Near as we can tell, the Media Research Center does not receive funding from tobacco interests. So why has the MRC’s CNSNews.com established a “Golden Hookah” award?
We’ll let CNS explain:
Today, CNSNews.com Communications Director Craig Bannister presents the first-ever ‘Golden Hookah,’ a symbolic token that will be conferred on the government spending program that wins CNSNews.com’s weekly “What Were THEY Smoking” award for outrageous government spending.
[…]Inspired by CNSNews.com stories that exposed federal grants that were used to subsidize research on hookah smoking in Syria and Jordan, the “Golden Hookah” symbolizes how government squanders the taxpayers’ hard-earned money on outrageous, unconstitutional and even unconscionable programs.
Funny, we don’t recall CNS being interested in this sort of thing when a Republican was president. And we suspect it will disappear if Republicans return to power.