What Other Stories Are CNS Censoring From Its Readers?
Topic: CNSNews.com

We've already noted how CNSNews.com effectively censored the news of Herschel Walker's multiple abortion scandals -- but what other legitimate news has the Media Research Center's "news" division hidden from its readers? Let's look at a couple of recent examples.

Trump controversies

When Donald Trump had dinner with anti-Semites Kanye West and Nick Fuentes in late November, CNS didn't want its readers to know about it, refusing to devote space to an undeniably newsworthy story.Melanie Arter even played a bit of misdirection in a Dec. 2 article:

President Biden seemed to call out rapper Kanye West on Friday, saying that “The Holocaust happened” and “Hitler was a demonic figure.”

“I just want to make a few things clear: The Holocaust happened. Hitler was a demonic figure. And instead of giving it a platform, our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides. Silence is complicity,” he tweeted. His comments come a day after West, during an interview with “Infowars” radio show host Alex Jones, praised Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, saying, “The Jewish media has made us feel like the Nazis and Hitler have never offered anything of value to the world.

His comments come a day after West, during an interview with “Infowars” radio show host Alex Jones, praised Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, saying, “The Jewish media has made us feel like the Nazis and Hitler have never offered anything of value to the world.

Arter was silent on the fact that Trump had dined with West a few days earlier.And the only reference to Fuentes at CNS appears in columns by now-retired columnist Michelle Malkin, who has laughably whitewashed the white supremacist and anti-Semite as a "multimedia entrepreneur" who is merely engaging in "peaceful political advocacy."

A couple days later, when Trump ranted on his social media site that the Constitution should be suspended so he can be returned to office, CNS served up only a Dec. 5 reaction piece by Arter noting that "Congressman-Elect Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) told CNN’s 'State of the Union' on Sunday that he disagrees with former President Donald Trump who advocated terminating the Constitution in the case of 'massive' election fraud." There was also an oblique reference to it in the attached transcript in a Dec. 8 article by Susan Jones, who otherwise didn't highlight Trump's remarks, choosing instead to promote yet another Mark Levin rant.

The final Jan. 6 committee report

CNS spent much of the year attacking the House committee looking into the Trump-incited Capitol riot -- and, unsurprisingly, it censored nearly all mention of the committee's findings when it held a final hearing. Instead, it devoted two articles to attacking the the committee's criminal referrals and ignoring the rest. First up with a Dec. 20 article eby Craig Bannister:

Alan Dershowitz says Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who announced the House January 6 Subcommittee’s criminal referrals on Monday, knows they’re unconstitutional – because he studied under the iconic, liberal constitutional scholar and professor emeritus at Harvard Law.

In an interview on Monday night’s “Hannity,” Prof. Dershowitz was asked by Fox News’ Pete Hegseth if the committee's members knew their actions were unconstitutional.

Alan Dershowitz says Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who announced the House January 6 Subcommittee’s criminal referrals on Monday, knows they’re unconstitutional – because he studied under the iconic, liberal constitutional scholar and professor emeritus at Harvard Law.

In an interview on Monday night’s “Hannity,” Prof. Dershowitz was asked by Fox News’ Pete Hegseth if the committee's members knew their actions were unconstitutional.

Bannister followed up later that day with another attack:

When Republicans take control of the House of Representatives in January, they should investigate the “malfeasance” of the Democrat-led January 6 Subcommittee, which edited out exculpatory information and cleverly edited in “incriminating” information, Fox News Legal Analyst Gregg Jarrett says.

After the committee announced criminal referrals to the Justice Department on Monday, calling on it to investigate former President Donald Trump, Jarrett appeared on Fox News with Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz to denounce the committee and its referrals.

Jarrett said that he agrees with Dershowitz that the Justice Department will simply throw the referrals into “the circular file”:

[...]

Jarrett said that he agrees with Dershowitz that the Justice Department will simply throw the referrals into “the circular file”:

Bannister refused to any committee member or spokesperson an opporturnity to respond to either Dershowitz or Jarrett. And CNS has completely censored any mention of the witness transcripts the committee has released since then.

Remember, CNS' mission statement claims that it "endeavors to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story." If it's censoring stories that make Republicans and conservatives look bad, it's not only not living up to that -- and looks more and more like a biased right-wing rag than a "news" organization.

MRC Complains Cowboys Owner Looks Like A Racist In Old Photo Of Him Hanging With Racists
Topic: Media Research Center

Oh, the people the Media Research Center chooses to defend -- like Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones after the Washington Post found a 1950s picture of a teenage Jones among a crowd of segregationists harassing a group of black students integrating a high school in North Little Rock, Ark., where he grew up. An outraged Dec. 1 post by the mysterious Jay Maxson was in full lash-out mode -- not at Jones, of coruse, but at the Post for exposing and at LeBron James for commenting on it:

We know that LeBron James is more than an athlete and the Washington Post sports section is more than a sports section. They’ve told us so. On Wednesday night, James took on members of the media in condescending fashion after a Lakers’ game about why they did not question his reaction to an ages-old photo of Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones watching desegregation efforts in Arkansas.

The Washington Post’s race-baiting SJW’s (who take a backseat to nobody -- not even James -- in their self-regard) are doing a series castigating the NFL for not hiring more black coaches. Last week the installment centered in on the photo of Jones watching racial intimidation in Arkansas as a 14-year-old boy. Jones was quoted saying he was present to watch the event out of curiosity and he did not participate in it.  

The Post headline belittled Jones as a man who transformed the NFL, except when it comes to race. He was photographed in Arkansas during a time of racial conflict, and he’s never hired a black man to coach the Cowboys. He’s risen to power in the confederacy of the pro football plutocracy, the Post story goes, in part based on the cultural effect of Jim Crow of his youth. It’s character assassination at its finest.

Maxson didn't explain why it was "race-baiting" for the Post to accurately report on the Cowboys' dismal record on coaches, or why it was "character assassination" to report accurate information about that and the photo -- or why he censored that the Post also reported that under Jones' Cowboys ownership, "just two of the team’s offensive or defensive coordinators, the steppingstones to head coaching positions, have been Black, including none since 2008."

We also don't recall the MRC calling it "character assassination" whenever someone pointed out that the late Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd used to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan -- heck, the MRC is still reminding us of that to this day, typically as a way of besmirching President Biden.Indeed, Maxson himself (or herself) called Byrd "a real-life Klansman" in a July 2020 post, going on to whine, "Why are the monument removers not busily scrubbing away his name, where's the media outrage over him?" Maxson censored the fact that Byrd spent the final several decades of his life apologizing for his Klan involvement, to the point that no less than the NAACP favorably eulogized him when he died.

Maxson then complained that James "was miffed that the media had recently jumped all over the Brooklyn Nets’ Kyrie Irving for anti-semitism and why Jones wasn’t canceled over a photo of Jones resurrected from 1957," going on to huff:

Getting back to James, while constantly running interference for his evil Communist Chinese benefactors, he assumed that Jones was guilty of something for just having watched race relations boil over in Arkansas so long ago. Jones also opposed anthem kneeling in 2017, putting a target on his back for social justice warriors. James is no longer the Dallas Cowboys fan he used to be. 

Irving was suspended in November because he posted a link on social media to a documentary that included antisemitic tropes, and he has since apologized. The media typically feeds James’ massive ego and sought out his opinion on that issue. He craved for the same attention over Jones.

Maxson didn't mention that his MRC colleagues had trouble criticizing Irving's fit of anti-Semitism, with Maxson himself (or herself) playing the whataboutism card. And he played whataboutism here too, insisting that James was somehow a bigger racist than Jones.

In that vein, the closest thing to a forceful criticism of Irving's anti-Semitism by the MRC came in a Dec. 1 post by Mark Finkelstein -- and it happened only because Finkelstein was defending Jones and criticizing James:

What's next, Don Lemon: "whether or not you agree with the people hanging 'Kanye Is Right' banners?"

Lemon hosted a segment on Thursday's CNN This Morning to discuss LeBron James complaining that his old Cavaliers teammate Kyrie Irving has been subjected to intense criticism over his promotion of an antisemitic book and movie, whereas there has been relatively little attention paid to a photo that recently published by The Washington Post showing a 14-year-old Jerry Jones, now owner of the Dallas Cowboys, in a crowd blocking black children from entering a North Little Rock school in 1957.

Jones claims he was curious, but not a participant in the event. He was 14. Kyrie Irving is 30.

At one point, Lemon said of LeBron's statement:

"I've been making a very similar point, that there are a lot of people, whether you agree with Kyrie Irving or not, but there are a lot of people who feel the same way that LeBron James does."

So, there are two legitimate sides to this, Don? Those that agree with Irving that it is worthwhile to promote vile antisemitic tropes, including Holocaust denial, and those that don't?

To paraphrase a former president, are there "very fine people" on both sides of Kyrie Irving's promotion of antisemitism, Don?

Meanwhile, Nicholas Fondacaro suddenly found harsh words to condemn Kanye West's anti-Semitism -- something the MRC has also had trouble with -- in a Dec. 2 post that, again, came in the context of trying to defend Jones and attack James:

Racist Sunny Hostin was at it again on Friday’s edition of The View. During a discussion about Kanye West’s heinous comments spouting anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, the ABC co-host demanded a “limitation” on the First Amendment. Something she surely doesn’t intend to apply to her, as she followed up with a disgusting assertion that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones could have been in the KKK when he was 14.

[...]

The condemnation of West and his ilk was broken by co-host Ana Navarro, who hijacked the conversation to draw attention to Jones. She began the detour agreeing with basketball player LeBron James’s hypocritical gripe that people go to him for his opinion on matters dealing with race and bigotry.

“LeBron made the point that he gets all these questions about Kyrie Irving, about everybody else, and all these things. He says, you guys haven't asked me about Jerry Jones and why the disparate attention?” she said.

They missed the obvious point that James gets people asking him about those things because he’s put himself out there as an activist on the issue of so-called “social justice.” He gets asked about Irving because he’s a fellow player in his league, while Jones is an owner in a different one. Meanwhile, The View doesn’t have an issue with James’s silence on China’s genocide of the Uyghurs.

“I hope Jerry Jones really does take the opportunity to own this, to talk about it, to explain it and to talk about the change that has happened in 65 years, and his role in it,” Navarro proclaimed, saying he’s someone “who has so many black players, who has such a platform, who has all this money, who's got all this access”

In the 1957 photo in question, a 14-year-old Jones can be seen craning his neck from what The Washington Post reluctantly admits is “yards” away from other teens blocking passage of black students from entering a high school. And Hostin admitted Jones “claims he was just a casual observer at that event.”

Joy Behar pointed out that Jones, who’s now 80, was only 14 in 1957. But Hostin countered, pointing to how other kids Jones’s age at the time were in the KKK, seemingly hinting at the possibility that Jones could have been one of them:

On the subject of China, Fondacaro seems to have forgotten that his employer hypocritically stopped criticizing Elon Musk for being too cozy with those commies when he got intersted in buying Twtter to own the libs. Instead, Fondacaro is demonstrating yet again that the MRC cares only about criticizing racism or anti-Semitism when doing so advances its partisan right-wing narratives, and they have little interest in unequivocal criticism of their fellow right-wingers.

Newsmax's Morris Keeps Sucking Up To Meal Ticket Trump
Topic: Newsmax

Newsmax pundit Dick Morris is nothing if not painfully loyal to Donald Trump -- he's Morris' current meal ticket, after all, with at book promoting a low-stakes prediction that Trump will run against Hillary Clinton in 2024. And as Trump continues to rack up scandal after scandal, Morris has been studiously ignoring them in his frequent Newsmax TV hits. In between that, Morris was rehashing a previous claim that Republicans need to embrace early voting -- a view counter to other right-wingers and even Trump himself -- declaring in a Dec. 3 TV appearance:

If Republicans want to keep the House in 2024 and regain the Senate, they'll have to play by the same rules that have been enacted for elections as the Democrats use, Dick Morris of the bestseller "The Return: Trump's Big 2024 Comeback" told Newsmax on Saturday.

"First, read the book; that's all they have to do," Morris, the host of Newsmax's "Saturday Report." "I say that the reason the Democrats won in 2020 was not so much fraud as skill in understanding the new rules they enacted for elections."

Republicans didn't like the rules when they were enacted, he continued, "but they are the rules by which the game is played, and Republicans better start playing by those rules, because otherwise, we'll never win an election."

The first rule, Morris said, is to embrace early voting.

Morris added a news hook to this claim in a TV hit two days later:

With more than 1.8 million votes cast before Tuesday's U.S. Senate runoff between Republican Herschel Walker and Democrat incumbent Raphael Warnock, Democrats have built an advantage yet again through early voting.

And if Republicans are going to prevail in future elections, they will need to mirror their political rival's strategy, Dick Morris told Newsmax on Monday.

Then it was Trump-fluffing time, as Morris used a Dec. 10 appearance to spin potentially bad news for Trump as a good thing:

Former President Donald Trump might be investigated, indicted and prosecuted for "technical violations of the law," but none of it will ultimately matter, nor stop his 2024 presidential campaign, according to presidential strategist Dick Morris on Newsmax.

"None of this amounts to anything; each of them may be technical violations of the law, and he may be indicted, he may be found guilty, but it's not going to be a legal bar to his running for president, and it's not going to be a political bar," Morris told "Saturday Report." "If anything, it will stoke the enthusiasm of Republican voters."

The three investigations into Trump — Mar-a-Lago presidential documents raid, Jan. 6, and the election challenge — all amount to nothing more than minor violations, if anything, and pale in comparison to the unlawful activity of President Joe Biden.

A short column that day by Morris attacked a poll showing Ron DeSantis running close to Trump:

Yahoo News/YouGov completed a national survey on Dec. 5 of 1,635 American adults that purports to who that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis now runs even in a hypothetical Republican primary matchup with former President Trump. But when we drill deeper into the data, we find that Trump has a healthy 39 percent to 29 percent lead among Republicans.

When UGov asked respondents if they felt that Trump would be the party’s strongest candidate in 2024 or that it would be better if someone else ran, Republicans said by 48-28 that Trump should be the nominee.

The methodology of the Economist UGov poll is also questionable. Drawn from an online sample, they typically have very long questionnaires and have pay their panelists to complete the survey. By paying respondents, they are more likely to attract Democrats to their sample, putting the accuracy of their results in question.

Morris then used a selective reading of Trump's actions during the Capitol riot to portray him as a victim as shown by the "Twitter files" selectively released by Elon Musk in his Dec. 11 column:

New information revealed in the fourth release of Twitter files, documents how the Internet portal railroaded the former president and bent the rules to force his removal from the site.

On January 6, 2021 former President Donald Trump sent a message over his Twitter account for rioters to go home and to refrain from violence. This tweet mirrored what he had already said on television in a direct appeal to demonstrators to be nonviolent.

Nevertheless, on January 8th, two days after the riot, Twitter permanently banned Trump, while he was still in office as president of the United States.

Recently released Twitter files demonstrate that the decision to ban Trump stemmed from what Internet journalist Michael Shellenberger called “internal and external pressure” from inside and outside Twitter to ban him.

Morris talked about this on Newsmax TV the next day:

With Twitter and the FBI allegedly "conspiring" to suppress promotion or awareness of the original Hunter Biden laptop story in October 2020 (courtesy of the New York Post), "it's becomes it own form of election-rigging," said Morris, author of the book, "The Return: Trump's Big 2024 Comeback."

The investigative findings in the files — along with the leaked whistleblower complaints against Twitter's old management — have "become far more potent than anything that happened in the [election-running] backrooms of Michigan and Arizona" in 2020.

Morris once again spun away Trump's potential legal troubles in a Dec. 16 appearance:

Political consultant Dick Morris says none of the criminal charges the Jan. 6 House select committee is expected to refer to the Justice Department against Donald Trump will bar the former president from running.

"It will have no impact on him politically," Morris said Saturday on Newsmax's  Saturday Report."

"The Republican primary voters see it for what it is. They're going to stick with Trump, and he's going to get the nomination easily. ... All this is going to do is to revivify Trump's fortune. It will do one other thing. It marginalizes [Ron] DeSantis because ultimately the choice here will be, 'Do you think Trump should be in jail or not?' And if you say 'not,' you can't then say, 'Oh, but he should be out as president.' It just doesn't work that way. I think Trump will benefit from all of this, and the FBI indicts him and it gets even worse. I don't think that's going to hurt him. I think he's going to absolutely come through as unscathed as he was in two impeachments," added Morris, author of "The Return: Trump's Big 2024 Comeback."

Morris similarly spun the next day: "The Republican primary voters see it for what it is. They're going to stick with Trump, and he's going to get the nomination easily. ... All this is going to do is to revivify Trump's fortune."

As the commitee made those criminal referrals, more deflection occurred in a Dec. 19 appearance:

Political commentator and author Dick Morris told Newsmax Monday that the four criminal referrals against former President Donald Trump passed on to the Department of Justice by the House select Jan. 6 committee are a political "contrivance," "absurd," and are not likely to be prosecuted by the agency.

"This is so obviously a contrivance, and so obviously it's wrong," Morris said during "American Agenda" Monday. "I mean, Trump tried to bring in 20,000 [National Guard] troops to quell the riot. He told everyone to go home peacefully.

"To say that he fomented insurrection is just absurd. And that's obvious just as the two impeachment grounds were absurd, and voters understand that, particularly Republican voters."

Morris spun again -- with a large dose of self-aggrandizement -- in a Dec. 22 column:

When the House Jan. 6 Committee voted to send four criminal referrals against President Trump to the Department of Justice, this should not have come as any surprise to anyone.

Especially to anyone who read my bookThe Return: Trump’s Big 2024 Comeback.

In fact, in The Return, I predicted it, as well as almost all major developments involving the former president.

And I correctly predicted that very soon after the midterm elections, Trump would announce his candidacy for reelection.

I also claimed that he would stake out a huge lead over Ron DeSantis.

All of that has now happened.

Morris' book probably didn't predict that Trump would dine with a couple of anti-Semites or call for the suspension of the Constitution to put him back in office, and Morris remains unsurprisingly silent about that.

WND's Orient, Who Helped Politicize Medicine, Complains Medicine Is Being Politicized
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Like her fellow WorldNetDaily COVID misinformer Joel Hirschhorn, Jane Orient -- who heads the fringe-right Association of American Physicians and Surgeons -- deviated from her purported medical knowledge to opine about politics in her Oct. 24 column:

For decades, we have been moving toward government by technocracy, with major policy made by "expert" bureaucrats in agencies, supposedly above and immune to dirty politics. They can base their benevolent rules on The Science™ and not worry about public opinion.

If you like that idea, you probably do not understand how the administrative state ("Deep State") works. It may be above the melee of electoral politics, but it is deeply immersed in and the captive of intra-agency politics. That is increasingly determined by giant international corporations and global nongovernmental "nonprofit" (tax-exempt) organizations (NGOs) funded by Bill Gates, George Soros and nameless other mega-billionaires. And you can't throw them out.

We need Congress to take back its power from these agencies, and for the courts to stop allowing this unconstitutional delegation of power to the administrative state. We must exert the only leverage we have on Congress: Voting the rascals out.

She then went on to sound like a boilerplate right-wing ranter, complaining that "The current regime is the party of masking; lockdowns; coerced vaccinations no matter the necessity, efficacy, or risk; and suppression of physicians' ability to prescribe or even discuss government-disfavored treatments."

That column was unironically followed by a Dec. 6 column hypocritically complaining about the politicization of medicine, even though she's one of the people who helped politicize it by attacking anyone who criticized her anti-vaxxer rantings and who advocated commonsense measures to slow the spread of COVID as a big-government liberal:

The COVID-19 pandemic, with its mandates, was a rude awakening for many conservatives. In a free society, it is essential that experts and institutions be neutral. For example, medicine should be a neutral tool, the purpose of which is to detect and cure disease. Politicization turns it into a partisan weapon designed for manipulation and coercion.

The very definition of "neutral" has changed. It now means "secular," with the abolition of long-accepted religious or patriotic expressions, replacing them with aggressive ideological advocacy and performative activism in clinical spaces.

Before politicization, medical experts were expected to be impartial, skilled consultants whose role was to guide less-qualified colleagues, reassure the public and advise policymakers about rational public health policies. Politicization of medicine has perverted this mission. Politicized medical experts do the bidding of their masters. They rubber stamp medical treatments and policies that are favored for political reasons even if they are harmful and ineffective. The primary function of such "experts" is to deceive their colleagues and the public.

Many people have started to question the sincerity of politicized experts, and the universal trust in previously reliable experts and institutions has crumbled. The vacuum has been filled by alternative authorities. Unfortunately, the quality of this newly founded industry is variable. Speculation, misinformation, propaganda and outright lies are inter-mixed with true and genuinely helpful information. These dissident experts lack the resources to undertake the sophisticated research needed to answer difficult scientific questions. While their role is indispensable, their abilities are limited.

The politicization of medicine should be stopped and abolished. This is unlikely to occur as long as a heated political climate combined with economic crisis favors the deployment of powerful partisan weapons. While awaiting better and more harmonious times, people of goodwill and conscience need to recognize that we are engaged in asymmetric warfare, and try to expose and oppose the politicization of medicine by any means available to them.

No one should be coerced to follow one set of politically motivated rules presented under the guise of "benevolent" public health policies or "scientific" medical care.

Freedom fighters must not lose hope. In asymmetric warfare, the superpower does not always win, as the American Revolution showed.

Ironically, Orient did not say whether she would stop her politicization of medicine.

Orient was back to good ol' misinformation in her Dec. 12 column, irresponsibly promoting the discredited notion that people across the world are suddenly dropping dead from getting the COVID vaccine and outrageously making Holocaust comparisons:

ome Germans who lived through World War II have said that they had no idea the Holocaust that was going on. Maybe they thought the reports were fake news or enemy propaganda, or that civilized Germans would never commit such crimes. One "denialist" was a bartender whose bar was downwind from the ovens. He claimed to have noticed nothing.

Humans have an enormous capacity to see no evil.

Holocaust denial might have been more excusable had the deaths been scattered and seemingly random, not concentrated in a vilified ethnic group, and had they resembled natural death. Sudden death occurs, doctors might say, as some did in my residency program: "We see this from time to time."

Some who knew full well that Jews were being murdered rationalized it by calling it an essential public health measure, claiming that Jews were the source of the dread typhus epidemic.

We of course are not like them, and nothing could be as evil as the Nazi Holocaust. But consider the possibility that a genuine epidemic might rationalize public health measures that (inadvertently, we presume) lead to death. One is not supposed to blame officials or question their policies. Instead, we blame the disease on noncompliant people, deny them medical care and even hope that they die.

Bodies are in fact accumulating, though not concentrated in an identifiable location. But we are in denial even about the occurrence of excess deaths.

[...]

Financial analyst Edward Dowd presented figures showing an 18% increase in excess deaths across all age groups in Australia, an unprecedented insurance catastrophe. The legacy media? Silent.

That's because Dowd's claims are not true. But whoneeds facts when there is a conspiracy theory to peddle? Orient continued:

Even raw numbers from actuaries vanish. But where are the bodies?

Many were cremated. Most were disposed of without autopsy. Hospitals and medical examiners don't like to do autopsies – insurance doesn't pay, and few families can pay a $5,000 cost out of pocket. The results in any event could be attributed to natural causes. An autopsy of journalist Grant Wahl's body revealed a ruptured aortic aneurysm. His widow said: "It's just one of these things that had been likely brewing for years, and for whatever reason it happened at this point in time." She also said: "His death was unrelated to vaccination status." Quite possibly true. But she did not say what his vaccination status was. (Wahl had been vaccinated and had received at least one booster.) Dr. Peter McCullough advises patients with prior aortic abnormalities to avoid COVID-19 vaccination because of potential damage from spike protein.

Wahl did, in fact, die of a ruptured aortic aneurysm, and there's no reason to trust such a ridiculous misinformer like McCullough. Orient concluded:

An alternative to an autopsy might be to do an MRI scan and preserve samples of tissue like liver or heart for tests that might become available later.

As it stands, we have an epidemic called Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (SADS). Statistics on the full extent are being suppressed. One prominent physician told me he had never heard of it. The cause is not known, and few dare to suggest a connection with the mass vaccination campaign.

What we urgently need is a neutral scientific inquiry that is not politicized. The typhus epidemic showed that this is possible. Even Germans (aside from some murderous Nazis) became allies of their mortal enemies in the war against typhus-spreading lice. Using apolitical scientific analysis of the objective evidence, Nazis, Soviets, Americans, British and all Allies used virtually the same methods of prevention and treatment of epidemic typhus.

Why isn't that happening in America?

Because people like Orient spread lies and would demand that any such investigation be politicized to treat her lies seriously when there's no legitiamte evidence to back them up. She has played a key role in poisioning the well with her misinformation, and there's no reason to trust anything she might be involved in.

NEW ARTICLE: Midterm Stenography From CNS, Part 2
Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com was still pushing Republican talking points on the day of the midterm elections, but the reality of poor GOP performance slowly sank in -- to the point that it was even critical of Donald Trump. Read more >>

MRC Complains About Griner Prisoner Swap, Censors Criminal Record Of Ex-Marine Left Behind
Topic: Media Research Center

Mysterious sports blogger Jay Maxson has been the Media Research Center's point man (or woman) in cheering Russia's dentention of WNBA star Brittney Griner on trumped-up drug charges (even while the MRC was acting all sad that Russian athletes were being banned from international competition due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine), going on to insist that Griner deserves all the harsh treatment the Russians could dish out because she's a black non-heterosexual who purportedly doesn't love America enough (even though speaking out against injustice is a First Amendment right). When the U.S. gained Griner's freedom through a prisoner exchange for U.S.-imprisoned Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout -- whom the MRC had previously deemed too valuable to exhange for Griner -- Maxson rushed to whine about it in a Dec. 8 post:

The Biden Administration today got taken to the cleaners in the prisoner swap of Viktor Bout – the world’s most notorious arms dealer in the world -- for American basketball player Brittney Griner while a real hero rots in a foreign prison. 

This morning, Joe Biden said of Griner, “She’s safe. She’s on a plane. She’s on her way home.” However, American Paul Whelan, a former Marine serving 16 years in a harsh Russian penal colony, is not safe and is not coming home. He was arrested by Russia for alleged espionage in 2018. It’s no surprise that Biden failed a high-profile veteran. He left Americans behind in Afghanistan, too, just last year. 

Griner checks the political boxes for the leftist president. She is black, lesbian, woke. Griner was arrested in Moscow last February attempting to board a plane with cannabis. Later, she was convicted of drug smuggling, sentenced to nine years in prison and recently transported to a harsh prison. The Phoenix Mercury center has already been canonized by the far-Left Women’s NBA.

[...]

Griner returns to pounding a basketball. Whelan pounds sand. 

Maxson censored the fact that Whelan is hardly a saint. He received a bad-conduct discharge from the Marines following a court martial for attempted larceny, false statements and dereliction of duty, among other things. In other words, he actually committed crimes that were much worse the Russia accused Griner of doing (having a couple vape cartridges of cannabis oil) - but Maxson wants you to think his "former Marine'" status makes him virtuous.

Later that day, Nicholas Fondacaro and Bill D'Agostino played whataboutism:

On Thursday, the liberal media celebrated Russia’s release of WNBA player Brittney Griner as a triumph for President Joe Biden. But back in 2018, the same journalists were desperate to find a negative framing when the Trump administration negotiated the release of three American hostages from North Korea.

[...]

It’s right to celebrate when an American is brought home after an ordeal in a hostile country, but what the liberal media have been demonstrating is a double standard of lukewarm praise - annoyance when a Republican scores that victory.

But that defense crumbled quickly after former  Trump national security adviser John Bolton revealed that Trump had a chance to exchange Whelan for Bout but declined to do so.

Kevin Tober went on to whine that "anti-American WNBA player Brittney Griner was released from a Russian prison due to the Biden administration trading away one of Russia’s most dangerous terrorists and arms dealers Viktor Bout" -- the only evidence Tober provided of Griner being "anti-American" was her protesting against injustice by sitting out the National Anthem during WNBA games, which she has the very American First Amendment right to do -- then expressed glee that "the 'big three' nightly newscasts actually gave voice to criticism that the United States shouldn’t have traded a dangerous Russian terrorist for Griner, especially while leaving U.S. Marine Paul Whelan behind." Tober failed to mention the criminal background that got Whelan kicked out of the Marines, let alone explain why such a criminal should be let back into the country.

Tober then served up some Fox News stenography a couple hours later:

On Thursday evening’s edition of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, host Tucker Carlson exposed to a national audience what was revealed on investigative journalist Jordan Schachtel’s Substack, which is that NBC News originally reported that Russia reportedly offered the Biden administration a choice between freeing Marine Paul Whelan and anti-American Basketball player Brittney Griner, and Biden chose Griner. Then when nobody noticed, NBC quietly covered for Biden and changed the story to what is currently the media narrative that Russia said take Griner or you get nobody. 

After airing Biden repeating his claim that Griner was the only American prisoner they would allow to go home, Carlson mocked Biden’s apparent lie: “This was not a choice of which American to bring home. Really? Oh but it clearly was a choice and we know it was a choice because the first accounts of the prisoner swap with Russia said it was a choice.”

Unfortunately for Tober and Carlson, NBC retracted that claim the following day. Tober has yet to correct his post.

In a Dec. 9 post, Mark Finkelstein complained that MSNBC's Joe Scarborough called Republican critics of the Griner-Bout swap given how they are die-hard supporters of the "fascist" Trump, grumbling further that this was "a classic straw man diversion. Many non-conservatives, including MSNBC's own contributors, have criticized Biden's swap." Maxson returned to tout the anti-Griner rantings of a right-wing sports guy:

Due to America’s obsession with identity politics, Russian President Vladimir Putin knew we were ripe for the plucking. That's Jason Whitlock’s This explanation for Thursday’s outrageously uneven U.S.-Russia prisoner exchange that left behind American ex-Marine Paul Wheland and teacher Marc Fogel. 

Whitlock claimed on his Blaze Fearless podcast that “CRT, diversity inclusion and equity (DIE) dictated that President Joe Biden go to unreasonable and dangerous lengths to win the release of Brittney Griner. She’s black and gay. Her membership in the LGBTQ, BLM alphabet mafia makes her more valuable to the Biden Administration than (ex-)Marine Whelan and school teacher Fogel, both white men incarcerated in Russia.”

Putin used America’s commitment to racial and sexual idolatry “to fleece us in a trade,” Whitlock added. “There are rumors that Putin targeted Griner because he recognized that the Biden Administration would be forced to bow to pressure from the alphabet mafia.”

[...]

CRT and DIE have weakened the American educational system, work environment, movies and television. Whitlock says we should not be surprised when it is also evident in our foreign policy. 

Again, Maxson failed to mention Whlean's criminal record.

Brad Wilmouth used a Dec. 11 post to complain that Republicans were being called out for opposing the Griner swap because she was a black lesbian:

On Saturday afternoon, CNN was again showing how fixated on race and identity the liberal media are as CNN contributor S.E. Cupp and former contributor James Carville suggested that racism is to blame for Republicans criticizing President Joe Biden's prisoner exchange agreement with Russia that led to the release of the WNBA's Brittney Griner.

The allegedly conservative S.E. Cupp theorized that House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy criticized the agreement because Griner is a "Black lesbian," and Carville declared that is it because she is "not White" and "not straight."

After host Jim Acosta showed a clip of McCarthy criticizing the plan that resulted in the release of a high-value Russian prisoner known as the "merchant of death," Carville began his response: "So, Jim, I'm going to say something controversial, but I'm going to preface it with something true."

After acknowledging that a reasonable argument can be made against doing such prisoner exchanges because of the cost, he still accused Republicans of the worst motives as he continued: "Does anyone in their right mind think that if Brittney was a blind Chi Omega from SMU that the reaction would have been the same? Of course not."

A bit later, he added: "...a lot of this like a lot of things in America are driven by the fact that this young person is not White and is not straight. And if you don't believe that, you're not in tune with American politics. I'm sorry, this is something that just has to be said."

Wilmouth didn't mention that the MRC's own Maxson specifically cited Griner being a black lesbian as a reason to oppose the exchange.

WND's Farah Goes Wobbly On Ukraine, Hides Reason Why Churches Are Being Targeted
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Joseph Farah declared in his  Dec. 8 WorldNetDaily column:

I was fooled about Volodymyr Zelensky.

Yes, even I. When I'm wrong, I like to admit it. And I was horribly wrong.

How wrong was I and about the entire war in Ukraine?

Last March, I called Zelensky a courageous "Hebrew warrior." How's that? Worse yet, I jumped to conclusions about his war.

I apologize.

I even compared him to biblical heroes from the book of Judges. Sheesh! Was I ever wrong about him.

I was too quick to believe the media – something I rarely do. My whole career trained me against it.

But today, seeing is believing.

So what has he done wrong? It's legion. Zelensky has banned opposition parties. He's shut down critical media by force. He's arrested his political opponents. He has sent soldiers into churches. Zelensky's secret police have raided monasteries across Ukraine, even a convent full of nuns, and arrested dozens of priests for no justifiable reason whatsoever and in clear violation of the Ukrainian constitution, which apparently no longer matters. And in the face of this, the Biden administration has said nothing.

Last week, he announced his plan to ban an entire religion, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – more than a thousand years old – and to seize its property, all for being insufficiently loyal to his regime. A free country does not ban a major religion.

Nor is it permissible in time of war to place soldiers in churches. It's wrong to arrest dozens of priests. It's a war crime. And he's doing it to a Ukrainian church!

Joe Biden remains silent about all this – of course.

Farah is deliberately omitting a significant fact: All of these things Zelensky has cracked down on are aligned with Russia, the enemy who's trying to destroy the country, something that happens during any war. That includes the Ukrainian Orthodox Church -- which is fully labeled as the Moscow Patriarchate -- that still has ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, headed by staunch Putin ally Patriarch Kirill, who cheers Russia's war against Ukraine. A breakaway sect, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, has formed independent of Moscow, which the Russians have tried to suppress. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church monasteries were raided because it is believed that Russian special forces were involved in "subversive activities" against Ukraine inside them.

But rather than tell his readers the truth, Farah decided it was more important to fearmonger about "the Deep State – and the Uni-Party" and portray support for Zelensky as somehow evil:

You know what Big Tech and the U.S. media are like. Ukraine is worse. The Zelensky government bans all opposition voices and parties. Priests are arrested. Is that freedom?

I repent of my once-enthusiastic support of Zelensky and the immoral war in Ukraine. Not another dime for the U.S. war machine in Ukraine. Not now. Not ever. We were sold a bill of goods.

I regret my support for this quagmire – just one more permanent war for the war party.

It was never the right call – especially when we are at real risk of nuclear war.

But Farah never states the obvious: Because he has reneged his support for Ukraine, that means he has become an ally of the warmongering Vladimir Putin and RussiaIf anyone has created that "real risk of nuclear war" he purports to abhor, it's Putin, not Zelensky; Farah seems to be mad at Zelensky for fighting back and refusing to let his country be taken over by a hositile neighbor.

Farah's pro-Putin line puts him in league with WND columnists like Scott Lively and Jim Darlington.

 

Newsmax Hyped (Non-Existent) Threat Of Armed New Black Panthers In Ga. Runoff
Topic: Newsmax

Theodore Bunker hyped in a Dec. 6 Newsmax article:

The New Black Panther Party will deploy armed guards at polling locations across Georgia during the runoff between Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., and GOP candidate Herschel Walker.

The New Black Panther Party was joined by Black Lawyers for Justice and other groups in the effort, which they said is intended to protect voters from violence or intimidation. They also said that they are not endorsing either candidate in the race.

"No one will come and touch, harm, threaten, do anything to any person walking into that voting booth to exercise that right," organizer Khallida Ramla Bastet said Monday during a press conference, according to Fox 5 Atlanta.

"This is a legal position that we are taking. We are in position so that if anything happens to anyone, we are here to offer you legal representation. We are here to offer you security. And that's that. And may the best person win," Bastet said.

The Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center have both described the New Black Panther Party as a hate group.

Just one problem with this scenario: it didn't actually happen. As PolitiFact reported:

However, the New Black Panther Party told PolitiFact it decided against armed patrols.

Ahmad Muhammad, national assistant to Malik Zulu Shabazz, the chairman of the New Black Panther Party, said the group’s members appeared at polling places in Savannah and Brunswick, but decided against carrying firearms because they didn’t want to deter voters.

"We try not to have anyone feel unsafe at the polling sites," Muhammad said. 

County officials in multiple counties, the secretary of state’s office and voting rights groups said they received no reports of armed Black Panthers at voting sites on Election Day. We also found no news reports or video footage to support the claim.

PolitiFact added: "If armed individuals had shown up near voting sites, that wouldn’t be illegal under Georgia law unless they stood too close to voters or intimidated them."

Bunker's story has not been corrected to reflect that what he reported on didn't happen, and Newsmax published no follow-up stopry to that effect.

CNS Ted Cruz Stenography (And Lack of Disclosure) Watch
Topic: CNSNews.com

Ted Cruz was having a gangbusters year of being featured at CNSNews.com -- it help when you hire the daughter of CNS editor Terry Jeffrey as your spokesperson. Here's the free promotion Cruz got from CNS in the final quarter of 2022, which throttled things back a bit from earlier in the year:

• Cruz, Colleagues: DOJ Has No Authority to Quash Speech Critical of Transgender Policy Towards Minors
• Ted Cruz: The Democrat Far-Left Agenda Has Been a ‘Train Wreck’ for New Grads, Young Parents and Retiring Seniors
• Sen. Cruz: Hard-Core Partisans in FBI, DOJ ‘View Themselves as Jackbooted Thugs for the DNC’
• Sen. Cruz: 'We Got to Actually Deport People Who Cross Illegally'
• Cruz Accuses the Biden White House of ‘Unleashing the FBI’ on Israel to Investigate Journalist’s Death
• Sen. Cruz Explains Republicans’ Agenda to ‘The View’ Host in Just Three Words
• Sen. Cruz: Musk's Twitter Purchase Is 'One of the Most Significant Developments for Free Speech'
• Sen. Ted Cruz: ‘5 facts about Trump Special Counsel Jack Smith’ Appointed ‘to Indict and Prosecute Donald Trump’
• Cruz: Democrats Hate Herschel Walker ‘Because He’s a Black Man Who’s a Conservative’
• Cruz: Biden Administration is Moving ‘Systematically Towards Formally Recognizing the Maduro Regime’
• Sen. Ted Cruz: 'This Was All About Weaponizing Big Tech'

There was also an Oct. 31 article by Susan Jones giving Cruze secondhand promotion under the headline "Rep. Comer: 'I Agree With Ted Cruz': Why Have FBI, DOJ Ignored 'Credible Evidence' Involving Hunter Biden?" Not counting that one, there were only 11 Cruz-centric articles in the final quarter, which makes for a total of 65 articles in 2022. By contrast, CNS devoted 46 articles to him in 2020 and 72 articles in 2021.

As usual, CNS has never explained why it considers Cruz so newsworthy, and it definitely hasn't disclosed in any of these the fact that Cruz employs Jeffrey's daughter.

MRC Is Lashing Out At NewsGuard Again
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has spent the past couple of years waging a loud, lame war against website credibility-rating firm NewsGuard for pointing out the inconvenient fact that right-wing websites are not very credible -- which, in the tunnel-vision eyes of the MRC, can only mean that NewsGuard is somehow "biased" and its rating system is faulty. That fallacious whining has continued of the fall.

An Oct. 25 post by Catherine Salgado complained that the New York Times was "citing leftist, biased NewsGuard to back up its claims" that disinformation is rife on what she euphemistically called "alternative social media platforms" -- read: right-wing sitres like Gettr, Gab, Rumble and Truth Social, which she also laughably and dishonestly called "pro-free speech platforms" -- going on to reference how "MRC Free Speech America research showed that NewsGuard’s ratings skewed in favor of left-leaning outlets, the firm rating those outlets as having substantially more “credibility” on average than right-leaning outlets." Salgado also referenced"evidence that censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story by Big Media and Big Tech helped steal the election for then-presidential candidate Joe Biden in 2020, according to a Media Research Center survey conducted by McLaughlin & Associates." As we've pointed out, McLaughlin was Donald Trump's election pollister, so a poll result that supported its client was preordained and discredits the MRC's "evidence."

Joseph Vazquez spent a Nov. 4 post complaining that NewsGuard called out the disinfomation posted at Rumble:

Leftist internet traffic cop NewsGuard is in no position to be throwing around the “hoax” label when its own CEO tried to dismiss the Hunter Biden laptop scandal as a “hoax.” It's a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

NewsGuard released a new self-serving report headlined: “Making YouTube Look Good: Rumble Becomes Hoax Central Ahead of the Midterms.” NewsGuard's primary complaint was that Rumble doesn’t abide by NewsGuard’s leftist ratings system like censorship-obsessed YouTube does:

“In search results, Rumble pushes twice as many sites rated untrustworthy by NewsGuard as YouTube,” which is laughable in the face of a December 2021 MRC study that showed outlets rated “left” or “lean left” by AllSides getting an average NewsGuard score of 93/100, while sites that AllSides considered “right” or “lean right” scored an abysmal average NewsGuard rating of 66/100. 

This is the same NewsGuard whose CEO Steven Brill claimed before the 2020 elections that the Hunter Biden laptop scandal reported by the New York Post was a Russian “hoax.”

Vazquez doesn't prove anything NewsGuard says to be wrong -- he simply engages in whataboutism ranting about how "authoritarian Russia and Communist China" have accounts on Facebook. He also whined that NewsGuard called out the Rumble accounts of right-wingers Steve Bannon, Steven Crowder and Dan Bongino for spreading disinformation, but he offered no evidence that they don't.

When NewsGuard highlighted how purveyors of misinformation saw increased engagement after Elon Musk bought Twitter, Brian Bradley was there to complain about it in a Nov. 15 post:

Another day, another NewsGuard mudsling against the First Amendment.

NewsGuard, a wildly biased website rating firm, attempted to tarnish Elon Musk's Twitter using its flawed rating system. Musk has expressed an eagerness to promote free speech and eschew unfair censorship on the platform, but not without a fight by NewsGuard.

“Twitter’s most popular NewsGuard Red-Rated untrustworthy accounts garnered 57.04% increase in engagement in the week following the change in ownership,” NewsGuard wrote in an article Friday.

New Twitter CEO Musk’s pro-free-speech stance has apparently encouraged “greater activity by malign actors, boosting the popularity of misinformation on the platform,” the article reads.

In fact, both Twitter and NewsGuard are private companies to which the First Amendment does not apply. Bradley even hyped a couple of those serial misinformers -- but insisted that NewsGuard is the problem, not them, because it apparently doesn't have a sense of humor:

NewsGuard took specific aim at two of the 25 accounts that it lambasted as publishing “false” claims about COVID-19: Dr. Joseph Mercola and Dr. Christiane Northrup.

Mercola turned to Substack after YouTube in September 2021 banned his account for spreading so-called COVID-19 “misinformation.”

NewsGuard complained that Mercola “published numerous false claims about vaccines and the COVID-19 pandemic, and that Mercola’s Twitter interactions “rose from 932 to 19,259, a 1966.42% increase in engagement and the largest increase measured by NewsGuard.”

The article also included a tweet of a meme Northrup posted on Oct. 28, depicting a cartooned Musk mocking a caricatured, crying leftist.

NewsGuard portrayed Northrup as “a self-described wellness expert that has also repeatedly published false information about COVID-19.”

Maybe get a sense of humor, NewsGuard?

By not disputing that Mercola and Northrup do, in fact, spread misinformation, Bradley is basically trying to maliciously privilege misinformation by dishonestly labeling it as "free speech." He doesn't explain why misinformation shouldn't be countered, or why he's so desperate to see it spread.

After NewsGuard called out Fox News' Tucker Carlson for his rampant misinformation, Salgado went on the attack in a Dec. 6 post:

Try figuring this one out. Biased ratings firm NewsGuard reportedly gave leftist CNN’s Inside Politics a credibility score of 9/10, while Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show notched a 0/10. 

MRC Free Speech America showed in a December 2021 report that “credibility” arbiter NewsGuard has a strong leftist, anti-free speech bias. But the online ratings firm is now expanding beyond online news to TV news, Variety reported.

Variety said NewsGuard’s ratings of “140 cable, streaming, and network television shows and networks will be available to advertising agencies, marketers, and others starting January 2, 2023.”

NewsGuard’s bias is already evident based on its TV show ratings. NewsGuard scored Fox News’s Tucker Carlson Tonight< at rock bottom, giving the show a 0/10.

NewsGuard claimed Carlson’s show “regularly advances false, misleading, and unsubstantiated claims on topics of importance such as COVID-19 and U.S. and international politics.”

"NewsGuard is a dangerous form of censorship," said MRC President Brent Bozell. "They are trashing Tucker's show and downgrading anything they don't like, then pushing advertisers to bail and force them off the air."

As with her fellow writers, Salgado made no effort whatsoever to rebut what NewsGuard actually said ahout Carlson, even though its report on him cites numerous examples of misinformation he has spread. Instead, she whined that "Inside Politics" host John King is "blatantly biased" while citing a few cherry-picked statements.

The MRC has no interest in a good-faith debate with NewsGuard about website credibility -- it simply wants to shout down NewsGuard for revealing inconvenient truths about the shoddiness of right-wing media.

WND Still Defending The Honor Of Ivermectin
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Art Moore is WorldNetDaily's chief defender of ivermectin as a drug to treat COVID (despite a lack of quality research to back it up), and he was in full defender mode in a Nov. 23 article:

In a lawsuit by three doctors accusing the FDA of interfering in their treatment of COVID-19 patients with ivermectin, a lawyer for the agency insisted that urging people to "stop" taking the medicine was merely an informal recommendation.

The fact that the "recommendation" – which included mocking the drug as "horse dewormer" – prompted hospitals and pharmacies to ban its use for COVID-19 doesn't mean the FDA bears any responsibility, contended Isaac Belfer in a hearing in federal court in Texas.

"The cited statements were not directives. They were not mandatory. They were recommendations. They said what parties should do," Belfer said Nov. 1, Epoch Times reported.

Attorneys for the physicians, who included Dr. Paul Marik, cited three online posts by the FDA, including a tweet, featuring a photo of a horse, saying: "You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it."

The tweet linked to an FDA web page titled "Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19." On a separate page, the FDA stated: "Q: Should I take ivermectin to prevent or treat COVID-19? A: No." A subsequent tweet said: "Hold your horses, y'all. Ivermectin may be trending, but it still isn’t authorized or approved to treat COVID-19."

Ivermectin – which has been a safe and effective, Nobel-prize-winning, FDA-approved treatment for many diseases – can be prescribed for COVID-19 by a physician "off label," and 93 randomized controlled trials confirm the reported success of many physicians around the world.

[...]

The lawsuit charges the FDA interfered with the doctors’ practice of medicine, violating the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and other laws. It asks the court to prohibit the FDA from issuing guidance on whether ivermectin should be used to treat COVID-19. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee, has said he would rule "as quickly as we can for ya'll."

Because Moore is getting his information from a story by the Epoch Times -- one of the more prolific outlets for COVID misinformation -- he's misleading his readers. As FactCheck.org reported:

The FDA’s lawyers also pointed out that although the doctors bringing the case allege that the statements interfered with their ability to practice medicine, the doctors also said that they continued to prescribe ivermectin for COVID-19 patients despite the FDA’s online posts.

The FDA’s description in court of its posts as recommendations didn’t constitute a change in the administration’s position.

[...]

The FDA’s website still explains why people shouldn’t use ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, and the National Institutes of Health recommends against its use for the disease, except for clinical trials.

FactChck added that "randomized clinical trials have repeatedly found that ivermectin does not benefit COVID-19 patients"-- something Moore will never tell his readers because he's too invested in the right-wing pro-ivermectin narrative. Indeed, that touting of "93 randomized controlled trials" comes from an anonymous website that, as we've noted, may be secretly run by the fringe-right, anti-vaxxer Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and there's arguably more quality research showing that ivermectin doesn't work to treat COVID.

MRC's Graham Complains Newly Elected Trans Legislators Called Out GOP Lies
Topic: Media Research Center

Part of the Media Research Center's sour grapes over the vaunted midterm election "red wave" that never materialized was whining that candidates who were young, liberal and/or non-heterosexual got elected (and got interviewed by non-right-wing media outlets). Tim Graham served up even more of this in a Nov. 20 post:

The leftists who make endless propaganda with our tax money have laid out a plush red carpet for newly elected bisexual transgender radicals in state legislatures. On Thursday, NPR's All Things Consideredtypically failed to consult an opposing point of view in a tenderly promotional eight-minute interview with Zooey Zephyr of Montana and James Roesener of New Hampshire.

Anchor Ailsa Chang set up Zephyr to assert that Republicans are causing trans suicides:

[...]

They always stoop to arguing for an end to any opposition, claiming "you're killing us!" Chang could only pose the conservative view as cruel, and no rebuttal was considered.

But Graham himself offered no rebuttal to anything said in this interview. And if Graham really cared about journalistic balance, he can start down the hall at the MRC's "news" division CNSNews.com, which regularly publishes statements from Republican politicians and commentators without giving the other side an opportunity for rebuttal. And only Graham would think that it's "propaganda" to not spew hate at transgender people the way the MRC does on a daily basis, or that portraying that hatred as merely an "opposing view" is responsible, accurate journalism.

Graham whined further:

This one-sided claptrap also happened on the PBS NewsHour on November 11. Laura Barron Lopez mangled plain English by claiming Montana had "a bill that blocked trans girls and women from playing in sports." She lamented there are "already some pre-filed anti-trans bills, one in particular that would restrict transgender surgery on minors."

Lopez painted Republicans as liars: "a number of Republican candidates that have falsely accused LGBTQ teachers of — quote — "trying to groom students," as well as there was a New Hampshire Republican candidate that lost, but said falsely that teachers were trying to put litter boxes in classes, so students could identify as cats, and also accusing Democrats of trying to put drag queens in every classroom."

But the litter box story really was a lie -- even as it uncritically spread through right-wing media -- as is the malicious right-wing portrayal of all LGBTQ people as "groomers." Which, of course, makes Graham's whining that "Lopez painted Republicans as liars" nonsensical because she cited two specific examples of clear Republican lies. Again, Graham made no effort to rebut the argument.

Essentially, Graham is complaining that these transgender legislators are telling the truth about Republicans. Not exactly what normal people think of as "media research."

NEW ARTICLE: Midterm Stenography From CNS, Part 1
Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com abandoned the "news" part of its name to serve as a Republican Party mouthpiece by uncritically promoting partisan attacks, bashing President Biden and deflecting from criticism of the GOP after the attack on Paul Pelosi. Read more >>

Musk's PR Team At The MRC Promotes Twitter Docs Musk Released, Attacks Those Not Promoting Narrative
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center anticipated the release by Elon Musk of internal Twitter documents about regulating users and content, so when he allowed the first set to come out via habnd-picked writer Matt Taibbi, the MRC was poised to exploit them for full partisan effect. Joiseph Vazquez dutifully wrote in a Dec. 2 post:

Twitter owner Elon Musk released damning documents exposing the extent of the platform’s efforts to squash the Hunter Biden laptop scandal first reported by the New York Post.

Journalist Matt Taibbi, who first reported on the documents Dec. 2, stated that they revealed how Twitter staff and executives over time found “more and more uses” for censorship tools. Specifically, per Taibbi, “Outsiders began petitioning the company to manipulate speech as well: first a little, then more often, then constantly.” In one snapshot dated Oct. 24, 2020, Taibbi stated that “[b]y 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: ‘More to review from the Biden team.’ The reply would come back: ‘Handled.’” 

Musk’s release of the documents put an even greater spotlight on the nefarious scheme by Twitter to interfere in the electoral process to help throw the election to then-candidate Joe Biden. MRC President Brent Bozell praised Musk for making Twitter’s internal operations transparent to the American people at last: “Twitter sabotaged the 2020 elections. A big thank you to Elon Musk for releasing more information about this. The American people deserve to know the truth."

Vazquez went on to rehash some of his employer's dubious, biased "media research" on how the laptop story was "censored" by "big tech."

Manwhile, any discussion of the release that didn't conform to Musk's and the MRC's biased, partisan interpretation had to be shouted down. When MSNBC guest Brandy Zadrozny pointed out that the release "actually makes Twitter look good" because they show "People were trying to do the right thing and inside Twitter" regarding a story of uncertain provenance, Alex Christy complained:

In the actual thread, Taibbi does concede that content removal requests were available to both sides, but in practice, Democrats had a better chance of success because Twitter is a ultra-liberal company. The idea that there were conservatives inside Twitter who agreed to suppress the Post article is not anywhere in Taibbi’s thread.

What is in the thread is people struggling to accept the hack explanation, but not be willing to do anything about it. Taibbi also reports the extraordinary measure of resorting to suppression, noting that such methods were usually reserved for things such as child pornography.

Yet, Zadrozny still claimed, “it looked like, this weird story of a laptop left in some, like, repair shop, it looked like a hack and leak. That's what people inside Twitter thought it was. And so, they acted a little fast.”

The MRC then moved to whining that outlets outside their right-wing media bubble aren't parroting the Musk narrative. Christy whined that "None of the three broadcast networks covered the Friday revelations of how Twitter censored the New York Post ’s Hunter Biden laptop story on their Saturday morning shows. However, NBC’s Today did manage to blame Elon Musk for a raise in hate speech on the platform." He then served up even more Musk PR by insisting that the number of " tweets targeting black Americans" only increased "from 1,282 to 3,876 ... that is out of 867 million total tweets per day. The idea that Twitter is a racist hellscape is sensationalism." Christy didn't explain why that even that amount of hate speech is acceptable. (The MRC likes to play dumb about the increase in hate speech on Twitter after Musk's takeover.)

Tim Graham grumbled that the Washington Post wasn't parroting the right-wing narrative:

It took The Washington Post about 24 hours to acknowledge Elon Musk releasing the "Twitter files" on how the social-media company suppressed the story of Hunter Biden's laptop in the last weeks of the 2020 campaign.

Their headline on a story by Cat Zakrzewski and Faiz Siddiqui was "Elon Musk’s ‘Twitter Files’ ignite divisions, but haven’t changed minds."

[...]

They put "free speech suppression" in scare quotes. Clearly, if Twitter had shut down The Washington Post Twitter account in the last days of a campaign instead of the New York Post, these guys wouldn't use quotation marks. 

Then they added: "But by the time the dust settled Saturday, even some conservatives were grumbling that it was a dud. Musk’s Twitter Files produced no smoking gun showing that the tech giant had bent to the will of Democrats." As if throwing huge red flags to defend Biden isn't bending to the will of Democrats??? The super-aggressive censorship had the effect of a massive misinformation warning.

Of course, if Twitter had "censored" the Washington Post's Twitter account, Graham and the rest of the MRC would be cheering it. Speaking of"censoring," this is the first mention of the fact that other conservatives also called the release underwhelming. Graham censored the fact that this group of grumbling conservatives includes Miranda Devine, the New York Post columnist who helped promote the story at the time, as well as Fox News host Will Cain.

Graham followed up with a post whining that "Joe Biden and Hunter Biden aren't in the headlines" on the New York Times' article on the release, going onto huff: "This isn't about a story's reception. It's about a story's suppression. It's a story of a so-called "news media" telling everyone to be completely incurious about documents showing Joe Biden's involvement in his son's international lobbying operations." When the Times quoted a MSNBC commentator pointed out that Taibbi was hand-picked by Musk and that the document release was being orchestatred, Graham huffed further:

There's nothing funnier than MSNBC (or the Times) saying other media outlets do "PR work" for rich and powerful people in "orchestrated disclosures" in service of cynical partisan narratives and pretending it's "speaking truth to power." This just shows you how little they understand about how other people perceive their "news gathering."

Graham is never going to admit that this is the case here because he and the rest of the right-wing media bubble are huge fans of the orchestra conductor.

Meanwhile, there was a new victim to promote. Autumn Johnson wrote in a Dec. 3 post:

Actor James Woods says he is suing the Democratic National Committee after the group appa by Elon Musk revealed that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) ordered Twitter to remove his tweets for speaking out on the 2020 Hunter Biden laptop scandal.

Johnson's outrage was undercut by the fact that she made a factual error that had to be corrected in a top-of-post update:"This story has been corrected to note James Woods intends to sue the Democratic National Committee, not Twitter.

But Johnson censored the fact that the thing that likely got Woods' account suspended was his posting of a full-frontal nude image of Hunter Biden -- which violates Twitter's policy against posting of non-consensual nude images. When that inconvenient fact was pointed out, Christy whined about that too:

The men of late night "comedy" finally got the opportunity on Monday to address the Twitter Files and the revelations of how Twitter suppressed the New York Post’s story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. However, they missed the point about how the Post was censored and insisted the real story was the censorship of nude Hunter Biden photos.

Trevor Noah kicked off his last week as host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show by reporting, “Over the weekend, Elon released the so-called Twitter Files, which many conservatives had hoped would prove that Twitter colluded with Democrats to censor news about Hunter Biden's laptop during the 2020 election. Instead, they mostly just showed the Biden campaign asking Twitter to take down nude photos of Hunter Biden.”

In order to make this claim, Noah cherry-picked one tweet of nearly 40 on how Twitter censored the Post’s article, but that was a theme for Noah and others. As Noah shifted to Donald Trump’s reaction, he again missed the point, “The Republican front runner for president of the United States wants to terminate the Constitution because Twitter wouldn't allow him to see Hunter Biden's dick.”

Christy further huffed: "The decision to suppress the Post's story was wrong whether the Biden campaign had anything to do with it or not and that has nothing to do with naked photos of Hunter Biden."He didn't mention that the main folks desperate to post naked photos of Hunter included not only Woods but accounts linked to Steve Bannon and Guo Wengui, a right-wing Chinese mogul who has been bankrolling Bannon for the past couple of years.

Christy refused to opine on whether it was wrong for Woods and other people to post non-consensual photos of Hunter Biden's penis, or why it was a bad thing for the Biden camp to ask Twitter to enforce its terms of service and have them deleted.Nor does he explain why, in contradiction to pretty much everyone else, he seems to think there's a First Amendment right to post porn on social media without the consent of the person in the picture.

CNS Helps Its Fellow Right-Wingers Attack Passage of Respect for Marriage Act
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com has been attacking the Respect for Marriage Act all through its journey through Congress. That continued upon its signing. Melanie Arter wrote an article that yet again focused on Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer having a gay daughter:

Senate Majority Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) celebrated the signing of the Respect for Marriage Act on Tuesday, which requires states to accept the same-sex marriages performed in other states, by telling saying that the tie he was wearing was the same one he wore when his daughter married her wife.

During the signing ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House, Schumer said that thanks to his Democrat colleagues and millions of others “pushing for change,” his grandchild - his daughter’s first with her wife - “will get to live in a world that respects and honors their mothers’ marriage.”

CNS is weirdly obsessed with Schumer's daughter, and it has published two other Schumer-focused articles in its coverage of the Respect for Marriage Act.

Susan Jones dedicated an article to her fellow right-wingers attacking the new law:

"Today's a good day," President Joe Biden told a cheering crowd at the White House on Tuesday after he signed the so-called "Respect for Marriage Act" into law.

No, it's not, said some conservative groups, who see the law as another opportunity for leftists to force their nontraditional ideology onto people who respect societal and religious norms.

"Today is a dark day for religious freedom," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said in a statement:

Jones went on to bizarrely embrace the Tina Turner theory of marriage:

President Biden stated on Tuesday that "marriage is a simple proposition. Who do you love and will you be loyal with that person you love? It's not more complicated than that."

But for centuries, love had nothing to do with marriage:

[...]

As President Reagan's former Education Secretary William Bennett once described it, marriage has three purposes: “protecting women, domesticating men and raising children.”

Marriage has taken different forms in different cultures, but until modern times, homosexuality was never the basis for marriage.

And certainly, in recent years, heterosexuals have marginalized marriage, through divorce or by foregoing it altogether.

Another Jones article served up even more right-wing criticism of the law:

The so-called "Respect for Marriage Act," signed into law by President Joe Biden amid a cheering crowd on Tuesday, codifies federal recognition of legally performed same-sex marriages (and interracial marriages).

But the law does not prohibit the federal government from retaliating against people or groups that hold sincere religious beliefs and moral convictions about marriage.

Conservatives warn the law will be used against them, deliberately, to attack religious freedom.

"I think they're valid concerns," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told Fox News's Laura Ingraham Tuesday night.

[...]

In Christian religious tradition, marriages are perform in the presence of God to join "a man and a woman" in a bond established by God, a bond signifying the union between Christ and his Church, "and Holy Scripture commends it to be honored among all people," as one Book of Common Prayer phrases it.

While heterosexual marriage is an ancient institution, recognized in some form across many cultures, homosexual marriage is not. The first legal same-sex marriages in the United States took place in 2004, 18 years ago.

In neither of these articles does Jones allow any supporter of the law to respond to the criticism. CNS' idea of "balance," apparently, was to complain that Cyndi Lauper appeared at a White House press briefing in an article by Arter:

Singer Cyndi Lauper said Tuesday that LGBTQ families “can rest easy” now that the Respect for Marriage Act is being signed into law “because our families are validated.”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre introduced Lauper at Tuesday’s White House press briefing, saying, “I know we have some serious business ahead of us today, but as you know, sometimes a girl just wants to have fun” referencing one of Lauper’s hit songs, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”

That was countered with managing editor Michael W. Chapman hyping another right-wing, scare quote-laden attack:

Gay marriage means that "gender doesn't matter" anymore -- you can marry whoever you want -- and this logically damages society across the board, said author and commentator Dennis Prager. 

He added, "The war against gender is a war against civilization."

Prager made his remarks in an interview with Dave Rubin, the host of The Rubin Report. Rubin is gay and "married" to a man; Prager is heterosexual and married. On Tuesday, Dec. 13, President Joe Biden signed into law the Respect for Marriage Act, which essentially codifies "gay marriage" into federal law.

CNS' biased coverage was capped off by an angry Dec. 16 commentary by right-wing radio host Paul Milazzo:

When Bill Clinton looks like a devout Sunday School teacher, that’s your first clue that the culture has embraced sexual anarchy!

Back on September 21, 1996, Slick Willy actually signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act. It banned federal recognition of homosexual faux marriage by limiting the definition of marriage to the union of one man and one woman. It further allowed states the right to refuse to recognize homosexual marriages granted under the laws of other states.

Tragically enough, since then, the Democrat Party’s [sic] platform has become a virtual Manifesto of Evil, championing today’s twin sins of baby-killing by abortion and sexual perversion.  If Joe Biden dared to take a similar stand today, he would be put on the first train back to an assisted living home in his beloved hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.

Milazzo screeched that the 12 Republicans who voted for the bill were traitors on the scale of Judas Iscariot:

The 12 traitorous Republican Senators who voted for the “Disrespect of Marriage” Act include: Roy Blunt (Missouri), Richard Burr (North Carolina); Shelley Moore Capito (West Virginia); Susan Collins (Maine); Joni Ernst (Iowa); Cynthia Lummis (Wyoming); Lisa Murkowski (Alaska); Rob Portman (Ohio); Mitt Romney (Utah); Dan Sullivan (Alaska); Thom Tillis (N.C.); and Todd Young (Indiana).

[...]

Despite the fact that 412,336 concerned citizens sent emails to their two Senators through the Family Research Council website, the same 12 Republican senators were unmoved by the cry of their constituents. Through a series of votes, they repeatedly embraced the sexually perverse bill with a white-knuckled grip.

Here’s the $64,000 question.

Why did these 12 Republicans betray the conservative Christians who elected them with a Judas-style kiss on the cheek?  Follow the money.

Milazzo concluded by ranting: "Now that these reprobates have championed Leviticus 18:22 , I don’t doubt that they will ultimately advocate every sexual perversion listed in Leviticus 18 as right, good, and even noble." His tone is not that much harsher than that of CNS' "news" coverage.