MRC Can't Stop Complaining That Kinzinger Called Out GOP Extremism Topic: Media Research Center
We've shown how the Media Research Center tried to Heather former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger for failing to adhere to the right-wing pro-Trump, pro-insiurrection narrative, but it wasn't done yet. Tim Graham complained further about Kinzinger in a Nov. 5 post:
In promoting his Republican-trashing memoir, ex-Rep. Adam Kinzinger not only was awarded two PBS interviews, but two NPR interviews. First on NPR, he trashed Republicans as the "terrorist caucus." In an hourlong Halloween tongue-bath on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Kinzinger compared the GOP to ISIS, and he suggested Sean Hannity and Mark Levin fans have "brain rot." Your tax dollars at work.
Here's how it was summarized on NPR.org:
The former Illinois congressman reflects on confronting the "fanaticism of the hardcore" of his own party. Kinzinger served on the House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol.
Terry Gross wanted to underline the tale of how Kinzinger's own family disowned him because they listen to too much conservative talk radio:
When Kinzinger noted that he was accused of having "lost the trust of great men like Mark Levin and Sean Hannity. And it goes to show, to me, the brain rot - right? - the rot going on, the absolute abuse of people that put their trust in some of these - you know, these radio folks or these TV folks," Graham only sneered, "NPR fans believe that, deeply."
instead of actually trying to address anything Kinzinger said in a substantive way, Graham played whataboutism, huffing that "What's amazing is the NPR interviewer seemed to have brain rot, asking Adam 'Republicans Are Terrorists' Kinzinger um, shouldn't his enemies tone down their rhetoric?" He concluded by whining that Kinzinger was "a showboat who has been bathing in laudatory liberal interviews all over TV and radio and cashing in on a book deal."
It was Alex Christy's turn to whine about Kinzinger in a Nov. 18 post:
Former GOP Rep. and current CNN political analyst Adam Kinzinger continued to prove that his turn against the GOP isn’t just related to the aftermath of the 2020 election and January 6 when he traveled to HBO and Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday to once again compare Speaker Mike Johnson to the Taliban.
The liberal atheist Maher had some crazy analogies of his own, “So, here's something really scary, Mike Johnson, he’s the Republican Party new head chief over there in the House. This came out, he was talking to a prayer group. He said ‘depraved America deserves God's wrath’ -- came out there, exactly sounds like Bin Laden. Now, the Republican guy sounds like bin Laden and Trump sounds like Hitler, and the kids sound like—”
Christy rushed to Johnson's defense pretending that what he said wasn't really what he said:
It should be noted that “’Depraved’ America deserves God’s wrath” is a Rolling Stone headline summation of what Johnson said, but “deserves God’s wrath” is not in quotes. What Rolling Stone actually quotes Johnson as saying is, “The only question is: Is God going to allow our nation to enter a time of judgment for our collective sins? … Or is he going to give us one more chance to restore the foundations and return to Him?... We have to ask ourselves: How long can His mercy and His grace be held back?”
It’s honestly a question every country should ask itself because sin has consequences, but by reaching for the bin Laden card, Maher seemed to suggest that Johnson would justify terrorism or acts of war against America which is not at all what he was saying.
Actually, it pretty much is, but Christy is being paid not to acknowledge that fact. Instead, he rehashed an earlier complaint that Kinzinger portrayed Christian nationalism of the kind Johnson advocates as little different from the Taliban:
Deep down even Kinzinger probably knows just how absurd that is because he would immediately proceed to tie himself into a pretzel, “Now, maybe the end is different maybe the means are different but there's no difference in saying this is a government run on religion.”
So, Kinzinger logic says that things are the same except for all the ways that they are different. This is the man the media demands Republicans listen to and take seriously.
Again, Christy made no effort to explain why Chrstian nationalism -- which, at its heart, is about forcing a specific religion on Americans through government imposition -- is not Taliban-ish, and he offered no evidence that such a thing would not happen.
NEW ARTICLE -- Loving The Fringe To Own The Libs: The Case Of Russell Brand Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center hated actor Russell Brand -- until he started spouting conservatively correct narratives. Even Brand facing credible allegations of sexual assault, abuse and grooming hasn't stopped the MRC's admiration of him. Read more >>
MRC's DeSantis Defense Brigade Watch, Softball Interview Edition Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's DeSantisDefenseBrigade hasn't exactly helped Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign, as it's still mired in the lower end of polling. So the MRC tried one last-ditch effort to boost DeSantis: a softball interview. Curtis Houck detailed the agenda-promoting softness in the nearly 16-minute interview in a Nov. 3 post:
This week, Media Research Center Founder and President L. Brent Bozell spoke with 2024 Republican presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis about a whole host of issues and, naturally, it included exchanges about the repeated, years-long barrages of attacks from the liberal media.
Bozell began by noting the MRC has “monitored how they’ve treated you and how they’ve treated all the Republican candidates” and, while “all the focus is always on — on how awful they are to Donald Trump,” “[t]hey’re just about just as awful with you.”
Bozell cited an August NewsBusters study by our Rich Noyes on 2024 coverage from the network evening newscasts on ABC, CBS, and NBC that “78 percent of the coverage of you has been negative” before asking how that’s “not election interference when the networks are deliberately trying to derail Republicans.”
DeSantis didn’t hesitate in emphasizing that “there’s no question that they have...a partisan agenda...trying to advance a victory for the Democratic Party” that “you guys have pointed this out...for a number of years.”
He added why the liberal media have “been so negative on me is because they do see all the success that we’ve had in Florida” and fear the possibility that, if elected president, his “model from Florida” could be “implemented nationally” and deal a huge blow “to their friends on the political left.”
[...]
Bozell reacted with effusive praise:“Of all the candidates out there and perhaps even all public figures out there today when it comes to dealing with vicious attacks from the media and doing it on the spot, I really don’t think there’s anyone who’s better than you are...It’s extraordinary.”
A few hours later, a post by Luis Cornelio detailed more softballs for DeSantis:
FIRST ON MRC: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) joined MRC Founder and President Brent Bozell to speak about how Google is interfering in elections by manipulating its search results to highlight Democratic candidates ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
DeSantis, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president, did not mince words in response to the MRC Free Speech America study revealing that Google buried the websites of GOP candidates. “So, of course, it’s something that is being done to change elections,” DeSantis said, before pledging to take “principled” measures, if elected president, against the potentially illegal censorship to ensure “everybody is treated equally.”
DeSantis appeared to agree with Bozell’s reasoning that Google’s censorship likely constituted illegal campaign contributions. “Is this something that a President DeSantis would be looking at?” Bozell asked DeSantis, to which the governor answered, “Yes, we could. I mean, I think that, you know, you have FEC. You have all this stuff, and those have been ineffective bureaucracies.” He added, “But I think that these guys have gotten a pass. I do think they're using corporate resources to be able to influence elections, and that is just not something that you can do without reporting under our system.”
Over at the right-wing blog that used to be the MRC's "news" division CNSNews.com, Craig Bannister was given his own interview segment to tout in a Nov. 6 post:
In an exclusive on-camera interview, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) discussed with Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell the dangers of media bias, especially when it comes to U.S. elections and Israel’s war on Hamas terrorism.
Gov. DeSantis, who is seeking the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, was asked about how bias liberal media are interfering with U.S. elections. DeSantis said there’s no doubt the media have a partisan agenda and are “trying to advance a victory for the Democrat Party,” as MRC has documented “for a number of years.”
That was joined the same day by one more bit of softball stennography from Bannister:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should ignore the anti-Israel media attacks and demands for a cease-fire to Israel’s effort to wipe out Hamas terrorists, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis told Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell this week.
In an exclusive interview, the GOP presidential hopeful said that, as soon as he heard Hamas had attacked a music festival in Israel on October 7 – killing 1,400 people – he knew the media would start attacking Israel.
If Bozell asked a question of DeSantis that was even remotely challenging, it doesn't appear in any of these articles.
Because all this looked very much like an in-kind campaign contribution -- not unlike its DeSantis Defense Brigade crusade over the past several months -- the MRC felt compelled to add an editor's note to each piece: "All major 2024 candidates polling above one percent nationally across the spectrum — Republicans, independents, and Democrats — have been invited to participate in similar sit-downs. Our offers remain on the table." To date, no other candidate has -- even with the implied promise of a cushy, fawning interview by Bozell, which suggests the less-than-lofty status the MRC apparently has in the right-wing media bubble. That, and the fact that no other candidate has felt the need as of yet to take the MRC up on its softball-interview offer, leaves the unmistakable impression that this was created to be an in-kind contribution to DeSantis.
The interview landed with such a thud, in fact, that the MRC didn't publish another post centered on DeSantis for the rest of November.
MRC -- Which Loves To Smear People As 'Digital Brownshirts' -- Complains About Nazi References Topic: Media Research Center
Alex Christy served up a little hypocritical outrage in an Oct. 31 post:
On October 7, the Jewish people suffered their greatest single-day loss of life since the Holocaust in a horrific massacre that should cause people to think twice before comparing someone or something to Hitler, the Nazis, or their crimes. Unfortunately, the news media only seem to apply that standard to one side.
Based on Godwin's Law -- which states the longer an internet conversation goes on, the likelihood that someone or something will be compared to Adolf Hitler or the Nazi Party approaches one -- NewsBusters analysts looked at all news programming on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, and MSNBC from October 26, 2022 through October 26, 2023, to compare how the media treats Nazi analogies on the right and left. (October 26 is Mike Godwin's birthday.)
[...]
Joe Scarborough is tied for the media personality who is mostly likely to invoke a Nazi analogy. If Scarborough is the king of Nazi analogies on television, his queen is frequent MSNBC guest Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the New York University professor billed as an expert on authoritarianism,
Of their combined 20 analogies, 18 were either about Donald Trump or the Republican Party in the general sense. One particularly ironic exception was Scarborough on May 8 lamenting a lack of gun control by comparing it to a challenge the U.S. has to overcome, like the Nazis. The other involved Scarborough going after Sen. Josh Hawley and Steve Bannon talking about disaffected males in his I'm-not-saying-I'm-just-saying way of speaking.
MSNBC presidential historian Michael Beschloss was a close third with nine Nazi analogies, all about Trump or Republicans.
[...]
In total, there were 192 Nazi analogies made by media personalities, guests, or political figures that were reported on. Of these,88 were attacks from the right, of which 80 (90.9 percent) were condemned during the segment. Of the uncondemned eight, three were recollections of how current Sen. J.D. Vance used to compare Trump to Hitler and another was Trump suggesting Hitler would support 2024 rival Gov. Ron DeSantis.
By contrast,104 were attacks from the left and only 29 (27.9 percent) of which were condemned during the segment. However, when one removes reports on statements made by Democratic-turned-independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on COVID-era mandates and vaccines, only 4 of 79 (5 percent) left-wing attacks were condemned.
Christy went on to claim that "Robert F. Kennedy's history of anti-vaccine activism predates COVID, so his attacks were still considered to be from the left despite the media typically associating the issue with the right," even though that anti-vaccine activism is largely a right-wing phenomenon and his employer aggressively and ironically promoted his presidential campaign when he was running as a Democrat in the hope that he might spoll President Biden's re-election efforts, then effectively abandoned him when he moved to run as an independent candidate.
He also stated that the terms he analyzed were “Nazi,” “Nazism,” “Hitler,” “Gestapo,” and “Holocaust"; it's also a given that he exempted his employer from scrutiny even though it too is a prolific hurler of Nazi analogies. The MRC's favorite Nazi smear is the word "brownshirts," which Christy conveniently didn't cover. In 2023 alone, the MRC used it eight times to smear anyone who is trying to fight the spread of lies and misinformation on social media (here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here). For instance, in a May 3 post, Catherine Salgado raged against "eco-obsessed 'digital brownshirts' clamoring for Google to censor content that undercuts climate change alarmism" and approvingly quoted her boss, Brent Bozell, huffing that "Digital brownshirts are attacking conservative organizations for daring to have an honest debate on climate policy." The MRC is so unashamed of the smear that "digital brownshirts" appears several times in the headline of the post.
The MRC is also not afraid to thow around the "Gestapo" smear. Mysterious sports blogger Jay Maxson was a regular spreader of it:
A May 2021 post called critics of the Gadsden flag the "PC gestapo."
An August 2021 post complained about the "sports nickname gestapo."
A September 2021 post referred to sports governing bodies requiring athletes to get COVID vaccines a "vaccine gestapo."
A March 2022 post approvingly quoted Breitbart's John Nolte calling tennis officials a "Woke Gestapo" for allegedly requriing Russian tennis player Daniil Medvedev to denounce Russia's invasion of Ukraine before being allowed to play.
Meanwhile, A March 2021 post by Veronica Hays called those who exposed old bigoted posts made by singer Camilla Cabello a "woke gestapo." And Tim Graham whined in an August 2022 post that Republicans were criticized for calling the FBI raid on Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago to retrieve stolen classifed documents a "Gestapo" move.
The MRC also enjoys likening people to Joseph Goebbels (which also wasn't one of Christy's analyzed terms). A May 2022 column by Cal Thomas falsely likened a proposed anti-disinformation offiice in the Department of Homeland Security to Goebbels' "Nazi propaganda effort," among other things. A Feb. 3 post by Nicholas Fondacaro approvingly noted that "The View" co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin invoked it to attack Rep. Ilhan Omar’s "ridiculous suggestion that the U.S. and Israel were like Hamas and the Taliban, and how she used the same anti-Semitic tropes proliferated by Nazi propaganda master Joseph Goebbels."
Graham promoted Christy's hypocritical work in his Nov. 1 podcast:
Alex's study of a year of Nazi and Hitler analogies on TV found that not only did MSNBC "excel" in Nazi excess, but the top three abusers of the Nazi analogies were MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, and leftist historians Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Michael Beschloss. Overall, there were 192 Nazi analogies. Eighty-eight were attacks from the right, of which 80 (90.9 percent) were condemned.
By contrast, 104 were attacks from the left and only 29 (27.9 percent) of which were condemned. But if you remove reports on statements made by presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on COVID-era mandates and vaccines, only 4 of 79 (5 percent) left-wing attacks were condemned.
Christy joined Graham on the podcast to hype the study, but they did not discuss all times their co-workers went Godwin; however, he did unironically say: "The point of this is not to say my Nazi analogies are better than yours;it's to say can we stop with this and apply one standard to it all." That was followed by Graham unironically smearing Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler as "Herr Kessler," which in the context of the discussion is effectively a Nazi reference.
MRC Complains That Media Finds Mike Johnson's Porn 'Accountability' With His Teenage Son To Be Creepy Topic: Media Research Center
After Republicans selected Mike Johnson as House speaker, the Media Research Center became angry that his right-wing extremism was accurately reported upon. That continued days after Johnson's selection:
When it was revealed that Johnson shares "accountability software" with his teenage son that alerts the other party if one of them views pornography, Alex Christy spent a Nov. 7 post complaining that people on TV pointed out how creepy that is:
Sarah Silverman returned to Comedy Central for round two of temp hosting The Daily Show on Monday and spent the majority of the program attacking Speaker Mike Johnson, including for putting porn accountability software on his and his son’s phones. Meanwhile, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel did the same, labeling it “strange.”
Silverman introduced the story, “And finally let’s move on to Washington, D.C., where the new Speaker of the House just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
In a montage of news clips, Johnson was shown in 2022 explaining that, “My accountability partner right now is Jack, my son, right? And, so, he's 17, so he and I get a report of all the things that are on our phones or all of our devices once a week. If anything objectionable comes up, your accountability partner gets an immediate notice.”
Also included in the series of clips was an ad from the software Covenant Eyes which featured a man in a superhero costume proclaiming, “Every superhero has his strengths and weaknesses. My superpower: strength. My weakness: porn,” with the last bit showing the superhero transforming into just a regular guy.
Silverman thought this was all very odd, “Wow, these Marvel movies are really running out of ideas. Why is he a superhero whose weakness is porn, like, what is that origin story, did his parents die masturbating to horny MILFs? Was he hit with a radioactive money shot?”
[...]
Kimmel, meanwhile, was less gratuitous, but still was greatly confused, “Meanwhile, our new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, is giving us plenty to talk about… It’s very, very strange to ask your teenage son to be your porn accountability partner. I mean, I get it -- you don't want them watching, but how about this. You know, Mike, if you have nobody else in your life to do this with, I will gladly be your porn accountability partner.”
Concluding, Kimmel compared Johnson to another Republican, “I'm pretty sure we can do it cross-country. I'm very open minded. Whatever weird stuff you're watching – I don’t know, clown porn, cosplay, stepmom, foot fetish, the stuff with the tentacles -- no problem. I don't judge. What happens between you Mike and your Johnson is your business. But let’s get your son out of this. I didn't think it was possible, but Mike Johnson makes Mike Pence look like Mike Tyson.”
There’s lots of debate in comedy about what is considered “too far” or offensive, but mocking virtue and how people take steps to avoid temptation is a pretty good indication that you’ve gone to far.
Christy didn't explain what, exactly, where the "virtue" is in Johnson including his teenage son in his porn "accountability" software.
The MRC even managed to find a way to include Johnson in its war onGoogle, as outlined in a Nov. 15 post by Dan Schneider:
Who is the better person, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi or newly minted Speaker Mike Johnson? Google’s artificial intelligence tool, Bard, has answers that might surprise those unfamiliar with the company’s long history of left-wing bias.
Google's A.I. chatbot Bard provided skewed results just like its search engine has become known for. In searches performed by MRC Free Speech America shortly after the Republican presidential primary debate, researchers first searched for “What can you tell me about Speaker Nancy Pelosi?” and then asked the same question about Speaker Mike Johnson.
For San Francisco darling Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Bard described her work in affirming, virtuous ways while using derogatory terms to describe Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) achievements.
Even more telling is the fact that Bard’s competitor, ChatGPT, did not show this evident discrepancy when MRC researchers presented it with identical queries.
[...]
It seems, however, that Google, not Johnson, is the one out of touch with the American people. As MRC President Brent Bozell put it, “Google treats Nancy Pelosi, arguably the most divisive and radical leftist House Leader in history, like a conquering hero while relegating Speaker Johnson to being a part of a fringe ‘faction’ with ‘ultraconservative’ views. Somebody ought to remind Google that the great bulk of Americans, especially women, favor limits on abortion -just like Mike Johnson - and that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton originally ran for president supporting traditional marriage - just like Mike Johnson.”
Bozell added that “[t]he majority of Americans call themselves Christians, opposed Obamacare when it was forced on them, and still think deficit spending is destroying our economy - just like Mike Johnson. Google is trying to brainwash America.”
Rather than explaining why anyone should trust anything that comes from any AI chatbot -- or even that anything Bard said about Johnson was inaccurate -- Schneider rehashed the MRC's dubious attacks on Google: "Google’s history of rigging its algorithms to achieve its political ends has been well documented by MRC Free Speech America."
NEW ARTICLE: Debate Patrol At The MRC Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center (plus the DeSantis Defense Brigade) not only tried to shield Republican presidential candidates from criticism after the first debate, it defended Donald Trump hanging out with Tucker Carlson instead of taking part. Read more >>
MRC Heathers Adam Kinzinger For Rejecting GOP's Pro-Insurrection Narrative Topic: Media Research Center
As with Alyssa Farah Griffin, the Media Reserarch Center is playing its Heathering games against former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger for failing to stick to theright-wing script and admitting that Donald Trump is a bad person. Kevin Tober had a small meltdown last January when Kinzinger became a CNN commentator:
In the most predictable breaking news possible, on Wednesday evening, CNN host Erin Burnett announced on her eponymous program Erin Burnett OutFront that former anti-Trump Republican and Pelosi-picked January 6 committee member Adam Kinzinger had been hired as a "senior political commentator" on the network. This, of course, makes perfect sense because other than our friends Scott Jennings and Stephen Gutowski, Adam Kinzinger is the type of "Republican" voice that gets a lot of airtime on CNN.
[...]
Kinzinger, if you recall, was redistricted out of his Congressional seat by Democrats despite doing everything he could to suck up to them and act as their puppet.
This, of course, is Kinzinger's reward for abandoning his own party and helping to legitimize Nancy Pelosi's January 6 show trials. He can't keep his seat in Congress, but he gets a cushy commentator job on a failing cable news network.
As NewsBusters Managing Editor Curtis Houck summed up perfectly on Twitter, "the fact that Chris Licht's CNN has hired liberal wine mom simp Adam Kinzinger as not only a political commentator but senior political commentator is proof that nothing has changed at CNN from Zucker. By and large, CNN still hates a large part of the country."
Right-wingers like Tober and Houck used to reliably hate the part of the country that were credibly accused or convicted criminals, though that all changed when Republicans staged an insurrection on behalf of credibly accused criminal Donald Trump, another Republican.They also alienate the part of the country annoyed with so-called "media researchers" who spew insults like "liberal wine mom simp" rather than actually trying to substantiate their criticism.
It wasn't until later in the year, though, that the MRC began seriously Heathering Kinzinger for failing to be a right-wing shill. Tim Graham spent a Nov. 1 column ranting about Kinzinger's new book:
Former congressman Adam Kinzinger has a new book out for Halloween titled Renegade. This implies he’s a daring rebel against Republicans, instead of simply switching parties. In some dictionaries, “renegade” is defined as “a person who abandons a cause or organization, usually without right,” like a “mutineer.” That fits.
When asked by liberal interviewers, Kinzinger volunteers he voted for Democrats in the midterms and will vote for Biden and Democrats in 2024. He says it’s a simple decision between democracy (Democrats) or authoritarianism (Republicans). That fits the Democrat narrative perfectly.
He'll claim he's still a Republican. Professionally, Kinzinger is now a “CNN Republican,” just as for his last two years in Congress, he was a “Pelosi Republican” on her personally-picked panel on January 6. She was his leader. He followed her orders. Just like those hearings, his book interviews are all pre-packaged anti-Republican talking points.
ABC and NPR and other liberal media outlets were eager to interview him and promote his book. When you draw a softball interview with Clinton press secretary George Stephanopoulos, you look like a Democrat. When you’re celebrated on the Stephen Colbert hootenanny, it’s the same look.
Even at a time when Hamas terrorists can slaughter hundreds of innocent people and still cause “professional” journalists to refrain from using the T-word, Kinzinger knew he could call conservative Republicans “terrorists” and get rewarded for it.
Graham made no attempt to rebut anything Kinzinger said or even why he's not allowed to criticize the far-right drift of Trump and his fellow Republicans -- it was all about the Heathering.
It was Alex Christy's turn to whine that Kinzinger was not spreading the required right-wing talking points in a Nov. 2 post:
Former GOP congressman turned CNN political analyst Adam Kinzinger likes to say that his move away from the party is because of Donald Trump, January 6, and election denial, but on Wednesday, he took his book tour to CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert where he compared Speaker Mike Johnson’s statements that his worldview is found in the Bible to the Taliban.
Colbert has been harping on the idea that Johnson’s statements that the Bible is the foundation for his worldview is particularly scary on Wednesday was no exception, “Now, one of the things that Mike Johnson has said is that if you want to know his worldview, like how he feels about issues specifically, you should go pick up a Bible. I pick up Bibles all the time. I'm a big fan. It's a very good book, but what do you make of the Bible as a legislative tool?”
Indeed, Colbert will frequently cite the Bible to defend left-wing economics so he knows that there is a big difference between imposing a theocracy and pursuing policies you believe are in line with the Word of God, but when it comes to Republicans he plays dumb and pretends that theocracy is imminent.
As for Kinzinger, he suggested that Johnson doesn’t know how America works, “The Bible is what—the Bible is something that, you know, for me, I use it as a guide for my life. I'm a Christian, right? The Bible shows me how to live my life, but I think this country was founded on the idea that a representative represents not just people that share his faith or her faith but people that you represent-- 700,000 people that I represented, they all don't believe the same thing I do.”
Johnson isn’t suggesting that everybody should be forced to go to church or anything like that, but Kinzinger still reached for the Taliban card[.]
[...]
Kinzinger was first elected to Congress in 2010 when same-sex marriage was not yet legal in all 50 states, was America like the Taliban then? Is protecting the integrity of women’s sports like the Taliban? Is believing that a man is a man even if he thinks and says he is a woman like the Taliban? Is the downfall of Roe v. Wade like the Taliban, because Colbert thinks it is.
The Heathering baton moved later that day to Clay Waters:
The Adam Kinzinger media lovefest rolls on, as the former Republican congressman sells his book boasting about how he became a "traitor" to Republicans, serving on the House January 6 committee (hand-picked to serve by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
He retained his anti-Republican talking points on Wednesday’s Amanpour & Co., which airs on taxpayer-funded PBS. The liberal media’s ideal Republican, groomed for CNN, the former Illinois congressman now votes Democrat and wants you to to as well, warning in his new book Renegade: My Life in Faith, the Military, and Defending America from Trump's Attack on Democracy that the Republican Party no longer believes in democracy.
Is it any wonder the mainstream media is so eager to talk to him as the 2024 presidential campaign approaches?
Host Christiane Amanpour called Kinzinger “an outcast in his own party” while setting up his talk with journalist Michel Martin, who quizzed him about the election of Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana as Speaker of the House. Martin noted Johnson “was one of the 147 House and Senate Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election,” setting up the former congressman to call it “a frightening moment.”
[...]
Kinzinger again admitted he’s not really a Republican any more (even as the press treats him as the conscience of the party) and urged listeners to vote Democrat in 2024.
Waters didn't discuss the fact that -- as the transcript showed but he didn't highlight, let alone try to disprove -- Kinzinger said he's voting Democratic because "because in my mind, there's only one issue on the ballot, that issue is, do you believe in democracy or do you not believe in democracy? If you don't, I got a party for you. If you do, right now, there's only one party that shows a real commitment to democracy."
Waters followed that an hour or so later with another complaint about Kinziner appearing on another PBS show,. huffing that he has become "the liberal media’s ideal 'Republican,' one who votes Democrat and urges you too as well." Waters didn't explain how Kinzinger's refusal to endorse the Capitol riot and Trump's incitement of it warranted putting "Republican" in scare quotes.
Graham returned to rehash all this Heathering of Kinzinger in his Nov. 3 podcast:
Plus Adam Kinzinger smears Republicans on his liberal-media book tour. No "fact checkers" moved a mental muscle.
On NPR's All Things Considered, Kinzinger described the conservative House Republicans as a "terrorist caucus" taking "hostages." On CBS's Late Show with Stephen Colbert, he compared House Speaker Mike Johnson to the Taliban. On NPR'sFresh Air, he compared the GOP to "fundamentalists" like ISIS. And everywhere, he said the Republicans were the party of authoritarianism, not democracy.
You can suggest conservatives are all authoritarians, or they represent "Jim Crow 2.0," and the fact-checkers don't lift a finger. This slime is considered fair game.
You know who else didn't fact-check Kinzinger? Graham and his MRC subordinates, no matter how much they whined about his words. And Graham would not want anybody fact-checking its narrative that Kinzinger isn't a real Republican because he opposed the Capitol riot and Trump's wannabe authoritarianism.
MRC Writer's Assertion That Sunny Hostin Is 'Amti-Semitic' Is As Bogus As His Claim That She's Racist Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center writer Nicholas Fondacaro, whose main job is to hate-watch "The View," has taken in recent weeks to smearing co-host Sunny Hostin as "anti-Semitic." But as with his smear of Hostin as "racist" -- which is based on her merely talking about racism and his failure to understand how metaphors work -- this latest smear appears to be based mostly on Hostin merely talking about the war between Israel and Hamas. Fondacaro helpfully summarized his attacks in a Nov. 2 post:
Since the start of the current war between Israel and Hamas, NewsBusters has documented the festering antisemitism leaking from The View’s Sunny Hostin as she has blamed Israel for the October 7 terrorist attack against them, decried Israeli anger at Hamas as “terrifying,” pushed Hamas’s propaganda, and suggested it was Israel that was committing acts of “terror” and “war crimes.”
Let's take a closer look at those allegations. For the first allegation, that Hostin "has blamed Israel for the October 7 terrorist attack," liked to his writeup of the Oct. 9 episode, in which she he quoted her saying nothing of the kind. Fondacaro quoted Hostin noting that "this was a highly coordinated and wide-scale attack by Hamas," then asking ABC reporter James Longman, "What do we know about the timing of this, and what was the impetus for this to happen now?" Longman responded by accurately pointing out that the current government in Israel is "the most right-wing government in this country's history" adding that there's "a sense perhaps that many Palestinians that any kind of political way out of this, is behind them because some of the right-wing elements of the government have been very incendiary in their rhetoric about Palestinians." Despite the fact that Hostin said absolutely nothing that blamed Israel, Fondacaro claimed otherwise: "It was predictable that Hostin would take that position since it bought into Hamas’s narrative that Palestinian land was being occupied by colonizers. She likely sympathizes with that stance since she’s chronically aggrieved and supposedly “oppressed” (as she put it), despite being a multimillionaire. She had even demanded 'reparations' from the United States."
For his second example, from the Oct. 10 episode, Fondacaro did actually quote Hostin saying that "“What is terrifying to me also is that there is so much anger on the Israeli side”; Hostin went on to say that "But now you have a defense minister that is saying we are going to close the Strip and put 2.2 million innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip and we're going to launch an offensive against those 2.2 million people, half of which are children; providing no food, water, or electricity. There are losers on both sides of this, and they're civilians." Not even Fondacaro disputed that there is "so much anger on the Israeli side," and it's also factually accurate that there are many civilians in harm's way in Gaza. Nevertheless, Fondacaro huffed that Hostin engaged in 'anti-Israel/anti-Semitic hate and propaganda" and smeared her as a "racist colonizer."
His third example came from the Oct. 11 episode, in which he accused Hostin of "openly pushing Hamas terrorist propaganda about Israel carrying out collective punishment against Palestinians and how they should “look at some restraint here” after 1,200 Israeli civilians were slaughtered." But the first thing Fondacaro quoted her saying was the ract that the residents of Gaza "have not had a democratic election since 2007 … They did not vote in these people currently vote in Hamas" -- not excactly "Hamas terrorist propaganda." Since he couldn't dispute that fact, he then tried to falsely conflate Palestinians elsewhere with the residents of Gaza: "So, Sunny, answer this: If Palestinians didn’t support the actions of Hamas, then why were they out celebrating in the streets and parading around the bodies of their victims? Why were they so emboldened as to have pro-terrorist rallies across the globe, even here in America?"
Fondacaro then wrote that "Hostin followed that up by pushing Hamas propaganda about how Israel was supposedly violating international law and dishing out collective punishment against Palestinians. This caused the rest of the cast to revolt against her, calling out Hamas for using human shields and storing weapons in schools and noting the Israeli Defense Force warned civilians before striking targets." He didn't accuse "the rest of the cast" of pushing Israeli propaganda.
Fondacaro's final alleged piece of evidence came from his Oct. 13 episode writeup, which he began by complaining that Hostin said "Hamas has been designated a terror organization just like many other terror organizations have had this designation, like the Proud Boys here in the United States"; he made no effort to dispute the accuracy of her description. Then he raged:
Hostin followed up by using Hamas talking points suggesting Israeli military actions were“retaliation against innocent civilians collectively” which were acts of “terror” and “war crimes.” Continuing to draw false equivalencies, she grossly compared Israel to Russia despite the fact Israel did not start the war:
And again, those are not my words, those are the words of the law. And the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said, just last year when we were talking about Ukraine, she said Russia's attacks against civilian infrastructure, especially electricity, are war crimes. Cutting off men, women, children of water, electricity, and heating with winter coming, these are acts of pure terror, and we have to call it as such.
Hostin responded by doubling down on the anti-Israel smears, proclaiming, “They should really refrain from committing war crimes or terror because they're going to lose the goodwill that they have.”
In fact, civilians have died in Gaza at a higher rate than in other recent conflicts, most of the civilians killed in Gaza due to Israeli bombing have been women and children. Further, nearly half of the bombs Israel has dropped in Gaza have been unguided, which causes a greater threat to civilians. No less than Amnesty International is discussing the possibilty that Israel's apparent disregard for the lives of civilians in Gaza constitute a war crime.
Despite the fact that there is nothing anti-Semitic about questioning the tactics Israel is using in Gaza, Fondacaro screeched in the beginning of his post that "We can now add anti-Semite as an accurate descriptor for The View ’s racist co-host, Sunny Hostin." (and, no, Fondacaro still doesn't understand how metaphors work.) In the Nov. 2 post that contained his list, Fondacaro tried to mock Hostin for responding to being falsely smeared as anti-Semitic:
In a segment featuring MSNBC regular Donny Deutsch, Hostin began her comments by whining that she doesn’t like talking about the war because she gets called out for being an anti-Semite. Her defense? She had a Jewish family member:
And I've explained that even as a person of Jewish ancestry – my grandfather is Jewish – Which in my view, is someone who hates Jews. I would have to hate my family.
“However, there is a difference between an anti-Semite and being someone that speaks out against Israel's -- some of Israel's policies,” she argued.
But as noted above, she wasn’t just speaking out against Israeli policy, she was speaking out against them even being angry about the terrorist attack that killed 1,400, including babies, and blaming them for it.
Unsurprisingly, Fondacaro did not explain how that supposedly equates to anti-Semitism. He then noted that "Deutsch even explained it to Hostin in simple terms that it was in Israel was indeed trying to minimize casualties and noted that it was in their best interest to do so" -- but, of course, he wonldn't label Deutsch as repeating Israeli propaganda the way he smeared Hostin for spreading "Hamas propaganda."
Tim Graham, meanwhile, spent an Oct. 14 post complaining it was pointed out that initial doubts about the veracity of the Hunter laptop story were reasonable:
In the latest episode of What Liberals Won't Ask, Fox Special Report host was interviewing Obama's former CIA director (and former Democrat congressman) Leon Panetta about the latest developments in the Israel-Hamas war. But before it was over, Baier said "I'd be remiss" not to ask about the 2020 campaign and "that letter you signed onto from [51] former intelligence officials saying that the laptop and e-mails had all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."
Baier noted the original New York Post story that was so energetically suppressed by the news media and social media. Later, The Washington Post investigated and acknowledged in 2022 the laptop was authentic (as did The New York Times). Baier asked: "Do you have regrets about that now looking back, knowing what you know now?"
Panetta replied: "Look, Bret, I was extremely concerned about Russian interference and misinformation, and we all know intelligence agencies discovered that had Russia had continued to push disinformation across the board, and my concern was to kind of alert the public, to be aware that these disinformation efforts went on. Frankly I haven't seen any evidence from any intelligence agency that that was not the case."
"You don't think that it was real?" Baier asked him, incredulous.
"I think that disinformation is involved, here," Panetta claimed. "I think Russian disinformation is part of what we're seeing everywhere. I don't trust the Russians. And that's exactly why I was concerned that the public not trust the Russians either."
Baier was stunned enough to kick the tire on more time: "I don't want to dwell on this because we have bigger things to talk about and bigger urgency, but obviously Hunter Biden said it was his laptop and this investigation continues. So you don't have any regrets about doing what you did?"
Panetta smiled and said "No, I don't have any regrets about not trusting the Russians."
In his headline, Graham called the letter a "fraud," despite offering no evidence that anyone who signed it had knowledge to that effect -- as we've documented, there was little reason to trust the story at face value when it first appeared, given the New York Post's status as a pro-Trump organ, the shady pro-Trump operatives like Rudy Giuliani who were promoting it, and the Post's failure to provide independent evidence to prove the laptop's vertacity that would addressed such doubts. Graham also failed to directly challenge anything Panetta said; instead, he quoted his fellow right-wingers who appeared in a later "Special Report" segment ranting about the "Russian fallacy" -- which, of course, wasn't a fallacy given that even a Republican-led congressional report agreed that there was sufficient evidence of regular contacts between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives to warrant an investigation.
When Hunter committed the offense of defending himself in a USA Today op-ed, Curtis Houck had a meltdown -- as the MRC tends to do whenever he defends himself -- in a Nov. 2 post:
On Thursday, USA Today partnered with Hunter Biden for a cartoonishly dumb op-ed that accused Republicans, Fox News, the New York Post, and Biden critics writ large of “demoniz[ing]....addiction,” arguing he’s the victim of “a vile and sustained disinformation campaign” that threatens the sobriety of addicts writ large.
Talk about a rich case of low-brow politics by USA Today to have a story such as this inside the column, proving how the liberal media are shameless about their 2020 election interference and look to do so in 2024: “Conspiracy theories: GOP's Hunter Biden hysteria makes even less sense after plea deal gets put on hold”.
The headline was gag-worthy: “I fought to get sober. Political weaponization of my addiction hurts more than me.” The subhead with even dumber with Biden whining that “[m]y struggles and my mistakes have been fodder for a vile and sustained disinformation campaign against my father, President Joe Biden, and an all-out annihilation of my reputation.”
[...]
Biden then flipped the script, stating explicitly that he’s “not a victim” because, “[b]y any standard, I grew up with privilege and opportunity, and fully accept that the choices and mistakes I made are mine, and I am accountable for them and will continue to be.”
Clearly, he hasn’t accepted responsibility since he's fighting charges tooth and nail and filing lawsuits.
Feigning concern for average Americans, he proclaimed in a skyscraper-sized strawman that he’s “trouble[d]” by “the demonization of addiction” and “human frailty” from the American public.
Wait, so he’s claiming anyone condemning him means they’re also smearing anyone suffering or suffered through addiction of some sort?
We don't recall Houck ever accusing Donald Trump of not "accepting responsibility" for his actions because also "fighting charges tooth and nail and filing lawsuits,": and he doesn't explain why Hunter is not allowed to defend herself. Houck further complained that Hunter called out his attackers:
Biden went onto whine about “being bombarded by the denigrating and near-constant coverage of me and my addiction on Fox News (more airtime than GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis) and in The New York Post (an average of two stories a dayover the past year).”
[...]
Biden even addressed the laptop from hell: “My recent haircut turned into a wild conspiracy to evade drug tests, tabloids steadily splash nude pictures of me on their covers, and even a member of Congress displayed revenge porn of me on national television.”
Houck didn't even bothter to justify posting the vicious right-wing attacks on HUnter, such has posting nude images of him online -- but he bizarrely insists that Hunter's a whiner for pointing that out. It's almost as if he knows that the right-wing jihad against Hunter is all about vicious personal destruction; he and his fellow right-wingers would be dancing in the streets if Hunter was driven to overdose or suicide as is their goal.
Graham similarly mocked Hunter for defending himself in his Nov. 3 podcast:
USA Today published a ridiculous column by Hunter Biden claiming Republicans were somehow demonizing all addicts with their investigations of his business dealings with Dad. "What troubles me is the demonization of addiction, of human frailty, using me as its avatar and the devastating consequences it has for the millions struggling with addiction," he claimed.
Don't investigate the Biden influence-peddling business! It will "devastate millions of addicts"!
[...]
He kept returning to his ridiculous thesis: "It is already a near-impossible decision for addicts to get sober, and the avalanche of negativity and assault of my personal privacy may only make it harder for those considering it." He praised his family for giving him the space for "sincere redemption," and then, as if it's impossible to ignore, he drags in his brother Beau's death from brain cancer in 2015: "After what I have gone through since my brother died in 2015, and the perpetual public humiliation of me, I am now certain I can survive anything (except a drink or a drug)."
Graham didn't explain why it was "ridiculous" for Hunter to defend himself, nor do we recall him ever similar judgment on Trump's actual ridiculous defenses against the criminal acts he appears to have committed.
MRC's Anti-Abortion Extremists Mad That Ohio Voters Support Reproductive Rights Topic: Media Research Center
The anti-abortion extremists at the Media Research Center unsurprisingly supported efforts to make passage of a constitutional amendment in Ohio supporting abortion rights more difficult -- and when that failed, they tried to the amendment itself. Chief extremist Tierin-Rose Mandelburg whined about the amendment getting enough signatures from voters to make the ballot in a July 5 post:
I don’t know what Ohio is typically known for - but I do know that it seems its residents want it to be known as a land of abortion.
On Wednesday morning a truckload of petitions appeared at the Ohio Secretary of State’s office. Signatures urged for all pro-life laws in Ohio to be removed, facilitating the state to become an entirely anti-life state.
The coalition who initiated the petitions, Ohioans United for Reproductive Freedom, want an amendment to be added on the November ballot to enshrine abortion into the Ohio constitution. This would, in essence, make abortion legal in the state up until birth.
The Ohio Right to Life group released a statement following news of the arrivals of the numerous boxes with an estimated 700,000 signatures advocating for dead babies.
Mandelburg went on to complain that the signature collection process went pretty much like all of them do:
ACLU Ohio supposedly collected signatures for roughly 12 weeks and reached all 88 Ohio counties yet, its unlikely all those people knew what they were signing. One signature collector evenmadmittedthat he wa s knowingly collecting invalid signatures so he could get paid.
It's heartbreaking that so many Ohio citizens blindly signed something either without knowledge of what it actually supports or just to help someone “get paid.”
It’s also heartbreaking to realize that many Ohio citizens knew the damage an amendment like this would cause and knowingly signed it.
Of course, as any promoter of ballot initiatives knows, you collect signatures over and above the number required to get on the ballot because some will inevitably be invalid for whatever reason.
After the initiative made it on the ballot, anti-abortion activist Republicans quickly rushed its own initiative to the ballot as a countermeasure -- to raise the initative approval threshold to 60 percent. Kevin Tober spent an Aug. 8 post complaining that it was accurately pointed out thatthe attempted change to the approval threshold was designed to thwart the will of POhio residents on reproductive rights:
As the polls were set to close in the special election in Ohio to decide whether to raise the ballot initiative threshold to 60 percent in order to amend the state constitution, ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News each ran segments worrying that if the ballot initiative was successful, it would make it harder for abortion advocates to protect so-called “abortion rights.”
On ABC’s World News Tonight, fill-in anchor Mary Bruce hyped the “huge turnout in Ohio for a special election.” She then used the leftist lingo “abortion rights” and worried that they “could be at stake.”
[...]
Meanwhile, on NBC Nightly News, the highly partisan Ali Vitali was given the assignment to report from Ohio. Much like Bruce and Presha, Vitali was just as obnoxious: “High turnout for a highly charged special election that could determine the fate of abortion rights here.”
“It's all against the national backdrop of Republicans in red states losing referendums on abortion in the past year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade,” Vitali proclaimed.
She then ended her report similarly to the way Presha did by setting the media narrative early that if the ballot question failed, it meant the pro-life cause was in trouble nationally: “Results in this typically red state will provide a road map for other states, either for future efforts to stymie abortion access or to paint Republicans as out of step on this issue.”
Democrat activists in the media like Vitali would do everything in their power to make sure that happened.
Tober was silent on Republican activists in the media pushing thse anti-abortion measures.
That attempt failed, and the MRC turned its attention to trying to shame anyone who supports reproductive rights. Mandelburg returned for an Oct. 6 post touting how "A bipartisan group of black pastors signed a letter Tuesday urging Ohio voters to oppose a measure that would enshrine abortion into the state Constitution." That included rehashing of old, false attacks against the founder of Planned Parenthood:
The letter also brought up the racist regime that is run by Planned Parenthood. Years ago, eugenicist Margaret Sanger set up Planned Parenthood locations purposefully in minority neighborhoods, targeting black babies “before they entered the world.”
As we've documented, there's no evidence that Sanger had any racist motive in establishing Planned Parenthood, and the majority of abortion clinics are actually located in white neighborhoods. But those lies adhere to Mandelburg's narrative, so no fact-checking was forthcoming from her.
Mandelburg spent a Nov. 1 post claiming that "more than 12 churches have experienced incidents of vandalism along with schools and cemeteries" in Ohio, going on to sneer:
Pro-aborts have a tendency to throw temper tantrums when they feel that their so-called “right” to kill kids is being threatened.
Issue 1 is an extreme pro-abort law that, if passed, would allow abortion up to the time of birth. Naturally, pro-lifers are opposed to this ballot initiative. No child in the womb should be killed at any point, never mind at a point where said child can feel pain, can live outside the womb on his or her own, has fully functioning limbs and is fully developed. But that's what pro-aborts in Ohio want.
Pro-Abort Ohioans want residents to vote yes on Issue 1 so bad that they took it upon themselves to vandalize and attack religious related buildings as a way of protest.
Tim Graham spent a Nov. 3 post complaining that an Ohio Republican politician who claimed without evidence that the Ohio initiative would supercede parental consent laws:
Take a look at the actual language of Issue One, and you can see it's quite easy to see it's for abortion rights for all "individuals," in any trimester, which would include 12-year-old girls.
[...]
So how hard is it to argue this would enable 12-year-old girls with 21-year-old boyfriends (or even rapists) from "exercising this right"? There's no mention of parental consent. [PolitiFact reporter Adam] Edelman and his cast of "nonpartisans" underline that Ohio already has a parental-consent provision for "abortion care."
Graham then whined that "Edelman, like other 'fact checkers,' is trying to declare conservative spin as 'false,' just as they claimed you couldn't say in 1992 that Bill Clinton would raise taxes -- and he promptly did." Graham didn't explain why someone's opinion can't be fact-checked when there is evidence to prove it wrong.
The next day, Alex Christy grumbled at the existence of pro-choice Republicans was reported:
Next Tuesday, Ohioans will decide whether they want abortion to be a constitutionally-protected right and to help the pro-abortion side out, Friday’s edition of NBC Nightly News interviewed a trio of Republicans who tried to claim that being pro-abortion is conservative.
Former state lawmaker Joan Lawrence stated that “I think it's up to the individual, not the government to decide what to do about a pregnancy.”
She also declared that, “It's not a partisan issue, it really isn't. And Republicans are making it a -- trying to make it a partisan issue.”
Christy didn't prove any of these people wrong, but instead ranted: "Republicans are pro-life and conservativism will never be pro-abortion, just like NBC will never do a puff piece on pro-life Democrats who think abortion without limitations shows how their party is out of touch."
Graham grumbled about another fact-chec in a Nov. 5 post, annoyed in particular by the writer noting that abortions later in pregnancy — what anti-abortion groups often call 'late-term" abortions'": "It's always amusing to see leftists finding it weird you would describe a late-term abortion as a 'late term abortion." What's it supposed to be called, 'a well-considered choice'?" Graham, if you'll remember, is offended people call fetuses by the medically accureate term "fetus."
The initiative passed handily -- despite efforts by Republican officials in state office to game the vote, such as an unannounced voter purge and forcing anti-abortion bias into the ballot language -- which caused Mandelburg to engage in a bout of performative sadness in a Nov. 8 post, in which she laughably called the initiative's 12-point margin of victory a "close call":
It was a devastating day in Ohio on Tuesday when voters approved Issue 1, making abortion a so-called “right” in the Catholic state. Life-affirmers were heartbroken at the sobering news.
Ohio voted 56 percent to 44 percent to Issue 1. While it was a close call, ultimately Issue 1 passed. Unfortunately, the result isn’t surprising.
[...]
Now in Ohio, Issue 1 will trump the formerly instituted 22-week restriction by not defining the word “viability.” This will give abortion providers the chance to interpret the word on their own and perform abortion at any point on a case-by-case basis. This is a radical, pro-abortion policy and is heartbreaking for the innocent lives that will be lost as a result.
That sentiment was shared among pro-life individuals across the nation who expressed their heartbreak on social media.
After derisively describing those who supported the measure as "pro-aborts," Mandelburg concluded by lamenting:
Ultimately, it’s a sad and devastating day for pro-lifers in Ohio and the nation at large, but it’s an even more sad day for the babies that will be victim to this decision. On the one hand, this is what the overturn of Roe did. It pushed decisions back to states. But now the battle lies in getting people to wake up and realize what happens during an abortion and why it's a complete and utter grave evil so that our nation can become one that actually honors liberty and justice for ALL.
Perhaps one way to start is for anti-abortion extremists like Mandelburg to stop portraying anyone who isn't as extremely anti-abortion as they are as not just wrong but evil.
MRC's Elon Musk Sycophancy Continues As It Ignores His Controversies Topic: Media Research Center
After giving a pass to his anti-Semitism and cheering his petulant and vulgar dissing of advertisers, it's clear that the Media Research Center will never hold Elon Musk accountable for any of his numerous missteps in running Twitter (well, X). Clay Waters spent a Dec. 3 post lashing out at a news report that did outline those missteps:
The liberal media knives are out for entrepreneur Elon Musk, who has been steering the liberal-dominated blue-check bastion social media platform formerly known as Twitter toward free speech and increased diversity of opinion since taking it over a year ago. Thursday’s edition of the PBS NewsHour devoted almost six minutes to attacking the space and technology impresario.
The conversation between National Public Radio’s tech reporter Bobby Allyn and PBS host Geoff Bennett was keyed to a threatened “advertising freeze” from virtual-signaling corporate entities like Disney and Apple, after controversy over a Musk reply to a tweet on X that was perceived as anti-Semitic (and which he later apologized for), and Musk’s vulgarity-laden response to his corporate critics at a New York Times-hosted business conference.
“Increasingly unhinged” was the descriptor bestowed on Musk by Allyn, who pitched a tantrum against Musk on Twitter earlier this year. His employer NPR left the platform in a huff over Musk labeling it “US state-affiliated media.”
The two tax-funded journalists engaged in performative offense-taking against Musk’s F-bombs, practically panting that the outburst would mark the beginning of Musk’s long-awaited downfall (and presumably flock to Mastodon or Threads, two would-be Twitter replacements everyone’s already forgotten about).
In fact, that tweet wasn't just "perceived as anti-Semitic" -- it actually was anti-Semitic -- and Musk didn't merely "reply" to the tweet, he endorsed his message by calling it "the actual truth." And it wasn't until more than two weeks later, during the same event at which he lashed out at his advertisers, that he bothered to offer some sort of apology; that endorsement tweet remains live as of this writing, suggesting that his so-called apology wasn't terribly sincere. Waters seems to have forgotten that Musk's labeling of NPR's feed was completely arbitrary and violated Twitter's own labeling standards, falsely likening it to propagandistic state-controlled media organizations in other countries, and the move backfired so badly that Musk dropped all labeling of "state-affiliated media" feeds on Twitter.
Waters didn't actually rebut anything Bennett and Allyn said about Musk, instead whining that "Bennett relegated Musk’s ambitious technological achievements, which the Biden Administration is depending on, as quasi-blackmail material stored up by Musk" and that "Allyn also portrayed Musk as a mad scientist with his hooks into the power structure."
The MRC kept up its sycophancy with a Dec. 4 tweet thanking Musk for the "Twitter files," which are nothing but cherry-picked documents selectively given to journalists hand-picked by Musk to sydcophantically write about them.
A Dec. 8 post by Luis Cornelio served up more Musk sycophancy:
Facebook and Instagram are under legal scrutiny stemming from a lawsuit filed by New Mexico, accusing the companies of inexplicably facilitating “prime locations” of child sex abuse content—and X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk is blasting the inexplicable silence from advertising companies that have boycotted ads on X over accusations of anti-Semitism.
The disturbing allegations, brought forth by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, accused the Mark Zuckerberg-owned social media platforms of turning a blind eye to the spread of sexual content involving sexual “coercion” of children, through “prostitution” and/or the “sale of [Child Sexual Abuse Material].” Specifically, the attorney general’s office alleged that Facebook and Instagram “served” streams of “sexually explicit images” to children and reportedly “enabled” adults to “find, message, and groom minors, soliciting them to sell pictures or participate in pornographic videos.”
Musk pressed Disney CEO Bob Iger on whether Disney would pull ads from the Meta-owned platforms. Notably, Iger in recent weeks pulled ads from X over dubious accusations that Musk’s platform placed ads near or next to racist and anti-semitic content. "Why no advertiser boycott, Bob Iger [sic]? You are endorsing this material!" Musk wrote in a fired-up X post. In a follow-up post, Musk added, “[W]hy do their Chief Marketing Officers endorse child trafficking!? Let’s ask them.”
Musk’s criticism came in response to Disney’s decision to pull ads from X after the release of a dubious report accusing the platform of placing ads near or next to alleged anti-Semitic or racist posts. Musk then took legal action.
Seemingly without questioning the evidence, notable companies such as Apple and Disney quickly pulled ads. However, neither company has yet decided to take similar action following the new accusations from the New Mexico attorney general.
Actually, the evidence that Musk did this is pretty clear. But Cornelio is falling into the MRC pattern of refusing to acknowledge that this evidence was gathered by Media Matters, the MRC's more liberal watchdog rival. Cornelio merely stated that Musk "took legal action" but not against who, and he didn't explain why anyone should be "questioning the evidence" when it's so well documented.
Christian Toto similarly defended Musk in his Dec. 9 column:
Plus, Disney recently yanked advertising from X, Elon Musk’s free speech friendlier version of Twitter.
That’s an overtly political move.
Musk is a left-leaning soul, but he’s been drifting to the Right given the Left’s quest to silence free speech. Iger’s Disney followed a false narrative that Musk is an anti-semite and pulled ads from the platform in response.
Meanwhile, TikTok promotes Osama bin Laden’s rhetoric and other social media giants teem with hateful content.
Why single out X?
We know why. Iger and co. haven’t gotten politics out of their system yet. Talk is talk until we see real action behind it. The ball’s in your court, Mr. Iger.
It's almost cute how Toto pretends Musk is "left-leaning" despite all the evidence to the contrary. He also failed to offer any evidence that Musk's anti-Semitic leaning is a "false narrative."
MRC Complains Editorial Cartoon Mocking A Preferred Target Was Withdrawn Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Alex Christy complained in a Nov. 9 post:
The woke inmates run the asylum at the Washington Post as executive editor Sally Buzbee apologized to staff on Wednesday for running a cartoon condemning Hamas that some considered racist and insensitive.
The cartoon in question shows a caricature of a Hamas leader, that could possibly be Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk or leader Yahya Sinwar, and not some generic Palestinian, strapping himself to women, children, and babies and saying “how dare Israel attack civilians.”
This is, of course, a completely fair and accurate depiction of Hamas, but the Washington Free Beacon’s Drew Holden reports that Buzbee said in an e-mail, “Given the many deep concerns and conversations today in our newsroom, I wanted to ensure everyone saw the notes sent out tonight by The Post's opinions editor, David Shipley, to Post readers and to his staff in opinions.”
[...]
The Post itself also noted, “Palestinian American poet Remi Kanazi wrote: ‘This is the Washington Post. This is the kind of anti-Palestinian racism that’s acceptable for publication.’ Left-wing British activist Owen Jones called the cartoon an example of ‘racist dehumanization.’”
How so? If anything the cartoon is saying Hamas doesn’t care about the very Palestinians Kanazi and Jones claim to care so much about and that dead Palestinians benefit Hamas because it gives them a talking point for their propaganda campaign.
Still, Buzbee added, “A cartoon published by Michael Ramirez on the war in Gaza, a cartoon whose publication I approved, was seen by many readers as racist. This was not my intent. I saw the drawing as a caricature of a specific individual, the Hamas spokesperson, who celebrated the attacks on unarmed civilians in Israel.”
It will not surprise you to learn that the MRC has a double standard on offfensive editorial cartoons. As we've documented, it had a fit when a cartoon critiquing Ted Cruz for exploiting his children during his 2016 presidential campaign -- but had no problem with a New York Post cartoon depicting Barack Obama as a chimipanzee. Its NewsBusters also once published a cartoon of a "Combat Barbie" that includes a prisoner-of-war uniform as an accessory.
In other words, the MRC has no problem with cartoons that offend people -- as long as those people are its political enemies.
MRC's Jean-Pierre-Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch, Fatal Attraction-Free Edition Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Reserarch Center's Curtis Houck helped right-wing New York Post reporter Steven Nelson whine (with serious "Fatal Attraction" vibes) that White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wasn't calling on him -- an assist he wouldn't have provided to a non-right-wing reporter being dissed by his beloved Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. Well, Jean-Pierre finally got around to calling on Nelson, and Houck rejoiced in his writeup of the Dec. 4 briefing:
During Monday’s White House press briefing, the ever-inept Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had quite the day as she ended what had been a petty, 187-day blackout against the New York Post’s Steven Nelson, hilariously ended the briefing after a question from Real Clear Politics’s Philip Wegmann about the new twist in the Biden corruption saga, and was caught in a double standard by Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich over voting access.
With the penultimate slot in the briefing, Jean-Pierre surprisingly called out to Nelson, who thanked her and added that while “[i]t’s been awhile,” he’s “hop[ing] we can do more.” Jean-Pierre chuckled in annoyance, saying he took it “one step too far.” Bizarre.
Nelson cut to his first question:
Section 702 of FISA is expiring this month and, against this debate, Senator Wyden just this past month released a letter saying that the White House is secretly funding a domestic court record dragnet administered by AT&T. Apparently, according to Wired, the White House altered funding for this program in 2021 and resumed at last year, and I was wondering what you could tell us about this program and the reason that it was paused and then resumed by the White House.
As Jean-Pierre often does with reporters she regularly calls on, she played dumb and said she’d “have to check with the team.”
Houck also did some Peter Doocy mancrushing by proxy:
Prior to Nelson and Wegmann, Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich channeled her colleague Peter Doocy by laying a trap for Jean-Pierre in asking if “the White House still believe[s]” that Georgia’s voting laws are un-American and promote voter suppression even though “Georgia did have record turnout” in 2022.
Nelson got to ask more biased questions of President Biden two days later, and Houck gushed over that too:
Two days after the end of a 187-day-long ice out by White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, the New York Post’s Steven Nelson was part of the press pool Wednesday during President Biden’s remarks about a funding battle with Congress on the border, Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine, so Nelson jumped in afterward to press Biden onwhy he’s “interacted with so many...foreign business associates” of his brother Jim and son Hunter.
Nelson shrewdly caught Biden’s attention by saying he had questions about China and Ukraine and they certainly were....but not on Biden’s terms. Biden probably forgot that Nelson was the reporter who asked him on June 8 if, based on the investigation from the House Oversight Committee, he accepted bribes and sold out the country. Smart move, Steven.
He then dropped two devastating numbers for Biden amid his reelection campaign (and simply in terms of credibility with the American people): “[P]olling by the Associated Press...shows that almost 70 percent of Americans, including 40 percent of Democrats, believe that you acted either illegally or unethically in regards to your family's business interests.”
Given the dozens of liberal media puff pieces and both general and specific allegations of Biden family malfeasance, it’d certainly be higher if weren’t for such a complicit media.
Um, isn't Houck part of a "complicit media" for Republicans and against Biden? Let's not pretend he's acting any different than what he's accusing others of doing.
Houck unusually praised the Biden White House for adhering to right-wing pro-Israel narratives during the Dec. 6 briefing:
Wednesday’s White House press briefing took a dark turn when an Arab reporter lashed out at Israel as “a terrorist state” inflicting “collective punishment” on Gazans and “killing...civilians” and “journalists” just moments after a reporter from the Saudi-funded Alarabiya asked whether the U.S. finds it “acceptable” and “positive” that “the ratio of killing Hamas fighters is equivalent to two civilians.”
On both counts, the National Security Council’s John Kirby wasn’t having it. In the case of the former, he began by kvetching about the plight of the Lebanese army, which isn’t particularly sterling given the country’s largely run by the Iranian-backed terrorist group, Hezbollah.
Houck didn't mention that civilians in Gaza are being killed at an unusually high pace for armed conflicts, and that numerous journallists covering the conflilct are also being killed. But then, that would deviate from the approved narrative.
Houck lazily summarized two days of briefings in one Dec. 15 post, with an emphasis on Doocy mancrushing:
With President Biden out and about to start the week, White House press briefings didn’t kick off this week until Wednesday and continued on Thursday, leaving plenty of space for questions from the left bashing Israel, the New York Post ’s Steven Nelson and Real Clear Politics’s Philip Wegmann stumping Biden flacks Karine Jean-Pierre and John Kirby, and, of course, Doocy Time on Hunter Biden’s life of ruin, illegal immigration, and White House leaks.
[...]
Fox’s Peter Doocy had his own questions on this: “You said that President Biden was familiar with what his son was going to say on Capitol Hill. If I called my dad and said, ‘I am about to violate a congressional subpoena,’ he would probably say, ‘Son, you shouldn’t do that.’ Was there any attempt by President Biden to talk Hunter out of it today?”
Jean-Pierre reiterated Joe “was familiar with what Hunter was going to say” and remains “proud of” him, but refused to go further (and thus have her cake and eat it too) because Hunter’s “a private citizen” and thus his chats with his father are “private conversations.”
Doocy also hammered away on illegal immigration, wondering if “10,000 illegal border crossings” in just one day would be enough for the administration to “admit…the Biden border policy so far has not worked” and if 1,000 of those being gotaways is “a national security risk.”
On both, Jean-Pierre instead bashed Republicans, accusing them of wanting to slash the number of border patrol agents and prevent law enforcement from stopping the flow of fentanyl.
Shifting to Thursday, Doocy Time was with Kirby as the Fox correspondent wondered “why would somebody around here leak that the Vice President is upset with the President about Gaza”.
Kirby noted the regime officially “refute the basic premise of” it, but he didn’t entirely because a vice president should be “offering…advice and counsel to the President” and everyone there “wants to see the Israelis be more surgical, more precise”.
Doocy unsuccessfully tried again, but not without a hilarious flub as he asked whether “President O’Biden” and his team were “okay that people…are going to press with this.” Naturally, it drew more than a few laughs, including from Kirby and Doocy.
If Jean-Pierre had made such a mistake, Houck would have portrayed it as further evidence of her purported incompetence. But because Doocy did it, it's merely a "hilarious flub."
MRC Hyped Leak Of Nashville Shooter's Manifesto To Attack Transgender People Topic: Media Research Center
Like WorldNetDaily, the Media Research Center sought to explit the leak of the pages from the alleged manifesto -- actually more like notebook rants -- of the "transgender shooter" at a Nashville school earlier this year as a way to portray all transgender people as violent and mentally ill. Nicholas Fondacaro huffed in a Nov. 6 post:
On Monday, Nashville authorities, Democratic politicians, and local media types were thrown into a tailspin by conservative podcaster Steven Crowder after he released three pages of the manifesto written by the transgender shooter that targeted elementary students at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee earlier this year. Despite the authenticity of the writings being confirmed by multiple outlets (local and national), the broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC ignored it that night.
Instead of reporting on this massive leak, ABC’s World News Tonight chose to hype Dolly Parton getting inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, CBS Evening News touted Britain’s Price William handing out an environmentalist prize, while NBC Nightly News fretted over the actor’s strike dragging on. Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo also refused to cover the leak. NBC’s omission stood out because their local affiliate, WSMV had been reporting on it all day.
Fondacaro made sure to add a "warning" at the top of his post that he would be referencing "excerpts from what is alleged to be the manifesto of the transgender Nashville school shooter. Explicit and derogatory language is used. Reader discretion is advised." He also complained that a local TV reporter pointed out how right-wingers were trying to exploit the leak:
Another local reporter, Phil Williams, the chief investigative correspondent for News Channel 5, confirmed the pages were real as well but claimed he had “multiple sources” that told him “the selective leak of three pages of the #CovenantSchool shooting ‘manifesto’ is EXTREMELY misleading.” “People who have read the whole thing say ‘there’s something in there for everybody.’ Another, ‘She hated everybody,’” he added.
Williams’ liberal bent was obvious since he put out multiple posts on X (formerly Twitter) lashing out at the “MAGA keyboard warriors” and “MAGA accounts” that were criticizing him.
Fondacaro didn't explain how Williams pointing out right-wing attacks on him proved a "liberal bent." The same day, Jorge Bonilla cited Fondacaro's post in noting that "news broke of the leak of three pages from the Nashville school shooter’s manifesto (AKA the Nashville Trannifesto), which was covered by ZERO networks" -- which, of course, proved Williams right in noting that right-wingers want to exploit the manifesto to peddle transphobia.
The next day, Bill D'Agostino made the transphobic intent explicit in complaining about how non-right-wing media weren't obsessing over the "transgender Nashville shooter’s manifesto" the way his fellow right-wingers were:
A transgender woman who murdered three Christian schoolchildren and three teachers is a politically inconvenient story for the left generally, and the Democratic party and particular. Perhaps that’s why nobody’s surprised that CNN, MSNBC, and their ilk are attempting to prevent as many people as possible from learning about her professed motive.
Another Nov. 7 post by Fondacaro cheered NewsNation host Chris Cuomo attacking Nashville polilce for not releasing the alleged manifesto before then, though he grumbled that Cuomo "huffed that the manifesto was going to be 'weaponized' by 'the right' because of the shooter’s hatred toward them." Fondacaro didn't mention that he and his co-workers had been doing exactly that.
Catherine Salgado praised Crowder for leaking the manifesto pages in her own Nov. 7 post:
Louder with Crowder host Steven Crowder says YouTube censored his video exposing parts of the Nashville transgender shooter’s alleged manifesto.
Crowder obtained several pages of the alleged manifesto of Audrey Hale, a biological woman who identified as a man and killed six—including children—at a Christian elementary school in March. Screenshots indicate that YouTube removed Crowder’s podcast episode breaking the story and accused him of “glorif[ying] violent criminal organizations.”
It seems, however, the purpose of releasing the alleged manifesto was to expose Hale’s disturbing philosophy, not glorify it.
Salgado didn't mention that the real purpose of Crowder hyping the leak was to impugn transgender people. And she completely ignored the fact that Crowder was exposed earlier this year hurling disgusting verbal abuse at his now-estranged wife and mistreating his employees; she didn't note whether his leaking the manifesto absolves all that nasty behavior from him in the eyes of her and her fellow right-wingers.
Salgado also put YouTube stopping the spread of the leak in a Dec. 5 list of the "WORST Censorship of November" by "big tech," making sure to note that Hale was "a biological woman who identified as a man."
MRC Pushes More Dubious Attacks On NewsGuard Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's latest round of loud and lame attacks on website-rating firm NewsGuard continued in an Oct. 30 post by Autumn Johnson:
MRC Free Speech America has exposed NewsGuard for its rank bias in favor of the left, but a new lawsuit reveals more information about an alleged conspiracy between the flawed media ratings firm and the Pentagon to censor speech online.
Consortium News, an independent news site, filed a damning lawsuit against the federal government of the United States and NewsGuard Technologies, Inc, alleging First Amendment violations and defamation. As part of its lawsuit, Consortium News cited NewsGuard’s contract with the Department of Defense to “identify, report and abridge the speech of American media organizations that dissent from U.S. official positions on foreign policy.” The news website accused NewsGuard of “acting jointly or in concert with the United States to coerce news organizations to alter viewpoints” and thus “imposing a form of censorship and repression” of free speech.
Funny how Consortium News became an "independent news site" for the MRC's current purposes; in 2011, it dismissed the operation as being run by "wackier liberals." And the MRC has not "xposed NewsGuard for its rank bias in favor of the left" -- it has merelywhined that it exposed the shoddiness of right-wing websites. Also, as it usually does, it falsely portrays efforts to expose online falsehoods and misinformation as "censorship."
Tom Olohan unsurprisingly did the latter as he uncritically repeating the rantings of one of the MRC's favorite dishonest transphobes in a Nov. 9 post:
The Daily Wire host Matt Walsh tore into the anti-free speech firm NewsGuard after one of its employees reached out to him about so-called “misinformation.”
Walsh wrote in a Nov. 8 post that an employee of NewsGuard, a website ratings firm with a demonstrable bias against conservatives, had reached out to him. Walsh wrote, “Some hack with a ‘fact checking’ organization called NewsGuard emailed a lengthy list of questions after monitoring my podcast for ‘misinformation.’” During the Nov. 8 edition of The Matt Walsh Show, Walsh laid into NewsGuard as well, describing NewsGuard as “a core component of the left’s evolving censorship apparatus.”
Walsh described NewsGuard as, “a powerful and influential organization, one that you are funding with your tax dollars. They recently received a massive grant from Biden’s Department of Defense for nearly $750,000. As Michael Shellenberger testified before Congress earlier this year, ‘Both The Global Disinformation Index and NewsGuard are U.S. government-funded entities who are working to drive advertisers’ revenue away from disfavored publications and towards the ones they favor.’”
[...]
Walsh noted that NewsGuard has targeted a number of organizations, including Breitbart, Revolver News, The Federalist, Fox News, Redstate, Life News, PragerU and The Daily Wire in “transparently partisan” fashion.
Olohan gave no evidence of these purportedly "transparently partisan" attacks on right-wing websites -- he simply parroted the complaint. Given Walsh's record of falsehoods, as exhibited in the lies he spread (and the MRC uncritically repeated) in attacking Target for not hating LGBT people as much as he does, there's little reason to take him seriously.
Catherine Salgado served up her anti-NewsGuard hate in a Nov. 20 post:
Twitter Files investigations uncovered biased ratings firm NewsGuard’s pitch bragging of government ties.
Journalist Lee Fang explained in collaboration with RealClearInvestigations Nov. 15 that the Twitter Files unearthed a pitch from NewsGuard CEO L. Gordon Crovitz to Twitter in 2021. In the pitch, Crovitz described NewsGuard as a “Vaccine Against Misinformation” that largely drew from government sources, particularly the very government agencies that contracted with NewsGuard! These disturbing findings come after MRC Free Speech America twice exposed NewsGuard’s anti-right bias.
Again, the MRC exposed nothing except its determination to turn NewsGuard into a political target. Salgado then played the TikTok card because it's apparently a customer of NewsGuard:
NewsGuard’s “nutrition labels” arbitrarily rating dozens of sites in multiple languages and its reports on specific regions have garnered praise from the likes of CNN and are moving into schools, libraries, and internet service providers. Crovitz markets “BrandGuard” for advertisers, too, Fang wrote. NewsGuard’s investors include the firm that represents pharma giant Pfizer and an individual tied to ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, in which the Chinese Communist Party government owns a board seat and maintains a financial stake.
Of course, the MRC is leaning into anti-vaxxerarguments by singling out Pfizer as another client.
We've shown how the Media Research Center tried to Heather former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger for failing to adhere to the right-wing pro-Trump, pro-insiurrection narrative, but it wasn't done yet. Tim Graham complained further about Kinzinger in a Nov. 5 post:
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