MRC Ramps Up Musk Hero Worship Over 'Twitter Files' Release Topic: Media Research Center
As the selectively released "Twitter files" continued to roll out to Elon Musk's handpicked journalists, the Media Research Center kept cranking out the stenography, as well as the usual whining that non-right-wing media outlets weren't parroting Musk's narrative:
This happened as even Fox News host Trey Gowdy downplayed the importance of the selectively released files.
In between, however, P.J. Gladnick served up a little hero worship in a Dec.12 post:
At just two minutes before 6 AM Eastern Time on Sunday morning, Elon Musk drove the left and their media allies nuts with a short tweet: "My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci."
This quickly resulted in a wall of fury to the extent that even media outlets that have been engaged in Censorship Denialism such as CBS News were forced into mentioning the Twitter Files.
Gladnick concluded by gushing over the prospect of Twitter releasing "COVID files": "The reaction to the Twitter Covid Files could be so extreme as to smoke out ABC and NBC News into joining CBS News by forcing them to also break out of their Censorship Denialism and mention the previously taboo topic of the Twitter Files."
Catherine Salgado cheered another Musk move in a Dec. 13 post:
New Twitter CEO Elon Musk has reportedly dissolved Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council, as the Twitter Files uncover details of Twitter’s previous biased censorship.
Forbes reported that the 100 “activists, academics and civic leaders” of the Trust and Safety Council were informed by email Monday of the council’s dissolution, hours before being set to meet with Twitter executives about supposed “recent issues” on the platform. The “About” link for the council on Twitter’s website now brings up the short message, “Nothing to see here.”
Reportedly, former Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth, who recently left Twitter, and former Twitter General Counsel Vijaya Gadde deliberately orchestrated the ban of then-President Donald Trump from Twitter in 2021, even though Trump broke no rules.
While the Trust and Safety Council was meant to advise Twitter about safety, Twitter’s censorship of conservatives while ignoring actual violent incitement indicates the council’s definition of safety might have been politically biased.
Of course, nobody imagined that the president of the United States would help to incite a violent insurrection, which is why there may not have been a prohibition against it. She also failed to mention that Musk disbanded the council about an hour before it was scheduled to meet with Musk and other Twitter officials, suggesting a bit of cowardice on his part.
Brian Bradley, meanwhile, complained that the crappy working conditions Musk is making Twitter employees work under was being exposed:
Instead of reporting honestly on the newsworthy revelations of the Twitter Files, The Washington Post continues to take personal shots at the platform’s new CEO Elon Musk.
On Dec. 9, Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary released a “perspective” piece that hit Musk for such absurdities as requiring high work ethic from his employees and laying off workers to cut costs.
“Looking back at 2022 … Elon Musk emerged as the grand marshal of maniacal management,” Singletary wrote in a piece titled, “Here’s why Elon Musk is the worst kind of boss.”
Singletary continued: “Those who remained were told to commit, in writing, to a ‘hardcore’ workplace or quit. ‘This will mean working long hours at high intensity,’ Musk said in an email to employees. Hundreds chose unemployment, refusing to sign a pledge to perform at levels best reserved for robots.”
[...]
It appears that Singletary left a key part out of her commentary: There is a value in hard work, and bosses value it.
Bradley then whined about how the Post pointed out the right-wing leanings of the reporters Musk hand-picked for his "Twitter files" release:
Meanwhile, when The Post did write something of substance covering the Twitter Files, it attempted to smear the reporters breaking the story. The publication stealth-deleted a description of journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss – who have reported on the Twitter Files – as “conservative,” Fox News reported. Taibbi and Weiss have not identified themselves as conservative, and it appears that The Post had only included the reference initially to discredit the release of the damning Twitter Files.
Bradley offered no evidence to prove that Taibbi and Weiss are not conservative -- their denials mean nothing -- and the fat that he cited the decidedly right-wing Fox News to complain about this adds another level of irony.
NewsBusters has found liberal cable news networks CNN and MSNBC have almost completely ignored the first five installments of the Twitter Files, which revealed Twitter employees engaged in rampant censorship of conservatives. Since the first set of documents were published on the evening of December 2, less half of one percent of the coverage on either network has even bothered to mention the story.
MRC analysts examined all regular programming on both CNN and MSNBC between 7:00 p.m. Eastern on December 2 and 7:00 pm ET on December 13. Not including commercials, MSNBC aired approximately 133 hours of news during that period, of which only 0.26 percent (1,253 seconds) included any mention of the Twitter Files. Of the approximate 130 hours of non-commercial time on CNN during the same span, just 0.34 percent (1,574 seconds) dealt with this topic.
D'Agostino was silent on how much time Fox News spent on the story.
Alex Christy devoted a Dec. 15 post to lashing out at CNN for not adhering to the right-wing narrative on the files:
Thursday’s CNN This Morning had a peculiar take on the Twitter Files and revelations into what went into the decision to block the New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Not only was it alleged that the Twitter Files actually made Twitter look good, but it was also claimed that it was Elon Musk that was violating the spirit of free speech.
Against a chyron headline that read, “Culture War Theater,” co-host Poppy Harlow began by asking senior media reporter Oliver Darcy, “the Hunter Biden laptop and the New York Post story that squashed weeks ahead of the election. What has come out of the Twitter Files on that?”
Darcy began by reporting, “that Jack Dorsey admitted that suppressing the New York Poststory was a mistake, so that he did, I think, last year.”
Beyond that, he also added that these things happen because of the nature of the business, “So, the Twitter Files, though, they really showed the-- I think the messy content moderation that was happening behind the scenes and I think we're seeing and it's probably no surprise but we're seeing that not everyone agrees, is on the same page when they're making these complex decisions.”
That conveniently ignores the mental gymnastics Twitter had to perform to justify the ban, but Darcy nevertheless continued, “I will say on this specific Twitter Files drop, I thought what was really noteworthy was Elon Musk’s handpicked reporter, Matt Tiabbi [sic], said that there was no evidence of government involvement in trying to suppress this story and that was a big claim that Elon Musk had made earlier when he was hyping these Twitter Files. I think that's very important to point out here.”
Christy further complained that CNN pointed out that Taibbi was Musk's "handpicked" journalist chosen to put out Musk's preferred narrative, huffing in response, "Even if Musk had given the materials to Darcy for a traditional news story, he would still be a 'handpicked' journalist, just one that CNN approves of."
CNS Keeps Up Hateful Biden-Is-Senile Narrative Topic: CNSNews.com
For the past three years, CNSNews.com hashighlighted gaffes and misstatements by President Biden for the partisan purpose of making him look senile -- something it refused to do to Donald Trump despite a similar record of gaffes. That malicious narrative continued in 2022. Susan Jones sounded quite conspiratorial in an April 6 article under the headline "Watch As Barack Obama Returns to White House, Stealing the Limelight From 'Vice President Biden'":
Was former President Barack Obama kidding when he referred to President Joe Biden as "vice president" at a White House event on Tuesday? Obama called it a "joke," but...
Why did Biden feel the need to explain his wife's absence from the event celebrating Obama's signature achievement -- the Affordable Care Act?
And why did everyone, including Obama, ignore Biden, leaving him to wander alone in a room now dominated by his former boss?
Those are the questions. Here's the video:
An anonymously written April 22 article was provocatively headlined "President Biden: “The Caption Underneath the Picture Was, ‘Biden Molests Another Child’” -- though the article was about Biden criticizing the picture, which was actually of him comforting a grandchild after the funeral for his son Beau. Talk about burying context.
The smears and deliberate out-of-context quotes continued:
Biden: 'Which Way Are We Going?' (in which Jones sneered: "As he frequently does, President Joe Biden needed someone to tell him which way he was supposed to go, right on the grounds of the White House.")
A Sept. 27 article by Peyton Holliday, meanwhile, hyped a poll claiming that 56% of respondents "say they 'have doubts' about the president’s mental fitness for office." There was also an implicitly snarky and anonymously written Oct. 31 article on Biden issuing a proclamation for National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month, in which he "call[ed] on Americans 'to recognize their fellow citizens with Alzheimer’s Disease.'"
Concurrent with this was the occasional article about Republicans engaging in performative outrage over Biden's gaffes (again, despite the fact they never fretted over Trump's gaffes). For instance, Craig Bannister wrote in a March 30 article:
President Joe Biden’s constant gaffes, especially those regarding classified information, emboldens the Deep State to keep him in the dark and make important decisions without him, Rep. James Comer (R-KY) warned Wednesday.
Discussing how the administration has had to walk back Biden’s recent remarks, suggesting that Americans are training Ukrainian troops in Poland and that Russian President Vladimir Putin should be removed from office, Rep. Comer told Fox & Friends First that the gaffes endanger American citizens, not just U.S. troops:
[...]
The more public gaffes Pres. Biden makes, the more likely it is that the Deep State will cut him out of the loop and start making decisions without consulting him, Rep. Comer said:
None of that actually happened, of course; Comer was just saying what he thought would get him on Fox News.
Similarly, an Oct. 10 article by Jones reported that "President Joe Biden's comments last week about the world facing the 'prospect of Armageddon' were 'reckless' and dangerous, former (Trump) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday."
On the "opinion" side, Pat Buchanan (whose presidential campaigns CNS editor Terry Jeffrey worked for in the 1990s) has been the leader in pushing the narrative of Biden's purported senility:
President Joe Biden may be making trips to New Hampshire, but few believe he will be running again in 2024, as the manifestations of his cognitive decline appear more frequent and disturbing. -- April 26
Biden has himself become a drag on the party. His low poll numbers, verbal foot faults, visible frailty and perceived "cognitive decline" all handicap efforts to portray him as a strong, engaged and decisive leader. -- May 3
Does Biden, with his shuffling gait, regular gaffes, and physical and cognitive decline manifest that attribute of which Hamilton wrote ?-- May 24
It is not too much to infer from this stunning piece on the front page of the Times that America's newspaper of record, a citadel of liberalism, has decided it is now fair game to confront Biden on the age-and-infirmities issue. Nor is it too much to say that the Times is giving its own belated validation to claims made for many months by conservative media that Biden is neither physically nor cognitively capable of handling the duties of his office, let alone to serve a second term, which would end in 2029 with Biden at 86 years of age. -- July 12
But in a hilarious counterpoint to all of this, a Dec. 2 article by Jones quoted none other than Newt Gingrich conceding that Biden might not be so senile after all and criticizing his fellow Republicans because "We dislike Biden so much, we pettily focus on his speaking difficulties, sometimes strange behavior, clear lapses of memory, and other personal flaws. Our aversion to him and his policies makes us underestimate him and the Democrats":
"Republicans must learn to quit underestimating President Joe Biden," says former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who admits he's no fan of Biden or his policies
[...]
He credits Biden with waging war in Ukraine without any troops; and successfully "polarizing Americans against Donald Trump supporters," resulting in a strong midterm showing for Democrats, despite Americans' concerns about the economy, crime and the border.
Gingrich concludes:
"Today there is not nearly enough understanding (or acknowledgement) among leading Republicans that our system and approach failed. We need to rethink from the ground up how we are going to Defeat Big Government Socialism – including almost inevitable second-time Democrat Presidential Nominee Biden."
Is that a tacit admission that CNS' petty obsession with cherry-picking Biden statements to make him look senile has failed? Perhaps.
MRC's Graham Hypocritically (And Lazily) Bashes The 'Meathead Media' Topic: Media Research Center
For years, the Media Research Center hasrepeatedlyhurled the lazy "Meathead" insult at any statement made by actor and director Rob Reiner, even though "All In The Family" ended nearly 50 years ago -- as if the MRC cannot separate an actor from a role he hasn't played in literally decades. Tim Graham used his Nov. 4 column to lazily spread the "Meathead" description to all non-right-wing media in an pre-election attempt to deflect from the extremism of Republicans:
We don’t have a Mainstream Media. We have a Meathead Media.
Actor and director Rob Reiner captured the paranoid style of the press in summarizing the latest nationally televised Republican-smearing speech by our president.
[Embedded tweet from Reiner: "President Biden couldn’t have been clearer. These midterms will determine whether we want to preserve our 246 year Democratic experiment in self rule or surrender to the Tyranny of Fascism."]
This kind of deranged speech is treated as conventional wisdom. Everyone is supposed to understand that you should feel compelled to vote straight-ticket for the Democrat Party [sic], because the Republicans are the Tyranny Of Fascism Party.
“Democracy is on the ballot,” our president says, which heavily implies voting against his wishes is voting for the end of the American experiment. It would be a vote for autocracy, or monarchy. Democrats somehow cannot see that this carries the echoes of autocracy, or monarchy. They tell voters they don’t have actual choices on the ballot. It should be a one-party state, or democracy dies.
That's simply a rehash of ConWeb criticism of Biden for calling out MAGA extremism -- which Graham never actually rebuts but merely complains was said aloud. He then rehashed another right-wing grievance about the Capitol riot hearings:
They want to run our country exactly the way they have run the House January 6 Committee. There are two legitimate political parties, the Democrats, and the Cheney-Kinzinger Republicans. Both are deeply committed to the belief that the actual Republican Party should be dismantled.
The press has presented this argument in a very undemocratic way. No one questioning the committee’s hearings or rulings deserves to be heard. No one suggesting the committee is a partisan enterprise should be acknowledged -- even when it’s obvious to everyone that Democrats believe January 6 is somehow the best partisan argument they can make for themselves in these midterms.
Bu Graham never explains why MAGA Repubicans are more legitimate than the "Cheney-Kinzinger Republicans," or why there should be no accountability for anyone involved in instigating or participating in the insurrection. Instead, he did more grievance-hopping:
The Democrats and their repeaters in the press don’t actually want the Cheney-Kinzinger Republicans to succeed, either. See how Cheney and Kinzinger won’t be in the House in 2023, and how the Democrats cynically supported what Biden calls the “extreme MAGA Republicans” in primary contests against Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over January 6. Of ten Republicans vote to impeach, four retired and four were defeated in primaries. Only two are on the ballot.
One of them is Rep. David Valadao of California. Before his primary in June, Democrats spent $110,000 on ads criticizing his impeachment vote. Now a Democrat PAC called the Voter Protection Project has created a website, traitordavidvaladao.com, calling Mr. Valadao “A Traitor Who Turned His Back On President Trump To Serve His Own Interests.”
This project claims to be “holding Republicans accountable for their attacks on the ballot box.” But in reality, It’s not about accountability. It’s about putting each and every Republican in the Tyranny of Fascism box, regardless of their actual votes and beliefs. Any Republican who seeks the approval of the press should see the dead end.
As we've documented, Graham and his MRC repeatedly freaked out over cross-party primary meddling when Democrats did it, but had no problem with Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos," which encouraged cross-party primary meddling by Republicans. He also forgot to mention that his MRC cheered Cheney's primary loss.
Graham went on to complain that "There was no 'fact-checking' and no opposing view" of Biden's speech -- but neglected to mention that he hates fact-checkers because they have a bad habit of exposing the falsehoods of Republcians, or that his employer's own "news" division, CNSNews.com, is not big on offering opposing views to statements made by Republicans.
Graham concluded by whining:
["Ex-Republican" Matthew Dowd] compared Republicans to a devastating hurricane, and the media are like a weather man saying “oh, by the way, a hurricane is gonna hit in three days. Good night, and [I'm] not telling you what damage it's gonna do, what you can do to prevent it."
That’s the deranged sound of the Meathead Media, slanting everything in favor of Biden’s vote-for-us-or-else “democracy.”
Graham is hypocritically criticizing the "meathead media" for doing exactly what the MRC does. Who's the real meathead here?
WND Still Whining About Election, Complaining That Voting Is Too Easy Topic: WorldNetDaily
The midterm elections may have taken place in November, but WorldNetDaily has continued to whine about the outcome -- and, of course, manufacture conspiracy theories about elections being stolen from Republicans. Brad Lyles -- who has pushed voter fraud conspiracies before -- did so again in his Dec. 2 column:
The obvious diagnosis is: Democrats cheat.
And if Democrats don't cheat, Democrats don't win. And since Democrats are so fantastically skilled at cheating, they win even when everyone hates them and hates everything they're doing.
Cheating wins.
Of course, as outlined earlier, multiple factors in addition to cheating played a significant role in neutralizing Republicans' Red Wave – but it is the cheating that is foundational. Because none of the multiple other factors pertinent to our defeat, or victory, have relevance as long as cheating remains. Cheating defeats them all. Cheating is the ultimate hole card; merely consider Maricopa County this very week.
Cheating will always defeat even the most aggressive efforts to win elections – even if every such effort is executed perfectly. Even if Mitch McConnell were really a Republican.
The most recent example of efforts – beyond those to prevent cheating – include Republicans' newfound awareness of Democratic success – legal success – at capitalizing on their assault upon election integrity in 2020. And it is clear that Republicans must achieve success in this new world as well, understanding that collecting ballots is more important than winning hearts and minds or having well-attended rallies. Winners now win with ballot harvesting, ballot boxes, focused canvassing, early voting, mass ballot mailing, etc. Mastery of these new election mechanics is crucial to any future Republican success.
However, even if Republicans achieve success in this new arena, their electoral victories will be short-lived, because no matter how many votes or ballots Republicans deliver, Democrats will always find more – because Democrats will manufacture more – because Democrats cheat, and they do it well.
The same day, Josh Hammer insisted that Donald Trump should still be an example for Republicans to follow, even though most of his candidates lost on Election Day and nobody really likes him:
Trump's manifold personal flaws and recent headline-grabbing self-inflicted wounds aside, there is still much to learn from his dominance of the 2016 Republican presidential primary field. Trump ran to the "right" of his median competitor on some issues, such as immigration, but he ran well to the "left" of his median competitor on other issues, such as trade, health care and entitlements. On foreign policy, he was the most critical of all candidates on the debate stage of the instinctive ultra-hawkishness that had become post-Cold War GOP orthodoxy.
While it is impossible to ignore the dominant halo effect of Trump's global celebrity status, GOP primary voters also rallied to Trump's nationalist, populist strand of conservatism. He broke through the Democrats' Rust Belt "blue wall" in the general election, upsetting Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin (not coincidentally, all states that were disproportionate victims of globalization). He narrowly lost those same states in 2020, but all of them – along with Wisconsin's western neighbor, Minnesota – are now considerably closer each election cycle, in the age of this more nationalist and populist GOP, than they were during the "dead consensus"/"zombie Reaganism" years of the 1990s through the mid-2010s.
Joseph Farah spent his Dec. 5 column ranting that a push in some localities to lower the voting age to 16 is part of an evil democratic plot:
Beyond potentially gaining more votes by lowering the voting age, some observers see the Vote 16 push as part of Democrats' broader effort since the 2020 election cycle to change a host of voting rules, such as instituting universal mail-in voting.
Just last year, 125 House Democrats voted in favor of an amendment to the For the People Act, which included several Democrat-backed election rule changes, to add a provision to the legislation lowering the voting age for federal elections to 16.
It's coming. They're serious. They just never give up.
Andy Schlafly was still parroting Donald Trump's discredited election fraud narrative in his Dec. 6 column and ranting about early voting, basically arguing that Republicans can't win if more people are allowed to vote:
The unjustified suppression of free speech on social media and the exploitation of rampant early-voting ballots have severely tainted the last two elections. The sooner both problems can be rectified, the sooner election integrity will be restored.
Donald Trump's tweetstorm, not on Twitter but on his platform Truth Social, hit a nerve. Trump pointed out that "steps must be immediately taken to RIGHT THE WRONG. Only FOOLS would disagree with that and accept STOLEN ELECTIONS. MAGA!"
[...]
A record number of early ballots were cast in Georgia this year, more than during the pandemic in 2020, plus another 2 million early votes in the runoff. Some conservatives mistakenly think that the record early turnout in Georgia is the way of the future, when the real future for our nation is returning to one Election Day.
No wonder Republicans are losing Georgia. Republicans cannot win an election that has "record early voter turnout." As The Western Journal's Floyd Brown told Steve Bannon on "The War Room," there is no path for Republicans to win statewide elections in Arizona, Georgia and other must-win states without a return to in-person voting on Election Day.
Richard Blakley spent his Dec. 8 column similarly lashing out at early voting, effectively declaring that states who can't elect Republicans be kicked out of the union:
Florida's outcome, with its legal voting system, is in line with pre-election polling. But now, with the weeks of counting all the votes and the eyebrow raising "42 million" early votes, and stunning record-breaking numbers of absentee ballots being dropped off on Election Day, we are expected to believe that Republicans lost the U.S. Senate, and nearly failed to take the U.S. House, and many state legislatures and local elections flipped blue! That almost makes you think that someone counting Democratic ballots might have been messing with the figures, where if someone did a thorough check behind them they just might say, "Look, twins … again and again and again!"
Originally, to be a state in the union, there were a series of criterion, among which the petitioning territory had to show governance that prevented lawlessness, making it such that this territory had the capacity to interact lawfully with other states. If states cannot use their governance to insure legal voting, the most important aspect of being a part of a republic, then perhaps their statehood should be reexamined. Maybe it is time to drop some stars off the flag. At the very least, perhaps a probationary period needs to be instituted for states, whereby they can lose their statehood if they cannot get their act together and correct their lawlessness.
[...]
Maybe we can reconstruct some of the voting systems, by having strict voter ID requirements, strict laws against voter fraud, severe prison terms for anyone caught trying to commit voter fraud, no mail-in ballots sent to every voter, no ballot drop boxes, no ballet harvesting, no ballots accepted for days after Election Day and no counting relentlessly for days on end. This would be like putting the figures back where they need to be in a manger scene that has been dismantled. Perhaps by doing this, no one examining ballots in the future will have to say, "Look, twins."
Like Schlafly, Blakley is arguing that Republicans can't win if too many people are allowed to vote.
MRC Keeps Musk PR Machine Rolling To Promote 'Twitter Files' Topic: Media Research Center
Given how enthusiastically the Media Research Center promoted the first release of Elon Musk's "Twitter files" selectively released to hand-picked journalists, it was again more than willing to serve as Musk's servile stenographer to promote the second installment. Curtis Houck did the usual MRC thing of complaining that non-right-wing networks wouldn't take the bait while praising Fox News for falling into line:
On Thursday night, journalist Bari Weiss released the second batch of the Twitter Files that showed unequivocally that Twitter has not only blacklisted conservative and opposing views, but lied repeatedly to the world about shadowbanning. Not surprisingly, the major broadcast networks ABC, CBS, and NBC censored this story from their flagship Friday morning shows and continued to purposefully live in denial.
In turn, the tally for network coverage of the Twitter files remained at 26 seconds courtesy of Monday's CBS Mornings regarding first Twitter Files, which were releasedDecember 2 by Matt Taibbi.
The Fox News Channel’s Fox News @ Night provided an alternative approach by spending eight minutes and 53 seconds on Weiss’s reporting. Host Trace Gallagher shared in a tease on how they revealed “not only were conservative accounts blacklisted, but the highest levels of the company were involved in the censorship.”
Well, yes, "alternative approach" is one way to describe Fox's parroting right-wing talking points. Speaking of which, Joseph Vazquez served up exactly that:
Twitter owner Elon Musk dropped another batch of files exposing his predecessors for lying about the existence of the platform’s elusive shadowbanning operation.
Former New York Times editor Bari Weiss, who first reported on the second batch of Twitter files Dec. 8, noted that they show how Twitter employees “build blacklists, prevent disfavored tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics—all in secret, without informing users.”
“Twitter executives have been lying to Congress and to the American public,” MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider said. “This is an illegal fraud on all of us. DOJ, SEC, FTC and the FEC should immediately investigate for criminal and other violations of law.”
But as others have pointed out, there was nothing secret about any of this -- Twitter's terms of service specifically state that it may "limit the distribution or visibility" of any content on its site. And as others have also noted, this release actually shows how "Twitter spent years finding new and creative ways to keep large conservative and right-wing accounts on the site despite some pretty egregious behavior" -- something Houck and Vazquez will never admit.
Also note how Vazquez cites Weiss' former employment at the Times to boost her credibility. In fact, the MRC has been trying to promote her bid for victimhood after she made a show of quitting the Times because of criticism of her work, suggesting that she is very much a right-wing writer who is politically invested in the biased narrative Musk is pushing.
The MRC kept the PR campaign going while hiding reality:
Vazquez was back in PR mode for the third selective release of documents:
Twitter owner Elon Musk released through journalist Matt Taibbi yet another batch of documents revealing the sordid decision process by former executives to ban former President Donald Trump from the platform.
Taibbi, who reported on the new batch Dec. 9, said the documents reveal an “erosion of standards within the company in months before [the Capitol Hill riot], decisions by high-ranking executives to violate their own policies, and more, against the backdrop of ongoing, documented interaction with federal agencies.” The most damning was revealed when Taibbi noted that the “intellectual framework” behind banning and censoring Trump“was laid in the months preceding the Capitol riots.”
This was followed, of course, by the requisite whining that non-right-wing outlets weren't getting suckered into Musk's narrative. Alex Christy performed that duty:
The Saturday editions of the network morning shows concealed round three of The Twitter Files, where it was revealed that Twitter’s decision to ban former President Trump was the culmination a process that began well before January 6. Other things that ABC’s Good Morning America want to conceal include your face as prepare for your upcoming holiday festivities during flu season.
Christy didn't mention that Musk treating this release like a Friday news dump -- the time when bad news typically gets released because most journalists are done for the week and are slow to report on it -- pretty much guaranteed that coverage would be minimal. Yet the PR machine continued:
The MRC was also still complaining that people were pointing out that people really wanted to use the Hunter biden laptop story as an excuse to post pictures of Hunter Biden's penis. Jorge Bonilla was the designated whiner this time (also in Spanish):
Over two years have passed since Twitter censored the New York Post's story on Hunter Biden's "Laptop From Hell". We continue to learn about the internal processes behind the censorship, but CNN En Español insists on trying to avoid any substantive coverage of the story while gaslighting the public it claims to serve.
Whereas Univision and Telemundo simply avoided mention of the laptop and made their Twitter Files reporting all about Donald Trump, CNN En Español attempted to redirect the story by suggesting that the story was primarily about the sexually suggestive photos found in the laptop, as opposed to details about the peddling of influence while Joe Biden was Vice President of the United States.
[...]
[CNN En Español anchor Juan Carlos] Lopez' redirection is something to behold. Not only does he claim that there was nothing new in the first installment of the Twitter Files, but that the New York Post wasn't really censored, and that the decision to censor was about Hunter's skin pics.
Bonilla refused to acknowledge that people like right-wing actor James Woods were very much trying to post pictures of Hunter's schlong on Twitter, which does in fact violate policies against posting nude photos without the subject's consent.
CNS Calls On Right-Wing Jewish Group For Cleanup After Trump Leans Into Anti-Semitism Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com loves the right-wing Zionist Organization of America -- and, more specificially, ZOA's love of Donald Trump -- so much, it ran two separate articles on Trump receiving the exact same award from the group. So when CNS had to do cleanup after Trump leaned into anti-Semitism by claiming that American Jews aren't loyal enough to Israel at a ZOA event, managing editor Michael W. Chapman knew exactly who to call on to rebut the criticism in a Dec. 6 article:
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), an American Jewish organization that defends the interests of Israel and Jewish people, denounced a letter from 12 Democrats that called on GOP congressional leaders to condemn alleged “anti-Semitic remarks” by former President Donald Trump.
The ZOA also praised Trump’s comments stressing that “there are many American Jews who are not doing the right thing for Israel, and some of them are even serving in Congress.”
After noting that the letter -- led by Rep. Steve Cohen, who is Jewish -- stated that Trump furthered an "anti-Semitic trope" by portraying Jews as having dual loyalty to the U.S. and Israel (as well as Trump's whining that American Jews tend to support Democrats), let ZOA attack Cohen without actually rebutting the specific claim:
Commenting on the letter, ZOA Director of Government Relations Dan Pollack said, “It is inappropriate for Congressman Cohen to use antisemitism as a political weapon. The fight against anti-Semitism is too important, with real victims in the United States, to deploy it like a hammer whenever a political rival speaks.”
“The comments of former President Trump are true,” said Pollack, “there are many American Jews who are not doing the right thing for Israel, and some of them are even serving in Congress.”
“Most of the signers of this letter by Rep. Cohen are reliable opponents of everything Israel does and have also signed letters threatening to reduce our strategic cooperation with Israel unless they adopt the policies advocated by Israel's enemies,” he added.
From there, Chapman helped ZOA play whataboutism by spouting old talking points:
In relation to perceived anti-Semites in Congress, Mort Klein, the ZOA’s national president, said, “ZOA strongly applauds Leader Kevin McCarthy for sending a clear and powerful message that there will be negative consequences to Jew-hatred and unwarranted Israel-bashing which undermine America’s longstanding position of maintaining strong U.S.-Israel relations as a bulwark of our Mideast policy.”
“We urge Leader McCarthy to remove other bigots Rashida Tlaib, AOC, Jamal Bowman, Cori Bush and Betty McCollum from their committees as well,” added Klein.
ZOA Board Chairman David Schoen noted the “classic anti-Semitism espoused by Rep. Omar,” and said Rep. Cohen’s “time would be much better spent clearing out the bigotry among his colleagues than playing politics with such an important subject.”
Chapman did not allow Cohen or anyone else respond to ZOA's attacks.
Interestingly, Chapman and CNS did not call on ZOA for cleanup duty after Trump dined with anti-Semites Kanye West and Nick Fuentes. Then again, CNS has been trying to censor that story.
Despite the fact that his recent forays into right-wing politics have notgone well, Chuck Norris is taking the next logical step: promoting films laden with false claims and conspiracy theories. Norris began his Dec. 5 WorldNetDaily column by touting:
Candace Owens is an amazing and insightful African American commentator on culture and politics. In 2020, she won Salem Media Group's prestigious national "Culture Warrior of the Year" Award.
In her recent documentary, "The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of the BLM," she begins by quoting Malcolm X: "The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent."
That's the truth. But it's only the initial descent down the rabbit hole of how Americans are being cheated, hoodwinked and controlled to believe what influential liberal powers in mainstream media and among the social elite want them to believe.
"The Greatest Lie Ever Sold" is about 80 minutes long and was released on Oct. 12. It has been hailed by many as "the best documentary of 2022." I highly recommend everyone watch it and make up your own mind about the evidence Candace and firsthand eyewitnesses reported. Watch just this official trailer and you'll wonder, "Was I duped, too?"
Meanwhile, actual film reviewers have a less generous view of Owen's screed:
Coming in at around 1 hour and 20 minutes, The Greatest Lie Ever Sold spends 40 of those minutes with Candace Owens attacking George Floyd’s character and repeating Conservative talking points about the man dying of Fentanyl poisoning and not Chauvin’s knee cutting off his air supply.
She then goes out of her way to paint Chauvin as this “good decent man who loved his mommy” and implies (heavily) that he’s an innocent man being sacrificed on the cross by “the system.” She talks to his mother, his co-workers, and friends, and literally does everything aside from showing him walking old ladies across the street and praying over homeless people. Meanwhile, she details Floyd’s life like he was a monster who needed to be put down.
Like most political propaganda, The Greatest Lie Ever Sold builds its case through lies by omission. Conspiracy theories that are able to take hold rest on small kernels of truth; facts that are exploited and decontextualized.
[...]
What seems to eat at Owens the most is that so many people across the country had compassion. She genuinely can’t believe that so many took to the streets on behalf of a flawed human being, a stranger. This solidarity—fighting for someone you don’t know—seems foreign to her. It can only be explained by manipulation.
[...]
In the end, Candace Owens is doing exactly what she thinks she’s exposing: lying to profit off a Black man’s untimely death.
In other words, hardly a fair and balanced portrayal. Yet Norris' levels of gush over the film got embarrassingly high: "When my wife, Gena, and I viewed the documentary film, our jaws dropped, our heads spun, and our hearts were inspired to tell others about this insightful exposé." Needless to say, there was no mention of Owen's palling artound with anti-Semite Kanye West or her attempt to unload failing social media site Parler (run by her husband, George Farmer) onto Ye which was abandoned after he went full anti-Semite.
If Norris proved himself to be a right-wing mark for gushing over Owen's film, he proved to be absolutely gullible in his praise for another film:
The second documentary film I encourage everyone to watch and investigate for themselves is "Died Suddenly," which was released on Nov. 21 and is produced by the Stew Peters Network, the same award-winning team that brought us "Watch The Water" and "These Little Ones."
Stew Peters is a former bounty hunter turned American media personality. His radio show is simply called the "Stew Peters Show," which airs weekdays.
The core of "Died Suddenly," a one-hour engaging documentary, is this: 68.5% of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. 13.01 billion doses have been administered globally, and 2.37 million are now administered each day. At least 262,908,216 Americans, or 79% of the U.S. population, have received at least one dose, according to USA Facts.
The crazy thing is this, and it's a global phenomenon: Healthy adults are dropping dead everywhere. There has been a rise in "sudden deaths" around the world, both in younger and older people, and vaccines might be largely to blame.
Actually, that's not happening. "Died Suddenly," meanwhile, is a discredied rehash of anti-vaxx conspiracy theories, featuring footage of people who didn't die but merely fainted and footage of people taken before the COVID pandemic started, and Stew Peters is a guy who loves to spew conspiracy theories.
Before vouching for thefilm, though, Norris attempted a disclaimer of sorts:
Please don't misunderstand. I know there are a lot of polarities regarding vaccines, and I respect those on each side of the debate. But I truly believe this information I share here is critical for those on both the right and the left in making medical decisions for themselves and their loved ones. Please hear out what I say and Stew Peter's film conveys before making a judgment.
But Norris simply recited claims from the film and censored any of the criticism of bogus fottage and bogus claims. Rather than tell his readers the truth, Norris concluded with more gushing:
One could rightfully say, if Candace Owen's documentary is about "The Greatest Lie Ever Told," Stew Peter's film might just be about "The Second Greatest Lie Ever Told."
The fact is, especially when it comes to the bias teamwork of mainstream media and government officials, we need to do what the Bible says: "Test all things and hold fast to that which is good."
Don't believe something just because one so-called "government expert" said it. Don't let politicians or pundits sway your opinion. Do your own homework, and don't rely on biased algorithms to yield your searches. Weigh the pros vs. the cons. Don't be medically forced to make decisions by peer or social pressure. Most of all, don't check your will and brain in at the door, especially when so many people are mysteriously dying around the world.
Listen also to the firsthand testimonies and experts from many fields in the film, "Died Suddenly"; then make up your mind about yours and your loved ones' health.
No rationl human being would subject themselves to such dishonesty. But Norris chose to go down that conspiracy rabbit hole -- and now he demands that you do as well. No wonder he's stuck writing columns for WND.
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Childish Ratings War Against CNN Topic: Media Research Center
If you're immaturely gloating that CNN's ratings are bad (and smearing its leader with anti-Semitic tropes) while cheering about how much better Fox News' ratings are, you're not involved in doing "media research" -- you are partisan hacks. Read more >>
MRC Served As DeSantis' Campaign Press Agent Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's DeSantis Defense Brigade was keptquitebusy in 2022 putting out various fires the right-wing Republican Florida governor started and proving that, as with Donald Trump, there is nothing so offensive that DeSantis can do that the MRC won't try to defend. And given that DeSantis was running for re-election, the Defense Brigade stepped things up on the way to the midterms to shout down criticism and opposition. Curtis Houck served as DeSantis' press agent in an Oct. 3 post praising the governor for lashing out at criticism of his handling of recovery efforts after Hurricane Ian hit the state:
Over the weekend, the liberal media made the pivot to pin blame for Hurricane Ian’s catastrophic destruction and loss of life in Florida n Governor Ron DeSantis (R) and Lee County officials. CNN was naturally part of this campaign Sunday afternoon as they sent correspondent Nadia Romero to confront DeSantis. Spoiler alert: It didn’t go well for them as DeSantis wiped the floor with the assembled journalists.
CNN chief carnival barker Jim Acosta tossed to Romero in the 4:00 p.m. Eastern hour after he led off his newscast by insisting Florida officials “are facing mounting questions about the timing of their mandatory evacuation orders” in Lee County.
Romero began with snark: “Why do you stand behind Lee County's decision to not have that mandatory evacuation until the day before the storm?”
Showing why he’s more polished than anyone in politics and seen by many conservatives as their top 2024 pick, DeSantis promptly wiped the floor: “[W]here was your industry station when the storm hit? Were you guys in Lee County? No, you were in Tampa. So, that's — yeah, they were following the weather track and they had to make decisions based on that.”
DeSantis added that, 72 hours from landfall, the area wasn’t “even in the cone” and “the periphery” at 48 hours, “[s]o, you’ve got to make the decisions the best you can.”
Alex Christy served up more post-Ian cleanup for DeSantis in a Oct. 5 post, complaining that PolitiFact called DeSantis' complaint about Lee County not being in the cone until three days before the hurricane hit was "mostly false" because part of the county actually was; Christiy whined that this part is merely "an uninhabited state park." Kathleen Krumhansl, meanwhile, huffed in an Oct. 6 post (also in Spanish):
The want for a steady audience to ensure their networks' survival got the best of Univision and Telemundo’s newsrooms during their reports this week about four looters -- three of whom are undocumented migrants -- that were arrested in the hurricane-ravaged community of Fort Myers, Florida.
As part of their efforts to portray Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) as anti-immigrant -- and imply the lootings were justifiable -- the scripts at both networks went from accusing DeSantis of seizing on the arrest of the looters in order to trash undocumented migrants, to hinting that the thieves were acting on their emotions, to saying for a fact that DeSantis had not seen “the recovery efforts involving tens, hundreds of Hispanics”.
[...]
In effect, the takes were a colossal insult for the hard-working, law-abiding Latinos watching the news reports that aired as part of Telemundo and Univision's coverage of President Biden's visit to Florida on Wednesday, October 5th.
To make matters worse and drive the corporate media's talking points of DeSantis being anti-migrant, Telemundo reporter Rogelio Mora-Tagle lumped all immigrants -- legal and illegal -- into one group.
Krumhansl then cranked out a statement that was worthy of a DeSantis campaign ad:
Missing from the report: the fact that since day one, Governor DeSantis has been on the ground (including in Ft. Myers) coordinating and participating in recovery efforts involving tens, hundreds of Hispanics, along with people of all races and backgrounds that have come together as one to help their fellow Americans in a moment of tragedy.
That should be the focus at Univision and Telemundo in applauding the good deeds and calling out crime for what it is: punishable by law.
Houck spent an Oct. 25 post raging that TV news dared to mention DeSantis' opponent:
On Tuesday morning, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC engaged in a comical and hopeless rescue mission to convince viewers that turncoat and Congressman Charlie Crist (D-FL) has a chance to retake Florida’s governorship against incumbent Governor Ron DeSantis (R) thanks to a debate in which Crist attacked the “firebrand” DeSantis over his “controversial policies” and possible 2024 bid for president.
ABC’s Good Morning America was most enthusiastic about Crist. Co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos boasted in a tease: “Florida face-off. Overnight, Governor Ron DeSantis and Charlie Crist in their only debate in the race for governor. The economy and abortion take center stage with polls in the Sunshine State open.”
After Stephanopoulos said at the onset of the segment that it was “an explosive debate,” chief White House correspondent Cecilia Vega insisted DeSantis has “a commanding lead in the polls,” but nonetheless tried to make a mountain out of a mole hill.
"That "mole hill" was DeSantis refusing to say that he would fill out his entire term and not quit in the middle of it to runfor president in 2024. Houck's whining continued:
CBS Mornings had an extended news brief on the foray. Co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King lamented in the “Eye Opener” that DeSantis was “running for a second term, but refusing to say if he'll run for president.”
Co-host Nate Burleson boasted of “fireworks” in which “DeSantis sparred with...Crist on issues like inflation, immigration, and the state’s response to Hurricane Ian.”
Again doing Crist’s bidding, Burleson made the only soundbite about Crist’s desperate focus on 2024 and praised it as “heated.”
Houck unironically claiming that the shows were " simping for liberals," apparenly oblivious to the fact that he's simping for DeSantis.
Clay Waters whined about the New York Times' coverage of the DeSantis-Crist debate in an Oct. 28 post:
New York Times reporters Patricia Mazzei and Maggie Astor reported on Monday evening’s one and only debate in the Florida governor’s race, pitting sitting Republican Ron DeSantis against Democrat and former state governor Charlie Crist.
But under the guise of fighting misinformation on abortion and transgender issues by Ron DeSantis, the reporters spread their own.
They even questioned the moderator’s impartiality (dimissed as “working the referees” when done by conservative candidates) noting the moderator’s connection to Sinclair, a television news conglomerate (regularly targeted by the Times) that doesn’t follow conventional liberal media wisdom.
[...]
They half-heartedly tried to boost Crist’s ridiculous assertions that DeSantis “ignored science” by defying the liberal lust for lockdowns during the height of the Covid crisis, and that DeSantis’s impressive response to Hurricane Ian was grievously flawed.
Houck served up more DeSantis simping in a Nov. 3 post:
For anyone who’s been censored, dismissed, mocked, and trashed for opposing the initial, conventional wisdom on the coronavirus pandemic, Thursday’sCBS Mornings brought about some schadenfreude as co-host Tony Dokoupil went to Florida and found that Governor Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) policies on the virus were not only popular, but even admitted that he might have been right.
Dokoupil said on one of two teases that COVID-19 “hit Florida hard, but Governor Ron DeSantis says he took the right approach for the state’s economy,” adding he would “show how pandemic politics are playing into the race for governor.”
He explained at the onset that “we are going to begin this hour with the legacy of COVID” as Florida “had the 12th highest death rate in the country, 382 fatalities for every 100,000 people, according to the CDC” while, “at the same time, Governor Ron DeSantis says he was right to reopen the state’s economy and remove restrictions long before many of his more cautious peers.”
Having a higher COVID death rate than 37 other states is hardly anything to brag about, let alone evidence that DeSantis was "right," but you be you, Curt.
Tim Graham spent a Nov. 7 post whining about supposed "hit pieces in the last weekend of the campaign" in both the New York Times and the Washington Post. Houck returned for another simping post on Nov. 8 gloating that a newscast apparently "couldn’t find a single hater of Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and open supporter for his opponent, Congressman Charlie Crist (D-FL)."
The MRC also made sure to simp and gloat when DeSantis handily won re-election. Nicholas Fondacaro cheered that "DeSantis winning a majority of Latinos in his runaway victory against Democrat Charlie Crist" was "a bright spot in what turned out to be wet blanket Election Day for Republicans," while Christy complained that Republican strategist Ana Navarro pointed out that DeSantis "gamed the system" by changing election laws, huffing in response: "Sounds like DeSantis won because of a combination of his own strengths and Democratic weakness, not gaming the system, but that Navarro just doesn’t want to admit it."
By now millions of Americans well-informed about the pandemic know that the cheap, safe and effective generic medicine ivermectin (IVM) was blocked for wide-scale use from the very beginning by the federal government. It was a critical but medically wrong tactic within the wait-for-the-vaccine strategy. Preventing early use of IVM has surely killed and harmed hundreds of thousands of Americans. A few courageous doctors have successfully been using IVM during the pandemic, but most feared punishment as they lost their medical freedom.
Now comes a mind-boggling statement from an attorney defending the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a lawsuit brought by three doctors. The following statement should be copied and used by both doctors and individuals to freely prescribe and use IVM in the earliest stage of COVID infection as an antiviral. It always should have been seen as an alternative to experimental, unsafe and ineffective COVID vaccines.
Here are the amazing words of the federal attorney:
"The cited statements were not directives. They were not mandatory. They were recommendations. They said what parties should do. They said, for example, why you should not take ivermectin to treat COVID-19," Isaac Belfer, a lawyer defending FDA, told the court. "They did not say you may not do it, you must not do it. They did not say it's prohibited or it's unlawful. They also did not say that doctors may not prescribe ivermectin."
Imagine that! So, let truth prevail. Let national access to IVM begin!
As we've pointed out, the doctors who brought the lawsuit were never actually barred from prescribing ivermectin (despite the fact that there's little credible evidence that it works on COVID) and that the FDA lawyer's statement does not constitute a change in position.
Nevertheless, Hirschhorn managed to twist this to his own person anti-Fauci obsession: "No matter what is now being said as some type of excuse for killing people, what should remain a priority is criminally prosecuting Anthony Fauci."
Hirschhorn had more bogus claims to peddle in his Dec. 12 column:
Dr. Eric Nepute is the very first doctor the federal government has come after, accusing him of violating the 2020 COVID Consumer Protection Act. His case takes the form of civil action by the Federal Trade Commission.
According to the commission's complaint, Nepute and his company marketed vitamin D and zinc products under the brand name "Wellness Warrior" and claimed they were as effective – or more – than vaccines that are currently available.
The FTC said among Nepute and Quickwork's bogus claims were that "COVID-19 patients who get enough vitamin D are 52% less likely to die," those who get enough vitamin D are 77% less likely to get the disease and that his Wellness Warrior vitamin D product is more effective at preventing COVID-19 than approved vaccines.
It's not until the seventh paragraph of his column that Hirschhorn mentions in passing one significant issue (not that he sees it as one, of course): Nepute is a chiropractor, not a medical doctor. Hirschhorn never asks any anyone should take advice on infections from a chiropractor whose field of study has nothing whatsoever to do with treating COVID. Meanwhile, here in the real world, actual medical doctors say zinc and vitamin D in and of themselves cannot prevent or treat COVID, though maintaining recommended levels of them may helpreduce disease severity.
Further, Hirschhorn's overly narrow focus on what Nepute said about vitamin D and zinc (though no evidence is provided to back up the numbers they cite) hides the fact that Nepute has spread many other lies as well. According to FactCheck.org, Nepute has falsely claimed thatthe Delta variant was not more contagious than original COVID (in fact, it was twice as contagious), falsely claimed that children were being taken from their parents in Australia over COVID safety and spread misinformation about mask mandates and masks themselves.
If Nepute is willing to lie and mislead about so many other things, why should anyone trust that his pills work against COVID? Hirschhorn doesn't answer that, of course; instead, he called for readers to read the FTC complaint against Nepute, adding: "See how your government works so hard to defend COVID vaccines against effective and safer alternatives. What a disgrace. Meanwhile, COVID vaccines will keep harming and killing people."
Of course, linking to the complaint doesn't exactly help Nepute's (or Hirschhorn's) cause, given how it documents how the claims he makes about his pills aren't supported by the evidence.Hirschhorn also made no mention of the fact that Nepute is in further trouble because he continued to make false claims about his pill despite having previously agreed in a consent decree with the FTC not to claim his pills could treat or cure COVID.
Then again, when has Hirschhorn ever been constrained by facts and reality about COVID?
MRC Whines That Hate Speech At Musk's Twitter Is Being Called Out -- But Doesn't Disprove It Topic: Media Research Center
As part of the Media Research Center's Elon Musk hero worship and defense operation, Catherine Salgado complained in a Dec. 6 post:
The New York Times cited leftist groups to bash Elon Musk’s Twitter, claiming more free speech has led to a supposed escalation of “hate speech” online.
In its Dec. 2 article, “Hate Speech’s Rise on Twitter Is Unprecedented, Researchers Find,” The New York Times cited leftist groups the Center for Countering Digital Hate and the Anti-Defamation League(ADL) to allege that hate speech has skyrocketed on new Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s watch.
Musk previously challenged the claim that hate speech increased under his watch when he tweeted a graph Nov. 23. “Hate speech impressions down by 1/3 from pre-spike levels,” he tweeted. “Congrats to Twitter team!” Researchers admitted that the supposed surge of hate speech began before Musk loosened Twitter’s speech restrictions, according to The Times.
One of the “experts” The Times cited to bash Twitter is the UK-based Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). The biased and discredited CCDH released a February report urging more censorship called “ The Toxic Ten” of supposed “climate change denial.” The list targeted conservative outlets including Media Research Center, Breitbart, and The Daily Wire.
Actually, the MRC never "discredited" the CCDH's report exposing how it and other right-wing media outlets spread misinformation about climate change -- the MRC's over-the-top reaction to being named in the report demonstrated how it cannot handle criticism. Salgado continued:
“Problematic content and formerly barred accounts have increased sharply in the short time since Elon Musk took over,” The Times claimed. The outlet specifically mentioned anti-Semitism in connection to CCDH and ADL research and Kanye “Ye” West, whom Musk suspended.
Salgado went on to complain: "'Problematic content and formerly barred accounts have increased sharply in the short time since Elon Musk took over,' The Times claimed. The outlet specifically mentioned anti-Semitism in connection to CCDH and ADL research and Kanye 'Ye' West, whom Musk suspended." Salgado didbn't mention that Ye's anti-Semitism surfaced in early October (which her co-workers had trouble denouncing) but it wasn't until Dec. 2 -- just a few days before her post -- when Ye tweeted out a swastika, that Musk suspended his account.
Salgado whined further about the CCDH, adding whataboutism to the mix:
Further, the article seemingly equated “QAnon” and “Islamic State” accounts, which The Times noted have resurfaced or purchased verification on Twitter. The Times did not complain about Iran’s anti-Semitic Ayatollah Khamenei, who has not been banned on Twitter and never was prior to Musk’s takeover. But bias is expected in an article citing the CCDH.
“Elon Musk sent up the Bat Signal to every kind of racist, misogynist and homophobe that Twitter was open for business,” said Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of CCDH. “They have reacted accordingly.”
At no point in all her complaining, however, did Salgado even bother to make an effort to disprove anything the CCDH said about the growth of hate speech at Twitter under Musk. Similarly, she complained that "Yael Eisenstat, a vice president at the ADL, whined that Musk didn’t seem interested in the group’s pro-censorship proposals when they met" -- but she didn't disprove anything he said either.
Then again, bias is expected when the MRC is defending Musk and lashing out at his critics -- even if it can't prove they did anything wrong or offered incorrect information.
WND Spews Hate At Brittney Griner After Her Release From Russia Topic: WorldNetDaily
Like its fellow ConWeb denizens at the Media Research Center, WorldNetDaily bashed WNBA star Brittney Griner when she was imprisoned on trumped-up drug charges, and it unsurprisingly took a dim view of her release from a Russian prison -- that's because she is supposedly insufficiently worthy of release or the prisoner for which she was exchanged. Larry Tomczak complained in his Dec. 8 column:
After months of detention in Russia on drug-smuggling charges she acknowledged, WNBA celebrity Brittney Griner was "set free" and returned to America. In the meantime, less-celebrated Marine Paul Whelan remains in a maximum-security penal colony in Russia, having been sentenced to 16 years after a closed door "kangaroo court" trial convicted him on charges he totally denies and labels "fraudulent."
At the White House celebration, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris posed for pictures with Cherelle Griner, Brittney's second lesbian "wife." Biden said the basketball star was released after "painstaking and intense negotiations."
Brittney Griner was swapped for Victor Bout, currently imprisoned on a 25-year sentence, having been convicted in U.S. federal court for "conspiracy to kill American citizens and officials." He is a radical terrorist and mass murderer nicknamed "The Merchant of Death."
Tomczak then attacked Griner as someone who "proudly proclaims herself a lesbian, a declaration that caused her father, a Marine, to have her move out of the home" going on to sneer:
Brittney has projected an anti-American persona as she protested the national anthem, declaring that she would not go on the court if it was played. SHe called on the WNBA to stop playing the national anthem during the entire season.
The Babylon Bee recently noted, "Brittney Griner was rewarded with nine years of not hearing the U.S. national anthem."
Dinesh D'Souza, author and filmmaker, commented, "I suspect what happened with Brittney Griner is she became massively entitled in this country – 'I'm black, I'm a lesbian, and I am a leftist, so I am a superior person and basically above the law.' Then she discovered to her astonishment that other countries don't see it that way!"
Many of Tomczak's attacks on Griner are recycled from a column he wrote about her in August.
Tomczak concluded by pretended he cares about her but also hope she sufferedin prison to the point that she became a right-wing USA-bot:
Ever since her sentencing, I personally prayed for Brittney Griner daily. In her trial she lamented that she had been "tossed into a bewildering legal system." We hope God used this situation to bring her to an end of herself, that she would turn to Christ for healing from her brokenness and discover gratitude to God for all she's been blessed with and probably taken for granted as a citizen of the United States. In subsequent interviews, listen carefully to what she says.
Oliver North's Dec. 12 column -- also published at CNSNews.com -- was filled with sneering at Griner because "A black, LGBTQ+ celebrity was exchanged for Russian arms dealer Viktor "The Merchant of Death" Bout. ... Now, Griner and Bout can return, respectively, to hating America and killing Americans."
Back in July, James Zumwalt had put Griner on a list of "regretful ingrates" who "decided not to respect the national anthem at her games by remaining in the locker room until it ended – all to protest the death of the criminal Geroge Floyd during his arrest for yet another crime" but now wanted the U.S. to free her from Russia. Upon her release, Zumwalt unsurprisingly spewed more hate at Griner in his Dec. 14 column:
It is doubtful Griner gave any thought to other American prisoners held in Russia before her who remained behind, receiving no priority consideration.
Ironically, Griner, prior to her ill-fated Russia trip, played on basketball courts in the U.S. where she dishonored our country, in 2020, following the death of George Floyd during an arrest. She announced the national anthem should not be played before WNBA games and, if played, she would await its final note before taking to the court.
Of course Griner was unwilling to take her dissension to the point of not playing basketball as such would cause her financial hardship. Unlike McCain, whose early-release refusal caused him additional beatings, Griner could not even suffer a paycheck hit. As such, she represents the worst kind of social activist – one unhesitatingly willing to disrespect her country as long as it costs her nothing.
[...]
In an exchange for a major Russian asset like Bout, we should have also negotiated Paul Whelan's return – imprisoned in a Russian labor camp for four years (out of a 16-year sentence) on trumped-up espionage charges. Whelan, 52, warranted a priority exchange, not only based on time served but also, unlike Griner, he did nothing illegal. Additionally, he had served his country in the Marine Corps, although it ended in a punitive discharge.
Zumwalt is downplaying the criminality that got Whelan kicked out of the Marines. As we've pointed out, Whelan was kicked out of the Marines on a bad-conduct discharge 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 rather than tell thetruth about Whelan, he lashed out at Griner some more:
It will be interesting to see whether ingrate Griner ever appreciates all that was done, at great national expense financially as well as setting a dangerous foreign policy precedent, to bring her home ahead of others. Griner got a "get out of Russian jail free" card played on her behalf. The honorable thing for her now would be not to let Whelan be forgotten and to stand for our national anthem. Sadly, don't expect that to happen.
WND's original "news" coverage of Griner, meanwhile, was sporadic. A Dec. 8 article by Art Moore focused on whether Saudi Arabia helped broker the exchange, an article by Moore the next day made the unremarkable argument that "Russia arrested WNBA star Brittney Griner just before its invasion of Ukraine as a tactic to gain political leverage over the United States, and a Dec. 12 article by Bob Unruh uncritically repeated Donald Trump's justification for refusing to trade Whelan for Bout.
MRC Takes Potshots At Jeffries As Incoming House Dem Leader Topic: Media Research Center
Just as the Media Research Center took shots at Nancy Pelosi on her way out of House leadership, it took shots at her replacement as House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries. A Nov. 30 post by Kevin Tober whined that the historic nature of Jeffries' tenure was described as such:
On Wednesday, House Democrats officially tapped New York Democrat Congressman Hakeem Jeffries to be the next Democrat minority leader when the party becomes the minority next year. Because Jeffries is African American, and no African American has ever served as minority leader in the House of Representatives, the networks were quick to point that fact out and tout him as "historic."
While all three networks gave brief reports, none of them bothered to mention Jeffries' uncle Leonard Jeffries who has a long and troubling past spewing anti-Semitic and racist comments about Jews and white people. According to Fox News Digital, he blamed "Jewish people for the transatlantic slave trade" and supported "black supremacist ideals, like the theory that higher melanin levels make black people inherently superior to white people."
If Jeffries was a Republican, all three networks would have at least gotten in a brief mention of this or made a snide comment about it.
Nicholas Fondacaro went on another Heathering tirade against "The View" co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, complaining in a Dec. 1 post that her refusal to spew irrational hate at Jeffries like he and his MRC buddies would disqualifies her from being a real Republican:
Alyssa Farah Griffin has been an utter disaster as the voice of Republicans and conservatives on ABC’s liberal viper pit, The View. No matter how many times she declares the GOP as “my party,” it’s clear that she harbors resentment for those who made her. And that was evident on Thursday’s show as she praised House Democrats for electing New York Congressman Hakeem Jeffries to be their leader and whined about GOP leadership.
“I think Hakeem Jeffries was a very wise call for Democrats,” she proclaimed. Recalling her time working for real Republicans in the House, Farah Griffin touted Jeffries as someone who has “credibility” with the growing progressive wing of the party and could supposedly work with Republicans.
Describing the GOP as “my party,” Farah Griffin lamented “their House leadership is a bit of a mess right now.” She liked that the leadership was relatively young, but hinted at racism within the party:
We have fairly young leadership with McCarthy, Stefanik, but we lack representation. I actually really was hoping Byron Donalds, a Florida member would’ve challenged Elise Stefanik for conference chair because we don't have minority representation in our leadership.
This is an example of how detached and out of the loop she is from “her party.”Donalds did runfor a leadership position, he just didn’t win and was considered a long-shot candidate.
It was also another example of Farah Griffin putting the Democratic Party over “her party.”
Only in the right-wing media bubble is saying something nice about a Democrat grounds for loyalty tests and expulsion from the Republican Party.
Tim Graham spent a Dec. 2 post being mad that right-wing attacks on Jeffries as being an "election denier" based on comments he made about Donald Trump's election in 2016 (in which he lost the popular vote) were being pointed out as dishonest:
The Congress certified the 2016 election -- despite the Democrat challenges to it -- so clearly Jeffries denied Trump's election. But Aguilera explains that somehow, Trump's denialism was more extreme and led to the January 6 riot, so somehow it's "misleading" to associate the term "election denier" with Democrats:
Graham was still complaining about all this a full month later, starting his Jan. 6 column by huffing about the "historic" nature of his position being noted:
On January 4, NPR’s All Things Considered did a story on McCarthy failing to win support alongside a story headlined "Looking back at a decade of GOP hard-liners in Congress." But they also spent almost three minutes touting Jeffries as the first black lawmaker nominated for Speaker of the House.
Co-host Juana Summers touted how “Jeffries repeatedly earned the support of every member of his caucus -- the first time a Democratic leader has done so since 2007. That's the year when they elected Nancy Pelosi.” Co-host Mary Louise Kelly added: “The symbolic torch-passing received a standing ovation from Democrats.”
Then came a parade of happy Democrat quotes.
Then he whined about the "election denier" debunking, citing no less than than full-blown Republican oppo research to bolster his argument:
Meanwhile, to represent the view NPR refuses to consider, Kyle Martinsen of the Republican Party’s messaging team sent around a memo on how all 212 Democrats voted for Jeffries despite the small problem that his “record of election denialism is well documented — and thoroughly unhinged.”
[...]
Martinsen summed up: “In total, Jeffries denied the legitimacy of the 2016 election at least 163 times.”
CNN host Jake Tapper proclaimed in 2021 that he wouldn’t book any “election liars” on his shows. That didn't include election-denying Democrats, because this is CNN.
Graham censored all mention of Trump -- presumably to avoid having to explain why Trump's incitement of a riot because he cannot mentally handle the fact he lost an election is exactly the same as Jeffries making political comments about Trump and doing absolutely nothing to keep Trump from taking office, let alone not inciting a violent insurrection against him.
As the new session of Congress began, the Jeffries-bashing began anew. Alex Christy complained that "Kevin McCarthy hadn’t even been Speaker for eight hours when MSNBC’s Ali Velshi welcomed Washington Post national politics reporter Eugene Scott onto his Saturday show eagerly anticipate his replacement by new minority leader and noted election denier Hakeem Jeffries." And Clay Waters played Jeffries whataboutism when a PBS show accurately pointed out how the House Republicans who led opposition to McCarthy's selection as House majority leader were election deniers: "Speaking of congressmen who deny election results, Hakeem Jeffries, who was just elected House Minority Leader, would also qualify, based on his fiery reaction to Donald Trump’s 2016 victory. But don’t wait for PBS to be troubled about that." Just like we shouldn't wait for Waters to be troubled the fact that Republicans' election denialism led to violence, unlike Jeffries'.
The Year In Newsmax 'Non-Clinician' Disclaimers Topic: Newsmax
One would think that if you are moved to put a disclaimer on a column, you should be thinking twice about publishing that column in the first place. But Newsmax does anyway, publishing columns it has to point out were "authored by a non-clinician" with surprising regularity, presumably to escape liability for publishing medical misinformation and falsehoods. We'velooked at a few from 2022 already, but it's time to compile some more.
Noted misinformer Mark Schulte -- who loves to toss around a blizzard of numbers to make his misinformation seem more credible -- earned yet another tag through spending a Aug. 3 column raging at monkeypox -- which actually got the double disclaimer that "The following article has been authored by a non-clinician and should not be interpreted in any way as the dispensing of medical advice":
But in a world with 8 billion people and 22,485 cases, the infection rate is an infinitesimal 3 per 1 million.
Moreover, 12 of the world's 14 most populous countries (excluding America and Brazil), have a combined 4.5 billion people, or 56% of humanity. They have a total of 200< monkeypox cases, or 1 per 22.5 million, according to the CDC as of Aug. 1.
They are: China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, Mexico, Japan, Ethiopia, Philippines and Egypt.
Finally, Americans should stay informed and use their own judgment in reviewing polls, and that includes polls on the subject of monkeypox. Dissecting monkeypox information, or information on other matters of health, should always be done calmly, and not with hysterics.
An Aug. 24 column by Ziva Dahl complained that the American Medical Association is trying to fight racial bias and discrimination in health care:
The traditionally conservative medical establishment has bought into the spurious claim that our health care system is "systemically racist" — that institutionalized racism is responsible for racial disparities in the demographics of the medical profession and in healthcare outcomes for people of color.
[...]
The medical profession has abandoned rational thought in favor of intolerant racist dogma in a misbegotten effort to right past wrongs, insisting that giving preference to people of color is a form of reparations for white racism and must be institutionalized across the medical field.
Common sense says that patients of all ethnicities will suffer.
The public’s trust in medical institutions, which has already fallen during the coronavirus pandemic, will decline as will the quality of medical care.
Among 38,818 COVID tests conducted in their 8.000 stores across the country last week, the group of Americans with the lowest positivity rate for the virus was the unvaccinated.
How can this be?
President Biden and Dr. Fauci repeatedly claimed that COVID was a "pandemic of the unvaccinated."
They used this warning to scare people into taking the vaccine.
[...]
These results clearly show that COVID is a virus impacting those who have been vaccinated more than those who are unvaccinated.
It has become a pandemic of the vaccinated.
An Oct. 24 column by Horace Cooper complained that YouTube bans people for spreading medical misinformation:
Ask Dan Bongino.
Bongino, host of the popular Fox News show "Unfiltered," was unceremoniously banned from YouTube last January.
His crime was telling his audience that the use of masks lacked scientific consensus as a valid means of stopping the spread of COVID-19.
Now the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has put out guidance in the last couple weeks announcing that masking is largely optional — even in hospitals and nursing homes. If you check, the CDC’s YouTube’s page is still working.
There are caveats to the CDC's guidance, but Cooper didn't mention that.
A Nov. 4 column by Crouere offered an armchair diagnosis of President Biden:
What is it going to take for the 25th Amendment to be utilized and for President Joe Biden to be removed from office? He is 79 years old and is suffering from significant mental incapacities. Biden needs rest, medical care, and treatment for his condition.
Due to his mental incompetence, Biden has been controlled by members of his administration and pushed in a far-left direction that has been disastrous to our nation. The report card for the first 21 months of his administration is a catastrophe. His grade is an F-, as nothing he has attempted has succeeded.
[...]
The Biden impeachment needs to happen. If Republicans refuse to do the right thing and give Biden a pass, at the very least, they should demand that he submit to a mental competency test.
Biden has not released the results of any mental competency test to the American people since he assumed the presidency. This test is crucial because almost every Biden speech is littered with gaffes and humiliating mistakes.
Crouere was back for a Dec. 6 column dangerously claiming that exposure to COVID is better than getting a vaccine against it:
There is no question that COVID has taken a tremendous toll on people from across the world. At least 650 million have been sickened and over 6.6 million have died from the deadly virus.
However, the best way to deal with COVID is through building up antibodies by exposure to the virus and effective treatment.
The best response is not forced measures such as mandatory vaccines, quarantines, lockdowns and mass testing. Fortunately, the unconstitutional lockdowns are over in this country, while they are still being used to torment citizens in the communist dictatorship of China.
Newsmax also put the "non-clinician" tag on a Dec. 7 column by John Cylc that endeavored to downplay the deaths caused by gun violence:
If you were to believe the hyperbole from the left, firearms are what make humans dangerous. They perpetrate a false narrative that firearms cause more deaths than any item ever invented.
[...]
Besides the occasional mass shooting (another mental health issue), most firearm homicides are inner-city shootings between gangs and thugs who battle for control of the Democrat strongholds that liberal/leftist politicians ignore once elected. (More here.)
These are the places where cops are few and outnumbered, and where district attorneys cut deals and downgrade charges to make statistics falsely show that crime is lower or dropping.
There is a simple and rational point that disproves holding the firearm responsible for these crimes. Conservatively, there are 100,000,000 U.S. gun owners, with a total of approximately 300,000,000 firearms.
If firearms were the problem, shouldn't the firearm deaths be in the hundreds of thousands, or even in the millions? Maybe the government should attempt disarming all the criminals and leave everyone else alone?
In another odd move, Newsmax stuck a "non-clinician" tag on a Dec. 7 column by Callista Gingrich touting research into developing a vaccine to counter the effects of fentanyl. But it got back to its usual tagging tactics when Michael Reagan and Michael Shannon spouted anti-vaccine rantings in a Dec. 17 column:
The COVID vaccines are the most dangerous substance Americans have ever been ordered to inject into their bodies.
The disabling and often deadly side effects from these vaccines outnumber all the total side effects from every other U.S. vaccine since record keeping began.
Let's review:
Vaccines were marketed in a false and deceptive fashion
Vaccines did not prevent the vaccinated from getting COVID
Vaccines did not prevent the vaxxed from transmitting COVID
Vaccines did not prevent being hospitalized with COVID
Vaccines did not prevent deaths from COVID
And — the side effects were hidden from the American public.
Actually, the vaccines do save lives, but that truth is not part of Reagan's misinformation narrative.
But Newsmax oddly stuck the "non-clinician" tag on a Nov. 14 column by token liberal writer Susan Estrich, who was imparting actual facts about COVID vaccines:
"I don't believe in vaccines," otherwise intelligent people will tell me with a straight face. Exactly what do you believe in, if not science? Are your children vaccinated? Of course.
Science is irrefutable on this one: It's better, safer, life-saving, even, to protect yourself against COVID and flu. People also die of flu. They die of hospital-acquired infections. They die of COVID. They do not die of flu shots or COVID boosters. Science is not a debate about which reasonable people can differ.
[...]
I'll survive if I get it, the naysayers tell me. Why get another shot? Because while it's true that you probably will survive, you might be miserably sick or, worse, struggle with the after-effects of long COVID. You might infect someone who won't survive. As opposed to the sting of a shot.
Estrich got the "non-clinician" tag again in a Dec. 27 column pointing out the fact that COVID is spreading again in part because people aren't wearing masks and that government officials won't mandate mask-wearing because it's politically unpopular. Again, no actual misinformation in her column.
WND Still Promoting COVID Misinformer Malone Topic: WorldNetDaily
Along with Peter McCullough, another one of WorldNetDaily's favorite COVID misinformers is Robert Malone, whose role in working with mRNA vaccines WND has helped to embellish. It has n't done as much late with Malone as it has with McCullough, but he still get favorable, uncritical press at WND. An Aug. 19 article by Art Moore touted how Malone was suing the Washington Post for exposing his COVID vaccine lies:
Dr. Robert Malone, a leading critic of the COVID-19 vaccines and an inventor of the mRNA technology platform on which they are based, filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit against the Washington Post on Friday for accusing him of spreading "dangerous lies" and "leading his followers on a journey to illness, suffering and possible death."
In an hour-long video interview Friday with WND (embedded below), Malone explained that many major news outlets, including the New York Times, have cast him in a similar light. But the Post's report Jan. 24 on his speech at the "Defeat the Mandates" rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial was "particularly egregious," he said.
After receiving a cease-and-desist letter from his lawyer, Malone said, the Post "put out another attack article in which they repeated the same defamatory statements."
"So that appears to show malice," he said.
But while Moore cites claims Malone says are defamatory, it's not explain how that it so. Moore also didn't mention that Malone is being represented in the lawsuit by Steven Biss, an attorney who loves to file dubious defamation lawsuits to silence the critics of his clients (Devin Nunes, for one, for whom Biss sued to silence a satirical Twitter account purporting to be Nunes' cow) to the point that he has gotten sanctioned. While the lawsuit seems to be ongoing -- few documents beyond Malone's complaint are public, though one paywalled document is the Post's request for dismissal due to "failure to state a claim" -- WND hasn't reported on it since.
(Malone has a history of retaliating against his critics, having once exposed the name and workplace of a doctor who reported him to a state medical board for spreading COVID misinformation, which then caused the doctor to receive threats, verbal attacks and retaliatory complaints.)
Moore devoted a Nov. 19 article to Malone's new book:
The coronavirus pandemic has been a revelation to many, not least to Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of the mRNA technology platform used in the Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines he vehemently opposes.
Malone sets the stage with an opening chapter intriguingly titled "How I Got Red-Pilled, and the Gradual Reveal."
The book – written with his wife, Jill Glasspool Malone – includes chapters by other outspoken physician scientists, Drs. Meryl Nass, Paul Marik and Pierre Kory. And there's one by Ed Dowd, the former Wall Street analyst who has compiled evidence from the insurance and funeral industries, and government databases showing a spike in excess deaths corresponding to the rollout of the COVID mRNA vaccines.
Moore wouldn't say it, but Malone has thrown in his lot with anti-vaxxers, given how the book's forward is written by prominent anti-vaxxer Robert Kennedy Jr. and the cover bears the logo of Kennedy's anti-vaxx group, Children's Health Defense.
Bob Unruh called on Malone to complain about the CDC's use of language in a Jan. 7 article:
Dr. Robert W. Malone, a renowned physician and biochemist whose worked has focused on the mRNA technology that was used in the COVID-19 shots, is chiding the U.S. Centers for Disease Control for wanting to rid the nation of "wrong-speak."
In a column that appeared at the Brownstone Institute, he cited the CDC's new "guide" that imposes requirements for "how we are all to speak and write."
The orders to America are found under the agency's "Preferred Terms for Select Population Groups & Communities."
"Now, how exactly this guide fits in with the CDC mission is beyond me," he noted, since the agency is "tasked with disease control and prevention …. not tasked with correcting wrong-speak."
Neither Malone nor Unruh explained why it's somehow a bad thing to not denigrate people through use of careless and stereotypical language, especially when you're trying to help them as the CDC is.
As the selectively released "Twitter files" continued to roll out to Elon Musk's handpicked journalists, the Media Research Center kept cranking out the stenography, as well as the usual whining that non-right-wing media outlets weren't parroting Musk's narrative:
For the past three years, CNSNews.com 
For years, the Media Research Center 
The midterm elections may have taken place in November, but WorldNetDaily has 
Given 
CNSNews.com loves the right-wing Zionist Organization of America -- and, more specificially, ZOA's love of Donald Trump -- so much, it ran 
Despite the fact that his recent forays into right-wing politics 
The Media Research Center's DeSantis Defense Brigade was 
Prolific
As part of the Media Research Center's Elon Musk hero worship and defense operation, Catherine Salgado complained in a Dec. 6 
Like its fellow ConWeb denizens at the 
Just as the Media Research Center 
One would think that if you are moved to put a disclaimer on a column, you should be thinking twice about publishing that column in the first place. But Newsmax does anyway, 
Along with 
