MRC Censors Inconvenient Details Of School Assault It Has Fearmongered About Topic: Media Research Center
We'vedocumented how the Media Research Center spent weeks hyping an alleged sexual assault by a student in a school in Loudoun County, Va., on another student for two reasons: to advance its anti-transgender agenda (since the alleged assaulter was described as "a boy in a skirt") and to help get a Republican, Glenn Youngkin, elected Virginia governor. But it turns out that the MRC has been effectively censoring the full truth about the alleged assault. Katelyn Burns wrote at MSNBC:
The Youngkin campaign has taken an incident at a Loudoun County school that involved a student sexually assaulting a classmate in a girl’s bathroom and twisted it into an effective campaign talking point. This, Youngkin and his supporters in right-wing media have trumpeted, is the mythical unicorn of the trans bathroom panic. The one case, they thought, that would finally help sway the public on the trans bathroom issue they’ve been unsuccessfully pushing since 2015.
But the facts of the case don’t match up with the trans stranger danger happening that they have painted it to be. The sexual assaulter didn’t lie secretly in wait for his victim to unknowingly enter the stall next to him. Instead the meetup was arranged beforehand. The attacker and victim had had sex in the same bathroom before. This time, however, the girl said no, and the boy didn’t stop. The crime is no less awful, and should be outright condemned. But it was not the attack facilitated by a trans-friendly bathroom policy as conservatives claimed it was.
Of the numerous articles the MRC has published referencing the assault, we could find only two that referenced the fact that the students previously had consenual sexual relations and that the incident in which the assault allegely occurred started out as consensual.
An Oct. 25 item by Nicholas Fondacaro complained that a Washington Post article on the case was "stealth-edited" to remove the claim that the assaulting student was "gender-fluid," further complaining that the article "seemed to hint that the girl wasn’t really a victim because “the 15-year-old victim in the first case testified she had consensual sexual encounters with the defendant on two occasions in a girls’ bathroom…” In fact, the edit reflects the reality of the case and that it's much more complicated than the "depraved transsexual" narrative Fondacaro and the MRC would like to impose on it for political reasons.
(Of course, Fondacaro didn't mention the MRC's own record of stealth-editing articles, making his complaint more than a tad hypocritical.)
THe only other instance was an Oct. 29 post by Clay Waters, who quoted the facts of the case as reported in a New York Times article in an attempt to accuse the Times of trying to "neutralize the story." Waters didn't comment on the part of the article he excerpted stating that "testified that she’d previously had two consensual sexual encounters with her attacker in the school bathroom. On the day of her assault, they’d agreed to meet up again…." but he was ultimately forced to admit that the incident happened months before the school board voted on "trans bathroom policies" -- which undermines a key attack line right-wingers have been using.
Still, Waters insisted on whining: "The Loudoun County school board’s shameful silence; the possibility the assault was hushed up to avoid the wrath of trans activists; the gross irresponsibility of allowing boys free access to girl’s safe spaces in the first place….all these points Goldberg studiously ignored in the name of chipping away at a story that may prove devastating to the election hopes of Terry McAuliffe." Waters didn't mention how he and his fellow right-wing activists were hyping the story in an attempt to boost the election hopes of Youngkin.
As Waters continued to huff about the Times calling the right-wing narrative abaout the assault a "big lie," he is certainly not going to concede that the MRC's near-complete refusal to tell its readers the full facts of the case is a lie by omission.
Censoring information that interferes with a political narrative is not exactly a hallmark of credible "media research," is it?
CNS Hyped Herschel Walker For Years -- Then Suddenly Stopped Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com has long been a fan of former college and pro football star Herschel Walker for his right-wing views (even though right-wingers tend to rage at athletes when they express liberal political views). It began way back: In 2017, Craig Bannister was touting how Walker said that "NFL players, and all Americans, should never protest the country that has given them all that they have," and an October 2018 post by managing editor Michael W. Chapman hyped Walker's criticism of CNN anchor Don Lemon for criticizing Kanye West's fealty of Donald Trump.
As Walker ramped up his political activism in 2020, CNS devoted numerous articles to his right-wing pontifications in the runup to the presidential election:
Not only was Walker sounding like a Trump campaign surrogate, he was sounding like a political candidate. CNS didn't point that out, of course; it was happy to serve as Walker's -- and Trump's -- PR division.
CNS' first post-election article on Walker was not until a February article by Susan Jones, in which he "told a House Judiciary subcommittee on Wednesday he opposes reparations for slavery on a number of grounds, including his religion." Jones did not explain what made Walker an expert witness on reparations.A March 11 article by Craig Bannister -- who wrote many of the 2020 Walker-touting articles -- showed someWalker love from his (and CNS') favorite president:
Former President Donald Trump wants Herschel Walker to run for the Senate in the state where Walker won a Heisman Trophy playing for the Georgia Bulldogs in college.
Trump said Walker would be just as unstoppable as a candidate as he was as a star running back at Georgia and for the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, The Washington Times reported Wednesday:
[...]
Trump and Walker have been friends and mutual supporters ever since 1983 when Walker played for Trump’s team in the now-defunct United States Football League. Walker has long been a vocal supporter of Trump’s political policies, often voicing his praise on social media.
That was the result Walker and CNS seemed to be gunning for. Strangely, though, the only article referencing Walker since then is a July 27 piece by Jones that cited another prominent Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham, touting a potential Walker Senate bid: ""I hope Herschel Walker runs. Herschel Walker is talking like the average Georgian. He wants his mom to be able to go to the store without being hurt."
But when Walker actually did announce his Senate campaign in August, CNS reported nothing. And when Walker racked up key Republicanendorsements, CNS was silent about that too. Why? It could be because of disturbing revelations about Walker's past.
The Associated Press reported that Walker's ex-wife cited "physically abusive and extremely threatening behavior" in filing from divorce from him in 2001 and later sought a protective order from him in court. He has also been caught falsely exaggerating the size of his chicken-products business and has a history of unpredictable behavior. Walker has admitted a long struggle with mental illness, but has claimed that therapy and his Christian faith has turned things around.
CNS hasn't told its readers anything about this, of course -- it simply stopped reporting on him at all. But CNS is nothing if not a loyal pro-Trump Republican booster, so look for it to clamber back onto the bandwagon as the 2022 midterms start to get closer.
MRC's Weird Takes On Clinton Impeachment Miniseries Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center apparently wasn't too happy with FX's recent miniseries about President Clinton's impeachment and the events that led up to it -- perhaps because it was a little too evenhanded and called out people it didn't want called out. Kyle Drennen complained in a Sept. 7 post:
On Tuesday, NBC’s Today show promoted the upcoming FX series on Bill Clinton’s impeachment following his affair with Monica Lewinsky by painting one of his sexual harassment victims, the late Linda Tripp, as a “treacherous” villain who was guilty of “betrayal.” In addition, the broadcast featured a live exclusive interview with Lewinsky, who was a producer for the mini-series set to premiere that evening.
“Monica Lewinsky is back in the spotlight this morning with a highly anticipated new series premiering on FX tonight, Impeachment: American Crime Story,” co-host Savannah Guthrie announced as the segment began. Before talking to Lewinsky, a brief taped report ran reminding viewers of the scandal that swirled around President Clinton in 1998.
“An affair...And a betrayal,” Guthrie narrated as clips from the dramatized series played on screen with actress Beanie Feldstein depicting Lewinsky and actress Sarah Paulson depicting Tripp. Moments later, Guthrie made it clear the “betrayal” she referred to was an attack on Tripp, not Clinton:
[...]
During her lengthy chat with Lewinsky, Guthrie noted: “It’s not a documentary. It’s a dramatic series.” The anchor then eagerly asked: The host even chuckled as mentioned the insult of Tripp.
Chuckling as well, Lewinsky responded:“Yes....People will understand when they see the series why.”
The treatment of Tripp by Clinton defenders in the liberal media was similarly atrocious at the time.
Drennen concluded by huffing: "Even after two decades and the #MeToo movement, the media are still eager to blame others like Tripp – one of his victims – for the scandal that Clinton caused through his own sleazy behavior."
But Tripp did, in fact, betray Lewinsky. Tripp pretended to be her confidant regarding her affair with Clinton, then worked with book agent Lucianne Goldberg to expose the affair. Drennen doesn't even bother to argue that she wasn't, only desperately trying to reframe her somehow as a "victim" of Clinton.This desire to defend Tripp over Lewinsky (who, again, served as a producer on the miniseries so "the media" is not the one laying blame here) shows us that the anti-Clinton right cared nothing for Lewinsky as a person (and still don't), only as a tool to destroy Clinton by any means possible.
It took both Karen Townsend and Alexa Moutevelis to write an Oct. 6 post about a later episode in the miniseries because it "appeared to work in a hit against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh," who was working for independent counsel Kenneth Starr at the time:
Perhaps as a nod to liberal obsessions with sexual assault allegations at Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, the script has Kavanaugh (Alan Starzinski) saying, “I never like to take 'no' for an answer...” It was an odd turn of phrase that stuck out like a sore thumb.
[...]
Were the writers hoping the audience thought of the smear campaign against Kavanaugh and the attempt made by liberals to paint him as a serial rapist by using that line?
[...]
That is a lame attempt to keep the false narrative alive that Kavanaugh is a sexual predator. The unproven allegations against Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings paled in comparison to those that were proven against Bill Clinton.
The MRC does know how to defend its ideological cronies.
WND Columnist Parrots Ridiculous Claim That College 'Brainwashing' is Worse Than N. Korea Topic: WorldNetDaily
James Zumwalt wrote in his Oct. 8 WorldNetDaily column:
Life experiences provide us with an opportunity to develop an expertise in certain areas. For example, teachers develop an expertise enabling them to quickly identify students with learning issues, which the educator can then help them overcome. But what about a situation in which these roles are reversed – the rare situation in which a life experience has imbued a student with a certain expertise the teacher lacks? And, more importantly, if the student wishes to share the benefit of such expertise, will the teacher even listen?
Such is the case at an Ivy League college where a student with a unique background is pursuing an education. The student is Yeonmi Park. She lived in North Korea for 14 years before escaping to China in 2007, where she was forced into the sex slave trade, later making her way to South Korea before moving to the U.S. in 2014.
What then is Park's area of expertise? She says she is grateful for two things in her life of 27 years – first, being born in North Korea and, second, escaping it. Her reasoning is that it is both these events that have shaped who she is today.
The rest of Zumwalt's column is simply parroting Park's narrative, centered on her ridiculous claim that her "brainwashing" education at Columbia University is worse than the indoctrination she allegedly underwent in North Korea. But as we documented when WND and the Media Research Center previous promoted her story, Park is simply allowing herself to be used by right-wingers to advance an anti-education narrative, and there are questions about her origin story, parts of which appear to be lifted from the accounts of other North Korean defectors.
But Zumwalt didn't bother to fact-check Park; two days earlier he lashed out at fact-checkers for fact-checking conservatives (another right-wing narrative). He simply swallowed her story because she said what he wants to hear and what meshes with his right-wing attitudes. He uniroinically concluded:
Escaping North Korean indoctrination empowered Park to rekindle her critical thinking ability. While Columbia University's professors turn a deaf ear to Park's warning, the big question now for other educators is whether they can rekindle their own critical thinking to heed it.
Zumwalt clearly didn't use any critical thinking in regurgitating Park's story -- he was just a servile stenographer.
It's Another Context-Related Fact-Check Fail for MRC's Graham Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center executive Tim Graham. it seems, justcan'tstopwhining about context -- namely that fact-checkers point out when right-wingers like him omit it in their false attacks on Democrats (while demanding that conservatives always be put in full context). He was at it again in his Sept. 22 column in which he once again complains that fact-checkers busted right-wing activists for taking President Biden out of context, then willfully promoted that lack of context:
Twitter makes it easy to realize that the purpose of “fact-checkers” is most commonly rushing to defend Joe Biden from misinterpretation...and mockery.
On September 20, Twitter warned “A video of President Biden discussing hurricane preparedness has been edited out of context, according to fact-checkers.”
Tweets aired this clip of Biden from August 10: "Let me be clear: If you're in a state where hurricanes often strike — like Florida or the Gulf Coast or into Texas — a vital part of preparing for hurricane season is to get vaccinated now.”
It’s easy to see his point: you might not want to be stuck in a shelter and unvaccinated. But it does sound a little funny that your “vital preparations” would be: board up the house, or batten down the hatches, and then get the shot. It sounds like “insert a plea for vaccination in every public statement.”
This message was later mocked with humor and sarcasm, and the protective “fact-checkers” are very sensitive about viral hot takes against Biden. Twitter cited “fact checks” from Snopes, and AP, and PolitiFact. Line them up!
[...]
They added “Biden’s remarks echo hurricane preparedness tips published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” Twitter wants us to understand all the experts and facts inevitably line up for Biden.
It had an “all hands on deck” sound to it. Everyone leapt on defense. The defense was plausible, but the energy felt very personal.
Yet Graham offered no evidence that the "experts and facts" were wrong -- indeed, it appears that Biden did the responsible thing by relying on experts to make his statement. Graham didn't explain why this was somehow a bad thing.
Instead, Graham pretended the real issue is that right-wingers were fact-checked:" "It’s always interesting when the media complain that presidential statements and actions are edited to 'remove key portions.' They’ll pretend this never happens in media coverage of Republicans." Funny, we had no problem finding a fact-check finding that images of Donald Trump were misleading or photoshopped. It seems Graham wants to pretend that fact-checkers have it out for conservatives -- it feeds his and the MRC's victimhood narrative about fact-checking, after all.
Nevertheless, Graham continued to complain:
PolitiFact also jumped on the TikTok video: “The video takes Biden of context and misleadingly captions his remarks.” Just in the last year, Twitter has pounced on nine TikTok videos critical of Biden. On Election Day, they protested a Biden bumble: “Biden says he doesn’t need voters to get elected.” That’s the way words actually came out of his mouth – “I don’t need you to get me elected” – but they were upset it was mocked.
Their headline read “Video misrepresents Biden’s speech in Michigan.” No, the video shows it’s what came out of his mouth, but their energy was “You know what he meant!”
But Biden didn't say that. The PolitiFact fact-check pointed out that Biden actually said "I don’t only need you to get me elected, I need you once I’m elected," but that the word "only" was not enunciated clearly. Once again, context and the full facts are not Graham's friend.
Fauci Derangement Syndrome At WND Topic: WorldNetDaily
In India, the Bar Association is now suing one person within their medical establishment (with a position similar in influence and visibility as Fauci in the U.S.) for suppressing as a matter of public policy, the reality of effective early treatments for COVID-19 via existing drugs.
It's a legal action that is designed to culminate in the criminal prosecution of this person for each death of an individual denied access to early treatment with existing drugs, because of this person's policies.
And due to his vocal role in suppressing early treatments of COVID-19 using available drugs, Anthony Fauci should be the first to be similarly prosecuted in America.
Anthony Fauci's policies of disinformation against early treatment using existing drugs have resulted in the unnecessary deaths of an estimated 323,000 Americans, as calculated as a time weighted rate to account for the early learning curve for these treatments and based on current metadata. This equates to an approximately 50% cumulative rate in unnecessary deaths to date, and climbing.
These numbers are inexcusable.
And India is showing us how to hold these kinds of people accountable.
Think you've heard it all about medicrat Anthony Fauci? Well, there are a few things you still don't know about the foolish Fauci. That's because all other news analysts, left and right, have an agenda. "Hard Truth," with David Vance and yours truly, has only one agenda: unvarnished, nonpartisan truth.
Between March 5 and April 5, 2020, 10,598 Americans died from COVID-19 (see: https://covidtracking.com/data/national/deaths), very likely because Fauci warned them, then, against purchasing the N95 mask. "Don't you dare," terrorized Gnome, M.D. As noted here: "Kung Flu is a killer, all right, but so are the bureaucrats."
The COVID carnage under Fauci does not take into account his role in delegitimizing therapeutics. Just imagine if Fauci had similarly downplayed and delegitimized treatment for HIV/AIDS, and had insisted, as he does today, that salvation lay predominantly in a vaccine against that particular RNA strand?
I say, "No way, Anthony Fauci. Stick it where the sun don't shine."
Fauci recently held a school lecture where he said we in the West just need to "give us their individual right of making your own decision" about the vaccination "for the good of society."
[...]
After lying through his teeth for years, it's amazing that this professional prevaricator still has people believing him. He also admitted recently that he's told dozens of half-truths and full-scale whoppers over that last year. Why? Because he was telling us what we wanted to hear – or needed to hear.
This does not include the biggest phony story he ever told, of course. What was that? You know, the one about his personal role in developing the pandemic in conjunction with the Chinese!
It falls to our judicial system to prove the guilt of the wicked and sentence them accordingly, but if (for the sake of illustration) the citizenry of open-eyed patriots can be considered an informal "grand jury" in the matter of public health tyranny and the enormous death toll associated with public health policy, there are clearly enough facts in hand – many summarized in the Peterson opinion – to indict numerous public officials for murder, starting with the morally depraved patent-holding Anthony "gain-of-function" Fauci, his key minion, Rachel Waleski [sic], and their craven, sociopathic Big Pharma paymasters. And under the legal doctrine called "Felony Murder Rule," every person involved in their felonious criminal conspiracy, even the getaway driver (the drive-by media?) is also guilty of murder if anyone died during the criminal acts. (Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo comes to mind.)
MRC Hypocritically Attacks Candidiate For Deleting Tweets Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center's Brad Wilmouth wrote in an Oct. 4 post:
On Monday's New Day, frequent CNN and MSNBC guest-turned Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor of Texas, Matthew Dowd received more of a challenge from co-host Brianna Keilar than he usually gets on the liberal news network.
After spending the first few minutes cueing up Dowd to make his typical attacks on his home state's Republican leaders as he runs for lieutenant governor, Keilar then turned to question him on why he deleted about 270,000 tweets before launching his campaign, pressing him with several followups.
She also hit Dowd from the left by hinting that he was being hypocritical in running for office after he previously argued that white men should step aside and let minorities acquire more power.
By contrast, the MRC gave one of its favorite right-wingers a pass when he deletedold tweets prior to launching a politial campaign.
J.D. Vance is a venture capitalist who got attention in right-wing circles for writing a book called "Hillbilly Elegy," a memoir in which he largely blamed liberal welfare culture for creating a lack of work ethic among the poor Appialachian white culture he came from. The MRC cheered Vance' move further right touting, for example, his investment in the right-wing video platform Rumble (where, as it so happens, the MRC has a space). He even got to be a player in the MRC's bogus "big tech" victimhood narrative when Twitter briefly suspended the Twitter account for Vance's campaign for the Repuvblican nomination for a Ohio Senate seat.
Vance has been saying all the right things as far as the MRC is concerned. In July, Alexander Hall promoted how Vance "accused Google of 'conspiring' with China" and "suggested that the conservative movement needs to get out of its own way" and embrace using power. In August, Clay Waters defended Vance from a New York Times profile of him that pointed how Trumpy Vance has become.
But the MRC wants to bury the fact that Vance, like Dowd, deleted tweets befor declaring for political office -- in this case, tweets from 2016 that criticized Trump, whose supporters Vance is now trying to court for his Senate bid, and proclaimed that he would be voting for Evan McMullin instead. Vance even went on an apology tour of sorts, delcaring that "I regret being wrong" about Trump.
You'll read none of that at the MRC. Instead, the only reference to it is in passing in Waters' piece defending Vance, copying an excerpt from the Times article noting that Vance "has deleted inconvenient tweets" but calling no additional attention to it.
Selective, partisan-driven criticism is not "media research." The MRC has not figured that out yet.
CNSNews.com loves to do hostile, nitpicky coverage of President Biden -- definitely not the way it covered Donald Trump's presidency -- while also writing weird articles about him (i.e., obsessing over his hair). Susan Jones served up one of the latter in an Oct. 6 article:
"You built the country," President Joe Biden told union workers in Howell, Michigan on Tuesday. "No, not a joke. You have built the country," he said.
Biden was in Michigan to plug his $1.5-trillion infrastructure bill and $3.5-trillion reconciliation bill.
During his 34-minute speech, Biden used his "not a joke" phrase six times, as follows -- not that anyone thought he was joking.
Jones did not explain why she considered this revelation to be deserving of a "news" article.We don't recall Jones or anyone else at CNS devoting an article to Donald Trump's numerousverbal tics and malapropisms in the same way she's going after Biden here, with the apparent intent to make CNS' right-wing audience swallow its long-running narrative that the presient is sinking further into "cognitive decline."
Jones also slipped a partisan political attack in her supposedly objective "news" article: "Biden, who was greeted by hundreds of protesters on the ride from the airport, insisted that his physical infrastructure bill and his much larger social agenda bill are not divisive." Actually, Biden's infrastructure bill has broad support among Americans.
MRC Attacks Political Donations Of Murdoch's Son For Not Being Right-Wing Enough Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Joseph Vazquez has been branching out from attacking George Soros to bashing other rich non-conservatives who donate money to cause that Vazquez disapproves of. His latest target is a slightly surprising one: James Murdoch, son of Fox News mogul Rupert Murdoch.
The MRC has been Heathering James Murdoch for a while because he became uncomfortable with with the family business. An April 2019 post by Clay Waters, for instance, complained that a New York Times article portrayed James as "the good son, an aggrieved centrist who wants nothing to do with Fox News’ nasty far-right nationalism," and a September 2019 post by Tim Graham groused about a Times profile of James' wife purportedly designed to helpher "dissent from the Fox News line on climate," further grousing that she gave political donations to non-conservatives. Graham went on to make a point of insisting in a January 2020 post it was "not new" information that "James Murdoch (and his wife) publicly split with his family on climate issues years ago, and now James has no role in the Fox News business. His brother Lachlan's in charge."
Then it was time for Vazquez to target Murdoch and is donations (even though the MRC loudly complains whenever corporate donations to Republicans are called out).A March 30 post noted that "Kathryn Murdoch, the climate activist wife of former Fox News heir and fellow eco-activist James Murdoch" donated to a "commission led by radical liberals to fight “mis- and disinformation.” A Sept. 14 post by Vazquez started attacking James directly:
News Corporation Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch’s estranged son and avowed climate activist James Murdoch used his Quadrivium Foundation to fund a leftist organization behind Google and Facebook’s notorious 2020 election strategy.
The Media Research Center was informed by Facebook last year that it would be partnering with the radical left-wing organization Democracy Works to help formulate the online platform’s 2020 election strategy. However, Big Tech giant Google was also working with “Democracy Works to make sure it's surfacing only true information — and not, Google engineering VP Cathy Edwards said, things like false claims of victory,” according to Protocol.
[...]
Murdoch apparently had no problem throwing his political weight behind such an extremist organization with an explicit anti-American agenda.
The only "anti-American agenda" of Democracy Works cited by Vazquez was the the organization (accurately) noted that the country was "built on Black enslavement" and its desire to reckon with "the racism embedded in our way of life." He did not explain why any of this is "anti-American." Vazquez went on to complain:
Murdoch’s involvement with a leftist group aiming to manipulate the 2020 election is revealing given his recent pontificating about disinformation. In a joint statement with his climate activist wife Kathryn, James decried “[s]preading disinformation — whether about the election, public health or climate change — has real world consequences.” It now looks as though the Murdochs had no problem with a leftist organization controlling the flow of information on Facebook and Google.
Vazquez apparently has no problem with disinformation as long as it advances right-wing narratives and agendas.And he presumably has no problem with right-wingers like the folks who run Fox News -- and the MRC -- using their millions to influence the 2020 election.Does he not realize that's the kind of thing the MRC is paying him to do?
In a Sept. 22 post, Vazquez complained that "Climate activist James Murdoch gave at least $1 million to a group fighting to undermine state oversight of elections. That same group also backed Big Tech censorship against former President Donald Trump," adding:
Murdoch may have had political reasons for funding a group that was openly advocating for the ability of Big Tech to censor Trump. James and his wife Kathryn ;gave “$20 million to Biden’s campaign, groups supporting him and opposing Trump, and organizations dedicated to disrupting online threats and extremism.” An MRC study published in December found that Twitter in particular had censored Trump and his campaign 543 times since May 31, 2018. Biden and his campaign weren’t censored at all.
The accurate way to report that statistic is that Trump and his campaign had violated Twitter rules and policies -- which Twitter, as a private business, is allowed to have -- 543 times while the Biden campaign didn't violate them at all. And a good part of that "censorship" was Twitter merely labeling Trump's false information as such while still retaining access to the false tweet itself.
On Sept. 29, Vazquez raged that "Murdoch has used his foundation to funnel more than $14 million to a leftist group that crusaded against America’s so-called 'environmental racism,'" while taking another partisan shot at him and his wife: "The couple also represents the epitome of climate hypocrisy. James has shown particular interest in taking carbon-emitting flights on a corporate jet and the couple finances a climate fund run by the world’s biggest investor in fossil fuels." That was followed by more shots:
It gets worse. The Australian Financial Review reported in July 2021 that the Murdochs were the “most prominent investors in a US$250 million ($335 million) fundraising round for BlackRock’s new ‘climate finance fund’ targeting ‘carbon-free infrastructure projects’ in the developing world.” Here’s the glaring hypocrisy as reported by AFR: BlackRock has been tagged as “the world’s largest investor in fossil fuels.”
So the climate-obsessed Murdochs seem to have no problem being investors in “the world’s largest investor in fossil fuels.”
Is that hypocrisy on a par with whining about corporate political donations to Republicans being exposed while targeting donations from wealthy liberals? How about cheering a news report's release of tax information about George Soros while later attacking that same report for releasing the tax info of non-liberals? Vazquez didn't offer an answer to that.
WorldNetDaily's hyping of bogus election fraud claims just never stops. Bob Unruh huffed in a Sept. 28 article:
The state of Georgia has opened a review of the ballot drop boxes used in a Democratic stronghold during the 2020 presidential election because of suspicions raised by a media report about problems with them.
Weeks ago, an elections official in Georgia admitted that "a few" legally required forms documenting the chain of custody for ballots during the 2020 presidential election are missing, blaming the significant problem on the fact some "core personnel" were quarantined due to positive COVID-19 tests at the time.
It was the Georgia Star News that now has revealed "43,907 of the 61,731 absentee ballots deposited in drop boxes in the November 2020 presidential election in DeKalb County, Georgia – 72 percent – were counted in official tallies certified by the county and the state, despite violating chain of custody requirements set forward in Georgia Emergency Rule 183-1-14-1.8-.14 promulgated by the Georgia State Election Board at its July 1, 2020, meeting."
The state outlines requirements for ballots placed in drop boxes, including that they be "immediately" transported to the county registrar by specified security procedures.
"Of the 61,731 absentee ballots DeKalb County recorded as being deposited into drop boxes during the November 2020 election, 46% - or 28,194 of the absentee ballots - were not documented as being received by the elections registrar or the director's designee until the day after they were collected from the drop box," the report said.
The report said another 26%, representing 15,713 absentee ballots collected from drop boxes during the November 2020 election, there was no receipt time recorded at all by the elections office, as is required by the July 2020 emergency election code rule.
This is a good example of the ways in which the complicated process of running elections opens up all sorts of opportunity to inject procedural complaints. The story does not suggest that any votes were altered in any way, if such a thing were possible without detection. It does not indicate that anyone had talked to the county about why the forms might have been incomplete (in some cases) or indicated gaps between collection and being logged. There’s nothing to suggest that this was anything other than, say, a team collecting ballots at the end of the day and finishing the job the following morning. There’s obviously good reason for ballots to be transmitted as quickly as possible, but there’s nothing to suggest this was anything more nefarious than campaign workers doing their jobs a bit less assiduously than one might hope.
But Trump doesn’t even actually claim there was fraud, since there’s no evidence there was. He just says the equivalent of Hey, you seeing all this fraud? and then asking Raffensperger to throw out the whole election somehow because of the gaps on those forms. It’s not even a Hail Mary. It’s like showing up on the field the day after the Super Bowl and loudly complaining that your opponent was offsides.
It’s useful to point out, too, that there’s no evidence anything weird happened in DeKalb County anyway. Overall, Georgia voted about five points more Democratic last year than it did in 2016, about the same shift as seen in Kansas (where Trump has spent no energy accusing people of fraud). In DeKalb County, Trump went from losing by 63.5 points then to 67.4 points last year, a shift of 3.9 points away from Trump — less than in the state overall. If you assume that all 43,000 of those votes were for Biden, itself not a fair assumption, DeKalb County would have become more supportive of Trump than it was in 2016. This is … unlikely.
It further went on to note of the dubious website that first reported the claim Unruh is parroting, the Georgia Star News: "It’s part of a group of sites established to mimic local news coverage but largely promoting stories friendly to the right. The author of the DeKalb County story, for example, writes for 'The Georgia Star News, The Tennessee Star, The Ohio Star and The Arizona Sun Times,' which must yield her a ton of mileage reimbursements."
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's 'Free Speech' Authoritarians Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center writers are having a love affair with some of the world's most censorship-loving right-wing leaders -- because they spout the MRC's anti-"Big Tech" narrative. Read more >>
For the second month in a row, CNSNews.com is reverting to old Obama-era tactics in reporting on monthly employment statistics, downplaying positive job gains by cherry-picking numbers that look less good, like the labor force participation rate. Show us how to obfuscate, Susan Jones:
The Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Friday that 100,450,000 people in this country were not in the labor force in October, up 38,000 from the 100,412,000 in September.
This is the 14th straight month that this "not in the labor force" number has remained above 100,000,000.
Persons who are neither employed nor unemployed are not in the labor force. This category includes retired persons, students, those taking care of children or other family members, and others who are neither working nor seeking work.
Among those not in the labor force in October, 1.3 million persons said they were prevented from looking for work due to the pandemic. This measure is down from 1.6 million in September.
The number of people not in the labor force reached a record high of 103,418,000 in April 2020, as the pandemic took hold; and the highest it's been under President Joe Biden is 100,708,000 this past February.
With so many people not in the labor force, the labor force participation rate has remained stubbornly low in recent years, and it did not budge in October.
It wasn't until the 11th paragraph of her article that Jones finally got around to mentioning the exceedingly positive news that not only "531,000 jobs were added to nonfarm payrolls in October, which was above analysts' estimates," but also that the "disappointing showing" of 194,000 jobs created in September "has been revised upward to 312,000 jobs." There's no legitimate news reason to bury that., of course -- we know CNS puts its right-wing, anti-Biden political agenda before sound news judgment.
Even with those massive employment gains, editor Terry Jeffrey found something to cheer is government-hating hear in his usual sidebar, that "Governments in the United States dropped a net total of 73,000 [jobs] last month."
MRC Backs Bongino's Fight Against Vaccine Mandate -- But Is Bongino Just Virtue-Signaling? Topic: Media Research Center
Right-wing radio host Dan Bongino has been a favorite of the Media Research Center for a while, particularly when he claimed to be an investor in right-wing social media site Parler. Of course, the MRC still hasn't told its readers that Parler is controlled by a major MRC donor, Rebekah Mercer, or that Mercer has reportedly screwed Bongino out of his share of the company (or that Parler founder John Matze reportedly got the same treatment). Nevertheless, the MRC wants you to think Bongino is a free-speech champion; in July, Alexander Hall gushed that Bongino co-founded "a payment processor so Americans won’t have to worry about PayPal or other woke corporations blacklisting them," and in August, Christian Toto touted a Bongino-hosted series that "highlights the lives impacted by Cancel Culture as well as the microscopic offenses that sparked those cancellations."
So when Bongino got into a tussle over vaccine mandates with the company that syndicates his radio show, MRC chief Brent Bozell was eager to defend him, as detailed in an Oct. 19 post by Joseph Vazquez:
Bongino hammered Cumulus Media — his show’s partner — during the Oct. 18 edition of The Dan Bongino Show on Fox Nation. The company had recently instituted a draconian vaccine mandate against its workers. The mandate reportedly led to firings at Cumulus. Bongino called the move by Cumulus “stupid” and leveled an ultimatum against the media company. “You can have me, or you can have the [vaccine] mandate. But you can't have both of us,” Bongino said. Bozell took to Twitter to express his solidarity within Bongino: “I'm vaccinated, but I stand with anyone with a moral or medical objection to the vaccine. This is about freedom. We should be free to take the vaccine or not. #StandWithDan.”
The popular radio host had a sharp response for the actions by Cumulus: “I’m not playing along with that. And I’ll invite, by the way, any of those hosts who — according to an article I read today in Inside Radio who had been let go because of it — you’re welcome to come on the show.”
[...]
Bongino didn’t let up, and said that vaccination mandates were “antithetical to everything I believe in, my company believes in, I believe in myself, my wife believes in and anyone associated with my company.”
He then declared, “I’m not going to let this go,” and went right at his partnership with Cumulus media: “You have a choice. I work with you. I do not work for you. I never will. You may have had other people in a corner, but you don’t have me. And it’s my obligation — given everything I’ve been through health-wise — it’s my obligation to stand up for them.”
Bongino had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma earlier this year before announcing a clean bill of health in March.
Vazquez didn't mention that Bongino is a bit hypocritical on the subject -- he is fully vaccinated, as well he should be since he is immunocompromised from his Hodgkin's treatment. He also didn't mention that Fox News, whose Fox Nation division also airs his radio show, also has a vaccine mandate that requires non-vaccinated employees to tested every day.
Over at the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, Rob Shimshock dutifully repeated Bozell's expression of support while also censoring the full story. It got repeated at MRCTV as well.
Bongino went off the air on the radio after that, and Cululus had been airing reruns even as there was an off-year election that his right-wing audience needed to be riled up over. But some conservatives are starting to suspect taht Bongino is just virtue-signaling, and that his theatrical rage against Cumulus is just an attempt to break his radio contract. As Mediaite reported:
The Cumulus vaccine policy was announced in the summer, with pretty clear deadlines: first shot in September and a second by October 8. Anyone who did not follow the policy was let go by the company by that date.
A source with direct knowledge of the company’s policy revealed to Mediaite that anyone on the chopping block for refusing to get the vaccine was already fired. So the notion that Bongino is taking a principled stand against mandates as a means of protecting the freedom of his colleagues doesn’t make much sense.
It has raised eyebrows among industry insiders who suspect that Bongino’s protest has a different motivation than a principled stand against vaccine mandates.
Take, for example, North Alabama-based conservative talk radio host Dale Jackson, who called out Bongino for “virtue signaling” his opposition to the mandate. “The reason why I called it virtue signaling is very simple: the mandate went into place a week after he said he wouldn’t work for a company that had a vaccine mandate.”
Jackson is not alone in his criticism of Bongino. The self-imposed exile, sources say, is more about Bongino’s flagging commitment to continuing his three-hour daily show. There is a lot of rumbling within Cumulus — and stations that syndicate his show — that Bongino’s stand against mandates is actually a naked attempt to break a contract he does not like. His colleagues are not happy about it.
Bongino has since posted a video to Facebook denying he's trying to get out of his Cumulus contract.
This development is nowhee to be found at any MRC online platform, nor has been mentioned on Bozell's Twitter account.
Fossil-Fuel-Funded CNS Takes Shots At Electric Cars Topic: CNSNews.com
Given that the Media Research Center, has accepted donations from fossil-fuel interests, it's not really a surprise to see its "news" division, CNSNews.com, take lazy shots at electric vehicles. An anonymous CNS writer was first up in an Oct. 4 article:
A new Rasmussen Reports survey revealed that only 25% of American adults believe electric cars are practical.
The survey also found that 52% of Americans think electric cars are not practical, and another 23% said they were not sure.
Seven years ago, a similar survey found that only 19% of Americans believed electric cars are practical.
The anonymous writer failed to tell readers that Rasmussen polls have a pronouced pro-Republican bias, so maybe its results aren't necessarily the most accurate.
This was followed by an Oct. 12 article by managing editor Michael W. Chapman, who bashed electric cars for not selling well:
In its latest report on the best-selling cars, trucks, and SUVs of 2021, Car and Driver's top ten are gasoline-fueled vehicles. There is not one electric vehicle (EV) on the list.
Some of the top ten cars and trucks are offered as hybrids (electric and gas), but they currently do not out-sell the traditional, internal-combustion-engine-run cars and trucks.
No doubt, electric (and hybrid) car sales are slowly growing. In 2019, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, a total of 700,407 EVs, battery-run, and hybrids were sold in the U.S. However, in that same year, total used and new car sales totaled 62,107,000. So, the EVs, battery-run, and hybrids made up about 1.12% of U.S. car sales (used and new) that year.
But Chapman is being dishonest here. The Car & Driver list is of the top 25 best-selling cars, not the top 10, and selectively quoting the list allows him to omit the fact that 19th best-selling vehicle in the U.S. is the all-electric Tesla Model Y.
It seems that CNS feels it must be dishonest with its readers in order to protect its funding.
Newsmax Sensitive About Its Far-Right, Pro-Trump Sycophancy Being Linked To 'Domestic Terrorism' Topic: Newsmax
As much as Newsmax tries to cater to the far-right, election-fraud-conspiracy-theory crowd, it's weirdly sensitive about that inconvenient fact being called out. A Sept. 29 article by Eric Mack is devoted to highlighting how Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mark Milley being questioned about a revelation in Bob Woodward's book that he had linked Newsmax and fellow right-wing Trump-sycophant outlet the Epoch Times to "domestic terrorism":
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley denied listing Newsmax in his personal notes after Jan. 6 as among those he claimed were a part of a "big threat: domestic terrorism," as claimed in Bob Woodward's book "Peril."
"It says that you told Bob Woodward that you wrote in a list in your notebook of groups that you personally believe were responsible for the attack and that you associated with it: Quote and you called these groups, quote, 'domestic terrorists' or domestic terrorism," Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., said in grilling Milley during his testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.
"That list included, in your notebook – according to Bob Woodward and your conversations with him – Nazis and Oath Keepers, but it also included two conservative media outlets that you listed in your notebook, including The Epoch Times – which by the way is a news outlet that was founded by critics of the Chinese Communist Party – and Newsmax, which is the second most-watched conservative media outlet in the country today.
"Do your notes about Jan. 6 reference both Epoch Times and Newsmax on a list of domestic terrorists?" Banks asked Milley bluntly in an exchange that wrapped the lawmaker's five minutes of questioning. That questioning had begun with Banks pressing Milley on his alleged belief the military should not be politicized.
"I'm not recalling this conversation at all," Milley said of Woodward's book alleging notes labeling Newsmax among domestic terrorists.
"It's in the book," Banks shot back.
"It may be in the book," Milley responded. "I'm not recalling a conversation about Newsmax, Epoch Times, or . . ."
Mack didn't mention that Newsmax's enthusiastic support for Trump's bogus claims of election fraud -- which not only helped sparkthe Jan. 6 Capitol riot but numerouslawsuits against Newsmax for spreading said bogus claims -- might make a reasonable observer think such a link exists.
Just to cover its bases, Mack also made sure to attack Woodward as well, claiming that "Woodward has been dogged by allegations of fabrication in the past,"but citing an alleghed incidenct from more than 30 years ago. You ight recall that that its fellow ConWeb denizens at the Media Research Center did the same thing in bashing Woodward while also hyping his reporting about Milley.
We've documented how the Media Research Center spent weeks hyping an alleged sexual assault by a student in a school in Loudoun County, Va., on another student for two reasons: to advance its anti-transgender agenda (since the alleged assaulter was described as "a boy in a skirt") and to help get a Republican, Glenn Youngkin, elected Virginia governor. But it turns out that the MRC has been effectively censoring the full truth about the alleged assault. Katelyn Burns wrote at MSNBC:
CNSNews.com has long been a fan of former college and pro football star Herschel Walker for his right-wing views (even though right-wingers tend to rage at athletes when they express liberal political views). It began way back: In 2017, Craig Bannister was 
The Media Research Center apparently wasn't too happy with FX's recent miniseries about President Clinton's impeachment and the events that led up to it -- perhaps because it was a little too evenhanded and called out people it didn't want called out. Kyle Drennen complained in a Sept. 7 
James Zumwalt wrote in his Oct. 8 WorldNetDaily 
Media Research Center executive Tim Graham. it seems, 
In India, the Bar Association is now suing one person within their medical establishment (with a position similar in influence and visibility as Fauci in the U.S.) for suppressing as a matter of public policy, the reality of effective early treatments for COVID-19 via existing drugs.
The Media Research Center's Brad Wilmouth wrote in an Oct. 4 
CNSNews.com loves to do 
The Media Research Center's Joseph Vazquez has been branching out from 
WorldNetDaily's hyping of bogus election fraud claims just never stops. Bob Unruh huffed in a Sept. 28 
For the 
Right-wing radio host Dan Bongino has been a favorite of the Media Research Center for a while, particularly when he claimed to be an investor in right-wing social media site Parler. Of course, the MRC still hasn't told its readers that Parler 
Given that the Media Research Center, has 
As much as Newsmax tries to cater to the far-right, election-fraud-conspiracy-theory crowd, it's weirdly sensitive about that inconvenient fact being called out. A Sept. 29 
