As with the first one, the Republican apparatchiks at the Media Research Center hyped and defended the second Republican presidential debate (which, like the first, leading candidate Donald Trump refused to attend). Jorge Bonilla kicked things off with a Sept. 27 post (also in Spanish) complaining that someone from Spanish-language network Univision was allowed to serve as moderator alongside pro-Republican Fox Business hosts, insisting that this didn't mean Univision suddenly moved to the right:

The worst part of the GOP’s inexplicable decision to invite Univision to co-moderate tonight’s presidential primary debate at the Reagan Library is that it validates Univision’s claim to represent the Hispanic community, when they very clearly do not.

Watch as anchor and debate co-moderator Ilia Calderón claims that mantle in the network’s ad promoting the debate:

[...]

Expect Calderón to ask questions on immigration, gun control, and other items from the leftwing policy pupu platter. Just keep in mind that Univision has no mandate from Heaven with which to speak on behalf of the Hispanic community, inasmuch as there is such a singular thing. In fact, polling suggests quite the opposite.

After the debate, Nicholas Fondacaro raged at Calderón for purportedly being "anti-American" for asking questions that actually challenged the candidates:

The second GOP presidential primary debate Wednesday night was a case study in why the Republican Party shouldn’t award debate moderation privileges to hostile and dishonest members of the liberal media. While Fox Business Network occupied two of the moderator positions (Stuart Varney and Dana Perino), the third was given to Univision anchor Ilia Calderón. Her questions were by far the most anti-American and dishonest; ranging from lies about gun violence being “unique” to America to blaming America for the drug trafficking at the southern border, and more.

In a question directed to North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, Calderón peddled the liberal media’s BIG LIE about gun violence: “Mental health concerns are not unique to United States. But gun violence is.”

Back here in reality, Central American and South American countries were some of the most dangerous countries in the world. Their violence was often cited as a primary driver of illegal immigration to the U.S. According to reporting from NPR, those countries have per capita violent gun death rates many times that of the U.S. In 2019, America’s rate was 3.96 while Mexico’s was 16.41 and Calderón’s home country of Colombia had 26.36.

In his rage, Fondacaro forgot to explain how that line of questioning was "anti-American."Kevin Tober similarly slurred Calderón as "anti-American" without providing a factual basis, further attacking her as "pro-trans" for asking a question about anti-LGBTQ violence:

Fox News for reasons passing understanding, allowed radical leftist Univision anchor Ilia Calderón to co-moderate their Republican presidential primary debate. Throughout the evening, Calderón asked numerous anti-American & pro-LGBTQ questions of the candidates. Predictably, during their live post-debate coverage, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow praised Calderón's biased questions because they are something Fox's audience is "not used to hearing on Fox."

"There was also an interesting dynamic tonight with the moderators. With at least one of the moderators, Ilia Calderón from Univision she’s the only one of tonight's three moderators who has some experience moderating debates," Maddow said. "But it was Miss Calderón who actually in her questioning sort of distinguished herself by telling the listening audience tonight something they are not used to hearing on Fox," she added.

Maddow then gushed over the Anti-American and false question that American citizens are responsible for bringing fentanyl into the United States: "She mentioned, for example, that when it comes to fentanyl, 90 percent of fentanyl is caught at the U.S. Border and most is brought by American citizens. That is something Fox audiences may never have heard on their television before."

Being a lesbian herself, Maddow predictably enjoyed the question posed to Mike Pence about supposed violence against "LGBTQ+" people: "She also confronted former Vice President Mike Pence with this question about the LGBTQ community right now. It was a question, again that Fox viewers are not used to hearing, and it elicited at first, a sort of general platitude for Mr. Pence and then a somewhat chilling threat from him toward that community," Maddow proclaimed.

The MRC's DeSantis Defense Brigade weighed in with a post by Tom Olohan cheering how Ron DeSantis "stressed that keeping Americans safe from the rampant crime often intensified by radical Soros-funded prosecutors is crucial for the country’s future success." Tober returned to complain that the candidates pushing partisan attacks on Democrats on border issues was called out:

During ABC News Live Prime's post-GOP debate coverage, political director Averi Harper was clearly disappointed that Republican candidates framed the Biden border crisis as a "wholly Democratic Party failure," and bemoaned the "finger-pointing and the platitudes that were made on that stage." 

Tober offered no evidendce that Biden and only Biden is to blame for the border situation.

A post by Tom Kilcullen cheered how Nikki Haley "blasted censorship-loving tech platform TikTok as 'one of the most dangerous social media apps that we can have.'" Mark Finkelstein was annoyed that someone whose show he hate-watches for a living picked a debate winner:

"Nikki Haley: Endorsed By Morning Joe!"

That's hardly the kind of support that someone seeking the Republican presidential nomination would welcome. To the contrary, it could be the kiss of political death for Haley or any of the Republican contenders.

But while the praise for Haley was not overly enthusiastic, the former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador was clearly the winner of last night's debate in the eyes of today's Morning Joe panel.

Indeed, no one other than Haley was mentioned as a possible winner. Joe Scarborough, Willie Geist, Jonathan Lemire, and Elise Jordan were all in agreement: Haley was "the adult in the room."

[...]

For all this praise today, if Haley ever did become the Republican candidate, you could count on Morning Joe to train an endless stream of attacks on her!

Curtis Houck, meanwhile, whined that the lack of questions about the elephant (not) in the room was noted:

During the post-GOP presidential debate analysis on Thursday’s CBS Mornings and ABC’s Good Morning America (GMA), liberal journalists bellyached that the seven candidates didn’t obsess over the four indictments against former President Trump or fixate on a recent Truth Social post calling for charges to be brought against former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley.

Chief Washington correspondent and soon-to-be three-time anti-Trump author Jonathan Karl was beside himself in both hours of GMA over how, other than Chris Christie looking into the camera and referring to “your indictments,” “that was the only mention in the entire debate of Trump’s indictments.”

“There was no mention whatsoever of this week’s ruling by a New York judge that Trump’s company had committed widespread fraud,” he added.

[...]

Karl then offered this lie: “No major attacks on him from the other candidates besides, you know, suggesting that he should have been there.”

Hello, Jon? What was that clip of DeSantis talking about Trump and the national debt? Or how about the moments when DeSantis hit Trump from the right on abortion? Or Christie on the border and then Russia? Or Mike Pence on the size of the federal bureaucracy? Or Nikki Haley on China?

Houck provided no links to the actual debate transcript, so it's unclear whether the candidates were targeting Trump specifically or repeating their usual right-wing talking points.

Speaking of hate-watching, Fondacaro did his usual meltdown routine at "The View," spewing performative outrage because the hosts talked about the debate in a way that didn't follow Fox News-esque talking points:

There’s a lot of criticism that could be leveled at the second Republican presidential primary debate on Fox Business Network, particularly Univision moderator Ilia Calderón’s anti-American questions, the crosstalk, and the The View cast shared during their reaction on Thursday.

Amid their whining about Republican candidates holding Republican positions on everything from gun rights to immigration to transgenderism, racist ABC co-host Sunny Hostin bloviated about how the debate “looked like a cage fight.”

Hostin falsely suggested that there was no policy discussion about any topic at all. “I didn't hear a lot of policy. You know? You want to talk about the border and immigration, well, you want to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, so what is your plan for health care?” she scoffed.

For what it’s worth, faux conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin grew a couple vertebrae and pushed back by noting that just because they didn’t like the policy didn’t mean policy wasn’t discussed[.]

Again, Fondacaro failed to explain how asking questions that deviated from the RNC script made her anti-American. Also, Fondacaro's constant smearing of Hostin as a "racist" is based solely on her merely talking about racism and his failure to understand how metaphors work.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:52 PM EST

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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.)

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.

Posted by Terry K. at 5:46 PM EST

Updated: Thursday, November 16, 2023 5:51 PM EST

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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.)

Posted by Terry K. at 1:04 PM EST

Updated: Thursday, November 16, 2023 1:45 PM EST

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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:

• Hunter Biden's Business Partner Visited White House 36 Times, Nets Yawn at News
• Networks Turn a Blind Eye to Newly Released Payment Records to Hunter
• Univision HIDES Hunter’s Scandals, Instead Showcases Doc That Plays With Barbies
• Nets Skip Revelations Hunter's Lawyers Wanted Joe to Testify in Court
• CNN Leans on Dem Jeffries to Help Dismiss Hunter Biden Probe Concerns

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.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:49 PM EST

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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."

Posted by Terry K. at 7:15 PM EST

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WorldNetDaily's whitewashing of the Capitol riot continued in a Sept. 14 article by Bob Unruh that hyped a dubious and biased poll:

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.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:34 PM EST

Updated: Wednesday, November 15, 2023 1:35 PM EST

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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 obsessive hatred 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:

• Soros-Funded Group Pressures Big Tech to Silence So-Called ‘Election Disinformation’
• Soros-Aligned, Soft-on-Crime Texas D.A. Resigns to Avoid Removal Hearing – then Announces Run for Senate
• Pardoned Father to Fox News: Soros-Backed Prosecutor ‘One of the Most Evil People I've Ever Met’
• George Soros Deploys ‘TikTok’ Army Against Republicans
• Minister of Truth: George Soros Poured $14.8M Into Leftist Vendetta Against ‘Disinformation’ (there was no explanation of why "disinformation" was put in scare quotes)
• Soros-Funded Media Press for Online Censorship and Shill for Commie-Tied TikTok
• DeSantis Promises to Unleash Justice Department on Soros-Backed Prosecutors
• Bodega Worker Sues Soros-Backed NY DA After Damning Univision Report (also in Spanish)

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.

Olohan returned for more rage in a Sept. 26 post:

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.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:33 PM EST

Updated: Tuesday, November 14, 2023 9:43 PM EST

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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.

Posted by Terry K. at 6:26 PM EST

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The Media just can't stop defending 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.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:39 PM EST

Updated: Tuesday, November 14, 2023 1:40 PM EST

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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’s World 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.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:52 PM EST

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Michael Schisler is an occasional WorldNetDaily columnist who has peddled COVID conspiracy theories, 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.

Posted by Terry K. at 6:36 PM EST

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