Slanties 2019: Into the Slantie-Verse

As the web the ConWeb weaves continues to spread under new writer Donald Trump, it's time once again to highlight the worst ConWeb reporting and craziest ConWeb opinions of the year.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 1/14/2019

	Related articles on ConWebWatch: 2004 Slanties 2005 Slanties 2006 Slanties 2007 Slanties 2008 Slanties 2009 Slanties 2010 Slanties 2011 Slanties 2012 Slanties 2013 Slanties 2014 Slanties 2015 Slanties 2016 Slanties 2017 Slanties 2018 Slanties

But crashing into this twisted web is the 16th annual Slantie Awards, ConWebWatch's celebration of sycophantic and just plain bad journalism.

Time to document the atrocities -- er, hand out some hardware.

* * *

The first award is for the most egregious example of bias in "news" coverage. The nominees are:

-- WND's existential crises -- WorldNetDaily spent much of 2018 trying to stay alive, running two different campaigns of begging for money from readers. Editor Joseph Farah apparently took his eye off the financial ball to write a book, and he begged for money to publish that too. But while Farah regularly railed against the "digital cartel" purportedly running him out of business, he has refused to discuss the most likely cause: WND's long history of promoting fake news and conspiracy theories (not to mention how it published books by white nationalists and anti-Semites). Indeed, it continued to do so by touting conspiracies involving Seth Rich and Steve Stockman, demonstrating it has not learned the needed lesson from its imminent demise.

-- CNS pro-Trump stenography: CNSNews.com followed up last year's spate Trump stenography by doubling down on it, not even bothering to fact-check Trump or his surrogates when they tell blatant falsehoods. CNS also kept up its double standard on employment-statistics coverage, making Trump-era news as positive as its Obama-era news was negative.

-- MRC's and CNS' coverage of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings -- The Media Research Center knew it had to defend President Trump's nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, and it obliged by denigrating the women who accused him of sexual misconduct, beating up on Anita Hill (again) and burying the fact the a key figure in the controversy used to work for the MRC. The MRC's "news" division, CNS, followed in its parent's footsteps with added mocking of Kavanaugh critics.

-- The MRC's war on journalists -- The Media Research Center has never liked journalists, but 2018 was all about bolstering President Trump's war on "fake news" by targeting journalists. The biggest target, though, was CNN's Jim Acosta, for committing the offense of asking challenging questions of the president. When the White House pulled Acosta's press room access, MRC "news" division CNS actively rooted for it to be pulled permanently.

And the Slantie goes to ... the MRC's Brett Kavanaugh coverage. Its egregious unfairness is made even more so because much of it appears in the context of attacking "liberal media" outlets for their alleged unfairness. Admit that Mark Judge -- a high-school buddy of Kavanaugh who played a key role in the narrative that Kavanaugh misbehaved -- worked for you, MRC, and then we can talk.

* * *

The next award is the LoBaido Award for the silliest statement made by a writer for a conservative news Web site (named after Anthony LoBaido, who wrote a post-9/11 column for WorldNetDaily that was so unhinged -- he blamed the attacks on America's immorality since "all that is evil in the world can be found in New York" and, for good measure, called Hillary Clinton "openly Marxist, treasonous and abortion-mongering, occultic" -- that WND eventually pulled it from its site). Here are this year's finalists:

In my view, President Trump exemplifies precisely what manhood is all about. It is about protecting the people you are responsible to protect, be they your wife and children, family, or, in the case of the President, the people of the United States.

In the world of Nancy Pelosi and other liberals, manhood has been defined down as doing that which sends feel-good virtue-signaling and makes the person appear sweet and compassionate. But that is not manhood, rather self-righteousness and throwing off responsibility under false platitudes. We had enough of that with Barack Obama.

-- Aryeh Spero, Dec. 12 CNS column

Can we stop pretending that heterosexual and homosexual relationships are equal? They’re not. And to say otherwise, doesn’t make you homophobic. It makes you logical. If a married couple had 12 kids but they constantly catered to the wants of one of their children, while ignoring the needs of the others, wouldn’t you say that child is spoiled?

[...]

There’s no real medical condition called “homophobia” that can be cured by medicine or counseling. In fact, it’s absurd and sick to suggest that anyone has a legitimate fear of gays. Along with gay activists themselves, most Americans want to keep government out of their bedrooms. Therefore, it’s safe to say the left’s use of the word “phobia,” when it’s associated with the gay community, has nothing to do with a recognizable fear. Instead, leftists use the term “homophobic” as a tactic to censor dissent and make themselves feel morally superior to the religious right. Additionally, they want dissenters to be forced into wholehearted approval of their lifestyle. So much for equal rights; they want submission.

-- Carl Jackson, Dec. 10 WND column

With all you’ve seen, heard and read about climate change in the last 30 years, how about just considering the possibility that God’s still “got the whole world in His hand?” And how about considering still that some of the plagues we’ve all witnessed in recent years – from catastrophic storms, devastating earthquakes and raging wildfires – represent what God clearly explains in His Word as an effort to ensure you do not “perish quickly from off the good land which the Lord giveth you?” (Deuteronomy 11:17)

[...]

God not only controls the weather as a principal means of reigning in our behavior for our own good, He holds the entire universe together – all of Creation. He does so because He loves us and wants us to have the chance to be His children for eternity – but only if we love and obey Him and His Son Jesus the Messiah, the one and only Redeemer and Mediator between God and man.

Is our planet actually dying, as some scientists suggest? About that, they are correct. That’s the nature of our fallen planet. Yet God is going to bring it back to perfection.

One thing is for certain: God’s going to shut heaven again. When you see it happen, don’t blame carbon dioxide. Blame man’s disobedience of God’s ways, and get down on your knees in humility and pray for forgiveness.

-- Joseph Farah, Nov. 25 WND column

Now along comes Donald Trump, who reminds me of Michelangelo. A friend asked that Renaissance champion how he managed to produce a work of art as breathtaking as his sculpture of David. “I entered my studio and gazed upon the block of marble across the room. Then,” confided the master sculptor, “I lifted my tools and chopped away everything that wasn’t David!”

So now they are picking up their tools and chopping away at Trump. Maybe you Never-Trumpers don’t deserve to live in a country led by Donald Trump!

Trump, I suspect, gazed upon this great American nation and chopped away all the stuff that was not great, leaving us with the best growth in GDP, the lowest unemployment, a bashed and battered ISIS, a discarded deal with the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, a new embassy in Jerusalem to replace the old one in Tel Aviv, plus 28 single-spaced pages of other Trump accomplishments great and near-great.

-- Barry Farber, Nov. 20 WND column

As it happens, my knowledge of psychology surpasses what my formal education would suggest. I know that it is far easier to influence an individual utilizing mind control techniques than the average person might surmise, and that the methods available to clandestine agencies are far more sophisticated than most people know. It’s even easier if that person is mentally or emotionally compromised, and easier still if they are predisposed to such action.

[...]

If we wound up discovering that Cesar Sayoc was an unbalanced right-winger groomed for his role by leftist operatives, or simply a leftist operative himself, it should not be at all surprising given the boundless duplicity of the left and their aforementioned level of desperation.

-- Erik Rush, Oct. 31 WND column

As president he manufactured a Cloward-Piven dystopia that was spread like an airborne disease in the classrooms of his neo-Leninist ideological fraternity kinsman who masquerade as college/university professors nationwide. This explains why Obama spent so much of his time giving speeches on college campuses and fundraising in Hollywood.

The students are gullible and already brainwashed by the teachers inculcating them with hatred and anarchism. Hollywood’s contribution has been to give Obama massive amounts of money while simultaneously producing movies and programs that are laced with depictions of overthrowing government.

Thus, in eight years of Obama as president and the two years since he has left office, we’ve seen rage, protest and anarchy on a scale not witnessed since the early 1970s.

-- Mychal Massie, Oct. 8 WND column

My wife, Shirley, and I raised four beautiful daughters – right in the middle of Hollywood and Beverly Hills, in public and private schools, pretty and intelligent and desirable girls. I was a pretty protective dad (I had once been a boy, a normal boy), and I saw to it that my girls knew and understood what the “games” were and that there would be, for example, no single dates till they were 16. And we stuck to it.

The bottom line there is that all four daughters married fine Christian young men and came to their marriage partners as virgins. I’ve never talked publicly about this – but I now want people to understand the parental role in keeping their kids chaste and moral.

And I’ll go this far: If one of my girls had an experience like the one professor Ford has described, I’d have been angry of course and wanted to confront the young man personally – but I would also have asked my daughter why she was in an unchaperoned “house party” where something like that could likely happen. In our case, it couldn’t have happened, because my daughter wouldn’t have been there.

-- Pat Boone, Sept. 25 WND column

Trump is well-known for promoting women in his industry, like Louise Sunshine who rose to executive vice president of the Trump organization. Sunshine worked for Trump for 15 years and has admitted that he often chided her about her appearance. However, she wasn’t offended. She said, “It was a reminder that I wasn’t perfect. ... It was just his way.”

They and the others who were promoted by Trump defend him to the hilt and forgave him for his imperfections. Isn’t it time the rest of the country took a deep breath and did the same?

-- Jane Chastain, Aug. 1 WND column

The simple fact remains: Without white people, there would be no America. White men founded this country and made it great. White men like President Trump are the last ones holding America together – and it is hanging by a thread.

So out of appreciation, I deemed July as White History Month

For some reason, whites allowed others to come in to this country who would turn around and betray them! Reportedly, whites will soon be a minority in their own country!

If we allow the vilification and replacement of whites to continue, then our country will become a ghetto. We will see more black-on-white crime, more laws against Christians and men, a total loss of freedom, and destruction of communities.

-- Jesse Lee Peterson, July 15 WND column

It's a well-known fact that ESPN doesn't always stick to sports. And this week The Worldwide Leader in (Liberal and Naked) Sports will prove again that it doesn't always stick to clothed athletes either. ESPN is unveiling—disrobing is a better word choice—its 10th edition of the Body Issue (online and in its magazine), and 16 current and former athletes will be featured without a stitch of clothing. For the past few days, the network website has been titillating viewers by featuring nude photos from an archive of the past nine years of body issues.

Apparently our sex-drenched culture needs one more media outlet appealing to people's prurient interests. Swimsuits and faux swimsuits painted on models sells magazines and gets clicks for Sports Illustrated. ESPN one-downs SI by featuring completely buck naked athletes to raise viewership during the dog days of summer. No privates are visible on these immodest athletes; those are covered by side views and arms and legs, allowing the athletes to run, jump and cavort about with no fabric restraints at all.

-- Jay Maxson, June 25 MRC post

On Thursday's The View, the liberal majority fulminated against Rudy Giuliani suggesting on Fox's The Ingraham Angle that the Mueller probe has accomplished nothing and should wrap it up. Sunny Hostin lamented "He says this is a witch hunt, and it's caught a lot of witches and warlocks! There’s been 75 charges already, 22 people have been indicted so, the suggestion somehow that the Mueller investigation isn't finding anything is nonsense." So Mueller doesn't actually have to convict anyone of anything?

-- Tim Graham, May 17 MRC post

Jesus was an outsider, a Jew, but the bearer of a New Covenant, exposing lies and fallacies and shining a light in the dark places of corruption and deceit.

Now, put aside the deity and do not accuse me of the blasphemy of comparing a sinful human with the sinless Son of the Living God, because that is NOT my intention. But for a minute, stop and think of the establishment politicians as Pharisees, who, regardless of what party is in power – and they are nearly interchangeable, by the way – have had their way in this country for a century or more.

All of a sudden, as unexpectedly as a July snow, a brash outsider, who minces no words, takes no prisoners and calls ’em like he sees ’em, status be damned, is elected to the highest office in the free world, and he releases a swarm of flies into their ointment, disrespecting their traditions, and calls not only theirs, but the media’s bluff, without fear of retaliation.

-- Charlie Daniels, May 8 CNSNews.com column

Roughly a quarter of Major League Baseball consists today of foreign-born players, and an even higher percentage of foreigners have flooded the minor leagues. Today, some minor league rosters look more like a World Cup soccer team than a baseball squad.

Owners have figured out that they can sign foreign players to smaller bonuses, and have greater strings attached, rather than give nice contracts to American youngsters. The foreigners do not play baseball any better than Americans, and few of the foreign players are genuine Hall of Fame candidates.

In sharp contrast with a quarter-century ago, every baseball team today has a high-paid foreign player. Free traders brag about this as a model that Americans should imitate in other industries, but the reality is that fans prefer rooting for hometown heroes like Lou Gehrig, who grew up in New York City, played baseball for Columbia University and then became the “Pride of the Yankees.”

[...]

Baseball was a fabulous way to inspire multiple generations of boys to play a healthy game that emphasizes the virtues of teamwork, patience, discipline and following rules. But something is lost in the translation, and the motivation is lost, when the visa program is abused to reward foreigners rather than American youth.

-- Andy Schlafly, May 1 WND column

Behind the European obsession with importing tall, dark, Middle-Eastern young men are hordes of horny, menopausal, Social Justice Warriors (SJW).

“Bohemian witches” or “tie-dye hags” is how one risqué, Swedish, YouTube commentator calls this degenerate distaff.

Left-liberal women (like Chancellor Angela Merkel) certainly have a fixation – could it be erotic? – with rescuing dark, handsome, exotic-looking strangers.

Judging from their irrational, histrionic protests against President Trump’s travel ban, we appear destined to live or die by these females’ hormones (or their replaced hormones).

-- Ilana Mercer, April 26 WND column

Trump may very well be our first punk rock president – a sentiment it seems Johnny Rotten may echo, having labeled Trump “a political Sex Pistol” who “terrifies politicians.”

As former VICE co-founder, ex-punk rocker and CRTV host Gavin McGinnes [sic] proclaimed on his show “Get Off My Lawn,” “The new right is the new punk rock.”

I couldn’t agree more.

-- Andrew Thorp King, March 27 WND column

“Love, Simon – Everyone Loves a Great Love Story” is a sham. It’s also another device of the devil to “steal, kill and destroy” (John 10:10) our children.

Here’s the deal: The greatest love story is how God sent His Son not only to forgive our sins but to liberate us from sin’s power. Jennifer Garner and gang, please take your defiling propaganda elsewhere ’cause we smell something rotten and refuse to let it seduce our kids.

-- Larry Tomczak, March 19 WND column

Did the president have a brief affair with a porn star in 2006? I’m sure no one would be surprised to discover that he did. Will “60 Minutes” run an interview with Stormy Daniels? If so, what can it possibly tell us that we don’t already know? Daniels is a whore who sees herself as a “star” and wants to publicize her experience with Trump to polish that star and increase her income.

No, she doesn’t turn tricks for money. The definition of a whore is someone who engages in sex for money. Daniels has explicit sex in front of the cameras for money. That makes her a super-whore. Furthermore, she directs others who do the same, not exactly a candidate for sainthood.

-- Barbara Simpson, March 14 WND column

The republic and our freedom hangs in the balance as long as the Clinton and Obama deep state – represented and aided by the corrupt Robert Mueller – is able to continue to wage a jihad on President Trump and his administration, all with the aim to bring it down and destroy it so that a socialist, communist, radical leftist, feminist and atheist country will take the place of the one conceived of at Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.

The only man who has the courage, fearlessness and determination to root out these vermin in our rat-infested “capital of corruption,” is me, I am sorry but also proud to say.

-- Larry Klayman, Feb. 25 WND column

We do know that [Oprah Winfrey is] very pro-woman – from her films like “The Color Purple” where all the men were weak or ruthless, to her investment of $40 million for a school for girls in Africa. With her vision of Africa, only the little girls will have a quality education; the boys will be working in the fields. What kind of relationship would that create between men and women? With the women educated and better-employed, it would have the same results of the old South, when girls left the farm for college and the boys stayed home to keep the farm going. The next generation of black Southern female nurses, teachers and secretaries had a difficult time relating to the uneducated farmhand. This gave fuel to disrespect between the two and helped break up black families. Oprah attempting to help only African girls with school will have the same effect.

-- Mason Weaver, Feb. 8 WND column

Next to illegal immigration, feminism is the second-greatest seminal threat to American independence.

-- David R. Usher, Jan. 24 WND column

Why are Trump and masculine men so toxic and repulsive to today’s intellectual left and Democratic Party? Previously, I argued that the Republicans are the Daddy Party and the Democrats the Mommy Party. Although both parties – like our entire country – are highly feminized compared to adversaries like Russia, North Korea and numerous militant Muslim nations, there is still a residue of tentative maleness among Republicans. By contrast, the Democrats virtually swim in an ocean of estrogen and had the election gone as predicted, America would have quickly morphed into a gigantic harem ruled by Hilary the Great, replete with legions of male eunuchs and gloriously happy and safe “girly girls.”

But then the quintessential masculinist, warrior king Donald Trump prevailed, and their dreams were rudely shattered. And how they hate him for it, to the point of sheer madness!

-- Kent Bailey, Jan. 19 WND column

There were 664 homicides in Chicago in 2017 and, for comparison, 37 casualties in the U.S. military in its myriad operations around the globe. That's according to data from the Chicago Tribune and from the Department of Defense's press office.

-- Michael W. Chapman, Jan. 2 CNS article

And the Slantie goes to ... WND's Andy Schlafly for claiming there aren't enough Americans in Major League Baseball. He doesn't seem to understand that fans actually want to see the best baseball players no matter what part of the world they're from. If you force out players just to put American players in for the sole reason that they're American, it detracts from the game.

* * *

Our final award is the Slantie Award for Career Achievement in Conservative Bias. This goes to a reporter or commentator with a consistent record of biased and slanted reports that fly in the face of time-honored journalistic practice, the truth and/or common sense.

This year's honoree is ... Tom Blumer, formerly of NewsBusters. Blumer cranked out a lot of misinformation in his time as a NewsBusters contributing editor, unique in his ability to get things wrong and still hold that position. The folks at the Media Research Center even let Blumer justify the racism of Trump supporters, insisting that it's not racist to believe that blacks are lazier or less intelligent than whites.

In true MRC style, it was not the former attitude that brought about Blumer's downfall but the latter one (though not that particular post). When Media Matters highlighted how Blumer had included in a 2015 post a link to white nationalist site American Renaissance, as well as a 2017 post linking to the white-nationalist VDARE operation, Blumer was quickly and quietly let go from NewsBusters. In keeping with the MRC's record of never taking public responsibility for its screw-ups, Blumer's forced departure was never announced to its readers; likewise, it was silent on what punishment, if any, was given to NewsBusters editors who allowed Blumer's posts with those offensive links to be published in the first place.

Of course, if the MRC keeps following Trump farther right, he just might be welcomed back at NewsBusters someday.