Larry Elder Still Engaging In Trump Revisionism Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily columnist Larry Elder is a Donald Trump suck-up and apologist who has pretended that Trump didn't mock a disabled reporter and didn't praise neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. He took another stab at Trump revisionnism in his July 27 column:
In an editorial called "Trump's Silence on Jan 6 Is Damning," the New York Post wrote: "His only focus was to find any means – damn the consequences – to block the peaceful transfer of power. There is no other explanation, just as there is no defense, for his refusal to stop the violence. It's up to the Justice Department to decide if this is a crime. But as a matter of principle, as a matter of character, Trump has proven himself unworthy to be this country's chief executive again."
I disagree.
Former President Donald Trump felt robbed, understandably so. NPR's Domenico Montanaro said, "Just 44,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin separated Biden and Trump from a tie in the Electoral College."
Elder rehashed the usual attacks on mailing ballots to all voters in Michigan and greater access to drop boxes, complaining that the Trump campaign's challenges to them were dismissed on procedural grounds -- but offered no proof that any of those things resulted in any election fraud.
Elder then insisted that Trump did no incite the riot by citing ... another Trumo yes-man:
As to fomenting an "insurrection," Kash Patel, chief of staff for the acting secretary of defense, said that on Jan. 4, "Mr. Trump unequivocally authorized up to 20,000 National Guardsmen and women for us to utilize should the second part of the law, the request, come in. But those requests never did." Patel says he testified under oath to the Jan. 6 committee that he was in the room when Trump made this authorization.
What part of "peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard" – as Trump said in his Jan. 6 speech – do the Jan. 6 committee members not understand? Yes, the speech ended with, "We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." But politicians have long used rhetoric like "We're going to fight," or "We're going to take back America," or "This is war."
Trump made unsuccessful legal arguments against the certification of the election, as did congressional Democrats following the presidential elections of 2000, 2004 and 2016. But when they did so, the media did not characterize them as "undermining our democracy."
Perhaps because Democrats kept their objections in the proper legal venues, accepted the results and did not incite a riot inside the Capitol to attempt to overthrow the election.
MRC Gloats Over Stelter's Departure From CNN Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has hated CNN's Brian Stelter for year for daring to criticize right-wing media in general and Fox News in particular, and it has not-so-quietly begged for CNN to fire him for those offenses. A February post by Kyle Drennen hyped a an anonymously sourced Fox News report calling for Stelter's firing over "not exposing CNN president Jeff Zucker’s romantic relationship with another high-ranking colleague." On June 7 -- a day after he whined that Stelter was telling Fox News what to cover (as if the MRC doesn't repeatedly tell the non-right-wing media what to cover?) Tim Graham hyped a report that CNN's new owners and bosses were planning to fire Stelter "if he can’t adopt CNN’s new tone of being more straight-ahead news and less partisan trash talk" (a complaint we don't recall Graham ever making about Fox News).
So when CNN did, in fact, fire Stelter and cancel his show "Reliable Sources," it was like Christmas at the MRC, except with more giddy gloating. Curtis Houck rejoiced in an Aug. 18 post:
CNN’s chief media correspondent and liberal media janitor Brian Stelter — perhaps one of the most polarizing liberal journalists of all-time —is being pushed out of the network and his show Reliable Sources being cancelled following a final episode this coming Sunday.
Stelter confirmed the news Thursday to NPR media reporter and fellow lefty David Folkenflik, saying he was proud of his work that showcased “the media, truth and the stories that shape our world.”
According to Folkenflik, the decision to move on from Stelter came down late Wednesday from new CNN boss Chris Licht, who’s promised to make changes to the network (see here, here, here, and here) following years of sagging ratings and exponential levels of partisanship under former puppetmaster Jeff Zucker.
Yes, Houck is still using the anti-Semitic "puppetmaster" slur against the Jewish Zucker., with bonus points for the hateful "media janitor" smear of Stelter. And, yes, the right-wing media bubble would find a critic of said bubble to be "polarizing."
Graham quickly pounded out an Aug. 19 column taking some of his last shots, rehashing old complaints about CNN's promotion of Michael Avenatti (as if the MRC and Fox News didn't promote its own off-the-rails lawyer in L. Lin Wood) and didn't call out hyperbole on CNN -- then played whataboutism to avoid having to express offense to hyperbole on Fox News:
On June 27, 2021, after watching a pile of Sean Hannity shows, he disparaged Hannity for uncorking a montage of words like "socialist, stalker, weak, failure, shameless, psychotic, indoctrination, hell holes." But in the same segment, Stelter used "authoritarian, poisonous, abusive, propaganda, Big Lie, filth." He proclaimed Hannity wasn’t offering “opnion,” he was offering “poison.” Did Stelter ever reflect on his own harsh verbiage?
CNN launched a ridiculous “Facts First” advertising campaign as it veered ever more heavily into opinion. But Stelter underlined the arrogance: “We’re not anti-Trump. We’re pro-truth.” When Kellyanne Conway referred to his side of the aisle, Stelter acted offended: “I’m not on a side of the aisle.”
CNN has a long way to go to get out of its “side of the aisle.”
Graham has never demanded the same from Fox News, which delegitimizes his attacks on Stelter.
Geoffrey Dickens followed with a roundup post purporting to detail "Stelter's ludicrousness," further alleging that Stelter "ineptly attempted to play the role of objective media critic" and "exposed his leftist bias in his copious criticisms of Republicans and news outlets (like Fox News) that refused to carry water for Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden." Dickens didn't complain about right-wqing media critics who issued copious criticisms of outlets that refused to carry water for Donald Trump -- perhaps because carrying water for Trump was (and remains) the MRC's main mission.
We won’t have Brian Stelter to kick around anymore because Sunday’s Reliable Sources on CNN is officially no more. This last episode of Reliable Sources did have plenty of cringeworthy moments and leftist chest pounding over the media’s failure to go after “anti-democratic” Republicans enough.
[...]
Stelter sent shockwaves throughout the nation with the horrifying admission that his show is “a part of journalism school curriculum” and that “teachers use segments from this show all the time in classrooms, in lessons, guiding and teaching the next generation.”
Unless teachers use Stelter’s show as an example of what not to do as a journalist, the journalism profession is in more trouble than originally thought.
Perhaps proving why the show was canceled in the first place, Stelter brought on disgraced Watergate-era journalist Carl Bernstein who wailed that the media needs to cover how “the pendulum [is] swinging against democracy all over the world.”
[...]
If there was any doubt that Stelter believes his show is more important than it is, he showed it in his closing remarks where he claimed “I believe America needs CNN to be strong. I believe the free world needs CNN to be strong. And it will continue to be. Because all of us are going to help make that happen. The free world needs a reliable source.”
Apparently, CNN doesn’t think the free world needs a reliable source because they canceled his show. Or perhaps CNN knows there was nothing reliable about Stelter’s “ Reliable Sources.”
Goodbye Stelter! You won’t be missed.
Tober followed up with another post hyping attacks on Stelter from Fox News' Howard Kurtz:
The news of CNN canceling Brian Stelter’s Reliable Sources wasn’t just relegated to chatter on CNN, towards the end of the only other national media analysis show MediaBuzz on the Fox News Channel, host Howard Kurtz had his own thoughts to share. What many people may not remember is Kurtz hosted CNN’s Reliable Sourcesbefore Stelter took the reins and ruined the show’s reputation. So it’s fitting that he spoke out about the show’s inevitable demise.
Kurtz started by informing viewers why he’s kept quiet about CNN’s Reliable Sources since coming to Fox: “When I came to Fox nine years ago to launchMediaBuzz, I made it a personal policy not to talk about the rival show on CNN. Well, that program has now been canceled.”
Quick not to look like he’s gloating, Kurtz quickly followed up by noting “TV is a tough business. Ratings bounce around, talents get let go, including hard working staffers, so I'm not going to get personal, not going to knock anybody, just wish them well.”
[...]
Kurtz ended by gloating that his show is the last media analysis show standing: “We've shown there's a loyal audience that grades fairness over partisanship. So now there's only one media analysis program on national television, and you're watching it.”
Well deserved! Congratulations to Howard Kurtz and the entire Fox News team! This shows viewers want serious media analysis and criticism, not someone who will defend the media and apologize for them even if they’re wrong.
Tober isn't going to complain about the right-wing, pro-Fox News bias of Kurtz and his show -- perhaps because that bias is one the MRC heartily approves.
Desperate to attack anyone who would dare to say nice things about Stelter, Clay Waters devoted an Aug. 31 post to complaining that a writer at Slate lamented Stelter's firing:
After CNN’s new ownership cancelled its media news show Reliable Sources and fired its host, the reliably liberal Brian Stelter, Slate magazine’s Justin Peters came to Stelter’s defense, while bashing his many conservative critics as “bad-faith” actors, in “A Reliable Source of Concern -- Why Brian Stelter’s axing is a very bad omen for CNN.”
New CNN chief Chris Licht is moving away from liberal opinion toward a more balanced news product, which spelled doom for Stelter, who took over Reliable Sources in 2013 but came into his fiery own when Donald Trump entered presidential politics, giving him a villain to focus on along with Fox News.
Meanwhile, Stelter made no efforts to hold his own network accountable, skipping former chief executive Jeff Zucker’s personal and professional controversies, but remaining fixated on Fox -- as is Peters himself, judging by his oeuvre.
Waters didn't explain why Stelter's "conservative critics" -- you know, like him -- are not bad-faith actors.
CNS Marks Ex-Reporter's Death By Recounting A Manufactured Controversy Topic: CNSNews.com
When former CNSNews.com reporter Penny Starr -- who moved on to Breitbart -- died in mid-August, her former employer's first attempt at a tribute was to repost a 2010 article by her in which she "discovered that the National Portrait Gallery was hosting a Christmas-season exhibit that featured an ant-covered Jesus."
We remember that story well. As we documented at the time, it was a completely manufactured controversy from a reporter known for manufacturing controversies. By using right-wing buzzwords like "homoerotic" and "ant-covered Jesus," Starr was able -- with a little help from the outrage machine of CNS' parewnt, the Media Research Center -- to turn it into a culture-war issue. She also spammed Republican congressmen with emails hyping the story to draw responses from them demanding that the exhibite be censored and shut down. The controversy provided a platform for right-wingers like her boss, MRC chief Brent Bozell, to spew homophobia and engage in rants that stereotyped LGBT people, while omitting the fact that the person who manufactured the controversy was on his payroll.
Starr got a more formal obituary in an Aug. 15 article by Craig Bannister:
Veteran Investigative Reporter Penny Starr, who spent a decade with CNSNews.com exposing news that drove the national debate, died over the weekend, following a bout with cancer.
On Monday, Breitbart.com was the first to report of her death. She joined Breitbart in December of 2017, following ten years with the Media Research Center’s (MRC) CNSNews.com news division. When she joined CNSNews.com, she had more than 25 years of experience in print journalism.
Bannister rehashed the bogus art exhibit story, as well as some of her other alleged greatest hits, with added comments like these:
“Penny was a hard-working journalist and unabashed conservative. She wanted to make an impact with her reporting and the movement needs more like her,” former MRC colleague and current Fox News Digital freelance Opinion Editor Dan Gainor said Monday.
Translation: Starr was a highly biased reporter -- as we've also documented. In addition to manufacturing culture-war controversies, Starr used her "reporter" perch to push anti-abortion activism and narratives, such as attacking Planned Parenthood. She also used her so-called reporting to issue biased attacks on President Obama and LGBT people, among other things designed to advance right-wing narratives.In 2015, Starr whitewashed the homophobia and anti-abortion extremism of the sons of notorious anti-abortoin extremist Flip Benham to create a victim narrative for them after they lost a TV deal when their extremism was made public. She also served as a reliable shill for the oil industry.
Starr's use to the conservative movement was as a propagandist -- and, as such, she could never be considered a true "investigative reporter" since she only "investigated" things that advanced her ideology.She cared about reporting only certain truths, not anything that reflected badly on her fellow right-wingers.
MRC Finds 'BIG TECH COLLUSION' In Axios Sale Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center really hates it when successful non-right-wing media operations demonstrate their success by being sold to other people. When Politico was sold to German publisher Axel Springer last fall, the MRC desperately tried to portray Politico as "left-wing" and its new owner as similarly oriented -- even though the company is on record as publishing conservative newspapers in Germany and and starting a Fox News-esque cable TV operation. When the online news operation Axios (coincidentally, founded by the same people who founded Politico) was sold to Cox Media Group, an Aug. 9 post by Catherine Salgado carried the screaming headline "BIG TECH COLLUSION?" How? Because Facebook is a sponsor of Axios' email newsletters:
Meta (Facebook) helped liberal outlet Axios’ growth allowing it to secure a $525 million sale price, part of a wider problem of tech companies funding D.C. media outlets, according to a new report.
Facebook helped recent media startup Axios sell itself to Cox Enterprises for $525 million only five years after Axios’ founding, according to Vox’s Peter Kafka. Tech companies are “pouring” money into Washington, D.C. media organizations, Kafka reported.
Axios is “a five-year-old media startup, backed by venture capital, that succeeded journalistically and financially,” Vox explained. The culmination of that financial success was the Cox purchase. Vox said that tech companies, including Meta and Google’s parent Alphabet, have been funding “digital publishers” focused on D.C. recently in an effort to repair their reputations. Axios isn’t alone. Liberal outlets like Politico and Punchbowl News are also among the media organizations that received tech company funding, Kafka wrote.
How typical that Salgado thinks any non-right-wing outlet cannot possibly make it on their own without help from "big tech" -- ironic, since major right-wing publications like the Washington Times and the New York Post are money-losers that in business only through the grace of rich, ideologically motivated owners (and her own paycheck depends on the good graces of right-wing moneybags like Rebekah Mercer).
Salgado then tried to tar Axios with the "leftist" tag, using two incredibly lame examples:
Axios is a leftist news outlet, that has demonstrated bias multiple times. Axios claimed the New York Post’s report on the now New York Times-authenticated Hunter Biden scandals “rings all the foreign-disinformation alarms in the book.” Axios also urged families in 2021 to have Thanksgiving “bouncers” to deny entry to any holiday guests who would not show a negative COVID-19 test.
Salgado didn't mention the pertinent fact that the Post offered no independent authentication of Hunter's laptop at the time of publication before the 2020 election, and the story's origin among right-wing fever swamps like the Post and Trump operatives like Rudy Giuliani provided no reason to take it at face value. She also didn't explain how taking care to avoid contact with possibly infected people in the middle of a pandemic is inherently "leftist."
Salgado went on to accuse Axios of the grave offense of [checks notes] selling ads:
While Big Tech companies like Facebook parent Meta make billions of dollars every year, publishers like Axios can thrive on the portion of tech companies’ profits spent on ads. Axios can allegedly charge as much as $300,000 for a week-long ad campaign, Kafka wrote.
Kafka also noted that various companies’ “corporate responsibility ads” in D.C. publications may account for $350 million spent yearly, with as much as one-third of that coming from tech companies.
Um, isn't that called capitalism? We thought the MRC liked capitalism.
NEW ARTICLE: Joseph Farah's COVID Conspiracies Topic: WorldNetDaily
Of course WorldNetDaily's editor leads by example in pushing coronavirus misinformation. That's what he does. Read more >>
MRC Slowly Reacts To FBI Search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago Topic: Media Research Center
Like its "news" division CNSNews.com, the Media Research Center avoided immediately weighing in on the FBI search of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago compound, apparently taking the time to figure out how to put the right spin on it to avoid having to label their beloved Trump a criminal. The first post on the subject on Aug. 9, from Mark Finkelstein, whined that certain of the MRC's designated enemies were talking about the raid, like Joe Scarborough:
Some media people have been restrained, but MSNBC morning hothead Joe Scarborough was in all his predictable glory on today's Morning Joe over yesterday's FBI search of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago.
Inevitably, Scarborough broke out his "fascist" shtick, using the term nine times in one exchange with Michael Steele in describing Trump and his followers.
The exchange ended with Scarborough literally screaming at the camera
"You break the law, you go to jail . . . In America&mdasheven in the age of Trump! No! Man! Isabovethe law "
Steele, the former RNC Chairman turned “MSNBC Republican,” dutifully responded: "Amen brother. I can't say it better than that."
Alex Christy complained that NBC's Andrea Mitchell called out House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's kneejerk demand to investigate Attorney General Merrick Garland to punish him for approving the search:
On her Tuesday show on MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell blasted House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s “outrageous” pledge to investigate Attorney General Merrick Garland if the GOP were to regain the House in November in the aftermath of the FBI’s raid on former President Trump’s home.
After declaring that all the cries for the FBI and Justice Department to explain themselves are wrong because commenting on an on-going investigation would be improper, Mitchell focused on critics of the raid, “And yet, you have an unrestrained, you know, litany of comments from Trump World and as we’ll get to later with Ben Collins and others, you know, online, you know, threatening comments.”
Given the FBI's recent history, one can be critical without endorsing the behavior of the worst parts of the internet. Yet, Mitchell tied that to the ordinary pledge of one party promising to investigate the other if they take control of Congress, “Kevin McCarthy, with really, you have to say an outrageous attack on Merrick Garland. You know, you know, brace yourself when we take over, you know, clear your calendar, we’re going to investigate you.”
Curtis Houck, meanwhile, was giddy that his hated "liberal media" outlets called for transparency from the FBI and Garland, as if they didn't have a plan or evidence before approving the search:
The “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC dedicated extensive time Tuesday morning to the stunning news that former President Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida home of Mar-a-Lago was raided Monday night by the FBI with a search warrant reportedly pursuant to a possible Presidential Records Act violation.
However, the liberal networks were surprisingly not ready to celebrate with ABC and CBS noting there’s been very little “transparency from the Justice Department or the FBI” and, if they had only sought boxes of presidential records, it would be correctly viewed as “overreach” by the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Kevin Tober was similarly thrilled that some on CNN worried that the search was a "daring and dangerous move by the Department of Justice," and he gloated that ABC called for transparency as well. Nicholas Fondacaro, meanwhile, grumbled that an MSNBC analyst "suggest[ed] that the secrecy surrounding the raid was on par with the secrecy of the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden."
With news of Trump’s home of Mar-a-Lago being raided by the FBI dominating the news, substitute host Dr. Jason Johnson brought on Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank on Monday night's ReidOut to spread fear that news of the raid would inspire a latter-day Timothy McVeigh to commit an act of terrorism comparable in scale to the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing that killed 168 people and injured nearly 700.
[...]
Blaming Republicans for the Oklahoma City bombing is sadly not a new phenomenon, and the MRC reported it when they did it right after the bombing.
As for the bomber’s true motivation, Timothy McVeigh stated in a letter published after his execution in 2001, “When an aggressor force continually launches attacks from a particular base of operations, it is sound military strategy to take the fight to the enemy.”
Needless to say, somebody worried about federal overreach is not the same as someone who views the federal government as an enemy combatant.
And finally, the reaction of Trump supporters on the ground was...to drive to Mar-a-Lago and protest the raid with signs and flags.
Moorehouse seems to have missed the past several years of right-wing ranting about the "Deep State," which, yes, does portray the federal government as enemy combatants. And pro-Trump activists are certainly seeing the Mar-a-Lago search as something an enemy combatant does.
Christy came back to whine that late-night comedians were making jokes about the search:
CBS The Late Show host Stephen Colbert must live a rather dull life because how else does one come to the conclusion that the FBI raid on former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home is like Christmas? Not only did Colbert compare the raid to that holiday on Tuesday, he also declared the related news headline “the most beautiful sentence America has ever produced.”
Colbert kicked off his opening monologue by reporting that while it may have been 96 degrees outside, “in here it's Christmas.”
To a rambunctious applause from the studio audience, Colbert continued, “Because yesterday, we all got the present we wanted: FBI agents raided Mar-a-Lago.”
[...]
Admitting to not knowing the context around something, but still comparing it to Christmas and treating it as historically positive development is why so many people have reacted to the raid with suspicion or even outright hostility.
Hostility? Wasn't this what Moorehouse was denying that Trumpies were engaging in after the raid?
Chuck Norris Continues Bromance With Authoritarian Dictator Orban Topic: WorldNetDaily
A few years back, we noted how Chuck Norris struck up a "bromance" (a word he has accepted as a good description) with authoritarian Hungarian dictator Viktor Orban, riding around Budapest with him and gushing over Orban's irrational hatred of George Soros. Well, Orban came to the U.S. last month and there was some name-dropping and more bromancing, and WorldNetDaily was there for it in an Aug. 6 article by Bob Unruh:
Longtime action movie and "Walker Texas Ranger" star Chuck Norris, a longtime WND columnist, says he'd be happy to work with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for "that better future."
Norris' comment came on Friday in response to Orban's message to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas that America needs now "more Chuck Norris."
Orban, a firebrand who frequently has triggered liberals and progressives over and over with his comments, got a hero's welcome at the CPAC events and pleaded with his audience not to pull punches in a culture war – going on globally – with liberals.
In America, under Joe Biden, that fight has erupted over and over with the president's blatant promotion of abortion, the LGBT ideology, progressive government priorities like massive spending and more.
Orban explained that Hungarian state institutions define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and he said Americans in the fight need to trust their Judeo-Christian tradition.
"We have to be brave enough to address even the most sensitive questions, migration, gender and the clash of civilizations," he said.
His election victories – four in a row – have shown that his perspective is appreciated in his home country, and he lobbied for the same in America.
Actually, Orban wins because he rigged elections in Hungary to make sure that he does, and he also suppresses political opposition to make sure criticism of him never finds a large audience. Then it was bromance time again:
Norris, to WND, issued a statement that, "In 2018, my wife Gena and I were invited by Hungarian Baptist Aid to visit Budapest. We love the Hungarian people and were honored to spend time with Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
"We heard he fired up conservative Texans at CPAC in Dallas this week by saying America needs 'more Chuck Norris.' I'm humbled and honored to fight with Orban and all conservatives to rebuild America (presently and in 2024 with a new president) from the depression (in economy and spirit) too many Americans are experiencing right now. Let's pray and fight for that better future! We've done it before, and we can do it again!"
Unruh, for his part, was eager to dismiss the most recent controversy surrounding Orban:
Some of Orban's comments have, in fact, raised controversy in recent months, including his statement about Hungary not becoming a "mixed race country."
But President Trump said he and Orban had had good discussions on various issues just recently.
"Great spending time with my friend, Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary," Trump said. "We discussed many interesting topics – few people know as much about what is going on today."
Of course, the first event has nothing whatsoever to do with the second. And Unruh did not mention the obvious racism of Orban's "mixed race" comment. Good to see that WND is as cool with white nationalism as usual -- as is Norris, apparently.
Distraction: MRC Censors Hawley Fleeing, Obsesses Over 'Squad' Topic: Media Research Center
Criticism of Republican members of Congress is forbidden at the MRC -- unless, of course, they're being criticized for not being right-wing enough. Thus, when footage of Republican Sen. Josh Hawley running out of the Capitol to escape the mob of pro-Trump insurrectionists (who had been partly incited by Hawley himself at the pre-riot rally lead by Donald Trump) was released at the July 21 hearing by the House committee looking into the insurrection, the MRC said nothing. Even when the video sparked memes on social media, the MRC continued to censor it.
A few days later, in an apparent attempt to distract attention away from Hawley, the MRC issued a July 25 post by Scott Whitlock attacking the liberal Democratic congresswomen right-wing media likes to package as "the Squad":
We are just 15 weeks away from election day in what is already shaping up to be a contentious 2022 midterm season. If the press follows their typical campaign play book, journalists will pick out certain conservative candidates who commit gaffes or make odd comments and try and make them the face of the GOP.
One thing they won’t do is single out the radical, extreme nature of some of the Democratic Party’s most well known congressional members: The Squad.
Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as far-left representatives like Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley, have been gaffe machines in the last few months. Most recently, some of them pretended to be restrained by police officers using invisible handcuffs while protesting for abortion at the Supreme Court.
And the leadoff "scandal" was, yes, the "invisible handcuffs":
Last week, Ocasio-Cortez and 16 other far-left members of Congress were detained at a pro-abortion rally in front of the Supreme Court. Embarrassing footage showed Ocasio-Cortez holding her hands crossed behind her back, pretending to be handcuffed. Seeming to forget the invisible cuffs, she lifted her hands in a show of defiance.
In fact, she wasn't pretending to be handcuffed. Whitlock censored her logical explanation: “Putting your hands behind your back is a best practice while detained, handcuffed or not, to avoid escalating charges like resisting arrest.”
Whitlock then tried to make a deleted tweet into a "scandal":
Finally, we have Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. You may not know her as well as other members of the Squad. But she’s just as radical. And this past spring, she appeared to tweet support for Will Smith’s violence against Chris Rock at the Oscars.
The tweet was quickly deleted and she sent out a series of comments attempting to clarify: “I don’t endorse violence in any form.” We’ve all seen how ill-advised tweets by conservatives and Republicans are jumped on by the press. But the networks quietly looked the other way on this one.
Whitlock didn't mention his employer's double standarrd on this -- obsessing over deleted tweet by liberals but censoring them when, say, boss Brent Bozell deletes one with an embarrassing factual error.
The others involve versions of the usual right-wing attacks on these people, such as portraying comments critical of Israel as "anti-Semitic" and accusations of ties to terrorist groups. Whitlock went on to lecture -- and then praise others in his right-wing media bubble for hyping these stories:
Expect Squad members to make more embarrassing moments this fall, to embrace more shocking and radical positions. But there’s one thing the American people should demand: If journalists are going to highlight some obscure Republican candidate who says something outrageous, be sure and cover the scandals coming from the socialist Squad in Congress.
Kudos to Fox News and Newsmax, two outlets that did take the time to cover the gaffes and controversies of the Squad. Newsmax host Eric Bolling especially has been reporting on this in detail. He and others have done so in the past and are continuing to put the spotlight on extreme members of Congress. If only the rest of the press would do the same.
Whitlock undercut all this, however, by having to admit to an embarrassing factual error:
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Rashida Tlaib is Somali-born. She is not. The article has been updated and we regret the error.
If Whitlock had been more concerned about facts than making a partisan attack, he wouldn't have made himself look so bad.
CNS Coverage Of Trump Raid Laden With Right-Wing Spin Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com was slow to respond to the Aug. 8 search warrant that the FBI executed on Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago compound seeking classified documents-- perhaps it was taking its time to figure out the best way to spin things to make Trump look good and law enforcement look bad. But the next morning, it was loaded for bear and spewing out all the right-wing hot takes it could throughout the day:
There was also a hot-take column that CNS published on Aug. 10 in which Michelle Malkin raged against the raid and "Feds Behaving Incorrigibly" and called President Biden "the White House occupant."
CNS also tried to play the whataboutism game with Nancy Pelosi. Jones wrote in an Aug. 10 article:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Tuesday that she did not have advance knowledge that the FBI was executing a search warrant on Donald Trump's Palm Beach home, leaving with some ten boxes of material.
"It will be interesting to find out exactly what the warrant was, what the order was to have a search warrant and for what purpose. But again, we can only speculate," she told NBC's "Today" show.
"But nonetheless, we believe in the rule of law, and that's what our country is about and no person is above the law, not even the president of the United States, not even a former president of the United States," Pelosi said.
She did not question the unprecedented move by the FBI and Biden Justice Department, searching the home of a political rival of the sitting president. Nor has Pelosi commented on the FBI seizure of Rep. Scott Perry's cell phone.
It wasn't until Aug. 11 that CNS published an article that led with a defense of the raid, in which intern Stephanie Samsel also tried to play whataboutism with Pelosi:
"No person is above the law...not even a former president of the United States,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Aug. 9, when she discussed the FBI’s raid of former President Donald Trump's Florida home.
While Republicans like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) say the Department of Justice (DOJ) has reached “weaponized politicization,” Pelosi called McCarthy’s claims “idle” during an interview with TODAY host Savannah Guthrie.
“We believe in the rule of law, and that’s what our country is about,” said Pelosi. “And no person is above the law, not even the president of the United States, not even a former president of the United States.”
[...]
Despite there being an ongoing investigation into potential crimes of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, Trump is the only U.S. president to have his home raided by the FBI.
When Attorney General Merrick Garland addressed the raid later on Aug. 11, Melanie Arter served up a stenographical article on it. That was followed a half-hour or so later by Arter serving up Republcian Sen. Lindsey Graham's hot take on Garland. The right-wing hot takes continued on Aug. 12:
CNS also took offense at a soap opera actor who, in Arter's words, that "suggested Wednesday that the FBI dig up the body of former President Donald Trump’s ex-wife Ivana Trump in its search for classified documents."
To sum up: CNS' reporting on the raid was entirely dominated by right-wing bias -- contradicting the boilerplate text in the money beg at the end of each article that purports to claim that CNS "covers the news as it should be, without fear or favor." Or maybe the massive right-wing bias is CNS' idea of covering the news "as it should be."
MRC Would Rather Keep Griner In Russian Prison Than Trade Her For Arms Dealer Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has been looking for excuses to keep WNBA star Brittney Griner rotting away in a Russian prison on trumped-up drug charges. The latest: It doesn't like the person the Biden administration is reportedly offering in a prisoner exchange for Griner. John Simmons huffed in an Aug. 3 post:
As we wait for the Brittney Griner situation to reach its drawn-out conclusion, President Joe Biden has proposed a moved to get Griner out of Russia … but at a terrible cost.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby has confirmed that Biden has signed off on a plan to potentially swap Griner and corporate security executive Paul Whelan for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence in the U.S.
“The president and his team are willing to take extraordinary steps to bring them home,” Kirby said. “We believe it’s important for the American people to know how hard President Biden is working to get Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan home.”
Bout isn’t some low-tier player in the arms dealing world, he was formerly once one of it’s most dangerous and powerful operatives.
Simmons went on to approvingly quote Donald Trump smearing Griner:
Any sane individual would see this deal and think, “I’m all for freeing American citizens, but we cannot let Bout go free.” Former President Donald Trump basically said the same thing when he went on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show.
“She went in there loaded up with drugs into a hostile territory where they’re very vigilant about drugs. They don’t like drugs,” Trump said. “And she got caught. And now we’re supposed to get her out – and she makes, you know, a lot of money, I guess – and we’re supposed to get her out for an absolute killer and one of the biggest arms dealers in the world.”
Griner was not "loaded up with drugs"; she had two vape cartridges of cannibis oil.
Scott Whitelock devoted an Aug. 5 post to a "nets ignore" item on how terrible "vicious terrorist-backer" Bout is and how unworthy of a trade he is for Griner.He did somehow manage to avoid slandering Grainer like the MRC's sports bloggers love to do: "Americans want to see any imprisoned fellow citizens brought home quickly. But when Joe Biden is considering releasing a violent terrorist-supporter who has been intent on killing Americans, viewers should be told just how serious a decision that may turn out to be." Jay Maxson played the whataboutism card in another post the same day:
Vice-president and world class hypocrite Kamala Harris is in full virtue signal mode with her condemnation of Russia for sentencing WNBA all-star Brittney Griner to nine-plus years of prison for drug possession.
As the district attorney for San Francisco, Harris was the bane of marijuana users. She jailed 1,900 of them. Now all of a sudden, with her higher profile as VP, Harris has done a 180 with her opposition to a black, lesbian basketball player’s cannabis conviction. If it weren’t for double standards, leftists like Harris would have no standards at all.
Maxson went on to sneer that Harris is now "enlightened about marijuana users. Especially if they can attract black, lesbian voters."
Yet another post that day cheered an NBC reporter for criticizing the proposed swap but but complained that he said he was "sorry to say it."
Simmons found yet another person to criticize the proposed swap in an Aug. 9 post: "Most current and former NBA players have a shockingly low amount of common sense, but former Boston Celtics forward Enes Kanter Freedom is a welcome exception. ... Freedom, like any human being with a shred of common sense, sees this proposed plan as foolish and potentially detrimental to the United States in the long run."
Maxson was back to laughably smearing Griner as a drug smuggler in an Aug 17 post -- then pretended he (or she) cares agout Griner's plight:
Our bad. Shame on us for failing black women who try to smuggle drugs onto planes. Through our bigotry, we have really let down Brittney Griner, the black lesbian basketball star serving a nine-year prison sentence in Russia for drug smuggling.
Our accuser is Yahoo writer Sughnen Yongo-Okochi, an immigrant from Nigeria, who says the narrative on Griner needs to change. She assailed the people who say Griner should not have broken the rules in Russia, for they are “overly righteous and puritan when a black person gets into the slightest trouble.”
[...]
The harsh reality is that Griner has been detained for months, and has allegedly been treated poorly, not by Russian detainers, but by Americans. Instead of investing in wisecracks, showing genuine support is what is needed now.
Yet the empathy for Griner has been underwhelming, writes her defender. It’s deeply insensitive for people to counter that LeBron James would not have put himself in the situation (she tried to carry vape cartridges containing cannabis onto a plane in Moscow and got busted.)
Maxson quickly returned to hateful ways, though: "Griner’s story demonstrates that we need to do a better job of protecting black women. Who knew that she needed us to protect her by yelling “no!” before she tried to board that Russian jetliner?"
Maxson ramped up the homophobia in an Aug. 18 post maliciously cheering low TV ratings for the WNBA:
With a strong LGBT-ISK3FG flavor, the WNBA has become one of the most woke, left-wing, unappealing professional sports enterprises in the United States.
This is also a league that adorned its courts with BLM and Brittney Griner decals. It named Griner, the Phoenix Mercury center imprisoned on drug charges in Russia, an honorary starter for its 2022 all-star game. Apparently, that's their idea of a 'heroic figure.'
An Aug. 22 post by Simmons, though, somehow managed to avoid spewing hate at Griner to evoke a more universal sentiment: skepticism that an offer by Dennis Rodman to help free Griner will amount to anything.
Newsma's Morris Shills for Trump After Mar-a-Lago Raid Topic: Newsmax
After the FBI search warrant on Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago compound in search or improperly held classsified documents, Newsmax writer Dick Morris had to shift his narrative from promotingthe pro-Trumpbook he wrote (and Newsmax published) to defending Trump against being held accountable for his own actions and portraying the raid as a motivating incident for die-hard Trump supporters (and hopefully selling a few more copies of his book in the process). An Aug. 8 article detailed Morris' first post-raid appearance on Newsmax TV:
The FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago is not intended to send former President Donald Trump to jail as much as just damage him to keep him from running for president again, according to presidential adviser Dick Morris onRob Schmitt Tonight." "The appellate courts, even if they find the district judge under a rock who will rule that way, the appellate courts would never agree to that.
"But what they are trying to do is to make Trump so damaged, such damaged goods, that Democrats and Republicans look for primary alternatives – and all of a sudden, they see virtue in Mike Pence or Ron DeSantis. Not that they're fomenting it. Those people are being used, but they're being used to try to generate a primary fight against Trump, because the Democrats feel that's the only way they can win."
[...]
Morris hailed Trump as a "ruthless S.O.B.," but one that plays within the rules.
"Donald Trump plays between the foul lines, on the playing field," Morris continued. "He never goes outside of it. He never engages in this kind of underhanded tactic. Even when he controlled the FBI and controlled the CIA, sort of, he doesn't do that. The Democrats do.
"I've worked side by side with Trump; he's a ruthless S.O.B., but on the playing field within the foul lines, not in extraneous stuff."
Not actually true, but Morris is in hard-shill mode here. Morris did get in his usual shilling in another Aug.8 TV hit, declaring that "Republicans could pick up between 5-7 seats in the Senate this November, taking the majority in that chamber."
In an Aug. 11 Newsmax TV appearance, Morris lamented that Trump "will be indicted on a "technical violation" of the National Archives and Records law," just for egregious mishandling of classifed documents:
"The archivist apparently cares whether the archives gather dust in the basement of Trump's house or the archives place, but they're still going to use any excuse they can to try to knock him out of the race," said Morris. "I don't think that will knock him out. It does not legally preclude him from running, but they can get a D.C. grand jury stacked with Democrats to indict [anyone] for anything."
The Democrats, he added, "need to knock Trump out and they will do anything they can."
And the raid at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, he added, "was just a brazen example of that, as they clearly see this as a zero-sum game."
After that, though, Morris was largely back to his usual shilling. In an Aug. 15 appearance, he baselessly asserted that "the hiring of 87,000 new Internal Revenue Agents is designed to "intimidate" American citizens into silence instead of criticizing the government." The next day, Morris cheered Liz Cheney's loss in her Republican primary, then tried to tie Cheney's work on the House committee investigating thte Capitol riot to the Mar-a-Lago raid:
But the Jan. 6 committee, of which Cheney is a vice chair, has failed to prove that, so now the Democrats have turned to "Plan B," which was the raid of Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, said Morris, author of the book "The Return: Trump's Big 2024 Comeback."
"This was simply designed to get them in the door to Mar-a-Lago so that they can search for documents to try to prove that this was an insurrection, and that Trump led a revolution, so they can try to invoke the 14th Amendment," Morris said.
The Democrats know the courts likely will block that move, he added, but they hope that the accusation will be enough to keep the Republicans from nominating Trump, which won't likely happen.
Fearing they can't beat former President Donald Trump, or his movement, in elections, "Democrats have abandoned the political process" to stop him, presidential campaign adviser Dick Morris said on Newsmax.
"In my book, 'The Return,' I make the case that I think is very important: That the Democrats have abandoned the political process and are using criminal justice process and the judicial process to try to stop Donald Trump, and they weaponized the IRS and the FBI to be the enforcement arm of the Democratic Party," Morris, who has advised Democrat President Bill Clinton and Trump's presidential campaigns, said on Thursday's "John Bachman Now."
"The raid at Mar-a-Lago, the pretext was the archives. Who cares about the archives? They are in there to try to find documented evidence — or planted — to frame Donald Trump for the Jan. 6 riot, and to claim that somehow this was a revolution against the United States government, because they want to invoke the 14th Amendment that says that anyone who was involved in an insurrection against the government can't hold public office."
The following day, Morris declared that the raid ""has energized" Trump:
"I've worked with so closely with President Clinton and with President Trump; and with Clinton, if people liked him, it energized him," Morris said during "Spicer & Co." Friday. "With Trump, if he's facing opposition, particularly due to the low-level opposition using dirty tactics, that energizes him, and I think that the effect of the Mar-a-Lago raid ... is energizing. I think he relishes being in a fight, and I think he really feels that his adversary made a huge mistake, and he's determined to capitalize on it."
Morris said he predicted something similar to the raid, some kind of major legal move, in his new book, "The Return: Trump's Big 2024 Comeback" but could not predict the Mar-a-Lago raid.
"It's kind of like Pearl Harbor. They predicted they'd attacked Guam; they didn't realize they'd attack Hawaii," he said. "I knew that they would raid; I didn't know they would raid the president's home.
An Aug. 20 article repeated Morris' claim on TV that "Democrats are giving up on replacing Trump in a 2024 GOP primary, and instead are focusing on using the legal system to preclude him from seeking another term in office," going on to downplay the Capitol riot:
"The Democrats are trying to manufacture the idea that Jan. 6 was such a rebellion because — and the timing of this is very significant to the Mar-a-Lago raid — because it came after Trump had a winning streak in primaries, thereby debunking the notion that he could be defeated by the ballot box," he said. "[The search warrant] was executed precisely 90 days before the midterm elections, so it did not run afoul of the FBI rule that you can't do anything to affect the election within 90 days."
Morris didn't mention that Trump isn't running for anything in the midterms.
CNS Blamed Rising Gas Prices On Biden -- But Largely Censors Falling Gas Prices Topic: CNSNews.com
We've documented how CNSNews.com has spent the past several months blaming President Biden for high gas prices, though it could never identify any specific Biden policy that resulted in a specific rise in prices (not even the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline).n But the fact that gas prices have on a continual decline since a mid-June high -- and that they are expected to continue to do so, dropping below $3 in some areas -- isn't news at all at CNS. After all, it's CNS editorial policy to avoid giving attention to the achievements of a Democratic president.
The only CNS story we could find that had lower gas prices as a main focus is a July 22 article by Melanie Arter. It's a stenography piece in which she simply transcribes what Biden said:
One day after being diagnosed with COVID, President Biden on Friday hosted a virtual economic briefing on gas prices from the White House residence, taking credit for gas prices dropping below $4 a gallon in “more than 30,000 gas stations in more than 35 states.”
“Let me start by apologizing for my voice. I feel much better than I sound. We’re meeting today on gas prices, and we have really good news. Gas prices are coming down. In fact, gas prices have fallen everyday this summer for 38 days in a row. You can find gas for $3.99 or less in more than 30,000 gas stations in more than 35 states,” he said, appearing on-screen.
[...]
The president said that while the good news is that gas prices are falling, “it’s not happening fast enough.”
“We made progress, but prices are still too high, and so here's what I'm going to do to talk about today with all of you. We need to work on this,” Biden said.
To this end, the president announced that the administration would “look at ways to increase oil production from the existing wells and permits that exist today.”
Surprisingly, more biased CNS reporters like Susan Jones were not moved to hunt down Republican members of Congress attacking Biden for taking credit for lower gas prices -- of course, theuy all spent months blaming him for prices rising, and it would be a contradiction if they flip-flopped. Instead, it's helping to keep Republicans on brand (and on the attack), such as this Aug. 9 article by intern Janey Olohan:
During an interview on FNC’s Sunday Morning Futures, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022will raise gas taxes for Americans, and that Democrats supporting the legislation are voting to “make our consumers pay more at the pump.”
“Every single Democrat, all of them voted to increase gas taxes,” Cruz told host Marie Bartiromo. “So the next time you see a Mark Kelly in Arizona, or Raphael Warnock in Georgia, or a Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire, or a Michael Bennet in Colorado, or Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada say, ‘Hey! We want gas prices to be lower!’”
“You know they are lying because they stood up and voted raise the gas taxes, stick it to the producers, make our consumers pay more at the pump,” said Cruz, and “that’s the end result they want and their voting record proves it.”
Because CNS doesn't fact-check its fellow conservatives and don't train their interns to do so, Olohan didn't report that Cruz was wrong about the Inflation Reduction Act "increas[ing] gas taxes." What the act actually does is increase a superfund excise tax on crude oil and production rates on oil wells on federal land -- none of which can be plausibly called a "gas tax," and which the federal government is not forcing oil companies to pass on to consumers (which they don't actually need to, given the record profits they have been making while jacking up those gas prices).
Posted by Terry K.
at 2:58 PM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, September 7, 2022 11:42 PM EDT
WND Whines Google Blocked Access To Its (Malware-Infected) Website Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah's Aug. 12 column was yet another screed about Google is DEMONETIZING his WorldNetDaily -- which, of course, isn't true; Google has simply chosen to no longer do business with a hateful fake-news publisher like WND, as is its right as a private business. And he peddled more lies in pushing that claim:
Despite my somewhat hysterical warnings, they succeeded in their evil plot when Trump faced a challenge by a hapless opponent, Joe Biden. (Just see the documentary film "2000 Mules.")
America has not been the same place since that election. Biden followed the script well. He's turned America into a nightmare virtually overnight.
Yet, when WND reports about this nightmare reality truthfully and boldly – about the intentional foreign invasion of our country, about January 6, about the transgender youth-grooming craze, about the astonishing level of Biden family corruption involving "the Big Guy," and so on – Google calls us "dangerous." Others call us similar things – "conspiracy nuts," "wackos," "purveyors of disinformation." In truth, though, it's the fake news outfits that are doing that. That's Google-controlled news.
Of course, fake news and conspiracy theories are a key component of WND's editorial agenda -- and the reason WND has been facing continuous financial crises over the past few years. It's a lesson Farah has chosen not to learn.
Managing editor David Kupelian tried to up the panic level in an Aug. 16 column accusing Google of going for a "kill shot" against WND, falsely suggesting this was a new thing. In fact, it's the "demonetization" that WND has been ranting about for months, yet Kupelian insisted this was evidence that Google is "maniacally intent on killing the WND 'David,' a small, Christian journalism operation that somehow refuses to die, despite continual attacks from all sides." Kupelian then laughably tried to frame its anti-LGBT hate as love and its COVIDmisinformation as somehow truthful (spoiler: it isn't):
Of course, all this pained moralizing over “hatred” and “discrimination” toward people who are military veterans, disabled, elderly and so on is idiotic. No one hates or discriminates against veterans, the disabled or the elderly. That’s camouflage. What Google really wants to protect from any criticism or opposing viewpoint is “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” Indeed, when as a news organization WND dares to report honestly and forthrightly on the fantastically deranged transgender agenda – where beautiful American children from coast to coast are indoctrinated, seduced, groomed, recruited and enabled to “transition to a different gender” by taking puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and even undergoing double mastectomies and castration – when WND sounds the alarm over any of this, which we do daily, Google sees that as “inciting hatred” and “promoting discrimination.”
How about: We’re defending and protecting the most innocent, helpless and precious among us – the children who will make up America’s next generation? That’s not “hatred”; it sounds more like love.
There’s more. Google tells WND it does “not allow content that … promotes harmful health claims, or relates to a current major health crisis and contradicts authoritative scientific consensus.”
Translation: When we report knowledgeably and truthfully on the Biden administration’s absolutely deranged and tyrannical mismanagement of the COVID pandemic – from imposing vaccine mandates that have thrown tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors, Marines, nurses, paramedics, police, firemen and other frontline heroes (including my own son) out of work, to suppressing inexpensive, effective and readily available early outpatient treatment of COVID, to pretending “natural immunity” isn’t real even though at least 92 studies prove it’s superior to vaccine immunity, to insisting that infants and toddlers be needlessly injected with the experimental and hazardous mRNA “vaccines” – well, such reporting as ours is simply not allowed. Only the official Biden narrative – you know, the one based on massive lying, and which failed at every turn to end the pandemic, while driving up suicide, addiction, overdose deaths, depression and crime rates across the nation, and introduced a level of authoritarianism never before seen in America – is allowed.
Like Farah's column, Kupelian's piece ended with a money beg.
Farah reference a new issue with Google in his Aug. 26 column, citing a reader letter claiming that "Google has put a Malware warning" on WND, whcih of course sent Farah into conspiracy mode: "It's crazier than ever just maintaining our website in 2022. Big Tech must see the handwriting on the wall as they find out most Americans understand how they're all totally trashing our First Amendment rights." He then redefined WND's lies as truth:
So, what has WND actually done during this difficult, blighted time?
We told you the truth about the 2020 election and how it was STOLEN!
We told you the truth about Anthony Fauci!
We told you the truth, every step of the way, about the COVID vaccine hoax!
We exposed the transgender grooming epidemic now sweeping America – and much more.
Even though we're the longest lasting, pioneering antidote for fake news, the harassment continues and intensifies.
With the malware claim, Kupelian finally had a new complaint against Google that he ranted about in an Aug. 30 column:
The Google “Goliath” has finally outdone itself in its campaign to completely destroy the WND “David,” the small Christian journalism operation that somehow refuses to die, despite continual attacks from all sides.
For the past week, Google has been warning everyone on the internet who tries to access WND.com via Google that the 25-year-old pioneering news website is outright dangerous to their computer!
This is no exaggeration: Reports from readers from all over confirm what WND’s staffers and independent tech team have been experiencing continually for the last week: When they try to reach WND by way of Google, clicking on the “WND: Home” link that Google provides leads not to WND.com, but to a threatening page saying: "Warning — visiting this web site may harm your computer!"
[...]
Ironically, if you click on Google’s own “Safe Browsing diagnostic page” link, you get taken to a page labeled “Safe Browsing Site Status” which clearly states: “No unsafe content found.” (See screenshot below.) This deceitful and profoundly destructive attack on WND persists day after day, despite multiple appeals to Google by WND’s tech team.
Which is a strange complaint because WND frequently complains that Google excludes WND from its searches. Kupelian included screenshot of the message but no proof from "WND’s tech team" that there was nothing wrong with the website, so he has no apparent proof that Google;s claim about the WND website is "false." He went on to copy-and-paste parts of his Google attack from his earlier column and added a money beg. Then he declared another conspiracy:
In addition to this, WND is simultaneously receiving a flood of reader reports that subscribers to WND's email news alerts are discovering that our emails are being redirected to their spam folders! Even when subscribers take the time and trouble to repeatedly designate WND's emails as legitimate and not spam, our emails continue to go to their spam folder, many have told us.
The next day, Farah wrote a column declaring that Google had been blocking WND's site for "11 days" -- even though Kupelian had written that it had been going on only "for the past week":
For some, even the live links within the news alerts are now also dead, preventing email recipients from clicking through to WND's news stories.
It seems that once Google designated WND as "harmful to your computer," the world's email providers followed Google's lead and stopped delivering our emails to subscribers – because they're "unsafe."
Google has been attacking WND for years, as long ago as 2014, attacks which continued and metastasized until late last year Google permanently demonetized us. And now this.
WND has been a critical test case for what remains of free speech and a free press in America. If they can kill us, they will come for every other Christian and conservative site on the internet.
Farah continued to playvictim in a Sept. 1 column:
While the blacklisting continues now for 12 days, WND is simultaneously receiving a flood of reader reports that subscribers to WND's email news alerts are finding our emails being redirected to their spam folders! Even when subscribers take the time to designate that WND's emails are not spam, our emails continue to go to their spam folder, many have told us. For some readers, the live links to various stories on WND's news alerts are now also dead – so the recipients can't click through to read the news stories being presented.
[...]
Of course, it's not just Google. YouTube (owned by Google) has also permanently de-monetized WND's channel, Facebook has seriously suppressed our traffic for years, something Facebook's reps have even admitted to us. Amazon killed our book and movie division through monopolistic strategies too. And Microsoft calls us names on its opening page ("WorldNetDaily: Fake news website"). It's not just Big Tech; it should be called Big Bad Tech.
But we get a little livid when the biggest search engine in the world tells our readers who are trying to visit our site are turned away. Again, this latest full-bore assault on WND has being going on for 12 days.
An anonymously written "news" article that same day rebranded the site blocking as the "kill shot"-- but also that there was an actual, legitimate reason Google put the warning on the website:
WND's managing editor, David Kupelian, explained to the Gateway Pundit in an interview that early last week there was a malware issue with a new advertiser, but that WND's tech team had immediately removed the advertisement. Yet starting on about Aug. 22, the Google blocking of WND persisted for the next week and a half, despite the fact that the problem had long ago been removed, as Google's own diagnostic page confirmed.
If it were CNN's or the Washington Post's website that had such an issue, there is little doubt that Google would have resolved it immediately, Kupelian argued.
"Google demonetized WND.com a few months ago, which severely hurt our revenues, but this current attack is a genuine kill shot: Google is now warning the entire world that a respected 25-year-old independent Christian journalism site is harmful to their computer. That’s vicious," Kupelian said Wednesday.
That's right -- there was malware on WND's website, and Google did not invent the issue as a pretense to punish WND. How strange that Kupelian and Farah didn't mention the advertiser malware issue before this. Still, WND resumed its victim-playing quoting Farah as saying, without evidence, that Google doesn't like WND "because we were the first Christian news site, as well as the first independent news site of any kind."
An anonymously written Sept. 2 article repeated much of this, adding that "Kupelian appeared on several major shows, including One America News with D.C. Bureau Chief John Hines, and was also interviewed by InfoWars' Owen Shroyer, explaining to both outlets what Google has been doing." The fact that WND thinks the failing OAN and the about-to-be-sued-into-oblivion Infowars offer "major shows" shows the lowly state of WND these days.
How Has The MRC Been Hating Transgender People This Year? Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's campaign of hate against Lia Thomas was the most visible recent manifestation of its anti-transgender ideology of hate. It has also spent this year hurling hate at other transgender people, as well as anyone who refuses to similarly hate them. Let's go way back to early this year to review, shall we?
A Jan. 10 post by Alexander Hall went to great lengths to pretend that right-wing anti-transgender author Ryan T. Anderson doesn't really hate transgender people, insisting that his book "When Harry Became Sally" is "compassionate but unapologetically honest." In fact, Anderson embraces the view of discredited anti-trans researcher Paul McHugh -- who is frequently cited by trans-haters -- that transgenderism is a mental illness. Hall portrayed Anderson as a victim because his book was delisted by Amazon -- though he doesn't explain why a private business like Amazon is obligated to sell every single book that has ever been published -- andsuggested the book was delisted because it offered "scientific facts that offend liberals" and not because it pushes a hateful narrative.
In a Feb. 23 post, Kevin Tober lashed out at New York magazine for reporting on his anti-transgender activists are trying to influence education:
The left thinks they own your kids. Don't believe me? Well, take a look at this article in New York Magazine's Intelligencer. In the article titled "Household Tyrants," writer Sarah Jones begins by fear-mongering: "to empower parents, Florida Republicans would put children in danger."
Jones argues that Florida's pending Parental Rights in Education bill, which would"prevent public-school districts from 'encouraging classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity,'”is some how a bad thing.
If you don't want your eleven-year-old child learning about transgender ideology and other sexually inappropriate terms and theories, then you are a tyrant and a bigot according to Jones.
Tober didn't identify what "ideology" being transgender is. He then argued that children are too stupid to know who they are, that parents who helpchildren be who they are are child abusers, and
Later on in the piece, Jones writes"the GOP’s position on parental rights isn’t entirely coherent. Any attempt to ban gender-confirming therapy for transgender children theoretically infringes on the rights of the parent."
What Jones doesn't understand is that parents don't have a right to abuse their children.
Young children aren't fully able to grasp the concept of what a man or a woman is (the bill deals with kids of elementary school-age). Parents shouldn't be allowed to chemically castrate their children or give them sex hormone injections (which is what "gender-confirming therapy" is). When the child turns eighteen and still wants to do that, then it's their prerogative as a legally recognized adult.
"The right insists that what’s good for parents is good for kids," Jones claims, "the idea that children are already people, with thoughts and needs independent of their parents, never factors into the party’s position at all."
Nobody doubts that children are people (except the left who wants to abort them), but the idea that a child's thoughts and needs should be taken seriously is absurd. If your child wanted to eat candy all day long, would you let them? Obviously not, because children do not know what is good for them. That's what parents are for, to look out for their child's wellbeing.
Are parents who forcibly coerce a child into being something he or she is not guilty of child abuse too? Tober doesn't say.
A Feb. 28 post by Matt Philbin accused an Arizona teacher of teaching "trans ideology indoctrination"; actually, all the teacher did is tell sixth-graders that gender fluidity is a thing and that mocking purportedly insufficiently masculine boys as sissies is a bad thing. Philbin clearly disagrees with the latter. Philbin also demonstrated his utter ignorance about transgender people by illustrating his post with a publiclity still from the classic film "Some Like It Hot" -- in which the main characters are not transgender but, rather, cross-dressing as women to escape from the mob. Philbin clearly doesn't know (or care about) the difference.
A March 31 post by Rachel Peterson complained that the character played by transgender actor Elliot Page -- whose transition the MRC has previously mocked -- on the show "Umbrella Academy" would also transition.Peterson went on to mock Page's preferred pronouns of he/they: "Still not sure how someone's pronouns can be both he and they." The same day, Alex Christy grumbled that MSNBC's Hallie Jackson used "dishonest faming" to portray Republicans (like, um, Christy) as anti-trans by passing anti-transgender laws: "Jackson made it seem as if these laws are tantamount to child abuse when all they seem to do is protect the integrity of women’s sports, don’t allow adults to affirm childhood beliefs about gender identity, or ensure that adults don’t encourage minors to make life-changing decisions about their bodies."
Philbin returned for an April 5 post about a target the MRC has spreadnumerousfalsehoods about in the past, a school district in Virginia:
Normal people who have to send their kids to Loudoun County Virginia’s public schools face a Whack-A-Mole game of lefty dysfunction. As soon as you get a handle on Critical Race Theory, an unreported school rape pops up. Force the resignation of a lunatic school board member, the prospect of boys on the girls volleyball team leaps out at you. Heck, not even changing governors can tamp down the crazy. And the hits just keep on coming.
Passed last August, LCPS Policy 8040 doesn’t just degrade girls’ sports and disregard their safety by allowing biological males into girls’ restrooms and locker rooms. It also “elevates students' ‘privacy rights’ concerning their gender identity over parents right to know,” according to the group Fight for Schools.
So anyone who's not a right-wing transphobe like Philbin isn't "normal people"?
An April 9 post by Clay Waters whined that the New York Times called out right-wing activistrs for imposing anti-trans policies on schools, claiming without evidence that the activsits represent "the mainstream consensus on children and transgender issues." An April 11 post by Tober lashed out at MSNBC's Chris Hayes for calling out Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for treating parents who seek gender-affirming care for their children as criminal child abusers:
On Monday night’s episode of MSNBC’s All In, host Chris Hayes freaked out over Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordering the state’s child protective services to investigate reported instances of children receiving transgender surgeries, ironically accusing Abbott of being the real child abuser.
The deranged host started off by viciously attacking Abbott claiming he “found it helps him politically to be cruel to transgender children.” He then claimed Abbott denies the “very existence” of transgender children, despite the fact that there’s no such thing as a transgender child, the transgender ideology needs to be instilled in children by their parents or other adults.
This brings us to the reason for the Hayes meltdown. In his wailing over the order, Hayes claimed it “takes what used to be normal care for trans kids and classifies that care as child abuse in the eyes of the state.” As if chemically castrating children is “normal care.”
[...]
If anything, this order helps weed out the people who aren't fit to work in child protective services. If someone finds preventing children from being mutilated so offensive, then they shouldn’t be allowed to be anywhere near children.
The only viciousness and derangement we see is in Tober's high level of transphobia.
Tim Graham spent a May 1 post whining that NPR covered a speech by a transgender Biden administration official:
On the Friday night commute, NPR listeners witnessed an audio press release of sorts for the Biden administration. Transgender activist and assistant HHS secretary Rachel Levine is giving a speech to an LGBTQ health conference at Texas Christian University, and NPR promoted it like a press secretary. No opposing view was considered, certainly not about the "Christian" part.
Graham didn't explain how, exactly, it is "Christian" to hate transgender people the way the typical MRC employee does.
Karen Townsend freaked out over a fictional transgender person -- as the MRC likes to do -- in a May 13 post, insisting there aren't enough transgender people to warrant appearances in TV shows:
Television networks are determined to advance the idea that transgenderism is normal behavior, especially in family dynamics. You will be made to accept the LGBTQ agenda, regardless of your personal opinions and religious beliefs. At least that's their plan. Tolerance is not optional.
The May 12 episode of ABC’sStation 19, “The Road You Didn’t Take," saw the ongoing battle between divorced parents of a transgender boy play out. She was born Mary and now lives as Matt with her father’s blessing. Her mother, Jane (Romy Rosemont), still considers her to be her daughter, Mary.
[...]
The number of Americans identifying as transgender is miniscule compared to the total population. According to the CDC, the number is about 1 million people, about 0.6 percent of the adult population in the United States. Nonetheless, television networks persist.
Townsend didn't explain why she appearant believes the opposite to be true -- that transgender people in fiction must be treated as freaks who deserve to be hated and denigrated. Oh, and complaining there are too many LGBT characters on TV is something the MRC loves to do.
Crass: WND Invokes 9/11 To Sell Subscriptions Topic: WorldNetDaily
How desperate is WorldNetDaily to get people to pay it money to read its website? It invoked the 9/11 terrorist attacks to sell subscriptions to its (free) website.
One of the pop-up alerts to sell those subscrptions shows a picture of light beams emanating from the site of the World Trade Center, with all-caps stating:
NEVER BEFORE HAS A FOREIGN ENEMY SUCCESSFULLY ATTACKED OUR MAINLAND FROM OVER THE HORIZON.
AT WND, WE WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER!
THATS WHY
WE ARE GIVING YOU 50% OFF OUR ANNUAL WND INSIDER MEMBERSHIP!
Clicking on it takes yopu to a web page with the same text, in the service of selling readers a one-year "Insider" subscription for $25. Among the "added benefits" of the subscription os "WND's 24/7 truth-based journalism" -- which, of course, is a lie given how much of WND's so-called journalism isn'tbasedintruth at all. WND might argue, however that the fake news it publishes is "truth-based," though that doesn't make the final product any less of a lie.
The pop-up also included a Winston Churchill quote: "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." But WND doesn't seem to be aware thatthe quote applies to itself as well: It has continued to publish fake news and conspiracy theories even though those very things were the main things that have pushed WND to the financial brink where it has resided for the past few years.
That's the kind of cognitive dissonance that might make WND think invoking 9/11 is a good way to get people to read them.
WorldNetDaily columnist Larry Elder is a Donald Trump suck-up and apologist who has pretended that Trump didn't mock a disabled reporter and didn't praise neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. He took another stab at Trump revisionnism in his July 27 column:
The Media Research Center has hated CNN's Brian Stelter for year for daring to criticize right-wing media in general and Fox News in particular, and it has not-so-quietly begged for CNN to fire him for those offenses. A February 
When former CNSNews.com reporter Penny Starr -- who moved on to Breitbart -- died in mid-August, her former employer's first attempt at a tribute was to 
The Media Research Center really hates it when successful non-right-wing media operations demonstrate their success by being sold to other people. When Politico was sold to German publisher Axel Springer last fall, the MRC 
Like its "news" division 
A few years back, 
Criticism of Republican members of Congress is forbidden at the MRC -- unless, of course, they're being criticized for not being right-wing enough. Thus, when footage of Republican Sen. Josh Hawley running out of the Capitol to escape the mob of pro-Trump insurrectionists (who had been partly incited by Hawley himself at the pre-riot rally lead by Donald Trump) 
CNSNews.com was slow to respond to the Aug. 8 search warrant that the FBI executed on Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago compound seeking classified documents-- perhaps it was taking its time to figure out the best way to spin things to make Trump look good and law enforcement look bad. But the next morning, it was loaded for bear and spewing out all the right-wing hot takes it could throughout the day:
The Media Research Center has been 
After the FBI search warrant on Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago compound in search or improperly held classsified documents, Newsmax writer Dick Morris had to shift his narrative from 
We've documented
Joseph Farah's Aug. 12 
The Media Research Center's 
How desperate is WorldNetDaily to get people to pay it money to read its website? It invoked the 9/11 terrorist attacks to sell subscriptions to its (free) website.
