Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com trying to portray Joe Biden as senile before the election, and it has only continued now that he's president. But it will never question Donald Trump's mental health. Read more >>
Monday, March 28, 2022
NEW ARTICLE: Fairness Is In Cognitive Decline At CNS, Part 2
Topic: CNSNews.com CNSNews.com trying to portray Joe Biden as senile before the election, and it has only continued now that he's president. But it will never question Donald Trump's mental health. Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:41 AM EDT
Sunday, March 27, 2022
MRC's Graham Pretends Right-Wing Narrative On Durham Filing Hasn't Been Debunked
Topic: Media Research Center We've been documenting how the Media Research Center hyped the right-wing narrative over John Durham's filing dubously suggesting that the Hillary Clinton campaign was spying on Donald Trump, but there's one key narrative manufacturer we haven't covered yet: MRC executive Tim Graham, who pushed the narrative in his own unique way. For his Feb. 14 podcast, Graham repeated the MRC's whining over non-right-wing not immediately covering the Durham filing, huffing in the preview: "Fox News analysts suggested this was "worse than Watergate," but the liberal networks only use this kind of promotional phrasing for Republican scandals, like for Trump or George W. Bush." On the podcast itself, Graham touted how Fox News jumped on it, when whined that it was being portrayed as "a Fox News story. That's their way of dismissing it andsaying they don't have to do it." Graham then cheered that "Durham's enough of a pro that his team is not loaded with a bunch of liberal partisans who then can leak hourly to other liberal partisans at MSNBC or CNN or the New York Times or the Washington Post -- you know, the quote-unquote objective medla seeking the quote-unquote truth." Graham didn't admit that Durham seems to have right-wing partisans apparently leaking to their fellow-right-wing partisans at Fox News, et al. Then, as if to prove this unspoken point, he ran a clip of Mollie Hemingway ranting about it at Fox News -- neither or whom he identifies as the partisan conservatives they are. Graham than played the worse-than-Watergate card: "Worse than Watergate has gotten to be a cliche , to the point where you wonder whether Watergate was overpushed to begin with, as Mollie suggested. That was definitely dirty pool, but yes, if you compare 'Oh, we broke into the DNC headquarters once,' that's dirty. So is spying on the president or looking at his internet usage. That's dirty pool too,but apparently the media only cares about one party committing the dirty pool." Actually, there's no evidence that any of the alleged spying happened while Trump was president, but who ever said Graham cared about the facts when those facts conflict with right-wing narratives? Graham went on to rant that the Mueller report was "war." Discounting the Mueller report is, of course, another right-wing narrative. Graham rehashed a lot of this for his Feb. 16 column, whining that "While the networks spent more than 2,600-plus minutes on the Trump-Russia narrative, they’ve done next to nothing on Durham. ... To the media elite, Durham’s probe is only useful to the 'right-wing media wormhole.' Facts don’t come first. The truth isn’t more important than ever." Graham lives in the "right-wing media wormhole," so it's a bit rich to hear him complaining about the label -- and he's certainly not going to admit that what he's serving up is a narrative as well. He rehashed all this again in his Feb. 16 podcast. Graham used a Feb. 17 post to whining that CNN's Brian Stelter accurately called out the attempt by the right-wing media -- including the MRC -- to aggressively hype the Durham filing:
At no point does Graham refute anything Stelter says -- he just plays whataboutism. And on top of that, he effectively confirms that right-wing media have created the narrative of how the media won't cover the Durham story to the MRC's satisfaction. Graham spent his Feb. 18 column pretending to be aghast that right-wing media claims about the Durham filing were being fact-checked and found wanting, and that fact-checking somehow proves what a "threat" Durham is:
Again, Graham doesn't prove any of this fact-checking wrong, nor does he admit that his fellow right-wing media denizens deviated from the facts in overhyping the story. His goal is to progray the "liberal media" as evil and the right-wing media as victims. Similarly, a Feb. 18 post by Graham complained that fact-checkers pointed out the holes in the right-wing media narrative on Durham, again mostly by playing whatboutism:
Yet again, Graham does not disprove the fact-checks; he whines about "nitpick[ing]" and complains about "misleading words in headlines" being singled out. Graham devoted yet another podcast to the Durham filing on Feb. 18, this time focused on Vanity Fair covering the other side of the story by -- gasp! -- talking to Hillary Clinton, whining in the writeup: "Hillary and her glossy-magazine enablers don't want anyone to focus on how desperately they tried to tie Trump to Russia both during the election and then afterward." Given that the Trump campaign had dozens of contacts with Russian operatives and his onetime campaign manager had contacts with a Russian spy, it wasn't very difficult -- or counterfactual -- to do. Graham was still at it in a Feb. 20 post, trying to spin away Durham's own statement trying to decouple himself from media coverage of his filing:
Of course, Durham is still distancing himself from right-wing overhype.He then rehashed claims about the filing from right-wing activist Andrew McCarthy, whose partisan leanings Graham did not disclose. He concluded with one last bit of whataboutism: "The Times really thinks they didn't run "blaring outrage" and "grievance-stroking headlines" about Trump?" Meanwhile, Graham really thinks all the whataboutism he has been spewing is distracting people from the fact that he's trying to cover up for getting the story wrong in order to manufacture a narrative. That's the state of "media research" at the MRC these days.
Posted by Terry K.
at 6:10 PM EDT
Updated: Monday, March 28, 2022 9:34 PM EDT
CNS Does Stenography for GOP Rep. Jordan -- But Censors His Alleged Involvement In Sex Abuse Scandal
Topic: CNSNews.com Rand Paul is not the only right-wing congressman to whom CNSNews.com serves as a willing stenographer and PR representative. Rep. Jim Jordan has been a longtime a favoritte of CNS' parent organization, the Media Research Center -- the MRC (with CNS' help) led a failed campaign in 2018 to try and make him House speaker. Since then, CNS has regularly given Jordan uncritical space to werve up rightiwing talking points on the issues of the day. In 2019, Jordan got 23 stenography articles devoted to him, many of them centered around his kneejerk defending of Donald Trump over his many scandals:
There was also an article from Craig Bannister touting his boss, Brent Bozell, who "posted video on Twitter Wednesday that he says is 'the real game changer' in the Democrat-led impeachment hearings in the House Intelligence Committee" of Jordan asking questions during impeachment hearings. The stenography continued in 2020, with 22 articles devoted to him:
In 2021, Jordan got 41 stenography articles, including defending Trump against another impeachment and pushing election fraud conspiracy theories:
Jordan also benefited from a March 2021 article by Craig Bannister complaining that Twitter "censored a post of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) – in which he criticizes censorship." But it appears the video was not actually "censored"; Bannister admitted the video could still apparently be viewed, though "No information about the title, nature or content of Rep. Jordan’s Twitter post is visible, unless the Twitter user clicks on 'View,' completely unaware of what might follow." It's also worth noting that in none of these 86 articles -- as it also was during CNS and the MRC's campaign to make Jordan speaker -- was there anything mentioned about credible accusations that Jordan, in a previous role as a wrestling coach at Ohio State University, knew that a team doctor had been accused by college wrestlers of sexual abuse and did nothing about it. One wrestler even claimed that Jordan had begged him not to corrobrate those accounts. If CNS was an actual "news" organization, it would have reported on that. But it's not -- so it serves up servile stenography for Jordan.
Posted by Terry K.
at 2:51 PM EDT
Updated: Sunday, March 27, 2022 7:55 PM EDT
Saturday, March 26, 2022
MRC Hypocritically Freaks Out Again Over Potty-Mouth Language
Topic: Media Research Center Despite the fact that it has heartily embraced the "Let's Go Brandon" smear of President Biden (and, of course, Joe Rogan calling Brian Stelter a "motherfucker" among other things), the Media Research Center still insists on pitching a fit whenever a non-conservative says uncouth things -- witness its lengthy freakout over President Biden (not inaccurately) calling Fox News reporter Peter Doocy a "stupid son of a bitch." The hypocrisy continued in a Feb. 12 post by Mark Finkelstein:
Finkelstein wasn't concerned that Trump was potentially breaking the law by destroying documents -- no, the only thing he was concerned about was Scarborough saying the word "toilet." In a Feb. 21 post, Tim Graham complained that "Snarky British leftist comedian John Oliver" used his show to debunk right-wing panic about critical race theory, part ov whic "included high-school-Harry mockery of conservatives like Ted Cruz." He then attached a tweet of his manufacturing outyrage over the vulgarity:
Graham still wasn't done complaining, devoting his Feb. 21 podcast to the subject:
Reminder: Graham is the executive editor of NewsBusters, and he tacitly, if not actually, signed off on the post cheering Rogan's "motherfucker" insult. Does he think Rogan was trying to enlighten his audience with that insult, or was he angrily emoting? Why is angry, foul-mouthed emoting tolerated at the MRC when it comes from the mouth of Joe Rogan and not from John Oliver? And Graham clearly loves Rogan's vulgar own-the-libs tirade; otherwise, that post would have silently disappeared by now. The MRC's double standard on prudery and naughty words isn't as sustainable as Graham and crew seem to think it is.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:10 AM EDT
Updated: Saturday, March 26, 2022 10:13 AM EDT
WND's Massie Pushes COVID Vaccine Fearmongering
Topic: WorldNetDaily Mychal Massie keeps up the COVID vaccine fearmongering and misinformation in his Feb. 14 WorldNetDaily column that starts off by likening vaccine mandates to the Tuskegee experiment:
That may be true, but cancer isn't COVID, and there's still little legitimate evidence that ivermectin works against COVID. With that line of argument a failure, it was time for Massie to ramp up the fearmongering:
In fact, the Department of Defense statistics Massie cited were based on faulty data.Massie went on to repeat a WND story about an embalmer who was claiming to be "noting strange blot [sic] clots in most of their cases; as we documented, embalmers typically don't know whether a person had or had not been vaccinated. (We have no idea what Massie's referring to regarding Biden purportedly giving money to "cultural-Marxist groups nationwide as compensation for promoting lies by attacking the truth.") Then came a word-salad rant that made use of his favorite five-dollar word:
Um, sure, whatever.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:09 AM EDT
Friday, March 25, 2022
MRC Continued To Lash Out Over Comprehensive Durham Coverage
Topic: Media Research Center When last we left off, the Media Research Center was complaining that the John Durham filing about Hillary Clinton it had been obsessively hyping was getting covered in full by other media outlets, not just the right-wing talking points the MRC was pushing. Unsusrprisingly, the complaining continued; Jeffrey Lord turned up the whataboutism in his Feb. 19 column:
Actually, as we've noted, the media pointed out that the filing was a nothingburger and that right-wing media falsely hyped it (the claim that Hillary was spying on Trump as president being chief among those false claims).Also, the Mueller report did, in fact, find that the 2016 Trump campaign had nemerous meetings with Russian operatives as well as Russian operatives on the payroll. Alex Christy wrote in a post the same day: "On Friday’s edition of The 11th Hour on MSNBC, host Chris Jansing derisively claimed that the reason why Republicans were talking about the latest filing from Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation is because the GOP just wants to fire up its base and raise money." Christy didn't actually dispute the assertion. A Feb. 21 post by Scott Whitlock whined that non-right-wing outlets wouldn't cover the Durham story like Fox News did:
Whitlock didn't disclose the fact that the Examiner and Times are right-wing outlets, so of course they would jump on the story. He also lauded the Wall Street Journal -- which has similar (and similarly undisclosed right-wing bias) as "a prestigious media outlet that is actually covering the Durham claims." The next day, Bill D'Agostino made a video of what the networks "deem[ed] to be more newsworthy than the explosive filing." He didn't mention the fact-checks and debunkings those networks did of right-wing media coverage. Also on Feb. 22, Christy returned to whine that Seth Meyers said mean things:
Christy retorted with an Olympic-level piece of whataboutism: "Even if Durham has distanced himself from some of the reactions, that still does not absolve Clinton World and the media of spinning a false narrative that resulted in the Mueller probe."Again, the narrative about the Trump campaign canoodling with Russian operatives was not false, and if Durham himself thought right-wing coverage was inaccuratte and overwrought, that's on right-wing media -- of which the MRC is a part. Then, suddenly, the MRC dropped the story -- a strange move if it was really as "explosive" as it claimed it was. It has been mentioned only twice since then: once in a March 10 post by Curtis Houck in one of his Jen Psaki-bashing sessions, and in a March 2 post by Nicholas Fondacaro complaining again about the "cackling coven" at "The View," which was "joined by Democratic Party princess Chelsea Clinton, who was treated like royalty as they all gushed over her opinions about the address, lawsuits against former President Trump, and how her mother, Hillary Clinton 'took on Fox News' after they reported on how her campaign spied on Trump." Actually, Fox News' coverage has been debunked and arguably does leave it open to lawsuits , but Fondacaro won't tell you that -- he's getting paid not to.
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:08 PM EDT
Fail: WND's Cashill Attacked Wrong Paper Over Trayvon Martin Tribute
Topic: WorldNetDaily Jack Cashill began his March 2 WorldNetDaily column by ranting:
Yes, this column merges Cashill's two big obsessions, Trayvon Martin and Barack Obama. But more importantly, readers much more eagle-eyed than Cashill -- or even slightly more -- may pick up on a major error he committed. The video link goes to the New York Times, not the Washington Post. And Charles Blow works for the Times, not the Post. That's right: Cashill spent his entire column attacking the wrong newspaper. Sadly, that's not out of character for someone who embraces conspiracy theories and plays fast and loose with the facts. His column has since been corrected and now carries this embarassing editor's note: "The original version of this column had an incorrect name of the newspaper involved. The error was corrected March 9, 2022." That's sadly telling of both Cashill's inepititude and WND's overall failure to fact-check pretty much everything it publishes. The rest of Cashill's column is his usual demonization of Martin -- the dead can't be libeled, after all -- and complaining that the Post -- er, Times misleadingly edited George Zimmerman's 911 call after killing Martin and further lionizing Zimmerman as as the real victim. And as he usually does, he whined that Zimmerman's killing of Martin was the catalyst for the Black Lives Matter movement, adding: "This new generation initiated first the 'Ferguson effect' in 2014 and then the even more lethal 'Minneapolis effect' in 2020. At least 10,000 people, most of them black, are dead because of this 'activization.'" It will not surprise you to learn that Cashill did not bother to substantiate where his 10,000 dead number came from.
Posted by Terry K.
at 5:43 PM EDT
Updated: Friday, March 25, 2022 8:17 PM EDT
Compare And Contrast, F-Bomb Edition
Topic: Media Research Center
-- John Simmons, Oct. 21 NewsBusters post
-- John Simmons, Feb. 16 NewsBusters post
Posted by Terry K.
at 2:34 PM EDT
CNS Editor Tries To Blame Russia Trade, Oil Imports On Biden
Topic: CNSNews.com Another part of CNSNews.com's wartime war on President Biden in the runup to Russia's invasion of Ukraine is editor Terry Jeffrey blaming Biden for engaging in trade with Russia -- though Jeffrey offered no reason there shouldn't have been trade before the invasion. Jeffrey wrote in a Feb. 22 article:
But Jeffrey is cherry-picking data to make Trump look good. The chart that accompanies his article showed that the trade deficit in 2018 and 2019 was higherthan it was in 2020, which was likely skewed by the COViD pandemic. Jeffrey also illlustrated his article with a file photo of Biden with Vladimir Putin. Jeffrey hyped in a Feb. 25 article:
But Jeffrey deflated his own scary talking point in the third paragraph: "Canada, however, was by far the largest net exporter of crude oil and petroleum products to the United States that year. It sent this country a net of 3,193,000 barrels per day." And then, a couple paragraphs later, it was deflated further: "Despite running up significant net imports of petroleum from these countries, the United States overall was a net petroleum exporter in 2020." that would seem to blow up the right-wing talking point that American doesn't produce enough oil. As before, the article is illustrated by a photo of Biden and Putin. Jeffrey was on the oil kick again in a March 1 article:
Jeffrey again cherry-picked numbers to avoid discussing the fact that the purchase of Russian oil was on an upward trajectory during the Trump administration. After similar import numbers in 2017 and 2018, they increased in both 2019 and 2020. Jeffrey did note the growth in imports during those years, but didn't tell readers who was president at the time; by contrast, Jeffrey's article is illustreated with a stock photo of Biden. Jeffrey harped on this again in a March 18 article:
Once again, Jeffrey's article is illustrated with a file photo of Biden with Putin. That shows how endemic CNS' anti-Biden editorial agenda is.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:46 AM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, March 30, 2022 12:26 AM EDT
Thursday, March 24, 2022
MRC Gets Mad Media Wants To Cover Both Sides of Durham Filing
Topic: Media Research Center We've shown how the Media Research Center sought to reinforce a right-wing narrative by obsessively hyping a filing by special counsel John Durham suggesting that Hillary Clinton's campaign was spying on the Trump administration. When non-right-wing media started noticing the story -- and going against right-wing wishes by reporting both sides of it -- the MRC got mad. Kyle Drennen spent a Feb. 17 post complaining that NBC committted journalism by -- gasp! -- asking for comment from Clinton:
Curtis Houck grumbled the same day:
On Feb. 18, Nicholas Fondacaro took part in this narrative:
Fondacaro is not going to mention that the matter Sussmann allegedly lied about had nothing to do with what he's supposed to be investigating, and the charge is based on the testimony of a single witness who has made conflicting statements that undermine Durham's charge against Sussmann. Fondacaro went on to assert that a statement by Sussmann's lawyers that "the data collection ended even before former President Trump took office when Barack Obama was president" meant they "tacitly admitted their client was monitoring Trump" -- but it also disproves the MRC's earlier reporting, which asserted that monitoring was done of "the White House while Donald Trump was President."Fondacaro also nitpicked Jackson's reporting to distract from the nothingburger-ness of Durham's filing:
As if Fondacaro isn't playing word games to deflect valid criticism of Durham's filing and the right-wing hype of it. A Feb. 18 post by Alex Christy noted only in passing that Durham himself "has distanced himself from conservative reaction to his filing" -- which should be evidence enough for the MRC to dial it down a bit -- then complained that MSNBC's Joe Scarborough noted this fact. Later that day, Fondacaro return to yet again toss the misogynist "cackling coven" smear at the ladies of "The View," going on o whine that they think Clinton has a case to sue Fox News for defamation over false reporting on the Durham filing:
Fondacaro is clearly not going to admit that the original MRC narrative that Hillary was spying on Trump in the White House was false. Meanwhile, Curtis Houck spent a Feb. 18 post gushing: "NewsNation (formerly WGN) has spent the past year and a half as a genuine, substantive outlet based in professional and unbiased journalism. We saw the latest example this week as, between Monday and Thursday, NewsNation’s evening shows spent 36 minutes and 16 seconds on the bombshell filing from Special Counsel Robert Durham into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe." Houck didn't mention that NewsNation is run and staffed by former Fox News executives and personnel -- chief among them being Bill Shine, who also worked in the Trump White House -- since that would put the lie to his claim that NewsNation offers "professional and unbiased journalism." Still, Houck also laughably complained that NewsNation "treaded close to CNN and NBC territory" by noting the false takes in right-wing media on the filing. In the MRC's bubble, right-wing narratives can never be criticized as wrong, even if they are.
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:05 PM EDT
Updated: Monday, March 28, 2022 8:54 PM EDT
COVID Misinformer Malone Brought A Friend For Latest WND Interview
Topic: WorldNetDaily Robert Malone has been one of WorldNetDaily's favorite COVID misinformers, to the point that one of the rare bits of original reporting it has done recently was to interview him. For a Feb. 22 interview with Art Moore, Malone brought a friend:
Of course, given how anti-vaxxers like Malone have deliberately misinterpreted VAERS data, it's a valid concern for the CDC. Moore's next step was to try and pump up the credentials of Malone's buddy:
In actuality, Cole is an anti-vaxxer and a hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin enthusiast -- to the point tat some of his patients have ended up in the emergency room suffering from COVID after following his advice. His lab was kicked out of Idaho's largest health care network over his divergence from sound medical care. He has falsely claimed that COVID vaccines cause cancer and autoimmune illnesses. In other words, exactly the kind of guy who would buddies with Malone and WND. Moore went on to write:
If these guys are on the guest list on Johnson's event, you can guess what the rest of it would look like.A nd needless to say, Moore lovingly wrote about it when in happened in January -- but he wouldn't mention all the misinformation spouted at the event. Moore also noted that "Many of the panel members ... spoke at a rally Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial called 'Defeat the Mandates.'" That would be the rally headlined by anti-vaxxer Robert Kennedy Jr. in which he sleazily claimed that Anne Frank was in a better situation hiding from the Nazis than Americans are in facing vaccine mandates (a statement WND censored). Thus, WND's parade of misinformation continues -- along with its refusal to admit publishing misinformation is why WND is barely staying alive. UPDATE: WND also featured this dynamic duo in an anonymously written Feb. 23 article:
That"local nonprofit" is something called One Washington, a right-wing anti-vaxxer group that does things like teach people how to evade vaccine mandates and offers lessons in "biblical citizenship."
Posted by Terry K.
at 4:56 PM EDT
Updated: Tuesday, March 29, 2022 3:11 PM EDT
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC Goes On Rogan Patrol, Part 2
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center remains in permanent Joe Rogan defense mode -- even when his love for saying the N-word on his podcast was irrefutably documented. Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:58 PM EDT
In Days Before Ukraine Invasion, CNS Touted Putin's Strength, Mocked Biden's Alleged Weakness
Topic: CNSNews.com Just as CNSNews.com has rooted for Vladimir Putin over President Biden in the past, it continued that un-American attitude in the days before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, repeatedly touting Putin's strength and attacking Biden's purported weakness. On Feb. 21, Craig Bannister touted how "Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) posted a series of tweets over the weekend blasting U.S. President Joe Biden and Western powers for projecting weakness." Melanie Arter similarly touted Republican Sen. Ted Cruz blaming "the current state of affairs between Russia and Ukraine on the 'weakness' and 'fecklessness' of President Biden, adding that his 'surrender and disastrous retreat from Afghanistan is the worst military catastrophe for the United States in decades.'" Arter found another Biden-hater and Putin-praiser for a Feb. 22 article:
Later that day, Arter gave Graham another Biden-bashing platform:
Bannister also attempted to mock Biden by repeating things Biden previously said about Putin:
On Feb. 23, Emily Robertson gave a platform to America's greatest Putin appeaser:
Robertson uncritically repeated Carlson's complaint that "Democrats in Washington have told you you have a patriotic duty to hate Vladimir Putin" and that people should ask themselves "Why do I hate Putin so much?" Bannister even gave a pushback-free platform to Russia's ambassador to the U.S. to trash Biden's plan of sanctions against Russia in a Feb. 23 article:
Even when sanctions against Russia started with the Ukraine invasion, CNS was quick to portray them as insufficient. A Feb. 22 article by Patrick Goodenough complained that "Russian President Vladimir Putin is not himself targeted in the sanctions rolled out by the Biden administration on Tuesday, although a White House official said that 'no option is off the table, as the president said.'" It was not until the very end of the article that Goodenough got around to reporting that the sanctions were done in conjunction with similar sanctions from European countries.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:26 AM EDT
Updated: Friday, March 25, 2022 11:09 PM EDT
Wednesday, March 23, 2022
MRC Tried To Turn Dubious Durham Filing Into Massive Scandal
Topic: Media Research Center We've said it before: the Media Research Center's true name is the Right-Wing Talking Point Manufacturing Center. One story the MRC particularly wanted to manufacture right-wing talking points about was the filing by special counsel John Durham suggesting that Hillary Clinton's campaign was spying on the Trump White House. The MRC has been trying for a while to force non-right-wingers to take Durham's minor filings seriously; every thing he does is somehow, in Nicholas Fondacaro's words, a "massive development." When the latest Durham story dropped (on a Saturday night), the MRC was so desperate to push it outside of its right-wing bubble that it pumped out a whopping 41 posts that referenced Durham in just six days, between Feb. 13 and Feb. 19. Kevin Tober set up the basic narrative in a Feb. 13 post centered on a common MRC complaint, that non-right-wing media won't embrace its partisan narratives:
By contrast, of course, Tober praised Fox News' "MediaBuzz" for lavishing attention on the story. The "why won't the non-right-wing media cover this right-wing story we're hyping" theme was the focus of several MRC posts over the next day or so:
But when those non-right-wing outlets finally paid attention to the story and saw it for the nothingburger it was, the MRC got mad about that too. Alex Christy huffed in a Feb. 15 post:
Kyle Drennen got mad at NBC's Chuck Todd for accurately pointing out how the story is a product of the right-wing media bubble:
Christy returned to complain that the story got mentioned on Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show, but only "to mock those who actually care about the allegations." Meanwhile, the MRC was still squeezing a couple more posts out of its why-isn't-our-biased-right-wing-story-getting-covered narrative:
Even MRC Latino writer Kathleen Krumhansl joined Team Durham, lashing out at coverage on a Spanish-language channel she didn't like:
Krumhansl went on to whine about how some "stories were reported on for weeks on end despite there being no evidence whatsoever to support them. For example: Trump's taxes and the 'suckers and losers' hoax, just to name a few." We don't recall the story of Trump allegedly calling members of the military "suckers and losers" to have been covered for "weeks on end" -- or that it was ever definitively proven to be a "hoax." (It's unproven at best.) And Trump himself is responsible for the media attention given to his taxes because of his adamant refusal to publicly release them like every other president and presidential candidate over the past 40-plus years.
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:44 PM EDT
Updated: Friday, March 25, 2022 11:20 PM EDT
CNS' 'Climate Experts' Are Right-Wing Activists
Topic: CNSNews.com A Feb. 25 CNSNews.com article by intern Emily Robertson carries the headline "Climate Experts: Biden’s ‘Failed Energy Policies’ Are Benefitting Russia and Putin." But none of the people Robertson quoted in her article were "climate experts" -- they are right-wing anti-climate activists who have been funded by fossil fuel interests. Robertson kicked things off this way:
The Heartland Insitute is a right-wing group dedicated denying the existence of manmade climate change to that has received oil industry money in the past. It also once put up a billboard likening those who acknoiwledge global warming to Osama bin Laden and the Unabomber. Further, Robertson clearly didn't do any fact-checking, or else she wouldhave noted that Taylor's claim that Biden has "strangled U.S. fossil fuel production since he entered office" is highly misleading. The one notable actione he took was to pause the issuance of new oil and gas leases on federal land; the moratorium has since been lifted, and the Biden administration has issued more drilling permits on federal lands than Trump did. RObertson noted that Taylor cited "ending the Keystone XL pipeline project" as an example of something negative to U.S. energy policy that Biden did. But as we've noted, much of the pipeline's oil products were destined for export. Robertson went on to note:
CEI has received fossil fuel money in the past, and it's also funded by right-wing dark money as well. Milloy has a past as a shill for a front group founded by a tobacco maker, and his JunkScience.com seems to be run along the same lines, though its funding is murky. Also, as we pointed out the last time Robertson pulled this stunt, discussion of the Keystone XL pipeline in the context of U.S. "energy independence" is ridiculous because the pipeline's oil would have come from Canada. Indeed, she again falsely stated that "With the cancellation of the keystone [sic] pipeline, the U.S. has not only lost jobs, but gas prices have increased." There's little evidence to support the claim that the pipeline's caccellation had any effect on oil prices.
Posted by Terry K.
at 7:08 PM EDT
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