MRC Whines WH Press Secretary Didn't Hold Enough Briefings Last Month -- But It Covered Only One
Topic: Media Research Center

It's so like Media Research Center writer Curtis Houck to blame others for his own laziness. In an Oct. 18 post, he complained that White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had only given four press briefings in the month -- but this was first briefing of the month that he bothered to write about. Apparently, his pet White House reporters from Fox News and other right-wing outlets were sufficiently trashing Jean-Pierre to his satisfaction, nor was he able to make up yet another reason to denigrate her as an incompetent diversity hire. (It's also quite ironic because he never complained at all that one of Donald Trump press secretaries, Stephanie Grisham, gave no press briefings at all during her tenure.) Still, Houck gave it the ol' college try in gerating his usual Doocy-fluffing:

In only the fourth White House press briefing this month, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced a litany of questions Tuesday about the left’s fixation on abortion (instead of crime or the economy). 

As we’ve come to expect, Fox’s Peter Doocy and Real Clear Politics’ Philip Wegmann turned up the heat with Doocy asking if the White House is more concerned about abortions than struggling Americans and Wegmann wondering whether President Biden supports a limit on abortion.

CBS News Radio’s Steven Portnoy set the table by asking Jean-Pierre how many more Senate Democrats Biden needs Roe and, after Jean-Pierre repeatedly ducked, he instead asked if abortion would be Biden’s “top legislative priority in” 2023.

Jean-Pierre ducked, accusing him of engaging in “hypotheticals.” Portnoy pressed one last time by wondering if this abortion focus means it’s already his top issue, Jean-Pierre said Biden has “show[n]...how important Roe is to him, how important reproductive rights is because a majority of Americans believe that this right needs to stand.”

Jean-Pierre promptly stepped in it: “The President’s going to continue to talk about issues that matter to the American people and abortion is one of them. A majority of the American people disagree with the decision that — that the Supreme Court made the Dobbs decision....When it comes to the economy...it is the — his number one economic priority”.

Doocy picked up on Jean-Pierre’s description of inflation only being “his number one economic priority.” And when she suggested Biden has created a roaring economy, Doocy fired off a scorcher on how could that be the case when Bloomberg said a recession is indisputable (click “expand”):

[...]

Predictably, Jean-Pierre blamed oil companies for high prices:“There is no shortage of opportunities or incentive for oil companies to ramp up production. We’ve made that clear. Oil companies are ranking in record profits”.

Predictably, Houck was silent about just how much profit the oil companies are making so he wouldn't have to admit that Jean-Pierre has a point and effectively sound like an oil industrylobbistslike his co-workers at CNSNews.com.

Houck continued his laziness: Even though Jean-Pierre held three more briefings in October  (plus several other informal "press gaggles" throughout the month), Houck couldn't be bothered to write about them either. If Houck continues such laziness in his hackery, what are we going to write about?

Newsmax Columnist Hypes Midterm 'Red Wave' -- But Silent Afer His Prediction Failed
Topic: Newsmax

Michael Dorstewitz was one of the Newsmax columnists enthusiastically touting a Republican "red wave" in the midterm elections. He blared in his Oct. 21 column, headlined "Mark Nov. 8 Down as a Red Letter Day — As in GOP Red":

It’s 18 days until Election Day and, if anything, it’s looking progressively worse for the Democratic Party.

They realize they have only themselves to blame.

[...]

RealClearPolitics revealed Thursday that voters couldn’t care less about abortion. It compared its Generic Ballot Polling Average of polls before Dobbs vs. Jackson Womens Health Organization (the decision that struck down Roe v. Wade) and after Dobbs.

Prior to Dobbs, Republicans were up 2.8%; After Dobbs, Republicans were up even more — 3.5%.

As one Twitter user quipped, "But I was promised a Roevember."

Nope. No Roevember this year — it’s gonna be a Redvember, so long as everyone who counts votes, and every vote is counted.

Dorstewitz ranted in his Oct. 28 column:

Academy award-winning actress Susan Sarandon posted a meme containing a powerful message to social media Monday. It suggested that there was very little difference between the Democratic Party of today and Nazis of pre-World War II Germany.

[...]

Biden’s problem is that he’s got it backwards. He’s not our ruler; the people are his ruler.

Because the United States is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, people like Biden are referred to as public servants who serve at the pleasure of the people.

And the people are not pleased. That’s why the people are abandoning Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.

He ranted further in his Nov. 4 column:

Democrats are losing on nearly every major issue on the ballot this election cycle: inflation, crime, the economy, border security. So they’re pivoting to a new issue: “our democracy is at risk.”

They’re right. It is at risk, but not by the GOP, or even MAGA Republicans. The Democratic Party itself is placing democracy in jeopardy.

[...]

The free will to think, discuss, and work through issues, and ultimately change the world are distinctly God-given human powers — and Biden wants to deny us those powers for “the greater good.”

Censorship is banana republic territory — and Democrats want to take us there.

Some of that bluster went away the day before the election, when Dorstewitz spent his Nov. 7 column fretting that Donald Trump taking shots at fellow Republican and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis before the midterms becuase "Until 2024, tomorrow will be the most important election of our lives." He insisted that :="going after your own is a bit much," adding: "There’s no need and little reason to draw the blood of other Republicans. Even primary rivals ultimately want the same thing — a GOP win."

But there was no "Redvember," many Democrats won, and Republicans were unable to take control of the Senate. But Dorstewitz hasn't addressed those dismal results (for his ideology, anyway). Instead, his first post-election column have been about whining that government is "Too Big, Dysfunctional and Un-American."

His Nov. 11 column obliquely referenced how "voters and candidates alike are waiting for election results in various states — especially Nevada and Arizona, as well as a December Senate runoff in Georgia" without mentioning Republican failures, then spent the rest of the column complaining that "the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade (with Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization) in June prompted a number of states to make abortion a right guaranteed under their own state constitution." At no point did he mention that this was also part of right-wing election failures.

Dorstewitz was silent about the failure of his midterm bluster in his Nov. 14 column, instead grumbling that has-been right-winger Ann Coulter was shouted down during a speech on a college campus and that a Democratic senator exposed the mismanagement of Twitter under Elon Musk by showing how easily a potentially malicious parody account designed to mimic actual accounts can be made.

UPDATE: Dorstewitz finally gort around to addressing the midterm results in his Nov. 16 column. Not to apologize for being so wrong about a "red wave," of course -- right-wingers never apologize --  but to complain that "political noise" from Democrats caused Republicans to falter:

2022 had to have been one of the most chaotic election cycles in recent memory, with all the chaos coming from the Biden White House and a compliant press.

Given President Joe Biden's long list of failures, including the economy, crime, border security, COVID response, and a foreign policy that's placing us dangerously close to World War III, it was all Democrats had going into the midterms.

The messaging in each case was that the previous administration was corrupt, as opposed to the steady hand of the current one.

The biggest news in the months leading up to Nov. 8 was the FBI's early morning raid on Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump's Palm Beach, Florida residence.

The raid of a former president's home was unprecedented, and prompted whisperings of nuclear secrets and launch codes for sale.

[...]

As it now stands, the best the GOP can do is to maintain the Democratic-controlled 50-50 chamber, but only if Walker defeats incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock next month.

So all the noise and clatter about bringing Trump and his aides, advisers and followers to justice was just that — noise and clatter. Their single goal was to win on Election Day.

And it worked — at least to the extent that Democrats will maintain control of the Senate.

Dorsetwitz also repeated a right-wing conspiracy theory that the Capitol riot was caused by secret FBI informants "dressed like Trump supporters."

CNS Continues To Shill For Oil Industry Lobbyists
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com has been a reliable shill for the oil industry, and it conintues to be one for the puropse of attacking President Biden. Susan Jones served as stenographer for the oil industry's lobbying group in an Oct. 5 article:

News that OPEC+ has cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day is "really bad news for American consumers," an oil industry executive told Fox News on Wednesday.

"Well, no one should be cheering this news," said Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute. "But the truth of the matter is that dependency on foreign countries for American oil and gas is a choice. And it's a choice this administration has made repeatedly, unfortunately, with the policies that they have pursued so far."

News of the OPEC production cut comes just as record releases from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve -- ordered by President Biden -- have stopped.

[...]

Sommers told Fox News, "We should be looking under our feet for the resources that we have here. We can produce these products here. We can share these products throughout the world during a time of war. We have that choice. And we can do it."

Jones helped API go on the attack against Biden for calling out excessive oil industry profits in a Nov. 1 article:

President Joe Biden, a lifelong politician with no background in running a business, is once again blasting oil companies, even threatening them, for earning large profits.

"I think it's outrageous what their — the — the size of the profit," Biden said on Monday:

[...]

The American Petroleum Industry issued the following statement in response:

"Rather than taking credit for price declines and shifting blame for price increases, the Biden administration should get serious about addressing the supply and demand imbalance that has caused higher gas prices and created long-term energy challenges.

"Today, the President proposed to raise taxes on the U.S. natural gas and oil industry that is competing globally to produce the fuels Americans need every single day. Oil companies do not set prices—global commodities markets do.

"Increasing taxes on American energy discourages investment in new production, which is the exact opposite of what is needed. American families and businesses are looking to lawmakers for solutions, not campaign rhetoric.”

"Analysis of a windfall profits tax established in 1980 have found that it decreased domestic energy production and increased reliance on imported oil. According to the Congressional Research Service, the tax reduced domestic production by as much as 8 percent from 1980 to 1988 when it was repealed in part because “it made the United States more dependent on foreign oil."

What President Biden did not say is that oil companies experienced record losses during the COVID pandemic, when oil prices collapsed.

Jones censored the fact that record oil company profits have far exceeded pandemic-related losses. Rather than lgoing beyond copy-and-pasting a API statement to probe why oil companies aren't keeping the same profit margins they had pre-pandemic -- or even question API's suggestion that Biden is to blame for higher oil prices -- she parroted her employer's anti-Biden partisan agenda again:

President Biden is a green energy/climate change acolyte. Even during his presidential campaign, he declared his intention to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, which discouraged investment by the oil industry.

In a March 2020 debate, before becoming president, Biden said: "Number one, no more subsidies for fossil fuel industry. No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period, ends, number one."

As recently as this past May, President Biden hailed higher gas prices as an "incredible transition."

"When it comes to the gas prices, we're going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it's over, we'll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over," Biden said.

Putting lobbyists and partisan narratives before good journalism is not a good look.

Irresponsible: WND Treating Rumors As Fact To Falsely Smear COVID Vaccines
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily is so dedicated to spreading COVID vaccination that it's even trying to amplify baseless rumors.An anonymously written Oct. 25 article declared:

With the multitude of side effects and other problems that now are appearing and are attributed to the COVID-19 shots that were mandatory for so many, a glitch in a performance by a celebrity is not without such claims.

It was singer Katy Perry who recently suffered an unusual episode where she appeared to be unable to open her right eye for a time.

[...]

It lasted about 15 seconds and drew the immediate concern that, "She got that Pfizer eye," from those attributing the development to a COVID shot.

A Fact Check by Newsweek pointed out that Perry fans "became very concerned for the pop star when her eye appeared to refuse to open."

[...]

The report noted, "But many social media users joked the eye closing was the result of a side-effect from a Covid-19 vaccine, bringing a misleading anti-vaccine narrative back to the surface."

The report noted Perry hasn't acknowledged the issue, but it claimed, "There is no evidence to support claims that vaccines, COVID or otherwise, caused it."

If there's no actual evidence to link COVID vaccines to Perry's eye issue beyond spculation from Twitter trolls, there's no reason for this story to exist. But WND must denigrate COVID vaccines even when there's no factual basis to do so, so we have this story. No wonder the WND writer was apparently so ashamed at having to write this thing that he or she refused to put their name on it.

Not to be outdone on irresponsible speculation, Joe Kovacs wrote in an Oct. 30 article:

A top Republican lawmaker died suddenly on Sunday at the age of 55, and with no cause of death provided, some are wondering if a COVID vaccine possibly played a part.

Hugh McKean, Colorado's House minority leader, died in his home just three days after turning 55.

[...]

With many news agencies not even raising the possibility of a possible COVID-vaccine connection, J.D. Rucker at The Liberty Daily wondered "Was it the jabs?" as he blasted "the increasingly large category of conservative news outlets who refuse to mention the words 'COVID' or 'vaccine' in any story that deals with sudden inexplicable deaths of young and otherwise healthy people."

"This is due to the tyrants in Big Tech who will blacklist any news outlets that even ask the question. Google and YouTube will cut off their big ad dollar checks. Facebook will cut off the massive amounts of traffic they send to news outlets. It's an unfortunate reality that even respectable conservative or alternative news outlets won't dare risk their gravy trains."

Rucker concluded: "The truth is starting to come out. It's usually dropping in trickles. Sometimes the spigot lets out a bit more. Over time, the people will see the truth. We can only hope and pray it reaches as many in time as possible."

Others on Twitter commented:

• "Will the true autopsy be released?"
• "We need to know WHY??? I hate autopsies but please let us know what caused him to pass so young in such an important state!"
• "When was he last b🤔🤔std with the j@b of death?"

Never mind the fact that "a possible COVID-vaccine connection" was not mentioned because there is absolutely no reason to do so. Kovacs is clearly such a wildly irrespnsible reporter that he's happy to promote rumors as fact to push his employer's tide of dishonesty against COVID vaccines. It turns out that McKean died of a heart attack -- not unheard of in a 55-year-old man.

We'd complain about irresponsible reporting here, but irresponsible, nonfactual reporting is WND's brand.

MRC Obsessed Over Paul Pelosi DUI -- Then Used It To Bash Him After Attack
Topic: Media Research Center
Earlier this year, the MRC was obsessed with Paul Pelosi, husband of hated Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi, getting arrested on a DUI charge, repeatedly demanding that it be treated as a major news story even though it, um, wasn't. Scott Whitlock whined in a May 31 post:

Paul Pelosi, the husband of liberal media favorite Nancy Pelosi, on Saturday night was arrested for allegedly driving drunk. The three networks jumped into protection mode, allowing just 117 seconds total. ABC’s coverage was the paltriest, just a scant 22 seconds on Sunday night.

The NBC and CBS morning and evening newscasts did slightly better: A still pathetic 39 seconds on NBC and 56 seconds on CBS.

[...]

ABC allowing a scant 22 seconds shouldn't be shocking. The network has a long history of fawning over Speaker Pelosi.

When the right-wing obsession with the DUI was pointed out, P.J. Gladnick grumbled in a June 5 post:

Perhaps Newsweek somehow hasn't gotten the message that the word "pounce" as in "Republicans pounce" has become such a laughable cliché that even Politico has ditched it in favor of "seized" after years of being mocked for overusing it. Last Sunday, Newsweek pulled out the worn cliché to frame their story by Jason Lemon about how Republicans reacted to the arrest of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband for DUI in "MAGA Republicans Pounce After Nancy Pelosi's Husband Arrested for DUI."

The story itself wasn't so much about Paul Pelosi's DUI but how Republicans reacted or "pounced" in reaction to it:

Neither Whitlock explained why such a minor crime story warranted the national coverage they demanded.

A July 18 item by Tober referenced "Nancy Pelosi's drunk-driving husband" in accusing him of improperly buying stocks. He was back on the DUI beatwith another "nets ignore but Fox News promotes" post on Aug. 3:

On Wednesday morning, a lawyer for Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, showed up on his behalf in a Napa County, California courthouse to plead not guilty during Pelosi's arraignment on DUI charges. Court documents also revealed more details about the night Pelosi was arrested for driving with a blood alcohol level above the legal limit. 

Predictably, all three evening news network broadcasts ignored the latest revelations about Speaker Pelosi's drunk driving husband in favor of local weather reports, an erupting volcano in Iceland, and a large hail storm in Canada. 

During Fox News Channel's Special Report, senior correspondent Claudia Cowan reported that "according to court documents, Pelosi’s breath reeked, and he flunked a sobriety test after he allegedly drove his Porsche into the path of an SUV injuring that driver and totaling both cars."

[...]

"Police release dashcam video all the time, but despite repeated requests from Fox News the video of Pelosi's arrest is still under wraps," Cowan added. 

Tober's anti-Pelosi activism finally got a little payoff, and he was happy to gloat in an Aug. 23 post:

Almost three months since Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul was arrested and charged with driving under the influence in Napa County California, ABC's World News Tonight and CBS Evening News decided now would be a good time to report on the story now that Pelosi had been given a slap on the wrist with three years probation, an eight-hour community service program, a three-month course on the dangers of drunk driving, and an "ignition interlock device installed in his car for one year." 

Despite Paul Pelosi serving no jail time, NBC Nightly News still decided it was too politically risky for them to touch the story. Instead of reporting on Paul Pelosi's DUI sentence, NBC decided to run a lengthy segment on potentially cancer-causing firefighter gear as well as flooding in Texas.  

While ABC & CBS did find time in their broadcasts for news on the drunk driving husband of the woman who's second in line for the presidency, they only allowed twenty-two and twenty-three seconds on the story respectively.

[...]

ABC & CBS deserve no credit for reporting on news they should've been revealing to their audience all along. If this was the spouse of a Republican House Speaker, the drum beat of coverage by the three leftist networks would be unavoidable.

Like his co-workers, Tober never explained why Paul Pelosi's DUI demanded blanket national coverage. And you can be sure if "the spouse of a Republican House Speaker" was involved, Tober would be loudly whining that there was anycoverage at all, no matter how minimal, and cheering Fox News for its inevitable censorship of the story.

Why bring this up now? In an Oct. 31 post touting the MRC's latest distraction from the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi -- that the alleged attacker, David DePape, was in the U.S. illegally on an overstayed visa -- Tober sneered: "While political violence no matter which side commits it is reprehensible, the important fact is that if our nation’s immigration laws were enforced and our legal system treated everyone equally no matter how powerful, DePape would have been deported and Paul Pelosi would be in jail on his recent drunk driving charges." Tober offered no evidence that Pelosi's DUI case warranted the long prison term he demands.

WND Hypes Attack On Rubio Volunteer, Censors That He's A White Supremacist
Topic: WorldNetDaily

An anonymously written Oct. 24 WorldNetDaily article served as a press release for Republican Marco Rubio:

A campaign canvasser for U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., was left with a broken jaw, internal bleeding, needing surgery and a message: Republicans 'aren't allowed in their neighborhood," according to a report from the senator.

Rubio, a sitting senator, is running for re-election in a race that has Rep. Val Demings as the Democrat Party challenger.

One social media, Rubio revealed that one of his campaign volunteers was beaten, requiring medical attention.

A report at the Daily Mail explained the volunteer was wearing Rubio campaign gear and that of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Both are popular among vast swaths of conservative Americans, and DeSantis even has been speculated as a possible GOP nominee for president.

[...]

The attack comes amid a largely verbal but very intense campaign by Democrats in Washington, including in the White House, to mischaracterize Republicans as a threat to the nation.

Joe Biden recently labeled conservatives as "semi-fascists."

And he "recently derided them as 'mega MAGA Republicans' in a Sunday interview on MSNBC and has panned them as 'extremists' in appearances across the country alongside Democratic midterm candidates."

This story didn't age well, even by WND standards. As we documented when the Media Research Center similarly hyped this story, the campaign worker in question, Christopher Monzon, is a white supremacist who called himself the "Cuban Confederate" who attended the notorious 2017 protests in Charlottesville, Va., against the removal of Confederate monuments (about which WND is still perpetuating the "Charlottesville lie" lie), and the far-right thugs of the Proud Boys were guarding his hospital room. And it turns out there was no apparent political motivation in at all in Monzon's beating at all; the alleged assailant has never voted, and Monzon never claimed a political motivation until after Rubio declared one on social media.

WND never reported on this story again, and it has not updated this article to mention that Monzon is a white supremacist and other relevant facts. It's bad journalism all around, but does anyone expect differently from WND?

Newsmax's Gizzi Hypes Narrative of Biased Polls -- But Promotes Polls That Turned Out To Be Wrong
Topic: Newsmax

Newsmax wasn't only pushing its favorite right-wing pollsters in the runup to the midterm elections -- it was also pushing the narrative that non-right-wing polls are skewed toward Democrats. John Gizzi wrote in an Oct. 20 article:

In the past week, polling data has increasingly shown Republicans within striking distance of Democrats in races previously thought to be "safe" Democrat: the races for governor of Michigan and New York, the Senate races in Colorado and Pennsylvania, and several others.

But a careful examination of most of the major polls found that, in the past three election cycles, their results have favored the Democrats by four to five percentage points only to have the outcome either be much closer or a statistical tie.

"What we have is polling in aggregated battleground states that has continued in cycle after cycle that is inaccurate," political analyst Spencer Abraham Jr. told Newsmax over the weekend. "And if it is inaccurate, someone needs to prove it."

Abraham is a onetime aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and namesake son of a former Michigan senator and U.S. secretary of energy. He and veteran pollster Colin Pitts recently launched a new website to study major polls and their results in 2016, 2018 and 2020.

Based on their findings as detailed at The Polling Monitor, Abraham and Pitts concluded that major contests still deemed "leaning Democratic" by the polls are probably, in fact, leading the other way.

Gizzi also gave some examples of Abraham's alleged poll analysis:

He went on to cite The Polling Monitor's findings from the past three cycles in Arizona showing CBS/YouGov overweighing Democratic strength by 4.2%.

"So when you look at their latest poll of the Senate race showing [Democratic Sen.] Mark Kelly beating [Republican opponent] Blake Masters by 51[%] to 48%," said Abraham, "it actually means Masters is ahead."

In reality, Kelly defeated Masters by about 5 percentage points. Gizz also wrote:

CBS/YouGov also found on Oct. 6 that in Michigan, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer led Republican challenger Tudor Dixon by 53% to 47%.

"But the record since 2016 shows they are outweighing the Democrats by 2.6%, so it's probably a tie," Abraham told us, adding that CBS/YouGov's findings were released before the recent televised confrontation between the two in which Dixon was widely judged to have gained major ground.

In reality, Whitmer defeated Dixon by 11 percentage points. Still ,Gizzi concluded:

"If polls are misleading voters or someone has put their thumb on the scale, they need to be called out," Abraham said. "That's why we have PollingMonitor.com."

So far, we haven't seen Gizzi call out Abraham for his inaccurate analysis. Instead, he promoted more polls that turned out to be wrong. An Oct. 27 article hyped a poll by right-wing Americano Media claiming, in Gizzi's words, "a modern high of Hispanic voters supporting Republicans," which "could easily tip the three competitive U.S. House races in Texas to the Republicans." In fact, Republicans won only one of the three Texas seats Gizzi referenced.

A Nov. 5 article by Gizzi touted how in the Wisconsin governor race, "the much-respected Marquette University Law School poll shows among voters statewide, [incumbent Democratic Gov. Tony] Evers and GOP businessman Tim Michels are deadlocked with 48% each," which "clearly shows movement in the direction of Trumpster Michaels since a month ago." Evers won by three percentage points.

Gizzi hasn't been eager to revisit this inaccurate polling either.

Like MRC Parent, CNS Loved Right-Wing Female Latino Who Briefly Filled House Seat
Topic: CNSNews.com

Like its Media Research Center parent, CNSNews.com got excited when Republican Mayra Flores won a special election in June to fill a congressional seat in Texas, and it immediately portrayed her as the vanguard of a movement to push Latinos in a more Republican direction. Melanie Arter transcribed in a June 15 article:

Republican Mayra Flores’s win over Democrat Dan Sanchez in the special election to replace Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Texas), who resigned in March, spells the end of the Democrat Party in the Rio Grande Valley, Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas) told Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria.”

“Well, it's the beginning of the end of the Democrat Party in the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas and maybe for the Hispanic population who are hard-working, many of them work in the oil and gas industry,” Pfluger said of Flores, who is the wife of a Border Patrol agent.

“Obviously they’re tired of the border and tired of the inflation, the record inflation that we see. Their families are struggling alongside other families. So Mayra Flores winning this seat, she will be a congresswoman. This was a special election,” the congressman said.

“I think what it tells you is that it tells you that the Hispanic population and that everyday working class Americans regardless of our backgrounds, race, ethnicity, are tired of Democrat lies, we are tired of an economy and a crisis that Biden has put us in, and we are tired of lack of transparency,” he said.

Craig Bannister quoted her directly the same day:

Hispanics in her Southwest Texas district want border security, financial security and the economy to take priority over immigration reform, says Republican Rep.-elect Mayra Flores, who flipped a House seat in Tuesday’s special election.

Her victory made her the first Mexican-born U.S. congresswoman and the first Republican ever to win the predominantly Hispanic district.

In an interview with Fox News, Flores said that she won, in large part, because she shares the values – God, family and community – of her Hispanic constituents:

[...]

Contrary to the narrative of Democrats and media, Hispanics actually support the Border Patrol, and don’t like the way border agents are being disrespected, Flores told Ballasy.

Arter returned for more Flores stenography in a June 20 article:

Congresswoman-Elect Mayra Flores (R-Texas) told Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that the Democrat Party took the people of South Texas for granted, which is why she won the special election to replace Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Texas).

“Well, to be honest with you South Texas has always been conservative. We're all about faith and family, and hard work. That is who we are but The Democrat party [sic] took us for granted. They felt entitled to our vote, making the same promised over and over and really not making nothing happen, and I honestly had enough,” Flores said.

“I was really fed up with the compadrismo here in South Texas, and that’s the reason why I decided to run and of course the Republican party is investing now in south Texas and that helps us significantly getting the funding out there to the entire district to be able to tell them the Republican party is fighting for their values, that Mayra Flores is fighting for their values - values that are worth fighting for,” she said.

The next day, Bannister wrote an article hyping that "Hispanic voters in southwest border states disapprove of President Joe Biden’s job performance and, nationally, the younger the Hispanic voter, the greater the disapproval, a new survey shows," adding that "The results come in the wake of last week’s special election upset victory by Mexican-born Rep.-elect Mayra Flores, who became the first Republican ever to win a U.S. House seat in her predominantly Hispanic California [sic] district."

Just like its MRC parent, CNS censored the fact that Flores has far-right views and has been QAnon-curious. Nevertheless, the Flores party continued; we've already noted how CNS tried to manufacture a controversy about Nancy Pelosi allegedly elbowing Flores' child during her swearing-in ceremony (in fact, Pelosi was trying to make sure the cameras saw the girl).The accolades (and censoring of her far-right record) continued:

• Laura Ingraham Welcomes Rep. Flores into ‘The New York Times Hated’ Club for Blaming Border ‘Invasion’ on Biden
• Rep. Mayra Flores Shares ‘Taco Inflation’ Stats after Jill Biden Compares Latinos to the Tortilla Treat
• Rep. Flores: ‘The Democratic Party Does Not Care About Immigrants’ or ‘The American People’
• Rep. Flores: ‘We Should Never Reject God’s Word Just Because It Does Not Agree with Our Lifestyle or Expectations’

As Flores faced another election bid to permanently fill her seat, CNS cranked out some more stenography for her in October, in addition to including a comment from her among right-wingers praising Tulsi Gabbard for officially leaving the "Democrat Party":

• Rep. Flores: Dems Losing Hispanic Support Because ‘We Don’t Support This Humanitarian Crisis’ They Created
• Rep. Mayra Flores: VP Harris Is ‘Completely Useless’

Flores ultimately received the coveted victim designation in an Oct. 28 article by Bannister:

When the nation’s first Mexican-born congresswoman tried to join the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), she was told she couldn’t, because she didn’t fit its stereotype of Hispanic values and party affiliation.

On Wednesday, Townhall broke the news that the CHC had rejected Rep. Mayra Flores’ (R-Texas) request to join the caucus.

Nowhere on the “About” page of the caucus’ website does it say that membership is restricted to Democrats, though CHC Spokesman Sebastian Roa says it is required by the group’s bylaws. The caucus bylaws changed after former Republican Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo's rejection in 2017.

[...]

"I thought joining the Congressional Hispanic Caucus would be a constructive way to build bridges and work in a bipartisan manner on behalf of our constituents. I was wrong,” Flores told Townhall.

“This denial once again proves a bias towards conservative Latinas that don’t fit their narrative or ideology," Flores added.

Bannister offered no evidence that a right-winger like Flores ever expressed any previous desire to "build bridges and work in a bipartisan manner."

That, however, appears to be the last hurrah for Flores at CNS (unless she fails upward on the right-wing media ladder). Flores lost the election to permanent fill that seat to a Democrat Vicente Gonzalez by more than 8 percentage points during a campaign that included Flores refusing to debate Gonzalez and a local Republican official being accused of sexual assault.

A Nov. 10 article by Lauren Shank about conservatives complaining that Republicans didn't sweep the midterms as expected included Flores rage-tweeting "The RED WAVE did not happen. Republicans and Independents stayed home. DO NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT THE RESULTS IF YOU DID NOT DO YOUR PART!" But it didn't mention that Flores lost her election. That's quite the brusque farewell.

MRC Plays Whataboutism To Distract From Hammer Attack On Pelosi's Husband
Topic: Media Research Center

When an attacker broke into Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco home and attacked her husband, Paul, with a hammer, the Media Research Center was much more concerned that the attacker might be associated with the brand of MAGA conservatism it's associating itself with lately than the attack itself.

When an MSNBC commentator argued that right-wingers are causing a "normalization of violence," Alex Christy used an Oct. 29 post to not only disdtance his fellow Pelosi-hating conservatives from the attack but played the No True Scotsman fallacy to pretend that attacker could not possibly have been a real MAGA guy: "We are not. Several Republicans came out and condemned the attack and wished Paul Pelosi well in his recovery. The attacker also, as NBC’s own write-up reports, doesn’t fit neatly into an ideological box, “The [attacker’s] posts take aspects of liberal anti-establishment ideas to more recent posts that espouse positions typically associated with far-right extremism, the sources said.”

Tim Graham played the whataboutism card in whining that a panelist on a PBS show made "snarky comments" about Republicans who allegedly wished Paul Pelosi well but then "had nothing to say about how energetically liberals on Twitter were accusing Trump and his supporters of being responsible for the Pelosi attack -- or, as Twitchy pointed out, how liberals were still being snarky about Sen. Rand Paul being brutally attacked by his neighbor in 2017, which led to broken ribs."

Joseph Vazquez desperately attacked a local radio station to play the distancing card in an Oct. 30 post:

Leftist hacks at a National Public Radio affiliate spewed wild hyperbole at a GOP congresswoman by arbitrarily connecting her to the “nudist activist” who attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband.

Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) tweeted Oct. 28 following the attack on Paul Pelosi that she wished for “a full recovery” for him “from this absolutely horrific violent attack” in his home. Pelosi was reportedly taken to a hospital where he underwent surgery to repair a skull fracture following the incident. Stefanik said the suspect, identified as David DePape, “should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

North Country Public Radio reporter Zach Hirsch quote-tweeted Stefanik just over two hours later: “some context here is needed.” Here was the extent of Hirsch’s so-called “context” on Stefanik’s condolences: Stefanik, according to Hirsh’s asinine argument, bears indirect responsibility for the attack because she verbally opposes Speaker Pelosi and her policies. Common sense be damned.

NCPR News Director David Sommerstein promoted Hirsch’s nutty logic by being more direct: “ [Stefanik] denounces violent political acts. But her day-to-day rhetoric may contribute to it.” This isn’t journalism. It’s fallacious, leftist tabloid nonsense funded in part by both U.S. and New York State taxpayers.

Vazquez went on to quote a Stefank spokesperson attacking the radio station with whataboutism: "They refuse to cover the violent leftist rhetoric which led to an assassination attempt on a Supreme Court Justice. This is deranged and dangerous, they should and will be defunded. " One wonders if Stefanik's campaign paid the MRC for writing this piece, because it certainly reads that way, and a small-market public radio station is not a typical MRC target.

Kevin Tober found his own bit of whataboutism to cheer:

On Sunday’s edition of CBS’s Face the Nation, anchor Margaret Brennan tried to accuse Republican Congressman Tom Emmer of stoking political violence and being responsible for the alleged attack on Paul Pelosi’s husband by an unhinged nudist in San Francisco. Brennan’s reasoning for these flimsy allegations was that Emmer dared to post a video on Twitter of him exercising his Second Amendment rights and urged voters to protect their rights by firing Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House in November. Since Brennan is apparently unhinged herself, Brennan interpreted that tweet as a threat to Pelosi’s life.  

“On your Twitter feed you posted this video we're going to show just a few days ago where you're firing a gun and it says, enjoyed exercising my second amendment rights, hashtag fire Pelosi. Why is there a gun in a political ad at all?" Brennan shrieked.

Emmer then turned the tables on Brennan by asking her why she never posed these questions to Democrats like Bernie Sanders after one of his supporters shot and almost killed then-House Majority Whip Steve Scalise. 

“It's interesting Margaret that we're talking about this this morning when a couple years back when a Bernie Sanders supporter shot Steve Scalise,” Emmer asked.

Neither tober nor Emmer offered any evidence that Sanders ever engaged in the kind of violent rhetoric that could possibly have inspired any shooter.He thencranked up the whataboutism even more:

The media don’t want to discuss the fact that Democrat rhetoric has inspired countless acts of political violence. 

They want you to forget about the Black Lives Matter mobs in the summer of 2020 who burned cities to the ground and assaulted or killed countless police officers, the shooting at the Congressional Republican baseball practice in 2017, and most recently the attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. To name a few.

The leftist media propagandists dressed up as journalists want you to forget about these incidents and to only focus on events they can plausibly blame on Republicans. 

Again, Tober provided no example of "Democrat rhetoric" that specifically inspired any specific act of violence. (Also, all cities that existed before George Floyd's death were still standing after that summer's strife, so claiming that people "burned cities to the ground" is a blatant lie.)

P.J. Gladnick, meanwhile, freaked out over a news story being covered:

Politico is so intent on suggesting to its readers that evil right-wing Republicans were responsible at least indirectly for the break-in of Nancy Pelosi's home in which her husband Paul Pelosi ended up in the hospital due to being hammered that they have published on Friday and Saturday not one or two or even three or four stories on this topic but ELEVEN, count 'em, ELEVEN stories at the very top of their home page.

So many stories that only six of them were able to fit in the photo you see on this page. Let us start with the story at the very top of the page which blamed, without real evidence, the usual suspects for the media in general and Politico in particular, "Pelosi attack rattles an already skittish campaign trail."

[...]

Oh, and if the motivation for the incident turns out to be NOT political, will Politico publish ELEVEN correction stories on its home page?

We're still waiting for the MRC to correct the lies it has published, so maybe Gladnick needs to focus his whining internally first.

Mark Finkelstein bgan an Oct. 31 post by grumbling: "We don't buy the conspiracy theory that Democrats cooked up the attack on Paul Pelosi as a last-minute election ploy. But, wow the liberal media is fully embracing the conspiracy theory that this can be directly connected to January 6 and should become a central election issue." He then complained about "Morning Joe" taking a "deep dive" into the shooting and that "A quick word search of the closed-captioning (a rough measure) shows 'Pelosi' was spoken 81 times," further complaining that "Mika was simply going to ignore the San Francisco Chronicle (not a MAGA newspaper) reporting the alleged assailant DePape was part of a nudist group and became a hemp jewelry maker. They also found he was once registered as a member of the Green Party. Someone is looking away at potential parallels." He concluded by huffing: "We have a 'news' network that isn't really reporting new facts on this assault. Instead, the liberal are media look like they are exploiting the attack for all it's worth to stave off a potential red wave."

Curtis Houck similarly latched onto the "nudist" angle, as if Republicans could not possibly be interested in such a thing:

On Monday morning, the objective from the liberal broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC was clear: blame conservatives as accessories for attempted murder in the attack on Paul Pelosi by a Berekely-residing nudist. The networks even admitted but argued, without evidence, tens of millions of right-leaning Americans are “play[ing] footsie with the forces of violence.”

And as for the fact that conservatives have faced threats and been victims of political violence, one show brushed that aside as less important.

CBS Mornings was by far the worst, spending nearly ten minutes on the beating of the husband of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti tied the actions of the drug-addicted, mentally ill assailant to “the January 6 Capitol Hill mob” because he allegedly shouted, “where is Nancy.”

[...]

He added that Republicans writ large now ignore and have accepted violence against their adversaries because, “you have Republican lawmakers when they were retiring would say I don't want to speak out even though I’m retiring because if I go back home, I'm going to get threats.”

Not only did Dickerson explain the rise in violence as a hallmark of the right, King insisted to fake Republican Doug Heye that Republicans haven’t “been full-throated in their...condemnations” of the Pelosi attack.

Heye agreed Republicans have excused it and collectively made fun of it. Worse yet, he argued the right only cares when they’re the victims[.]

Given how vociferiously the MRC has been playing whataboutism about the Pelosi attack and its attacks on the House committee investigating the Capitol riot, it seems quite clear that that it cares about political violence only when they're the victims.Houck laughably summarized the whole thing insisting it was all about "attempts to criminalize dissent and blame tens of millions of conservatives for the actions of a mentally ill nudist."

CNS Cheers Restrictive Catholic Hospitals, Scorns Non-Restrictive Catholic Colleges
Topic: CNSNews.com

Because the people who run CNSNews.com like to consider themselves more Catholic than the pope, they like to inject their opinions on all things Catholic. Editor Terry Jeffrey's Oct. 12 column cheered the spread of Catholic hospitals that refuse to do abortions, offer care for miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies or dperform sterilizations or tubal ligations following a Washington Post report on it:

If you or a loved one were being admitted to a hospital, would you want it to be managed and staffed by individuals who "respect the sacredness of every human life from the moment of conception until death"? Or would you want it managed and staffed by individuals who do not?

Because the respect for human life articulated in the USCCB's "Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services" does in fact derive ultimately from the natural law, this respect for human life was expressly embraced by ethical doctors in the era before Christ.

[...]

Should Catholic hospitals be forced to act contrary to Catholic teaching?

"For those communities where patients have no other option besides a Catholic hospital, the federal designation of 'sole community hospital,' which carries with it supplemental funding, should include stronger requirements to ensure that patients are informed about where to obtain needed services and aided in obtaining those services," says the report.

"In emergency situations, sole community hospitals should be expected to provide the needed care," it says.

The battle over freedom of conscience is nowhere near over in this country.

Jeffrey didn't explain how "freedom of conscience" forbids a Catholic hospital from treating a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy, allowing the woman to die or be severely injured in the process.

An anonymously written Oct. 17 "news" article, meanwhile, complained that a White House gathering on reproductive rights included students from Catholic colleges:

Vice President Kamala Harris met with 75 “student leaders” from 66 colleges and universities on Friday “to discuss the fight to protect reproductive rights.”

The group of students included representatives from three Catholic colleges.

These were Emmanuel College in Boston, Xavier University of Louisiana, and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Emmanuel’s website describes it as “a Catholic, coeducational, residential, liberals arts and sciences college in Boston” that was “[f]ounded in 1919 by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur as the first Catholic college for women in New England.”

Xavier University of Louisiana says on its website that it is “the nation’s only Catholic and historically black university” and “was  founded by a white nun who was determined to admit students of all faiths and races.”

Georgetown’s website says: “Georgetown University is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institution of higher learning in the United States. John Carroll’s founding of Georgetown College coincides with the birth of our nation.”

CNS seems to be upsetr that these students apparently haven't been indoctrinated hard enough, or something.

This seems to be an echo of a Sept. 15 column by dishonest Catholic Bill Donohue, who complained that Catholic colleges don't hate LGBT students enough.

MRC Parrots COVID Misinfo, Then Whines It Got Busted For Doing It
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Catherine Salgado played the "censorship" card on behalf of a Republican official in an Oct. 10 post:

Follow the science—except when it undermines Big Tech’s favorite narratives. Twitter upheld that precept when it censored but later reinstated a tweet from Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo recommending that young men not get mRNA COVID-19 vaccines based on new evidence he has.

Ladapo tweeted Oct. 7 about a new analysis showing the relative incidence of cardiac-related death increased 84 percent in men ages 18-39 within 28 days of mRNA vaccination. Ladapo recommended men in this age group refrain from getting mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.

Twitter apparently objected to a public health official making science-based recommendations, because it removed the tweet, according to Breitbart. Twitter reinstated Ladapo’s tweet on Sunday after backlash, according to Reclaim The Net, and the tweet is once more accessible on Ladapo’s profile. Reclaim The Net reported that Twitter originally claimed Ladapo’s tweet violated "Twitter rules.”

“Today, we released an analysis on COVID-19 mRNA vaccines the public needs to be aware of,” Lapado’s Oct. 7 tweet said. “This analysis showed an increased risk of cardiac-related death among men 18-39. FL will not be silent on the truth.” He then linked to his press release with the mRNA vaccination analysis results and his guidance.

But as we documented when WorldNetDaily pushed this same study, there's little to suggest there's any credible "truth" to the study that Ladapo promoted.It's based on information from death certificates that are likely to be inaccurate, it's based on a group of only 20 deaths, and Ladapo is hiding the names of the study's authors -- all warning signs of shoddy research. Salgado's appeal to authority by portraying Ladapo as a "public health official making science-based recommendations" falls flat because no genuinely competent public health official would put out a "study" with so many warning signs.

When the MRC itself got dinged for amplifying Ladapo's shoddy work, it whined even more. Brian Bradley complained in an Oct. 17 post:

Facebook is ironically censoring an MRC story that calls out another platform’s suppression of a study questioning the safety of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines.

MRC Free Speech America staff writer/researcher Catherine Salgado on Oct. 10 posted to Facebook her report on Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo getting censored by Twitter for sharing results of a Florida Department of Health study showing cardiac-related death increased 84 percent in men aged 18-39 within 28 days of COVID-19 mRNA vaccination.

Facebook on Thursday put a warning label on Salgado’s post, stating it was “missing context” and “could mislead people.”

In addition to censoring Salgado’s account, Facebook censored four other MRC accounts in connection with the Florida Department of Health study, including NewsBusters, Free Speech America, CNSNews, and MRC’s main account.

The speech police, a.k.a. Facebook, added a stern reprimand against those who engage in free speech. “People who repeatedly share false information might have their posts moved lower in News Feed so other people are less likely to see them,” the warning label says.

Facebook applied a warning label – similar to an interstitial – requiring users to click through the label to see the original post. Facebook users fail to click through fact-check interstitials 95 percent of the time, AP News reported in April 2020. This means MRC’s post likely received much less reach than it would’ve had it not been censored. 

When it censored Salgado, Facebook linked out to a supposed “ fact-check” by Health Feedback. Health Feedback’s parent organization Science Feedback is part of the Poynter International Fact-Checking (IFCN) Network, which is funded in part by liberal billionaires George Soros and Pierre Omidyar. Facebook partners with IFCN to “fact-check” certain posts, which restricts their reach. 

The “key take away” of that fact-check was that studies “much larger” than the Florida one found benefits of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines to outweigh the risks, “even in people at the highest risk of post-vaccine myocarditis,” according to Health Feedback.

Bradley censored ther fact that Health Feedback's fact check said that the Ladapo study is too small to be meaningful and pointed out that the study authors are anonymous -- facts he apparently feld he needed to hide by playing guilt-by-association with Soros.

Bradley then complained that Salgado's COVID claims tend to get "censored":

Big Tech has censored Salgado four times this year, including Facebook censoring her three times in June for COVID-19 content. The last June post called out The Vatican’s issuance of a coin “celebrating the ineffective, dangerous, abortion-tainted Covid-19 vaccines.” Facebook slapped a June 5 Health Feedback “fact-check” on another June post by Salgado. The fact-check linked out to her Substack article highlighting a German study showing that mask mandates didn’t restrict the spread of the virus.

Facebook applied another “fact-check” on a post of a June 3 article by Salgado citing feminist Dr. Naomi Wolf, who claimed COVID-19 vaccines were causing a “genocide” of babies.

Salgado was wrong to spread such misinformation-- and Bradley is helping anyway by appending the "Dr." honorific to Wolf to suggest that her false conspiracy-mongering is medically based; in fact, Wolf is a Ph.D., not an M.D.

Bradley didn't explain why Salgado's COVID misinformation shouldn't be called out -- or why the MRC continues to employ such an unrepentant misinformer. Unless, of course, her actual job is to spread misinformation that gets flagged by social media so her employer can cry "censorship."

The MRC has defended Ladapo before. In January, Kevin Tober tried to distract from a report by Rachel Maddow arguing that Ladapo has not treated COVID patients despite portraying himself as doing so by parroting Florida state officials claiming that Maddow didn't give Ladapo adequate time to respond. Clay Waters complained in February that the New York Times was allegedly targeting Ladapo because he "doesn’t buy into COVID-hysteria, a complaint he repeated the following month.

NEW ARTICLE: The Lost Cause Isn't Lost At WND
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Both before and after Charlottesville, WorldNetDaily has been sad that Confederate statues are being taken down just because they represent institutionalized racism and an opponent that lost a war against the United States. Read more >>

MRC Cheers Musk's Official Takeover of Twitter
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has been a giddy enthusiast for Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter, even as Musk tried to get out of buying it. When it appeared the sale was actually going to happen for real, Autumn Johnson kept up the cheerleading in an Oct. 25 post:

Tesla CEO Elon Musk reportedly plans to close his deal to purchase Twitter for $44 billion on Friday.

On Tuesday, Bloomberg News reported that Musk told bankers providing $13 billion in funding that the deal would close by the end of the week.

NewsBusters reported last week that Musk plans to lay off nearly 75% of the company’s employees to save money.

“'Although, obviously, myself and the other investors are obviously overpaying for Twitter right now, the long-term potential for Twitter in my view is an order of magnitude greater than its current value,'” Musk reportedly said at the time.

Musk previously said he wanted to buy the platform to promote free speech online after he criticized the company for censoring certain content.

Johnson didn't mention that, as we noted, Musk negated hs attempt to get out of his deal to buy Twitter by complaining about the number of bot accounts because he explicitly waiving his right to due diligence, meaning that his only options were to pay Twitter billions to terminate the deal or just suck up and buy the company as agreed.

When Musk finally did close the deal, Catherine Salgado served up Musk stenography in an Oct. 27 post:

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a statement to Twitter advertisers following news that his deal for the platform was going through that he acquired the platform “because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square.”

Musk tweeted his statement to Twitter advertisers Thursday morning, explaining why he decided to buy Twitter to begin with and what his goals are for advertisements on the platform. Musk said he bought Twitter to create a free speech space where people from the whole political spectrum could engage in open “dialogue.”

The Tesla CEO also said he hopes to see Twitter grow into “the most respected advertising platform in the world” with “highly relevant ads” for all users.

He began by saying most speculation about his motivations has been inaccurate. “The reason I acquired Twitter is … to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence.”

[...]

ime will tell if Musk’s leadership will finally usher in a new era of free speech on a platform that suffered from a sordid obsession with censoring conservative opinions it didn’t like.

That's not what happened, of course; Twitter simply enforced its terms of service, as is its right as a private company, and the MRC exploited that to manufacture a narrative of conservatives being "censored" (despite never bothering to  make any serious attempt to examine if liberals faced the same issue).

When Musk fired  the existing Twitter CEO, Joseph Vazquez cheered under the headline "GOOD RIDDANCE":

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is reportedly out as head of the platform as the world’s richest man completed his $44 billion acquisition after a tumultuous negotiations process.

CNBC reported that Agrawal and Twitter Chief Finance Officer Ned Segal “left the company's San Francisco headquarters” after Musk took charge as the new owner "and will not be returning." Musk shared in his statement to Twitter’s advertisers that his free speech vision is for the platform to become a “common digital town square” which stands in stark contrast to Agrawal’s dystopian, anti-free speech nightmare. Agrawal stated in November 2020 that the company’s role was “not to be bound by the First Amendment” but to decide “who can be heard.”

Musk posted a video of himself Oct. 26 walking into Twitter headquarters holding a sink with the caption: “[L]et that sink in!” One thing’s for sure: Agrawal's censorship-obsessed career at Twitter has been officially flushed down the drain.

Musk recently updated his Twitter bio to "Chief Twit."

Of course,  Twitter was never such a "dystopian, anti-free speech nightmare" that the MRC ever left the platform -- which tells us it never was that, meaning that this overheated rhetoric is simply another manufactured MRC narrative.

When critics foresaw Musk's dismantling of moderation standards would send Twitter into chaos -- accurately, as it turned out, given that racist posts flooded Twitter after Musk closed the deal -- the MRC tried to shout them down:

• The View Decries Twitter Free Speech, Demands Feds CRACK DOWN ("Let’s be honest. When they attack the users they’re talking about those calling them out for their hatred, racism, ignorance, and hypocrisy," Nicholas Fondadaro huffed)
• ‘Like the Gates of Hell’: Leftist Media Meltdown About Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover
• CBS Sobs: ‘Our Democracy’ Is in Peril after Elon Musk’s Successful Twitter Takeover ("CBS, of course, framed the news of the Musk deal around “hate speech,” not free speech," Jeffrey Clark complained)
• MSNBC Warns Musk's Idea Of Free Speech Threatens Free Speech

The MRC censored the surge in racism on Twitter; instead, it continued serving as Musk's PR agent. An Oct. 28 post by Johnson framed Musk's "content moderation council" as a free-speech move and not the censorship move it did when pre-Musk Twitter engaged in content moderation:

Elon Musk says changes are coming to Twitter just one day after he closed a deal to purchase the platform for $44 billion.

Musk, who has expressed concern about one-sided content moderation, said a council with “widely diverse viewpoints” will set the platform’s standards for removal.

“Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints,” he tweeted Friday afternoon. “No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.”

An Oct. 30 post by Johnson touted a fellow right-winger invoking the MRC's bogus "censorship" narrative to pressure Musk:

New Twitter chief Elon Musk said he will “look into” increased censorship on Twitter during the 2022 election season.

Musk, who purchased Twitter for $44 billion last week, was responding to a tweet from Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Fitton shared an article alleging that the platform “flag[ged]” a ballot harvesting report.

“Election censorship returns as @Twitter flags ballot harvesting report," Fitton tweeted on Saturday.".@ElonMusk should immediately examine how the company is now interfering in the election on behalf of the Left.”

Neither Johnson nor Fitton offered any evidence that the "ballot harvesting" story -- cranked out by right-wing outlet Just the News -- was accurate and independently proven, or why unproven rumors should be allowed to spread unchecked.

Johnson wrote another PR piece for Musk later that day, touting how he "seems to be toying with a plan that would allow Twitter users to 'select' which version of Twitter they prefer." Johnson served up yet another PR piece after that:

Conservative Twitter accounts have reported gaining thousands of new followers after Tesla CEO Elon Musk purchased the platform last week.

The New York Times reported last week that “far right” Twitter accounts gained thousands of new followers according to research from Memetica, a company that analyzes digital data:

[...]

Memetica's CEO, Ben Decker, said the company’s findings were alarming and told the Times that the surge in followers “could be an indication that far-right people are migrating back to Twitter as they see the potential for a more friendly environment.”

“The more followers and wider reach these accounts have, the more distribution these ideas have,” Decker added. 

Not surprisingly, Decker did not define what constitutes a “far right” Twitter account.

These comments show that Musk’s concerns about the biases of online platforms against certain viewpoints are well-founded.

Or it could be that a raft of new right-wing bot accounts have been created, a possibility Johnson didn't mention. Johnson's concern over what defines a "far right" Twitter account is hilarious given how much her employer loves to use "liberal" "left-wing" and "far left" interchangably without defining those terms.

CNS' Donohue Still Trying To Distract From Catholic Church Sexual Abuse
Topic: CNSNews.com

Dishonest Catholic Bill Donohue loves to try and shout down anyone who points out the Catholic Church's history of covering up sexual abuse perpetrated by its priests and then distort the facts to turn attention away from church culpability, and he's not about to stop anytime soon. He served up a different angle on this in his Oct. 4 column:

An AP story last week on mandatory reporting laws didn’t get much traction. That’s because it broke no new ground.

Written by Jason Dearen and Michael Rezendes, they found that 33 states exempt the clergy from mandatory reporting laws governing the sexual abuse of minors. “This loophole has resulted in an unknown number of predators being allowed to continue abusing children for years despite having confessed behavior to religious officials.”

The reason why no one knows how many predators have continued to abuse children for years “despite having confessed behavior to religious officials” is because no one has been able to identify a singular instance when this has happened. The real story here has less do with legal loopholes than it does with crashing the confessional.

Donohue didn't explain why the confessional is so sacrosanct that serious crimes must be hidden from authorities and, more likely than not, allowed to continue.

Donohue returned to his usual dishonest whining in his Oct. 28 column:

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has issued the most vacuous report, “Diocese of Marquette: A Complete Accounting,” on clergy sexual abuse ever written. We know she has been out to get the Catholic Church, but this effort makes her look incompetent, as well as unethical.

The probe of Catholic dioceses searching for instances of clergy sexual abuse began in 2018 under her predecessor, Bill Schuette; she took the reins in 2019. There has been no attempt to investigate the sexual abuse of minors by ministers, rabbis, imams or school teachers. Just Catholic priests.

This amounts to Catholic profiling. Make no mistake, this is no less invidious than a probe of violent crime would be if it only targeted African Americans. Such a selective approach smacks of bigotry.

Donohue didn't identify where those other religious denominations has exhibited a history of systematically hiding sexual abuse the way the Catholic Church has.

Donohue went on to gloat that the Michigan investigation didn't find enough sexual abuse cases for him to care about:

What they found was scratch. A grand total of 44 priests had allegations made against them since 1950. While one molesting priest is too many, how many religious or secular institutions—where adults regularly interact with minors—and are roughly the size of the Marquette Diocese, could honestly say they have a better record than this? We don’t know because Nessel has no interest in finding out.

It is important to note the limitations of this report as even acknowledged by its authors. [The emphasis is in the original.]

“The allegations are summarized here, and their inclusion does not reflect a determination by the Department [of the Attorney General] that the allegations are credible or otherwise substantiated.”

In other words, the accused did not have a chance to rebut the charges. There’s a good reason for this—32 of the 44 priests are “known or presumed to be dead.” Moreover, only 6 of the 44 cases have been substantiated by the Diocese. We cannot assume that all the others involve guilty priests.

That gloating does not sound like it comes from a man who genuinely believes that "one molesting priest is too many." He then cranked up the whataboutism:

Moreover, if Nessel were even-handed, she would launch an investigation into the public schools. In 2016, USA Today did a 50-state study of this issue, grading each state on how well they handled this problem. Michigan received an “F” for its failure to adequately address the crisis of sexual abuse in its public schools.

Why hasn’t Nessel done a probe? Is it because she is wedded to the teacher unions? What else could be it?

Or it could be that there is no evidence of systematic abuse or a coverup of said abuse in public schools the way there has been in the Catholic Church. It's as if he's trying to distract from something.

MRC's Graham Whines That Right-Wing Radio Hate Was Called Out -- But He Won't Defend It
Topic: Media Research Center

Media Research Center executive Tim Graham began his Oct. 19 column by declaring, "Liberals like to think that conservatives are very closed-minded and can’t handle listening to an opposing opinion." He the unironically proves them right by spending the rest of his column ranting about how he can't handle an opposing opinion -- in this case, NPR reporting that right-wing talk radio has divided America:

Liberals like to think that conservatives are very closed-minded and can’t handle listening to an opposing opinion. But whenever "mainstream" journalists start discussing talk radio and how it’s “bad for America,” you can surmise that they often can’t handle the other side.

On September 16, the CBS News show Sunday Morning devoted the whole show to exploring “A Nation Divided.” CBS would like you to think they don’t like division and are not divisive. That’s false.

Fill-in host Ted Koppel began: “Tens of millions of Americans get their political marching orders from the radio.” Now how insulting is that? How divisive is that? Anyone who listens to conservatives on the radio is (to borrow the old Washington Post insult) “poor, uneducated, and easy to command.”

Democracy is supposed to be about persuasion, and you’re not going to persuade someone or unify the country by saying half of us are taking “marching orders” from talk-radio generals. It sounds like CBS liberals are frustrated that their “marching orders” aren’t followed.

The CBS reporter was Jim Axelrod. He's no relation to Democrat strategist David Axelrod, but they sound like brothers. He began with more insults: "35 years after the talk radio revolution, on the air is still often an exercise in off the rails." This, from the Dan Rather Channel that somehow never went off the rails into fake news.

At no point did Graham disprove anything CBS reported. Instead, the rest of his column is filled with whataboutism and personal attacks on the reporters and commentators. He concluded with more whataboutism: "To sum up, CBS journalists think conservative radio is bad for America, but when they compare conservatives to Cambodian communist crackpots who slaughtered about two million people, that’s not divisive. It’s a satchel of sweet reason."

Whataboutism is not "media research." But that's a defining feature of the MRC these days  -- and a tacit admission on Graham's part that he cannot logically defend the division and hate his fellow right-wingers spread.

UPDATE: Graham's column is derived from an Oct. 16 post by Kevin Tober complaining about this same segment for having smeared "the greatest radio host of all time, Rush Limbaugh." The cultish hero worship Tober continued to exhibit for Limbaugh got donwright embarrassing:

Axelrod and ["pseudo-historian and talk radio hater" Brian] Rosenwald are obviously jealous of Rush Limbaugh's success. They know that they don't have anyone and never will have anyone who comes close to the influence and popularity that Rush Limbaugh had in American culture and politics.

Their heroes will be forgotten once they're gone. Rush Limbaugh will never be forgotten and his influence lives within every young conservative in media or the conservative movement. 

Atlanta conservative radio host Neal Boortz once called Rush Limbaugh the "Babe Ruth of talk radio". With all due respect to Boortz, that is understating Rush's influence. Babe Ruth was the greatest Baseball player of all time, but he didn't invent the sport.

Rush Limbaugh invented nationally syndicated conservative talk radio when nobody thought it would be successful. Not only that but he stayed number one for over 32 years. Ending his long career with his biggest audience ever of over 43 million listeners. 

In 32 years nobody will remember who hosted CBS Sunday Morning. You can't say the same about Rush Limbaugh.

Tober's proof that Limbaugh's show had "over 43 million listeners" comes from ... Limbaugh himself. Not exactly an impartial source. And it's sad that Tober thinks a man who maliciously and disgustingly smeared a woman as a "slut" for taking birth control could possibly be considered "great." Then again, the boys at the MRC loved his sick misogyny.