MRC's Fondacaro Heathers Alyssa Farah Griffin Again
Topic: Media Research Center

We've shown how the Media Research Center turned against occasional "View" guest host Alyssa Farah Griffin -- whose right-wing credentials are impeccable, given that her father is right-wing hater, Obama birther and WorldNetDaily founder Joseph Farah -- for committing the offense of insufficient loyalty to Donald Trump. Unlike the MRC, Farah found the Capitol riot andhis Big Lie about election fraud to be a bit of a turnoff. As this summer continued, the MRC -- mainly misoygynistic writer Nicholas Fondacaro -- continued to give Farah Griffin the Heather treatment. He sneered in a June 14 post:

Former Trump White House official-turned-self-serving sellout Alyssa Farah Griffin once again joined ABC’s The View on Tuesday to commiserate about the January 6 Committee hearings and bash the party she claims to still be a part of. And at the start of a conversation about potential 2024 nominees for both sides, Griffin slipped and seemingly announced she was interested in pushing a Democratic candidate. And co-host Sunny Hostin announced her primary requirement for a candidate is that they’re hot.

With co-host Whoopi Goldberg kicking off the segment by fretting that former President Trump would run again in 2024, Griffin noted that inflation, gas prices, the tumbling stock market, and his advanced age were bad news for President Biden. She soon pivoted to asking about who the Democrats would put up and flashed her interest in pushing them as her candidate.

“I’m curious. Like who are the Dems going to run? Where is like the Obama energy that we could bring?” she asked the liberal cast. She caught what she said and quickly tried to walk it back, adding, “That you guys could bring.”

Fondacaro is so filled with hate for anyone who does not follow in rigid lockstep with his right-wing ideology or offers even the slightest reasonable criticism of Trump -- deviation equals treason as far as he's concerned.He's desperate to read treason into Griffin's mild comments solely as an excuse to spew hate at her. His hatred for her is so irrational that he even attacked her for something he might actually agree with, which he did the next day:

The cast of ABC’s The View was in something of a panic Wednesday after several congressional primaries revealed which Republican candidates would be squaring up against Democrats in November in what’s likely to be a massive red wave victory for the right. But the coven was in such denial that they aggressively shot down any mention of the red wave and completely ignored the historic win by Latina Republican Mayra Flores in a special election flipping a seat occupied by Democrats for over 100 years.

“I'm a conservative. I'm a Republican. And listening to Russell Fry who unseated Tom Rice, a principled conservative who voted to impeach Donald Trump,” whined guest co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin. “But here's what I would warn. The red wave is coming. Republicans are going to win the midterms short of something unforeseen that I cannot predict now.”

Fondacaro didn't mention Flores' far-right QAnon-curious leanings.

In a June 17 post, Fondacaro tried to gloat over another "View" host bashing people who worked for Trump (which Farah Griffin did):

It appears as though the likes of former Trump administration officials Alyssa Farah Griffin and Stephanie Grisham sold out their “conservative” principles for The View’s blessing for nothing (not like it was worth anything to begin with). During Friday’s edition of the ABC show, co-host Joy Behar lashed out at them, calling them “recovering addicts” and complaining about them coming on the show; essentially exposing how the liberal cast doesn’t even want mediocre opposition on the program.

“So, I do think he needs to be commended for his actions that day,” self-proclaimed Republicans and staunch Never Trumper Ana Navarro said of former Vice President Mike Pence’s actions on January 6. “That does not erase four years of complicity.”

That was that comment that set off Behar. “Exactly. These people who are now all, like, recovering addicts – recovering addicts in the Trump world that come on, even on this show. They come on this show, they go on other shows and they're turning on Trump,” she whined.

It’s obvious who she was talking about as Griffin and Grisham are part of the rotation for the “conservative” seat and are the only ones who used to work in the Trump administration. Griffin has even been on the show multiple days earlier in the week. And both are seemingly okay with relegating themselves to being punching bags for the liberal cast members.

Fondacaro added: "Griffin has been widely accused of selling out to enrich and ingratiate herself with influential people on from the left." He didn't mention that his definition of "widely" is limited to rigid ideologues like him who are unable to handle even the slightest deviation from right-wing, pro-Trump dogma.

When Farah Griffin was reportedly a candidate for a full-time slot on "The View," Fondacaro rehashed his previous attacks on her in a July 5 post:

Eager to please and be the punching bag for the Hollywood liberal cast that will never really accept her, Farah is the obvious choice when examining her performance.

[...]

And Griffin has been roundly criticized for the self-flagellation she’s undergone in an attempt to receive praise from the radical leftist co-hosts. Former Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway once confronted her on the show and declared: “we're supposed to think that you've seen the light and not just see your name in lights.”

Again, Fondacaro's criticisms focus more on not toeing thehard-right line, not on her suddenly becoming a Whoopi Goldberg-level liberal. And Conway is hardly a credible source of criticism, given how she has profited handsomely off her years in the Trump administration with a new book and frequent Fox News appearances; she clearly loves seeing her name in lights, even more than Farah Griffin.

Fondacaro clearly can't handle a woman who thinks for herself,and that those thoughts might be different from his, even if she's unquestionably a conservatives. That's why he's lashing out so viciously at Farah Griffin.

CNS Can't Stop Obsessing Over Canceled Keystone XL Pipeline
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com has long been obsessed with the Keystone XL pipeline and pushing the fiction that building the pipeline would lower gas prices in the U.S. (it won't). And it's still popping up in CNS talking points. In mid-July, CNS interns went on another congressman-pestering mission to asked biased questions of senators designed to advance right-wing narratives. Four senators -- Mitt Romney, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz and Sherrod Brown, all Republicans except Brown -- were asked, "Is it appropriate for President Biden to travel to Saudi Arabia and meet with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman?" The boilerplate copy in each article brought up the Keystone ghost again:

When campaigning for office in 2020, Biden said, “I guarantee you, we’re going to end fossil fuels.” Once in office, Biden took action to reduce domestic oil production, including revoking the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline, which was expected to carry 830,000 barrels per day of Alberta oil sands crude to Nebraska, according to CNBC.

The boilerplate didn't mention that, as we've pointed out, most of the petroleum products made from the oil that would be exported, not saved for use in the U.S. Additionally, some of that proposed oil volume from Canada to the U.S. is already being transported by rail to the Gulf Coast.

(Update: The question was also asked of several other senators -- Rob Portman (R), John Kennedy (R), Lindsey Graham (R), Ron Johnson (R), Bill Hagerty (R) and Dianne Feinstein (D) -- but without the Keystone boilerplate.)

Another intern article allowed Republican Sen. Steve Daines to virtue-signal on the question by referencing Keystone, in addition to the boilerplate:

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) disapproves of President Joe Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia this week in an attempt to combat inflated gas prices, asserting that Biden first needs to meet with U.S. oil producers to discuss “how we can increase production and to restore the Keystone Pipeline.”

At the U.S. Capitol on Monday, CNS News asked Senator Daines, “Is it appropriate for President Biden to travel to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman?”

Daines replied, “The first meetings President Biden should have—should’ve had—are with U.S. oil producers talking about how we can increase production and to restore the Keystone pipeline. He should be staying home, talking to U.S. producers.”

Like the others, this article failed to report that the most of pipeline's products would likely be exported.

MRC Cranked Out Even More Gun Defenses
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center loves defending guns by any means necessary, and it was busy doing just that, what with all the recent gun massacres. In between the massacres, the MRC did its best to defend guns and attack anyone who criticized them or advocated for sensible (or any) gun regulation.

In a May 26 post, Margaret Buckley whined that MSNBC's "Morning Joe" detailed what it called "The Conservative Playbook for Deflecting Anger After Mass Shootings" -- which, of course, is exactly what the MRC has been following:

New York magazine writer Jonathan Chait then joined in on the conversation with Brzezinski reading an excerpt from his article: "The Conservative Playbook for Deflecting Anger After Mass Shootings." She went on reading that through the steps of this “playbook”, Republicans attempt to “to locate solutions outside of gun control. And blame Democrats for opposing them.”

When asking Chait about this article he replied “That's a great point on mental health.”, agreeing with Brzezinski that conservatives love to use it as an excuse for mass shootings, labeling mental health as a “distraction” from what really has to be done.

Do Joe Scarborough and friends really think that ranting and whining about the GOP will bring about positive solutions? Or are they just trying to fill up their three-hour duration by throwing harmless insults at those who don’t agree with them?

Throwing insults at those you don't agree with? Buckley just described the content of the vast majority of NewsBusters posts.

Alex Christy spent a May 27 post whining that a CNN host fact-checked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's false statements about gun violence and insisting it was unfair that he was taken literally:

While attempting to fact check Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday on his claim that there is no correlation between gun laws and gun deaths, CNN Newsroom host Alisyn Camerota failed to not only consider what Abbott actually said, but cherry-picked her statistics in an attempt to prove him wrong.

During an interview with State Rep. Nicole Collier, Camerota read a quote from Abbott, “One of the things that your governor said on Wednesday was that ‘there are more people shot,’ he said, “’every weekend in Chicago than there are schools in Texas. We need to realize that people who think maybe we can just implement tougher gun laws, it hasn't solved it in Chicago and L.A. and New York, it disproves that thesis,’ he said.”

Abbott’s point was about gun violence that occurs so often in Chicago that national reporters have stopped talked talking about it, but a rare school shooting gets all the headlines.

However, Camerota decided to talk about all gun deaths in the entire state, “Actually, he's wrong, Texas is the state with the highest amount of gun deaths. Here's the graphic. Texas is number one. Far and away, of all of the states with gun deaths. Then California, Florida, Georgia, Ohio. And so it seemed as though he was casting a lot of blame in different directions, but he wasn't talking about guns in Texas changing anything.”

Christy offered no evidence that Abbott was speaking metaphorically or that he should be judged only by whatever his "point" allegedly was and not by what he actually said -- which is what Camerota did.

Another May 27 post by Aidan Moorehouse declared that nobody had any right to deny guns to the shooter who racked up quite the body count in a Uvalde, Texas, classroom because he pased his background check:

The shooter, tragically, passed his background check and was of age to buy a gun, and an 18-year-old buying a gun on his birthday in much the same way a 21-year-old would go to a bar would not be seen as unusual in rural Texas. Sure, it's easy for Costas to say “we know now” that the shooter was a deeply disturbed individual, but to call it insane for the gun dealer to have sold legal firearms to someone who had passed his background check is lunacy. 

Just as it did after his speech following the Buffalo massacre, the MRC lashed out at President Biden again for making a speech following the Uvalde massare, bashing news coverage of it for not spewing hate at the president like a loyal right-wing outlet would in a June 3 post by Curtis Houck:

On Friday, the “big three” broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC each led off their morning newscasts with laudatory praise for President Biden’s latest remarks calling for mass gun control, trumpeting it as “an impassioned” “urgent plea” for Republicans to capitulate to the demands of this “emotional” President.

ABC’s Good Morning America was the most insufferable. Co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos boasted: “President Biden's address to the nation on gun violence. Emotional and urgent. The President called on Congress to act, saying we cannot fail the American people again.”

Loyal Biden supporter and White House correspondent Mary Bruce replied that “Biden knows the fight” for gun control “well...and he’s trying to use the power of the presidency to keep up the pressure on Republicans in Congress” “emotionally pleading with Washington to do something and asking the question that so many Americans ask themselves after every one of these shootings: will this finally be enough?”

Bruce continued to lament as she did nothing to offer even a scintilla of a Republican response: “After three decades of congressional inaction, Biden is painfully familiar with the difficulties of gun reform, blaming Republicans who have been standing in the way.”

Houck did not explain why he tagged Bruce as a "loyal Biden supporter." after all, he would never tag Peter Doocy as a "loyal Republican supporter."

Houck returned for a June 6 post complaining once again that one measure of gun violence made guns look bad:

On the Monday morning broadcast network newscasts, ABC, CBS, and NBC continued to promote the inflated definition of mass shootings from the Gun Violence Archive in light of weekend shootings in Chattanooga, Tennessee and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, claiming there were 13 weekend mass shootings. And, worse yet, they absolved far-left cities and prosecutors from being a reason for spikes in crime.

The Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as an event in which four or more people are shot and/or killed (minus the gunman), but as we’ve discussed “confusing” with the definition of gun violence even includes things such as home invasions, accidental shootings, using a gun in self defense, “and everything else.”

For one story, our Nick Fondacaro spoke with The Reload’s Stephen Gutowksi, who said Gun Violence Archive’s measuring stick “increases the number of mass shootings by a factor of ten or more.”

The MRC, of course, can't have that kind of increase, so it attacks the numbers. As we've documented, the MRC did more than "discuss" the Gun Violence Archive's numbers -- it falsely called them lies even though they are a perfectly valid way to measure mass shootings and their numbers are fully documented.

Buckley, meanwhile, returned for a June 9 post to whine that people were still talking about guns:

The upcoming January 6 hearings are not the only subjects being unnecessarily dragged on and on by the liberal media. On Thursday’s edition of Morning Joe, viewers had the privilege of seeing Scarborough and friends once again continue ranting about the GOP as monsters unmoved by children killed in mass shootings.

When reacting to Congressman and assassination attempt survivor Steve Scalise’s (R-LA) speech about gun control, where he compared banning guns to banning airplanes after 9/11, the show’s hosts acted absolutely appalled; with Mika Brzezinski commenting that it was “unspeakably stupid.”

[...]

Scarborough then circled back to Congressmen Scalise’s 9/11 comparison attempting to throw TSA regulations in his face. “TSA regulated the hell out of air travel,” Scarborough exclaimed, “You would get checked at the gate. Like, you had to get patted down. You're still getting patted down. Liquids -- Mika and I just traveled. Liquids taken out.”

Gun reform and post-9/11 are completely different things, Joe. It is widely accepted that those TSA “pat-downs” are mostly theatrics. Not only that, but when tested for the real thing, the TSA actually fails to catchmost prohibited objects.

Of course, Buckley won't make the parallel argument that if we shouldn't have gun laws because people will violate them, then abortion shouldn't be outlawed because women will still have abortions regardless. Instead, she whined further: "Viewers always get the same spiel from these people: Republicans equal bad, Republicans equal evil." Change "Republicans" to "Democrats," and you have the daily spiel put out by Buckley and the MRC.

With New Book To Promote, Dick Morris In Full Trump Suck-Up Mode
Topic: Newsmax

Because he has a new (Newsmax-published) book out making the low-stakes prediction that Donald Trump will run for president in 2024, Dick Morris is n full Trump suck-up mode.He gushed in a July 20 Newsmax TV appearance:

Ivana Trump was "dignified, proper, and almost noble," Dick Morris told Newsmax on Wednesday, as Donald Trump's first wife was about to be buried in New York City following her death last week.

Morris, an adviser to Donald Trump, told "John Bachman Now" that he met Ivana decades ago when she came to dinner with her husband at the house of his parents.

"Ivana had just broken her leg and it was in a cast," Morris recalled, saying that he remembered how he and his wife Eileen "were both struck at how considerate Donald was in the way he dealt with her, helping her in the chair, helping her up. He was really a doting husband."

Morris made sure to mention that Donald Trump cheated on Ivana, then dumped her for Marla Maples. He did, however, push his dubious evergreen prediction that Hillary Clinton will also run in 2024.

Morris used an Newsmax TV appearance the next day to defend Trump against a conservative Washington Post columnist who opposed a Republican coronation for Trump in 2024:

Political strategist and bestselling author Dick Morris Thursday on Newsmax accused The Washington Post of reporting "fake news" with an opinion piece stating it would be better for former President Donald Trump to have several opponents in the 2024 GOP primary than it would for him to be unopposed. 

"That is pure fake news and propaganda by the Washington Post," Morris, the host of Newsmax's show "Dick Morris Democracy" and author of the book "The Return: Trump's Big 2024 Comeback," said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "That's just [owner] Jeff Bezos trying to gin up a primary against Trump."

He added that in the latest poll by Trump pollster John McLaughlin, "who I trust," the matchup between Trump and his nearest potential contender Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has a wide gap, with 59% backing Trump and 15% for DeSantis.

"That's a 44-point gap," said Morris. "Only a moron runs in the face of a 44-point gap."

Columnist Mark Thiessen wrote in his column for the Post that if there is a divided field with a dozen or more candidates, he will "likely prevail" for the nomination with a plurality of Republican voters.

Thiessen further pointed out that support for a future Trump candidacy has dropped by 29 points in the past nine months.

Morris didn't mention that Thiessen is a solid conservative, nor did he produce any evidence that the column was mandated by Bezos -- or even that Bezos plays any sort of active role in running the paper.

Morris complained about Democratic gamesmanship in a July 24 TV appearance:

Democrats are not only paying up to try to boost candidates they think they can beat in 2022 midterms, but they are also funding potential 2024 GOP presidential primary challengers against former President Donald Trump, fearing his return, according to political strategist Dick Morris on Newsmax.

Morris' new book "The Return: Trump's Big 2024 Comeback" was recently released and has become an instant best-seller.

"I think we Republicans have to basically say that Donald Trump wants this – which he clearly does, and is going to run, which he clearly will – that we have to tell our people, 'No primary fight,'" Morris told Sunday's "Wake Up America Weekend." "Don't let the Democrats say, 'let's you and him fight.'

"Don't let them divide and conquer. Don't let them drain the resources of our ultimate candidate by setting up primary fights that go nowhere."

We don't recall Morris ever complaining about Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos" plan to have Republicans meddle in Democratic primaries, so his concern here is a bit hypocritical.

Morris was back in defender mode in a July 25 appearance, this time insisting that thte Capitol riot was no big deal and Trump shouldn't be blamed for it:

Anyone who "wants to blow the Jan. 6 thing out of proportion" to say former President Donald Trump is unworthy of being president, "they're absolutely almost sick," political strategist and author Dick Morris told Newsmax.

[...]

"He told me that he's going to win the nomination and I think, win the election, but Republicans are increasingly doing the bidding of the Democratic Party," Morris said. "They have a master plan that I reveal in this book to divide the [Republican] Party.

"It's the old Roman slogan, divide and conquer, and what they're trying to do is to lure other Republicans into the primary fight against Trump."

One way to do that is with "exaggerated stories about how damaged he is from the Jan. 6 commission," Morris said. "Every time any of those people sneezes, they get a front page cover."

Morris' comments come in response to an editorial in The Wall Street Journal slamming Trump in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol protest, and another appearing in The Washington Post.

"We have to realize that Trump is going to be the nominee," Morris said. "You either help him or hurt him."

Morris added, "My God, look at what the man has achieved," which we presume he meant in a good way.

Root Gone Wild: Impeach Biden, Try Him For Treason
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Wayne Allyn Root seems to have loaded up on crazy pills in preparation for writing his July 8 WorldNetDaily column:

It's all out in the open now. We have a traitor and figurative suicide bomber in the White House.

No one is even bothering to hide it. President Joe Biden is clearly a suicide bomber, owned by the Chinese Communist Party and the Mexican drug cartel, and put in place to destroy America, American exceptionalism, capitalism and most importantly, the great American middle class.

I learned this plan at Columbia University, Class of '83, alongside my classmate, future President Barack Obama (who, as far as I know, was never actually seen in any class at Columbia – but that's a story for another day). The plan we learned at Columbia was called "Cloward-Piven." The goals of Cloward-Piven were about overwhelming the system, collapsing the U.S. economy, destroying capitalism and turning America into a socialist/communist country.

It's happening right now – with Biden as the frontman and brain-dead puppet, and Obama as the real president, lurking in the shadows, pulling all the strings.

Except now Obama has updated Cloward-Piven to include open borders and massive inflation to bankrupt the middle class.

Root is lying about Obama not attending Columbia, but you know that already. And unless Root was a student in social work, where Cloward and Piven taught at Columbia -- he studied pre-law and political science -- it's highly unlikely he would have learned much about that particular strategy. Please continue:

Biden is destroying America by opening its borders to millions of migrants and, worse, criminals from all over the world. This is about bankrupting our country and raising the national debt to levels that overwhelm the system and collapse the economy. 

Biden denies this is all about the "great replacement." But this isn't about replacing white voters. It's far worse than that. All American citizens are a threat to Biden's agenda. This is about replacing all American citizens: white Americans, black Americans and Hispanic Americans. We all need to be replaced, or at the very least overwhelmed and outvoted to usher in a socialist-communist government and economy.

Biden's actions since day one of his presidency have been open treason.

America's borders are not open -- Root simply thinks they are because Biden is not acting as draconian as his beloved Donald Trump did toward immigrants. Sorry you were ranting?

Now add in what I call the "inflation pandemic." This includes the intentional destruction of the oil and energy industry, as well as farmers and the trucking industry. All done to cause massive inflation of gas, home heating oil, groceries and virtually every product brought to market. This is the purposeful bankrupting and destruction of the middle class.

Then, only hours ago, Biden signed an executive order protecting abortion at the federal level – something the U.S. Supreme Court just struck down. No president can overrule the Supreme Court. Biden just knowingly committed a crime against the U.S. Constitution.

The oil and gas, farming and trucking industries have not been "destroyed," intentional or otherwise -- indeed, the top five oil companies are generating record profits, not usually a sign of an industry being "destroyed." And Biden's executive order to protect access to abortion is perfectly legal and doesn't "overrule" the Supreme Court.

Biut Root was winding up for his finale:

They aren't even hiding it anymore. What does all this tell you?

A) This is a communist takeover of the United States, aided and abetted by open borders and intentional voter fraud.

B) They don't care who knows. What else could explain why Biden and Democrats don't care if the entire middle class hates their guts? This is a sign Democrats know elections are rigged and stolen. Your vote no longer matters.

Biden is escalating. This is treason on a grand scale never before imagined in the history of the United States. I believe we have a suicide bomber in the White House out to destroy our country and make our own citizens into serfs and slaves dependent on a tyrannical socialist/communist government.

It's time to impeach Biden, then remove him on grounds of treason. Then he must be indicted for his crimes against America and the American people.

The trillion-dollar question is: When will the GOP leadership step up and publicly denounce Joe Biden as a traitor?

Disagreement on political views is not the same as "treason."

NEW ARTICLE: The MRC vs. White House Press Secretaries
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center can't stand it when other media outlets won't hate Jen Psaki or Karine Jean-Pierre as much as it does -- but it sees no irony in its gushing over Peter Doocy or tossing softballs to Kayleigh McEnany. Read more >>

MRC Can't Stop Pushing Lie That Networks Accused Border Patrol Of 'Whipping' Migrants
Topic: Media Research Center

The saga of Border Patrol agents being accused of whipping migrants may be over -- but the Media Research Center's misinformation campaign about it isn't. An April 25 post by Scott Whitlock began with a lie:

All three broadcast networks in the fall of 2021 smeared border patrol agents as monsters who “whipped” illegal immigrants in “horrific,” “alarming” video. The footage showed a small number of agents on horseback struggling to stop migrants from crossing the Rio Grande. 

As we documented, the MRC never quoted the broadcast networks accusing Border Patrol agents of "whipping" migrants. Whitlock continued to mislead:

Back in the fall of 2021, ABC hammered the story for five days straight (From September 20th through the 24th) on Good Morning America and World News Tonight, smearing the agents for seven minutes and nine seconds. CBS Mornings and the CBS Evening News came in second with three minutes and 12 seconds and NBC pushed the now-false claims for three minutes and four seconds on Today and Nightly News. 

With no evidence of malice, the networks uncritically assumed the worst. On the September 21, 2021 Today, co-host Hoda Kotb scolded, “But this morning, a new controversy: Shocking images of border agents appearing to whip migrants.” 

The September 23, 2021 CBS Mornings featured radical Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters, sliming the agents as racist: “We witnessed cowboys, with their reins again, whipping black people, Haitians, into the water.”

Kotb's observation is factually correct: It did, in fact, look like Border Patrol agents were whipping migrants. And CBS merely quoting Waters is not the same as Whitlock's false claim that the netework itself made the "whipping" claim.

Whitlock went on to praise Fox News for adhering to right-wing poliical narratives by hyping the clearing of the Border Patrol agents and whining that the Biden White House should apologize to them, when added: "It would also be nice if journalists would come out and apologize for smearing these border agents with accusations of racist whipping attacks. They highlighted the accusations, claims that have now fallen apart. They need to cover the story, even if it makes Joe Biden — and the press — look bad."

It would also be nice if Whitlock and the MRC stopped lying and apologized for their previous lies, but that's not what they do. Indeed, Curtis Houck perpetuated the lie in a July 11 post:

On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a report through Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) that cleared the agents maligned and falsely accused of using horse reins as whips against illegal immigrants from Haiti trying to cross into the U.S. while also proposing punishment for using “poor judgement” and “vulgar” language.

But given that first part debunking the liberal media-led push to claim the illegals were whipped, the flagship morning and evening newscasts and ABC and NBC steered clear of this report and have yet to give it a second.

CBS Mornings and CBS Saturday Morning also ignored it, which left the CBS Evening News as the lone newscast to cover the findings for a measly 21 seconds (not including a nine-second tease). Even that, however, was tilted and chose not to exonerate the agents.

As expected, Houck cited no evidence to back up his claim that the networks accuwed the agents of "whipping" migrants -- because there isn't any. Instead, he sucked up to Fox News for pushing the narrative: "Over on the Fox News Channel’s Special Report, the indefatigable Bill Melugin showed viewers that there are still a few great journalists left, giving one minute and 38 seconds to the report."

Nowhere in the exerpt that Houck reproduced did Megulin specifically cite any example of someone else claiming the agents "whipped" migrants, simply calling it a "false narrative." But then, as far as Houck is concerned, if a right-wing journalist is pushing right-wing narratives -- and, more importantly, doesn't step on the MRC's own false narrative -- he must be considered "great."

WND Targets LGBT Government Official For Being Too Kinky
Topic: WorldNetDaily

An anonymous WND staffer began a February article by whining that "There have been homosexuals, lesbians, even transgenders appointed to or hired for lucrative state and federal jobs before. Even elected." No explanation was provided as to why this should be considered a bad thing, though the staffer went on to complain that "Gay Colorado Gov. Jared Polis took the nearly $800 million sale of the online artistic work his parents created for their Blue Mountain Arts greeting card company and, his critics have charged, first bought a seat on the Colorado Board of Education, then a congressional seat, and now the governor's office." Nothing inherently wrong was cited -- after all, rich people using their money to boost their political fortunes is a story old as time.  Finally, the staffer who was afraid to put his or her name on this article got to the (homophobic) point:

But now a report reveals that there's a new standard for those who choose alternative sexual lifestyles to reach in government.

The Washington Examiner reports the Biden administration has picked Sam Brinton to be a new deputy assistant secretary of spent fuel and waste disposition at the DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy.

He's studied engineering at MIT.

And his sexual fetishes include "tying up his partner while he eats dinner and watches Star Trek," the report said.

Again, the anonymous WND writer offered no evidence as to why Brinton is not qualified for the post he holds or why his personal life should have any bearing on whether he's allowed to have this job. Instead, he or she delved into the prurient details of Brinton's "lifestyle choice," which adds nothing to the story aside from inflaming the hate of WND's anti-LGBT audience.

After a few months of silence on Brinton, Bob Unruh served up a July 6 article featuring a new attack on him:

A "kink-and-pups" drag queen chosen by Joe Biden to be deputy assistant secretary of spent fuel and waste disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy lacks the basic required qualifications to hold that post, according to a letter to Norbert Vint, the deputy inspector general in the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

The letter is from a "long serving public servant" at the U.S. Department of Energy and challenges the Biden decision to give a critically important federal post to Samuel Brinton, requesting a full investigation.

WND reported months ago that the Brinton appointment set a new mark for extremes in federal appointments.

Unruh, however, buried the fact that this story is months old -- the letter was issued in early February and reported by other outlets at the time. It's not until near the end of his article -- which copies-and-pastes much of the anonymously written WND article from February, so the purirence about Brinton's private life is also regurgitated -- that Unruh admits the letter was "sent to the OPM several months ago."

The anonymous letter seems to be largely a personal attack on Brinton designed to manufacture purported lack of expertise as an excuse to fire or demote him. As a nuclear industry publication pointed out, the letter does not assert "that Brinton is unqualified, on the merits, to serve as a deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Energy"; rather, the chief complaint is that Brinton is not qualified for the government pay scale he was given.

Both articles also lied by portraying Brinton as an appointee of the Biden adminstration.; in fact, Brinton's job is a career position, not a political appointment. So that also stays within WND's shoddy journalism standards.

Newsmax Columnist Tries To Make Clarence Thomas Look Better Than Biden
Topic: Newsmax

Larry Bell started his July 11 Newsmax column by complaining:

Recently decrying the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and rebuking Justice Clarence Thomas for the “tragic error,” President Biden himself reversed his own 1982 position when he cast a Senate vote to do exactly the same — a Senate Judiciary Committee constitutional amendment proposal to allow individual states to determine abortion rights.

Biden’s harsh criticism of Justice Thomas bears witness to dramatic personal and career contrasts between the two men that warrant long-neglected public attention.

Bell then spent several paragraphs putting a positive spin on Thomas' life story. When he got to the part about Anita Hill's sexual harassment allegations against him, he served up more spin:

Senate hearings to confirm Thomas’s nomination were savagely disrupted by televised show trial allegations of African-American Anita Hill, his former special assistant in the U.S. Department of Education civil rights office, who accused him of sexual harassment.

Nevertheless, Hill had continued to contact Thomas voluntarily even after he helped arrange for her subsequent appointment as a law professor at the University of Oklahoma.

Denying any wrongdoing, Thomas emotionally characterized the televised ordeal as a "high-tech lynching for uppity Blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas.”

Thomas added: “it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured, by a committee of the U.S. Senate, rather than hung from a tree.”

That sad Senate spectacle was chaired by Joe Biden who then said: "Sexual harassment is a serious matter and, in my view, any person guilty of this offense is unsuited to serve not only on the nation's highest court but any position of responsibility, of higher responsibility in or out of government.”

That justice standard clearly didn’t apply during the 2020 presidential election campaign when Tara Reade, a former staffer in Joe Biden's U.S. Senate office, alleged that he sexually assaulted her in 1993 in a Capitol Hill office.

Although Reade had previously filed her charges in a formal police report at the time of the alleged incident, mainstream media showed no interest in her claim whatsoever.

Bell glossed over a couple inconvenient facts here: 1) Hill's charges against Thomas were never proven false, and 2) Reade has a documented history of manipulative and deceitful behavior that made her account untrustworthy. And, needless to say, Bell said nothing about the controversy of his wife being such a right-wing political activist that it arguably jeopardizes any claim to judicial impartiality he might have.

In contrast with his loving account of Thomas' life, Bell served up a less-that-flattering account of Biden's life, and even then he struggled to find things to fill it out, like this: "In 2010, then-Sen. Biden eulogized his former Ku Klux Klan leader friend Sen. Robert Byrd whom he described as "fiercely devoted to his principles," a '"friend,' 'mentor' and a 'guide.'" Bell failed to mention that Byrd spent the final decades of his life renouncing his KKK association and becoming an advocate of civil rights, to the point that the NAACP positively eulogized Byrd after his death.

Bell concluded by whining: "Whereas Justice Thomas’s legal essays and written arguments supporting his opinions are clear, well researched, and consistent, Biden’s tele-prompted messaging follows and equivocates each most recent self-inflicted policy disaster. America has chosen both wisely and foolishly."

Pro-Choice Jews Don't Get The Stenography Treatment From CNS
Topic: CNSNews.com

We've documented how CNSNews.com gave an uncritical and unchallenged platform to the Jewish Pro-Life Foundation to spout anti-abortion extremism.But when CNS does a story on a pro-choice Jew, it shows its right-wing bias yet again by making sure to have Jewish anti-abortion activists comment.

Managing editor Michael W. Chapman set up his bias in a May 16 article, framing the Jewish abortion debate as being between "liberal Jewish leaders and organizations" and "traditional rabbis" -- never putting a political label on the latter since it comes from CNS' favorite group of rihgt-wing rabbis:

Some liberal Jewish leaders and organizations have denounced the leaked Supreme Court opinion arguing for the overturning of Roe. Wade, claiming that a reversal would violate "religious freedom" and prevent "Jewish women" from practicing their religion.

However, the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), which represents more than 2,000 traditional rabbis, rejected that claim and said abortion " violates all Jewish ethics and morals."

After Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's opinion was leaked to Politico on May 2, several liberal Jews spoke out on Twitter and other media.

[...]

However, the Coalition for Jewish Values states, "Abortion is antithetical to Torah principles. The act of abortion, and the industry that promotes and benefits financially from it, violates all Jewish ethics and morals."

In an amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of the Mississippi law that Justice Alito's opinion is based on, the CJV says, "The history of Judaism includes many existential threats to Jewish life in the form of state sponsored mass murder. This makes us especially sensitive to the plight of the child in the womb, whose protection under the law was completely abrogated by Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. This tragic human rights violation must be remedied."

Yes, that would be the same brief signed onto by the Jewish Pro-Life Foundation that contains several factual errors. Chapman went on to uncritically quote the CJV as claiming that opposition to abortion "is the authentic Jewish view, as determined by Rabbinic texts and legal codes stretching back to Sinai," which ignores that there are, in fact, Jewish teachings that do not view a fetus as having a soul until it is born and that the fetus belongs to the mother's body until birth.

Intern Lucy Collins used a June 29 article to again set up the CJV to comment on a Jewish pro-choice activist:

A nine-months-pregnant joined with activists outside the Supreme Court on June 24 to protest the overturning of Roe v. Wade, where she said her religion teaches “that life begins with the first breath. It's in the Torah, and it's in the Old Testament."

However, Rabbi Yaakov Menken with the Coalition for Jewish Values, which represents more than 2,000 rabbis in matters of public policy, said such a claim was not accurate.

CNN and NBC News reported that Amanda Herring, a 32-year-old self-described “Jewish educator,” showed up to join pro-abortion protests in front of the Supreme Court last Friday with her one-year-old son and the words “Not Yet a Human” written in ink across her very pregnant stomach. She told NBC that her due date was Saturday, June 25.

“I feel like it’s important for me to be out here and let everyone know my religion says that life begins with the first breath,” Herring said. “It's in the Torah, and it's in the Old Testament.”

Collins actually got in touch with Herring for a comment -- and, presumably, to see if she aborted the child just before birth -- then, apparently disappointed that Herring couldn't be further exploited, added that "CNS News is happy to report that Ms. Herring and her newborn baby are doing well." Then it was time for Collins to cue up more lecturing from Menken:

Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values. He told CNS News, “It's not accurate to say that it's only considered a life at birth. Because we know that Rebecca [in Torah] was told that the different natures of her twins [Jacob and Esau] explained what was going on in the uterus. And Jeremiah was told that he was sanctified from the womb.”

The rabbi also made the argument from the perspective of Jewish law, which has a “total prohibition” on any violations of the Sabbath except to save a life, and, “In the event that the mother is dying, or has died, one is allowed to perform a C section on the Sabbath, even though it involves a total prohibition, to save the life of the fetus.”

“So, whether you call that alive or the same status as a born child, it's very clear that that life has inestimable value, like all human life,” said Rabbi Menken.

Collins apparently did not give Herring an opportunity to respond to Menken's lecture, which would have been truly fair reporting. Instead, she simply set up Herring to get lectured. Nor did she talk to a non-right-wing Jewish rabbi would might have been able to tell her about Jewish support for abortion rights.

Collins did a little better job at balance in a July 7 article:

A Florida synagogue is suing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) over a new Florida law that prohibits abortion after 15 weeks. In the lawsuit, the synagogue says “the right to abortion is a critical aspect of Jewish practice” and thus the law “prohibits the free exercise of the Jewish religion.”

In June, Rabbi Barry Silver filed suit on behalf of Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor to fight the new Florida abortion law (HB 5) scheduled to take effect on July 1. HB 5 bans abortion after 15 weeks and makes exceptions if abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother, prevent serious injury to the mother, or if the baby has a fatal birth defect.

[...]

The lawsuit claims this is a common view held by Jewish organizations. As it reads,  “According to the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) ‘Judaism permits Abortion. Full stop. The Constitution gives us the right to have abortions. Full stop.’ This view reflects the view of most Jewish organizations.”

The Coalition for Jewish Values, the largest rabbinic public policy organization in America that represents over 2,000 traditional rabbis, takes a different position. In a June 24 statement, they wrote, “Judaism regards all human life as sacred, including when a fetus is yet to be born. Jewish law permits abortion only in truly extraordinary circumstances. This does not describe the situation in America today, where the overwhelming majority of abortions are done as an elective procedure.”

In speaking to CNS News, Rabbi Yaakov Menken, the managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values, criticized Jewish pro-abortion activists who claim a fetus is not yet a life by appealing to Jewish law. He said there is a “total prohibition” on any violations of the Sabbath except to save a life, and, “In the event that the mother is dying, or has died, one is allowed to perform a C section on the Sabbath, even though it involves a total prohibition, to save the life of the fetus.”

“So, whether you call that alive or the same status as a born child, it's very clear that that life has inestimable value, like all human life,” said Rabbi Menken.

Again, though, Collins failed to contact a non-right-wing rabbi or Jewish religious authority to respond to Menken's claims.

MRC Hypes Chicago Crime To Distract From Gun Massacre In Chicago Suburb
Topic: Media Research Center

When right-wingers bring up crime in Chicago, it's usually to advance a narrative or deflect from something. The Media Research Center's "news" division, CNSNews.com, loves to do it, mostly for the former. The MRC itself did it for the latter -- specifically, to distract from and minimize the July 4 gun massacre in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, which it has already been doing. Mark Finkelstein showed how it's done in a July 7 post:

Over the July 4th weekend:

• Seven people were shot to death in Highland Park, a Chicago suburb.
• Ten people were shot to death in Chicago .

One is rare, and the other is routine. But some liberal outlets are noticing the attention gap.

The Washington Post ran a front-page story on Thursday that lamented "There are no crowdsourced charity drives raising millions for victims’ families in Chicago, where the holiday weekend death toll reached at least 10 with 62 injured — numbers that exceed the toll in Monday’s mass shooting at a July 4th parade in nearby Highland Park, Ill. In that affluent lakeside suburb, the violence was an anomaly. Here, it is a grimly regular occurrence."

But on her MSNBC show on Tuesday, Nicolle Wallace focused exclusively on the seven Highland Park shooting deaths. Not a word about the 10 shooting deaths in Chicago. Note that in 2021, there were  3,561 shooting incidents in Chicago, and 797 homicides.

Finkelstein went on to complain that Wallace and her guest Peter Strzok, the Trump-hating, ex-FBI agent, focused on the race of the Highland Park suspect," while there was "no mention of the age or race of the Chicago shooters. Wonder why?" Wonder why Finkelstein is so sensitive about people pointing out the fact that the perpetrators of recent gun massacres are young white men.

Later that day, Curtis Houck highlighted a Washington Post story that followed the MRC's Chicago distraction narrative:

In a front page and above-the-fold story for Thursday’s print edition, The Washington Post discovered a reality that dozens of people are shot and killed every week and weekend in Chicago, Illinois, but there’s barely any national attention given to the plight of Chicagoans in contrast to the equally horrifying mass shootings in suburbs and other more economically prosperous areas.

Reporter Robert Klemko penned the story under the print headline “Toll on South Side eclipsed suburb’s, but drew no furor” (and “With little outcry, Chicago’s bloody weekend eclipsed Highland Park toll” online) that gave away the media game of fixating on certain acts of gun violence, but not others.

Of course, the Post wasn't using the Chicago ahootings to distract from the Highland Park massacre like Houck is.

On July 10, Kevin Tober similarly praised a non-right-wing outlet for pushing its narrative:

On CNN’s State of the Union, host Jake Tapper confronted Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker on a common theme that even casual observers of leftist politicians and media have noticed. That is they always focus on tragic one time incidents like mass shootings, yet ignore the daily shootings in Chicago which cause more deaths on a weekly basis than mass shootings. 

After discussing the terrible mass shooting in Highland Park on Independence Day with Pritzker, Tapper correctly noted that “the fourth of July weekend death toll in Chicago, as you know, surpassed the Highland Park shooting.”

[...]

The fact of the matter is the American people are paying more attention to the Highland Park shooting not because of the weapon used but because the media focuses on mass shootings more than the deadly shootings that occur every weekend in Democrat run cities like Chicago, Los Angeles or New York City. 

All these incidents are tragic and should be given equal treatment.

Actually, Tober doesn't want any attention at all given to the Highland Park massacre because it outlines the destruction caused the conservative movement's all-guns-everywhere-no-questions-asked policy and its glorification of gun culture that emboldens disaffected young men.

The MRC only cares about Chicago violence when it serves its purposes to do so -- and the proof of that is that it devoted only one more article related to the Highland Park massacre, a July 10 item by Finkelstein complaining that "the media's favorite youthful gun-grabber David Hogg" argued that the massacre's perpetrator was a "white nationalist" and brought up "the trauma and PTSD that black and brown communities have from experiencing a disproportionate about of gun violence" and historical issues like redllining. Rather than try to prove Hogg wrong, Finkelstein sneered, "Why do liberals always want to have 'conversations around' issues? Anyhow, bonus woke points to Hogg for working redlining into his spiel."

Of course, conservataives like Finkelstein and his fellow MRC writers want no conversations at all about gun violence lest they lose on the facts.

SHOCK: CNS Actually Does Balanced Story On Ben & Jerry's, Occupied Territories
Topic: CNSNews.com

Earlier this year, we caught CNSNews.com punctuating its coverage of Ben & Jerry's ice cream deciding not to sell its ice cream in occupied Palestinian territories to protest Israel's treatment of the Palestinians with an article by managing editor Michael W. Chapman falsely claiming that the decision is directly link to a drop in the stock price for the company's owner, international conglomerate Unilever. CNS tiptoed back into the story with a July 8 article by Ben Kelley:

On July 5, Ben & Jerry’s filed a lawsuit against its parent company, Unilever, in an attempt to block the sale of their Israeli business to an Israel-based licensee. Ben & Jerry’s founders stopped selling their product in the disputed territories in July 2021. A new licensee would essentially reverse that policy and permit the ice cream to be sold in those areas.

“The complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan said the sale announced last week threatened to undermine Ben & Jerry’s brand integrity, for which its board retained independence to protect when the Unilever conglomerate acquired it in 2000,” reported Haaretz.

The story is actually well balanced, much more so than the usual CNS "news" story. The only failure is that Kelley didn't take the opportunityto correct the record about the earlier false claim linking the withdrawal to Unilever's stock price drop. Still, it's a better journalistic record that his fellow CNS interns this summer.

MRC's Double Standard On Alleged IRS Misbehavior
Topic: Media Research Center

When it was revealed that both former FBI director James Comey and ex-FBI deputy James McCabe were targeted with IRS audits after being fired from their jobs under the Trump administration -- events considered highly suspicious -- the Media Research Center, no fan of the IRS, rushed to its defense in a July 7 post by Nicholas Fondacaro complaining that the media was reporting the story despite "no evidence" to support it:

On Wednesday, The New York Times via Washington correspondent Michael Schmidt published a fairly weak article suggesting former President Trump had ordered the IRS to conduct audits of former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Despite the blatant inconstancies and admitting there’s “no evidence,” the liberal media’s ‘it rings true’ barometer carried the day on Thursday’s Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC.

“So, what are the chances of two Trump foes getting audited by the IRS? Well, it's about one in 82 million according to a New York Times calculation,” Mitchell pompously announced as she came back from a commercial break.

Well, since, she brought it up. In his article, Schmidt hid the fact that McCabe’s audit didn’t begin until “October 2021, nine months after Mr. Trump left office.” It was a key fact he didn’t get around to mentioning until paragraph 44 (of 54). Comey’s happened in 2019.

The supposed connection was Trump-appointed commissioner, Charles Rettig, who still runs the agency and has denied involvement. And something Schmidt failed to address in his article: if Trump was brazen enough to order an IRS audit after he left office, then why hasn’t he ordered them to drop the audit he’s allegedly been facing for years?

Because Trump repeatedly used that as an excuse to never release his tax returns while president and demanding that the audit end would remove that excuse and that talking point? Just a guess, and something Fondacaro apparently never considered.

Fondacaro also seems to have forgotten that his employer and other right-wing organizations spesnt years playing the victim over the IRS under President Obama purportedly targeting conservative nonprofit groups for investigation without any real evidence. The truth was that the IRS was also investigating progressive nonprofit groups as well amid a flood of such groups seeking nonprofit status. Nevertheless, Curtis Houck ranted in 2017: "What about the IRS until President Barack Obama? Try Google searching for why Lois Lerner is living a comfortable life in secrecy nowadays. Conservative groups were unfairly targeted by the IRS when applying for tax-exempt status and it occurred on Obama’s watch. Plain and simple." Because conservatives squealed the loudest, the conservative groups got a settlement, which the MRC touted as "VINDICATION."

The MRC was accusing the IRS under Obama of being directed by him to harass conservative groups (which, despite Houck's assertion, wasn't really true). Yet Fondacaro wants us to believe that Trump's IRS is incapable of doing something equally terrible in demanding audits of Trump's political enemies? Please.

NEW ARTICLE: 25 Years Of Mendacity At WND
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah marked the silver anniversary of his website by begging for money and rewriting history by portraying his most biased, dishonest and outright false reporting as something noble. Read more >>

MRC Tries To Deflect From Guns Again After Highland Park Massacre
Topic: Media Research Center

As it did after gun massacres in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, the Media Research Center spent the days after the gIndependence Day gun massacre at a parade in Highland Park, Ill., trying to blame everything else but guns for the massacre, even though the shooter would not have been able to kill so many people if he had not had a gun. In a July 5 post, Curtis Houck whined that TV shows had on the mayor of Highland Park to talk about gun regulation:

In the aftermath of Monday’s Fourth of July shooting in Highland Park, Illinois that left six dead and dozens hurt, CBS Mornings and NBC’s Today partnered Tuesday with Mayor Nancy Rotering (D) as the latter called for the discussion of the suspect’s disturbing social media history (and thus the missed warning signs) and instead focus on banning “weapons of war.”

Rotering first appeared on NBC and, after being asked to provide an update on the case, co-host Hoda Kotb noted that, nine years ago, Rotering “signed an assault weapons ban that was in place and is in place,” >meaning it didn’t prevent the shooting.

[...]

Rotering went unchallenged as she lashed out at those who disagree with her city’s views on gun control, smearing Americans as having “values” that “are askew” to the point that millions of Americans robbed them of happiness on the Fourth of July.

“[B]ecause of this gun culture, our nation turned its back on us and turned its back on our celebration. We, as a country, have to have a very strong conversation with ourselves...[I]t’s one of those things where you ask yourself: If this reflects the values of who we are, then what does that say about us as a nation,” she added.

Kotb tried to turn the focus back to the investigation, but Rotering not only dismissed the idea of talking about the warning signs, but she called for discussion of the suspect’s social media to “be diminished.” What’s clear, Rotering argued, was that the deranged individual “had a — a mental breakdown” and “weapons of war” allowed him to escalate his hate.

Houck didn't dispute the accuracy of Rotering's words, instead using his leadline to label her a "lefty" despite offering no evidence to back it up other than her criticism of guns, as if that in and of itself is a reliable indicator of political preference,

John Simmons attacked Australian-born baseball player Liam Hendricks for speaking from experience in his own country and having opinions that didn't conform to right-wing pro-gun orthodoxy by pointing out that "suicide rates dropped drastically, our gun-related homicides dropped infinitely" after the country instituted a gun ban following a massacre:

To be fair, Australia has had only one mass shooting since the government implemented their mandatory buy-back program in 1996 (note the word “mandatory,” something Hendricks did not mention). But the low number of mass shootings has come at the expense of Australians being able to defend themselves from an overreaching, tyrannical government. 

Australia had some of the strictest lockdown restrictions in the world. They enforced an incredibly draconian stay at home order for several months, and police officers would go to people’s houses to make sure they were staying inside. The government could afford to oppress its citizens in large part because Australians would not be able to resist in any meaningful way since they had no access to firearms. 

This is why the Second Amendment is such an important right for Americans. Men much smarter than Hendricks saw that tyrannical governments can easily oppress citizens who cannot defend themselves, which is why each American has a constitutionally protected right to own firearms. Of course, mass shootings happen and those are undeniably tragic, but to say that taking guns away to stop them from happening will leave its citizens at the mercy of its government to treat them fairly, which history shows is not a good course of action.

Hendricks really missed the strike zone on this assessment.

Simmons didn't explain why commonsense health measures to try and mitigate a deadly pandemic that has killed millionps of people around the world were "tyrannical"; then again, he is a rabid anti-vaxxer.

Emma Schultz asserted that CNN's Laura Coates "tried to whip the audience into a hysteria" and "pushed her personal overly concerned thoughts and phobias on the audience" by accuirately noting that the masacre might make some people afraid to go out in public.Schulta also claimed that Coates "introduced fabricated data from the anti-gun rights Gun Violence Archive to back up her opinions stating that “there have been 319 mass shootings just this year and 17 in the first four days of July.” As we've documented, those numbers aren't "fabricated" at all -- those people are still dead -- they are just counted in a way that the MRC disapproves of because the higher number makes guns look bad.

Nicholas Fondacaro complained that CNN's Alisyn Camerota "proposed Orwellian laws designed to monitor and profile gun owners and bar them from exercising their Second Amendment rights." He didn't mention that his employer has endorsed the Orewllian monitoring of women to make sure they don't cross state lines to have an abortion.

Kevin Tober ranted that coverage of a gun massacre focused on the inescapable gun part and pointed out that right-wingers like him don't want to talk about said gun part:

On Wednesday night's episode of MSNBC's All In, host Chris Hayes and leftist journalist Aaron Rupar admonished Fox News for not covering the shooting in Highland Park, Illinois in the manner they demand. To Hayes and Rupar, if you don't cover mass shootings from the leftist gun control perspective, you aren't covering the story properly. Any solution other than gun control is inadequate according to them. 

"There is a ritual that is set in on the right in the wake of the horrifying and regular spectacle of mass gun violence. In the aftermath, Republicans and right-wing media have a series of decisions to make about what to do to take attention away from what is the most obvious source of the problem" Hayes proclaimed.

Tober went on to grouse after red-flag laws were discussed: "As always, the solution to leftist policy failures is more of the same. Double down and when it continues to backfire, blame conservatives and Fox News for pointing out how the left's agenda has failed."

Brad Wilmouth whined that another logical point was made, that cities with tough anti-gun laws are undermined by surrounding jurisdictions where gun laws are much looser, claiming that itwas irrelevant because the shooter's guns were bought in Illinois, further whining that "Journalists and other liberals like to blame the more conservative state of Indiana for crime in Illinois, which has been run by Democrats continuously since after the 2002 elections." In fact, one of five recovered guns used in crimes in Chicago came from Indiana.