How CNS Flipped From Hating Kanye West To Loving Him
Topic: CNSNews.com

Like its Media Research Center parent, CNSNews.com hated Kanye West before it loved him, using its stable of columnists to do so:

• It published a 2008 column by then-MRC apparatchik Dan Gainor complaining that "Top performers bash President Bush as a matter of faith," citing as an example "Kanye West’s embarrassing stupid comments saying: 'George Bush doesn't care about black people'" during a benefit concert for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
• It also published a 2010 column by Michelle Malkin decaring that West won "the Olympic gold medal for racial grievance-mongering" for that comment, as well as a column that year by MRC boss Brent Bozell ranting about how "idiotic rapper Kanye West shouted during an NBC telethon that Bush didn’t care about black people."
• Bozell sneered in a 2012 column that "Rapper Kanye West, worth $70 million, showed up to the [Occupy Wall Street] protests in New York wearing gold chains."

Bozell devoted an entire 2013 column to ranting about West:

Egotistical musicians often exaggerate their political influence, none more than the nattering, narcissistic rapper Kanye West. He has compared himself in global stature to Apple founder Steve Jobs and has titled his latest album "Yeesus."

Rolling Stone magazine has posted part of a West song titled "I Am a God," where West raps that Jesus is the "Most High," but he's a "close high."

Now it's The New York Times pandering to West's colossal self-regard — and it's downright embarrassing. Mouth-breathing Times writer/superfan Jon Caramonica stooped to telling West that "what I find probably the most moving thing that you've ever done, which is calling out President Bush at the Hurricane Katrina telethon. To me, that moment is actually the peak of putting a message in a pop format." West agreed, designating it as "a very pop moment of a lifetime or generation."

Do you remember this? Does anyone? Let me remind you of that generation-shaping moment. In the middle of an NBC telethon, as celebrities somberly asked for donations to the Red Cross, West lashed out, for no reason, and stupidly, arrogantly and rudely declared that President Bush "doesn't care about black people." He proceeded to add black people were smeared as looters and "now they've given them [police?] permission to go down and shoot us."

Lyndon LaRouche is more rational than this idiot.

CNS, however, did turn more favorably toward West a little earlier than the rest of the MRC, which didn't do so until he embraced Donald Trump. A 2015 article by Melanie Arter may or may not have been mocking West by reporting his reaction to receiving an award that "I think I maybe for the first time in my life I understand how it is to feel humbled."Another article by Arter that year foreshadowed the Trump-Kanye bromance:

If there’s one person you won’t hear GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump bashing, it’s rapper Kanye West. He told reporters Thursday that he loves West, because the rapper considers Trump to be his “all-time hero.”

“Kanye West, you know what? I’ll never say bad about him. You know why? Because he loves Trump. He loves Trump. He goes around saying Trump is my all-time hero. He says it to everybody, so Kanye West, I love him,” said Trump.

But the day after that araticle, it also published a column by Bozell and Tim Graham yet again rehashing his Katrina remark: "In the early spin, race-baiting rapper Kanye West and "objective" anchors like Brian Williams were in rhetorical sync: George Bush didn't care about black people."

A few weeks after that, though, Mark Judge -- who a couple years later would become infamous as a bit player in the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination as someone who engaged in drunken youthful antics with him (something his MRC employer sought to hide) -- touted how West praised another right-winger for president:

Rapper, Kardashian spouse and fashion designer Kanye West had high praise for Dr. Ben Carson, the Republican presidential candidate, in an interviewpublished today by Vanity Fair.

"When I run for president, I'd prefer not to run against someone," West said, while discussing his Yeezy fashion line and his desire to run for president in 2020.

"As soon as I heard [Ben] Carson speak, I tried for three weeks to get on the phone with him," said West. "I was like this is the most brilliant guy.

"And I think all of the people running now have something that each of the others needs," he said. "But the idea of this separation and this gladiator battle takes away from the main focus that the world needs help and the world needs all the people in a position of power or influence to come together."

Judge followed up a few days later with an article quoting Carson telling West to start "doing some music that might be uplifting that might give young women a sense of their value and young men a sense of responsibility." And a couple weeks after that, Judge touted how West "praised soldiers, police officers and firefighters as brave." In April 2016, Judge hyped how "Pop superstar Justin Bieber recently posted a photograph on Instagram of himself praying with fellow musicians Kanye West and Sean 'Puff Daddy' Combs."

Judg continued to obsess over West: An October 2016 article noted  that musician David Crosby criticized West by claiming that he “can neither sing, nor write, nor play."A Decmeber 2016 article noted that West met with  Trump to "discuss multicultural issues. These issues included bullying, supporting teachers, modernizing curriculums, and violence in Chicago."

West didn't surface again at CNS until 2018, when he voiced his support for Trump. An April 2018 article by MichaelMorris quoted right-wing talking hed Ben Shapiro asserting that West support of Trump "might actually matter" because it might draw support of Black people to Republicans.An article by Arter a few days later lamented that West "is facing continued backlash over his support for President Donald Trump and for recently voicing support for black conservative commentator Candace Owens." It then published a May 2018 column by Shaprio voicing hsi full support of West's support of Trump:

It's easy to dismiss Kanye West.

It's easy to dismiss him because he's nutty. This is a fellow who tweets about antique fish tanks and fur pillows. This is the guy who calls himself Yeezus (after Jesus) and suggested that then-President George W. Bush didn't care about black people in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He isn't exactly known for his bouts of emotional stability.

And in our celebrity-driven culture, we shouldn't pay too much attention to those who haven't spent a lot of time studying policy. That's how we end up with celebrity politicians, emotion-driven policy and reality television substituting for news.

With that said, Kanye West did something deeply important over the last two weeks: He opened up the debate.

[...]

What's happening? It's doubtful that West started reading Edmund Burke. It may just be that West, like a lot of Americans tired of being told what to think by their industry and racialists on all sides, is getting tired of being told what to do. It's possible that West, like most Americans, sees America as a place with problems but a place where individuals can think and achieve freely. And he's clearly willing to take part in a political debate so many of his friends aren't.

That makes West an important voice, at least for now. It does take courage to buck your entire cadre in order to publicly declare what you think. West deserves credit for that.

Yes, it only took West spouting right-wing talking points for Shapiro to deem him "an important voice." Then, in true echo-chamber fashion, Morris wrote a "news" article the next day rehashing Shapiro's praise of West. And the right-wing praise from CNS continued to pour in:

• A column by David Limbaugh hyped how "Democrats are losing their minds over Kanye West's praise of Trump and his assertion that African-Americans should be free to think for themselves and not be pressured into identity groupthink."
• Onetime WND columnist Jesse Lee Peterson wrote: "For two weeks, President Trump and artist Kanye West have expressed love and affection toward each other. Godless blacks and others have trashed Kanye for it and continued to drag Trump’s good name through the mud."
• Walter Williams kept up the narrative, writing that "West's support for Trump, along with his criticism of the "plantation" mentality of the Democratic Party, has been met with vicious backlash from the left," adding that "Kanye West is not saying anything different from what Dr. Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, Jason Riley, I and other black libertarians/conservatives have been saying for decades." He went on to cheer that "The Kanye problem for the Democratic Party is that if the party doesn't keep blacks in line and it loses even 20 to 25 percent of the black vote, it can kiss any hope of winning any presidential and many congressional elections goodbye."

Republicans do love their message discipline, don't they?

MRC: Blame 'The Left' For Kim Kardashian Posing With Her Butt Exposed
Topic: Media Research Center
Earlier this year, the Media Research Center's Joseph Vaqzuez praised Kim Kardashian for her endorsement of the work ethic: "Get your fucking ass up and work. It seems like nobody wants to work these days. You have to surround yourself with people that want to work." This was praised as "tough love advice " that had the added benefit of "send[ing] the politically correct crowd in the liberal media into a crazed frenzy." Of course, the MRC censored her walkback a few weeks later.

But time marches on, and as we saw with Alyssa Farah Griffin, those will get honored by the MRC will eventually get Heathered. Thus, we have the spectacle of Tierin-Rose Mandelburg spending a Sept. 7 post body-shaming Kardashian for doing a magazine photo shoot that included a photo of her exposed rear end, under the nasty headline "The American Dream: Kim Kardashian’s Fat A**":

The Kardashians are only good at one thing: being naked at inappropriate times. And they just keep proving it.

Interview Magazine released it’s cover for the September 6 edition of “American Dream.” The cover featured none other than Kim Kardashian's massive dump truck. 

No, not a vehicle.

[...]

Damn! Baby got back is right! But, we’ve known that. Reminder: that IS how her fame erupted anyways. 

Eight years ago, Kim’s last (intentional) booty pic on the cover of a magazine broke the internet. She posed naked for the cover of Paper Magazine with her butt facing the camera and what looked like a black garbage bag draped just below her butt crack. At least she had a jacket on in this week's booty pic. I swear I should get workman's comp. for having to look at this garbage. 

I’m unsure what part of a giant butt with a jock strap screams “American Dream” but, to each their own I guess?

Body-shaming of Black women is a thing at the MRC -- just ask Lizzo.

Not only did Mandelburg censor any mention of her MRC colleague's praise of  Kardashian's work ethic, she uncritically quoted cranky British buy Piers Morganwhining to Kardashian that "Your entire fame and fortune are entirely attributable to your shameless, cynical exploitation of your sex life and naked body, and short-lived marriage to one of the world’s biggest and most genuinely talented music stars, Kanye West. Your only “talent” has been in duping so many people into believing you’re someone worthy of their misguided idolatry and money."

(Boy, that Kanye West reference didn't age well, did it? Remember that Mandelburg praised Ye's conservative values even after he clearly expressed his anti-Semitism.)

Mandelburg then somehow found a way to blame "the left" for Kardashian posing in a magazine with her butt exposed:

Kim has four children of her own and is a popular figure that many others see and are influenced by. Not only that but she's also promoted by children's television. At the moment she's working on voiceover for a kids show called Paw Patrol. Not a good look for either party involved.

But(t), that’s what the left wants. They want to promote promiscuity. They thrive when the internet breaks over the latest display of a naked butt. They are fueled by stirring the pot.

The only way the young children that are the core audience of "Paw Patrol" -- which are not known for caring much about celebrity stunt-casting -- are going to know about this is if some adult lady bragged to them about how she got paid to write a post mocking Kardashian's butt.

Root Gone Wild: Biden Is A 'Figurative Suicide Bomber'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The last time WorldNetDaily columnist Wayne Allyn Root had a meltdown over President Biden, he demanded that Biden be not only impeachd but also tried for treason. We've already noted how Root freaked out over Biden's speech calling out the extremism of MAGA republicans like Root, huffing that the speech "was intended to incite civil war in America." But Root's Sept. 30 column took things to another level, ranting under the headline "Biden is a figurative suicide bomber":

Our country is being destroyed. It's clearly a purposeful communist attack upon America from a thousand different directions. But the president isn't Joe Biden. He is just the figurehead/puppet. The real president is former President Barack Obama.

This is clearly the third term of Obama. His fingerprints are everywhere.

No president can legally serve three terms – hence the need for a figurehead. I believe Biden is just a "DDD": a dummy with dementia who's in diapers. He says whatever is written on cue cards and signs whatever paper is put in front of him. That allows Obama to run the country from the shadows.

As long as they feed Biden his baby food, change his diapers and allow him to sniff little girls' hair, Biden does whatever his handlers tell him to do. 

But Obama isn't the brains of the operation. Obama is just a communist tool. Obama takes his orders from a team of what I consider communist suicide bombers: Valerie Jarrett, Susan Rice, George Soros, Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates and of course, the boss of all bosses, the capo di tutti, China and the Chinese Communist Party.

Root then moved to rehashing and updating his old Obama conspiracy theories:

Obama is owned lock, stock and barrel by the deep state, the United Nations, the World Economic Forum and China.

The reason it's important to know that I believe Obama is the real president is because Obama was my college classmate at Columbia University, Class of 1983 – where we learned the plan to destroy America.

That plan was called "Cloward-Piven."

Obama learned it well. It's happening today. Look around. The powers that be have just given it a different name: "the Great Reset."

But the goals are the same: Destroy America; make us into a socialist nation; make everyone poor and dependent on government to survive; and make us into a one-party country (Democratic Party) with no opposition or dissent.

They are following the Cloward-Piven game plan to a T.

It's death by a thousand paper cuts. Under eight years of Obama, they "boiled the frog slowly." They attacked in slow motion, hoping you wouldn't notice. Like cooking a frog, they set the temperature so low that the frog doesn't realize he's being boiled until he's dead.

Then, the old discredited election fraud conspiracy theories were dragged out once again:

It all started with a stolen election.

That was No. 1. They had to remove then-President Donald Trump. There's evidence they spied on his campaign; they spied on his actual presidency (which is treasonous); they trumped up fake charges to frame him; they spewed propaganda like the Third Reich – and they tried to impeach him multiple times over nothing.

Evidence suggests that when they failed at all of that, they simply stole the 2020 election.

Now they've weaponized the Department of Justice and FBI to raid the former president's home, ruin him, demonize him, bankrupt him, frame him and indict him for crimes he didn't commit – all to prevent him from ever running again.

Trump scares them that much.

With Trump out of the way, there is no one to stop them. Now they're coming for you and me.

Root promised that "I'll explain the whole TOP TEN list of the greatest scams in history, in detail, in my next column." But that column was, instead, yet another recounting of discredited election fraud conspiracy theories and a list of "exactly where we'd be if Trump was still president of the United States."

MRC Tried To Blame Biden For High Gas Prices, Now Won't Give Him Credit for Prices Dropping
Topic: Media Research Center

Over the past year or so, the Media Research Center has labored hard to blame President Biden for higher gas prices -- despite never being able to name any specific Biden policy that directly corresponded to a specific price increase. But now that gas prices have been falling from early-summer peaks, the MRC now wants you to believe that Biden has no control at all over it. Emms Schultz complained in a July 19 post:

With the steady increase in gas prices over the past few months, the Biden Administration and the liberal media routinely stated that the prices were not the President’s fault and he could not do anything to change them. But on Monday’s CNN Newsroom with Ana Cabrera, a different story is painted as declining gas prices were suddenly the result of Biden rolling up his sleeves. Never the villain, always the hero.

Amos Hochstein, a Biden energy advisor, joined Cabrera on Monday afternoon as they discussed these decreases in prices and Biden’s role in it all.

[...]

This time, he also added in what the President had been doing for months to reduce the price at the pump. That Biden had “released a million barrels a day from the strategic petroleum reserve,” stating that “that’s the most anyone has ever done.”

In addition, Hochstein suggested their tough talk was winning the day, saying, “we’re holding the industry accountable… we’ve told them we want them to bring down the prices. And I think, so far that’s working.”

According to Hochstein, analysts that were reporting on prices rising were “trying to scare the American public,” as he so cheerfully encouraged Cabrera to “focus on the achievements that>This encapsulates the narrative. Rising prices weren’t because of Biden’s runaway spending and cutting of domestic production, but he’s suddenly the hero by nibbling at the margins.

[...]

This encapsulates the narrative. Rising prices weren’t because of Biden’s runaway spending and cutting of domestic production, but he’s suddenly the hero by nibbling at the margins.

For Schultz, the narrative is just the opposite: Biden is always the villain, never the hero. She never identified any of this "runaway spending" that she says directly caused higher gas prices, not did she prove that Biden engaged in "cutting of domestic production."

Kathleen Krumhansl howled in an Aug. 10 post that a Univision reporter "crowed, in his zest to fulfill the role of regime media propagandist, that the current gas prices of under $4 per gallon, 'delight the soul', as he allegedly saw from people's 'happy faces' goign to huff that "No one is fooled by Univision’s theatrics, designed to make us all believe that all is beautiful and that our souls are delighted with $4 a gallon gas."

Krumnahsl returned for an Aug. 17 post to rant that Spanish-language TV channels noted the drop in gas prices, declaring that reporting on this fact was "blatant pro-Biden propaganda" and "delusional talking points repeated by the Hispanic corporate media to an economically challenged viewership, one that has repeatedly appeared on air to confirm their struggle to put food on the table and gasoline in their tanks."

Sounds like Krumhansl is an aspiring right-wing regime propagandist.

Jeffrey Clark tried to dismiss the price declline as "small" and "minor" in an Aug. 19 post -- despite the numbers he cites showing a 20 percent decline, which is, in fact, not "minor." He then hyped how MRC fave Ted Cruz claim that "gas prices are UP nearly 65% since Biden took office" which conveniently ignores how gas prices were unusually low due to the pandemic.

Joseph Vazquez spent a Sept. 20 post complaining that PolitiFact blew up the right-wing argument that Biden is solely to blame for rising gas prices -- but he cited only his fellow right-wing hacks in response:

PolitiFact had the audacity to argue like President Joe Biden’s eco-extremist policies didn't really have anything to do with America’s energy inflation crisis, continuing to prove why its worthless so-called “fact-checks” belong in the trash bin.

The Facebook fact-checker seethed at Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) for daring to tweet in August: “Democrats' radical green energy policies caused record gas prices. They want to fundamentally transform our economy."

PolitiFact rebuked Johnson for his wrongthink and falsely stated: “Green energy policies didn’t cause record prices at gasoline pumps” and suggested Johnson said this, of course, simply because he was “locked in a tight re-election battle.”

JunkScience.com founder Steve Milloy repudiated the so-called fact-checker in exclusive comments to MRC Business: “The notion that anyone but Biden is responsible for high gas prices has no basis in fact.”

Climate Depot founder and "The Great Reset: Global Elites and the Permanent Lockdown" author Marc Morano gave a blunt assessment of PolitiFact’s gaslighting: “It's time to rename these 'Fact Checks' for what they truly are, agenda-driven 'opinion checks' and nothing more.’”

Neither Milloy or Morano have any special expertise on the oil price market -- their main job is being climate deniers, making it puzzing why Vazquez devoted an "exclusive" piece on activists ranting about something they're not experts on. And as usual, Vazquez did not quote his reliable right-wingers identifying any specific Biden policy to a specific rise in gas prices. Vazquez also complained that "PolitiFact also adopted the 'Putin’s Price Hike' fallacy," but at no point did he prove what, exactly, the "fallacy" is.

Kevin Tober tried to  keep the right-wing narrative alive in an Oct. 10 post:

On Monday night's edition of NBC Nightly News, correspondent Andrea Mitchell did all she could to make excuses and cover for President Biden's outright lies and excuses for the skyrocketing price of gasoline. Going as far as to let Biden claim he brought gas prices down $1.60 before the "Russians and the Saudis" let it move back up. This of course is a flat-out lie. But Mitchell is always happy to cover for the Biden regime and Democrats in Congress.  

Helping Biden entirely skirt blame for rising gas prices, Mitchell led off her report by parroting her party's talking points. "The Saudi announcement, a blow to American consumers and a gut punch to President Biden," Mitchell bemoaned.

Tober went on to whine: "Then there's the fact that when prices were skyrocketing earlier this year, White House talking points became the media's refrain saying there was nothing Biden could do about the price of gas. But suddenly now he dropped it by $1.60?" Tober didn't explain how, in his biased worldview, Biden can only be blamed for increasing gas prices but never credited for lowering them.

Tober then hufffed: "Continuing to sing from the Democrat Party [sic] sheet music, Mitchell listed a number of solutions Biden could pick from that would allegedly lower the cost of gas. Notably missing was allowing oil companies to freely drill for oi." But he didn't explain how, exactly, Biden was keeping that from happening, given that oil companies already have thousands of leases on federal land they could be drilling on but aren't.

Demonstrating how well he sings from right-wing sheet music, Tober concluded by ranting: "The media doesn't care about middle-class Americans struggling to afford to fill their cars so they can go to and from work. Their only concern is for the well-being of the Democrat Party [sic]. The middle-class can go bankrupt for all they care." But Tober has shown that he only cares about partisanship, not facts.

WND Tries To Whitewash Oath Keepers To Protect Member Politician
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily tried to soften the violent-thug image of the Proud Boys before the Capitol riot, which didn't age well. (It ultimately mostly threw them under the bus to protect Donald Trump.) WND has been trying to keep up the whitewash job ever since; for instance, we noted that in July, WND writer Bob Unruh laughably described both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers as "groups that mostly have acted in patriotic situations" -- as if the Capitol riot violence was somehow "patriotic."

Art Moore served up his own softening job for the benefit of an Alaskan lawmaker in trouble for his affiliation with the group in a Sept. 30 article:

Does membership in the group Oath Keepers – which is at the center of the partisan Jan. 6 committee's theory that the Capitol riot was an "insurrection" – disqualify someone from holding public office?

That's the contention of Democratic leaders in the Alaska state House of Representatives and a lawsuit against state Republican Rep. David Eastman, a West Point grad and Army veteran who served in Afghanistan.

In a video interview with WND, embedded below, Eastman said the effort to remove him from office is part of a larger, nationwide effort to "redefine" the Constitution, loyalty to America's founding document and terms such as "insurrection."

"If they're able to succeed in this, then we no longer have the Constitution," he said. "We have a new Constitution with definitions which are incompatible with the old Constitution."

And those who are loyal to the Constitution conceived by the Founders, Eastman continued, end up being condemned as disloyal.

"One of those sides is going to prevail," he told WND. "And if the goal is to purge society of whoever whoever loses the election and put them on an enemies list and target them and send the FBI to raid their house – that's a very different America than I grew up in."

The lawsuit accuses Eastman, by virtue of his Oath Keepers membership, of violating the Alaska state constitution, which disqualifies anyone who advocates "the overthrow by force or violence of the United States.

[...]

Eastman told WND he ran for office because of his concern about issues such as crime, upholding the rule of law, religious freedom and the right to life. He joined Oath Keepers, he said, as a commitment to uphold his oath to the Constitution. But there is no Oath Keepers chapter in Alaska, and he has never been to a meeting. He did travel to Washington on Jan. 6, he said, to show support for President Trump and the legal effort to contest the election results, and never went to the Capitol.

The Democratic leadership of the Alaska state House, headed by Speaker Louise Stutes, is trying to remove his legislative committee seats while a group called the Northern Justice Project is in court representing a constituent, Randall Kowalke, who says he supported Eastman until he found out about his membership in Oath Keepers.

Nnote the rhetorical tricks Moore is using here: He tries to delegitimize any criticism of the Oath Keepers as coming from "partisan" Democrats, and he portrays Eastman as a patriotic man who doesn't support violence. But at no point in the article does he quote Eastman disavowing violence or the actions of the Oath Keepers that day -- something you'd think he want to highlight if you're trying to portray Eastman as a peaceful man.Instead, he tried to whitewash the Oath Keepers some more:

The group's founder, Stewart Rhodes, and 10 other members have been charged with seditious conspiracy in the Capitol riot. Rhodes, a Yale Law School graduate and former U.S. Army paratrooper, has no criminal history. He never entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 and says he was in communication with members on that day to "keep them out of trouble."

Rhodes acknowledges a handful of Oath Keepers who "went totally off mission" did enter the Capitol.

That defense is also not aging well, given that an Oath Keepers member testified during the seditious conspiracy trial of Rhodes and others that the group brought a massive cache of wepaons it stored at a hotel in Arlington, Va., across the river from Washington, D.C., ready to be deployed on the day of the riot. And Rhodes' deflection that the violent Oath Keepers went "off mission" conflicts with his behavior befor the riot, Reuters reported that "In numerous text messages, online postings and speeches shown as evidence, Rhodes promoted the use of force and implored Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, a 19th century U.S. law that empowers presidents to deploy troops to quell civil unrest."

Moore isn't going to tell you this, of course -- he's doing a whitewash job, not actual reporting.

NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Double Standard On Cross-Party Election Meddling
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center and its "news" division CNSNews.com got upset over Democrats promoting extremist Republicans -- but censored the fact that they endorsed Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos" cross-party meddling scheme. Read more >>

CNS' Jeffrey Again Dishonestly Hypes Pockets Of High Unemployment
Topic: CNSNews.com

Last year, we caught CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey taking a partisan shot at the high unemployement rates in areas like Yuma, Ariz., and El Centro, Calif., in an apparent attempt to make President Biden's jobs record look bad -- but he didn't tell readers that these areas are impoverished, undiversified, overly dependent on farming, and have been that way for years. With those employment numbers still looking good for Biden, Jeffrey felt the need to cherry-pick Yuma high unemployment rate again in an Oct. 3 article, with a guest appearance by El Centro:

While the national unemployment rate was 3.8 percent in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Yuma, Arizona metropolitan area not only had the nation’s highest unemployment rate of 21.0 percent, it also had the highest year-to-year spike in unemployment.

Yuma sits on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The August 2022 unemployment rate of 21.0 percent in the Yuma metropolitan area was up from 16.6 percent in that metropolitan area in August 2021.

By contrast, the unemployment rate was only 4.0 percent in August in the Tucson metropolitan area, which sits about 70 miles north of the border.

It was only 3.4 percent in the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale metropolitan area and 4.2 percent state-wide in Arizona.

Meanwhile, in the El Centro, California metropolitan area, which also sits on the border, unemployment was 16.2 percent in August 2022, the second highest in the nation after the Yuma metropolitan area.  However, the El Centro unemployment rate of 16.2 percent for this August was down from 19.4 percent in August 2021.

The statewide unemployment rate in California was 4.1 percent in August.

As before, Jeffrey censored the reasons why the unemployment rate in Yuma and El Centro are high: seasonal agricultural jobs and little else, the migrants who work those jobs, and lower educational levels.

It's also worth noting that CNS devoted no articles to these pockets of high unemployment when Donald Trump was president -- indeed, its previous hyping took place during the Obama administration:

• A November 2012 article by Jeffrey stated that "The metropolitan areas of Yuma, Ariz., and El Centro, Calif., have the two highest unemployment rates in the country, according to data released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics."
• Ali Meyer wrote in a December 2013 article that "The Yuma, Ariz., metropolitan area, which sits on the U.S-Mexico border, had a 31.9 percent unemployment rate in October, the highest of any metropolitan area in the country, according to data released last week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics."
• Susan Jones wrote in March 2016 that "El Centro, California had a 19.2 percent unemployment rate in January, the highest of the 387 U.S. metropolitan areas surveyed by the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics."
• Jones repeated the complaine in a June 2016 article: "El Centro, California bills itself as one of Southern California’s "most promising new commercial and industrial regions." But it had a 20.1 percent unemployment rate in April, by far the highest of the 387 U.S. metropolitan areas surveyed by the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics."

It clear that Jeffrey and CNS cares only about these pockets of high unemployment when they can be used to attack a Democratic president.

MRC Cheers Ye's Purchase of Parler, Censors The Person (And MRC Funder) He's Buying It From
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center was an early booster of right-wing social media site Parler -- though it censored the fact that Parler's biggest funder is also the MRC's biggest funder, Rebekah Mercer. But it grew bored with Parler as newer, shiner right-wing social media sites popped up, especially the Donald Trump-endorsed Truth Social; the only relevent reference to Parler at the MRC in recent months was a Sept. 6 post by Catherine Salgado touting how "More than a year after Google canceled the Parler app, the tech giant quietly let Parler back onto its Google Play Store." In typical fashion, Salgado censored the fact that Parler shares a funder with her employer; whiile she touted how John Matze co-founded Parler "as a pro-free speech alternative to increasingly woke social media companies like Twitter and Facebook," she didn't mention that Matze is suing Mercer for screwing him out of his share of the company whwen she seized control of it. (We wonder if Salgado had to clear the reference to Matze with Mercer before including it.)

That neglect of Parler fipped when Kanye West bought the company. Brian Bradley touted it in an Oct. 17 post:

Censored on one platform? No problem. Just buy another. That seems to be the situation for the rapper and fashion designer, “formerly known as Kanye West.”

Parler, on Monday, announced that Ye will acquire Parler from Parlement Technologies, which is expected to take effect by the end of this year.

Parler bills itself as “the world's pioneering uncancelable free speech platform.”

Platform CEO George Farmer expressed apparent optimism in reaction to the news, and said Ye will fight for free speech.

“We welcome Ye in the fight for free speech,” Farmer said in a statement to MRC Free Speech America. “As the social justice mob continues to put the crosshairs on people they disagree with, Parler’s open door and viewpoint--neutral take on social media offers an environment where everybody can speak freely. “

After the acquisition, Parlement would provide “ongoing technical support” and open up use of its cloud services via its private cloud and data center infrastructure, according to the announcement of the transaction.

"In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves," Ye said in a statement.

Lots of stuff missing here. First, Bradley fell into the MRC trap of censoring the fact that the person selling Parler to Ye is the person who funds his MRC paycheck. Second, Bradley failed to report that Farmer is married to Candace Owens, the person with whom Ye did the stunt of wearing "White Lives Matter" shirts a couple weeks earlier that gained him even more favorable press from right-wingers like the MRC. That means Bradley avoided having to raise the question of whether that stunt was a ploy by Owens and Farmer to maneuver Ye into a position in which Parler could be unloaded on him.

Third, and most important, Bradley made no mention of Ye's anti-Semitic tweet in this part of the article -- even though said tweet is the big reason anyone is paying attention to his purchase of Parler and, thus, should have been the lead. As a result, Bradley's prattling on about Ye being "censored" and expressing "conservative opinions" leaves readers wondering if he's really saying that anti-Semitism is a valid "conservative opinion" that must not be "censored."

It wasn't until the eighth paragraph of his post that Bradley finally addresssed the elephant in the room:

Ye caused widespread controversy after he reportedly claimed he would go “death con 3  On JEWISH PEOPLE” in tweet on Oct. 8

“I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” he reportedly tweeted, according to screenshots. “The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti[-]Semitic because black people are actually Jew also [y]ou guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”

Ye’s tweet came after Instagram restricted his account for other content that some users also viewed as being anti-Semitic.

Twitter locked Ye’s account after his anti-Semitic post on that platform. His last tweet was on Oct. 9.

"Reportedly"? Really? Nobody's disputing that Ye made that anti-Semitic tweet -- given how many people screenshotted it -- not even Ye himself. Note that Bradley could not be moved to criticize Ye's anti-Semitism, making him the second MRC writer, after Tierin-Rose Mandelburg, to refuse to criticize blatant anti-Semitism when given the opportunity. It also means that in thte eight days between Ye's tweet and Bradley's post, no MRC item has explicitly criticized Ye's ugly anti-Semitism.

Seems like someone at the MRC needs to set up a field trip into Washington, D.C., down the road from MRC headquarters in the Virgina suburbs, to the Holocaust Museum to provide a lesson to these scrubs.

P.S. The MRC also censored Parler's post-purchase PR nightmare: Politico reported that Parler sent an email to its VIP users to announce the news, but it forgot to put the email list in a blind CC format, meaning that everybody knows everyone's email address on the list, with the side effect of some VIP users not being aware they were VIP users or why they were designated as such. Politico also reported Parler's puny size -- 16 million registered users and just 40,000 active ones, compared with Twitter's 237 million active users.

UPDATE: The MRC additionally censored how Farmer couldn't be bothered to criticize Ye's anti-Semitism, claiming that the anti-Semitic tweet was merely badly worded, that anti-Semitism is "up for conversation" and that Ye has "fallen victim to the cancellation narrative." He has a company to unload, after all.

WND Promotes Yet Another Dishonest, Discredited Attack On COVID Vaccines
Topic: WorldNetDaily

It wouldn't be WorldNetDaily if it wasn't promoting bad studies that fearmonger about the COVID vaccine, and Art Moore is at it again in a Sept. 27 article:

A top London cardiologist who was one of the first to take the COVID-19 vaccine and promote it on British television now is calling for a suspension of the shots, arguing in a scientific paper that there is evidence the risk of harm is greater than any benefit.

Dr. Aseem Malhotra, who presented his paper at a news conference in the British capital Tuesday, said "there is a strong scientific, ethical, and moral case to be made that COVID-19 vaccines rollout must stop immediately until raw data has been released for fully independent scrutiny."

His paper, published in the Journal of Insulin Resistance in two parts, here and here, is titled "Curing the pandemic of misinformation on COVID-19 mRNA vaccines through real evidence-based medicine."

Joined at the news conference by Dr. Ryan Cole, a Mayo Clinic-trained pathologist, and Dr. Tess Lawrie, co-founder of the non-profit World Council for Health, Malhotra said real-world safety data indicate a rise in hospital cardiac arrests and heart attacks linked to Pfizer's COVID-19 mRNA vaccine.

The presence of Cole and Lawrie -- both prolific COVID misinformers that WND has previously promoted -- should be a warning that this was going to be a misinfo-fest. So Moore quickly moved to try and burnish Malhotra's alleged credibility:

An internationally renowned expert in the prevention, diagnosis and management of heart disease, Malhotra is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and president of the Scientific Advisory Committee of The Public Health Collaboration. He also is an honorary council member to the Metabolic Psychiatry Clinic at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Actually, as Science-Based Medicine noted, Malhotra published a book promoting what the British Dietitic Assocation called one of the "Top 5 worst celeb diets to avoid in 2018." Moore continued:

He began his presentation, hosted by Lawrie's World Council for Health, talking about the concept of "willful blindness."

"I was willfully blind, certainly in relation to the vaccine and the harms, until I wasn't," he said.

Malhotra said that's why it's crucial that the issue be tackled both with the facts and with compassion, "because there are many people who are still willfully blind."

As happens so often with so-called studies that Moore promotes, this one is shoddy. As Health Feedback documented, Malhotra's article "cherry-picked evidence supporting the narrative that COVID-19 vaccines are ineffective and possibly harmful, while ignoring the larger body of evidence showing that COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective." Science-Based Medicine further exposed the shoddiness of Malhotra's research:

As I said at the beginning, one of the favorite tactics of quacks, cranks, and antivaxxers is projection: To accuse their critics of what they themselves are guilty of, and both of Dr. Malhotra’s articles are prime examples of this tactic, starting right from the title, in which he claims the mantle of evidence-based medicine for himself against what he characterizes as “misinformation” coming from health authorities and the conventional press. Interestingly, Dr. Malhotra barely uses the word “misinformation” in his first article, but uses it much more frequently in his second article, as though he were doubling down on his first assertion.

[...]

For instance, COVID-19 cranks (like Dr. Malhotra) take advantage of the low quality and reliability of a lot of medical research to contribute even more to that low reliability by publishing propaganda in journals like The Journal of Insulin Resistance. Indeed, I once called this phenomenon scientific review articles weaponized as disinformation, a label that describes Dr. Malhotra’s two part “narrative review” quite well.

Looking back at both articles, it’s clear to me that the first article was intended to sow doubt about COVID-19 vaccines through the use of a compelling anecdote about his father followed by cherry-picked data. As much as I might feel sorry for Dr. Malhotra because of his loss, I cannot allow that feeling to prevent my directly addressing his misuse of the anecdote of his father’s death to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about vaccines. The second article is more of a generalized antivaccine rant that uses tried and untrue techniques that try to paint big pharma and government regulatory entities as so completely corrupt (as well as ideology- and profit-driven) that they ignore evidence of harm.

[...]

Dr. Malhotra’s article is projection, pure and simple, or, as I put it: “I know you are, but what am I?” He’s accusing conventional medical authorities, big pharma, and social media companies of spreading medical misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines by using the very techniques of misinformation that he claims to decry, such as cherry-picked studies and conspiracy theories, to do it. I know you are, but what am I, indeed.

Rather than noting any criticism of  Malhotra's work, Moore simply parrots it. And he continued to do so: Moore uncritically repeated Malhotra's claims in an Oct. 5 article, and he gave Malhohtra another uncritical platform to spread misinformation in an Oct. 19 article:

A top London cardiologist who was one of the first to take the COVID-19 vaccine and promote it on British television is warning his colleagues and the public he has evidence tying the incidences around the world of "unexpected" cardiac events in otherwise healthy people to the COVID-19 vaccines.

Dr. Aseem Malhotra made the statement in a video posted Wednesday on Twitter.

"It is my duty and responsibility as a consultant cardiologist and public health campaigner to urgently inform doctors, patients and members of the public that the COVID mRNA vaccine has likely played a significant role of being a primary cause in all unexpected cardiac arrests, heart attacks, strokes, cardiac arrhythmias and heart failure since 2021, until proven otherwise," he said.

Moore censored the fact that Malhotra's earlier work had been exposed as the misinformation it is -- instead, he parroted it yet again, right down to the bogus appeal to authority by listing his credentials.

An inquisitive reporter i snot not -- he's nothing but a partisan stenographer.

By Simply Appearing On TV, Anita Hill Triggers MRC Yet Again
Topic: Media Research Center

Thirty years after her testimony against Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill continues to live rent-free in the heads of the boys at the Media Research Center, and thety're triggered every time she appears on TV. Kevin Tober kicked off the latest round of being triggered in a Sept. 28 post over another TV appearance by Hill:

On Tuesday night’s Alex Wagner Tonight, the eponymous MSNBC host brought her viewers back into the early 1990s by dragging sexual assault hoaxer Anita Hill on the show to help her sell a book she wrote. During this interview, Wagner predictably asked Hill if she sees chauvinism and misogyny in the Dobbs decision and the subsequent pro-life legislation that it gave rise to. 

Wagner, after talking about the Proud Boys, asked Hill: “Do you see the Republican zeal to control a woman's body as an extension of that chauvinism, obviously pro-life groups will tell you this is about protecting the sanctity of unborn life but do you see the same sort of chauvinism and misogyny that gives rise to the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers?” 

Wagner didn’t specify how pro-lifers are “chauvinist” or “misogynist” but she didn’t need to because Hill jumped right into the fray and lied through her teeth in a rambling and incoherent answer.

[...]

Proving once again that she’s just as big of a liar as she was over thirty years ago, Hill repeated the thoroughly debunked lie that the Supreme Court is inclined to rehear the so-called right to same-sex marriage. Hill claimed Thomas is “giving every indication that he's willing to hear LGBTQ rights put on trial again.” 

Tober offered no proof that Hill lied in her testimony against Thomas. He also put words in her mouth, creating a strawman by falsely claiming that she said "the Supreme Court is inclined to rehear the so-called right to same-sex marriage," when she was clearly referring to Thomas, who did say exactly that in a concurring opinion in the decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. Further, despite Tober's protestations, misogyny and chauvinism on the anti-abortion movement is not hard to find.

The MRC's chief Anita Hill trigger victim, Tim Graham, ranted against her yet again, but on a different subject, in his Sept. 30 column in which he again made the hoary and never-proven suggestion that Hill made her accusations against Thomas solely to make money on them:

Thirty-one years ago, a media-anointed secular saint named Anita Hill uncorked some sexual-harassment charges against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas that she could not substantiate. Thomas called it part of a “high-tech lynching.” But Hill, who became a millionaire author and a professor of “social policy, law, and women's studies” at Brandeis University, has been celebrated ever since.

On September 27, Hill appeared on CBS and MSNBC to promote the paperback edition of her latest book “Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence.” The publisher singles out a sappy book review from National Public Radio, which first tried to take down Thomas with Hill’s tawdry tales. Danielle Kurtzleben raved that Hill’s book was “An elegant, impassioned demand that America see gender-based violence as a cultural and structural problem that hurts everyone, not just victims and survivors… It's at times downright virtuosic in the threads it weaves together.”

Graham then played the hypocrisy card:

It would help liberals if you pay no attention to the disagreeable fact that those feminist icons Steinem and Hill came rushing to Bill Clinton’s defense in 1998 when his sexual-harassment and sexual-assault charges boomeranged into the Monica Lewinsky probe. Republicans were talking about Clinton’s abusive behavior toward Paula Jones and Juanita Broaddrick, but the feminists had “other political ambitions.” Slick Willie had to be saved.

Feminists wonder why many women don’t identify with them. One problem is feminists will put their policy goals (like untrammeled abortion) ahead of whatever sexual abuse that pro-abortion politicians have dished out. Anita Hill is not a saint. She’s just another woke professor making a pretty penny.

Within a week, Graham and the rest of his anti-abortion activists at the MRC would be even more hypocritical by vociferously defending Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker after credible accusations that he paid for a girlfriend's abortion.

CNS' Donohue Cites Discredited 'Researcher' To Attack Kinsey
Topic: CNSNews.com

Bill Donohue's year of dishonesty and bad takes continued in a Sept. 19 CNSNews.com column:

What’s wrong with child molestation? The question needs to be asked because the tolerant ones in higher education seem to like it, otherwise they wouldn’t be defending the architect of the sexual revolution—and known pervert—Alfred Kinsey.

Last week Indiana University, home to The Kinsey Institute, honored the zoologist turned sexpert by erecting a large bronze sculpture of him on the Bloomington campus, marking the 75th anniversary of the institute. As will be made clear, the man was a sado-masochistic, child-abusing, voyeuristic pervert who had sex with men and beasts.

Kinsey became quite a star after World War II when he published two tomes on the sexual practices of men and women. According to Dr. Judith Reisman, who wrote prolifically about Kinsey, in the course of his research he sexually abused over 300 children.

Reisman's anti-Kinsey hate has been discredited, and there is no evidence Kinsey ever sexually abused a single child, let alone "over 300." Then again, Donohue did cite the author of the discredited, racist-adjacent "The Bell Curve" to justify the existence of schools that abused and mistreated indigenous children, so he knows how to pick bad people to defend his bad takes.

Donohue tried to spin that false accusation a couple paragraphs later -- and perpetuated another lie:

In a review of the 2004 movie, “Kinsey,” New York Times critic Caleb Crain wrote that Kinsey gathered data on “attempts to bring to orgasm boys between the ages of 2 months and 15 years, in some cases over a period as long as 24 hours.”

When asked about this, Reisman condemned Kinsey for his criminal behavior. “When you rape children, it’s still a crime. And if you solicit it, and if you support it, it’s still a crime.” The real story is: Why didn’t everyone else condemn him?

There is no evidence that Kinsey "solicited" people to molest children, let alone that he did so himself. The Kinsey Institute has said that data on pre-adolescent orgasm was based a sexual omnivore who kept "very careful notes" but not was instructed or encouraged by Kinsey.

But Donohue is not interested in facts -- he's interested in indulging in his homophobia. So he went on to drag up another fearmongering blast from the past: "To this day, many pedophiles and intellectuals adore Kinsey. Here is how the nation’s most prominent homosexual child molesting organization, NAMBLA, remembers him on its website (note: there are no organized heterosexual groups dedicated to child rape)." In fact, NAMBLA really doesn't exist in any meaningful form these days.

Donohue concluded: "Those who defend Kinsey without knowing about his perverted history are an embarrassment—there is no excuse for their ignorance. Those who know about it and still defend him are moral monsters." Of course,  Donohue is a moral monster who puts fearmongering ahead of facts and openly lies to his readers in order to advance his hateful agenda, and is counting on their ignorance to cite discredited "researchers" to get away with promoting his own hate.

MRC Still Trying To Distract From Herschel Walker Abortion Scandal
Topic: Media Research Center

We've shown how the Media Research Center moved from defense to attack in deflecting from credible allegations that Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker paid for a woman's abortion. The attack and deflection continued as Walker and Democratic opponent Raphael Warnock met for a debate. The MRC, of course, would only praise Walker's performance no matter how bad he did, and Mark Finkelstein used an Oct. 15 post to praise commentators who agreed that Walker didnb't suck:

Did you hear a boom 'round about 11 am on Saturday morning? That was the sound of the Georgia senatorial debate between Herschel Walker and Ralphael Warnock blowing up on Tiffany Cross during her MSNBC show.

Prior to last night's debate, Cross was surely salivating, anticipating a weak performance by Herschel Walker. It seemed a sure thing that Cross would lead this morning's show with a segment on the debate. But when she announced that it wouldn't be discussed until the second hour, it was obvious that the debate hadn't gone according to Cross's plan.

When the segment finally did air, things went from bad to absolutely horrible for poor Tiffany. Her two guests, both African American women, were Errin Haines, a liberal activist with The 19th and an MSNBC commentator, and Tia Mitchell, the DC correspondent for the liberal Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Cross was presumably counting on her guests to take shots at Walker's performance. Instead, to Cross's shock and horror, both guests said that Walker met or exceeded expectations, and that his performance gave possibly wavering Republicans reasons to vote for him!

Scott Whitlock spent an Oct. 17 post whining that non-right-wing channels weren't pushing right-wing narratives attacking Warnock:

NBC on Monday Demonstrated that the network morning shows are still intent on investigating everything when it comes to Herschel Walker, but offer a collective yawn when it comes to the controversies connected to far-left Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock. 

The Today show’s Kristen Welker scored an interview with Walker and devoted all 4 minutes and 43 seconds to grilling the Republican. She mentioned the scandal involving a woman who claimed he paid for her abortion in 2009. After that, Welker dived into the moment trending on liberal Twitter: Walker brandishing a badge at his debate with Warnock:

Whitlock didn't mention that the badge was honorary, not real.

Nicholas Fondacaro whined the same day that the ladies of "The View" didn't spout right-wing talking points on Walker's supposedly stellar debate performance:

Monday was the first chance the ladies of ABC’s The View had to spout off about the Georgia Senate debate between Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker last Friday. While Sunny Hostin managed to keep racist comments out of her mouth and was impressed with Walker, the majority of the panel couldn’t believe their ears and suggested Hostin must have been drunk because Walker only looked good because the bar was “SO low."

After playing edited clips of the debate, co-host Whoopi Goldberg suggested the people saying Walker did well or won were only giving him sympathy points. "Now, some people are saying that Walker did better than they expected. You know, I guess when the bar is so low, we're happy to see folks do well at all," she proclaimed.

Fondacaro offered no proof that their assessment was factually inaccurate.

Bill D'Agostino found a new whataboutism target to distract from Walker in an Oct. 18 post:

With the 2022 midterm elections just weeks away, the corporate media have begun to turn up the heat on Republican Herschel Walker, having identified him as a potentially vulnerable candidate in a tight Senate race. Yet those same journalists have bristled at any criticism of Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman — even when it’s come from their own colleagues.

Earlier this month, Walker was the subject of an October surprise: allegations arose that back in 2009, he had paid a former girlfriend to have an abortion. Since then, the media have been obsessive in their coverage of the scandal, eagerly reporting every new detail as it unfolds.

Scandals are, of course, fair game in an election. They’re a means of vetting candidates. But while the media eagerly flooded the airwaves with the latest tidbits about Walker’s scandal, they have been incredibly protective of another embattled Senate candidate: John Fetterman, who’s running as a Democrat in Pennsylvania.

D'Agostino didn't explain that the issues with Walker and Fetterman are fundamentally different -- Fetterman is facing questions about his health after suffering a stroke, while Walker was revealed to have moral and personal failings in paying for a girlfriend's abortion. He also didn't explain why right-wingers like himself are choosing to stand by Walker even though his moral failings contradict right-wing orthodoxy against abortion.

Alex Christy spent an Oct. 19 post complaining that right-wing hypocrisy over Walker was called out:

CNN’s Wednesday edition of New Day lamented that the GOP midterm strategy for winning the Senate involves trying to win elections even if that means putting “party over country” by supporting “dumpster fires.”

Host Brianna Keilar lamented that this is a party-wide phenomenon, “We just had Governor Asa Hutchinson on, who sometimes has some constructive criticism for members of his own party. He has really been critical, obviously, of former President Trump and I asked him about the Georgia Senate race and Herschel Walker and did he believe Herschel Walker's denials when it came to this story that he had paid for an abortion by a former girlfriend of his and he basically said, you know, to take him at his word or he's giving him the benefit of the doubt.”

She further mourned, “it just struck me that some of these things, you know, years and years ago, would have been completely disqualifying for Republicans and they certainly no longer are.”

[...]

Speaking of dumpster fires, it’s funny that CNN refuses to cover allegations against Raphael Warnock considering they are such big believers in putting country over party.

Playing whataboutism to disctract from cynical hypocrisy -- did we expect anything different from the MRC?

Newsmax Tries To Get On 'Censorship' Bandwagon With Morris Book
Topic: Newsmax

Dick Morris has been all over Newsmax promoting his (Newsmax-published) pro-Trump book, so it was time to follow that up with an endorsement from the man himself in order to goose sales, and an Aug. 30 article by Nick Koutsobinas did the trick:

Former President Donald Trump is urging Americans to read the new bestselling book by Dick Morris.

It's called "The Return: Trump's Big 2024 Comeback" and predicts Trump is not only running for president again, but that he will overcome big odds to win again.

Writing on his Truth Social platform this weekend, Trump posted: "'The Return' is a fantastic political analysis of what very well may be taking place in the not too distant future. Dick Morris is a #1 New York Times Bestselling Author, who is also a true political pro. Great book, get it now!!"

"The Return" has been an Amazon #1 bestseller as well as a top 10 Publisher's Weekly bestseller.

An anonymously written Sept. 6 article touted the results of the plug:

Dick Morris' new book, "The Return: Trump's Big 2024 Comeback," continues to soar on the bestselling lists after former President Donald Trump's endorsement.

Last week Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social and made a post about the book.

"'The Return' is a fantastic political analysis of what very well may be taking place in the not too distant future," Trump wrote, seemingly confirming Morris' contention that the former president is, indeed, running again.

Trump continued: "Dick Morris is a #1 New York Times Bestselling Author, who is also a true political pro. Great book, get it now!!"

The social media push appeared to propel book sales.

"The Return" began the week as high as No. 4 on Amazon's overall bestsellers list. It tops the No. 1 spot on Amazon's lists in several key categories, including Elections, Political Parties and Political Advocacy. It also was No. 8 on the Publishers' Weekly list of bestsellers.

The article didn't mention that Morris has been an adviser to Trump, so it's hardly surprising Trump would endorse it, nor did it mention that the book was published by Newsmax book division Humanix.

Then it was time to play the old right-wing game of bashing the New York Times because Morris' book isn't on its bestseller list. The apparently unironically named Charlie McCarthy did the deed for his boss in a Sept. 13 article:

The New York Times' bestsellers list appears to be censoring Newsmax host Dick Morris and his new bestseller, "The Return: Trump's Big 2024 Comeback."

"The Return" is topping several bestseller lists, including Amazon, Publisher's Weekly, and others, but is nowhere to be found on the Times' nonfiction list.

Based on retail sales compiled by Bookscan for the week of Aug. 28, "The Return" should be No. 4 on the Times' list.

But Morris' book is nowhere to be found with more than 4,000 book sales for the week. But a book co-authored by Oprah Winfrey had less than 3,000 book sales and made the list at No. 9.

[...]

"The New York Times would not be caught dead promoting a book praising Donald Trump and calling for his reelection on its bestseller list, but any book criticizing Trump is guaranteed top billing," Morris told Newsmax Tuesday.

McCarthy did not cite any evidence that the Bookscan list is what the Times bases its bestseller lists on. Instead, he complained that "Conservatives have long criticized the Times bestseller list as having a liberal bias and de-ranking right-leaning titles," which ignores that conservative publishers routinely game the Times lists by selling books in bulk to activists; the Times also notes that bulk sales drove a book's positioning on the list, which also irks conservatives. McCarthy also didn't disclose that Newsmax published Morris' book. This suggests that Newsmax is either not buying Morris' books in bulk or is doing it so blatantly that the NYT is on to the game.

McCarthy returned for a Sept. 19 article in an attempt to push the same line again:

Newsmax host Dick Morris’ "The Return: Trump's Big 2024 Comeback" continues to make a big impression on national bestseller lists — hitting the top 10 of the respected Wall Street Journal’s nonfiction bestseller lists.

But The New York Times continues its censorship of "The Return" despite it outselling almost all the books on its top 15 list.

"The Return" soared six spots to place No. 7 on Publisher’s Weekly hardcover nonfiction list as of Monday morning in its 13th week among the top 25.

Morris’ book also hit The Wall Street Journal’s list for hardcover nonfiction at No. 8 for the week ending Sept. 10.

Again, McCarthy failed to explain why the Times is obligated to mirror other lists, and he again failed to disclose that his employer published the book he's plugging. He also didn't mention that the Wall Street Journal has a right-wing bias, which arguably makes Morris' appearance on the list suspect.

Why is Newsmax making a big deal out of this? Because appearanes on bestseller lists creates a virtuous cycle of boosting book sales, and because the Times list is the most prestigious, an appearance there increases sales the most. In other words: Newsmax is crying "censorship" solely to increase book sales. That's all.

WND's Latest Conspiracy Theory: Biden Blew Up The Nord Stream Pipeline!
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Conspiracy theories are the lifeblood of WorldNetDaily -- no rational person considers it a "news" operation, after all -- so when the Nord Stream pipeline out of Russia was damaged, WND snapped into conspiracy mode. A Sept. 28 article by Bob Unruh set the stage:

This week the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 Russian gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea, which had been shut down by Russia amid its war on Ukraine after they were built to supply energy to Germany and other points, were found to have massive leaks, leaving gas bubbling to the surface.

And sabotage is suspected.

Now multiple reports confirm that the CIA had warned Germany weeks ago that there could be war-like attacks on the supply lines.

[...]

The apparent destruction brought immediately to mind a promise from Joe Biden, just about a year ago, that if Russia invaded Ukraine, there soon would no longer be a Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Later in the day, Unruh cranked out another "news" article embracing Tucker Carlson's conspiracy theory under the headline "Did Joe Biden blow up Nord Stream pipeline?"

Fox News host Tucker Carlson, in a commentary about the apparent vandalism of the Nord Stream undersea natural gas pipelines from Russia to Europe, says it's hard to comprehend, but the facts are that the "people who very may well be responsible for letting methane into the Baltic Sea and into the atmosphere at a scale that most people can't imagine" could be officials in the U.S. government.

"The people lecturing you about your SUV may have blown up a natural gas pipeline and created one of the great catastrophes of our time in its effect on the environment," he explained.

[...]

He pointed out Vladimir Putin may be "evil," "but is he stupid? Probably isn't stupid and yet and, here's the strange part, if you were Vladimir Putin, you would have to be a suicidal moron to blow up your own energy pipeline. That's the one thing you would never do. "

He said those pipelines are Putin's "main source" of power and wealth and most critically, leverage over other countries.

The funny thing is, WND used to bash Biden for allegedly allowing the Nord Stream 2 pipleline to be finished in the first place. In a June 2021 article, for instance, Unruh uncritically touted Trump lackey Richard Grenell huffing that after a White House meeting between Biden and Putin, "the Russian leader has plenty to boast about, since the Biden administration essentially made him a gift of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline." When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Unruh's boss, Joseph Farah, blamed the war on Biden because "he gave Germany the green light to sign a deal with Russia for the Nord Stream 2 oil pipeline. Vladimir Putin saw all this and decided it was just the right moment to fulfill his dream of putting the Soviet Union back together." WND columnist David Harsanyi asserted that "Biden also strengthened Putin's hand by waiving Trump-era sanctions on a company building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany."

But being WND, there was a pipeline conspiracy breing even back then; a column by pro-Putin homophobe Scott Lively claimed that "Some even suggest that stopping this pipeline is the real goal of the Biden administration because U.S. influence in Europe would diminish as Russia's grew."

But not an official WND conspiracy theory unless Joseph Farah buys in, and he did exactly that in his Sept. 29 column:

The EU has said leaks in two major gas pipelines from Russia to Europe were caused by sabotage.

But who ordered it? Was it Russia? Or someone else?

Joe Biden said some pretty amazing things in an open press conference on Feb 7 of this year: If Russia invades Ukraine, he said, "then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2 [pipeline]. We will bring an end to it. I promise you, we will be able to do that."

After regurgitating much of Unruh's article quoting Carlson, Farah ranted:

Despite the "coincidence" of Biden making the startling statement in February, no one in the press takes him at his word.

So I wonder who called this potentially disastrous and dangerous shot?

If not Biden, was it his keeper?

Maybe the Republicans can figure it out in January.

Farah didn't mention that he criticized Biden some months earlier for giving Germany the OK to complete the pipeline.

Meanwhile, neither Unruh nor Farah mentioned that Carlson's case of blaming Biden for the Nord Stream attack is weak at best and that it got heavy airplay on Putin-controlled Russian TV, meaning that the conspiracy theory plays into Putin's hands. Instead, Unruh parroted more Carlson conspiracy-mongering in an Oct. 4 article:

Now Carlson is charging that the Biden administration has confessed to doing the damage.

In a new video commentary he noted who did it is "not really much of a question any more."

That's because Tony Blinken, Biden's secretary of state, "admitted we did it."

There's "no mistaking what he meant," Carlson said.

Blinken, in fact, said, "It's a tremendous opportunity once and for all to remove the dependence on Russian energy, and thus to take away from Vladimir Putin the weaponization of energy as a means of advancing his imperial designs."

Blinken said, "That's very significant and that offers tremendous strategic opportunities for the years to come."

Carlson said, "That's the clearest admission we're ever going to get. … No one could miss it, least of all the Russians. … The Biden administration is responsible either directly or through proxies for the destruction of the … pipeline."

In fact, Blinken made no such admission. Unruh also failed to mention how Carlson's conspiracy theory is getting lots of play on Russian TV.

Meanwhile, James Zumwalt bought into the conspiracy in his Oct. 5 column:

Clearly, the explosions were the work of saboteurs – but the question is who would have done it and why? While the blame game – Russia accusing the European Union and the U.S. with both the latter accusing Russia – has started, there is an effective way to determine who is responsible.

However, let us first examine the arguments concerning who had the most to gain from such an act of sabotage.

Why would Russia sabotage its own pipelines that provide an economic lifeline for the country's biggest exports – oil and gas?

[...]

But we have a tremendous asset to provide us with a quick answer to "whodunit." We need only to seek out its wise counsel.

That asset is a group of 51 intelligence experts who proved their bona fides to us when the issue of Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop computer first came to light. The laptop held damning evidence about Hunter's criminal actions as well as the involvement of his father in receiving compensation for his son's business deals with China. The FBI had this "laptop from hell" in its possession for many months beforehand but failed to act on its contents. We now know that was due to the political actions of a pro-Biden FBI cabal, free-wheeling within the agency. And, as the timing of the laptop's revelation was just before the 2020 presidential election, this group of 51 intelligence experts assured us it did not belong to Hunter but, rather, was the product of a Russian counter-intelligence effort to undermine Joe Biden's election.

We need to solicit the opinion of these 51 experts again as to whose fingerprints they believe to be on the Nord Stream leak. Based on what they say, we will then know the answer is the opposite of what they tell us.

Unruh was still at it in an Oct. 10 article, ostensibly highlighting how satellites are capturing the greenhouse gas emissions from the leak but then rehashing Carlson's unproven, conspiratorial claims.

 

NEW ARTICLE: The MRC Takes It Out On Liz Cheney
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center denied it was news that the Republican congresswoman was ousted from GOP leadership for not loving Trump enough, then bashed her for serving on the Capitol riot committee and cheered that she lost her Republican primary. Read more >>