MRC Distorts Segment Exposing OAN In Order To Attack CNN's Stelter Topic: Media Research Center
Lydia Switzer does a lot of playing dumb in an Oct. 8 post:
Brian Stelter, host of the ironically titled “Reliable Sources” on CNN, was a guest on New DayThursday morning to talk about other news networks that he wishes would be taken off the air.
While normally Stelter focuses his vitriol and contempt at Fox News, which leads the nation in cable news viewership, this time he targeted One America News, or OAN: “OAN makes Fox News look liberal…It’s some of the worst of the worst content out there…Even saying the word News with One America doesn’t really seem fair. This is a opinion channel with extremist content.”
However, rather than actually address the disagreements he has with specific OAN segments, Stelter bashed AT&T (CNN’s parent company) for covering the network and for paying its carriage fees – which AT&T does for CNN as well.
AT&T responded to the original reporting from Reuters by explaining that it does not fund OAN and does pay carriage fees for OAN, along with numerous other channels.
That's a completely dishonest framing of the segment by Switzer. Note that Switzer does not mention the Reuters report on OAN that formed the basis of this discussion until the fourth paragraph; she did not link to the article itself at all, let alone reference the article's contents. She also liked in claiming that Stelter did not address "specific OAN segements," the tightly edited clip that accompanied her post -- eliminating most context and discussion from the full segment -- starts off with Stelter calling OAN "conspiracy-laden, in denial about the riot, sometimes pretending that Trump is still president." Switzer did not dispute any of that OAN content or even the way Stelter presented it.
Instead, Switzer cherry-picked a quote to complain about: "'There is a difference between real news and conspiracy crap,' he said. Undoubtedly, Stelter would consider his own show to be 'real news,' while calling for the deplatforming of news on the other side of the aisle." But at no point does Switzer provide any evidence that OANengages in "real news" or dispute Stelter's contention that OAN is "conspiracy crap."
Switzer may know that that there's no defense for OAN and that there's nothing wrong with the Reuters article -- which may be why she felt the need to distort and twist this segment into an attack on Stelter, which always plays well at the MRC.
It's also worth noting that this is the only MRC post that even references the Reuters article on OAN; no other attempt is made to attack or even discuss it. Sounds like a backhanded vote of confidence -- though the MRC would never, ever admit that.
MRC Writer Lashes Out At James Murdoch's Donations To Non-Right-Wing Media Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Joseph Vazquez has been on a kick lately of attacking James Murdoch for the sin of not following in the footsteps of his father, Fox News financier Rupert Murdoch, by funding non-right-wing causes. (even though the MRC loves to complain when right-wingers' political donations are exposed). The assaults continued in an Oct. 6 post that began by claiming "The ABC, CBS and NBC evening news shows ignored climate activist James Murdoch using his company to invest millions of dollars in leftist media this year that promote grotesque content."
That's a non sequitur, since Vazquez gave us no reason why Murdoch's donations to "leftist" media warrant are singularly important news events that trump things ike, say, crime and genocide and natural disasters.Oneoutlet that received Murdoch investment is Vice News,and Vazquez listed as part of its "grotesque" content a video that refused to hate transgender people as much as he apparently does:
The type of media that Vice News pushes is extremely abhorrent, which makes the Murdoch investment into its parent company all the more egregious.
Vice News released a grotesque video in 2018 promoting how “Trans Kids And Their Parents Are Deciding When To Start Medical Transition.” The description for the pro-child abuse video was just as disgusting. It propagandized how“[a]s the debate continues over which bathroom transgender people should use, a more complex question is emerging about how early the medical transition begins for trans kids.” It continued: “Families and doctors are rewriting the rules as they decide when and how to start medical intervention before transgender youth hit puberty.”
Vazquez similarly hated on Brut, a French-based outlet that also received Murdoch money, for also refusing to spew hate at transgender people:
The Hollywood Reporter released a story June 29 that the estranged son of News Corporation Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch was part of a whopping $75 million fundraising haul by the leftist digital media firm Brut. The French company, which reportedly makes “‘socially conscious’ news,” posts leftist extremist videos that range from attempting to redefine language like the word “racism” to promoting the defunding of police. It even pushed the condemnation of the U.S. Constitution as racist and sexist.
[...]
Brut has been just as leftist. Brut America’s documentary filmmaker Eléonore Hamelin released a documentary earlier this year headlined, “House of Grace: Meet the Trans Youth of Puerto Rico.” Brut America’s Twitter account promoted a bonkers quote in its tweet of the video: “'You can have facial hair, a mustache, a beard, and still be very feminine. You can be a hairy femme queen.'" In the video description, the video promoted a “a collective of trans and non-binary youth of color in Puerto Rico, that has built a safe haven from the scourge of anti-LGBTQ+ violence with art, mutual aid, and healing.”
Catering to Murdoch’s more climate-obsessed bona fides, Brut also released a video condemning America’s “environmental racism.”
Promoting sex transitions for children and whining about “environmental racism” seem to be content that Murdoch endorses, but this wasn’t worth any coverage by the Big Three. Perhaps it's time the evening networks start giving his activism in leftist media the airtime it deserves.
Strangely, Vazquez does not demand that Fox News expose James Murdoch's "leftist media" investments. Wonder why that is.
Vazquez ranted about another Murdoch media investment in an Oct. 20 post:
Climate activist James Murdoch is set to make a multimillion-dollar investment in the Associated Press climate journalism as if AP didn’t already have a big enough left-wing bias.
The Murdoch investment is going toward “the formation of a new climate reporting hub at the Associated Press,” according to an Axios scoop. The hub will reportedly employ 20 journalists backed by multiple donors. This is a stunning development, given the leftist causes that Murdoch — the estranged son of News Corporation Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch — currently funds.
Vazquez provided no evidence to back up his claim that the AP is "left-wing" beyond his claim that it "published a pro-Biden puff piece Oct. 15 headlined, 'White House targeting economic risks from climate change,'" but even then he can't be bothered to explain what, exactly, is explicitly "left-wing" about reporting on the White House's policy initiatives.
Instead, he whined some more about Murdoch's other donations. He claimed that "Murdoch has funded the anti-Trump group Defending Democracy Together," which "was at one point reported as the top “dark money” spender of the 2020 election cycle." Yet Vazquez has yet to express any similar concerns about dark money funding right-wing causes.
MRC Defends Anti-Vaxxer Rock Legend Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center justloves it when musicians start spouting right-wing talking points -- so much for "shut up and sing." It normally sticks to the washed-up old ones, but it has found a bona fide guitar legend to spout those narratives in Eric Clapton.
In November 2020, Gabriel Hays touted a song ranting against COVID-related lockdowns that he made with legendarily cranky musician Van Morrison:
Ok so maybe Clapton isn’t actually “god,” but neither is big government during the height of the Chinese plague. The English blues guitar virtuoso teamed up with legendary songwriter and vocalist Van Morrison to write an anti-lockdown song and provided some words on how the next wave of COVID lockdowns in the U.K. will be terrible for his industry.
[...]
Not only providing his talent to Van Morrison’s track, Clapton has united his political perspective to that of Van Morrison, telling Variety that Britain’s lockdown measures have been “deeply upsetting” to him as well.
In addition to praising the “Moondance” singer’s political stance as a source for “inspiration,” Clapton urged his fellow British citizens to fight to get out “of this mess.” He claimed, “We must stand up and be counted because we need to find a way out of this mess. The alternative is not worth thinking about. Live music might never recover.”
[...]
“Stand and Deliver” will be available for download and streaming on all major platforms by December 2. To hear that one of the all time greats is anti-big government, as opposed to all the useful idiots in his industry, makes his new song essential listening.
In a May 17 post, Hay promoted Clapton's screed against vaccines:
A recent bout with extreme COVID vaccine side effects has inspired another searing rebuke of government pandemic mandates from the guitar legend Eric Clapton.
In a lengthy missive reposted by multiple users across social media, the 76 year-old “Layla” singer spoke of dealing with western governments’ handling of coronavirus as the “greatest dilemma of his life,” one which he claimed has been worse than him overcoming “addiction and alcoholism.”
[...]
After all these years, it’s clear that Clapton hasn’t sold out. The same can’t be said for most famous musicians relevant today.
But when Rolling Stone called out Clapton for his anti-vaxx nuttiness, Matt Philbin rushed to his defense in an Oct. 11 post:
For Eric Clapton, all it took to go from rock legend to canceled was to rebel against the establishment. And the establishment’s enforcer is Rolling Stone magazine.
When it’s not publishing lies about college rapes and hicks swallowing horse medicine the once-cooler than you’ll ever be chronicle of counterculture is cracking heads for Biden and Boris. Clapton had a bad experience with one of the vaccines, and he’s using his platform to warn people about it.
Bad idea. Rolling Stone has archives, and they’re not afraid to use them. In an article titled, “Eric Clapton Isn't Just Spouting Vaccine Nonsense—He's Bankrolling It,” Rolling Stone couldn’t simply disagree with Slowhand, explain why he’s wrong and that his fans should be skeptical about his claims. No, the Blues Breakers, Cream, Derek & the Dominoes guitarist must be punished.
Despite the fact that the MRC has never stopped bashing Ted Kennedy over Chappaquiddick, Philbin whined that Rolling Stone brought up some xenophobic things Clapton said back in the day, then sought to give him a pass for them:
During a 1976 concert in England, Clapton said some impolitic things about immigration to Britain and used what Rolling Stone calls “offensive slurs.” Did I mention this was back in 1976?
Clapton long ago apologized and blamed it on his drinking. Which seems kind of reasonable, and given that the incident was in 1976 … Hah! Rolling Stone anticipated your weak-willed forgiveness and found somebody who was at that concert 46 years ago to tell you what a bad guy EC really is. “Drink just makes you tell the truth too loud at the wrong time to the wrong people,” according to English Beat founder Dave Wakeling, who was there in 1976.
[...]
Anybody who’s read rock journalism from the 60s and 70s knows musicians and the people interviewing them spoke very differently than they do today.
But that doesn’t matter to the current gang of propagandists at Rolling Stone. All they know is Clapton stepped out of the vaccine line and their job is to make sure everyone knows he’s one of those MAGA-hatted, science-denying racists.
Would Philbin still be giving Clapton this pass if he wasn't being useful to right-wing narratives through his anti-vaxx rantings? Doubtful. But then, the MRC has no problem defending terrible people as long as they remain useful to its agenda.
MRC's Houck Takes More Petty Potshots At CNN, Lionizes Fox News' Ratings Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center wants to be taken seriously as "media researchers," but any casual observer knows that its sloppiness, viciousness and m=immaturity makes that impossible. One example of that final attribute is the way it goes all Mean Girls on non-right-wing news outlets by gloating about how much better Fox News' ratings are (as if popularity equated quality or accuracy). Curtis Houck indulged in that juvenile trait in a Sept. 2 post:
In a hilariously epic fail for the liberal media, Fox News finished the month of August with 94 of the top 100 cable telecasts in total viewers amidst a monumental month of news with Gutfeld! scoring its first-ever victories over CBS’s The Late Show while, at the other end of the spectrum, MSNBC scored its lowest total day and primetime in the 25-54 demo since December 2015.
And despite the attempts from Jeff Zucker PR flunkie Brian Stelter, CNN also had a difficult month with its worst month in weekday primetime total viewers since June 2019. It’s safe to say they desperately miss Donald Trump.
According to an FNC press release, they “notch[ed] 94 of the top 100 cable telecasts for the month and 13 of the top 14 cable news programs in overall viewers and the younger A25-54 demo, according to Nielsen Media Research.” Not surprisingly, this also included a sweep of the top five spots.
Fox’s successes stood head and shoulders above MSNBC, which had not only the worst demo month since December 2015, but its worst in total viewers since 2017 and has experienced a drop of 40 percent from last year across all measuring sticks.
Note that Houck is literally regurgitating a Fox News press release, showing how much of a slave he is to right-wing narratives.
In what might be one of the least shocking developments to be published on NewsBusters, CNN carnival barker Jim Acosta’s tenure as late weekend afternoonCNN Newsroomhost has gone less than swimmingly as, since he took over April 3, the timeslot has lost almost half its viewership.
Nielsen Media Research measured the three months prior to Acosta taking over (December 28, 2020 to March 28, 2021) versus Acosta’s tenure thus far (up through August 28) and found that there was a whopping 42 percent loss in total viewers (1.151 million to 668,000) and an equally astounding 46 percent hemorrhage in the 25-54 demographic (249,000 to 135,000).
Houck was up for moregloating in a Sept. 29 post, again sourced from a Fox News press release:
The more things change, the more things stay the same. Such was the case with this week’s ratings release for the third quarter of 2021 as, to the shock of no one, the Fox News Channel was victorious with its 79th straight quarter as the top cable news channel while CNN and MSNBC saw numbers tank to levels not seen since Barack Obama’s second term as President.
Of course, Zuckerville (otherwise known as CNN) and MSNBC will see zero reason to change their divisive and poisonous yet tiresome business models.
According to an FNC press release from Tuesday, the ratings win coincided with its 25th anniversary as it was also “the most-watched network in all of basic cable with total day and primetime viewers” and “its highest-rated quarter of the year in both total viewers and the coveted 25-54 demo.”
[...]
As for CNN, Zuckerville had its worst quarter in the 25-54 demo since 2014 with year-over-year total day ratings tanking 36 percent for all viewers and 41 percent in primetime via the same metric.
We've noted Houck's weird -- and vaguely anti-Semitic -- obsession with depicting CNN president Jeff Zucker as a "puppet master," though we don't recall anyone at the MRC portray Fox News as "Ailesville."
Houck had a fit of Stelter Derangement Syndrome as well in an Oct. 20 post:
On the latest edition of CNN’s lead Fox hatefest known as Reliable Sources, the Brian Stelter-helmed show suffered another pitiful showing in the ratings as, amongst all viewers in the 25-54 demographic (and not just those inside his elitist, far-left bubble), Stelter fetched only 85,000 viewers.
And when examining a variety of other shows that aired on Sunday before, during, and after Stelter, the results weren’t pretty as, according to Nielsen Media Research, he drew fewer people than the likes of Nick Jr.’s Paw Patrol and Peppa Pig, Bravo’s Below Deck: Mediterranean and syndicated reruns of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Golden Girls to name a few.
Before going any further, it should be noted that Stelter’s audience grew to 706,000 if you add in total viewers, which still lost to CNN’s documentary on the late Princess Diana and 13 Fox News Channel shows. This included a head-to-head thrashing against FNC’s MediaBuzz, which pulled in, as per our friend RoadMN on Twitter, 1.473 million total viewers.
[...]
No matter how Stelter and his boss Jeffrey Zucker slice it, his niche show will continue to bear little to no control over how the American people view the news media. And for that, America is far greater place.
And if there's ever a remake of "Mean Girls" focused on media criticism, Houck would have a starring role, as someone who has nothing better or more productive with his life than to take petty potshots at people he's paid to hate -- and believes that this is substantive "media research."
MRC's Graham Agonizes Over Whether To Be A Decent Person Topic: Media Research Center
We've documented how Media Research Center executive Tim Graham hates actor Alec Baldwin so much that he was eager to be a jerk in the face of Baldwin accidentally killing a crew member with a prop gun on the set of a movie he was filming. Graham went on to devote an entire column to agonizing about whether to be a decent person in the face of Baldwin's tragedy, an Oct. 27 piece that was literally headlined "Does Alec Baldwin Deserve Decency?":
It was probably the worst day of Alec Baldwin’s life when he accidentally shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie Rust on October 21. It’s a time to feel terrible about a 42-year-old woman with a husband and a young son.
Then CNN’s Jake Tapper used it in one of his commentaries to denounce the entire Republican Party for making this tragedy an occasion for jokes. “There's something about our politics right now that is driving people away from our shared humanity.”
Tapper was upset that Rep. Lauren Boebert recalled a tweet from December 5, 2014 where Baldwin wrote “I’m going to make bright, banana yellow t-shirts that read ‘My hands are up. Please don't shoot me.’ Who wants one?” This was about the false claim that Michael Brown said “Hands up, don’t shoot” in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014, when in reality, Brown was reaching into a car for a policeman’s gun.
Yes, Graham is mad that the cruelty of his fellow Republicans in the face of Baldwin's tragedy was called out.The whining continued:
In our decency, we would hope Baldwin doesn’t have to go to court for this shooting. But the title of Baldwin’s 2006 opus was “Will Cheney and Whittington go to court? I would imagine if a guy with a few beers in him shoots you in the face...”
This isn’t the only Cheney-and-death “humor” Baldwin composed for Arianna Huffington. On the Fourth of July, 2006, Baldwin cooked up a double-murder fantasy, in which he dispatched Osama bin Laden with a box-cutter and “I gather up the body of the world’s most notorious terrorist and hurl it over the balcony. Then, in the final stroke of luck, bin Laden lands on Dick Cheney. God bless America.”
[...]
Jake Tapper made almost no attempt to factor in Baldwin’s well-known penchant for hate speech beyond this: “Baldwin, is, of course, not only a progressive but very aggressive and outspoken about liberal issues, including gun control.”
He even brought up Liz Cheney as the example of the Decency Republican in contrast to bomb-throwing Marjorie Taylor Greene. But he couldn’t recall 2006!
Of course, in today's Trumpified Republican Party -- and even in Graham's MRC, where his boss maliciously labeled Barack Obama a "skinny ghetto crackhead" -- decency is not a value to be honored, it is one to be mocked as a sign of weakness. Yet Graham referred to "our decency," as if he still has some. He's petty too, which is why he's mad Tapper didn't nitpick something Baldwin wrote 15 years ago as justification to be nasty to him now, as Graham wants.
By the end of his column, Graham is still fighting to reconcile the Trumpified hateful partisanship with the religious faith he wants us to think he still has: "Does Alec Baldwin deserve decency now? In the spirit of Christian charity or “shared humanity,” yes. But armed with the memory of Baldwin’s long record of indecency, that would be extremely kind and merciful."
It's clear that Graham does not possess that kindness and mercy.
Meet Rep. Bennie Thompson, the little-known Mississippi Democrat who chairs the congressional commission that blames the Jan. 6 "insurrection" on Donald Trump, on you, on the MAGA crowd – not on FBI provocateurs.
Who is Thompson?
For 50 years, he's been a radical's radical – openly sympathizing with a secessionist group known as the Republic of New Africa that blamed law enforcement for instigating violence that resulted in the killing of a police officer and wounding of an FBI agent.
Back then, the shoe was on the other foot.
Back then, FBI counterintelligence memos warned of imminent "guerrilla warfare" against the United States by the Republic of New Africa – or RNA. You probably never heard of the RNA, yet Bennie Thompson kept it alive until 2013 when he campaigned for the group's former vice president to be mayor of the biggest city in Mississippi.
All of this is still on the public record – documented in newspapers, video footage and state and FBI archives. John Solomon did some awesome reporting on Thompson for Just the News.
That's the rap on the congressman – a subversive, a true and proud insurrectionist!
Actually, Solomon's article made no such claim; the closest it gets to it is digging up a 1971 quote from Thomnpson saying that "My utmost concern in this matter is to see that people who reside or pass through the town of Bolton [Mississippi] are treated fairly and given every opportunity afforded them by law. ... My position is that people are entitled to live as they choose, so long as they are law abiding and peaceful."
Farah laughably claim that Thompson "kept" the Republic of New Africa "alive" in 2013 when he endorsed former VP Chokwe Lumumba to be mayor of Jackson, Miss. He didn't menion that Lumumba had become an attorney and civil rights activist, and he won the election (though he died eight months into his term) on less revolutionary promises like fixing potholes.
(Much of Farah's attack on Thompson, by the way, is simply rehashed from an anonymously written WND article earlier that day.)
In his Oct. 18 column, Farah lashed out at the committee again for seeking contempt charges against Steve Bannon for refusing to cooperate, spouting more conspiracy theories:
But the big fish is Donald Trump, the former president and the leading candidate for president in the next election – and the undeniable winner in the LAST election!
The sole purpose of this witch hunt is to smear Trump, once again, as a rogue president who is somehow unworthy of serving as our chief executive.
This committee has overseen the unconstitutional proceedings that have locked up at least 40 demonstrators who participated Jan. 6, holding them in solitary confinement for months – some with a mere trespassing charge!
Farah then interestingly added:
As an attendee at this rally, it was one of the largest demonstrations I have ever attended in Washington, which include those as a then-leftist protesting the Vietnam War.
I did not accept invitations to enter the Capitol, assuming it was a trap. And it was.
That's a bit of a narrative shift. Farah was originally cheering the riot as an example of how it made politicians "fearful" of far-right activists like himself. Farah is not saying who issued those "invitations" to "enter the Capitol" or why he has not mentioned them before now. Seems like something the Jan. 6 committee might want to look into, no?
But with real people facing real consequences for their real actions during the riot, it appears Farah has decided to embrace the tried-and-true right-wing victimhood narrative, though he provided no evidence of anyone being held in "solitary confinement" merely for "trespassing."
But as we all know, the narrative comes before the truth where Farah is concerned -- though he might be forced to be factual if the committee ever decides to look into those "invitations."
CNS Portrays Pelosi As A Murderer Because She Supports Abortion Rights Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com believes that Nancy Pelosi is a murderer. Why? Even though she has never had an abortion, let alone performed one,she doesn't support prohibiting other people from getting one. And that, in the twisted and hateful minds at CNS, is no different from murder. Take this Sept. 28 column from anti-abortion activist Judie Brown, under the screeching headline "Grandma Death":
She has five children and nine grandchildren, but her real devotion is to the practice of killing babies before they are born. Who is this woman? Her name is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and her game is murder.
Oh, we know that many folks are turned off when we say that direct abortion is an act of murder, but really, what else would you call it? A human being is alive and growing within her mother one moment, and the next moment she is dead. Why? Because she is murdered.
In Pelosi’s world, you must reject that fact and call it Women’s Health Protection instead. Then you, along with your Democrat cronies, pass a bill that enshrines abortion into law from one end of the nation to the other. The pro-aborts call it protection for the right to access abortion care throughout the nation. We call it the right to murder members of the human family on-demand.
[...]
Grandma Death’s comments callously disregard truth, and she has convinced herself that abortion is not the act of killing people but rather a political and/or personal matter that has nothing to do with human beings, killing, or child safety prior to birth. Sadly, Grandma Death has been infected with the sin of pride.
Brown, apparently, has been infected with the sin of shamelessness and not with the virtue of moderation and reason.
Not to be outdone, CNS editor in chief Terry Jeffrey had his own hateful invective to sling at Pelosi in his Oct. 13 column:
During the first four years that Nancy Pelosi served as speaker of the House (2007 through 2010), approximately 4,676,300 unborn babies were aborted in the United States, according to estimates published by the Guttmacher Institute.
To put that in more precise language, adopting the accurate wording to describe abortion that Pope Francis recently used, 4,676,300 unborn American babies were murdered in those four years.
[...]
So, how does Pelosi, who describes herself as a "devout Catholic," and who is one of the top lawmakers in the United States, deal with this form of murder?
She is for it.
[...]
In other words, she voted "as a Catholic" for what the church correctly calls the murder of "absolutely innocent" human beings.
Given that abortions killed approximately 4,676,300 unborn American babies during Pelosi's first four-year stint as speaker, and that she now supports legislation to legalize abortion on demand nationwide, she not only supports the murder of innocent human beings but their mass murder.
Weird, we remember being lectured by right-wingers that people were not allowed to call Kyle Rittenhouse a "murderer" because that is a legal term that one must be convicted of in a court of law for it to accurately apply. If Brown and Jeffrey want to call Pelosi -- or any woman who chooses to have an abortion -- a murderer, they should charge her with murder in a court of law, then amass the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to make that case.
This, of course, is not a a serious philosophical argument but a partisan one; Brown and Jeffrey see that Pelosi has power so she must be destroyed by any means possible, including maliciously false claims of "murder." And is part of theholywar being waged against Pelosi by the uber-Catholics who run CNS.
NEW ARTICLE -- The MRC's War on Jen Psaki (And Man-Crush On Peter Doocy): September 2021 Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck keeps up his biased schtick of lashing out at the White House press secretary and fawning over a Fox News reporter. Read more >>
Another CNS Attack On Pelosi Fails For Citing Wrong Bible Topic: CNSNews.com
Remember that time we caught CNSNews.com sneering at Nancy Pelosi for quoting the Bible but linking to a version of the Bible that Catholics like Pelosi don't use (something the uber-Catholics who run CNS ought to know)? Well, we found another example. From an anonymously written Oct. 18 article:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) quoted from the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins from the Gospel of Matthew at a press event focused on public housing that she held in San Francisco on Friday with San Francisco Mayor London Breed.
“Madam Mayor, it's always a joy to be with you while we're talking about low-income housing, affordable housing, public housing and the rest, and to hear you speak from your own personal experience about it,” Pelosi said.
“‘When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was homeless, you gave me shelter. When I was naked, you clothed me.’ All of those things in the Gospel of Matthew, the Mayor brings to the experience,” Pelosi said.
“Madam Mayor, thank you for your tremendous leadership and how that experience has benefited so many people,” she said.
But the article's links on the "Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins" and the "Gospel of Matthew" go to an online edition of the New King James Version of the Bible. As we documented, the Catholic Church does not use the King James Version because it was commissioned for the Church of England and it omits certain books from the Old Testament that Catholics recognize but Protestants don't.
Again, this is all malicious partisan pettiness on CNS' part. But you'd think that it would know better than to try and own Pelosi with a Bible that Catholics don't use.
Newsmax Parrots Right-Wing Narrative In School Board Incidents Topic: Newsmax
Living up to his name, Charlie McCarthy parroted right-wing narrataives in an Oct. 13 Newsmax article:
The evening news broadcasts on all three major commercial networks failed to report on the Loudoun County Public School Board's alleged cover-up of a 14-year-old girl being raped by a boy in a skirt to pass a transgender bathroom policy, the Media Research Center said Wednesday.
The Daily Wire reported Tuesday that the alleged victim's father became the poster child for what the National School Boards Association has suggested could be a form of "domestic terrorism" after he was arrested at a Loudoun County, Virginia, school board meeting in June.
Neither ABC's World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News, nor the NBC Nightly News, however, reported on the alleged cover-up of the rape Tuesday night following The Daily Wire's bombshell story.
"SHAME. How can one call itself a news organization when it blacks out coverage of a story like this, which has such broad impact on the safety of our children and education? And they wonder why ratings and trust of the media continue to tank," tweeted Brent Bozell, founder and president of Media Research Center.
As we'vedocumented, Bozell's MRC has been pushing this story to push right-wing transphobia and to help get a Republican, Glenn Youngkin, elected Virginia governor.But as we've also documented, this simplistic narrative McCarthy is dutifully repeating obscures a more complicated truth about the incident: The boy and girl previously had consensual sexual encounters before, and the incident in question began as a consensual encounter.
McCarthy is also repeating another false narrative: that school boards and the Department of Justice want to portray any parent who merely speaks out at a school board meeting as a "domestic terrorist." Further, McCarthy censored the fact that the victim's father, Scott Smith, was in fact found guilty in court of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest; in the incident in question, "Smith was arrested during an argument with a woman for whose daughter Smith’s wife had been a Girl Scout leader. Deputies dragged him to the ground, then outside, where he continued struggling and arguing with them, threatening to kick their teeth out." Instead, McCarthy offered a whitewashed version of events that made the aggressor out to be the victim:
When a female left-wing community activist told Smith she did not believe his daughter, the father said he became incensed and had a heated exchange of words with the woman.
When a police officer — who was there to keep the peace — pulled on his arm, Smith yanked it away. That quickly resulted in Smith being hit in the face, handcuffed, and dragged across the floor, with his pants pulled down.
Smith was clearly acting in a violent and terroristic manner and a court of law agreed with that assessment -- but Newsmax doesn't want you to know that.
Misinformer WND Columnist Spreads Even More COVID Misinfo Topic: WorldNetDaily
JoelHirschhorn is in a race with Jane Orient to be WorldNetDaily's lead COVID misinformer, and he's doing his best to try and make himself the front-runner.
In his Sept. 27 column, Hirschhorn wrote of Army doctor Theresa Long, whom he praised as "a rare courageous truth-teller willing to jeopardize a military career for the greater good and to try and steer the Department of Defense to policies that protect military personnel from dangerous and unnecessary COVID vaccines and defend our national defense." He then forwarded some of Long's conspiracies as fact:
With regard to the Pfizer vaccine, "One of the primary ingredients of the Lipid Nanoparticle delivery system is ALC 1035." This is a toxic material. It "comprises between 30-50% of the total ingredients." Among a number of serious possible effects is this reality: "Caution: Product has not been fully validated for medical applications. For research use only." Also noted: "Other journals and scientific papers also denote that this particular ingredient has never been used in humans before." The lieutenant colonel correctly notes, "My assessment is that ALC 1035 is a known toxin with little study, specifically restricted to 'research only' and effectively has no prior [medical] use history."
In fact, there is no ingredient in the Pfizer vaccine called ALC 1035. It's a sign of her shoddy work that in a related affidavit she filed in a lawsuit by her fellow anti-vaxxers aiming to stop vaccine mandates in thte military in which she repeated this claim, she also calls this phantom ingredient "ALC 0315" and "ALC 3015." In fact, the correct answer is ALC 0315, a lipid that serves as a carrier for the messenger RNA in the vaccine. No legitimate medical source claims the lipid is a "toxic material."
Hirschhorn continued:
Another ingredient in the vaccine is a known toxic chemical: "Polyethylene Glycol is the active ingredient in antifreeze." There have been countless cases where people have been fatally poisoned with this chemical. This comment by Dr. Long is especially impressive: "I cannot discern what form of alchemy Pfizer and the FDA have discovered that would make antifreeze into a healthful cure to the human body."
Long is lying. The active ingredient in antifreeze is ethylene glycol, not polyethylene glycol, which also exists in many other products. Hirschhorn continued:
Another important point is that "Moderna's key ingredient, SM-102 … is significantly more dangerous than the Pfizer ALC 1035." Noted is that "this Moderna ingredient is deadly."
As a fact-check from an actual news organization detailed, anti-vaxxers are citing a biotech company's fact sheet for its formulation of SM-102 to make this claim. In fact, that formulation is not for human use and is made up of a solution that is 90 percent chloroform, which is toxic; the actual SM-102 itself is not. Hirschhorn continued to write:
Continued Long: "I have also reviewed scientific data and peer reviewed studies that discuss, analyze results and conclude that natural immunity is at least as good if not far superior to any COVID vaccine available at this time." Exactly correct.
This ignores the fact that one has to catch and suffer through COVID in order to gain that "natural immunity." In fact, unvaccinated peiople are far more likely to die of COVID than vaccinated people, meaning the risk is much greater to remain unvaccinated. But Hirschhorn continued to parrot Long's misinformation anyway:
And here are several correct observations on harmful vaccine impacts: "None of the ordered Emergency Use COVID-19 vaccines can or will provide better immunity than an infection-recovered person [with natural immunity]. All [current] vaccines in the age group and fitness level of my patients are more risky, harmful and dangerous than having no vaccine at all, whether a person is COVID recovered or facing a COVID-19 infection.
"Direct evidence exists and suggests that all persons who have received a COVID-19 vaccine are damaged in their cardiovascular system in an irreparable and irrevocable manner. Due to the spike protein production that is engineered into the user's genome, each such recipient of the COVID-19 vaccines already has micro clots in their cardiovascular system that present a danger to their health and safety. … Such micro clots over time will become bigger clots by the very nature of the shape and composition of the spike proteins being produced, and said proteins are found throughout the user's body, including the brain."
Hirschhorn concluded: "To sum up, we have a highly educated and credentialed senior military officer stepping up to tell those above her and the public about the major risks of COVID vaccines for military personnel. This physician strongly needs public support in the fight for pandemic truths." The fact that Hirschhorn wants you to trust someone whose claims have been so thoroughly discredited -- and that despite that, she is telling "pandemic truths" -- tells us that Hirschhorn is a quack as well.
MRC's Sports Blogger Keeps Up Anti-Vaxxer Rants Topic: Media Research Center
Mysterious Media Research Center sports blogger Jay Maxson just can't stop using his MRC platform to peddle anti-vaxxer activism and rage against COVID vaccine mandates.
In an Oct. 5 post, Maxson got upset that NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (whose name he misspelled as "Kareen") "managed to link coronavirus vaccinations with race, particularly Black Lives Matter" in an NPR interview, huffing in response:
Kyrie Irving and other non-vaccinated players who fully supported BLM beg to differ. The two issues are not conjoined at the hip. These players are showing this by their actions, by their personal discernment.
[...]
What’s also not fair is that in this NPR interview, A Martinez never broached the subject of adverse reactions to vaccines, which were fast-tracked through to federal approval. If everyone thought vaccines were safe to use, it wouldn’t be such a big issue, but that’s not the case. Oh, that’s right, leftists are doing diligent research through so-called reputable sources like Dr. Anthony Fauci and MSNBC. And unlike the unvaccinated rubes, they have all the correct information.
Two days later, Maxson got upset that Canada was enforcing vaccine mandates and didn't exclude pro basketball players, invoking Kyrie Irving again:
There is no point in unvaccinated NBA players making the road trip to Toronto. That Canadian city can sentence them to jail time and fine them $750,000 for leaving their hotel, according to a report in The Athletic. Other NBA cities will prevent such players from playing in games and also from attending practices. Yes, it’s one big, tangled web of freedom-dousing nonsense gripping the league.
[...]
Irving calls the limitations “oppressive.” The city of Toronto calls them “criminal.” Brooklyn, the Bay Area and New York haven’t yet gotten the memo about the land of the free.
ESPN’s blog, The Undefeated, jumped down LeBron James’ throat for not calling on all NBA players to submit to COVID-19 vaccinations. The coronavirus pandemic is actually an act of social justice and a fight for equality rivaling opposition to police brutality, says The Undefeated’s senior writer David Dennis Jr.
[...]
The ESPN Undefeated writer also says that Kyrie Irving and other vaccination resisters are perpetuating the possible spread of an epidemic ravaging black folks and this contradicts every statement they’ve ever made about standing for black folks in America. They can no longer be trusted when they speak of how black lives matter.
The dictatorial Democrats could not have stated this anti-freedom, race-baiting sentiment any better than Dennis.
Maxson was perversely happy in an Oct. 17 post cheering how turning thousands of college football fans into guinea pigs ended up working out better than people expected:
Have a plate of crow, fear-mongers Dr. Anthony Fauci and Joy Reid. Your expectations of huge college football stadiums packed with thousands of fans serving as super-spreaders of COVID-19 have been disproven.
College football has reached the mid-season point, and COVID-19 outbreaks are on the decline in many of the states with the largest stadiums. Through weeks of mostly unmasked fans sitting side by side at college football games in huge stadiums, the dire predictions of the doomsday crowd have fallen flat on their face.
“As soon as I saw it (the opening of college football stadiums to fans in September), I thought COVID’s about to have a feast,” Reid told Dr. Fauci on NBC Today. “What did you think?” Fauci said, “I thought the same thing. I think it’s really unfortunate.”
What’s that? Dr. Fauci wrong? Again? He seems to keep failing upward, in the view of those on the Left who have all but bestowed sainthood on him despite his sorry track record.
This partisan Fauci-bashing was an echo of a post Tim Graham had written the day before.
Of course, just because there was no spike in COVID cases during that period does not mean that COVID did not spread at stadiums.
In an Oct. 21 post, Maxson cheered that Washington State football coach Nick Rolovich, who was fired for refusing to get vaccinated, was contemplating legal action against the university. Maxson went on to complain that other media outlets pointed out that Rolovich's attempt to claim a religious exemption becauseof his Catholic faith was shot down because "Pope Francis and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have stated that 'all Covid-19 vaccines are morally acceptable and that Catholics have a duty, responsibility or obligation to be vaccinated.'"
No one (or group) can be this bad by accident. We've heard from early on just how incompetent Lunch Box Joe and his administration are. I'm sure, and polls appear to bear this out, that liberals (not leftists) are regretting their vote for the man.
Many suburban soccer moms, who were turned off by that big meany Trump, are the same parents showing up at school board meetings carrying signs and speaking out against Critical Race Theory, pornography and the masking of their young ones.
The question still to be answered is whether these parents have seen the real purpose of this radical agenda, or if they'll be placated just enough to go back to sleep.
However, liberal or conservative, it should be becoming obvious to Americans that everything happening in the U.S. is not by accident, mismanagement, a lack of communication or incompetence. It is all purposeful.
The cost of energy, housing, food, virtually all goods and services are markedly higher than pre-Biden. Energy costs are now at a 10-year high. Coincidence? I think not. It's the Green New Deal.
The border is a sieve, with thousands upon thousands of illegals crossing our southern border weekly. As many know, this is what the left has coined as the Great Replacement. Just replace those finicky American voters you must convince to vote for you with new, more acquiescent bodies that are much more accustom to doing what they're told.
It's no accident that the bulk of the left's new base is being shipped off to red and battleground states.
[...]
Government mandates and the usurpation of God-given rights have nothing to do with safety and security. It's all about control. This has become apparent as Attorney General Merrick Garland is attempting to further weaponize the FBI in an effort to nullify the First Amendment right to freely assemble and speak out. Those who speak against school boards may run the risk of be branded domestic terrorists. You can thank the Bush Patriot Act for getting this ball rolling.
But there is still hope. Employees all over the country are walking off the job, rather than take the COVID jab. Many more will endure being fired rather than give up their right to choose. The next time you hear of hospital or other shortages and supply-chain problems, be aware that it is nothing more than free people deciding to remain free.
This may not help us in the short run, but it is heartening that there are still many Davids willing to stand and fight the authoritarian Goliath.
Another 'Non-Clinician' Newsmax Columnist Weighs In With COVID Misinformation Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax probably should know better. Given how some columnists it publishes stuff their work so filled with COVID misinformation, it shouldn't publish them at all; instead, it simply tags the column with the statement that it has been written by a "non-clinician." The latest to get that tag is an Oct. 12 coumn by Nicholas Chamberas, which is a mix of grudging concession that COVID vaccines work and rage at the very idea of vaccine mandates:
When did the United States of America become a country led by pseudo-scientists and phony rage-peddlers?
When did tumid bureaucrats decide that they could modify the Hippocratic Oath on their own in one fell swoop?
This happened when the most failed politicians in America decided that instead of saving lives by fighting criminals, they could scapegoat all law abiding citizens making medical decisions based on what their doctors advise them instead of blindly following a narrative peddled by these same failed politicians.
To be clear, COVID-19 vaccines have saved many lives globally.
Yet, the undisputable truth is also that not everyone can or should take a COVID vaccine.
The health and well-being of these individuals should not be discarded because they disrupt a cute sounding slogan like "Let’s all get vaccinated."
The real goal and slogan should sound something like "Let’s Make Sure That We Are All Safe From COVID Without Needlessly Sacrificing The Lives Of Others As If We’re Some Cult."
Welcome to the cult-like world of vaccine mandates.
Chamberas then cited the case of a woman who died from blood clots after receiving the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine -- but omitting the fact that it was a extremely rare conmplication. He huffed that the woman "had strong reserevations about taking a COVID vaccine, she finally succumbed to taking the vaccine because of the pressure from her employer," then ranted:
The obvious truth is that Jessica died as a sacrifice to the insanely irresponsible dictates based on the capricious, facile diktats of bureaucrats more akin to health policy derived from mad scientists than respected physicians.
[...]
The long cherished medical principal of "do no harm" has been replaced by government technocrats proclaiming that everyone must do exactly as they say or their life will be permanently disconnected.
Not only will their non-compliance will be publicly castigated but they will be marked as "impure" and a perfect illustration of all that is wrong with our society.
Jessica Berg Wilson never should have died from taking an injection she didn’t need and didn’t want.
Everyone who is serious about ending the pandemic must rise up and reject the pseudo-science one size fits all social matra-driven edicts that harm and divide our nation.
It's time to really follow the actual science — the medical science.
Chamberas will not admit that one big reason there are vaccine mandates is to protect those who cannot due to health reasons. By portraying the woman as a victim instead of an outlier, he's being very dishonest. Many more people will die from COVID because of people putting their purported "personal freedom" first than ever have, or will, from getting a COVID vaccine. That's following "the actual science — the medical science," not whatever he's peddling.
CNS Bashes Biden Over Meeting With Pope Topic: CNSNews.com
The uber-Catholics who run CNSNews.com hate President Biden, a fellow Catholic, for not imposing his religious beliefs on an entire nation by outlawing abortion. So they were predictably galled that Biden went to Rome last month to meet with Pope Francis. Managing editor Michael W. Chapman huffed in an Oct. 22 article:
Because President Joe Biden, a Catholic, supports abortion and yet still presents himself for Holy Communion at Sunday Mass -- in defiance of Church teaching -- the Catholic-based Life Site News has launched a petition calling on Pope Francis to formally discipline Biden when they meet in Rome on Oct. 29.
The petition urges the Pope "to tell Biden that he will face formal excommunication because of his public and obstinate promotion of abortion, and that if he wishes to return to communion with the Church he must immediately and publicly stop and repent from his active support of the culture of death."
[...]
The petition also notes that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has done nothing "to directly and publicly address how Biden's radical, public promotion of abortion affects his standing in the Church."
It's interesting that Chapman describes LifeSite News as "Catholic-based" when it's better known for violating a commandment or two by spreading lies and misinformation about COVID. And CNS really hates U.S. bishops for following Rome and not Republicans by its refusal to make a big show of punishing Biden over his abortion stance.
Editor in chief Terry Jeffrey devoted his Oct. 27 column to bashing Biden for being un-American for not opposing abortion:
A Catholic American president will travel to Rome this Friday to meet with Pope Francis.
There is a very profound and obvious issue they could discuss: Is it OK for a politician of any religious faith, or even none at all, to violate the natural law and support the deliberate killing of unborn babies?
President Joe Biden unambiguously supports legalized abortion and forcing taxpayers to pay for it. That puts him at odds not just with his church but with the founding principle of his country.
[...]
Is this something that Pope Francis should discuss with Biden when they meet on Friday? Should the pope tell Biden to change his position on abortion now and stop advocating for the extermination of unborn babies and instead defend their God-given right to life?
President Biden is scheduled to meet with Pope Francis in Rome on Friday. For the pope, it will be routine: he meets with heads of state all the time, and he has no compelling reason to meet with Biden. The reverse is not true: Biden is in trouble with U.S. bishops and needs to milk this event for all it's worth.
[...]
The White House knows that the president will be on the minds of the bishops when the USCCB meets in a few weeks in Baltimore. It is in their interest, then, to put a happy face on the meeting with the pope. The optics are critical: pictures of the two men smiling and shaking hands will be posted everywhere.
To what end? It's a defensive strategy. This will enable the Biden team to argue that although some of his policies depart from, or undercut, Church teachings, they are of no real consequence.
Biden is not only pro-abortion, he has become increasingly more rabid in his support for abortion rights the older he gets. For most of his career in politics, which spans a half-century, he at least put the brakes on his support for publicly funded abortions. No more—the brakes are shot.
Biden not only supports gay marriage, he officiated at one. And as president, he has shown his contempt for the Church's teaching on gender ideology, even going so far as to promote to admiral a man who falsely claims to be a woman. Worse, the president refuses to label sex transition surgery on minors as child abuse.
Another Oct. 27 article, by Melanie Arter, noted that "When White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked at her briefing on Wednesday whether President Joe Biden agrees with Pope Francis that abortion is murder, she responded that Biden 'believes in a woman's right to choose.'" A separate, anonymously written article posted a couple hours later reiterated much of Arter's piece.
The next day, Donohue declared that because "The media have been mostly barred from covering the meeting" between Biden and the pope, "the optics that the White House was counting on are dead in the water," adding: "Kudos to the Vatican. They know when they are being used."
Patrick Goodenough hyped that "Shortly before meeting with a Catholic president who according to the White House 'supports a woman’s right to choose' to abort her baby or carry it to term, Pope Francis publicly reaffirmed the church’s teaching that the life of 'every child conceived … is sacred and inviolable.'"
On the day of the meeting, Jeffrey promoted a tweet from a bishop who apparently believes he can lecture the pope about being Catholic:
Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island, publicly urged Pope Francis in a tweet he sent out on Wednesday to challenge President Joe Biden on his support for abortion.
“Dear Pope Francis,” Bishop Tobin said in the tweet, “You have boldly stated that abortion is ‘murder.’ Please challenge President Biden on this critical issue.
“His persistent support of abortion is an embarrassment for the Church and a scandal to the world,” the bishop said.
CNS' only "news" article after the meeting, however was an anonymously written piece rewrote and partially copied a New York Times report in which Biden said "the pope had told him he was happy Biden was a 'good Catholic' and said that he 'should keep receiving communion,'" and that "the issue of abortion had not come up during their meeting." From there, it was left to Donohue to whine. In one column, he wrote:
The Vatican has not confirmed the veracity of Biden's account.
Like everyone else, we at the Catholic League have no way of knowing whether Biden's remarks are accurate. But from what we know about the Vatican's handling of the meeting and Biden's long record of lying about many important matters, we are maintaining a healthy skepticism about the president's rendition.
It is certainly in Biden's interest to have everyone think that the pope encouraged him to keep receiving communion.
We could bring up Donohue's lengthy history of dishonesty, but that might be a bit gauche. Donohue, however, is not troubled by feelings of gaucheness or shame, so he ranted some more in a Nov. 2 column:
At the same press conference, Biden was asked, "Did you discuss the U.S. Conference of Bishops?" He answered, "That's a private conversation." This begs the question: Why would a discussion of the bishops' conference be considered a private matter but not one that affects him personally, namely his suitability to receive Communion?
It is entirely possible that Biden is lying.
After admitting that abortion never came up, he quickly pivoted. Why? Because he saw an opening, an opportunity to report to the press the most important thing he wanted from the pope—a chance to undercut those U.S. bishops who are deeply troubled about his pro-abortion record (they will be meeting in less than two weeks to discuss this subject). Having been denied the photo-op the White House desperately wanted, he had to come away with something that served his interest. The Communion issue had to be in the forefront of his mind.
[...]
Our incurious media are not asking these questions. That's because they want to protect the pope and the president, both of whom they like.
There are too many unanswered questions to put this matter to rest. The unwillingness of the Vatican to confirm or deny Biden's account, and Biden's inconsistent and implausible responses—only adds to the problem. This doesn't make either side look good.
Donohue doesn't explain why he is at war with the head of his church. If he is the devout Catholic he wants us all to believe he is, shouldn't he be subservient to the pope? He's too busy bashing Biden's purported disloyalty to the Church to explain his own.
Jeffrey took a post-meeting shot at Biden in his Nov. 3 column:
The activities of the Biden administration this past Friday featured two remarkable and profoundly contradictory events.
In Rome, President Joe Biden met with Pope Francis. In Washington, his Justice Department filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing there is a "right" to kill an unborn baby with a beating heart.
Jeffrey again emphasized that the pope called abortion murder. which feeds into the CNS narrative that any politician who fails to outlaw abortion is a murderer.
Lydia Switzer does a lot of playing dumb in an Oct. 8 post:
The Media Research Center's Joseph Vazquez 
The Media Research Center 
The Media Research Center wants to be taken seriously as "media researchers," but any casual observer knows that its sloppiness, viciousness and m=immaturity makes that impossible. One example of that final attribute is the way it 
We've 
As would be expected from someone who spreads 
CNSNews.com believes that Nancy Pelosi is a murderer. Why? Even though she has never had an abortion, let alone performed one,she doesn't support prohibiting other people from getting one. And that, in the twisted and hateful minds at CNS, is no different from murder. Take this Sept. 28 
Remember that time we caught CNSNews.com 
Living up to his name, Charlie McCarthy parroted right-wing narrataives in an Oct. 13 Newsmax 
Joel
Mysterious Media Research Center sports blogger Jay Maxson 
No one (or group) can be this bad by accident. We've heard from early on just how incompetent Lunch Box Joe and his administration are. I'm sure, and polls appear to bear this out, that liberals (not leftists) are regretting their vote for the man.
The uber-Catholics who run CNSNews.com 
