MRC Tried To Falsely Conflate Carlson, Lemon Firings Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center had a sad when Fox News fired Tucker Carlson, but it rejoiced when CNN fired Don Lemon the same day. But the MRC also wanted to create a false equivalence between the two firings -- even though Carlson was a highly rated (for cable news) host in charge of the flagship show on a highly partisan TV channel while Lemon had been, as the MRC repeatedly reminded us, "demoted" to a morning-show slot on a more straightforward news channel. As a result, it complained with non-right-wing outlets wouldn't embrace that narrative. Kevin Tober huffed in an April 24 post:
The cable news landscape was shaken to its core Monday with the stunning newsthat cable news star and host of Fox News Channel's Tucker Carlson Tonight was out at the network. A short time later, CNN announced that CNN This Morning co-host Don Lemon was fired as well. DuringCBS Evening News's coverage of both developments, anchor Norah O'Donnell resorted to labeling Fox News as a conservative network, while seeing no need to use the liberal label for CNN.
While it's accurate to label Fox a conservative network in terms of its opinion-side programming, it wasn't honest or fair reporting to refuse to label CNN a liberal network when that's clearly what it is.
In fact, Fox News' "news" side is just as biased as its opinion side -- not a surprise given how many former MRC employees work in that "news" operation. And CNN's failure to not be as far-right as Fox News does not make it a "liberal" network; that's just the view from Tober's ideological position, which was made even more clear when he laughably called O'Donnell a "left-wing anchor."
Joke policeman Alex Christy complained that late-night comedians told too many jokes about Carlson's firing and not enough about Lemon's (and, yes, he counted them):
The Monday news media news surrounding Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon provided the late night comedy shows a golden opportunity to show they aren’t just liberal partisans. However, they would fail this test as individual jokes about Carlson outnumbered jokes about Lemon 32-to-2 with five additional jokes about both men.
Comedy Central’s The Daily Show temp host Desi Lydic came in with a 6:1 ratio. Her most notable jabs at Carlson included, “I can't believe that a network that’s so opposed to gender-affirming surgery just cut off their own dick. Though, apparently, Tucker was forced out by Rupert Murdoch, which is pretty ironic. Tucker spent so many years saying that Mexican people were coming to take our jobs away. Turns out, he should have been worrying about Australians.”
An April 25 post by Tim Graham brought the MRC's hypocritical labeling complaints into the debate, grousing that the New York Times wouldn't portray Lemon as being as "far left" as Carlson is far-right:
William Donohue of the Catholic League pointed out the Tuesday New York Times demonstrated an obvious labeling contrast. On page A1 came the headlined "Fox News Ousts Carlson, a Voice Of the Far Right." But on B-1, there was no label in the header "Lemon Out At CNN; He Says He Is ‘Stunned’. "
In the piece by Michael Grynbaum, John Koblin, and Benjamin Mullin, Lemon was only "fiery" and "spiky," not liberal or far-left:
[...]
But the Carlson story by Jeremy Peters, Katie Robertson, and Grynbaum began: "Fox News on Monday dismissed Tucker Carlson, its most popular prime-time host, who became one of the most influential voices on the American right in recent years with his blustery, inflammatory monologues on immigrants, Black civil rights activists, vaccines and national identity."
There were five mentions of conservatives and their media in the piece, and two "far-right" uses in the copy:
He then cited a purported analysis by dishonest Catholic Bill Donohue claiming that "We found over 200 examples of Carlson being called 'far right,' but only a few instances of Lemon being called 'far left.' PBS, NBC and MSNBC referred to Carlson as 'far right' but none referred to Lemon as 'far left.'" But neither Graham nor Donohue provided any evidence that Lemon is "far left" or that Carlson is not "far right."
(Graham also didn't disclose that his boss, Brent Bozell, sits on the board of advisers of Donohue's right-wing Catholic League.)
Mark Finkelstein played the whataboutism card in an April 26 post, referencing Graham's post as a starting point:
Yesterday, our Tim Graham called out the New York Times' double standard when it came to the paper's descriptions of Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon. The former "Gray Lady"—now the home of red-hot wokeism—branded Carlson "far right." But when it came to Lemon, the Times merely called him "fiery," and "spiky," with no mention of his consistently left-wing views.
That same sort of double standard was on display at CNN itself today. In a CNN This Morning segment on Fox's firing of Carlson, repeated mentions were made of an alleged culture of misogyny and sexism at his show.
Fair-'n-balanced journalistic standards would have made it incumbent on CNN to discuss serious allegations of sexism and misogyny against its own fired host, Lemon. But not a peep about Lemon's transgressions out of his former co-hosts, Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins, or from CNN media reporter Sara Fischer. The focus was exclusively on Carlson's alleged misdeeds.
However Carlson might have transgressed respectful norms, it would appear to have occurred behind the scenes. In contrast, Lemon unleashed some of his feminist-frown material on the air, for all to see and hear.
Finkelstein didn't explain why Carlson is somehow less of a terrible person because he didn't display it on air.He then dismissed claims made about the working environment on Carlson's show made by a former show producer Abby Grossberg -- whom the MRC previously attacked as "disgruntled" -- as "not the most outrageous allegations imaginable," as if that makes it OK.
NEW ARTICLE -- Out There, Exhibit 85: CNS Obsessed Over Biden's Words Too Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com's excessive concern with specific words President Obama did or didn't say spread to President Biden -- and it never stopped nitpicking what Obama said. Read more >>
In Contrast With Carlson, MRC Cheered Don Lemon's Firing Topic: Media Research Center
In contrast with the reverential fanboy treatment it gave to fellow right-wing ideologue Tucker Carlson, the Media Research Center has long despised Don Lemon -- it repeatedly attacked him after he came out as gay, spread bogus allegations of sexual assault even after the allegations were proven to be false, and baselessly insisted that Lemon moving from an evening newscast to CNN's morning show was a demotion. Here are some of the attacks the MRC launched on Lemon just since the start of this year:
Of course, Lemon did not help himself at times. The MRC hurleda lotof abuse at him for describing Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley as "past her prime,:" and there were alleged conflicts with co-hosts, which the MRC eagerlyateup (for maximum mockery, of course, with one item regarding it carried the sneering headline "SAD TROMBONE" -- not that it actually cares about the women since they work for CNN and thus presumably deserve what they get).MRC writers lapped up gossip about whether Lemon's days at CNN were numbered, with one podcast asking, "Is It Time to Fire Don Lemon?"
The MRC's Kevin Tober cheered in one February post: "CNN’s low-rated morning host Don Lemon has a history of on-air outbursts and privately berating his co-hosts for interrupting him. On Thursday night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson got in on the fun by mocking “diva Don Lemon” for his apparent fragile mental state."
Which made for an interesting bit of irony when both Carlson and Lemon lost their respective cable-news jobs the same day. And where Curtis Houck reported on Carlson's dismissal with sadness and reverence, in the same post he rehashed old attacks cheered Lemon's firing: "In contrast, Lemon’s ouster had been in the works for months given his demotion to the morning from his primetime slot Don Lemon Tonight where he had spent eight years smearing conservatives, being a race hustler, and spouting off conspiracy theories."
Carlson smeared poeple and spouted conspiracy theories too, but he conformed to right-wing ideology and thus would not be criticized for doing so.
Don Lemon is gone! The longtime CNNer took to Twitter on Monday to announce he was fired. While Lemon claimed he was “stunned” by the move, the dismissal shouldn’t have been too surprising ever since he was demoted to the mornings back in November.
At NewsBusters the longtime CNN anchor has left a large footprint of biased outbursts. In fact the ex-CNN anchor has won our “Quote of the Year” award for two-years running.
Lemon may have worn out his welcome at CNN but don’t be surprised to see him picked up by another leftist outlet. Until then let’s take a stroll down memory lane and look back at Lemon’s heinous remarks that the network would prefer were memory-holed.
NewsBusters Media Editor Bill D’Agostino put together this brief montage of Lemon’s blathering.
The MRC did publish a couple more articles related to Lemon's firing:
Tim Graham demonstrated his employer's tonal split on the firings in his April 24 podcast:
The Tucker news seemed shocking, considering how it's been a ratings juggernaut for Fox. Media reporters suggested that somewhere in the "treasure trove" of internal messages that Dominion Voting Systems forced into view in their lawsuit, the Murdochs were less than pleased with how they were discussed.
The Lemon firing just seems delayed. The demotion to morning-show duty never seemed like it would work. There was no "chemistry," just chilly exchanges that demonstrated Lemon's diva tendencies. Other than his race and sexual orientation, it would have seemed logical for him to catch the bus out of CNN with Brian Stelter, John Harwood, and Chris Cillizza.
The tonal split continued in an April 26 post rehashing media appearances by MRC staffers opining on the firings in right-wing safe spaces:
On Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning, the Media Research Center led the way in providing reaction to and instant analysis at NewsBusters, online, and on the radio about the bombshell firings of Tucker Carlson by Fox News and Don Lemon at CNN.
This included three spots from MRC Founder and President Brent Bozell, NewsBusters Executive Editor Tim Graham, and NewsBusters Managing Editor Curtis Houck on NewsTalk 105.9 WMAL in the Washington D.C. market, the leading conservative station in the nation’s capital and an oasis for conservatives in the Swamp.
Bozell cropped up on Tuesday morning’s O’Connor and Company and didn’t hold back. After exclaiming “what a day” Monday was, he declared “the narrative” around Carlson’s axing seems to be Fox executives “just wanted him out.”
Bozell jokingly called out the alleged internal dismay over Carlson’s personal messages: “What a crock that would be. A private email is a private email...If there is a single person who worked at the Media Research Center who has not sent an email criticizing me, I’m going to dismiss that person.”
As for Lemon, Bozell cut to the chase: “What a trainwreck of a network this is...Licht was brought on to fix a sinking ship and he’s just been poking more holes.”
That was followed by Graham making a bizarre claim:
Earlier in the show, Graham noted the ideological diversity between Fox hosts:
It’s really obvious this is Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News...Things can change depending on that the Murdochs want...It is interesting that you had...dramatic changes or differences of opinion from hour to hour. You don’t tend to see that on MSNBC. You don’t tend to see that on CNN.
“I think you can look at this and say, yes, it seems like a big deal, but it’s not something that’s really a threat to Fox in the sense that they let go of Bill O’Reilly, Tucker moved into the space, and then people tend to forget,” he said.
Huh? There's "ideological diversity between Fox hosts"? Needless to say, Graham offered no example of this purported "diversity," given that one must obviously be a committed right-winger to even be considered for a Fox News hosting spot.That was followed by the expected Lemon-bashing:
Graham then tied the two together:
With Don Lemon, everybody kind of gets the idea. He was a big diva. You know, everyone gets tired of him...I think, in this case, the tea leaves suggest that all of the internal e-mails and texts that came out in the Dominion case...probably angered them with his imperiousness or something.
As for Lemon, Graham quipped that something “we all wanted to hear” was Lemon “was past his prime” while, at CNN, “it’s the same” from under Jeff Zucker and “has not changed.”
That was followed by Houck serving up rote Lemon-bashing while similarly insisting there is ideological diversity on Fox News:
Houck said the longtime CNN host’s firing arrived like “a snowball rolling down the hill, gaining steam — an incoming avalanche” to illustrate CNN boss Chris Licht’s reign thus far as “an absolute failure.”
On Carlson, Houck called it “a difficult story” for Fox with plenty of backlash, especially with subscriptions to its popular streaming site, Fox Nation.
“I don’t think liberals or conservatives...don’t do enough introspection and realize...that people tune into Fox News at 8:00 for Tucker Carlson. They tune in. A lot of young people...tune in...for Tucker Carlson,” Houck said, noting how Fox created “a healthy media ecosystem” with differences of opinion between Carlson and even the host in the next hour, Sean Hannity.
Houck identified none of these purported "differences of opinion."
CNS Obsessed Over NYC Murders To Attack Prosecutor For Indicting Trump Topic: CNSNews.com
We've documented how CNSNews.com expressed concerned about crime in Chicago -- though only sporadically, when it advanced right-wing narratives to do so. In its final days before being shut down, CNS started to do the same thing about crime in New York City, presumably driven by another right-wing narrative, a desire to smear Manhattan-based district attorney Alvin Bragg for indicting Donald Trump. We've already noted how CNS was quick to frame Bragg as "soft on crime," but the sudden interest in New York crime continued after that.Editor Terry Jeffrey wrote in an April 13 article:
There were 100 people murdered in New York City in the first 99 days of 2023, according to data published by the New York Police Department.
The NYPD’s latest “CompStat” report, which was for the week that ran from April 3 through April 9, indicates that there were 7 murders in New York City that week. It also indicates that there were 30 murders in the last 28 days and 100 from the beginning of 2023 through April 9. (April 9 was the 99th day of the year.)
The 100 murders committed in New York City through April 9 of this year is down from the 111 that were committed in the city through April 9 of last year, according to the CompStat report.
In addition to the 100 murders committed in New York City through April 9 of this year, the NYPD reports that in that same period there were 408 crime complaints for alleged rapes, 4,102 for alleged robberies, and 6,742 for alleged felony assaults.
Yes, Jeffrey managed to work in a reference to 100 murders in each of the first four paragraphs of the article. Also note that Jeffrey hyped overal numbers instead of the murder rate -- he did that because New York City's murder rate is actually the second-lowest among the nine U.S. cities with a population of more than 1 million.
Jeffrey hyped raw numbers agan in an article published on April 20, the final day of CNS' operation:
Ten people were murdered in New York City last week, according to a report released by the New York Police Department.
In the seven days from Monday, April 10, through Sunday, April 16, ten people were murdered in the city, according to the NYPD’s weekly CompStat report. That works out to an average of one murder every 16.8 hours.
In addition to the ten people who were murdered in New York City last week, there were also 18 rapes, 317 robberies and 566 felony assaults.
In the first 106 days of 2023 (January 1 through April 16), 113 people have been murdered in New York City, according to the NYPD report.
During those 106 days there were also 429 rapes, 4,417 robberies and 7,338 felony assaults.
Those 7,338 felony assault in the first 106 days of this year work out to about 69 per day—or one every 21 minutes.
Jeffrey did add -- reluctantly, one must presume -- that "On March 20, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office put out a statement saying that “ New York remains one of the safest big cities in the U.S." But he refused to prove the numbers that prove it.
It's clear that if CNS had not been shut down, Jeffrey would be churning out weekly updates on murders in New York -- and censoring the fact that New York is a safe city.
FLASHBACK: MRC Loved Tucker Carlson's Cherry-Picked Capitol Riot Clips Topic: Media Research Center
As we show how the Media Research Center had a sad when Fox News fired Tucker Carlson, it's worth noting how much it was in Carlson's thrall -- even gushing over how he promoted misleading, cherry-picked video footage of the Capitol riot. In a Feb. 22 post, Nicholas Fondacaro spewed his usual misogyny in attacking "The View" for noting concerns about Kevin McCarthy giving unedited riot footage to Carlson:
The cackling coven of ABC’s The View was outraged on Wednesday after news broke that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) gave Fox News host Tucker Carlson all 44,000 hours of footage from January 6. The gaggling gals were off the rails from the get-go with accusations that Carlson was a security risk who would reveal “evacuation points,” “safe rooms,” and security camera locations which would end up enabling another January 6 or 9/11.
“So, exactly how dangerous is it to let Tucker Carlson reset the narrative on January 6?” Joy Behar asked the hysterical faux conservative, Alyssa Farah Griffin.
Without evidence, Farah Griffin proclaimed that Carlson’s possession of the footage “raises huge safety and security concerns for the Capitol.”
[...]
Farah Griffin’s ridiculous suggestions about security threats were something the entire cast latched on to. “The biggest thing here is what Alyssa said before. The security risks, exposing the inside of the White House,” Sara Haines declared.
Insisting that Carlson had “nefarious intentions,” Haines also pushed the long-debunked accusation that Republican members of Congress had helped rioters scout the Capitol beforehand:
But they proved that they were giving tours – Congress people were giving tours before to show people exactly what we just – what was just now handed over to someone. And where there can be nothing good coming from it, they've investigated we’ve done everything we need to do. It's not only not going to add good, it actually only has bad intentions. It's – Nefarious intentions drive this request.
The cast of The View knew perfectly well those accusations were busted last year. Back in June 2022, they cried foul when the Capitol Police exonerated Congressman Barry Loudermilk (R-GA).
As we noted when Fondacaro originally attacked "The View" over this, Loudermilk originally falsely claimed there was no tour at all and subsequent evidence showed that tour participants -- at least one of them took part in the Capitol riot the next day -- took photos of non-touristy things like hallways and security checkpoints.
On Feb. 27, P.J. Gladnick falsely claimed that the media was not interested in obtaining video footage from the riot until it was given to Carlson:
Remember all the incessant demands by the liberal media for the security camera video footage of the Capitol ever since January 6, 2021? No? Perhaps because it never happened... until now. On the heels of the new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy turning over 40,000 hours of that video to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the liberal media suddenly has an urgent desire to see those videos right away.
In fact, the media have repeatedlysought access to video from the riot before it was given to Carlson.
When Carlson did release cherry-picked video from the stash, Tim Graham hyped them in his March 8 podcast while uncritically embracing the Tucker-endorsed narrative downplaying the riot:
The unglued freakout over Fox host Tucker Carlson airing Capitol Police clips of the January 6 riot underlines that the Left cannot stand any attempt to undercut the Pelosi-Picked Plotline. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer told Rupert Murdoch he shouldn't allow Carlson to air a second night of January 6 counter-testimony.
One of the most obnoxious critics was PBS star filmmaker Ken Burns, who compared Carlson (and Ron DeSantis) to both the Nazis and the Soviets. Burns said the videos in Carlson's hands were a "huge threat" to the Republic. Does this sound like someone who has even the most tenuous grasp of history?
These programs were not a momentous rewrite of history. The clips were not epic. But the media have clearly oversold January 6. The best clips were from the media and Democrats. Just hearing Vice President Kamala Harris compare it to Pearl Harbor and 9/11 shows how overwrought the Democrats are. On Tuesday, Biden press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at the podium: "The President has been very clear: January 6th was the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War." That implies 1/6 is worse than 9/11 and worse than Pearl Harbor.'
The Capitol riot was a very bad, violent day, and one we shouldn't forget. But it was not a "deadly insurrection." It wasn't like, for example, the Tree of Life synagogue mass shooting in Pittsburgh in 2018. The only person shot on January 6 was a protester named Ashli Babbitt. Does anyone remember her shooting by a Capitol policeman being discussed by the House panel in their curated hearings? No.
Tucker Carlson did raise alternative narratives and questions. Why were the Capitol Police so unprepared? Why was the "Q-Anon Shaman" sentenced to almost four years in jail when he wasn't violent? Why would the Pelosi Panel mislead the public on Sen. Josh Hawley seemingly running alone out of the Capitol? That’s not dangerous. That’s democracy. Why is the Left so arrogant that they cannot countenance anyone presenting an opposing view?
Says the guy whose job it is to attacking any view that opposes right-wing narratives. Also, Babbitt was a domestic terrorist who was part of a mob trying to enter through a broken door. We thought the MRC believed all mobs were violent and posed imminent danger to law enforcement.
Graham then spent a March 9 post ranting that a fact-checker pointed out that Carlson's video was indeed cherry-picked. He started with a gratuitous attack on the fact-checker for fact-checking things:
Tucker Carlson is clearly a hate figure in the offices of PolitiFact. Over the years, this is his "Truth-O-Meter" record: one "Mostly True," one "Half True," and 26 "Mostly False" or worse ratings(five "Mostly False, twelve "False" and NINE "Pants On Fire").
Now compare that to the other cable hosts in his hour. Chris Hayes, who's hosted an MSNBC show since 2011, has one "True" and one "Half True"(that one from 2011). CNN's Anderson Cooper, who's had a prime-time show from the founding of PolitiFact in 2007....doesn't have a page! That's zero "fact checks."
Graham didn't dispute the accuracy of any of those previous act-checks on Carlson. Then came the attack on the fact-check itself:
Unsurprisingly, the latest "Pants On Fire" from PolitiFact takes Carlson's January 6 riot videos, specifically the footage of the "Q-Anon Shaman" Jacob Chansley wandering the halls of the Capitol facing no visible resistance from police. Carlson said they basically acted as "tour guides" -- mocking the appearance without audio.
PolitiFact's Madison Czopek makes the point that what you don't hear is that the cops were trying to get Chansley to vacate the premises. "Capitol Police officers repeatedly asked Chansley and other rioters to leave the Capitol building, according to the plea agreement."
Graham then pushed a conspiracy theory that Chansley was set up to be a scapegoat:
Carlson was underlining that Chansley was non-violent, even if he wanted "justice" (whatever that means) for Mike Pence. "If he was in fact committing such a grave crime, why didn't the officers who were standing right next to him place him under arrest?" Why did they throw the book at non-violent Chansley with a 44-month jail sentence? Because he was "the face" of the riot.
We've noted that prosecutors pointed out how Carlson's selectively edited videos "did not show Chansley, who was sentenced to 41 months in prison for his actions on January 6, facing off with officers for half an hour outside the Senate chamber or when Chansley refused to be escorted out of the Capitol by an officer and only left after being forcibly removed," adding: "Chansley was not some passive, chaperoned observer of events for the roughly hour that he was unlawfully inside the Capitol. ... He was part of the initial breach of the building; he confronted law enforcement for roughly 30 minutes just outside the Senate Chamber; he gained access to the gallery of the Senate along with other members of the mob (obviously, precluding any Senate business from occurring); and he gained access to and later left the Senate floor only after law enforcement was able to arrive en masse to remove him.” But Graham would rather push a conspiracy theory that fits his narrative than tell the full truth.
The MRC also published columns by Cal Thomas and Ben Shapiro touting Carlson's edited videos.
NEW ARTICLE -- WND Profiles In COVID Misinformation: McCullough And Malone, Part 2 Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily continued to give space to Peter McCullough and Robert Malone to spread more misinformation about COVID and vaccines -- and to complain that their misinformation was being called out for what it is. Read more >>
MRC Takes Tucker Carlson's Fox News Firing Hard Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center -- fans of everything Fox News -- particularly loved Tucker Carlson, so much so that it would dedicate entire posts to transcribing what he said. Here are a few examples of its Tucker stenography in recent months:
Note how the MRC feels so close to Carlson that it's quite comfortable identifying him by only his first name in headlines.
The MRC would also defend Carlson as well from any criticism, as shown in a Feb, 26 post by Mark Finkelstein hining that Carlson was called a "bomb-throwing whack job" and a March 23 post by joke policeman Alex Christy lashing out at a discussion on "The Daily Show" in which Carlson was called a "world-class asshole." Neither writer made an effort to prove those assertions wrong.
So when Fox News abruptly fired Carlson on April 24 and killed his TV show, the MRC was shocked (and, apparently, fearing the loss of easy clickbait). Curtis Houck declared the event to be part of "one of the more bizarre and consequential days in modern cable news" along with the firing of CNN's Don Lemon the same day, and he had nothing but gushy things to say about the guy:
Carlson’s ouster gripped social media and conservative circles Monday, leaving many baffled by Fox’s decision to oust the most-watched cable news host, who had not only a weeknight primetime show Tucker Carlson Tonight (which averaged 3.3 million viewers in 2022), but a daytime show on its streaming network Fox Nation called Tucker Carlson Today, and an investigative series Tucker Carlson Originals.
A Fox News spokeswoman broke the news in a statement: “FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”
The statement concluded by revealing Carlson would not be given a farewell show and instead the timeslot will be filled by a placeholder show Fox News Tonight and helmed on a “rotating” basis by various “FOX News personalities until a new host is named.”
[...]
Going back to Carlson, it’ll remain an open question as to why Carlson was unceremoniously axed (so long as no further reporting is provided). Last week, Fox News agreed to a $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems and avoid trial over its “false” coverageabout the aftermath of the 2020 election.
Carlson’s final segment will go down without much fanfare as he ended Friday’s show by bringing in Pennsylvania pizza deliveryman Tyler Morrell to eat pizzas from the shop, Coco's Pizza in Delaware County, and discuss Morrell’s heroic action to trip up an alleged car thief.
Carlson wrapped by teasing the latest episode of Tucker Carlson Originals and telling viewers he’d be back on Monday: “That’s it for us, for the week....And we’ll be back on Monday. In the meantime, have the best weekend with the ones that you love and we’ll see you then.”
That was followed shortly after by a post from Tierin-Rose Mandelburg raging at anyone who dared to criticize Carlson:
The left has a tendency to marvel when the right seems weak. Typical for those who have no moral backbone.
Moments after Fox News and Tucker Carlson broke up, numerous celebrities posted in celebration. Though no confirmation as to why the split took place, Hollywood elites used it as an opportunity to bash Carlson and Fox News itself.
Mandelburg didn't rebut any of the criticism of Carlson; instead, she concluded by huffing:
The irony is that while the left was busy cheering Carlson not working with Fox News anymore, one of their own, Don Lemon, was fired from CNN.
All this to say, celebrities and much of the left are so dedicated to harassing, bashing and being evil towards others that at this point, it’s simply all they seem to know.
That's right -- the person whose paycheck depends on her harassing, bashing and being evil towards anyone who's not heterosexual and, in particular, is transgender is whining about other people being mean.
Nicholas Fondacaro lashed out at more Carlson critics:
With news breaking during their Monday show that Tucker Carlson was out at Fox News, the liberal and faux-conservative cast members of ABC’s The View celebrated the development by doing the wave and leading the audience in singing goodbye. One of the ladies even praised God.
As they were coming back from a commercial break late in the show, moderator Whoopi Goldberg broke the news. “Welcome back. Word has just come down that Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” she said as the audience erupted into cheers and applause.
“They thanked him for his service to the network as a host and as a prior contributor,” she read from the Fox News Media statement as she stood up and instructed the rest of the cast to do the wave with her.
[...]
Racist co-host Sunny Hostin then sarcastically gloated that, “I don’t think anyone likes to celebrate the demise of someone’s career” and quickly suggested Carlson was singularly “responsible for the degradation that we see somewhat of our democracy in this country.”
Then, speaking “as a faithful person,” the self-proclaimed devout Catholic thanked God for Carlson no longer having his gig at Fox News. “Look at God! Look at God!” she proclaimed.
For her part, co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin declared it “a good day for the Ukrainians” because Carlson was “the biggest purveyor of pro-Russian talking points” and “Russian propaganda hardest hit” by the departure.
“Karma doesn't lose anyone's address,” Hostin bragged, with Goldberg adding: “No. Well, it may misplace the address, but it doesn't lose it.”
The next day, Finkelstein groused that a commentator said Fox News want to be spoon-fed by hosts like Carlson -- then actually tried to defend Carlson's pro-Putin stance on Russia's invasion of Ukraine:
The late, great Rush Limbaugh often made a point of refuting the liberal-elite notion that his listeners were "mind-numbed robots" who took all of their political marching orders from El Rushbo. He insisted"You may learn some things, but in terms of your core beliefs you had ’em long before I came along. You’re just now having them reinforced."
On today's Morning Joe, George Conway of the disgraced Lincoln Project echoed that robotic line as he commented on Tucker Carlson's abrupt departure from Fox News. Said Conway:
That's the appeal of him to the MAGA base. Because they want to, they want to make things simpler for themselves. They don't want to think for themselves.
Democracy is complicated. Democracy is messy. Democracy is diversity. We don't like that, these people who watch Fox News. And Tucker appeals to that.
Not just the authoritarian streak, but also, you know, the great replacement theory. He wants to gin up, gin up the right, you know, with racism.
It's true that Carlson has been a critic of Biden's Ukraine position. But Conway overstated things in saying Carlson believes that it is up to Putin to define the situation there. On the first anniversary of Russia's invasion, Carlson wrote that limited objectives were reasonable:
To push Russia back to where it was a year ago before it invaded Ukraine . . . seemed like a reasonable and measurable objective."
Today, Scarborough sounded like the Biden campaign announcement, that the Democrats were for freedom and democracy, while Tucker and Trump were autocrats who liked Putin.
Of course, Carlson wasn't just "a critic of Biden's Ukraine position" -- he was enough of a supporter of Russia that his rants were played onRussian state TV. (And Russian propagandists offered him a job following his Fox News firing.)
Back to the original claim Conway made, Finkelstein played whataboutism:
If ever there were a viewership that slavishly follows the pronouncements of TV hosts, it's that of MSNBC, where Conway is a regular. The likes of Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, Joy Reid, et. al, set the agenda for liberal groupthink. Heck, many viewers apparently even take Joe Scarborough seriously! But not all: on Twitter, Scarborough was trending last night when when lefties were mad that Chris Hayes was replaced by a Scarborough softball interview with Bill Clinton.
He didn't actually prove any of that, of course. Finkelstein's soft treatment of Carlson's pro-Russia stance tells us he's a true Tucker believer and dead-ender -- you know, like the rest of the MRC.
WND Columnist Blames Nashville Massacre On Sex Education In Hungary Topic: WorldNetDaily
Carole Hornsby Haynes -- a self-proclaimed "education analyst, curriculum specialist, historian, and classical pianist" who wants you to know she has a Ph.D. -- used her March 31 WorldNetDaily column to attack the alleged transgender status ofthe perpetrator of a gun massacre at a school in Nashville, starting with the unfounded smear that all transgender people are mentally ill:
How could this shy young woman from a Christian family turn into a calculating, transgender terrorist, killing six? It's not surprising that she was under care for an emotional disorder. Transgender individuals are almost four times as likely as cisgender people to have a mental-health condition, including mood and anxiety disorders, PTSD, schizophrenia, personality disorders, autism, substance use disorders and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders.
The study to which she links also noted that "Improved social support in childhood among transgender persons may be a critical mental illness in adulthood as described in this article" -- in other words, social stigma of the kind Hornsby Haynes is apparently endorsing contributes to mental illness among transgender people.
She then went way into the weeds to blame the massacre on sex education in, um, Hungary:
Although the public is bewildered by this national trend toward transgenderism and homosexuality, history provides the answer as to why.
The origins of radical sex education date back nearly a century to a Marxist program implemented in Hungarian public schools in their quest to destroy Christianity and the family in Western Europe. The curriculum included sex lectures and graphic instructional materials about free love and sexual intercourse. Students were encouraged to ridicule and reject Christian moral ethics, monogamy, and parental and church authority. Hate was turned toward parents, clergy and all dissenters.
The program was a huge success. Continued exposure to atheism, radical sex education and rebellion against authority turned Hungarian students into bullies, thieves, murderers, sex predators and sociopaths who disrespected authority.
Hornsby Haynes linked an article she wrote in 2019 from which she pulled much of this attack, and went on to identify the person who introduced sex education in Hungary, from which all of this purportedly comes, as Georg Lukacs.You may not be surprised to learn that this attack appears to be less than factual.
Lukacs was a Marxist philosopher who who spent more time in Berliln and Moscow than he did in Hungary. His actual direct influence on education, though, appears to have been limited: he was a "People's Commissar for Education and Culture" in the Hungarian Soviet Republic, which controlled the country for a few months in 1919 before collapsing; communism didn't return to Hungary again until after World War II, and he became critical of Hungary's links to the Soviet Union.
If one guy on Reddit is to be believed, the portrayal of Lukacs' sex education plan as extreme comes from research Victor Zitta, who relied on historians with an anti-Semitic bent who would be prone to smear Jewish intellectuals like Lukacs. Other historians say the sex education was much more tame.
Factual inaccuracy wasn't about to stop Hornsby Haynes from continuing to blame education, of course:
Nearly all states have dropped their bans against the teaching of LGBT propaganda in public schools, leaving only Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Louisiana. So it's not surprising that Hale had an emotional disorder and transitioned to a "male." She attended Tennessee public schools from 2006-2014 where she was subjected to far left-wing indoctrination, LGBT curriculum and the discrediting of Christianity.
Hardening schools with armed security is not going to stop school shootings that are a consequence of the moral decay of our nation. American public schools are churning out students who exhibit the same characteristics found in Hungarian youth after implementation of a radical sex curriculum – violent, murderers, sociopaths, sex predators and God-haters. The Communist goal of creating student hatred for America, our Founding Fathers, Christianity and American capitalism has been achieved.
Looks like Hornsby Haynes wants to impose her own form of propaganda in schools.
Newsmax Columnists Freaked Out Over Trump Indictment Too Topic: Newsmax
Just as Newsmax freakedout about Donald Trump's indictment, its columnists did too. Larry Bell treated Trump as a victim in his April 6 column:
Apart from — and in addition to — torching America’s foundational fair justice and democratic electoral systems, the transparently political prosecutorial persecutions of Donald Trump by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg have inflamed to an inferno, one destined to backfire on the perpetrating arsonists.
The obvious agenda has been to keep Trump’s unabashedly unfettered persona in the compliant media forefront to distract and deflect public attention away from a previously unthinkable siege of domestic and foreign Democratic Party-Socialist policy disasters.
[...]
First, don’t imagine for a moment that the current sham Manhattan court case which George Washington law professor Jonathan Turley describes as a "legal slurpee" — satisfying for liberals but there’s nothing there — will possibly lead to a disqualifying felony conviction.
Despite all the brouhaha regarding 34 "felony charges" in Bragg’s grand jury indictment, there are exactly zero that would even warrant legitimate misdemeanor beefs in part due to long-expired statutes of limitations.
Bell's column carried a laughabledisclaimer stating that "The following article has been authored by a non-lawyer, and does not constitute a legal opinion; nor does it consitute an endorsement for any candidate, or political party, by Newsmax" -- as if Newsmax hasn't made clear it's completely in the tank for Trump.
Josh Hammer served up a ridiculous historical comparision in an April 7 column:
The Roman historian Suetonius described Julius Caesar as timid and noncommittal as he initially approached the Rubicon River — a shallow and narrow waterway that, at the time, demarcated the boundary between Cisalpine Gaul and Italy proper — in January 49 B.C.E.
In fact, the historian ultimately attributed Caesar's decision to cross the waterway, precipitating a four-year civil war and ultimate Caesarian dictatorship, to the supernatural. Prior to crossing, again according to Suetonius, Caesar uttered the now-infamous phrase: "The die has been cast."
While we cannot know for certain whether New York County, New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg's catastrophic decision to successfully indict and arraign a former president of the United States was partially attributable to an intervening apparition, we can reasonably conclude that the actions of this past week have cast a most woeful die for the trajectory of our decadent, declining republic.
The 34-count formal indictment of former President Donald Trump, laughably meritless on the legal merits and scandalously imprudent on the broader political judgment, represents a genie that cannot, and will not, ever be returned to its bottle.
Much ink has already been spilled on the glaring legal deficiencies in Bragg's case, which ought to be evident to any competent first-year law student and which had led Bragg's predecessor Cyrus Vance Jr., U.S. prosecutors and — in the not-so-distant past — Bragg himself to eschew prosecution.
Neither Bell nor Hammer can't actually know anything about the merits of Trump's indictment, given that all of the evidence has not yet been revealed.
Michael Reagan whined about the indictment in his April 11 column:
Additional proof that you can kill two birds with one stone. Or in this instance, one indictment can accomplish two political goals. Pipsqueak District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his comical indictment of Donald Trump is a big crowd pleaser among rabid leftwing voters.
Bragg "The Man Who Indicted Trump" will never have to pay for a drink again.
Or buy his own dinner, although in the long run that could be a real problem for him.
For feverish leftists this lame indictment is so much better than some stodgy Senate impeachment trial because it has fingerprints and the potential for more zany jurors.
[...]
Trump energizes the Trump base.
Then he polarizes every last member of the Democratic Party and he alienates independents and swing voters. The GOP’s path to presidential victory is razor thin at best.
With Trump as the nominee, it vanishes.
Trump deserves our sympathy. He's not been treated fairly.
Yes, the indictment is an outrage. But the best response for the country we love is not to give Trump the nomination because the left is picking on him.
That is exactly what they fervently want us to do.
The response that will hurt the left the most is to pick a nominee that has the best chance of beating Biden and the rest of the country wreckers that stock his administration.
The 2024 election may be our last chance.
Don’t throw it away.
Bell Returned to attack the indictment again in his April 14 column -- though, again, he cannot possibly know all the evidence behind it:
Never underestimate a targeted victim's ability to fight back.
Although Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s contrived charges against Donald Trump proves you can indict one, Democrats are the ones most likely to suffer acute indigestion served up by 2024 voters hungry for change from a two-tier Orwellian animal farm justice system.
Recent surveys indicate that a large segment of the population recognizes the case as being full of unsavory and otherwise thoroughly distasteful political malarkey.
Bell then played whataboutism by referencing various alleged scandals involving Democrats that were hyped by right-wing media -- though, oddly enough, in part to insist that voters don't care about such things. Still, Newsmax slapped a disclaimer on his column laughably insisting that "The following article does not constitute support for any political candidate and/or political party, on the part of Newsmax."
NEW ARTICLE -- CNS' War Against Nancy Pelosi: To The End, And Beyond Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com continued to attack Nancy Pelosi even after she stepped down from House leadership -- and kept it up until CNS was shut down. Read more >>
MRC Mixes Homophobia, Transphobia In Rant About Chasten Buttigieg Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Tierin-Rose Mandelburg mixed in homophobia with her usual transphobia in a March 16 post:
On March 16, The View hosted none other than Chasten Buttigieg, the "husband" of Transportaion Secretary Pete Buttigieg, to dish about fatherhood, his gayness and especially, his support for transgender youth.
This gave "s**t show" a whole new meaning.
Amid conversation about challenges of raising a set of twins with his husband, Joy Behar jumped in to switch the topic to the “larger issue” of “what’s going on” where “politicians across the country are trying to restrict gay and trans rights, everything from Florida's so-called don't say gay bill to banning drag shows. There's a war against transgender people.”
Naturally, the other harpies nodded or let out audible notions of agreement. Buttigieg said, “I think it's an extremely dangerous time.”
He's right. It's a dangerous time to be a confused teenager, with the culture telling you that, if you had a bad day you might be in the wrong body, and a whole industry eager to sell you life-altering surgeries and medications and calling it “gender-affirming health care.”
In addition to putting "husband" in scare quotes, Mandelburg hatefully called Chasten "Mrs. Buttigieg." Also, "the culture" is not making people transgender. Mandelburg continued to rage:
He started harping on book bans. He insisted that kids were “extremely vulnerable” and banning books for them to read was a “calculated choice” to make kids the “enemy.”
WHAT? Kids are not the enemy. Kids, like he said, are the vulnerable ones who need to be taught truth and taught to love the God-given body they were blessed with. The enemies are groomers who want to sexualize children, confuse them about sexuality, and subject them to harmful chemicals and surgeries with irreversible damage. The enemy is the ideology that preaches there is no normal.
That’s what’s dangerous.
It seems Mandelburg's idea of children being "taught truth" is indoctrination that anyone who's not exactly like them is evil and must be outcast from society and treated with hate and contempt. In other words, she wants to force an ideology on children that's arguably more dangerous than the so-called "ideology" of accepting people's differences -- and transphobes like Mandelburg believe kids really are the enemy.
Going back to the topic of "book bans" for a second, its important to recognize that the titles weren’t being removed for frivolous reasons. Books that were being taken from school libraries were the ones that teach five-year-olds how to masturbate, or the ones that tell vulnerable kids to keep secrets from their parents, or teach about anal sex. THOSE were the things being removed because they were prime ways for adults to groom kids.
She identified no book that "teaches five-year-olds how to masturbate," nor did she explain why secrets shouldn't be kept from parents who would mistreat or reject a child if that secret was known.
Mandelburg concluded with more anti-trans hate and demands for forced conformity:
As a segue, Buttigieg added a plug for his own book claiming that he hopes it "gets into hands of kids and are looking up to politicians and saying do I have a place in this country, do I belong here? My answer to them is, yes, you do.”
Certainly they do, but most especially as the kids they were born to be, not some fictitious version of themselves that they’re told is real and that's what kids should be taught.
It’s not a surprise that Buttigieg and The View ladies are so “all-in” for transgender youth but the danger lies in the fact that this is the garbage the viewers hear and see and may, in turn, start to believe.
Of course, Mandelburg has made it more than clear that transgender people don't belong anywhere -- and that all she believes is hatred toward others who aren't exactly like her.
WND Promotes Yet Another Bogus Study Attacking COVID Vaccines Topic: WorldNetDaily
An anonymously written April 2 WorldNetDaily article claimed:
A new report on COVID, and the shots that were used against it, has revealed a stunning human toll from those "medications": 26.6 million injured, 1.36 million disabled and 300,000 dead.
Nor is the economic loss easier to accept: $150 billion.
And these are from the shots, not the COVID-19 virus itself, a coronavirus that likely came out of a lab in Wuhan, China, that was doing experiments on how to make those viruses more lethal, and more easily spread.
The estimates are from Phinance Technologies, which explained, "The SARS-CoV-2 virus outbreak and the political and societal process that started unfolding in its wake will be looked at in retrospect as one of the most important moments in modern history. The waves of fear that the invisible threat posed to each and every individual united them in the acceptance of a solution to the problem."
It continued, "The monolithic solution that corporate, regulatory and societal leaders came up with was a novel inoculation technology using mRNA to instruct our body cells to produce a particular section of the virus (spike protein) that the body could build defenses against. This technology was previously forbidden to be used in human subjects in several international bio-ethics treaties."
Given WND's history of publishingbogusattacks on COVID vaccines, you will not be surprised to learn that this study is bogus too. Health Feedback documented how the study assumed correlations equaled causation and used flawed or inadequate datasets, summarizing:
In summary, claims that vaccination cost billions to the economy due to injuries and disabilities are inaccurate and based on a flawed analysis by Phinance Technologies. The analysis showed no causal association, relying exclusively on detecting correlations. The analysis also used datasets inadequate to their objective and research actually points to COVID-19 vaccination being associated with economic benefits, not the opposite as claimed by [Edward] Dowd.
COVID-19 vaccines substantially reduce the risk of dying from COVID-19, and serious side effects are very rare. Excess deaths among working-age adults in 2021 and 2022 were driven by COVID-19 and other factors, not vaccination. Faulty logic underlies claims that vaccines caused mass disability and economic harm.
WND doesn't want you to know any of this -- its editorial agenda is to malign COVID vaccines no matter what the truth is -- so it will not update its article to tell readers the study has been debunked.
MRC's Transgender Hate Rolls On Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's rage againsttransgender people has continued unabated.A Feb. 20 post by Clay Waters complained that a news segment on anti-transgender laws didn't include any transphobes:
NPR's big story on Monday's Morning Edition was “Florida bans gender-affirming care for transgender youth. Parents raise concerns,” by Melissa Block. She's a former morning anchor turned “NPR special correspondent covering gender issues." Block’s completely one-sided seven-minute story included a portrait of teenager Liz Bostock, “[a]ssigned male at birth.”
With a soft, celebratory focus on activist mothers, happy "trans kids," and virtually no dissenting voices aired or inconvenient facts raised, it’s a perfect encapsulation of the liberal media’s harmful attitude that children can be born in the wrong body, an error that needs irrevocable surgical and-or chemical fixing that can result in permanent sterilization.
NPR used the bizarre term "gender-affirming care" describe gender denial....five times in seven minutes. The teenager started receiving puberty blockers last August. "It's been amazing," said her mother.
A Feb. 24 item by Brad Milmouth weirdly insisted that a CNN host who called out anti-transgender politicians was actually "promot[ing] transgender surgery for underage teens":
On Tuesday's The Lead show, CNN host Jake Tapper did his part to promote transgender surgery for underage teens as he devoted a segment to fretting over Idaho's push for a state ban. Republicans only stood for "cruelty" and "meanness" that is somehow against God.
Teenage transgender activist Eve Debitt and father Michael Debitt were given an extremely sympathetic forum to complain about the Idaho legislature's actions with no serious consideration of the view that such surgery causes irreversible harm through amputation.
Tim Graham served up his own whine on March 4 that transphobes aren't getting included enough in stories on anti-transgender legislation:
The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and federal funding for TV public-affairs programs, insisted on “strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature." The CPB and PBS have ignored this language ever since.
On Wednesday, the PBS NewsHour aired an 11-minute segment under the headline “Parents concerned as new state laws restrict rights of transgender children.” They summarized it on Twitter: "Republican legislators are advancing bills restricting doctors and other providers from offering transition-related health care for minors."
Anchor William Brangham began with a medley of permissive parents who lobbied against Republicans who oppose so-called "gender-affirming care" for kids, from puberty blockers to amputation surgeries. Then he conducted an interview with radical transgender activist Erin Reed, which made it nearly unanimous -- on a subject that is clearly "of a controversial nature." Reed fights dirty, comparing GOP opposition to "genocide."
The conservative or Republican view was aired for 48 seconds, and then Reed was allowed to shoot it down, with no rebuttal.
We don't recall Graham ever complaining that Fox News gave short shrift to "the liberal view" then attacked it with no rebuttal.
The MRC's chief transphobe, Tierin-Rose Mandelburg, raged at a transgender child in a March 6 post:
Two words that should never appear in the same sentence but so often do these days: “trans” and “kids.”
“Real Housewives” star Heather Dubrow posted on Instagram for International Son’s day in honor of her “son” who was once her daughter. As a result, numerous blue checks praised the “inclusivity” and “celebration” of the child's deep confusion.
Dubrow posted a photo of the beach with the word “ACE,” her “son’s” name, etched into the sand for International Son’s Day on March 4th.
[...]
Unironically, most trans kids don’t grow up healthy, happy, confident or independent like Dubrow said. Many of them deal with the life-long side effects of the mutilation they had done. Most can’t have kids naturally, can’t breastfeed, deal with depression and even thoughts of suicide. Last year, 82% of trans-identifying people considered suicide.
Mandelburg didn't mention that the study noted that "Interpersonal microaggressions made a unique, statistically significant contribution to lifetime suicide attempts" -- meaning that transgender people are being driven to suicide in part because of haters like her.
On a similar note, Waters returned for a March 11 post complaining that one TV host raised the possibilty of "real-world violence" against transgender people as the result of anti-trans legislation: "How do 'we know' anything of the kind about how state legislation leads to 'real-world violence,' besides from the rhetoric of the most extreme trans-activists?"
A March 13 post by Mandelburg twisted President Biden's words to bizarrely portray his speaking out against anti-trans laws as an endorsement of child mutilation:
Perhaps it’s opposite day.
On Monday’s segment of Comedy Central's The Daily Show, President Joe Biden spoke with gay man and former White House staff member in the Obama era, Kal Penn, where he admitted that he thought restricting kids from getting their private parts mutilated was “sinful.”
The pair began speaking about gay-marriage and Biden’s efforts to keep it legal. Biden said his stance was “simple” after talking about his “epiphany” with homosexuality when he saw two men locking lips in high school.
Penn also asked about the transgender population, specifically transgender youth who are dealing with, so-called “regressive state laws.”
“Transgender kids is a really harder thing,” he began. “What’s going on in Florida is, as my mother would say, close to sinful. I mean it's terrible what they're doing.”
In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis is spearheading laws that would prohibit kids from receiving dangerous surgeries and drugs to change their gender. DeSantis recognizes that there are two genders and that children are not mature enough to make such life altering decisions. While his laws are evidence of him looking out for children's best interests, the left is twisting it into an anti-LGBTQ campaign by the Republican Governor.
Mandelburg pushed the right-wing narrative that a failure to sufficiently hate transgender people is making people transgender:
Obviously Biden is not a fan of such a move. "It’s not like a kid wakes up one morning and says, ‘You know, I decided I want to become a man' or 'I want to become a woman' or 'I want to change.' What are they thinking about here? They are human beings. They love. They have feelings. They have inclinations that are... It just, to me, is, I don’t know is, it's cruel,” the president said in the clip.
Well, he was right that kids don’t wake up and just choose to be a different gender. More often than not, they are conditioned or indoctrinated into believing that is their reality. Whether it’s their teachers who shove LGBTQ propaganda to them in schools or parents who agree to let their kids live a delusion, Biden is failing to recognize that kids don’t know better. Kids trust adults and if adults tell them that getting life altering surgery is good, then they’ll do it.
So upset was the MRC by Biden's "Daily Show" interview that Alex Christy complained about it the next day.
Christy returned for a March 25 post in which he groused that commentator Jonathan Capehart portray right-wing concern about "parental rights" as all about hating transgender kids (which he didn't rebut) and tried to lamely tried to respond whe Capehart called out "rabble-rousing parents" who are actually just targeting transgender kids: "It is not “rabble-rousing” to say that boys are boys and girls are girls and that teenagers should not be given hormone treatment, but it is rabble-rousing to say that they should."
How Is The MRC Fearmongering About Soros Now? Topic: Media Research Center
When the Media Research Center wasn't busy trying to tie George Soros to the district attorney prosecuting Donald Trump for financial crimes (and loudlydenying it was leaning into anti-Semitic tropes by doing so), the Media Research Center was attacking Soros in all the usual ways. Here's what the MRC has done in the field of Soros-bashing since the beginning of the year, when we last checked in:
We've already noted how the MRC has lashed out at a Soros-funded group for accurately pointing out how Elon Musk is pushing Twitter rightward, and how it tried to scapegoat a Soros-linked prosecutor for dropping a charge against a man who later perpetrated a massacre even though the charge dropped was carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, something right-wing gun-lovers like the MRC endorse (shades of what it would later do to Bragg).
It wouldn't be the MRC if there wasn't at least one wacky attack on Soros, and Gabriela Pariseau oblliged in a Feb. 17 post accusing Soros of hypocrisy for pointing out Donald Trump's narcissism:
Leftist billionaire George Soros railed against former President Donald Trump and called him a narcissist. Yes, America’s most notorious self-absorbed billionaire is whining about “narcissism.”
Soros delivered a climate alarmist speech at the Technical University of Munich where he took time to lambast Trump as “a deeply flawed character, a confidence fixer whose narcissism grew into a disease.” Soros admitted that his "hope for 2024" is that the Republican vote would be split between DeSantis and Trump as a third party presidential candidate resulting in an overhaul of the Republican Party. “That would lead to a Democratic landslide and force the Republican party to reform itself. But perhaps I may be just a little bit biased." More than a little biased indeed. This is the same Soros who once claimed he saw himself as “some kind of god,” made it his goal to “become the conscience of the world,” and told The New York Times in 2019 that he was working to “bend” the “arc of history” in the “right direction.” Soros is “narcissism” personified.
MRC Business previously reported in its recent three-part series on Soros that the conceited billionaire even admitted that he “always harbored” an “exaggerated view” of his “self-importance,” in his magnum opus The Alchemy of Finance (1995).
Soros is certainly vying to be the “conscience of the world,” and he’s bought himself influential access to nearly every sphere of the political scene imaginable.
Note that Pariseau did not dispute anything Soros said about Trump -- she simply attacked Soros for saying it. She also seemed not to realize that Soros admitting to his narcissism shows he has a more healthy and realistic view of himself than Trump, who is far too narcissistic to ever admit such a thing. Pariseau instead endeavored to find more alleged Soros crimes:
In Soros’ latest speech, he targeted Trump’s encouragement that states pass stronger election integrity legislation and accused the former president of trying to “ensure that his party will remain in power indefinitely.” His disdain for election integrity is unsurprising considering Soros was part of a $59 million effort to boost the dubious practice of mass mail-in voting prior to the 2020 election. He later coordinated with fellow leftist billionaire and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar to weaponize millions in cash through the leftist group Way-to-Win ’s donor collaborative, Valiente Fund, in a campaign to recruit Latino voters “for victory in the November [2022] midterms.”
In fact, "election integrity" is little more than a right-wing narrative to make voting more restrictive in an claimed attempt to stop purpored election fraud that really doesn't exist -- indeed, Trump has been pushing that narrative to advance his false claims that the 2020 presidential eleciton was "stolen" from him.And calling mail-in voting "dubious" is also a right-wing narrative (also lacking factual justification) with a goal of restricting the practice because more Democrats than Republicans make use of it. Finally, get-out-the-vote efforts are not against the law, they're not evil, and Republicans do the same thing.
Pariseu concluded by huffing: "Soros is in no position to be complaining about 'narcissism.'" If she can't or won't admit Trump's narcissism, she's in no position to criticize Soros.
MRC Desperately Puts Pro-Musk Spin On NPR Standing Up To Musk's Threats Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center absolutelyloved it when Elon Musk, seeking to generate some desperate clickbait after getting caught not giving right-wing hate and extremism a totally free pass, arbitrarily labeled NPR's Twitter feed as "state-affiliated media." When Musk dialed the label back a bit to "government-funded media," the MRC's Luis Cornelio fretted that it was a "fake news victory."
Whwen Musk completely reversed himself and dropped such labeling not just for NPR but for all similar media organizations -- even the ones that were clearly state propaganda, somehing the MRC insisted NPR was but could never prove -- a dejected Cornelio lamented even more in an April 25 post headlined "CAVING?"
Twitter 2.0 appears to be caving to leftist pressure by removing the “government-funded” labels it slapped on taxpayer-financed outlets like NPR.
Twitter owner Elon Musk initially supported labeling government-funded media labels for the outlets that receive funds from the government. Still — after pressure from the left — Twitter has removed labels that accurately described NPR and other news organizations as “government-funded.” NPR even actively promotes on its website how “[f]ederal funding is essential to public radio's service to the American public and its continuation is critical for both stations and program producers, including NPR.”
This is not the first time Twitter 2.0 caved to the left. Earlier this month, Musk slapped NPR with a “state-affiliated media” label but switched gears after left-wing backlash.
Cornelio didn't mention that Musk dropped the label for indisiputable state propaganda, not just NPR -- or that an official with Russian state media outlet RT praised Musk for doing so. Instead, he whined that people defended NPR:
NPR President and CEO John Lansing threw a hissy fit over Musk’s move by barring the company from publishing its news on Twitter, The Washington Post reported. “We were disturbed to see last night that Twitter has labeled NPR as 'state-affiliated media,' a description that, per Twitter's own guidelines, does not apply to NPR,” Lansing said. NPR opted to quit Twitter after the Twitter labels.
Even White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre rushed to defend NPR journalists at an April 5 press conference, claiming they “work diligently to hold public officials accountable and inform the American people.” “The hard-hitting independent nature of their coverage speaks for itself,” she decried. CNN’s Kaitlan Collins similarly defended NPR. “That’s not obviously NPR,” Collins said in reference to the definition of state-affiliated media. “NPR does great journalism.”
Cornelio then huffed, "The evidence of NPR’s left-wing, pro-Democrat talking points is endless" -- which disproves that it's state-controlled media, because if it were it would have offered Republican propaganda when Donale Trump was president.He then cited as anexample of this a correcpondent who " dubbed the Wuhan laboratory leak story one of the “biggest conspiracy theories” about COVID-19" -- which means that the narrative is nothing more than a right-wing talking point and certainly not a search for truth (and he didn't explain how, exactly, how the narrative is "left-wing").
When Musk tried to coerce NPR into tweeting again by threatening to give its Twitter handle to someone else -- even though NPR had not met Twitter's own standards for abandoning an account handle, which is based on logging into the account, not tweeting -- Cornelio misleadingly framed it ina May 3 post as NPR being "triggered" by Musk instead of the reality that Musk threatened NPR:
Twitter owner Elon Musk managed to trigger the leftist, taxpayer-funded NPR — again.
Musk pledged to transfer the username of NPR’s main Twitter account (@NPR) to a different organization or person with the same acronym according to email correspondence between Musk and NPR reporter Bobby Allyn. Musk’s comment came as a response to NPR’s hissy fit decision to abruptly quit Twitter after being accurately labeled as “government-funded.”
“So is NPR going to start posting on Twitter again, or should we reassign @NPR to another company?" Musk allegedly said in a Tuesday email. “‘Our policy is to recycle handles that are definitively dormant,’” Musk wrote in another email to NPR. “‘Same policy applies to all accounts. No special treatment for NPR.’”
Actually, Musk is the one who's throwing a hissy fit, but Cornelio won't tell you that, nor will he mention that there's no evidence NPR has abandoned its handle based on longstanding Twitter guidelines. Instead, he quoted a fellow MRC employee bizarrely claiming that Musk is trying to execute a power play (never mind that it violates Twitter corporate policies) and tried to insult the NPR reporter for pointing out facts:
MRC Free Speech America & MRC Business Director Michael Morris reacted to Musk’s actions against NPR. “I think what Musk is really doing here is putting a thumb on NPR to pressure it to reveal the true nature of its government funding,” he said. “If Musk does take @NPR’s handle, he shouldn’t give it back until NPR comes clean. #DefundNPR.”
Allyn further complained that journalists are no longer able to differentiate between what is “real and what is fake” now that blue check marks are available for all Twitter users, not just the elite.
“By recently making ‘verified’ blue checks available for purchase, Musk has created a turbulent social media landscape, blurring the lines for users between what is real and what is fake on one of the most influential social networks,” he wrote.
Allyn topped his child-like tantrum off by praising Twitter 1.0. (Yes, the same platform that muzzled a sitting president and colluded with the government to censor information amid the COVID-19 pandemic).
“For most of its 17-year history, Twitter has had rules that maintained a certain level of order and offered both individuals and organization some control over their presence on the platform,” the reporter claimed.
Yikes, cry more.
It's highly unlikely that Allyn or anyone else at NPR is crying over this situation -- that would be Musk, who is losing content because of his own impulsiveness and insistence on generating right-wing clicks and trying to own the libs ahead of sound business practices.But Cornelio won't tell you that either.
The Media Research Center had a sad when Fox News fired Tucker Carlson, but it rejoiced when CNN fired Don Lemon the same day. But the MRC also wanted to create a false equivalence between the two firings -- even though Carlson was a highly rated (for cable news) host in charge of the flagship show on a highly partisan TV channel while Lemon had been, as the MRC repeatedly reminded us, "demoted" to a morning-show slot on a more straightforward news channel. As a result, it complained with non-right-wing outlets wouldn't embrace that narrative. Kevin Tober huffed in an April 24 post:
In contrast with the 
We've documented
As we show how the Media Research Center 
The Media Research Center -- fans of everything Fox News -- particularly loved Tucker Carlson, so much so that it would dedicate entire posts to transcribing what he said. Here are a few examples of its Tucker stenography in recent months:
Carole Hornsby Haynes -- a self-proclaimed "education analyst, curriculum specialist, historian, and classical pianist" who wants you to know she has a Ph.D. -- used her March 31 WorldNetDaily 
Just as Newsmax 
The Media Research Center's Tierin-Rose Mandelburg mixed in homophobia with her usual transphobia in a March 16 
An anonymously written April 2 WorldNetDaily 
The Media Research Center's 
When the Media Research Center wasn't busy 
The Media Research Center 
