CNS Followed MRC Parent In Exploiting CPAC (And Censoring Lawsuit Against Matt Schlapp) Topic: CNSNews.com
Like its Media ResearchCenter parent, CNSNews.com has had its issues with conservative gathering CPAC -- mainly due to failures to hate LGBT people as much as CNS does. And like its MRC parent, CNS let bygones be bygones and gave this year's gathering relentlessly positive coverage. Coverage kicked off with an anonymously written March 2 piece touting the musings of CNS' boss:
While participating in a panel discussion at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, Brent Bozell, the founder and president of the Media Research Center (of which CNSNews.com is a part) discussed Don Lemon, the co-host of CNN’s “This Morning” program.
The panel was moderated by radio host Larry O’Connor and included Libs of TikTok creator Chaya Raichik and Townhall columnist Kurt Schlichter as well as Bozell.
[...]
“If they believed in market economics, by the way, they would fire everybody on CNN,” said Bozell.
A second anonymously written article from that panel quoted other panelists praising Bozell for the MRC's focus on "big tech" and Bozell ranting that those platforms are"censoring speech."
That was followed by a March 3 article by Craig Bannister hyping GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley ranting about how Chinese companies owning land in the U.S. means taht "enemies own land in our country."
CNS typically takes the weekend off -- an odd thing to do for something that claims to be a "news" operation -- so the next CPAC-related articles didn't appear until March 6. Spencer J. Fairfield hyped former Trump adviser K.T. McFarland's dubious apprach to Russia's invasion of Ukraine: “a negotiation is so much more effective when you’ve got your arms around the guy’s neck.”
The big attraction, though, was Donald Trump's speech -- so much so that CNS devoted two articles to it, even though one would have easily sufficed. The first was a stenography piece from Susan JOnes:
In a speech at CPAC on Saturday, former President Donald Trump talked at length about "the forces tearing America down," and -- sounding a familiar theme -- he discussed his plan to "make American great again."
"The agenda I have laid out today will end America's destruction, but it is not enough just to stop the forces tearing America down," Trump said:
"I want, once again, to build America up," Trump said:
[...]
Earlier in his speech, Trump noted that in 2016, he promised to be the "voice" of Americans.
"Today, I add, I am your warrior, I am your justice," he said.
"And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I am your retribution. I will totally obliterate the deep state..."
The second was anonymously written but took the same stenographical approach Jones did:
Former President Donald Trump gave a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, where he described in stark terms what he sees happening in America if those who oppose what conservatives are fighting for succeed.
“If those opposing us succeed, our once beautiful USA will be a failed country that no one will even recognize--a lawless, open borders, crime-ridden, filthy, communist nightmare,” said Trump.
“The most important battle in our lives is taking place right now as we speak,” said Trump. “For seven years, you and I have been engaged in an epic struggle to rescue our country from the people who hate it and want to absolutely destroy it.”
Here is a transcript of the part of Trump’s CPAC speech where he said opponents of what conservatives are fighting to achieve for America, this nation will become “a lawless, open borders, crime-ridden, filthy, communist nightmare:”
CNS loves to be Trump's servile stenographer, in stark contrast to its constant nitypicking of President Biden. We've noted how CNS refused to fact-check Trump's 2021 CPAC speech, though a couple weeks earlier it claimed to find "3 errors in 12 seconds" in a speech by Biden a couple weeks earlier.There were fact-checks of this year's Trump speech as well, but CNS wasn't interested.
Another thing you won't find at CNS: any mention of the sexual misconduct lawsuit filed against CPAC leader Matt Schlapp by a male staffer for Herschel Walker's doomed Georgia Senate campaign. Apparently, using CPAC to promote its parent's right-wing agenda meant more to CNS than indulging in the homophobia that previously caused it to trash CPAC (or, you know, behaving like the "news" organization it claims to be and report news).
Hate-Filled MRC Sports Blogger Pushes Even More Anti-LGBT Hatred Topic: Media Research Center
Mysterious Media Research Center sports blogger Jay Maxson has always hated LGBT people, despite having an sexually ambiguous name and an utter lack of presence outside the MRC that makes it unclear what gender Maxson is. Maxson reprised his (or her) hatred of transgender athletes in a Jan. 17 post:
Welcome to your nightmare as the incoming president of the NCAA, Charlie Baker. At the NCAA’s most recent convention, people protested the association’s leniency on allowing males to compete in women’s sports. You’re also bringing along trans baggage from your time as the former governor of Massachusetts. Hope you can handle the heat!
The NCAA convention in San Antonio ended three days ago, but not without boiling controversy. Demonstrators blasted the NCAA for allowing men, like Penn U. swimmer Will “Lia” Thomas, to compete in and destroy the competitive balance in collegiate women's sports. They gathered 10,000 petition signatures against this nonsense.
[...]
Bottom line? Lia Thomas wannabes, elbow the women aside and walk right into their locker rooms and have a go at ill-gotten national fame and glory. The NCAA appears primed to maintain the status quo – making a mockery of women’s athletics.
Maxson used a Jan. 26 post to praise an Australian basketball team for rejecting a pride-themed jersey:
A brave pro basketball team in Australia said “no” to the ‘bow Wednesday. As in the LGBT rainbow pride uniform logo they refused to wear in their game. Several team members felt the pride event was an affront to their religious beliefs, and the entire team rebuffed pride night. No American pro sports team has ever displayed such courage against the LGBT mafia.
[...]
It’s a sad statement that in this Australian league each team’s toughest opposition comes from the LGBT mafia.
Maxson never explained what this "LGBT mafia" is supposed to be or even who its members are; do they whack you if don't give them a cut of your pride jersey revenue?
Maxson returned on Feb. 1 to hype a Fox News commentary by anti-trans college swimmer Riley Gaines, adding: "The woke madness needs to stop...and women’s sports need more people like Gaines with the courage to speak up against the injustices perpetrated on them."
Maxson ranted about another pride jersey-related incident in Australia in a Feb. 16 post:
Remember when the LGBTQABCD was an appeal for live and let love liberalism? Those day are long gone., and the tolerant folks have gone fascist. They continually try to impose their views on others, and now six-year-olds in Australia have been given an ultimatum to either wear rainbow shirts or sit out a high-profile kids’ soccer game.
Next week, children will play during the halftime of an A-League pro match between Melbourne Victory and Adelaide. That is, they’ll play only if they bow down and wear the rainbow shirt. Those refusing to go along with the rainbow power move will not play in front of a large crowd.
[...]
A soccer fan Tweeted that forcing kids to wear pride shirts is not about inclusion. The fan is right. It’s all about indoctrination and treating non-participants as pariahs.
Note that Maxson has to run to Australia -- where the MRC's readership is negligible -- to feed his anti-LGBT outrage machine.
Maxson spent a Feb. 20 post sneering at a minor-league baseball player who came out as gay:
No active Major League Baseball player has ever come out of the closet. The alphabet mafia is hoping for that day, but for now, LGBTQABCD folks can only get excited when obscure minor leaguer announce that he's homosexual while playing in the bus leagues or somebody comes out after he's given up baseball.
The alphabet crowd was crowing over the weekend when Anderson Comas, a pitcher somewhere in the depths of the Chicago White Sox organization announced he digs guys.
The Chisox announced on Twitter, “We are all so proud of you, Anderson!” Oddly enough, the Sox post also included the name of singer Lady Gaga and the name of her song “Born This Way.” Whatever.
Comas, 23, pitched last season for the Kannapolis, N.C. Cannon Ballers, a Class A affiliate of the White Sox. He was called to the mound just 11 times and recorded an awful 6.35 earned run average. His unearned pride average is now soaring though.
[...]
Heterosexual players are never congratulated or celebrated for helping to raise the next generation of human beings.
Maxson lashed out at transgender athletes again in a March 2 post:
Quick, what is Minnesota’s state bird? If you said “loon,” you nailed it. Some of those loons are not the feathered kind, but those of the robed variety. As in members of a Ramsey County district court that ruled USA Powerlifting violated the human rights of a man seeking to compete in the women’s division.
Equally loony? The state legislature, which created the Minnesota Human Rights Act, which is a get-out-of-male card allowing people to compete in any division they want to. Most notably, it prevents the ability of women to compete on a level playing field of sports without the intrusion of stronger males.
This was followed by a March 8 post cheering Elon Musk and "non-woke" ESPN talking head Sage Steele for having the conservatively correct opinion about this.
Maxson used a March 13 post tohave a freakout over soccer star Megan Rapinoe (whom Maxson and the MRC despise for her failure to be heterosexual) for being a bit critical of white heterosexuals:
If soccer players could score goals with their big mouths, Megan Rapinoe would have scored 10,000 times on the pitch by now. Late last week, she received one of Time magazine’s woman of the year awards and turned the awards ceremony into a thorough trashing of straight white women and the states attempting to ban transgender males from women’s sports.
Like a shock jock, Rapinoe took the stage, with her underwear sticking up above her slacks, saying, “Ya all gotta be f**ked up, goin’ after (fellow woman of the year award winner) Angela Bassett and f**k you, man. This f**ked up.” It was all downhill from there for Rapinoe. Real classy. Nice selection there, Time.
“White women have left black women—and everyone else—behind. Straight women leave queer women behind,” Rapinoe told those in the Los Angeles audience. “Let’s not be those kinds of people. Being a woman: make it expansive. Don’t ever leave anybody behind.
"Let’s bring everyone in and figure the rest out from there," she concluded.
Yeah, let’s turn the world into one big gender-confused mess and see what happens. What a splendid idea. And what a role model, she isn’t.
[...]
Unfortunately, nothing about the grandstanding Rapinoe’s presence on the world stage is indicative of any shrinkage or softening. She’s all big mouth, all rainbow rad, all the time - not to mention a terrible role model for young girls.
Says a guy (or gal) who can only grandstand by spewing hate at a right-wing blog.
Author Of New Anti-Fact-Checker Book Moonlights As Propagandist For Shady Chinese Billionaire Topic: Newsmax
Matt Palumbo is the author of a upcoming book pushing the right-wing narrative against fact-checkers for committing the offense of fact-checking right-wingers (a narrative the Media Research Center also likes to peddle). We had a little dust-up with him on Twitter a couple weeks back, in which Palumbo responded to our snark with lame insults. His apparent day job, according to his Twitter bio, is "content manager," whatever that is for right-wing radio host Dan Bongino (who is publishing Palumbo's book under the Liberatio Protocol imprint).
But it turns out that Palumbo has another side gig: shilling for Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui (a.k.a. Miles Guo and Ho Wan Kwok), the moneybags keeping far-right activist Steve Bannon afloat who was recently indicted for fraud.
Asexposed by fellow right-winger Lawrence Sellin, Palumbo is among a group of writers Guo and/or his affilates are paying to write nice things about him, then paying to have those articles published at websites such as Newsmax and the GatewayPundit. The posts at Gateway Pundit are listed as being sponsored by something called "NewNoah," which Sellin suggests is a consulting firm controlled by Guo. A couple of these articles recently popped up on Newsmax, under gray-box "SPONSOR" posts on the front page, both of which are listed as being sponsored by "Token Team," which we can presume is another Guo-controlled company.
On March 15th, Miles Guo was arrested by the DOJ just before he was scheduled to testify in the trial of Pras Michel. Is The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) making every effort to prevent that testimony - because they know it’ll pull back the curtain and further expose the CCP’s infiltration of the U.S. government?
Another paid writer, Kelly John Walker, ranted in the second article:
The "fox hunt" for prominent Chinese dissident, Mr. Miles Guo reads like a Cold War-era spy novel. Indeed, the U.S. is in a high-stakes cold war against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with the tendrils of their malign influence pervading our legal system like a cancer. That infiltration raises the question as to whether or not some defendants are being denied due process or have instead become victims of the CCP’s “lawfare” strategy.
[...]
Why, in light of these foundational legal principles, is prominent anti-CCP dissident Mr. Miles Guo being held in custody without bail and without due process? Has the CCP exercised undue influence and pressure on the DOJ? Are there conflicts of interest and bias in the prosecution of Guo?
As Sellin has noted, neither Palumbo nor Walker promote their Guo work to their own readership even as it's being spread in pro-Guo circles.
Getting caught shilling for a shady foreign billionaire, and a recently arrested one to boot, is not a good look for a guy with a new book to plug. We wonder if any of Palumbo's interviewers will raise this shady connection with him as he promotes his new book.Perhaps he can shed light on why he's doing this.
WND's Kupelian Rants In Interview With Larry Elder Topic: WorldNetDaily
In promoting a recent softball interview he did with Larry Elder -- the failed right-wing California gubernatorial candidate and WorldNetDaily columnist who's still desperatelytrying to justify discredited pro-Trump narratives -- WND managing editor David Kupelian made sure to flatter his interviewer:
Just days after disclosing that he’s seriously considering a run for the U.S. presidency in 2024, popular talk-show host, bestselling author and columnist Larry Elder interviewed longtime WND Managing Editor David Kupelian on his Epoch Times daily video podcast.
The first column outlined those three alleged ways: pray, support the constitution and "support parallel institutions in America that champion our cherished Judeo-Christian values and not the communistic, nihilistic, globalist values of society’s current ruling elites." Kupelian unsurprisingly followed that with a money beg for WND -- as if spreading fake news and misinformation is a "cherished Judeo-Christian value." In the latter column, Kupelian ranted that "Today’s rampant transgender grooming craze amounts to widespread child sexual abuse of the most serious and irreversible kind," huffing that colleges are "undoubtedly the most deranged and toxic places in the country, where young people are indoctrinated assembly-line style with Marxist ideology, intimidated into adopting perverse “woke” sensibilities and effortlessly drawn into immoral and hopeless lifestyles." He ranted further that "The left literally violates all of the Ten Commandments every single day – not accidentally, but purposefully, since the core dynamic of the left’s operating system entirely depends upon violating God’s laws. Therefore, they create false gods to worship (though some vainly pretend to venerate the true God), they specifically teach children not to honor their parents, they kill innocent babies, they steal citizens’ wealth, they encourage and revel in sexual immorality, and they 'bear false witness' (lie) nonstop against good people." Whining about poeple who "bear false witness" is ironic coming from someone who runs a website designed to lie and mislead people.
This cartoonish depictions of anyone who's not as right-wing as he is continued in the interview, which began with Elder uncritically repeating Kupelian's words. Kupelian ranted: "liberals are for cutting the breasts off of 13- and 14-year-old girls. No -- that's not a liberal value, that's bat-guano insane and it's actually evil."Then he went on this wild rhetorical bender:
The truth is, the elites who rule us, they don't care about men who believe they're women and all this stuff. This is all an act. They're in -- Larry, I don't think they have the capacity to really care about anybody but themselves. They're so corrupt, they are interested in their own power and wealth and privilege and just power -- it's all about power. And so the causes -- you know, Biden, even when he was vice president, said the transgender issue is the civil rights issue of our time. Again, Biden is not capable of caring about other people, maybe outside of his own family. And the same with the racial issue. They know America is the least racist, most successful multiethnic nation in the history of the universe. They know this, they're not stupid. These are not the college professors who are caught up with these Marxist ideologies. I'm talking about the poeple with the real power -- they know it's crap. They don't believe any of this stuff. They're just in it for the power and the glory because they want to be God.
After an extended MyPillow commercial, Elder and Kupelian discussed Christianity and argued that the on-fielkd collapse of NFL player Damar Hamlin will bring people back to God. Somehow, Kupelian refrained from spreading the anti-vaccine conspiracy theories he publishes at WND in talking about Hamlin.
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Gay Club Massacre Deflection Topic: Media Research Center
After a massacre at a gay club, the Media Research Center tried to deflect from right-wing homophobia to push dubious claims the alleged shooter is nonbinary. It pulled a similar deflection after a 2016 massacre by obsessing over the shooter's Muslim identity. Read more >>
The MRC's DeSantis Defense Brigade Keeps Rolling Along Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center will lash out at anycriticism of potential Republican candidate and Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. In a Feb. 6 post, Tim Graham cited totally impartial fact-checker "'Fuzzy Chimp' at Twitchy": to complain that "leftists mangled an accurate Associated Press fact check correcting the false notion that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is mandating all female high-school athletes in the state to provide detailed information about their menstrual cycles." Oddly, he named none of the "leftists" who were purportedly "mangling" this fact-check, and it surely must have been painful for Graham to admit that something from the AP was found to be accurate since that blows up part of his "liberal media" narrative. Then Graham tried to embellish things, hyping a state sports official claiming the proposed mandate was "consistent with national guidelines for sports physicals" developed by medical associations and hyping that "Twitchy adds one important detail on the proposed new medical forms. They state 'This medical history form should be retained by the healthcare provider and/or parent,' not by the schools."
In fact, one medical association stated that the proposed mandate wasn't consistent with its guidelines, and one Florida county planned to store the menstrual information digitally via a "sports management software" platform, but "the platform’s privacy policy, and federal law, could require it to turn data over to legal authorities or other officials if they had a valid subpoena." Ultimately, the state decided against making the information mandatory.
Meanwhile, under the headline "Disney's Attack Dogs?" Nicholas Fondacaro advanced a conspiracy theory in a Feb. 9 post that anyone on ABC who criticizes DeSantis is being ordered by its parent company, Disney, to do so:
With Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis seemingly eyeing a run for president in 2024 and his continued pressure on left-leaning Disney as they go increasingly woke, the multinational national corporation seems to have unleashed the hounds to smear him with lies on a national level. Enter the cackling coven of ABC’s The View (owned by Disney), who on Thursday unloaded truly insane accusations; accusing DeSantis of trying to remove ALL black history from Florida schools with the goal of “eras[ing]” all minorities.
Brad Wilmouth used a Feb. 10 post to serve as a loyal member of the MRC's DeSantis Defense Brigade:
On Thursday's CNN This Morning, co-host Don Lemon picked up on the story from Philadelphia of a racist video surfacing of high school girls mocking Black History Month, and exploited it to an horrifically partisan degree to pontificate against Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis's education policies.
And, even though he set up the segment by noting that the girls involved are in high school, he later incorrectly claimed they were in college and suggested that they might not have behaved so badly if they had learned about black history in high school.
[...]
Governor DeSantis, of course, did not get rid of the teaching of black history in schools, but instead imposed regulations to prevent the politicization of the subject.
Meanwhile, the MRC continued to lash out any criticism of DeSantis:
The MRC also made sure to take time to fawn over DeSantis as well for adhering to right-wing narratives. Catherine Salgado gushed in a Feb. 15 post:
On Wednesday, Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) made an announcement that puts Big Tech and Big Government on notice in the state of Florida, declaring there’s “a collusion between government and the private sector to deprive you of your rights.”
DeSantis discussed his legislative plans to restrict tech-government collusion Feb. 15, when he held a press conference to discuss his proposed Digital Bill of Rights in West Palm Beach, Florida, according to WPBF News. The governor took aim at social media and internet search engine censorship.
Florida’s Voice shared a clip from DeSantis’s press conference explaining his new Digital Bill of Rights. DeSantis said the bill of rights would not allow, “either formally or informally, any agreement between state or local government agencies and social media platforms for the purpose of content moderation.”
He cited the Twitter Files, particularly the FVBI's Twitter censorship work, and former NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci’s work to censor on Facebook. “Again, that’s a collusion between government and the private sector to deprive you of your rights,” DeSantis insisted.
Salgado went on to cheer that "DeSantis has also slammed woke environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards" -- another mandated right-wing narrative the MRC is pushing.
Allan Favish is an attorney and conspiracy theorist whose big claim to fame is that in 2003, he got to argue before the Supreme Court to demand that the government release photos of the body of Vince Foster at the scene of his death -- a death conspiracy theorists like those who run WorldNetDaily have long obessed over. WND editor Joseph Farah gushed over Favish's ploy at the time of the case: "Attorney Allan Favish believes the public may learn something from 10 unreleased police photos of Foster and has taken the issue all the way to the Supreme Court. I believe he's right." But he went on to complain that "a seemingly skeptical Supreme Court grilled Favish, suggesting the public is no closer to finding out the truth about what became of Bill Clinton's lawyer in 1993," grousing that even right-wing Justice Antonin Scalia "was critical of the attorney's campaign to get the Foster death photos, at one point calling [Favish] a 'conspiracy theorist' about the case." The Supreme Court unanimously rejected Favish's ploy , which he did not take well (as WND dutifully reported).
Fast forward to today, and Favish remains obsessed by Vince Foster conspiracy theories -- and now he's mad that the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT won't buy into them. And, yes, he spent an entire Feb. 23 WND column complaining about it:
An artificial intelligence service called ChatGPT, developed by a company called OpenAI, will give you false information about the 1993 death of former President Bill Clinton's deputy White House counsel, Vincent Foster.
OpenAI describes itself as "an AI research and deployment company. Our mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity."
Mostly, though, he's mad that ChatGPT doesn't know about his tawdry, losing case to see pics of Foster's dead body:
On Jan. 29, 2023, I asked ChatGPT the following question: "What is the evidence that the government's conclusion that Vincent Foster committed suicide may be incorrect?" I received the following answer:
"There is no credible evidence to support the claim that the death of Vincent Foster was anything other than a suicide. Numerous investigations, including by independent counsels, the U.S. Park Police, and the Office of the Independent Counsel, concluded that Foster died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head in Fort Marcy Park in Virginia in 1993. These findings have been supported by numerous forensic examinations and eyewitness accounts. Conspiracy theories suggesting otherwise are not based on credible evidence and have been thoroughly discredited."
I then asked: "Did the United States Supreme Court ever decide a case involving the death of Vincent Foster?" ChatGPT answered: "No, the U.S. Supreme Court did not decide a case involving the death of Vincent Foster."
In case my previous question was not specific enough to get a truthful answer, I then asked two more questions: "Did the United States Supreme Court ever decide a Freedom of Information Act case involving the death of Vincent Foster?" ChatGPT answered: "No, the Supreme Court of the United States has not decided a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case specifically involving the death of Vincent Foster."
I asked: "Did the United States Supreme Court ever decide a case involving photographs of the deceased body of Vincent Foster?" ChatGPT answered: "No, the United States Supreme Court has not decided a case involving photographs of the deceased body of Vincent Foster."
On Feb. 18, 2023, I repeated the same questions and received different inaccurate responses.
Because ChatGPT didn't give Favish the exact answers he demanded, he concluded: "ChatGPT has proven that AI can be just as inaccurate as the establishment media."
Newsmax Continued To Push Outrage Even As Trump's Arrest Prediction Failed To Happen Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax madehay out Donald Trump's erroneous claim of imminent arrest, cranking out dozens of outrage-filled articles even though that prediction never came true on the day he predicted. And Newsmax was not about to let Trump's failed prediction get in the way of generating more outrage articles on his behalf. Even on the weekend of March 25 and 26:
When Bragg's grand jury announced that day a previously scheduled break for a few weeks, Newsmax seemed quite pleased. An article by Solange Reyner and Eric Mack hyped the development, which was followed by a Trump-focused article by Peter Malbin:
Former President Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Wednesday to praise a Manhattan grand jury that is examining his alleged role in a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
The Manhattan grand jury is not expected to hear evidence in the case for the next month largely due to a previously scheduled hiatus, Politico reported Wednesday.
"I have gained such respect for this grand jury and perhaps even the grand jury system as a whole," Trump wrote in all caps. "The evidence is so overwhelming in my favor & so ridiculously bad for the highly partisan & hateful district attorney that the grand jury is saying, Hold on, we are not a rubber stamp, which most grand juries are branded as being, we are not going to vote against a preponderance of evidence or against large numbers of legal scholars all saying, there is no case here. Drop this sick witch hunt, now!"
That sudden respect for the grand jury didn't last long -- the next day, it was revealed that Trump would be indicted. Unsurprisingly, Newsmax reacted by ramping up the outrage machine. More soon.
CNS Quickly Turned From Reporting Biden's Visit To Ukraine To Attacking Him Over It Topic: CNSNews.com
It seems that CNSNews.com was surprised enough by President Biden's visit to Ukraine that its initial coverage was actually somewhat balanced. Susan Jones' main story about the Feb. 20 visit was shockingly straightforward and devoid of her usual editorializing. A sidebar by Jones even more shockingly criticized Russian leader Vladimir Putin for starting war, a surprising move since CNS is also working to undermine U.S. support for Ukraine by criticizing Biden over the money being spent:
From both Republicans and Democrats on Sunday came a chorus of support for Ukraine -- one day before President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv, where he also emphasized continuing U.S. support for Ukraine, one year after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked and vicious war.
The raging war has no end in sight, and that's a problem for some members of both parties, although congressional support for Ukraine remains strong, to hear both sides tell it.
He quoted President Biden as saying that the U.S. will "support Ukraine for as long as it takes."
"And I think when you see the president -- when you see him go to Poland next week and Warsaw, he'll make that case before the entire world and the Polish," Kirby said.
Jones also wrote an article hyping a couple Republican congresmen insisting that U.S. support for Ukraine "is still very strong" despite a Republican resolution insisting that the U.S. "must end its military and financial aid to Ukraine."
CNS soon reverted to form, however; just a few hours after her main story appeared, Jones devoted an article to a presumed Republican presidential candidate whining about the money the U.S. is spending in Ukraine:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was in Staten Island, New York on this holiday Monday to discuss law-and-order, while President Joe Biden was thousands of miles away, making a surprise visit to Ukraine, where Biden announced another half-billion dollars in aid to the war-torn country.
"They have effectively a blank-check policy," DeSantis said of the Biden administration, "with no clear strategic objective identified."
[...]
DeSantis reminded viewers of "Fox & Friends" that the Obama/Biden administration opposed sending lethal aid to Ukraine when Russia invaded and took Crimea:
Patrick Goodenough wrote an article that largely repeated Russian attacks on the U.S. over the visit:
Former Russian president and close Putin ally Dimitry Medvedev said Monday President Biden had received “security guarantees” ahead of his unannounced trip to Kyiv. The White House said it notified Moscow ahead of the visit “for deconfliction purposes.”
Medvedev, now deputy chairman of President Vladimir Putin’s national security council, made the claim in a post on his Telegram channel in which he also referred derisively to the president of the United States as “the old man from across the ocean” and to Ukrainian leaders as a “gang of drug addicts.”
The next day, Melanie Arter uncritically repeated a political attack on Biden over the visit that also touched on CNS' attempt to politicize a train derailment in Ohio:
Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe criticized President Biden for visiting Ukraine on President’s Day instead of visiting East Palestine, Ohio, where residents are dealing with the aftermath of a train derailment that resulted in hazardous chemicals being released into the environment.
“Even if you look at how badly the Biden administration has mismanaged Ukraine up to this point and a war that many of us believe a strong president could have avoided. We believe that it was Biden's weakness in Afghanistan that prompted Putin to move on Ukraine in the first place,” Ratcliffe told Fox News’ “Hannity” on Monday.
The same day, Micky Wootten -- CNS' point person on setting up the Ukraine overspending narrative -- complained that "On Feb. 20, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced President Joe Biden’s 32nd Presidential Drawdown, which includes $460 million in 'additional security assistance' for Ukraine. This raises the total value of assistance provided to $29.7 billion since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022."
For a Feb. 22 article, Goodenough repeated a narrative CNS pushed at the time of Russia's invasion that the war is Biden's fault because he provoked Russia by not decisively shutting down Ukraine's interest in joining NATO:
Twenty-six years ago, then-Senator Joe Biden ridiculed the notion that Russia might respond to NATO’s eastward enlargement by drawing closer to China or Iran.
Addressing an audience in Washington in 1997, Biden said that when Russian lawmakers with whom he discussed the issue suggested that expanding the alliance into Moscow’s backyard might prompt Russia to “look to China,” he had wished them “lots of luck in your senior year.”
“And if that doesn’t work, try Iran,” he recalled telling the Russians.
With U.S. concerns aired this week that China may provide “lethal aid” to Russia’s war on Ukraine, and amid signs of a deepening Russia-China-Iran collaboration in the economic, military, and diplomatic spheres, the remarks by the then-ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are worth revisiting.
Goodenough didn't mention that NATO is a defensive alliance and does not engage in military offensives -- nor did he note that Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which his co-worker Jones agrees was unprovoked, proved that Ukraine's desire to join NATO was not without merit.
Jones followed with an article that seemed to approve of former Republican Vice President Mike Pence sounding like Putin: "It appears that former Vice President Mike Pence and Russian President Vladimir Putin agree on one thing: Ukraine is the vehicle by which the West aims to stop Russia from re-establishing the former Soviet Union." Jones went on to hype that "Pence accused President Biden of 'failed leadership.'"
MRC Brings Anti-Drag Hate, Misinformation Into The New Year Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center slipped in a bit more dragphobia at the end of last year. In a Dec. 27 post, Clay Waters gave violence aimed at a bar that hosted a drag night a pass because it purporedly wasn't violent enough:'
A long New York Times Christmas Day editorial, pompously titled “How Americans Can Stand Against Extremism,” made a mountain of right-wing intolerance out of one or perhaps two molehills of ideologically motivated vandalism.
Whoever shot the small steel ball through the front window of the Brewmaster’s Taproom in Renton, Wash., this month wasn’t taking chances. The person wore a mask and removed the front and rear license plates of a silver Chevrolet Cruze. The police still have no leads.
(Well, the Times does want everyone to mask up, again.)
The Times even illustrated its editorial with a picture of the cracked window. The lack of proof that it was a politically motivated attack didn’t matter, there was fear to stir up and extrapolations to be made.
Just that like how the MRC must always stif up fear about drag queens?
The MRC's chief transphobe, Teirin-Rose Mandelburg, raged at a comfortable-but-ugly shoemaker for taking part in a drag gathering in a Dec. 30 post:
I knew I made the right choice when I never fell into the “Crocs are back in style” trap that many other young people did in the more recent years.
According to a flyer posted by RuPaul's Drag Con Instagram account, Crocs Europe will be sponsoring a children's fashion show at the 2023 Drag Convention on January 8. The shoe brand once focused on — ya, know — making shoes, but now cares more about pushing progressivism.
And its target audience is our kids.
In the Instagram caption, the announcement read, “Hit them with your catwalk, kids 👠 Bring it to the runway with your parent/guardian for the #DragConUK 2023 Kids Fashion Show, Sunday 8th January on the @crocseurope Main Stage!” It then continued with more specifics for kids to know when and where to go, adding, “No pre-registration required. All kids under 18 are welcome, please report to the Main Stage at 12:45PM to participate 💓”
Any parent who would allow their kid to attend an event like this is partaking in what I call "child abuse." Not to mention the parents that bring their kid to participate in drag gear for the event.
Shame on them.
Mandelburg unsurprisingly threw the "groomer" slur around as well:
It really is disturbing that RuPaul's drag team thinks kids should be not only invited to but encouraged to participate in an event that undoubtedly will be oversexualized and inappropriate for their innocent eyes. It's also disturbing that companies and groups that used to be great for kids are joining in on the pro-grooming crusade.
Several days later, Mandelburg cheered that her hateful mob had the desired effect:
Crocs has holes in its shoes and now in its story too.
At the end of December, the billion-dollar shoe brand, Crocs, announced its sponsorship of a kids drag fashion show for the RuPaul’s Drag Convention in London this past weekend. After ample backlash condemning the grooming behavior of the company, Crocs Europe silently deleted all signs of sponsorship.
Did they think we wouldn’t notice?
[...]
While Crocs likely caved to the ample and justified backlash, Teletubbies, another sponsor of the event, maintained it’s position.
Of course, she would never refer to her manufactured "backlash" as a mob effect, even though her employer loves to refer to any group of people advocating for liberal views as a "mob."
Mandelburg used a Jan. 16 post to rage at a drag event in Texas:
These people need Jesus.
An “all-ages” drag show event in Dallas had a great audience turnout, including local legislators, parents and children, according to Taylor Hansen of the Texas Family Project.
The event opened with audio that condemned “far-right” protesters who think that drag queens shouldn’t interact with children. Yeah … those crazy right-wingers …
[...]
Councilmen Jesse Moreno and Paul Ridley were in attendance as well as State Representative Venton Jones. The three gave speeches while drag queens stood in solidarity and the audience roared.
Moreno’s speech thanked the audience for the attendance and claimed that “there is no place for hate in the city of Dallas.” He declared it his purpose to “educate” on “basic human rights” and “dignity” which apparently include the “right” to groom kids by bringing them to a drag show.
As for dignity, it's a drag show.
But Mandelburg is dishonestly portraying the show in question. As an actual news organization reported about the manufactured outrage, which took place at a weekly "drag brunch" at a bar, it was never advertised as an "all ages" drag show -- right-wing activists maliciously portrayed it as such because children were never explicitly prohibited, and the only children at the event in question were brought by a parent to watch the protest:
Had it not been for a group named Protect Texas Kids, there may not have been any kids at a recent drag brunch in Dallas that drew protesters yelling slurs and threatening violence.
Ahead of the Jan. 14 event, the anti-LGBTQ organization Protect Texas Kids began posting online about the weekly drag brunch at BuzzBrews, suggesting that, because the neighborhood restaurant did not explicitly ban children, organizers were catering to children and, thus, grooming them for sex.
Threats and harassment ensued. The bar owners were accused of pedophilia. A protest was organized. And Veronica Olivo, a friend of one of the drag performers, decided to go in solidarity with her two preteens as a form of counterprotest.
“I told them that we were going to an art performance where the guys dress up like girls, and that you might hear some dirty jokes,” she said with a laugh. “They were like, ‘Well, you do that at home anyway.’”
They were the only kids at the show.
Outside, outraged protesters called their mom and other patrons “child groomers” and “pedophiles” — with little appreciation for the irony that their protest was the only reason kids were inside.
The news outlet pointed out how Hansen play ed a key role in manufacturing anti-drag hate:
Hansen has been increasingly influential in conservative spaces, and his work has often prompted harassment of drag events and local businesses, including a drag brunch at Roanoke’s Anderson Distillery and Grill that drew white supremacists and a cascade of threats online.
So Mandelburg has unhinged hatred toward people who are different from her and is willing to lie and mislead in order to portray them as negatively as possible. (And this is the second time this year we've caught her spreading misinformation for her hateful cause.) Sounds like she's the one who really needs Jesus.
CNS Even Nitpicks Biden Getting An Ash Wednesday Blessing Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com justloves to nitpick at President Biden for failing to being a right-wing ideologue -- though its writers are becoming more likely to lack the courage of their convictions by refusing to put their names on their partisan bias. An anonymously written Feb. 24 article did this again:
President Joe Biden, as first reported by The Daily Mail, had a private Mass in a room at the Marriott Hotel in Warsaw, Poland, on Wednesday, as back in the United States the White House was announcing that Biden had nominated to a federal district court a magistrate judge endorsed by pro-abortion politicians.
The White House put out a press release that day, stating that Biden had nominated U.S. Magistrate Judge Kato Crews to the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.
Crews had been recommended to Biden as a district-court nominee in a letter that Democratic Senators John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet of Colorado had sent Biden on April 29, 2022.
That's a desperate stretch of guilt-by-association there, even by CNS standards.And it's clear that CNS is trying to blur any distinction between "pro-abortion" and "pro-abortion rights"; while they may be clearly pro-abortion rights, the article offers no evidence that either senator is "pro-abortion."
On top of that, the anonymous CNS writer further complained that "Father Wieslaw Dawidowski, a Polish priest in Warsaw, put an English-language posting on his Facebook page, stating that he had said Mass for Biden in a room next to Biden’s hotel room and had put ashes on Biden’s head. The posting included photos of the priest in the room with Biden."
Remember, the boys who run CNS think they're more Catholicthan the pope, so they lilke to impose their right-wing Catholic views on their readers.
MRC Angry About Non-White Cartoon Characters Talking About Non-White Things Topic: Media Research Center
In its grand tradition of hating cartoons that don't reinforce right-wing narratives, the Media Research Center has previouslyfreaked out over the cartoon "The Proud Family" because it focuses on characters who are not white or heterosexual. So when the cartoon covered topics in black history, Elie Ehrhard spent a Feb. 7 post ranting about "anti-white hate" and so-called critical race theory:
Season two of the Disney+ children's cartoon Proud Family: Louder and Prouder premiered on the streaming service last week. The ten-episode second season is filled with critical race theory (CRT) propaganda and anti-white hate.
Critical race theory ideas and racial division are littered throughout the series, but three episodes in particular stood out.
"Reparations," the third episode of the season, has already garnered a great deal of attention on Twitter. Conservative accounts such as Christopher Rufo and End Wokeness highlighted a clip at the end of the episode in which the kids sing a rap for reparations as part of a debate team performance.
As Rufo noted, "This Disney clip is pure critical race theory, including the insane conspiracy theory that Lincoln did not free the slaves."
Ehrhard didn't explain how, exactly, a rap song about reparations involved the high-level academic concept of critical race theory. And Rufo is on record as cheering his negative narratives he helped create surrounding the term without actually defining it because "The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think 'critical race theory.’" So citing Rufo isn't exactly the win Ehrhard thinks it is. But she wasn't done complaining:
Hatred of Lincoln and the United States in general is in full force again in episode 10, "Juneteenth." This particular episode is such a historical mess it's hard to know where to begin.
Proud Family is set in the town of Smithville, California, and in the episode the citizens plan to honor the town's founder, Christian A. Smith. But Maya (Keke Palmer), the main character with a CRT-style middle school teacher, discovers that Smith was actually a slave owner. He owned a plantation in their town.
How is that possible? Maya's teacher tells her that it is because the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to Confederate States and Union border states did not have to free their slaves.
Um...California was not a border state. It was a free state with little connection to southern slavery and plantation ownership. Placing a slave-holding plantation there is a stretch, to put it mildly.
Actually, California does have a history of slavery despite its declared status as a free state, witih blacks and Native Americans forced into indentured servitude to mine for gold. (We'll concede that there probably weren't many plantations in California.) Nevertheless, Ehrhard huffed that "the show doesn't care about reality and is more than happy to confuse children about American history."
Ehrhard finally got to the "anti-white hate" part by whining over an episode in which "a handsome black student at the school asks a white girl, Zoey (Soleil Moon Frye), to a dance. Her mostly black friends at the minority-predominant school are furious." She chooses to interpret the episode this way:
Eventually, the black boy admits to Zoey that he only dates white girls. She decides not to go to the dance with him, "especially when it hurts my friends."
Do the girls who mistreated Zoey ever apologize for their behavior towards her? No, instead she apologizes to them.
"I'm sorry, guys. I really didn't get it," she says.
So, the episode teaches non-white girls that it's okay to ostracize and mistreat a white girl if she dates a black boy. Such tolerance!
You know, Elise, not everything must be viewed through your pro-white lens. Maybe the lesson here was that the "handsome black student" was the jerk for being interested in Zoey solely because she's white.
This was followed by a Feb. 11 post by right-wing movie critic Christian Toto complaining that the "Juneteenth" episode "features a wall-to-wall Critical Race Theory-style sermonizing," though he didn't explain what, exactly that "sermonizing" had to do with CRT. Then he touted a fellow right-winger also dumping on the show:
The right-leaning host of “The Megyn Kelly Show” shared her views without any Big Tech censors to stop her or show guest Jesse Kelly.
“This is a reflection of what our culture has become, a big bunch of grievance-mongering whiners … ‘America sucks because of this, it sucks because of that,'” said Kelly, a nationally syndicated radio show host.
Kelly couldn’t contain her anger at the parade of misinformation aimed at impressionable minds.
“This is absolute filth,” Kelly said.
“The anger that they put in the mouths of these little kids….Meanwhile, as if any little kid is walking around America today, saying, ‘we want reparations,” Megyn Kelly said. “They’re trying to plant these ideas early.”
“How crazy is it that Disney is coming fresh off a year where the CEO got the ax … after all those losses they’ve chosen to double and triple down on everything that has turned off American families,” Jesse Kelly said. “It’s all activism, all the time. It’s crazy that this is allowed to go on in the boardroom.”
“They’re trying to make these children hate America,” Megyn Kelly said. “Just the racism of it. This is a channel that’s supposed to appeal, I guess, to black families. What black families? Do they assume all black families hate America and wanna demand reparations and say we haven’t gotten past slavery? Who are the black families they’re having out with?”
So it's "absolute filth" for black people to talk about racism (let alone admit that it still exists) in a way that white people like Kelly and Toto don't approve of? And this is what all this anger is about: non-white cartoon characters discussing non-white things.
NEW ARTICLE -- Fake News At WND: Coronavirus Edition, Part 5 Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily is so desperate to smear COVID vaccines that it's touting even more dubious misinformation-spreading doctors and even presenting baseless, irresponsible speculation as "news." Read more >>
The MRC's Faith In Elon Musk As Twitter Savior Is Wavering A Bit Topic: Media Research Center In the course of little more than a year, the Media Research Center has completely flipped from accusing Elon Musk of playing too much footsie with China to defending him against criticism he was playing too much footsie with China. Now, the MRC has found a way to flip things even more, by defending Musk from criticism by China itself. Joseph Vazquez completed the flip in a March 1 post:
The Washington Post and CNBC tried to wokescold Twitter owner Elon Musk for advancing the Wuhan COVID-19 lab leak theory. The outlets attempted to achieve this by pushing … Communist Chinese state propaganda.
The Post, owned by liberal billionaire Jeff Bezos, published a Feb. 28 story with a nutty headline that set the tone for the ludicrous argument: “Chinese state media calls out Elon Musk over coronavirus tweet.” The Post referred to Musk’s response to a tweet alleging that former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci funded gain-of-function virus research in Wuhan. “He did it via a pass-through organization (EcoHealth),” Musk tweeted in response.
The Post flexed the faux virtue-signaling of none other than the Chinese Communist Party-tied Global Times to rebuke Musk in its sub-headline: “Global Times newspaper criticizes Musk for advancing a ‘conspiracy theory’ about the virus’s origin.”
CNBC’s Feb. 28 headline promoting the communist propaganda needs no explanation: “China’s CCP warns Elon Musk against sharing Wuhan lab leak report.”
Funny, we don't recall the MRC ever gratuitously reminding us that Fox News is owned by right-wing billionaire Rupert Murdoch, and it certainly didn't remind us that the New York Post was a biased pro-Trump newspaper (owned by right-wing billionaire Murdoch) whenever it wrote about Hunter Biden's laptop.
Thje same day, however, Gabrela Pariseau had a brief crisis of faith in Musk when a right-wing congressman's Twitter account got suspended:
Twitter suspended Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-UT) personal account with “no explanation” Wednesday.
“My personal Twitter account –@BasedMikeLee – has been suspended. Twitter did not alert me ahead of time, nor have they yet offered an explanation for the suspension. My team and I are seeking answers,” the senator tweeted.
Twitter later restored the account again without explanation, according to Sen. Lee. “Thanks to all who assisted in operation #Free @basedMikeLee. Still no explanation from @Twitter as to what happened,” he later tweeted.
Pariseau later added an update from Musk: "Elon Musk explained Sen. Mike Lee's (R-UT) brief suspension in a tweet. 'His personal account (@BasedMikeLee) was incorrectly flagged as impersonation, which is not totally crazy, since it is based,' Musk Tweeted."
The next day, however, there was a new "Twitter files" drop, and Vazquez returned to do the stenography:
The latest batch of Twitter Files released by Twitter owner Elon Musk blew the lid off a coordinated effort to create “state-sponsored blacklists.”
Independent journalist Matt Taibbi, who unveiled the latest batch March 2, pointed to the George Soros-funded Atlantic Council and the government-backed Global Engagement Center as two of the entities responsible for creating blacklists to target Americans. Taibbi reported that “On June 8, 2021, an analyst at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab [DFRLab] wrote to Twitter: ‘Hi guys. Attached you will find… around 40k twitter accounts that our researchers suspect are engaging in inauthentic behavior… and Hindu nationalism more broadly.’” The Council reportedly suspected the 40,000 accounts of being “‘paid employees or possibly volunteers’ of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).” The problem, wrote Taibbi, was that the list “was full of ordinary Americans, many with no connection to India and no clue about Indian politics.”
Like his co-workers, Vazquez doesn't seem to understand that because Taibbi is doing the bidding of Musk, he's not an "indepdendent journalist."
Meanwhile, the crisis of Musk-faith continued. Catherine Salgado complained in another March 2 post about an "ominous" ban against threats:
Twitter’s new “Violent speech policy” now has an ominous ban against “wishes of harm” on the platform.
Twitter frequently updates its platform policies, particularly since Elon Musk took over. But this new update could be detrimental to free speech. The “Violent speech policy” did not appear in Twitter’s policies until the last month, based on the Wayback Machine, which did not show the update until after a Feb. 1, 2023 archive (the archive doesn’t show it). The new policy does appear to be an updated version of Twitter’s previous Violent Threats Policy and Glorification of violence policy.
“You may not threaten, incite, glorify, or express desire for violence or harm,” Twitter’s new Violent speech policy reads. The new policy adds that Twitter has “a zero tolerance policy towards violent speech in order to ensure the safety of our users and prevent the normalization of violent actions.”
These objections apparently come from self-interest because an MRC division fell afould of them: "One example of speech that could be mistakenly censored under this policy was when CNSNews.com Managing Editor Michael Chapman tweeted that, rather than watch Biden’s State of the Union Address, Americans would prefer to 'Eat pieces of broken glass.'" Salgado didn't disclose that CNS is the "news" division of the MRC.
Salgado then stated the MRC's real objections to it -- that conservatives might be held accountable for what they write and post:
“One of the biggest problems with blanket censorship policies — censorship policies on the whole really — are the subjective nature of their enforcement,” noted MRC Free Speech America & MRC Business Director Michael Morris. “Take the popular satire site The Babylon Bee for example. Will The Babylon Bee be able to quote Monty Python to poke fun at government leaders like Senator Hirono? Facebook certainly didn’t allow it. Will Twitter?”
This issue with this Twitter policy is that it can very easily be misapplied. “Violent speech” is already more vague than “violent threats.” Individuals have been censored before for stating facts about biology that LGBTQ-identifying users somehow interpreted as “violence.” The Babylon Bee and Dr. Jordan Peterson have both fallen victim to such censorship on Twitter.
The new Twitter policy also appears similar to the language in the UK Online Safety Bill, which aimed in late 2021 to criminalize trolls for “likely psychological harm.” Whenever intention, wishes, or “likely” psychological harm come into play, the problem is that those measures are entirely subjective. Anything now can be labeled violence or “harm” by leftists, and anyone can be accused of inflicting some sort of emotional upset.
Elon Musk’s Twitter should be wary of being too vague or subjective in its policies, as missteps could seriously damage Twitter’s recent pro-free speech trend.
Remember, the whole point of the MRC's anti-"big tech" narrative is to keep conservatives from having to face the consequences for what they write.
CNS Tones Down The Musk-Fluffing Topic: CNSNews.com
Despite spending a lot of time early on parroting its Media Research Center parent in hyping Elon Musk's interest and ultimate ownership of Twitter, CNSNews.com appears to have grown tired of the story since the start of the year. Aside from biased, incomplete coverage of a House hearing in February called by Republicans in response to the "Twitter files," it hasn't done much beyond that.
A Jan. 16 article by managing editor Michael W. Chapman hyped how "Several House Republicans introduced a bill on Jan. 13 that would prohibit federal workers from using their position to advocate for censoring free speech expressed on social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, and on other outlets," adding:
Emails and other documents released by Twitter in recent weeks, the "Twitter Files," show that the FBI and some members of Congress colluded with Twitter over two years to suppress and censor certain Twitter posts they did not like, particularly conservative viewpoints.
In addition, the FBI paid Twitter more than $3 million.
As we pointed out when its MRC parent pushed this same talking point, the FBI paid Twitter that money to complete document requests, not to "censor" anyone.
Chapman also dutifully repeated propaganda from his bosses (not that he disclosed that conflict of interest, of course) by claiming that "An MRC post-election poll showed that 36 percent of Biden voters were NOT aware of the evidence linking Joe Biden to corrupt financial dealings with China through his son Hunter,' reported NewsBusters. 'Thirteen percent of these voters (or 4.6% of Biden’s total vote) say that had they known these facts, they would not have voted for the former Vice President.'" Chapman also didn't disclose (as we have) that this poll was bought from McLaughlin & Associates, which was Trump's hired pollster in the 2020 presidential campaign, raising questions about its bias and credibility.
A Jan. 18 article by Craig Bannister tout an analyst's “5 Reasons Corrupt Media Are Ignoring the Scandalous ‘Twitter Files,’” but this person is just someone writingf at the right-wing Federalist website. One of those alleged reasons was “Reporters Prefer Their Role as Propagandists to Journalists” -- ironic, since Bannister and the rest of CNS are serving as propgandists for Musk by uncritically repeating whatever he says.
Bannister served as the servile stenographer of another propagandist in a Jan. 27 article:
The news media’s collusion with Big Tech to cover up information reflecting poorly on President Joe Biden is a revelation by the Twitter Files document dumps that hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves, former Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said Thursday.
As guest host on The Ingraham Angle, Chaffetz discussed how Twitter documents show media and Big Tech coordinated efforts to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop scandal:
As we've noted, there was no reason anyone should have taken the initial laptop reports at face value given theNew York Post's status as a highly biased pro-Trumppublication and the Post's failure to provide independent verification that could withstand scrutiny.
Bannister helped Musk play victim -- with additional aid from the hand-picked writers pushing those selectively chosen "Twitter files" in a Feb. 16 article:
“True,” Twitter Owner Elon Musk agreed Wednesday, retweeting video and analysis of Journalist Glenn Greenwald, Podcaster Joe Rogan and Author Taibbi describing how the corporate media switched from praising Musk to portraying him as a Hitler-like figure – and how they’ll do the same to anyone who even slightly dissents from their ideology.
Musk retweeted Greenwald’s retweet of a video clip from Rogan’s recent interview with Taibbi, one of the publishers of the Twitter Files exposing the coordinated censorship and propaganda misdeeds of the giant social media platform, prior to Musk’s purchase.
Bannister was completely silent about the shenanigans Musk engaged in while taking over Twitter that may have soured people on him, such as his suspending the accounts of journalists who criticized him, his catering to far-right extremists, the increase in hate speech on Twitter since he took over, or that he ordered Twitter engineers to create a method to give his tweets maximum visibility whether Twitter users subscribed to his feed or not.
There were also, of course, the usual commentary pieces siding with Musk:
Ron Paul uncritically repeated another Musk narrative in a Jan. 30 column:
Thanks to the latest release of the “Twitter Files,” we now know without a doubt that the entire “Russia disinformation” racket was a massive disinformation campaign to undermine US elections and perhaps even push “regime change” inside the United States after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016.
[...]
Thanks to the latest release of the “Twitter Files,” Matt Taibbi reveals that the Hamilton 68 project, which claimed to monitor 600 “Russian disinformation” Twitter accounts, was a total hoax. While they refused to reveal which accounts they monitored and would not reveal their methodology, Twitter was able to use reverse-engineering to determine the 600-odd “Russian-connected” accounts. Twitter found that despite Hamilton’s claims, the vast majority of these “Russian” accounts were English-speaking. Of the Russian registered accounts – numbering just 36 out of 644 – most were employees of the Russian news outlet RT.
It was all a lie and the latest Twitter Files release confirms that even the “woke” pre-Musk Twitter employees could smell a rat. But the hoax served an important purpose. Hiding behind anonymity, this neocon organization was able to generate hundreds of media stories slandering and libeling perfectly legitimate organizations and individuals as “Russian agents.” It provided a very convenient way to demonize anyone who did not go along with the approved neocon narrative.
As we documented, the people behind the Hamilton 68 project pointed out that they never claimed to be exclusively tracking Russian bots.
Like its Media ResearchCenter parent, CNSNews.com has had its issues with conservative gathering CPAC -- mainly due to failures to hate LGBT people as much as CNS does. And like its MRC parent, CNS let bygones be bygones and gave this year's gathering relentlessly positive coverage. Coverage kicked off with an anonymously written March 2 piece touting the musings of CNS' boss:
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It seems that CNSNews.com was surprised enough by President Biden's visit to Ukraine that its initial coverage was actually somewhat balanced. Susan Jones' 
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