Stenography: CNS Now Treating Every Musk Utterance As 'News' Topic: CNSNews.com
After following its Media Research Center parent in flip-flopping on the evilness of Elon Musk after his decision to try and buy Twitter, CNSNews.com has moved on to following in the MRC's foosteps by treating seemingly every public utterance he makes as a "news" story. Managing editor Michael W. Chapman cheered Musk's endorsement of right-wing talking points on the Biden administration's planned Disinformation Governance Board in an April 29 post:
In response to comment that the Department of Homeland Security is now operating a "Ministry of Truth," like in George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 billionaire businessman Elon Musk tweeted, "This is messed up."
On Wednesday, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, testified before Congress and revealed that his department is now operating a "Disinformation Governance Board." Its alleged purpose is to monitor speech and look for “mis- and disinformation” to protect "election security" and "homeland security.”
[...]
Mayorkas' revelation was roundly denounced by many Republican lawmakers, civil libertarians, and legal experts.
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a non-profit government watchdog, tweeted, "'Ministry of Truth'" is trending [on Twitter] because Biden admin appointed a radical leftist to run a censorship board in the Department of Homeland Security a few days after @ElonMusk purchase of @Twitter announced."
Chapman did not note whether Fitton offered any evidence to back up his suggestion that the creation of the board is directly linked to Musk's attempts to purchase Twitter. Then again, Chapman is a slavish stenographer for Judicial Watch.
CNS then started piling up the Musk-fluffing articles, many of which also echoed right-wing narratives:
CNS also published more pro-Musk commentaries. A May 9 commentary by Ron Paul declared that "Any doubt that many progressives have abandoned their commitment to free speech was erased by the hysterical reaction to Elon Musk’s effort to purchase Twitter and return the company to its roots as a free speech zone." And a May 27 commentary by Michael Rechtenwald absolved Musk of any previoius sins because he claims to support "free speech" by buying Twitter because he now has conservatively correct enemies:
Many criticisms have been leveled against Elon Musk — that he’s part of the elite, that Tesla has been the beneficiary of government handouts and exemptions, that his transhumanist Neuralink is a brain-data-mining operation. Yet his planned purchase of Twitter, his supposed free-speech absolutism, and his subsequent renunciation of the Democratic Party as “the party of division & hate” have put Musk squarely in the crosshairs of the woke cartel.
[...]
’m not suggesting that Musk is a free-market hero or a lowercase libertarian, but there is little doubt that he’s become corporate enemy number one for the state-backed woke cartel. The battle shaping up between Musk and the regime will prove to be an important one, if only because it pits the power of the latter against a high-visibility manufacturer and the reputed “richest man in the world.” What we will learn is how powerful the woke cartel is and just how far it will go to infringe on property rights and eradicate any remaining legitimate (consumer-based) market criteria — no matter how much its moves reek of hypocrisy or how obvious its vendetta.
There was no mention in any of these articles about Musk's coziness to China or his lack of commitment to free speech in real life.
MRC: Jared Kushner Earned His Saudi Payoff! Topic: Media Research Center
When Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner looked to all appearances like he was cashing in on his White House service in boosting Saudi Arabia by receiving a $2 billion investment for a Saudi investment fund, the Media Research Center knew what it had to do: Distract from the shadiness of the deal by playing Hunter Biden whataboutism and pretend that Kushner actually earned the money. Alex Christy did the deed in an April 16 post:
PBS NewsHour has finally discovered allegations of corrupt behavior in the president’s family. No, not Hunter Biden, but former President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. On Friday’s show, host Judy Woodruff, New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart all condemned Kushner’s “shameless” behavior both during the Trump presidency and after.
[...]
When it was his turn, Capehart was even more outraged and recalled Kushner’s role in shaping Trump’s Middle Eastern strategy, “it sounds to me like it is MBS giving basically a payoff to—to-- his buddy Jared Kushner, who protected the Saudi weapons sales that Congress was trying to rescind after evidence came forward that MBS ordered the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, who was a global opinions columnist for the Washington Post. And for a senior American — United States official to do that is unconscionable.”
What Capehart and so many others cannot come to terms with is that Trump courted the Saudis by doing a 180 from President Obama’s Iran strategy, which helped the neophyte Kushner being able to secure more Arab-Israeli peace deals in four years than previous administrations, who went about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the “right way,” were able to get in seven decades. Meanwhile, between all of his shady business dealings, Hunter Biden has not advanced U.S. interests in any way.
Actually, as we've noted, those deals were with minor countries and have little to no impact on the real issue, the israel-Palestinian conflict. Christy also didn't explain how any of that involved Saudi Arabia, or how Kushner acted the "right way" by by giving Mohammed bin Salman a pass on murdering Khashoggi.
Christy concluded: "A decent segment would not only include references to the current president’s son, but if Woodruff insisted on talking about Kushner, somebody should at least have mentioned his historic policy successes with the Saudis." If Christy was a decent "media researcher," he would had admitted that givng MBS a pass on Khashoggi's death was not a "historic policy success" while not leaning on the right-wing crutch of Hunter BidenDerangement Syndrome.
WND Columnist Thinks Biden Is Burning Down Food Manufacturing Plants -- Then Denies Being A Conspiracy Theorist Topic: WorldNetDaily
Patrice Lewis began her April 29 WorldNetDaily column by listing "curious and alarming string of fires, explosions and accidents hitting food-processing and fertilizer plants across the nation," commenting, "One such accident is a tragedy. Two is an oddity. Three is a coincidence. But dozens? That starts to sound deliberate." She then quickly went to conspiracy territory by blaming President Biden:
Let's say the quiet part out loud, shall we? Are these events accidental or orchestrated? Are we seeing the beginning of weaponizing food in America? Even Tucker Carlson is asking these questions. As one Twitter user noted, starvation is a great way to control a population. Intentional or not, these industrial accidents will have an impact on America's food availability. That is irrefutable.
Jeff Miller at The Republic Brief pointed out how food companies rarely experience fires or explosions. But right now, anyone trying to connect the dots of these events is mocked as a conspiracy theorist. But at what point do conspiracy theories cross into the realm of fact?
When Biden said we'd have food shortages, I didn't lend him much credence. He's a senile puppet who doesn't know what he's saying most of the time. But maybe, for once, the doddering old man whispered the truth about the people pulling his strings. Certainly his administration is doing everything in its power – from shutting down pipelines to diverting corn into ethanol rather than animal feed – to hamstring farmers and food processors.
As Jeff Crouere at Canada Free Press put it, "It seems as if the president and his administration are doing everything possible to exacerbate the impending food shortage instead of solving it."
But if these attacks were orchestrated, there has to be a purpose or goal behind them. Why would anyone deliberately tighten up food supplies and make products scarce? Is this a planned situation to set up a desired future outcome for the people creating the crisis? Who or what would benefit from this?
As always, the default answer is: Follow the money. However, in this case I believe it's a matter of: Follow the power. Consider this definition of the Cloward-Piven strategy: "A political theory … that advises activists to create radical change by crashing the system. It encourages the orchestration of various crises designed to push society to the breaking point and steer the populace into embracing an authoritarian socialist government." Make of this what you will.
If you go down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, you'll find people speculating that food will soon be government controlled. Henry Kissinger's famous line is usually quoted: "Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world."
Lewis concluded her column by -- despite spending it pushing a conspiracy theory -- she really isn't a conspiracy theorist: "I hate that this column sounds like it was written by a tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorist. But honestly, so-called 'conspiracies' have been coming true with alarming frequency – so who knows how this one will pan out?" Well, yes, Patrice, when you are spouting a conspiracy theory and citing other conspiracy theorists in support of it and are published by a conspiracy theory-friendly outlet like WND, you do come off looking like a conspiracy theorist. Maybe keep that in mind the next time you're tempted to do that again.
MRC Psaki-Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch Topic: Media Research Center
Curtis Houck kept handing out cookies to right-wing reporters in the White House briefing room for staying on message with their predetermined talking points. The cookie beneficiary in the April 29 briefing, as it had been the previous few days, was Fox News' Jacqui Heinrich:
On Thursday and Friday’s editions of The Psaki Show, Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich repeatedly took the outgoing White House press secretary to task over the appointment of Nina Jankowicz, a far-left Resistance fiend to run what many have deemed a real-life Ministry of Truth out of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Heinrich wrapped her Thursday Q&A by invoking the so-called “Disinformation Governance Board” that’s set to fight “misinformation ahead of the midterms” and “Hispanic communities especially.”
After she asked about “what this board is going to be doing” and the depths of “their authority,” Psaki claimed she hadn’t “dug into this exactly” other than to state “there has been a range of disinfo out there about a range of topics — I mean, including COVID, for example, and also elections and eligibility.”
[...]
The Fox reporter kept up the pressure by citing her TikTok profile and comments in one video in which she accused conservatives and Trump voters of “laundering [disinformation]” and “not support their lies with our wallet, voice, or vote.”
Psaki countered by again blaming Trump and insisting the real mission of the board is “protecting privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties and the First Amendment” while also countering “disinformation.”
The future MSNBC analyst added that examples include combating terrorism and “misinformation...spread by human smugglers that prey on vulnerable populations attempting to migrate to the United States.”
Heinrich noted it all “sound[s] very worthy, but you've got someone in — from the Department Homeland Security telling people how they should vote,” so it’s worth considering the fact that “critics...say that doesn’t sound right.”
Of course, Psaki ducked by brushing off Jankowicz as just someone “overseeing the work of that board” conceived by Trump.
After the May 4 briefing, it was cookie time for Houck's longtime man-crush, Peter Doocy:
Wednesday afternoon on The Psaki Show, Fox’s Peter Doocy held the White House press secretary under duress with questions on the Biden administration’s reaction to the leaked Supreme Court opinion on abortion, including the President’s claim that Republicans could ban gay students from being in the same classroom as straight students and his phrasing of abortion involving “a child.”[...]
As for Doocy Time, he began with the notion that the administration chose to weigh in on the draft by breaking its pattern of not commenting on leaked materials.
Psaki insisted they weren’t because “the Supreme Court confirmed” it and, after Doocy noted it came out before the Court statement, Biden “made clear we don’t know if this is accurate.” In other words, they did stray from past procedure.
Doocy also asked whether the President believes “the leaker should be punished,” but Psaki reiterated an earlier answer to ABC’s Cecilia Vega that it’s “up for the Department of Justice and others to determine.” Psaki added what matters most “is the fact that women’s healthcare is at risk for millions of people across this country.”
The Fox reporter pivoted to one of Biden’s more incendiary comments from Wednesday morning in predicting Republicans could segregate classrooms based on a student’s sexuality.
[...]
Moving to his final line of questioning, Doocy asked: “Why is the President talking about the judgment to choose to abort a child?”
Psaki emphasized it wasn’t a big deal since Biden’s “view on a woman’s right...is well known, well documented, well stated,” which left Doocy to press on the real issue in that “he said ‘abort a child.’”
In Houck's view, the "real issue" is a right-wing reporter cherry-picking words to obsess over for partisan gain.
For the May 5 briefing, the right-wing talking point du jour was outrage over protests outside the homes of Supreme Court justices following the leak of a draft ruling that would overturn Roe v. Wade. And Houck made sure that Doocy got his cookie:
The Psaki Show got off to a late start Thursday, owed to Jen Psaki announcing she’s leaving the press secretary position (while still playing coy about going to MSNBC). Despite this delay, Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy grilled her on the issue of leftist activists doxxing the conservative Supreme Court Justices and planning to assail their homes (opening them up to possible violence) over the leaked draft decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. But Psaki wasn’t concerned.
After some light sniping back and forth about her leaving, Doocy called out how President Biden smeared Republicans as “extreme” and wanted to know if “the progressive activists that are now planning protests outside some of justices' houses are extreme?” Ignoring the issue of their homes now being exposed to violence, Psaki rhetorically shrugged. “Peaceful protests are not extreme,” she said.
Doocy immediacy pointed out that “some of these justices have young kids” and “their neighbors are all not public figures.” And when asked if Biden would be “waving off” these leftists that were planning to descend on peaceful “residential neighborhoods in Virginia and Maryland,” Psaki couldn’t care less.
“Peter, look. I think our view is that peaceful protests, there is a long history in the United States and the country of that,” she condescendingly argued. “And we certainly encourage people to keep it peaceful and not resort to any level of violence.”
With a more direct example of leftist violence, EWTN White House correspondent Owen Jensen later stood up and aggressively pressed Psaki on how “a Catholic church was just vandalized with pro-abortion slogans in Colorado.” She said she had “not seen that report” but “obviously, we don’t condone vandalism.” And as Jensen continued to press, Psaki just spewed polls at him about support for Roe.
That was followed by a post whining that a reporter didn't hate Psaki's designated replacement, Karine Jean-Pierre, whom Houck has previously smeared as a diversity hire for the sin of being black and LGBT:
Minutes after White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki gave the Biden administration’s blessing Thursday for progressives to stage protests outside the homes of Supreme Court justices, NPR White House reporter Franco Ordoñez sucked up to Psaki’s successor Karine Jean-Pierre, by wondering if she could share “what this means to you” and comment on both “the historic nature” of her appointment and advice for “young girls” and “minority communities.”
The reporter from the taxpayer-funded outlet first congratulated Psaki on her run, but asked if Jean-Pierre “could share some words about what this means to her...and if [she] could talk a little bit about the historic nature of” the appointment as the first black and first openly gay press secretary.
Of course, Jean-Pierre thanked him for the question before stating she had to first “thank Jen” for having been “a wonderful colleague, a friend, a mentor” in addition to being “a true, solid, amazing person.”
The former MoveOn.org spokeswoman insisted she’s “still processing it because...this is a historic moment, and it’s not lost on me” and thus “understand[s] how important it is for so many people out there, so many different communities that I stand on their shoulders[.]”
This from a guy who tossed nothing but softballs at former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany despite her incompetence in the job and absolute refusal to do it after the Capitol riot.
CNS' Jeffrey Serves Up More Softball Interviews Topic: CNSNews.com
In a March 7 CNSNews.com article, Craig Bannister complained that "At a White House event on Friday, Council of Economic Advisers chair Cecilia Rouse was thrown a softball question from a Washington Post reporter who declared that President Joe Biden isn’t getting enough credit for his accomplishments." Needless to say, Bannister will never call out the softball questions lobbed by his boss, Terry Jeffrey, at his interiview subjects. We've already noted the softballs Jeffrey has tossed to his own boss, Brent Bozell, and Reagan hagiographer Craig Shriley in interviews more designed to promote their books than offer any insight into their authors.
But those aren't the only people Jeffrey has been fluffing lately in his interview series (which actually has a decidedly lame name, "Online With Terry Jeffrey"). An April 15 article detailed his interview with Pat Boone, who has a new religious-themed film out. Jeffrey began by reciting Boone's resume -- "Over the course of his career, Boone has sold 45 million records and starred in 15 movies" -- and his first question was about ... the golf course where the movie is set. There were many more golf-related questions. There was nothing about Boone's vicious hatred for Barack Obama that was so virulent that it undermined his nice-guy image.
That was followed by an April 19 interview with biased anti-Biden reporter Miranda Devine, who wrote a book about her obsession with Hunter Biden's laptop. Much of the interivew is Jeffrey prompting Devine to recite her anti-Biden talking points and refusing to challenge her on them. Devine was the reporter who worked with Republican operatives to push the October surprise of Hunter Biden's laptop before the 2020 election. But rather than question her about why she made no effort before the election to provide unimpeachable evidence of the laptop's veracity -- which would have kept the story from being dismissed as Russian disinformation by most observers -- Jeffrey simply teed her up to complain that the story was dismissed.
The goal of these interviews -- aside from the promotional valuye for the interviewees -- is to portray Jeffrey as a serious journalist. But he's not, and the fluffiness of these interviews further undermines that claim.
WND's Cashill Also Promotes Dubious '2000 Mules' Film Topic: WorldNetDaily
Like editor Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily columnist Jack Cashill can't resist a good conspiracy theory, no matter how much it gets debunked. So, like Farah, Cashill was eager to help WND promote Dinesh D'Souza's election-fraud-conspiracy film "2000 Mules." Cashill's May 4 column gushing over the film even shared a conspiracy theoryuwith Farah, that the leak of a draft of a Supreme Court decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade was timed to distract from the film:
On Monday evening, I and thousands of other people laid down $20 apiece at 270 neighborhood theaters across America to watch the premiere of Dinesh D'Souza's new documentary, "2,000 Mules."
On a night of pouring rain in Kansas City, some 250 people filled our theater to capacity and broke into a spontaneous chant of "USA! USA!" at movie's end.
The movie was that cathartic. Like D'Souza's Greek chorus of Salem radio hosts – Dennis Prager, Larry Elder, Seb Gorka, Eric Metaxas, Charlie Kirk – the moviegoers strongly suspected the election was stolen, but they needed to see how it was stolen.
[...]
Upon returning home Monday night, I immediately went to Twitter to see what people on the right – I expected nothing from the left – were saying about the movie. The answer? Nothing.
All talk was about the leaked Supreme Court document. I immediately suspected mischief on the part of Politico, which could have published Alito's lengthy opinion at any time.
This was a huge story. I totally get it, but I fail to understand why so many conservative pundits and politicians did not go see the movie Monday and have said nothing about it since.
The major media have begun sniping at the movie, as D'Souza's chorus predicted they would. They have to. To acknowledge the election was stolen is to admit the Democratic Party is little more than an organized criminal cartel.
Cashill reiterated his conspiracy theory in his May 11 column:
Last week I argued on these pages that the left timed the release of the Alito brief to offset the premier of Dinesh D'Souza's "2000 Mules." If so, the left miscalculated. The film did not need any woke offsetting. The "don't wanna know" (DWK) Right was up to the job.
For the timid Right, "Mules" was a Level 5 DWK. Never before had its thought leaders been confronted with an exposure this consequential and this exquisitely well documented.
If D'Souza and his collaborators at True the Vote are right, all the DWK talking points of the last 20 months are shot. The Democrats did steal the presidential election. They also stole the Senate with their capture of the two Georgia seats. And the Jan. 6 crowd was right to protest, arguably even to riot – peacefully, of course.
I have been dealing with the DWKs for the last 20 years, but I am still surprised that Fox News and Newsmax, among other conservative media, are pretending "2000 Mules" is not worth discussion.
Every day these media hold out they lose the respect of their viewers. This story is too big to ignore. Too many ordinary people know what the media moguls don't wanna know.
Cashill went on to whine that his previously never-proven conspiracy theories -- that TWA Flight 800 was shot down by a U.S. missile was ignoredand that the plane crash that killed Clinton Commerce Secretary Ron Brown wasn't an accident wasn't deliberate -- were ignored by most normal people.Cashbill concluded by declaring that "I will offer my public support to the Missouri senatorial candidate who first introduces "2000 Mules" into the public sphere."
NEW ARTICLE -- Psaki-Bashing And Doocy-Fluffing At The MRC, March 2022 Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck makes sure to reward biased right-wing Fox News employees like Peter Doocy for advancing anti-Biden talking points in the White House briefing room. Read more >>
Revolving Door: Another MRC Activist Becomes An 'Editor' At Fox News Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center writer Gabriel Hays wasfilledwithhate for anything not as white, heterosexual and Christian as he apparently is -- and that's saying something given the sheer number of haters the MRC employs. But he, like Lindsay Kornick before him, ascended the MRC plane at the end of March for a higher form of right-wing activism: becoming an "associate editor" at Fox News. Whatever it is, it doesn't involve being fair and balanced; he's simply doing a lot of what he did at the MRC -- attacking liberals for saying and doing things that conseratives don't like -- while presumably being better paid for it.
Let's mark Hays' MRC departure by looking back at some of the hate he spewed there over his final few months of employment, shall we?
In a Feb. 3 post, Hays cheered the reveal of corrupt Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani as a participant on "The Masked Singer": "Man, politics aside, that’s good reality TV drama." (Perhaps praising a Fox show helped Hays get his Fox News gig.)
On Feb. 8, Hays lashed out at an actress who spoke approvingly of having an abortion: "Yes do please keep telling yourself that your abortion was nice. Perhaps then you’ll forget it might be one of the worst things you have done. ... How great for her to decide that for her child. Was her prestigious commercial career worth it really worth the abortion?"
Hays played whataboutism in a March 1 post: "Disney cares about talking trash to Putin, but the company’s still doing business with Commie China. It’s hard not to see why people see this pro-Ukraine stance as yet another empty virtue signal."
The next day, Hays sneered at President Biden for not imposing religious views against abortion on the entire country, smearing him as senile in the process: "Yep, total abdication of his moral responsibility. Yet this befuddled, doddering old man sure makes moral pronouncements all the time on other things, like saying that Republicans passing voter ID laws is like “ Jim Crow.” That sure is a huge condemnation, which no sane person agrees with, but still he made it.
The notoriously transphobic Hays found a fellow hater to praise in a March 10 post, a geacher who was allegedly suspended for not using a student's preferred pronouns, in which he ranted about the "radical propaganda" purportedly being taught as "The LGBTQ conquest of our nation’s public schools is nearly complete" then gushing of the teacher: "People with strong Christian convictions are at direct odds with LGBTQ activism and need to stand their ground. Good for her."
Continuing to believe that it's "propaganda" for schools to teach that LGBT people exist and are not evil, using a March 10 post to cheer the "don't say gay" law in Florida and claiming without evidence that it bans "extremely radical LGBTQ indoctrination in schools," then huffing about "people in Hollywood" who criticized the bill: "These people are crazy. You try and protect impressionable kids from committing to life-altering “transgender” lifestyles before they have any idea about what sex and gender means, and the entire left goes nuts. We are in some dark times." Yes, Hays' virulent homophobia is quite dark.
On March 15, Hays ranted that "radical left-wing group GLAAD has taken it upon itself to pressure the movie industry to fund and advocate for LGBTQ political causes. Be prepared to see a whole lot more gay on and off-screen in Tinseltown because of this," going on to sneer, "There’s a much bigger chance all your favorite Disney characters are going to end up either gay, bi or trans by the end of this decade." It speaks volumes about Hays' homophobia that he is incredibly worried about this.
Hays wants even his razors to hate gay people as much as he does, so he used a March 23 post to cheer how the Daily Wire is starting up a razor company in a lame response to Harry's Razors dropping its advertising there for its anti-LGBT stance: "They’re clearly rich and successful and get the ladies without Harry's ads or his razors."
A Marvch 24 post seemed to be encouraging violence aginst Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' ex-wife for giving $275 million of her divorce settlement to Planned Parenthood "to fund baby murder," while of course providing no evidence any of the money, let alone all of it, will "murder" anyone. He didn't even bothere to hide his hate: "Um, lady, donating almost $300 million to the place that slaughters innocent human beings and isn't “helping” anyone. We’d rather you take your billions and live like a decadent queen. At least kids wouldn’t necessarily die from that."
Hays huffed in a March 30 post about Disney dropping gender references from its theme parks: "Disney is going full throttle in the race to erase traditional gender norms, especially now that the Florida state government looks to be protecting young public school kids from radical gender ideology. ... Disney doesn't seem to want to be the family-friendly media company any longer." Hays didn't explain how being more inclusive makes one suddenly not part of a "family."
In his last days at the MRC, Hays was quite obsessed with portraying anyone who wants to admit to a child that LGBT people exist and refuses to spew the kind of hate at them that Hays does -- or, really, any LGBT person, period -- is a "groomer."
A March 23 post called the Florida bill an " anti-grooming bill" and that an actor who spoke out agtainst it "sounds like an idiot or worse, a child groomer."
Hays cheered the signing of the bnill in a March 29 post: "Child groomers the world over are convulsing in anger today, because finally, FINALLY Governor DeSantis (R-FL) has signed a bill that blocks public school students in Kindergarten through third grade from being exposed to gender identity curriculum and other LGBTQ lesson plans." Of course, Hays didn't explain how the mere act of noting to a child that LGBT people exist equates to "grooming."
Hays huffed in a March 31 post that: "Disney and its magical kingdom of groomer-apologists are distraught that Florida’s government has passed legislation protecting young children from deviant sex education class before they’re ten years old," then lashed out at yet another actor for criticizing it -- whiule again, not explaining how "grooming" was actually going on before now or that the bill would actually do anything about it.
Proving that he cares nothing about the journalistic norms he helped demand that the "liberal media" follow (but never his fellow right-wingers), Hays breached journmalistic ethics soon after joining Fox News. In an April 15 article attacked Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler for not giving a rating to a questionable statement by President Biden, the only person Hays sought comm ent from was "Newsbusters Executive Editor Tim Graham" -- but he didn't disclose the fact that up until a couple weeks prior, Graham had been his boss. He also sought no comment from a non-conservative or even from Kessler himself, the person he was attacking.
In short: Fox News hired a highly biased virulent hater who cares nothing about how journalism works -- and it doesn't care because the hate and bias is what it hired him to do.
WND's Farah Goes All In On Discredited '2000 Mules' Film Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've shown how WorldNetDaily unsurprisingly embraced Dinesh D'Souza's dubious election-conspiracy film "2000 Mules." Chief among the film's cheerleasders, though, has been editor Joseph Farah. He spent his April 19 column rehashing his favorite election conspiracies, then rehashing Moore's puffery in touting how this was all going to be proven in the film:
An 18-month, data-driven probe now concludes the 2020 election was stolen.
Smartphone pings and video reveal at least 4.8 million fraudulent votes – far more than what Trump needed to win a clear electoral victory.
It's all detailed in a film coming out now that may just save the day.
Catherine Engelbrecht of True the Vote and Gregg Phillips of a health-care data company have teamed up with a dozen people who have put in 16-hour days for 15 months, combing tediously through cellphone geolocation data, surveillance videos and documents to see if the evidence supports their hypothesis.
What is that hypothesis? That amid the many "dirty," out-of-date voter rolls and the unprecedented distribution of mail-in ballots, a highly coordinated operation in the key battleground states collected ballots and paid "mules" to literally stuff them in the unattended drop boxes. The researchers found the smoking gun.
They say they have the hard evidence to back their finding that there were enough fraudulent votes in the states they targeted – including Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia – to overturn the election.
After the firm was released, Farah hyped it again in his May 6 column:
With the release of the film "2000 Mules," the overwhelmingly evidence, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the 2000 election was stolen, rigged and covered up becomes clear for all to see.
There were countless acts of "insurrection" involved. Democrats were successful at committing treason. It was a coup d'état. It was an outright act of rebellion, a successful revolution, an overthrow not just of a democratic election but a coordinated effort to defraud even the Founding Fathers of this great country.
What a betrayal of those Democrats' oaths of office – and the pledge of allegiance, the Constitution! What chutzpa!
But still they lie, they cheat, they defame – they'll never come clean! They will never stop.
There's a scene in the movie that suggests, "If you believe you are fighting Hitler, do you shy away from doing anything to challenge an election?"
That explains their motivation. They believed that. How many of them have said it openly? How many of the them said it under their breath?
It's time to come to our senses. Real Americans do not share anything in common with the people who committed this outrage – and covered it up! Not only did they do that, but they ACCUSED US OF WHAT THEY HAD DONE!
They claimed we were "insurrectionists"! Or maybe you don't know for sure that fraud was committed – you only suspect it. If you see this movie, you will KNOW. And God help you then. I almost wish I didn't know. I almost wish I had kept my innocence.
Farah then forwarded the baseless conspiracy theory that a draft opinion from the Supreme Court that would over Roe v. Wade was leaked in an effort to suppress the film:
The Supreme Court was preparing to announce the decision in a month. Who leaked it? Why?
Maybe someone doesn't want you to know about this movie – "2000 Mules."
Can you think of any reason?
The Democrat machine is dirty, disgusting, defiled. They control most of the corporate world in America, most of the media, all of Big Tech. But they don't control YOU!
Farah started to get worried that D'Souza's film was getting ignored (even as his WND was downplaying the factual errors), so his May 12 column touting the film sounded a little desperate:
Have you seen "2000 Mules"?
I'm curious, because I'm disappointed that it's not making the kind of waves I expected.
Did we wait too long to definitively know the election of 2020 was actually fraudulent?
Are people just so stunned by the documentary's conclusions?
Is there just too much else going on?
Is Big Tech doing a job on it?
Do Americans even know there is a movie out that makes the case that we were robbed in 2020?
Or was it that the draft Supreme Court decision regarding Roe v. Wade was leaked at the same time as the film's release?
That's a lot of questions for you.
Then there's the virtual blackout by Fox News, the lack of commercials for it, not to mention no media coverage.
Am I mistaken, or is this film, as convincing as it is that Donald Trump was right about everything, not getting credit for the biggest story ever told – bigger than Watergate, bigger than the Hunter Biden tape from hell, bigger than all that has happened to us because of the Democrats' massive cheating scandal?
Or is it that we are more subject than most of us realize to manipulation? Or are just too stunned by its revelations? I really don't know. I'm anxious to find out.
The only person we see who has been subject to manipulation is Farah. He is still clinging to Trump's Big Lie, which should raise a huge red flag for anyone who might be thinking about considering WND to be a legitimate news organization that cares about facts.
As is so happened, Farah spent his May 15 column announcing his continued fealty to the Big Lie, whining that other right-wing outlets aren't touching the film (bolding in original):
But are ready for the shocker?
How about Fox News? Not even a mention!
How about Newsmax? Not even a mention!
Only the truly independent press is telling the truth about this movie – WND, Steve Bannon's "War Room" show and the Real America Network. You've diligently got to search for outlets that carry news about this movie.
Do you believe it?
Believe it!
Nothing from Fox News. Nothing from Newsmax. They haven't even uttered that name of the movie!
You might recall that Fox was the first network to call the race for Joe Biden in Arizona early on election night against President Donald Trump. That is one of five battlefield states that "2000 Mules" figures were won easily through blatant voter fraud against Trump. They didn't need a thorough review of the vote – they had all they needed to prove Trump won. It was stolen. He won the Electoral College in all five states.
[...]
Every day we feel more suppression, repression and tyranny in America. Most of it deals with the 2020 election results. It was a turning point. It certainly was for Trump!
We are quickly losing America's freedom – big time!
Farah's tone got desperate again in his May 23 column:
Are our elections hopelessly broken?
All you have to do to answer the question is see the movie "2000 Mules," produced by Dinesh D'Souza. It doesn't tell the whole story. It just presents a clear picture, one undeniable, seeing-is-believing American nightmare that portrays fraud on a massive scale that cannot be ignored.
Time is running short. Nothing is more important, hyper-critical to our very way of life than coming to grips with election fraud right now.
Not watching "2000 Mules" is not an option for any American. It will only keep you in the dark. It presents the stark reality of how we were all cheated in 2020 – swindled, chiseled, deceived, defrauded, duped, scammed and hoaxed.
The election was stolen. And there's no denying it, refuting it, or discrediting it. What the film reveals is the truth – not the whole story but enough to change the basic narrative and the winner of the 2020 presidential race.
Well, you might ask, what's preventing accountability for the steal?
Fear – on all sides. Disinformation. Lies.
It's ruining this country. It's threatening to take it down.
Rather than admitting his and WND's role in spreading fear, disinformation and lies -- or even report on the disinformation and lies in D'Souza's film -- Farah decided to create a new enemy in a Democratic lawyer, Mark Elias, because he "admitted hiring Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Trump, and that was the company that then hired Christopher Steele to create the now-discredited Steele dossier of false claims about President Trump."
Farah's May 30 column was a tirade against Fox News in general and correspondent Sandra Smith im particular for an interview with Republican Rep. Mo Brooks, who got slapped down by Smith for bringing up D'Souza's film:
Smith said it has been debunked by Reuters – by REUTERS! And for that Fox has never uttered the film's name.
Yet Brooks was not finished.
"I'm sorry, but other fact checkers are looking at it and find you're absolutely wrong, Sandra."
She's dead wrong.
Sandra Smith is a disgrace.
I will not watch her ever again – at least not until she apologizes for her behavior on the election of 2020.
As for Mo Brooks, he was great. It was one of the best interviews I've seen on TV lately.
He disagrees with President Trump, yet he remains passionate that the election was stolen.
[...]
It's not too late to see "2000 Mules."
It's a must.
And it will prevail.
Despite what Smith said about it:
"That has been looked at and fact-checked by multiple outlets, including Reuters, who have debunked that as any sort of proof that there was widespread voter fraud."
Fact checkers, please!
Fox News are CENSORS!
But Farah did not link to the Reuters fact-check he was attacking (for merely existing; at no point did Farah make an attempt to rebut anything in it), meaning that he's acting as a censor too.
Farah and WND have served up nothing regarding D'Souza's film except rah-rah promotion (making one wonder if D'Souza is paying WND for all this great press) and incessant, stenographical shouting that the film is true without proving it or actually debunking any of the criticism. It seems that a "news" organization on the brink of collapse should be working to boost its journalistic credibility, not being a PR agent for a discredited film.
MRC Lamely Defends Trump's Social-Media Site From Jimmy Kimmel Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center may be orgasming over the idea of Elon Musk buying Twitter, but it hasn't completely forgotten about its previous love, Donald Trump's Truth Social. If you'll recall, the MRC was essentially Trump's PR agent for the launch, hyping its purported "free speech" agenda (as long as you don't make fun of Trump or Devin Nunes) while censoring what an absolute mess the app is. It has little to say about Truth Social since, but Joseph Vazquez felt compelled to speak up in an April 27 post after Jimmy Kimmel told some jokes about both:
The Trump-obsessed comedian Jimmy Kimmel thought he caught the former president in a “got heem” moment last night when trying to make fun of the former president’s Truth Social app. It aged horribly.
A review of the Apple App Store found that Truth Social has taken the No. 1 “Free App” spot, with Twitter down to No. 2. The China-controlled TikTok, another competitor, sits at No. 5.
The development comes just hours before Kimmel claimed Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s landmark purchase of Twitter put Trump in a very tough spot as a competitor in the social media market on the April 26 edition of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live. “Now that he probably won’t be banned from Twitter anymore because Elon owns it, he’s kind of stuck.” Kimmel mocked Truth Social as “such a disaster, he himself hasn’t even posted on it for eleven weeks.”
Kimmel proceeded to dig himself into a deeper hole. He flailed how Trump’s “dumb new company he conned everybody out of their money for, will become, I guess, the social media equivalent of a RadioShack.” Too bad for Kimmel, the “RadioShack” app is No. 1 for the time being.
[...]
The fact that Trump’s app has emerged from a rocky start to contend with a formerly censorship-obsessed platform that dominated the public discourse for many years illustrates the enduring relevance of the free market. Kimmel, however, was concerned with spouting yet another milquetoast rant about Trump that fell flat on its face.
Did it, though? Vazquez didn't dispute that Trump was not posting on his own platform, and it was not until a few days later that he finally started regularly posting there. A few weeks later, it was revealed that Trump is contractually obligated to make Truth Social his primary social-media outlet, and he can't repost his musings to other outlets for a minimum of six hours. So even if Musk restores Trump's Twitter account, it can't be his primary one.
(That's also the first time the MRC admitted that Truth Social has a "rocky start," though Vazquez made sure not to detail how bad it was -- which contradicted the MRC's rosy PR work -- and provided only a external link about it.)
Also note that Vazquez only cited the Apple app store as a source for his proof that Truth Social is more popular than Twitter. That's because there's no Android app yet, even though more than 80 percent of the world's smartphones run on Android -- it seems that "rocky start" is continuing. And Truth Social's user base remains a tiny fraction of Twitter's -- heck, the total number ofTruth Social users is a tiny fraction of the 89 million Twitter followers Trump had before he was removed for helping to incite the Capitol riot.
Vazquez's touting of Truth Social has not aged well. As of this writing, Truch Social is no longer even in the top 200 of free apps at the Apple app store, while "China-controlled TikTok" is at No. 4 and Twitter is at No. 42. Who's falling flat on their face now, Joey?
Is CNS Editor Promoting Ted Cruz Because His Daughter Is A Cruz Staffer? Topic: CNSNews.com
A while back, CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey let it slip that his daughter works in the office of Republican Sen. Ted Cruz -- something he had not previously disclosed. That connectdon is worth looking into, since it seems to be skewing CNS' news coverage. The daughter in question appears to be Maria Jeffrey Reynolds, who has worked for Cruz since 2018; she was promoted to speechwriter in 2020, and she now serves as director of speechwriting and strategic communications and has been quoted in the media as his spokesperson.
CNS' parent, the Media Research Center, typically frowns on newspeople who have relatives working in partisan politics. For instance, it loves to complain about the wife of NBC host Chuck Todd working as a Democratic consultant; one writer huffed that "While Todd claims to be all for sunshine,he has refused to discuss his wife's firm's work with Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign even while he interviewed Sanders on his shows," and another groused that Todd's wife "is active in Democratic Party campaigns and co-founded a PR firm that worked with Bernie Sanders. Since Jeffrey his hidden his daughter's involvement in partisan politics until now, you can bet that the MRC won't talk about it ether.
There is at least a circumstantial link between Jeffrey's daughter working as a Cruz staffer and the large amount of favorable press Cruz receives at CNS. We've documented how CNS devoted 46 articles to the musings of Cruz in the final nine months of 2020, then 72 Cruz-centric articles in 2021. In the first three months of this year, Cruz was given 17 articles. That's a pace of one article every five days. It's highly unlikely that every single one of those articles are newsworthy; it's more likely that Jeffrey published at least some of those articles as a favor to his daughter.
CNS also generally avoids reporting anything negative about Cruz. As we noted, CNS devoted no story to Cruz's little trip to Cancun while his Texas constituents were freezing to death after a freak snow and ice storm that knocked out power in much of the state, instead limiting the story to brief mentions in other articles.
It seems that Jeffrey needs to justify CNS' obsessive focus on giving good press to Cruz and explain the link it appears to have to his daughter's employment. Otherwise, CNS shouldn't be considered any more credible than the news operations the MRC spends millions of dollars a year to attack and smear for doing the exact same thing.
MRC Defended Tucker Carlson's Replacement Theory Conspiracy Before Buffalo Shooting Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center was a promoter and defender of the right-wing replacement theory conspiracy well before the racist perpetrator of the mass shooting at a Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store spouted it -- as we noted when it rushed to the defense of Fox News host Tucker Carlson for spoiuting it. In an April 2021 post, Duncan Schroeder criticized CNN's Don Lemon for calling out Carson as pushing a racist theory:
Lemon is lying about Carlson making his argument about race, as Carlson explicitly stated in the segment in question that his point about Democrats wanting mass immigration has nothing to do with race but that it is instead “a voting rights question.”
Lemon is also lying about Carlson’s argument being “complete nonsense” because Democrats have acknowledged that winning elections is part of why they support mass immigration. In a 2013 interview with CBS, former Obama cabinet member and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro predicted that Texas will turn blue due to “the population growth of folks from outside of Texas.”
Of course, just because Carlson denies it's a racist theory doesn't mean it's not racist.He's not complaining about white people replacing white people, after all. Further, taking note of already-occuring demographic changes is not the same thing as spouting a conspiracy theory.
The MRC labored hard to defend Carlson following his embrace of replacement theory. Five days later, Curtis Houck spent a post whining about the fact that Carlson was being criticized by the Washington Post; he didn't deny Carlson's remarks were racist, but he reframed them as Carlson would, insisting they were merely "about immigration and liberals wanting to create a system in which new immigrants would become dependent upon the state and the Democratic Party for their well being."
A couple days after that, Jeffrey Lord gushed over Fox chief Lachlan Murdoch's "serious leadership in defending both Tucker Carlson and Fox News itself," insisting that Carlson was merely "pointing to the obvious. Which is to say the American left is deliberately creating and using the chaos at the US southern border as a way of re-populating the US, in this case with poor illegal immigrants who would presumably be the political pawns of the Democratic Party." Lord offered no proof that Carlson's conspiracy theory was factual.
That was followed by a post from Joseph Vazquez hyping how the Coalitiion for Jewish Values defended Carlson and bizarrely attacked the head of the ADL for criticizing him. As we've noted, the CJV is a hotbed of pro-Trump right-wing rabbis, so perhaps their opinion isn't worth much.
In a May 2021 post, Mark Finkelstein defended replacement theory, approving of Carlson's "statement that the Democrat party [sic] is seeking to replace the current US electorate with more Dem-friendly immigrant voters from Third World countries. Question: how hard do you think Biden-Kamala would be clamping down on the border if, say, millions of Republican-leaning Poles were trying to enter the country?" Finkelstein didn't say whether he thought the Poles should be treated theway he demands darker-skinned migrants be treated.
In October, Houck complained that MSNBC's Joy Reid accused Republicans of "'normalizing and rubbing elbows with open white nationalism, white replacement theory, some really dangerous ideologies that are designed to whip up, you know, particularly white men' to do harm," complaining that she was engaging in "the demonization and other-izing of conservatives and Republicans." After the Buffalo massacre, that complain stopped aging well.
The MRC's resident New York Times-basher, Clay Waters, then took up the banner of defending replacement theory. He did his best to, uh, whitewash replacement theory in a Nov. 5 post complaining that ah Times article accurately pointed the racist foundation of Carlson's replacement theory:
Carlson used the term "replacement theory," but it sounds less like a conspiracy theory about a globalist cabal trying to replace current U.S. voters, and more like he thinks the Democrats favor massive immigration for political reasons, believing "demography is destiny," with more young (and grateful) new voters from elsewhere. The liberal media cannot stand that accusation, but it's easy for them to accuse Fox of airing neo-Nazi theories. Then Williamson notes Carlson was praised for these remarks.
In a Nov. 26 post, Waters groused that the Times "rounded up anecdotes from the left’s Public Enemy No. 1, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, conflating concerns over immigration with conspiratorial 'replacement theory'" in discussing the rise of right-wing racism. Then, in a May 2 post -- a couple weks before the Buffalo shooting -- Waters again insisted that replacement theory was a legitimate, mainstream conservative concept and that "'replacement theory' twists conservatives’ justified concern that Democrats want to import immigrants into America and give them citizenship – Democrats who would then dutifully pull the lever for the big-spending party who fought to get them into the country."
After the shooting, the MRC had no choice but to double down on replacement theory and pretend it's not racist. More on that soon.
CNS Editor Still Blaming Continued Trade With Russia On Biden Topic: CNSNews.com
One of the dishonest ways CNSNews.com has been attacking President Biden over Russia's invasion of Ukraine is by implicitly blaming him for trade continuing between the U.S. and Russia as tensions heated up. That bias has continued. Editor Terry Jeffrey wrote in an April 6 article:
The United States ran a record February merchandise trade deficit of $2,080,300,000 with Russia, according to newly released numbers from the Census Bureau.
Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
During this February, according to the Census Bureau, the United States exported $497,500,000 in goods to Russia and imported $2,577,800,000 in good from Russia—resulting in a trade deficit of $2,080,300,000.
That is the largest trade deficit the United States has ever run with Russia in the month of February.
Jeffrey did seem to grudgingly admit that his attacks are unfair by noting that "According to a timeline published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Biden Administration imposed its first Ukraine-war-related sanctions on Russia on Feb. 21, 2022" and that "it was not until March 8 that the United States banned Russian oil imports." But hedidn't mention that, in the months before the invasion, CNS itself was cool with Russia leader Vladimir Putin trashing the U.S. in general and Biden in particular by spouting right-wing-friendly talking points -- making his moralizing over trade with Russia doubly hypocritical.
To drive home his attack line further, Jeffrey illustrated his article with an old file photo of Biden with Vladimir Putin.
Jeffrey pushed his attack line again with udated numbers in a May 4 article:
In March, which was the first full calendar month after Russia invaded Ukraine, U.S. imports of Russian goods increased, according to newly released data from the Census Bureau.
In January, which preceded the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States exported $396,800,000 in goods to Russia and imported $1,959,400,000 in goods from Russia. That resulted in the United States running a January merchandise trade deficit with Russia of $1,562,500,000.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. That month, most of which preceded the invasion, the United States exported $497,500,000 in goods to Russia and imported $2,577,800,000 from Russia. As a result, the United States ran a February merchandise trade deficit with Russia of $2,080,300,000.
In March, as Russia continued its war in Ukraine, it imported only $101,100,000 in goods from the United States, but the United States imported $2,746,300,000 in goods from Russia.
[...]
The $2,746,300,000 in goods the United States imported from Russia in March was also almost 22 times as much as the $126,200,000 in goods the United States imported from Ukraine that month.
Again, Jeffrey failed to mention his "news" operation's support for Putin in the months before the invasion. And again, he illustrated it with a file photo of Putin and (the back of the head of) Biden.
Remember, Jeffrey's intent is to push a political attack -- these are stories he would not be writing if a Republican was president.
Newsmax Took Part In GOP War Against Disfavored Pa. Senate Candidate Topic: Newsmax
Before the Republican primary for the Pennsylvania Senate seat, CNSNews.com touted the anti-abortion views of candidate Kathy Barnette and her endorsement by a right-wing Catholic group. By contrast, Newsmax was criticizing Barnette for not being conservative enough. An curiously unbylined May 13 article branded Barnette as "erratic":
Though she got high marks as a pro-life advocate, political newcomer Kathy Barnette has seen her support dwindle as conservatives scrutinize her record.
Barnette's comments in recent years have included claiming unrest in the "Black community" was due to "white racism."
And the protests — that often times turned violent — over the death of George Floyd "were for a very good reason," she said.
Surprisingly, Barnette also has criticized the nation’s first president, saying she "heard white people talking about the high and mightiness of George Washington, a former slave owner."
Just two years ago, Barnette led a petition drive to build a statue to former President Barack Obama and his family.
She said the statue would "serve as an example of how far we have come as a nation."
[...]
"Kathy lost big to a weak Democrat and would lose even more to John Fetterman — giving Democrats another seat in the Senate," GOP Senate candidate Carla Sands, a former Trump ambassador, said during Newsmax's May 4debate at Grove City College.
"At a time when our conservative values and constitutional rights hang in the balance, we cannot afford to lose this seat."
This was all part of a conservative war against Barnette as she rose in the polls due to top candidates Mehmet Oz and Dave McCormick beating each other up with negative ads. Donald Trump, to whom Newsmax is beholden, endorsed Oz, and Dick Morris dndorsed him too in a May 11 column while also dismissing Barnette as "the weakest in the field to win in November against a heavily funded Democratic candidate. There are even reports that the Democrats are helping her campaign."
A May 16 article by Solange Reyner touted a pre-election robocall Trump made for Oz that trashed other candidates including Barnette: "Barnette 'wanted to build a statue to Barack Hussein Obama and attacked the father of our country, George Washington,' said Trump. 'That's no good. Now she changes her tune, but these are not candidates who put America first and that's what we need.'"
After the election, though -- in which she finished behind Oz and McCormick and the winner remains too close to call -- Barnette appeared on Newsmax TV to do a little cleanup, as summarized in a May 21 article by Eric Mack:
Despite facing a barrage of political attacks in the final week after a well-regarded performance in a Newsmax debate, Pennsylvania GOP Senate candidate Kathy Barnette vows to support the eventual winner between Dr. Mehmet Oz or David McCormick.
"I support whoever comes out of this, of course, right?" Barnette told "Saturday Report." "I mean right now standing, trying to pick between the two is like trying to pick between six in one and a half dozen in another. There's very little distinction between the two.
"But whoever should prevail out of this process, absolutely I want our party to win."
Mack didn't mention that Newsmax was part of that anti-Barnette barrage, or that the reason Barnette needed to commit to supporting the election winner was that she wouldn't commit to doing so before the election.
WND Jumps Into Pushing D'Souza's Dubious Film About Election Fraud Topic: WorldNetDaily
Because WorldNetDaily couldn't pass up a good conspiracy theory, no matter how thoroughly it'd debunked, it was quick to attach itself to the idea that thousands of "mules" stuffed absentee ballot boxes with fraudulent. In January, for example, an article touted a claim from right-wing group True the Vote that it had a video of this allegedly happening, which was a teaser for an article (like the first, unbylined) announcing that Dinesh D'Souza was making a film based on True the Vote's "explosive footage," called "2000 Mules," and that he had released a teaser video. No mention, of course, that the trailer didn't actually prove anything and that D'Souza is a convicted criminal with a poor factual track record.
As the movie's release date approached, WND got very excited. An April 15 article by Art Moore forwarded the film's claims in an attempt to build credibility for them:
Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips have been engaged in the battle for election integrity for more than a decade, and the day after the contested November 2020 vote, they made a pact.
"Catherine looked at me and said, 'What are we going to do?'" Phillips recounted in an in-depth video interview with Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
"I said, Let’s go," Phillips recalled. "She said, Let's go all in."
They eventually hired a dozen people who have put in 16-hour days for 15 months, combing tediously through cellphone geolocation data, surveillance videos and documents to see if the evidence supports their hypothesis.
Their hypothesis is that amid the many "dirty," out-of-date voter rolls and the unprecedented distribution of mail-in ballots, a highly coordinated operation in the key battleground states collected ballots and paid "mules" to literally stuff them in the unattended drop boxes that became a center of controversy.
An April 25 article by Moore touted a right-wing reporter promoting "the hard data gathering by longtime election-integrity investigators Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote, and data analyst Gregg Phillips that is featured in the upcoming documentary by Dinesh D'Souza '2000 Mules'." That was followed the next day by an article by Bob Unruh promoting how True the Vote video led to "organizations that handed out cash for ballot-harvesting operations" in Georgia. (Those claims were dismissed a few weeks later, which WND never reported to its readers.)
On the day D'Souza's film release date was announced, WND published a Western Journal article detailing where the "highly anticipated documentary film? coupld be viewed. This was followed by an April 28 article by Moore detailed his softball interivew with Engelbrecht in which she declared that "The facts are the facts, and you cannot look away." Moore also interviewed D'Souza, and that bundle of softballs was featured in a May 3 article:
Feeling a bit like Charlie Brown and the elusive football, many who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 have grown weary of claims of evidence that the 2020 election was stolen.
Filmmaker and author Dinesh D'Souza understands that reaction, but he's willing to bet that even the most cynical among us will be convinced after seeing the hard evidence presented in "2000 Mules," which is debuting this week.
"This idea that this was the most secure election – I predict that this movie will blow that out of the water," he told WND in a video interview (embedded below).
"No one who sees this movie will be able to listen to that with a straight face."
D'Souza emphasized "this is evidence of a completely different caliber than anything we've seen before."
But like many things involving D'Souza, "2000 Mules" began to fall apart factually as soon as people outside WND's right-wing media bubble saw it. That means Moore went into defense mode for a May 10 article trying to fight back against an Associated Press fact-check:
The AP's primary claim was that the cellphone location data is not precise enough to determine whether or not an individual actually visited a particular drop box. Innocent people, the news wire contended, may have been caught up in their data.
However, as Wendi Strauch Mahoney of UncoverDC reports, Engelbrecht and Phillips took that issue and many others brought up by the AP into account when they designed their investigation.
In a 2018 opinion in the Supreme Court case Carpenter v. United States, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that when the government "tracks the location of a cell phone," it "achieves near perfect surveillance as if it had attached an ankle monitor to the phone’s user."
And Engelbrecht points out in the movie that the data in Georgia was used by law enforcement as a test case to help law enforcement solve a cold murder case of a young girl.
That's not actually true, but since Moore is promoting the film instead of acting like a real reporter, he's not about to question anything Engelbrecht says. He also made no effort to fact-check this:
The AP also challenged the claim that the data show violent Antifa rioters were among the mules.
"There were several different violent BLM Antifa riots in Atlanta, and in one of them, we had three dozen of our mules participate in these violent riots," Phillips said. "There's an organization that tracks the device IDs. Across all violent protests around the world, we took a look at our 242 mules in Atlanta, and sure enough, dozens and dozens and dozens of our mules show up on the ACLED databases."
The reference is to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a non-profit that "collects the dates, actors, locations, fatalities, and types of all reported political violence and protest events around the world."
WND cranked up promotion of the film to try and drown out the criticism. An unbylined May 13 article claimed that "An Arizona county sheriff's office featured in Dinesh D'Souza's "2000 Mules" documentary on alleged ballot trafficking in the 2020 presidential election is working with the county recorder to investigate vote fraud" -- but the sheriff himself said there's no link between his investigation and the film. An article the same day by Moore uncritically promoted Phillips' claim that "he and his witnesses have become the target of Georgia state officials instead of the people he believes delivered fraudulent votes to help Joe Biden win the White House.
But even as WND's "news" side got tired of defending D'Souza's film, the opinion side was full of conspiracy theories designed to promote a conspiracy-laden film. More on that soon.
After following its Media Research Center parent in flip-flopping on the evilness of Elon Musk after his decision to try and buy Twitter, CNSNews.com has moved on to following in the MRC's foosteps by treating seemingly every public utterance he makes as a "news" story. Managing editor Michael W. Chapman cheered Musk's endorsement of right-wing talking points on the Biden administration's planned Disinformation Governance Board in an April 29 post: 
When Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner looked to all appearances like he was cashing in on his White House service in boosting Saudi Arabia by receiving a 
Patrice Lewis began her April 29 WorldNetDaily 
Curtis Houck kept handing out cookies to right-wing reporters in the White House briefing room for staying on message with their predetermined talking points. The cookie beneficiary in the April 29 
In a March 7 CNSNews.com 
Like editor Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily columnist Jack Cashill can't resist a good conspiracy theory, no matter how much it gets debunked. So, 
Media Research Center writer Gabriel Hays 
We've shown
The Media Research Center 
A while back, CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey 
The Media Research Center was a promoter and defender of the right-wing replacement theory conspiracy well before the racist perpetrator of the mass shooting at a Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store spouted it -- 
One of the 
Before the Republican primary for the Pennsylvania Senate seat, CNSNews.com 
Because WorldNetDaily couldn't pass up a good conspiracy theory, no matter how thoroughly it'd debunked, it was quick to attach itself to the idea that thousands of "mules" stuffed absentee ballot boxes with fraudulent. In January, for example, an 
