WND Goes Recycling For New Magazine Attack On Soros Topic: WorldNetDaily
Back in 2010, WorldNetDaily devoted an issue of its sparsely read Whistleblower magazine to attacking George Soros, under the title "George Soros and his Evil Empire," which featured a rant by managing editor David Kupelian: "if it's immoral, subversive or harmful to America, Soros favors it, organizes it and funds it. If it's noble and freedom-producing, like free markets and small government, he despises it and creates organizations to undermine and ultimately destroy it. This issue of Whistleblower shines intense daylight on all of this."
Twelve years later, Kupelian is apparently so devoid of magazine ideas that he's doing it again, this time under the title "The Billionaire Who Thinks He's God." Kupelian even recycled an article from the 2010 issue: “Soros: This is ‘when my character was made’” by Art Moore, described as "revealing the Jewish billionaire investor’s chilling Nazi-occupation drama." We haven't been able to find an online version of the article, so we'll just assume that Moore hates Soros enough to peddle the lie that Soros was a Nazi sympathizer and, thus, wishes that the Nazi had murdered just one more Jew.
The essay for the issue by Kupelian also recycles a lot of the irrational right-wing hatred for Soros:
For decades, however, Hungarian-born leftwing “billionaire philanthropist” George Soros has supported, advocated and bankrolled everything rotten, subversive, destructive, hateful and evil.
[...]
In short, if it's immoral, subversive and anti-American, Soros favors, organizes and funds it. If it's noble and freedom-producing, like free markets, fair elections and constitutional government, he sets up and funds organizations to undermine and destroy it.
Why? What is really going on inside the mind and soul of George Soros?
Even though conservatives generally regard him as akin to the evil emperor in "Star Wars," the empire's shadowy and malevolent behind-the-scenes power, George Soros simultaneously represents the lifeblood – indeed, life itself – to hundreds of organizations on the far left. They see him as a messianic figure, a revered leader, a godfather – almost a god, who provides good things for his children.
Indeed, Soros admits he wants to re-create the world in his image – like a god. That characterization is not opinion, hyperbole or rhetorical flourish: Living out “messianic fantasies” and openly likening himself to a “some kind of god” is precisely how George Soros – ironically, an atheist and self-hating Jew – describes himself in his more candid moments.
Of course, nobody should trust a malicious hater like Kupelian to examine what's "really going on inside the mind and soul of George Soros" in a fair and objective manner.He just wants an excuse to generate some desperate clickbait by playing the oldies against an old enemy.
MRC Sports Blogger Can't Stop Sadistically Hating Brittney Griner Topic: Media Research Center
Before her release, the Media Research Center -- mostly mysterious sports blogger Jay Maxson -- lustilycheered WNBA basketball star Brittney Griner's imprisonment in Russia on trumped-up drug charges, claiming she deserved it because she purportedly doesn't love America enough. That pattern continued in the month before her release. Maxson sadistically expressed joy over her situation in a Nov. 9 post:
It just gets worse for woke WNBA all-star Brittney Griner. Imprisoned in Russia since February for drug smuggling, she’s now being transported to a dreaded penal colony, aka “forced labor camp,” with potentially hellish conditions. Someday, the anthem protester will return home to the United States and hopefully with a new appreciation for the country she loathed.
Griner was nabbed by Moscow police in February while trying to board a plane with vape cartridges containing cannabis. She was jailed, convicted, sentenced to nine years of prison and has exhausted her appeals. CNN reported this morning that “the process of taking a person to a penal colony is conducted in secrecy in Russia, with relatives and lawyers often unaware of where a prisoner is being sent for several days, according to Amnesty International.”
[...]
The U.S. government has flailed and failed to gain a prisoner swap agreement with Russia to bring Griner home to the States.
That would be the home of the brave and the land of the free – where Griner was allowed to freely protest the U.S. flag and national anthem without fear of being jailed as a dissident. Which is the case with Russians who speak out against their government. Griner had the luxury of freedom in the USA, but she demanded the WNBA stop the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner prior to its games.
One can hope the conditions are not overly harsh for Griner, that she can stand up to the horrors of a labor camp … and that upon her return home someday she’ll fully appreciate how good she had it in America.
Maxson spent a Nov. 28 post attacking a college professor for not hating Graner the way he (or she) does:
A liberal Baylor University professor is demanding that Christians stop hating homosexuals and that the Baptist school should lead the charge of protest against Russia’s imprisonment of lesbian basketball player Brittney Griner.
Greg Garrett, the Carole McDaniel Hanks Professor of Literature and Culture at Baylor, wrote on Baptist News Global that “we don’t talk about Brittney” and “We should.” The Baptist university in Texas should be yelling the loudest on her “wrongful imprisonment,” but that’s not happening, he groaned.
Griner is the 6-foot-9-inch center who led Baylor to a national championship in 2012 while keeping her lesbian sexuality to herself. She came out of the closet upon getting drafted by the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury. Last February, she was arrested in Moscow for attempting to take cannabis onto a plane flight. Griner was convicted of a drug smuggling crime in Russian court, and very recently, she was transported to a penal colony/labor camp to begin a nine-year sentence.
Professor Garrett is using this story to condemn Christians and Baylor University for not loudly protesting the imprisonment of a lesbian. He believes Christians are apathetic to Griner’s plight because she is lesbian and has protested the American flag.:
Garrett is correct, of course, but Maxson will still attack him becausehomophobic right-wing narratives demand it:
In shilling for the LGBT movement, Garrett demanded that Christians set aside scripture on unnatural relations and celebrate unrepentant sin. They need to read the Bible differently, too. Apparently, LGBT folks should receive a free pass on biblical sin. Especially Brittney.
Garrett also claims some Christians believe Griner got what she deserved for breaking Russian law, and says she represents “that family member we don’t talk about.”
The hateful attitudes of evangelicals toward homosexuals are a great impairment to spreading the Gospel, says the liberal professor who says forget about the Gospel. Baylor’s allegiance to biblical teaching is harming Baylor’s closeted LGBTQ faculty, staff and students, Garrett insists.
Garrett neglected to mention in his LGBT puff piece that Griner has previously accused the United States of systemic racism, called for the national anthem not to be played before WNBA games, and this far-Left basketball league is extremely unpopular with mainstream America.
Maxson doesn't prove anythinghe (or she) accres Griner of saying to be wrong. He (or she) just wants Griner to be destroyed by the Russian penal system for expressing her freedom of speech.
Maxson is a very sick person for lusting over Griner's punishment for holding opinions that are different from his own (or her own).
NEW ARTICLE: Dick Morris Rides The Trump Train Topic: Newsmax
The perennially wrong Newsmax pundit wrote a book making the low-stakes prediction that Hillary Clinton will run against Donald Trump in 2024. Newsmax is even playing the "censorship" card on the book because it's not on the New York Times best-seller list. Read more >>
MRC Cheers Musk Restoring Twitter Accounts of Trump, Transphobes Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center saw its Trump-fluffing and Musk-fluffing campaigns merge when Musk restored Donald Trump's Twitter account, which had been suspended after repeated violations of the site's terms of service, which including using it to help incite the Capitol riot. Autumn Johnson was in full gush mode in a Nov. 19 post:
On Saturday, Twitter boss Elon Musk reinstated former President Donald J. Trump’s Twitter account after 52 percent of voters in a Twitter poll he created voted that the former president should come back. Over 15 million users voted in the poll.
“The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated,” Musk tweeted. “Vox Populi, Vox Dei.”
Last January, Twitter permanently suspendedTrump from the platform following the January 6 riots.
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter said at the time.
Musk’s decision to reinstate Trump’s account is part of his plan to dedicate the platform to free speech.
In response to concerns about Twitter’s unfair censorship of conservatives, he announced that a “content moderation council” with “widely diverse viewpoints” would be formed to address concerns.
Johnson didn't explain why she gave Musk a pass for reinstating Trump before forming that "content moderation council." Nor did she mention that Musk himself has admitted that bots and trolls heavily populate his polls, which severely undercut his "vox populi" claim.
Kevin Tober whined in a Nov. 20 post that Musk's decision was being criticized:
When the news broke late Saturday night that Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced that he reinstated former President Trump's Twitter account, MSNBC predictably lashed out over the decision and played the race card, apparently unaware that Musk is South African.
On Saturday night, during MSNBC's low-rated show Ayman, hosted by Ayman Mohyeldin, the show quickly turned sour when the Trump Twitter news broke. Turning to left-wing Daily Beast writer Danielle Moodie, Mohyeldin asked for her "thoughts on Trump reinstated back to Twitter with Elon Musk? Joking aside, how do you see this? You can joke if you want. I'm just saying I'm giving it to, you, however, you want to take it."
Moodie was in a mood during her appearance and cried "I am absolutely disgusted. But what else do we expect from very white privileged cis hetero men protecting each other? Because we always mistake wealth and inheritance for genius."
The day before Musk restored Trump's account, he restored the accounts of two other right-wingers, the "satire" site Babylon Bee (which the MRC loves to defend) and activist Jordan Peterson -- both of which had been suspended for spewing transphobia. Brian Bradley was assigned the cheerleading duties for that one:
Twitter reinstated the accounts of The Babylon Bee, comedian Kathy Griffin and psychologist Jordan Peterson after their accounts had previously been banned from the platform, Twitter owner Elon Musk announced Friday afternoon.
“Kathie Griffin, Jorden Peterson & Babylon Bee have been reinstated,” he tweeted. “Trump decision has not yet been made.”
Twitter locked The Babylon Bee account in March when the satire site named epartment of Health and Human Services Assistant Health Secretary Rachel Levine The Bee’s “Man of the Year.”
“We’re back,” The Bee tweeted at about 1:30 p.m. ET on Friday. “Let that sink in.”
Twitter suspended Peterson, now a Daily Wire+ host and author of 12 Rules for Life, in June after he tweeted: “Remember when pride was a sin? And Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal physician.”
Page no longer goes by the name “Ellen,” but goes by “Elliot” now. Users speculated that Twitter suspended Peterson because of his use of the actor’s former name instead of the latter name.
Peterson said in an interview with The Daily Wire that the platform at the time said he must delete the tweet to regain access to his Twitter account.
Bradley surprisingly hinted that Griffin was suspended unfairly: "Twitter suspended Griffin earlier this month supposedly for impersonating Musk using a verified parody account not labled as parody." He didn't mention, however, that Musk was the person behind her suspension -- can't interfere with the pro-Musk narrative, after all.
That narrative was shaken, however, when Johnson realized that Musk's Twitter content policies would be the same as pre-Musk in a Nov. 20 post:
Elon Musk says Twitter’s new speech policy is “freedom of speech,” not “freedom of reach.”
Musk made the announcement Friday on his Twitter account.
“New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach,” he tweeted. “Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet.”
While Musk was asked to define “hate speech,” he did not clarify how he personally defines the vague term. Technology experts and legal scholars have found it notoriously difficult to do so.
Musk added that the new policy would only apply to single tweets and “not the whole account.”
[...]
It should be noted that Musk’s comments unfortunately seem to mirror views ultimately expressed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
So concerned was Johnson at this turn of events that she added contact info at the end of her post: "Contact Twitter: (415) 222-9670 or mail to 1355 Market Street Suite 900 and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on 'hate speech' and equal footing for conservatives."
Johnson got over that quickly, however, and the next day she was back to dishonestly portraying content moderation as "censorship":
Thierry Breton, the European Union’s internal market commissioner, said the bloc will require Elon Musk to add moderators in Europe to censor content.
Bloomberg News reported Friday that Breton criticized Musk’s decision to lay off moderators as well as his new pro-free speech changes to the platform. Breton said the government must “have control” over the content users post on the platform.
“He is in the process of reducing a certain number of moderators, but he will have to increase them in Europe,” Breton said, according to Bloomberg. “He will have to open his algorithms. We will have control, we will have access, people will no longer be able to say rubbish.”
Notably, the EU as a whole has favored more content moderation to prevent the spread of so-called “misinformation.”
Notably, Johnson did not reference her post from the day before in which Musk effectively endorsed this approach by emphasizing "freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach." That too would have interfered with the Musk-fluffing narrative.
CNS Melts Down Over Republicans, Jewish Groups Supporting Same-Sex Marriage Topic: CNSNews.com
Earlier this year, CNSNews.com lashed out against Republicans that stopped hating LGBT people as much as it does and came out in favor of a bill to include same-sex marriage -- or "homosexual marriage," in CNS' biased nomenclature -- as being covered in federal law. As the bill wound its way toward passage, CNS ramped up the hate. Homophobicmanagingeditor Michael W. Chapman used a Nov. 4 article to attack "liberal" Jewish groups for endorsing the bill and cited his favorite group of hateful right-wing rabbis to criticize them:
At least 108 liberal Jewish organizations have signed on to a letter to U.S. senators expressing their strong support for the "Respect for Marriage Act," which would codify gay marriage into federal law. This position, however, is strongly opposed by many orthodox and traditional rabbis who say gay marriage is contrary to Judaism.
In a letter to all 100 senators, the Union for Reform Judaism, Keshet, and 108 other Jewish organizations said, "On behalf of the 110 undersigned national, state, and local Jewish organizations, we write to express our support for the Respect for Marriage Act (S.4556). Driven by our Jewish values, we are committed to supporting laws that protect the civil rights and individual liberties of all people."
[...]
According to the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), representing more than 2,000 traditional, Orthodox rabbis in American public policy, gay marriage is incompatible with Jewish teaching.
According to the Rabbi Yaakov Menken, managing director of the CJV, told CNS News in June, "Marriage is described in Genesis as directly connected to having children. So even without reference to clear prohibitions in Leviticus, it is obvious that a same-sex union is foreign to Judaism.”
The Book of Genesis, part of the Torah, teaches, "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'"
Note that Chapman didn't hang a political label on the CJV like he did the "liberal" groups, describing it only as "traditional" and "orthodox."Chapman also copy-and-pasted a list of the groups at the end of his article, like he did with the Republicans who support the bill.
Susan Jones complained that the bill was moving forward in a Nov. 16 article, keeping up CNS' weird attacks the Democratic Senate majority leader over his non-heterosexual daughter while throwing a little shade at a Republican who was not being homophobic enough:
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters on Tuesday that Democrats plan to move ahead with their agenda in the lame-duck session and beyond, on a "bipartisan basis" where possible.
First up is the so-called "Respect for Marriage Act," a bill that would codify same-sex marriage.
"I know passing the Respect for Marriage Act is as personal as it gets for many senators and their staffs, myself included," Schumer said.
"My daughter and her wife are actually expecting a little baby in February. And so, it matters a lot to so many of us to get this done, and we're going to hold our first procedural vote on the bill tomorrow (Wednesday). After that, I hope that both sides can work quickly together and move this bill forward on to the president's desk."
(Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters on Tuesday he "hasn't announced" how he'll vote on the marriage bill.)
After the bill passed the Senate, Jones ramped up the rage in a Nov. 17 article, again calling out Republicans by name who refused to march in lockstep with CNS' homphoobia:
In a statement someone wrote for him on Wednesday, President Joe Biden hailed the Senate's 62-37 vote to advance the "Respect for Marriage Act," a bill that says no state may prohibit marriage between two individuals on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin of those individuals.
The bill codifies same-sex marriage, a right conferred by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015.
"Love is love, and Americans should have the right to marry the person they love," Biden said in his statement.
[...]
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a lesbian Wisconsin Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill, said Wednesday's vote gives "millions of loving couples the certainty, dignity, and respect that they need and deserve."
The Republicans voting to advance the bill are: Roy Blunt of Missouri; Richard Burr of North Carolina; Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia; Susan Collins of Maine; Joni Ernst of Iowa; Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming; Lisa Murkowski of Alaska; Rob Portman of Ohio; Mitt Romney of Utah; Dan Sullivan of Alaska; Thom Tillis of North Carolina; and Todd Young of Indiana.
Jones weirdly refused to identify any of the people who came out against the bill as "heterosexual" the way she identified Baldwin as a "lesbian."
An anonymously written Nov. 17 article quoted Republican Sen. Mitt Romney supporting the bill, which made sure to describe him as "the losing Republican presidential nominee in 2012." This was followed by an article by Lauren Shank featuring GOP Sen. James Lankford disparaging the bill while including no disparaging descriptions of him.A Nov. 21 article by Shank was a fairness-free roundup of right-wing attacks on the bill:
The U.S. Senate voted 62-37 on Nov. 16 to invoke cloture and move forward to a vote on the Respect for Marriage Act. While 12 Republican senators voted in favor of cloture, conservatives denounced the bill as an attack on religious liberty, particularly for individuals.
If signed into law, which President Biden is expected to do, the Respect for Marriage Act would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and essentially codify “gay marriage” into federal law. For federal purposes, marriage would no longer be defined as being between one man and one woman.
[...]
"Gay marriage" was declared constitutional by a liberal majority (5-4) of the Supreme Court on June 26, 2015. In a dissent, conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote that "the Constitution leaves that question" of marriage "to be decided by the people of each State," not by the federal government.
"The Constitution says nothing about a right to same-sex marriage," wrote Alito. "Today's decision usurps the constitutional right of the people to decide whether to keep or alter the traditional understanding of marriage. The decision will also have other important consequences."
An article by Shank later that day attacked the Mormon Church for supporting the bill -- and, unlike her previous article, featured an opposing view:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which abandoned polygamy in the 1890s, announced on Nov. 15 that it supports the pro-LGBTQ Respect for Marriage Act, which codifies “gay marriage” into federal law. The Mormon church in a statement said, “We believe this approach is the way forward.”
While the Utah-based church holds fast to God’s design of marriage – specifically and only between one man and one woman – the church voiced its support to protect gay-marriage rights and suggested such arrangements will not compromise the Biblical truth that same-sex marriage is against the Christian faith.
[...]
In 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled (5-4) in favor of gay marriage, evangelical Christian leader Franklin Graham said on Hannity, “Our country has been slipping every year further and further away from the God of the Bible -- the foundation that our nation was built on. We’re slipping away from that. And I believe that we need to do everything we can to warn people of the consequences of sin.”
“Homosexuality is sin,” said Graham. “Same-sex marriage is a sin against God. Now, people who don’t believe in God don’t care about that, but at the same time, Sean, God is going to judge sinners, so I love them enough to warn them of the consequences of sin.”
“And I want everyone who’s listening -- I’m not here to throw stones at you because you want to marry someone of the same sex -- I just want to warn you, and I do this in love, that God will judge sin,” said Graham. “God takes sin very seriously. God cannot tolerate sin in his presence.”
MRC Parrots Convention Of States' Softball interview, Anti-Soros Propaganda Topic: Media Research Center
A Sept. 30 Media Research Center post by Jeffrey Clark detailed the softball inter view his boss, Brent Bozell, gave to the head of a group that wants a constitutional convention (but con't call it that):
Convention of States president Mark Meckler torched the George Soros-funded, anti-American organizations working to undermine his mission of “restor[ing] a culture of self-governance in America and to curtail federal overreach.”
“All the America-hating, baby-killing, communist, socialist organizations in America are against” a Convention of States, Meckler told MRC founder and President Brent Bozell in a Sept. 29 interview. “All the conservatives are for it.”
A “Convention of States” is a process found in Article V of the U.S. Constitution that “gives states the power to call a Convention of States to propose amendments. It takes 34 states to call the convention and 38 to ratify any amendments that are proposed.”
Meckler cited a 2017 statement signed by “over 230 leftist organizations.” That effort, Meckler said, was “led by Common Cause and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.” The catch? Both groups are “Soros-funded policy orgs,” Meckler explained. The press release whined how supposedly “[a]n Article V convention is a dangerous threat to the U.S. Constitution, our democracy, and our civil rights and liberties.”
The need to tie any critics of Mecker's group to Soros was not explained -- aside, of course, from the kneejerkdemonizing of Soros endemic in right-wing circles -- nor did Meckler offer proof that all 230 organizations who signed the statement were "leftist."
Clark then tried to served as Meckler's apologist by (badly) explain why the Convention of States Meckler is agitating for is not a constitutional convention, even though the goal of both would be to rewrite the Constitution:
Convention of States is a group that aims to call a Convention of States under Article V of the U.S. Constitution to propose amendments to the Constitution and “bring power back to the states and the people, where it belongs,” according to the organization’s website.
The Soros-tied coalition’s press release went so far as to twist the words of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to make it appear that he, too, historically opposed a Convention of States. “Scalia also warned of the dangers of a constitutional convention,” the press release noted. “‘I certainly would not want a constitutional convention. Whoa! Who knows what would come out of it?,’ Scalia said in 2014.”
Here’s the problem: a Convention of States is not a “constitutional convention.” CoS itself defines it as “a convention called by the state legislatures for the purpose of proposing amendments to the Constitution. They are given power to do this under Article V of the Constitution. It is not a constitutional convention.” [Emphasis added].
It seems like a distinction without a difference, though Clark is too busy sucking up to Meckler to explain it clearly.
Aside from this agitating for a constitutional convention in all but name, Convention of States is also known for the polls on right-wing issues it feeds to its fellow activists in the right-wing media bubbl. Those polls are conducted by the Trafalgar Group -- which, as we've noted, is one of the worst and most biased pollsters out there.
WND Columnist Keeps Serving As A Putin Apologist Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily columnist Jim Darlington was an apologist for Russia shortly after that country's invasion of Ukraine, and he has continued to be one. He wrote in his Oct. 7 column, justifying the invasion as a response to Ukraine considering joining NATO:
One, Russia wanted Ukraine to be permanently off-limits to membership in NATO … as a promise made and then denied through decades of Russia's repeated, insistent assertions that keeping just such a promise was critical to their national security.
Two, the U.S., under the Obama-Biden rule, was complicit in the 2014 replacement of one president less hostile to Russia with another that was less hostile to paying off the approved parties, and willing to initiate a low-profile war against its own (mostly Russian) people in the provinces bordering Russia in eastern Ukraine.
Three, any willingness to negotiate on this one issue would have prevented this war. And further negotiations early on could have stopped the war, but agreements on the table were withdrawn by Zelensky at the behest of the then U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, on orders from Biden and Company that the war should continue, to punish and finally to remove Vlad Putin.
Darlington didn't mention that it was Putin's unwillingness to negotiate that directly led him to a completely unprovoked military invasion. Instead, he complained:
In the present production of anti-Russian agit-prop, playing everywhere, every night, we have Vlad Putin, aka Hitlerian Fiend, Destroyer of Democracy. His agents are everywhere clawing at our very foundations. OK, well, that would actually be the Chinese (if we weren't paralyzed with the fear of being called names: racist, xenophobe, whitey, etc.). More reliably (maybe) are reports of bad things happening to Putin's opponents. No doubt, a few here and there, might have wished they'd been better friends. The World News Oligarchs happily report any such suspicions, whether fact or anonymous fantasy, while ignoring China's daily and massive human rights transgressions.
Let's bottom line this. U.S. allies need not be nice, but their allegiance needs to be in line with American interests. Russia should be our friend and most appropriate fellow warrior, against Islamism and Communism. Promises to keep NATO from her doorstep should have been honored.
Some of us Unpatriotic Putin Apologists have been found committing treasonous thought crimes and have been publicly condemned. (Well … you know, by a handful of avid commenters.) Never mind the notion of measured and reasonable discourse, or that wholly antiquated innocent-until-proven-guilty thing. Wherever the great finger of the 95% media is pointed, shame and cancellation must follow. Name-calling is so much more fun than critical thought.
All right, so we might be whining a tad, but let's get serious. Some of us, in trying to come to a balanced conclusion, try to see ourselves, as though wearing the shoes of the Other. This was once known as part of the process of "understanding." In the case of the Ukrainian "Special Military Operation," otherwise known as the brutal Russian invasion of its faultless neighbor, we might even be inclined toward some small measure of sympathy for Putin's predicament. There it is. The confession. How right and righteous the finger pointers are proven to be!
But whether Ukraine has been warring against its own enclaves of Russians, since the U.S made them part of the Obama-planned and supported Orange Revolutions, in 2014, or whether the areas Putin wants to annex are overwhelmingly populated by Russian-speaking people, or whether the Ukraine's military point-of-the-spear is actually a cadre of rabid Hitlerian Nazis, waving swastikas and proudly wearing SS insignia, or whether agreement with Putin's position would have averted, and could now immediately end, this atrocious war, rather simply and painlessly, is truly not the real concern of those opposing this war. We, who are apparently post-Soviet Russian assets, prove to be pretty fickle when it comes time to hug the Russian Bear. We love you, Comrade Vlad, sort of, kind of, once in a while, but, whatever sympathies we may be accused of harboring, the terminus of these "affections" is finalized in this: We don't care what's happening over there! We care about what's happening right here in the USA.
He then strayed into well-worn (and discredited) conspiracy theory territory:
Every thinking American knows perfectly well that the 2020 election was a national travesty, corrupted in every available manner, and more than half of us have now stopped lying about that. It's a tough one to look at squarely, especially for those of us who were deniers of the Big Steal, but we must. The usurpers of our democracy demonize any who speak out truthfully, and have made it plain that they are willing to use "any means necessary" to advance their globalist aims.
You, who are participants in the government-mandated boosterism of a war that drains us to the point of real and deadly vulnerability (as such Democrat-initiated involvements have in the past) may want to reconsider exactly who the useful idiots really are.
Darlington apparently really hates to have his Putin-loving side called out, because he started his Nov. 8 column this way:
It's shocking! But it's everywhere! So many people discovered to be "Russian Assets"!
One might hope, briefly, that for all of us called "racists" and "xenophobes" and "homophobes" and "fascists" and "evil white supremacists," etc., that all the previously popular denominations of slander might now be simplified to fall under the single sobriquet of "Russian Assets," but no such luck. The left can't get tired of adding to their arsenal of verbal slings and arrows, any more than they can limit their ever-growing list of important newly discovered genders.
But for those of us who don't hate everyone who's different, and have no secret urge to be other than a good ol' binary man or woman God made us to be, and who even care about the United States of America … well, becoming a Russian Asset may turn out to be a real temptation.
It got weirder from there:
No! Ukraine was not the world's most corrupt government and breeding ground of corporate graft. No! Obama's CIA had nothing to do with the 2014 overthrow of a government that was getting along with Vlad. No! There wasn't a huge majority of Russian-speaking people in the Crimea. There had been no "quiet war" against the Russian provinces since 2014. The Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk and Luhansk did not increase exponentially, each day, in the week prior to the Russian aggression.
Strange, indeed, how many of us who were enlightened by Miss Information, and steadfastly viewed the torch she held high as one and the same as that held up by the Statue of Lady Liberty, have now been seduced by what's maybe "the best trick yet" of the globalist warmongers.
All you patriots demanding an immediate negotiated end to the Ukrainian-Russian war have been taken down a notch. The left suddenly flips, and now you must join them in cheering for war. And, if not, you have taken the first steps in becoming a real, honest to goodness Russian Asset.
Blaming Ukraine for instigating military conflict against Russia is actual Russian propaganda. So it seems we should believe Darlington when he tells us who he says he is.
MRC Hyped Polls That Pushed Right-Wing Narratives -- But Won't Criticize Them For Being Wrong Topic: Media Research Center
Before the midterm elections, the Media Research Center got mad when MSNBC's Joy Reid accused Reuiblican pollsters of flooding the zone with polls of dubious quality to create the impression of a coming "red wave" -- even though the MRC effectively accused the "liberal media" of not just doing the same in 2020 but that those polls suggested that Joe Biden was farther ahead of Donald Trump than the election results ultimately showed were "deliberately wildly wrong" -- that is, made up, a potentially libelous accusation. Needless to say, the MRC took part in that zone-flooding by hyping polls that conform to right-wing narratives. Let's look at some of those polls, shall we?
Gabriela Pariseau wrote in a Sept. 9 post: "Eighty-two percent of American parents are concerned about Big Tech’s influence on their children’s lives, according to a new poll by child advocacy nonprofit Parents Defending Education. The survey found that 'over two-thirds of parents (68%) are not comfortable allowing their kid to use TikTok without adult supervision, including 73% of parents aged 18-34.'" Parents defending education is a right-wing group that's obsessed with attacking critical race theory.
The Trafalgar Group, in conjunction with Convention of States Action, released a survey Sept. 12 of 1,084 likely 2022 election voters spelling possible doom for leftist candidates who support Biden’s legally dubious plan to cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for anyone making less than $125,000 (or $250,000 for couples filing jointly).
Specifically, 55.6 percent of voters said they are “less likely” to vote for candidates that back Biden’s plan. Even worse, this figure included a whopping 64.6 percent of independent voters who said they were less likely to support candidates who champion the student debt scam. A sizable plurality (49 percent) of all voters surveyed stated they were “ much less likely ” to vote for candidates who backed Biden on the student debt issue.
We've previously noted Trafalgar's record of dubious and biased polling.And it turns out that Trafalgar was also the main polling company pushing the (discredited) idea of a "red wave" in the midterms.
A Sept. 28 post by Scott Whitlock complained that the media "ignored good news for Greg Abbott, the strongly pro-life governor of Texas," citing an Emerson College/The Hill poll claiming that Abbott was the "candidate they align with most on the issue of abortion rights" over Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke.
Brad Wilmouth spent an Oct. 1 post whining that CNN wouldn't use a poll more favorable to right-wing narratives on Republicans busing or flying migrants to other cities, claiming that using a different poll was all about "doing its part to spread misinformation to undermine the GOP on the issue.
An Oct. 10 post by Vazquez rehashed old news about Hunter Biden's laptop, claiming that "A 2020 MRC poll found that 45 percent of President Joe Biden’s voters weren’t fully aware of the New York Post story precisely because the media and Big Tech whitewashed it." As we documented, the MRC bought those poll results from The Polling Company, which was founded by Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, which certainly makes it look biased.
An Oct. 14 post by Vazquez complained that Yahoo Finance was "blaming pro-lifers for the diaper shortage," huffing in response: "Yahoo! didn’t bother mentioning CRC Research’s August poll that reportedly found that both Republicans and Democrats are 'in agreement that pro-life clinics should receive government assistance, with 70 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of Republicans strongly favoring their public funding.'" It's unclear who paid for the poll -- CRC Research is a Canadian firm that, presumably, would not be conducting a lot of polls in America on its own -- but Students for Life also hyped it, which suggests that anti-abortion activists bankrolled it.
Tim Graham used an Oct. 24 post to claim that that "the public is ardently bored" with anyone who focuses on the Capitol riot, citing polls that fail to actually make that specific claim.
Jorge Bonilla touted poll results that meshed with his narrative in a Oct. 30 post:
We’ve often said that the nation’s Spanish-language corporate media are unequivocally the biggest source and spreaders of Spanish-language disinformation to a vulnerable audience that relies on these news divisions for information on the events of the day. A recent poll has now arrived at the same conclusion, thus confirming our long-held thesis.
The Bienvenido-WPA poll published on October 25th finds both that viewers of Univision and Telemundo newscasts are frequently misinformed on a number of key issues, and that these levels of misinformation are directly attributable to the networks’ unbridled activist impulses- which in our experience has often cast the wildest left-wing frame on any given story.
Bonilla didn't disclose that Bienvenido is a right-wing group, which you can tell from the refenence to "preserv[ing] constitutional values" in its euphemistically written "about" page.
A Nov. 4 post by Rich Noyes noted: "A poll released this week showed a whopping 45 percent of registered voters said inflation was their top concern going into the election." This poll was paid for by NewsNation, the news operation that has been hyped by the MRC for its purported lack of bias -- but it's actually being run by former Fox News operatives.
Given how the "red wave" hinted at by these polls was a failure, you'd think the MRC would be lashing out at the pollster for being "deliberately wildly wrong" the way it did in 2020. But you'd be wrong -- those wrong polls served the MRC's purpose of advancing their preferred narratives, and it's not about to start criticizing them now in case it needs those same results manufactured in 2024.
CNS' Jeffrey Yet Again Bemoans Federal Debt Under Biden, Censors How Much It Grew Under Trump Topic: CNSNews.com
One of CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey's partisanschticks this year is to blame Biden for increases in the federal debt while remaining silent about how much federal debt was racked up under Donald Trump. He did this again in his Nov. 2 column:
President Joe Biden has been in office a little more than 21 months, but during that brief period he has managed to increase the federal debt by more than $3.4 trillion.
On Jan. 20, 2021, the day Biden was inaugurated, the total federal debt was $27,751,896,236,414.77, according to the Treasury.
On Oct. 31, 2022, the latest day for which the numbers have been published, the total federal debt was $31,238,301,149,359.52.
That equals an increase of $3,486,404,912,944.75.
How does one put that in perspective?
Well, in 2019, the last year for which the Internal Revenue Service has published its Statistics of Income report, Americans filed 104,005,800 "taxable returns" with the IRS.
"A taxable return,"the IRS explains in its Statistics of Income Bulletin, "is a return on which the taxpayer reports total income tax greater than zero dollars."
Thus, there were 104,005,800 income taxpayers in the United States as of 2019; and, in Biden's first approximately 21 months in office, the increase in the federal debt of $3,486,404,912,944.75 equaled approximately $33,521.25 per each of those taxpayers.
In making this attack, Jeffrey deliberately omitted perspective that undermines his argument -- specifically, that Biden came into office with a large federal deficit racked up on the previous president whose name went unmentioned by Jeffrey, Donald Trump. Trump added $7.8 trillion to the national debt during his presidency; using that rough number and dividing it by the 104,005,800 taxpayers Jeffrey cited, this means Trump's federal debt stuck taxpayers with $74,995.82 for each of them.
An article by Jeffrey detailing that fact does not exist at CNS, just as he refused to call out Trump by name during his presidency for the debt he racked up. That's partisan cowardice, information censored because it displeases his overlords and his narratives.
That's no way to engender trust in your "news" organization.
WND Does What It Does, Blames Election Fraud (And Global Warming) For GOP Midterm Losses Topic: WorldNetDaily
After briefly entertaining thte idea of serious analysis of why Republicans did so poorly in the midterm elections, WorldNetDaily quickly got back to doing what it usually does: invent conspiracy theories about purported election fraud. Editor Joseph Farah went full bore on this in his Nov. 11 column:
They're playing games again in Maricopa County, Arizona. In Clark County, Nevada, as well – indeed around the country.
The Democratic Party is proving once again that they are capable of stealing elections – even though, overall, Republicans outperformed them in the midterms.
In Arizona last night officials kicked out some of the free press covering the governor's race between Kari Lake and Katie Hobbs. This was a stark indication things are about to get real serious. A representative of Real America's News and the Gateway Pundit were blocked from the Maricopa County vote center. They were told officials are not interested in the First Amendment.
Expect to see, in the coming days, the blatant theft of the election from Kari Lake, U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters, secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem and Attorney General candidate Abe Hamadeh. The steal is the Democrats' window dressing behind the heroic performance of the Republican team in 2022. The Democrats and the fake media will sell the idea that this is how the Republicans' Big Red Wave died an ugly death.
Over in Nevada, expect to see Adam Laxalt's victory for U.S. Senate potentially snuffed out as well.
This is a travesty – an apocalypse for America.
Yes, Farah would think that having the country run by anyone but far-right conspiracy theorists like himself is a "travesty." After ranting about mail-in ballots, Farah concluded:
Yes, Democrats have been experimenting with voter fraud for years. And it's happening right now – in far more nationally consequential races – like Lake's, Masters' and Laxalt's. Not to mention President Donald Trump's just two years ago.
This is a nightmare! Are we going to accept this?
Don't fall for the fake media's narrative. Once again, our election is being stolen, rigged, ripped off – in plain sight!
Brad Lyles pushed the same narrative in his own Nov. 11 column:
Democrats cheated in 2020, and they're cheating again right now – and why wouldn't they? It does not require a Ph.D in Skinnerian Behaviorism to understand that: a) given that Democrats were rewarded handsomely for their cheating in 2020, and b) given that they suffered nopunishment for their treachery, it follows that c) they cheated more in 2022 than in 2020, but this time they were two years more practiced at it.
Moreover, given that the most accurate polling predicted a huge Republican win, Democrats were fully aware they were facing a decisive defeat up and down the ballot. In such a case, is it really so paranoid to suspect they did not simply wait to be overcome – that they would not hesitate to deploy their proven skills at winning ballots instead of votes? Really?
Logic dictates they did not hesitate for one millisecond. Unless one believes Democratic leadership were somehow transfixed by ethical constraints in the interim, then a) given that they knew they would be crushed in 2022, and b) given that they possessed the skills to thwart that ignominy, it follows that c) of course they would cheat again, but now would have become so adept at it they would be capable of stealing the more tedious down-ballot races, in contradistinction to the singular race for president in 2020.
And, while it is true the RNC deployed legal and logistical interventions as we approached Nov. 8, they were, per usual, late to the party.
Lyles then suggested taking extralegal and possibly violent action against those whom he has baselessly attacked: "Our only option, now, is to defeat them utterly – and in every possible manner – without mercy, and to punish them beyond their defeat."
Craige McMillan served up a more general rant against mail-in ballots as evidence of "election corruption":
Take Election Day. Go ahead – take it. They did. The U.S. Post Office was enshrined into the U.S. Constitution. What part did the Oost Office play in Election Day before the anathema of "mail-in voting"?
Well, um … ah … none, I guess. People were far more spread out during our early days than they are today, yet voting day mandated they travel sizable distances to cast their ballot at a fixed location on Election Day. Could it be than when the founders mandated that people travel to a fixed location to cast their ballot, they understood the moral failures of corrupt, career politicians who could have formed networks of corruption within our governing structure, from local to state to federal offices? Could they have been concerned about the possibility of the political party in power using corrupt processes to control the results of the elections in one or more states? Could they have feared one party rule?
Today entire states – Oregon, for instance – mandate mail-in ballots for everyone. Blank ballots mailed to wherever the voter says, then filled out, signed and returned by mail to government offices where the ballots are counted and winners and losers determined by employees loyal to the party in power. Is there room in that system for fraud? Yes, that is why mail-in ballots are used. It's almost as if the voter becomes irrelevant to the process – because we are.
And who is to say what voter turnout really was – when there is none? Impossible to judge sentiment for one candidate over another when we don't see the crowd and talk to one another. It's easy for the corrupt to win elections when their fellow corruptocrats control the entire electoral process.
A Nov. 14 column by Jonathon Moseley managed not to invoke purported election fraud but a different (but similarly wacky) excuse for Republicans losing -- too many Americans believe climate change is real and not enough Republicans are climate deniers:
Imagine if Republicans had picked up another 8% of votes, what the Republican "red wave" would have looked like in the Nov. 8 election. Exit polling showed that roughly 8% of voters ranked non-existent "climate change" as their No. 1 issue when going to vote last Tuesday in the midterm elections. (See: Karlyn Bowman, "The 2022 Exit Polls: A-Z," Forbes, Nov. 9, 2022.
Since 1974, Republican and business leaders have been too afraid to address the clearly false superstition that humans are changing or ever could change the temperature or climate of gigantic planet Earth. Because they thought it would just go away if they ignored it, we now have actual, real votes for Congress changed based upon a myth.
But now we see that real votes for real House members and U.S. senators are being affected by the climate cult. This is not just something we can shake our head at and go back to real things. This myth is actually harming our nation … and the world.
As proof that global warming doesn't exist, Moseley served up ... this:
The entire climate change hypothesis is that CO2 increased in the atmosphere. Then the planet's temperature increased. Therefore, more CO2 caused Earth's planet-wide, global temperature to increase.
But that's not science. A happened then B happened does not mean that A caused B. There is no evidence that CO2 causes higher planet-wide temperatures. It's never been tested. Note that opinions are not experiments. Papers are not experiments. Studies are not experiments. Published articles are not experiments. Experiments are experiments. Science runs on experiments, not on conjecture and speculation.
Andy Schlafly returned to the prevailing conspiracy theory in his Nov. 15 column:
The midterm election confirmed rampant ballot manipulation by Democrats to overcome their deficit in the polls. RealClearPolitics, the premier forecaster, predicted a 53-47 Republican majority in the Senate based on its careful analysis of all the polling and historical data.
States that maintain some election integrity, such as New York, Ohio, Texas and Florida, reported outcomes consistent with polling. In Florida the top vote-getter was the Trump-supporting Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody, at 61%, who sided with Trump in challenging the 2020 election.
But in states lacking election integrity, such as permitting dumps into drop-boxes totaling hundreds of thousands of ballots that are not verified in any meaningful way, the outcomes changed, and Democrats claimed pivotal victories in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada. "Drop-box Dems," they might be called, stuff the ballot box without monitoring.
Schlafly has no credible evidence to support any of those claims. Instead, he concluded:
Donald Trump is the leader in calling for election integrity, and this recent election shows how much our nation needs him. "We will restore the vital civic tradition of in-person voting on Election Day," he pledged at the Jan. 6 Capitol rally.
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's (Bought-And-Paid-For) War on TikTok Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center posts videos on Facebook it knows will get deleted so it can play victim -- while promoting anti-TikTok talking points that came from a Republican PR firm hired by Facebook to malign its competition. Read more >>
MRC Whined That Media Accurately Reported GOP Failures In Midterms Topic: Media Research Center
After spending so much time peddling Republicannarratives before the midterm elections, ther Media Research Center was severely disappointed that Republicans severely underperformed -- at least, that's what we can assume from all the whining it did about news coverage pointing out that fact.
Election night started out promising for the MRC, though, as noted in a Nov. 8 post by Kevin Tober declaring that "MSNBC began losing it over the strong early results" for Republicans Ron DeSantis and Marco Rubio in the Hispanic county of Miami-Dade, which was a reliably solid Democrat [sic] county." But as the night looked more favorable for Democrats, the whining kicked in. Curtis Houck complained:
After spending hour after hour sticking to horse race results and CNN’s magic walls, the liberal network’s first piece of analysis reminded us of why they’re still a laughing stock of a network as a trio of lefties marveled at Democrats winning back governors' mansions in some of the deepest blue states with “stellar” Wes Moore in Maryland and lesbian Maura Healey in Massachusetts.
Inside Politics Sunday host Abby Phillip swooned that “[t]here’s a lot of history that could be made tonight” with Healey becoming “the first openly gay governor in that state — or the first lesbian in the entire country” and could have company later in the night if Democrat Tina Kotek won in Oregon.
As for Moore, Phillip gushed over him as “someone who Democrats agree is perhaps the future of the party” and “a huge rising star.”
Who’s Talking host Chris Wallace joined in on this pointless exercise and touted Moore as “an enormously impressive candidate” and noted that Healey and Moore won in “deep blue states” after eight years of “moderate, moderate Republicans, Larry Hogan and Charlie Baker, both very popular.”
However, they both had little in the way of challengers because the GOP nominees were “hard right candidates.” Of course, Wallace never mentioned how Democrats meddled in the GOP primaries to boost said candidates.
Yes, the MRC is still complaining about that, even thought it cheered Republican meddling in Democratic primaries as urged by Rush Limbaugh. And he's not about to give Democrats any credit for the tactic being a success.
Joe Scarborough and the rest of the cast of MSNBC’s Morning Joe spiked the football on Wednesday as they opened the show by laughing at the GOP’s disappointing results. Scarborough, specifically inflated GOP expectations so he could compare Kevin McCarthy to Liz Truss, despite the results still being unknown.
In front of a live studio audience, Mike Brzezinski kicked off the show by noting, “It’s the morning after the election and control of Congress still hangs in the balance. The big news overnight—”
Scarborough then interrupted and after Brzezinski sarcastically expressed shock that he did so, he began his taunt, “No, but Republicans, I mean, historically, I don't know if you know this or not but I follow politics. Like, historically they’re up going 40, 50, 60, 70 seats, right? Right, Michael Steele, we talked about this yesterday.”
If Republicans won 50 seats, that would’ve made for their largest majority since the 1928 election while 60 would have been the largest since 1920. While Tuesday’s results were certainly underwhelming, not breaking a record over a century old is not the great historical counter-trend Scarborough made it out to be.
Christy was silent about the fact that Republican pundits like Dick Morris were, in fact, confidently predicting a 60-seat gain in the House.
Houck whined some more about "gloating" (read: reporting accurately on GOP failures) and whining about the attack on Paul Pelosi being linked to Republican extremism:
Following a disappointing night full of failures (and some highs) for Republicans, the Wednesday morning’s broadcast network news shows each moments of gloating and outright laughter that included claims such as country was reminded to not “bet against Joe Biden,” that January 6 mattered, and voters bought the narrative that Republicans were tied to the Paul Pelosi attack.
On CBS Mornings, White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe had just finished arguing that President Biden did well in areas where candidates embraced him and poorly in areas where he didn’t go (which wasn’t true considering his stops in Florida for the hapless Democratic ticket) when he argued Tuesday’s takeaway was “don’t bet against Biden.”
[...]
NBC’s Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd had an explanation for why Democrats did so well and Republicans so poorly. While many prognosticators have blamed Donald Trump, Todd’s other point showed the liberal media’s poisonous propaganda despite no evidence to support it:
There was the attack on Paul Pelosi. And I don't think that was an insignificant moment for a lot of voters. We actually saw a tone change with voters in our poll, post-the attack where voters in their message say — they said what message would you send with your vote? And they said, hey, end — end — end the partisanship, try to tone things down. Even Republicans were saying that in previous to the Pelosi attack, we weren't — it was only a one-sided conversation.
While the alleged attacker ranted about censorship and Q-Anon on his blog, the mentally ill, former Green Party supporter, and nudist who argued there are half-alien, half-human creatures in our midst had nothing to do with House Republicans.
The MRC has been quitedesperate to distance Republicans from the attack, even though the MRC helped make Paul Pelosi a target.
Mark Finkelstein devoted another post to complaining about "Morning Joe" election takes:
Be careful what you wish for, liberal media: you might get it.
Morning Joe was in a great good mood today, glorying in the absence of a midterm red wave. And Joe Scarborough wasted no time in taunting Donald Trump.
With his trademark lack of class, Scarborough called out: "hey Trump! Hey Donald Trump! Meet Boris Johnson" —a reference to the former British Prime Minister who was recently pushed out of office He added: "Massive victory down there. Right? Unfortunately, Donald Trump lost the rest of America."
But if Scarborough and company are right, and Ron DeSantis is poised to replace Donald Trump as the dominant force in the Republican party, then, who knows? The liberal media might be singing a very different—and sorry—tune, in two years come Election Night 2024.
On Wednesday evening, after a disappointing showing for the GOP in Tuesday's midterms, the three leftist evening news broadcasts sought to further alienate the few right-leaning viewers they have by gloating over Democrats exceeding expectations by not getting wiped out as is common during a president's first midterm election. CBS went the extra mile by virtue signaling over the first openly-lesbian governor elected in the United States.
On ABC's World News Tonight, anchor David Muir was the gloater-in-chief for his network's newscast, gushing about how "the results defied expectations overnight and history for the party in the White House. There was no red wave, as some had predicted. Instead, a split decision across this country."
Muir then mentioned Biden's embarrassing press conference in which he described the results as a "good day for democracy and a good day for America."
[...]
Meanwhile, on NBC Nightly News, anchor Lester Holt used his frequently dramatic and condescending opening monologue to bloviate that "It was a good day for democracy. President Biden's first public reaction to yesterday's midterm elections in which Democrats defied the gravity of broad voter dissatisfaction and history itself to avoid massive losses in that widely predicted Republican wave."
The boys at the MRC have been so indoctrinated inside their right-wing media bubble for so long, they think any accurate reporting of negative news about Republicans is biased "gloating."
WND Still Cynically Pushing Seth Rich Conspiracy Theories Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily cynically peddled lies and baseless conspiracy theories about the death of Democratic staffer Seth Rich -- things WND almost certainly knew were lies -- for the sole excuse of having something else with which to attack the Clintons. WND somehow avoided being sued by Rich's family for the malicious lies it spread -- though outlets like Fox News did -- and WND censored news of those lawsuits and the settlements those outlets were forced to make to atone for those lies. Throughout it all, WND has refused to apologize or correct the record, even as it tries to further those bogus conspiracy theories. WND's latest attempt at ghoulish cynicism came in a Nov. 2 article by Bob Unruh that contradicts itself right out of the gate:
Virtually all of the details of the death of Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee worker who was shot and killed as he walked to his Washington, D.C., home about 4 a.m. on July 10, 2016, remain a mystery.
There was evidence of a struggle, with his hands, knees and face bruised, yet he had two shots in his back. Police said it was a robbery, but his wallet and other items weren't taken.
That's a lot of information for something that he had just called a "mystery." Unruh went on to rehash:
Two weeks later, WikiLeaks began releasing DNC emails damaging to Hillary Clinton, and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange mentioned Rich on Dutch TV: "Whistleblowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often very significant risks. There's a 27-year-old, works for the DNC, was shot in the back, murdered just a few weeks ago for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington."
Assange has never offered any proof that Rich leaked those DNC emails to him -- indeed, the evidence is clear that the Russians stole those emails and gave them to Assange. That was followed by more rehashing:
To further the mystery, the FBI earlier released a tidbit of information, a cryptic note about the idea that someone would "pay for his death."
that's based on a 2021 article Unruh wrote. As we noted, blogger Emptywheel explained that the claim proves nothing; the document in which the "pay for his death" statement appears "may reflect the FBI investigation into allegations that someone tried to hack Rich’s email." Indeed, the whole tranche of FBI documents being referenced isn't worth much since the FBI didn't do the primary investigation into Rich's death.
Not that Unruh will tell you any of this, of course -- he's too committed to his employer's lies. Besides, he has a new thing to peddle:
Now Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, has written a commentary at Stream.org pointing out the additional mystery of why "does FBI want Seth Rich records sealed for 66 years?"
He pointed out at one time, the FBI claimed to have "no records" relating to Rich's murder.
"Now they’re asking a federal court for an order to seal the records that they said they didn’t have — they have them, all right — for 66 years," Huckabee explained.
Huckabee's source for this claim is a report from an obscure, sketchy-looking site called Slay News, which in turn references a paywalled story by the Epoch Times, best known for being pro-Trump stooges and spreading lies and misinformation about COVID vaccines. Neither of these sources appear trustworthy, and Unruh made no apparent effort to fact-check anything they wrote; instead. Unruh went on to rehash conspiracy theories peddled by Ty Clevenger, who we've documented is in it because he hates the Clintons, not because he cares about facts.
Meanwhile, in related happenings: A book about Rich's death, by Andy Kroll, has been published that reveals the false and hateful conspiracy theories spread about it, and Rich's parents have given interviews about the ordeal they have been put through because of the lies and conspiracy theories spread about their son's death peddled by the likes of WND. Unsurprisingly, WND has hidden these events from its readers.
UPDATE: And that's not all. An Oct. 31 column by Scott Lively portrayed Rich as the victim of murder by a vindictive Hillary Clinton:
Enemy No. 1 was not, surprisingly, Donald Trump. It was Seth Rich, because he was the Benedict Arnold of the Army of the Dems – the one who (I am convinced) ratted her out to WikiLeaks and created the fatal email-scandal that she never really recovered from. Ironically, "Bernie Bot" Seth Rich was (I am convinced) seeking revenge on Hillary for her seriously dirty tricks against the Bern-Meister in the 2016 Democratic primary. (Remember that charnel-house chapter of the internal Democrat civil war? Wow!)
Technically, Seth Rich was murdered on July 10, 2016, four months before the election, but the sin for which he was struck down did not bear its ultimate fruit until Nov. 3. Rich's murder (to use the satirical term I invented during law school) was an act of "anticipatory retaliation" on Hillary's part (allegedly).
Needless to say, Lively offered no evidence whatsoever to support his bizarre conspiracy theory.
MRC Keeps Up The Performative (And Possibly Paid-For) Outrage Against TikTok Topic: Media Research Center
Since the last time we checked in, the Media Research Center has continued to throw hate at TikTok. One was a Sept. 1 post by Gabiela Pariseau:
The Chinese Communist Party-tied TikTok is muzzling conservatives and free thinkers by shutting down their accounts, typically with no explanation.
Using our exclusive CensorTrack database, MRC Free Speech America researchers found that TikTok canceled accounts associated with no fewer than 11 pro-free speech organizations since January 2019. Satire accounts, various pro-free speech groups and commentators, pro-life groups and even the MRC’s own MRCTV account, are among those that TikTok shut down.
[...]
Censorship doesn’t belong in America, but TikTok seems to think it does.
The platform has deep ties with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP has a board seat at TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, which also sold a 1-percent stake to WangTouZhongWen Technology, a Beijing company owned by three Chinese state entities, according to Reuters.
Pariseau's description of the groups being "banned" is inaccurate. All are right-wing groups and individuals, and few of them support "free speech" when it supports non-conservative causes, like the existence of LGBTQ people.
Unsurprisingly, Pariseau censored the fact that Facebook has paid a Republican PR firm to spread attacks against its competitor TikTok -- attacks the MRC has dutifully repeated. That paid shilling undercuts the MRC's anti-TikTok narrative, even if there might be some truth behind it.Finally, shre refused to explain how pulling the MRC's video makes TikTok inherently "anti-American." Afer all, it's not like the MRC is any sort of official ambassador for the country.
Also unsurprisingly, MRC executive Tim Graham used a Fox News appearance later that day to parrot the complaint, adding: "When they don't like freedom, when they don't like videos that attack communism, you might just guess it’s a communist channel.”
In a Nov. 9 post, Pariseau served up some performative outrage about yet another MRC video getting "censored" by TikTok:
Chinese Communist Party-tied TikTok censored the latest episode of MRC’s free speech video series on Monday, the day before Election Day.
Paiten Iselin, host of MRC Free Speech America’s CensorTrack with Paiten, reported on the leftist media’s absolute meltdown after Elon Musk purchased Twitter and started restoring free speech on the platform.
MRC posted the episode to TikTok on Friday, and the anti-American app allowed the content to remain for three days before removing it just in time for Election Day.
The platform claimed that “This video violates our Community Guidelines,” when it notified MRC of the removal. “We remove content and accounts that involve spam or fake engagement, impersonation, or misleading information that causes significant harm,” the platform notification only vaguely attempted to explain.
It’s unclear how exactly MRC’s video exposing anti-free-speech leftists who complained about Twitter’s free-speech makeover qualifies as “spam” or “impersonation.” But the platform also forbids “misleading information that causes significant harm,” which could refer to literally anything the platform does not approve of. It appears the leftist, CCP-tied TikTok disapproves of MRC Free Speech America’s latest video.
Pariseau didn't explain why it has a TikTok account in the first place if its video repeatedly get "censored" -- unless it's done for the express purpose of writing about the videos getting pulled to push its anti-Big Tech narrative.She also censored the fact that Facebook funneled anti-TikTok attacksto it through a Republican PR firm.
Meanwhile, the presumably-paid-for attacks on TikTok continued, usually with emphasis on the company's alleged ties with the Chinese government -- a talking point pushed by the GOP PR firm hired by Facebook:
The MRC seems not to understand that it has tainted its brand by being fed anti-TikTok narratives by Facebook, if it hasn't accepted money directly itself --just like its attacks on Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen were also fueled by Facebook, which similarly enlisted right-wing advocacy groups to slime her. It's clear that its performative outrage against TikTok is as phony as its complaints whenever TikTok pulls an MRC video (which is the whole point of posting them) -- and until the MRC can come clean and admit it was bought off by Facebook, there's no reason to believe its anger at TikTok is anything but bought and paid for.
Two Days After Midterms, CNS Finally Admits How Bad Repubilcans Did Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com spent the day after the midterm elections largely sticking to pro-Republican narratives and praising the GOP candidates who did won. It wasn't until the day after that, on Nov. 10, that it got around to acting less like an arm of the Republican National Committee and more like the "news" organization it likes to claim it is by actually going somewhat in-depth on how bad Republicans did in the midterms compared with typical expectations.
First out of the gate in the morning was Susan Jones, who led with GOP cheerleading on how "Republicans are jockeying for leadership positions" in the House, but the headline quoted one Republican saying that "I actually believe the outcome would have been better last night if the voters trusted Republicans." Jones then touted weirdly sour grapes from Republicans who actually won and blamed Democrats for GOP underperformance:
Sen. Marco Rubio says his Democrat opponent out-raised him 2 to 1, but he easily won re-election in bright red Florida Tuesday night. Republicans elsewhere did not fare as well, and it's no wonder, Rubio told Fox News's Sean Hannity:
"Literally everything in our society and culture is aligned against Republicans. It's a miracle Republicans win anywhere. Virtually every major television and media outlet in America is against us. All the celebrities. All the movie actors. I mean, you name it. It's just constant. The tech companies. The list goes -- now major American corporations.
“So it's amazing that Republicans are even competitive, much less winning these seats. Look, I think we're going to win the House. We still have a real chance. We're going to win Nevada. I think Arizona.”
Rubio called the delayed vote totals in Arizona "an embarrassment," especially compared with the state of Florida, which "had every vote tabulated" on election night.
Following Rubio on Hannity's show, Sen. Ron Johnson said "lies," amplified by the media, account for his narrow victory over a leftist Democrat.
Then came some actual Republican laments (for the most part) in an article by Lauren Shank:
The talk of a “red wave” coming to the polls and pivoting the election results to a landslide Republican majority did not live up to expectations as final congressional races are called.
[...]
A major upset in the lack of an apparent “red wave” caused a variety of responses from the GOP, attempting to identify why Republican-sweeping results did not turn out.
President of the Heritage Foundation Kevin Roberts tweeted, “The lesson thus far from the non-wave election: bold leadership, with a clear policy plan, matters. Conservatives, as I’ve said all year, needed a bolder plan, and much earlier.”
I understand things didn’t go as well as we wanted them to last night, but I find the utter depression I’m seeing to be a little melodramatic and unhelpful,” conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey tweeted. “1) We had some great wins last night and 2) Jesus is the same yesterday, today, & forever (Heb 13:8).”
[...]
Texas Congresswoman Mayra Flores suggested, “The RED WAVE did not happen. Republicans and Independents stayed home. DO NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT THE RESULTS IF YOU DID NOT DO YOUR PART!”
As we've noted, Shank failed to mention that Flores lost her election.
CNS still made sure to tout a couple more GOP wins:
Democrat John Fetterman beat his Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz, and claimed the title for Pennsylvania’s next senator. Fetterman gave his winning speech Wednesday, focusing mostly on thanking everyone who helped him secure the win.
Supporters cheered Fetterman as he stood on stage in his infamous hoodie attire, and began his speech with, “Yeah, I uh – I’m – I’m not really sure really what to say right now, my goodness,” and “I am uh – yeah.”
“Yeah, I mean, uh – so I am – I’m so humbled, thank you so much, really, thank you, thank you,” Fetterman said.
Shank didn't mention that Fetterman is recovering from a stroke, but she didn't have to. She was parroting the nasty attacks on Fetterman by CNS' parent, the Media Research Center.
For her first article on Nov. 11, Jones did what CNS hasn't done for years -- make Donald Trump look like the crazy, unstable person he is by accurately quoting him:
In a flurry of statements on Thursday, former President Donald Trump dumped on his possible Republican rival, whom he has branded Ron "DeSanctimonious"; he slammed CNN and other media outlets; and he called Pennsylvania a corrupt state.
Then he sent an email to supporters, asking: "Would you vote for me a THIRD TIME?"
Trump has teased a "big announcement" on November 15th, when he's widely expected to announce a third run for president.
His statements came after The Wall Street Journal declared that "Trump is the Republican Party's biggest loser" in the midterm elections; and after the New York Post hailed Gov. Ron DeSantis as "DeFuture" of the Republican Party, sidelining Donald as "Trumpty Dumpty."
Shockingly, Jones included no spin at all. Will that cost her her CNS job?
Back in 2010, WorldNetDaily devoted an issue of its sparsely read Whistleblower magazine to attacking George Soros, under the title "George Soros and his Evil Empire," which featured a rant by managing editor David Kupelian: "if it's immoral, subversive or harmful to America, Soros favors it, organizes it and funds it. If it's noble and freedom-producing, like free markets and small government, he despises it and creates organizations to undermine and ultimately destroy it. This issue of Whistleblower shines intense daylight on all of this."
Before her release, the Media Research Center -- mostly mysterious sports blogger Jay Maxson -- 
The Media Research Center saw its Trump-fluffing and Musk-fluffing campaigns merge when Musk restored Donald Trump's Twitter account, which had been suspended after repeated violations of the site's terms of service, which including using it to help incite the Capitol riot. Autumn Johnson was in full gush mode in a Nov. 19 
Earlier this year, CNSNews.com 
A Sept. 30 Media Research Center 
WorldNetDaily columnist Jim Darlington was an 
Before the midterm elections, the Media Research Center 
One of CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey's 
After briefly entertaining thte idea of serious analysis of why Republicans did so poorly in the midterm elections, WorldNetDaily quickly got back to doing what it usually does: invent conspiracy theories about purported election fraud. Editor Joseph Farah went full bore on this in his Nov. 11 
After spending so much time peddling 
WorldNetDaily 
Since 
CNSNews.com spent the day after the midterm elections 
