Dick Morris has been in full Trump suck-up mode all over Newsmax to promote his new (Newsmax-published) pro-Trump books. Let's see how that's been going for him since the last time we checked, shall we? In a July 25 Newsmax TV appearance, Morris touted Trump's plan to destroy the federal civil service system:

If former President Donald Trump is reelected in 2024, there are reports he is going to work to drain the swamp of "deep state"career government officials by permitting the president to staff his government as one sees fit.

While Trump campaign adviser Dick Morris, who has released his latest book "The Return: Trump's Big 2024 Comeback," did not fully acknowledge the reported "Schedule F" executive order to Newsmax, he hailed it as noble reform for the Executive branch.

That's a bit of historical tension in American politics," Morris told Monday's "Rob Schmitt Tonight." "All officials used to be appointed. Andrew Jackson set that precedent. He said, 'They elected me president, so I should fill the administration with people who will do my policies.'

"And then when that system became too corrupt, they replaced it in 1882 with the civil service system. But the problem is now the civil service marches to its own drummer."

[...]

"And I think that this rule that he's seeking to propose is a very good one, because it makes the bureaucracy politically responsible to the president."

In nreality, turning the whole of federal government into a patronage system beholden to the president and not making the government function properly is a bad idea that will quickly descend into corruption and effectively destroy government function.

It was also noted that "Morris also noted in his appearance with Schmitt, as he wrote in his book, he has found strength in God and purpose after battling cancer." No mention of the prostitute-patronizing that cost Morris his adviser gig with President Clinton in 1996 and set him on a revenge path that led him to being the aforementioned Trump suck-up.

Morris repeated his low-stakes prediction (and his book's premise) that Trump will run for president again in 2024 in a July 27 TV appearance, dutifully mixing in another Newsmax agenda item:

Meanwhile, Morris said he was "shocked" that Trump's speech didn't get any play on Fox News, even though the former president gave this "wonderful speech laying out his programming beautifully, not much about 2020 all about the future, right?

"It took two hours and Fox News did not cover it. They covered Mike Pence's speech to the same group. But Fox did not cover it … this blackout by Fox News and by the arms of the Democratic Party of Donald Trump is reaching horrific proportions."

Morris diverged from his pro-Trump agenda in a July 30 appearance, declaring that "Ukraine is winning the war against Russia and will be 'potentially winning decisively'"-- a worrisome statement for those on the Ukraine side, given Morris' history of notoriously bad political prognostication. He returned to the Trump beat for an Aug. 1 TV hit that again took a shot at the competition:

Former presidential adviser Dick Morris told Newsmax on Monday that Fox News is doing everything it can to create a GOP primary fight opposing Donald Trump — from ignoring the former president to promoting a candidacy for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Morris, who outlines the strategy in his newly released book, "The Return: Trump's Big 2024 Comeback," said it's part of a larger strategy by the Democrats to sully Trump and change Fox News from conservative-leaning to liberal-oriented.

"They've censored, they switched Fox News from Republican to Democrat, and they are now basically … Newsmax is the only organ that's covering Trump," Morris said on "John Bachman Now."

"And in the meantime, Fox is doing everything it can to promote DeSantis. He's on the air all the time. They say nice things about him. Trump hasn't been on for three-and-a-half months, and this is because the … Democrats are scared to death of Trump, and they know they have to try to beat him in the primary."

Morris cheered Trump's takeover of the Republican Party in an Aug. 6 TV appearance:

Former President Donald Trump has "orchestrated a makeover" of the Republican Party before his return in 2024, bringing the "fire" for midterm election turnout that is sorely needed, according to presidential adviser Dick Morris on Newsmax.

"In 2016, Trump orchestrated a takeover of the Republican Party," Morris told "Saturday Report." "Now, he's orchestrating a makeover of the Republican Party. It's unprecedented.

"It's never happened before. The former incumbent president really is reshaping the Republican Party and making it into a MAGA, America First institution."

[...]

Trump can stake his claim to returning America to a world powerhouse with a widely successful economy, something no Democrat or Republican can stake claim to, Morris concluded.

"He's a builder," Morris said. "And imagine somebody who built the most beautiful building in the world, and then the successor came in and tore it all down

"He's going to want, as a craftsman, to rebuild that, to bring the country back to where it was at the end of his presidency. He's immensely proud of that, and he's determined to restore that."

Ther article concluded with a corporate plea to get on a text list for Newsmax readers: "Get latest news on Trump's 2024 plans, his "Big Announcement" and more from Newsmax's Trump list!" As if we needed another reminder that Morris and Newsmax remain beholden to Trump.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:52 PM EDT

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With monkeypox infections on the rise, notoriously homophobic CNSNews.com columnist Bill Donohue knew who to heap scorn on. He ranted in a July 20 column:

"Monkeypox can be exceptionally painful," says Patrick Ashley, senior deputy director at the D.C. Department of Health, "especially if there are lesions on the penis, a lot of penal swelling, on the anus as well, it can be significantly painful."

Now we all know who is the most likely to have these kinds of problems. They used to be called homosexuals, then they were called gay. Now they are often known as men having sex with men (as if this is not what defines homosexual behavior).

The D.C. Department of Health confirms our suspicion. So who is listed on its website as the most likely to get monkeypox? "Gay, bisexual, and other men 18 and older who have sex with men and have had multiple or anonymous sexual partners in the last 14 days; or transgender women [e.g. males who think they are a woman] and nonbinary persons assigned male at birth who have sex with men; or sex workers [prostitutes] of any sex; or staff (of any sex) at establishments where sexual activity occurs (e.g., bathhouses, saunas, sex clubs)."

In other words, promiscuous gay men are the problem.

This is not a generalization. While all health officials and gay activists will insist that everyone is at risk, they know full well that this is a gay-driven disease.

Donohue then smeared gay men as caring only about sex and not health:

You may as well talk to the wall. Gays who practice dangerous sexual acts, and who have multiple sex partners—with men they never met before—are impervious to reason. They will stop at nothing. For them, the pain and suffering that they endure is worth the risk. That they may spread their disease to innocent unsuspecting persons seems not to matter.

After AIDS was discovered in 1981, those who demanded that the bathhouses remain open—even though they were a popular venue for the spread of HIV—were not gay bashers. They were gay activists.

By this time, Donohue had become obsessed with using monkeypox as an excuse to spew hate at LGBT people. He huffed in an Aug. 1 column:

There are two segments of society most responsible for the spread of monkeypox: promiscuous homosexuals and elites in medicine.

If homosexuals acted more responsibly and stopped engaging in lethal sex practices, stopped having multiple partners, and stopped having sex with anonymous men, monkeypox would not be the problem that it is today.

If the elites in medicine—including those at the CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO)—were straight shooters and told it like it is, monkeypox would not be the problem that it is today. It does not help when the best that the head of WHO can say to homosexuals is that they need to reduce the number of their sexual partners "for the moment."

Donohue even worked another right-wing bogeyman into his rant: "A man who works for George Soros also opened up about his behavior during New York's Pride events. He said he 'had sex with several guys over the weekend.' He got monkeypox."

Donobhue ramped up the homophobia in an Aug. 5 column:

Imagine if those who drink too much alcohol and wind up damaging their liver were to band together demanding a cure for their malady, without first pledging to change their behavior. What would we say? What would we say to heavy smokers if they demanded a cure for lung cancer without first pledging to change their behavior?

Yet when it comes to homosexuals and monkeypox, or AIDS before that, gay leaders demand that we find a cure for their disease without first pledging to change their behavior.

When Covid hit, we locked down the economy, closed schools, and banned church services. So why didn't health officials cancel the "Pride" events in New York City at the end of June? A predictable surge in monkeypox followed.

Why didn't health officials ban the Dore Alley gay festival at the end of July in San Francisco? Those who attended this event said there were no warnings posted anywhere.

[...]

We need to send Catholic moral theologians and doctors into the gay community to advise them of the merits of Catholic sexual ethics. Agreeing to temporarily keep one's pants on in public is not a strategy that works.

Donohue seems to be offering himself up as a "Catholic moral theologian," but he violates morality by having too much hate in his hear tfor people different from him.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:40 AM EDT

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The Media Research Center's campaign to frame private companies enforcing their terms of service on its users as a diabolical campaign to "censor" right-wingers who should be allowed to spread lies and misinformation unfettered has always been dishonest, but it has found a way to expand on that dishonesty, announced in a July 20 post by Brian Bradley and Gabriela Pariseau:

America is increasingly outraged by the manner in which radical Big Tech leftists are censoring conservative and Christian leaders and organizations on nearly every major social media platform.

But what is the secondhand effect of this censorship on consumers – the American people? How much information is being kept from the average social media user? 

The answer is an astonishing amount, arguably more information than has ever been purposely withheld from the public in American history.

The Media Research Center's CensorTrack.org has identified and verified over 4,000 individual examples of censorship. For purposes of this study, we looked at only the first quarter of 2022 wherein 172 cases were identified. An analysis of the audiences of those individuals/organizations alone found that in that three-month period, there were no less than 144,301,713 times information was withheld from the American people.

This phenomenon is best thought of as “secondhand censorship.” Secondhand censorship is defined as the number of times that users on social media had information kept from them.

This, of course, is a bogus and meaningless metric. It simply takes an instance of purported "censorship" and multiplies that by the number of followers that person or organization has:

The MRC looked at seven platforms – Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Spotify – to calculate secondhand censorship’s impact. 

MRC measured the effects of secondhand censorship by adding the number of followers each account had at the time of each censorship case recorded during the quarter.

[...]

MRC identified 172 individual cases of direct censorship logged in MRC Free Speech America’s CensorTrack database during the first quarter of 2022. CensorTrack has now logged a total of over 4,000 total cases of Big Tech’s direct censorship.

But when Big Tech companies censor an account or its posts, every one of the censored account’s followers are unable to see the perspectives of the targeted account, or the account’s posts are obscured such that they’re suppressed and more difficult to view. The consequences of this “secondhand censorship” are broad authoritarianism, mass thought-control and a restricted marketplace of ideas.

The MRC muddies things further by classifying things that were not actually censored as actual "censorship," insisting that content filters that one must click through to access content is "censorship" even though the content itself is not "censored." There's other dishonesty too, as described in this section:

YouTube placed two content filters on a Fox News video of former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) and Fox News host Laura Ingraham about the Ukraine War, as noted in a March 9 CensorTrack entry.

Gabbard said on The Ingraham Angle that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was reportedly open to engaging in negotiations to compromise with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war. 

YouTube used content filters to chide Fox News subscribers, suggesting that the video “may be inappropriate,” and that the YouTube “community” had identified the video as “inappropriate or offensive.” 

Secondhand censorship translated to Fox News’s 9,180,000 YouTube subscribers being prohibited from viewing potentially pivotal news The incident contributed to thwarting a consensus on a viable path out of the war from forming.

But Bradley and Pariseau offer no evidence that Gabbard's claim about alleged "compromise" was the reason YouTube put a content filter over the video (which merely requires a single click to access, no sane person's definition of "censorship"). It might have more to do with Gabbard -- a supporter of Russia and Vladimir Putin -- baselessly blaming the "military-industrial complex" and Hillary Clinton for the Russia-Ukraine war (even though Russia is the one that invaded Ukraine) and even more baselessly accusing U.S. leaders of lying to the American people about the situation there. Ingraham did not allow anyone to rebut Gabbard's views, and Ingraham heartily endorsed them.

Bradley and Pariseau was upset that Joe Rogan couldn't be as racist as he wants to be, going to Bette Midler whataboutism route to do so:

Most race-related secondhand censorship during the first quarter came when Spotify removed approximately 70 episodes of Rogan’s podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” in February. When the streaming platform removed those episodes, the effects of secondhand censorship cascaded across Rogan’s reported 11 million per-episode Spotify listeners.

Rogan’s past use of the N-word over the roughly 10-year course of his podcast reportedly ignited a furor across Spotify’s workforce. The comments even reportedly prodded Spotify CEO Daniel Ek into writing a memo to employees saying that the “hurtful” comments “do not represent the values of this company,” according to Axios.

Just after a video collage of Rogan’s use of the N-word came out, MRC found that leftist PatriotTakes, the group behind the video’s release, partnered with leftist SuperPAC MeidasTouch. MeidasTouch was partly funded by actress Bette Midler, who has a history of unhinged political behavior. She demonstrated this in a May 24 tweet that read, in part: “DON'T SAVE FETUSES ONLY TO HAVE THEM DIE AT SCHOOL BECAUSE YOU LOVE YOUR GUNS MORE THAN LIFE!  FOR SHAME!!” This wasn’t censored, of course.

If you're defending offensive racism, you're losing. If you're invoking Bette Midler -- who is not racist -- to further defend that rasism, you're losing even more. further, the duo are falsely blaming Spotify for the removal of the Rogan episodes using the N-word; actually, Rogan himself requested that they be removed, so Bradley should really be blaming Rogan himself for "censorship."

Bradley and Pariseau also defended COVID vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories:

Big Tech censorship of alternate viewpoints on COVID-19 and vaccinations raged ahead during the first quarter of 2022, even as cases declined and local governments loosened masking and vaccination mandates.

Tech platforms sought total control over information related to COVID-19’s origins, the usefulness of cloth masks in preventing the virus’s spread, efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines and local government policies on supposed COVID-19 prevention. This Big Tech totalitarianism meant that social media weren’t permitted to critically analyze pandemic-related information on a factual basis.

Twitter even censored a news report covering a peer-reviewed study about vaccine materials transforming into human DNA! 

Just the News published a story March 3 reporting on a Swedish study that found the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine can convert to DNA inside human liver cells. 

But readers of Just the News were blocked from learning about the study. 

All 867,000 of Just the News founder John Solomon’s Twitter followers weren’t allowed to read a March 3 news story covering the Swedish study. Such censorship potentially jeopardized the ability of readers to seek appropriate medical care for COVID-19. The censored story’s subheadline also noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claimed “the vaccine” could not turn into DNA.

Those readers should be grateful ther story was "censored" because it was full of misinformation. As an actual news operation found:

The study tested whether the vaccine’s mRNA could be converted to DNA, and found that this was the case in certain lab-altered liver cell lines under experimental conditions. It did not assess whether the vaccine alters the human genome, or what the effects of that would be, according to experts and the study authors. Experts say additional research is needed because the findings in the lab setting cannot be used to make inferences about what might happen in a human body.

The news operation went on to quote the study's authors as saying that “The results have in many cases been misinterpreted” and “there is no reason for anyone to change their decision to take the vaccine based on this study.”Bradley and Pariseau didn't mention that, meaning they're effectively endorsing falsehoods and misinformatoin -- also not a good look for so-called "media researchers."

The duo even tried to reframe clear anti-LGBT hate as "faith-based criticism":

Twitter censored Crisis Magazine Editor-in-Chief Eric Sammons’s faith-based criticism of secular norms in March, according to a March 29 CensorTrack entry.

"Just a reminder: Homosexual activity is a sin,” the head of the Catholic magazine tweeted. “Transgenderism is a mental illness. Abortion is murder."

Twitter locked Sammons’s account for a few days, claiming “hateful conduct,” until Sammons deleted the tweet.

Because this bogus "secondhand censorship" metric generates such an wildly and artificially huge number, the MRC can use it for propaganda purposes. And, indeed, MRC chief Brent Bozell ran to Fox News to tout them and hyperbolically declare that this has "never happened in human history," adding, "when was the last time you heard a liberal complain about being censored? It just doesn’t happen." He didn't mention that the MRC makes no effort to count them and simply runs up conservative numbers so has talking points he can spout on Fox News.

Bradly then went on the July 22 podcast of his boss, Tim Graham, to promote and rehash this bogus study. Even Graham admitted that Bradley was "coining a term" with "secondhand censorship," though he went on to do his own rehashing the Hunter Biden laptop saga as a prime example of "censorship," even though, as we documented, there was good reason not to trust the story when it came out because it was not independently verified and those pushing it were obvious pro-Trump partisans who could not be trusted. Graham agreed with Bradley's baseless assertion that the Ingraham-Gabbard video was "censored" (it wasn't) because she talked about trying to end the war in Ukraine.

Bradley actually defended Rogan's use of the N-word: "You might not like his use of the N-word, his referential use of the N-word -- i don't think he used it in a mean way at all -- but they couldn't consider the ideas he was putting forward in these podcasts because Big Tech just had to put the political clampdown because of political pressure from the left." Bradley didn't cite any examples of the "ideas" Rogan spent time on that didn't involve his use of the N-word or somehow negated his use of it. Graham responded that "the use of the N-word is allowed by rappers and other things on Spotify, so it breaks down to the usual line that you can't say it -- he can say it, you can't say it."

(The MRC played similar whataboutism with Rogan's embrace of the N-word when the story first broke in the middle of its defense of him.)

Graham worked up a little mock outrage that Rand Paul, "who's not just a senator but who's an actual medical doctor," was "censored" over COVID-related remarks. Bradley then laughably called Solomon "a longtime journlaist, reliable journalist" (um, no, he's not) and insisted that the study was "an academic study" by "some medical professionals in some European country" -- but he hid the fact that Solomon's reporting on the study was misleading. Bradley then went on to portray Sammons' anti-LGBT hate as merely speaking "simple, embedded Christian concepts," and that "censoring" him "is really an assault on the country itself," to which Graham responded by arguing that a Twitter account purporting to be God but actually written by an atheist should be banned for alleged blasphemy.

Tierin-Rose Mandelburg also promoted the bogus numbers in her July 27 CensorTrack podcast.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:12 PM EDT

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Stephanie Samsel served up yet another example of unbalanced content from CNSNews.com's summer interns in a July 11 article:

During its first four seasons, Netflix’s “Stranger Things” aired an overall 217% increase in profanity and an overall 307% increase in violence, despite keeping a TV-14 rating, according to a new Parents Television and Media Council (PTC) report.

While the single use of “f**k” on cable television usually warrants a “TV-MA” rating, Netflix’s hit sci-fi and horror series “Stranger Things” has featured it over 20 times from Season 1 to Season 4.

From Season 1 to Season 4, PTC calculated a nearly 740% increase in “sh*t” and a 100% increase in “b*tch,” just two of five expletives listed.

There was also a steep spike in graphic violence (756%) across the total four seasons.

Still, “Stranger Things” has a strong reach to younger viewers.

Samsel quotes only the PTC, and doesn't didsclose theorganization 's right-wing ideology or that it was founded by her boss, Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell. Thus, she ignores that real-life teenagers use swear words, and it was important to the creators of the show, the Duffer brothers and their producer, Shawn Levy, to reflect that reality:

According to the brothers and Levy, the authenticity of pre-teens experimenting with cursing was their primary reason for insisting the kids curse. It helps that it’s also hilarious.

"Everyone wanted it to feel authentic and so I think once these kids, these words coming out of their mouths, it felt authentic," Matt [Duffer] said. "And then Gaten [Matarazzo] screaming 'shit' is just gold. It's comedy gold."

Given that "Stranger Things" is essentially a horror series, there will be violence. The PTC report doesn't define the differences between "violence," "graphic violence" and "gore," even though it's all meticulously counted and quantified. Instead, the report essentially advocated censorship, criticizing the show's season 4 opening episode, which starts with the aftermath of a massacre that includes children, and even though the show added a disclaimer warning of the graphic scenes given that the episode dropped shortly after the gun massacre at a school in Texas, that wasn't enough for the PTC: "=The shocking depiction of dead children would be insensitive even if the tragedy hadn’t occurred. We question why Netflix would invite viewers to be entertained by such a scene, and we decry TV-14 rating Netflix assigned to it."

Samsel was silent about this apparent call to censorship as she was about any view that didn't involve the PTC attacking the show.

Posted by Terry K. at 6:33 PM EDT

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The Media Research Center loves to be outraged that conservatives are accurately labeled as such, and it was so again following the assassination of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. Curtis Houck whined in a July 8 post:

Much of the world awoke Friday to news that former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had been assassinated by a deranged suspect with a homemade shotgun. Instead of eulogizing Abe and expressing condolences to the Japanese people, CBS Mornings decided it would join the Associated Press and National Public Radio (NPR) in smearing Abe as “a polarizing figure,” “right-wing nationalist, and conservative” whose “political opinions were controversial.”

Foreign correspondent Elizabeth Palmer’s piece began as one would expect, stating from Tokyo that “[i]t would be hard to overstate just how much of a shock this is in normally nonviolent Japan. People are really feeling traumatized.”

Palmer shared what we know thus far about the assassination and remarked that “[a]lthough...Abe was giving a stump speech in a wide-open area” for a member of his party, “security...wasn't particularly tight” since “this is a country where yearly gun deaths typically number in the single digits.”

A fan of the Iranian regime (such as here, here, here, and here), Palmer then uncorked her hot takes, trashing the murdered former world leader as “[a] polarizing figure...a right-wing nationalist and conservative and a fierce supporter of Japan's military.”

Ignoring Abe’s ties to Presidents Biden and Obama, Palmer framed him as a Trumper:

Houck also whined that NPR referred to Abe in a tweet as "a divisive arch-conservarive," which he claimed is "reminding many of why they should be defunded." Aside from the weak retort about Abe's "ties to Presidents Biden and Obama," Houck did not dispute the accuracy of the description or why it was a "smear" to make an accurate statement -- he was simply angry that it was reported.

Nicholas Fondacaro further complained later that day, again attacking NPR and again playing whataboutism:

In the wake of the assassination of former conservative Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday, elements of the liberal media made sure to get their kicks in as they slapped on nasty labels to show their disgust with his politics. This comes in contrast to their glowing words and emotional goodbyes to communist dictators and murderers, and Muslim terrorists.

The anti-Abe pronouncement getting a lot of attention on Friday was NPR’s now-deleted Tweet describing the recently murdered world leader as a “divisive arch-conservative.” In the replacement tweet, they still had the knives out as they smeared him as an “ultranationalist.”

And in the piece itself, international correspondent John Ruwitch used the “ultra-nationalist” [sic] label again and left kinder words to people like Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who said Abe was “a towering statesman, an outstanding leader, and a remarkable administrator."

Even in American politics, NPR couldn’t be bothered to cover the attempted assassination of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh. But in 2016, an NPR reporter described getting a kiss from the murderous communist Castro brothers of Cuba as the “blessing of the Holy Trinity.”

Fondacaro, like Houck, did not explain why that labeling of Abe isn't accurate or is "nasty."

Tim Graham brought this up in his July 8 podcast, again lashing out at NPR and following MRC practice by not explaining why the label is not accurate but iranting about the "notable lack of decency" anyway and demanding "diplomacy" and "sensitivity" in reporting, going on to whine: "I thought, oh, I don't know, Hideki Tojo was the ultranationalist, you know, the one who alighed with the Nazis. How can NPR be this tone-deaf?" He ranted that nobody uses the word "ultra" to label anyone on the left -- even though one need only to go back a couple weeks to the NewsBusters promotion for his own June 20 podcast to find him hyperbolically labeling Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin as an "ultraliberal."He wined further:

If Fox News did this to some socialist prime minister, especially some socialist minister who had been shot dead, the people would all lose their liberal minds, because socialists  are wonderful people. Yeah, apparently Abe's sin was China no likey. Russia wasn't really a fan. So if you upset China and North Korea and Russia, well, you're controversial. Who's letting these commies define what's controversial?

Yes, he really said "China no likey." Seems a tad racist.

He went on to claim that Abe's attempt to revise Japan's post-World War II constitution to remove its pacifism was what made him divisve: "Notice, pacifists are never divisive" and to whine that some reporters didn't hate Cuba's Fidel Castro enough when he died and spewed more hate on NPR.

Posted by Terry K. at 4:11 PM EDT

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Scott Lively is using his WorldNetDaily columns to try and convince readers that the Russian leader isn't such a bad guy despite his invasion of Ukraine, largely based on their mutual hatred of LGBT people. Read more >>

Posted by Terry K. at 1:47 AM EDT

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The Media Research Center stopped hating author J.K. Rowling for promoting witchcraft in her "Harry Potter" novels (and for admitting that Dumbledore is gay) when she started spouting anti-transgender ideology, and its love of Rowling's hate has continued this year. When the New York Times called Rowling a "TERF," Clay Waters decided this was a "slur" and rushed to her defense in a Feb. 24 post:

Author J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series of fantasy novels, has been the subject of “cancellation” and even violent threats for standing up for the biological reality of women against the radical trans ideology, in which a biological man is free to self-identify as a woman and invade women’s spaces.

[...]

But the story’s bigger journalistic crime was an editorial detail. The original URL link at the top of the story ... actually contained the slur “terf,” a derogatory acronym employed by trans activists to smear their feminist opponents. It stands for “trans-exclusionary radical feminists” and has no place in mainstream journalism. The URL also included the insult “transphobic.”

Clearly someone had second thoughts about the slur against Rowling; the link now resolves into a more conventional URL. (The term “terf” had previously appeared in The Times only in trans-activist opinion pieces.)

Matt Philbin, meanwhile, undermined Waters' outrage by embracing Rowling as a TERF in a March 9 post:

J.K. Rowling is well on her way to becoming “She Who Must Not Be Named.” It doesn’t seem to bother her. The world’s most famous (or infamous) TERF (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist) still maintains that biology has meaning and dudes who claim to be chicks aren’t actually chicks. For this, she regularly faces the Twitter mob.

On March 8, Rowling saw a puffy tweet from the U.K. Labour Party that claimed “Labour will lift women up, not hold them back. Because we are the party of equality.” Rowling wasn’t having it, and she replied, “This morning you told the British public you literally can't define what a woman is. What's the plan, lift up random objects until you find one that rattles?”

Hmm, kinda makes sense. If you’re being pandered to, don’t you want the people doing the pandering to be able to tell you from a toaster or a butternut squash?  As usual, the Twitter reaction was swift and stupid. One unfortunate tweeter caught Rowling’s eye for asking, “You really want your legacy to die on this hill, @jk_rowling ?”

That sounds awfully like being “on the wrong side of history” progressives are always threatening to place dissidents on. It’s also another way of asking if she really wants to be canceled by all the virtuous people.

Autumn Johnson spent an April 3 post complaining about "a “diss track” against Rowling" and griping that "Twitter’s Terms of Service specifically ban content that threaten violence. When the tweet was reported, however, Twitter refused to take action." Johnson made sure to note that Rowling "had been criticized for her comments on transgenders in the past," though she offered no link between that and the alleged death threat.

Waters ran to Rowling's defense once more in a July 5 post complaining that the Times called out her transphobia:

For the crime of believing in human biology and that women are women, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has been excoriated by the left and their media allies.

Now it’s Politico’s turn. Journalist Sarah Wheaton’s 5,000-word cover story for the European edition of Politico, “The metamorphosis of J.K. Rowling – When it comes to trans rights, some fans believe the Harry Potter author is more Death Eater than Dumbledore.”

In other words, Rowling is a real-world villain. Why not just call her Voldemort?  Spoiler alert: They were saving that clever slam for later.

Wheaton, a chief policy correspondent for Politico Europe, tried feverishly to blacken Rowling’s reputation.

[...]

Rowling, who has received many death threats, is accused in classic liberal fashion of “punching down.” Rowling is even quoted saying she’s received “so many death threats I could paper my house with them.” But Wheaton followed through on only one example and actually sympathized with the Twitter user who issued the threat.

The Times is not "blackening" someone's reputation simply by reporting what that person has done to besmirch it through their own words and behavior. Still, Waters also groused that "The article concluded with an astonishing explainer from 'trans woman' cover artist Cat Graffam, bragging about how she made Rowling’s photo look threatening." 

John Simmons followed up on the MRC's earlier mockery of "Harry Potter" fans who play a version of the books' sport of quidditch and decided to change  the sport's name to protest Rowling's transphobia with a July 20 post on that actually happening:

We all know that J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series, one of the most widely acclaimed and beloved fantasy worlds ever created. But because Rowling actually has some solid beliefs on what makes a woman a woman, her legacy has been tarnished and tampered.

The latest consequence for her beliefs is that Quidditch, the sport Rowling invented for the Harry Potter series and that is played in over 40 leagues worldwide, will now be named “quadball.”

[...]

Naturally, the outrage mob attacked her and her reputation for being transphobic, but Rowling has since doubled down on her take, hence the name change of the sport.

It seems as though all the progressives involved are getting way to riled up about this. But then again, what more could you expect from that side?

And what more could you expect from the MRC, which went from hating Rowling to loving her solely because she hates transgender people as much as they do?

Posted by Terry K. at 10:06 PM EDT

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We've noted how CNSNews.com likes to promote the notoriously homophobic Matt Walsh -- while censoring the fact that he traied to deceive transgender people into appearing in his anti-transgender film by falsely promoting it as a pro-transgender work. When the film came out,CNS gave Walsh promotion. In a June 2 article effectively attacking President Biden for standing against right-wing hate of LGBTQ people, Stephanie Samsel gave right-winger hater Walsh a platform:

Some conservative commentators, such as Matt Walsh, have criticized the liberal notion that one’s gender may not be the same as one’s biological sex. Walsh’s new documentary “What is a Woman?” challenges the claim that gender is a social construct by exposing its proponents’ inability to define “men” or “women.”

"I have been told... that a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman. But that definition doesn’t work because you can’t use the word you’re defining in the definition,” Walsh’s commentary at The Daily Wire reads.

Samsel also embedded a tweet by Walsh promoting his film.

Intern Lucy Collins was tasked with giving it favorable promotion in a June 13 "news" article, narrowly focusing on one claim made in the film:

A new documentary, What Is a Woman? examines sexual identity and reveals that some doctors encourage puberty blockers in “transgender” children, including a drug that is used to sterilize some sex offenders.

Although the puberty blockers apparently can be reversed, even The New York Times reports that “more research is needed to fully understand” their impact “on certain patients’ fertility,” and that little is known of the “drugs’ lasting effects on brain development.”

In What Is a Woman? author and conservative commentator Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire interviews numerous experts, academics, and average citizens about sexual identity, asking the question, “What is a woman?”

Note the benign description of Waslh as merely an "author and conservative commentator," which hides the virulent hatred of his anti-LGBT ranting,. Collins also did not mention the controversy of Walsh trying to deceive transgender people into appearing in the film and falsely portraying it to them as pro-transgender.

Collins also censored any criticism of Walsh's film, en though there is plenty of it out there, detailing the film's misinformation and falsehoods. As one critic summarized:

With his film, Walsh clearly did not set out to honestly seek answers to a perplexing question, even if they are complex. Instead, he started with a conclusion and then sought out sources to support that conclusion, no matter how dubious the source, making this film an exercise not in honest truth-seeking but rather motivated reasoning. In making this film, Walsh not-coincidentally fueled the flames of conservative pundits and internet trolls to further mock and degrade trans people using fake experts, bad science, false equivalences, conspiracy theories, and blatantly false claims to reach his predetermined conclusion. 

Ironically, a few days earlier, CNS published a column by Ben Shapiro, whose Daily Wire financed Walsh propagenda piece, touting how the film "has been the single largest success in the history of The Daily Wire" and complaining that the film was being ignored outside his right-wing, anti-LGBQ bubble and receiving only "insults and declarations of preemptive hatred" instead, which led to a rant aboiut how, allegedly, "Democrats have siloed themselves into an increasingly progressive universe, one in which the most controversial imaginable propositions are utterly uncontroversial. In this universe, the other side doesn't exist." Of course, Shapiro is doing the same exact thing by strategically denying there's anything controversial about his employee's propganda piece or even that it's propagand at all.

Collins is following in those same footsteps by cenoring the controversy surrounding Walsh's film and presenting the information in it as not coming from a position of bias and hate. It's another example of how CNS has failed to serve its interns this summer by letting them promote fake news and right-wing talking points instead of being made to engage in actual journalism.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:00 PM EDT

Updated: Sunday, August 21, 2022 12:06 PM EDT

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The Media Research Center has shown a propensity for having its collective manhood triggered by various things, whether it's Harry Styles in a dress, Kid Cudi in a dress or the idea that pollution may be shrinking men's penises. Now there's a new threat: the idea of men getting vasectomies in response to the Supreme Courty decision overturning Roe v. Wade and extreme anti-abortion laws.

When an Oklahoma lawmaker introduced a bill requiring teenage boys to get a vasectomy in response to a bill that effectively outlawed nearly all abortions in the state, John Simmons had a meltdown in a May 24 post:

Abortions in Oklahoma were almost completely wiped out thanks to House Bill 4327, a bill that will only allow abortions if the child is a product of rape or incest (and confirmed by law enforcement) and if the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother

However, before the bill was signed on Thursday, State Rep. Mickey Dollens (D, Oklahoma City) took the house floor to say that he was touting a bill that he thought would be a better solution than banning abortions.

Sorry fellas, but it involves you and your ability to produce a baby.

Dollens thought it would be better to pass a bill that would require all Oklahoman males to get a vasectomy once they reach puberty.

Simmons complained that Dollens is "just showboating for the base" by expressing "an emotional outburst a man who may or may not really believe abortion is healthcare and not murder."

Alex Christy started a July 12 post by complaining that  "The Tuesday tragicomic edition of CBS Mornings profiled a couple of men who had a suggestion on how men can do their part in the after of the Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down Roe v. Wade: get a vasectomy," further grousing that the reporter "played up ill-founded fears that birth control is next." Actually, if a Supreme Court justice advocated that the overturning of laws that legalized birth control should follow the overturning of Roe, it seems such fears are quite fouhded. Christy ultimately decided it was a good thing these two guys got vasectomies: "It is sad that it took the Supreme Court to instill some sense of responsibility for these two, but at least they will not pass their wisdom on to the next generation."

Wallace White, meanwhile, spent an Aug. 2 post have a major freakout, wildly accusing a hot dog stand of a "degenerate, antinatalist scheme" by giving free milkshakes to men who can show proof of having a vasectomy in response to another extreme anti-abortion law:

If abortion enthusiasts can’t kill babies in the womb, they’ll encourage people to stop them from being made in the first place. In Nashville, Daddy’s Dogs restaurant is giving out free milkshakes to customers that show proof of a vasectomy, as according to The Tennessean, and made the rounds on Twitter just recently.

Daddy’s Dogs (yes, that’s the real name), a hot dog restaurant in Nashville, wanted to voice its support for abortion, as owner Sean Porter made this Instagram post June 29 urging people to come claim their free sugery drink for the low price of sterlizing yourself, calling it his “snip for shake” deal. Clever and creepy. If anything symbolizes American consumerism, it’s this degenerate, antinatalist scheme.

Recently the post made its way to Twitter, sparking conversations and condemnation alike. The owner said to The Tennessean, “The world's a pretty crazy place right now, but I have a way to make it just a little bit better."

And please tell me how sterilizing yourself makes the world a better place? What kind of perversion of morals is this?

White then hufffed that those getting vaectomies were "half-men" who are serving "the Moloch cause," whatever that is:

One commenter on the Instagram post said that Porter was, “out here doing the Lord's work.” That is quite literally the opposite of the Lord’s work, but people who sterilize themselves in the name of abortion probably don’t care for the Lord.

Tennessee will end abortion after 6 weeks and protect the unborn. But that won’t stop deranged leftist half-men from getting vasectomies, and Daddy’s Dogs from rewarding their service to the Moloch cause with a milkshake. 

What a time to be alive.

What a time idneed, when a summer intern gets paid to hurl such hate and abuse over a vasectomy.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:31 AM EDT

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The last time we checked in on WorldNetDaily's perpetual financial crisis at the end of June, Joseph Farah was proclaiming that WND had raised more than double his $100,000 goal, which has met our urgent needs and taken us out of crisis mode," adding that "we have been promised, by one particularly generous donor, another very significant contribution in the next week." Well, something apparently happened, because Farah was back to doing the hard-sell money beg just over a month later.

Farah began his Aug. 5 column by ranting about the purported deaeth of the First Amendment, causing him to rant:

If we can't speak and write the TRUTH, and can no longer operate freely according to the promises of our nation's Constitution, then we don't have a truly free press. And without a free press, we don't have a free country – they ALWAYS go together.

Yet there has never been an era in American history when lies were more ubiquitous and destructive, and Truth more desperately needed, than right now.

That may be true, but Farah's WND is not a place one will find it, as we keep documenting. Afer more dubiuos pontificating, Farah got down to the money beg:

Very simply, my friends, times have changed: If you value independent, fearless, truthful news and analysis in an age of radically increasing lies and deception, your partnership with us is essential.

Our current needs? We need to raise $65,000 by the end of August in order to pay our bills, including payroll. We're part way there, but have a long way to go.

Farah didn't explain why he was begging for money again so soon after declaring that his previous fund drive doubled its goal.But while Farah ranted about the purported death of free speech in a few subsequent columns that also included money begs, he hasn't referenced this end-of-August deadline again -- which seems strange if you're facing yet another existential crisis.

All of which makes us wonder about how badly WND really needs that money. Or perhaps money beg fatigue is setting in.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:29 AM EDT

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The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck began another month of smearing White House press sedretary Karine Jean-Pierre -- and fluffing Fox News' biased Peter Doocy -- with an orgy of Doocy-fluffing over the Aug. 1 briefing:

On Monday afternoon, reporters saw John Kirby emerge yet again for the White House press briefing as chaperone for the incoherent and stammering Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and while there were some tough questions for Kirby on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) rumored trip to Taiwan, Fox’s Peter Doocy made Jean-Pierre crumble on the so-called Inflation Reduction Act that, according to some estimates, raise taxes on low and middle-class Americans.

As he often does, Doocy began with a basic question: “Is President Biden thinking about pulling his support for the Inflation Reduction Act?”

A confused Jean-Pierre said “no,” so Doocy explained why he asked what he did: “Because he promised it wasn't gonna raise taxes on anybody making less than $400,000 a year, but the Joint Committee on Taxation says that is not true.”

Jean-Pierre maintained “that is incorrect,” so Doocy pressed once more: “So, the Joint Committee on Taxation, which you guys heralded as an effective body when you were selling the infrastructure package, is not to be trusted here?”

Like many of the Biden administration’s spending proposals, Jean-Pierre insisted the JCT was wrong because their analysis was “incomplete” and “omit[ted] the actual benefits that Americans would receive” on energy and prescription drugs.

[...]

Doocy pivoted with the timing remaining to see why the White House hadn’t responded to a provocative threat from a Communist Chinese government official that they would shoot down Pelosi’s plan if she were to visit Taiwan.

Given her ineptitude, Jean-Pierre initially said she had “not seen those reports” before condemning it as “unnecessary” since “there’s no change in the One China policy.”

Houck went the Doocy-fluffing route again against another Biden official for the Aug. 2 briefing:

As he did on Monday (and numerous times before that), National Security Council spokesman John Kirby helmed much of Tuesday’s White House press briefing to assist the inept Karine Jean-Pierre, but there were was still some tough exchanges and softballs. Of course, Fox’s Peter Doocy was in the middle of it as he battled Kirby over the inevitability of Afghanistan returning to its place as a safe harbor for terrorists following last year’s disastrous U.S. withdrawal.

“John, something you’ve just said is not consistent with what we were told last year. You’re saying that you’ve always known there was a small number of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. President Biden said, ‘What interests do we have in Afghanistan, at this point, with al Qaeda gone,’” Doocy began.

Kirby conceded that al-Qaeda hasn’t been “playing a major role,” but they nonetheless “had a presence.”

As he often does, it was Doocy’s second question that upped the heat: “So, we know that the Taliban was harboring the world’s most wanted terrorist. You guys gave a whole country to a bunch of people that are on the FBI Most Wanted list. What did you think was going to happen?”

With less first-hand experience with Doocy (though the Pentagon press corps are tough and professional), Kirby stammered, insisting he’d “take issue with the premise that we gave a whole country to terrorist groups.”

Before Kirby could finish, Doocy hit again: “The Taliban was harboring the world’s number one terrorist. How is that not giving a country to a terrorist-sympathizing group, if not giving them permission to have terrorists just sit on a balcony?”

For the Aug. 3 briefing, Houck amped up his narrative of Jean-Pierre as an incompetent diversity hire (and, of course, amped up his Doocy-fluffing):

Early Wednesday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre decided to face reporters solo for a press briefing, doing so for only the 14th time out of her 41 briefings since taking the top job. And, as part of this hapless endeavor, she faced questions from both the left and right on abortion with the Biden administration set to expand the funding for abortions s well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) visit to Taiwan.

Fox’s Peter Doocy used his time to press Jean-Pierre on the latter topic, starting with this quip that left Jean-Pierre chuckling about his word choice: “How come Republicans seem more jazzed about Speaker Pelosi’s trip than the President?”

“You’re going to have to ask Republicans. 'Jazzed?' Do they have jazz hands, Peter,” Jean-Pierre replied, adding in her attempt at some parental humor.

[...]

Doocy kept pressing, wondering why it’s “so hard for the President just to say, ‘she’s a brave trailblazer, and I think it’s great that she went,’ like so many others” have, but Jean-Pierre followed John Kirby’s lead in sidestepping any attempt to praise Taiwan, insisting Biden views Pelosi in a broad sense as “a great trailblazer.”

Kirby was once again the target of Houck's ire (and Doocy-fluffing) for the Aug. 4 briefing:

A longtime diplomatic and military spokesman in the Obama and Biden administrations, John Kirby has exhibited a calm, cogent demeanor, so it was surprising on Thursday when Kirby appeared miffed as Fox’s Peter Doocy pressed him on the Biden administration’s posture towards China and then as Today News Africa’s Simon Ateba repeatedly interrupted the briefing and demanded he be called on.

Doocy led off with a cutting take for Kirby, who joined the inept White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for the third time in four days: “Why is it that, over the last couple of months, President Biden’s been so much tougher on Russia than he is on China?”

Kirby seemed flat-footed, saying he “wouldn’t agree with the premise of the question.”

Perhaps Kirby thought it was a stupid quesiton given that, unlike  China, Russia has been engaged in an active, unwarranted war for the last couple months. something neither Doocy nor Houck had considered. But Houck was back to his usual, tired, Jean-Pierre-bashing soon enough:

Later, Doocy had a crack at Jean-Pierre: “Based on everything that's happening in Asia right now, does President Biden consider China to be an opponent or a competitor?”

When she failed to provide a real answer besides talking points about Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) having “the right to travel wherever she wants” and that’d include Taiwan, Doocy tried again: “[W]ith the relationship moving forward, though, would he consider China a competitor or an opponent of the United States?”

Jean-Pierre didn’t dodge this second attempt (even though it projected one of weakness): “[W]e want to be able to compete. We want to be able to compete with China and we want to be able to have those manufacturing jobs, investment in — in the United States and also strengthen our supply chain, make sure we strengthen our national security.”

Of course, Houck thinks any answer Jean-Pierre gives is from a point of "weakness" compared with his sainted Doocy.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:21 PM EDT

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After promising that Secret Service agents would rebut Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony about Donald Trump's behavior after the rally that preceded the Capitol riot -- a promise did not age well, given how those agents have since clammed up and lawyered up -- WorldNetDaily remained salty about the hearings themselves and defended the participants. A July 11 article by Bob Unruh promoted how "the founder of Oath Keepers, one of the organizations whose members are facing charges for the events, wants to confront committee members in person." He served up this oddly benign description of events that day:

Hundreds went into the Capitol that day to express their distrust of the 2020 presidential election results. Some rioted, doing vandalism and such. And as of now, hundreds have been charged with offenses like trespassing and entering a closed government building, and many have remained behind bars without bond since their arrests.

Charges most prominently have been filed against members of several groups that mostly have acted in patriotic situations, like Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.

"Vandalism and such"? yes, assaulting police officers has been downgraded as "such" and less of a big deal than vandalism, as far as Unruh is concerned.

WND's columnists kept complaining as well. Andy Schlafly took another bogus whack at Hutchinson in his July 12 column:

Democrats had been counting on televised congressional hearings about the pro-Trump rally at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to be the game-changer they need to retain power, but their strategy hasn't worked. According to a new Harvard/Harris poll, 53% consider the hearings biased, 63% believe Congress should be working on more important matters, and 67% say the hearings are dividing our country.

The fizzling of implausible testimony against Trump has boomeranged against the J6 committee. The nonpartisan Secret Service disavowed the accusations by the surprise witness Cassidy Hutchinson, whose bizarre hearsay testimony would not be allowed in a real court.

That didn't happen in real life, of course. So Schlafly moved on to throw anything at the wall that might stick, including discredited election fraud claims: "Biden may have been placed in the White House through rampant ballot harvesting and the use of unattended ballot drop boxes, which were just declared illegal by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. These ballot dumps, often in the middle of the night, were done by hired Democrat ballot harvesters in battleground states."

In her July 13 column, Betsy McCaughey dismissed the hearing as a "miniseries" that are "as balanced as one of Josef Stalin's trials, or justice under Kim Jong-un." She then played whataboutism: "Why would anyone watch this unapologetically rigged process about a topic that pales in comparison to watching your quality of life and future plans destroyed by soaring prices?"

Michael Master returned for a July 13 column to justify the riot and bash the committee for not parroting Trump's Big Lie about election fraud:

On Jan. 6 of last year, a political rally of a quarter million people was held where Trump and his supporters petitioned the Congress for a redress of grievances concerning the 2020 election. Mike Pence and the Democrat-controlled Congress ignored that request for a redress.

Yes, a riot by less than a thousand people of those quarter million also happened on Jan 6. But the issue of the redress is still not resolved. That, not the riot, is the big issue, which the Jan. 6 Committee is ignoring. And it is looking more and more that Trump was correct in asking for the redress.

[...]

If Republicans retake the House in November, this should be its immediate agenda:

1. Replace the biased J6 committee with a balance of pro-Trump and anti-Trump members, instead of the current nine, who all voted to impeach the president. Then investigate everyone involved with Jan. 6, including Nancy Pelosi, the FBI, Mike Pence and the Capitol Police.

2. Investigate what the Biden administration did that cut the U.S. production of oil and hurt America's oil independence.

3. Empower a special investigator to figure out which states implemented illegal and/or unconstitutional election processes in 2020. Determine how many votes were affected and if the outcomes in those states were compromised, and then determine what do do about it now. Judges have already determined that Pennsylvania and Wisconsin implemented unconstitutional changes. How much did the illegal drop boxes and ballot harvesting in Georgia affect the election? How about in Arizona, Nevada, Michigan and Virginia?

4. Investigate Joe Biden over the revelations found on Hunter's laptop.

Things will get very interesting if/when Republicans retake the House. Democrats are worried. Karma is a b**ch.

A July 15 article by Unruh did actually notice apparently bad behavior -- which he then tried to bury under his usual right-wing narratives:

The newest turn in the "investigation" going on into the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol may be the most interesting yet.

It turns out the Secret Secret deleted its text messages from that time period, after being asked for them.

Other developments have included wild claims by the government that ordinary citizens protesting what they viewed as an unfair 2020 election were trying to overthrow the government that day.

And that the mostly wide-eyed tourists in the Capitol that day actually were intent on killing people.

And much more, all being investigated by Nancy Pelosi's partisan committee that has been interviewing people and staging public performances of select testimony that fits the narrative that President Trump was to blame for everything.

Critics view the committee's work as Pelosi's third attempt at "impeaching-and-removing" Trump – with the goal of making sure he doesn't run again in 2024. Her two earlier attempts during and after his term both failed.

Now the Intercept confirmed the Secret Service erased text messages dated January 5 and January 6.

That's from a letter given to the January 6 committee and reviewed by The Intercept.

Unruh also tried to attack Hutchinson again:

Also involving the Secret Service was testimony from ex-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson whose claims that Trump tried to commandeer a limousine to go to the Capitol were immediately debunked by other witnesses.

Throwing doubt on Hutchinson's claims were members of the Secret Service themselves, the report said.

Again, those agents have refused to testify to the committee and have lawyered up in an apparent effort to get out of actually fulfilling their promise.

Posted by Terry K. at 4:51 PM EDT

Updated: Friday, August 19, 2022 4:57 PM EDT

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Part of CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey's anti-Biden crusade in the runup to Russia's invasion of Ukraine was blaming Biden for trade deficits between the U.S. and Russia. He effectively did that again in a July 7 article:

The United States ran a merchandise trade deficit of $1,049,100,000 with Russia in the month of May, according to data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

During May, the United States sold $77,400,000 in exports to Russia and purchased $1,126,500,000 in imports, resulting in the trade deficit of $1,049,100,000.

The last time the United States ran a monthly trade surplus with Russia was in December 1995, according to Census Bureau data. That month, the United States exported $256,700,000 in goods to Russia and imported $227,300,000, resulting in a surplus of $29,400,000.

Jeffrey is violating normal journalistic style by writing out the full numbers with all the zeroes instead of using words like "million" or "billion"  because he thinks they look bigger and make his biased point. But Jeffrey buried the lead, which he waited until the fourth paragraph to get to:

Russia invaded Ukraine in February of this year. That month, the United States ran a trade deficit of $2,080,300,000 with Russia. In March, the U.S. trade deficit with Russia increased to $2,645,200,000. In April, it declined to $1,993,600,000. In May, it declined again to $1,049,100,000.

That's right -- the U.S. trade deficit dropped by half between March and May. But that number would make Biden look too good, and Jeffrey, as a highly biased right-wing activist masquerading as a journalist, can't have that. SoJ effrey spent the rest of his article rehashing trade numbers from 2021.

The news on the trade front got even better in June, according to the Census Bureau data Jeffrey cites -- the trade deficit dropped another 40 percent, to $603 million. Again, that makes Biden look good, so Jeffrey did no story at all about it. Good news for Biden is no news at CNS.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:07 AM EDT

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The Media Research Center's Heathering of Alyssa Farah Griffin for the apparently unforgivable sin of ceasing to be a Trump toady -- while still being a solid conservative -- got a boost when the right-wing National Review did a hit piece on her. Naturally, the MRC had to lavishly gush over it, and Curtis Houck did the slobbering honors in a July 14 post:

Writing Thursday morning at National Review, Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) fellow Nate Hochman penned a scathing examination of CNN political commentator Alyssa Farah Griffin, chronicling her rise from a well-known political family to the upper echelons of conservative political communications to liberal media darling and from Trump supporter to skeptic to card-carrying member of The Resistance.

And, upon the story’s publication, Farah Griffin offered a vivid reminder of how the Washington media and political elites have razor-thin skin and vehemently object to even the most gentle outside criticism.

Hochman explained how Farah Griffin has undergone a “change in tone and emphasis” since her start working for her father Joseph Farah at World Net Daily that was then parlayed into running communications for the House Freedom Caucus and Trump administration posts with Vice President Mike Pence, the Pentagon, and the White House as communications director.

As Hochman noted, Farah Griffin seemed like “a conventionally partisan Republican operative.”

However, she’s left that behind, instead drawing a litany of scoffs and dismissals from conservatives as she’s become what Hochman called not only “fervently anti-Trump,” but “sometimes anti-Republican” with newfound friends at CNN and ABC’s The View (where she’s the rumored frontrunner to become the fifth co-host).

[...]

When January 6 becomes your cri de coeur and everything else (e.g. abortion, gas prices, inflation, etc.) is secondary while painting a picture that your life is so difficult while also opulent, working people scoff. Farah Griffin should let the world know when she starts consistently having CNN hits and tweets that have nothing to do with January 6 and Donald Trump.

Both Houck and Hochman are well-paid partisan right-wing operatives, so there's no reason to ever think of them as "working class."

Neither Hochman nor Houck explained why criticism of Trump is so verboten that it's enough to get one kicked out of the right-wing bubble they live in (and make their living from). Nor do they explain why she must be punished for trying to run from the Trump taint of corruption and for criticizing his role in inciting the Capitol riot. They also don't cite the chapter and verse of right-wing dogma where it states that right-wingers in good standing are not allow to discuss the riot or blame Trump for it.

When Farah Griffin gave a statement to Hochman stating that she's "fiercely anti insurrection," Houck sniffed in response: "And there it is. All roads have to lead back to January 6." Again, there's no explanation for why she's not allowed to talk about it, even as events like the House committee hearings have kept it in the news. If anything, people like Houck and Hochman need to explain why they stay in the Trump cult despite the mounting evidence of Trump's corruption.

Houck offered a parting shot when he complained about a Twitter thread from Farah Griffin after the hit job was published in which she stated she hadn't read it: "Exit question: Did Alyssa think she’s too important to have to read it?" She knew it was going to be a hit job, and it was; she does not need to read about how much die-hard Trumpers despise her.

The next day, Nicholas Fondacaro returned to reference the National Review's hit job and attack Farah Griffin anew: "The Friday after the National Review published a scathing article calling out The View’s faux 'conservative' Alyssa Farah Griffin, she showed her true blue colors as she falsely accused Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis of scamming his supporters with a recurring donation 'grift.'" Like Houck, he didn't explain how Farah Griffin's departure from the Trump makes her a "faux 'conservative.'" He went on to complain that she is not an extemist anti-abrtion absolutist like he apparently is:

This wasn’t the only lie Farah Griffin told about the political party she purports to still be a part of. Earlier in the show, during a conversation about the 10-year-old Ohio girl who was raped and got an abortion (they omitted the part about the alleged rapist being an illegal immigrant), she parroted the leftist falsehood that the pro-life side didn’t care about the babies and women after birth.

“To be pro-life needs to mean supporting moms throughout their lives. It means paid parental leave, it means investing in foster and adoption care,” she said. “Frustrates me so much that my party really cares about them having the baby, but there's no benefits that they’re going to have after the fact.”

In reality, there are many pro-life organizations and charities that support women and babies after birth. In fact, the left hates how crisis pregnancy centers outnumber abortion mills 3-1 and they want to shut them down.

Fondacaro cited no evidence to prove that she purportedly lied, nor did he explain why it should be left only to "pro-life organizations and charities" to support women and their children and why the government apparently shouldn't.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:16 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, August 18, 2022 10:19 PM EDT

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