
Nicholas Fondacaro made it clear that he will make sure America never unites the way it did after 9/11 until another right-wing Republican is elected president, and that America must remain divided because his feelings were hurt about the best ways stop stop the spread of COVID:
The day after the country marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11, NBC’s Sunday Today was brazen and callous enough to complain that the fight against the coronavirus wasn’t as unifying as that tragic day was; disingenuously ignoring how they weaponized COVID coverage to attack former President Trump. They also suggested that opposition to the Biden administration’s mask and vaccine mandates were akin to opposing the Civil Rights movement and not fighting the Nazis.
[...]
[Host Chuck Todd] lamented that the “arc of American history” would show that opposition to COVID regulations and mandates would prove to be less like when we unified to fight the Nazis and more like when people (Democrats) tried to oppose the Civil Rights movement:
And, you know, Willie, thinking about this all week, when you actually – sadly you look at the arc of American history, polarization in some ways is more common than us coming together. We came together to beat the Nazis, we came together at times during the Cold War, we came together after 9/11. But we also spent a lot of time fighting each other whether it’s dealing with race in America, or invisible fights.
He then issued an ominous warning about what such opposition would mean for fighting climate change. “Right now it is COVID, just wait until we try to deal with climate mitigation,” he said. “If you think COVID has been polarizing on the country, wait till some of the tough decisions that are going to have to be made regarding water and things like this.”
Again, no attempt was made to rebut the argument -- just a lot of juvenile name-calling, which is apparently what Fondacaro believes qualifies as "media research."
In the classic 1944 film “Gaslight,” an extraordinarily evil criminal, who has recently gotten married, psychologically manipulates his perfectly sane wife into believing she’s going insane as a means of distracting her from uncovering his horrendous crime spree.
From the movie emerged the modern psychological term “gaslighting,” which means, “to cause (a person) to doubt his or her sanity through the use of psychological manipulation.”
News flash: America’s current ruling elites – including not only the Biden-Harris administration, but most of the Democratic Party, Big Tech, Big Media, the “Deep State,” academia, and even an increasing number of major “woke” corporations – are literally gaslighting the rest of America every single day, from morning until night, in a dizzying and ever-expanding variety of ways.
Truly, gaslighting has become the No. 1 psychological-spiritual warfare principle of America’s ruling class.
The most obvious example of Biden administration gaslighting is its ongoing campaign to not only demonize but induce paralyzing doubt, guilt, fear and self-loathing in tens of millions of thoroughly decent, patriotic, law-abiding, conservative Americans by continually denouncing them as “racists,” “white supremacists,” “violent extremists” and “domestic terrorists.”
In fact, in every area of life, culture and government policy in today’s America – from the COVID-19 pandemic, to election fraud, to the January 6 "insurrection," to Biden’s exit from Afghanistan, to illegal immigration, to abortion, to transgender madness, to the Second Amendment – those currently in power continually portray large segments of the American population as essentially immoral, deplorable and irredeemable, indeed almost subhuman.
As with all gaslighting, the intended purpose is to confuse, confound, distress, dispirit, intimidate and bewilder people to the point they doubt obvious truths they once knew and instead live in fear and anxiety, thus disabling them from being effective in the ongoing war for America’s future.
Of course, the real gaslighters here are Joseph Farah, David Kupelian and the rest of their (remaining) WND crew.
WND has spread documented lies to portray the eleciton as "stolen" from Trump and shamelssly insist they're true -- that's gaslighting.
WND wants you to believe that unproven medications will cure COVID while approved vaccines will kill you -- that's gaslighting.
WND wants you to believe its financial problems are caused by "big tech" conspiring against it, while staying silent about readers staying away in droves because of its years of false information and conspiracy theories -- that's gaslighting.
WND wants you to believe that the right-wing extremists who run it and (barely) still read it are normal and right about everything, while anyone whose political view is even slighting to their left are the real "extremists" -- that's gaslighting.
But WND is desperate to avoid self-reflection. So it must project:
And just as the villain in “Gaslight” was superficially charming, intelligent, apparently thoughtful, caring, knowledgeable and supposedly looking out for the interest of his wife, in today’s America the power elite pretend to care about the people they rule, but their true motivations are entirely selfish, narcissistic, and revolve around their desperate addiction to power, wealth, glory, privilege and worship.
In a word, they want to be gods. And to perpetuate this desperate pretense, they must gaslight.
As must WND -- their conspiratorial, extremist world is shrinking, yet they still believe they should be gods within it. It will never admit what it's done (unless there's a court order). It will never rebut us because they know we're right and that engaging with us will give away their game. A gaslighter does anything to avoid being held accountable.
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Olympics of Hate Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center spent the Tokyo Olympics rooting against America because the U.S. team wasn't heterosexual or right-wing enough. Read more >>
CNS Can't Quite Back GOP Governor Candidate In Va., But It Will Attack the Democrat Topic: CNSNews.com
Earlier this year, CNSNews.com did a horribly botched hit job on eventual Republican Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin, falsely claiming that he personally donated to "several left-wing groups" when, in fact, the donations were made by the private-equity group he headed. Even though Youngkin is running as a Republican in the state CNS (and its Media Research Center parent) is headquartered in, it has had trouble embracing him even though he's unmistakably Trump-adjacent.
In a Sept. 19 article, editor Terry Jeffrey was upset that Youngkin wouldn't go fullTexas extremist on abortion:
Glenn Youngkin, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Virginia, said in a debate on Friday with Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe that he would not sign an abortion ban like the one enacted in Texas law.
That law bans abortion when a baby has a detectable heartbeat, which occurs at about six weeks.
Youngkin indicated that he would sign a bill that banned abortion when an unborn baby feels pain, which occurs at about 20 weeks.
An Oct. 19 article by Susan Jones was devoted to recounting the eduction policy of Winsome Sears, "the black Republican candidate for Virginia lieutenant governor." Youngkin wasn't even mention until the end, when Jones complained that Youngkin's Democratic opponent, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, "is taking every opportunity to tie Youngkin to Trump, who has not campaigned for Youngkin, although Trump did endorse him.Youngkin didn't get an article from Jones on his own eduation policy until the next day.
With that tepid support for Youngkin, CNS is taking the passive-aggressive way out: by attacking McAuliffe.
Jeffrey spent his Oct. 6 column attacking McAuliffe for supporting "government schools" even though he attened Catholic schools as a child: "McAuliffe's own parents did not send him to government schools. But now he not only wants to keep other people's children in government schools; he wants to prevent parents from telling those government institutions what they should teach."
Jones served up her own attack on McAuliffe in an Oct. 11 article:
Democrat Terry McAuliffe, hoping to serve a second term as Virginia governor, made it clear on Sunday he's running against Donald Trump, who isn't on the ballot and hasn't actively campaigned for McAuliffe's challenger, Republican Glenn Youngkin.
Yet in the course of his 12-minute interview with CNN's "State of the Union," McAuliffe mentioned Trump's name 18 times -- so often, in fact, that host Dana Bash joked, "I'm glad I have two cups here, so I can keep drinking when you mention Donald Trump's name."
McAuliffe said several times that he's "running against a Donald Trump wannabee." He accused his opponent Youngkin of wanting to do a "Donald Trump-Betsy DeVos education system," whatever that is.
Um, isn't it a reporter's job to explain what terms mean instead of blithely dismissing things by saying, "whatever that is"? Jones clearly sucks at her job.
In another Oct. 11 article, Jones tried to make a big deal out of McAuliffe endorsing representative government, which Republicans tell us is the greatest form of government by insisting that we're a republic and not a democracy:
"I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach," Democrat Terry McAuliffe said in his last debate with his Republican challenger Glenn Youngkin. The two men are running a tight race for Virginia governor.
On Sunday, CNN's Dana Bash noted that McAuliffe is "getting pummeled" for the remark: "So, the question is -- the fact that you are getting pummeled by Republicans, who say it shows that you don't think parents should have a say in their children's education. So, my question is, do you think parents should have a say in their children's education?"
"Of course," McAuliffe said. "And they do. First of all, they get to elect school boards, and if you don't like them, then you get rid of them. But let's talk education," he said, changing the subject and talking about his "very serious plan" to invest $2 billion to raise teacher pay, provide universal broadband and educate at-risk 3- and 4-year-olds.
CNS even published a published an Oct. 14 column by R. Emmett Tyrrell calling McAuliffe a liar for calling out (in 2007) the factually dubious Clinton scandal-mongering Tyrrell's American Spectator magazine churned out in the 1990s.
MRC Still Won't Admit That COVID Misinformation Objectively Exists Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center wants you to believe that misinformation about COVID and its vaccines isn't really misinformation -- it's just someone's opinion, man, and nobody should be "censoring" it even though it could be so dangerous that it gets people killed. Because it furthers the MRC's victimhood narrative, it is clinging to that belief. Autumn Johnson complained in an Aug. 19 post:
Facebook is taking action after pressure from the White House. The Biden administration blamed the platform for the majority of coronavirus “misinformation.”
The news comes after the White House blamed accounts on the platform for spreading misinformation.
"There's about 12 people who are producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.
[...]
Still, Facebook has not removed every account linked to the original 12 accounts, saying that "the remaining accounts associated with these individuals are not posting content that breaks our rules, have only posted a small amount of violating content, which we've removed, or are simply inactive."
Some argue pressure from the federal government should classify Big Tech social media platforms as “state actors.”
But public health and politics are two very different things. The MRC was a loyal pro-Trump defender during his presidency; did that make it a "state actor"? Note also that Johnson won't admit there's COVID misinformaton on Facebook -- she uses scare quotes and refers to "so-called COVID-19 misinformation."
Alexander Hall repeated that narrative in an Aug. 23 post:
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy nagged social media companies for not doing more to censor so-called misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to Murthy in an August 22 appearance of CNN’s State of the Union, the American people are so-called “superspreaders” of misinformation by questioning the government narrative, according to the Biden administration. America’s current surgeon general responded to Facebook’s most recent transparency report by scourging social media
Murthy commented on the “profound cost of health misinformation,” observing that “we’ve been seeing the health misinformation as a problem for years, but the speed, scale and sophistication with which it is spreading and impacting our health is really unprecedented.”
But rather than why he's ranting about "so-called misinformation" instead of admitting that misinformation objectively exists, Hall played victim: "In contrast to Murthy’s claims, Facebook has been notoriously sloppy and all too quick to censor conservatives and narratives with which it disagrees. Facebook fact-checker PolitiFact came after the Media Research Center (MRC) for citing a graphic first released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." As we documented, that was an inaccurate graphic that the MRC used to create a false meme that the Delta variant was nothing to worry about -- meaning that the MRC got busted for pushing misinformation.
Gabriela Parseau continued the denial/victimhood narrative in an Aug. 27 post:
YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan said in a recent blog post that the platform has “removed over 1M videos” with information on COVID-19 since February 2020. He justified censorship in favor of “accountability” and “balance” on the platform.
Mohan downplayed the censorship when he said that YouTube removed allegedly “dangerous coronavirus information.” He claimed that YouTube attempts to “strike a sensible balance between freedom of speech and freedom of reach” and implied that censorship on an “open platform” offers “greater accountability to connect people with quality information.”
The YouTube executive also cited that the platform removes “nearly 10 million videos a quarter.” He admitted, however, that removing too much content can be dangerous. “An overly aggressive approach towards removals would also have a chilling effect on free speech,” said Mohan. “Removals are a blunt instrument, and if used too widely, can send a message that controversial ideas are unacceptable.” [Emphasis added.]
He ignored the fact that YouTube seemingly sends that exact message every time it censors users and health care professionals.
Mohan all but conceded that people define misinformation in different ways but stopped short of admitting that YouTube subjectively defines misinformation and acceptable conversation for its users. “One person’s misinfo is often another person’s deeply held belief, including perspectives that are provocative, potentially offensive, or even in some cases, include information that may not pass a fact checker’s scrutiny,” he said. [Emphasis added.]
Of course, Pariseau and the rest of the MRC believe that any idea that doesn't advance right-wing agendas are "unaccepable," and Parseau won't admit that she's subjectively defining misinformation to advance that very agenda.
In a blow to Big Tech, Reddit is refusing to censor so-called “misinformation” about COVID-19, instead choosing to allow “debate, dissent, and protest.”
The online platform is well-known for its users who have anonymous usernames to discuss a wide range of topics, such as politics, sports, video games and more.
Reddit has previously faced criticism for >caving to the left and censoring content, including banning "r/The_Donald, r/ChapoTrapHouse, and about 2,000 other communities," according to The Verge June 29, 2020. The platform also suspended over 7,000 subreddits for alleged “hate” content, despite Reddit's acknowledgement that it is not always able to identify precisely what "hate" means.
Now, Reddit is going against the recent social media platform trends that censor alleged misinformation about COVID-19 and its vaccines.
Actually, the r/The_Donald was notorious for its hate and incitement to violence, and one did not need to "identify precisely what 'hate' means" in order to determine that. Or is Pariseau so morally compromised that she doesn't see anti-liberal hate as "hate"?
The talking point was rehashed again in a Sept. 14 post by Catherine Salgado:
Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote a letter to Amazon last week demanding that the company more stringently censor so-called COVID-19 “misinformation.”
Warren (D-MA) wrote her letter on Sept. 7 to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy warning about the spread of “misinformation about COVID-19.” She suggested Amazon enables misinformation by promoting books which the senator claimed contain “falsehoods about COVID-19 vaccines and cures,” even going so far as including such books on the website’s best-seller list. She accused Amazon of “an unethical, unacceptable, and potentially unlawful course of action.”
Warren stated that when her staff searched the Amazon site with terms such as “COVID-19” and “vaccine,” they discovered that books like The Truth About Covid-19: Exposing the Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal were included in the top results. The book, written by Dr. Joseph Mercola, is listed as the #1 best-seller in both the “Censorship & Politics” and “Political Freedom” book categories.
The senator asked Amazon to prevent “misinformation” books from becoming best-sellers or showing as top results.
Salgado failed to tell her readers that Mercola is an indisputable quack and his book has been utterly discredited as, yes, misinformation. But because and the rest of the MRC she believes there's no objective definition of misinformation -- except, of couse, when non-conservatives do it -- a dangerous quack gets a pass.
CNS Parrots GOP Congressman's Factually Deficient Claim About Waiting 'Months' For A Microwave Topic: CNSNews.com
Craig Bannister gave a right-wing senator space to rant in a Sept. 21 article:
President Joe Biden’s “$5 trillion tax-and-spend bill masquerading as an infrastructure bill” will worsen the rampant inflation he’s already inflicting on American families, House GOP Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) warned Tuesday.
Americans are already paying more for everything they’re buying – even having to hold off for months before buying microwaves – Scalise said at a press event, explaining how Biden’s plan to raise and create taxes will hurt low-income families:
Scalise did not offer any proof to back up his claim that microwave ovens are in such short supply that one must wait "months" to buy one, and Bannister clearly did not ask for any. In fact, while chip shortages and supply chain issues are affecting supplies many appliances, there's no evidence microwaves are particulartly affected -- or that anyone is being forced to wait "months" to buy one. Indeed, for instance, Walmart appears to have dozens of microwave models in stock and ready to ship.And neither Bannister nor Scalise identify how President Biden is supposed to fix this nonexistent problem.
This claim is simply too good to fact-check -- but applying simple logic causes to to crumble. Is that the way to run a "news" organization?
MRC's Uber Driver Complaint Over Texas Abortion Law Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Mark Finkelstein ranted in a Sept. 10 post:
Journolist is no more. In 2010, the online forum where leftist journalists congregated to decide on the liberal talking points of the day was shut down by its founder Ezra Klein when the group was exposed.
And yet, leftists still manage to spout remarkably similar lines. When it comes to the Texas abortion law, the liberal trope of the times is the poor, besieged, "Uber driver." The notion is that Uber drivers who transport women to abortion clinics will be sued by private citizens under the law, seeking an award of up to $10,000.
On Friday's Morning Joe, MSNBC liberal analyst Jonathan Lemire, who also poses as a "reporter" for the Associated Press, mouthed the "Uber driver" line. We've put together a mash-up of multiple liberal worthies, starting with Lemire, all trotting out the "Uber driver" trope. leftists prefer to focus on supposedly beleaguered Uber drivers even though very few are likely to be sued because they want to deflect attention from what the true target of the law would be: the abortionists themselves.
Among those making appearances are Joy Behar, Gloria Allred, Laurence Tribe and Chris Hayes. Most egregious is CNN's Ana Navarro, who whines that an Uber driver could be sued by "a deer hunter in Alaska." Nice two-fer, Ana: not only sliming those crazy pro-lifers, but somehow working in a swipe at Bambi-killing gun nuts!
Here's the defense Finkelstein offered up:
The "Uber driver" trope is a flaming red herring. It would be difficult if not impossible for a plaintiff to prove that a driver knowingly transported a woman for purposes of an abortion. The plaintiff would first have to prove that the driver knew that the woman was pregnant. According to Planned Parenthood, 92 percent of abortions are performed within the first 13 weeks, when pregnancy might well not be visible.
And even if it could be proved that the driver somehow knew that the woman was pregnant, the plaintiff would also have to prove that the driver knew that she was going to seek an abortion. After all, Planned Parenthood claims that only three percent of its services are abortion. For all the driver knew, the woman was going for one of the other 97 percent of services. Bottom line: few if any people are likely to waste their time suing Uber drivers.
But Finkelstein offers no evidence that the Texas law exempts Uber drivers if they did not know they were transporting a patient for an abortion -- which means that they are open to liability. If not, both Uber and Lyft would have felt no need to offer to pay legal fees of drivers charged under the law.And if Finkelstein doesn't bellieve anti-abortion activists would spend the time and effort to prosecute an Uber driver in the hopes of racking up a $10,000 bounty, he clearly has not seen their zealotry in action. (Has he forgotten how many abortion doctors have been murdered by protesters?)
Despite the holes in Finkelstein's defense, the Uber-driver complaint became a thing at the MRC. The next day, Autumn Johnson noted the Uber and Lyft defense funds in a story about Salesforce offering to move employees who object to the law out of its Texas office. And on Sept. 12, Kristine Marsh complained that HBO host John Oliver "whined about how the law allows for suing Uber drivers who assist in transporting women to get abortions"; her only attempt at rebuttal was to link to Finkelstein's post.In a Sept. 28 post, Marsh quoted Trevor Noah noting the Uber driver exposure but did not rebut it.
We've noted that CNSNews.com fall intern Megan Williams asking some congressmen with questions about refugees from Afghanistan, but that was just the her initiation into CNS' tradition of pester members of Congress with leading, biased questions designed to forward the "news" organization's right-wing agenda.
In its campaigning for Republican Virginia governor candidate Glenn Youngkin, the Media Research Center has had a bit of a task on its hands: defend him from accusations he's a Trump clone -- for even the MRC understands there's a certain amount of radioactivity that comes from associating with a guy who still refuses to admit he lost the election -- but not not distance him from Trump completely (because despite his denial and derangement, Trump still controls the Republican Party).
As I pointed out in my last column, the midterm elections are coming up soon – November of next year.
Spewing hate pays off when you're a Media Research Center employee. Curtis Houck got promoted to a day shift in the wake of the retirement of the MRC's Rich Noyes. Between that and taking vacation the first week of October, his hateful tirades against White House press secretary Jen Psaki -- and his man-crushing over Fox News reporter Peter Doocy -- were largely MIA in the first couple weeks in October. So it was up to Tim Graham to fill in on the man-crushing front in writing up the Oct. 4 
Bob Unruh wrote in a Sept. 15 WorldNetDaily 
John Ransom goes off the rails quickly in a Sept. 28 Accuracy in Media 
CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey intoned in a Sept. 30 
The Media Research Center spent the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks whining that it was pointed out that the biggest terrorist threat today comes from the American right. Clay Waters huffed in a Sept. 10 
WND 
Earlier this year, CNSNews.com did a 
The Media Research Center 
Craig Bannister gave a right-wing senator space to rant in a Sept. 21 
The Media Research Center's Mark Finkelstein ranted in a Sept. 10 
