Bad Faith: MRC Complains Media Ignored Oz's Muslim Faith (Like The MRC Did)
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center doens't like Muslims. It generally writes about them only in the context of attacking them -- i.e., Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib -- and whining about conservatives being (accurately) described as Islamophobic. So when the MRC suddenly wants to talk about Muslims in a nice way, one has to assume bad faith is part of the argument. And that's exactly what we got in a Nov. 4 post by Jason Cohen:

Dr. Oz is a Muslim and would be the first ever Muslim senator if elected. But based on media coverage, there is a good chance you didn't even know about this. 

In fact, HuffPost had the nerve to leave him out of their piece titled "American Muslims In The Midterms Aren't Long-Shot Candidates Anymore." 

FOX News reported that “A spokesperson for HuffPost declined to comment.”

Hm, interesting.

Mike Cernovich pointed out this lack of coverage in a tweet saying, “If the regime media thought Republicans hated Muslims, they’d be touting that Dr Oz could become the first Muslim Senator in U.S. history. But they are quiet about that. Says it all.” 

Glenn Greenwald also noted how groundbreaking this would be:

[...]

It seems to show how accepting the right is that they are not making any issue of Oz’s religion whatsoever. And it shows the left is disingenuous in regard to diversity. 

Leftists only like diversity when they support the same sentiments.

Cernovich likes to fearmonger about "Muslim rape culture," so maybe he's not the best guy Cohen could be citing to praise Muslims. Also missing from Cohen's post: any questioning of why his fellow right-wingers haven't been celebrating Oz's Muslim faith the way they would if he was an evangelical  Christian. Indeed, there was no mention whatsoever of Oz's Muslim faith at the MRC before Cohen's post.

There's also another  question missing from Cohen's post: If this achievement is so historic, why wasn't Oz himself touting it? Because he didn't want to. In contrast to Cohen's portrayal, the non-right-wing media has noted Oz's historic status -- and also noted how Oz is downplaying his faith. For example, on Oct. 14 -- three weeks before Cohen's post -- ABC News reported:

Dr. Mehmet Oz rarely talks about his faith on the campaign trail – but, if he wins, the son of Turkish émigrés could make history as the first Muslim elected to serve in the U.S. Senate.

"Pride and honor," Oz, the Pennsylvania GOP nominee, said in an interview last month when asked by ABC News' Linsey Davis what being the first Muslim in the chamber would mean to him.

He is already the first Muslim ever to be nominated by a major party for a Senate seat.

[...]

"Sufism is just kind of like, 'I'm spiritual,'" Imam Abdullah Pocius, the leader of a mosque in Philadelphia, explained to ABC News. "It's like when an American says, 'Well I'm not really into organized religion, but I'm spiritual,' you know?"

Pocius, who is not politically affiliated and said he has never voted, said Oz is rarely discussed among Muslims in Pennsylvania that he knows. Oz, too, rarely discusses his Muslim background on the campaign trail unless asked.

Despite his historic nomination, Oz feels distant from the Muslim community in Pennsylvania and is not "visible" in that role, Pocius said: "He definitely does not excite us. He's not even a blip on the radar."

Clay Waters served up a similar argument -- tyhis time attacking the New YOrk Times -- in a Nov. 9 post:

On Sunday, New York Times religion correspondent Liam Stack became the latest Timesreporter to devalue what would have been a historic achievement by a minority group politician, due to the politician in question being a conservative: “Oz Could Be the First Muslim U.S. Senator, but Some Muslim Americans Are Ambivalent.”

In quite the twist, a Times reporter is suspicious of a political figure (Dr. Mehmet Oz, running for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania as a Republican) for not pushing or emphasizing their religious beliefs. This after years of the paper bashing the supposedly dangerous theocratic tendencies of the Christian Right.

While Waters did include article excerpts pointing out that Oz has downplayed his Sufi Islam faith and refused to take part in events at mosques that would emphasize it, he went on to play whataboutism anyway:

Stack used Oz’s lack of firebrand religiosity to fault the Republican Party en masse and Trump especially, while blatantly fawning over a controversial Muslim Democratic figure.

[...]

Ellison, now Attorney General of Minnesota, weathered sexual harassment controversies and accusations of links to the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Lewis Farrakhan, which Stack conveniently failed to mention.

Even after Oz lost the eleciton, the MRC tried to push this narrative. In a Nov. 12 post, Alex Christy attacked history professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat for noting that Republicans care mostly about helping white Christian men. Rather than offering a coherent argument, Christy chose instead to make personal attacks on Ben-Ghiat, sneering that she proves that "PhDs are too easy to obtain nowadays" (not that Christy would know, since all he has is a poli-sci degree). He went on to huff:

It's telling that Ben-Ghiat is just a hack with a fancy degree when she cites someone who was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, but that she and the rest of the media couldn’t be bothered to tout the potential Dr. Mehmet Oz had to be the first Muslim senator or, speaking of Georgia, their attacks on Herschel Walker.

Christy didn't mention that his own employer had suppressed the fact of Oz's faith until just a week before.

It appears right-wingers like Cohen, Waters and Christy care only about diversity when they can use it as a cudgel against liberals to push a political narrative.

WND's Midterm Coverage As Biased As You'd Expect
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily -- as you'd expect from a bunch of election deniers -- embraced the never-proven narrative that Democrats were going to steal the midterm elections even before the polls closed. Bob Unruh promoted a Federalist article making that argument on the early evening of that day (based on the inescapable fact that some election results will not be completely tabulated on election night) while rehashing old denier grievances:

Democrats, reacting to President Trump's claims of a stolen 2020 presidential election, launched into a campaign against "election deniers" that they still pursue, despite the fact members of their own party are outspoken "election deniers" after any election won by a Republican.

Of course, after the fact, we learned that in the 2020 race the FBI lobbied Big Tech to suppress damaging information about the Biden family's business dealings, and Mark Zuckerberg handed out, through foundations, $400 million plus, and the evidence shows either one of those factors likely changed the election winner from President Trump to Joe Biden.

ut they still claimed that Trump was doing anything to hold onto power.

Now THEY will, charges John Daniel Davidson, senior editor at The Federalist.

In a column at that publication, he pointed out that Democrats and corporate media on their side "have been pushing hard the message that we won't know the results of key races for days, maybe weeks."

"It’s not just about counting absentee ballots, it’s about getting the rigging in place, either to claim victory or deny the legitimacy of the vote. Whatever Democrats say they fear Republican 'election deniers' might do, they themselves are preparing to do the same or worse," he wrote.

He pointed out Democrats have built their power by aligning "with elite interests and woke morality," and now control the White House and the administrative bureaucracy and are supported by corporate media and Big Tech.

WND's main article by Art Moore on the midterm results -- which has been updated since its original publication, something Moore didn't disclose even though the article still carries a Nov. 8 publication date while containing developments from the following day -- ultimately framed the Georgia Senate race as determining control of that body while also complaining that Democrats in Pennsylvania want all the votes counted:

Control of the Senate could once again be decided by a Georgia runoff, with neither incumbent Democratic Sen. Rafael Warnock nor Republican challenger Herschel Walker garnering 50% of the vote.

Earlier Wednesday, Dr. Mehmet Oz conceded the Pennsylvania race to Democrat John Fetterman, meaning the GOP has lost a seat in its bid to regain the majority. In the final days before the election, Fetterman, who suffered a serious stroke in May, signaled that the outcome of his race might not be known for days as all the votes are counted. On Monday, after hiring controversial Hillary Clinton lawyer Marc Elias, he filed a federal lawsuit contending mail-in ballots with an incorrect or missing date should be counted.

In his (also stealth-updated) summary on House races, Bob Unruh seemed happy that Republicans will take control of that body and gleefully hyped the obstruction they plan to implement, though he insisted on hyping early numbers that were later superceded by reality:

Republicans, as had been predicted, likely will be the House majority in the new Congress after the first of the year, and should that happen there will be a lot of changes in Washington.

The party held the lead in House seats throughout Election Night, taking the lead immediately and being up by as many as 60 seats before the last few dozen seats were heading for decisions. At about 2 a.m. Eastern, Republicans were up 189 seats to 154 for Democrats.

If they are the majority, Nancy Pelosi no longer would be speaker, losing her privileges, special status and extra pay.

"When you wake up, we will be in the majority, and Nancy Pelosi will be in the minority," Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said.

Pelosi's partisan Jan. 6 investigation commission? Likely on the scrap heap.

Instead, investigations of Anthony Fauci and COVID. And Hunter Biden and his laptop. Possibly even Joe Biden and those payments to the Biden family empire that appear to have come from unusual sources in China and Russia.

Further, Joe Biden's spending will be tempered by the GOP agenda and its priorities. Unless, of course, Biden jumps off into the ocean of random executive orders more.

And don't forget impeachments. Some GOP members already have discussed using it as a political tool against Biden, as Democrats did against President Trump. A simple majority in the House could leave Biden, as Pelosi charged against Trump, "impeached forever," even though involuntary removal from office would be unlikely.

Another article by Moore cheered the denial of reality from Republican candidates in Arizona:

On Tuesday night, amid voting machine breakdowns and other irregularities, Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake trailed Democratic rival Katie Hobbs by 100,000 votes. But Wednesday morning the margin had narrowed to 10,000, with only 62% of expected votes counted.

And by Wednesday afternoon, Hobbs' lead was narrowed to about 4,000 votes with 67% reporting, 50.1 to Lake's 49.9, with 72% of votes reported.

The popular Trump-backed candidate – who had a substantial lead in opinion polling – condemned the state government's handling of the election in an address to supporters late Tuesday night but said she expects to win after all the votes are counted. Lake said that in the latest vote drops, she was winning more than 70% of the vote.

The Arizona elections are under the leadership of Lake's opponent, Hobbs, the secretary of state.

Lake called the voting machine problems in Maricopa County "another stark reminder that we have incompetent people running the show in Arizona," promising her "first line of action is to restore honesty to Arizona elections."

The next day, Moore hyped a sting by the discredited activists at Project Veritas:

Project Veritas journalists at a Philadelphia polling station Tuesday captured hidden-camera footage described by the group's founder as evidence of illegal electioneering for Democratic candidates John Fetterman and Josh Shapiro.

Fetterman narrowly defeated Republican Mehmet Oz, and Shapiro won by double-digits over Republican Doug Mastriano.

Needless to say, Moore didn't do what a reputable news organization did and point out Project Veritas' reputation for dishonesty:

The videos are edited, and O'Keefe and Project Veritas have a history of selectively — and at times misleadingly — editing their videos. While they have previously posted raw footage, they have not done so with these latest stings.

Another political operative who appears in the video says this is a case of misleading editing. Immigration reform activist Caesar Vargas wrote on Facebook that "they just edited the video to distort the story."

Instead, Moore played stenographer by repeating what was in the video witout alerting his reader to the fact that it was likely edited to promote a conservative agenda.

MRC Continues To Embrace J.K. Rowling's Transphobia
Topic: Media Research Center

At the Media Research Center, J.K. Rowling made the flip from being hated for writing about wizards to being loved for hating transgender people as much as it does. The MRC is still praising Rowling's transphobia. An Oct. 14 post by Tierin-Ros Mandelburg cheered Rowling's snarky answer to a critic:

J.K. Rowling is a freakin’ savage.

An internet troll tried to piss off the Harry Potter author for losing a “whole audience” over her personal beliefs - namely, that men can't be women. Luckily, Rowling couldn’t care less about cancel culture’s numerous attempts to get rid of her, especially since she’s still a major success.

"How do you sleep at night knowing you’ve lost a whole audience from buying your books?” the troll wrote on Twitter.

Rowling’s response dropped jaws when she blasted back, “I read my most recent royalty cheques and find the pain goes away pretty quickly.”

[...]

As a matter of fact, Rowling should change her last name to Rolling, because she’s J.K. Rolling in lots of dough. 

Her net worth is literally $1 BILLION. From Harry Potter alone, Rowling has reportedly made over $700 million.

Mandelburg didn't mention that Rowling made that fortune writing books her employer spent years attacking before the transphobia flip.

An Oct. 25 post by Matt Philbin praised an actor in the Harry Potter movies for not criticizing her transphobia:

Well, it’s not every day the New York Times publishes something that isn’t biased, deceitful or bat-guano crazy. Certainly not something that bucks the LGBT mafia. 

Yet there it was on October 22, in a profile of actor Ralph Fiennes by … Maureen Dowd? (Signs and wonders!) Fiennes famously played Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter movies. He Who Must Not be Named may have lacked a schnoz in the flicks, but he has a pretty good nose for BS in real life, and he knows the hatred of Potter author J.K. Rowling has the stench of bovine evacuation.

Rowling is a liberal, but she refuses to play along with most extreme elements of the transgender movement. She ’s been publicly adamant that dudes pretending to be chicks are not chicks. Women, she maintains, are women and not “people who menstruate.” For this, she has had to face down the full fury of the Twitter mob – for years. What’s more, many of the actors she made famous with her stories deserted her, and sad sacks who made leagues out of her “Quidditch” game renamed it in order to distance themselves.

Not Fiennes, though. Asked about Rowling’s trans travails, he was appalled at her treatment.

“J.K. Rowling has written these great books about empowerment, about young children finding themselves as human beings. It’s about how you become a better, stronger, more morally centered human being,” he said. “The verbal abuse directed at her is disgusting, it’s appalling. I mean, I can understand a viewpoint that might be angry at what she says about women. But it’s not some obscene, über-right-wing fascist. It’s just a woman saying, ‘I’m a woman and I feel I’m a woman and I want to be able to say that I’m a woman.’ And I understand where she’s coming from. Even though I’m not a woman.”

So Harry and Hermione won’t stand up for common sense and for the woman to whom they owe their careers, but the evil wizard Voldemort will. Truth is stranger than children’s fiction.

Speaking of attacking Harry, John Simmons did just that in a Nov. 2 post:

J.K. Rowling, the author and Harry Potter franchise, has been a favorite target of the progressive mob ever since she spoke out against radical transgenderism in the summer of 2020.

[...]

It’s unsurprising that many people outside of the franchise came for head, but now she’s also dealing with hatred from some of the actors that played key roles in the iconic franchise.

Daniel Radcliffe, who played Harry Potter in the film series by the same name, spoke with the IndieWire about a letter he wrote for the Trevor Project’s website shortly after Rowling posted her tweets in which he voiced his support for transgender people.

“The reason I felt very, very much as though I needed to say something when I did was because, particularly since finishing ‘Potter,’ I’ve met so many queer and trans kids and young people who had a huge amount of identification with Potter on that,” Radcliffe told IndieWire. “And so seeing them hurt on that day I was like, I wanted them to know that not everybody in the franchise felt that way. And that was really important.”

Identified with Potter on what level? The only thing that remotely makes sense is that both people might be considered the outcasts of society, but even that comparison falls short because trans people are not only not outcasts anymore, but widely celebrated by governments, businesses, sports teams, etc. The sheer amount of hatred Rowling has received for her stance is proof. The fact that a high-profile actor also supports the gender confusion of children and adults is disappointing.

Actually, transgender people continue to be outcasts because peole like Simmons, Philbin and Mandelburg -- along with their fellow MRCers -- demand that they be so and continue to spew hate at them and defend fellow haters like Rowling.

Simmons' post was headlined "Daniel Radcliffe Explains Abandoning Rowling to Trans Mob" -- as if Simmons and the rest of the MRC aren't leading an anti-trans mob.

NEW ARTICLE: Bill Donohue's Year of Bad Takes
Topic: CNSNews.com
The dishonest Catholic and CNSNews.com columnist spent 2022 spreading lies and misinformation about George Soros, Alfred Kinsey, a graphic novel about the Holocaust and more. Read more >>

MRC Can't Stop Its Musk-Fluffing Campaign
Topic: Media Research Center

Ever since Elon Musk showed an interest in buying Twitter, the Media Research Center has effectively been his servile handmaiden, gushing over everything he does and defending him against all criticism -- even criticism the MRC itself leveled at him pre-Twitter. One of his chief defenders and stenographers, Autumn Johnson, kept up the narrative by attacking more critics in a Nov. 13 post:

The New York Times assembled a team of four technology reporters to pen a bizarre hit piece over the weekend targeting Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his apparently nauseating takeover of Twitter.

At least four Times writers contributed to an article of over 2,500 words slamming Musk’s recent changes at Twitter, one of which includes his promise that the platform would no longer unfairly censor conservatives.

It appeared on The Times's website Friday under the headline "Two Weeks of Chaos: Inside Elon Musk's Takeover of Twitter."

The article accused Musk of cruelly treating employees during the layoff process:

Johnson identified nothing inaccurate in the Times article. Instead, she moved into her usual hero-worship mode:

Much of the criticism Musk has received stems from his promise to promote free speech online and ensure that content moderation is fairly applied when needed. 

Last week, NewsBusters reported that Musk reaffirmed his commitment to free speech while not magnifying hate speech in an online meeting with investors.

“We have to be tolerant of views we don’t agree with, but those views don’t need to be amplified,” he said.

Again, Johnson was silent about the fact that Musk has suspended Twitter accounts that made fun of him, which contradicts his colerance plea.

Catherine Salgado ignored that too, instead proudly proclaiming Musk as the chief mocker in a Nov. 14 post and that others need a sense of humor:

Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) might need to develop a sense of humor after Twitter owner Elon Musk mocked him on his newly-acquired platform. 

The Democrat [sic] Senator threatened Musk’s companies with a congressional investigation after a reporter got a fake account of the senator verified on Musk’s new blue check Twitter program. 

Markey wrote a letter. That drew a jab from Musk that the senator’s real account was already like a parody.

Rather than admit that Musk's blue-check pay scheme was a failiure, Salgado stayed in PR mode, declaring that "It turns out Markey is angry that anyone, not just high-profile leftists, can now be verified on Twitter for only $8 a month."

Gabriela Pariseau cheered in a Nov. 15 post that climate misinformation -- which she dishonestly framed as "climate discussion" -- was spreading on Twitter:

Oh, the horrors of climate denialists having actual free speech online!

So say the climate doomsday propagandists. 

French wire service Agence France-Presse (AFP) wrote a piece complaining about an alleged “surge in misinformation” on Twitter since Elon Musk became the platform’s owner. AFP pointed to the trending #ClimateScam which was the first search suggestion when a user searched the word “climate” on Tuesday morning. 

But the outlet’s liberty-bashing incidentally highlighted Musk’s commitment to allowing free speech on Twitter, including speech he might not fully agree with.

AFP asserted that the top tag on Twitter “#ClimateScam” is evidence of “a rise in misinformation following Elon Musk's takeover of the platform.” But the outlet made no mention of any specific tweets and made no effort to refute any specific examples of misinformation that are allegedly running rampant on the platform.

Instead, the outlet cited unnamed “analysts,” “campaigners,” “researchers,” a report by the megadonor George Soros-funded Institute for Strategic Dialogue, and far-left group Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD). 

AFP neglected to mention that Musk has repeatedly shown he cares about the environment and that environmental protection is one of his key focus areas.

Pariseau didn't how CAAD's exposure of climate disinformation is somehow a "far-left" endeavor. Instead, there was even more Musk-gushing: "Musk's nuanced ideas on the environment and energy show the need for open and robust debate and they appear to reflect the wide array of ideas the 'Chief Twit' allows on Twitter."

A Nov. 16 post by Johnson noted that CBS News had suspended posting on Twitter due to the "uncertainty around Twitter" (though she updated to note that CBS resumed posting two days later), going on to whine that "leftist advocacy group Accountable Tech and other progressive groups demanded that corporations pull their ads from Twitter." And a Nov. 20 post by Mark Finkelstein complained MSNBC's Yasmin Vossoughian argued that Musk's reign of chaos "is kind of the beginning of the end of Twitter," going on to huff: "In a no-good-deed-goes-unpunished moment, Vossoughian was very unimpressed by Musk's decision not to allow Alex Jones to return to Twitter." Of course, that's actually just an extremely low bar, given that even Finkelstein is demanding that Jones' account be restored.

Another Nov. 20 post, by Johnson, complained that "several Senate Democrats wrote a letter asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate new Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s major changes at the platform," adding the pro-Musk spin that the senators are claiming that "Musk’s pro-free speech changes, one of which includes ending unfair censorship, are 'alarming'."

On Election Day, CNS Pushed GOP Talking Points, Candidates
Topic: CNSNews.com

After playing up Republican talking points and nitpicking President Biden in the runup to the midterm elections, Election Day finally came on Nov. 8 -- and CNSNews.com was still pushing Republican narratives. Susan Jones set up the narrative regarding "election integrity" and election fraud -- suggesting that results that aren't complete on the night of the election may be fraudulent -- in a Nov. 7 article, while taking her usual partisan shots at Biden:

President Biden has said this, and his press secretary repeated it on Monday: It may take a few days to determine the outcome of some close, or legally challenged, elections.

In Pennsylvania, for example, lawsuits already have been filed over thousands of absentee ballots that were not properly dated, and which therefore must not be counted, by order of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Democrat Senate candidate John Fetterman has joined a lawsuit challenging the court ruling.

[...]

Jean-Pierre said President Biden has a "full schedule" at the White House on this Election Day. "As I previously said, we expect the President will address the elections the day afterwards. And when we have details on the timing of that, we of course will share it with all of you," she said.

In response to a follow-up question, Jean-Pierre said, "You’re going to hear from the President. He always enjoys taking your questions. [Clearly, he does not.]

On Election Day Nov. 8, first up was Craig Bannister, who complained:

The White House said that the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections aren’t supposed to be known immediately after Election Day and, in several states, they won’t, news reports reveal.

On Monday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeated President Joe Biden’s prediction that election results won’t be finalized on time, this year, adding that “that’s how this is supposed to work”:

This was followed by an article by Micky Wootten complaining that "the Department of Justice announced that it would be sending poll monitors to 64 jurisdictions across 24 states 'to monitor compliance with federal voting rights laws.'" Another article by Bannister hyped Republican claims that monitoring those elections amounds to intimidation:

Florida and Missouri have told the U.S. Justice Department that they will not allow the DOJ to violate their state laws by going through with its plan to deploy election monitors to their states.

Missouri’s Secretary of State has said that his state will not allow federal agents to illegally intimidate voters,CNN reports:

[...]

Missouri law empowers local election authorities to dictate who may be at polling locations.

Florida has also notified the DOJ it would be illegal for it to intervene in the state’s elections.

Bannister didn't cite which laws in those states explicitly forbade federal election monitors -- nor did he mention that the monitors would be there to check compliance with federal laws, not state laws.

Bannister didn't mention that just the day before, CNS had quoted RNC chair Ronna McDaniel declaring that "poll watching is not intimidating" and hyping how "We have poll watchers everywhere. We have 100% coverage," let alone why GOP monitors are OK and federal ones are "illegal."

CNS even made time for some last-minute pro-GOP stenography on Election Day. Melanie Arter wrote:

Despite the White House’s warning that election results may take days to be determined, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) predicted that we’ll know tonight the fate of the House and Senate and gubernatorial races.

“We're going to know these results tonight, and we are seeing historic turnout. I will tell you in my district in upstate New York, and that bodes very well for statewide tickets like Lee Zeldin. We are seeing Democrats underperform consistently, when it comes to early vote numbers, but I expect results tonight. I expect results when it comes to winning back the House as well as the U.S. Senate and our gubernatorial races,” she told Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria Bartiromo.”

[...]

“Democrats have been tone-deaf. So has the mainstream media but the good news is the voters in this country are smarter than the mainstream media biased media, which is why the voters and the American people are going to save this country, and it’s why we have states like New York, Oregon Washington state. We have an opportunity to have once-in-a-generation Republican wins,” she said.

Arter shilled for a GOP candidate that day as well:

Arizona GOP Senate candidate Blake Masters promised Tuesday to grind President Biden’s agenda to a halt until he secures the southern border.

“We bear the blunt of this crisis, but the reality is Joe Biden and Mark Kelly and their open borders policies, they've turned every county, not just in Arizona, but every county in America, into a border county,” Masters told Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria Bartiromo.”

[...]

Masters said that the GOP plans to “bear hug” Biden’s administration and send them a message that nothing gets through unless he actually secures the border.

When asked what he plans to do to stop the flow of fentanyl through the southern border, the congressman said, “Well, by taking back Congress, right. We are going to send Biden a message. We’re going to bear hug his whole administration. I’m going to grind his agenda to a halt unless and until we get border security. 

“I’m not going to vote for a thing, not a single thing, not a continuing resolution, not a single appointee unless Joe Biden actually does something to secure our border. That’s the leverage that one senator has. It’s the leverage that Mark Kelly has had for the last 20 months. Remember we had a 50-50 Senate,” Masters said.

As usual, Arter didn't allow anyone to respond to Stefanik or Masters.

Even Pat Buchanan -- whose presidential campaigns CNS editor Terry Jeffrey worked for in 1992 and 1996 -- got on the GOP talking points bandwagon in his Nov. 8 column:

Which brings us to what the election is really all about: the failure of a regime, and of the president, party and philosophy steering that regime.

[...]

"Democracy" is not on the ballot. What is on the ballot is a huge slice of the leadership and ruling class of the national Democratic Party, which is not the same thing.

What is being decided by the ballots this election season is the verdict of the nation on a president who has failed, a party that has failed, and a political philosophy that has failed.

Democracy has not failed America. The reigning Democrats have failed America. And their desperate leaders are urging us to equate their party's defeat and repudiation with a rejection of our political system.

If we lose the election to these Republicans, Democratic leaders have been telling America, it is because the American people preferred fascism to democracy.

This is the Big Lie of 2022.

Biuchanan didn't say what it would mean if voters decided that Biden and the Democrats weren't the failures he insists they are and rejected Republicans at the ballot box.

Bannister also touted how Republican Rep. (and CNS fave) Jim Jordan, speaking at an election-eve rally in Ohio being held by Donald Trump, declared that "Americans need to embrace three 'words of action' from the Bible" -- though, in true bipartisan fashion, he dinged Jordan for inaccurately paraphrasing the Bible quote Jordan referenced.

MRC Lashes Out At Chrissy Teigen, Tries To Redefine Abortion As A Thought Crime
Topic: Media Research Center

Model Chrissy Tiegen stated in September that the miscarriage she had two years ago was actually an abortion done because neither she nor the fetus would survive the pregnancy. The Media Research Center tried to exploit her tragedy when it happened, and now it's lashing out at ner anew. Tierin-Rose Mandelburg -- the MRC's anti-abortion obsessive who wants to create an Orwellian surveillance state to monitor pregnant women lest they cross state lines to have an abortion -- spent a Sept. 16 post having a fit over her change in terminology. She went on to declare that abortion was essentially a thought crime dependent upon the intentions behind the procedure (even though they are medically the same), then launched into her usual anti-abortion talking points:

Abortion is the intentional termination of a pregnancy. Miscarriages happen unintentionally.

Now, unironically right before election season, Teigen's story shifted. She claimed that she had an abortion to save her life and that it was her only chance. 

That’s a lie that so many people believe. 

The truth is that abortion never saves lives, instead, it ends at least one, each time it is successful. It is tragic in every case, but Teigen did have a miscarriage, she didn’t intend to kill her child.

LifeNews presented a quote from Dr. Ingrid Skop, an OB-GYN to clarify what appears to have happened. 

“In these cases, the purpose of delivery is not to kill the fetus, as in elective abortion, but to save the life of the mother and the life of the fetus, or to save the life of at least one of them,” Skop said.

[...]

“However, abortion activists have attempted to blur these details to make it seem that pro-lifers do not care about women’s lives. Perhaps that is why Teigen now believes her miscarriage was an abortion,” LifeNews commented. 

Teigen’s new testimony is encouraging people to believe that states with pro-life laws will not allow a procedure like hers to happen. That’s not true. Even in states with life-saving laws, if a mother is in imminent danger, doctors are allowed to assist.

In fact, many anti-abortion laws are so vague to the point of being unclear under exactly what conditions an aboriton is permitted  -- with the presumed intent of scaring doctors away from performing them even if medically justified.

Kate Cohen, writing at the Washington Post, pointed out the flaw in Mandelburg's logic:

An abortion is the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy. Unless you believe that a pregnancy should never be deliberately ended — and few people do — abortion should be treated as what it is: a medical procedure.

And yet, because we hear so often that abortions are acts of thoughtlessness, selfishness or cruelty, people find it hard to acknowledge that abortion can be a medical necessity or to call tragedies such as Teigen’s by the correct name.

If those choosing abortion wish desperately that they didn’t have to — if they grieve for their lost baby — then, people seem to think, it couldn’t be an abortion.

[...]

I guess if you believe an abortion is always morally wrong, the idea that it could be clearly morally right simply does not compute. It must be something else!

Sorry — still simply the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy.

And right-wingers have made it clear that abortion providers will be harrassed even if they performed a perfectly legal procedure, as the state of Indiana's persecution of (and the MRC's own attacks on) Caitlin Bernard for performing a legal abortion on a 10-year-old girl demonstrates.

Instead of trying to fix her logical flaw, Mandelburg instead accused Tiegen of changing her story for political gain (as well a spouting more anti-abortion talking points):

Teigen is either intentionally lying to the public to further popularize the fallacy that “abortion is healthcare” or she is just unaware. She’s simply trying to use her influence and platform to repeat liberal talking points. 

Side note: It’s important to recognize that regardless of what Teigen calls what happened to her, miscarriage or abortion, she confirmed that what she was carrying was a child and that her child had value. That should be the takeaway, not that abortion is “healthcare” but rather that every single child, in and out of the womb has intrinsic value and the right to live.

Teigen's story is heartbreaking and their family is in desperate need of prayer over the grievance of losing their child Jack, but that doesn’t mean that she should use his tragic death to push a political agenda. 

That’s a new low.

Does Mandelburg think her attacks on Tiegen for explaining the reality of her situation, done to push a political agenda, is a "new low" for her?

WND's Lively Justifies Manuracturing Conspiracy Theories
Topic: WorldNetDaily

I am not ashamed to call myself a conspiracy theorist. It's one of the few things I disagree with Steve Bannon about. He is famous for saying that "there are no conspiracies but there are no coincidences" as a way to deflect the "conspiracy theorist" accusation from the deep staters – but in reality conspiracies are so common in human affairs that they make up a big part of every criminal court docket in every courtroom in America.

People conspire together in every conceivable way for every conceivable reason, everywhere, every day. And the people who presumably conspire together most often and most consequentially are those whose burning passion in life is to maximize their own wealth and power by controlling the world around them. The higher up the power-pyramid they go, the more conspiratorial they become, and the more likely they are to accomplish what they conspire to do. Somewhere near the top are reprobates like Bill Gates and George Soros and Klaus Schwab whose every waking act and thought (and vast resources) are devoted to enslaving humanity to their personal agendas.

So common and so consequential are the conspiracies operating all around us that considering the potential conspiratorial angles of every political/social/cultural event and news story should be a standard part of every person's analysis. And every self-respecting analyst at every level should routinely push back against the elites' conspiracy to define "conspiracy theorizing" as foolishness.

That doesn't mean we should accept every theory as fact. Far from it. But we should always consider the factors raised by the theorists along with every other bit of data we can gather in our relentless pursuit of objective truth. Truth is always our best defense against political/social/cultural manipulation and enslavement.

Here's a conspiracy theory I haven't seen anywhere, but I think deserves consideration.

Suppose the open-borders strategy of the elites is not actually for the purpose of bringing in low-cost labor for the American corporations and padding the Democratic voter rolls, but is instead a plan to sucker millions of military-aged young men from Central and South America (and elsewhere) into the clutches of the American war machine in preparation for their use as cannon-fodder in World War III? Chew on that for a moment while I ask some simple questions that challenge the current narrative on the right.

[...]

Frankly, I don't think very many Americans will be keen on the idea of a draft, which means if we have one, it might not even be called a draft. They might just tweak the definition and the methodology (like they did with the "vaccine" rollout) and draft just the immigrants into military service while calling it something else. Or perhaps not. They shoved the election coup and the lockdowns down our throats. Maybe they'll just straight-out draft everybody, including our own native sons, and insist that we agree its for our own good.

Again, like I say so often these days, I hope I'm wrong. Please, God, let me be wrong.

-- Scott Lively, Oct. 12 WorldNetDaily column

MRC Slow To Restart Defense Of Walker for Runoff
Topic: Media Research Center

It seemed that even the Media Research Center was getting tired of having to defend Herschel Walker before the midterm elections. We've already noted its tepid complaint about too much "negative" coverage of Walker, but it started petering out shortly after it had to defend him over another abortion scandal. Indeed, the only major defense it attempted was in a Nov. 5 post by Mark Finkelstein complaining that MSNBC's Joe Scarborough criticized "black Republican" Walker as lacking "the capacity" to be a senator: "The way Scarborough stumbled and and sighed before claiming Walker lacks 'the capacity' to serve suggested that Joe realized he was getting into dangerous territory. But he decided to go there." And even then, Finkelstein didn't try to counter it.

With no candidate getting a majority in the Georgia Senate race, it was set to to to a runoff between Walker and MRC-detested Democrat Raphael Warnock. A Nov. 14 post by Brad Wimouth was reduced to complaining about a slavery reference:

Several times on Saturday, CNN demonstrated its inability to grasp fact as well as its fixation on racial issues that strained for a reason to discuss slavery within topics you wouldn't expect it. Previewing the upcoming Georgia runoff between Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and Republican nominee Herschel Walker, correspondent Nadia Romero tried to tie the runoff system to slavery.

She first raised the topic at 8:03 a.m. Eastern during an appearance on CNN This Morning Weekend: “So let's talk about the runoff elections in Georgia as a whole. Usually, you see these runoff elections happening in the South -- in the Bible Belt -- in states that were formerly slave-owning states. And that is why so many people, including the Georgia NAACP, say that there is a racist element to why we have runoff elections as a total.”

[...]

But her tracing of the system back to the Reconstruction era of the late 1800s was contradicted two years ago by NBC News correspondent Priscilla Thompson, who recalled that the system was devised in the 1960s after the Supreme Court ruled against previous tactics in limiting black power.

And if the system is inherently racist and meant to penalize the party black Georgians predominantly support (Democrats), then Romero should be asked if it was racist that then-incumbent Senator David Purdue (R) won the initial 2020 vote but later lost the seat due to a runoff stemming from his inability to hit 50 percent.

It's a sign of how much of a non-person Perdue became in Republican circiles after losing that Wilmouth couldn't be bothered to spell his name correctly.

Having finally recovered from its exhaustion, the MRC became ready to defend Walker anew for the runoff. Geoffrey Dickens served up another so-called study on Nov. 17 complaining about an alleged coverage disparity:

The double-standard is atrocious. The Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) evening newscasts have almost completely buried Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock’s child support scandal, spending only 11 seconds on it since September 1.

In stark contrast, the network evening newscasts (September 1 - November 16) flooded their airwaves (36 minutes, 21 seconds) with stories of women accusing his GOP opponent Herschel Walker of paying for abortions. That’s almost 200 times more coverage to the Walker story than the Warnock scandal. 

On Tuesday, Warnock’s ex-wife Oulèye Ndoye requested that a court compel the Georgia Senator to face questioning over child custody. Ndoye has also accused Warnock of failing to properly pay child care expenses. Despite the issue being brought up in the October 14 Walker-Warnock debate the evening newscasts mostly looked the other way.

[...]

With the two Senate candidates headed for a run-off the evening newscasts have a new opportunity to actually cover Warnock’s family problems but judging on their past coverage, viewers shouldn’t hold their breath waiting for it. 

Dickens didn't explain why he's demanding coverage of a minor child-support squabble when he and his stauchly anti-abortion co-workers have refused to criticize Walker's penchant for handing out abortions like candy. Nor did he explain why these stories are in any way equivalent.

Farah's WND Cheers Trump Trashing His Daughter
Topic: WorldNetDaily

It appears that the relationship between WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah and his daughter, Alyssa Farah Griffin, remain strained over his continued support for the corrupt, lying election denier Joseph Farah -- to the point that the elder Farah is allowing the website he runs to trash her. Joe Kovacs wrote in an Oct. 24 WND article:

Former President Donald Trump is blasting his own previous communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin, urging her firing as co-host of ABC's political talk show "The View."

"Alyssa Farah totally misrepresented her true feelings about me and the Trump Administration in order to get her job at ratings disaster CNN, and a seat with the low IQ people at The View," Trump said on Truth Social.

"Look at what she said about me, and that doesn't include the beautiful letter she sent and other statements she made. They should fire her for misrepresentation or fraud. Release the letter, Alyssa!"

Trump included a string of high praise tweets from Farah Griffin in December 2020, as she said it was "an honor of a lifetime to serve in the Trump Administration" for three and a half years.

It wasn't until the final paragraph of his article that Kovacs served up some disclosure: "Farah Griffin is the daughter of Joseph Farah, the co-founder of WND who has been a strong supporter of Trump since his successful run for the presidency in 2016."

We can assume that Kovacs never bothered to obtain comment from Farah Griffin. He could have obtained comment from his boss on why he's allowing Kovacs to write this story attacking his daughter -- but he did not. Apparently, Farah believes that letting Kovacs pen this article is a sufficient statement.

It's sad to see Farah split his family apart over his insistence being a Trump dead-ender. But given that he's prepared to allow his WND to die on the cross of fake news and conspiracy theories instead of fixing the problems that have led it to its impending demise.

CNS Complains About LGBTQ Club At Jewish College
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com doesn't appear to have anyone who's Jewish on staff (they're more Catholic than the pope, remember?), but they do hate LGBTQ people, so it got involved over a controversy over an LGBTQ club at a Jewish college. Managing editor Michael W. Chapman (an LGBTQ-hater extraordinaire) wrote in a Sept. 14 article:

Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal, issued an "emergency stay" to Yeshiva University on Sept. 9, allowing it to stop the creation of an official "Pride Alliance" student club at the 135-year-old Jewish institution of higher education. 

New York County Supreme Court Judge Lynn Kotler had ruled in June that Yeshiva University must allow YU Pride Alliance, otherwise the school would be in violation of the New York City Human Rights Law, which prohibits discrimination by public entities.

In its request to the U.S. Supreme Court, the university said, "As a deeply religious Jewish university, Yeshiva cannot comply with that order because doing so would violate its sincere religious beliefs about how to form its undergraduate students in Torah values." Yeshiva contends that a pro-LGBT student club violates its religious liberty under the First Amendment.

[...]

At the school, students study the Talmud, a series of laws for Jewish living, up to four hours a day. The students dress and behave in accordance with Torah values, and "the entire undergraduate experience is designed to form students in the Jewish faith," said the university in its request to the court.

The next day, CNS published a column by dishonest Catholic Bill Donohue whining that Catholic college aren't following Yeshiva's example in hating their LGBTQ students:

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a “stay” stopping a New York trial court from ordering Yeshiva University to approve an LGBT student group on campus; Yeshiva is an Orthodox Jewish university that seeks to adhere to the Torah.

This raises the question: How are Catholic colleges and universities dealing with the LGBT agenda?/p>

There are approximately 230 Catholic institutions of higher education in America, and according to New Ways Ministry, a dissident Catholic group that rejects the Church’s teachings on sexuality, more than 130 have yielded, in one way or another, to LGBT demands. Here are 10 examples.

[...]

Pope Francis has addressed the fiction that we can change our sex, calling it gender ideology. He has specifically said that it is “demonic.”

It would be instructive to know what the presidents of these queer-friendly Catholic colleges and universities would do if they learned that these LGBTQIA+ organizations held a forum to denounce the pope for his remarks.

None of what these Catholic schools are doing is required by law—Title IX provides for religious exemptions. It is all voluntary. This is the state of Catholic higher education in America today.

An Oct. 25 article by intern Lauren Shank hyped Yeshiva's creation of an alternate LGBTQ club it could control:

Although Yeshiva University continues its legal battle against YU Pride Alliance, an unofficial student group at the flagship Jewish university, its administration has approved a new organization, the Kol Yisrael Areivim Club for LGBTQ undergraduates, a traditional Orthodox alternative that is grounded in Halacha and Torah values.

In an Oct. 24 press release, the school said, “Yeshiva University, America’s flagship Jewish university, today announced a new initiative grounded in Halacha and Torah values to support its LGBTQ undergraduates, including strengthening its on-campus support services and endorsing a new student club that presents an approved traditional Orthodox alternative to YU Pride Alliance.”

[...]

Regarding student clubs and the current lawsuit, the university provided answers to frequently asked questions on its website, including why the institution created a new club rather than implementing an LGBTQ club that is already present on other campuses.

“Our efforts to formulate a Torah framework to provide our LGBTQ students with profound support is driven by our deep commitment to them and recognition that those who choose to attend an orthodox university come with a different set of expectations and navigate different challenges than those in a typical secular college setting,” part of the answer said.

“Pride Alliance is a recognized movement in colleges throughout the country that not only fights anti-LGBTQ discrimination, a cause which we fully support, but also promotes activities that conflict with Torah laws and values,” said the university. “While an adoption of this national brand is inherently unacceptable in the context of Yeshiva, we also realize the need to find additional ways to be supportive of our students that are consistent with Halacha and inspired by our values."

“That is what we have done with the approval of this new student club,” said the school.  “It is worth noting that this approach is in line with other devout faith-based universities nationwide, who similarly do not host Pride Alliances but have established clubs consistent with their own faith-based languages and traditions.”

Shank censored criticism of the school's creation of the club. The YU Pride Alliance called the club a "desperate stunt" and that the school did not consult students in its creation. And it turns out the club doesn't even actually exist; while the school called it a club, all that has actually happened so far is just establishment of a framework that may lead to a club.

NEW ARTICLE: The Trump Stenographers At Newsmax
Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax not only published numerous fawning articles on Donald Trump's rallies (while cleaning up after his mistakes that it couldn't ignore completely), it gushed over the candidates he endorsed in Republican primaries. Read more >>

MRC's Jean-Pierre-Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch, Non-Doocy Edition
Topic: Media Research Center

After lazily taking much of October off -- presumably to recharge the ol' hate machine -- the Media Research Center got back into the Karine Jean-Pierre-hating, Fox News-fluffing swing of things. Kevin Tober maliciously trashed Jean-Pierre yet again as an incompetent diversity hire in his writeup of the Nov. 7 briefing:

Proving once again that she was only hired so the Biden administration could fill their diversity quota, President Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre struggled through another painful and cringeworthy press conference where she had difficulty stringing coherent sentences together in order to answer simple questions from reporters in the briefing room. 

Jean-Pierre’s troubles began when Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich asked her about Biden looking to hide from the press and not hold a post-midterm news conference as every President has for decades. 

Addressing Biden’s refusal to commit to holding a post-election news conference, Heinrich said “An outside observer might conclude that he doesn’t want to have a press conference because he looks poised to lose control of one or both chambers.”

She then asked, “why the day before the midterms won’t the White House commit to holding that traditional post-midterms press conference the day after the elections?”

“You’ve been covering this administration for the past 20 months right?” Jean-Pierre nastily replied. She then made the laughable excuse that “it takes some time in any administration to lay out what the schedule is going to be.”

“I've been very clear. You're going to hear from the President. He always enjoys taking your questions,” she added.   

[...]

The incoherent press secretary’s next struggle session with the English language came during a question from CBS News digital’s Kathryn Watson who asked about Biden’s comments over the weekend where he said he wanted to shut down the coal industry and Jean-Pierre’s insistence the President’s words were “twisted” by Republicans or others who are hostile to Biden. 

“You mentioned a couple times or repeated, a couple times today that those words were twisted. So w>“It’s how it was reported out was being twisted,” Jean-Pierre responded. “If you read the full transcript, the President was very clear. Commenting on a fact of economics and technology,” she added. 

Last but not least, Real Clear Politics White House reporter Phillip Wegmann sought clarification on Biden’s intentions when it comes to the coal industry. Wegmann asked Jean-Pierre, “you said that the President is fighting for coal communities. But just to follow up, that doesn't mean that he's fighting to keep these coal mines open. Does it?” 

Jean-Pierre, in broken English, claimed Biden “has put forward plans that are bringing new energy and manufacturing jobs to states, like West Virginia, to states like Pennsylvania,” and that “he has secured critical investment through the Inflation Reduction Act to support coal communities, as well.”

Curtis Houck found a different Fox News reporter to fawn over in his writeup of the Nov. 10 briefing:

After Bloomberg’s Jenny Leonard asked President Biden on Wednesday afternoon about whether he thinks Twitter boss Elon Musk is a national security threat, CBS’s Weijia Jiang and Fox’s David Spunt followed up during Thursday’s White House press briefing and whether Biden actually meant that and how that’d square with his campaign promise to have an independent Justice Department (DOJ).

[...]

Spunt was far more aggressive, using a rare pinch-hit appearance in the Briefing Room to point out that CFIUS involves the Justice Department and thus would mean Biden yet again meddled in the DOJ process like he has with January 6 subpoenas[.]

[...]

Spunt also tucked in a question about COVID-19 origins and whether Biden would bring that up with Chinese President Xi Jinping at next week’s G-20, especially considering that’s something Republicans would look to investigate if they take control of Congress.

Jean-Pierre hilariously claimed Biden “has always been clear on getting to the bottom of COVID,” but wouldn’t commit to having them discuss it.

Remember: for the MRC, it's all about gushing over right-wing reporters being jerks and finding new ways to denigrate Jean-Pierre.

CNS Now Mad At Obama For Using Second-Person Pronouns
Topic: CNSNews.com

One of the pettiest attacks CNSNews.com launched on Barack Obama is criticizing him for the words he said or didn't say -- and, in particular, his alleged overuse of the first person singular. CNS even bashed him over it again last year, despite him being out of office for nearly five years.

CNS found a variation on that theme -- bash Obama for using the second person! An anonymously written Nov. 2 article asserted:

Former President Barack Obama gave a speech in North Las Vegas, Nevada on Tuesday night to support candidates in that state and in his speech had a moment where he repeatedly stated the word “your.”

“You know, Cousin Pooki,” said Obama at one point in the speech as recorded in a CSPAN video.

“You know, your, your, ah, your, you know, your, your, you know, your, your, your, your Nephew Cesa,” said Obama.

“They’re planning. They tell you they are going to vote, but they’re on their couch playing a video game. You got to talk to them,” said Obama.

While the article is anonymous, it was almost certainly written by editor Terry Jeffrey, who spearheaded CNS' Obama word obsession during his presidency. No explanation was provided as to why CNS considered this worthy of devoting a "news" story to.

MRC Does Stenography For RNC In Partisan Attack On Google
Topic: Media Research Center

Earlier this year, we documented how the Media Rsearch Center falsely misrepresented a study, claiming that it showed Google's Gmail was exhibiting bias by sending more Republican campaign emails to the spam filter than Democratic emails -- but largely censored the fact that any purported bias goes away when users adjust their spam settings to receive those emails. Despite how misleading it is, it has become a full-blown right-wing narrative, and the Republican National Committee has decided to play along. Brian Bradley served as the RNC's stenographer in an Oct. 3 post:

The Republican National Committee told MRC Free Speech America on Monday that Gmail suppressed over 22 million GOP get-out-the-vote and fundraising emails Wednesday through Friday.

Gmail sent more than 3.1 million RNC emails to users’ spam filters on Wednesday, more than 9.8 million emails to spam on Thursday and nearly 10 million emails on Friday, the RNC said.

“We’re 40 days out from Election Day, we do not have any new transparency from Google,” the RNC wrote in an emailed statement. “We have raised this issue with Google for months with no resolution. On top of it all, our emails have been suppressed despite concrete changes that have improved overall performance.”

This comes more than a month after the FEC approved a Google pilot program to supposedly remove political spam bias from the email provider’s email filter, following widespread outcry among Republican politicians and political organizations.

[...]

A March North Carolina State University study exposed that Gmail marked 67.6 percent of right-leaning candidates’ emails as spam and just 8.2 percent of left-leaning candidates’ emails as spam.

In fact, the NC State researchers pointed out that right-wing partisans like the MRC have misrepresented the study's findings, adding that any blocking occurred only in default settings on newly created accounts and that users are free to tweak their spam settings to receive any email they want. One researcher even said: "Gmail isn’t biased like the way it’s being portrayed. ... I’m not advocating for Gmail or anything. I’m just stating that when we take the observation out of a study, you should take all of the observations, not just cherry-pick a few and then try to use them."

But instead of publishing what the researchers actually said, Bradley simply parroted Republican attacks on Google. Bradley also did not provide a link to any RNC data that supports its partisan conclusions, though he embedded two graphs that are too small to see what they are actually of. He also touted how "GOP party leadership is reportedly exploring unspecified 'legal options' to end Google’s 'clear pattern of bias.'"

When the RNC did launch that legal action, Bradley returned as stenographer again in an Oct. 24 post:

The Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit Friday asking a California court to require Google to stop sending hordes of Republican politicians’ campaign emails to Gmail users’ spam folders.

The RNC alleged seven counts against Google in its lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, including violation of California’s common carrier law, unfair competition, discrimination and negligence.

The committee is seeking a judgment that Google’s political email spam practices are illegal, an order banning Google from spamming RNC’s emails to supporters, and compensatory damages.  

Google has pushed “millions of RNC emails en masse to potential donors’ and supporters’ spam folders during pivotal points in election fundraising and community building,” the lawsuit alleges.

Bradley again misrepresented the results of the NC State study, andhe gave space to more right-wing activists. It wasn't until the 14th paragraph of his item that Bradley bothered to include a response from Google:

In a statement Monday to MRC Free Speech America, Google denied any actions to filter emails based on political affiliation.

“As we have repeatedly said, we simply don't filter emails based on political affiliation,” Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said in a statement to MRC Free Speech America. “Gmail’s spam filters reflect users’ actions. We provide training and guidelines to campaigns, we recently launched an FEC-approved pilot for political senders, and we continue to work to maximize email deliverability while minimizing unwanted spam.”

But that's only two paragraphs of an 18-paragraph article. The rest are spent attacking Google -- ironic given how much energy the MRC expends complaining about alleged bias in other media outlets.

UPDATE: We found even more Republican stenography from the MRC over the email issue -- which also misrepresented the NC State study. Bradley touted an "EXCLUSIVE" in a July 5 post:

Republican senators are calling on Google to take quicker action after the company recently asked the Federal Election Commission to approve a pilot program to address concerns that Gmail’s spam algorithm disproportionately affects GOP electioneering campaigns.

Google’s filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) claims emails from participating campaigns won’t be “subject to regular spam detection algorithms.” But Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) flagged the FEC’s approval timeline as one of several concerns associated with the pilot, which comes at a critical time as GOP and Democratic campaigns briskly move forward just four months ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

“It is difficult to see how the proposed filing with the FEC to conduct a pilot program accomplishes anything beyond delay and distraction from reforming [Google’s] practices to allow for transparent, fair and equal treatment of Republicans and Democrats,” Daines told MRC Free Speech America in an e-mail. “Response for permission to conduct the six month pilot may take 18 months. It isn’t acceptable to allow one political party unfair and unequal advantage of this significance on such a dominant platform critical to the outcome of elections.”

Bradley served up more "EXCLUSIVE" Republican whining over the pilot program in an Aug. 17 post:

Republican politicians knocked Google’s newly approved email plan, suggesting it doesn’t  go far enough to ensure GOP fundraising emails reach Gmail users’ inboxes.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Aug. 11 approved a proposed pilot by Google to address GOP concerns that too few Republican political fundraising emails were reaching Gmail users’ inboxes. The approval follows a March North Carolina State University study that exposed how Gmail marked 67.6 percent of right-leaning candidates’ emails as spam and just 8.2 percent of left-leaning candidates’ emails as spam. 

In addition to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), Republican Sens. Steve Daines (MT) and John Thune (SD) expressed doubt that Google will shore up its documented left-leaning spam filter bias, even after the FEC approved Google’s pilot proposal.

The MRC working hand-in-glove in pushing this anti-Google narrative demonstrates that it's a partisan storyline, not serious "media research."