Last year, the Media Research Center's Jorge Bonilla -- head of its MRC Latino project -- made a big deal out of how an investment group funded in part by George Soros bought a group of Hispanic radio stations, calling the new combine "Radio Soros" despite offering no evidence that Soros would have any say whatsoever in the stations' content. One of the stations purchased was a Miami outlet known as Radio Mambi -- notorious for its spreading of far-right hate conspiracy theories -- and he touted how "the station's top talent left the station rather than work for a Soros-backed outlet, and landed at conservative Americano Media." Bonilla didn't explain it, but Americano Media was a media group that effectively wanted to be the Spanish-language Fox News and did a lot of the same right-wing conspiracy-mongering and narrative-pushing that Radio Mambi did.

Bonilla decided he wanted to get in on that sweet action. In a June 2 tweet, he announced that "I am thrilled to announce the launch of The Jorge Bonilla Show, weekdays noon-2/E on @AmericanoMedia radio starting on Monday, June 5th," and that he would be leaving the MRC, adding in a later tweet, "After years of advocating for balance in Spanish-language media, I am proud to be part of the solution." Bonilla didn't explain how helping to spread bogus conspiracy theories and mindlessly repeating right-wing talking points was any sort of "solution."

Unfortunately for Bonilla, it turned out he was leaving the MRC for a sinking ship. A couple months later, it was reported that Americano Media had run out money, with the chief culprits allegedly being overspending and mismanagement -- tough one has to presume that the audience for right-wing Spanish-language content was not as big or profitable as activists had assumed -- and employees (Bonilla presumably among them) were not getting paid. As those employees refused to work without getting paid, Americano Media was effectively shut down.

Bonilla and the MRC said nothing about all this drama, of course. And as Americano Media shut down, Bonilla quietly returned to the MRC at the end of August, once again cranking out posts for MRC Latino. Among his recent contributions are a Sept. 27 post ranting that Spanish-language TV network Univision doesn't "represent the Hispanic community" and that it "has no mandate from Heaven with which to speak on behalf of the Hispanic community" because it purporedly is nothing more than "a Democrat talking points regurgitator" -- never mind that he and Americano Media were and are little more than regurgitators of Republican talking points.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:17 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

The Media Research Center is so giddy at the prospect of Elon Musk suing the Anti-Defamation League for pointing out anti-Semitism on Twitter (well, X) -- so much so that it called in racist cartoonist Scott Adams to defend Musk -- that it failed to tell its readers that around the same time, Twitter CEO :Linda Yaccarino rushed to post a policy on anti-Semitism that 1) had to be edited several times and 2) was posted late on a Friday night, when many Jews are observing the Sabbath. No mention either of how Twitter is contining to place ads from major advertisers next to anti-Semitic content. It also won't tell readers how Musk has said not only that he will continue to cozy up to China -- which the MRC once criticized -- but hat he thinks there are two sides to China's ongoing repression and alleged genocide of the country's ethnic Uyghur population.

Instead, the MRC is a Musk fanboy and will excuse pretty much anything he does. Gabriela Pariseau hyped another "Twitter files" thing in a Sept. 11 post, claiming that "Twitter employees worked with a Saudi Arabian social media “spy ring” to “unmask” accounts critical of the government. When the DOJ exposed the operation, Twitter executives helped cover up the platform’s role." Pariseau also claimed that the writer of it, Lee Fang, is an "independent investigative reporter" despite the fact that given Fang is writing what Muak told him to write -- like all the other "Twitter files" reporters -- he cannot possibly be "independent."

The MRC's tunnel vision over Twitter holding  right-wingers accountable for their hate and misinformation -- which the MRC likes to dishonestly portray as "censorship" -- kicked in again as Pariseau whined in a Sept. 13 post:

Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) has once again embraced silent suppression and has begun placing sensitive content filters on nearly every original media post from a government watchdog organization. 

The American Accountability Foundation reported on Substack Monday that Twitter has begun censoring much of its content. The group has worked to expose the President of the American Library Association Emily Drabinski as a leftist activist dimissing parental concerns and pushing wild LGBT ideologies in libraries.

AAF says they immediately saw apparent backlash via X censorship. “[A]fter we posted images of the LGBTQ books they are pushing on our children, X (Twitter) hit our account with a ‘sensitive content’ warning on ALL OUR MEDIA POSTS, and shadowbanned our account so that you won’t find us in a search on X.”

A content warning is not "censorship," however much Pariseau wants you to believe otherwise. By contrast, the MRC refused to call Musk adding a needless delay when a user clicks on a link in a tweet that went to certain websites Musk hates was somehow not "censorship."

The next day, Catherine Salgado was back to Musk PR mode:

X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk says the platform should be for moderate Americans, not just leftists.

The All In Podcast, which is hosted by David Sacks, Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, and David Friedberg, posted an interview they did with Elon Musk at the All In Summit. During the interview, Musk noted that, in the past, social media has all been “very left-leaning to far left-leaning,” suspending Republicans far more than leftists. He also expressed his goal of changing that online monopoly. The X owner and billionaire said that “The suspensions of several Republican candidates, interests, or voices were at least ten times the rate of—suppression of left-wing voices.” He also expressed his goal of changing that online monopoly and allowing free speech for people of all political stripes. His comments, however, come amidst new censorship policies on X, including an increased emphasis on freedom of speech, not reach.

Musk specifically addressed the accusation that he is somehow making Twitter a right-wing conspiracy morass. “[Our goal with] the X platform is really meant to be a level playing field, a public square that is supportive of…most of the country, the middle 80%,” he said.  Musk noted that before he bought the platform “Social media ha[d been] very left-leaning to far left-leaning, and really Twitter was far-left leaning.”

He continued: “The suspensions of several Republican candidates, interests, or voices were at least ten times the rate of—suppression of left-wing voices on, you know, [the] old Twitter.”

Musk offered no proof to back up this claim, and Salgado apparently made no effort to ask for any. She also did not disclose that Sacks is a pro-Musk loyalist who helped run Twitter after Musk bought it, so there was never going to be any tough questioning here. Instead, she huffed that right-wing hate was still being moderated as she groused that Musk "did not address the fact that anti-woke individuals are still censored on Twitter."

When the Washington Post reported how Twitter is cooperating with German authorities in providing information on accounts linked to hate crimes -- whihc tracks with reports that Twitter has regularly complied with similar data reports from other countries, even more so than it did prior to Musk's ownership -- Tom Olohan ran to Musk's defense in a Sept. 19 post, again repeating the MRC dishonest mantra that trying to address hate and lies on Twitter is "censorship":

X owner Elon Musk gave a warning to any X (formerly Twitter) employees who bow to outside pressure and censor free speech.

Musk responded harshly to a Washington Post article that claimed his social media platform was cooperating with German censorship requests. In a Sept. 17 X post, Musk wrote, “At the risk of stating the obvious, I don’t know what’s going on with every part of this platform all the time, but our policy worldwide is to fight for maximum freedom of speech under the law.”

While this statement left room for X to censor content that is violative of local laws, Musk warned his employees not to go farther. “Anyone working for X Corp who does not operate according to this principle will be invited to further their career at any one of the other social media companies who sell their soul for a buck,” Musk added.

Musk’s statements coincide with many of his previous commitments to free speech. However, since Musk purchased the social media platform back in 2022, his choice to reinstate prominent accounts such as Christian satire website The Babylon Bee and Canadian professor Dr. Jordan Peterson and his allowance of honest discussion on social issues have apparently been met with internal resistance.

Olohan whined that Twitter cooperating with Germany was somehow Germany's fault because it does not have "freedom of speech":

But Musk’s commitment to allowing legal speech, although heartening news for those who live in the free world, may provide little relief for those in Germany and countries with similar laws. The Post claimed that X “is complying with requests to turn over more information about its users to prosecutors in online hate-crime investigations.”

The liberal rag added that Germany “has strict hate-speech laws forbidding certain defamation of politicians and promotion of white supremacy, and the company under Musk has turned over reams of user data to prosecutors to help identify those who break the law, according to three prosecutor offices who spoke with The Washington Post.” 

German “citizens” do not have freedom of speech or the right to make choices about their child’s education. The Post article even mentioned a case against a man for being rude to a politician. Absurdly, this article ended with a quote attempting to distinguish Germany from authoritarian governments.

Olohan didn't expalin why hateful white supremaicsm and Nazism should be allowed to spread unchecked, or why it's "censorship" to try and stop something so obvoiusly sickening and evil.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:06 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Homosexual pride month is now over. But, what exactly did those celebrating debauchery accomplish to ingratiate themselves with the public? How many parents go to bed at night, after viewing the crude morally depraved behavior exhibited from the White House to the television screen to the streets in the most decadent displays of grotesque amoral behavior masquerading as parades, and think how wonderful such abominating behavioral practices are?

After hearing and seeing these people on the news dressed in outfits that screamed horrific depravity, how many parents voiced to their children: "That's what I want you to be when you grow up"? How many parents were convinced to take their children to the nearest clinic and start getting the child puberty blockers?

How many parents were thrilled to hear these people boast: "We're coming for your children"? Or is the real question parents were asking: "What can we do to protect our children?"

The indisputable fact is that these people are coming after our children and they're being aided and abetted by the Biden administration and the public schools.

[...]

I believe a great guilt of responsibility must be laid at the feet of Christendom. True Christians have the Sword of Truth, i.e., God's Word. However, many, if not most, not only ignore it, but they are contributors to this cesspool.

I drove by many churches during June that had rainbow flags and signboards on the church property. I saw one just last week bearing the words "Love is welcome and practiced here," with the rainbow as its background. Apparently, the Bibles they use omit Leviticus 20 (KJV). What they support isn't love; it is sin.

-- Mychal Massie, July 3 WorldNetDaily column

The easiest way to identify a hopelessly lost cause is to listen to the gurgitation of idiocy coming from those advancing and/or sponsoring said cause. A prime example of same is the outrageous claim written in a dissenting opinion by associate justice of the Supreme Court Ketanji Brown Jackson in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.

In what appeared to be a last ditch effort to give a single-digit salute to the six SCOTUS justices whose decision effectively ended melanin-coded affirmative action as consideration for college admission, Jackson threw everything at the wall hoping something would stick.

[...]

Jackson and those like her would have us forget and/or ignore the fact that the greatest cause of death and harm to so-called black infants is not a shortage of melanin-visible doctors; rather it's the unlimited number of crayon-colored doctors responsible for the murder of 25 million or more unborn crayon-color children.

-- Mychal Massie, July 10 WND column

At the Family Leadership Summit forum held Friday, July 14, 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa, [Asa] Hutchinson was pressed during his interview with [Tucker] Carlson for being soft on the issue of children's sex changes. In response to Tucker's question, Hutchinson opined: "Tucker, I hope that we'll be able to talk about some [real] issues."

That was an incredible statement! Apparently, it was no less so to Tucker who pointed out: "This is one of the biggest issues in the country … it is a central issue."

[Mike] Pence was seething during his forum interview with Carlson. He was beyond angry because Tucker dared ask real, substantive questions. After a ponderous response to a question, Pence made a statement that could be taken two different ways. His response could have been taken as his meaning he "wasn't concerned" with Ukraine's military arsenal, or it could be taken as I and most everyone else understood it, that he is in fact "not concerned" with the most significant of domestic issues rank-and-file Americans are confronted with every day.

The point is that by observing these two politicians, the depth of their counterfeit is unambiguous. They're phonies who paint on false smiles and respond with canned answers to the applause of a handful of plants in the audience and, typically, a sycophant interviewer lobbing balloon-size softball questions.

--Mychal Massie, July 17 WND column

And yet, the topic that has dominated the "it's racist” drumbeat has been Jason Aldean's monster hit "Try That in a Small Town." What else would we expect from Biden instigators?

It's a conundrum to sane persons how contradictory and conflicted the reasoning of hebephrenic minstrels and racism agitators can be. These people are truly demonically influenced. Jason Aldean's song is music about the security and social construct of the small-town South, perhaps even a reminder of the melancholic and slow life of his childhood in Macon, Georgia.

Not everyone growing up in the South is or was a racist. Regardless of what we see represented by Trotskyites like Stacy Abrams, Bernice King et al. The purveyors of immiseration have nothing else to offer but lies and misrepresentation. They're truly evil, wicked people whose single agenda in life is to mislead and foment antipathy based upon the fallacious construct of skin color. They would call a ham sandwich racist, because it was served on white bread.

[...]

I look forward to seeing Jason Aldean in concert, where I'll applaud and say amen for him writing such a wonderful song about the small-town America I love.

-- Mychal Massie, July 24 WND column

There are none more stenotopic when it comes to the pursuit of rejecting modernity from cradle to grave than hate-filled Negro women who behaviorally redefine "harridan." That's not ipse dixit. It's a fact verifiable on every quantifiable level.

In fact, so much so, that I'm beginning to wonder if there's a pill the pimps and harlots responsible for the prostitution of skin pigmentation and the discord sown by same take each morning that enables them to slither through life spawning and sowing lies and the rejection of modernity for self promotion.

The latest elapid to enter the metaphorical societal garden is called an NBC reporter going by the name of Char Adams. I thought Jam-mu (sic) Greene, Stacy Abrams, Joy(less) Reid, Maxine 'drip-drip' Waters, who is as mad as a hatter, the Obama woman et al. were among the most spiritually and emotionally diminished of their species, but apparently, Adams has decided to make the contest for same a horse race.

Each of the women I reference above has tried to elevate herself to the top of the pile of stuff Mrs. Truman spent 25 years trying to get President Truman to call fertilizer.

[...]

Adams and her kind are the progeny of the marriage of agitprop and socialist alchemy in higher education. Her kind goes into the educational community and falls prey to the lies and Marxian propaganda. As William F. Buckley noted: "We see how a number of energetic social innovators, plugging their grand designs, succeeded over the years in capturing the liberal intellectual imagination. And since ideas rule the world, the ideologues, having won over the intellectual class, simply walked in and started to run things."

Suffice it to say, that no group of people has been more disaffected than the contentious, mean-spirited women coming out of colleges and universities today, who base even their oxygen intake on being a crayon color.

These people are a shameful display of wasted opportunity. They should be concerned about teaching women to be more than sperm repositories for men who have no intention of making a life with them. They should view themselves as more than cash machines for Planned Parenthood.

-- Mychal Massie, July 31 WND column

Posted by Terry K. at 10:28 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

The Media Rsearch Center has a bit of a misogynist streak, and that popped up again in an Aug. 12 post by Tim Graham (bolding in original):

The Washington Post is so "progressive" that even the Food section has to channel a feminist message. Social media sites have spotlighted something they call "Girl Dinner," which is more like "girl snacks," pictures of grapes and cheese and bread, something you eat when no one else is around. There's nothing wrong with a woman enjoying solitude with whatever she wants to munch.

But writer Emily Heil went out and located experts to shift the narrative into abortion and male chauvinism. The headline was "Is Girl Dinner a simple nosh or the end of the patriarchy?"

Emily Contois, a media studies professor at the University of Tulsa who studies food and gender, likes the pure idea of Girl Dinner — that women can be freed by the expectation of society to nurture and provide for others, that they can enjoy the kind of self-indulgent “you do you” eating that men have long felt entitled to. “Especially in the early videos, there’s this lovely connection among women, this sort of like happy, open-mouthed grin of recognition and understanding a sort of camaraderie,” she says.

But the term might not be as innocent as it seems, she says — after all, we’re not living in the utopia of Greta Gerwig’s Barbieland. “Outside the patriarchy, ‘girl’ isn’t diminutive or derisive or condescending — ‘girl’ is complete and wonderful and fulfilled on her own terms,” Contois says. “But we are not in that place, right? Like, we are in a moment where in the United States women have fewer rights over their bodies than they’ve had for a really long time.”

Does everything have to be "gendered"? Can't a plate of grapes and cheese be gender-neutral?

Graham grumbling about things being gendered is hilarious given the rampant transphobia he and the rest of the MRC display, in which they loudly insist that there are only two possible genders and never the twain shall meet. The same day, a post by subordinate Alex Christy ranted that a CNN article "now seeks to turn words like 'leaf,' 'sun,' and 'star' into pronouns. This is not satire." When a person in the articleis quoted as sahing that "Refusing to let people self-identify is a way of excluding them," Christy retorted: No, refusing to identify a human being as a leaf is not 'a way of excluding them.' That is simply incorrect."

Neither Graham nor Christy explain why their narrow gendering and pronoun rules should be imposed on everyone or why people they don't like are not permitted to identify themselves as they see fit. Instead, Graham spent the rest of his post petulantly sniping at Contois for having written a book about food and gender.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:20 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

James Lambert's Aug. 21 WorldNetDaily column is ostensibly about "God's amazing grace," but he betrayed his bias fairly quickly. In recounting the life of Rock Hudson, he went into anti-LGBT talk by claiming that he led a "homosexual lifestyle":

In the 1960s, Hudson starred in a number of popular films like "Pillow Talk," "Ice Station Zebra," "The Undefeated" and a number of other films. From 1971-1977, he starred in the popular TV show "McMillian & Wife." It was suspect by a number of Hollywood insiders that the 50-year-old actor lived a gay lifestyle since the '60s. It was also known that the actor struggled with alcohol and smoking.

While Rock kept working, it became known in the early1980s that he was having health issues. This became evident when the producers of the TV show "Dynasty" decided to write off Hudson from the cast of this popular show. It was clear to them that his health had negatively affected his acting ability. On July 25, 1985, Rock Hudson became one of the first celebrities to publicly announce that he had contracted AIDS. This announcement helped confirm the homosexual lifestyle suspicions many had over the prior 20 years.

Lambert recounted that a pastor recruited by Pat Boone met with Hudson as he was dying, and "that Rock acknowledged his sins and accepted God's grace (by receiving Christ as his Lord and Savior). Later that same day, the 59 year old actor died." He then likened Hudson to a criminal:

It's like the New Testament story of the thief on the cross. One of the men who was crucified next to Christ asked him for God's forgiveness and mercy, and Jesus responded by saying, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." This goes to show us to not give up praying and sharing Christ with friends and relatives.

As we see with this story about Rock Hudson, God's grace is wonderfully amazing and truly loving.

Lambert didn't explain why he equated being gay to being a criminal.

A note at the end of the column states that it's an excerpt from a book by Lambert on "divine intervention," adding, "The book is a great way of sharing your faith with friends and relatives." NOt sure that being anti-gay is the best way to share one's faith, though.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:43 AM EDT

Updated: Saturday, October 7, 2023 1:44 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

For his first writeup after the Labor Day weekend, the Media Research Center's Curtis Houck cheered biased questions hurled by right-wing reporters at the Sept. 5 White House press briefing and whined that Karine Jean-Pierre gave a nice farewell to a non-right-wing reporter:

Tuesday’s White House press briefing offered a contrast in exchanges as, not long after White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre yuked it up with outgoing NBC White House correspondent Kristen Welker as Welker leaves for Meet the Press, Fox’s Peter Doocy grilled Jean-Pierre on President Biden’s age and his refusal to visit East Palestine, Ohio.

Doocy surely grabbed eyeballs when he lead with this question: “President Biden is the oldest President in U.S. history. Why does White House staff treat him like a baby?”

Jean-Pierre scoffed: “No one treats the President of the United States, the commander-in-chief, like a baby. That’s ridiculous. That’s a ridiculous claim.”

[...]

Doocy then pivoted: “Why do you think it is in the Wall Street Journal poll, two-thirds of Democrats think President Biden is too old to run again?”

Given the poll’s prominence in the news cycle, Jean-Pierre had a long, canned answer that included her insisting in part that she “can speak to...a President who has wisdom...experience,” and “taken historic action and has delivered historic pieces of legislation.”

[...]

In contrast, Jean-Pierre opened her portion of Q&A by paying tribute to Welker, noting how “we were talking earlier and you said you have covered the White House for about a decade” and that, with her move to Meet the Press, “we will miss you and we are incredibly thrilled and excited for you in your new adventure”.

Jean-Pierre laid it on thick as only a liberal spokesperson could for a comrade in the liberal media, even with an allusion to Welker taking the historic step as an African-American woman:

The next day, another post by Houck complained that reporters also asked about Jill Biden's COVID diagnosis. He continued to whine about it when reporters did the same in the Sept. 6 briefing:

Hours before Vogue published an nauseously soft puff piece on the ever-inept White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Wednesday’s press briefing featured more of what we saw on Tuesday with reporters showing their COVID skittishness by grilling her form the left on the virus in light of the First Lady’s positive test. But, in similar fashion, only a few showed up to do their jobs.

This time, it was CBS’s Weijia Jiang bringing Hunter Biden questions and Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich calling out the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) remaining hellbent on mask recommendations for kids.

[...]

Heinrich closed the briefing by pointing out that “CDC still recommends universal indoor masking for kids in school, students, staff” despite that being “out of step with some of the studies around the usefulness of masks for kids” and thus why should taxpayers “keep funding these studies if the CDC is not making guidance that follows the results of those studies?”

Lacking an answer, Jean-Pierre instead bashed the Trump administration as “incapable” of controlling COVID whereas the Biden administration carried out “a strategy to really, truly deal with COVID-19 and this pandemic.”

Don't worry, Houck also made sure to have a meltdown over that Vogue profile as well:

On Thursday, Vogue spilled 3,700-plus words swooning over White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre like millennials screaming at a Taylor Swift concert in a puff piece so nauseously pathetic it’d make the lady in North Korea or those who toil away at, say, China Daily blush.

Or, you know, Curtis Houck's embarrassing fawning over Peter Doocy. His whinefest continued:

Partnered with model shoot from Norman Jean Joy, writer Mattie Kahn gushed over Jean-Pierre as “a realist,” woman of “history” as the first black woman and gay person to helm the White House Briefing Room, embodying the “memes about elder sisters,” and possessing a “quality of directness—blunt, with a touch of compassion.”

The headline screamed state-run TV: “White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre Has Made History—And Waves.&rdquo

Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR) Communications Director Alexa Henning said it best: “I know a few women who made history in the White House that didn’t get Vogue profiles … [Sarah Huckabee Sanders] first working mother to serve as press secretary and [Kellyanne Conway] first woman to have run a successful U.S. presidential campaign.”

Kahn began with a claim that Jean-Pierre helping to take down a protester at a June 2019 forum for Democratic presidential candidates was something she’ll be remembered for most, adding Jean-Pierre’s “a realist” who brings “blunt[ness],” “compassion” and “directness” as her “currency at the briefing podium.”

Has Kahn even watched a briefing? Jean-Pierre not only refuses to answer questions, but she fails to show a basic grasp of the English language.

After complaining about Jean-Pierre's "false conjunction fallacy of PPP loans and student loan debt" -- failing to disclose that his employer received as much as $2 million in PPP money -- Houck continued to whine that nice things were said about Jean-Pierre:

Following nearly seven mammoth paragraphs about Jean-Pierre’s globe-trotting upbringing, schooling, and mental health struggles stemming from physical abuse, Kahn eventually admitted “Jean-Pierre came to understand politics as a remedy” after initially studying environmentalism and attempting pre-med. 

[...]

The description of her desk grew even more eye-rolling in nature:“There are memes about eldest sisters, and then there are the women who live them. Jean-Pierre is so organized her pens have their own coral pouch. A thin film keeps her Dell monitor pristine. Visible disorder in her office is limited to drooping flowers on a side table.”

“Best of luck to would-be blackmailers: Jean-Pierre doesn’t drink coffee or alcohol. Psaki calls her viceless. Her snack is roasted seaweed or a morning banana smoothie made al-desko with a gadget called the BlendJet,” Kahn later added.

Take note, Interfax and Russia Today stenographers — this is how it’s done!

Houck wasn't going to mention that his own Doocy-fluffing would also serve as a fine template. Indeed, he slipped in a Doocy shout-out as he continued his meltdown:

Before reporting Jean-Pierre never had to interview for the top job, Kahn made sure to give some love to Jen Psaki, celebrating the fact that “[t]he two were so close that Psaki got them matching leather briefing books, which Jean-Pierre christened ‘Ebony’ and ‘Ivory.’”

Fox’s Peter Doocy didn’t get a nod, but Kahn did allude to “Jean-Pierre...get[ting] a lot of criticism, especially in the beginning” that the press “sniped about Jean-Pierre’s recitation of talking points and expressed genuine exasperation about her perceived stonewalling on basic questions” when, in reality, she “can only say as much as the White House counsel allows her to.”

Again, we ask: Has Kahn actually watched a briefing? Or two?

Houck doesn't understand that other people don't obsessively hate-watch White House press briefinmgs the way he does for the sole purpose of fluffing Doocy and spewing hate at Jean-Pierre. He concluded with one more whine:

Kahn saved another syringe of fluff for the end about Jean-Pierre’s mother being embraced by President Biden at a state dinner and, afterward, she told her famous daughter that it “was the happiest day of my life.”

Did Kahn borrow that syringe of fluff from Houck on one of the few days when he wasn't using it to gush over Doocy? Houck didn't say.

Houck repeated all this hate and bile in his guest-hosting stint on the Sept. 8 NewsBusters podcast, in which we presume he continued to fail to mention all his Doocy-fluffing.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:04 PM EDT

Updated: Friday, October 13, 2023 12:55 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Yes, this really happened: Paul du Quenoy spent his Aug. 30 Newsmax column raging at Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley because she made a joke about men:

"If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman," said former South Carolina governor, U.N. Ambassador and now Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley at last week’s GOP debate.

Haley’s misandrist quip was her response to an invitation asking the eight candidates who participated to state their case for their party’s nomination.

Was it just a joke?

A folksy needling from a chromosomal underdog?

An attempt at levity as seven male rivals recited their resumes in crisp soundbites?

It could have been any, all, or none of these things, but that’s not the point. We all know what would have happened to any man who attempted to advance himself — or simply make an observation — by mocking the opposite sex.

Just ask former Harvard University president Lawrence Summers, who was forced to resign after merely speculating --- in off-the-record comments based on empirical data --- that women mighthave slightly less aptitude for science than men, a proposition in which he hoped he would be proved wrong.

By any right, Haley’s crude stereotyping of half of humanity as feckless dolts who cannot get anything done — and dismissal of all of her rivals on the basis of gender — should disqualify her from any position of responsibility.

Du Quenoy then defended the honor of men, who he thinks have done many more important things than women have:

The 1.1 million men who have died in our country’s wars might take great exception to Haley’s sexist implication that men don’t "do" anything.

The country she lives in, the state she governed, the laws she enforced there and seeks to enforce as president, the countries that welcomed and educated her immigrant parents, the rights she enjoys, the institutions in which she studied, the organization where she served as an ambassador, the political party whose nomination she is pursuing, and the format and technology that allowed her to reach a large audience were all created by men.

Those who fought for Haley’s freedoms at Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Normandy, and a thousand other places were men.

A man wrote the Declaration of Independence, inspired by ideals of liberty and self-government developed by other men.

Men wrote the Constitution, and over a century ago men amended it so that Haley and her sisters could vote and hold public office.

He then ranted that typical women's jobs involve only saying, while men's jobs are all about doing:

Contrary to Haley’s derogatory comment, it's in fact women who gravitate more toward careers that involve "saying" rather than "doing."

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), women account for 81.5% of social workers, 79.7% of elementary school teachers, and 72.9% of human resources managers.

Men, on the other hand, comprise 93.8% of firefighters, 97% of bricklayers, and 97.8% of electricians, jobs defined by "doing" things that Haley could scarcely live without.

Men eschew college education in greater proportions than women to pursue such vocational careers, in significant part because educational and white-collar professional environments are now often so openly hostile to men.

From there, du Quenoy portrayed men as the real victims of society:

Our family law courts routinely discriminate against men in child custody and divorces, the overwhelming majority of which are initiated by women.

At terrible cost, our social services and public culture incentivize the absence of fathers from their children’s lives and disdain nuclear families as outmoded and oppressive.

Our elite professional culture admonishes men that they are "privileged" and insists that they therefore yield authority, opportunity, and participation to women, even though women in such environments have long earned and advanced equally to or better than men.

Government agencies, educational institutions, and employers regularly award benefits and recognition to women in programs that exclude men, despite civil rights laws that explicitly prohibit such discrimination against either gender.

Our Department of Education requires educational institutions to employ vast bureaucracies to police male sexual initiative with biased investigations that deprive men of basic rights, privilege female testimony over male testimony, and dispense with time-honored evidentiary standards to impute guilt and impose life-altering sanctions on men.

[...]

Nikki Haley is nowhere to be seen on any of these vital issues. Instead, her casual sexism accepts and endorses the sick, sad status quo.

Du Quenoy concluded by bashing Haley some more:

Haley’s revolting attitude could help explain why she is polling nationally in the single digits, trailing in third place behind two abler men even in her home state, and conducting her failing candidacy in a way that looks embarrassingly like an audition for employment under one of those men.

We can only hope that when that man wins his party’s nomination, he has the wisdom and foresight not to entrust Nikki Haley with any amount of responsibility.

Whether he does or not, we can sigh with relief that this woman’s place will almost certainly not be in the White House.

So bizarre was du Quenoy's rant that Newsmax felt compelled to add this disclaimer to the end of his column: "The views expressed in the preceding column are solely the author's."

Posted by Terry K. at 6:07 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

WorldNetDaily's Joe Kovacs ranted in a Aug. 28 article:

It's already being called "The Biden Curtain," as new videos from Lahaina, Maui, reveal miles of black curtains erected to prevent people from seeing what's happening at the origin site of this month's catastrophic wildfires in Hawaii.

Geoff Cygnus, a citizen journalist on TikTok, posted the video, with a caption reading: "Miles and miles of black fencing being put up in Lahaina. Ground Zero is now behind the Biden curtain."

"There seems to be a huge emphasis on ensuring that the media and anyone else can't see what's going on," Cygnus reported.

"There are miles and miles of this black fence going up that was not here before that is obscuring ground zero and making sure no one can see what's going on inside of there from the road, no one can get in there, no one can take any pictures."

"I was almost immediately, after these 20 seconds, National Guard came and chased me off, yelled at me, told me to get back in my car and keep moving. So you cannot pull over. You can't even stop you car anywhere near any of this anymore."

In addition to the National Guard, Cygnus says there are "regular police, and what I have dubbed 'special police,' which are these police cars that are foreign made. The people that are driving them are not – they don't look like any police I've ever seen in the United States. So kind of a bizarre situation, but they have a huge presence standing guard ensuring that nothing can be documented."

Cygnus -- and, thus, Kovacs -- is lying. What was being installed were screens to keep dust from blowing, as a more responsible media outlet reported:

The state Department of Transportation is installing nearly 30,000 linear feet of dust screen for the protection of highway users on Honoapiʻilani Highway (Route 30) and the Lahaina Bypass (Route 3000).

The work started on Aug. 16 with Maui-based contractors teaming up for the project that should take about a month to complete. The teams are constructing a fence that will stretch more than 5 miles.

Another credible media outlet similarly reported:

Dust screens started getting installed on Aug. 16 to protect drivers from debris flying across Honoapiilani Hwy. and the Lahaina Bypass.

The DOT continues installing the dust screens and said that it will eventually stretch more than five miles.

This work will allow continued safe access to West Maui, while recovery crews continue their work in the area.

The truth is apparently too boring for Kovacs, however, and decided that the rantings of some random guy on TikTok -- whom he tried to elevate into a "citizen journalist" without offering any reason why he should be trusted -- was more interesting and clickable.

And Kovacs and his co-workers wonders why nobody trusts WND.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:04 PM EDT

Updated: Friday, October 6, 2023 6:10 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

We've documented how the Media Research Center falsely and maliciously smeared a proposed "disinformation governance board" by the Department of Homeland Security as an Orwellian "ministry of truth" -- despite the fact that it would have done no such thing -- and served up particular venom at the woman who would have headed the board, Nina Jankowicz, for calling out the lies and trying to fight back. But even as the board would not move forward, the MRC continued to attack Jankowicz for telling the truth. Clay Waters huffed in an October 2022 post:

The New York Times front page on Friday sounded a familiar refrain on the perils of conservative “disinformation” in “Exploding Online, Disinformation Is Now a Fixture of U.S. Politics.”

But beyond the latest tiresome rehash that reporters Steven Lee Myers and Sheera Frenkel made of what former President Trump is now spouting on his social media platform, the piece also relied on the dubious expertise of Nina Jankowicz, President Biden’s embarrassing pick for the ominously titled “Disinformation Governance Board,” before it was mocked out of existence this summer.

[...]

Trump didn’t win Wisconsin. But couldn’t the Times have found a less ridiculous “expert” for its latest iteration of election paranoia than Nina Jankowicz?

“I think the problem is worse than it’s ever been, frankly,” said Nina Jankowicz, an expert on disinformation who briefly led an advisory board within the Department of Homeland Security dedicated to combating misinformation. The creation of the panel set off a furor, prompting her to resign and the group to be dismantled.

("Expert on disinformation" Jankowicz spread “disinformation” herself on Hunter Biden’s laptop and “Russiagate,” and was responsible for this cringe-worthy Mary Poppins parody.)

Waters then ranted that truth cannot possibly be objective: "Who decides what’s 'untrue,' especially when the 'science' is constantly in flux on COVID-related issues like the virus’s origin, the efficacy of masks, and the effectiveness of vaccines to stop transmission?"

A few days later, Catherine Salgado whined that Jankowicz was called on to talk about the issue of political disinformation, similarly denying that it can be objectively defined by dismissing it as "so-called":

The New York Times complained that alternative social media platforms are making so-called “disinformation” more “widespread” before the midterms. 

Ironically, The Times cited the former head of the Disinformation Governance Board to support its claims. Social media “is not doing enough” to censor Americans, according to The Times.

The leftistNew York Times cited self-described “Mary Poppins of disinformation” and former head of the now-shuttered Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) Nina Jankowicz to condemn alternative social media and free speech. 

“I think the problem is worse than it’s ever been, frankly,” The Times quoted Jankowicz, noting that Jankowicz resigned from the DGB following backlash.

Salgado went on to ccomplain that "The Times also screeched about a message former President Donald Trump shared on his Truth Social platform citing evidence that he claimed showed he won the 2020 presidential vote in Wisconsin, before voter fraud" and that the Times called it "disinformation" -- but Salgado refused to call out Trump's lie for what it was.

Joseph Vazquez again spraed the lie that the DGB was "Orwellian" in a November 2022 post complaining that Jankowicz found a new job, laughably (and viciously) calling her a "Benedict Arnold" for doing so:

The former head of President Joe Biden’s defunct Orwellian Disinformation Governance Board found a new gig by registering as a foreign agent to fight so-called “disinformation."

Former DGB Executive Director Nina Jankowicz said in a Nov. 18 “foreign agents” filing with the Department of Justice that she would be hired as a “disinformation expert” with the U.K.-based Centre for Information Resilience. Jankowicz’ role involves acting as an “ambassador for CIR on the Hill, within the Federal Government, media, among tech companies / Silicon Valley, on ‘K Street’, and among potential philanthropic organisations.” It appears the self-proclaimed “Mary Poppins of disinformation” may have turned out to be a Benedict Arnold. The filing states that Jankowicz appeared as a CIR ambassador on the taxpayer-funded National Public Radio on Election Day to "[d]iscuss Russian disinformation ahead of the 2022 midterms." But this is the same Jankowicz who parroted Biden’s talking points that the now-verified New York Post Hunter Biden laptop bombshell story was a “Russian influence op."

Of course, the Post's story wasn't verified at the time it was published (and when Jankowicz issued her tweet); as we've pointed out, the Post refused to offer any independent verification of it that would have countered the facct that it came from a right-wing, pro-trump, Murdoch-owned rag. Also, Vazquez failed to explain how Jankowicz is a "Bendict Arnold" for working for an organization located in Great Britain, America's closet ally.

An anonymously written Dec. 7 post desperately tried to find malevolent intent in Jankowicz doing basic prep for her DGB job, whining that she and the board "had incorporated at least five federal agencies, developed a basic work plan and exchanged emails with Facebook executives about a potential meeting."

A Jan. 21 post by Waters complained that Rolling Stone called out "right-wing paranoia" over the DGB and other efforts to fight disinformaiton and how Jankowicz was a key target:

The next so-called Republican conspiracy: opposing Biden’s indefensible “Disinformation Governance Board,” i.e., the “Ministry of Truth." The ACLU, belatedly rediscovering its civil liberties mandate, also opposed it. But Voght sympathized with the cringeworthy songbird, and proposed executive director of the Board, Nina Jankowicz.

Right-wing provocateurs, meanwhile, launched vicious, coordinated online attacks targeting Jankowicz….

Jankowicz spread her own anti-Republican election disinformation by decrying the Hunter Biden laptop story, making her a dubious choice for a potentially dangerous government agency.

Waters offered no evidence to back up his "Ministry of Truth" smear.

When DHS ultimately shut down the DGB for good, Luis Cornelio spent a March 29 post cheering about it, again lying that it would have been a "Ministry of Truth" and huffing, "The DGB came under scrutiny after it was revealed that DGB executive director Nina Jankowciz [sic] engaged in spreading disinformation against conservative leaders. " It's hard to take Cornelio seriously when he can't even spell her name correctly.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:07 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, December 25, 2023 5:44 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Chuck Norris has a habit of turning his column into commercials for whatever business venture he has a finaicial interest in or for which he's a paid spokesman, and he did that again in his Aug. 14 column. He started out innocently enough:

My wife, Gena, and I have a special fondness for the Hawaiian people and islands, just like many of you. It absolutely breaks our hearts to see the devastating loss of life and property through the wildfires that ravaged Maui and the Big Island.

We pray even now for the victims, their families, survivors, first responders and of course the firefighters.

Maj. Gen. Kenneth Hara, commander general of the Hawaii Army National Guard, explained last Thursday, "We don't know what actually ignited the fires, but we were made aware in advance by the National Weather Service that we were in a red flag situation – so that's dry conditions for a long time, so the fuel, the trees and everything, was dry."

Planet Earth is a very volatile place, and natural disasters unfortunately hit her every week somewhere.

After fearmongering about disasters (human and manmade) as well as EMP attacks, Norris laughably declared: "I'm definitely not an alarmist or a fear monger, and I dislike those who are. Succumbing to fear literally robs us of life and paralyzes us from achieving our best. " Then came the hard sell:

Helping people be prepared for natural and man-made disasters is what prompted Gena and I to support and endorse some fantastic new survival resources we call "Round House Provisions," at https://roundhouseprovisions.com/.

Please watch this 50-second video I created about "Round House Provisions," then visit the Round House Provisions website to learn more about their excellent emergency survival and preparation supplies. There you will find some of the most tasty, nutritious and cost-effective options for long-term food and storage. You'll also find some of the latest and greatest delicious nutrition drinks to keep you fit for the future.

It may seem like a no-brainer to many, but on this volatile planet and in this terror-pervasive age, we all need to have "a personal survival kit" or a survival storage closet or room that contains essentials that could last us for three months at a minimum.

Below is my list of essential emergency supplies. I know that some of these are costly items, so I'd encourage you to save for each, and check them off until you have them all.

Norris doesn't quite explicitly disclose it, but he owns Round House Provisions. The promotional copy on the website declares: "Like the characters he portrays on screen, Chuck is an honest, reliable, hardworking man who’s always prepared to act and help those in need. With Roundhouse Provisions’ survival food and wellness formulas, Chuck strives to give everyone the tools to be a real-life action hero."

Norris is also trying to profit off of those very people in need, which makes him look a little less like a hero.

Posted by Terry K. at 6:10 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

How desperately does the Media Research Center cling to its narrative that right-wing extremists must never be "censored" no matter how much hate and misinformation they spread? It has cometo the defense of Kari Lake, the Arizona Republican who can't accept that she lost and is clinging to conspiracy theories to bolster claims of election fraud that she can't prove. Luis Cornelio wrote in an Aug. 14 post headlined "Damning Report Reveals Big Tech’s Interference in Kari Lake’s Election":

Newly obtained emails expose how social media platforms helped turn Arizona, once a reliable red state, into a hub of leftist politicians.

The Arizona Capitol Oversight, a non-profit organization, unleashed on August 10 emails exposing how Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, as then-Arizona secretary of state, coerced Twitter and Facebook to censor her leading opponents ahead of her contentious bid for Arizona governor in 2022. According to the damning report, Hobbs sought to “improve her political posture” ahead of the 2022 election. In one of the emails, dated November 12, 2020, Hobbs whined that she came under fire after the resurfacing of a 2017 tweet where she associated Trump voters with the “neo-Nazi” and sought special protection from one social media platform.

The emails indicate that Twitter pushed back against Hobbs’s hissy fit that Twitter was not doing enough to protect her, asking her to provide more evidence of her assertions. Hobbs responded back claiming, “I am not sure I can provide the information you are asking for because I reported and then blocked multiple users at the same time.” As if that wasn’t enough, Hobbs then aimed her censorship demands at Facebook, emailing the company on November 23 2021 to remove an unrelated post. The post in question was related to the Arizona elections.

Oddly, Cornelio didn't mention Lake at all in his post, only in the headline. He also didn't describe Arizona Capitol Oversight as anything beyond his euphemistic label of "a non-profit organization." In fact, it's run by Brian Anderson, a former staffer for Hobbs' predecessor as governor, Doug Ducey, so there's clearly some political bias at work in this report.

Cornelio went on to rant that Hobbs was trying to "censor posts that contained so-called misinformation." In fact, she was trying to fight undisputed lies and misinformation; as we've documented, one tweet she sought to have removed falsely claimed that the state's voter registration system is controlled by foreigners. Again, Cornelio did not explain why lies and misinformation in spcial media should never be corrected.

Cornelio then undermined the entire premise of his outrage with one sentence: "The censorship collusion continued from November 2020 all the way to the run-up of her gubernatorial campaign announcement." That's right -- all this happened even before Hobbs announced her gubernatorial campaign.In other words, this biased report is nowhere near as "damning" as Cornelio wants us to believe.

How can there be "election interference" in a campaign that hadn't even been declared? Cornelio did not elaborate.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:43 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

As the number of COVID cases increased over the summer, WorldNetDaily not only kept up its usual fake news falsely smearing vaccines, it freaked out over possible mask requirements and other abatement measures. First, though, Joe Kovacs gave space to a right-wing senator's conspiracy theory in an Aug. 13 article:

A U.S. senator is reviving debate over the COVID pandemic, alleging on national television the health catastrophe was "pre-planned by an elite group of people" intended "for our loss of freedom."

The remarks from Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., came during an interview with Maria Bartiromo of the Fox Business Network on Friday.

Bartiromo lamented about information suppression by the federal government as well as Big Tech.

[...]

Johnson explained: "This is all pre-planned by an elite group of people, that is what I am talking about, 'Event 201' occurred in late 2019, prior to the rest of us knowing about the pandemic. Again, this is very concerning in terms of what is happening, what continues to be planned for our loss of freedom."

In fact, "Event 201" was a simulation by governmentl and nonprofit officials to examine possible reactions to a pandemic, and there's no evidence that theorganizers knew that a real pandemic wasc oming -- something Kovacs hid from his readers.

As cases increased, Peter LaBarbera spent an Aug. 21 article fearmongering about possible mask mandates anbd hyping extremists declaring they won't comply with something tyhat didn't yet exist:

With new COVID variants, including BA.2.86 and EG.5, in the news, the same media and activists on the Left who were most fanatical about masks and other heavy-handed COVID policies during the pandemic are now pushing mask mandates again.

Conservatives warned it could be a precursor to a return to oppression in the name of fighting COVID, and vowed collectively not to "comply."

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, tweeted out the message: "COVID [does not equal] constitutional authority" above a tweet by Ryan Cunningham that states: "The WHO [World Health Organization], CDC, Biden Admin are fear mongering a new COVID variant BA.2.86 after highly mutated strain reported in Michigan. Sources in DHS and Emergency Management (my field) are already preparing for lockdowns and restrictions. Look at todays headlines. It’s a coordinated government & media campaign."

[...]

But with most Americans enjoying their freedom and thrilled the era of compelled mask-wearing is over – and conservatives already vowing not to comply with renewed COVID restrictions – it appears it would be a lot harder for elites to instill mass COVID paranoia and the tyranny that flows from it than it was in the initial phase of the pandemic under Donald Trump's presidency.

Never mind, of course, that it was LaBarbera that was instilling paranoia.

Bob Unruh followed with an Aug. 24 article pushing the very weird conspiracy theory that a new COVID outbreak is being manufactured to help President Biden's re-election chances:

The undue influences on the 2020 presidential election already have been documented: Mark Zuckerberg's $400 million handout to election officials who often used it to recruit leftist voters. And the FBI's interference when it falsely told media groups to censor accurate reporting about the Biden family's international business schemes because it was Russian disinformation, when it wasn't.

But the rampage of COVID-19 across the country also had an impact. Voting rules were changed, vote-counting procedures changed. voting periods extended until sometimes weeks after election day and more.

Now that the 2024 election is coming into view, it seems that COVID is surging again.

"Mandates are coming back just in time for the 2024 election cycle," conservative Collin Rugg posted online. "What impeccable timing!"

A report at Just the News noted Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk cited new COVID restrictions are "just in time for Democrats to reinforce the importance of mass mail-in ballots."

Unruh offered no evidence that mail-in ballots were in any way a problem in 2020.

LaBarbera returned to serve as stenographer for Donald Trump in an Aug. 31 article:

Former President Donald Trump in a campaign video Wednesday made a defiant reply to "left-wing lunatics" and "COVID tyrants" who are "trying very hard to bring back COVID lockdowns and mandates with their sudden fear-mongering about variants": "We will not comply."

Trump mocked the timing of the resurgent COVID hysteria, saying, "Gee-whiz, you know what else is coming? An election."

"They want to restart the COVID hysteria so they can justify more lockdowns, more censorship, more illegal drop boxes, more mail-in ballots, and trillions of dollars in payoffs to their political allies heading into the 2024 election. Does that sound familiar?" he said in the statement, which is posted on the "Team Trump" X account with the words: "COVID Tyrants want to take away our Freedom. Hear my words – WE WILL NOT COMPLY." (Team Trump is the official X account for the Trump campaign.)

[...]

There is widespread consensus on the Right, and even grudging acknowledgement on the Left, that COVID fears and lockdowns enabled emergency changes in various state election rules that were used to great advantage by Biden and the Democrats in the 2020 election against Trump.

Unruh hyped more fearmongering about almost entirely nonexistent restrictions in a Sept. 6 article:

There's no doubt that COVID-19, in its first form, was a catastrophe, killing some seven million people around the world after having come out, as most experts now believe, of a research lab in Wuhan, China, where bat viruses were being studied by scientists who wanted to know how to make them for lethal.

The death toll in the U.S. alone was about one million.

But subsequent variations all have since proven to be far, far less lethal.

Many people infected with a variant have reported nothing more than sniffles or brief cold-like symptoms.

It was the No. 3 cause of death in the U.S. in 2020 and 2021, fourth in 2022, and so far in 2023, No. 7.

So why are headlines now insisting that mask mandates, those infamous shots and business-killing lockdowns coming back?

And do they have to?

A commentary by John Daniel Davidson, senior editor at The Federalist, charged that the precautions actually nothing to do with anyone's health.

Neither Unruh nor Davidson offered any evidence that COVID vaccines are "infamous" (beyond their right-wing bubble, anyway) or that vaccines are, in Davidson's words, a "Violation of basic civil rights."

Posted by Terry K. at 1:09 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, October 5, 2023 2:26 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

The Media Research Center spent the days before Devon Archer's closed-door testimony before a Republican-led congressional committee hyping the heck out of it as a yet another attack on Hunter Biden. Afterwards, it labored to frame the contents of Archer's testimony as devastating, even though that wasn't exactly the case. An Aug. 1 post by Curtis Houck whined that one non-right-wing media outlet didn't stick with his preferred right-wing narrative:

After being no-shows on Monday’s NBC Nightly News, NBC arrived via Tuesday morning’s Today to Devon Archer’s damaging remarks behind closed doors to the House Oversight Committee about what he saw in his time as Hunter Biden’s longtime business partner and confidant, including their stint on the infamous Ukrainian energy company, Burisma.

This wasn’t entirely surprising as Today had been the only flagship network morning or evening newscast to allude to the hearing in the run-up to Monday with a seven-second nod on Friday.

[...]

“Ah, we’re following some new developments in the investigations that surround Hunter Biden. His former business partner testifying behind doors on Capitol Hill,” Today co-host Craig Melvin began, tossing to chief White House correspondent Peter Alexander by asking “what did we learn from” what’s leaked out.

Alexander caught viewers up to speed with what’s not in dispute, which was that he was “Hunter Biden’s former business partner” and “answered questions for about four hours”.

Then, the spin games began with Alexander touting the Democratic line that Archer believes Hunter merely “sold the illusion of access to his father” and the elder Biden “was never directly involved in” their shady ventures.

This was despite the fact that “Hunter put his father on speaker phone with clients and former business associates roughly 20 times over ten years”.

But Houck really didn't want the full story of Archer's testimony told; he later complained that another network "gave the other side" by quoting a Democratic congressman, Dan goldman, saying that "he never heard any evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden."

Peter Kotara later complained that Goldman was allowed to appear on TV and offer his take:

Tuesday’s Morning Joe brought on Congressman Dan Goldman (D-NY) and teed him up to play defense for President Biden after the explosive Devon Archer testimony on the Biden family’s bribery and corruption. They contradicted Republican claims about the content of the closed-door testimony, and denied any wrongdoing by then Vice President Biden.

Goldman claimed that despite Archer’s testimony that Biden was on the phone at Hunter’s business meetings, he was only there to merely “say hello” and that Hunter was only selling the “illusion” of influence, as if that didn’t benefit him.

[...]

The problem was, that what Goldman said completely contradicted the Republican statements about Archer’s testimony. Goldman and Comer both were in the room listening to Archer’s testimony, but it was a closed-door session and the transcript currently had not been released to the public. If it is, one side will be exposed as liars.

Kotara didn't explain why the statements from Republicans -- whose goal it is to personally destroy Hunter Biden and his father -- should be trusted. Instead, he unleashed a nasty smear of President Biden and Hunter: "So we were supposed to believe the father who let his son become a crackhead all of a sudden started to care, and they got over Beau’s death by talking with Hunter’s business associates?"

Houck returned for an Aug. 2 post complaining that non-right-wing media was covering actual news instead of Archer:

With Tuesday’s third indictment of former President Trump, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC had their ticket out of having to acknowledge the scandals surrounding the Biden family, including reasons to continue skipping Burisma bribery claims and no longer probe Monday’s testimony from Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Devon Archer.

Houck repeated this talking point while guest-hosting the Aug. 2 NewsBusters podcast.

An Aug. 3 post by Kevin Tober tried to frame Goldman as a liar:

On Monday, after Hunter Biden's business associate Devon Archer testified behind closed doors regarding President Joe Biden's involvement with his son, New York Democrat Congressman Dan Goldman went before the assembled cameras and microphones outside the committee room and lied through his teeth about what was said. While at the time we only had his word vs the word of Republican members who were also in the room, based on his track record, all fair minded observers knew he was lying. 

When the word for word transcript was released Thursday, everyone who read it now knew for certain he lied. Later that morning, CBS News investigative reporter Catherine Herridge called him out when she went on CBS's streaming network to correct the record.

Host Anne-Marie Green first asked Herridge "Why are Democrats and Republicans disagreeing on the context of the transcripts." 

This gave Herridge her chance to correct the lies that were spread by Goldman and others that Hunter Biden had not sought to use his father's influence to shake down foreign governments. "Earlier this week we just had to rely on the characterization from Republicans and Democrats about Devon Archer's testimony," she noted. "But now we can see the full transcript."

"You will recall that Democrat Congressman Dan Goldman said that Archer testified that it was the illusion of access to Joe Biden that Hunter Biden was offering to these clients. But in fact, when you look at the transcript what you see is that phrase, illusion of access, is in Dan Goldman's question. It’s actually not what Devon Archer testified to," she explained. 

In fact, the article on the testimony Herridge co-wrote for the CBS website more or less backs up what Goldman said; she didn't accuse Goldman of lying as Tober claimed but, rather, merely claimed that Archer's answers were "more nuanced" than Goldman portrayed them as being:

The transcript shows Goldman used the term "illusion of access" in his line of questioning, and Archer's answers were more nuanced.

He asked Archer, "Is it fair to say that Hunter Biden was selling the illusion of access to his father?"

Archer replied, "Yes."

Goldman followed up, "So, when you talk about selling the brand, it's not about selling access to his father. It's about selling the illusion of access to his father. Is that fair?"

Archer replied, "Is that fair? I mean, yeah, that is — I think that's — that's almost fair."

Goldman asked, "'Almost fair.' Why, 'almost fair?'"

"Because there are touch points and contact points that I can't deny that happened, but nothing of material was discussed," Archer said.

In short: Tober is lying by accusing Goldman of lying. Neveretheless, Tober concluded his post by declaring, "Good to see there's at least one honest reporter at CBS who is willing to call out the disinformation from the left regarding the massive Biden bribery scandal."

After another coverage count by Houck -- which, like before, omitted Fox News -- and another podcast guest-hosting gig where he repeated those numbers, it was back to dishonestly framing Goldman as a liar. Kotara did thte duty in an Aug. 4 post:

On Friday, MSNBC’s Morning Joe hosts doubled down on their flagrant lies they promoted along with Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman (D-NY) about Hunter Biden’s business partner, Devon Archer.

They claimed that now, with the transcript of the testimony released, that Goldman was correct, and later lamented that other networks were treating the Biden investigation as “equal” to the indictments against Donald Trump.

Co-host Mika Brzezinski opened:

But as we learned from Democratic committee member Dan Goldman, Archer may have actually contradicted [Chairman James] Comer's [R-KY] point. And yesterday, the transcript of that closed door interview was released, confirming Goldman's account. It turns out Archer told the House Oversight Committee that he has no knowledge of Joe Biden altering policy to benefit Hunter. Archer also said he was present for roughly 20 instances of Hunter putting his father on speakerphone in the presence of business associates. Archer said none of the conversations focused on business and that they talked about things like fishing and the weather.

This was one more massive spin to cover up their previous claims about the testimony before the transcript was released. Brzezinski’s dishonesty was shown by the fact that Archer did mention the weather and fishing, but the issue was that he was selling the Biden brand. Archer in the transcript stated that “I think ‘brand’ is the best way to describe it.” This completely dismantled MSNBC’s prior narrative of the “illusion of access” being sold as opposed to actual access to Biden. When the transcript was released, co-host Joe Scarborough and Brzezinski must have panicked and decided the only way to proceed without losing all credibility was to keep up the charade and hope no one noticed any other network’s coverage of the it or read the transcript themselves.

Unfortunately for MSNBC, their perfidiousness was laid bare not only by House Republicans and right-leaning networks like Fox News, but also by their fellow liberal network CBS. Astonishingly, the mainstream left-wing network actually called out Goldman for his lies about the content of the transcript where Archer tells Goldman that his description is “almost fair,” because Hunter is showing off that there is a degree of access.

Despite not actually saying what, exactly, was the "lie" Goldman told, he ranted: "Joe, Mika, and the rest of the MSNBC hosts gave new insight into just how depraved the leftist media really was. In an act of total desperation and terror, they were willing to verifiably lie directly to the world about something as simple as a transcript. For what purpose? To protect the Bidens and by extension, the political success of the Democratic Party. They made it clear that no one interested in honesty can trust them, the media exists solely to spread propaganda for the left." One can more plausibly argue that Kotara and the MRC are spreading lies to benefit right-wing narratives.

An Aug. 9 post by Tober cheered how Fox News and its biased reporters were pushing those very right-wing narratives:

Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy is back from his parental leave and he's already making waves in the media. Late Wednesday afternoon, Doocy had an opportunity to ask President Joe Biden, during an event in New Mexico, about Devon Archer's testimony directly implicating him in his son Hunter's overseas business dealings by saying he was put on the phone with Hunter's partners. As you can expect, the President was not happy with the question. In fact, he snapped at Doocy and said it was a "lousy question." 

The exchange did not air live on television but thankfully was caught on camera. Doocy went on Fox during Your World with Neil Cavuto to break the news and let viewers see the exchange.

That, of course, is the media world the MRC wants us all to inhabit: highly biased, with right-wing narratives presented without the faintest criticism.

And none of these posts mentioned that Archer is a convicted criminal who has been sentenced to prison for his role in a scam involving the sale of fraudulent tribal bonds, then lost an appeal on the sentencing earlier this year.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:50 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, October 5, 2023 2:12 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink