NewsBusters Podcast: A Fervent Obsession with Trump Trial Jury Selection

The Manhattan trial of Donald Trump on "hush money" charges drew hundreds of minutes of TV obsession this week. The pro-Biden media is now enjoying talking about a “split screen” of Trump stuck in court on trial, President Biden on the campaign trail. ABC morning host Michael Strahan reported on Trump “test[ing] the patience of the judge while President Biden hits the campaign trails in a battleground state.” Meanwhile, the impeachment of Homeland Security Mayorkas was briefly covered and derided as a partisan stunt. George Stephanopoulos called it a "partisan" impeachment, unlike his salesmanship for the Trump impeachments.  Managing Editor Curtis Houck has the details and clips. Reporters from ABC's Mary Bruce to CBS's Nancy Cordes helpfully spun for Biden's campaign stops in Pennsylvania, where Biden said he's a Scranton guy who understands the middle class, while Trump is a clueless rich guy working for the rich guys. This split screen is exactly what the Democrats want -- Trump pinned in the courtroom, Biden making weird clips in Wawa that are carefully staged to sell he's "with it." The music and lyrics suggest Trump has engaged in "hush money" payments to a porn star and is now caught in a "criminal fraud" trial, while Biden is the honest guy searching out the common man. It's not "news," it's messaging. They can't find time to cover Biden making bizarre gaffes like his implication that his Uncle Ambrose was eaten by cannibals when his plane crashed in World War II. Rich Noyes posted a study on NewsBusters on Monday showing that ABC, CBS, and NBC usually avoid mentioning that Trump's prosecutors (like Alvin Bragg in this case, or Letitia James and Fani Willis in others) are elected Democrats seeking to build their brand by "getting Trump." NBC occasionally mentions the "D," but ABC and CBS seem allergic to it. Overall, 90 percent of stories have no party label. Instead, they just show Trump complaining it's "rigged," as that's an unfounded complaint about public-spirited nonpartisans who hold powerful people accountable. Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts.   

PBS’s Pathetic O.J. Simpson Take: Outrage Over Racism, Not Denial of Justice

PBS recruited the late football star and (acquitted) double murderer O.J. Simpson into the American race wars. On the April 11 PBS NewsHour had an odd take on the death of Simpson, whose televised trial captivated America 30 years ago, bringing in Dave Zirin, sports editor for the aging hard-left magazine The Nation. Together, he and NewsHour reporter William Brangham used the famous trial not as an example of justice denied, but to portray America as a historic haven of anti-black racism. Reporter William Brangham took us down that bloody memory lane before pivoting to the racial import of the trial. O.J. Simpson's trial and his initial acquittal was an enormous moment of reckoning for many, exposing another stark racial fissure in America, in particular, the chasm between how black and white Americans saw the police and the justice system. The trial also underscored glaring issues in how we view domestic violence, interracial marriage and the growing culture of media celebrity. The NewsHour’s expert source was the sports editor for the hard-left magazine The Nation, who in a series of repellent columns since October 7 condemned Israel but not Hamas for war crimes. He used the Simpson case as a ready means to condemn America as racist, even though the case itself featured a black man acquitted of a murder charge of which he was almost surely guilty. There certainly would be no condemnation of the majority-black jury acquitting a black football star of a crime he almost certainly committed. BRANGHAM: Dave Zirin wrote about all of this in a piece in The Nation today titled: "O.J. Simpson was a Rorschach test for America." And he joins me now. Dave Zirin, great to see you again on the NewsHour. You write in your piece -- quote -- "If anyone had illusions that the United States was in fact united, the O.J. Simpson trial and subsequent verdict quickly put an end to that." Remind us what the country experienced that day when that not guilty verdict came down. DAVE ZIRIN: ….it exposed that when it comes to the United States of America, there really is nothing united about it. White people experience particularly the criminal justice system and police one way, and black people experience it in a different way. And out of that, you get a white opinion out of the O.J. Simpson verdict that this was one of the great injustices of the 20th century, that someone just got away literally with a double homicide. And then, on the other side, in black America, there was an overwhelming belief that the police were corrupt, that O.J. Simpson was railroaded, and that the entire situation stank so much of racism and tainted testimony that there is no way there should have been a conviction…. Brangham acceded to Zirin’s left-wing viewpoint: "And yet, as you also document in your piece, that, for so many black Americans, this happening in Los Angeles, coming a couple of years after Rodney King and all of the revelations of racism in the L.A. Police Department, just seemed like, as you're saying, the culmination, this sort of apex of racial animosity towards black people." Zirin naturally agreed, bringing up the then-recent Rodney King beating and verdict. Then Brangham chided O.J. Simpson, not for his crimes, both proven and alleged, but for having “sort of steadfastly refused to talk about what it was like to be a black man in America” before his trial. This strange segment was brought to you in part by BDO. A transcript is available, click “Expand.” PBS NewsHour 4/11/24 7:15:01 p.m. (ET) Geoff Bennett: O.J. Simpson, whose murder trial captivated international attention for months, died yesterday of cancer. His case dominated headlines during the '90s and was a prime example of people's fascination with celebrity and crime. But the trial was about much more than that, highlighting major fissures in America and one whose legacy is still discussed some decades later. William Brangham has our look. William Brangham: He was a football Hall of Famer, one of the greatest running backs of his generation, who suffered a precipitous fall from grace. O.J. Simpson's legacy would forever be tarnished by the 1994 murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. They were repeatedly stabbed to death at her Los Angeles home two years after the Simpsons divorced. O.J. Simpson was charged in their killings after blood was found in his home and on his car. Millions of Americans sat glued to their televisions, watching as Simpson fled in a white Ford Bronco on the Southern California freeway. Police trailed him for 60 miles. He was eventually arrested and put on trial. The country was similarly riveted by the nine-month-long televised proceedings, transfixed by the grisly details, allegations of domestic violence, and what would become iconic closing arguments. Johnnie Cochran, Former Attorney For O.J. Simpson: If it doesn't fit, you must acquit. William Brangham: It would eventually be dubbed the trial of the century. Christopher Darden, Prosecutor: He was also one hell of a great football player, but he's still a murderer. William Brangham: The case also further exposed the racism inside the Los Angeles police force. All along, Simpson maintained his innocence, and he was ultimately acquitted. Woman: We, the jury, in the above-entitled action, find the Defendant, Orenthal James Simpson, not guilty of the crime of murder in violation of penal code section 187. William Brangham: Two years later, a civil suit filed by the victims' families found Simpson liable for their deaths. His assets were seized, and he was ordered to pay over $33 million in damages. They were never fully paid. It was all a stark contrast to his younger days. Hailed as one of the nation's top athletes, in the 1960s, Simpson was a decorated football star, an all-American at the University of Southern California. He was awarded the Heisman Trophy in 1968. And the next year, he was the number one draft pick, taken by the Buffalo Bills, where he went on to play nine seasons and was a five-time All-Pro. Simpson parlayed his fame and trademark charm into a successful career on screen, most famously as the pitchman for Hertz rental cars in the 1970s. He went on to act on TV and in movies, like in the late 80s slapstick "The Naked Gun." Well after the murder trials, Simpson had another run-in with the law. He was convicted of armed robbery and other felonies and served nine years in prison for stealing sports memorabilia in Las Vegas. He claimed the goods had originally been stolen from him. O.J. Simpson, Former NFL Player: I have done my time. I'd just like to get back to my family and friends. And, believe it or not, I do have some real friends. William Brangham: Simpson's family said he died Wednesday after battling prostate cancer. O.J. Simpson was 76 years old. O.J. Simpson's trial and his initial acquittal was an enormous moment of reckoning for many, exposing another stark racial fissure in America, in particular, the chasm between how Black and white Americans saw the police and the justice system. The trial also underscored glaring issues in how we view domestic violence, interracial marriage and the growing culture of media celebrity. Dave Zirin wrote about all of this in a piece in "The Nation" today titled: "O.J. Simpson was a Rorschach test for America." And he joins me now. Dave Zirin, great to see you again on the "NewsHour." You write in your piece — quote — "If anyone had illusions that the United States was in fact united, the O.J. Simpson trial and subsequent verdict quickly put an end to that." Remind us what the country experienced that day when that not guilty verdict came down. Dave Zirin, "The Nation": Wow, I remember it like it was yesterday. That's how powerful a moment it was in the American psyche. And what it revealed is that this country could have one common experience, watching this trial, and draw entirely different conclusions from it. And it exposed that when it comes to the United States of America, there really is nothing united about it. White people experience particularly the criminal justice system and police one way, and Black people experience it in a different way. And out of that, you get a white opinion out of the O.J. Simpson verdict that this was one of the great injustices of the 20th century, that someone just got away literally with a double homicide. And then, on the other side, in Black America, there was an overwhelming belief that the police were corrupt, that O.J. Simpson was railroaded, and that the entire situation stank so much of racism and tainted testimony that there is no way there should have been a conviction. And so, therefore, the jury's decision was just. So, what it really revealed was that you can have a common experience, but, then, at the end of the day it's viewed an entirely different ways based upon the color of your skin. William Brangham: Going back to that issue of how a lot of white Americans saw it, you write how O.J. being acquitted, to many, seemed like this is an example of a rich celebrity being able to buy and assemble this dream team that gets him past all of this evidence and gets him acquitted. Do you think that is how a lot of people saw that? Dave Zirin: Oh, at the time, the discussion about O.J.'s ability to hire this incredible dream team of attorneys led by the legendary Johnnie Cochran, not to mention people like F. Lee Bailey, Barry Scheck, a group of people who everybody knew in legal circles coming together, people said at the time, a lot of people, this is not justice. Even Chris Rock had a line in his stand-up act that said, if O.J. Wasn't a rich celebrity with these lawyers, he'd be known as or Orenthal, the white lady killer. And that was a stark statement. But it was once something that was widely seen in the culture that, wow, if O.J. is found innocent, it'll be because he hired the best that money could buy. William Brangham: And yet, as you also document in your piece, that, for so many Black Americans, this happening in Los Angeles, coming a couple of years after Rodney King and all of the revelations of racism in the L.A. Police Department, just seemed like, as you're saying, the culmination, this sort of apex of racial animosity towards Black people. Dave Zirin: Absolutely. I mean, and the police chief, the former police chief by 1995, Daryl Gates, there was a very militarized approach to policing in what were called anti-gang initiatives in the Black community. And that led to a great deal of violence and a great deal of mistrust, which is why, after the Rodney King beating, nobody in L.A. really saw it as just a Rodney King story, but as emblematic of how Black people and brown people were treated by Daryl Gates' police department. And that's just in 1992. So the city is actually still rebuilding by 1994, when the trial begins. And so it's not like it was some distant memory. It was part of a continuum for many people of a racist and out-of-control police department. And then when there were revelations in the trial of legitimate police misconduct, that only sealed the deal for a lot of folks who thought to themselves, I'm not sure if O.J. Simpson can get a fair trial in the city and county of Los Angeles. William Brangham: Right. And this all comes, as you also write that it's ironic, in a way, that O.J. Simpson was the vehicle through which we start to even see this in its sharpest form, because, all throughout his career, he sort of steadfastly refused to talk about what it was like to be a Black man in America. Dave Zirin: Yes, O.J. consciously positioned himself commercially as somebody who would be different from civil rights figures at the intersection of sports and Black politics, people like Jim Brown, for example. O.J. Simpson was not going to be that. He was not going to be somebody who raised a fist on the medal stand at any ceremony. He was going to be O.J. Simpson. Like he liked to say to reporters very famously: "I'm not Black. I'm O.J." And positioning himself commercially that way meant that there was a great distance between O.J. Simpson and the Black community. But as was said quite often in 1995, when O.J. was arrested and put on trial, that was when he and a lot of other people discovered that he was, in fact, a Black man in the United States. William Brangham: Dave Zirin of "The Nation," always great to talk to you. Thank you so much for talking with us. Dave Zirin: Thank you for having me.

NBC's Alba Wrongly Hints Columbine Mass Shooters Bought Guns Legally

In a few appearances on Thursday afternoon, NBC News White House correspondent Monica Alba helped spread misinformation about there being a link between gun shows and school shootings as she promoted President Joe Biden's latest push to require unlicensed gun dealers to do background checks on buyers. MSNBC afternoon host Chris Jansing set up a segment on the issue and asked Alba to explain how the President's move was to "fill a loophole." "And, Chris, we know all too well there are horrible stories about shooters who maybe were denied the ability to purchase a gun at a sporting goods store, but then they were able to go online and buy one because it was an unauthorized retailer," she proclaimed. What she refused to meantion was that firearms purchased online needed to be delivered to licenced firearms dealers, whereupon pick up, the purchaser would have a background check conducted.     Then, even though the gunman who attacked a school in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022 passed a background check to buy his gun, Alba misleadingly made it sound like the new background checks requirement was somehow relevant to this case as she continued: "So this is really the Biden White House trying to curb that, and it's something that specifically became a huge movement and moment for the White House to try to accomplish after the horrific school shooting in Uvalde. So this was something that the President vowed to do." A bit later, Alba misleadingly suggested a background check requirement might have prevented the school shootings at Columbine 25 years ago: And, again, Chris, we're talking about just next week it's going to be the 25th anniversary of the Columbine shooting, and those shooters were able to get those guns, again, through this unauthorized process which is known as the "gun show loophole." So it just really is a stark reminder of for how many years this has been such an issue. And the Biden administration says this is a step forward. Alba then made a couple of appearances on Hallie Jackson's show on NBCNOW and made similar claims about the Columbine attackers. About 5:32 p.m. Eastern, she asserted: And when you look at the two shooters in that case, they were able to purchase weapons because of the so-called "gun show loophole," and that means that even if maybe they went to try to get those guns from a sporting goods store or from a retailer, and maybe they would have been stopped there because they would have had to undergo a background check, then they were still able to go and get them from an unauthorized retailer which right now really is a sort of shadow market that exists online. It exists at these sort of flea markets. It exists at these sort of gun shows.     But, in fact, the two Columbine gunmen acquired their guns through circumstances that were already illegal. Both the individuals who supplied them with firearms knew that the gunmen were underage and intentionally bought the firearms for them, which meant it was an illegal straw purchase. Mark Manes was sentenced to six years in prison while Robyn Anderson, who provided two guns through an illegal straw purchase at a gun show, was not charged by prosecutors after she cooperated in the investigation. Transcripts are below. Click "expand" to read: MSNBC's Chris Jansing Reports April 11, 2024 2:05 p.m. Eastern CHRIS JANSING: Now to Washington where the White House just approved the biggest expansion of gun background checks in decades. NBC's White House correspondent Monica Alba is following this for us. Monica, this is intended -- this rule -- to fill a loophole. Tell us about that. MONICA ALBA, NBC WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Exactly, Chris. This is known as the so-called "gun show loophole." So while some retailers and stores that sell arms do have to do background checks, there is really this market for people who can sell guns out of their home or online who don't have to meet those requirements. So this new rule put in effect by the Biden administration which would start in about a month or so would effectively force anyone who is doing that to conduct a background check. And, Chris, we know all too well there are horrible stories about shooters who maybe were denied the ability to purchase a gun at a sporting goods store, but then they were able to go online and buy one because it was an unauthorized retailer. So this is really the Biden White House trying to curb that, and it's something that specifically became a huge movement and moment for the White House to try to accomplish after the horrific school shooting in Uvalde. So this was something that the President vowed to do. And remember that when they were able to pass the bipartisan gun safety law that went into effect in 2022, this was a part of it. They said it's going to take some time to actually make this rule effective so that we can see now what's going to start to happen in the coming weeks. Now, it's possible this could face some legal challenges, but the administration believes that they can cite the 2022 law as a reason to uphold it. And, again, Chris, we're talking about just next week it's going to be the 25th anniversary of the Columbine shooting, and those shooters were able to get those guns, again, through this unauthorized process which is known as the "gun show loophole." So it just really is a stark reminder of for how many years this has been such an issue. And the Biden administration says this is a step forward. It's something that they did pledge to do, but that they would like to do a lot more when it comes to gun violence prevention. And, of course, that's part of the President's pledge to also ban assault weapons which he has not been able to do so far in this Congress.  (...) NBCNOW's Hallie Jackson NOW April 11, 2024 5:31 p.m. Eastern HALLIE JACKSON: Back here to Washington now, and the Biden administration tonight taking steps to make the biggest expansion in decades to federal background checks for buying guns. The Department of Justice submitting this nearly 500-page set of regulations that makes sellers -- that would make sellers run background checks on a potential buyer's criminal and mental health history. Now, here's why it's such a big deal. It could mean the end of a controversial so-called the "gun show loophole" which basically lets unlicensed private sellers in some states legally sell guns at gun shows, out of their houses, and through online platforms without putting buyers through the background check system. The new rules come from legislation that Congress passed back in June 2022 after the mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 21 people were killed. Just this year -- just this year, rather, we've already seen more than 100 mass shootings -- each year before that, hundreds more. Monica Alba is joining us now. Big, big push here for the Biden administration to sort of regulate the so-called shadow market that's been growing fast. Talk us through it. MONICA ALBA, NBC WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Exactly, Hallie, and it's so tragic when you think about mass shootings. The anniversary next week of Columbine is going to be here -- 25 years since that deadly shooting. And when you look at the two shooters in that case, they were able to purchase weapons because of the so-called "gun show loophole," and that means that even if maybe they went to try to get those guns from a sporting goods store or from a retailer, and maybe they would have been stopped there because they would have had to undergo a background check, then they were still able to go and get them from an unauthorized retailer which right now really is a sort of shadow market that exists online. It exists at these sort of flea markets. It exists at these sort of gun shows. So this new rule which takes effect in about a month from now from the Biden administration would effectively tell these thousands or so who  are selling these kinds of firearms that you do have to be federally licensed, and you do have to conduct background checks on anybody who is attempting to purchase these kinds of weapons. Now, this did come directly from the 2022 bipartisan gun safety law that the President was able to put into action, but he needed the DOJ to actually work on this rule specifically, but it was a major priority, and they feel like this will help. They do feel like there have been cases where specifically people have been denied the purchase of weapons in background checks, so if they can expand that to create a wider net, that that will all be incredibly helpful here.

‘She Ought to Resign’: Hawley Targets Biden Cabinet Official Amid Stock Scandal

Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) called for Biden administration Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to resign following a testy Senate hearing.  During the April 17 edition of Fox News’s Hannity, Hawley told host Sean Hannity, that Granholm lied to Congress and cannot be trusted to regulate American energy. “She did lie to Congress, what she said Sean, is that she sold all of her shares, that she didn't own any stock in companies she regulates — not true,” Hawley told Hannity, after being asked about Granholm’s stock scandal. “She later then… came back and said, ‘Oops, oops, I made a mistake I owned a bunch of stock, in a bunch of companies including Ford,’ who the Energy Department obviously regulates and oversees,” Hawley stated.  Expanding on his remarks, Hawley added: “And she now expects us to buy that. Listen, it is a fact, Sean, an independent watchdog has found that she violated the law nine separate times and yet here she is still running the Energy Department, still trading stocks.”  Hawley went on to call for her resignation, exclaiming, “I don't believe a word she says, she ought to resign. It is a disgrace that she is sitting there making money on the stock market off companies that she regulates when she’s supposed to be making energy safe and cheap for the American people.”  During the April 16 hearing when Hawley confronted Granholm, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) questioned Granholm on whether the Biden administration supports the radical goal of reaching “net zero,” or drastically reducing carbon emissions. American energy, transportation, agriculture and construction depend heavily on fossil fuels such as oil and coal and fossil fuel products such as plastic and artificial fertilizer. Lee also drew an admission from Granholm that the Biden Administration is anti-energy. When Lee asked her if the Biden administration supports making the country net-zero, Granholm admitted that the Biden administration supports a transition to net-zero. Days later, Granholm crowed in a post on X about a 20-state project to “accelerate America’s net-zero transition by 2050.”  Lee also grilled Granholm on the absurdity of running away from cheap sources of energy like coal, while energy demand is rapidly increasing. After mentioning how developments such as new data centers lead to rising demand, Lee said, “Demand is soaring and it’s soaring at the same time when the premature retirement of coal-fired power generation units is happening. And it's happening without replacement dispatchable generation capabilities.” [SEE MORE: Biden Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm Dodges Question] 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 hold Biden and his cronies accountable for attempting to restrict fossil fuel production and Americans’ choices.

WILD: ABC’s Moran Blames ‘Gravitational Pull of the Trump Melodrama’ for Self-Immolation

Friday afternoon featured one of the more disturbing incidents one will ever see on live TV as, amid rolling coverage on cable news and streaming platforms of the Trump trial brought by far-left Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg, a man lit himself on fire in the so-called protest space outside the New York City courthouse. On ABC News Live, longtime network correspondent Terry Moran invoked January 6 and repeatedly implied without evidence Trump and “the gravitational pull of the...melodrama” around him drove a disturbed person to harm themselves.     Investigative reporter Olivia Rubin was discussing the breaking news that a full jury had been selected for the trial ahead of Monday’s opening statements when a commotion broke out nearby with the man’s self-immolation. After a shaken Rubin narrated the scene, Moran jumped in and, instead of stopping after coaching her along and reassuring her she was doing great, he put his foot in his mouth: “Let me just ask. It seems then, that the gravitational pull of the Trump melodrama that has gripped the nation since he came down the escalator has now, it appears, resulted in someone coming to that where protesters have gathered and lit himself on fire.” Rubin politely but strongly pushed back on the veteran correspondent: “Well, we’ll have to see exactly what, you know, it ends up being. I think we all have been in scenarios where happens. Information unfolds later and it’s not exactly what we thought first. But certainly, there appears to have been some sort of demonstration...just outside of the courthouse.” Rubin then continued to narrate the scene as the fire was extinguished and the man was placed on a stretcher. A few minutes later, Moran complimented Rubin for the “real smart caution” and acknowledged “[t]hat’s a big courthouse” with “a lot of cases going on.” Just like before, Moran could have stopped there and stuck to what was known. Alas, Moran couldn’t help himself and chalked this up to possibly an example of how “the Trump era” caused “feelings” to run “very, very high right across the political spectrum”.     He even invoked the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021: Political violence has resulted from those high feelings, obviously, at the United States Capitol most — most intensely. But, as Olivia says, we don’t know right now and having covered a lot of trials, a lot of courthouses, it — there is a tremendous amount of misery that goes through the courthouse as human misery, people having the worst day of their lives, the worst experience of their lives, murder trials, people going bankrupt, divorce, child, all kinds of things that can send people into the depths of anguish. We don’t know why this man set himself on fire, but there it was in that park, once again, where the protests have been occurring. Protests we can expect continue. It’s an awful situation. Moran couldn’t stop falling on his face. Yet again, he correctly said “caution is fully justified” about what led this person to take this sad step and “there have been a lot of people on the streets who have mental issues,” but tripled down on the blame-Trump route. Along with arguing Trump coming “down that escalator in 2015 to announce his presidential campaign” had “changed American politics, raised it to a pitch of intensity,” Moran fretted “the — the style, the rhetoric, and the policies that — that he proposed is so different, so inspiring to some, so infuriating to others, that we are now as polarized the country as we ever have been.”     “And the emotions around politics are ratcheted up to something that we haven’t seen at least since the 1960s in this country, where there was, you know, a good deal of unrest and turmoil,” he added. Eventually, he conceded that what we do know was “something awful has happened, something truly horrific and one has to — one has to have to pray for that for the person who is drawn to that extreme and has done that”. To see the relevant transcript from April 19, click “expand.” ABC News Live April 19, 2024 1:41 p.m. Eastern TERRY MORAN: Let me just ask. It seems then, that the gravitational pull of the Trump melodrama that has gripped the nation since he came down the escalator has now, it appears, resulted in someone coming to that where protesters have gathered and lit himself on fire. OLIVIA RUBIN: Well, we’ll have to see exactly what, you know, it ends up being. I think we all have been in scenarios where happens. Information unfolds later and it’s not exactly what we thought first. But certainly there appears to have been some sort of demonstration, potentially, just outside of the courthouse, if it’s unrelated, potentially, they’re bringing out a stretcher now that they have and they are lifting the man who is severely burned, Terry, and putting him onto the stretcher. They are bundling the ropes around him and it does seem like all of the fire is out now. I can’t see any flames and we could see the flames from where we were standing before and they are carrying him out on stretcher. (....) 1:42 p.m. Eastern MORAN: Olivia offering, a real smart caution. That’s a big courthouse. A lot of cases going on in there. Obviously, in our justice system, there are plenty of issues and plenty of personal issues that people can get caught up in the justice system, that can — that can break them. And so, we don’t know that this incident police now apparently from our Aaron Katersky that a man lit himself on fire in the courthouse — just outside the courthouse where the trial of Donald Trump is going in the square with protesters, pro-Trump anti-Trump have been gathering. So, that is a ground that has seen some protest activity. But this — this incident, a man lighting himself on fire in front of that courthouse. Now, obviously, the Trump era has had feelings running very, very high right across the political spectrum. Political violence has resulted from those high feelings, obviously, at the United States Capitol most — most intensely. But, as Olivia says, we don’t know right now and having covered a lot of trials, a lot of courthouses, it — there is a tremendous amount of misery that goes through the courthouse as human misery, people having the worst day of their lives, the worst experience of their lives, murder trials, people going bankrupt, divorce, child, all kinds of things that can send people into the depths of anguish. We don’t know why this man set himself on fire, but there it was in that park, once again, where the protests have been occurring. Protests we can expect continue. It’s an awful situation. (....) 1:47 p.m. Eastern MORAN: Alright, once again, that — that caution is fully justified, Aaron. That — that whatever we it may be, we don’t know yet. And courthouses and that one in particular, as you say there, there have been a lot people on the streets who have mental issues and gather there sometimes and there are a lot of things that happen in courthouses that can stress people to the point of breakdown. We don’t know what is going on, except that, as Olivia Rubin has pointed out, there was a man taken away in a stretcher, badly burned. (....) 1:50 p.m. Eastern MORAN: But the Trump era, which is what we have been living in since he came down that escalator in 2015 to announce his presidential campaign and changed American politics, raised it to a pitch of intensity, the — the style, the rhetoric, and the policies that — that he proposed is so different, so inspiring to some, so infuriating to others, that we are now as polarized the country as we ever have been. And the emotions around politics are ratcheted up to something that we haven’t seen at least since the 1960s in this country, where there was, you know, a good deal of unrest and turmoil. But once again, just to underline, it does seem, from Olivia’s reporting, from what we have as well, that a man has set himself on fire in the park outside the courthouse where the hush money criminal trial of Donald Trump has been underway. The completed jury selection today and we don’t know if it’s this incident, this man setting himself fire is related to what was going on in the — in the courtroom where Donald Trump was sitting, watching the completion of jury selection or if this is someone with other issues — either in the courts or just in life — but clearly something awful has happened, something truly horrific and one has to — one has to have to pray for that for the person who is drawn to that extreme and has done that and is taken away. Police were on and very quickly put it and put the fire out on him. As Olivia saw and reported, and he was taken away in an ambulance to a hospital where he will get care.

Morning Joe Hails Colleges Cracking Down on Pro-Hamas Protesters!

On Thursday, Morning Joe treated us to surprising praise for Speaker Mike Johnson -- albeit regarding his support for aid to Ukraine, something dear to Joe Scarborough. Friday brought another surprise: tough talk about the pro-Hamas protesters wreaking havoc on American campuses, and praise for university administrators taking action to curb their excesses. Thus, Joe Scarborough condemned students occupying the offices of college presidents, even suggesting that any president who tolerates that should "seek employment elsewhere." At one point, Scarborough even called protesters who blocked graduation speakers "brats." Willie Geist spoke positively about the chancellor of his alma mater, Vanderbilt, who actually expelled three students who had occupied his office. New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters has written an article on the matter: "Colleges Warn Student Demonstrators: Enough." As a panelist on Morning Joe, he criticized protesters at the University of Michigan, his alma mater, who had marred what was supposed to be a joyful event for outstanding students. He also acknowledged that college administrators have been slow in dealing with these problems. He cited the Trump years during which speakers who were conservative, or affiliated with Trump, were often canceled or shouted down.  President Biden is reported to be "obsessed" with Morning Joe, so much so that he has made Scarborough a frequent phone buddy and informal adviser. But if Biden tuned in on Friday, he couldn't have been thrilled with the panel's take. Biden's already under pressure from the Pro-Hamas/River to the Sea wing of the Democrat party.  And now even the liberal media is starting to call for crackdowns on those protesters? Oy vey! Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe  4/19/24 6:47 am EDT WILLIE GEIST: So Joe, yesterday, you saw another case, several in recent weeks, where heads of school, chancellors, administrators, have said, there is a line now between free speech. We've allowed you to protest, we've allowed you to go to certain places. We've opened dialogues on our  campus, given you a place to have these debates.  But when it comes to harassment of Jewish students, when it comes to interrupting the operations of, say, a class, or a speaker, or people moving through the campus, we're now saying, you can't do that anymore. JOE SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, exactly. Whether you're talking about the, the interruption of the functioning of the Golden Gate Bridge, or the normal functioning of Columbia University, you know, it's, it's too much. It's too much. You can have free speech without, again, stopping the normal functioning of these institutions.  . . .  And so, I'm glad the president of Columbia University has stepped forward. You know, some people may call allowing students to take over president's offices at Columbia in the 1960s a storied tradition. I don't. I call that anarchy. Like, if you're a president of the university and you're letting students take over your office, maybe, maybe you should seek employment elsewhere.  Because I guarantee you there are a lot of parents that send their children to schools who don't want students running the place. They'd like grown-ups to run the place. And it looks like that's what's happening in Columbia. GEIST: Yeah. I'll speak for -- you know, I went to Vanderbilt University. They've had a lot of this on their campus in recent weeks. And a group of students a couple of weeks ago pushed their way into Kirkland Hall, where the chancellor's office is. They pushed aside an unarmed security guard, they sat there for 20 hours doing exactly what you're talking about, Joe. And Chancellor Diermeier, who runs Vanderbilt, ultimately said, okay, you're all suspended. And then one by one, reviewed their cases and expelled three of the students. SCARBOROUGH: Good! GEIST: And said, we've given you a place to have free speech. We've given you a place to protest. We've given you a place to voice your opinion. We've created symposiums where both sides of this discussion can be heard. You didn't participate in that, but you broke into our office and sat here. So now, three of you are no longer students of Vanderbilt University. And that was one of the first schools, actually, to do that, and I think you've seen more if it now since then.  Jeremy Peters, the national reporter for the New York Times is writing about this. He's got new reporting on how those administrators are now responding to a surge in anti-Israel protests on campus. Also with us, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt. His group is out with new data on antisemitic incidents in the United States in the last year. Good morning to you both. Jeremy, I'll begin with you. It does seem to have been, just within the last couple of weeks even, a bit of a change in the approach that some, not all, that some leaders of campuses, of universities across the country, are taking with these protests. What did you find in your reporting? JEREMY PETERS: That's exactly right, Willie. Schools have had enough. And Vanderbilt issued what are believed to be the first expulsions of student protesters related to demonstrations stemming from the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel.And from Vanderbilt to NYU, to Columbia, to the University of Michigan, to Pomona, schools are saying, basically, look, this is not about free speech. You have a right to speak up. You have a right to demonstrate. What you don't have is a right to harass and disrupt. And that's what's really been impeding these universities core mission, which is to educate your students. And you can't have an environment that is constantly disrupted, where students are subject to harassment, where they're spit upon, where they're yelled at.  Where graduation ceremonies, or like the incident I wrote about at my alma mater, the University of Michigan, this honors convocation that was supposed to be this kind of lovely, celebratory moment where kids who were the highest-achieving students are honored. Their parents and grandparents are there. And shat happened? It got disrupted and had to be shut down early because of pro-Palestinian protesters were standing up and shouting down speakers and unfurling banners. And this is something I think universities have been slow to acknowledge. I mean, remember during the Trump years, universities really became this, this cauldron of protest activity, where this kind of overly censorious culture developed. Where if there was a speaker who was conservative, or aligned with Trump, instead of letting that person speak, a lot of times the speach would be canceled out of fear for the safety of that speaker. Or people would interrupt the speaker. And now, you know, I think universities are saying, we didn't do enough to rein that in, but now they are. SCARBOROUGH: And, you know, the thing is, that's happened over the past couple of years. But this has been a problem for a long time. I'll just say it, brats who are protesting when, say, Christine Lagarde tries to speak at a graduation, or Condi Rice tries to speak at a graduation, or I think even Christine Todd Whitman one time was canceled from speaking at the graduation!  I gotta say, you're either the adult running the campus, or you're the child, that is incapable of controlling students. The students are there to learn. That means IIall the students are there to learn. Not just students who decide this one issue is the most important issue to them. And I certainly understand, if Gaza is the most important issue, especially to Palestinian students in America. But it goes well beyond that. You can't shut down an entire campus.Your right to free speech doesn't mean your right to impinge upon everybody else's free speech and their ability to unction in a university setting.

WashPost Promotes NPR Staffers Loathing Critics of Their 'Legendary' Network

The Washington Post is covering NPR’s Uri Berliner controversy – now that he’s resigned. The front of Thursday’s Style section ran a story by media reporter Elahe Izadi with the usual framing of “conservative activists” vs. “public radio network.” As if this isn’t “right versus left.” This was the online headline: Turmoil at NPR after editor rips network for political bias The public-radio network is being targeted by conservative activists over the essay, which many staffers say is misleading and inaccurate. Izadi and the Post suggested that your critique is self-discrediting if it can be cited by conservatives. On its face, it seemed to confirm the worst suspicions held by NPR’s critics on the right: that the legendary media organization had an ideological, progressive agenda that dictates its journalism. [Imagine that!] The Free Press is an online publication started by journalist Bari Weiss, whose own resignation from the New York Times in 2020 was used by conservative politicians as evidence that the Times stifled certain ideas and ideologies… Izadi’s story was stuffed with NPR reporters and executives huffing that they’re not putting out a slanted left-wing product. They’re an “independent” outlet doing “fact-based reporting.” Disagree with that? It’s a “bad-faith” argument. The liberal bubble is thick. Several prominent NPR journalists countered that impression. “We have strong, heated editorial debates every day to try and get the most appropriate language and nuanced reporting in a landscape that is divisive and difficult to work in as a journalist,” Leila Fadel, host of Morning Edition, told The Post. “Media and free independent press are often under attack for the fact-based reporting that we do.” She called Berliner’s essay “a bad-faith effort” and a “factually inaccurate take on our work that was filled with omissions to back his arguments.” "Errors and omissions" are a constant NPR-employee talking point, as in Steve Inskeep's blazing attack on Substack. Izadi didn’t come to conservative critics for rebuttal – like ask Leila about her puffball interview with Liz Cheney, promoting her claim that the current Republican Party is a "danger to the country." But it grew worse: Ayesha Rascoe went for guilt by association, that any conservative critique of NPR is responsible for encouraging anonymous numbskulls on the internet: No news organization is above reproach, Weekend Edition host Ayesha Rascoe told The Post, but someone should not “be able to tear down an entire organization’s work without any sort of response or context provided, or pushback.” There are many legitimate critiques to make of NPR’s coverage, she added, “but the way this has been done — it’s to invalidate all the work NPR does.” …Rascoe, who, as a Black woman host for NPR, says she’s no stranger to online vitriol, but one message after Berliner’s essay labeled her as a “DEI hire” who has “never read a book in her life.” “What stung about this one was it came on the basis of a supposed colleague’s op-ed,” whose words were “being used as fodder to attack me,” Rascoe said. “And my concern is not about me, but all the younger journalists who don’t have the platform I have and who will be attacked and their integrity questioned simply on the basis of who they are.” Izadi's piece read like a long list of internal NPR complaints without any inkling of what all liberals know: NPR is a left-wing sandbox. It's "public," but it's owned by the Left. Berliner betrayed his colleagues by assailing its "legendary" status. 

Navarro Defends Menendez, Blames Wife, Argues ‘Costco Sells Gold Bars’

Faux-conservative ABC News co-host Ana Navarro was back to defending her close friend Democratic Senator Bob Menendez (NJ) from credible allegations of corruption on Friday’s edition of The View. Despite insisting she doesn’t “excuse him,” she was quite busy blaming Menendez’s wife for getting him into the situation that he was in, and seemingly tried to suggest he might have bought the gold bars hidden in his suit pockets at Costco. She also praised Democratic senators for not forcing him out of office. At least Navarro started off by acknowledging she was not going to be operating with honesty and good faith on the issue. “And look, and every time we talk about this I always want to start by saying, I think I'm biased. I try to be objective but I've known Bob Menendez for almost 30 years. I’ve worked with him on countless issues, Cuba, Nicaragua, immigration, Central American free trade,” she admitted. She immediately followed up by going after the credible allegations against him. “This Menendez that I read about here just does not jive, does not square away with the man I've known for all of this time. It's hard for me to understand all of these facts,” she decried. One might argue that she admitted to possibly facilitating some of Menendez’s alleged corruption when she bragged: “I’ve went to him with 100 issues with very rich clients, he never ever did anything like this.”     Throughout the segment, Navarro tried to blame Menendez’s wife and argued that she and his other friends didn’t know who the woman was before he married her: NAVARRO: And I will say this last thing, a lot of his friends, including me, when he saw this case, thought this is not the Bob we know. Who is this woman and how has this happened? I mean, she suddenly showed up like in the middle of COVID saying that she didn't know he was a senator. SARA HAINES: At IHOP. NAVARRO: At an IHOP. “And I did tell you the first time I read about this case, I think this woman -- I think Bob was completely smitten, enamored. He was a lone wolf for a long time. This happened during COVID,” she defended him. Navarro went on to praise Democratic senators for not forcing her friend out of office, citing the “reservoir of goodwill” Menendez had with them: And I think part of the reason that he hasn't been made to resign, that Schumer haven't forced it, his colleagues haven't forced it, is because there is a reservoir of goodwill towards him and respect towards him that there wasn’t toward like a George Santos, for example. And also I think it's because he's up for re-election now this November. And so, it's not like he's got another four years to serve, right? And the case is coming up -- is coming up now. On the flip side, she lashed out at Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman (D) for daring to demand her friend resign. “The difference with John Fetterman is that John Fetterman is new in the Senate. And so, he probably doesn't have the collegiality and friendship and history with Menendez that most of the others do,” she chided. Near the end of the segment, Navarro inexplicably proclaimed: “I read that Costco sells gold bars and they're sold out.” It was unclear if she was suggesting that Menendez bought the gold bars at Costco or that gold bars were readily available thus it didn’t matter. Costco does not sell the 1-kilo bricks stamped “Swiss Bank Corporation” that Menendez squirreled away. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View April 19, 2024 11:03:27 a.m. Eastern (…) ANA NAVARRO: His trial begins in a couple of weeks, I think, in two or three weeks. And look, and every time we talk about this I always want to start by saying, I think I'm biased. I try to be objective but I've known Bob Menendez for almost 30 years. I’ve worked with him on countless issues, Cuba, Nicaragua, immigration, Central American free trade. This Menendez that I read about here just does not jive, does not square away with the man I've known for all of this time. It's hard for me to understand all of these facts. I’ve went to him with 100 issues with very rich clients, he never ever did anything like this. And I will say this, and I don't excuse him, I don't justify him because Bob is one of the smartest people in Congress. It is a low bar but he really is one of the smartest people that I know, that I've worked with Congress. I think there needs to be more regulation of family members lobbying because it's not just Bob Menendez's wife, it's siblings, it's spouses, it's all of this thing. And they do have an advantage that other people don't have and a lot of lobbying firms have them on the firm and they don't even work. They don't even show up. It’s just have the names. The people of New Jersey are going to have a say on this. Bob has not said if he’s running again? JOY BEHAR: Is he running again? NAVARRO: He's not running as a Democrat. He hasn't said if he's running as an independent. And I will say this last thing, a lot of his friends, including me, when he saw this case, thought this is not the Bob we know. Who is this woman and how has this happened? I mean, she suddenly showed up like in the middle of COVID saying that she didn't know he was a senator. SARA HAINES: At IHOP. NAVARRO: At an IHOP. (…) 11:07:06 a.m. Eastern ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: He’d been charged previously and he did get off. HAINES: In 2015. FARAH GRIFFIN: He already had very similar charges that he was able to get by before he ever met the woman, so the fact that similar activity is taking place -- HAINES: She needs to be there too. NAVARRO (interrupting): I’m actually very familiar with that first case. I knew both of them. I knew Dr. Melden because he was always with Bob. And, I mean, Bob’s a guy who's been in my house. I've been at his mom's funeral. I know him very well. And I think part of the reason that he hasn't been made to resign, that Schumer haven't forced it, his colleagues haven't forced it, is because there is a reservoir of goodwill towards him and respect towards him that there wasn’t toward like a George Santos, for example. And also I think it's because he's up for re-election now this November. And so, it's not like he's got another four years to serve, right? And the case is coming up -- is coming up now. This case to me feels different than the first case. And I did tell you the first time I read about this case, I think this woman -- I think Bob was completely smitten, enamored. He was a lone wolf for a long time. This happened during COVID. Again, I don't excuse him. He is a smart guy. He should have known better. He's not something stupid gullible ingenue. SUNNY HOSTIN: The gold bars are a giveaway, right? [Crosstalk] HAINES: First time, shame on you; second time it's shame on me. In 2015, there was a close enough trial. If he’s coming back knowing, “Oh my gosh, I almost got caught” and he is so smart, dabbling in what he is dabbling in is dangerous and almost felt like he feels he was above it. NAVARRO: It seems to me gold bars for a gold digger. FARAH GRIFFIN: There are Democratic senator who’ve called for his resignation. HAINES: Fetterman. FARAH GRIFFIN: Including John Fetterman. So, I think the senator who served multiple times should stand on his own two feet, not blame the woman. NAVARRO: The difference with John Fetterman is that John Fetterman is new in the Senate. And so, he probably doesn't have the collegiality and friendship and history with Menendez that most of the others do. FARAH GRIFFIN: But that often blinds judgment. HAINES: Gold bars and you’re hiding them in your suit pockets and you’re giving your wife a car and they have text messages. I’d say, collegiality aside, you've crossed over. FARAH GRIFFIN: That's where the good old boys club gets in the way. It’s like, “oh, we like him. He’s such a such a nice guy.” Well, if he's committing crimes it doesn't really matter. NAVARRO: Which is why I tell you I feel like I know that I'm biased. I like the guy and I keep hoping against hope there is some reasonable explanation. I hope -- Listen, I hope the truth comes out. You know, I read -- I read that Costco sells gold bars and they're sold out. HOSTIN: Really?! NAVARRO: Yes! HAINES: You can buy gold bars? HOSTIN: I don't know about some gold bars from Costco. (…)

WHAT GAFFES? Networks OMIT Biden Claim of Uncle Being Eaten By Cannibals

We regret to inform you that the Regime Media has done it again. None of the evening network newscasts covered President Joe Biden’s latest gaffe, wherein he claimed that his uncle was eaten by cannibals after crashing his military aircraft over Papua New Guinea during World War II while trying to attack former President Donald Trump. Below is the statement in its full context, as aired on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports on Wednesday, April 17th, 2024 (click "expand" to view transcript): JOE BIDEN: …and, when D-Day occurred, the next day, on Monday all four of my mother's brothers went down and volunteered to join the military. And four of them -- three of them made it. One was 4F- couldn't go. And, uh… Ambrose Finnegan- we called him Uncle Bosie- he was shot down. He was Army Air Corps. Before there was an Air Force. He flew single-engine planes. Reconnaissance flights over New Guinea.  He volunteered if someone couldn't make it. He got shot down in an area where there were a lot of cannibals. In New Guinea. At the time. They never recovered his body, but the government went back when I went down there and they checked and found parts of the plane and the like. And what I was thinking about when I was standing there was when Trump refused to go up to the memorial for veterans in Paris. And he said they were a bunch of suckers and losers. To me, that is such a disqualifying assertion made by a president. Suckers and losers. Guys who saved civilization in the 1940s. Suckers and losers. And I just wanted to go and- we have a tradition in our family that my grandfather started. When you visit a gravesite of a family member, it’s going to sound strange to you, but- you say three Hail Marys. That's what I was doing at the site. My grand- my uncle, Ambrose Finnegan, Uncle- Uncle Bosie, was a hell of a guy from what I- I never met him, obviously. But I just wanted to see where he was memorialized. The gaffe in and of itself is Biden Normal at this point, but was notable enough to warrant fact-checks by both Politifact (“highly unlikely”) and Snopes (“False”). Snopes cited the AP’s own verification, which in turn cited the DoD’s POW/MIA Accounting Agency:  According to the Pentagon’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Biden’s uncle, known by the family as “Bosie,” died on May 14, 1944, while a passenger on an Army Air Forces plane that, “for unknown reasons,” was forced to ditch in the Pacific Ocean off the northern coast of New Guinea. “Both engines failed at low altitude, and the aircraft’s nose hit the water hard,” the agency states in its listing of Finnegan. “Three men failed to emerge from the sinking wreck and were lost in the crash.” In the face of such evidence the White House was left with little choice than to pretend Biden didn’t say what he said on national TV. White House spokesman Andrew Bates did not address the discrepancy between the agency’s records and Biden’s account when he issued a statement on the matter. “President Biden is proud of his uncle’s service in uniform,“ Bates said, adding Finnegan ”lost his life when the military aircraft he was on crashed in the Pacific after taking off near New Guinea.” Biden “highlighted his uncle’s story as he made the case for honoring our ‘sacred commitment ... to equip those we send to war and take care of them and their families when they come home,’ and as he reiterated that the last thing American veterans are is ‘suckers’ or ‘losers.’” None of this, or any mention whatsoever of a widely-debunked statement made by the President of the United States, made it to any of the three network evening newscasts. Even more galling is the realization, when viewing the video in its broader context, that poor old Uncle Bosie was just a narrative bridge on which Biden got to what he really wanted to do, which was to hit Trump on the equally dubious “suckers and losers”. Instead, viewers got an earful on such vital issues of the day as, for example, Caitlin Clark’s salary.   On the one hand you have media omissions of actual statements made by Joe Biden, and on the other, you have outright fabrications based on partial statements stripped of their context when uttered by Donald Trump, such as the routine “Trump called immigrants animals” whenever Trump addresses MS-13 or other violent criminal aliens such as the killers of Laken Riley, for example.  The title of “Regime Media” is well-earned here, and we note the media’s descent into terminal institutional corruption over just a few short cycles: going from “what about your gaffes?” to simply, “what gaffes?” 

WATCH: Babylon Bee CEO Explains Why Experts Should NEVER Be Censors

The CEO of a popular satire site summed up exactly why no expert should ever have the ability to determine what free speech is allowed. Private experts, Big Tech employees and government officials alike have all appointed themselves arbiters of what speech should be censored and what speech will be allowed. This anti-constitutional attitude is also totally out of touch with a basic fact, one which The Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon highlighted as a “knock-down argument” against censorship: experts can be wrong. Because of this fact, “dissent must not only be allowed, but encouraged,” Dillon posted on X (formerly Twitter) on April 17. Dillon included a clip of his 2023 testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee besides his written comment. “Whenever we learn that censorship has blocked something true (like the Hunter Biden laptop story), we always hear the same excuse: ‘We censored it based on what we knew at the time,’” he wrote. But, according to Dillon, “This is not a defense of censorship. In fact, it's a knock-down argument against it.” Media Research Center poll data previously illustrated that censorship of the Hunter Biden scandal swayed the 2020 presidential election in then-candidate Joe Biden’s favor. Related: ‘A Knock-Down Argument’: Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon Calls Out Hypocritical COVID-19 Censorship Dillon explained further, “If knowledge changes over time, then the last thing we should ever do is pretend it doesn't by preemptively shutting down the debate.” He concluded, “If it's even possible that the ‘experts’ and authorities are wrong — and we know they often are — then dissent must not only be allowed, but encouraged.” The X post also included a clip of Dillon, responding to a question about censors’ objectivity during the 2023 congressional hearing.  In it, Dillon referred to censors’ supposed credibility as a “pretty good joke” and added, “In the whole fact-checking apparatus … there’s unbelievable hubris in the whole project. You know, this idea, especially when we’re talking about medical information too, I often hear people going back say, ‘Well, it was based on what we knew at the time.’” Again, Dillon emphasized, this simply highlights that one’s knowledge can alter over time. He then stated the “knock-down argument” against censorship which he also wrote in his post. Indeed, America has a First Amendment to protect free speech and open debate. You May Also Like: WATCH: Babylon Bee CEO Calls Censorship ‘The Issue for Our Time’ The Babylon Bee is a member of the Free Speech Alliance. 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.

CNN Doesn't Challenge Iranian FM On His Embassy Hypocrisy

CNN’s Erin Burnett sat down with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Thursday's OutFront show to discuss the situation in the Middle East. During their conversation, Burnett did not call out Amir-Abdollahian for bear hugging the Vienna Convention, while Iran has violated it repeatedly over the past several decades. Iran has spun its failed attack as large enough to send a message, but restrained enough to avoid a regional war, while warning that if Israel responded, it would respond more harshly, leading Burnett to ask, “So when you say the response will be at a maximum level, you also, I know, have warned Israel against crossing what you have used the words, quote-unquote, 'red lines.' What are those red lines, and what is a maximum level? You used, what, more than 300 drones, cruise missiles in that attack? What would escalate from there for you? What is a maximum level above that?”     By the end of the night, Burnett’s interview would mostly be out of date as Israel responded, but despite all of Tehran’s fiery rhetoric warning about such a response, it appears content to pretend it didn’t happen. As for Amir-Abdollahian’s response, he declared that “Well, the red lines that they crossed, the red line that Israel crossed was the attack upon the embassy building of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Damascus, Syria. And during that attack, seven official military advisers carrying out a fight against terrorism were martyred through a missile attack of the regime of Israel. Vienna Conventions recognized -- Vienna Conventions were not respected, so red lines were crossed by the Israeli regime.” Amir-Abdollahian’s would continue to ramble off what turned out to be empty threats and would repeatedly justify Iran’s attack as a legitimate defense after Israel violated its sovereignty by targeting its embassy. While Burnett had no way of knowing for sure at the time that Amir-Abdollahian’s was bluffing, she did have a way of knowing recent history. Throughout the interview, Burnett would question him about escalation or the failed nature of Saturday’s salvo, but she never once brought up his hypocrisy. Donald Trump didn’t just wake up one day and decide to strike Qasem Soleimani, he did it in response to Iranian proxies attacking the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. On Friday, only one day before Iran’s reckless attack, the highest criminal court in Argentina ruled that Iran was responsible for the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. In 2011, there was the Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. Somehow, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United States managed to respond by not spastically bombing Iran and somehow, Amir-Abdollahian was not questioned about it. Here is a transcript for the April 18 show: CNN Erin Burnett OutFront 4/18/2024 7:39 PM ET ERIN BURNETT: So when you say the response will be at a maximum level, you also, I know, have warned Israel against crossing what you have used the words, quote-unquote, "red lines." What are those red lines, and what is a maximum level? You used, what, more than 300 drones, cruise missiles in that attack. What would escalate from there for you? What is a maximum level above that? HOSSEIN AMIR-ABDOLLAHIAN (through translator): Well, the red lines that they crossed, the red line that Israel crossed, was the attack upon the embassy building of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Damascus, Syria. And during that attack, seven official military advisers carrying out a fight against terrorism were martyred through a missile attack of the regime of Israel. Vienna Conventions recognized -- Vienna Conventions were not respected, so red lines were crossed by the Israeli regime. However, in our attack, within the framework of legitimate defense, why do we call it carried out at a minimum? Because it was geared towards two military targets, one the Innova Team Air Base and the other one an intelligence and information centers from which attacks took place on our building. We did not target economic and financial centers, civilian centers, only the two locations from which F-35 aircraft were flown, took off from there, and targeted the embassy building in the Golan. This was our minimum response. But in case of a repeated adventure-seeking and adventurism of the Israeli regime, what will our maximum response be? I can only say that it will be carried out at a maximum level, and it will be regretful for them. The details have been planned by the armed forces of my country. However, I do hope that Israel does not commit a grave error in calculus.

Column: Do Celebrities Have Deeper Liberal Thoughts?

When Laura Ingraham wrote her book Shut Up and Sing in 2003, the Left didn’t read the book as much as overreact to the title. The title implied something important. While celebrities gain a “platform” they feel compelled to use, do their opinions reflect any expertise? Or is fame more important than logic? Celebrities often lead with emotion, and expect to cause an emotional reaction. They don’t expect “independent fact-checkers” to examine their emotions. Exhibit A is an April 15 interview of Hillary Clinton on The Kelly Clarkson Show. Pop singer Clarkson brought up an Arizona judge ruling that an abortion ban originally passed in 1864 could stand. "Did you ever think in your lifetime we would see that happen?" Clarkson asked. "It's just insane to me the thinking that went on in 1864. It's a very different world. We know a lot more now. We are going backwards." Hillary agreed: “It is horrifying in every way.” She said “there’s a cruelty to it.” No one gets to suggest that maybe there’s something cruel or horrifying about ripping apart the body of an unborn baby. Clarkson said she was hospitalized both times she was pregnant. "I literally asked God, this is a real thing, to just take me and my son in the hospital for the second time, because I was like, 'It's the worst thing,'" she said, growing emotional. “It was my decision, and I’m so glad I did it. I love my babies, but to make someone... You don’t realize how hard it is. The fact that you would take that away from someone, that can literally kill them. The fact that if they’re raped by their family member and they have to — it’s just like insane to me.” Emotion dominates, realities don’t intrude. Pregnancy from rape (especially from a family member) is uncommon. The abortion lobbyists always play up the rare cases, but the dead baby is the “solution” in every deadly “choice.” On the same day, MSNBC host Jen Psaki played a preview of an upcoming interview with singer John Legend, who thinks his opinions match his stage name. Psaki was touting the man’s robotic repetition of every MSNBC and CNN pundit spinning against Trump. “He is part of a two-tiered system of justice but not the way he thinks he is,” proclaimed Legend. “He is getting way more concessions than the average criminal defendant would get. He is getting delays, he's got access to all kinds of lawyers that are filing this and filing that, delaying every trial, and most people don't have access to that kind of lawyering, don’t have access to the kind of concessions the justice system will provide to you if you can afford it.” Of course, Trump is a wealthy man who can afford a team of lawyers. So did O.J. Simpson. All of that resolutely ignores Trump is not “the average criminal defendant.” He’s a former president and the presumptive Republican nominee for president. I think we can guess in advance Psaki the Biden Press Secretary didn’t ask this crooner how many of these Trump prosecutions would be proceeding if Trump retired from politics in 2017, or why Trump was indicted for things when Biden wasn’t (like possessing classified documents).    Celebrities can echo progressive pundits like Joyce Vance or Van Jones, but somehow their proclamations are especially deep thoughts. We love how they sing, so their political views resonate with a crackle. They are not smarter than the average voter, but they can expect no one will disturb their emanations with any fraction of opposition. Call it celebrity privilege.

The Network Newscasts Cheer As The Kennedys Come To Biden’s Rescue

Each of the network evening newscasts delighted in reporting that the Camelot Cavalry, if you will, had come to the aid of President Joe Biden in Philadelphia. The Kennedy family joined Biden on stage to denounce their brother who is also running for president. The rationale is that doing so, festooning Biden’s podium with Kennedys, will somehow deter Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign. Here’s how NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez reported it: GABE GUTIERREZ: Responding to his family's endorsement of his opponent today, RFK, Jr. posted on social media: "we are divided in our opinions but united in our love for each other”. The environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist first ran as a Democrat. Now, Kennedy's independent campaign is polling above 10% in a few key swing states where Biden is also trailing Trump. Democrats are aggressively attacking third-party candidates like Kennedy, whom they view as a threat to President Biden's re-election, people involved tell NBC News.  This is why Biden needed help from the Kennedy clan- and it isn’t just Bobby Jr.’s polling in swing states but his getting on the ballot in Michigan that makes people nervous. You’ll recall that Michigan is where Biden was embarrassed with a significant number of “Uncommitted” votes during the Democrat primary due to his handling of the war in Gaza. Gutierrez didn’t actually report about the Michigan ballot, but CBS’s Weijia Jiang and ABC’s Mary Bruce did, respectively. But that bit of newsmaking was lost among the Kennedy sycophancy and Biden apple-polishing. Generally speaking, these reports shared common themes, to wit: RFK, Jr. is a conspiracy theorist, his family- the mythical Kennedy family- denounces him, and they do so to Defend Democracy, fully aware of What Is At Stake.   Consider this exchange between Mary Bruce and RFK daughter Kerry Kennedy: MARY BRUCE: I asked his sister Kerry Kennedy if her brother realizes the difference he could make in a close race.  Do you think your brother understands how high those stakes are? KERRY KENNEDY: You know, look. I think his understanding is not the point here. The point is the understanding of voters, and that's who really needs to understand that your vote counts. BRUCE: What do you say to someone who knows your family, knows your father and what he stood for, your uncle, but is supporting your brother because of that legacy? KERRY KENNEDY: Yeah, I'd say look closely at that legacy. Think about who Bobby Kennedy was, who my father was. This is what the Regime Media is reduced to- egging on sibling rivalry in order to Protect the Precious. Weijia Jiang was no better, closing out her report with this weird take: WEIJIA JIANG: Today, Kennedy tweeted about his family's decision saying, "I am pleased they are politically active, it’s a family tradition. He added they are divided in opinions but united in their love for each other, though there was clearly no love lost today in Philadelphia. Expect more evocations of the Kennedy legacies now that the not-Bobby Jr. portions of the family have endorsed Joe Biden, and as Bobby Jr. continues to gain ballot access. Having first ignored him when he ran as a Democrat, the Regime Media will now aid efforts to destroy him.  Click “expand” to view the full transcripts of the aforementioned reports as aired on their respective newscasts on Thursday, April 18th, 2024: NBC NIGHTLY NEWS LESTER HOLT: Let's turn to the 2024 presidential campaign. Today prominent members of the Kennedy family endorsed President Biden even though Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is running against him. Gabe Gutierrez reports. GABE GUTIERREZ: Today, with his opponent stuck in court, President Biden on the attack in battleground Pennsylvania. JOE BIDEN: The 2024 election is about two fundamentally different visions for America. DonalD Trump's vision is one of anger, hate, revenge, and retribution. GUTIERREZ: The campaign touting the endorsement of 15 Kennedy family members even though one of their own, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Is running against him as an independent. KERRY KENNEDY: The best way forward for America is to re-elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to four more years. GUTIERREZ: Responding to his family's endorsement of his opponent today, RFK, Jr. posted on social media: "we are divided in our opinions but united in our love for each other”. The environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist first ran as a Democrat. Now, Kennedy's independent campaign is polling above 10% in a few key swing states where Biden is also trailing Trump. Democrats are aggressively attacking third-party candidates like Kennedy, whom they view as a threat to President Biden's re-election, people involved tell NBC News. Though it's not clear which candidate, President Biden or former President Trump, would lose more votes to RFK, Jr. Kennedy told NBC’s Vaughn Hillyard this in February: ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.: I hope to drive equal numbers from both of them. I think at this point I'm probably drawing more from President Trump. GUTIERREZ: A source familiar with the Biden campaign’s planning says the Kennedy family endorsement was months in the making. Notably, they didn’t mention RFK, Jr’s name once at today’s event. Lester. HOLT: Gabe Gutierrez, thank you. CBS EVENING NEWS NORAH O’DONNELL: Now to the 2024 presidential election and "America Decides." President Biden's campaign is increasingly concerned that the independent bid of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who promotes conspiracies, could hurt Biden's reelection efforts. So Biden appeared with Kennedy's family, who has denounced their brother's views and his candidacy. CBS's Weijia Jiang with news from the campaign trail. WEIJIA JIANG: At a Biden campaign event in Philadelphia… KERRY KENNEDY: The Kennedy family endorses Joe Biden for president. [Cheers and applause] JIANG: 15 members of the Kennedy family, a political dynasty, threw support behind President Biden instead of their own relative, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. JOE BIDEN: I don't want to become emotional but what an incredible honor. To have the support of the Kennedy family. JIANG: RFK Jr.’s sister, Kerry Kennedy, did not mention him by name, but she insisted the race is just between Biden and Donald Trump. KERRY KENNEDY: A vote for Joe Biden is a vote for our democracy and our decency. JIANG: RFK Jr. has sparked controversy with claims like vaccines cause autism in children, but his family's public endorsement of Biden signals how seriously Democrats are taking his run. So far, Kennedy has secured a spot on the ballot in Utah and Michigan. The Kennedy campaign and its supporters claim they have enough signatures to appear on nearly a dozen other states, including key battlegrounds. Donald Trump says RFK Jr. will be a spoiler for Biden. DONALD TRUMP: I do believe that RFK Jr. will do very well, and I do believe he is going to take a lot of votes away from Crooked Joe Biden. JIANG: Former Massachusetts congressman Joe Kennedy II said he would encourage his brother to drop out. JOE KENNEDY II: We cannot do anything that in any way strips even one vote from President Biden. JIANG: Today, Kennedy tweeted about his family's decision saying, "I am pleased they are politically active, it’s a family tradition. He added they are divided in opinions but united in their love for each other, though there was clearly no love lost today in Philadelphia. Norah. O’DONNELL: Weijia Jiang. Thank you. ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT DAVID MUIR: We turn now to the race for president. Tonight, more than a dozen members of the Kennedy family have now endorsed President Biden, speaking out publicly today about their own brother, RFK Jr., who is running for president. They are concerned that their brother could take votes from Joe Biden, with the Kennedy name, in this very close election. RFK Jr. maintains he's no spoiler. Here's Mary Bruce. MARY BRUCE: Tonight in Pennsylvania, members of the Kennedy family, including brothers and sisters of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., throwing their support behind President Biden, concerned RFK Jr. will hand the White House back to Donald Trump. KERRY KENNEDY: That's right. The Kennedy family endorses Joe Biden for president BRUCE: The Kennedys worried RFK Jr. Will use his family name to win support from some Democrats in a tight race where every vote will count. KERRY KENNEDY: We want to make crystal clear our feeling that the best way forward for America is to re-elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to four more years. BRUCE: Biden, who recently welcomed the family to the White House, has called RFK Jr.'s father his political hero. His bust sits in the Oval Office. BIDEN: Mom and dad, I hope you're listening. What an incredible honor. BRUCE: RFK Jr., who has famously embraced conspiracy theories about vaccines, insists he's no spoiler. ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.: We know what President Trump and President Biden are going to do if they win this election. They are going to do exactly what they did before. Does anybody here want more of the same? AUDIENCE: NOOOOOOOO! BRUCE: I asked his sister Kerry Kennedy if her brother realizes the difference he could make in a close race.  Do you think your brother understands how high those stakes are? KERRY KENNEDY: You know, look. I think his understanding is not the point here. The point is the understanding of voters, and that's who really needs to understand that your vote counts. BRUCE: What do you say to someone who knows your family, knows your father and what he stood for, your uncle, but is supporting your brother because of that legacy? KERRY KENNEDY: Yeah, I'd say look closely at that legacy. Think about who Bobby Kennedy was, who my father was. BRUCE: (UNINT)...of Robert F. Kennedy arguing that President Biden would carry on the family legacy better than her own brother, well aware that if people vote for RFK Jr. based on the family name, it could sway this race. And polling has shown that when his name is in the mix, it does make a difference. And tonight, we have learned that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will now also be on the ballot in the key state of Michigan, David. MUIR: All right, Mary Bruce with us again tonight. Mary, thank you.  

OJ Simpson Is Dead — Ron and Nicole Are Unavailable for Comment

As to the double murder case against O.J. Simpson, there was so much evidence that his guilt was obvious. This evidence included, but was not limited to, blood at the crime scene and on and in Simpson’s white Bronco; a bloody glove found at the crime scene and a matching glove found at Simpson’s home; a knit cap, with hair that resembled that of Simpson, found at the crime scene; footprints matching Simpson’s foot size found at the crime scene; blood found in Simpson’s home; blood on socks found in Simpson’s home; and the limo driver, scheduled to pick up Simpson on the night of the murder, buzzed Simpson’s intercom and got no response. There was other evidence, including the infamous low-speed Bronco chase, not used against Simpson. Evidence was not used either because the prosecution elected not to use it, the judge refused to allow it, or certain things, like Simpson taking and flunking a polygraph, were inadmissible. One piece of evidence not used was testimony from a witness named Jill Shively. On the night of June 12, 1994, Shively saw a white Bronco driving quickly and recklessly from near the scene of the crime and around the time of the crime. The driver of the Bronco nearly hit Shively’s car. When she learned about the murders, she called the police, described what happened, gave them the Bronco’s license plate and identified the driver as Simpson. One would consider this a crucial piece of evidence placing Simpson near the crime scene on the night of the murders. Why did the prosecution choose not to use this eyewitness? Shively sold her story for $5,000 to one of the tabloids. Lead prosec utor Marcia Clark believed this tainted Shively’s credibility, and Clark decided against putting her on the stand to face cross-examination. Besides, the prosecution reasoned, there is so much evidence pointing to Simpson’s guilt, why bother with an iffy witness? Simpson, without a lawyer present, was interviewed by the police the day after the murders. The detectives saw cuts on Simpson’s hands. Simpson claimed he sustained them “when I was rushing to get out of my house,” but in his pretrial deposition he claimed the cuts came from a glass he broke in anger when he heard about the death of his ex-wife. The jury consisted of eight blacks. Given the jury’s unwillingness to apply reason and common sense, none of the evidence really mattered. Years after the trial, one of the jurors, a black woman named Carrie Bess, in an interview admitted she ignored the evidence. Interviewer: Do you think there are members of the jury that voted to acquit O.J. because of Rodney King? Bess: Yes. Interviewer: You do? Bess: Yes. Interviewer: How many of you do you think felt that way? Bess: Oh, probably 90% of them. Interviewer: 90%. Did you feel that way? Bess: Yes. Interviewer: That was payback. Bess: Uh-huh. Interviewer: Do you think that’s right? After that question, Bess just put up her hands and shrugged. During the trial, an inner-city New Jersey high school teacher wrote an article called “Race, O.J., and My Kids.” It was published in a center-left magazine called The New Republic: “No more than four of my 110 students (most of whom are black) think O.J. Simpson is definitely guilty and few are willing to admit the possibility that he might be. This faith in Simpson is strongest among black girls. ... “One student suggested that Ron Goldman killed Nicole before killing himself and then throwing away the knife. Another believes the dog did it. Shenia suggested that Al Cowlings, Simpson’s best buddy, did it. Bryant believes the killer is O.J.’s son. Philip blames ‘that (gay) dude who wants to marry O.J.’; that would be Kato Kaelin, Simpson’s houseguest. ... “Jon, a bright student, had his own scenario: O.J. was shaving and cut himself. Kato took the blood from the shaving cut, brought it to the crime scene and dumped it.” What can one say other than this? O.J. Simpson has died. Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson were unavailable for comment.

ABC News Refuses to Ask Granholm About Corruption Allegations, Ties to EV Companies

Earlier this week, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was grilled in a Senate hearing about allegations of corruption after it was discovered that she had financial ties to some of the very electric vehicle companies she was tasked with regulating and forcing Americans to eventually buy. But none of that was addressed by ABC News in an interview conducted by The View cast on Thursday. Instead, America was treated to questions about how energy companies read meters, how stupid Trump voters were, and when she was running for president. The first question out of the gate came from co-host Sara Haines, which only served to promote next week’s Earth Day celebrations and to give Granholm the opportunity to lecture about how to shrink their “carbon footprint”: And as we're all gearing up to celebrate Earth Day, from your perspective, what is the single most important thing people watching – watching this right now can do to fight climate change and reduce or lower our own carbon footprint? Granholm also used the question to promote the electric vehicles she had a financial stake in, before divesting in response to conservative media scrutiny and an ethics complaint being filed. At no point did she receive any questions – let alone serious ones – about her financial ties or allegations of corruption and ethics violation. Instead, moderator Whoopi Goldberg asked about EVs in “the projects” and people without homes to charge them.     Goldberg also wanted Granholm to explain how her electricity company can read her meter: People are getting … electric bills that are insane and I don't understand how you can – Because I watch these guys. And they come and look at the little thing going around then they read the number. How do you know $300 is on there? How do you know to charge me that? Faux-conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin was as useless as ever since she didn’t grill Granholm either. Instead, she teed up the Secretary to blame the rise in gas prices on something other than President Biden. “Gas prices. They’re are somewhat on the rise, but they did go down significantly…What is the administration doing to lower those prices, and should we be worried about the conflict in the Middle East contributing?” she clownishly wondered. For her part, co-host Joy Behar proclaimed President Biden “cares about his grandchildren” because he was “working very hard” to stop climate change, while former President Trump “couldn’t care less about his grandchildren” because he wanted to “drill, drill, drill” and pointed out that off-shore wind turbines were harming whales. She panicked that “a new Washington Post poll shows that nearly half of Republicans now believe Trump that climate change is a hoax,” and wanted Granholm to answer: “How do we convince these people to start believing the truth?!” Behar also asked one of the final questions, pushing Granholm to run for president. “Jennifer, when are you going to run for president?” she quipped. The View’s refusal to hold Granholm to account was important to call out because the show is under the ABC News umbrella. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View April 18, 2024 11:32:45 a.m. Eastern WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Welcome back. Our ABC news series, The Power of Us: People, Climate, and Our Future is kicking off just in time for next week's Earth Day and joining us now to weigh in on hot topics from rising temperatures and gas prices to how we can all do our part to save the planet, please welcome U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. [Applause] SECY. JENNIFER GRANHOLM (Department of Energy): Thank you so much. GOLDBERG: Welcome. Sara. SARA HAINES: Madam secretary, thanks for joining us. GRANHOLM: Yes, of course. HAINES: And as we're all gearing up to celebrate Earth Day, from your perspective, what is the single most important thing people watching – watching this right now can do to fight climate change and reduce or lower our own carbon footprint? (…) 11:35:02 a.m. Eastern GOLDBERG: What if you live in the projects? What if you don't have a home, what do you – (…) 11:36:48 a.m. Eastern BEHAR: Okay, so while President Biden who cares about his grandchildren – GRANHOLM: Yes. BEHAR: -- is working very hard on this as you just pointed out, he has record climate investments, former president -- can't even say it, former p – p – p[resident] Trump he says he would be a dictator on day one and drill, drill, drill! You know, he couldn't care less about his grandchildren and he spreads conspiracy theories that wind turbines are killing whales and causing cancer. But here's the problem that makes me nuts. A new Washington Post poll shows that nearly half of Republicans now believe Trump that climate change is a hoax. How much more evidence do these people need when they see what goes on with hurricanes, et cetera, how do we convince these people to start believing the truth?! (…) 11:39:47 a.m. Eastern GRANHOLM: Whoopi, you don’t look convinced. GOLDBERG: I am convinced but I do have questions, because people are getting bills, energy bills. HOSTIN: Electric bills. GOLDBERG: Electric bills that are insane and I don't understand how you can – Because I watch these guys. And they come and look at the little thing going around then they read the number. How do you know $300 is on there? [Laughter] How do you know to charge me that? HOSTIN: Good point! (…) 11:40:10 a.m. Eastern ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: More specifically, I did want to ask, Madam Secretary, gas prices. They’re are somewhat on the rise, but they did go down significantly. We’re seeing them rise a bit. Former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain had encouraged the President to focus on pocketbook issues to voters. What is the administration doing to lower those prices, and should we be worried about the conflict in the Middle East contributing? GRANHOLM: Yeah, we should and thank you for raising that. (…) 11:41:22 a.m. Eastern BEHAR: Jennifer, when are you going to run for president? GRANHOLM: Oh, my lord. What were you saying? HOSTIN: Shouldn't gas companies be better corporate citizens and lower the prices and stop gouging the American people?! (…)

First on MRC: Soros-Funded Groups Created Google Anti-Israel Demonstration

First on MRC Business: A vicious anti-Israel group that occupied Google until their arrests was created by two organizations that Soros poured massive amounts of money into.  No Tech for Apartheid, a tech worker campaign that frequently accuses Israel of “genocide,” occupied the Sunnyvale, California-based office of Google Cloud’s CEO for the crime of doing business with Israelis. No Tech for Apartheid refers to itself as a project of the anti-Israel groups Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and MPower Change. Strikingly, Soros’ Open Society Foundations’ gave at least $525,000 to JVP between 2017 and 2022, while also giving $350,000 to JVP Action, an affiliated 501(c)(4) “sister organization” of JVP. Soros gave at least $2,205,555 to MPower Change from its founding in 2016 to 2022.  In response to the protests demanding that Google cancel a $1.22 billion contract with the Israeli government, the tech giant fired 28 of the participants. The footage of the protests and the arrests has gone viral on social media. No Tech for Apartheid posted an absurd thread on X, referring to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian as “genocide profiteers.” BREAKING: Google employees were arrested after occupying their boss's office for more than 8 hours to demand that the company sever ties with Israel. WATCH: pic.twitter.com/W4WQO8NNgH — Kassy Akiva (@KassyDillon) April 17, 2024 No Tech for Apartheid does not list any staffers. However, MPower Change does claim No Tech for Apartheid as one of their “campaigns” on their website. Anti-Israel radical Granate Kim, a former employee of JVP, is MPower Change’s current Campaign Director.  Radical anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour is the executive director and co-founder of MPower Change. Sarsour is famous for her radical hatred of Israel. According to the Committee For Accuracy in Middle East Reporting, Sarsour strongly opposes the existence of Israel. Sarsour is a supporter of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement to impoverish, isolate and destroy Israel, the homeland of the Jewish People. Both Sarsour and MPower Change promote a radical anti-law enforcement agenda and viciously smear both American law enforcement and Israel as collaborating oppressive forces.  MPower Change Action demonstrated this agenda not only by supporting “defunding” and “abolishing” the police but by endorsing two Soros-funded radical leftist prosecutors for reelection in 2023: Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano and Arlington County Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti.  The other organization involved in No Tech for Apartheid’s creation, JVP, is also a vicious opponent of Israel. This was evident on JVP’s frequently asked questions page, where the organization makes several disturbing statements. For example, JVP not only refers to Israel’s efforts to end Hamas terrorism and rescue the hostages as a “genocide,” but also argues that Hamas attacks are justified so long as they have military targets: “An occupied people have a right to resist, including the use of force. But the targeting of civilians is not permitted.”  JVP also refers to itself as “anti-Zionist.” JVP admits that they initially avoided this label as it "closed off conversation in the Jewish community," before ultimately caving to “Palestinian partners.” While admitting that they are in a “struggle against Zionism,” JVP defines the term to make clear what they are fighting against: “Zionism is a form of Jewish nationalism, and is the primary ideology that drove the establishment of Israel.” In other words, Soros is funding a group opposed to the existence of Israel.  This organization also unequivocally supports the BDS movement, not just for Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, but for all of Israel. JVP compares their fight to demonize Israel to the American Civil Rights movement and the fight against the slave trade. Furthermore, JVP backs a Palestinian “right of return” that would threaten Israel’s existence as a Jewish State. Every one of these awful details can be found on their FAQ page.  Soros has a long track record of funding radical anti-Israel groups like MPower Change and JVP. After last year’s brutal terrorist attack on Israel, MRC President Brent Bozell and MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider called Soros out for giving $550,000 to Pro-Hamas groups between 2017 and 2022 alone.  Conservatives are under attack! Contact ABC News (818) 460-7477, CBS News (212) 975-3247 and NBC News (212) 664-6192 and demand they report on Soros’ comments and funding of anti-Israel causes.

All Talk No Game? Musk Caves After Pledging to Protect Free Speech

Tech mogul Elon Musk has folded in his so-called defense of free speech in his recent battle with a Brazilian court. On Monday, Musk's attorneys informed Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes that social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) will comply with all of the censorship demands targeting accounts accused of spreading misinformation, according to Reuters. "As already communicated to the federal police, X Brasil informs that all orders issued by this Supreme Court and the Superior Electoral Court will continue to be fully complied with by X Corp," Musk’s legal counsel reportedly wrote in the letter addressed to Moraes. Musk’s compliance marks a stark departure from his vehement threats to ignore the orders. “We are lifting all restrictions,” Musk declared on April 6, accusing the Moraes of threatening X with fines and imprisonment. “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.” Related: UPDATE: Are You Paying Attention? Brazil Escalates Major Free Speech Assault The battle between X and de Moraes stems from an inquiry by Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court that centers on the spread of what the government deemed to be misinformation amid federal elections. In court rulings, Moraes accused X of allowing some popular Brazil-based users to spread so-called misinformation. In turn, he demanded Musk censor them. In court decisions, Moraes accused X of being a major driver of alleged misinformation and demanded Musk censor these users. Amid Musk’s initial refusal to comply with such demands, Moraes threatened to impose daily fines of $20,000 for each account not banned. Last week, the Brazilian Superior Electoral Court declined to respond to MRC’s request for comment on Musk’s refusal to comply with the orders. Instead, a court spokesperson directed MRC to a criminal referral directing the county’s attorney general to investigate Musk for potential obstruction of justice. Before Monday, Musk had hurled scathing comments at the Brazilian assault against its citizens’ free speech. “The severity of the censorship and the degree to which Brazil’s own laws are being broken, to the detriment of their own people, is the worst of any country in the world in which this platform operates,” he wrote on April 10. Hours earlier that same day, Musk declared that X respected the Brazilian laws but said the company “must refuse” to comply with orders that break the law. His remarks likely refer to earlier characterizations of Morae’s orders as lacking legitimate legal basis.  𝕏 respects the laws of Brazil and all countries in which we operate. When given an order to break the law, we must refuse. https://t.co/vLuFUP9gN8 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 10, 2024 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.

‘What’s Their Mission?’ MRC’s Stephanie Hamill and Lara Trump Shred NPR Over Liberal Bias Bombshell

Media Research Center (MRC) contributing writer Stephanie Hamill was a guest on “The Right View Podcast” with host Lara Trump and The Post Millennial’s Libby Emmons on Tuesday to discuss the growing scandal at NPR, among other topics.  Uri Berliner, a senior editor for the public radio giant, resigned Wednesday after being suspended without pay after he publicly accused the broadcaster of left-wing bias. My resignation letter to NPR CEO @krmaher pic.twitter.com/0hafVbcZAK — Uri Berliner (@uberliner) April 17, 2024 During the segment, Trump read a few lines from a message that was sent by NPR's President and CEO Katherine Maher to staff that was shared online. In the message, Maher defended NPR’s "mission.”  NPR's service to this aspirational mission was called in question this week, in two distinct ways. The first was a critique of the quality of our editorial process and the integrity of our journalists. The second was a criticism of our people on the basis of who we are. Asking a question about whether we're living up to our mission should always be fair game: after all, journalism is nothing if not hard questions. Questioning whether our people are serving our mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity, is profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.  "What’s the mission?" said Trump. "If the mission is to thwart Donald Trump’s presidency, prevent him from becoming president again, and really just carry water for the Democratic Party, I guess they are right on message and right on mission."  WATCH: 

'They're the Commies!' ABC News Claims GOP 'In the Bed' With Russia

On Thursday, ABC News moderators Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar took to The View to spew disinformation about Republicans on national television during an election year. The lies included accusations of being “afraid of history,” being communist and “in the bed” with Russia, and wanting to make women property again. Goldberg lashed out at “these little snowflaky people” and, without evidence, accused them of being “the ones that are afraid of information. They're the ones who are afraid of history.” “It's not us,” she sneered. “It's y'all. Y'all are afraid that what's happening is happening without you and it shouldn't be, but you're letting it happen. You're letting all of these decisions be made without you being taken seriously! No one is taking you people seriously! And you should be worried about it.” She was followed up by Behar, who seemingly longed for the return of the House Un-American Activities Committee of the Cold War era to “ruin” the lives of ALL Republicans by having them “blacklisted” from society: BEHAR: Why are they in the bed with the Russians? I mean, we grew up in a time when if you were pro-Russian in any way you were hauled before the UAC Committee and your life was ruined and you were blacklisted. Now all of a sudden these people are all about the Russians. HOSTIN: Trump. BEHAR: I know, but why are Americans accepting that all of a sudden?     “They call the Democrats commies, they’re the commies!” she decried. As usual, faux-conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin was absolutely useless and refused to push back on any of the false accusations her friends were leveling without evidence. Further, Goldberg asserted it was “hard to figure [Republicans] out” and suggested “they’ve forgotten that we, the people, make the decisions about what goes on in this country” as if Republicans were not elected by the people. Without evidence, Goldberg went on to insist that Republicans were trying to turn back the clock to make women property again: I was listening to a book today, just talking about women's rights in the early part of this century, and, you know, women could do nothing. You had to be married or you didn't exist. Why would you want to go back to that? Why are we allowing -- This is the thing, I don't understand why we didn't get angrier sooner – and I know people are angry now because I hear it – but why are we going backwards in a way that is not good for the economy, it's not good for the country? What made Goldberg’s claim even more ridiculous, was that she said she was learning about women’s rights “in the early part of this century.” We’re almost a quarter of the through the 21st century, which meant she was living in the past and didn’t know what century it was. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View April 18, 2024 11:07:20 a.m. Eastern (…) WHOOPI GOLDBERG: You know what's offensive to me? SUNNY HOSTIN: What, Whoopi? GOLDBERG: I don't – These little snowflaky people, they're the people who said, you know, ‘Oh, you can't take it, huh? You can't take the heat?’ I'm discovering that most of the folks on the other side are the snowflakes, they're the ones that are afraid of information. They're the ones who are afraid of history. It's not us. It's y'all. Y'all are afraid that what's happening is happening without you and it shouldn't be, but you're letting it happen. You're letting all of these decisions be made without you being taken seriously! No one is taking you people seriously! And you should be worried about it. JOY BEHAR: Why are they in the bed with the Russians? I mean, we grew up in a time when if you were pro-Russian in any way you were hauled before the UAC Committee and your life was ruined and you were blacklisted. Now all of a sudden these people are all about the Russians. HOSTIN: Trump. BEHAR: I know, but why are Americans accepting that all of a sudden? They call the Democrats commies, they’re the commies! (…) 11:08:50 a.m. Eastern GOLDBERG: You know why it's so hard to figure the other side out? Because they’ve forgotten that we, the people, make the decisions about what goes on in this country. And every time they try to usurp it – You know. I was listening to a book today, just talking about women's rights in the early part of this century, and, you know, women could do nothing. You had to be married or you didn't exist. Why would you want to go back to that? Why are we allowing -- This is the thing, I don't understand why we didn't get angrier sooner – and I know people are angry now because I hear it – but why are we going backwards in a way that is not good for the economy, it's not good for the country? (…)

'Credit Where Due'—Scarborough Lauds Reaganesque Speaker Johnson On Ukraine

"Hear hear! Good on him. Credit where credit is due, and credit is definitely due with Speaker Johnson."  -- Joe Scarborough It's often said that it can be a kiss of death for a politician to be praised by a political opponent.  But that adage might not hold true in the case of Joe Scarborough's praise of Speaker Mike Johnson. Because on today's Morning Joe, Scarborough lauded Johnson not for agreeing with some liberal icon, but for upholding the principles of . . . Ronald Reagan. Scarborough's commending of Johnson came in the context of the Speaker's advocacy of aid for Ukraine.  And in doing so, Johnson described himself as a Reagan Republican, a believer in peace through strength, wanting to send a message to adversaries like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, and seeing the US as the greatest country in the world. Marjorie Taylor Greene and others will find a way to criticize Johnson's statement, but it's a tricky needle to thread. Does a Republican really want to speak out against Ronald Reagan? Note: Speaking of Johnson's stance, Scarborough called himself a Baptist, and thus as someone who embraces conversions. He even quoted from the Just As I Am hymn.The irony was lost on Scarborough that he's had quite the conversion himself. Going from being a hardcore pro-life, pro-Second Amendment congressman from Florida's conservative panhandle, to decrying the overturning of Roe and beating the drums for more gun control.  Scarborough's conversion has been so complete that he's become a Biden phone buddy and informal adviser. Just as you were, Joe Scarborough: please! Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 4/18/24 6:03 am EDT JOE SCARBOROUGH: In a few minutes, Willie, we're going to be talking about Speaker Johnson and Ukraine. I must say, he has had a conversion. You know, it's, it's like A Christmas Carol. That the ghost of the Republican party past came to visit him in the middle of the night and said to him, [imitates voice of Ronald Reagan] "Well," and he said,"Yes, sir." MIKA BRZEZINSKI: No, I think -- SCARBOROUGH: No, listen. What do I say about conversions? MIKA: I'll take 'em. SCARBOROUGH: I'm a Baptist. MIKA: Yeah. SCARBOROUGH: We love deathbed conversions, we love midlife conversions. You want to convert? Just as I am, and waiting not, to cleanse my soul of one dark spot. Well, okay, we'll take Speaker Johnson, who sounds like Ronald Reagan. And I will say, in defense of some of the leaders in that House GOP, like some of those leaders that run important committees. It sounds like they're actually concerned about China, Iran, and Russia! WILLIE GEIST: And this might literally be a political deathbed conversion for Mike Johnson, as the threats to his job continue from that faction. But Joe, Speaker Johnson invoked Ronald Reagan's name -- SCARBOROUGH: Hear, hear. GEIST: -- finally said it out loud. It's something we've been talking about for months now on this show: the party of Ronald Reagan turning its back on Ukraine in a fight against Russia.  Speaker Johnson said yesterday, "I am a child of the '80s. I am a child of the Reagan era. We have to do what's right here. We have to give Ukraine what it needs." Where was that over the last couple of months? Unclear. But he's come around. The question will be, have enoug hother Republicans come around to that position to clear this funding and get it to Ukraine? Perhaps as early as Saturday night, when Speaker Johnson says there will be a vote. MIKA: Hope to see Democrats step up. SCARBOROUGH: Maybe he'll go to the floor. MIKA: No. SCARBOROUGH: Maybe he'll say -- MIKA: Listen -- SCARBOROUGH: MTG, tear down that wall! I mean, there's so many options now. MIKA: Yeah, there's a lot to say. SCARBOROUGH: He can borrow so much from Ronald Reagan. . . .  MIKAL And despite the threats from his Republican colleagues, Johnson is pushing forward. MIKE JOHNSON [speaking with Jake Tapper on CNN]: We're going to stand for freedom and make sure that Vladimir Putin doesn't March through Europe. We're an exceptional nation. We're the greatest nation on the planet, and we have to act like it. And we have to project to Putin and Xi and Iran and North Korea and anybody else that we will defend freedom. It doesn't mean boots on the ground. We're not the world's policemen, but we're going to do the right thing. And I think the Congress is going to take an important stand here. JAKE TAPPER: Are you going to have to rely on Democrats to pass the rule in order to bring these bills to the floor, and also the legislation itself? JOHNSON: Well, I hope not. I hope our Republican colleagues will stand together, stick together on this. I think we understand, look, I'm a child of the '80s. I regard myself as a Reagan Republican. I understand the concept of maintaining peace through strength. That's one of our guiding principles. It's a really important philosophy. And it's a big part of our party and our world view. And I think here is an opportunity to make that stand at a really critical time in world history. SCARBOROUGH: I mean, this is like a movie for me. I went to sleep last night, and we were living in the age of Trump. And I woke up this morning, and now we're in the age of Reagan again. Listen to this. Peace through strength. Huh. MIKA: That sounds good. SCARBOROUGH: And you knowm, a couple days ago, I kind of got heated up about how Republicans hate on America so much. I was talking about how horrible America is. And I said America is the greatest country in the world. And they need to start saying it. Well, the Speaker said, "We're the greatest nation in the world." Good on him. Like, we don't hear this from Republicans.  We certainly don't hear that we have to actually fund people who are fighting against Russian aggression much these days. Except from, again, those responsible leaders, whether you're talking about the chairman of the intel committee or the chairman of the foreign affairs committee, people who are actually talking like grown-ups. But I've got to say, give credit where credit is due, and credit is definitely due with Speaker Johnson talking like a Reagan Republican, talking about the need to protect freedom in this fight between western democracy and what's going on in Russia.  

Editor’s Pick: National Review’s Geraghty Takes Blowtorch to NPR Over Berliner Debacle

Writing Thursday morning over at National Review in the Morning Jolt newsletter, senior writer Jim Geraghty went postal on taxpayer-funded National Public Radio (NPR) over its handling of now-former senior business editor Uri Berliner’s bombshell essay for The Free Press meticulously dismantling NPR for its decades of liberal media bias. Geraghty (correctly) stated it’s been “refreshingly honest” to see how “NPR responded to the revelations and accusations of 25-year veteran Uri Berliner” with “biased, one-sided, arrogant, and dismissive” condemnations of Berliner because “that’s exactly how NPR likes it” sinc ethey “didn’t get this way accidentally; this is what it wants to be.” He acknowledged anyone who’s “been around long enough” has “seen this sort of journalistic story-cycle before” in which some sort of hubbub breaks out at a liberal media heavyweight, they claim to be sorrowful and have “strayed from its original mission to report the news”....and then nothing happens. He went back through a slew of examples as way of saying “[t]here’s something a bit refreshing, if depressing, about the way NPR responded to” Berliner: You can think back to Dan Rather and CBS News, or Eason Jordan and CNN, or Stephen Glass at the New Republic. Or, more recently, the staff panic and outrage that ousted James Bennet from the editorial page at the New York Times. Heck, you could go back to Janet Cooke and the Washington Post, or all the way back to Walter Duranty’s work for the New York Times in the Soviet Union, echoing the propaganda of Stalin. “This time at NPR, there is no rubbing of the chin, furrowed brows, or begrudging concession that the critic has a point, and that they must do better. Nope, NPR’s management thinks they’re doing a terrific job, and they don’t see any reason to change. In their minds, the true villain of this story is Berliner,” he added with “former colleagues are similarly indignant that anybody could possibly doubt the quality of the work that they’re doing.” After winding through NPR’s heavily slanted coverage of the coronavirus pandemic and the Hunter Biden laptop, Geraghty observed “NPR management” has clearly decided that, lacking any fear of cajoles from Republicans to defund them, they could treat Berliner’s concerns “the same way” they “treated the counterevidence for the Trump–Russia collusion narrative, or the Hunter Biden laptop, or the evidence pointing to a lab leak.” To read Geraghty’s full story, click here.

Ruhle Claims High Gas Prices Are a Russo-Saudi Plot to Elect Trump

With gas prices on the rise, MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle did what comes naturally to her: defending President Joe Biden. On Wednesday’s The 11th Hour Ruhle not only claimed that Biden has nothing to do with high gas prices, but he is being undermined by the Russians and the Saudis who are trying to get Donald Trump elected. Ruhle kicked off the segment by declaring, “We know that inflation is driving Americans crazy. If you are unsure, just call your mother. For many, it is their biggest complaint right now and because President Biden is in the White House, he gets the blame. But over the last few months, one thing he has been pointing to is low gas prices. But unfortunately, if you look closer, recently, they have been steadily and quietly going up. Now, this is a common thing going into the summer. More people drive more. It pushes up demand. That is normal. But there are other reasons as well. Ones that might be more deliberate, even political. Like Saudi Arabia and Russia continuing to cut oil production until June and remember when production is down, prices go up.”     After one of her guests, Bulwark podcaster Tim Miller, also defended Biden by citing record levels of oil production, Ruhle turned to her other guest, former Bernie Sanders adviser Chuck Rocha, and asked, “Chuck, what do you think? These prices are not the fault of President Biden. Tim just laid it out, we’ve got the highest oil production in U.S. history and some overseas oil producers who would sure like to help DJT.” Even if one grants Ruhle’s premise that Russia and Saudi Arabia are trying to get Trump elected (as opposed to Moscow cutting production to raise the price of oil to fund its war machine), Biden has not done anything to respond. In fact, he has done the opposite. It is now more expensive to get a drilling lease on federal lands thanks to last week’s new regulations that changed the royalty rate for the first time in a century. As for Rocha, he naturally lamented that people will blame Biden “even if he has nothing to do and OPEC and Russia and all of these things have to do—they’re going to blame Joe Biden and the other side knows it.” Ruhle’s claim that the Russians and the Saudis are trying to get Trump elected with their oil policies is not even original. In October 2022, Ruhle’s colleague Ali Velshi theorized that Moscow and Riyadh conspired to raise gas prices to help Republicans in that year’s midterms. Here is a transcript for the April 17 show: MSNBC The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle 4/17/2024 11:33 PM ET STEPHANIE RUHLE: We know that inflation is driving Americans crazy. If you are unsure, just call your mother. For many, it is their biggest complaint right now and because President Biden is in the White House, he gets the blame. But over the last few months, one thing he has been pointing to is low gas prices. But unfortunately, if you look closer, recently, they have been steadily and quietly going up. Now, this is a common thing going into the summer. More people drive more. It pushes up demand. That is normal. But there are other reasons as well. Ones that might be more deliberate, even political. Like Saudi Arabia and Russia continuing to cut oil production until June and remember when production is down, prices go up.  … Chuck, what do you think? These prices are not the fault of President Biden. Tim just laid it out, we’ve got the highest oil production in U.S. history and some overseas oil producers who would sure like to help DJT. CHUCK ROCHA: Let me be clear that the Republicans know how to use this and will use this against Joe Biden. One of the most brilliant, small political things I saw done that was very, very powerful, last year, when I went to the pump, there was a sticker of Joe Biden with a finger pointing “I did that.” They were sticking it on gasoline pumps saying he’s the reason the gas pump was so high.  When I do focus groups all around the country, I'm still one of those old school political consultants who work on campaigns every single day, people talk about gas and groceries because no matter who you are, almost everybody in America, every week, has to buy gas and groceries and to your point, Steph, when it goes up just a little bit, they will blame the person in charge even if he has nothing to do and OPEC and Russia and all of these things have to do—they’re going to blame Joe Biden and the other side knows it.

Biden’s Kill Switch: The Growing Threat of Government Control of Your Car

Soon the government might shut down your car. President Joe Biden’s new infrastructure gives bureaucrats that power. You probably didn’t hear about that because when media covered it, few mentioned the requirement that by 2026, every American car must “monitor” the driver, determine if he is impaired and, if so, “limit vehicle operation.” Rep. Thomas Massie objected, complaining that the law makes government “judge, jury and executioner on such a fundamental right!” Congress approved the law anyway. A USA Today “fact check” told readers, don’t worry, “There’s no kill switch in Biden’s bill.” “They didn’t read it, because it’s there!” says automotive engineer and former vintage race car driver Lauren Fix in my new video. The clause is buried under Section 24220 of the law. USA Today’s “fact” check didn’t lie, exactly. It acknowledged that the law requires “new cars to have technology that identifies if a driver is impaired and prevents operation.” Apparently, they just didn’t like the term “kill switch.” But it is a kill switch. Mothers Against Drunk Driving wants that. I say to Fix, “It would save lives.” “Are you willing to give up every bit of control of your life?” she asks. “Once you give that up, you have no more freedom. This computer decides you can’t drive your vehicle. Great. Unless someone’s having a heart attack and trying to get to the hospital.” The kill switch is just one of several ways the government proposes to control how we drive. California lawmakers want new cars to have a speed governor that prevents you from going more than 10 miles per hour over the speed limit. That would reduce speeding. But not being able to speed is dangerous, too, says Fix. If “something’s coming at you, you have to make an adjustment.” New cars will have a special button on the dash. If you suddenly need to speed and manage to find the button when trying to drive out of some bad situation, and it lets you speed for 15 seconds. For all these new safety devices to work, cars need to spy on drivers. Before I researched this, I didn’t realize that they already do. The Mozilla Foundation reports that car makers “Collect things like your age, gender, ethnicity, driver’s license number, your purchase history and tendencies.” Nissan and Kia “collect information about your sex life.” How? Cars aim video cameras at passengers. Other devices listen to conversations and intercept text messages. Then, says Mozilla, 76% of the car companies “sell your data.” “I just bought a new car,” I say to Fix. “Nobody told me about this.” “Oh, it’s there,” she replies. “Buy a new car, you get that really long document. ... The small print says, ‘We’re collecting your data. We know everything you’re doing in your car, and we own (the data). There’s nothing you can do about it.’” Finally, Biden’s infrastructure bill also includes a pilot program to tax you based on how far we drive. “A mileage charge seems fair,” I say to Fix. “You pay for your damage to the road.” “Correct,” she replies. “But when you start allowing them to do this, they could say, ‘We don’t want you to buy a firearm.’ ... ‘We don’t want you to go to that destination. So we’re not going to let you start your car.’ It’s about control.” I push back. “They’re not controlling me.” “They can,” she replies. “Wait until you get a bill for your carbon footprint. ‘You’re at your maximum for carbon credits. We’re not going to let you drive today! Take the train. Take the electric bus.’” “This is paranoia,” I suggest. “Maybe,” says Fix. “But so far, everything that I’ve said about these things, each step keeps coming through.”

Colbert, Goodwin Fret Voting and Women's Rights 'Are Now Being Denied'

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin traveled to CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Wednesday to promote her new book, which is part history, part memoir about her and her late husband’s experiences in the 1960s. For Goodwin and Colbert, the main takeaway was that the achievements of the 60s, such as civil rights, are currently under threat. Goodwin’s husband Dick was an adviser to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson as well as Sen. Robert Kennedy, and she recalled to Colbert an episode of Johnson swimming naked in the White House swimming pool, “They get to the White House pool and Lyndon Johnson, naked, is swimming in the pool, up and down, paddling up and down the pool… he says, ‘come on in, boys’ and of course they have no bathing suits, so they strip. So, all of a sudden, three people are paddling around the pool and while they’re doing that, they hang onto the edge, and Johnson comes forth with a vision of what he wants that will eventually become the Great Society. It was incredible. Medicare, Medicaid, aid to education, immigration reform, civil rights, voting rights, NPR, PBS. It was amazing. Amazing.”     Of all the times to compare NPR to civil rights and voting rights, this is a particularly strange one. Colbert, however, was more interested in doom-mongering about Republicans: Okay, so, there is the achievements of LBJ and the Great Society. For that matter, the New Frontier or for that matter, the New Deal, and though so many of them are actively being attempted to be dismantled right now, with some success, including the Voting Rights Act, what do you think, first of all, your husband, Dick, and as you reflect, what would you say is being lost in the dismantling of that vision? Because it was at a very important time, a time of great change in the United States and not everybody likes the changes that happened, but what do you think is being lost?? Goodwin not only agreed that voting rights are under siege, even though they aren’t, she added some further lamentations: But what was so important about the 1960s and I would love young people to remember what it was like because young people felt power then by the conviction they can make a difference in what that meant was that tens of thousands of people were marching for civil rights, for ending segregation, for the voting rights, which is now being denied, for women's rights, which are now being denied, for gay rights, which are now being denied. The only way we are going to get them back is not by looking for heroes, not looking for leaders. We have to do it ourselves and you young people are so important in that goal.  Nobody’s civil or voting rights are being taken away. Some people simply believe that civil rights should extended to everyone, even the unborn. Here is a transcript for the April 17-taped show: CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert 4/18/2024 12:29 PM ET DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN:  They get to the White House pool and Lyndon Johnson, naked, is swimming in the pool, up and down, paddling up and down the pool. STEPHEN COLBERT: Was this normal? Would this happen a lot? GOODWIN: Yeah, it happened a lot. Wherever he was with his office and so they’re swimming and they’re standing there with their business suits on in their ties and he says, "come on in, boys" and of course they have no bathing suits, so they strip. So, all of a sudden, three people are paddling around the pool and while they’re doing that, they hang onto the edge, and Johnson comes forth with a vision of what he wants that will eventually become the Great Society. It was incredible. Medicare, Medicaid, aid to education, immigration reform, civil rights, voting rights, NPR, PBS. It was amazing. Amazing. STEPHEN COLBERT: Okay, so, there is the achievements of LBJ and the Great Society. For that matter, the New Frontier or for that matter, the New Deal, and though so many of them are actively being attempted to be dismantled right now, with some success, including the Voting Rights Act, what do you think, first of all, your husband, Dick, and as you reflect, what would you say is being lost in the dismantling of that vision? Because it was at a very important time, a time of great change in the United States and not everybody likes the changes that happened, but what do you think is being lost? GOODWIN: But what was so important about the 1960s and I would love young people to remember what it was like because young people felt power then by the conviction they can make a difference in what that meant was that tens of thousands of people were marching for civil rights, for ending segregation, for the voting rights, which is now being denied, for women's rights, which are now being denied, for gay rights, which are now being denied. The only way we are going to get them back is not by looking for heroes, not looking for leaders. We have to do it ourselves and you young people are so important in that goal.  There’s something, you know, I was young in the 60s. It was a great feeling. I was at that March on Washington on August 28, 1963, Dick was there too, but we didn't meet because there 250,000 other people there. I wish I'd met him then, but nonetheless you felt -- I was carrying a sign “Catholics and Jews and Protestants unite for civil rights” and I felt like something was larger than myself and I hope that young people today can get that feeling, but we’re going to depend on you to march and demonstrate and protest because something bad is happening in our country and you can make it right. I really believe that.

'Family Guy' Mocks Jesus After Evangelical Refuses to Have Sex with Brian the Dog

Fox's Family Guy has been mocking Christianity since the early years of the show. Last night's episode turned Jesus into a vulgar comedian who mocks His mother's virginity. In the episode, "Faith No More," Brian goes back in time to erase Christianity from existence after an attractive Evangelical Christian woman refuses to have sex with him.  After being rejected by a veterinary nurse who is an Evangelical Christian, Brian comes home and rants to Stewie about Christianity.  Brian: Christianity sucks. It's stupid, arbitrary nonsense.  Stewie: You're horny and she wouldn't have sex with you.  Brian: No. And I did everything right. I even researched abortion clinics in case the condom broke.  Stewie: Yeah, no, I know. It's in your Twitter bio.  Brian: Fine, but look around. So much of the division and hatred in today's society comes from Christianity. And it's so hypocritical. I mean, they all vote for Trump, even though he's divorced.  Stewie: That's all you've got on Trump?  Brian: Christianity is also anti-science, anti-freedom--  Stewie: Come on, it's not all bad. I mean, I have a Swarthy Men of Nazareth advent calendar with doors opening for all 25 days. Talk about the "Stars" of Bethlehem, hey, Bri?  Brian: Whatever. Christianity is the worst thing that ever happened to this country. Or the world.  Stewie: Well, perhaps. But it's been around for 2,000 years, so it's not like there's anything you can do about it. Well, I'm going to bed. I'll leave you to watch John Oliver and agree with yourself.  Brian: Good. Love John Oliver. He's a louder Jon Stewart.  John Oliver voice: Blimey, guv'na. Republicans are bollocks.  Brian: God, the British are smart. But, man, if only could get rid of Christianity. If only I could go back in time.  For all the blasphemy, this scene admittedly nails the selfishness of an abortion-loving leftist angry at a woman for not sleeping with him, while also accurately mocking John Oliver. Brian hops into a time machine in Stewie's bedroom and travels to 30 AD in search of Jesus. He hopes to prevent Christ from accomplishing His mission on Earth. He asks some men on the street if they know Jesus. "Jesus Christ, you mean the guy who showed his weiner on a dare at camp?" one of the men replies. Brian finds Jesus and learns that the Son of God really wants to be a stand-up comedian instead of the Messiah. God the Father is portrayed as a controlling jerk. The dog convinces Jesus to reject his Father's plans and do stand-up instead. Jesus' stand up routine includes sex jokes and also mocks the Virgin Mary. Jesus: So, my dad's God. [Crowd cheering] Thank you, thank you. And growing up, he taught me all about carpentry. Yeah. Uh, I guess he thought teenage boys should spend more time rubbing wood. [Crowd laughs] And my mom's a virgin. That's fun. Uh, yeah, when I was a teenager, I had to give her the talk.  Vulgarity is par for the course in any Family Guy episode involving Christianity. Past examples include sexualizing the Last Supper and calling God a "dick." This episode is in line with the series' regular obsession with degrading Christ. When Brian and Stewie return to the present day, they learn Christianity no longer exists and everyone is Jewish. Brian is happy until sundown when the family shuts off their electronics and prepares to walk to the synagogue. Upset about Jewish religious rules, Brian and Stewie go back to the time machine. Stewie bribes Moses to not receive the Ten Commandments.  The world is then devoid of religion. History shows that a world that rejects God morphs into Hell on Earth, but not in Seth MacFarlane's world. "Finally, a world with no religion, no prejudices, no irrationalities. Just science-based reason," Brian declares. Then God shows up as a delivery man and angrily beats up Brian and Stewie until they bring religion back. In the end, a bruised and battered Stewie and Brian are seen singing in church. Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane is a vocal atheist. His series often uses religion, particularly Christianity, as a punching bag. "Faith No More" was just the latest example and will likely not be the last.

PBS: AZ Abortion Ban Dates to When Slavery Was Legal and Only White Men Could Vote

PBS took another bite out of the surprise decision that recently emerged out of Arizona’s Supreme Court, on the Saturday edition of PBS News Weekend, anchor John Yang really loaded the ideological dice in his introduction: “The near-total abortion ban that the Arizona Supreme Court revived this week dates back to when Arizona wasn’t a state yet, when slavery was legal, and when only white men had the vote. Many Republican officeholders and candidate scrambled to distance themselves from the law.” Yang introduced PBS’s version of a Republican guest: “Barrett Marson is a Republican strategist based in Arizona….it’s a swing state in the presidential election. You got a toss-up Senate race, and you got a couple of congressional contests that are going to be very close. How is this, what happened this week, the Supreme Court decision, going to affect those races?” Barrett Marson: ….I think last week, we were a lean-Trump state. And I think this week, we’re a lean-Biden state. I think Kari Lake is on the wrong end of this issue. And, in fact, you know, I think a lot of Republicans who have quite frankly championed this kind of thing for what two generations are finding themselves, at least in Arizona, on the wrong side of how voters feel about this issue. Yang: Have the Democrats picked up on this? Are they pressing this? Marson: I mean, that is what they are doing. 24/7. And rightly so, I mean, look, right now, you know, again, a week ago, I would have said the border and immigration and the economy and inflation, were absolutely not only the top two issues, but they were very much Republican issues. And now, I think abortion is the number one and prevailing issue. It is the issue that will take the oxygen out of the room for any other issue…. Yang likened the Republican Party’s current status on the abortion issue to being “sort of like the dog that caught the car? They don`t know what to do with it now?” Marson again flashed pro-choice credentials: "[Arizona] will have an initiative on the ballot most likely, and that would allow abortion up to 24 weeks. And I think that will pass maybe now with 60-plus percent of the vote if, especially if it is a choice between zero abortions, and maybe something a little bit too far to the left but better something that’s legal than nothing." When asked about Florida’s upcoming ballot initiative to preserve the abortion option, Marson embraced the idea of young people voting for Democrats: Marson: Well Florida has been trending Republican, for sure. But again, this ballot initiative has the chance, both in Arizona and Florida, to bring out so many young people, so many first-time voters, and we don’t know whether they will stick around, you know, come out for the abortion initiative, but stick around for Joe Biden and Ruben Gallego and, you know, and Senate candidates and House candidates down the ballot. Certainly they’re going to come out for the abortion initiative, and it’ll be up to the Democratic candidates up and down the ballot to convince them to stick around and vote for them as well. Last month Marson appeared on the NewsHour also to suggest moderate voters like himself could vote for Biden, which makes him PBS’s ideal “Republican strategist.” This pro-abortion segment was brought to you in part by Certified Financial Planner. A transcript is available, click “Expand.” PBS NewsWeekend 4/13/24 7:05:51 p.m. (ET) JOHN YANG: The near total abortion ban that the Arizona Supreme Court revived this week dates back to when Arizona wasn`t a state yet, when slavery was legal, and when only white men had the vote, many Republican officeholders and candidate scrambled to distance themselves from the law. It underscores some of the political consequences of the U.S. Supreme Court`s decision to strike down the constitutional right to seek an abortion and leave it up to the states to decide whether to regulate it. Barrett Marson is a Republican strategist based in Arizona. And before we get going, Mr. Marson, something we should make clear to the viewers. You`re not working for any candidates on the ballot this fall. BARRETT MARSON, Republican strategist: No, I am not. And thanks a lot for having me on, John. JOHN YANG: Thanks. In Arizona, it`s a swing state in the presidential election. You got a toss-up Senate race, and you got a couple of congressional contests that are going to be very close. How is this what happened this week, the Supreme Court decision going to affect those races? BARRETT MARSON: Well, I think you said it all in that sentence there except for that was what was last week. This week now, I don`t know if the Senate race is a toss-up anymore. I don`t know. You know, I think last week, we were a lien Trumps state. And I think this week, we`re a lien Biden state. I think Kari Lake is on the wrong end of this issue. And, in fact, you know, I think a lot of Republicans who have quite frankly championed this kind of thing for what two generations are finding themselves, at least in Arizona, on the wrong side of how voters feel about this issue. JOHN YANG: Have the Democrats picked up on this? Are they pressing this? BARRETT MARSON: I mean, that is what they are doing. 24/7. And rightly so I mean, look, right now, you know, again, a week ago, I would have said the border and immigration and the economy and inflation, were absolutely not only the top two issues, but they were very much Republican issues. And now, I think abortion is the number one and prevailing issue. It is the issue that will take the oxygen out of the room for any other issue. So you will see abortion be front and center in every time Democrats open their mouths on the campaign stump, and Republicans right now just don`t have an answer for that. JOHN YANG: You mentioned Kari Lake, she`s running for Senate this time, two years ago, when she was running for governor, she called this a great law. And you`ve also mentioned other candidates and officeholders, who have been championing this law or this idea and now have to deal with it, how should they deal with it? How can they deal with it? BARRETT MARSON: Well, look, it`s been dogma in the Republican Party for, you know, again, two generations, three generations. So I think, frankly, just own it. You know, talk about why you are pro-life, talk about the benefits, talk about the need, maybe for more of a social safety net, but talk about the benefits of being pro-life, because there is no really running away. And they`re, you know, otherwise, just like Kari Lake, you look like a massive flip flopper. And you know, two years ago, she called this the model for other states. And now she`s talking about she`s pro-choice. So, you know, I think you should just a Republican candidate should just own this. They`ve been wanting to do this for a couple generations. They`ve done it, celebrate it and embrace it. JOHN YANG: To that point, you also mentioned this has been Republican dogma. They got it. They got what they wanted when they were when Roe was overturned. Is this sort of like the dog that caught the car? They don`t know what to do with it now? BARRETT MARSON: Well, it is certainly an Arizona where the electorate is at least willing to have some sort of legal abortion, whether it is we will have an initiative on the ballot most likely, and that would allow abortion up to 24 weeks. And I think that will pass maybe now with 60 plus percent of the vote if especially if it is a choice between zero abortions, and maybe something a little bit too far to the left but better something that`s legal than nothing. JOHN YANG: Florida, of course, finds itself in a similar situation their Supreme Court cleared the way for a six-week band to take effect at the beginning of May. They`ve got are likely to have a constitutional ballot initiative on their ballot as well. Is it going to have the same effect there? Or do you think it`s different? BARRETT MARSON: Well, you know, Florida is a, you know, has been trending Republican, for sure. But again, this ballot initiative has the chance, both in Arizona and Florida, to bring out so many young people, so many first time voters, and we don`t know whether they will stick around, you know, come out for the abortion initiative, but stick around for Joe Biden and Ruben Gallego and, you know, and Senate candidates and House candidates down the ballot. Certainly they`re going to come out for the abortion initiative, and it`ll be up to the Democratic candidates up and down the ballot to convince them to stick around and vote for them as well. JOHN YANG: Republican strategist Barrett Marson, thank you very much. BARRETT MARSON: Thank you.

CBS Evening News Frets Over Caitlin Clark’s Rookie Pay

The CBS Evening News has now entered into the national discussion over the disparity in pay between the NBA and the WNBA, bringing advocacy to the discussion of whether female athletes are automatically entitled to the same compensation as their male counterparts while ignoring market dynamics.  Here is that report in its entirety, as aired on the CBS Evening News on Wednesday, April 17th, 2024 (click “expand” to view full transcript): NORAH O’DONNELL: Basketball sensation Caitlin Clark has taken the women's game to new heights, but becoming the WNBA's top draft pick has brought attention to the pay disparity with the NBA. CBS's Jericka Duncan reports Clark held her first press conference today, where she talked about how the league can narrow the gap. CAITLIN CLARK: This is a dream come true, like these are the moments you dream of.  JERICKA DUNCAN: This could also be the moment the WNBA and women's professional sports has been waiting for.  CLARK: I think the more eyeballs you can get on this league, you know, the better off this world is going to be.  CATHY ENGLEBERT: The Indiana Fever select Caitlin Clark.  DUNCAN: It was a ratings record when nearly 2.5 million people tuned in to watch as former Iowa guard Caitlin Clark was drafted by the Indiana Fever.   When you look at the amount of revenue that the NBA is getting, they could move some of that money to the WNBA to invest. A.J. ROSS: $76,000 is not enough for someone you are looking to be the face of the league going forward. No other professional sports league would do something like that, and it's a shame. DUNCAN: The 22-year-old’s endorsement deals in college were worth more than $3 million. She'll now get a base salary as a rookie capped at $76,535. Last year's NBA number one draft pick, Victor Wembanyama, earned over $12 million. But the revenue from both leagues is not comparable. Last season, the WNBA brought in a reported $200 million…  SPORTSCASTER: Ooh, look at this!  DUNCAN: …while the NBA took in an estimated $10 billion. Clark's popularity could spark a change, enabling the player to get more revenue in their collective bargaining agreements and TV broadcast contracts. Both are up for renewal this year.  CLARK: Obviously the new media rights deal, that can be negotiated, can be life changing for a lot of players in this league.  DUNCAN: Which could be a welcome slam-dunk for everyone. Jericka Duncan, CBS News, New York. It seems that the folks at the CBS Evening News could have benefitted from reading the related explainer on CBS News dot com, which dispels a lot of the pay gap propaganda swirling around this latest WNBA draft. Today I learned, for example, that the WNBA regular season comprises fewer than half the games played by the NBA. 40 games to 82. Then there is the revenue disparity between leagues, which is why correspondent Jericka Duncan suggested the NBA simply redistribute some of its revenue to the WNBA- never mind that the league is already doing that. Then there is the fretting that Clark lost her college endorsement deals. If true, this would suggest that Clark is getting no endorsement deals as a pro, which is simply not true. In fact, Clark is about to finalize an eight-figure endorsement deal from Nike. For those who are hard of math, that’s between $10,000,000 and $99,999,999.  Then, there is upcoming collective bargaining, which sets pay based on such factors as revenue, attendance, and TV rights. And it was Clark herself who recognized this: CLARK: Obviously the new media rights deal, that can be negotiated, can be life changing for a lot of players in this league.  The tone and tenor of this reporting, generally, seems to evince an end of coercing the NBA, which has subsidized the WNBA for years, into coming up with an equal pay scheme not unlike what you see at USA Soccer. But these situations are entirely different from each other, and the WNBA is going to need time to build up before closing the pay gap.  In the meantime, don’t worry about Caitlin Clark. She’s going to get paid well above and beyond the WNBA rookie salary.  

REGIME MEDIA: ABC Pushes Biden Propaganda in Pennsylvania

The Biden campaign benefitted from some premium apple-polishing via ABC Senior White House Correspondent Mary Bruce, who delivered a dispatch from Pennsylvania that could make Pyongyang blush. Watch this recap of President Biden’s campaign activities in the Keystone State, which may well be reportable to the Federal Elections Commission as an in-kind corporate contribution, as aired in its entirety on ABC World News Tonight on Wednesday, April 17th, 2024: DAVID MUIR: We turn now to the race for the White House. President Biden in his home state of Pennsylvania again tonight, a state he'll need to win this November. Biden aiming to draw the contrast between him and Donald Trump, who has spent much of this week in court. Here's Mary Bruce.  MARY BRUCE: Tonight, fully aware that Donald Trump's attention is focused on his criminal trial in New York, President Biden lasering in on battleground Pennsylvania. Speaking to steelworkers, Biden touting his work on the economy and taking swipes at his opponent.  JOE BIDEN: 492,000 new jobs so far in Pennsylvania alone. Under my predecessor, who's busy right now, Pennsylvania lost 275,000 jobs. I mean, let's look at the facts. On my watch, unemployment hasn't been this low or this long in 50 years.  BRUCE: Biden's leaning into his working class roots on a three-day swing through this must-win state. Meeting construction workers in Pittsburgh, visiting his childhood home in Scranton, where he told voters he understands them in a way Trump never will.  BIDEN: Donald Trump looks at the world differently than you and me. He wakes up in the morning in Mar-a-Lago thinking about himself.  BRUCE: The president, well aware that the polls are tightening and that he is gaining ground, has spent more time in Pennsylvania than any other battleground. By our count, visiting the state more than 30 times since taking office. David. MUIR: Mary Bruce, who was in Pennsylvania, now back in Washington for us. Mary, thank you. First, there is the framing. Anchor David Muir taking the time to lay down several key points: Biden needs to win PA, Biden trying to make the contrast between himself and former President Donald Trump, and Trump was in court. Muir tries to slip in some campaign disinformation by smearing PA as the “home state” of longtime Delaware resident Joe Biden who represented Delaware in the Senate for 36 years.  “Leaning into his working-class roots”, Bruce says, before casting Biden as First Empath. The “report” closes by noting that Biden is catching up in the polls and has visited the state many times. But this dispatch was not without its own omissions. Biden was actually met with protests in Pittsburgh, which included the chant of “hey hey, ho ho, Bidenomics has got to go”. This doesn’t appear to have been fit for publication at ABC News. Protests outside Biden visit to US Steel building in Pittsburgh pic.twitter.com/jBf07UbLXH — Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) April 17, 2024 Bruce referenced Biden’s visit to his childhood home and showed B-reel of Biden walking alongside some local children. However, Bruce failed to show the beginning of that staged walk- and Biden weirdly (if not creepily) and very tightly holding these kids’ hands. Biden takes no questions as he shuffles out of his childhood home with a group of children after a highly choreographed, scripted stop pic.twitter.com/fR86XqAizf — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 16, 2024 That was weird. And the report was weird, too. Weirdly sycophantic. Whatever that was, it sure wasn't journalism.

NewsBusters Podcast: NPR Says Bye-Bye Berliner, Hello to Censoring CEO

After stirring up a hornet's nest at NPR about a leftist tilt, senior editor Uri Berliner resigned Wednesday, but that doesn't mean NPR types can refute his argument on their seemingly inevitable insularity and intolerance. New CEO Katherine Maher insulted Berliner as attacking staffers for "who they are," when he was criticizing them for engaging in identity politics first, not journalism. Berliner announced "I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my essay at the Free Press." Maher's tweets show she supports race-based reparations, rioting, and the Black Lives Matter movement. She believes "America is addicted to white supremacy." She talks about "cis white mobility privilege" without smirking. She won't have children because "the planet is literally burning." At NPR, these tweets are not disqualifying -- they're qualifying. Berliner warns against journalists identifying with a "tribe" -- race, gender, religion, or sexual preference. Maher embraces racial tribalism, beginning with a pledge to overcome her own white privilege. We looked at campaign donation records and found Katherine Maher gave about $3,000 in campaign donations in the Trump years (all to Democrats). The one that resonated most was a 2020 contribution of $500 to "Fair Fight PAC," a charity of left-wing election denier Stacey Abrams of Georgia. Election denial is cool -- when Democrats do it. In her previous job, Maher went hunting for "misinformation" was about stifling any information that seemed pleasing to her hate object, Donald Trump. At Wikipedia she refused to tolerate "misinformation" on COVID before they knew much about it. So much was unknown, and yet they had the arrogance to shut down narratives that they thought Trump would be pushing. Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts.   

Metaphor Amnesia? Morning Joe Calls Trump an 'Animal,' Ready to 'Lash Out'

When Donald Trump referred to the illegal immigrant accused of killing 22-year-old Laken Riley on the University of Georgia campus as an "animal," the liberal media went aflame with outrage. Thus on MSNBC, Joy Reid condemned Trump's "dehumanizing and degrading" language [see clip at 2:00.] So, surely, no one on MSNBC would ever use the a-for-animal word in describing Donald Trump! Oh, wait. On today's Morning Joe, Mara Gay, an MSNBC analyst and member of the editorial board of the New York Times, said of Trump: "He's like a caged animal. And that's a dangerous situation. He's feeling very threatened. He's out of control. And so we do expect him to lash out." Oh no! Not just an animal, but an out-of-control animal! Creating a "dangerous situation" in which "we expect him to lash out." Yet for some reason, no one on the panel castigated Gay for her use of such "degrading and dehumanizing" language. Huh! Remind me to tune into Joy Reid's show later. Surely she will apply the same standard to Trump critics as she did to Trump himself! Or not. Notes: Gay's calling Trump an "animal" was preceded by a discussion of Trump's reported lack of discipline. Jonathan Lemire noted one exception to that rule -- that in the days prior to the 2016 election, Trump was persuaded to stay off Twitter and stay on message, which helped him win the election. But Lemire managed to work in a dig, saying that in addition to Trump's discipline, what contributed to his victory was "an assist from FBI Director Comey." That was a reference to the letter Comey sent days before the allegation saying that some of Hillary's emails had come to light that were pertinent to the FBI's investigation. Some in the liberal media blame Hillary's loss on that letter.  Scarborough admitted that, like Trump, he too finds it difficult to sit for hours on end, and that therefore "Mika lets me talk all the time to stay awake!" That might have been a peace offering from Joe toward Mika, who is reportedly fed up with his constant big-footing of her on the show.  Amateur psychiatrist Mika diagnosed Trump with an "ADD mentality." Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 4/17/24 6:18 am EDT JOE SCARBOROUGH: Jonathan Lemire, obviously you've been covering Donald Trump a very long time. You understand that his lack of discipline is legendary. His [in]ability to sit still, legendary. He wrote, even in "The Art of the Deal" that, basically, that he didn't have the discipline to sit down and make plans for a day. He just kind of showed up in the office, answered phones, moved around, did things. Drudge puts it this way, "Don in Hell," [Mika laughs] with a picture of Donald Trump inside the courtroom. And for anybody that knows him, reported on him, that's been around him. The fact that this guy has to sit in a courtroom, six, seven, eight hours a day. MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Oh, that's not good for him. SCARBOROUGH: Required to. It's just, it's something he has never done his entire life. JONATHAN LEMIRE: He has a legendary short attention span, ricocheting from one thought to the next, would always frustrate his business advisers, and certainly his White House staff. He's been, best I can tell, disciplined, only a handful of times in his life. Once, famously, in the last week or so of the 2016 election. The one time he was convinced to stay off Twitter, and he, mostly, stayed on message at rallies, and we know that helped him win there in those last few days—with an assist from FBI Director Comey. But that is certainly the exception rather than the rule.  SCARBOROUGH: And I will just say, yeah, anybody sitting six, seven, eight hours. You know me: if I were sitting somewhere for eight hours, I would, I would be falling asleep. I would be -- MIKA: You can't even get through four! [A reference to the daily length of Morning Joe.] SCARBOROUGH: I would be writing songs! Yeah, it's hard to even get through four, and Mika lets me talk all the time to stay awake! So I can't imagine: what a, what a physical toll for anybody. MIKA: This is where also it helps to have real firsthand knowledge of Donald Trump over the course of over a decade. And the guy has no attention span. We've seen it up front, and how we've known people who've worked for him, and they have to work around this sort of ADD mentality that he has, and the need for attention. Constant attention. Making moments. . . .  MARA GAY: And you saw yesterday that the judge recognized that concern in admonishing him and saying, I'm not going to have, you know, mumblings in my courtroom that could intimidate potential jurors. So, obviously that is a concern shared by many. I do agree with George [Conway.] I think that his pr capabilities are going to be somewhat limited in New York City, or maybe it was Jon that mentioned that a moment ago. That's absolutely true.  It's an ongoing concern. Because essentially, he's like a caged animal. And that's a dangerous situation. He's feeling very threatened. He's out of control. And so we do expect him to lash out. Anybody who has covered him over the past decade can expect that.

NewsGuard Maintains NPR’s Perfect Rating Despite Berliner's Suspension, Resignation

Last week, now-former NPR business editor Uri Berliner drew the ire of the station’s new, far-left CEO after he called out NPR for allowing the liberal worldview to dominate the newsroom. Berliner’s act of journalistic integrity ultimately cost him his job; he was suspended and ultimately resigned. But despite NPR’s retaliation against a whistleblower and others coming forward to corroborate Berliner’s claims, left-wing media rating organization NewsGuard maintained NPR’s perfect 100/100 rating. In his essay for The Free Press, Berliner exposed NPR as a factory churning out content that catered to the liberal worldview: “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.” Earlier this week, Berliner was suspended without pay by the station under the guise of it being punishment for publishing something with another outlet without getting permission first (as if NPR would have allowed him to publish something critical out them to begin with). NPR did give permission for Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep to publish a Substack defending the station and attacking his long-time colleague. Berliner subsequently resigned; posting his resignation letter on X. “I am resigning from NPR, a great American institution where I have worked for 25 years,” he wrote. “I don’t support calls to defund NPR. I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism. But I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay.”   My resignation letter to NPR CEO @krmaher pic.twitter.com/0hafVbcZAK — Uri Berliner (@uberliner) April 17, 2024   Despite NPR seeking retribution against one of their journalists for publically blowing the whistle on how they were allowing their liberal bias to poison their newsroom, thus forcing said journalist to publically resign, NewsGuard has so far maintained NPR’s perfect 100/100 rating. Berliner’s criticisms of NPR weren’t business or employment-related (such as pay or working conditions) and had everything to do with the politics influencing the news product the organization was putting out. And thus, was an issue NewsGuard should’ve been taking seriously, especially considering that Berliner was getting support from other former NPR staffers. At this point, a lack of action by NewsGuard to downgrade NPR’s score appeared to be in defiance of the facts and in opposition to the support Berliner was receiving from many right-wingers. As MRC Associate Editor for Business & Free Speech America Joseph Vazquez noted in the 2023 study of NewsGuard’s rankings, the point of the whole system was for it to be used as a “cudgel” against right-leaning news organizations: NewsGuard wields its ratings as a cudgel, attempting to scare away advertisers from doing business with media and organizations that have been accused of promoting so-called “misinformation” or wrongthink on a whole host of issues like abortion, climate change, COVID-19 and elections. In so doing, NewsGuard effectively strips media outlets with which it disagrees of their ad money, slowly bleeding out their coffers. NewsGuard can reluctantly downgrade legacy liberal media outlets when they have terrible reporting held up under their nose. They recently downgraded The New York Times after the Media Research Center called them out multiple times. They need to do the same now with NPR.

A Taxing Time...at Tax Time

Was it as bad for you as it was for me? Sending Washington money we earn, but Washington doesn’t, I mean? It’s not just being part of half the nation that pays taxes while the other half doesn’t that bothers me. It’s the waste and unnecessary programs and agencies that have long outlived whatever usefulness they once had (if they were ever necessary). And still President Biden wants to raise taxes even more without proposing a single dollar be cut to reduce our unsustainable $34 trillion debt. As The Washington Times reported: “(Biden) wants to impose a 25% minimum tax on all income not currently taxed — including unrealized gains on assets — for Americans with a net worth of $100 million. Mr. Biden has also urged Congress to raise the corporate tax rate to 28% up from 21%.” No American should be forced to endure the annual torture of compiling records and filling out tax returns. Many other nations have far simpler systems. Even the instructions for filling out forms for the IRS need instructions to understand. It is why so many must hire tax attorneys, who fulfill the role of language translators. Just one example: Enter your gross farming and fishing income reported on Form 4835, line 7; Schedule K-1 (Form 1065), box 14, code B; Schedule K-1 (Form 1120-S), box 17, code AN; and Schedule K-1 (Form 1041), box 14, code F. See instructions. Got it? The Congressional Budget Office predicts the U.S. will add an average of $2 trillion in debt annually for the next decade. That’s more than$5 billion of debt daily for the next 10 years. We borrow more than$200 million every hour. That’s $3 million every minute, $60,000 every second. If that’s not enough to make your blood boil, consider a tiny fraction of the misspending that occurs in Washington. For the past nine years, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has published a“Festivus Report” exposing outrageous examples of unnecessary federal spending. In his latest report he writes: “I am highlighting a whopping $900,000,000,000 of waste (emphasis his), including an NIH grant to study Russian cats walking on a treadmill, Barbies used as proof of ID for receiving COVID Paycheck Protection Program funds, $6 million to promote tourism in Egypt, and $200 million to ‘struggling artists’ like Post Malone, Chris Brown, and Lil Wayne. No matter how much money the government has already wasted, politicians keep demanding even more.” There’s much more. Google Festivus Report and be aghast at what we are doing to ourselves. Ultimately, this is the fault of voters who won’t restrain politicians and don’t select people who will restore America’s financial future and balance the budget, as was so recently done during the administration of Bill Clinton. If too many voters keep fueling the gravy train, the only option will be an Article V constitutional convention, provided by the Founders for such a moment we are now facing. If a future Congress refuses to attack the debt an Article V constitutional convention will be the only way to balance the budget and return power to where the Founders originally intended it – to the people. Nineteen of a required 34 states have already passed resolutions calling for a Convention of States. Other states have passed it in one legislative chamber, and still others have it under consideration. Our current oppressive tax system can be analogized to Dracula, who is never satisfied with the blood he sucks out of one victim, but must constantly look for new sources to bite. We must drive a stake in the blood- sucking government’s heart, or we will end up driving one in ourselves and the country we have known and loved will be no more.

Bias Revealed? Guess Where the Trump Jurors Get Their News From

Five Trump jurors reportedly get their news from a tech giant notorious for its leftist bias. Fox News released information April 17 on the seven jurors chosen for former President Donald Trump’s supposed “hush money” criminal trial in New York. Answers provided by the jurors reveal five of them receive their news from Google News, which media ratings firm AllSides describes as “lean left.” Two of the jurors also find news on TikTok, the communist Chinese government-tied app currently under scrutiny as a national security risk. While Fox noted that the jurors were asked questions about their opinion of Trump, they do not seem to have been screened for other types of bias. AllSides, based on independent review and community feedback, rates Google News “lean left” and explains that 63 percent of the tech giant’s news feed sources are leftist. AllSides has apparently not rated TikTok’s news bias, but the app, which is owned by Chinese ByteDance, is certainly concerning from a national security standpoint. The U.S. House recently advanced legislation to force TikTok’s separation from ByteDance. This came not long before a Fortune interview of former employees revealed disturbingly close China ties from TikTok. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) owns a board seat and maintains a financial stake in TikTok’s parent ByteDance. MRC Free Speech America rated TikTok one of the top Big Tech censors of 2023. Google might not have direct CCP ties, but its anti-freedom, biased record raises concerns. MRC Free Speech America did a series of bombshell studies exposing Google search results bias in favor of Democrats and against Republicans before the 2022 and 2024 elections. President Joe Biden was among the Democrat candidates favored, while Trump’s website was consistently suppressed. Most recently, a comprehensive MRC study exposed a whopping 41 times Google interfered in U.S. elections since 2008. Such blatant bias against Trump and other Republicans and Democrats reinforces the argument that Google News is biased and unreliable. It is therefore concerning that five jurors in Trump’s trial source their news from Google. Soros-tied Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg revived the charges against Trump of alleged “hush money” payments to a porn star despite evidence against the alleged crimes. Conservatives are under attack. Contact Google at 650-253-0000 and demand it 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.

PolitiFact Refuses To Give Rubio 'True' Rating For True Statement

It is a time-honored tradition that during campaign season, politicians will defend themselves by claiming that “since I took office” such-and-such has happened or attack their opponents by arguing that “since so-and-so took office” this has happened, but when Florida Sen. Marco Rubio tried that tactic against President Biden and his inflation record, PolitiFact slapped him with a “half-true” rating despite admitting his numbers were completely true. The specific claim Rubio made was that “It's very misleading when (President Biden) says (inflation) used to be at 9%. This is compounding. It’s not like it went down from 9% to 3%. This is building month after month. The better way to think about it is that it’s 18%, 19% over the last three years." In the “if your time is short” summary at the top of his article, Louis Jacobson wrote, “Inflation compounds and it has risen by about 19% over the last three years.” If that sounds like the shortest and easiest fact-check ever, Jacobson was there to say not so fast, “compared with February 2020, the month before the pandemic began, and also compared with one year ago, wages have increased faster than prices.” Jacobson then spends several paragraphs expanding on these points. Sandwiched between two graphs on wages and inflation, Jacobson claims, “One is to compare today with February 2020, the last full month before the coronavirus pandemic hit. The pandemic represented such an economic upheaval that February 2020 is a plausible benchmark for a ‘normal’ economy.” Not only is Jacobson coming up with a novel excuse to avoid giving Rubio a “true” rating, but his stance that the pandemic must be taken into account when fact-checking political talking points is not one that he holds with consistency. In December, Jacobson gave Biden a “mostly-true” rating for a claim he made about manufacturing jobs created during his tenure. In January, when Biden attacked Trump for job losses during his presidency, Jacobson wrote a lengthy explainer piece, noting Biden omitted the pandemic, but refused to bring out the truth-o-meter. In the first three months of 2024, PolitiFact fact-checked Republicans 63 times while only giving out “true” or “mostly trues” 12.7 percent of the time. By contrast, Democrats were fact-checked 39 times and given “true” or “mostly true” ratings 56.4 percent of the time. Based on how they treat Rubio, Biden, and pandemic-related economic statistics, we can see how.

‘Wonderfully Poetic’: Joy Reid Cheers 'My DEIs' for Prosecuting Trump

Elements of the liberal media don’t see the lawsuits and trials against former President Trump as just tools to score wins for their electoral politics, they also see them as tools to score wins for their racial politics as well. MSNBC host Joy Reid made that abundantly clear during the network’s Monday lovefest for the hush money trial in New York when she praised “my DEIs” for bringing so many charges against the former President. Delving into her usual race-baiting, Reid described it as “wonderfully poetic” that black people were prosecuting Trump. Without evidence, she suggested that it would upset Trump and his inner circle because they supposedly didn’t want black people going to law school: But for me, there is something wonderfully poetic about the fact that despite the fact that even if convicted, he's not going to go to prison. The first person to actually criminally prosecute Donald Trump is a black Harvard grad. The very kind of person that his former staff, the people who worked for him, Steven Miller et cetera, want to never be at Harvard Law School. But he was. And he came out and graduated and he's prosecuting you, Donald. “And a black woman is doing the same exact thing in Georgia,” she boasted. “And a black woman forced you to pay a $175 million fine that's out now also in question because the people who put it up, that might not be legit.”     Reid was absolutely giddy that “Donald Trump is being held to account by the very multicultural, multiracial democracy that he's trying to dismantle.” She added that “there's something poetic and actually wonderful about that” and said it was proof of “something good about our country that we're still capable of having that happen.” “Go, DEI! My DEIs are bringing it home on today!” she cheered, referring to left-wing diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Just before lauding Trump’s prosecutors for their skin color, she compared Trump to one of his lawyer’s former clients, a mob boss: But to the point that you all were just making, I mean, one of my favorite facts about one of Donald Trump's lawyers, Susan Necheles, is that one of her former clients was the notorious New York mobster Benny Eggs. And I will just assume and presume that old Benny Eggs was not attacking the judge. So, Donald Trump is at this point outdoing actual mobsters in his attacks on the judge's family, the daughter. And he's doing it to the point that Lawrence made. “He knows he will never spend a day, a second, a moment in prison,” she decried. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: MSNBC’s Trump on Trial: New York v. Donald Trump April 15, 2024 7:44:32 p.m. Eastern (…) JOY REID: But to the point that you all were just making, I mean, one of my favorite facts about one of Donald Trump's lawyers, Susan Necheles, is that one of her former clients was the notorious New York mobster Benny Eggs. And I will just assume and presume that old Benny Eggs was not attacking the judge. So, Donald Trump is at this point outdoing actual mobsters in his attacks on the judge's family, the daughter. And he's doing it to the point that Lawrence made. He knows he will never spend a day, a second, a moment in prison. But for me, there is something wonderfully poetic about the fact that despite the fact that even if convicted, he's not going to go to prison. The first person to actually criminally prosecute Donald Trump is a black Harvard grad. The very kind of person that his former staff, the people who worked for him, Steven Miller et cetera, want to never be at Harvard Law School. But he was. And he came out and graduated and he's prosecuting you, Donald. And a black woman is doing the same exact thing in Georgia. And a black woman forced you to pay a $175 million fine that's out now also in question because the people who put it up, that might not be legit. Donald Trump is being held to account by the very multicultural, multiracial democracy that he's trying to dismantle. And for me, there's something poetic and actually wonderful about that. It says something good about our country that we're still capable of having that happen. Go, DEI! My DEIs are bringing it home on today. (…)

Planned Parenthood Annual Report Celebrates Uptick in Baby Killing

This is nothing to celebrate. The abortion mill, Planned Parenthood, just released its 2022-2023 annual report. America’s largest abortion business proudly announced that it performed five percent more abortions in the last fiscal year than in the year prior. The report titled “Above & Beyond” started out with a nasty gram from Planned Parenthood’s CEO/President and the Board Chair. It’s been nearly two years since the U.S. Supreme Court took away our right to control our own bodies and lives by overturning Roe v. Wade. Since then, more than 20 states have banned some or all abortions. Before that, the COVID-19 pandemic upended our health care system and ended far too many lives. For the health care providers and staff at Planned Parenthood’s nearly 600 health centers across the country, these have been the most trying of times. OK drama! In huge font on page seven, the group wrote that across its locations, it conducted 392,715 abortions … and those are only the reported ones. “For Planned Parenthood health center staff, this was a year of moving mountains: finding appointments in other states and the resources to get patients there, building as much capacity as possible for abortion appointments, fulfilling increased demand in some places for birth control, and much more,” the authors wrote. Planned Parenthood also raved about all the people it “helped” by paying for abortions and travel costs for abortions outside of a patient's residing state. Obviously the group considered abortion, the brutal destruction of innocent life, to be part of “health care.” MRCTV reported on Planned Parenthood’s report from last year titled “Relentless” where the company boasted about the 375,155 children it killed via abortion. This year’s pro-abort annual report facilitated a shared heartbreak by many pro-lifers across the country.  “Planned Parenthood has released their latest annual report. They performed 5% more abortions relative to the previous year. Combine this with skyrocketing rates for abortion pill orders and understand that abortion is far from over after Roe v. Wade. We must abolish abortion," The Sentinel’s Ben Zeisloft wrote on X. LifeNews.com noted that while abortions went up this last year,  prenatal services declined more that 67%. “These numbers are proof that Planned Parenthood is an abortion business, not a women’s health care clinic,” the group reported. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America noted how the report proves that Planned Parenthood abortions are the 4th leading cause of death in America and that “Pregnant women sold abortions 97% of the time at Planned Parenthood; one third of revenue comes from taxpayers.” The report showed devastating numbers and was a heartbreaking glimpse into how pro-abort places like Planned Parenthood celebrate the death of babies.

GAG: ABC’s Bruce Giddily Cheers Biden Being Able to Campaign as Trump’s on Trial

ABC’s Good Morning America and its chief White House correspondent/chief Biden apple polisher Mary Bruce were emanating warm fuzzies and weak knees on Wednesday over their allies in the New York legal system interfering in the 2024 presidential election, preventing former President Trump from campaigning five days a week and allowing their candidate — President Joe Biden — to have the country to himself. Co-host Michael Strahan had a tease giving Team Biden what they want by boasting of Trump on day two of jury selection “test[ing] the patience of the judge while President Biden hits the campaign trails in a battleground state.”     Former Clinton official and fellow co-host George Stephanopulos later tossed to Bruce with more state-run phrasing: “While Donald Trump is tied up in court, President Biden has been on the campaign trail in battleground state of Pennsylvania.” Even the chyron flashed their glee with the situation: “President Biden Hits the Campaign Trail; Slams Trump’s Values & “Failed” Economic Policies in Pennsylvania”. Bruce’s 51-second report was nauseatingly hacktastic and a fine audition to replace the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre as press secretary in a hypothetical second Biden term, starting with her gleeful proclamation about “Biden...trying to seize this moment and create a real splitscreen, leaning into his roots in Scranton, arguing he and Donald Trump have very different values.” As usual, Bruce exhibited zero pushback and relayed Biden spin as news: He said he understands the middle class in a way that Donald Trump simply never will, saying that Trump will always put the wealthy and himself first. While the President has been careful not to comment on details of Trump’s trial, he has been taking more swipes at his rival, joking about Trump’s legal debt and telling supporters here last night that he would never take advantage of a woman. Now, the President is spending three days in Pennsylvania this week. It is a battleground where he has spent the most time by our count, visiting 30 times since taking office. Michael, the President well aware this state is a must win. Not to be left out, CBS Mornings had its own glorified press release with the Biden campaign stops woven into its report on day two of the Trump trial. In the first “Eye Opener” co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King bragged about the jurors being tabbed “as President Biden campaigns in a very important swing state.” Co-host Tony Dokoupil later touted the “two very different schedules for our presumptive presidential nominees as former President Donald Trump spends the week in New York in a courtroom for jury selection in his criminal trial” and “President Biden is on the campaign trail with multiple stops in Pennsylvania.” Chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes proclaimed that “the Biden campaign is clearly looking to play up this split-screen moment where you’ve got former President Trump holed up in a New York courtroom for much of the week, while President Biden is on the campaign trail here in the nation’s largest battleground state for three days this week.” Later and after a creepy video of an enthused Biden walking and holding hands with a band of small children, Cordes bragged of “Biden popping into his childhood home Tuesday and stumping with supporters in Scranton” on the heels of “[n]ew fundraising figures show the Biden campaign brought in nearly double the Trump team’s haul in the first three months of the year”. She continued with more propaganda (click “expand”): CORDES: The Biden team has used some money to open 14 campaign offices across Pennsylvania and to hire two dozen staffers in the state since February. BIDEN: We’ve opened more campaign offices because of you all than — he don’t — hasn’t opened any that I’m aware of. I’m not being facetious. CORDES: President Biden is waking up here in Scranton today. He will then head to Pittsburgh where he’s expected to push for tariffs to triple on Chinese steel and aluminum. This as he works to line up union support. To see the relevant transcripts from April 17, click “expand.” ABC’s Good Morning America April 17, 2024 7:00 a.m. Eastern [TEASE] [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Trump on Trial; First Seven Jurors Selected] MICHAEL STRAHAN: The first jurors have been selected in the criminal trial of Donald Trump. Trump on Trial. Seven jurors sworn in to hear the case against the former President. What we know about the three women and four men, including a nurse, teacher and two lawyers as Trump tests the patience of the judge while President Biden hits the campaign trails in a battleground state.  (....) 7:06 a.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: New This Morning; President Biden Hits the Campaign Trail; Slams Trump’s Values & “Failed” Economic Policies in Pennsylvania] GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: While Donald Trump is tied up in court, President Biden has been on the campaign trail in battleground state of Pennsylvania. Mary Bruce is on the scene in Scranton. Good morning, Mary. MARY BRUCE: Good morning, George. Well, President Biden is trying to seize this moment and create a real splitscreen, leaning into his roots in Scranton, arguing he and Donald Trump have very different values. He said he understands the middle class in a way that Donald Trump simply never will, saying that Trump will always put the wealthy and himself first. While the President has been careful not to comment on details of Trump’s trial, he has been taking more swipes at his rival, joking about Trump’s legal debt and telling supporters here last night that he would never take advantage of a woman. Now, the President is spending three days in Pennsylvania this week. It is a battleground where he has spent the most time by our count, visiting 30 times since taking office. Michael, the President well aware this state is a must win. STRAHAN: Yeah, it is a must win there, Mary. Thank you very much for that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CBS Mornings April 17, 2024 7:00 a.m. Eastern [TEASE] GAYLE KING: The first seven jurors have been picked in former President Trump’s criminal trial as President Biden campaigns in a very important swing state. [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Court and Campaigning] PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: A guy came up to me and asked if I could help, drowning in debt. I said, I’m sorry, Donald, but I can’t help you. [LAUGHTER] (....) 7:04 a.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Trial & the Trial; Trump Sits for Jury Selection as Pres. Biden Campaigns in Pennsylvania] TONY DOKOUPIL: Alright, we’re going to turn now to politics, as promised, and two very different schedules for our presumptive presidential nominees as former President Donald Trump spends the week in New York in a courtroom for jury selection in his criminal trial. President Biden is on the campaign trail with multiple stops in Pennsylvania. Nancy Cordes is out there as well, traveling with the President and joins us now from Biden’s hometown, Scranton, Pennsylvania. Nancy, good morning. NANCY CORDES: Good morning, Tony. Yeah, the Biden campaign is clearly looking to play up this split-screen moment where you’ve got former President Trump holed up in a New York courtroom for much of the week, while President Biden is on the campaign trail here in the nation’s largest battleground state for three days this week. (....) 7:06 a.m. Eastern CORDES: And while Trump has denied all the allegations, the trial will pull him off the campaign trail. DONALD TRUMP: I should be right now in Pennsylvania. BIDEN SUPORTERS: We want Joe! CORDES: His rival is in Pennsylvania. President Biden popping into his childhood home Tuesday and stumping with supporters in Scranton. BIDEN: When I look at the economy, I don’t see it through the eyes of Mar-a-Lago. I see it through the eyes of Scranton. CORDES: New fundraising figures show the Biden campaign brought in nearly double the Trump team’s haul in the first three months of the year. The Biden team has used some money to open 14 campaign offices across Pennsylvania and to hire two dozen staffers in the state since February. BIDEN: We’ve opened more campaign offices because of you all than — he don’t — hasn’t opened any that I’m aware of. I’m not being facetious. CORDES: President Biden is waking up here in Scranton today. He will then head to Pittsburgh where he’s expected to push for tariffs to triple on Chinese steel and aluminum. This as he works to line up union support. (....) 8:00 a.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Campaigning and Court] DOKOUPIL: President Biden hits the campaign trail as former President Trump attends day two of his criminal trial in New York. CORDES: The Biden campaign is clearly looking to play up this splitscreen moment.

Kimmel Mocks Abolitionist As Out Of Touch Because He Was Pro-Life

ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel was supposed to have Vice President Kamala Harris join him on Tuesday for an interview that almost certainly would have focused on how supposedly horrible the Arizona Supreme Court is for allowing an 1864 pro-life law to be enforced. Harris couldn’t make it, but that didn’t stop him from arguing with the ghost of Justice William T. Howell, played by actor Nick Offerman, and not appreciating that Howell could view the abolition of slavery and abortion as logically consistent. Kimmel began, “During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln hired a lawyer named William T. Howell to write the legal code for the new territory of Arizona. His job was to make sure that the new laws abolished slavery, which they did, but he also worked on a number of other laws, including a ban on abortion, which is the law the Supreme Court decided to uphold last week, 160 years later, and the person we have to think about that is Justice William T. Howell, who obviously is not with us anymore, but he is the person who -- what?”     A digitally imposed Offerman then appeared and, playing the role of Howell as if he were a boxer and people from the 1800s were all stupid, began by wondering, “Who dares sully the honor of I, Arizona Associate Justice William T. Howell, who wrote the law of which you jest.” Kimmel almost certainly got the information for this sketch from a recent Washington Post article on Howell. Not only did Kimmel not see the connection between how slavers portrayed the slave and how pro-choicers portray the unborn, he also completely omitted that Howell also wrote in provisions for married women to own property. Nevertheless, Kimmel and Offerman tried to portray Howell as an old-fashioned sexist, “Okay, well listen, Justice Howell, a lot of Americans, I don't know if you know this, are very angry that your law's taking away women's rights.” Offerman tried to satirize pro-life arguments, but all he ended up doing was coming up with interesting euphemisms for genitals, “Well, if these women didn't want to be with child, why did they not sneeze after being pistoned with a fully engorged giggle stick? Why, tell me, did they not scrub their floral regions with barrel grease?” Kimmel followed up, “Barrel grease? How did you become a judge?” As a way to show how allegedly backwards the 1860s were, Offerman tried to joke that the way one became a lawyer in the 19th century had nothing to do with studying law, “I studied at a very prestigious law academy and was the pupil who shot the most nickels off a whore’s empty head. Does that satisfy your query, you godless spaghetti gobbler?” The law may have been written 160 years ago, but that doesn’t mean that Kimmel and Offerman are 160 years more enlightened. If anything, they’re less enlightened. Here is a transcript for the April 16 show: ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live! 4/16/2024 11:46 PM ET JIMMY KIMMEL: During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln hired a lawyer named William T. Howell to write the legal code for the new territory of Arizona. His job was to make sure that the new laws abolished slavery, which they did, but he also worked on a number of other laws, including a ban on abortion, which is the law the Supreme Court decided to uphold last week, 160 years later, and the person we have to think about that is Justice William T. Howell, who obviously is not with us anymore, but he is the person who -- what?  NICK OFFERMAN [AS WILLIAM T. HOWELL's GHOST]: Who dares sully the honor of I, Arizona Associate Justice William T. Howell, who wrote the law of which you jest.  KIMMEL: Um -- I do, I guess.  OFFERMAN: Then prepare thyself for a spectral confrontation, you Italian consack. Pugilism.  KIMMEL: Okay.  OFFERMAN: Let that be a lesson to thee.  KIMMEL: Okay, well listen, Justice Howell, a lot of Americans, I don't know if you know this, are very angry that your law's taking away women's rights.  OFFERMAN: Well, if these women didn't want to be with child, why did they not sneeze after being pistoned with a fully engorged giggle stick? Why, tell me, did they not scrub their floral regions with barrel grease?  KIMMEL: Barrel grease? How did you become a judge?  OFFERMAN: I studied at a very prestigious law academy and was the pupil who shot the most nickels off a whore’s empty head. Does that satisfy your query, you godless spaghetti gobbler? KIMMEL: No, that actually made no sense. Just like your law, which I think Arizona should nullify as soon as –  OFFERMAN: Nullify? Nullify my law?  KIMMEL: Yeah.  OFFERMAN: Why, you soft-handed mug-eared fat kidneyed onion-eyed rattlesnake fang on the scrotum. You bacon-faced, pipkin-headed, brisket-beating, rump-fed, hand-sucked, caper merchant.  KIMMEL: Okay, I don't even know even more.  OFFERMAN: You scotch-fiddled, gore-bellied, fox-infested, son of a footless hedge pig. No! 

Kevin O'Leary Rips Biden Tax Agenda: ‘The More He Taxes, the Less Growth There Will Be’

Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, aka “Mr. Wonderful” panned President Joe Biden’s new tax plan, suggesting that the president would damage the country in the same way that many Democrats have broken their states.  O’Leary pointed out the negative impact of high taxes on states and countries during the April 16 edition of Fox News’s Your World with Neil Cavuto. “The minute you really start raising taxes and they become uncompetitive either at the state level, you see everybody leaving New York and going to Florida or to Texas,” O’Leary told anchor Neil Cavuto, before pointing out that the “same thing happens with countries.” O’Leary went on to say that higher taxes would stall the growth of the American economy: “So you got to be very careful. … I admire what [Biden] wants to do -- but the more he taxes, the less growth there will be and that is the risk.”  In response to a question from Cavuto, O’Leary discussed how the entrepreneurs targeted by Biden’s tax proposal fuel economic growth, saying, “To get rich, they had to be wildly successful. Let's just take a Bezos or what’s happened with Elon Musk. They have created hundreds of thousands of jobs. They have created economies that are derivatives to the companies they’ve made. That’s the essence of success in the economy.” Cavuto went on to suggest that the left punishes this kind of success.  O’Leary then criticized Democrats like Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), pointing out how their vision had led to migration out of their states into more business-friendly environments like Florida. “I used to live [In Massachusetts]. So did all my neighbors. Now we live here in Miami and we visit Massachusetts, because it's now Taxachusetts,” O’Leary said, before adding, “So I don’t think that works, as long as there another place to go. That is how America was formed: Taxation oppression by the British, and here we are. Let's remember that lesson.” Biden stated his intent to raise taxes on both corporations and individuals in a “fact sheet” published on March 11. The president heavily criticizes former President Donald Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, while promising that his plan “[r]estores the top marginal tax rate to 39.6 percent for single filers making over $400,000 a year and married couples making more than $450,000 per year.”  Due to inflation, $400,000 in March of 2024 only has the purchasing power of $317,440.42 in Jan. 2018 (the first month after the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” passed), according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics “inflation calculator” tool.  Biden’s plan to raise taxes also includes an anti-energy provision. Although the president has repeatedly moved to limit drilling and made statements discouraging long-term investment in fossil fuels, he outrageously attacks oil and gas companies for failing “to invest in production.” In his “fact sheet,” Biden promises to end “tax breaks” and “tax subsidies” (Biden may be using these terms interchangeably) for the industry.  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.

MRC President Bozell to Patrick Bet-David: Google Is Picking Winners and Losers

Google is picking “winners and losers” in U.S. elections, Media Research Center President Brent Bozell told podcaster and entrepreneur Patrick Bet-David on Wednesday. Bozell joined Bet-David’s blockbuster PBD Podcast to explain how Big Tech companies—particularly Google, one of the largest corporations in America—are interfering with U.S. elections to help the most left-wing candidates. The PBD Podcast has 1.7 million followers. “You've got a real problem with Big Tech—in that Big Tech is not playing by the same rules,” Bozell said in the Wednesday morning interview, spanning nearly 40 minutes. “Corporations can't be involved in political action at the federal level. Yet, you've got Big Tech that is picking winners and losers in elections, and when they do it the way they're doing it, it becomes a very serious threat to democracy itself.” Shortly thereafter, Bet-David asked Bozell about an MRC bombshell report that found at least 41 times Google meddled in American elections to help the most left-wing candidate since 2008, coinciding with the rise to power of former President Barack Obama. Read the Bombshell Report: 41 Times Google Has Interfered in US Elections Since 2008 Explaining one of the report’s findings, Bozell recounted: “An example: Rick Santorum. There was a smear bomb put out on Rick Santorum. It was really, really ugly. It was vicious in the personal attack on him.” Bozell’s remarks referred to what was also known as a “Google bomb,” which occurred when some users manipulated Google’s algorithms to associate certain websites with detrimental terms. When Santorum approached Google, the tech giant did not dismantle the “bomb.” Yet, the company glaringly took swift action when the Obama White House’s website was affected by a similar smear. Later in his remarks, Bozell highlighted the high-profile censorship of two Democrats in past presidential elections. According to the MRC report, Google censored twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2008 and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who unsuccessfully challenged President Joe Biden in the 2024 Democratic primary. In every instance, Google appeared to help the most left-wing candidates. “They picked winners and losers in that, and they loved Hillary Clinton in 2016,” Bozell stated, referring to Google's shift from censoring Clinton in 2008 to supporting Clinton in 2016. “They didn't love her she ran in 2008, I guess it was, against Obama Obama. Obama was their guy.” Related: Mum! Google Fails to Respond to Bozell’s Challenge, Does Not Refute Election Interference Earlier in the podcast, Bozell also highlighted a separate bombshell report that unveiled Google had manipulated its search results to bury the campaign sites of Republican candidates in 10 of 12 key Senate races ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. “What Google did deliberately was to put the Republicans at the bottom of page one or in the case of seven of the 12 Republican candidates for the Senate in these most contested races they put them on page two,” Bozell continued. “Less than 1% of the public ever goes to page two that's right so that's deliberate interference in a senate campaign where you're keeping information from the public or burying it so far deep they'll never go looking for it.” Flashback! Google CAUGHT Manipulating Search, Buries GOP Campaign Sites in 83% of Top Senate Races During his conversation with Bet-David, Bozell discussed more than just the MRC report on Google's interference in elections. He also touched on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which some judges have infamously interpreted as providing broad liability protections to social media platforms.  Additionally, Bozell mentioned the MRC's exclusive CensorTrack.org database, which documents cases of Big Tech censorship. Citing CensorTrack.org, Bozell told Bet-David that in January 2022, YouTube censored the PBD Podcast over the publication of an interview with Dr. Robert Malone, one of the largest critics of global governments’ COVID-19 policies and mandates. 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.

BREAKING: NPR Dissenter Uri Berliner Resigns After Suspension, Attacks

Shortly before 11 am on Wednesday, NPR senior business editor Uri Berliner resigned at about the time his suspension without pay was going to end. The most important part was where he took on woke new NPR CEO Katherine Maher: "I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my essay at The Free Press." Maher's pom-pom memo to NPR staff (posted publicly on NPR.org) claimed Berliner (who wasn't named) was attacking NPR staff not for what they report, but "who they are."   My resignation letter to NPR CEO @krmaher pic.twitter.com/0hafVbcZAK — Uri Berliner (@uberliner) April 17, 2024   While many of us thought Berliner's days were numbered when his essay was posted, it would be a test of NPR's intolerance to see if Berliner could remain. He could not.  Earlier on Twitter/X, Berliner reposted this from the New York Times media reporter:   scoop: NPR's top editor said in a meeting with the new CEO and show hosts Wednesday that she didn't want to make Uri Berliner a "martyr."https://t.co/p6iJBXmVkL We're told that everyone at the network is mindful of the disaster created by Juan Williams' firing in 2010. — Ben Mullin (@BenMullin) April 11, 2024   "Martyr" is too strong a word, but it is an exhibit of their complete unwillingness to listen to a critique on fairness and balance and groupthink and wokeness. It begs for a congressional hearing with Berliner and with Maher, maybe shoulder to shoulder.  And Berliner reposted this from former Bush staffer Peter Wehner:   People on the right who are praising NPR's Uri Berliner for his courage - and he is courageous to speak out - are in many cases the same people who have been too intimidated/cowardly to speak out against MAGA and the moral depravity of Donald Trump. Just sayin'. — Peter Wehner (@Peter_Wehner) April 10, 2024   Berliner voted against Trump twice. But voting for Democrats isn't enough in this taxpayer-funded sandbox for leftists. You have to be in sync with all the leftist lingo and the interest groups that push it, from GLAAD to CAIR. 

ABC Mocks ‘Partisan’ Mayorkas Impeachment as ‘All for Show’ While CBS Lobs Softballs

On Wednesday ahead of the impending impeachment trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his role in the Biden border crisis, ABC’s Good Morning America continued its wildly partisan dismissal of this entire episode while CBS Mornings lobbed softballs at him a network exclusive originally billed as a chance for him to sound competent on the issue of online child exploitation. As they’ve been since the start of the impeachment push, ABC’s Good Morning America has led the way with snarky dismissals and partisan pontificating. Co-host and former Clinton tool George Stephanopoulos has been the ringleader. Wednesday was no except as he didn’t even ask a question of chief congressional correspondent Rachel Scott, but instead belly-ached about how “the partisan House impeachment of Homeland Secretary Mayorkas is heading now to the Senate, but it’s all for show now.” ABC’s George Stephanopoulos: “[T]he partisan House impeachment of Homeland Secretary Mayorkas is heading now to the Senate, but it’s all for show now.”@RachelVScott: “Yeah and this really could be over very quickly. Look, Republicans want a full trial. They impeached Secretary… pic.twitter.com/NMLgLBjPQb — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 17, 2024 Also a liberal hack, Scott scoffed “this really could be over very quickly” even though “Republicans want a full trial” for Mayorkas’s “handling of the border, but it is Democrats who control the Senate.” Showing her political allegiance, Scott stated as though it were a fact that Democrats “point out there is no evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors, that this is all over a policy dispute and they will be looking to dismiss these charges very quickly.” Prior to the Mayorkas interview, CBS Mornings also had a partial and dry segment about the Mayorkas impeachment trial with co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King and congressional correspondent Nikole Killion (click “expand”): KING: Nikole, before you go, listen, I know it’s a busy day there because we’ve got the impeachment trial of Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, begins in the Senate which, by the way, the secretary of state [sic] has just arrived. We’re talking about another topic, but we’ll certainly get to that. So, what can we expect on that front? KILLION: Well, senators will be sworn in this afternoon for a trial. Tuesday, House impeachment managers walk the articles across the Capitol to the Senate. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was impeached by the House back in February. He is charged with refusal to comply with the law and breach of public trust for his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border. Senate Democrats want to dismiss this trial quickly, while most Republicans argue that it should be allowed to proceed. A DHS spokesperson has called the proceedings baseless. Mayorkas surfaced for the start of the second half-hour and, after nearly seven minutes letting him conveniently seem wholly concerned about U.S. national security in a joint interview with a Meta executive on online child exploitation. The remaining nearly three minutes (2:53) was split between his impeachment and the war in the Middle East (with Mayorkas offering a boilerplate answer giving equal weight to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia). Co-host Tony Dokoupil didn’t focus on debating the merits of the impeachment and instead asked him “what’s on the table, what’s being discussed” “to stop the flow of people over the border” (click “expand”): DOKOUPIL: Mr. Secretary, you’re here with us, but meanwhile in Washington there’s an effort to impeach you and it comes at the very same time that people are waiting on the Biden administration to issue some sort of an executive order to stop the flow of people over the border, maybe by changing the asylum laws. That’s the reporting anyway. What — what’s on the table, what’s being discussed, is that still even a possibility? MAYORKAS: So, a couple — a couple thoughts. First of all, as they work on impeachment, I work in advancing the missions of the Department of Homeland Security. That’s what I’ve done throughout this process. We need Congress to pass the bipartisan legislation that a group of senators worked on. That is the enduring solution. We cannot resource ourselves, we need Congress to do so. We cannot change a broken immigration system, only Congress can do that. KING: But — but how do you explain — DOKOUPIL: But there is no executive order, so you’re pulling it off the table? MAYORKAS: Oh, no. Not at all. You know, we — we — we explore options every single day. That’s the responsibility of good government. We are considering options. We have been throughout, but really, the enduring solution is legislation because executive actions invariably are challenged in the courts. Like the loyal liberal apparatchik she is, King praised Mayorkas for “continu[ing] to do your job” despite the impeachment charges in what must “feel surreal” and “like you have on gasoline underwear” with “a lot of incoming” from Republicans he’s simultaneously “negotiating with” as they try to remove him. “How do you balance that two, knowing that — how they feel about you and that they want you out,” King wondered, to which Mayorkas twice said it’s “precisely why I focus on the work.” Gag. NBC’s Today was actually the least objectionable of the three (aside from the fact it was only a 32-second partial segment) as Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Nobles gave a sentence to each camp (click “expand”): GUTHRIE: Let’s talk about another item. The House impeached Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas. The articles of impeachment — which are basically the charges — now go to the Senate for a trial, but what is expected to happen there? NOBLES: Yeah, that’s right. The Senate today is expected to swear in senators as jurors, but it is expected to be an incredibly short trial against Mayorkas. Republicans say that he ignored the law and created chaos at the border, but Democrats argue that this is nothing more than a political stunt. They’re planning to dismiss or table the trial as soon as this week. To see the relevant transcript from April 17, click “expand.” ABC’s Good Morning America April 17, 2024 7:11 a.m. Eastern GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And, Rachel, the partisan House impeachment of Homeland Secretary Mayorkas is heading now to the Senate, but it’s all for show now.  [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: New This Morning; House Sends Mayorkas Impeachment Articles to Senate; Republican Senators Demanding Full-Scale Trial for DHS Secretary] RACHEL SCOTT: Yeah and this really could be over very quickly. Look, Republicans want a full trial. They impeached Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the border, but it is Democrats who control the Senate. And they point out there is no evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors, that this is all over a policy dispute and they will be looking to dismiss these charges very quickly, George. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CBS Mornings April 17, 2024 7:08 a.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Mayorkas Impeachment Trial; Homeland Security Sec’y Expected to Survive Senate Trial] GAYLE KING: Nikole, before you go, listen, I know it’s a busy day there because we’ve got the impeachment trial of Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, begins in the Senate which, by the way, the secretary of state [sic] has just arrived. We’re talking about another topic, but we’ll certainly get to that. So, what can we expect on that front? NIKOLE KILLION: Well, senators will be sworn in this afternoon for a trial. Tuesday, House impeachment managers walk the articles across the Capitol to the Senate. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was impeached by the House back in February. He is charged with refusal to comply with the law and breach of public trust for his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border. Senate Democrats want to dismiss this trial quickly, while most Republicans argue that it should be allowed to proceed. A DHS spokesperson has called the proceedings baseless. Gayle? KING: All right. We’ll see how that plays out. Nikole, thank you very much. In our next half hour, homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas will be here in the studio to discuss his impeachment trial and the reason why he’s here — we booked him a while ago to talk about this — a big, new campaign to keep your kids safe online. (....) 7:31 a.m. Eastern KING: We’re — we’re very glad to have you here. Nice to meet you, Antigone. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS: Thank you. KING: Especially for you, Secretary Mayorkas because, listen, you’re in the news, your ears must be burning because, even as we speak, they’re trying to impeach you on Capitol Hill. We’ll get to that in just a second. (....) 7:36 a.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Mayorkas Impeachment Trial; DHS Sec’y on Impeachment Charges Brought by Republicans] TONY DOKOUPIL: Mr. Secretary, you’re here with us, but meanwhile in Washington there’s an effort to impeach you and it comes at the very same time that people are waiting on the Biden administration to issue some sort of an executive order to stop the flow of people over the border, maybe by changing the asylum laws. That’s the reporting anyway. What — what’s on the table, what’s being discussed, is that still even a possibility? MAYORKAS: So, a couple — a couple thoughts. First of all, as they work on impeachment, I work in advancing the missions of the Department of Homeland Security. That’s what I’ve done throughout this process. We need Congress to pass the bipartisan legislation that a group of senators worked on. That is the enduring solution. We cannot resource ourselves, we need Congress to do so. We cannot change a broken immigration system, only Congress can do that. KING: But — but how do you explain — DOKOUPIL: But there is no executive order, so you’re pulling it off the table? MAYORKAS: Oh, no. Not at all. You know, we — we — we explore options every single day. That’s the responsibility of good government. We are considering options. We have been throughout, but really, the enduring solution is legislation because executive actions invariably are challenged in the courts. KING: Yeah. You were making it clear, Mr. Secretary, you’re going to continue to do your job. But, I’m wondering personally, does this feel surreal? Do you feel like you have on gasoline underwear? Cause you a lot of incoming — you must feel — or do you feel like you’re sitting on the hot seat? Cause, on one hand, you’re negotiating with Republicans. And then, on the other hand, they’re trying to impeach you. How do you balance that two, knowing that — how they feel about you and that they want you out? MAYORKAS: Gayle, that is precisely why I focus on the work. KING: Mmmmm. DOKOUPIL: Should we — MAYORKAS: That is precisely why I focus on the work. DOKOUPIL: — speaking of the broader mission separate from the border, we’ve got Israel and Iran now in a confrontation. I think a lot of people reasonably wonder whether what’s happening overseas may become a threat to the homeland. KING: Yeah, yes. DOKOUPIL: Is there an increased risk in America of some sort of attack tied to sympathies in the Middle East? KING: Yes. MAYORKAS: We have seen an increase in anti-Semitism. We have seen an increase in Islamaphobia following the October 7 terrorist attacks. There is no question, as Director Wray of the FBI and I have expressed publicly, we are in a heightened threat environment and what we worry about is an increase in what we call domestic violent extremism — the radicalization of individuals already here, driven to violence based on an ideology of hate. DOKOUPIL: Credible threats right now as we speak? MAYORKAS: We — I have no known credible threats at this time, but we are in a heightened threat environment. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NBC’s Today April 17, 2024 7:14 a.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Mayorkas Impeachment Heads to Senate] SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Let’s talk about another item. The House impeached Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas. The articles of impeachment — which are basically the charges — now go to the Senate for a trial, but what is expected to happen there? RYAN NOBLES: Yeah, that’s right. The Senate today is expected to swear in senators as jurors, but it is expected to be an incredibly short trial against Mayorkas. Republicans say that he ignored the law and created chaos at the border, but Democrats argue that this is nothing more than a political stunt. They’re planning to dismiss or table the trial as soon as this week.

16-Year-Old Student SUSPENDED After Saying ‘Illegal Alien’ in English Class

Nope, we aren’t even kidding. A 16-year-old student from North Carolina was suspended for three days last week after using the term “illegal alien” in his English class. The student used the phrase to gain a deeper understanding of an assignment and was penalized for it, The Carolina Journal reported. The student’s mother, Leah McGhee, noted that the English teacher assigned numerous vocabulary words during class, one of which was “alien.” To gain clarity, McGhee’s child asked, “Like space aliens or illegal aliens without green cards?” Perfectly valid question to ask for clarification if you ask me but, not everyone thought so. Apparently another student was offended by the McGhee child and threatened to fight him. The teacher called in the assistant principle and ultimately school staff decided that McGhee’s comment was “offensive and disrespectful to classmates who are hispanic.” The child was suspended for three days but it appears that the one who threatened to fight him had no punishment or consequence. Additionally, as The Carolina Journal noted, this could damage McGhee’s record as he looks to apply to colleges and for scholarships. “I didn’t make a statement directed towards anyone; I asked a question,” McGhee said. “I wasn’t speaking of Hispanics because everyone from other countries needs green cards, and the term ‘illegal alien’ is an actual term that I hear on the news and can find in the dictionary.” The McGhee family is working with an attorney to rectify the situation but so far the assistant principal is refusing to remove the infraction on the student’s record. “Because of his question, our son was disciplined and given THREE days OUT of school suspension for ‘racism,’” his mother wrote about the situation before adding, “He is devastated and concerned that the racism label on his school record will harm his future goal of receiving a track scholarship. We are concerned that he will fall behind in his classes due to being absent for three consecutive days.” This is absolutely outrageous. Even the State Senator Steve Jarvis (R-N.C) said, “I do not see that that would be an offensive statement, just in getting clarification” but the school has remained firm in its disciplinary action towards McGhee. The student handbook, as The Carolina Journal noted, says that “schools may place restrictions on a student’s right to free speech when the speech is obscene, abusive, promoting illegal drug use, or is reasonably expected to cause a substantial disruption to the school day.” So using the word “illegal alien” to ask about illegal aliens is somehow offensive? The public school system has become complete garbage.

Pro-Lifers Face 10.5 Years For Praying, Gaza Protestors? Less Than 3

A shocking but true side-by-side comparison was made by the group End Wokeness on X Monday evening. The account pointed out that there's been dozens of traffic stops and backups for Gaza protestors that have been allowed, while at the same time numerous pro-life individuals are stuck in jail, some facing up to 11 years in prison after praying outside of an abortion clinic. If this doesn’t show you who and what our nation values and prioritizes, I don’t know what will. Ever since Hamas terrorists attacked innocent Israelis last October, a group of protestors who likely don’t even know what they’re fighting for have been protesting by standing or sitting in front of traffic. Similar to how the climate warriors cement themselves to the middle of the street, many pro-Hamas individuals and groups park their social justice warrior booties in front of moving cars. Most recently, a group of Gaza war protestors shut down the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California and stopped traffic for around five hours on Monday. Their sign read “stop the world for Gaza” and they used other cars and chained themselves together to block travel lanes on the bridge. NBC Bay Area reported that the protest began around 7:30 a.m. and it wasn’t until after noon that cars were able to start moving again. This wasn't productive and just made everyone irritated and angry that they were late to work — like hours late. A similar demonstration was conducted in New York when Gaza war protestors blocked the Brooklyn Bridge, in Chicago when they obstructed traffic to O’Hare International Airport and at the expressway that led to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Washington. From the San Francisco protest, 26 individuals were arrested and face charges of conspiracy as well as vehicle violations like false imprisonment for drivers who were trapped. Even if the individuals were charged with a felony for false imprisonment, it looks like they’d only be in jail for a maximum sentence of three years. It’s likely our justice system will let them off very easy since they have a tendency to favor leftists, even if they are breaking the law. One of these groups was allowed to block the Golden Gate Bridge today for 5 hours. The other group faces 11 years in prison for a "criminal conspiracy against civil rights" for praying in an abortion clinic. Realize where we are. pic.twitter.com/zqzpYKuhfe — End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) April 15, 2024 On the other hand, many pro-lifers are being held in jail for peacefully praying outside of an abortion clinic.  In January, six pro-lifers were found guilty of violating the FACE (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) Act after quietly praying, singing hymns and encouraging women to not abort their kids at a Tennessee abortion facility in 2021. Those activists now face up to 10.5 years in prison, depending on their sentencing results. If that wasn't enough, the DOJ has targeted and arrested pro-lifers for praying while at the same time, allowing pro-abort vandals who paint graffiti, throw eggs, and firebomb buildings to walk away without penalty. What’s frustrating is that our justice system isn’t being just. Those bridge protestors should have been dragged off the road immediately and not just stared at while they conducted their pointless plea for attention. And, those pro-lifers shouldn’t be going to jail for the next 10.5 years of their life for PRAYING for innocent babies. This is some twisted crap.

Daily Show Tortures Pinata To Cope With Trump Leading Latino Vote

Actor and alleged comedian John Leguizamo joined Tuesday’s edition of The Daily Show on Comedy Central to have a calm and rational, adult-like reaction to polling that shows Donald Trump leading among Latinos. Just kidding, he decided to torture a piñata while going off a profanity-ridden Spanish tirade. Translated into English (hat tip to NewsBusters' Jorge Bonilla), as he mauled the poor piñata, Leguizamo ranted, "Shit, [bleep]dammit, triple son of a [bleep], mother[bleep], [unintelligible] bastard!"     After the torture session concluded, Leguizamo continued, “I’m sorry. Where was I? Oh, yeah, right. It looks like the Democrats are in trouble, and you might be thinking, how is this possible? Donald Trump is winning Latinos? ‘Build the wall’ Donald Trump? ‘Mass deportations’ Donald Trump? Guy who thinks Daddy Yankee is a baseball player Donald Trump? But the truth is, in 2024, Latino voters have something else on their minds. Following a couple of news clips explaining that Latino voters are more worried about inflation than his race-based politics, Leguizamo claimed to understand, “That's right. For Latinos, this election is all about inflation! And that makes sense! Inflation is bad right now. They're going to have to change the name of the game show to The Price is [bleep] what-now?" And if your top concern is high prices, I get why you might lean Trump. People associate him with lower prices, even though he sells $400 sneakers that look like my cousin's Papo's teeth.” However, “The problem is, when it comes to fixing inflation, this cuchifrito-looking mother[bleep] ain't got shit.” After more news clips of Trump declaring his plan to reduce inflation includes additional oil drilling, Leguizamo reacted, “Well, you heard it here first, mi brothers: Trump's one and only plan to fix inflation is to drill for oil. But guess what: President Biden is already drilling more oil than anyone in history. More than Trump did when he was president!” Of course, Biden is also trying to appease the environmentalists, which doesn’t help with prices, but Leguizamo would rather make a Stormy Daniels-sex joke than discuss that, “Now, you know, maybe Trump has discovered some new special drilling technique that no one else knows about. Maybe he drills the oil real hard for 30 seconds, and then makes it sign an NDA. Just saying.” Somehow, it seems unlikely that going full Hulk on a party device and sex jokes are going to get people to change their voting preferences. Here is a transcript for the April 16 show: Comedy Central The Daily Show 4/16/2024 11:18 PM ET  JOHN LEGUIZAMO: Excuse me for a second, please. [Speaking Spanish] I’m sorry. Where was I? Oh, yeah, right. It looks like the Democrats are in trouble, and you might be thinking, how is this possible? Donald Trump is winning Latinos? "Build the wall" Donald Trump? "Mass deportations" Donald Trump? Guy who thinks Daddy Yankee is a baseball player Donald Trump? But the truth is, in 2024, Latino voters have something else on their minds.  … That's right. For Latinos, this election is all about inflation! And that makes sense! Inflation is bad right now. They're going to have to change the name of the game show to The Price is [bleep] what-now?" And if your top concern is high prices, I get why you might lean Trump. People associate him with lower prices, even though he sells $400 sneakers that look like my cousin's Papo's teeth. The problem is, when it comes to fixing inflation, this cuchifrito-looking mother[bleep] ain't got shit.  CNN TOWN HALL ATTENDEE: If elected president again, what is the first thing you would do to help bring down the cost to make things more affordable?  DONALD TRUMP: Drill, baby, drill.  MARIA BARTIROMO: Is your answer to getting inflation down, drill, drill, drill, independent oil?  TRUMP: Well, among other things, it's drill, drill, drill, yes.  BARTIROMO: What else?  TRUMP: It's drill, drill, drill.  BARTIROMO: What's your answer to getting inflation down?  TRUMP: There is no else. You have to get the oil.  LEGUIZAMO: Well, you heard it here first, mi brothers: Trump's one and only plan to fix inflation is to drill for oil. But guess what: President Biden is already drilling more oil than anyone in history. More than Trump did when he was president! Now, you know, maybe Trump has discovered some new special drilling technique that no one else knows about. Maybe he drills the oil real hard for 30 seconds, and then makes it sign an NDA. Just saying. 

Woke New NPR CEO Katherine Maher Donated to Democrats Like Stacey Abrams

Conservative Twitter is having a ball with woke new NPR CEO Katherine Maher's tweets drew a New York Times story (which isn't in the paper). The headline was gentle, about criticism over "Tweets Supporting Progressive Causes." Benjamin Mullin noticed one showed Maher wearing a "hat with the logo for the Biden presidential campaign." (He left out the Covid mask). He also noticed this colorful tweet:  "Had a dream where Kamala and I were on a road trip in an unspecified location, sampling and comparing nuts and baklava from roadside stands. Woke up very hungry." NPR spokeswoman Isabel Lara rebutted Maher "was not working in journalism at the time and was exercising her First Amendment right to express herself like any other American citizen." Now she is "fully committed to NPR's code of ethics and the independence of NPR's newsroom." Maher repeated that line: NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests." But just like her tweets, our search of Maher's campaign contributions show she's a fan of the Democratic Party:  -- In 2017, $1,500 to former congressman Tom Perriello in an unsuccessful run for governor of Virginia. -- In 2018, $500 to Matthew Brown in an unsuccessful run for governor of Rhode Island. -- In 2020, it was a year for women of color: $275 (in 11 donations of $25) to Jennifer Carroll Foy in an unsuccessful run for governor of Virginia, $100 to MSNBC pundit Maya Wiley in an unsuccessful run for mayor of New York City, and $500 to the “Fair Fight PAC” of election-denying leftist Stacey Abrams, who still thinks she won the governor's race in Georgia in 2018. That's back when election denial was cool in Democrat media circles. Mullin's story ended with Maher at a "town hall-style meeting" with NPR employees, and naturally, she was asked about NBC's ill-fated decision to give a contributor slot to former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who was too close to election deniers. Maher proclaimed “I think that the most effective way that I have seen this play out is, if you’re bringing somebody into a story that is pushing a deliberate distortion, be extraordinarily well-prepared to push back and very prepared with the information necessary, the irreducible facts.” Take that, Stacey Abrams? PS: Christopher Rufo appeared on Fox News to underline Maher's wokeness:  Fox's Jesse Watters brings on Chris Rufo to describe NPR CEO Katherine Maher's old tweets: "It is the most vapid left-wing propaganda imaginable....It's like Mad Libs for Left-Wing women." I hope @davidfolkenflik can realize if this sounds one-sided....what is NPR? pic.twitter.com/d9NntyCTR5 — Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) April 17, 2024

Column: NPR Morning Star Steve Inskeep Lamely Swats at Their Suspended Dissident

National Public Radio senior editor Uri Berliner has been suspended for his unauthorized critique of the insular liberal bias of his network. NPR star and Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep took to his Substack blog to slam Berliner’s article as “filled with errors and omissions.” “His colleagues have had a rich dialogue about his mistakes,” Inskeep crowed, and dropped the bomb that it was “an article that discredited itself.” For example, Inskeep declared an error in that Berliner found in D.C. voter records that NPR had 87 registered Democrats and no registered Republicans. When he was asked about Berliner at the San Antonio Book Festival, he says he told them “I am a prominent member of the newsroom in Washington. If Uri told the truth, then I could only be a registered Democrat. I held up my voter registration showing I am registered with ‘no party’. Some in the crowd gasped. Uri had misled them.” Berliner didn't address if anyone was registered as “no party.” He did write there were zero Republicans. Did Inskeep refute that? No. Several NPR veterans harrumphed they registered as “no party,” just as left-wing journalists will tell pollsters they are “independents.” Inskeep wrote, “While it’s widely believed that most mainstream journalists are Democrats, I’ve had colleagues that I was pretty sure are conservative (I don’t ask).” That rebuts Berliner how? When Inskeep challenged Berliner personally on his claim that the editing process was “frictionless,” he said Berliner acknowledged they have newsroom debates, but “the real test is what we broadcast or publish.” Inskeep leaves out what Berliner wrote about – that they put out a lot of stories on “supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad, and the dire threat of Republican policies.” Anyone who listens to NPR programs gets an earful of those. You have to laugh when Inskeep’s best defense is “everybody else did it, too.” He admits NPR did not report on the Hunter Biden laptop, but Berliner “leaves out the context: Other organizations also held off on the story because of doubts about the laptop’s authenticity. It wasn’t confirmed until much later.”   Now who’s engaged in “omissions”? NPR not only refused to report on the laptop, their top news executive Terence Samuel openly boasted “we don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don't want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.” That implies they weren’t going to touch this story, like it was a decaying rat corpse in the gutter. Samuel signaled the same contempt on the horribly named evening newscast All Things Considered in June of 2021, suggesting to anchor Mary Louise Kelly they should seek the "whole truth," but exclude the liars: “It's not a matter of representing just opposite voices, but more voices and excluding the voices that are just pure disinformation.” After those “other organizations” confirmed the laptop contents were real, nothing changed. Kelly brought on Samuel in 2023 to proclaim Trump would not be allowed to speak on NPR live as he was indicted because he was such a liar, but Kelly (as in 2021) didn’t bring up Hunter’s laptop. But the most ridiculous line in Inskeep’s critique is claiming Berliner advocates “viewpoint diversity,” but he didn’t embrace it in his article, which spurred all his “errors and omissions.” If NPR is so committed to viewpoint diversity, would Inskeep agree to debate Berliner on air at NPR for an hour or two? Probably not. NPR hasn’t said one word on air about Berliner’s complaint.

ABC Has Time for ABBA, Caitlin Clark, NONE for Mayorkas Senate Trial

It is interesting which historical things networks choose to cover and which they do not. The New York City trial of former President Donald Trump, for example, draws top billing across the dial. A no-brainer, really. But for ABC World News Tonight, the also-historic impeachment and potential Senate trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is simply a bridge too far. Perhaps ABBA and entering into the Library of Congress and the drafting of Caitlin Clark were more newsworthy items for ABC. The likelier story is that, once again and as in the case of the (related) border overrun at El Paso, ABC did not want to cover something that would cast the Biden administration in an unfavorable light. On immigration. At least the other networks pretended to try to cover the story, packaged as tiny briefs within their Congressional roundups which today centered on a potential Motion to Vacate against Speaker Mike Johnson over his scheduling of votes on assistance to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Of these, CBS’s tiny brief was the most comprehensive. Here it is, in its entirety as aired on CBS Evening News on Tuesday, April 16th, 2024: SCOTT MacFARLANE: Meanwhile, Johnson's House Republicans are trying to remove a different official. Delivering impeachment articles to the Senate today against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. MARK GREEN: …is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors.  MacFARLANE: Arguing he’s willfully and systematically refused to enforce immigration laws, an allegation Mayorkas denied again today.  ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS: I have abided by the law each and every step of the way.  MacFARLANE: Setting up a formal proceeding tomorrow in the U.S. Senate destined for a dead end.  What are the prospects there’s actually going to be an impeachment trial tomorrow?  THOM TILLIS: Um -- I’d say virtually none.  MacFARLANE: Democrats control the Senate and senators expect the debt matter will be quickly shut down without a trial.  PETER WELCH: It’s a bogus action by the House. That's the problem.  MacFARLANE: The impeachment proceedings are scheduled to begin here tomorrow afternoon, but the Biden administration says the entire endeavor is baseless and a waste of time.  MacFarlane’s idea of “balance” when covering the Senate trial of Mayorkas was to feature bipartisan pooh-poohing of the whole endeavor before running White House quotes dismissing the whole thing as a “waste of time”. Over at NBC Nightly News, a tinier brief, but Congressional Correspondent Ryan Nobles found the time to squeeze in a pro-impeachment voice. RYAN NOBLES: Tonight, a trial in the Senate set to begin with House Republicans formally sending over articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.  TED CRUZ: The Senate has a clear obligation under the Constitution and 200 years of precedent. We need to hold a trial.  NOBLES: Republicans accusing him of willfully refusing to comply with immigration laws, with a record 9.3 million migrant border crossings since President Biden took office. Mayorkas and Democrats call the charges baseless. Senate Democrats poised to quickly dismiss them.  What about taxpayer-funded PBS, you might ask? Surely there was time within its hourlong PBS NewsHour for Mayorkas, right? Wrong. But they did find time for this: GEOFF BENNETT: A Renaissance era landmark in Denmark's capital went up in flames today. The blaze broke out on the copper roof of Copenhagen's Old Stock Exchange as it was undergoing renovations ahead of its 400th anniversary. The spire of the structure, which is a twisted sphere of four dragon's tails, collapsed in the fire. And the city's mayor called the building an iconic piece of Danish heritage. As you can see, the media were all over the place on Mayorkas- from barely covering, to covering but carrying Dem water to not covering at all. It’s no wonder we rightly and deservedly call them “regime media”.

Networks OMIT Latest Overrun of the Southern Border At El Paso

It’s like the “floor is lava challenge”, but with covering the southern border instead of touching the floor. Once again, the corporate evening newscasts have refused to cover a group of migrants as they overwhelm the Border Patrol and illegally enter into the country. Per Univision’s report on the latest run for the border at El Paso, as aired on Monday, April 15th, 2024: PEDRO ULTRERAS: The migrants used long fences that the authorities use as an enclosure along the Rio Grande, and used them as a ladder with which to climb. They then jumped inside (the United States). This encounter wasn’t as violent as the last one that went uncovered by all except CBS. But there was a significant breach, nonetheless, wherein illegal migrants found a way to defeat the enhanced border fencing. Per KFOX: EL PASO, Texas (KFOX) — A portion of wire barrier along the southern border in Texas was breached again by migrants who crossed the country illegally. More than 100 migrants are accused of being involved in the cutting of cortina wire and a chain-link fence that was placed along the border in El Paso by Texas National Guard soldiers. The area where the border was breached was near a high school and highway along the U.S.-Mexico border. Border Patrol officials told KFOX that on Friday agents were alerted of a group, more than 100 people, climbing a chain-link fence near Riverside High School. That group allegedly cut cortina wire along the Rio Grande, which caused a chain-link fence to collapse, according to the statement provided by Border Patrol to KFOX. An official with the Border Patrol El Paso Sector stated that the cutting of the chain-link fence and concertina wire constitutes an illegal entry into the U.S. Last time, CBS distinguished themselves as the best of a bad lot by devoting a whopping 37 seconds to the prior run at the border, with ABC and NBC offering respective goose eggs. This time around, each of the networks blanked. Once again, the corporate media earned the title of “Regime Media” by blacking out a story that reflects unfavorably upon the current Democrat administration. Once again, they choose to protect the Precious over reporting facts on the ground concerning an issue that is at the top of voters’ concerns this election. Once again, the media have chosen dishonor.  

Netflix to Air Documentary on 'Extraordinary' Dan Rather, the 'True American Hero'

Dan Rather tweeted "I am humbled and honored to share some exciting news.  A lot of very talented people have produced a documentary about this reporter’s life." A puff piece movie honoring Rather with actors wasn't enough. Now there's a gushy Rather "nonfiction" film. Variety's Michael Schneider set the stage:  Netflix has set Rather, the documentary about veteran journalist Dan Rather‘s landmark career in news for an April 24 premiere on the streamer. The feature utilizes the story of Rather’s life on television to also explore the evolution of broadcast journalism, the troubles a free press now faces, along with the slide of American society from hard-fought advances in social justice and democratic freedoms. The doc first premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last June. Film producer and director Frank Marshall, who founded Amblin Entertainment with his wife Kathleen Kennedy and with Steven Spielberg, is at the helm: “This is a very personal project for me,” Marshall said in a statement. “When you look at Dan’s body of work, it’s remarkable. The collection of stories he has covered, it’s my history too, and the history of our country over the past 60 years. I’ve always admired his passion, his intelligence, his humor and his commitment to the truth and it’s been an honor to get to know Dan and tell his extraordinary story.” Rather is set to appear at a screening in Austin at an Alamo Drafthouse there, and Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League is also a huge Rather fan:  “Watching Rather, I saw a North Star of what American journalism is meant to be, driven by a thirst for the truth and the desire to share that truth with the people,” League said. “We are honored to have the opportunity to screen this wonderful film and honor a true American hero.” This is the closest Variety came to Rather's fake-National-Guard-documents scandal, and it's not close: "With unrestricted access to Rather, the film takes on the highs and lows of his time at CBS News, including his controversial exit as CBS Evening News anchor." There was no mention of George W. Bush or the National Guard. The IMDb page lists who will appear in the film, in addition to fiercely protective daughter Robin Rather: it's Samantha Bee, Douglas Brinkley, Andy Cohen, Mark Cuban, Soledad O'Brien, Shepard Smith, and Margaret Sullivan. Former CBS News colleagues Tom Bettag and Howard Stringer are also on the list.  A Michael Schneider story from last year suggested in its headline that the film "Restores Some Justice to His Lengthy Career." A "brilliant career," oozed the subhead. It had more gush from Marshall about his "truth" telling.

Split: CBS’s Patta Fears World Has Ditched Gazans, Dokoupil Blasts Pro-Hamas Protests

Tuesday’s CBS Mornings presented something for everyone on Israel vs. Hamas as, along with another anti-Israel, pro-Hamas report from CBS foreign correspondent Debora Patta griping about global concern for Israel over Iran’s missile and drone attacks “distracted...from the misery of Gaza”, co-host Tony Dokoupil stated the obvious (but isn’t on the left) that pro-Hamas protesters blocking roads in the U.S. are not protected by the First Amendment. Patta was cued up by co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King, who claimed there’s “disagreement among Israelis over what should happen next” in response “to Iran’s massive missile and drone attack on Israel.”     Instead of criticizing Iran, Patta blamed Israel by downplaying Iran’s attempted show of force: “Engineered for maximum effect but resulting in minimal damage, the Iranian assault has triggered global calls for restraint.” The South African reporter went to a former Israeli general to claim Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — as opposed to Hamas or Iran — is a threat to Israel’s existence. In other words, someone with Netanyahu Derangement Syndrome (click “expand”): PATTA: Retired two-star Israeli Nimrod Sheffer does not believe Prime Minister Netanyahu is the right person to make such a critical decision. NIMROD SHEFFER: So, if you ask me if Netanyahu is a risk to the state of Israel, my opinion is yes. PATTA: He believes Netanyahu has a vested interest in prolonging the war in Gaza and escalating the conflict in Iran in order to stay in power. HEFFER: If you’re retaliating just to show that you’re strong enough, it’s the wrong idea. It’s the wrong strategy. Patta then performed a sob story about Hamas-controlled (and supporting) Gaza, whining “[t]he fear of an all-out regional war has distracted the attention away from the misery of Gaza” and “extreme hunger stalk[ing]” Palestinians, adding (click “expand”): There are still regular air strikes, each day bringing new grief and fresh drama....More aid is arriving, but it is not enough. They are desperate cues. This bakery in the north reopened for the first time in more than six months of war after the World Food Program brought in fuel and flour. Food prices have soared, and those who can’t afford the rising costs are frantically trying to access their money. Banks are running out of cash. With both an unfinished war in Gaza and escalating tensions with Iran, Israel is weighing how to respond to the assault. Senior experts have told us the war cabinet must balance retaliation with ensuring it does not fracture the international alliance it has built up against Tehran.  Prior to this, featured co-host Vladimir Duthiers had a news brief on what he described as “pro-Palestinian protests that disrupted traffic in major U.S. cities yesterday” such as on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge, and roads leading into Chicago’s O’Hare airport. In other words, terrorist sympathizers painted as totally harmless.  Dokoupil interjected with a two-sentence reality check: “Stopping traffic is not a protected First Amendment right. This is something different.” Duthiers and King were both awkwardly left to interject with the former giving an “indeed” and the latter saying, “mmhmm.” Aside from Dokoupil, the liberal journalists on NBC’s Today were much more in line with Duthiers in giving almost dry descriptions of the terrorist supporters. In opening teases, co-host Hoda Kotb merely said the Middle East tensions “spill[ed] over into the streets here at home” with “protesters demanding a ceasefire in Gaza blocking traffic on roads, bridges and airports” to the point that “[s]ome” would-be airport passengers” were “forced to abandon their cars and walk”. Kotb also had an opening tease in the second hour that described these thugs as “protests calling for a ceasefire ramp[ing] up” their hooliganism “in cities across the U.S.” Co-host Savannah Guthrie struck the same note: “Here at home, protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, disrupted cities nationwide yesterday, shutting down major roads, snarling traffic.” In the first hour, chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel reported in a voice-over from Israel that, over in the U.S., “pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets, blocking traffic from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco to Seattle, Chicago's O’Hare airport, and New York to demand a ceasefire.” Engel had a liveshot in the second hour with similar verbiage: “And all of this is playing out domestically in the United States with those protests, as you mentioned, pro-Palestinian demonstrators shutting down roads, coast to coast, yesterday[.]” To see the relevant transcripts from April 16, click here (for CBS) and here (for NBC).

CBS Admits Legalizing Weed Doesn’t Stop Black Market Sales, Boosts Them

One of the major talking points the left and the liberal media used to sell Americans on legalizing marijuana was that it would eliminate black market operations. But in a Tuesday report, CBS Mornings admitted that Maine’s weed legalization had not stopped possibly hundreds of illegal grow houses from sprouting up all across rural parts of the state. They also reported that China was behind most of them. Co-anchor Tony Dokoupil opened the segment by boasting that weed was “legal for recreational use in 24 states plus Washington, D.C.” But he admitted that “that does not mean illegal growing operations have gone away. In fact, they're still booming.” Teeing up the investigative report by correspondent Nicole Sganga, Dokoupil noted that illegal “operations are expanding, particularly in rural parts of the U.S., and they're surprising backers overseas who are tied to other deadlier drugs including fentanyl.” Sganga’s report focused on the liberal state of Maine, which legalized weed but was seeing a disturbing surge in the number of illegal growing operations being funded by China. She spoke with Ray Donovan, a former chief of operations for the Drug Enforcement Agency, who explained the situation with Chinese organized crime: SGANGA: Just one flashpoint in a billion-dollar black market marijuana boom now sinking its teeth into less populated states like Oklahoma, Colorado, and Maine. DONOVAN: If I can go into Maine and buy a house for cheap that's rural, is very isolated. (…) SGANGA: But perhaps more shocking than the budding number of illegal grows: who is behind them. DONOVAN: By and large, we see Chinese organized crime behind black-market marijuana.     There was apparently one grow house that was staffed with men who were human trafficked from China to tend to the plants while being trapped in the house. One of the apparent takeaways CBS wanted viewers to have was that legal marijuana was still viable, there just needed to be an investment in enough law enforcement to crack down on the black market: SGANGA: Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, but a majority of Americans now live in a state that has legalized weed. With some states still limiting cultivation and others imposing steep taxes, the marijuana underworld thrives. DONOVAN: It is not something that's going to go away, especially if you are investing in legal marijuana statewide, then we're going to have to pursue the black market marijuana organizations. While arguing that “people were tired of the war on drugs,” he admitted that “counterintuitively, when you legalize you actually need a big, strong law enforcement push in order to push the black market into the legal market, because people don't naturally want to volunteer to pay taxes, get regulated, fill out paperwork and forms.” Cracking down on crime? What a novel idea! Destroying the serious nature of the problem, they ended the segment with co-host Gayle King proclaiming, “I just want to try it one time before I die. Co-hosts Dokoupil and Vladimir Duthiers seemed more than happy to oblige: DUTHIERS: We can make that happen, Gayle! Somebody around here can make that happen! KING: I’ve never tried – I just want to try it one time. DOKOUPIL: I don't want to fund the black market, but there are a lot of trucks just sitting around here in Times Square. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CBS Mornings April 16, 2024 7:30:06 a.m. Eastern TONY DOKOUPIL: There’s a growing acceptance, of course, of marijuana use across the country. It’s legal for recreational use in 24 states plus Washington, D.C. But, that does not mean illegal growing operations have gone away. In fact, they're still booming. A CBS investigation finds those operations are expanding, particularly in rural parts of the U.S., and they're surprising backers overseas who are tied to other deadlier drugs including fentanyl. Nicole Sganga takes us now to an illicit marijuana farm in the beautiful state of Maine, which is one of the states where the drug is actually legal. [Cuts to video] NICOLE SGANGA: Nestled along Maine’s rocky shoreline, the sleepy town of Machias. CHIEF KEITH MERCIER (Machias Police Department): People lobster fish, they clam, and they log. SGANGA: Population, about 2,000, It’s sleepy. MERCIER: Sleepy, very quiet. SGANGA: But last fall, a pungent smell and a stream of vans darting to and from this barn woke up neighbors triggering a six-week investigation by local police and chief Keith Mercier, and unearthing more than $1 million in black market marijuana. MERCIER: They had irrigation systems setup, they had heating systems, humidifying system. It was quite an impressive operation. SGANGA: Hanging from the rafters, flowering under a sea of grow lights. A maze of more than 2,600 plants seized by police. How in the world did black market marijuana set up shop here? MERCIER: Well, I think that was one of the draws was being rural community, it could go undetected. SGANGA: Just one flashpoint in a billion-dollar black market marijuana boom now sinking its teeth into less populated states like Oklahoma, Colorado, and Maine. RAY DONOVAN (former DEA chief of operations): If I can go into Maine and buy a house for cheap that's rural, is very isolated. SGANGA: Ray Donovan is the former chief of operations for the DEA. DONOVAN: That would allow them to continue to grow the marijuana crops uninhibited. SGANGA: Law enforcement now cracking down, with at least 34 busts statewide. Since last June, more sites dotting the I-95 corridor now undergoing investigation. This is not just a Machias problem. MERCIER: No, this is a statewide problem. The information we have says that there is over 200 that are actively working right now. SGANGA: But perhaps more shocking than the budding number of illegal grows: who is behind them. DONOVAN: By and large, we see Chinese organized crime behind black market marijuana. SGANGA: In February, 50 lawmakers penned a bipartisan letter to Attorney General Garland demanding answers about China's role in thousands of illicit marijuana grows nationwide. SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): They're unregulated. They’re illicit. They're destroying homes. MERCIER: Marijuana all over the place lying around. SGANGA: Operators allegedly stealing more than $10,000 in power. Just how much power was running through? MERCIER: Substantial amount. Probably four or five times what a normal house would run. STEVE ROBINSON: These locations consume huge amounts of electricity. SGANGAL So, this is the spread sheet. ROBINSON: Yes. SGANGA: Native Mainer Steve Robinson meticulously tracks suspected illegal marijuana grows statewide and took us to one identified in court records. This looks like a suburban dream home. ROBINSON: If you look on this garage right here, there's a newly installed 400-amp service. SGANGA: Purring over power records, findings published on his website, attracting the attention of lawmakers and law enforcement. Why would anyone need that much power? ROBINSON: If you’re running say, a car wash, a grocery store. SGANGA: Or? ROBINSON: Or if you're growing a lot of marijuana. SGANGA: In some cases, the suspects arrested may have been victims. MERCIER: We encountered three Asian males. They were being paid $1,000 a month to work 24-7. SGANGA: Trapped inside sparse living quarters with blacked out windows. DONOVAN: Some of the people have been brought here from China under the auspices that they’re working under a legit business. SGANGA: It sounds like you're talking about victims of human trafficking. DONOVAN: Yes. SGANGA: Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, but a majority of Americans now live in a state that has legalized weed. With some states still limiting cultivation and others imposing steep taxes, the marijuana underworld thrives. DONOVAN: It is not something that's going to go away, especially if you are investing in legal marijuana statewide, then we're going to have to pursue the black market marijuana organizations. SGANGA: You think it’s time to sound the alarm? DONOVAN: I do. [Cuts back to live] SGANGA: Donovan and other law enforcement sources told us some of the same criminal groups behind illicit weed are part of a larger criminal network tied to a deadlier drug trade: fentanyl. In fact, Donovan said the DEA first connected Chinese organized crime to these illegal weed grows by following some of the same criminals profiting off the fentanyl supply chain. Tony. DOKOUPIL: What ever to make money. Nicole, thank you very much. So, of course, one of the reasons why weed is legal in 24 states is because people were tired of the war on drugs. But, counterintuitively, when you legalize you actually need a big, strong law enforcement push in order to push the black market into the legal market, because people don't naturally want to volunteer to pay taxes, get regulated, fill out paperwork and forms. We're seeing that process play out in places like Maine. GAYLE KING: I just want to try it one time before I die. [Laughter] DOKOUPI: Well, Gayle— VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: We can make that happen, Gayle! Somebody around here can make that happen! KING: I’ve never tried – I just want to try it one time. DOKOUPIL: I don't want to fund the black market, but there are a lot of trucks just sitting around here in Times Square. KING: Okay. DUTHIERS: We're going to make that happen, Gayle. KING: It’s bucket list. Bucket list.

Color Me Shocked? Ex-TikTok Employees Blow Whistle on Chinese Access to App

A group of former TikTok employees is sounding the alarm on the company’s disturbing ties to the communist Chinese government. Fortune interviewed 11 former employees, some of whom stated that TikTok does have close operational ties with its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. Furthermore, the employees admitted that ByteDance’s “independence from China was largely cosmetic” and the China-based company received vast amounts of data. These revelations highlight the national security risks creating a firestorm of controversy around the popular TikTok app. “The allegations … create more fodder for critics who fear the Chinese government could use TikTok as a sort of Trojan Horse to spy on Americans by sifting through the huge amounts of digital data that it collects,” Fortune explained. The House of Representatives recently voted to advance legislation that would force ByteDance to sell TikTok if the latter is to operate in the United States. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) owns a board seat and maintains a financial stake in TikTok’s parent ByteDance. Former TikTok senior data scientist Evan Turner told Fortune that he always answered to a Chinese ByteDance executive despite an alleged alteration in his chain of command. Turner was also required to email detailed data about twice a month on “hundreds of thousands of U.S. users to ByteDance workers in Beijing.” As he told Fortune, “I literally worked on a project that gave U.S. data to China.” Anton Dahbura, executive director of Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute, told Fortune the data — including IP addresses, names and geographic location — could be “very damaging” in the wrong hands.  Patrick Spaulding Ryan, TikTok’s lead technical program manager for security engineering until 2022, added another piece of concerning information. Ryan said that some of TikTok’s internal software was monitored and maintained by China-based ByteDance teams. Fortune added that it was impossible to assure prospective customers that U.S. data for the shared internal messaging system Lark was safe and secure. While TikTok executives are attempting to convince American users and politicians that the app is independent of China and not subject to CCP spying and data mining, the new information raises questions. Multiple former employees even admitted to being pressured by the company to downplay TikTok-ByteDance ties, either to the public or to fellow employees. But if what these employees say is true, TikTok truly is a national security risk. Conservatives are under attack. Contact TikTok via email at communitymanager@tiktok.com and demand Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment and provide transparency. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

Networks Ignore Anti-Energy President, Blame Middle East for High Gas Prices, Inflation

ABC News Live and CBS Mornings absurdly ignored the impact of President Joe Biden’s anti-energy policies. At the same time, they blamed turmoil in the Middle East for present and even future energy prices. The hosts of the April 15 editions of ABC News Live and CBS Mornings tiptoed around the elephant in the room, pointing to the fallout of the Israel-Hamas war and the recent Iranian attack on Israel as the alleged culprit for current and future gas prices. Yet, these shows entirely failed to mention Biden’s major role in the fueling of such a major increase. ABC News Correspondent Alexis Christoforous cited a source claiming that gas prices have been rising just at the chance of turmoil in the Middle East. “Analysts say the risk of escalating warfare in the Middle East has already been factored into this year's roughly 20% rise in crude oil prices,” she claimed. ABC News went on to tie future gas prices to a potential Israeli response to Iran’s recent attack. Christoforous said, “Now, what happens next with oil and the stock market largely on Israel's response to the attack.” On CBS Mornings, CBS News Business Analyst Jill Schlesinger blamed not only high gas prices but also inflation generally on conflicts in the Middle East. “That is a lot to do with what has been going on in the Middle East since October 7th,” Schlesinger said of high oil prices. She went on to make the same argument as Christoforous that an Israeli response to Iran’s attack could make things worse for the American consumer.  Neither ABC nor CBS explored any other reasons why the gas price has skyrocketed from $2.42 a gallon in Jan. 2021 (when Biden took office) to $3.54 in March (before Iran’s recent attack).  If ABC and Christoforous want to consider things that have been “factored into” this year’s high gas prices, they might consider Biden’s Jan. 26 “pause” on liquified natural gas projects. During a CNBC interview following this decision, American Petroleum Institute CEO Mike Sommers pointed out that Biden had consistently reduced drilling on public lands even before this decision. Sommers said the Biden administration was “sowing the seeds for an energy crisis in the future because we're not making those investments here in the United States.” Biden infamously revealed the limitations of his energy agenda during the 2023 agenda. Despite hampering new drilling at every step, the president had the chutzpah to criticize the oil industry for insufficient investment in future production. Biden mentioned industry fears that the left would ultimately shut down any production they invested in, before uttered a statement that did nothing to assuage such fears. “We’re going to need oil for at least another decade,” Biden said, before looking about in apparent confusion, as Congress laughed at him.  This president looks squarely at the problem before persisting with his destructive policies that discourage investment and harm American energy production. Viewers won’t hear this on CBS or ABC.  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 hold Biden and his cronies accountable for attempting to restrict fossil fuel production and Americans’ choices.

CBS’s King Whines People Don’t Care Enough About Trump Trial (Unlike ABC)

Amid the voluminous coverage on the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC this week on the start of the hush money trial brought by far-left Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg against former President Trump, Tuesday’s CBS Mornings whined not enough Americans care about this trial....like ABC’s Good Morning America, who was tickled pink about Trump suffering. CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman had just finished explaining why this Trump trial is “significant because it’s first” and “is a solemn day in court when you put a former President...on trial” when co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King kvetched about the American public not being consumed by this.     “We should point out this is not normal. You know, Donald Trump always says he’s a — it’s a witch hunt, everyone’s against him, that it’s unprecedented, but also his behavior, for a lot of people, is unprecedented,” King huffed. She then added the times we’re living in are “just not normal” and, despite all these histrionics, she’s “worr[ied] that the audience just hears white noise when they hear all of these cases running together.” Klieman gave King much of what she probably wanted to hear: They may, but this is the first one that actually is going forward, so the attention will be on this one. But, no, it is not normal. Nothing about this follows legal norms in a courtroom. It may happen this time because Judge Merchan is strict and he’s going to run a courtroom the way it should be run, but 34 felonies for business records? Not normal. Over on ABC, co-host and former Clinton flack Stephanopoulos giddily told chief Washington correspondent and three-time bestselling anti-Trump author Jonathan Karl that after having spent a year “talking about the political and legal calendars clashing”, Monday finally arrived. Stephanopoulos added Monday “felt” like a change in “the dynamic...from” the past “when Donald Trump was so convinced” the charges would be boon for his campaign. Karl beamed in announcing he saw “it in his behavior, in his demeanor” with Monday having been “a wake-up call for Donald Trump” in the form of “his new reality” as “now criminal defendant Trump”. Clearly excited (and perhaps about the idea of a fourth book to hawk about Trump), Karl looked enthused at the idea of “see[ing] the bitterness, the anger” and “energy drained from” Trump: Sure, he’s been indicted four times, he’s had to go to his indict — go to his arraignments, but now, he has to be inside a non-descript courtroom in lower Manhattan day after day against his will. He must be there and he is in a courtroom where he has no control. The judge is the boss and, for the most part, he has to be silent. You could see the bitterness, the anger, I think, the — the energy drained from him when he walked out of that courtroom at the end of the day. That was a different Donald Trump. And, look, he was restrained yesterday. He didn’t violate the gag order. He didn’t lash out at anybody. But how is this going to affect his psyche and his behavior as he does this for the next roughly two months? To see the relevant transcripts from April 16, click here (for ABC) and here (for CBS).

MRCTV's Tierin-Rose Mandelburg on OAN: Dancing in the White House, Woke NPR & Travis Kelce

On Monday, MRCTV’s Tierin-Rose Mandelburg appeared on One America News Network’s "In Focus" with Alison Steinberg.  The two talked about former TV anchor Katie Couric, who argued that former President Donald Trump’s MAGA fan base is full of “anti-intellectualism.” Mandelburg summarized that the left is great about generalizations and will say and do whatever is necessary to remain relavent. Couric’s take, in and of itself was “anti-intellectual,” but it did get her to go viral. So for her, it’s not a total loss. Same goes for White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre who was video taped dancing around the briefing room. It was very clear how serious she is about getting down to business in the White House! NOT! Steinberg also brought up the fact that NPR just hired new CEO Katherine Maher, who has a long history of being super woke. Needless to say, it looks like NPR, the taxpayer-funded network, will continue straying away from actual news and journalism and lean into being an agenda pushing machine.  Towards the end of the segment the ladies chatted about a huge scandal! Kansas City Chiefs football player liked an Instagram post with Donald Trump in it. O M G! No seriously, who the heck cares? Also, who even has the time to go through social media pages to see who is liking what posts?! Seriously people, get a life! Check out the segment below!

Mitchell Goes To War With Math To Label Pro Basketball Sexist

MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell closed out her Tuesday show by deciding to pick a fight with math. Reacting to Monday’s WNBA draft, Mitchell called “sexism” on the fact that number one overall pick Caitlin Clark will have a roughly $76,000 rookie salary while her male counterpart makes slightly north of $12 million. Mitchell reported that “Caitlin Clark's record-breaking streak continues with what could be the most watched WNBA Draft ever. Clark was the number one pick, of course, last night, scoring her place with the Indiana Fever. Clark stands to make millions from endorsements, but fans are outraged over the massive gender pay gap in her salary. Clark will reportedly earn, get this, $76,000 for her rookie season. Compare that to the $12 million, million dollars, last year's number one NBA draft pick made in his rookie year.”     Missing from this monologue was any discussion of revenue. The NBA projected that during its 2021–22 season it would bring in over $10 billion in revenue. Meanwhile, last season, the WNBA’s projected revenue was around $200 million. As of 2018, the league was losing around $10 million a season. Still, Mitchell smeared Americans as sexist for not eliminating the gap overnight, “That gender inequality and the sexism facing women's sports is a big focus on Saturday Night Live.” That SNL skit featured Clark appearing as a guest with anchor Michael Che: MICHAEL CHE: The University of Iowa announced that basketball star Caitlin Clark will have her jersey retired and replaced with an apron. Oh… Here to comment is Caitlin Clark…I am a fan, Caitlin, by the way.  CAITLIN CLARK: Really, Michael? Because I heard that little apron joke you did… Thanks to all the great players like Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie, Cynthia Cooper, the great Dawn Staley, and my basketball hero: Maya Moore, these are the women that kicked in the door so I could walk inside. So, I want to thank them tonight for laying the foundation, and Michael, since you're such a big fan, I brought you a souvenir, it’s an apron signed by me.  For years, critics of the pay gap theory Mitchell cites have said that sports is entertainment, so if you want to see the discrepancy between male and female sports diminish, then you need a more entertaining product. They were smeared as sexists by people like Mitchell, but Clark proved them correct as this year saw the NCAA women’s championship game get higher viewership than the men’s for the first time. Here is a transcript for the April 16 show: MSNBC Andrea Mitchell Reports 4/16/2024 12:54 PM ET ANDREA MITCHELL: Caitlin Clark's record-breaking streak continues with what could be the most watched WNBA Draft ever. Clark was the number one pick, of course, last night, scoring her place with the Indiana Fever. Clark stands to make millions from endorsements, but fans are outraged over the massive gender pay gap in her salary. Clark will reportedly earn, get this, $76,000 for her rookie season. Compare that to the $12 million, million dollars, last year's number one NBA draft pick made in his rookie year. That gender inequality and the sexism facing women's sports is a big focus on Saturday Night Live. MICHAEL CHE: The University of Iowa announced that basketball star Caitlin Clark will have her jersey retired and replaced with an apron. Oh… Here to comment is Caitlin Clark…I am a fan, Caitlin, by the way.  CAITLIN CLARK: Really, Michael? Because I heard that little apron joke you did… Thanks to all the great players like Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie, Cynthia Cooper, the great Dawn Staley, and my basketball hero: Maya Moore, these are the women that kicked in the door so I could walk inside. So, I want to thank them tonight for laying the foundation, and Michael, since you're such a big fan, I brought you a souvenir, it’s an apron signed by me.  MITCHELL: Caitlin Clark making her Indiana Fever debut in just a few weeks when the WNBA season tips off. That was one of the great SNLs ever, the whole show. 

Delusions of the Woke: Flower Genitalia, Dancing White House & Furries

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 point out why they’re nuts. This week we took a look at what the left considers a great representation of our nation. We started out by seeing our very own White House Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre dance around the briefing room. It really screamed "professionalism." We heard from a transgender individual (we think male to female) talk about how he liked getting complimented on his posture but in the same breath decided he didn’t like being complimented on his posture.  A different trans individual complained that penises and vaginas look like penises and vaginas, even after genital mutilation surgeries. He advocated that we design trans genitalia to look like flowers or an “abstract sculpture.” The next queer, who is apparently a teacher for toddlers, insisted that she wanted to “punch that b**ch” when talking about her co-worker that kept “misgendering” her. The tolerant left ladies and gents. The next freak talked about how her womb was like the deep end of a pool: “no children allowed, but if they end up there, they die,” she said confidently. It really seems like she loves kids … NOT! Similarly, the next person claimed that puberty blockers aren’t harmful and they should be highly encouraged for six-year-olds. Surely if a six-year-old is convinced that he’s a she, the child is bound to grow up confused … confused like the user who wanted to join the military and be a cat, like the man who screamed at the camera with bright orange eyeshadow and blue nail polish and like the furry who insisted his dragon persona made him feel “euphoric.” While the left wants you to believe that those clips are what represents America, we need to stand firm in normalcy and fight back against this madness.

Hostin Fears Trump Voter Will ‘Sneak’ onto Jury By Saying ‘I Hate Trump’

On Tuesday’s edition of The View, ABC’s staunchly racist and anti-Semitic co-host, Sunny Hostin (the descendant of slave owners) proved once again why she’s a former federal prosecutor. Speaking about the upcoming hush-money trial against former President Trump, Hostin proclaimed that she feared the impartial jury would be infiltrated by a Trump supporter who would “lie” by telling the court the contradictory statement: “I hate Trump. But I can be impartial.” Hostin admitted she was “excited” for the trial, calling it “a legal nerd's Super Bowl.” When faux conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin noted “They haven’t even picked a juror,” Hostin boasted about the jurors who said they couldn’t be impartial: “But that's exciting to someone like me because 50 people said ‘I can't even be impartial,’ which I admire them for their forthrightness and their honesty because you have to be honest when you're a juror.” But while claiming she “still believe[d] they will be able to find an impartial jury,” Hostin contradicted herself by adding: “They’re never going to find that.” She then went on to hype how the legal teams were going to comb through the social media accounts of prospective jurors for signs they support Trump: They are never going to find someone that doesn't know about the former twice-impeached loser president. Right? They're never going to find that. But what I did find also interesting about my Super Bowl that the legal teams will be checking the jurors’ social media profiles to see if they can access the truthfulness and intention of what they said during voir dire, which is their questioning.     “And I think that’s really, really important because, if you start liking Trump, you follow Trump stuff on social media, are you going to -- can you be impartial? I don't think so,” she declared without a consideration to keeping Trump haters off of the jury. In fact, her fear was that a Trump supporter would “sneak onto that jury” by lying about hating Trump: HOSTIN: You get one person that sneaks onto that jury with untoward feelings, that person can hang that jury. BEHAR: How do you sneak onto a jury? You have to be called to a jury. HOSTIN: Well, you lie. You lie. You say, “I hate Trump. But I can be impartial. And I this and that.” BEHAR: I see. HOSTIN: And then, all of a sudden, that’s the person who won’t vote to convict. While she’s worried someone biased in Trump’s favor would be allowed on the jury, she was blinded by her unhinged hatred for him to think a prospective juror announcing “I hate Trump” was the impartial position. “Where are they going to find a jury of his peers, how many bloated orange psychos are out there?” so-called comedian Joy Behar quipped. “Yeah. It’s going to be tough,” Hostin agreed. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View April 16, 2024 11:04:40 a.m. Eastern (…) JOY BEHAR: Oh, it’s just beginning. SUNNY HOSTIN: I'm not trumped out at all. SARA HAINES: I’m so Trumped out. HOSTIN: This is a legal nerd's Super Bowl. Right? Like, I'm kind of excited about this. ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: They haven’t even picked a juror. HOSTIN: But that's exciting to someone like me because 50 people said “I can't even be impartial,” which I admire them for their forthrightness and their honesty because you have to be honest when you're a juror. But I still believe they will be able to find an impartial jury. They are never going to find someone that doesn't know about the former twice impeached loser president. Right? BEHAR: Yeah. HOSTIN: They're never going to find that. But what I did find also interesting about my Super Bowl that the legal teams will be checking the jurors’ social media profiles to see if they can access the truthfulness and intention of what they said during voir dire, which is their questioning. And I think that’s really, really important because, if you start liking Trump, you follow Trump stuff on social media, are you going to -- can you be impartial? I don't think so. And I think what could happen in a case like this, if you have someone – and we were talking about it this morning, someone named Clay Travis sort of telling people to get onto that jury. You get one person that sneaks onto that jury with untoward feelings, that person can hang that jury. BEHAR: How do you sneak onto a jury? You have to be called to a jury. HOSTIN: Well, you lie. You lie. You say, “I hate Trump. But I can be impartial. And I this and that” BEHAR: I see. HOSTIN: And then, all of a sudden, that’s the person who won’t vote to convict. BEHAR: Where are they going to find a jury of his peers, how many bloated orange psychos are out there? HOSTIN: Yeah. It’s going to be tough. (…)

Couric Smears Trump Voters As Jealous Anti-Intellectuals

Former 60 Minutes anchor Katie Couric recently joined Bill Maher on his podcast Club Random. During a discussion on income inequality, Couric mused that those who support Donald Trump are motivated by anti-intellectualism and jealousy. Couric, who has declared herself “liberated” from the necessity of being a straight newswoman, told Maher that “The socio-economic disparities are a lot and class resentment is a lot and anti-intellectualism and elitism is what is driving many of these anti-establishment  — which are Trump voters — so, I think that is a huge problem that we have to address.”     She would also add “I mean globalization and, you know, the transition from an industrial to a technological society and I don’t know if you’ve ever been jealous of someone else or resentful — it is such a corroding and bitter, almost bile feeling.” Later, Couric would reply to Maher’s suggestion that current culture consists of poorer people aspiring to be like richer people by countering that some think “I’m angry about it, I’m angry about my lot in life and I’m going to take it out on, sort of, the coastal elites and the intelligentsia and that’s where I think a lot of this support is deriving from.” As for Maher, he believes that if you want to combat Trump, the way to do it is not by going after his fans, “Take something like the sanctuary cities hypocrisy, these elite cities said ‘we’re the good people, we’re always the good people--’” Couric acknowledged the point, by continuing the sentence, “until—” Maher continued, “until they send the immigrants, actually, to their city.” Couric claimed to understand, claiming she thought it would be advantageous for news organizations to head to the border to see how the surge was impacting border towns, but whether she really understood is not as clear because earlier in the episode, Maher explained Trump voters, “What they see on the other side, to them, is even more dangerous. Because it’s closer to home, ‘My kid is coming home from school and he thinks he’s a racist? He’s five, what have you been telling him? My son thinks maybe he’s not a boy.’ And maybe that’s true, that happens, but, you know, those kind of things are what they say. ‘That’s why I’m voting for Trump.'” Couric ignored that basic fact of contemporary political life when she went on her bender about Trump supporters being a bunch of jealous anti-intellectuals.

Fox’s Doocy Triggers WH’s Kirby After Pointing Out Biden’s ‘Don’t’ Plea to Iran FAILED

With President Biden on the road for the next few days, the White House press corps had to get their hardballs in while they could on Monday. Fox’s Peter Doocy, as always, had the adversarial questions the rest wouldn’t ask. This time, he went around and around with John Kirby over Iran predictably not being intimidated by President Biden’s simple demand to “don’t” fire missiles and drones at Israel. “John, has President Biden considered maybe beefing up the public Iran posture to be more than just one word,” Doocy began, to which Kirby said amid cross-talk they should “talk about what we did.”     “[H]e said ‘don’t’ and they did it anyway. So, now what,” he asked. Doocy largely let Kirby drone on for over a minute about how Biden’s “don’t” plea was actually a smashing success (click “expand”): KIRBY: Let’s talk about “don’t” and did. Let’s talk about Saturday night. He made it clear that he didn’t want to see escalation in the region. DOOCY: And yet, there was. KIRBY: Eh, let me finish. He added military resources to the region right after October 7 and then, when we had an inkling that this kind of thing was coming, he added even more military resources to the region, more destroyers that were capable of shooting down ballistic missiles, fighters — fighter squadron that was able to shoot down drones and that’s what we did. So, you can talk about the ‘don’t’ word all you want, but let’s talk about what did happen. And what did happen was Iran utterly failed. And if I’m sitting in Tehran right now, I’m betting that President Biden takes it pretty seriously. When he says, ‘don’t’ escalate, he’s going to act to make sure that you can, and they didn’t. Yes, they fired an unprecedented amount of munitions, but how much of a success that they have, Peter? None. Zero. Very little infrastructure. It was an embarrassing failure for the Supreme Leader for the IRGC. Doocy then pivoted to the ongoing issue (raised repeatedly, such as here, here, here, here, here, and here by his colleague, Jacqui Heinrich) of the U.S. freezing Iranian assets: “Now that we know that the Iranians do not listen to President Biden’s public warnings, Is there any regret here about unfreezing billions of dollars for Iranian leaders during the President’s administration?” Kirby played dumb, wondering “what unfreezing are you talking about” and thus lead to more back-and-forth between the two with Kirby admitting he did know what Doocy was referring to and, rest assured, the administration was monitoring the haul to make sure it didn’t end up in the wrong hands (click “expand”): DOOCY: He unfroze billions of dollars — KIRBY: For — for Iranian leaders? DOOCY: Yeah. KIRBY: Really? No, I don’t think so. DOOCY: So, you guys say — KIRBY: So, first of all — DOOCY: — it’s for humanitarian purposes, but doesn’t that un — KIRBY: — but you don’t believe me? DOOCY: — well, doesn’t that free up money for them to spend on other stuff? But where do you get the money for an unprecedented number of munitions to — to fire at Israel? KIRBY: So, first of all, I’m betting, if they’re sitting in Tehran, they’re taking it seriously when President Biden says he’s going to defend Israel, we put skin in the game — a whole heckuva lot of it, and knocked almost everything out of the sky. So, I’m betting they’re taking it pretty seriously. And, as for this — this unfreezing, that none of that fun [sic] — none of those funds — funds set up in an account, by the way, by the previous administration, goes directly to the Supreme Leader, the IRGC. Can only be used for humanitarian purposes, and we’re watching that account very, very closely to make sure that that’s what happens. Doocy Time wrapped with a question about why in the world did Biden leave for Delaware then come back to the White House since, in crises past, Biden wouldn’t change plans and the press team would argue Biden “can be the President from anywhere.”  Kirby didn’t engaged except to claim he came back because “shortly after arriving — we got better, firmer intelligence and information about the — the specific timing of what we expected to be this Iranian attack”. Surprisingly, the CBS Evening News actually had the stones to air their own correspondent Weijia Jiang’s hardball for Kirby about the Iranians feeling undeterred: CBS’s @Weijia Jiang: “John, just one day before the attack, President Biden issued a warning to Iran — don’t. And now, the U.S. is not taking any part in an Israeli reprisal, so does that signal to Iran that it can defy the U.S. without facing any consequences?” WH’s John Kirby:… pic.twitter.com/rlJe6605U9 — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 15, 2024 NewsNation’s Kellie Meyer had two excellent questions about why U.S. doesn’t believe Israel should be able to respond to what could have killed untold numbers of Israelis and what specifically is Biden doing to deescalate. CNN’s Priscilla Alverez represented the left’s worldview on Israel needing to do more to kowtow to Hamas in ceasefire and hostage talks even though, as she admitted Hamas has been the party whose refused to agree to anything Finally, during the Karine Jean-Pierre portion of the briefing, the Fox Business Network’s Edward Lawrence twice pointed out gas prices are soaring. Despite Jean-Pierre’s assurances we should be fortunate they’re “well below their peak back in 2022” thanks to Biden’s leadership, Lawrence again fact-checked her: “But [gas prices are] only three cents lower than a year ago. It’s up 52 percent from when President Biden came into office. Any — then — talk about changes in policy that — to encourage future investment in oil and gas industry?” To see the relevant transcript from the April 15 briefing, click here.

Amazon Prime's Hit Series 'Fallout' Marred by Left-Wing Biases

Amazon Prime's memorable new hit series Fallout, based on the popular video games by Bethesda SoftWorks and Interplay, is marred by a number of left-wing biases. The series follows Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell), a resident of a "Vault-Tec" bunker in the year 2296. Vault-Tec bunkers are a high-tech underground network of vaults designed to survive a nuclear blast. Generations have lived in them since nuclear fallout from the fictitious "Great War" centuries earlier. Lucy's father, Hank (Kyle MacLachlan), is the overseer of the vault where she lives. After Hank is kidnapped by invaders from above ground, Lucy leaves the secured vault to go up to the surface for the first time in her life to find him. She journeys across a wasteland filled with ghouls, warriors and various unsavory characters. The series bounces back and forth in time between a pre-fallout 1950s-style world and future years. Up on the surface, the audience is introduced to the "Brotherhood of Steel," a post-apocalypse paramilitary order. The brotherhood includes "Dane," played by "non-binary" actor Xelia Mendes-Jones, a biological woman. Dane is supposed to be one of the boys but is really a butch-looking woman with a light mustache. Dane's leader uses the pronoun "they" when speaking to her, albeit very briefly. The "transness" of the character is never spoken of or emphasized in any way, yet Dane's presence in the brotherhood still requires suspension of disbelief. Outside of Dane's character, much of the series eschews any direct wokeness. The main female lead, Lucy, is not a "Mary Sue." Stronger men sometimes have to intervene to save her, and she does not try to girlboss her way across the wasteland. She just wants to find her father.  In the end, she discovers her father is actually a villain who works for a corporation that has repeatedly nuked the world in order to destroy competition from it. The truth is revealed by Lee Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury), a woman who is described as a communist in pre-fallout flashbacks. Numerous characters are capable of living for hundreds of years via different means and Moldaver appears through different epochs. In flashbacks, she heads what is described as a communist Hollywood circle. She butts heads with actor Cooper Howard (Walter Goggins), a John Wayne type of character who stars in Vault-Tec ads before learning their evil plans. He turns into a ghoul after nuclear fallout.   After their confrontation, Moldaver tells Howard (Walter Goggins), "I'm not a communist, Mr. Howard. That's just a dirty word they use to describe people who aren't insane."  Moldaver's Hollywood movement began after her research on cold fusion was stolen by Vault-Tec. She warns Howard and others that Vault-Tec is an evil corporation intent on destruction. In the video game version of Fallout, numerous companies profit off the war, but this series adds a twist: Vault-Tec and other connected companies ensure that the bombs get dropped in the first place. Moldaver builds a new republic in the years after the first nuclear fallout. With the support of Hank McLean, Vault-Tec creates a second nuclear bombing so that there is no future alternative to their vaults. Upon finding her father, Lucy learns that the man she thought of as a loving dad is actually a cold-blooded murderer who works for a diabolical corporation. Up until that moment, Hank was one of the few white male characters in the show who had not become weak, cowardly or cruel. A preponderance of bad guys is par for the course in a post-apocalyptic word, but the fact that a white male leader always turns out to be a horrible person in contemporary television is frustrating. Fallout is a strong series in many ways, with real character development and a coherent plot. It will likely be able to keep its fan base into future seasons. Unfortunately, an underlying leftist worldview ultimately seeps through it despite all its strengths.

NPR Internal Critic Uri Berliner SUSPENDED Without Pay for Going Public on Bias Complaints

In his latest company-man report, NPR media reporter David Folkenflik revealed that NPR senior editor Uri Berliner was suspended without pay for five days (beginning Friday) for deciding his years of internal advocacy for more fairness and balance in NPR's coverage had been fruitless, so he went public.  Folkenflik disclosed that Berliner, as a senior editor for Business, had edited many of his stories, and shared with him the formal rebuke from management: In presenting Berliner's suspension Thursday afternoon, the organization told the editor he had failed to secure its approval for outside work for other news outlets, as is required of NPR journalists. It called the letter a "final warning," saying Berliner would be fired if he violated NPR's policy again. Berliner is a dues-paying member of NPR's newsroom union but says he is not appealing the punishment.... In the rebuke, NPR did not cite Berliner's appearance on Chris Cuomo's NewsNation program last Tuesday night, for which NPR gave him the green light. (NPR's chief communications officer told Berliner to focus on his own experience and not share proprietary information.) The NPR letter also did not cite his remarks to the New York Times, which ran its article mid-afternoon Thursday, shortly before the reprimand was sent. So that means the article for The Free Press and his interview on their podcast is what's being punished, and specifically for reporting the fact that 67 percent of NPR's current audience identifies as liberal or very liberal. In rebuking Berliner, NPR said he had also publicly released proprietary information about audience demographics, which it considers confidential. He said those figures "were essentially marketing material. If they had been really good, they probably would have distributed them and sent them out to the world." Berliner repeated his message to Folkenflik that a taxpayer-funded news outlet has a special obligation for fairness:  "I love NPR and feel it's a national trust," Berliner says. "We have great journalists here. If they shed their opinions and did the great journalism they're capable of, this would be a much more interesting and fulfilling organization for our listeners." Folkenflik then cited CEO Katherine Maher's pom-pom memo celebrating NPR's employees and without mentioning Berliner by name, she claimed he offered "a criticism of our people on the basis of who we are" and not the content of their journalism. Berliner took great exception to that, saying she had denigrated him. He said that he supported diversifying NPR's workforce to look more like the U.S. population at large. She did not address that in a subsequent private exchange he shared with me for this story. (An NPR spokesperson declined further comment.) Berliner also criticized the collection of Maher's woke tweets that surfaced before NPR hired her:  In an interview with me later on Monday, Berliner said the social media posts demonstrated Maher was all but incapable of being the person best poised to direct the organization. "We're looking for a leader right now who's going to be unifying and bring more people into the tent and have a broader perspective on, sort of, what America is all about," Berliner said. "And this seems to be the opposite of that." Folkenflik's piece was balanced by a mention of conservative scholar Christopher Rufo, and paragraphs of fierce criticism of Berliner from other NPR journalists:  Morning Edition host Michel Martin told me some colleagues at the network share Berliner's concerns that coverage is frequently presented through an ideological or idealistic prism that can alienate listeners. "The way to address that is through training and mentorship," says Martin, herself a veteran of nearly two decades at the network who has also reported for The Wall Street Journal and ABC News. "It's not by blowing the place up, by trashing your colleagues, in full view of people who don't really care about it anyway." Several NPR journalists told me they are no longer willing to work with Berliner as they no longer have confidence that he will keep private their internal musings about stories as they work through coverage. "Newsrooms run on trust," NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben tweeted last week, without mentioning Berliner by name. "If you violate everyone's trust by going to another outlet and sh--ing on your colleagues (while doing a bad job journalistically, for that matter), I don't know how you do your job now." ....NPR Investigative reporter Chiara Eisner wrote in a comment for this story: "Minorities do not all think the same and do not report the same. Good reporters and editors should know that by now. It's embarrassing to me as a reporter at NPR that a senior editor here missed that point in 2024." Google these critics and NewsBusters and you'll see they are firmly on the Left on the job.

Stewart Blames America, Capitalism For Foreign Policy Crises

Jon Stewart reacted to the recent developments in the Middle East on Monday’s installment of The Daily Show on Comedy Central by doing his standard bit where he, on one hand, pretended everything was too complicated for him to understand, but on the other, reduced all the world’s foreign policy crises to America’s love of capitalism. Stewart’s attempt to play dumb began when he was recapping Saturday’s failed Iranian attack on Israel, and he seemed upset that the results upended his basic foreign policy worldview, “But kudos to the United States and to Israel! It shows just how effective a military defense system can be when you funnel American dollars away from health care and education.”     Yes, you can throw money at education to no effect, but if the United States and Israel had not invested in air defense, the Middle East would be in an extremely delicate situation right now, even more than it already is. Still, Stewart sarcastically continued, “It really helps to build -- and the best part is, we did it with no help! The two amigos, surrounded by hostile Arab nations, united in their zeal to destroy Israel.” Stewart then played clips from MSNBC’s Jonathan Lemire and Fox’s Jennifer Griffin reporting on the roles Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates played in thwarting the attack. He reacted by claiming it is all so complicated, “What are the teams of these [bleep] wars? I don't even know the teams anymore? The Arab countries are helping Israel? I don't know what the teams are! We need to sort this out! With jerseys or something.” Contrary to Stewart’s rantings, it isn’t that complicated. Arab countries do not pose a threat to Israel in the way that they used to and Israel has had a peace treaty with Jordan since 1994. The main threat to Israel comes from Iran and its non-state proxies, an assessment shared by many of the Sunni Arab states. It really isn’t that complicated. Later in the show, Stewart welcomed the New York Times’s David Sanger to the show to promote his book, The New Cold Wars, about America’s rivalries with Russia and China. For Stewart, these rivalries have a simple explanation, “Haven't we sowed the seeds of that with our own arrogance and cavalier approach to a lot of these foreign policy conflicts? A, we always frame things as 'this is a battle between democracy and the free world and liberation and authoritarianism,' but the truth is, we're fighting for trade channels and resources.” Stewart continued by attempting to shame the U.S., “Like, this is all a function of competing capitalist powers and aren't we the ones—I mean, we've invaded more countries than Russia and China combined. So, would it help us to not have to scold everybody for failing to live up to principles that we very clearly do not uphold?” He further added, “But we say that, but, you know, ‘you can't invade a country.’ Well, what happened in Iraq? ... ‘You can't call for regime change.’ What did we do in Libya? Every time we say these things, we undercut our own position with – I mean, for god's sakes, Iran is an enemy because we overthrew their democratically elected government in 1953.” Russia isn’t fighting for economic resources in Ukraine, Hamas isn’t fighting Israel for trade routes, China doesn’t threaten Taiwan because of capitalism. Meanwhile, Stewart is just wrong. Since 2008, Russia has invaded and sliced up two countries, China has taken territory from its neighbors, the United States hasn’t done any of those things. Here is a transcript for the April 15 show: Comedy Central The Daily Show 4/15/2024 11:02 PM ET JON STEWART: But kudos to the United States and to Israel! It shows just how effective a military defense system can be when you funnel American dollars away from health care and education. It really helps to build -- and the best part is, we did it with no help! The two amigos, surrounded by hostile Arab nations, united in their zeal to destroy Israel.  JONATHAN LEMIRE: Jordan's air force also intercepted and shot down dozens of drones that violated its airspace and were on their way to Israel.  JENNIFER GRIFFIN: And we've now learned that Saudi Arabia and the UAE provided real time intelligence that helped track the incoming missiles.  STEWART: What are the teams of these [bleep] wars? I don't even know the teams anymore? The Arab countries are helping Israel? I don't know what the teams are! We need to sort this out! With jerseys or something.  … STEWART: Haven't we sowed the seeds of that with our own arrogance and cavalier approach to a lot of these foreign policy conflicts? A, we always frame things as “this is a battle between democracy and the free world and liberation and authoritarianism” but the truth is, we're fighting for trade channels and resources. Like, this is all a function of competing capitalist powers and aren't we the ones – I mean, we've invaded more countries than Russia and China combined. So, would it help us to not have to scold everybody for failing to live up to principles that we very clearly do not uphold?  DAVID SANGER: Well, at least we have some principles, okay? That's the one thing –  STEWART: But we say that, but, you know, "you can't invade a country." Well, what happened in Iraq?  SANGER: That's right.  STEWART: "You can't call for regime change." What did we do in Libya? Every time we say these things, we undercut our own position with – I mean, for god's sakes, Iran is an enemy because we overthrew their democratically elected government in 1953.

FrontPage Magazine Doubles Down Against Big Tech Giants: ‘We Won’t Censor Ourselves’

One outlet is accusing Big Tech, especially Facebook, of silencing the truth about radical Islamic terrorism. Daniel Greenfield, a journalism fellow for FrontPage Magazine’s David Horowitz Freedom Center, announced on April 15, “[W]e won’t censor ourselves for Big Tech cash.” He noted that Google, Twitter and Facebook (owned by Meta) have all censored individuals connected with the outlet, with Facebook being the latest culprit. Most recently, Greenfield wrote, Google AdSense demonetized FrontPage and Facebook disabled the account of FrontPage Editor Jamie Glazov for discussing Islamic terrorism. Google continues to censor the magazine financially for a previous report about a San Bernardino terrorist attack, which FrontPage refuses to remove. More recently, Greenfield explained, Facebook disabled Glazov’s account over an interview headlined  “Oct. 7 Coming to the USA?” Facebook reportedly asserted that the interview, which discussed accused terrorists crossing into America through the open southern border, violated “community standards” and threatened “the security of people on Facebook.” Greenfield referred to a 2023 decision from Meta’s Oversight Board that the term “shaheed” or martyr, used by Muslims to refer to jihadis killed while engaging in terrorism, was protected by freedom of expression. In fact, according to Greenfield, pro-terrorist groups and jihadis have used Facebook without censorship over the years. He cited a 2021 report from Israel-based newspaper Israel Hayom on Facebook refusing to address terrorism-inciting content. Previous to that, in 2016, terror victims sued Facebook, accusing it of complicity in inciting terrorism, Greenfield added. More recently, one Israeli family found out about their grandmother’s death on Oct. 7, 2023, after Hamas posted a video of her gruesome death to Facebook. “Telling the story of the barbarous Hamas atrocities of Oct 7 got Jamie Glazov banned, but one of the little told stories of that day is how Islamic terrorists had used Facebook to taunt and terrorize the families of their victims,” Greenfield insisted. Greenfield wrote that he has been suspended by Facebook and Twitter. Individuals including Glazov, David Horowitz, JihadWatch’s Robert Spencer, and FrontPage contributor Raymond Ibrahim have all been censored for discussing Islamic radicalism, Greenfield reported. PayPal, Twitter, Google and Facebook censored the anti-terrorism content, despite hosting pro-terrorist content from others. Conservatives are under attack. Contact Facebook headquarters at (650) 308-7300 and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “misinformation” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

ABC News HIDES Pro-Hamas Protests Across American Cities

Planned protests in opposition to Israel broke out Monday, fanning out all across the country. The protests were intended to shut down traffic in key locations across several major cities, such as landmark bridges and airport roads. And ABC World News Tonight was the only network newscast NOT to cover the protests. Here’s how NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez opened up his White House recap; with an acknowledgement of what happened: GABE GUTIERREZ: Tonight, the pressure is mounting on the Biden administration over the war in Gaza. Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters today blocked traffic on New York's Brooklyn bridge with several arrests. VOICE: Oh, God.  GUTIERREZ: Police say protesters near Chicago's O’Hare International Airport today substantially delayed travelers. And on San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, multiple arrests after protesters snarled traffic there for hours.  CBS’s Weijia Jiang offered up a similar, albeit less specific open to her own White House recap:  WEIJIA JIANG: From San Francisco to Chicago, protesters and several major cities blocked traffic, demanding an end to the war in Gaza, dialing up pressure for President Biden to do the same. In New York City, some even waved a Hezbollah flag showing condemnation for Israel. The protests were planned before Iran launched an unprecedented assault on Israel. Granted, they’re not as extensive, and there was enough source material on the protests to justify their own report. But ABC didn’t even do the mini brief. They did nothing, and the reason they did nothing is because more often than not, the first casualty of any story adverse to the president is his own electoral prospects. We often talk about “protect the Precious”, and this principle is increasingly showing itself to be very real this election cycle. It is unconscionable that ABC News hid from their viewers a multi city protest consisting of the willful blockage of roads and bridges, and featuring chants of “from the river to the Sea” as American flags burned. Click “expand” to view the full transcripts of the aforementioned reports as aired on their respective evening newscasts on Monday, April 15th, 2024: CBS EVENING NEWS: NORAH O’DONNELL: Back here in Washington, the White House is reiterating its unwavering support for Israel. President Biden is urging caution ahead of any Israeli counterattack. CBS's Weijia Jiang reports that the president is facing pressure here at home with protests shutting down parts of major cities across the country. WEIJIA JIANG: From San Francisco to Chicago, protesters and several major cities blocked traffic, demanding an end to the war in Gaza, dialing up pressure for President Biden to do the same. In New York City, some even waved a Hezbollah flag showing condemnation for Israel. The protests were planned before Iran launched an unprecedented assault on Israel. Today, as Biden hosted the Prime Minister of Iraq in the Oval Office, he stressed U.S. support of Israel, but acknowledged fears that responding to Iran could widen the war. JOE BIDEN: We’re committed to a cease-fire that will bring the hostages home and prevent any conflict from spreading beyond where it already has. JIANG: CBS News has learned during a phone call Saturday night, President Biden urged Prime Minister Netanyahu to think carefully and strategically about the risks of escalation, and said that if the IDF launched a reprisal strike on Iran, the U.S. would not participate. Biden issued this warning to Iran just one day before the strikes.   BIDEN: Don't.  JIANG: Tehran went ahead anyway.  Does that signal to Iran that it can defy the U.S. without facing any consequences?  JOHN KIRBY: If I am sitting in Tehran and I'm taking a look at what just happened on Saturday night, I don't think I’d be betting that the United States is not willing to get engaged here and help defend Israel. JIANG: House Speaker Mike Johnson says the House would soon vote on aid for Israel in light of the Iranian attack. Tonight, the White House says it opposes any measure that focuses solely on Israel as it pushes Congress to pass a package that also includes money for Ukraine and border security. Norah.  O’DONNELL: Weijia Jiang at the White House with those tough questions today. Thank you very much.  NBC NIGHTLY NEWS: LESTER HOLT: Tonight, the White House is trying to prevent a wider war in the region after Iran's attack on Israel. It comes as protests broke out coast-to-coast here at home against President Biden's policies in the Israel-Hamas war. We get more from Gabe Gutierrez.  GABE GUTIERREZ: Tonight, the pressure is mounting on the Biden administration over the war in Gaza. Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters today blocked traffic on New York's Brooklyn bridge with several arrests. VOICE: Oh, God.  GUTIERREZ: Police say protesters near Chicago's O’Hare International Airport today substantially delayed travelers. And on San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, multiple arrests after protesters snarled traffic there for hours. The demonstrations come as President Biden touts what he calls an unprecedented military effort to defend Israel.  JOE BIDEN: Together with our partners, we defeated that attack.  GUTIERREZ: In the Oval Office today, he met with Iraq's prime minister, as he tries to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East.  BIDEN: We're committed to a cease fire that will bring the hostages home, and prevent any conflict from spreading beyond what it already has.  GUTIERREZ: The president spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu this week and following Iran's attack, urging restraint, a senior administration official tells NBC News the president told Netanyahu to take the win and that although the White House's commitment to defend Israel is ironclad, the U.S. would not participate in offensive operations against Iran.  GUTIERREZ: To ask it bluntly: if Israel retaliates against Iran, will the U.S. Support that?  JOHN KIRBY: To answer bluntly, I'm not going to get into hypotheticals. We don't want to see a wider conflict.  GUTIERREZ: Today the White House stressed Iran did not provide warnings to the U.S. about its time frame for launching an attack on Israel. Some Republican critics argue the Biden administration has emboldened Iran.  MITCH MCCONNELL: It's time for the commander in chief to lead allies and partners in an international effort to impose meaningful costs on Iran.  HOLT: And, Gabe, amid all of this, there are new questions about that U.S. aid package for Israel. What can you tell us?  GUTIERREZ: Yes, Lester, House Speaker Mike Johnson is facing intense pressure to bring Israel and Ukraine funding up for a vote after sitting on it for months. Well, late today, he told GOP lawmakers that he planned to do it this week in separate bills. Lester. HOLT: All right, Gabe. Thank you.  

ABC, NBC OMIT SCOTUS’ Refusal To Halt Idaho Ban On Child Mutilation

The United States Supreme Court today lifted an injunction against Idaho’s ban on so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors, which includes cross-sex hormones and sex-change surgeries. The removal of the injunction allows Idaho to begin enforcing the law immediately. Only one of the major corporate networks even pretended to cover the story on their evening newscast. I say “pretend” because CBS gave us a whole 13 seconds on the ruling itself. Here it is, in its entirety as aired on CBS Evening News:  NORAH O’DONNELL: Now to some breaking news from the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court is allowing Idaho to largely enforce its ban on gender-affirming care for transgender children under 18, while lawsuits over the law go forward. Justice Clarence Thomas was not in court today, and did not participate remotely in arguments. There was no explanation given for his absence.  This tiniest of briefs, about 21 seconds total, was the entirety of coverage across the corporate network dial. And 8 of those seconds were dedicated to baseless speculation over the health of Justice Clarence Thomas. The report makes no effort to clue the viewer in on what these treatments might entail for children, or any of the rationale behind why the duly elected legislature of the state of Idaho banned these irreversible “treatments” in the first place. In the absence of any meaningful information, it is as if the report were little more than a narrative device for anchor Norah O’Donnell to utter “gender-affirming care” and “transgender minors”. Even so, this milquetoast brief is 21 seconds more than ABC or NBC were able to muster for the ruling.  Taxpayer-funded PBS NewsHour, not to be outdone by CBS, packed as many pro-trans agenda talking points into its 22 seconds: GEOFF BENNETT: In a separate ruling, the justices decided to allow Idaho to enforce a ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth. The order lets the state put in place a 2023 law that means doctors could face up to 10 years in prison if they provide hormones, puberty blockers or such services to minors. Opponents have warned that the law could increase suicide rates among teens. To be crystal clear, the “such” in “such services” is “surgical”, per the statute. In fairness, Bennett isn’t alone in trying to paper over the surgical components of “gender-affirming care”. Per the American Pravda’s writeup of the ruling: WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is allowing Idaho to enforce its ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth while lawsuits over the law proceed, reversing lower courts. The justices’ order Monday allows the state to put in a place a 2023 law that subjects physicians to up to 10 years in prison if they provide hormones, puberty blockers or other gender-affirming care to people under age 18.  One thing is clear: the media prefer to talk about these irreversible therapies in such opaque terms as “gender-affirming care”, and will do anything to avoid talking about kids’ body parts being chopped off or about irreversible changes brought about by hormonal treatments. But they can’t omit this part of the equation forever, especially as these treatments continue to be exposed for what they really are: child mutilation.  

NewsBusters Podcast: Harsh Bill Maher Bluntly Backs Child Murder

On his Real Time show on HBO, Bill Maher bluntly agreed that abortion is murder, and he favors it, since there are eight million people on Earth already. As they brought up Arizona and how that’s going to be a disaster for Republicans, Maher described pro-life Americans this way: “They think it’s murder, and it kind of is. I’m just okay with that. I am. There [are] 8 billion people in the world, I’m sorry, we won’t miss you. That’s my position on that.” British journalists Gillian Tett and Piers Morgan told Maher his view was "harsh." They agree on the principle, but wish he'd be less honest. Journalists and comedians scream "False" when people tell the truth about Democrats favoring abortion until birth. Our abortion debate constantly obsesses over what we might call the pro-life extreme, that abortion is murder, whatever the reason, at whichever month it occurs. So the establishment can NOT focus the debate on the pro-abortion extreme – when is it too late for an abortion? Jake Tapper and Kristen Welker and even Saturday Night Live fake-news anchor Colin Jost insisted it was "false" that Democrats support abortion up until birth, and that an abortion late in pregnancy never, ever happens. This avoids the obvious point: what limits do Democrats support? None. Cue the Democrat platform of 2020: Democrats are committed to protecting and advancing reproductive health, rights, and justice. We believe unequivocally, like the majority of Americans, that every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion. We will repeal the Title X domestic gag rule and restore federal funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides vital preventive and reproductive health care for millions of people, especially low-income people, and people of color, and LGBTQ+ people, including in underserved areas. 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. [We condemn acts of violence, harassment, and intimidation of reproductive health providers, patients, and staff.] We will address the discrimination and barriers that inhibit meaningful access to reproductive health care services, including those based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, income, disability, geography, and other factors. 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. And NPR's new CEO sends a love note to staff -- you're just the best! -- without engaging with insider Uri Berliner's eye-opening account of an utter lack of viewpoint diversity and any unwillingness to consider any offering of a conservative counterpoint in so-called "public" radio. It makes it easy to mock their silly nightly insistence they're about All Things Considered. Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

CNN's Acosta Worries Team Anti-Trump Won't Get a Perfectly Nasty Jury, But Analyst Counters

Happy Tax Return Deadline Day to all who celebrate! Such an empathetic guy, that Jim Acosta! As NewsBusters has documented, Acosta is a hard-left "journalist" and a Trump antagonist to the bitter end. On today's CNN This Morning, Acosta expressed a touching concern for the prosecutors in Trump's hush money trial. In particular, Acosta fretted over the tough job the prosecutors face in selecting jurors. After all, he said, it would take only one juror refusing to vote for conviction to cause a hung jury and thus a mistrial. True. But that possibility is something prosecutors face in every trial in every locale across the country. And if there's one place in all America where that could be the least likely to happen, it's the site of this trial—the liberal hotbed of Manhattan! As CNN legal analyst Elie Honig pointed out: "It's gonna be a challenge both ways. First of all, from Trump's perspective, this is not a great jury pool for him, right? This is Manhattan-only. No Bronx, no Brooklyn, no Queens, no Staten Island. Manhattan only. A borough, a county where Donald Trump got 12% of the vote in 2020. So he's worried about that." Exactly. Biden carried Manhattan by 87% to 12%. It's a dream jury pool for prosecutors. In contrast, how would you like to be a Trump defense lawyer trying to get 12 impartial jurors in Manhattan's seething, anti-Trump political environment? Naturally, Acosta's solicitous concern was only extended to the prosecution! Note: Honig, a former assistant US attorney, has a history of diverging at times from CNN's liberal line.  For example we've noted him arguing that the charges against him in this case are either misdemeanors akin to a shoplifting crime, or the lowest level of felony, which wouldn't result in prison time. On another occasion, Honig ripped into Stacey Abrams when she claimed that Fani Willis's investigation of Trump was "meticulous and very thoughtful." Here's the transcript. CNN This Morning 4/15/24 6:06 am EDT JIM ACOSTA: Guys, busy morning, busy day.  Elie, we got a look last week at the jury questionnaire. How are they looking to root out the candidates? I mean, this is gonna be a challenge, I mean, for these prosecutors. It just takes one person to, to grind this to a halt. ELIE HONIG: It's gonna be a challenge both ways. First of all, from Trump's perspective, this is not a great jury pool for him, right? This is Manhattan only. No Bronx, no Brooklyn, no Queens, no Staten Island. Manhattan only. A borough, a county where Donald Trump got 12% of the vote in 2020. So he's worried about that. But you're right, prosecutors—I've been in this situation—are terrified about one lone juror sneaking through who could hang a jury. You need all 12 in order to convict.  The questionnaire is really interesting, because what the questionnaire is trying to do is get at is, first of all, which way do you lean. It doesn't come out and just ask it. I kinda wish it did, just say like, did you vote for A or B or are you Republican or Democrat?  But there's all these other proxies for that. Have you ever participated in political activity for or against Trump? Have you ever contributed? That kind of thing. But it asks a couple of important questions. It says, wherever what you lean, can you still be impartial in this case? Now, some people are going to say, I can't be impartial. I just lean too strongly. That's it. And they're going to be out. But then there's gonna be a lot of people who say, I do have feelings, but I can put those aside and still be impartial. And that's where the instinct kicks in. That's where the judge is going to have to ask, do I believe this person? And more importantly, the parties, who have a limited number, ten each, ten strikes each. They're going to have to make the decision, do we use one of those ten precious strikes to remove this particular person? It's a guessing game. 

PBS Copies Kamala: ‘Second Term for Donald Trump Means More Bans, More Suffering’

After the surprise ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court to approve a Civil War-era law banning abortions except to save the life of the mother, the Friday edition of Amanpour & Co. (airing on PBS after first running on CNN International) hosted a predictably pro-choice liberal law professor as a guest. But the real liberal outrage spewed from guest host Bianna Golodryga, who let her own personal thoughts overwhelm any attempt at a balanced take, over the taxpayer-funded airwaves: "Arizona has become Ground Zero for America's battle on reproductive rights," she said. "The U.S. Vice President, Kamala Harris, is in the state today, arriving hot on the heels of a decision by the Supreme Court there to hold up a Civil War era law banning nearly all abortions. A law Republican legislators then fought to protect. She is also going to send a clear message that a second term for Donald Trump means more bans, more suffering."     After blaming Trump for the ruling “by installing several conservative justices on the federal Supreme Court bench during his term” Golodryga introduced her guest, law professor Mary Ziegler, and emotionally commiserated with her: As an expert on the history of the law, I would imagine you yourself were equally shocked to hear the ruling announced this week in Arizona. I mean, just the draconian measures that it takes, bringing us back to literally a judge who wrote it, having been appointed by President Abraham Lincoln at the time. After citing Trump’s own criticism of the Arizona decision, she noted: “it really puts Republicans in a bind in a sense all of these years with their attempts to overturn Roe finally happening. It's as if the dog finally caught the car and the consequences are quite significant.” But the host dismissed America’s federalist system of state law when she said that Trump’s rational view that abortion restrictions “should be done piecemeal up to the states is creating a lot of havoc. And obviously, at the end of the day it's women and their families and their doctors who are paying the ultimate price.” She wasn’t finished, continuing her pro-choice monologue in the guise of an interview: We know, obviously, that there are real-life consequences and impacts from these laws, primarily women and families who don't have the resources to travel to another state. The fact that they even have to speaks volumes. But let's just give one example. There's Katie Cox. She sued in Texas for the right to obtain an abortion after she learned that her fetus had a rare genetic disorder. She eventually had to leave the state for care. Listen to what she told NBC News about the impact of that. Cox was also President Biden’s guest at this year’s State of the Union address, a political aspect Golodryga skipped.  The host prodded Ziegler to respond: Can you talk about the emotional trauma and toll that this is having on women, on families? And it's very simple to just say this is people who are looking for an abortion, full stop. I mean, a lot of these women have suffered unimaginably. They may want to continue to have children in the future and now can't because of the risks that they take by leaving, by seeking care elsewhere, just give us some of that. Ziegler is author of the 2022 book Dollars for Life: The Anti-Abortion Movement and the Fall of the Republican Establishment, described by publisher Yale University Press as “A new understanding of the slow drift to extremes in American politics that shows how the antiabortion movement remade the Republican Party.” But on this segment at least, Ziegler's understated advocacy came off less liberal than the “journalist” interviewing her. A transcript is available, click "Expand." Amanpour & Co. 4/13/24 1:32:32 a.m. (ET) Bianna Golodryga: Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga in New York, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour. Arizona has become ground zero for America's battle on reproductive rights. The U.S. vice president, Kamala Harris, is in the state today, arriving hot on the heels of a decision by the Supreme Court there to hold up a civil war era law banning nearly all abortions. A law Republican legislators then fought to protect. She is also going to send a clear message that a second term for Donald Trump means more bans, more suffering. A line we can probably expect to hear more of as an election season heats up. For his own part, the former president said that the Arizona ruling goes too far. But that's a stark contrast to Trump's previous campaign for the presidency, where he repeatedly promised to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision, which made abortion legal across the country. Something he made good on by installing several conservative justices on the federal Supreme Court bench during his term. So, what happens now, and how will this development impact women in Arizona and across America? Joining me now on this is law professor and author Mary Ziegler. She's an expert on the history and politics of abortion. Mary, you're the perfect person to have on for this discussion. As an expert on the history of the law, I would imagine you yourself were equally shocked to hear the ruling announced this week in Arizona. I mean, just the draconian measures that it takes, bringing us back to literally a judge who wrote it, having been appointed by President Abraham Lincoln at the time. Just first, your professional reaction to that news. MARY ZIEGLER, PROFESSOR, U.C. DAVIS SCHOOL OF LAW AND AUTHOR, "ABORTION AND THE LAW IN AMERICA": I think it both was and wasn't surprising. I mean, I think once Roe v. Wade was overturned, we knew that a lot of these zombie laws were on the books, and it was just a matter of time before a state Supreme Court let one of them go into effect. So, I think it's both hard to believe that Arizona, which is obviously a divided kind of purple swing state, is being governed by a law from before the Civil War, that, you know, by its terms, for example, says you cannot perform an abortion if a woman is going to suffer permanent impairment of a major bodily function or infertility, by its terms you're not allowed to intervene in those cases. That is shocking to me as a person, but as someone who studies this it seemed kind of inevitable after it was overturned. GOLODRYGA: Yes, the only exceptions are the life of the mother, rape and incest are not included here and the decision the thought behind this decision by this very conservative Supreme Court is that with Roe no longer the law of the land that the statute is now enforceable, the statute, from the 1800s. What do you make -- I mean, is that too cute by half, given the concern -- despite the conservative nature of this court, for a State Supreme Court to come to that conclusion? ZIEGLER: Well, and the argument in the case legally was actually pretty narrow. Planned Parenthood was arguing essentially that the state legislature, which had passed a 15-week ban, wanted 15 weeks to be the policy and that they had sort of intended to override this 1864 law, and the State Supreme Court didn't buy that argument. There could be other arguments you could make. For example, we've seen litigators across the United States arguing that an abortion ban like this would violate a state guarantee of equality or privacy or a right to life, and we may see additional challenges to the law in the Arizona Supreme Court. But I think that the problem for us, as far as the Arizona Supreme Court is concerned, is that these are justices who are subject to re-election. These are unlike the U.S. Supreme Court justices who have lifetime appointments. And if one of these justices were to lose their attention election, they would be replaced by from a list of nominees by the governor who in the case of Arizona is a Democrat. So, whatever the legal rationale for this ruling, the justices who joined the majority, I think, put themselves in the political crosshairs come November. GOLODRYGA: Yes, and the court put this ruling on hold and then sent it down to the lower court for additional arguments on the law's constitutionality. So, this case has not ended as of yet. That having been said, I mean, it came 24 hours after the former president finally issued his policy and took a stance on his views on abortion by saying that it's up to the states and that that should be the end of the discussion. Here's what he said. DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (R) AND CURRENT U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (R): Again, fighting Roe v. Wade was right from the beginning all about bringing the issue back to the states pursuant to the 10th Amendment and states' rights. It wasn't about anything else. That's what it was. We brought it back to the states and now lots of things are happening and lots of good things are happening. GOLODRYGA: So, then, after this decision in Arizona, he went out and said that it was too far. Kari Lake who had supported this law beforehand then once it actually was handed down said that she didn't support it. I mean, this really puts Republicans in a bind in a sense all of these years with their attempts to overturn Roe finally happening. It's as if the dog finally caught the car and the consequences are quite significant. And the fact that, in his view, it should be done piecemeal up to the states is creating a lot of havoc. And obviously, at the end of the day it's women and their families and their doctors who are paying the ultimate price. ZIEGLER: Yes, I mean, I think one of the things Former President Trump has done, too, is he's had former Trump campaign officials making promises, essentially, that Trump is going to revive another zombie law called the Comstock Act from 1873, just a little after this Arizona law, and use it as a nationwide ban on abortion. When you ask the Trump campaign about whether they're going to do that, the Trump campaign doesn't answer the question, and says that president -- Former President Trump is a supporter of states' rights. So, we're kind of in a scenario where patients and doctors don't know how these laws are going to be interpreted. And we don't know what Former President Trump would do if he's given a second term, because his former officials are saying he actually has this backdoor ban that doesn't require Congress. His campaign isn't weighing in one way or another. So, we're kind of all in the dark about what a second Trump administration would mean, whether it would mean more of the status quo, which has been kind of this state-by-state chaos, or if it would mean some kind of effort to have a nationwide zombie law like Arizona's imposed on states with protections for abortion rights and states that don't have protection for abortion rights. Because, you know, the Trump campaign just isn't explaining which of those positions is right, right, won't answer these questions directly. GOLODRYGA: There are some Republicans like Lindsey Graham that say that the president -- the former president is just wrong on this, there should be a federal law with a 15-week ban. From your perspective, just the likelihood that you think something like that could actually happen. ZIEGLER: Well, I think the likelihood of Congress passing anything like a 15-week ban is pretty much zero, which is why in part I don't think it made sense politically from Trump's standpoint to endorse a ban that's never going to pass.I think that's why you've seen the sort of smarter conservatives like the groups in the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 saying the only way we're going to get a nationwide ban is through a law that's already on the books that we're reinterpreting or reinventing as a ban. The odds of congressional action I think are very low. GOLODRYGA: And what about Alabama? Because we see the tentacles of this extending far beyond just abortion, it's even into IVF and areas where now an embryo is viewed as a live person. And we saw the chaos that ensued following that. Republicans and Democrats have really benefited over the years from IVF. There was an attempt perhaps to codify that in Congress. That didn't happen. I mean, that's just one example. Do you expect more in other states, if not IVF, than other unintended consequences from the overturning of Roe? ZIEGLER: Yes, absolutely. So, the U.S. anti-abortion movement was not focused on taking down Roe. It was focused in a bigger picture way on the recognition of the idea that embryos and fetuses are persons with constitutional rights. And that was kind of the thrust of the Alabama ruling. It was a little narrower, it was that embryos had rights just under the context of wrongful death. But the court's reasoning was much broader and suggested that embryos and fetuses just had rights across the board full stop. If that's right, that raises lots of other questions, not just about IVF. So, for example, if many conservatives believe that common contraceptives like the birth control pill or the morning after pill are abortifacients, that would violate fetal rights. If fetuses and embryos have rights, we've seen some in the anti-abortion movement asking why they can't punish women and other abortion seekers, because of course, women and other abortion seekers are punished for other homicide offenses. There are a lot of other possibilities here because if an embryo or a fetus is a person, they're a person for all purposes, like all contexts, all the time, not just the context of abortion. So, I think we'll have to stay tuned, but this is sort of a Pandora's box in many ways. GOLODRYGA: A Pandora box has created a patchwork of different scenarios and laws in various states. If we can put up a graphic of the United States just in terms of what we've seen following the overturning of Roe, you have 21 states that ban abortion or restrict the procedure earlier in pregnancies now than the standard that had been set and had the law of land by Roe, 14 states have full bans in almost all circumstances, two have bans after six weeks. We know on Monday, Florida's Supreme Court allowed a six-week ban to go soon into effect, but voters will get to weigh in on that issue in the fall, and there is hope that the same will be the case in Arizona. With abortion on the ballot now, do you see this as a potential game changer and solution? ZIEGLER: Potentially, right? So, ballot initiatives have been significant so far, all of them that have on ballot since Dobbs have passed. We've seen several in places like Michigan and Ohio create pretty broad reproductive rights that trumped some laws on the books. Michigan too had an older law that was undone potentially by this ballot initiative. The reason it isn't a perfect fix necessarily is, one, not every state has a mechanism for voters to initiate this kind of measure. And two, conservatives are already aware of this and are trying to find backdoor ways to get a federal ban that would override any state protections, which is where this Comstock Act idea comes in. Essentially, Jonathan Mitchell, who represented Former President Trump in his disqualification case before the Supreme Court, said to "The New York Times," you know, we don't need a ban because we have the Comstock Act. The Comstock Act can be interpreted as a ban, that overrides whatever protection voters put in place in their own states. So, I think the ballot initiatives are incredibly important, definitely a possible game changer, but not without potential pitfalls. GOLODRYGA: We know, obviously, that there are real-life consequences and impacts from these laws, primarily women and families who don't have the resources to travel to another state. The fact that they even have to speaks volumes. But let's just give one example. There's Kate Cox. She sued in Texas for the right to obtain an abortion after she learned that her fetus had a rare genetic disorder. She eventually had to leave the state for care. Listen to what she told NBC News about the impact of that. KATE COX, SUED TEXAS FOR THE RIGHT TO AN ABORTION: There's still -- we're going through the loss of a child. There is no outcome here that I take home my healthy baby girl, you know. So, it's hard, you know. GOLODRYGA: Can you talk about the emotional trauma and toll that this is having on women, on families? And it's very simple to just say this is people who are looking for an abortion full stop. I mean, a lot of these women have suffered unimaginably. They may want to continue to have children in the future and now can't because of the risks that they take by leaving, by seeking care elsewhere. Just give us some of that. ZIEGLER: Yes. I mean, I think one of things we've seen is that when you have an abortion ban in place, the meaning of abortion isn't clear. States are not using medical definitions. And in part, what that means is that people with wanted pregnancies who are experiencing pregnancy complications or stillbirth or miscarriage are finding themselves unable to get treatment too because physicians don't want to lose their medical licenses, they don't want to go to prison for anywhere between, you know, five years up to life in prison in states like Texas where Kate Cox was located. And the upshot of that is people are being turned away and experiencing complications that, you know, affect their health, their future fertility in their lives. The other upshot is that physicians don't want to deal with these scenarios, right? They don t want to be faced with patients like Kate Cox, where they're being forced to choose between their liberty or their medical license on the one hand and denying needed care on other. So, we began to see a flight of physicians, especially obstetricians and gynecologists from states with these kinds of prohibitions, particularly in rural areas that were already underserved. And that too has these knock-on effects for people seeking obstetric and gynecological care because they're having a harder time finding a position to treat them at all, even when they're not experiencing these pregnancy complications. So, one of the things we've seen is that these bans affect people who are seeking abortions, to be sure, but also people who aren't, right? People who may be experiencing anything else related to pregnancy. GOLODRYGA: Mary Ziegler, we appreciate the time and your expertise. Thank you. ZIEGLER: Thanks for having me.  

NBC Goes Left, ABC Soft on Kirby Over Iran While CBS Actually Brings Heat

Following Iran’s failed attempt over the weekend to fire hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel with the goal of leaving it in ruins, the Biden White House sent John Kirby out to face the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC on their respective flagship Monday morning news shows. All three took different approaches with ABC’s Good Morning America being supportive, NBC’s Today hitting him from the left, and CBS Mornings actually challenged him.     ABC had co-host and former Clinton flack George Stephanopoulos talk to Kirby and it was akin to watching paint try. Not only were they pedestrian and open-ended, but they were short and zero interruptions (click “expand”): We know the Israeli war cabinet met this morning. What do you know about what they decided? (....) Do you think he’s persuaded the prime minister not to strike back? (....) And the United States is not going to be parted of any — any retaliation, we know that. Is there any other limit to support for Israel if they do escalate this conflict? (....) You heard Martha’s report Iran’s missiles did not get through. Are they a paper tiger? (....) Aid needs for Israel, aid needs for Ukraine. Are you confident the House is going to pass it? Where ABC’s Stephanopoulos felt like he barely gave any thought to his short, boilerplate questions, NBC’s Today went its usual route with political interviews by having co-host Savannah Guthrie take the lead. After a lead-off on what Kirby thinks the Israeli war cabinet will do next, Guthrie went left by wondering if the Biden administration will continue to demand Israel “take the win, not to retaliate.” Guthrie upped the ante in her next question by blaming Israel itself for facing an onslaught from the radical Islamists in Tehran and then wondered if Israel is the party who must cease their aggressions for there to be peace (as opposed to Iran and its proxies) (click “expand”): GUTHRIE: Well, as we all know, this strike from Iran was in retaliation for a strike that Israel took against Iranian forces in Syria that killed seven IRGC officers. The Israelis gave no heads up to its ally, the U.S., was that needlessly provocative? Do you think that Israel bears some responsibility for escalating this, and getting us to this point? KIRBY: Well, look, let’s be — let’s clear here, Iran has been funding, resourcing groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis down in Yemen, also of which, also, with the exception of Hamas, at least proxy groups, including those in Iraq and Syria, also participated in these strikes against Israel on Israeli soil. Iran is the one who was providing the means and the resources through which these groups and their own military was able to conduct this unprecedented attack on Israel. GUTHRIE: So, I mean, given that, and given what the White House is signaling about its messaging to the Israelis, I mean, I just want to go back to the point here, is the White House saying, in — in, you know, between the lines, essentially to Israel, don’t retaliate now? I mean, the Iranians have claimed that they have concluded their response to the Syria attack, so is it the U.S. position that if Israel sits tight, this can end right now? KIRBY: Well, we want to see deescalation, clearly, in the region, and everything the President has done since October 7 has been designed to keep this from becoming a wider war, Savannah, and that’s why we’re going to keep latched up with Israeli counterparts. That’s why we’re going to make it clear again to the Israelis we’ll do what we have to do to defend them, help them in their self-defense, but we don’t want to see a wider war. We don’t want to see this escalate. We certainly are not looking for a war with Iran. Between questions pointing out the bipartisan support for Israel and the hostage negotiations, Guthrie had the gall to question whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the leader whose “actions in the in the region make the U.S. nervous.” CBS Mornings co-host Tony Dokoupil eschewed both approaches and did his job of asking tough, adversarial questions.  He immediately cut to the chase with a question similar to a track Fox’s Peter Doocy would go down during the briefing: Let’s talk about deterrence because, after decades of war via proxies between Iran and Israel, we now have the first direct attack by Iran on Israel. And it follows the U.S. saying to Iran don’t. Well, they did. What is the state of U.S. influence in the region this morning? When Kirby meandered and argued it all worked out for the best, Kirby both pushed back and took aim at those (including in the White House) arguing Israel should just take drones and missiles ad nauseam without being allowed to hit back: Nobody wants a war in that region, not at all, but let’s take up this question of what a win is. You’ve described the Middle East there, Israel’s neighborhood, as a tough one. Deterrence matters, hitting back does. If a bully takes 350 odd swings at you and you duck, how is that a win? Kirby replied he wouldn’t “get into what the future portends here and — and what the Israelis might or might not do”, but doubled down on not wanting “a wider war” while also this laughable and vague claim of “continu[ing] to hold Iran accountable”. With time for only one more question, Kirby asked for a ceasefire and hostage talks update, to which Kirby correctly noted that, once again, it’s not only “up to Hamas”, but “[i]t’s way past time for them to agree to” a deal. To see the relevant transcripts from April 15, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).

NBC Wonders: Why the ‘Average Person’ Doesn’t Understand the Climate Crisis?

Open contempt for average people and attempts at influencing the election. That’s what was on display during NBC’s Today 3rd Hour last Friday when the co-anchors sat down with far-left climate alarmist Al Gore. They huffed about how “the average person just doesn't get it” when it came to the so-called climate crisis. They also urged him to speak about how crucial the upcoming presidential election was for battling climate change. Obviously, they couldn’t get into the topic of climate change without first having co-anchors Dylan Dreyer, Craig Melvin, and Sheinelle Jones shower Gore with obnoxious gooey praise: DREYER: We're back now with a special edition of Today Climate, joined by one of the world's most prominent voices on this crisis. MELVIN: And one of the earliest as well, I would add. For eight years, Al Gore served, of course, as vice president of these United States. And after leaving office, his work to educate people about the climate crisis was featured in the Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. JONES: His advocacy earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Now, he's organization The Climate Reality Project is training thousands of climate leaders this weekend here in New York. It was soon followed up with Melvin lamenting “the average person” and their seeming lack of understanding about the so-called “climate crisis.”     After they noted Gore was in New York “to train leaders and advocates” and commended those people for how they “get it,” Melvin seemed to suggest the “average person” just couldn’t understand. “Do you think that the average person in this country understands the urgency of the crisis?” he wondered. “Is that an area where you see that we made some headway? Or do you still think that the average person just doesn't get it yet?” Gore said he felt that “most people” understand and that “mother nature is the most persuasive” in getting them to understand. He then went on a brief unhinged rant about how “the extra heat energy” being trapped by pollution each day equaled “750,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every day.” “Wow!” Jones exclaimed while not asking for any evidence for such a wild claim. “It’s hard to wrap my head around a number that big,” Gore added. Pivoting to the fast-approaching presidential election, Dreyer wanted to know it how the results “will impact where we're at with climate change right now? Not just here but around the world.” Initially, Gore bragged that the outcome didn’t matter because, “in some ways, what you might call a big wheel moving in the right direction that's kind of unstoppable.” But seemingly realizing that his answer didn’t carry enough hysteria that would lead people to get out and vote, he changed his tune: “Those trends are going to continue. But it’s not enough. So, the outcome of these elections in the U.S. and elsewhere in The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: NBC’s Today 3rd Hour April 12, 2024 9:20:47 a.m. Eastern DYLAN DREYER: We're back now with a special edition of Today Climate, joined by one of the world's most prominent voices on this crisis. CRAIG MELVIN: And one of the earliest as well, I would add. For eight years, Al Gore served, of course, as vice president of these United States. And after leaving office, his work to educate people about the climate crisis was featured in the Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. SHEINELLE JONES: His advocacy earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Now, he's organization The Climate Reality Project is training thousands of climate leaders this weekend here in New York. (…) 9:23:16 a.m. Eastern MELVIN: Mr. Vice president, again, you are here to train leaders and advocates. Obviously, they get it. Do you think that the average person in this country understands the urgency of the crisis? Is that an area where you see that we made some headway? Or do you still think that the average person just doesn't get it yet? AL GORE: Well, I think most people do. And mother nature is the most persuasive – the voice on all of this. I mean, you guys talk every day on the weather news about these extreme events. We were talking about it this morning. MELVIN: Right. GORE: We're still put 162 million tons of manmade heat trapping pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere that surrounds the Earth every single day. It builds up – it lingers there for about 100 years, molecule-for-molecule. And the total amount now traps as much extra heat energy every day as would be released by 750,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every day. JONES: Wow! GORE: It’s hard to wrap my head around a number that big. (…) 9:25:03 a.m. Eastern DREYER: So, with the presidential election, you know, less than seven months away, how do you think the outcome of that, whatever happens, will impact where we're at with climate change right now? Not just here but around the world. GORE: Well, I think in some ways there’s, in some ways, what you might call a big wheel moving in the right direction that's kind of unstoppable. What I mean by that is, if you look at all the new electricity generation installed worldwide last year, 87 percent of it was renewables. It’s the cheapest electricity in the history of the world. One in five vehicles are electric now and it will rise rapidly. Those trends are going to continue. But it’s not enough. So, the outcome of these elections in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world this year really will make a difference. (…)

MRC UnCensored: How PolitiFact Coddles ‘Fibber-in-Chief' Biden

NewsBusters Executive Editor Tim Graham exposed the insane leftist bias of the leftist Facebook fact-checker PolitiFact in a new study released April 9.  During the April 12 episode of MRC’s UnCensored, Graham told MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider that this “fact-checker” applies wildly different standards to Democrats and Republicans, but especially to former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden. Schneider and Graham made clear that PolitiFact goes all out to protect Biden, whom Schneider called the “Fibber-in-Chief,” from the fallout of his “notorious lies.”  PolitiFact is housed within the George Soros-tied Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which the leftist billionaire gave at least $492,000 toward its dystopian International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN).  On April 9, Marshall published his findings on PolitiFact’s rampant bias, showing that a whopping 75% of Republican statements fact-checked by PolitiFact received a rating of “mostly false,” “false,” or “pants-on-fire,” between the beginning of this year and March 31. Marshall’s research showed that only 26% of statements by Democrats were labeled this way by PolitiFact during the same period.  Graham pointed to a recent Biden lie to illustrate the utter extent of PolitiFact’s leftist bent. “When Joe Biden says, ‘This bridge that collapsed in Baltimore, I’ve gone over many times, in a car and on a train’ and there are no train tracks on this bridge, now couldn’t we say that’s a pants-on-fire lie,” Graham asked. As noted by Graham, PolitiFact did not provide a rating of any kind to their story on Biden’s impossible train ride. He analyzed that PolitiFact consistently treated Biden as a charming old storyteller who embellishes a bit, while Trump was treated as a threat who lies for evil reasons. Graham added,  “Now on some level, I think what they’re trying to do here is assign a prize for evil intent. So if Biden says something silly which might suggest infirmity, well that can’t be pants-on-fire, he didn’t lie on purpose, he’s just Grandpa Joe, he says these things that are amusing.”  MRC Uncensored: How Fact-Checkers Influence Elections With Newsbuster's @TimJGraham Leftist Fact-Checkers like Politifact are actively engaged in election influencing with a heavy skew against conservatives. pic.twitter.com/bElq0FpG18 — Free Speech America (@FreeSpeechAmer) April 12, 2024 Schneider also panned PolitiFact’s behavior: “PolitiFact is using its tools to cover up the Biden indiscretion.”  But there’s more. Graham provided striking context on how PolitiFact systemically protects Biden and other Democrats like its a chronic obsession.  Graham pointed out that although “Joe Biden has been a politician for the entire timespan of PolitiFact,” the number of Biden PolitiFact entries is still in the “300’s.” Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972 and made headlines for falsehoods told during one of his presidential campaigns. By contrast, Trump, who had not held political office before his presidential run, was “the most fact-checked individual” on PolitiFact and had over a thousand entries.  Graham then compared PolitiFact’s “pants-on-fire” entries for Biden and Trump. PolitiFact had labeled Trump's statements this way 187 times according to Graham, while only giving a paltry seven Biden statements the same label. Graham further elaborated that PolitiFact had only dinged Biden with a “pants-on-fire” label — count it — once since he became president.  Conservatives are under attack! Conservatives are under attack! Contact your representatives and demand Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency on WEF partnerships, 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.

Mom Intends to Castrate Young Son Against Father’s Wishes

California mom Anne Georgulas is petitioning state courts to let her get chemically-castrating puberty blockers for her 11-year-old biological son James, to help him with his “transition” to a female. The boy’s father, Jeff Younger, is fighting hard against the chemical castration of his son, and currently does not have custody of either of his kids, all because he doesn’t want his son to undergo harmful, life-changing and risky trans procedures.  This case has been developing for years, and on April 25, “court-ordained transgender ‘experts’ [are set to] take the stand” to convince the court that it should side with Georgulas, The Dallas Express reported over the weekend. Little James’ mother started his transition when he was just two years old, and his school helped out. After the couple split, Younger said he would put James in little boys' clothes to send him to school, and then the school would change him into girl clothes per his mother's wishes. This obviously upset the father, who said his wife was clearly manipulating their young son into believing he was a girl. The divorced couple, who both lived in Texas at the time, began fighting for custody over James and his twin sibling, and Georgulas fled to California with the kids.  In 2022, Younger petitioned the Texas Supreme Court to force the return of his children, but in December 2022, the court rejected the petition, and the kids are still in California with their mother. “My case is proof that the statutory design of the Texas Family Courts is abusive of the liberty of Texas citizens," Younger wrote in a text message to The Dallas Express. "The family courts are a clear and present danger to the welfare of Texas children. Judge ‘Bloody’ Mary Brown, 301st District Court, stripped me of parental rights without possibility of appeal, just because I want to raise my son as a boy." California has very loose restrictions when it comes to transitioning minors. As a matter of fact, the West Coast state seems to encourage the practice, and considers itself to be a sort of “refuge for trans kids and their families” who choose to flee states that don’t support child abuse. Related: Tennessee GOP May Criminalize Helping 'Trans' Kids Get ‘Care’ Without Parental Consent Younger has been vocal in asking for support in his fight to keep his son healthy and out of harm's way. He recently appeared on Unfiltered with Blaze TV where he shared the full story, urging people to go to his Facebook page called Help Save James which amasses over 41,000 followers for daily updates on the case. He also insisted he needs help to “save my son” and made a Give Send Go account to collect donations to help cover the legal fees of the case. It’s heartbreaking to hear about little James’ life being put at risk throughout this story, and it's even more heartbreaking to realize that stories like James’ aren’t even that rare anymore because of how pro-trans and anti-child safety our nation has become. Follow us on Twitter/X: In what world does trying to be an OnlyFans star do anything to honor a deceased grandfather? @tierin_rosebreaks down the left's latest insanity in this week's Woke of the Weak! pic.twitter.com/mvUFDdwPCb — MRCTV (@mrctv) April 9, 2024

CNN Finally Puts ‘King Charles’ Primetime Show Out of Its Misery

After six months, CNN finally took their poorly-rated primetime show King Charles out back and put it out of its misery. Airing just one night a week on Wednesdays, King Charles was one of the last vestiges of the Chris Licht era of CNN leadership, which purportedly tried to achieve a more fair and balanced approach to reporting the news before an internal revolt of the network’s radical liberals quashed it. Since you’ve likely never heard of the show since its ratings were so poor, no, the show was not hosted by the king of England, but rather CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King and NBA on TNT personality Charles Barkley. CNN thought they were being clever by splicing their names together. Since the November premiere, the show has been a ratings disaster. “The long-hyped premiere of the new weekly primetime series, which aired Wednesday at 10 pm, drew just 501,000 viewers, according to same-day Nielsen ratings,” reported the New York Post. “It finished a distant third among the biggest cable news channels in total viewers, ranking as the smallest of any of CNN’s primetime debuts this year.” The Post also reported that in the months to follow, their numbers continued to fall off: “Since its debut in late November, viewership has dropped 20% for ‘King Charles’ … But the Jan. 31 broadcast, the most recent airing as the program was off this past week, brought in just 400,000 total viewers and 89,000 in the 25-54 demographic, Nielsen figures show.” King and Charles were “even losing out to reruns of old ‘Friends’ and ‘South Park’ episodes.” A problem with CNN’s apparent plan to buy primetime market share by bringing in big names to draw in viewers was that big names come with packed schedules. As The Post noted, Barkley’s hindered how often they could put out episodes since he’d have to fly to New York to do the show every Wednesday between his obligations for TNT’s Inside the NBA: An industry source told The Post that the show was limited by Barkley’s schedule. The NBA Hall of Famer could only do the show on Wednesdays due to his other commitments — namely his role as a co-host of the popular “Inside the NBA” on CNN’s sister station TNT, according to a source close to the network. Barkley had mentioned that his crowded schedule made it more difficult for the show to attract a loyal following. Another possible factor in the show’s cancelation could have been that Barkley’s political ideology didn’t adhere to liberal dogma as staunchly as most CNN hosts. In late February, on the show, Barkley told then-Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley: “Governor, I’m dying to vote for you. I want to give all my energy and all my heart behind your campaign.” His hang-up was her comments about America never being a racist country. King, on the other hand, has a history of ultra-liberal punditry and has donated to the Obama campaign and vacationed with them as though she was part of the family. 

RFK Jr Illuminates Some Startling Details about Biden and Big Tech’s Collusion

Presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave the game away on how the Biden White House used fear and intimidation to push social media censorship. Kennedy Jr. appeared on the April 14 episode of Dave Rubin’s The Rubin Report. During the podcast, Kennedy elucidated more on his heated interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett, in which he categorized President Joe Biden as a worse threat to democracy than former President Donald Trump, much to the astonishment of the CNN host.  Kennedy used this appearance with Rubin to further justify his claims on CNN by categorizing Biden’s anti-free speech actions as a unique, unprecedented betrayal of the American identity, and that, unlike Trump, Biden has been proven to have engaged in anti-democratic activity.  Further elaborating on his CNN remarks, Kennedy said that “President Biden did something no other president in history, and a court has found this. There’s no court that’s found that President Trump tried to steal the election, tried to derail the election, or tried to start an insurrection. There may be plenty of evidence that he did that. There’s no court that has found that. But there is a court that had found that President Biden was censoring his opponents.” Kennedy is referring to a preliminary injunction issued by a district court judge against the Biden administration’s censorship operation. The judge concluded that the Biden administration had indeed threatened social media companies and ordered that certain government entities and members of the Biden administration cease threatening or directing social media companies to censor. RFK JR discusses extralegal methods Biden Administration uses to censor political opponents. Kennedy defends his comments from CNN interview with Erin Burnett and continues to argue that Biden is worse for democracy than Trump. Kennedy also talks about how the White House was… pic.twitter.com/nOk892ZJwM — Count of Monte Cristo (@MonteCristo1837) April 15, 2024 Kennedy then went on to explain some of Biden’s censorship activities in more detail and exposed how the operation worked. “The president had leverage to make these companies comply, which is they were threatening to pull antitrust laws, but also to pull Section 230 immunity,” Kennedy said. “Section 230 of the Communications Act is the section that makes Facebook and, you know, the platforms immune from defamation suits.” According to Kennedy, without Section 230, social media companies would practically cease to exist, and he categorized its repeal as an “existential” threat to these platforms.  “The White House was threatening these platforms that if you don’t censor RFK and other people, that we’re gonna go after your Section 230 immunity, and that is existential for them, so of course they complied,” he said. Earlier in the episode, Kennedy had warned Rubin that this kind of unconstitutional activity by the incumbent president was unlikely to stop.  “Biden has three billion dollars that he’s gonna have, according to the New York Times, for this campaign, probably double any campaign in history,” Kennedy said. “But he’s not gonna use that money to amplify his voice. He’s gonna use it to try to get Trump off the ballot, to try and get me off the ballot, to try and make sure he doesn't have anyone running, and it’s ironic because the Democrats are all lambasting Vladimir Putin because he won 81 percent of the vote because he didn't have any opponents.” 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 at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable. 

Following Polls Is Not Leadership

In the mid-‘90s, President Bill Clinton hired famed pollster Dick Morris to triangulate Clinton’s path to victory in 1996. Morris told Clinton that polling is not designed to tell someone what to do. Rather, polling is designed to tell one how to sell what they want to do. President Joe Biden has forgotten that lesson and now, instead of leading, he is being led around by his polling. Eighteen percent of Michigan Democratic voters refused to vote for Biden on Feb. 27. Thirteen percent voted "uncommitted." The loudest of the uncommitted were Hamas supporters in Michigan who have demanded Democrats stop supporting Israel. Despite most Americans recognizing Israel’s right and need to eliminate Hamas and recover its citizens held by Hamas, a slim majority of Democrats and a large majority of progressive Democrats disagree. Over the past month, since the Michigan primary, Biden has slowly walked away from Israel and handed Hamas, a terrorist group that also wants to kill Americans, a victory in the press. Biden first allowed an anti-Israel resolution to pass the United Nations Security Council. Then he began more public criticisms of Israel. Now, the President demands Israel unilaterally stop fighting Hamas. Tragically and ironically, had Israel stormed into southern Gaza, destroyed Hamas and leveled Rafah quickly, the war would be over and public opinion would not have shifted so decisively against Israel. But the Israeli government attempted to humor Biden, move slow and minimize civilian casualties. That just bought Biden time to sell out Israel to placate American antisemites whose votes he needs. In Ukraine, Biden has been slow to deliver on every promise. He was slow to deliver planes. He was slow to deliver missiles. He was slow to deliver tanks. When he did deliver tanks, he supplied Ukraine with tanks so heavy they are getting stuck in the mud. Biden has conveniently blamed Republicans who have dragged their feet on funding Ukraine. But well before funding was an issue, Biden’s team never seemed in a hurry to do more than make unfulfilled promises. Now, to slow down the Russians, Ukraine has started blowing up Russian oil refineries and fuel storage facilities. The result has stymied Russian advances. Russian personnel carriers, tanks, planes, and other vehicles cannot get fuel. Instead of helping, American Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has asked Ukraine to stop. He publicly said he was concerned about what Ukraine’s attacks could do to global fuel prices. This has everything to do with Joe Biden’s reelection chances. High fuel prices will impact food prices, which will drive inflation, which will drive down Biden’s popularity. Far be it for Ukraine to stymie the Russians when doing so could cost Joe Biden an election. Now, in this country, just the other day Joe Biden went on Univision to announce he would attempt to unilaterally secure the southern border without Congress passing new legislation. The President who thinks he can unilaterally forgive student loans does not seem to think he has the power to secure the border unilaterally, despite prior presidents, including Donald Trump, doing so. Going to Univision to make his case is a telling sign that, again, Biden is being led by polls. A growing body of polling data shows Hispanic voters are seriously concerned and upset about illegal immigration. Biden needs them in his coalition to stop Trump. He must crack down on illegal immigration to get their votes. So he must now do what he has insisted he could not do. He will issue executive orders to secure the border, something he could have done all along, even before the polling turned against him. So desperate to keep a non-white coalition together to stop Trump, Biden is even pausing a ban on menthol cigarettes. The ban, proposed by the FDA, would have gone into effect before the election. Black Americans are the top consumers of menthol cigarettes and flavored tobacco products, both of which would have been banned. Now, the products are safe, at least until Biden wins reelection. Leadership is doing what’s right, regardless of the consequences. Biden is not leading. He is being led and that makes him easily manipulated by progressive constituencies.

Fox News Host Notes 'MSM' Skips NPR Hubbub, Would Leap On Fox Insider Expose

On Sunday's MediaBuzz show on the Fox News Channel, host Howard Kurtz brought on ex-NPR reporter Juan Williams to recall his own in-house experience with the radical left inside NPR. Kurtz also noted most of the "mainstream" media have skipped any mention of the hubbub over NPR senior editor Uri Berliner's expose.  KURTZ: You know, The New York Times waited the two days and then a did a sort of 'NPR in Turmoil' piece but didn't get into any of the specifics. Nothing in The Washington Post, nothing at Politico, nothing on air at CNN or MSNBC. Doesn't that prove Berliner's point? If this had been a senior Fox person speaking out, I think it would have been covered nine seconds later! WILLIAMS: Oh, I don't think there's any question, I can tell you that.  The liberal dissidents inside Fox News turn to anti-Fox authors like Brian Stelter or Michael Wolff instead of going public, and remain anonymous until they can dish to the next Fox-hater who comes along.  Williams argued that the media, from NPR to Fox, identify with an audience, so NPR can boast they're not for the "Big Lie" (like Fox faced in court), but the crusading for your audience against that can lead to a "blindness." So NPR can't admit that Hunter Biden's laptop wasn't entirely fictional or a "pure distraction." Earlier, Kurtz recounted how Williams was forced out of NPR in 2010 for admitting he was scared of Muslims on airplanes on Fox's O'Reilly Factor, which led Williams to write a book titled Muzzled: The Assault on Honest Debate. Williams underlined this was before Trump. WILLIAMS: I think what we've seen time and again at NPR is an insulated cadre of people, liberals, I think, for the most part who think they are right-thinking, they're well educated people, that they think they're good people, and it can lead, I think, to a sort of arrogance.  So someone like me, I think you've known me a long time. I'm no flaming conservative, but I am too conservative a black guy for their taste. They would say, well, why is he willing to hear this out, to talk to a Justice Thomas, to deal with black conserv -- they don't -- For them it was, like, that doesn't fit with advocacy groups who say we need to do more in terms of black American experience. You know, obviously, I've written, I think, best-selling books about the black experience in America. But it didn't fit with their understanding.  Kurtz noted that NPR now has a database to log in all of their guests by race, gender, and sexual orientation, which suggests a DEI database of experts. WILLIAMS: I think this has gone to an extreme but, again, you know, there's just an interesting angle here which is it's conservatives at NPR battling against liberals.  KURTZ: Berliner voted against Trump twice. He's not a right-winger.  WILLIAMS: Right.. What you have is sort of, liberals against more people trying to prove they're more liberal. That's the very conversation in that very niche media environment. And I think this is highly regrettable because from the kind of journalistic experience I've had, you want people challenging ideas, people pushing you so that you're doing your best at not only getting the facts, or but presenting a balanced picture to the audience.  Even back when Williams came out with his book on being muzzled, NPR executives forwarded a, well, "Big Lie" that NPR was ideologically diverse. NPR media reporter David Folkenflik did a story quoting NPR executive Margaret Low Smith bizarrely claiming "NPR is a stunningly open-minded place. We're deeply encouraging and in fact appreciative of different points of view. Everybody knows that we apply journalistic rigor to absolutely every story we tell." Insert laugh track! 

Masters Champ Glorifies Jesus Christ on TV After Winning Golf Tournament

The Masters is one of four major professional golf tournaments and it took place this past weekend. The winner of the event, Scottie Scheffler, is receiving an abundance of praise and celebration after using his victory to glorify Jesus Christ.  American golfer Scheffler won $3,600,000 over the weekend and is ranked 1st in the wold for professional golfers at just 27 years old. In a video interview, Scheffler talked about a conversation he’d had with one of his friends before winning the tournament. “I wish that I didn’t wanna win as badly as I did,” Scheffler recalls telling his friend.  “My buddy’s told me this morning … my victory’s secure on the cross.” Powerful words from 2024 #Masters champion Scottie Scheffler after his win on Sunday. pic.twitter.com/woRSd519r2 — Sports Spectrum (@Sports_Spectrum) April 15, 2024 “My buddies told me this morning: my victory’s secure on the cross,” meaning that through Jesus’ love and God’s ultimate plan, Scheffler already had a real victory secured for him. Taken aback, Scheffler said, “that’s a pretty special feeling, to know that I’m secure for forever and it doesn’t matter whether or not I win this tournament or lose this tournament, my identity [in Jesus] is secure for forever.” Scheffler spoke even more about his win and how it was clearly the Lord’s plans.  CHILLS: Augusta Masters Champ and #1 ranked golfer Scottie Scheffler leaves Corporate Sports Media GASPING after using victory to glorify Jesus Christ on LIVE TV— NO ONE expected this response: "I’ve been given a gift with this talent and I use it for God’s glory.” 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/GsjL56z4Kk — CatholicVote (@CatholicVote) April 15, 2024 “I believe that today’s plans were already laid out many years ago and I could do nothing to mess up those plans. I’ve been given a gift of this talent, and I use it for God’s glory,” he said. Scheffler’s sentiment caused an outpouring of support. Catholic Vote, who posted a clip of the interview wrote “CHILLS” and insisted that he left “Corporate Sports Media GASPING” after glorifying God in his winning remarks. “Absolutely spectacular human being,” one commented on X, “All Glory to God!” Another user wrote, “I'm beyond ecstatic about the Christian resurgence underway now. We're facing dark times as a nation and we're turning to the one that can save us,” while one more said, “You are an example to all of us who are Christian on how we should conduct ourselves!” It’s refreshing to see a sports champion like Scheffler recognize that his true “win” is that he has a secure identity and future in Jesus and that God deserves the glory of any and all things we on earth consider success.

The NPR-Listening ‘Elite 1%’

Consider this proposition: “Suppose that your favorite candidate loses a close election. However, people on the campaign know that they can win by cheating without being caught. Would you rather have your candidate win by cheating or lose by playing fair?” Just 7% of Americans said, “Win by cheating.” This is from a startling new Scott Rasmussen poll. Rasmussen then put this question to those the pollster calls “the elite 1%.” They make over $150,000 per year, have a postgraduate degree, live in densely populated areas, and give President Joe Biden an 82% approval rating. Why poll this group? Rasmussen said: “A heavy concentration of them went to one of 12 elite schools. ... [H]alf the policy positions in government, half the corporate board positions in America, are held by people who went to one of these dozen schools.” Thirty-five percent of this group said they would rather their candidate win by cheating than lose by playing fair. It gets worse. Rasmussen put the question to a subset of this elite 1%, whom the pollster calls the “politically obsessed,” defined as those who talk about politics every day. Among this group, the number who would rather win by cheating jumps to 69%. Rasmussen said: “Most Americans think we don’t have enough individual freedom. Among the elite 1%, about half say, ‘No, we’ve got too much freedom.’ And among that politically obsessed group, about 7 out of 10 say, “There’s too much individual freedom in America.” As for why they think this way, Rasmussen said: “... part of the reason is because they trust government. In America, it’s been 50 years since most voters trusted the government to do the right thing most of the time. But among the elite 1%, 70% trust the government. ... They really believe that if they could just make the decisions and get us out of the way, we would be a lot better off.” This brings us to National Public Radio, whose mostly white listeners consist of the more affluent and those more likely to have college and postgraduate degrees. (Let us reserve for another time the question of why, in an information overload internet world full of radio and television channels, podcasts, numerous news outlets, etc., we still  have taxpayer-supported public television and radio.) Now this elite 1% absolutely, positively loves NPR. Uri Berliner, senior business editor and reporter, is a 25-year NPR veteran. He insists NPR “lost its way when it started telling listeners how to think.” In a strikingly candid article, Berliner writes: “It’s true NPR has always had a liberal bent, but during most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed. We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding. “In recent years, however, that has changed. Today, those who listen to NPR or read its coverage online find something different: the distilled worldview of a very small segment of the U.S. population. ... “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. ... “At NPR, we hitched our wagon to Trump’s most visible antagonist, Representative Adam Schiff. “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. “It is one thing to swing and miss on a major story. ... What’s worse is to pretend it never happened, to move on with no mea culpas, no self-reflection.” Who is listening to NPR? Berliner says: “Our news audience doesn’t come close to reflecting America. It’s overwhelmingly white and progressive, and clustered around coastal cities and college towns.” You know, kind of like the elite 1%.

STUDY: At Least 90% of TV News Fails to Call Trump Prosecutors ‘Democrats’

Barring a last-minute hiccup, today a Democratic prosecutor — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg — will begin his unprecedented criminal trial of former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s certain presidential nominee in November’s general election. Despite the obvious political implications of such a prosecution, a new study of ABC, CBS and NBC evening news coverage shows at least 90% of their coverage failed to inform viewers that Bragg and the other elected Democrats going after Trump are “Democrats.” It’s as if the networks prefer to disingenuously portray the indictments and civil lawsuits as the work of nonpartisan career prosecutors, rather than as partisan attempts to use the court system to hobble the electoral prospects of the country’s top Republican. For this study, our analysts reviewed all broadcast evening news coverage from January 1, 2023 through April 10, 2024. Here’s a rundown of how the networks are failing to adequately disclose the partisanship of the three elected Democrats prosecuting Trump: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg; Fulton County (Georgia) District Attorney Fani Willis; and New York Attorney General Letitia James. ■ Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg: Bragg attained his current post after he ran and won as a Democrat in the November 2021 general election. During his campaign, Bragg all but promised to use his office to pursue the former President — to hold him “accountable,” as Bragg not-so-subtly put it as he vied with other Democrats for the coveted nomination. And Bragg isn’t just a mainstream Democrat — he’s clearly on the far left (“progressive”) wing of the party. A New York Times “fact check” last March grudgingly documented the links between Bragg and left-wing billionaire George Soros as “real but overstated....Mr. Soros donated to a liberal group that endorses progressive prosecutors and supports efforts to overhaul the criminal justice system — in line with causes that he has publicly supported for years. That group used a significant portion of the money to support Mr. Bragg in his 2021 campaign.” In other words, Bragg is exactly the sort of ideological prosecutor the Soros squad pushed in big cities across America a few years ago, with damaging results for the people who live in those jurisdictions. In spite of this, since Bragg zeroed in on Trump early last year, the Big Three evening newscasts have rarely mentioned his undisputed partisanship. ABC’s World News Tonight has aired 56 stories discussing Bragg’s “hush money” case against Trump, yet sharp-eared viewers only once heard that Bragg was a Democrat — on February 26, 2024, when correspondent Aaron Katersky relayed how “a spokesman for Trump... called Bragg ‘another deranged Democrat prosecutor.’” That’s still better than the CBS Evening News, which aired 48 stories discussing Bragg’s case, none of which revealed that the District Attorney is a Democrat. NBC Nightly News was the most informative on this score, informing viewers that Bragg is a Democrat in 16 out of 59 stories, or about 27% of the time — still barely one-fourth of stories. Add it all up, and the Big Three only labeled Bragg as a Democrat 17 times out of 163 stories, which means Bragg’s partisanship was omitted from nearly 90% of evening news stories about his election-season indictments of the former President. ■ New York Attorney General Letitia James: Twice elected as an anti-Trump Democrat (in 2018 and 2022), James showed her ambition for higher office when she briefly challenged incumbent Kathy Hochul for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2021. After two months, she dropped that campaign in favor of a second term as the state’s Attorney General. “There are a number of important investigations and cases that are underway, and I intend to finish the job,” James explained. That same day, she stepped up her investigation of the Trump businesses that led to the unprecedented $355 million civil judgment against the former President, now being appealed. In other words, James seems to have concluded she needed to win a judicial victory against Trump to make herself more popular among Democratic voters. Yet on ABC, CBS and NBC, there’s been even less discussion of James’s blunt partisanship than of Bragg’s. Through April 10, ABC’s World News Tonight has aired 44 stories mentioning James’s suit against Trump and his businesses, yet only one — back on November 6 — identified the state Attorney General as a “Democrat,” in a fleeting on-screen graphic that was shown for less than two seconds. Similarly, the CBS Evening News produced 35 stories that discussed James’s civil case, but only once did viewers learn about James’s partisanship. As with ABC, the information was disclosed in an on-screen graphic, as the March 24, 2024 Sunday night newscast briefly showed a Trump campaign message demanding that “Insane radical Democrat AG Letitia James” keep her “FILTHY HANDS OFF OF TRUMP TOWER.” Compared to its competitors, NBC Nightly News was again the most informative. The newscast discussed the civil case in 26 stories, seven of which (27%) mentioned James’s party affiliation. Yet that means the vast majority of stories (73%) omitted this important information. The final tally: As of April 10, the Big Three have aired 105 stories about the civil case against Trump, but only nine mentioned that the official who brought the charges, Letitia James, is a partisan Democrat — leaving this crucial fact out of 93% of network stories. ■ Fulton County (Georgia) District Attorney Fani Willis: As with Bragg and James, Willis’s partisanship is not in dispute. She ran and won as a Democrat in 2020, and she is running for re-election this fall as a Democrat. This spring, during a misconduct hearing into her affair with a lead prosecutor, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported “prominent Democrats” in Georgia were “rallying around” Willis, hoping to keep her from being removed from the Trump case. Nonetheless, while ABC’s World News Tonight (60) and the CBS Evening News (39) have aired a combined 99 stories mentioning Willis’s prosecution of Trump, none — ZERO — have told their viewers that the District Attorney is a partisan Democrat. For its part, the NBC Nightly News mentioned Willis was a Democrat eight times out of 50 stories — omitting this fact from the remaining 84% of its coverage. Add it all up, and out of 149 evening news stories about the Georgia election case against Trump, a scant five percent revealed that Willis was a Democrat, vs. 95% that kept viewers in the dark. +++++ From the beginning of these cases, journalists have had a choice in how they frame these various legal challenges to Donald Trump: Democrats vs. a Republican (i.e., a partisan food fight), or nonpartisan law enforcement vs. an accused lawbreaker. Clearly, the editorial choices made by these broadcast networks shows they are framing these cases as the actions of nonpartisan law enforcement officials — all of whom just happen to be Democrats. But if it were a leading Democrat who had been placed under the legal microscope by a trio of elected Republicans, does anyone think that the media would be so reluctant to even mention the partisanship of the prosecutors? Of course not.

'Special Treatment'? Politico Legal Editor Claims Legal System Is Too Nice to Trump

If anybody has any doubt about the extreme liberal bias of Politico, an article they published on Friday should resolve that matter. Their legal editor, James Romoser, attempted to portray the legal system as being too nice to Donald Trump.  The diatribe was headlined: "How Donald Trump Gets Special Treatment in the Legal System." ...He lies about his cases. He vilifies the judges overseeing them — and then vilifies their wives and daughters, too. ...As Trump prepares to begin his first criminal trial on Monday in New York, the tolerance of his tirades is perhaps the most glaring sign of the judicial system’s Trump exceptionalism. But it’s far from the only example. Over the past year, in ways large and small, in criminal cases and civil ones, Trump has consistently been given more freedom and more privileges than virtually any other defendant in his shoes. Romoser's fraud kicked into high gear when he invoked the name of New York Attorney General Tish James who campaigned for her office on a blatant platform of going after Trump: "New York Attorney General Tish James won a $454 million civil judgment against him for perpetrating years of corporate fraud." Although James told Rachel Maddow she had no vendetta against Trump, her own words prove her to be a flat-out liar. Something that the venomous Romoser avoided since it completely undermines his ridiculous premise about Trump somehow getting special treatment from the legal system: It is hard to believe this is being allowed in the United States… she has been waiting for this moment her entire life. pic.twitter.com/3w3lLgN8WO — Eric Trump (@EricTrump) November 6, 2023 So far gone is Romoser's hatred of Trump that he even expressed outrage at the appeals court which lowered his bond set by Judge Arthur Engoron in the New York (victimless) civil fraud case from nearly a half billion dollars to $175 million. But after Trump complained to a New York appeals court, a panel of judges intervened with an unexpected 11th-hour reprieve, issuing a terse, unexplained order that sharply reduced the bond amount that Trump had to post while he appeals the verdict. The decision ensured that Trump wouldn’t have to start selling off assets and that James couldn’t start seizing them. Although Romoser went on to whine about Trump using his Fulton County, Georgia mugshot as a "fundraising tool" he carefully avoided any mention of the district attorney in that case, Fani Willis, currently under investigation for corruption. Ironically, although the subtitle of one of the sections in the Romoser diatribe was "A fusillade of vitriol," he launched into "a fusillade of of vitriol" against any judge who displayed any sense of fairness in the midst of the politically weaponized lawfare launched against him. A few examples: ...Cannon’s deference to Trump has carried over into the post-indictment phase of the case. She has raised the eyebrows of plenty of legal experts — and stoked the frustrations of prosecutors — by issuing confusing rulings on some pretrial matters while leaving others unresolved for long stretches. Most significantly, her plodding pace has cast a pall of uncertainty over the trial schedule — another delay that benefits Trump. ...But with Cannon, some experts detect a more sinister motive: If Trump is elected, many believe she would be on his short list for a Supreme Court appointment. Despite all the media hype, the Bragg case is so weak that even the fairly liberal Vox mocked it as dubious in "The dubious legal theory at the heart of the Trump indictment, explained." ...Bragg built his case on an exceedingly uncertain legal theory. Even if Trump did the things he’s accused of, it’s not clear Bragg can legally charge Trump for them, at least under the felony version of New York’s false records law. ...The felony statute requires Bragg to prove that Trump falsified records to cover up a crime. Bragg has evidence that Trump acted to cover up a federal crime, but it is not clear that Bragg is allowed to point to a federal crime in order to charge Trump under the New York state law. ...There’s also one more twist here. The statute of limitations for the felony version of the false records crime is five years, while the statute of limitations for the misdemeanor version is only two years. Trump’s final payment to Cohen occurred in December 2017, which was more than five years ago.

DUCK A LA GRETCH: Gov. Whitmer Dances Around NBC’s ‘Genocide’ Question

During the Gaza portion of their interview on NBC’s Meet The Press, Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer (MI) ducked and danced in order to avoid answering any of the politically-fraught questions, including whether she agrees with the belief of some that what is happening in Gaza is a “genocide”. Watch Whitmer dance around both the Gaza question and on whether she thinks Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza might cost him the election, as aired on NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday, April 14th, 2024: KRISTEN WELKER: Let's talk about what is happening in the Middle East. Approximately 60% of Michigan voters disapprove of President Biden's handling of the war in Gaza. Your state, obviously, has the largest Arab-American population in the country. Less than 20% of Arab-Americans nationally say that they will vote to re-elect President Biden. Do you think this issue, President Biden's handling of the war in the Middle East could cost him the state of Michigan?  GRETCHEN WHITMER: I think that the state of Michigan is always going to be a close race no matter what- under what scenario. I will share though, as I've had conversations with people both in my Jewish community and in the Arab-American and Muslim and Palestinian communities, that a lot of people are hurting right now. A lot of people are one degree of separation from someone who has lost their lives whether it was on October 7th or is in- the war in Gaza. And so I'm trying to keep an open dialogue to stay focused on how we support these beautiful, diverse communities here in Michigan, and I'm hoping for peace, but obviously after the events of the last 24 hours there is a lot that is evolving here, and I am glad to see that our president said he remains -- we have an ironclad commitment to the security of Israel.  WELKER: Some Democrats, including from your state, are calling the war in Gaza a genocide. Would you go that far? Do you believe that what is happening inside Gaza is a genocide?  WHITMER: I think that it's heartbreaking to see the loss of so many innocent lives, children every day that this war continues to be prosecuted and that's why as governor, as Commander-in-Chief of the Michigan National Guard, I’m  watching this very closely and doing what I can to support all of these communities here in Michigan. WELKER: But you don't go that far to use that term genocide? WHITMER: I'm not going to weigh in where I know that a lot of these terms are used to inflame and divide us. I’m going to stay focused on doing- being productive and hoping that we can have some peace very soon. The Gaza questions are not unfounded, given both the abundance of correspondents parachuting into Dearborn and reporting doom for Biden, and the hand wringing over the “Uncommitted” vote ahead of Michigan’s Democratic primary (which garnered over 100,000 votes). Additionally, Whitmer’s name often comes up in post-Biden Democrat presidential discussions. Whitmer’s responses are quite telling here. First, she demurs on whether Gaza will cost Biden the election outright in a lengthy, focus grouped non-answer that ends with a meek statement of support of Israel. Welker reminds us, yet again, that the first and purest victim of any calamity is the electoral prospects of President Joe Biden. Then, the Gaza question. Whitmer must have known that it was coming, hence the first crafted response. Having expended her talking point, Whitmer goes to the non-responsive shutdown of the question. Welker did not take a third pass, going instead to a question on Trump’s upcoming New York City trial.  The question of whether or not what is happening in Gaza is a “genocide” (it isn’t) should be easy to respond one way or the other- whether you believe there is or there isn’t. Whitmer’s craven nonresponse here is as revealing as Welker’s willful failure to extract an answer.  

Sununu SCHOOLS Stephanopoulos Over J6: ‘You’re In This NYC Bubble’

ABC This Week host George Stephanopoulos closes out his interviews of Republicans with a unique bit of sanctimony- the question of whether they’d support former President Donald Trump in the event of a conviction in one of the myriad indictments against him. And it is one of the loudest Trump opponents in this primary cycle who finally took that question and threw it back in Stephanopoulos’ face. Watch as New Hampshire Governor and former Nikki Haley surrogate Chris Sununu closes his interview with Stephanopoulos by informing him that the average American regards the Trump indictments as “reality TV” and is largely tuning the lawfare out: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: …you said in the past that he should drop out if he's convicted in the classified documents case. Do you still believe that?  CHRIS SUNUNU: No. What- he’s gonna drop out after being the nominee? Of course, not, you know, that's not to be expected at all. All of these cases by the way, the average American, it's all conflated, right? We watch this stuff. We watch the details. The average American sees it more as reality TV. I’m not saying there’s not real issues to bear there, of course there are. But there's clearly politics to bear in some of these cases. That is undeniable. The average American just thinks it's more reality TV and prosecution of him at this point. He plays that victim card very, very well. His poll numbers only go up with this stuff, so to think of this as some sort of deal breaker- again, I’ll go back to where I started, where people are going to say,” yup, if he’s convicted, I'm walking away.” That’s just not going to happen. At the end of the day, they want that culture change of the Republican Party, and if we have to have Trump as the  standard bearer- and the voters decided that’s what they wanted, not what I wanted, but what the voters- the Republican votes wanted- if he’s going to be the standard bearer of that, we'll take it if we have to. That's how badly America wants a culture change. STEPHANOPOULOS: So just to sum up, you would support him for president even if he was convicted in classified documents. You would support him for president, even though you believe he contributed to an insurrection. You support him for president even though you believe he's lying about the last election, you support him for president even if he's convicted in the Manhattan case. I just want to say- the answer to that is yes, correct? SUNUNU: Yeah, me and 51% of America. STEPHANOPOULOS: Governor, thanks for your time this morning.  A Republican governor endorsing the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee is a dog-bites-man story, notwithstanding the fact that the aforementioned governor was the chief surrogate of the eventual nominee’s last rival standing. This happens all the time. But Stephanopoulos framed his Sununu interview with a brief on the upcoming Stormy Daniels trial. The interview thus became less about Sununu’s endorsement of Trump than about Stephanopoulos’ sanctimony.  This constant hectoring went on for nearly 11 minutes: Stephanopoulos trying to shame Sununu over his endorsement of Trump despite past statements and denunciations, and Sununu batting each attempt away. The most emblematic exchange of the interview has Sununu telling Stephanopoulos that he lives in a bubble- and telling him outright that the J6 stuff doesn’t matter to voters confronting a broader assortment of suck that includes such items as inflation and the border: STEPHANOPOULOS: And you believe that someone -- you believe that a president who contributed to an insurrection should be president again?  SUNUNU: As does 51% of America, George. I mean, really. I understand you're part of the media. I understand you're in this New York City bubble or whatever it is, but you gotta look around at what's happening across this country. They’re not- it's not about just supporting Trump. It's getting rid of what we have today. It's about understanding that inflation is crushing families. It's understanding this border issue is not a Texas issue. It's a 50-state issue, right?-  that has to be brought under control. It's about that type of elitism that the average American is just sick and tired of. And it's a culture change. That's what I'm supporting. That's what most of America right now is looking to support, and wants to change there. So, again, I know you're shocked that the Republican governor is supporting a Republican president and a Republican ticket, but it's about the ticket. It's about up and down the ballot, right? I want Republican governors and senators and congressmen, and that type of culture if you will, I keep going back to that, because that's exactly what it is, that's the change America is looking for, and not relitigating January 6th. It's not a top issue.  Stephanopoulos had no answer. That it is Sununu making these points makes it even more significant because the elite media cannot dismiss him as they would someone perhaps considered to be more of a Trump loyalist.  And this fundamental truth remains: the media are locked in a bubble, and are fundamentally out of touch with the American people.  

PBS Objectivity? AZ Abortion Ban Cuts off ‘Critical Release Valve,’ No More ‘Fleeing’

The PBS NewsHour led its Tuesday evening newscast with the week’s big issue: abortion, an issue of such apparent import (and perceived advantage to the Democratic Party in November) that both anchors took a biased crack at it before the segment itself. Co-anchor Geoff Bennett: Arizona will soon be the latest state with a near-total abortion ban after the state's Supreme Court revived a 160-year-old law. The law provides no exceptions for rape or incest. And, in its 4-2 opinion, the conservative majority wrote -- quote -- "Physicians are now on notice that all abortions, except those necessary to save a woman's life, are illegal." Co-anchor Amna Nawaz: Doctors who perform abortions could face criminal prosecution and prison time, though the Democratic attorney general says she will not prosecute. It's the latest test of the limits on abortion since the Supreme Court ended federal abortion protections from the decades-old Roe v. Wade decision…. After a soundbite from Arizona’s Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs saying the “abortion ban is extreme and hurts women,” Bennett introduced journalist Carter Sherman, who writes from the United States for the left-wing UK paper The Guardian about (ahem) “reproductive health.” The outlet in question -- and that euphemism for abortion -- were two hints that what’s about to unfold won't hew to PBS’s congressional mandate for "strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature.” Bennett: What's the expected impact on women's health care in Arizona and in the surrounding region? Sherman: Arizona has been a critical release valve for places like Texas, which have a total abortion ban on the books right now. So, if we ban abortion totally, or almost totally, in Arizona, there's going to be plenty of people throughout the Southwest who previously might have fled to Arizona for abortions who will now have to travel even farther out. Abortion rights supporters also say that this could have massive impacts on things like maternal mortality. So there's going to be really wide-ranging effects, really across the region in a variety of health areas. They pivoted to the political repercussions. The takeaway: Good for Democrats. Carter Sherman: I think that this decision today is going to make Arizona one of the biggest battlefields, particularly in abortion, but also in the presidential race, also in the Senate race, in the 2024 elections. What we're looking at here is a potentially very galvanized population outraged by the overturning of Roe, outraged by a near-total abortion ban, and those people might decide to go to the polls en masse and vote not just for abortion rights, but also for Democrats…. Sherman, who previously wrote for the former left-wing outlet Vice, appeared on the NewsHour last month to disdain pro-life “crisis pregnancy centers” where women sometimes walked out of with their fetuses intact. This pro-abortion segment was brought to you in part by American Cruise Lines. A transcript is available, click “Expand.” PBS NewsHour April 9, 2024 7:03:19 p.m. (ET) Geoff Bennett: Arizona will soon be the latest state with a near-total abortion ban after the state's Supreme Court revived a 160-year-old law. The law provides no exceptions for rape or incest. And, in its 4-2 opinion, the conservative majority wrote — quote — "Physicians are now on notice that all abortions, except those necessary to save a woman's life, are illegal." Amna Nawaz: Doctors who perform abortions could face criminal prosecution and prison time, though the Democratic attorney general says she will not prosecute. It's the latest test of the limits on abortion since the Supreme Court ended federal abortion protections from the decades-old Roe v. Wade decision. And in this election year, there is already an effort under way to get a pro-abortion rights amendment on Arizona's ballot in November. Arizona's Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs responded to today's court decision. Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ): Arizona's 2022 abortion ban is extreme and hurts women. 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. As governor, I promise I will do everything in my power to protect our reproductive freedoms. Geoff Bennett: Carter Sherman covers reproductive health for The Guardian and joins me now. Thanks so much for being with us. Carter Sherman, The Guardian: Thank you for having me. Geoff Bennett: So, the Arizona State Supreme Court lifted a stay on this 1864 law that was passed before Arizona was a state. Help us understand how they arrived at this decision. Carter Sherman: So this ban has been the source of court battles and chaos since the overturning of Roe almost two years ago. What happened is, after a very long period of litigation, the Supreme Court of Arizona decided today that, since there is no more Roe v. Wade, there is no reason why this 1864 ban should not go into effect. Now, what's unclear at this point is when exactly that ban will fully take effect and be enforceable, in the words of the court. Abortion providers and their supporters are at this time really trying to figure out what this decision means for all the people on the ground in Arizona. Geoff Bennett: How is it that the Civil War era law supersedes the previous law that the legislature passed and the previous governor signed in 2022 that made abortion accessible up to 15 weeks? Carter Sherman: When the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide in Roe v. Wade in 1973, that meant that there were several laws across the country that dated back decades that were no longer going to be in effect. And many of these laws were never really, truly dealt with. They just went dormant. And so, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe in 2022, suddenly, all of these states, including Arizona, had to deal with these so-called zombie laws that they had not ever really fully reckoned with. Arizona had also in 2022 passed a separate 15-week abortion ban. But what happened was that 15-week abortion ban and this near-total abortion ban from 1864 just sort of coexisted, and they weren't really harmonized in any kind of way. In this case, in particular, Planned Parenthood has argued that these laws needed to be harmonized, and that's why that the 15-week ban should be allowed to stand over the 1864 ban. That's not the argument that the Arizona Supreme Court accepted today. Geoff Bennett: Well, in the meantime, Arizona's attorney general, Kris Mayes, says she will not prosecute any doctor who performs abortion procedures. Mayes says that this is a collective effort with the state's governor. How is that being received by county prosecutors, who could potentially use their own discretion? Carter Sherman: I think that there are many, many questions about what it really means for an official like Mayes to say that she will try to hold off on any kind of prosecutions of abortion providers. The providers that I have talked to and I have heard from don't necessarily feel like they are totally in the clear at this point, and they are confused about what it means moving forward if they were to provide abortions. Geoff Bennett: What's the expected impact on women's health care in Arizona and in the surrounding region? Carter Sherman: Arizona has been a critical release valve for places like Texas, which have a total abortion ban on the books right now. So, if we ban abortion totally, or almost totally, in Arizona, there's going to be plenty of people throughout the Southwest who previously might have fled to Arizona for abortions who will now have to travel even farther out. Abortion rights supporters also say that this could have massive impacts on things like maternal mortality. So there's going to be really wide-ranging effects really across the region in a variety of health areas. Geoff Bennett: And there's also the political impact. Arizona, as you well know, is among a handful of key battleground states. An effort is already under way right now to put a measure on the 2024 ballot that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. How might this affect not just the presidential election, but that key Senate race, that hotly contested Senate race in Arizona? Carter Sherman: I think that this decision today is going to make Arizona one of the biggest battlefields, particularly in abortion, but also in the presidential race, also in the Senate race, in the 2024 elections. What we're looking at here is a potentially very galvanized population outraged by the overturning of Roe, outraged by a near-total abortion ban, and those people might decide to go to the polls en masse and vote not just for abortion rights, but also for Democrats. There's actually been, since the decision came out today, many Republicans in the state saying: This was a bad idea. I don't support this decision. And some of them had said that they will work to try to figure out a way back to this 15-week abortion limit and not a near-total abortion ban. I have covered this issue for many years. I have covered it long before Roe was overturned. And I have never really seen this sort of immediate 180 from Republicans in this way on this issue. Geoff Bennett: That is Carter Sherman with The Guardian. Thanks so much for sharing your reporting and your insights with us. Carter Sherman: Thank you for having me.

Sounds Absurd: CNN's Elie Honig Underlines Weakness of Alvin Bragg's Case Against Trump

CNN's legal analyst Elie Honig writing in a Cafe Brief newsletter that was reprinted in New York magazine on Friday presented both the pro and anti Trump ways of looking at the Alvin Bragg case that takes place on April 15 in Manhattan. It is obvious which of the two point of view that Honig thinks is most realistic in "Donald Trump’s Trial Is a Rorschach Test." ...The crime is a paperwork offense relating to how Trump and his businesses logged a series of perfectly legal (if unseemly) hush-money payments in their own internal records. The prosecution’s star witness is a convicted perjurer and fraudster who openly spews vitriol at the defendant, often in grotesque terms, essentially for a living. The famously aggressive feds at the Southern District of New York passed on the case years ago, and current Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s predecessor could have indicted before he left office but did not. The charges are either misdemeanors or the lowest-level felonies (depending on how the jury decides the case), and the vast majority of defendants convicted of similar offenses are sentenced to probation and fines, not prison. Having presented the POV favorable to Trump, Honig then presents what appears to be a rather lame way of looking at the trial from someone hostile towards Trump presenting it as a desperate payoff scheme in 2016 to keep his campaign from collapsing: ...To keep his listing campaign from capsizing, Trump and his team paid off porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged extramarital affair and then labeled those payments “legal expenses.” Already the first American president or former president to face indictment, Trump could soon become the first to sustain a felony conviction, and it’s possible he could lose the 2024 election — and eventually wind up behind bars — as a result. It's not hard to discern which of these viewpoints Honig thinks best reflects reality. This is also reflected in what else he wrote: ...Paying hush money is not a crime. In fact, a hush-money agreement, though seedy, is legally no different from any other contract between private parties. So Trump knowing about the Daniels payoff — and he clearly did — is merely a starting point here and insufficient to prove anything criminal. The charged New York State crime here is falsification of business records. The DA alleges Trump had the hush-money payments fraudulently recorded in his internal books as “legal expenses” (rather than, I don’t know, “hush money to porn star”). If proved, that’s merely a misdemeanor, a low-level crime virtually certain to result in a non-prison sentence. For comparison, under the New York code, falsification of business records has the same technical designation as shoplifting less than $1,000 of goods. ...But it’s not entirely clear whether Trump was involved in the actual logging of those payments in the internal records of his business — remember, that’s the crime. In fact, when Cohen secretly recorded his then-client talking about a hush-money payment to another woman in 2016, Trump seems clueless about the accounting mechanism. ...The received wisdom is that the Manhattan case is the least important, and will be the least impactful, of the four pending Trump indictments. The first part of that proposition is beyond reasonable dispute. One has to wonder if Donald Trump is guilty of so many massive crimes as those who oppose to him allege, why do the cases against him such as the Manhattan case appear to be so incredibly weak and prosecuted by either corrupt or highly biased or flawed officials while being surreptitiously aided by the Biden administration? Hopefully, Elie Honig won't be shunned by his CNN colleagues for his observations about the Manhattan case.

FLASHBACK: When a Juvenile News Media Tried to Destroy the Tea Party

Fifteen years ago this week (April 15, 2009), the grassroots Tea Party movement rallied to oppose the massive government programs (bailouts, ObamaCare) pushed by new President Barack Obama. In response, left-wing cable networks employed adolescent jokes to belittle the movement, while the broadcast networks decried it as a front for “corporate interests.” The media putdowns failed, of course. The following November, the energy supplied by the Tea Party contributed to a “shellacking” of Democrats in the 2010 elections, as Republicans gained 63 House seats and six Senate seats (seven if you count Scott Brown’s upset in a January special election in Massachusetts). The first T.E.A. Party (Taxed Enough Already) protests took place in various cities on February 27, 2009, a reaction to presumed new taxes that would inevitably result from the Obama administration’s huge bailouts and spending programs. A major national protest was scheduled for April 15, “tax day,” the deadline for filing federal income tax forms. Filling in as host of MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann on April 13, David Shuster mocked the Tea Party by repeatedly deploying a slang term for a sex act called “teabagging.” “It’s going to be teabagging day for the right-wing and they’re going nuts for it. Thousands of them whipped out the festivities early this past weekend, and while the parties are officially toothless, the teabaggers are full-throated about their goals,” Shuster sophomorically sneered. The next night, CNN’s Anderson Cooper got into the act. “Republicans are pretty much in disarray...They’re searching for their voice,” analyst David Gergen dryly opined on the April 14 AC360. “It’s hard to talk when you’re teabagging,” Cooper snickered.       The big protests against Obama’s policies were April 15. That morning on New York City’s Imus in the Morning radio program, CNN analyst Paul Begala suggested true patriots would have no problem handing their cash to liberal bureaucrats, as he derided those protesting as “just a bunch of wimpy, whiny, weasels who don’t love their country....There are guys at Walter Reed who gave their legs for my country, and they’re whining because they have to write a check?” Over on NBC’s Today, Chuck Todd dismissed the Tea Party as no big deal. “There’s been some grassroots conservatives who have organized so-called ‘tea parties’ around the company, country, hoping the historical reference will help galvanize Americans against the President’s economic ideas. But I tell you, the idea hasn’t really caught on....It hasn’t galvanized the party the way they would hope.” On CNN that afternoon, correspondent Susan Roesgen decried the protest as “a party for Obama bashers....It’s anti-government, anti-CNN, since this is highly promoted by the right wing conservative network, Fox. And since I can’t really hear much more and I think this is not really family viewing, I’ll toss it back to you.” On ABC’s World News that evening, correspondent Dan Harris framed the protests as something “cheered on by Fox News and talk radio,” as he emphasized how “critics on the left” claimed “this is not a real grassroots phenomenon at all, that it’s actually largely orchestrated by people fronting for corporate interests.” “Organizers insist today’s ‘tea parties’ were organic uprisings of like-minded taxpayers from both parties....but some observers suggest not all of it was as home-grown as it may seem,” NBC’s Lee Cowan echoed on Nightly News. Over on CBS, correspondent Dean Reynolds cautioned that “it’s important to keep in mind that fresh polling indicates there is not all that much passion about high taxes in the country at large right now.” “All of these tax day parties seemed less about revolution and more about group therapy,” New York Times reporter Liz Robbins dismissed in an online piece that afternoon. “People attending the rallies were dressed patriotically and held signs expressing their anger, but offering no solutions.” Someone must have thought she went too far — Robbins’ snarky observations were omitted from the version of the article which appeared in the Times’ April 16 print edition. Following the protests, MSNBC’s Countdown on April 16 provided a platform for left-wing activist and actress Janeane Garofalo to accuse the Tea Partiers of ignorance and racism. “Let’s be very honest about what this is about,” she sneered. “It’s not about bashing Democrats, it’s not about taxes, they have no idea what the Boston Tea Party was about, they don’t know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks.” The disdainful coverage of the April rallies set the tone for the rest of the year. “What do you call a crazed group of people that disrupts a meeting on health care and hangs the congressman holding it in effigy? A mob,” ex-CNN reporter Bob Franken deplored in his August 7 “Politics Daily” column on AOL. “When Hamas does it or Hezbollah does it, it is called terrorism. Why should Republican lawmakers and the AstroTurf groups organizing on behalf of the health care industry be viewed any differently?” MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann growled that same night on Countdown. “They’ve waved signs likening President Obama to Hitler and the devil; raised questions about whether he was really born in this country; falsely accused him of planning to set up death panels; decried his speech to students as indoctrination; and called him everything from a ‘fascist’ to a ‘socialist’ to a ‘communist.’” ABC’s Harris scolded on the September 15 World News. “Add it all up, and some prominent Obama supporters are now saying that it paints a picture of an opposition driven, in part, by a refusal to accept a black President.” When radical liberals take to the streets to rail against Republican policies, the media like to paint their cause as popular and bend over backwards to present the protesters as mainstream and normal. But when it came to the anti-big government Tea Party, the media’s mission was to disparage and destroy the grassroots opposition to the Obama administration’s unprecedented liberalism. For more examples from our flashback series, which we call the NewsBusters Time Machine, go here.                          

PBS Panel Sees Peril for GOP on Abortion, Touts 'Powerful' Biden Ad on 'Trump Did This'

Abortion is back in the news with a vengeance, after the Arizona Supreme Court reinstated a Civil War era ban on abortion and candidate Donald Trump reacted with a moderate, federalist stance on abortion, disappointing some in the pro-life movement and making him an unfair figure of mockery in the mainstream press. Friday’s episode of public television’s weekly roundtable panel Washington Week with The Atlantic was dominated by abortion politics as a lifesaver for the Democrats (if not for the victims of abortion). Guest moderator Franklin Foer of The Atlantic set the table: FRANKLIN FOER: Arizona’s Supreme Court reinstates a 160-year-old abortion ban, and as a spate of states rush to restrict reproductive rights, Republicans, including Donald Trump, scramble to insulate themselves from a potential political backlash….the Arizona Supreme Court has ruled in favor of reviving a Civil War-era law that prohibits nearly all abortions. Republicans are running to distance themselves from the surprise decision while Democrats seize the opportunity to make gains in the battleground state. The ruling came just a day after former President Trump said he opposes a national abortion ban following months of mixed signals. How will Republican candidates navigate the post-Roe landscape now confronting them? As usual, the journalists were unanimously liberal. National Public Radio political editor Domenico Montanaro touted Republicans had lost "special election after special election" on abortion and lamented “the chaos that has ensued with women not having access to reproductive rights in -- millions of women across the South in particular, this chaotic sort of patchwork of abortion laws across the country, that’s made it really, really difficult.”   PBS NewsHour political reporter Lisa Desjardins said Trump showed he wasn't worried about his base, "he's not worried about all of those hard-right evangelicals." Susan Glasser of The New Yorker said Trump can't deny he was responsible for all this, "he has taken credit so many times for dismantling Roe." GLASSER: What I found interesting is immediately have the Biden campaign in the immediate aftermath of Trump's video, they put out a new advertisement I found particularly powerful of a Texas couple that wanted to have a baby. The woman experienced a miscarriage and she was denied necessary medical care in Texas, sent home, developed an infection, got sepsis, nearly died and she probably can't have a kid now. It is intimate and powerful and there's nothing about politics until the end, and the tagline is just "Trump did this." I think those words will haunt him. She took a maximalist ideological stance, expressed via obscurantist pro-choice labeling, telling tax-paying viewers that abortion was a “human right,” and thus all talk of states’ rights was irrelevant. (At least there was no dithering about whether men could get pregnant.) Glasser: If this is a human right for women, to have access to health care, to have access to their reproductive rights, your rights shouldn’t depend on what state you live in. If it’s a right, it’s a right, and it shouldn't matter that in Texas you have no access to something that you have in California. She played Democratic political strategist and moral arbiter and assumed the audience was on her side, even if she admitted that it was rather “ghoulish” to cheer for Democrats while supposedly extremist abortion policies were becoming law in various states. Glasser: ….I saw the Biden campaign estimates that already one in three women in America has lost access to reproductive health care as a result of the Supreme Court`s decision. And so there’s this almost ghoulish phenomenon, right? Like we’re like, well, it's a great issue for the Democrats or, you know, that it’s really good news. But, of course, in a real sense, these laws are actually going into effect….So, it’s a weird situation where we’re talking about the political advantage that might come to abortion rights supporters at a time when millions of women are actually losing their rights. This pro-abortion segment was brought to you in part by Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards.

New NPR CEO Haunted by Woke, Anti-Trump Tweets As Editor Exposes Bias

New NPR CEO Katherine Maher tried to rally the troops on Friday with a memo to staff that vaguely attacked NPR senior editor Uri Berliner's expose of the taxpayer-funded network's viewpoint diversity. She never actually mentioned Berliner, or seemed to engage with his overall argument. Instead, she vaguely expressed insult at Berliner noting the existence of a pile of identity groups among the employees: "Questioning whether our people are serving our mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity, is profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning." Maher just unfurled rah-rah "we have the best people" verbiage: "This is the work of our people, and our people represent America, our irreducibly complex nation. Given the very real challenges of covering the myriad perspectives, motivations, and interests of a nation of more than 330 million very different people, we succeed through our diversity. This is a bedrock institutional commitment, hard-won, and hard-protected." “Our people represent America, our irreducibly complex nation,” she added. “We succeed through our diversity.” No. NPR doesn't not represent the simplest diversity, letting conservatives have a voice. This is why Berliner turned from internal conversations to public expression. In the end, Maher just supports more internal talk, not an engagement with "the enemy," the conservatives who are shut out. She announced they were "establishing quarterly NPR Network-wide editorial planning and review meetings, as a complement to our other channels for Member station engagement." The New York Post reports that Maher's history of woke tweets before she joined NPR is now haunting this new controversy: In January, when Maher was announced as NPR’s new leader, The Post revealed her penchant for parroting the progressive line on social media — including bluntly biased Twitter posts like “Donald Trump is a racist,” which she wrote in 2018. This wouldn't hurt her with a hiring panel at NPR. It would certainly be a plus!  “I mean, sure, looting is counterproductive,” Maher wrote on May 31, 2020. “But it’s hard to be mad about protests not prioritizing the private property of a system of oppression founded on treating people’s ancestors as private property.” (This perfectly matches a network whose "Code Switch" team touted the book In Defense of Looting and lauded a professor saying anti-police riots should be described as "rebellions.") The next day, she lectured her 27,000 followers on “white silence.” “White silence is complicity,” she scolded. “If you are white, today is the day to start a conversation in your community.” NPR is also the network that took the founders of Black Lives Matter announcing they were "Marxist-trained" and attempted to argue that they weren't really pushing communism.  The Post noted Maher came to NPR from the Wikimedia Foundation. "Maher earned a bachelor’s degree in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies from New York University, according to her LinkedIn account, and grew up in Wilton, Conn. — a town that her mother, Ceci Maher, now represents as a Democratic state senator."

No, Symone! A Third-Party Candidate Won't Deprive Biden or Trump of 270 Electoral Votes

I don't mean to pick on Symone Sanders Townsend. But for the second time in as many weeks, the co-anchor of MSNBC's The Weekend has exposed a disturbing knowledge deficit. Last week, we caught Symone accusing Donald Trump, in his inaugural address, of "promising carnage." In fact, he promised to "stop" carnage, of the sort that keeps "mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities." Today, in a segment devoted to trashing third-party candidates because of the likelihood that they would take votes from Biden, Sanders revealed her unfamiliarity with the way that Electoral College votes are awarded. Sanders: "I think now more than any of our past recent elections, that third-party candidates are a true, true threat to Joe Biden, but also to 270, period. Our Constitution says, to be the President of the United States, you have to win 270 Electoral College votes. Not 269, not that majority rules all . . . Now, what if Joe Biden is denied 270? Or Donald Trump? Well, according to the 12th Amendment, the House gets to pick who the president is."  What Sanders fails to grasp is that in every state but Nebraska and Maine, whoever wins a plurality of the popular vote wins all of the state's Electoral College votes. So even if a third-party candidate denied either Trump or Biden an outright majority in a given state [or in one of Nebraska or Maine's electoral districts], so long as either Trump or Biden got more votes than any other candidate, they'd get all of the state's electoral votes [or the electoral vote in the Nebraska or Maine district.] Thus, the only way that Sanders' nightmare scenario could come to pass would be if one of the third-party candidates actually won a state, or one of Nebraska or Maine's districts. And not even the most fevered conspiracy-mongers have suggested that RFK, Jr., let alone Cornel West or Jill Stein, have any hope of pulling off such a miracle. So Symone can sleep easy. But before next week's show, it would truly behoove her to study up on the topics at hand! Note: Steele told Symone that there wouldn't be a problem "if the Democrats win the House in November." That's not necessarily true. Per the 12th Amendment, "Rather than voting individually, House members vote as state delegations. Each state delegation gets a single vote, and a candidate becomes president with the support of a majority (26) of state delegations." So, even if in November Democrats won a majority of House seats, it's possible that Republicans would have the majority in more state delegations, and thus could have the power to elect the president. It's called a "contingent election." Here's the transcript. MSNBC The Weekend 4/13/24 8:19 am EDT JOE WALSH: [Third-party candidates are] so dangerous. MICHAEL STEELE: And it's just, if enough of those people to go to that place, to their happy place, where they can, where they think that that vote is going to do what? SYMONE SANDERS TOWNSEND: Let me say this. Because I think that there is a, I think now more than any of our past recent elections, that third-party candidates are a true, true threat to Joe Biden, but also to 270, period.  Our Constitution says, to be the President of the United States, you have to win 270 Electoral College votes. Not 269, not that majority rules all. Now, the ballot access matters here, okay. So, RFK, Jr., Dr. West, Jill Stein. What does the ballot access program look like? RFK, Jr. is someone who is definitely -- STEELE: He's on one state right now.  SANDERS TOWNSEND: He just gained ballot access in North Carolina.  STEELE: So it's two states. SANDERS TOWNSEND: Two. And that is a -- that's an issue. Because the margins matter here. Now, what if Joe Biden is denied 270? Or Donald Trump?  STEELE: It goes to the House. SANDERS TOWNSEND: Well, according to the 12th Amendment, the House gets to pick who the president is. I just watched that episode of Scandal the other day. STEELE: Which version of the House? Is it the existing House or is the new House that is sworn in? SANDERS TOWNSEND: It is the, tt is the new House. STEELE: So if the Democrats win the House in November, you don't have a problem. SANDERS TOWNSEND: Well, that means people have to vote down ballot. STEELE: Well, there you go.

Who's Fact-Checking Whoopi Goldberg on Republicans Wanting to Bring Back Slavery?

The headline at The Daily Caller read:  Whoopi Goldberg Says Republicans ‘Want To Bring Slavery Back’ Some version of that headline and Whoopi’s remark on ABC’s The View was all over the media world on Wednesday. The Daily Caller version reported this:   The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg said Wednesday that Republicans “want to bring slavery back” as she raged against Arizona’s reinstatement of an 1864 abortion ban.  ABC News's Whoopi Goldberg openly claims, without evidence, that Republicans "want to bring slavery back" She goes on to demand progressive-activist justices on the Supreme Court: "One of the good things about the Supreme Court is you can fight to make sure you make stuff better" pic.twitter.com/Bq0kT33ATG — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) April 10, 2024 Who will fact-check her on this crazy claim? Whoopi seems to be utterly unaware (or deliberately ignores) that support for slavery in the day came not from Republicans - whose party was formed in 1854 to oppose the expansion of slavery. History records that it was, in fact, slave-holding Democrats who founded the Democratic Party. And obviously, Whoopi is unaware that  the Democratic Party, writing in its first 6 platforms, staunchly supported slavery. Not to mention its Members of Congress opposed the passage of the 13th Amendment -- which abolished slavery. It was the GOP that ended slavery over the objections of the ardently pro-slavery Democrats. And oh yes, the number of Democratic presidents who owned slaves? There were seven from 1800-1861. And since Whoopi tied the subject of slavery to abortion, a reminder that the founder of the pro-abortion Planned Parenthood was one Margaret Sanger. It was Sanger whose notoriously deep-seated racism was a pillar of her support for abortion. Her objective was to use abortion to thin out the inferior populations. Black women account for 38 percent of abortions. Isn’t it past time for Whoopi and others in the media to press the Democratic Party for its apology in supporting slavery? Periodically a call goes up for reparations -- but curiously the call is never directed at the Democratic Party which was, as said, responsible for supporting slavery and making it a matter of government policy upon winning elections -- six times in a row -- on a platform of enslaving black Americans. Fact? Misleading or gaslighting Americans is the modus operandi of the liberal media.  As the Whoopi story made the rounds, so too did this story from NPR’s Uri Berliner. Berliner’s piece over at The Free Press was headlined:  I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust. Uri Berliner, a veteran at the public radio institution, says the network lost its way when it started telling listeners how to think. Berliner goes on to say:  An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America. His point was clear: There was no viewpoint diversity at NPR. The goal every hour of the NPR broadcast day was to push the progressive world view. They're not alone. Berliner admitted this isn't just a problem at NPR. As if to reinforce Berliner’s point, in the Washington Post the other day was this already noxious headline about the shooting by Chicago police of a 26-year old black man named Dexter Reed.  It took a full eight paragraphs, deep inside the story, for the Post to report:  COPA (Chicago Police) said its review of the footage and initial reports “appear to confirm that Mr. Reed fired first,” hitting one officer while four others returned fire. Which is to say, this is an admission that directly contradicts the impression given in the headline that police singled out a car with a lone young black man at the wheel, stopped him on the pretense of not having his seat belt connected - and, unprovoked, shot him to death in a hail of 96 bullets.  In other words, the Post wasn’t interested in the truth and the facts. The Post, like those at NPR, are only interested in pushing the progressive world view. In this case that view being that police target young black men. So gaslighting is the order of the day. Which brings us back to Whoopi Goldberg on The View. Simply put, Whoopi, like the NPR crowd and that Washington Post headline, was gaslighting her audience. In Whoopi’s case leaving the impression that Republicans “want to bring slavery back” because, of course, Republicans had supported slavery in the first place. When, of course, the truth is exactly the opposite. Worse, not only did the Democrats repeatedly support slavery and oppose abolishing it, but in today’s world the party somehow can’t find it in themselves to apologize for it. No one in the pro-Biden media will ask for it. Will Whoopi take to The View to ask the Democrats and party leader President Joe Biden to apologize to black Americans for the party’s repeated support of slavery? Don’t wait up.

Late-Night Panic: Biden Could Lose to Trump!

Late-night television changed forever after Donald Trump descended that escalator in 2015. The left-leaning format abandoned all pretense of objectivity, turning their hosts into DNC shills. Fox News’ “Gutfeld!’ remains a sobering exception.     When President Trump left office in January 2021 that mission creep stayed in place. Now, with the Biden-Trump rematch heading our way, some of late-night TV’s biggest stars are getting nervous. Some might say panicky. Why? The polls suggest the former President might just beat the current President come November. We’re a long way from November, but at the moment the late-night crowd isn’t happy with the state of the race. Let’s start with Stephen Colbert, who literally joined a Biden fundraiser late last month fearing a second Trump term. The far-Left host is trying to drag President Biden over the finish line one more time. To do so, he’s demanding Israel stop fighting back against the ghouls who tortured, raped and killed more than a thousand innocent Israeli citizens on Oct. 7. That plays into Biden’s hands, of course. The Democrat is losing his base for supporting Israel six months into the current war. Remember, Colbert hosts a comedy talk show. He’s not a pundit or an advisor to Team Biden. He just looks and sounds like one, routinely abandoning any pretense of comedy in the process. His fellow late-night Leftist Seth Meyers is even worse on that front. The “SNL” alum is all but melting down over Biden’s tepid poll numbers. He, too, blames Biden’s management of the Israeli/Hamas war. “[Voters] are understandably upset Biden keeps claiming he’s frustrated with Netanyahu’s handling of the war, while simultaneously sending more weapons to support that war against the wishes of a majority of Americans. Meyers chastised Biden for not pushing harder for a Middle East ceasefire, which Biden promised during his propaganda-style interview with the leader. “You’re the president. You can just say, ‘No more funding. No more weapons.’ You can call for a ceasefire—that’s what a majority of Americans want, including the tens of thousands of Democrats who are registering protest votes in key battleground states.” That’s not a moral position. It’s one looking ahead to Nov. 5. In other words, it’s panic time. “There must be an immediate lasting ceasefire and the safe return of all hostages…That’s the loud and clear message of these protest votes, and Biden must listen, otherwise he’s at risk of losing to someone whose presidency was a [complete disaster].” Squint all you want, but you won’t find a single joke or attempt at humor in that harangue. Not a one.   The late nights have largely silent on the Israel-Hamas War. That changed last night with Seth Meyers who said of protest voters "Biden must listen, otherwise he's at risk of losing to" Trump, who was impeached for denying weapons to an ally at war for his own political benefit pic.twitter.com/f0lxio2loB — Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) April 4, 2024   And then there’s Jimmy Kimmel. The former “Man Show” star can’t believe polls suggest Trump may beat Biden in their do-over match. A recent survey found Trump beating Biden in six of seven swing states. “How could this be?” a stunned Kimmel asked during a recent monologue. At least Kimmel squeezed out a quasi-joke to process the news. Trump “doesn’t even lead in a poll of people who worked for him.”  “The Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon isn’t as overtly partisan as his peers. He still allows Democratic heavyweights to push their agendas on his NBC platform. He recently teed up former First Lady Hillary Clinton to bark at swing voters that they cannot even think of staying home on Election Day.     Late-night comedians aren’t political activists by trade. Their gigs are meant to nudge viewers to bed with a smile. Instead, they’ve become an extension of MSNBC. You’d think they’d be giddy at the chance to roast President Trump for another four years. Instead, they’re panicked that they just might.

NBC Embraces Activism, Claims 'Abortion Access Goes Beyond Politics'

NBC correspondent Dana Griffin suited up for Team Abortion on Saturday’s edition of Today. Griffin claimed that the issue goes “beyond politics for women” and embraced all the activist premises when she asked the petitioner of the Arizona Supreme Court case if “women should have the right to choose what to do with their own bodies.”  Griffin began by noting Vice President Kamala Harris’s and Donald Trump’s responses to the ruling. On Trump, Griffin quoted him as posting on Truth Social, “’ the Supreme Court in Arizona went too far’ and ‘we must ideally have the three exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother,’” but she also added some further editorializing that Harris did not get “But the issue of abortion access goes beyond politics for women.”      It could be said that protecting the unborn goes beyond politics as well, but Griffin did not show pro-lifers the same courtesy. What she did show was an unidentified woman claiming she experienced “disbelief” and “anger” at the ruling. Griffin further reported that “Dr. Jill Gibson said patients were shocked and confused.” Outside of a Planned Parenthood, Gibson claimed she “had friends calling me saying was it still safe for friends who were pregnant who are out of state to travel to Arizona to visit them. This is the atmosphere of fear.” There was nothing in Gibson’s response that touched on abortion, but Griffin never bothered to follow up and ask why simply traveling to Arizona would be unsafe. Griffin did allow a brief glimpse into the thoughts of the other side from OB-GYN Dr. Eric Hazelrigg, “It’s the state’s duty to protect human life in every situation.” After introducing Hazelrigg as the man “who opened the door for the court's ruling after he petitioned for the case to be reviewed,” Griffin embraced the pro-abortion framing as she asked him, “Do you think women should have the right to choose what to do with their own bodies?” As for Hazelrigg’s response, it was almost certainly heavily edited down, “Within a certain context, and with certain limitations.” It would have been nice if NBC allowed Hazelrigg to explain what he meant by “certain context,” but Griffin had to get back to the pro-abortion activists “Some people in the state now galvanized to make their vote count in November, when they will likely weigh in on an expected ballot measure to codify reproductive rights in the state's constitution.” A second unidentified woman explained, “We want everyone to have a choice about their own bodies. It's not a politician's choice.” Whether it is a life is a matter of fact, not opinion, but NBC decided not to pursue that angle. Here is a transcript for the April 13 show: NBC Today 4/13/2024 7:13 AM ET DANA GRIFFIN: So, the attorney general has already made it clear she will not prosecute any doctors who perform abortions when this law is reinstated, but the doctors I spoke with plan to follow the law and stop performing abortions until it is legal again.  Vice President Kamala Harris at a rally in Tucson, slamming the Arizona Supreme Court ruling that enforces a Civil War-era law banning nearly all abortions.  KAMALA HARRIS: Here in Arizona, they have turned back the clock to the 1800s.  GRIFFIN: Adding that former President Trump is partly to blame.  HARRIS: As much harm as he has already caused, a second Trump term would be even worse.  GRIFFIN: On Truth Social, Trump writing “the Supreme Court in Arizona went too far” and “we must ideally have the three exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother.” But the issue of abortion access goes beyond politics for women.  UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Disbelief, anger.  GRIFFIN: Dr. Jill Gibson said patients were shocked and confused.  JILL GIBSON: I had friends calling me saying was it still safe for friends who were pregnant who are out of state to travel to Arizona to visit them. This is the atmosphere of fear.  GRIFFIN: The 1864 law which only makes exceptions for the life of the mother and makes performing abortions punishable by up to five years in prison was decided Tuesday in a bombshell ruling by the state Supreme Court.  ERIC HAZELRIGG: It’s the state’s duty to protect human life in every situation GRIFFIN: Dr. Eric Hazelrigg is the OB-GYN who opened the door for the court's ruling after he petitioned for the case to be reviewed.  Do you think women should have the right to choose what to do with their own bodies? HAZELRIGG: Within a certain context, and with certain limitations.  GRIFFIN: Some people in the state now galvanized to make their vote count in November, when they will likely weigh in on an expected ballot measure to codify reproductive rights in the state's constitution.  UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 2: We want everyone to have a choice about their own bodies. It's not a politician's choice.

Brooks Suggests Voting For Trump Makes Pro-Lifers Hypocritical

Donald Trump may have disappointed pro-life activists with his embrace of a federalist stance on abortion, but with President Joe Biden being a far-left abortion zealot, they will still vote for him. For New York Times columnist David Brooks on Friday’s PBS NewsHour, however, this is just another instance of “the power of Trump” and “above some of the core convictions.” Host Geoff Bennett asked Brooks for his thoughts on the fallout of the Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling that an 1864 pro-life law can be enforced, “Because even Donald Trump is implicitly acknowledging that this is a problem, because he said that the Arizona State Supreme Court went too far and that the law, in his words, needs to be straightened out.”     Brooks claimed that “this is a phenomenal shift in the Republican Party we saw this week. Since Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party has been a pro-life party. It's been based on the conviction that, from conception, it's a human life. It's a human life. And then you get Donald Trump. And, recently, he's been floating the idea that we should have a 15-week ban or a 20-week ban. In other words, he's for allowing a law that has 93 — or some 90 percent—of the abortions would go forward, and he's allegedly pro-life.” It is unfair to compare a post-Roe GOP candidate’s stance on abortion to a Roe-era GOP candidate’s. Even still, Brooks’s claim is unfair. Roe did not allow for a federalist solution, so by allowing states to impose bans or 15-week restrictions, Trump is being more pro-life than Roe even if he disappointed pro-life activists by not embracing a national policy. Brooks, however, would repeat himself, “This is literally the most pro-choice position a Republican has taken since Ronald Reagan, this is going back to Jerry Ford, maybe. And so you're seeing the party bend to the political winds, and it's just an astonishing turnaround.” As for those pro-life activists, Brooks claimed that “the thing that astonishes me, the pro-life groups, they should be really, I guess it's appropriate to say raising holy hell. But they're sort of going along with it. And it shows that — the power of Trump over the party. Let's protect Donald Trump, even above some of the core convictions.” Again, Brooks is being unfair. Many people believe that politics and elections are the art of the possible, and with Trump as president, it will be possible to get some conservative judges, maybe some pro-life regulations, and that state pro-life laws will survive. If Biden is re-elected, it is possible, if not likely, that the opposite will happen.  Here is a transcript for the April 12 show: PBS NewsHour 4/12/2024 7:44 PM ET  GEOFF BENNETT: Well, what about that, David? Because even Donald Trump is implicitly acknowledging that this is a problem, because he said that the Arizona State Supreme Court went too far and that the law, in his words, needs to be straightened out. DAVID BROOKS: Yeah, well, this is a phenomenal shift in the Republican Party we saw this week. Since Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party has been a pro-life party. It's been based on the conviction that, from conception, it's a human life. It's a human life. And then you get Donald Trump. And, recently, he's been floating the idea that we should have a 15-week ban or a 20-week ban. In other words, he's for allowing a law that has 93 — or some 90 percent of the abortions would go forward, and he's allegedly pro-life. Now he's sort of backed off that position. His position is, it should be state by state. But he won't tell people how they should vote. He says, follow your heart. This is literally the most pro-choice position a Republican has taken since Ronald Reagan, this is going back to Jerry Ford, maybe. And so you're seeing the party bend to the political winds and it's just an astonishing turnaround. And the thing that astonishes me, the pro-life groups, they should be really, I guess it's appropriate to say raising holy hell. But they're sort of going along with it. And it shows that — the power of Trump over the party. Let's protect Donald Trump, even above some of the core convictions. Will it shift election, the presidential election? I'm not so sure. I think it's definitely helped Democrats in House races and it's definitely helped Democrats in every ballot initiative since Dobbs. But if you look at people in Arizona say, what are the issues they care about? Inflation and immigration are number one and two, and they vastly prefer Donald Trump. Abortion is in there, but it's down below. So will it affect the — it'll certainly drive Democratic turnout, but will it shift toward Donald Trump? I'm not sure, since the two big issues, he's pretty good on.

WSJ SCOOP: New York Times Bosses 'Seek to Quash Rebellion in the Newsroom'

Wall Street Journal news-industry reporter Alexandra Bruell broke a story on Friday about managers at The New York Times struggling with the intolerance of new employees who are "applying ideological purity tests" to stories on "sensitive topics like the transgender community and social justice." Those kids coming out of college don't bow to the wisdom of their elders who may still want to portray themselves as neutral and independent of ideological camps. The Bruell story was headlined: New York Times Bosses Seek to Quash Rebellion in the Newsroom After internal upheaval over coverage of sensitive topics like the Israel-Gaza war, management renews emphasis on independence and neutrality Bruell began with the internal squabble over Hamas weaponizing sexual-assault on October 7, which ended up being a multiple-story obsession of NPR media reporter David Folkenflik after someone working on The Daily podcast (which airs on hundreds of NPR stations) complained to The Intercept, a radical-left site. “The idea that someone dips into that process in the middle, and finds something that they considered might be interesting or damaging to the story under way, and then provides that to people outside, felt to me and my colleagues like a breakdown in the sort of trust and collaboration that’s necessary in the editorial process,” Executive Editor Joe Kahn said in an interview. “I haven’t seen that happen before.”   It's a little funny when newspapers who routinely rely on leakers have to deal with internal leakers. They don't wonder if it causes "a breakdown of trust and collaboration that's necessary in the governing process." But it's also amusing that Kahn is aware that America's top colleges are sending him employees that think neutrality is an objectionable concept: Kahn noted that the organization has added a lot of digital-savvy workers who are skilled in areas like data analytics, design and product engineering but who weren’t trained in independent journalism. He also suggested that colleges aren’t preparing new hires to be tolerant of dissenting views. “Young adults who are coming up through the education system are less accustomed to this sort of open debate, this sort of robust exchange of views around issues they feel strongly about than may have been the case in the past,” he said, adding that the onus is on the Times to instill values like independence in its employees. Bruell noted some pitched battles over transgender issues, from an internal Slack forum over a trans-related opinion piece by Times opinion columnist Pamela Paul to an open letter signed by more than 1,000 contributors over the article “The Battle Over Gender Therapy,” and the framing of the article “When Students Change Gender Identity, and Parents Don’t Know.”  She also recalled how editorial-page editor James Bennet and science reporter Donald McNeil were let go after internal staff turmoil. Finally, we had to love what publisher Arthur Gregg Sulzberger thinks the "emotion-free" stories are:  Kahn said the Times’ national desk now is bigger and more equipped to cover an unprecedented election. The Times will also be more committed to covering misinformation in the 2024 election, with a team of eight to nine people, he said. In January, Sulzberger shared his thoughts on covering Trump during a visit to the Washington bureau. It was imperative to keep Trump coverage emotion-free, he told staffers, according to people who attended. He referenced the Times story, “Why a Second Trump Presidency May Be More Radical Than His First,” by Charlie Savage, Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, as a good example of fact-based and fair coverage. 

MSNBC or Al-Jazeera? Mohyeldin Tosses Softballs to Israel-Bashing Rep. Jamaal Bowman

On his eponymous Sunday show, anti-Israel MSNBC host Ayman Mohyeldin spoke with Congressman Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), and gave the "Squad" radical a forum to bash Israel while claiming to support the Jewish state.  Mohyeldin, a former correspondent for Al-Jazeera English whose mother is Palestinian, set up the segment by oddly labeling former Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a "moderate" in spite of her stridently liberal record as he recalled a recent increase in congressional Democrats pushing President Joe Biden to pressure Israel over how it is conducting military operations in Gaza: So, for months, progressive lawmakers have been vocally denouncing Israel's disproportionate retaliation in Gaza, and now today, six months into the war, that view is actually held by a majority of Americans. According to a Gallup poll, 55 percent of Americans disapprove of Israel's military actions in Gaza. That is the majority. And, as we mentioned before the break, moderate Democrats including Nancy Pelosi who are, you know, strong supporters of Israel, have now joined that chorus. He added: "In a letter, they have asked President Biden to suspend weapons transfers to Israel until a full independent investigation into the World Central Kitchen convoy attack is complete." After Congressman Bowman talked up the likelihood of more Democrats joining together to be more critical of Israel, Mohyeldin followed up by sympathetically asking about AIPAC targeting his guest and other anti-Israel Democrats in their primaries: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- or AIPAC as we know -- expected to spend $100 million on trying to oust Democrats like yourself in their primaries before they even get to the general election. Another group -- the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC -- just endorsed George Latimer, the AIPAC-endorsed candidate who's running against you in New York's primary. What do you make of this? What do you say to these groups who are coming after you on this issue? Have you ever experienced anything like this in your short term in politics so far? He then followed up: Why though? Why is this happening? And, again, I don't know of another part of our politics or a policy issue -- it doesn't happen -- the gun lobby does not do this with your opponent. They don't primary you if you're not taking it -- the climate lobby doesn't do this. The labor lobby doesn't do this. So why is this happening? The far-left Democrat then made incendiary claims about Israel, calling it an "apartheid state" and referring to the founding of Israel that displaced Arabs as the "Nakba" (which means "disaster" in Arabic). Bowman: They don't want any criticism of Israel. Listen, Israel is an ally. We want them to remain an ally. But just like your brother or your cousin or your friend, when they're doing the wrong thing, you have to tell them they're doing the wrong thing and hold them accountable so they can improve. Israel has been doing the wrong thing not just as it relates to this collective punishment in Gaza and the starvation that's happening right now in Gaza, but prior to that, labeled an apartheid state, occupation, a blockade, the Nakba which nobody ever wants to talk about. Mohyeldin supportively asked that "one of the critiques is like you're too focused on foreign policy -- you're not focused enough on your district -- and that's what they're trying to do with Rashida Tlaib in Michigan with other progressives. Does that hold any water?" The New York Democrat answered: My district doesn't want bombs and weapons and billions to be sent to Israel to kill babies. My district wants that money sent to our district so people can afford housing and child care and utilities and have better paying jobs and can afford food and take a vacation. We want peace, and we want investments in the American economy and the American people -- particularly those black, brown, marginalized and left behind. Transcript follows: MSNBC's Ayman April 7, 2024 7:17 p.m. Eastern AYMAN MOHYELDIN: So, for months, progressive lawmakers have been vocally denouncing Israel's disproportionate retaliation in Gaza, and now today, six months into the war, that view is actually held by a majority of Americans. According to a Gallup poll, 55 percent of Americans disapprove of Israel's military actions in Gaza. That is the majority. And, as we mentioned before the break, moderate Democrats including Nancy Pelosi who are, you know, strong supporters of Israel, have now joined that chorus. In a letter, they have asked President Biden to suspend weapons transfers to Israel until a full independent investigation into the World Central Kitchen convoy attack is complete. New York Democratic Congressman Jamaal Bowman is one of those who signed that letter. He joins me now. Let me start off with -- I don't know if you had a chance to see our previous segment, but one of the critiques was: It's only 37 lawmakers so far. You're one of those lawmakers. Give us a -- give us a response to what you say of that critique. CONGRESSMAN JAMAAL BOWMAN (D-NY): Yeah, I mean, it's 37 lawmakers responding to the American people. The majority of the American people demand a permanent ceasefire. We see what's going on right in front of our eyes. We see hundreds of thousands of people and children starving to death in Gaza. So the American people are with us. We're just leading the way and responding to what the people in our own districts are saying. And so, yeah, I mean, you say it's 37 lawmakers now. It was only a few at the very beginning calling for a permanent ceasefire, and that number has grown exponentially. So you're going to see this number grow. I think you're going to see this number grow pretty rapidly. MOHYELDIN: Are you seeing any initial response or any backdoor channels of communication with the White House? How do these things work? You've sent the letter -- you've signed onto the letter. Do they start signaling to you, "Hey, we welcome this, and you're helping us, giving us more space so that we can -- the President can come out there now and start being critical of Israel on this issue"? (BOWMAN) Let me ask you about the Wisconsin vote again. We were talking about this in the previous segment. What do you make of the fact that the domestic politics in this country -- and you're talking about democracy, the representation of the American people. You had about 48,000 unrestricted voters in Wisconsin. The President won that state by 20,000 votes. Is that a cause of concern for the reelection of President Joe Biden? (BOWMAN) Let me ask you about what you're going through in terms of your own personal campaign. I want to kind of make sure I just got the number. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- or AIPAC as we know -- expected to spend $100 million on trying to oust Democrats like yourself in their primaries before they even get to the general election. Another group -- the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC -- just endorsed George Latimer, the AIPAC-endorsed candidate who's running against you in New York's primary. What do you make of this? What do you say to these groups who are coming after you on this issue? Have you ever experienced anything like this in your short term in politics so far? (BOWMAN) Why though? Why is this happening? And, again, I don't know of another part of our politics or a policy issue -- it doesn't happen -- the gun lobby does not do this with your opponent. They don't primary you if you're not taking it -- the climate lobby doesn't do this. The labor lobby doesn't do this. So why is this happening? BOWMAN: They don't want any criticism of Israel. Listen, Israel is an ally. We want them to remain an ally. But just like your brother or your cousin or your friend, when they're doing the wrong thing, you have to tell them they're doing the wrong thing and hold them accountable so they can improve. Israel has been doing the wrong thing not just as it relates to this collective punishment in Gaza and the starvation that's happening right now in Gaza, but prior to that, labeled an apartheid state, occupation, a blockade, the Nakba which nobody ever wants to talk about. So, because people like me are in Congress actually speaking the truth to hold Israel accountable so they can do better for themselves and for a free Palestine, now, AIPAC wants to come after us. They don't want any criticism of Israel which is absurd and unacceptable and is not going to help us maintain a good relationship or maintain lives in Israel or Palestine. MOHYELDIN: One of their -- and we're almost out of time -- but one of the critiques is like you're too focused on foreign policy -- you're not focused enough on your district -- and that's what they're trying to do with Rashida Tlaib in Michigan with other progressives. Does that hold any water? BOWMAN: Yeah, every accusation is a confession. My district doesn't want bombs and weapons and billions to be sent to Israel to kill babies. My district wants that money sent to our district so people can afford housing and child care and utilities and have better paying jobs and can afford food and take a vacation. We want peace, and we want investments in the American economy and the American people -- particularly those black, brown, marginalized and left behind. That's what my district wants. MOHYELDIN: Congressman Jamaal Bowman, always a pleasure.

NewsBusters Podcast: Nina Totenberg Radio Exposed Again as Leftist Den

This week, National Public Radio senior editor Uri Berliner sent shock waves through their staff by going public with an article on The Free Press website about how they lost the public's trust due to an explicit animus against Donald Trump. Since Trump entered politics, the public radio network's audience has become even more dominated by very liberal Americans. But it didn't start with Trump. NewsBusters can tell you NPR has demonstrated a leftist bent from the beginning. NPR legal reporter Nina Totenberg destroyed the Douglas Ginsburg nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987, then tried again with Clarence Thomas in 1991. This animus against conservatives didn't kick in suddenly in 2015. Totenberg, both on NPR and on talk shows, brazenly represented the leftist tilt of NPR, wishing out loud that Sen. Jesse Helms (or one of his grandchildren) would get AIDS, and proclaiming after 9/11 that she was ashamed of America when news broke that terrorism suspects were held in secret CIA prisons. There were other outrages over the years on NPR, but Totenberg was the "face" of left-wing activism. NPR executives tried to claim that "inclusion" of differing views is an NPR value -- but anyone who listens to NPR on a regular basis quickly figures out that this is a taxpayer-funded liberal sandbox. There's no real room for conservative views. When Republicans appear, NPR staffers are on the attack. CNN's Oliver Darcy complained that Uri Berliner's article demanding more viewpoint diversity on NPR was a "massive gift to the Right." On a daily basis, taxpayer-funded NPR is nothing short of a massive gift to the Left, pumping out progressive propaganda to over 1,000 stations.  Because it has “public” in its branding, too many Americans still think it’s fair and balanced and a service to everyone, which only signals they're not paying enough attention to the product. Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

WATCH: Pro-Censorship Advocate Goes After Section 230 Over Undefined ‘Harmful Content’

A radical proponent of censorship received the opportunity to advise Congress on Big Tech and liability. She told Congress that protections for social media platforms should depend on their willingness to remove content.  Dr. Mary Anne Franks, the author of the Cult of the Constitution, Our Deadly Devotion to Guns and Free Speech, repeatedly advised members of Congress that tech platforms should be stripped of liability protections if they do not remove content she does not approve of. During an April 11 Communications and Technology Subcommittee hearing, Franks lamented: “While some groups may be enjoying free speech under the Section 230 status quo, especially billionaires, white supremacists, conspiracy mongers, this freedom is not shared equally across society.” No free speech advocates were invited as witnesses to counter her radical views.  In response to a question from Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX), Franks offered a disturbing answer, saying that a social media platform’s immunity should be dependent on its approach to “harmful content.” Franks claimed, “There needs to be a limitation on this kind of immunity, if it’s going to be given at all, under C1, it’s got to be given to those kind of social media companies and platforms that are not soliciting, encouraging or profiting from or being deliberately indifferent to what they know is harmful content.” [Emphasis added] Franks repeated this point to Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL), adding, “You cannot be profiting from harmful content and I think it also means you cannot be an indifferent bystander.” During the hearing, Franks did not list what she considers “harmful content.” However, she has a long track record of statements and publications demonstrating her opposition to free speech. Franks not only wrote the Cult of the Constitution but also submitted a letter to the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack titled “Social Media and the Weaponization of Free Speech.” According to Jonathan Turley, a Fox News contributor and George Washington University Law School professor, Franks wants to “gut the First and Second Amendments” to the Constitution. Turley cited Frank’s rewrite of the First Amendment to prioritize equity over freedom of speech as well as her wholesale replacement of the right to bear arms with a right to abortion.  Here is her proposal for an improved First Amendment in full:  “Every person has the right to freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, and petition of the government for redress of grievances, consistent with the rights of others to the same and subject to responsibility for abuses. All conflicts of such rights shall be resolved in accordance with the principle of equality and dignity of all persons. Both the freedom of religion and the freedom from religion shall be respected by the government. The government may not single out any religion for interference or endorsement, nor may it force any person to accept or adhere to any religious belief or practice.” [EMPHASIS ADDED] Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, here is your expert witness.  Conservatives are under attack! Contact your representatives and demand Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency on WEF partnerships, 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.

Will NewsGuard Demote NPR’s Perfect Rating After Revelations of Liberal Bias?

On Tuesday, National Public Radio business editor Uri Berliner blew the whistle on the station’s “assembly line” of liberally biased reporting, which he said was being cranked out “one story after another” framed with the leftist worldview. The expose put NPR under the microscope and put a serious blemish on the organization. But the question now is: will that blemish finally force media-scoring agency NewsGuard to downgrade NPR’s perfect 100/100 rating? In his essay entitled “I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust,” Berliner explained: “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.” Berliner appeared on NewsNation with host Chris Cuomo Tuesday night and described the current company culture as “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.” That certainly didn’t sound like the type of environment that would be conducive to fair, objective, and unbiased reporting. Especially if their default framing for reporting was that Republican policies were considered a “dire threat” to the country. But as of the publication of this piece, NewsGuard still had NPR rated at perfect 100/100. As MRC Associate Editor for Business & Free Speech America Joseph Vazquez recently reported, NewsGuard can reluctantly downgrade legacy liberal media outlets when they have terrible reporting held up under their nose. NewsGuard was seemingly forced to recently downgrade The New York Times from a perfect 100 to 87.5/100 after the Media Research Center repeatedly called out The Times’ shoddy reporting and NewsGuard’s refusal to act on it. As Vazquez noted in the 2023 study of NewsGuard’s rankings, the point of the whole system was for it to be used as a “cudgel” against right-leaning news organizations: NewsGuard wields its ratings as a cudgel, attempting to scare away advertisers from doing business with media and organizations that have been accused of promoting so-called “misinformation” or wrongthink on a whole host of issues like abortion, climate change, COVID-19 and elections. In so doing, NewsGuard effectively strips media outlets with which it disagrees of their ad money, slowly bleeding out their coffers. This time, the calls were coming from inside the preverbal house with a 25-year NPR veteran being the one to cry foul. Berliner also told Cuomo he was getting – while not public – internal support from some of his NPR colleagues. And a recent Times article noted Berliner was getting backup from former NPR ombudsman Jeffrey A. Dvorkin. The article also reported that internal pushback to Berliner rejected calls for ideological diversity in the newsroom: “In one group, several staff members disputed Mr. Berliner’s points about a lack of ideological diversity and said efforts to recruit more people of color would make NPR’s journalism better.” Clearly, NPR was not deserving of a 100/100 rating. So, how will NewsGuard react?

‘Coincidence of Coincidences’: DHS Deployed State Dept. to Censorship Group Day of Hunter Biden Bombshell

A watchdog group obtained internal records showing federal agencies collaborating with private partners to crush online free speech before the 2020 election. Protect the Public’s Trust, a government watchdog, obtained never-before-seen emails that expose the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) advising the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) on censorship collusion with Big Tech companies. Notably, one email came the same day as a bombshell New York Post report on Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop. MRC Free Speech America has reviewed the emails, which were initially reported by the Washington Examiner. The researchers of the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) had worked with DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) before the 2020 election and DHS recommended them to another major federal agency for censorship purposes. Both EIP and CISA representatives have tried to “downplay” their partnership and anti-free speech work amidst GOP Congressional scrutiny, the Examiner explained. However, the newly discovered emails appear to suggest a close working relationship. Protect the Public’s Trust Director Michael Chamberlain raised the alarm about the implications of such emails in an exclusive interview with MRC Free Speech America. “The more people dig into the Censorship Industrial Complex, the more federal agencies’ denials, disavowals, and defenses crumble. Agencies and offices that claim to never have been involved have left fingerprints all over the records we find.” EIP involved GEC, the University of Washington and the Stanford Internet Observatory. The new documentation comes soon after a 60 Minutes segment featured University of Washington researcher Kate Starbird claiming government and private entities had not colluded to pressure Big Tech into censoring content. The emails directly contradict Starbird’s claims. In his remarks to MRC, Chamberlain added, “Called out, they proclaim their efforts never focused on the speech of American citizens, yet there is overlap and evidence of close coordination between agencies involved in domestic matters and those involved in foreign policy, even helping each other make contacts and connections.”  In the unearthed emails, GEC reached out to EIP. “Our colleagues at the Department of Homeland Security/CISA recommended we talk to you about your current efforts to protect the 2020 elections from foreign interference,” then-GEC academic Adela Levis reportedly wrote in Oct. 2020. “There may be some synergies there with the work we’re doing. Warm regards, Adela.” The reply specifically highlighted Starbird’s leadership and government agencies’ anti-free speech “efforts.” GEC ended by being involved in the process of flagging content for social media to censor, the Washington Examiner reported. “EIP Team, I want to send my sincerest thanks for allowing me to participate in the Election Integrity Partnership as an analyst with the GEC,” enthused State Department employee William Beebe in December 2020. The same day GEC started working toward election interfering censorship, the New York Post story “Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad” was published, the Examiner reported. MRC poll data previously illustrated that censorship of Hunter Biden scandals swayed the 2020 election in Joe Biden’s favor. Emphasizing the election interference, Chamberlain told MRC: “Coincidence of coincidences, a State Department agency attempted to connect on the very day the Hunter Biden laptop story broke, one of the most egregious examples of a story being improperly dismissed and censored as ‘foreign disinformation.’” MRC Free Speech America Assistant Editor 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, 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.

Oh, NOW You Like Him?! Disney’s ABC Hails DeSantis for Cracking Down on Retail Theft

Exactly two weeks after Disney more or less cried uncle and agreed to a settlement with the State of Florida in its lawsuit over the Parental Rights in Education bill and a few months after Governor Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) presidential campaign came to an end, Disney-owned ABC had a surprisingly laudatory segment on Thursday’s Good Morning America as they praised DeSantis for “com[ing] down on hard on” porch piracy and retail theft. Oh, how convenient. Now that both fronts of Disney’s pressure campaign — bashing DeSantis for defending children and parents and constantly trashing his presidential campaign to benefit Trump — are over, ABC seems to think he’s no longer a threat, so they’re now free to give him some love.     Co-host Robin Roberts had the first of two teases: ROBERTS: Porch pirate crackdown. The latest state to come down hard on criminals who swipe packages. DESANTIS: Someone’s going to have hell to pay for stealing. ROBERTS: And strict new penalties for retail theft.  In the second, co-host Michael Strahan got in on the act, promising a segment on “the latest state to crack down on porch pirates.” Strahan also opened the segment: “Now to the porch pirate crackdown in Florida. Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill to make the Sunshine State the latest to raise penalties for stealing packages from outside homes as well as for retail theft.” Even the accompanying chyron alone came off like something from an alternate reality: “Florida Porch Pirate Crackdown; Governor Signs Bill to Toughen Penalties for Stealing Packages, Retail Theft”. Correspondent Melissa Adan didn’t bat an eye as she reported “Florida is actually going to make it a felony if you steal $40 or more worth of property” and said the police chief of Coral Gables told her “he welcomes this news, as he sees hundreds of these cases here in his city and he hopes that these stiffer criminal charges make a difference.” Highlighting a few examples of porch pirates and footage of one homeowner using a decoy package to catch a would-be thief, Adan said DeSantis had enough and was “cracking down” thanks to “[a] law going into effect this October” with that $40 penalty, which she explained was previously $100 and “stricter penalties for retail theft.” She even had not one but two soundbites praising this decision with a motorcycle shop owner fretting thieves have thought they “can grab” whatever they want and then the aforementioned Coral Gables chief saying he’d “able to make stronger cases against these repeat offenders and also kind of giving other diversionary sentences to people who are facing felonies.” Stating the obvious retail theft has become “a growing trend across the country” and a National Retail Federation statistic such crimes “cost consumers $112 billion in 2022”, Adan briefly alluded to California being the worst such state, but didn’t point out which party controls the state. Tossing back to the co-hosts, she threw a bone to Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY): “Meantime, last month in New York, the governor there announced a $45 million plan to fight back against organized retail crime theft.” To see the relevant transcript from April 11, click “expand.” ABC’s Good Morning America April 11, 2024 7:01 a.m. Eastern [TEASE] [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Strict New Penalties; Porch Pirate Crackdown] ROBIN ROBERTS: Porch pirate crackdown. The latest state to come down hard on criminals who swipe packages. GOVERNOR RON DESANTIS (R-FL): Someone’s going to have hell to pay for stealing. ROBERTS: And strict new penalties for retail theft.  (....) 7:18 a.m. Eastern [TEASE] [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: New This Morning; Florida Porch Pirate Crackdown; Governor Signs Bill to Toughen Penalties for Stealing Packages, Retail Theft] MICHAEL STRAHAN:  Plus the latest state to crack down on porch pirates.  (....) 7:34 a.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: New This Morning; Florida Porch Pirate Crackdown; Governor Signs Bill to Toughen Penalties for Stealing Packages, Retail Theft] STRAHAN: Now to the porch pirate crackdown in Florida. Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill to make the Sunshine State the latest to raise penalties for stealing packages from outside homes as well as for retail theft. Melissa Adan is in Miami with more. Good morning, Melissa. MELISSA ADAN: Good morning, Michael. So, the state of Florida is actually going to make it a felony if you steal $40 or more worth of property. The police chief here in Coral Gables tells me he welcomes this news, as he sees hundreds of these cases here in his city and he hopes that these stiffer criminal charges make a difference. This morning, they are the brazen thieves striking in broad daylight and in the night. This porch pirate in Sacramento disguised as a trash bag captured stealing a package. Some homeowners like this one, have had enough, using a decoy package to catch this alleged thief. CARLOS MEIJIA [TO PORCH PIRATE]: Yo! Yo! ADAN: In Florida, the governor cracking down. A new law going into effect this October. If you steal property worth more than $40, it will be considered a felony. DESANTIS: Someone’s going to have hell to pay for stealing it. ADAN: The law, replacing an already existing one. This time, lowering the stolen property value from $100 to $40. It also includes stricter penalties for retail theft. WMR OWNER BOB BREWSTER: Everything in our store is a candy store for a criminal, things they can grab, sell fast and then take from us. ADAN: In Coral Gables, the police chief welcoming the law, sharing these videos of thieves in action. CORAL GABLES, FL POLICE DEPARTMENT CHIEF EDARD HUDAK: We’re able to make stronger cases against these repeat offenders and also kind of giving other diversionary sentences to people who are facing felonies. ADAN: It’s a growing trend across the country, with at least nine other states making porch pirating a felony. And that’s not all. According to the National Retail Federation, organized retail crime cost consumers $112 billion in 2022. The state topping the list? California. A proposed bill there calling for repeat shoplifters to serve jail time after a third conviction. Meantime, last month in New York, the governor there announced a $45 million plan to fight back against organized retail crime theft. Guys? ROBERTS: All right, Melissa. Our thanks to you.

Tennessee GOP May Criminalize Helping 'Trans' Kids Get ‘Care’ Without Parental Consent

The fact that this is even something that has to be considered is absolutely berserk.  Tennessee lawmakers are contemplating criminalizing adults who help children receive transgender “care” without their parents' knowledge and consent. GOP senators advanced the legislation Thursday with a 25-4 vote and it’s on its way to the House.  SB 2782 states that any adult who “recruits, harbors, or transports” a child for the purposes of getting them transgender-related medical procedures without their parents' knowledge or consent is guilty of a Class-C felony that carries a prison sentence of three to 15 years. In September, a federal appeals court upheld a Tennessee ban on gender-related medical interventions for children. This new bill takes it a step further and prohibits non-parental adults from "helping" gender-confused minors obtain harmful hormone therapies or irreversible surgeries in other states. As the Associated Press reported, this legislation is similar to a proposal that the Tennessee Senate approved on Wednesday that would criminalize adults from aiding and abetting young people getting abortions without parental consent. It seems that Tennessee is focusing intensely on its kids and how best to protect them from harmful treatments that cause irreversible damage. In response, the media had mixed reactions.  NBC News routinely called these interventions “care” and insisted the bill came from “one of the most eager states to enact policies aimed at the LGBTQ community.”  Independent LGBTQ Journalist Erin Reed called the bill “extreme,” while another user on X shared a map that indicates where Tennessean adults can bring kids to get transgender treatment and would be shielded from any legal repercussions.  On the other hand, some agreed that the bill was a good thing.  “Gender affirming care is child abuse,” one wrote, while another insisted this sort of thing should be in every state, writing, “Any doctor who cuts off healthy body parts of a minor should be thrown in prison." Related: WIN! Court Upholds TN & KY Bans on ‘Transgender Care’ This new proposal is just one in a litany of ways Tennessee lawmakers have cracked down on progressivism targeting children. They’ve worked to keep drag away from kids, to protect teachers who don’t wish to affirm a child’s delusional identity, and have given parents a choice as to whether or not they want their children to be present for particular lessons in school. Time will tell if the state House, like the state Senate, will approve of this proposal. Follow us on Twitter/X: In what world does trying to be an OnlyFans star do anything to honor a deceased grandfather? @tierin_rosebreaks down the left's latest insanity in this week's Woke of the Weak! pic.twitter.com/mvUFDdwPCb — MRCTV (@mrctv) April 9, 2024

NPR Editor Blows the Whistle on Their Left-Wing Bias: MRC’s Stephanie Hamill Reacts on ‘The Kimberly Guilfoyle Show’

MRC contributing writer Stephanie Hamill was a guest on “The Kimberly Guilfoyle Show” on Rumble with host Kimberly Guilfoyle on Thursday to discuss the latest trending news, including the latest scandal at NPR. Uri Berliner, Senior Business Editor for the public radio giant, has come out publicly accusing the broadcaster of left-wing bias, basically confirming what we already knew.   Hamill: We all kinda knew they had a liberal slant, and they’ve had one for many, many years. I remember back when I was in college, I used to listen to their content, and I thought it was moderately fair. I actually interned at PBS, so it is really fascinating to me to see this editor come out, who has worked their for 25 years, who actually still works there. We’ll see how long he will work their after he exposed what’s going on there. The big issue here, is that our taxpayer dollars go to funding this source who claims that they’re unbiased and that there is no slant when clearly there is.  

Hostin: O.J.’s Acquittal Was Fine Because Cops Kill More Than He Did

Following the death of former football player and murderer O.J. Simpson, the dumb and racially charged hot takes from the cast of ABC’s The View were inevitable. Of course, it was staunchly racist and anti-Semitic co-host, Sunny Hostin (the descendant of slave owners) who dredged up the unfounded racial aspects of the case applied by race-hustlers. She even argued that Simpson’s acquittal was fine since, collectively, cops have killed more people than he did. According to Hostin, the case “was less about his guilt or innocence” in the brutal murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, but “rather about the system and how the system treated African Americans and continues to treat African Americans in this country.” Despite the cases not being related in the slightest, Hostin insisted that a full “context” recounting of Simpson’s trial must include what happened to Rodney King years earlier. “You have to remember in putting it into context the acquittal of the officers who beat Rodney King almost to death in front of the world's eyes was in 1992. This happened in 1994,” she said. Hostin argued that for the black community, which she identified with, the Simpson trial “was less about whether or not O.J. did it” and more about using it as a stand-in for race relations in America. She went on to admit that Simpson may have “got away with it,” but “police officers have killed many more people than O.J. Simpson.”     The race card was also played by faux conservative Ana Navarro, who recalled following the case as a law school student, saying: “It was the first time I was confronted in my lifetime with the racial divides and the painful racial gaps in America.” Navarro said she spoke with former CNN host Don Lemon about Simpson’s death and trial, and he seemed to agree with Hostin’s take. “And I do think, Don Lemon was saying to me yesterday, it was not about guilt or innocence, it was about race. It was so much about race,” she recounted. Co-host Sara Haines injected a bit of sanity into the discussion by refocusing the conversation on to Simpson’s two victims: HAINES: There were innocent people involved here and I'd like to take a moment them. Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman were brutally killed and murdered. And I think that the legal system failed Nicole over and over again. She had called 911 nine times, the crap beaten out of her, bloody in bushes and always released her domestic abuser. BEHAR: Who was O.J. HAINES: Yeah. I just want to not say his name like everyone is because I think the people we need to be focused on are Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman who were more than victims in this. She had kids. She was a beloved woman that missed out on major parts of her life. The Goldman family still longs for their son who was funny, kind, and outgoing. “For whatever went on in the mess of this, my heart continues to go out for those families who lived beyond and without their loved ones,” she said. The silence from Hostin was deafening. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View April 12, 2024 11:03:00 a.m. Eastern (…) SUNNY HOSTIN: You know, I think it was less about his guilt or innocence and rather about the system and how the system treated African Americans, and continues to treat African Americans in this country. You have to remember in putting it into context the acquittal of the officers who beat Rodney King almost to death in front of the world's eyes was in 1992. This happened in 1994. And I think for the black community, it was less about whether or not O.J. did it, because I think even today you'll go to, you know, barber shops and beauty salons and people will say “he did it,” but he got away with it and the police officers, you know, police officers have killed many more people than O.J. Simpson. JOY BEHAR: Probably I think they didn't trust that the police did not plant evidence because -- HOSTIN: Well, Mark Furman said on the witness stand, “I never used a racial slur.” By the way, people, when a lawyer in cross-examination in a courtroom says, “have you ever done this?” they know that you did it. [Laughter] Right? And so then they come up with tapes and he's using the "N" word like Christmas. BEHAR: But don't you think some of the reason he got away with it was because he was famous not just that he was black? ANA NAVARRO: There were so many reasons. The prosecution had a lot of failures. And, yes, I think part of the reason that it's so fascinating. Look, it's fascinating because it was O.J. Simpson. He was a celebrity, he was rich, he was a successful athlete, we all knew who he was, and he was in car rental company commercials. But it's one of these instances in American history where if you're of a certain age, everybody remembers where you were the day that the verdict was read. HOSTIN: And when the Bronco chase was happening. NAVARRO: Everything. BEHAR: Well, it was covered extensively. NAVARRO: Like with 9/11, with the JFK death, with Challenger explosion. HOSTIN: Michael Jackson’s death. NAVARRO: It reaches that level because I think it's had such cultural significance. It launched so many careers. It changed the way we cover courts. HOSTIN: Camera were in the courtroom. NAVARRO: For me it was the first time and I know it sounds naive to a lot of people but I grew up in Miami in a bubble. I went to a school that was 98 percent Latina immigrant Catholic girls. It was the first time I was confronted in my lifetime with the racial divides and the painful racial gaps in America. And I remember watching it. I remember I was at the student union in law school and the black students were on side and the white – non-blacks were on the other side. The black students erupted into cheers, the white -- everybody else was with jaws agape, and it's something that still is happening in so many cases. And I do think, Don Lemon was saying to me yesterday, it was not about guilt or innocence, it was about race. It was so much about race. SARA HAINES: There were innocent people involved here and I'd like to take a moment them. Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman were brutally killed and murdered. And I think that the legal system failed Nicole over and over again. She had called 911 nine times, the crap beaten out of her, bloody in bushes and always released her domestic abuser. BEHAR: Who was O.J. HAINES: Yeah. I just want to not say his name like everyone is because I think the people we need to be focused on are Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman who were more than victims in this. She had kids. She was a beloved woman that missed out on major parts of her life. The Goldman family still longs for their son who was funny, kind, and outgoing. BEHAR: He was really an innocent bystander. HAINES: They both were innocent. BEHAR: She was not a bystander, but – HAINES: For whatever went on in the mess of this, my heart continues to go out for those families who lived beyond and without their loved ones. (…)

'Fueled By Misinformation': CNN Downplays Christian Fears About Biden

CNN correspondent Donie O’Sullivan went to bat for the Biden Campaign on Thursday’s edition of Anderson Cooper 360, where he said of conservative Christian concerns about Biden, “Some of these fears are fueled by misinformation.” The segment would re-air on Friday’s CNN New Central, but showing the segment a second time did not make O’Sullivan’s claims any truer. In a pre-recorded report, O’Sullivan reported on the dangers of so-called Christian Nationalism, a scary sounding phrase with no discernible definition other than traditionally understood social conservatism. He also cited polling showing, “Forty-four percent of Americans say the Bible should have at least some influence on U.S. law.”     That poll question is meaningless because when some people hear the question, they think of Old Testament dietary laws, while other people think of not allowing men to compete on women’s sports teams, which is something everyone agreed with until a couple of years ago, but such nuances weren’t the point of O’Sullivan’s segment. His point was to portray conservatives as a bunch of out-touch, paranoid weirdos. Interviewing an unidentified woman on the street, O’Sullivan asked, “Do you think, is America a Christian country?” After the woman affirmed she does, O’Sullivan argued with her, “But obviously in the Constitution there is that separation of church and state.” Earlier in the segment, O’Sullivan interviewed some anti-Trump pastors and they got much easier questions, such as “Why is Christian nationalism? In your view, such a threat?” They also cited the Bible to justify their opposition to Trump’s policies on things like immigration, but they probably would answer no to the above poll question. The woman held her ground, recalling that “Yes, but then there's also, always, when I went to public school, we were allowed to pray.” After O’Sullivan followed up by asking what exactly she meant, “When you say Christianity is under attack in America, you're talking about in the schools, the teaching of --” She answered, “Not so much in the schools, but just -- I just can't come up with anything right now. But I think the biggest thing is I just don't trust Joe Biden.” In a voiceover, O’Sullivan claimed that “some of these fears are fueled by misinformation.” After a clip of Trump discussing Biden’s Easter/Transgender Visibility Day proclamation, O’Sullivan spun “International Transgender Visibility Day takes place every year on March 31. This year, Easter Sunday also happened to fall on that day.” No matter how many times the media pretends that Biden had nothing to do with Transgender Visibility Day, it will not change the fact that he decided to issue the proclamation acknowledging it. A second unidentified woman was then shown claiming, “I think more that Christians are going to be discriminated against under Biden or a second term.” After O’Sullivan asked her what that meant, she added, “By making yesterday, which was the worldwide Christian celebration of the resurrection, Transgender Day. That was quite a slap in the face.” O’Sullivan, again, started spinning “I will just say that the days, they've had the Trans Awareness Day on the same date the past few years. It just happened that this year it fell on Easter Sunday.” The woman replied, “Okay. Thank you for correcting me. I appreciate that.” Two things could be said of that. First, the fact, that woman was willing to listen to facts shows that conservative Christians are not the intransigent people O’Sullivan and Biden are trying to portray them as. Second, O’Sullivan’s should make sure those facts are actually facts and not spin. Here is a transcript for the April 11 show: Anderson Cooper 360 4/11/2024 8:36 PM ET DONIE O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Forty-four percent of Americans say the Bible should have at least some influence on U.S. law. Do you think, is America a Christian country? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I believed that growing up, I did. O'SULLIVAN: Yeah. Founded as a Christian country? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, it was founded as a Christian country. O'SULLIVAN: But obviously in the Constitution there is that separation of church and state. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, but then there's also, always, when I went to public school, we were allowed to pray. O'SULLIVAN: When you say Christianity is under attack in America, you're talking about in the schools, the teaching of – UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not so much in the schools, but just -- I just can't come up with anything right now. But I think the biggest thing is I just don't trust Joe Biden. O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Some of these fears are fueled by misinformation. DONALD TRUMP: And what the hell was Biden thinking when he declared Easter Sunday to be Trans Visibility Day? O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): International Transgender Visibility Day takes place every year on March 31. This year, Easter Sunday also happened to fall on that day. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE 2: I think more that Christians are going to be discriminated against under Biden or a second term. O'SULLIVAN: How -- what do you mean by that? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE 2: By making yesterday, which was the worldwide Christian celebration of the resurrection, Transgender Day. That was quite a slap in the face. O'SULLIVAN: I will just say that the days, they've had the Trans Awareness Day on the same date the past few years. It just happened that this year it fell on Easter Sunday. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE 2: Okay. Thank you for correcting me. I appreciate that. O'SULLIVAN: So do you understand it better now? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE 2: Yup. Yup. I do. O'SULLIVAN: Okay. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. I do. God loves transgenders and he wants them to come to him too.

OUCH: KJP Gets Waxed by Fox’s Heinrich, Lawrence on Inflation, CNN on Lack of WH Ethics

Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre went solo for Thursday’s White House press briefing, so she shouldered all the questions, including the Middle East and the economy. It was on this latter topic where she was put through the gauntlet by Fox News’s Jacqui Heinrich and Fox Business’s Edward Lawrence as they called out the administration’s channeling of Jim Carey in Dumb and Dumber in denying persistently high inflation. Lawrence cut to the chase with a brutal inflation fact-check: “[Y]esterday in the Rose Garden, the President said that when he came into office, inflation was skyrocketing, but it was 1.4 percent in January of 2021 and that was the 11th consecutive month at that time under two percent. So, it was the President misleading Americans?”     Unsurprisingly, Jean-Pierre refused to engage and instead doubled down about inflation having taken off because, when Biden took office, the country was “a pandemic” that “was closing down businesses, closing down schools, uh, and so, it was drastically disrupting the supply chain” followed by the war in Ukraine. Lawrence didn’t buy it: “But the President didn’t say the supply chain was being disrupted. He said inflation was skyrocketing.” Jean-Pierre doubled down on the dishonesty, leaving Lawrence to ask a third and final time if Biden’s really “being honest” with Americans (click “expand”): JEAN-PIERRE: But that’s what he was referring to, right? That’s what was going on. Those were the things that were happening right before us. The pandemic — it was taking thousands of lives a day when he — he took office, schools were closed — or  majority of schools were closed, businesses were closing and we had a supply chain that was disrupted. And so, that’s what the President was speaking to and laying out and then, inflation, down the road became even more — increased even more because of the war that Russia had taken on into Ukraine. LAWRENCE: But...the Fed’s supply chain measure actually went down in — in November at that time. So — so is the President being honest about inflation? JEAN-PIERRE: The President has said — what he said what he saw when he was — when he took — when he took office. The pandemic was happening, right? It disrupted the supply chain. We know, you know what happens when the supply chain is disrupted. You know what that leads to. And so, that’s what he was speaking to and not only that — we — he had to — we also saw a war in Ukraine that Mr Putin — an aggressive aggression that Mr Putin was — was putting into Ukraine — set forth. And so, the president had to take historic action — take aggressive action in dealing with disruption in the supply chain. He had to — he released a Strategic Petroleum Reserve, so that we can deal with the supply chain and he continued to take action to lower cost. And that’s what we’ve seen, whether it’s health care costs, whether it’s dealing with junk fees, whether it’s prescription drugs, lowering those costs. That’s what the President took action in. But we saw what was happening when the President took office. We did. Heinrich cited a report in Politico from former Chief of Staff Ron Klain in which he allegedly said President Biden needs to focus more on soaring prices Americans are paying than fixing bridges. After bringing that up, Heinrich tied it to the lack of a White House statement on the latest Producer Price Index (PPI): “We didn’t get any statement today on the PPI index. You know, why aren’t we hearing more from the White House about the issues that people are facing at grocery stores and paying rent?” Jean-Pierre’s prepared answer cited the State of the Union as proof Biden has “made very clear about what he understands what the Americans are facing and he’s talked at almost every — every event that he’s had....about lowering costs”. Along with listing off five different events where an aspect of the economy came up, she closed with the reality that Klain still supports Biden and formulaic lies about Republicans wanting to end entitlements. Heinrich’s other economic question was about the Federal Reserve: “Is it all inappropriate for the President to be commenting on what the Fed might or might not do with interest rate cuts?” Jean-Pierre went down the ‘but, Trump’ route by claiming Biden has “giv[en] the Fed the space to make independent decisions” “unlike the last [President]”. Heinrich did, however, first ask about Iran: JACQUI TIME: “I just wanted to clarify one of your earlier answers. Did the administration sent a direct warning to Iran not to attack Israel?” KJP: “We've been very clear. I — I’ve — we've been — I mean, you heard from the President — right — and laid out our commitment to… pic.twitter.com/1ZF0W2QdFC — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 11, 2024 Elsewhere, CNN’s Kayla Tausche strayed from Team Biden’s lionization of the latest state dinner with the Japanese Prime Minister to grill Jean-Pierre over the ethical hypocrisy of inviting Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Apple’s Tim Cook when “regulators in the Biden administration have sued both Amazon and Apple, alleging anti-competitive behavior that has caused public harm.”     Jean-Pierre tried to meander with another mangled mess and affront to the English language about the necessity of “bipartisanship” and inviting “different types of people” to state dinners, but Tausche reiterated the inconsistency: The Justice Department said just less than a month ago that Apple uses its control over the iPhone to engage in a broad, sustained, and illegal course of conduct, saying that that lawsuit should send a strong signal to other companies. What signal is the White House sending? Jean-Pierre maintained a comical wall of separation between the White House and Justice Department, but Tausche pointed out the administration still “invite[d] them to dinner” and it would seem to show Biden “doesn’t think that those companies did anything wrong.” And, from the left, The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg provided the anti-Israel side of things by lecturing Jean-Pierre and the administration that “respectfully,” it’s “not true” that Biden “is doing everything he can on getting humanitarian aid into Gaza”. His second question was even more lubricious as he argued Republican presidential candidates — when challenging an incumbent Democrat — interfere in elections and national security (click “expand”): FEINBERG: Earlier this week, the former President met with Lord Cameron, the British Foreign Secretary. He has, in recent weeks, met with Viktor Orbán, the leader of Hungary. He has said he’s spoken to Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia. There is a long history of Republican presidential candidates meddling in foreign policy to undermine their Democratic opponents. Without getting into Hatch Act territory — you know, telling people to vote for or against someone — is the administration concerned that this private citizen could be working against U.S. interests in the interests of his own political ones? JEAN-PIERRE: And you’re talking about his meeting specifically with — FEINBERG: With — with foreign leaders: Lord Cameron, his talking with MBS, Viktor Orbán, and others possibly. JEAN-PIERRE: So, look, a- — look, as it relates to other — other leaders and those types of meetings — specifically, let’s — let’s talk about David Cameron. The UK noted earlier this week it is common for officials from other countries to meet with representatives of different parties. That includes the United States, as we routinely meet with political leaders of different parties as well. For instance, we hosted Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid yesterday — at the beginning of the week — at the beginning of the week.  And so, it’s not uncommon. I am going to be really careful here, because you’re talking about a presidential candidate. I’m going to be really mindful. I used David Cameron as an example, but I’m going to be really mindful. I’m not speaking beyond that.  To see the relevant transcript from the April 11 briefing, click here.

‘They/Them’ with Antifa Links Arrested Over Bombing at Alabama AG’s Office

Back in February, a bomb blew up at the Alabama Attorney General’s office in Montgomery, Alabama. This week, Kyle Benjamin Douglas Calvert was indicted and charged with “malicious use of an explosive and possession of an unregistered destructive device,” a press release by the AG’s office indicated.  After Calvert allegedly detonated a bomb outside of AG Steve Marshall’s office on February 24, he was finally arrested on Wednesday. The explosion took place at approximately 3:42 a.m. and there were no injuries or major damage to buildings reported.  “That device had the characteristics of an IED, and Calvert added a substantial number of nails and other shrapnel to increase its destructive capability,” a detention memo noted. The same memo indicated that law enforcement officers found Calvert putting stickers on state buildings that advocated for “various political ideologies,” like some promoting Antifa, anti-police, anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement related stickers.  “Thanks to the work of the FBI and our state and local law enforcement partners, this defendant is being held accountable for allegedly detonating an explosive device outside of the Alabama Attorney General’s Office. The Justice Department has no tolerance for acts of violence targeting those who serve the public,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. To add more layers to the story, some reports indicate that Calvert is transgender and has links to Antifa. That removes the surprise as to why he allegedly bombed a Republican’s office. The Post Millennial shared an image from one of Calvert’s social media pages where he wrote that he’s a “goth neurodivergent D&D nerd” and uses “they/them” pronouns. Additionally on his TikTok page, it says he’s a ”pansexual.” I mean it’s not that shocking that a person struggling with normalcy would think it’s okay to bomb the office of a state AG.  If convicted, Calvert could face up to 20 years in prison and would be required to spend at least five years behind bars.

BUZZKILL! Krugman Claimed 'Wave of Inflation' Seems to 'Have Broken’ Day Before Hot BLS Report

The New York Times economics parody writer Paul Krugman — because that’s all he’s been reduced to now — can’t seem to avoid sleepwalking his way into major, unforced errors. In another Apr. 9 column praising President Joe Biden’s alleged “Goldilocks” economy, Krugman was adamant that “while there was a wave of inflation, it seems to have broken.” Yes, Krugman wrote this just a day before the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Apr. 10 report showing that consumer prices spiked hotter than expected at 3.5 percent year-over-year and 0.4 percent month-over-month. CNBC analyzed that core consumer prices (excluding food and energy) “also accelerated 0.4% on a monthly basis while rising 3.8% from a year ago, compared with respective estimates for 0.3% and 3.7%.” French newspaper Le Monde concluded, “The numbers are bad and getting worse.” In other words, Krugman: You done messed up A-Aron.      Krugman’s column, in retrospect, gets even more painful as one reads on: Basically, America rapidly restored full employment while experiencing a one-time jump in the level of prices without a sustained rise in inflation, the rate at which prices are rising. Not bad, especially considering all the dire predictions made along the way.” [emphasis added]. Ouch.  The other hole in Krugman’s argument here is that he doesn’t mention the workers missing from the labor force. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimated that number to be around 1.7 million on Feb. 13, 2024, compared to February 2020. The chamber stated, “If every unemployed person in the country found a job, we would still have nearly 2.4 million open jobs. Other estimates put the number of jobs missing from the labor market compared to its pre-pandemic trend at 4.8 million. Krugman’s new shtick for spinning the U.S. economic situation is suggesting that Americans should forget the CPI index by the BLS altogether. The so-called breaking of the “wave of inflation,” as Krugman put it, is “especially clear if you measure inflation the way other countries do.” By his distorted metrics, Krugman claimed irresponsibly that “inflation has already been cut to roughly 2 percent, the [Federal Reserve’s] inflation target.” Ah, so all Americans have to do is use other countries’ metrics to hoodwink themselves into believing that the inflation situation is better than it is, right? Brilliant!  It’s too bad for Krugman the liberal media writ large are now projecting the new inflation numbers are signaling that the Fed isn’t anywhere near its target to be comfortably cutting interest rates anytime soon. Even liberal CNN anchor Kate Bolduan admitted that the hot BLS numbers meant “[i]nflation is headed in the wrong direction right now.” Subsequently, the Atlanta Federal Reserve revised down its nowcast model for first quarter GDP growth to 2.4 percent from its April 5, 2.5 percent estimate. Heritage Foundation economist EJ Antoni summarized what the series of unfortunate events for Krugman’s narrative meant for the future in an X post: “BLS releases hot CPI and now ATL Fed revises down GDP nowcast...Inflation: faster[.] Growth: slower [.] Say it w/ me: stagflation.”  BLS releases hot CPI and now ATL Fed revises down GDP nowcast... Inflation: faster Growth: slower Say it w/ me: stagflation pic.twitter.com/UoptaylTDe — E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) April 10, 2024 But that’s not all. Queens College, Cambridge President Mohamed A. El-Erian even conceded that the hot inflation report signaled “continued price pressure on consumers, which hits the poor hardest, and a sharp market reaction.” Liberal Harvard Professor of Practice Jason Furman also admitted, “Over the last twelve months core CPI has risen 3.5%. That is faster than any twelve month period from February 1993 to 2020.”   Conservatives are under attack. Contact The New York Times at 800-698-4637 and demand it distance itself from Krugman’s awful takes on Bidenomics.

Daily Show Claims Pro-Life Men Are 'A Ridiculous Embarrassment'

Comedy Central’s The Daily Show brought out all the cringe on Thursday as temp host Michael Kosta labeled a recent Fox Business segment between Mark Simone and Larry Kudlow discussing abortion as “a ridiculous embarrassment.” That led him to do a sketch with Jordan Klepper where the two pretended to be stereotypical macho men who claimed to be pro-life, but also didn’t know how babies are made or what an abortion is. Kosta wrapped up the straightforward monologue on the FBN segment by introducing the sketch, “Now, a panel of men talking about abortion might seem like a ridiculous embarrassment for everyone involved, but I actually think it's a great idea for our new segment, ‘Men talk about abortion.’"  Kosta talks about abortion all the time, so he really means pro-life men discussing abortion. Still, complete with bad wigs and fake cigars, he asked, “Alright, let's get right to it, man to man. What's your solution for abortion?”     Referencing remarks Simone made in the clip, Klepper replied, “Okay, easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Alright, if a woman needs an abortion, she should just take the bus to a state where it's legal.  After claiming that having had some testicular injury qualifies him to render such judgments, Kosta added that “I know it's frustrating for women, but we can't all—we have rights some places and other places we don't. For example, I'm not allowed to go to the Epcot food court anymore because apparently you can't ‘Do that’ to the funnel cakes. I mean, Double standards? Double standards?” Klepper also urged women to accept their stance, “Look, look, women are making too big a deal about all of this. Look, I've never had to walk through a line of protesters to get basic health care, but I have had to make eye contact with the woman at Walgreens while buying a pack of slim-fit Trojan condoms! So, sometimes you got to get past feeling judged, ladies!” Kosta affirmed Klepper and wondered, “You are brave, my broham and by the way, what about the father's rights?... Right! Are you a father?” Klepper declared that he wasn’t because “I haven't quite figured out how it works yet. I do know boobs are involved, though, you know. How about you?"  Not only did Kosta report not being a father, he claimed to not be able to find a date, “Yeah, I haven't found the right lady. I was in a relationship for several years, but she turned out to be a raccoon and she tricked me out of my credit card!” Starting to break character, Klepper relayed a similar expierence, “Tale as old as time period, player, tale as old as time. In fact, my ex was three possums in a trench coat! Just, you know—point is—point is when it comes to women's rights, we get it!” Wrapping it up, Kosta finally asked, “What is an abortion?” Klepper again pleaded ignorance, “Not a clue. Not a clue. But, but, but, I think the boobs are once again involved.”  The inverse of “it’s funny because it’s true” is “it’s not funny because it’s not true,” and this bit about pro-life men being irredeemably dumb fails because pro-life men are keenly aware of what abortion is and how babies are made. Here is a transcript for the April 11 show: Comedy Central The Daily Show 4/11/2024 11:06 PM ET MICHAEL KOSTA: Now, a panel of men talking about abortion might seem like a ridiculous embarrassment for everyone involved, but I actually think it's a great idea for our new segment, "Men talk about abortion."  KOSTA [IN CHARACTER]: Yeah, yeah, alright! alright, you know it! Yeah! Joining me now is my main bro, my main man, you’re just like me, aren’t you? Yeah. JORDAN KLEPPER [IN CHARACTER]: Yeah, I sure am, a big old man! Huh, just watch me open this jar! I'll finish it later!  KOSTA: No, you softened it up, you softened it up, big dog. Alright, let's get right to it, man to man. What's your solution for abortion?  KLEPPER: Okay, easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Alright— KOSTA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. KLEPPER: — If a woman needs an abortion, she should just take the bus to a state where it's legal.  KOSTAL Okay. KLEPPER: Look, obviously I've never had to travel out of state for an abortion but I did accidently hit myself in the balls trying to double knot my deck shoes. I cried so hard they helicoptered me into a hospital in the next state, I was fine! KOSTA: Couldn’t agree more, chief. Couldn’t agree more, chief.  Women should just take the bus ride or just give birth. And look, I've never given birth.  KLEPPER: Of course not, but you would crush it if you did! I mean, you would crush it. KOSTA: I would crush it. You know I would! Hey look, I know it's frustrating for women, but we can't all — we have rights some places and other places we don't. For example, I'm not allowed to go to the Epcot food court anymore because apparently you can't "Do that" to the funnel cakes. I mean, Double standards? Double standards? Yeah, yeah, KLEPPER: Double standard! Double standard, Double standard. Look, look, women are making too big a deal about all of this. Look, I've never had to walk through a line of protesters to get basic health care, but I have had to make eye contact with the woman at Walgreens while buying a pack of slim-fit Trojan condoms! So, sometimes you got to get past feeling judged, ladies!  KOSTA: You’re brave.  KLEPPER: Thank you. KOSTA: You are brave, my broham and by the way, what about the father's rights?  KLEPPER: Oh, the fathers have to have rights!  KOSTA: Right! Are you a father? KLEPPER: I am not a father! No, I would like to be, but I haven't quite figured out how it works yet.  KOSTA: Okay, okay. KLEPPER: I do know boobs are involved, though, you know. How about you?  KOSTA: Yeah, I haven't found the right lady. I was in a relationship for several years but she turned out to be a raccoon and she tricked me out of my credit card!  KLEPPER: Tale as old as time period, player, tale as old as time. In fact, my ex was three possums in a trench coat! Just, you know — point is — point is when it comes to women's rights, we get it!  Michael: We! Get! It! Alright, before we go, quick question: What is an abortion?  KLEPPER: Not a clue. Not a clue. But, but, but, I think the boobs are once again involved. 

HUH?! KJP Gives BIZARRE Answer to AP When Asked About O.J. Simpson’s Death

Given the fact that much of Thursday’s news cycles were dominated by the death of O.J. Simpson, it shouldn’t have been that surprising Simpson was invoked during the White House press briefing. Somehow, the ever-inept Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had a cringeworthy answer. The Associated Press’s Darlene Superville has always been a Biden hack, so she probably thought she was helping the White House out with her third question being about the corrupt and disgraced former NFL player (after two about Israel): “Was there any reaction from the President to O.J. Simpson’s death? Do you know if they ever crossed paths? If so, how? When?”     Setting aside the unintentionally somewhat on-the-nose “crossed paths” phrase, Jean-Pierre’s answer showed complete callousness to the family of those many believe Simpson killed, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. “So, I’ll say this,” Jean-Pierre began (as she often does) before adding “[o]ur thoughts are with — with his families during this difficult time — obviously, with his family and loved ones.” Yeeesh. Based on the creative litany of responses to a video tweet of the exchange, the public certainly has been left scratching its head. It was as though Simpson were some revered statesman or cabinet secretary, not a man with the nickname The Juice whose smarmy behavior led to a life of ruin after evading guilt in the criminal trial for the deaths of Nicole and Ron. Alluding to the tweet from Simpson’s account by his family announcing his death, Jean-Pierre concluded: [A]nd I’ll say this. I know that they have asked for some privacy and so, we’re going to respect that. I’ll just leave it there. To see the relevant transcript from the April 11 briefing, click “expand.” White House press briefing [via ABC News Live subfeed] April 11, 2024 2:11 p.m. Eastern DARLENE SUPERVILLE: Was there any reaction from the President to O.J. Simpson’s death? Do you know if they ever crossed paths? If so, how? When? KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: So, I’ll say this. Our thoughts are with — with his families during this difficult time — obviously, with his family and loved ones, and I’ll say this. I know that they have asked for some privacy and so, we’re going to respect that. I’ll just leave it there.

Naked Dude Arrested After Exposing Himself In Women's Locker Room at Planet Fitness

Christopher Allan Miller stripped naked in the women’s locker room at a Planet Fitness location in North Carolina. Despite identifying as a woman, Miller was arrested Thursday for indecent exposure to a minor. Local police received a call on April 4 from a traumatized woman claiming that Miller was walking around the women’s locker room completely naked.  “It’s a man but he says he identifies as a woman, and he won’t leave the restroom. But he is just walking around showing us his — and he won’t leave,” the concerned woman said according to local news WSOC-TV 9. The offender’s booking details list Miller as a male and indicate that he’s being held at the Gaston County jail. Planet Fitness member Betty Brice spoke out about her concern with Miller in the bathroom, saying, “I think a woman should be able to go into a women's bathroom without a man coming in saying he’s transgender." Planet Fitness has been under fire as of late for its policy on transgender people, which states that individuals may use whichever facility that best aligns with their "gender identity." Here’s what the website claims: Planet Fitness is more than your neighborhood fitness center – we are the Judgement Free Zone®. At Planet Fitness, we celebrate and champion diversity and provide an environment where everyone feels accepted, respected and like they belong. Planet Fitness prohibits discrimination and harassment that is based on gender identity or gender expression in the workplace and in our clubs. The following is our corporate policy regarding the accommodation of our members and team members in terms of their gender identity. When it comes to nudity, here’s what the website states: We ask that members respect the privacy and comfort of other members by practicing modesty in the locker rooms and remaining covered as much as possible. Obviously Miller neglected to do that if he was, in fact, in the nude. A female gym member named Patricia Silvia complained back in March about a biological man using - and even shaving in - the women’s locker room, even when a girl around 12 years old was present in the space. Related: Man Allowed in Women's Restroom at Planet Fitness, Company Stock Drops Instead of apologizing to Silvia and dealing with the situation appropriately, Planet Fitness revoked her gym membership, leading to many members voluntarily canceling their Planet Fitness memberships out of protest. The gym’s value plummeted around $400 million after the fiasco. It really is sad and disturbing that Miller was not only in the ladies room, but that he was in the ladies room butt-ass naked. While I am glad he was arrested, this is exactly the kind of thing Planet Fitness is inviting with these sorts of policies. Follow us on Twitter/X: In what world does trying to be an OnlyFans star do anything to honor a deceased grandfather? @tierin_rosebreaks down the left's latest insanity in this week's Woke of the Weak! pic.twitter.com/mvUFDdwPCb — MRCTV (@mrctv) April 9, 2024

PBS Misremembers William F. Buckley Jr.

Imagine making a documentary about one of the 20th century’s leading opponents of the Ku Klux Klan — without ever talking about the evil of the KKK itself. If that sounds like malpractice, consider PBS’s new documentary on the life of William F. Buckley Jr. “The Incomparable Mr. Buckley,” the latest installment in the “American Masters” series, has much to say about anti-Communism but never reckons with the murderous reality of Communism itself. In failing to do so, producer and director Barak Goodman unintentionally reminds his viewers of why Buckley was needed in the first place — and why he still is. Never mind that Buckley died in 2008, and next year marks the centenary of his birth. The liberals who already reigned in America’s universities when Buckley was a Yale student in the late 1940s have not learned any lessons in the decades since then. Faculty and administrators still will not speak frankly about evils emanating from the left end of the political spectrum, from Communism to the many violent groups that claim to act in the name of anti-colonialism. The PBS documentary gets Buckley’s resume right but understands little of its significance. In 1951 Buckley published his first book, “God and Man at Yale.” Four years later, when he was not quite 30 years old, Buckley launched National Review, which became the all-but-official publication of the nascent conservative movement. He had a hand in the creation of other institutions, too, such as the right’s student activist arm, Young Americans for Freedom. Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan drew political support and intellectual sustenance from the movement Buckley built. And after Goldwater’s crushing defeat in the 1964 presidential election, Buckley restored conservatives’ spirits with his run for mayor of New York City the following year. “The Incomparable Mr. Buckley” is right to suggest that although WFB’s mayoral campaign never had a shot at winning — Buckley joked that if he won, he’d demand a recount — it taught conservatives how to mobilize urban Catholics and voters fed up with escalating crime. The Nixon coalition, which would win the White House in 1968 and 1972, was the Buckley coalition first. His mayoral run made him a media sensation and led to a career in television, on top of the several careers he already had as an author, editor, lecturer and movement-maker. He even started his own highly successful interview show, “Firing Line,” which ran for more than three decades, mostly on PBS affiliates, starting in 1966. “The Incomparable Mr. Buckley” tantalizes viewers with clips of WFB’s exchanges with “Firing Line” guests such as Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg. But the documentary is reluctant to let Buckley speak for himself; voiceovers from historians offering their own spin break in after only a few words from the subject himself. The filmmakers prefer to highlight defeats and embarrassments: the debate Buckley lost to James Baldwin at Cambridge University in 1965 on the resolution “The American Dream is at the expense of the American Negro” and WFB’s explosion on live TV, while covering the 1968 Democratic National Convention, when Gore Vidal taunted him as a “pro- or crypto-Nazi.” Buckley, losing his composure for once, retorted by calling Vidal a “queer” and saying he’d “sock” him in the face — “and you’ll stay plastered!” — if he kept up the abuse. Vidal delighted in getting this rise out of Buckley and thought it made great television, but the conservative was mortified. The trouble with “The Incomparable Mr. Buckley,” though, isn’t that it showcases such episodes but that it finds its subject incomprehensible at the most important level — the meaning of his life’s work. When Goodman isn’t presenting Buckley as a figure fit for “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” he and the historians he’s enlisted press the thesis that Buckley was an irresponsible elitist who dabbled with populist forces he could not control. The documentary ends with scenes of Donald Trump and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. But it’s elite liberals, not Buckley, who created the opening for Trump. Buckley’s institutions, notably National Review, opposed Trump — yet their opposition wasn’t enough to offset demand for Trump from voters whom liberals had alienated. By failing to learn the lessons Buckley tried all his life to teach, and refusing to moderate their left-wing prejudices in light of an articulate conservative critique, liberals in politics, media and the academy guaranteed the rise of populism. From the Cold War to crime in the cities, they blamed America for every problem. Thirty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, liberals like those behind “The Incomparable Mr. Buckley” persist in treating Communism as a footnote to McCarthyism. They have their history, and their view of Buckley, upside down. Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review. To read more by Daniel McCarthy, visit www.creators.com

Column: 'Public' Radio Isn't Dedicated to the Masses

Is National Public Radio fair and balanced? Do they care what you think? NPR has a “Public Editor” to monitor listener complaints and concerns, but as we all know, the majority of their listeners are going to complain they’re not “progressive” enough. In 2021, Public Editor Kelly McBride appeared on Brian Stelter’s CNN podcast to praise NPR’s decision to allow their journalists to go to (leftist) public protests so they can “bring their full humanity to work with them.” When Stelter asked about NPR’s critics, McBride dismissed any conservative complaints about a leftist tilt because they are not “genuinely interested in improving NPR.” McBride claimed her job was to coach NPR “to achieve its own internally stated goals. It doesn’t help to be magnifying disingenuous criticism.” To balance NPR is to harm NPR? NPR senior editor Uri Berliner wrote a bombshell expose for the Free Press website, chronicling NPR’s blatant bias on subjects from Russian collusion conspiracy theories to the Hunter Biden laptop. NPR didn’t report negatively on Donald Trump, they sought to “damage or topple Trump’s presidency.” Is McBride going to find that this internally stated criticism isn’t worth considering? NPR media reporter David Folkenflik countered with an official word salad from NPR chief news executive Edith Chapin rejecting Berliner’s critique: "We're proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories," she wrote. "We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world." “Inclusion” of conservative viewpoints is something NPR refuses to do. Folkenflik has been an NPR media reporter since 2004, and he has never interviewed me or anyone else at the Media Research Center for one of his reports on media performance, including in his multitude of hostile stories on Fox News.  But Folkenflik recently filed several stories from fervently anti-Israel leftists at The Intercept complaining that The New York Times was too pro-Israel in reporting about sexual assaults committed by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023. You can complain from the Left that Hamas is presented as too violent, but you can’t complain from the right that Republicans are painted as Jim Crow racists or fascists. CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy wasn’t as calm as Folkenflik. He hated this Berliner critique from the start. In his April 9 newsletter, he skeptically stated the idea that NPR is "supposedly embracing" a progressive view, and Berliner "felt more aligned with the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal than NPR." So Darcy wants to deny NPR's identity is on the Left, and then he signals that it is. Darcy expressed disgust that “Fox News quickly pounced” on the article, and it may lead to a “Jim Jordan type” to hold an oversight hearing on NPR tilt. Horrors! On April 10, Darcy was at it again. Berliner's expose on NPR is "nothing short but a massive gift to the right," whose top priority is "vilifying the news media." This is weird coming from Darcy, who routinely vilifies Fox News as fake news and argues it should be deplatformed by cable companies. Freedom of speech does not mean “freedom of reach,” Darcy and Stelter have argued. On a daily basis, taxpayer-funded NPR is nothing short of a massive gift to the Left, pumping out progressive propaganda to over 1,000 stations.  Because it has “public” in its branding, too many Americans still think it’s a service to everyone…. and not just to the Democrats who insure the millions keep flowing.

Is Dubbing Joe Biden In Spanish Election Interference? Yes, It Is.

It took me a minute to get there, but I have arrived at the realization that the act of dubbing President Joe Biden in Spanish is tantamount to an act of election interference, given the degree to which it alters the president’s outward presentation to voters and what such dubbing conceals to voters who rely exclusively on Spanish-language newscasts. Look at Biden’s Constitutionally-challenged rant on guns, both in the original English and as dubbed into Spanish, as aired on Univision (Spanish) and Unimás (English) on Tuesday, April 9th, 2024: JOE BIDEN: The idea we don't have background checks for anybody purchasing a weapon, the idea that we're going to be in a position where he says that he famously told the NRA that don't worry, no one's going to touch your guns if I… From the very beginning, I used to teach the Second Amendment in law school, from the very beginning, there were limitations. You couldn't own a cannon. You couldn’t… You could own a rifle or a gun.   ENRIQUE ACEVEDO: Weapons of war. JOE BIDEN: They weren’t weapons of war. The contrast is as stark as night and day.  Those who watched the TelevisaUnivision interview of Joe Biden on Unimás (as I did, primarily) got English with subtitles. We heard the president in his own voice, speech pattern and mannerisms. We got to hear him trail off several times, and made assessments of his lucidity and cognition. Based on this feed we were able to speculate as to the efficacy of the (alleged) White House medical cocktail team (hard to assess because the interview was split into shorter interviews across multiple venues, as opposed to Trump’s lengthy sit-down at Mar-a-Lago). Those who watched the Spanish-dubbed interview on Univision were deprived of that perspective because of the stellar job done by the interpreter. When dubbed into Spanish, Biden sounds 40 years younger and without cognitive decline. The interpreter’s rich baritone, when transposed onto Biden, leaves viewers with the impression of a president far more vigorous than he actually is.  The truth is that this has always been the custom when covering presidents in Spanish-language media. Each network has their on-call contract interpreter that handles presidential addresses. These guys are experienced, highly skilled, and have worked through several administrations. But none of those presidents had the structural challenges that Joe Biden possesses. One can accurately convey the words of what Joe Biden is saying, but not the trail-offs and blank stares. Cognitive decline becomes impossible to convey to the viewing audience. The fairest way to present Biden to a Spanish-dominant audience, then, is simply to show him as is, in English with Spanish subtitles as was shown on Univision’s sister network Unimás. Let the viewers see for themselves.  Having had a couple of days to process the interview, one notices that there have been no interventional pieces filed by the Acela Media, and no broad protestations put forth by the Professional Latinx. There are no Washington Post or New York Times items describing a conflicted newsroom. It appears that the highly scripted, choreographed and overproduced campaign documentary has satisfied those who were outraged by the Trump interview, and that Anita Dunn effectively bullied TelevisaUnivision into proving Team Biden with their very own “softball” interview. As I said in my preview, the most dangerous scenario for Biden would have been to get the same type of interview that Trump got. But Biden got the exact opposite. And Univision's Spanish-language viewers, who studies show are part of the most misinformed cohort among voters, got more of the same.

THE POUNCING CONTINUES: Networks Hype Arizona Abortion Politics

The network evening newscasts continue to feast on coverage of the potential political fallout over an Arizona Supreme Court ruling ratifying an 1864 territorial statute that bans abortion in all instances except to save the life of the mother. Understandably so, as newscast time spent hyping abortions in Arizona is less time available to cover the types of things adverse to Democrats generally, and to the Biden presidency, specifically. Watch as NBC’s Hallie Jackson gives the game away: HALLIE JACKSON: On the Arizona ruling that reinstates an 1864 law banning nearly all abortions, with the exception of those to save the mother's life, the Biden campaign is looking to put Republicans on defense as Mr. Trump acknowledges overnight Democrats have the political advantage.  DONALD TRUMP: The only issue they have, the only issue they think they have is on abortion, and now all I say is the states are handling it. JACKSON: The former president accusing Democrats of trying to distract from the economy and immigration, both consistently the most important issue for voters, with polls showing Americans prefer Mr. Trump to President Biden by about 20 points on the economy, 30 points on the border.  Jackson concedes both that the economy and immigration are the most important issues for voters, and that Trump polls the strongest on these. This is also reflected in the amount of time that the networks devote to these issues. Which is, not very much at all in comparison to a state supreme court ruling now on its third day of A-block coverage because of its perceived benefit to the Biden campaign.  Of weird note: CBS’s Janet Shamlian named the abortion providers she interviewed, but not the pro-life activist which, by the way, was the sole pro-life perspective presented across all three network newscasts. JANET SHAMLIAN: The group Arizona for Abortion Access says it’s gathered enough signatures for a November ballot initiative allowing abortions up to around 24 weeks. Nurse Ashleigh Fiering has been helping the effort.  ASHLEIGH FIERING: It is far more dangerous to make abortions illegal and have abortions go underground, because I will tell you that people will not stop getting abortions. SHAMLIAN: An anti abortion rights group is mounting a campaign against the ballot initiative. JOANNA DE LA CRUZ: This amendment would be absolutely catastrophic for the health of women and girls.  That would be Joanna De La Cruz from the “It Goes Too Far” campaign, whose name CBS published in the companion article. Common thematics across networks revolved around pure politics, such as Vice President Kamala Harris’ trip to Arizona to speak on the issue, and general observation of the Biden campaign’s targeted advertising in the Grand Canyon State.  It remains unclear whether an abortion referendum makes it to the Arizona ballot in November, but one thing is for certain: the networks will continue to pound abortion politics, given that this spares them from having to cover any more of the Biden Malaise than is minimally necessary. Click “expand” to view the transcripts of the aforementioned reports as aired on their respective networks on Thursday, April 11th, 2024: ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT: WHIT JOHNSON: Now to the abortion battle in Arizona, after the state Supreme Court ruled a law from 1864 that banned nearly all abortions will take effect in a matter of weeks. State lawmakers left town without taking action. Doctors already describing chaos and confusion. ABC's Rachel Scott in Arizona tonight.  RACHEL SCOTT: Tonight in Arizona, doctors describing chaos and confusion, after the state's highest court upheld a 160-year-old law banning abortion in all cases, except to protect the life of the mother. Arizona's state legislature was expected to swiftly repeal the law, but Republicans blocked that effort.  PROTESTERS: Shame on you!  SCOTT: And Dr. Jill Gibson at Planned Parenthood tells me the impact is already being felt.  What have you been experiencing the last 48 hours inside of this clinic?  JILL GIBSON: Patients are already saying that they're looking for means of getting abortions through other means. Looking for pills online.  SCOTT: Arizona's Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes says she won't enforce the law, but concedes she can't stop local prosecutors. KRIS MAYES: I would urge Arizonans who are pregnant to make a plan. And I can't believe I'm having to say that, but it's time to make a plan for 60 days from now, if something goes wrong, if you need an abortion, if you want an abortion. Start thinking about California and Nevada and New Mexico or Colorado. SCOTT: Voters could ultimately decide the issue in November, when Arizona and as many as 13 other states could have abortion measures on the ballot. And the law has become a flashpoint in the race for the White House, where Arizona is a key battleground. Donald Trump says he's proud to have appointed three of the five Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe versus Wade. But sensing political quicksand, he now says abortion should be left to the states. TRUMP: It was an incredible thing, an incredible achievement. We did that and now the states have it.  SCOTT: Now Trump says Arizona went too far. But President Biden says by appointing the justices who helped overturn Roe, Trump cleared the way for 21 states to ban or severely restrict access to abortion. And tonight in this state, these billboards going up: "Abortion is banned in Arizona thanks to Donald Trump. He won't stop until it's (banned) nationwide."  Whit, there's a lot of uncertainty here in Arizona. The Supreme Court put that ruling on hold for 14 days, but tonight, the state's attorney general tells me that it could be an additional 45 days before that law goes into effect, because of a separate lawsuit. As for the White House, they want to keep this issue in the spotlight. The vice president plans to visit Arizona tomorrow. Whit. JOHNSON: Rachel Scott in Phoenix tonight. Thank you. CBS EVENING NEWS: NORAH O’DONNELL: The Biden campaign launched a seven-figure ad buy an Arizona today that focuses on abortion. The Grand Canyon State is now the epicenter in the battle over reproductive rights after that state’s supreme court upheld a Civil War-era law that bans all abortions except to save the life of the mother. Abortion is currently legal until 15 weeks. CBS's Janet Shamlian takes a look at those already being impacted.  JANET SHAMLIAN: This is the busiest abortion clinic in Arizona, according to Dr. Gabrielle Goodrick, seeing some 350 patients a month. But now, Goodrick says she is worried about what could happen. GABRIELLE GOODRICK: We provide an essential health care service for the patients of Arizona, and if we cannot provide that, they are going to be lost, they are going to be in danger.  SHAMLIAN: Efforts Wednesday in the state legislature to repeal the newly-revived law were shut down by Republicans.  PROTESTERS: Shame! Shame! Shame!  SHAMLIAN: The Arizona House Speaker saying, "Democrats are so eager to enshrine in our state Constitution a right to kill unborn children. We are going to take the time needed to listen to our constituents.” Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs:  KATIE HOBBS: I am ready to do whatever it takes to get the 1864 ban repealed.  SHAMLIAN: The group Arizona for Abortion Access says it’s gathered enough signatures for a November ballot initiative allowing abortions up to around 24 weeks. Nurse Ashleigh Fiering has been helping the effort.  ASHLEIGH FIERING: It is far more dangerous to make abortions illegal and have abortions go underground, because I will tell you that people will not stop getting abortions. SHAMLIAN: An anti abortion rights group is mounting a campaign against the ballot initiative. JOANNA DE LA CRUZ: This amendment would be absolutely catastrophic for the health of women and girls.  SHAMLIAN: Most abortions take place at 15 weeks or less. Only a very small number take place 21 weeks or later. The timeline of when the new law could take effect is unclear. Dr. Goodrick says when it does, it will be a dangerous time for women. GOODRICK: It will harm a tremendous amount of Arizonans, and, um… no, it will be terrible. SHAMLIAN: As politicians continue to weigh in on the ruling, Vice President Kamala Harris will be here in Arizona tomorrow for a campaign event, discussing what the White House calls the fight for reproductive freedoms. Norah. O’DONNELL: Janet Shamlian, thank you. NBC NIGHTLY NEWS: LESTER HOLT: Now to the escalating battle over abortion. The Biden campaign counting on the Arizona court ruling on that sweeping Civil War-era abortion ban to give them an edge, while President- former President Trump is also speaking out. Here’s Hallie Jackson.  HALLIE JACKSON: A new, aggressive push tonight from the president. JOE BIDEN: If Donald Trump gets back in power, what freedom will you lose next? JACKSON: A new ad blitz pinning the blame on his predecessor for Arizona's controversial abortion ban.  BIDEN: Your body and your decisions belong to you, not the government, not Donald Trump. I will fight like hell to get your freedom back.  JACKSON: On the Arizona ruling that reinstates an 1864 law banning nearly all abortions, with the exception of those to save the mother's life, the Biden campaign is looking to put Republicans on defense as Mr. Trump acknowledges overnight Democrats have the political advantage.  DONALD TRUMP: The only issue they have, the only issue they think they have is on abortion, and now all I say is the states are handling it. JACKSON: The former president accusing Democrats of trying to distract from the economy and immigration, both consistently the most important issue for voters, with polls showing Americans prefer Mr. Trump to president Biden by about 20 points on the economy, 30 points on the border. Even though Mr. Trump opposes the Arizona abortion ban and a national ban, he is also taking credit for the overturning of Roe versus Wade, a decision which paved the way for very restrictive, broadly unpopular abortion limits. He and other Republicans now trying to thread the needle, including Arizona's Kari Lake.  KARI LAKE: A full ban on abortion is not where the people are. The issue is less about banning abortion and more about saving babies. JACKSON: For the ban's opponents in Arizona, anger turning to action.  You say you're ready to do whatever it takes to get the ban repealed, but how? KATIE HOBBS: I immediately called for the repeal of this ban and I'm going to continue to do that. I think a lot of Republicans are seeing that this is going to hurt them in the election.  JACKSON: And state lawmakers could pass a repeal as early as next week, before the ban is set to go into effect later this spring. Lester.   HOLT: Hallie Jackson, thanks.  

MSNBC Compares Netanyahu to Serbian War Criminal, Claim ‘Genocide’

Last evening on The ReidOut, MSNBC host Joy Reid and her guest, author Peter Maass, compared the war in Gaza and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the genocidal Yugoslav Wars and Serbian war criminal Slobodan Milošević. Maass, a journalist who covered the war in Bosnia, described how the media reports he has been reading about Gaza sound very similar to what he witnessed in the 1990s. Reid opened the interview with the question, “Why do you say that it is genocide?” To which Maass quickly specified that he thinks the amount of evidence surrounding this issue “should be investigated by war crimes prosecutors for possible genocide charges,” which was very different from, “I believe this is a genocide.”     To further push the “Israel is committing genocide” narrative, Reid named Slobodan Milošević, the former Serbian president convicted of war crimes, and compared him to the Israeli PM, Netanyahu: “Do you think that because he is the person that is prolonging this and doesn't seem to want to stop it, could Benjamin Netanyahu wind up in a position like Mr. Karadžić, like Mr. Milošević, and actually charged…” For context, in the Yugoslav Wars, Milošević was indicted for sixty-six counts of genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Kosovo. Groups of Serbs, Jews, Muslims, and Croats were ethnically cleansed from these areas in series of horrific war crimes. In contrast, the war in Gaza started because Hamas, an anti-Israel Palestinian terrorist group, attacked Israel in an attempt to ethnically cleanse the area and replace it with the Islamic Brotherhood. Hamas should be compared to Slobodan Milošević, Radovan Karadžić, and Ratko Mladić, not Israel. Not only did Reid compare Netanyahu to a genocidal political leader, but she also claimed that Netanyahu has “prolonged” the war by refusing to ceasefire. So far, nearly every multilateral ceasefire proposition has been agreed to by Israel and refused by Hamas. Recently, Hamas announced that they wouldn’t be able to turn over 40 of the hostages they took because they were already dead. During the interview, Maass was reluctant to confirm that he thought Israel was committing genocide. “Is it genocide? It’s complicated.” Instead, he referred to what he’s seen on the media, apparently unaware that the statistics that the mainstream media uses are from Hamas-controlled organizations. “I saw genocide happen in front of my eyes. Now, what I'm seeing happening in front of my eyes in the way that you are, and others are, because foreign reporters aren’t allowed into Gaza by Israel, is disturbingly evocative,” he demurred. Adding: “All of these kinds of incidents that I saw before and that we’ve seen in other military situations and other genocides we have seen there…What counts is really what war crimes prosecutors, war crime judges might decide. And that’s kinda what I think needs to happen.” To call for an investigation into Israel’s methods of war was one thing, to compare it to the ethnic cleansers of the Yugoslav Wars was another. Earlier in the interview, Maass mentioned that his great-grandfather, while not a Zionist, helped Jewish people be relocated out of Russia and into what was then called Palestine. Reid and Maass attempted to use this example to explain how Zionism was wrong and peace could be attained between the groups if the state of Israel did not exist. Yet, this conversation completely ignored how Hamas’s goal was to remove the same people that Maass’s family helped put in Israel. Hamas does not want to live in peace with Jewish people. It does not support religious freedom and removing the state of Israel will not satisfy them. Like the ethnic cleanser, Milošević, Hamas wants to eradicate the people of Israel, not just the nation. Maass has also been indirectly supporting this narrative on CNN and other major liberal media.   Veteran war correspondent @maassp argues that international courts should examine whether Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. What’s the legal standard? And is the evidence there? Plus how he responds to accusations that the suggestion is “blood libel” pic.twitter.com/nGrnsP0XTU — Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) April 10, 2024   Read the full transcript here: The ReidOut 4/11/24 7:55:23-7:59:44 (...) JOY REID: You have covered wars, including in Bosnia. And so, you have something to compare it to. Why do you call—Because it’s very controversial among a lot of people to call what is happening in Gaza genocide. Not everyone likes to hear that. Why do you say that it is genocide? PETER MAASS:  Well, I say, I was very specific about that. I mean, I said that there is, like, a lot of evidence indicating that this is genocide and it should be investigated by war crimes prosecutors for possible genocide charges. And indeed, the international court of justice is looking into that now. There are other venues, international criminal court, that could also do the same. And the reason that I said that is because when I covered the war in Bosnia, I also covered military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan where I saw a lot of violence. But in Bosnia, in particular, I saw people shot by snipers. I saw civilian homes get bombed from the hills by the Serbs who were besieging Sarajevo. Aid shipments halted. Water, electricity, cut off. Visited the main hospital in Sarajevo. It would get bombed. I knew people there who were killed. I wrote about it at the time. And all of these things that I saw in Sarajevo, in Bosnia when I was reporting there in the 1990s, which was a long time ago, were very similar to what I have been seeing, what we all have been seeing in Gaza. And, in the case of Bosnia, there were war crimes trials and there are a number of people who are in prison now on atrocities, convictions, on genocide— REID: Slobodan Milošević. MAASS: He died while awaiting trial, but Radovan Karadžić, who was the Bosnia Serb political leader, Ratko Mladić  the Bosnian Serb military leader, they are in prison for the rest of their lives on charges that include genocide. I was covering, I saw genocide happen in front of my eyes. Now, what I'm seeing happening in front of my eyes in the way that you are, and others are, because foreign reporters aren’t allowed into Gaza by Israel, is disturbingly evocative. All of these kinds of incidents that I saw before and that we’ve seen in other military situations and other genocides we have seen there. Is it genocide? It’s complicated. REID: Yeah, it’s a legal question. MAASS: It’s very difficult. We can talk about it forever, but our opinions don't count. What counts is really what war crimes prosecutors, war crime judges might decide. And that’s kinda what I think needs to happen. REID: The things we’ve heard, you write about the grandmother who’s holding her six-year-old grandson's hand and is, you know, shot by a sniper. We’ve seen on social media, Israeli soldiers, IDF soldiers, uploading images of themselves looting, taking things from Palestinian homes. We’ve seen mosques blown up, schools blown up. The deliberate destruction Al-Shifa and other hospitals. Is that the kinda thing—And I think the most egregious, or maybe not the most egregious, the most shocking thing people are seeing now is the mass starvation. That’s the kind of thing you’re saying deserves an investigation. MAASS: Yeah. And, I mean, the number of children in particular who have been killed, more than 13,000 children, this is a number that really isn’t disputed by anybody of any reputation. More than 13,000 children have been killed in six months in Gaza by Israeli bombs or Israeli bullets, et cetera. And, when I was covering the war in Bosnia, and I mean this was a four- yearlong war. There was something around the order of 6- or 7,000 children killed over the course of four years. This is six months. And it’s just, it’s shocking. It’s hard to kill, I think, that many people, that many children without making mistakes that are not random. REID: Yeah. Do you think that because he is the person that is prolonging this and doesn't seem to want to stop it, could Benjamin Netanyahu wind up in a position like Mr. Karadžić, like Mr. Milošević, and actually charged, is in theory, is that something you can even, it boggles the mind to think about it, is it something you could see happening? MAASS: It boggles the mind to think about it, but if you asked me in 1992, ’93, ’94, ’95, could I ever envisioned Slobodan Milošević extradited to a war crimes tribunal, in the hay, by his own people. Same for Radovan Karadžić, same for Ratko Mladić, I would have said “I don't know what you're smoking.” And it is kind of unimaginable now. What’s less unimaginable is the possibility of actual war crimes charges being filed against him, and IDF generals and others. It’s always possible. There are war crimes trials, you know, happening, you know, today, eh, with respect to many conflicts.

‘Journalistic Rape’; Here Are the Big Moments From Catherine Herridge’s House Hearing

On Thursday before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, former CBS News correspondent Catherine Herridge emerged to give her first set of extended public remarks about her sudden firing from CBS News and what she would describe as a “journalistic rape” and the crossing of “a red line that...should never be crossed again” in the (temporary) seizure of her files that contained sensitive details about sources. Joined by Sinclair’s Sharyl Attkisson, SAG-AFTRA’s Mary Cavallaro, and the Knight First Amendment Institute’s Nadine Farid Johnson, Herridge spoke out in favor of the bipartisan PRESS Act, which would largely protect journalists from being forced by the government to disclose the identity of their sources. Herridge has particular interest as, in addition to sudden unemployment, she was recently held in contempt and ordered (pending a stay) to divulge a source relating to a story from her Fox News tenure or face a $500/day fine. Herridge largely took the high road, such as in her opening statement thanking the House for “taking the time to focus again on the importance of protecting reporter sources and the vital safeguards provided by the PRESS Act”. She explained what the contempt case has done to her family and the impact it’d have on (actual) journalism (click “expand”): One of our children recently asked me if I would go to jail, if we would lose our house, and if we would lose our family’s savings to protect my reporting sources. I wanted to answer that, in this United States where we say we value democracy and the role of a vibrant and free press, that it was impossible, but I could not offer that assurance. The bipartisan PRESS Act, which came out of this House Committee, would put it into the sort of legal jeopardy that I had experienced firsthand in the federal courts. And without the legislation, more journalists will run into the uncertainty of the contempt gauntlet in the future. This legislation will provide protections for every working journalist in the United States, now and for the next generation. The legislation provides strong protections at the federal level for reporters and their sources. It would block litigants and federal governments from prying into reporters files, except when there’s imminent threat of violence, including terrorism and in defamation cases. At the state level, similar rules are already in place at the state level to protect press freedom. It is my sincere hope the passage of the PRESS Act will provide similar protections at the federal level. I hope I am the last journalist who has to spin two years in the federal courts fighting to protect my confidential sources. My current situation arises from a privacy act lawsuit. I am only a witness in the case. It is not common for these cases to reach the stage of holding a reporter in contempt. But when such cases happen, they have profound consequences, impacting every journalist in the United States. Forcing a reporter to dispose confidential source would have a crippling effect on investigative journalism because, without reliable assurances of confidentiality, sources will not come forward. The First Amendment provides protections for the press because an informed electorate is at the foundation of our democracy. If confidential sources are not protected, I fear investigative journalism is dead. Each day, I feel the weight of that responsibility. As you know, I was held in contempt of court for upholding the basic journalistic principle of maintaining the pledge of confidentiality to my sources. Acknowledging this and losing your job “gives you clarity”, Herridge said it’s solidified “the importance of protecting confidential sources” with some having reached out when her CBS files were seized and “were concerned that, by working with me to expose government corruption and misconduct, they would be identified and exposed.” Despite the fact she did receive her files, she added this “decision to receive my reporting records crossed a red line that I believe should never be crossed again by any media organization in the future”, especially because such legal threats and fines would be crushing for smaller and independent journalists. For her part, Attkisson tied in the host of stories she’s covered, the Obama administration spying on her, and need for confidential sources to the Deep State’s unrepentant penchant for targeting those they perceive to be enemies. .@SharylAttkisson's full statement during the House @JudiciaryGOP on the free press: “In decades of reporting nationally at CNN, CBS, PBS, and for the last nine years on my tv show Full Measure, countless new stories that I broke or facets of them could not even reported without… pic.twitter.com/GD0P1WeIxI — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 11, 2024 Herridge refused to throw CBS under the bus for letting her go. In answering questions from Congressman Tom McClintock (R-CA) about whether “if CBS actions were influenced by the government in any way,” Herridge declined to answer as she’s “not someone who is known to offer speculation.” Attkisson, however, wadded in with the reality that government interference in the liberal media “happens everyday” with “[m]embers of committees, heads of committees, members of Congress and the White House” having “called the bureau in Washington, D.C., contacts that they have, editors and managers up in New York to try to shape our coverage.” Herridge did open up when Congresswoman Harriett Hageman (R-WY) astutely invited her to expand on why government coercion to reveal sources is dangerous (and in particular for stories aiming to hold those in power to account). At one point, Herridge said she hasn’t “lost a night’s sleep about my decision to protect my confidential sources” and taking anonymity off the table severely decreases the likelihood whistleblowers will reveal government wrongdoing (click the tweet to read the full thread): @RepHageman: “Ms. Herridge, how fundamental to reporting is the protection of your sources?” Catherine Herridge (@C__Herridge): “Congresswoman, I have not lost a nights sleep about my decision to protect my confidential sources. That is the core of who I am as a journalist. I am… pic.twitter.com/jNgg5H0291 — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 11, 2024 A little later on and after Congressman Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) walked Attkisson through many of her major, career-defining scoops and the necessity to have sources, Herridge told Jordan her career hasn’t been about focusing just on, say, the Biden family, but “call[ing] balls and strikes” and the seizure of her files was “not my experience in the other two networks I worked at or with my colleagues at CBS News.” “When the network of Walter Cronkite seizes the reporting files, including confidential source information, that is an attack on investigative journalism,” she added. Jordan laid out summation of what seems to happen to journalists who dare to be “critical of the government”, which is “a pattern” in which “all kinds of strange things” happen to them, whether it’s suddenly losing one’s job to having files seized to communications surveilled. “That’s scary...[Y]ou talk about a chilling effect on the First Amendment, I don’t know how we could be more chilly,” he said. Herridge became more pointed: Wherever you work, if this happened to you, it’s an attack on free press. It’s an attack on the First Amendment. It makes it more challenging for reporters to work in the future. That disrupts the free flow of information to the public. They call it — journalism a profession for a reason because it’s about an informed electorate, and it’s a cornerstone of our democracy. I can only speak for myself. When my records were seized, I felt it was a journalistic rape. Herridge further opened up to Subcommittee Chairman and Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX) about pressure she felt at CBS when covering Biden family corruption after Roy observed there was “[n]othing” to “indicate that there was a failure to perform your duties” when CBS laid her off (click “expand”): HERRIDGE: Congressman, I think what you are asking me is whether I was terminated for — for poor performance. I don’t believe that my record would reflect that. I don’t know what factors the CBS News executives considered when they terminated my position. There was tension over the Hunter Biden reporting and the Biden administration, but I can’t speak for sure why I was let go. ROY: And you mentioned tension. You had been one of the — the reporters certainly in what we might define as the mainstream media that was focusing intently on the Hunter Biden laptop, on the various facts surrounding the Biden family and the flow of money and all of those things involved with that. Is that correct? HERRIDGE: That is correct. For the full picture, though, I was also the reporter at CBS News who obtained the audiotape of former President Trump apparently bragging about the Iran classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, and I also exposed how 50 soldiers were denied the Purple Heart under the Trump administration in an effort to descalate after a ballistic missile attack in Iran. I — I’m someone who calls balls and strikes, Congressman. I just follow the facts where they lead. That has always been my calling card. ROY: When CBS let you go, was it around the time of you calling out the Trump administration or around the time that you were pursuing more of the Hunter Biden? HERRIDGE: Ah, I was let go a few days after the Special Counsel — Robert Hur report into President Biden’s handling of classified information. (....) ROY: In closing, can you just reiterate the extent of your belief of what this means for other journalists/ And you alluded to before, smaller journalists without the protection of the kind of corporate structure that we’ve got with Fox backing you up from your previous reporting. HERRIDGE: I just don’t think any journalists could withstand the threat of significant and crippling financial sanctions. They may not have a former employer or a current employer who’s in position to mount a vigorous or costly defense. I think it’s a very dangerous period for journalism. The PRESS Act would close the legal cap in the system, this ambiguity I’ve had to deal with for two years and I want to emphasize. This is not about a single journalist. It’s not about a single-story. It’s not about a single network. What happens in my case, the passage of the PRESS Act is going to impact every journalism — journalist working in this room and it’s going to impact every journalist in the United States and for the next generation to come. If there’s anything I can accomplish in my career as a journalist, it’s going to get this over the finish line. I feel this with every core of my being. Herridge showed more of her cards to Congressman Dan Bishop (R-NC) as he closed out the hearing, including an admission about the bias she saw at CBS: Fascinating exchange at the end of the House hearing on the free press in which Catherine Herridge emphasizes real journalism must include “diverse points of view” and, while at CBS, bosses “limited points of view and voices” that made her “uncomfortable” (1/3):@RepDanBishop:… pic.twitter.com/KPP4a6ScR0 — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 11, 2024 The left often parodies conservatives and Republicans as anti-media, but like most things out of the so-called fact-checkers, it couldn’t be any further from the truth. Click the tweet to see a thread containing the opening statement from Roy: .@ChipRoyTX: “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press and that cannot be limited without being lost. Those words were true when Thomas Jefferson wrote them in 1786 and they are still true today. The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees freedom of the press and… pic.twitter.com/oYqv4BE0Zt — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 11, 2024 Jordan sounded similar tunes, noting: “[i]t’s not just the press that’s under attack” in recent years, but “[e]very single liberty we enjoy under the First Amendment’s been assaulted in the last couple years”: .@Jim_Jordan: “It’s not just the press that’s under attack. Every single liberty we enjoy under the First Amendment’s been assaulted in the last couple years. I mean, you think about it — your right to practice your faith, your right to assemble, your right to petition the… pic.twitter.com/9hwMjY824s — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 11, 2024 To see the relevant transcript from the April 11 hearing, click here.

REVEALED: Biden Team Pressures Snopes, USA Today Into More Favorable Spin

Every White House team seeks to pressure the media into more favorable coverage. It's only natural to discover Team Biden can have their way in influencing liberal operations to edit things they've already posted. But it usually happens on the "down low," where there's no proven connection. Thomas Catenacci at FoxNews.com reported on Thursday that Snopes.com changed a rating on of their fact checks from "Mixture" to "False" in an article headlined "Is Biden Administration Banning Gas Stoves Over Climate Change Concerns?" Nur Ibrahim of Snopes noted Richard Trumka Jr., a member of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), said such a ban was "on the table." "This is a hidden hazard," Trumka told Bloomberg at the time. "Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned." A month earlier, Trumka said regulating gas stoves needs to be a priority "whether it's drastically reducing emissions or banning gas stoves entirely" because of their climate and health impacts, CBS News reported. But Snopes, which originally gave its "mixture" rating as a result of Trumka's statements, changed the rating to "false," stating the CPSC is "not currently considering a ban on gas stoves." Snopes' updated article included additional comments from the CPSC and downplayed Trumka's earlier statement. However, Snopes only altered its article after pressure from the CPSC to do so, according to emails exchanged between CPSC and White House communications officials and obtained by watchdog group Functional Government Initiative (FGI) through an information request. "Sent over tough letter to this writer yesterday when the initial claim was rated as 'mixed,'" CPSC communications director Pamela Rucker Springs wrote in an email to White House assistant press secretary Michael Kikukawa Jan. 11, 2023, linking to the updated Snopes fact check. Kikukawa responded enthusiastically, saying the alteration would be "so helpful going forward." Snopes then tweeted it was "simply false" to presume that they changed it due to CPSC "pressure." It's obvious that they received an angry call, and then changed it. They just hope nobody connects the dots.  Jason Cohen at the Daily Caller (who interned with us) reported earlier that USA Today altered a Monday headline on Donald Trump’s current abortion stance after the Biden’s campaign blasted the outlet’s coverage. Trump said on Monday that states should craft their own abortion laws, which many, including USA Today, interpreted as opposition to a federal ban on killing the unborn. But the Biden campaign pressured the media with predictions Trump would end up signing a national ban.  “Trump kept his word to overturn Roe in his last term, and he will not rest until he has banned abortion across the entire country. Period,” Biden campaign Deputy Communications Director Brooke Goren said on the call. “We all know this and the coverage needs to reflect it.” These are the same people who are enraged when Republicans point out they support abortion at any time for any reason up until birth across America.  USA Today’s initial headline on David Jackson's report was “‘The will of the people’: Trump opposes national abortion ban; says states should decide.” Goren called that “particularly egregiously false.”  About two hours after the conference call, it was changed to “Donald Trump says states should decide abortion policy, avoids talk of a national ban” — without noting the change with an editor’s note. Mediaite first reported the change. “Our mission is to report the facts as accurately as possible,” a USA Today spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “As part of our routine editorial process with breaking news, headline updates are not uncommon. In this instance, the headline was updated to more precisely reflect the story.” Updates aren't uncommon. What's uncommon is learning how Team Biden pressures "more precise reflections." This is about a partisan pro-abortion prediction of what Trump would do, not a fact. 

WHOOPS! MSNBC Interrupts Clyburn’s Bidenomics Defense with Bad Economic News

National Co-Chair for the 2024 Biden Presidential Campaign Rep. Jim Clyburn wasn’t expected to be blindsided by bad news in friendly territory.  During the April 10 edition of Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski had to cut off Clyburn’s rosy message about the state of the Biden economy to get an update from reality. Clyburn complained about “disinformation” and “misrepresentation” on social media in his uninformed response to a question about the Biden economy. Then, after seemingly nervously beginning her statement with “I’ll validate that,” Brzezinski covered the breaking news: “The consumer price index increased at a faster than expected pace last month, a signal that inflation remains stubbornly high.”  To make matters worse, Clyburn had to sit through a segment of CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin discussing this horrible news. Sorkin speculated that “they’re throwing a party in Mar-a-Lago.” Sorkin added, “The truth is that right now inflation has now moved in the opposite direction. So, it’s going to be harder for the administration to make the argument around this inflation trendline,” before opening the spigot with further bad news, “[F]rankly, mortgage rates are not going to be coming down, credit card rates are not going to be coming down.”  Sorkin went on, suggesting that “It has been a shock, and I think a surprise for many just how hot this number has turned out to be.”  Few were more surprised than Clyburn.  However, Clyburn’s humiliation was not just the result of bad timing. It was well deserved. His Bidenomics talking points were obviously false even before the March numbers made them look even more ridiculous.  Brzezinski had asked Clyburn about struggling Americans who feel “gaslit” while showing a graphic that gave former President Donald Trump a 9.3 percent advantage with key undecided voters (Undecided voters in PA, MI and WI on the topic: “Better for you and your family’s finances”).  Clyburn started off weak, telling Brzezinski that “401ks are not about people’s everyday lives,” before following up with an statement favorably comparing current inflation to inflation earlier in Biden’s presidency. Clyburn confidently told Brzezinski that the “inflation rates are down and people’s incomes are up.”  Later, Clyburn would add, “Although we see the prices at the stores costing more money, people are in fact earning greater incomes.”  Morning Joe and Sorkin made Clyburn’s inflation point look outrageous, but his point on wages isn’t true either. Real wages have gone down under Biden. American median weekly real earnings have declined from $373 in the first quarter of 2021 to $371 in the fourth quarter of 2023.  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.

Tlaib MELTS DOWN When FBN’s Vaughn Asks Why Her District Chanted ‘Death to America’

In footage first aired Wednesday night on Fox News’s Jesse Watters PrimeTime, Fox Business correspondent Hillary Vaughn doggedly ran down Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) earlier in the day over video from a Dearborn, Michigan event inside her district which featured chants of “death to America” and “death to Israel”.  Not surprisingly, the far-left, raging anti-Semite declined to condemn the chants and instead accused Vaughn and her Fox colleagues of being “Islamphobic” people engaging in “racist tropes”.     The footage began with Vaughn only being able to call out to Tlaib before the Michigan Democrat shouted back, “I don’t talk to Fox News! I don’t talk to Fox News!” Vaughn nonetheless asked her question as a staff member tried to move Vaughn out of the way and Tlaib reiterating she wouldn’t speak to Fox: “At a rally in your district, people were chanting death to America. Do you condemn?” When Tlaib again said she wouldn’t talk to Fox News, Vaughn asked again why she wouldn’t “condemn chants of death to America.” Clearly flustered, Tlaib dodged the question by claiming she doesn’t “talk to people that use racist tropes” even though it’s a known fact it was indeed chanted and pointing that out isn’t “racist”. “Why can’t you just say whether or not you condemn people chanting death to America,” Vaughn wondered, to which Tlaib played a broken record, “[b]ecause I don’t talk to Fox News.” As the first elevator Tlaib and a staffer had rushed to hide in wouldn’t open, they rushed to try another close by. Vaughn kept following them and tweaked her question to reflect Tlaib’s screeching: “Why are you afraid to talk to Fox?” Tlaib’s answer sounded like it was curated by her friends at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR): “Fox News is not nice. Listen, using racist tropes towards my community is what Fox Tunes [sic] is about and I don't talk to Fox News.” Vaughn tried one last time: “Is death to America racist? Is chanting death to America racist?” Tlaib restated her position of ignoring Fox and, as she finally walked into an elevator, The Squad member reiterated her Fox smear and called the network “Islamophobic”: “I’m talking about your guys’s racist tropes. You know, you guys are — you guys know exactly what you do. And I know you’re Islamophobic, but you guys gotta go deal with it on your own selves, not going to use me.” This was not the first run-in between these two. For example, back on October 10, Vaughn chased Tlaib down and called out her silence on some of the most brutal atrocities committed by Hamas during their animalistic attacks in Israel on October 7. To see the relevant exchange from April 10, click “expand.” FNC’s Jesse Watters PrimeTime April 10, 2024 8:25 p.m. Eastern HILLARY VAUGHN: Congresswoman Tlaib — CONGRESSWOMAN RASHIDA TLAIB (D-MI): I don’t talk to Fox News! I don’t talk to Fox News! TLAIB STAFF MEMBER: Excuse me. VAUGHN: At a rally — TLAIB STAFF MEMBER: Sorry. VAUGHN: — in your district — TLAIB: I’m not talking to Fox News. VAUGHN: — people were chanting death to America. Do you condemn? TLAIB: Do not talk to Fox News. VAUGHN: But do you condemn chants of death to America? TLAIB: I don’t talk to people that use racist tropes. VAUGHN: Why can’t you just say whether or not you condemn — TLAIB: Because I don’t talk to Fox News. VAUGHN: — people chanting death to America? TLAIB: [Inaudible] VAUGHN: Why are you afraid to talk to Fox? TLAIB: Fox News is not nice. Listen, using racist tropes towards my community is what Fox Tunes [sic] is about and I don't talk to Fox News. VAUGHN: Is death to America — TLAIB: [Inaudible] VAUGHN: — racist? TLAIB: — never speak to Fox News. VAUGHN: Is chanting death to America racist? TLAIB: No — [inaudible] — I’m talking about your guys’s racist tropes. You know, you guys are — you guys know exactly what you do. And I know you’re Islamophobic, but you guys gotta go deal with it on your own selves, not going to use me.

Millionaire Whoopi Dismisses High Food Prices, Whines About Commute

ABC’s millionaire moderator, Whoopi Goldberg was in a foul mood during Thursday’s edition of The View because former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain dared to say President Biden should focus his reelection message on issues that average Americans were concerned with such as inflation and high grocery prices. She repeatedly shouted down any attempt to suggest he had the power to curtail inflation but then went on about how expensive her commute was as if Biden could deal with it. According to big brain Goldberg, who recently couldn’t remember which years former President Trump ran for office, Biden wasn’t responsible for inflation at grocery stores; rather, it was the stores just raising prices for the hell of it. “I think our kvetch is not with him for grocery prices. I’m mad at the grocery stores, because if all of the things have been open why are you still raising prices?” she shouted. Faux conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin tried to argue that prices were the top concern of the undecided voters she’s spoken to and that there was a way for Biden to address it, but Goldberg repeatedly shouted over her, suggesting if those “people knew civics” as she did they’d know they were wrong (Click “expand”): FARAH GRIFFIN: What I hear when I talk to undecideds is “the grocery bills are--” GOLDBERG (interrupting): Yes, but if the people knew civics they would know that is not his -- FARAH GRIFFIN: There are absolutely things that Biden can do to address it and grocery prices have jumped 25 percent over four years. JOY BEHAR: What can he do? [Crosstalk] FARAH GRIFFIN: Hang on real quick. This is the reality. It’s the most immediate and repetitive thing. You have to buy groceries every week. GOLDBERG (interrupting): We get all that. But the question is what do you want him to do? What can he do? FARAH GRIFFIN: He can challenge the major grocery chains if he wants to. There are things that he could do with – that he could encourage the Fed to do. Goldberg insisted Biden was “doing stuff he’s supposed to be doing. He’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing,” but never explained what that “stuff” was.     Farah Griffin tried to reiterate that “Americans are spending 11 percent of their income on food” but Goldberg interjected with her own problems. “I'm an American. I'm a little pissed off about over-the-price stuff, but I’ll tell you what I'm really pissed off about,” she shrieked. “I wanted to talk about why the people in New Jersey now are facing not just getting the prices raised on the buses and trains…” Suggesting that Biden was in a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t scenario, Goldberg argued that he was just a busy guy getting pulled in different directions: Listen, he can do what he did with the gas people. He can do everything but then he's not going to be able to take care of what he needs to do in Israel, then he's not taking care -- I mean, it's like, there's a lot of stuff to do but we get it. We know there's a lot to do. Backing up Goldberg through all of this, was staunchly racist and anti-Semitic co-host, Sunny Hostin (the descendant of slave owners), who was blaming the high prices on grocery stores. Without evidence, she accused all grocery stores of “price gauging.” “Maybe we just need corporations like these grocery stores to be good corporate citizens and stop gouging! Stop trying to make money off of our backs!” she shouted. A little over a year ago, Hostin bragged that she hadn’t gone grocery shopping in years, ever since the COVID pandemic. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View April 11, 2024 11:05:49 a.m. Eastern (…) WHOOPI GOLDBERG: I think our kvetch is not with him for grocery prices. I’m mad at the grocery stores, because if all of the things have been open why are you still raising prices? (…) 11:07:07 a.m. Eastern ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: What I hear when I talk to undecideds is “the grocery bills are--” GOLDBERG (interrupting): Yes, but if the people knew civics they would know that is not his -- FARAH GRIFFIN: There are absolutely things that Biden can do to address it and grocery prices have jumped 25 percent over four years. JOY BEHAR: What can he do? [Crosstalk] FARAH GRIFFIN: Hang on real quick. This is the reality. It’s the most immediate and repetitive thing. You have to buy groceries every week. GOLDBERG (interrupting): We get all that. But the question is what do you want him to do? What can he do? FARAH GRIFFIN: He can challenge the major grocery chains if he wants to. There are things that he could do with – that he could encourage the Fed to do. SUNNY HOSTIN: Challenge how? Can he take them to court? BEHAR: So far, we're in a free country. GOLDBERG: Let her answer. FARAH GRIFFIN: There are a number of things to be done but to say, “I wash my hands, it's not my problem you can’t afford groceries.” HOSTIN: But what can he do? Can he take them to court because they’re price gauging? FARAH GRIFFIN: No, it's not a matter of taking them to court. [Crosstalk] SARA HAINES: I see what you’re saying. Even campaigning on things like that helps. Because I think also making room for immigration would be helpful here. One of the things, if you're looking towards the election if you want to grab people and get them voting, immigration is one of the most agreed upon problems. GOLDBERG: But here's the problem, he does -- He goes and he takes care of what he's supposed to be taking care of, which is the bridge and how to open – just hold on. FARAH GRIFFIN: I don't think that's what Ron Klain was saying. He was talking about him going to – [crosstalk] infrastructure projects – [Crosstalk] GOLDBERG: But here's the thing, you know, people are bitching if he does stuff, they bitch if he doesn't do stuff. Listen, he’s doing stuff he’s supposed to be doing. He’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing. But I'm pissed off. [Crosstalk] FARAH GRIFFIN: Americans are spending 11 percent of their income on food, the most – GOLDBERG (interrupting): I'm an American. I'm a little pissed off about over-the-price stuff, but I’ll tell you what I'm really pissed off about. I’m really pissed out that people seem to think that the American citizen is a wallet where you can just get your hand in through. That's what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about why the people in New Jersey now are facing not just getting the prices raised on the buses and trains— HOSTIN: Congestion pricing. GOLDBERG: No, no, this is on the Jersey side. HAINES: Yeah, I know, but it's all part of the same -- GOLDBERG: But the congestion pricing isn't making me as nuts as -- FARAH GRIFFIN: I just want to underscore. I think it's a fair point. There's not one box he can check and suddenly grocery prices go down. That would be ridiculous to suggest but what is being told by advisers is, “You need to speak to what people are feeling. You need to speak to this very real reality.” I make a lot of money. I put a red onion back the other day because it was $4.99. That's ridiculous! GOLDBERG: Yeah, but, again, he can talk -- Listen, he can do what he did with the gas people. He can do everything but then he's not going to be able to take care of what he needs to do in Israel, then he's not taking care -- I mean, it's like, there's a lot of stuff to do but we get it. We know there's a lot to do. My kvetch with him is – Listen, Ron, if there's something you want him to talk about, let's say, listen, we know you're doing all this stuff but when you say, “I don't want him to be talking about bridges anymore,” it sounds to people who live and need that bridge like they're being dismissive. HOSTIN: Maybe we just need corporations like these grocery stores to be good corporate citizens and stop gouging! Stop trying to make money off of our backs! (…)

Meyers Rants At 'Piece of ****' Fox For Defending Trump on Abortion

NBC’s Late Night host Seth Meyers brought out the bleep button on Wednesday’s show to angrily respond to a Fox Business segment suggesting Donald Trump’s federalist stance on abortion makes him a moderate or even pro-choice, as he labeled radio host Mark Simone a “piece of [bleep]” and a “mother[bleep].” Meyers introduced the clip of Simone on Kudlow by declaring that “[Trump's] allies think they can trick everyone into thinking he's a moderate on abortion by lying and claiming he'll leave it up to the states, which he won't.” In the clip, Simone responded to Trump’s position by arguing, “That makes him the pro-choice candidate, leave it up to the states.”      An angry Meyers replied, “This brings us to a statement we’re calling ‘Seth tries really hard not to lose his [bleep].’ Trump is the pro-choice candidate? Are you out of your [bleep]? I'm sorry, I believe you are mistaken. Your statements are misleading, and you are failing to provide an accurate good faith analysis of the facts. You're inverting the truth for political purposes and gaslighting your viewers by grossly misrepresenting the details of the situation.” Meyers continued, “Let me put it another way: you're a [extended bleep] piece of [bleep]. Well, I failed! This has been ‘Seth tries really hard not to lose his [bleep].’"  Fox Business is not the first and certainly won’t be the last news program to discuss the political ramifications of abortion stances, but Meyers was not done ranting, “Also, let me just say, so cool to watch a couple dudes discuss an issue that literally hurts women as to whether or not it will hurt another dude, Donald Trump, at the ballot box.” Introducing a second clip of the segment, Meyers added, “That guy’s a right-wing radio host named Mark Simone. Also, he suggested in that interview that if women have to flee their states and travel tens or hundreds of miles to access life-saving medical care, it's no big deal.” In the clip, Simone proclaimed, “If you had to travel to another state to get an abortion, it's not the worst thing in the world. Hopefully this is a very rare occurrence in your life, once in your life, maybe you would do it. Buying a bus ticket to go somewhere to get it is not the worst thing in the world.” In full rant mode, Meyers huffed, “Then you take the bus, mother[bleep]. You take the bus. How about every time someone has to take the bus to get abortion care out of state, we make Mark Simone wait in line for a Greyhound at the port authority. Dude would run out that day and buy a t-shirt that says ‘My body, my choice.’"  With his “Closer Look” segments, Meyers likes to portray himself as the thinking man’s comedian who uses elaborate metaphors and analogies to make a point, but Wednesday’s show was just a bitter, angry man yelling into the wind. Here is a transcript for the April 10-taped show: NBC Late Night with Seth Meyers 4/11/2024 12:46 AM ET SETH MEYERS: But Trump and his allies think they can trick everyone into thinking he's a moderate on abortion by lying and claiming he'll leave it up to the states, which he won't.  MARK SIMONE: This issue does not hurt Donald Trump. He's not against abortion. He's actually okay with abortion. He wants that 15-week limit, perfectly reasonable.  LARRY KUDLOW: Well, wait, he didn't say 15 weeks, that's not quoting. Yesterday he had a different take. He didn't say 15 weeks. He said, let the states decide.  SIMONE: Well, that –  KUDLOW: –  a point I happen to agree with, by the way, wholeheartedly. But I can't pin 15 weeks on him because it's not what he said.  SIMONE: Okay, but that makes him the pro-choice candidate, leave it up to the states.  MEYERS: This brings us to a statement we’re calling "Seth tries really hard not to lose his [bleep]." Trump is the pro-choice candidate? Are you out of your [bleep]? I'm sorry, I believe you are mistaken. Your statements are misleading, and you are failing to provide an accurate good faith analysis of the facts. You're inverting the truth for political purposes and gaslighting your viewers by grossly misrepresenting the details of the situation.  Let me put it another way: you're a [extended bleep] piece of [bleep].  Well, I failed! This has been "Seth tries really hard not to lose his [bleep]." Also, let me just say, so cool to watch a couple dudes discuss an issue that literally hurts women as to whether or not it will hurt another dude, Donald Trump, at the ballot box.  That guy’s a right-wing radio host named Mark Simone. Also, he suggested in that interview that if women have to flee their states and travel tens or hundreds of miles to access life-saving medical care, it's no big deal.  SIMONE: If you had to travel to another state to get an abortion, it's not the worst thing in the world. Hopefully this is a very rare occurrence in your life, once in your life, maybe you would do it. Buying a bus ticket to go somewhere to get it is not the worst thing in the world.  MEYERS: Then you take the bus, mother[bleep]. You take the bus. How about every time someone has to take the bus to get abortion care out of state, we make Mark Simone wait in line for a Greyhound at the port authority. Dude would run out that day and buy a t-shirt that says "My body, my choice." 

NBC Nightly News Laments Bad Inflation Report 'A Challenge' For Biden Campaign

The network evening newscasts did their best to bury yesterday’s bad inflation news. Literally. Both by leading their newscasts off with severe weather and by running their respective inflation items after the 10-minute mark. The most bizarre among these reports comes from NBC Nightly News, which bifurcated the story. First, a brief read by anchor Lester Holt on the inflation report’s effect on the stock market, and then the rest as part of White House Correspondent Peter Alexander’s roundup, which covered an array of subjects. Here’s that reassembled report, as aired on NBC Nightly News on Wednesday, April 10th, 2024: LESTER HOLT:  We'll turn to the economy. Stock markets way down across the board today. The Dow losing more than 400 points after disappointing news about inflation. The government said inflation accelerated to 3.5% in March from a year ago, that was up from a 3.2% increase in prices in February. … PETER ALEXANDER: Another challenge for the Biden campaign: the economy, with today's headline that inflation ticked up again, even higher than expected. Housing and gas prices accounting for most of it. Overall prices up nearly 19% since president Biden took office. Former President Trump tonight: DONALD TRUMP: Biden has totally lost control of inflation. It's back. It's raging back.  ALEXANDER: President Biden saying he's made tremendous progress. JOE BIDEN: We have dramatically reduced inflation from 9% down to close to 3%...my opposition talks about two things. They just want to cut taxes for the wealthy and raise taxes on other people. In sum: bad news, “a challenge for the Biden campaign”, and “tremendous progress”. Peter Alexander depicts President Biden as a hapless victim of the inflation report, rather the one responsible for it. And, as always, the purest victim of any bad news is the electoral prospects of Joe Biden. Burial notwithstanding, ABC and CBS aired more substantial reports reflecting the pain felt by consumers. At ABC World News Tonight, anchor Whit Johnson framed the report as “disappointing” and “concerning”. Correspondent Elizabeth Schulze threw cold water on the idea of the Fed cutting interest rates until inflation stabilizes. (Click “expand” to view full transcript) ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10th, 2024: WHIT JOHNSON: Now to that disappointing report on inflation. Consumer prices in March were up 3.5%, compared to a year ago, higher than expected. Report casting doubt on an interest rate cut in the near future. Here's ABC's Elizabeth Schulze. ELIZABETH SCHULZE: Tonight, Americans hoping to see the Federal Reserve cut interest rates as early as June may now have a longer wait, with inflation climbing for the third straight month.  MAN ON THE STREET: The prices is too high. SCHULZE: The consumer price index up 3.5% in March from a year ago, fueled by higher costs for rent, car insurance, clothes, medical care, and gas.  SUSAN STANKUS: I used to fill it up for 35 bucks, it was a beautiful thing.  SCHULZE: And now it's 45. STANKUS: 45, and sometimes it's 60. Between food and gas, it's had a big impact. SCHULZE: For Alexandria Jones at her vintage shop in Chicago, rent jumped from $1,400 to $1,800 a month.  ALEXANDRIA JONES: I have to do a sale. I have to bring people in just so I can be able to deal with what is, you know, the inevitable of my rent being $400 more than it was.  SCHULZE: To combat inflation the Fed increased borrowing costs to a 22-year high, making it more expensive to pay for a new mortgage, car, or credit card debt. President Biden today pointing to inflation's improvement from 9% two years ago, still predicting an interest rate cut this year.  JOE BIDEN: This may delay it a month or so, I'm not sure of that. I don’t- we don't know what the Fed is going to do for certain.  SCHULZE: Whit, that first interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve had been expected in June, but after today's report, most analysts aren't predicting it will happen until September. And that's assuming that the inflation picture improves by then. Whit. JOHNSON: All right, concerning news there. Elizabeth, thank you. CBS Evening News also went in-depth, depicting with greater detail how consumers are “feeling the pinch”. Correspondent Jo-Ling Kent tried to find bright spots in a report that offered none, and ended her report by also nixing the idea of a summer rate cut. (Click “expand” to view full transcript)  CBS EVENING NEWS WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10th, 2024: NORAH O’DONNELL: Now to some breaking news. Wall Street took a hit, with all three major indexes finishing the day in the red. The Dow fell more than 400 points after the Labor Department reported a higher-than-expected spike in inflation. The Consumer Price Index for March rose at an annual rate of 3.5%, and that is the biggest jump in six months. In tonight’s "Money watch," CBS's Jo-Ling Kent shows us how consumers are feeling the pinch. JO-LING KENT: For the third straight month, prices have gone up more than expected, from the rising cost of car insurance and repairs.  So how much are you paying at the grocery store every week? TIKTOKER 1: Do you know how much one of these cost? Two freaking dollars. TIKTOKER 2: This was $200. TIKTOKER 3: Are we supposed to skip the power bill this month so we can buy groceries… or the mortgage?  KENT: Before the pandemic of all of these groceries, about 30 items, cost $100 on average. Now five years later, according to Nielsen IQ, all this cost 33% more, meaning you’d have to skip about ten items. Like chicken, bread, milk, and bananas, to make your $100 budget.  Five years ago versus today, the difference is remarkable. Is that normal?  CARMAN ALLISON: Oh, goodness, it's not normal at all. That is why consumers are really, really scrutinizing their behaviors because, you know, prices are leveling off, but they are leveling off at these record high levels. KENT: Higher gas prices and rent also helped push inflation up 3.5% over the last year. Also more expensive, baby food and formula spiking nearly 10%. Eldercare up over 14%. And veterinary care jumping almost 10%. President Biden responding today. JOE BIDEN: We are better situated than we were when we took office. Where inflation was skyrocketing. And we have a plan to deal with it.  KENT: But until then, shoppers continue to cut corners where they can.  ALLISON: We ask Americans, have you changed your behavior? And 87% of Americans have said yes to that. We may be seeing more, you know, white meat on the barbecue than red meat this summer because beef prices have gone up 9%. Everybody's been impacted by this. There is no way you can get around it.  KENT: The good news here is wage growth last month did outpace inflation, but this March inflation number is the biggest annual jump in six months, and it really makes it very unlikely that the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates any time soon. Norah. The grim news, with few silver linings, was simply too much to suppress outright. The networks, compelled to cover the story, did so reluctantly and after burning the story beneath weather reports and actual local crime stories.  

‘Triggered & Unsafe’: Country Dance Team Kicked Out Over American Flag Themed Shirts

Oh so now in America we can’t even display the American flag without triggering people? The Borderline Dance team was kicked out of a Seattle dance convention called the Emerald City Hoedown for wearing American flag-themed shirts, which reportedly made others feel “triggered and unsafe.” Nope, this isn't a joke. The country line dance convention was put on by the Rain Country Dance Association, an LGBTQ-focused western dance community, Jason Rantz noted on 770 KTTH. The Borderline Dance team was invited to the event but when they arrived, “said they didn’t get the greeting they were expecting.” The hostility against Borderline arose because the team wore matching shirts with American flags on them. Like are you serious? Sad part is, this is the first year that Borderline was even able to attend the event. According to the team’s Facebook page, they’ve been invited for the past three years but “because of their Covid restrictions, we have been unable to [attend] until this year” so they were stoked to get to attend this Spring. Here’s more of what the team wrote in their Facebook post: Unfortunately, what our team was met with upon arrival was that our flag tops were offensive to some of the convention goers. There was a small group that felt “triggered and unsafe”. They had several claims for this reasoning. Mostly associated with the situation in Palestine and the Trans community in America. At first we were told we would just be boo’d, yelled at and likely many of them would walk out. This did not deter us. But then we were given an ultimatum. Remove the flag tops and perform in either street clothes (which most didn’t bring as they traveled there in their uniforms) or they would supply us with ECH shirts from years past… Or, don’t perform at all, which effectively was asking us to leave. Turns out Borderline wasn’t the only team who had to leave the convention. Their friends from West Coast Country Heat left, too, after sporting the “same spirit of patriotism” that Borderline did. “Although we may not always agree with the current state of things, we recognize that being an American means true FREEDOM. We all understood and accepted this and walked out with class and dignity despite the discrimination we had experienced,” the team added. Related: Disney-Owned ABC Procedural Drama ‘Will Trent’ Paints Conservative Christians As Violent, Hateful, Murderous Bigots What’s super odd is that line dancing, in its most traditional form, is pretty American. When you look at the style of dance across the country, most dancers who partake wear cowboy hats, bootcut jeans, flannels and boots. Not to mention, most of it is done in America-loving areas like Texas or the deep South where the patriotism is often loved and honored. Country music is usually pretty pro-America too, and doesn’t often tout super progressive ideas. Regardless of all of that, the Borderline dance team and the West Coast Country Heat should’ve been able to compete. If you’re “triggered” by a t-shirt with a flag that represents the country that you live in on it, you should move overseas. Follow us on Twitter/X: In what world does trying to be an OnlyFans star do anything to honor a deceased grandfather? @tierin_rosebreaks down the left's latest insanity in this week's Woke of the Weak! pic.twitter.com/mvUFDdwPCb — MRCTV (@mrctv) April 9, 2024

CNN Anchor Kasie Hunt Runs Two Free Democrat Ads In Lecture on Trump, Roe Repeal

On today's CNN This Morning, host Kasie Hunt danced on the latest media party line, that Donald Trump can't pose as a "moderate" on abortion now after appointing Supreme Court justices that repealed Roe vs. Wade. But then Hunt unleashed a series of pro-abortion messages, airing for free 30 seconds of a new Biden-Harris campaign ad, as well as an ad for Democrat Gov. Steve Beshear of Kentucky, and a teary interview with Texas native Kate Cox from NBC News. Hunt emphasized women telling sympathetic stories about how the overturning of Roe impaired their ability to destroy their babies. The Biden ad, in which a sobbing Amanda Zurawski displays a tiny blanket for her child, ended with this blunt attack: "Donald Trump did this." Zurawski and Kate Cox have both been hosted in First Lady Jill Biden's box during State of the Union addresses, underlining how Kasie Hunt seems like a Biden campaign surrogate.  They can't interview pro-life doctors who argue the pro-abortion forces mislead the public about state laws and miscarriage treatment. Hunt could only talk about abortions as "the care she needed." One thing CNN didn't do, and can't do, was to interview unborn babies. But if CNN could, you would hear heartbreaking stories of children who wanted to live, but had that possibility ripped away from them in unspeakably cruel fashion in states that won't protect them from abortion. Hunt talks about "protecting" abortion rights, not protecting babies. Hunt ended her pitch for Biden by dramatically claiming that "these are just three stories of countless stories like them, no doubt, unfolding across the country because of the fall of Roe vs. Wade." Perhaps. But what is undoubtedly true is that under Roe, tens of millions of unborn babies perished, babies whose stories will never be told.  Now with the overturning of Roe, some babies who otherwise would have died have been born, and in years to come will be able to express how thankful they are that the overturning of Roe gave them the chance to live. The balance between the rights of mothers and the unborn will be determined on a state-by-state basis. But CNN, like the rest of the liberal media, will only present the issue from the most heart-wrenching women's perspectives--never of that of babies whose lives have been saved.  Here's the transcript. CNN This Morning 4/11/24 6:00 am EDT KASIE HUNT: This morning, Republicans in the Arizona state legislature blocking attempts to repeal the 1864 law banning all abortion there with just a single exception for the life of the mother. As outrage grows, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is trying to convince voters that he doesn't support the Arizona law, and now says he would not sign a national abortion ban if he is elected president. DONALD TRUMP [responding on the tarmac to a question]: Yeah, they did, and that'll be straightened out. As you know, it's all about states' rights, and it'll be straightened out, and I'm sure that the governor and everybody else are going to bring it back into reason, and that will be taken care of, I think, very quickly. REPORTER: Would you sign a national abortion ban if Congress sent it to your desk? TRUMP: [Shakes his head in the negative.] No. Hunt: No. Trump is trying to sound more moderate on an issue that has galvanized voters from Ohio to Kansas, to Kentucky to vote to protect abortion rights. But this Arizona law, and restrictions similar to it in other states, they are in force because of Donald Trump.  Recall: how did he win the Republican nomination in the first place? Back in 2016, he released a list of 11 Supreme Court Justices he would consider appointing, to convince skeptical evangelical voters, who are the bedrock of the Republican base, that he, Trump, was one of them, or at least that he would act like one of them. Then, to hammer that home, he picked the very publicly pious Mike Pence as his running mate. And then, he was elected president, and he transformed the Supreme Court TRUMP: Today, I am keeping another promise to the American people by nominating Judge Neil Gorsuch. I will nominate Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Judge Amy Coney Barrett. HUNT: In June of 2022, after nearly 50 years, the Court struck down Roe versus Wade. And Trump, who is now trying to say that he doesn't support the strictest restrictions that have been exploding in red states across the country, he has repeatedly bragged about how he made that possible. TRUMP: We ended Roe v. Wade. We terminated Roe v. Wade. I was able to terminate Roe v. Wade after 50 years of trying.  HUNT: The results have been stories like this one, told in a Biden campaign ad, yes, but about a woman, a family. who wanted their child, wanted a child, and were devastated by the consequences of the fall of Roe. BIDEN CAMPAIGN AD: [As mother speaks in the background, screen reads] At 18 weeks, Amanda's water broke and she had a miscarriage. Because Donald Trump killed Roe v. Wade, Amanda was denied standard medical care to prevent infection: an abortion. the outfit she was gonna maybewhere home from the hospital. Doctors were forced to send her home.  WOMAN IN AD: [Sobbing] This is the blanket that she was on. AD: Donald Trump did this. HUNT: There's also Kate Cox. She's the Texas woman who also desperately wanted a baby. When she was told that her baby likely wouldn't live for more than a few days outside the womb, she sought an abortion to try to protect her ability to try again, to have a child. Here's what she told NBC News in December. KATE COX: It's a hard, hard time, you know, even with, you know, being hopeful with the decision that came from the hearing this morning. There's, there's still, we're going through the loss of a child. There's no outcome here that I take home my healthy baby girl, you know. So it's hard, you know. Cox had to leave her home state of Texas to get the care that she needed. Then there was this woman, Hadley Duvall, who told her story in a campaign ad for Kentucky's Democratic governor. BESHEAR CAMPAIGN AD: I was raped by my stepfather after years of sexual abuse. I was 12. Anyone who believes there should be no exceptions for rape and incest could never understand what it's like to stand in my shoes. HUNT: These are just three stories of countless stories like them, no doubt, unfolding across the country because of the fall of Roe versus Wade.

Amanpour Compares Pro-Lifers To Iran And The Taliban

PBS/CNN’s Christiane Amanpour joined CBS’s Stephen Colbert for her second late night comedy show appearance of the week on the Wednesday installment of The Late Show. The duo freaked out over the possibility of a second Donald Trump term and that the rest of the democratic world is similarly freaked out and over the same issues, such as American pro-lifers allegedly being comparable to Iran and the Taliban. Amanpour informed Colbert that the rest of the world is “watching your election very, very closely because that is really preoccupying them. Having had a collective nervous breakdown the last time. They are trying to proof themselves against—” Colbert then interrupted to ask, “So, the world freaked out as much as some of us did?”     Amanpour qualified her remarks, “As much as some of you did. Some of the world. I mean, there were parts of the world that didn't freak out. Mostly the autocratic parts of the world.” The duo then listed off several people who allegedly would be comfortable with another Trump win, including Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman. Colbert followed up by declaring that “the idea of a second Trump presidency makes Americans fearful. What specifically, I assume the world is freaked out about the second possibility.” Naturally, Amanpour agreed, but instead of immediately diving into foreign affairs, she claimed the rest of the world is alarmed by American pro-lifers, “Well yeah, I mean look, you’ve just been talking about something freaking out Americans, which is this Arizona law from pre-Civil War and that is being really looked at especially in democracies where there are codified women's rights and human rights. France, for instance. On International Women's Day, March 8, actually signed into law a constitutional amendment to guarantee a woman's right to make choices about her own body.” If an American state legislature passed legislation with identical language as France’s amendment, Amanpour would claim it was a radical, right-wing denial of women’s rights because the limit in that law is 14 weeks. Amanpour continued, insisting that you either support abortion or you oppose human rights, “This was sort of a demonstration of will by, you know, a country that's very supportive of your revolution, to show that this is universal human rights and that women actually need to be treated like adults and whether it's Afghanistan, Iran, or the United States, a bunch of grumpy old man shouldn't be making essential decisions.” While Amanpour didn’t explicitly say “Taliban,” considering the Taliban runs Afghanistan, it should be obvious who she is talking about. The Iran and Taliban analogy isn’t new for both Amanpour and Colbert. Hillary Clinton used the analogy in a softball December 2022 interview with Amanpour, while Colbert used it in a March 2023 rant against the Supreme Court. Here is a transcript for the April 10 show: CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert 4/11/2024 12:05 AM ET CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: In the world, they are watching your election very, very closely because that is really preoccupying them. STEPHEN COLBERT: So, they— AMANPOUR: Having had a collective nervous breakdown the last time. They are trying to proof themselves against— STEPHEN COLBERT: I guess, I really didn’t take that into account all the time. So, the world freaked out— AMANPOUR: Yes. COLBERT:  —   As much as some of us did? AMANPOUR: As much as some of you did. Some of the world. I mean, there were parts of the world that didn't freak out. Mostly the autocratic parts of the world.” Yeah.  COLBERT: Your Orbans. Yeah, yeah. AMANPOUR: Your Putins, your Xis, your Orbans. Those people. COLBERT: Your Erdogans. Those people. Okay. AMANPOUR: Your, you know, MBSes COLBERT: The idea of a second Trump presidency makes Americans fearful. What specifically, I assume the world is freaked out about the second possibility. Okay. AMANPOUR: Well yeah, I mean look, you’ve just been talking about something freaking out Americans, which is this Arizona law— COLBERT: Yeah. AMANPOUR:  —   from pre-Civil War— COLBERT: Yup. AMANPOUR: —   and that is being really looked at especially in democracies where there are codified women's rights and human rights. France, for instance. On International Women's Day, March 8, actually signed into law a constitutional amendment to guarantee a woman's right to make choices about her own body. Abortion and other— COLBERT: Do many countries have that?  AMANPOUR: Not necessarily, no, they don't. This was sort of a demonstration of will by, you know, a country that's very supportive of your revolution, to show that this is universal human rights and that women actually need to be treated like adults and whether it's Afghanistan, Iran, or the United States, a bunch of grumpy old man shouldn't be making essential decisions. 

Say Their Names! ABC/CBS/NBC Skip Victims Killed By Illegals 

On Monday, House leaders will send articles of impeachment to the Senate to begin a trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was the first cabinet member to be impeached by the House in over 100 years.  A letter sent to Sen. Majority Leader Charles Schumer in March, House Speaker Mike Johnson and 11 Republican impeachment managers charged: “Throughout his tenure” Mayorkas “has repeatedly lied to Congress and the American people about the scope of the [border] crisis and his role in it. His unlawful actions are responsible for the historic crisis that has devastated communities throughout our country.” During this “historic crisis” many innocent lives have been taken by illegal immigrants — some of whom were deported but let back in during the Biden administration. These are tragedies that have gone largely untold by the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) broadcast networks. With the exception of Laken Riley — who President Joe Biden infamously called “Lincoln” during the State of the Union address — the networks have mostly refused to tell their audiences about the horrendous murders committed by so-called “undocumented immigrants.”  The following are six of the most horrific cases of innocent victims killed by illegal immigrants during the Biden administration of which only one was covered (Ruby Garcia) but only because the networks used it to criticize Trump.    VICTIM: RUBY GARCIA     On April 1, 2024 West Michigan’s Fox17online.com reported:  Brandon Ortiz-Vite, the man accused of killing 25-year-old Ruby Garcia in a shooting on 131, entered the United States illegally as a child, according to ICE. Ortiz-Vite, a 25-year-old native of Mexico, received approval for deferred action under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. Ortiz-Vite's status under DACA expired May 10, 2019. He was arrested on local charges Aug. 30, 2020, and deemed to be inadmissible under the Immigration and Nationality Act, also known as INA. According to court records, Ortiz-Vite was arrested in Grand Rapids for driving while intoxicated and for a suspended license. He was arrested by Enforcement and Removal Operations, or ERO, in Detroit on Aug. 31, 2020, and served notice to appear, according to ICE. Ortiz-Vite was ordered to be removed by an immigration judge with the Justice Department's Executive Office of Immigration Review on Sept. 24, 2020. Ortiz-Vite was removed to Mexico on Sept. 29, 2020 . It is not known when Ortiz-Vite re-entered the United States “without inspection by an immigration official,” ICE said in a statement. ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage: Total time = 2 minutes, 18 seconds. NBC: 1 minute, 46 seconds; ABC: 32 seconds; CBS: 0 seconds. ABC and NBC briefly covered Garcia but only did so to knock Trump. ABC correspondent Rachel Scott’s April 5 Good Morning America report was typical of the coverage:   RACHEL SCOTT: The former president drilling in on what he’s calling migrant crimes, pointing to the death of 25-year-old Ruby Garcia, who officials say was killed by an undocumented immigrant who she had a relationship with.  DONALD TRUMP: They said she had the most contagious laughter and when she walked into a room she lit up that room and I have heard that from so many people I spoke to, some of her family.  SCOTT: But the family of the victim telling a local Grand Rapids station that never happened.    VICTIM: JEREMY POOU CACERES     On February 28, 2024, FoxNews.com reported: The Salvadoran illegal migrant arrested in the fatal shooting of a 2-year-old in Maryland had previously been released twice from jail despite ICE requesting he be deported on both occasions.  Nilson Trejo-Granados, 25, was arrested Monday and charged with first- and second-degree murder in the Feb. 8 shooting death of Jeremy Poou Caceres while the child was out walking with his 17-year-old mother. The child was caught in the crossfire of a shootout between two groups during a drug dispute, police said.  According to charges reviewed by The Washington Post, Trejo-Granados is not accused of firing the weapon that killed Caceres, but he is alleged to have been in a car with a group of people connected to the shootout. Trejo-Granados had been arrested twice before the incident and was cut loose in both cases even though ICE wanted him held for deportation since he was in the country illegally. ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage: 0 seconds.   VICTIM: LIZBETH MEDINA     On February 8, 2024 the New York Post reported:  A Texas grand jury has indicted the illegal immigrant suspect in a 16-year-old girl’s brutal killing on capital murder charges. The indictment obtained by Fox News Digital says Rafael Govea Romero, 23, intentionally caused Lizbeth Medina’s death while in the course of attempting to commit a burglary, robbery or sexual assault. The document also alleges Romero killed Medina by causing the teenager’s “head to strike a firm surface,” “striking” her head “with a hard object” and “repeatedly stabbing or cutting” her “with a sharp object or edged weapon.” “It’s very disturbing to me,” Lizbeth’s mother, Jacqueline Medina, told Fox News Digital of the indictment, adding she thinks the grand jury handed down the capital murder charge because of “all the evidence and all the other details” in the case. ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage: 0 seconds.   VICTIM: AIDEN CLARK     On August 28, 2023 Breitbart reported:  An illegal alien, released into the United States in 2022 after arriving at the nation’s southern border, is now charged with killing 11-year-old Aiden Clark after crashing into a school bus filled with children in Clark County, Ohio. On Monday, 35-year-old illegal alien Hermanio Joseph of Haiti appeared in Clark County Municipal Court where his bond was kept at $100,000 following charges of aggravated vehicular homicide. According to prosecutors, on August 22, Joseph was driving a Honda Odyssey minivan when he hit a Northwestern Local Schools bus that was full of children. The bus, as a result of the crash, flipped and 11-year-old Aiden Clark was ejected from the bus. That Tuesday marked the first day of school for Aiden. … An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesman confirmed to Breitbart News that Joseph is a citizen of Haiti and had arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border in August 2022. From there, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued Joseph a Notice to Appear (NTA) in federal immigration court and released him into the U.S. interior where he ultimately ended up in Ohio. National Immigration Center for Enforcement (NICE) advisory board member John Fabbricatore told Breitbart News that President Joe Biden’s expansive Catch and Release network at the border is ultimately responsible. “The Biden administration’s ‘welcome and release’ agenda continues to put our communities at risk,” Fabbricatore, a former senior ICE official, said. “Their goal is to let in as many poorly vetted illegal aliens as possible, often without proper GPS tracking or scheduled court appearances. When will this administration put public safety first, or is mass migration more important?” ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage: 0 seconds.   VICTIM: LEAH GOMEZ     On April 2, 2024 Breitbart reported:  22-year-old Leah Gomez….was shot to death with an AR-15 in front of her 1-year-old daughter in May 2023 in Grand Rapids. In February, a jury found Luis Bernal Sosa, a 27-year-old illegal alien from Mexico, guilty of murdering Gomez. ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage: 0 seconds.   VICTIM: MARIA GONZALEZ     On August 27, 2023 FoxNews.com reported:  The Texas suspect who is accused of murdering and sexually assaulting 11-year-old Maria Gonzalez was denied bail last week. Juan Carlos Garcia-Rodriguez, 18, was arrested in Shreveport, Louisiana and charged with capital murder on August 19. His bail request was rejected during a Thursday court appearance, according to FOX 26 Houston. FOX 26 reported that Garcia-Rodriguez illegally entered the United States from Guatemala earlier this year, but was allowed to stay in the country via a sponsor in Louisiana. Maria’s father Carmelo reported that the last contact he had with his daughter was when she sent him a WhatsApp message on August 12 about someone knocking on their door. “I told her, ‘Don’t open the door, because I am arriving at work,’ and she responded, ‘I am in my bed,’” Carmelo said to FOX 26. The father arrived home at around 2:30 p.m. and told police that he found his daughter’s body under her bed. Her remains were put in a plastic bag and a laundry bag before being placed in a laundry basket under a bed. “Unfortunately, they left her under the bed in a plastic bag. They left my poor daughter,” the grieving father told FOX 26. ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage: 0 seconds. The question has to be asked. If ABC, CBS and NBC weren’t so in the tank for the Biden administration, would these innocent victims of the border crisis get their names mentioned on the networks? 

Disney-Owned ABC Drama ‘Will Trent’ Paints Conservative Christians As Violent Bigots

Disney/ABC’s procedural drama Will Trent took a political turn this week as the show touched on the issue of drag queens and the sexualization of children, as well as anti-cop sentiment. You can probably guess which side the show was on for both issues. At the opening of Tuesday’s episode, “We Are Family,” the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) team is investigating the murder of an “extremely conservative, extremely divisive” judge, Deidre. When the investigation leads them to a drag club, the team is confused as to why a conservative judge would go there. They enter the club to gather more clues, only to find the judge’s son works there and that the club has been the target of bomb threats and a “weirdo” protester outside: Glinda: I tell you what. Mama needs a break. Why don't you tip your servers, lick your lover, grab a drink, and we'll be back in a drag 10? Will: Hi, ma'am. I'm Special Agent Will Trent. This is Detective Angie Polaski. Glinda: Ooh, kind of them to send a man who dresses up. Will: Oh, thank you for noticing. Angie: Don't encourage him. Glinda: Anyway, took you long enough to get here. I put those complaints in months ago. Come on. Alright, so... Here's everything we have. Except for the bomb threats. Those happen over the phone. We kept the threatening letters, photos of the graffiti. Angie: So, someone has been threatening the club regularly? Glinda: Mm-hmm. Angie: Do you know who it is? Glinda: I'm assuming it's the same weirdo who stands outside every night "Protesting." You two are here about the threats, aren't you? Will: I'm afraid not. I'm gonna need to see any security footage you have from tonight. Glinda: Uh uh. We don't have cameras here. We get all kinds of guests, and not all of them are out. Angie: No cameras. Perfect place for a murder. Glinda: A murder? Will: A woman was killed. We believe she was here tonight. Her name was Deirdre Ringgold. Glinda: I have to tell Vibe. Will: Who's Vibe? Vibe/Gabe: Bonbon, did you steal my Dior blush aga-- You did! I can tell! That's my $20 spread across your thief face. Glinda: Gabe. Sweetie. There's something I have to talk to you about. It's about your mother. Vibe/Gabe: Oh, yeah? Will: You're Deirdre's son? Vibe/Gabe: Who are you? Glinda: Gabe, honey... ...Your mother's been killed. Vibe/Gabe: What? Angie: I'm so sorry. Will: Did you see her tonight? Vibe/Gabe: Yeah. She was just here. Will: Did she know you worked as a drag queen? Glinda: She may have been able to put that together, yeah. I think that's enough questions for tonight. Will: Hang on. We just have a couple more. Glinda: The kid's mother just died. He needs space. And if you're gonna continue interrogating him, he needs an attorney. Glinda (Kenneth Mosley) is a lawyer by day whose real name is Josiah and he ends up representing Gabe (Garrett Richmond). When Will (Ramón Rodríguez) seems surprised he’s a lawyer, Josiah remarks, “I'm a lawyer and a performer, and I have a rich romantic life. I'm a five-season Shonda Rhimes show.” Who wants to tell him that last part isn’t a compliment? The GBI team interviews Gabe with his lawyer in one room and Gabe’s stepfather Dalton (Pete Burris) and sister Rowan (Gillian Rabin) in another. Dalton gives mean, cold, blowhard vibes, which is the typical Hollywood caricature for a white, Christian man. Dalton: We all know Gabe did this! Gabe: My father died when I was five. Deirdre married Dalton not long after that. He wasn't the easiest man to relate to, but... We did go to the shooting range together. Dalton: He was a good shot. Then he traded in his guns for hosiery. Gabe: I don't know what Dalton hated more -- the fact that I was gay or that I was a better shot than him. Will: When was the last time you saw your mother? Will: Last night. She came to the club. I hadn't seen that woman since I was 15. Like, I was shocked. She said that she wanted to apologize. Rowan: Mom would never do that. Dalton: We have no hate in our hearts... But the Bible's clear. The thing about Gabe was you couldn't trust him. I caught him trying to steal Deirdre's diamond necklace and earrings once. Gabe: My dad left those to my mom before he died. I was just trying them on. Dalton: Rowan was supposed to wear that set on her wedding day. Angie: What was Deirdre apologizing for? Gabe: The night they kicked me out, Deirdre and I were arguing at the top of the stairs, and... I pushed her. And then suddenly she's falling, and she broke her wrist. Dalton: Put her in the hospital! The kid was unstable. I was glad when he ran away. Gabe: They kicked me out that night. Faith: Rowan... Is that how you remember it? Rowan: Gabe looks out for Gabe. Gabe: I told Ro that I would come back for her, but I was living in a shelter, doing drugs, and I was in no position to care for her. It wasn't until I found the drag club that my whole life turned around. They saved me. Josiah: We're family. So, the drag queens are kind-hearted saviors while the parents are mean, evil Christians. No agenda here, right? The left isn’t trying to divide families and parents from their children at all, right? Also, why did the writers have Gabe admit he physically assaulted his mother and put her in the hospital as the answer to why his mother was apologizing? And why are we supposed to believe he was kicked out for being gay, when in fact it was because he assaulted his mother? Make it make sense. Security footage later turns up showing Deidre punching the protester outside the club, so the team goes to question him:   Barrett: We will not stand for this sexual perversion! These drag queens are tearing apart our social fabric and corrupting our children! Josiah: What children, man? This is a bar. Bon Bon: I wish you would stop spray painting our walls. My nail beds weren't made for this much hard labor. Faith: Barrett Fairhope? Special Agent Faith Mitchell, GBI. We're gonna need you to come with us. Josiah: Oh, Barrett Fairhope! All this time, you never introduced yourself. No? Girl, are you finally gonna arrest him? 'Cause I got to get this. Faith: Okay, nobody's getting arrested today. Michael: I need to ask you a few questions. About your French braids. Bon Bon: Wow. I had a dream that started this way once. Barrett: What is this all about? Faith: Okay, we just have some questions about an altercation you had with Deirdre Ringgold last night. Barrett: I had nothing to do with that woman's death. Josiah: This is Barrett Fairhope, everybody. Wonder if his boss would like to see what he does with his spare time. Barrett: Don't you dare. Josiah: What, are you afraid your personal life is gonna disrupt your work? Faith: Okay. Okay. Barrett: You don't intimidate me. Josiah: And you don't intimidate me. Barrett: This is my constitutional right! Faith: Okay. Now you're under arrest. Come on. Josiah: Love to see it. Oh, yes. Let's go. Walk, honey. Walk. Walk. Silver's your color, sugar. Bon Bon: Absolutely. Josiah: Oh, yes. Mwah! Yes, Hollywood wants you to believe that the good citizens of this country who don’t care what adults do in their private/leisure time, but are concerned about children being sexualized, are actually very bad, angry bigots who would destroy property and scream into a bullhorn outside of a drag club where everyone is an adult. #eyeroll Michael (Jake McLaughlin) ends up playing 'Good Cop' when he questions Barrett and gets him to admit he’s the one who’s been calling in the bomb threats to the club and painting graffiti on it: Michael: Hey! Sorry to keep you waiting. You wouldn't believe the amount of paperwork I have to do just to talk to someone. No one lets cops be cops anymore. Barrett: I say that all the time. Michael: FYI, I already confiscated the video that guy took. Barrett: Oh, my God. Thank you. Michael: So, uh, what can you tell me about the conversation you had with Deirdre? Barrett: Yeah. So I was, um, passing out flyers. I gave her one. She stomped on it, so I got in her face. Michael: And then she hit you? Barrett: Yeah. Yeah, she was crazy. Michael: And then what? You followed her? Barrett: No, no, no. I went to urgent care. Yeah. Lunatic was wearing rings. I had to get two stitches, but I never, never saw that woman again. Michael: Yeah. Look, I'm sorry I have to ask, but you don't happen to own a .380, do you? Barrett: No, I do not need a gun to get my point across. Michael: Yeah. Hey. Between us, I was admiring your work. The graffiti. That was you, right? Barrett: Yeah. Michael: One day I'd like to shut that place down for good. Barrett: You wanna know what works? Michael: What? Barrett: A little phone call here and there. Michael: A bomb threat? Barrett: Oh, yeah. Michael: Nice. Barrett: They always close for the night. Michael: Alright, well, you've given me all I need. Thank you very much. Barrett: Yeah. Alright. Does it -- So it means I can go? Amanda: Well, not yet. I'm bringing you in on new charges -- felony vandalism, harassment, terroristic threats. Oh, and I'm writing up a restraining order. You're not going within 500 feet of that club. Michael: You might want to take up a new hobby, Barrett. Notice how Barrett was against anti-cop culture? I’m surprised they didn’t make him pro-life, too. The GBI team later learns that Deidre was almost killed by a drunk driver. Angie (Erika Christensen) asks, “So her near-death experience made her suddenly, what, love the gays?” (Again, the dialogue doesn’t make sense since Gabe was kicked out for being violent, not gay.) Eventually, they realize Rowan was the culprit. She was resentful for not being able to see her brother or even speak his name so, when she found out her mother was going to the club to see him, she got angry and shot her. As for Barrett, he somehow shows up at the club again and puts a knife to Glinda/Josiah’s throat, blaming him for costing Barrett his job. So, now he’s an attempted murderer, too. In addition to Barrett being against anti-cop culture, there was also a lot of anti-cop rhetoric throughout the episode. Will gets called a “dirty a*s cop” by one of his uncle’s friends. He defends himself well, but adds, “I’m not stupid. I know what folks go through with law enforcement.” Later, Will argues to his assistant that his uncle wouldn’t want to go to a party because, “everyone there is gonna be a cop.” His assistant replies, “He'll come. I'm coming. You think I like cops?” So, the cop-hating assistant works for a cop? Apparently, the writers want us to believe that Will and his colleagues are special and an exception, so we don’t get the “wrong” idea that most cops are good people and heroes just like Will when we watch the show. Would we expect anything less from a Hollywood production on a Disney-owned network?

Americans Are Not Seeking Out Middle Ground

A Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Sen. Mitt Romney regarding the demise of the No Labels political party initiative tells us as much about Romney, and why he failed to ever become a national leader, as it does about the failure of the No Labels effort. No Labels defined its mission “to support centrism and bipartisanship.” Romney defines this effort as seeking out the “sensible middle voices” in American politics. My view is that No Labels failed because of its very incorrect assumption that what Americans seek is a so-called middle ground, or even that a middle ground exists, on issues that most trouble the nation today. No Labels was wrong in its assessment of what the nation wants and needs, and Romney is wrong. Former President Richard Nixon once observed that many make the mistake of thinking that conflict is the result of misunderstanding rather than difference of belief. When America split and descended into civil war in the 1850s and1860s, it was not because of the failure of sensible middle voices to emerge. It was because there were many in the country who believed that slavery was not only OK but desirable. It was because some believed that Black Africans who were enslaved were not even human beings. Where is the middle ground, the “sensible middle voices,” on slavery? Slavery was not about misunderstanding or lack of communication. It was about conflict between very different sets of beliefs. This is what is happening in our country today. Over the years, the country has become increasingly polarized, with very different views about what is true and not true and even what the country is about. In the most recent Gallup polling on patriotism, only 39% say they are “extremely proud” to be an American. Only 67% say that are “extremely/very proud” to be an American. Twenty years ago, 90% said they were “extremely/very proud” to be an American. On issues of great concern to and impact on the country, opinions are deeply divided. Gallup reports that the divide between Republicans and Democrats on how much power the federal government should have has increased by 50 points over the last 20 years. The divide between Republicans and Democrats on the nature and cause of global warming has increased by 33 points, on satisfaction with K-12 education has increased by 30 points, on whether abortion should be legal under any circumstances by 30 points, on the importance of foreign trade by 29 points, and about immigration by 29 points. Where is the “sensible middle” on these issues? The answer is there is none. The different points of view emerge from very different views of the world, very different views of what is or is not true. The great struggle in our nation today is about whether the founders’ vision of a free nation under God, with limited power of the national government, will be restored and harnessed to today’s challenges. Or if we will continue in the direction of secular humanism, Godlessness and socialism. Abraham Lincoln captured today’s reality, as neither No Labels nor Mitt Romney could do. Lincoln said in 1858: “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. There is a reason why Donald Trump came out of nowhere in 2016 to win the presidency, running on the theme “Make America Great Again.” The struggle today is between those who want to recapture our founding values and principles. And those who want to destroy them. The House will not fall. We will become all one thing, or all the other.

PBS NewsHour Touts Film About Being a Trans Man Embedded with the Taliban

PBS NewsHour may have some sort of quota to meet for the number of supportive stories they must file for the transgender lobby. On April 4, they touted a new documentary available on Amazon Prime and Apple TV under the headline "Documentary captures journalist’s gender transition while embedded with Taliban." GEOFF BENNETT: The film Transition follows queer Australian filmmaker Jordan Bryon as he embeds with a Taliban unit he is documenting for The New York Times. But Bryon is undergoing his own transformation as a transgender man and has to keep his identity a secret. Bennett's co-anchor Amna Nawaz did the softball interview: NAWAZ: You begin documenting one group of Taliban fighters after the Taliban retake control of the country. And, at the same time, you are in the process of your own gender transition. At what point do you decide, I need to start turning the cameras the other way and start telling my own story as part of this? JORDAN BRYON: I started the medical transition like five months before the Taliban took over, and, objectively, as a filmmaker, I was thinking it could be interesting to document this process in a place like Afghanistan, and because I wanted to use my story to show the version of Afghanistan that I had experienced, which was a really beautiful, loving, welcoming Afghanistan. Monica Villamizar, the co-director of Bryon's film, explained how she got involved:  VILLAMIZAR: I had heard about him before as this Australian D.P., cinematographer who had really, really intimate access to the Taliban. So, in my imagination, I was already wondering, who is this guy and how did he get such intimate access? And that's when we met. And Jordan said, "Come here, but I'm not sure I want to do a film about myself." And I convinced him, because I really think it takes enormous courage to do something so intimate about your own process, but I really thought his story was extraordinary. Nawaz raised the notion that Bryon would have to leave (to make the film), and once the film was out, he couldn't go back. "I just wonder how you reflect on that decision now." BRYON: It was a big decision. I lived in Afghanistan for six-and-a-half years, and it's the most significant relationship I have ever had. It is an incredible place. And, as a filmmaker, it's a gift. But when Mon convinced me to make the film, I knew then that the film would mean that I would have to cut my ties with Afghanistan, most likely for the foreseeable future at least. And I'm hoping that the film adds value to the world and adds conversations to people that make it worth having to end that relationship for a while. Villamizar called their film a "love letter to journalism." It certainly sounds like a love letter to transgenderism. This would match our findings overall, that over a seven-month period last year, the PBS NewsHour guest count on LGBTQ issues was 19 to 1, and the "1" was lesbian tennis icon Billie Jean King volunteering her objections to men competing in women's sports.

ABC Protects Biden, OMITS Brutal “20th Century’ Gaffe From Quote On Arizona Abortion Law

We regret to inform you all that the Regime Media is at it again. ABC News, in its capacity as the most consistently pro-Biden of the network evening newscasts, excised the most damaging part of a quote from the president on the recently-affirmed 1864 Arizona statute banning abortion in all instances except to save the life of the mother.  Watch as correspondent Rachel Scott closes out her report, with all the subtlety of a tank, from in front of a Planned Parenthood in Phoenix, Arizona: RACHEL SCOTT: Today, the Biden campaign saying Donald Trump set out to overturn abortion rights in America, and he did. Insisting Trump "owns the suffering and chaos happening right now." And when asked his message to the people of Arizona, a key campaign battleground, tonight, President Biden was blunt -- "Elect me."  WHIT JOHNSON: Rachel Scott with us now from Phoenix. And Rachel, as you noted there, Republican lawmakers tonight blocking Democrats' efforts to repeal that 160-year-old abortion ban. So bottom line here, where do things stand right now in Arizona?  SCOTT: Whit, Arizona is in a state of limbo. The Supreme Court here in Arizona put that ruling on hold for 14 days. Democrats and Republicans were racing to try to repeal that law before it went into effect. Well, tonight, Republicans blocking those efforts. The Democratic governor Katie Hobbs calling their actions unconscionable, saying that the Republican majority had a chance to do the right thing, and tonight they failed. Whit. JOHNSON: Rachel, thank you. Except that this wasn’t ACTUALLY what Biden said- bluntly or otherwise. Leave it to the throne-sniffingest newscast to leave out the most damaging part of an absolutely brutal gaffe wherein Biden tells the world, in front of the Prime Minister of Japan, that he is in the 20th Century. Joe Biden: ‘Elect Me, I’m in the 20th Century’ pic.twitter.com/g5CSyqcMM8 — Sean Hannity 🇺🇸 (@seanhannity) April 10, 2024 This is another one of those instances where Biden was in the clear but decides to take that one last question. And it bit him again. Once you see the actual quote in its full context, you can tell that it is not “blunt” at all- and to suggest otherwise is to traffic in regime propaganda. Both CBS and NBC accurately reflected the gaffe in their reporting about the Arizona territorial law. Their reports, like this one, served the general purpose of advancing pro-abortion narrative and falsely framing former President Donald Trump’s criticism of the Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling as a flip-flop on abortion and inconsistent with the belief that abortion should be left to the states. Only ABC made the choice to try to hide an easily findable gaffe within an A-block story on a deeply divisive topic. Why, you ask? In order to protect Biden. As usual. Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned interview as aired on ABC World News Tonight on Wednesday, April 10th, 2024: WHIT JOHNSON: Tonight, growing backlash after Arizona's Supreme Court upheld a law from 1864 that criminalizes all abortions, except to save the mother's life. Republican lawmakers in the state blocking Democratic efforts to repeal it. The issue sure to be a flash point in the race for the White House. Donald Trump, who just this week said states should decide their own abortion policy, now saying Arizona went too far. ABC's Rachel Scott is in Phoenix tonight. PROTESTERS:  Shame on you! Shame on you!  RACHEL SCOTT: Tonight, outrage in Arizona. Republican lawmakers in the state capitol blocking Democrats' efforts to roll back a 160-year-old law banning abortion with only one exception, to save the life of the mother.  PROTESTERS: Save women's lives! SCOTT: It comes 24 hours after the Arizona Supreme Court upheld the law, written before Arizona was even a state, and before women had the right to vote. Donald Trump, who just this week said states should decide their own abortion policy, today saying Arizona went too far.  Reporter: Did Arizona go too far?  DONALD TRUMP: Yeah, they did, and that will be straightened out. And, as you know, it's all about states' rights. That will be straightened out.  SCOTT: It comes as Trump tries to recast his own position on abortion, sensing it's become a losing issue for Republicans. He now says he's proud of appointing three of the six Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe versus Wade, but that abortion policy should be up to the states. TRUMP: It was an incredible thing, an incredible achievement. We did that. And now, the states have it, and the states are putting out what they want. It's the will of the people.  SCOTT: Just weeks ago, Trump was floating the idea of a national ban on abortion, but today, he said he would not sign one.  REPORTER: President Trump, would you sign a national abortion ban if congress sent it to your desk?  TRUMP: No.  SCOTT: Over the years, Trump's position on abortion has swung back and forth --  TRUMP: I am very pro-choice. I'm pro-life.  TRUMP: Trump once said there should be some sort of punishment for women who get abortions, a position he quickly walked back. Today, he refused to say whether he believes doctors should face punishment for performing abortions, as they do right now in Arizona and other states.  REPORTER: Do you think a doctor should be punished for performing abortions?  TRUMP:  I'll let that be to the states. Everything we're doing now is states. SCOTT: Today, the Biden campaign saying Donald Trump set out to overturn abortion rights in America, and he did. insisting Trump "owns the suffering and chaos happening right now." And when asked his message to the people of Arizona, a key campaign battleground, tonight, President Biden was blunt -- "Elect me."  JOHNSON: Rachel Scott with us now from Phoenix. And Rachel, as you noted there, Republican lawmakers tonight blocking Democrats' efforts to repeal that 160-year-old abortion ban. So bottom line here, where do things stand right now in Arizona?  SCOTT: Whit, Arizona is in a state of limbo. The Supreme Court here in Arizona put that ruling on hold for 14 days. Democrats and Republicans were racing to try to repeal that law before it went into effect. Well, tonight, Republicans blocking those efforts. The Democratic governor Katie Hobbs calling their actions unconscionable, saying that the Republican majority had a chance to do the right thing, and tonight they failed. Whit. JOHNSON: Rachel, thank you.  

NewsBusters Podcast: PolitiFact Is NOT 'Obsessed with Fairness'

When PolitiFact won the Pulitzer Prize (for national reporting) in 2008, the committee touted how they used "probing reporters and the power of the World Wide Web to examine more than 750 political claims, separating rhetoric from truth to enlighten voters." It's not that simple. It's not always so cut and dried to locate "truth." While USA Today fact-checking boss Eric Litke says fact-checkers should be "obsessed with fairness," our latest NewsBusters study of PolitiFact demonstrates a significant partisan aggression against Republican politicians. Named politicians in the GOP were tagged as "Mostly False" or worse in almost 75 percent of fact checks, while the Democrats landed on that False side only 26 percent of the time. Blogs tagging the Republicans as false (47) were almost five times as common as blogs tagging the Democrats as false (ten). PolitiFact's selection bias seems to operate along the lines of the old Stephen Colbert joke that "Reality has a liberal bias." Republicans drew more "fact checks" (63 to 39), but it started with a 20 to 1 disparity in the first three weeks in January. I called attention to it on Twitter, and suddenly they added five Democrat fact checks, including two for President Biden and two for Vice President Harris.  It evened out in February -- 17 Republican checks to 14 for Democrats -- but the tilt was egregious. Thirteen of 17 GOP fact checks were tagged "Mostly False" or worse, and only two on the True side. But eleven of the 14 Democrat checks were on the True side -- eight True, three Mostly True. No one should expect fact-checking groups to calibrate their checks so that the distribution of "False" claims is equally distributed. But what PolitiFact's doing here is the opposite: it's making sure the Party of Trump stands out as the less honest and trustworthy party. That doesn't "enlighten voters" as much as encourage voters to check the D. Enjoy the podcast below or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Nets Proclaim ‘Game Changer’ AZ Ruling Means Abortion Will ‘Define’ 2024 as #1 Issue

On Wednesday, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC all led off their flagship morning news shows with coverage of the Arizona state Supreme Court ruling reinstalling an abortion law dating back to 1864 that protects unborn babies unless the life of the mother is threatened.  Given the liberal media’s ebullience toward killing babies, they were giddy about this “bombshell ruling” and argued this “game changer” ensure abortion — not the economy, inflation, national security, or anything else — will “define” and “be at the center of this presidential election” to help elect Democrats.     They weren’t really interested in the facts, including the reality that while this was framed as something originally enacted during the Civil War before Arizona became a state, our friend Erick Erickson noted this was around for over a century until Roe v. Wade in 1972. CBS Mornings was all-in on wanting to use abortion to fear-monger voters, giving it a hefty 12 minutes and 42 seconds. Co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King reacted to a riff on the ruling from Tuesday’s Daily Show to sound all crestfallen about what “unfortunately...is not a joke” because the Arizona might end up “reinstating a law from the 1800s – the 1800s — that bans nearly all abortion in the state.” On the flip side, she reveled in the fact that “it could have a big political impact and a very important swing state this November.” Senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang concurred by calling it “a game changer” for 2024 in “a battleground state that has been trending Democratic” and led by a Democratic governor in Katie Hobbs who “blasted the state’s conservative Supreme Court.” In the second half-hour, the show brought in Hobbs and, aside from a question about a 15-week limit on abortion from co-host Tony Dokoupil, were pathetically soft and even argued Arizona is now a real-life Handmaid’s Tale (click “expand”): KING: You called yesterday’s decision a dark day in Arizona. I’ve heard people use the phrases like “Is this Handmaid’s Tale come to life in real life?” How should we all be processing this? What are you thinking? (....) KING: Governor Hobbs we’ve heard what it is. I’m just curious about what do we do now? Even Kari Lake who challenged you for the governor’s race during the last election has come out against it? Are you talking to your top legislative leaders? What are you trying to do to make sure this does not actually happen? (....) DOKOUPIL: Governor, I want to get into that ballot initiative and the politics of this particularly come November because that’s a very big deal. But on the question of what to do right now, do you support a 15-week ban that your predecessor signed that was the law there in Arizona before this court ruling? HOBBS: Well, that’s the ban that will be in place if the 1864 ban is struck down, but Arizonans don’t support extreme abortion bans and this 15-week ban is still extreme. Again, no exception for rape or incest, no regard for complications of pregnancy. That’s what will be in place. And again, Arizonans will have the ability to weigh in on this with a constitutional amendment in November. DOKOUPIL: So it sounds like you’re saying repeal the 1864 law and go back to the 15 week-ban until November when you want to push it to the voters. HOBBS: Absolutely, yes. DOKOUPIL: So this — the health complications and women’s right to access, all that is important. I want to put it to one side, though for a question to just ask politically. Bottom line, is this advantageous for Democrats strategically, politically with the White House, the Senate and Congress potentially on the line with Arizona’s outcome in November? (....) NATE BURLESON: Governor, a couple of questions before we let you go. Vice President Kamala Harris will be visiting Arizona following this ruling. Have you talked to the White House about this? (....) KING: You know, Governor, when the interview started, you used the word “reeling.” I think a lot of people are feeling that way. How did it come to this? I think many people who woke up and heard this news yesterday, woke up this morning and heard more of it were thinking, this was a Civil War — that was around during the Civil War. HOBBS: Yeah. KING: Women couldn’t even vote, how does what’s happened in 2024 in your state, with you at the helm? ABC’s Good Morning America was also licking its chops at what this means for their party. Co-host Robin Roberts groused about Arizona “bracing for one of the strictest abortion bans in the country” with “President Biden calling it extreme and dangerous.” Co-host and former Clinton hack George Stephanopoulos proclaimed that “the bombshell ruling on abortions rights out of Arizona” means “[i]t is very clear that this issue is going to be at the center of this presidential election.” Chief congressional correspondent Rachel Scott is a progressive tool in her own right, so she too bragged that Arizona’s state Supreme Court handing down “one of the strictest abortion bans in the country” has “turn[ed] up the heat on an issue that could define this election.” For good measure, Scott doubled down on this deciding 2024 in the second hour. Finally, on NBC’s Today, co-hosts Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin also played along. In opening teases, Melvin called it “a bombshell ruling” while Guthrie said the decision sent “shockwaves” across the country and “[t]hrust[ed] the abortion issue front and center”  “Battleground, a new ruling by Arizona's Supreme Court sending shockwaves. Judges upholding a near total abortion ban dating back to the civil war, punishing doctors who perform the procedure...Just ahead, how some Republicans distancing themselves from the decision...and Democrats ready to pounce,” she added. Correspondent and NBC News NOW anchor Hallie Jackson also used the “shockwaves” bit and proclaimed it further emphasized why “abortion access will be” such a “critical...issue” in the presidential election. After her report, Guthrie dubbed abortion “a potent political issue” for November and, as if the liberal media aren’t interested in also making abortion the #1 issue, Jackson boasted about “Democrats...hoping to press this issue from now until November” (click “expand”): GUTHRIE: Hallie, as mentioned, this is a potent political issue — JACKSON: Yeah. GUTHRIE: — with major repercussions for the 2024 presidential election in Arizona, a key battleground state and there's an effort to have an abortion issue — a ballot issue in November. What's the status of that and what's the implication? (....) JACKSON: Since the midterms in 2022, when this has been on the ballot, voters have voted to provide some level of abortion access. We've seen that in polling too with the majority of Americans saying that this is something they support. This is why this is a tricky issue for Republicans to walk right now. We saw some in the GOP trying to thread that needle even on reproductive rights when the Alabama/IVF issue came up, for example. Keep in mind. Democrats are going to make this front and center. They’re going to try to highlight this now through November. We've talked about that new ad out from the Biden campaign — that emotional abortion ad going after Donald Trump. A senior Biden campaign adviser tells me overnight that, since this Arizona court ruling came out just yesterday, they have decided to spend what they call significantly more money on that ad in the state of Arizona, Savannah, which is a real indication how the Biden team, how Democrats are hoping to press this issue from now until November. To see the relevant CBS transcript from April 10, click here.

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. (…)

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.

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.

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!

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." 

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.

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.

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.

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.    

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. (…)

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.   

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.

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.    

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.

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.

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." 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

‘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?).  

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. (…)

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. 

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. 

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.    

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.  

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.  

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. 

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.

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.”

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. 

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.

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.

'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

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

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?” (…)

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.  

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.

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?

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.  

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.   

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.  

'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.

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.               

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.   

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.

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.

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. (…)

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.

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.