NEW ARTICLE: Accountability Makes The MRC Mad Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center spent the summer raging against the House committee hearings on the events leading up to the Capitol riot and parroting right-wing talking points, attacks and distractions. Read more >>
MRC Keeps Up The Musk-Fluffing, Embrances Anti-Twitter Whistleblower Topic: Media Research Center
The last time we checked in on the Media Research Center's hero worship of Elon Musk for trying to buy Twitter, it was getting over its disappointment over Musk pulling out of the Twitter deal and parroting his narrative that Twitter is lying about the number of bot accounts it has. But it has sinced found a new ally to champion in the form of a former Twitter employee. Joseph Vazquez gushed in an Aug. 23 post:
A former Twitter executive just blew the whistle against the Big Tech platform for allegedly ignoring serious cybersecurity problems and apparently misleading prospective owner Elon Musk on spam bots.
Both CNN and The Washington Post released stories documenting explosive allegations by former Twitter head of security Peiter “Mudge” Zatko.
Zatko’s whistleblower complaint, which both outlets reported was sent to Congress and other federal agencies, warned about “‘extreme, egregious deficiencies’ in its defenses against hackers, as well as its meager efforts to fight spam,” The Post summarized.
The complaint itself alleges that Twitter was “Lying about Bots to Elon Musk.” The Tesla CEO has been in a back-and-forth legal battle with Twitter over his announced intent to abandon his $44 billion acquisition bid after claiming the platform misled him about the amount of spam bots on the platform.
Unusually for the MRC, Vazquez did surprisingly report both sides of the story:
A Twitter spokesperson lashed back at Zatko in comments to CNN, in an apparent attempt to cover the company by painting him as an incompetent employee. “‘Mr. Zatko was fired from his senior executive role at Twitter for poor performance and ineffective leadership over six months ago,” the spokesperson said.
The company also added Zatko’s complaint was part of a “‘false narrative’” and was “‘riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies, and lacks important context.’”
The same day, a post by Jeffrey Clark cheered that "Tesla CEO Elon Musk subpoenaed former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, intensifying his ongoing legal battle with the social media giant over his intent to bail on his initial $44 billion acquisition offer," touting the whistleblower as"another possible boon for Musk’s case against Twitter" and gushing that "Musk seemingly referencedthe whistleblower news with a photo of Disney character Jiminy Cricket whistling: 'Give a Little Whistle.'"
Clark returned for an Aug. 26 item complaining that CNBC wasn't taking Zatko seriouesly enough for purposes of Musk and its own right-wing anti-"big tech" narratives:
Just one day after whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko made bombshell claims that Twitter has been “lying” about its security practices, CNBC appeared to downplay Zatko’s complaint in an interview. The outlet gave a platform to a law professor who absurdly claimed Zatko “basically” agreed with Twitter on how it counts users.
Squawk Box co-anchor Andrew Sorkin framed Zatko’s Twitter bashing as an inflated crisis: “This, in some ways, seemed like a bombshell,” Sorkin hedged. “Do we need to look at the bots the way Elon Musk is asking, or don’t we?”
Sorkin editorialized despite Zatko making several apparent revelations earlier this week about how Twitter calculates the percentage of spam accounts versus regular accounts on its platform. Zatko directly stated in a letter to Congress that Twitter was “Lying about Bots to Elon Musk.”
Sorkin’s guest, Tulane law professor Ann Lipton, argued on the Aug. 24 Squawk Box that Zatko’s Twitter bashing was actually “good for Twitter.”
Lipton seems to have cherry-picked a single phrase from Zatko’s redacted whistleblower complaint: “Twitter is already doing a decent job excluding spam bots and other worthless accounts from its calculation of mDAU.” But Lipton omitted the fact that Twitter’s mDAU calculation is designed to exclude spam bots.
Then it was time for more hero worship; an Aug. 29 post by Clark drooled over how Musk "called for more oil and gas production in order to maintain stability around the world as Europe and the United States suffer through the worst energy crisis in years" and how they "buck an ongoing liberal media obsession over climate change and Biden’s war against fossil fuels."
An Aug. 30 post by Autumn Johnson hyped that Musk "sent yet another letter giving Twitter notice that he intends to cancel the deal," adding that "Musk has long questioned the accuracy of the number of 'bot' accounts disclosed by Twitter."
A Sept. 13 post by Brian Bradley hyped Zatko's "BOMBSHELL Testimony!" befor a Senate committee, in which he alleged that "Twitter may have employed at least three foreign intelligence agents and kept Chinese Communist Party-linked advertising accounts on the platform despite employee objections." Bradley also made sure to note that "The whistleblower hearing comes amid increased outside scrutiny over the percentage of bots on the platform, as Tesla CEO Elon Musk has moved to exit a planned $44 billion acquisition of the company."
Johnson took Musk's side yet again in a Sept. 14 post on Twitter shareholders approving the deal whether Musk wants to or not:
Despite contentious legal battles, Twitter’s shareholders approved Elon Musk’s deal to purchase the platform for $44 billion.
The Verge reported Tuesday that the company confirmed it has enough votes to approve the purchase. Musk, however, shows no signs of backing down amid a protracted legal battle with Twitter.
NewsBusters reported in August that the Tesla CEO said the deal will go through if Twitter provides proof that its reported numbers of “real” accounts on the platform are accurate.
“If Twitter simply provides their method of sampling 100 accounts and how they’re confirmed to be real, the deal should proceed on original terms," Musk tweeted. "However, if it turns out that their SEC filings are materially false, then it should not.”
The next day, Vazquez cheered a right-wing author who praised Musk:
Woke Inc. author Vivek Ramaswamy didn’t mince words about the impact the world’s richest man had in giving shareholders a voice to fight the censors at Twitter.
The Strive Asset Management executive chairman joined the Sept. 14 edition of Fox News’s America’s Newsroom and said that even if Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter doesn’t go through, his bid opened new ground for Americans to fight back against Big Tech censorship.
“He has paved the way for shareholders exercising their voice in the boardrooms of these companies,” Ramswamy told Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer.
“Most of the owners of these public companies, including Twitter, are the everyday citizens of this country through other funds managed by [left-wing hedge funds] BlackRock and State Street and Vanguard that together, historically, have exercised the vote.”
Johnson returend for a Sept. 20 post on Dorsey's deposition, calling it "the latest news in the contentious legal battle that will determine whether the Tesla CEO will be forced to go through with the original $44 billion deal." She then rehashed a lot of anti-Twitter content the MRC has previously published.
No, Really: WND Used Stock Photo Of Watermelons To Illustrate Story On Black Farmers Topic: WorldNetDaily
Doesn't anyone double-check anything at WorldNetDaily?
WND republished a Sept. 26 Daily Caller News Foundation story on how "The Democrats’ massive climate spending and tax bill gave the Department of Agriculture (USDA) $2.2 billion in loans to pay farmers, many of whom are black, who have previously been denied USDA loans due to discrimination." That's not an issue: The issue is that WND chose to illustrate the story with a stock phot of watermelons. No, really -- here's a screenshot:
Tying black people to watermelons to black people is, of course, a horribly racist stereotype. And you can't blame the Daily Caller for this; there is no photo linked to the story on its website and the story itself does not even mention watermelons, let alone black farmers growing them.
That's the kind of unforeced error that keeps people from taking WND seriously as a "news" organization, no matter how fervently Joseph Farah wants us to believe otherwise.
Newsmax Columnists Rage Against Mar-a-Lago Raid Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax's coverage of the FBI raid at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago has been relentlesslypro-Trump and anti-authority, so it stands to reason that its commentary about the raid would be even more so. Michael Grimm used his Aug. 9 column to call for the death of the FBI:
When I became an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, more than 31 years ago, I was overjoyed. I was proud to have graduated from Quantico, becoming a newly appointed special agent — that was in 1995.
Sadly, over the years and decades, I have witnessed (first-hand) what amounts to the death of the FBI. My sadness now overshadows the treasured, fond memories of working good cases with fellow patriots, as most street agents were.
Now as I write this (and for quite some time) I can’t help but be embarrassed about my association with the agency. The bureau of today has morphed — and degenerated into — nothing more than a political cudgel to bludgeon opponents, deceive the American public, and win elections.
Jumping to the present day, when the FBI/Department of Justice (DOJ) executed the search warrant on Mar-a-Lago, the home of former President Trump and his family, it was a death-knell for any and all credibility barely remaining in both institutions.
It was one small step for liberals that fear Trump’s return and one giant leap for the banana republic America is very rapidly transforming itself into.
[...]
To be certain, there are still some great, brave field agents, but the bureau, as a whole, is no more.
May it rest in peace.
Grimm's defense of Trump is that his hoarding of classified documents and refusal to return them to their rightful owners, the U.S. government, was a "technicality."
The unbridled abuse of power by the Justice Department, coming just three months before a midterm election is unlikely to have the effect on voters that Democrats and the Biden administration think it will.
The intention may be to demonstrate to voters that Trump and Republicans are corrupt. But voters will see where the real corruption lies — in the White House, the Democratic Party, and the Justice Department headed by Attorney General Garland.
As Thomas Jefferson noted, "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."
Dorstewitz also repeated the right-wing lie that the DOJ was "Labeling concerned parents who speak out at school board meetings as domestic terrorists." As we've documented,only parents who threatened school board members were labeled as such. Is Dorstewitz saying that violent threats are protected speech?
Larry Bell ranted about the purportedly "weaponized" FBI in an Aug. 11 column, going on to play the ol' Clinton Equivocation:
Launching a police state assault on a leading political figure just three months before critical midterm elections is a politically partisan outrage of third world banana republic proportions which will discredit public trust in the FBI for decades to come.
[...]
There was also no comparable DOJ or FBI interest in pursuing clear evidence that Hillary Clinton had deleted 33,000 emails — many containing national security-sensitive classified information subpoenaed by Congress following her term as Secretary of State — going so far as having some records “wiped with BleachBit,&rdquo and cellphones destroyed with hammers.
Any thought of the FBI invading the Clinton’s Chappaqua home to seize documents would have been unthinkable, even though they might possibly also have investigated any Clinton Foundation influence in a 2010 deal which allowed the Russian nuclear energy agency Rosatom to acquire a controlling stake in Uranium One, a Canadian-based company with mining operations in the Western United States.
First: Hillary's classified email controversy was much different than Trump's hoarding of classified documents. Second: There's no credible evidence that Hillary ever engaged in such a scheme, and a total of nine federal agencies signed off on the Rosatom-Uranium One deal, not just Hillary.
Bell returned for an Aug. 15 column to whine some more about the raid ahd portray it as a distraction from Hunter Biden:
Many have legitimate reasons to suspect that political and media pressures on Merrick Garland to indict Donald Trump on anything ahead of 2024 presidential elections may tie the raid on his quarters as part of a House committee investigation fishing expedition for evidence.
Unless Trump’s charged offense is proven to present a serious risk to national security, at least half of the nation is likely to see the raid only as blatant proof of unequal two-tier justice.
The Mar-a-Lago invasion came at a particularly perilous political time for Joe Biden and his administration as the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware reportedly nears a decision on whether to charge Hunter Biden with alleged criminal tax evasion and money laundering.
In his Aug. 19 column, Dorstewitz declared that "there’s no evidence to suggest that either the former president or his lawyers were in any manner uncooperative with federal authorities." That didn't age well; it was revealed a couple weeks later that Trump's lawyers claimed -- falsely, it appears -- that they had returned all classified documents ac ouple months before the raid. He continued to rant, spouting the right-wing talking points du jour:
The search warrant was executed by the same FBI that lied on four applications for FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign. This was also the same FBI that pushed the legitimacy of the Steele dossier, knowing full well that it was little more than a work of fiction.
DOJ lawyers argued Thursday that release of the affidavit would compromise the investigation into Trump’s mishandling of classified material.
Would that be the same “ mishandling of classified material,” for example, as using a private, nonsecure email server to send and receive classified State Department information and deleting 33,000 emails?
Dorstewitz's Aug. 22 column brought up the completely unrelated case of how "In 2012 the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit to compel the National Archives and Records Administration to seize hours of audio tapes former President Bill Clinton kept in his sock drawer." Dorstewitz obscured the fact that the tapes were made by historian Taylor Branch, not Clinton, and that they have largely been in Branch's c ustody ever sincel.
CNS' Coverage Of Biden Student Loan Forgiveness Plan Laden With Right-Wing Attacks Topic: CNSNews.com
As talk of President Biden possibly forgiving student loans heated up over the summer, CNSNews.com cranked out articles repeating right-wing attacks on the idea:
It wasn't until an Aug. 25 article that Jones got around to quoting Biden himself talking about it -- and, as usual, she included editorial comments despite claiming to be a reporter. After mentioning the income limits, she parentheticallysnarked; "But note the income levels above -- $125,000 or $250,000 – the new 'working class'?"
Craig Bannister complained that Biden's plan caused hated Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez "to post a celebratory tweet and flashback video" stating that "“Student loan debt is immoral." He added "While Biden’s move frees some Americans from their student loan debt, it forces American taxpayers to pick up the hefty tab, Fox News notes."
Another article by Jones groused that Biden adviser Susan Rice congratulated people who paid off their student loans and won't give a number on how much the forgiveness plan would cost. That was followed by another article simiarly grousing that Education Secretary Miguel Cardona "said the 'targeted' relief will help everyone, including those who have repaid their loans."
Jones went on to play gotcha with Pelosi, rehashing the earlier "flashback" article:
In a statement on Wednesday following President Biden's announcement on student debt relief, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hailed the move by the executive branch:
“President Biden’s bold action is a strong step in Democrats’ fight to expand access to higher education and empower every American to reach fulfillment," she wrote:
[...]
Contrast her approval of Biden's announcement with what Pelosi said last year.
CNS then served up more right-wing attacks on both the "news" and editorial side:
Jones snarked some more in an Aug. 26 "news" article: "No one knows for sure how much President Biden's student loan forgiveness plan will cost. But reporters keep on asking." She then rehashed a column by her boss, Terry Jeffrey, accusing Biden of spending toomuch money; as we've documented, Jeffrey's metricsconveniently omitted the trillions of dollars in debt racked up under Donald Trump.
Jones worked to put the "liberal" stamp on student loan forgiveness in an Aug. 29 article, hyping that "Both Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) say debt forgiveness was the right thing to do, and they both advocate making public colleges and universities tuition-free."
Jeffrey returned with an Aug. 31 column falsely accusing Biden's plan of" transferring wealth from people who earn less to people who earn more." In fact, most of the debt relief will be seen by lower-income Americans. Nevertheless, he ranted:
It is not an act of compassion, but of theft.
It unjustly transfers wealth from Americans who did not go to college to those who did, and from Americans (and their families) who did pay for their college and gives it to colleges that charge too much and to former students who will now pay less than they owe.
It is an elitist expansion of the welfare state.
Managing editor Michael W. Chapman belatedly served up an Aug. 30 article summarizing how "Many conservatives and Republicans denounced President Joe Biden's plan to transfer student loan to the U.S. taxpayers, an action that could cost over $600 billion." Chapman simply served up lazy stenography and made no effort to verify or fact-check the claims of his fellow ideologues.
MRC's Sports Bloggers Continue Their Anti-Vaxxer Stances Topic: Media Research Center
The COVID pandemic may be starting to fade, but the Media Research Center's sports bloggers kept up their factually deficientanti-vaccinestances over the summer and cheered athletes who selfishly refused to get one.
In a July 29 post, John Simmons cheered the selfishness of a Boston Red Sox pitcher who may have cost his team a win because he refused ot get vaccinated and, thus, could not join his team when they played in Toronto because Canada requires visitors to be vaccinated:
Last night, the Toronto Blue Jays defeated the Boston Red Sox, 6-5, thanks to a walk-off single by first baseman Valdimir Guerrero Jr in the bottom of the ninth. The close loss itself was frustrating for Sox fans and media, but Boston sports reporters are furious at the outcome for another reason.
Pitcher Tanner Houck has earned the role of closer for the Red Sox in recent weeks, and currently has six saves on the season. But he was not available to close out the tight game for the Red Sox on Tuesday because he is unvaccinated, and Canada still has strict vaccination laws in place. Houck has not traveled with the team to Canada this year and cannot until he is vaccinated or Canada comes to its senses.
Houck has made his choice in the name of personal freedom -- something all Americans should do -- and is currently not violating any MLB regulations regarding the vaccine (the MLB required coaching personnel to be up to date with booster shots at the start of the season but did not require that for players). But even that wasn’t good enough for the infamously ruthless Boston sports media, who viciously tore apart Houck on Twitter for “forsaking his team” and ended up blaming the loss on him.
[...]
So the media can blame Houck all they want and try to make him feel guilty for his decision, but it’s not his fault and he should be respected for how he is carrying himself. The Red Sox will simply have to find a way to win without him in Toronto.
Simmons offered no valid reason why it's some sort of bold and principled stance for Houck to refuse to get vaccinated, especially given that his teammates did the responsible thing and got vaccinated without any apparent ill effects-- and, no "personal freedom" is not an excuse, especially when Simmons attacks other athletes who express their personal freedom via political views (that he opposes) that have no effect whatsoever on what happens on the field or court.
Simmons defended another selfish baseball player who couldn't play in Toronto in a July 14 post:
The Philadelphia Phillies will conclude their two-game series in Toronto against the Blue Jays tonight, but they've done so without four of their top players. Catcher J.T. Realmuto is one of them, but he doesn't regret his decision to remain unvaccinated.
"I'm a healthy 31-year-old professional athlete, and I just didn't feel a need to get [the vaccine]," he said. "I've had COVID a couple of times [with] super-mild symptoms back when it first came out, and when it came time to decide whether I needed the vaccine or not, I talked with doctors that I knew and told them my story and just really decided I didn't think I needed it. I wasn't gonna take it just 'cause I was told to, basically."
Realmuto’s logic echoes that of Boston Red Sox pitcher Tanner Houck, who was also barred from crossing into Canada in recent weeks due to his unvaccinated status.
Like Houck, Realmuto has been subject to the media trying to frame him as a disloyal teammate. Thankfully, those within the Phillies clubhouse are coming to the aid of their catcher, whose opinions are the only ones that Realmuto should concern himself with.
Again, Simmons cited no evidence that any other responsibly vaccinated Phillies player has suffered any ill effects from the vaccine, which undercuts any argument Realmuto is making.
Simmons spent an Aug. 31 post whining that the NBA will keep some COVID testing protocols:
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is run by idiots.
The league released a memo stating that all unvaccinated players and team personnel will have to ndergo weekly testing, although there is some nuance to the mandate. The announcement tracks with what commissioner Adam Silver said at a meeting in July in which he expected the league to do before the season kicks off in October.
“It looks like we’ll be on our normal track in terms of when the season starts, in terms of our protocols around the game, particularly around the health and safety of our players,” Silver said at the NBA’s Board of Governors meeting in mid-July. “I have learned over the last 2 1/2 years not to make any predictions when it comes to COVID, but only to say we’ll be prepared for anything that comes our way.”
Anything, that is, except for the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) announcement earlier this month.
Despite lying to the American public for nearly three years about the “benefits” of getting vaccinated and the “risk” of not doing so, the CDC announced that there is no difference between unvaccinated and vaccinated individuals with regard to the coronavirus.
[...]
Mind you, this is the same league that made Kyrie Irving an outcast because he did not want to get vaccinated, and that ridiculed anyone who did not hop on board with the social justice bandwagon they unashamedly support. So it makes sense that the league would take this step even though there is absolutely no need for it anymore.
It’s commonplace for the NBA to make stupid decisions these days, but even this is quite ridiculous for a league led by morons.
Only in thehfevered, hateful brain of Simmons is trying to protect people from a pandemic that has killed more than1 million Americans be considered ridiculous and moronic.
By contrast, Simmons cheered in a Sept. 21 post that "Reports suggest that Canada will likely drop its vaccine requirements for people entering the country by the end of the month. Should this become official, it will undoubtedly be great news for unvaccinated athletes that, to this point, have been prevented from playing games in Canada."
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-- also worked to portray unvaccinated athletes as victims instead of the selfish players they are. He (or she) complained in a May 15 post that NBA star Kyrie Irving is paying the price for his selfishness:
Unvaccinated and politically incorrect, Brooklyn Nets basketball star Kyrie Irving is on the verge of losing his lucrative Nike contract. ESPN reported that Nike is unlikely to extend Irving’s signature shoe deal beyond the 2022-23 season due to “uncertainties surrounding his NBA future.” Also, the Nets are non-committal on giving the seven-time all-star a long-term contract.
Irving has a long history with Nike, and his basketball shoes are one of the top-selling Swoosh products. The talented guard ran afoul of woke vaccination nuts in New York and Canada during the 2021-22 NBA season and he was only allowed to play in road and playoff games. He and Nike appear headed for a divorce.
[...]
Who caused COVID-related turbulence in America’s workplaces? The government and corporations threatening the livelihoods of many employees by taking a vaccination-or-get lost attitude. This despite a 98.8-percent survival rate of COVID sufferers.
Maxson unsprisingly didn't mention that nearly one in five Amercians who have contracted COVID have lingering symptoms for weeks or months -- known as long COVID -- or that vaccines can reduce the risk of long COVID.
Another consequence of being unvaccinated is people making less-than- charitable remarks about it, and Maxson was upset in an Aug. 8 post when NFL star Aaron Rodgers -- whom Maxson defended after he lied to American about his vaccination status -- got humorously called out for it to his face:
It’s been a year since Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers told the world he had been inoculated – but not vaccinated – against COVID. When he contracted the coronavirus in November, media ganged up on him en masse and cancelled him. Based on Rodgers’ remarks today he’s still smarting from that attack and is in no joking mood about the firestorm that surrounded him last year.
Rodgers appeared today on the Barstool Sports podcast Pardon My Take, hosted by Dan “Big Cat” Katz and Eric Sollenberger. They made a joke about the extremes the media went to in canceling him.:
How many people do you think you killed? What’s your count?
How many grandmothers? Let’s just do grandmothers.
Those questions struck a very raw nerve, and Rodgers shot back, “I mean, I know you guys are fucking around but I don’t find that part funny. I really don’t.”
Upon hearing Rodgers’ reaction, Katz responded, “Oh shit. It actually is one of my favorite things I was able to do off of that whole immunization thing is tweet that you should be in jail.
“I would have people who’d get the joke and then there would be like a ton of people who’d be like, ‘Oh, you like — you think COVID is so real, he should be in jail.’ And it was just, my mentions would just be a mess!”
Rodgers recalled the vitriol of last year when he was practically branded a public enemy for exposing people to COVID, quipping, “And probably a lot of people said, ‘Fuck, yeah, put him in jail — Get that liar in jail.'”
Note how Maxson downplayed the fact that Rodgers lied to people about his vaccination status with the dishonest claim that he was :"inoculated," which he wasn't. Maxson simply repeated that "Rodgers said he was allergic to the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines, and he did not trust the Johnson & Johnson vaccine either" -- though no proof was ever offered to support his claim.Maxson then touted how Rodgers owned the libs by 0checks notes] catching COVID:
Rodgers got the last laugh on the media cancel mob. He contracted the coronavirus in November, missed a game, but eventually won the NFL’s 2021 Most Valuable Player award. The Packers won their division and made the playoffs, disproving he was an unvaccinated super-spreader.
Of course, if Rodgers had gotten properly vaccinated, there's a good chance he would not have caught COVID and he wouldn't have missed a game.
Maxson served up more vaccine misinformation in an Aug. 23 post:
The YES Network broadcasts New York Yankees baseball games, but its public brand looks like a big fat NOOOOOO. This is the television outfit which has confined broadcaster and Yankees’ legend Paul O’Neill to his Ohio home since COVID hit 2 ½ years ago. He’s not vaccinated, and that’s still considered a problem by his neanderthal employer. ;
When O’Neill appeared Sunday at Yankee Stadium to have his No. 21 retired, the unenlightened NO folks and the team refused to allow him to approach the players. They could just as well have colored his shirt number and Yankee logo scarlet red.
Vaccines have proven unreliable, and if you don’t believe so, just ask President Joe Biden, who’s been vaccinated and boostered to the hilt, but still caught COVID twice. Or the CDC, which says unvaccinated people now have the same guidance as vaccinated people.
In fact, while the previous generation of COVID vaccines offered less protection from catching COVID as the virus mutated into the Omicron variant, they do reduce the risk of hospitalization and death, even among those who have previously caught COVID -- hardly "unreliable." And the new generation of vaccines should do a better job of catching the Omicron variant.
Then again, Maxson is a proven COVID vaccine misinformer and has amply demonstrated that he )or she) shouldn't be trusted on medical issues and should perhaps stick to ranting about sports.
How Is Michael Brown Hating LGBT People Now? Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily columnist Michael Brown loves to pretend that he really doesn't hate LGBT people, even though pretty much every action he takes reinforces the fact that he does. The hate has unsurprisingly continued over the summer. In his July 11 column following the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, Brown rooted for it to be followed by the banning of same-sex marriage as right-wing Justice Clarence Thomas advocated (and yet again falsely denying he hates LGBT people):
Before the Supreme Court's official decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was released, President Biden was already warning that same-sex "marriage" would be next. As he said in May, "It's not just the brutality of taking away a woman's right to her body ... but it also, if you read the opinion ... basically says there's no such thing as the right to privacy. If that holds ... mark my words: They are going to go after the Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage." Was he right?
[...]
Personally, regardless of whose legal argument is right (in terms of Alito or Thomas), I do hope that the Court revisits the Obergefell ruling. But that is not because of animus I have toward gays and lesbians. It is simply because the Court had no business redefining marriage.
That decision should never have been in the hands of nine justices, nor is there any way under the sun our founders would have countenanced such a thing. Could you even imagine how the signers of the Constitution would react to such a scenario?
"Gentlemen, are you comfortable with the idea that, based on the division of powers you have outlined, the Supreme Court could one day redefine marriage so that two men or two women could marry each other?"
The question itself would not have even qualified as a poor joke. It would have been too ridiculous (and, plainly, distasteful) even to draw a smile.
[...]
As for the argument that "love is love," that is not the issue here, since it's not up to the court to determine what is and is not loving. Plus, most all of us would agree that some relationships should not be recognized by the courts or by society, no matter how loving they might be. (Included in this list would be adult, consensual, incestuous relationships, such as two gay brothers or a father and his adult daughter.)
And as far as loving relationships go, I have no doubt that there are thousands of gay couples who love each other dearly and deeply, even sacrificially. In fact, the Obergefell case itself involves a very touching story.
I am also acutely aware of how much the Court's ruling meant to same-sex couples throughout America, giving them a feeling of legitimization and respect.
I do not minimize any of this, especially as a follower of Jesus who genuinely cares about those who identify as LGBTQ+. They hurt and suffer pain and feel rejection like anyone else, and I don't relish the fact that my words seem hateful to them on the most visceral level.
But I am even more committed to honoring the God who created us male and female and who never intended for men to be with men and women to be with women. And I am sure that the Court's ruling in 2015 was a massive step in the wrong direction.
My hope is that it will not take almost 50 years to reverse Obergefell and, more fundamentally, that, just as America has shifted radically towards LGBTQ+ activism in recent years, the tide will turn here as well.
Brown is, in fact, minimizing gay marriage by demanding that their relationships must not be legally recognized.
Brown used his July 20 column to rant against transgender people and mocking how to describe them (while, again falsely claiming compassion for them):
On the other hand, the mainstreaming of this societal craziness is particularly shocking, especially when we think of the devastatingly destructive impact it has had on impressionable children. (For my recent article on this, see here.) How could so many people accept as normative something that is so very bizarre? (I say this with compassion for those who struggle with their gender identity while at the same time being convinced that hormone therapy and sex-change surgery are not the way to go.)
[...]
For example, the Cleveland Clinic website notes that, "While Afib can affect anyone, it's more common among people of European descent. However, Black people who have Afib are more likely to have serious complications such as stroke or heart failure. People assigned female at birth (AFAB) are more commonly diagnosed than people assigned male at birth (AMAB)."
So, there are even acronyms for these terms now, AFAB and AMAB. (I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that these acronyms will not replace female and male in the long term.)
Couple these acronyms with the discussion about Afib, and the whole thing almost sounds like an Abbott and Costello parody.
"Doctor, do I have Afib?"
"First I need to know if you're an AFAB or an AMAB. This way I can tell you if you're an AFAB with Afib or an AMAB with Afib."
"But what if I don't have Afib?"
"Then you're an AFAB without Afib or an AMAB without Afib. But first tell me if you're AFAB or AMAB and then we'll discuss Afib."
Sarcasm aside, the very fact that doctors need to distinguish between "AFAB" and "AMAB" is because there is a difference between females and males, and that difference directly affects many health outcomes and treatments. Of course biology matters!
Brown ranted against same-sex marriage again -- and that some Republicans don't hate it as much as he does -- in his July 22 column:
As reported by Fox News on July 19, "A vote to codify same-sex marriage into federal law split House Republicans on Tuesday, with roughly a third of the GOP conference voting with Democrats in favor and the rest opposing.
"In a 267-157 vote, the House passed legislation repealing the Defense of Marriage Act and enshrining protections for gay marriage into federal law. Overall, 47 House Republicans voted with nearly every single Democrat to back the measure, dubbed the Respect for Marriage Act."
Let that sink in for a moment.
It is bad enough that this bill is called the "Respect for Marriage Act," seeing that the "marriage" of which it speaks represents a radical and fundamental redefining of the institution of marriage.
And it is to the shame of the Democratic Party that "nearly every single Democrat" voted in favor of the measure.
But it is no surprise that the Democrats voted this way, seeing that they are overtly and proudly pro-LGBTQ+. Perhaps the only surprise is that there were any who did not toe the line.
But for 47 Republicans to vote this way, representing almost 25% of all Republicans in the House, is both surprising and shameful.
That's because the Republican Party is supposed to be the pro-life, pro-family party, the party that upholds traditional Judeo-Christian values. Why else do so many conservative Christians vote Republican if not for these core moral and social values?
And, yes, he played his bogus compassion card:
Again, as I have said many times, by saying this, I do not mean that gay couples do not love each other deeply. And I do not deny that many of them are incredibly devoted parents. I simply mean that marriage throughout history, with the rarest and slightest exceptions (like Nero marrying a man who took on female characteristics), has always been the union of a male and female. And from a biblical perspective, the idea of two men or two women marrying would be utterly abhorrent.
For 47 House Republicans to vote to protect this new version of "marriage" is deplorable (in the worst sense of the word), regardless of what Republican senators decide to do.
Brown began his Aug. 19 column by huffing: "Just as we should have compassion on those who truly struggle with their gender identity, we should stand firmly against transgender activism. Thankfully, there are more and more signs that the tide is turning against this latest example of sociological contagion." Needless to say, the column contains much more transphobia than it does the "compassion" he falsely claims to have.HE continued to huff:
Thank God for a moment of sanity in the midst of today's cultural madness. And how telling it is that the school leadership was shocked by the response of the parents. Moms and dads, keep raising your voices!
[...]
The bad news is that some cultural commentators have been sounding the alarm about transgender radicalism for many years.
The good news is that society is waking up to reality.
The bad news is that many young lives have already been irreparably destroyed, at least physically.
Let us, then, do our best to hasten the societal turn by continuing to get the truth out. The time for doing that is now.
Brown is too consumed by anti-LGBT hate to be considered a credible source of "truth."
Brown spent his Sept. 19 column reminding readers that all non-heterosexuals must be hated, not just the transgender ones:
Whatever the cause, the fact is that, as much as opposition to transgender activism has increased, opposition to LGB activism has decreased.
This is a serious error, theologically, morally and practically, since the transgender movement is just the logical extension of the homosexual movement, the inevitable next step on the LGBQ trajectory.
[...]
Without any possible doubt, if we do not reaffirm our position that homosexual practice and same-sex relationships are sinful in God's sight and detrimental to society, we will lose the moral battle for our nation. If we do not reaffirm our belief that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, we will see a continued downward spiral into sexual and gender confusion.
There is nothing more fundamental to a society than the institution of marriage, and once you redefine that, you redefine everything. Once you say that biology does not matter when it comes to marriage, it's a small jump to say that biology doesn't matter when it comes to gender identity, and from there, it's an even smaller jump to putting children on puberty blockers and subjecting them to mutilating surgery. And once kids are raised in a same-sex environment with two mommies or two daddies, no matter how loving and caring those parents might be, it will bring confusion on the next generation.
[...]
Let us not deceive ourselves into thinking that by opposing radical transgender activism, we can stem the larger decline into sexual confusion, which itself is the natural fruit of the sexual revolution, which quickly went from hetero to homo to beyond.
By all means, let us truly love our neighbors as ourselves and practice decency and civility. But we can do that without affirming that which violates God's fundamental order and plan. To ignore the LGB while opposing the T is a shortsighted counsel of despair.
Brown didn't mention any of the purported compassion he has for the LGBT community -- perhaps he's finally understanding that he's lying to himself, and his readers, by claiming he has any.
MRC Comes To DeSantis' Defense Again, This Time Over Election Cops Topic: Media Research Center
There's nothing Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis does that the Media Research Center won't defend. When DeSantis formed a special police unit to enforce "election integrity," the MRC unsuprisingly rushed to defend him. Kyle Drennen complained in a Feb. 7 post:
On Monday, CBS Mornings adopted the left-wing premise that a new election fraud investigative unit in the State of Florida was a threat to democracy and proceeded to line up Democrats to denounce the specialized law enforcement team as a racist “goon squad.” The segment ultimately concluded that Republican Governor Ron DeSantis – unlike his Democratic opponents – was entirely motivated by “politics.”
[...]
Wrapping up the segment, Dokoupil asked this loaded question: “So, Ed, as you point out, there are vanishingly few cases of actual election fraud and zero evidence of any kind of systematic fraud....So what’s behind this new effort in Florida, and by all these Republicans in different states?” O’Keefe promptly dismissed the measures: “Politics. It’s about appealing to the Trump base.”
Funny how the Democrats O’Keefe featured – including those not properly identified as such – were not depicted as having any ulterior political motivation at all.
Drennen offered no evidence that there was no partisan motivation behind DeSantis' election squad.
Kevin Tober served up more complaints about criticism in an April 25 post:
On Monday night’s episode of The ReidOut, the vile and race-obsessed MSNBC host Joy Reid opened her show by throwing a tantrum over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signing into law the creation of a new state election integrity unit that will be tasked with helping the state enforce election laws and crackdown on voter fraud or other election irregularities.
Reid started off by referring to DeSantis as “Baby MAGA” and wailed that he “signed a bill that allows him to create his own private police force that is tasked with pursuing alleged election law violations.”
Doubling down on the myth that conservatives who want to uphold the integrity of our elections are promoting “the big lie”, Reid quipped “just lovely, the big lie will now have its own battalion of goons. I wonder who they’ll go after first. I think you can guess.”
[...]
It’s telling that Joy Reid hears the news of DeSantis wanting to crack down on voter fraud and immediately thinks of black people. Is she telling us that only black people commit voter fraud? Who’s the real racist? It seems like Reid is the only racist in this equation, not DeSantis.
An April 26 post by Alex Christy complaining about a CNN report on the DeSantis' election cops tried to turn the tables by insisting that the eletion cops won't intimidate voters but, instead, it's speculation about them that will actually suppress voter turnout: "CNN has set up a self-fulfilling prophecy. It doesn’t matter that Florida isn’t intimidating voters, but if it falsely reports that it is, people will believe it, which will lead to a lower turnout, which they will then claim validates their false reporting."
When DeSantis announced that his election cops had arrested 20 people for allegedly voting when not eligible, it was Curtis Houck's turn to deflect from criticism in an Aug. 23 post:
In an editorial for Tuesday’s print edition, The Washington Post screeched over an announcement last week from Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) that, as per a release from his office, 20 people were arrested for having despite having been banned from voting for having been convicted of either murder or sex crimes.
The Post’s argument? Such a measure to protect our elections systems “will have a chilling effect” on our democracy. To put this another way, The Post is so deranged and hates conservatives so much that, in order to oppose them, they’ll go to the mat for murderers and sex offenders.
The piece began by lamenting the event announcing the charges “felt like a rally for an unannounced 2024 presidential campaign” and that the charges themselves were “a clear effort to deter legitimate voting.”
But again, it was against the law for these convicted felons to vote.
[...]
Another grievance? The fact that “most were from the heavily Democratic counties of Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade” so as to make it seem like it’s only a problem for one side of the aisle.
Actually, that focus on people of color in Democratic counties would seem to more than justify the fears the MRC had previously dismissed. As the Post noted, four people from Florida's right-wing senior enclave The Villages have also been arrested for alleged voting fraud, but DeSantis "did not hold a press conference to celebrate that triumph of law enforcement."
Houck also complained that "The Post explained that their gripe derived in part from the fact that 'the tiny number of cases brought so far underscores the paucity of voter fraud' and excused away the actions of the defendants due to what they speculated was some confusion." Given that, as the Post also reported, those 20 alleged violations occured in an election in which more than 11 million people voted.
There's also a legitimate concern regarding the confusion angle. Advocates for those arrested have said those accused had no deliberate intent -- which is required under state law -- and some said government officials had actually sent them voter registration materials, leading them to believe they were eligible to vote.
But the MRC's readers don't about these developments because it has not addressed the story again. DeSantis can't be questioned, after all.
NEW ARTICLE: CNS' Hot Intern Propaganda Summer Topic: CNSNews.com
This summer, CNSNews.com had its interns put fake news and right-wing narratives ahead of practicing actual journalism and their usual job of pestering members of Congress with biased gotcha questions. Read more >>
MRC Whines That Interviews With Hunter Biden's Ex-Wife Weren't Sleazy Enough Topic: Media Research Center
You don't have to be Hunter Biden to be obsessively attacked by the Media Research Center. Merely having the Biden name will do. A June 1 post by Scott Whitlock tried to attack the president's brother:
If you thought that Hunter Biden was the only First Family member with disturbing financial dealings and foreign connections, you would be wrong. But you could also be forgiven for not knowing about James Biden, brother to the President. Just like his son Hunter, the networks have mostly failed to ask questions about this sibling.
James Biden has concerning associations with Chinese businesses linked to the country’s Communist Party. But even though Joe Biden announced his presidential run back on April 25, 2019, it wasn’t until April 2022 when CBS realized there might be some questionable connections.
Until then, CBS was silent on James Biden. ABC and NBC still have failed to investigate him. On April 6 and 7, 2022, the CBS Evening News and CBS Mornings< devoted a combined five minutes and 51 seconds to James. That's the network total in more than three years.
[...]
When will the networks start investigating James Biden? Hunter Biden? Their connection to Joe Biden? When Donald Trump was president, journalists saw it as their job to speak truth to power, to make sure democracy didn’t die in darkness. But with the ethically-challenged Biden family, no journalistic skepticism is allowed.
It’s time for ABC, CBS and NBC to do their jobs. Fully investigate all questionable Biden family members and all their connections.
By contrast, when Donald Trump's sister Mary Trump came forward to make credible charges about Donald's dealings with his family, the MRC tried (and failed) to discredit her. In other words, it doesn't always consider presidential siblings to be important.
The MRC even lashed out at Hunter Biden's ex-wife not hating him to the extent it (and the rest of the right-wing media bubble that's equally and bizarrely obsessed with Hunter). Tim Graham whined in a June 14 post that an interview with the ex wasn't salacious enough forthe demands of right-wing media (and perhaps his own personal proclivities):
ABC’s Good Morning America put Hunter Biden into the news – a rare event – with an interview with his ex-wife Kathleen Buhle, who has a new memoir out on their turbulent life together.
The interviewer was Amy Robach, and the questions were preposterously vague, and the answers look carefully curated. The infamous laptop came up, for just seconds. In laptop videos, Hunter was doing drugs and making porn with prostitutes, and Robach just said he was "looking disheveled"?
[...]
If this sounds like someone trying to stay in the First Family, you should know her daughter Naomi has a White House wedding coming up. In an almost seven-minute interview, it took them more than four minutes to get to Hunter cheating with his brother Beau’s widow, Hallie.
Curtis Houck similarly demanded more porn and sleaze in a June 16 post:
Two days after ABC’s Good Morning America and co-host Amy Robach aired what our Tim Graham called an interview with Hunter Biden’s ex-wife Kathleen Buhle featuring “preposterously vague” questions and “carefully curated” answers, Thursday’s CBS Mornings sunk lower in ignoring topics such as Hunter’s infamous laptop and his alleged child out of wedlock.
Instead, Mason — who, like Robach, previously interviewed Hunter — focused on Hunter’s spiraling after his brother Beau’s death, his affair with said brother’s widow, and vague discussions about Hunter’s “finances.” Worse yet, co-host Tony Dokoupil falsely claimed that Hunter’s “become a frequent headline in the news.”
[...]
The closet Mason and Buhle got to Hunter’s life of corruption was her insistence she was in the dark on the family’s finances and, while she wasn’t subpoenaed or called before the grand jury as part of the U.S. Attorney in Delaware’s probe, she “talked to certain investigators”
In the promotion for his June 17 podcast, Graham whined further that his sleaze demands weren't satiated by the interviews with Buhle:
Excerpts from a new memoir from Kathleen Buhle, Hunter Biden's ex-wife, were posted by People magazine on June 1, but ABC and CBS didn't air their softball interviews with Kathleen until this week.
Hunter's still mostly getting off the hook. Kathleen insists she knew nothing about the mysterious family finances, and that she's make a terrible witness for the federal investigation of Hunter going on right now.
Both ABC and CBS eventually raised the embarrassing revelation that Hunter cheated on Kathleen not just with a conga line of prostitutes, but even with his brother Beau's widow, Hallie. Joe and Jill Biden even put out a statement of support for Hunter and Hallie's affair. How weird is that?
Not as weird as Graham demanding constant mention of porn every time Hunter's name comes up. Is there something Tim needs to share with the class?
Graham spent a June 18 post being mad at the Washington Post for pointing that Buhle's book is seemingly for right-wing Hunter obsessives like himself though it lacks the dirt people like him have been demanding, and as usual, he has nothing but whataboutism to offer in return:
On Friday, The Washington Post published a book review of Kathleen Buhle's memoir about being married to Hunter Biden. But Post writer Karen Heller didn't like the book -- or the audience she thinks is interested in it.
She warned "And obsessive Hunter gatherers out there, be warned, the book contains nary a mention of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma or the infamous laptop left at the Delaware repair shop."
[...]
So Kathleen is a sap. She's so dumb she can't even see Hunter cheated with his brother's widow, and that is recounted in the awful anti-Biden press. "The affair goes public in the New York Post, the tabloid that will turn Hunter’s lobbying exploits and role as a Burisma board member into something of a full-time beat."
There's zero shame that ahem, The Washington Post has made the Trump family's finances a full-time beat.
Graham then huffed that it is "a very partisan question" for the reviewer to ponder if Buhle's tome is "really a book the public is asking to read." For sleaze-hunters like Graham, it clearly was -- though he went on to attack Lena Dunham's memoir from way back in 2014.
CNS Attacks Fauci After His Retirement Announcement Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com loved to parrot right-wing hatred of Anthony Fauci for his role in fighting the COVID pandemic. In a July 27 article, for instance, Craig Bannister plucked a Fauci statement that he "didn't recommend locking anything down" to cherry-pick old statements in which he allegedly did. In fact, Fauci's statement was taken out of context; his full statement shows he was speaking specifically about schools. So when Fauci announced his retirement plans last month, CNS made sure to voice those right-wing attacks again.
An anonymously (and blandly) written Aug. 22 article focused on the announcement and that "President Biden released a statement praising Fauci." The attacks began the next day: An article by Susan Jones played to right-wing obsessions with transhumanism with the headline "Dr. Fauci: 'We Have to Pay Much More Attention to the Animal/Human Interface'," going on to repeat other attacks from Republicans who are demanding he testify before Congress (despite offering no evidence he has ever refused to do so), which particular focus on professional Fauci--basher rand Paul::
Fauci has downplayed the Wuhan lab-leak theory of COVID's origins, drawing criticism from those who suggest he may have reasons to deny that theory. (Sen. Rand Paul tweeted on Monday: "Fauci’s resignation will not prevent a full-throated investigation into the origins of the pandemic. He will be asked to testify under oath regarding any discussions he participated in concerning the lab leak.")
[...]
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is a particularly sharp critic of Fauci. Paul has argued that Fauci is promulgating "disinformation" that is "actually harmful," including the suggestion that masks protect people from COVID and that prior infection with COVID is less effective than an mRNA shot.
Jones did note that Fauci pushed back on "conspiracy theories which don't make any sense at all, pushing back on sound public health measures, you know, making it look like trying to save lives is encroaching on people's freedom," but didn't mention that right-wingers like Paul are among the ones pushing them.
Bannister returned with an article entirely devoted to Republican attacks on Fauci:
On Monday, President Joe Biden’s Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci announced he’ll be retiringfrom government service in December, but Republicans vow that won’t stop them from investigating him for any misdeeds concerning the COVID pandemic, if they take control of Congress in November.
“This guy is a coward,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) tweeted Monday, reacting to Fauci’s announcement:
“Dr. Fauci is conveniently resigning from his position in December before House Republicans have an opportunity to hold him accountable for destroying our country over these past three years. This guy is a coward.”
Other Republican leaders in both the House and Senate echoed Rep. Biggs, promising that retirement won’t shield Fauci from Congressional investigation and being held accountable for any COVID-related wrongdoing:
Bannister did not quote any Republican politician naming any specific "COVID-related wrongdoing" Fauci has purportedly engaged in.
White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci has “touched all Americans’ lives with his work,” President Joe Biden said Monday – but, not everyone says that’s a good thing.
“Whether you’ve met him personally or not, he has touched all Americans’ lives with his work,” Pres. Biden said in reacting to Fauci’s announcement that he will retire in December from his positions as Biden's chief medical director, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation.
Indeed, Dr. Fauci did affect the lives of all Americans – but, he did so by presiding over the “greatest debacle in public health history,” former White House Coronavirus Adviser and current Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Dr. Scott Atlas says.
In an appearance Monday on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Dr. Atlas noted the harm done to Americans by the lockdowns and school closures Dr. Fauci recommended, as well as by the NIH’s failure to help make “already-approved, low-cost” anti-coronavirus drugs available:
We've previously noted that Atlas has no expertixe in virology or immunology; he also pushed a dangerous "herd immunity" strategy in his brief time in the Trump Whtie House.Those “already-approved, low-cost” anti-coronavirus drugs Atlas is referring to are likely hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, which have not been legitimately proven to fight COVID.
MRC Suggests Dark Soros Conspiracy To Redefine Recession At ... Wikipedia? Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has been screamingloudly that the U.S. is in a recession, President Biden is the only person who could possibly be responsible, and only a rigid definition of two quarters of negative GDP counts as the definition. It even roped its favorite conspiracy target, GeorgeSoros, into its recession obsession. A July 26 post by chief MRC Soros obsessive Joseph Vazquez suggested Soros was behind a grand conspiracy to redefine a recession:
The White House attempted to gaslight Americans by casting confusion over the meaning of a recession. But did it take its cues from a major publication funded by liberal billionaire George Soros?
The White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) released propaganda July 21: “It is unlikely that the decline in GDP in the first quarter of this year—even if followed by another GDP decline in the second quarter—indicates a recession.”
Three days earlier, major liberal global publication Project Syndicate released a column by Jeffrey Frankel, a Harvard economist and research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, which bloviated the same talking points: “[E]ven if the [Bureau of Economic Analysis] estimate is negative, however, it does not necessarily mean that the US has entered a recession.”
Frankel further gaslighted that “a US recession is not defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.” But a publication from Frankel’s own institution – the Harvard Business Review – even noted in a 2019 research article that recessions are “defined as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth.”
Frankel even went so far as to suggest that “contrary to popular belief, first-quarter growth was not necessarily negative,” even though first-quarter GDP growth contracted 1.6 percent. The BEA is set to release second-quarter GDP numbers July 28.
Soros’ Open Society Foundations funneled at least $1,532,105 into the spin-doctor Project Syndicate just between 2018 and 2020 alone. Project Syndicate boasts about its so-called “unparalleled” global reach. It notes that it is currently active in 156 countries, works with 508 media outlets and has had its commentaries appear in 66 languages. In 2021, Project Syndicate distributed 1,385 columns and was published a total “of 20,393 times around the world.”
Like Project Syndicate, Frankel also has ties to Soros.
In the world of Vazquez and the MRC, disagreeing with right-wing propaganda means you're spreading "propaganda" yourself.
A July 29 post by Jeffrey Clark bizarrely portraying Wikipedia edits as part of a Soros conspiracy:
Wikipedia, a site funded by George Soros, followed the liberal media’s lead in shielding the Biden administration on bad economic news. The online encyclopedia literally redefined the word recession on its website in recent days.
The move sparked outrage on Twitter, with even Tesla CEO Elon Musk slamming Wikipedia in a viral tweet: “Wikipedia is losing its objectivity.”
Wikipedia allowed at least 116 edits to the “recession” page on its site in the past week alone. It appeared to be an attempt to downplay the “technical definition” of recession, which is characterized by two quarters of negative GDP growth. After the government released a July 28 report revealing that GDP had indeed fallen for a second-consecutive quarter by 0.9 percent, some Twitter users speculated about whether the timing was pure coincidence.
The Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts Wikipedia, reported in 2018 that Soros committed $2 million to support the platform. “‘The Endowment is not just a practical way to support Wikipedia,’” Soros said at the time. “‘My gift represents a commitment to the ideals of open knowledge—and to the long-term importance of free knowledge sources that benefit people around the world.’”
Does Clark nor anyone else at the MRC understand how Wikipedia works? It's a user-edited website, and users are the ones who worked on the reession page. Clarkoffers no evidence whatsoever that Soros persoanlly directed anyone to edit the page, nor does he explain why he thinks Wikipedia management should meddle in content management -- which he would be attacking as "censorship" if the page in question involved something near and dear to the hearts of right-wingers like himself. Indeed, he complained that "MRC Business has yet to receive comment from Wikipedia on why so many changes were allowed before the second-quarter GDP report dropped early on July 28," apparently not understanding that limiting what edits are "allowed" is generally not something Wikipedia does.
The MRC's obsession with Soros is going further into la-la land.
WND's Lively Once Again Tries To Justify His Hatred Of LGBT People Topic: WorldNetDaily
In his Aug. 1 WorldNetDaily column, notorious homophobe Scott Lively announced this would be "the first in a series of articles explaining the history behind today's LGBT movement." Translated: Lively would be trying to yet again justify his hatred form LGBT people. That column raged against the idea of a right to privacy, and his attack on the Supreme Court justice whom he says championed it has anti-Semitic overtones masquerading as anti-Marxism:
The "father" of the "right to privacy" was Justice Louis Brandeis, the secularized Jewish Marxist son of "heretical Sabbatean" Frankist (anti-Torah) parents who believed their religious duty was to "transgress as many moral boundaries as possible." Brandeis co-authored an 1890 article in Harvard Law Review "widely regarded as the first publication in the United States to advocate a right to privacy, articulating that right primarily as a 'right to be let alone.'" And he was made an associate justice of the Supreme Court by Woodrow Wilson in 1916 where he advocated relentlessly for its adoption as constitutional law.
While there are many aspects of the right to privacy that promote and affirm benign and civilization-enhancing human rights, there was a darker side that reflected the Frankist mindset. When finally it was embraced intellectually by SCOTUS as a fundamental right, "privacy" became the primary vehicle for advancing a Frankist and Marxist "social justice" agenda pursuing sexual anarchy through judicial activism, most famously in the landmark case first adopting the "right to privacy" as law: the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut case (contraception on demand for married couples). It was dramatically expanded in the recently overturned 1973 Roe v. Wade decision (judicially legislating abortion on demand).
But the political driving force behind the "right to privacy" as a vehicle for social engineering had since at least the 1940s been the "gay liberation" movement led by the first lasting homosexual rights organization in America, The (Marxist) Mattachine Society (founded in 1950 by Marxist pederast Harry Hay). It's goal and vision, as articulated by early Mattachine leader Dale Jennings was, tellingly, to promote "the right to be left alone."
Lively then complained that after a Supreme Court case rejected LGBT rights based on a right to privacy, emphasis shifted to proving "that homosexuals should be constitutionally protected as a civil rights minority under the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment," the "cornerstone" of which was "the 'born gay' hoax." He spent his Aug. 8 column column attacking that, starting with suggesting without evidence that anti-LGBT hate crimes are mostly hoaxes:
Usually, these committees focused their efforts on combating "hate crimes," and public opinion about these crimes was shaped by annual or more frequent reports on "hate crime" statistics, based largely upon unverified citizen reporting systems that served to create the impression that "hate" was a significant and growing problem in the community that could only be solved by anti-discrimination ordinances passed into law by local authorities. Incidental "hate crimes" (real or staged) in the community provided additional opportunities to push for these laws. If a local community was too conservative to include "sexual orientation" in the list of protected groups, it would be left out at first and added by amendment later.
This "Lavender Bulldozer" strategy, as I called it, was brilliantly diabolical and very effective. They used the left's control of the "blue" cities to work from the bottom up to establish the appearance of a nationwide trend of citizen support for the concept of homosexuals as a civil rights minority group meeting all the elements of the constitutional legal test. And wherever "sexual orientation" was granted anti-discrimination protections, the entire LGBT agenda would eventually follow, because opposition and dissent became – in essence – immoral if not actually illegal beyond the technical parameters of the law. And, of course, the left conspired to act as if all opposition was illegal. In virtually every jurisdiction where it passed, the anti-discrimination "shield" against losing one's home or job for "being gay" was in actual practice a "sword" for offensive culture war against all dissenters – including some Christian bakers and other service companies made famous for refusing to submit to bullying.
Once the Lavender Bulldozer strategy had been proven at the municipal level, it was recreated across the cultural landscape, including the business realm, evolving over several decades into today's phenomenon of "woke" fascist control of huge swaths of corporate America.
Lively spent his Aug. 15 column explaining how being attacked for pushing an anti-gay law in Oregon -- and LGBT people pointing out how marginalized they are in society -- led to him linking gays to Nazis:
The dominant campaign theme of our "No on 9" opponents was that the Oregon Citizens Alliance and me personally were "like the Nazis" for opposing LGBT civil rights status based on "sexual orientation." It was this deeply offensive and utterly false propaganda campaign that initially led me to team up with Orthodox Jewish Holocaust researcher Kevin Abrams to write "The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party" and to develop strong relationships with numerous pro-family conservative Jews around the nation. But in the process, I uncovered a conspiracy among the LGBTs to basically steal the Jewish Holocaust for themselves for political leverage.
Contrary to today's rising chorus of fringe historical revisionists of the anti-Zionist movement, the Holocaust was an actual plan and policy of Nazi Germany, totally consistent with the philosophy and practice of the eugenicist elites of the early 20th century. Adolf Hitler, John D. Rockefeller, John Harvey Kellogg, Margaret Sanger and Josef Mengele were the Klaus Schwabs, Justin Trudeaus, Gavin Newsoms, Jacinda Arderns and Anthony Faucis of their generation: protean transhumanist sociopaths for whom humanity was mere cattle whose utility could and should be improved by scientific experimentation and selective breeding/culling.
We've documented how "The Pink Swastika" is filled with factual errors that discredit it.
Lively went vaguely anti-Semitic again, suggesting that "before you visit your own local Holocaust memorial to assess and document the extent to which it has been hijacked by the LGBTs," you should "check the donor lists for evidence that LGBT mega-donors have essentially purchased Holocaust 'victimhood rights' from the Jewish hard-leftists (some who are themselves homosexual) who typically run these facilities in gross violation of their own religious mandate."
Lively's Aug. 22 column attacked "the far-left hate-profiteering shark pod, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) whose greed for money is matched only by its hypocrisy," for fighting the Oregon anti-gay law. He ranted that "The SPLC, the corporate media, elected officials, civil rights figureheads and even prosecutors and judges all conspired to subvert justice to advance the overthrow of the Judeo-Christian social order. Alone in Oregon against that cabal stood the OCA and Ballot Measure 9." That would be the Oregon Citizens Alliance, which pushed thte law that Lively helped to write. He went on to whine that "thanks in significant part to the SPLC, the left's propaganda campaign against Measure 9 and OCA was allowed to draw from both black and Jewish victim-symbolism – characterizing OCA leaders and supporters as KKK members and Nazis interchangeably – with NO push-back on the political misuse of either the civil rights movement or the Nazi/Holocaust narrative by leftist Jewish gatekeepers at the SPLC. That was critically important, because even then the SPLC was considered America's premier authority on 'hatred and bigotry' generally and 'white supremacy' specifically."
Of course, Lively has more than ably demonstrated his hatred and bigotry of people who aren't as heterosexual as he claims to be.
MRC's Jean-Pierre-Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch, Stolen Election Edition Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck was practically orgasmic in his writeup of the Sept. 6 White House press briefing -- under the screaming headline "HE WENT THERE" -- cheering a personal attack his mancrush Peter Doocy made against press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre:
Fox News’s Peter Doocy opened the short week with a bang during Tuesday’s White House press briefing as, after four months of silence from the entire press corps, he cornered Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre over her past tweets falsely claiming the 2016 presidential and 2018 Georgia gubernatorial elections were stolen by Republicans.
With much of the political discourse still fixated on the 2020 election results, it was pertinent for each and every reporter from the AP seat to those in the back corners, but those from the left to the right skimped. And, as Stephen L. Miller wrote, it’s an abject failure that it hadn’t come up.
Doocy took his turn by, as usual, asking a basic question with underlying motivations: “A follow up about that MAGA Republican attention. So, we're all in agreement that it is incorrect to say the 2020 election was stolen, what about the 2016 election?”
Jean-Pierre walked right into the trap by insisting she wasn’t “going to go back to where we were or what happened in 2016” and would instead “focus on the here and now we're going to focus on what's happening today — this inflection point that the President pointed out very clearly, very decisively, and in a few speeches about what the country needs to do...to bring the country together.”
Having been caught, Doocy explained he was “just in trying to understand the new attention on the MAGA Republicans” given her past tweets, but Jean-Pierre interjected to wonder why he hadn’t asked this yet:
JEAN-PIERRE: Oh, I knew this was coming. I was waiting, Peter, when you were going to ask me that.
DOOCY: — well, great. Here we go. You tweeted, Trump stole an election. You tweeted Brian Kemp stole an election. If denying election results is extreme now —
JEAN-PIERRE: Yep.
DOOCY: — why wasn’t it then?
Despite having allegedly spent months anticipating this question, Jean-Pierre’s answer landed with a thud. First, she claimed “that comparison that you made is just ridiculous,” leaving Doocy in a predictably exasperated state and wondering why.
Jean-Pierre argued she was allowed to say elections were stolen (even though “Kemp won the election in Georgia” and “Trump won the election of 2016”) because she “was talking specifically at that time of what was happening with voting rights and the — what was in danger of voting rights.”
Unsurprisingly, Jean-Pierre further defended questioning election results because at least her side didn’t storm the Capitol in “an attack on our democracy” like on January 6
That's a perfecly valild answer, of course, but Houck will never admit it because that would interfere with his maliciousnarrative of painting Jean-Pierre as an incompetent diversity hire. And he's certainly not going to call out his beloved Doocy by name for waiting this long to bring up the issue.
And despite that perfectly valid answer, the MRC turned into an right-wing attack narrative anyway. The misogynistic Nicholas Fondacaro used a Sept. 7 post to attack the co-hosts of "The View" -- who he again hatefully smeared as a "cackling coven" -- for siding with Jean-Pierre:
Doing their part to endanger our country on Wednesday, the cackling coven of ABC’s The View largely defended White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and her denialism that former President Donald Trump legitimately won the 2016 election. Although, unusual battle lines were drawn as co-host Sunny Hostin took on co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar. But co-host Sara Haines argued that it’s “always okay” to “question” and “challenge” election results.
After playing a soundbite of Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy pressing Jean-Pierre on her election denialism tweets, Goldberg defended the Press Secretary by saying it didn’t count because “she was not an elected official.”
Goldberg also declared that Jean-Pierre “was doing her part as an American citizen saying how she felt about an election. Whether you like it or not, everybody talks about everybody has the right [to] freedom of speech.”
“Doing her part?” What is this, Starship Troopers? Goldberg’s argument itself was an exercise in hypocrisy as she and The View attacked and smeared Ginni Thomas, a private citizen who just happens to be married to Justice Clarence Thomas, for her past beliefs about the 2020 election.
That would be the same Ginni Thomas whose aggressive efforts to attempt to overturn the 2020 election -- something Jean-Pierre has never been accused of trying to do -- became so pervasive that even Fondacaro's fellow MRC co-workers stopped trying to defend her. Fondacaro also provided no evidence that Thomas' "beliefs" on the 2020 election are, in fact, "past."
If wouldn't be Fondacaro if he wasn't also spewing hate at Alyssa Farah Griffin for not being right-wing enough, so when she made an obvious point, he was enraged: "“Conservative” Alyssa Farah Griffin noted that Democrats like Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Hillary Clinton engaged in election denialism over 2016, but beclowned herself again by arguing what they did was 'a far cry from what Donald Trump did.'" Fondacaro didn't dispute the accuracy of Farah Griffin's statement.
Tim Graham devoted his Sept. 9 column to this non-controversy, rehashing Houck's and Fondacaro's posts to indict Jean-Pierre anew -- though he did GO THERE and mildly criticize Doocy for waiting so long to ask his biased question:
Jean-Pierre tried to call the comparison “ridiculous,” that “I was talking specifically at that time of what was happening with voting rights and the — what was in danger of voting rights.” That changes absolutely nothing. The hypocrisy remains. The only leg these liberals have to stand on is they didn’t riot at the Capitol. They spent most of Trump’s presidency treating him as a Russian-imposed fraud, but that’s somehow not being a dangerous “election denier.”
Conservatives quickly pointed out the obvious: if the press secretary had long anticipated this question, why was the answer so remarkably insufficient?
[...]
It’s a rollicking part of our democracy that Democrats seek to keep their minority voters activated and lining up to vote by scaring them relentlessly about Republican conspiracies of “Jim Crow” voter suppression and even “they want y’all in chains,” to quote Vice President Biden. The “independent fact checkers” fail to pounce and the Big Tech platforms won’t squash them for “disinformation” and dangerous election-denier messaging.
Karine Jean-Pierre was only acting like every other cynical liberal playing this game. Doocy could have thrown this question at her when she took over for Jen Psaki in May. Her answer would have been just as lame then.
Meanwhile, Graham's MRC still promotes its version of Trump's Big Lie on the election being stolen from Trump. Talk about cynical game-playing.
This was followed by a Sept. 10 "flashback" post by Scott Whitlock rehashed her comments yet again, whining that "The revolving door between radical MSNBC analyst and Biden White House Press Secretary shows just how little difference there really is between the two leftist outfits." He won't mention the revolving door between the MRC and Fox News.
CNS' Hate-Filled Donohue Spreads Discredited George Soros-Nazi Lie Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com columnist and dishonest Catholic Bill Donohue has been on quite the bad-takekick of late. He served up another one in his Aug. 25 column, which he started this way:
Few persons have done more damage to free societies than George Soros, the Hungarian-born billionaire. Yet in left-wing circles, the 92-year-old is regarded as a hero. That may have something to do with the fact that his Open Society Foundations have been greasing them for decades. Less well known is his record of bigotry.
Soros is known as a "self-hating Jew." As a young man in Hungary he became a Nazi collaborator.
In a 60 Minutes interview, Soros admitted that he helped confiscate property from Jews. He told Steve Kroft that he never regretted doing so. When asked if this was difficult, Soros said, "Not, not at all. Not at all." Stunned, Kroft said, "No feeling of guilt?" "No" came the reply.
That is a filthy lie. As has beenrepeatedlydocumented, Soros was a teenager in Nazi-occupied Hungary when Soros' father arranged to have his son pose as the nephew of a Hungarian official whose job it was to inventory the property abandoned by Jews who fled the country that the Nazis appropriated, playing no other role beyond helper. As any reasonable person might expect, Soros has no regrets about doing what he needed to do to survive the Nazis.
it appears we can add Donohue to the list of right-wingers who fervently wish that the Nazis had exterminated just one more Jew.
Donohue went on to rant that "Soros has a long history of supporting anti-Catholicism," citing his support of [checks notes] a organization called Catholics for Choice, who Donohue bizarrely insists is "anti-Catholic" despite being made up of Catholics, continuing:
In January, Catholics for Choice vandalized the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. At a prayer vigil that was held there before the March for Life, the Soros-funded entity desecrated the Basilica by using light-projecting technology to post anti-Catholic messages on it.
Projecting something on a building cannot possibly be "vandalism" since no damage is done to the building. He then served up a tale that doesn't quite hold together about another Catholic group he hates:
There is one other aspect to this story worth mentioning. After Obama was elected in 2008, the IRS contacted me to say that the Catholic League was under investigation for violating IRS strictures for non-profit organizations. After the probe was finally finished, we received a slap on the wrist.
I promised the IRS official I would not stop hammering pro-abortion anti-Catholic politicians, and that he should inform his superiors of my pledge.
More important, I told him that I knew who was behind the attempt to destroy me. Just before the 2008 election, a CNN staffer sent me copies of a long document detailing news releases I had sent that allegedly violated IRS rules. She did this because the person who sent it to her tried to get me kicked off TV; he sent the document to validate his request.
When the IRS complaint was sent to me before Thanksgiving in 2008, I quickly concluded that it looked amazingly like the document forwarded to me by the CNN employee. It was sent to her by Catholics United.
In other words, Soros was behind the attempt to silence the Catholic League.
He lost. It's too bad he hasn't lost more often—his legacy of hate has done much harm.
First: His attempt to blame Obama for the audit fails on the facts. He admitted that he received the complaint "before Thanksgiving in 2008" -- two months before Obama took office, meaning that Obama could not possibly have had any influence on the IRS to push for an audit. Further, Donohue said in 2013 that a copy of the Catholics United complaint was leaked to him in October 2008 -- before Obama was even elected.
Second: He offers no evidence whatsoever that Soros has personally targeted Donohue or his little Catholic League group -- he's just copiously dropping Soros'name because he's a right-wing bogeyman and can get clicks by doing so.
More dishonesty from Donohue? Doesn't surprise us at all.
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