Leading up to Columbus Day, CNSNews.com published a three-part series by dishonest Catholic Bill Donohue on why Americans should celebrate Columbus Day enthusiastically and without guilt.

In his Oct. 6 column, Donohue complained about Howard Zinn and other professors who stray from the narrative that Columbus was a univerally good person:

The fact is that many professors, especially in the humanities and social sciences, hate Western civilization; they have a particular animus against the United States. That this is happening at a time when many poor people from Latin America are crashing our borders is perverse. Yet the  pampered professors still keep railing against the U.S. They just don't get it.

[...]

To top things off, those who are bashing Columbus are simultaneously lauding the legacy of Indigenous peoples. Yet a closer, and independent, examination of their historical record raises serious questions about their assigned "oppressed" status. But given the Manichean dualism that is operative—the good guys are non-whites and the bad guys are white—the outcome is predictable.

On Oct. 7, Donohue railed at the National Education Association for favoring changing Columbus Day to Indigtenous People's Day:

This is not a healthy situation. A country that cannot agree on whom to honor is in trouble. Worse, a country whose public officials take no action against those who destroy statues on public land of those who have made significant contributions to American society are sending the wrong message. When a nation's historically renowned figures become part of our throw-away culture, it does not bode well for instilling patriotism in young people.

Judging past historical figures through today's lens will likely mean that some of those in favor of excising tributes to legendary persons will themselves be erased from history. So be it.

We at the Catholic League are taking off Monday, in honor of Christopher Columbus. Sorry NEA, you carry no weight with us.

Donoue used his Oct. 8 column to serve up what he promised two days earlier would be "a politically incorrect look at Indigenous Americans," which started off this way:

Just as bad, some promote the idea that virtually all the Indians were kindly souls who respected the land and treated each other with dignity. This is a romantic fairy tale having no basis in history. The truth is that some were gentle while others were brutal. 

It is also part of the conventional wisdom that almost all the Indians were massacred by the white man. Wrong.

He then disproved his own point by citing a researcher who admitted that nearly all Indians died after "the coming of the white man," and that it "occurred through such factors as the importation of virulent diseases previously unknown in the Americas, the destruction of settled life-styles, enslavement, and the psychological effects of conquest rather than through overt murders and slaughters, although plenty of these took place." Just because a large number weren't outright massacred doesn't mean that the "white man" didn't kill them.

Donohue then denigrated the idea that Native Americans were "indigenous":

Before detailing the dark side of Indigenous peoples, as a corrective to the prevailing notion that only the white man acted unjustly, it is important to note that the term "Indigenous" is misleading. The Indians were immigrants who came here from Asia. In "prehistoric times," they "crossed the land bridge across the Bering Strait to the lands of the Western Hemisphere." 

Donohue followed that with a list of alleged Native American atrocities; while some were between tribes, others were against British and American settlers. He didn't explain why Native Americans should not have fought to defend their lands and livelihood. In his final example on the series of U.S.-Indian wars, Donohue seemed to be blaming Native Americans for their demise because defeating Custer at Little Big Horn led to the U.S. increasing its military activity, which "culminated in the Wounded Knee Massacre on December 29, 1890," which he frames as at least somewhat justified because U.S. troops feared "a repeat of Little Big Horn" so they fired on a tribe of disarmed Lakota tribe, killing 250 Lakota men, women, and children.

And that, Donohue wants you to believe, is why Americans should celebrate Columbus Day.

Posted by Terry K. at 5:55 PM EST

Updated: Monday, December 6, 2021 11:21 PM EST

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Media Research Center writer Joseph Vazquez has been lashing out of late against James Murdoch, son of Fox News chief Rupert Murdoch, for ceasing to be as right-wing as his father and other siblings and donating money to -- gasp! -- environmental causes and non-Fox media ventures. Vazquez tried to serve up a lame "non-conservative media ignored thing that advances right-wing narratives" gotcha in an Oct. 13 post:

CNN’s cable shows have salivated at least seven times over climate activist James Murdoch’s virtue-signaling against Fox News in the past year, all while ignoring any mention of an atrocious media scandal that nearly nuked his career.

News blew up in 2011 on how the now-defunct U.K. newspaper News of the World< was set to publish its last issue following a massive phone-hacking scandal that occurred in the mid-2000s, which ultimately led to its demise. News Corporation Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch’s estranged son James was executive chairman for News International — then-parent company of News of the World — at the time. James Murdoch would later resign. The newspaper “presided over a large-scale policy of hacking cell phones and computers belonging to celebrities, politicians, and private citizens,” according to the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. The scandal even involved hacking the communications of Prince Harry.

But CNN has all but ignored the phone-hacking scandal while propping up Murdoch’s attacks against Fox News. A Nexis search of CNN transcripts mentioning James Murdoch between September 30, 2020, and September 30, 2021, found that none of the CNN cable shows mentioned the phone-hacking scandal whenever they cited Murdoch’s anti-Fox News stances.

But as we reported at the time, the MRC did its best to downplay the News of the World scandal in order to protect Fox News. When the scandal first broke, MRC executive Tim Graham dismissed a British paper that reported on it as "socialist" and NPR's reporting as suspect because of alleged ties to George Soros. When the scandal exploded later that year, the MRC spent days ignoring it, then tried to deflect from it.

First, it tried to play whataboutism by arguing that far lesser actions in the so-called "liberal media" were just as bad as hacking cell phones. Then, it insisted that the investigation into the scandal was being driven by "politics ... not rational detective work." Graham later got himself quoted by the Washington Post claiming that  "It’s blatantly obvious that this pile-on . . . is all about Murdoch and his perceived noxious effect on American politics and media."

From there, the MRC went into full protect-Fox News mode, defending Fox News' paltry, late-to-the-game coverage of the scandal -- it averaged three segments a day, actually not a lot for a 24-hour "news" channel -- even though Fox's then-Sunday morning media watch program explicitly stated it would not cover the story when it broke (though it eventually did).The MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, weighed in as well, complaining the scandal was being used to target Fox News, which "is pegged as a conservative news outlet (perhaps because it is, in fact, a conservatrive news outlet?).

Rather than admit that his employer once labored to downplay the scandal he's now trying to exploit because it can be used to bash a new MRC enemy, Vazquez spent the rest of his post grumbling about "pro-James Murdoch fanboying" on CNN over him ceasing to be rabid right-winger. But it's the MRC's job to protect Fox News at all costs -- even when it involves flip-flopping on a major story.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:25 PM EST

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The Media Research Center was quick to embrace the case of an alleged sexual assault of a girl in a Virginia high school -- not because it cares about the girl, of course, but because the alleged perpetrator was "a boy in a skirt," which fits the MRC's anti-LGBT narrative, and because it could help get Republican Glenn Youngkin elected Virginia governor. In doing so, the MRC all but censored the full story of the case -- namely, that the students had a history of consensual sex before the assault occurred and that the encounter in question began as consensual sex before the girl withdrew consent -- that complicates the story and blows up the simplistic narrative of a depraved transsexual that the MRC wanted the story to be about.

As the Virginia gubernatorial election drew closer, the MRC tried to stay laser-focused on putting the narrative before facts. Nicholas Fondacaro ranted in an Oct. 28 post:

Thursday was a rough one of the liberal media’s blackout of the heinous and criminal behavior allowed to happen in schools by the liberal Loudoun County School Board. There were more alleged sexual assaults at a middle school involving groping and there was new evidence that Critical Race Theory was being peddled in by the Virginia Department of Education, plus reports of the law enforcement assets the school board wanted to bear against parents. All of it went ignored by the broadcast networks.

In his Oct. 29 column, Tim Graham hyped "actual sexual assaults in the high schools of Loudoun County" and that "a Loudoun County judge ruled the assault occurred," going on to play whataboutism to attack the Associated Press for an early story calling the story around the assault "murky":

A quick search of AP archives in 2018 shows their reporters never used the word “murky” to describe Christine Blasey Ford’s completely unproven charges of sexual assault by a teenaged Brett Kavanaugh. They did report “the conservative jurist's prospects of Senate confirmation remained murky.”

Peoples and his AP team added “Youngkin’s final-days focus on sexual predators in schools, hardly a widespread issue, will test the limits of his suburban outreach,” and “Youngkin’s dark message represents a new front in his monthslong push to repair the Republican Party’s standing in the suburbs” after Trump.

You can guess the AP didn’t describe the Democrats in the Kavanaugh hearings claiming rape was a “dark message” or “hardly a widespread issue.”

You can guess that Graham didn't tell his readers the full story of the assault.

The same day, Geoffrey Dickens cranked out a summary item:

On October 11, The Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak dropped a bombshell report that exposed how the Loudoun County, Virginia School Board covered up the rape of a 15-year-old girl in the girls’ bathroom at the hands of a boy in a skirt just so they could pass a transgender bathroom policy. It was a horrific case of an out-of-control liberal school board putting their leftist agenda ahead of the safety of students.

Since the story broke, the boy was found guilty by a judge, there have been protests and student walkouts and it’s become a key issue in the closely watched Virginia governor’s race. So how much of their primetime programming has CNN and MSNBC spent on this explosive story?

Just 3 minutes, 8 seconds.

[...]

While Fox News aired 1 hour, 44 minutes, 38 seconds on the Loudoun sex assault case, CNN spent zero seconds on it. MSNBC primetime viewers saw just 3 minutes, 8 seconds total on the topic.

Dickens didn't explain why the story justified the nearly two hours of coverage on Fox News, or why he's using that as the benchmark for what other news channels should have done on the story.

Kristine Marsh huffed in a Nov. 1 post:

The media are desperately trying to salvage Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s chances in Virginia’s governor's race, after his alarming comments about parents and education have cost him in the very tight election. 

This week, MSNBC went so far as to call Loudoun County Public Schools in VA covering up a sexual assault as a “manufactured” and “made up” controversy.

[...]

On MSNBC’s Morning Joe the next morning, it wasn’t much better. Co-host Joe Scarborough and New York Times’ columnist Michelle Goldberg mocked the Loudoun County rape case as a “big lie”:

Scarborough complained that the first sexual assault by a boy wearing a skirt in the girls’ room happened before the transgender policy was in place, so any anger over it was inconsequential:

“This was a guy that went in and sexually assaulted a girl. There is no controversial bathroom policy regarding trans students. This is just a controversy that you and your column point out that's just been made-up,” he sneered.

Scarborough insisted again that the school’s transgender policy had nothing to do with the rape. (Does he think that allowing boys into girl’s locker rooms and bathrooms will diminish sexual assaults?)

Marsh didn't tell her readers that the encounter began as consensual, with the boy and girl agreeing to meet in the bathroom -- making it completely irrelevant to any transgender policy the school district is contemplating.

Having achieved its goal with Youngkin's election on Nov. 2, the MRC largely stopped caring about the assualt case, except to cite it in criticizing non-Fox coverage. A Nov. 4 item by Scott Whitlock complained that ABC pointed out the right-wing button-pushing that helped Youngkin win:

The media blame game for Tuesday’s Democratic election losses intensified on Thursday as ABC’s Jon Karl pinned the losses in Virginia on Republicans “exploiting parents's fears” when it came to issues like crime. What, specifically, could Karl be referring to? Perhaps the rape of a young teen by a boy in the girl’s bathroom? Karl didn’t explain and the networks have been hiding the Loudoun, Virginia rape story that galvanized the governor’s race in Virginia. 

Like his colleagues, Whitlock hid the full story of the assault from readers.

Graham used his Nov. 10 column to complain that CNN's Brian Stelter pointed out Fox News' obsession with the case and Loudoun County school politics in particular:

Stelter complained about all the “propaganda and grifting” from the right about local school-board issues in Loudoun County, Virginia. He claimed there were more than 400 references to the county on Fox News in 2021. But he never mentioned the sexual assaults in high schools there as an issue. Was that “grifting” to mention? This misses the fact that the left makes national news out of local crimes and controversies all the time. See George Floyd in Minneapolis, or Michael Brown in Ferguson.

There are worlds of difference between those stories, and Graham does not explain why the deaths of George Floyd and Michael Brown should not have received national notice. Nor did Graham admit that Fox and right-wing media glommed onto the Loudoun assault story to exploit their own agendas and get Youngkin elected.

Fondacaro whined the same day:

On Wednesday afternoon, Loudoun County parents, via the organization Fight for Schools, filed their petition to recall their corrupt, radical leftist school board after the members and the superintendent tried to cover up a rape in a girl’s bathroom by a “gender-fluid” boy wearing a skirt. It was the latest development in a county that has garnered national attention; but yet again, the broadcast networks skipped it during their flagship evening newscasts.

[...]

NBC can claim the outrage wasn’t genuine all they wanted but clearly, it was as Fox News noted the parents were sticking it to the school board.

Because crowing about how well Fox News is exploiting the tragedy is more important than the tragedy itself.

We've already noted that Kyle Drennen used a Nov. 18 post to complain that NBC essentially did what Fox News did by focusing on issues in a school district in Texas while "it willfully ignored multiple scandals – including two student sexual assaults – rocking the entire Loudoun County, Virginia school system, which had a major impact on the commonwealth’s closely-watched governor’s race." Of course, Drenne would never admit that Fox was exploiting the Loudon situation for political purposes the way he claims NBC was "relentlessly attacking" the Texas school district.

It appears the MRC has little further use for the female victim in the assault as a victim -- only as a partisan tool. Its agenda not only comes before the truth, it comes before basic human decency.

Posted by Terry K. at 5:57 PM EST

Updated: Sunday, December 5, 2021 9:02 PM EST

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We documented how CNSNews.com wasn't enthusiastic about Glenn Youngkin's candidacy for Virginia governor and even attempted a horribly botched hit job on him early in his candidacy. CNS did, however, push storylines that were designed to boost Youngkin's campaign regarding threats against school boards and a sexual assault at a Virginia school. As the Nov. 2 election approached, CNS did ramp up enthusiasm for the race. In a Nov. 1 article, Craig Bannister touted how Youngkin praised a rally-goer's T-shirt stating "I do not co-parent with government" and pushed his right-wing narratives:

“Terry McAuliffe wants to put government between parents and their children,” Republican Glenn Youngkin said at a campaign rally Sunday, warning of his Democrat [sic] opponent in Virginia’s race for governor ahead of Tuesday’s vote.

Youngkin issued the warning as Virginia school boards, such as that in Loudoun County, seek to silence parents who object to the imposition of liberal ideologies – such as transgender school bathrooms and the teaching of Critical Race Theory – upon their children.

The same day, Megan Williams echoed the talking point, transcribing a Youngkin appearnce on the Fox News show of CNS' favorite right-wing radio host, Mark Levin, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. and declaring that he will "ban" critical race theory on his first day as governor.

Another Nov. 1 article, by Melanie Arter, pushed an anti-McAuliffe, anti-Democratic narrative: "Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher predicted Sunday that if former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, (D) loses the governor’s race to Republican Youngkin, it will be 'catastrophic' for Democrats, because the last time a Democrat lost Virginia, they lose 60 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives."

The only article CNS published the day of the election was a piece by Patrick Goodenough quoting President Biden stating that the race wasn't a referendum on his policies. When Youngkin ended up winning, however, CNS was absolutely effusive in its praise (and its bashing of McAuliffe), devoting more articles to reaction to the results over the next couple of days than it did before the election itself:

• Youngkin Wins: 'We Will Change the Trajectory of This Commonwealth'
• Trump: I Didn't Need to Rally for Youngkin 'Because McAuliffe Did It For Me'
• Youngkin Win ‘a Vote of Confidence in Free People and Free Enterprise Running Their Own Lives,’ Fmr. Va. Gov. Allen Says
• McCarthy: Glenn Youngkin’s Win Tells You ‘Policy Matters’
• Youngkin Beat McAuliffe 51% to 49% Among Parents Who Have Children Under 18
• Youngkin Beat McAuliffe 56% to 44% Among Male Voters
• Scalise: If Democrats Keep Voting for ‘Big Government Socialism, They’re Going the Same Way as Terry McAuliffe’
• Biden’s Takeaway from Dem Loss in Virginia Gubernatorial Race: Pass My Economic Agenda
• Pelosi Repeats Her 2012 Election Response: ‘The People Have Spoken’ – But, That Won’t Stop Us
• Sen. Rick Scott: Americans Are Fed Up with Inflation, Defunding the Police, and Democrats Trying to Indoctrinate Their Kids

An anonymous CNS writer took yet another Biden-is-senile shot in a Nov. 4 article:

When President Joe Biden was asked at a press conference on Wednesday “how much responsibility” he took for the bad results the Democratic Party saw in Tuesday’s election, Biden responded that he had called Virginia’s defeated Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe “to congratulate him.”

The article later appended an editor's note to rub that talking point in further: "This story has been updated to note that President Biden's claim that "no governor in Virginia has ever won when he is of the...same party as the sitting president" is incorrect. When McAuliffe was elected governor of Virginia in 2013, Democrat Barack Obama was the sitting president."

A Nov. 11 article by Williams featured former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard calling McAuliffe's loss a “win for all Americans” because Democrats are purportedly trying to divide the country. We've noted CNS' flip-flop on Gabbard, suddenly embracing her because of her newfound support for Donald Trump and hatred of Hillary Clinton, while ignoring her coziness with murderous dictatorial regimes in Russia and Syria.

Youngkin's running mate for lieutenant governor, Winsome Sears, got some after-the-fact CNS love too. A Nov. 3 article by Susan Jones touted how "Winsome Sears will become Virginia's first black Republican lieutenant governor" and how she parroted right-wing talking points on Fox News, while an article by Bannister later that day was even gushier:

“I love this country so much, I’m willing to die protecting it,” Republican Virginia Lt. Gov.-Elect Winsome Sears, a Jamaican-born Marine Corps veteran, said Wednesday, introducing a Twitter video, in which she declares her love for America and leads a crowd in chanting “U-S-A!”

CNS helped Sears even less than it did Youngkin, but now it wants on her bandwagon too now that she won.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:28 PM EST

Updated: Sunday, December 5, 2021 4:43 PM EST

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Conservatives normally love criminals who rehabilitate themselves -- but only if they become conservatives. If not, well, that crime is an irreversible scar that will be held over your head for the rest of your life. And that's what mystierious Media Research Center sports blogger Jay Maxson does in an Oct. 19 post trying to manufacturing outrage that the longtime manager of the Michael Jordan brand at Nike served prison time as a youth for killing another teen:

The inconsistencies in what's acceptable in sports are beyond bizarre. Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden just watched his career fizzle away over 10-year-old text messages on race and gender. Meanwhile, NBA and NHL players are being punished for not getting coronavirus vaccinations. Also, the man who’s led Nike’s Jordan brand for 40 years has been hiding a murder secret for 56 years, and he is “beloved.”

In 1965, Larry Miller shot and killed Edward White in Philadelphia. Now 72, Miller has guarded this secret from Jordan, Nike founder Phil Knight and NBA executives. The black executive is spilling his guts in the book Jump: My Secret Journey From the Streets to the Boardroom, co-written with his daughter Laila Lacy. It will be published by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins, next year.

Now living a life of luxury, Miller told Sports Illustrated writer Howard Beck he wants to share his secret on his own terms. How convenient for him! He says the book release “will free him to discuss his experiences with at-risk youth and people in prison, and perhaps help steer others away from violence and toward a productive life.” Not to mention the advice he can give to young people convicted of crimes to dishonestly hide their secrets for half a century.

Maxson gives Miller no credit whatsoever for rehabilitating himself to become a successful businessman. Instead, he (or she) whines that "celebrating criminals is now normal for the NBA, whose players boycotted games last year in support of criminals like Jacob Blake who clashed with police," then once again runs to the defense of former NFL coach Jon Gruden, fired for bigoted and racist emails:

Then there’s Gruden, whose NFL coaching career was quickly over because of remarks he made about people’s lips and gender in 2011. Of the objects of Gruden’s criticism, one is the president of the United States, one is the head of the NFL players union (DeMaurice Smith) and others are working as NFL game officials. Gruden’s choice of words was careless, but he didn’t murder anyone and then deceive anyone about it for half a century. The wild inconsistencies of sports punishments are utterly absurd.

Note that Maxson describes Gruden as merely "careless" and not hateful. Also note, since Maxson didn't that Miller paid his debt to society a long time ago, while Gruden's debt-paying has just started. Maxson clearly doesn't believe that Gruden should face any consequences at all for his hateful words.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:12 AM EST

Updated: Saturday, December 4, 2021 9:57 AM EST

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Michael Brown reminds us that he still hates LGBT people in his Oct. 20 WorldNetDaily column:

In their landmark 1990 book "After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90's," gay strategists Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen laid out a brilliant plan for changing American attitudes toward homosexuality. They stated that "to desensitize straights to gays and gayness, inundate them in a continuous flood of gay-related advertising, presented in the least offensive fashion possible. If straights can't shut off the shower, they may at least eventually get used to being wet."

Looking back from the vantage point of 2021, we can now say that this was not a matter of shutting off a shower and thereby getting wet. It was a matter of not shutting off a continual downpour, thereby getting soaked. And the soaking continues by the hour, with transgender taking the place of gay in the bombardment.

That's why it is imperative that we refuse to get used to this new normal.

It is not normal. It will never be normal. And we must not accept it as normal.

It violates natural law, and it violates God's design for humanity. Surely, He has a better way.

Brown then followed WND in attacking transgender health official Rachel Levine:

What about the latest news concerning Richard "Rachel" Levine? He has now been promoted to four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, earning praise from outlets like the Washington Post, which celebrated the "organization's first-ever female four-star admiral."

Except that Levine is a biological male who identifies as female. Yet this is somehow a breakthrough for women? Isn't it really a slap in the face of other women, since the first "female" to reach this rank is not a female at all?

Sorry, but I refuse to accept this as the new normal, let alone celebrate this as some kind of big moment for women. Not a chance.

His screed concluded:

The world has gone mad, which is why I continue to use scare quotes when referring to gay "marriage," not to insult gay couples, but to refuse to accept this as "marriage."

And that's why, as much as there were other things I would rather write about, yet again, I needed to raise my voice.

I urge you, my friend. Do not accept this as normal.

In his Oct. 30 column, Brown raged against a candy bar commercial because it featured a boy wearing a dress on Halloween:

There is nothing covert about the message, nothing sublime, nothing cryptic. Quite the contrary, the message is clear and in your face. If you have a problem with a little boy wearing a princess dress and believe that people who dress like witches with spiked collars look weird, you will be blown away – meaning, literally blown away. As in swept away by a gust of wind produced by a dark, angry witch. And this is a Twix commercial for Halloween?

The ad itself is slow moving and hardly compelling, not the kind of commercial that would make you want to eat a candy bar.

It features a boy in a princess dress with his new nanny, dressed all in witch-like black, as they go to a park for the boy to play.

But the pace picks up when another boy says to the boy in the dress, "You look like a girl" (which he does). The boy then asks, "Why are you wearing that?"

The boy in the dress replies, "Dressing like this makes me feel good," which apparently is supposed to be a powerful line in defense of trans identity.

Yes, as any parent knows, if your child feels good doing something, then by all means, you should encourage them to do it, regardless of what lines are crossed and what boundaries are transgressed. After all, isn't that the key to effective parenting, namely, determining if your values and rules and guidelines make your children feel good? If not, well, we know the old adage: children know best! (Apologies for the sarcasm.)

What makes the Twix scenario all the more tragic is that there is a rapidly growing body of evidence against children acting out their trans identities, especially with the help of puberty blockers and then sex-change surgery.

Brown's response to the commercial's depiction of bullying was to say that he would teach his children not to bully quite so overtly, and besides, transgender people are the real bullies:

To be sure, if I were raising a child today I would teach that child not to insult other kids, let alone adults. That means I would not be encouraging my son or daughter to tell others that they were "weird."

At the same time, I would teach my child that a boy who wears a princess dress is confused, in need of love and prayer rather than affirmation and praise.

And while I would not want my child to tell a witch that she was weird, I would certainly tell my child that the devil was real, that demons were real, and that witches were playing with unholy fire, needing to be saved and redeemed.

For Twix, however, the synopsis of the ad was, "With a little magic, the new nanny helps a non-binary child deal with bullies and find self-acceptance."

So, the way to deal with a child bully is to be a bigger bully, in this case, an adult bully, more specifically an adult witch bully with destructive powers. That's how you help a trans child find self-acceptance: by destroying, or at the least endangering and terrifying, another child who makes fun of him.

Don't you just love the voice of tolerance?

For his Nov. 10 column, Brown finally got around to complaining there was a gay character in a Disney movie released months earlier:

Forgive me for being late to the party, but it was only this week that I saw most of Disney's new movie "Jungle Cruise." The movie is rated PG-13 and is based on the Disney theme park ride of the same name. It features mega-star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and tells the story of a courageous single woman in search of a healing cure located on the Amazon. Johnson is the boat captain, and the woman (Emily Blunt) is accompanied by her utterly wimpy, fear-filled brother (Jack Whitehall), who, it turns out, is gay.

But why, oh why, must the brother be gay? What is gained by it? How is the plot enhanced? If anything, Whitehall's character plays right into negative gay stereotypes. And of what value are the vulgar, double entendre sexual jokes? Disney studios, why, oh why?

[...]

The reality, of course, is that LGBTQ characters abound on TV and in the movies. And if you identify as LGBTQ and want to see someone like yourself on the screen, you can readily do it, right up to being a gay or bi or trans superhero.

Disney would do best to give up throwing "gay bread crumbs" to their LGBTQ viewers and simply make family-friendly movies that will not offend the historic moral sensibilities of their viewers – unless they have pushed most of them away already.

Nothing so offends the "moral sensibilities" of people like Brown than to be shown that gay people exist.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:24 AM EST

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Curtis Houck apparently got bored with his relentless Jen Psaki-bashing and his man-crushing over Peter Doocy -- after writing his highly biased review of what dismissively calls "The Psaki Show" on Oct. 22, he didn't write one for more than three weeks. Part of that time, though, Psaki was off duty after being diagnosed for COVID, though briefings continued under deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, whom Houck has denigrated as nothing more than a beneficiary of "diversity bingo." Apparently Houck hates Jean-Pierre so much that he refuses to even review her hearings for the same lashing-out screeds he piles on Psaki.

Thus, it was the duty of Scott Whitlock to look at a Nov. 8 briefing by Jean-Pierre, albeit only to complain that the "liberal media" aren't covering questions from the briefing about "the latest terrible polls for Joe Biden" (whom Whitlock apparently still won't acknowledge won the election and is president).Whitlock complained that Jean-Pierre served up "talking points" for one question and "stonewalled" another, but he didn't explain how that was any different from how any given Trump White House press secretary had behaved.

Houck didn't return to briefing writeups until Psaki did. In writing about the Nov. 12 briefing, he seemed sad that "Fox’s Peter Doocy wasn’t in attendance" but happy that someone asked about "Let's Go Brandon" chants. But he did latch on to another biased right-wingh reporter in Doocy's stead:

And with Doocy not in attendance, it was Jacqui Time in the Briefing Room as Fox colleague Jacqui Heinrich drew lengthy Psaki word salads with denial dressings on gas prices and then a study from the Tax Policy Center that revealed Biden’s so-called human infrastructure plan would lower taxes on wealthy Americans rather than raise them[.]

For the Nov. 15 briefing, though, Houck was in full Doocy-gasm mode:

After not having been around for Friday’s return of The Psaki Show, Fox’s Peter Doocy made the most of his first crack at Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Monday’s installment with hardballs on President Biden’s past comments smearing Kyle Rittenhouse, new reports about tension between the White House and Vice President Harris, and whether the U.S. government will boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

Doocy started his turn by getting right to the chase on China: “Ahead of this meeting with President Xi, is President Biden considering a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics this winter?”

Just as she did on Friday when asked by Reuters’s Andrea Shalal, Psaki ducked and refused to stand up for human rights, saying she doesn’t “have anything beyond that for you.”

[...]

Doocy wrapped by drilling down on President Biden’s attacks on Rittenhouse just after the August 25, 2020 shootings: “Why did President Biden suggest that Kyle Rittenhouse, on trial in Kenosha, is a white supremacist?”

[...]

Doocy tried again, pointing out the fact that Biden did weigh in and “Kyle Rittenhouse’s mom came out saying that the President defamed her son and...she claims that when the President suggested her son is a white supremacist, he was doing that to win votes.”

Questioned whether that was the case, Psaki made it clear she was done: “I just having nothing more to speak to — an ongoing case where the closing arguments were just made.”

Houck then went on another vacay from his brief-bashing duties. He didn't return until Nov. 23, when he could have another Doocy-gasm under the ridiculously hateful yet word-salady headline "Doocy Stuff's Psaki's Gobbles":

In the final episode of The Psaki Show before Thanksgiving, Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy went into the break with a bang as he grilled Jen Psaki over far-left Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib’s proposal to abolish prisons, pressing for answers on whether President Biden will apologize for impugning Kyle Rittenhouse’s character, the record costs for Thanksgiving dinner, and Biden’s holiday vacation to Nantucket.

[...]

The Fox reporter moved on to Rittenhouse and followed up on questions he asked from November 15: “Would the President ever apologize to the acquitted Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse for suggesting online and on TV that he is a white supremacist?”

Predictably, Psaki made it all about Donald Trump: “[T]his is about a campaign video release last year that used President Trump's own words during a debate as he refused to condemn white supremacists and militia groups.”

Without stating it, Psaki appeared to give oxygen to Biden’s lie, saying he’s called out “the tragic consequences of” extremists feeling emboldened to the point “when people think it is okay to take the law into their own hands instead of allowing law enforcement to do its job.”

Houck refused to highlight that there is evidence of Rittenhouse having white supremacist sympathies, in the form of him hanging out with the Proud Boys and flashing hate symbols shortly after he killed two people and wounded another, so Biden is not "lying" at all. Psaki did point that out in her response to Doocy, but Houck left that buried in a transcript.

There was more sucking up to Doocy for the Nov. 29 briefing:

The Psaki Show returned Monday following the Thanksgiving holiday with a packed show on the heels of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus and a host of new travel restrictions. So, it fell to Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy to question Press Secretary Jen Psaki on, among other issues, President Biden’s hypocrisy on Covid travel bans and his latest mask faux pas.

Doocy cut right to the chase with a question no one had asked Biden following his Covid remarks or Psaki prior to his turn: “Before Joe Biden was President, he said that Covid travel restrictions on foreign countries were ‘hysterical,’ ‘xenophobia,’ and ‘fearmongering.’ So, what changed?”

Possessing zero shame, Psaki insisted he “put it in full context,” which was supposedly about Biden being “critical of was the way that the former President put out, I believe, a xenophobic tweet, in how he called — what he called the coronavirus, and — and who he directed it at.”

Psaki added that Biden “has not been critical of travel restrictions” since “we have put those in place ourselves” to “follow the advice of health and medical experts.”

As our friend Matt Whitlock pointed out, Psaki’s response should be torn to pieces by the so-called fact-checkers in the establishment press as Biden did indeed denounce the China ban.

Actually, Houck's friend is wrong -- not once did Biden reference the China travel ban when he accused Trump of xenophobia, and he later expressed support for travel bans.

In the midst of more Doocy-gasming, Houck actually got mad at Psaki for pointing out that Biden is following the law on thte southern border:

Touching on two other topics before wrapping, Doocy applied the same pressure he did on travel bans with one about the Remain in Mexico policy: “Joe Biden once described the Remain in Mexico policy as ‘dangerous,’‘ inhumane,’ ‘goes against everything we stand for as a nation of immigrants.’ So, why is he keeping it?”

Psaki affirmed Biden “continues to stand behind exactly those comments and statements,” but the administration has had to reimplement it due to a court order, which Doocy took as time to move to the last question.

Pointing out that Biden said last week his “administration is monitoring the situation in Waukesha closely” and how it’s since “revealed by prosecutors that the assailant — the assailant swerved his truck side-to-side as part of an intentional act to run over as many people as possible,” Doocy wondered why Biden hasn’t gone to visit the victims.

Using a line that would have been ridiculed if uttered by a Trump official, Psaki emphasized that “our hearts go out to this community” and they were “in touch...with officials,” but there’s no trip to announce because “any president going to visit a community requires a lot of assets” and “requires taking their resources.”

Because Houck and the MRC remain Trump stans, he would never have ridiculed Trump for saying such a thing, because we know that unlike Biden, Trump is a attention-glomming egomaniac who has a pathological need to insert himself in the middle of everything.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:48 PM EST

Updated: Wednesday, December 15, 2021 9:10 PM EST

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We noted that a WorldNetDaily column by Wayne Allyn Root resurrected the old Cloward-Piven bogeyman to rage against vaccine mandates. But he was not the first WND writer to do so. That honor, such as it is, goes to Joseph Farah in his Oct. 14 column:

We haven't been hearing possible explanations for Joe Biden's actions over the last nine months other than stupidity, a cognitive disorder, misguided thinking, even insanity.

But is it possible that he's being guided by some close to him who are following a scheme much more malign – the Cloward-Piven Strategy?

[...]

The Cloward-Piven Strategy has been adopted as part of mainstream leftist ideology. It's the Rosetta stone for understanding what progressives do and why they do it. It seems to make no sense on the surface to non-leftist ideologues. It seems like irrationality, stupidity or even insanity. But it's not. It's pure evil from the pit of hell.

It's the kind of thinking that led to the gas chambers. It's the kind of thinking that led to the gulags. It's the kind of thinking that led to the guillotines.

I fear it comes from the evil nature of those who plan to finish the job of fundamentally transforming America.

Let's recall that the Obama administration, which included Joe Biden, first set out to kill the flawed but greatest health care system the world had ever known. Obama lied repeatedly about what he was doing. He misrepresented his intentions and his goals. Once he got what he wanted and people could see it didn't work the way they thought it would work, he told them they just didn't understand. He told them it was their imaginations that they were losing their health insurance, paying more for medical services and being denied treatment.

You see, in this example, if you followed the Cloward-Piven Strategy, your goal was never to provide better and more affordable health care. It was to destroy the system and replace it with complete government control.

Farah went on to claim without evidence that "New York City went bankrupt in the 1970s because of the Cloward-Piven Strategy specifically designed to precipitate a crisis in the welfare system. No one made the direct connection back then. It took years to figure it out."

Farah concluded by ranting:

If it's not error, bad judgment, misguided thinking, irrationality, ideological and multicultural blindness or insanity that explains what Biden and the cabal of pseudo-scientists, ideologues and population-control activists are doing on the China virus front, what does?

I fear it's something much worse – Cloward-Piven.

Will it bring America to its knees as it brought down New York City in the '70s? Only if we recognize it's intentional – rather than the work of just a goofball, senile president.

Spoken like a true -- and truly untrustworthy -- conspiracy theorist.

Posted by Terry K. at 5:29 PM EST

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Media Research Center executive Tim Graham is so desperate to discredit fact-checkers for daring to fact-check his fellow conservatives that his fails in that area keep piling up. He did this again in an Oct. 14 post:

PolitiFact gets very defensive when Republicans attack the Biden administration. On Monday, PolitiFact's Jon Greenberg gave Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) a "False" for an October 5 tweet about Attorney General Merrick Garland's controversial orders to investigate parents as potential violent criminals. 

Rick Scott wrongly warns FBI coming after loud parents at school board meetings."

The clear answer is that the FBI is not targetng parents for merely speaking out at school board meetings, and Garland has never said otherwise. Even Graham's own MRC could find no evidence of such in the National School Boards Association's letter to Garland expressing their concerns, claiming only that the letter "suggested" such a claim. Rather than admit the evidence doesn't support him, Graham demanded that things outside Scott's claim be fact-checked and insisted that someone's speculation is just the same as a debunking:

Greenberg quoted from Garland's memo....but never imagined whether he should check the liberal argument, if there has in fact been a "disturbing spike" in threats or violence at school administrators. Does anyone have a count?

[...]

The only note of balance in this piece is law professor Eugene Volokh arguing "Garland mentioned harassment and intimidation. If he had stopped with criminal threats, we would agree. But I’ve seen the terms ‘harassment’ and ‘intimidation’ used very broadly. I can see someone at a meeting worrying that if they get up too often, or they say too much, they might be charged."

Graham didn't explain why law enforcement isn't allowed to be proactive and that they must wait until a school board member is injured or killed before anyone is allowed to question the actions of parents whipped into a frenzy by right-wing activists pushing dubious claims (like the MRC). Instead, he launched a personal attack on the researcher for daring to fact-check Scott, then lashed out at PolitiFact for fact-checking conservatives at all:

Greenberg has pounced on Scott seven times this year -- all of them "Mostly False" or "False." Overall, in 2021, Jon Greenberg has fact checks on Republican politicians or entities, and just seven on all Democrats. Four of those were on President Biden. Greenberg's two fact checks on Senate Democrats (Tim Kaine and Sherrod Brown) were both rated "True."

Overall, Rick Scott has 172 fact checks from PolitiFact -- 80 of them Mostly False or worse. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer has... 23.

Let's guess this is because Scott is from Florida, and PolitiFact is a project of the Poynter Institute in Florida. Nelson has only 30 fact checks. Fully half of those were "True" or "Mostly True," and only six were "Mostly False" or "False."

As much as Graham loves to whine about conservatives being fact-checked, he has never provided evidence to back up his unspoken contention that Democratic politicians lie at least as much as Republican ones in a way that would justify the fact-checking equity he's effectively demanding. It seems as if he's afraid that inconveneient facts would get in the way of his narrative.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:59 PM EST

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During both impeachments of Donald Trump, CNSNews.com was a fierce advocate for him, denouncing the procedure as frivolous and stupid. But when frivolous attempts to impeach Presdient Biden and his administration officials came from Republican members of Congress and its favorite right-wing radio host, CNS was more than happy to uncritically promote them, even though they're nothing more than political stunts that come from a desire by Republicans for political revenge against the Democrats who impeached Trump.

Indeed, CNS was pushing for Biden's impeachiment even before he took office. We've noted that Susan Jones cheered that extremist Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene planned to file articles of impeachment against Biden on Jan. 21, the day after he took office, though there were few coherent details to offer as far as a reason -- which is to say, it was being done out of pure spite (which apparently was totally cool with CNS). As the year went on, less fringe voices made impeachment a talking point -- and CNS was glad to help. Jones helped Mark Levin prime the pump in an Aug. 5 article:

It's time for "tough guy Republicans" to discuss impeaching President Joe Biden, conservative radio host, lawyer, author and constitutional scholar Mark Levin told Fox News's Sean Hannity Wednesday night.

Levin called Biden "the most disastrous president in modern American history."

"Isn't it time to remove this guy from the Oval Office or at least make an effort?" Levin asked. "So you tough guy Republicans who come on here, you tough guy Republicans on radio, how about it? The I-word, impeachment -- let's start to talk about it. Or the 25th amendment. It will never happen, but let's start to talk about it. He's doing more damage to this country as far as I'm concerned than any single one of our enemies."

On Aug. 11, Jones parroted a Republican congressman's desire to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whose first name she couldn't bother to put in the lead paragraph her article, which is basic journalistic style:

"Secretary Mayorkas is a threat to the sovereignty and security of our nation," Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said on Tuesday, as he filed articles of impeachment against the Homeland Security Secretary.

"As a result of his actions and policies, America is more in danger today than when he began serving as Secretary. He is willfully refusing to maintain operational control of the border and is encouraging aliens to enter our country illegally," Biggs said in a statement.

Jones did concede that Biggs admitted his impeachment attempt is a stunt: "In the Democrat [sic] controlled House, the attempt to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas is unlikely to go anywhere, but it does serve to highlight the crisis in border communities, Biggs told One America News Network." However, she made no attempt to contact Mayorkas for a response.

In an Aug. 26 article, Melanie Arter transcribed an appearance by former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows on Sean Hannity's Fox News show, where he delcared that "I think he is unfit, and quite frankly, there are talks of impeachment going on, on Capitol Hill right now." an Aug. 30 article by Megan Williams touted Levin ranting some moare about impeaching Biden: "But should not Republicans start to talk about the removal of this president, or the fact that the cabinet needs to start considering the 25th Amendment; otherwise, what is the point of impeachment and the 25th Amendment?"

Patrick Goodenough used a Sept. 1 article to hype how "members of the House Freedom Caucus on Tuesday said President Biden, Defense Secretary Gen. Lloyd Austin and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley should resign" over the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and that "caucus members are also calling for the impeachment of Secretary of State Antony Blinken."

Jones gushed over another GOP imperachment stunt in a Sept. 23 article:

Four Republican House members are calling for the impeachment of President Biden, based on "clear violations of his duties as president."

They admit the effort won't go anywhere in a Democrat-controlled government, but they describe it as a "shot across the bow" for "when" Republicans take back the House in 2022.

Again, Jones couldn't be bothered to contact the target of the impeachment attempt for a response.

Jones devoted an Oct. 18 article to yet another fearmongering impeachment call made on Fox News:

"Joe Biden is criminally negligent. His administration, I think, is criminally negligent when it comes to controlling our border," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in a Saturday interview with Fox News’s Judge Jeanine Pirro.

Graham said Biden should be impeached for failing to secure the United States:

[...]

Graham said the terrorists now roaming freely in Afghanistan may one day take advantage of the open southwest border -- "come here and kill a bunch of us if we don't change."

"Our men and women in the Border Patrol and I.C.E. are under siege. They are American heroes. You just would not believe what it's like to work along the border. I don't know how they do it, and they've been completely abandoned by President Biden, and he should be impeached over this.

“This is dereliction of duty, and a bunch of Americans are going to get killed if we don't change our policies quickly."

As usual, Jones remained in stenography mode and sought no comment from the White House.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:38 AM EST

Updated: Friday, December 3, 2021 9:05 AM EST

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We've documented how the Media Research Center sided with Dave Chappelle over his transphobic humor, and it was nowhere near done doing so. Tim Graham whined in his Oct. 22 column:

The Left claims that their most urgent battle is to save democracy, but when it comes to any questioning of the LGBT lobby, they are the ones that sound like authoritarians. The overtones are unmistakable in the “news” coverage promoting “dozens” of employees walking out of Netflix in Los Angeles on October 20 in protest. The target? A popular Dave Chappelle comedy special titled The Closer.

Tens of thousands of pro-lifers can assemble against abortion and be ignored, but assemble two dozen transgender lobbyists, and NBC and PBS treat it as momentous.

If an anti-abortion protest occurs once a year every year for 40-plus years, it ceases to be news. Graham simply wants the "liberal media" to serve as propagandists for right-wing causes.

Graham went on to complain about a NBC report about the Netflx protest: "NBC’s stilted story failed to offer one clip or quote or explanation of what Chappelle said that was offensive. We can guess it’s because the comedian said 'gender is a fact' and 'Every human being on Earth had to pass through the legs of a woman to be on Earth. That is a fact.' Is that somehow too horrific for NBC to include?" Graham is cherry-picking a remark that conveniently echoes right-wing narratives; Chappelle said many other transphobic things.

Graham had right-wing movie critic Christian Toto on his Oct. 22 podcast to defend Chappelle some more. Toto fawned over Chappelle as "the most popular, most talented stand-up of his time" and complained that Chappelle's critics weren't quoting what Chappelle actually said -- though he didn't call out Graham for selectively quoting Chappelle in a way that advances right-wing narratives.Tot went on to grouse that non-famous people drew attention to Chappelle's transphobic humor: "Chappelle has millions of fans. People love the work he does. And you know, he's a liberal guy -- it's not like conservatives are rallying for a fellow conservative. But, you know, why should this small group of people have say and sway over what Dave Chappelle is able to do?"

The MRC is a pretty small group too; why should it have say and sway over anything? But Toto never asked Graham that.

Graham responded by arguing that only "fans of Chappelle" or "people who think comedians should have free speech" have the right to tell people why they find Chappelle offensive. He went on repeat his charry-picking, insisting that Chappelle wasn't "mocking transgenders" but his saying "things they can't stand to hear, which is gender is a fact, every one of us came out of a woman."

An Oct. 23 post by Toto rehashed another Chappelle-related thing he talked about in Graham's podcast, that the Associated Press and Variety "brazenly lie[d] about a Chappelle protest. He offered no evidence that the incorrect AP claims he called out were delibarate. Toto had to append an update admitting that the AP corrected its account of the protest.

On Oct. 27, Lydia Switzer unusually praised a CNN host for defending Chappelle:

On Tuesday’s New Day, CNN’s John Avlon surprisingly stood up for free speech: even speech he doesn’t like. He was part of a discussion, along with fellow liberal Mara Schiavocampo, about Dave Chappelle’s new comedy special The Closer, which has faced intense pushback and outrage from the cancel culture mob, especially from Netflix employees who claim that some of Chappelle’s jokes were offensive and transphobic. 

Netflix has refused to take down Chappelle’s special, which has high audience ratings and has been extremely popular on the streaming service since its release.

That would seem to undercut the MRC's narrative of CNN as relentlessly "liberal," but Switzer didn't bring that up. Instead, she brought up how Schiavocampo said she thought Chappelle's special was "mean," adding, "Unfortunately for Schiavocampo, mean and even offensive language is still speech worth protecting." Funny, the MRC doesn't seem to think so when that "mean and even offensive language" is directed at conservative.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:32 PM EST

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COVID misinformer Art Moore wrote in an Oct. 14 WorldNetDaily article:

Amid the controversy over basketball superstar Kyrie Irving's refusal to take a COVID-19 vaccine, a former NBA player says his season ended early last year after he developed blood clots he attributes to a COVID shot.

Brandon Goodwin, who was a point guard for the Atlanta Hawks, recently told his side of the story on a Twitch stream, SB Nation reported.

A team report said the player's season ended in May due to a "minor respiratory condition." But Goodwin said his health problems began after his received a COVID-19 vaccine.

"I got sick and I never quite recovered from it," Goodwin said on the stream, as posted on YouTube. "I would always have back pain, I was just super tired in the games."

He eventually decided to go see a doctor.

"That’s when I found out I had blood clots. That all within the span of a month," he said.

"I was fine until then," Goodwin said. "I was fine up until I took the vaccine, I was fine."

Moore didn't report two key pieces of information: 1) Goodwin seemed to walk back his cliam in a tweet stating, "I got sick. Maybe it was the vaccine maybe it was covid (i don’t know) I’m not a expert", and 2) blood clots are extremely rare complications; PolitiFact computed the occurrence of the most severe kind of blood clot linked to a COVID vaccine at 0.0003 percent.

It's a questionable story that WND decided to hype because it fit its anti-vaxx narrative. But not telling readers the full story is irresponsible, and it makes other websites not want to republish WND content -- thw whole point behind the WND News Center, its scheme to have donors pay for its reporting -- because it can't be trusted.

Posted by Terry K. at 7:43 PM EST

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Just as CNSNews.com took marching orders from its Media Research Center parent in hyping false right-wing attacks claiming that school offricials and the Department of Justice want to brand all parents who merely speak out at school board meetings while whipped up over conservative narratives about critical race theory and other subjects as domestic terrorists, it also promoted another related MRC narrative regarding a sexual assault that occurred in a Virginia school. Managing editor Michael W. Chapoman dutifully wrote in an Oct. 14 article:

In May, the 14-year-old daughter of plumber Scott Smith reportedly was raped in the girls’ bathroom at a Loudoun County, Va., public school by a boy wearing a skirt. The boy subsequently was transferred to another Virginia school where he reportedly attacked another female teen last week. All the while, the Loudoun County School Board was pushing a transgender bathroom policy, which it approved in August and has begun implementing.

Yet the major news outlets – ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC – aren’t covering the story, so far. The alleged rapist reportedly is a “gender-fluid individual,” according to Fox News.

[...]

As all this was occurring, the school board was enthusiastically supporting making accommodations for transgender students. Finally, in August, despite numerous parents’ objections, the board approved (7-2) a transgender rights policy, which requires teachers to call students by their preferred pronouns. It also mandates renovating the bathrooms in Loudoun County public schools to allow for “gender-inclusive” and “single-user restrooms.”

Chapman also not-so-helpfully added a stock photo of someone in a colorful skirt to illustrate his article, creepily suggesting this was the skirt the assailant wore during the attack. But he censored the fact that -- as even the MRC had to admit -- the alleged assault happened before the school board started discussing transgender rights. And as a loyal MRC employee, he made sure to add that his boss, Brent Bozell, went on Fox Business to whine that a local story wasn't getting national coverage, though he apparently never explained why this story deserved it -- although the unspoken reason was to push culture-war buttons to get a Republican, Glenn Youngkin, elected Virginia governor.

(CNS also devoted a separate article to Bozell's rantings. He's the boss, after all.)

Chapman also censored the full story of the assault: The boy and girl had previously had consensual sex, and the encounter in question began as consensual, with both agreeing to meet in the bathroom for sex, until the girl withdrew consent. It's no less of an assault, but it's much more complicated than Chapman's simplistic, transphobic narrative of "a boy wearing a skirt" randomly assaulting a female student.

Nevertheless, Chapman followed up in an Oct. 26 article:

Given that parents in Loudoun County, Va., were not informed about an alleged sexual assault of a ninth-grade girl in a public school bathroom by a boy wearing a skirt, five former state attorneys general have questioned the inaction of Virginia AG Mark Herring and "called for him to immediately open an investigation."

"The Loudoun County School Superintendent and the School Board chose not to report two sexual assaults to parents," the former attorneys general wrote. "With this failure, the school system places other girls at risk in Loudoun County and broke reporting regulations.”

[...]

As the battle between parents and the school board carried on, a 14-year-old girl reportedly was raped in the girls bathroom of Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn, Va., on May 28 by a male teen wearing a skirt. The teen was later arrested on July 8 and charged with two counts of forcible sodomy. 

Again, Chapman refused to tell readers the full truth about the assault and the history behind it.

Meanwhile, Hans Bader tried to inflame things again in his Nov. 8 column in order to peddle hate over transgender rights as expressed through a "wear a skirt to school day":

A skirt-wearing boy in Loudoun County, Va. was recently found guilty of sexual assault in juvenile court for anally raping a girl in a school restroom. Prior to the school board's passage of a transgender bathroom policy, the school superintendent falsely claimed there was no record of sexual assaults in school bathrooms. The superintendent had inaccurately stated, "We don’t have any record of assaults occurring in our restrooms." But the sexual assault by the skirt-wearing boy had already occurred.

Like Chapman, Bader censored the full story of the assault.

CNS is being less and less like a "news" organization and more and more like a dishonest, partisan right-wing advocacy group. If there ever was a line between CNS and the MRC, it has largely disappeared.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:16 AM EST

Updated: Thursday, December 2, 2021 11:22 PM EST

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