MRC Still Complaining That TV Shows Critique Cops Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center is keeping up its recent narrative of attacking TV shows that don't praise law enforcement unconditionally. We've already noted its hate for the crime drama "61st Street," and it has attacked other shows as well. Dawn Slusher complained in a Feb. 27 item:
It’s no secret how CBS’s Magnum P.I. reboot feels about police officers. They’ve previously defended BLM violence as “patriotism,” labeled police as “the bad guys,” and claimed good cops are “guilty by association.” On Friday, they continued their hateful bias with a storyline so far-fetched it would almost be laughable if it weren’t for the serious repercussions it could have on this dangerous anti-cop climate in which a record number of police officers are being attacked and murdered across the country.
Slusher glossed over the fact that cops in this storyline are crooked and working to protect their corrupt boss; instead, she's mad that a policeman in uniform -- despite being clearly corrupt -- was shot by Magnum:
Magnum suggests they celebrate “taking down a bunch of crooked cops.”
I guess we should be grateful they aren’t promoting an ACAB message, but this storyline is still dangerous because it adds fuel to our hateful anti-cop culture at a time when ambush attacks against police officers were up 91% in 2020 and an historic number of officers were shot in the line of duty in 2021 - 346. Of those shootings, 63 were fatal.
No one’s rooting for bad guys, but knowing how many good cops have been gunned down makes this show’s tone-deaf depiction of a uniformed officer being shot in cold blood very unnerving. Thank God Magnum P.I. is followed by Blue Bloods, which has consistently backed the blue and accurately depicted the sacrifices police heroes make for our protection. Hopefully their messaging will cancel out Magnum P.I.’s anti-cop agenda.
Slusher is lying, of course. It's clear from the episode (even if Slusher doesn't make it so) that "Magnum" is not "anti-cop" -- it's anti-corrupt cops. Of course she would like the pro-cop propaganda of "Blue Bloods"; indeed, the following week she praised an episode of "Blue Bloods" for having "touched on the challenges faced by officers in today’s anti-cop culture and delivered a powerful storyline that defended the honor of our heroes in blue."
A March 7 post by Elise Ehrhard complained that "The Equalizer" didn't follow right-wing narratives on anti-Asian attacks by blaming black people for them:
The CBS series The Equalizer became a hit last year by keeping its focus on entertaining an audience. This year, it's determined to abandon that successful strategy in order to hector its viewers with left-wing ideology instead.
In this week's episode, 'Chinatown,' on Sunday, the show tackled the issue of anti-Asian attacks in New York City. It portrayed the culprits as ignorant, working-class white guys who get away with crimes because of a racist and indifferent police system. The episode avoided an elephant in the room -- the majority of anti-Asian attacks in major U.S. cities are black-on-Asian crimes, according to U.S. Justice Department statistics.
But uncomfortable conversations were out-of-the-question in the episode. The show instead relied on a clichéd woke narrative about a group of working-class white males stalking Asians in New York City's Chinatown.
Ehrhard went on to complain that "In 2020, Democrats falsely accused then-President Trump of scapegoating Asians because he criticized communist China's role in the Covid-19 pandemic" -- but she didn't explain how it was "false."
A May 9 post by Ehrhard complained that an episode of "S.W.A.T." featured a right-wing militia that was anti-cop:
The "no cops" part is an intriguing addition to the list, considering there is a real domestic terrorist organization that has called for the abolition of police. Oddly, the episode never mentions Black Lives Matter (BLM) when discussing anti-cop rhetoric. Is Hollywood now going to pretend that this is a right-wing issue instead?
By contrast, more than 50 active or retired law enforcement, military or government service employees took part in the Capitol riot, so that plotline may not be as far-fetched as Ehrhard wants you to think.
WND's Lively Has Another Rainbow Meltdown Topic: WorldNetDaily
Every authentic Christian (and Torah-faithful Jew) knows that the rainbow belongs to God, not the "gays." But how many realize that the hijacking of the rainbow by the LGBT movement is a leading sign of the imminency of the last days Antichrist kingdom? Cloaking itself in God's rainbow represents far more than just arrogant disregard for God's teachings in the Bible; it is living proof that Lucifer himself is the spiritual head of the triumphal "pride" celebrations taking place across the world this month.
Satan's obsession from the beginning has been to take God's throne for himself – and that is exactly what the "pride" movement represents. Indeed, the only glimpse the Bible gives us of what God's throne in Heaven actually looks like is the Apostle John's testimony in Revelation 4:3: "At once I was in the Spirit, and I saw a throne standing in heaven, with someone seated on it. The One seated there looked like jasper and carnelian, and a rainbow that gleamed like an emerald encircled the throne."
The rainbow signifies the presence and authority of God, which is why He chose that symbol to seal His covenant with mankind after Noah's flood.
[...]
The rainbow is your warning sign. If you condone, let alone celebrate, "gay pride," you choose the side of Lucifer against God and earn for yourself a share of the wrath to come. Moreover, even if you consider yourself righteous in believing the Bible about LGBT sins, failure to meet your Watchman duty to warn the wicked of these truths puts their blood on your hands.
From Genesis to Revelation the Bible shows that God does not mess around when it comes to this category of sin. Please remember that, and your duty to speak plain truth, whenever you see His rainbow being defiled.
MRC's Houck Hypocritically Lashes Out At Jean-Pierre Again Over 'Softball' Interview Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck has alreadystaked out a narrative to depict new White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre as an incompetent diversity hire, and he pushes it again in a June 7 post in which he hypocritically lashed out at ABC for not trashing Jean-Pierre like he would:
ABC’s Good Morning America has had a reputation of corporate whoring, liberal fluff, and superficial nonsense, so it made sense Tuesday as White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre appeared for a nine-minute-plus softball session with co-host Robin Roberts over the economy, “gun violence, abortion rights,” “her trailblazing role,” and what “representation means” to her.
Throughout an obscene six teases for the interview, co-host Robin Roberts boasted of how Jean-Pierre was “breaking barriers” and while lamenting all “the challenges” “facing President Biden.”In other words, the skids were greased.
Needless to say, Houck offered no comparison with the greased skids Trump White House press secretaries like his beloved Kayleigh McEnany were given when they appeared on Fox News. And his attacks on ABC's alleged "corporate whoring" ringhollow as well given how the MRC whores out its "news" division to promote corporate initiatives. Houck continued to whine:
Roberts began with platitudes, gushing she had “been looking forward to having this opportunity especially today because with gun violence rising to the top of the agenda,” adding that ABC was doing its part for the administration by having all its news shows focus on guns.
Lamenting that Jean-Pierre had to start her job with two high-profile shootings, Roberts put the ball on the tee: “[T]here's been no major federal gun control in nearly 30 years, so what is the President doing to change that? What can he do?”
Jean-Pierre has been prone to lack an ability to speak coherently without prepared notes, so her answer to a softball question meandered through nothingness for nearly two minutes with all Roberts being able to do was off another softball about Biden’s involvement in Senate negotiations[.]
Houck has never criticized McEnany's binder of prepared notes, so he's being hypocritical yet again for nbashing Jean-Pierre over it.
Houck concluded by attacking Roberts for asking about Jean-Pierre's historical status and, again, for not hating her enough:
Roberts wrapped with fawning praise for Jean-Pierre as “[t]he first black, the first immigrant, the first openly gay person” with her job and an open ended question about “what does representation mean to you”[.]
[...]
And even the goodbye was gooey from Roberts: “Very kind of you to say. Well, Karine, thank you so much. I know that you have busy, busy days and means a lot you some spent time with us this morning. All the best to you.”
CNS' Jeffrey Also Implicitly Blaming Democrats For Federal Spending (Which He Didn't Do With Trump) Topic: CNSNews.com
After years of refusing to blame Donald Trump for increasing the federal debt by $8 trillion, CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey flip-flopped and made sure to blame President Biden for the federal debt accumulated under his watch. In addition to explicitly blaming Biden for the deficits, he is implictly blaming Biden and Democrats for increased tax revenue. A Feb. 10 article by Jeffrey claimed:
The federal government collected a record $1,516,952,000,000 in total taxes through the first four months of fiscal 2022 (October through January), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today.
The record $1,516,952,000,000 in federal tax collections included $824,571,000,000 in individual income taxes; $469,468,000,000 in social insurance and retirement taxes; $112,248,000,000 in corporation income taxes; $32,359,000,000 in customs duties; $25,800,000,000 in excise taxes; $8,951,000,000 in estate and gift taxes; and $43,554,000,000 in what the Treasury statement calls “miscellaneous receipts.”
At the same time that it was collecting this record $1,516,952,000,000 in taxes in the first four months of fiscal 2022, the federal government was spending $1,775,947,000,000. This resulted in a deficit of $258,995,000,000.
Jeffrey's use of the full dollar amounts violates Associated Press style on dollar amounts, which calls for using the words "million," "billion" and "trillion" instead; Jeffrey's aim here is political by making the numbers scary. While Jeffrey did not mention Biden and Democrats by name in his article, the accompanying undated file photo features Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.
It was lather, rinse, repeat for the following few months. Jeffrey wrote in a March 10 article that "The federal government collected a record $1,806,838,000,000 in total taxes through the first five months of fiscal 2022 (October through February), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today." More whining about the size of the deficit, accompanied with a picture of Biden, Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris.
An April 13 article updated the numbers with the ones from March, adding that "This also marked the first time that federal tax collections have exceeded $2 trillion in the first half of a fiscal year. The photo was a different picture of Biden, Pelosi and Schumer.
Like the other articles, this one complained that a certain federal agency spent the greatest amount of that money, even more than the military did:
The Department of Health and Human Services spent $793,880,000,000 in the October-through-March period of this fiscal year, leading all federal agencies in spending. The Social Security Administration was second with $622,933,000,000. The Department of Defense-Military Programs was third with $358,398,000,000.
The next highest category of spending was interest paid on Treasury debt securities, which was $290,289,000,000 in the October-through-March period.
A May 13 article detailed spending for April, featuring a picture of Pelosi even though she is not mentioned anywhere in the story. Jeffrey reworked the numbers for May in a June 10 article:
The federal government collected a record $3,374,629,000,000 in total taxes in the first eight months of fiscal 2022 (October through May), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.
Before this year, the largest October-through-May federal tax collections came in fiscal 2021, when the Treasury collected $2,833,846,070,000 in total taxes in inflation-adjusted May 2022 dollars.
[...]
The Department of Health and Human Services continued to lead all federal departments and agencies in spending through the first eight months of fiscal 2022. It spent $1,054,754,000,000. It was followed by the Social Security Administration, which spent $839,061,000,000; the Department of the Treasury, which spent $769,511,000, including $423,100,000,000 for interest on the federal debt and $346,411,000,000 on “other” expenses.
The Department of Defense-Military Programs placed fourth, spending $470,865,000,000.
This month's file photo was of Pelosi and Schumer, neither of whom are named in the article.
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.
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.
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 notoriouscorruption 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.
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 defendingreplacementtheory 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.
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 Morningson 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.
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.
The Media Research Center is keeping up its recent narrative of attacking TV shows that don't praise law enforcement unconditionally. We've already noted its hate for the crime drama "61st Street," and it has attacked other shows as well. Dawn Slusher complained in a Feb. 27 item:
Every authentic Christian (and Torah-faithful Jew) knows that the rainbow belongs to God, not the "gays." But how many realize that the hijacking of the rainbow by the LGBT movement is a leading sign of the imminency of the last days Antichrist kingdom? Cloaking itself in God's rainbow represents far more than just arrogant disregard for God's teachings in the Bible; it is living proof that Lucifer himself is the spiritual head of the triumphal "pride" celebrations taking place across the world this month.
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck has 
After years of refusing to blame Donald Trump for increasing the federal debt by $8 trillion, CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey 
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 
Media Research Center sports blogger Jay Maxson 
WorldNetDaily has 
The Media Research Center is a 
We caught
The Media Research Center wasn't just 
Craig Bannister showed off his stenographic skills yet again in an April 20 CNSNews.com 
Back in March, the Media Research Center 
