MRC's Graham Remains At War With Fact-Checkers Who Check Conservatives
Topic: Media Research Center

It's been a while since we checked in on how the Media Research Center's Tim Graham has tried to complain and nitpick media fact-checks of conservatives in order to portray them as biased -- a task he regularly fails at. How is that war is going for him? Let's go back to Jan. 27, where Graham was setting up a narrative:

At the top of their home page, PolitiFact begs for donations by proclaiming "Our only agenda is to publish the truth so you can be an informed participant in democracy." But this "independent fact-checker" routinely betrays a tilt by coming out more aggressively to “correct” rhetorical or factual attacks on Democrats.

At the end of Biden’s first 100 days, we reported our study of PolitiFact found they published 13 fact checks of the president, and 106 fact checks of the president’s critics. In other words, they’re much more sensitive about someone “lying” about Biden than they are about Biden lying. 

Now, after reviewing Biden’s first year, a NewsBusters study shows the same pattern continues. Overall from January 20, 2021 through January 19, 2022, MRC analysts found Biden was fact-checked 40 times, while Biden critics were checked on 230 occasions.

[...]

Many of the fact checks about Biden are about “Facebook Posts,” “Viral Images,” or “Instagram.” Those rulings often translate into content warning flags on social media. The shutdowns of Biden critics don't just happen on PolitiFact, but on Big Tech platforms.

These numbers, presented out of context from the total number of fact-checks on all politicans that PolitiFact has done or even the number of alleged false statement Biden has made ,shows that Graham refuses to consider the fact that Biden simply does not make very many false statements or that his fellow right-wing haters are quite invested in spreading lies about him. Also note that Graham puts "lying" in scare quotes when describing anti-Biden falsehoods being debunked but does not do so when using the word to describe what Biden says. Cherry-picking numbers while censoring others that might be more inconvenient to your political narrative is not "media research."

The next day, Graham was ranting that a Rrepubilcan candidate for lieutenant governor in Virginia was busted spreading a false claim, dismissing the falsehood as a mere "quibble":

On January 24, PolitiFact wrote a “fact check” throwing a “Mostly False” rating at Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears for an TV interview with Fox News on Martin Luther King Day asserting “When it comes to CRT, it is definitely being taught in some form or fashion. We know that last year, the Loudoun County school board spent about 300,000 plus dollars, that’s real money, that’s going to jail money, to bring CRT in some form or fashion to the school system.”

[...]

One factual quibble was worthy: Loudoun Country spend $300,000-plus dollars for “equity training” over several years, not in 2020. Whether that quibble matters to parents there is a different question. It should matter to Fiske that Loudoun County officials lied about only spending $34,167 on seminars. 

PolitiFact attempted to argue the Equity Collaborative was brought in for a much broader effort about the discipline policy and overall treatment of minority students, and then altered its conclusion:

At no point did Graham (or the right-wing Daily Caller source he cited to back up his numbers) prove that every single penny of that money paid only for "critical race theory," nor did he prove that addressing equity issues in schools has any direct tie to CRT. Instead he tried to confuse the issue even further: "They were developing systemic-racism education in 'curricular and instructional efforts.' It's exactly as Sears asserted on Fox News, that the Left is 'playing semantics' on its efforts to impose 'equity training' on teachers and students."

Graham is engaging in what anti-CRT activist Christopher Rufo advocated: make CRT such a toxic term that any school lesson that even remotely touches on racism  can be redefined as CRT and, thus, become a rallying cry for right-wing activists who don't like public education in the first place.

A Jan. 29 post featured Graham whining that a Facebook claim about having to "show papers" when eating in a restaurant when it actually meant just showing you've gotten a COVID vaccine was flagged for taking the situation out of context, along with a bizarre shot at the publication doing the fact-check:

In other words, it's accurate for some cities, but not for America in its entirety, so -- "missing context!"  [USA Today writer Daniel] Funke admitted it's not WRONG, it's ....overly broad.

[...]

He seems to be "missing context" in avoiding the "show your ID" part, not just proof of vaccination. He doesn't include DC. But this is like saying it would be "misleading" to say USA Today is a "national" newspaper, where there are many places across America you can't buy a copy.

Graham then went on to huff that USA Today was engaged in "harassment" of this Facebook user by fact-checking him:

I sent this message to Funke on Twitter: "I'm a little mystified why you would jump to 'correct' a Facebook post from a guy with 427 followers. That's some 'misinformation' threat?" And: "Why not focus on Mayor Bowser and how she is "missing the context" that asking for an ID sounds like it's not 'racist' when it's about COVID."

Funke does claim this little meme was shared. "The post accumulated more than 3,500 shares within two days." But it certainly looks like a media Goliath picking on a conservative David.[...]

USA Today notes that this harassment of Facebook users is funded by a grant from Facebook. You donate to liberal newspapers, you get liberal spin disguised as "missing context" checking. 

Graham brought his "context" argument to Feb. 7 post, insisting that it was Fox News being taken out of context, not then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki:

John Sexton at Hot Air reports that a Washington Post "fact checker" came rushing to Team Biden's defense in an article titled "How an out-of-context Jen Psaki clip led to days of Fox coverage."

On the Obama-bros podcast Pod Save America, White House press secretary Jen Psaki went full Stelter and shamed Fox for covering something that the liberal networks weren't covering -- rising crime in American cities.

Sexton makes a great point that Psaki herself wasn't really accurate in describing what aired on Fox.

[...]

This isn't "independent fact checking." It's acting like Psaki's Psecret Pservice.

It's Psaki and Usero who aren't reflecting the event as it occurred. Sexton points out that it's Fox News that is being taken out of context. Psaki was laughing about a chyron from The Fivew hich aired on January 24. They aired an 11-minute segment which included that chyron over Jeanine Pirro. Why cover that topic that Monday? Because two NYPD officers had been shot the previous Friday night, and both died (one after this aired). That's the "soft on crime consequences" Psaki pretended were in an "alternative universe." She was suggesting it was....Fake News. Psaki wasn't watching the show, she was commenting on the chyron. Then they're upset Fox mocked her as unserious on crime. Pirro wasn't even mentioning Biden!

The Post robots don't have to like Fox News Channel, but if you're writing for "The Fact Checker," it might be a good idea to actually watch the Fox News video in question here. Or at least admit Jen Psaki's Fox News remarks were uninformed about what was actually discussed.

Graham doesn't have to like the Washington Post -- indeed, he gets paid quite well to hate them -- but presuming that any and every fact-check of a conservative or any purported failure to fact-check a non-conservative is solely because of "liberal bias" is a sad way to live your life.

In a March 15 post, Graham again handwaved someone's actual false claims -- this time ex-Trump adviser Stephen Miller -- to complain he was being victimized for being the subject of a fact-check over his claims about Vice President Kamala Harris at a meeting of European leaders:

First, it's true that Miller cited the wrong European president, but it's obvious from the video that Harris tried to defer to the Romanian leader. You go first! 

But as usual, the real issue is selection bias. Why is this small flub in a video clip worth a fact check? PolitiFact rarely checks CNN or MSNBC shows (because they're all liberals). Last week, a guest told Rachel Maddow's substitute host Ali Velshi the embarrassing falsehood that "Hitler didn't kill ethnic Germans," which was corrected by the Auschwitz Memorial people, but PolitiFact somehow couldn't locate that viral clip.

It seems obvious that PolitiFact is trying to whack Fox News as a misinformation channel and control the damage of these strange Harris performances in front of the press.

Is that the same "selection bias" Graham has when he can never seem to find any bias at Fox News?

CNS Editor Still Covering Up Huge Amount Of Federal Debt Under Trump
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey is continuing to obsess about the federal debt under President Biden the way he refused to under President Trump. He huffed in a Jan. 26 column:

When President Joe Biden was sworn in on Jan. 20, 2021, the federal government's debt stood at $27,751,896,236,414.77.

When his first year in office ended on Jan. 20, 2022, it stood at $29,867,021,509,573.92.

That means that during Biden's first 12 months in office, the federal debt grew by more than $2 trillion — or $2,115,125,273,159.15 to be exact.

How do you put that in perspective?

The United States of America had existed for 210 years — and 40 presidents had served as this nation's chief executive — before the debt first topped $2 trillion in 1986.

Jeffrey's attempt at "perspetive," however, glossed over the debt created by a certain Republican president:

Then it rose to $10,626,877,048,913.08 by January 20, 2009, the day President Barack Obama took office; then to $19,947,304,555,212.49 by January 20, 2017, when President Donald Trump took office; then to $27,751,896,236,414.77 on January 20, 2021, when Biden took the oath.

Jeffrey is certainly not going to point out that the federal debt under Obama went up only $1 trillion more over eight years that Trump accumulated in four. Instead, Jeffrey attacked Biden for signing a COVID relief package.

Jeffrey was at it again in a May 4 "news" article:

The federal debt has increased by $2,650,725,664,597.74 since President Joe Biden was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2021, according to the official numbers published by the U.S. Treasury.

At the close of business on Biden’s Inaugural Day, the federal debt stood at $27,751,896,236,414.77, according to the Treasury. At the close of business on Monday, the most recent day for which the numbers are available, the debt was $30,402,621,901,012.51.

The increase from the $27,751,896,236,414.77 debt on Biden’s Inaugural day to the $30,402,621,901,012.51 on Monday equals $2,650,725,664,597.74.

The word "Trump" appeared nowhere in Jeffrey's article, even though Biden's pace of debt is roughly that of Trump's.

MRC Still Defending Herschel Walker Over Things They Attack Democrats For
Topic: Media Research Center

Media Research Center sports blogger Jay Maxson stood by carpetbagging Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker when he was credibly accused of domestic abuse, insisting that it can't be true because charges were never filed. As Walker continues to show how poor a candiate he is who is merely coasting on his fame as a football player, the defense has switched to the MRc's resident New York Times-hater, Clay Waters.

Waters spent an April 19 post whining that thew Times devoted an article to the unsavory backgrounds (and current behavior) of certain prominent GOP candidates. When the article turned to Walker, he retorted with whataboutism:

[Reporter Jonathan] Weisman poked through old domestic abuse accusations against Herschel Walker, football star turned Republican candidate for Senate in his home state of Georgia. That's funny! Walker is running against Sen. Raphael Warnock, and they were too busy promoting the Democrat to discuss his ex-wife's allegations that he ran over her foot. (Warnock had "fact checkers" fight for him.)

Waters didn't explain why false claims should not have been fact-checked.

The whataboutism continued with Waters bringing up a politician who hasn't held pollitical office in more than 20 years:

The name “Bill Clinton” somehow was unmentioned, a Democrat president who notoriously escaped allegations of sexual harassment and rape thanks to a compliant press that willingly smeared and disappeared his accusers.

[...]

Again, Bill Clinton was credibly accused of rape by Juanita Broaddrick, and of sexual harassment by Paula Jones and Kathleen Willey.

it's not a smear to point out the fact that Broaddrick has lied under oath -- either to deny a sexual assault by Clinton or to claim one happened -- and that she does, in fact, have credibility problems.

Waters played Warnock whataboutism again in a May 22 post complaining about a "hostile" Times profile of Walker:

Walker is a flawed candidate, prone to exaggeration, as the Times has consistently documented this year, while mostly avoiding Democrat Warnock’s own flaws. Weisman (a white reporter, noted only because race is so important to Weisman here) still managed to be unfair to the black Republican.

He made no mention, not even a condescending one, of how eager supposedly racist Republicans are (as the paper feverishly claimed after the Buffalo massacre) to vote for a black candidate or the historic nature of a black Democrat against a black Republican competing for a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia.

[...]

After noting “the football star’s history of domestic violence, his admitted struggles with mental illness,” the reporter predicted Walker’s message would fail because of black resentment of the infamous police killing that happened two years ago in Minneapolis.

[...]

Meanwhile, Warnock’s gross accusations of a “Jim Crow” assault on voting rights didn’t garner any objections from the Times.

Waters isn't the only MRC employee stuck having to defend Walker. Tim Graham used a May 8 post to grumble about a Washington Post "hit piece" on Walker declaring that "you could tell it would accentuate the negative" just from the headline.He continuyed grumbling that "The quotes [the reporter] uses are overwhelmingly negative, from furious liberals and from local Republican skeptics." Graham was particularly upset that reporter "highlights how Walker isn't always up to speed on policy or politics, such as referring to late congressman John Lewis as a Senator," furiously spinning in response: "Walker's not always wrong, but the liberals pretend he is."

At no point did Graham identify any factual inaccuracy in the article. instead, he handwaved Walker's worst behavior with, you guessed it, Warnock whataboutism:

Rosengren dove deeply into Walker's memoir where he talked of playing Russian roulette and thought about shooting a man who was late in delivering a car he ordered, as well as how officials granted a restraining order after his ex-wife said he threatened to kill her. That's some serious stuff. But you can be sure the Post wasn't digging into allegations from his opponent Sen. Raphael Warnock's ex-wife who claimed he ran over her foot. 

Graham wants you to think that what Warnock is alleged to have done (of which there is no police evidence) is just as bad as what Walker has done. It's not, and Graham is being dishonest by claiming moral equivalence.

Meanwhile, the bad news for Walker keeps piling up. Illegitimate children keep coming out of the woodwork, and he said there are 52 states. The MRC has been silent so far, because it's OK if you're a Republican.

For WND's Elder, The 'Charlottesville Lie' Lie Just Won't Die
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily has long peddled the "Charlottesville lie" lie, and Larry Elder took another stab at it in his May 25 column:

In Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, protesters peacefully gathered to support and oppose the removal of a Confederate monument in the public square. A white supremacist intentionally drove his car into the protesters, killing one and injuring five. Then-President Donald Trump, during a press conference about the tragedy, said: "I've condemned neo-Nazis. I've condemned many different groups. But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. ... And I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists – because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists." He also said, "You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides."

Critics ignored the "and I'm not talking about" part and accused Trump of defending the attacker and violent protesters as "very fine people on both sides." That lie has become an article of faith for Trump haters.

In fact, as we've documented, others have pointed out that Trump was talking about those who atttended a protest that opposed the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee -- a protest organized by a group calling itself American Warrior Revolution, which considers itself a militia and later effectively blaming liberal counterprotester Heather Heyer for her own death in getting mowed down by a car driven by white supremacist James Fields Jr.

But that wasn't the only purported lie about Trump that Elder felt theneed to try and correct. He used his June 8 column to complain that Trump was called out for mocking a disabled reporter:

One slight problem: Trump did not mock a disabled reporter. Or, stated more accurately, Trump did not mock the reporter for his disability. Here's what happened.

In 2015, Trump claimed that on the day of the 9/11 terror attacks, "thousands and thousands of people were cheering" in Jersey City, New Jersey, as the Twin Towers fell. To back up his claim, Trump pointed to an article co-written by the then-Washington Post reporter Serge Kovaleski. The article said, "Law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation." When asked about Trump's statement, Kovaleski said, "I certainly do not remember anyone saying that thousands or even hundreds of people were celebrating. That was not the case, as best as I can remember."

In response, Trump ridiculed what he considered the reporter's retreat from his 9/11 Post article. At a rally, Trump waved his hands erratically and said: "You've got to see this guy: 'Uhh, I don't know what I said. Uhh, I don't remember.' He's going like, 'I don't remember. Maybe that's what I said.'"

I had a close friend of over 40 years. His beloved son was born with special needs. I supported Trump in 2016 and campaigned with and for him. Because of Trump's alleged ridicule of the reporter, my friend ended our friendship, despite my best effort to convince him that he was wrong.

First, Kovaleski does not flail his arms as did Trump when he made fun of him. Kovaleski has a condition called arthrogryposis, described by HopkinsMedicine.org as a "variety of conditions involving multiple joint contractures (or stiffness). A contracture is a condition where the range of motion of a joint is limited. It may be unable to fully or partially extend or bend." He does not gyrate as did Trump when he "mocked" the reporter's condition. Kovaleski is a calm and steady speaker. 

Second, Trump, for years, has used the same "mocking" gesture to ridicule others, including himself, as well as an able-bodied general, as shown by videos on a website called Catholics4Trump.com.

A less biased media outlet pointted the flaws in Elder's (anmd Trump's) logic:

• Kovaleski was not "retreating" from his original report; he was pointing out there was no evidence to back up Trump's claim about Muslims cheering the collapse of the World Trade Center.
• Trump is quite familiar with Kovaleski, who had been covering Trump for years; Trump has denied that he knew the reporter or that he was disabled.
• Trump is indisputably mocking Kovaleski's disability. Whether Trump used the same gestures to mock non-disable people is irrelevant.

Nevertheless, Elder still wasn't done trying to make his argument:

Investor's Business Daily published a commentary with the headline "Fake News: Trump Did Not Mock Disabled Reporter and Other Lies From the Left." It said: "The truth is, Trump has often used those same convulsive gestures to mimic the mannerisms of people, including himself, who are rattled and exasperated. Why couldn't the mainstream media look this up? Gavin McInnes of TheRebelMedia.com and Taki's Magazine did, and he has the video evidence to show that Trump has a history of flailing his arms to make a point. It isn't something he reserved for Kovaleski. ...

IBD shut down its right-wing opinion section in 2019. McInnes is the founder of the Proud Boys, the right-wing militia group that played a key role in the Capitol riot. So maybe neither of these sources are the most reliable ones for Elder to cite.

MRC Targets Another Cop Show For Not Fawning Over Police Enough
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center is a kneejerk defender of the police, insisting that they should not be criticized at all -- especially in TV shows that pull its storylines from the events of the day -- and it's still complaining about TV show plots that offer even the slightest criticism of law enforcement. Dawn Slusher found a new cop show to hate-watch -- and, thus, target with her own hate -- in an April 15 post:

The last thing we need from Hollywood right now is another anti-cop show that puts the lives of our heroes in blue at risk and contributes to a record high number of officers being ambushed and killed across the country by painting officers as evil monsters out to prey on innocent victims. But that’s exactly what AMC’s new drama 61st Street is all about, unfortunately.

61st Street centers around black track star Moses Johnson (Tosin Cole), a good kid with a promising future despite growing up in Chicago’s impoverished South Side. Michael Rossi (Patrick Mulvey) appears to be the only good cop on the show who’s secretly trying to uncover the bad ones.

[...]

And of course, the show isn’t depicting how real-life corruption in Chicago happened and happens under Democrat leadership, and that the city is dealing with a severe increase in crime after leaders defunded the police. Nor are they showing how they’ve had to greatly lower their hiring standards amid staffing shortages due to attrition in the police department, resulting in a spike of applications from those who otherwise wouldn’t be qualified. Nor are they depicting how Democrat leaders spent millions on their own police protection while defunding it for the rest of Chicago’s citizens.

In other words, the Democrat-run city is a mess, and they’ve only made things worse by chasing out the good cops and enlisting lesser qualified ones. Shows like 61st Street only contribute to these problems by furthering an anti-cop climate and widening this country’s racial divide while putting good officers’ safety at risk as mentioned before. Let’s hope it’s canceled before it can do more damage with a second season.

So criminals watching an obscure cable show for escalating attacks on law enforcement when the real problem is Democrats? Who knew?

In fact, Chicago police weren't actually "defunded" -- their budget for this year is nearly $2 billion. What cuts did happen to Chicago police, largely elimination of vacant positions, was driven by pandemic-induced budget deficits. Additionally, crime is also up in cities that didn't "defund" police.

Three days later, Slusher attacked another episode of "61st Street," complaining that characters called for defunding the police -- while failing to note that it never really happened in Chicago -- and huffing that "They’ve made it clear their goal is to make all police look as bad as possible and sway public opinion against them" and blaming "hatred" of police and the purported "defunding" of them for how "so many good officers" are leaving the department. Needless to say, Slusher didn't breathe a word about the notorious corruption of Chicago police, making criticism of them having at least some basis in reality.

Slusher ranted in an April 25 post about yet another episode of the show:

How many liberal talking points can Hollywood writers fit into one scene? Apparently a lot if we go by AMC’s new anti-cop drama 61st Street, which managed to rant about feminism, white people, and the police all in one brief scene on Sunday’s episode, “Barefoot and Dangerous.” They even went so far as to claim policing is “just personal security for rich, white folks.”

Again, Slusher is mad that the ugly reality of Chicago police is being pointed out. For instance, it has been documented that Chicago police pull over black drivers seven times more often than white drivers and are more likely to use force against black people than white people -- and it solves murder cases involving black victims at less than half the rate it solves murder cases involving white victims.

Slusher's hate-watching -- and repetition of false narratives -- continued in a May 11 post:

AMC’s super woke, anti-cop drama 61st Street has continued to pour it on thick with their extremist, far-left, Black Lives Matter (BLM) agenda. In the past two episodes, the show has falsely claimed that police presence in schools is a “declaration of war” and that the system can't be reformed, because it supposedly began as a slave-catching patrol and is therefore "functioning as it should." It also denounced the justice system for “locking (black) people up.”

[...]

Pushing the false narrative that policing has origins in slave-catching on plantations is rather dubious of the show, but it’s a typical straw man argument used by SJWs in an attempt to bolster their position. Of course, black lives matter, and any cop who is racist and/or abuses their power needs to be held accountable.

But, if 61st Street truly cared about black lives, they wouldn’t be depicting the South Side as an innocent, safe neighborhood as they have. If the show is to be believed, police are the only real threat to residents, when in fact, less than half a percent of black lives are taken during police conflicts. 

What they should be showing is the reality that crime is the biggest threat to black lives and that more black lives are lost weekly to criminal violence than all lives lost weekly at the height of the Vietnam War. Defunding police has only made things worse as crime rates have skyrocketed, standards in hiring officers have been lowered, and the attrition rate has soared.

BLM initiatives are actually destroying black lives, yet 61st Street wants to promote them? AND do away with the justice system that has held bad officers accountable? In what kind of world would any of that make sense?

Oh, that’s right. Liberal Hollywood. Too bad their harmful propaganda isn't self-limiting. It has far-reaching effects across the entire country. All the more reason to cancel this dangerous show immediately.

As we've noted, many Southern cities had slave patrols that predated the creation of police departments there, and that all such police operations were created to enforce the existing social hierarchy -- you know, racism and segreation -- before evolving into a force for protection starting in the late 19th century, so it's not a "false narrative" to point out that policing has at least some history in the slave trade.

Slusher's messaging also got confused in the links to the mostly right-wing sources she used to back up her claims about black crime. If black crime is so bad on the South Side, isn't that in large part a failure of police to do their job adequately and that their methods so far have been a failure? And the idea that "less than half a percent of black lives are taken during police conflicts" (taken from a right-wing New York Post column that doesn't reveal the source of the stat or the actual number of blacks killed by police) is hardly the reassuring statistic Slusher wants you to think it is; that number should effectively be zero, and the fact the number is where it's it is also in no small part because of inadequate police training.

Newsmax's Bolling Also Ran With Fake-News Story
Topic: Newsmax

We caught CNSNews.com peddling a fake-news story from a shady, anonymous, right-wing dark-money "news" operation that falsely accused an Illinois school district of implementing a race-based grading system, a hot-button CRT-adjacent issue among right-wingers. Well, it wasn't the only ConWeb outlet to run with the bogus story. The Daily Beast reported:

Newsmax host Eric Bolling on Wednesday ran with a supposedly explosive story about Chicago suburban high school districts implementing “race-based grading” systems that would tip the scales against white students.

There’s just one little problem: it isn’t true.

 [...]

While the story had been revealed to be bogus well before Bolling’s showThe Balance aired on Wednesday afternoon, he nonetheless centered an entire segment on the false claims about the district.

“Think about this for a second,” the Newsmax star declared. “Students, depending on their race, will not be held accountable for unexcused absences or failing to do their homework, misbehaving, or being disruptive.”

Rather than bring on a parent from that school district to discuss this story, Bolling instead brought on Terry Newsome, who lives in “nearby” Downers Grove. Newsome made news late last year when he protested the presence of LGBTQ+ books in his children’s school district, calling one book a “child pornographic sketchbook.”

After Newsome compared the so-called “race-based grading system” to affirmative action measures in the Chicago police department, he then mentioned that the Oak Park school district says it isn’t implementing any policy changes. He didn’t believe the district, however.

“In Illinois, most of the schools…they look you in the face and say we aren't teaching CRT. This pornography isn’t pornography because it falls under LGBTQ,” Newsome exclaimed. “So they released a statement saying they aren’t teaching it but the PowerPoints and all the material they reviewed said they’re going to be grading based on race!”

Newsome and Bolling would then spend the rest of the segment railing against Illinois schools while an on-air graphic blared: “CHICAGO HS IMPLEMENTING RACE-BASED GRADING SYSTEM.”

It's been nearly a month since Bolling did this bogus story, and he apparently has made no effort to correct the record.

NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Gas Price Blame Failure
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center keeps pushing the narrative that President Biden is to blame for high gas prices -- but it never names a specific Biden policy it can directly attribute to the price jumps. Read more >>

CNS Tries Hard To Deceive Readers Into Thinking That Capitol Riot Hearings Aren't News
Topic: CNSNews.com

Like its Media Research Center parent, its "news" division CNSNews.com was under orders (from Brent Bozell? The dark-money powers that be in the conservative movement?) not to report any news that came out of the hearings from the House committee examining the Capitol riot and the events leading up to it and to attack the existence and legitimacy of the committee itself -- which seems counter to CNS' self-proclaimed mission as, you know, a "news" organization. Susan Jones was quick to dismiss findings that hadn't even been revealed in a June 6 article before the first hearing:

On Thursday night, the Select House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol will hold its first prime-time televised hearing so Committee Democrats -- and the committee's two Republican members -- can portray "the extent, the expanse, how broad this multi-pronged effort was" to overturn the 2020 presidential election, as Republican Rep. Liz Cheney put it on Sunday.

According to Cheney, the attack on the Capitol by an unruly mob of Trump supporters was "extremely broad, "well-organized," and "really chilling."

[...]

Schiff refused to say what witnesses might appear before the committee on Thursday night. But he did say that the "propensity for violence" will be one of the themes explored -- an interesting angle, given the failure by congressional officials to prepare for the violence they apparently anticipated.

Jones is leaning into the right-wing conspiracy theory that Nancy Pelosi somehow stopped the Capitol police from being fully prepared for the events of that day.

Jones was in full biased froth in a June 8 article, and she had one of CNS' most quotable congressmen to help in in that froth:

The House committee investigating the events of January 6th -- strategically leaking along the way -- has scheduled its first public hearing in prime time tomorrow night.

Most media outlets will cover the info-tainment event live, but not Fox News.

Appearing on Fox News Tuesday night, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said it's a sham hearing, politically motivated:

"This is the only committee hearing I've ever seen in Congress where there was not an opportunity to cross-examine witnesses because there is no Republican on that committee who will do it," Jordan told "The Ingraham Angle."

The only two Republicans on the committee are Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, both of them anti-Trumpers who fully agree with Democrats that the attack on the U.S. Capitol by an unruly mob amounted to "insurrection" and a threat to democracy.

The only person shot and killed on that day was an unarmed protester coming through a window.

[...]

Assisting the committee with its "choreographed" production is former ABC News President James Goldston.

Jones is leaning into another right-wing narrative, that the "unarmed protester," Ashli Babbitt, is a martyr to the cause despite the fact that she was part of a mob that had broken the window she was climbing to get through, thus making her a reasonable threat to safety (and, one can article, a domestic terrorist). Needless to say, Jones made no effort to fact-check any of Jordan's rantings.

Apparently because Jordan wasn't ranty enough, a June 9 article by Craig Bannister depicts CNS' favorite right-wing radio host going completely unhinged:

Not since the Salem Witch Trials has the U.S. seen such a one-sided prosecution of Americans who aren’t allowed to defend themselves, Constitutional Scholar Mark Levin said Wednesday, commenting on the Democrats’ Jan. 6 Select Committee investigation and hearings into the 2021 Capitol riots.

On the eve of Thursday’s nationally-televised hearing designed to smear, vilify and criminalize former President Donald Trump and select Republicans, Levin made his case during an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity”:

“Never in American history, except maybe the Salem Witch Trial, have we had a court of law, or more recently, a Congressional hearing with just one side. Just one side.

“This is a Stalinist show-trial. Google it. DuckDuck it. Bing it. Go see what I mean,” Levin said.

[...]

Levin said that, when Republicans take over the House, “I hope they will investigate this committee; I hope that they will subpoena Nancy and Hoyer and all the rest” of the Democrats who actually did make threats and encourage unlawful protests intended to influence Supreme Court justices.

Like Jones, Bannister doesn't believe in fact-checking people he agrees with, though he works for a "news" organization.

Because it was under orders not to cover news, CNS devoted no "news"article to the findings revealed at the June 9 prime-time hearing. Indeed, the next day the hearing's findings were nowhere to be found at the top of CNS' front page, which was furiously covering everything but the hearing, as this screenshot of the CNS front page from the early afternoon of June 10 shows: 

After the hearing, CNS offered only opinions, not facts. Bannister was a servile conduit for more of that in a June 10 article:

"This is a kangaroo court; this is a fixed jury," liberal Democrat and Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Thursday, commenting on Democrats’ nationally-televised Jan. 6 Select Committee hearing.

In an interview with Newsmax, the Constitutional scholar condemned the hearing for its unfairness, partisanship and denial of due process, as well as for its predetermined conclusion.

Neither Bannister nor Dershowitz mentioned the fact that this is a hearing, not a legal proceeding.This was followed by an article from Micky Wooten, a summer intern who has been given the grand title of "Investigative Journalism Fellow":

Jan. 6 rioters causing the death of 5 cops is a "pure lie," Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Thursday, while the Jan. 6 committee held its primetime hearing.

Carlson first blasted a Wednesday "CBS Nightly News" segment that parroted this assertion, proceeding to tackle a slew of CNN and MSNBC hosts repeating this falsehood.

“Policing is a tough job, as we’ve noted. But in these specific cases, the one CBS is referring to, the chief of Washington D.C.’s Police Department told the New York Times that actually he had no idea if his officers were driven to kill themselves by Jan. 6," Carlson said, referring to suicides of four cops after Jan. 6. "CBS just made that up."

For being an "Investigative Journalism Fellow," Wooten is bad at investigative journalism. In fact, the suicide of one of those officers has been ruled a line-of-duty death stemming from the injuries he received that day.

Wooten also uncritically regurgitated Carlson's claim that "The D.C. medical examiner performed an autopsy and the autopsy report showed that Officer Brian Sicknick had not suffered any kind of blunt force trauma. He was not beaten to death. He died of a stroke in his office later. " In fact, the medical examiner also ruled that "all that transpired played a role in his condition," meaning his death can be attributed to the insurrection.

Melanie Arter brought back Jordan to spread a new conspiracy theory:

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said Sunday that the reason why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) didn’t call in the National Guard on Jan. 6 is because of the Democrats’ position on defunding the police.

Jordan said that last week’s prime time Jan. 6 congressional hearing didn’t explain why the U.S Capitol was so vulnerable and why the front-line cops weren’t aware that violence was going to happen.

Arter made no effort to fact-check Jordan's claim.

Meanwhile, Bannister sneered that "On Friday, President Joe Biden said that the Democrats’ nationally-televised Jan. 6 select committee on Thursday was 'all about' saving America’s democracy – but, he didn’t watch it because he had more important things to do." Which, of course, he does because he's the president and his subordinates who can watch those hearings and summarize them for him.

CNS then brought in right-wing college professor Jeffrey McCall to dismiss the hearing as "more as a political event than a search for truth or policy deliberation," adding:

Roughly 20 million Americans tuned in to the televised primetime Jan. 6 committee presentation. That seems like a lot. But considering the committee was trying to convince the nation that American democracy is at risk, that number is rather modest. Given that almost all major television outlets were shamed into providing live coverage, this audience turnout is unimpressive. Either Americans are just too oblivious to recognize the threat to democracy, or they have moved on to other concerns, of which there are many in today’s America.

If the orchestrated hearing had been a boxing match, judges would have ruled it a draw. The committee landed some punches against the Capitol miscreants and former President Trump. But in the aftermath of the hearing, it appears no public groundswell is in the offing. People have had eighteen months to ponder that fateful day and most have already processed it as they see fit.

[...]

If the Jan. 6 committee has to resort to putting on media extravaganzas to make its points, they are already rhetorically losing. 

Because CNS censors non-conservative opinion, no alternative viewpoint to this was offered.

MRC Also Defended Guns, Conservatives, Fox News After Buffalo Shooting
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center wasn't just defending replacement theory in the wake of the Buffalo massacre -- it was also defending guns, as right-wingers are mandated to do, as well as their fellow right-wingers against credible accusations they have done nothing to curb gun crime. Kyle Drennen huffed in a May 16 post:

On Monday, ABC’s Good Morning America quickly exploited the horrific shooting at a Buffalo grocery store on Saturday to push President Biden’s anti-gun agenda and suggest “politicians and the members of the media,” like former President Donald Trump, were responsible for “an epidemic of violence and hate in this nation.”  

[...]

[Correspondent Mary] Bruce then decided to be more blatant in her politicization of the attack: “I think it’s important for us all to remember that President Biden said he was inspired to run for president because of how former President Trump responded to white supremacists marching through Charlottesville, Virginia.” She promoted how “Biden made this issue a real centerpiece of his campaign” but that “advocates say it’s simply not enough.”

“They want to see this administration and the president put more political muscle behind this issue and the issue of guns,” Bruce declared of left-wing activists. However, she lamented that Biden’s agenda was stalled: “But we have seen this many times, Robin, despite repeated efforts by some in Washington, there simply is no appetite from Republicans and some Democrats to enact meaningful gun reform.”

In the wake of such horrendous killings, the leftist media instinct is always to bemoan “gun violence” or political rhetoric but never to discuss the surge in crime across the nation and the public policies responsible for the rise.  

Drennen offered no proof that "public policies" -- presumably made by Democrats -- are "responsible for the rise" in violent crime.

Clay Waters ranted the same day over a New York Times "hit piece" pointing out that Republicans have been racist concepts like replacement theory, offering only lame whataboutism in response: "The man who shot five congressmen at an Alexandria ballfield in 2017 was a fan of MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, but don’t hold your breath for the Times to make that point." Waters provided no evidence that Maddow encourage violence against those congressmen -- or against anybody, period.

Curtis Houck grumbled the next day:

Reacting to Saturday’s racially-motivated mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York grocery store, Monday’s CBS Mornings sought to strike fear into the hearts and minds of viewers, insisting “racism is mainstream,” “nowhere is safe,” and “nothing feels safe” with gun violence ready to break out and kill you at a moment’s notice. In response, they tag-teamed with Obama Attorney General Eric Holder to suggest taking a look at the First Amendment.

So long as the press maintains their free speech, it’s to heck with everyone else’s, right?

Houck didn't disprove anything that was said, but he did screech that civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump was a "racial arsonist" while, again, providing no evidence of said "arson."

Scott Whitlock joined in the grosing over CBS in a May 17 post:

CBS Mornings on Tuesday used the evil, racist massacre of African Americans in Buffalo, New York over the weekend to generalize to the whole country. Co-host Gayle King wondered, “Who are we really, as America?” Co-host Nate Burleson agreed, “This is who we are.” 

Later in the show, guest Ian Bremmer lamented the United States as completely mired in hate: “We elected Obama. Didn’t make a difference. The fact is the United States today is the most politically divided and dysfunctional of the advanced industrial democracies.”

The author allowed that the United States is still a magnet to many: “The dollar is really strong. People want to come to our country still. We have this great technology. Our military certainly works. We see all of that." But, he concluded, “Washington is so divided that we can't get the obvious done.” 

What is the obvious? Bremmer didn’t say.

Whitlock couldn't figure it out? Either he's dumb or gets paid well to play dumb.

Alex Christy complained:

From their stance on guns, to opposition to illegal immigration, to alleged code words, the Tuesday cast of Inside Politics on CNN declared that white people need “to come to terms with” their role in the Buffalo mass shooting. It was also alleged that America does not denounce white supremacy enough.

Towards the end of a panel discussion recapping President Biden’s speech in Buffalo, senior political analyst Nia-Malika Henderson tied guns to white supremacy:

[...]

The idea that white supremacy is not denounced enough is absurd. If anything, it has become trivialized, as Henderson immediately demonstrated, “You know, we, sort of, talk about white supremacy, but it's also the ways in which people talk about folks coming across the border. The demonizing that goes around, about those folks about, that somehow they also are a threat to Americans.”

Host John King then brought the segment to a close with allegations of covert white supremacy, “There are a lot of people who say that they're not racist. They've never said a racist thing who use words that are code.”

Alluding to something to something chief political correspondent Dana Bash mentioned earlier, King declared, “You mentioned silence encourages this. So do certain words and certain actions as well and so the president asking everybody to think about what you say. We'll see if that happens.”

Of course, thinking about what the say is not something MRC employees do, unless it's designed to advance right-wing narratives.

And because it's forbidden for anyone to say anything nice about a speech by President Biden, Houck returned to rant:

All three broadcast networks aired special reports Tuesday afternoon on President Biden’s visit to Buffalo, New York following Saturday’s racist act of terror and, in the case of ABC, senior White House correspondent Mary Bruce was enthralled and almost emotional in vocalizing support for Biden’s broad strokes about white supremacy. In Bruce’s words, Biden was saddled with “a really impossible task...to heal what is still very clear a very broken country.”

Ah, nothing like a good side of America-bashing too in the same vein as CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King hours earlier.

[...]

Over on CBS, correspondent Ed O’Keefe identified those who wanted Biden to do more were Democrats and demand he “cite people who work at Fox News” and “Republican leadership, especially in the House.”

O’Keefe also touched on a proposal from House Democrats to expand resources to investigate domestic terrorism, but has been stalled due to Democratic infighting about how it could backfire in the future even though they’d use it to “target [Republican] groups, perhaps closer to the white supremacy thought that the President is calling out.”

And on NBC, far-left Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson argued that white supremacy was not only “part of the history of this country,” but “a growing part of the present.” In other words, look for white supremacy around every corner!

As usual, Houck didn't disprove anything that was said. Also, we don't recall Houck ever accusing Trump of "America-bashing" even though he was highly critical of the country he led.

Because it's also forbidden to criticize Fox News, Tober lashed out at one critic even though his tone is little different than what is regularly found on, er, Fox News:

For the second night in a row, the vile leftist Lawrence O’Donnell melted down over the fact that Rupert Murdoch dared to create a news channel that doesn't toe the leftist media line. The worst part of the unhinged rant came at the beginning of O’Donnell’s MSNBC show The Last Word when he accused Murdoch and Republican politicians of not caring how “large the body count gets” in what he describes as “the permanent white supremacist assassination campaign in this country.”

Much like he did on Monday night, O’Donnell blamed Fox News chairman and founder Rupert Murdoch for the shooting at the Buffalo supermarket on Saturday. O’Donnell wailed that no one has profited more from the great replacement theory “lie than billionaire Rupert Murdoch, who has complete and total control over all of the lies pushed on the Fox network that he owns and operates.”

Claiming the chairman of a major news network and the Republican Party don’t care how many Americans die from mass shootings is beyond disgusting. The premise of the entire controversy is wrong. The mass shooter behind the tragedy in Buffalo wrote in his manifesto that he thought Fox News was out to get him and specifically attacked Murdoch.

Tober attacked O'Donnell's "vile and frankly dangerous commentary," oblivious to the fact that the Buffalo shooter's embrace echoed that of Fox News host Tucker Carlson,. Doesn't he think that's "vile and frankly dangerous"? Apparently not.

CNS Defends DeSantis Over Purported (And Unproven) CRT In Math Textbooks
Topic: CNSNews.com

Craig Bannister showed off his stenographic skills yet again in an April 20 CNSNews.com article:

“Math is about getting the right answer. And, we want kids to learn to think, so get they the right answer,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) said Monday, explaining why his state has rejected math textbooks that include elements of “social justice” ideology.

“It’s not about how you ‘feel’ about the problem, or to introduce some of these other things,” Gov. DeSantis explained in his speech. Math education should not be used to indoctrinate young students on issues like Critical Race Theory, Social Emotional Learning and Common Core principles, DeSantis said:

“There’s a right answer and there’s a wrong answer. And, we want all our students getting the right answers.

“And so, most of the books that did not meet Florida standards, for whatever reason, happened to be in the early grades. As you get into the older grades, most of those books did meet the standards. But, we’re going to continue to focus the education on the actual, strong academic performance of the students.”

“We don’t want things, like math, to have some of these other concepts introduced. It’s not been proven to be effective and, quite frankly, it takes our eye off the ball,” the governor said.

Florida recently rejected a record number of textbooks for content violating the state's standards, The Daily Wire reported Tuesday.

However, Bannister was silent on the fact that DeSantis offered no specific examples of "social justice ideology" he claimed was appearing in math textbooks; it claimed "proprietary reasons" for hiding that information. In the meantime, others found copies of the books Florida rejected and found no purportedly offensive content, unless you consider encouraging students to be nice or brief bios of black mathematicians to be offensive. Florida did release a couple examples a few days later, but they were presented without context and were apparently not targeted to elementary students.

When Florida released more detailed information on what reviewers found, it was clear that, as the Washington Post reported, "The reviewers overwhelmingly noted that the books had avoided forbidden topics such as critical race theory" and that there were only a few overly sensitive right-wing reviewers who complained about such things like a (completely factual) statement that the U.S. has not eradicated racism or that the Federalist Papers weren't referenced in a math discussion of the Electoral College. Those reviewersalso pushing talking points against "social-emotional learning," the new outrage among hateful right-wing activists.

Bannister didn't report on any of those later developments -- no need to let facts get in the way of a good right-wing narrative.

MRC's New Bulldog Awards Are As Lame As You'd Expect
Topic: Media Research Center

Back in March, the Media Research Center announced it was creating an award to give to its fellow right-wingers who in its judgment best advance right-wing narratives:

The Media Research Center has had fun bestowing our DisHonors Awards on those members of the media least deserving of accolades. Now, we want to recognize those most deserving of accolades and we’re looking for the guidance of NewsBusters readers to help us select the deserving winners of the Media Research Center’s Bulldog Awards for the best in journalism.

[...]

Let us know who you think has done outstanding work in the areas covered in the six categories, the kind of work appreciated by conservatives that is so disdained by the legacy media which will never honor it as they pile on honorifics for left wing advocacy by all too many “journalists.” Look at it as our version of the Pulitzer Prizes.

Of course, announcing it would consider only biased work that advances its political agenda saps much of the alleged prestige from it, ensuring it will be considered much closer to the Slanties than the Pulitzers in terms of credibility. The MRC effectively confirmed that when the award winners were announced in May:

With our first annual Bulldog Awards in six categories, the Media Research Center is honoring conservatives in the media who truly deserve accolades yet will never receive them from the media establishment.

[...]

Left-wing journalists are regularly honored for their liberal advocacy with awards throughout the year. On Monday, the biggest journalism awards, the Pulitzer Prizes, were announced. Inevitably, they honored left-wing journalists who pushed the liberal agenda. (The Washington Post won “for its compellingly told and vividly presented account of the assault on Washington on January 6, 2021” and the Houston Chronicle earned a prize for how they “revealed voter suppression tactics, rejected the myth of widespread voter fraud and argued for sensible voting reforms.”)

In announcing the winners of the Bulldog Awards, Media Research Center President Brent Bozell explained: “Today’s MRC Bulldog Award recipients have been selected after careful consideration. Their impactful work is trusted and respected by Americans nationwide, unlike the work of the left-wing operatives that call themselves ‘journalists.’ As the liberal media celebrate themselves with Pulitzers, we wanted to shine a light on the real truth-tellers who are greatly dedicated to informing the American public on stories the legacy media ignores. Congratulations to this year’s winners!”

Only in the MRC's right-wing world is reporting on a violent insurrection and exposing dishonest attacks on voting part of a "liberal agenda."

The award winners are as lame and predictable as you'd expect, as if the MRC's main goal was to bestow awards on its friends and fellow travelers instead of rewarding actual quality content. The award for "outstanding talk show host" was given to Mark Levin, a good friend of MRC chief Brent Bozell whom the MRC aggressively defends no matter what and to whom the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, devotes a considerable amount of stenography.

Dan Bongino received an award for "outstanding podcast"; he too is an MRC fave not only for investing in right-wing Twitter clone Parler (which just so happens to be bankrolled by the MRC's chief bankroller, Rebekah Mercer) and for railing against vaccine mandates (even though he is fully vaccinated). The "outstanding blogger" award was given to Stephen Gutowski, a former MRC employee -- what a conincidence! -- who now runs a pro-gun blog.

The manufacturers of new right-wing narratives also got honor. The right-wing New York Post's Miranda Devine was named "outstanding columnist" for putting Hunter Biden's laptop out there before the 2020 presidential election, but as we've noted, she didn't provide independent verification of the laptop or its alleged contents, making sure that non-right-wing outlets would not take it seriously and treat it as the dubious October surprise that it was. The right-wing Daily Wire's Luke Rosiak was given an award for "outstanding investigative journalism" for "blowing the whistle on the sexual assaults in Loudoun County (Virginia) Public Schools and the subsequent attempts to cover them up by the far-left administration and school board"; we've documented how that work was transphobic in nature and particularly obsessed with an incident in which a transgender student sexually assaulted a female student -- but hid the fact that the student previously had consensual sexual encounters before the incident. Finally, Drew Holden of the right-wing Washington Free Beacon was named "outstanding social media personality" main for tweeting things the MRC likes.

All of this is explicitly ideological -- pushing narratives is more worthy of MRC reward than telling the truth. We put more work, and more honesty, into the Slanties.

Anti-LGBT Michael Brown Only Vaguely Aware Of Why LGBT People Hate Him
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Michael Brown headlined his June 3 WorldNetDaily column "I understand why some LGBTers call us hateful," and he tried to portray himself as reaonable (while, yes, still being hateful of LGBT folks):

When I first began to focus on LGBT issues in 2004, it was because of the gay agenda. I immediately saw that this was the principal threat to freedom of religion, conscience and speech in our nation. I also saw that this was an issue that all of us would have to address someday. We would not get to sit this one out.

At the same time, I understood that we were dealing with both people and issues. And if I was to be in harmony with the Lord, I needed to have His heart of love and compassion for the people.

I understood that the rejection so many of them had experienced (at the hands of family and religion) had deeply wounded them. Consequently, what I perceived as loving and tactful would be perceived by them to be hateful and harsh.

That's why I sat with local gay activists and asked them to tell me their stories face to face. That's why I immersed myself in their literature, wanting to understand the world through their perspective. That's why I even bought their theology and commentary books, reading every argument they brought in support of same-sex relationships.

That's also why I would sometimes pray for them in tears, saying, "God, I don't want to hurt people. I just want to help them."

Brown linked to a version of his June 1 column in which he referenced "a [1972] gay rights platform spelling out militant, comprehensive goals, including the repeal 'of all laws governing the age of sexual consent' (an endorsement of pederasty!) and governmental recognition of multiple-partner 'marriages' (today called 'polyamory') at both the national and statewide level.'" But Brown offers no evidence that this platform had any influence at the time or since; certainly nobody is seriously advocating for the repeal of laws regarding age of sexual consent (the "endorsement of pederasty" Brown is apparently referring to) then or now. The fact that he believes he needs to fearmonger about this 50-year-old document shows us why people call him hateful. 

Indeed, much of his schtick is hateful fearmongering over LGBT people. We've already documented his meltdown over the transgender Caitlyn Jenner being allowed onFox News, but he's done much more over the past few months. He went fearmongering in a March 2 column:

Yes, you read that headline correctly. A man claiming to be a gay Christian has predicted that the gay community will destroy the Christian church – those are his exact words – and he hopes it will happen sooner than later.

Allow me to give you a spoiler alert. The church that Jesus is building – by which I mean the community of His true followers around the world – cannot be destroyed. Or canceled. Or silenced.

As for much of what goes by the name of "Christian church," that's another story.

Perhaps that is what this gay author is describing, namely, the dismantling of so-called Christianity. If so, how on earth could he imagine that the gay community will lead the way in destroying it?

Brown eventually revealed that the author was saying that anti-LGBT hate -- which he of course denies exists -- will destroy the church, and he argued the writer can't be a real Christian because he's gay:

As for churches "hating" gays, I'm sure there are gay-hating churches in America, and I and many others have called them out. They are the exception to the rule, and they misrepresent God.

But it is not hate to tell someone that God has a better way. And it is not hate to declare that, not only did Jesus die for every human being, He also wants to change every human being.

[...]

Do I agree with him that the church needs to demonstrate much more unconditional love, including to the LGBTQ community? Absolutely. "More love" is always a word the church needs to hear. After all, Jesus is our example, and no one practiced selfless love more deeply than He.

At the same time Michael has things completely upside down. It is when the church of America returns to preaching and teaching the Word of God, as written and without apology, full of the Spirit and full of love, that our buildings will be filled with seekers and sinners alike. The truth that will set them free.

In his March 11 column, Brown insisted that the Florida eduction restriction bill is not the "don't say gay bill" -- "In order to oppose it, the critics must grossly misrepresent it" -- then insisted the alleged misnomer is the same as conversion therapy in that it's "a term created by critics, not by proponents of change":

The reality is that there is not a counselor or therapist or pastor that I have ever met who advocates using coercive, forced, or, God forbid, violent measures to "convert" a homosexual into a heterosexual.

All they advocate for is that those with unwanted same-sex attractions or gender-identity confusion have the legal right to sit down with a trained professional and talk. That's it. And what is the goal of these people who seek out counselors? They hope to get to the root of their struggles and find a path for inner-peace, emotional wholeness and potential change (as many thousands have successfully done, to one degree or another).

Why on earth should that not be allowed, not just for minors who want counseling but all the more for adults? 

Because minors tend to be forced into conversion therapy by parents or church people who hate LGBT people and think one can "pray the gay away"? Of course, he calls that a "mocking term" and declared that "the Christians who are being accused of practicing 'pray away the gay' do not simply rely on the power of prayer. They believe in solid counseling, in uncovering spiritual or emotional or experiential roots that influence our behavior and our desires." Of course, Brown doesn't explain why a person's homosexuality must be removed by whatever means.

Brown started saying the quiet part out loud about the bill in his March 28 column:

Yet, even if the bill actually contained the expression, "Don't say gay," I would still support it, since there's no good reason to be talking about homosexuality to these young children. As Bill Maher correctly opined, "maybe kids that young shouldn't be thinking about sex at all.'"

Again, the bill does not mention homosexuality or use terms like "transgender." And we must be diligent to combat the media's misinformation.

[...]

Simply stated, it is not the role of a kindergarten teacher to address these things, especially when we remember how young and socially ignorant and impressionable the little ones are.

That's why even an irreligious atheist can point this out. And that's why, even though the Florida education bill does not say "don't say gay," there's no good reason that "gay" needs to be in these children's vocabulary.

Brown spent his March 25 column lashing out at transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, offering "five reasons why 'Lia' Thomas is not the new Jackie Robinson" (note the scare quotes around her name) and ranting:

How can this possibly be compared to the situation of a person of color? It cannot.

So let's stop this moral insanity before it destroys more lives.

Let's stop calling Thomas "she" and "her."

Let's help him get to the root of his gender confusion (if he's willing).

Let's stand up for women's sports and for female athletes.

And let's not demean the courage and legacy of Jackie Robinson.

Brown used his April 29 column to declare that pastoers cannot be silent about "LGBTQ+ issues and people" because there are "kids in school (from pre-K to college) who are getting indoctrinated with all the radical LGBTQ+ talking points until they have embraced them for themselves." (Brown offers no evidence of this.) He went on to mention "the family members who write to me in tears, sharing their own horror stories," which seem to be about the mere existence of an LGBT person in their family, which is "horror" only in the eyes of people like Brown.

And in the June 1 column in which he complained about the "gay agenda," Brown groused that unlike an ethnic or racial identity being LGBTQ is "grounded in self-perception and self-definition" and that they "assume that same-sex relationships are valid. That gender is what you perceive it to be. That virtually all (adult, consenting) sexual attractions and romantic desires are to be affirmed. In short, gay (or bi or trans or queer or +) is not the new black." He went on to complain that to not hate the existenceof LGBTQ+ Pride Month is "activism."

Brown is a guy who laments been seen as hateful by the LGBT community while being oblivious to the fact that his dismissive attitudes toward them and his ultimate rejection of the idea that they should be treated as anything other than abnormal and hellbound are exactly what makes him a fount of hate, no matter how nicely he tries to couch it.

 

NEW ARTICLE: The MRC Attacks Facts -- And Those Who Report Them
Topic: Media Research Center
When the Washington Post's Taylor Lorenz exposed the person behind the anti-LGBT Libs of TikTok Twitter account, the Media Research Center not only lashed out at Lorenz for telling the truth, it defended the hateful women behind the account. Read more >>

CNS' Homophobic Managing Editor Pushes Anti-Transgender Attacks
Topic: CNSNews.com

In talking about transphobia at CNSNews.com, we can't ignore the contributions from its notoriously homophobic managing editor, Michael W. Chapman.We've already noted his freakout over a transgender flag being flown outside the building for a federal agency, but there's so much more.

In a March 29 article, Chapman cheered his favorite right-wing homophobic minister, Franklin Graham, for helping to advance CNS' war on Ketanji Brown Jackson by endorsing the gotcha question Republicans asked her regarding the defintion of a woman: "Where are we going as a nation when a nominee for our highest court will not define what a woman is?" Graham also took a swipe at transgender college swimmer Lia Thomas, and Chapman concluded with a series of cherry-picked Bible verses designed to suggest transgender people are evil and going to hell.

Chapman used an April 19 article to try to shove transgender people back into the closet because they're purportedly not enough of them to be concerned about:

Although many liberal activists and lawmakers, including President Joe Biden, use their influence to promote transgender people throughout society -- see sports, modeling, cable TV, public schools, government, military -- the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that nearly 1 million people identify as transgender in the U.S., which is 0.3% of the population, or less than 1%. 

According to the Census Bureau, the U.S. population is 331,893,745 (as of July 1, 2021). One million transgenders equals 0.3% of the total population.

Chapman then smeared transgender people as filthy disease vectors:

The CDC also reports that in 2019 (latest data available), there were "36,801 total new HIV diagnoses in the U.S. and dependent areas."  Among those diagnosed with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, 671 people were transgender, about 2% of the total diagnoses. 

On a related note, gay and bisexual men made up 69% of the new HIV diagnoses: 25,552 people. 

For the transgender women (biological males) newly diagnosed with HIV -- 625 total -- blacks made up 46% of the cases, or 289 people. Hispanic trans women made up 35% of the cases, 221 people, and white trans females comprised 13% of the new diagnoses, 80 people.

For the HIV-positive among trans men (biological females) -- 46 total -- 41% (19 people) were black, 26% (12) were Hispanic, and 24% (11) were white. 

According to the CDC, "there are several challenges that place transgender people at higher risk of HIV." This includes transphobia, racism, HIV stigma, and lack of knowledge.

Chapman loves portraying LGBT people as worthless HIV carriers.

In addition to rehashing hic complaint that "Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra had the transgender flag flown outside HHS headquarters in Washington, D.C.  ... the first time in U.S. history that the trans flag had been displayed outside a federal building," Chapman also cited right-wing anti-transgender psychiatrist Paul McHugh as well as the anti-LGBT Family Research Council without identifying the anti-LGBT ideology; he did, however, identify the Human Rights Campaign as "pro-LGBTQ."

Chapman wpent an April 25 article ranting that Notre Dame refused to hate LGBTQ people as much as he does, claiming the school can't really be Catholic unless it does:

Although the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., is supposed to be a Catholic institution "defined by its Catholic character," it sponsors an LGBTQ+ alumni group that held a campus event this month to honor one of the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case that legalized "gay marriage." The alumni association also gave an award to South Bend transgender activist Meghan Buell.

[...]

An alumni group of faithful Catholics that oppose the Notre Dame sponsorship of the ARC, the Sycamore Trust,  is headed by 1952 alumnus William Dempsey. He told the National Catholic Register that the ARC ND awards event was a "scandal of the first order."

“Notre Dame’s official blessing of an LGBT alumni group hostile to Church teaching on sex, marriage and gender has had its predictable result,” he said.  “The very first act of the new official LGBT organization is sponsorship of an ‘LGBT Awards Weekend’ to celebrate prominent proponents of same-sex marriage and gender change."

Dempsey also cited a document issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops entitled Catholics in Public Life. It partly reads, "The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."

Chapman doesn't explain where, exactly, it is "Catholic character" to spew hatred at LGBT people as he demands, or why one can only be "faithful" if you spread that hate. And, again, he ended with some Bible verses.

MRC Can't Stop Defending Lara Logan's Bad, Biased Journalism
Topic: Media Research Center

Is there any depth to which Lara Logan will sink that the Media Research Center won't defend? It seems not.

The MRC hid her misdeeds in reporting a false claim about the Benghazi attack for "60 Minutes," then continued to promote her even as she spread Antifa hoaxes. When Logan outrageously likened Anthony Fauci to notorious Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele in a Fox News appearance late last year, the MRC refused to criticize her without resorting to lame whataboutism, even as it has whined about conservatives being likened to Nazis. When the New York Times documented Logan's descent into far-right conspiracy theories, it wasthe MRC's Clay  Waters rushing to her defense against the "hit job" in a May 23 post:

The New York Times ran a hit piece on former CBS journalist Lara Logan by Jeremy Peters, who is the paper’s go-to reporter for criticism of conservative media figures: “Former Star At CBS News Follows Path To Far Right.”

After introducing Logan as someone who had “reached the heights of American journalism….as the chief foreign affairs correspondent for CBS News,” he lamented “today Ms. Logan cuts a far different figure in American media. Instead of on national news broadcasts, she can be found as a guest on right-wing podcasts or speaking at a rally for fringe causes, promoting falsehoods about deaths from Covid vaccines and conspiracy theories about voter fraud.”

Peters characterized her supposed decline as “one of the most puzzling in the modern history of television news.” But more interesting than what Peters had to say about Logan was his assumptions about what a mainstream journalist is allowed to believe.

More than half a dozen journalists and executives who worked with Ms. Logan at “60 Minutes,” most of whom spoke anonymously to discuss private interactions with her, said she sometimes revealed political leanings that made them question whether she could objectively cover the Obama administration’s military and foreign policy moves. She appeared increasingly conservative in her politics over the years, they said, and more outspoken about her suspicions of the White House’s motives and war strategy.

Wasn’t it a requirement for any reputable journalist to be suspicious of the “White House’s motives and war strategy” when George W. Bush was president and the Iraq War was raging? Is doubting presidential motives only a problem when the president is a Democrat?

Waters made sure to hide the exact deeds that caused people to doubt her objectivity -- namely, she uncritically promoted the claims of a self-proclaimed first-person witness to the Benghazi attack who, it turned out, had told his employer he wasn't. Waters also censored her descent into Antifa conspiracy theories. And like his MRC co-workers, he played whataboutism to dismiss Logan's Nazi smear:

Peters noted Logan comparing Dr. Anthony Fauci to Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, which got Logan canned from Fox Nation. If we can agree that contemporary Hitler comparisons are bad, perhaps the media (including Times reporters) will stop comparing Republicans to Hitler or Nazis.

If Waters must resort to whataboutism, he can't possibly be sincere about ridding the world of Nazi comparisons.