Chuck Norris' Second Endorsement Of Walker Just As Much Of A Failure As The First Topic: WorldNetDaily
A good percentage of the right-wing candidates Chuck Norris endorsed before the midterm elections (which Joseph Farah glommed onto) did not win. One of those was Herschel Walker, who he declared "has proven his patriotic grit and love for the stars and stripes to be the 'Chuck Norris Approved' U.S. Senate candidate for Georgia. But Walker did win enough votes to make it into a runoff for that seat, which compelled Norris to write a Nov. 28 WorldNetDaily column dedicated solely to explaining why he was still endorsing Walker:
Liberal mainstream media have used every underhanded dirty trick and tactic to try and stop Herschel Walker from winning the Georgia U.S. Senate election. But the fact is, Walker is still in the ring fighting. He deserves to win. Let me tell you why.
First, if you didn't know, Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker is set to face off against incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock in a runoff election on Tuesday, Dec. 6, after both candidates failed to get at least 50% of the vote in the midterm race earlier this month.
Let me share with you seven reasons why my wife, Gena, and I passionately believe every American should rally immediately behind Herschel Walker. I'm going to tell you what mainstream media won't tell you about him.
What followed read like it was copy-and-pasted from Walker's campaign website, boilerplate text praising Walker's success in football and business. The top reason, meanwhile, was this:
Walker is a man of faith who has lived most of his life as a committed Christian. No man is perfect, including me. George Washington was absolutely right when he said, "Perfection falls not to the lot of humanity." But imperfections haven't stopped Walker or me from trying to be the best Christian examples we can be, including showing that we need forgiveness like anyone else.
That's the closest Norris gets to admitting certain unpleasant truths about Walker -- which is presumably was Norris was referring in his bashing of the "l'iberal mainstream media" for employing "every underhanded dirty trick and tactic." That, of course, are the credible accusations of domestic violence made against him by former girlfriends and the abortions he paid for (not to mention the secret children that came out of the woodwork) -- so damaging that even Walker's own son turned against him.
Nevertheless, Norris played the endorsement game and even begged for money on his behalf:
It's going to take every one of us to get out and help Walker win. So, please, fight to help Herschel win Georgia's Senate seat!
If you're a Georgian or know someone who is (especially in the 18-49 age range), please vote for or encourage them to vote for Hershel Walker for U.S. Senate. Please share this column with them and encourage everyone you know to financially support Walker via his website, Team Herschel.
The future of America and Americans are depending upon it.
As we all know, Norris' second endorsement didn't work any better than the first, and he lost the runoff. It's unclear whether this record of failure will dissuade Norris from continuing to endorse right-wing candidates.
MRC's Jean-Pierre-Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center seems to be getting bored with attacking White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and fluffing Peter Doocy and the other right-wing reporters who hurl hostile questions at her, for its press briefing dispatches are getting moresporadic (though no less hostile to Jean-Pierre). Indeed, Curtis Houck was full of anti-Karine hostility -- and gushing for a new right-wing reporter -- in his writeup of the Nov. 22 briefing that also featured Anthony Fauci:
Between the run-up to the midterms and President Biden’s lengthy foreign trip, White House briefings have been few and far between. But there was one Tuesday and it devolved into a near riot with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeatedly excoriating Daily Caller’s Diana Glebova and her defenders when she tried to shout questions to Dr. Tony Fauci about his role in the origins of COVID-19.
Glebova had a point to intervene considering questions for Fauci looked like this from ABC’s Karen Travers: “You became a household name in large part because of your appearance is here at the early stages of COVID. What do you want Americans to remember about your service in government?”
Glebova interjected after Fauci’s answer, asking what he was doing in relation to the “investigations into the origins of COVID,” but Fauci and Jean-Pierre ignored it.
Fast-forward and there was more stupidity from the likes of theGrio’s April Ryan lamenting that the country isn’t “talking about mask-wearing” anymore since “[m]asks and the word masks have become a pejorative in some parts of this nation,” and thus invited him to “talk about the importance of mask-wearing as you’re worried about the holidays and people gathering together.”
After Fauci insisted masks were one of “multiple actions...to protect ourselves” and Ryan followed up on masks “being a pejorative,” Glebova tried again to bring up “the origins of COVID.” Ryan promptly screeched at Glebova: “Don’t be disrespectful.”
Jean-Pierre said the same, so the New York Post’s Steven Nelson intervened and called on Fauci to given them “an answer.” Jean-Pierre squashed that, saying she didn’t call on him either.
The "fireworks" promised on the headline came when Jean-Pierre had to deal with notorioiusly rude reporter Simon Ateba, who works for something called Today News Africa and who actually is as annoying as the MRC insisted Jim Acosta and Brian Karem were during the Trump years. But Houck has floip-flopped on briefing room rudeness because Ateba appears to be a right-wing ally and endorsed the question Glebova shouted at Jean-Pierre, Ateba shouted some more, and Houck made it look like Jean-Pierre was the bad guy: "Jean-Pierre snapped while also going back to [CNN's Jeremy] Diamond: 'I’m done. Simon, I’m done. I’m — Simon, I’m done. I’m done with you right now...You’re taking time away from your colleagues.'"
Houck didn't forget his mancrush, though, making sure to note that "Doocy Time made a brief return when he pressed [White House COVID response coordinator Ashish] Jha on reports of shortages on key antibiotics and antivirals."
Gabriela Pariseau took over attack duties for the Nov. 28 briefing:
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre sent a veiled threat Monday to Twitter owner Elon Musk when she claimed that the The White House is “monitoring” Twitter after Musk took over the platform.
When asked about the White House’s concerns that a Musk-owned Twitter might become a “vector of misinformation,”Jean-Pierre made it clear that the White House has all eyes on Musk.
“This is something that we're certainly keeping an eye on,” she said. “It is [social media platforms’] responsibility to make sure when it comes to misinformation, when it comes to the hate that we’re seeing, that they take action, that they continue to take action. [W]e're all keeping a close eye on this. We're all monitoring what’s currently occurring."
Despite idenitifying no actual threat by Jean-Pierre, veiled or otherwise, Pariseau went on to play the whataboutism card:
The White House didn’t seem interested in “monitoring the situation” after social media companies allowed posts threatening violence after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson overturned Roe v. Wade. The administration was similarly silent when it first took office following a violent summer of BLM and ANTIFA riots, many of which proliferated on social media platforms.
For the Nov. 30 briefing, Houck brought full frontal Doocy-fluffing and unveiled contempt for Jean-Pierre:
Doocy started with the border and this fable that Biden has visited the border (which has been debunked: “Kevin McCarthy says that he invited President Biden down to the border. How has the President RSVP?”
Jean-Pierre and her fellow liberals in the press corps laughed, but Doocy kept asking: “We know — we know the President has never been down to the border. The possible next speaker says that he wants him to go with him, so is he going to?”
Jean-Pierre twice replied with the lie that he has “been there,” so Doocy interjected to ask “when did he go to the border.”
Naturally, she didn’t answer and insisted Biden has been working since day one “to fix our immigration system and secure our border” while, on the other side, Republicans have shown zero “willingness to work with us on...fixing a situation that's been around for decades now” and instead engaged in “political stunts.”
Doocy pivoted to Twitter and what would be a natural conclusion to the premise that the White House is somehow concerned about Twitter’s safety: “When are you guys going to delete the White House Twitter account?”
Jean-Pierre fell right into his trap and wondered why they’d do that. He then let her know why he asked that: “Well, you're saying that you're keeping an eye on Twitter because it might not be a suitable platform, so why use it?”
Using one of her catchphrases that she “want[ed] to be very clear,” Jean-Pierre argued that, while she didn’t “have anything to share on any policy,” Biden “has been very, very clear in his belief that it is important social media platforms to continue to take steps to reduce hate speech and misinformation.”
Doocy tried one last time with another natural conclusion (which the White House admitted they were doing last year with Facebook on alleged coronavirus disinformation): “When you say that you're going to be monitoring some of the speech on there, if you see something that you don't like, would you try to shut Twitter down?”
Jean-Pierre clownishly thought she could put this to rest with some sarcasm,“I hate to break it to you, Peter, just like everybody else we very much monitor the news.” She continued by reiterating that the White House “pay[s] close attention to everything that you all are reporting and Twitter is in the news a lot and so that's what we're paying attention to.”
Houck went on to laughably and bizarrely describe the NAACP and the Anti-Defamation League as "far-left, pro-censorship groups" who are also monitoring Musk-era Twitter. Unsurprisingly, no explanation was given to justify the wacky description, or when fighting anti-Semitism as the ADL became a "far-left" position. (Probably around the time the MRC had trouble denouncing the anti-Semitism of Kanye West.)
CNS Continued To Sour On Trump After Midterms, But Perked Up For 2024 Announcement Topic: CNSNews.com
We've noted how CNSNews.com seemed to be souring on Donald Trump after the Republican candidates he endorsed performed poorly in the midterm elections. Days after the midterms, CNS was still feeling emboldened enough to take shots at him. A Nov,. 14 article by Susan Jones highllight Republican politician Chris Christie pointing out that "Trump has convinced some Republicans that the 2020 election "was stolen," but independent voters don't like it," adding that "I think what Republicans came to grips with Tuesday night was we're tired of losing and we're tired of Donald Trump dragging us to lose because of his personal vanities." Melanie Arter, surprisingly, was the one to drop the hammer on Trump in another article that day:
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Sunday that former President Donald Trump has cost the GOP an election victory for the third time in a row.
“I have been talking about this for years, and it seemed as if I was the only one talking about it, but, today, there are a whole lot more people talking about it, and the way I would interpret it, look, this was -- this should have been a huge red wave. It should have been one of the biggest red waves we have ever had, because President Biden's approval rating was so low, one of the lowest historically,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
More than 70 percent of people thought the country was going in the wrong direction, and yet we still didn't perform, and I think commonsense conservatives that focused on talking about issues people cared about, like the economy and crime and education,” the governor said.
“They did win, but people who tried to re-litigate the 2020 election and focused on conspiracy theories and talked about things the voters didn't care about, they were almost universally rejected, and I think it's basically the third election in a row that Donald Trump has cost us the race, and it's like three strikes, you're out,” he said.
[...]
When asked what he thinks will happen if Trump announces a 2024 presidential bid, Hogan said, “Well, there's no question he's still the 800-pound gorilla, and it's still a battle. It's going to continue for the next two years. I would just say that we're two years out from the next election, and we're just trying to -- the dust is settling from this one. I think it'd be a mistake. As I mentioned, Trump's cost us the last three election, and I don't want to see it happen a fourth time.”
Hogan said there’s “no question” that if Trump does announce his candidacy for the 2024 presidential race, he could cost Republicans the Senate run-off in Georgia between Herschel Walker and Sen. Rafael Warnock.
“No question about that. I mean, that's not as consequential now. We still would like to win Georgia, but we're not going to win back the Senate as a result, and that's Donald Trump's fault,” the governor said.
It wasn't all bad news, though; another Nov. 14 article by Craig Bannister cheered how comedian Dave Chappelle called Trump an "honest liar," which made him a star among "poor whites."
Things got further back on track with a Nov. 16 article by Patrick Goodenough serving up stenography to mark Trump's announcement for the 2024 presidential campaign. Bannister followed that up with a Trump apologist who denied that Trump's speech lacked energy:
Donald Trump’s tone was exactly what needed to be – not “low energy” as liberal media claim – Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) said Tuesday after the former president announced his 2024 presidential candidacy.
“I thought it was the exact pitch he needed to do,” Rep. Donalds concluded in an interview on Fox Business Channel’s “Varney & Company,” analyzing Trump’s announcement.
Americans should have no doubt that Trump knows how to run the country, Donalds said. But, they do want to know what his tone will be and how he plans to conduct himself, if reelected, the congressman said:
[...]
“If this is what you see from Donald Trump for 16 months, he’s going to be president again,” Rep. Donalds predicted. However, Donalds has not yet said whether he will end up backing Trump or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to be his party’s 2024 candidate.
Still, as Human Events Senior Editor Jack Posobiec tweeted Tuesday, liberal media will criticize Donald Trump – no matter what his tone is:
And that low-energy effort was the last of CNS' coverage of Trump's announcement.
Time For Another Hypocritical WND Politician-Nazi Complaint Topic: WorldNetDaily
The irony is decidedly painful in an anonymously written Nov. 4 WorldNetDaily article:
In a perspective that certainly should alarm many Americans, a leading Democrat in Congress is characterizing Republicans as Nazis.
Recall that back in the days during World War II, many civilized people, when confronted with someone who actually was a Nazi, felt the urge to assassinate.
This was logical, based on the knowledge we now have of the millions of horrific deaths imposed by those of that political persuasion. In fact, there were multiple plots developed that included the death of Adolf Hitler.
But now it is House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., who is condemning Republicans for their "demonization" of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose husband recently was attacked in their San Francisco home under strange circumstances.
According to Fox News, Clyburn said that's what happens in a country that follows "Germany in the early '30s."
[...]
Charged Clyburn, "This country is on track to repeat what happened in Germany when it was the greatest democracy going, when it elected a chancellor that then co-opted the media. This past president called the press the enemy of the people. That is a bunch of crap. And that is what's going on in this country."
He essentially echoed what Joe Biden had said a day earlier, when he appeared to point his finger at the GOP for the attack on Paul Pelosi, blaming the political party for violence, voter intimidation and more.
Clyburn blasted the GOP's "demonization" of Nancy Pelosi, yet didn't express any condemnation of Biden's frequent vilification of what he calls "ultra-MAGA Republicans," who support Trump.
We don't recall WND being concerned about peddling an "alarming" perspective when it spent Barack Obama's presidency repeatedlylikening him to Nazis, lending legitimacy to the smear by parading people like Hilmar von Campe and Anita Dittman around to parrot it by citing their experience growing up in Nazi Germany to lend it legitimacy.
WND has never apologized for likening Obama to various Nazis, which means it really should stop the whining when the shoe is on the other foot.
NEW ARTICLE -- The MRC Flips Over Elon Musk, Part 4: Embracing The Chaos Topic: Media Research Center
Elon Musk finally had to buy Twitter as he agreed to do -- and the Media Research Center is his biggest cheerleader in gushing over his every move, no matter how chaotic or platform-threatening. Read more >>
MRC Hypes Claim That Gay Club Massacre Suspect May Be Nonbinary -- But Censors Evidence Of Trolling Topic: Media Research Center
When the story of the massacre at a Colorado Springs gay nightclub broke, the Media Research Center was angry that right-wing anti-LGBTQ rhetoric was being blamed. But suddenly, a new narrative emerged, and the MRC quickly pounced on it, as a Nov. 22 post by Kevin Tober gleefully detailed:
Late on Tuesday night, court filings by the attorneys for the alleged shooter from the LGBTQ night club in Colorado Springs, Colorado revealed the shooter is non-binary and goes by they/them pronouns. After spending the past two days smearing conservative Christians for allegedly inspiring this apparent attack against gay people, CNN Tonight anchor Alisyn Camerota was clearly stunned as she watched her network’s narrative come crashing down.
Breaking the news to her audience, Camerota begrudgingly reported that the “attorneys for the accused shooter, Anderson Lee Aldrich, say in new court filings tonight that the suspect now identifies as non-binary.”
She went on to reveal that “In a footnote to a motion, asserting legal privileges, the public defenders say, quote, Anderson Aldrich is non-binary. They use they/them pronouns. And for the purposes of all formal filings will be addressed as Mx Aldrich. So in other words, not Mr. or Ms..”
After revealing that new revelation that completely contradicted and destroyed the narrative the leftist media has pushed for days, she turned to her panel speechless: “I don't know what to say about that. I mean that's not anything that we had heard from his background. People had been looking into his background.”
Desperately looking to her panel for a lifeline she asked “are you guys lawyers? I mean, you know, I don't know what to say about that. That's what he's now saying.”
CNN political commentator Errol Lewis still desperately clung to his now-debunked narrative and claimed “It sounds like they're trying to prepare a defense against a hate crimes charge.”
Alex Christy complained: "As its name suggests, MSNBC’s The 11th Hour airs at 11:00 Eastern, which on Tuesday was well after the bombshell report that the Colorado Springs shooter identifies as non-binary. Still, host Stephanie Ruhle wondered how to combat conservatives who are 'dehumanizing' anyone who isn’t a white heterosexual." Tober returned to rant:
On Wednesday's MSNBC Reports, host Lindsey Reiser and guest Scott Mccoy of the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center doubled down on the now-debunked leftist media narrative that conservatives wanting to protect children from drag shows and other forms of grooming are somehow responsible for the shooting that happened at the gay night club in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Late Tuesday, the leftist narrative about early Sunday’s shooting at a Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub crumbled as the suspect’s lawyer revealed their client is nonbinary, blowing holes in the narrative that Christian conservatives and Fox News caused the attack. Of course, NBC promptly dropped any mention of the massacre on Wednesday’s Today while ABC’s Good Morning America omitted this inconvenient truth.
NBC did, however, find time for stories it deemed more important, such as a 25-second news brief on the Supreme Court clearing the way for a House committee to obtain Donald Trump’s tax returns.
Tim Graham was in full gloat mode in his Nov. 23 podcast:
The chorus of "I told you so" broke out after public defenders of the alleged mass shooter at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado explained their client was "non-binary" and used "they/them" pronouns. So much for the notion that statements by Tucker Carlson and GOP politicians were somehow responsible for the violent crimes. On every leftist channel, they were blaming "a climate of rhetoric" instead of the shooter. CNN's Alison Camerota was beside herself.
Conservatives have (and should have) blamed the criminal for the violent crimes committed. As we pointed out Monday, law enforcement hadn't located a movie for these murders, but the Left pounced on "anti-LGBTQ hate" as the real killer. They didn't have an easy way out of that dark alley once the defense lawyers spoke.
The aggressive downplaying of Colorado Springs mass-shooting suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich declaring himself "non-binary" isn’t just contained to TV news. Thursday’s Washington Post managed to Post-pone that information until paragraph 31 of a story blandly headlined “Suspect is held without bond after hearing while awaiting formal charges.”
However, in addition to failing to entertain the idea that a nonbinary person can hate LGBTQ people as much as a conservative, the MRC's ideological victory lap may have been premature. More details about the alleged shooter, Anderson Aldrich, are coming to light, and NBC reports that the nonbinary claim "could be an effort to further harm the queer community" and contradicts what has been learned about Aldrich:
Online extremism experts say the suspect could be trolling — which is when someone makes an inflammatory or disingenuous remark meant to provoke — and that the discord and confusion created among the queer community and right-wing pundits could be intentional. Xavier Kraus, who said he lived next door to the suspect and the suspect’s mother from August 2021 to September 2022, said he believes the claim that Aldrich is nonbinary is “a total troll on the community, and a total troll on the system.” Aldrich, he said, never used they/them pronouns with him or mentioned being nonbinary.
Kraus said he and the suspect — public records show they lived one door away from each other in a Colorado Springs apartment complex — were close friends until a few months ago, when the two had a falling out. Aldrich made racist and homophobic statements, including saying they “hate faggots,” Kraus alleged, but Kraus said he was afraid to confront the suspect because Aldrich was “a very angry person” who owned guns.
[...]
That skepticism only grew this week after NBC News reported that the FBI is looking into two websites connected to the suspect. One of the websites, which Kraus said Aldrich created in the spring or early summer, is a forum-type “free speech” site where people have anonymously posted racist and antisemitic memes, language and videos.
[...]
A video on the site’s homepage advocates for killing civilians as a way to “cleanse” society, and it celebrates Brenton Tarrant, an Australian white supremacist who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019. In one part of the video, there is an image of a wall that reads “Free Tarrant,” along with two other mass shooters, and “Race War.” A laughing face spins in the middle of the screen, next to the wall, and a message at the bottom reads, “We do a little trolling LOL.”
[...]
The suspect’s involvement in that side of the internet “points more toward the possibility that the suspect invoked nonbinary pronouns as a means to get one last insult in on the LGBT community,” Holt said.
There is also an offensive article about Aldrich on Encyclopedia Dramatica, an extremist, racist and homophobic version of Wikipedia that describes itself as a “troll archive.” The article has been on the site since 2015 and is laced with personal attacks against Aldrich.
Encyclopedia Dramatica praises those who kill gay and transgender people, and the site gave Aldrich a higher “score” on its mass shooter ranking because Aldrich “targeted fags.”
A moderator for the site — which has been tied to at least two terror attacks over the last five years — told NBC News that Aldrich has been a contributor since 2015.
The MRC has not only censored this news , it has continued to hype the shooter's claimed binary status. A Dec. 13 post by Brad Wilmouth referencing the massacre -- three days after the NBC article was published -- made a point of noting that "the perpetrator of the attack has claimed to be LGBTQ himself, identifying as nonbinary."
WND Spreads Conspiracy Theory That Anyone Who 'Died Suddenly' Was Killed By COVID Vaccine Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has been on a kick lately of spreading unproven -- and almost certainly false -- accusations that 1) there is a rash of people who have died or simply passed out without explanation, and 2) that explanation is that COVID vaccines caused their deaths. An anonymously written Nov. 4 article hyped:
The signs that there's something odd about the experimental COVID-19 vaccinations have been appearing all over lately.
[...]
Now a documentary charging that there is more to the story is scheduled to be released via streaming on Nov. 21.
Columnist Stew Peters already was talking about it:
"Why do we never believe them? For centuries, the global elite have broadcast their intentions to depopulate the world – even to the point of carving them into stone. And yet…we never seem to believe them."
He said new film is from his organization that also made "Watch the Water" and "These Little Ones" and presents "the truth about the greatest ongoing mass genocide in human history."
Various medical experts appear on screen explaining how many people, including many who are younger, "Died Suddenly."
They discuss the anomalous condition of the blood for many of the victims, with coroners denying they'd ever seen it before. Also, life insurance companies were reporting a surge in deaths among those who are only 18-49.
WND isn't going to tell you that even the trailer of the film is filled with lies. As the Daily Dot reported:
In the film’s trailer, footage of a basketball star collapsing on the court is cited as proof of the vaccine’s dangers. In reality, the footage is from 2020, long before the vaccine became available to the entire public.
Another clip from the trailer shows a woman in Argentina fainting and falling into a moving train. Yet once again, the individual shown in the film never died and no evidence points to a vaccine being responsible.
A third clip used shows a royal guard fainting while standing next to the casket of Queen Elizabeth, a common occurrence among guards who must stand in one place for hours on end. As with the others highlighted, the guard did not die.
The entire film, by the way, is a rehash of conspiracy theories by professional misinformers about the vaccines that WND has long peddled. As of this writing, the story remains live and uncorrected.
A Nov. 11 article by Art Moore pushed the "died suddenly" conspiracy theory regarding two more deaths -- even though he admits right up front he has no evidence whatsoever to substantiate it:
A former NFL defensive tackle and a champion motorcycle racer are the latest examples of apparently healthy people dying suddenly amid evidence the COVID-19 mRNA shots are causing serious heart damage at a rate exponentially higher than for previous vaccines.
There was no report that 35-year-old Keith Farmer, a four-time British champion, and 45-year-old Adrian Dingle, who spent five seasons with the San Diego Chargers, took the COVID vaccine.
However, citing the available scientific evidence, prominent cardiologists – including Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. Aseem Malhotra – believe the best explanation for the "sudden and unexpected" deaths and cardiac events in otherwise healthy people is the COVID-19 vaccines.
This is the kind of article you write when, like Moore, you believe that narratives, however false they may be, are more important than facts -- an odd stance to take for someone who claims to work for a "news" organization.
Moore served up evern more evidence-free speculation in Nov. 21 article:
A reporter at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Egypt passed out during a live broadcast, drawing global attention amid an apparent rise in reports of otherwise healthy people collapsing and in many cases dying "suddenly" or "unexpectedly."
Julie Yoo, reporting Nov. 9 for Channel NewsAsia, was "feeling a little unwell due to dehydration and low blood sugar," according to her employer, Singapore-based Mediacorp.
However, many others have not fared well, as a sampling of news reports since Friday attest:
Two prominent cardiologists – Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. Aseem Malhotra – believe the best explanation for the "sudden and unexpected" deaths and cardiac events in otherwise healthy people is the COVID-19 vaccines.
Brazilian reporter Vanessa Medeiros recently collapsed during a live TV report.
One week ago, Australian Football player Heather Anderson, 28, died unexpectedly:
[...]
Dr. James Olsson, a Johns Hopkins-trained biomedical and cancer researcher, keeps track of the reported "died suddenly" incidents via Twitter. And there's a "died suddenly" page on Facebook.
Actually, Olsson's name appears to be as fake as the conspiracy theories WND is helping him peddle. Twitter users have learned that nobody named James E. Olsson graduated with a doctoral degree from Johns Hopkins University in 2014, as he claims, or employed by Johns Hopkins -- though, interestingly, a psychologist named James E. Olsson died in 2006 in Baltimore, where Johns Hopkins is located.
Meanwhile, Moore got approval from one of his favorite COVID misinformers to keep spreading this malicious misinformation, "prominent cardiologist" Peter McCullough:
McCullough, in a recent video interview with WND, pointed out that in the past, long before the COVID vaccines, athletes who died sudden typically were diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an abnormal thickening of the heart, or premature heart blockage. Now, athletes are thoroughly screened to rule out those conditions.
"When someone dies and the family doesn't come out and say anything, or doctors don’t come out and say anything, it's a reasonable assumption that it was the vaccine, until proven otherwise," McCullough told WND.
What kind of quack medical professional advises spreading uninformed misinformation about someone's death because it fits their biased "assumptions" even though it's not based on actual medical information from a person's individual case? The kind of person who would willingly hang out with a fake-news purveyor like WND.
Yet Moore is committed to lying to his readers, as a Dec. 14 article showed:
A 25-year-old former college football player died after suffering a heart attack while jogging.
Jake Hescock, who played tight end for the University of Wisconsin and the University of Central Florida, suffered cardiac arrest in Boston on Dec. 6, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
A cousin, Lisa Walz Mlynarczyk, wrote on Facebook, "It is with a heavy heart that I have to say my cousin Jake has passed on, may he Rest in Peace and forever shine his bright soul down upon us."
Two prominent cardiologists – Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. Aseem Malhotra – believe the best explanation for the apparent rise in "sudden and unexpected" deaths and cardiac events in otherwise healthy people is the COVID-19 vaccines.
At no point does Moore provide any credible evidence -- or, indeed, any evidence at all -- that a COVID vaccine was involved in any way in Hescock's death. This is sick, shoddy, journalism of the kind that usually results in libel lawsuits -- and yet another reason why WND is dying a slow death.
MRC Still Peddling Made-Up 'Secondhand Censorship' Narrative Topic: Media Research Center
We'veexposed the Media Rsearch Center's manufactured "secondhand censorship" metric regarding purported "censorship" of social media for what it is -- a wholly invented, needlessly large number designed to push partisan right-wing narratives against "big tech" rather than generate meaningful discussions. Nevertheless, they're still at it, this time hiding behind anonymity -- no MRC employee would apprently put his or her name on it, so it's credited only to "NB Staff" -- for its latest attempt to peddle these bogus statistics in a Nov. 18 post:
As the 2022 midterm elections approached, social media platforms aggressively championed political ideas benefiting left-wing candidates while silencing dissenting opinions that don’t fit the liberal worldview in the third quarter.
During the first three quarters of 2022, MRC Free Speech America counted a total of 435 individual censorship cases that translated to no fewer than 251,399,696 times that Big Tech kept information from social media users through secondhand censorship./p>
Platforms harshly squeezed the issues of “transgenderism,” COVID-19 and elections through their bloated censorship operations, leading to millions of users being affected by secondhand censorship during the third quarter.
Twitter was the platform that engaged in the most secondhand censorship during 2022’s third quarter. It kept information from its users 15,932,343 times.
As before, the complaints were about right-wing hate and misinformation being "censored." Among examples provided were right-wing podcaster (and militia enthusiast) Tim Pool, whose account was suspended after he posted "a picture of adults showing sexual content to children 'grooming,'" huffing that "That pro-debauchery muzzling meant that Pool’s 1,371,592 estimated Twitter followers could not see his post championing the protection of children’s innocence." There was also this:
The largest case of COVID-19 censorship by far came in September when YouTube removed a video by actor and social media influencer Russell Brand who said that he mistakenly stated the FDA had approved Ivermectin to treat COVID-19.
Brand said that the video YouTube reportedly removed discussed a notice on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) website under its "COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines, Antiviral Therapy" page that listed Ivermectin. The page noted: "Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic drug that is being evaluated to treat COVID-19."
According to Brand, he mistakenly said that the notice indicated the NIH had approved Ivermectin for use in treating COVID-19. He later recorded an apology video detailing the mistake. YouTube removed the original video, citing a violation of its “medical misinformation policy,” according to screenshots Brand shared in his explanation video.
YouTube’s discriminatory action meant that information was kept from Brand’s 5,970,000 followers through secondhand censorship.
YouTube’s censorship conveys that the platform, like much of the left, restricts the possibility of redemption for content creators it disagrees with.
The anonymous writer didn't explain why YouTube had no right to remove false health information. Instead, the anonymous writer pompously concluded:
Secondhand censorship is an extensive, enduring phenomenon around the world.
The ripple effects of censorship influence world politics and arouse fear that deters people from sharing perspectives.
The end result of Big Tech’s authoritarian and propagandistic censorship practices is an oligopoly that effectively marginalizes honest viewpoints that Big Tech disagrees with.
The onus is on the American people and global public to call on tech companies to provide transparency, clarify their policies on so-called “hate speech,” give equal footing to conservatives and mirror the First Amendment.
The future of free speech is at stake.
Why is there no onus on right-wingers to not spread hate and lies? That's never explained.
CNS Columnists Hate Respect For Marriage Act Topic: CNSNews.com
If CNSNews.com's coverage of the congressional advancement of the Respect for Marriage Act was highlybiased, claims made by CNS columnists were even more so. Catholic priest-turned-right-wing demogogue Michael Orsi ferarmongered about the bill in his Nov. 22 column:
Now we are presented with something called the Respect for Marriage Act. And a less accurate legislative title can hardly be imagined.
This bit of political sleight-of-hand doesn’t respect marriage at all — at least not marriage as it’s always been understood. What we have here instead is a brazen attempt to force people of faith into accepting relationships that are contrary to God’s law, and consequently have been considered evil by virtually every traditional religion from the beginning of civilization.
[...]
The Respect for Marriage Act — which would more accurately be called the Disrespect for Marriage Act — is only the latest sign that our society has become almost overwhelmingly secularist.
This legislation is nothing more than a tool for religious persecution. Get ready, because persecution is coming.
Editor Terry Jeffrey spent his Nov. 30 column remembering the good ol' days when Supreme Court justices nominated by both Democratic and Republican presidents hated LGBT people equally, but the Lawrence v. Texas rulling, which found "that there is a right to same-sex sodomy, " and the Obergefell decision finding that "the 14th Amendment did protect a 'right' to same-sex marriage" changed all that, leading to the bill at hand:
This month, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced the Respect for Marriage Act on the Senate floor. It would effectively require nationwide recognition of same-sex marriages even if the Supreme Court were to overturn Obergefell.
Yet apparently even the authors of this bill were concerned that it might help pave the way for expanding the institution of marriage beyond even same-sex unions.
They titled one of its sections: "No Federal Recognition of Polygamous Marriages."
A Dec. 1 column by Roger Severino of the right-wing Heritage Foundation served up a biased purpored "Fact-Checking 7 Claims by Defenders of Democrats’ Same-Sex Marriage Bill," going on to complain:
Christians, Muslims, and Jews with sincere, historic, reasonable (and true) beliefs about human sexual morality and identity have been under accelerated attack by activists and government ever since the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell, despite assurances by same-sex marriage advocates that a “live and let live” world would follow that decision.
The proposed Respect for Marriage Act would supercharge these attacks. The gestures toward religious liberty in the most recent version of the bill do not change this fact.
A Dec. 7 syndicated colunn by Star Parker made an outrageous comparison of the Obergefell decision to the Dred Scott decision that perpetuated slavery:
With the passage of the 14th Amendment, the American people restored the truth and integrity of the word "citizen" -- "All persons born and naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" -- and obliterated a corrupt, ideological ruling of the Supreme Court.
The Obergefell decision did to the word "marriage" what the Dred Scott decision did to the word "citizen."
It took a civil war to bring forth the 14th Amendment. What will it take to restore how, as a society, we understand what it means to be married?
Meanwhile, Parker cares nothing about the rights of people not like her.
MRC Plays Its Usual Deflection Game Over Colo. Gay Nightclub Massacre Topic: Media Research Center
After a gunman killed five people at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colo., the Media Research Center did what it usually does in such tragedies: deflect and distract from the idea that right-wing rhetoric and policies may have inspired it. Its first post related to the shooting, a Nov. 21 piece by Jason Cohen, ran to the defense of notorious right-wing homophobe Matt Walsh:
A tragic mass shooting occurred at a Colorado LGBTQ club called Club Q that killed five people and injured 25. The left is doing its best to use it for its political agenda.
As Rahm Emmanuel said, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste."
Matt Walsh tweeted about this: “Leftists are using a mass shooting to try and blackmail us into accepting the castration and sexualization of children. These people are just beyond evil. I have never felt more motivated to oppose everything they stand for, with every fiber of my being. Despicable scumbags.”
He added, “People die and the first thing they think is, ‘Yes! We can use this as ammo against conservatives who don't think children should be exposed to drag shows!’
Soulless demons. Evil to the core. Truly.”
The left is freaking out to the point where “Matt Walsh” is trending on Twitter.
A clinical instructor at Harvard Law Cyberlaw Clinic named Alejandra Carabello tweeted the following insane viral tweet that exemplifies the reaction from many liberals: “Matt Walsh isn't upset that someone shot up a gay bar, he's upset that more people weren't killed. He has a bloodlust for the murder of LGBTQ people. He's doubling down on it and wants more of it.”
One must wonder whether they truly believe this or if they are exaggerating to go viral.
It is sick to think the people you disagree with support the mass murder of LGBTQ people when there is no evidence to suggest that.
Cohen offered no evidence or denial showing that Walsh does not support that.
Nicholas Fondacaro whined when it was pointed out how much Republicans hate LGBTQ peole: "Anti-Christian bigotry and blasphemy were the themes of Monday’s edition of ABC’s The View following a weekend mass shooting at a Colorado Springs, Colorado gay bar. Despite admitting they didn’t know what motivated the shooter, the cast lashed out at Republicans and Christians by suggesting “Jesus would be the grand marshal” of a gay pride parade and hinted that they’re like January 6 rioters and poor human beings." (Tim Graham similarly whined about this in his Nov. 21 podcast.) Kevin Tober complained further:
On Monday’s edition of MSNBC’s Deadline: White House, host Nicolle Wallace assembled a panel of malcontents and miscreants to hurl the vilest, and most unhinged insults and allegations against religious conservatives and Fox News hosts that they could think of as a way to blame them for the mass shooting at an “LGBTQ” club in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Wallace started off the dumpster fire of a segment by blaming Fox News for the incident at the club: “You have anti-LGBTQ rhetoric spewed on the most watched hours of Fox News at a regular clip against the U.S. Military, against gay men and women, against gay teachers, against their right to exist.”
Turning to Michigan state Senator Mallory McMorrow who was brought on the show for some unknown reason to discuss a shooting that took place in another state that she doesn’t represent, Wallace asked McMorrow to presumably trash conservatives and “speak to the dehumanization that goes on all day, every day, in America.”
McMorrow proved why she’s the latest liberal darling on Wallace’s show which has been dubbed the liberal wine mom hour on MSNBC:
Tober didn't identify anyone who wasn't a right-wing activist or who was even outside MRC HQ who actually says that.
In a Nov. 22 post, Curtis Houck repeated earlier whining that an anti-trans ad by Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker was brought up in discussion of the shooting:
On Monday afternoon’s CNN Newsroom, things briefly took a bizarre and sinister turn when the leftist regime tied Georgia Republican senatorial candidate Herschel Walker to the deadly mass shooting at a Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub. The reason? Well, he released an ad on Monday with former NCAA All-American Riley Gaines denouncing transgender athletes competing in women’s sports.
Co-host Victor Blackwell noted the shooting and immediately pivoted to Walker: “[A]s you know, there was that mass shooting Saturday night in Colorado Springs at an LGBTQ nightclub. Five people killed. Herschel Walker in Georgia has released a new ad today. Let's play a portion of it.”
[...]
Exit question: How many CNN anchors and likeminded folks at MSNBC want their young children to be taught sex ed and encourage them to explore changing their gender?
Actually, right-wing transphobia is about much more than this, but Houck obviously wants to minimize the issue to make that hatred look more benign than it is.
NBC Late Night with Seth Meyers writer Jenny Hagel and CBS The Late Show host Stephen Colbert reacted to the shooting at a Colorado Springs gay nightclub that left five dead by making sure they mentioned every possible left-wing cliché by blaming everything from gun culture, the Supreme Court, unhealthy concepts of masculinity, homophobia, transphobia, to conservatives.
[...]
People who do not want their children taught about the 58 alleged genders are not responsible for a mass shooting. That’s insane, not “dehumanizing,” and ultimately just a not-so clever way to try to shut people up.
[...]
Blaming people other than the shooter for mass shootings and calling a part of the Bill of Rights a failure is not the best way to convince people to vote for your preferred candidates, but that won’t stop Colbert from trying.
Like the others, Christy did not cite any major anti-trans activist denouncing the shooting or state that the right-wing anti-trans agenda does not exclude violence as a means to reaching its goals. Andno MRC writer could be bothered to denounce the shooting -- they were too busy on spin patrol.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:17 PM EST
Updated: Wednesday, December 14, 2022 10:23 PM EST
Yes, Dick Morris really did make this observation in a Nov. 26 Newsmax TV appearance:
While inflation hurts most of us, Democrat voters on government support are "insulated" from it – a scheme of dependency and virtual control – according to presidential campaign adviser Dick Morris on Newsmax.
"What they're doing is borrowing like crazy, spending like crazy, knowing that that will cause inflation and then protecting their constituencies so that there are on protected islands in this frothing sea of inflation," Morris told "Saturday Report." "And to get on the island, you need to vote Democrat; you need to be part of the constituency, and that's a way to insulate their voters from what's happening to the rest of us, and I think that played important role."
Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning and his associate Robert Romano studied Americans impacted by inflation for Morris, former President Donald Trump's presidential campaign adviser told host Rita Cosby.
"They found that 37% of Americans are essentially insulated from inflation – by cost of living adjustments in their social security checks, their food stamps, their disability benefits or in their private employment," Morris told Cosby. "And that – while the two thirds of us that are not take inflation on the chin and we hate it and it really crimps our lives for them – for them, it's a minor annoyance, because they get it back at the end of the year with an increase of their benefit checks.
"This puts the idea of what the Democrats are doing into a new perspective – from me at least."
Yes, Morris really is arguing that Democrats don't get harmed by inflation because they're all on welfare or Social Security (which is not welfare and which many older conservatives receive as well).
Morris had a more conventional (yet also terrible) hot take in a short Nov. 28 column, in which he whined that certain Republicans don't hate LGBT people enough to oppose the Respect for Marriage Act:
The Senate is about to vote on legislation codifying the Supreme Court decision allowing gay marriage. But, with gay marriage already protected in all states by the court ruling, the "Defense of Marriage Act" will not affect anyone at all.
Its real purpose is to set up a statutory basis for prosecuting or persecuting anyone who dissents and won't personally cooperate with the new definition of marriage. It will go after bakers who won't do a cake for a gay couple and all those whose religious principals do not permit them to sanction marriage between two men or two women.
The Democrats are jamming the bill through during the current lame duck session of Congress so that they can profit from the votes of about-to-be former senators who did not have the courage to vote yes, but now that they are out of harm's way are willing to vote for this misguided law.
It should not be called the Defense of Marriage Act but the Defense of Cowards Act. Retiring Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo., are voting for the bill even though they know that were they seeking reelection, their voters in conservative states would never approve of their positions. Now, they are showing their true colors as social "progressives" too late for their constituents to punish them.
Let hypocrisy reign supreme in the Washington swamp.
WND Columnist Lays Groundwork For Election Fraud Claims By Obsessing Over Hand-Counting Ballots Topic: WorldNetDaily
Rachel Alexander began her Oct. 24 WorldNetDaily column with a confident prediction:
The mainstream media have been saying since 2020 that Arizona is purple or even turning blue, but people in Arizona know that year was a fluke. Almost every one of the candidates endorsed in Arizona by Donald Trump are expected to win in the midterms, with even mainstream pollsters predicting so. The only one expected not to win is Blake Masters for U.S. Senate, but that's not because Trump endorsed him; a myriad of things went wrong in that race including being out-raised by a stunning amount.
But in case that didn't come to pass, Alexander -- a lover of conspiracy theories who fought to get corrupt Republican Rep. Steve Stockman sprung from prison during the COVID pandemic -- was also readying a backup plan by raising the ol' election fraud bogeyman:
Conservative activists are going all out to ensure there is little fraud in the election. They're up against a daunting task, however, as new information seeps out. Maricopa County hired 145 more Democrats than Republicans to staff the primary election, despite the fact Republicans concerned about voter fraud are applying in droves, and there are substantially more registered Republicans than Democrats in the county. "Bad" signatures were rejected 14 times more often during the primary election than during the notorious 2020 election, leading to fears that it is easy to manipulate AI to change the standard of review.
A citizens' group launched a movement to stop the use of electronic voting machine readers in the election, and so some counties are considering dropping them. Lake and Finchem filed a lawsuit to stop their use. Citizens have organized ballot drop box watching shifts, reporting suspicious activity on a new nationwide reporting app called VotifyNow. On Election Day, the app will reveal to users what problems others in their area are reporting.
Alexander pushed the Luddite anti-machine-count argument in her Oct. 31 column:
A small group of concerned Arizonans, including one brave Arizona Corporation Commission member, are trying to convince Arizona counties to switch to counting ballots by hand instead of using electronic voting machine tabulators. Concerns have heightened around the country that unscrupulous actors are manipulating algorithms in the machines to adjust election outcomes. France, a country of 65 million, counts all ballots in the presidential election by hand, and is finished counting them an hour and a half after the polls close. If a country that large can do it easily, why not some small counties? Why the intense opposition? So far, they've persuaded at least one county in Arizona to conduct a hand count.
In fact, the reason France got quick results despite hand-counting are 1) that election was only for president, meaning the ballot was a lot less complicated, and 2) counting was done at each polling station instead of a central location, and 3) election rules are nationalized. She continued:
Arizona Corporation Commissioner Jim O'Connor, who is a well-respected and trusted official in the state, sent letters to county officials around the state putting them on notice that they will be violating the law if they use the machines in the election. A significant number of citizens around the country are looking into the accreditations of the labs that certified the machines before 2020 and afterward, and discovered all kinds of problems, which they believe invalidates the certifications for the voting machines.
If Alexander has to appeal to the authority fallacy and insisting that O'Connor is "a well-respected and trusted official," that's probably a reason to suspect that he really isn't. Indeed, Alexander failed to mention that O'Connor also sent out to county officials a letter promoting an anti-electronic-counting event stacked with opponents of electronic count and titled "The Rise of Truth -- The Demise of Machines." Meanwhile, here in the real world of America, hand-counting is both less accurate and more expensive.
Alexander went on to write:
More information continues to pour out about how vast the Yuma County ballot harvesting scheme highlighted in the film "2000 Mules" was, as two more operatives were just indicted. Progressive groups aggressively targeted newly naturalized citizens in Arizona to break turnout records in the primary election. And it recently came out that Maricopa County Elections rejected "bad signatures" 14 times more during the primary election than during the controversial 2020 general election.
In fact, "2000 Mules" has been repeatedly discredited, and there's no credible evidence of voter fraud in Yuma County. Also, there's nothingillegal about encouraging people to vote, as much as Alexander wants yoiu to think otherwise. And we thought right-wingers like Alexander believed that signature rejection was a good thing since it helps to keep out fraudulent voters.
Alexander concluded by claiming:
Voters concerned about fraud in Arizona are going all out this election to ensure there is little opportunity for dishonest actions. A federal district court judge ruled on Friday that observers may watch ballot drop boxes. U.S. District Court Judge Michael Liburdi slapped down accusations that the volunteers were engaging in voter intimidation (many of the observers sit in their cars over 100 yards away where no one even notices them).
Alexander was back on the hand-counting kick again inher Nov. 7 column, the last one before the midterm elections:
A group of concerned Arizonans has been trying to stop Arizona counties from using electronic voting machine tabulators, but due to lawyers intervening, so far only one small county has taken any action, merely including some hand counting. And after it did, Marc Elias, one of the most powerful activist progressive attorneys in the country, swooped in with his out-of-state firm to sue the Cochise County Supervisors. He did so despite the fact Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich issued a legal opinion a couple of days earlier stating counties have the legal authority to hand count ballots.
Many of the county attorneys are going along with Elias, terrified of the Arizona State Bar coming after them, which has one of the worst reputations in the country for going after conservative attorneys. One election attorney flat out told the concerned Arizonans he would not represent them or he'd be disbarred, so they've had to represent themselves in legal proceedings.
Alexander went on to invoke her own alleged authority to paint critics of hand counting as politically motivated (as if the proponents aren't):
As the former Maricopa County elections attorney, I am appalled to see these attorneys substituting their own political agendas in place of their statutory responsibility to merely provide legal advice. Paul Rice, another member of the concerned group of Arizonans, said, "The attorneys are violating their rules of professional ethics as well as statutes by not letting the boards act independently and autonomously and supporting them in good faith."
The group has filed multiple lawsuits but gotten nowhere due to judges who I believe are more concerned about staying out of the way of the Arizona State Bar and fitting in with the cool attorneys at the best cocktail parties. The group has now made presentations to seven of Arizona's 15 counties.
Again, Alexander censored the fact that hand counting is less accurate and more costly.
NEW ARTICLE -- The MRC Flips On Kanye West, Part 2: The Flip Failure Topic: Media Research Center
When Ye went full anti-Semitic, it took days for the the Media Research Center -- which spent years praising his right-wing, pro-Trump turn -- to actually criticize him for it. And even then, it was still making excuses for him. Read more >>
MRC Can't Quite Criticize Trump For Dinner With Anti-Semites Topic: Media Research Center
When Donald Trump had dinner with anti-Semite Kanye West and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, the Media Research Center handled it badly at first, just asit did with West's turn to anti-Semitism after years of praising him for going full MAGA. Mark Finkelstein, in a Nov. 27 post, was more mad that the silence of Republicans was being called out -- and that Fox News was the one doing it -- than he was about the dinner:
Guest-hosting Fox News Sunday, Jennifer Griffin suggested to Jonathan Swan that Donald Trump's dinner with Nick Fuentes had triggered something of a wave of criticism of the former president among prominent Republicans.
But liberal reporters like Swan are trying to draw out fiercer criticism, including nudging Gov. Ron DeSantis to slam Trump. Swan dissented from Griffin's take:
"There actually haven't been that many prominent Republicans who have come out against Trump . . . Which tells me there is still a fear among Republicans, even ones who want to oppose him potentially in 2024, that Trump still commands a serious, meaningful proportion of the base, and they don't want to cross him yet."
Then again, by adding that "yet" at the end of his comment, Swan seemed to suggest that criticism of Trump by prominent Republicans is a matter of when, not if.
[...]
Note the graphic in the screencap: "Democracy 2024."That sounds like something you'd expect to see on CNN or MSNBC--not Fox News Channel. More evidence that the Murdoch empire is moving away from Trump?
Finkelstein not only didn't criticize Trump's dinner, he didn't even explain that Fuentes is a white nationalist. He did acknowledge Fuentes' odiousness, however, in a post the next day:
Don Lemon has unwittingly let CNN's cat out of the bag. Guests aren't there to engage in an actual discussion. They're brought on to express a specific opinion. And if they try to stray from CNN's script, they will be shut down.
Lemon gave a perfect illustration of the phenomenon on Monday's CNN This Morning. The guest was Len Khodorkovsky, a former Trump administration official, who is Jewish. And in Lemon's mind, the clear purpose of Khodorkovsky's appearance was to have him criticize Trump for hosting a dinner with Nick Fuentes and Kanye West.
In fact, in a variety of ways, Khodorkovsky did just that. He began with: " Let's just call Nick Fuentes for who he is. He is an antisemite, he's repulsive, his views are disgusting. And no one of any substance should give him any forum"
But when he tried to expand the conversation to include antisemitism among elected Democrats including Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, AOC, and President Obama, Lemon shut him down. No one was allowed to discuss them.
[...]
Note: Wouldn't you have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Lemon got ahold of the producer who arranged for Khodorkovsky's appearance? Can't you imagine Lemon unloading along these lines: "what the hell were you thinking in inviting this guy? I was looking for someone to trash Trump, not start throwing examples of Democrat antisemitism back in my face!"
Finkelstein censored the fact that Khodorkovsky refused to explicitly condemn Trump for having dinner with West and Fuentes, making that appearance less successful than Finkelstein would have you believe.
A Nov. 28 post by Curtis Houck threw a fit that people were making logical conclusions about the Republican Party based on a dinner by the party's leader and the refusal of other Republicans to criticize it:
CNN’s Inside Politics host John King has long been seen as one of the more even-keeled CNN mainstays, but when he has an itch, he becomes just as partisan as the rest. Such was the case Monday when he and his panel used former President Trump’s brazen dining with virulent racists and anti-Semites Kanye West and Nick Fuentes and the GOP response as proof that the party is content with being an anti-Semitic party encouraging hate crimes.
“To American politics now and to this sad, sad but recurring reality: Donald Trump associates himself with conspiracy and hate and all but a few Republican leaders say nothing,” King began, restating the details of the Trump dinner before whining there’s been “silence” from the GOP minus “a few willing to call this out.”
[...]
Going to break, Bash suggested that, by not meeting the media’s satisfaction of distancing itself from Trump, Republicans are allowing anti-Semites and white supremacists to believe now is the “time to act.”
Houck himself did not denounce Trump's dinner -- unless we're supposed to believe that calling it "brazen" was a criticism -- nor did he cite any Republicans who did, which would seem to prove King right despite all of Houck's whining.
Something similar is also missing from a Nov. 29 post by Jason Cohen complaining about similar logical conclusions:
Salon’s Amanda Marcotte is on to you, Republicans. She can see right inside your pasty white scalps and into your racist brains. She knows you’d be fine with Trump dining with white supremacists, as long as it did not hurt your election chances.
As part of that, she had a piece out titled “ Republicans don't care that Trump's a white supremacist — just that he's indiscreet about it.”
In it, Marcotte not only condemned right-wing politicians as racist bigots but also contemptibly categorized their voters similarly. She wrote, “GOP base voters, who either fully agree with Trump's racist views or don't care enough to hold it against him, dig in their heels and refuse to reconsider their cult-like worship of the former president.”
Marcotte then went on to call Trump an “overt white nationalist.” Does she not know what “overt” means or is Marcotte purposely misleading her readers?
[...]
Does Marcotte believe the right does not view white supremacy as disgusting and that they do not care about mass murders motivated by this sick ideology?
She then did a little concern-trolling, lecturing Republicans that “white supremacist views offend some number of Americans who might otherwise be inclined to vote for their party. In the end, GOP leaders send the message that the problem with Trump's overt racism is not that it's wrong or damaging, but that it's inconvenient to white conservatives.”
It is 2022, and except for a small fringe, Americans detest these imbecilic ideologies. But the left is so brainwashed with hatred that they generalize this to half of the country.
Funny, we recall that Cohen tried to justify West's anti-Semitism a month earlier, then gave a pass to the anti-Semitism of NBA star Kyrie Irving by playing whataboutism.SO it seems hedoesn't believe anti-Semitism is as "inbecilic" as he claims. He also didn't actually criticize Trump over the dinner.
Another Nov. 29 post, by Kevin Tober, finally offered something approaching explilcit criticism of Trump (albeit though noting that other Republicans have criticized him) while serving up the same familiar whine about Republicans being called out for tolerating anti-Semitism:
On MSNBC's low-rated show The 11th Hour, host Stephanie Ruhle during a segment on former President Donald Trump's dinner with white supremacist Nick Fuentes and anti-Semite and degenerate rapper Kanye West, Ruhle decided to smear the entire Republican Party by suggesting they are the party of racists and anti-Semites despite the fact that Republicans from all corners of the party have rightly condemned Trump for keeping bad company.
After airing a clip of former President George H.W. Bush condemning former KKK grand wizard and then-candidate for Governor of Louisiana David Duke for his racist and anti-Semitic views, Ruhle referenced a tweet by Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy which strongly criticized Trump's dinner with Fuentes and West.
She then whined that "he was responding to the Trump dinner saying this is not who the Republican Party is. But here's the thing. We just listened to George Bush. It might not be who the Republican Party was. But it's absolutely who they are today."
Tober then whined that "Not only did she fail to offer any evidence to back up her hateful smear of half the country, but she was defiant. When called out on Twitter shortly after she made those comments, she refused to apologize or retract what she said."He then posted an exchange between him and Ruhle in which he called her a "dunce" -- not the way to engender good faith and invite an enlightening dialogue. Ruhle knew Tober was a bad-faith hater, and she pithily dissed in response: "Thanks for tuning in Kev." He continued to rant at Ruhle, which she understandably ignored.
Also note that Tober is calling West a "degenerate rapper" -- which comes full circle to the insults the MRC hurled at West before he struck up a bromance with Trump and started spouting right-wing anti-abortion rhetoric, which the MRC loved.
Finkelstein returned for yet another post on the subject -- not to actually criticize Trump himself, of course, but to mock "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski for grudgingly acknowledging that Trump's former vice president, Mike Pence, criticized Trump.
WND Hit A Conspiracy-Theory Dry Hole On Paul Pelosi Attack Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's first story on the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, an Oct. 28 piece by Bob Unruh, was surprisingly balanced by WND standards, though he did make sure to add a claim by the right-wing website Twitchy that Pelosi's assailant is ""a former Castro nudist protester." Things moved back toward normal WND standars in an Oct. 31 article by Art Moore complaining that hateful right-wing rhetoric against his wife, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, incited the attack:
Despite conflicting reports and many unanswered questions, President Biden and other Democratic Party leaders have used the assault by a hammer-wielding, apparently mentally ill, illegal alien on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband to rally midterm voters, casting the violent act as an inevitable result of right-wing, "election denier" rhetoric.
And Monday afternoon, announcing attempted-murder charges against 42-year-old David DePape, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins affirmed to reporters that prosecutors believe the attack was politically motivated.
But on closer inspection, the suspect – an illegal alien from Canada who was a member of the far-left Green Party and lives in a dilapidated bus on the Berkeley, California, property of "nudist drug abusers" who support Black Lives Matter and purportedly of late was circulating QAnon conspiracies – comes across more as a homeless, mentally unstable drug addict than a determined ideologue.
Nevertheless, establishment media aligned with the Democrats' narrative, with CBS correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti, for example, tying DePape's actions to "the January 6 Capitol Hill mob" because he allegedly shouted, "Where is Nancy."
Unruh has so far failed to correct his story to reflect actual facts instead of right-wing conspiracy theories. He did, however, return to the WND norm of spreading conspiracy theories in a Nov. 1 article:
What is known about a confrontation in the San Francisco home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is that a person arrested for injuring her husband, millionaire Paul Pelosi, was "mentally unstable" with a brain "addled by long-term drug use."
He is a former "pro-nudist activist, convinced that 'he was Jesus for a year,' who lived in a bus on a semi-commune and has embraced conspiracy theories from the left and right," according to columnist David Harsanyi at the Federalist.
So why, then, are so many questions remaining unanswered, including reports that Pelosi won't turn over home security footage of the fracas.
[...]
It is the Republic Brief that reported on one of the many unanswered questions about the event, that "there is no security footage being released to the general public, and the left is trying to pretend that it is no big deal and that everyone should just move along."
The Republic Brief is a right-wing site nobody has heard of that hides who runs it, so there's no reason for anyone to trust what it says. In fact, thte Capitol Police have a surveillance feed at Pelosi's home (thought nobody was watching it at the time of the attack), and there's no legitimate claim that Pelosi won't turn it over."
Unruh went to hype salacious "new details" in a Nov. 4 article:
A series of alarming details have emerged following the police investigation into an attack on Paul Pelosi, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, at their San Francisco home while she was in Washington.
Among them was that Paul Pelosi, apparently calm, "never let on to responding officers that he was in distress just seconds before he walked back into his house where an intruder bludgeoned him with a hammer."
The details are emerging in a report from the Daily Mail, which cited NBC.
Police already have identified and charged the intruder, David DePape, 42, a onetime nudism advocate and BLM supporter who was known by associates as diving into various conspiracy theories.
Earlier reports said DePape wanted Nancy Pelosi as a hostage, or to break her kneecaps.
While Unruh went on to note that "After posting the report, NBC abruptly removed it, citing its 'standards'", his story has yet to be updated to reflect the ract that NBC retracted the story.Instead, he took a sharp tangent to shoehorn in his own personal obsessions that have little to do with the attack:
WND has reported that despite the conflicting reports and unanswered questions, Joe Biden and other Democrat leaders are using the assault to try to rally midterm election voters to their agenda which mostly consists of abortion and transgenderism.
They also are characterizing Republicans as Nazis and claiming voters that a vote against Democrats is a vote against democracy.
WND largely abandoned the story after that -- apparently, it failed to live up to conspiracy-theory potential. Unruh gave it one last shot, however, in a Nov. 16 article that focused on the NBC story he previously refused to acknowledge had been retracted:
It's true that crimes often don't have simple explanations, but the incident in which Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was attacked in their San Francisco home seems to be extreme.
Fox News has revealed that a report from NBC News that explained Pelosi had opened the door for police, and then went back into his house where he was bludgeoned with a hammer attack, was withdrawn for not being up to reporting "standards."
However, Fox noted, "A new NBC Bay Area report about the assault on Paul Pelosi last month includes several of the same details in NBC News' retracted national report that suggested Pelosi may not have been in immediate danger when police arrived prior to his attack."
That's lame even by WND standards -- even with the assistance of Fox News. No wonder it gave up on the story, and even WND's columnists couldn't workup much interest. Editor Joseph Farah's Nov. 1 column gushed over how right-wing Fox News host Tucker Carlson "pointed out that Nancy Pelosi is using the terrible hammer attack on her husband, Paul, last Friday morning for political theater. It's disgusting the way the media treated it." A Nov. 1 column by Andy Schlafly embraced the bogus video conspiracy: "Releasing the evidence concerning the attack on Paul Pelosi will help the public assess the Democrats' politicized narrative about it. Trump and Musk are right to question whether there is more to this story than the government admits, and Republicans should demand that the evidence be made public."
But as the Washington Post's Philip Bump noted: "The requests for video footage of the Pelosi attack, like the request for footage from the Capitol riot, is not primarily about the footage. It is primarily about using the request for the footage as a way to imply that something is being hidden." Indeed -- it's just conspiracy-mongering by another name.