NEW ARTICLE -- The MRC Flips On Kanye West: The Early Years
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center hated rapper Kanye West -- until he started spouting right-wing anti-abortion rhetoric and launched a bromance with Donald Trump. Read more >>

MRC's Biased "Research" Claims Google Buries GOP Candidate Websites
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center is well known for concocting highly biased "studies" designed to advance partisan right-wing narratives rather than further the cause of legitimate research. (Remember its invention of "secondhand censorship" to push its victimhood narrative?) It was at it again in an Oct. 25 post that reads more like a political screed than any sort of "study":

Anti-Democracy Google is manipulating search results to bury Senate Republican candidates’ campaign websites before the 2022 midterm elections. This comes on the heels of a North Carolina State University study that found that Google’s Gmail marked 59.3 percent more emails from “right”-leaning candidates as spam compared to “left”-leaning candidates.

“Google must be investigated for its un-American efforts to sway the election,” said L. Brent Bozell, founder and president of the Media Research Center. “First, researchers caught Google red-handed by proving Republican campaign emails were sent to spam. Now we’ve uncovered Google manipulating search results to hide Republican campaign websites while promoting Democratic ones. This is all an effort by Google to help Democrats and interfere in the democratic process.” 

MRC Free Speech America has analyzed Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo search results for the 12 Senate races identified by RealClearPolitics as the most important to watch. Our researchers caught Google burying 10 of 12 Senate Republican Party candidates’ campaign websites while highlighting their opponents campaign sites in organic search results. This stands in stark contrast to Bing and DuckDuckGo whose search results treated Republican and Democrat campaign websites more neutrally than Google.  

• Google buried Senate Republican Party candidates’ campaign websites. Ten of 12 Senate Republican Party candidates’ campaign websites (83%) appeared far lower (or did not appear at all) on page one of Google’s organic search results compared to their Senate Democratic Party opponents’ campaign websites.

• Google completely hid seven of 12 Senate Republican Party candidates’ campaign websites in page one organic search results. Seven of 12 Senate Republican Party candidates’ campaign websites did not appear on page one using Google’s organic search. Meanwhile, eight of 12 Senate Democratic Party candidate campaign websites were highlighted in the top six items in organic search results.

• Google’s search result bias is undeniable when compared to Bing and DuckDuckGo. With the exception of two candidates, both Bing and DuckDuckGo showed both the Senate Democratic Party candidates’ campaign websites and the Senate Republican Party candidates’ campaign websites in the top five organic search results on page one. 

The fact that Pariseau put her boss' political attack on Google ahead of the MRC's so-called "research" tells you the true intent of what was being done here. After a set of "recommendations" that began by ranting that "Google must stop its war against Democracy" -- again, not the sign of a serious researcher -- did Pariseau finally get around to describing how this "study" was done:

For this report, MRC Free Speech America has analyzed the Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo search results for the 12 Senate races identified by RealClearPolitics as the “Top Senate Races” on Oct. 7, 2022. The “Top Senate Races” included the Democratic Party and Republican Party candidates from the following states: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin.

MRC Free Speech America created an algorithm to automate this process in a clean environment. A “clean environment” allows for organic search to populate results without the influence of prior search history and tracking cookies.

MRC Free Speech America researchers searched each candidate's name with the words “Senate Race 2022” using the algorithm. To determine bias, our researchers looked at each search engines’ results and recorded the rank(s) of each candidate’s campaign website.

Example(s): “Blake Masters Senate Race 2022” and “Mark Kelly Senate Race 2022”

What's missing, however, is any sort of reasoning why that particular search term should have put the campaign's website at the top of a given search engine's search operations -- or even why that particular term was used to test search placement.

Pariseau went on to write that "MRC Free Speech America has found that Google search results buried Senate Republican candidates’ campaign websites 83 percent of the time compared to their Democratic opponents. For more than half of these races, Google completely eliminated the Republican campaign websites from the first page of results." What she doesn't do, however, is show her work -- that is, the raw data that showed what those searches did retrieve. Remember, this "study" never explains why the only acceptable outcome for the search term it used is to put the campaign website at the top of the results, or even why that particular term is supposed to generate that particular result. After all, wouldn't someone a month before the election (theMRC conducted its searches on Oct. 7) likely be more interested in news about the candidate and campaign -- which is what search engines would likely be prioritizing -- than the campaign's website, which in most cases is filled with boilerplate platitudes?

Pariseau then cited a anti-Google activist to add a bit faux gravitas to its shoddy "research":

Over 90 percent of all searches are conducted on Google, according to Business Insider, so Google’s outsized influence makes its conduct uniquely harmful among the Big Tech companies. Because of its power and technological capability to shape elections,  liberal psychologist and researcher Dr. Robert Epstein, Ph.D., has repeatedly warned of the danger Google poses to American voters.

“Google poses a serious threat to democracy," Dr. Epstein said in his 2019 testimony to a Senate Judiciary subcommittee. He cited the fact that Google and Big Tech have the power to change 15 million votes and added that “to let Big Tech get away with subliminal manipulation on this scale would be to make the free and fair election meaningless.”

Dr. Epstein has extensively researched and monitored what users experienced while using Google products in the lead-up to the 2016, 2018 and 2020 elections. 

Dr. Epstein also noted in an interview< with Fox News host and contributor Tucker Carlson in 2020 that “Google’s search results were strongly biased in favor of liberals and Democrats.” He also said that the bias was being shown to every user but that conservative users who participated in the study received “slightly more liberal bias in their search results than liberals did.”

We've documented how Epstein's research alleging Google search bias in the 2016 election has been discredited because it was based on an absurdly small sample of 21 undecided voters.And Epstein appearing on the most biased right-wing show on the most biased right-wing "news" channel doesn't improve his credibility as much as Pariseau apparently thinks it does.

Speaking of boilerplace, Pariseau added a bunch that rehashed previous MRC attacks on Google purporting to show how "The company has aided Democrat politicians for at least a decade." That demonstrates even more that this is a partisan attack and a weak attempt at an October surprise rather than legitimately conducted research.

Propaganda in hand, Bozell was went to Fox News to hype this "research," where he knew he would face no serious questions about its shoddiness:

• ‘Manipulating the Data’: MRC’s Brent Bozell Highlights Google Search’s Pro-Democrat Election Bias
• MRC’s Bozell Slams Lefty Media Dismissing Border ‘Calamity,’ ‘Illegal’ Google Censorship

The MRC also got Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn to parrot the bogus results, as well as rich right-winger Vivek Ramaswamy.

When other people pointed out the study's shoddy construction, the MRC lamely fought back. Joseph Vazquez huffed in an Oct. 26 post:

The geniuses at Newsweek tried to toss the leftists at Google a lifeline by issuing a ridiculous “fact check” of MRC Free Speech America’s latest study showing Google manipulating search results to benefit Democrats in top senate races. 

MRC President Brent Bozell had a one-line response to Newsweek: “Remember Newsweek was sold for a dollar. Someone overpaid."

Newsweek’s so-called ‘fact check’ whined that the MRC< study, which caught Google burying 10 of 12 Senate Republican Party candidates’ campaign websites while highlighting their opponents campaign sites in organic search results, “does not provide any definitive evidence to suggest Google deliberately alters their algorithm for partisan effect.”

Not only did the outlet not reach out to the Media Research Center for comment, it chose to leave out core elements of the study that upend Newsweek’s lazy work.

Bozell excoriated Newsweek and Google’s gaslighting: “Google's response and Newsweek's attack on our study are predictable for Google and Newsweek.”

Newsweek had parroted a Google spokesperson’s claim that the MRC Free Speech America “‘report is designed to mislead, testing uncommon search terms that people rarely use.’” 

The so-called fact-check’s “ruling”? “Unverified,” claimed Newsweek, which is a cute way of saying it isn’t really a fact-check. The outlet even conceded based on an expert it cited that Google is notorious for its “lack of transparency” when it comes to its algorithm.

Newsweek didn’t even bother mentioning that the MRC Free Speech America study researched the same parameters on two other search engines: Bing and DuckDuckGo. When MRC Free Speech America researchers performed the same searches on those two search engines, the results were more neutral. 

In all that whining and distraction, Vazquez never responded to Newsweek's central claim of a lack of proof of algorithim manipulation or an explanation of why those "uncommon search terms" were used.

Brian Bradley played the same distraction game against criticism from Google itself in an Oct. 28 post:

On Tuesday, MRC Free Speech America released a study “Google CAUGHT Manipulating Search, Buries GOP Campaign Sites in 83% of Top Senate Races” that showed Google manipulated data to suppress and censor Republicans in key Senate races at a time when the U.S. Senate hangs in the balance.

A Google spokesperson told Fox News Digital: "This report is designed to mislead, testing uncommon search terms that people rarely use. Anyone who searches for these candidate names on Google can clearly see that their campaign websites rank at the top of results - in fact, all of these candidates currently rank in the top three and often in the first spot in Google Search results." 

MRC Free Speech America applied the exact same methodology from its Senate study to analyze 36 top House races, where polling shows the House does not hang in the balance.

[...]

MRC Free Speech America’s methodology was not only correct, but when comparing Google’s search results with Bing and DuckDuckGo, Google’s search bias becomes even more clear.

When you can't even offer a plausible explanation for the "uncommon" search terms you use and then hid the raw data those search terms returned, that's evidence your methodology is not "correct." It's biased "research" designed to produce a predetermined result -- the exact opposite of real research.

A WND Columnist's Pre-Election 'Red Wave' Fiction
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Brad Lyles' Oct. 21 WorldNetDaily column was headlined "Will GOP leaders betray us again, post-red wave?":

It is all too likely our Republican leaders will betray us once again and will turn our Nov. 8 victory into a defeat.

It is all too likely we will once again suffer the "death of a thousand cuts" at the hands of our leadership – bleeding away the impact of electoral success and draining the life from our great movement.

Sen. Mitch McConnell will likely hold GOP leadership in the Senate; who can stop him? He likely will be erroneously credited with the success of new and MAGA Republican senators – even though he fought against the election of most of them.

Even though his leadership is uninspired and uninspiring. Even though more often than not he uses his power in opposition to both conservative and America First principles. Even though he betrays his base with clock-like regularity.

Republican leaders like Mitch McConnell are worse than Democrats. At least Democrats fight for their own. At least Democrats are loyal to their brand.

It is more than likely Republicans will also impose upon themselves a second defeat – by electing Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House.

McCarthy, too, will wrongly be credited with the Republicans' victory this fall, despite his Herculean efforts to prevent the election of any Republican not loyal to him.

The existing and newly crowned MAGA candidates will likely not achieve numbers sufficient to unseat McCarthy. Once again we will be saddled with an ineffectual and inarticulate Republican leader, one already long compromised by his donors. McCarthy will persist, however, absent courage, absent vision and absent the wisdom to promote the America First ideas of his new colleagues.

Lyles' column was already speculative fiction when he wrote it, and the decided lack of a "red wave" in the midterms has made it age even more poorly. Lyles then really cranked up the hate and victimhood:

Our current leadership's betrayal, however, exceeds the limits of their own incompetence. They continue to fail to make Democratic malefactors pay a price for their fraud and deceit. No Democratic apparatchik or pawn has suffered even a whisper of a consequence – no jail time, no fines, no impoverishing protracted legal battles. Contrast this with the cruelty visited upon the hapless Trump supporter.

But our leaders do not notice. They do not harangue our tormenters. Most do not seem to care.

It is true Republican leaders have commented upon the evil embedded in the heart of Democratic politics, if only briefly, but they have yet act upon their words. Admittedly, there are a few senators and House members who speak out more forcefully – but our leaders smother most such efforts – and punish them as well.

Our leaders do not fight for us, their party, or their voters.

Worst of all, our leadership continues in silence, affirming by neglect the Regime's illegal political imprisonment – still – of dozens of January 6 protesters.

Actually, it's not illegal at all to imprison criminals. Lyles offers no evidence whatsoever to prove they aren't. Lyles then moved to lame election fraud conspiracy theories, which he also didn't bother to substantiate:

More than failing us, our leaders have failed – and betrayed – a nation. Their execrable disdain for exploring the nationwide fraud in the Nov. 3, 2020, election has forestalled any hope of building sufficient fraud-prevention measures for this coming election.

Our leaders' failure to hold Democratic miscreants to account for their fraud emboldens Democrats to defraud us again – but this time bald-facedly and despite our newfound army of poll observers.

Can we ultimately prevail, even with a midterm victory, subordinated as we are to a feckless and self-destructive leadership, and despite the ravaging of our base by every institution in America?

Lyles tried to end on a hopeful note: "But … this is America. This is the land of miracles, where even the powerless can become the mighty. So, even though our adversaries own almost everything, we own reason and we have The People. And that should be enough." But it was -- just not the way he thinks it was. "The People" largely rejected right-wing hate and fear in the midterms, as well as fraudulent electon deniers and anti-abortion extremism. And that is enough for now.

 

MRC Mad Its False Kamala Harris Narrative Got Fact-Checked
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Kevin Tober ranted in an Oct. 2 post:

On CBS’s Face the Nation, anchor Margaret Brennan spent much of her interview Sunday with Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) by arguing with him that Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t advocate racial equity when it comes to helping Floridians whose homes were destroyed or damaged by Hurricane Ian. 

After Brennan asked Scott about her favorite topic, former President Donald Trump and comments he reportedly made about Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, Scott rightfully ignored her and brought up Harris’s divisive comments about “equity.”  

“I would also say that what Vice President Harris said yesterday—or the day before yesterday, you know, if you have a different skin color you’re going to get relief faster,” Scott responded.

“That's not what the Vice President said. She talked about equity,” Brennan blurted out, apparently unaware that what Scott described is exactly what equity is. 

Despite Tober accusing Brennan of "gaslighting" about what Harris said, the real gasligher here is Tober. As we documented when the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, did the same thing, Harris' remark was taken out of context to falsely portray it as being about hurricane relief when her full remarks show she was referring to equity in recacting to climate change, and numerous fact-checkers agree.

Which brings us to an Oct. 4 post by Tim Graham, who whined (as he often does) that his subordinate was fact-checked and, rather than point out where Tober was right or wrong, attacked the fact-checker:

On Sunday, our Kevin Tober noticed Sen. Rick Scott faced pushback from CBS Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan when he said Vice President Kamala Harris was arguing that racial "equity" should be applied in disaster relief. It was only a matter of time before the "independent fact checkers" lined up to defend Harris. 

Here in our NewsBusters Twitter notifications came a tweet from deputy White House Twitter troll Andrew Bates, lining up his helpful Democrat-enabling fact-checkers. (We're not adults? Fact check?)

PolitiFact was the first stop on the Bates list. Here's how tilted PolitiFact is: since the Biden-Harris inauguration, Kamala Harris has only four fact-checks: two Mostly Trues, a Mostly False, and a False. So it's basically 50-50.

By contrast, Sen. Scott of Florida -- where PolitiFact is based -- drew thirteen fact checks in the same time period. None of them were rated True or Mostly True, one Half True, with four False and eight Mostly False. So it's on the False side 12 of 13 times, or 92 percent.

Scott drew a False from Jeff Cercone with the summary headline: Kamala Harris said about Hurricane Ian that “if you have a different skin color, you're going to get relief faster.” That's not what she said -- in quote marks.

It can be interpreted that "communities of color" should get priority attention for "environmental justice," but it's not what she said. She spoke generally and not specifically.

[...]

So this is fact-check territory. Our problem here is target selection. Let us repeat: Joe Biden can say the Republicans are "Jim Crow 2.0," and PolitiFact naps. 

At no point did Graham admit Tober (or any other Republican who spread the false narrative) was wrong, nor did he admit that there was context missing from GOP interpretation of her remarks. He was content to instead make it another battle in his war on fact-checkers -- and hid the fact that the fact-checkers were right.

CNS Flip-Flops On Possible Hatch Act Violations Depending On Who's In Office
Topic: CNSNews.com

Just as it's intermittently obsessed with possible violations of the Logan Act (which prohibits unauthorized Americans from negotiating with foreign goverments) depending on which party controls the White House, CNSNews.com has a similar attitude toward the Hatch Act, which prohibits certain political activities by federal employees. Susan Jones complained in an Oct. 27 article:

The White House website is warning that Republicans "plan to increase inflation and costs" for Americans.

On Thursday morning, the top item on the "Briefing Room" web page -- where White House staffers post statements, “fact sheets,” transcripts, and news releases -- reads as follows:

"Congressional Republicans’ Five-Part Plan to Increase Inflation and Costs for American Families."

"Congressional Republicans have laid out their mega MAGA trickle-down economic plan clearly," the news release says. "Their economic plan will raise costs and make inflation worse. Their five part plan includes:

-- "$3 trillion in tax cuts skewed to the wealthy";

-- "Raising prescription drug costs for millions of seniors" (by repealing the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which is mostly a green energy bill with a few goodies thrown in to make it seem like cost reduction);

-- "Increasing health insurance premiums" (by repealing the so-called Inflation Reduction Act);

-- "Increasing energy bills in 2023 and beyond (by repealing the clean energy provisions, including tax credits for EVs, provided in the Inflation Reduction Act);

-- "Increasing student loan payments" (by reversing Biden's possibly unconstitutional move to cancel some debt for some students).

(Notably, the news release is not labeled a “fact sheet.”)

According to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, "The Hatch Act, a federal law passed in 1939, limits certain political activities of federal employees..."

The OSC does not offer specific guidance on the White House "Briefing Room" webpage. However, it does say that all federal civilian executive branch employees, except for the president and the vice president, are covered by the Hatch Act.

[...]

On Wednesday, as the New York Post reported, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain was warned that he violated the Hatch Act by retweeting a message urging people to purchase “Democrats Deliver” merchandise.

That last criticism was reinforced in an article by Melanie Arter the same day:

White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain was admonished by the Office of Special Counsel on Wednesday for violating the Hatch Act by retweeting a message from his government account from the Democratic group STRIKE PAC that included the statement, “Get your Democrats Deliver merch today.”

The tweet in question, which was posted on May 22, was about delivering infant formula.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about the Office of Special Counsel’s finding during a gaggle on board Air Force One en route to Syracuse, N.Y.

The press secretary said that the Biden administration takes the Hatch Act more seriously than the Trump administration did.

You will not be surprised to learn that CNS took Hatch Act violations as unseriously as the Trump administration when Trump was in office. When Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway was found by the Office of Special Counsel in 2019 to have repeatedly violated the Hatch Act and recommended her removal, Susan Jones grumbled that the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed her and that "One Republican, Justin Amash, voted with Democrats." She went on to uncritically quote Republican Rep. Jim Jordan reframing her violations by claiming that "a senior adviser to the president of the United States can sure as heck go on cable news shows and answer questions" and that she's being targeted "not just because she's in the Trump administration, but she's being targeted because she's good at what she does."

(Arter didn't mention Conway's repeated Hatch Act violations in her article on Klain.)

When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a speech from Israel during the 2020 Republican National Convention, Patrick Goodenough complained that "some Jewish Democrats, who see it as a ploy to politicize the U.S.-Israel relationship" as well as a possible violation of the Hatch Act, while uncritically repeating Trump administration officials' insistence that Pompeo was giving the speech "in his personal capacity." A couple days later, Melanie Arter played stenographer for a Republcian congressman who appeaered on Fox News playing whataboutism to deflect from Pompeo:

Former Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said Wednesday that it’s ironic for Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) to call for an investigation into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaking at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday, given that five cabinet-level Democrats spoke during the Democratic National Convention in 2012.

Castro, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee, issued a statement, saying “This action is part of a pattern of politicization of U.S. foreign policy for which President Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives. That undermines America's standing in the world. The American people deserve a full investigation."

[...]

“So if you're going to investigate noncompliance with the Hatch Act, if you’re going to accuse Mike Pompeo, how many cabinet-level officials spoke at the DNC in 2012? Five. So I will trade the power of incumbency. I think people understand incumbents have power – congressional incumbents do, presidential,” he said.

According to the schedule of the 2012 Democratic National Convention, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Small Business Administration Administrator Karen Mills, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius - all members of the Obama administration at the time - spoke at the convention headlines by President Barack Obama.

When Pompeo got dinged again for another possible Hatch Act violation in December 2020 by campaigning for Republican candidates in Georgia, Goodenough again rushed to his defense, delcaring:

A non-exhaustive review of travel by Pompeo’s two Democratic predecessors at the State Department finds that Kerry delivered occasional speeches in Massachusetts (including one at Harvard in 2015 and another at MIT in early 2017) and visited a wind technology testing center in Boston with his British counterpart in 2014.

Clinton took part in numerous events in New York City while serving as secretary of state from Jan. 21, 2009 to Feb. 1, 2013 – not including those relating to the United Nations – delivering speeches at policy institutions, schools, galas, benefits, award dinners, and other events.

Biut as we noted at the time, Goodenough buried the fact that Kerry and Clinton were appearing in their home states but didn't mention that Pompeo is from Kansas and has no connection to Georgia.

That, in turn, is a change from how it treated the Hatch Act during the Obama administraiton. For instance, a 2010 article by Fred Lucas suggested that "strict guidelines for the placement, size, and visibility of signs promoting the $862-billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" was a Hatch Act violation. And a 2013 article by Craig Bannister toutred how "U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (O-Okla.) has launched a probe into potential Hatch Act violations by the White House in its climate agenda advocacy."

MRC Flip-Flops On Rigging Polls
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Kevin Tober ranted in an Oct. 31 post:

On Monday night, MSNBC’s Joy Reid went full-blown conspiracy kook during her show The ReidOut. She was apparently wearing her tin foil hat so tight that it was cutting off her circulation because she claimed with a straight face that over half of the midterm election polls published over the last few weeks are Republican polls that are skewed to create a media narrative that a red wave is coming. 

Discussing recent media coverage of polls that are trending in the GOP’s direction, Reid snarked that “if you believe the recent headlines, you would think that MAGA fascism is ascendant.” 

According to Reid, it’s all an illusion because “if you get past those headlines and dig a little deeper, you uncover an insidious and seemingly intentional campaign by Republican-backed polling firms to flood the zone and tip the balance of polling averages in favor of their candidates.”

Funny, the MRC didn't think this was a "conspiracy kook" claim two years ago, when it put on its tinfoil hat to make a very similar accusation, if not worse. As we documented, after the 2020 election, MRC chief Brent Bozell accused pollsters of being "deliberately wildly wrong" in their polling before the election -- that is, they were making up polls -- because they purportedly wanted to "suppress the vote" for Trump. The MRC then commissioned its own rigged poll -- from McLaughlin & Associates, the pollster for Trump's campaign -- suggesting that Biden would have lost the election had (then-unverified) reports about Hunter Biden's laptop not been "censored" bvy the media.

Tober censored how Reid's complaint mirrored that of his employer. Instead, he ranted some more about Reid:

Despite claiming that you can’t trust partisan pollsters because they spin for their side, Reid quoted from Democrat pollster Simon Rosenberg who she described as “sounding the alarm, and saying “of the roughly 40 polls taken in key battleground states” over half are “from Republican firms or groups.” 

To back up her conspiracy theory, Reid pointed to the left-wing rag The New York Times whose polls showed “Democrats either in the lead or tied with their opponent.” 

Continuing to quote from the Times, Reid claimed that “most of the polling over the last few weeks is coming from partisan outfits, usually Republican, or auto dial firms. These polls are cheap enough to flood the zone.”

Tober didn't disprove any of that, of course; his goal was to smear Reid as a crackpot because he knew he couldn't. He concluded with onemore attack he didn't back up:

She ended her delusional and conspiratorial rant by falsely claiming that "Real Clear Politics, has become more openly pro-Trump," because during the 2020 presidential election, "their polling averages seemed skewed in Trump’s favor."

In fact, Real Clear Politics' rightward bias is quite clear, and Rosenberg noted that "A polling aggregator of only independent polls has the election 3.3 pts more Dem than Real Clear."

Tober concluded by huffing: "Make sure to check out NewsBusters on election night and in the days after to see Reid’s reaction when she’s proven wrong." How'd that work out for you, Kev?

Newsmax Hypes Gabbard (Officially) Quitting Democratic Party
Topic: Newsmax

Like CNSNews.com, Newsmax got quite a kick of Tulsi Gabbard ceasing her charade of being a Democrat and officially qutting the party. For months, of course, Newsmax had been promoting Gabbard's attacks on her purportedly fellow Democrats for months now, so this was less news and more right-wing propaganda.

The uniroinically named Charlie McCarthy used an Oct. 11 article to parrot her words in quitting, but didn't mention she hadn't acted like a real Democrat for years. This was followed by an article the next day by Solange Reyner featuring Gabbard being transphobic on Joe Rogan's podcast -- followed by an article by Luca Cacciatore that effectively blew up any claim that Gabbard was a real Democrat by gushing that "Onetime Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has backed a Donald Trump-endorsed House Republican candidate just one day after leaving the Democratic Party." Another article that day by Eric Mack blew that up even further by touting how Gabbard woudl be going on "a barnstorming campaign tour" for Republican election-denier Senate candidate Don Bolduc.

Meanwhile, Dick Morris tried to ride Gabbard's DINO coattails for his own benefit in an Oct. 11 Newsmax TV appearance:

Dick Morris can relate to former Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard's high-profile defection from the Democratic Party, since he made a similar exodus from the Democrats a number of years ago.

"[Nearly] all of us were 'boat' people," Morris told Newsmax's "The Chris Salcedo Show" on Tuesday, relaying how the vast majority of American citizens have roots and heritage stories outside the United States. "And very few of us were originally Republicans."

Morris, a best-selling author, TV host, and former adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, says that disenchanted Democrats "didn't shift [their ideals]. The party shifted under our feet. ... The party of [President John F. Kennedy] and Bill Clinton" now aligns with the modern-day Republican agenda.

As for Gabbard's next political move, Morris — the author of "The Return: Trump's Big 2024 Comeback" — says, "I'd love her on [the Republicans'] side. I thought she was very good" as a politician.

Morris did more self-aggrandizing exploitation of Gabbard in a TV hit the next day:

Former presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard's decision to resign from the Democratic Party is further proof that President Joe Biden has "made America unrecognizable," political strategist Dick Morris, the author of "The Return: Donald Trump's Big 2024 Comeback," said on Newsmax Wednesday.

"It's a phrase I use in my book," the host said on "John Bachman Now." "You wouldn't recognize it if told you this is a country where the government goes after political opponents and baits them and searches their homes.

"Children are told that we are in favor of racism, not against racism, where you look at gender-change surgery for children in the fourth grade … you would say I have no idea what country you're talking about," Morris added. "But you're talking about America, and I think Tulsi is really onto something when she says, 'Look, I haven't changed; the Democratic Party has changed underneath me.'"

An Oct. 18 article by Marisa Herman, hidden behind a paywall for its "Platinum" subscribers, purported to offer "5 Big Reasons Tulsi Gabbard Left the Democrats." An Oct. 26 column by Kenny Cody tried to pretend Gabbard was a real Democrat even as he admitted that she's "a constant on conservative news networks":

While Gabbard has been a constant on conservative news networks, podcasts and media shows, analyzing her background makes it all the more surprising that she left the Democratic Party. Gabbard endorsed Bernie Sanders for president in 2016, was the former vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, and resides in one of the most Democratic states in Hawaii.

From her stances on foreign policy, criminal justice reform, and populism in Congress, Gabbard was often regarded as a future star who rose from Bernie Sanders' party shift after his candidacies in both 2016 and 2020.

However, for reasons that can only be attributed to Gabbard's bucking of the establishment shills in the Democratic Party, she has been ostracized, mocked, and even called a Russian agent by the party's former nominee, all because she was willing to call out warmongering tyrants like Hillary Clinton and fake progressives such as Kamala Harris.

Cody didn't mention that the whole "Russian agent" thing is not entirely out of line, given how she sided with Putin and against Ukraine, as even Newsmax documented (though Newsmax also pointed out that Gabbard spread falsehoods about purported biological labs in Ukraine). Instead, Cody framer her odious pro-Putin semtiments as being against "interventionist foreign policy" and insisted the Republicans should embrace her because the "national conservative movement within the party" embraces being "anti-war."

A couple days later, though Newsmax was touting how Gabbard was endording right-wing Republicans like Adam Laxalt and Mike Lee.

WND's Moore Cranks Out Even More COVID Vaccine Misinfo
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily's Art Moore served yet another COVID conspiracy in an Oct. 18 article:

An alarming spike in the deaths of young Canadian doctors since the COVID-19 vaccine was mandated for health-care workers demands an investigation, a physician and cancer researcher told the Canadian Medical Association.

Dr. William Makis, a nuclear medicine physician with more than 100 peer-reviewed research publications, also called for an immediate end to COVID-19 vaccine mandates in Canadian health care, the Gateway Pundit reported.

"Our analysis shows Canadian doctor deaths under age 50 in 2022 will be 2-fold higher compared to 2019-2020," he wrote. "Shockingly, doctor deaths under age 40 are 5-fold higher, and doctor deaths under age 30 are 8-fold higher."

Makis noted that at the Canadian Medical Association-sponsored International Conference on Physician Health last week, a topic that was not discussed was "young Canadian doctors dying suddenly and unexpectedly after COVID vaccine rollout."

[...]

Addressing CMA leaders Dr. Katharine Smart and Dr. Alika Lafontaine, he said "both of you failed or refused to respond to my letter, and you also failed or refused to respond to inquiries made by American philanthropist Mr.Steve Kirsch, as well as inquiries made by journalists."

"I am now providing you an update with information about 80 young Canadian doctors who died suddenly or unexpectedly since the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines," he wrote. "Four more doctors have died since my previous letter, and these unexpected deaths are accelerating. You cannot continue to ignore this."

Makis said he and his team have assembled a database of 1,638 Canadian doctor deaths during the period 2019-2022, with 972 of them from CMA's website. Our preliminary analysis of this extensive data suggests that Canadian doctor deaths under age 50 in 2022 will be 2-fold higher compared to the 2019-2020 average.

In fact, there's no evidence to suggest doctors are dying from the COVID vaccine, and Makis won't provide access to his database. As usual, Moore's pumping up of Makis' credentials in order to lean into the authority fallacy is a tell that he's trying to hide the fact that what's underneath is bogus.

WND columnist Wayne Allyn Root has peddled this bogus conpiracy theory as well.

The next day, Moore brought back a misinformer, complete with a similar appeal to authority:

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.

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.

Late last month, Malhotra called for a suspension of the shots, arguing in a scientific paper that there is evidence the risk of harm is greater than any benefit.

As we documented when Moore publicized that study, Malhorta normally peddles celebrity diets and the study was filled with low-quality data that made it largely worthless.

Moore touted more fearmongering in an Oct. 26 article:

Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration quietly disclosed it found that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine posed a possible increased risk of four serious heart and cardiovascular conditions in elderly people.

The FDA provided little detail at the time, July 2021, and promised to "share further updates and information with the public as they become available," points out investigative journalist Maryanne Demasi in an article published by the British Medical Journal.

Eighteen days later, the FDA issued a document outlining a planned epidemiological study to investigate the matter. The preliminary estimate of the increased risk of the cardiac adverse events from the vaccine ranged from 42% to 91%.

"More than a year later, however, the status and results of the follow-up study are unknown," wrote Demasi. "The agency has not published a press release, or notified doctors, or published the findings by preprint or the scientific literature or updated the vaccine's product label."

But Moore didn't tell his reader sthat Demasi has a record of shoddy work. In 2018, a medical journal retracted a study by her purporting to link cell phones to cancer due to reuse of images; five dauys before Moore's article was published, an article co-authored buy Demasi was marked with an "expression of concern," again due to the use of duplicated images. So she doesn't seem very trustworthy, even though she managed to get a article published in an actual prestigious medical journal.

MRC Whines That Oprah Endorsed Fetterman
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center began waging war on John Fetterman when it decided it could exploit his stroke for partisan reasons and boost his Democratic opponent for in the Pennsylvania Senate race, Mehmet Oz. The weekend before the election, the MRC attacked Fetterman again, but for more prosaic reasons -- in this case, getting an endorsement from Oprah Winfrey. Alex Christy spent a Nov. 4 post insisting that Oprah's endorsement meant nothing, even though it was a clear rebuke of Oz, whose TV career was launched by her:

Of all the stories that could’ve led off Friday’s CNN This Morning, the one that the cast settled on was Oprah Winfrey endorsing John Fetterman in Pennsylvania’s Senate race with co-host Don Lemon desperately trying to suggest it all mattered.

Lemon kicked things off by hyping “Oprah Winfrey, Oprah, snubbing the man she turned into a household name. Endorsing John Fetterman over Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania's very, very tight Senate race.”

After an unrelated clip of former President Trump in Iowa, Lemon continued trying to make the Oprah-Fetterman endorsement a big deal, “Let's start now, Jessica Dean live from Montgomery County, just outside of Philadelphia. So good morning to you. It's interesting because Oprah helped to make Dr. Oz famous but now she's endorsing his opponent, John Fetterman. Do you think it's going to swing any votes?”

In defiance of Betteridge's law of headlines, Dean suggested that it might:

Nicholas Fondacaro kicked off his daily two minutes hate of "The View" by only alluding to Oprah's endorsement while bashing the show's interview of Fetterman for not being as hateful as he would be:

The Friday edition of ABC’s The View brought with it one of the more highly anticipated interviews for the show, Pennsylvania Lt. Governor and Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman. If you predicted it would be a cakewalk for him, you’d be correct. They refused to grill him pretty much on anything and instead repeatedly teed him up to go after critics and his Republican opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and downplayed his obviously strained health condition.

Wasting her first question asking about his endorsement from Oprah, co-host Joy Behar didn’t push for him to release his medical records but rather for him just to explain what his doctors told him:

[...]

Bringing things back to the debate last week, Hostin suggested “it was an incredibly courageous and brave thing for you to show what healing from a stroke looks like. That's incredibly brave.” She then doubled down on her past assertion that Oz was a “bully” during the debate.

“Does any of this surprise you? A man with a Harvard master's degree, do you think the people of Pennsylvania saw what they needed to see from you to gain their vote?” she teed him up.

Hostin has repeatedly tried to portray Oz as a quack, he too has a degree from Harvard, and while she touts Fetterman’s, he did not receive his post-stroke.

Curtis Houck brought the conversation back to deflecting from Oprah's endorsement:

Friday on the “big three” network morning shows from ABC, CBS, and NBC, the trio eagerly touted Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of handicapped Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) over her longtime colleague and Fetterman’s GOP challenger, Dr. Mehmet Oz. 

[...]

NBC’s Today went the lightest on the midterms, but heaviest on Oprah Winfrey. Co-host Savannah Guthrie teased “a surprise endorsement from Oprah in one of the nation's closest races,” with co-host Craig Melvin adding a few minutes later that it was “a major endorsement.”

Saturday Today co-anchor Peter Alexander also called it “a surprise endorsement,” noting she “gave Oz his start in TV nearly 20 years before the heart surgeon launched his own talk show in 2009.”

“The Oz campaign responding overnight, writing, ‘Dr. Oz loves Oprah and respects the fact that they have different politics. He believes we need more balance and less extremism in Washington,’” he added.

ABC’s Good Morning America had correspondent Eva Pilgrim briefly mention it during a report on the Pennsylvania Senate race: “And overnight, Oprah, who gave Dr. Oz his start in TV and worked with him for years, endorsing his opponent, Fetterman. Now, Fetterman was previously ahead in the polls here, but we have seen that lead diminish as we head towards election day.”

CBS chief campaign and election correspondent Robert Costa touted it on CBS Mornings as one of the “surprises in the works” and “big news.” With Winfrey’s best friend and Democratic donor Gayle King off, it was left up to her co-hosts to marvel. Co-host Tony Dokoupil interjected with a “wow” while co-host Nate Burleson had an “mmmm.”

That's a lot of complaining about something that supposedly doesn't matter.

And that, four days before the election, was pretty much the last pre-election anti-Fetterman gasp for the MRC. It didn't attack Fetterman or his stroke any more before election day -- whcih suggests that  that it may have decided that its stroke obsession may not have worked or even backfired. It also suggests that, despite the MRC's kneejerk protestations to the contrary, Oprah's endorsement may have mattered after all -- enough to prematurely stop the partisan attack machine, anyway.

WND's Farah Mad That Biden Talks About MAGA Extremists Like Farah Talks About Him
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah used his Sept. 26 column to repeat comments by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo complaiing about President Biden's speech calling out the extremism of MAGA Republicans:

Pompeo said it's clear Biden misunderstands fights between friends, and fights with enemies.

"As Secretary of State, I battled Chairman Kim, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping. These men are our enemies; they want for America only destruction or submission to their whims. These are the kinds of enemies America must defend herself against," he said.

But in working with – or disagreeing with – fellow countrymen, he said, those are "our friends and neighbors."

"We don't fight with our fellow Americans – we disagree, debate, persuade, and convince. And ultimately, we all vote on the way forward for the country. Joe Biden did away with this distinction in Philadelphia."

But Farah also unironically wrote:

Why has the Democratic machine taken on new internal enemies, loyal Americans, the heartbeat of the MAGA movement, who are waking up and taking over the Republican Party? Why do they represent the strongest movement in the country, perhaps the strongest that has ever been? Why have Biden and the Democrats zeroed in on former President Donald Trump and the powerful movement he leads as the No. 1 enemies they vilify?

Because of the coup d'état that took control of this country on Jan. 6, 2021, that installed him, that selected, as opposed to electing, Biden as president. That is why. It's obvious now. It was to most then – before the movie "2000 Mules" was released and kept quiet by Big Tech, censoring, blacklisting and demonizing the film.

It should have been obvious when Biden got the most popular votes in "faux" American history – some 81,000,000! That's more than Trump's 74,000,000 – the largest win in "real" American history.

[...]

Biden is destroying America – deliberately.

All Democrats are part of the process – deliberately.

It's time for the full truth.

They are unspeakably evil – all of them. From the school boards to the U.S. Senate.

There's no other way to frame it.

We have so little time to straighten out our country. That's why everything Democrats do, right now, makes you sick. And RINOs too.

It seems that Farah is mad that Biden uses the same language against right-wing extremists that Farah uses against him, and he doesn't appreciate the turnabout -- to the point where he did exactly that in a column complaining about it, clearly blind to how hypocritical that looks.Then again, that's what WND does; its "midterm election guide" was little more than anti-Biden and anti-Democratic screeds attacking them as literally under the control of "dark psychological and spiritual forces." What happened to the "friends and neighbors" stuff?

(Also: "2000 Mules" has been thoroughly discredited, but Farah is censoring that fact from his readers.)

Farah registered the same complaint about another Biden speech in his Nov. 3 column, under the headline "'Election denier' Joe Biden demonizes the rest of us." He complained that Biden's pointing out MAGA extremism as exeplifited by the hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband somehow proved the election was stolen and Trump supporters weren't behind the Capitol riot:

What did that have to do with anything? How does it pertain to anything about the upcoming midterms?

Biden tried to explained a link between the assailant and some words he may or may not have spoken during the horrific crime with the Jan. 6 mob action.

He continued: "All this happened after the assault, and it just – it's hard to even say. It's hard to even say. After the assailant entered the home asking: 'Where's Nancy? Where's Nancy?' Those are the very same words used by the mob when they stormed the United States Capitol on January the 6th, when they broke windows, kicked in the doors, brutally attacked law enforcement, roamed the corridors hunting for officials and erected gallows to hang the former vice president, Mike Pence."

Did the assailant have anything in common with those people – either the mob responsible or the federal agents or agent provocateurs that initiated it? Did the assailant even utter those convenient words? We don't know. It hasn't been adjudicated yet, nor has the public seen much evidence. We know almost nothing about the attack on Paul Pelosi – yet. However, we do know much about the assailant. He had nothing in common with "MAGA Republicans" – whom Biden had come to demonize at the Democratic National Committee event inside Union Station in Washington, D.C.

From there, Farah spouted old lies about his old lies agout election fraud:

I believe the election of 2020 was stolen. I believe it because I don't think a man who stayed in his basement for the most of the campaign, embarrassed himself further when he made an occasional appearance and couldn't draw flies when he did one, did not get 12 million more votes than Barack Obama got in his first time running, against John McCain. (He got considerably fewer votes his second time.) Donald Trump got 74,216,154 officially – the largest tally ever achieved by a sitting president when millions were probably thrown away, while Biden was credited with an astronomical amount: 81,268,924!

Do you think Biden won? Impossible. I don't believe it. He was too confident that the fix was in.

But so what? I didn't cry about it. I was at the rally Jan. 6 to hear the greatest president of the United States tell us what happened. He did. Little did I know what would happen before he stopped speaking – even before he told over 1 million people listening to him to meet outside of the Capitol to "peacefully protest."

Had his strong warnings been heeded to have enough National Guardsmen in position, or even had the Capitol Police fully mobilized, things would have been different. But Nancy Pelosi, who was in charge of the debacle, didn't listen to Trump. That was the cause of Jan. 6. There were not enough police. At some point they opened the doors. In the mayhem one person died – Ashli Babbitt, a peaceful Trump supporter and military veteran, killed by a policeman's bullet.

What did Farah get wrong here? Trump never ordered the National Guard to be deployed, Nancy Pelosi isn't in charge of the Capitol Police, and there likely weren't a million people at the pre-riot rally, given how Trump loves to lie about crowd size. And while Farah may not have cried, he has definitely lied by spending the past two years making WND promote discredited election fraud conspiracy theories.

Farah concluded with a bit of reverse whataboutism:

In most cases we knew the answer to most races on Election Night. Of course, there were two notable exceptions – Election Night in 2000 and Election Night 2020. Do you remember 2000, Joe? That was the time you were an election denier. Do you remember?

"This man was elected president of the United States of America," Biden said about Al Gore in 2013. "No, no, no. He was elected president of the United States of America. But for the good of the nation, when the bad decision in my view was made, he did the right thing for the nation."

He was still denying a presidential election 13 years later!

Hey Joe! Do you know what that means? You're an election denier! That's not the worst of it. The worst of it is you are an election impostor, a fraudulent "president" and just another liar who doesn't know when to stop talking.

Acually, Gore did win the popular vote over George W. Bush, which in every other type of election determines the winner. We also remember that Farah and WND denounced recounts in Florida and cheered when the Supreme Court stopped them and arbitrarily declared Bush the winner:

• Farah complained in one post-election column that overseas ballots were being rejected for technicalities like missing postmarks. Farah wanted those ballots counted because many were from military members who typically vote Republican.
• Another column complained about "recounts of recounts of recounts" and conspiratorially declared that rejecting ballots on technicalities "was part of a beliberate strategy to deny overseas servicemen a say in who will be the next commander in chief."
• In another column, Farah ranted that a Florida Supreme Court decision to allow recounts to continue was "blatantly political" and "judicial activism," going on to huff: "Never before in American history has there been such an effort by an outgoing administration to hold on to power. This country is renowned throughout the world for smooth transitions of power -- even in the face of bitterly contested elections. This is a particularly ugly chapter in the country's history."

Farah clearly doesn't feel that way about Trump, even though he's engaging in exactly the same behavior -- and arguably much worse -- that Farah denounced in 2000. And stil he whines about his extremism being demonized.

Dick Morris Spouts Right-Wing Talking Points At Newsmax (And Plugs His Newsmax-Published Book)
Topic: Newsmax

Throughout the midterm election season, Dick Morris has appeared on Newsmax TV and its website to spouting Republican talking points and dubious predictions designed to adhere to his employer's narratives and appeal to its right-wing audience (as well as promoting his Newsmax-published pro-Trump book):

• Dick Morris to Newsmax: GOP Could Deliver Several Upsets to Dems
• Dick Morris to Newsmax: Dems Can't Run on Record, Deflect to Trump in Midterms
• Dick Morris to Newsmax: Dems Try to Beat Trump in Court, Rather Than Ballot Box
• Dick Morris to Newsmax: Dems Have Become 'Party of Abortions,' Not Pro-Choice
• Dick Morris to Newsmax: Inflation a Big Issue for Young Voters
• Dick Morris to Newsmax: Fetterman 'Way Over to the Left' for Pa. Senate Race
• Dick Morris to Newsmax: GOP Senate 'Sweep' Possible
• Dick Morris to Newsmax: GOP Candidates Won Debates 'Decisively'
• Dick Morris to Newsmax: 'Looking Very Good' For GOP in Midterms
• Dick Morris to Newsmax: Herschel Walker Closing Strong in Ga. Senate Race
• Dick Morris to Newsmax: I Predict Mass Extinction for Dems in Midterms
• Dick Morris to Newsmax: 'Arrogance' to Suggest We Tolerate Biden or Vote Fetterman ("They're very similar: Neither one can utter an English sentence, really")
• Dick Morris to Newsmax: Biden's Bad Policies Spurring Red Wave
• Dick Morris to Newsmax: GOP Won the Senate Today (through a Libertarian candidate dropping out of the Arizona Senate race a week before the election and endorsing the Republican)
• Dick Morris to Newsmax: Dems 'Will Lose All 60' Tight House Races
• Dick Morris to Newsmax: Biden 'Desperate' as 'Base Is Eroding'
• Dick Morris to Newsmax: GOP Will Gain Senate Control

Meanwhile, Morris turned to his Newsmax column to spread more hot takes. In his Oct. 5 column, Morris warned of an "October surprise" by Biden while plugging his book:

Joe Biden needs an October surprise to survive the coming tsunami Democrats face this November.

His pathetic attempt to shift attention on to Donald Trump with his ant-MAGA speech has failed.

In "The Return," I warned repeatedly that the 2022 mid-terms would be the first real battle of the 2024 presidential election.

Whatever party wins 2022 will be in a superior position to win the White House in 2024.

Biden knows this.

And so does Trump.

[...]

Yes, a Biden October surprise is coming.

With inflation soaring, the housing and stock markets collapsing, oil prices rising, and a border in crisis underway — he and his advisers know only a "wag the dog" event can save him.

In "The Return," I lay out what this "surprise" might be — a military action, an economic one, or another, bigger legal hit on Trump.

Trump is already preparing a massive response.

That's in "The Return" too.

Morris spent his Oct. 24 column huffing that  early voting may hurt Republicans and begged Republicans to vote early too:

Can the 2020 nightmare repeat itself this election year?

Well, the Republican Party, in its own inimitable fashion, may be about to blow this election — especially in some tight Senate races.

Remember back in 2020 when the Democrats piled up huge leads among those who voted early, sometimes weeks before Election Day?

Meanwhile Republican operatives actually told GOP voters not to vote early but show up on Election Day.

By the time the Republicans showed up, the Democrats had already piled up leads that were insurmountable — all of this happened through early voting.

[...]

When Democrats ask a voter to cast his ballot two weeks before the election, they can follow up if the person doesn't come through.

But with Election Day voters, there is no margin for error.

If even 5% of Republican voters failed to show up on Election Day — think the kids got sick, things piled up, people got the flu, or just too many things to do — the party risks losing Senate races that are now on razor edge in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, and Ohio.

The fate of both the Senate and House depends on GOP voters actually voting.

So why are the Republicans living so dangerously?

[...]

Trump pulled out 11 million more votes in 2020 than in 2016. But, by using early voting, Biden pulled out 15 million more.

Sure we need to stop Democratic voting shenanigans, but let's tell people to vote early!

How like a right-wing operative like Morris to think that the legal act of voting early is "shenanigans."

CNS Knowingly Pushes False GOP Narrative On Harris Remarks On Climate Change Aid
Topic: CNSNews.com

Susan Jones wrote in an Oct. 3 CNSNews.com article:

On CBS's "Face the Nation," [FEMA Administrator Deanne] Criswell was asked to respond to Vice President Kamala Harris's comments about "equity" in the rebuilding process.

"It is our lowest-income communities and our communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions and -- and impacted by -- by issues that are not of their own making," Harris told the Democratic National Committee's Women’s Leadership Forum on Friday.

"And so we have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity, understanding that we fight for equality, but we also need to fight for equity, understanding not everyone starts out at the same place."

CNS also pushed Republican attacks about Harris' comments the same day:

• An article by Melanie Arter hyped that "Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) said Sunday that he 'couldn’t disagree more' with Vice President Kamala Harris when she called for giving hurricane aid to communities of color first."
• Another article by Arter stated that "Vice President Kamala Harris’ recent comments about giving hurricane aid 'based on equity' is 'the definition of discrimination,' and it’s “incredibly racist,' Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said on Sunday."

But that's not what Harris said -- and CNS knew it. Harris was actually talking about how to react to climate change, not Hurricane Ian, which was hitting Florida around the same time, and numerous fact-checkers agree that right-wingers were taking her remarks out of context to falsely portray them as being about hurricane aid.

How do we know that CNS knowingly misled about Harris' remarks? Because its fourth article of the day on this, also by Arter, blockquoted Harris' full remarks, which do indeed make clear she was talking about climate changed. Unfortunately, Arter started her article by parroting that false narrative yet again:

Vice President Kamala Harris suggested Friday that hurricane relief aid should be given “based on equity,” adding that “not everyone starts out at the same place” and that should be taken into account.

“And so we have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity understanding that we fight for equality, but we also need to fight for equity, understanding not everyone starts out at the same place, and if we want people to be in an equal place, sometimes we have to take into account those disparities and do that work,” Harris said during a DNC chat last week.

The fifth and final article of the day, by Arter once again, seemed to be a bit of an apology devoted to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre correcting the record:

The White House on Monday said it is committed to getting resources to “all communities impacted” by Hurricane Ian, adding that Vice President Kamala Harris was not referring to “hurricane response efforts” but instead to “long-term investment.”

This comes in response to Harris’ comments during a Democratic National Committee’s Women’s Leadership Forum on Friday, in which she was asked about the administration’s hurricane response and addressing “the climate crisis.”

Not only did CNS did not go back and correct its earlier articles , Jones wrote one the next day that contyinued to push the false narrative:

The hurricane that devastated southwest Florida did not aim at any particular group of people. Rich and poor alike have been wiped out, but "they're ready to bounce back" with help from their government and their fellow Americans, Gov. Ron DeSantis told Sean Hannity Monday night.

DeSantis vowed to rebuild Florida's island communities; he supported the Second Amendment right of Floridians to defend themselves and their property; and he criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for politicizing the disaster by saying resources for hurricane victims should be given "based on equity."

"I think she's trying to play identity politics with a -- with a storm and a natural disaster. I think it's ridiculous," DeSantis said:

Even though Jones linked back to Arter's article fully quoting Harris' remarks, she still lied to her readers.

Arter served her own Oct. 4 article that tepidly tried to correct another Republican member of Congress, Kat Cammack, parroting the false narrative yet again:

“She needs to go back to the salad bar and rework her word salad as she has been known to do because she is absolutely out of line to suggest that aid after this disastrous once in 500 year storm is going to be based on equity or race or socio- economic status,” Cammack said.

“We're here for all Americans - not just Republicans or Democrats - all Americans. We're doing what good Americans do. We're responding to our friends and neighbors in need, and it is just disgusting they would try to politicize this just as they tried to do that last Friday when they sent $2 billion of FEMA money to the border. That is ridiculous - on the same day that hurricane Ian smacked my home state. It’s a real shame, Harris,” she said.

As CNSNews.com previously reported, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday clarified Vice President Kamala Harris’ remarks on hurricane relief aid and the climate crisis, saying, “The vice president was clearly talking about long-term investment, not FEMA aid, for hurricane response efforts.” 

But that wasn't the lead of Arter's article -- correcting Republicans doesn't generate right-wing clicks for CNS, after all. That was dedicated to hyping Cammack declaring that "the White House needs to hire Mr. Clean as their spokesperson, 'because clearly all that job entails is cleaning up the mess of the president and the vice president'" -- even though the only actual cleanup that needed to be done was after Repubicans lying about what Harris actually said.

Putting false own-the-libs narratives ahead of reporting facts is a bad look for a website that purports to be a "news" organization.

MRC Still Defending DeSantis' Dubious Election Cops
Topic: Media Research Center

Earlier this year, the Media Research Center rushed to the defense of Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis (again) for his "election cops" initiative to crack down on purported fraudulent voting in the state by former felons who weren't supposed to vote -- even though only a paltry number of alleged cases were found (just 20 in a state where 11 million people voted in the last election), several of the alleged violators thought they had the right to vote and were not stopped from doing so by state election officials, and the showy arrest targets were almost entirely people of color and not, say, white elderly people living in an enclave called the Villages, where people have ben arrested for voter fraud but never touted by DeSantis.

Well, the MRC came to DeSantis' defense once more after the dubiousness of the election-cop program was demonstrated again -- not that Kevin Tober framed it that way in an Oct. 18 post:

On Tuesday, during a segment on CBS Evening News, the leftwing newscast seemed shocked and appalled that in Florida, violent felons are being arrested for committing an act of voter fraud by illegally voting when they had lost their right to cast their ballots after being convicted of felonies. 

“In footage obtained by CBS News on August 18, police showed up at the Tampa home of Tony Patterson a registered sex offender who was told he was under arrest for voter fraud,” correspondent Ed O’Keefe announced. 

“That same day, Romona Oliver, who served 18 years on a second-degree murder charge was arrested for voting illegally in 2020 even though she’d received a voter I.D. card from the state,” O’Keefe added.

He then reported that “Patterson and 18 others were accused of violating a 2018 state law that allows most former felons to vote after they complete their sentences. But not those convicted of murder or felony sex offenses. As Patterson and Oliver were.” 

Then what’s the problem? O’Keefe admitted that they were forbidden from voting because of the crimes they were convicted of. The purpose of running this story is obviously an attempt to smear Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. 

It wasn't until later in his post that Tober got around to alluding to the real issue: Manyt of these people were not explicitly told they were not eligible to vote, and their voting applications were not rejected by the state, which presumably would have a running list of which former felons are not eligible to vote. But Tober depicted reporting of that relevant context as "whining."

Nicholas Fondacaro echoed this dishonest framing a day later:

Leave it to ABC’s The View to take up the position that murderers, pedophiles, and other sex offenders deserve to vote and commit voter fraud. That was the hill they wanted to die on Wednesday after body-camera video surfaced showing Florida law enforcement officers arresting individuals accused of illegally voting. The cast didn’t seem to know what the law was with one claiming they were illegally arrested and another claiming the Republicans were cheating to win.

It was Whoopi Goldberg who seemed unable to understand the law as she decried “Florida Governor Ron DeSantis imposing his crackdown on so-called ‘voter fraud’ when he sent cops out to arrest people…” She also seemed to suggest DeSantis had a racist motivation, noting the “crackdown wound up with all of 20 arrests in total, 13 of whom were black.”

“Clearly, it's not written anywhere or they would not have allowed him to do this,”Goldberg proclaimed, seemingly saying that the law didn’t really bar murderers and pedophiles from voting. She then started screaming at DeSantis through the camera (using air quotes to describe the voter fraud they allegedly committed):

Fopndacaro also got annoyed when the co-hosts pointed out that DeSantis wasn't sending any police raids to the folks in The Villages:

Hostin went on to declare the law was “racially targeted” (an odd thing to argue since the law does not mention race, just that murderers and sex offenders can’t vote). Assuming only white people are Republican, she angrily demanded elderly folks from a Florida retirement community be arrested in front of cameras:

The Villages. Overwhelmingly they found the amount of voter fraud that, like, 0.006 were Republicans, elderly people from there. Why were they not paraded in front of cameras? Why were they not arrested in front of cameras?

Hostin is a former federal prosecutor but doesn’t understand that video of the arrests was from police body cameras. “Well, I don’t think they were paraded. It was actually body-cam footage,” explained “conservative” co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin.

For Farah Griffin’s part, she had the job of trying to explain to the rest of the cast that they were taking “bait” supposedly placed by DeSantis. “This is what he does. He knows how to drive news attention. He wants us all to say, ‘of course, murderers should be able to vote,’” she lamented.

Farah Griffin is right, of course, given that this is the exact framing both Tober and Fondacaro used in their posts -- but Fondacaro irrationally hates her too much to ever admit that.

Tober repeated his dishonest framing again in an Oct. 19 post:

On Wednesday night's edition of MSNBC's The ReidOut, host Joy Reid opened the show by lashing out at Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis for daring to enforce the laws of his state and not allow violent felons to illegally vote in elections. Reid who presumably wants violent felons to be allowed to vote melted down and accused Florida of being a Jim Crow state. 

[...]

Of course, there's nothing wrong with DeSantis cracking down on voter fraud. Reid knows the only way her Democrat candidates in Florida can win is if violent criminals are allowed to vote. That's why she's melting down over police arresting rapists and murderers for voting illegally.

Tober, of course, censored the issues with DeSantis' election cops.

Two days later, the first defendant arrested by DeSantis' election cops had his case dismissed, albeit due to a jurisdiction issue. The MRC was completely silent about that.

WND's Norris Gets Into The Election Endorsement Business (And Farah Tags Along)
Topic: WorldNetDaily

When he's not using his WorldNetDaily column to shill for companies that pay him to do so, Chuck Norris is using his column to shill for right-wingers, handing out numerous election endorsements before the midterms. Norris started his Oct. 17 column this way:

When my wife, Gena, and I heard the political watershed news that Tulsi Gabbard, who served as the U.S. representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district from 2013 to 2021, announced this past week that she was stepping away from the Democratic Party, we were thrilled and commend her courage. Actually, I made a very similar shift back in the 1960s.

Actually, Gabbard hasn't been a real Democrat for years -- meaning that courage was hardly a factor here -- and Norris conveniently omitted any mention of Gabbard's propagandizing for Russia. Norris then went on to proclaim his "Chuck Norris Approved" endorsement of right-wing candidates:

America is again at a huge tipping point, maybe the biggest one ever. If we don't stop liberal progressives now by electing more constitutionally conservative leaders, they will continue to lead most Americans (particularly younger generations) down the slippery slope to socialism and Marxism.

So, without further adieu, let me highlight a few of my top choices in the midterm elections about to take place in just three short weeks. Obviously, there are several critical races on the national stage as well as for most local regions, which is why I will also recommend a website that will help you choose the right candidates in your state, too.

[...]

Please, share this column and especially those candidate choices above with everyone you know across the country. We are in the final stretch to what are clearly the most critical midterm elections in years.

Norris' list includes right-wing extremists like Blake Masters and Kari Lake -- who still push the lie that there was election fraud in 2020 -- as well as carpetbagger Mehmet Oz and immoral abortion-lover Herschel Walker.

Norris went on to add: "Also, for additional election wisdom, please subscribe to WND's insightful Whistleblower magazine and especially its latest edition: "Stopping the Madness: A Midterm Election Guide for Voters who Love America." As we've documented, this issue of WND's sparsely read magazine is little more than an fearmongering anti-liberal screed designed to demonize anyone who's not as far right as Davie Kupelian and try to scare his fellow right-wingers into voting.

Norris ramped up his own fearmongering -- as WND columnists do -- in his Oct. 24 column, blaming an alleged increase in police officers killed on duty on how " liberals around the nation demanded that cities 'defund the police' and "pushed for a woke anti-police ideology." He repeated his list of endorsements, with a few additons, demanding that "we must elect constitutionally conservative candidates in these next midterm elections ... to rebolster our law enforcement agencies and stop the outrageous levels of violent crime."

Norris switched his fearmongering focus to the border for his  Oct. 31 column, uncritically repeating right-wing talking points and unsurprisingly blaming "the completely-do-nothing-open-border policy of the Biden administration is that it is literally killing hundreds of migrants trying to get into the U.S." It weird to see Norris claiming to care about the lives of migrants since most right-wingers do, given how they're described with dehumanizing terms like "illegals." Norris then went on to "re-list my 'Chuck Norris-Approved candidates' who are strong advocates for securing U.S. borders."

In his final pre-election column before the election on Nov. 7, Norris equated himself with the Founding Fathers, baselessly insisting that they were as dogmatically right-wing as he is while also serving up eve more fearmongering (read: parroting right-wing talking points):

America as our founders created it is on life support and desperately needs our help.

Our broken borders have allowed into the U.S. record numbers of criminals and contraband. The last few years, overdoses from fentanyl that was smuggled from Mexico killed over 100,000 Americans (including teens). Cartels have capitalized on the Biden administration's open border policies, making billions of dollars more by increasing human smuggling and child trafficking.

Inside the U.S., violent crime and police killings have soared in every state. Inflation is at a 40-year high. Mortgage rates are at a 20-year high. The fed raised interest rates six times this year alone. The largest shipping mogul just reported that "dark economic clouds are on the horizon." Full-blown recession is imminent. And, most painful of all, as gas, grocery and house prices skyrocket, average middle-class Americans are struggling simply to pay for essentials like food and shelter.

As a result of all the above, the United States of America is more divided than ever. And it doesn't help that U.S. and Russian leaders have recently brought us again to the brink of Armageddon by their nuclear-war rhetoric and pride-filled warmonger actions.

The downfall of the American dream is why Americans are rightly disappointed with Democrat-led local, state and federal governments. The most recent Gallup poll shows that Mr. Biden's job approval has spiraled "back down to 40%." More than 75% of Democrats don't even like him!

[...]

To be frank, the only way your quality of life is going to get better is by getting the liberal Democrats out of office across the country. It starts with these midterm elections and will run to the 2024 presidential campaign.

But rather than just me sharing how powerful your vote is, I want to remind you what America's founders said about it when they created our republic, including their advice about whom to vote for in these upcoming midterm elections.

This is what just eight prominent founders want you to remember as you go to the polls and draw the curtain on that voting booth. (A special thanks goes to historian David Barton from Wallbuilders for providing this information on his website: www.wallbuilders.com.)

The fact that Norris is invoking the notoriously wrong "historian" Barton tells you all you need to know about how seriously he and his endorsements should be taken.And, of course, he fails to consider that one reason "the United States of America is more divided than ever" is because right-wingers like himself insisting on spreading fear and misinformation about anyone who doesn't agree with them.

Norris again repeated his list of endorsements, adding: "Friends, this is a do-or-die midterm election. Please share this column ASAP on your social media and encourage everyone you know to get out to vote, by mail or in person."

Meanwhile, WND editor Joseph Farah attempted to hitch a ride on Norris' endorsement bandwagon, parroting Norris' parroting in his Nov. 2 column:

I love Chuck Norris' political endorsements!

And I'd like add my own because we think so much alike. How do I know?

He told me so. Yes, I have had the pleasure of meeting Chuck, his wife, Gena – even their kids. I've been invited to his house and met him a few times. There are very few people who share my ideas quite so closely.

Farah repeated Norris' endorsements, then added a bunch of his own favorite far-right folks, many of whom are election deniers like Farah.

Note that Farah said "there are very few people who share my ideas quite so closely" as Norris. Farah seems to think that's a good thing, but given that Farah's "ideas" include election denial and spreading COVID lies, it really isn't.

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Topic: Media Research Center
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