Media Research Center executive Tim Graham followed the corporate agenda to trash Renee Good in his Jan. 14 column — but first, he trashed another Democrat he’s paid to hate:
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) is in a very special category: black, Muslim, and a refugee from Somalia. It’s a triple-banger, like Karine Jean-Pierre, always touted as black, lesbian, and Haitian. Never question their prominence on the merits. It’s a born-on-third-base situation in national politics and media.
So when Omar submits herself to television interviews from liberal networks, she knows she can say inflammatory things and not be seriously challenged. On CBS’s Face the Nation, the topic was Renee Good being shot after she drove into an ICE agent with her SUV. Omar claimed Good was “sitting in her car peacefully,” and then the ICE agent “shouldn’t be trying to get in front of a moving car.” Good was right whether she was in Park or in Drive. On top of that, Team Trump shouldn’t defend the ICE agent, because “we can see in the videos that have been produced so far that what they are describing is really not what is taking place.”
This is engaging in denialism. It’s obvious from the ICE agent’s video that he was struck by Good’s car. CBS host Margaret Brennan didn’t challenge Omar on that, or anything else about the incident. She only pushed back by vaguely stipulating there has been violence against ICE agents. This agent was previously run over by a car in his official capacity. That’s not relevant when you’ve decided that in every instance, ICE and Trump are the villains.
But why is it relevant here when the video evidence shows that Good was not trying to hit the agent with her car? Graham didn’t answer that question.
Graham returned to rage even more at Good later that day:
The left-wingers at PolitiFact used the breaking news of Renee Good’s death for several “fact checks” defending her activism and attacking Trump. When Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described Good as a “domestic terrorist,” many liberal-media operatives objected, from Jimmy Kimmel to The View, plus those “independent fact-checkers.” The PolitiFact headline:
Experts question Kristi Noem calling Renee Good a ‘domestic terrorist.’ Here’s what it means
You can be certain that the “experts” are all leftists with an agenda. But first, PolitiFact writers Maria Ramirez Uribe and Amy Sherman wanted to paint Good as a poet, and she somehow “wasn’t an activist”!
[…]Come on now! It’s obvious from the videos that Good and her partner were participating in activism obstructing ICE by parking their SUV to block the street, so how do “fact checkers” claim she was just a mom driving home??
Graham also complained that “PolitiFact also rushed to defend Good from a ‘rap sheet’ that’s circulating on social media” — but wouldn’t admit the obvious fact that the purported rap sheet is fake news.
Curtis Houck served up his own brand of rage:
Wednesday marked another day of tiresome narratives across the broadcast networks and their flagship morning newscasts that smeared Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agents, fixating on the “clashes intensifying” and “escalating” without explaining why federal law enforcement had deployed tear gas and other deterrents. Fireworks? Nevermind! Hitting vehicles? Not a concern!
[…]Much of the [CBS] story above sought to humanize the anti-ICE loons and, as we’d see with the others, took the protesters completely at their word[.]
God forbid that humans be humanized. Houck lamented that “Starting with CBS Mornings, editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and her team haven’t appeared to be moved in for wholesale changes given segments like this” — but he didn’t explain why reporters must be censored and ordered to follow a specitic script. He too went on to attack Good and those protesting her death:
Because it’s ABC, Good Morning America didn’t take a day off from the anti-Trump and anti-ICE hate. Co-host Robin Roberts teased coverage on the “anger in Minneapolis” with “[c]lashes intensifying in Minneapolis between federal agents and residents as the fallout grows over the deadly shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent[.]”
Co-host Michael Strahan also continued the liberal media’s pattern of refusing to delineate between observing versus obstructing law enforcement:
[…]Over on NBC’s Today, co-host Craig Melvin touted the “escalating protests in Minnesota overnight” with “confrontations between residents, demonstrators and federal immigration officers…only growing.”
Saturday co-host Laura Jarrett acknowledged ICE’s notation they’ve arrested “around 2,400” since first going into the metro area in November, but refused to go any further in detailing the kinds of people ICE took off the streets.
Does Houck recognize that there’s a difference between observing and obstructing law enforcement? His headline made sure to call anything even mildly critical of ICE’s behavior as “slop” without defining the word.
Mark Finkelstein lashed out at “Dem guest” Joel Rubin:
With his highfalutin’ college degrees from Brandeis and Carnegie Mellon, and background as a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Rubin should know better
Yet, on today’s CNN This Morning, Rubin said:
“Renee Good [was] interested in protecting her neighbors through civil disobedience, discourse, whatnot. That’s legal.“
Civil disobedience is legal? By definition, civil disobedience is the breaking of law, and the willingness to accept the consequences thereof, ostensibly for a higher moral purpose. Joel, Joel–what were you thinking?!
We don’t recall Finkelstein being critical of Capitol rioters for their alleged “civil disobedience, whichof course went way beyond that.
Houck returned to complain in a Jan. 15 post:
Thursday’s CBS Mornings included a remarkable assertion from correspondent Lana Zak, which was that, despite “the video” of the January 7 incident between an ICE officer and Renee Good (when there are actually multiple vides), “it is not clear whether or not the car made contact with him and — and how forceful it may have been” and it’s debatable whether the officer actually suffered internal bleeding.
Again, it’s clear that Good did not hit the agent, so it’s unclear how, exactly, the agent could have possibly suffered internal bleeding. Instead, Houck whined: “Because it’s the Trump administration, better to assume it’s a lie and downplay it than…consider they’re right?”
Well, yes, the Trump administration has proved adept at spreading falsehoods, including that Good was a “domestic terrorist” who tried to hit the agent with her car. So, yes, the administration hasn’t exactly convinced the public that its claims should be taken at face value.