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Cuomo Frets NPR Will Target ‘Whistleblower’ Who Exposed Their Liberal Bias

25-year NPR veteran Uri Berliner recently came forward to call out his employer and colleagues for being liberally biased in a way that was harming the credibility of their reporting. And in a Tuesday night appearance on NewsNation’s Cuomo, host Chris Cuomo shared his concern that NPR would target him and “kick [him] to the curb.” But Berliner said he was getting a lot of support from colleagues, including from surprising sources. “On that issue of media trust, there was a bombshell today, a whistleblower in effect on bias in the media,” Cuomo announced at the top of the show. “Among his claims: NPR was stacked with like-minded people who appealed to an ever-narrow, progressive worldview catering to a select audience and losing its audience as a result.” Cuomo agreed with Berliner’s assessment that “political diversity” was not something newsrooms prioritized, adding that it was one of the reasons he chose to join NewsNation: 87 Democrats, not a single Republican. Does he have a point? Yup! Do newsrooms lack diversity? Well, depends what boxes you want to check. Political diversity. It's a big at NewsNation. We've got all kinds here. The disagreement is organic and so are the common concerns.     When asked about what the response was in-house at NPR, Berliner said he got the expected pushback from the managers he called out but was getting a lot of support from many others, including some surprising individuals: I'm not surprised by the response that, you know, came from management and the same managers that I’ve been making a lot of these points about. And they're certainly entitled to that perspective. I will say, I've had a lot of support from colleagues, many of them unexpected, who say they agree with me. Some of them say this confidentially, but I think there's been a lot of response saying, “Look, these are things that need to be addressed. We haven't. We've been too reluctant, too frightened, too timid to deal with these things. And I think that this is the right opportunity to bring it all out in the open. This seemed to preemptively relieve Cuomo of some of his concern for Berliner’s future at the station. “I hope you saved up your money. You are a business editor, so hopefully you’re good with your own investing because they're going to kick you to the curb and nobody’s going to want you,” he quipped. “I’m not worried. You know, I think people want open dialogue. I think people want to have honest debates,” Berliner replied. On how NPR had gotten so liberally biased, Cuomo wondered: “Are you saying that's the truth or are you saying it's something that has evolved? What do you want people to feel about NPR and what you feel about the media in general?” Berliner felt that NPR had “a liberal orientation” at first but “evolved” to be a place of “much narrower kind of niche thinking, a group think that's really clustered around various selective progressive views.” He added that “they don't allow enough air and enough spaciousness to consider all kinds of perspectives.” Reminiscing about how things used to be, he suggested they used to be “kind of nerdy and really like[d] to dig into things and understand the complexity of things.” The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: NewsNation’s Cuomo April 9, 2024 8:09:54 p.m. Eastern CHRIS CUOMO: On that issue of media trust, there was a bombshell today, a whistleblower in effect on bias in the media. One of the most, you know, the biggest, most respected names in the news, National Public Radio. Today, senior business editor Uri Berliner published a story in Free Press, Substack. The headline? “I've been and NPR for 25 years. Here's how we lost America's trust.” Among his claims: NPR was stacked with like-minded people who appealed to an ever-narrow, progressive worldview catering to a select audience and losing its audience as a result. He also says stories were ignored, mistakes made, corrections never issue, and that all, quote, “shatters trusted and engenders cynicism about the media.” And when he dug into voter registration at NPR in Washington, guess what he found. 87 Democrats, not a single Republican. Does he have a point? Yup! Do newsroom's lack diversity? Well, depends what boxes you want to check. Political diversity. It's a big at NewsNation. We've got all kinds here. The disagreement is organic and so are the common concerns. So, I want to bring in brother Berliner because that was a brave thing he did, man. Your competition is your critic base in this business. And you knew when you wrote this, you aren’t going to get a chorus of amens, you're going to get people probably digging garbage and saying it's not true. And sure enough, colleagues came forward to do what you had to expect that we're going to do, which is say, ‘We disagree. Uri’s entitled to his opinion. But we disagreed about the nature and quality of our reporting.’ What do you make of their response? What do you make of the attention? URI BERLINER: I'm not surprised by the response that, you know, came from management and the same managers that I’ve been making a lot of these points about. And they're certainly entitled to that perspective. I will say, I've had a lot of support from colleagues, many of them unexpected, who say they agree with me. Some of them say this confidentially, but I think there's been a lot of response saying, “Look, these are things that need to be addressed. We haven't. We've been too reluctant, too frightened, too timid to deal with these things. And I think that this is the right opportunity to bring it all out in the open. CUOMO: So, for those who are sitting there saying, “I knew it! NPR, those laconic lefties, you know, with the slow delivery and just feeding us all of this.” Are you saying that's the truth or you saying it's something that has evolved? What do you want people to feel about NPR and what you feel about the media in general? BERLINER: I think it's evolved. You know, I've been at NPR a long time. 25 years. You could say I'm a lifer. And it's a place that always loved working. But when I started there was a liberal orientation. But I think we were more guided by curiosity, open mindedness. You know, you said talked about policy. We're kind of nerdy and really likes to dig into things and understand the complexity of things. I think that's evolved over the years into a much narrower kind of niche thinking, a group think that's really clustered around various selective progressive views that don’t – they don't allow enough air and enough spaciousness to consider all kinds of perspectives. CUOMO: So, you used some very powerful words that people kind of see as sacrosanct. Whether it's, you know, indicating bias of what people call “woke” these days or “political correctness” or “cancel culture.” You know, these are often seen as instruments of the left. One, were you worried that – I hope you saved up your money? You are a business editor, so hopefully you’re good with your own investing because they're going to kick you to the curb and nobody’s going to want you. Especially as you a white guy, you know, who's not 18. So, what do you make of going after these sacred cows? BERLINER: I’m not worried. You know, I think people want open dialogue. I think people want to have honest debates. (…)

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ENOUGH: Jordan Increases Pressure on Gov’t-Big Tech Collusion

The House Judiciary Committee is aiming to uncover potentially more dystopian free speech violations from two major government agencies in coordination with five Big Tech companies. Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent letters to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray regarding government pressure to crush free speech, according to an April 9 press release. Jordan also issued letters to the CEOs of Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) and Alphabet (owner of Google and YouTube). “The Judiciary Committee is conducting oversight of how and to what extent the Executive Branch has coerced or colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor lawful speech,” the House Judiciary wrote. This comes as the House Judiciary Committee is also summoning three former Biden White House officials to testify on alleged government efforts to censor free speech. These officials are former White House Director of Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty, former COVID-19 Coordinator Andy Slavitt and former COVID-19 Digital Director Clarke Humphrey, according to the New York Post. Jordan’s Committee is taking action on the FBI-tech coordination since the Supreme Court stayed a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals injunction against government censorship activities. An FBI spokesperson confirmed on March 20 that the agency’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) is again communicating with tech companies, per the press release. Jordan is now warning the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI that “all documents and communications relating to ongoing discussions between the FBI and each Big Tech company fall within the scope of the Committee's [previous] subpoenas.” The records requested include potential communications between each tech company, the FBI San Francisco Field Office, and FITF, particularly regarding “alleged foreign influence or election integrity.”  Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency and an equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

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Even CNN Admits It: 'Inflation Is Hotter Than We Were Expecting'

You know things are bad when President Joe Biden’s Praetorian Guard at CNN won’t protect him from the fact that the economy is spiraling out of control.  During the April 10 edition of CNN News Central, anchor Kate Bolduan unloaded devastating news on CNN’s unsuspecting liberal audience: There is significant inflation in April, just months before the 2024 general. During a segment, Bolduan said, “Inflation is headed in the wrong direction right now, the latest consumer price report just out shows prices up 3.5%, this over same time last year.”  CNN anchor Rahel Solomon agreed that inflation was “moving in the wrong direction.” Solomon added, “You put it pretty well there. This is moving in the wrong direction, so a 3.5% on an annual basis. To put that in context, that is hotter than what we were expecting and certainly hotter than we saw the month prior. If you look at CPI [Consumer Price Index] on a monthly basis, sort of a similar trend there, right? So coming in at 0.4% on a monthly basis. That is also hotter than we were expecting.”  Comments like this are unusual from CNN, which fought hard to protect Biden’s economic record last summer with overwhelmingly positive coverage, as exposed in an MRC study.  Following this morning’s devastating update from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on consumer prices, we now know that Americans endured an average of 5.5% monthly inflation since Biden’s first full month in office (February 2021) through March 2024.  This isn’t the only bad news that came to light. Average gas prices in March rose to $3.54, up over a dollar from the end of the Trump presidency (gas prices averaged $2.42 in Jan. 2021). Prices in general have risen quickly under Biden. Consumer prices have risen 18.9% from February 2021 to March 2024. CNN did throw Biden a bone during their coverage, noting that food prices had only shown a “modest uptick.” Solomon said, “I just want to point out one sort of bright spot, if you can call it. Even though food prices did increase, this is actually a slowdown from– well, that's a pickup, actually, I should say from the month prior, but in general, that's a pretty modest uptick, right? So food prices tend to be moving in the right direction, it seems.” CNN seems to be unaware that Americans can only be so grateful that their expensive food is getting pricier at a slower rate.  Conservatives are under attack! Contact ABC News at (818) 460-7477, CBS News at (212) 975-3247 and NBC News at (212) 664-6192 and demand they tell the truth about the Bidenomics disaster.

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Researcher Concludes Women Who are Married & Mothers Are Happier

The tides are freaking turning.  Our culture has exhausted itself trying to prove that women have to be single, have to have high paying jobs and can't settle down and start a family. That, however, doesn't seem to bring them happiness. Dr. Wendy Wang, Director of Research at the Institute for Family Studies, concluded that after studying relationships for 20-years, marriage and having children makes women happier, in an exclusive piece for Daily Mail. Wang noted that “around a third of all adult women suffer some sort of mental health problem, compared to a fifth of men” and that the mental health issues are “particularly apparent in the 18 to 25 age group.” Wang noted that though her take may be controversial, the explanation for the “sea of sadness” is that “too few women are getting married.” She noted that in 2022, only 47 percent of women from 18 to 55 were married in the United States. Additionally, in 2021, only 28 out of 1000 women got married. The issue with those dwindling rates of women getting married is that “women who aren’t married are worse off,” Wang noted. “Studies have shown that married women have a lower risk of developing heart disease, are less likely to die from heart disease and have longer lifespans in general than non-married women,” she wrote. Wang also found, from the results of various studies, that there are immense health benefits for having a family.  Some 40 percent of married mothers - both heterosexual and lesbian women - aged under 55 reported that they were 'very happy' with their lives, compared with 22 percent of single, childfree women and 25 percent of married childfree women, according to 2022 General Social Survey. Only 13 percent of divorced women say they've reached this level of happiness. Wang was sure to note that being in a relationship with one another is key to happiness and that “spouses provide a stronger bond than any other relationship.” She also insisted that even though raising kids is a challenge, “extensive research has shown that the rewards outweigh the negatives.” Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women conducted a survey recently and found that young women prefer femininity over feminism. These results and Wang’s findings go hand in hand. Getting married and raising a family are things that bring joy to women.  Unfortunately, however, these results are up against the rise in the “boss babe” mentality that has been popularized online.  Wang called this a “glamorization of childfree life” and the popularization of being a “DINK,” which represents a married couple without kids (dual income no kids). “These sentiments are being absorbed nationally. Only 24 percent of women under 30 believe that women who get married and have kids live fuller and happier lives than those who don’t, according to a 2023 poll,” Wang added. To conclude, Wang gave a PSA to single women: Marriage is not a cure-it-all magic wand, but the data tell us that the average American woman who is married with children is markedly less lonely and living a more meaningful and joyful life.  So, to millions of young women who are at the start of adulthood: Do not let your fears of failing in love and family, or a slavish devotion to career, hold you back.  Do not allow popular misconceptions to keep you from enjoying the benefits of marriage and motherhood.  Prioritize relationships in your twenties, cultivate friendships with other marriage-minded young adults, be open to a relationship that could lead to marriage, and embrace marriage and parenthood when the time comes. Fellas, it's time to put a ring on it and ladies, it's time to say YES!

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NPR Insider Uri Berliner: We Downplayed Global 'Explosion of Antisemitic Hate'

Joseph Wulfsohn at Foxnews.com explored what NPR senior editor Uri Berliner wrote about Israel in his bombshell expose at The Free Press, run by former New York Times editorial writer Bari Weiss. This may be the biggest insider story since Bernard Goldberg wrote about CBS News in his book Bias. But in this case, Berliner is still inside NPR….at least, for now. First, he mentioned Israel on a list: “There’s an unspoken consensus about the stories we should pursue and how they should be framed. It’s frictionless—one story after another about instances of supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad, and the dire threat of Republican policies. It’s almost like an assembly line.” Then he was more specific: We have approached the Israel-Hamas war and its spillover onto streets and campuses through the ‘intersectional’ lens that has jumped from the faculty lounge to newsrooms. Oppressor versus oppressed. That’s meant highlighting the suffering of Palestinians at almost every turn while downplaying the atrocities of October 7, overlooking how Hamas intentionally puts Palestinian civilians in peril, and giving little weight to the explosion of antisemitic hate around the world. Berliner's page at NPR.org shows he helped with a 2022 story on how Adidas cut Trump-backing rapper Kanye West loose after anti-Semitic outbursts. But since October 7, NPR's been more aggressive in promoting the Council on American-Islamic Relations (and their claims of exploding Islamophobia) than the Anti-Defamation League, and both are firmly on the Left.  Wulfsohn reported Berliner went more in-depth on the Honestly podcast.  "To me, this is probably the most troubling thing because you know, in the weeks immediately following October 7, we saw Jewish students being locked into a library where pro-Palestinian protesters were banging on the door. We saw ‘Glory be to the martyrs’ projected on a school building. We saw posters of kidnapped children and elders being ripped down, and we really didn't cover this sort of stunning outburst of antisemitism for a number of weeks," Berliner told host Bari Weiss. "And the first story of any significance that we did on antisemitism was a story about pro-ceasefire Jews getting a bunch of crap from their Zionist relatives. And that was like the first story we did about antisemitism of any significance. And to me, it was like, ‘What is going on here?’" It appears Berliner was referring to a report published Oct. 28 titled "For some Jewish peace activists, demands for a ceasefire come at a personal cost." "This is one of the things I brought up with our senior news executives. And I will say, you know, when I bring these things up, everyone is polite. They say, 'It's a good point. I understand your perspective.’ But I don't think things changed," Berliner added. Berliner also mentioned his negative reaction when NPR colleagues started advocating for the terms preferred by what he vaguely called a "Middle Eastern journalism affinity group." We could guess the terms in question included "genocide," "terrorism," and "from the river to the sea." "I do remember on October 10, this was three days after the attack when Israel has not responded, this was in our union chat group," Berliner said. "We had one journalist saying, let's use this guidance from this Middle Eastern journalism affinity group about the language we use describing this war that's about to start. And I said no. We should not get our guidance from journalism advocacy groups. I don't think we should get our guidance from the ADL, no. We need to make our own decisions about how we cover this. I got a lot of pushback, people say, 'No, this isn't political. This is just using the precise language,' but it was a very tense exchange." This is what the Left does. Using "politically correct" or "sensitive" lingo "isn't political," it's "precise." 

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WV State Treasurer Bans Environmentalist Banks, Blasts ‘Prohibitive’ ‘Discriminatory’ ESG

West Virginia State Treasurer Riley Moore, a Republican, took a victory lap on Fox Business after his state struck back at pro-ESG banks.  During the April 9 edition of Fox Business’ The Big Money Show, Moore made clear that West Virginia has a zero-tolerance policy towards radical pro-ESG firms that threaten the livelihoods of his constituents. Furthermore, Moore ripped the “prohibitive and discriminatory language” of these banks targeting “legal industries like coal, gas and oil.” When asked about his decision to boycott the banks boycotting fossil fuels, Moore explained that institutions seeking to bankrupt the fossil fuel industry shouldn’t get to profit off West Virginians.  “We found these banks to be boycotting the fossil fuel industry,” Moore said. “And really what this is a conflict of interest. Our state here in West Virginia, we love fossil fuels, that’s what we do here.” The State Treasurer went on to make clear that these banks not only threatened the livelihoods of his constituents but also the state government’s ability to serve them, saying: “We generate nearly a billion dollars in what’s called severance taxes from those fossil fuels. And we’ve got a $4.7 billion budget. That is a large chunk of that, so we're trying to alleviate ourselves of that conflict of interest where they're trying to diminish those funds through ESG and we’re trying to protect them.” On April 8, Moore announced that Citigroup, TD Bank, The Northern Trust Company and HSBC Holdings would join BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo as firms “ineligible to provide banking services to the State.”  Moore cited the Restricted Financial Institution List law, authorizing him to take this action against firms that have openly declared their intent to discriminate against fossil fuels. “We cannot allow institutions that seek to destroy our state’s critical energy industries and the economic activity they generate to also profit from handling the very taxpayer dollars they seek to diminish,” Moore said in a press statement, announcing the boycott. Later in the Fox Business interview, Moore pointed out the useless nature of the anti-coal and anti-energy policies of pro-ESG lenders, stating that the world burned more coal in 2023 than any prior year. He pointed to coal plant expansion in some of the world’s most populous countries: India, China and Indonesia.  When asked about the Biden administration’s humiliating rollout of electric vehicle chargers, Moore responded by calling it an example of “special favors” stuffed into what he called Biden’s “Inflation Production Act.”  Moore also pointed out the absurdity of simultaneously pushing for electric vehicles and demonizing coal: “By the way when they're trying to transition us away from these fossil fuel industries, what is going to charge the cars? It's coal. Coal is going to charge the cars. You know, this is why this whole thing is just nonsense. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. The United States should be an energy superpower. We should be an energy superpower and a net exporter of our fossil fuels to be able to leverage our position here in the globe, instead of this self-inflicted wound that we're doing. I mean, their policy is literally ‘Make China Great Again.” Conservatives are under attack! Contact ABC News (818) 460-7477, CBS News (212) 975-3247 and NBC News (212) 664-6192 and demand that they report truthfully on the dangers of ESG.

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MSNBC Interviews Michael Avenatti From Prison About Supposed Political Prosecution

It was only two weeks ago that MSNBC hosts were consumed with righteous outrage that a “liar” and “election denier” like Ronna McDaniel would be permitted to sully their “sacred airwaves.” This was not, they assured us, because of her politics, but rather an issue of propriety. If that’s true though, then it’s odd that these paragons of journalistic integrity had no such reservations about last night’s The Beat with Ari Melber, which featured an interview with disgraced attorney (and convicted felon) Michael Avenatti — who joined the show from prison.     Back in 2018, Avenatti became a media darling of unprecedented proportions for his role in the Stormy Daniels case against then-President Trump. In the course of a single year, he enjoyed an absurd 254 on-air interviews across six cable (CNN, Fox, and MSNBC) and broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC). He was the media’s greatest hope in their war against Trump, and many journalists at the time speculated that he might be the one to finally bring down the mean orange man. Look at how much they adored this guy:     Instead though, the attention-loving porn lawyer’s meteoric rise was punctuated with a rather messy fall from grace. In 2019 he was was indicted on a plethora of criminal charges, including one instance in which he apparently concealed of a $4 million settlement from a paraplegic client for personal gain. When all was said and done, Avenatti was staring down the barrel of 10 million-dollar fine and a 14-year prison sentence That brings us to Tuesday night, when MSNBC host Ari Melber inexplicably decided that an unserious grifter in an orange jump suit would be the perfect guest to analyze NYC District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against Donald Trump. After a bit of fairly unremarkable legal analysis of Bragg’s case (spoilers: Avenatti, along with everyone else with a law degree in the country, thinks Bragg’s case has got a lot of holes) Melber donned his dramatic irony hat for this whopper of a question: You have implied that your treatment by the then-Barr and Trump Justice Department was harsher than other people may have been dealt with, if they weren’t in your position. You had become, for a time, a very prominent foe of then-President Donald Trump. Do you say tonight that there is evidence that you were treated differently, and if so, does that mean anything for what a second Trump DOJ might look like? Politically-motivated prosecutions? In 2024? Imagine! Never mind the Biden DOJ’s revenge tour against former Trump White House officials that commenced the day Merrick Garland took office.  Never mind that case which Melber and Avenatti were discussing was itself one of numerous politically-motivated attempts to hamper Trump in an election year. Never mind that Avenatti’s own case against Trump, not to mention the media’s adoration of him for it, was transparently politically motivated. It turns out the real victim of political persecution was Michael Avenatti all along. Who knew? Thanks to Ari Melber for highlighting this gross injustice. We hope that he will continue to speak out bravely about Avenatti’s plight.

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Editor’s Pick: NY Post Explains Why It’s So Hard for ICE to Deport NYC Criminals

In a front-page story for Wednesday’s print edition, New York Post reporters Steve Janoski, Craig McCarthy, and our friend Jennie Taer detailed why, amid a long and steady stream of high-profile crimes allegedly committed by illegal immigrants, “federal immigration authorities aren’t deporting suspected criminals at a more rapid rate” in New York City. The trio explained that, as per “immigration experts...it can be hard — both legally and logistically — for the feds to remove migrants before they’re convicted of a crime.” And, thanks to soft-on-crime policies such as barring law enforcement from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) (and, of course, things not mentioned like bail reform), alleged criminals can skate by. Janoski, McCarthy, and Taer pointed to two laws in the Big Apple that have hamstrung ICE and thus left New Yorkers susceptible to illegal immigrant crimes with one barring “the city from honoring ICE’s requests to hold someone for possible deportation — unless they’ve been convicted of specific violent offenses” and approved by a judge. “The other,” they said, is a ban on “the use of city resources to help immigration enforcement.” They highlighted one recent example of illegal immigrant crimes: A current ICE official told The Post that the sanctuary city laws are helping propel the recent crime wave — which includes the April 2 incident in which two Venezuelan migrants accused of shoplifting in Manhattan fought back during arrest. The NYPD, the official said, “will not contact immigration at all.” “ICE has no idea,” the official said, adding that the city also bars the agency’s officers from entering its shelters to make arrests. While ICE can deport someone “fairly quickly” if they are able to detain someone and/or they’re convicted of their alleged crimes, the Post reporters said the sheer number of illegal immigrants in the criminal justice system is a “logistical headache”. In turn, they noted, “if a migrant is arrested for a more substantive crime, the agency will typically wait for the legal system to do its job, according to Robert Osuna, a criminal defense attorney in Manhattan who often works immigration cases.” Osuna then added that, according to the Post’s summation, ICE “isn’t really targeting low-level criminals who commit relatively minor crimes like shoplifting”, Check out their full reporting here.

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Network Newscasts POUNCE on AZ Abortion Ruling, Hopeful It Helps Biden

For lack of a better term, the evening network newscasts pounced- or seized, if you will, upon the Arizona Supreme Court ruling tossing out the state’s 15-week limit on abortion and putting in place the 1864 territorial statute which bans abortion in all instances except to protect the life of the mother. As you can imagine, the focus of all this collective seizing and pouncing was on the potential electoral effects of this ruling. Most exemplary and most over-the-top, as is usually the case, was ABC’s coverage. After a lengthy lead-in politically framing the story, anchor David Muir jumps back on in order to make sure that correspondent Rachel Scott lets viewers know “what’s at stake”: DAVID MUIR: So, this is really shaping up to be an issue that could affect the presidential race in November. Rachel Scott back with us tonight covering the race for president. And, of course, not just in Arizona, but how many presidential battlegrounds, these are the key states in the Electoral College, that help decide the presidential race, will have voters not only deciding in the race for president, but weighing in on the issue of abortion rights? RACHEL SCOTT: David, we could see this issue on the ballot in several battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada. We know that voters in Florida will have the final say on this issue, and that does raise real questions about whether it puts a state like Florida in play for Democrats. We know President Biden's campaign is counting on this issue to drive voters to the polls this November. As for Arizona, the justices putting that ruling on hold for 14 days, as a lower court reviews it. David?  MUIR: Rachel Scott, leading us off from Washington. Rachel, thank you. It is worth noting that ABC was the sole network Not to feature a pro-life voice. CBS and NBC featured minuscule soundbites from Alliance Defending Freedom, who won their appeal before the state Supreme Court. Perhaps that would’ve cut into the extraneous political analysis but, really, Muir could’ve cut a second and a half worth of “tonights” to make room for a single pro-life sentence. The coverage echoed common themes across the board: the law dates back to the Civil War, the law was passed before women had the right to vote and, of course, the law will factor into the 2024 election with Arizona being a key battleground state. CBS’s signoff was emphatic about the politics, with Norah O’Donnell expressing shock that some Republicans might be against the 1864 law coming into effect. Did she never cover a pro-abortion Republican while in D.C.? NANCY CORDES: The Biden campaign is counting on that ballot measure, and others like it, to help drive Democrats to the polls in November. The issue is a proven motivator, which could help explain why several top Republicans in Arizona came out against the Supreme Court ruling today, saying, Norah, that it goes too far and is out of step with the state.  NORAH O’DONNELL: Republicans were denouncing it. Nancy Cordes, thank you. NBC also emphasized the politics, but had multiple Republicans echoing the “leave it to the states” argument as opposed to just former President Trump. LAURA JARRETT: This latest court fight over abortion only raising the political stakes in an election year. Arizona, long a Republican stronghold, now the latest state on track to get a constitutional amendment on the November ballot, creating a fundamental right to abortion, if it passes. The vice president also planning to travel to the state for events Friday. KAMALA HARRIS: You look at state after state where they're passing these abortion bans and the majority of the legislators doing it are men, telling women what to do with their body. And I've kind of- I’ve kind of had it with that. JARRETT: While the former president and many GOP lawmakers continue to avoid talk of a national abortion ban. Instead, backing state-level restrictions. DONALD TRUMP: Some states are taking conservative views, and some are less than conservative, but it's back with the states. It's back with the people. JOSH HAWLEY: The Supreme Court has turned it back over to voters. We've got to let voters sort through this. In the end, the media went yet again into “Protect the Precious” mode. Expect much more of this as abortion continues to hit state ballots. Click “expand” to view full transcripts of the aforementioned evening network newscasts as aired on Tuesday, April 9th, 2024: ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT: DAVID MUIR: But we do begin tonight with the shockwaves in Arizona, after that state's Supreme Court has now upheld an abortion law dating back to 1864, criminalizing all abortions, except those to save the mother's life. In their decision, the Arizona justices referred repeatedly to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe versus Wade. Their decision on hold for 14 days, pending a lower court review. Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, saying the ruling creates more chaos for women and doctors in her state. A doctor who performs an abortion could get up to five years in prison. She says voters will have their say in November. Arizona, of course, is a key battleground in the race for president this November, and the question already, how could this decision now affect the presidential race? ABC's Rachel Scott leading us off tonight. RACHEL SCOTT: Tonight, Arizona's highest court upholding a 160-year-old abortion ban. One of the strictest in the country. A law written in 1864, before Arizona was even a state, and before women had the right to vote. It outlaws nearly all abortions. The only exception, to protect the life of the mother. Tonight, outrage from Arizona's Democratic Governor, Katie Hobbs. KATIE HOBBS: And the near total Civil War-era ban that continues to hang over our heads only serves to create more chaos for women and doctors in our state. SCOTT: Under the law, doctors who perform abortions could face up to five years in prison. Frustration from Arizona lawmaker Eva Birch, who recently had an abortion after her pregnancy failed.  EVA BIRCH: A couple weeks ago, I had an abortion. A safe, legal abortion here in Arizona for a pregnancy that I very much wanted. Somebody took care of me. Somebody gave me a procedure so I wouldn't have to experience another miscarriage. The pain, the mess, the discomfort. And now we're talking about whether or not we should put that doctor in jail. SCOTT: In today's ruling, the Arizona court referring 22 times to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe versus Wade. Donald Trump has boasted of appointing three of the six justices who overturned Roe. Yesterday, he said states should make their own laws when it comes to abortion. DONALD TRUMP: The states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state.  SCOTT: President Biden says that means that Trump supports state bans like the one in Arizona, which Biden today called "extreme," "dangerous," and “cruel." Biden and Trump both know that abortion rights has won in all six states where it has been on the ballot, including in conservative states like Kansas, Kentucky, and Ohio. This November, voters could decide in 14 states, and one of them is Arizona, a key presidential battleground. Tonight, the governor with this message: HOBBS: To the people across Arizona who are concerned about the future of abortion rights in our state, you can make your concerns known at the ballot box, and I encourage you to do so. MUIR: So, this is really shaping up to be an issue that could affect the presidential race in November. Rachel Scott back with us tonight covering the race for president. And, of course, not just in Arizona, but how many presidential battlegrounds, these are the key states in the Electoral College, that help decide the presidential race, will have voters not only deciding in the race for president, but weighing in on the issue of abortion rights? SCOTT: David, we could see this issue on the ballot in several battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada. We know that voters in Florida will have the final say on this issue, and that does raise real questions about whether it puts a state like Florida in play for Democrats. We know President Biden's campaign is counting on this issue to drive voters to the polls this November. As for Arizona, the justices putting that ruling on hold for 14 days, as a lower court reviews it. David?  MUIR: Rachel Scott, leading us off from Washington. Rachel, thank you. CBS EVENING NEWS: NORAH O’DONNELL: But we do want to begin tonight with a major abortion ruling that once again is putting the issue at the forefront of the 2024 presidential campaign. Arizona's Supreme Sourt today ruled that a 160 year old near total abortion ban is still enforceable. The law dates back to 1864, on the books since before Arizona was a state and before women had the right to vote. Arizona will be the 18th state to severely restrict or outright ban the procedure since Roe vs. Wade was overturned in 2022. The decision comes the day after former President Donald Trump claimed he doesn't support a federal ban. But today, President Biden said Trump is directly to blame for the ruling, calling the decision extreme and dangerous. CBS's Nancy Cordes reports now on the fallout.  KATIE HOBBS: It is a dark day in Arizona.  NANCY CORDES: Arizona's Democratic governor begged the Legislature to step in today after the state's conservative Supreme Court reinstated a Civil War-era abortion ban, with no exceptions for rape or incest. The author of the 4-2 decision wrote, “physicians are now on notice that all abortions, except those necessary to save a woman's life, are illegal.”, with doctors facing a 2-5 year mandatory prison sentence.  HOBBS: We are 14 days away from this extreme ban coming back to life. It must be repealed. Immediately. CORDES: The decision does away with the state's current 15-week ban, which anti abortion rights activists had challenged in court. JAKE WARNER: It's always the best decision to protect life as much as possible.  CORDES: Arizona is now poised to join 17 other states that have imposed near-total abortion bans since Roe v. Wade was struck down. But unlike many of those states, Arizona is a pivotal swing state that went for President Biden in 2020. The state's Democratic AG announced today, “as long as I am Attorney General, no woman or doctor will be prosecuted under this draconian law.”  Does that give doctors the certainty they need to keep performing abortions if they feel they need to? CHRIS LOVE: Well, I think that medical providers are going to have to weigh their options and their risks with their own legal counsel, quite frankly.  CORDES: Chris Love helps lead Arizona For Abortion Access, a group that has already gathered half a million signatures for a November state ballot measure that would establish a constitutional right to an abortion. LOVE: We have told Arizona voters what's at stake. I think today is a clear example that we were being serious about that, right? CORDES: The Biden campaign is counting on that ballot measure, and others like it, to help drive Democrats to the polls in November. The issue is a proven motivator, which could help explain why several top Republicans in Arizona came out against the Supreme Court ruling today, saying, Norah, that it goes too far and is out of step with the state.  O’DONNELL: Republicans were denouncing it. Nancy Cordes, thank you. NBC NIGHTLY NEWS: LESTER HOLT: Good evening. A new aftershock from the repeal of Roe v. Wade is rocking the abortion landscape in this country tonight. The Arizona Supreme Court ruled today that a near total abortion ban on the books in Arizona since the Civil War is enforceable under the long-dormant 1864 law, abortion is a felony. Performing or assisting a woman with having one is punishable by imprisonment. An exception is carved out to save a mother's life. Tonight the Arizona court is putting its ruling on hold for 14 days, but already Arizona's Democratic attorney general is vowing to not enforce the law. Tonight, anti-abortion activists are gearing for a long fight as pro-abortion rights groups look toward taking the matter to the voters in the form of a constitutional amendment. Laura Jarrett has late details.  LAURA JARRETT: Tonight, a legal fight over abortion in a critical battleground state fanning the flames of a political fire gaining ground towards November. Arizona's highest court today backing a law that bans nearly all abortions and carries up to five years in prison for doctors who perform one. The conservative majority on the Court reviving an 1864 law that lay dormant for decades under Roe v. Wade.  BETH BAUMAN: Are you kidding me? 1864 was before women even had the right to vote. We are totally going backwards. It's unbelievable.  JARRETT: 66-year-old Arizona resident Beth Bauman fighting back tears.  BAUMAN: I'm devastated. I just- Ididn't think that they would do this. I really didn't.  JARRETT: Yet the state's Democratic attorney general says she won't enforce the law. KRIS MAYES: It is one of the worst decisions in the history of the Arizona Supreme Court. No woman or doctor will be prosecuted under this draconian law. I will fight like hell.  GABRIELLE GOODRICK: It does give me comfort… JARRETT: Some reassurance in a time of uncertainty, says Dr. Gabrielle Goodrick, who has practiced in the state for over two decades. GOODRICK: I don't know what the law will be. It is so early to know how that's going to play out. JARRETT: Is today's decision a win for your side?  JIM CAMPBELL: It is….  JARRETT: The advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom says the existing 15-week law doesn't go far enough. And even if the state AG won't enforce a stricter ban, other prosecutors still can. CAMPBELL: It's our position that county attorneys have the authority to enforce this law.  JARRETT: This latest court fight over abortion only raising the political stakes in an election year. Arizona, long a Republican stronghold, now the latest state on track to get a constitutional amendment on the November ballot, creating a fundamental right to abortion, if it passes. The vice president also planning to travel to the state for events Friday. KAMALA HARRIS: You look at state after state where they're passing these abortion bans and the majority of the legislators doing it are men, telling women what to do with their body. And I've kind of- I’ve kind of had it with that. JARRETT: While the former president and many GOP lawmakers continue to avoid talk of a national abortion ban. Instead, backing state-level restrictions. DONALD TRUMP: Some states are taking conservative views, and some are less than conservative, but it's back with the states. It's back with the people. JOSH HAWLEY: The Supreme Court has turned it back over to voters. We've got to let voters sort through this. HOLT: So Laura, as this stands, this could go into effect in 14 days? JARRETT: Well, the court allowed additional challenges to go forward, Lester, but if those fail, the law still allows some additional time baked into that. So at the earliest, this law will go into effect in roughly two months, Lester. HOLT: All right, Laura. Thanks very much.    

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ABC Disinformers: Alito Appointed By Trump, GOP Wants ‘Slavery Back’

Disturbingly, The View was under the ABC News umbrella and was not classified as an entertainment show. They’ve also bragged about being held to the same standards as every other ABC journalist. They flouted this on Wednesday’s episode when moderator Whoopi Goldberg falsely asserted that Republicans were clamoring to bring back slavery, and co-host Joy Behar falsely claimed Justice Samuel Alito was appointed by former President Trump. In the wake of the Arizona Supreme Court upholding an abortion ban from the 1860s, staunchly racist and anti-Semitic co-host, Sunny Hostin (the descendant of slave owners) suggested that Alito had hidden secret language in his majority opinion that gave the power to the states to regulate abortions how they sought fit: Justice Samuel Alito is the person who wrote for the majority, and he said, “Roe's failure even to note the overwhelming consensus of state laws in effect in 1868 is striking.” So, to be very clear, he wrote a road map for the states so that they could look in their books and go back to the 1860s, even before Arizona was founded, which was in 1912, and gave them the game book.     In reality, returning abortion law decisions to the states was the entire point of Dobbs V. Jackson. Hostin being a former federal prosecutor made that analysis and what followed even more disheartening. When Behar falsely claimed that Trump was the president who appointed Alito (when it was President George W. Bush), Hostin backed her up: BEHAR: And he was appointed by Donald Trump. HOSTIN: Yes, he was. The next bit of disinformation that was spewed came from Goldberg building off the abortion discussion. According to her twisted brain, not only were Republicans interested in “rolling back” so-called “abortion rights,” “in their minds they want to bring slavery back. They're okay with it.” She proclaimed all that without any evidence whatsoever. Goldberg followed up by praising progressive activist justices on the bench. “One of the good things about the Supreme Court is you can fight to make sure you make stuff better. You don't generally fight to make stuff worse,” she said. “So, how is that going to roll? How is that going to roll? What's the next thing? Because, you know on this -- with all of this comes birth control. With all of this comes everything that you need as a woman to have had put in place to make sure that we were doing better than we were before,” she added. It was only then did Behar issued a correction for her misinformation about Alito. “Just let me make a correction. It was George W. Bush who appointed Alito, not Trump,” she said. Hostin also backed her up on that as well, agreeing, “It wasn’t Trump.” At least Hostin was a ride-or-die no matter what comes out of their mouths? The View’s executive producer, Brian Teta recently did an interview with Deadline where he made a big deal out of how they don’t want to give people like Trump a platform to spread disinformation and misinformation. Apparently, that right was exclusive to the co-hosts. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View April 10, 2024 11:06:27 a.m. Eastern (…) SUNNY HOSTIN: Justice Samuel Alito is the person who wrote for the majority, and he said, “Roe's failure even to note the overwhelming consensus of state laws in effect in 1868 is striking.” So be very clear, he wrote a road map for the states so that they could look in their books and go back to the 1860s, even before Arizona was founded, which was in 1912, and gave them the game book. JOY BEHAR: And he was appointed by Donald Trump. HOSTIN: Yes, he was. BEHAR: Who took the credit for overthrowing Roe V. Wade. (…) 11:07:53 a.m. Eastern WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Take a look at -- Take a look at the things that they're rolling back. Remember I said ages ago, you know, in their minds they want to bring slavery back. They're okay with it because –You see, things change. One of the good things about the Supreme Court is you can fight to make sure you make stuff better. You don't generally fight to make stuff worse. HOSTIN: Or to roll back. GOLDBERG: Or to roll back. And to me, if you're okay rolling that back when things were not even a state, when we had no say. HOSTIN: Yeah. GOLDBERG: So, how is that going to roll? How is that going to roll? What's the next thing? Because, you know on this -- with all of this comes birth control. With all of this comes everything that you need as a woman to have had put in place to make sure that we were doing better than we were before. [Crosstalk] BEHAR: Hold on because I have to make a correction. ANA NAVARRO: Hold on. I haven't spoken on this and I’d like to. BEHAR: Just let me make a correction. NAVARRO: Go ahead. BEHAR: It was George W. Bush who appointed Alito, not Trump. HOSTIN: It wasn’t Trump. NAVARRO: Well, but – BEHAR: Trump just got the others in which helped Alito. (…)

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Reid Demands Women 'Wake Up' To Fight Back Against GOP's 'War On Women'

The calendar might say 2024, but for MSNBC’s Joy Reid, it is still 2012. On Tuesday’s installment of The ReidOut, the eponymous host declared that it was “grotesque” for pro-lifers to quote Abraham Lincoln while also demanding women “wake up” because “the Republican Party has openly declared war on women.” In recent times, the Heritage Foundation and their Project 2025 have become Reid’s boogeymen. Heritage’s vice president of domestic policy is a man named Roger Severino, and Reid warned that “this man, according to the New York Times, has been crafting a plan in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 that would circumvent and leverage the regulatory powers of federal institutions including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Justice, and the National Institutes of Health. Here's what Severino said when the Supreme Court ended abortion access.”     In Reid’s world, only lefties are allowed to claim the mantle of Lincoln and the Civil Rights Era. That Severino made Reid uncomfortable by highlighting that the logic that is used to defend abortion is strikingly similar to that of slavers says more about her than it does about him. Later, Reid was still discussing abortion when she claimed that “Two credibly accused sex pests on the Supreme Court decide that you have rights over your own body.” “Credibly” is not the correct word for that sentence, but Reid rolled right along “States are passing laws to make it harder for women to get access to things like education and grants and business grants.” Before you could ask what on Earth Reid was talking about with that one, she accused Republicans of “Trying to drive women back in the kitchen and saying also you can't control your own reproduction.” Employing some voice fluctuations and attention-grabbing clapping, Reid demanded, “Women, wake up. When a war is being waged upon you, you're at war whether you want to be or not and the Republican Party has openly declared war on women. Wake up.” Meanwhile, Joy Reid has openly declared war on truth and logic. Here is a transcript for the April 9 show: MSNBC The ReidOut 4/9/2024 7:07 PM ET JOY REID: This man, according to the New York Times, has been crafting a plan in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 that would circumvent and leverage the regulatory powers of federal institutions including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Justice, and the National Institutes of Health. Here's what Severino said when the Supreme Court ended abortion access.  ROGER SEVERINO: The federal government has an absolute role in this. There cannot be now two Americas. One America where unborn life is protected and another where unborn life is treated as the equivalent of medical waste. KEVIN ROBERTS: Yeah. SEVERINO: That is untenable. This has to be settled nationally. A house divided against itself cannot stand.  ROBERTS: Yeah. SEVERINO: We can’t have two classes of Americans. REID: Quoting Lincoln. Well, it's pretty grotesque isn’t it for this man to pimp the Civil Rights era and even the Lincoln legacy as an excuse to further restrict women's constitutional rights across the land which is exactly what he intends to do. It's all laid out in a lengthy Heritage Foundation proposal that would require renaming HHS the Department of Life, ending access to mifepristone, prohibiting stem cell research, and creating a pro-life task force in the White House among many other things. So, when Donald Trump pretends he has no negative agenda for women, know he's lying to you. It's not what he says, but what he and the people he’s going to bring with him plan to do. … Two credibly accused sex pests on the Supreme Court decide that you have rights over your own body. States are passing laws to make it harder for women to get access to things like education and grants and business grants. Trying to drive women back in the kitchen and saying also you can't control your own reproduction. Women, wake up. When a war is being waged upon you, you're at war whether you want to be or not and the Republican Party has openly declared war on women. Wake up.   

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Jennifer Garner & Ben Affleck’s Teenager Announces Trans Name at Grandfather’s Funeral

I’m unsure if there really is a good time to announce your transgender name, but I know that there are certainly bad times - and your grandfather’s funeral is one of those times. Actors Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck share a daughter, Seraphina Rose, who recently came out as transgender and changed her name to Fin. The 15-year-old made her, or “his,” first official appearance with the new name at her grandfather's memorial service. Unironically, the teen introduced her/himself as Fin before reading a Bible verse.  “Hello, my name is Fin Affleck,” Serephina Rose said and then began reading Proverbs 16:8. “Better is a little with righteousness, than a large income with injustice,” the confused child said before funeral attendees. She wore a black suit and tie for the occasion and had her hair trimmed down to a buzz cut. Ben Affleck’s daughter announces they are TRANS and have Transitioned to a boy whilst speaking at her grandfathers funeral. 15 year old Seraphina Rose announced her new boy name for the first time, referring to herself as Fin: “Hello my name is Fin Affleck.” pic.twitter.com/GdmpXDxcoF — Oli London (@OliLondonTV) April 9, 2024 Unfortunately, Fin is a victim of divorced parents which has a tendency to cause mental health struggles in children. I mean think about it: they see their parents loving each other and choosing each other for years and then all of a sudden, that “forever love" vanishes with some paperwork. Though I personally will never know for sure, this may have led to Fin’s struggles with truth and self.  Additionally, Fin’s step-sister Emme, who’s the 16-year-old daughter of Jennifer Lopez and step daughter of Ben Affleck, uses gender-neutral pronouns. Monkey-see, monkey-do. These aren’t the first of celebrity kids to come out as some part of the lgbtq spectrum.  Actress Jamie Lee Curtis’ son Ruby came out as transgender in 2021. Actress Angelia Jolie’s daughter Shiloh started experimenting with gender neutral clothes as a child. Later on the child went by John or Peter for a time and has been spotted in both masculine clothes and ballgowns.  The thing is, being something you’re not has become a trend. It’s become popular and been touted as something that’s not only acceptable but encouraged. It breaks my heart for these celebrity kids, and regular kids who are subjected to these influential figures, that think behaving in this way is normal.

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AZ Upholds Near Total Abortion Ban: Media Reacts

The Grand Canyon state is getting mixed reviews after the state's supreme court decided Tuesday to uphold a 1864 law banning abortion in almost all cases. The state’s highest court overturned a December 2022 injunction by an appeals court who thought that doctors shouldn’t be prosecuted after conducting abortions. With the new ruling, it will be illegal to perform abortions at any point in pregnancy except when absolutely necessary to save the life of the mother in the state of Arizona. The court voted 4-2 in favor of the law and it’s set to go into effect in 14-days. We conclude that [Arizona’s law] does not create a right to, or otherwise provide independent statutory authority for, an abortion that repeals or restricts [the law], but rather is predicated entirely on the existence of a federal constitutional right to an abortion since disclaimed by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Absent the federal constitutional abortion right, and because [the law] does not independently authorize abortion, there is no provision in federal or state law prohibiting [the law’s] operation. Accordingly, [Arizona’s law] is now enforceable. Immediately after the ruling dropped, responses flooded in. Governor Katie Hobbs (D-AZ.) called it a “dark day for Arizona” and likened the move to a “near total Civil War-era ban that continues to hang over our heads.” She insisted that she was “devastated” by the decision.  President Joe Biden said the ruling was “cruel” and part of an “extreme agenda.” Yeah sir, the “extreme agenda” is the one that wants to save babies … sureeee. Biden also posted a graphic of former President Donald Trump pointing his finger with the headline of the news about Arizona’s ban. Biden’s caption read: “Trump did this.” “Vice President Harris and I stand with the vast majority of Americans who support a woman’s right to choose. We will continue to fight to protect reproductive rights and call on Congress to pass a law restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade for women in every state,” Biden wrote in his official White House statement. The American Civil Liberties Union claimed that the ruling “will cause devastation” and that it has no exceptions for “health.” Unsure what the pro-abort group meant by that, considering abortion is the opposite of health. Similarly, Senator and Pocahontas wannabe, Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said the law was “extremist.” Even “conservative” Kari Lake said she opposed the ruling and said she’d fight against a federal ban on abortion.  On the other hand, pro-life individuals and groups praised the move that will save countless babies from death in the womb. Life News said that the ruling was a “huge pro-life victory” and will help “protect babies from abortions.” A Policy Analyst for the Human Coalition wrote that “This is a monumental win for babies in the state.” The Liberty Counsel wrote that “The Arizona Supreme Court sided with the right to life, banning the killing of babies and deeming abortion (except to save the mother’s life) illegal. This is a WIN for LIFE and will save countless preborn lives” and Student’s For Life president Kristan Hawkins wrote that this was a “VICTORY.” While the state supreme court issued this monumental decision, there’s a chance it could be overturned by state legislators and/or the decision could be overturned depending on November election results.    

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America Is Now in the Business of Losing Wars

On Oct. 7, thousands of members of the terrorist group Hamas and its “civilian” friends broke through the barrier between the Gaza Strip and Israel and proceeded to torture, rape and slaughter at least 1,200 Israeli people. They burned their homes, killed their children in front of them and then kidnapped some 250 Israelis back to Gaza, where they planted themselves in terror tunnels built with foreign humanitarian funding over the course of two decades, just beneath civilian areas including hospitals and schools. Israel responded by utilizing every measure at its disposal to kill Hamas members while maintaining civilian life. They warned civilians to leave war zones. They put soldiers on the ground to go door -to-door despite total air superiority. They facilitated the entry of hundreds of trucks filled with humanitarian aid every single day in order to try to stave off hunger and thirst. Almost 300 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the Gaza Strip during the course of its six-month war. Over 100 hostages, including five Americans, remain in Hamas’ hold. Tens of thousands of Israelis have been removed from their homes in the south of Israel, as well as along the northern Lebanese border, where the Iranian proxy terror group Hezbollah prepares for a large-scale war involving hundreds of thousands of rockets. Terrorism in the West Bank, Judea and Samaria, has skyrocketed, with nearly daily murderous attacks by Hamas sympathizers, including members of the Palestinian Authority. Despite all of this, Israel has achieved historic military wins: killing the top Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander in Lebanon and Syria; quieting the West Bank through targeted raids; extirpating Hamas control from most of the Gaza Strip, leaving only the city of Rafah with its four divisions of Hamas. And the Biden administration has responded by calling on Israel to stop. Not only that: the Biden administration has become the propaganda arm of Hamas. They have suggested that Israel has been indiscriminate in its war aims, too willing to kill civilians, willing even to stymie humanitarian assistance without reason. This week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken made the astonishing statement that Israel was risking losing its reverence for human life -- even as Israelis sacrifice their own lives in an attempt to rescue hostages and preserve civilians who largely support genocidal Jew-hatred. Blinken stated, “If we lose that reverence for human life, we risk becoming indistinguishable from those we confront.” He then added, “Right now, there is no higher priority in Gaza than protecting civilians, surging humanitarian assistance, and ensuring the security of those who provide it.” Of course, there is a higher priority for Israel: victory. But America is no longer interested in victory. The pattern of every American war since the end of World War II has been simple: we jump to involve ourselves in military conflicts when we feel a surge of moral outrage at the evils of our enemies; we then begin to question ourselves when we see hideous pictures on our televisions; we then surrender or cut an ugly deal. That is the pattern in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq. Sometimes, we simply abandon our allies without any sort of serious opposition, as with the Kurds or the people of Hong Kong. Obviously, America ought not involve itself in foreign conflicts in which we are unwilling to stay the course. American interests dictate pragmatism. But we’ve gone far beyond that. Now we’re telling our allies that they can’t win victories in conflicts in which they are willing to stay the course and in which they can win. We will actively step in to prevent victory. And so our enemies grow stronger. They have no such Hamlet-like moral qualms. They push where there is mush. Should Israel accede to America’s request to leave Hamas in place in Rafah, Hezbollah will challenge Israel in the north; Iranian proxies will challenge Israel in the West Bank; Iran will up the ante in Yemen and the Red Sea. Israel and Saudi Arabia will be forced to search for new allies and new weapons. The world will significantly become more dangerous. It turns out that the alternative to an America confident in its own moral role -- and an America willing to stand with its allies -- is a world of chaos. We are now living in that world. And things will get much, much worse before the end of this era of moral vacillation and cowardice in the face of evil.

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Ailes-Hating Vanity Fair Scribe: EEK, Here Comes 'Terrifyingly Competent' Trump!

Remember when the media mocked Donald Trump for being incompetent? Well, that is now old news. Nowadays a new narrative is developing that Trump is actually very competent and that terrifies many journalists including Gabriel Sherman, a special correspondent at Vanity Fair. Sherman wrote a nasty book about Fox News boss Roger Ailes titled The Loudest Voice in the Room that came out ten years ago. (Trump was mentioned once, very briefly.) He described his terror on Thursday with a piece titled "Inside the Terrifyingly Competent Trump 2024 Campaign." The subtitle of his horror tale even included this terror alert for others, "How worried should you be? Very." If Trump wins back the White House, his increasingly extreme and violent rhetoric is poised to become policy. The New York Times reported Trump plans to order mass roundups of undocumented immigrants and detain them in deportation camps. Trump has promised to direct the Justice Department to prosecute Joe Biden. At a rally in February, Trump said he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO country that doesn’t increase military spending. Veterans of Trump’s first administration are sounding the alarm. “He is the domestic terrorist of the 21st century,” former communications director Anthony Scaramucci has said. Former attorney general Bill Barr testified to the January 6 Committee that Trump was “detached from reality.” GASP! You mean Trump might use lawfare to imprison his political enemies via a politically weaponized DOJ? Who ever heard of such a thing being done in America? Oh, and the sheer shame of actually enforcing immigration laws is absolutely intolerable! And now we come to the real source of poor Sherman's terror: the new Trump loyalists won't leak to the leftist press!  But here’s where a second Trump administration might really distinguish itself. While his 2016 agenda was frequently stymied by infighting and incompetence, available signs point to a second West Wing staffed by loyalists who would actually carry out his policies. The takeover of the Republican National Committee, which Trump recently completed, installing his daughter-in-law Lara as cochair, is a blueprint to keep in mind. “President Trump knows who can deliver and who can’t. The backstabbers who were around in 2016 won’t be in this next White House,” Trump’s senior campaign adviser Jason Miller told me. ...In 2024, Trump’s inner circle is made up of heads-down operatives Susie Wiles, Chris LaCivita, Miller, and James Blair, who don’t play their agendas through the media. “You have experienced people who don’t leak,” longtime Trump confidant Stone said. Trump trusts his senior team to do their jobs. In the past, Trump worked the phone constantly, soliciting advice from a wide circle of friends, family, Manhattan business associates, and media personalities. Trump’s style of pitting staffers against one another created an incentive to leak. “The side whose opinion lost would run to the media,” a 2020 campaign veteran explained. “This time, he’s not talking to randos.” Finally we get an apocalyptic warning from Sherman about competent Trump's supposed threat to democracy: So how extreme could a second Trump administration get? One thing is certain, few of the guardrails that protected American democracy during his first term are still standing. ...Whether through enhanced discipline or legal circumstance, it appears ever more likely that a second Trump administration would be better primed to achieve its goals. Beware! Beware the competent Trump unhindered by the "guardrails that protected American democracy." Maybe he will be so competent that using lawfare via a politicized DOJ won't boomerang on him as has happened to Biden.

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Kimmel, Daily Show Lament People Labeling Trump A Moderate On Abortion

As conservatives debate the merits and demerits of Donald Trump endorsing a federalist policy on abortion, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show temp host Michael Kosta lamented that such a debate exists because, for them, even a moderate position on abortion is still extremist. Trump’s abortion policy announcement coincided with news from the Arizona Supreme Court that ruled that an 1864 abortion law can be enforced. This did not sit well with Kosta. Amidst booing from the audience, Kosta agreed, “Yeah, this is crazy! Boo! Boo! This is crazy! Is Arizona really using an abortion law from the 1860s? Back then, there wasn't even a test to become a doctor. It was just a gross guy saying, "I love looking at scabs. I want to be a doctor."     The show built on irony missed the irony of Kosta’s proposal that all laws be periodically subject to review, “and it’s not just abortion. We shouldn't be using any Civil War law. At least every hundred years, we should just do a review of all the laws, you know, ‘Guys, we still against murder? All right, great, moving on. All post offices have mandatory horse ties? No? Scrap that one, okay.’"  Kosta then shifted to Trump, and after playing a series of clips of the media reporting on his stance as well as Trump supporting IVF, he attacked Trump’s federalist position, “Donald Trump now says the states should choose their own abortion laws, although, I don't know why that's considered a moderate position. ‘As a reasonable man, I think only some women should be forced to give birth against their will, depending on which state they live in. It's called common sense.’"     Over at ABC, Kimmel incorrectly believed there was a contradiction between Trump appointing three of the justices that overturned Roe v. Wade and leaving the issue to the states, “Trump appointed three of those judges to the Supreme Court, which led to overturning Roe v. Wade. But now, he's saying he's not for a federal law against abortion. He thinks the decision should be left to the states. Trump believes that every woman should have the right to drive 600 miles for health care.” Kimmel then touched on the criticism Trump has gotten from pro-lifers, including Sen. Lindsey Graham and former Vice President Mike Pence, but Kimmel didn’t think the criticism was real. He thought it was all part of some elaborate plan to make Trump more acceptable to pro-abortion Republicans “But with Lindsey Graham, this is a game they're playing because 7 out of 10 Americans believe women should have the right to choose and Republicans are losing elections on this so, Trump is gonna be the good guy or bad guy depending on which side you're on. And then Lindsay will be on the other side, fitting hissy, saying Trump is too lenient to calm the pro-choice Republicans down. It's like wrestling, but with guys who, if you saw them in their underpants, you'd throw up.” Kimmel then turned to Arizona, “Meanwhile, the Arizona Supreme Court today ruled that the state has to follow a law from 1864 that makes getting an abortion a criminal offense with a sentence of two to five years. Isn't that great? We're playing by the 1864 rules now.” No, performing an abortion could get you sent to jail, not getting one. So, much for Kimmel the Fact-Checker. Here are transcripts for the April 9 shows:  ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live! 4/9/2024 11:40 PM ET JIMMY KIMMEL: Trump appointed three of those judges to the Supreme Court, which led to overturning Roe v. Wade. But now, he's saying he's not for a federal law against abortion. He thinks the decision should be left to the states. Trump believes that every woman should have the right to drive 600 miles for health care and this is now upsetting a lot of his supporters, including Senator Lindsey Graham, who said Trump's making a mistake and that's not the kind of thing Trump likes to hear. From his pals. So, he lashed out, he wrote "I blame myself for Lindsey Graham, because the only reason he won in the great state of South Carolina is because I endorsed him!" And then he got it from his former vice poodle, too. Mike Pence wrote, "Trump's retreat on the right to life is a slap in the face to the millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him."  Trump did not respond to that. I think he's scared of Mike Pence. He never responds to-- I think Mike Pence must know too much is what’s happening there. But with Lindsey Graham, this is a game they're playing because 7 out of 10 Americans believe women should have the right to choose and Republicans are losing elections on this so, Trump is gonna be the good guy or bad guy depending on which side you're on.  And then Lindsay will be on the other side, fitting hissy, saying Trump  is too lenient to calm the pro-choice Republicans down. It's like wrestling, but with guys who, if you saw them in their underpants, you'd throw up. Meanwhile, the Arizona Supreme Court today ruled that the state has to follow a law from 1864 that makes getting an abortion a criminal offense with a sentence of two to five years. Isn't that great? We're playing by the 1864 rules now.  *** Comedy Central The Daily Show 4/9/2024 11:11 PM ET MICHAEL KOSTA: Yeah, this is crazy! Boo! Boo! This is crazy! Is Arizona really using an abortion law from the 1860s? Back then, there wasn't even a test to become a doctor. It was just a gross guy saying, "I love looking at scabs. I want to be a doctor." It's like—and it’s not just abortion. We shouldn't be using any Civil War law. At least every hundred years, we should just do a review of all the laws, you know, "Guys, we still against murder? All right, great, moving on. All post offices have mandatory horse ties? No? Scrap that one, okay." But this is the kind of thing women have been facing ever since Roe v. Wade was killed by the Supreme Court and while many Republicans would like the whole country to look like Arizona, Donald Trump, the guy who appointed those Supreme Court justices, is now trying to position himself as a moderate on abortion.  LESTER HOLT: Now to the race for the White House. After months of questions, former President Donald Trump today revealing his position on abortion, declining to call for a national ban, saying he would leave it up to the states.  DONALD TRUMP: The states will determine by vote or legislation, or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land, in this case, the law of the state. At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people.  JONATHAN LEMIRE: Elsewhere in the video, Trump expressed support for IVF and abortion exceptions for rape, incest, and when the life of the mother is at risk.  TRUMP: I strongly support the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby.  KOSTA: Did he just say "Precious baby" sarcastically? "Congrats on your bundle of joy." Also, not the main point here but that's more spray tan than usual, right? Your first thought when you see someone's face should never be "Is that cake?"  But more importantly, yes, Donald Trump now says the states should choose their own abortion laws, although, I don't know why that's considered a moderate position. "As a reasonable man, I think only some women should be forced to give birth against their will, depending on which state they live in. It's called common sense." Honestly, I'm just shocked Trump came out in support of IVF. I expected him to be like [TRUMP IMPRESSION] "If your loser husband can't get it done, give me a call. I'll be in and out, two minutes." 

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Mum! Google Fails to Respond to Bozell’s Challenge, Does Not Refute Election Interference

Does Google’s inexplicable silence speak louder than words? It seems that way. Google failed to respond to a scorching letter from MRC President Brent Bozell challenging the tech giant and its parent company, Alphabet, to officially disprove an MRC Free Speech America Special Report on its election interference activities.  Issued on March 26 and addressed to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, the letter gave the tech giant until April 9 to disprove MRC’s findings. “Americans demand answers, and either way, I will make sure they have them,” Bozell wrote at the time. “If I do not hear from you by April 9, I will have no choice but to make your recalcitrance public.” Google’s refusal to answer Bozell’s questions marks a stark departure from the tech giant’s initially defiant (and unsuccessful) attempt to berate the Special Report as a “recycled list of baseless” and “inaccurate complaints." But suddenly Google has now gone mum. “Unsurprisingly @Google isn’t even trying to defend itself for interfering in our elections,” wrote Bozell in an X post, reacting to Google’s silence. Google is currently under fire following the release of an insightful report that found Google interfering in U.S. elections a staggering 41 times. Even more disturbing was the fact that in each of those examples, Google actively helped the campaigns of the most left-wing candidates. Read the Bombshell Report here! 41 Times Google Has Interfered in US Elections Since 2008 Google’s 16-year effort to help the most left-wing candidates is showing no signs of slowing down, as now Joe Biden, the scandal-ridden president facing a rocky re-election campaign, has also been assisted by the tech giant’s interference. Google’s election interference detailed in the MRC’s special report came as a shock to many, as the discoveries indicated a broader effort to tarnish non-left-wing candidates. Take the word of Jenn Gennai,  the director of Google’s Responsible Innovation Team, who was caught by Project Veritas in 2019 admitting that Google had the power to prevent “the next Trump situation” — her remarks alluding to the electoral changes of Trump. “If not us, then who,” Gennai later said. Such silence by Google is unsurprising, as the tech giant previously failed to respond to MRC’s findings in previous analyses. Most recently, Google did not disprove an MRC report that Gemini refused to say that Hamas – a foreign designated terrorist organization – was a terrorist organization. “I’m just a language model, so I can’t help you with that,” the bot told MRC in October 2023. In 2022, Google refused to disprove MRC’s first-ever study that caught the tech giant burying the campaign websites of 10 Republicans among the 12 key races in the 2022 midterm elections. "While we cannot respond to specific claims without seeing the research, there is no validity whatsoever to allegations of political bias on Google Search,” a Google spokesperson told Fox News at the time, citing no evidence to back its response. Fast forward to 2024 and Google is still interfering in U.S. elections, as evidenced by the MRC’s special report published on March 18.  In the special report, the MRC called on House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to direct relevant congressional investigations to prove Google for violating Americans’ constitutional rights, coordinating with government to violate the First Amendment and for interfering in U.S. elections by making unreported in-kind contributions. The report also called on state legislatures to enact laws that amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which judges have determined protects Google from civil lawsuits and other liability issues. “Americans should stop using Google products, particularly Google Search and instead opt for one of the many alternatives. From our research, alternatives appear to produce better, less biased results,” the MRC wrote.   Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

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When Will the Cop Killings End?

Another day, another dead New York City police officer, another grieving widow. The familiarity of these incidents should breed more than contempt. Instead, we get meaningless condemnations from politicians who are responsible for putting district attorneys in office that do not protect the public. Too many of them release career criminals, some of whom commit new crimes, including the murder of cops. The latest, but likely not the last if things don’t change, is the widow of slain New York City cop Jonathan Diller. Officer Diller was gunned down by a criminal with a lengthy rap sheet. Diller’s widow, Stephanie Diller, 28, asked a question that has been asked by other widows of murdered officers: “How many more police officers and how many more families (she and her husband have a one-year-old son) have to make the ultimate sacrifice before we start protecting them”? Good question. And the answer is? (see below). In 2022, the widow of another slain NYPD officer, Dominique Luzuriaga (her husband was Jason Rivera) spoke during his memorial service: “The system continues to fail us. We are not safe anymore. Not even the members of the service.” Who is responsible for “the system”? It’s not only the people mishandling it, though they deserve plenty of blame. System members include New York Governor Kathy Hochul and New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Bragg seems more concerned with “getting” Donald Trump rather than keeping dangerous criminals off the streets so New Yorkers feel safe and protected. Other big cities with “woke” prosecutors are experiencing similar tragedies and disrespect for law enforcement in the wake of the “defund the police” movement. In Los Angeles, George Gascon is another failed DA who regularly gives get-out-of-jail-free cards to violent criminals and other dregs of society. There are others. Some of their campaigns were financed by billionaire lefty George Soros, who seems to have bought the view that criminals are unfortunates who haven’t had good breaks in life. Most people who might be said to have had bad breaks have not turned to crime, so that is a weak argument. The ultimate responsibility (and therefore they have blood on their hands), are the people who vote for governors and district attorneys who believe that criminals are victims of (name your excuse) and deserve second, third, even fourth chances. Too many use those multiple chances in ways any rational person could predict. What are voters thinking, especially when they have the power to change things by voting for law-and-order candidates? If Republican Lee Zeldin had won the last New York governor’s race it is likely he would have ousted Bragg and others who coddle criminals. Too many people vote for a party label and not the policies of the candidate best positioned to fight crime. If voters don’t like what is happening, they should try something else. Otherwise, the blame is on them. We now have what C.S. Lewis called a “humanitarian theory of punishment” in which the criminal is treated better than the victim and the victim’s widow and children. The fundraising campaigns, while helpful, can never make up for the loss of a husband and father no matter how much is raised. These women should not be widows. Their husbands should be home with them and their children. They might not be widows if the criminals were in jail and people felt the streets (and subways) were safe as they once were under previous governors, mayors, and prosecutors. Every Republican should make replacing soft-on-crime prosecutors, mayors, and governors a top issue in the November election. If not, expect more widows and fatherless children.

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Column: PBS Brings Tar and Feathers for William F. Buckley

In the earlier decades of the Public Broadcasting Service, conservatives could feel that they had some fraction of a platform on William F. Buckley’s Firing Line. That PBS presence no doubt spurred the makers of the American Masters series to offer a two-hour program titled “The Incomparable Mr. Buckley.” In the opening credits, they typed in “Insufferable” first, then crossed it out. That word reflects the view of the political and financial base of PBS. Fans of Buckley might enjoy the video clips of Buckley jousting with the elites in the 20th century, but the style of this show was annoying, in that whenever experts were speaking, they were entirely off-screen. This documentary by Barak Goodman is neither a valentine to Buckley nor a fair-and-balanced recitation of his life and times. Conservatives are interviewed, but the final product carries the distinct odor of PBS’s liberal arrogance. In the tainted timeline of this program, Buckley triumphs with the election of Ronald Reagan and then the end of the Cold War, and then it’s all downhill for the troglodytes on the Right. Historian Geoffrey Kabaservice speaks over footage of Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh about conservatism being taken to an extreme as the Republicans took Congress in 1994. This is so PBS. In the Bill Buckley special, Newt and Rush channel "dark emotions and even hatreds" as the fuel for conservatism. Earth to PBS: Do you HONESTLY think the Left and the Democrats never churn up "dark emotions and even hatreds"? Have you ever watched Joy Reid? pic.twitter.com/iASnYl5xj3 — Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) April 6, 2024 Gingrich, he claims, “teaches Republicans to talk in a new way about Democrats being a source of infection and disease and disloyalty and decay.” Then there’s footage of Limbaugh making fun of the “ugly broads” of feminism. Over ominous music implying villainy, Kabaservice argues “Buckley did endorse Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh. At some level, he understood that politics requires emotion, as well as intellect, and maybe it requires dark emotions and even hatreds.” This would match the spirit of PBS’s Firing Line with Margaret Hoover, where the liberal Republican puts on guests like journalist Tim Alberta, who recently denounced the Limbaugh show as poisoning Christians with “an unceasing stream of venom and ugliness and hostility, antagonism, hatred.” Leftists have an annoying habit of thinking fear and loathing and ugliness and venom are somehow unique to the Republican half of America. They, by contrast, are apparently all sugar and spice and everything nice. Have they watched five minutes of The Reidout or The View? Both sides (and center-huggers like Kabaservice) are capable of love and hatred, comfort and fear, civility and incivility. But on PBS, they must locate Experts to slam Buckley for “tolerating and sometimes even encouraging some of the nastier, more extreme aspects on the Right…by the end, it was clearly the nastier forces had won out.” There’s no name on screen to figure out who’s the mudslinger here. PBS can never be judged for encouraging the nastier, more extreme aspects of the Left, because in their bubble, no one is ever nasty or extreme where they reside, in a perfect Eden of politics. Geoffrey Kabaservice returns for the final pitch on that “dark side” of the conservative movement, which was “white Americans” didn’t like “change” (because they were racists, apparently): “Buckley understood that it was part of his role to keep a lid on the dark energies that fueled the conservative movement, but not to repress them entirely, because it was those kind of resentments that he was drawing on that gave conservatism its power as a movement.” PBS’s American Masters on William F. Buckley Jr, who died in 2008, 'The Incomparable Mr. Buckley,' ended by blaming him for Jan. 6. Over Jan. 6 video: “What people, particularly in the Trump years, have come to realize more clearly is that there always was a dark side to the… pic.twitter.com/FBdvia6Phg — Brent Baker 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) April 6, 2024 Once again, PBS thinks the Democrats get their power from warm wellsprings of idealism and compassion. The Republicans get theirs from nurturing racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia. Watching this program gives this conservative one overwhelming reaction: I want my involuntary contributions to PBS refunded. Insult me with someone else’s money.

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The Univision-Biden Interview: Don’t Call It a Reconquista

Heavy is the burden of being right. Univision’s interview of President Joe Biden went exactly as we foretold- the softball that the left, Acela Media and Professional Latinx still think Televisa anchor Enrique Acevedo afforded former President Donald Trump back in November. Whatever you may wish to call it: don’t call it a return to form for Univision, because the network never stopped being a reliable Democrat talking point regurgitator.  In this sense, Univision was defamed by everyone screaming about a rightward shift that only actually exists in the fevered swamps of the imaginations of the Acela Media and the Professional Latinx. The Trump interview was a one-off, not a permanent change in editorial direction. So the hype ahead of the Biden interview was just that.  For starters, the interview was starkly different from the Trump interview. As we said in the preview: ...it will be significantly different from the Trump interview, where Acevedo and crew simply set up shop at Mar-a-Lago and let it rip. Both from Carrasquillo’s reporting and from Acevedo himself, we can glean that this interview will have significant choreography (as one would expect given that Biden comms consigliere Anita Dunn set the whole thing up). Sure enough, the Biden interview was slick, beautifully produced, and heavily edited to the point of being practically one extended campaign ad. The most newsworthy item to emerge from the interview will be Biden’s call for Israel to unilaterally offer Hamas a six or eight-week ceasefire, with no mention of hostages, for “total access of all food and medicine to go into the country.”  🚨🚨🚨🚨 Biden calls on Israel to "just do a ceasefire" so aid can flow into Gaza, unilaterally and with no mention of hostages. No follow up from Acevedo, who moves on to Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/UlTM9UXwC2 — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) April 10, 2024 The White House may spin it into the wind to their heart’s content, but that sounded very unilateral-ly. Acevedo them moves on to Ukraine. More broadly, the interview touched on those things the Biden campaign may deem of interest to the Hispanic community. Prescription drug prices, Obamacare, student loans, housing assistance as promised at the State of the Union address, and gun control. With some foreign policy and Democracy mixed in.  Missing from the interview: inflation (sort of), gas prices, the cost of food, the cost of living and, interestingly enough, abortion.  Acevedo tried to throw in an inflation question without actually saying the word “inflation” and Biden totally missed it, going instead on a ramble about bounced check fees. No follow-up from Acevedo here. Acevedo sort of asks an inflation/cost of living question here and gets met with ramble about dignity and junk fees on bounced checks. Next question is on the price of insulin. pic.twitter.com/XQbtHtnfsf — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) April 10, 2024 Shortly thereafter and in a weird piece of editing, Biden accuses Trump of making fun of him over being Irish-Catholic: Biden accuses Trump of making fun of him over being Irish-Catholic. No follow-up. Weirdly edited. pic.twitter.com/WgfJ0Wi9wr — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) April 10, 2024 In the preview, we made a point about how much better Biden sounds with the Spanish dubbing. Here is the gun control question in English: An early bellwether in this Univision-Biden interview: heavily edited, cut mid-ramble and jumps to Uvalde. Biden goes to "weapons of war trope", which the Founders recognized one could ABSOLUTELY OWN. Almost violent cut to commercial. Low energy. OOF. pic.twitter.com/4Py0xpMGk0 — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) April 10, 2024 ...and now dubbed into Spanish. Biden is made to sound so good here that the dubbing is almost election interference.  Dubbed into Spanish, Biden sounds like he's 44 and lucid. And this version of Biden is all some voters will ever hear. Borderline election interference https://t.co/itmbZQ187a pic.twitter.com/uvb8ONZJ7p — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) April 10, 2024 And finally, an Oval Office reminder that Biden has little to offer in terms of Hispanic messaging beyond a noun, a verb, and Cesar Chavez: A noun, a verb, and... pic.twitter.com/pra06brITi — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) April 10, 2024 The interview is by no means a game-changer. While it was very soft and deferential, it was no softer or more deferential than what a replacement-level Democrat would garner at Univision. The left may probably feel occasion to exult about the interview and proclaim it Univision's return into the fold.  But, in fairness, Univision never left.

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FNC’s Heinrich Grills KJP Over Islamists in Dearborn, Biden Implying GOPers Are Killers

After a White House press briefing dominated Tuesday by questions about foreign policy (Israel, Japan, and even Haiti to name a few) for National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, little time was left over for Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Jacqui Heinrich was back in the Fox News Channel seat and she pressed Jean-Pierre over new anti-Israel rhetoric from the radical Islamists who populate Dearborn, Michigan and then President Biden appearing to claim Americans in the Republican Party are murderers. “A couple days ago in Deaborn, there were protesters chanting, ‘death to America’ and ‘death to Israel.’ Does the President condemn that,” Heinrich asked, cutting right to the chase.     When Jean-Pierre said “yes”, Heinrich drilled down: “Is the President at all concerned that Dearborn is becoming – is facing a risk of becoming a hotbed of any sort of homegrown threats?” Jean-Pierre somehow didn’t invoke Islamophobia and instead replied she didn’t “have any intelligence to share with you on that”, but said it’s “something that we're always very vigilant about”. Oof. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if Jean-Pierre is forced to clean this up in a few days. After some sputtering along about how the Biden regime “will condemn any – any of violent rhetoric” and they’ve been “very consistent”, Heinrich had one more missive concerning whether Biden himself would speak publicly about it: “Should we see a – should we expect a statement from the President on that? It was a pretty significant display.” Jean-Pierre shrugged it off as any Press Secretary should do (if they had any self-worth): “I mean, you're hearing from me. I think that's important.” Once she made clear Biden supports “peaceful protest”, Heinrich shrewdly pivoted to a case of what was clearly “violent rhetoric” just hours earlier by the President himself: [D]id the President mean to – essentially accuse Republicans of – of murder? I mean, the – the language that he was using to describe opposition to the Affordable Care Act – the quote was, um, “they want to terminate the Affordable Care Act. Terminate will – guess what – kill millions of Americans.” Does he think that Republicans are trying to kill Americans? Jean-Pierre insisted Biden said nothing of the sort and accused Heinrich of “taking the most extreme – extreme definition or extreme evaluation of what the President said.” Hilariously, after a few muddled pricks from Heinrich, Jean-Pierre proved the Fox correspondent’s point with increasingly heated rhetoric claiming Republicans oppose Americans receiving “access to – to health care” when battling “diabetes or cancer” (click “expand”): [L]et's be really clear. People having health care is important. It saves lives. It is important to have that. The fact that this President was able to expand that is important, right? We’re talking about people who didn’t have access to – to health care, that could – whether they’re dealing with diabetes or cancer or something that is affecting their every life, right? And I think, you know when you have a party that is trying to get rid of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and says it bluntly and wants to repeal – they tried to repeal affordable health care – or Affordable Care Act, to be more specific, more than 60 times – they literally voted on it when it is saving people’s lives. Why? Why do they do that? Why? Do they not want Americans to have health care – affordable health care, to protect themselves, to save their lives? I mean, that’s the question to be asked. The President’s trying to do the right thing. He’s trying to be where majority of Americans are and protect – protect their healthcare, protect their Medicare, protect their Medicaid. And you don’t see that from the other side. You just don’t. He literally had a back-and-forth with them during the State of the Union about that. So – [SHRUGS]. Elsewhere in the briefing, Time magazine’s Brian Bennett had the last question, which was the only one to mention impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and the (eventual) transfer of articles of impeachment to the Senate for a trial. Naturally, he asked it in a softball way to allow Jean-Pierre to offer a very lengthy rebuttal about the “blame [sic] act of unconstitutional partisanship” by Republicans: .@Time's @ByBrianBennett: "I want to ask about the Mayorkas impeachment, how Republicans are planning to send articles of impeachment to the Senate. What is the President's response to this and has the President personally reached out to members of the Senate to talk about this?"… pic.twitter.com/UaHj68QOQt — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 9, 2024 To see the relevant transcript from the April 9 briefing, click “expand.” White House press briefing [via ABC News Live subfeed] April 9, 2024 2:56 p.m. Eastern JACQUI HEINRICH: A couple days ago in Deaborn, there were protesters chanting, “death to America” and “death to Israel.” Does the President condemn that? KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Yes. HEINRICH: Is the President at all concerned that Dearborn is becoming – is facing a risk of becoming a hotbed of any sort of homegrown threats? JEAN-PIERRE: I don't have any intelligence to share with you on that. Obviously, that's something that we're always very vigilant about, but don't have any national intelligence to share with you. HEINRICH: And then – JEAN-PIERRE: But, obviously, we will condemn any – any of violent rhetoric – HEINRICH: – would we be seeing a statement? JEAN-PIERRE: – which – which we have been very, I mean, you're hearing from me, right? You're asking me a question. I'm answering it and we've been very vigilant about – or very consistent about denouncing that type of that type of rhetoric. HEINRICH: Should we see a – should we expect a statement from the President on that? It was a pretty significant display. JEAN-PIERRE: I mean, you're hearing from me. I think that's important. The other part, too, that I do want to be very clear about – you know, peaceful protest is something that the President has also been very, very clear that is important for – to give folks space to peacefully protest, but any type of violent rhetoric, we are going to denounce. HEINRICH: And then, on some of the comments he made today, did – did the President mean to – essentially accuse Republicans of – of murder? I mean, the – the language that he was using to describe opposition to the Affordable Care Act – the quote was, um, “they want to terminate the Affordable Care Act. Terminate will – guess what – kill millions of Americans.” Does he think that Republicans are trying to kill Americans? JEAN-PIERRE: I think you're – I think you're taking the most extreme – extreme definition or extreme evaluation of what the President said. Here's the reality. The Affordable Care Act, which obviously started in the Obama-Biden administration, the President expanded on that, making sure that people have affordable health care that saves lives. It does. It is important. HEINRICH: [Inaudible] use other language, though? It – it’s a stronger than usual – JEAN-PIERRE: But you're taking what he said to the most extreme part of – of your definition or your realization. HEINRICH: Well, he said it. JEAN-PIERRE: I know, but let's be – let's be really clear. HEINRICH: He – he said – JEAN-PIERRE: Let's – HEINRICH: – harm and – JEAN-PIERRE: – let's be really clear. People having health care is important. It saves lives. It is important to have that. The fact that this President was able to expand that is important, right? We’re talking about people who didn’t have access to – to health care, that could – whether they’re dealing with diabetes or cancer or something that is affecting their every life, right? And I think, you know when you have a party that is trying to get rid of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and says it bluntly and wants to repeal – they tried to repeal affordable health care – or Affordable Care Act, to be more specific, more than 60 times – they literally voted on it when it is saving people’s lives. Why? Why do they do that? Why? Do they not want Americans to have health care – affordable health care, to protect themselves, to save their lives? I mean, that’s the question to be asked. The President’s trying to do the right thing. He’s trying to be where majority of Americans are and protect – protect their healthcare, protect their Medicare, protect their Medicaid. And you don’t see that from the other side. You just don’t. He literally had a back-and-forth with them during the State of the Union about that. So – [SHRUGS]. (….) 3:01 p.m. Eastern BRIAN BENNETT: I want to ask about the, uh, Mayorkas impeachment, how Republicans are planning to send, um, uh, article of impeachment to the Senate. Uh, what is the President's response to this and has the President personally reached out to members of the Senate to talk about this? JEAN-PIERRE: So, the President spoke, I think the last time they tried to do this and were unsuccessful, the President put out a statement and he said that the history will not look kindly on House Republicans about this. Uh, it is a blame [sic] act of unconstitutional partisanship. That's what the President has said. He continues to believe that. Look, the President was in Madison, Wisconsin yesterday. He talked about student loans. He talked about ways to give Americans a little bit more of breathing room, making sure that they can go after their dreams – right – making sure that borrowers who have been really crunched by, uh, by student loans has an opportunity to get out from that. That's something that Republicans could be helpful with, but instead they get in the way and they get in the way and block what the President is doing, but he's going to continue to do that. There is a national security supplemental that could go to the floor in the House – in the House that the speaker can put to the floor. We know it passed overwhelmingly. We know that it would protect our national security. It would help Ukraine – the brave people of Ukraine who are fighting, uh, for their democracy, help them. They are getting in the way of that. So, look, there – there are ways – let's not forget the bipartisan border deal – right – that the former President said to Republicans to reject that deal because it’s going – it would help Joe Biden and hurt him. Who, who are they working for? Are they actually working for the constituents who put them into office? I mean, that's a question for them to – to – to have to answer. Majority of Americans –the things that I just listed out – the majority of Americans want to see action. They want to see us work in a bipartisan way. We saw that, coming out of the 2022 midterm election, they want to see us come together and get things done. So, House Republicans need to stop playing politics. They need to stop being part about these issues that matter to majority of Americans and get to work – and get to work. We expect them to be leaders, but so do Americans expect them to be leaders as well.

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NBC Whines About New Yorkers Feeling Unsafe Despite ‘Most Metrics’

With November fast approaching, liberal NBC News was desperate to do everything they could to stack the deck in favor of Democrats, particularly when it came to downplaying how their weak-on-crime policies were hurting average Americans. During Tuesday’s Today, senior national correspondent Tom Llamas lamented that the residents of New York City felt unsafe despite how “most metrics” claimed otherwise. He also noted that bail reform was a driving problem but didn’t mention that it was a Democratic brainchild. Llamas seemed confused why New Yorkers would feel unsafe if the reports showed that the crime rate was diminishing. “According to the NYPD, crime is actually coming down in most metrics, but when you talk to New Yorkers or read the papers it feels like a much different story,” he said. He later suggested that the crime numbers were just not going down fast enough. What he refused to mention were the crime stats that were going up. According to a NYPD report from March 2024, “Felony assault and robbery each saw increases of 3.6% and 4.8%, respectively, and the number of reported rapes increased by three incidents.”     NBC blamed the perception of rising crime on viral TikToks or Instagram reels from New Yorkers who either witnessed crime on the subways or personally were attacked in public. According to NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban, the culprit for such public attacks in the city is the increase of repeat offenders and so-called “bail reform” efforts: CABAN: We're seeing that we're locking up the same people over and over again…We lock someone up, district attorney puts a bail on them. The judges let them go walk across the streets again. It's a broken system. With an appalled tone, Llamas called Caban’s statements “forceful,” and seemed shocked that a person would consider bail reform laws to be “ineffective,” even after the NYPD commissioner explained plainly how the system was dysfunctional. One clip that NBC shared was of Stephanie Diller, the widow of Officer Diller who was recently killed in in the line of duty. After the clip of Diller speaking at her husband’s funeral begging the city’s government to protect the police department, Llamas had the gall to ask Caban if “she was right?” STEPHANIE DILLER: How many more police officers and how many more families need to make the ultimate sacrifice before we start protecting them? LLAMAS: Is she right? CABAN: Absolutely. You know that's the one thing that no police commissioner wants to do during their tenure is bury one their own, whether it's a family of blood or a family of blue. It hurts to the core. Was the widow who was begging her city to protect its police right to do so, or should she have shut up and sat down? Predictably, Llamas attempted to separate the Democratic party from this failure by pretending that it was “bail reform advocates” not the Democratic party and the Democratic governor of New York that pushed these laws through initially. Even the governor, embarrassed by the ineffectiveness of the laws, “has seen enough recently” and has proposed “reforms to hold violent criminals accountable.” Read the full transcript here: NBC’s Today 4/9/24 8:05:22-8:08:20 CRAIG MELVIN: Meanwhile, recent videos of unprovoked violence here in New York and the killing of an NYPD officer, are fueling concerns about public safety. And this morning, in an NBC News exclusive, the city’s top cop is addressing them. We sat down with our senior national correspondent, Tom Llamas. Tom, good morning to you. TOM LLAMAS: Hey, Craig, good morning to you. Good morning to you guys as well. According to the NYPD, crime is actually coming down in most metrics, but when you talk to New Yorkers or read the papers it feels like a much different story. I sat down with the commissioner of the NYPD who rose from the ranks of a beat cop in the South Bronx to now leading a police department larger than most armies. (cuts to interview) LLAMAS:  From mayhem on the subways to unprovoked attacks on women, to a young police officer shot and killed in the line of duty, these headlines and viral videos paint a picture of a big city with a big problem. New York City went from clean and safe to dirty and dangerous. What happened in New York City? EDWARD CABAN (NYPD, commissioner): January 2022. New York City was up in crime over 48 percent. Up in violence. And we looked at just making more felony arrests. And slowly by slowly, the violence began to come down. LLAMAS: Edward Caban is in charge of the NYPD, and its more than 35,000 police officers. In an exclusive interview with NBC News, he says crime is trending down in New York City, but not fast enough, because of repeat offenders. CABAN: We're seeing that we're locking up the same people over and over again. LLAMAS: In his most forceful statements yet, the NYPD commissioner calling bail reform laws ineffective. CABAN: We lock someone up, district attorney puts a bail on them. The judges let them go walk cross the streets again. It's a broken system. LLAMAS: A system that has come into sharper focus after the killing of Detective Jonathan Diller, allegedly, by two career criminals with long records. STEPAHNIE DILLER: How many more police officers and how many more families need to make the ultimate sacrifice before we start protecting them? LLAMAS: Is she right? CABAN: Absolutely. You know that's the one thing that no police commissioner wants to do during their tenure is bury one their own, whether it's a family of blood or a family of blue. It hurts to the core. NARRATOR: Part of commissioner Caban's mission now, separating perception versus reality. According to NYPD stats, overall crime is down in the city and subways, but that's not how many New Yorkers feel about their own safety. CABAN:  I want my legacy to be that New York is felt, not only that they were safe, but that they felt safe too. If they don't feel that way, then I'm not doing my job. (cuts back to Today) LLAMAS: Now, bail reform advocates argue it helps the poor who are disproportionately jailed because they don't have the means to post bail. But in New York, it seems the governor, who is a Democrat, has seen enough recently, announcing reforms to hold violent criminals accountable. Guys. MELVIN: Fascinating conversation, Tom. Thank you.

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‘Honor’ Porn, Pooping in Public & Other Leftist Activities

Welcome to Woke of the Weak where I’ll update you about the most woke, progressive, insane, and crazy clips and stories that the left thinks is tolerable and well, point out why exactly they’re nuts. Though April Fool’s was last week, it seems that the left decided to keep up with their jokes this week too … only they thought we’d take them seriously.  We started by seeing a woman squat down in a grocery store to take a crap. I am hoping and praying that for our sanity, and for our sanitation, this does NOT become a trend! This is why we have bathrooms!!! Unfortunately though, not all bathrooms are safe. One queer girl explained that if you tell a transgender woman to leave the women’s restroom, they’ll take out a knife.  The tolerant left ladies and gents. Next up we saw an individual explain which types of compliments to give and which to refrain from giving to transgender people. Hate to break it to ya but I don’t want anything to do with these delusions, I’m not going to spend hours trying to figure out best practices on compliments. That’s for sure! Next we saw a furry frolic around the sand at a beach and a teacher explain how much she supports “LGBTQ people and their rights.” A different teacher complained that someone took his classroom pride flag down. Finally, we heard from an Only Fans online porn star who talked about why she got into porn: to honor her grandfather’s legacy as a minister (seems very normal, right?).  

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Whoopi Goldberg Couldn’t Remember What Years Trump Ran for President

As moderator for ABC’s The View, Whoopi Goldberg made it a point of pride to never say former President Donald Trump’s name; preferring to call him “you know who” like he’s Voldemort from Harry Potter. She’s also been one of President Biden’s biggest defenders when it came to criticism about his age and mental acuity. But during Tuesday’s show, Goldberg apparently couldn’t remember which years Trump ran for president and had to be walked through it. Kicking off the show with Trump’s recent comments about his position on “abortion rights,” Goldberg wanted to make fun of how “it landed with a thud with a ton of conservatives.” She noted that “anti-abortion activists are slamming it as a betrayal to people who voted for him in 2016 and 2020,” before pausing and asking: “What does it--? voted for him in 2016 and 2020? How did that—?”     Co-host Joy Behar had to walk her through the fact that Trump had run and received votes in those years: BEHAR: Well, they voted for him in both – people who voted for him voted in those elections. GOLDBERG: Okay. Gotcha. SUNNY HOSTIN: Real Trumpers. GOLDBERG: But he lost, right? BEHAR: Yeah. Yeah. He lost big. Yeah. HOSTIN: Bigley. BEHAR: The second time. Bigley. “I just wanted to make sure I wasn't wrong here,” Goldberg tried to downplay her confusion and eventually put the focus back on Trump’s abortion comments. But before giving Behar kudos for helping Goldberg out, be warned that later in the segment she suggested that conservative leaders were competing to see who could cook up policies to hurt women the most: Number one, first of all, Pence, Lindsey Graham, and Trump are fighting to see who could make women's lives more miserable. That's like what they're really fighting for. How can we really destroy women in this country? That's it. “Lindsey Graham will be on his knees flying down to Mar-a-Lago -- if he had a spine he could sit upright on the plane but he doesn't have a spine, so what's he going to do? I mean, he just goes back and forth trying to get his pension,” she chided. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View April 9, 2024 11:02:14 a.m. Eastern (…) WHOOPI GOLDBERG: He's kicking abortion rights back to the states. It's not landing well -- it landed with a thud with a ton of conservatives and his former VP, his minion Lindsey Graham, and anti-abortion activists are slamming it as a betrayal to people who voted for him in 2016 and 2020. [Pauses] What does it--? voted for him in 2016 and 2020? How did that—? JOY BEHAR: Well, they voted for him in both – people who voted for him voted in those elections. GOLDBERG: Okay. Gotcha. SUNNY HOSTIN: Real Trumpers. GOLDBERG: But he lost, right? BEHAR: Yeah. Yeah. He lost big. Yeah. HOSTIN: Bigley. BEHAR: The second time. Bigley. GOLDBERG: I just wanted to make sure I wasn't wrong here. (…) 11:06:17 a.m. Eastern BEHAR: Number one, first of all, Pence, Lindsey Graham, and Trump are fighting to see who could make women's lives more miserable. That's like what they're really fighting for. How can we really destroy women in this country? That's it. Lindsey Graham will be on his knees flying down to Mar-a-Lago -- if he had a spine he could sit upright on the plane but he doesn't have a spine, so what's he going to do? I mean, he just goes back and forth trying to get his pension. (…)

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AOC Spreads Hamas Propaganda, But Colbert Claims GOP Reads In Cyrillic

CBS’s Stephen Colbert welcomed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Monday’s edition of The Late Show for a three-segment appearance where the duo would hurl outrageous accusations at Israel while accusing Republicans of being Russian propagandists. They would also do some electioneering as they urged President Biden to bring the Democratic Party together by appeasing those voting uncommitted in the primaries. Colbert began by asking about Ocasio-Cortez’s use of the word “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions, “The horrors of the attack of October 7th and the horror people see of the innocent lives lost in the military response. Tens of thousands of lives being lost there. But you took it a further step. I think you think you were the first person to do this in the Congress. You said, you called the famine in Gaza an unfolding genocide. That is an electric term to be using against the actions of a country that was formed in the wake of the greatest genocide of the 20th century. If politics is the art of the possible, you're a politician. What did you hope to make possible by going that far in your description?”     It wasn’t Colbert’s worst question, but a better one would have pointed out that misery caused by a war that you started is not genocide. As for Ocasio-Cortez, she predictably confused misery with genocide, “And to me, what I saw in that moment is that we have been in--  on the precipice of a mass famine that would indiscriminately kill nearly a million children, adults, innocent people, men, women, and children. And this is an utterly heartbreaking moment.” She also accused Israel, not Hamas, of endangering the hostages and genocide while defending her inaccurate use of the word, “As you mentioned, the attacks on October 7th or horrifying. The hostages that are being held in Gaza are also being endangered and imperiled by an indiscriminate famine and bombardment campaign as well and it's important that they be home. But I think in using this term, it is not to engage in a game of rhetoric, but it is for us to see what is happening for what it is.” Later, in the second segment, the duo was discussing those voting uncommitted in the Democratic Primary when Ocasio-Cortez declared, “And so right now, these are folks who want to be seen. I think they're using this process to be seen and it's best that we do that now then for folks to stay home in November.” Colbert then urged Biden to unite the party by listening to the protestors “So, respond to this now is what you recommend the Biden Administration to do so people can trust his judgment in the future. Before we move on to the next subject, will you be voting for Joe Biden?” Ocasio-Cortez affirmed she will be. Despite the earlier Hamas propaganda, when Colbert and Ocasio-Cortez returned for the third segment, the pair discussed the GOP’s relationship with Russia. Ocasio-Cortez brought up the case of Alexander Smirnov, “We just went through an impeachment attempt on the president of the United States that was started with a source that Republicans used that was in communication with Russian intelligence. So, you have not just the bottom bench here. You have the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Representative Comer, take quote-unquote ‘evidence,’ an account from someone who was working with the-- Russian intelligence and try to impeach and remove the president of the United States over it. This is serious.” Colbert replied, “How did they not know that -- or did they know that this was connected to the Russians? Or did they not figure out because they have been translated from the Cyrillic?” That’s not the dunk Colbert thinks it is when the person he enjoying it with previously said that Israel is the one endangering the hostages.  Here is a transcript for the April 8 show: CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert 4/8/2024 12:06 AM ET STEPHEN COLBERT: And we're coming up on, we're just past six months of the war between Israel and Gaza and the unfolding crisis over there and this—the the heartbreak and the horror of asymmetrical war. The horrors of the attack of October 7th and the horror people see of the innocent lives lost in the military response. Tens of thousands of lives being lost there. But you took it a further step. I think you think you were the first person to do this in the Congress. You said, you called the famine in Gaza an unfolding genocide. That is an electric term to be using against the actions of a country that was formed in the wake of the greatest genocide of the 20th century. If politics is the art of the possible, you're a politician. What did you hope to make possible by going that far in your description?  OCASIO-CORTEZ: I appreciate the extent of that question and while I was not the first in Congress to use that term, it certainly was a dedicated speech towards it before the beginning, rather the end of that session. And to me, what I saw in that moment is that we have been in--  on the precipice of a mass famine that would indiscriminately kill nearly a million children, adults, innocent people, men, women, and children. And this is an utterly heartbreaking moment.  As you mentioned, the attacks on October 7th or horrifying. The hostages that are being held in Gaza are also being endangered and imperiled by an indiscriminate famine and bombardment campaign as well and it's important that they be home. But I think in using this term, it is not to engage in a game of rhetoric, but it is for us to see what is happening for what it is.  … OCASIO-CORTEZ: And so right now these are folks who want to be seen. I think they're using this process to be seen and it's best that we do that now then for folks to stay home in November.  COLBERT: So, respond to this now is what you recommend the Biden Administration— OCASIO-CORTEZ: Yeah. COLBERT: -- to do so people can trust his judgment in the future. Before we move on to the next subject, will you be voting for Joe Biden?  OCASIO-CORTEZ: I will be voting for President Biden in November. … OCASIO-CORTEZ: Let's just rewind a second. We just went through an impeachment attempt on the president of the United States that was started with a source that Republicans used that was in communication with Russian intelligence. So, you have not just the bottom bench here. You have the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Representative Comer, take quote-unquote “evidence,” an account from someone who was working with the-- Russian intelligence and try to impeach and remove the president of the United States over it. This is serious.  COLBERT: How did they not know that -- or did they know that this was connected to the Russians? Or did they not figure out because they have been translated from the Cyrillic?  OCASIO-CORTEZ: That I think is a very excellent question for Chairman Comer. 

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NPR Insider BOMBSHELL: We Lost Public Trust by Lurching Leftward, Refusing to Correct

There’s a blockbuster article at Bari Weiss’s website The Free Press today, headlined “I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.” Will the writer still be at NPR after this article makes the rounds? It’s Uri Berliner, a Senior Business Editor for the “public” radio giant. He begins by establishing that he's a standard NPR-type liberal, but he's concerned about the current tilt of NPR's audience:  Back in 2011, although NPR’s audience tilted a bit to the left, it still bore a resemblance to America at large. Twenty-six percent of listeners described themselves as conservative, 23 percent as middle of the road, and 37 percent as liberal. By 2023, the picture was completely different: only 11 percent described themselves as very or somewhat conservative, 21 percent as middle of the road, and 67 percent of listeners said they were very or somewhat liberal. We weren’t just losing conservatives; we were also losing moderates and traditional liberals.  Berliner thinks NPR used to be more balanced (we'll agree to disagree), but it all went awry with Trump, and collusion:  Schiff, who was the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, became NPR’s guiding hand, its ever-present muse. By my count, NPR hosts interviewed Schiff 25 times about Trump and Russia. During many of those conversations, Schiff alluded to purported evidence of collusion. The Schiff talking points became the drumbeat of NPR news reports. But when the Mueller report found no credible evidence of collusion, NPR’s coverage was notably sparse. Russiagate quietly faded from our programming.  Berliner also found this never-admit-error tendency with the Hunter Biden laptop (a "pure distraction") and the Covid lab-leak theory, which had too much "Wuhan flu" energy. One colleague on NPR's Science Desk "compared it to the Bush administration’s unfounded argument that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, apparently meaning we won’t get fooled again." But it gets really interesting when he turns to NPR CEO John Lansing and how he reacted after George Floyd's death in police custody in 2020:  “When it comes to identifying and ending systemic racism,” Lansing wrote in a companywide article, “we can be agents of change. Listening and deep reflection are necessary but not enough. They must be followed by constructive and meaningful steps forward. I will hold myself accountable for this.” And we were told that NPR itself was part of the problem. In confessional language he said the leaders of public media, “starting with me—must be aware of how we ourselves have benefited from white privilege in our careers. We must understand the unconscious bias we bring to our work and interactions. And we must commit ourselves—body and soul—to profound changes in ourselves and our institutions.” DEI broke out at NPR, complete with "affinity groups" for employees by race and sexuality, and the DEI lingo police:  In a document called NPR Transgender Coverage Guidance—disseminated by news management—we’re asked to avoid the term biological sex. (The editorial guidance was prepared with the help of a former staffer of the National Center for Transgender Equality.) The mindset animates bizarre stories—on how The Beatles and bird names are racially problematic, and others that are alarmingly divisive; justifying looting, with claims that fears about crime are racist; and suggesting that Asian Americans who oppose affirmative action have been manipulated by white conservatives. Berliner thought NPR didn't have enough fairness and balance of viewpoints. "Concerned by the lack of viewpoint diversity, I looked at voter registration for our newsroom. In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans. None." Click on how Berliner decided to crusade a little inside NPR:   So on May 3, 2021, I presented the findings at an all-hands editorial staff meeting. When I suggested we had a diversity problem with a score of 87 Democrats and zero Republicans, the response wasn’t hostile. It was worse. It was met with profound indifference. I got a few messages from surprised, curious colleagues. But the messages were of the “oh wow, that’s weird” variety, as if the lopsided tally was a random anomaly rather than a critical failure of our diversity North Star.  In a follow-up email exchange, a top NPR news executive told me that she had been “skewered” for bringing up diversity of thought when she arrived at NPR. So, she said, “I want to be careful how we discuss this publicly.” For years, I have been persistent. When I believe our coverage has gone off the rails, I have written regular emails to top news leaders, sometimes even having one-on-one sessions with them. On March 10, 2022, I wrote to a top news executive about the numerous times we described the controversial education bill in Florida as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill when it didn’t even use the word gay. I pushed to set the record straight, and wrote another time to ask why we keep using that word that many Hispanics hate—Latinx. On March 31, 2022, I was invited to a managers’ meeting to present my observations. Throughout these exchanges, no one has ever trashed me. That’s not the NPR way. People are polite. But nothing changes. So I’ve become a visible wrong-thinker at a place I love. It’s uncomfortable, sometimes heartbreaking. Even so, out of frustration, on November 6, 2022, I wrote to the captain of ship North Star—CEO John Lansing—about the lack of viewpoint diversity and asked if we could have a conversation about it. I got no response, so I followed up four days later. He said he would appreciate hearing my perspective and copied his assistant to set up a meeting. On December 15, the morning of the meeting, Lansing’s assistant wrote back to cancel our conversation because he was under the weather. She said he was looking forward to chatting and a new meeting invitation would be sent. But it never came. I won’t speculate about why our meeting never happened. Being CEO of NPR is a demanding job with lots of constituents and headaches to deal with. But what’s indisputable is that no one in a C-suite or upper management position has chosen to deal with the lack of viewpoint diversity at NPR and how that affects our journalism.  Berliner is holding out hope now that Lansing stepped down as CEO and NPR selected Katharine Maher (not a journalist) as the new CEO. Most of us have no optimism about a Chris Licht-ian move toward fairness. 

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HA! NewsGuard FINALLY Downgrades NYT After MRC Repeatedly Called It Out

NewsGuard discovered that The New York Times was never worth its flawless 100/100 score, but apparently only after MRC Free Speech America repeatedly called it out.  NewsGuard finally downgraded The Times’ perfect score Feb.1 to a lukewarm 87.5/100. NewsGuard’s beef with the legacy leftist publication was that it “no longer meets NewsGuard standards for handling the difference between news and opinion responsibly.” Wow, what a revelation! Has the dystopian website traffic cop been living under a rock?  The head-turning move by the media ratings firm came after MRC released three studies of NewsGuard’s ridiculously skewed ratings system across three consecutive years consistently showing NewsGuard heavily favoring left-leaning publications like The Times over right-leaning media. MRC has repeatedly called NewsGuard out for attempting to legitimize The Times as an effectively flawless, balanced outlet, despite mountains of evidence showing otherwise. MRC even released a mini-documentary in February 2023 on the firm’s bias. “The New York Times has been the same left-wing rag for decades,” said MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider in a statement. But suddenly, said Schneider, after MRC research led Congress to get serious about “preventing the Department of Defense from funding the NewsGuard censorship regime, the folks at NewsGuard finally found some religion and are starting to better reflect what The Times has always been: An extreme, left-wing biased outlet.” MRC specifically called out NewsGuard on October 20, 2023 for continuing to dole out perfect 100s to The Times and other media entities for wantonly taking the word of the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry to falsely blame an Israeli airstrike for the infamous al-Ahli hospital bombing, which sparked international furor and mass protests. NewsGuard, in its update of The Times Nutrition Label under the “Credibility” section, finally mentioned the scandal. NewsGuard conceded that “American and other international officials, as well as subsequent forensic analyses by media organizations, concluded that evidence suggested the rocket came from Palestinian fighter positions.” But even NewsGuard’s critical update, published over three months after MRC’s criticism, sugarcoated the full severity of the scandal. Not only did The Times run a glaringly false headline — “Israeli Airstrike Hits Gaza Hospital, Killing 500, Palestinian Health Ministry Says” — the outlet used a photo of the wreckage of a completely different structure, not al-Ahli hospital. The Dispatch’s Jeryl Bier excoriated the leftist newspaper for the blatant deception: “[T]he accompanying photo was not even of the hospital, but rather of a building in a city some 15 miles to the south.” Bier also concluded that The Times’s framing, bolstered by its misleading imagery, would “likely” lead Times readers to believe that the depicted carnage was of the “hospital in question.” The original, false story was plastered on the front page of the newspaper’s website with the misleading photo prominently displayed. None of this context was mentioned in NewsGuard’s update. But NewsGuard, in its recent update, did manage to depart from its leftist bent enough to highlight “conservative” impressions of The Times’ inherent leftist bias, despite the publication’s downplaying to the contrary. Exhibit “A” for NewsGuard was none other than The Times magazine’s racially charged and discredited 1619 Project spearheaded by insufferable activist Nikole Hannah-Jones.  Yes, you read that right. NewsGuard actually used one of the newspaper’s most notorious, anti-American projects as an example of how the paper doesn’t properly distinguish between news and opinion:   Nonetheless, an impression of partisanship lingers, especially among conservatives. There may be no better example than when the magazine’s ‘1619 Project,’ which was not labeled as opinion, sought, as it told readers, ‘to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.’ The view was derided by prominent historians, including Gordon Wood, professor emeritus at Brown University, and James McPherson, professor emeritus at Princeton University, initially in interviews with the World Socialist Web Site and, later, in a request for corrections sent to the magazine and joined by three other academics. Talk about a cold day in hell. Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.    

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Make It Make Sense: Online Censors Demand Trust Despite Stifling Free Speech

Big Tech censors work to violate Americans’ constitutional rights and then turn around and demand implicit trust from those same Americans. This was evident from two recent events. Soon after Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi warned Americans to pay attention to the “mass censorship” occurring online thanks to public and private partners, a “disinformation” expert called on Americans to believe only “trusted” and pre-approved sources for election-related content.  Yet the very sources considered trustworthy by legacy media and social media platforms are the sources complicit in the suppression of free speech, particularly around elections. Indeed, Big Tech fact checks operate as a form of censorship, penalizing content to promote certain “trusted” viewpoints and outlets. For instance, during an April 2 panel for investigative media group Spotlight PA, Beth Schwanke, the executive director of the Pitt Disinformation Lab, recommended trusting biased, legacy media over free speech online debate.  “One thing everyone can do to make sure they are seeing accurate information is to use trusted sources,” Schwanke pontificated, according to a transcript by Reclaim the Net. “So in elections that means using the Department of State, that means using your county elections office, it means using media organizations that follow, that adhere, to professional journalism standards like … your local NPR affiliate.” She further scoffed, “And it doesn’t mean you know, ‘doing your own research’ and just asking questions and sharing, you know, posts from — I don’t know, in my case, it’s Uncle Joe, right?”  Yet, undercutting her claims, both government agencies and media outlets have supported or actively facilitated censorship, sometimes of accurate information. This is the Censorship Industrial Complex uncovered by the Twitter Files, created by government and Big Tech and defended by legacy media. Hence, Taibbi had a warning on March 25 at RealClearPolitics’ Samizdat Prize award ceremony.  Taibbi specifically cited the 2020 censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, censorship which swayed the presidential election for Democrat Joe Biden, according to a Media Research Center poll. While researching the Twitter Files, “we did find within days a whole galaxy of things that said, ‘Flagged by FBI,’ ‘Flagged by DHS,’ ‘Flagged by HHS,’ ‘Flagged By Treasury,’” Taibbi stated. The government was coordinating censorship of certain content with Twitter. “We realized there was this huge operation that spanned the entire federal government to pressure not just Twitter, but two dozen at least internet companies to suppress different kinds of information,” Taibbi added.  Certain journalists’ accounts were even flagged for censorship. “[We] were all caught up in this story of mass censorship that until very recently was hidden. This has to be out in the open more, people need to know more about it,” Taibbi insisted. Indeed, Big Tech platforms have fact-checking partners, often biased third-party censors or legacy media outlets. Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram and Google-owned YouTube all made MRC Free Speech America’s worst censorship of March list for preposterous fact checks.  The platforms impose labels that greatly reduce interaction with content based on the fact checks. X (formerly Twitter) Community Notes is somewhat different in approving users that can choose to fact check content, but the company still imposes demonetization and other penalties on posts that receive the Notes.  Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency and an equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

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Mark Levin Scorches ‘Soros’ Puppet’ Antony Blinken for Rampant Election Interference

Syndicated radio host Mark Levin demonstrated Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s multi-generational connection to leftist billionaire George Soros and how the cozy relationship shaped American policy towards Albania. On the April 4 edition of The Mark Levin Show, Levin referred to Blinken as “Soros’ puppet” and said he was “doing Soros’ bidding.” Levin detailed how the State Department has acted against an enemy of Soros in Albania to the benefit of Soros-ally Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, before noting the connection between Soros and the Blinken family. “Antony Blinken is [Soros’] pawn. Antony Blinken is his boy in the Department of State,” Levin said, before moving on to Blinken’s parents, “Donald Blinken was the former U.S. ambassador to Hungary. I guess under Obama. His wife Vera funded the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society archives at the Central European University in Budapest founded and funded by Soros.”  Levin added, “This is what’s going on behind the scenes in the shadows, ladies and gentlemen.” ‘ The radio legend cited a New York Post article by columnist Miranda Devine on the tense relationship between Soros and a friend of former president George W. Bush, Sali Berisha, who has served as both president and prime minister in Albania. Devine noted that Secretary Blinken moved quickly to put sanctions on Berisha and his family, purportedly to fight corruption and protect Albanian democracy.  Coincidentally, Blinken’s State Department and Soros’ Open Society Foundations Albania are both donors to the Center for the Study of Democracy and Governance, which seeks “radical transformation of the democratic processes in Albania.” The center also frequently hosts events discussing corruption, the fig leaf Blinken used to justify sanctioning Berisha.  Coordination between Soros and the State Department to intervene in favor of Rama’s interests dates at least as far back as the Obama administration.  During his show, Levin also mentioned that “Alex Soros, the son, of George Soros is repeatedly in the White House.” The host suggested that Alex Soros frequently visited the State Department as well. Alex Soros has visited the White House at least 22 times. During those visits -- sometimes meeting with White House officials multiple times -- the younger Soros met with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and various White House staffers a total of 27 times.  Notably, the younger Soros also frequently meets with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama—whom Alex Soros called his “brother”—posting no less than 24 pictures with Rama on Instagram from 2017 to 2024. In one of these posts, Alex Soros suggested Albania had come a long way, possibly due to Rama’s efforts, “Congrats to my brother @ediramaal on such a successful tourist season! A long time coming for what was once Europe’s North Korea.” Alex Soros also lauded Rama as a “renaissance man who has become a symbol of liberal democracy in Albania” and praised his “inspirational leadership.” Soros has also called him a “renaissance man” and a “visionary” on other occasions and congratulated Rama on transforming Albania’s capital Tirana for the better. Rama, who recently made headlines for shoving a female journalist, also takes radical positions on regional issues. When former Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi was put on trial for war crimes, Rama complained that it was not right to try a man praised by President Joe Biden. “Are those who lead their people towards freedom against brutal regimes now to be considered criminals?” Rama asked.  A prosecutor told The Associated Press that Hashim Thaçi would be exposed for presiding over “hundreds of murders and illegal detentions” and that his men slaughtered their own people under suspicion of being “collaborators and perceived traitors including political opponents.” Rama also went after a Greek-Albanian candidate for mayor, who was thrown in prison after winning his election. Rama called Himara mayoral candidate Fredi Beleri, “illiterate,” “scum,” and said that he had “an ugly face that would scare.” The Albanian prime minister claimed in an interview that he was unaware that the candidate would be arrested when he insulted him this way. While Beleri sits in prison, a member of Rama’s party who lost to Beleri had been permitted to serve as mayor until recently.

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CBS, NBC Ignore ISIS-Inspired Terror Plot Targeting Idaho Christians

One would think the liberal broadcast networks would be eager to give President Biden a counterterrorism win during an election year, or at least praise the FBI for finally stopping an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack before it happened. But during Tuesday morning’s newscasts, CBS News and NBC News ignored the story of the FBI foiling a plot to target Christian parishioners in multiple Idaho churches last weekend. Instead of talking about the Christians who were in the crosshairs of a radical Islamic terrorist, NBC’s Today freaked out about A.I.-generated images in advertisements. Meanwhile, CBS Mornings was lauding the removal of a dam to boost salmon numbers. ABC’s Good Morning America was the only broadcast network to dedicate any time to the story; not only did they cover it, but they led their newscast with it. “First the arrest of an Idaho man on charges of plotting to carry out deadly attacks on churches in support of ISIS. The FBI director calls it a truly horrific plan,” co-anchor George Stephanopoulos announced at the top of the show. While the attack wasn’t planned for the recent Easter services, chief justice correspondent Pierre Thomas noted that the plot was planned around a Muslim holiday. “The suspect was arrested on Saturday just hours before the alleged planned assault on Sunday. Authorities say he had picked a specific church where he would start his attack, set for the end of Ramadan,” he reported.     Thomas showed a picture of the alleged terrorist, Alexander Mercurio posing with an ISIS flag. He was allegedly planning to attack “multiple churches in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.” “The FBI says his plot involved a murderous rampage using knives and firearms to kill parishioners. He also planned to set their houses of worship on fire, going from church to church until he was killed by police. It's a plan eerily similar to that ISIS assault on that concert hall in Moscow,” Thomas added. In addition to the evidence of Mercurio buying the supplies to start the fires, there’s also a recording of him pledging his allegiance to ISIS. The recent ISIS attack on the Moscow concert hall was apparently an event that got law enforcement officials in the U.S. nervous about other Islamic radicals with delusions of grandeur: Mercurio's arrest comes at a state of heightened alert by U.S. law enforcement. Authorities have been concerned about rage ignited by the Israel/Hamas War, and late last week they sent out an urgent bulletin warning that ISIS was trying to use their horrific attack on that Moscow concert to inspire radicals here to conduct U.S. attacks. “In announcing this arrest last night, we received statements from both the attorney general and the FBI director, both expressing deep concern. Their statements a sign of just how serious this case is and just how dangerous the threat environment is right now,” Thomas concluded. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s Good Morning America April 9, 2024 7:03:02 a.m. Eastern GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: First the arrest of an Idaho man on charges of plotting to carry out deadly attacks on churches in support of ISIS. The FBI director calls it a truly horrific plan. Chief justice correspondent Pierre Thomas has the latest. Good morning, Pierre. PIERRE THOMAS: George, good morning. The suspect was arrested on Saturday just hours before the alleged planned assault on Sunday. Authorities say he had picked a specific church where he would start his attack, set for the end of Ramadan. [Cuts to video] This morning, the FBI claims this 18-year-old was on the verge of conducting a terror plot involving attacks on multiple churches in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Alexander Mercurio, seen here knife in hand, expressing his allegiance to ISIS. The FBI says his plot involved a murderous rampage using knives and firearms to kill parishioners. He also planned to set their houses of worship on fire, going from church to church until he was killed by police. It's a plan eerily similar to that ISIS assault on that concert hall in Moscow. BRAD GARRETT (former FBI special agent): He talked about using knives, fire, and possibly weapons. And so the combination of all three if, in fact, he did launch that, had the possibility of harming a lot of people. THOMAS: According to criminal charges unsealed last night, Mercurio had bought a number of items for his attacks including butane canisters for setting fires. And those charges say, on Saturday, Mercurio sent an audio file to an FBI confidential informant; 20-seconds long, it says in part: “I'm answering the call for the Islamic State for jihad…and to kill.” The charges against Mercurio lay out a chilling plan where he would quote, “incapacitate his father, retrain him using handcuffs and steal his firearms to use for maximum casualties in his attack.” Sources tell ABC News his father had dozens of weapons including an AR-15 style assault rifle. Mercurio's arrest comes at a state of heightened alert by U.S. law enforcement. Authorities have been concerned about rage ignited by the Israel/Hamas War, and late last week they sent out an urgent bulletin warning that ISIS was trying to use their horrific attack on that Moscow concert to inspire radicals here to conduct U.S. attacks. [Cuts back to live] In announcing this arrest last night, we received statements from both the attorney general and the FBI director, both expressing deep concern. Their statements a sign of just how serious this case is and just how dangerous the threat environment is right now. Michael. MICHAEL STRAHAN: We’re happy they were able to stop him though. Pierre, thank you very much for that.

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Stewart Compares Israel To Russia, Appears To Blame It For Iranian Revolution

On Monday’s edition of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, Jon Stewart declared that Israel is not that different from Russia, which would make its American defenders hypocrites. Later, Stewart welcomed CNN/PBS’s Christiane Amanpour, where he further accused Israel of being a bad history student, but it was clear that it was Stewart who needed to reread his history books. Stewart’s dishonest Israel-Russia comparison included a clip of White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre condemning Russia’s targeting of journalists, which led him to react by dishonestly reporting, “You hear that, Russia? We condemn, in no uncertain terms, any repression of a free press! I think you all know what's coming next. More journalists have been killed in Gaza in six months than anywhere else in the world and a new Israeli law says they can ban media outlets they consider a threat.” An onscreen graphic of a CNN headline on the news made it clear that Stewart omitted the adjective “international.”     Attacking Jean-Pierre from the left, he then played a clip of her reacting to the Israeli law “So as it relates to Al Jazeera, specifically, we've seen the reports, if it is true, if it is true, a move like this is concerning.” Al Jazeera is hostile, foreign propaganda. A more appropriate analogy for Israel would be Ukraine banning RT. Still, Stewart rolled along, “Oh, we're concerned again? How about, "If it's true, we condemn it"? And by the way, is it true? Feels like you can probably just call someone and be like, "Is this true?" And if they're like, "Yes," you can be like, "That's concerning! Not condemning, but concerning." Well, you know what, perhaps those are peripheral issues. What about the bedrock rule of international law, no taking land by force? When Russia does it, we're pretty clear!” After a clip of President Biden denouncing Russia’s war on Ukraine, Stewart again compared Israel to Russia, “Ish, See, this is where Israel's actions get interesting. Because you might say Israel's war is different than Ukraine's. Israel is responding to an attack and a hostage crisis. But in the midst of that, they pulled a little something in the West Bank on March 22 that might be notable.” Stewart then played a clip of a French reporter relaying the news that “the Israeli government announced that it was declaring state land, nearly 2,000 acres of land, in the occupied West Bank.” The United States has never recognized the West Bank as sovereign Palestinian territory, so comparing it to unquestionably Ukrainian land is simply more bad analogy formulation.     Later, Stewart told Amanpour that Israel is not learning from its own history, “You were covering these types of events from 1983, we all remember that was the occupation in Southern Lebanon…then there was a Lebanese Civil War, the rise of Hezbollah in that occupation. There was the Islamic Revolution in Iran. We’re watching these stories play out redundantly.” The Israeli invasion of Lebanon began in 1982, but that is a small error. Claiming the Iranian Revolution, which happened in 1979, was somehow tied to the war in Lebanon is a massive factual error. Amanpour agreed, “Yeah, you know, there’s two things, obviously. One is that, you know, history is not always a great teacher but the other is that, you know, leadership matters and we are in a crisis of leadership around the world.” She went on to argue that for all of its failures, at least the peace process existed in the 1990s, “there have been instances where peace can be forged, where both sides can come together and it depends on the leaders, you know.” Here is a transcript for the April 8 show: Comedy Central The Daily Show 4/9/2024 11:08 PM ET STEWART: You hear that, Russia? We condemn, in no uncertain terms, any repression of a free press! I think you all know what's coming next. More journalists have been killed in Gaza in six months than anywhere else in the world and a new Israeli law says they can ban media outlets they consider a threat.  KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: So as it relates to Al Jazeera, specifically, we've seen the reports, if it is true, if it is true, a move like this is concerning.  STEWART: Oh, we're concerned again? How about, "If it's true, we condemn it"? And by the way, is it true? Feels like you can probably just call someone and be like, "Is this true?" And if they're like, "Yes," you can be like, "That's concerning! Not condemning, but concerning." Well, you know what, perhaps those are peripheral issues. What about the bedrock rule of international law, no taking land by force? When Russia does it, we're pretty clear!  JOE BIDEN: The entire world has a stake in making sure that no nation, no aggressor, is allowed to take a neighbor's territory by force. The American people will never waver in our commitment to those values.  STEWART: Ish, See, this is where Israel's actions get interesting. Because you might say Israel's war is different than Ukraine's. Israel is responding to an attack and a hostage crisis. But in the midst of that, they pulled a little something in the West Bank on March 22 that might be notable.  FRANCE24 REPORTER: As the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made his latest visit to Israel, the Israeli government announced that it was declaring state land, nearly 2,000 acres of land, in the occupied West Bank.  This latest Israeli appropriation is the largest land transfer since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993.  STEWART: 1993 and that's not even Gaza! That's the West Bank. So you can't say it has anything to do with defending yourself against Hamas. Let's see if America upholds its rule against taking land!  … STEWART: You were covering these types of events from 1983, we all remember that was the occupation in Southern Lebanon. It was right –  CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: The Israelis invaded Beirut, they were after the PLO. They wanted to show Arafat out-- STEWART: Right, then there was a Lebanese Civil War, the rise of Hezbollah in that occupation. There was the Islamic Revolution in Iran.  AMANPOUR: Yeah. STEWART: We’re watching these stories play out redundantly.  AMANPOUR: Yeah, you know, there’s two things, obviously. One is that, you know, history is not always a great teacher but the other is that, you know, leadership matters and we are in a crisis of leadership around the world, I genuinely believe and even as bad as it was in the 1990s, 1979, and the 1980s, all that, there is a period, let's say, in this part of the world, and the Middle East, in the '90s where there was an actual peace process. Now, we can poo poo it, we can laugh at it, we can say that it failed but it failed because the people responsible for enacting it didn’t do it and actually sabotaged it. So, there have been instances where peace can be forged, where both sides can come together— STEWART: Right AMANPOUR: -- and it depends on the leaders, you know.

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PolitiFact's 'Truth-O-Meter' Has a Dramatic Democratic Party TILT

  For International Fact-Checking Day on April 2, Eric Litke, the leader of the USA Today fact-checking squad, asked who should be fact-checking the fact checkers? His answer: “Everyone.” He argued: “Proper fact-checking requires critical thinking, deep reporting, precise writing and an obsession with fairness. But most importantly, it requires transparency.” As a website, PolitiFact is fairly transparent, but studying its work does not lead everyone to find an “obsession with fairness.” Instead, we have repeatedly found in its articles the implication of the old Stephen Colbert joke that “reality has a liberal bias,” and therefore the liberals are routinely more honest and factual than the conservatives. A NewsBusters analysis of the first three months of this year's PolitiFact articles that evaluated a named politician or public official with a “Truth-O-Meter” ruling reveals that the site fact-checks Republicans more often than Democrats and is much harsher in its opinions of the GOP side. It broke down like this: REPUBLICANS (63 fact checks) True/Mostly True: 8 (12.7 percent) Half True: 8 (12.7 percent) Mostly False/False/ Pants On Fire: 47 (74.6 percent) In the month of March, it's especially emphatic: one on the True side, 15 on the False side. Now compare it to the other Party: DEMOCRATS (39 fact checks) True/Mostly True: 22 (56.4 percent) Half True: 7 (18 percent) Mostly False/False/Pants on Fire 10 (25.6 percent) Donald Trump was fact-checked 18 times (six in each month), and none were on True side, one was Half True, and the other 17 were Mostly False or worse, including four “Pants on Fire” rulings. Joe Biden was checked 12 times, and the dominant ruling was “Half True” (six of those, or 50 percent). There was a True, a Mostly True, two Mostly False, and two False. Biden drew zero “Pants on Fire” warnings, and has only seven of those in the entire history of PolitiFact going back to 2007. Trump currently has 187. These 2024 numbers do not include articles that they chose not to evaluate on their “Truth-O-Meter,” and that would include their ridiculous article on March 27 attempting to say it wasn’t “Pants on Fire” when Joe Biden referred to the collapsed bridge in Baltimore this way: “I’ve been over many, many times commuting from the state of Delaware either on a train or by car." PolitiFact helpfully relayed that the White House “clarified” it by saying that’s not what he meant. If the count was expanded to include conservative-leaning opinion leaders, there were nine blogs about them and all nine of them were ranked as False. That includes three on Elon Musk, two on Tucker Carlson, as well as one for Franklin Graham, Sean Hannity, Benny Johnson, and Jesse Watters. That would drive the conservative/Republican total to 56 of 72 fact checks being Mostly False or worse (77.7 percent). There were no named liberal opinion leaders in this first quarter. This is why we have an ongoing tag for "Fact-Checking the Fact Checkers." This doesn't mean we're hostile to Facts. It means the "fact checkers" are not "independent." They have all the same biases and messaging tendencies as liberal reporters. 

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Joe Rogan on Musk: ‘He May Have Very Well Saved Humanity in Some Way’ Buying Twitter

Podcast host Joe Rogan spoke up about the impact of X owner Elon Musk breaking the leftist censorship monopoly on major social media platforms.  During the April 6 edition of The Joe Rogan Experience, fellow podcaster Andrew Schultz expressed his hope that Musk’s purchase of X and decision to “uphold this soapbox of free speech” would lead to “a civil society where ideas can permeate freely.” Rogan went a step further, telling his guest that “[Musk] may have very well saved humanity in some way” by buying Twitter and reversing much of the insane censorship practices of the Old Regime. Rogan, who survived a campaign to drive him from Spotify for his speech on vaccines, is not the only person that feels this way.  Satire site The Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon spoke at length on April 5 about what his satire website went through on social media before Musk and the awful effects of censorship on the ability to speak freely online. Dillon recounted his company’s experience when The Bee got locked out of Twitter for making a joke about transsexual Assistant Secretary for Health "Rachel" Levine being the site’s “Man of the Year.” He mentioned that chief editor Kyle Mann anticipated that the site would be censored for this. “They count on this by the way, they know if they can make you afraid of being deplatformed, you’ll do their job for them and censor yourself,” Dillon said. He added: “For every case of hard censorship where they take down user content, there are thousand cases of soft censorship where users bite their own tongue knowing they won’t be allowed to speak freely. But we don’t do that here. We refuse to censor ourselves.”  Editor’s Note: The Babylon Bee is a member of the MRC Free Speech Alliance.  Conservatives are under attack! Contact Twitter at (415) 222-9670 and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

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On Abortion, MSNBC Star Joe Scarborough Slurs 'Old, Fat, White Men In Mississippi'

UConn has notched a notable double: back-to-back NCAA men's basketball championships. But that achievement pales in comparison to the quintuple-header that Joe Scarborough has pulled off. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough slammed, for what he called their radicalism on abortion: "old, fat, white men in Mississippi." Let's see: in one phrase, Scarborough managed to engage in ageism, fat-shaming, racism, sexism, and negative Southern stereotyping! Even for the liberal media, that could represent a landmark first! Somewhere, Joy Reid is dying of envy! Scarborough also seemed to say that back in the day, it was easy for him to call himself pro-life, since he knew Roe v. Wade was in place to prevent his views from being made into law. In other words, Scarborough was thus admitting to being a cheap, unprincipled, political opportunist. Scarborough suggested that seeing the aftermath of the overturning of Roe has in effect turned him into being pro-choice. Yet he has the chutzpah to condemn Trump for being an opportunist on the issue? Note: Mika described the taking away of abortion rights as "a matter of life and death."  The irony is lost on her that yes, it's a matter of life and death . . . for the unborn child. Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 4/9/24 6:16 am EDT MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Support for abortion was always there, and it was growing over the past decade. I think, since the overturning of Roe, it has crystallized the issue for anybody who was on the fence about it, or didn't feel they had any, any men, perhaps, who didn't feel as connected with it.  Now, we are seeing the consequences of these rights being taken away. 50 years of rights that our daughters and sons, as families, don't have. And, they're brutal; they're very specific. They're a matter of life and death. And Donald Trump is on the wrong side of every position that exists, practically, on this. In a moment, we're going to show you -- JOE SCARBOROUGH: Can I go to Charlie real quickly on this before we go, go to the Lindsey clips? MIKA: Oh, yes, okay. SCARBOROUGH: Charlie, really quickly. I'd just say, and Mika is so right. There are so many people that now are, are -- that were pro-life before Dobbs that now understand the importance of Roe because of the radicalism in the states.  I always, you know, it cost me nothing to just take the position, yeah, yeah, I'm pro-life, and da-da-da, because there was that right there [via Roe]. And when, when I formulated my thoughts over it, the governors were like George Voinovich in Ohio, Mitt Romney in Massachusetts, Jeb Bush in Florida. And the thought was, well, you know, maybe it'll be 15, 16, 17 weeks with exceptions. That's just not the world we live in anymore. And I must say, this is post Dobbs, you look and you see the radicalism of—I'll just say it— these old, white, fat men in Mississippi or somewhere else that, that are driving women out of, out of, out of medical care. Because they want to appeal to the most extreme elements of their base.  Yeah, there are a lot of people, and I would guess you're like me, there are a lot of people who, who have really been transformed by the radicalism of the last three, four years.

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Bravo Show ‘The Valley’: Being Called a Republican in LA is a ‘Death Sentence,’ ‘Social Suicide’

“You better be on the (down low) if you're a Republican (in LA) because you're not getting invited to anything.” That was the message from Bravo’s new reality show The Valley - a spinoff of Vanderpump Rules (home of the infamous “Scandoval” cheating drama that swept the nation several months ago) - just three episodes into its season premiere. Politics rarely, if ever, come up on the original, but just three episodes into The Valley things turned very political, and very ugly, with one cast member proclaiming it’s a “death sentence” and “social suicide” to be a Republican in Los Angeles, while others insinuate that being a Republican automatically makes you a racist. As with most reality shows, gossip, drama, and arguments are a main focus, so you’ll have to bear with us as we trudge through all the “likes” randomly thrown into conversations and the 'he said, she said' banter as the cast plays out a game of Telephone over a rumor. The drama started on the episode “Doubting Doute” when Vanderpump alum Kristen Doute repeated a rumor she claims was told to her by Zack in which Janet supposedly warned Jasmine, who is black, that Michelle is secretly Republican and thus, a racist. I know, I know. It’s confusing and ridiculous. But the accusations are very serious, with real life ramifications, so just try to stay focused on those. Another Vanderpump alum, Brittany, explains the situation to her husband Jax while Michelle discusses with her husband Jesse how those “two words” (“Republican” and “racist”) affected her: Brittany: Kristen starts bringing up that Janet told Jasmine Michelle was a racist and a Republican and all this crap. Kristen (Flashback): What am I stirring up? The truth that Janet told you Michelle is, like, probably a Republican, so she's probably racist. This is the (bleep) that Janet was saying. Jasmine: You know what, Kristen? I swear to God, you are not-- look at me. You are not gonna (bleep) say that Janet told me that she was a racist. Brittany: You know, she's like, no, no, no, actually… Kristen: That is what Zack told me. Zack: I never said that! Michelle: It’s not (bleep) true, Kristen. Jax: Listen. That's not gonna fly. Brittany: I can't-- I'm wondering how Michelle is feeling today, like, after she brought that up in her own home and said that about her. Michelle: I haven't slept. You have no idea what happened last night. The first time in my life I've ever heard my name associated with these words. And she said, Janet said Michelle is a racist and a Republican. Jesse: She said, a racist and a Republican? Michelle: Yes, I'm still shocked, to be honest with you, like, completely shocked. Jesse: What the (bleep) Is wrong with her? I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Michelle: Stop saying that word. Jesse: It's in my vocabulary. Michelle: We have a daughter. You can't use those anymore. Because she starts saying it. Jesse: Shh, no, no, no. We don't say that word. I'm sorry. Daughter: You say that every day. Jesse: I know. When you say it, it's funny. When I say it, it's wrong. Michelle: I'm really upset because Janet wouldn't say that or else she wouldn't be my friend. And hello, I'm the one that's first generation Mexican, first-generation Persian. I was just so shocked and confused by the whole thing. Jesse: You should call Janet and be like, did you (bleep) say this? They did redeem themselves somewhat when Jesse remarks, “What does being a Republican have to do with it?” Michelle answers, “Like, I'm not a Republican, which, by the way, even if I am, who gives a (bleep)?” But things devolved again as the show progressed. Janet explains in a confessional that the rumor apparently began over the falsely labeled “Don’t Say Gay” law in Florida, which Michelle rightly stated protects children. Janet then self-righteously explains how wrong Michelle is to believe that, and that she, “maybe got swept into an algorithm that maybe is teaching her some things that are not true.” So, Janet was hoping if it came up again, it could be a “teachable moment” for Michelle: Janet: She threw me under the bus, she threw Zack under the bus, and Jasmine under the bus all in one swoop! I said something small, and Kristen made it, like, so big. And she didn't just run with it. I mean, she ran a marathon with it. Michelle, Brittany, and I were at dinner a few months ago. And Michelle said something along the lines of, "Don't Say Gay" laws protect children. And I'm like, “No, no, no. Like, that's… you're wrong.” I know Jasmine is, like, read up on this and knows, you know, how some stuff can be baked in to be harmful to certain communities. I just said to Jasmine, who I guess said to Zack, I said, “We were talking about this bill, and I think she might support it.” But I'm like, I don't know. I was like, “But, you know, since it's related to the LGBT community, if you happen to hear her talking about it and sense the same thing I did, it might be like a teachable moment.” I've never once thought that Michelle was racist. I wouldn't be her friend if I did. I thought that she maybe got swept into an algorithm that maybe is teaching her some things that are not true. Somehow that got twisted. Well, if she believes in "Don't Say Gay" laws, then she must be a Republican and Republicans are racist, is from what I understand, how Kristen got there. How kind Michelle’s friends are to give her the benefit of the doubt and believe she’s just ignorant and that they can educate her if a “teachable moment” comes up. Such a prime example of the bubble Hollywood lives in, thinking their beliefs are the only correct ones, and if anyone thinks or votes differently, they’re a bad person. As the friend group meets for a dinner party, the topic is brought up again, and Kristen claims Zack insinuated that being a Republican equals “racism and/or…homophobia”: Michelle: Now I think everybody’s involved so, we might as well all speak publicly because I think I'm tired of she said, he said. So, if we're all in one table, then we can all be on the same page. Janet: I agree. Kristen decided at Michelle's to say that I said Michelle was racist, which I have never thought in my life, let alone said out loud. And I don't know where that came from, but I am so disgusted by it. Kristen: It came from Zack. Zack: It did not come from me. Kristen held all this information. Got all of it completely mixed up. You want to talk about a (bleep) stew, like, there was no recipe. She was just grabbing numbers out, like they were (bleep) the Powerball. Kristen: The game of telephone was, to Janet, to Jasmine, to Zack, to me and Luke, that you were telling Jasmine that she should be cautious of Michelle because she's a, quote, unquote, "Republican." And what Zack insinuated at my house to Luke and I was that that would equal racism and/or slash and/or homophobia. Jasmine: Take my name out of it because guess what, I never had a conversation with this one about anybody in this table ever. So that's what I'm upset about. I'm black. So like, I have experienced racism. So, to have, like, a friend just throw it out so lightly, like it's nothing, it's like, that's not fair, you know, and it's not fair for Michelle. It's not fair for me. It's not for the whole group, you know.   Zack: I've known Michelle for a while. She is not homophobic. And I love her to pieces. And I really hate that, unfortunately, this got said. Kristen: What I want to immediately apologize to Michelle for is that I felt cornered, and I should not have ever said those things out loud, especially at your home. Jesse: Why don't you say what you did and you lied? Call it a lie and don't call it anything else. Kristen: I did not lie. Zack ends up admitting the truth in his confessional about how Republicans are seen and treated in Los Angeles, calling it a “death sentence,” and “social suicide” if anyone is called a Republican in the extremely liberal city: Michelle: Zack has said he did not say that. Janet said she did not say that. I believe that everybody in this table would not be my friend if they thought that. Kristen: I don't think that, Michelle. Michelle: That's not what I just said. Zack: I don't know how it became like I said that Janet said that because that is completely not the truth. But I will tell you this. If you call someone a Republican in LA, that's a death sentence right there. That is a social suicide moment. You better be on the DL if you're a Republican because you're not getting invited to anything. Jesse: You disrespected my family name. We have a business that we run together. If something like that gets out, you're ruining lives. Michelle: Not only that… Jesse: Michelle, please. You were thrown off the (bleep) show for being an actual racist. Kristen: What the (bleep) did you just call me? I know that I made a mistake by roping Michelle into something that didn't have to do with her. But Jesse, he's just trying to ruin my name by bringing up the most painful thing that I've ever gone through. Jesse: Did you not? Is that not a true statement? Kristen: I understand why Michelle is upset. It is the worst thing in the world to be labeled as anything, let alone a racist. And nobody knows better than me because it happened to me, and I was canceled. It was probably the hardest time of my entire life thus far. Yeah. I'm not proud of what I did. And I'm sorry that I hurt people. But I've learned from my mistakes. These are my friends sitting here. They know my past. And all I want to do is pick up the pieces and move on with my life, be a good person. It's like people finally gave me a chance again. And now it's like brought up all over again. And I'm going to have to relive it again. Hope that my whole life doesn't fall apart again. Yes, ironically, Kristen was fired from Vanderpump Rules over accusations of racist behavior. That’s another long, dramatic story which we won’t get into, but you can read about it here. And if living in LA is anything like the ridiculous, convoluted drama displayed on both Vanderpump Rules and The Valley, Republicans aren’t missing out on much by not being welcome there.

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Vatican Blasts Gender Surgery & Theory, Surrogacy: ‘Violations of Human Dignity’

On Monday, the Vatican clarified its stance on surrogacy, gender surgery and gender theory  indicating that all three are “violations of human dignity.” The Vatican’s doctrine office released a 20-page declaration titled “Infinite Dignity” that was approved by Pope Francis on March 25 and announced Monday. The document contains the Vatican’s official stances on a number of issues and brings in biblical as well as just moral principle reasoning.  In addressing some of the many grave violations of human dignity today, we can draw upon the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, which emphasized that “all offenses against life itself, such as murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, and willful suicide” must be recognized as contrary to human dignity. Furthermore, the Council affirmed that “all violations of the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture, undue psychological pressures,” also infringe upon our dignity. Specifically, regarding surrogacy, The Church insists that it “takes a stand against the practice of surrogacy.” First and foremost, the practice of surrogacy violates the dignity of the child. Indeed, every child possesses an intangible dignity that is clearly expressed—albeit in a unique and differentiated way—at every stage of his or her life: from the moment of conception, at birth, growing up as a boy or girl, and becoming an adult. Because of this unalienable dignity, the child has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver. Moreover, acknowledging the dignity of the human person also entails recognizing every dimension of the dignity of the conjugal union and of human procreation. Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a “right to a child” that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life. The document claims that surrogacy also violates the dignity of the woman who is carrying someone else's child as she becomes “detached from the child growing inside her” and is merely the vessel to help others reach “gain or desire.” Oddly enough, the document didn’t mention the Bible, Christ or God in its reasoning against surrogacy - when surrogacy, in and of itself, is an attempt to play God and artificially create life. When it came to gender theory, the Church insisted that “biological sex and the socio-cultural role of sex (gender) can be distinguished but not separated” and therefore hedged against any attempts to be something other than what you actually are.  This principle carried into the next section regarding sex change where the document insisted that any sex change, or attempts to do so, “risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.” These positions aren’t new for the church, but the rise in the popularity of these issues is however, hence the official statement. Let’s hope this redirects and keeps people on the track of sanity!

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Networks HIDE ‘Death To Israel And America’ Chants on American Soil

“Death To Israel And America” chants broke out on Al-Quds Day, a day instituted by the Ayatollah Khomeini to protest against America and Israel. Had these protests happened throughout the Middle East, it is highly likely that they would’ve garnered significant airtime across the evening network newscasts. But the chants in question happened on American soil, and so there was no coverage whatsoever, despite White House condemnation of the chants. As the Daily Caller’s own Reagan Reese reports: The White House condemned protesters who were caught on video at an Al-Quds Day rally in Dearborn, Michigan, chanting “death to America,” in a Monday statement to the Daily Caller. The chants broke out after one activist, Tarek Bazzi, spoke at the event about past criticism the Al-Quds Day rallies have received for being “anti-America.” Bazzi then went on to add that America was one of the “rottenest countries” to ever exist in the world. The White House reacted to the anti-American language in a Monday statement to the Daily Caller. “The White House condemns these abhorrent and Antisemitic remarks in the strongest terms. As President Biden has said, America is the greatest nation on Earth and a beacon to the world,” Andrew Bates, a White House spokesperson, told the Daily Caller. Watch some of the footage that drew this rare White House condemnation, thanks to the stellar work by our friends at MEMRI: At International Al-Quds Day Rally in Dearborn, Michigan Protesters Chant “Death to America!”; Speakers at the Rally: America Is One of the “Rottenest Countries” on Earth; Israel Is ISIS, Nazis, a Cancer pic.twitter.com/B6hMlaKfi5 — MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) April 7, 2024 Really, the video had it all. It wasn’t just the casual anti-American and anti-Israel expression. There was also the reference to “Genocide Joe”, the denunciations of Israel as “ISIS”, “Nazis”, “fascists” and “racists”. And finally, the indoctrination of children into this cult of hatred. Specifically, the child aged no more than 4 leading the crowd in “From the River to the Sea” and “Free, Free Palestine” chants. And yet where were ABC, CBS, and NBC on this story? Had the protests been in London or elsewhere? All over it. But in Dearborn? Out to sleep. Not a single mention of any of this on any of their network evening newscasts. Another story suppressed so as to shield President Biden from any additional scrutiny over his Gaza policy, especially in places like Michigan, where he drew a large amount of protest votes in the state’s presidential primary. The omission is all the more glaring when you consider the amount of times that network correspondents, often White House correspondents, have flown into Dearborn to talk to the local Arab population, to see whether they can be swayed into coming “home” to Biden.  Here, again, the media show that their interest in a story (or lack therein) is directly related to its effect upon the electoral prospects of Joe Biden. And with this glaring omission, the media have intensified the Protect the Precious mode they routinely find themselves in.  

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NBC Hopes Biden Student Loan Bailout Will Attract Disaffected Youth

Under normal circumstances, a new student loan bailout program would garner significant evening newscast airtime. But with Eclipsemania ongoing, only NBC Nightly News made time to talk about Biden’s new schemes, and only then as a device with which to segue to the real story: that the youths are extremely dissatisfied with President Joe Biden. Watch the report in its entirety, as aired on NBC Nightly News on Monday, April 8th, 2024 (click “expand” to view transcript): LESTER HOLT: And for his part, President Biden was courting young voters whose support for the president is slipping, according to polls. The White House announcing a plan to wipe out student debt for millions more Americans. Gabe Gutierrez is in Wisconsin with more.  SETH MCCLURE: It felt almost impossible.  GABE GUTIERREZ: Former public school teacher Seth McCclure had been paying off his student loans for more than 20 years, until $15,000 were forgiven in November. And he's praising the president.  MCCLURE: Surprise, gratitude. I honestly didn't think it was actually going to happen, and it did.  GUTIERREZ: He's one of the now 30 million Americans the White House says will have at least some of their federal student debt eliminated.  JOE BIDEN: Today too many Americans, especially young people, are saddled with unsustainable debts in exchange for a college degree.  GUTIERREZ: Today's announcement in battleground Wisconsin the largest one yet since the Supreme Court struck down the president's earlier attempt to forgive student loans. The White House is now using a different legal justification. But Republicans say taxpayers who did not go to college or already paid back their loans should not have to bail out the 13% of Americans with federal student debt.  PROTESTERS: Genocide Joe has got to go!  GUTIERREZ: The president making the move as he faces mounting outrage from some younger voters over the Israel-Hamas war.  STUDENT: If Biden is supporting genocide, there is no lesser evil than that. So we won't vote for him.  GUTIERREZ: In the 2020 NBC News exit poll, candidate Biden led former President Trump by 24 percentage points among voters under 30. But an NBC survey in January had president Biden up by just eight percentage points among that group. Another poll last month showed Mr. Trump ahead by 18 points among voters under 30.  Are you excited to vote for President Biden?  HAILEY RUDE: I would personally say no.  GUTIERREZ: Hailey Rude and Maya Cohn are both sophomores at the University of Wisconsin Madison.  MAYA COHN: I'm excited to vote for someone that's not Trump. But I wouldn't say that it is -- I'm excited for Biden. GUTIERREZ: Even if the president ends up winning back some younger voters before November, a small change from 2020 could swing the election. Lester. HOLT: All right, Gabe Gutierrez. Thank you. The sequence is simple to follow, because anchor Lester Holt gives it away with the frame of Gabe Gutierrez’ video package. The student loan bailout is framed as a courtship of young voters. Cut to Gutierrez and the very grateful former teacher who had $15,000 of his debt paid off by the American taxpayer. Surprised and grateful.  Gutierrez then gets into the student loan bailout, but not very deeply. He says that The White House is using a different legal basis than the one that got shot down by the Supreme Court, but with no explanation as to what that is. Gutierrez cites unnamed Republicans as being opposed to the bailout, but doesn’t say which ones.  As a matter of comparison, PBS did find the time to get into these things: LISA DESJARDINS: Now let's talk about the future of this in the courts. As soon as this rule comes out, do you think there could be an injunction against it filed immediately? Do you think that this is clear — clearly on strong legal grounds? What's going to happen? DANIELLE DOUGLAS-GABRIEL: I mean, certainly, it's on stronger legal grounds, from what experts are telling me, than the previous rule, because it's backed by a different authority.The Higher Education Act, which governs pretty much all of higher ed in terms of financial aid and all of those things, is the anchor for this, whereas the other rule was based on a 9/11 kind of emergency power rule that the Supreme Court didn't really think met the smell test. So, in this instance, I think it will be a little harder to see an immediate injunction because this went through a negotiated rulemaking process. The rule is going to come online next July, regardless of who's in office. There will likely be challenges. And it's certainly — if the Trump administration were to win, they could choose not to enforce the rule. They could also choose to try to rescind the rule. The student loan bailout is likely another authoritarian distribution scheme, but seemingly paired with a law that might make it more difficult to contest in court. But there wasn’t enough time for NBC to talk about this. There was disaffected youth to talk about instead. The youth that Biden intends to court but is currently protesting the Biden administration’s Gaza policy. The report closes with polling showing major youth vote shrinkage, and with the two disaffected sophomores who are not thrilled about voting for Biden in the general election.  Like so many stories running these days, the focus is not on the thing itself but on that thing’s effect on the electoral prospects of Joe Biden. Whether on Gaza or on student loan bailouts of dubious constitutionality, the focus is the same: Protect the Precious.  

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NewsBusters Podcast: The Leftist Media Often Can't 'Get Religion'

As the media bring their leftist lens to the "culture wars" and religion in politics, they're prone to simplifying everything and only covering religion when it intrudes on the new orthodoxy of wokeness. Terry Mattingly operated the site GetReligion for 20 years, and he explains how he assesses the media's handling of religion stories. We know several things from years of study. First, the media report very few religion stories. Second, the religion stories they choose to do typically focus on when churches are interjecting into the political arena (which secular reporters don't like). Third, since reporters are generally not religiously observant people, they show their ignorance of internal church matters, and bored with controversies like Catholics struggling with the Traditional Latin Mass, or religious concepts like sin and repentance. Then we focus on some recent controversies. On Monday, the Vatican released a document with a strong critique of "gender theory" and what non-religious reporters call "gender-affirming surgery." Mattingly says the media embrace of nonsensical terms like this underline they are orthodox believers, but in an opposing orthodoxy to traditional religions. Mattingly suggests Pope Francis seems to side with Biden against those American Catholics who would propose excommunication.  This broad acceptance leads to Biden and the media presenting the president as a "devout Catholic." He may attend church, but he is dramatically rejecting his church's teaching on abortion and sexuality. We explore the clash between Easter Sunday and the Transgender Day of Visibility, which pro-Biden reporters wanted to dismiss that there was any ideological or theological clash in these celebrations. There was Donald Trump promoting a "God Bless the USA Bible," and how everyone knows his personal behavior can't be seen as "Christ-like." But reporters try to suggest that Trump can't pigeonhole Biden as an opponent of Christianity, since he attends church services.  Mattingly wraps up with 3 Big Questions for religious people facing a screen-obsessed culture, and he says churches need to engage with their flocks on these measures of your faith: 1. How do you spend your time? 2. How do you spend your money? 3. How do you make decisions? Enjoy the podcast below or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

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CNN's Smerconish Accuses GOP of 'Demonizing All Immigrants'

On his eponymous Saturday morning show, CNN host Michael Smerconish blurred the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants as he asserted that conservatives will "demonize all immigrants" in response to a new RNC website that documents crimes committed by illegal aliens. After recalling that President Donald Trump recently coined the slogan "Stop Biden's Border Bloodbath" as part of his presidential campaign, Smerconish fretted about the RNC starting a website called "Bidenbloodbath.com." And, although the site lists examples of crimes by illegal aliens in the U.S., the CNN host described them simply as "migrants," and recalled studies finding that "immigrants" generally have a lower crime rate than American citizens. The CNN host related: And the RNC launched a new website called Bidenbloodbath.com. Go to that site, and you're going to read a diatribe against President Biden, claiming that, quote, "Lives of everyday Americans have been shattered as a direct result of Biden's open border policies." And then there are tabs for 13 states which seek to track crimes committed by migrants. This despite the fact that researchers at Stanford found that migrants coming into the United States are actually 30 percent less likely to be incarcerated when compared to white American citizens. He then added: The study debunks any claims that immigration leads to more crime and concludes that, quote, "Recent waves of immigrants are more likely to be employed, married with children, and in good health. Far from the rapists and drug dealers that anti-immigrant politicians claim them to be, immigrants today are doing relatively well and have largely been shielded from the social and economic forces that have affected low-educated U.S.-born men." But, in fact, Republicans and mainstream conservatives highlight specific crimes committed by illegal aliens, not legal immigrants. The process of legal immigration screens out non-citizens who already have criminal backgrounds whereas those who cross the border illegally, even if they are apprehended by Border Patrol, do not receive background checks that would include crimes committed in their home countries. Those who cross the border illegally are therefore a greater security risk than those who enter the country through the proper channels. Additionally, if one reads the study by Stanford, it is clear that the research does not specifically study illegal aliens but instead immigrants generally when it concludes that "immigrants" have a lower crime rate than American citizens. But, as previously documented by NewsBusters, a study by the libertarian CATO Institute -- which holds very liberal views on immigration -- admitted that illegal aliens have a higher rate of committing crimes than do legal immigrants, thus confirming that a disproportionate percentage of immigrant crime is committed by those who are illegal. The CNN host soon fretted that, because of the "sheer volume of the people coming into the United States," there will inevitably be more crimes committed by some of them which Republicans will then be able to exploit: "But the sheer volume of the people coming into the United States almost guarantees that that bloodbath website that the RNC has assembled, it's going to continue to have content. And some of those encounters are going to be high-profile." After listing several examples of illegal immigrants who have recently committed murders, Smerconish concluded: "Yet, because of the sheer volume of those crossing the border, such examples will inevitably keep cropping up, and they'll be weaponized to, however unfairly, demonize all migrants because politically it is very potent." The CNN host also gave the impression that there are only a small number of murders committed by illegals each year even though numbers previously released by both the Barack Obama administration and Trump administration suggested that around 1,000 to 2,000 illegals are deported each year after committing homicides. In 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020, the Trump administration deported about 1,500 non-citizens each year who had been convicted of homicides, plus several hundred more who had been charged. Transcript follows: CNN's Smerconish April 6, 2024 9:41 a.m. Eastern MICHAEL SMERCONISH: As the campaign season hits stride, each side has a strong get-out-the-vote issue -- the border and abortion. First, on the border, Donald Trump has turned his offhand bloodbath remark into a campaign slogan. You'll recall Trump caused conniptions back on March 16 when he used the word "bloodbath" at a rally near Dayton, Ohio. I said at the time that context mattered. He used the word after a rant about trade, the Chinese, and the auto industry, and said that there would be a bloodbath if he were not elected. Now, given the events of January 16 (sic), many ignored the context, and they feared that it was yet another call for civil unrest. When he first said "bloodbath" in Ohio, it seemed unscripted, it seemed extemporaneous, but now he's owning it and in a different scenario. Trump was in the battleground state of Michigan this week, appearing in an event at Grand Rapids that was called, "Stop Biden's Border Bloodbath." And the RNC launched a new website called Bidenbloodbath.com. Go to that site, and you're going to read a diatribe against President Biden, claiming that, quote, "Lives of everyday Americans have been shattered as a direct result of Biden's open border policies." And then there are tabs for 13 states which seek to track crimes committed by migrants. This despite the fact that researchers at Stanford found that migrants coming into the Untied States are actually 30 percent less likely to be incarcerated when compared to white American citizens. The study debunks any claims that immigration leads to more crime and concludes that, quote, "Recent waves of immigrants are more likely to be employed, married with children, and in good health. Far from the rapists and drug dealers that anti-immigrant politicians claim them to be, immigrants today are doing relatively well and have largely been shielded from the social and economic forces that have affected low-educated U.S.-born men." But, politically speaking, volume is on Trump's side. Think about it. The U.S. Border Patrol had nearly 250,000 encounters with migrants coming into the United States from Mexico in December of 2023. That's according to government statistics. "Encounters" means both apprehensions and expulsions. And for comparison the population of Cincinnati is 300,000 people. It was the highest monthly total on record, easily eclipsing the previous peak of about 224,000 encounters in May of 2022. I think the vast majority of migrants coming to the United States are hardworking people seeking a better life for themselves and their families and/or asylum. I don't think that Mexico is sending us their rapists. Obviously, I need to underscore this: We need to tighten our border -- it's porous. But the sheer volume of the people coming into the United States almost guarantees that that bloodbath website that the RNC has assembled, it's going to continue to have content. And some of those encounters are going to be high-profile. I hope that I'm wrong, but human factors say otherwise. For example, 25-year-old Ruby Garcia, killed by an undocumented immigrant she was romantically involved with. Garcia's body found on the side of a highway in Grand Rapids, Michigan, last month. The 25-year-old suspect, later arrested, charged with murder. Or the case of Laken Riley -- the 22-year-old nursing student from Georgia who was killed on a college campus by someone who entered the country illegally. The suspect had been arrested back in 2022 but later released according to ICE. And in Maryland a toddler killed during a shootout between two groups over a drug dispute. One of the suspects charged in connection to the boy's killing was also here illegally and arrested last year for theft charges. Finally, an undocumented migrant acquitted -- you'll remember this case -- for the 2015 death of Kate Steinle in San Francisco -- will be deported to Mexico again. The high-profile case drew national attention after the public learned the suspect had been deported back to Mexico five times in the past. Yet, because of the sheer volume of those crossing the border, such examples will inevitably keep cropping up, and they'll be weaponized to, however unfairly, demonize all migrants because politically it is very potent.

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The View ‘Stopped Asking’ Trump to Be on Show, Expect Biden Appearance

In an interview with Deadline published last week, Brian Teta [pictured right], the executive producer of ABC’s The View, admitted that they have “stopped asking” former President Trump to be on the show, and requests would resume on a “case-by-case” basis depending on who he picked as vice president. On the flipside, Teta expected President Biden to make an appearance to get a tongue bath from the co-hosts sometime before the election. Unironically, he claimed their main sticking point was “disinformation” and “misinformation” making its way onto the show. Deadline broached the subject by way of NBC’s snafu with former RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. “Would you have on as a guest a [Trump] true believer, maybe even McDaniel?” Deadline wondered. “You know, I have to look at it,” Teta said. “But we made the choice not to consider election deniers when we did our co-host search. The disinformation part of it is something to consider always.” On whether or not they planned to have Trump on the ABC News program, Teta admitted that they’ve “stopped asking” him to come on the show because he keeps declining, but also added that his “misinformation” played a key role in their decision too: DEADLINE: Given that we’re getting further and further into the election year, are you considering having Trump or any of his surrogates on the show? TETA: Again, it’s case by case. We’ll see who the VP is, when they’re announcing. We’ve invited Trump to join us at the table for both 2016 and 2020 elections, and he declined, and at a certain point, we stopped asking. So I don’t anticipate that changing. I think he’s pretty familiar with how the co-hosts feels about him and doesn’t see himself coming here. There’s no question we reach an important audience. This season we had Tim Scott on. We’ve had prominent Republicans on often and will continue to. We had Ted Cruz on last year. That’s what the show is. That’s the genius of what Barbara Walters and Bill Geddie put together here, a show of different perspectives. And I think that it’s an important thing for us to do that. But at the same time, we’re not going to put people on there to [spread] misinformation. In another part of the interview, Teta claimed that The View was still held to ABC’s “news standards.”“Even though we’re an opinion show, we’re governed by news standards, so we would call out anything like that in real time [sic],” he defended the show. Apparently, the spreading of “disinformation” and “misinformation” on the show was something reserved for the co-hosts to do. In regards to Monday’s solar eclipse and the previous week’s earthquake in New Jersey, staunchly racist and anti-Semitic co-host, Sunny Hostin (the descendant of slave owners) asserted, without evidence, that both were caused by “climate change.” She said the same thing about the coming cicada mating season despite them being on a known breeding schedule [video below].     The show’s other forays into “disinformation” and “misinformation” in recent weeks included claiming Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was trying to “buy” the election, pushed the “bloodbath” hoax against Trump, claimed migrant women don’t get raped in or near the U.S., Hostin claimed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley didn’t really miss her deployed husband, and Joy Behar claimed NATO was the military alliance that beat Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Just to name a few. Being on top of The View’s lies and calling out their hypocrisy like this was important because, as the Deadline article noted: “The show has been up 3% in total viewers season to date, and has continued to top daytime talk shows and news programs in viewership and households.”

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NBC News NOW, William Shatner Tie Solar Eclipse to Need to Fight Climate Change

On NBC News’s streaming platform NBC News NOW ahead of Monday’s total solar eclipse across large swaths of the U.S., correspondent Maura Barrett had to make the once-in-a-generation event political by invoking climate change alongside Star Trek legend William Shatner.  Barrett reported from Bloomington, Indiana where Shatner would “be narrating the moments leading up to totality” and he “made a climate connection, that I think’s important to point out here” with the supposed argument about the solar eclipse drawing attention away from...climate change?!     “I asked him about people that are concerned, you know, shouldn’t we be focused on tackling climate here on Earth rather than going out and exploring space? And he said, you know, we can do both,” she explained. Having set up this false dichotomy so as to invoke a far-left pet cause, she then played two soundbites from Shatner wondering “what’s the point of going into space, you can’t come back and you are overcome by the fumes” with the Earth now “in a dire situation”: Well, you can do both. I mean, there’s a — but you have to have a focus on the most important part, which is staying alive. I mean, what’s the point of going into space, you can’t come back and you are overcome by the fumes. No — we are in a dire situation. [SCREEN WIPE] We’ve got to do both. We’ve got to clean up the environment and our curiosity and our ambition. Back live, Barrett was satisfied: “So, that’s just something to think about.” Barrett was back almost two hours later on NBC and she made sure to praise his “interesting observation” that seemed all too convenient.     “Basically, he's so interested in space exploration...and he said what's the point to explore space if you can't come down to a healthy planet. So he talked about the — the need to do both and exploring, what we’re looking at around us, understanding the universe, but also keeping our planet healthy and taking the climate crisis,” she gushed. Tossing back to NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt, she reemphasized how it was such “an interesting perspective with — from William Shatner.” How embarrassing for NBC, especially considering the fact that even CNN and the rest of the liberal TV networks (except ABC’s The View) were able to keep it together and not go woke. To see the relevant NBC News NOW transcript from April 8, click “expand.” NBC News NOW April 8, 2024 12:33 p.m. Eastern MAURA BARRETT: I actually spoke with William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk in Star Trek. He’s going to be narrating the moments leading up to totality. He talked about how magical it’s going to be to see celestial bodies lineup long each other. But he also made a climate connection, that I think’s important to point out here. I asked him about people that are concerned, you know, shouldn’t we be focused on tackling climate here on Earth rather than going out and exploring space? And he said, you know, we can do both. Here is some of our conversation.  WILLIAM SHATNER: Well, you can do both. I mean, there’s a — but you have to have a focus on the most important part, which is staying alive. I mean, what’s the point of going into space, you can’t come back and you are overcome by the fumes. No — we are in a dire situation. [SCREEN WIPE] We’ve got to do both. We’ve got to clean up the environment and our curiosity and our ambition. BARRETT: So, that’s just something to think about. We also talked about how this is going to be such an emotional, unifying experience as thousands of people all look up to the sky at the same time. Again, Shatner leading into the total eclipse — we’ll be watching from here and then Jan — Janelle Monae will be doing a concert to wrap it all up your in Bloomington, Vicky. VICKY NGUYEN: Pretty star-studded out there. NBC News correspondent, Maura Barrett. Maura, thank you. (....) NBC’s Total Eclipse 2024 April 8, 2024 2:25 p.m. Eastern BARRETT: And I actually got the chance to speak with William Shatner just before as he’s going to be doing a spoken word performance leading up to totality and he spoke to that, that this is an emotional experience, it's huge that we even know why an eclipse happens, let alone can experience it all together like this across the continent of North America and he also made an interesting observation that I think’s important to note. Basically, he's so interested in space exploration — these were the oldest people to ever go up into space – and he said what's the point to explore space if you can't come down to a healthy planet. So he talked about the — the need to do both and exploring, what we’re looking at around us, understanding the universe, but also keeping our planet healthy and taking the climate crisis. And so, I thought that an interesting perspective with — from William Shatner, along with an astronomer I spoke with here at Indiana University, talking about how this event will connect us to the universe in a way that we have not been able to — we can’t do frequently and how it gets us even closer to nature. 

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UPDATE: Are You Paying Attention? Brazil Escalates Major Free Speech Assault

UPDATE 4/9/24 9:48 a.m. – On Monday, MRC Free Speech America reached out to the Brazilian Superior Electoral Court for comment on Elon Musk's remarks against de Moraes, but a spokesperson did not respond. Instead, the spokesperson directed MRC to Moraes’s criminal referral to the attorney general, asking them to investigate Musk's pro-free speech actions pertaining to the previous orders. You can find the referral (in Portuguese) here. ------ The battle between an infamous left-wing Brazilian judge and X owner Elon Musk has taken yet another dark twist that could put Brazil an inch closer to becoming a totalitarian regime, critics warn. On Sunday, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes launched a criminal investigation into Musk after the tech mogul dared to defy a contentious court order demanding what has been described as the unwarranted censorship of some X users.  X’s Global Government Affairs announced that de Moraes ordered the social media platform to ban certain popular users over so-called disinformation. Tellingly, the judge ordered the platform to not disclose the order. In response, Musk ordered the platform to unban these accounts, arguing that de Moraes has no legal basis for the requested censorship. Such a defiant act seemingly triggered de Moraes to launch a probe into Musk for potential obstruction of justice, criminal organization and incitement of crime, Forbes reported on Monday. Journalist Michael Shellenberger, an individual who often breaks stories out of Brazil, tweeted on Monday that the criminal probe into Musk may lead to the closure of X’s operations in the Central American country. I say, “Tell me, Alexandre, is the disinformation in the room with us now?” https://t.co/yhvOmrysaZ — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 8, 2024 “De Moraes has taken Brazil one step closer to being a dictatorship,” Shellenberger wrote. “What’s more, the events of the last few weeks make clear that Elon Musk is the only thing standing in the way of global totalitarianism. Without free speech, there can be no democracy.” Earlier this week, Musk accused de Moraes of threatening to arrest Brazil-based X employees and imposing hefty fines. De Moraes imposed a fine of nearly $20,000 per day for each account not banned, according to Forbes. “As a result, we will probably lose all revenue in Brazil and have to shut down our office there. But principles matter more than profit,” Musk wrote on Saturday. In follow-up posts, Musk directly addressed Moraes, including calling for a public debate on the orders and suggesting that the orders may be carried out in a bid to support political affiliation. “X supports the people of Brazil, without regard to political affiliation. Does Judge @Alexandre?” Musk questioned on Monday. De Moraes did not immediately respond to MRC Free Speech America’s request for comment. Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

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NAIA for Small Colleges BANS Transgender Women From Competing in Female Sports

We’ll take a win when we can get it.  The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), which many smaller schools are part of, announced Monday that only biological women will be allowed to compete in women’s sports. CBS Sports reported the news Monday afternoon and indicated that the “NAIA’s Council of Presidents approved the policy in a 20-0 vote” following a survey from December that indicated “widespread support for the move.” The NAIA is a national athletic governing body for 249 colleges across the country who aren’t part of the NCAA’s three divisions. NAIA covers mostly private schools. This is huge for protecting both fairness and safety in schools, and NAIA president Jim Carr agreed with that sentiment. “For us, we believed our first responsibility was to create fairness and competition in the NAIA. ... We also think it aligns with the reasons Title IX was created. You're allowed to have separate but equal opportunities for women to compete.” Carr pointed out that the decision doesn’t stop anyone from playing in the men's category as that is open to anyone, regardless of sex or gender identity. That makes sense since the men who want to compete in the women’s categories are often the ones who couldn’t rank in the men’s category. I mean look at Penn State’s Lia Thomas who failed epically as Richard Thomas but became a champion when competing against girls. NAIA Council of Presidents chair and St. Ambrose University president Amy Novak said, “With this policy, the NAIA has made its best effort to allow for the inclusion of transgender athletes in any way which does not impact the competitive fairness of women's sports. Our priority is to protect the integrity of women's athletics and allow them equal opportunity to succeed.” As CBS News pointed out, the “NAIA is believed to be the first national college governing body to mandate that athletes compete according to assigned sex at birth.” Hopefully the NCAA follows the steps of the NAIA and recognizes how unfair and unsafe it is to have biological men in women’s sports.

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'Weak,' 'Deeply Disappointed': Pro-Lifers SLAM Trump’s Abortion Statement

On Monday, former President Donald Trump released a statement regarding his stance on abortion in which he insisted the issue of abortion should be left to states, instead of showing support for a federal ban on the brutal destruction of innocent life. The former president, who is the current frontrunner for the Republican nomination heading into the 2024 election, added he supported "exceptions" to infanticide restrictions, including in cases of rape, incest, and the ever-subjective "life of the mother."  As a result, numerous pro-life individuals and groups slammed the “weak” statement. Here’s a video of Trump’s statement in full: WATCH: Trump releases new statement on abortion policy, saying abortion restrictions should be left to states. Do you agree? pic.twitter.com/hCv13xgt1h — Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 8, 2024 Whatever states decide - including those that choose not to restrict elective abortions at all - “must be the law of the land, in this case, the law of the state,” Trump said before claiming that “this is all about the will of the people.” The phrase, “Do what’s right for your family, and do what’s right for yourself, do what’s right for your children,” seemed pretty “pro-choice-y” for the man who has previously made much stronger pro-life statements - hence, the backlash he received. Related: ‘American Awakening’: Neb. Senator Crosses Party Lines After Dems Force Pro-Abort Stance “So weak,” radio and TV personality Jenna Ellis said. “Trump punts on the issue of pro-life and pledges to support whatever states decide, including blue states that will allow abortion until the moment of birth. ‘Follow your heart’ is a Hallmark card, not strong conservative principled policy." Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America released an official statement from its president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, who condemned Trump’s remarks: We are deeply disappointed in President Trump’s position. Unborn children and their mothers deserve national protections and national advocacy from the brutality of the abortion industry. The Dobbs decision clearly allows both states and Congress to act. Saying the issue is ‘back to the states’ cedes the national debate to the Democrats who are working relentlessly to enact legislation mandating abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy. If successful, they will wipe out states’ rights. With lives on the line, SBA Pro-Life America and the pro-life grassroots will work tirelessly to defeat President Biden and extreme congressional Democrats. On the other hand, Students for Life Action released a statement indicating that while they of course wan’t a more pro-life approach heading into the 2024 election, Trump’s remarks were “a step in the right direction.” Kristan Hawkins, Group president said: The Pro-Life Movement is united that abortion is a federal issue, and we won’t stop working until every child, in every state, is protected in life by law and service. Your state lines should never mean the beginning or end of your human rights. We clearly have some work to do to educate the GOP on the lawlessness of a predatory IVF industry, whose own sloppiness has caused the painful headlines we all have seen. It’s an industry in need of regulation and change, even as we understand the desire and passion for a family. We want to compassionately embrace families who want children as well as the children turned into a disposable commodity by predatory and negligent businesses. But Pro-Life Generation can work with an administration preparing to welcome the next generation, rather than fast-tracking their deaths by abortion.  Trump also received criticism for not specifying a particular cut-off for elective abortions, and that he said he supports abortion in cases of rape, incest and to save the life of a mother. The first two of that list are red flags for pro-lifers, who believe that no matter how a baby is conceived, he or she is worthy of dignity, respect and the chance at life. As for "life of the mother" exceptions, critics have pointed to the subjective definition of what constitutes a threat to a woman's health or life under any given law, as a woman's psychological and emotional distress are often used as justifications for murdering her innocent child. Live Action founder Lila Rose criticized Trump’s preview of his statement that he released Sunday evening.  Related: Vatican Blasts Gender Surgery & Theory, Surrogacy: ‘Violations of Human Dignity’ “There’s no ‘salvation of our Nation’ while we are permitting killing children. This includes helpless children conceived in rape,” Rose wrote on X. Former Vice President Mike Pence, who served for four years with Trump, called Trump’s statement a “slap in the face,” and insisted that “Republicans win on life when we speak the truth boldly and stand on the principle that we all know to be true – human life begins at conception and should be defended from womb to tomb.” Time will tell how this plays out when the pro-life generation shows up to vote in November. My hope and prayer is that whoever is elected sees the innate value of every human life and works to encourage a culture that is all-in on protecting unborn babies. Follow us on Twitter/X: Woke of The Weak: Prominent lefists spend Easter celebrating sin and mocking Jesus's resurrection. Oh how far America has fallen pic.twitter.com/f06xnYbfqr — MRCTV (@mrctv) April 2, 2024

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Study Re-Affirms That Puberty Blockers Harm Kids

I hate to say we told you so, but… A new study conducted by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory concluded that puberty blockers are harmful for kids. Specifically, the study found that puberty blockers for "transgender girls" impact the testicular cell state and function of the biological boys they're given to. The study used samples from the Mayo Clinic’s Pediatric Testicular Biobank for Fertility Preservation to examine what happens to testicular specimens when a boy under age 18 is prescribed puberty blockers. Results indicated that the boys who identified as transgender and had been on puberty blockers for between three months and four years could not properly ejaculate, whether because of reluctancy or physical inability.  As the Washington Stand pointed out, two of those transgender patients “exhibited noticeable testicular ‘abnormalities.’” The same article reported the study found that "those who had been prescribed puberty blockers ‘showed abnormal testicular development’” and “abnormal testicular cell development.” This isn’t the first time we’ve been warned about the negative impacts of puberty blockers. Even the New York Times warned about some of the risks back in February. Individuals who take puberty blockers have experienced hemorrhaging. Puberty blockers have also been found to impact a child's normal brain, bone, and reproductive system development. “When adolescents are using blockers, bone density growth flatlines,” New York Times wrote in a piece in November 2022. Not to mention, this damage is often irreversible and does nothing to help depression or anyone struggling with their true identity. Related: England Bans Puberty Blockers for Kids in Almost All Instances The MRC has reported on other groups sounding the alarm on these treatments. In July, the National Institutes of Health(NIH) acknowledged that puberty blockers have the potential to cause sterility, though that group continued to advocate for using tax dollars to fund said treatments. In March of this year, the National Health Service (NHS) in England banned puberty blockers for minors, citing studies that found that they do all harm and no good. The governmental agency insisted that their decision prioritizes the “best interests of the child.” More and more red flags on these treatments are being raised, and this study by the Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory simply adds to the list. Let’s hope it's what people need to realize what we’ve been saying for years: this is not helpful for kids in any way, shape or form, and should be considered a form of child abuse. Follow us on Twitter/X: Woke of The Weak: Prominent lefists spend Easter celebrating sin and mocking Jesus's resurrection. Oh how far America has fallen pic.twitter.com/f06xnYbfqr — MRCTV (@mrctv) April 2, 2024

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Sunny Hostin Claims the Solar Eclipse, Earthquake Caused by ‘Climate Change’

The liberal media loved to portray conservatives, Republicans, Trump supporters, and pretty much anyone right of center as crazy conspiracy theorists who shouldn’t be allowed a platform anywhere. But during Monday’s edition of The View, staunchly racist and anti-Semitic co-host, Sunny Hostin (the descendant of slave owners) proved just how dim she was when she asserted in all seriousness that Monday’s solar eclipse, Friday’s earthquake, and the coming cicada breeding season were all caused by “climate change.” Hostin’s unhinged conspiracy theories may have been the wildest, but they were not the first during the episode. Faux conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin rhetorically scoffed at the idea that the Friday earthquake in New Jersey was a sign that Jesus was returning, but suggested former President Trump’s gold club had something to do with it: So, what’s kind of crazy is with the earthquake on Friday and then the eclipse today, people are having all sorts of conspiracies about the end of the world. And then I read online that the earthquake epicenter was actually at Bedminster in New Jersey. Fun fact. So it originated with Trump. Hostin, a self-proclaimed devout Catholic, laughed about how their studio makeup artist “put on her coat” and “ran down the hallway” during the earthquake saying “Jesus is coming” and “the rapture is here.” She also bloviated about how it was the first time in 100 years that two different cicada broods were emerging for their mating seasons at the same time.     Apparently, all the pieces were on the table and only Hostin was smart enough to put them together, and “climate change” was the answer. “All those things together would maybe lead one to believe that either climate change exists, or something is really going on,” she proclaimed. You knew things were bad when Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg were the voices of reason. “Except earthquakes are not at the mercy of climate change. It's underground. It can’t,” Behar pushed back. But Hostin wouldn’t listen to reason. “How about the warming of the planet?” she huffed in what she seemingly thought was a checkmate, without evidence of how it would cause earthquakes miles below the earth’s surface. “No, it happens. And the eclipse, they've known about the eclipse coming because eclipses happen and they actually can say when these things are going to happen,” Goldberg argued. She also went off on how God would not give a warning about when the end times would occur: So, all these folks who are saying, “You know, it's a sign from God,” God doesn't give you warning. Okay? You think he gave people at the Tower of Babble warning? “Oh, I'm about to jack y'all up.” No. God does stuff and then you figure, “Oh, that's probably because I just – uh” [pretends to die]. You know? Goldberg and Hostin also got into it over the cicada brood emergences occurring because of climate change. Goldberg noted that their breeding cycles have been known for a while and they’re sticking to it (Click “expand”): HOSTIN: Cicadas. For the first time in like 100 years, there’s two different kinds – GOLDBERG: No. No. No. No. No. No, No. No. That’s not – No. No. HOSTIN: Well, that is what I read. Two different kind of -- GOLDBERG: There's two different kinds of cicadas coming. HOSTIN: Yeah, two different times are coming. BEHAR: The good cicadas and the bad cicadas. GOLDBERG: No. HOSTIN: This is for the first time in many, many years. GOLDBERG: No. Every 17 years this happens. Hostin’s defense basically came down to “that's not what I read” online. It’s worth mentioning again that The View is under the ABC News umbrella. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View April 8, 2024 11:03:39 a.m. Eastern (…) ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: So, what’s kind of crazy is with the earthquake on Friday and then the eclipse today, people are having all sorts of conspiracies about the end of the world. And then I read online that the earthquake epicenter was actually at Bedminster in New Jersey. JOY BEHAR: Right! FARAH GRIFFIN: Fun fact. So it originated with Trump. [Laughter] SUNNY HOSTIN: I know, right? I have to say, Karen Dupiche our wonderful makeup artist, when the earthquake was happening, she put her coat on and she was, “Like, Jesus is coming. I'm out. I’m leaving. We got a solar eclipse. We got the earthquake.” SARA HAINES: She ran down the hallway. HOSTIN: She ran down the hallway. FARAH GRIFFIN: The rapture is here. HOSTIN: The rapture is here. And then also, I learned that the cicadas [mispronunciation] are coming. WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Cicadas. [Crosstalk] HOSTIN: Cicadas. For the first time in like 100 years, there’s two different kinds – GOLDBERG: No. No. No. No. No. No, No. No. That’s not – No. No. HOSTIN: Well, that is what I read. Two different kind of -- GOLDBERG: There's two different kinds of cicadas coming. HOSTIN: Yeah, two different times are coming. BEHAR: The good cicadas and the bad cicadas. GOLDBERG: No. HOSTIN: This is for the first time in many, many years. GOLDBERG: No. Every 17 years this happens. HOSTIN: Well, that's not what I read, but maybe, you know, maybe you know better. GOLDBERG: But either way -- HOSTIN: All those things together, would maybe lead one to believe that either climate change exists, or something is really going on. BEHAR: That’s more on point. FARAH GRIFFIN: Or Jesus is returning. BEHAR: Except earthquakes are not at the mercy of climate change. It's underground. It can’t. HOSTIN: How about the warming of the planet? GOLDBERG: No, it happens. And the eclipse, they've known about the eclipse coming because eclipses happen and they actually can say when these things are going to happen. So, all these folks who are saying, “You know, it's a sign from God,” God doesn't give you warning. Okay? You think he gave people at the Tower of Babble warning? “Oh, I'm about to jack y'all up.” No. God does stuff and then you figure, “Oh, that's probably because I just – uh” [pretends to die]. You know? I mean – It's -- No, but the cicadas come -- we have them every 17 years. There are some we get every 20-some-odd years and they just go under and they come back up, and now there's BEHAR: What do they do? GOLDBERG: They make noise and they have sex. SARA HAINES: And sing. HOSTIN: And this time both types are coming. BEHAR: They have sex? GOLDBERG: Yes. They make new cicadas. BEHAR: What's the noise when they’re having sex, “Oh god?” (…)

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MEMECLIPSE: TIME Mag Ludicrously Calls Trump Meme Video ‘Bizarre Campaign Ad’

Have you ever heard of the old expression, “The left can’t meme?” Well, apparently TIME magazine is so broken with Trump Derangement Syndrome it can’t even figure out what a meme is.  TIME railed against former President Donald Trump for posting on Truth Social what the leftist magazine described as a “new and bizarre campaign ad” of his “head tak[ing] the place of the moon and block[ing] out the sun in a nod to Monday’s solar eclipse.” Making it seem like the video was an actual campaign ad, the magazine continued: “It shows an image of the glowing sun as astonished crowds gather to watch the solar eclipse with protective eyewear on.” Here’s the problem: The so-called “campaign ad” was just a meme, and the magazine clearly didn’t get it and spent nearly 400 words of column space writing it up. The joke video even had a watermark by the pro-Trump meme account il Donaldo Trumpo, but even that flew over the magazine editors’ heads. This is how il Donaldo Trumpo describes his work on his Patreon website, making TIME look even more ridiculous in hindsight: Welcome to a place full of Love, Decency and Goodnesso. If you´re tired of all the negativity en social media, this is a place to relax and have a laugh, share your thoughts, BE YOURSELFO!!! Every single one of mis Patriotos en our Patreon Familia is soooo awesome you will know you´re finally Home.  il Presidento will keep doing everything and then some to make your day a little brighter with some laughs and a whole lotta Love!!! But TIME still attempted to loop “Sunday’s video campaign” as “the latest in a string of unusual statements the former President has made recently.” The cringe is strong with this one. H/t @PapiTrumpo for completely breaking the @TIME editors' brains. https://t.co/D9tSx7n7vO pic.twitter.com/Cv4UHonSWq — Joseph Vazquez (@JV3MRC) April 8, 2024 The magazine doubled down on letting everyone know the joke went clearly over its head when it decided to post its fake news on X with the following caption: “Trump posts bizarre solar eclipse campaign ad, with his head blocking out the sun.” Podcast host Benny Johnson trolled the magazine for not catching how badly it played itself: “🚨BREAKING: @Time does not know what a meme is.”  Talk about taking a massive “L.” Sheesh. Conservatives are under attack. Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency and an equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.  

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6 Myths About Globalization, Trade, Jobs, and ‘Buy American’

Leaders of both parties agree: We must reduce globalization. “China is ripping us on trade,” says Donald Trump. Our trade deficit is “an immorality,” says Nancy Pelosi. But it’s not. In my new video, Scott Lincicome of the Cato Institute points out, “Selling us stuff is hardly ripping us off.” He’s right. Our video debunks common misunderstandings about trade. Myth No. 1: America is “losing.” People often say that because America runs a trade deficit. But trade doesn’t need to balance. I have a trade deficit with my supermarket. They get more of my money every year. So, what? I don’t “lose.” I get food without having to grow it myself. That’s a win for me and the food producer regardless of whether the food was grown locally or came from Mexico. “Imports are great,” says Lincicome. “It means I can focus on what I want to do for a living and not go make my own food or make my own clothes. I can use those savings and buy other things that makes me better off.” As long as trade is voluntary, trade is a win for both parties. It has to be; neither side would agree to it unless they think they get something out of the deal. Myth No. 2: Imports take jobs from Americans. Globalization “moved so many jobs and so much wealth out of our country,” says Trump, “Workers have seen the jobs they love shipped thousands and thousands of miles away.” I say to Lincicome, “Some people do lose jobs.” “True,” he replies, “We lose about 5 million jobs every month.” But trade isn’t the main reason. “Jobs are lost due to ... changing consumer tastes and from innovation. We make more stuff with fewer workers. That’s productivity.” Productivity increases are good. Trade and productivity improvements are reasons why the number of Americans who do have jobs has risen. “We’re at historically high manufacturing job openings,” says Lincicome, “Manufacturers in the United States say they can’t find enough workers.” Trade lets Americans focus on what we do best. Sixty percent of America’s new jobs come from companies engaged in international trade. But Trump says, “We don’t make anything anymore!” President Joe Biden agrees, “American manufacturing, the backbone of our economy, got hollowed out!” That’s Myth No. 3. Manufacturing output in the U.S. is near its all-time high. We make more than Japan, Germany, India and South Korea combined. Fortunately, real life ignores politicians’ ignorance. Myth No. 4: Trade and open markets create “a race to the bottom.” That’s how Jon Stewart decries globalization on his show, saying, “Globalization allowed corporations to scour the planet for the cheapest labor and loosest regulations!” That is true; companies do that. But Lincicome replies, “This ‘race to the bottom’ is a myth. We Americans are spoiled. We look upon jobs in the developing world, factory jobs, and say, ‘Oh, how terrible this is that these people work for such low wages.’ But the reality is that their alternatives are far, far worse ... subsistence farming ... sex work.” Trade is what lets people in poor countries escape subsistence farming and sex work. And child labor, too. “No parent wants his kid to go into the factory or farm,” Lincicome points out. “They do it because they have no choice. As we get wealthier, child labor disappears. ... Factory owners in Vietnam now complain that kids these days ... don’t want to work in the textile factory. That’s not great for that factory owner, but it’s great for those workers!” Myth No. 5: Globalization destroys the environment. “It’s undeniably true that as a nation starts along its development path, that it’s going to pollute more,” concedes Lincicome. “But as countries get wealthy, they become better environmentally.” Only when people get wealthy enough to think beyond their next meal do we start to care about the environment. It’s why pollution is dropping in America and other capitalist countries. “The best thing that we can do for the developing world is to help countries get rich,” says Lincicome. “Globalization is part of that recipe.” Trade is a win-win. It brings us more stuff at lower prices. The more we trade, the better off we are.

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Brent Bozell Explains the Media War on Trump on Fox's 'Life, Liberty & Levin'

On Sunday's episode of Life, Liberty, & Levin on the Fox News Channel, Media Research Center founder and president L. Brent Bozell explained to Mark Levin how the media are relentlessly negative in their coverage of Donald Trump, and focus largely on his legal troubles and avoid covering how President Biden is failing on the issues from inflation to immigration to crime.  Levin asked Bozell: "What do you make of the media's coverage of Biden's war on Donald Trump?" Bozell began with Trump's presidency: "Over a four year period we looked at that media's coverage of Donald Trump when he was president. And found that on average every month it was 90% negative coverage they gave. No matter what his successes and his successes, you cannot argue his successes. But they just didn't cover them." BOZELL: So we started doing it again. In February the number has gone down. It is now 89% negative, [down] from 90%. What are they covering? They are covering exactly what Joe Biden wants covered. They want his trials covered. They want those 91 felony counts covered, and they are covered and slanted against him. This is exactly what the Biden campaign wants! Why? Because if you're not going to cover the trial, you've got to cover the issues. If you are going to cover the issues you are going to look at inflation. You're going to look at interest rates. You're going to look at the border. That's out of control. You're going to look at our American cities where crime is running rampant. You're going to look at those issues and every single time they fall in favor of Donald Trump. So this is the playbook the left had. It is with the Biden campaign and it is with the news media to do nothing but focus on trials and legal woes and do it from a negative perspective. And you can't argue the numbers I just gave you -- 89 percent!  Levin then noted the media want to compare Trump to Hitler, just as they did to Barry Goldwater, to Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan. They engage in character assassination. Bozell agreed, and added the "end of democracy" spin. BOZELL: The most recent one is anti-democracy. Where did that word come from? This is a talking point, I think it came out of the Biden administration. Now everybody on the left is using it. That Donald Trump, if you elect Donald Trump you will have the end of democracy as we know it. This is the height of hypocrisy.  Bozell said NBC fired Ronna McDaniel a few days after they hired her because she was an "election denier," after they denied that Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 for years, with their empty charges that Trump colluded with the Russian government to steal the election. They denied George W. Bush won in 2000, and even in 2004, when he won bigger. Stacey Abrams denied losing the gubernatorial race in Georgia, and they celebrated her as they mangled the facts. They only want "liberal Republicans" on NBC, he said. Earlier, Bozell and Levin discussed how the media tilt toward Hamas in their war on Israel, using Hamas body counts like they were wonderfully precise. Bozell also mentioned how our Dan Schneider pointed out that Google's AI chatbot refused to answer questions about Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists, and wouldn't answer when asked: what is the capital of Israel?

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Is The New ‘Civil War’ Movie Another Hollywood Exercise In Leftist Propaganda?

“Civil War” has played it extremely close to the ideological vest in its trailers and promotion, but CBS Sunday Morning may have let the cat out of the bag. If true, a promising film may in fact yet be another exercise in Hollywood leftist projection.   Watch as CBS Sunday Morning contributor Ben Mankiewicz gives away a major plot point: that the authoritarian president has, in this instance, abolished the Federal Bureau of Investigation (as aired on Sunday, April 7th, 2024): BEN MANKIEWICZ: The audience will certainly be talking about the film's president, who we learn is serving a third term and has abolished the FBI.  PRESIDENT: Some are already calling it the greatest victory in the history of military campaigns.  MANKIEWICZ: He is played by Nick Offerman, who says the character was not inspired by any Commander-in-Chief, past or present. Offerman does say the film offers a warning that given today's political climate, Americans need to heed.  NICK OFFERMAN: Our ego and our history wants to allow us to believe that we are above such things, that, you know, lesser countries around the world may engage in, but we're Americans, you know. We drink the finest cola beverages. We are immune to such things.  ALEX GARLAND: There’s an underlying truth with anything difficult, which is: nobody’s immune.  The lack of Hollywood condemnation as trailers were released was, in hindsight, an early tell. We heard nary a peep in this instance. And now we know why.  Writer/director Alex Garland intentionally attempted to dissuade people from trying to glean ideology from the early trailers. He admits as much by writing the rebel forces as being from both Texas and California. But abolition of the FBI these days is a hard ideological lean in one direction. Whatever post-9/11 reservations the left may have had about the FBI are long gone now, given its embrace of the deployment of those anti-terrorism tools against United States citizens in the political opposition. Federal law enforcement seems to be at the locus of every action taken against American internal dissidents, whether it be pro-life protesters such as Mark Houck, the broad campaign to suppress political speech online, or federal agents showing up at people’s homes over social media posts, among many other intrusions.  Nowadays, only one side of the political spectrum regards the FBI as the instrument of a weaponized federal government, and it isn’t the left.  Reasonable people can thus be skeptical of a major motion picture, released ahead of a presidential election, that depicts a runaway authoritarian president who abolished the FBI and brought the country to civil war. The Trumpian braggadocio about military victory is just the cherry on top. I really hope to be wrong about this, and hope that this is really an independent, thought-provoking nonpartisan film about the perils of political polarization. That is, as opposed to the "Democracy is on the ballot" equivalent of what "The Day After Tomorrow" did for the climate cult. But Hollywood’s track record on these things indicates otherwise. For the time being? I’m not buying it.  

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Former DoJ Spox: Maybe Americans NEED To View 47-Minute Hamas Atrocity Video

There was much hand-wringing across the Sunday dial, specifically over President Biden’s vacillating response to Israel’s war against Hamas, in response to the atrocities committed on Black Sabbath six months ago today. Against this backdrop, former Department of Justice spokesperson Sarah Isgur delivered clarity as to what remains at stake. Watch as Isgur suggests that perhaps viewing the 47-minute Hamas atrocity reel could serve as a reminder of what happened that day, as opposed to pro-forma comparisons to 9-11, as aired on ABC This Week on Sunday, April 7th, 2024:     SARAH ISGUR: There are 129 hostages still being held by Hamas that were taken on October 7th. I think that Netanyahu at this point should offer a very simple cease-fire option. By the way, the Hamas side has rejected the six-week cease-fires that have been offered time and time again by Israel. Offer a simple cease-fire. Return all of the hostages, they actually hold 133, in exchange for a cease-fire- because you know what? Hamas will either reject it or they will violate it immediately, because don’t forget there was a cease-fire on October 6th. This is the problem. This isn't like 9/11. They are holding Israelis. They're holding Americans for that matter. So yes, Israel is going to keep prosecuting that war until every single one of those people are home. And that 47-minute video that they have of what Hamas did on October 7th is something that, frankly, Americans shouldn’t have to watch- but maybe they need a reminder for what happened that day. Because it wasn’t like 9/11. They shot parents and burned their children in front of them.  Those who have viewed the 47-minute video, a compendium of bodycam and social media videos depicting the depraved inhumanities committed by Hamas against Israeli civilians on October 7th, are barely able to describe the horrors cataloged therein. And it is often the case that this part of the Gaza equation is absent when politicos and journos gather for weekly tapings of their Sunday struggle sessions wherein they wring their hands over the effect that the war in Gaza may have upon the electoral prospects of one Joseph Robinette Biden, Junior. Always Protect the Precious. And Isgur hammers home several points that often go unsaid: there remain American hostages held by Hamas in some as yet undiscovered subterranean dungeons. Hamas violated a ceasefire on 10/7. Children were burned, among other unspeakable horrors. Israel will likely prosecute this war until all the hostages are returned.  At a time when so much of the coverage of the conflict centers around its effect on the 2024 presidential campaign, Isgur brought an important message of moral clarity.   

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WITH ALLIES LIKE THESE: Former DNC Chair Brazile Complains ‘When (Biden) Speaks, Nobody Listens’

“Be careful what you wish for”, the old fable warns, lest it may come true. But with all respect due to Aesop, some exceptions apply. Especially when the wish in question is that President Joe Biden’s statements be accorded more media coverage, as opposed to the media’s preference of much less. Watch as former DNC Chair Donna Brazile, in a singular demonstration of elite lack of self-awareness, chastises the media for not sufficiently covering Joe Biden, as aired on ABC This Week on Sunday, April 7th, 2024: MARTHA RADDATZ: Donna, I want to go to you first and just quickly. Alex (Burns, Politico) made the point that President Biden doesn't talk about the wars very often. Should he?  DONNA BRAZILE: Absolutely. Not just in Israel, Ukraine. We’re a super power. He is the Commander-in-Chief, absolutely. He should speak out more. And also, we should cover what he’s saying. Because often, when he speaks, nobody listens.  This exchange was part of the broader panel discussion which was dedicated to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and in reaction to Politico News Director Alex Burns’ observation that Biden has held many closed-door discussions, such as with the Muslim Arab communities in Michigan elsewhere, and with relatives of the remaining Israeli hostages Biden’s speaking out plenty enough, and perhaps that’s the problem, contrary to what Brazile suggests here. And the reason that Biden’s statements seem uncovered and “nobody listens” is because the firefighters in the media don’t actually want the American public to hear the things that fly out of Biden’s mouth. Our very own Geoff Dickens accounted for eight Biden gaffes that went uncovered by the media. Eight botches that the corporate media deliberately suppressed from the viewing public. The most recent of those, for example, was when President Biden said that he frequently commuted over Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge while in the Senate, despite the fact that the bridge had no train tracks and that the Wilmington-D.C. Acela cuts through downtown Baltimore. As we noted at the time: Unsurprisingly, none of the major evening newscasts covered this egregious fabrication. Facts and accuracy seem to only matter when covering Republicans. Biden, on the other hand, can make stuff up with impunity- secure in the fact that the media will more often than not provide cover for his fabrications and increasingly frequent cognitive lapses. Setting aside the horrendous optics of a former DNC chair saying that nobody is listening to the President of the United States, and the signal that this conveys beyond the elite D.C. bubble. It’s not that “nobody listens” to Biden. More often than not, it’s that nobody really knows what Biden actually says on any given topic. One expects that, deep down, Brazile knows exactly why that is.  

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'Black-ish' or SICK-ish? ABC Star Jenifer Lewis Goes NUTS About Whites on Radio Show

Fox News writer (and NewsBusters alum) Gabriel Hays reported on some wildly spicy baloney from actress Jenifer Lewis from ABC’s Black-ish on the Sirius XM radio show Mornings with Zerlina. She offered some sick-ish talk about how the white people are scared of brown people and want to “put those n------ in their places and get those wetbacks out of this country.” Lewis was clearly trying to scare minority voters into turning out to vote for Biden, because Trump is “Hitler” and will “punish” Democrat voters. "We spend half our lives choosing, trying to make a choice on bulls---. What movie tonight? Let me sit here for a half hour. No bombs going off. And we do nothing. We sit on our couches. ‘Oh, I don't believe in voting.’ You f------ idiot. If that man gets in, as soon as he takes the oath, he will have generals walk down the steps of the Capitol." Her warning grew even more dire, as she said, "He will take a hammer and break the glass where the Constitution is, and he will tear it up in our faces and say, 'Now I'm the king of the f------ world. You will bow down, b------' He will punish everybody that didn't vote for him." Lewis explained why she’s so convinced this will happen, telling host Zerlina Maxwell she recognizes his "mental illness." She yelled into the mic, "I know it because I know what mental illness looks like. That mania is unstoppable. See, this mother----- is Hitler. He didn't come to play." She added, "That mother----- will have us in camps… because we sat our fat a---- on the couch." "Black people don't want to fight you. All we want to do is feed our children and be equal," she insisted, telling Maxwell, "Honey, White people are scared. They're becoming a minority. The world is brown." The expletive-laden rant continued, with Lewis describing further punishment "White" people will seek to inflict on minorities, referring to them with racial slurs. "And they're going to do everything they can to stay in those gated communities, not pay taxes, and put those n------ in their places and get those wetbacks out of this country. We own this, b----." "You will not win because love is the answer," she added before continuing with more violent imagery. "We built this country for free while you raped us in your barns. While you whipped us. While you lynched us and cut babies out of our stomachs while we hung from f------ trees.  And you got something to say?" she asked.

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FLASHBACK: Celebrating Liberal Justice Jackson, the ‘American Dream’

Exactly two years ago today (April 7, 2022), the U.S. Senate voted 53-47 to confirm federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as the newest Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, replacing retiring Justice Stephen Breyer. Eighteen months earlier, liberal journalists fumed when a nearly mirror-image Senate vote (52-48) elevated federal Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Court, rebuking it as a “power play” and “the most partisan confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice in American history.” But Jackson’s confirmation was a time for “celebration,” as reporters applauded a new Justice who “represents excellence” and the “American Dream.” The media’s effusive praise of Jackson began as soon as President Biden announced her selection on February 25, 2022. “From the beginning, the federal appeals court judge was the frontrunner, with stellar academic and legal credentials and a compelling life story,” CBS’s Jan Crawford touted on the CBS Evening News. Over on CNN, legal analyst Laura Coates pronounced Jackson “almost a legal deity.” Two days later on Meet the Press, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell proclaimed: “She has extraordinary credentials.” In March, as the Senate Judiciary Committee began its hearings, NBC’s Yamiche Alcindor assured viewers Jackson was ready: “I was texting with one of her closest friends today and they told me yesterday was very, very emotional, but that they believe that their friend is like an Olympic athlete who has been training for this her whole life.” If the media presented Jackson as the hero of the hearings, they left no doubt the Republican Senators were to be seen as the villains. “Tom Cotton was thuggish....Lindsey Graham was screamy and weird,” MSNBC’s Joy Reid erupted on the March 22 The ReidOut. During a CNN panel discussion, the Grio’s Natasha Alford blasted Ted Cruz as a “clown” while legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin derided Cruz’s line of questioning — on Critical Race Theory — as “a trip to the surreal.” Referring to the Republican Supreme Court nominee who in 2018 was smeared by Democrats as a rapist, the Washington Post’s lead editorial on March 23 exclaimed: “Republicans boast they have not pulled a Kavanaugh. In fact, they’ve treated Jackson worse.” Jackson’s biggest flub of the hearings came on March 23, when Senator Marsha Blackburn asked if she could “provide a definition for the word woman?” A four-year old could have answered such a simple question, but Jackson preferred to evade: “I am not a biologist.” That night, ABC and CBS aided the nominee by refusing to even show the exchange during their evening news recap of the hearings. The headline in the next day’s USA Today exemplified the media’s attempt at damage control: “Marsha Blackburn asked Ketanji Brown Jackson to define ‘woman.’ Science says there’s no simple answer.” “The Republican manhandling of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson this week was convincing evidence that the Senate’s Supreme Court confirmation process is irredeemably broken,” the New York Times’s Carl Husle scolded in a front-page new story on March 24. On CBS Mornings, correspondent Nikole Killion said the hearing consisted of “searing attacks on the first black woman who is likely to be confirmed to the Supreme Court.” Co-host Gayle King fretted: “It was very painful to watch.” “Watching her sit there, as we’re looking at that picture right now, I felt as if I was watching a relative go through hell,” the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart rued on PBS’s NewsHour that Friday (March 25). “We work so hard as African Americans to get to these spots and to stay in these spots... to have to jump through these hoops and be questioned by people who aren’t even at our level.” The hearings changed no votes (do they ever?), with all Senate Democrats (plus three Republicans) voting to officially confirm Jackson roughly two weeks later (April 7). Glass ceiling metaphors abounded. “The star debater from Miami Palmetto Senior High School responsible for lots of shards of glass today, as she smashes through now, this ultimate ceiling in the legal world,” anchor Linsey Davis exulted during ABC’s live coverage. “This moment, of course, is 233 years in the making and she is shattering a double-paned glass ceiling as a black woman,” correspondent Yamiche Alcindor echoed during NBC’s special report. “For the first time in history, four of the nine justices will be women, and white men will be in the minority,” ABC congressional correspondent Rachel Scott announced on World News Tonight. “It was a moment of historic celebration,” CBS’s Nikole Killion enthused the next day (April 8) on CBS Mornings. “Cheers erupted from the Senate floor, to watch parties across the country.” “It’s a very proud moment for a lot of people today,” beamed co-host Gayle King. That afternoon, President Biden held a political event at the White House to further advertise Jackson’s confirmation. Gone was the bitterness with which the media approached the confirmation of Justice Barrett a year-and-a-half earlier. “It feels a little bit like a party here at the White House,” a smiling Mary Bruce recounted during ABC’s live coverage. “This is actually the biggest celebration I’ve seen so far during the Biden administration, and this is a very happy, excited crowd.” “She has achieved so much. She represents excellence to so many people,” ABC’s Deborah Roberts enthused a few minutes later. “Yes, she’s the first black woman, but I don’t think for a lot of people that is really what this is about. This is a woman who just represents excellence....She’s the American Dream.” Certainly, any judge who makes it to the Supreme Court should be celebrated for having reached the pinnacle of their profession. It’s too bad that the media can’t be equally effusive when the high-achieving judge who reaches the Court has been appointed by a Republican president. For more examples from our flashback series, which we call the NewsBusters Time Machine, go here.               

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No Symone, Trump Didn't 'Promise' American Carnage—He Promised To Stop It!

Was Symone Sanders Townsend woefully misinformed—or was she intentionally trampling the truth? On Saturday's edition of MSNBC's The Weekend which she co-anchors, Sanders Townsend said: "In his remarks during his inauguration, [Trump] promised American carnage. He is now making -- he tried to make good on that promise throughout his presidency, on January 6th after he lost. And now, if he is afforded another term by the American people, he is going to triple down on that. " Sanders Townsend then asked: "Am I making it up?" Answer: Yes, Symone: you were making it up. Because what Trump actually said during his "remarks during his inauguration" [otherwise known as his Inaugural Address], was the absolute, diametrical, total and complete OPPOSITE of what you claimed! Rather than "promising" American carnage, Trump promised to "stop" the carnage--"right here and right now." And the carnage Trump promised to stop was that of "mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities," of our "young, beautiful students" being poorly served by our education system, and crime that has "stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential." In other words, Trump was expressing the desire to help, above all, the very Americans that Sanders Townsend would most want to see helped. Both of the guests on the show dutifully agreed with Sanders Townsend's egregious misrepresentation of Trump's statement on carnage. Rashawn Rae, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, replying to Sanders Townsend's "am I making it up?," assured her, "not at all." Later, substitute co-anchor Alexi McCammond said: "Symone's right. From that inauguration speech, we all were like, wow, American carnage! This is what we all signed up for." Note: For the edification of Sanders Townsend, or anyone else unfamiliar with Trump's inaugural address, here's the complete transcript. His promise to stop carnage right here and right now comes in the fifth paragraph. Here's the transcript. MSNBC The Weekend 4/6/24 8:14 am EDT MICHAEL STEELE: Donald Trump is leaning into a dark and dystopian version of America. And his distorsion of reality is reaching a new low when it comes to immigration. He's now embracing the word bloodbath to falsely blame migrants for crime waves that, guess what?, just not happening. And he described President Biden's economic record as, quote, a migrant job fair. . . .  SYMONE SANDERS TOWNSEND: When Donald Trump announced -- not even that, when he, on his inauguration, we're just steps from the Capitol, um, over here. In his remarks during his inauguration, he promised American carnage. He is now making -- he tried to make good on that promise throughout his presidency, on January 6th after he lost. And now, if he is afforded another term by the American people, he is going to triple down on that.  STEE{E: Who's that to? SANDERS TOWNSEND: Anybody! Cause I'm -- am I making it up? STEELE: Who do you want to send that to? RASHWAN RAE: Not at all. . . .  JOE WALSH: Immigration's a big issue. And the Biden team needs to know that. And Trump is going to go lower and lower and lower to appeal to the worst of us. This is not normal. And Biden's gotta call that out. ALEXI MCCAMMOND: I'm curious what you think, or Dr. Ray. It's certainly perpetuated by Donald Trump. I mean, he is saying the craziest stuff. Symone's right. From that inauguration speech, we all were like, wow, American carnage! This is what we all signed up for.

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Authoritarianism! PBS NewsHour Uses Poll to Imply January 6 Energy of Trump Voters

In the Brooks & Capehart pundit segment on Friday's PBS NewsHour, anchor Amna Nawaz broke out the latest NPR/PBS poll showing Biden leading Trump 50-48 (and left out the wider result -- Biden 43, Trump 41, RFK Jr. 11. Stein 2, West 1). They are using taxpayer money to do polling for their tilted narratives. Nawaz wanted the pundits to talk about their provocative question about violence being necessary: NAWAZ: In one question, we asked Americans if they felt that Americans have to resort to violence to get the country back on track. A majority, 79 percent, disagreed or strongly disagreed, but 12 percent of Democrats, 28 percent of Republicans and 18 percent of independents agreed violence might be necessary. Couple that with another question we asked about whether they wanted to see a president or a leader who's willing to break the rules to set things straight, and some 41 percent of Americans agreed with that. That includes 56 percent of Republicans, 28 percent of Democrats, and 37 percent of independents. When PBS and NPR ask this question, it's loaded. It's obviously a January 6 question, and they want January 6 to hang over this election, so they can push their Republicans-hate-Democracy spin. Many Republicans may be thinking about the 2020 rioting after George Floyd's death, which was deadlier than January 6. At least 19 Americans were killed in the first two weeks of violent protest. Six percent of Republicans strongly agreed violence may be necessary, and 22 percent agreed. Now look at other demographics Amna Nawaz could have highlighted that are similar or greater than Republicans, including on the "strongly" agree number (on page 23): Household income under $50,000: 24 percent (9 strongly agree/15 agree) Under 45: 30 percent (9/21) Age 18-29: 42 percent (14/28) Parents with children under 18: 25 percent (7/18) Blacks: 25 percent (14/11) Latinos: 27 percent (5/22) Jonathan Capehart made the obvious point that violence shouldn't be necessary, but he wasn't worried he was going to be asked about race or age:  CAPEHART: It should be zero percent who say that violence is necessary. But that didn't concern me as much as the break the rules, someone who is willing to break the rules to get the country back on track. I think, when people hear, break the rules, they're not thinking ransack the Capitol. They're thinking what they might view as little things. That's all — that's the Trump election — that's the Trump campaign right there, just wants to break the rules to get the country back on track. I broke the rules coming to the studio today. People break rules all the time… But when you're talking about Donald Trump, breaking the rules is breaking law and order, breaking social — breaking norms, and breaking democracy. As always, the lefties skip over how prosecuting Trump all over the country and trying to get his name ripped off ballots is "breaking norms." Brooks almost entirely seconded that Capehart emotion:  BROOKS: I had the exact same reaction as Jonathan. I'm not a big fan of that would you resort to violence, because I don't know what that means. I don't know what violence means in that context. And so people — when people answer that question, that they're really saying, how upset are you about the way things are going? But the breaking the rules thing, that is, to me, also much more upsetting, because that really is the seedbed of authoritarianism. And it's mostly on the right. Trump is scaring a lot of people that we have to break the rules, but it's a little on the left. You hear people say we need to bust up the system, we need to tear down the system. And that way lies authoritarianism.  And you can see it in the Philippines, you can see it in Hungary, you can see it in Poland. Whenever you have a rise of authoritarianism, it's because people think that breaking the rules is somehow OK to make the streets safe. It's sort of like the Dirty Harry defense.And, to me, it's just — that's the most worrying part of our survey. PS: The PBS NewsHour website has an article by their polling producer Laura Santhanam that reeeaaaally drives home the Trump-loathing point:  During recent reelection campaign rallies, presumptive Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump has questioned the humanity of immigrants, referred to a much debated “blood bath for the country” if he does not get reelected and describes people who have been convicted for Jan. 6 criminal offenses as “hostages.” READ MORE: Why Trump’s alarmist message on immigration may be resonating beyond his base His speeches often attempt “to convince people the country is going downhill, that things are awful and only he can fix them,” said Barbara McQuade, a law professor at the University of Michigan and author of Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America.  These latest poll results suggest “to some extent, these strategies are working” and highlight that “we need strong voices pushing back,” said McQuade, who served as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. “It’s an incredibly dangerous place to be,” she said. McQuade added that authoritarians across history have deployed this tactic, conjuring fear to manipulate people’s emotions.

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The Cleveland Plain Dealer's 'True North' Is Truly False

Well, isn’t this interesting. One Chris Quinn, the Editor at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, has taken the time to pen a “Letter from the Editor” to the paper’s readers. The topic: the paper’s coverage of former President Donald Trump. The letter is designed to set the apparent critics of the paper’s Trump coverage straight. Coverage that, it seems, strikes Plain Dealer Trump-supporting readers as -- shocking, I know -- biased against the former president. The letter, found here, is a classic of thinking from inside the liberal media bubble. Lacking any self-awareness and, in the name of “truth” making utterly untrue comments. Let’s take a look. Says Quinn: “The north star here is truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information.” Then he quickly spins out…untruth. Examples? Quinn:  The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse. This is not subjective. We all saw it. Plenty of leaders today try to convince the masses we did not see what we saw, but our eyes don’t deceive. (If leaders began a yearslong campaign today to convince us that the Baltimore bridge did not collapse Tuesday morning, would you ever believe them?) Trust your eyes. Trump on Jan. 6 launched the most serious threat to our system of government since the Civil War. You know that. You saw it. Journalists who are in no way objective still proclaim "This is not subjective." Journalists who sound exactly like Democratic strategists proclaim Trump uniquely undermined faith in our elections...after they spent most of Trump's presidency implying daily that he stole the election in a conspiracy with the Russians. That was a "yearslong campaign" to convince us Hillary Clinton's bridge didn't collapse. There's the usual hype that this was the worst threat since the Civil War, and these people have claimed with a straight fact that January 6 was much more serious than September 11. That's flabbergasting. There have been problems with American elections long pre-dating Trump. Trump was not needed to undermine faith in our elections.  In 2022, for example, CNN ran this headline on my own state of Pennsylvania:  Ex-Democratic congressman sentenced to prison in yearslong Pennsylvania election fraud scheme CNN begins its reporting this way:  CNN  — Expelled former Democratic congressman Michael “Ozzie” Myers has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for federal election fraud dating back to 2014, the Justice Department said Tuesday, and was immediately taken into custody. Myers, 79, pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to deprive voters of civil rights, bribery, obstruction of justice, falsification of voting records, and conspiring to illegally vote in a federal election as part of scams to stuff ballot boxes for certain Democratic candidates in Pennsylvania elections between 2014 and 2018, the DOJ said in a news release. Prosecutors said some of the candidates were running to be judges and had hired Myers, who would use portions of “consulting fees” from his clients to pay others to interfere with election results.” And the source for this story was not what Quinn refers to as "news sources of no credibility.” The source was the United States Department of Justice, as seen here in a DOJ press release. And the headline from the DOJ release:  Former U.S. Congressman and Philadelphia Political Operative Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison for Election Fraud In addition to the problem cited above involving Pennsylvania elections in the five elections between 2014 and 2018, the New York Times ran this headline on its front page all the way back in 1994:  Vote-Fraud Ruling Shifts Pennsylvania Senate The Times began its story by reporting:  Saying Philadelphia's election system had collapsed under ‘a massive scheme’ by Democrats to steal a State Senate election in November, a Federal judge today took the rare step of invalidating the vote and ordered the seat filled by the Republican candidate. In making such a sweeping move, the judge, Clarence C. Newcomer of Federal District Court here, did for the Republicans what the election had not: enable them to regain control of the State Senate, which they lost two years ago. Judge Newcomer ruled that the Democratic campaign of William G. Stinson had stolen the election from Bruce S. Marks in North Philadelphia's Second Senatorial District through an elaborate fraud in which hundreds of residents were encouraged to vote by absentee ballot even though they had no legal reason -- like a physical disability or a scheduled trip outside the city -- to do so. Talk about “undermining faith in our elections”! Note well. This story about a “massive scheme” that resulted in a stolen election was reported in 1994 - a full 21 years before Donald Trump ever ran for president.  Like his many colleagues in the liberal media, Quinn takes Trump's failure to concede defeat and exaggerates it into “an insurrection” on January 6th. Here’s a fact Quinn chooses to ignore. This is subjective. This is energetic spin, not a matter of law. In the charges brought by Biden DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith, not one charges Trump - or anybody else - with insurrection, and insurrection is in fact a chargeable crime. It hasn’t happened. So for Quinn to tell Plain Dealer readers that Trump “sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power” isn't true in a legal sense -- or he would have been charged by Special Counsel Jack Smith for doing so.   Completely ignored by Quinn is that President Joe Biden is the very first president in American history whose administration has gone out of its way to prosecute his political opponent to keep himself in power. Biden is behaving in the fashion of a third world banana Republic dictator in his treatment of his political opposition -- and Trump is the problem? Amusingly and illustrating a complete lack of self-awareness, Quinn says that “ the media landscape has been corrupted by partisans.” Seriously? A media landscape “corrupted by partisans”?  Like at MSNBC? Or maybe, closer to home, by partisans like Chris Quinn and the Cleveland Plain Dealer? The real fact here is that the Editor of the Plain Dealer has in fact made it plain that his highly subjective - and decidedly false - “true north” portrayal of Trump will be running the paper’s coverage of the 2024 election. It doesn’t get much more fake news than that. Note to readers of the Plain Dealer? Look elsewhere for true north coverage in 2024.

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No, ‘Civil War’s’ Fascist President Isn’t Donald Trump

Few films have stirred the cultural pot quite like “Civil War.” The April 12 release envisions a near-future America at war with itself.     Kirsten Dunst leads an ensemble cast including “Parks and Recreation” standout Nick Offerman as the U.S. president. Much of the film’s story has been kept under wraps. The film’s SXSW Film and TV Festival debut let some light shine on the narrative. Offerman’s president, for example, has fascistic tendencies and is currently serving his third term. It must be Trump. Of course. If Hollywood has taught us anything over the past seven-plus years it’s that it can’t stop referencing the 45th president. And, almost every time said commentary is unflattering. To be kind. That’s exactly what journalists were hoping from “Civil War.” It’s why they’re trying to get the film’s stars to admit it. So far, they’re striking out. Offerman spoke to a Hollywood Reporter journalist at length about the project during the red carpet premiere. The actor, who famously played a libertarian on “Parks and Recreation,” is a liberal in real life. He still didn’t take the reporter’s bait. He shoos away any suggestion his character is Trumpian to the core.     “There’s obvious comparisons to Trump here and our political climate,” the unnamed reporter asks Offerman. “How closely did you want to play that?” The veteran star doesn’t bite. “Honestly, it didn’t even come up,” Offerman responds. “[The movie] is so unrelated to any actual factions or politicians. That’s what I think is so brilliant about this film. Everybody on any side of the aisle or any faction has a lot to say and we’re all immediately divisive and partisan in our conversations. “Everybody’s mad about those other jerks, and this movie transcends that. it’s about all of us. And I’m so grateful for that.” His views echoed those of writer/director Alex Garland. The “Ex-Machina” creator has repeatedly said his film is bipartisan. The big picture he wants to share? Let’s stop attacking each other before it’s too late.             View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Civil War (@civilwarmovie)   Over at the far-Left Variety, its reporter tried to do the same with co-star Dunst. Mission: Unaccomplished. But it’s impossible to watch “Civil War” without being reminded of this year’s presidential election — you know, the one where democracy and maybe the fate of the free world hangs in the balance? … For instance, Dunst won’t admit [emphasis added] that the film’s president, played by Nick Offerman as a narcissist with an authoritarian streak, resembles the 45th, and perhaps 47th, Oval Office occupant. 'It feels fictitious to me,” she says of any connection between Offerman’s character and Donald Trump. “I don’t want to compare because that’s the antithesis of the film. It’s just a fascist president. But I didn’t think about Nick’s character being any certain political figure. I just thought this is this president, in this world, who will not abide by the Constitution and democracy.' “Won’t admit” … it’s almost as if the reporter has an agenda and is annoyed that the film’s star won’t play along.

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Kimmel Mocks Concern Over Illegal Immigrant Murderer In Michigan

ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel is a strange man. On his Thursday show, Kimmel wondered why Donald Trump would travel to Michigan to talk about border security since the state borders Canada, while also accusing Trump of exploiting the death of Ruby Garcia, a Michigan woman recently murdered by an illegal immigrant. Kimmel was also not a fan of Trump’s new campaign message, “Somehow, in the middle of all these prosecutions, Trump has been on the road doing rallies, where you know, when you think back on all the presidents, there are so many great lines throughout history. Like, ‘Yes, we can’ and ‘Tear down the wall,’ ‘The buck stops here’ and this, new slogan from Donald Trump, ‘Stop Biden's border bloodbath.’”     Thinking he had come up with some great “gotcha moment,” Kimmel continued, “he unrolled that one in Michigan. The only border Michigan shares is with Canada, but why get bogged down with details?” Kimmel isn’t actually dumb enough to think that illegal immigrants who commit crimes are confined to states along the Southern border, he just wanted a cheap joke about Trump being the dumb one, even if it made no logical sense.  Kimmel proved he knew better when he accused Trump of “shamelessly trying to exploit the murder of a young woman in Michigan, who was allegedly killed by a man she was dating, and who also happened to enter the country illegally.” He further accused Trump of liking the story, “This is the kind of story he loves because it furthers the false narrative that immigrants commit more crimes here than Americans do. So, he grabs on to this very sad story about this woman named Ruby to use it to get elected.” Not only did Kimmel leave off the “illegal” adjective, and not only did he ignore the fact that the man should never have been in the country in the first place, if there is one person in the media who should not be condemning others for using anecdotal evidence in support of a particular policy, it is Jimmy Kimmel, whose reputation as a political comedian is built off such claims. Here is a transcript for the April 4 show: ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live! 4/4/2024 11:37 PM ET JIMMY KIMMEL: Somehow, in the middle of all these prosecutions, Trump has been on the road doing rallies, where you know, when you think back on all the presidents, there are so many great lines throughout history. Like, "Yes, we can" and "Tear down the wall," "The buck stops here" and this, new slogan from Donald Trump, "Stop Biden's border bloodbath."  "Stop Biden's border bloodbath and beyond," is in fact is the-- he unrolled that one in Michigan. The only border Michigan shares is with Canada, but why get bogged down with details? Trump has been shamelessly trying to exploit the murder of a young woman in Michigan, who was allegedly killed by a man she was dating, and who also happened to enter the country illegally. This is the kind of story he loves because it furthers the false narrative that immigrants commit more crimes here than Americans do. So, he grabs on to this very sad story about this woman named Ruby to use it to get elected. 

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Reid Gets Triggered By D.C.'s Reagan And Dulles Airport Names

MSNBC’s Joy Reid and The ReidOut’s assembled panel reacted on Friday to the efforts by some Republicans to name D.C.’s Dulles International Airport after Donald Trump and Democrats’ response of trying to name a federal prison after him by getting triggered at the eponyms currently on D.C.’s two airports: John Foster Dulles and Ronald Reagan. Reid even admitted that she refuses to call Reagan National by its name. Reid opined, “Let’s talk a little about this idea of renaming Dulles. Now, Dulles is not the best airport, it might be the worst airport in America. The Republicans are like, 'let’s name it after Donald Trump.' I love the fact that it's named after one of the most diabolical secretaries of State who destroyed Iran and a bunch of Central America.”     Ali Veshi chimed in to add, “But, let's make that worse.” Echoing the sentiment, Reid continued, “Let’s make it worse. Also, the Democrats have said, 'Instead, let's name a prison after Trump.' Thoughts? Thoughts? Thoughts? Name a prison in Miami?” Velshi loved the troll move, labeling it “fantastic,” but the table then went on a digression about prison names. When the digression ended, Reid returned to Dulles, “I think this is a great opportunity for the nerds of the table just to talk about Allen Dulles and also his brother, it was John Foster Dulles, I think, and Allen Dulles and both of them were involved in destroying Guatemala and Iran.” No, that would be the ayatollahs whose oppressive domestic regime and foreign policy escapades have destroyed a once proud civilization. Still, there was one more D.C. airport to discuss. Political Science Professor Christina Greer added, “Well, I mean, we've— they've already renamed National, Reagan which I refuse to call it Reagan.” If the professor can’t even bring herself to say “Reagan Airport,” one can only wonder what kind of education Fordham University political science majors are getting. Reid, however, would fit right in, “Yeah, I just call it DCA.” Here is a transcript for the April 5 show: MSNBC The ReidOut 4/5/2024 7:51 PM ET JOY REID: Let’s talk a little about this idea of renaming Dulles. Now, Dulles is not the best airport, it might be the worst airport in America. The Republicans are like “let’s name it after Donald Trump.” I love the fact that it's named after one of the most diabolical secretaries of State— ALI VELSHI: Right. REID: -- who destroyed Iran and a bunch of Central America. VELSHI: But, let's make that worse.  REID: Let’s make it worse. Also, the Democrats have said “Instead, let's name a prison after Trump.” Thoughts? Thoughts? Thoughts? Name a prison in Miami?  VELSHI: That is a fantastic— … REID: I think this is a great opportunity for the nerds of the table just to talk about Allen Dulles and also his brother, it was John Foster Dulles— VELSHI: Yup. REID: -- I think, and Allen Dulles and both of them were involved in destroying Guatemala and Iran.  VELSHI: Yeah. REID: So, I feel like that's important and that’s given me the opportunity, so thank you Republicans. CHRISTINA GREER: Well, I mean, we've-- they've already renamed National, Reagan which I refuse to call it Reagan.  REID: Yeah, I just call it DCA.

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NewsBusters Podcast: Mark Levin Hammers CNN's Bash and Tapper

CNN is perennially offended at the thought that Donald Trump is still politically viable despite all its dirty work for Democrats. On his radio show this week, Mark Levin hammered Dana Bash for "fact checking" RFK Jr and tackled Jake Tapper's pleading for Democrats to pander harder to pro-Hamas voters.  Mark Levin took after CNN host Dana Bash for rushing to say RFK Jr. had "NO EVIDENCE that Biden himself was involved" in censoring RFK's speech. He called her a mouthpiece that burps up the Democrat talking points. Listen:  Then there was Tapper pressing the Wisconsin Democrat chair Ben Wikler about how they needed to pursue the pro-Hamas voters, where 46,000 people in the Democrat primary picked the line “Uninstructed." That's more than double Biden's victory margin in Wisconsin last time. Tapper lectured "This president must decide if loyalty to Netanyahu is worth delivering Trump the election in November. He must decide.”  In late-night comedy, NBC host Seth Meyers also lectured the president about how he needs to push around the Israelis and push a ceasefire. CBS host Stephen Colbert decided to put pressure on Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu instead. And ABC's Jimmy Kimmel was dazzled by how clean the bathrooms were in Japan and said the Japanse must say about America, "‘Oh, the garbage people! Yes, the Americans, garbage, yes!’" We also discuss the White House briefing, where NPR reporter Asma Khalid pressed Karine Jean-Pierre about punishing Israel for any of their military mistakes: "Why, thus far, there has been no consequences and why there are no consequences?" AP's Josh Boak tossed this softball: "Past jobs reports have shown that immigrants are helping the U.S. economy. Is the view of this administration that the inflow of immigrants do more to strengthen the United States or hurt the United States? Does it do more?" Enjoy the podcast below or wherever you listen to podcasts.   

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Soros-Funded Fact-Checkers: Who Cares About Free Speech, Our ‘Facts’ Are What Matter

A fact-checking network funded by leftist billionaire George Soros is trying to shift emphasis from free speech to pre-approved “facts.” Leftist Poynter Institute and its International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) only mentioned free speech once in its 2023-2024 Impact Report — and such a mention was only to highlight an individual’s award. Rather, Poynter emphasized “Facts on the global stage,” setting itself up as an arbiter of truth online. Poynter openly boasted about its work to suppress speech on social media platforms. Significantly, this report comes after Poynter Institute received $492,000 in grants from Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF) between 2016 and 2019. Poynter only mentioned “freedom of expression” when it highlighted the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Filipina journalist Maria Ressa for defending free speech. Tellingly, Ressa now trains fact-checkers, which is the work Poynter aimed to highlight. Ressa’s news organization Rappler was a beneficiary of Poynter funds, as was USA Today, among others. “In 2023, Poynter’s IFCN awarded $1.875 million in grants to 55 different news organizations through IFCN’s GlobalFact Check Fund,” the group announced. “Poynter will award up to $4 million in additional grants in 2024.” In the report, Poynter highlighted its fact-checking work for Big Tech companies on its PolitiFact website. “PolitiFact checks claims on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok,” Poynter announced. “In 2023, we initiated fact-checking for native Spanish speakers and will launch a Spanish-language website in 2024.”  Poynter then bragged about its partners Stanford University (a U.S. government censorship proxy) Meta and Google-owned YouTube “to level a playing field full of misinformation.” As widely reported by MRC, misinformation is a common leftist catchphrase to justify censorship of free speech. In the same report, IFCN Director Angie Drobnic Holan raised the alarm that “[m]isinformation is on the march” and that “fact-checkers and other journalists face attack and harassment simply for doing their jobs.” Ignoring the fact that anti-free speech actions are a major factor in reducing trust in media, Holan then claimed, “We are on the side of truth. We are on the side of information integrity.” An example undermining Holan’s claims of objectivity is a 2020 article and Facebook fact-check still available on the Poynter-owned PolitiFact website. The article pushed the claim that “Russian operatives used a series of ‘active measures’ to hack campaigns, spread disinformation and sow discord in an effort to sway the election in favor of President Donald Trump.” PolitiFact cited and linked to the since-discredited Mueller Report, which actually found no evidence of “Russia collusion” with Trump. As former reporter and ex-Lake Elsinore Mayor Thomas Buckley noted in an April 5 Brownstone Institute piece, Poynter is anti-free speech and is not objective. “To the contrary, ‘fact-based expression’ demands both self and external censorship, a political, social, and cultural censorship that will drown out and drone on,” he wrote. Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency and an equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

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PBS Host Geoff Bennett Favorably Quotes Trump to Own a Florida Pro-Life Leader!

On Tuesday, PBS NewsHour interviewed a pro-life activist. But that’s not the term anchor Geoff Bennett wanted to use. He began: “Lynda Bell is president of Florida Right to Life, one of the state's largest anti-abortion groups, and she joins us now.” Conservatives are routinely “anti”-everything. Liberals are usually “pro”-wonderful things. Bennett warned: “Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has now signed two major abortion bans, initially one starting at 15 weeks and more recently one starting at six weeks, before most women even know that they're pregnant.” Most? Is that right? One study quoted by NPR in 2022 asserted it was one out of five, not “most.” The anchor pressed on:  “And Donald Trump has described a six-week ban as — quote — ‘a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.’ Why can't Republicans and anti-abortion advocates find consensus on an acceptable path forward, when overturning Roe had been a decades-long pursuit among conservatives and anti-abortion activists?”   Bell pushed back on Bennett's repeated use of antis: “Well, we pro-lifers — we like to be called pro-lifers, rather than anti-abortion. But we are pro-life. Now, the anti-life community, they want abortion. It doesn't matter. They don't care. They want abortion through birth. So they want unfettered access.” Oh, now you’ve done it! Bennett fought back: “Ms. Bell, that's not true.” Pro-abortion journalists need to be handed the 2020 Democrat platform, and find where they suggest any barrier they favor. They don’t: Democrats oppose and will fight to overturn federal and state laws that create barriers to reproductive health and rights. We will repeal the Hyde Amendment, and protect and codify the right to reproductive freedom…. Democrats oppose restrictions on medication abortion care that are inconsistent with the most recent medical and scientific evidence and that do not protect public health. Bell pointed out that the current abortion referendum on the ballot says everything it to be determined by the health-care provider: BELL: So the health care provider, when it says viability, what that means is, it's going to be determined by the health care provider. So abortion literally could go through birth. That is absolutely a fact. Now, jumping into your specific question, the six-week bill provided for rape, incest, life of the mother, medical emergency, fetal anomaly. So there were very many exceptions in there for women who needed to have an abortion procedure in these very dangerous situations for them, because we're not just pro-baby. We're pro-woman. And we don't want any woman to experience anything that would be dangerous for them. So we in the pro-life community, we love them both. We love both the babies and their moms. Then Bennett asked a question that collapses upon itself: BENNETT: Well, let me ask you this, because the data is clear that states with more abortion restrictions have higher rates of maternal and infant mortality. How are those outcomes consistent with your organization's stated goal of protecting the sanctity of life? BELL: Well, I don't know that that data is absolutely correct, and so I'd love to challenge that data as well. In fact, I'm going to look into that data. BENNETT: It's from the Commonwealth Fund. It's an independent research organization focused on health policy. First of all, how much chutzpah does it take for pro-abortion journalists to cluck at pro-lifers about infant mortality? Aren't they for the right to choose infant mortality? Second, when a journalist calls something an "independent research organization," don't bet on it. Their mission statement proclaims in its DEI section: "The Commonwealth Fund has made a commitment to become an antiracist organization." In its 2022 study, The Commonwealth Fund cites pro-abortion researchers and repeats pro-abortion terms, just like PBS. Expand below:  Introduction In anticipation of a U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, a number of states passed “trigger laws” that would ban all, or nearly all, abortions once national abortion protections ended. In the months since the Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June 2022, several of these states have in fact banned abortion in most instances. Other states have enacted bans or severe restrictions since then, and others may do so in the coming months or years... For our analysis, we compared health status and health care resources in the 26 states that the [pro-abortion] Guttmacher Institute has identified as having “restrictive,” “very restrictive,” or “most restrictive” policies on abortion — which we refer to as “abortion-restriction states” — to those in the 24 “abortion-access states” that, along with the District of Columbia, have not instituted bans or new restrictions on abortion.... Conclusion Compared with their counterparts in other states, women of reproductive age and birthing people in states with current or proposed abortion bans have more limited access to affordable health insurance coverage, worse health outcomes, and lower access to maternity care providers. Making abortion illegal risks widening these disparities, as states with already limited Medicaid maternity coverage and fewer maternity care resources lose providers who are reluctant to practice in states that they perceive as restricting their practice. The result is a deepening of fractures in the maternal health system and a compounding of inequities by race, ethnicity, and geography.... Increased federal funding for reproductive health care, family planning, maternity care, and care delivery system transformations also could mitigate the impact of the Dobbs decision and state abortion bans on people’s lives. State, congressional, and executive branch actions are all needed to protect the health of women and birthing people and ensure optimal and equitable outcomes for mothers and infants.

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Cuomo: 'Hostages Have Become an Afterthought' to Biden, 'Unforgivable'

NewsNation primetime host Chris Cuomo dropped some major truth bombs on his eponymous show Thursday night; directly addressing the folks in the White House he’s been told “monitor” what he says and calling out how the American and Israeli hostages stolen by Hamas terrorists “have become an afterthought” to President Biden, who dropped them below reelection as a priority. He called it all “unforgivable.” At the top of his show, Cuomo noted “that people in the White House monitor what I say” and warned that since officials “won't come on the show,” he was “forced to speak at you rather than to you. This is not my choice.” Cuomo chided the Biden administration for their “half-speak” and “treating the war against Israel as if it were another political point of compromise.” He said the White House was using "appeasement in a situation that is not about balance” but “about realities.” “And I get how worried you are that you're not going have the same base year the last time. But that is not an excuse to be weak,” he directly shouted at Biden, who he declared had “forgotten” the hostages by not making their release the first condition of a ceasefire: There's a primary reality, okay? And we seemed to have forgotten it. Hamas is a terror organization. You designated them as that! They stole people. They need to give the people they stole back to us, to Israel, first! The hostages have become an afterthought! And that is wrong! And the reason it has happened is even more wrong! The reason it has happened is because other political exigencies and agendas have overtaken the relevance!     Cuomo rightfully dubbed the hostages “the most wrongfully injured victims in the entire situation,” and pointed out that Biden’s capitulation was evidence that Israel was receiving the short end of a double standard that benefited Hamas; one that the U.S. would not stand for if it was in Israel’s position (Click "expand"): Now. If Hamas gives back the hostages, which you would likely require as a sine qua non – without this nothing – in any other situation. Certainly if it were you in Israel's position. Then you have leverage. You have a basis for an exchange of wants. Not, “Stop, ceasefire, expose yourself, and then we hope to get the hostages back.” You wouldn't do that. You're asking Israel to do what you never would. And I don't know who else has: Pulling back under threat – existential threat, meaning they want you exterminated. And, by the way, you don't get your people back first. And it does feed the idea. I know you hear this, especially you, Tony. And I know I hear it cause I know who's talked to you about it. That it feeds this malignancy that Jews are treated differently. That Hamas is given more of a break, than your main ally. Why even mention ceasefire before they give back the hostages? The shellacking didn’t stop there. Looking directly into the camera, Cuomo declared that Biden was treating the war “like it's a debate about the debt ceiling. Like it’s brinksmanship. Lie it’s a fake deadline.” “There is too much blood on the floor for this to be about a typical compromise and you know it!” he exclaimed. Throughout his opening monologue, Cuomo spelled out how Biden was putting Israel in an impossible situation with his misplaced expectation for a ceasefire (Click "expand"): So stop treating this as if Israel should be the bigger person. They are convinced they were targeted for extermination. (…) You can provide no assurance that Israel would not be hit immediately because that's what Hamas has promised. That's what Hezbollah is doing. And the other Iranian proxies – now be honest – you have ignored. You have given Iran a pass. You have given them back billions of dollars. If you're going make Israel take on Iran for you, then at least give them a chance to be successful. (…) Enact a ceasefire immediately? Why, when they're not going to be safe? Cuomo kept the focus on the hostages, noting they “deserve the attention” and it’s “unforgivable” how they’ve been forgotten by the Biden administration. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: NewsNation’s Cuomo April 4, 2024 8:03:32 p.m. Eastern CHRIS CUOMO: I know that people in the White House monitor what I say. Good. And because President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken won't come on the show, I am forced to speak at you rather than to you. This is not my choice. I understand. Talk to people within your party at very high levels elected and unelected all the time. I know that the war in the Middle East is a major concern for you in the election. And I think that explains why you misplayed it the way you did today. Okay? You gave a mixed message. You talked tough in what sounded like a threat to your main ally in the region and then you said you're giving them more weapons. You're treating the war against Israel as if it were another political point of compromise. This is wrong, but this is wrong and we need to do better here in the has to be change and blah blah blah ceasefire. A lot of words. A lot of conditional language. A lot of half speak. A lot of appeasement in a situation that is not about balance. It is about realities. And I get the pressure from the left. I get it and I get how tight the race is. And I get how worried you are that you're not going have the same base year the last time. But that is not an excuse to be weak. There's a primary reality, okay? And we seemed to have forgotten it. Hamas is a terror organization. You designated them as that! They stole people. They need to give the people they stole back to us, to Israel, first! The hostages have become an afterthought! And that is wrong! And the reason it has happened is even more wrong! The reason it has happened is because other political exigencies and agendas have overtaken the relevance! The aid workers being hit. Horrible. Matters, of course. Deserves attention, absolutely. But also makes the lack of attention to the hostages apparent. Hitting the aid workers, angels among us is, of course, an acceptable. Everybody knows that. It also must be explained and you should have called for that explanation today, because, you know, they already know the reason this is a very sophisticated organization at the IDF. How can you focus on the aid workers who bravely took the risk to be there – angels among us. That's why I and the team are willing to risk going there to see their work in action so people can see the need. But if you're going to say that what happened to them demands action. How do you not start with the return of the hostages as the most wrongfully injured victims in the entire situation. Every time you speak about what must happen and you do not begin with, “Hey terrorists, give back who you stole,” you are giving terrorists a pass. Every time you don't start there, you lose the Israeli ear. Now. If Hamas gives back the hostages, which you would likely require as a sine qua non – without this nothing – in any other situation. Certainly if it were you in Israel's position. Then you have leverage. You have a basis for an exchange of wants. Not, “Stop, ceasefire, expose yourself, and then we hope to get the hostages back.” You wouldn't do that. You're asking Israel to do what you never would. And I don't know who else has: Pulling back under threat – existential threat, meaning they want you exterminated. And, by the way, you don't get your people back first. And it does feed the idea. I know you hear this, especially you, Tony. And I know I hear it cause I know who's talked to you about it. That it feeds this malignancy that Jews are treated differently. That Hamas is given more of a break, than your main ally. Why even mention ceasefire before they give back the hostages? Now, there's an obvious reason. Too much death in Gaza. Too many innocence dying in Gaza. Children dying, starving in Gaza. You are right. We must all agree. But what has the best chance of motivating a mitigation? Threats to Israel? Never. Political pressure on Bibi? He loves it. All the more reason to force the main want: get the hostages back. You know what response I get to this? “Yeah. You know, but Hams, they don't want to give them back. You know, they’re bad guys. They need the leverage.” Really? So, instead you want to force Israel to relent. Imagine how much stronger the message to Bibi would be if you came in saying, “We told Hamas they have until X to hand over the hostages or else. And when they do. You need to do X, Y, and Z.” The people in Gaza are calling for the release of the hostages more vehemently than you are. They know Hamas has put them in this Hell. What do you know? Then you have a basis for telling Israel there has to be change. Otherwise you're basically asking Israel to give Hamas the win and withdraw. It will not happen. You know this, which means you went in today saying those things to Bibi, having them reported when, you know, it's not going to happen, not under Bibi – Not under any one, if the surveys are to be believed. So stop treating this as if Israel should be the bigger person. They are convinced they were targeted for extermination. Stop treating this like it's a debate about the debt ceiling. Like it’s brinksmanship. Lie it’s a fake deadline. There is too much blood on the floor for this to be about a typical compromise and you know it! The place to push is obvious: Hostages. And with Israel: aid. Several reasons. It's the right thing to do as a moral authority. People are starving. It's bad and it makes Israel look bad. There is a less aid getting in them before October 7th and there is more need for it than ever. You are making a generation ready for radicalization and that's understandable. If all, you know, is a life of squalor in death. What do you think is going to happen? And they're going to blame America's much as Israel. This is also a chance to widen the role of other allies to make this more regional with players and more stakeholders, even if they're only monitoring and securing aid, which you can argue Israel should not be in sole control. And then you will have more reason to have peace because there's much more precedent of an international coalition monitoring humanitarian aid, than there is for asking for a withdrawal without any assurance of safety. You can provide no assurance that Israel would not be hit immediately because that's what Hamas has promised. That's what Hezbollah is doing. And the other Iranian proxies – now be honest – you have ignored. You have given Iran a pass. You have given them back billions of dollars. If you're going make Israel take on Iran for you, then at least give them a chance to be successful. This is not ending anytime soon. And you should tell the American people. It will likely get worse. And you should tell the American people. Aid is the place that makes the most sense that is most needed and has the best chance of making a positive difference. What you are saying today was a mixed message that made nothing better. It may have pleased your left flank that is hyper-sympathetic to the suffering in Gaza and there's nothing wrong with seeing the humanity in that. But that's not your job. Your job is to do something about it. And if you want to help it, stop deal with the suffering and do it smart. That's why you're running for office. And if you keep it like today, you're right. This issue may beat you. So, this is the news, right? Biden first call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since the aid workers were killed. And now they're saying, “strong rebuke.” What strong rebuke?! Enact a ceasefire immediately? Why, when they're not going to be safe? Look, I get it. I love the idea. Let's stop today, everybody go back to your corners, let's try to be reasonable. It's not going to happen. But the hostages deserve the attention. It is unforgivable how we have forgot. (…)

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The Cut Flowers Civilization

This week, famed atheist Richard Dawkins explained that he was a “cultural Christian.” Praising his civilization, Dawkins stated, “I do think that we are culturally a Christian country. I call myself a cultural Christian. I’m not a believer. But there is a distinction between being a believing Christian and being a cultural Christian. And so you know I love hymns and Christmas carols, and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos. I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense.” Dawkins went on to praise Christianity as a “fundamentally decent religion in a way that I think Islam is not.” Dawkins’ case for Christianity -- a case made on the basis of utility -- is nothing new. It was made long ago by acidic critic of the church Voltaire, who famously averred, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” But the problem with the utilitarian case for religious belief is that it doesn’t animate religious believers. It is simply impossible to build a civilization on the basis of Judeo-Christian foundations while making the active case as to why those foundations ought to be dissolved. In fact, Western civilization has doomed itself so long as it fails to reconnect to its religious roots. Philosopher Will Herberg wrote, “The moral principles of Western civilization are, in fact, all derived from the tradition rooted in Scripture and have vital meaning only in the context of that tradition. ... Cut flowers retain their original beauty and fragrance, but only so long as they retain the vitality that they have drawn from their now severed roots; after that is exhausted, they wither and die. So with freedom, brotherhood, justice and personal dignity -- the values that form the moral foundation of our civilization. Without the life-giving power of the faith out of which they have sprung, they possess neither meaning nor vitality.” We are a cut flowers civilization. And eventually, cut flowers die. That has never been more obvious than this week, when the Biden administration decided to honor the newly invented Transgender Day of Visibility on Easter Sunday. Gender ideology is a symptom of our society’s reversion to gnostic paganism, in which unseen, chaotic forces buffet us about, and in which nature is directly opposed to the freedom of our disembodied essences. It is no wonder that gender ideology is opposed by every mainstream traditional religion. Yet claiming that this magical holiday could not be moved, the White House issued a variety of statements in celebration of radical gender ideology, including the deeply insulting statement from the president of the United States citing the book of Genesis to the effect that transgender people are “made in the image of God” -- ignoring the last half of the Biblical verse, which reads, “male and female he made them.” What better time than Easter, the holiest day in the Christian calendar, to pay homage to an entirely new religion? Richard Dawkins is obviously correct that a civilization rooted in church is better than a civilization rooted in an alternative set of values. But in reality, the churches cannot be empty; they must be full. The cathedrals that mean Britain to Dawkins must ring with the sounds of hymns in order to maintain their holiness and their importance; otherwise, they are merely beautiful examples of old architecture, remnants of a dead civilization preserved in stone. But our civilization must live. And that means more than cultural Christianity. It means reengaging with the source of our values -- the Scriptures that educated our fathers and grandfathers.

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Worst of March: Big Tech Companies Renew Censorship-Heavy Ways

March closed with Resurrection Day (Easter or Pascha), the Christian celebration of Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead and renewal. Yet the most obvious thing Big Tech companies have renewed this past month are their censorship-heavy ways. From communist Chinese government-tied TikTok’s censorship of contraceptive-critical content to Google-owned YouTube terminating a therapy group channel for criticizing homosexuality, Big Tech went to bat for the woke, sexual and anti-pro-life ideology of the left in March. Facebook, Instagram and YouTube also “fact checked” content without any clear or defensible justification. Below are the worst examples of Big Tech censorship from this past month. 1) Communist Chinese government-tied TikTok censored content exposing side effects associated with contraceptives. The Washington Post released a report attempting to discredit women discussing the well-known side effects listed on the sizable warning label that comes with oral contraceptives. The Post bragged that it pressured TikTok to censor five videos after its inquiries about alleged “misinformation,” including videos by The Daily Wire commentator Brett Cooper, who hosts The Comments Section, and TikTok influencer Nicole Bendayan. The Post identified one censored video as being a clip from Cooper’s May 2023 appearance on the Iced Coffee Hour podcast, during which Cooper highlighted contraception’s worrying impact on weight gain, fertility, regular hormone function and romantic attraction.  Absurdly, while lashing out at “conservative[s]” for warning about the potential side effects of birth control, The Post neglected to mention its own reporting on oral contraceptive pill users’ increased risk for cervical cancer in 1977. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has also documented substantial evidence of serious side effects from taking hormonal “birth control.” But no mention of that information either from The Post. The clip of Cooper garnered “219,000 ‘likes’ before TikTok removed it following The Post’s inquiry,” according to The Post. The TikTok video links now bring up the message, “Video currently unavailable.” A TikTok spokesperson claimed to The Post that the videos had “inaccurate, misleading or false content that may cause significant harm to individuals or society.”  It is key to note that the anti-American Chinese Communist Party (CCP) owns a board seat and maintains a financial stake in TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, and has reason to suppress and censor certain helpful American or CCP-related content. 2) Facebook fact checks paid ad for college course on globalist “Great Reset” movement. Hillsdale College ran a paid Facebook advertisement on the Meta platform to promote a free video class. "Are you aware of the idea of an economic reset? We discussed this at a recent CCA event and packaged the conversations into a free online video series so you can learn more about this economic reset and its effect on America today,” the ad read. Facebook imposed a “False Information” label, which appears either over or under the image. The label links to a warning: “False information. Independent fact-checkers say this information has no basis in fact. You can choose whether to see it.” Facebook bases this label on a Lead Stories fact check titled “‘The Great Reset’ Is NOT A Secret Plan Masterminded By Global Elites To Limit Freedoms And Push Radical Policies.” Hillsdale explains the Communist China-like “goal of the Great Reset.” The fact check merely cites the goals of the globalist World Economic Forum, originator of the Great Reset project, none of which refute Hillsdale's interpretation. 3) Google-owned YouTube accuses therapy group channel of “hate speech” against homosexuals. YouTube terminated the new channel for a therapy group critical of homosexuality. YouTube previously deleted the group’s channel in 2022 based on a hit piece from the same leftist group that again attacked the late Dr. Joseph Nicolosi’s Reintegrative Therapy Association for alleged “conversion therapy.” The Daily Signal reported that Nicolosi’s son, who was in charge of the channel, received multiple communications from YouTube regarding a video in which the book “The Sissy Boy Syndrome: The Development of Homosexuality” was referenced. YouTube removed the video, claiming so-called “hate speech,” and another video the following day. YouTube initially admitted March 10 to the younger Nicolosi that the content did not violate the platform’s rules, but nevertheless, the next day, YouTube terminated the channel altogether. YouTube alleged “severe or repeated violations of [its] hate speech policy” and refused to alter its position after an appeal. 4) YouTube bafflingly fact checks news podcast. YouTube imposed a fact-checking label on Cumulus News Talk's March 14, 2024 video episode of the Rich Valdes America at Night Podcast. YouTube imposed a label on the video — “William Jacobson, Joseph Vazquez, & Nicole McCaw” — that linked to the “The Great Replacement” Wikipedia entry. The note’s summary pontificated, “The Great Replacement, also known as replacement theory or great replacement theory, is a white nationalist far-right conspiracy theory espoused by French author Renaud Camus.” Vazquez stated that Valdes only mentioned the Great Replacement to say a leftist organization had accused him of promoting the theory.  5) Meta’s Instagram pushes fact checks of royal family photo. UK Princess of Wales Kate Middleton posted a photo of herself and her three children on the official Instagram page for “Prince and Princess of Wales” for UK's Mother's Day. Instagram imposed an interstitial on the photo, saying, “Altered photo/video. The same altered photo was reviewed by independent fact-checkers in another post.” The “See Why” link asserted that “Independent fact-checkers say the photo or image has been edited in a way that could mislead people, but not because it was shown out of context.” Middleton did state that she had attempted amateur photo-editing on the picture, though Instagram’s assertion that this “could mislead people” is not explained. According to Facebook, Instagram's sister-site, users fail to click through similar fact-check interstitials 95 percent of the time. Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency and an equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

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TikTok’s Last-Ditch Effort Amid US Ban: Recruiting Nuns, Veterans and Ranchers

Fazed by a looming ban in the U.S., TikTok has deployed what appears to be a desperate, last-ditch effort to gain support from conservative Americans through propaganda-like ads. According to The New York Times, the communist Chinese-owned social media platform has funneled over $3.1 million on a marketing campaign in three weeks alone, coinciding with the Senate's evaluation of a major anti-TikTok bill. The bill aims to give the US President the authority to force TikTok to divest from its Chinese-based parent company, ByteDance.  As reported by The Times, the multi-million dollar ad campaign might be part of a broader effort by TikTok to pander to conservatives. Disturbingly, the multi-million dollar ad is taking place in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Ohio—all battleground states in 2024. The individuals participating in the campaign are none other than nuns, ranchers and veterans. One of last month's ads features Brian Firebaugh (“the Cattle Guy”), a rancher with almost half a million TikTok followers. In the ad, Firebaugh is seen outside the U.S. Capitol holding a sign: “TikTok changed my life for the better.” Echoing these words and wearing a cowboy hat and boots, he claimed in the ad, “There is no doubt that I would not have found the success that I have today without TikTok.” But ranchers are not the only demographic currently on TikTok’s target list. TikTok also recruited U.S. Navy Veteran Kenny Jary, popularly known to his 2.7 million TikTok followers as “Patroitc Kenny.” In a campaign ad, Jary and his neighbor Amanda (who also serves as his producer) are seen touting TikTok after their videos went viral. “I didn’t know nothing about TikTok,” he said. “Once I got involved with TikTok, I loved it.”   In another ad, Sister Monica Clare, an Episcopal nun, claimed she used TikTok to promote religion. “Because of TikTok, I’ve created a community where people can feel safe asking questions about spirituality,” she said. In remarks to The Times, she defended the campaign aid, claiming: “It’s very smart of TikTok to say no, that’s not what we are — we’re a lot more than that.” Despite TikTok’s unsuccessful attempts to brainwash Americans, the social media platform came under fire after the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act on March 13. The proposed law would prevent ByteDance-owned applications, including TikTok, from operating in the U.S. unless they divest from their parent company. President Joe Biden claimed he would sign the law if the Senate were to pass it. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has not specified when (or if) he will bring such a bill to the Senate floor. Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

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WATCH: ABC’s GMA Fails to Mention ‘Biden’ When Covering Crippling Grocery Prices

Who’s the current U.S. president? ABC’s premier morning news show clearly didn’t let viewers know when covering the crippling food prices Americans are confronting at the grocery store.  During the April 5 edition of Good Morning America, co-anchor Michael Strahan and correspondent Rebecca Jarvis broached the issue of daunting food prices, but did their best not to go as far as making Biden look bad. Strahan acknowledged, “Prices for hundreds of food items have jumped more than 50% since 2019.” However, neither Strahan nor Jarvis mentioned Biden or his out-of-control stimulus policies that exacerbated the price spikes.     Jarvis did visually demonstrate the massive difference between what a consumer could afford in 2019 versus 2024. She said, “The visual is what really creates the contrast. So this is 2019. This is what you got in 2019 for $100. Come over here. This is current day — what you get. And you see, there's an entire section that's missing because you're getting about 30 percent less these days for your money.”  But Biden’s inflation-stimulating policies had nothing to do with this, right Jarvis? Jarvis added, “Back then you could have done the frozen foods, some meat, some hot dogs, some steaks, some strawberries. You see that's missing from over here because $100 then will now cost you about $130.” She continued: “So you want to buy all of that then? Today it would cost you $130. If your budget is $100 then you're sticking to $100, but you’re getting less.” But any discussion of the reason Americans may be forced to make these hard choices with their money today was missing from the entire segment.  Monthly inflation has averaged 5.6% from Feb. 2021, the first month after Biden’s inauguration, to Feb. 2024. But Strahan and Jarvis apparently didn’t find this newsworthy, since this runaway inflation contrasts sharply with 1.9% average monthly inflation under the prior administration. Likewise, consumer prices have risen 18.5% from Feb. 2021 to Feb. 2024.  Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni has repeatedly belabored the point that it is high government spending that has driven inflation, which GMA seemed intent on ignoring.  Conservatives are under attack! Contact ABC News at (818) 460-7477 and demand it tell the truth about the Bidenomics disaster.

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Liberals Love the Minimum Wage — Though It Hurts People Liberals Love

On April 1, the new California $20-per-hour minimum wage for fast-food workers went into effect. In signing the bill, California Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected the view that such a wage hike — 25% above the state’s current minimum wage — hurts teenagers who disproportionately benefit from fast-food jobs and for whom this becomes their entry into the job market. Newsom said: “That’s a romanticized version of a world that doesn’t exist.  We have the opportunity to reward that contribution, reward that sacrifice, and stabilize an industry.” In 2019, The New York Times editorial board echoed the theme: “The simplistic view that minimum-wage laws cause unemployment commanded such a broad consensus in the 1980s that this editorial board came out against the federal minimum in 1987, calling it ‘an idea whose time has passed,’ and citing as evidence a virtual consensus among economists.’ The old critique is still put forward regularly by the restaurant industry and other major employers of low-wage workers ... “A groundbreaking study published in 1993 by the economists David Card and Alan Krueger examined a minimum-wage rise in New Jersey by comparing fast-food restaurants there and in an adjacent part of Pennsylvania. It found no impact on employment.” The 2019 New York Times editorial board has done a 180-degree turn from what its board wrote in a 1987 opinion headlined “The Right Minimum Wage: $0.00": “... there’s a virtual consensus among economists that the minimum wage is an idea whose time has passed. Raising the minimum wage by a substantial amount would price working poor people out of the job market ... “A higher minimum would undoubtedly raise the living standard of the majority of low-wage workers who could keep their jobs. That gain, it is argued, would justify the sacrifice of the minority who became unemployable. The argument isn’t convincing. Those at greatest risk from a higher minimum would be young, poor workers, who already face formidable barriers to getting and keeping jobs.” In a 1973 interview, Nobel Economics Prize winner Milton Friedman said, “I’ve often said the minimum-wage rate is the most anti-Negro law on the books.” Now the “groundbreaking” Card-Krueger study referred to in The New York Times 2019 editorial did refute the consensus among economists that government-imposed minimum wage increases cause unemployment and higher prices and give added incentive to cut labor costs through automation. But about the study, The New York Times’s own columnist, economist, and Nobel winner Paul Krugman, wrote: “Indeed, much-cited studies by two well-regarded labor economists, David Card, and Alan Krueger, found that where there have been more or less controlled experiments, for example when New Jersey raised minimum wages, but Pennsylvania did not, the effects of the increase on employment have been negligible or even positive. Exactly what to make of this result is a source of great dispute. Card and Krueger offered some complex theoretical rationales, but most of their colleagues are unconvinced; the centrist view is probably that minimum wages ‘do,’ in fact, reduce employment. ...” (Krugman now supports a minimum wage.) Other economists attacked the “groundbreaking study” noting that its researchers simply asked employers whether they hired more or fewer workers post the minimum wage hike. When, however, the same employers were asked to provide payroll records, it turned out that the state with the higher minimum wage saw lower employment relative to the adjacent state that did not raise its minimum wage. This confirmed the consensus view that those hurt the most are the so-called unskilled, and that many of these would-be workers are the very black and brown liberals like The New York Times editorial board purports to care about. Ohio University economist Lowell Galloway examined the study and denounced it: “The Card-Krueger study is still cited because it is useful politically. ... It still has legs because the minimum-wage notion is an idea that just will not die. You cannot put it to rest by any amount of evidence demonstrating its problems. Whenever people want to believe something strongly enough, any study that supports that belief -- no matter how bad it is -- will be accepted.” But enough about Gov. Newsom and The New York Times.

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PBS Blames Churches Following The Bible For 'Politicization Of Religion'

Correspondent Sarah McCammon joined her NPR colleague Michel Martin on Thursday’s Amanpour and Company on PBS to discuss her book, The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church because public broadcasting networks stick together. Naturally, Evangelicals’ relationship with Donald Trump and the “politicization of religion” was a big part of the conversation, but McCammon made it clear that her definition of politicization was that Christians do not bend their beliefs to appease the LGBTQ crowd. McCammon, who also appeared on NewsHour back in March to promote the book, recalled that “we saw most people, frankly, as lost, as fallen. We believe that, you know, there are verses in the Bible about only, you know, a narrow path to heaven, and we really believed in that literally, and we believed that most people were not on that path, and it was our job to help them find it.”     That is standard Christian teaching, but McCammon tried to make it into something political, “And so, for me, you know, and I should say that Evangelicalism is a very big movement. A lot of different types of churches fall into that, and it's -- there's a spectrum of belief in practice, and so what I'm saying might not apply to everyone. But I think most of the Evangelical kids at my generation grew up with similar influences, a similar sort of concept of the world, similar views of human sexuality.” With that as background, Martin later asked, “Fast forward, when did you see cracks in the dam? When did it start to break for you?” McCammon cited her grandfather coming out as gay in the 80s after her grandmother died and the tension that created in her family, “you know, this was, again, a time when, you know, the moral majority was on the rise, the Christian right was rising. My parents were very influenced by people, by, you know, right-wing leaders like James Dobson and Gary Bauer and Ralph Reed and others, and, you know, people who were fighting against same-sex marriage and fighting against abortion rights.” She added, “But I think over time, as I thought more about that and really just kind of felt a pull to have a relationship with my grandfather, and also through, you know, interactions with other kids here and there who were not evangelical Christians.” Additionally, McCammon would remember feeling that Christian ideas of salvation—which is standard Christian doctrine, not right-wing politicization—are too rigid after she met and befriended an Iranian Muslim immigrant as a kid. Towards the end, Martin asked her if so-called Exvangelicals could be a political force going forward. McCammon theorized they could be, but again, proved that many of the objections to Christianity have nothing to do with Trump and are not confined to problems with Evangelical Protestantism, “I think people who have left religion in part because of disaffection with some of the politicization of religion, both ex-evangelicals and some former Catholics, they form a pretty big group of people and there's a host of reasons why people leave.” Christian teaching on sexuality has remained constant for centuries, but for McCammon not changing truth to appease young left-wing political sensibilities is actually politicizing the faith, “A lot of it -- some of it has to do with just simply not believing the things that their churches teach. But the polling I've seen from groups like the Public Religion Research Institute suggests that particularly the treatment of LGBTQ people by much of the Christian right is a major factor for particularly a lot of younger people disaffiliating from their churches.” It would be one thing to discuss potential political excesses in the Evangelical Church, but to do that, PBS would need somebody who actually believes in Christian doctrine, not somebody who thinks doctrine itself is political. Here is a transcript for the April 4 show: PBS Amanpour and Company 4/4/2024 SARAH MCCAMMON: We saw most people, frankly, as lost, as fallen. We believe that, you know, there are verses in the Bible about only, you know, a narrow path to heaven, and we really believed in that literally, and we believed that most people were not on that path, and it was our job to help them find it. And so, for me, you know, and I should say that Evangelicalism is a very big movement. A lot of different types of churches fall into that, and it's -- there's a spectrum of belief in practice, and so what I'm saying might not apply to everyone. But I think most of the Evangelical kids at my generation grew up with similar influences, a similar sort of concept of the world, similar views of human sexuality. And, you know, we were taught that marriage is between a man and a woman, that the rise of gay rights was sort a sign of a falling away of the country from being a Christian nation. Certainly, abortion rights and the changing roles of women were part of that and that was something that many evangelicals in my community were actively fighting against and that message was very much tied up with the spiritual and religious message that I was hearing in church and in my Christian school, for example. … MICHEL MARTIN: So, fast forward, when did you see cracks in the dam? When did it start to break for you? MCCAMMON: You know, people often ask me this, like, what was the moment? And there wasn't one moment and I think for many of the people there were many moments. There are many little things that just kind of felt like they didn't add up or moments of exposure to people who were different, who didn't quite fit the mold of what we were told the world should be like or was like. And again, my grandfather was a really big part of that for me. I always struggled with the idea that there was something wrong with him, you know, both because he wasn't a Christian and also because, as I talk about in the book, he had come out -- after my grandmother passed away in the '80s, he'd come out as gay, late in life. And that was a source of a lot of conflict and tension in my family. You know, this was, again, a time when, you know, the moral majority was on the rise, the Christian right was rising. My parents were very influenced by people, by, you know, right-wing leaders like James Dobson and Gary Bauer and Ralph Reed and others, and, you know, people who were fighting against same-sex marriage and fighting against abortion rights. And so, the idea that my own grandfather was living in this "lifestyle," I think was very difficult for my parents. It really clashed with their beliefs. And it meant that we were -- my siblings and I didn't spend a lot of time with him because he was seen as sort of a threatening figure. But I think over time, as I thought more about that and really just kind of felt a pull to have a relationship with my grandfather, and also through, you know, interactions with other kids here and there who were not evangelical Christians. … MCCAMMON: I think they could be. I think it's early to say, and I think people who have left religion in part because of disaffection with some of the politicization of religion, both ex-evangelicals and some former Catholics, they form a pretty big group of people and there's a host of reasons why people leave. A lot of it -- some of it has to do with just simply not believing the things that their churches teach. But the polling I've seen from groups like the Public Religion Research Institute suggests that particularly the treatment of LGBTQ people by much of the Christian right is a major factor for particularly a lot of younger people disaffiliating from their churches.

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Hostin: The Rock Has ‘an Obligation’ to Endorse Biden for ‘Democracy!’

It’s very anti-democratic and hypocritical to demand someone endorse and vote for the candidate you were supporting all in the name “dEmOcRaCy,” which was why it came out of the mouth of The View’s staunchly racist and anti-Semitic co-host, Sunny Hostin (the descendant of slave owners) during Friday’s show. She was supported by the far-left ABC audience that booed and jeered Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson for going on Fox News and informing everyone he would not be endorsing President Biden this cycle. The audience proved how rabidly partisan and fickle they were throughout the segment, cheering wildly when his name was first mentioned and then pivoting to obnoxious revulsion when he wouldn’t back Biden (Click “expand”): BEHAR: So, this morning, besides the earthquake going on, on Fox & Friends, Dwayne "The rock" Johnson was asked about – [Audience hoots and hollers] BEHAR: He was asked about -- are his relatives here? What? (…) JOHNSON: The endorsement that I made years ago with Biden was one I thought was the best decision for me at that time. [Transition] Am I going to do that again this year, that answer is no. I'm not going to do that. Because what I realized what that caused back then was something that tears me up in my guts. Back then and now which is division. [Cuts back to live] BEHAR: So, a couple of questions. First of all— [Audience booing and jeering] ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: Maybe they're not his relatives.     Moderator Joy Behar’s take was that he shouldn’t be listened to because he went on Fox News for an interview. And with absolutely ZERO self-awareness, she rhetorically scoffed at listening to celebrity endorsements period. “So, first of all, should I pay any attention to who gives an interview on Fox where they lie every day? Number one. Number two, should celebrities publicly endorse public figures?” she asked the table.  “Now, is the time if you have a platform, you must be active. You must speak out…if you have a platform, you have an obligation,” she shouted. Self-proclaimed independent Sara Haines had the sane take. She argued that entertainers were not obligated to take sides and recalled comments from Country artist Reba McIntyre on keeping politics out of her performances: Reba McIntyre was the one, I think, who said once, “I don't want to speak about my politics because what I do is music and it's unifying. And when I go to a concert,” she goes, “I want everyone to feel welcome and together. I don’t want to divide anyone.” She also dismissed the idea that celebrity endorsements were required, arguing: “…it's so vapid to imagine just because someone says ‘I'm going to vote for this,’ that the sheep will fall in line and follow. That minimizes voters everywhere.” Co-host Ana Navarro also defended Johnson, proclaiming he’s “entitled to do whatever the hell [he] want[s].” She recounted when, during the 2000 election cycle, Johnson made appearances at both the Republican and Democratic conventions with the goal of promoting voting in general. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View April 5, 2024 11:15:10 a.m. Eastern JOY BEHAR: So, this morning, besides the earthquake going on, on Fox & Friends, Dwayne "The rock" Johnson was asked about – [Audience hoots and hollers] SUNNY HOSTIN: Yeah. BEHAR: He was asked about -- are his relatives here? What? [Laughter] He was asked about putting his weight behind Joe Biden in the last election. So, watch. [Cuts to video] DWAYNE “THE ROCK” JOHNSON: Am I happy with the state of America right now? Well, that answer is no. Do I believe we're going to get better? I believe in that. I'm an optimistic guy and I believe we can get better. [Transition] The endorsement that I made years ago with Biden was one I thought was the best decision for me at that time. [Transition] Am I going to do that again this year, that answer is no. I'm not going to do that. Because what I realized what that caused back then was something that tears me up in my guts. Back then and now which is division. [Cuts back to live] BEHAR: So, a couple of questions. First of all— [Audience booing and jeering] ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: Maybe they're not his relatives. HOSTIN: Yeah. BEHAR: So, first of all, should I pay any attention to who gives an interview on Fox where they lie every day? Number one. Number two, should celebrities publicly endorse public figures? [Audience shouting “no”] Or they should keep their politics to themselves? ANA NAVARRO: If they want to. I mean, celebrities are U.S. citizens – are American citizens with a -- you don't lose your rights as a citizen because you are a celebrity. But, you know, I remember -- I'm so old like I was telling Molly today, I said I remember being at a Republican convention where The Rock spoke and I remember him being at the DNC. It was in the year 2000 in Philadelphia and when he spoke, he wasn't there. It was George W. Bush that was getting the nomination. He wasn't there endorsing. He was there raising awareness for voting and getting young people and his followers to be involved. BEHAR: Like Taylor Swift is -- NAVARRO: Yeah. So look. I think for him the cause of division aspect is a real one. He also went to the DNC that year. And I think everybody is entitled to do whatever the hell they want. HOSTIN: And I think – You know, he's been quite political. I agree with you and he's been very engaged and very involved. I do think we're living in a time where we have someone running for president that is an existential threat to democracy. Right? [Audience cheering, shouting “yes”] That is where we are at, someone who has been -- has 88, you know, criminal charges, four indictment, someone that has vowed to be a dictator on the very first day he takes office. Now, is the time if you have a platform, you must be active. You must speak out. That's how I feel, and I generally don't – [Applause] I generally don't think that celebrities should be forced to be politically active. BEHAR: Not forced. You have a platform. – HOSTIN: But right now, if you have a platform, you have an obligation. SARA HAINES: Reba McIntyre was the one, I think, who said once, “I don't want to speak about my politics because what I do is music and it's unifying. And when I go to a concert,” she goes, “I want everyone to feel welcome and together. I don’t want to divide anyone.” BEHAR: She can do it at the end of the show. [Laughter] HAINES: Point is there are activists people who are entertainers, Kerry Washington, is a self-proclaimed “I’m an activist.” You have Jane Fonda, activist. When you're not an activist and happen to have a big platform I think encouraging people to vote is the most important part, because I think it's so vapid to imagine just because someone says ‘I'm going to vote for this,’ that the sheep will fall in line and follow. That minimizes voters everywhere. So, I don't think it matters who they're voting for. Its public participation is the important part. [Applause] (…)

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Survey Finds Young Women Prefer Femininity Over Feminism

One of the only things that wake me up every day is the idea that one day I’ll get to homeschool my kids, honor God and serve my husband. Though that more biblical role is frowned upon by progressives who think women have to work a 9-5 to be worth anything, many women are waking up to what our natural, God-designed role as women is supposed to be. A survey conducted by the Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women and steered by GOP campaign consultant Kellyanne Conway’s company KAConsulting, LLC, indicated that young women nowadays prefer femininity and tradition over feminism.  The Clare Boothe Luce Center surveyed 800 young women between the ages of 18-24 years old, only to find 82% of them admitted that they consider themselves more aligned with “femininity,” and only 50% consider themselves "feminists." Additionally, 79% agreed that women who are stay-at-home moms can be “just as successful as a woman who chooses to be in a professional field.” The survey also asked participants about their top political issues, what they seek in life, and about equality. Thirty-two percent of women surveyed said that abortion was the top issue for them, followed by the economy and inflation. The survey also found many women say they're seeking marriage, buying a home, having children and the prioritization of time with friends and family. One more interesting component of the survey was that a vast majority of women, regardless of political party affiliation, agreed that it is unfair to have biological males compete in female sports. Take that Lia Thomas! Related: What's a 'Tradwife,' And Why Is It So Popular? This study comes at the foothills of a recently re-popularized phenomenon. The idea of a “tradwife” is trending on social media because women are waking up to the fact that traditional roles for men and women prove to be incredibly beneficial. Just look at the pros: a mom doesn’t have to work an eight-hour shift just to cover the cost of child care, they can have a say about what is taught to their children, and can serve their families better with the flexibility of being at home, among many other pros. While this lifestyle isn’t for everyone and some girls are destined to be professional boss babes, this traditional sense of life, with femininity at its core is really making a comeback - and honestly, I couldn’t be happier. Follow us on Twitter/X: MRCTV's @tierin_rose joins OAN to talk The White House's transgender Easter celebration, grandpa's chestfeeding, and Lizzo's retirement. pic.twitter.com/ohZmKlr7jg — MRCTV (@mrctv) April 3, 2024

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‘Come on Now!’; Doocy, Kirby Tangle in Tense Battle Over Biden Turning on Israel

While the liberal media spent Thursday’s White House press briefing in a state of amazement and curiosity over the Biden administration’s hard pivot away from Israel by warning of unspecified moves if more isn’t done to placate to Hamas-run Gaza, Fox’s Peter Doocy called out this possible abandonment of a democracy in favor of Islamic terrorists holding innocents hostage.  As a result, things got tense with the National Security Council’s John Kirby.  Doocy started with a question about who warned Israel about alleged and specific threats to Israel’s security from Iran in the next 48 hours, but then made the pivot with this hardball: “On October 7, President Biden said, ‘my administration’s support for Israel’s security is rock solid and unwavering.’ That is not true anymore, correct?” Kirby claimed “still true today”, which left Doocy incredulous: “[H]ow support unwavering, but you’re also reconsidering policy choices?”     Things quickly grew tense with Kirby having a look of utter disgust that left the liberal press corps laughing at Doocy: KIRBY: Both can be true. DOOCY: They cannot be true. They’re — they’re completely different things. KIRBY: No, no, no. I just — DOOCY: He is — KIRBY: — I’m sorry. DOOCY: — he is wavering. KIRBY: Ah, now, now, now. Come on, Peter. Get out. DOOCY: How is he not? [REPORTERS LAUGH] KIRBY: Ah, come on. Come on now.  Doocy then let Kirby drone on for a little bit about how “both things are true” that “the manner in which they’re defending themselves...needs to change” and “our support for Israel’s self defense remains ironclad” given “[t]hey face a range of threats”. Kirby even went as far as to say the Biden regime’s backing of Israel is “not gonna waiver” other than “some policy changes that we might have to make”. Having let him go on long enough, Doocy interjected to lambaste Kirby for his use of the phrase “not gonna waiver”: “How is that unwavering? It sounds like you guys are trying to have it both ways here. You support Israel but we are going to make all these changes because we don’t support Israel?” In the midst of that, either another reporter or White House staffers chided Doocy, yelling out his name! For Kirby’s part, he insisted he “didn’t say we’re going to make changes” and then went personal to sarcastically presuming Doocy doesn’t see innocent people starve and face slaughter.  When Doocy pointed out “nobody wants to see that” and kept pressing, Kirby had an unfortunate flub by saying, “[o]n October 7, we didn’t see thousands and thousands of innocent people killed” (click “expand”): KIRBY: I said, we need to see how Israel’s responds to the humanitarian crises in Gaza and how they respond to protection of aid workers. I think we can all agree. I think you would agree. You don’t want to see innocent civilians killed and targeted, do you? You don’t want to see Gazans starve. You don’t want to see famine in Gaza, do you? DOOCY: Nobody wants — KIRBY: Of course not. DOOCY: — to see that, but — KIRBY: So — DOOCY: — you’re a policy maker and you’re talking about policy changes. KIRBY: — so — DOOCY: That is not what you were talking about on October 7 — KIRBY: — because things have — DOOCY: — when it was solid and unwavering. KIRBY: — on October 7, there wasn’t near famine in Gaza. On October 7, there wasn’t, um, a diminution of trucks getting into Gaza. On October 7, we didn’t see thousands and thousands of innocent people killed. Uh, I mean, I could go on and on. We’re talking about a conflict there which is dang near at six months here this weekend, six months, and it has changed over time and the — what the President’s message today was we need to see some changes in the way Israel is dealing with that threat. DOOCY: And — KIRBY: That’s — that’s what two good friends and allies can discuss. This isn’t about un — this isn’t about changing our support to Israel or the security of the Israeli state, and I — I just have to take issue with the premise of the question. Doocy wrapped with what should have been asked way earlier in the Q&A, not at almost the 30-minute mark: “Where is President Biden on any of this? When he wants to talk about how angry he is or frustrated he is about the high cost of insulin, he comes out and gives an impassioned speech. Where is he on any of this?” Kirby tried to play cute: “He’s been talking about this. He’s been issuing statements on this.” Doocy noted that’s something concocted in “private”, but again Kirby played it off by saying presidential statements are “public”. Only after a third time did Kirby change his tune: “I’m sure you’ll continue to hear from the president about this, and many other national security issues.” Fast-forward to the end of his turn at the podium and HuffPost’s S.V. Dáte asked an important question (albeit gently) that correctly pointed out the Biden administration’s dramatically increased opposition to Israel and demands for a ceasefire would lead one to think they’re no longer prioritizing Hamas returning the remaining hostages. Kirby said this wasn’t the case, but with only a mere throwaway line in his last sentence about hostages: HuffPost’s S.V. Dáte: “Admiral, could you clarify on the — the — the ceasefire language that the President used the statement? He says that, uh, that there should be a ceasefire, um, and then the next — after a comma, it’s ‘he urged Prime Minister to empower negotiators to… pic.twitter.com/0qbFCOrZIV — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 4, 2024 To see the relevant transcript from the April 4 briefing (including questions about EVs, TikTok, and a report of a sexual harassment scandal in the White House), click here.

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‘American Awakening’: Neb. Senator Crosses Party Lines After Dems Forced Pro-Abort Stance

Nebraska state senator Mike McDonnell just announced his switch from a Democrat to a Republican after being forced for years to support abortion and pro-abortion policies, despite being a man of the Catholic faith. Sebastian Gorka, former deputy assistant to President Donald Trump, posted a video of McDonnell’s shift. “In 1984 I decided to register as a Democrat,” McDonnell said. “I was a Christian, member of the Roman Catholic Church, and I was proud of that and I was pro-life." McDonnell explained that he’s tried hard to stick with those principles throughout his time as an elected official but that it’s become increasingly hard given that his beliefs don’t align with the policies that the left likes to push. “I asked the Democratic Party in Douglas County to respect that I’m pro-life, that I’m a member of the Roman Catholic Church and [that] my beliefs are based on that. But as county Democrats, instead of respecting that, they decided to punish it,” McDonnell said, claiming his colleagues insisted he couldn’t participate as a delegate with his morals and convictions. Nebraska State Senator Mike McDonnell has crossed party lines and today became a Republican. Why? Because the Democrats demanded he be pro-Abortion, despite being a Catholic. #AmericanAwakeningpic.twitter.com/9mjyOYueeC — Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) April 4, 2024 Looks like people are starting to wake up to reality and see how controlling the left is. “After 40-years of being a registered Democrat, having your grandfather tell you when you’re 10 years old, 'What are we? We’re Irish, we’re Catholic and we’re Democrats.’ That kinda stuck with me,” McDonnell said through a sad smile, noting that this decision wasn’t easy, but that the support of his staff helped him through the process. The state senator said that thanks to his switch, “The greatest thing about it is now I can participate again." “Today I’m announcing I am now going to be a registered Republican in the state of Nebraska," he announced to the crowd at an event this week. The applause for McDonnell’s decision didn’t stop at the event. Users on X praised him for his decision. Related: Mass. Hospital Will No Longer Auto-Report Babies Born With Drugs In Their System, For 'Racial Equity' “Values over party … love to see it,” a user wrote, with others adding, “He did the right thing,” and “bless him." Others pointed out the hypocrisy of our very own president Joe Biden who regularly touts and praises pro-abortion policies yet calls himself a devout Catholic.  “Dear Joe: Here’s how you do it ‘devout Catholic.’” a user wrote. In all, it’s reassuring to see that the tides are turning and people are starting to wake up to the anti-life, anti-religion, and overall anti-American ways of the left. Follow us on Twitter/X: MRCTV's @tierin_rose joins OAN to talk The White House's transgender Easter celebration, grandpa's chestfeeding, and Lizzo's retirement. pic.twitter.com/ohZmKlr7jg — MRCTV (@mrctv) April 3, 2024

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Detransitioner Chloe Cole Puts Disney on Blast: ‘You Are the Ursula’

Famous detransitioner Chloe Cole recently partook in Disney’s annual shareholder meeting. During the open line portion of the call, Cole put the company on blast for paying and advocating for transgender treatment but neglecting to support those who choose to de-transition after realizing that they made a mistake. “Disney pays for gender transition interventions but not detransitioning care,” she began. “Therefore, the company discriminates based on gender identity under EEOC regulations.” Cole was advocating that the board vote in favor of proposal number seven for the company in regards to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The proposal would force Disney to cover de-transitioning care in its benefits package. Cole then began sharing her own personal experience that led to her activism in this area. Cole was born a girl and began transitioning into a boy starting at age 12. She received hormone replacement therapy and even had a double mastectomy by age 16. Now, after realizing that changing her gender was a mistake and didn’t cure her insecurities, but instead put her life at risk and caused life changing complications, she’s become an avid spokeswoman for people like her. She wants to help those who were “manipulated” and “physically harmed at a young age by gender ideology.” Just got off the phone from the @Disney annual shareholders meeting. I needed to call out Bob Iger and the rest of the board’s hypocrisy and the dangerous lies they feed to us through the media. Here is what I said: pic.twitter.com/OxQOgPNvoi — Chloe Cole ⭐️ (@ChoooCole) April 3, 2024 “As a result,” Cole continued, “I am suing those professionals who steered me into taking these destructive steps that have permanently scarred me. But Disney, in its arrogance, has responded to our proposal by stating that I am only trying to generate attention for a limited agenda. “ Before concluding her statement on the phone, Cole called out Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, directly. Mr. Iger, Disney, under your watch, is pushing the limited agenda of gender ideology, Disney has become the Ursula that is stealing the voices of thousands of little Ariel’s across the world by telling us that we can be something that we can never become. The lawsuits are coming, sir. It’s only a matter of time before current or past employees whose bodies and lives have been irreversibly harmed, will show up at your door looking for justice and restitution. Mic drop. Disney very obviously supports the leftist agenda and, in it’s so-called attempt to be inclusive of those who are struggling with their identity, is in fact excluding people who are also struggling. The only difference is the ones Disney favors are the ones who are believing a delusion, whereas their negligence is against those who actually have a handle on reality.  Time will tell what happens with Disney’s decision on this proposal. Until then, I won’t be planning any new trips to the house of mouse.

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Wild-Eyed Scarborough: Netanyahu Intentionally Starving Gaza, Like STALIN Starved Ukraine

Joe Scarborough is notorious for his incessant Trump = Hitler analogies. Now, for purposes of smearing Benjamin Netanyahu, Scarborough has devised an analogy to another mass-murdering dictator. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough began by claiming that Netanyahu "had a plan to force famine on the Palestinian people, on the Gazan people." Scarborough then upped the ante, claiming that Netanyahu's plan is "calculated, and let me say, it's calculated just like Stalin's starvation of Ukrainians was calculated. This is calculated by Benjamin Netanyahu." Scarborough's mention of Stalin's starvation of Ukraine was a reference to the Holomodor, a famine imposed on Ukraine in 1932-33 by Stalin in which an estimated 3.9 million Ukrainians perished. As the maxim goes, in war, truth is the first casualty. Various anti-Israel organizations have accused Israel of intentionally starving Gazans, but hard facts are hard to find. Often, headlines are cleverly couched: starvation "looms," starvation is "stalking." Consider that here at home, left-wing groups regularly push nonsenical notions like "More than 44 million people in the US face hunger, including 1 in 5 children." In fact, in the Unites States, as worldwide, by far the bigger health threat is not hunger, but obesity. Note that Scarborough offered no evidence in support of his scurrilous accusation that Netanyahu is intentionally starving Gazans. By implication though, he could be buying into the insinuation that MSNBC's Jonathan Lemire made on Morning Joe earlier this week, that Israel's strike on the World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza was intentional. And Scarborough also repeated today his cynical twist on a phrase fashioned by those seeking the total destruction of Israel, which we noted yesterday, that Netanyahu's plan is for an Israel, "from the river to the sea."  Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 4/5/24 6:17 am EDT JOE SCARBOROUGH: It is increasingly looking like Benjamin Netanyahu had a plan to force famine on the Palestinian people, on the Gazan people, to amp up the pressure on Hamas. Of course, it seems to me that the hostages aren't even secondary in his mind because, of course, and people say, well, Hamas could release hostages. Yeah, they could! They're terrorists! They're terrorists! And they're not going to release the hostages unless the conditions are right. Which the conditions most likely are a cease fire and the allowing of the worst terrorists to escape out of Gaza with their lives. But, but this whole idea that if we starve the Gazan people, that's going to somehow help Israel in the long run, that's going to help the hostages? No! It's hurting the hostages, it's hurting Israel. And of course you're, you're starving women and children in Gaza, and as Katty said yesterday, they're now having to grind up dog food and cat food and, and eat that, and, and drink salt water. I mean, it's savage conditions, and it's calculated.  And let me say, it's calculated just like Stalin's starvation of, of, of Ukrainians was calculated. This is calculated by Benjamin Netanyahu, and somebody needs to ask me, why the hell the United States shouldn't intervene with a guy that has a 20% approval rating and knows that when the war is over, he could be going to jail.

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PREVIEW: After Much Whining, Joe Biden Finally Gets His Univision ‘Softball’ Interview

Former President Donald Trump’s November sit down with Televisa anchor Enrique Acevedo, which aired on Univision in the United States, triggered a Chernobyl-style meltdown among the left. Part of the underlying rationale for the meltdown was a feeling that Acevedo didn’t come off the top rope on Trump, preferring instead to conduct a “normal” interview without performatively interrupting and pestering the 45th President of the United States. Many on the left derided the interview as a “softball”. However, everything is fine now that President Joe Biden has scored his own Univision “softball”.  As Adrian Carrasquillo reports for Vanity Fair:  Enrique Acevedo, Vanity Fair has learned, was in Phoenix to prepare for an interview this week with Biden, a major get for the Spanish-language giant as it works to reestablish its footing as a fair arbiter during the 2024 cycle. The interview, set to be pretaped on Thursday at the White House, according to two Bidenworld sources familiar with the details, will be part of a coverage package from Acevedo that will also feature an interview with campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, as well as two questions he already asked Biden in Phoenix, where he was given a total of four minutes with the president. It is always interesting to get Carrasquilo’s perspective given his standing as unofficial scribe of the Professional Latinx. As we’ve documented extensively, the idea that Univision was ever a “fair arbiter” to begin with is laughable on its face. It is even more ridiculous that Univision would lose this pretend fair arbiter standing by virtue of a single one-off interview orchestrated by corporate headquarters in Mexico City, wherein the entirety of Univision’s news division was cut out of the booking and editorial process. But such is the left’s sense of entitlement to the Hispanic community, specifically the flow of information to those who speak mostly or only Spanish, that the Trump interview was completely out of bounds.  But those criticisms of Univision were unfair and unwarranted, given that the network never stopped being a Democrat talking point regurgitator. Shortly after the Trump interview, Univision performed an interview of Vice President Kamala Harris that was so soft and servile, that to characterize it as a softball would be an egregious insult to softballs. As I said at the time: This interview should’ve elicited the same outrage for the same reasons, but didn’t, because Kamala Harris got to air unchallenged talking points in front of a nice anchor who seemed happy to be there and didn’t ask any tough questions. And so the left, the Professional Latinx, the Immigration Industrial Complex, and the Acela Media all bit their tongues at this embarrassment of an interview, which might as well be an in-kind contribution to Biden-Harris 2024. A double standard isn’t really a standard at all.   Back to the Biden interview: it will be significantly different from the Trump interview, where Acevedo and crew simply set up shop at Mar-a-Lago and let it rip. Both from Carrasquillo’s reporting and from Acevedo himself, we can glean that this interview will have significant choreography (as one would expect given that Biden comms consigliere Anita Dunn set the whole thing up). The interview, then, is really an assemblage of mini-interviews at multiple locations, interspersed with an interview of Biden campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodriguez (a reminder that Biden has very little to offer in terms of Hispanic engagement other than a noun, a verb, and Cesar Chavez).  The interview will be heavily edited, especially in light of Sage Steele’s allegations and firsthand experience with Biden’s cognitive decline. Between the editing and the voice dubbing provided by the GOAT interpreter Vicente de la Vega (who does all presidential dubbing for Univision), Biden is going to sound like a million bucks, thirty years younger, and most of the cognitive decline will be hidden from view. We’ll see whether they run the interview in English with subtitles on sister network UniMás, as they did with Trump.  Then there’s Acevedo. How does he play the interview? Does he play it straight up like he did with Trump and just let Biden talk? Or does he cave to the activist left’s pressure to compensate? Mark my words, the left and the Professional Latinx will go nuts if Acevedo dares ask Biden a follow-up question or challenge him on anything. The most dangerous scenario for the left here is that Biden actually gets the same interview that Trump got. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I don’t think that this interview will be a needle-mover for Biden in the same way that it may have been for Trump because no one watching Univision had ever seen a normal interview with Trump before. Univision interviewing a Democrat is just more of the same, and I expect that no one will resign in protest over this interview. In the end, no matter how deferential the interview, the Acela Media and Professional Latinx are highly likely to come away unsatisfied. Univision, having raised crows, must now endure getting its eyes plucked out.  

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Daily Show: Trump a 'Pathetic Worm' For Potential Electoral College Rule Change

Some in Nebraska have tried, and ultimately failed, to change the way the state awards its electoral votes and bring it in line with 48 other states. Among those in favor of moving away from a proportional allocation to a winner-take-all system is Donald Trump, which led Comedy Central’s Desi Lydic to label him a “pathetic worm” on Thursday’s edition of The Daily Show. Lydic is also not a fan of the electoral college itself, as she claimed, “The president is decided by the electoral college, the incredibly overcomplicated system that our founders came up with as a prank on future generations.”     It really is not all that complicated, Lydic just doesn’t like it because she views it as disadvantageous to liberals. Still, Lydic elaborated, “Most states award all their electoral votes to whoever wins the state, but Nebraska splits theirs up by district. And in 2020, that meant Joe Biden received an electoral vote from liberal Omaha. Because as it turns out, every state has a Brooklyn. But now Donald Trump has realized that he wants that vote, and that could make all the difference.” Lydic then played a montage of clips about the news, the last of which was of state Sen. Megan Hunt, who claims to be an independent, declaring that “Pathetic worm Donald Trump thinks that he knows what's best for Nebraska and what Nebraskans want [jump cut] but this man [jump cut] obviously wants this electoral vote because he's so scared he can't win the presidency without it.” Hunt is the kind of independent whose Twitter bio reads, in part, “Bi queen. She/her. Free Palestine.” She’s also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. As for Lydic, she feigned outrage, “Excuse me, ma'am, whatever happened to decorum? That's former President Pathetic Worm.” After further lamentations about how a change could cost Biden the election, Lydic urged that the electoral college be done away with, “Nebraska should really, truly keep this system, though, because it's certainly a more fair way to divide up electoral votes than winner take all. In fact, what if every state split up their votes like Nebraska by district, or maybe even by person, you know. Then, whoever wins the most persons would be the president!” Meanwhile, over at CBS and The Late Show, host Stephen Colbert was also lamenting possible changes to Nebraska’s system, “Trump himself is taking every angle he can to try to weasel his way back into the White House. He's even pressuring the state of Nebraska to change how it awards electoral votes. Always a bad sign when your campaign strategy is to bully individual states.” He further declared that “Nebraska's electoral system matters because many believe the election will be so close it could be decided by the single electoral vote from Nebraska's second district. Okay, in other words, this is a complete and total –”   Colbert was then interrupted by writer Brian Stack. Colbert and Stack have a recurring gag where the latter pretends to be unaware that Colbert is taping. This time the bit was that the two don’t know enough about Nebraska to offer up a good punch line, but Stack showed a little self-awareness about the show’s audience, “We'll put our noodles together, get ya something great. Big laughs, major joke, write-up in HuffPo for sure. I'll be back in one hour!”  Here are transcripts for the April 4 shows: CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert 4/4/2024 11:40 PM ET STEPHEN COLBERT: Trump himself is taking every angle he can to try to weasel his way back into the White House. He's even pressuring the state of Nebraska to change how it awards electoral votes. Always a bad sign when your campaign strategy is to bully individual states. "Hey, more like old Hampshire, you dusty bitch. Now, gimme all your electoral votes, and go back to 69-ing Vermont. Oh! I bet Ben and Jerry like to watch."  Nebraska's electoral system matters because many believe the election will be so close it could be decided by the single electoral vote from Nebraska's second district. Okay, in other words, this is a complete and total –  BRIAN STACK: Hey, Steve?  COLBERT: Oh, hi, Brian. It's my writer Brian Stack, everybody. Brian, what's up?  STACK: Well, I couldn't help but notice you were talking about Nebraska. You know what they say about Nebraska? COLBERT: What's that, Brian?  STACK: No. I'm asking. Do you know what they say about Nebraska? 'Cause the writers and I are trying to cook up a real crackerjack joke and if you know anything about Nebraska, we could probably write the joke to play off of that. You know, for your monologue.  COLBERT: Brian, I'm doing the monologue right now.  STACK: Perfect-o. We'll put our noodles together, get ya something great. Big laughs, major joke, write-up in HuffPo for sure. I'll be back in one hour!  *** Comedy Central The Daily Show 4/4/2024 11:03 PM ET DESI LYDIC: As you know, the president is decided by the electoral college, the incredibly overcomplicated system that our founders came up with as a prank on future generations. Most states award all their electoral votes to whoever wins the state, but Nebraska splits theirs up by district. And in 2020, that meant Joe Biden received an electoral vote from liberal Omaha. Because as it turns out, every state has a Brooklyn. But now Donald Trump has realized that he wants that vote, and that could make all the difference.  ERIN BURNETT: Could the election all come down to Nebraska? Donald Trump thinks so. He and his allies convincing Nebraska's Republican governor to support a major change in the way the state has been doling out its electoral college votes for the past 32 years.  REPORTER: Governor Jim Pillen says, it's time for Nebraska to speak with one unified voice by making the popular vote be the one that counts for all five delegates. Former President Trump applauds that effort, but Democrats pushed back.  MEGAN HUNT: Pathetic worm Donald Trump thinks that he knows what's best for Nebraska and what Nebraskans want [jump cut] but this man [jump cut] obviously wants this electoral vote because he's so scared he can't win the presidency without it.  LYDIC: Excuse me, ma'am, whatever happened to decorum? That's former President Pathetic Worm. Yeah, but the implications here are huge. Biden's easiest path to the white house is to win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, plus that one Nebraska vote. If he gets that, he can lose every other swing state and still win the election. But if Nebraska makes this change, the election could end up in a tie and you might be wondering what happens in that case? Well, it's simple, really: Have you seen The Purge movies? It's like that. Nebraska should really, truly keep this system, though, because it's certainly a more fair way to divide up electoral votes than winner take all. In fact, what if every state split up their votes like Nebraska by district, or maybe even by person, you know. Then, whoever wins the most persons would be the president!

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ABC's 'Grey's Anatomy' Celebrates In-Utero Life-Saving Surgery on Pre-Born Baby

ABC's Grey's Anatomy is one of the most rabidly pro-abortion shows on television, but last night's episode spotlighted life-saving surgery on an unborn baby. On Thursday's episode, "Baby Can I Hold You," Dr. Arizona Robbins (Jessica Capshaw) announces to a room full of interns that the hospital will be performing a unique brain surgery on a growing baby in the womb. The plotline is based on a real, first-of-its-kind surgery performed in the United States last year. Robbins: Correct, and in utero the baby is typically sheltered by mom and the placenta, but then after delivery and the cord is clamped, what happens? Yes? Adams: The baby's heart and lungs become overwhelmed with the massive overflow of blood.  Robbins: Which can lead to heart failure, seizures, and possibly death.  Shepherd: Standard procedure has been embolization after delivery, but many babies do not survive. And if they do, the child often has major brain injury.  Bailey: So that's when I called Dr. Robbins.  Robbins: So, a few months ago I started a clinical trial with a team of interventional neuroradiologists in which we operate on the baby's brain before delivery.  Yasuda: In-utero brain surgery? Sick.  Millin: Ugh. I hate babies. Kwan: Technically a fetus.  Millin: What did I say about talking to me? Millin hates babies, and Kwan is nitpicking about the Latin word for offspring, but the lead doctors are genuinely excited about saving the unborn child. Bailey feels the hospital's interns should not be allowed in the operating room to observe because they are too immature. Robbins disagrees, insisting the surgery is too important a moment for the budding doctors to miss. "Bailey. We might fix a baby's brain inside a womb. That is magic," she says.  As Robbins begins the surgery, she tells her colleagues, "Every second puts mother and baby in more danger, so let's make them count. " She also talks to the unborn child while working on her. "Alright, calm down, baby girl, calm down," she whispers when the baby moves. The surgery is successful. Doctors let the pregnant mother know that her unborn baby now has a good prognosis but will have to spend some time in the NICU after she is born. Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes is one of the most radically pro-abortion writers on network television.  Her abortion-pushing shows include a famous episode of Scandal in which a woman has an abortion to the tune of "Silent Night." Grey's Anatomy itself has been a relentless fount of extreme abortion propaganda.  How does one explain the cognitive dissonance between an episode about live-saving in-utero surgery and episodes promoting killing children in the womb? Many abortion proponents no longer bother to deny that an unborn child is a baby. Activists on Twitter/X have even gone so far as to post cakes mocking their unborn babies' deaths. The unborn girl in "Baby Can I Hold You" only matters to the writers because the mother wants her, not because of her innate value as a human being. This one episode may have highlighted an unborn life, but Grey's Anatomy remains an abortion-loving show.

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Why Do Americans, UN Support Hamas Terrorists?

Most recent Gallup polling in March shows that 36% of Americans “approve of Israeli military action in Gaza” and 50% disapprove. Last November, a month after the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel that claimed the lives of more than 1,200 innocent Israeli civilians, 55% approved of the military action that Israel initiated. What has happened over the last few months that now barely more than a third of Americans support the clear case of the right of Israel to defend its country? We might also ask why only 55% last November supported Israel’s military action to defend itself. Let’s again recall that Americans were strongly united to condemn and retaliate against the horror of the terrorist attack against our own country on Sept. 11, 2001, that took the lives of almost 3,000 American citizens. The 1,200 Israeli victims of terror, in that tiny country of some 9.5 million, equates to more than 40,000 in our country of over 330 million. Why is it not equally clear that Israel must defend itself as we must defend our homeland? Per Brown University’s Costs of War project, total casualties in Afghanistan, and subsequently in Iraq, as result of U.S. retaliatory military action in the war against terror, amounted to 177,000, some six times greater than casualties reported in Gaza. We must also note, again, that we’re not just talking about murder, regarding the 1,200 Israelis that were killed. We’re talking about subhuman brutality, documented in video, in which rape, beheadings and desecration of bodies occurred. The Hamas terrorists celebrated with joy every Israeli murder and atrocity. Hamas has long been recognized by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization. Why are Americans not united in condemning the sickening murder and brutality of the Hamas terrorists, demanding the release of the now estimated 130 hostages they still hold, which include six U.S. citizens? How could our country abstain in the recent United Nations Security Council vote demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, with no condemnation of Hamas terrorism and with no demand of unilateral release by Hamas of the hostages they hold? What is the disconnect that can explain the absence of uniform support among Americans for clear-cut action by Israel to defend itself against brutal terrorists, committed to the destruction of its state and homeland? Freedom House is a nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based organization that issues an annual report of the state of freedom around the world. Freedom House, in this annual report, grades countries worldwide regarding the extent to which they are free. Per Freedom House’s methodology, each country is graded on a scale of 1-100, based on political rights and civil liberties in that country. In the Middle East region, there is only one country that Freedom House scores as free -- Israel. Out of a possible 100, Israel scores 74. For perspective, the United States has a score of 83. Looking at the Middle East neighborhood where Israel exists, we see it standing alone as free in a sea of unfree countries. Freedom House scores for Israel’s neighbors: Jordan 33, Egypt 18, Lebanon 42, Syria 1, Iraq 30, Saudi Arabia 8. Why does the clear lack of freedom across the Middle East not seem to bother anyone while the only free country in the region elicits protests and condemnation? Why, 76 years after Israel’s founding, and its miraculous emergence as a modern thriving nation -- a world center of innovation and technology, boasting 13 Nobel prize winners -- do many still reject its right to exist? Amid this craziness, let’s recall, again, that Israel is the only Jewish country in the world. There are 49 countries with majority Muslim populations. There are 15 million Jews in the world and 1.8 billion Muslims. Yet, worldwide, there remains antipathy to this lone, tiny yet successful-way-beyond-its-size Jewish country. Something is wrong. Very wrong.

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Column: PBS 'News' Hounds Are OK with Biden's Inflammatory Rhetoric

They call themselves the PBS NewsHour, but if you watch them routinely, you might call them the PBS Opposition Research Hour. They often sound like a Democrat consulting firm as they analyze Donald Trump as a dangerously extreme figure. Then they can turn around and proclaim that Joe Biden is very bipartisan in negotiating “objectively historical achievements,” as PBS anchor Amna Nawaz claimed at the State of the Union address. On April 2, PBS aired a segment titled “Analyzing Trump’s use of inflammatory rhetoric on the campaign trail.” Two days later, it was changed to “Anatomy of a Trump speech." They decided to watch all the scary passages in Trump’s recent speeches with Jennifer Mercieca, who reporter Lisa Desjardins blandly described as “an author and Texas A&M professor who specializes in political and Trump rhetoric.” PBS didn’t note that Mercieca wrote a book in 2020 titled Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump. (It was shown on screen.) Its dust cover promises to explain “how a bombastic pitchman emerged as America’s authoritarian P.T. Barnum, using nothing more than his weaponized words to transform a polarized and dispirited nation into his own reality TV show.” Does this expert shopping sound fair and balanced to anyone? As Trump denounced Biden for a “border bloodbath,” Desjardins explained he’s attacking “anyone who calls it a humanitarian crisis.” Mercieca lamented “it can’t be neutral. It can’t be a situation at the border. It has to be violent. It has to be an invasion. It has to be a bloodbath.” Seriously? Last October, their anchor Nawaz wasn’t neutral as she compared separating children from their families at the border under Trump as “one of the darkest chapters in our modern history” that echoed slavery and the internment of Japanese-Americans.   Naturally, Desjardins repeated the Democrat spin that “there’s no evidence of a bloodbath for Americans living there” (at the border), and “multiple studies show that migrants are actually less likely to commit crime than others here.” Trump lamented, “if we don’t win on November 5, I think our country is going to cease to exist. It could be the last election we ever have.” Desjardins explained Mercieca’s thesis: this is “what separates Trump,” it’s not “political razzle-dazzle, but dangerous, hyperbolic fearmongering.” If that “last election” talk is dangerous, will PBS rewind to Joe Biden’s first campaign speech back on January 5. Biden said of Trump: “He’s willing to sacrifice our democracy, put himself in power…. Trump’s assault on democracy isn’t just part of his past. It’s what he’s promising for the future…. We’re living in an era where a determined minority is doing everything in its power to try to destroy our democracy for their own agenda.” These “public” broadcasters know what Biden has said in his campaign speeches, and they’re fine with it. No one thinks it’s a lie or that it’s dangerous. Mercieca acknowledged, “All presidents run as heroes. It’s not uncommon. Joe Biden is running as a hero right now. He’s running as a hero to save democracy.” But she claimed “Donald Trump is running as a different kind of hero.” How so? Desjardins concluded the segment with this about Trump: “When he’s saying the situation is dire, when he’s saying democracy will end if I’m not elected, he is implying to some of his followers, violence may be okay.”   Biden is saying democracy will end if he’s not elected, but PBS can’t imagine his followers would ever believe “violence may be okay.” PBS makes “news” by Democrats, for Democrats. But it’s subsidized involuntarily by tens of millions of allegedly democracy-squashing Republicans. 

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Scarborough: Netanyahu Wants An Israel 'From The River To The Sea'

Every time the issue of Israel's war with Hamas arises on the Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough touts his pro-Israel record. But now that Biden's support for Israel is costing him in battleground states and among certain demographics, Scarborough has become a fierce critic of Israel's conduct of the war, and of Benjamin Netanyahu in particular. During a long, angry, rant on Thursday's Morning Joe, Scarborough, in a grotesque variation of the slogan of those calling for the destruction of Israel, claimed that Netanyahu's vision is for "an Israel from the river to the sea." Careful, Joe: Rashida Tlaib might sue for copyright infringement! And speaking of Squad members, Scarborough is sounding increasingly like them, as he also accused Israel of "the systematic killing of [Gaza] civilians." What's next, Joe: accusing Israel of genocide? Macho Joe Scarborough also put in an appearance. First, after warning parents to put earmuffs on their kids, Scarborough declared that it is time for Biden and others to "call bull----" on the choice that Netanyahu is supposedly offering.  Next, Scarborough said that anyone disagreeing with his recommended approach on Israel "can go straight to Hell." Then, commenting on Israeli minister Ron Dermer reportedly yelling at U.S. officials during a virtual meeting yesterday, Scarborough said: "I'll tell you what, yell at me on the phone, and I'm a U.S. official -- I hang up on you. Seriously. They can call back and apologize and keep talking." Tough talk, Macho Joe! Scarborough did stop short, though, of claiming that he would have reached through the ether and made Dermer eat his phone, as Joe once claimed he'd do if he found a Capitol tourist taking photos somewhere Scarborough didn't like. It's been reported that Scarborough has become a frequent Biden phone buddy, and an informal adviser to the president. Do we think Scarborough advised Biden to break out the "river to the sea" line against Bibi? Wonder how that'd go down? Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 4/4/24 6:31 am EDT JOE SCARBOROUGH: His dream has been an Israel from the river to the sea. You know, Israelis rightly, Israeli rightly are offended when people talk about the need for a Palestine that's from the river to the sea, because it's talking about wiping out Israel. Well, the shoe's on the other foot here. Because this is Benjamin Netanyahu's vision, to push Palestinians out, and have Israelis from the river to the sea. And he presents the United States a false choice. You either support my twisted vision of what I'm doing in Gaza and what I've been doing in the West Bank now for over a decade, robbing Palestinians of their homes. Allowing religious extremists to set up illegal settlements. Running roughshod over all Palestinian rights in the West Bank, because it helps Benjamin Netanyahu politically with those religious extremists.  Either do that, or you're not a true defender of Israel. It is time, moms, dads, please, put earmuffs on your children right now. It is time for Joe Biden! It is the time for the United States Congress. It is time for Americans to call bullshit on that. Because that has led us to where we are today. And enough is enough. We can have two things at once.  You know, if Netanyahu wants to do this, he has his choice. If he wants to continue taking Israel off a cliff. He has a choice. He can do that. But we Americans, we have a choice, too. And our choice is not defined by what Benjamin Netanyahu says our choice is. Our choice is to say, we will continue to support Israel, but we're not going to continue to support the systematic killing of civilians. And if you want our support, you're going to need to do this, this, and this. And anybody that says, after what we've seen, Willie, over the past couple months. Anybody who says that that's anti-Israeli, they can go straight to hell, because they're dead wrong. . . . You know, Ron Dermer was the guy yelling on the phone yesterday at administration officials. I'll tell you what, yell at me on the phone, and I'm a U.S. official -- I hang up on you. Seriously. They can call back and apologize and keep talking.

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ABC Still Mad Over Documents Trial Despite Judge Ruling Against Trump

The Mar-a-Lago classified documents case continues to sore vex the folks over at ABC News. Judge Cannon’s ruling against former President Donald Trump’s arguments doesn’t appear to be enough. The mood is still…salty. Here’s how ABC World News Tonight covered Judge Cannon’s ruling and response to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s filing, as aired on Thursday, April 4th, 2024: DAVID MUIR: Back in this country, and a major setback for Donald Trump tonight. A Florida judge rejecting Trump's attempt to have the classified records case thrown out. Here's Pierre Thomas.  PIERRE THOMAS: Tonight, a Florida federal judge rejecting Donald Trump's effort to get the classified documents case against him thrown out of court. Trump had argued the Presidential Records Act gave him the right to take those classified documents and that the case should be dismissed. Judge Aileen Cannon, who Trump appointed to the bench, ruling that the case should go forward. But in her ruling, the judge also takes a swipe at Special Counsel Jack Smith, rejecting his call to explain her controversial suggestion that she might instruct the jury to consider Trump's claims that the classified documents were his personal property. Smith called that notion "fundamentally flawed" and "wrong," insisting it "would distort the trial." He demanded that the judge clarify her intentions. Tonight, Judge Cannon refusing to do so, writing, "The court declines that demand as unprecedented and unjust." Judge Cannon suggesting she's in no rush to resolve a potential clash over jury instructions, telling the special counsel he can try to force her hand if he wishes, by appealing, David. MUIR: Pierre, thank you. Just last night, correspondent Pierre Thomas was channeling the Special Counsel’s office, complaining about Judge Cannon’s consideration of issuing a jury instruction with regard to the Presidential Records Act. Thomas laid out the good old “critics say” with which to smear Judge Cannon and suggest that she’s automatically in the tank for Trump. Today, she throws the Presidential Records Act argument out the window. And yet Thomas is still mad.  The tone of this coverage comes off as outrage over the fact that this Trump-appointed judge would dare refuse to allow herself to be led around by the nose by Special Counsel Jack Smith. Thomas closes his report out by reminding everyone that Judge Cannon is, in his view, taking her sweet time on a series of rulings, among them her decision on jury instructions. But make no mistake. What ultimately underlies this coverage of the Mar-a-Lago documents case is outrage. Outrage over the fact that the case will not go to trial in time to influence the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.

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NY Post’s Nelson Draws Out Angry KJP Over Report of WH Sexual Harassment

Near the end of a tense White House press briefing Thursday dominated by questions about Israel, the New York Post’s Steven Nelson drew terse replies from Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre over his recent reporting on powerful White House aide Anthony Bernal being accused of “bull[ying] and verbally sexually harass[ing] colleagues over more than a decade.” Not only has Bernal has vehemently denied the allegations in Nelson’s heavily-sourced story, but Chief of Staff Jeff Zients went on the record to defend him and Bernal could be viewed as unfirable given he’s so close to First Lady Jill Biden she’s reportedly called him her work spouse. Nelson began with that description of Bernal, adding “[t]hree former colleagues have made allegations of sexual harassment against him, building on prior reports of bullying” and not only have “[s]ome of these sources have worked with you,” but “you’d find them credible.” Given that, Zients’s statement and his “sources” being “alarmed...it could chill sexual harassment and bullying reports”, he wondered “[h]ow can the White House...possibly justify not...investiga[ing] these allegations.” Jean-Pierre stepped in before he could finish with the well-known declaration from Biden in 2021 that he’d fire on the spot anyone who mistreats a colleague, scoffing that she doesn’t “know who your sources are, so....I can’t speak to that” since “they’re blind sources.”     Adding she won’t ever speak about “personnel investigations”, she sang Bernal’s praises as someone she’s “known...for more than a decade” and counts him as both “a friend” and “a colleague” she’s “worked closely with”. To Nelson’s credit, he eventually stepped in despite Jean-Pierre’s continued filibustering: “I just gotta press you on this because the President said he would fire people for disrespecting colleagues and there’s no investigation.” Jean-Pierre continued to screech and make Nelson’s point, insisting this is all “unfounded” claims. Nelson tried a third time by noting there certainly seems to be “special status” granted to Bernal given what seems to be “the First Lady shielding him as some sources believe.” Jean-Pierre again rallied around Bernal one last time (click “expand”): JEAN-PIERRE: Steven, I’ve answered the question. I’ve answered the question. Bernard [sic] — Anthony Bernal spoke for himself. You heard from our chief of staff — our chief of staff — and gave your publication a statement, obviously. And you’ve heard from me. I — I’m — I don’t have it. NELSON: Is that going to have a chilling — JEAN-PIERRE: I don’t — NELSON: — effect, though, on people who suffer — JEAN-PIERRE: I don’t have anything else — NELSON: — sexual harassments or bullying. JEAN-PIERRE:— to share. I don’t have anything else to share on that. Before asking about Bernal, he brought up both the ongoing legal odyssey of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the bipartisan push to make the PRESS Act law. Not surprisingly, Jean-Pierre all but ignored the former to only talk about the latter (click “expand”):  NELSON: [O]ur government appears to be closer to potentially extraditing Julian Assange. Press freedom groups say this case threatens to criminalize or professional, so I’m wondering what the White House is thinking is regarding that matter and potential threat to press freedom. Does the White House have a stance on the depending federal press shield legislation that passed the House and that Senator Schumer told me he hopes reaches President Biden’s desk here? JEAN-PIERRE: You’re talking about the press acts — NELSON: Yes. JEAN-PIERRE: — more specifically? Look, and I said this — I said this many times — I said this last week where journalism is not a crime. We’ve been very clear about that. Uh, and as it relates to this particular legislation, I haven’t reviewed. It would have to talk to our Office of Leg Affairs on that particular legislation. But I do want to say, back in October of 2022, the Justice Department codified a policy to ban subpoenas of journalist records. The President strongly supports the right of free and independent press. That is something that the President talked about when he was at the Gridiron. The president talked about this at the last White House Correspondents Dinner. He has been very consistent about this, and I’ll just quote him for a second: “A free press is a pillar of any free society and while we may not always agree with certain coverage or admire it, we do admire the courage of the free press.” Journalism, again, is not a crime. NELSON:  Before moving on, just to confirm, no stance yet on the Press Act that you’re aware of? And the Assange matter, is there concerned about that? JEAN-PIERRE: Ah. You know, I don’t have much more to share besides what I just laid out here, so I would just leave it as what I just stated to you. A few minutes before Nelson, the Fox Business Network’s Grady Trimble called out the Biden administration’s failed attempts to make fetch happen and force Americans to buy electric vehicles (EVs). Jean-Pierre, appearing prepared for the question threw out a littany of numbers in attempt to make it seem like EVs are both afforable and exploding in popularity: Fox Business’s @Grady_Trimble: “Ford said today it's delaying production on an electric SUV. Tesla, earlier this week, said its sales are plunging. Do these types of developments make the administration rethink their EV policy?” KJP: “No, not at all. Look, you know, when it… pic.twitter.com/kkRwTWO4gD — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 4, 2024 Thankfully, Trimble followed up on this gobbledygook: “So, is it realistic to go from about seven or eight percent of sales to 50 percent of sales in eight years if the automakers themselves are cutting back pro — on production?” It was here the Jean-Pierre we’ve come to know emerged as she fumbled through with claims “that— that U.S. manu — U.S. manufacturing jobs have increased” and “[j]obs have indeed increase [sic] and when you see a boom like this, that means you need auto workers, right? It can’t happen on its own...and we want to see a manufacturing industry that’s for the future of this — of this country”. Trimble’s other subject concerned President Biden’s hypocrisy on Chinese-owned TikTok: “If President Biden is concerned enough about TikTok to bring it up on a call with the president of China, why is he and why is the Vice President — why are they still making videos for TikTok?” Though Jean-Pierre isn’t adept at many things, one thing she does know what to do is what she did here: punt to the reelection campaign. To see the relevant transcript from the April 4 briefing (including questions about Israel), click here.

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Is There a Global Assault on Free Speech? Latest Twitter Files Suggest So

A new installment of the Twitter Files has revealed a government campaign in Brazil to coordinate political censorship with Big Tech. Journalist Michael Shellenberger deplored the “sweeping crackdown on free speech” occurring in Brazil, particularly against supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro. The Twitter Files identify Alexandre de Moraes, head of Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) and member of its Supreme Court (STF), as the alleged prime culprit in a congressional and judicial effort to crush political opponents’ speech, Shellenberger reported.  “De Moraes has thrown people in jail without trial for things they posted on social media,” Shellenberger revealed on the Twitter Files, also co-written by Brazilian journalists Eli Vieira and David Agape. “He has demanded the removal of users from social media platforms. And he has required the censorship of specific posts, without giving users any right of appeal or even the right to see the evidence presented against them.” According to Shellenberger, the Brazilian government had requested users’ data from major social media companies including Google, Facebook, Uber, WhatsApp and Instagram. He noted that these companies provided registration data and phone numbers without court orders and legal justification for such requests. Twitter’s Brazilian legal counsel Rafael Batista consistently tried to fight court orders for private information, Shellenberger explained. Unfortunately, compliance from other tech companies, particularly Google, in providing information to the government undermined Twitter’s stand. In response to these disturbing findings, Dan Schneider, the MRC Vice President for Free Speech, did not hold back, saying: “Brazil’s Supreme Court is authoritarian and a serial abuser of individual rights. Americans have a hard time understanding this since the Brazilian government is structured so differently, but it is no surprise that its Supreme Court is again silencing conservatives and trying to lock up those who criticize it.” Expanding on his response, Schneider added: “That Google would help support such an authoritarian monster is also not a surprise. Google has a long history of cooperating with the Chinese Communist Party while simultaneously refusing to work with our own Defense Department.”  While Twitter did push back against a criminal investigation and various suits, it did acknowledge censorship of an “extreme right” individual for COVID-19 content, per Shellenberger.  When Jair Bolsonaro supporters began criticizing TSE and STF, the government entities behind the alleged free speech assault, the courts aimed to have the users demonetized and suppressed online. Jair Bolsonaro and his son Carlos Bolsonaro were among the targets.  Shellenberger quoted Twitter’s Head of Legal Diego de Lima Gualda, “There is a strong political component with this investigation and the court is trying to put pressure for compliance.” The government not only sought to obtain information but also pushed to reduce interaction with specific content and “certain types of trending hashtags.” Twitter argued the latter was illegal. By November 2021, however, an appeals court demanded global Twitter removal of “specific URLs related to the plaintiff.” Shellenberger posted that even Brazil’s Federal Police (FBI equivalent) were involved in the TSE investigation by March 2022.  “On March 30, 2022, the day after de Moraes took office as president of the TSE, the TSE mandated Twitter to, within a week and under the threat of a daily fine of 50,000 BRL (US$ 10,000), supply data on the monthly trend statistics for the hashtags,” Shellenberger explained. IP addresses and subscription information were also requested ahead of the 2022 election. Even congressional members were targeted. Brazilian attorney Hugo Freitas told Shellenberger the pre-election pressure from TSE was “clearly abusive.” Despite this, Twitter eventually complied with de Moraes’ censorship requests. The government continues to escalate its efforts even now with proposed “Fake News” censorship legislation, Shellenberger added. “TSE’s censorship is an attack on the democratic process,” he concluded. “Elections can remain free and fair only if the public is able to debate and question election laws, systems, and results. If there ever is electoral fraud in Brazil, nobody will be allowed to talk about it, if de Moraes gets his way.” MRC Assistant Editor for Business and Free Speech America Luis Cornelio contributed to this report. Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency and an equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

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Jim Jordan Uncovers Familiar Faces in Ad Boycott Plot Against Right-Leaning Outlets

Guess what entities House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has unveiled as key players in a major advertising boycott of right-leaning outlets? On March 26, Jordan demanded documents from several high-profile companies participating in a disturbing initiative of the World Federation of Advertisers, a global advertising association.  At the time, Jordan asked five major companies about their prominent role as a “steer team” in the WFA’s Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative. In an April 2 article, Daily Wire reporter Luke Rosiak wrote that the GARM initiative served to push advertisers away from “disfavored” publications. He also described the initiative as a “coordinated” attempt that could bankrupt any targeted organizations. Disturbingly, the GARM initiative has held up biased organizations such as NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index as examples of good organizations for identifying misinformation. As reported by the Daily Wire, this massive coalition has tipped its hand on how to judge which news outlets deserve advertising and which deserve to be starved of revenue. Rosiak also wrote that GARM wished to police so-called “misinformation.”  To put it lightly, MRC Free Speech Vice President Dan Schneider doesn’t trust GARM to do that. “The left will stop at nothing to upend our elections and our democracy. They don’t want people to get their news from reliable right-of-center news outlets,” Schneider said. “This is why they’re now colluding with advertisers and advertising firms to choke off funding. This is not only illegal it's also undemocratic and it must stop.” Who decides what is considered misinformation? Those who believe men can become women? Rosiak notes that questioning the publicly stated origins of COVID was considered misinformation. GARM held up the work of NewsGuard, the Global Disinformation Index and the Journalism Trust Initiative as useful guides for determining whether a news outlet was safe to advertise with.  Putting the future revenue of news outlets on the right in the hands of a biased firm like NewsGuard is a death sentence. The Media Research Center has repeatedly demonstrated through studies that NewsGuard routinely gives more favorable ratings to left-wing publications than the firm gives to those on the right. In Dec. 2023, an MRC study showed a 26-point disparity between NewsGuard's average “credibility” rating for publications on the left and the right. To be specific, NewsGuard gave publications on the “left” and publications that “lean left” an eye-popping average of 91/100, while consigning publications on the “right” and publications that “lean right” to a D grade (65/100).  NewsGuard’s obvious bias is not a recent phenomenon, as two prior MRC studies showed disparities of 25 and 27 points in favor of publications on the left.  According to Rosiak, Jordan doesn’t plan on letting them get away with it. The Daily Wire reporter wrote, “The House Judiciary Committee is investigating whether major advertisers ran afoul of antitrust laws by coordinating about which news outlets to blackball.” Conservatives are under attack! Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency and an equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

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Who Wants to Be House Speaker?

Mel Brooks said it’s good to be the king — but is it good to be speaker of the House of Representatives? You’re the most powerful legislator in Congress, if not the world, and just two heartbeats away from being president. If you’re a Republican, though, your task is thankless and possibly hopeless. It looks that way for Speaker Mike Johnson right now. With the barest Republican majority in the House, another resignation or sudden death could throw control of the chamber to the Democrats and hand the speakership to Hakeem Jeffries well ahead of November’s election. Even if the GOP suffers no attrition before Election Day, Johnson could lose his head at any time to another revolt within the party’s ranks. House Republicans were unruly enough when they enjoyed a majority of almost 60 seats under Speaker John Boehner nearly a decade ago. Donald Trump wasn’t a factor back then, and Barack Obama gave Republicans an opponent to unite against — yet they still couldn’t cohere as a party. Boehner finally gave up and resigned the speakership in 2015, letting Paul Ryan take over. The Wisconsin congressman was until then a rising star in the GOP, but after three years as speaker, he was done with politics and bowed out of Congress altogether. Kevin McCarthy knew what he was getting into when he grabbed the gavel after Republicans most recently took back the House, but he overestimated his odds of survival. Rebellious backbenchers overthrew him nine months into his speakership; then he, too, quit Congress. How long will Johnson last — and who would want to succeed him? Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise vied to replace McCarthy, but the same factional instability that prevented either of them from securing the votes they needed would have poisoned the prize even if one of them had been able to win it. Johnson was nobody’s first choice for speaker, and that’s partly why he got the job; he wasn’t loved enough to be hated either. But now Johnson gets the blame when the House passes continuing resolutions that keep the government open, at the cost of failing to use the threat of a shutdown to wring policy concessions from Biden. Of course, if the speaker did allow a shutdown, he and the GOP would get blamed by the media for the mess — and probably by voters, too. Politically it’s a lose-lose proposition for the party, though in 2011 a Republican House resolved such a standoff by limiting both domestic and defense spending with a law that came to be known as “the sequester.” It worked — but it was equally unpopular with those House and Senate Republicans who wanted to spend more on national defense and with their Democratic counterparts who craved more money for projects at home. Now neither party wants to try that again. Spending is grease for the gears of Congress, which is one reason why Democrats dominated the House for 60 years from the Great Depression to the Gingrich Revolution, with only two non-consecutive two-year terms of GOP control from 1931 until 1995. House majorities are traditionally held together by logrolling and pork-barrel spending — buying the votes of your colleagues with taxpayers’ dollars. That approach still works well for the party of the New Deal and the Great Society; it doesn’t work for the party of Ronald Reagan or even Donald Trump. Conservative Republicans oppose drunken-sailor spending, but without it, what incentive is there for party discipline? In the old days, challenging a speaker or a committee chairman would jeopardize the earmarks on which individual congressmen depended for paying off voters back in their districts. It was a corrupt system, and conservatives were determined to reform it. After Republicans won the House for the first time in four decades in the 1994 midterms, the new speaker, Newt Gingrich, set about changing the way Congress worked. But 30 years later, government is bigger than ever, and deficits are dizzying. Weakening House committees had the paradoxical effect of concentrating power in leadership and making the speaker more important in setting the majority’s policy direction — which only turned the speaker into the focus of every member’s discontents and created stronger opposition to him within the party. The solution to the otherwise intractable problem every Republican speaker now faces begins with putting more responsibility back on committees. The speaker is too much of a monarch; Congress can only operate on the republican principle of divided power and mediating institutions. Committees are the institutions that mediate between the speaker (and leadership in general) and members. It’s good to be the king if you’re Mel Brooks. If you’re speaker of the House of Representatives, though, take heed of Shakespeare: “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review. To read more by Daniel McCarthy, visit www.creators.com

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Winner Take All: CNN Panics Over Nebraska Looking to Join 48 States

CNN’s Inside Politics was in a panic on Thursday over the “entirely possible” scenario that President Biden’s reelection (and thus the fate of America, the world, the known universe, the multiverse, and humanity’s re-admittance into Eden) hinged on one electoral vote in Nebraska. Meanwhile, the state’s proposed shift to a winner-take-all system for electoral college votes would put it in line with 48 other states, or 96 percent of states. “Now, imagine this: a 269 to 269 tie in the electoral college that could become much more likely if Nebraska changes how it awards electoral votes. This week, Donald Trump and his allies are pressuring state lawmakers to do just that,” host Dana Bash fretted, trying to stoke fear in viewers. Breaking down why she was so paranoid, Bash explained that Nebraska and Maine were the only two states in the union that proportioned electoral college votes based on congressional districts. “Switching to a winner-take-all system could strip Biden of an electoral vote that he won in 2020. And this election could very well come down to that single electoral college vote,” she said, betraying that her fear was a victory for former President Trump. CNN national political reporter Daniel Strauss tried to talk Bash off the ledge by noting that advocates for the switch were struggling with a number of procedural hurdles (Click “expand”): Just that this is a big hurdle for advocates of changing the way Nebraska allocates delegates are trying to overcome. And part of it is just the very fact that this is how they've done it in Nebraska for a while now. It's very apparent to Democrats that there is a scenario where this election is super close and it comes down to how Nebraska allocates votes. And they obviously don't want to give an advantage to Donald Trump, that would swing the election against them. At the same time though, this bill is just running into all kinds of legislative and very technical hurdles, including that it wasn't blessed with a priority cert label that in the Nebraska legislature is acquired at this point in their cycle for moving a bill forward.     “This is really important because Democrats and Republicans have been saying throughout this cycle, ‘This can be a very close election.’ It really could come down to just a few electoral votes,” he added. Insisting it was “not out of the realm of possibility at all,” Bash put up a couple of electoral maps to spook viewers about a 269-269 split: If Joe Biden wins, that Nebraska vote, that one electoral vote and he wins back again, wins the so-called blue wall, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, you have 270 to 268, so he wins the presidency. Now, let's see this scenario where that Nebraska law is changed. 269 to 269, an electoral college tie. Seemingly unfamiliar with the constitutional rules about an electoral college tie, Strauss lamented that such a situation “goes to a whole different arena and it puts us into a morass that we don't usually experience in electoral and campaign politics. Uh, that's why -- And this is entirely possible.” What they seemingly didn’t want to disclose to viewers was that in the event of a tie, House delegations vote to elect the president. And according to 270ToWin, “Republicans hold a 26-22 edge in House delegations.” “We've seen in the past few election cycles at the blue wall is breachable and that states that are usually Republican-leaning can be flipped: Arizona and Georgia,” Strauss added. “So, it really could come down to a few electoral votes. And it could come down to one congressional district in Nebraska.” The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CNN’s Inside Politics April 4, 2024 12:44:19 p.m. Eastern DANA BASH: Now, imagine this: a 269 to 269 tie in the electoral college that could become much more likely if Nebraska changes how it awards electoral votes. This week, Donald Trump and his allies are pressuring state lawmakers to do just that. Right now, it is one of two states that awards some of its electoral votes by congressional district. The other is the state of Maine. Switching to a winner take all system could strip Biden of an electoral vote that he won in 2020. And this election could very well come down to that single electoral college vote. CNN's Daniel Strauss is digging into this. Daniel, what are you learning? DANIEL STRAUSS: Just that this is a big hurdle for advocates of changing the way Nebraska allocates delegates are trying to overcome. And part of it is just the very fact that this is how they've done it in Nebraska for a while now. It's very apparent to Democrats that there is a scenario where this election is super close and it comes down to how Nebraska allocates votes. And they obviously don't want to give an advantage to Donald Trump, that would swing the election against them. At the same time though, this bill is just running into all kinds of legislative and very technical hurdles, including that it wasn't blessed with a priority cert label that in the Nebraska legislature is acquired at this point in their cycle for moving a bill forward. Look, Dana, though. This is -- This is really important because Democrats and Republicans have been saying throughout this cycle, “this can be a very close election.” It really could come down to just a few electoral votes, a few thousand votes in states that otherwise really aren't – haven't been attended to by either the big campaigns. BASH: Let's give our viewers a scenario here that is, again, not out of the realm of possibility at all. If Joe Biden wins, that Nebraska vote, that one electoral vote and he wins back again, wins the so-called blue wall, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, you have 270 to 268, so he wins the presidency. Now, let's see this scenario where that Nebraska law is changed. 269 to 269, an electoral college tie. STRAUSS: Right. Which goes to a whole different arena and it puts us into a morass that we don't usually experience in electoral and campaign politics. Uh, that's why -- And this is entirely possible. We've seen in the past few election cycles at the blue wall is breachable and that states that are usually Republican leaning can be flipped: Arizona and Georgia. So, it really could come down to a few electoral votes. And it could come down to one congressional district in Nebraska. BASH: Absolute – Absolutely fascinating. And we are gonna be watching to see what the Nebraska legislature does. Thanks so much for bringing this to us. Appreciate it.

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LISTEN: Mark Levin Rips CNN ‘Hack’ Dana Bash for Whitewashing Biden's Censorship Regime

Syndicated radio host Mark Levin tore into prominent CNN Biden flack Dana Bash for trying to gaslight viewers on the dangers of the White House censorship regime. Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told CNN anchor Erin Burnett April 1 — to her dismay — that it was in fact President Joe Biden’s censorship regime, not former President Donald Trump, that presented the bigger “threat” to America. Kennedy pointed out the Biden administration’s history of jawboning Big Tech companies like Twitter and Facebook to go after the president’s political opponents. Bash, clearly triggered, pathetically tried to “fact-check” Kennedy the next day on CNN’s Inside Politics. Her argument pretty much amounted to excusing Biden because he supposedly wasn’t personally involved in directing his agencies to pressure social media companies and the censorship collusion was only engineered towards fighting so-called "false information" about COVID-19. Yes, you read that right. Levin wasn’t having it during the April 2 edition of his radio show: “[Bash is] a hack mouthpiece who burps up the usual left-wing, Democrat Party talking points.”  Nothing to see here, claimed Bash during her segment repudiating Kennedy: “Joe Biden wasn’t setting out to censor Kennedy’s speech or his political critics.” Rather, Bash brazenly whitewashed, “His administration was encouraging social media sites to monitor and take down [censor] false information about the COVID-19 pandemic. There’s no evidence that Biden himself was involved,” as if agencies censoring on Biden’s behalf by proxy is somehow any better and absolves the president’s culpability. Levin took Bash to school. “What kind of a stupid comment is that,” he rebuked. “Did you [Bash] sit in on all the meetings? Is Biden going to say, ‘Yeah I told them to do that’? What kind of a stupid comment is that?”  Listen to Mark Levin ripping apart CNN's gaslighting on Biden's censorship regime below! Levin flipped Bash’s argument on its head. “If Biden didn’t want [the government censorship] to happen — and he has newspapers and briefers and press people all around him — he could have stopped it. But he didn’t,” the radio host said. Despite Bash’s assertions to the contrary, Biden did go after Kennedy’s speech, as Levin pointed out. “What [Bash] is not saying is that when you censor the entire discussion [on COVID-19] you certainly are censoring Robert Kennedy Jr. and others,” he said. But there’s more. Bash must have memory-holed the spectacle of former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki going on camera during a 2021 press briefing to regurgitate the findings from a report by the dystopian fanatics at the leftist Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which explicitly named Kennedy as one of the so-called “Disinformation Dozen” on COVID-19. “There’s about twelve people who were producing 65 percent of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms," said Psaki parroting CCDH’s targeting of Kennedy and others. "There's about 12 people who are producing 65% of vaccine misinformation on social media platforms." After our research was used by the @WhiteHouse @PressSec, we joined @CBS @CBSThisMorning with @GayleKing to explain how social media is a misinformation super spreader 👇 pic.twitter.com/GcKLtLy9y7 — Center for Countering Digital Hate (@CCDHate) July 16, 2021 Bash’s own colleague, Senior Media Reporter Oliver Darcy, released a story in 2021 with a headline that completely upended her gaslighting: “Facebook takes action against ‘disinformation dozen’ after White House pressure.” Oops. But Biden didn't target Kennedy’s speech, right Bash? [Emphasis added.] Levin continued to rip apart Bash’s so-called “fact-check,” which he dismissed as “pretty funny:” “So Dana Bash, I’m going to fact-check you. Number one: Joe Biden was in fact trying to censor people. Why else would he set up that [Disinformation Governance] Board at DHS,” Levin pointed out. “Number two: Yes, [Biden’s] departments and agencies were working with Twitter, Facebook, Google and others to try and prevent political speech —political speech — and that includes the [Hunter Biden] laptop issue.”  Levin also noted Bash’s apparent ignorance to the court preliminary opinions from Louisiana District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in the ongoing Murthy v. Missouri controversy outlining the terrifying political censorship regime in the Biden administration that the CNN anchor pretended wasn’t a threat. Doughty, in his opinion, wrote that the “evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario,” adding that during the COVID-19 pandemic the U.S. government “seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’” “You make it sound so harmless Dana,” Levin remarked. No kidding. Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency and an equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

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Amanpour Tries to Hide Smiling at Israel Being Told 'To Go F Itself'

PBS’s Amanpour and Company is, apparently, where irony goes to die. On the Wednesday show, first aired on CNN International, host Christiane Amanpour welcomed alleged comedian Bassem Youssef, who has family in Gaza, to lament double standards in media coverage on Israeli and Palestinian suffering while the latter told Israel “to go F itself,” something no media personality would ever have any guest say about Palestinians. Amanpour recalled that “we spoke to Queen Rania on this program several times. In fact, she was actually the first leader to come out and talk about double standards, and her interview with us was incredibly widely seen. And she said, similar to you, that, you know, there is a double standard in the way Palestinian suffering has always been reported and continues to be reported. It is really hard to hear you say and hear others say that they don't look at us as people.”     There is a double standard, just not the one Amanpour thinks. The media runs story after story on Palestinian suffering, even more so than they run stories on Ukrainian suffering and unlike Hamas, Ukraine didn’t start that war, while trying to claim Hamas has nothing to do with ordinary Palestinians. The media uncritically repeats Hamas’s casualty propaganda numbers and people like Amanpour interview people like Youssef. As for Youssef, he declared, “Because they were deemed animals, terrorists, Hamas sympathizers. The thing is Israel reminds me a lot with Trump. Remember when Trump was saying lie after lie, one atrocious thing after the other, and by the time people deal with this, he's already moved on, the people are like, all right, that's Donald Trump?” Ignoring all the Hamas weapons and fighters found at various hospitals in Gaza, Youssef continued, “Israel is doing the same. You know, they're doing -- remember when we were out all the rage about like babies killed in incubators, then baby killed with hangers, and then people killed stampede. And then, it's old news now. Remember when we were talking about, did Hamas or did Israel bombed the Ali Hospital and since then, Israel bombed 36 hospitals? It's just, they move too fast.” Youssef added “And by the time you just like catch up and you corner them was like, well, ‘I'm entitled.’ They were like, ‘if you talk about it, you're anti-Semitic. I am doing this to protect myself.’ Here's the thing, every time Israel say like “Israel have the right to defend itself, Israel had the right to exist,” and I want to say like Israel have the right to go F itself. As Youssef cracked himself up, Amanpour sat there silently, unsuccessfully trying to hide the smile she knew that she, as a supposedly truth-telling journalist, was not supposed to have. Instead of calling Youssef out on his lies or observing that, despite all the talk about how Israelis benefit from double standards, she would never have on an Israeli comedian to tell the Palestinians “to go F” themselves, she offered up a weak “That's your stand-up. It's not your stand-up, actually.” Here is a transcript for the April 3 show: PBS Amanpour and Company 4/3/2024 CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: You know, we spoke to Queen Rania on this program several times. In fact, she was actually the first leader to come out and talk about double standards, and her interview with us was incredibly widely seen. And she said, similar to you, that, you know, there is a double standard in the way Palestinian suffering has always been reported and continues to be reported. It is really hard to hear you say and hear others say that they don't look at us as people. BASSEM YOUSSEF: Because they were deemed animals, terrorists, Hamas sympathizers. The thing is Israel reminds me a lot with Trump. Remember when Trump was saying lie after lie, one atrocious thing after the other, and by the time people deal with this, he's already moved on, the people are like, all right, that's Donald Trump? Israel is doing the same. You know, they're doing -- remember when we were out all the rage about like babies killed in incubators, then baby killed with hangers, and then people killed stampede. And then, it's old news now. Remember when we were talking about, did Hamas or did Israel bombed the Ali (ph) Hospital and since then, Israel bombed 36 hospitals? It's just they move too fast. And by the time you just like catch up and you corner them was like, well, “I'm entitled.” They were like, “if you talk about it, you're anti-Semitic. I am doing this to protect myself.” Here's the thing, every time Israel say like “Israel have the right to defend itself, Israel had the right to exist,” and I want to say like Israel have the right to go F itself. AMANPOUR: That's your stand-up. It's not your stand-up, actually. YOUSSEF: It's not.