NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Dirty War on George Soros, Part 2
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center dialed back the more explicitly anti-Semitic attacks on the liberal billionaire -- but its obsessive attacks still frame him as the Jew conservatives are allowed to hate. Read more >>

MRC Still Making Djokovic A Victim For Selfishly Refusing A COVID Vaccine
Topic: Media Research Center

Last fall and earlier this year, Media Research Center sports blogger John Simmons served as a cheerleader for tennis star Novak Djokovic for being a selfish jerk in refusing to get the COVID vaccine, portraying him as a victim because he was blocked from entering major tennis tournaments because of that. Simmons has continued to be a cheerleader for Djokovic's selfishness. In a March 17 post, Simmons gushed that Djokovic "has refused to cave to political pressure" on getting vaccinated" and that he got to play in the French Open, letting him laughably claim that "I was never against vaccination," leaving it uncommented that his refusing to get a COVID vaccine demonstrates beyond a doubt that he is, in fact, against vaccines.

IN a July 11 post, Simmons complained that a tennis writer called Djokovic an "anti-vax posterboy" -- which Simmons even more laughably insisted "couldn’t be further from the truth" based on Djokovic saying once that "he had received vaccines as a child -- then cheered that Djokovic's wife ran to her husband's defense by retorting that "He simply responded what HIS body choice is." Simmons concluded by declaring:

Novak is not planning on playing in the U.S. Open because of his vaccination status, but he doesn’t need to. He’s already proven he’s won of the greatest men’s tennis players of all time, and a man of strong convictions. Anything else he accomplishes in his career is simply an addition to an already glittering legacy.

Yet the MRC manufactured drama about Djokovic playing in the U.S. Open anyway. Fellow sports blogger Jay Maxson -- who wrote a post earlier this year filled with falsehoods about athletes purportedly dying because of the COVID vaccine, a post that remains live and uncorrected at this writing -- huffed in a July 12 post: "It’s a mad, mad, mad sports world, to say the least! Tennis great Novak Djokovic can’t even enter the United States because he is not vaccinated, but a cyclist from Luxembourg who tested positive for COVID has won a stage of the Tour de France. " In fact, doctors tested the cyclist, Bob Jungels, and found that his viral load was low enough that it was unlikely he was infectious.

Even though -- again -- Djokovic was already not planning to play in the U.S. Open, Simmons manufactured some victimhood for him in a July 21 post:

The Biden Administration’s COVID travel restriction policy preventing unvaccinated foreigners from entering the United States is so darn selective it smells to high heaven. Immigration officials are allowing unvaccinated illegal aliens to cross our border, but the greatest active tennis player in the world -- Serbia’s unvaccinated Novak Djokovic -- is barred from our country. 

Djokovic is fresh off his seventh – and fourth straight -- Wimbledon title. Due to the Biden Administration’s ridiculous ban on unvaccinated people entering the country, he will not be allowed to enter the U.S., let alone play in next month’s U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows, N.Y. He says he is a proponent for the freedom to choose one’s health options. 

Thousands of people who want to see Djokovic play in the U.S. Open are rallying in his support. A Change.org petition has gathered 17,500 signatures, in hopes of generating 25,000.

Simmons quoted from the petition, which stated, "The vaccine is NOT an extra line of defense. Natural immunity is stronger." If Simmons had bothered to fact-check the statement, he would find that it's false; as we've documented, research has found that the best protection is a combination of "natural immunity" (raad: a previous infection) plus a vaccine.

Simmons continued his manufactured U.S. Open drama in an Aug. 12 post:

The U.S. government is serving up some nonsense to tennis star Novak Djokovic.

Under the current rules of entry for the United States, the Serbian star and defending Wimbledon champion cannot participate in the final installment of the Grand Slam because he is not vaccinated.

The ban still stands despite the fact that U.S. Senator Marsha Balckburn (R-TN) has recently written a letter to Rochelle Walensky, M.D., the director of the CDC, asking that this sham of a health organization remove its ludicrous COVID policies and allow Djokovic to play.

Remember: Djokovic already said he wasn't planning to take part.

Simmons devoted an Aug. 15 post to touting former tennis great John McEnroe criticizing the vaccine regulations (despite, again, Djokovic already saying he wasn't planning to take part), adding: "The all-time great further said that a world-class athlete like Djokovic is incredibly particular about what he puts in his body and that he is in peak health, which should render his vaccination status as irrelevant. You’re not the only one who feels that way, McEnroe."

Just before the U.S. Open started, Simmons wrote an Aug. 25 post declering what everyone (including himself) knew weeks earlier, that Djokovic would not be playing:

It’s official: Novak Djokovic will not be playing in the U.S. Open, the final tournament in tennis’ Grand Slam circuit.

The Serbian star and defending Wimbledon champion has withdrawn from the running since the U.S. still prohibits foreigners who are not vaccinated from entering the country. This is the latest incident that proves Djokovic meant it when he said he would sacrifice the opportunity to win titles in order to remain unvaccinated (he was barred from the Australian Open earlier this year for the same reason).

[...]

Djokovic continues to be a shining example of conviction in the face of an incredible cost. Even though he has already accomplished so much, it still costs him chance at a title to cement his legacy as the greatest men’s tennis player ever. For an ultra-competitor like him, that’s a high cost.

Buying into conspiracy theories is hardly a "shining example of conviction," John.

Cognitive Dissonance: WND's Brown Mocks VP Harris While He's Denying Doing So
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Michael Brown complained in his July 27 WorldNetDaily column:

Speaking to a group of disability advocates, and wanting to be thoughtful of those who were blind or vision impaired, Vice President Kamala Harris began her talk by saying, "I am Kamala Harris, my pronouns are she and her, I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit." But what, exactly, did she mean by those words? What, after all, is a woman? And what do we learn about Harris from her preferred gender pronouns?

In raising these questions, my purpose is not to mock the vice president. Rather, it is to mock the cultural madness that set the stage for her comments. We must not become accustomed to this social insanity!

To be sure, others found VP Harris' comments to be quite condescending, including Mary Chastain, who describes herself as nearly vision impaired.

[...]

Indeed, unless you were living under a rock, you would know that the vice president is a woman regardless of whether you were seeing or blind.

Ah, but mocking her is exactly Brown's point (the denials are a common tactic he uses). He seems determined to gloss over the fact that Harris was using those descriptors for the benefit of the "blind or vision impaired" -- which Brown himself noted at the beginning of his column -- and mindlessly join the homophobic right-wingers piling on Harris. Indeed, Brown went on a rant about Harris referencing her preferred pronouns:

As for Harris' preferred gender pronouns, the fact that she felt it proper to share that information reminds us yet again of how deeply we have fallen off the cliff of reality.

We should be alarmed. We should be shaking our heads. We should be asking how on earth we got to this point.

The vice president of the United States giving her preferred gender pronouns at the beginning of her talk? Really? (For another shocking illustration of just how far we have fallen, see my article, "Biden Administration is a Vivid Illustration of LGBTQ+ Activism on Steroids.")

Of course today, a woman could say, "My name is Rachel, and my pronouns are he-his," since Rachel might choose to live as a woman and yet identify as a man. Why not?

These pronouns simply explain how we want people to refer to us. They tell us nothing about their biological sex.

Then, after attacking transgender people lilke Lia Thomas, Brown again denied doing so:

I do not deprecate those who genuinely struggle with gender identity issues, as I have said time and time again. My heart goes out to them in their struggles.

And I do pray for God's best for the vice president. May the Lord guide her into all truth!

But I absolutely will continue to draw attention to the cultural madness into which we are descending. And I will continue to shout, "The emperor has no clothes!"

This is becoming more and more evident every day. Let's keep shouting!

By shouting his hatred of transgender people, Brown is very much deprecating and mocking. All his denials don't change that.

MRC Attacks Doctor Who Performed Abortion On Young Rape Victim
Topic: Media Research Center

We've documented how the Media Research Center, along with other right-wing media, tried to discredit the story of a 10-year-old girl in Ohio was forced to go to Indiana for an abortion due to Ohio's highly restrictive yet ambiguous anti-abortion laws, then complained when they were called out for not apologizing when the story was found to be true and instead pivoting to hyping that the alleged perpetrator was an undocumented immigrant. It should be no surprise that the MRC is complaining that the doctor who performed the abortion on the girl is being allowed to appear on TV to discuss abortion and related issues. Curtis Houck groused in a July 27 post, making sure to tag Dr. Caitlin Bernard with the pejorative tag of "abortionist":

Since the overturning of disinformation campaign seeking to terrify women into believing miscarriages will be criminalized and women will die from medical complications related to pregnancies. It’s been so sinister that it would make even the Russians jealous.

In turn, it made sense CBS would spend Tuesday and Wednesday worshipping Dr. Caitlyn Bernard, the Indiana abortionist who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio.

The interview first aired on Tuesday’s CBS Evening News with anchor Norah O’Donnell, who said Bernard’s interview came amid protests in Indiana over a debate among lawmakers for an abortion ban with exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother Of course, O’Donnell chose to deceive viewers by leaving out that last exception.

Houck censored the fact that many "life of the mother" execptions are vaguely written and can keep a doctor from acting in the best interest of the mother out of fear of being criminally charged. Houck continued:

To close out, O’Donnell invited Bernard to “address concerns by conservatives or those with deeply held religious beliefs that abortion is immoral and wrong.” 

Bernard insisted that “if you don't believe that you would have an abortion, then don't have one” and thus one shouldn’t “stop other people from accessing medical care that they need.”

Considering the Obama administration sued nuns and a Biden administration order would force religious hospitals (such as Catholic-backed institutions) to perform abortions, that’s also a lie.

Houck didn't explain why Catholic or religious hospitals should be allowed to refuse to perform an abortion in an emergency, which is what the Biden administration executive order would do.

A July 31 post by Jorge Bonilla complained that "corporate media" coverage of the rape story wasn't embracing the right-wing shift to obsessing over the immigration status of the perpetrator and that "coverage continues to center around abortionist Dr. Caitlin Bernard, who corporate media have decided to simultaneously cast as both the true hero and 'real victim' of this horrendous story." Bonilla censored mention of the right-wing media's failed attempt to frame the story as a hoax that created a victim narrative for Bernard.

When Bernard appeared on TV again, Aidan Moorehouse was there to complain about it -- and pretend there are no issues with such narrow exceptions -- in an Aug. 5 post:

Since she performed an abortion on a 10-year-old Ohioan rape victim, Indiana abortionist Dr. Caitlin Bernard has become something of an icon to the post-Roe pro-abortion movement. New Day co-host Brianna Keilar interviewed Bernard on Friday morning to voice her opposition to Indiana’s pending abortion bill, despite the bill containing exceptions for cases of rape, incest, and the life of the mother (the most commonly accepted exceptions).

After outlining the contents of the bill (which can be read here), Keilar played the interview, which had been taped prior to it being shown live. She began by asking Dr. Bernard, “You've treated many patients who would fall into these categories. What, to you, is the problem with relying on those exceptions?”

[...]

On the question of enforcing the exceptions, Bernard fretted the laws would cause doctors to second-guess themselves when the mother’s life is in danger, “The impact on the physicians means that they can't take care of patients the way that they need to be able to and patients will be hurt.”

This line has been repeated ad nauseam by abortion advocates and their allies in the media, but it doesn’t apply at all in this case because, again, the law in question makes an exception to save the life of the mother. To put it bluntly, any failure to act in such a situation would rest on the doctors who failed to understand the full implications of a law that so closely impacted their profession.

Moorehouse concluded by huffing:

When a pro-life bill imposes a total ban on abortion, the pro-abortion crowd laments the cruelty of leaving out exceptions for rare and traumatic circumstances. But when a pro-life bill carves out exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, it suddenly becomes a question of medical privacy. And the liberal media will eagerly promote both angles whenever they get the opportunity.

Moorehouse didn't mention that the MRC supports even more extreme restrictions on abortion, including creating an Orwellian surveillance state to monitor women who might cross state lines to have one.

UPDATE: Houck is being dishonest by claiming that "the Obama administration sued nuns." In fact, the opposite is true: the nuns sued the Obama administration in an effort to keep it from having to cover birth control in its health insurance.

CNS Pushing Right-Wing Fearmongering About IRS, Censors The Truth
Topic: CNSNews.com

The revelation that the Inflation Reduction Act would including funding for the IRS to hire 87,000 employees over the next 10 years was quickly warped into a right-wing attack point -- and CNSNews.com did its part in advancing it.

An Aug. 8 article by Susan Jones quoted a Texas congressman (who surprisingly wasn't Ted Cruz) snarking, "I don't want to hire 87,000 new IRS agents, I want to hire 87,000 new Border Patrol agents." Another article that day, by Melanie Arter, featured Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham fearmongering that the agents "come after “waitresses, Uber drivers and everybody else to collect more taxes.” But don't worry, the boss of CNS editor Terry Jeffrey's daughter did get yet another Aug. 8 article from Arter dedicated to his repetition of those same right-wing talking points:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) warned Sunday that the Democrats through the Inflation Reduction Act are trying to hire 87,000 new IRS agents, which will double the size of the IRS making it bigger than the Pentagon, State Department, FBI and Border Patrol combined.

[...]

“They're not designed to come after the billionaires and the big corporations, they're designed to come after small businesses and working families across this country. The Democrats are making the IRS bigger than the Pentagon plus the Department of State, plus the FBI, plus the Border Patrol combined. The IRS is going to be bigger,” he said.

“This is a massive power grab, and I've got to say it's amazing, Maria, watching these Democrats amendment after amendment, common sense amendments they vote against. I introduced an amendment to say don't create 87,000 new IRS agents, every Democrat voted no,” Cruz said.

An anonymously written article in Aug. 8 upped the fearmongering byquoting the bill out of bontext: "The 755-page “Inflation Reduction Act” that passed the Senate yesterday on a 50-50 vote—with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking 51st vote—would provide the Internal Revenue Service with an additional $70,963,800,000 to target American taxpayers with 'enforcement activities' and 'enforcement programs.'"

An Aug. 9 article by Jones quoted Newt Gingrich declaring, "And when you look at the Democrats who are trying to add 85,000 IRS agents [he meant 87,000] to the already existing 77,000, that would mean 162,000 IRS agents compared, for example, to 29,000 people that we have on the border trying to control the border."

It wasn't until an Aug. 9 article by Arter that CNS first attempted to tell the other side of the story, quoting White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre pointing out that Republicans were being "dishonest" in their attacks on the IRS funding, though Arter didn't actually quote Jean-Pierre specifically debunking the right-wing narrative.

From there, it was back to fearmongering, and Jones was happy to oblige in an Aug. 11 article by suggesting that all the new agents will be armed:

As Democrats defend their plan to hire 87,000 additional IRS agents, the Internal Revenue Service already is trying to hire special agents who are "legally allowed to carry a firearm" and are willing to do so; are "willing to use deadly force, if necessary," and are "willing and able to participate in arrests, execution of search warrants, and other dangerous assignments."

"Click here to apply today!" says the message on "IRS Careers" webpage.

"The IRS is making one of the greatest power grabs I have ever seen in governmental history with 87,000 new agents," said Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, who served as the Director of the National Economic Council during the Trump Administration from 2018 to 2021.

Jones did attempt a lame attempt at balance:

Democrats insist that the 87,000 new IRS agents authorized by the Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act will go after wealthy tax cheats, not lower- and middle-class taxpayers.

White House Economic Adviser Jared Bernstein told Fox News on Wednesday that the "long-term defunding of the IRS" has facilitated "tax evasion by wealthy evaders."

Citing the IRS Commissioner, Bernstein said, "IRS resources will not add to audits for households under $400,000, and those same households will not see one penny increase in their taxes based on proposals in the Inflation Reduction Act."

Other analysts disagree, however.

Jones did not name any of these "analysts."

None of these articles, of course, seriously challenge the right-wing narratives for which they're serviing as servile stenographers. As a more responsible and factually dedicated news outlet reported, the 87,000 number is what is needed to mainstain IRS staffing levels over the next decade, given that 50,000 current employees are expected to retire or otherwise depart the agency in the next five years alone. And not all of them wil be agents: A significant number of them will work in customer service and information technology in an attempt to modernize tax return processing and make the agency more consumer-friendly. The IRS has stated that more experienced personnel are needed to handle the sophisticated audits needed to deal with high-income taxpayers, and there is no desire to increase the number of audits of lower-income taxpayers. Further, only a tiny amount of agents in a special unit are armed.

But rather than tell its readers the truth, CNS would rather spread fearmongering right-wing talking points. Jones did this again in another lazy Aug. 11 article:

The Biden administration insists that hiring 87,000 new IRS agents will not increase the current audit rate of taxpayers earning less than $400,000. It's the wealthy tax evaders they say they'll go after.

Nonsense, said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who appeared together on Fox News Wednesday night. Both men agreed that the IRS will go after conservative nonprofits and people who don't use accountants to do their taxes:

"What's going to happen is the low-hanging fruit is what gets picked first, and that's the people who file their own tax returns," Huckabee said:

Craig Bannister quoted anti-tax activist Grover Norquist claiming without evidence that "They’re going to have 1.2 million new audits. There are less than less than a thousand billionaires and only 500 companies in the Fortune 500. The rest of them are us." Bannister also served up meaningless comparisons in another Aug. 11 article:

The 87,000 hiring total is more than the entire population of President Joe Biden’s home town of Wilmington, Delaware. In 2020, Wilmington had a population of 70,898, according to that year’s census, a number the Census Bureau estimates fell to 70,750 as of July 1, 2021.

Other notable populations surpassed by the 87,000 additional IRS employees include the entire British army and the Roman Coliseum:

• Pres. Biden’s home town of Wilmington, Delaware (approx. 71,000)
• 2 Washington Nationals stadiums (41,313 X 2 = 82,626)
• 1.7 Roman Coliseums (50,000 X 1.7 = 85,000)
• Entire British Army 82,000)
• The Stadiums of Real Salt Lake, Houston Dynamo FC, Los Angeles FC and FC Dallas combined (approx. 20,000 each)
• The entire personnel on all 11 U.S. aircraft carriers.

What's more, some of those 87,000 new IRS agents would even “carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force.”

Jones brought her own meaningless comparison in an Aug. 12 article:

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) objects to many of the bill's provisions, including the plan to hire 87,000 new IRS agents:

"Get this, Maria," he told Fox News's Maria Bartiromo on Friday:

"The Clemson football stadium holds 83,000 fans. It won't even hold IRS agents that they are -- they're getting ready to hire. It's a total -- they're doing this for effect, and the American people don't deserve this.

An anonymously written Aug. 16 article upped the gun fearmongering again:

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R.-Calif.) said in a speech on the House floor on Friday that the Internal Revenue Service has "4,600 guns and 5 million rounds of ammunition.”

[...]

“You are going to double the size of the IRS,” McCarthy said—addressing his remarks to “Madam Speaker,” who is Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.)

 “They have 80,000 employees,” McCarthy said. “You know what the IRS also had? 4,600 guns, 5 million rounds of ammunition. Why?

“Democrats want to double its already massive size,” he said. “You are going to spend $80 billion of hard-earned American taxpayer money to hire an army of 87,000 new IRS agents.

The anonymous writer made no effort to fact-check anything McCarthy said, even though his statement that the new agents will "double" the agency's size is highly dishonest.

MRC's Quibbling Over Definition Of Recession Continues
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has long been hypocritical about coverage of the economy and how the media should cover it. During the Trump years, it attacked the non-right-wing media for allegedly talking down the economy:

• An April 2019 post by Julia Seymour huffed: "In spite of growing wages, extremely low unemployment and nearly 3 percent economic growth in 2018, the liberal media are becoming obsessed with recession. It didn’t matter that CFOs were confident the U.S. economy “will not experience a recession” in 2019. They were fixated by recession prospects in March anyway. Every. Single. Day."

• In August 2019, Ryan Foley hyped how "FNC host Martha MacCallum reported that 'fears of a recession seem to be running high and some in the media seem almost giddy that an economic downturn would hinder President Trump’s chances in 2020,'" adding that "MacCallum slammed the 'unpatriotic' and 'inhumane' media for rooting for a recession in the hopes that an economic downturn will cause him to lose re-election."
• In another August 2019 post, Kristine Marsh touted how Fox Business host Charles Payne complained about "how the media is now openly hoping for an economic recession under President Trump. Payne called the media’s newest obsession a 'deliberate' attempt to derail the good economy under Trump, and argued there was 'no economic data' to suggest a recession was near."
• An August 2019 post by Julia Seymour,noted that "Fox News MediaBuzz anchor Howard Kurtz had an important question for anchor Maria Bartiromo: could negative media talk damage the U.S. economy?" adding: "Her answer was yes. She argued that the media could impact consumers and their spending decisions and that could harm the economy and said, 'Yes, you can actually have the media talking us into a recession.'"
• Kyle Drennen grumbled in a September 2019 post about an ABC poll showing a "dramatic drop in the President’s approval rating" that "seems to be fueled by real concerns about the economy": "Following weeks of the media rooting for a recession to hurt Trump’s reelection chances, the ABC morning show appeared thrilled that tactic was working with some of its viewers."
• Then, in a January 2020 post, Trump cheerleader Joseph Vazquez crowed that "President Donald Trump’s economy has continued to stupefy prognosticators going into the new year," quoting one analyst calling it "nearly recession-proof." That certainly didn't age well, did it?

That concern over the media talking down the economy disappeared when a Democrat became president. The MRC rushed to blame President Biden for uneven economic numbers early in his presidency that are more logically blamed on uncertainty in the midst of a pandemic -- a pattern it kept up throughout 2021. In a June 23 post, Kevin Tober actually attacked a MSNBC host for using the same argument that the MRC was praising Fox News hosts for using about whether the media can talk down the economy, while going ont to, yes, talk down the economy:

On Wednesday’s The 11th Hour on MSNBC, in her discussion with NPR business correspondent David Gura, host Stephanie Ruhle proved once again that she knows very little about economics or even basic business. While Americans are suffering under crushing inflationary pressures, Ruhle let the Biden administration off the hook and claimed the media and people with political agendas are leading the United States into a recession and enabling businesses to use the constant drum beat of inflation chatter as an excuse to raise prices. 

While Ruhle did tacitly admit that the amount of stimulus pumped into the economy helped lead to the forty-year high inflation, she excused the spending because we were in a once-in-a-century pandemic.

[...]

Ruhle then jumped in to claim her audience who she just whipped up into a panic, by explaining “a recession does not mean the great depression, they happen, they happen every few years. Sometimes for a long period, time sometimes for a short period of time, it is a normal part of our economic cycle.”

That is comforting to Americans who will lose their jobs if there is a recession to know that it could last for a “short period of time.”

We've also noted how the MRC has been quick to scream "recession!" -- indeed, it was rooting for one even though one definition of it, two straight quarters of non-positive GDP, had not even been confirmed yet. In a July 26 post before that number came out, Jeffrey Clark lashed out at a Biden economic adviser -- who he denigrated as a "lackey" in his headline -- for committing the apparent heresy of arguing that two straight quarters of negative GDP might not be the only standard:

President Joe Biden’s chief economic advisor claimed that the economy is “demonstrating resilience” and attempted to split hairs over the definition of a recession to protect his boss at the expense of the American people. 

Asked whether a recession was coming, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese nitpicked the “technical definition” of a recession on the July 25 edition of CNN’s New Day with John Berman and Brianna Keilar. “Certainly, in terms of the technical definition, it’s not a recession, the technical definition considers a much broader spectrum of data points.” Deese did not provide an example of the “broader spectrum of data points” to fit his spin.

[...]

And to Deese’s gaslighting on the economy, U.S. GDP fell 1.4 percent in the first quarter of the year, according to CNBC. If GDP falls once again — as the entire country will learn this Thursday — then the U.S. will enter a recession. But that seems to be a very inconvenient truth for the Biden administration.

When the GDP numbers finally did come in and showed a second  straight quarter of negative growth, Clark returned with a July 28 post under screaming headline "RECESSION":

Four liberal outlets peered into their crystal balls and declared that the economy would show signs of growth, not shrinkage, just days and weeks ahead of the government’s second-quarter GDP report. 

There was just one problem with that sordid attempt to get out in front of the news: The economy ended up contracting for a second quarter in a row, meeting the practical and long-held definition of a recession.

Bloomberg News, CNN, Reuters and MarketWatch promoted absurd predictions that the economy would expand in the second quarter, not contract. The federal government’s GDP statistics released this morning proved every single one of these outlets completely wrong.

Clark didn't explain how not pushing right-wing narratives about the economy made all four of those outlets "liberal." Still, he huffed that "These stories followed a barrage of articles from the liberal pravda machine attempting to shield President Joe Biden from any responsibility for a recession." As if Clark wasn't working for a right-wing pravda in talking down the economy.

A July 29 post by Vazquez whined that PolitiFact and even Siri wouldn't adhere to the newly preferred rigid right-wing definition of a recession:

Facebook fact-checker PolitiFact played the role of the village idiot by fact-checking an Instagram post that dared to slam the Biden White House for redefining the word “recession.”

PolitiFact ran one of its so-called “fact-checks” July 27 with a headline that blared: “No, the White House didn’t change the definition of ‘recession.’” PolitiFact senior correspondent Louis Jacobson chose to attack an Instagram post that used Siri to define the meaning of a recession. “The White House is now trying to protect Joe Biden by changing the definition of the word recession,” said Dear America podcast host Graham Allen. Allen then asked Apple's Siri, which defined recession as a “period of temporary economic decline” that is “generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters.” But Jacobson, in all his wisdom, accused Siri of having just “plucked” the definition from an “online dictionary." “ This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed,” Jacobson squealed.

Vazquez found a biased economist from the libertarian American Institute for Economic Research Research to complain that the National Bureau of Economic Research is not "the official arbiter of recessions," as PolitiFact suggested.

Tim Graham grumbled in a post promoting his July 29 podcast on the subject:

When the fact emerged that we've had two quarters of negative economic growth, marking a recession, the so-called "reality-based press" suddenly folded and let the Biden people "push back" at reality.

Let's talk about recession denialism. Recession denial is worse than "climate denial." There's a traditional definition by economists that now is all "informal" and "not definitive."

Graham didn't mention that he and his employer have been working to make "misinformation" a subjective thing lest he and his fellow right-wingers be accused of spreading it.

That was echoed in a July 30 column by Jeffrey Lord, under the headline "Journalists Tank Their Remaining Credibility With Recession Denial":

As noted here in NewsBusters, the liberal media’s reflex to protect Biden is yet again on display, this time with the Biden problem being that yes, indeed, the U.S. has just experienced two quarters of negative economic growth — considered by economists as the official sign the US is in a recession. (For more, see Accuracy in Media's comprehensive round-up of media spin.) 

But wait! That’s Joe Biden in the White House, not Trump or some other Republican! The media has quickly rolled out its latest “protect Joe” campaign.

Says the guy who spent years protecting Donald Trump and has tanked what little credibility he has by defending the corrupt, falsehood-laden right-wing channel One America News.

Clark then showed how much more important pushing a political narrative is to him by using an Aug. 3 post to promote another discredited activist: "Glenn Beck RIPS Biden: The President ‘Refuses to Recognize Truth’ on Recession, Inflation." On at the MRC would a charlatan like Beck be considered a credible observer.

Newsmax Continues To Take Shots At Its Fox News Competition
Topic: Newsmax

Newsmax loves to take shots at its much bigger competitor, Fox News, by trying to portray it as insufficiently right-wing and pro-Trump. It has continued to do so. Dick Morris delivered in a July 28 Newsmax TV appearance:

Rupert Murdoch's media empire is only hurting itself, not former President Donald Trump, by turning away from him in the wake of the Jan. 6 committee hearings, political strategist and author Dick Morris told Newsmax.

"I don't know if it will have an impact on Trump, but I think it will have a big impact for Fox News," Morris, the host of Newsmax's show "Dick Morris Democracy" and author of the bestselling "The Return: Trump's Big 2024 Comeback," said on Newsmax's "Prime News" Tuesday night. "I think that the Murdoch policy, which is making Fox flip and turn on a dime, is going to really hurt them.

"You know, Trump is very popular with the Republican base and is going to win that nomination, overwhelmingly. I don't think he'll even have a primary fight, and I think Murdoch is making a big mistake."

Morris' comments were in response to an opinion piece on Politico that said Murdoch is "finally done" with Trump and points out not only Fox News but opinion pieces in the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal and the New York Post that criticized Trump and show the media giants have "viciously" turned against him, potentially in favor of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Fox News has quit covering Trump's rallies and did not cover his speech in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, said Morris, adding that only a couple of the network's stars, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, are still pro-Trump, but Brett Baier is "openly hostile" to the former president.

Newsmax, of course, remains in full Trump suck-up mode -- particularly Morris, who has a new pro-Trump book to sell.

A couple days later, Rudy Giuliani popped up on Newsmax TV to similarly whine about Fox News:

Fox News' shadow ban of former President Donald Trump shows it is feeding into anti-Trump propaganda of the House Jan. 6 Select Committee "liars" over the Trump truth-tellers, Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani told Newsmax.

"I don't get how they're buying into the Jan. 6 committee fraud — I mean, completely fraudulent committee," Giuliani told "Saturday Report=." "Look, the people on the Jan. 6 committee are the same ones that told us that there was Russian collusion. Trump and I — and the people that Fox apparently is banning — said there wasn't any Russian coalition. The people running the Jan. 6 committee were lying about that, and we were telling the truth.

[...]

Giuliani noted Fox News' reported ban of Trump comes less than a year after the network blocked him from appearing to talk about the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attacks on New York.

"They blacked me out, or banned me, for I don't know how long," Giuliani said of "interviewing me, mentioning me," adding it has continued through attempts to cover raging New York crime and ignoring the former mayor who once had it held in check.

"And of course, they're covering crime in the city, and the person who probably knows the most in New York City about crime is me, and they will never put me on," he continued.

The same day, Eric Mack wrote an article hyping that "The New York Times is reporting that Fox News has not had Donald Trump on its network in over 100 days, which the paper said was part of a larger strategy to eliminate the former president as a major GOP player." He then promoted Morris' book claim that "Trump will easily win the upcoming Republican primary, but is the only GOP candidate who can win against the Democrats in 2024" -- but he didn't mention that Newsmax published Morris' book.

For an Aug. 1 article, Newsmax found a "roving media critic" to help it trash Fox News for not liking Trump enough:

Fox News' decision to ignore or shun former President Donald Trump is "not surprising," roving media critic and former New York City Commissioner Brian Andersson says.

Last Friday, The New York Times reported Fox News has decided to downplay Trump and has not had him on-air for over 100 days.

"I would say they are shunning him," Andersson told Newsmax's "John Bachman Now," predicting Fox News will very occasionally have Trump on air.

Newsmax surprisingly had on a New York Times reporter on Aug. 2 -- though he was there to talk smack about Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a particular Newsmax target for siding with Russia in its war against Ukraine:

Days after reporting on Fox News' shadow ban of former President Donald Trump, The New York Times' Jeremy Peters told Newsmax's Eric Bolling on Monday night that star host Tucker Carlson didn't vote for Trump and thinks little of his supporters.

Videos surfaced over the weekend of Carlson laughing it up with Trump at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf course as supporters broke out into boisterous "Let's go, Brandon" cheers.

But Peters insists Carlson is not a Trump fan.

"There are a lot of people, Eric, who snicker behind Trump's back, who say that they support him publicly and they like his ideas, and they like him, but privately, it's a different story," Peters said.

"In private, what [Carlson] says about Trump is very different than what he says about Trump in public, and it benefits him to be seen having photos taken with Trump at the golf course and everything," Peters said.

Peters ultimately argued, however, that the alleged war between Fox News and Trump is at least somewhat contrived:

Both Fox News and Trump ultimately benefit from the ongoing tension, Peters continued.

"The media loves tension," the Times media analyst said. "We love stories about fights, especially, if you're in my position: fights among Republicans."

Trump and Fox News have had a long contentious relationship, including the 2016 presidential campaign and the 2020 presidential election night coverage, but one where both need each other, according to Peters.

That's probably close to Newsmax will come to admitting that it may be hyping tension between Fox News and Trump so that Trump ultimately benefits.

WND Columnists Freak Out Over Mar-a-Lago Raid
Topic: WorldNetDaily

We've shown how WorldNetDaily's "news" coverage of the FBI search at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago compound was highly biased. Its pro-Truum popinion columnists were even more hyperbolic. Here's a sample:

Fresh off the Democratic Party empowering the Internal Revenue Service with 87,000 new agents, many of them armed to the teeth, the FBI conducted one of its famous early morning raids – the first ever against a former president, the one widely thought to have been cheated out of the last election, the popular Donald J. Trump.

It was one of darkest days in America – Aug. 8.

It came on the anniversary of another dark day – exactly one year to the date that 18 RINO senators joined the Democrats to break a filibuster and advance the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill to a final vote, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell joining the Democratic majority.

These are the betrayers of America, the Deep State. They include ALL elected Democrats, the intelligence agencies and much of the federal bureaucracy, which is at war with the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and decency. These are people who are at war with America.

The unprecedented raid of Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago, his castle, was slammed hard by most Republicans for overwhelming evidence of abuse by Joe Biden and the Department of "Injustice" for political weaponization. But not McConnell. He's part of the Deep State.

[...]

The date of the raid also coincided with the date of Richard Nixon's televised resignation for Watergate.

If Donald Trump's home is not safe from this kind of raid by the FBI, is anybody's home safe? Of course not. America has indeed become North Korea or China.

What's the answer? We must give a stunning victory to the new brand of Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections. Then we must we must return Trump to the presidency by 2024. And then we must remember how Democrats reigned like they did – like fascists – when they had the chance.

Remember in November – or we may not have another chance.

-- Joseph Farah, Aug. 9 column

By launching a surprise attack on President Trump's home in Florida, while Trump was away, the Biden administration has breached even its own low standard for decency. Biden's Attorney General Merrick Garland should resign immediately for allowing it.

[...]

No, the real reason for this raid on Trump is as plain as the advancing dementia on Joe Biden’s addled face. With each successful election result this year, Trump is on track to win back the White House in 2024, and panicky Democrats are exploiting their control of the federal government to try to prevent that from happening.

-- Andy Schlafly, Aug. 9 column

Having watched the Department of Justice in action these last 20 or so years, I see the raid on Mar-a-Lago as unprecedented only in its conspicuousness.

After Al Gore's bitter loss in 2000, Democrats across the board have dedicated themselves to bureaucratic sedition, enabled by an equally embittered and increasingly imbalanced media.

The FBI and the Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI, are riddled with leftist careerists, many of them in key positions. The symptoms of rot have been hard to avoid since at least 2004.

-- Jack Cashill, Aug. 10 column

Without the raid, the media would be forced to continue to focus on inflation and economic disaster, the classroom chaos brought by a communist-spawned CRT curriculum, the death and destruction wrought by the criminal class, repeated foreign-policy debacles, the abandonment of America's borders, massive homelessness, record drug abuse and general failure of the Democratic Party in Congress and the White House.

But with this raid, the media, which are 99.9% pure Democratic leftist, will be able to focus on their Nemesis, Donald Trump. Let the nightly shock and awe begin.

To make sure the scandal runs the up to Election Day, the U.S. Justice Department and FBI "will not comment" on "an ongoing investigation," which leaves the press free to speculate.

The press speculation will portray Donald Trump as the worst criminal in history. No insult will be left unsaid. As the partisan work of the faux Jan. 6 Committee fades into nothingness, like the two impeachment trials before it, the chief players in the justice system have set the table for a Democratic victory in November. A Nov. 8 victory is the Democrats' target, not Donald Trump.

[...]

A fair-minded person might ask, since Donald Trump had nothing to do with the packing of those boxes, why would he be held responsible for the content? If he knew there was classified material in those boxes, why did he grant access to the FBI? Since the boxes were in a secure, locked room, a room that had been locked according to the direction of FBI agents, how could Donald Trump be guilty of carelessness? If the content was not secure, since the FBI ordered a lock, the FBI is responsible.

--Mike Pottage, Aug. 15 column

Now, Donald Trump's home has been raided in an unprecedented move by 30 FBI agents. It's like a nightmare come true. No other president has had his post-White House estate invaded in an unannounced attack. It was sanctioned by Attorney General Merrick Garland – "the highest law enforcement official in the land," a joke!

The stakes just went up. He's been investigated more than any president without cause. There's nothing the left will not do him – nothing. He's enemy No. 1.

America loved this man. And this man loved America. That's why he scares the ruling class so much.

They won't be happy until he is gone – out of the public conversation. That's how they protect their interests.

-- Joseph Farah, Aug. 16 column

More than a week after the Gestapo-like raid of President Trump’s home, the Democrat-controlled Justice Department has disclosed nothing to justify the unprecedented action against America’s leading presidential candidate. As a first step among many to come, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., filed articles of impeachment against Attorney General Merrick Garland, who admitted that he approved the raid.

[...]

Garland's conduct is an affront to our democratic republic, and it improperly disrupts our upcoming elections in 2022 and 2024. His armed raid on the home of the leading presidential candidate while refusing to disclose the basis for it cannot stand.

[...]

Political prosecutions hide behind secrecy, and transparency would help stop them. There was no justification for federal agents to demand that Mar-a-Lago staff turn off the surveillance cameras so that the agents could violate limits on the scope of the warrant without accountability.

Despite the deliberate intimidation caused by more than 30 armed agents ransacking Trump’s home, his skeleton summer staff courageously refused the agents’ improper demand to turn off the cameras. Yet there remains no accountability for how federal agents tried to hide their own misconduct from surveillance.

-- Andy Schlafly, Aug. 16 column

 

NEW ARTICLE -- Doing It For Durham: The Sussmann Trial
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center returned to hype mode when right-leaning special counsel John Durham hauled a former Clinton campaign attorney into court on a flimsy charge of making a false statement -- then threw a fit when the jury acquitted him. Read more >>

MRC Quotes Militia-Loving Podcaster To Attack NewsGuard
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center found a new person to play victim of the allegely evil machinations of designated MRC enemy NewsGuard, a website rating service. Joseph Vazquez was the servile stenographer in an Aug. 10 post:

Podcast icon Tim Pool slapped leftist website ratings firm NewsGuard for making “false and misleading statements” about his website.

Pool took to Twitter to blast NewsGuard for its sloppy work: “News Guard has had to issue several corrections already on their false and misleading statements about Timcast.com.” In addition, Pool said the firm “fabricated a quote from me and they have not issued a correction notice in violation of their own correction policy.” NewsGuard’s label, which rates Timcast.com with a 82/100, rebuked the website for allegedly not gathering and presenting information “responsibly.” Talk about irony.

Vazquez is hiding a couple very important things here. First, Pool is a supporter of right-wing militias, making him yet another extremist whom the MRC is trying to mainstream in order to maintain its victimhood narrative of conservatives being "censored" by "big tech." Second, there's a reason NewsGuard called out Timcast: it has a history of plagiarism, as the Daily Beast documented, uniroinically stealing from the mainstream media Pool purports to hate. Indeed, two of the people who help Pool run the editorial side of Timcast are Hannah Claire Brimelow, daughter of white nationalist Peter Brimelow, operation of the white nationalist site VDARE, and Cassandra Fairbanks, whom the MRC defended after she was flagged after tweeting out a video she falsely claimed was evidence of election fraud. Pool only intermittently corrects information that appears on Timcast, usually only after the complaints get too loud to ignore.

Rather than address the plagiarism issue forthrightly, Vazquez let Pool play it off and helped him play whataboutism:

Pool is right on point. NewsGuard continues to rate the liberal newspaper USA Today with a perfect 100/100 score even after a major journalistic scandal involving at least 23 stories that included fabricated sources. Pool pointed out NewsGuard’s blatant double standard when it came to the legacy liberal newspaper:

NewsGuard says we are not responsible because out of 3,892 articles around 5 either were too similar to other outlets reporting or did not provide fact checks on quotes. They refuse to say USA Today, which admitted to fabricating 23 stories, is irresponsible.

NewsGuard’s label for USA Today hilariously praises the newspaper because it supposedly “[g]athers and presents information responsibly, “[d]oes not repeatedly publish false content” and “[r]egularly corrects or clarifies errors.” What a joke.

Perhaps that's because USA Today handled that issue like a professional news organization -- fired the reporter involved, deleted the stories and apologized to readers. Meanwhile, Pool is misrepresenting the number of plagiarized articles found at Timcast (which, of course, Vazquez made no effort to fact-check). The Daily Beast found four articles in a group of 84 to have been plagiarized as well as two later ones -- a far higher ratio than the 5-of-3,892 Pool claimed. They weren't deleted until the Daily Beast emailed Pool for comment. The reporter who wropte those did say he was fired for plagiarism only after, ironically, NewsGuard contacted Pool about them. Vazquez never mentioned that pertinent fact.

Vazquez went on to rehash the MRC's old exam[les of NewsGuard's purported "extreme leftist bias"; of course, Vazquez thinks anyone who's not as far-right as he is is an "extreme leftist."

Gabriela Pariseau gave Pool another opportunity to rant about NewsGuard in an Aug. 17 post, and let him repeat his false statements:

Fox News “Unfiltered” host Dan Bongino asked podcast host Tim Pool about his website’s recent clash with NewsGuard. “I think it’s a joke,” Pool said. “They gave us a good rating, but it is not a legitimate agency.”

NewsGuard is a browser extension that rates news supposedly on the basis of “credibility and transparency,” but Pool said he caught the website breaking its own criteria and basic journalistic ethics.

[...]

“They gave us one strike for irresponsibility,” Pool told Bongino. “They first emailed me questioning why I reported on the Hunter Biden laptop emails and my response was, ’Your agency certified two outlets that claimed the emails are verified. And they immediately said ‘oh, oh, whoops, whoopsy.’”

NewsGuard complained of multiple issues in several different Timcast.com articles when it rated the site. Pool said in one case, NewsGuard penalized Timcast for accurately reporting something that former President Donald Trump said. “They came and claimed that because we quoted Donald Trump in a factual news article on our website, Timcast.com, that it was irresponsible because Donald Trump is a liar and they said his quotes are provably false.” 

Pool told Bongino that he responded by saying, “We are not fact-checking what he said. We’re reporting he responded with a statement.” Pool also said he told NewsGuard he and his colleagues would “implement a new policy moving forward on all quotes to fact-check them all so we’re not being irresponsible.”

Pool noted his website has a “very good rating from NewsGuard” despite Timcast’s slightly tarnished score. He also tweeted that NewsGuard lowered Timcast’s score based on five articles which is concerning because wildly biased and openly inaccurate news sites–like BuzzFeedNews, USA Today, and The Nation–have perfect or near-perfect scores.

“NewsGuard says we are not responsible because out of 3,892 articles around 5 either were too similar to other outlets reporting or did not provide fact checks on quotes,” Pool tweeted. “They refuse to say USA Today, which admitted to fabricating 23 stories, is irresponsible.”

Like Vazquez, Pariseau did not fact-check any of Pool's claims.

In between those posts, Vazquez and Catherine Salgado teamed for an Aug. 12 post complaining that a NewsGuard adviser expressed an opinion they didn't like:

A former CIA director and NewsGuard advisor yesterday seemingly promoted the execution of former President Donald Trump on Twitter.

A Washington Post “exclusive” released Aug. 11 speculated that the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, Fla., estate to locate alleged missing nuclear documents. NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss tweeted shortly after the “exclusive” was released that the “Rosenbergs were convicted for giving U.S. nuclear secrets to Moscow, and were executed June 1953.” 

Retired Gen. Michael Hayden quote-tweeted Beschloss’s post with the comment, “Sounds about right.” 

Washington Examiner Justice Department reporter Jerry Dunleavy blasted Hayden and Beschloss for their apparent flirtation with killing a former president.

Vazquez didn't dispute that execution is an appropriate penalty for stealing classified documents, as the Rosenbergs were accused of doing and it appears that Trump has done, or why Trump should be let off with a less severe penalty simply because he's a "former president."

WND Flip-Flops, Suddenly Finds A Vaccine It Likes
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily has spent the past couple years spreading fear, misinformation and lies about vaccines in general and the COVID vaccines in particular. So it was a bit of a surprise to see this anonymously written Aug. 12 article:

Polio, extremely rare since the disease was virtually eradicated years ago, now has been detected in the sewage system in New York City, alarming state Health Commissioner Mary Bassett, according to a new report.

Bassett said local and federal officials are trying to determine how far it has spread, according to a report from CNBC.

The disease raged across the United States in the 1920s, when the Iron Lung machine was developed to assist breathing for patients who had been paralyzed by the health threat. Those encased a person's body, and created a negative air pressure, essentially "breathing" for the paralyzed victims.

[...]

The report noted some 14% of New York City children ages 6 months to 5 years have not finished their vaccination series against polio.

In fact, the report said there are some areas of the city where fewer than 70% of the children have fully vaccinations completed.

[...]

There is no cure, and one in 25 infected will develop viral meningitis and one in 200 will be paralyzed.

"The risk to New Yorkers is real but the defense is so simple – get vaccinated against polio," warned New York City Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan.

That's right -- WND has apparently found a vaccine it can support.

Newsmax Kept Up Post-Raid Pro-Trump Stenography
Topic: Newsmax

We've documented how Newsmax went into full Trump defense mode immediately after after the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago compound for classifed documents. It continued that defense mode for several days afterward. Its coverage on Aug. 11, three days after the raid, relegated Attorney General Merrick Garland's statement that he approved the raid to a wire story. featured the usual stenography of pro-Trump toadies:

• Rep. Babin to Newsmax: FBI Using Russian Secret Police Tactics in Trump 'Witch Hunt'
• Dershowitz to Newsmax: DOJ's Trump Warrant Should Be Made Public
• Trump Lawyer: Garland's Depiction of Mar-a-Lago Events Inaccurate
• Poll: 83 Percent of GOP Voters Say FBI Raid on Trump Increases Desire to Vote
• Rep. Nehls to Newsmax: Raid Another Attempt to Keep Trump Off 2024 Ballot
• Gov. Greg Abbott: Texas Will Hire Any 'Dissatisfied' FBI Agents
• Antonio Sabato Jr. to Newsmax: 'It Can Happen to Anybody' (no mention of the fact that this can and should happen to anyone who is similarly in wrongful possession of classified documents)
  

Newsmax did offer a little more balance this day, though: One article noted that "Former White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said 'somebody very close' to Donald Trump tipped off the FBI before the bureau's raid at Mar-a-Lago, another noted a Washington Post report that "classified documents relating to nuclear weapons" were being sought in the search, and yet another article surprisingly highlighted how hated Republican Rep. Liz Cheney "blasted her fellow GOP lawmakers for the ''sickening'' attacks they have directed at the FBI agents who executed a search warrant at former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, saying the comments are putting lives at risk."

The top stories on Aug. 12 involved the pro-Trump talking point of the day, that the classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago were supposedly declassified by Trump before he left office. One article touted how  Trump claimed he had "the power to classify and declassify documents," while another, by the apparently unironically named Charlie McCarthy, hyped that "White House documents that former President Donald Trump brought with him to Mar-a-Lago had been declassified, Trump allies said," while burying the balancing viewpoint that "Trump foes, however, reject the notion a president can declassify documents so easily" in the last few paragraphs of the article.McCarthy also whined that "Former CIA Director Michael Hayden made a comment on social media that seemed to promote execution for leakers of nuclear secrets."

Then it was Trump sycophancy time:

• Trump: FBI Playing Politics With Raid, Didn't Need to 'Seize' Anything
• Trump Calls 'Hoax' on Nuclear Documents Report, Urges Warrant Release
• Mar-a-Lago Raid Judge Donated to Obama, Recused From Trump Lawsuit
• Jim Jordan to Newsmax: Raid Shows 'Double Standard' at DOJ
• Rep. Donalds: Mar-a-Lago Raid Will Backfire on Biden, Dems in Midterms
• Giuliani to Newsmax: FBI 'Took Weekend in Palm Beach' Before Raiding Mar-a-Lago
• Paul Manafort to Newsmax: Dems Weaponizing FBI, DOJ to 'Destroy' Trump
• Rep. Mullin to Newsmax: FBI Needlessly Took Trump Search to 'Nuclear Level'

There was also one more piece of Trump misdirection stenography, courtesy of Jeffrey Rodack:

Former President Donald Trump said former President Barack Obama kept 33 million pages of documents, many of them classified, and speculated that quite a few pertained to nuclear weapons.

Trumps comments came in a statement released Friday: "President Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified. How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots."

A New York Post column claimed Tuesday that at the end of his presidency, Obama took 30 million pages of his administration's records, vowing to digitize them and put them online. The column, by author James Bovard, said the National Archives reveals that no pages have been digitized or disclosed.

In fact, the Obama records that were moved to Chicago are unclassified and remain in possession of the National Archives; the classified documents remain at a National Archives facility in Washington, D.C. Obama has no personal possession of any of those documents.

Newsmax served up more of the same on Aug. 13:

• Trump: 'Does Anybody Really Believe That the White House Didn't Know'?
• Trump Lawyer Habba to Newsmax: President Not Fazed by FBI Raid
• Rep. Waltz to Newsmax: Mar-a-Lago Search Politically Motivated
• Rudy Giuliani to Newsmax: Raid Warrant From Anti-Trump Judge
• Dershowitz to Newsmax: DOJ Wanted to Seize Jan. 6 Documents in Raid
  

It did, however, also publish a wire story noting a report that "A lawyer for former U.S. President Donald Trump signed a statement in June that said all classified material held in boxes at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence had been returned to the government" -- an apparent false statement, which governmental agencies tend to frown upon.

Even more pro-Trump stenography was delivered on Aug. 14:

• Seb Gorka to Newsmax: 'Bogus' Raid Won't Stop Trump in 2024
• Kash Patel: Trump's Long Been in 'Bureaucratic Battle' Over Classified Docs
• Tom Fitton to Newsmax: FBI Raid 'Wild Abuse of Power'
• Rand Paul Calls for Repeal of Espionage Act After FBI Raid
• Trump Requests Return of Materials Seized in FBI Raid Via Social Media

There was also an article on a statement by press secretary Karine Jean=Pierre that the White House is not interfering or otherwise "involved" in the investigation into Trump.

On Aug. 15, McCarthy returned to serve up some painfully unironic stenography of Trumpoffering "to do 'whatever I can to help the country' during 'a dangerous time' following the FBI's raid of his Mar-a-Lago home." and that the "temperature has to be brought down" McCarthy didn't mention, of course, that Trump is primarily responsible for raising that temperature -- even though a few hours earlier, he wrote an article touting Trump's inflammatory claim that the raid was "a 'sneak attack on democracy' that was conducted purely for political reasons." The usual cascade of Trump lackeys followed:

• DeSantis Slams FBI for Raiding Trump's Florida Home
• Jon Voight: 'Democrat Fools' Guilty of 'Lies, Tricks' After Trump Raid
• Trump Attorney to Newsmax: DOJ Against Independent Review
• Rep. Nehls to Newsmax: Mar-a-Lago Has 'Changed the Game'
• Rep. Biggs to Newsmax: FBI Crossed 'Rubicon' With Trump Raid
• Trump Says FBI 'Stole' His Passports, Predicts Raid Backlash Will Help GOP at Polls
• Rep. Mike Turner to Newsmax: 'Congress Needs to See FBI Search Affidavit'
• Trump Atty Christina Bobb: FBI Overstepped on Passports, Nuke Claims

And there was still more on Aug. 16:

• Trump: 'No Way to Justify' FBI Raid
• Garland Waited Weeks to Authorize Raid at Mar-a-Lago
• Trump Attorney Habba to Newsmax: 'Shocked' If Biden Didn't Know of Trump Raid
• Trump: FBI Raid 'Grabbed Everything' Like a 'Common Criminal'
• Manafort to Newsmax: Affidavit Will 'Expose the Corruption' of DOJ
• Trump Attorney Habba to Newsmax: Mar-a-Lago Raid a 'Spectacle' to Distract
• Dershowitz to Newsmax: Arresting Trump Won't Keep Him Out of 2024 Race
• WashPost: Swing Voters Say Politics Played Role in FBI Raid
• Trump Attorney Bobb to Newsmax: FBI, DOJ Quiet on Mar-a-Lago Raid Intent

Newsmax also served up a reader poll asking if the raid was "an abuse of power" and if FBI director Christopher Wray should resign, adding, "Newsmax will provide the results of this poll to major media outlets. Newsmax's results also will be shared with popular radio talk-show hosts across America." It's a meaningless poll nbecause it's an opt-in poll for a highly biased audience.

CNS' Jeffrey Still Implicitly Blaming Democrats For Federal Spending
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey is continuing his dishonest tradition of implicitly blaming Democrats for spending too much money and taking in too much revenue, even though he refused to offer any blame, implicit or explicit, to Donald Trump and Republicans for high deficits during his adminstration. He wrote in a June 10 article:

The federal government collected a record $3,374,629,000,000 in total taxes in the first eight months of fiscal 2022 (October through May), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

Before this year, the largest October-through-May federal tax collections came in fiscal 2021, when the Treasury collected $2,833,846,070,000 in total taxes in inflation-adjusted May 2022 dollars.

Jeffrey waited until much later in the article to admit that federal spending has actually decreased from last year:

While federal spending has declined this year from last year’s record high, this year’s spending in the first eight months of the fiscal year is still more than the federal government spent in the first eight months of any year prior to fiscal 2020 (when it spent $4,445,575,070,000 in constant May 2020 dollars).

Jeffrey went on to repeat previous complaints that Health and Human Services and Social Security take thelargest chunks of the budget while defense only comes in fourth.

Jeffrey updated the numbers for a July 18 article:

The federal government hauled in a record $3,835,390,000,000 in total taxes in the first nine months of fiscal 2022 (October through June), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

That was up $502,438,730,000—or 15.07 percent—from the then-record $3,332,951,270,000 (in constant June 2022 dollars) that the federal government collected in taxes in the first nine months of fiscal 2021.

Jeffrey repeated his complaint about spending priorities, but he didn't mention that spending has dropped from last year.

The numbers got another update for an Aug. 10 article:

The federal government collected a record $4,104,725,000,000 in total taxes in the first ten months of fiscal 2022 (October through July), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

That was up $503,787,000,000—or 13.9 percent—from the then-record $3,600,938,000,000 (in constant July 2022 dollars) that the Treasury collected in taxes in the first ten months of fiscal 2021.

Again, Jeffrey complained about spending priorities but censored that spending is lower than last year.

MRC Flip-Flops On Kansas Abortion Vote
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has been more than a bit sensitive about a vote in Kansas on a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow the state to ban abortion. When questions rose about the amendment's confusing language -- in which one must vote no to say yes to keeping the current rigtht to an abortion, and vice versa -- Alex Christy rushed to defend it in a July 23 post:

Kansas’s wording is not that confusing. The question is “the constitution of the state of Kansas does not require government funding of abortion and does not create or secure a right to abortion.”

If voters are genuinely confused by the inclusion of word “not,” then right beside the question on the state’s official voter guideon the question is the meaning of  yes and no votes. The measure also has to be worded that way, because pro-lifers are seeking to amend the state constitution in response to a Roe-like Kansas Supreme Court ruling.

Christy offered no proof that this was the reason the amendment "has to be worded that way." Indeed, given that the amendment is driven by right-wing anti-abortion ideologues, the confusing language is meant to be deliberate.

Christy returned for serve up the same unsupported defense in an Aug. 2 post complaining that "CNN Newsroom host Alisyn Camerota teamed up with pro-abortion activist Ashley All of Kansas for Constitutional Freedom to accuse pro-lifers of using trickery in the wording of the ballot measure.":

It is one thing to say this could be confusing, it is another to say this was some malicious trick played by pro-lifers, but that is exactly what Camerota suggested, “Is this intentionally convoluted?”

The correct answer is no. The Kansas Constitution, like the federal constitution, does not mention abortion anywhere, but that didn’t stop the state supreme court from saying that it does. Therefore, any amendment to reverse the Kansas Supreme Court’s ruling is going to have to include the word “not.” Any confusion is the fault of the activist court.

However, CNN viewers are not provided access to such inconvenient facts.

Again, Christy did not back up his claim, nor did explain how the Kansas Supreme Court was "activist" in issuing its ruling.

When the anti-abortion amendment was decisively defeated, the MRC switched to complaining that the defeat was considered news. Scott Whitlock complained in an Aug 3 post:

On Tuesday, a pro-life referendum in Kansas went down in defeat that would have removed abortion rights from the state’s constitution. Showing that there’s no bigger supporter of the abortion agenda than the liberal media, MSNBC devoted a whopping 65 minutes to touting the vote. And that was just in a 12 hour span. 

Whitlock quickly shifted to the MRC's usual whataboutism to distract from the anti-abortion movement's 50 years of violence and murder:

At 7:21 p.m. Eastern, far-left host Joy Reid talked about Kansas for 10 minutes and 51 seconds. She assailed the threat of violent pro-lifers: “Anti-abortion violence is a current domestic terrorism threat that began in the early 1970s. We're talking vandalism, arson, bombing, along with threats of harassment and intimidation.” 

In reality, it’s pro-abortion terror groups like Jane’s Revenge that fire bombed and committed arson against pro-life pregnancy centers. Of course, journalists weren’t interested in covering that.

Curtis Houck similarly complained that news shows were covering news in another post that day, which he bizarrely and hatefully described as a "celebration of murder":

The broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC were ebullient Wednesday morning as they basked in what they deemed a “resounding victory” and “earthquake” for abortion in Kansas as there was a “massive show of support” to defeat a referendum that would have given the state legislature the power to enact pro-life measures in the Sunflower State.

ABC’s Good Morning America co-host Robin Roberts hyped that “voters...[made] a statement about abortion rights” that would have “remove[d] protections” for women to kill their unborn child. Currently, Kansas law bans abortion after 20 weeks.

Co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos called it a “surprising” result on a referendum that must have “triggered a strong backlash” in “a deep red state where there are far more Republicans than Democrats.” 

Nowhere in ABC’s coverage (and on CBS and NBC) was the fact mentioned that not only does Kansas have a Democratic governor, but three of the last five have been Democrats.

Houck failed to mention the fact that the Kansas legislature is dominated by Republicans.

When "so-called 'Republican' Ana Navarro" quipped on CNN that the amendment lost because  "Republicans have young girls, young daughters who get pregnant too. Because Republicans have mistresses," the humor-impaired Kevin Tober refused to find that funny:

Of course, Navarro never explained how this amendment would take rights away. Neither did she provide any statistics that prove there are enough voters with “mistresses” to defeat a statewide ballot initiative. Nor did she explain what the two have to do with each other.

[...]

Nobody should be surprised at Navarro’s hateful and fact-free comments. One only has to be reminded that she once proclaimed that children in foster care and her disabled relatives should’ve been aborted<. This is the kind of person she is. She’s perfect for CNN & The View.

Christy was tapped for an Aug. 4 post again omplaining that news was reported:

The three main broadcast networks spent Thursday morning hyping the defeat of a pro-life Kansas ballot measure as “blowback” for the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling, left conservatives “flat-footed,” and has the potential to motivate Democrats to vote in November.

CBS Mornings/em> was the worst offender. Host David Begnaud introduced a report by Steven Portnoy by hyping, “The backlash to the Supreme Court's decision to throw Roe v. Wade has taken on new shapes. One day after Kansas voters rejected a measure to remove abortion rights from the state's constitution, President Biden announced a new executive order to assist abortion seekers.”

As part of his recorded report, Portnoy declared, “The loss has left conservatives flat-footed.”

Christy then tried to downplay the importance of the vote by insisting that Kansas merely voted to keep the status quo:

Portnoy also played up the idea that the Kansas vote proves Republicans are in trouble, “he defeat of the proposed constitutional amendment which was aimed at undoing the effects of a state Supreme Court decision girding abortion rights shows not only how the issue has galvanized Democrats, but how it could also threaten Republicans.”

To try to prove his point, Portnoy showed counties that voted for Donald Trump also voted against the amendment. For CBS, this shows abortion is popular, as University of Kansas political science Prof. Patrick Miller explained, “To those of us who watch politics, that abortion is not as polarizing as really we think… On this one issue when they were allowed the opportunity to vote on abortion they did so, and they expressed their preference.”

Kansas voted to leave things the way they are; it did not vote to embrace the Democratic line of no restrictions. If pro-lifers had put forth a more specific question, the results could’ve been very different.

Still, Portnoy then highlighted the four states that will have abortion-related ballot measures in November. One of those is Montana, where “Republicans have proposed an amendment requiring care for any infants that might survive attempted abortions.”

Surely, that cannot be considered controversial. No doubt the media will still try.

Well, yes, it can be considered controversial when those protections already exist and the the apparent goal of such legislation is to scare doctors out of performing abortions.

An Aug. 4 post by Jorge Bonilla began by ranting taht "Univision’s report on the Kansas ballot initiative regarding abortion simultaneously managed to disinform viewers, promote a pro-abortion agenda, and undermine our democratic institutions. It is not surprising, then, that Hispanics continue to lose trust in corporate media." Bonilla then contradicted his employer's previous narrative on ballot language by arguing the initiative lost because anti-abortion activists were confused:

Furthermore, no explanation is given with regard to the confusing ballot language, which was essentially a double negative and could’ve easily led a number of pro-lifers to believe that they were voting to ban abortion.

So now the amendment's language is an issue because anti-abortion forces lost? Bonilla didn't mention that anti-abortion forces wrote the amendment.

WND's 'News' Coverage Of Mar-a-Lago Raid Was Highly Biased
Topic: WorldNetDaily

It's sadly indicative of WorldNetDaily's aggressively right-wing bias that its initial "news" story on the Aug. 8 FBI search of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago compound, by Art Moore, leads with several paragraphs of Trump whining about it:

Former President Trump said Monday evening his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida, was "under siege" by a "large group" of FBI agents in a predawn raid.

"Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before," he wrote in a statement.

"After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate," Trump said. "It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don't want me to run for President in 2024, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do anything to stop Republicans and Conservatives in the upcoming Midterm Elections."

Trump said that such "an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries."

"Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before," Trump said.

He alleged the FBI agents broke into his safe.

What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democrat National Committee?" he asked. "Here, in reverse, Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States."

Moore's story is filled with quotes of outrage and speculation from Republicans and Trump toadies, including Alan Dershowitz -- he made no effort to quote anyone who wasn't, aside from a mention that "An FBI source confirmed to [Fox News] that FBI agents from Washington, D.C., conducted the raid.

Bob Unruh followed that with a hyperbolically alarmist claim by another trump toadie:

re Democrats in power in Washington under the Joe Biden administration capable of trying to assassinate President Donald Trump to prevent him from running in 2024?

A report in the Daily Mail reveals that former New York Police Department Commissioner Bernard Kerik believes they absolutely are.

"I would not put assassination beyond these people," he said, if the FBI raid this week on Trump's home fails to lead to criminal charges.

Kerik said he was "deathly afraid" for the former president when federal authorities, weaponized against their political foes by the Biden administration, went to Mar-a-Lago.

Unruh made no effort to make his article fair and balanced by seeking out other views pointing out Kerik's bizarre claims. He also didn't mention that Kerik is a convicted criminal who received a pardon from Trump.

Moore returned to uncritically spout right-wing talking points attacking the judge who signed off on the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago because he allegedly "was a donor to President Obama and represented employees of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein." Moore didn't mention that Dershowitz, whom he quoted in his initial article, was Epstein's defense attorney and, thus, has a much closer connection to Epstein than the judge did -- indeed, he was the guy who engineered "the controversial 2007 deal that allowed Epstein to plead guilty to state charges rather than federal crimes" that Moore referenced in this article. Funny that Moore didn't mention any of that when quoting Dershowitz defending Trump.

Unruh echoed his hyping of Kerik in an Aug. 12 article under the alarmist headline "Leftists now suggesting executions over Mar-a-Lago raid":

Kerik said he was "deathly afraid" for the former president when federal authorities, weaponized against their political foes by the Biden administration, went to Mar-a-Lago.

Those fears gained added substance on Friday when Michael Hayden, a government official under George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, "responded approvingly" to social media demands for "executions" for those who "spill nuclear secrets."

There have been claims that the FBI raided Trump's home in search of documents containing nuclear secrets. There also have been claims the FBI was there to hunt for anything Democrats could use against Trump in 2024, that the FBI planted evidence at Mar-a-Lago and even that the FBI planted listening devices there.

It is former CIA chief Michael Hayden who went on social media to endorse a suggestion for "executions" for those who spill nuclear weapons.

Unruh didn't explain how, exactly, a former CIA chief could be considered a "leftist" beyond noting that he endorsed Biden for president in 2020.