ConWeb Loved 'Sound Of Freedom' Film -- But Largely Silent After Film's Inspiration Accused Of Sexual Misconduct Topic: The ConWeb
We'vedocumentedhow the ConWeb absolutely loved the right-wing film "Sound of Freedom," based on the exploits of Tim Ballard in trying to fight child sex trafficking -- while trying to spin away claims that the movie feeds into QAnon conspiracy-theory narratives and largely censoring how Ballard has refused to distance himself from QAnon. But the film wasn't the end of the story. In September, it was reported that Ballard had resigned from the organization he founded to push his anti-trafficking agenda, Operation Underground Railroad, following accusations from several women of sexual misconduct, in which he was alleged to have coerced the women to act like "wives" during overseas missions; he was allegedly "extensively grooming and manipulating multiple women for the past two to three years with the ultimate intent of coercing them to participate in sexual acts with him, under the premise of going wherever it takes and doing 'whatever it takes' to save a child." In October, Ballared was sued by five women who accuse him of sexual assault and battery. (Ballard has denied the accusations.)
The Media Reseach Center and Newsmax -- both big promoters of Ballard and "Sound of Freedom" -- have censored this story. WorldNetDaily, meanwhile, helped with Ballard's defense; Joe Kovacs served as his stenographer while trying to dismiss the allegations as politically motivated in a Sept. 18 article, after the allegations were first made public:
Tim Ballard, the former Department of Homeland Security agent whose real-life heroics rescuing trafficked children were depicted in the smash film "Sound of Freedom" starring Jim Caviezel, is now speaking out in the wake of allegations of sexual misconduct with numerous women.
"It's not true, nothing you hear is true," Ballard told supporters in Boston, who recorded his comments on video.
"This is breaking down my family like you can't believe," he continued, as his delivery varied from shouting at the cameras to welling up in tears.
His comments come in the wake of a report by far-left VICE News, which indicated "Ballard's exit from Operation Underground Railroad earlier this year followed an investigation into claims of sexual misconduct involving seven women, according to sources with direct knowledge of the organization."
[...]
In July, VICE News referred to "Sound of Freedom" as a "a heavily fictionalized depiction of Ballard's work for a division of ICE and his early career as a private anti-trafficking operator," and published a story about the film with the headline: "Anti-Trafficking Group With Long History of False Claims Gets Its Hollywood Moment."
Kovacs offered no evidence that anything in the Vice story is false or even that Vice is "far-left." He then reprinted Ballard's whining that even the Mormon church -- not known for making rash decisions -- has cut ties with him:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, of which Ballard is member, reportedly released a statement to FOX13 News and other media, calling Ballard's behavior "morally unacceptable."
But Ballard questioned the authenticity of that statement.
"I don't believe the Church did this," he said in the video. "I truly don't. Can you imagine that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints would publicly condemn one of its members?"
Fox13 also reported the LDS Church "has removed articles promoting Ballard and the nonprofit he founded, Operation Underground Railroad (OUR)."
"Tim is fully convinced that he is supposed to be the 'Mormon Messiah and lead people back to the church," the statement reportedly indicated.
Fox13 noted of VICE's probe: "The documents reportedly outline how prosecutors believe Ballard communicated with a psychic to speak to the prophet Nephi 'to get intel' on how to rescue children.'"
Ballard says in the video: "I'm as human as anybody. But how is it that my decisions and my actions which led to the rescue of over 7,000 women and children and the arrest and imprisonment of over 5,000 traffickers and pedophiles, you tell me how I'm the bad guy in that story. How is it possible?"
"I pray to God the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints wasn't part of this."
On Sept. 27, WND republished an article it stole from FaithWire featuring another defense by Ballard. But it has published no articles since, even after the women filed suit against him.
MRC Teams With Right-Wing Hungarian Group To Promote 'Free Speech,' Fight 'Woke' Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center executives Brent Bozell and Dan Schneider recently retweeted a message by Hungary's Center for Fundamental Rights: "#Woke is the #American Left's most dangerous export - we have agreed with the leaders of the Media Research Center (@theMRC), the largest #Conservative media institute in the #US, that we will work together to defend #CommonSense and #FreeSpeech."
The CFR (Alapjogokért Központ in Hungarian) is best known in America for hosting CPAC events in Hungary, where it demonstrated how it really feels about "free speech" by blocking a reporter from covering one event.Those events turn out to be little more than cheerleading events for Hungary's right-wing authoritarian leader, Viktor Orban. The MRC has long been a fan of Orban, cheering his claims to support "free speech" even while he suppresses dissent and criminalizes criticism of himself.
As you might imagine, the CFR is also an Orban cheerleader -- with good reason. While claiming to be a "legal research institute," it's really a propaganda outlet for Orban's government, and it has received numerous grants from the Hungarian government that effectively fund its entire operation.
In other words, the CFR is government propaganda. We thought the MRC hated government propaganda. Of course, the MRC hasn't told any of this to its readers.
(Pictured, from left: Center for Fundamental Rights director general Miklos Szantho, MRC chief Brent Bozell and MRC executive Dan Schneider.)
NEW ARTICLE -- WND's Other Russia Apologists, Part 2 Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily columnists have continued their admiration for Vladimir Putin and their smears against Ukraine -- but there's one columnist who's deviating from the pro-Russia norm. Read more >>
MRC Hunter Biden Derangement Syndrome Watch Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Hunter Biden Derangement Syndrome is so pervasive, we're still catching up on stuff that happened in late July and August. For instance:
Kevin Tober raged in a July 26 post that President Biden wasn't being attacked as a bad father because of Hunter's issues:
On MSNBC’s All In, guest host Jen Psaki invited failed former Democrat Senator and MSNBC contributor Claire McCaskill to huff and puff about how poor Hunter Biden has been unfairly targeted by Republicans in light of the debacle Wednesday in which his sweetheart plea deal was revoked. McCaskill even went so far as to suggest that President Joe Biden is being targeted by Republicans because he loves his son Hunter.
Teeing up McCaskill, Psaki noted that “Hunter Biden is a favorite target of Republicans in the House. Republicans from the Trump wing of the party, and others.” She then asked McCaskill: “What accusations & arguments do you think they're gonna make, given this didn't go exactly as planned today?”
“They're going to keep doing what they’ve been doing,” McCaskill shrieked. “They're gonna try to indict a father for loving his son, who has been addicted to drugs and or alcohol. And without evidence of the father doing anything other than loving that son.”
Yeah, forget the mountains of evidence showing Joe & Hunter Biden shaking down foreign governments for cash, and Biden admitting on tape that he got the Ukrainian prosecutor fired who was investigating his son. According to McCaskill, Joe’s only crime is loving his son Hunter.
Cassandra DeVries spent an Aug. 1 post being annoyed that it was pointed out that Hunter does not work in the Biden White House and that the Trump kids are more directly connected to their father's credibly alleged criminality:
Devon Archer testified on Monday that his former business partner, Hunter Biden, called then-Vice President Joe Biden during business meetings to “sell the illusion of access to his father” and America’s government. Tuesday’s CNN This Morning dismissed Hunter’s use of his father’s position as vice president for business advancement as typical political behavior, more suitable than that of Trump’s children, irrelevant to voters compared to Republican extremism, and unimportant to the public.
[...]
When asked if Hunter’s use of his father’s position for monetary gain would resonate with voters, Jessica Washington, senior reporter for The Root, parlayed and asserted that Trump’s children shared tighter business ties with former him than Hunter and President Biden:
I think to a certain extent it will resonate with some voters. But I do think this kind of -- we have no direct connection to Biden in anything unethical at this point. And so, right now, we're talking about Hunter Biden who isn't in the administration. It's not like the Trump kids, where they had these close business ties, where he brought them into the administration. So, I don't think it resonates in the same way what happened with Jared or Ivanka or the Trump kids does.
Brownstein remained unconcerned that Hunter’s conduct would matter politically. He reminisced about 2022, claiming Democrats won despite disapproval of Biden’s performance because Republicans were ‘extremists’:
Alex Christy groused in an Aug. 3 post that his fellow right-wingers' Hunter derangement was being called out:
Former White House Press Secretary and current weekend MSNBC host Jen Psaki joined the network’s Thursday coverage of President Trump’s third indictment and arraignment to discuss the GOP’s reaction, specifically their attempts to equate the situation with Joe and Hunter Biden’s problems. Psaki was not thrilled with the comparison, claiming to do so in reminiscent of Vladimir Putin.
After co-host Jose Diaz-Balart observed Republicans are trying to tie Joe and Hunter Biden together, Psaki recorded, “Of course they are. And there is no evidence of that, but they're going to keep trying because that is the argument that they want to fuzzy the waters out there, muddy the waters, not fuzzy them, muddy the waters out there.”
“That, by the way, is a tactic that Vladimir Putin and other authoritarian dictators use, but that's their strategic objective, to make it all seem the same,” Psaki continued.
Interestingly enough, the man who allegedly paid the Bidens a $10 million bribe at Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, worked in the administration of Viktor Yanukovych, who ran away to Russia in 2014 after the Ukrainian people got tired of being governed by a Putin stooge. If a Republican father-son were facing these allegations involving Putin-aligned foreigners, the media would be paying far greater attention.
In fact, Devon Archer -- the same guy whose testimony DeVries credibly cited -- also testified that he had no knowledge of any bribe paid to the Bidens by Zlochevsky and that the Form 1023 released by Republicans as purported evidence of the bribe doesn't actually support it.
Newsmax Targets Smartmatic (Which Is Suing Newsmax) With Ham-Handed Sniping, Defensiveness Topic: Newsmax
Eric Mack used a Sept. 25 Newsmax article to repeat a CNN report about voting-tech company Smartmatic: "A voting technology company at the center of legal action against former President Donald Trump's lawyers and others over the 2020 presidential election reportedly finds itself implicated in a bribery scheme with a top Filipino election official." Fully half of Mack's story, though, is about Newsmax defending itself against the lawsuit filed against it by Smartmatic and fellow voting-tech company Dominion. First up, denial and distancing:
Alleging defamation, Smartmatic is suing Newsmax, Fox News, OAN, several individual Fox hosts, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, and others.
All have denied wrongdoing.
[...]
The Trump team alleged a tenuous connection between Dominion and Smartmatic, noting that Smartmatic had once owned Sequoia, a U.S. voting machine company. Dominion acquired Sequoia in 2010.
Newsmax has denied the defamation allegations of Smartmatic, claiming its lawsuit is an attack on a free press and Newsmax's right to report on what major officials and other public officials are stating publicly.
In December 2020 Newsmax issued a statement on its coverage of the 2020 election, making clear that network had "no evidence Dominion uses Smartmatic's software or vice versa."
The statement also added that Newsmax found that "no evidence has been offered that Dominion or Smartmatic used software or reprogrammed software that manipulated votes in the 2020 election."
Mack also stated:
Smartmatic has long had ties with the regime of Venezuelan strongmen Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro, handling the country's presidential and congressional elections for over a decade.
Mack failed to mention that Smartmatic left Venezuela in 2018 after the country's election officials were caught by Smartmatic manipulating vote totals in a 2017 election. That would seem to disprove Mack's suggestion that Smartmatic is corrupt because it had worked with "strongmen."
Mack waited until the third-to-last paragraph of his 24-paragraph article to concede that "Smartmatic was not accused in the criminal complaint of having tampered with elections in the Philippines or elsewhere, according to CNN."
Democrats and other leftists have applauded the astonishingly harsh sentences being handed out by Washington judges to those protesters who invaded the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Some have been given decades in prison. Some are spending time in jail even though they weren't in Washington that day. Others have been put behind bars for walking into the Capitol – even though in some cases security officers held the doors open for them.
Now a poll shows that those leftists, and activists, are out of line with the American public.
A report at the Washington Examiner explains that large groups of voters view the extraordinary sentences as "too harsh."
"And despite the Washington-based news coverage portraying the 2021 protest of President Joe Biden’s election as an insurrection, more of America’s voters than not believe it was a 'mostly peaceful protest that got out of control,'" the report explained.
In fact, that harsh treatment – sometimes defendants are arrested by SWAT teams pounding on residential doors – is seen by "a majority" as a campaign by Joe Biden and his "thugs" to scare anyone who may wish to oppose his liberal agenda, the report said.
The report explained Rasmussen Reports confirms that 49% of poll respondents say the events were "mostly peaceful" while 45% said it was an "insurrection."
And 42% said the sentences are "too harsh" to the 29% who said they aren't harsh enough.
In fact, the opposite is true: Most sentences for Capitol riot defendants have been shorter than prosecutors' recommendations, and more than one-third were shorter than federal guidelines. Unruh didn't mention that Rasmussen polls tend to have a right-wing bias, throwing their accuracy into question; instead, he hyped another dubious poll finding:
Further, "Asked if they agreed with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) that the sentences were 'designed to send a loud and clear message from Joe Biden and his thugs … If you oppose us, you’re going to jail for a long time,' 55% agreed and 36% did not," the report said.
Greene has worked to publicize the awful jail conditions of many of the protesters, some of whom have spent years behind bars awaiting the resolution of their cases, which sometimes include offenses like trespassing.
Unruh offered no evidence of any rioter who has "spent years behind bars" solely on a trespassing offense.
Unruh expanded his false persecution narrative to dfalsey accuse President Biden of jailing his enemies -- and portraying Donald Trump as their savior -- in a Sept. 18 article:
Joe Biden has overseen federal governmental attacks on a lot of his political enemies.
Those who doubted the results of the suspect 2020 election? Charged with criminal counts over and over. The activists who fight for the lives of the unborn, in conflict with Biden's ideologies? Jailed. And more.
But President Trump, during a weekend appearance that the "Pray Vote Stand Summit" in Washington, said they'll be getting pardons or commutations should he be re-elected to the White House.
According to a report in the Washington Stand, that mercy will be extended to sidewalk counselors, pro-life advocates and "every political prisoner who's been unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration," he said.
Unruh provided no examples of any protester currently "jailed" merely for protesting abortion.
NEW ARTICLE -- The MRC Hating Transgender People, 2023 Edition: Part 2 Topic: Media Research Center
The transphobic meltdowns continued among Media Research Center writers as the year progressed, which included complaints that right-wing transphobic hate was being called out for what it is. Read more >>
Soros Derangement Syndrome At The MRC (For Both George And Alex) Continues Topic: Media Research Center
After spending the summer hating George Soro's son for the offense of being, well, George Soros' son, the Media Research Center returned to its usual obsessivehatred of Soros himself. We've already noted that the MRC made a point of highlighting that Soros has given money to the Southern Poverty Law Center in bashing the SPLC for pointing out the extremism of the right-wing Moms for Liberty, as well as its cheering of Ron DeSantis for taking a shot at Soros during the first Republican presidential debate. It has had other anti-Soros freakouts as well from late August through September, largely of the guilt-by-association variety:
The main target of the MRC's manufactured outrage, though, was again Alex Soros, George's son who is poised to take over his empire of philanthropy. Tom Oholan raged in a Sept. 6 post:
Leftist billionaire Alex Soros warned that his Open Society Foundations is not done with Europe, promising to remain active there and even increase aid in some cases.
In an August 31st op-ed titled “No Soros retreat from Europe,” the Open Society Foundations chairman responded to claims that the leftist group would scale back its work in Europe under his leadership. Soros discussed promoting expansion in the E.U., Ukraine, the Roma and a variety of projects he continues to fund in Europe.
The article also made clear that Soros idolizes the E.U., as he wrote that “the European Union still stands as a global beacon of the values that shape our work.” He even went so far as to say that “like my father, I regard the E.U. as one of modern history’s great triumphs.”
[...]
During the same panel, Alex Soros compared Trump to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, saying that Orban was “much tamer” the first time he served as prime minister than during his present term. " But when they come back, they know where the bodies are buried,” Alex Soros claimed of Orban and presumably Trump, He added that Trump had been working to win over the military and referenced “what the Heritage Foundation is trying to do by purging things.”
Surprisingly, Olohan did not dispute Soros' description of Trump's second-term plan as "purging things"; indeed, he linked to the right-wing Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 plan, which is specifically designed to make the federal government "more friendly to the right" by, yes, purging many federal employees -- a largely non-political workforce that has long been immune from partisan politics -- and replacing them with political loyalists more interesting in pushing right-wing Christian agendas than making government work for all Americans. Olohan also described Soros as "anti-American" without offering any evidenceto back it up; perhaps he believes that not supporting an amoral, credibly accused crimninal and serial adulterer is somehow "anti-American."
Speaking of whom, a Sept. 11 post by Joseph Vazquez touted Trump's nasty yet childish insult of Alex Soros:
Former President Donald Trump blasted leftist billionaire George Soros’s extremist heir for pledging to use his father’s ungodly fortune to interfere in the 2024 election.
Alex Soros wrote an op-ed for Politico refuting any notion that his major shakeup at the Open Society Foundations meant there would be any “Soros Retreat from Europe.” In fact, Alex, who described himself as “more political” than his father, heaped praise on the dystopian European Union as a “global beacon of the values that shape our work.”
But a 2024 win for Trump, claimed Alex, would mean doom for the EU. “As someone who spends up to half their time working on the Continent and thinks former United States President Donald Trump — or at least someone with his isolationist and anti-European policies — will be the Republican nominee," Alex mourned. "I believe a MAGA-style Republican victory in next year’s U.S. presidential election could, in the end, be worse for the EU than for the U.S.”
To that end, Alex pledged, “We are adapting OSF to be able to respond to whatever scenarios might emerge, on both sides of the Atlantic.” Trump didn’t mince words in his Sept. 10 response on Truth Social. “We can’t let this spoiled little degenerate win.”
“[Alex’s] daddy controls the D.A.’s and A.G.’s in America. They are destroying our Country. Mitch McConnell is helping them do it by doing NOTHING! An EMBARRASSMENT to the Republican Party. GET TOUGH REPUBLICANS,” Trump continued.
Open Society Foundations (OSF) Chairman Alex Soros bragged about how his father has funded the legalization of illicit drugs while speaking to an audience of globalists.
During the Clinton Global Initiative 2023 Meeting last week, Alex opened up to The Washington Post Associate Editor Jonathan Capehart on a number of issues, including his father’s radical agenda on drug policy, which Soros dubbed “harm reduction.” Soros claimed, “If you look at what the foundation invested in, in its beginnings, we made a lot of things that weren’t, let’s say ‘sexy’ at the time, we brought them into the mainstream,” before adding, “but one of the reasons why we are attacked the way we are is because we are supporting harm reduction in drug policy all across the world, which was a huge, and still is a huge stigma.” Soros went on to discuss how his father had upset religious groups by supporting abortion and contraception, before providing a specific example of his father’s legacy on drugs. This legacy includes giving over $3 million from 2016 to 2021 to Harm Reduction International which advocates for “needle and syringe programmes” and “drug consumption rooms,” and pushing for the legalization of marijuana.
Olohan offered no evidence that anything Soros is proposing is ineffective, let alone "radical."
Olohan also spent a Sept. 13 post complaining about that other people don't obessively hate Soros the way he does (or, more accurately, is paid to do):
A leftist MSNBC host smeared Republicans as anti-Semitic for daring to call out radical billionaire George Soros for using his ungodly fortune to reshape society to match his open society worldview.
MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan stepped on a rake by attacking critics of Soros. Hasan’s X post read, “The same Republicans who love billionaires, big money donations, dark money, etc, but now indignantly insist that their obsession with Soros isn’t antisemitic, really have to explain what it is about Soros that they so object to. It can’t be his money or donations.” In the words of The Daily Wire host Michael Knowles, “Isn't there a difference between donating to good things and donating to bad things?” Of course there is.
Hasan is not the first lazy media talking head to make Soros’ vendetta to “bend” the “arc of history” seem innocent and his critics seem racist. But since Hasan asked for an explanation, the Media Research Center would be happy to provide the answer.
Olohan didn't explain why an agenda that merely disagrees with right-wing ideology must be smeared as "bad things." He then offered a rehash of its anti-Soros freakouts over the past few years, though without the anti-Semitism of earlier efforts. He then huffed:
If a man who thinks like this puts $32 billion into influencing media, education, criminal justice and other fields, it behooves Republicans, Americans, and people throughout the world to be as interested in him as he is in them.
MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider weighed in on the irony of Hasan’s accusations, “The only reason Hasan is defending Soros is because they are birds of the same radical feather. It is absurd to claim that someone is antisemitic simply because they oppose the radical views of somebody who happens to be Jewish. It is in fact Hasan, who has advocated for policies that harm the sovereignty of Israel.”
Of course, Olohan and Schneider didn't mention how the MRC has invoked the anti-Semitic "puppet master" trope against Soros.If Schneider doesn't want the anti-Soros attacks from the MRC and other right-wingers to be dismissed as anti-Semitic, they should stop making anti-Semitic attacks and withdraw and apologize for the ones they have made. But because the MRC doesn't believe in acknowledging past mistakes, let alone apologizing for them, Schneider will never do that.
Newsmax Misleads About Trump Support For Union Auto Workers Topic: Newsmax
The pro-Trump stans at Newsmax tried to create a narrative that Donald Trump supports striking union autoworkers despite his anti-union record as president. After Trump announced he would make a speech in Detroit as counterprogramming to his refusal to participaten in the second Republican presidential debate, Eric Mack hyped his purported solidarity with thet striking workers in a Sept. 17 article:
"The United Autoworkers are being sold down the 'drain' with this all electric car scam," Trump posted Sunday on Truth Social. "They'll be made in China, under Crooked Joe's China First policy. Autoworkers, vote for Trump — I'll make you victorious & rich."
[...]
"If your 'leaders' won't endorse me, vote them out of office, now," Trump's statement continued. "With the Democrats & Crooked Joe calling the shots, you'll be jobless & penniless within 4 years."
[...]
Trump is asking for the autoworkers to back him over Biden.
"Remember, Biden is a crook who has been paid millions of dollars by China, & others," Trump's statement concluded. "He is a Manchurian candidate!!!"
Newsmax did, surprisingly, tell the truth about Trump's visit in a Sept. 26 article by Mark Swanson:
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain said Tuesday he sees "no point" in meeting with Donald Trump when the former president visits the Detroit area on Wednesday, saying Trump "serves the billionaire class and that's what's wrong with this country."
Fain made the comments in an interview with CNN, the same day that President Joe Biden joined the striking UAW workers on the picket line in Belleville, Michigan.
Trump is skipping the second GOP presidential debate Wednesday night to meet with a group of mostly retired UAW workers in Macomb County — at a nonunion plant.
That did not go unnoticed by Fain.
"I find a pathetic irony that the former president is gonna hold a rally for union members at a non-union business," Fain said.
A Sepet. 27 wire article previewing Trump's speech noted that he would be speaking at a "non-union auto supplier," but with an added plug stating that "Newsmax will air Trump's speech live and in its entirety Wednesday night, starting at 8 p.m. ET." But Newsmax coverage of the speech itself downplayed or misled about the non-union connection:
An article by Eric Mack misleadingly stated that Trump spoke to "Michigan's blue-collar workers and United Auto Workers union members" and made no reference to him speaking at a non-union shop.
Another article by Mack stated that Trump gave "a campaign stump speech in Clinton Township, Michigan, which aired live and in its entirety on Newsmax"; the only reference to unions in the article was a mention that Trump claimed that "Biden is pandering to the United Auto Workers labor union bosses."
Newsmax did an interview with Trump after the speech, which Mack dutifully wrote up. Again, he misled about Trump's union statnce:
Former President Donald Trump trashed United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain for choosing to meet with President Joe Biden over him.
"If he didn't want to meet with me, then I don't like him very much," Trump told Newsmax's John Bachman in a backstage interview Wednesday night after Trump delivered a speech to working-class voters in Clinton Township, Michigan, which aired live and in its entirety on Newsmax.
"But that's foolish not to meet. What is he going to do? Meet with Biden? The man doesn't know he's alive. Biden can't put two sentences together. He has no idea what's going on."
A Sept. 28 article by Theodore Bunker about a Newsmax TV interview with the head of the auto parts firm where Trump spoke did admit the company was non-union, but he uncritically peddled the man's claim that there were union workers in attendamce who supportted Trump:
Nathan Stemple, the president of the automotive parts manufacturing business where former President Donald Trump spoke Wednesday, told Newsmax on Thursday that that "the experience was just one in ten lifetimes for us."
Trump spoke to a crowd of non-union auto workers at Drake Enterprises in Clinton Township, Michigan, the same night that his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination participated in the second GOP primary debate.
Stemple said on " National Report" that "there were tens of thousands of people outside of the rally, all up and down our street, up and down the adjoining streets … that whole experience was just one in ten lifetimes for us."
Actually, many of the purported "union workers" at the rally were ringers.
MRC Still Melting Down Over Criticism Of Ginni Thomas Topic: Media Research Center
The Media just can't stopdefending Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his right-wing activist wife, Ginni, from any and all criticism. Kevin Tober lashed out at one critic in a Sept. 11 post:
On Monday night’s The ReidOut on MSNBC, noted racist Jason Johnson filled in for the vacationing Joy Reid and did his best to fill the air with as much bile as she does. It appeared as if he succeeded since he opened the latter half of the program by smearing Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife Ginni Thomas as the most “destructive force in the American jurisprudence in the last 30 years.”
“I want this to be really clear. There has not been a more destructive force in the American jurisprudence in the last 30 years than Clarence Thomas' wife. They're the most destructive force in American jurisprudence,” Johnson howled.
He wasn’t done there. Johnson painted the power couple as comic book villains by smearing them as “a Voltron of evil.”
The reason behind this latest character assassination was based on a hit piece from the left-wing rag Politico.
Johnson cried that some of the “key players involved included Texas billionaire Harlan Crow, Federalist Society Leonard Leo, and Trump political consultant Kellyanne Conway.”
“What Politico uncovered was that the justice's wife was essentially running a political organization that will push conservative ideas through the courts and into her husband's lap,” Johnson claimed.
Tober offered no evidence whatsover that Johnson is a "noted racist" or that Politico is a "left-wing rag" -- to the contrary, Politico's owner operates numerous right-wing outlets. Tober also failed to identify anything false or misleading in the Politico piece he's criticizing, effectively putting the lie to his "hit piece" dismissal.
Despite Tober's factual deficiencies and failure to back up what he wrote, his post got rehashed in a Sept. 30 end-of-month summary by Geoffrey Dickens, again without bothering to substantiate the attacks.
NEW ARTICLE: Vladimir Putin's Favorite WND Columnist, Part 2 Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Scott Lively admits he's a Putin apologist, and he has even appeared in Russian media to help the country justify its invasion of Ukraine while blaming the "deep state" for provoking it. Read more >>
MRC Censors Fox News' Fake News About A Gold Star Family Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center tried to work up outrage that the attacks on President Biden and his administration by Gold Star families whose family members died in Afghanistan were supposedly being ignored by non-right-wing media. Kevin Tober set the narrative -- while giving Fox News a cookie for advancing the conservatively correct narrative -- in an Aug. 7 post:
As we approached the two-year anniversary of the disastrous and deadly withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan in which thirteen U.S. service members died, the families of those brave Americans were still seeking answers and accountability. Only to be stonewalled by the Biden administration. On Monday, House Republicans held a hearing and heard testimony from the family members of the thirteen Americans who died in Afghanistan due to the botched withdrawal. Fox News covered the hearing live in the afternoon while also providing viewers who may have missed it a full recap during Special Report. All three evening news networks thumbed their nose at the Gold Star families by ignoring the hearing.
Instead of covering the hearing, ABC’sWorld News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News wasted airtime by covering the Mega Millions lottery numbers (ABC), the anti-American women’s soccer team losing in the World Cup (CBS), and another update on an investigation into a plastic plant fire (NBC).
Special Report anchor Bret Baier had the story which was one of the first he covered during Monday’s newscast. According to congressional correspondent Aishah Hasnie, this was the first time “the Gold Star families of 13 U.S. service members killed by a suicide bomber at Kabul Airport [told] their stories together in public.”
Craig Bannister repeated the complaint -- with added political exploitation by the MRC -- in an Aug. 22 post:
Given a week to reply, the presidents of ABC, NBC, and CBS have refused to respond to Media Research Center (MRC) Founder and President Brent Bozell’s letter asking why they didn’t cover the testimony of Gold Star parents who lost loved ones in President Joe Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.
[...]
“Gold Star families are being disrespected by the country their children died for. What could be more important to cover on your network than this?” Bozell asked the news presidents of the three networks, in separate letters sent Tuesday, August 15. The letters set a response deadline of Monday, August 21.
As of Tuesday morning, not one of the three networks had replied.
“This wasn't a partisan event. These parents likely span the political spectrum,” Bozell notes.
[...]
“Unfortunately, we cannot attribute your lack of coverage to mere oversight,” Bozell tells the executives, noting that other media outlets, such as Fox News, covered the event on the same day that it happened.
The networks’ news blackout wasn’t just disrespectful of the Gold Star parents, it was also a great disservice to the country, Bozell tells the network news presidents.
Of course, given right-wing media's eagerness to exploit the situation, it very much was a "partisan event." Bannister added that Bozell noted "examples of the heart-wrenching testimony of the grieving Gold Star parents," including "Christy Shamblim, mother-in-law of Sergeant Nicole Gee said, 'When our leaders call this evacuation a success, it is like a knife in the heart.'"
When NBC covered the story a few days later, Tober was quick to credit his employer's partisan activism in an Aug. 29 post -- though he offered no proof that this was actually the case -- while complaining that CBS and ABC "continued to leave their viewers in the dark." Tim Graham pressed the narrative again in his Aug. 30 podcast:
Gold Star families who lost loved ones in the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan are not happy with President Biden, or the State Department, or the Pentagon. This might explain why the networks have tried to avoid these people, since they seem like guardians of whatever popularity Biden still has.
[...]
They can give you hours and hours of live coverage of the House January 6 Committee, but they can’t do two minutes on this? Instad, we saw reports on Amazon raising its purchase minimum to qualify for free shipping (ABC), and a water main break in New York's Times Square (CBS).
Despite all this claimed respect for Gold Star families, the MRC censored the fact that, as all of the above was going on, Fox News lied about one of them. Military.com reported:
The Marine Corps worked behind the scenes last month in an attempt to convince Fox News to retract its false story claiming a Gold Star family was forced to pay $60,000 to ship the remains of a Marine killed in Afghanistan, according to emails obtained by Military.com.
A service spokesman notified the news network that it was pushing an incorrect story and accused it of using the grief of fallen Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee's family to draw in readers, the email exchanges, released through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request, show. Fox News eventually deleted the story with no correction, and it never reached out to the Gee family with an apology as the Marine Corps requested, the family said.
The Fox News story came from Republican Rep. Cory Mills, a freshman congressman from Florida, who claimed Gee's next of kin were strapped with the $60,000 charge after a meeting with the families of Abbey Gate bombing victims, a suicide attack where 13 service members were killed outside of the Kabul airport in 2021.
Gee's family never paid a dollar to transport her remains, and the Marine Corps let Fox News know -- in no uncertain terms -- that the July 25 story was false in a series of emails over the following days.
"This headline correction is still misleading and your story is still false," Maj. James Stenger, the lead spokesperson for the Marine Corps, wrote to Fox News in an email after the publication changed the headline and body of the story in an attempt to soften the accusation.
"Using the grief of a family member of a fallen Marine to score cheap clickbait points is disgusting," Stenger wrote. The spokesman was one of several military officials frustrated with the story, according to the documents.
Comments from Gee's family, the Pentagon and the nonprofit that actually stepped in to pay for the flight before the Defense Department became involved were eventually added to the story before it was taken down, Military.com reported, but none of the changes were marked as updates or corrections.
A few days later, Fox News finally issued a lame apology: "The now unpublished story has been addressed internally and we sincerely apologize to the Gee family." No explanation was provided for why it stuck by the story for so long or a more comprehensive correct or apology was not provided.
Graham, Tober and the rest of the MRC would never let you hear the end of it if a non-right-wing outlet spread lies about a Gold Star family. But the MRC works hard to defend Fox News and gives it special protection from criticism. As we documented, it handwaved the revelation that Fox News deliberately lied to its viewers about election fraud -- lies that resulted in Fox News paying $787 million to Dominion in a defamation lawsuit settlement -- because its viewers don't care that they're being lied to and pushing right-wing narratives is more important than the truth.
This highly selective and partisan approach to "media research" not only makes the MRC's purported concern about Gold Star families look hollow and hypocritical -- it's one big reason why few people take the MRC seriously.
WND Columnist Purports To Make 'Good Faith' Attempt To Spread Bogus Election Fraud Narrative Topic: WorldNetDaily
Michael Schisler is an occasional WorldNetDaily columnist who has peddled COVIDconspiracytheories, so it's unsurprising that he would dip a toe into conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, and he also got into the whole "mass formation psychosis" thing that right-wing conspiracy-mongers bought into when their COVID conspiracy theories were debunked. He used his Sept. 15 column to complain about "outlier" numbers in the election, using that to hint at fraud he doesn't actually prove:
For 2008 through 2016, only on-trend increases and decreases in the metrics examined are seen, with no outliers. This may be surprising to some, given the loser's claims about the 2016 election.
Then we have 2020, Biden vs. Trump.
The outliers in this election cycle will be described as "unprecedented" if they are both record setting numbers within the modern election era and also have outlier characteristics.
An all-time U.S. record-shattering 47.8% of all Americans were recorded as casting their legal vote in 2020. This represents an unprecedented 14.6% increase over the previous election.
For perspective, 2008 is the second-highest on record with only 42.6% of all Americans voting in the Obama vs. McCain election. This represents a below average 2.9% increase over the previous election.
For context, the average percent of citizens voting in the modern era is about 38%. For elections in year 2000 and later, the average is slightly higher at about 40% (excluding the outlier 47.8% recorded for 2020).
In 2020, Biden was awarded an unprecedented 29.1% more votes than the previous the election winner (Trump 2016).
[...]
Other notable re-election stats with outlier characteristics:
In his re-election bid of 2012, Obama underperformed his first term vote totals by -5.1% yet won his bid for re-election. Obama is the only president in all of U.S. history to underperform his first term vote totals by any amount, yet secure a second term.
In 2020 Trump outperformed his first term vote totals by 17.9%, which is the fourth-highest outperformance in the modern era, behind only Nixon, Reagan and Bush Jr. (who all won), yet Trump lost his bid for re-election. Trump is the only president in all of U.S. history to outperform his first term vote totals by any amount and lose his re-election bid.
Not only does Schisler not bother to explain how this adds up -- let alone mention the COVID pandemic that likely played a role in creating the outliers he's complaining about -- he effectively undercut what he spent an entire column by his own disclaimer at the end:
Disclaimer Notice: The data presented in this article was computed from raw election stats and commonly available population data on a good faith basis. However, the accuracy of the source data, computations and statements made are not guaranteed, and for legal purposes should be considered opinions of the writer.
But there'sno reason to treat any claim by a wannabe election denier as being made in "good faith" -- ignoring that the election has been repeatedly analyzed and found not to have any significant fraud issues in order to still peddle a bogus narrative is the very defintion of bad faith.
MRC's Toto Wants You To Think Unfunny Anti-'Woke' 'Comedy' Is Hilarious Topic: Media Research Center
Christian Toto started his Sept. 30 Media Rsearch Center column by complaining that comedians don't make nasty jokes about President Biden nearly enough for his biased taste:
Mainstream comics leave countless jokes on the table.
Just consider the Biden administration, for starters. The material practically writes itself, from the president’s near-daily short circuits to VP Kamala Harris’ word salad speeches.
Ideology keeps getting in the way.
The same holds for the woke mindset. Comedians ignore how the Left labels every third word as racist, problematic or downright offensive.
Think “peanut gallery,” “hooligan,” “American,” “immigrant,” “grandfather” and “submit.” So many hate crimes in just one paragraph, no?
Toto, of course, is demanding that comedians inject right-wing ideology into their acts. He then praised comedian Bill Burr for how he allegedly "skewered woke platitudes with wit and wisdom," though the example he provided showed none of this; it simply mocked the #MeToo movement. This led to Toto praising Burr's new film, "Old Dads":
The Oct 20 release, starring, directed and co-written by Burr, follows three men who embraced fatherhood later in life. They run headfirst into a Gen Z culture they neither understand or appreciate.
The film co-stars two underrated stars, Bobby Cannavale and Bokeem Woodbine as Burr’s fellow “Dads.”
The trailer leans hard into the generational divide between the titular fathers and their peers. When a younger dad tells Burr’s character, Jack, to treat his child’s injury with Neosporin, not dirt, the older Dad snaps.
“Why don’t you go on Twitter and share this story where you’re the hero,” Burr says. He’s wrong … and he still has a point about virtue signaling.
Again, Toto highlighted a so-called joke that isn't terribly funny. Indeed, reviews indicate that this is the problem with the entire film; one reviewer stated that "Old Dads" is "a meandering, unfunny assault on PC culture that would seem perfectly in place in the 1990s alongside 'Illiberal Education' by Dinesh D’Souza and the rantings of Pat Buchanan. It’s so dated there’s even a mention of Halliburton." Another reviewer noted about the character Burr's character plays:
Yet there’s a monkey wrench sitting in the middle of the movie. And that’s Jack’s rageaholic personality. Forget the over-controlled, virtue-signaling era. Jack’s anger really is over-the-top and inappropriate, and would be during any era. So even if you welcome a satire of the new corporate-approved hypersensitivity, since Jack’s rage is a more glaring problem than any of that it undercuts the film’s satirical bite. I realize that rage has long been Bill Burr’s calling card, but if he had made Jack a more restrained character, quietly infuriated by everything around him, “Old Dads” would have been funnier and scored more points.
Yet Toto wants you to believe that Burr's hate is a feature, not a bug, and the movie is better than it appears to be:
Just don’t expect “Old Dads” to skewer the woke characters alone, or for Jack to cling to all of his old ways. Burr is too smart a storyteller to turn his film into a sermon preaching to the anti-woke choir.
The fact that he’s mocking the cultural movement in the first place is consequential and overdue.
Looks like Toto is the one for whom ideology keeps getting in the way.
WND Hyped RFK Jr.'s Switch To Independent Run -- Then Turned Against Him Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has been a veryenthusiasticpromoter of Robert Kennedy Jr.'s presidential campaign -- not because it actually wants him to win, but because it might hurt President Biden's re-election plans. When Kennedy left the Democratic race to run as an independent, WND was initially supportive. An anonymously written Oct. 9 article hyped the move:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., long feared by Joe Biden supporters as a major challenge in the 2024 presidential race, now has announced he'll run as an independent, meaning Biden will not be able to dispose of his candidacy before election day, if then.
The Washington Examiner reported Kennedy confirmed Monday he'll switch from the Democratic Party, where he was up against Biden, to an independent bid for the White House.
"During a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, speech which his campaign billed as a 'historic announcement,' Kennedy, 69, spoke in front of a sign that read 'declare your independence,'" the report said.
"I'm here to declare myself an independent candidate," he said.
[...]
Just days ago, Politico had reported on the fears among Biden supporters of this very move, and how they were scheming to remove such challenges.
It was Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, who "convened a Zoom call with 30 other like-minded donors this week to address a persistent fear among national Democrats: Third-party candidates who could undercut Joe Biden’s campaign."
But Kennedy has no real constituency among Democratic voters -- much of his campaign support has come from Republicans who, like WND, are hoping he will serve as a Biden spoiler, and much of his media support has come from right-wing outlets like WND and Fox News, whom Kennedy has praised.
The next day, WND published a statement by Kennedy explaining his decision, under the quote-marked headline "I'm a Kennedy from a Democrat family. But I'm running for president as an independent." But that quote does not appear anywhere in Kennedy's column -- that was the headline from the Fox News version of the statement. The tell is that even Kennedy would not have used the "Democrat family" construct; use of "Democrat Party" phraseology comes exclusively from right-wingers like Fox News who consider it a juvenile insult to refuse to use the party's proper name.
But as it because clear that an independent Kennedy would pull more votes from Donald Trump than from Biden, WND started to turn on him. Slavishly following the Republican narrative flip-flop on Kennedy, Peter LaBarbera went on the attack in an Oct. 12 article:
The Republicans' gloves are off regarding Democrat-turned-Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s 2024 presidential candidacy, and if Sean Hannity's Tuesday interview with RFK is any indication, their new theme song might be: "The Thrill is Gone," by blues legend B.B. King.
With some polls showing Kennedy could hurt Trump more than Biden in a potential three-way race, what is also "gone" are the friendly puff interviews heralding Kennedy as a brave primary challenger to President Biden – victimized by the same "rigged" Democratic Party nominating system that protected Hillary Clinton's against the surging candidacy of socialist Bernie Sanders in 2016.
"I hope you don’t mind, but I did a little research on you," Hannity said toward the beginning of his Fox News interview with Kennedy, according to Mediaite. "You’re pretty liberal. You know, you’ve called for curbing logging, oil drilling, fracking. You wanted to eliminate it. You called it had a victory for democracy. You wanna curb U.S. fossil fuel extraction. 'Keep it in the ground,' you once tweeted. You want a ban on fossil fuel extraction, a ban on fracking.
Hannity continued: "You called the NRA once, a 'terror group.' You supported, over the years, Democrats – Gore, Kerry, Obama, Hillary. You praised Bernie Sanders multiple times. You support affirmative action. So, why is this party of yours – why didn’t they want to allow you to compete? ‘Cause that’s as pretty liberal of a record as anybody I know."
[...]
Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee is leading the way in exposing Kennedy as a "Radical Democrat," the title of their new report on the nephew of President John F. Kennedy.
"While Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is now running under the guise of being an independent, he is just another radical, far-left Democrat," states the Oct. 9 report, subtitled, "Make No Mistake – RFK Jr. Is Just Another Liberal Who Wants to Ban Fossil Fuels, Raise Taxes, and Pass a Green New Deal."
"RFK Jr. is an energy radical who wants to end fossil fuels," says one section header in the document.
LaBarbera did note the flip-flop:
Liberal media pundits and other leftist Democrats – and RFK Jr. supporters – are blasting Hannity for his turnaround on RFK Jr., but it was to be expected given two political realities: 1) polls revealed Kennedy could dig into likely GOP nominee Trump's support in 2024; and 2) coverage by most conservative media of RFK's actual (left-leaning) record has been superficial in not digging into his more liberal positions.
The former Democrat's longstanding opposition to vaccines and his fervent support of free speech and against COVID mandates have made him popular on the Right. Many conservatives and independents who are drawn to RFK Jr. see government and corporate "COVID tyranny" – and the willingness of so many Americans to succumb to hysteria and obey irrational edicts by both – as one of the most disgraceful chapters in U.S. history. Many of those same people, though supporters of Donald Trump, were troubled by his bragging about developing the rushed COVID vaccines, which have been tied to myocarditis and are now widely distrusted, and his deference to Anthony Fauci and White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Deborah Birx during the pandemic.
But Kennedy's other advocacy, including his aggressive support for a "green" agenda, has not received nearly the coverage as his stances on COVID and government "weaponization" under Biden.
[...]
Claiming that Fox News hosts promoted RFK Jr.'s candidacy only because they thought it would hurt Biden's chances in 2024, leftist video podcaster David Pakman said in a broadcast analyzing Hannity's "ambush" interview that it has now "pulled a 180 on RFK."
"Fox is scared of the monster it created," Pakman said Wednesday in a video titled, "Hannity AMBUSHES RFK Jr. now that he's a threat to Trump," which had 124,000 views by press time.
He said Hannity "sandbagged" Kennedy because "the new line for Republicans and right wing media is RFK might reelect Biden and hurt Trump because MAGA people are like, hey, [RFK is] anti-vax but maybe less nuts than Trump. That sounds interesting."
Despite that, LaBarbera failed to mention the fact that his employer also heavily (and ironically) promoted Kennedy's campaign when he was running as a Democrat, and that he too is part of this right-wing flip-flop.
LaBarbera followed that with another attack on a Kennedy policy unfavored by right-wingers in an Oct. 19 article:
Harkening back to the societal damage of Jim Crow segregation, now-Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has come out for reparations, causing a backlash among conservatives who once praised his candidacy as a centrist alternative to leftist Democrats.
[...]
Response by conservatives on X to the Kennedy reparations story was immediate and a sign that it could be devastating to his attempt to cast himself as a moderate. The son of assassinated liberal Democratic presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy was already reeling after a tough interview last week with Fox News host Sean Hannity, in which Hannity grilled him for his progressive past statements on the key issues like environmental ("green") regulations. Said Hannity: "You’re pretty liberal. You know, you’ve called for curbing logging, oil drilling, fracking. You wanted to eliminate it. You called it had a victory for democracy. You wanna curb U.S. fossil fuel extraction. 'Keep it in the ground,' you once tweeted. You want a ban on fossil fuel extraction, a ban on fracking."
LaBarbera did note that "Now that RFK Jr.'s candidacy is seen by both the Right and Left as potentially taking votes from their prospective 2024 presidential candidate (at this point likely Trump vs. Biden), his past statements and positions on a host of issues are coming under renewed scrutiny." But he failed to disclose that WND was a supporter of Kennedy's campaign when he was running as a Democrat, and that it was only when Kennedy moved to running as an independent that he felt the need to examine those stances.
We've documented how the ConWeb absolutely loved the right-wing film "Sound of Freedom," based on the exploits of Tim Ballard in trying to fight child sex trafficking -- while trying to spin away claims that the movie feeds into QAnon conspiracy-theory narratives and largely censoring how Ballard has refused to distance himself from QAnon. But the film wasn't the end of the story. In September, it was reported that Ballard had resigned from the organization he founded to push his anti-trafficking agenda, Operation Underground Railroad, following accusations from several women of sexual misconduct, in which he was alleged to have coerced the women to act like "wives" during overseas missions; he was allegedly "extensively grooming and manipulating multiple women for the past two to three years with the ultimate intent of coercing them to participate in sexual acts with him, under the premise of going wherever it takes and doing 'whatever it takes' to save a child." In October, Ballared was sued by five women who accuse him of sexual assault and battery. (Ballard has denied the accusations.)
Media Research Center executives Brent Bozell and Dan Schneider recently retweeted a 
The Media Research Center's Hunter Biden Derangement Syndrome is so pervasive, we're still catching up on stuff that happened in late July and August. For instance:
Eric Mack used a Sept. 25 Newsmax 
WorldNetDaily's 
After spending the summer 
The pro-Trump stans at Newsmax tried to create a narrative that Donald Trump supports striking union autoworkers despite his 
The Media just 
The Media Research Center tried to work up outrage that the attacks on President Biden and his administration by Gold Star families whose family members died in Afghanistan were supposedly being ignored by non-right-wing media. Kevin Tober set the narrative -- while giving Fox News a cookie for advancing the conservatively correct narrative -- in an Aug. 7 
Michael Schisler is an occasional WorldNetDaily columnist who has peddled 
Christian Toto started his Sept. 30 Media Rsearch Center 
WorldNetDaily has been a 
