FLASHBACK: Lefties Frowned As America Cheered bin Laden’s Demise

Thirteen years ago, nearly all Americans were united in celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden, the terrorist leader behind the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Yet one group stood on the sidelines and scowled: the Sourpuss Left, which fretted the “mindless jubilation” and “jingoistic hubris” of those cheering the elimination of the evil al Qaeda leader, an avowed enemy who had ordered the deaths of thousands of innocent people. “It felt a little crazy, a bit much. Almost vulgar,” one Washington Post columnist huffed about the late night crowds celebrating outside the White House gates on May 1, 2011. “I think that this kind of jumping up and down, chanting ‘USA, USA,’ send a message of almost, sort of, blood lust,” another commentator mourned on PBS that week. There was also the morally-inverted griping that Big Bad America was worse than al Qaeda. “This was not justice,” fumed journalist Allan Nairn on Democracy Now. “This was one killer killing another — a big killer, the United States government, killing another, someone who’s actually a smaller one, bin Laden.” Mainstream liberal journalists avoided such hateful nonsense, instead touting the “heroics” of President Barack Obama, as if he had actually participated in the dangerous military operation. “Professor Obama turned into General Obama and ran this incredible, incredible raid,” gushed Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson. “That took a lot of guts, the kind of thing you do see in a Hollywood movie.” To his credit, however, Obama didn’t listen to his then-Vice President. “Mr. President, my suggestion is: Don’t go. We have to do two more things to see if he’s there,” Joe Biden counseled his boss, as he himself related in a speech to House Democrats the following year. (Video here.) Thirteen years later, Biden’s “don’t go” advice seems as terrible as ever (especially now that he’s handed Afghanistan back to the abhorrent Taliban), while the anti-American Left has moved on to condemning Israel’s necessary fight against similarly implacable and deadly terrorist enemy. Here’s a rundown of the worst quotes from that week, when (nearly) every citizen recognized and celebrated an American victory in the War on Terror: ■ “Some Americans celebrated the killing of Osama bin Laden loudly, with chanting and frat-party revelry in the streets. Others were appalled — not by the killing, but by the celebrations.... ‘The worst kind of jingoistic hubris,’ a University of Virginia student wrote in the college newspaper, The Cavalier Daily. In blogs and online forums, some people asked: Doesn’t taking revenge and glorying in it make us look just like the terrorists?”— New York Times reporter Benedict Carey in a May 6, 2011 news story, “Celebrating a Death: Ugly, Maybe, but Only Human.” ■ “It is just and necessary that this evil man was finally punished for the mass murders he engineered on September 11, 2001. But I am repelled by the scenes of mindless jubilation, from Times Square to the park in front of the White House, that erupted after President Obama delivered the news in a properly sober tone Sunday night.”— The Washington Post’s “Spirited Atheist” blogger Susan Jacoby in a May 2, 2011 posting. ■ “At the news of Osama bin Laden’s death, thousands of people — most of them college-aged and in requisite flip-floppy collegiate gear — whipped up a raucous celebration right outside the White House gates that was one part Mardi Gras and two parts Bon Jovi concert....It felt a little crazy, a bit much. Almost vulgar....When I saw that folks were celebrating in the streets at the news of bin Laden’s death, my first reaction was a cringe. Remember how we all felt watching videos of those al-Qaeda guys dancing on Sept. 11?”— Washington Post “Metro” section columnist Petula Dvorak, May 3, 2011. ■ “It’s idiotic to treat these kinds of international events like sporting events, like it’s the World Cup that we’re cheering for here....I think that this kind of jumping up and down, chanting ‘USA, USA,’ sends a message of almost sort of blood lust. I think we need to be really careful about that.”— Correspondent Jeremy Scahill of the left-wing The Nation magazine, on PBS’s Tavis Smiley, May 2. ■ “When you watch these people celebrating, how does it make us any better than those in the Mid East who celebrate when America falls?”— ABC News religion correspondent Father Edward Beck on FNC’s The O’Reilly Factor, May 3, 2011. ■ “People cheer because they thought they saw justice, but this was not justice....This was one killer killing another — a big killer, the United States government, killing another, someone who’s actually a smaller one, bin Laden....We have to stop these people, these powerful people like Obama, like Bush, like those who run the Pentagon, and who think it’s OK to take civilian life.”— Journalist Allan Nairn on the far-left Democracy Now radio program, May 2, 2011. ■ “I’m glad he’s gone. But I just feel something has — we’ve lost something of our soul here in this country. And maybe I’m just an old school American who believes in our American judicial system.... [Snarls] ‘What do we need a trial for, just get rid of him.’ The second you say that, you’re saying that you hate being an American. You hate what we stand for, you hate what our Constitution stands for.”— Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight, May 5, 2011. ■ “So when does SEAL Unit 6, or whatever it’s called, drop in on George Bush? Bush was responsible for a lot more death, innocent death, than bin Laden.”— Left-wing radio host and former CNN producer Mike Malloy on The Mike Malloy Show, May 2, 2011. For more examples from our flashback series, which we call the NewsBusters Time Machine, go here.                            

Keith Olbermann RAGES with Mob on Twitter Against Peggy Noonan's Columbia Column

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, who was once a Reagan speechwriter and is now a dyspeptic critic of Donald Trump, infuriated leftists on Twitter this weekend with a column about her visit to the Columbia University campus to observe the pro-Hamas protests and attempt to interview some young protesters.  Noonan wrote she understood the youthful passion to protest, but these protesters all wore masks and didn't want to engage with largely supportive media. She found this carried an air of menace...and cowardice. This was the passage that New York Times reporter Peter Baker passed around that fanned the fury:  I was at Columbia hours before the police came in and liberated Hamilton Hall from its occupiers. Unlike protesters of the past, who were usually eager to share with others what they thought and why, these demonstrators would generally not speak or make eye contact with members of the press, or, as they say, “corporate media.” I was on a bench taking notes as a group of young women, all in sunglasses, masks, and kaffiyehs, walked by. “Friends, please come say hello and tell me what you think,” I called. They marched past, not making eye contact, save one, a beautiful girl of about 20. “I’m not trained,” she said. Which is what they’re instructed to say to corporate-media representatives who will twist your words. “I’m barely trained, you’re safe,” I called, and she laughed and half-halted. But her friends gave her a look and she conformed. Raging kook Keith Olbermann, the man so unbalanced that he tweeted the Supreme Court majority that overturned Roe vs. Wade were "domestic terrorists," argued Baker and Noonan were not journalists: Is there a point at which Peter Baker and Peggy Noonan will understand that vast swaths of America do not recognize them as journalists? Hell, if I knew about the "I'm not trained" line I could've gotten Noonan off my back and off my shows in 2004 instead of 2006 https://t.co/2P2OvlX3rt — Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) May 4, 2024 The Left could certainly argue that college kids might be smart not to sit down with a journalist they don't know, and Noonan could be characterized as an establishment Republican, who wouldn't naturally love radical disorder. Noonan noted they were yelling “Israel bombs, Columbia pays! How many kids did you kill today?” Lefties were probably angrier at Noonan for suggesting that even liberals in Manhattan were pleased the cops shut this encampment down:  The Vietnam demonstrations came to a country at relative peace with itself and said: Wake up! The Hamas demonstrations come to a country that hasn’t been at peace with itself in a long time. It watched, and thought: More jarring hell from kids with blood in their eyes making demands. The people of my liberal-left town were relieved to see the NYPD come in, drag the protesters away, restore order, and let people clean things up.

Ugh: PBS Hails ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ Court Win for Minors, Including Mastectomy

The PBS NewsHour was back to its old rhetorical tricks this week on the LGBTQ front. Lately the outlet has been reacting with pro-transgender alarm when yet another state restricts transgender surgery for minors. But it had cause to celebrate on Tuesday, covering a “groundbreaking ruling” that somehow didn’t shake up the other media outlets enough to cover. PBS teamed up with its fellow taxpayer-funded outlet National Public Radio to bring the joyful news that a federal appellate court in Richmond had ruled that so-called “gender-affirming care” must be covered by state health care plans in West Virginia and North Carolina. They used that Orwellian term no less than ten times in the segment. including in the supportive introduction from host Amna Nawaz: “A federal appeals court issued a groundbreaking ruling last night ensuring that gender-affirming surgery is covered by state-run health insurance programs.” The entire exchange took place in a liberal bubble, with zero mention of conservative counterpoints -- no  inconvenient questions about gender transition, or how a biological man can become a woman, or if the government should be obligated to pay for such a change. NPR health reporter Selena Simmons-Duffin -- who provided a similar bubble of an interview to transgender Biden appointee Adm. Rachel Levine two years ago, that there was "no scientific debate" on these surgeries -- only cared about how the "trans community" greeted the news. Reporter Stephanie Sy explained: ...this decision centered around two lawsuits, with trans people in West Virginia and North Carolina suing to secure insurance coverage for gender-affirming care, such as hormone therapy and surgery." Sy crowed, "It is a win for the trans community, but it may not be the final word on the issue." Selena Simmons-Duffin, health-policy reporter, NPR: I think this is a really significant ruling. The Fourth Circuit's majority opinion was really strong and called discrimination against trans patients on these plans to be -- quote -- "obviously discriminatory." I think that the big takeaway is that insurers are not going to be able to say that they're going to cover this care for some patients with some diagnoses and not for others. If they're going to be covering things like sex hormones and mastectomies for some patients, they're going to have to cover it for trans patients as well. And I do think that it's really seen in the trans community as a major win, and it cuts against some of the trends of more litigation and more restrictions that we have seen in statehouses across the country. Sy: Selena, how far-reaching is this ruling? Does this mean trans people with state medical plans are now covered for gender-affirming care where they couldn't or where they weren't before? Simmons-Duffin explained that the ruling was a signal that “trans people are protected under the law,” as if they weren’t protected by law before. Both reporters ignored the traumatic effects of gender surgery (including hormone replacement theory and even chemical and physical castration) on children in their eagerness over the medical insurance decision, while continuing their happy talk about “gender-affirming care.” Sy: We have seen in the last few years some two dozen states pass restrictive laws on gender-affirming care specifically for minors. Does this decision, Selena, apply to minors covered by state medical plans, even in states where legislatures have banned care? Simmons-Duffin: ….it is important to differentiate this from some of the other cases around gender-affirming care for minors, because this is really about insurance coverage and whether insurers can make the distinction that they're going to cover hormones and mastectomies with certain conditions, but not for people with gender dysphoria. In this case, they said that's not going to fly and that needs to stop…. A transcript is available, click “Expand.” PBS NewsHour 4/30/24 7:13:54 p.m. (ET) Amna Nawaz: A federal appeals court issued a groundbreaking ruling last night ensuring that gender-affirming surgery is covered by state-run health insurance programs. Stephanie Sy has that report. Stephanie Sy: Amna, this decision centered around two lawsuits, with trans people in West Virginia and North Carolina suing to secure insurance coverage for gender-affirming care, such as hormone therapy and surgery. The federal appellate court in Richmond, split 8-6, ordered that the state health care plans — quote — "reinstate coverage for medically necessary services for the treatment of gender dysphoria." The American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics wrote briefs in support of the trans plaintiffs. It is a win for the trans community, but it may not be the final word on the issue. For more on all of this, I'm joined by NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin, who covers health policy for NPR. Selena, it's good to see you on the "NewsHour." So, as you know, there are numerous court cases around the country about transgender rights and access to gender-affirming care. How significant was this ruling, and what are the big takeaways to you? Selena Simmons-Duffin, NPR: I think this is a really significant ruling. The Fourth Circuit's majority opinion was really strong and called discrimination against trans patients on these plans to be — quote — "obviously discriminatory." I think that the big takeaway is that insurers are not going to be able to say that they're going to cover this care for some patients with some diagnoses and not for others. If they're going to be covering things like sex hormones and mastectomies for some patients, they're going to have to cover it for trans patients as well. And I do think that it's really seen in the trans community as a major win, and it cuts against some of the trends of more litigation and more restrictions that we have seen in statehouses across the country. Stephanie Sy: Selena, how far-reaching is this ruling? Does this mean trans people with state medical plans are now covered for gender-affirming care where they couldn't or where they weren't before? Selena Simmons-Duffin: Well, actually, in both of these cases, the state plan in North Carolina and Medicaid's — Medicaid in West Virginia, they already had to start covering this care after the district court ruled in the plaintiff's favor in 2022. So people have been able to bill for this and get coverage for this in the last two years, but what the appellate ruling does is really solidify that coverage. And as I said, it also signals to other plans in other states around the country that this is care that needs to be covered and that trans people are protected under the law. Stephanie Sy: We have seen in the last few years some two dozen states pass restrictive laws on gender-affirming care specifically for minors. Does this decision, Selena, apply to minors covered by state medical plans, even in states where legislatures have banned care? Selena Simmons-Duffin: I should say that there were plaintiffs in these cases that were minors. So, for example, in North Carolina, there were some members of the plan who joined the case on behalf of their dependent minor child who was transgender. And so they were seeking coverage for the care of that child. But I think it is important to differentiate this from some of the other cases around gender-affirming care for minors, because this is really about insurance coverage and whether insurers can make the distinction that they're going to cover hormones and mastectomies with certain conditions, but not for people with gender dysphoria. In this case, they said that's not going to fly and that needs to stop. But one thing I also wanted to mention is that, in the realm of bans across the country in different states for gender-affirming care for youth, just today, in Kansas, the Statehouse was unable to override the veto of the governor who had vetoed the ban on gender-affirming care for youth in that state. So I think advocates are really hoping that this does — even beyond the realm of its actual reach, it does send a signal to different places, to governors, to statehouses to say, this isn't a winning issue and the courts are starting to fall in their favor, although it has been a mixed bag in the courts. Stephanie Sy: Yes, absolutely. In this particular case — and you quoted it — the majority wrote that, when it comes to the state's exclusion of gender-affirming care for medical plans — quote — "We hold that the coverage exclusions facially discriminate on the basis of sex and gender identity." It said the exclusions, in essence, violate the 14th Amendment and provisions in the Affordable Care Act. There are so many transgender rights issues mired in the courts right now. Selena, do you see the Supreme Court taking all this up any time soon? I know, in this case, West Virginia's attorney general has already said he is appealing. Selena Simmons-Duffin: Yes, I mean, court watchers and policy watchers that I have talked to really think that a case is going to reach the Supreme Court at some point, and probably soon. But the Supreme Court has been sending some mixed messages on this. So there was a gender-affirming caravan in Idaho that the Supreme Court allowed to take effect. But then there are other cases, including one from the Fourth Circuit that was related to transgender students participating in sports, that the Supreme Court declined to take. And that was a win for the transgender plaintiff in that case. Court watchers suggest that it seems like the Supreme Court is maybe reluctant to jump into the fray, but there has been so much litigation in this area and so many laws being passed that it just seems inevitable that the Supreme Court will have to weigh in and give some clarity.

Spitting on Graves? MSNBC Lets Dems Smear Tennessee GOP on Arming Teachers

Over the last few weeks as a bill made its way through the Republican-dominated Tennessee legislature to permit local areas to decide whether to let teachers concealed carry firearms to deter mass shooters, several MSNBC hosts found it "shocking" and brought on "The Tennessee Three," their favorite far-left Democrats from the state's House of Representatives -- Justin Jones, Justin Pearson, and Gloria Johnson -- to smear Republicans and push conspiracy theories. MSNBC host Ali Velshi claimed that the new law was "worse than doing nothing," and, on the April 28 edition of his eponymous weekend show, went along with State Representative Justin Jones's theory that Republicans hope arming teachers will scare parents away from sending their children to public schools. Velshi responded: "I don't want my kids going to a place where there's yet more guns in the school. I'd like zero guns in the schools." A bit after Jones declared that Republican Governor Bill Lee "has no conscience and no courage," weekend host Alex Witt concluded the segment on her April 27 show by gushing: "I'm really glad you were voted back in office." A few minutes earlier, among his substantial trashing of Republicans, Jones further declared: "the governor just spit on the face of all these people and spit on the graves of the six people killed by signing this law. Nothing to reign in gun violence like common sense gun laws that would expand universal background checks, ban assault weapons, red flag laws. Instead, he's putting a law to arm teachers -- something that no teachers want in our state." Stephanie Ruhle found the push to arm teachers "almost too much to believe," and Katie Phang labeled the move "really flawed and dangerous policies." MSNBC also allowed Democrat guests to claim that no one except pro-gun lobbyists asked for the new law. By contrast, CNN hosts at least had right-leaning guests on to explain why they support the move. CNN This Morning Weekend host Victor Blackwell had a surprisingly sober reaction on April 28 as he allowed CNN contributor and MRC alum Stephen Gutowski on as a guest so he could explain that some rural schools had difficulty finding qualified resource officers and wanted to open up the possibility of school staff stepping in to fill the void. A few weeks earlier, CNN weekday host Sara Sidner provocatively quoted left-wing protesters who chanted, "Kill the bill, not the kids" as they opposed guns in schools, and her voice cracked as she discussed the issue, but, unlike MSNBC, at least she did allow State Senator Paul Bailey (R) to appear as a guest. He recalled that the legislature had already supplied funding to hire more resource officers, but some schools had failed to find qualified candidates, making other options necessary: "We provided over $140 million to go directly to those school districts for them to be able to hire school resource officers. ... But the situation is there's not enough qualified individuals to be able to fill those positions." While some of the liberal guests invoked the Covenant school shooting that occurred in the state in 2023, it was not mentioned that that school was a gun-free zone or that nearly all mass shooters who target public places choose gun-free zones to make it less likely they will face resistance, thus pointing to a deterrence value of armed teachers. And while Democrat guests fretted that armed teachers would lead to more violence, MSNBC hosts ignored research finding that schools with armed teachers tend to be safer. Transcripts follow: CNN News Central April 10, 2024 8:02 a.m. Eastern JOHN BERMAN (in opening plug): Backlash in Tennessee after lawmakers pass a law that would allow teachers to carry concealed guns in their classrooms. (...) 8:42 p.m. SARA SIDNER (before commercial break): All right, up next, some teachers and parents up in arms over a bill in Tennessee that could allow teachers and staff members to carry a gun on school grounds. We'll talk to the bill's co-sponsor coming up. (...) 8:49 p.m. SIDNER: "Kill the bill, not the kids." That's what some parents and teachers are chanting about a bill in Tennessee that allows teachers and school staff to carry guns at school. The bill just passed by the senate -- state senate in a 26-5 vote, and now it goes to the house. It allows Tennessee teachers to carry concealed handguns in K-12 schools. The bill also puts the debate over arming educators right back in the spotlight. Currently, 34 states ban teachers and the general public from carrying guns onto public school property according to Every Town for Gun Safety. Let's discuss this now with Tennessee State Senator Paul Bailey. You are the sponsor of this bill. First of all, why do you think this will make schools safer for children and staff? (STATE SENATOR PAUL BAILEY (R-TN)) You know, you said the sheriff's association is sort of at the forefront of pushing this bill and influenced you certainly -- we saw what happened in Uvalde, though, with people who are trained with weapons -- police officers who did not respond in a quick matter. What makes you think that teachers  under this kind of stress would be able to handle this with all that they already have to do? (BAILEY) All right, I want to play for you what Lauren Shipman-Dorrance has to say about the bill. She is a teacher in Nashville. Here's what she said. LAUREN SHIPMAN-DORRANCE, NASHVILLE TEACHER: I really thought the lieutenant governor would listen to the voice of the people. You know, we know overwhelmingly so many Tennesseeans do not support legislation like this. I don't know if I'd feel safe to stay in a teaching role, to be honest with you. SIDNER: There is already a shortage of teachers. What do you say to her, that she doesn't think she'll feel safe with other folks, staff members, potentially other teachers, walking around armed in a school? (BAILEY) I'm curious if any of the schools talked to you about this and asked for this? (BAILEY) So, sir, why not -- why not pass legislation -- why not pass legislation to fund more school resource officers instead of putting this on the teachers or the staff members there who, as you know, are overtaxed? They have to do so many things in classrooms now from being counselors to teaching, you know, math and science and English. Why not just say, "Okay, let's -- let's fund the resource officers who are trained"? STATE SENATOR BAILEY: Well, I'm glad you brought that up because we had a special session last year and dealt with that. We provided over $140 million to go directly to those school districts for them to be able to hire school resource officers. And, as of just the beginning of this legislative session at the end of January, $98 million of that had been drawn down into those local school districts for them to be able to provide SRO officers. But the situation is there's not enough qualified individuals to be able to fill those positions. I'm also carrying legislation that would allow any retired law enforcement officer that would like to go back for at least two years and be a school resource officer to be able to do so without losing their retirement benefits. So we've been working in many ways to try to make sure that our schools are as safe as possible here in Tennessee. SIDNER: State Senator Paul Bailey, thank you so much for coming on and asking -- and answering the questions. Appreciate it. (...) MSNBC's The 11th Hour April 11, 2024 11:24 p.m. Eastern STEPHANIE RUHLE: Meanwhile, this week, the Tennessee State Senate advanced a bill there to arm their teachers and school staff in the face of local protests. If passed, the move would mark one of the state's biggest expansions of gun access since the deadly Covenant school shooting that took place in Nashville last year. Here to discuss, Tennessee State Representative Justin Jones. You know him as one of the Tennessee Three. He was reinstated to his position one year ago yesterday after he was peacefully protesting gun violence. And Rachel Wegner joins us -- a children's reporter at The Tennessean and USA Today network. Rachel, what should we know about this bill? Because it's almost too much to believe. (WEGNER) But once they do that, a teacher could have a gun on their belt while teaching the third grade? WEGNER: Yeah, and another thing that has raised a lot of concerns is that they won't need to disclose which staff members are carrying weapons in the schools to teachers, parents, and possibly even other teachers around them. RUHLE: Representative Jones, what is your reaction to this? What are people in your district telling you? STATE REPRESENTATIVE JUSTIN JONES (D-TN): I mean, so many people are outraged, you know. The Tennessee Republican supermajority continues to hold our state at gunpoint and put more guns on our streets, and now they're trying to force guns into our classrooms. I think the most asinine thing about this, Stephanie, is that we live in a state where we've passed laws saying we don't trust teachers to pick the books in their classrooms. We don't trust teachers to pick their own curriculum about history. But now we want to say we want teachers to carry guns in our schools when every parent we saw show up in our committees, said, "Please don't do this -- more guns are not the solution, and they'll make out children and our schools more unsafe." RUHLE: We don't even provide those teachers with the school supplies they need to do their jobs. Rachel, what are parents and teachers saying about this? WEGNER: So I would say fairly wide outcry against the passage of the bill now in our state senate has been rolling this week. It is yet to be taken up by our house, but, as we've got into that potential hearing, lots of folks are planning to continue their protests and speaking out against this over their concerns for all the ways things could go wrong. Supporters of the bill have, you know, a different viewpoint on that, but teachers, parents, students, I've almost unanimously heard them say they're opposed to it, and they're worried about what it means. RUHLE: Representative, what do you say to people who argue, "Well, schools have the option to opt out." Is that good enough? (...) JONES: And so what we're hearing in our state is people saying that our legislature is morally insane. We have a Republican supermajority that has just lost their mind and, you know, passing laws just last week to honor the Tennessee Rifle the same week that we are recognizing the Covenant tragedy here in our state -- a mass shooting that took the lives of three nine-year-olds and three adults, and, you know, we're going to honor a gun? And the only law that we passed after the Covenant mass shooting was to protect firearms manufacturers. So what we're seeing is a Republican supermajority that is beholden to the gun industry -- that is beholden to gun extremists -- that is beholden to the NRA, and that is not listening to the people of Tennessee. (...) MSNBC's The Last Word April 12, 2024 10:37 a.m. Eastern STATE SENATOR LONDON LAMAR (D-TN): This is irresponsible! The public school teachers don't even want the bill! They're not even asking you for this! We just passed legislation to have SROs in every school -- can we see if that works yet?! I'm upset not out of -- because I don't like you all individually -- because I'm mad because this bill puts my child at risk and all the mothers I hear that just got put out! They're saying their children at risk! Look at that gallery! They're asking you not to do this! (editing jump) Put partisan politics aside -- I ask you this all the time, but this bill is dangerous. Don't do it. (editing jump) Teachers don't want it, the school districts don't want it, nobody doesn't want it, it's not going to work! It's going to cause more school shootings. (editing jump) What happened today is a gallery full of mothers who are concerned, and we put them out because you're trying to put guns in teachers' hands! We ought to be ashamed, Mr. Speaker. KATIE PHANG: That was the scene in the Tennessee Senate this week. State Senator London Lamar with her eight-month-old baby and a microphone in her hands begging Republicans not to vote to put more guns in schools. Yes, more guns, not less. This week, Republican lawmakers in Tennessee advanced legislation that would allow some teachers to carry concealed guns. Last April, just days after three children and three staff members were killed in a mass shooting at the Covenant school in Nashville, Donald Trump gave a speech pushing for armed teachers. And so a year later Tennessee Republicans have decided that their solution to gun violence in schools is more guns in schools. (...) Representative Pearson, I know that you're familiar with the being silenced when you're trying to speak out in that hall, but what is the justification that is coming from your colleagues on the other side of the aisle to vote on a bill and approve it that is not wanted by anyone? It's been tried before in some other counties in Tennessee -- hasn't worked -- and I understand there's an opt out in this legislation, but -- and I understand maybe that the voices in support of this say, "Well, there's training, and there's, you know, a certain component of it, but how is it possible that they're so tone deaf about what's really wanted to protect the children in these schools? STATE REPRESENATATIVE JUSTIN J. PEARSON (D-TN): This is a dangerous piece of legislation that puts at risk every child in our schools, including putting our teachers at risk as well. You don't have a single teacher in our district or in this state who are asking the legislature to pass this type of legislation. And they certainly aren't asking for us to do it by kicking out mothers from the galleries and those who are advocating on behalf of their kids in the process. What we are seeing is the cowardice of the Republican party in our state, refusing to address the epidemic of gun violence, which is the number one killer of our children, and instead of ending the epidemic by doing something about the guns that are being proliferated in our communities and doing something that would stand up to the National Rifle Association and the Tennessee Firearms Association, and they're attacking parents, and they're actually making our schools less safe. They're bringing guns into gun-free zones, and this is only going to have horrendous ramifications for children who will access these weapons and these guns -- for teachers who might accidentally shoot or harm their students. These are the real challenges that are going to come from this terrible legislation. (...) PHANG: I want to harp on this for our viewers to understand. Mothers like Beth Gebhard who talk about this experience, they're being silenced. These are not politicians, right? These are not -- these are not lobbyists for anti-gun or anti-2nd Amendment kind of propositions, These are parents that only want to keep their kids safe. And yet they're being silenced. They're being removed from a public forum because they just want to share their concerns about really flawed and dangerous policies and legislation that's getting passed in your state? STATE REPRESENTATIVE PEARSON: This is the way that the Tennessee Republican party works. They silence the voices of dissent in order that they can corrupt, be corrupt and use their power and corrupted absolutely using it. And they wield it against anybody that they believe is going to stand up against them. This is why Representative Jones and I were expelled. This is why the mothers are consistently being kicked out of the gallery and kicked out of committee rooms even during our special session to address public safety. They're not interested in the safety of our kids -- they're not interested in the safety of our teachers. They do not want to end the gun violence epidemic -- they only want to proliferate it with bad policies and legislation that is supported by the Tennessee Firearms Association and supported by the National Rifle Association. They are not interested in making our communities safer (...) MSNBC's The Last Word April 26, 2024 10:43 p.m. Eastern ALI VELSHI: That was the scene at the Tennessee house chamber this week after Republican lawmakers passed a bill that would allow some teachers to carry concealed guns. There were vocal protests inside the gallery against putting more guns in schools. State troopers once again removed folks for protesting. Inside the chamber, Democratic legislators pleaded with their colleagues not to pass the bill. They argued that in the year since the Nashville Covenant mass shooting, more should have been accomplished by this legislative body. (...) Joining us now is the Tennessee Democratic State Representative, Justin J. Pearson. ... The country came to know you because of the stand that you and some of your colleagues in the legislature took about having government take a stronger hand in trying to deal with the disasters that you faced in Tennessee -- the disaster that repeats itself across this country -- and yet here we are today. STATE REPRESENTATIVE JUSTIN J. PEARSON (D-TN): Yeah, I mean, the gun violence epidemic in our state is the leading cause of death for our children. We have a responsibility and an obligation to do everything possible to actually make our schools and our communities safer, and the Republican party of Tennessee led by Cameron Sexton and William Lamberth refuse to do that. Unfortunately, they view arming teachers, increasing the amount of gun violence in schools and in our communities as some form of a solution. No one would have ever imagined that after we experienced the tragedy that we did in the wake of the Covenant shooting, nor the hundreds of lives that we've lost due to gun violence just a year ago where 500 people in our state, that our resolution would be: "Let's try and increase the probability of having more gun violence." We didn't pass any red flag laws or extreme risk protection orders. We haven't addressed anything as relates to gun safety storage, and this is the signature piece of legislation the Republicans have pushed, which is antithetical to anything that anyone in the state of Tennessee that I talked to have wanted to see or for us to get to make our communities safer. VELSHI: I'm curious as to how it even came to be because if you were going to just not bother, then just don't bother. This seems to be possibly one worse than not bothering. (...) MSNBC's The Katie Phang Show April 27, 2024 12:33 p.m. Eastern KATIE PHANG: So another important issue I know is very near and dear to you is gun violence and the prevention of it. It's also something that's been a very important part of my ability to use my platform to spread awareness. In Tennessee, as you know, passing a law that now allows teachers in schools to have concealed firearms. The Republicans there saying that it's for school safety and to improve the safety of students in schools. What are your thoughts, Congressman, about the fact that Tennessee now allows this? CONGRESSMAN MAXWELL ALEJANDRO FROST (D-FL): Well, this is people legislating without looking at the facts and without looking at data and just simply doing the bidding of the gun lobby, which seeks to pass legislation that will sell more guns. That's all the gun lobby and the NRA cares about -- selling more guns to teachers, to kids, whoever. And so, unfortunately, they're not looking at the data that shows us that when there's more guns in the equation, guess what. It doesn't make you safer -- it makes you less safe. Not just that, but our teachers are already drastically underpaid, especially in the South. We already have a huge teacher shortage, and, on top of that, to add insult to injury, you want to add to the job description: "Carry a firearm and protect your students that way"? Come on, give me a damn break. So this is just politicians doing the bidding of the NRA and not actually doing what we need to do to save lives and keep people safe. And we're so happy and lucky we have great progressive advocates like Justin Jones, Justin Pearson, Gloria Johnson -- they are fighting in Tennessee. But it just goes to show that this fight in the South is real, but we're not doing it alone. (...) MSNBC's Alex Witt Reports April 27, 2024 3:49 p.m. ALEX WITT: Starting now in Tennessee, teachers and other school administrators are now officially allowed to carry concealed handguns on school grounds. Governor Bill Lee signing the bill one year after six people were killed, including three children, when a gunman opened fire at a private Christian school in Nashville. Joining me now is Democratic State Representative Justin Jones, who was expelled from the state house after joining a protest supporting gun reform in the wake of that shooting. He was then voted back in back to office in a special election. Welcome, Justin, I'm glad to have you here. Um, look, there was significant tension as this bill was approved, and I know you were banned from speaking on that floor for two days, and you say you were physically shoved by one of your Republican colleagues. It stemmed from you filming these chants from the gallery. Let's play this up. (clip of protesters in capitol chanting, "Blood on your hands") What happened there? STATE REPRESENTATIVE JUSTIN JONES (D-TN): Yes, well, Alex, it is a terrible time in Tennessee because the governor has signed this horrific law that's going to allow teachers to carry guns. This is the largest expansion of gun laws in our state since the mass shooting at Covenant, and in that gallery, you see my constituents. You see mothers, you see grandmothers, and parents and teachers and students telling my Republican colleagues that they will have blood on their hands. For over a year now, Tennesseans have been showing up to our capital week after week, begging for common sense gun laws, and the governor just spit on the face of all these people and spit on the graves of the six people killed by signing this law. Nothing to reign in gun violence like common sense gun laws that would expand universal background checks, ban assault weapons, red flag laws. Instead, he's putting a law to arm teachers -- something that no teachers want in our state. WITT: Wow. STATE REPRESENTATIVE: JONES: And it's an insult to Tennesseans. WITT: Justin, I want to talk about the bill specifically because, as we understand it, a staff member would have to complete 40 hours of training, get a background check and a psychological evaluation. They would then also need the approval of school officials and local law enforcement. But, to your point, parents would not be notified because of confidentiality, meaning parents won't have any idea at all if their child's teacher has a gun in the classroom. So here's the question: Would teachers with guns have made a difference in the Covenant school shooting when the killer had an AR-15 assault rifle and a pistol caliber carbine with 30 rounds in it? STATE REPRESENTATIVE JONES: I mean, that is the insanity, Alex, is that, "What is one handgun going to do against a military grade assault weapon? Nothing. The Covenant school had armed security. I mean, you saw in Uvalde officers were afraid to go in a building with these assault weapons. So this is just a false solution. And really what it's about -- it's about this idea of trying to proliferate guns in our state. The number one cause of death for children right now is gun violence, and so it's about proliferating guns and not doing anything to reign in the issue of this uniquely American problem of gun violence. WITT: Let me ask you this in regards to that. Is this putting too much responsibility on teachers? If, let's say, they are paralyzed by fear during a school shooting and they can't shoot, or they accidentally shoot a student or anybody else, could they be blamed for what happens? STATE REPRESENTATIVE JONES: That's the point we got no clarity about, is who has liability. They refuse to answer that because the real liability is on the governor and my Republican colleagues, and let me just -- I want to say this, too, that this is really also about -- I've been thinking about this in my head about trying to make parents afraid to send their kids to public schools because so many parents I've talked to in my district have emailed me in my office saying, "We don't know if we can send our kids to schools anymore because we're scared." And it's really about this idea of trying to destroy public education, which the governor has been trying to do, and in pushing guns in our communities. And now they're in tandem. And so teachers are not asking for this -- they're asking for more supplies -- they're asking for psychologists and counselors, better pay. No teachers in Tennessee are asking to have this law to allow them to carry guns. It's insanity, and it's morally inexcusable. WITT: And -- and Governor Lee, couldn't he have allowed the bill to become law even without his signature. I mean, the fact that he signed it -- he wanted to put his name on this bill -- what does it tell you? STATE REPRESENTATIVE JONES: I mean, it tell us that our governor has no conscience and no courage. He lost a friend in the Covenant mass shooting -- one of his wife's friends -- and he told us he was going to do something to, you know, to reign in gun violence, and he's failed Tennesseans -- he's bowed down to the extremists. And he's really about arming these extreme elements in our community because not only are we talking about arming teachers, but the governor has allowed the Proud Boys to come to our capitol armed -- they've allowed neo-Nazis to march three blocks away from the capitol where I am right now to march armed. And it's about arming these extreme elements in our community that are leaving us with trauma and terror. And it's at the expense of our children's lives, so he should be ashamed of himself, and it is a dereliction of duty and a dereliction of his oath of office that each of us take as elected officials on Tennessee. WITT: Democratic State Representative Justin Jones, let's just put it this way. I'm really glad you were voted back in office. Thank you so much for our conversation. (...) CNN This Morning Weekend April 28, 2024 7:37 a.m. Eastern VICTOR BLACKWELL: What informs the decision for arming the teachers instead of hiring more law enforcement to patrol these schools? STEPHEN GUTOWSKI, CNN FIREARMS ANALYST: Well, I think there's two reasons that advocates go this path. One is that it is actually quite difficult to get enough school resource officers to fill every school on a consistent basis, especially in more rural areas. And the second is that advocates of armed teachers believe that having several people armed in a school will increase the reaction time in case there is some sort of shooting. So those tend to be the main selling points. (...)  MSNBC's Velshi April 28, 2024 10:40 a.m. ALI VELSHI: Despite resounding pushback from parents and Democratic lawmakers in Tennessee, on Friday the Republican governor, Bill Lee, signed a shocking bill into law that gives counties the ability to decide whether some educators can legally carry guns in public schools. Republicans in the state house and senate pushed this bill through, claiming that it would reduce gun violence in schools and bolster safety. (...) Under the new legislation, some faculty and staff will be able to carry concealed handguns on school grounds but first need to complete 40 hours of training and pass criminal and mental health background checks. But Democrats have continually argued that the state would better served by, among other measures, employing background checks and requiring safe storage of firearms. As legislative debate ensued, leading up to the passage and signing of the bill, Democrats in the house signed off. (clips of Democrat legislators complaining about the bill) You'll probably remember the two people whom you just saw -- they are the Tennessee state representatives Justin Jones and Gloria Johnson. Two of them -- along with Representative Justin J. Pearson whom I spoke to on Friday night -- became the faces of the anti-gun movement in the state last year following the shooting at Nashville's Covenant school. Three children and three adults were killed in that attack. In the wake of the shooting, the Tennessee Three -- as these three have come to be called -- joined thousands in protest of the state's gun laws on the state's house floor. The decision to fight back -- small acts of courage -- were not met without consequence. Both Jones and Pearson --= who are black -- were booted from the Republican-controlled state house for their actions. Meanwhile, Johnson -- who is white -- dodged expulsion by one vote. However, both men returned to their seats last fall after their local governments voted to reinstate them. In light of the passage of this new gun law, it's abundantly clear that the Tennessee Three's fight for more sensible gun laws is far from over. On the other side of the break, both Justin Jones and Gloria Johnson join me to explain why this new law threatens the safety of classrooms in Tennessee. (...) Friends, thank you for being with us this morning and for your continued fight for the safety of our students and our citizens. Representative Jones, you posted on X that (Tennessee) House Speaker Cameron Sexton is growing "drunk with power" and that we are, quote, "witnessing the death of democracy in light of what happened with this vote. Talk to me about what you see happening here. Your state surprised me again in that there were lots of options between doing nothing and doing something, and they seem to have skipped through all of the more productive possibilities and went for the fairly absurd one. STATE REPRESENTATIVE JUSTIN JONES (D-TN): Yes, Ali, well, this is a very sad time for Tennessee. The trauma of our community is once again coming to the surface because at the end of the session my Republican colleagues decided to push forward and push through this asinine, insane bill to arm teachers as the gallery was full of Tennesseans -- teachers, mothers, students, clergy -- begging them not to, including families whose children are at the Covenant school, including families who have lost loved ones in shootings here in Nashville. And rather than hear them, Republicans pushed this bill forward by cutting off debate and then having the gallery cleared of the public and media when the people in the gallery chanted, "Shame on you," and that "there's blood on your hands." They had me censured for recording my constituents being drug out the gallery by state troopers. And so I said online that this is fascism -- this is a step against democracy -- against -- and toward authoritarianism and toward this, no, just shameful trajectory of arming our schools more and more -- putting more guns in schools -- when people have been begging for a year for common sense gun laws that protect kids and not guns. And the governor, by signing that bill, has spit in the face of these families.  He is a coward, and he is somebody who is going to be on the wrong side of history here in Tennessee. (...) STATE REPRESENTATIVE GLORIA JOHNSON (D-TN): ...And they need to start listening to teachers, and I can tell you that teachers did not come to them with the legislation. Every major county has already said, "No, since this is permissive, we are not arming teachers." They've already said no. No one asked them for this bill. VELSHI: Yeah. Somebody -- (cross talk) -- the question is, no one or is it lobbies that continue to cause these legislators to do things that are completely not in the interests of -- don't have the support of their voters. (...) STATE REPRESENTATIVE JONES: What I think this is really about is that the governor is mad that his privatization of public schools bill failed this session, and so this is a way to further undermine education. So I want to connect the dots between this proliferation of guns and their attack on public schools. Because what we're hearing is that people are afraid to send their kids to schools. So what was the thing they did after the voucher bill died to try and privatize our schools? The coward Ryan Williams -- my colleague from Cookeville -- said we're going to push through this bill to arm teachers, and now parents are scared to send their kids -- VELSHI: Yeah, up. STATE REPRESENTATIVE JONES: -- to public schools. That's really what the goal is, I think, Ali. I really -- VELSHI: Yeah. STATE REPRESENTATIVE JONES: -- think that's the purpose of this legislation. VELSHI: I don't want my kids going to a place where there's yet more guns in the school. I'd like zero guns in the schools. Thanks to both of you. It is remarkable what you have both done and your other colleagues have done for democracy and for standing up for it. When they tell me, "You know, there's not enough younger people getting involved in politics and it's all -- it's all corporatized," and all that, I point to you Tennessee Three to remind people that there are a lot of people fighting the battle right out there all the time, and we should be proud of that. Thank you.

Bloomberg Columnist Claims Trump Trial Doesn't 'Get Much Attention' From Media

Bloomberg Businessweek columnist Joshua Green mourned on Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO that the media has been covering the demonstrations on college campuses across the country and not Donald Trump’s hush money trial. Not only is surging anti-Semitism among college students a newsworthy topic, but it is simply not true that Trump’s trial has been removed from newscasts. Green’s fellow panelist was former Trump strategist Kellyanne Conway and the trio were discussing what voters care about when Maher quipped, “People do care about democracy also, they do, maybe not the circles you run in.”     Conway pushed back, “I came on your show five days after that, we know what—nine days after that, you know what I think of January 6, that will never change. But if we are looking backward, elections are always about the future, not the past. That's the way America needs to look at them and right now they feel cost of living in everyday quality of life is diminishing.” That led Green, who is the author of The Rebels: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the Struggle for a New American Politics and Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency, to chime in, “But as a pollster you've got to worry, I mean, you've seen polls that say if Donald Trump is convicted of a crime, he's currently on trial, though, it doesn't get much attention in the news that support for Trump will ebb.” A stunned Conway replied, “Trump doesn't get attention in the news? It’s all they talk about.” Green clung to his claim, “No, the criminal trial, no, it’s nothing but protests. It’s like the D block.” At the same time, Maher tried to offer an explanation, “Well, that criminal really—we’re treating it like it's like the Gwyneth Paltrow skiing trial. People just don’t care.” Back in the real world, the media, and especially cable, has obsessed over the trial. They cover it pretty much all day, relay what is going on inside the courtroom, and then have their legal analysts discuss. CNN has tried to analyze the profound meanings of photographs and court sketches of Trump to such a comical degree, even Jon Stewart couldn’t pass on the opportunity to mock them for it. Here is a transcript for the May 3 show: HBO Real Time with Bill Maher 5/3/2024 10:27 PM ET BILL MAHER: People do care about democracy also, they do, maybe not the circles you run in. KELLYANNE CONWAY: Of course, we all do. No, no, we all do. You know what I think of January 6. JOSHUA GREEN: But as a pollster. CONWAY: I came on your show five days after that, we know what—nine days after that, you know what I think of January 6, that will never change. But if we are looking backward, elections are always about the future, not the past. That's the way America needs to look at them and right now they feel cost of living in everyday quality of life is diminishing. GREEN: But as a pollster you've got to worry, I mean, you've seen polls that say if Donald Trump is convicted of a crime, he's currently on trial, though, it doesn't get much attention in the news that support for Trump will ebb. CONWAY: Trump doesn't get attention in the news? It’s all they talk about. GREEN: No, the criminal trial, no it’s nothing but protests —. CONWAY: Oh, okay. Well— MAHER: Well, that criminal really—we’re treating it like it's— GREEN: It’s like the D Block. MAHER: -- like the Gwyneth Paltrow skiing trial. People just don’t care.

The Onion and Ben Collins: A Perfect Fake News Marriage

It’s hard to remember a time when The Onion was synonymous with “funny.” The humor site once had the field all to itself, creating Fake News stories that made us laugh and think. The Onion came out in printed form, and its attacks on the political class could be withering. That was then. Today’s online-only Onion is comedic in name only. The outlet’s hard-Left politics have all but stripped away its comic potential, from the woke handcuffs placed on liberal satire to how it protects Democrats… …much like today’s late-night TV landscape. So if you want to read something funny about President Joe Biden, for example, you’d never type “the onion” into a search engine. You go to The Babylon Bee.   To Save Time, The Babylon Bee Will Now Just Republish Everything Biden Says Verbatim https://t.co/KDHEZAjgU7 pic.twitter.com/O4ZfgGrc8P — The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 18, 2024   That site leans to the Right, but it’s unrelenting in its humor and ability to smite both sides. It’s everything The Onion isn’t – topical, fast, bold and hilarious. And, sadly, The Onion might soon be even worse. The site just got picked up by new owners, and former NBC journalist Ben Collins is the platform’s CEO moving forward. Ostensibly charged by the Peacock network with overseeing so-called “disinformation,” Collins proved inept at the gig. We’re still waiting for him to weigh in on the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, the “Very Fine People” hoax and more. Here’s how Collins described Libs of TikTok, the social media journalist who exposes the far-Left’s extremes. “Fox News’ favorite aggregator of LGBTQ teachers they don’t like the look of.” The latter part of the sentence feels slanderous, no? What’s his proof that Libs of TikTok is bigoted. Does he share any? Collins, formerly with the far-Left Daily Beast, also got exposed by The Federalist for carrying water for the hard-Left. Consider: NBC’s leftist reporter Ben Collins, meanwhile, arguably offered the most laughable response to Soros backing Bragg. Quoting a CNBC story, Collins says Soros can’t back Bragg because the two never met. Journalist Steve Krakauer slammed Collins for his social media-heavy methods that often occur without actual journalism. Collins seems to spend his days endlessly opining on social media about the state of journalism – like his frequent attacks on the New York Times. But one thing Collins does not appear to be doing very much anymore is journalism. Collins hasn’t written an article for NBC News in more than 100 days. His last one, published in early October, was on one of his favorite targets, X owner Elon Musk. Before that, you have to go back to May 22 to find his previous byline, a short piece about a “fake picture of an explosion” at the Pentagon that had gone semi-viral. He’s also wary of transparency. I asked Collins and NBC News if he was still a full-time employee of the media outlet, and neither responded to multiple requests for comment.  Does this sound like the person to shake The Onion from its hard-left shackles? It gets worse. Collins was one of many mainstream news reporters who got the infamous Gaza hospital story wrong. Collins is treated as an expert in the burgeoning field of countering the spread of misinformation. Yet his error rate is noteworthy…. Did Collins soberly wait for these facts to come in? Nope. The award-winning disinformation expert helped circulate the inaccurate claims of the Palestinian authorities. When other voices on social media recommended caution, Collins chimed in to assert that any delay in reporting the horrific casualty numbers represented a profound moral failing. It’s Disinformation 101, and he fell for it. That he recently won a Walter Cronkite Award for journalism speaks volumes about today’s Fourth Estate. Collins’ rage against free speech advocate Elon Musk found him making more mistakes, according to Reason. Collins’ reporting often contains basic errors that suggest he doesn’t particularly understand the right-wing forces he’s denouncing. His most recent article alleges that Musk’s plans for Twitter were shaped by a far-right former Trump administration staffer, even though it’s fairly clear the staffer wasn’t actually telling Musk what to do, but rather warning about what would happen to Musk if he offended “the regime.” Collins even raged against the release of The Twitter Files, which exposed the platform’s extensive censorship regime against right-leaning voices. He did so without calling out any errors in Matt Taibbi’s reportage. He just used ad hominem attacks on the left-leaning Taibbi. So The Onion’s return to its funny, bipartisan roots is even more unlikely today. Still, the two parties may be perfect for one another.

CBS Claims Human Smuggling At Border 'Is More Complex'

On CBS Saturday Morning, host Dana Jacobson sat down to discuss the border crisis with anthropology Prof. Jason De Leon, where the duo also hyped his new book on human smuggling. Both host and author claimed the issue “is more complex” than simply viewing the smugglers as bad guys who take advantage of people. Jacobson reported, “The business of human smuggling, according to the Department of Homeland Security, is a multibillion dollar industry, run by criminal organizations intent on taking advantage of vulnerable people. The story de Leon tells is more complex.”     De Leon differentiates between smugglers and traffickers. For him, a smuggler is working within a consensual agreement with the person seeking to cross the border, whereas a trafficker is not. He therefore claimed, “I can write a story about how they're the bad guys in this whole scenario and all they do is brutalize migrants, but if you think about the realities, if smugglers only brutalized migrants, the system wouldn't function, and so I went into it telling myself that, you know, what can I find that's relatable, it's not trying to humanize smugglers, it's working from the assumption that they are human first and that they just happen to be in this brutal occupation.” Jacobson then claimed that smugglers and migrants face the same set of challenges, “The low-level smugglers de Leon met said issues like poverty and gang violence had driven them out of Honduras. The same issues many migrants also face.”  She then asked, “You talk about smuggling and think what you write, it's violent, it exploits people, but that it's also a symptom of a larger problem. What is that larger problem?” That does not sound complex at all. In fact, de Leon would spend much of the rest of the time portraying smuggling as a get-rich-quick scheme. He also blamed things such as climate change for the crisis, “We need to think about why are people migrating in the first place, and you know, why does the United States have an insatiable appetite for cheap, undocumented labor that we rarely acknowledge, and as long as you need the labor and as long as climate is changing and making places unlivable, those smugglers are going to stay in business and just make more money off of this whole process.” After de Leon warned the crisis is not going to end any time soon, Jacobson added, “A future de Leon hopes can be made easier by considering different perspectives and the humanity of everyone involved.” De Leon concluded by lamenting, “The approaches that we've been using to deal with these problems have clearly been ineffective for decades and yet we just don't seem to want to get smarter about this stuff… You can build whatever border wall you want. There are desperate people on the other side who are willing to die to save themselves, to save their family, and then there are smugglers who are willing to make a buck on that in all kinds of different ways, so that will just keep the system, kind of, going forever.” You can’t have a policy that claims the weather being too hot is a legitimate asylum claim and as CBS itself admitted, the smugglers exploit people and subject them to possible death, so why is this complex? Here is a transcript for the May 4 show: CBS Saturday Mornings 5/4/2024 8:54 AM ET DANA JACOBSON: The business of human smuggling, according to the Department of Homeland Security, is a multibillion dollar industry, run by criminal organizations intent on taking advantage of vulnerable people. The story de Leon tells is more complex. JASON DE LEON: I can write a story about how they're the bad guys in this whole scenario and all they do is brutalize migrants, but if you think about the realities, if smugglers only brutalized migrants, the system wouldn't function, and so I went into it telling myself that, you know, what can I find that's relatable, it's not trying to humanize smugglers, it's working from the assumption that they are human first and that they just happen to be in this brutal occupation. JACOBSON: The low-level smugglers de Leon met said issues like poverty and gang violence had driven them out of Honduras. The same issues many migrants also face.  You talk about smuggling and think what you write, it's violent, it exploits people, but that it's also a symptom of a larger problem. What is that larger problem? DE LEON: We need to think about why are people migrating in the first place, and you know, why does the United States have an insatiable appetite for cheap, undocumented labor that we rarely acknowledge, and as long as you need the labor and as long as climate is changing and making places unlivable, those smugglers are going to stay in business and just make more money off of this whole process. JACOBSON: It's an industry that continues to grow as migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border hit record highs with people coming from as far away as Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. DE LEON: People are coming from around the globe. They're coming up from South America, through the Darien Gap. It's a window into the future as all those places become unlivable for different reasons. We're going to continue to see that mix of people coming up from the south to our doorstep. JACOBSON: A future de Leon hopes can be made easier by considering different perspectives and the humanity of everyone involved. DE LEON: The approaches that we've been using to deal with these problems have clearly been ineffective for decades and yet we just don't seem to want to get smarter about this stuff. I hope with this book that it's a way to undermine the simplistic framings of what the problem actually is. You can build whatever border wall you want. There are desperate people on the other side who are willing to die to save themselves, to save their family, and then there are smugglers who are willing to make a buck on that in all kinds of different ways, so that will just keep the system, kind of, going forever.

PBS Wonders Why College Protests Are Labeled Anti-Semitic

The cast of Friday’s PBS NewsHour was greatly confused. Host William Brangham didn’t understand why the anti-Israel college demonstrators, on the whole, have been branded as anti-Semitic, while Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart didn’t know why it is so hard for the demonstrators to protest Israel without degenerating into anti-Semitism. Brangham’s remarks came on the heels of New York Times columnist David Brooks warning that the protests are toxic for Democrats, “I think if the protests continue to veer in the direction they're veering, you could see some pretty serious repercussions, which is why Biden is speaking, which is why Chuck Schumer is speaking, trying to distance themselves from what the protesters are doing.”     Claiming his first-hand look at the protests disproved the idea that they are rampant with anti-Semitism, Brangham wondered, “I mean, Jonathan, a lot of the critics of these protests like to say that it's all anti-Semitism, just a hot stew of anti-Israeli bias. I was at one of the NYU protests earlier this week, and there is some of that, for sure. But it's mostly young people, as you were describing, who are despairing over what is happening in Gaza. How is it that people who care deeply about this issue can't — can somehow protest and not be risked being branded as anti-Semities?” Capehart began by correcting him, “So, there's anti-Semitism, but then you anti — you said anti-Israeli,” to which Brangham apologized, “I'm even conflating it myself here.” That settled, Capehart proceeded, “Exactly. And that is the issue. It is possible to criticize the government of Israel, the state of Israel, the prime minister of Israel, the policies, what he says, his actions, without veering into ugly anti-Semitism. If you don't like what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing in Gaza, not allowing enough humanitarian aid to go through, that is a legitimate criticism.” He then added, “But to then go into all the ugliness, some of the ugliness that we have heard, that's not okay. I don't understand how — why it's so hard to state your objections without being bigoted about it.” Perhaps we can help both Brangham and Capehart out. If you listen to what the leaders of the movement say, they talk about defeating Zionism which is simply the belief that Israel should exist. That is not criticism of Netanyahu and is an anti-Semitic position, according to President Barack Obama’s State Department. As your typical liberal, Capehart believes that there should be a ceasefire leading to two states for two peoples and that Netanyahu is an obstacle to this, but he and his fellow liberals keep projecting their liberalism onto Marxists and others who do not want such an outcome by refusing to acknowledge that the problem is with the group’s leaders and professors, not a handful of bad actors who corrupted a genuine anti-war, pro-peace movement.  Here is a transcript for the May 3 show: PBS NewsHour 5/3/2024 7:36 PM ET DAVID BROOKS: And, so I think if the protests continue to veer in the direction they're veering, you could see some pretty serious repercussions, which is why Biden is speaking, which is why Chuck Schumer is speaking, trying to distance themselves from what the protesters are doing. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I mean, Jonathan, a lot of the critics of these protests like to say that it's all anti-Semitism, just a hot stew of anti-Israeli bias. I was at one of the NYU protests earlier this week, and there is some of that, for sure. But it's mostly young people, as you were describing, who are despairing over what is happening in Gaza. How is it that people who care deeply about this issue can't — can somehow protest and not be risked being branded as anti-Semities? JONATHAN CAPEHART: Okay, what — excuse me. So, there's anti-Semitism, but then you anti — you said anti-Israeli. BRANGHAM: I'm even conflating it myself here. CAPHEART: Exactly. And that is the issue. It is possible to criticize the government of Israel, the state of Israel, the prime minister of Israel, the policies, what he says, his actions, without veering into ugly anti-Semitism. If you don't like what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing in Gaza, not allowing enough humanitarian aid to go through, that is a legitimate criticism. But to then go into all the ugliness, some of the ugliness that we have heard, that's not okay. I don't understand how — why it's so hard to state your objections without being bigoted about it.

Leftist Journos and Hollywood Celebs Trash Trump But Praise Pro-Hamas Protests

It’s an odd state of affairs when a former President of the United States is called a threat to the “bedrock tenets of democracy,” the “rule of law itself” and is compared to Adolf Hitler but pro-Hamas/anti-Semitic protestors are praised for “singing prayers of peace.” Yet that is where the leftist press and their Hollywood friends are right now. Yikes! This past month saw ABC’s Good Morning America co-host and This Week moderator George Stephanopoulos warning his audience that Donald Trump was testing the “bedrock tenets of our democracy” in a way “we haven’t seen since the Civil War.”  MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace feared she would be out of a job after a Trump victory because of his “outward disdain” for a “free press.” Meanwhile Wallace’s MSNBC colleague Joy Reid came out spinning for the pro-Hamas protestors who took over college campuses as she claimed they weren’t hurling anti-Semitic slurs but rather “singing words of peace.”  Over on CNN, podcaster Kara Swisher waved her finger at the critics of the college kids: “Not to support them, is sort of anti-American.” Hollywood celebrities spouted crazy exaggerations about Trump too. ABC’s Black-ish actress Jenifer Lewis feared that “Hitler” Trump “will punish everybody that didn’t vote for him,” put “us in camps.” While actress and talk show host Drew Barrymore begged Vice President Kamala Harris to be the “Momala of the country.” The following are the most obnoxious outbursts by leftist journalists and celebrities during the month of April:  [LANGUAGE WARNING]   Trump Is Testing the “Bedrock Tenets” of “Democracy”     “Until now, no American presidential race has been more defined on what’s happening in courtrooms than what is happening on the campaign trail. Until now. The scale of the abnormality is so staggering that it can actually become numbing. It’s all too easy to fall into reflective habits — to treat this as a normal campaign where both sides embrace the rule of law, where both sides are dedicated to a debate based on facts and the peaceful transfer of power. But that is not what’s happening this election year. Those bedrock tenets of our democracy are being tested in a way we haven’t seen since the Civil War. It’s a test for the candidates, for those of us in the media, and for all of us as citizens.”— Moderator George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week, April 28.   A Trump Win Could Lead to the End of a “Free Press,” and “The Rule of Law Itself” “Depending what happens in November — seven months from right now — this time next year, I might not be sitting here. There might not be a White House Correspondents Dinner or a free press. While our democracy won’t exactly fall apart immediately without it, the real threat looms larger. A candidate with outward disdain not just for a free press but for all of our freedoms and the rule of law itself.” — Host Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC’s Deadline: White House, April 29.   Protesters Aren’t Hurling Anti-Semitic Insults, They’re “Singing Words of Peace”     “I saw….these students singing and singing about peace and singing salaam, singing words of peace. So, it just didn’t square with what I was even hearing on television and television commentators saying was shrieking anti-Semitism, I didn’t hear it.”— Host Joy Reid on MSNBC’s The ReidOut, April 22.    “Anti-American” To Oppose Young Pro-Hamas Protesters “The question is, are you for order and against chaos, or for protests and the right to free speech?...All the free-speech warriors are suddenly like, order, order, we must have order. And so there are heinous things that are said, but there is a line where you have to support also young people, especially when they do things that they do badly. Not to support them, is sort of anti-American in a way.”— Podcast host/former New York Magazine contributing editor Kara Swisher on CNN’s The Chris Wallace Show, April 27.   Netanyahu = Stalin     “It is increasingly looking like Benjamin Netanyahu had a plan to force famine on the Palestinian people, on the Gazan people, to amp up the pressure on Hamas….You’re starving women and children in Gaza….They’re now having to grind up dog food and cat food and….drink salt water….It’s savage conditions, and it’s calculated….It’s calculated just like Stalin’s starvation of Ukrainians was calculated.”   — Co-host Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, April 5.    If You Vote for Trump, You Are Not a “Patriot” “There’s a patriotic duty to support President Biden against Donald Trump, for this reason: Patriotism is allegiance to an idea. It’s not just an allegiance to your own kind. That’s nationalism. Trump is a nationalist. President Biden is a patriot.”— MSNBC contributor/presidential historian Jon Meacham on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, April 19.   Fretting That Trump’s Trials May Hurt Biden      “These legal cases have only helped him fundraising….energized his base….He’s risen in the polls with every indictment….The problem for Joe Biden and the Democrats is….the trial is crowding out everything else. So Joe Biden goes out and does policy things….But everything else is crowded out….That’s what happened in 2016 to Hillary Clinton and that could be replicated this year.”— NBC chief foreign correspondent and MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell on NBC’s Meet the Press, April 21.   “Wonderfully Poetic!” Joy Reid Cheers “My DEIs” for Prosecuting Trump     “The first person to actually criminally prosecute Donald Trump is a black Harvard grad....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….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.”— Host Joy Reid on MSNBC’s The ReidOut, April 15.   Katie Couric’s Condescending Take on Trump Voters     “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.”— Former NBC Today co-host and CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric on HBO Real Time host Bill Maher’s podcast Club Random with Bill Maher, April 14.    Immediately Tying Trump to Man Who Set Himself on Fire “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.”— Correspondent Terry Moran during ABC’s live coverage of the Donald Trump trial, April 19.    Trump = Cult Leader Like David Koresh, Jim Jones or Charles Manson     “What Donald Trump is doing….it’s kind of David Koresh. It’s kind of Jim Jones. Because those two men started by saying, ‘You need to come to Jesus.’ They started as Christian evangelizers. But eventually, their evangelism said, ‘No, I get to have your wife. No actually, I get to tell you to kill these federal agents that are outside. I’m asking you to pick up a machine gun and shoot them because I don’t want to go to jail.’...It’s making me lose my mind to watch people who call themselves Christians fall down on their knees and worship this man. This is [Charles] Manson stuff.”— Co-host Joy Reid on MSNBC’s The ReidOut, April 2.    It’s a Conspiracy! Blaming High Gas Prices on Donald’s Oil Business Buddies  “These prices are not the fault of President Biden….We’ve got the highest oil production in U.S. history and some overseas oil producers who would sure like to help DJT.”— Host Stephanie Ruhle on MSNBC’s The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle, April 17.   NBC’s Brief Hiring of Former RNC Chair Was a Blow to “Democracy”     “It was an unpleasant few days at our network….In mainstream media, we need to include an array of voices. But there’s a line, and the line is truth….You have to be someone upholding our democracy.”— NBC’s Today show co-host Savannah Guthrie on CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, April 3.   America Ruled By a Bunch of “Grumpy Old Men” Like Afghanistan and Iran “[France] actually signed into law a constitutional amendment to guarantee a woman’s right to make choices about her own body….This was sort of a demonstration of will by….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 men shouldn't be making essential decisions.”— PBS/CNN host Christiane Amanpour on CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, April 11.    “Handmaid’s Tale Come to Life” in Arizona “People say it may sound like a joke….A lot of people are saying, unfortunately, it is not a joke. And that is where we’re going to begin today….The [Arizona] Supreme Court reinstating a law from the 1800s — 1800s — that bans nearly all abortion in the state….I’ve heard people use the phrases like “Is this Handmaid’s Tale come to life, in real life?’”— Co-host Gayle King on CBS Mornings, April 10.   Republicans Are Making Women’s Lives “More Miserable”      “[Mike] Pence, Lindsey Graham, and [Donald] 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.”— Co-host Joy Behar on ABC’s The View, April 9.   “Hitler” Trump “Will Punish Everybody That Didn’t Vote For Him,” Put “Us In Camps” “If that man [Donald Trump] gets in, as soon as he takes the oath, he will have generals walk down the steps of the Capitol….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 fucking world. You will bow down, bitches.’ He will punish everybody that didn’t vote for him….I know what mental illness looks like! That mania is unstoppable! See, this motherfucker is Hitler. He didn’t come to play….That motherfucker will have us in camps.” — ABC’s Black-ish actress Jenifer Lewis on the Sirius/XM radio show Mornings with Zerlina, April 4.   Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Are the “Father” and “Momala” of “Our Country”     “I keep thinking in my head that we all need a mom. I’ve been thinking that we really all need a tremendous hug in the world right now, but in our country, we need you to be Momala of the country.”— Actress/talk show host Drew Barrymore to Vice President Kamala Harris on the syndicated The Drew Barrymore Show, April 29.  “You’re the kind of leader I love, because we’re lucky to have you in the Oval Office. And serving as the father of the country because if you’re a good father to your family — which you are — I know you’ll be a good father to the country.” — Host Howard Stern to President Joe Biden on Sirius/XM’s The Howard Stern Show, April 26.    Trump Actually Benefiting From “Two-Tiered System of Justice”  “[Trump] is part of a two-tiered system of justice but not in the way he thinks he is. He is getting way more concessions than the average criminal defendant would get. He’s 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 that the justice system will provide to you if you can afford it.”— Musician/actor John Legend on MSNBC’s Inside with Jen Psaki, April 15. 

Sister Barbara's Gone Rogue! NPR Touts Nuns for 'Enshrining Abortion Rights' in Missouri

Leftists love to believe that churches should be run like clubs -- the majority rules. So they'll make a big deal out of polls, like the Pew Research Center finding six of ten Catholics disagree with the church's opposition to abortion. They do not ask self-identified Catholics whether they actually go to church on Sundays, or if they stopped the minute they became an adult. You would get a more conservative result. On Tuesday, NPR's newscast All Things Considered brought on reporter Katia Riddle to channel the views of pro-abortion Catholics, but what made it more shocking is touting a pro-abortion nun -- someone who is financially supported by the Church, and who should be accepting of all the Church teachings. KATIA RIDDLE: Today, Missouri is replete with Catholic churches, iconography and people like Sister Barbara. SISTER BARBARA: I certainly did not intend to, you know, become a sister or a nun. RIDDLE: She's standing outside her modest apartment, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. She grew up Catholic but wasn't all that religious. In her 20s, she describes a kind of love affair she fell into with Catholicism. SISTER BARBARA: An emphasis on serving the poor and getting involved in just, you know, the social justice issues of the day. And that was a whole new idea for me about what religious life was really about. Church officials might want to know who this nun is, and why she would publicly -- well, not all the way -- bite the hand that's feeding her. RIDDLE: NPR is not using Sister Barbara's last name. She fears retribution from her local archdiocese for publicly expressing her beliefs on reproductive rights. She doesn't agree with the church's position that abortion is a sin and should be illegal. SISTER BARBARA: I just don't see it in just real absolute terms. RIDDLE: She says she wouldn't personally choose to end a pregnancy. SISTER BARBARA: However, I have not been in the situation of a person who has - had suffered from incest or rape or all of those things. RIDDLE: The Bible, she points out, does not say anything explicit about abortion. She fell in love with Catholicism for its practice around compassion and service, not politics. SISTER BARBARA: I want to put a sticker on the car that says, don't like abortion? Don't have one. RIDDLE: That's why she's supporting an effort in Missouri to enshrine abortion rights in the state's Constitution. Several other nuns interviewed for this story said they feel the same. One was even collecting signatures to put the measure on the November ballot, though she didn't want to talk about it on the record. Over seven minutes, Riddle lined up the Catholic abortion advocates: ex-nun Alice Kitchen, retired reproductive endocrinologist Marilyn Richardson, Democrat state representative Ingrid Burnett, and college student Mary Helen Schaefer. The only surprise is a brief nod to Matt Lee, who runs a pro-life group called Missouri Stands with Women. He's a deacon in the church. RIDDLE: Lee says he's not surprised that many Catholics support abortion access. Some reproductive rights advocates say church leadership is scared of this diversity of opinion among its followers, but Lee disagrees. LEE: Could you say the Catholic Church is under attack or the church's beliefs are under attack or their institutions are? Sure, but that doesn't mean that the Catholic Church is scared. I mean, scared people tend to run away. The Catholic Church is not running away from this fight. Try not to laugh at NPR saying some other organization is scared of having a diversity of opinion inside its walls. Riddle concluded with the unsubtle hint that the Catholic hierarchy should be tethered to polls instead of their view of God's will: SISTER BARBARA: I think that the Catholic Church would not be here today if they didn't have a remarkable ability to turn corners when it's necessary - when things are about to collapse for it. RIDDLE: After all, she points out, Catholicism has been around for centuries. She's hoping this abortion debate is a relatively brief distraction from what she sees as the faith's fundamental aspirations. SISTER BARBARA: Reaching for some kind of ideals in the way we love and live with each other, with one another. RIDDLE: For Sister Barbara, one of those ideals would be for church leadership to value what a majority of Catholics believe.

NewsBusters Podcast: Biden Laughs at the New York Times Interview Request

President Biden and his team have been very reluctant to hold press conferences or grant interviews. He's much less accessible than other recent presidents. For the most part, the press doesn't care. But The New York Times put out a statement shortly before the White House Correspondents Dinner protesting how it was troubling that Biden has "so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term." What happened next? At the White House Correspondents Dinner, Biden JOKED about it, even suggesting The New York Times was inferior to the Howard Stern show in its influence. Mr. Butt Bongo Fiesta was a better forum. Journalists laughed along, underlining they have next to zero professional self-respect.  Washington Post media blogger Erik Wemple posted has a new piece on Friday headlined “The New York Times, alone in its outrage over access to Biden.” He noted the Times laid it all out for Biden:  For anyone who understands the role of the free press in a democracy, it should be troubling that President Biden has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term. The president occupies the most important office in our nation, and the press plays a vital role in providing insights into his thinking and worldview, allowing the public to assess his record and hold him to account. Mr. Biden has granted far fewer press conferences and sit-down interviews with independent journalists than virtually all of his predecessors. It is true that The Times has sought an on-the-record interview with Mr. Biden, as it has done with all presidents going back more than a century. If the president chooses not to sit down with The Times because he dislikes our independent coverage, that is his right, and we will continue to cover him fully and fairly either way. However, in meetings with Vice President Harris and other administration officials, the publisher of The Times focused instead on a higher principle: That systematically avoiding interviews and questions from major news organizations doesn’t just undermine an important norm, it also establishes a dangerous precedent that future presidents can use to avoid scrutiny and accountability. Times Publisher Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, according to the Times statement, has “repeatedly urged the White House to have the president sit down with The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, CNN and other major independent news organizations that millions of Americans rely on to understand their government.” It's not like Trump will act like Biden in a second term. As Wemple shows, with numbers from Martha Joynt Kumar, Trump had about three times as many pressers at this point in his presidency than Biden – 97 to 34. Same with interviews – 327 to 118. Trump will take on hostile interviews. Biden's talking to Stern, Drew Barrymore, and Ryan Seacrest.  Wemple wanted to point out the Times is standing alone with its outrage, without supporting words from other news organizations contending with Biden’s hard-to-get status. “I think this is a norm that matters,” said Sulzberger in a Tuesday interview with Wemple. “And all our experience shows that when norms like this erode, especially a norm as uncomfortable as the discipline of answering probing questions from independent journalists, they rarely return.” Wemple said he asked The Post, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today — as well as TV outlets that have interviewed the president (ABC News, NBC News/MSNBC, CBS News and CNN) — whether the situation merited a public statement along the lines of the Times’s. "Not a single outlet responded with an endorsement of the Times’s message," including Fox News. They're all holding out hope for an interview -- which can draw ratings.  Enjoy the podcast below -- or wherever you listen to podcasts.   

What Word the Media Refuses to Use For the College Riots: Insurrection

No one who's politically aware can be unaware of January 6, 2021. Tens of thousands of Americans descended on Washington to protest the counts and Covid-related conditions of the 2020 election. A riot took place at the US Capitol. The riot resulted in the charging, per ABC News three years later, of over 1,200 and “incarceration for more than 460 people.”  The coverage since then of that day in the mainstream media is typified by headlines like this from the New York Times:  Jan. 6 Panel Accuses Trump of Insurrection and Refers Him to Justice Dept. Or like this from Forbes:  Jan. 6 Insurrection 2 Years Later: How Many Arrested, Convicted And What Price Donald Trump May Still Pay The Washington Post has an ongoing section titled:  THE JAN. 6 INSURRECTION There’s more of this kind of thing out there. And that’s before you get to Democrats like Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden. Here’s NPR on Pelosi:  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Launches Select Committee To Probe Jan. 6 Insurrection And CNN on Biden:  The big lie being told by the former president, and many Republicans who fear his wrath, is that the insurrection in this country actually took place on Election Day. There’s more like this out there in the media, but you get the drift. When the subject of the riot at the Capitol on January 6th comes up, the “I word” is always nearby. So let’s take a moment to check the definition of “insurrection” and move on to the events of our current day and what is curiously missing in the coverage of these multiple upon multiple anti-Israel, anti-Semitic riots on one college or university campus after another. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “insurrection” as follows:“…an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government.” As of today, America is awash in multiple upon multiple “acts or instances revolting against civil authority” - the civil authority of one American college or university after another. And the mainstream media coverage is curious indeed.  Here’s a sample headline from the Washington Post:  Riot police and over 2,000 arrests: A look at 2 weeks of campus protests CNN headlined:  What we know about the protests erupting on college campuses across America The CNN story said:   New York CNN  —  College campuses across the United States have erupted with pro-Palestinian protests, and school administrators are trying — and largely failing — to defuse the situation. And on…and on and on…went the media coverage of these riots on multiple college campuses, the resulting arrests and financial damage. Good for them.  But the missing word in all this coverage? The missing word used routinely in the media and by progressive politicians to describe one solitary -- and admittedly decidedly wrong -- riot on January 6, 2021? That would be, of course, “insurrection.” All one has to do is turn on the television or start streaming current network coverage and there is decided violence on display. At Columbia University in New York the insurrectionists smashed windows and occupied the university’s Hamilton Hall. The Los Angeles Times headlined:  Nationwide, police make almost 2,000 arrests at college campuses since protests started All of which is to say that what’s happening collectively on some 70 college campuses across the country - riots, vandalism, violent clashes with police -is decidedly an insurrection against the “civil authority” and “governing” of those colleges and universities.  Yet mysteriously, silence on that fact from the media. Which in turn suggests that because the culprits of January 6 were Trump supporters the media says they were all about insurrection. But when the culprits of infinitely larger riots, replete with violence and attacks on police, involve far-left, anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas students and “outside agitators” - oh well, no big deal. If ever there were a naked example of how liberal media bias operates, there it is. Relentless coverage of “insurrection” for January 6th, (and in fact, no one was ever charged with the actual crime of “insurrection”) shrugging off massive campus unrest as just mere good ole American protests. The good news? Americans are on to the game.  And in the hierarchy of the liberal media’s friends in the Democratic Party, word seeps out about concern on how all of this reflects on President Biden and his re-election chances. As headlined here in the Financial Times:  Campus protests become a political liability for Joe Biden and Democrats Exactly. Which says just why the liberal media is not eager to exacerbate Biden’s problem by describing these events as an “insurrection.” Things are bad enough as they are.

Matt Walsh on Debunked Pro-DEI Studies: ‘The Fraud Is Officially Exposed’

The Daily Wire host Matt Walsh reported on the immense damage caused by a recently discredited report used by many corporations to justify discriminatory Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.  During the May 1 edition of The Matt Walsh Show, Walsh applauded UNC-Chapel Hill Professor of Accounting John R. M. Hand and Texas A&M Associate Professor of Accounting Jeremiah Green for their work exposing a series of studies by management consultancy firm McKinsey & Company that claimed to show the so-called benefits of DEI initiatives. "They simply lied and because they lied a lot of people in this country have lost job opportunities on the basis of characteristics that they can’t control,” Walsh said, referring to McKinsey and their debunked studies. “Many companies have become less efficient and now finally the fraud is officially exposed, thanks to the work of a couple of business school professors who were brave enough to do their jobs, which is extremely rare now in academia.”  In 2015, 2018, 2020 and 2023, McKinsey — where Transportation Secretary Pete ‘Racist Roads’ Buttigieg used to work — published several studies arguing for the financial benefits of DEI, which Walsh called “evil” during the podcast.  Despite McKinsey & Company’s claims, Hand and Green were unable to replicate McKinsey’s results. They wrote that “Despite the imprimatur given to McKinsey’s studies, they should not be relied on to support the view that US publicly traded firms can expect to deliver improved financial performance if they increase the racial/ethnic diversity of their executives.” What this DEI consulting firm lied about is actually evil: pic.twitter.com/MeGZTj02Ds — The Matt Walsh Show (@MattWalshShow) May 1, 2024 Earlier in the podcast, Walsh mentioned former Intel President Renée James and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban’s parroting of McKinsey’s propaganda. Walsh would go on to point out that the corporate world had been influenced by “bad data for nine years.” What this “bad data” promotes is racial discrimination. A report by Bloomberg News highlighted a disturbing trend in hiring throughout 2021. According to the media outlet, a mere 6% of jobs at major companies they analyzed went to white individuals in 2021. Simultaneously, white people made up 68.5% of layoffs at studied companies that shrank in 2021. Walsh mocked McKinsey’s silence in the face of this embarrassing revelation. “As of now, McKinsey hasn’t responded to this debunking, which tells you a lot, because if you have decades’ worth of research showing something and then some academics come along and they say that it’s all fraudulent, you’d think you would want to respond some way, but McKinsey hasn’t because of course all their research on this topic is fake.” Citing an American Conservative article, Walsh hammered the point that McKinsey shouldn’t be let off the hook for pushing discrimination. “What McKinsey pushed for was actually evil. It wasn’t some innocent lie,” he continued. “It wasn’t something where they had the best of intentions and it went wrong. It damaged the lives of a lot of people.” 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 the dangers of leftist DEI ideology infecting corporate America.

Austin Tex. Votes to Become ‘Sanctuary City’ For Transgender Minors

I think it may actually be time to "mess with Texas." The Austin City Council voted in favor of becoming a sanctuary city for transgender minors seeking “gender-affirming care” on Thursday. The city has plans to break Texas state law, which aims to protect kids against things like chemical castration, in order to mutilate innocent children to feed a delusion and push an agenda. In a vote of 10-1, the council passed a measure that will help it undermine state law by directing police to push any enforcement of the state's transgender child restrictions to their “lowest priority.” As noted in the resolution:  Except to the extent required by law, it is the policy of the City that no City personnel, funds, or resources shall be used to investigate, criminally prosecute, or impose administrative penalties upon: (1) a transgender or nonbinary individual for seeking healthcare, or (2) an individual or organization for providing or assisting with the provision of healthcare to a transgender or nonbinary individual; and further, the City shall not terminate or limit the eligibility for City funding, such as grants or contracts, to an individual or organization for seeking, providing, or assisting with the provision of healthcare to a transgender or nonbinary individual. Local news station KXAN said that the resolution would make sure that police aren’t “wasting their time” making sure kids aren’t getting mutilated and instead focus on other issues in the city. Numerous individuals gave testimonies both for and against the city’s push for skirting around the law. One included a de-transitioner who explained how she was adamantly against these “permanent” procedures. Related: South Carolina Senate Passes Ban on Transgender Treatments for Kids The woman, Aether Dixon, detailed the complications she faced after being coerced into starting transgender treatments as a teenager. After being on testosterone for just a few months, Dixon said she was diagnosed with a cardiovascular intolerance, “having constant issues with heart regulation and passing out.” While in agonizing pain, Dixon remembers asking herself why she was still unhappy even after following through with all the transgender procedures she could.  Now 21, Dixon said she is dealing with the complications of the treatments like “vaginal atrophy, extreme joint pain and discomfort from permanently changing my sex characteristics,” saying all of it is because she “identified and was affirmed in [her] trauma.” Dixon said she supports state laws restricting these kinds of procedures for children. “The legislation this item is against is not taking away rights or anatomy, it is regulating experimental medicine on children in a non-criminal way. Save every kid from the unnecessary hormone complication and lost body parts,” Dixon said, noting that kids need help and support to love themselves and their bodies, not procedures that will ruin them. Yesterday, I addressed #Austin City Council, sharing my journey as a queer and undocumented individual, advocating for agenda item #64: a #transgender protection resolution to combat #SB14.🏳️‍⚧️ It was a pivotal moment as I shed light on the mental health toll of homophobia and… pic.twitter.com/eiTtYagt4d — Christian Aguirre (@christianindc) May 3, 2024 A different woman, Michelle Evans, read a statement on behalf of state Representative Brian Harrison (R - Tex.) and said that the city of Austin shouldn’t be able to arbitrarily make up its own rules.  “Actions like the one being proposed today, if passed, make it abundantly clear that this council is unfit to manage the capital city of the greatest State in the country," Evans read. On the other hand, Christian Aguirre,  a “proud member of the LGBTQ community,” expressed his support of the resolution, claiming it would help people like him who grew up “queer and undocumented” and somehow prevent suicide...by mutilating kids before they're old enough to vote. Yesterday, I addressed #Austin City Council, sharing my journey as a queer and undocumented individual, advocating for agenda item #64: a #transgender protection resolution to combat #SB14.🏳️‍⚧️ It was a pivotal moment as I shed light on the mental health toll of homophobia and… pic.twitter.com/eiTtYagt4d — Christian Aguirre (@christianindc) May 3, 2024 Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a statement on Austin’s resolution on Thursday evening: If the City of Austin refuses to follow the law and protect children, my office will consider every possible response to ensure compliance. Texas municipalities do not have the authority to pick and choose which state laws they will or will not abide by. The people of Texas have spoken, and Austin City Council must listen. Time will tell what actions Paxton makes regarding the Austin City Council’s resolution. Hopefully everyone puts politics aside and considers what is actually helpful and what is harmful for these young, confused minors. Follow us on Twitter/X: Woke of The Weak: The Left Needs Therapy & You Might Too After Watching This The people featured in this video really need therapy & our prayers too. pic.twitter.com/zLbJcivOW3 — MRCTV (@mrctv) April 30, 2024  

ABC, CBS Play White House Pravda Fawning Over State Dinner for Teachers

Less than week after President Biden used his White House Correspondents Dinner (WHCD) speech to order the liberal media to get to work on behalf of democracy (aka his reelection campaign), ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS Mornings took this to heart with puff ball pieces Friday on a White House state dinner held to celebrate teachers. This was especially par for the course on ABC. Co-host Michael Strahan even had a tease at the top of the second hour: “From the classroom to the White House. The historic event for teachers who help others make their dreams come true. We got ready with the national teacher of the year.”     “Going to turn now to the White House, honoring America’s top teachers last night, including the national teacher of the year. Senior White House correspondent Selina Wang was there and ABC got an exclusive behind the scenes access,” he added moments later. Wang did her best impression of colleague and chief Biden apple polisher Mary Bruce: [T]he White House, for the first time, hosting a state dinner for teachers. Now, these are lavish events for heads of state, but this time, teachers got to experience the glitz and glam and we got that exclusive look behind the scenes. Overnight, the White House hosting the first ever teachers of the year state dinner. First Lady Dr. Jill Biden toasting honorees from nearly every state and territory. Following soundbites from Jill and Joe Biden, Wang touted ABC’s exclusive look at national teacher of the year Mindy Testerman — an ESOL teacher in Tennessee — getting ready and as she made her grand entrance where celebrities and politicians often pose for photos upon rival for state dinners. “Testerman hoping to use her platform to encourage other teachers to advocate for students,” Wang added, asking her inside the White House, “[w]hy is teaching so important?” “Teaching is so important because as this country moves forward, educators make every other single profession possible,” Testerman replied. Wang concluded with a line from Testerman’s speech, which sounded like it was crafted by the Democratic National Committee as she talked about preserving “democracy”: And guys, Missy Testerman said in her speech last night that teachers make democracy possible by educating the next generation. And, look, the learning goes both ways. She told me that her students have taught her courage, calling them her heroes[.] Having been the ones to reveal both Testerman as the award recipient and there would be a state dinner for all state and national teachers, CBS Mornings was ebullient and made sure viewers knew it. “For the first time ever, America’s top teachers were invited to a special dinner at the White House to honor their work. First Lady Jill Biden hosted last night’s event, upgrading the usual White House reception for state and national teachers of the year,” fill-in co-host Jericka Duncan began, tossing to chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes. Cordes made sure to twice name-check the show (click “expand”): [V]ery glitzy. You might recall that the First Lady revealed right here on CBS Mornings last month that she was going to host a state dinner for the nation’s top teachers. And so, last night, the educators traded in their school clothes for gowns and suits as they were each announced individually at the event. Now, this is a big deal since White House state dinners are typically reserved for visiting heads of state, prime ministers, the Hollywood elite. It’s the toughest ticket in town. But this space, take a look, may look familiar. Missy Testerman joined CBS Mornings last month when we revealed that she was named the 2024 national teacher of the year. The English as a Second Language program director at Rogersville City School in Tennessee has been teaching for more than three decades. She was celebrated last night.  Like a Biden press secretary, Cordes added “[t]he nation’s top educators received an inspirational message from the First Lady, who has also been teaching for more than 30 years” and “thanked them for everything they do to change the world.” It grew even more pathetic and partisan when she complimented the President’s message: “Her other half, President Biden, also stopped by to honor the teachers. He told them, ‘you are the kite strings that hold our national ambitions aloft.’ Very poetic, guys. Maybe he has a teacher in the house.” Or, a speechwriter, but whatever. To see the relevant transcripts from May 3, click here (for ABC) and here (for CBS).

Hostin: You Can’t Send Police to Bust Camps, Kids Had ‘Fire Drills!’

On Friday’s edition of The View, ABC’s staunchly racist and anti-Semitic co-host, Sunny Hostin (the descendant of slave owners) decried that administrators and states sent the police in to bust many of the illegal, anti-Semitic/pro-Hamas encampments on college campuses across the country. According to her, it was unconscionable for the police to break up the encampments because the students “grew up” doing “fire drills” in school. Hostin, completely ignoring the fact that the students she was backing employed Nazi-style tactics against the Jews on campus (including taking a Jewish student hostage), whined that “anti-protesters that have coming in and caused violence to these encampments.” “Let's not forget that part of the story,” she bitterly declared as moderator Joy Behar shot back with: “You know what, there are a lot of parts to the story.” The shrill rambling continued with Hostin bizarrely proclaiming that the police should have considered the fact that the students had participated in “fire drills” before busting the encampment: Can I just also say this? Let's also remember that these kids that are protesting are kids that grew up with active fire drills and for them to be subjected to the type of police violence that we are seeing on the nightly news is something also something to recall.     It’s unclear what Hostin meant by this and she didn’t offer any further explanation as to why “fire drills” would make her fellow anti-Semites exempt from following the law. Co-host Sara Haines pushed back and noted that the encampments were harming other students through actions, not speech. “But there are students that can’t cross campus. The antithesis of freedom of speech is threatening someone, they have to say something you believe to cross the campus,” she told Hostin off. Interestingly, Behar, Haines, and co-host Ana Navarro actually called out the encampments for being funded by shady dark money groups. “You know, can I just say one thing? Somebody is behind that with money! I’m sorry. Who bought those tents, for example?” Behar exclaimed. “There are two Palestinian rights groups that are actually – until we end Israel we will not stop. There are two agitating groups that are problematic,” Haines explained. Meanwhile, Navarro noted that “professional protest consultant” Lisa Fithian had been spotted at the Columbia encampment. “But there is actually video footage that I've seen here in New York and Columbia of a woman I guess is like a protest consultant. A professional protester or something like that appears in the video in Columbia,” she noted. “She basically has shown up in many protests that have occurred, and she knows how to make them more effective.” They got into talking about the encampment - a topic they largely avoided most of the week - because visuals of lawless campuses were hurting Biden in the polls. “Do they not remember the visuals on January 6?! Do they not remember those visuals of chaos?!” an unhinged Hostin shouted. “January 6th is ingrained in my memory and should be ingrained in every single person's memory in the United States of America!” The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View May 3, 2024 11:07:59 a.m. Eastern (…) SUNNY HOSTIN: Do they not remember the visuals on January 6?! Do they not remember those visuals of chaos?! SARA HAINES: I think visuals – literally humans look at the recent visions so nightly image right now matters more to them than January 6. HOSTIN: January 6th is ingrained in my memory and should be ingrained in every single person's memory in the United States of America! [Applause] ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: It should be but while they’re completely different, a lot of the imagery looks similar. And it was you're going to see Republicans seeing windows being smashed, things being defaced on college campuses and it evokes that same sense of lawlessness. HAINES: And the President had to speak to it. FARAH GRIFFIN: It was wise of Biden to get out and give a – JOY BEHAR: You know, can I just say one thing? Somebody is behind that with money! I’m sorry. Who bought those tents, for example? FARAH GRIFFIN: Oh, definitely. There's agitators who have infiltrated it for sure. [Crosstalk] HAINES: There are two Palestinian rights groups that are actually – until we end Israel we will not stop. There are two agitating groups that are a problematic. ANA NAVARRO: But there is actually video footage that I've seen here in New York and Columbia of a woman I guess is like a protest consultant. A professional protester or something like that appears in the video in Columbia – [Crosstalk] No, she basically has shown up in many protests that have occurred, and she knows how to make them more effective. She knows how to -- HOSTIN: But there are also anti-protesters that have coming in and caused violence to these encampments. Let's not forget that part of the story. That part – BEHAR: You know what, there are a lot of parts to the story. HAINES: Yeah. HOSTIN: Can I just also say this? Let's also remember that these kids that are protesting are kids that grew up with active fire drills and for them to be subjected to the type of police violence that we are seeing on the nightly news is something also something to recall. HAINES: But there are students that can’t cross campus. The antithesis of freedom of speech is threatening someone, they have to say something you believe to cross the campus. BEHAR: Okay, back to the vice president. (…)

'It's F****** Scary,' De Niro Compares Trump To Hitler On MSNBC

For some reason, MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle decided to interview actor Robert De Niro on the Thursday edition of The 11th Hour. On multiple occasions, De Niro would compare Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler and himself and his compatriots to Jews in Nazi Germany, claiming “it's [bleep] scary.” Ruhle wondered, “What do you say to those who say, ‘I don't like the guy, but I'm going to vote for him.’ What's your message to them?” De Niro claimed that “I don't understand it. I don't think they understand how dangerous it will be if he ever, God forbid, becomes president.”       He further claimed, “I don't think they really understand and historically, from what I see, even in Nazi Germany, they had it with Hitler. They don't take him seriously. He looks like a clown, acts like a clown, Mussolini, same thing. These guys, I don’t know why they look like clowns, they somehow, people, that element of society identifies in some ways with them, but it would be chaos beyond our imagination. There's no mystery about him. He’s right out front and what he says is what it will be if he becomes president.” Ruhle’s underwhelming response was to ask, “Do you think our democracy is at risk in this election?” After comparing Trump to Hitler and Mussolini, De Niro naturally thought it is, “The guy’s a monster, is beyond wrong. It’s almost like he wants to do the most horrible things that he can think of in order to get a rise out of us. I don't know what it is, but he has been doing it and doing it and it's [bleep] scary. Excuse my French.” Still playing along, Ruhle inquired, “Do you have any concerns for the future of the arts if he were to become president? He already said he wants to go after his enemies, he wants to go after journalists and the news media. What about your industry?” De Niro took a while to get to his answer before ultimately replying that there could be “civil strife because, yeah, but he will try it.” Ruhle then wondered about other celebrities, “What do you say to other celebrities who don't want to alienate part of their fan base, don't want to step in harm’s way, but they have similar megaphones that you do?” Returning to the Nazi analogy, De Niro agreed that “other people are going to have to stand up” because otherwise America is going to end up in a Hitlerian dystopia: Because it's either that or you’re going to find yourself in a situation that is so terrifying. We always hear about people from Eastern Europe. The Jews from other than parts of Eastern Europe, from Western Europe coming over. Look what happened in France and with the Nazis and so on. And they come over, and you hear these and when I was a kid, they would say ‘you don't really appreciate this country. You don't really. Well, we know from experience.’ De Niro further added, “I run into people who are close to my age, who are from Eastern Europe, European countries or even Nazi Germany and, you know, they, you understand it.” Of all the times to compare being a liberal in Trump’s America to being a Jew in Nazi Germany, the one that involves Jews being told by hard core leftists to go back to Poland is probably not the best one. Here is a transcript for the May 2 show: MSNBC The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle 5/2/2024 11:47 PM ET STEPHANIE RUHLE: What do you say to those who say "I don't like the guy, but I'm going to vote for him." What's your message to them? ROBERT DE NIRO: I don't understand it. I don't think they understand how dangerous it will be if he ever, God forbid, becomes president. I don't think they really understand and historically, from what I see, even in Nazi Germany, they had it with Hitler. They don't take him seriously. He looks like a clown, acts like a clown, Mussolini, same thing. These guys, I don’t know why they look like clowns, they somehow, people, that element of society identifies in some ways with them, but it would be chaos beyond our imagination. There's no mystery about him. He’s right out front and what he says is what it will be if he becomes president. RUHLE: Do you think our democracy is at risk in this election? DE NIRO: I think that it is. I always keep saying, democracy is great, of course, but democracy people take for granted. It is a word some people don't even understand. They take it for granted. It’s about right and wrong, period. The guy’s a monster, is beyond wrong. It’s almost like he wants to do the most horrible things that he can think of in order to get a rise out of us. I don't know what it is, but he has been doing it and doing it and it's [bleep] scary. Excuse my French. RUHLE:  Do you have any concerns for the future of the arts if he were to become president? He already said he wants to go after his enemies, he wants to go after journalists and the news media.  DE NIRO: Yes. RUHLE: What about your industry? DE NIRO: I believe he —   the only thing I can think is what will happen is that he’ll go after these things like he always —   impulsively and he’ll be stopped. There’ll be pushback, a lot of it, and there might be as much pushback as needed, like, in the streets. Conflict, that could happen. Civil strife because, yeah, but he will try it. RUHLE: You have no upside in having this conversation. In speaking out against Donald Trump. You are making yourself a target. The interview will air and he will immediately find a reason to talk bad about you in public. DE NIRO: Yeah. RUHLE: — but you’re choosing to use your platform to do so. What do you say to other celebrities who don't want to alienate part of their fan base, don't want to step in harm’s way, but they have similar megaphones that you do? DE NIRO: You know, the idea, to be bullied at my age by someone like this, is not happening. RUHLE: I’m pretty sure you were never bullied. DE NIRO: No, there was a kid sometime, but the point is not—and for the country, no, and I think other people are going to have to stand up and just—because it's either that or you’re going to find yourself in a situation that is so terrifying. We always hear about people from Eastern Europe. The Jews from other than parts of Eastern Europe, from Western Europe coming over. Look what happened in France and with the Nazis and so on. And they come over, and you hear these and when I was a kid, they would say “you don't really appreciate this country. You don't really. Well, we know from experience.” Imagine what those people went through. I'm just starting to see it. You know, as a kid, I said “Hitler, it’s a nightmare. That never would happen.” But now I see that it is possible and with those people, and sometimes I run into people who are close to my age, who are from Eastern Europe, European countries or even Nazi Germany and, you know, they, you understand it.

MRC VP Dan Schneider Reveals Which Corporations Are ‘Worst Among Al’ Reshaping America

MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider and podcast host Lou Dobbs discussed just how anti-American U.S. corporations and the Biden administration have become. The pair discussed the massive power that government and big corporations have amassed while each have also become more woke. “When you look at the centers of power in our society, it’s the federal government and corporate America,” said Dobbs on the Wednesday installment of his podcast, The Great America Show. Dobbs seemed to agree with Schneider's criticism of Big Tech companies as some of the worst corporations during the interview. “For so long the idea of for-profit corporations, conservatives saw corporations as allies as a good thing. And it used to be that these corporate CEOs usually were kind of right of center and pro-freedom, and that’s no longer the case,” Schneider lamented. “Now these big corporations are controlled by the left, and those resources are being used to attack the idea of America, the very founding principles of our democracy.” He added that “worst among all of them, of course, are the Big Tech platforms.” The Great America Show 5/1/24 - Corporate Power Threatens Freedom https://t.co/Kq5h0mKsnV — Lou Dobbs (@LouDobbs) May 1, 2024 Schneider went on to give examples of MRC Free Speech America’s recent studies on Google and Facebook’s election interference over the last 16 years. He noted Google has interfered in U.S. elections no fewer than 41 times during that period, burying the campaign websites of every Biden opponent this election cycle alone. Similar censorship that Google conducted in 2020 suppressed at least 6 million votes. Not to be left out, Facebook interfered in elections 39 times over the past 16 years, according to a recent MRC study. Schneider added that corporate censorship is not even the most disturbing form of curtailing the First Amendment. Rather, government collusion with Big Tech to censor Americans is alive and well as became clear during the Supreme Court-heard arguments for Netchoice v. Paxton and Netchoice v. Moody.  “Joe Biden, and his administration, just a month ago in the Supreme Court, was arguing that the government and Big Tech both have First Amendment free speech rights to censor Americans who disagree with the president,” he said. “I am not making this up. Joe Biden’s argument is that government has the right to control our speech.” The Netchoice cases challenge Florida and Texas’s free speech laws, which would limit Big Tech’s ability to censor users based on viewpoint discrimination as a publisher might. They would, however, keep liability protections that shield platforms from being sued for the speech of their users. During oral arguments, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar claimed that the laws violated Big Tech’s freedom of speech. “Congress specifically recognized the platforms are creating a speech product. They are literally, factually publishers, and Congress wanted to grant them immunity,” she alleged. “[Liability protection]  was for the purpose of encouraging this kind of editorial discretion.” 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.

Leguizamo Bashes 'Insidious' Univision For Lacking Hostility In Trump Interview

Actor, alleged comedian, and massive narcissist John Leguizamo stopped by CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Thursday to hype his MSNBC miniseries about “Latinx lenses all across America.” Before that, however, Leguizamo blasted Univision for not bashing Donald Trump all the time and that, as a result, he trumpeted that he will no longer be appearing on the network. Colbert recalled that, “You also wrote this in the Los Angeles Times recently, this was in November. You wrote this opinion piece there. It says, ‘Cozying up to Trump, Univision is betraying its Spanish-speaking viewers.’ How so?”     It is hard to see how any network that employs Jorge Ramos could be considered soft on Trump, but Leguizamo tried, “Well, it's kind of insidious because Spanish-speaking only Latinos watch Univision and that's where they get all their news and information and so, you should be impartial. You should be non-partisan. And they're not. It's problematic to me.” Even Colbert suggested he wasn’t buying what Leguizamo was selling, “Are they right-wing in some way?” Leguizamo tried to claim that they were “I've spoken off the record with some of the newscasters and they said that they were leaning -- they were pushing them right way and they had Trump on and they softballed the whole questions. They wouldn't allow Biden commercials on and then they didn't have Biden on for a long, long time and so I had to call them out on it. I called them out and their marketing people called me back.” The interview with Biden wasn’t exactly hardball, but being a little bit to the right of the far-left does not make an outlet a right-wing network, but after Colbert asked what they said in response, Leguizamo proudly declared that the interview resulted in him banning himself from their airwaves, “They said 'it's not true. You know, we are not really -- we are doing everything we can to be nonpartisan,' but 'I'm like, yo, how are you doing all these things that are not -- that are leaning very MAGA? So, you need to be non-partial. Otherwise, I'm going to call you out again.' So I won't be on Univision. I won't be.” Earlier, Colbert and Leguizamo were discussing the latter’s time as temp host of The Daily Show in 2023. It should be noted that a NewsBusters study found that Leguizamo was the most partisan of the show's 2023 temp hosts which included former Democratic officials Al Franken and Kal Penn. Only one of his 66 political jokes targeted the left and that one was attacking Univision's Enrique Acevedo for the interview in November in a show co-hosted by Jordan Klepper and Desi Lydic from the left after his initial stint in March. During his time as host, Leguizamo played racial politics, delighted in Trump getting indicted, and accused Republicans of stealing elections. This year, he mauled a piñata while cursing the fact that polls show Latinos ignoring his political wisdom. Later, Colbert brought up the MSNBC miniseries, “What do you want to explore with the show? Like, what's it about?” The supposed champion Latinos and nonpartisanship in the news media teased, “I’m looking at Latinx lenses all across America and I find it an embarrassment of riches.” Ah, yes, the nonpartisan “Latinx.” Here is a transcript for the May 2-taped show: CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert 5/3/2024 12:07 AM ET STEPHEN COLBERT: You also wrote this in the Los Angeles Times recently, this was in November. You wrote this opinion piece there. It says "Cozying up to Trump, Univision is betraying its Spanish-speaking viewers." How so? JOHN LEGUIZAMO: Well, it's kind of insidious because Spanish-speaking only Latinos watch Univision and that's where they get all their news and information and so, you should be impartial. You should be non-partisan. And they're not. It's problematic to me. COLBERT: Are they right-wing in some way? LEGUIZAMO: I've spoken off the record with some of the newscasters and they said that they were leaning -- they were pushing them right way and they had Trump on and they softballed the whole questions. They wouldn't allow Biden commercials on and then they didn't have Biden on for a long, long time and so I had to call them out on it. I called them out and their marketing people called me back. COLBERT: What did they say? Like did they-- LEGUIZAMO: They said “it's not true. You know, we are not really -- we are doing everything we can to be nonpartisan,” but I'm like, “I'm like, yo, how are you doing all these things that are not -- that are leaning very MAGA? So, you need to be non-partial. Otherwise, I'm going to call you out again.” So I won't be on Univision. I won't be. They have the highest rated Spanish-language shows, so I won't be on [speaks Spanish]. … COLBERT: What do you want to explore with the show? Like, what's it about? LEGUIZAMO: I’m looking at Latinx lenses all across America and I find it an embarrassment of riches. You know, we are in every city in America. We've been here since, at least 1492, and before that and you know, from Mississippi to the Pacific was all Mexico until 1840, so we’re everywhere and doing incredible things. I’m meeting politicians, grassroots organizers, chefs who are James Beard nominees and winners. I'm eating the best freaking food you've ever had and gaining pounds and I don’t give a—”

Editor’s Pick: Washington Times Covers DISTURBING Move by BlackRock in China

Our friends at The Washington Times had a front-page story for Thursday’s print edition that showed, once again, The Times has in-depth reporting the rest of the print media wouldn’t dare to touch. This time, national security correspondent Bill Gertz highlighted a report that infamous Wall Street firm BlackRock “is investing millions of dollars in an estimated 30 Chinese military-linked companies sanctioned by the U.S. government”. The report, which came courtesy of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, also revealed BlackRock — a company known for backing woke “environmental, social and governance” (ESG) policies under boss Larry Fink — “has invested in companies working on China’s large-scale nuclear weapons buildup.” Despite its woke pedigree, Gertz said BlackRock specifically has given “nearly $50 million” to “Chinese companies sanctioned under the 2022 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act”. Here was more from Gertz’s disturbing story: “China’s political leadership wants to redirect capital to emerging technologies with military application in preparation for a potential war with the United States,” the report said. “Beijing also wants to continue its campaign of oppression against the Uyghurs and other minority groups in northwestern China.” Noting that BlackRock has said it does not do business with companies in China producing nuclear arms, the report concludes: “The reality is that BlackRock holds stock in Chinese companies pursuing an aggressive buildup of nuclear warheads meant to hold United States territory at risk.” (....) The report singled out MSCI Inc., a leading provider of support tools for global investors known as indexes, for its role in BlackRock’s investments in banned military-linked companies in China. Christopher Berger, a spokesman for BlackRock, which reports managing $10 trillion in assets, had no immediate comment on the report. MSCI officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. (....) BlackRock became the first global asset manager allowed to operate a wholly owned mutual fund business in China in 2021. Chief Executive Larry Fink was among the senior American business leaders who reportedly paid $40,000 for a seat at a dinner table with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to California in November. The company said on its website that one of its principles is “we are committed to a better future.”      (....) The report identified MSCI as BlackRock’s main index provider, with more than $15 trillion in assets. “As MSCI’s most important customer and second largest shareholder, BlackRock could demand the exclusion of Chinese military companies and human rights violators from its indexes,” the report said. “Instead, BlackRock fails to acknowledge that its exposure to U.S.-sanctioned entities is a problem, claiming that it ‘complies with all applicable U.S. government laws.’” To read Gertz’s full story, click here.

South Carolina Senate Passes Ban on Transgender Treatments for Minors

On Thursday, the South Carolina Senate approved a ban on transgender procedures and surgeries for minors.  The Help Not Harm bill (H4624) passed by a 27-8 vote which included all South Carolina Republicans and one Democrat who voted in favor of the ban.  If passed, the ban will make it so that healthcare professionals will not be allowed to perform gender surgeries, prescribe puberty blockers or provide hormone treatments for minors who identify as transgender. Additionally, if a child presents as a gender that differs from their biological sex or uses a name that isn’t their legal name, school principals would be required to notify parents or guardians. In response to the verdict, both those for and those against the bill took to X to comment. Executive Director for the American Civil Liberties Union in South Carolina posted a video where he was on the brink of tears over the news since it “hit him hard.” “Folks who want to hurt transgender kids and transgender people, they’d get their way,” he said, “I’m heartbroken.” Our leader Jace is the first (and so far only) transgender Executive Director in the 100+ year history of the nationwide ACLU. The passage of the bill to ban healthcare for transgender kids is hitting him hard. Here's his message. pic.twitter.com/OUghdW4xVF — ACLU of South Carolina (@ACLU_SC) May 2, 2024 One user tagged the South Carolina governorand wrote “for every beautiful transgender child in South Carolina who suffers despair, depression, or harms themselves — it’s on you and your complete lack of empathy and decency.” On the other hand, the group called Palmetto Family wrote that they are “thankful to God that children in the Palmetto State will soon be protected” and one user said it was a “huge win for kids.” Another wrote, “'Gender-affirming care' has never been evidence-based. It is purely activist driven and research shows that it is indeed causing harm. The legislature is following the evidence and protecting vulnerable children.” The bill needs to go back to the House for review after the Senate amended some elements. If it passes there, it will go to Governor Henry McMaster’s (R - S.C.) desk to be signed into law.

Three Years of the Corporate Media Shrieking About the ‘End of Democracy’

In speeches throughout his time in office (and in particular starting with the 2022 midterms), President Biden has warned a second Trump term would herald the “end of democracy.” But if anything, Biden is late to the party. The corporate media were doomsaying about democracy’s brutal demise as far back as early 2021, and their rhetoric has only grown more absurd since then.     The most obvious issue with this dire warning, other than its absurd overuse by journalists loyal to liberals, is that it always entails an almost comically vague, ever-changing definition of “democracy.” For three years, washed-up security analysts have warned that, unless former President Trump goes to prison for his alleged role in January 6, democracy is dead. But that trend started as far back as even January of 2021, when MSNBC contributor and former Watergates prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks pontificated: “It is the end of democracy if we do not take and hold the President accountable for what he inspired.” By that point, the DNC operatives in the news media had already branded Republicans the anti-democracy party. On October 12 of 2021, CNN contributor and former Clinton aide Paul Begala warned that, if Democrats ever lost power again, democracy would be over forever: I’ve got a piece coming out tonight or tomorrow [about this] on cnn.com — shameless plug — and I really don’t think this is hysterical. I’m a pretty moderate guy. If the Democrats fail, it might be the end of American democracy. In December of 2022, MSNBC host Ali Velshi remarked while filling in on The Last Word that Moore v. Harper — a gerrymandering case concerning the North Carolina redistricting map — “could be the end of democracy if it goes the wrong way.” Velshi was far from alone in his assessment. In October of that same year, the ACLU put out a podcast episode about Moore titled, “This Supreme Court Case Could Upend Democracy.” In June 2023, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell agreed enthusiastically with Mount Holyoke College president-elect Danielle Holley when she remarked that the Dobbs decision was “a case that could end democracy.” A few weeks later, the Los Angeles Times published an opinion piece titled, “How the end of Roe turned into a threat to American democracy.” Do these ideologues really think any of these events will result in the mass-disenfranchisement of millions of Americans? Presumably not, but then what is their definition of democracy? The truth, as most have probably realized, is that “democracy” is simply a stand-in term for the DNC agenda. The Republican-favored North Carolina congressional map threatened “democracy” because it would’ve made it harder for the Democrats to win seats in that state. The overturning of Roe v. Wade also threatens “democracy” because it strips abortion, a sacred calf of the Democratic Party, of its constitutional body armor. But a Trump presidency would be most dangerous of all for “democracy” since a Republican in the White House would threaten all of the “progress” the Democratic Party has made over the last three and a half years.

NPR: Columbia Agitators' Call for 'Intifada' Just an 'Anti-Israel Slogan'?

Taxpayer-supported National Public Radio has picked sides in the Israel-Hamas war, supporting the students/terrorist supporters camping on the quads of progressive colleges campuses. This is how NPR’s Up First newsletter (a summary of what NPR considers the must-know stories of the day) on Wednesday morning described the illegal occupation by pro-Hamas agitators at Columbia University: NPR's Brian Mann tells Up First that Columbia students were shocked, dismayed, and stunned by the overwhelming force used by police. Columbia spokesman Ben Chang said in a press conference that protesters were frightening other students. Mann adds that despite this, there’s been a lot of community support for these encampments. Lena Whitney, a City College graduate who witnessed the police action last night, told NPR, “These students are putting their lives at risk; they’re putting their jobs, their diplomas at risk because they’re fighting for something bigger -- the right to life for Palestinians.” One would have to dig up the online transcript of Mann’s report, which aired first on Wednesday’s Morning Edition --“NYC police used force to clear a pro-Palestinian student encampment at Columbia” -- to confirm the campus disruptors at Columbia heard on the report's background tape were in fact chanting “intifada,” support for the killing of Jews. A Martinez, Host: ….Across the country, the pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University is gone this morning, and the campus building that protesters had seized is empty. Police forced their way into the building and arrested and zip-tied the hands of dozens of students who began their demonstration two weeks ago…. NPR’s reporter Mann committed bias by omission, reporting only that “Hundreds of students were defiant at first, A. They were chanting anti-Israel slogans and calling for divestment from doing business with Israel.” Calling for Israel’s destruction via “intifada” -- which Mann didn’t even acknowledge directly -- isn’t just an “anti-Israel slogan” and certainly isn’t a mere call for divestment. It calls up memories of the Second Intifada and the suicide bombers who murdered hundreds of Israeli civilians on buses and in cafes. Unidentified Protester: (Chanting) Intifada, intifada. Unidentified Protesters: (Chanting) Intifada, intifada. Unidentified Protester: (Chanting) Long live the intifada. Unidentified Protesters: (Chanting) Long live the intifada. Still, NPR stuck up for the terrorist supporters and their (illegal) occupation of a campus building. Mann: At one point, A, a student appeared on top of Hamilton Hall. That's the building they occupied Monday night. That student waved a Palestinian flag. But then around 9:30 p.m. last night, a huge number of NYPD officers in riot gear charged the campus. And the student crowd fell back. They were clearly frightened. The NYPD used a massive armored vehicle to push a bridge into a window of Hamilton Hall…. Martinez: Wow, what a scene. How did students react to all this? Mann: Yeah, with shock and dismay. I spoke to one student who was stunned by the overwhelming force. She wouldn't give her name because she fears reprisal by Columbia University. Unidentified Student: Myself and many other students have just felt horror seeing the swiftness with which the NYPD came and deploy themselves onto our campus. Mann ran a bite from a Columbia spokesman who said protesters had “created a threatening environment for many, including our Jewish students and faculty.” Still, the reporter located “a lot of community support” for the agitators, including the bystander Up First found interesting. Mann: You know, many politicians in New York City, including bipartisan members of Congress have condemned these protests, describing them as unlawful and antisemitic. That's a charge many students reject. There's also been a lot of community support for these encampments. NPR spoke last night with Leena Widdi, who watched this police action. She's a graduate of City College. Leena Widdi: Students are putting their lives at risk. They're putting their jobs, their diplomas at risk 'cause they know that they're fighting for something bigger, which is the right to life for Palestinians.

Meyers Claims Columbia Should've Rejected Police, Surrendered Instead

NBC Late Night host Seth Meyers used his Thursday show to condemn Columbia for using the police to clear the illegal encampments and building occupations instead of surrendering to the campers like Brown University. At the same time, Meyers ignored what the leaders of the movement say about Zionism and continued to pretend that they are simply critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On the police sweep, Meyers ranted, “As a New Yorker, I just wanna say, I really appreciate knowing this is where my tax dollars are going, using drones to round up co-eds rather than say keeping librarians open, building affordable housing, or making sure the F Train isn't a total piece of [bleep].” After a digression about the F Train’s lack of punctuality, Meyers got back on track by sarcastically remarking, “So, the NYPD responded with advanced technology and unprecedented force to a college protest. Columbia and New York City officials said they were left with no choice. And I mean, let's face it. It's not like they had any alternatives. Unfortunately, there's just no other way for a college to deal with a protest like this.”     He then played a clip of CNN’s Jim Sciutto reporting that Brown reached an agreement with the demonstrators to “hold a vote on divestment from Israel later this year.” Meyers thought Columbia also should’ve caved to the lawlessness and inflammatory demands, “But, what about our drones? If there's a peaceful settlement, what are we going to do with all our drones? I know. Maybe instead of taking the F train, the drones could fly us to work.” Later, Meyers introduced a clip of Sen. Bernie Sanders by lamenting the demonstrators’ message has been lost, “I would hope that there's maybe one thing we can all agree on. No matter how you feel about the protesters, we should spend less time arguing about college kids and more time focusing on what the protests are about. A point Senator Bernie Sanders made on Wednesday.” In the clip, Sanders suggested, “CNN and maybe some of my colleagues here, maybe take your cameras just for a moment off of Columbia and off of UCLA. Maybe go to Gaza and take your camera and show us the emaciated children who are dying of malnutrition because of Netanyahu's policies.” Meyers agreed, “He's right. The story is what's happening in Gaza. That's what the protests are about… As we said on this show before, the misery and devastation in Gaza is horrifying. It must end. At the same time, it's important to be clear. Anti-Semitism is vile, must be rejected in all its forms. Anti-Semitic harassment has no place anywhere, including on a college campus. And the constitutional right to protest, the actions of any government should be protected. And Jewish students should feel safe at school. All of these things can and should be true at once. To quote my favorite college professor, that just seems to me like—” The sentence was concluded by My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell at a Donald Trump rally, saying “bucket of common sense.” Meyers wants to separate the protestors message from the ant-Semitism, but he can’t. The leaders of these movements are not simply Netanyahu critics who are a bunch of naïve peaceniks who think a ceasefire will bring peace, they are radicals who think Zionism is a form of racism and therefore Israel needs to be destroyed, which is a form of anti-Semitism. They say this on tape and on their signs, but Meyers and Sanders chose to ignore it despite the fact that the people they are defending would consider both of them as guilty as Netanyahu for simply believing Israel should continue to exist. Here is a transcript for the May 2-taped show: NBC Late Night with Seth Meyers 5/3/2024 12:46 AM ET SETH MEYERS: As a New Yorker, I just wanna say, I really appreciate knowing this is where my tax dollars are going, using drones to round up co-eds rather than say keeping librarians open, or building affordable housing, or making sure the F Train isn't a total piece of [bleep]. I like the delays. It gives me a chance to do the Wordle. There's even a new special F train Wordle where the words are twice as long.  The other day my train was trapped for 50 minutes between stocks because Pizza Rat was on the tracks and all the other rats wanted a photo. There were even two tourist rats from Germany. You could tell from their lederhosen. Oh, my god, I fought -- I fought so hard to get that in and it was such a dud.  So, the NYPD responded with advanced technology and unprecedented force to a college protest. Columbia and New York City officials said they were left with no choice. And I mean, let's face it. It's not like they had any alternatives. Unfortunately, there's just no other way for a college to deal with a protest like this. JIM SCIUTTO: We also have news just out of Brown University, which has come to agreement with protesters there. The university says it will hold a vote on divestment from Israel later this year. That is ending investments in Israel. It's a key demand from students. Students have said that in response to that, well, they will disband the encampment by 5:00 P.M. Eastern today. MEYERS: But, what about our drones? If there's a peaceful settlement, what are we going to do with all our drones? I know. Maybe instead of taking the F train, the drones could fly us to work … MEYERS: I would hope that there's maybe one thing we can all agree on. No matter how you feel about the protesters, we should spend less time arguing about college kids and more time focusing on what the protests are about. A point Senator Bernie Sanders made on Wednesday. BERNIE SANDERS: Well I suggest to CNN and maybe some of my colleagues here, maybe take your cameras just for a moment off of Columbia and off of UCLA. Maybe go to Gaza and take your camera and show us the emaciated children who are dying of malnutrition because of Netanyahu's policies. MEYERS: He's right. The story is what's happening in Gaza. That's what the protests are about.  And always I will say, I love Bernie's delivery. Really helps him drive home the point he's making. He's like a grandpa reminding everyone to stop texting during dinner. [BERNIE SANDERS IMPRESSION] "Maybe take your eyes off your phones. And make eye contact at the table. In my day there was no such thing as a gif. When we were surprised, we just did this. And then if somebody missed, you would just loop it and do it again."  [NORMAL VOICE] As we said on this show before, the misery and devastation in Gaza is horrifying. It must end. At the same time, it's important to be clear. Anti-Semitism is vile, must be rejected in all its forms. Anti-Semitic harassment has no place anywhere, including on a college campus. And the constitutional right to protest, the actions of any government should be protected. And Jewish students should feel safe at school. All of these things can and should be true at once. To quote my favorite college professor, that just seems to me like MIKE LINDELL: Bucket of common sense. 

Column: The Public Doesn't Trust the 'Democracy-Saving' Media

The national media consider themselves essential in educating the electorate, so what happens when the electorate does not consider them a trustworthy guardian of democracy? The Associated Press and the American Press Institute just released a poll on the 2024 election and found only 14 percent of their sample expressed a great deal of confidence in election-related information they receive from national sources. By contrast, 52 percent have little or no confidence at all in the information they receive from national news organizations About half of Americans, 53 percent, say they are extremely or very concerned that news organizations will report inaccuracies or misinformation during the election. It's 83 percent if you count the middle option of "somewhat concerned." That has to hurt, since the media elites say “misinformation” is what other people offer. When faced with poll after poll showing the media are not trusted, their failure to accept these results underlines the persistent lack of trust. AP media reporter David Bauder turned to American Press Institute chief Michael Bolden, who said “Years of suspicion about journalists, much of it sown by politicians, is partly responsible, he said. People are also less familiar with how journalism works.” Let’s be uncharitable for a minute. Reporters have sown “years of suspicion about politicians.” That’s how investigating politician performance could be described. So why would investigating journalist performance draw complaints of “sowing years of suspicion”? Why can they never be evaluated for how they serve the public? Respect cannot merely be demanded. It should be earned. Mr. Bolden is implying that politicians have swindled the public, which paints the public as – how did The Washington Post put it? – “poor, uneducated, and easy to command.” Then he lobbed another insult, that people aren’t familiar with “how journalism works.” Maybe these elitists should consider that news consumers might want a mostly factual, somewhat objective product instead of hyperbolic editorializing that tells them what they should think. Obviously, the Republican half of the public isn’t going to support Democrat electioneering badly disguised as “news.” Since they refuse to consider any bowing to objectivity, they have to dismiss any demand for it as ignorance of “how journalism works.” Bolden weirdly claimed this may be because most people don’t have a journalist who “lived on their block.” Since journalists won’t meet you at the summer picnic or the Trick or Treat greetings, media outlets need to tell the public “what journalists do and how people reporting news are their friends and neighbors.” This sounds remarkably similarly to what NPR CEO Katherine Maher recently said to The Wall Street Journal as she dismissed bias complaints as a “distraction.” Maher said, “We want to be able to speak to folks as though they were our neighbors and speak to folks as though they were our friends.” Curiously, they don’t want to talk to Republicans like they’re neighbors and friends. Remember short-lived CNN CEO Chris Licht meeting with Republicans trying to say trust us, “we don’t bite.” That turned out to be (a) untrue and (b) fatal to his CNN career. Brian Stelter channeled the national media arrogance under Trump after Licht was dumped: “We were advocating for the truth, advocating for reality. Others felt that was left-leaning.” When you think reality has a liberal bias, you shouldn’t be shocked when a lot of people change the channel. 

PBS’s Amanpour Celebrates ‘Heart of the Pro-Palestinian Campus Peace Movement’

On Monday’s Amanpour & Co., which runs on PBS and CNN International, host Christiane Amanpour took the side of the pro-Hamas campus protesters who are spewing anti-Jewish rhetoric on “progressive” college campuses nationwide -- no surprise given her long-standing journalistic hostility toward Israel. Against all evidence she insisted that the campus occupiers were “mostly nonviolent” idealists and that concerns had been blown “out of proportion.” Occupying private property is illegal, hence police may be called. Amanpour: Now, a major development sparked by this war is a growing protest and peace movement on college campuses across the United States. Though mostly nonviolent, several schools have called in local police and National Guard troops….the epicenter of all of this is Columbia University, where today, with negotiations between students and the administration at an impasse, the university called on protesters to clear their encampment or face suspension. Amanpour invited on a student journalist, introduced in the show opener like this: "Isabella Ramirez editor in chief of the Columbia Daily Spectator, reports from the heart of the pro-Palestinian campus peace movement." Ugh.   To her credit, she asked her about “student-on-student verbal harassment that has been cited as very damaging and uncomfortable and frightening by some of the Jewish students.” Ramirez replied her paper had “compiled pretty extensive reports regarding this, most particularly when in the aftermath of one of our campus rabbis telling Jewish students, hundreds of Jewish students to leave campus, to not stay because of the environment," including "particularly violent signage that was used to refer to actually Hamas...." But Amanpour then made the college administration the aggressors for calling on the local police to dissolve the disruptive and threatening takeover of the campus. Amanpour complained Columbia's president Minouche Shafik had been "hauled before" Congress to answer to anti-semitism on campus.  Amanpour:  I'm just fascinated to know what you think and how you're writing about the very targeted political situation that's layered upon all of this. Because after that, Shafik, did, as we've been talking, call in the NYPD to break up the protest. Now, it's interesting that the chief of the NYPD patrol on the U.S. said the students who were arrested were peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner. And your newspaper wrote in an editorial, history has made clear who stood on the wrong side then. And it's clear that this is the side you are aligning yourself with now…. Ramirez replied with a laundry list of past protest movements at Columbia, then said her paper's editorial board was trying to warn the college president about her legacy if the wake of “the forceful removal of students from campus and also this crackdown on student protests.” Amanpour: And as we continue to chat, you know, we've seen on other universities, including Emory, it caused a huge ruckus, what happened on Emory, when a teacher -- a professor was essentially manhandled. Other teachers tried to help, faculty members, student, I think it was the police and the state guard or whatever they call them. It was a very rough situation over the weekend in Atlanta…. Ramirez turned understandable concerns about anti-Semitic rhetoric and “scholarship” by Columbia professors into a free speech issue (this after years of liberal academics calling out “micro-aggressions” against campus minorities). She said, "there has been this really big question as to whether the university has done enough to kind of protect academic freedom." Amanpour relayed the views of left-wing students and faculty, which seemingly morphed into her own view of the situation, that concerns about the campus encampments were being blown “out of proportion,” while inviting Ramirez to criticize mainstream media coverage of the protests, as if they were all too conservative. Amanpour: ….a lot of the faculty and some of the students have criticized the way we, the press, have covered these protests, some call it a peace movement. It's not even, you know -- it's not meant to be violence, it's meant to be nonviolent. And obviously, social media is blowing it out of proportion. You're watching it from the inside. Do you have a comment on the way the national press has been covering it? Ramirez demurred, and talked only about how the students can cover it because they live right there on campus. A transcript is available, click “Expand.” PBS Amanpour & Co. 4/30/24 1:48:55 a.m. (ET) CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Now, a major development sparked by this war is a growing protest and peace movement on college campuses across the United States. Though mostly nonviolent, several schools have called in local police and National Guard troops. Today in Paris, French police entered the Sorbonne University campus to remove students occupying the main square. Now, the epicenter of all of this is Columbia University, where today, with negotiations between students and the administration at an impasse, the university called on protesters to clear their encampment or face suspension. Some of the most valuable reporting on all this comes from inside the student newspaper, the Columbia Daily Spectator. Editor in Chief Isabella Ramirez. Joins us from New York. Isabella Ramirez, welcome to the program. And, you know, I can't tell you how much we've read about what an excellent job you are doing and your, you know, student newspaper, your on campus journalist. What can you tell us is the latest right now as we sit here talking? ISABELLA RAMIREZ, EDITOR IN CHIEF, COLUMBIA DAILY SPECTATOR: Today is going to be a very significant day in terms of our developments. This morning, our president, Minouche Shafik, sent out an e-mail effectively saying that negotiations failed to reach an agreement. And it, for the first time, outlined very explicitly that Columbia will not divest from Israel, which is the central demand of the protesters. As well as, in that e-mail, it laid out, what, the university actually brought to the table to those negotiators, to those student negotiators and included a series of very interesting things, including offering a list of financial transparency of direct holdings of the university that is -- would be accessible to students and updating that list. It also offered to potentially invest in health and education in Gaza, as well as create an expedited process for divestment proposals. And those were all the things that essentially those students would have rejected because it did not fulfill what their central demands would be. And one of the interesting things as well is that that e-mail did not include anything about amnesty for the students, which has also been a very big thing for the arrested and suspended students. And so, now, the university has been handling out notices to those students at the encampment at this moment warning of disciplinary action, and they have until 2:00 p.m. today to potentially clear out if not to face, again, disciplinary action. And at the same time that this is happening, we're hearing word from the encampment, they made an announcement essentially saying that they have voted to stay. AMANPOUR: Wow. RAMIREZ: So, the students currently have voted to stay past 2:00 p.m. and face those suspensions. And just to add one more thing, the suspensions are actually even more severe than previous. The previous suspended students who were suspended simultaneous to the first wave of arrests that happened, you know, on April 18th, those students were allowed to stay on campus, at least in the residential spaces. This interim suspension says they would have no access to any campus buildings, including residences, dorms, dining, et cetera, IDs completely deactivated, which would effectively evict a lot of those students or at least leave them without access to the residence halls and other important buildings. So, the consequences are now much more severe. AMANPOUR: So, it seems, honestly, Isabella, that it's a real standoff that there seems to be, you know, little peace building or bridge building between either side and both sides, administration and students are really holding the toughest positions right now. I don't know whether you see any way forward, but what I want to ask you is, you know, you're watching this, you're talking to people on campus, you also see the ruckus that's being created outside the campus. Can you tel us what is the real picture? What -- is it dangerous, violent on campus? Is that off campus? What are you seeing as journalists from inside? RAMIREZ: So, at the very beginning stages, there were -- there was a lot of activity in terms of protest activity, both outside of our campus on campus. To be frank, that off campus protest activity has held quite a bit. It has calmed down. That is where a lot of people were sort of citing a lot more tension in terms of when it came to, you know, certain chance or certain incidents that were arising from those outside protests. But predominantly for right now, the encampment has sort of remained the same. And there's been very few updates sort of on the day to day. That's why today is actually quite a big day. But, you know, I was just at the encampment pretty recently distributing our newspaper and really, when you walk on and you see it, it's students sort of laying on the lawn, you know, chatting, reading books, getting water, getting food. It's a really interesting environment because we are certain that there are a lot of students who have reported feeling uncomfortable, have reported feeling unsafe by the presence of the encampment. But also, when you walk onto it, there isn't like active protests necessarily occurring on the encampment itself, it's mostly just the state of occupying that space and kind of being on that space, and there being kind of a series of other activities often but very little in terms of tangible protest. There is going to be probably more escalation we can anticipate as a result of the university's crackdown. And that's sort of why we saw, in the first place, some of those outside protests come in and also some of the students themselves start to galvanize in terms of upping their protest activity was because or was in response to the arrests and also university crackdown. But for these past few days where everything hs been at sort of a -- the negotiations have stalled, it has been pretty, you know, regular in terms of just the students laying on the lawns and, you know, kind of doing their day-to-day activity and programming, sometimes even tuning in to class from the lawn. AMANPOUR: Isabella, did you see, or were you able to hear the kind of, you know, student on student verbal harassment that has been cited as very damaging and uncomfortable and frightening by some of the Jewish students? RAMIREZ: Yes, we have compiled pretty extensive reports regarding this, most particularly when in the aftermath of one of our campus rabbis telling Jewish students, hundreds of Jewish students to not -- to leave campus, to not stay because of the environment. We, in that report, were able to compile a series of incidents that had happened. I believe on the Saturday following the arrests, much were related to off campus protest somewhere on campus that involved certain rhetoric, some of which was evocative of the Holocaust, telling students to go back to Poland, go back to Europe. And there were also other particularly violent signage that was used to refer to actually Hamas and that was one singular protest, that was a protester that was holding that sign and referring to the pro-Israel protesters behind them. And so, we have seen those incidents, and for sure, it has come up quite a lot in the dialogue when it comes to Shafik's communication to the community and all communication we've been receiving from the administration has been very strongly condemning the particular incidents that have arisen from this. Now, is that to say that that represents the entirety of the protesters at the encampment or all of the sort of different moving pieces? I think that is, of course, probably too wide sweeping, but there have certainly been these incidents that should draw concern for our community in half. AMANPOUR: So, let's go back. There's so much politics as well. You just mentioned the president, Minouche Shafik, who is new, let's face it. She started at the beginning of this academic year and has been hauled, like the others, in front of the special committee in Congress. I want to play a little bit of what happened on April 17th as you guys were -- well, not you, but the campus protesters were building the encampment. This is an exchange between Shafik and the GOP Representative Lisa McClain. REP. LISA MCCLAIN (R-MI): Are mobs shouting, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free or, long live the intifada. Are those antisemitic comments? MINOUCHE SHAFIK, PRESIDENT, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: When I hear those terms, I find them very upsetting. And I have heard -- MCCLAIN: That's a great answer to a question I didn't ask. Is that fall under definition of antisemitic behavior? Yes or no? Why is it so tough? SHAFIK: Because it's a difficult issue. MCCLAIN: Maybe I should ask your task force. Does that qualify as antisemitic behavior, those statements? Yes or no? Yes. OK. Do you agree with your task force? SHAFIK: Yes, we agree. The question is what to do about it? MCCLAIN: So, yes. So, the -- so, yes, you do -- AMANPOUR: So, I'm just fascinated to know what you think and how you're writing about the very targeted political situation that's layered upon all of this. Because after that, Shafik, did, as we've been talking, call in the NYPD to break up the protest. Now, it's interesting that the chief of the NYPD patrol on the U.S. said the students who were arrested were peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner. And your newspaper wrote in an editorial, history has made clear who stood on the wrong side then. And it's clear that this is the side you are aligning yourself with now. This will be your legacy. Are you -- were you addressing the president and the administration? RAMIREZ: Yes. So actually, our editorial board, I do not serve on, but it represents a sector of our opinion team who is very talented and has been working very hard on, you know, kind of reflecting discourse in a different way, because I oversee both the opinion and the newsroom. But that was -- that piece in particular was addressing Shafik herself. It was attempting to say, Shafik, take a look at what your legacy looks like right now to the public, to your students, to the administration. And I think a lot of it is inspired as well by what we know from previous protests at Columbia, 1968, Vietnam, antiwar, South African apartheid, these are all huge moments in Columbia's history in which those presidents also have been looked upon for the decisions that they made at that time. And now, when we reflect on it now, there is, of course, a lot of disdain and criticism for those decisions. So, I believe what the editorial board was really trying to get out here is, you know, really warning President Shafik as to what your legacy will entail if it means, you know, the forceful removal of students from campus and also this crackdown on student protests. Now, of course, there are many differing opinions here, but that was the opinion reflected by our editorial board in terms of what the majority voted for. AMANPOUR: And as we continue to chat, you know, we've seen on other universities, including Emory, it caused a huge ruckus, what happened on Emory, when a teacher -- a professor was essentially manhandled. Other teachers tried to help, faculty members, student, you know, the -- I think it was the police and the state guard or whatever they call them. It was a very rough situation over the weekend in Atlanta. But I guess what I want to ask you, because Columbia is known around the world for, you know, it's history of student protests, but most importantly, it's very enviable and distinguished Middle East program. You have a very important Middle East studies on Arab and Palestinian studies. You have very, very important Jewish studies program. What do you think happened? Why can't people talk to each other? RAMIREZ: I think part of it is that there is -- encircling all of this, encircling the protest activity is there's a big conversation about academic freedom at Columbia and sort of what are the limits of that, but as well as has the university done enough to protect those -- the academic freedom of the professors on our campus. And we saw that as well in the congressional hearing. Congress went very, very hard on Columbia for, naming multiple faculty members by name, most of whom came from the department regarding statements that they had made, scholarship, and other things that they have taught in their classrooms as, of course, labeling them antisemitic and unsafe. And so, there has been this really big question as to whether the university has done enough to kind of protect academic freedom in the first place to allow that discourse to even happen. And so, I think, you know, in terms of agree, like our tradition here at Columbia of both our Middle Eastern Studies Department, but also our immense connections too, we have the Jewish Theological Seminary, we have a -- controversial, but we have a relationship through a program with Tel Aviv University. We have these very deep-seated ties to this issue in particular Edward Said, many scholars who are considered foundational in Israeli and Palestinian issues. And so, a big question here has, though, been, what is academic freedom, what is the university's role in protecting it, and has Columbia, in this time frame, under political pressures, under student pressures, has it done enough to protect that and allow that discourse to occur on its campus? AMANPOUR: And briefly, we got just a little bit left. You know, a lot of the faculty and some of the students have criticized the way we, the press, have covered these protests, some call it a peace movement. It's not even, you know -- it's not meant to be violence, it's meant to be nonviolent. And obviously, social media is blowing it out of proportion. You're watching it from the inside. Do you have a comment on the way the national press has been covering it?

REGIME MEDIA: ABC Keeps Pushing ‘Bloodbath Hoax’ In Trump Smear

ABC World News Tonight, far and away the most fervent propagator of Biden talking points, farted out an embarrassment of a report that served little purpose other than to attempt to rekindle January 6th fearmongering and rehash the broadly-debunked “Bloodbath Hoax”. Watch the aforementioned report in its entirety, as aired on ABC World News Tonight on Thursday, May 2nd, 2024 (click “expand” to view full transcript): DAVID MUIR: Meantime, in the race for The White House, Donald Trump refusing to commit now to accepting the results of the upcoming November election, and President Biden tonight saying, "Take Donald Trump at his word" on this. Here's Mary Bruce. MARY BRUCE: Tonight, the Biden campaign is calling Donald Trump “a danger to the Constitution and a threat to our democracy”, after the former president refused to say he would accept the results of the election. Trump telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “If everything's honest, I'd gladly accept the results… If it's not, you have to fight for the right of the country.” BRUCE: Tonight, President Biden saying, take Trump at his word. Our Karen Travers asking him: KAREN TRAVERS: Are you worried that Trump says he won't accept the election results? BIDEN: Listen to what he says! BRUCE: Earlier this week, when Trump was asked by Time magazine if he's concerned about violence if he doesn't win, he said, "If we don't win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election."  Biden has been ramping up his warnings. BIDEN: He promises quote,” a bloodbath”, if he loses. This guy denies January 6th. Listen. Listen to what he says. Because you know he means it. BRUCE: The president urging voters to take this seriously, as some of Trump's language echoes what he said in the runup to the January 6th attack on the Capitol. The Biden campaign concerned that Trump supporters may be listening closely. David. MUIR: Mary Bruce, live at The White House tonight. Mary, thank you. Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce rehashes the usual January 6th hysteria, by citing portions of an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wherein Trump hedges when asked if he’d accept the results of the election should he lose. Bruce takes the opportunity to tie this to Trump’s Time  interview, and feed it to Biden as an election-denial burger.  It is at this point that Bruce allows Biden’s utterance of the Bloodbath Hoax to go unchallenged and uncorrected. As we said when ABC World News Tonight, with Bruce behind the anchor desk, first furthered the Bloodbath Hoax: …to accept the idea that people who are the elite in the industry of communicating with words are suddenly unable to comprehend plain English requires multiple significant suspensions of disbelief. That’s not to say that some of these elites are not intellectually deficient. But not to this extent. Which leaves willful deception as the only likely reason why reporters, correspondents and anchors would, in near unanimity continue to promote Trump’s assessment of damage to the American automotive industry under a second Biden term as both a violent threat and a January 6th-adjacent attack against democracy. Bruce closes out tonight’s report by contemptibly suggesting, without evidence, that Trump’s rhetoric echoes what he said in the runup to January 6th and echoing the Biden campaign’s talking point that “Trump supporters may be listening closely”.  The title “Regime Media” is well-earned.  

CBS’s Nancy Cordes Frets Campus Protests Might Hurt Biden

CBS Senior White House Correspondent Nancy Cordes went into full “Protect the Precious” mode as she covered the political fallout from the radical and often violent protests at various elite college campuses across the nation. Watch as Cordes laments that “the unrest is now threatening to become an election issue” affecting President Biden with the youth vote: PROTESTERS: Palestine will be free! NANCY CORDES: Like many protesters, President Biden has expressed concern about the plight of Palestinian civilians. More than 34,000 killed, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. But when asked today if he would change his policies towards Israel, as the protesters have been demanding, Biden said, simply: JOE BIDEN: No. CORDES: The unrest is now threatening to become an election issue. Young people are a key Democratic voting bloc. SELINA AL-SHIHABI: Biden needs to listen to what the students are calling for, which is an end to a genocide funded by the United States. So, first things first, stop funding Israel. It is a small wonder that Cordes didn’t utter “Michigan” at some point in the report. You know she must’ve thought it. This item serves as a reminder that there is only one true, pure victim of whatever the calamity of the day might be- and that is the electoral prospects of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.  The report plays more like a mashup of two different reports: first, a recap of the happenings at the different universities across the nation, with their varying degrees of protest and crackdown. On the other hand, there is the standard D.C. wrapup.  In addition to the lamentation over the youth vote, the report unquestioningly cites Hamas Health casualty figures, and attempts to compensate for Biden’s perceived misfortunes by taking a “without evidence” shot at former President Donald Trump, who at a rally suggested that there were paid foreign agitators: Laying down this marker for when it is discovered that at least ONE (1) foreign-born student and/or outside agitator was paid by some radical oligarch-funded organization. pic.twitter.com/kR0GYRjIU0 — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) May 3, 2024 Cordes’ shootdown of Trump’s statement so early into the protest fallout is arrogant to the point of recklessness. All it takes is ONE paid foreign student/agitator in order to make Cordes look like a total fool. The report closes with a casual “by the way” observation- that the Biden administration is thinking about bringing in some Gazan refugees to be reunited with family stateside. Again, Cordes managed to bite her tongue and not utter “Michigan”. Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on the CBS Evening News on Thursday, May 2nd, 2024: JAMES BROWN: And we begin tonight with President Biden's sharp criticism today of the violence that has broken out in protest on America's college campuses over the Israel-Hamas war. In recent weeks, nearly 2,000 people have been detained or arrested at dozens of schools. There were more protests today at Portland State, George Washington University, the University of Pennsylvania, and NYU. Speaking at the White House today, President Biden made his most extensive comments to date on the protests, condemning anti-semitic slurs, vandalism, trespassing, and major disruptions to classes and graduations at some universities. New York City Mayor Eric Adams says nearly half of those arrested earlier this week at Columbia University and nearby City College were not students at those schools. Adams claims outside agitators are radicalizing students. CBS's Nancy Cordes leads off our coverage tonight from The White House. NANCY CORDES: White House officials say it was the sheer number of violent encounters on college campuses over the past two days that prompted President Biden to speak out. JOE BIDEN: There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos. CORDES: His comments came in the wake of nearly 2,000 arrests. More than 30 colleges and universities. POLICE: Start clearing the barricade. CORDES: Just today, protesters were ejected from a library at Portland State University that they had occupied for three days. Inside, police say they found ball bearings, paint balloons, spray bottles of ink, and DIY armor. BIDEN: Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations. None of this is a peaceful protest. PROTESTERS: Palestine will be free! CORDES: Like many protesters, President Biden has expressed concern about the plight of Palestinian civilians. More than 34,000 killed, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. But when asked today if he would change his policies towards Israel, as the protesters have been demanding, Biden said, simply: BIDEN: No. CORDES: The unrest is now threatening to become an election issue. Young people are a key Democratic voting bloc. SELINA AL-SHIHABI: Biden needs to listen to what the students are calling for, which is an end to a genocide funded by the United States. So, first things first, stop funding Israel. CORDES: In battleground Wisconsin, Donald Trump argued Biden should have spoken out sooner. DONALD TRUMP: There’s a big fever in our country and he’s not talking. CORDES: But Trump also made this unfounded claim about campus demonstrators. TRUMP: They do come from other countries, and they are paid.  CORDES: Some Republicans have urged President Biden to send in the National Guard to quell campus protests, but he said no to that today. CBS News was first to report that the Biden administration is now considering bringing some Palestinians from war-torn Gaza to the U.S. as refugees. JB. BROWN: Nancy, thank you very much.  

Why Biden’s Just Wrong: NO ONE ‘Knows How to Make Government Work.’

President Joe Biden says, “I know how to make government work!” You’d think he’d know. He’s worked in government for 51 years. But the truth is, no one can make government work. Biden hasn’t. Look at the chaos at the border, our military’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, the rising cost of living, our unsustainable record-high debt ... In my new video, economist Ed Stringham argues that no government can ever work well, because “even the best person can’t implement change. ... The massive bureaucracy gets bigger and slower.” I learned that as a consumer reporter watching bureaucrats regulate business. Their rules usually made life worse for consumers. Yet politicians want government to do more! Remember the unveiling of Obamacare’s website? Millions tried to sign up. The first day, only six got it to work. Vice President Joe Biden made excuses: “Neither (Obama) and I are technology geeks.” Stringham points out, “If they can’t design a basic simple website, how are they going to manage half the economy?” While bureaucrats struggled with the Obamacare site, the private sector successfully created Uber and Lyft, platforms like iCloud, apps like Waze, smartwatches, etc. The private sector creates things that work because it has to. If businesses don’t serve customers well, they go out of business. But government is a monopoly. It never goes out of business. With no competition, there’s less pressure to improve. Often good people join government. Some work as hard as workers in the private sector. But not for long. Because the bureaucracy’s incentives kill initiative. If a government worker works hard, he might get a small raise. But he sits near others who earn the same pay and, thanks to archaic civil service rules, are unlikely to get fired even if they’re late, lazy or stupid. Over time, that’s demoralizing. Eventually government workers conclude, “Why try?” In the private sector, workers must strive to make things better. If they don’t, competitors will, and you might lose your job. Governments never go out of business. “Companies can only stay in business if they always keep their customer happy,” Stringham points out. “Competition pushes us to be better. Government has no competition.” I push back. “Politicians say, ‘Voters can vote us out.’” “With a free market,” Stringham replies, “The consumer votes every single day with the dollar. Under politics, we have to wait four years.” It’s another reason why, over time, government never works as well as the private sector. Year after year, the Pentagon fails audits. If a private company repeatedly does that, they get shut down. But government never gets shut down. A Pentagon spokeswoman makes excuses: “We’re working on improving our process. We certainly are learning each time.” They don’t learn much. They still fail audits. “It’s like we’re living in Groundhog Day,” Stringham jokes. When Covid hit, politicians handed out almost $2 trillion in “rescue” funds. The Government Accountability Office says more than $100 billion were stolen. “One woman bought a Bentley,” laughs Stringham. “A father and son bought a luxury home.” At least Biden noticed the fraud. He announced, “We’re going to make you pay back what you stole! No. They will not. Biden’s Fraud Enforcement Task Force has recovered only 1% of what was stolen. Even without fraud, government makes money vanish. I’ve reported on my town’s $2 million toilet in a park. When I confronted the parks commissioner, he said, “$2 million was a bargain! Today it would cost $3 million.” That’s government work. More recently, Biden proudly announced that government would create “500,000 (EV) charging stations.” After two years, they’ve built ... seven. Not 7,000. Just seven. Over the same time, greedy, profit-seeking Amazon built 17,000. “Privatize!” says Stringham. “Whenever we think something’s important, question whether government should do it.” In Britain, government-owned Jaguar lost money year after year. Only when Britain sold the company to private investors did Jaguar start turning a profit selling cars people actually like. When Sweden sold Absolut Vodka, the company increased its profits sixfold. It’s ridiculous for Biden to say, “I know how to make government work.” No one does. Next week, this column takes on Donald Trump’s promise: “We’ll drain the Washington swamp!”

Fla. Heartbeat Act Goes Into Effect: Pro-Lifers Rejoice, Pro-Aborts Cry

The Florida Heartbeat Protection Act went into effect on Wednesday in the 'Sunshine State,' protecting babies with detectable heartbeats from the brutal effects of abortion. Both individuals in support and those in opposition uttered their feelings regarding the new law going into effect. The Act makes it so that babies at around six-weeks gestation, when heartbeats are generally detectable, cannot be aborted. According to Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, it has the potential to protect roughly 50,000 lives annually. The law, however, does leave exceptions for cases where a mother’s life is at risk, when a fatal prenatal diagnosis occurs, and in cases of rape, incest or human trafficking. In response to the news, many pro-life individuals and groups celebrated the potential this has to save lives. “The Florida Heartbeat Act took effect today! That means preborn children are protected after 6 weeks gestation!” Catholic professor Michael New wrote on his X account linking to data from the Charlotte Lozier Institute about the 160 pregnancy centers in Florida who can serve more women, like the 88,000-plus they served in 2022, now that the heartbeat law is in effect. “While not perfect, the Heartbeat Protection Act will nonetheless now SAVE tens of thousands of unborn children’s lives annually here in the Sunshine State!” Florida Voice for the Unborn wrote and linked to a verse in Psalms about rejoicing in what the Lord has done. On the contrary, pro-aborts were mad that babies would be saved. “As of this morning, 4 million women in this state woke up with fewer reproductive freedoms than they had last night,” Vice President Kamala Harris said at an appearance in Jacksonville, Florida on Wednesday. One user wrote, “The law is barbaric. Like the man who signed it,” in response to a woman who wrote that “today marks the day, my daughter has less rights than the day she was born.” “Florida’s abortion ban will have a catastrophic impact on abortion access across the Southeast. As this years-long crisis continues to unfold and confusion mounts, abortion funds continue to show up and show out for their communities,” The National Network of Abortion Funds wrote with a graphic that read “F**K ABORTION BANS.” Obviously, with new laws not everyone is going to get their way, but all I can say is that babies get to live and nobody should be against that.

As Police Bust Pro-Hamas UCLA Camp, CBS Hints Students Will Be Killed

Thursday’s CBS Mornings was live on the scene as California Highway Patrol was busting the anti-Semitic/pro-Hamas encampment at UCLA. But from the get-go, the network seemed intent on hinting that at any moment police would turn their guns on the students and UCLA would become the next Kent State massacre. Before they even started the show, their opening tease (teed up by co-anchor Nate Burleson) highlighted a student who claimed, without evidence, that the university wanted them dead: BURLESON: Breaking overnight, police swarm demonstrators at UCLA a day after their encampment was attacked by counter-protesters. PRO-HAMAS PROTESTER: The aggression that we faced shows that the university has no choice to just stand by and wait for us to get killed by Zionist aggressors. Seemingly ill-prepared to go to their live shots of correspondent Carter Evans, who at the scene, the network sloppily had their in-studio fill-in anchors try to report on what they were seeing live. Vladimir Duthiers noted: “Police fired what appear to be nonlethal rounds at some of the protesters. That was the pop, pop, pop that you just heard there.” His tone turned to what seemed like panic he seemed to suggest the highway patrol had switched to real guns. “As again, this is live pictures coming into the newsroom right now where you see looks like hundreds of police officers in full riot gear now holding up weapons at those protesters!” he exclaimed.     But they didn’t. Following the video portion of Evans’ report, co-anchors Burleson, Duthiers, and Jericka Duncan bloviated about the profound nature of what they were witnessing. “Again, Americans haven't seen scenes like this since the 1960s when college campuses erupted over protests in Vietnam. And now we're seeing this again play out on college campuses all across the country,” Duthiers suggested, inching toward a Kent State parallel. It was Duncan who hinted the strongest that they could see students get killed soon: DUTHIERS: They seem to be inching inch by inch to try to move these protesters off, but it's going to be very, very difficult. And of course the fear is that somebody gets hurts. BURLESON: Yeah. No doubt about it. DUNCAN: Or even worse. Burleson built off of Duncan by suggesting it was a real fear among the pro-Hamas mob. “And when you look at the protesters, some are speaking and saying that ‘we are protesting peacefully, and we are looking for support from the police.’ And then others are saying that the police are not offering that, they are actually doing the opposite,” he said. Duthiers did note that there was also a danger to officers from “outside agitators” and concluded with: “So, it becomes really, really difficult and, of course, the danger, as you see this police officer trying to tear down a barricade that presumably protesters put up, the danger is that somebody gets hurt.” Over 130 people were reportedly arrested and no one was seriously injured, let alone killed. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CBS Mornings May 2, 2024 7:00:22 a.m. Eastern [Opening tease] (…) NATE BURLESON: Breaking overnight, police swarm demonstrators at UCLA a day after their encampment was attacked by counter-protesters. PRO-HAMAS PROTESTER: The aggression that we faced shows that the university has no choice to just stand by and wait for us to get killed by Zionist aggressors. (…) 7:02:16 a.m. Eastern [Live video of the chaos at UCLA without voiceovers] VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: Again, we just want to reiterate, this just happened minutes ago. Police fired what appear to be nonlethal rounds at some of the protesters. That was the pop, pop, pop that you just heard there. Those folks were sheltering behind a barricade. As again, this is live pictures coming into the newsroom right now where you see looks like hundreds of police officers in full riot gear now holding up weapons at those protesters! (…) 7:06:19 a.m. Eastern DUTHIERS: These pictures are remarkable coming into us right now, into the newsroom. When you see what looks like dozens if not perhaps hundreds of police officers in full riot gear, and they're trying to get in to clear this encampment. Again, Americans haven't seen scenes like this since the 1960s when college campuses erupted over protests in Vietnam. And now we're seeing this again play out on college campuses all across the country. It looks like now the police are actually moving toward those barricades that protesters have set up. You can see those pieces of plywood that they -- protesters are using to try and force the police back. They seem to be inching inch by inch to try to move these protesters off, but it's going to be very, very difficult. And of course the fear is that somebody gets hurts. BURLESON: Yeah. No doubt about it. JERICKA DUNCAN: Or even worse. BURLESON: And when you look at the protesters, some are speaking and saying that “we are protesting peacefully, and we are looking for support from the police.” And then others are saying that the police are not offering that, they are actually doing the opposite. DUTHIERS: The difficulty, of course, is that when you hear police officials – and we heard that yesterday from New York City Mayor Adams – that there are outside agitators who are taking part in some of these demonstrations, it's difficult for police to know who the outside agitators are. Look -- it's dark, there are lights, there are teargas -- BURLESON: Most people are covered. DUTHIERS: Being deployed – Exactly. People have their faces covered. So, it becomes really, really difficult and, of course, the danger, as you see this police officer trying to tear down a barricade that a presumably protesters put up, the danger is that somebody gets hurt. (…)

NYT's Frank Bruni Blames Trump, Mike Johnson for Escalation at Columbia

Appearing as a guest on Tuesday's Erin Burnett OutFront, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni tried to blame Republicans Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson for the escalation by far-left anti-Israel protesters at Columbia University that included taking over and occupying an academic building. Host Erin Burnett recalled that other schools had had more success in negotiating the demands of protesters, and then posed: "What do you think is different here about Columbia? There has been no ability to tamp it down." Bruni quickly pointed a finger at Speaker Johnson recently visiting Columbia University and calling for more to be done to stop Jewish students from being harassed: BRUNI: Yeah, I mean, part of it is, everything that happens in New York City is on steroids, right?.. I also think that various political actors -- and this is indicative of our grievance culture. Various political actors have decided to choose this particular circumstance to come in and choose their sides and make their statements, and I think that has accelerated and amplified things. Mike Johnson, for example -- the Speaker of the House -- a week ago, I was writing about how much I admired the fact that he made common cause with Democrats -- changed his mind about Ukraine aid, and then, the next day or the day beyond that, he goes up to New York -- he didn't need to be here -- and he says, "Maybe we should bring in the National Guard." So a politician calling for less hate is "accelerating and amplifying" the problem, not the protesters. After Burnett recalled that she had been there during Speaker Johnson's visit and was surprised about the unhappy students surrounding him, Bruni added: BRUNI: But did he need to do that? You know, so many of the voices that have joined the situation and have shouted about it -- because that's what we do these days -- we shout, we don't talk. Have they been there for -- to score political points and their own purposes? Or have they come there really to come and solve this? I think this has been a sort of -- this particular situation has attracted political actors scoring points in a way that the situation on some of those other campuses have not. Once again, what are the protesters doing there if not to "score political points"?  Burnett -- who last week pressed Speaker Johnson from the left on the issue of him criticizing anti-Israel protesters -- voiced agreement with her left-leaning guest: BURNETT: Yeah, right. Maybe somehow maybe because it's Columbia. He came, he brought -- he brought four -- three or four other representatives with him, and I, you know, I was standing next to him. I was -- the students couldn't fully hear him, and that was a good thing because if they had heard what they were saying -- in one case, saying, "You all should be ashamed" -- there would have been a true outcry. The intention of them appearing was for the press conference part, not to actually talk to the students. Again, as if the protesters aren't there for the cameras. A bit later, after the CNN host recalled that seeing broken windows, "I'm thinking of that indelible image of the Capitol, far-right protesters on January 6. Here we are on April 30, people who would identify themselves as far-left protesters doing the same thing." Bruni suggested that President Trump had culpability because he has defended January 6 rioters: BRUNI: Well, you do have to ask if there's a through line from one to the other. I mean, on January 6, we had a President still at the time -- now a former President who has romanticized what's happened there -- who has sent the message that if you really believe in something and if you're fighting for it, you do the most provocative, disruptive, confrontational thing possible. That's what the rioters on January 6 did. That's what these students and their non-student allies, whatever you want to call them, were doing here. There's this -- it's all the same sort of ethos -- the same sort of approach. It was not mentioned that left-wing anti-police protesters showed plenty of ability to cause damage (more than a billion dollars) during the summer of 2020 before the Capitol Hill riots of 2021 had even happened. Transcript follows: CNN's Erin Burnett OutFront April 30, 2024 7:43 a.m. Eastern ERIN BURNETT: So, Frank, I'm just trying to understand -- and I know every situation because there's different individuals involved, right -- but Yale and Brown today succeeded -- two different ways but negotiating so that the encampments were dismantled and things appear to be going back to normal. Some of the students, you know, in the case of one of the universities -- okay, look at the police are walking here as we're talking so we're seeing where they're going. As they do that, Frank, what do you think is different here about Columbia? There has been no ability to tamp it down. FRANK BRUNI, NEW YORK TIMES: Yeah, I mean, part of it is, everything that happens in New York City is on steroids right now. We don't know exactly who's in that building and what effect that has on it. I also think that various political actors -- and this is indicative of our grievance culture. Various political actors have decided to choose this particular circumstance to come in and choose their sides and make their statements, and I think that has accelerated and amplified things. Mike Johnson, for example -- the Speaker of the House -- a week ago, I was writing about how much I admired the fact that he made common cause with Democrats -- changed his mind about Ukraine aid, and then, the next day or the day beyond that, he goes up to New York -- he didn't need to be here -- and he says, "Maybe we should bring in the National Guard." We have two -- BURNETT: I was there, by the way, on the steps at Columbia when he was there, and he came out, and he said and did what he intended to do. BRUNI: Right. BURNETT: But he was clearly taken aback and surprised by how many students were there. And at that point -- there were only a few hundred -- but they gathered -- and they were not happy, which is not what he was expecting. BRUNI: But did he need to do that? You know, so many of the voices that have joined the situation and have shouted about it -- because that's what we do these days -- we shout, we don't talk. Have they been there for -- to score political points and their own purposes? Or have they come there really to come and solve this? I think this has been a sort of -- this particular situation has attracted political actors scoring points in a way that the situation on some of those other campuses have not. BURNETT: Yeah, right. Maybe somehow maybe because it's Columbia. He came, he brought -- he brought four -- three or four other representatives with him, and I, you know, I was standing next to him. I was -- the students couldn't fully hear him, and that was a good thing because if they had heard what they were saying -- in one case, saying, "You all should be ashamed" -- there would have been a true outcry. The intention of them appearing was for the press conference part, not to actually talk to the students. BRUNI: They came here because New York City is the media capital. Where are you and I sitting right now? We're sitting in a studio in New York City. They came here because more cameras are here. More media companies are here than in any other city. (...) BURNETT: These kids were offered -- the ones that are students, you know, that they would be able to not be expelled, you know, that if they would just to sign papers to back off today. Which at Yale, Brown -- this seemed to work to deescalate -- did not happen in this case. But when we look at the images of where -- I don't know how many people are in there and how many of them are students, but right now, in Hamilton Hall, in Columbia, right near these images that you're looking at where when the police go in that is where we anticipate this confrontation will happen -- we saw the students occupy it and whoever else was with them, broken windows. And the first thing when you see that broken window, I'm thinking of that indelible image of the Capitol, far-right protesters on January 6. Here we are on April 30, people who would identify themselves as far-left protesters doing the same thing. BRUNI: Well, you do have to ask if there's a through line from one to the other. I mean, on January 6, we had a President still at the time -- now a former President who has romanticized what's happened there -- who has sent the message that if you really believe in something and if you're fighting for it, you do the most provocative, disruptive, confrontational thing possible. That's what the rioters on January 6 did. That's what these students and their non-student allies, whatever you want to call them, were doing here. There's this -- it's all the same sort of ethos -- the same sort of approach.

CBS Lionizes Climate Losers Blocking Traffic, Throwing Paint, Interrupting Conservative Gala

Like being able to visit museums without climate freaks throwing soup on world-renowned paintings? Looking to enjoy a night out at a gala? Need a peaceful commute without anyone blocking the road? If the answer to any of these questions is no, CBS Mornings all but said no way, Jose. On Thursday, they ran a lengthy puff piece fawning over Climate Defiance and even followed them as they interrupted the March 6 gala for our friends at American Moment.     Co-host Nate Burleson incredibly wove in the climate freaks with the live scenes from UCLA as “police are clashing with protesters against the war in Gaza”. “College campuses aren’t the only places where protesters are making their voices heard. This morning in our Climate Watch series, we’re focusing on climate activists who are taking direct action to make their point. Last week one group blockaded the entrance to the global headquarters of CitiGroup in Manhattan. They demanded the banking giant stop funding fossil fuel interests,” boasted fill-in co-host Jericka Duncan. She added “[s]enior national and environmental correspondent Ben Tracy [took] a closer look at one climate group that says it doesn’t need to be liked to be effective.” The chyron was unsurprisingly stupid: “Climate Watch; Protests for the Planet; A Look at What’s Driving Climate Activists to Get Aggressive”. With that stacked deck, Tracy gave unassuming and seemingly neutral (i.e. pro-thuggery) open: “Blocking traffic, throwing red powder on a case housing the U.S. Constitution, and dousing a global-covered Van Gogh with soup, climate protesters are not just marching in the streets. They’re finding new and more aggressive ways to demand climate action.” Tracy was then shown following around Climate Defiance in their preparation, execution, and aftermath of their storming of the American Moment gala. Tracy and CBS cameras even palled around with one of their leaders as they scouted out the hotel a day beforehand. Of course, Tracy denied our friends the full free advertising by refusing to name them (click “expand”): MAXWELL DOWNING: We can still cause a little bit of a scene. Cause some chaos. TRACY: On a recent Wednesday night in Washington, D.C. — DOWNING: I know exactly the route that we can go. TRACY: — 21-year-old Maxwell Downing shared his plan to cause a scene at this nearby hotel. [TO DOWNING] What exactly are you guys doing tonight? DOWNING: We’re going to a fancy, schamncy gala that J.D. Vance — Republican senator from Ohio — is going to be speaking at. J.D. Vance is one of the top 20 recipients of oil and gas money in Congress. TRACY: Downing cased the hotel the day before they found the best escape routes. DOWNING [TO FELLOW THUGS]: Who does not have $50 in cash? TRACY: So, after making sure that everyone had money in case they got arrested — DOWNING [at American Moment gala]: J.D. Vance is a climate supervillain! TRACY: — these climate protesters stormed the ballroom — DOWNING: Come out, J.D., face us. CLIMATE DEFIANCE PROTESTER: He’s a climate criminal. TRACY: — interrupting the event until security finally threw them out. DOWNING: Face us! Off fossil fuels! AMERICAN MOMENT SECURITY GUARDS: Get out. Get out. DOWNING: Immediately, security guards hands around the neck, which is not usual. Nearly a minute and a half into the five-minute-and-37-second block, Tracy finally identified the group as Climate Defiance, taking them at their word that they don’t “engage in vandalism or violence” and have “become notorious for surprise confrontations with oil executives...and politicians on both sides of the aisle.” Tracy even served at the group’s unofficial spokesman by having CBS ask Senator J.D. Vance “for his reaction to the disruption” at the gala he was speaking at. Of course, Vance’s team “did not respond”. One could presume this question to Climate Defense executive director Michael Greenberg was meant to be adversarial: “When you burst into a room and you call somebody like Senator Manchin a sick f-word, what is the outcome you’re hoping to achieve?” Greenberg was unapologetic in explaining they “don’t necessarily expect to move Manchin or whatnot” but instead “make climate change a top issue in American politics”....via intimidation. “He says their protests are designed to go viral on social media, attracting new members to their cause, and raising awareness of climate change as an existential issue,” Tracy added. Tracy’s other question came with a drive-by-ish tone: “Do you worry about turning people off, that they see you as more annoying or more of a threat than actually helping the cause you say you’re trying to help?” The only mild, official pushback from Dana Fisher, an American University professor who penned “a new book about climate activism” (Click “expand”): GREENBERG: We’re trying to shake the public awake. TRACY [TO GREENBERG]: Do you worry about turning people off, that they see you as more annoying or more of a threat than actually helping the cause you say you’re trying to help? GREENBERG: Yeah, we’re definitely an acquired taste. Not everybody loves us. You don’t need to be popular to be effective. FISHER: And their goal is media attention, plain and simple. [TO STUDENTS] When you guys look at the general population — TRACY: Dana Fisher is a professor at American University and author of a new book about climate activism. DOWNING: He is a criminal! TRACY: She calls these kinds of activists “shockers,” not unlike some of the AIDS activists of the 1980s who desperately tried to get people’s attention. [TO FISHER] How do we know if this is actually effective? FISHER: I think it’s going to be a hindsight thing. I mean, I do not think that the whole movement should shift toward these kinds of actions because I think it will be a detriment to the movement itself, but it is playing a role in helping to keep the conversation going. The CBS correspondent closed by bragging that “they have had some success” in securing “a meeting with John Podesta, the White House’s chief climate adviser” and were “part of the pressure campaign that recently led President Biden to pause the expansion of liquefied natural gas exports.” Duthiers gushed about how “this is such a great piece” with “a lot to digest,” adding “you can understand that they want cameras there...because it does cause people to pay attention” since “politicians...have enacted or have at least put plans into place to address climate issues.” Duncan also voiced her support: “But only time really will tell in terms of what action is actually taken, what policies are actually passed as a result of bringing attention to something that I think everyone, at this point recognizes, is a problem.” “We love shock value. But we’ll see if this is counterproductive or not in the future,” Burleson said. Exit question: How would liberal journalists feel if protesters stormed and occupied their studios, or say, blocked roads that made them late for family emergencies? To see the relevant CBS transcript from May 2, click here.

MRC’s Bozell Joins FBN’s Varney in Slamming Media’s Campus Protest and Trump Coverage

On Thursday, MRC President Brent Bozell appeared on the Fox Business’s Varney & Company to break down how the leftist media are failing to properly cover the student protests. Bozell and Varney also had a good laugh over the Trump trials backfiring on the left and MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace’s “end of democracy” fear-mongering.   The segment began with Bozell admonishing network and cable coverage (with the exception of Fox News) for ignoring three key elements of the protests.  First up, Bozell noted the lack of coverage of the protest backers: “The agitators, the professional people who are causing trouble funded by radical left-wing groups. How is that not a story?” Bozell then called out the censorship of the ugly slurs on display: “Second, the comments that are being made. The chants! ‘Hamas, we love you, we support your rockets too!’ Putting up signs that say ‘Final Solution.’ ‘From the river to the sea.’ All these messages that say kill Israelis. Not political, kill Israelis.”   Bozell continued: “And then the third element. The big one that’s been missing here. Is this is all couched under a pro-Palestinian, it is not pro-Palestinian, it is pro-Hamas. And they’re not saying it. They’re not saying that this is endorsing a radical terrorist movement that slaughters thousands of Israelis.”     Later on in the segment, Varney and Bozell chatted about the left’s strategy of keeping Trump tied-up in the courtroom and how it has backfired.   Bozell observed: “Why is Donald Trump going up in the polls? Because the public is seeing the puppet trials that are taking place right now….They’re saying this is fundamentally unfair. This guy is being kept off the campaign trail through these ridiculous lawsuits that are being thrown at him….and it’s backfiring on the left.” Varney and Bozell then had a good laugh over MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace’s claim that a “free press” may no longer exist if Donald Trump wins in November. The following is a complete transcript of the Fox Business Varney & Company segment that aired on May 2:  Fox Business Varney & Company May 2, 2024 HOST STUART VARNEY: The president of the Media Research Center is Brent Bozell and he joins me now. Brent studies the media and what they are up to. So I got two questions for you, Brent. Number one. How is the media covering the campus unrest and then deal with how the media is covering Trump trials? Start with the campus unrest please. L. BRENT BOZELL: Ok, campus unrest. There’s a rule, a normal rule about reporting. Which is the analysis before an event or after an event is where you see real bias but when it’s hard news of an event it tends to be pretty good. Well there are exceptions to the rule and we’re talking about an exception to the rule.  There are three things — elements of this in the hard news phase that Fox is covering. They should all be covering but they’re not.  The first one, we just heard. The agitators, the professional people who are causing trouble funded by radical left-wing groups. How is that not a story?  Second, the comments that are being made. The chants! “Hamas, we love you, we support your rockets too!” Putting up signs that say “Final Solution.”  “From the river to the sea.” All these messages that say kill Israelis. Not political, kill Israelis.  Second, Donald Trump. VARNEY: Yeah.  BOZELL: You’re seeing recent surveys that are showing this. Why is Donald Trump going up in the polls? Because the public is seeing the puppet trials that are taking place right now. I think they’re saying this is fundamentally unfair. This guy is being kept off the campaign trail through these ridiculous lawsuits that are being thrown at him. When he’s up, when he is going up two, three, four, five, six points in the polls while he’s sitting in a courtroom, that tells you that the public is fed up with this and it’s backfiring on the left.  VARNEY: Next one, Brent. I want you to listen to what MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace said about the threat Trump poses to democracy. Roll it please. CLIP OF MSNBC HOST NICOLLE WALLACE: Depending what happens in November — seven months from right now — this time next year, I might not be sitting here. There might not be a White House Correspondents Dinner or a free press. While our democracy won’t exactly fall apart immediately without it, the real threat looms larger. A candidate with outward disdain not just for a free press but for all of our freedoms and the rule of law itself.  VARNEY: Okay, Brent. Wallace thinks Trump will destroy democracy. Do you think the media is destroying democracy? BOZELL: Those same people that are chanting that Trump is trying to end democracy had nothing to say when there were attempts in 36 of  the 50 states of the United States to keep Donald Trump off the ballot, and the Supreme Court by a unanimous 9-0 vote declared it was unconstitutional. That it was — in fact — an attack on democracy. It’s these same hypocrites who are doing this. Welcome to today’s world.  VARNEY: It never changes. Great stuff, Brent. Come and see us again. Don’t be a stranger, okay? BOZELL: Thanks Stuart.

No, Demonstrations Today Not Like the 1960s

The current demonstrations on college campuses against Israel remind some of the unrest on college campuses during the 1960s. But the comparison is not a good one. The unrest of the 1960s was defined by the war in Vietnam and by the Civil Rights Movement. Both had practical, personal impact on young Americans in their own country. American soldiers were fighting and dying in Vietnam. There was real, life-and-death impact on all Americans, and certainly on young Americans. The military draft was still operative then. Despite various deferments, including deferment for university attendance, the draft was still a reality and was a looming presence for all college-age Americans. They knew they could be drafted and had friends and friends of friends who were. The official number of American soldiers killed in Vietnam stands at 58,220. Although there were legitimate moral concerns about American involvement in this war, the moral concerns were accompanied by young Americans having real skin in this game. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s also had real personal moral impact on all Americans. And youth are always highly sensitive to the moral failings around them. The reality of segregation and Jim Crow started getting national attention with the Civil Rights Movement, the activism of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and other more violent groups in the movement. In contrast to the woke activism of today, which is totally political in character, the Civil Rights Movement was led by a charismatic and articulate Black pastor and had a religious, moral tone rooted in the Christian church. Anyone that questions this should read, or reread, King’s “I Have a Dream” speech from 1963. But King’s moral appeal was to an America very different than today. In 1965, per Gallup, 70% of Americans said religion was personally “very important” to them. In 2023, by contrast, only 45% of Americans say religion is “very important.” In 1962, per Gallup, 46% of Americans said they attended religious services over the last seven days. In 2023, this was down to 32%. During this period there were two major wars involving Israel and the surrounding Arab states. In 1967, Israel prevailed in the Six-Day War, which began with preemptive action by Israel against the Egyptian army mobilized for attack, and subsequent aggression by Syria in the North and Jordan in the East. In 1973, Israel again prevailed against attacks on these same fronts. In 1967, per Gallup, 45% of Americans supported Israel against 4% who supported the Arab states, with 26% with no opinion. In 1973, 48% of Americans expressed support for Israel versus 6% expressing support for the Arab states and 24% with no opinion. Support for Israel among Americans during this period was one-sided and clear. But, again, America today is very, very different. Our young people in the 1960s understood what personal responsibility is about. On a national level, in the 1960s, all young Americans faced the reality of military conscription. Today, regarding national obligation and service, there are virtually no demands on our youth. Now President Joe Biden is even erasing their student loan obligations. On a religious, moral level, religion then held a much stronger hold on the nation. Religion teaches and inspires a culture where individuals have a sense they belong to and have obligation to something beyond their own egotistical inclinations. Nature abhors a vacuum, and as religion has weakened and disappeared from our culture, it has been replaced by politics and the welfare state. The end of it all is we now have a generation of youth insulated from all sense of national and religious and moral personal responsibility. So now they demonstrate in support of terrorists and against the only free country in the Middle East that shares the very values that made our own country great.

WATCH: Bishop’s Powerful Response to Censorship Demands of Stabbing Video

Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel is back to preaching and has issued a powerful new sermon in defense of free speech and the natural rights of man. On April 28, Bishop Emmanuel made his first public appearance after being viciously attacked by a knife-wielding assailant who left the bishop with only one eye. The bishop delivered a sermon in which he defended the right to freedom of speech as a fundamental human right and referred to the Australian government’s recent attempts to suppress the video of his stabbing on social media platforms such as X. Bishop Emmanuel expressed dismay at attitudes that dismiss or outright attack freedom of speech, saying, “Every human being has the right to their freedom of speech and freedom of religion…and for us to say that free speech is dangerous, that free speech cannot be possible in a democratic country … I’m yet to fathom this.” Bishop Emmanuel also lamented the state of the Western world and the increasing prevalence of a nihilistic viewpoint that fails to uphold universal moral truths or recognize basic human worth.  “I’ll say it again, the Western world has succeeded exceedingly in giving value to everything, but I’ll say this with utmost sadness in my heart, the Western world has failed miserably in giving purpose to everything, but until we find the purpose of the thing, we can never give it value… Human rights is human value,” Bishop Emmanuel argued.  The bishop contrasted this modern view with the attitudes of Australia’s forebears, who fought for human rights.  “I am very proud of these great ANZAC warriors who gave their life up to the very human rights, to the very freedom of speech and freedom of religion,” Bishop Emmanuel said. “They died to keep and preserve the human identity.” In recent weeks, the bishop has been the center of a controversy between the Australian government and Elon Musk.  The head of Australia's eSafety commission, Julia Grant, issued an order on April 16 to X demanding that the platform take down the video of the stabbing of Bishop Emmanuel that had been proliferating on the platform.  The order even prohibited users outside of the country from viewing the content. X’s Global Government Affairs Team refused to ban the content for users outside Australia, saying that the order was unnecessarily broad and outside the legal authority of the Australian government.   Musk and X’s refusal to toe the line of the Australian government has attracted the criticism of numerous Australian politicians such as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.  “By and large, people responded appropriately to the calls by the [eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant],” Albanese recently commented. “They stand, I think … I find it extraordinary that X chose not to comply and trying to argue their case.” Australian Senator Jacqui Lambie even threatened Musk with prison time for not complying. “Someone like that should be in jail, and the key be thrown away,” Lambie asserted. “That bloke should not have a right to be out there on his own ideology platform and creating hatred, you know, showing all this stuff out there to our kids and all the rest.” 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.   

MSNBC Hosts Praises Colleges That Surrendered To The Israel-Haters

MSNBC hosts Chris Hayes and Alex Wagner used their respective Wednesday editions of All In and Alex Wagner Tonight to attack those who called in the police to end the illegal encampments and occupations on college campuses by claiming it was they who were escalating tensions and to prove their point, they pointed to those schools that surrendered to the mob. Hayes came out of commercial break wondering what the big deal about violently breaking into a building and occupying it is, after all, actor Samuel L. Jackson was involved in a similar episode in the 60s, “Now, I tell this story for two reasons. One to remind us that college activism has long been a part of college education. The other reason, though, is to get a sense of proportion, which seems lacking today as we watched disturbing imagery emerge from campuses at Columbia, UCLA, University of Texas, University of South Florida, so many others, where cops or, in some cases, mobs took down pro-Palestinian student encampments and protests, as well as professors and journalists and just random bystanders.”     Hayes didn’t mention that the altercation counter-protestors had with the “pro-Palestinian student encampment” at UCLA came about because the campers assaulted a Jewish girl and committed other acts of violence the school did nothing about. If violence sounds escalatory, Hayes was there to say that the real escalators are those who called in the cops, “The cumulative effect of this coverage, along with unverified assertions from police and politicians, has been to drive home the idea that student protests are basically a terrorist-level threat. That they have to be neutralized by battalions of cops armed like soldiers with MRAPs and sonic cannons. The reason this seems to me, a reaction that's out of proportion to the protests themselves.” This led Hayes to praise those who surrendered to the mob, “It seems especially true when you look at other campuses like Brown University, where administrators negotiated with protesters who took down their encampment. At Wesleyan University whose president said the protesting there was non-violent and non-disruptive, adding, ‘as long as it continues in this way, the university will not attempt to clear the encampment.’” Roughly 25 minutes later, Wagner played an NYPD video that did not sit well with her, “Sort of a half-promotional video for the NYPD, half a warning shot to future protesters. There's also a soundtrack, you may have noticed, and situation room footage as officers plan the Columbia sweep like it was, I don't know, the Bin Laden raid. It is not what you might call a tool for de-escalation.”     Violently occupying a building is not de-escalation either, but Wagner continued, and unlike Hayes, she actually mentioned what Brown agreed to, “But it is worth noting that some colleges have actually managed to do just that, to de-escalate the tension on their campuses this week. Both Brown and Northwestern University reached deals with student protesters this is week with protesters leaving encampments and the colleges agreeing to hear them out and to vote on divestment issues.” Wagner didn’t mention that Northwestern agreed to also hire more Palestinian faculty, subsidize scholarships for five Palestinian students, and allow the mob and their supporters to sit on an advisory committee on university investments. Both Brown and Northwestern’s response to the lawlessness and anti-Semitism was to give the anti-Semites more power and give their Jewish students and faculty nothing. Still, for Wagner, the bad guys in this situation are anybody who objects to this madness, “This is happening across the country with lots of individual actors making separate decisions and that makes this story complicated, and that is important to remember because we have actors in our national discourse right now who are very much trying to exploit this tension for fairly obvious political gain.” In related news, Northwestern is facing multiple lawsuits for its deal with the agitators.  Here are transcripts for the May 1 shows: MSNBC All In With Chris Hayes 5/1/2024 8:42 PM ET CHRIS HAYES: In the spring of 1969, a group of students at Morehouse College, a historically black college in Atlanta, were frustrated by what they said was the school’s slow progress on civil rights and they protested and had been rebuffed, so they locked the college trustees in their office for two days and essentially held them hostage. Now, one of the trustees was Martin Luther King Sr., father of the recently slain civil rights leader. He began having chest pains and one of the students later said we let him out of there so we wouldn’t be accused of murder. That student and his classmates eventually gave up under a promise of amnesty from the college. The college reneged and he was expelled, it would be years before he was rehabilitated, decades before he became known the world over as actor Samuel L. Jackson. Now, I tell this story for two reasons. One to remind us that college activism has long been a part of college education. The other reason, though, is to get a sense of proportion, which seems lacking today as we watched disturbing imagery emerge from campuses at Columbia, UCLA, University of Texas, University of South Florida, so many others, where cops, or in some cases mobs, took down pro-Palestinian student encampments and protests, as well as professors and journalists and just random bystanders.  The cumulative effect of this coverage, along with unverified assertions from police and politicians, has been to drive home the idea that student protests are basically a terrorist-level threat.  That they have to be neutralized by battalions of cops armed like soldiers with MRAPs and sonic cannons. The reason this seems to me, a reaction that's out of proportion to the protests themselves. It seems especially true when you look at other campuses like Brown University, where administrators negotiated with protesters who took down their encampment. At Wesleyan University whose president said the protesting there was non-violent and non-disruptive, adding “as long as it continues in this way, the university will not attempt to clear the encampment.”  *** MSNBC Alex Wagner Tonight 5/1/2024 9:06 PM ET ALEX WAGNER: Sort of a half-promotional video for the NYPD, half a warning shot to future protesters. There's also a soundtrack, you may have noticed, and situation room footage as officers plan the Columbia sweep like it was, I don't know, the Bin Laden raid. It is not what you might call a tool for de-escalation. But it is worth noting that some colleges have actually managed to do just that, to de-escalate the tension on their campuses this week. Both Brown and Northwestern University reached deals with student protesters this is week with protesters leaving encampments and the colleges agreeing to hear them out and to vote on divestment issues. Whether or not that can be replicated elsewhere at this point is totally unclear. This is happening across the country with lots of individual actors making separate decisions and that makes this story complicated, and that is important to remember because we have actors in our national discourse right now who are very much trying to exploit this tension for fairly obvious political gain.

ABC Claims UCLA Mob Was ‘Largely Peaceful’ While They Gassed Police

CNN proved themselves to be biased fools in the summer of 2020 when they claimed the Black Lives Matter Riots were “fiery but mostly peaceful.” Well, ABC News told them to hold their beer Thursday morning as they had correspondent Trevor Ault assert that the anti-Semitic/pro-Hamas encampment at UCLA was “largely peaceful” with no sign of “fighting back” against police while admitting that they were throwing stuff and using fire extinguishers to gas them. The California Highway Patrol crackdown on the UCLA encampment, where they employed Nazi-style tactics against the Jews on campus, was already underway as ABC’s Good Morning America came on the air at 7:00 a.m. and was the first story they got to. Ault was live on the scene where he reported “So far, we haven't seen a lot of physical resistance other than standing their ground.” But he did admit: “If anything, we’ve seen a few demonstrators who were throwing bottles, tossing water, and you actually at some points see some smoke that we believe is from fire extinguishers.” According to Poison Control, the contents of fire extinguishers can be very harmful: People with lung conditions like asthma or someone deliberately sprayed at close range can have more serious respiratory effects and might need medical attention. Contact of these powders with the eyes, nose, throat, and skin can cause irritation, which should improve after rinsing the exposed area. Deliberate inhalation or ingestion can cause serious symptoms such as pneumonia, seizures, irregular heartbeat, and kidney failure.     Throwing things and spraying chemicals in the face of law enforcement doesn’t sound like what non-violent demonstrators do. And Ault might have had someone give him a strong talking-to about disclosing those facts because it was the last time they were mentioned all morning. In his 7:30 and 8:00-a.m. live shots, Ault dropped all mentions of the anti-Semitic mob throwing anything and using fire extinguishers. “They have said to me that their plan is never to fight back. That is not how they go about things,” Ault defended them in the 7:30 live shot. “Although, at least from what I have seen on the ground, we haven't been seeing people fight back. It's more about standing their ground.” “So, they’ve been saying they're going to be peaceful,” he reported around 8:00. “We haven't seen violent clashes but you have to anticipate at any moment law enforcement is going to begin making a lot of arrests.” Ault’s next report didn’t come until after ABC broke into The View to air President Biden’s address condemning the encampments. After the address, they went to Ault for an update on the situation at UCLA. Possibly in response to those calling him out online for his earlier ridiculous description of the peaceful violence, Ault tried to have it both ways: Now, I do want to specify from at least what we saw. This was a largely peaceful demonstration, at least in terms of the protesters not fighting back against the law enforcement presence that was there. But they also didn't necessarily give themselves up. “And what we've heard from California Highway Patrol so far is that at least 132 people have been arrested here for this unlawful gathering,” he added. The transcripts are below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s Good Morning America May 2, 2024 7:03:51 a.m. Eastern (…) TREVOR AULT: So far, we haven't seen a lot of physical resistance other than standing their ground. We’ve seen some of them very distressed but screaming that they don't have weapons but still not giving up their ground here. If anything, we’ve seen a few demonstrators who were throwing bottles, tossing water, and you actually at some points see some smoke that we believe is from fire extinguishers. But mainly we’re watching as these protesters are standing their ground after what has been many, many days here on campus of very intense situations that has escalated significantly just in the past 45 minutes or so. And this is probably one of the most intense clashes that we’ve seen as these campuses have been playing out all over the country. (…) 7:30:44 a.m. Eastern AULT: We have been watching over those several days as they’ve basically been preparing for this moment. You’ll notice, if you look closely, that a lot of these demonstrators have hard hats, a lot have gas masks, a lot have eye-protective wear, too. They have said to me that their plan is never to fight back. That is not how they go about things. But when I was asking them about it, it was largely about counter protesters; it could be a different thing with law enforcement involved. Although, at least from what I have seen on the ground, we haven't been seeing people fight back. It's more about standing their ground. The big question now is how does law enforcement move forward? (…) 8:02:51 a.m. Eastern AULT: Those protesters have been preparing for any kind of law enforcement tactics; they have hard hats; they have gas masks. So, they’ve been saying they're going to be peaceful. We haven't seen violent clashes but you have to anticipate at any moment law enforcement is going to begin making a lot of arrests. These are perhaps the most intense moments we’ve seen of what have been many days of tense moments at campuses across the country. (…) The View (Break in for President Biden’s address & follow-up reports) 11:13:03 AULT: Now, I do want to specify from at least what we saw. This was a largely peaceful demonstration, at least in terms of the protesters not fighting back against the law enforcement presence that was there. But they also didn't necessarily give themselves up. And so, law enforcement basically pushed them up against that library till it was one on one. They pulled them apart, put them into zip ties and took them away. And what we've heard from California Highway Patrol so far is that at least 132 people have been arrested here for this unlawful gathering. (…)

Gay Group Calls on Hollywood to Have Even MORE Gay Characters

LGBTQ characters in Hollywood TV fell more than 20 percent during the 2023-2024 season and now, the LGBTQ activist group, GLAAD, has become especially concerned that there weren't enough gay characters in movies and shows coming out of entertainment. The group issued a statement asking Hollywood to re-direct and add more gayness to shows. GLAAD tallied all the characters in shows from 2023-2024 and found that there were 468 LGBTQ characters. During the 2022-2023 season there were a total of 596 LGBTQ characters meaning that there was a roughly 21.4 percent drop from last season to the most recent one. God forbid we see less gay sex and transvestites on TV. “We know that LGBTQ stories are crucial now more than ever—it is paramount to see our lives reflected on screen, challenging the misinformation and harmful rhetoric that is running unchecked by politicians and journalists,” GLAAD CEO and president Sarah Kate Ellis said. Ellis was sure to note that integrating stories with LGBTQ characters into TV is important for young people who want to see characters that “truly reflect themselves.” While I’d argue that her intention with that statement was to get more kids to join the LGBTQ mafia, she insisted it was to help networks and streamers “grow their audience.” At the launch event for the report, Ellis GLAAD-ly proclaimed, “when all of us [LGBTQ’s] are in every show,” she’ll be satisfied about the level of representation. “We deserve to be in every story,” she said. LGBTQ people are in every family, we're in every community, we're in every school, we're in every office. We belong there. LGBTQ people deserve to be in every story. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ pic.twitter.com/3IAXhuy1m6 — Sarah Kate Ellis (@sarahkateellis) May 2, 2024 Even stories about a Christian family who follows biblical principles when it comes to homosexuality and gender? What about a story about Palestine? Should gay people be in those movies even though if you were gay in Palestine you’d probably end up beheadded? No, Ellis, you don’t belong in every story. Get off your high horse of entitlement. Thing is, there’s already WAY too much gay crap in shows. For example, in the show “Abbott Elementary,” a second grade teacher used nonbinary pronouns in a recent episode, ABC’s “Station 19” show promoted kids attending pride parades and called gay open relationships “ethical non-monogamy” and ABC’s “The Conners’” show had characters begging for more gay propaganda in schools. Yet for the left, that still isn’t good enough. What’s new?

Doocy, Wegmann, Gutierrez Grill Inept KJP Over Biden’s Inaction on Pro-Hamas Students

Before being shamed into speaking on-camera Thursday to the American people about the dangerous anti-Semitic hooligans who’ve thrown college campus into chaos, Wednesday’s White House press briefing was dominated by numerous reporters — including Fox’s Peter Doocy, Real Clear Politics’s Philip Wegmann, and even NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez — pressing the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre on why Biden hasn’t been more public in denouncing these scenes. The initial questions were rather pedestrian. After AP’s Zeke Miller asked “[w]hy haven’t we heard directly from the President”, he was followed by ABC’s Karen Travers wondering whether “anyone from the administration been in touch with...any of these universities that are seeing these protests”, CBS’s Weijia Jiang asking the same except with the NYPD, and NPR’s Mara Liasson inquiring as to how read in Biden is on the chaos. Gutierrez finally called out what had been denials from Jean-Pierre about how much Biden knows and why he’s been out of sight aside from paper statements: I wanted to follow up on a previous question that was asked. And, respectfully, you didn’t quite answer it. The question was, why hasn’t the President been more forceful in talking about the protests. You talk about how he’s talked about anti-Semitism. But specifically on the protest, why hasn’t the President been more forceful on that? Jean-Pierre grew defensive, claiming she “hear[s] the question....but...the President has been the — one — the — no other president has spoken about anti-Semitism than this President.”     Gutierrez countered that was “not the question” and Jean-Pierre hit back that she was “answering it in the way that, I believe, is the best way to” do so with binder notes about Biden’s “strategic plan to deal — to counter anti-Semitism more than 100 new actions...across the administration.” Some blah, blah, blah later, Gutierrez followed up with a fact-check (click “expand”): GUTIERREZ: You mentioned that the President has taken questions on this. Again, respectfully he — he hasn’t. He did take a question where he said he “condemns those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.” I know you’ve been asked about that. But since you brought up Charlottesville, what do you say to those critics who say that he is trying to have it both ways that he’s essentially, you know, trying to talk about both anti-Semitism and what’s going on with the Palestinians? JEAN-PIERRE: I would say to those critics is no. He’s not doing a both sides scenario here. When you think about Charlottesville, you think about the — the — the vile anti-Semitism that we heard on the streets of Charlottesville, right here, uh, in Virginia — right — not far from here. The President and many of us wanted to make sure that was called out. Somebody died. A young woman lost her life and, when the President saw that, it put him in a situation where he believed it was the right thing to speak against that. He wrote an op ed that was in The Atlantic because — about that — about that. He decided to run because of what he saw in Charlottesville and that was just vile, nasty rhetoric. And you had — um — you know, a former President talk about both sides. There was no both sides here. None. Absolutely none. As it relates to the Palestinians, he was talking about the humanitarian — a dire humanitarian situation — that we’re currently seeing. I just mentioned the Secretary — Secretary Blinken is going to be talking about the humanitarian aid that we are trying to get into Gaza for the people of Gaza. We’re trying to get this hostage deal done so that we can get hostages home and create an environment to get humanitarian aid that would lead — also, the hostages would lead to a ceasefire. Those things are not the same. They are just not the same. Fundamentally, not the same. And it is in bad faith. It is in bad faith to say that. Incredibly, one reporter moments later wondered if President Biden’s concerned the rise of campus protests are “turning“ ”the court of public opinion...against what the President is standing for” in supporting Israel: Reporter: “These protests that have been going on college campuses, we're hearing that some of them are starting to wane a little bit, but they're not just a one day protest. This has been going on for quite some time. Is there some concern within the Biden administration that… pic.twitter.com/97C14wXBvF — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 1, 2024 USA Today’s Joey Garrison had a few questions from the left, including twice bringing to the forefront concerns about how university leaders and law enforcement have acted “harshly” in ““forcibly shut[ting] down” encampments: USA Today's @JoeyGarrison: “With that said, I mean, does the President believe New York Mayor Adams and leaders of Columbia University and — and City College of New York acted appropriately by having the protesters at those colleges — colleges arrested and their encampments… pic.twitter.com/7sJ80I5s1e — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 1, 2024 After having been ignored on Monday, she called on Doocy and, like always, he asked something no one else in the room had brought up: Some of these encampments, they had a matching tents. We’re being told that there are professional outside agitators involved. We don’t know if they’re being paid to sow chaos by domestic folks or foreign entities. Does President Biden want his administration to find out who is funding some of these protests? Our friend Nicole Silverio of the Daily Caller had it right when she tweeted the Jean-Pierre promptly “short-circuited”.     Click “expand” to read her psychobabble and Doocy’s hardball follow-up wondering if Biden’s silence served as further indication that he’s “worried about losing the youth vote” if he were to firmly denounce them: JEAN-PIERRE: What I can say — you know — um — I cannot — uh — I cannot speak to — uh — the organizations that are being reported out on the ground. That is not something for me to speak to. That is obviously something that local governments — uh — local officials — I keep saying local government — local officials are going to speak to. They’ll have better information on that. What we have said — and I don’t think I’ve iterated that yet from here is that the DOJ and FBI is going to continue to offer support to universities and colleges — uh — with — in respect to federal laws, so that is something that the DOJ and FBI is doing. As far as local organizations and what is all being reported on the ground, that is something that — I’m — that local law enforcement, I’m certainly, is looking into. DOOCY: And I understand that President Biden historically has spoken — JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. DOOCY: — very forcefully about anti-Semitism, but this week, he’s not. He’s MIA. Is he that worried about losing the youth vote with these protesters? JEAN-PIERRE: I’m going to be mindful. You’re talking about youth vote. You’re talking about 2024. DOOCY: Support of young people. JEAN-PIERRE: No, no, no, no. I — I — I — I have to say what I have to say and just give me a second.  (....) JEAN-PIERRE: I’ll speak more broadly. I can’t speak to youth people, youth and support and voters. That’s not something I can do from here. Uh, the President has taken a lot of policy actions here that he knows that young people care about and a lot of those actions are popular with those young folks, whether it’s giving a little bit of breathing room with student debt relief — so we made announcement today, matter of fact, and we are going to continue to do that, because we think it’s important as families or as an American and you coming out of college and you wanna build a family by home — uh — you have the opportunity to do that and not be crushed by student debt. The President understands how important it is to deal with that issue. Climate change — something that young people really truly care about. One of the crises that the President said he came into having to deal with was the climate change crisis. This is a President that has taken more — has taken aggressive, aggressive action to deal with climate crisis. You know, look, I can’t speak to — um — I can’t speak to youth voters or their support, but we’re going to do continue to take actions that we believe helps all Americans and all communities. Doocy had one more question: “[Y]ou mentioned what he said in 2017 after Charlottesville. He said, about Trump’s response then, ‘Charlottesville, for me, was a moment where I thought silence would be complicity.’ So how does he explain — how do you explain his silence this week?” Like with Gutierrez, Jean-Pierre stood pat and reiterated Biden “has not been silent on this issue when it comes to hate speech, anti-Semitism” but Doocy noted “he hasn’t” and his written words obviously mean nothing since “a school building at an Ivy League campus got taken over.” Jean-Pierre dithered away and ran out the clock until Wegmann came up to close the briefing.  Like Doocy, Wegmann stuck to his reputation of going against the grain. This time, he wondered what the administration made of “some of these college campuses where we’ve seen the U.S. flag torn down and the Palestinian flag replace it.” Jean-Pierre declined to comment and instead spoke more generally about how none should be able to “disturb campuses in the way of taking over buildings in the way that we have seen” and “it is a dangerous time for [the Jewish] community and we have been very clear about what we need to do to fight that hate.” The Press Secretary also refused to weigh in on Wegmann’s other question about whether Biden believes “higher education has gone off the rails that, you know, something more fundamental has gone wrong on these college campuses” given the rampant anti-Semitism among younger Americans. To see the relevant transcript from the May 1 briefing (including even more protests-related questions), click here.

Big Three Networks Ignore Hearing Exposing Biden Cabinet Member: She Did What?

After a brutal hearing exposed connections between activist groups and a Biden cabinet official, all three major networks ignored the revelations in their coverage.  During an April 30 hearing before the House Committee on Natural Resources, Capital Research Center President Scott Walter and The Daily Signal Managing Editor Tyler O’Neil hammered Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and her department over damning allegations. According to Walter, at the center of the allegations is that Haaland’s daughter Somah Haaland is a member of the radical environmentalist group Pueblo Action Alliance (PAA) which is plagued with communist connections. Even worse, Walter asserted that Deb Haaland has other connections to the PAA and that the group influences the policies of the Department of the Interior.  Echoing Walter’s sentiments, O’Neil addressed the negative impact that Deb Haaland’s policies have on American energy, urging Congress to get to the bottom  of the “far-left infiltration of the Department of the Interior under President Biden.” Tellingly, the big three networks entirely ignored this hearing in their evening coverage on April 31 and May 1, as ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News opted to cover other topics.  On April 30, NBC Nightly News had time to talk about malfunctioning iPhone alarms and fearmonger about Russians on social media. In lieu of Deb Haaland’s scandals, ABC World News Tonight brought its viewers the story of a car crashing into a store in New Mexico and a death in a bounce house. The latter story also made it into CBS Evening News coverage, alongside the news that online scammers are targeting seniors. Stop the presses!  Here’s What the Legacy Media Missed: Deb Haaland’s Damning Allegations After detailing the communist connections of the PAA, Walter brought up Deb Haaland’s daughter PAA media organizer Somah Haaland. He also ripped the Department of the Interior, saying, “It’s shocking the Interior Department not only treats Pueblo Action Alliance as a source of policy wisdom but also appears to have made official policy with bias toward the alliance and provided improper assistance to the alliance."  Walter went on to point out a case where Deb Haaland had put the concerns of such environmentalist groups first while ignoring the financial damage predicted by Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren. Walter also mentioned that “multiple meetings between the secretary and Pueblo Action Alliance officials” have taken place and excoriated Deb Haaland for promoting “PAA by having its insignia appear in public photographs beginning her first day in office.”  Moreover, Walter noted that PAA had posted these photographs on social media, later adding, “Activists have promoted Secretary Haaland’s involvement in a film produced by the director of PAA, which demands that oil, gas and mineral leasing outside of the Chaco National Historical Park be ended, a question on which the Secretary officially ruled in favor of PAA’s demand.”  A ‘Sue and Settle’ Plot?  When Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) mentioned a case of close cooperation between the Department of the Interior and leftist activists, O’Neil unearthed a disturbing pattern of collaboration.  “What we’ve seen over and over again, in this case in particular as well, this ‘sue and settle’ strategy, where an activist group that shares the broad policy preferences of the administration, sues an administrative agency for a change in the law, claiming that there’s a legal requirement,” O’Neil told Gosar.  “And then what the agency winds up doing is settling that lawsuit, agreeing to implement the legal requirement.” O’Neil alleged that the agency repeatedly used this duck process and transparency requirements.  Earlier in the hearing, O’Neil noted that the leftist Sierra Club successfully lobbied for a policy resulting in the “smallest number of oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf in history.” He explained efforts by the leftist grant-making behemoth Arabella Advisors and the Soros-funded Tides Foundation to pour vast amounts of dark money into environmentalist groups.  To sum up the situation at the Department of Interior, O’Neil explained that “the left's dark money network is propping up radical environmentalist groups that help steer policy at Interior.” Disturbingly, the leftist media couldn’t have cared any less.  [WATCH MORE: Rep. Mike Collins Goes After Department of the Interior for Energy Policies That Benefit America’s Adversaries] 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 Secretary Haaland’s scandalous behavior. 

Scarborough Rips MSM For Mocking MAGA As Rednecks -- But Did the Same Himself

With all the focus on Joe Biden's decline in mental acuity, have we overlooked the possibility that his phone buddy Joe Scarborough is also suffering some short-term memory loss? The question arises in light of this comment Scarborough--now in his seventh decade--made on today's Morning Joe. "You know, Jen [Palmieri], there is a stereotype of the Trump voter that the media does. Oh, people are stumbling drunk out of their trailer park and, you know, shooting raccoons or something like that. No, it's bankers. It's lawyers. It's people with advanced degrees." So Scarborough rips the MSM for stereotyping MAGA as people "stumbling drunk out of their trailer park, shooting raccoons?" Really, Joe? This from the man we recently caught mocking Jim Comer, the Republican chairman of the House Investigations Committee as saying in a stereotypical southern accent, apropos of his committee's investigation of Hunter Biden: "We ain't got nuthin' but a squirrel fryer and a hound dog. " Scarborough, who claimed: "Comer and his gang are running for the hills. In their coon hats, holding a squirrel fryer in their left hand and a shotgun in the right!" The same Scarborough who we caught putting on a heavy Southern accent to mock Speaker Mike Johnson's belief in the Bible. In reality, as Scarborough surely knows, Johnson sounds more like a newsreader from Nebraska than anything resembling the typical native of his Shreveport, Louisiana home town. More recently, we noted Scarborough indulging a negative stereotype of Southerners, describing legislators who had adopted a pro-life law as "old, fat, white men in Mississippi." So yeah, Joe. The media really does mischaracterize Trump voters and the people they elect -- just have a look in the mirror. Note: Instead of rednecks, Scarborough blamed "billionaires" for making the election of Trump possible, and he said they're "not understanding that this is not just a threat to democracy, but this is a threat to capitalism." At least Joe didn't point the finger at the Rothschilds. And a nervous Scarborough noted Trump "way ahead" in a number of swing-state polls.  Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 5/2/24 6:13 am EDT JOE SCARBOROUGH: You know, Jen, there, there's a stereotype of the Trump voter that the media does. Oh, it's, people are stumbling drunk out of their trailer park and, you know, shooting raccoons, or something like that. No! It's bankers. It's lawyers. It's people with advanced degrees. This is something Anne Applebaum brought out so masterfully in her book, The Twilight of Democracy. Which is, it's, it's, the elites make this possible.  Think about all the billionaires that said, Oh, I'll never vote for Trump. Now, it's like, yeah, I'll vote for Donald Trump. They know this. They read this. They read that Donald Trump says that there's going to be mass deportation. He's going to force prosecutors to arrest political enemies. He's going to execute generals that don't follow his commands. He's able to use SEAL Team Six to execute political opponents. And he says, you can't arrest me for that.  You can go down the list. He's going to be a dictator from day one. He's going to terminate the Constitution. On and on, they've heard all of this. They heard what he said to Time magazine a couple of days ago. It is a dark, autocratic vision of America. And these people, these educated people with advanced degrees, are the ones saying, yeah, I'll support Donald Trump again. Thinking, oh, you know what? Maybe my investments will go, or maybe he won't tax me 3%. Not understanding that this is not just a threat to democracy, but this is a threat to capitalism. JEN PALMIERI: Right. Well, I mean, that's the thing that makes me think maybe they will reconsider if they continue to hear him -- DONNY DEUTSCH: No. They don't get that. PALMIERI: They don't, they don't, they will not make that connection? DEUTSCH: What Joe just said: they don't get how it could affect them negatively. PALMIERI: They don't think that that's going to affect affect business? But there are the 20% of people in Republican primaries who still are not voting for him. And there's the people that say that they were worried about Jan 6th. There's people that, you know, the Republicans Against Trump, those videos about people who voted for him twice but, because of January 6th, won't do it a third time. And, you know, keep doing these interviews, keep saying this, it's like, Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. SCARBOROUGH: You look at the polls, though. PALMIERI: I know, I know. SCARBOROUGH: I mean, a lot of swing-state polls, if you're talking about Nevada, if you're talking about Georgia, if you're talking about North Carolina, they're not even close. Trump way ahead.

PBS's Favorite 'Republican' Claims the GOP Now Is an 'Autocratic Movement'

Former Mitt Romney strategist Stuart Stevens is senior adviser of the Lincoln Project, a never-Trump “Republican” outfit whose pathetic anti-GOP stunts and scandals have discredited it everywhere but in the mainstream media, where it remains a reliable source for smears of the modern-day Republican party as fascistic. Stuart took his familiar act to Tuesday’s edition of Amanpour & Co., which airs on PBS. Host Christiane Amanpour used Steven’s spicy quote in her show opener: Stuart Stevens: Now, it's been a lot of sleepless nights trying to come to grips with it, but the Republican Party now is an autocratic movement. (Stevens is a popular “Republican” in PBS-land. In October 2023 he pumped his then-new book The Conspiracy to End America on the PBS NewsHour comparing his old party to Nazis.) Stevens was interviewed by co-host Walter Isaacson, who identified Stewart as “part of the anti-Trump movement in the Republican Party.” What? He's a former Republican. Isaacson asked him if Trump being on trial would hurt or help his presidential campaign. Stevens had to admit the optics of Trump on trial could work in the candidate’s favor: "It's the grievance campaign. I am your retribution. The deep state is out to get us. What better proof that the deep state is out to get us than the deep state has me on trial.” Prompted by Isaacson, Stevens alleged Trump supported Russian dictator Vladimir Putin before getting to the money quote. Stevens: “And I've spent a lot of sleepless nights trying to come to grips with it, but the Republican Party now is an autocratic movement. And I think what you see in front of the Supreme Court, where they're actually trying to make the case that a president is above the law, it's just further proof that. It's why they -- the conservative movement is in love with Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin.” Isaacson quoted from Stevens saying the Biden team has to be amazed at "how is this guy still in the race?" Stevens painted the GOP as racist. Stevens: You know, a lot of this ultimately has to do with race, Walter. We're a country that's headed to becoming a minority-majority country. If you're 16 years and under in America, you -- the majority are nonwhite. Trump's base is 85 percent white. And it's that reality that drives so much of the Republican Party's efforts to change election laws and to sort of curate the election.” Prodded by Isaacson, Stevens got more and more worked up, and, yes "alarmist." Stevens: ….it's difficult to talk about this without sounding alarmist, and language is one of the issues that, you know, we struggle with. But I think if Donald Trump wins this election, it will be the last election that we can recognize as a normal American election. I know these people. As bad as you think they are, they are worse. They want a different America, and they're open about it when you really listen to them, and that's why they embrace Russia so much. They look at Russia, and they say, OK. Russia, no nonwhite people in power. Putin says there's no gays in Russia. There's no women in power. Elections are performative, but not decisive. That looks pretty good. And they embrace that…. Excepting a question about anti-Trumpers, including Sen. Liz Cheney, journalist Isaacson just facilitated Stevens and his long, broad smear of one of America’s two main political parties. A transcript is available, click “Expand.” Amanpour & Co. 5/1/24 2:03:04 a.m. (ET) CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Stuart Stevens, a former Republican strategist, admits that he's still coming to grips today's GOP and its embrace of a man facing 91 criminal charges, and the grand old party's creeping authoritarian character, as he explains with Walter Isaacson. WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Christiane. And, Stuart Stevens, welcome back to the show. STUART STEVENS, SENIOR ADVISER, THE LINCOLN PROJECT AND AUTHOR, "IT WAS ALL A LIE": Great to see you, Walter. Thanks. ISAACSON: You've been a Republican strategist most of your life, worked for George Bush, Mitt Romney, and then have been part of the anti-Trump movement in the Republican Party. Now, you're watching him on trial. In some ways, he's running on the notion of grievance and persecution. Does this trial help him or hurt him? STEVENS: Well, you know, I mean, I think that the sort of headline on this is that Trump is still a viable candidate and he's on trial. That in itself is extraordinary. Look, I think if you're one of the smart people running the Trump campaign, and they do have smart professionals now, this isn't what your ideal scenario would have been. But at the same time, it's not disqualifying for Trump, which it would be for any other candidate I can think of. And what -- the essence of that is that Trump's campaign, particularly in this cycle, is based on being a victim. It's the grievance campaign. I am your retribution. The deep state is out to get us. What better proof that the deep state is out to get us than the deep state has me on trial. ISAACSON: And you say these are really smart people running the campaign. Are they going to use this to help this politics of grievance? STEVENS: Yes, they're going to use it to try to eat as a proof point. You know, if you have -- you have to get inside their heads, Walter, the whole Trump thing. So, in their world, Trump won the presidency, the White House has been stolen. And the only way that they can stop Trump, who was the legally elected president, they say, from winning again is to put them in jail. So, this is just that process of the deep state trying to take away from you, the voter, your right to choose your president, and they would say, restore democracy. It's sort of like the aliens built the pyramids. Once you understand that, everything else makes a lot of sense. You know, the problem is aliens didn't build the pyramids. But that's how they see the world and this fits into that worldview. ISAACSON: If Trump were not on trial, if there had not been all of these indictments, would he be in a stronger or a weaker position? STEVENS: I think that the indictments helped him in the primary because it then became necessary to support Trump in the primary to prove that what the Democrats were saying and they put in the same Democrats in the deep state are exactly the same. I don't think it is going to help him in the general election. I think that there's something that is going to be disconcerting and wearing the people to see a potential president of the United States, a former president of the United States on trial in multiple jurisdictions. ISAACSON: But wait, haven't people been saying this for a year or two that eventually wear down? STEVENS: Yes. Yes. But the audience has been -- the audience that has been voting has been that primary audience. And it was fascinating to see the split in the primary electorate that pretty much the threshold belief that if you voted for Trump, you believe that he won the presidency last time. Very few of Nikki Haley's voters believe that. The majority of the country doesn't believe that. So, I just think that -- you know, I've compared the Trump candidacy to somebody walking around with a paper bag full of water. I don't think it's going to leak, but I think there's a very good chance it's going to go -- and when it goes, it's going to be very hard to put the water back in the bag.   ISAACSON: Were you surprised that the Republican Party, not just a hardcore base, but a majority of people in the primaries, rallied around him that way?   STEVENS: Oh, Walter, you know, I had a going out of business sale with any optimism in the Republican Party. I think that we've seen a complete collapse of any moral authority of the party. And the people to blame are not Donald Trump. Donald Trump is just being Donald Trump. It's all of the people that you and I know, and I helped elect a lot of them, who before Trump, they wouldn't have had lunch with Trump. They wouldn't let Trump in their house. They know that he's destructive to democracy. They know he's not a conservative. They know that Putin helped elect him. And yet, they still support him. ISAACSON: Why is that? STEVENS: That is a profound question. And I asked myself that. And that led me to write this book, "It Was All a Lie." And what -- the only conclusion I come to that makes any sense to me, and I think it makes any sense at all, is that all of these things that we espoused as deep values, Walter, that the party held, character counts, strong on Soviet Union, strong on Russia, the deficit matters, all of these things, we said were values were in fact just marketing slogans. So, OK, that's not the case then. So, character really doesn't count. Sure, we'll support the candidate who supports Vladimir Putin in, you know, the largest war in Europe since World War II. I don't know how else to come to a conclusion because people don't abandon deeply held beliefs in a couple of years. And the party has just walked away from these.   You know, the Republican Party now doesn't really exist as a normal American political party in any kind of tradition. It exists to defeat Democrats. And, you know, that's how cartels operate. Nobody asks OPEC, what is your higher purpose? You sell oil. And, you know, it's not like a fun thing to admit. And I've spent a lot of sleepless nights trying to come to grips with it, but the Republican Party now is an autocratic movement. And I think what you see in front of the Supreme Court, where they're actually trying to make the case that a president is above the law, it's just further proof that. It's why they -- the conservative movement is in love with Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin. ISAACSON: There's a group of people in the Republican Party who have, of course, pushed back Liz Cheney, most prominent among them, even Senator Mitt Romney, Former Vice President Mike Pence. Do you see the possibility that more and more Republicans like that will come forward between now and the election? STEVENS: I don't think there's many Republicans like them. I think if Trump is convicted it might make a difference with some. You know what – I think it's very interesting to look at, say, Chris Christie, who was a former client of mine. Loved the guy. Could not believe he endorsed Donald Trump in 2016. I remember standing at Atlanta Airport and seeing, you know, CNN and literally tears came to my eyes. It was like, how is this person that I love doing this. And I think he would say it was a mistake now, which is good. What he's going out there and saying now is what should have been said. But when you listen to Chris Christie, how do you come to any other conclusion but you have to support Joe Biden? Same with Asa Hutchinson, who ran in the Republican primary, former governor of Arkansas, another former client of mine, a really good and decent human being, and you may not agree with his politics. He has to support. Liz Cheney has to support Biden. Mitt Romney will support Biden. I think --   ISAACSON: Well, you think or he should -- STEVENS: I think they will. I think those two definitely will. ISAACSON: Do you think that Biden -- and Biden hadn't called them yet? Do you think Biden should reach out to all of them and create a Republicans for Biden committee? STEVENS: Sure. When the time is right. You know, if a prominent Republican came to me and said, I want to endorse Joe Biden, my advice, as wearing my political consultant hat, would be, that's great. I would wait. Because if you do it now, it's not going to mean as much as if you do it, say, during the Democratic Convention. And timing is pretty much everything in politics. So, I hope this will happen. If Trump is convicted, it may make that entry ramp a little smoother. But really, you don't need a conviction in any of these trials to know that Donald Trump should not be president. So, you know, it's just -- I mean, think about it, Walter, the Republican Party doesn't have room for a Cheney? Really? A Cheney? What do you do with that? And there is no Republican Party to go back to. And people just have to come to grips with that. There's a kind of false hope that somehow we can just look beyond Trump, and McConnell expressed a lot of this, and a lot of these sort of gentry Republicans have held their nose and say, well, you know, we're just going to be able to put Trump behind us. No, no. The party -- there is a need for a center right conservative party in America. That cannot be the Republican Party as it's currently construed.   ISAACSON: So, wait. What happens if there's a need for a center right party and the Republican Party has abandoned that? What do you see down the road?   STEVENS: I think 2032 is the best hope that you could have a sane center right party that will emerge. You know, pain is the best teacher in politics. Arguably, maybe the only teacher. And what needs to happen is Republicans need to lose, and they need to lose again and again. And then, out of some sense of survival, you could see a sane party emerging. You know, a lot of this ultimately has to do with race, Walter. We're a country that's headed to becoming a minority majority country. If you're 16 years and under in America, you -- the majority are nonwhite. Trump's base is 85 percent white. And it's that reality that drives so much of the Republican Party's efforts to change election laws and to sort of curate the election. ISAACSON: You talk about the politics of grievance and of anti-corporate, anti-state feelings. How does Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fit into this equation? STEVENS: It's a great question. I think it comes down to who RFK. Jr. is. If come October, and RFK Jr. is defined as a crusading environmentalist lawyer that took on big corporations, that guy's going to hurt Joe Biden. If RFK Jr. is defined as this wacky conspiracy nut who has said that there is no safe vaccine, which means he's basically the, you know, anti-polio vaccine candidate who believes -- has expressed these conspiracies about the CIA killing his father and how, you know, Prozac leads to school shootings, I think that guy will probably hurt Trump more. But, you know, if it was up to me, I would rather just have a straight race with no third-party candidates. It's a cleaner race. You have to make it a choice between Trump and Biden. And there are voters out there who don't like Trump, who are uncomfortable with Biden. If you give them any sort of socially accepted off ramp, my fear is that they'll take them. That was a great fallacy of a No Labels candidate. And all the candidates they talked about definitely would have just helped elect Donald Trump, which maybe is one of the reasons that ultimately, they didn't go forward. But, you know, in The Lincoln Project, we're out there defining Robert Kennedy for what he is, a conspiracy nut who's anti-vaxxer. I think that's what needs to be done. And I hope that's who he is in October. ISAACSON: The last few lines of your op-ed, let me quote them to you. You say, we should not normalize how extraordinary it is that Mr. Trump is still a viable candidate for president. The Biden campaign will watch the spectacle unfold asking, how is this guy still in the race? So, let me ask you, how is this guy still in the race? STEVENS: It goes, I think, to a fundamental hollowness that existed within the Republican Party that Trump brought to light. ISAACSON: But also, the American electorate? STEVENS: Well, you look at among Democrats, Trump is, you know, not getting a lot of support. But yes, you would have to say he is appealing to a dark side of America. And we've had other candidates who did that. George Wallace did it. We just didn't have him nominated by a major political party. The Democratic Party rejected George Wallace. The Republican Party embraced it. You know, I think that there has been, by the establishment of the Republican Party embracing Trump, it has given a permission structure for people who are troubled by a lot of Trump to say, well, he couldn't -- he must not be that bad. I think he's a little weird and all this, but, hey, my governor -- I know my governor better. My Senator, they're normal humans. They support Trump. And that is the failure of the party not to stand up to Trump. But look, if you're going to ask me if Donald Trump wins his next race, does it say something that's very, very troubling about the future of democracy? My answer overwhelmingly is yes. You know, it's difficult to talk about this without sounding alarmist, and language is one of the issues that, you know, we struggle with. But I think if Donald Trump wins this election, it will be the last election that we can recognize as a normal American election. I know these people. As bad as you think they are, they are worse. They want a different America, and they're open about it when you really listen to them, and that's why they embrace Russia so much. They look at Russia, and they say, OK. Russia, no nonwhite people in power. Putin says there's no gays in Russia. There's no women in power. Elections are performative, but not decisive. That looks pretty good. And they embrace that. So, the idea, you know, America is rapidly changing, non-college educated white voters have the largest declining demographic in the country, and they find it unsettling and troubling and they would like to stop that. And they will -- they are about the business of trying to change elections so that they reduce the power of those who see a different America. And that's -- the Electoral College facilitates that. Biden won by 7 million votes, but it's 45,000 votes to change hands in just exactly the right places Trump would still win. So, I think it's a race about the future of America. I think the cliche this is the most important race of our lifetime has never been more true. ISAACSON: Stuart Stevens, thank you so much for joining us again. STEVENS: Thank you, Walter. AMANPOUR: So, that was two Republicans, two former Republicans, talking about their party today.

Guess Which Outlet Internet Traffic Cop NewsGuard Is Applauding OpenAI for Partnering With

You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours seems to be NewsGuard’s attitude toward OpenAI. Gordon Crovitz, the Co-editor and chief of so-called media ratings firm NewsGuard, wrote an article praising OpenAI artificial intelligence ChatGPT’s use of “Trustworthy Journalism” in its answers. But trustworthy according to whom? Well, NewsGuard’s biased ratings system, of course. This comes just two and a half months after ChatGPT refused to answer which news sources are the worst and instead directed MRC Free Speech America researchers to look to NewsGuard ratings for answers.  “Trusting legacy media to train AI is just about as ridiculous as chickens trusting a fox to guard the hen house,” said Michael Morris, Director of MRC Free Speech America. “But that’s exactly what NewsGuard is asking users to do here, and that can only lead to one thing: a really bad day for the chickens.” In his recent article, Crovitz applauded OpenAI for its recent licensing agreement with The Financial Times (FT), which just so happens to have a 100/100 NewsGuard rating.  “The AI models are ‘trained’ on whatever they can find on the internet, so when people ask the chatbots about topics in the news, their responses are based on the news sources the models are able to access,” Crovitz wrote. “OpenAI just announced that the Financial Times is the latest news publisher to get a licensing agreement, which means that its ChatGPT will be able to use the highly regarded London-based source of financial and business news in its training data.”  FT has repeatedly shown its bias over the years including when in 2018 it made leftist billionaire George Soros its “person of the year.” The outlet has also propped up President Joe Biden when his bad economic policies predictably led to bad economic outcomes. “Unemployment rate in US falls unexpectedly to 13.3%,”  FT wrote in a headline. The Financial Times editor and columnist Edward Luce also parroted claims of the Russian collusion hoax when he was interviewed on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.  The AI platform is also reportedly negotiating similar licensing agreements with CNN  and Politico –which NewsGuard gave ratings of 80 and 100 respectively– along with News Corp. which owns a conglomeration of outlets, according to Bloomberg News.   Crovitz is also in no position to label what news is “trustworthy” as his own ratings firm has repeatedly shown bias and relaxed standards toward leftist media outlets while giving right-leaning media outlets low scores.  MRC Free Speech America has repeatedly shown that NewsGuard’s ratings system favors leftist media outlets. Using a media bias chart provided by AllSides in January 2023, the MRC exposed NewsGuard for giving a high average score of 91/100 to media on the “left” while slapping “a low average score of 66/100 to media on the “right”. This mirrored MRC’s previous studies which found very similar results. NewsGuard showed its true colors when The New York Times, TIME, Politico and Reuters each falsely reported that Israel was responsible for an airstrike on Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza. Those who did not just take Hamas’s health ministry at its word soon learned via U.S. intelligence assessment that the explosion was caused by a “failed rocket launch by militant terrorists,” as Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) put it. Despite the very public flub, Time, Politico and Reuters each continue to have a perfect 100/100 rating from NewsGuard. While NewsGuard docked The Times’s score in February and mentioned the Gaza hospital fake news that the leftist rag published, the ratings firm notably did not reduce the score due to its criteria that media outlets not “repeatedly publish false or egregiously misleading content.” Instead, NewsGuard lowered the media outlet’s score because The Times no longer “Handles the difference between news and opinion responsibly.” NewsGuard gave USA Today a perfect score, which did not even change after the outlet admitted to publishing 23 fabricated stories in 2022. 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 CensorTrack contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

Colbert Suggests Feds Will Monitor Women Under Trump, Attacks Him on Israel

CBS’s Stephen Colbert reacted to Donald Trump’s interviews with Time and Fox News on Wednesday’s edition of The Late Show by attacking him on issues ranging from abortion to Israel. Colbert noted that in the Time interview, “Trump tried to dodge any question at all about abortion by claiming he would leave it up to the states, but said he's fine with states monitoring pregnant women, so they don't get abortions.”     It would be more accurate to say Trump took a position of complete federal non-interference, “It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.” Regardless, Colbert raised the prospect of the invention of the menstrual cycle police, "Well, then why stop at pregnancy? Why not monitor women for their entire cycle? ‘Open up! Open up! It's the feds! It's gonna be a light day!’” Colbert followed up with a juvenile digression, “Not sure how I was holding that bullhorn, I’m not sure why I was talking into a hoagie. Light butt play. Light butt play. What do you think of that, Ed? Ed, what are you think about, what about you, Ed? You ever have light butt play? What about you, Doc?” Moving on, Colbert reported, “Trump also assured the nation that he's going to be way better at staffing this time around, saying, [TRUMP IMPRESSION] ‘The advantage I have now is I know everybody. I know people. I know the good, the bad, the stupid, the smart.’"  Reverting back to his normal voice, Colbert continued, to great amounts of applause, “You can just say ‘good’ and ‘smart,’ we already know you're pretty tight with the bad and the stupid. They're your sons.” Colbert also recalled that “yesterday, he also called into Fox News and weighed in on the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.” In the clip of Hannity, Trump explained that “We have to let Israel complete their war on terror. It's a horrible thing, but they have to do it and they have to do it fast.” There are some things that are unpleasant or miserable, but have to be done. The sooner you get it over with, the sooner the misery ends, but Colbert played dumb, “Yes, horrible things are only horrible if they aren't done really fast. ‘Kids, I am leaving you and your mom for my college intern, but it's okay 'cause I'm leaving in a jetpack. Pshhhh.’" While Colbert devoted portions of his Wednesday monologue to taking apart Trump’s platform, do not expect him to do the same when he takes his show on the road to Chicago and the DNC in a few months. Here is a transcript for the May 1 show: CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert 5/1/2024 11:45 PM ET STEPHEN COLBERT: Trump tried to dodge any question at all about abortion by claiming he would leave it up to the states, but said he's fine with states monitoring pregnant women, so they don't get abortions. Well then why stop at pregnancy? Why not monitor women for their entire cycle? "Open up! Open up! It's the feds! It's gonna be a light day!"  Not sure how I was holding that bullhorn, I’m not sure why I was talking into a hoagie. Light butt play. Light butt play. What do you think of that, Ed? Ed, what are you think about, what about you, Ed? You ever have light butt play? What about you, Doc?  Trump also assured the nation that he's going to be way better at staffing this time around, saying, [TRUMP IMPRESSION] "The advantage I have now is I know everybody. I know people. I know the good, the bad, the stupid, the smart." [NORMAL VOICE] You can just say "good" and "smart," we already know you're pretty tight with the bad and the stupid. They're your sons.  Now, yesterday, he also called into Fox News and weighed in on the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. DONALD TRUMP: We have to let Israel complete their war on terror. It's a horrible thing, but they have to do it and they have to do it fast. COLBERT: Yes, horrible things are only horrible if they aren't done really fast. "Kids, I am leaving you and your mom for my college intern, but it's okay 'cause I'm leaving in a jetpack. Pshhhh."

PROPAGANDA: CBS Airs Gazan Kids Thanking U.S. Campus Protester-Vandals

Tonight’s CBS Evening News dispatch from Gaza included a pretty blatant piece of propaganda: a group of children thanking American campus protesters for their “protests and solidarity”.  Watch as correspondent Ramy Inocencio introduces this moment of thanks to American pro-Hamas useful idiots and other leftists demanding that the universities accommodate their BDS demands. RAMY INOCENCIO: And for the first time, aid started flowing through a reopened border crossing destroyed on October 7th. As Gazans rallied to thank U.S. university students for their protests and solidarity.  The report was otherwise your normalish dispatch from Gaza. A mention of the tension between the Biden and Netanyahu administrations, respectively, over a potential Blinken-brokered ceasefire, allowing for prisoner exchanges. There’s Blinken fretting over a potential IDF invasion of Rafah, and Bibi saying he’s doing it no matter what. Petty standard stuff. There was also the quick interview of a hostage family wherein they firmly demanded something be done in furtherance of the incarceration of hostages. Again, pretty standard stuff. Standard stuff until the kids with signs get trotted out, with their entirely organic artwork and proper university logos. Totally spontaneous, I’m sure. Notice the children bring guided by their "adults" Seriously, who at CBS thought it was a good idea to air pro-Hamas and pro-student rioter propaganda? It is very brief but serves its purpose. Ultimately, the net effect of this video will be to embolden pro-Hamas protesters in the U.S. to ratchet up their efforts. An otherwise unremarkable report on the state of affairs in Gaza was made remarkable by the willful broadcasting of pro-Hamas propaganda. Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on the CBS Evening News on Wednesday, May 1st, 2024: JAMES BROWN: Secretary of State Antony Blinken was back in Israel today for the seventh time since the war with Hamas began last October. Blinken is pushing hard for a stop to the fighting, but CBS's Ramy Inocencio reports from Tel Aviv, progress on a deal seems out of reach. RAMY INOCENCIO: Handshakes and smiles aside, in the quest for a cease-fire with Hamas, secretary of state Antony Blinken shot down Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan for a final Gaza invasion. ANTONY BLINKEN: We cannot, will not support a major military operation in Rafah, absent an effective plan to make sure that civilians are not harmed. INOCENCIO: But a Netanyahu advisor confirms to CBS News the prime minister is not backing down from his plan to attack Rafah. A more receptive welcome came from families of hostages pleading for a cease-fire to get all hostages home. AVIVA SIEGEL: I feel like I'm broken up into pieces. INOCENCIO: For Aviva Siegel, her American husband, Keith, is one of them. This proof of life video released just days ago. SIEGEL: And I know that Keith has had enough. Our family has had enough. Our country’s had enough. INOCENCIO: Aviva herself was a hostage released after 51 days. She, her daughter,and families of other American hostages had a face-to-face with Blinken. What was the feeling? DAUGHTER: Really grateful for what the United States has been doing since October 7th. INOCENCIO: Another sticking point to a cease-fire, aid to Gaza. The U.N. warns of impending famine. Blinken toured routes being ramped up and being built into the Strip, and for more. BLINKEN: It needs to be accelerated, it needs to be sustained. INOCENCIO: And for the first time, aid started flowing through a reopened border crossing destroyed on October 7th. As Gazans rallied to thank U.S. university students for their protests and solidarity.  And Antony Blinken left the region a few hours ago back to Washington. Israel hasn't confirmed it’ll send a delegation to any cease-fire talks. Hamas still hasn’t replied to Israel’s proposal. JB. BROWN: Thank you, Ramy.  

NBC News Is Only Network To Report On Suspected ISIS Border Crosser

The catastrophe along the U.S. southern border has all but disappeared from the corporate network evening news. A recent NBC News story demonstrates why networks must still report on the border, notwithstanding that issue driving President Joe Biden’s unfavorable numbers. Watch as NBC News correspondent Julia Ainsley describes a shocking scenario wherein an Uzbek crossed the border illegally in 2022, was released into the United States only to struggle to find him once it was known that he was a potential member of ISIS: JULIA AINSLEY: Tonight, among the record wave of migrants crossing the southern border, a suspected ISIS member who lived freely in the U.S. for nearly two years, two U.S. officials tell NBC News. 33-year-old Jovokhir Attoev of Uzbekistan crossed into Arizona in February 2022, where he was apprehended and vetted by both Customs and Border Protection and I.C.E. He was not on the U.S. terror watchlist and he was released into the U.S., those sources tell us. Then, in May 2023, Uzbekistan put out an international alert saying that Attoev was affiliated with ISIS and wanted there. But it took nearly a year for U.S. officials to figure out the suspected ISIS member was living freely here in the U.S. It is inconceivable that it would take the government almost a year to find a man suspected of being an actual terrorist. Compare that to the dispatch with which the government is able to locate random school board protesters, pro-life activists, or random grandmas walking the Capitol grounds on January 6th, and you begin to sense a real disconnect.  The report leaves viewers with some uncomfortable questions: how many more suspected ISIS terrorists have crossed, unvetted, into the United States? Of those, how many are known to the government and what is being done in order to be able to track them down? There is no answer for that, which is not good given the Biden administration’s proposal to bring Gaza refugees into the United States.  It is shocking that such a report would even make it to air, given the media’s propensity to cover for the administration’s failures. To their credit, NBC News reported an uncomfortable story- which is more than can be said for their competitors. Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on NBC Nightly News on Wednesday, May 1st, 2024: LESTER HOLT: We're back with our NBC News report on the terror concerns at the U.S. border. We've learned a suspected ISIS member not only crossed into the U.S. illegally, he was also living here for quite some time before anyone realized it. Here's Julia Ainsley. JULIA AINSLEY: Tonight, among the record wave of migrants crossing the southern border, a suspected ISIS member who lived freely in the U.S. for nearly two years, two U.S. officials tell NBC News. 33-year-old Jovokhir Attoev of Uzbekistan crossed into Arizona in February 2022, where he was apprehended and vetted by both Customs and Border Protection and I.C.E. He was not on the U.S. terror watchlist and he was released into the U.S., those sources tell us. Then, in May 2023, Uzbekistan put out an international alert saying that Attoev was affiliated with ISIS and wanted there. But it took nearly a year for U.S. officials to figure out the suspected ISIS member was living freely here in the U.S.  U.S. Officials tell us DHS made the alarming discovery after reviewing Attoev’s application for asylum. Shortly after DHS connected the dots, ICE arrested him here, in Baltimore, just two weeks ago. Former Homeland Security officials tell us his case raises red flags about the vetting process for migrants after they cross the border. Should alarm bells be going off here? ELIZABETH NEUMANN: We are in the midst of a really volatile threat environment. Any time I see a gap in a system like we are seeing in this case, I do have concerns. Any time you have just a massive volume of people like we do, our systems are overwhelmed and we need more resources at the southern border to properly protect the homeland. AINSLEY: And it follows our exclusive report last month that a migrant U.S. officials say was affiliated with an Afghan terror group crossed the border and was released into the U.S. because agents lacked information to connect him to the terror watchlist. That man, Mohamed Harwin was arrested hours after our report aired. The FBI director recently alerted Congress, the agencies investigating whether ISIS has a hand in smuggling migrants across the southern border. CHRISTOPHER WRAY: There is a particular network that has -- where some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties that we're very concerned about. AINSLEY: Two U.S. officials tell NBC News DHS has not yet concluded that Attoev is part of ISIS, but they are questioning him in detention. A DHS spokesperson tells us he remains in U.S. custody and there is no threat to public safety. Lester. HOLT: Ok. Julia. Thank you.  

NewsBusters Podcast: The Lingo Games with 'Pro-Palestinian Protesters'

One of the ways you can always sense media bias is the terminology that the media elite decides to adopt en masse. Colleges are being occupied by "pro-Palestinian protesters," and you can't (accurately) call them "anti-Israel," not to mention "pro-Hamas." Liberals paint other liberals as pro-everything good, and the conservatives are anti-everything good. Anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-government, anti-tax. All of this is messaging, like advertising slogans. This tendency is especially transparent on the "culture war" issues. Killing a baby is "abortion care." Seeking an amputation is "gender-affirming care." Florida adopting a six-week abortion ban is portrayed as very "restrictive." The media will use the word "protections" for whatever policies they support, like Democrats passing "protections for gender-affirming care." They'll call liberalized abortion law "protections," when the baby is clearly not protected.  Reporters casually pass along that leftists call trans surgeries "life-saving." They'll even call abortions "life-saving." On the PBS NewsHour, they filed a story that used the term "gender-affirming care" ten times, and nowhere in the report did anyone take exception to that term or anything else the transgender lobby is seeking to accomplish. It wasn't surprising, given the expert in the segment was NPR health reporter Selena Simmons-Duffin, who has filed one-sided stories in favor of abortion and the abortion lobby. Ex-NPR senior editor Uri Berliner appeared with Chris Cuomo on NewsNation and insisted “I think that really, NPR has a lot of soul searching to do about representing the country at large. Being a publicly funded news organization and really trying to represent this country in all its great diversity and viewpoints.” Berliner is no longer at NPR because almost no one in public radio believes that the taxpayer subsidies should encourage NPR to be fair and balanced. No one at NPR wants that, or if they do, they'll be sidelined like Berliner. Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Ex-NPR Editor: NPR Needs Some 'Soul-Searching' About Serving All Americans

Ex-NPR senior editor Uri Berliner appeared again on Chris Cuomo's NewsNation show on Tuesday night. “I think that really, NPR has a lot of soul searching to do about representing the country at large. Being a publicly funded news organization and really trying to represent this country in all its great diversity and viewpoints.” It should seem obvious that NPR is impervious to "soul searching" since they didn't want Berliner to work there any more after he raised his questions about viewpoint diversity. Cuomo asked about morning host Steve Inskeep and then other people at NPR saying Berliner "cherry-picked" his stories and got it wrong. "Do you think in retrospect that you should have done anything different?" Berliner said no, "not at all. You know, I think even in our news in NPR newsroom, since the story was published, they've decided to institute regular reviews of coverage, which I think is a positive sign. I also think there's a conversation in this country that's happening within the media, but also more broadly about the really sad level of trust of the media and the extent to which narratives are imposed in newsrooms, whether they are legacy media and they're left leaning or whether they're coming from the right, and I think there's a large group of people that are tired of it, and are just calling out the media for doing things that are increasing the polarization in this country, so I don't regret -- I don't have any regrets.” Cuomo said "I was moved that the media left this story alone," and they didn't want to have a real examination of NPR's content. "What does it mean for you going forward? " BERLINER: Well, I you know, I think there was that there was some a lot of positive stories, including, interestingly, from college newspapers supporting what I said, and saying it's vital. And, you know, and from reporters and columnists around the country, and I would say this story lasted a lot longer than I expected it to. I thought, you know, I would write this and there would be pushback in the newsroom and it would be, you know, be over in a couple of days. You know, the head of the newsroom [Edith Chapin], criticized the story, I think she did it in a fairly respectful way, I was suspended five days without pay. I didn't object to that I didn't seek a grievance from the union. And I thought it was gonna go away after that. But then the new CEO, Katherine Maher, she injected herself into the newsroom, and she attacked me publicly and personally, and I think that extended the story, especially when people started finding out more about her views, not just the tweets, you know about America, being addicted to white supremacy, or criticizing Hillary Clinton for using the words [inaudible]. More importantly, videos that surfaced where she talked about the First Amendment being a challenge and a tricky thing when you're trying to suppress information. This is when she was running, Wikimedia, which oversees Wikipedia. And I think that really extended the story a lot.” Cuomo expressed amazement that the serious complaints within NPR were about wanting to take it further to the left, not further to the center. 

Cuomo: Pro-Hamas Camps the ‘Intersection of Ignorance and Arrogance’

NewsNation host Chris Cuomo was on a tear this week; using his prime-time show to call out the anti-Semitic/pro-Hamas extremists encamped on college campuses across the country. He called the encampments the “frightening intersection of ignorance and arrogance” and raised the legitimate concern that the students were being radicalized into doing something much worse than occupying a building. In the hour before the NYPD busted up the encampment at Columbia University Tuesday night, Cuomo shared a soundbite from a press conference where one of the terrorist sympathizers demanded the administration give them food and water. “But this is like basic humanitarian aid asking for. Like, could people please have a glass of water?” the student whined. Cuomo rubbed his face in frustration (above) and asked: “Seriously? Seriously? You want to break the law and then get catering?” He correctly diagnosed the problem as “privilege” and noted “she wasn't even aware of it.” He argued that what we were seeing on these campuses was the “frightening intersection of ignorance and arrogance.” And speaking directly at the students, he called them out for wanting to “appropriate the suffering in Gaza as if that were you; just not the suffering part.” “What happened to hunger strikes, getting arrested, taking a prosecution for the cause? Change doesn't come easy. Change doesn't come without cost,” he told them off. “You are being treated with kid gloves and you better hope it stays that way.”     On Monday, Cuomo struck a similar tone when he called out the cowardly students for hiding their faces when they claimed their cause was so just: Who put them in this position? The kids should offer up their names. Don't hide behind the scarves. You want the light? Take the heat! Own it! Be accountable for your outrage. There’s nothing wrong with that. Yeah. You may get thrown out of school. What matters if it's a genocide? Right? If ‘we are Hamas,’ right? Don't hide! “Give up your parents’ names,” he also demanded. “‘Oh, they shouldn't have to answer for me.’ The Hell they shouldn't. I got one of you. If my kid was running around on campus doing what you guys are doing, I'd be answering for it. I promise you that.” The focus stayed on what the pro-Hamas students were capable of and Cuomo feared their radicalism could drive them to do things far worse. He recalled the case of John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban. “Well-to-do, converted to Islam as a teenager, went overseas, became radicalized, wound up helping terror organizations,” Cuomo recalled. “How do we know that people aren’t being radicalized today that it ends on campus? How do we know?” Cuomo cautioned that social media – particularly TikTok – was to blame for how Generation Z has seemingly taken up the banner of Radical Islam in mass. “We never had people shouting ‘We are the Taliban’ after 9/11…We didn't have social media, but we didn't have whoever is guiding these things and funding these things being as active, as well-equipped, and as effective as they are right now,” he said. The transcripts are below. Click "expand" to read: NewsNation’s Cuomo April 29, 2024 8:07:50 p.m. eastern CHRIS CUOMO: Who put them in this position? The kids should offer up their names. Don't hide behind the scarves. You want the light? Take the heat! Own it! Be accountable for your outrage. There’s nothing wrong with that. Yeah. You may get thrown out of school. What matters if it's a genocide? Right? If ‘we are Hamas,’ right? Don't hide! Give up your parents’ names. “Oh, they shouldn't have to answer for me.” The Hell they shouldn't. I got one of you. If my kid was running around on campus doing what you guys are doing, I'd be answering for it. I promise you that. That's my kid. Doesn't matter how old you are. You're not paying your way there. You're under somebody else's roof, somebody else's influence. And it's time they step up. And the people who are funding these protests. Where are you? Where are the organizations? The invisible hand that is motivating what we're seeing on social media, who is it, where are they? Where's the investigative reporting on that? This has to be exposed. And to the parents and to the people out there who say, “Hey look, these kids are angry, we saw it during BLM, it's going to be summer. This will dissipate. They're going to go home to their internships and all the other bull – B – you know, stuff they do.” Maybe, maybe not. I'll tell you why. I don't see it that way. My last point. Three words for you. That is a lesson from the past that I don't know that we learned judging by what I'm seeing right now. Johnnie Walker Lindh. Look them up; L-I-N-D-H. Young kid, I forget where he grew up. Maybe California, something like that. Well-to-do, converted to Islam as a teenager, went overseas, became radicalized, wound up helping terror organizations. Put in prison 17 years. Got out a few years earl, everybody got angry about it. How do we know that people aren’t being radicalized today that it ends on campus? How do we know? We never had people shouting “We are the Taliban” after 9/11. Right? Do you remember that? Are you old enough to remember? If not, not Google it. We didn't have social media, but we didn't have whoever is guiding these things and funding these things being as active, as well-equipped, and as effective as they are right now. How do you know it ends with talk? (…) April 30, 2024 8:03:34 p.m. Eastern PRO-HAMAS PROTESTER: But this is like basic humanitarian aid asking for. Like, could people please have a glass of water? CUOMO: [Rubs face in frustration] Seriously? Seriously? You want to break the law and then get catering? You talk about privilege. And she wasn't even aware of it. That is frightening intersection of ignorance and arrogance. You want to appropriate the suffering in Gaza as if that were you; just not the suffering part. What happened to hunger strikes, getting arrested, taking a prosecution for the cause? Change doesn't come easy. Change doesn't come without cost. Go look at what happened during BLM. How blacks and their allies were treated when they destroyed property. And that was in poor areas, let alone some fancy place like a rich college campus. You are being treated with kid gloves and you better hope it stays that way. (…)

Birth Control Pill Linked to Life-Threatening Complication

Wait  -so Big Pharma isn’t right all the time? After taking a birth control pill with progesterone, an Illinois woman began bleeding from her backside which almost took her life. This is the pill that is promoted by the same people who think abortion is safe. The patient’s pain became increasingly worse after taking the pills for only two months. She had terrible “cramps, debilitating nausea, and blood diarrhea,” The Daily Mail indicated. After three weeks of intense pain, she went to the emergency room and was “diagnosed with ischemic colitis, which is most often caused by increased blood clotting in the abdomen and intestines.” Doctors who treated the woman indicated that this was only the second case of its kind that they’d seen and that without circulation, parts of the bowl can die and therefore, the patient can too. Daily Mail linked to a recent study which concluded that the pill the woman was taking could lead to increased risk of blood clotting. Doctors told the patient to go off of the birth control pill and her symptoms improved in roughly two weeks. “IC [Ischemic colitis] predominantly affects young women, who are on hormonal contraceptives, particularly estrogen, being implicated,” the study indicated. It also brought up another case where a similar thing happened and concluded that while much more research is needed to confirm, it’s likely that the birth control pill contributed to the IC. Our case presents a unique scenario of biopsy-confirmed IC after the use of a progesterone-only contraceptive, the second documented case as per our literature review. The first case, reported in 1972 by Martin D. Gelfand, involved a multiparous woman experiencing abdominal cramping, bloody stools, and rectosigmoid erythema after initiating Depo-Provera, a progesterone-only contraceptive. In cases of contraceptive-induced IC, patients typically recover after discontinuing the hormonal contraceptive. Similarly, our patient had complete resolution of her symptoms within a few weeks of ceasing the medication. The sad part is, these types of pills are promoted and praised throughout many feminist groups and outlets. Planned Parenthood promotes the pill so it can make money  - but rarely, if ever, warns about the repercussions.  As the left tries to cover up any adverse side effects of these pills, TikTok has recently begun censoring videos that warn about those side effects. In an MRCTV article published last month, TikTok reportedly took down numerous videos that talked about women who developed severe hormonal imbalances, had a weakened sex drive, developed depression, gained weight, had heart issues, had issues with fertility later on and many more from the birth control pill. TikTok also removed advertisements for a detox regime from a wellness group called “28” who wanted to help women detox from the harmful chemicals of the birth control pill. With censorship like that, it’s likely the story of the poor woman who ended up in the hospital will not reach mainstream media. God forbid anyone’s actually informed about their health.

Nets Catch the Sads for Florida Curbing ‘Abortion Care’, Cheer It as ‘Key’ to 2024

On Wednesday, the “big three’ of ABC, CBS, and NBC had full stories on their flagship morning news shows to reiterate their joy over Biden regime being so “eager” to make “abortion care” “front and center in the fight for the White House” and “drive voters to the polls” with the latest case being the focus on Florida’s six-week pro-life law being “one of the strictest abortion bans in the United States.” As these round-ups usually go, ABC’s Good Morning America was the giddiest thanks to the team of co-host/former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos and chief White House correspondent/chief Biden apple polisher Mary Bruce. “Abortion rights fight. As Florida’s six week ban takes effect this morning, President Biden puts the issue front and center in the fight for the White House,” Stephanopoulos boasted in an opening tease. Later on with the chyron reading in part “Abortion Showdown Takes Center Stage”, Bruce gushed that her friends are “eager to put the issue of abortion front and center in this campaign, and today, sending the Vice President, Kamala Harris — t heir chief messenger on this — down to Florida”.     Bruce made sure to highlight Trump’s Time magazine interview and that gotcha question about states surveilling pregnant women and even did her President a solid by not playing a campaign video released overnight and instead reading a portion herself (since it’s littered with jump cuts thanks to Biden’s inability to string together coherent thoughts). “[T]he Biden campaign is hoping all of this will drive voters to the polls for them in November,” she later concluded, to which fill-in co-host Gio Benitez conurred it’s “[a] major issue to be sure.” Over on NBC’s Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie called Florida’s law an “abortion showdown” in a tease and said NBC will get into “[w]hat it means for millions of women” (as opposed to babies). During a segment about the raging anti-Semites creating chaos on college campuses, White House correspondent Peter Alexander told Guthrie they’ve distracted voters “away from the issues the Democrats want to talk about, issues like reproductive rights, issues more broadly about health care” and the Trump indictments. NBC then did the Biden team a solid by talking about what they want. Co-host Hoda Kotb relayed that abortion was “front and center today” (says who?) “as one of the strictest abortion bans in the United States takes effect in Florida.” Correspondent Marissa Para bemoaned the lack of access for “abortion care” in the Sunshine State and only footnoted the pro-life cause with sound from one of the law’s state House sponsors (who correctly declared “abortion is not health care”) (click “expand”): PARA: Clinics like the one you see behind me have been preparing for today. Today is day one of Florida’s new law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy and the vast majority of cases with some exceptions for things like incest and rape. But with former President Trump making controversial new comments to issue, Hoda, we are already seeing how much abortion rights will play a role come November. This morning, an abortion ban with ripples far beyond the Sunshine State. PRO-BABY KILLERS: Our body, our choice! PARA: After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, states began to form their own rules. Many women from surrounding states in the south, which have the strictest rules in the country, traveled to Florida seeking abortion care. Florida, now banning the procedure before most women know they are pregnant. Starting today, the closest drivable options for abortion care are North Carolina and Virginia. Florida clinics like A Woman’s World in Ft. Pierce have been working overtime, trying to squeeze in every patient over six weeks pregnant before it became a felony to do so.  A WOMAN’S WORLD MEDICAL CENTER OWNER CANDACE DYE: Last week, the phones were crazy. We couldn’t answer the phones fast enough. PARA: Supporters of the ban point out the law has exceptions for rape, incest, fetal abnormalities, and life of the mother. State Rep Mike Beltran, one of the bill’s sponsors, says the days of what he calls “abortion tourism” from other states are over. FLORIDA STATE REPRESENTATIVE MIKE BELTRAN (R): Abortion is not health care. There are many countries where abortion is illegal or more restrictive than the Florida rules. CBS Mornings also checked the box. Fill-in co-host Jericka Duncan teased in the Eye Opener a report on “Florida’s new restrictive abortion law tak[ing] effect today” and words from “ Florida doctor who’s bracing for the fallout.” Co-host Nate Burleson had the open to said segment: “A new abortion law goes into effect today in Florida, sharply restricting the procedure after six weeks before many women know that they are pregnant. That means almost every state in the south has severe limits on abortion In most, it’s nearly outlawed.” Political correspondent Caitlin Huey-Burns decried Florida putting to a stop the “influx of patients from out of state as it was one of the last remaining places in this region with fewer restrictions” and made an abortionist the focus of her piece (click “expand”): DR. SHELLY TIEN: There’s fear. There’s uncertainty. HUEY-BURNS: Jacksonville Dr. Shelly Tien stood ready to see patients until the stroke of midnight when Florida’s six-week abortion ban was set to take effect. TIEN: It is, in essence, a total and a complete abortion ban. HUEY-BURNS [TO TIEN]: As a physician, what is it like for you operating under these circumstances? TIEN: Sure, you know — and I — I think, you know, certainly, it’s — it’s stressful. We see physicians that are scared to take care of basic issues and we’ve seen patients turned away from emergency rooms, delivering in public floor bathrooms. I mean, really, really awful, scenarios. HUEY-BURNS: Florida’s new law includes exceptions for rape, intest, fetal abnormalities, and life of the mother. FLORIDA STATE REPRESENTATIVE DEAN BLACK (R): It’s a victory. HUEY-BURNS: State Republican lawmaker Dean Black voted for the six-week ban. BLACK: We think we have a good law, a compassionate law, a moral law. It can serve as a guide for other states. After quoting Trump’s comments about surveilling women and an excerpt of the Biden ad (which featured three jump cuts for two sentences), Huey-Burns touted Florida as some sort of battleground as the pro-life law “has attracted the attention of the Biden campaign” with Vice President Kamala Harris flocking to Jacksonville “as part of her nationwide reproductive freedom tour.” To see the relevant transcripts from May 1, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).

Major Government Entity Follows US Lead Against Infamous CCP-Tied App

The European Union is the latest government entity to ponder canceling a Chinese government-tied app. Soon after President Joe Biden signed a bill giving TikTok a choice between Chinese divestment and a ban in the U.S., European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen took up the same question, according to Politico EU. Asked about the possibility of a TikTok ban during a European Union (EU) candidate debate, von der Leyen replied, “It is not excluded.” This comes as TikTok already faces multiple EU probes. Von der Leyen then bragged that the Commission had been “the very first institution worldwide to ban TikTok on our corporate phones,” adding, “We know exactly the danger of TikTok.” Other candidates at the debate did not commit either way, Politico reported. The outlet also noted that von der Leyen has avoided using the app during her campaign. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) owns a board seat and maintains a financial stake in TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance, and multiple reports claim data sharing with Chinese employees, raising security concerns. Both the EU and TikTok have an anti-free speech record, but TikTok’s Communist China ties could still land it in even more hot water in Europe. Politico noted two EU probes into TikTok. The first regarded a feature rewarding users who interacted with the TikTok Lite app. The Digital Services Act (DSA) probe triggered TikTok’s suspension of the feature. Another probe under the DSA is reportedly investigating whether or not TikTok failed to protect minors on the app. This probe could have a final penalty of temporary suspension of the app. 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.

Nationalists of the World, Unite?

The historian John Lukacs used to say all the old “isms” of politics were defunct. They’ve become “wasms,” except one — nationalism. Lukacs died five years ago, but the relentless anti-Israel protests on America’s campuses today testify to the truth of his insight. So does the attempt by authorities in the capital of the European Union bureaucracy to quash a “National Conservatism” conference two weeks ago. The mayor of Brussels was quick to order police to shut down the conference that brought speakers such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Brexit mastermind Nigel Farage to his city. Naturally, he claimed he was only doing this to protect everyone from the threat of radical protesters wreaking havoc on the conference and city alike — as if preemptively censoring National Conservatives with government power was the only alternative to letting violent leftists silence them through private intimidation. Yet some might wonder why a “National” Conservative conference was being held in Brussels in the first place, with a distinctly multinational lineup of speakers from Britain, Poland, Hungary, France, the United States and elsewhere. Critics of National Conservatism — both the conference and the coalition associated with it since the first “NatCon” gathering in Washington, D.C., in 2019 — have often claimed there’s a contradiction in nationalists from different nations working together. Isn’t that really internationalism? The founder of the National Conservatism conference, the American-Israeli intellectual Yoram Hazony, answered that in the closing chapter of his 2018 book “The Virtue of Nationalism.” There he relates how in the aftermath of World War II — a conflict widely seen as originating in nationalism, though Hazony finds it a product of imperialism instead — two opposing responses to the problem of aggression arose. The European intelligentsia, and eventually many educated Americans as well, chose to reject nationalism in principle and place their hopes in new international institutions: the United Nations, the European Union and the abstract “international community,” as well as what’s now called the “liberal international order.” The other response was to reaffirm a defensive and lawful nationalism, above all the effort to create a Jewish state — Zionism. Hazony came to perceive the continuing growth of anti-nationalist ideology in elite European and American institutions (including our colleges and universities) as a long-term existential threat to Israel. Zionism is a form of nationalism, and if all nationalism is bad, then Zionism must also be rejected by the international community and the well-credentialed Westerners who think of themselves as its leaders. Yet the opposite was really true; if Israel was to survive as a nation-state, defenders of the Jewish state would have to affirm not only Zionism but nationalism in general. And Israel’s best allies wouldn’t be liberal internationalists but rather nationalist conservatives in different places. Even in democratic Western nations that fought the Nazis in World War II, such as Britain and the United States, liberals demonized nationalist-minded conservatives as bigots of every kind: xenophobes, racists and, of course, antisemites. Hazony recognized that the greater antisemitic danger now came from the left — the radical activists in the streets and the genteel bureaucrats in control of institutions like the European Union and U.N. agencies. His vision has been vindicated in the years since he published “The Virtue of Nationalism”: Not only has the left shown its antisemitic as well as anti-Zionist inclinations, but the nationalist right in much of Europe and elsewhere has proved to be strongly supportive of Israel in its time of crisis. Nationalist leaders such as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders, not to mention Donald Trump and Hungary’s Orban, are staunchly pro-Israel. Just as important, in Hazony’s analysis, they are in favor of the nationalist principle that makes Israel possible. On the other side of the ledger, the same frenzied students and cold-blooded bureaucrats who think Israel is worse than Hamas think Western nations are exceptionally wicked in comparison to the rest of the world. Today’s protests against Israel are part of a larger campaign against the nation-state itself: against national borders, sovereignty, the right of self-defense, cultural continuity and assimilation, and well-defined citizenship. Leftists long for a post-national world of administrative zones — not nations in any meaningful sense — overseen by enlightened experts whose authority doesn’t rest on the consent of any specific people, but who are ritualistically maintained in office by a well-managed fluid voting pool of identity constituencies and broken individuals. The French political scientist Pierre Manent argues that without nations, without some specific people in a particular place, there can be no democracy. Nationalism has its defects, and National Conservatism may not always remedy them. But if there’s going to be any democracy in the 21st century — in America, Europe, Israel or anywhere — there must be nations and nationalists willing to stand for them. Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review. To read more by Daniel McCarthy, visit www.creators.com

MSNBC Blames 'Bad Faith' GOP For Campus Chaos

Princeton professor and MSNBC contributor Eddie Glaude Jr. joined the Wednesday edition of Ana Cabrera Reports to discuss the chaos on college campuses. In Glaude’s upside down view of the world, it is not the anti-Semitic campers who are the problem, they just “want a better America,” but the “bad faith” Republicans condemning school administrations for tolerating it. Cabrera wondered, “I am curious, though, as to how you see these protests, Eddie, through a broader lens. Some have compared these college campus demonstrations to protests during the Vietnam War. Do you think that's an accurate comparison?”     The correct answer would have been, “No, that's ridiculous. There is no draft directly affecting these students and groups leading this, like Students for Justice in Palestine, are not anti-war, they are pro-war, just pro-the other side that happens to be losing.” That is not the answer Glaude gave, however. Instead, he went all in on the cult of youth: Well, you want to reach for the familiar in order to understand the current moment, and I get that, but I want us to -- I want us to view these protests within the context of our current moment, the current geopolitical context and that is we're in a period where our politics are heightened, that the conflicts within the country where it feels as if we're at each other's throats, these young people have concluded, many of them that America in so many ways is broken and they've come of age in so many ways, not only in terms of how-- we might describe them, Ana, as the catastrophic generation. He added, “They've come of age in the midst of school shootings, in the midst of economic collapse, in the midst of a pandemic, over a million folks are dead. So, these folks are arguing for a better America, a better world, and then they're witnessing the horror of Gaza. Even with the horror of October 7th, they're witnessing the horror of the consequences.” As a young person, the author feels compelled to add that young people in America today have never had to fight a world war (or any war for that matter, those who have gone to war were part of an all-volunteer force), never protested anything remotely close to Jim Crow, and have been blessed with tremendous advancements in medical care and technology (the author is very grateful for phone-based GPS). They are obsessing over one and only one conflict. They are not condemning China’s actual genocide of the Uyghurs. Every generation, past, present, and future has its own foreign policy crises and times of economic turmoil. Still, Glaude determined Republicans were the real problem, “let's be clear and just really quickly, Elise Stefanik, Republicans in the Congress are bad faith actors in this debate, and they're driving this and administrators should understand when they respond to them, these bad actors will eventually turn only them. We see this with the president of Columbia, they urged her to act in a certain way, she acted and they still called for her resignation. We need to understand our charge as educators and live that charge in relation to our students, not in the political climate of our current moment.” It is Glaude who is acting in bad faith because she only acted after she let the situation get out of hand. Here is a transcript for the May 1 show: MSNBC Ana Cabrera Reports 5/1/2024 10:13 AM ET ANA CABRERA: I am curious, though, as to how you see these protests, Eddie, through a broader lens. Some have compared these college campus demonstrations to protests during the Vietnam War. Do you think that's an accurate comparison? EDDIE GLUADE JR.: Well, you want to reach for the familiar in order to understand the current moment, and I get that, but I want us to -- I want us to view these protests within the context of our current moment, the current geopolitical context and that is we're in a period where our politics are heightened, that the conflicts within the country where it feels as if we're at each other's throats, these young people have concluded, many of them that America in so many ways is broken and they've come of age in so many ways, not only in terms of how-- we might describe them, Ana, as the catastrophic generation. They've come of age in the midst of school shootings, in the midst of economic collapse, in the midst of a pandemic, over a million folks are dead. So, these folks are arguing for a better America, a better world, and then they're witnessing the horror of Gaza.  Even with the horror of October 7th, they're witnessing the horror of the consequences and let's be clear and just really quickly, Elise Stefanik, Republicans in the Congress are bad faith actors in this debate, and they're driving this and administrators should understand when they respond to them, these bad actors will eventually turn only them. We see this with the president of Columbia, they urged her to act in a certain way, she acted and they still called for her resignation. We need to understand our charge as educators and live that charge in relation to our students, not in the political climate of our current moment.

Portland Church Vandals Make 252nd Attack on Catholic Church Since Dobbs Leak

Pro-aborts vandalized the St. Patrick’s Church in Portland, Oregon over the weekend making it the 252nd attack on the Catholic Church since the Dobbs decision was leaked in 2022. This is part of the left’s ongoing effort to proclaim that they want Roe reinstated and the option to kill innocent, pre-born babies at their leisure. Catholic church-goers were met with the messaging when heading to services at St. Patrick’s Church in Portland for Sunday mass.  “FUCK U My body My choice,” was spray painted on the once beautiful doors to the church as well as on the concrete outside the building, according to images shared on X by journalist Andy Ngo. Breaking: Those attending mass this morning at St. Patrick’s Church in northwest Portland, Ore. arrived to find it had been vandalized again with a pro-abortion message. (The door is still stain-bleached of a removed hateful message.) Multiple Christian houses of worship have… pic.twitter.com/YqPlP4LMOW — Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) April 28, 2024 Last week Catholic Vote reported on the 249th attack on a Catholic Church since the Dobbs leak. In Oklahoma, a suspect broke a statue of the Virgin Mary and one of the Holy Family at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Muskogee. According to CatholicVote’s violence tracker, there have been at least 252 attacks perpetrated against Catholic churches since May 2022 and there have been 417 attacks against Catholic churches in the United States since May 28, 2020. The list doesn’t incorporate violence against Christian churches or pregnancy centers, but I suspect that if it did, the number would be close to double since anyone who affirms the Bible’s stance on the sanctity of life has been under attack for years. The list does however show the gravity of this situation and how pro-aborts, unsurprisingly, turn to violence and aggression to show that they support abortion --- just like this weekend over in Portland. Ngo noted that the doors have been cleaned but are now bleach stained since they needed to be deeply scrubbed from the black spray paint. In response, some users called on the FBI in Portland to find and charge the vandals. “Maybe when you’re done arresting grandma for going for a walk you can arrest these people,” a user wrote, “a house of worship is a safe haven for pro life.” A different user noted that this was “heartbreaking” while another called the vandal(s) “soulless ghouls.” “If something like this was done to an abortion clinic it would declared domestic terrorism or a RICO violation. This act should be treated the same,” one more wrote on Ngo’s post. We’re about to reach two full years since the Dobbs decision was leaked and this sort of violence started. My hope and prayer is that it not only stops but that hearts are changed and minds are woken up to the realities of what abortion is.  

Networks WHINE About Columbia’s Pro-Hamas Camp Getting Busted By NYPD

Overnight, the anti-Semitic/pro-Hamas encampment at Columbia University was finally broken up after the NYPD outsmarted the barricaded protesters by breaching the second floor of occupied Hamilton Hall. But on Wednesday morning, the whining from ABC, CBS, and NBC was almost as bad as the shrieking coming from the terrorist sympathizers as they recounted the horror of the 100 people arrested without injury being loaded onto a bus for booking. “We were standing right here late last night as more than 100 police officers descended on Columbia University,” announced ABC correspondent Stephanie Ramos on Good Morning America. She seemingly tried to downplay the illegal break-in and occupation of Hamilton Hall by noting it’s “a building with a history of student takeovers.” Ramos spoke to a ridiculous college professor who didn’t even work at Columbia (she worked at Queens College) who praised the students for breaking the law to help stop a purported “genocide in Gaza”: RAMOS: What were your thoughts about those student demonstrators that pitched tents and set up that encampment demanding that the university divest from companies profiting from Israel? What are your thoughts on that? SUSAN BARANOWSKI: So, the students believe passionately in this cause and they're willing to break the all rules and risk sanctions to draw attention to the genocide in Gaza. And they are willing to come out here even though the university is punishing them for doing so.     There seemed to be a bit of emotion in the voice of correspondent Lilia Luciano during CBS Mornings. She recalled how she “saw dozens upon dozens of protesters in zip ties taken into city and police buses as their peers, protesters, and even faculty members cheered them on from the outside.” Luciano sounded as though she was taken aback by the “Dozens of NYPD officers in riot gear” entering the university “through locked gates, others seen here coming through a second-floor window of the building occupied by demonstrators Tuesday night.” She promoted an unnamed professor who was “upset” by the scene and who falsely asserted that “the military” had stormed campus to take the kids away: LUCIANO: Many faculty members were outside like this professor we spoke to who was visibly upset over seeing so many students handcuffed. UNIDENTIFIED PROFESSOR: I'm devastated that this is happening to every single campus in this country! By letting the military in, letting the police in! These are just students! Over on NBC’s Today, correspondent Erin McLaughlin huffed that “dozens of police dressed in full riot gear entered the campus;” and touted that “Crowds gathered outside of the university chanting and booing.” After griping about the “SWAT-style truck” used to circumvent the barricaded doors of the first floor and the 100 people taken into custody, McLaughlin played the now infamous clip of a Columbia student demanding the university give them “basic humanitarian aid” so they don’t “die of dehydration and starvation.” Instead of laughing at it as most sensible people did, since it was ridiculous, McLaughlin treated it as a serious matter. And the chyron for the report read "police clash with college protesters" despite the fact the students were the aggressors who were breaking the law and threatening Jewish students. The transcripts are below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s Good Morning America May 1, 2024 7:03:17 a.m. Eastern (…) STEPHANIE RAMOS: We were standing right here late last night as more than 100 police officers descended on Columbia University. Police clearing Hamilton Hall, which is right behind us, a building with a history of student takeovers. [Cuts to video] Overnight, hundreds of New York City police officers in riot gear moving into Columbia University. SWAT teams rolling in, one-by-one police officers seen filing in on an extended ramp into the second floor of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall. In the late night hours, police forming a line around the perimeter, clearing protesters, blocking the entrance. Once inside, going floor-by-floor, room-by-room. NYPD using flash banks. At least 100 people arrested, led away, hands tied behind their backs with zip ties and loaded onto a police bus. The university president allowing the NYPD to move in, saying the group who broke into the building includes students but led by individuals who are not affiliated with the university, and that the administration was left with no choice. (…) 7:05:08 a.m. Eastern RAMOS: What were your thoughts about those student demonstrators that pitched tents and set up that encampment demanding that the university divest from companies profiting from Israel. What are your thoughts on that? SUSAN BARANOWSKI: So, the students believe passionately in this cause and they're willing to break the all rules and risk sanctions to draw attention to the genocide in Gaza. And they are willing to come out here even though the university is punishing them for doing so. (…) CBS Mornings May 1, 2024 7:04:28 a.m. Eastern (…) LILIA LUCIANO: Yesterday, before police showed up here at Columbia, students received a shelter-in-place warning. Hours later, we saw dozens upon dozens of protesters in zip ties taken into city and police buses as their peers, protesters, and even faculty members cheered them on from the outside. [Cuts to video] Dozens of NYPD officers in riot gear entered Columbia University around 9:00 p.m. Some through locked gates, others seen here coming through a second-floor window of the building occupied by demonstrators Tuesday night. The officers entered Hamilton Hall at the request of the university. Inside police cleared barricades, conducted multiple arrests, eventually clearing the building. Police also began clearing the tent encampment that had been the symbol of the protests on campus for nearly two weeks. Then NYPD moved further north in Harlem toward a city college campus. We were there when dozens of officers breached a gate to clear the encampment and began arresting protesters. Dozens more students were loaded onto city buses and detained by the end of the night. Many faculty members were outside like this professor we spoke to who was visibly upset over seeing so many students handcuffed. UNIDENTIFIED PROFESSOR: I'm devastated that this is happening to every single campus in this country! By letting the military in, letting the police in! These are just students! (…) NBC’s Today May 1, 2024 7:03:50 a.m. Eastern (…) ERIN MCLAUGHLIN: The NYPD says it took them nearly two hours to clear Columbia University of protesters. I was there overnight as dozens of police dressed in full riot gear entered the campus. Crowds gathered outside of the university chanting and booing. This morning, police say more than 200 were arrested. [Cuts to video] Overnight, in New York City, a tense drama unfolding at Columbia University. Police in riot gear swiftly taking back a building occupied by antiwar protesters. NYPD officers using a SWAT- style truck to enter Hamilton hall by force. UNIDENTIFIED OFFICER: The building was very heavily fortified. MCLAUGHLIN: Police video showing officers clearing the building, eventually taking about 100 people into custody. (…) 7:05:38 a.m. Eastern MCLAUGHLIN: Students there, before the police came in, asking Columbia to allow food into the building. UNIDENTIFED PRO-HAMAS PROTESTER: Do you want students to die of dehydration and starvation? UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: So, it seems like you’re saying, ‘we wanted to be revolutionaries, we want to take over this building. Now, will you please bring us food and water.’ UNIDENTIFED PRO-HAMAS PROTESTER: Nobody is asking them to bring anything we're asking them to not violently stop us from bringing in basic humanitarian aid. (…)

EXCLUSIVE: Unearthed Emails Show Legacy Media Cozying Up to Disgraced Censorship Group

FIRST ON MRC: Never-before-seen emails reveal how several legacy media outlets closely aligned themselves with a disgraced censorship entity, accused of leading the censorship of Republicans and conservatives on social media. Documents reviewed by MRC Free Speech America indicate that certain leftist, legacy media outlets — including The Washington Post, The Guardian, ABC News, NBC News, Vice and others — collaborated closely with the anti-free speech Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), a now-defunct consortium of researchers and universities with ties to government agencies and embroiled in censorship controversies. Stanford University’s Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), along with the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, led the effort to launch the EIP.  Tellingly, the EIP was created “at the request of” the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and “worked directly with” the DHS and the State Department’s Global Engagement Center to “monitor and censor Americans’ online speech” before the 2020 elections, according to the House Judiciary Committee. In response to these emails, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) called on the federal government to defund the massive web of anti-free speech entities, infamously known as the Censorship Industrial Complex. “We’ve obtained the secret reports showing how the Election Integrity Partnership worked closely with Big Tech to censor thousands of Americans,” Jordan said. “Other documents confirm that the EIP was created ‘at the request of’ the federal government. In other words, Big Tech, Big Academia, and Big Government teamed up to censor Americans before the 2020 election.” The emails, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request investigation by government watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT), suggest that the legacy media blindly relied on the EIP to reinforce their anti-free speech narratives. “It’s disappointing and, frankly, a little frightening that media outlets have taken up full membership in the Censorship Industrial Complex,” PPT President Michael Chamberlain told MRC Free Speech America. Little has been reported or known about the extent of the media’s involvement with the disgraced censorship group — at least until now. The Washington Post Calls Anti-Free Speech Researchers ‘My Fave People’ In one instance, Elizabeth Dwoskin, a Silicon Valley correspondent for The Washington Post, referred to EIP leader Alex Stamos, a former chief security officer at Facebook, and Stanford researcher Renée DiResta, as her “fave people” in an email dated April 1, 2022. According to the email, Dwoskin contacted EIP to propose “a potentially powerful collaboration” concerning alleged “disinfo” in the 2022 midterm elections.  The proposed collaboration, dubbed "The Megaphone Project," aimed to track individuals who raised questions about the 2020 elections and whether they still had platforms in the 2022 midterm elections. “What platforms are they using? Do they still have the megaphones they had in 2020? What are they saying in the run-up to 2022?” Dwoskin asked Stamos and DiResta.  Whether “The Megaphone Project” was initiated remains unknown. However, the proposal raises concerns about the impartiality of The Post's reporter, said MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider. “It is sickening that The Post sought to create a hit list against people who simply wanted to exercise their free speech rights,” Schneider said. “In the past, leftists have also done the same thing. Did The Post ever produce a similar blacklist? We doubt it. This only proves the legacy media are nothing but arms of the Democrat Party.” Dwoskin did not immediately respond to MRC Free Speech America’s request for comment. ABC News Mourns Rise of Parler: ‘Will We Ever Stop Misinformation?’ In another instance showcasing how legacy media outlets leaned on EIP to promote their anti-free speech agenda, ABC News reporter Laura Romero emailed professor and EIP mastermind Kate Starbird on Nov. 11, 2020, seeking comment regarding Parler, a pro-free speech platform. Rather than simply requesting Starbird's expert analysis on Parler, Romero, in a 257-word email, voiced her concerns that while Facebook and Twitter were cracking down on the “Big Lie,” Parler allowed Americans to freely express their views on the 2020 election. “Is this a cat and mouse chase?” Romero asked Starbird, alluding to Big Tech’s crackdown on free speech. The ABC News reporter pondered, “Will we ever stop misinformation from spreading?” without specifying who the “we” in her email referred to. In the same email, Romero suggested that she preferred “to hop on the phone to discuss this,” citing her busy schedule. Tellingly, Romero did not promptly respond to MRC’s repeated requests for comments or clarification. Romero ultimately published an ABC News article on Nov. 17, 2020, headlined: “‘Free speech’ social media platform Parler is a hit among Trump supporters, but experts say it won't last.” In the article, Romero accused Parler of disseminating “misinformation.” She supported her anti-free speech assertions by citing “experts.” Did The Guardian Rely on EIP for Legal Advice Following Project Veritas Threat? Amid a legal dispute between media activist group Project Veritas and EIP, attorneys representing then-Project Veritas President James O’Keefe filed a complaint against The Guardian. The newspaper had previously covered an EIP blog that labeled O’Keefe as a “repeat spreader” of “election misinformation” a year prior. Faced with a potential legal challenge regarding its coverage of O’Keefe, Eline Gordts, a West Coast editor at The Guardian, reached out to EIP, apparently seeking guidance on how to respond to Project Veritas. Project Veritas had initiated a lawsuit against EIP over an EIP blog published on Sept. 29, 2020 (and later covered by The Guardian). “O'Keefe's lawyers mention that they have filed litigation against EIP for defamatory content,” Gordts wrote to EIP researcher DiResta and Communications Director Michael Grass.  Gordts added, “As we're crafting our response, it would be very helpful to get a sense of your thinking around his allegations, what exactly they are suiting [sic] over and whether Project Veritas is suing or James O'Keefe.” Later in the email, she asked to “discuss this over the phone." In response, Stamos confirmed that Project Veritas had initiated legal action against EIP. He then offered Gordts access to EIP’s attorneys and provided communications advice for further comment. In response, Stamos confirmed that Project Veritas had initiated legal action against EIP. He then offered Gordts access to EIP’s attorneys, deferring to them for further comment. In statements to MRC, The Guardian spokesperson Matt Mittenthal vehemently denied that the newspaper had reached out to EIP for potential advice.  “An editor for the Guardian contacted the Election Integrity Partnership to verify Project Veritas's claim that it had sued EIP, a fact that could have bearing on our own reporting,” he claimed in an email on Wednesday. “Any suggestion of ‘coordination’ would be a gross mischaracterization of an editor doing her job.” Mittenthal said that Project Veritas did not threaten to sue The Guardian for its reporting of the EIP blog. He clarified that Gordst did not engage with EIP’s attorneys past Stamos’s comment. MRC’s Schneider said that such a coordination would have been highly unusual for a media outlet. “Not only did the media peddle EIP’s work blindly, but they seemed to be so entangled with EIP that they even wanted to secretly coordinate their dissembling in the courthouse. Their corruption does not end with election interference. It might also include obstruction of justice.” VICE News and The Post Ask: First Amendment Worse Than Russian ‘Disinformation’? One of the accusations raised by House Republicans against the EIP and its government ties is that the EIP conflated constitutionally-protected speech with alleged foreign “disinformation,” occasionally prioritizing the targeting of Americans’ free speech. VICE and The Post suggested that Americans’ ability to freely speak posed a greater threat to the nation than foreign interference. In September 2020, Vice commissioned a “big/special” election documentary with HBO, as indicated by Graham Brookie, an aide at The Atlantic Council’s Digital Foreign Research Lab (also part of the EIP, according to House Republicans). In an email to Starbird, Brookie forwarded a note, purportedly from Vice News, that stated, “While foreign interference is continuing in similar fashion to 2016, the primary issue is domestic misinformation.” It isn’t immediately clear whether such a documentary was ever videotaped or finalized. Not to be outdone by Vice, The Post's Dwoskin (mentioned earlier in this report) reached out to EIP about a briefing related to the 2020 election. In the email dated Nov. 4, 2020, Dwoskin posed the highly cynical question of whether Trump declaring himself winner was “a bigger test for the platforms than Russian disinfo, in terms of protecting threats to democracy?” On the same day, Dwoskin published a write-up for The Post headlined “Trump’s early victory declarations test tech giants’ mettle in policing threats to the election.” In it, she used a quote from Stamos to accuse Big Tech platforms of failing to act against so-called “repeat offenders” of “misinformation.” Neither Brookie, Vice nor Dwoskin immediately responded to MRC’s request for comment. NBC News to EIP: ‘Why YouTube Isn’t Adjusting’ In an email to Starbird, NBC News Correspondent Jake Ward whined about YouTube's alleged reluctance to follow the lead of other major Big Tech platforms in censoring Americans in the days leading up to the 2020 election. The subject line of Ward’s email, dated Oct. 26, 2020, read, “Why YouTube Isn't Adjusting.” Ward sought to interview Starbird to gain a “big-picture” perspective on how YouTube “handles itself.” Ward declared his intent to write a story on YouTube. “I'm putting a story together about why it is that YouTube has adjusted so little of how it handles misinformation as compared to Twitter and FB,” he wrote, extending an invitation to continue the conversation on Zoom. Ward, who has since left NBC News, did not immediately respond to MRC's request for comment. Ward’s concerns seemingly prompted action from YouTube, as the platform undertook a significant purge of content that allegedly violated the platform’s COVID-19 policies, resulting in the removal of over 500,000 videos. YouTube also moved to ban former President Donald Trump’s account for over three years, a decision ultimately reversed in March 2023. Despite Ward’s assertions about YouTube’s perceived inaction on censorship, its parent company, Google, faced scrutiny nearly four years later, following the release of an MRC Free Speech America report. The MRC report revealed that the tech giant intervened in U.S. elections at least 41 times, every time in favor of the most left-wing candidates. EIP to Fox News: No, Thank You? In contrast to EIP’s engagement with other media outlets, the organization appears to have been less receptive to a Fox News reporter’s inquiry about an EIP fact check of a Project Veritas video on alleged voter fraud. In an email dated Oct. 5, 2020, Fox News reporter Audrey Conklin reached out to Dr. Joe Bak-Coleman, one of the authors of an EIP blog that targeted Project Veritas. Such a blog was at the center of a now-settled lawsuit between Project Veritas and EIP. Bak-Coleman forwarded the email to Starbird and Stamos seeking advice. “Thoughts on how/if I should respond? My instinct is to just ignore it but I figured better to ask y'all,” Bak-Coleman wrote that same day. Starbird advised against responding, warning, “I wouldn't respond. I'm curious as to why they reached out to you and not Alex or me. Something to chat about at our next meeting.” Bak-Coleman chose not to respond to Conklin. Instead, Stamos intervened, stating, “I believe our post speaks for itself and we are going to decline further comment.” Legacy Media, Enemies of Free Speech? Reacting to these revelations, PPT’s Chamberlain criticized the legacy media’s role in endorsing EIP’s controversial work and, even worse, failing to uphold the principles of the First Amendment. “I’m old enough to remember when they would be the staunchest defenders of free speech, the First Amendment, and the search for truth,” Chamberlain told MRC. “Now it appears that instead of defending those principles they are more interested in defending the narratives they advance and defending themselves against upstarts and alternative outlets.” Chamberlain concluded with a sobering assessment: “There's profit and prestige in being an approved information gatekeeper.” But not all hope is gone, as Jordan and the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government are calling for legislation to defund these censorship-tied tools. “Our investigation continues but it’s clear that Congress must pass legislation that ends the censorship-industrial complex in all its forms, including the EIP,” Jordan told MRC. 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.

Colbert Twists Sources To Spread Hysteria About Snipers At Colleges

Stephen Colbert spread hysteria about the anti-Israel encampments on college campuses on Tuesday’s edition of The Late Show on CBS. Making matters much worse is that Colbert took his own sources out of context in order to make his claims. First, however, Colbert had to set the scene, “The protests ramped up a couple of weeks ago, after students erected tents on Columbia University's main lawn to show solidarity with Gaza.” After being interrupted by applause from the audience, he continued, “and the university president took the controversial step of calling in the police to arrest those involved. Now, even if you don't agree with the subject of their protests as long as they are peaceful, students should be allowed to protest. It's their First Amendment right.”     You do not have a First Amendment right to illegal trespass. You cannot walk into the Ed Sullivan Theater. pitch a tent, and claim that is your new home until CBS meets your demands. Colbert would concede at the end “that overnight, protestors at Columbia broke into a campus building.” Still, he claimed “That is the kind of idealism you learn in college, it's one of the few college lessons you can use your whole life, unlike beer funneling, which you stop being able to do around 35, when your wife catches you.” Colbert wants to pretend that the demonstrators are simple peace activists and not anti-Semitic, but before you could tell him what groups like Students for Justice in Palestine really believe, he continued, “’Photos online show police snipers set up on the roofs of buildings at Ohio State University and Indiana University.’” When doing his monologue, Colbert will talk over screenshots of his sources. That last quote came from a Snopes article, but here is the full quote, “Two photographs circulated online in posts claiming that state police snipers had set up on the roofs of buildings at Ohio State University and Indiana University.” It also reads, “The OSU newspaper The Lantern reported that the people on the roof of the OSU building were initially using spotting scopes to watch protesters, but switched to rifles once arrests began on the green space below.” Colbert continued, “although ‘the Ohio State University administration stated that these were state police officers… which the school also employs during football games.’ "’What are you worrying about, students? The snipers are always there. For football games, women's volleyball, an acapella.’” The part of the Intelligencer article that Colbert’s ellipse took out was, “Ohio State administration stated that these were state police officers working as spotters, which the school also employs during football games.” Snopes also reported that at the time the videos went viral, there were no snipers at Ohio State (they never confirmed or disproved the Indiana claim), but after arrests began, “the two people on the roof had indeed switched to "long-range firearms as part of their protocol."  Colbert spread fake news about the timing of the snipers, he fed into the hysteria that implied that law enforcement that provides security for large crowd events has itchy trigger fingers, and he took his sources out of context to do it. Here is a transcript for the April 30 show: CBS The Late Show 4/30/2024 11:41 PM ET STEPHEN COLBERT: The protests ramped up a couple of weeks ago, after students erected tents on Columbia University's main lawn to show solidarity with Gaza, and the university president took the controversial step of calling in the police to arrest those involved. Now, even if you don't agree with the subject of their protests as long as they are peaceful, students should be allowed to protest. It's their First Amendment right. That is the kind of idealism you learn in college, it's one of the few college lessons you can use your whole life, unlike beer funneling, which you stop being able to do around 35, when your wife catches you.  And it's not just at Columbia. Yesterday, cops arrested at least 100 protestors at UT Austin. This morning, they arrested at least 30 protestors at UNC Chapel Hill. Yes, college administrators are using the classic de-escalation tactic of sending in heavily armed police and threatening to call the National Guard. Photos online show police snipers set up on the roofs of buildings at Ohio State university and Indiana University, although the Ohio State University administration stated that these were state police officers … which the school also employs during football games "What are you worrying about, students? The snipers are always there. For football games, women's volleyball, an acapella. You've been warned, guy who goes "Sha-doop shooby Doop." Buy a guitar!" Now, tensions right now are so high that overnight, protestors at Columbia broke into a campus building, which probably will not help their cause with the public.

White House Correspondents Dinner Was a FAIL: MRCTV’s Tierin-Rose Mandelburg on OANN

On Monday, MRCTV’s Tierin-Rose Mandelburg appeared on One America News Network’s In Focus with Alison Steinberg to talk about the failed White House Correspondents Dinner that took place over the weekend. Outside the event, as guests were arriving, large crowds of pro-Gaza protesters chanted and yelled at them. Obviously the guests, only caring for themselves, waltzed right in and didn’t bat an eye. (Remember, these elitists only cared about getting wined and dined by the president.) Steinberg hopes the video of the elitists ignoring the protestors gets people to wake up and realize that “None of these people care about you, they’re never going to [and] they’re never going to make the changes that you want to see.”     OAN then played a video from inside the dinner where President Joe Biden struggled to eat his salad.  The irony of it was that at the event, Biden claimed that his opponent, former President Donald Trump, was the six-year-old. I bet a six-year-old could use his fork properly. Related: MRCTV's Tierin-Rose Mandelburg on OAN: Dancing in the White House, Woke NPR & Travis Kelce A video clip was also played from the 2014 White House Correspondents Dinner where even President Barack Obama laughed at jokes poking fun of Biden’s mental abilities.  Yet, 10 years later, we’ve still got people thinking he’s fully capable of running our country. Follow us on Twitter/X:   Things That Need To Be Said: The World Is Taking Christians For Granted Christian prosecution is growing in prominence and is largely ignored, if not outright encouraged, by our leftist government. pic.twitter.com/gIxNLk2nUg — MRCTV (@mrctv) April 29, 2024

Column: The White House Correspondents Host a Biden Rally

It was remarkable breaking news, occurring live on CNN. The White House Correspondents Association hosted a dinner and a Biden for President rally broke out. It’s only natural that CNN loves live coverage of the White House Correspondents Dinner, where the anti-Trump media celebrate themselves for how essential they are to preserving democracy and how valiantly they warn Americans that Donald Trump is democracy's antonym. President Biden’s speech made some jokes about his age – it’s that safe spot where all the late-night comedians go. But he also showed nastiness: “Yes, age is an issue. I’m a grown man running against a six-year-old.” They loved that joke on CNN. Like last year, Biden thought it was funny to insist he doesn’t have to grant access to reporters, because “I do interviews with strong independent journalists who millions of people actually listen to, like Howard Stern.” Instead, he lectured them about how Trump “has made no secret of his attack on our democracy,” and the “free press” needs to make sure the voters have “the information they need to make an informed decision.” Biden thinks a pro-Biden media needs to deliver: “I’m sincerely not asking you to take sides, but asking you to rise up to the seriousness of the moment.” He clearly means the media need to underline Trump needs to lose. Biden ripped into Trump, ranting about January 6, spewing misinformation about Trump’s attention-grabbing way of speaking. “He said he wants to be a dictator on Day One….he promised a bloodbath when he loses again.” If you’re a low-information voter, you wouldn’t know Trump joked with Sean Hannity about being a dictator for one day, and he said our economy would be a “bloodbath” if Biden was reelected. You can scold Trump for his rhetorical red meat. But that doesn’t mean journalists and presidents should mischaracterize what he says. This is not how these dinners used to work. Twenty years ago at this dinner, when President George W. Bush was lining up against Sen. John Kerry, Bush didn’t say one negative word about his opponent or one negative word about the opposing party. He made gentle jokes about the press. He didn’t urge the networks to defeat John Kerry at the anchor desk. He talked about heroic reporters in war zones, and heroic soldiers. That’s not how it unfolded in 2024. The hired comedian, Saturday Night Live fake-news anchor Colin Jost, concluded his comedy routine by remembering his late grandfather, a Staten Island firefighter, who voted for Biden in 2020. “He voted for you, and the reason that he voted for you is because you're a decent man. My grandpa voted for decency, and decency is why we're all here tonight. Decency is how we're able to be here tonight. Decency is how we're able to make jokes about each other, and one of us doesn't go to prison after.” He then repeated: “So, Mr. President, I thank you for your decency on behalf of my grandfather.” Jost said this after Biden said his opponent was a six-year-old who would spur a bloodbath if he loses. He said this after he mocked Trump as “currently spending his days farting himself awake during a porn-star hush-money trial,” and the courtroom sketch artist makes Trump look like “the Grinch had sex with the Lorax.” At least CNN allowed their contributor Scott Jennings to sum up the evening: “We had Biden speak tonight, and then we had a Biden surrogate effectively speak tonight.”  It's no wonder CNN wanted to air the whole thing live.

MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Frets Campus Protests May Lead To Next Reagan Era

While discussing the ongoing NYPD clearing of the virulent anti-semitic protest at Columbia University, MSNBC host Alex Wagner and her guest, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, noticed the historic parallels between this moment and 1968- and where it ultimately led. Watch the aforementioned exchange, which closed the show’s live coverage of the protest clearing, as aired on MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Tonight on Tuesday, April 30th, 2024: ALEX WAGNER: Michelle, the- Hamilton Hall is- for people who are not familiar with the Columbia campus: in April of 1968, 56 years ago, hundreds of students seized the building during protests over the Vietnam War.  I do not think that was lost to the people who stormed Hamilton Hall. After a week- this is, again, in 1968, police entered through underground tunnels and cleared them out. Over 700 people were arrested. MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Right, and that’s remembered as a really dark chapter in Columbia's history, which is why it’s so breathtaking to see them repeated. WAGNER: But it does, you know- putting this in the broader context of what’s happening in American politics, I mean, when this began I think, for a lot of people all these campus protests had the echo of the 1960s. It feels like an inflection point for the country. We are barreling toward a presidential election. The country feels catastrophically divided on every- on every issue from basic facts to an actual policy vision-- GOLDBERG: A Democratic presidential convention in Chicago? WAGNER: Yes. Exactly, echoes of 1968 and I just wonder, you know, it’s hard to imagine that this is- that this imagery of the NYPD storming Columbia in this- in this moment is not going to reverberate in ways that we cannot yet see across the political divide. GOLDBERG: And I think we should remember what the kind of images of protest disorder did in the late 60s. Because even as the Vietnam War became increasingly unpopular, so did the antiwar protests. And it was in part the backlash to that as well as to urban crime that gave us not just Richard Nixon… WAGNER: Yeah. GOLDBERG: …but kind of un- except for a four-year oasis of Jimmy Carter, unbroken Republican rule until Bill Clinton. And so I would expect that we are already seeing the backlash to this, but I would expect it to be ferocious. WAGNER: Yeah. The late '70s were a period of retrenchment. And then 1980 saw Ronald Ragan and a conservative agenda that was fiercer, more focused and more effective than maybe any other conservative agenda in ways that we are still grappling with to this day. I mean, it’s the establishment. The Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society. Any number of right-wing organizations. A master plan to retake the judiciary. I mean, what we saw in the aftereffect of the Vietnam War was really a brand of conservatism, a new Right that the country had never seen before.  Upon watching the segment, one’s first instinct is to warn Wagner not to threaten us with a good time. She and Goldberg correctly note that the unrest of the late ‘60s reverberated through our politics for many years. In many ways, it is still doing so. Those students entered into our higher learning institutions and corrupted them into the Marxist indoctrination centers we see today. There is indeed a very bright through line between those protests and today’s protests. And it is interesting to watch Wagner and Goldberg squirm through their thought exercise. But they’re not entirely wrong. These protests will in fact reverberate in ways that are not yet clear to us. And they may well lead, much to Wagner’s dismay, to “a new Right that the country had never seen before.” The fact that this conversation is even happening on MSNBC air says much about the current moment.  

NY Times: GOP Calling Immigrant Surge an ‘Invasion’ Dehumanizing, ‘Could Stoke Violence’

New York Times national politics reporter Jazmine Ulloa has deputized herself to patrol the parameters of acceptable political discourse from her liberal perspective, attacked Republicans candidates again for daring to call the influx of immigrants across our southern border an “invasion,” in Sunday’s edition: “Talk of an Immigrant ‘Invasion’ Grows in Republican Ads and Speech.” As the elections loom, Ulloa’s hypersensitive language radar seems tuned only to the words of one political party. A campaign ad from a Republican congressional candidate from Indiana sums up the arrival of migrants at the border with one word. He doesn’t call it a problem or a crisis. He calls it an “invasion.” .... It was not so long ago that the term invasion had been mostly relegated to the margins of the national immigration debate. Many candidates and political figures tended to avoid the word, which echoed demagoguery in previous centuries targeting Asian, Latino and European immigrants. Few mainstream Republicans dared use it. .... The resurgence of the term exemplifies the shift in Republican rhetoric in the era of former President Donald J. Trump and his right-wing supporters. Language once considered hostile has become common, sometimes precisely because it runs counter to politically correct sensibilities. Immigration has also become more divisive, with even Democratic mayors complaining about the number of migrants in their cities. Democrats and advocates for migrants denounce the word and its recent turn from being taboo. Historians and analysts who study political rhetoric have long warned that the term dehumanizes those to whom it refers and could stoke violence, noting that it appeared in writings by perpetrators of deadly mass shootings in Pittsburgh, Pa.; El Paso, Texas; and Buffalo, N.Y., in recent years. If one truly wanted to police offensive and threatening language, Ulloa should look no further than a “pro-Palestinian” rally at the nearest “progressive” college campus. Republicans defend using the word and see it as an apt descriptor for a situation that they argue has intensified beyond crisis levels and one that could help sway voters. Ulloa extrapolated wildly, going from the word “invasion” to mass murder in three sentences flat. "Analysts" of "extremism" say the I-word suggests racism and anti-semitism. Analysts who study political rhetoric and extremism have continued to raise alarm that the word invasion and what they describe as similarly inflammatory language regarding immigration plays into replacement theory. The racist doctrine, which has circulated in far right-wing corners of the internet, holds that Western elites, sometimes manipulated by Jews, want to “replace” and disempower white Americans. The shooters in Pittsburgh, El Paso and Buffalo echoed the theory in online posts, and targeted Jews, Hispanics and Black people in their killings. She accused Donald Trump of “using language that invokes the racial hatred of Hitler” (Trump’s “poisoning the blood of our country” remark) before relaying concerns about “Republican fear-mongering about migrants" from a researcher at America’s Voice. America’s Voice is hardly a non-partisan one. Their main goal, according to the group’s website, is to “win reforms that put 11 million undocumented Americans on a path to full citizenship."

Intolerant Nancy Pelosi Yells at MSNBC's Katy Tur, Suggests She's 'a Trump Apologist'

Democrats and MSNBC watchers – which are pretty much the same thing – cannot tolerate anyone making a contrary point. On Monday afternoon, MSNBC host Katy Tur interviewed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for almost 15 minutes. She asked the usual between-us-Democrats questions, starting with how much the Democrats can insure untrammeled abortion on demand if they can stay in power. Tur worried out loud that the anti-Israel protests on campus could hurt Democrats, as radical and violent protests at the 1968 convention helped elect Nixon. But Pelosi lost all patience with Tur at the tail end of an answer lasting two minutes and 40 seconds without interruption about how Biden is great: PELOSI: There are those who have real legitimate concerns about immigration, globalization, innovation, and what does that mean to their job and their family’s future? And we have to address those concerns. And Joe Biden is doing that. Created nine million jobs in his term in office. Donald Trump has the worst record of job loss of a president. So, we just have to make sure people know. Tur interjected with a fact: “That was during a global pandemic.” This inflamed Pelosi.   “He had the worst record of any president,” Pelosi repeated in anger, karate-chopping the air in Tur's face. “We’ve had other concerns in our country. If you want to be an apologist for Donald Trump, that may be your role, but it ain’t mine.” “I don’t think anybody can accuse me of that,” Tur said. Pelosi expects MSNBC hosts to be an apologist for Pelosi. Like Andrea Mitchell, Katy Tur hits the "Trending" bar on Twitter when the MSNBC base thinks they are so Republican they should just defect to Fox News. The big "Really American" account got out the flame emojis:  🚨If you only watch ONE video today, watch Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi stuffing Katy Tur into a locker for being "an apologist for Donald Trump" after Tur attempted to defend his abysmal job loss record. Extremely satisfying!🔥🔥pic.twitter.com/hPkVtfKr1o — Really American 🇺🇸 (@ReallyAmerican1) April 29, 2024 Tur closed out by asking about the House Democrats uniting against efforts by a few Republicans to remove current Speaker Mike Johnson, and then concluded with gushy thanks: "Thank you very much for joining us. It's really wonderful to see you in person. I appreciate it."

John Leguizamo Brings His Boring ‘Professional Latinx’ Act To The View

Actor/playwright/woke sermonizer John Leguizamo joined the bitter harridans at ABC’s The View, delighting them with his own performative bitterness and racial grievance. He was also there, ironically, to promote his own show on a new streaming platform called The Network. I say “ironically” because Leguizamo has achieved obvious professional success, transforming himself from comedic role player into Very Serious Actor, which belies his other career as professional racial grievance monger.      Watch as Leguizamo explains the sentiment that went into how he portrayed this latest character, as aired on ABC’s The View on Tuesday, April 30th, 2024 (click “expand”): JOHN LEGUIZAMO: Uh…because it's exactly what I wanted to do with this character. I didn't need people to like me. I didn't want them to like me but they needed to understand the sickness. ASUNCION CUMMINGS-HOSTIN: Yes. LEGUIZAMO: That's what I wanted them to understand. What it takes to be a Latin man in a country and wanting to pass and believing that if you pass and you do everything right that the system is going to take you, but it doesn't. It spits you right back out. WHOOPI GOLDBERG: That's right. LEGUIZAMO: So here he is, like when you watch on Fox News, you know, you watch and then they- when they're taking down our democracy they'll put up all this border stuff and who is the people perpetrating, grabbing the children and the moms are Latino patrol officers.  MULTIPLE THE VIEW PANELISTS IN MINDLESS AGREEMENT: Yes. LEGUIZAMO: So, that's the kind of character, that's how I related and got my -- JOY BEHAR: Important to tell. HOSTIN: It is. I have to echo Sara. I started it last night and I was up till 1:00 in the morning. LEGUIZAMO: Oh, you too? I'm sorry. My bad. HOSTIN: I couldn't stop watching it. I couldn't stop watching it. And my husband was watching it with me and we were so enthralled by this. And the issue of being Latino in this country, right? And so you say people are going to despise you as a character. I did despise you. LEGUIZAMO: Thank you, thank you. I want that. HOSTIN: Yeah. I did. I did. LEGUIZAMO: This guy is not a good guy. HOSTIN: He's not a good guy. He’s doing everything he can to assimilate, but hide his heritage… LEGUIZAMO: Yes. HOSTIN: … while brutalizing others for their heritage, right? So, what was that like as a Latino to take it on? LEGUIZAMO: Oh, it was -- it was painful, you know, to -- you had to take on all this rage. HOSTIN: Yeah. LEGUIZAMO: And then, you know, I'm snatching children from their parents and they're screaming and those screams would give me like PTSD when I would go home and be by myself, so it's hard to live with that, you know. You know, Latinos, I feel like Latinos are in a really good intersection right now in our culture because we're finally embracing and accepting that we're indigenous and accepting our Afro-Latino culture. HOSTIN: Yes, yes. (AUDIENCE CLAPS LIKE SEALS) LEGIZAMO: Because we were ashamed… HOSTIN: Yes. LEGUIZAMO: …and in denial. HOSTIN: Very anti-black for a long time. In our community. LEGUIZAMO: And anti-indigenous. The majority of us are indigenous. You know, I'm 26% indigenous and 5% Afro-Latino but, you know, my family is all like the whiter you are, the prettier you are, if your hair is straight but not too straight because then it's indigenous and add then you gotta add those European features- then you're beautiful. Everybody else, not so much. But we’re finally getting over that. I feel like we’re really coming to a place where we’re rejecting that. Hispanics have been here since before, and fought in, the Revolutionary War. This inconvenient fact is often buried by the left because it is inconsistent with the manufactured Latino identity, created in order to erase this community’s Spanish (and Christian) heritage and impose a new, political identity built around the flimsiest foundation: language. The absurdity of the artificial Latino identity is that, despite it being a wholly American construct, it seeks to permanently alienate a community that has been in America since before its founding. This is the identity that Leguizamo champions and defends and seeks to impose at every turn, depicting himself as an aggrieved outsider despite enjoying the fruits of Hollywood longevity, and deriding fellow Hispanics with whom he disagrees for the entertainment of fellow leftists and their audiences. Hence his spiteful remarks about Hispanics on Fox and Border Patrol agents. It could’ve been worse- he could’ve trotted out his “roaches for Raid” joke.  It is entirely fitting that the clip previewed on The View shows him demanding that his on-screen wife “fall in line”, because this is what Leguizamo does in real life. Case in point, his MSNBC special on the Hispanic experience in New York. While seated at the table with hip-hop legends Fat Joe and DJ Tony Touch, Leguizamo chooses to spend his time effectively hectoring his guests into usage of the term “Latinx”.   Never forget the time that John Leguizamo hectored hip-hop legends Fat Joe and DJ Tony Touch into using the term "Latinx" pic.twitter.com/WFm8ZUCLA3 — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) April 30, 2024   Leguizamo’s act, while acclaimed on leftist spaces such as ABC News product The View, is tired, boring, derivative, and concocted for the consumption of woke, mostly white elites- as opposed to the community he purports to champion and which he does not seem to understand. You may feel inclined to feel some sort of sympathy for the fact that we (and by “we”, I mean mostly the great Nick Fondacaro) have to watch this nonsense but, as Hyman Roth famously said to Don Michael Corleone: this is the business we’ve chosen.

CNN Frets ‘Escalation’ by Police Disrupted ‘Peaceful’ Students ‘Dancing’ for Hamas

During a rare moment Tuesday when CNN wasn’t obsessing over the first Trump trial, correspondent Dianne Gallagher used a live shot from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to fret police caused “a very intense escalation” with pro-Hamas students, whom she said were merely holding a “rally and silent vigil” with “dancing and chanting” amid their tent cities. Oh, and they had torn down the American flag at the center of campus and replaced it with a Palestinian flag. And, by the way, the mostly white pro-Hamas crowd repeatedly threw water bottles and other projectiles at black police officers. Gallagher ignored the latter because reasons. “What I can tell you is that this is a very intense escalation from how it has been for the past several hours,” Gallagher began, whining police had soured the vibes at what “was a rally and silent vigil for Palestine” and the raising of the Palestinian flag at a campus flagpole.       Alas, the fun and games were over when “a large group of police officers [came] down Polk Place and just sort of [came] for the students who had interlocking arms around this flag pole” to reinstall the American flag. “But with the force that this was done, pushing down students, some into these barricades that were placed up this morning after police cleared an encampment that had been here on Polk Place for about 90 hours,” she fretted. Adding the students being told early in the morning to disperse left them feeling uneasy because it had been such “a very peaceful encampment”, she revealed “about 30 people were detained” with the local district attorney telling her “that is mix of arrest and citations.” “The University of North Carolina says that they were in violation of negotiations that have been ongoing by putting tents back up on Sunday afternoon. The university students who were at the encampment told me today that they felt like there was no real negotiation with the university. They felt like this was more of a one-sided conversation,” she countered, giving more credence to the students. Explaining students told her “[t]hey had taken the tents down twice already” and “there had been no real discussion with the university”, she reiterated her supposedly neutral description of the “intense escalation from what we saw just 20 minutes ago or so” when “there were students dancing and chanting” to police arriving (in order to restore order). Gallagher never explained what the pro-Palestinian students were saying or what any of their signs read. Rather, she boasted what had been happening was “incredibly peaceful and very low key” with there even having been a “silent vigil” (click “expand”): We had lots of speakers out here earlier that we were listening to, roughly five or six hours after many of those people who were either arrested or cited were released. Now, they put barricades up after the encampment was cleared this morning, and we did see these protesters — you can see there’s a couple of skirmishes over here. We did see those protests or sort of remove those barricades after several hours of that — protests and silent vigil to come and take down the American flag, put up the Palestinian flag, and continue their chants.  Everything that we have observed today from about noon on has been incredibly peaceful and very low key for the most part up until we saw the officers run across this lawn here. That is really the most intense energy that we have felt. I’m — I’m gonna let you kind of look at what is going on again here, but it does appear they’re just trying to raise this American flag up. I’m gonna get my photographer westward to just sort of show the growing number of students that is starting to come here to Polk Place. Now, again, this is not what the situation necessarily looked like just a few moments ago here at the University of North Carolina. Exit question for CNN: If pro-Holocaust college students and their well-funded allies taking over campuses is “peaceful”, then what was Charlottesville? CNN Special Report: Trump Hush Money Trial April 30, 2024 2:40 p.m. Eastern ERIN BURNETT: And we are watching dramatic developments unfold at college campus protests nationwide right now, Wolf. WOLF BLITZER: I want to get right to CNN’s Dianne Gallagher. She’s on the scene for us at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. These are live pictures we’re showing our viewers right now, Dianne. Update our viewers. DIANNE GALLAGHER: Alright, I cannot hear on IFB anymore, but I’m assuming that you are on our pictures right now. What I can tell you is that this is a very intense escalation from how it has been for the past several hours. There was a rally and silent vigil for Palestine that occurred for several — after they — I don’t know if you can see right now — they’re taking the Palestinian flag down off the flagpole, which was put up there about 30 minutes or so ago by protesters. They took the American flag down, raised the Palestinian flag. About five minutes or so ago, we saw a large group of police officers come down Polk Place and just sort of come for the students who had interlocking arms around this flag pole. It appears they’re trying to remove the Palestinian flag and re-raise an American flag up on this flagpole here. But with the force that this was done, pushing down students, some into these barricades that were placed up this morning after police cleared an encampment that had been here on Polk Place for about 90 hours. The University of North Carolina sent an e-mail, sent out a paper statement basically warning the students at 5:37 this morning, they had to clear the encampment by 6:00 a.m. Many of the students we spoke with said that they were sleeping and did not know until some faculty came down about ten minutes before six to get out. According to the university, about 30 people were detained. I spoke with the district attorney. He said that is a mix of arrest and citations. Talking to students, they say that, again, they were very surprised by this. They felt that it had been a very peaceful encampment up to that point. The University of North Carolina says that they were in violation of negotiations that have been ongoing by putting tents back up on Sunday afternoon. The university students who were at the encampment told me today that they felt like there was no real negotiation with the university. They felt like this was more of a one-sided conversation. They had taken the tents down twice already, but there had been no real discussion with the university, those students say, about their demands of divestment and disclosure of finances. Now, they say that — that is why they put those tents back up on Sunday afternoon, what the university deemed as that violation for them to go and clear the encampment this morning. The students again saying there was no real honest negotiation, they felt, with the school and that was why they kept those up. Now, again, this is an intense escalation from what we saw just 20 minutes ago or so, there were students dancing and chanting. You can now hear other students coming and staying USA, USA. We’re seeing more students now come to Polk Place. This sort of green area where we’d actually been seeing sort a decrease in people out here. They were finishing for the day. We had lots of speakers out here earlier that we were listening to, roughly five or six hours after many of those people who were either arrested or cited were released. Now, they put barricades up after the encampment was cleared this morning, and we did see these protesters — you can see there’s a couple of skirmishes over here. We did see those protests or sort of remove those barricades after several hours of that — protests and silent vigil to come and take down the American flag, put up the Palestinian flag, and continue their chants. Everything that we have observed today from about noon on has been incredibly peaceful and very low key for the most part up until we saw the officers run across this lawn here. That is really the most intense energy that we have felt. I’m — I’m gonna let you kind of look at what is going on again here, but it does appear they’re just trying to raise this American flag up. I’m gonna get my photographer westward to just sort of show the growing number of students that is starting to come here to Polk Place. Now, again, this is not what the situation necessarily looked like just a few moments ago here at the University of North Carolina. BURNETT: All right, Dianne Gallagher showing us these images. You know, of course, at the beginning when we were seeing those police come in to try to reach voice that American flags, some of those images Diane had were really dramatic. Kids sort of being thrown out from that coordinate of police officers from what we could see, a few of them and now, chanting and it looks like a — police are re-raising that American flag. A very dynamic situation at UNC-Chapel Hill. Our Dianne Gallagher is there. We’re going to be checking back in with that here over these next few moments.

Tit for Tat? Apple Censors US Social Media Apps at Request of Chinese Gov’t After TikTok Ultimatum

Did Apple just help China retaliate against America’s possible TikTok ban? Apple has long invested heavily in Chinese markets, and, based on a recent report, the company is willing to exercise censorship to maintain those markets. Bloomberg reportedon April 18 that Apple Inc. had removed at least four social media services from its Chinese App Store, including two Meta-owned apps. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which Bloomberg called “one of the world’s most rigid internet censorship regimes,” demanded that Apple remove the apps over alleged “national security” concerns. Apple complied just after President Joe Biden signed a bill forcing TikTok to either relinquish its Chinese communist government ties or leave the country. The process of both bans have been ongoing, however. Bloomberg explained, “The orders come on the heels of a cleanup program Chinese regulators initiated in 2023 that was expected to remove many defunct or unregistered apps from domestic iOS and Android stores.” Mobile app developers were reportedly required to complete registration with the CCP by the end of March or be forced to cease operating. The censored apps are Meta’s Threads and WhatsApp, along with Signal and Telegram. In a statement obtained by Bloomberg, Apple claimed that it disagreed with the CCP’s demands but had to follow them. “We are obligated to follow the laws in the countries where we operate, even when we disagree. The Cyberspace Administration of China ordered the removal of these apps from the China storefront based on their national security concerns,” Apple stated, per Bloomberg. “These apps remain available for download on all other storefronts where they appear.” The dictatorial CCP’s “Great Firewall” has long banned foreign social media apps, including Facebook and Twitter (now X). Asia-Pacific news site The Diplomat, noted that Chinese users can be sentenced to years in prison for criticizing CCP officials. American companies’ operations in Communist China continue to be controversial, as do the operations of Chinese companies in America. President Joe Biden signed a bill a week ago that gives TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance a choice between selling TikTok or having the popular app banned. The CCP owns a board seat and maintains a financial stake in ByteDance, and multiple reports claim Chinese employees have access to U.S. TikTok user data, raising national security concerns.  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.

The Left Needs Therapy & After This, You Might Too

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. This week, we took a look at how much of the left would likely benefit from professional counseling…just not from the individual in the first clip where the user explained how he was a transgender lesbian who is also, somehow, a therapist.  I would not recommend hiring him to learn how to think properly. A different user used pink and blue sugar packets to explain that while he was assigned a blue sugar packet (a boy) he really feels like a pink sugar packet (a girl). He also insisted that doctors take an “educated guess” as to what your sex is when you’re born. The next transformer proudly showed off her double mastectomy to affirm her gender as a boy, while the next explained how he felt like he entered the water at the beach as a boy and emerged from it as a girl. A different freak yelled at kids and encouraged them to scream “free Palestine” while in his full-out drag queen costume. “If you’re a drag queen and you know it, shout free Palestine,” he said.   It’s likely those kids will grow up to be like the students at Harvard University who replaced the American flag with the Palestinian flag. Other Gaza protestors explained that they didn’t like white people. Unironically, those protestors were white. There were a few more freaks that we saw this week, too. The first of the trio was an individual who lurked around completely covered in green paint and called it fashion, another was a drag queen who dropped it low at a high school in New Mexico and the third individual talked about “her” built in strap on. Much of the left is struggling mentally and emotionally, and I think they could really benefit from some professional counseling. Honestly though, after seeing all that, I think I could too!

Reid Compares College Israel Haters To The Civil Rights Movement

MSNBC’s Joy Reid opened up Monday's The ReidOut with an unhinged monologue directed at those who are critical of the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic demonstrations on college campuses as she condemned those who seek an end to the illegal trespassing and compared the demonstrators to those who marched for civil rights back in the 60s. Reid claimed, “The government and university presidents want you to know that the right to protest is a farce. You can be tear gassed, shot with rubber bullets, tackled and thrown to the ground, and arrested. At Emory University, a shocking scene unfolded as Atlanta police and Georgia state troopers arrested protesters and released chemical agents on campus.” Explaining a video that was being shown, Reid continued, “At least two videos have emerged of Emory professors getting arrested. This is Professor Noëlle McAfee who will join us in a few moments. The use of police force against these protesters should alarm you, and it mirrors the violence that is happening in Israel, with police responding to anti-war protesters there as well.”     Of course, Reid omitted that McAfee was arrested for disorderly conduct and not simply for being at a protest. Moving right along, Reid went all in on the idea that young people must be taken seriously, not because they happen to have anything compelling to say, but because they are young, “Why would the state line up against our students who are the future? Especially young people like these, who are at some of the most prestigious universities in America, doing exactly what one is supposed to do in college, which is to think critically, stand up for what they believe in, and demand a better world.” No. First of all, they are not thinking critically, they are simply regurgitating what their professors tell them. Second, if what you stand for is bigotry, hatred, and historical and geopolitical ignorance, you should not stand up for what you believe in, but repent instead. Reid also wants to claim Israelis are being arrested for the same thing to neutralize allegations of anti-Semitism, but Israelis are protesting to bring home the hostages even if it means Hamas survives. These students are not doing that. In one of the photos Reid showed, someone was holding a sign that read "Zionism is ≠ not anti-Semitism,” but embarrassing double negatives aside, according to the State Department, under presidents of both parties, it is because anti-Zionism isn’t dislike of Benjamin Netanyahu, the current war, or Israeli administration of the West Bank, but the belief that Israel needs to be eradicated. Somehow, Reid’s rantings were about to get even worse, “Students who are speaking out against atrocities they are seeing abroad, a war where Palestinians are getting killed in air strikes in areas that the Israeli military designated as safe zones.” The fact that safe zones exist is proof of the protestor’s ignorance and lack of critical thinking. That Israel won’t let Hamas abuse them isn’t an indictment of Israel. Still, Reid rolled on, “They're watching children starve while workers bringing desperately needed food are killed by sniper drones. Potential war crimes so appalling that Israel fears its leaders could soon face arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court.  Israel fears the ICC not because it has committed war crimes, but because it doesn’t trust the ICC to be impartial. Still, Reid finally got to the heart of the matter, “These actions are what these young people are protesting. As they did in reaction to Vietnam and the Iraq War, and during the Civil Rights Movement and against South African apartheid.” There it is. There are no more legitimate civil rights battles to fight, so teaming up with anti-Semites is a small price to pay to satisfy their “Selma envy.”  Here is a transcript for the April 29 show: MSNBC The ReidOut 4/29/2024 7:05 PM ET JOY REID: The government and university presidents want you to know that the right to protest is a farce. You can be tear gassed, shot with rubber bullets, tackled and thrown to the ground, and arrested. At Emory University, a shocking scene unfolded as Atlanta police and Georgia state troopers arrested protesters and released chemical agents on campus.  At least two videos have emerged of Emory professors getting arrested. This is professor Noëlle McAfee who will join us in a few moments. The use of police force against these protesters should alarm you, and it mirrors the violence that is happening in Israel, with police responding to anti-war protesters there as well.  You have to wonder why. Why would the state line up against our students who are the future? Especially young people like these, who are at some of the most prestigious universities in America, doing exactly what one is supposed to do in college, which is to think critically, stand up for what they believe in, and demand a better world.  Students who are speaking out against atrocities they are seeing abroad, a war where Palestinians are getting killed in air strikes in areas that the Israeli military designated as safe zones. They're watching children starve while workers bringing desperately needed food are killed by sniper drones. Potential war crimes so appalling that Israel fears its leaders could soon face arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court. These actions are what these young people are protesting. As they did in reaction to Vietnam and the Iraq War, and during the Civil Rights Movement and against South African apartheid.

Networks BLACKOUT Columbia Students Wishing ‘Glory to All Our Martyrs’

Overnight, anti-Semitic/pro-Hamas extremists at Columbia – who’ve been chanting for the murder of Jews – took over an academic building. Come Tuesday morning, the liberal broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) hyped the development but conspicuously omitted the nastier details reported throughout the night: wishes for “glory to all our martyrs” (a.k.a. Hamas), assaulting other students who locked arms to stop them from breaking down the doors, and a report that they took a facility worker “hostage.” “Despite warnings of suspension and expulsion for students involved in the encampment here at Columbia University, some pro-Palestinian protesters set up more tents on campus and stormed that academic building overnight. They say it is all in support of Gaza,” boasted ABC correspondent Stephanie Ramos during Good Morning America. Adding: “Video capturing students slamming desks, breaking windows, and barricading themselves inside.” Over on CBS Mornings, co-anchor Gayle King tried to downplay the illegal occupation of Hamilton Hall by noting the “building has been occupied many times over the years.” But she did tout that the pro-terrorist mob “hung a banner renaming Hamilton Hall for a little girl killed in Gaza;” while ignoring their “intifada” banner. King also called it "the War on Gaza" as if the Palestinians didn't start the war with Hamas's October 7 terrorist attack. “Social media footage shows dozens of masked protesters using a hammer to take over Hamilton Hall, a building at Columbia University, just before 1 a.m. The group can be seen inside running around, with some placing chairs and tables in front of the doors, barricading themselves in,” reported CBS correspondent Tom Hanson.     For NBC’s Today, correspondent George Solis noted the “intifada” banner but failed to explain that it meant the targeted killing of Jews. He also framed the occupation of the building as just a response to university officials suspending students for not dismantling the encampment: Overnight, campus protests escalating. Demonstrators occupying a building at Columbia University smashing windows, barring the doors, and unfurling banners – including one reading intifada – after protesters circled the campus earlier in the night. The unrest coming just hours after the university started suspending students who refused to leave an encampment after a deadline had passed. All three of them used the “social media footage” that was going around last night, but they all sanitized their reports by refusing to show or mention some of the more heinous things that occurred during the seizure of the building. In addition to multiple reports that a message of “glory to all our martyrs” was put out by organizers of the encampment, there were videos of their leader Khymani James whipping up the crowd into a frenzy to violently assault three students who linked arms in an attempt to keep the mob from storming Hamilton Hall.   Here is video of him leading the mob to assault 3 students trying to protect the building. pic.twitter.com/du3OlsCqUo — AG (@AGHamilton29) April 30, 2024   James was supposedly expelled from the university after a video circulated online of him giving a blood-thirsty rant against Jews. Other videos showed 63-year-old “professional protest consultant” Lisa Fithian suggesting the students protecting the building were the “assholes” (above) and directing other students to flip large metal tables to barricade the doors.   BREAKING.🚨 All charges have been *DROPPED* against Pro-Hamas rioters who took over Hamilton Hall at Columbia University on Monday night. Columbia U. refused to let NYPD in despite protesters allegedly committing unlawful detention, vandalism & assault.pic.twitter.com/kwgFxWtmv6 — Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) April 30, 2024   Further excluded by the broadcast networks, Hen Mazzig, founder of the Tel Aviv Institute reported that the students held a university facilities worker “hostage” for a time   Protesters inside Hamilton Hall at Columbia University have hung banners reading “Intifada" after they vandalized and took over a university building last night. A Columbia facilities worker was “held hostage” as students occupied the hall. The university asked those "who can… pic.twitter.com/atUhOZq88G — Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) April 30, 2024   The transcripts are below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s Good Morning America April 30, 2024 7:02:58 a.m. Eastern (…) ROBIN ROBERTS: Take a look at the scene right now. Protesters on campus there in North Carolina. And then overnight protesters here in New York at Columbia barricaded themselves inside the school and now the university is taking more action. Stephanie Ramos is there on the scene for us. Good morning to you, Stephanie. STEPHANIE RAMOS: Robin, good morning. Despite warnings of suspension and expulsion for students involved in the encampment here at Columbia University, some pro-Palestinian protesters set up more tents on campus and stormed that academic building overnight. They say it is all in support of Gaza. [Cuts to video] Overnight, pro-Palestinian protesters gathering outside Columbia University's Hamilton Hall and then storming the building. Video capturing students slamming desks, breaking windows, and barricading themselves inside. Just after 12:30 a.m. this morning, dozens left the encampment and entered the hall. Students, defiant. Refusing to dismantle their encampment. PRO-HAMAS PROTESTER: You need to stop bombing. You need to stop the indiscriminate killing, massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. That's how you end the war. (…) CBS Mornings April 30, 2024 7:06:27 a.m. Eastern GAYLE KING: Now to breaking news overnight, a major escalation in the protest at Columbia University where demonstrators against the War on Gaza have now broken into a building on campus. The group hung a banner renaming Hamilton Hall for a little girl killed in Gaza. That building has been occupied many times over the years. Tom Hanson is there at a very tense moment with police standing by. Tom, good morning to you. It was tense all afternoon, yesterday. My heart was racing, watching that video on the campus yesterday afternoon. TOM HANSON: That is an understatement. Gayle, good morning to you. Protests at Columbia University continued well into the night after the school began suspending protesting students refusing to leave their encampment, but those demonstrations escalated to an outright occupation of this campus building just behind me. [Cuts to video] Social media footage shows dozens of masked protesters using a hammer to take over Hamilton Hall, a building at Columbia University, just before 1 a.m. The group can be seen inside running around, with some placing chairs and tables in front of the doors, barricading themselves in. They also took the second floor, unraveling the building and reclaiming the building as Hind’s Hall in honor of a six-year-old girl who was killed in Gaza this year. (…) NBC’s Today April 30, 2024 7:03:28 a.m. Eastern (…) GEORGE SOLIS: Tensions here at Columbia University reaching a fervor pitch. Columbia Public Safety officials issuing that public advisory to most students and faculty urging them to avoid campus today after demonstrators took over the building on campus. It comes as that deadline for the voluntary dispersement of the encampment here on campus came and went. All this, as the campus clashes continue nationwide. [Cuts to video] Overnight, campus protests escalating. Demonstrators occupying a building at Columbia University smashing windows, barring the doors, and unfurling banners – including one reading intifada – after protesters circled the campus earlier in the night. The unrest coming just hours after the university started suspending students who refused to leave an encampment after a deadline had passed. (…)

Lessons From Other Campus Protests

The year was 1966 and Ronald Reagan was running for governor of California. A major part of his platform was to “clean up the mess at Berkeley” and other college campuses throughout the state that were experiencing protests and strikes over issues that included the military draft, civil rights and “women’s issues.” While not on a scale of the pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, anti-America and Jewish hatred we are witnessing now on several college campuses, Reagan’s response could instruct current college presidents and admissions officers to quell the unrest. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History has preserved Reagan’s remarks and later actions as governor. In a campaign speech, Reagan said many leftist campus movements had transcended legitimate protest, with the actions of "beatniks, radicals and filthy speech advocates" having more to do "with rioting, with anarchy" than "academic freedom." He faulted university administrators and faculty, who "press their particular value judgments" on students, for "a leadership gap and a morality and decency gap" on campus, and suggested a code of conduct be imposed on faculty to "force them to serve as examples of good behavior and decency." Morality, good behavior and decency appear to be electives, not requirements, on too many of today’s university campuses whose “students” (and apparently not all are students) are now running the institutions of what might be called lower learning. Six months after becoming governor in 1967, Reagan wrote a letter to Glenn Dumke, chancellor of San Francisco State College, who opposed the unrest occurring on many California campuses. In it, Reagan condemned “these people and this trash” who used “the excuse of academic freedom and freedom of expression” to justify continuation of the protests. “We wouldn’t tolerate this kind of language in front of our families.” He called on Dumke to “lay down some rules of conduct and promised “you’d have (all the) backing I could give you.” We need to hear more of this type of talk to counter the anarchists and hatred of Jews and Israel and support of terrorist organizations on today’s college campuses. Even more than talk, action is needed. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Ira Stoll says the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Open Society Foundation headed by George Soros have been contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to leftist organizations that funnel money to groups that are behind these campus upheavals. At a minimum the IRS should take a look at their tax-exempt status to see if they have violated regulations pertaining to what is allowable for nonprofits. The government should also look at whether any of those shouting antisemitic and anti-American slogans are here on student visas. If they are those visas should be revoked and the students deported. Others who are found guilty of giving aid and comfort to terrorists should be expelled. Some wealthy donors to Columbia University and other schools have pledged to withdraw financial support if order and decorum are not restored. All of this feeds the view that America is coming apart. Where are the leaders like Ronald Reagan who label this behavior for what it is and then do something about it? Reagan ended his letter to Dumke with a question that should answer itself: “Hasn’t the time come to take on those neurotics in our faculty group and lay down some rules of conduct for the students comparable to what we’d expect in our own families?” If that time had come in 1967, surely it is long past due in 2024.

Game Over: How Sweet Baby Inc.'s ‘Inclusion’ Push Is Ruining the Video Gaming Industry

What used to be an escape from an overly politicized world, the video games industry is slowly being reshaped in part by a development and consultation studio infecting the bloodstream with corporate liberalism run amok with a scam company operating as a way to bolster one’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) credentials. Sweet Baby Inc. was founded in 2018 and works with video game studios to help "diversify" their new releases. The company's mission statement speaks volumes, reeking with buzzwords: Founded in 2018, Sweet Baby Inc. is a narrative development and consultation studio based in Montreal and working around the globe. Our mission is to tell better, more empathetic stories while diversifying and enriching the video games industry. We aim to make games more engaging, more fun, more meaningful, and more inclusive, for everyone. “Empathetic,” “diversifying,” “more inclusive,” and “for everyone.” The only thing missing is the talk of multiple genders. Sweet Baby Inc. also claims that "you need diverse voices to solve diverse problems." To achieve alleged problems, they offer writing, narrative, representation, and development. In other words, pretty common components for a development consultant. But as far as representation goes, one can only assume they mean no white characters. When a former Sweet Baby Inc. employee was presented with a design for a white character, she wrote, "fuck white people," on the graphic: Dani LaLonders SWEET BABY INC graduate, her employee designed a white character and she responded back with "F*CK WHITE PEOPLE" pic.twitter.com/wZ2Tlk9Y9b — BadSoundingSentences (@BadSoundingS) April 28, 2024   If that’s what bringing representation to video games looks like, surely they must excel in writing, narrative, and development! Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, Sony's God of War: Ragnarok, and Warner Bros. Games' Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, are some major titles recently released that Sweet Baby Inc. has had their hand in making. Their scope of consultation goes beyond those studios and also includes the likes of Valve, Electronic Arts, 2K Studios, Xbox Game Studios, Square Enix, Wizards of the Coast, and many others. However, not every company has great success when going woke. Unfortunately for the crew at Mimimi Games, they consulted with Sweet Baby Inc. on Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, and after costs outweighed their revenue, they closed their doors. Many people pointed to Sweet Baby Inc. as the reason why Mimimi Games shut down. With DEI tainting the world around us and now tainting the virtual world, one man who goes by Kabrutus, created a website that detects DEI in video games. The site, deidetected.com, is a spawn from a Steam curator list titled "Sweet Baby Inc detected," which is simply a list of games available on the Steam marketplace. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. The curator list currently has over 350k followers and has garnered attacks on Kabrutus and others from Sweet Baby Inc. employees.  But supporters of this shift in video games are trying to reframe the Sweet Baby Inc. backlash as a hate movement: They are trying to reframe the Sweet Baby Inc. backlash as a hate movement. Yes it was...on their part. Don't let them forget SBI started it and never apologized. https://t.co/dsDDZ15hTS pic.twitter.com/klPpWHyLQq — Grummz (@Grummz) April 24, 2024 These attacks come as no surprise when the Co-Founder of Sweet Baby Inc. had this to say at Game Developers Conference 2019: The Co-Founder of Sweet Baby Inc Kim Belair proudly explains the method she uses to force bosses at game studios to censor, alter, and "diversify" game projects she feels are problematic - "Terrify them" aka threaten them with the anger of the cancel culture mob. pic.twitter.com/eFJZeKqSZd — GamesNosh (@GamesNosh) March 4, 2024 So why are studios still working with Sweet Baby Inc.? I think in order to get the proper funds from share holders, certain things need to be checked off. Consulting sweet baby inc might be one of them — Mightykeef (@MightyKeef) April 24, 2024

PolitiFact Slaps False Label On Johnson's Criticism Of Columbia

Amid the encampment at Columbia University, PolitiFact slapped the “false” label on Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday for declaring that the school advised Jewish students to stay away from campus. The only problem is that Johnson never explicitly claimed that they did, but rather that was the unstated implication of their hybrid learning plan. Louis Jacobson writes, “Later, during an April 24 CNN interview that aired after his Columbia visit, Johnson said he was standing up for "Jewish students who are in fear of their lives, who were cowering in their apartments right now, who are not coming to class. In fact, the administration recognized the threat was so great, they canceled classes. Now they've come out with this hybrid idea. ‘Well, if you're Jewish, maybe you do want to stay at home. Maybe you'd be better off for you.’” The NewsBusters write-up of that CNN interview can be found here. As for Jacobson, he continues, “Johnson called this attitude ‘so discriminatory. It's so wrong in every way. The responsibility of a university administrator is to keep peace on campus and ensure the safety of students — job No. 1.’" He also writes, “Johnson’s comment prompted an April 25 post from a new account on X from the Columbia Journalism School devoted to fact-checking statements about the Columbia protests” and “The post quoted Columbia University's provost’s office, saying, "The university administration has not issued any directives or specific instructions to Jewish students about avoiding campus or taking classes remotely." Jacobson goes on to cite President Minouche Shafik stating her preference was for students who live off-campus to stay home. As for that CJS account, they have managed to fact-check one Israeli professor and counter-protestor, Shai Davidai, for saying the protests prove Hamas is on campus claiming "There is currently no evidence of any member of Hamas on Columbia's campus" as if Hamas's ideology is absent or that no member of the faculty has ever praised Hamas. They also shamed Punchbowl/NBC's Jake Sherman for claiming that an anti-Semite was at Columbia when he was, in reality, just down the street. They can't be bothered to check any of the protestors incendiary claims about genocide, however. Still, there is also a significant discrepancy in Jacobson’s article versus the CJS. The CJS account claimed Johnson “suggests” the Columbia administration advised Jewish students to stay home, whereas Jacobson used the more definitive “said.”  It is common for people to paraphrase others when they believe that they are trying to get away with saying something odorous in a polite way. Columbia explicitly advising Jewish students to stay home would be a P.R. disaster, meaning Johnson’s paraphrase was his way of citing what he thought the administration was really saying by their refusal to end the encampments against Israel and Zionists, which is just anyone who thinks Israel should exist. Jacobson conceded that there was a Columbia-affiliated rabbi who urged Jewish students to stay home, making it possible that Johnson simply confused the rabbi with the administration. If that is true, then Jacobson should’ve written another one of PolitiFact’s explainer articles that do not feature the truth-o-meter. Speaking of the truth-o-meter-free explainer articles, Joe Biden has explicitly compared Republicans to Jim Crow, which Republicans, of course, deny. However, Jacobson couldn’t be bothered to pull out the truth-o-meter for that Biden claim, instead writing, “Some historians say Biden’s rhetorical point was justified as a way of highlighting the dangers of backsliding from hard-won voting rights.”

Scarborough Backtracks on Protesters: I Was Only Mocking 'White Woke Pampered Elitist' Kids

It wasn't exactly a mea culpa. But on today's Morning Joe, Scarborough did a modified walk-back of his strong criticism that we noted yesterday of campus protesters and the failure of administrators to discipline them, and how it will all lead to Biden  losing in November.  Scarborough mentioned that after his comments yesterday, he had received critical comments from "well-intentioned" critics who said it was right to protest the Vietnam War, and right to protest Israel's war after the October 7 slaughter by Hamas. So he backtracked to suggest he only meant to mock rich white kids. [?] I'm certainly not saying this of all the student protesters that are out there. And certainly not children of Palestinian families who have lost loved ones through the years in this war, in this conflict. I will say, though, among, again -- and I've spoken with some of them. I want to be careful. But among these white, woke, pampered, elitist -- I'm not supposed to use that word. Let's say children from wealthy families that decide, as Dr. Brzezinski said so many years ago, that they're going to play radical for a weekend and then go home to Mommy and Daddy's mansion, there's a complete ignorance about the complexities of this issue.   Why did Scarborough single out "white," woke, elitists? Surely there are black and brown woke elitists who are cluelessly protesting on campus. Why does Scarborough give them a pass, hmmm? Sounds like Scarborough is between the same rock and hard place as Biden: wanting to express solidarity with Israel, but without overly offending his left-wing base.  Willie Geist then came in repeated everything Scarborough just said. "You go, guy!" Both Scarborough and Geist stressed that they have been very critical of Netanyahu's handling of the war -- which would seem to be required at MSNBC.  To their credit, Scarborough and Geist did express that Jewish students don't feel safe on campus, and described how clueless many of the protesters are, with no understanding of the genocidal implications for Jews of "from the river to the sea," or of the generous two-state deal that Israel offered the Palestinians 2000, but which the Palestinians peremptorily rejected.     Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 4/30/24 6:11 am EDT JOE SCARBOROUGH: I had a lot of nice, wonderful, well-intentioned people that watch this show, love this show, write me yesterday, and I wrote a lot of them back, called one or two back, saying, you know, Joe, the Vietnam war was a bad war, Joe; you were talking. And this Gaza thing, we understand the kids and what they're doing. I understand, obviously, the protest to an unjust war. And we've, of course, been bitterly critical of Netanyahu's response in Gaza. So we understand all that. I'm curious what your thoughts are on -- and we're going to talk to Jonathan Greenblatt in one moment -- but how you balance that with not just outside agitators but also a rising sense of antisemitism on college campuses and social life. And I will tell you, I know, I know first-hand from friends and family members that Jews are being pushed to the side socially. And, and that, that woke white girls and boys coming from elite families are telling their friends that they can't hang out with Jewish friends.  And I could go on. I've been -- and maybe one of the reasons I was engaged as I was yesterday is, I've been hearing about this now for three, four, five, six months. Where Jewish students don't feel safe on college campuses. And this isn't a bubble wrap or snowflake moment. This is people talking about genocide, screaming at them as they try to go to their English class on campus. . . .  You know, Willie, the thing is, and I'm certainly not saying this of all the student protesters that are out there. And certainly not children of Palestinian families who have lost loved ones through the years in this war, in this conflict. I will say, though, among, again -- and I've spoken with some of them. I want to be careful. But among these white, woke, pampered, elitist -- I'm not supposed to use that word. Let's say children from wealthy families that decide, as Dr. Brzezinski said so many years ago, that they're going to play radical for a weekend and then go home to mommy and daddy's mansion, there's a complete ignorance about the complexities of this issue. Now, of course, if you listen to the show, you would understand many of the complexities of this issue, because we have been really tough on Israeli officials that come on this show. We have asked why they've continued to allow illegal settlements in the West Bank over the decade. Why they have continued to fight against a two-state solution for peace. Why they have done what they have done in Gaza. Why they did with Hamas, why Netanyahu was Hamas' ally leading up to October the 7th. So, it is very complicated. That's lost, though, in a lot of those things. And when you start talking about even West Bank settlements with a lot of these students, their eyes glaze over. They -- because that's not in the TikTok video. Again, I'm not saying this about all the students. But I will tell you, I'm saying it about a hell of a lot of students I have spoken with. When you go, well, you know, in 2000 there was an Oslo Accord where Bill Clinton had gotten together, and they were giving 97% of the West Bank to the Palestinians, and the other 3% they were going to make up with Israeli land. And they had figured out, you know, a capital in East Jerusalem. And they sit there with their eyes glazed because they have no idea what happened in this peace process, what happened through the years. They just, they see something on TikTok, and they're like, Israel bad, and Hamas good. And they go out and they start shouting at Jews -- some. WILLIE GEIST: Yeah, and you don't even have to go that deep. You can ask, what does it mean to chant, from the river to the sea, and they don't know.  And then when you tell them what it is, and we've seen this from reporters asking some of them --again, not all of them. Some of them have a deep understanding of this -- they don't understand that that means the elimination of the State of Israel and the people who live within that state. So, I've been having a lot of these same conversations as you, Joe. So if you watch our show, you know how critical we've been of Netanyahu, of the prosecution of the war. That we grieve and mourn for children and women who have been killed in this war, that are starving in this war. It's a terrible, terrible thing. But that does not give kids on college campuses license to chant, from the river to the sea, and to say that Jewish kids should not exist, in some cases, at Columbia, for example.

Velma Season 2 Adds Anti-Catholic Bigotry to Its Hatefest

Last year, Max released Velma, an animated adult "reimagining" of the Scooby Doo franchise that became one of the most hated series in the history of television. On Thursday, April 25, Max premiered a second season of Velma that is almost as bad as the first. Produced by Mindy Kaling, Velma is riddled with unfunny hostility toward men, particularly white men as embodied in Velma's doofus version of Fred (Glenn Howerton). Fred is a dumb and infantilized character who is routinely mocked. Season two's plot is about a serial killer targeting white middle-aged men. The killer chops off the victims' penises. Season One ended with a horrifying scene in which Velma twerked over the corpse of Fred's mother after she was killed in an accident. Season two's violence is no less vulgar. In this new season, Fred becomes attracted to Catholicism and larps as a fake priest. His newfound interest in Catholicism, which he uses to promote his "spooky stuff hunting business," becomes a launchpad for insulting the Catholic Church. After Velma (Mindy Kaling) rigs a school lottery to get paired with Fred for an activity, her violation of school tradition somehow turns into dialogue on Catholics. Fred: I know you rigged this, Velma. If there's one thing rich people know, it's cheating. Velma: There are more important things than tradition. Fred: No, there aren't. Look at the Catholics. We used to control the world. But then, Martin Luther was all like, 'Let's ignore traditions.'  And now, we only control Boston and the Supreme Court. Velma: Exactly. Tradition, religion, superstition. When you remove the fun hats and free wine, they're just about controlling people with fear. The local church priest is a drunkard who is secretly part of a government conspiracy that created a super-villain. The priest becomes one of the men murdered and castrated by the villain. The series also mocks the sacrament of confession. Fred sits in the confessional and pretends to be a priest, but instead falls in love with the old lady on the other side of the screen confessing her sins.  In contrast to the moronic "Catholic" characters, an occultist heroine named Amber (Sara Ramirez) befriends members of the mystery-solving group and proves to be smart and intuitive. Amber is "non-binary" and uses "they/them" pronouns. She is a proud "witch" who draws pentagrams and practices seances.  Like season one, the plot of Velma's second season is too convoluted to unpack and nearly impossible to either follow or care about. Dialogue tosses in casual references to anti-capitalism and random praise for left-wing heroes like Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayer and former First Lady Michelle Obama. There is little rhyme or reason to these woke insertions.  Velma has zero redeeming qualities even by the standards of contemporary television. Its audience score on Rotten Tomatoes as of April 30 is 11%. Max had heavily promoted the first season of Velma, but this second season dropped with little fanfare. Considering how little the streaming service marketed the second season, a third installment seems unlikely. If so, good riddance. The series is unredeemable.

Daily Caller: White House 'Corrected' Biden Remarks 148 Times So Far This Year

As we've pointed out how the networks typically ignore egregious gaffes by President Biden, Daily Caller White House correspondent Reagan Reese reports "White House communications staff has had to correct President Joe Biden’s public remarks at least 148 times since the beginning of 2024, a review of official White House transcripts shows." The White House website posts transcripts whenever Biden gives a speech or takes questions. Reese explained the Caller looked at 118 statements, speeches and chats with reporters spanning from Jan. 1 to April 24. Communications staffers frequently correct, add to or alter Biden’s official remarks "to either bring them into compliance with official White House policy or, in some cases, reality, a Daily Caller analysis showed. In several cases, official statements had to be changed to convey the exact opposite of what Biden actually said." [Emphasis ours.] “It was then, through no — through my American Rescue Plan — which every American [Republican] voted against, I might add — we made the largest investment in public safety ever,” the White House transcript of Biden’s March State of the Union address read. ....“We must be honest: The threat to democracy must be defended [defeated],” another State of the Union excerpt reads. Reese noted the hilarious Ron Burgundy-style Biden gaffe last week, reading too much from the Teleprompter. The Biden seemingly read the word “pause” off his screen, but the original White House transcript of the president’s remarks did not include the word “pause” — it said “(inaudible).” An updated version of the transcript now includes the president’s “pause” as well as the “(inaudible).” “Four more years, PAUSE.” Biden reads the instructions on the Teleprompter, which are always clearly marked, usually with lots of parentheses, meaning ‘dummy don’t say this part, is a command!’ Feel confident with this guy at the wheel??? pic.twitter.com/RUXA5jUkZM — Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) April 29, 2024 For comparison, the Caller looked at a few transcripts of Trump's big events in 2020 to see how many edits or corrections the Trump staff made. (Some could argue Trump surely thinks every speech is the best ever, and wouldn't want staffers correcting it.) For the State of the Union, Biden staff made 13 edits, to zero for Trump staff. For the Earth Day speech, eight edits for Biden, zero for Trump. For the National Prayer Breakfast, eight edits for Biden, while "the Trump White House adjusted the transcript once when the former president missed one word in a quote." The Daily Caller’s analysis does not include times that the White House altered transcripts without indicating there was a change -- "stealth editing." Some had to adjust a claim on history: “I kept my promise to appoint the first Black [woman] Supreme Court justice,” the White House transcript reads from a Feb. 22 campaign reception. PS: This addition of "historic" was curious:  One White House transcript from Biden’s March 9 campaign event adds “historic” in front of a reference to Vice President Kamala Harris. “Because unlike Donald Trump, I know who we are as Americans.  (Applause.)  It’s why I promised to have an administration that looks like America.  (Applause.) The most diverse Cabinet and administration in American history led by a [historic] Vice President,” the transcript reads.

MRC’s Schneider on Newsmax, Blasts Columbia U. Pres: She’s on ‘Side of These Hamas Protesters’

MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider made clear that Columbia University’s limp-wristed response to protestors is a choice to surrender to the pro-Hamas mob.  On the April 27 edition of Newsmax’s Saturday Report Schneider blasted Columbia University President Nemat (Minouche) Shafik for her response to anti-Semitic protests on her campus. “Look, this president has made it very clear that she is on the side of these Hamas protesters,” Schneider told Newsmax anchor Rita Cosby. “I think her own academic writing shows that she is very biased in favor of these radical terrorists.” Some of the groups at the center of these campus protests such as Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) are heavily funded by leftist billionaire George Soros. Soros gave $525,000 to JVP between 2017 and 2022 and $350,000 to JVP Action.  According to the New York Post, activists trained by Soros-funded organizations are currently involved in similar protests at several universities. He is also a huge donor to Columbia University. Soros’ Open Society Foundations has given $7,150,272 to Columbia University from 2016-2022.  In response to a question from Cosby, Schneider made clear that much of what is going on at Columbia is not protected speech. “Conduct is not speech. And so, when these students have been violating the law, engaged in battery and assault—that’s a crime,” he added, before suggesting that the protestors were also trespassing. Ultimately, Schneider held Shafik responsible for the chaos, anti-Semitism and support for terrorism on Columbia University’s campus: “The president of Columbia is in violation of the law too,” he said, explaining that Shafik had run afoul of the Civil Rights Act. “She is a lawbreaker as well. So, I can understand why these members of Congress are calling for her resignation.” Schneider fleshed this point out after the interview, stating, “Jewish students have civil rights protection not to be harassed on campus and not to be denied the benefits that they have earned and paid for.”  The Civil Rights Act prohibits harassment on the basis of religion, but Shafik has presided over relentless harassment of Jewish students, as alleged by several students. The situation at Columbia University is bad enough that a rabbi associated with Columbia University advised Jewish students to stay home rather than come to school.  The Civil Rights Act also demands equal education opportunities for students, something that Columbia is currently failing to offer to Jewish and pro-Israel students on campus. This failure has led to several major donors, including Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft, announcing that they will no longer donate to the university.   Read More! NY Post Exposes Campus Activists Trained by Soros-Funded Group 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 campus anti-Semitism.

‘We Need You’ as ‘Mamala’; Here’s the Worst Moments From Drew Barrymore’s Kamala Chat

Vice President Kamala Harris’s taped interview with actress-turned-daytime-talk-show host Drew Barrymore aired Monday and while it was a brisk watch, it nonetheless remained a gag-tastic abomination as Barrymore sat Indian-style on her curvy couch and held hands with Harris as she gushed over the awkward far-left politician as America’s “Mamala” and someone the country “respects so much” who can be “a great protector”. Well, unless you’re talking about unborn babies, (real) Christians, or those who possessed marijuana back when she was San Francisco district attorney. Because, in those cases, forget about it.     At the end of the first block, Barrymore almost broke down as, after Harris talked about her blended family with Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and his daughters from his first marriage and that his girls call her “Mamala”, she proclaimed Harris should adopt the title for the whole country: Well, that’s a great segue to say that I keep thinking in my head that we all need a mom. I’ve been thinking that we really all need a tremendous hug in the world right now, but in our country, we need you to be Mamala of the country.  Amid raucous cheers and applause, Harris awkwardly drank it in like a villain receiving new powers: “I know. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah, no.” Barrymore kept laying it on thick: “And as a woman who respects so much and wants to share and wants to be confident and has no ounce of meat that has competitiveness. When we lift each other up, we all rise.” Harris’s bizarre infatuation with herself was on display as she responded to these compliments with, “that’s exactly right. That’s right, that’s right.” She finally said more than words of affirmation (for herself) after Barrymore called her “a great protector (click “expand”): Well you know, part of it is, I think that sadly over the last many years, there has been this kind of perverse approach to what strength looks like, which is to suggest that the measure of one’s strength is based on who you beat down, instead of what we know the true measure of your strength is based on who you lift up...You know, and — and if you ever want to measure, if you ever just want some indication — objective indication of your individual power, see what you can do to help other people, people in need.  What — and it could be, you know, just a simple act, including just taking some interest and actually listening to how people are feeling and to sincerely — sincerely have some interest and care and concern about their well-being or their suffering. And I think we all know that’s what we want in each other. That’s what we want from leaders, but let’s be intentional about it and open about saying, you know, that’s really what strength looks like. And that’s the kind of strength that we want. In the next block, Barrymore sounded off about her ongoing but futile life on the dating scene and asked if Harris could help find her a man because “you are Mamala” and Harris’s marriage to Emhoff was thanks to a friend setting them up. After a block with taped questions from Emhoff about their dating history, the show was almost over and, with the time left, Barrymore told Harris, “I appreciate you more every single day. Not only thank you for going out and championing on behalf of all of us, but thank you for being the mother, the woman, the sister, and the daughter.” Once again, Harris couldn’t seem to accept a compliment (even attributing her to being a mother when she has no children of her own) without being weird: And friend and I love my — and I just — it’s really important. I think most of us — I — I will speak for myself. I could not do anything that I do on a daily basis, much less have arrived at this point, without an extraordinary network of friends. I mean, my best friend from kindergarten is still one of my best friends. Harris added she “mentor[s] a lot of young women mostly, but young men also, and I say...choose to be around people who love you, who care about you, who are going to be honest with you.” The Vice President then brought up how “my staff, for example, sometimes they’ll show me little things that just amuse me” such as “apparently, some people love to talk about the way I laugh”, but it was clearly Harris brought up not because it amused her, but it leaves her seething. Barrymore cheered her up: “Oh, yes! I love your laugh!” Harris defended her awkward, Disney villain-like cackle by saying she has her “mother’s laugh and I grew up around a bunch of women, in particular, who laughed from the belly”. “I think it’s really important for us to remind each other and our younger ones, don’t be confined to other people’s perception about what this looks like,” she concluded. With time running out and brain cells having been destroyed long before this, Barrymore gushed as she wrapped before signing off, “I love your laugh and I love that message.” To see the relevant transcript from April 29, click “expand.” The Drew Barrymore Show [via WJLA] April 29, 2024 3:06 p.m. Eastern DREW BARRYMORE: Well, that’s — VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: You have to sort that out. BARRYMORE: — a great segue to say that I keep thinking in my head that we all need a mom. I’ve been thinking that we really all need a tremendous hug in the world right now, but in our country, we need you to be Mamala of the country. [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE] HARRIS: I know. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah, no. BARRYMORE: And as a woman who respects so much and wants to share and wants to be confident and has no ounce of meat that has competitiveness. HARRIS: Yeah. BARRYMORE: When we lift each other up, we all rise. HARRIS: That’s exactly right.  [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE] That’s right, that’s right. BARRYMORE: However, we need a great protector. HARRIS: Yeah. Well you know, part of it is, I think that sadly over the last many years, there has been this kind of perverse approach to what strength looks like, which is to suggest that the measure of one’s strength is based on who you beat down, instead of what we know the true measure of your strength is based on who you lift up. BARRYMORE: Yes. HARRIS: Right? BARRYMORE: Yes. HARRIS: You know, and — and if you ever want to measure, if you ever just want some indication — objective indication of your individual power, see what you can do to help other people, people in need. What — and it could be, you know, just a simple act — BARRYMORE: Yes. HARRIS: — including just taking some interest and actually listening — BARRYMORE: Yes. HARRIS: — to how people are feeling and to sincerely — sincerely have some interest and care and concern about their well-being or their suffering. And I think we all know that’s what we want in each other. That’s what we want from leaders, but let’s be intentional about it and open about saying, you know, that’s really what strength looks like. And that’s the kind of strength that we want. [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE] (....) 3:13 p.m. Eastern BARRYMORE: However, getting to know each other first through questionnaires felt really exciting to me. HARRIS: Yeah. BARRYMORE: And we’ve lost the art of that. So there’s a college that has a blind questionnaire. HARRIS: Mmmm. BARRYMORE: [A]nd then they match you up with one person and you meet. And the success rate apparently is phenomenal. We just did a story about it. HARRIS: Have you tried it? BARRYMORE: I would like that opportunity. I never really got to go on a blind date, funny enough. I know. If someone set you up to — to I never have asked anyone to set me up. I never want to burden anyone with that, but you are Mamala. [LAUGHTER] If anyone comes to mind. HARRIS: Okay, okay. BARRYMORE: I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ve never asked anyone. HARRIS: I’m going to about it. BARRYMORE: Oh my goodness. HARRIS: I’ll think about it. (....) 3:26 p.m. Eastern BARRYMORE: I appreciate you more every single day. Not only thank you for going out and championing on behalf of all of us, but thank you for being the mother, the woman, the sister, and the daughter HARRIS: And friend and I love my — and I just — [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE] — it’s really important. I think most of us — I — I will speak for myself. I could not do anything that I do on a daily basis, much less have arrived at this point, without an extraordinary network of friends. I mean, my best friend from kindergarten is still one of my best friends. AUDIENCE: Awww. HARRIS: And I think — and again, I mentor a lot of young women mostly, but young men also, and I say to them, you know, it’s really important — and I say this to everybody — choose to be around people who love you, who care about you, who are going to be honest with you. Like, girl you need a mint, you know? [LAUGHTER] People — BARRYMORE: Deb! HARRIS: — who will be like, you know, if you if you trip and fall, they’ll laugh with you, but then they’ll pick you back up and push you back out there. You know, you were asking me earlier about what it means to be, like, the first woman, and you know, it’s funny because people still got to get used to this, right? I mean, my staff, for example, sometimes they’ll show me little things that just amuse me. Like, apparently, some people love to talk about the way I laugh. BARRYMORE: Oh, yes. HARRIS: Ok. BARRYMORE: I love your laugh. HARRIS: Well, let me just tell you something. I have my mother’s laugh. BARRYMORE: Awww! HARRIS: And I grew up around a bunch of women, in particular, who laughed from the belly. They laughed. They would sit around the kitchen and HAD — drinking their coffee telling big stories with big laughs. You know, I’m never going to be hahahaha. Like, that’s just — [LAUGHTER] — I’m not that person and I think it’s really important for us to remind each other and our younger ones, don’t be confined to other people’s perception about what this looks like and who you — how you should act in order to be, right? It’s really important. It’s important. [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE] BARRYMORE: I love your laugh and I love that message.

Stelter Acknowledges Anti-Semitism At Columbia, Urges No Judgement

Former CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter returned to the network on Monday’s CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip to acknowledge that while there have been insistences of anti-Semitism among the Columbia campers, “we should try to remain as free of judgment of the students as we can” because he, his fellow panelists, and most of his viewers used to be students as well. Stelter was responding to National Review’s Reihan Salam, who took a radically different approach, “When you look at the Columbia campus, when you look at the UCLA campus and a number of other campuses, what you have is really violence, intimidation, harassment that has become really systematic and really quite terrifying.”     Not only did Salam go after the students, he also condemned the feckless school administration and the professors who support the students: If you're someone who's at home and you're watching this unfold, then I think that you're thinking a lot about our supposedly elite institutions, institutions that are meant to lead our society, that are meant to be exemplars of knowledge and truth seeking, instead descending into this chaos because you have university leaderships that do not have backbone, that have not actually demonstrated real viewpoint neutrality. You have faculty members at Columbia who are cheering on students who are, again, just harassing, intimidating, threatening other students.” This did not sit well with Phillip, who tried to divide the demonstrators into good guys and bad guys and contended that crackdown efforts are also targeting the former, “I do want to -- I mean, what is happening at Columbia, I mean, we have a little bit more visibility there. But there is a sense in which, now, and I think this is part of the point we were trying to illustrate, is that there are a lot of protesters who are doing none of those things that you just described and they're still being dragged off of the campus and put in handcuffs. So, both things are happening at the same time.” Illegal trespassing and encampment is still illegal, even if you're not being violent or chanting anti-Semitic slogans. Nevertheless,  Stelter concurred, “This is happening across the country. And we're not hearing about all these other campuses where this is happening at the same time. I think it's right to criticize university leadership, but I think we should try to remain as free of judgment of the students as we can because many of us were students a long time ago. Students, it's a time for education. Education can be learned in a very hard way. Some of these students are getting a very hard, but very real education.” Two things. First, the idea that college students should be free of judgment because they’re young and prone to make bad choices should only go so far. The idea that mass murder is wrong should not be something that a 20-something-year-old adult, who happens to be college student, needs to learn. Second, Stelter ignored Salam’s vital point about the faculty’s role in this. It’s one thing to say students should be better educated, but when the educators praise October 7, the education itself becomes the problem. Stelter continued by claiming most demonstrators are just honest, upstanding people, and we need more like them, “I don't think these young people mostly are seeking global media attention. Some definitely are, by the way. Some definitely are. And there have been some hateful slogans chanted. But there are a lot of students now caught up in this who are not seeking that attention, who are just with their classmates. And, by the way, Bill Maher's right when he says that, you know, there's some narcissism that comes with activism. But I think as a country, we're better off with more protests, not less, as long as the safety concerns are acknowledged.” No, we’d be better off with better protests, not more. Here is a transcript for the April 29 show: CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip 4/29/2024 10:13 PM ET REIHAN SALAM: When you look at the Columbia campus, when you look at the UCLA campus and a number of other campuses, what you have is really violence, intimidation, harassment that has become really systematic and really quite terrifying. And if you're someone who's at home and you're watching this unfold, then I think that you're thinking a lot about our supposedly elite institutions, institutions that are meant to lead our society, that are meant to be exemplars of knowledge and truth seeking, instead descending into this chaos because you have university leaderships that do not have backbone, that have not actually demonstrated real viewpoint neutrality. You have faculty members at Columbia who are cheering on students who are, again, just harassing, intimidating, threatening other students. ABBY PHILLIP: I do want to -- I mean, what is happening at Columbia, I mean, we have a little bit more visibility there. But there is a sense in which, now, and I think this is part of the point we were trying to illustrate, is that there are a lot of protesters who are doing none of those things that you just described. BRIAN STELTER: That's right. PHILLIP: And they're still being dragged off of the campus and put in handcuffs. So, both things are happening at the same time. STELTER: This is happening across the country. And we're not hearing about all these other campuses where this is happening at the same time. I think it's right to criticize university leadership, but I think we should try to remain as free of judgment of the students as we can because many of us were students a long time ago. Students, it's a time for education. Education can be learned in a very hard way. Some of these students are getting a very hard, but very real education. I don't think these young people mostly are seeking global media attention. Some definitely are, by the way. Some definitely are. And there have been some hateful slogans chanted. But there are a lot of students now caught up in this who are not seeking that attention, who are just with their classmates. And, by the way, Bill Maher's right when he says that, you know, there's some narcissism that comes with activism. But I think as a country, we're better off with more protests, not less, as long as the safety concerns are acknowledged.

7 Times Big Tech Censored Content Exposing Radical Islamic Extremism

Big Tech has not only run cover for leftists, but, over the years, it has censored content exposing radical Islamic extremism. From 2018 to April 2024, individuals discussing or providing evidence on radical Islam have found themselves facing various forms of censorship on Big Tech platforms. These include financial censorship, deleted content and locked accounts. From communist Chinese government-tied TikTok to Google, Meta, PayPal and Amazon, below are seven examples of Big Tech censoring information on radical Islamic extremism and its destructive aftermath. Instagram and TikTok targeted videos exposing Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, atrocities.Soon after the devastating Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israeli civilians triggered an ongoing conflict, actor Nathaniel Buzolic accused Meta-owned Instagram and communist Chinese government-tied TikTok of censoring content that served to shield radical Islamic extremism. Buzolic told Fox News that Instagram shut down his account no fewer than three different times for videos about the Hamas atrocities. He also said TikTok accused him of spreading “false information” and took down a video the actor shared of a child being kidnapped in Gaza. TikTok actually even boasted about removing 500,000 videos related to the Hamas-Israel war. Buzolic, who is strongly pro-Israel, insisted that “pro-Palestinian propaganda” cleverly manipulates Big Tech platforms. TikTok’s parent company is ByteDance, in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controls a board seat and maintains a financial stake. Google’s chatbot downplayed evidence of radical Islamic terrorists raping Israeli women. MRC Free Speech America exclusively caught Google’s biased artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, Gemini, whitewashing the sexual violence carried out by Hamas on Oct. 7. When asked about documented evidence of Hamas rape of Israelis during the heinous terror attack, Gemini pontificated, “Some people believe that these allegations are credible, while others believe that they are politically motivated.” A Google spokesperson subsequently confessedGemini gave the wrong response and needed to be fixed, stating, “Gemini got this wrong and missed the mark on this important and sensitive topic.” Facebook censored show for exposing threat of radical Islamic terrorism in the U.S. Meta-owned Facebook censored Front Page Magazine Editor and Glazov Gang show host Jamie Glazov’s account in April over an interview headlined “Oct. 7 Coming to the USA?” Glazov and his guests talked about reports that terrorists have infiltrated America due to the border crisis. In contrast to this censorship, Meta’s Oversight Board issued a 2023 decisionthat the term “shaheed” or martyr, often used by Muslims to refer to individuals killed while engaging in terrorism, was usually protected by freedom of expression. But Glazov, according to Front Page Magazine, was accused of violating “community standards” and threatening “the security of people on Facebook.” YouTube removed a video of the 9/11 radical Islamic terrorism attacks on the 20-year anniversary. Google-owned YouTube removeda video posted on Sept. 11, 2021 by ACT for America associate Emma Blair. The videodisplayed footage from the 2001 terror attacks on the United States, along with archived audio recordings of people trapped both in the Twin Towers and on the hijacked planes. In a notice to Blair, YouTube claimed that the video violated its violent criminal organizations policy, though the platform added it wouldn’t be levying a strike against her channel. YouTube later reversed its decision, and restored the video to Blair's channel. Amazon de-listed a book on alleged subversive radical Islamic extremist activity. In Sept. 2023, Amazon removed RealClear Investigations reporter Paul Sperry's 2008 book titled “Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington.” Users who click the link that formerly led to his book, are met with a notice reading, “Sorry we couldn't find that page[.] Try searching or go to Amazon's home page.” Sperry decried the censorship on X (formerly Twitter), saying, “Amazon has secretly de-listed my bestselling book, 'Infiltration' (exposing how Saudi Embassy set up terror fronts and mosques around the Beltway) after I broke stories about the conflicts and biases of the Nat'l Editor & Fact Checker of the Wash Post, owned by AMAZON.”  PayPal and GoFundMe financially censored a website focused on reporting radical Islamic terrorism. PayPal shut down the account for Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch in 2018, Spencer told MRC Free Speech America. “PayPal banned Jihad Watch in 2018 but reinstated us after a public outcry,” Spencer stated. He suggested that this was only one of multiple instances of Big Tech censorship against the site, however. GoFundMe also censored Jihad Watch, banning the site from utilizing its services. Spencer further detailed that other platforms, including Amazon, Google, Patreon, Facebook and Twitter, have also censored the website. Front Page Magazine says Google restricted its advertising revenue over a report on a Muslim terrorist attack. Front Page recently reported that Google Ads censored the magazine when it rejected the outlet’s application to use the Google AdSense advertising program. The tech giant reportedly accused Front Page of “dangerous or derogatory content,” according to a March 2024 FrontPage Magazine report. The outlet reported that one of the articles Google objected to was a 2021 piece, “Remember The San Bernardino Fourteen,” which provided details about a devastating and deadly 2015 terror attack in California. The article also argued that the terrorists’ radical Islamic beliefs were a key factor in driving the attack.

CBS News Panics Over Battleground DOOM Poll

CBS News has added a latest installment to their ongoing series of panicked items conveying the current state of the race: a recap of their own poll showing former President Trump garnering greater trust on the economy in three key battleground states: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The poll was covered as part of White House correspondent Weijia Jiang’s daily wrapup. Watch the report in its entirety, as aired on CBS Evening News on Monday, April 29th, 2024: NORAH O’DONNELL: The race for president is coming into sharper focus with the CBS News Battleground Tracker poll showing President Biden and former President Donald Trump running neck and neck in three key states. CBS's Weijia Jiang has details from the White House. WEIJIA JIANG: Tonight, the Biden campaign is facing warning signs in the key swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. JOE BIDEN: You are my ticket to The White House. You, Pennsylvania. It's not hyperbole. JIANG: Rising prices have made the economy a top concern for voters. And in a new CBS poll, when asked if they would be financially better off under Biden or Trump, voters chose the former president by a sizable margin in each of the three states.  Registered voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania believe that they would be better financially off if Trump wins. How do you explain that?  KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: The pandemic caused inflation to rise, caused damages to the supply chain. And so that's why the president took action and we also understand that prices are still too high. They’re still too high. JIANG: More than 60% of voters in the three battlegrounds say that the economy was good during the Trump administration. DONALD TRUMP: We’re going to have a big victory. The polls are looking tremendous -- Michigan and Wisconsin. JIANG: The former president will campaign in those two states Wednesday, when his so-called hush money trial takes the day off. Still lagging behind Biden in fundraising, Trump had a private meeting Sunday with his primary rival, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who has told allies he’s willing to raise money for the man who attacked him relentlessly. TRUMP: We’re up by 40 points over DeSanctimonious. JIANG: As Trump continues his search for a running mate, sources say one contender’s stock has dropped. South Dakota governor Kristi Noem. She’s under fire for revealing in a new book that she shot her dog Cricket after it misbehaved on a hunting trip, killed some chickens and bit Noem herself.  Governor Noem is defending her actions, citing a South Dakota law that says that dogs that attack and kill livestock can be put down. She said the animal had bitten people before and that she was being a responsible parent, dog owner, and neighbor. Norah. O’DONNELL: Weijia Jiang, thank you. It is telling that the report opens with President Joe Biden begging for votes in Pennsylvania. What is different is that there is no covering this poll by meeting with voters from each of these states. When Jiang rattles off the poll’s findings, there is no sense of what the voters are thinking. The only perspective offered is that of the White House, as Jiang plays back her question to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who proceeded to offer platitudes on inflation: KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: The pandemic caused inflation to rise, caused damages to the supply chain. And so that's why the president took action and we also understand that prices are still too high. They’re still too high. This was the only perspective that aired outside of Jiang’s reporting. The report then shifted to gossip, namely the purported Trump-DeSants meeting in Miami, and reports of South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem’s dog-killing past.  The big takeaway from this story, though, is the sense of nervousness over the CBS poll, and voters in each of these swing states passing judgment on inflation and Bidenomics, despite the media’s best efforts to Protect the Precious.

NBC Does Another Bidenomics-Related Story With No Mention Of Biden or Bidenomics

If you watch closely, a new theme is emerging among the corporate media: the publication of stories related to the economy which describe something that is worse now than four years ago due to Bidenomics, without ever mentioning President Biden or Bidenomics. The most recent example comes via NBC News in a report on the current advantages of renting versus home ownership. Watch the report in its entirety, as aired on NBC Nightly News on Monday, April 29th, 2024 (click “expand”):   LESTER HOLT: It's an age-old question, and so many people are asking it in this tight housing market. Should you rent or buy a home? CNBC's Diana Olick now with a new report just out about that, and it may surprise you. DIANA OLICK: Claire Murray has been renting for almost a decade. The 30-year-old pharmaceutical researcher says she can afford to buy a home but isn't sure it's the right investment for her. CLAIRE MURRAY: I have seen the economy change. I have seen the house market really balloon up in a way that kind of scares me from buying a home right now. OLICK: Home ownership has become so expensive that renting a home is now cheaper than buying one in all 50 of the largest U.S. cities, according to a new report from Bankrate. ALEX GAILEY: Buying a home is pretty expensive due to high mortgage rates, high home prices, and there's also a lot of competition in the market because there is low inventory. OLICK: The monthly mortgage payment for a median priced home, which is around $412,000, was $2,703 as of February of this year. That includes property taxes and insurance. Compare that to the national monthly rent of $1,979, which includes renter's insurance. That's a 37% gap between the two. In some cities that gap is even wider including San Francisco, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Austin, Denver and Dallas. Cities with the smallest gaps, though still more expensive to own, include Detroit, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Cleveland, St. Louis and Tampa. It's all giving today's renters a different take on the so-called dream of home ownership. MURRAY: I think renting can also be a good financial decision. And I don't know if society's always viewed it that way. OLICK: While the math shows renting is cheaper, it doesn't factor home appreciation into the equation. Historically, home prices have gone up over time, making home ownership one of the best ways to build wealth. Lester. HOLT: Diana Olick. Thank you.  The most recent instance of such stellar Biden-protective reporting came a little over a week ago, when CBS Weekend News ran a story on the high costs of auto ownership: from vehicle prices to the cost of even basic car insurance. This report went the entirety of its time without ever mentioning Biden or Bidenomics, as if the inflation that caused car (and insurance) prices to skyrocket just happened organically. We now see the same dynamics at play in this report that sells being a renter, and not actually a homeowner, as a net positive. Why is being a renter suddenly more advantageous than home ownership, which at one time was considered fundamental to individual attainment of the American Dream? Due to the high cost of home ownership, to  wit: high prices and high costs of insurance. And what happened to make home prices skyrocket? Why did insurance get so expensive? We never hear those answers to problems that are presented to the viewer as calamities disembodied from the current environment. There is no mention of the effects of inflation on the costs of home ownership, on the increase in construction and compliance costs, or on today’s high mortgage rates. How much of the tightness in the inventory market is caused by homeowners hanging on to their low rates from nearly a decade ago? We aren’t told. “Biden” and “Bidenomics” emerge unscathed from this report. Once again, the media go into "Protect the Precious" mode in order shield President Biden from any accountability over his performance on matters pertaining to the economy. to The title “Regime Media” is well-earned.  

NewsBusters Podcast: The Self-Love Flows at Reporter Party with Biden

The White House Correspondents Dinner airs live on CNN, with hours of journalists honoring themselves and how essential they are to America and to democracy. Who needs this? At dinners like this, they suggest they work in the noblest profession, and somehow it isn't encrusted with egotism and self-righteousness. We all know the way this works. The White House Correspondents Association typically hires a leftist comedian no matter which party is in control of the White House. Because leftist comedians are the ones who leftist journalists think are funny. This year it was Colin Jost, a fake-news anchor on Saturday Night Live. Back in 2009, the WHCA brought in Wanda Sykes to honor the Obamas and to rip Rush Limbaugh to compare him to Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 hijackers and say "I hope his kidneys fail." In 2017, comedian Hasan Minhaj called Donald Trump the "Liar-in-Chief" and said to the press, "You are his biggest enemy -- journalists, ISIS, normal-length ties. And somehow, you're the bad guys. That's why you gotta keep your foot on the gas." This year, it was President Biden that was telling all the reporters in the room that they have to get tougher on Trump, because he said he would be a dictator on Day One and he "promised a bloodbath when he loses again." Biden had zero-fear of the "fact checkers," since they're all assigned to monitoring Trump on a daily basis.  He joked about being a dictator to Sean Hannity, and his "bloodbath" was what Biden would do to the economy in a second term. Biden told the media he wasn't asking them to take sides....and yet democracy was at stake, so they better take sides. The next day, ABC's George Stephanopoulos uncorked a passionate Democrat editorial at the start of the show, touting how "no American president" faced criminal trials and other legal troubles, warning against how this could be "numbing" for voters (because Trump isn't losing by 30 points like they want). He couldn't talk about how all of Trump's prosecutors are Democrats desperately trying to bankrupt Trump or put Trump in jail, preferably before the election.  Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts.   

Google Invests in AI Education as it Unleashes ‘Secret Weapon’

Google just announced a massive investment in training Americans to use its biased and anti-free speech artificial intelligence. Big Tech giant Google proudly declared its AI education investment in an April 26 release. Beneficiaries of these funds include the Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) and Goodwill, which are each expected to train American military members, veterans and civilians in AI skills. The problem? Google’s AI and search engine both have a track record of giving anti-free speech and woke results, so much so that the tech company is not a trustworthy source of AI training. “Together with our partners, we want to make sure everyone can take advantage of the opportunities AI will provide,” the release declared. “That’s why today we are announcing a $75 million Google AI Opportunity Fund, made possible with support from Google.org, our philanthropic arm.” The release added, “Through this fund, Google.org will work with nonprofit, education, and other sectors to train one million Americans of all backgrounds and provide them with AI skills at no cost.” Google is actively trying to get people to use its AI but it is not willing to reveal exactly how it works behind the scenes.  As MRC Free Speech America VP Dan Schneider pointed out, Google’s AI is also closed source, meaning its source code is kept secret. So even if IVMF and Goodwill train Americans using Google AI, people won’t be able to see fully what they’re using. Schneider highlighted the dangers of this: “Users can become involuntary tools for Google’s political purposes. This is Google’s secret weapon.” This comes on the heels of studies MRC Free Speech America released illustrating the Google AI’s leftist bent.  MRC caught Google’s Gemini promoting leftist climate propaganda and justifying censorship on Earth Day. MRC researchers queried, “Is climate information free speech under the First Amendment?” Gemini pontificated in reply that “Incitement to Violence” and “Fraudulent Speech” or “Speech intended to mislead for personal gain — can be restricted.” The AI did not then clarify how climate information could potentially fit into the categories it listed. In March, MRC released a report on a whopping 41 times that Google has engaged in election interference since 2008. Google's AI Gemini (formerly Bard) displayed bias this election cycle, refusing to answer prompts about two of Biden’s worst weak spots; namely, the Democrat president’s mental health and the ongoing border crisis. Google’s search engine also buried the campaign websites of Joe Biden’s 2024 presidential opponents. Will Google’s AI funding only exacerbate the bias and censorship inherent in its own technology? 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.

ABC Boasts Crackdowns 'Hardening the Resolve' of Pro-Hamas Students

The anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas encampment continued to spread to other university and college campuses like a disease over the weekend and ABC correspondent Trevor Ault responded on Monday by boasting that crackdowns were “hardening the resolve” of the student extremists. He even suggested that they were the ones being threatened and not the ones causing the problems. Right at the top of the segment, Ault and fill-in anchor/transportation correspondent Gio Benitez bantered about how the crackdown seemed to be having the opposite effect on the encampments: BENITEZ: And here at home, amid the Israel/Hamas War there is growing unrest on college campuses. Police arresting hundreds of people this weekend at protests there with high schoolers making their decision on where to go to college in just two days. Trevor Ault is at USC in Los Angeles with more on this. Good morning, Trevor. AULT: Good morning, Gio. So, the heightened response from police and from universities seems to really only be hardening the resolve of a lot of these protesters. And what's especially notable is we have people on all sides here, outside and inside the demonstrations who say they don't feel safe.     Without showing any of the anti-Semitic incidents caught on camera, particularly the videos of students chanting for the murder of Jews, Ault portrayed the anti-Semites as victims of unfair characterizations and free speech crackdowns: AULT: Saturday demonstrations from Northeastern to Indiana, Washington University in St. Louis, and Arizona State, many demanding their schools divest from companies believed to be profiting from the war and calling for a cease-fire. Several accusing police and their universities of infringing on their right to protest. PRO-HAMAS PROTESTER 1: We want to feel supported by our institution and we want to feel like they're meeting us. PRO-HAMAS PROTESTER 2: We will not be leaving until those demands are met. AULT: Cornell University suspending several students. School officials also accusing some protesters at rallies on campus of chanting anti-Semitic phrases. Ault also tried to cast doubt on who could be behind pro-Hamas vandalism. “Officials at USC accusing some demonstrators of harassment and vandalism, ‘say no to genocide’ painted on this statue,” he gawked. Yeah, it’s a real mystery, Trevor. Who could have spray-painted that? Meanwhile, over on NBC’s Today, correspondent Erin McLaughlin hyped how pro-Hamas extremists tore down an American flag and replaced it with a Palestinian one. “At Harvard, protesters put up Palestinian flag where an American flag would fly,” she said. ABC concluded the segment with Ault seemingly suggesting that the students weren’t responsible for what they were doing. “And it has been noted that some of the people at these campus demonstrations, including some arrested, are not students,” he argued. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s Good Morning America April 29, 2024 7:09:08 a.m. Eastern GIO BENITEZ: And here at home, amid the Israel/Hamas War there is growing unrest on college campuses. Police arresting hundreds of people this weekend at protests there with high schoolers making their decision on where to go to college in just two days. Trevor Ault is at USC in Los Angeles with more on this. Good morning, Trevor. TREVOR AULT: Good morning, Gio. So, the heightened response from police and from universities seems to really only be hardening the resolve of a lot of these protesters. And what's especially notable is we have people on all sides here, outside and inside the demonstrations who say they don't feel safe. [Cuts to video] This weekend, hundreds of protesters arrested at college campuses across country. Pro-Palestinian demonstrations escalating further, along with counter-protests and the police response to these accelerating tensions. UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I support the right for people to protest, always, as they should have. I think it brings in a lot of outside, like, antagonists. AULT: Saturday demonstrations from Northeastern to Indiana, Washington University in St. Louis, and Arizona State, many demanding their schools divest from companies believed to be profiting from the war and calling for a cease fire. Several accusing police and their universities of infringing on their right to protest. PRO-HAMAS PROTESTER 1: We want to feel supported by our institution and we want to feel like they're meeting us. PRO-HAMAS PROTESTER 2: We will not be leaving until those demands are met. AULT: Cornell University suspending several students. School officials also accusing some protesters at rallies on campus of chanting anti-Semitic phrases. At UCLA Sunday, pro-Israel demonstrators holding a counter-protest. PRO-ISRAEL PROTESTER: They don't know what is going on in Gaza. They don't know what is going on. And they need to learn. AULT: Thousands showing up. The university saying a group breached the barrier separating the two groups leading to some violent altercations. The LAPD issuing a citywide tactical alert through the weekend. Officials at USC accusing some demonstrators of harassment and vandalism, “say no to genocide” painted on this statue. And this morning, with no end in sight for these demonstrations, more and more colleges and universities grappling with how to move forward. KIM WEHLE (ABC contributor, University of Baltimore School of Law): Public universities and colleges and the police don't have the right to stop a message. They have a right sometimes to stop the manner in which the message is being conveyed. Hate speech is not protected. There are certain kinds of speech that are protected, but protesting the government's involvement in a conflict overseas is classic first amendment protected activity. [Cuts back live] AULT: And it has been noted that some of the people at these campus demonstrations, including some arrested, are not students. And here at USC, still, the students, the faculty, the staff, they all still have to show their ID just to get on campus.

WashPost 'Fact Checker' Glenn Kessler Aids Biden, Throws Four More Pinocchios at Trump

On Monday morning, Washington Post "Fact Checker" Glenn Kessler was tossing his "Four Pinocchios" Liar rating at Donald Trump again, this time over rent-support payments for migrants in the Democrat-run state of Michigan. In recent months, Kessler has emptied a bucket of Pinocchios on Trump and his aides, but he's conveniently avoided throwing a single Pinocchio at Joe Biden, not even when Biden blamed Trump for massive Covid deaths: "We lost over 1,200,000 people because of the slow start in all this [vaccination] process.”  Kessler ruled in February that "Biden’s phrasing is sufficiently subtle that a link is not so easily established." That's ridiculous. It looks like Glenn Kessler (D-D.C.). This was Monday's headline:  Trump and allies say Biden pays rent for ‘illegals’ in Michigan. Not true. Kessler established the federal government is assisting Michigan with rental subsidies, but it depends on what the meaning of "refugee" is. The federal government, through the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a unit of the Department of Health and Human Services, has long provided hundreds of millions of dollars a year to states and nongovernment organizations to help refugees transition to life in the United States. The Office of Global Michigan supports such efforts in the state, and in October launched the Newcomer Rental Subsidy program. Under this initiative, for up to 12 months individuals who qualify may receive as much as $500 a month in rental subsidies. Kessler repeatedly relies on 'the state" of Michigan to rebut the Trump camp, downplaying this is a Republican-Democrat fight in Michigan.  The state says these qualified applicants include refugees, asylees, people with special immigrant visas who helped the U.S. government overseas, victims of human trafficking, Cuban and Haitian entrants, Afghan nationals and Ukrainians granted humanitarian parole. These are all people legally in the United States.... the state says that it will not consider any application with a pending defensive asylum hearing.  Then he relies on "the state" to break down their rental-subsidy handouts, with this loaded summary: "In any case, more than half of the people who have been approved for rental subsidies are Afghan and Ukrainian refugees — a far cry from the murderers that Trump claims are overrunning the country." Kessler also lined up the Biden administration to rebut Trump: "An HHS spokesman said the refugee office funds could not be used for asylum seekers....A White House spokesman also disputed Trump’s claims in a statement." None of these statements were going the be challenged by Kessler. They were just going to be repeated.  Conservatives on Twitter mocked Kessler's conclusion:  The link to Biden is even more dubious. This is a state program that has received federal grant money, but there is no indication that Biden is even aware of it. So it’s absurd to run ads that claim Biden is paying rent for immigrants who are in the country illegally. Trump and MAGA Inc. earn Four Pinocchios. Kessler has repeatedly defended Democrats when Republicans make claims about the Democrats providing benefits to illegal immigrants. After all, it is an election year. 

Texas Attorney General Sues Biden Admin. For Title IX Misuse

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton just sued the Biden Administration for its unlawful use of Title IX to allow trans-identifying males the ability to compete in women's sports and use women’s bathrooms in public schools. In early April, the Education Department revealed new regulations that would prohibit schools from being allowed to protect biological girls sports and safety. The new regulations are set to take place in August, hence Paxton’s decision to sue the Biden Administration with the help of America First Legal (AFL). The new requirements would expand the definition of the word “sex” to include a student’s self-professed “gender identity.” Now, any educational program that receives federal funding like K-12 schools, colleges and universities will be required to adhere to the wishes of any student who identifies as a gender that isn’t scientifically accurate. Essentially then, a male student who claims to be transgender and identifies as a girl, would be welcomed into all spaces dedicated to actual girls.  The Department of Education formally amended the Code of Federal Regulations to adhere to the new rule.  A Press Release from Paxton’s office released Monday indicated that: This rule violates existing federal law, ignores the Constitution, and denies women the protections that Title IX was intended to afford them. The Biden Administration has exceeded its authority and radically distorted the meaning intended by Congress when the law was made. Further, the changes would fundamentally transform the educational atmosphere of publicly funded educational institutions, forcing communities to capitulate to unscientific gender ideology and putting girls and women at risk in K-12 schools and on college campuses. The new regulations also note that it would be considered “harassment” to use someone’s biologically accurate pronouns if they choose to live with a delusional sense of identity. Texas will not allow Joe Biden to rewrite Title IX at whim, destroying legal protections for women in furtherance of his radical obsession with gender ideology,” said Attorney General Paxton. “This attempt to subvert federal law is plainly illegal, undemocratic, and divorced from reality. Texas will always take the lead to oppose Biden’s extremist, destructive policies that put women at risk. America First Legal’s president Stephen Miller noted how this lawsuit is needed in order to protect young girls: Biden’s new Title IX regulation is a vile obscenity: it forces women and girls to share locker rooms and restrooms with men. It forces them to call a he, a she, and to pretend in every way that a man is a woman, humiliating, degrading, and erasing women. This is an abomination, and as outside counsel for Texas we will battle this regulation in court with all the legal fight we can bring. It must be defeated for the sake of American women and for the sake of our daughters. It’s really sad that we’re still having this fight when one slide clearly cares about the safety of young girls and the other cares about pushing an agenda.

Don Lemon Shows No Remorse for Trump-Russia Probe, Mocking MAGA in WILD Interview

In an interview posted Friday with The Intercept’s Ryan Grim and Federalist editor/National Journalism Center (NJC) director Emily Jashinsky, former CNN host Don Lemon showed zero regret or remorse for CNN’s Trump-Russia obsessions, mocking Trump voters as Boomer rubes, and insisted CNN had no liberal bias. Grim and Jashinsky scored the Lemon interview as the first long-form sit-down for their show Counter Points as part of the Breaking Points network, helmed by Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti. The pompous liberal journalist couldn’t even fully engage with the two questions about whether he felt like he had more freedom to cover topics now that he’s in independent media versus his days inside corporate media and, in a follow-up, whether he was restricted at CNN. Lemon’s arrogance came out as he bragged he “probably had the most editorial freedom on — on my own network than anyone” perhaps in part due to the airtime (before admitting, yes, having an independent show has helped him foster “community” and better engagement with viewers). After an amusing exchange when Lemon refused to engage with Jashinsky’s questions about whether his comment about Nikki Haley being past “her prime” truly outraged CNN bosses or was just an excuse to fire him, Lemon strongly pushed back when Grim next asked him whether he agreed CNN missed the ground swell on the far-left for Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020.  In essence, Lemon told Grim to stop whining and get over it since Sanders supporters were likely why Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton (click “expand”): I didn’t necessarily think CNN was — was left. I thought that CNN was about facts. I think CNN has the best journalists in the world, but I also think — you asked me what my editorial meetings were like. I mean, we, no one was trying to push Bernie Sanders, at least in my editorial meetings and I would — I would venture to, to speak for the network now. Well, I’ll speak for myself. I don’t think that anyone was trying to push Bernie Sanders out. I think that Bernie Sanders may have had sort of — this sort of — sort of outsized influence with a certain segment of the Democratic Party. But all polls in 2016 pointed to Hillary Clinton, all polls in 2020 and public sentiment pointed to Joe Biden. And so, what was shocking, I think, to myself was the — the reaction from Democrats to the nomination of Hillary Clinton instead of Bernie Sanders in — in ‘16, especially in 2020. You know, I — I couldn’t get to gauge it because I didn’t get to go to the conventions. I think that was around, you know, because of COVID. But here’s a shocking thing. (....) [T]he public wanted Hillary Clinton. They didn’t want Bernie Sanders. So, I say that to say when, after all of, you know, Republicans did not love Donald Trump. They held their nose and they voted for him, all of the Never Trumpers, all of the people, you know, from Ted Cruz on down, when he became the nominee, everyone got behind him. When we were at the convention, it was Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. It wasn’t Jeb. It wasn’t, you know, Cruz, it wasn’t Rubio, it wasn’t any of those people. By the time we got to the Democratic convention and Hillary Clinton was a nominee, people were yelling, Bernie, Bernie and we were like, what the hell is going on? So, I think that Bernie Sanders, that — that — that wing of the Democratic Party actually did as much if not more damage to Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump. (....) I think Bernie Sanders is a fantastic politician, but I do think that there is a lesson in it for Democrats that you have to get behind the person who is the actual nominee and you cannot have sour grapes of the person who did not become the nominee. That’s how the process worked. So, I know that people are upset and they’re upset about the progressive wing and they don’t think it gets covered enough, but this is where we are. The nominee — or the person is Joe Biden, the nominee or the person then was Hillary Clinton. I think the Bernie Sanders progressive wing of the party should have gotten behind — should have gotten behind them. And that’s the reason — one of the reasons — the main reasons that we’re in the predicament that we are now and that we had a Trump presidency. (....) Bernie Sanders was not going to win....Republicans fall in line. Democrats fight each other. Democrats usually wet the bed. I — I’m sorry, but Bernie Sanders was not the nominee nor was he ever going to become the nominee. And I know that people are upset by it, but that’s the truth. It’s the same thing for Republicans. Nikki Haley is not the nominee. She’s not gonna become the nominee. Donald Trump is a nominee, regardless if you like it or not. The guy is in court and guess what? Republicans are going to fall in line. Jashinsky then confronted Lemon over the infamous 2020 segment with Rick Wilson and Wajahat Ali in which they mocked Trump supporters as moronic “Boomer rubes.” Jashinsky called it “a low point, honestly, in media coverage of Donald Trump” and wondered if Lemon regretted “seeing other Americans through that lens”. Lemon flatly denied he participated in any of that demeaning behavior, claiming he only laughed about the idea Americans couldn’t find Ukraine on a map: Truly remarkable exchange in the Don Lemon interview on 'Counter Points' when @EmilyJashinsky and @RyanGrim asked about Lemon's infamous January 2020 segment (https://t.co/rLV6JVKz7G) laughing about MAGA supporters with Rick Wilson and Wajahat Ali. Zero remorse. Jashinsky:… pic.twitter.com/OUxhoytJiz — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 26, 2024 Lemon’s scoffing even brought Grim to push back and fact-checked Lemon’s claim from earlier that 2020 polls always had Biden as a lock for the Democratic nomination (click “expand”): GRIM: [T]o the point about the polling that, that you mentioned —  LEMON: I mean, you can’t say that —  GRIM: — oh, just one point — LEMON: — you can’t say that. GRIM: — on Joe Biden’s polling. Joe — Joe Biden was not polling ahead. You — you had said that Joe Biden was pulling ahead. Joe Biden was in the toilet the entire time. He finished fourth in Iowa, fifth in New Hampshire, got annihilated in — in Nevada — LEMON: Where was he by the time — where was he by the time got to the convention? GRIM: — yeah. And — and then he — he won after, you know, $175 million in — in free media between Nevada and South Carolina. And then he wins Super Tuesday and he won the nomination, no doubt about it. LEMON: Yeah. GRIM: But he wasn’t polling ahead, uh, before that. Jashinsky drew even more defensiveness from Lemon when she wondered if the press had made any strides to understand Americans outside their corporate liberal bubbles, adding Lemon himself was still somewhat in one since his new studio was on Park Avenue. Also in the clip above, Lemon’s skull was so thick he denied Park Avenue was any sort of elite bubble because it’s still “part of America” and argued the media do “a great job of — of — of talking to people from, you know, from all parts of the country”. Lemon somehow poured out even more elitist drivel when he claimed Trump supporters and Bernie supporters were far too “overrepresented” in the media and people like Grim and Jashinsky should get over it: Another WILD exchange in the Don Lemon interview on 'Counter Points' with @EmilyJashinsky and @RyanGrim was when Lemon claimed corporate media do “a great job” making all voices heard. In fact, he said, it's MAGA supporters and Bernie voters who are “overrepresented” in the… pic.twitter.com/t9kk55DLgC — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 26, 2024 Later, he strongly took exception to Grim’s analysis on CNN being an establishment Democratic Party “mouthpiece” since it’s “only because of the Republican side and mostly Donald Trump and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, the facts were not on their side” (click “expand”): Don Lemon to @RyanGrim on the notion of CNN having become DNC-TV: “I — I — I don’t like that. I don’t believe in that whole — I don’t believe in the premise of — of — listen, I’m not trying to be confrontational. I don’t agree with the premise of what you’re saying and when… pic.twitter.com/HvA44cvmuB — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 26, 2024 The interview ended with more barbs being thrown when Jashinsky flatly told Lemon that CNN’s “Russia coverage was not great,” but Lemon said that’s only “your opinion” because “the Russia coverage on CNN was — was good” and the media in general having done “the best jobs that they could”. Further, he told her to both stop “Monday morning quarterback[ing]” what happened and falling into the trap of many “people” who “romanticize the time that we were in, like people romanticize, you know, COVID.” Grim threw one more jab, asking whether CNN had “ever said that there actually was not, never proven collusion between the Trump campaign and the” Russians. Lemon initially said “You’ll have to ask CNN”, but then dove in head-first by falsely claiming that’s not true and there were indeed “accounts of collusion”. Amazing. To see the relevant transcript from April 26, click here.

Hostin Backs Pro-Hamas Camps: ‘Anti-War Protests’ Against ‘Apartheid’

Finally, back from their spring break, Monday was the first day the liberal ladies of ABC’s The View were able to spout off about the anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas encampments sweeping across college campuses. Staunchly racist and anti-Semitic co-host, Sunny Hostin (the descendant of slave owners) didn’t disappoint as she threw her lot in with the students chanting for the murder of Jews. She decried those who told the truth about the students and whined about the anti-Semitic designation. Most of the other co-hosts (Alyssa Farah-Griffin, Sara Haines, Ana Navarro) denounced the antisemitism on full display at the encampments and wanted it gone. But when it was her turn to speak, Hostin bloviated about how “we need to shift the framing of these college protests” and call them “anti-war protests” instead of “pro-Palestinian protests.” She championed their calls for schools to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel, suggesting they could be as successful as the campaigns against South African apartheid: I think college campuses have been the place for anti-war protests for as far as I can remember. I think recent protests haven't even reached the scale of the major student protests that we saw in the late 1960s against the Vietnam War or even the 1980s against South African’s [sic] -- South Africa's practice of apartheid. We saw calls during apartheid to divest from South African companies, and that was very successful. Nelson Mandela said he believed that's what led in many respects to, you know, South Africa being freed from that system. “The students are telling me, this is a humanitarian crisis,” she proclaimed as if pampered Ivy Leagues students who want the student debt they signed up for canceled knew anything about the real world. She parroted the long-debunked claims from the Hamas Ministry of Health that 35,000 civilians “mainly women and children” have been killed, and the United Nations’ unsupported claims of Israeli “war crimes.”     She ridiculously asserted that no one has acknowledged that Palestinians “are people.” Hostin rounded out her support for the anti-Semites by whining about using that term. She insisted that people who use “antisemitism” to describe the protests are “far-right” with “authoritarian leanings” who oppose free speech. “They don't want students on these campuses to voice their opinions,” she decried She received backup from moderator Whoopi Goldberg, who assumed a Jewish-sounding name when she entered show business. According to Goldberg, any media reports about the rampant rabid antisemitism in the encampments were just “clickbait.” Without evidence, she suggested that outlets were just recycling images of antisemitism from one location and claiming it was at multiple places. “Part of our problem is the media takes what is the best clickbait. So, you see the same posters or you see the same people, but you don't see the folks who are doing peaceful stuff and saying, here's what we want to do,” she asserted. “I would caution the media to be very careful about what they're doing, and how they're handling this because what they seem to be doing is pushing a narrative,” she scolded outlets. But as NewsBusters reports proved,  last week, liberal media outlets largely carried water for the anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas encampments. While faux-conservative Navarro denounced the antisemitism, she did scold them for thinking about hurting President Biden in November. “There is not one group that anybody is protesting over that will be better off under Donald Trump. So, be very careful that you don't cut off your nose to spite your face by not showing up to vote in November,” she warned. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View April 29, 2024 11:07:51 a.m. Eastern (…) ANA NAVARRO: The only thing I want to remind Americans though as they're protesting is, you know, and we heard it. We've heard it. We heard them call Joe Biden, you know, a genocidal assassin and all sorts of things. There is not one group that anybody is protesting over that will be better off under Donald Trump. So, be very careful that you don't cut off your nose to spite your face by not showing up to vote in November. Because the first thing that Donald Trump did when he became president was issue a Muslim ban. And if you think not showing up to vote is not going to help Donald Trump get elected and Donald Trump will give Palestine any justice, I want what you're smoking. [Applause] SUNNY HOSTIN: I think it's, you know, I think we need to shift the framing of these college protests in fact, in my view. I think college campuses have been the place for anti-war protests for as far as I can remember. I think recent protests haven't even reached the scale of the major student protests that we saw in the late 1960s against the Vietnam War or even the 1980s against South African’s -- South Africa's practice of apartheid. We saw calls during apartheid to divest from South African companies, and that was very successful. Nelson Mandela said he believed that's what led in many respects to, you know, South Africa being freed from that system. And so I think these are anti-war protests, and I think it's very distressing -- distressing that we are framing these as pro-Palestinian protests or pro-Israeli protests. These are anti-war protests, and what they are -- the students that I have spoken to at many of the ivy league schools and a student I did speak to at Emory – where a professor was thrown to the ground simply for asking the police, what are you doing to these peacefully protesting students? The students are telling me, this is a humanitarian crisis. What we also don't talk enough about is the fact that 35,000, mainly women and children that are Palestinians have been murdered. What we also don't talk about, I think enough is that for some reason the discussion of against Israel's policies which the U.N. has called war crimes, which the international criminal court is investigating as war crimes. What we don't say is these are people, these are civilians, and we must protect them. Even President Biden at this point has said, you have gone too far. So, it has never been in my life, in my career, the – criticizing policies of government is equated with anti-Semitism. And that, I think, is a far-right -- it comes from the far-right. It comes from the authoritarian leanings, where they don't want students on these campuses to voice their opinions because they want to change the narrative going forward. And I think we have to be very, very careful about that. WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Since I haven't said anything – I'm sorry, I do have to do this. [Pauses] It is one of the great rights as an American to stand up and say something's wrong. Regardless of what your color is, if you are a woman, man, it doesn't matter. And we must teach our people how to be on the lookout. Part of our problem is the media takes what is the best clickbait. So, you see the same posters or you see the same people, but you don't see the folks who are doing peaceful stuff and saying, here's what we want to do. I would caution the media to be very careful about what they're doing, and how they're handling this because what they seem to be doing is pushing a narrative that people are pushing against, which students are pushing against which I'm thrilled to see because I like when students get mad and say, “we want a change made.” (…)

Church Volunteer Accused of Sexual Assault of 15-Year-Old

An Arkansas teacher was arrested Wednesday for allegedly sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy she met at a church beginning in 2020.  Reagan Gray, a volunteer at the Immanuel Baptist Church, allegedly sent nude photos to the young boy after hunting down his cell number on the church’s WhatsApp group. Gray, 26, was a teacher at the Little Rock Christian Academy and volunteered at the Immanuel Baptist Church. The boy didn’t attend the school, but was part of the church's student ministry where Gray volunteered. According to local news THV11, the child’s parents discovered text messages on their son's phone in 2020. They told the senior pastor about the abuse and he had Gray removed from the student ministry and required her to undergo counseling from the church. At the time, Gray maintained that her relationship with the boy wasn't "physical."  That didn’t last long. According to the same report, Gray returned to the ministry and continued pursuing the relationship with the boy, which she later confessed was “sexual in nature.” According to local news KARK, the boy and Gray met in her car and apartment. She allegedly sent nude photos to him daily and expected some to be sent in return. Mirror reported that Gray performed oral sex on the boy but did not have intercourse with him “in order for [him] to stay pure.” Gray was charged with a single felony count of sexual assault of a teenager after turning herself in to Little Rock police this month. She was released on a $20,000 bond and her court date is set for June 17. Oddly enough, former president Bill Clinton had once praised the church where Gray and her victim met. Back in 1993, Clinton, who was born in Arkansas and lived for a time in Little Rock, tearfully thanked the congregation just days before starting his first term as president. Related: Calif. Teacher Pleads No-Contest to Raping 14-Year-Old Student “Were it not for this church…I believe it would be virtually impossible (that) I would be going to Washington next week as president. And I am absolutely certain I would be less prepared for the job,” Clinton told parishioners at the time.  Hate to say it but, with a man like Bill Clinton praising a congregation for his campaign success given his second term's...er...less-than-"happy" ending, it’s not surprising that another alleged sexual abuser just cropped up in the same circle. Follow us on Twitter/X: MRCTV's @Schineman joins @AlisonOAN to talk John Legend & Hillary Clinton being drug out by the media to bash Trump. pic.twitter.com/YvSKUOmEAm — MRCTV (@mrctv) April 25, 2024

NY Post Exposes Campus Activists Trained by Soros-Funded Group

The New York Post has unearthed some important information about some of the anti-Semitic pro-Hamas campus protests across the nation.  In an April 26 article, New York Post reporter Isabel Vincent broke down not only the funding behind anti-Israel groups involved in campus protests but also revealed that some of the activists were trained to lead such protests by a Soros-funded group. “At three colleges, the protests are being encouraged by paid radicals who are ‘fellows’ of a Soros-funded group called the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR),” Vincent wrote.  She added, “USCPR provides up to $7,800 for its community-based fellows and between $2,880 and $3,660 for its campus-based ‘fellows’ in return for spending eight hours a week organizing ‘campaigns led by Palestinian organizations.’ They are trained to ‘rise up, to revolution.’” Vincent went on to say that the USPCR received $300,000 from Soros’ Open Society Foundations. Soros has a long history of funding anti-Israel causes. In 2007, the leftist billionaire made an absurd comment about the terrorist group, saying that America and Israel “must open the door to Hamas.” Soros also gave $525,000 to Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) between 2017 and 2022 and $350,000 to JVP Action.  Recently, Soros-funded anti-Israel groups JVP and MPower Change organized protests of a deal between Google and the Israeli government. During the same month, Soros-funded groups mounted a campaign to sanction a unit of the Israel Defense Forces, as Israel battles Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip.   SEE MORE: Fox Business Host Maria Bartiromo on Soros-funded groups training anti-Israel activists Soros did not react well to the exposé. In a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter), the Open Society Foundations accused the New York Post of continuing “its practice of mixing distortion and unsubstantiated insinuations in attacking George and Alex Soros and the Open Society Foundations.” 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’s funding of anti-Israel causes.

NPR Cheers Pro-Hamas Campus Agitators: 'Getting Closer to Their Demands?’

National Public Radio’s coverage of the anti-Israel agitators who’ve taken over progressive college campuses while spouting violent rhetoric at Jewish students has been no better than its tax-funded partner PBS (both outlets reside under the taxpayer-supported auspices of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.) NPR’s Friday coverage flattered the protesters, suggesting they were laser-focused on concrete demands that their respective colleges cease financing Israel, while ignoring their vocal support for Hamas terrorists, demonstrated by praising the October 7 massacre of Israelis and reciting eliminationist chants like “From the river to the sea.” Friday’s Morning Edition program aired “Protests against the war in Gaza intensify at Columbia and other universities” without a single mention of the despicable rhetoric from the protests, nothing about the ongoing anti-Semitic ranting and toddler-like tactics when confronted by police, only enthusiasm for the alleged success of the protests. Here’s your tax dollars at work, producing bias by omission: A MARTINEZ, co-host: It's been a week since Columbia University called in the police to clear an encampment of anti-war protesters on a campus lawn. And what a week it's been. LEILA FADEL, co-host: More than a hundred students were arrested that day. And since then, the student demonstrations against Israel's war in Gaza have only intensified. They spread to universities across the country and led to hundreds more arrests. Adrian Florido reported from New York: "For days, protest leaders and university officials have been in negotiations over the encampment's future. The university wants it gone, but the hundreds of students in the camp say they're staying put until their demands are met." Martinez took the protesters seriously: Now, you mentioned that the students are refusing to clear the encampment until their demands are met. What are those demands? Florido sounded empathetic: The big one is divestment. They want Columbia to sell off the stock it owns in companies that do business in Israel and that, the protesters say, are enabling Israel's war in Gaza and its operations in the West Bank." He featured a soundbite from grad student and organizer Ray Guerrero, "who says that if Columbia pulls its money from these companies, other institutions might follow. And that could bring pressure to bear on the Israeli government.…." Martinez asked how the protests would affect graduation ceremonies. ADRIAN FLORIDO: Well, here at Columbia, the encampment is smack in the center of where the school holds its main graduation ceremony. And in fact, all around the encampment, workers are already basically putting up the stages and scaffolding for that event. It's part of why protesters suspect they're about to be removed by force. At USC, the main graduation ceremony has been canceled. And that could happen at other schools because these students showing up to protest say they're not going anywhere. No concern was voiced over the hate chanters ruining a milestone event for those students (suckers) who attend college for the education – cruelly, many of whom also missed out on high school graduation in 2020 because of COVID restrictions. That's one human-interest angle NPR chose to ignore. Note: This story was also included on “Up First.”  a popular NPR podcast delivering brief daily highlights of NPR’s coverage, and introduced there in the most supportive fashion imaginable: “As protests and arrests continue at college campuses across the U.S., are the students calling for divestment in Israel getting closer to their demands?”

Scarborough Scolds: College Administrator Failure To Quell Protests Could Elect Trump!

Joe Scarborough started today's Morning Joe with a rant against weak college administrators who are failing to put down pro-Hamas campus protests. Scarborough's central beef was that their fecklessness could lead to . . . the election of Donald Trump! Scarborough analogized today's situation to that of the student protests of the 1960s that led to the election of Richard Nixon in 1968 and "five more years of war." As if "Happy Warrior" Hubert Humphrey would have ended the Vietnam war more quickly? And in a bit of ultimate scaremongering, Scarborough dropped the usual End of Democracy bomb: "Let's see if they're now going to elect Donald Trump for, I don't know, maybe the last election in American history. If so, good job. Way to go. Way to go!"  Does Scarborough seriously believe that? And was Scarborough's rather authoritarian rant about the need for college administrators to enforce discipline and rules, or else "leave!", sincere? Or was it simply the reflection of his partisan angst that the campus turmoil could lead to the defeat of his phone buddy, Joe Biden? Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 4/29/24 6:03 am EDT MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Also ahead, the latest on the protests over Gaza that are spreading to more and more college campuses. And, we're going to have an exclusive, first look at Forbes' list of the new Ivies, universities who are poised to replace the elite institutions, in part because of their handling of the protest. It is a much bigger story. JOE SCARBOROUGH: Even before, even before these protests. MIKA: This is a trend. SCARBOROUGH: And I've got to say, just the absolute weakness of the administration, the cowardice of the administration, and, unfortunately, on these elite colleges, having people that are now running these elite colleges on faculty boards that, that, that burned down college campuses in the 1960s, that were responsible for the election in part of Richard Nixon in 1968 because of the chaos on college campuses, because of the chaos in Chicago.  And they gave America Richard Nixon and five more years of war. Good job. Let's see if these administrators, the ones that, like, tried to levitate the Pentagon in the 1960s with Abbie Hoffman. The ones who took over presidents' offices in the 1960s, that, that trashed college campuses. Let's see if they're now going to elect Donald Trump for, I don't know, maybe the last election in American history. If so, good job. Way to go. Way to go, by not being able to discipline students that violate your rules. You either have rules or you don't have rules. You either have standards or you don't have standards. And if you can't live by them, leave!  And let's get some adults in these universities that actually teach students that there are consequences when they break the rules, when they break the laws, and when they spout genocidal chants over and over again.

Are Journalists 'Anti-Authoritarian' as They Seek to Banish Conservative Views?

On Friday, Associated Press media reporter David Bauder looked at recent internal newsroom debates that went public, "Journalists taking the critical gaze they deploy to cover the world and turning it inward at their own employers." He cited Uri Berliner's essay on NPR, NBC dumping RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, and a fight at The New York Times over a story on sexual assault by Hamas.  Journalism as a profession attracts people who are anti-authoritarian, who see themselves as truth-tellers. Many believe the way to make an organization better is by criticizing it, said Tom Rosenstiel, co-author of The Elements of Journalism and a professor at the University of Maryland. “We’re taught to hold power to account,” said Kate O’Brian, president of news for the E.W. Scripps Co. There's one difference in these controversies: Berliner was basically forced out for exposing the Left. The other controversies were the Left enforcing their wokeness. Bauder summarized that "NPR management says he is wrong. But Berliner quickly became a hero among conservatives who hold the same belief." The AP reporter doesn't identify most of the rebels in these controversies as leftists enforcing a new ideological hard line (that Berliner was protesting):  A generational change also has emboldened many young journalists. In his own classroom, Kaplan sees more young journalists questioning traditional notions of objectivity that keep them from expressing opinions. Many believe they have the right to state their beliefs and support causes, he said. “Now you have journalists that are advocates,” Rosenstiel said. “That reflects something of a culture war that is happening inside of journalism.” Debates over coverage of the Trump administration had a similar galvanizing effect. “There are some journalists who say, ‘I’m not interested in covering conservatives because they are not interested in the truth,’” Rosenstiel said. See? There it is. The Woke Left doesn't believe in debates. They call it "bothsidesism" and insist debates be shut down, that contrary opinions somehow make "marginalized" people feel "unsafe." Are these journalists "anti-authoritarian" when they only want one side to be published? They clearly believe conservatives should become the "marginalized," now and forever. This was what happened when New York Times staffers had a fit over their newspaper posting an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton on using National Guard troops to suppress violent rioting.  One of the most prominent thinkers on this issue, [leftist] journalist Wesley Lowery, has written that some defenders of objectivity are more interested in inoffensiveness and appearance, less so on journalistic rigor. “In pursuing objectivity, we silence the marginalized,” a Harvard student, Ajay V. Singh, wrote at the height of the debate. “In silencing the marginalized, we tip the narrative of ‘truth’ into the hands of the powerful.” The logic there is bizarre: quote conservatives, and you "silence" someone else? Wesley Lowery wrote a book with a conspiracy-theory title, They Can't Kill Us All. In Lowery's world, he thinks no one should be allowed to protest they don't want him dead, they just oppose his paranoid views. When you represent "racial justice," then you can intimidate journalists out of quoting the "anti-justice" side.

REVISIONIST HISTORY: CBS Sunday Morning Sugarcoats Dan Rather’s Legacy

On CBS This Morning, correspondent Lee Cowan ran a lifetime achievement profile of disgraced anchor Dan Rather that seemed weirdly valedictory. But the profile omitted the most significant detail of Rather’s legacy at CBS. Watch as Cowan and Rather whitewash the document controversy that led to Rather’s downfall at CBS, and established him as the father of Fake News- as aired on CBS Sunday Morning on Sunday, April 28th, 2024 (click “expand”): DAN RATHER: Dan Rather, CBS News, became sort of all part of my name. A part of my identity. LEE COWAN: And you have interviewed how many presidents? RATHER: I'd have to count. Every one since Truman. COWAN: Gosh! This is the first time he has appeared on this network since. RATHER: Without apology or explanation. I miss CBS. I’ve missed it since the day I left there. COWAN: Even at 92, how and why he left still stings. RATHER: In the heart of every reporter worthy of the name, Lee, there is a message that news, real news, is what somebody somewhere, particularly somebody in power, doesn't want you to know. That's news. COWAN: And that's what got him into trouble. TOM BROKAW: NBC News in depth tonight, the black eye at CBS News. Today, CBS News anchor Dan Rather and the news division… COWAN: In 2004, Rather filed a report for 60 Minutes 2 that questioned George W. Bush's service record in the Texas Air National Guard. RATHER: Tonight, we have new documents and new information on the president's military service… COWAN: But the documents on which Rather and his producer based their reporting could not be later authenticated. RATHER: It was a mistake. CBS News deeply regrets it. Also, I want to say personally and directly, I'm sorry. COWAN: Was that the lowest point for you, you think? RATHER: Of course it was the lowest point. I gave CBS News everything I had. They had smarter, better, more talented people, but they didn't have anybody who worked any harder than I did. CBS’s Lee Cowan tells us one firehouse within sight of Ground Zero has had its heart cut out. COWAN: I’d only been at CBS a few years by then, during which Dan Rather had kindly and unexpectedly taken me under his wing and made me feel welcome.  You told me once it's not the question, but it's the follow-up. That that's… RATHER: Yes. Well, that’s true. COWAN: That's more important? RATHER: I hope you’ll not be following up today. COWAN: Minus the suspenders and his cigars, Rather remains just as I remember him. An intently curious… RATHER: I'll ring you back in about ten. Thanks. COWAN: Thoughtful, well-read skeptic who wants nothing more than to wear out his shoe leather chasing the next headline.   Cowan does his level best to retcon Rathergate into an authentication problem. But the MRC remembers. As Rich Noyes noted: Just eight weeks before election day, in a September 8, 2004 report on 60 Minutes, Rather claimed “new” evidence showing Bush received “preferential treatment” during his Vietnam-era service in the Texas Air National Guard. “Newly discovered documents spark new questions,” Rather hyped that night on his CBS Evening News. “CBS News has exclusive information, including documents, that now sheds new light on the President’s service record.” The documents in question were supposedly from Bush’s commanding officer, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, typed on his office typewriter decades before computers and word processors became common in the workplace. It didn’t take long before observers on the Internet highlighted how the “newly discovered documents” looked more like something whipped up in Microsoft Word using the default Times Roman font than on an early 1970s typewriter. It wasn’t an authentication problem but a forgery. A forgery in service of a cheap hit job eight weeks before Election Day, back when there was still such a thing as Election Day.  Rathergate ended up being a seminal moment inasmuch as what was then known as “new media” confronted and exposed blatant news, and took down a heretofore unassailable mainstream media giant.  Cowan and CBS ignore that discrepancy in order to accommodate their valedictory item. Such a blatant omission of history is as much of a fakery as was Rathergate, which is Rather’s ultimate legacy. No matter how hard CBS and Cowan try to spin otherwise.  

HYSTERICAL: Stephanopoulos Opens ‘This Week' With ‘Stakes’ Editorial

ABC This Week host George Stephanopoulos opened today’s broadcast with an editorial that can most charitably be described as hysterical, as he pontificates over “what’s at stake” in the 2024 presidential election, and how that colors his coverage of the election. Watch the opening editorial in its entirety as aired on ABC This Week on Sunday, April 28th, 2024: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning, and welcome to This Week. Until now, no American president had ever faced a criminal trial. No American president had ever faced a federal indictment for retaining and concealing classified documents. No American president had ever faced a federal indictment or a state indictment for trying to overturn an election, or been named an unindicted co-conspirator in two other states for the same crime. No American president ever faced hundreds of millions of dollars in judgments for business fraud, defamation and sexual abuse. Until now, no American presidential race had been more defined on what's happening in courtrooms than what is happening on the campaign trail. Until now. The scale of the abnormality is so staggering that it can actually become numbing. It's all too easy to fall into reflective habits- to treat this as a normal campaign where both sides embrace the rule of law, where both sides are dedicated to a debate based on facts and the peaceful transfer of power. But that is not what's happening this election year. Those bedrock tenets of our democracy are being tested in a way we haven't seen since the Civil War. It's a test for the candidates, for those of us in the media, and for all of us as citizens. It appears that Stephanopoulos took President Joe Biden’s Nerd Prom speech to heart, followed Biden’s call, and chose to Regime harder. The program did not lead with polls, or scandals, or foreign policy matters, but with “what’s at stake”.  In a sense, Stephanopoulos isn’t wrong. This is a unique time inasmuch as no American president had ever had elements of state and federal offenses Frankensteined into felony charges against him.  No American president has ever been prosecuted by his successor. No American president has ever left the border as wide open as has the current officeholder. And this is all happening against the backdrop of Americans having their government weaponized against them, such as pro-life activist Mark Houck, among many others. But Stephanopoulos doesn’t address those unique historical circumstances. They are not favorable to the reelection of Joe Biden and, therefore, are insufficiently cognizant of “what is at stake”. The Title “Regime Media” is well earned.  

NERD PROM 2024: Biden Commands The Regime Media To Regime Harder

As he closed his remarks to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, also known as Nerd Prom, President Joe Biden directed the media to lean further in his direction in covering the 2024 presidential election. Watch as Biden closes his remarks by issuing the “what’s at stake” clarion call: JOE BIDEN: On the third anniversary of January 6th, I went to Valley Forge and I said the most urgent question of our time is whether democracy is still- is still the sacred cause of America. That is the question the American people must answer this year. And you, the free press, play a critical role in making sure the American people have the information they need to make an informed decision. The defeated former president has made no secret of his attack on our democracy. He said he wants to be a dictator on Day One. And so much more. He tells supporters he is their revenge and retribution. When in God's name have you ever heard of another president say something like that? And he promised a bloodbath when he loses again. We have to take this seriously. Eight years ago. It could have written off as just Trump talk. But no longer. Not after January 6th. I'm sincerely not asking you to take sides, but asking to rise up to the seriousness of the moment. Move past the horse race numbers. The gotcha moments. And the distraction, the sideshows that've come to dominate and sensationalize- sensationalize our politics. And focus on what's actually at stake. I think in your hearts, you know already what’s at stake.  The stakes couldn't be higher. Every single one of us has roles to play- a serious role to play in making sure democracy endures. American democracy. I have mo- my role, but with all due respect, so do you. In the age of disinformation, credible information that people can trust is more important than ever. And that makes you, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart- makes you more important than ever. So tonight, I'd like to make a toast. To a free press. To an informed citizenry. To an America where freedom and democracy endure. God bless America. Nerd Prom, live-tweeted by our very own Curtis Houck, embodies everything that is wrong with the media (and Washington, more broadly) today. On the one hand, the press claim to be free and independent. On the other, you have this grotesque spectacle, reminiscent of the excesses at Versailles, wherein the media show themselves to be palace courtiers whenever Democrats are in power. And so we come to Biden’s speech. It is surreal but not at all surprising to watch this president, whose administration has been sued on First Amendment grounds and tried to control free speech via an Orwellian-named “Disinformation Governance Board”, headlining an event celebrating the First Amendment.  Equally surreal, the idea that Biden feels the need to direct the coverage accorded to him by an already-pliant and sycophantic media. Biden’s utterance of “I’m sincerely not asking you to take sides” has a ring similar to that of “with all due respect” which, when uttered, means that someone is about to get disrespected. Biden’s “I’m sincerely not asking you to take sides rang just as hollow.  Biden took January 6th and used it both as framing device for his closing remarks and as the basis for which journalists should take his side. He commanded the media to abandon coverage of his sagging poll numbers (“the horse race numbers”) and his gaffes (“the gotcha moments”). It bears noting that the latter ask is weird because the media already don’t cover his many gaffes. Biden commands the media to abandon these things and focus on “what’s at stake”, which at this point is code for his reelection. It is further galling to hear Biden talk about “the age of disinformation” after willfully repeating the well-debunked Day One Dictator and Bloodbath Hoaxes on stage. Predictably, none of the gushing post-Nerd Prom coverage, mostly consistent of Sunday show types congratulating themselves for making it to set on time, bothers with a fact check. Biden’s remarks were a disgusting spectacle, even by Nerd Prom’s disgusting spectacle standards. Far from defending the First Amendment, Biden called for further consolidation of the media in his camp- a rather ominous threat to free speech and to the free press- even if those in attendance couldn’t help but clap like seals as they raised their glasses.  

PBS NewsHour Again Takes Side of Pro-Hamas Campus Agitators: Just Like Vietnam?

Thursday’s PBS NewsHour covered the hate virus spreading on progressive college campuses nationwide of agitators threatening Israel and Jewish students. Of course, that’s not how PBS saw it, painting those pro-Hamas protesters as standing in the honorable shoes of the 1960s campus rioters that changed the course of American involvement in Vietnam. PBS also took on a University of Vanderbilt president who dared punish students for the violent invasion of a campus building. Anchor Amna Nawaz relayed the good news, from tax-supported PBS’s perspective. Nawaz: Campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza are continuing to grow across the U.S. The University of Southern California announced today it's canceling its main commencement ceremony next month. Encampments are now in place in at least 20 colleges, and hundreds of demonstrators have been arrested in the last several days at multiple schools, including the University of Texas, Ohio State and Emory University….These incidents are just the latest in a series of pro-Palestinian demonstrations unfolding on campuses from coast to coast and beyond, including universities in Paris, Cairo, and Sydney. Some in the U.S. say they want their universities to cut financial ties with Israel. She neutralized concerns of threats against Jewish students Nawaz: Jewish students across the country have said they feel unsafe amid the demonstrations and after being targeted by hate speech and antisemitic symbols. But some are taking part in the protests… Nawaz hosted Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier, who earlier this month penned an op-ed for the conservative editorial page of the Wall Street Journal on his school’s crackdown on student disruptors that clearly didn’t please PBS, which described his school as a place “where dozens of students have faced suspension, expulsion, and even arrest for their participation in recent protests on campus.” Nawaz took the side of the violent students: "There was a late March incident. Some 27 students or so forced their way into a closed administration building. I understand a campus security officer was injured during that incident. Most of the students had to be escorted out. Four were arrested, is my understanding. Help us understand the line for you. Why were those students arrested and some expelled?" Diermeier explained that his campus has hosted peaceful protests for months, but these students “forced their way into a closed building” and “ran over a security officer” before trying to invade his own office, then sat in a hallway for hours before finally being arrested after refusing to disperse. Nawaz was lawyerly in response: "So the line for you was the physical violence part of it. Had the building been open, you're fine with students entering and sitting in, in protest, in other words?" Has Nawaz seen the video of the frankly pathetic Vandy students she's supporting so strongly, whose freedom to act like spoiled toddlers was so cruelly infringed? After Diermeier explained the issue was disruptive conduct, Nawaz again jabbed from the left. Nawaz: You said in your op-ed that free speech is alive and well at Vanderbilt. But there was an open letter by several members of your faculty that disputes that. They say the administration has been excessive and punitive in its response to student protests. They say the rules seem arbitrary. And they say the criterion that protests must not disrupt university operations, as you say, is perniciously vague and expansive. What do you say to that? After Vanderbilt’s president again defended his university’s response, Nawaz weighed in again on behalf of the disruptive protesters: Nawaz: ….Many would say the purpose of protests is to disrupt. The next night, Nawaz again discussed the “expansion of college protests and encampments” and used more soundbites from protesting students, this time skipping the anti-Semitic threats and slogans entirely and comparing these hateful protests to the takeover of college campuses during the Vietnam War, while pretending that divestment from Israel was the main thrust of the new agitators. (Comparisons to Vietnam War protesters are almost always positive in PBS land.) Nawaz: Many say today's demonstrations echo college protests movements of the past, including against the Vietnam War….As protests of Israel's war in Gaza spread to campuses across the country, some see parallels between today's demonstrations and college protests in the past. These segments in support of anti-Jewish campus disrupters were brought to you in part by BNSF Railway. Transcripts are available, click “Expand.” PBS NewsHour 4/25/24 7:28:18 p.m. (ET) Amna Nawaz: Campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza are continuing to grow across the U.S. The University of Southern California announced today it's canceling its main commencement ceremony next month. Encampments are now in place in at least 20 colleges, and hundreds of demonstrators have been arrested in the last several days at multiple schools, including the University of Texas, Ohio State and Emory University. Amid police confrontations, multiple arrests and large demonstrations, Emory University today became the latest flash point in a wave of pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses. Early this morning, at Boston's Emerson University, violence erupted as police cleared a student encampment. More than 100 were arrested. Authorities say four officers were injured. That followed this clash at the University of Southern California. Officers there say protesters refused to remove their encampments. The protesters say they were provoked. Student Protester: What we just saw was an act of USC acting aggressively and failing to defend, and, in fact, being the aggressor against its students. Amna Nawaz: By nightfall, more than 90 people were taken into custody. Incidents are just the latest in a series of pro-Palestinian demonstrations unfolding on campuses from coast to coast and beyond, including universities in Paris, Cairo, and Sydney. Some in the U.S. say they want their universities to cut financial ties with Israel. Former USC Student: We want the university to disclose its financial holdings and divest from its relationships with financial institutions. And we want the university to recognize and acknowledge to its student body that there is a genocide happening to our families in Gaza. Amna Nawaz: Officials at Columbia University yesterday extended talks with demonstrators to clear the campus, where, that same afternoon, House Speaker Mike Johnson was booed after his remarks. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA): The cherished traditions of this university are being overtaken right now by radical and extreme ideologies. They place a target on the backs of Jewish students in the United States and here on this campus. Amna Nawaz: Jewish students across the country have said they feel unsafe amid the demonstrations and after being targeted by hate speech and antisemitic symbols. But some are taking part in the protests… Protesters: Free, free Palestine! Amna Nawaz: … which continue to spread to more campuses and show no signs of ending soon. The protests have also reached Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, where dozens of students have faced suspension, expulsion, and even arrest for their participation in recent protests on campus. Joining us now is Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier to discuss his school's approach, which he outlined in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. Chancellor, welcome to the "NewsHour." Thanks for joining us. Daniel Diermeier, Chancellor, Vanderbilt University: Thank you for having me. Amna Nawaz: So, before we get into your school's specific experience, I just want to get your reaction to how quickly and how widely these protests have spread across campus. Daniel Diermeier: Yes, I think what we have seen in the last week or two is certainly that these issues and the protests have intensified, but, really, we have had them for the last six months or so. Amna Nawaz: And Vanderbilt has been among those that's seen its own protests. As we mentioned, there was a late March incident. Some 27 students or so forced their way into a closed administration building. I understand a campus security officer was injured during that incident. Most of the students had to be escorted out. Four were arrested, is my understanding. Help us understand the line for you. Why were those students arrested and some expelled? Daniel Diermeier: Absolutely. So, overall, over the last six months, things on campus have gone very well. Our students have done great. They had vigils. They had in-depth discussions. We have had a Passover celebration just like a few days ago with 400 students on our main lawn. And then some students have protesters as well on both sides. We have had displays of, like, the victims in Gaza. We have had displays of the hostages. So all of that has gone very well. But about a month ago, we had a small group of students that forced their way into a closed building. This is our main administration building. And we're still doing some construction. They ran over a security officer. They then tried to get into my office. They were — they tried to push over some of my staff there, but didn't succeed, and sat down in the hallway. And then, after a few hours, we told them that this is inconsistent with university policy, that this is disruptive conduct. We then had three of the students arrested that had pushed over the police officer. We had one student arrested who had smashed over a window, and then the other students left on their own accord and were subject to student discipline subsequently. Amna Nawaz: So the line for you was the physical violence part of it. Had the building been open, you're fine with students entering and sitting in, in protest, in other words? Daniel Diermeier: Well, the issue for us is whether you're disrupting university operations. Now, certainly, when you are forcing your way into a closed building, closed for construction, and you're injuring a public safety officer, that line has been crossed. The critical question for us is always, are you protesting and making your voices heard, or are you engaging in disruptive conduct? That can have many different forms. For example, we would not allow them to enter a classroom with a megaphone and disrupt the class, for example, so it can come in many different forms. This was certainly across the line. Amna Nawaz: You said in your op-ed that free speech is alive and well at Vanderbilt. But there was an open letter by several members of your faculty that disputes that. They say the administration has been excessive and punitive in its response to student protests. They say the rules seem arbitrary. And they say the criterion that protests must not disrupt university operations, as you say, is perniciously vague and expansive. What do you say to that? Daniel Diermeier: Well, I think that this particular issue has absolutely nothing to do with free speech. As I mentioned before, there have been many expressions of student protest on campus. The issue for us is, in this particular case, was that the people forced them — forced their way into a construction building and injured a police officer. I don't think anybody should confuse this with free speech. Amna Nawaz: But, if I may, this line that you draw that it shouldn't disrupt, protests shouldn't disrupt university operations, your opposition here says that that's actually too vague and too expansive. Many would say the purpose of protests is to disrupt. Daniel Diermeier: I think the purpose of protest is to make your voices heard. I don't think the purpose of protest is to injure members of the staff or to disrupt classes. Amna Nawaz: One of the things the students were asking for was a student-led vote, a referendum, in essence, asking for the university to divest itself financially from any financial ties to Israel. My understanding is, you did not allow that vote, that referendum, to move forward, which then, of course, leads students to say that their free speech is being violated. So why not allow them to discuss that and hold that vote? Daniel Diermeier: The university has three principles. One is free speech. One is what we call institutional neutrality, which means that the university will not take policy issues unless they directly and materially affect the operations of the university, for example, not on foreign policy issues. And the third is civil discourse, which means that we treat each other with respect, we listen to each other, and when our students come on campus, they sign a community creed where they affirm their commitment to the last value of civil discourse. The students then had a — wanted to have a referendum to use student government funds to basically boycott any firms that had connection with Israel. That, in Tennessee, is against the law. Even the vote itself would have put our state funding at risk, and so, as consequences of that, we did not allow the vote, and because it's inconsistent with Tennessee state law. But I want to be clear that calling for the boycott of Israel is also inconsistent with our stand on institutional neutrality. Amna Nawaz: You know, Chancellor, I have to ask, if you believe that you and other leaders are handling these protests well, that you are hitting that balance between free speech and safety, why do you think that the protests and objections are spreading as rapidly as they are? I mean, is there a chance here that you are not necessarily hearing the concerns of your students in the way they feel they need to be heard? Daniel Diermeier: I need to distinguish between what's happening on my campus. And on my campus, this was an isolated incident that involved 30 students. What other universities do and how they handle that, I think, is something that will depend on their context. All of us will have — will be tested. Our approach has been that we have been very clear about our principles, the principles I just stated, and that we will enforce those principles, and that's the way we have handled the situation. Amna Nawaz: That is Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier joining us tonight. Chancellor, thank you very much for your time. Daniel Diermeier: Sure. Thank you. * PBS NewsHour 4/26/24 7:17:45 p.m. (ET) Amna Nawaz: As protests of Israel's war in Gaza spread to campuses across the country, some see parallels between today's demonstrations and college protests in the past. Steven Mintz is a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, and Angus Johnston is a professor and historian of American student culture at the City University of New York. Welcome to you both. Professor Johnston, let's just start with what the protesters are calling for here. What is their focus? What do they want as a result of these demonstrations? Angus Johnston, Assistant Professor, City University of New York: Well, it varies campus by campus, but primarily what we're looking for — looking at is, they're looking for a divestment of the universities' financial relationships with Israeli companies, a disentanglement of the universities from relationships with the Israeli government or military, and transparency as to the nature of those relationships where they currently exist. Amna Nawaz: Professor Mintz, how do — what do you make of the demands, as Professor Johnston had laid them out? Is that something you think colleges can achieve? Steven Mintz, Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin: I think they're very unlikely to be achieved. The protests of the 1960s, it was possible to achieve some kind of accommodation. First of all, one of the demands, an end to the military draft, received widespread support throughout society, and Richard Nixon's administration would make that happen. But on campuses themselves, there were some practical goals, like studies programs, women's studies programs, coeducation at the elite private universities, an end to parietals and in loco parentis regulations. There was a lot of ground for accommodation and compromise. And I don't see that much right now. Amna Nawaz: Professor Johnston, what do you make of that? Do you agree? Angus Johnston: Well, I think that the easiest, simplest demand that they're making is a demand for transparency in their universities' relationships with Israeli institutions, and I think that that is something that is certainly winnable on a lot of campuses. I also think that, in a lot of ways, the anti-apartheid movement of the 1970s and '80s is a much better analog than the mass student movement of the late '60s in some ways. And I think it's important to remember that, in the case of the anti-apartheid movement, the calls for divestment on campuses began in the mid-70s. And it was a very, very long and slow process, by which students were adjusting people's views of the crisis itself. Amna Nawaz: What do you make of that, Professor Mintz? Could these protests now start what could be a long chain of changing people's minds when it comes to how they see this issue? Steven Mintz: The context today is very different than in the 1960s or 1970s, when higher education was growing and the federal and state investments in higher education were increasing. Today, the situation of American higher education is extremely precarious. Public support has diminished. Funding is hotly debated in many of the states. There are threats in some state legislatures to tax endowments, to tax university property, to tax university income. Donations to many of the leading universities have declined. This is a very treacherous moment, especially for the most well-endowed and highly selective institutions. Amna Nawaz: Professor Johnston, do you agree with that? I mean, is there a chance here that protesters run the risk of losing support the longer these protests go on, because of this scenario, as Professor Mintz has laid it out? Angus Johnston: Well, I think it's important to note that the protests themselves so far have largely been pretty moderate in their tactics. We're not seeing, as we did in the 1960s, rioting, rocks being thrown at police, even buildings getting burned — being burned down. The protests themselves have been pretty moderate. The thing that is inflaming the situation right now — in terms of their tactics, the thing that's inflaming the situation right now is bringing in the cops and using the police not only to engage in mass arrests against students, but in arresting and in some cases beating and abusing faculty as well. I think it's really important to point out that there are a number of campuses at which the university has decided to take a hands-off approach to these encampments. MIT is one. Berkeley is another. And at these, the encampments have been proceeding with very little issue and very little drama. Amna Nawaz: Professor Mintz, what about that? Because we have seen some pretty heavy-handed tactics in some cases. At your campus, at the University of Texas in Austin, dozens of people were arrested. Police in riot gear were called in to disperse the crowds. Is that necessary? Steven Mintz: Right now, we have many brand-new presidents, unseasoned senior administrators making decisions. One suspects that administrators who were more knowledgeable about past history, had more experience dealing with students, had better rapport with their student populations, that this would be playing out extremely differently. What we need to see on the part of senior administrators is a real willingness to step out of their offices, communicate with the students, and try to achieve some kind of accommodation. Amna Nawaz: Are you saying that you don't believe that the police should have been called in some of these circumstances? Steven Mintz: Absolutely not. And the lesson of history could not be clearer that this only escalates the situation, it worsens the situation, and it results in a degree of alienation that's very difficult to overcome. Amna Nawaz: So, given all that, Professor Mintz, I will ask you, and, then, Professor Johnston, if you would follow, I will just ask you both, where do we go from here? How do you see this unfolding in the weeks ahead? Professor Mintz? Steven Mintz: I think the conversation needs to be made more productive. In this country, if you want political change, you build coalitions. And what I'm not seeing on campus right now is an effort to have effective protests that will bring people together. When people hear anti-American sentiments, they are radically turned off. The demonstrators, in my view, should be calling for peace, for the release of the hostages, and an American foreign policy that will really result in a two-state solution. Amna Nawaz: Professor Johnston, I will give you the last word here. Angus Johnston: I'm really heartened by the fact that, despite what Professor Mintz has said, a lot of faculty have been turning out in support of these students, some of them turning out in support of the students' goals, but others turning out in support of the students' right to protest without being harassed and without being abused by cops. I think we are seeing the development of a new coalition on the campus. And I'm very heartened by that. And I hope that administrators take heed of that and do their bit to de-escalate the situation as well. Amna Nawaz: That is Professor Angus Johnston from the City University of New York and Professor Steven Mintz from the University of Texas at Austin. Thank you both for joining us tonight. Angus Johnston: Thank you. Steven Mintz: You're welcome.

CNN Host Victor Blackwell Touts Book Blaming Racism for Wealth Gap in USA

On Saturday's First of All show, CNN host Victor Blackwell devoted a segment to blaming racism for income differences between whites and blacks as he interviewed a liberal journalist who wrote about book about the "white bonus" she claims to have benefited from as a white American. Tracie McMillan, author of The White Bonus, suggested that racism in the present still holds black Americans down as she recommended ending racism as the remedy to lagging black incomes.  Blackwell tied the term to the loaded concept of "white privilege" as he introduced the segment: Agree with the concept or not, you've probably heard, though, about white privilege -- societal and social privileges tied to race. But have you heard about the "white bonus." Federal data shows that for ever dollar that white Americans make, black Americans make 76 cents. In 2022, black Americans' median household wealth was almost $45,000 -- the median wealth for white households, $285,000. Bringing aboard author Tracie McMillan as a guest, the CNN host added: The distribution of financial assets in this country has been shaped by systemic racism, written laws, unspoken rules that for hundreds of years have worked to the detriment of minorities and to the benefit of white people. My next guest, journalists Tracie McMillan, set out to put a number on just how much of a benefit she has received. She examines the history of five families, including her own, and published her findings in her new book, The White Bonus: Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America. After Blackwell began by asking his guest why she decided to write the book, she began: Sure, well, you know, I work as a journalist, but I also am a white person in this country, and I felt like I needed to be honest about what I was getting for being white, and, you know, I don't make a ton of money, so for me the conversations around white privilege usually sort of center on quote, sort of "racial privilege" and "class privilege," and I wanted a way to get at this idea of "What do I get? What do we all get for being white?" McMillan then recalled that she wanted to measure the "racial advantage" she had received in her life, leading Blackwell to follow up: "So let's talk about the number. Your estimate is that you have benefited from your whiteness to the amount of $371,934.30. Explain how you got to that number." McMillan recounted that her family inherited a significant amount of money from a grandfather who had been allowed to prosper as a banker in the 1920s as being among other reasons her family benefited from being white, leading Blackwell to conclude by asking what the country should do about the data she has collected, leading her to suggest that racism in the present is still to blame for wealth inequality between blacks and whites: BLACKWELL: Well, Tracie, we only have about 45 seconds or so left, but what do we now do with this? Now that you have calculated it and we all know that, according to your estimate, what it is, what do we do with it? McMILLAN: I mean, fight to end racism, right? I think the -- something I also look at is the cost of racism to Americans, including white Americans, right? Racism has impoverished our democracy and eviscerated our safety net. Most of us need access to those things to survive. And I think you know, even if you go back through my numbers. I wouldn't need most of that money from my family if we had affordable education and housing and health care in this country, right? And so I think for all of us, there's  a real vested interest not in fighting racism as charity but as something that hurts everybody and is worth fighting against. The issue of why Asian Americans, in spite of being a a racial minority, tend to have higher incomes than do white Americans -- which undermines the argument that racial discrimination is what causes different groups to make less money -- was not mentioned. PS: Former New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse endorsed the book: "The White Bonus is an unusually daring book that explores how racism has given unfair advantages to white Americans as we all pursue the American dream. Tracie McMillan profiles a range of Americans to show how their "white bonus” results in advantages that can total hundreds of thousands of dollars. This original, compelling work investigates an undeniable inequity that America has too long ignored." Transcript follows: CNN's First of All with Victor Blackwell April 27, 2024 8:47 a.m. Eastern VICTOR BLACKWELL: Agree with the concept or not, you've probably heard, though, about white privilege -- societal and social privileges tied to race. But have you heard about the "white bonus." Federal data shows that for ever dollar that white Americans make, black Americans make 76 cents. In 2022, black Americans' median household wealth was almost $45,000 -- the median wealth for white households, $285,000. The distribution of financial assets in this country has been shaped by systemic racism, written laws, unspoken rules that for hundreds of years have worked to the detriment of minorities and to the benefit of white people. My next guest, journalists Tracie McMillan, set out to put a number on just how much of a benefit she has received. She examines the history of five families, including her own, and published her findings in her new book, The White Bonus: Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America. Tracie, thank you for being with me. Such a fascinating approach to so many things we talk about on this show -- the disparity of investment; diversity, equity and inclusion. What led you to the book? TRACIE McMILLAN, AUTHOR OF THE WHITE BONUS: Sure, well, you know, I work as a journalist, but I also am a white person in this country, and I felt like I needed to be honest about what I was getting for being white, and, you know, I don't make a ton of money, so for me the conversations around white privilege usually sort of center on quote, sort of "racial privilege" and "class privilege," and I wanted a way to get at this idea of "What do I get? What do we all get for being white?" And I thought the best way to do that would be to try and figure out if I could estimate how much sort of racial advantage had shaped my life just in real terms, right? Privilege is super amorphous, sort of ghost like you can't grab onto it. But if you have a number, then you can actually have a conversation. BLACKWELL: So let's talk about the number. Your estimate is that you have benefited from your whiteness to the amount of $371,934.30. Explain how you got to that number. McMILLAN: Sure. So it's comprised of two sums, so there's both a family bonus and a social bonus, right? So when we're talking about a white bonus, we're looking at sort of the amount of money an individual white person has gotten or saved because of white supremacy in policy or practice, right? So, for me, about $146,000 of that comes from money that I got from my family -- that I then, you know, when I went back through our family history, can pretty reliably say we wouldn't have had access to that money if we weren't white, right? In my family, you know, I didn't know this when I went into the project, but all the sort of money that gets passed down to me comes from one grandfather who became a banker in the 1920s and '30s. So, in 1930, there were about a quarter of a million bankers in the U.S., only 80 of which were black. So very unlikely that he would have had that job and been able to accrue that kind of wealth if he hadn't have been white as well as, you know, he had a racial covenant on the house that he owned and then sold and was able to go into assisted living as an elder. So that's $146,000 there. But, then, really, right, the social bonus that I get as an adult in the world, so people offering me jobs, offering me apartments. I mean, these are things I have to qualify for and sort of work at, right, but I get given these opportunities. All of that combined with being able to build equity through property ownership in Detroit where I was only able to buy housing because racism had ruined the housing market there, right. That comes up to about $226,000. BLACKWELL: Well, Tracie, we only have about 45 seconds or so left, but what do we now do with this? Now that you have calculated it and we all know that, according to your estimate, what it is, what do we do with it? McMILLAN: I mean, fight to end racism, right? I think the -- something I also look at is the cost of racism to Americans, including white Americans, right? Racism has impoverished our democracy and eviscerated our safety net. Most of us need access to those things to survive. And I think you know, even if you go back through my numbers. I wouldn't need most of that money from my family if we had affordable education and housing and health care in this country, right? And so I think for all of us, there's  a real vested interest not in fighting racism as charity but as something that hurts everybody and is worth fighting against. BLACKWELL: Tracie McMillan, I'm going to read the title of this book again - The White Bonus: Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America. Thank you so much for being with us. We've got a good write on it on CNN.com right now.

FLASHBACK: Lib Reporters Championed ’06 Illegal Immigrant Protests

Eighteen years ago this week, the liberal networks donated their airwaves to the cause of protesters seeking to kill a bill which would have increased the federal government’s ability to enforce immigration laws. The May 1, 2006 protests were part of a wave of activism that spring sponsored by left-wing groups aimed at derailing GOP efforts to curb illegal immigration — even as polls at the time showed four out of five Americans (81%) thought illegal immigration was “out of control.” [For perspective: in 2006, there were a total of 1,089,096 encounters with illegal immigrants at all U.S. borders, according to government statistics. Under Joe Biden, those numbers were nearly three times higher last year (2023): a whopping 3,201,144 encounters. So what was regarded as “out of control” 18 years ago would today seem like great progress.] We’ll never know if today’s situation would be significantly better if Congress had succeeded in passing new enforcement mechanisms in 2006. Back then, the networks helped immigration activists thwart these conservative proposals, with fawning and emotionally-charged coverage of these political marches — “people draping themselves in the American dream,” as one over-the-top morning host anchor enthused. That spring, network correspondents invariably expressed admiration for the large size of the protests — as if a few hundred thousands of participants rendered the cause genuinely popular in a nation of 300 million. “[The immigration issue] erupted this weekend in mass demonstrations that matched the biggest of the civil rights movement or the Vietnam War,” CBS weekend anchor Mika Brzezinski enthused on March 26. “Over the past several days, a protest movement has been born, erupting with a startling air of spontaneity in mass demonstrations,” ABC’s Terry Moran cheered the next day on Nightline. “You could hear the anger about the proposal before Congress that would criminalize illegal or undocumented immigrants and make it a felony to help them in any way.” Three weeks later, another round of protests earned more free airtime. “Across the country today, hundreds of thousands of people came out in support of millions of undocumented workers,” ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas touted on the April 10 World News Tonight. The tone was unquestionably sympathetic. “They are not American citizens yet, but they want to be. And from every corner of America, immigrants took to the streets today to ask for new immigration laws,” CBS Evening News anchor Bob Schieffer applauded that same night. “Not since the protests of the Vietnam era has there been anything quite like it.” Newspapers conveyed the same spin. “A Banner Day on the Mall,” declared the Washington Post the next morning, while USA Today heralded: “Historic rallies voice a ‘dream.” On CBS’s The Early Show, co-host Harry Smith was giddy. “These demonstrations in all these cities across the country, hundreds of thousands of people, American flags unfurled, people draping themselves in the American dream....People literally all over the country walking away from their jobs to stand in the street and say, ‘I count for something,’” he beamed. The biggest event came on May 1, and the networks supplied blanket coverage of the heavily-promoted event. “From coast to coast, from North to South, they wanted us to know what America would be like without them, and so millions of immigrants missed work, skipped school and marched in the streets,” CBS’s Schieffer explained on the Evening News. Over on World News Tonight, ABC’s Vargas called it “an economic show of force by America’s illegal immigrants....They wanted to show America just how much the country and the economy depend on undocumented workers.” “In Philadelphia today, huge crowds converged on the Liberty Bell. In Milwaukee, a massive march on the shores of Lake Michigan,” Terry Moran exulted on ABC’s Nightline. “Hundreds of thousands of workers, their families and supporters, took over the city streets today in a massive demonstration of sheer numerical power. It was breathtaking....” The next morning on NBC’s Today, co-host Katie Couric chirped that the events were “shades of the early days of the civil rights movement.” Reporter Kevin Tibbles kept up the theme: “These people vow to continue their push for immigration reform, so those who critics call ‘illegals’ can continue to call America home.” If there was any confusion about the political motivations at play, CBS carved out some airtime for a soon-to-be-famous Democratic Senator who had attached himself to the cause. “Unlike last month’s wave of demonstrations, politicians didn’t simply take notice. Today, many showed up,” correspondent Byron Pitts saluted on the May 1 Evening News. Viewers then saw Pitts with then-Illinois Senator Barack Obama, who wagged his finger at Americans who thought immigration laws should be enforced. “We’ve been engaging in hypocrisy in this country. We don’t mind these folks mowing our lawns, or looking after our children, or serving us at restaurants, as long as they don’t actually ask for any rights in return.” The MRC’s Tim Graham studied the broadcast network coverage that spring, documenting the gross imbalance. “Advocates of opening a wider path to citizenship were almost twice as likely to speak in news stories as advocates for stricter immigration control,” he discovered. Out of 830 soundbites, Graham found 504 (61%) advocated amnesty, vs. 257 (31%) who wanted tighter border controls. (The rest were neutral.) Graham also found the networks essentially ignored topics that might harm the cause. Out of 309 stories (from March 25 through May 31, 2006), only six “mentioned studies that illegal aliens cost more to governments than they provide in tax dollars.” Similarly, only six stories mentioned crimes committed by illegal immigrants, and “no story in the study period mentioned the problem of Latino criminal gangs” infiltrating the United States. Fast forward to 2024, and today’s utterly unrestrained immigration — and the Biden administration’s obvious tolerance of it — is the top reason voters oppose the President’s re-election this year. It would be ironic if today’s pro-immigration Democrats are booted as a delayed reaction to the liberal media’s assistance in short-circuiting attempts at tougher enforcement a generation ago. For more examples from our flashback series, which we call the NewsBusters Time Machine, go here.                          

Journalist Kara Swisher: 'Anti-American' To Oppose Young Pro-Hamas Protesters

On The Chris Wallace Show on CNN on Saturday morning, leftist journalist Kara Swisher claimed it was "un-American" not to support young people protesting against Israel and shutting down campuses. She said this after being confronted with protesters saying Zionists don't deserve to live.  Wallace opened the show with Joe Biden's "very fine people on both sides" quote about the protests, that "he continues to walk a fine line between defending the protesters and denouncing them." Jonah Goldberg of The Dispatch said these disruptive protests on campuses are "almost all political upside" for the Republicans. Washington Free Beacon editor-in-chief Eliana Johnson said "I think it's a missed opportunity for presidential leadership. I think it's good politics to come out against protesters who are telling Jews to go back to Poland and saying Zionists don't deserve to live. Those are direct quotes from leaders of the Columbia protests. It's good politics for Biden to stand against that. The problem for him, of course, is that the left wing of his party, Representative Ilhan Omar, are showing up at the protest to shore them up. So of course, he would alienate the left flank of his party. But I do think it's a missed opportunity for him to fade into the background of this." Swisher, a longtime Wall Street Journal tech reporter who more recently was a columnist and podcaster for The New York Times, somehow thought it was anti-American to be anti-Hamas, as our Brent Baker captured it: “Not to support” the anti-Semitic pro-Palestinian protesters taking over colleges “is sort of anti-American” – @karaswisher on CNN’s Chris Wallace Show pic.twitter.com/vLeFIZ8BxB — Brent Baker 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) April 27, 2024   KARA SWISHER: Well, some people are saying that, and I think you have to be -- the question is, are you for order and against chaos, or for protests and the right to free speech? And what's interesting is how quickly everyone and shifting. All the free-speech warriors are suddenly like, order, order, we must have order. And so there are heinous things that are said, but there is a line where you have to support also young people, especially when they do things that they do badly. Not to support them, is sort of anti- American in a way. JOHNSON: Free speech is fine, but USC has canceled its graduation. Columbia University has canceled classes and put them online. We've gone well beyond free speech and into shuttering the operations of universities. And I do think it's a missed opportunity for Biden to say there are limits. We've gone beyond speech and into harassment and disruption here. And we will not stand for that. LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, New York Times: Yes, I think we've also, though, seen a reaction from some of the police and others that have been deployed on campuses that have been -- SWISHER: Excessive. GARCIA-NAVARRO: Excessive, thank you. SWISHER: Like Texas today, or Indiana, because then then that's a whole different story as these young people -- you are changing the political mentality of young people right now. And if you push down too hard on it, especially at this age, and not being able to express yourselves, I think you have a much bigger problem later on. Leftists typically question any police use of force against protesters, and rarely think leftist protesters should be questioned for their tactics. We can all guess where Swisher would have come down if the "young people" had been Tea Party kids disrupting an Obama event.  They would be anti-American.

MSNBC Bites Biden From The Left For Failing To Pack The Supreme Court

On Saturday's edition of MSNBC's The Weekend, hosts and guests alike bemoaned Biden's failure to seek to pack the Supreme Court. Their comments came in response to oral arguments at the Court this past week on the case regarding Trump's claim of presidential immunity. The panel expressed fears that the Court might expand presidential immunity -- if not to the extent of the right to assassinate political rivals, as Trump's lawyer suggested could be an immune act.  Co-host Alicia Menendez teed up the packing notion, saying that in light of what happened in the Court last week, clearly something "structural"--packing or court "reform" is necessary. Guest Ankush Khadori strongly agreed, calling Biden's failure to push for packing a "historic political miscalculation."   Co-anchor Symone Sanders Townsend, mentioning that she had worked for Biden, said that he is someone who believes in "the rule of law." But Sanders suggested that it is "time to do things differently." Again Khadori agreed, flatly saying that in supporting the rule of law, Biden "is holding the wrong view. I hate to say that about the president. He's been wrong about this the whole time." Wait a second! Isn't the Democrats' big beef against Trump that he refuses to accept the rule of law? But discarding the rule of law is a good—indeed a necessary—thing if it benefits Democrats? Khadori claimed "this Court, over the last few years, is systematically running roughshod through our Constitution. They, in just the last few years, they overturned Roe, they've invalidated affirmative action in higher education, and they basically legalized same sex discrimination. They threw out part of the Biden administration's signature domestic policy effort on the student loan forgiveness plan." But even legal scholars on the left have acknowledged that Roe was poorly decided. Indeed, MSNBC's own legal analyst Danny Cevallos opined, before the Dobbs decision came down, that Roe was "ripe" to be overturned because "the right to privacy [upon which Roe was based] does not exist either in the history or the text of the Constitution, and that Roe "stands on a weak foundational basis." As for affirmative action, the phrase itself is a euphemism for reverse racial discrimination, a clear-cut violation of the Equal Protection clause and legislative prohibitions of racial discrimination. The "student loan forgiveness" Biden has granted by ignoring Congress and court rulings against him. Who's "running roughshod through our Constitution" again?  Here's the transcript. MSNBC The Weekend 4/27/24 8:22 am EDT ALICIA MENENDEZ: If you were part of the 70% of Americans who agree that the president should not have absolute immunity, and then you watched what transpired this week in court, what is left as recourse, right? There's court reform, there's stacking the Court? What do you see as the path forward, because clearly something more structural is necessary. ANKUSH KHADORI: Yeah, I agree with that. I think, actually, as we think about this administration and its legacy, I think it was -- it will go down as having been a historic political miscalculation. MENENDEZ: You're talking about the Biden administration. KHADORI: Biden administration, to not have made a real, earnest effort at Supreme Court reform. They put together a commission that produced a report that nobody read. It was not a serious effort to actually pursue Supreme Court reform, and now -- SYMONE SANDERS TOWNSEND: Why? Because the president, President Biden, I mean, I worked for him at that time. I was a part of the transition, and I worked in the White House, and I know for a fact, and Eugene, you've been asking the questions too -- I was there.  He himself does not believe that that is an avenue that should be explored. Joe Biden is somebody that believes that, in the rules of law and laws the systems. And one could argue, I [inaudiable], whew!--it's time, it's time to do things differently. KHADORI: Well look. I mean, yeah, I am aware he has that view. He is holding the wrong view. I hate to say that about the president. He's been wrong about this the whole time. And now, this Court, over the last few years, is systematically running roughshod through our Constitution. They, in just the last few years, they overturned Roe, they've invalidated affirmative action in higher education, and they basically legalized same sex discrimination. They threw out part of the Biden administration's signature domestic policy effort on the student loan forgiveness plan.  And now they seem poised to issue some sort of ruling that will change the law which has already been in place for a couple hundred years. We all assumed a president could be criminally charged after he, leaving office, to now come up with some crazy new doctrine. And -- MENENDEZ: To say nothing of the Idaho case that they are listening to right now, which is like all of their chickens coming home to roost. SANDERS TOWNSEND: Yeah, and its like yeah, we don't want to save women. KHADORI: All of the cases coming back to them after Dobbs is a mess. And this, this immunity ruling, if it comes out as most of us are expecting, it will go down in history as a practical effect, as a practical matter, as a sequel to Bush versus Gore.

PBS Sympathizes With Pro-Hamas Camping Protesters at Columbia: ‘Free Speech’

Tuesday’s edition of the PBS NewsHour took a deep-dive look at the anti-Jewish, pro-Hamas protesters camped out at Columbia University, with some “protesters” spewing eliminationist rhetoric at Israel and telling Jewish students to “go back to Poland.” One girl stood in front of a group of Jewish counter protesters holding a sign that read “Al Qassam’s next targets.” (Al Qassam is the military wing of Hamas.) Yet anchor Geoff Bennett’s intro was disconcertingly mild, ignoring all the disgusting details of the pro-Hamas demonstrators, while predominantly portraying them as victims of an over-aggressive college administration. Whatever actual goals the protests may have (divestment by the universities from Israel companies, perhaps) weren’t mentioned. Bennett: College campuses in several parts of the country are struggling tonight with just where to draw the line between allowing protests and free speech and preventing antisemitism and intimidation….Police said they were called in by university officials, who said protesters breached barricades and behaved in a -- quote -- "disruptive and antagonizing manner." Some faculty disputed that characterization by the school…. Hundreds of students have turned out for protests. On Thursday, [Columbia’s president] Shafik called the New York Police Department to break up tent encampments, and more than 100 protesters were arrested. Many students and faculty felt Shafik's crackdown has been excessively harsh in squelching free speech. Bennett put the genuine threat to Jewish students in passive terms, noting “but some students, Jewish students, in particular, as well as some alumni and faculty, say there's too much hostility on campus, leading some to feel threatened for their safety.” After quotes from a concerned non-Jewish student and the Anti-Defamation League, he pivoted: Bennett: But protesters say the crackdown is not justified. Aya Lyon-Sereno is a sophomore at Barnard College, which is part of Columbia, majoring in urban studies. She's Jewish. Aya Lyon-Sereno, Student, Barnard College: Barnard students have been evicted from dorms they're paying for, have been given 15 minutes to gather any belongings and are not allowed to eat in any dining halls, are not allowed to, like, use their meal plans and have been really, really criminalized. (A shame PBS didn’t cover such unfair practices by colleges during the COVID hysteria, when they were kicking out students out of housing they’d paid for, for the crime of…grocery shopping.) He brought Irene Mulvey into the studio, president of the (hard-left) American Association of University Professors, who delivered hypocritical talking points about defending freedom of expression on campus. Yet Mulvey signed an open letter at the height of the Black Lives Matter hysteria voicing concerns about “microaggressions” on campus. But now violent threats against Jews are part of “free speech.” Mulvey called them “peaceful protesters,” and pompously lamented “we saw the suppression of speech and silencing of voices because somebody might not like what they're saying. And that is a real danger in a democracy.” When Bennett asked, “How should a university balance the expression of free speech and student safety?” Mulvey was dismissive: “There's genuine -- there's harassment and antisemitism has, is not new, it's not the first time hate speech has reared its ugly head on campus. There are policies in place to deal with these kinds of things. And that's where we should go, policies that ensure due process for the students. And then what we're seeing instead is new policies being drafted on time, manner and place of protest….” Bennett followed up strongly: Well, thinking about this from the perspective of Jewish students who say they feel intimidated. If there is a climate of harassment on campus, isn’t the administration morally compelled and also compelled by law, by Title IX, to address it and shut it down? Mulvey said in times like these, “….you have to err on the side of free and open inquiry. There -- hate speech, antisemitism has no place on campus or anywhere and there are policies to deal with that. But in higher education, our primary focus should be academic freedom, free speech, and -- free speech and associational rights for students.” Bennett then went to Dr. Andrew Marks at Columbia University, who quibbled with a couple of Mulvey’s false assertions and noted examples of anti-Semitism on campus, but also praised Columbia’s president and said things were quieting down. This segment was brought to you in part by Consumer Cellular A transcript is available, click “Expand.” PBS NewsHour 4/23/24 7:03:29 p.m. (ET) Geoff Bennett: College campuses in several parts of the country are struggling tonight with just where to draw the line between allowing protests and free speech and preventing antisemitism and intimidation. As the school year nears its end, Columbia University announced it would stay on a hybrid schedule until the end of the spring semester next week. And students were arrested at New York University last night. Police arrested more than 100 people at NYU, as the turmoil that has roiled Columbia over the past week spreads to other schools. Protester: It's a really, really outrageous crackdown by the university to allow the police to arrest students on our own campus. Geoff Bennett: Police said they were called in by University officials, who said protesters breached barricades and behaved in a — quote — "disruptive and antagonizing manner." Some faculty disputed that characterization by the school. It came as a wave of pro-Palestinian protests and encampments have spread in the past week since Columbia University President Minouche Shafik testified before a congressional committee about antisemitism on campus. Many are students, but not all are from the respective school where they are protesting. Earlier in the day, at least 60 people were arrested at Yale. There have been similar protests at Emerson, MIT, Boston University, the University of Michigan, and the University of California. Protesters: Free, free, free Palestine! Geoff Bennett: Columbia has been the flash point for a week now. Hundreds of students have turned out for protests. On Thursday, Shafik called the New York Police Department to break up tent encampments, and more than 100 protesters were arrested. Many students and faculty felt Shafik's crackdown has been excessively harsh in squelching free speech. Protesters: The people united will never be defeated! Geoff Bennett: But some students, Jewish students, in particular, as well as some alumni and faculty, say there's too much hostility on campus, leading some to feel threatened for their safety. Michael D'Agostino is a junior at the engineering school. He's not Jewish, but says he's watched what's happened too often. Michael D’Agostino, Student, Columbia University: The campus, honestly, it's full of a lot of hate and disagreement. And it's honestly just sad to see. It seems a pretty awful thing said to not only practicing Jews, but, I mean, people that are ethnically Jewish, simply for wearing like a Star of David.   Geoff Bennett: The Anti-Defamation League posted a video, contending it had become too dangerous as well. Man: Two individuals threw a rock at my head, hit me right in the face. I'm calling public safety. NYPD, where are you? Geoff Bennett: But protesters say the crackdown is not justified. Aya Lyon-Sereno is a sophomore at Barnard College, which is part of Columbia, majoring in urban studies. She's Jewish. Aya Lyon-Sereno, Student, Barnard College: Barnard students have been evicted from dorms they're paying for, have been given 15 minutes to gather any belongings and are not allowed to eat in any dining halls, are not allowed to, like, use their meal plans and have been really, really criminalized. Geoff Bennett: She also said the administration's approach has backfired. Aya Lyon-Sereno: The atmosphere on campus has been really tense, and I and many other students attribute that to the administration's actions, that people are feeling like it's tense on campus, people are feeling unsafe because there's a ton of cops in riot gear here. Geoff Bennett: For his part, President Biden also criticized many of the protests yesterday. Joe Biden, President of the United States: I condemn the antisemitic protests. I also condemn those who don't understand what's going on with the Palestinians. Geoff Bennett: And, today, before he went into court, former President Donald Trump blamed President Biden. Donald Trump, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: What's going on at the college level, at the colleges, the Columbia, NYU and others, is a disgrace. And it's a — it's really on Biden. He has the wrong signal. He's got the wrong tone. He's got the wrong words. Geoff Bennett: The situation is also starting to affect the commencement season. The University of Southern California canceled all outside speakers, it says, out of concern for public. That followed a much-criticized decision to cancel the remarks of valedictorian Asna Tabassum, a Muslim student, over unspecified safety concerns. While Columbia University's administration has faced criticism for how it's handled the events and the arrest of students, concerns remain about the safety of Jewish staff and students on campus. We will get both of these perspectives first from Irene Mulvey, President Of The American Association of University Professors. She spent 37 years teaching mathematics at Fairfield University before retiring. Dr. Mulvey, thank you for being with us. And we should say that members of the Columbia University chapter of your organization are expected to move to censure the university president for her decision to call in the NYPD last week to arrest demonstrators. Why? Why is that warranted, in your view? Irene Mulvey, President, American Association of University Professors: Well, I think the idea of calling in police in riot gear on peaceful protesters protesting outside is a remarkably disproportionate and wrong-ended response to the events we're seeing on campus, because higher education is founded on listening, learning, discussion, debate, free and open inquiry. We challenge students to challenge their most deeply held beliefs in order to justify them to themselves and to others. Our goal is communication in service of understanding. Instead, we saw the suppression of speech and silencing of voices because somebody might not like what they're saying. And that is a real danger in a democracy. Geoff Bennett: Well, how should a university balance the expression of free speech and student safety? Irene Mulvey: There's genuine — there's — harassment and antisemitism has — is not new. It's not the first time hate speech has reared its ugly head on campus. There are policies in place to deal with these kinds of things. And that's where we should go, policies that ensure due process for the students. And then what we're seeing instead is new policies being drafted on time, manner and place of protest. So, your protest has to be over in a roped-off area in a tiny space on campus. This is suppression of speech. So the idea of, if you're suppressing speech in order to keep students safe, that's a false choice. You can do both. Geoff Bennett: Well, thinking about this from the perspective of Jewish students who say they feel intimidated, if there is a climate of harassment on campus, isn't the administration morally compelled and also compelled by law, by Title IX, to address it and shut it down? Irene Mulvey: The institution is required to allow for the most free and open expression, while also ensuring that conversations are civil and dialogue is respectful. But in situations like this, these are — people have extremely strong positions, and these are polarizing times, that debates are heated and messy. And so you have to err on the side of free and open inquiry. There — hate speech, antisemitism has no place on campus or anywhere and there are policies to deal with that. But in higher education, our primary focus should be academic freedom, free speech, and — free speech and associational rights for students. Geoff Bennett: As protests spread to other campuses, what lessons could other college administrators, university administrators take away from what's transpired at Columbia? Irene Mulvey: They could think about creative ways to respond. They could think about ways to encourage communication and dialogue in open forums across their campus and engaging all students, so that all students have an opportunity to hear other points of view, to understand other points of view, to question other points of view. They should figure out creative ways to respond, because what happened at NYU and Columbia is completely unacceptable. The silencing of speech in a democracy because somebody doesn't like it, this is a real danger. Geoff Bennett: Irene Mulvey is president of the American Association of University Professors. Thank you for your insights. Irene Mulvey: Thank you. Geoff Bennett: Let's turn now to Dr. Andrew Marks. He's the chair of the department of physiology and cellular biophysics at Columbia University. Thank you for being with us. Dr. Andrew R. Marks, Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics Chair, Columbia University: Thanks for having me. Geoff Bennett: So how do you feel about Dr. Shafik's handling of the ongoing demonstrations at Columbia? And what do you make of this view that the old policies in place to deal with student demonstrations were sufficient? Dr. Andrew R. Marks: I think she's doing the best that she can. I think that her heart is in the right place. I think it's an incredibly difficult situation and there are no easy answers. The university, Columbia University, has had policies in place which I think are capable of dealing with this situation if they're able to be enforced. Geoff Bennett: Have you witnessed incidents of antisemitism on campus? Dr. Andrew R. Marks: Yes, I have. I have seen antisemitic slurs being hurled at Jewish students. And it's been very painful to watch. I have seen antisemitic hate language written on the college walk in the middle of campus and posters hanging that have been very offensive. Geoff Bennett: What more should Columbia be doing? What more could Columbia be doing to make Jewish students feel safer? Dr. Andrew R. Marks: Well, I think Columbia has already done quite a lot and taken steps. And my personal observation is that, over the last several days, the hate speech has been toned down on campus. The problem is that, as you know, Columbia's campus is in the middle of New York City. And when you leave campus either — in either direction, there's a tremendous amount of antisemitic hate speech being hurled at students and faculty from people outside the campus. Geoff Bennett: When it comes to what's happening on campus, how should a university balance student safety and student expression? Dr. Andrew R. Marks: Well, I think that students should be allowed to protest, absolutely. And I think that the limit has to be on hate speech. So I think that, as long as the protests are civil and respectful of other members of the community, that needs to be protected and encouraged. When it drifts over to hate speech, then it becomes offensive and I think threatening to the Jewish community at the university. Geoff Bennett: What do you think is informing and influencing Dr. Shafik's response to these ongoing protests? Dr. Andrew R. Marks: Again, she's been in an incredibly difficult situation. And I wanted to clarify a couple of things I heard your previous speaker say. First of all, there — the actions taken against students had nothing to do with the content of their speech, except when it comes to hate speech, of course, but in terms of what they were protesting. It really had to do with them breaking the existing rules of the university. And President Shafik is responsible for the safety of all students. And she took an action, which I was not in favor of, bringing in the police. I wanted to negotiate or talk to the students some more before that. But she did that because she felt it was necessary to preserve the safety of the Jewish community on the campus and other people on campus. I was one of the people in the Senate Executive Committee that helped write the event policy. And it's important to note that that was done in complete collaboration and working very closely with students. And while no policy is perfect, we tried to come up with one that was fair. Your previous speaker mentioned that we were limiting protests to tiny parts of campus. That's not accurate. There were designated areas and times and place, which is common for all university campuses. And had the students adhered to those guidelines, things would have gone much differently.

USA TODAY: Kyle Rittenhouse Campus Speeches Raise 'Free Speech' Questions

This will grab your attention. At the bottom of the front page of Thursday’s USA Today was this headline: Shooter Rittenhouse’s tour draws outrage College gun-rights events raise questions about free speech and its impact USA Today thinks pro-gun-rights speech “raises questions”? The online headline was even stronger: Kyle Rittenhouse, deadly shooter, college speaker? A campus gun-rights tour sparks outrage As in: Who’s approving this speech on campus? A video in the online story shows “hundreds of protesters” at the University of Memphis. “Students celebrated his departure with live music and dancing on campus.” They forced Rittenhouse to leave early. This is a triumph in the media's eyes?  Reporter Cybele Mayes-Osterman sounded like an editorial writer from the beginning: Kyle Rittenhouse is not a typical college campus speaker. In 2020, at the age of 17, he took an AR-15-style rifle to a Black Lives Matter demonstration and fired it, killing two people and injuring a third. Rittenhouse said he pulled the trigger in self-defense and was acquitted of wrongdoing. He has since penned a book, “Acquitted,” and has set out on a series of college speaking events dubbed the "Rittenhouse Recap." He is slated to appear Thursday at Clemson University in South Carolina. Rittenhouse is selling books, and ostensibly promoting the right to bear arms on campus, but he’s also trying to persuade young people to join the conservative movement. The key group behind the appearances, Turning Point USA, is led by the self-described “youth director” of President Donald Trump’s first campaign and a key ally rallying votes for Trump this year. (I left in their links, because the reporters don't tend to say Rittenhouse "shot in self-defense," just that he shot people, and that police shot Jacob Blake, but not that he was reaching for a knife.) Who's letting speakers persuade students to become conservatives? Is that where the national newspapers "raise questions about free speech and its impact"? The tour promoter is the Trump-loving Turning Point USA, which is more salt in the USA Today free-speech wound:  The provocative choice of backing the Rittenhouse tour is par for the course for Turning Point and its local affiliates, which have hosted controversial figures like Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist and Holocaust denier. But it has stirred up devastating pain and disdain in a man he almost killed. "He has used every moment to gloat and to make light of taking life," Paul Prediger said, speaking publicly for the first time about what happened in protest of a Rittenhouse speech last week at Kent State The ADL said Fuentes appeared once at Iowa State in 2019, and the local TPUSA leader resigned over it. But "Prediger" has changed his name from Gaige Grosskreutz. A few paragraphs later, the paper acknowledges Rittenhouse tweeted a video with Prediger/Grosskreutz "admitting he pointed a gun in Rittenhouse's direction before being shot."  USA Today clearly finds the Rittenhouse speaking tour as more objectionable than pro-Hamas protesters creating encampments across the country as their leaders speak of violence against the "Zionists." Their cause isn't lead by some conservative white boy beloved by Trump voters.  

Elon Musk Called Out NPR And PBS As 'State-Affiliated': They Freaked

Uri Berliner's expose of the ideological unanimity at NPR reminds the Republican half of America that they send their taxpayer dollars to Washington to have their viewpoints excluded or ridiculed as "far right" hate.  Back there in the Stone Age of 2023, Elon Musk, he of X that is formerly Twitter, antagonized NPR and PBS because - ready? Musk had made some changes to “state-affiliated” media designations, applying the term to both of those outlets. They're state-funded, but not state-affiliated? While stripping the designation from media outlets tied to governments like those of Russia and Iran, Musk had the nerve - the nerve! - to apply it to, among others, America’s NPR and PBS along with the UK’s BBC and Canada’s CBC. This is in the news a year later after CNN’s Oliver Darcy, now the man behind CNN’s Reliable Sources, talks of life after X, and looks back at his decision to remove his CNN newsletter from X in July of 2023. To recall the start of this media kerfuffle, see these headlines.   First, this one in April of 2023 from NPR:  NPR quits Twitter after being falsely labeled as 'state-affiliated media’ The story reported:  NPR will no longer post fresh content to its 52 official Twitter feeds, becoming the first major news organization to go silent on the social media platform. In explaining its decision, NPR cited Twitter's decision to first label the network "state-affiliated media," the same term it uses for propaganda outlets in Russia, China and other autocratic countries. Then there was this from the UK Guardian in 2023:  PBS quits Twitter after being labeled ‘government-funded media’ Broadcaster leaves platform a day after NPR’s exit over concerns labels undermine credibility as independent news outlets That story reported:  In a statement to USA Today, Jason Phelps of PBS said the broadcaster’s staffers stopped using the organization’s Twitter account after learning that the platform had relabeled them. Phelps said PBS had “no plans to resume at this time” but added that the organization was ‘continuing to monitor the ever-changing situation closely’. Here at NewsBusters, reporter Luis Cornelio lasered in on this squabble in May of 2023.  Uh, Oh! NPR Gets Triggered Over Elon Musk — Again Cornelio’s story reported:  Musk initially slapped NPR’s Twitter account with a “state-affiliated” label, a move that triggered a wave of leftist condemnation, with even Biden White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre vouching for NPR’s reporting. NPR President and CEO John Lansing ridiculously pouted that he was “disturbed” by the label. “We were disturbed to see last night that Twitter has labeled NPR as 'state-affiliated media,' a description that, per Twitter's own guidelines, does not apply to NPR,” Lansing claimed. Musk later changed NPR’s label to “government-funded media.” But NPR was apparently so triggered, it eventually left the platform. Musk mocked NPR’s exit from Twitter in a series of tweets last month, including a short post saying “Defund @NPR." Both PBS and NPR tried to wriggle off Musk’s “state affiliated” description by whining, essentially: “But we don’t take that much money!” Ahhhh. The Western Journal to the clarification rescue. The WJ investigated, headlining:  Fact-Check: How Much of PBS, NPR Revenue Comes from Government Funding? And what did the WJ fact check reveal? This:    So, just how much money does NPR get from government or government-affiliated sources? As noted above, NPR says only 1 percent of its annual budget comes from federal sources. But according to its own numbers, the broadcaster gets a lot more from government sources than it lets on.    For fiscal year 2020, for instance, the broadcaster’s affiliate stations received 8 percent of their revenue from federal appropriations via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. They also got 10 percent from colleges and universities — which themselves are publicly funded — and another 5 percent from federal, state and local governments. That is 23 percent, not 1 percent.” As Musk pointed out, WJ says NPR also states on its website that…  federal funding is essential to public radio’s service to the American public and its continuation is critical for both stations and program producers, including NPR. For its part, PBS gets even more from government or government-affiliated sources. That “even more” amount would be that:…  ….the TV broadcaster says it gets 15 percent of its revenue from the federal government, 13 percent from state governments, 3 percent from local governments, and 8 percent from universities. That’s a total of 39 percent. All of which is to say, Musk has been 100% correct to describe PBS and NPR as “state affiliated” - because they both are. For a fact they receive dollars from the government. According to that Guardian article , a PBS spokesman laughably said that: Twitter’s simplistic label leaves the inaccurate impression that PBS is wholly funded by the federal government. Hello? Needless to say, whether “wholly funded” or “partially funded” or accepting a dollar of government money, PBS is still taking government tax dollars to stay afloat. But, as discussed in this space with the recent, much publicized resignation of longtime NPR editor Uri Berliner, the network exists in a liberal bubble, no dissent allowed.  There was an easy and obvious way for NPR and PBS to answer Musk’s criticism and get out from under his “state-affiliated” designation once and for all. That would be: Stop taking money from the government. Period. Stop taking any money from any government apparatus. Period. Make the “P” in NPR and PBS stand not for “Public” - aka taking government funds - but rather “P” as in “Private.” As in “National Private Radio” and “Private Broadcasting Service.” All of which would make NPR and PBS a genuine private sector competitor with the rest of the American private sector free market in the world of television and radio broadcasting. Would that happen? Of course not. Again, as Uri Berliner documents, the network exists in a liberal bubble. Not even Elon Musk can get through it. They want to challenge Elon Musk - but not like that.  The bottom line? Elon Musk was right. Both PBS and NPR take government funding. They still do. And, one can reasonably suspect, neither has any intention of stopping. 

NBC Downplays Columbia Leader's Anti-Semitism, CBS Still Ignores

On Friday morning, ABC, NBC, and CBS all ignored Columbia encampment student leader Khymani James’s January remarks that Zionists don’t deserve to live and they should be grateful he personally isn’t murdering them. Since then, the results have been mixed. Friday’s World News Tonight on ABC played the video and Saturday’s Today alluded to it, but did not play it, and the amount of specifics the viewer got was dependent on their NBC affiliate. Meanwhile, CBS Saturday Morning continued to ignore the video. The best CBS could muster was a recorded segment on the latest developments around Columbia that included an interview with a pro-Israeli counter-protestor. “Nobody’s talking about the hostages,” a Columbia graduate student told correspondent Michael George.     George portrayed concerns about anti-Semitism as something this student was worried about, but he himself felt no need to elaborate on, “This Columbia grad student who took part in the rally argues those in the encampments are promoting anti-Semitism and ignoring the hostages still held by Hamas.” The student added, “If you want peace to be achieved, as we do, and if you want a ceasefire, the hostages need to be released.” Apart from teases and introductions, the only relatively substantive report viewers that have an NBC affiliate that only airs the first 60 minutes of the Saturday edition of Today would've got came from correspondent Liz Kreutz, “At Columbia, the university banning a student protester who made anti-Semitic remarks in a video that surfaced this week. Khymani James apologizing on Friday for the incendiary comments saying they ‘misspoke in the heat of the moment.’” That is not a misprint. James is the kind of guy who calls for the mass murder of Jews while demanding you use he, she, and they pronouns. As for Kruetz, she did not provide any context as to what those remarks might be. Those who get the 90-minute version would’ve gotten an extra report from fellow correspondent George Solis, who provided slightly more context, “Meanwhile, students here at Columbia have been camping out now for 11 days now, and still at issue, pro-Palestinian protesters calling on the university to divest any financial support to Israel. Now, Columbia has banned a student leader in the protests after videos surfaced of the individual calling for the death of Zionists, the student has since apologized for the remarks.” The previous night on ABC, correspondent Stephanie Ramos had her own pre-recorded segment that featured a soundbite from Jewish student Noa Fay, “On this campus, people chant that Zionists are not welcome, calling on, quote, ‘death to the Jewish state.’” Unlike CBS, ABC provided proof that Fay was not being hyperbolic, as Ramos immediately followed up with the clip of James ranting, “Be grateful that I'm not just going out and murdering Zionists.” Ramos wavered a bit when she added, “Back in January, Columbia student protester Khymani James live-streamed those comments after a disciplinary hearing with the school probing similar posts. Today, protest organizers distancing themselves from him.” An unnamed camper provided the context that James was not a mere protestor, but a leader, “He apologized and he asked for space to reflect and learn and grow and that he will step away from being press spokesperson.” It seems likely that James is simply sorry he got caught rather than truly remorseful for his actual remarks, as Ramos added, “Tonight, the university addressing that video posted by that student, calling it ‘extremely alarming,’ adding that calls for violence are unacceptable.” If only NBC and CBS viewers could be made aware of such alarming threats. Here are transcripts for the April 26 and 27 shows: ABC World News Tonight 4/26/2024 6:40 PM ET PRO-ISRAEL PROTESTORS: Bring them home! Bring them home! STEPHANIE RAMOS: Outside Columbia University, pro-Israel counter-protesters calling for the release of hostages. LEAT UNGER [Family member of Israeli hostage]: The release of hostages must come first and foremost to end the suffering on both sides. RAMOS: Today, Jewish students called on Columbia to keep every student safe. NOA FAY: On this campus, people chant that Zionists are not welcome, calling on, quote, “death to the Jewish state.” KHYMANI JAMES: Be grateful that I'm not just going out and murdering Zionists. RAMOS: Back in January, Columbia student protester Khymani James live-streamed those comments after a disciplinary hearing with the school probing similar posts. Today, protest organizers distancing themselves from him. PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTOR: He apologized and he asked for space to reflect and learn and grow and that he will step away from being press spokesperson. RAMOS: Tonight, the university addressing that video posted by that student, calling it “extremely alarming,” adding that calls for violence are unacceptable. *** NBC Today 4/26/2024 7:07 AM ET LIZ KREUTZ: At Columbia, the university banning a student protester who made anti-Semitic remarks in a video that surfaced this week. Khymani James apologizing on Friday for the incendiary comments saying they “misspoke in the heat of the moment.” … 8:05 AM ET GEORGE SOLIS: Tensions escalating this morning as a large police presence is unfolding in Boston, where authorities are dismantling a student encampment there at Northeastern and making arrests. Meanwhile, students here at Columbia have been camping out now for 11 days now, and still at issue, pro-Palestinian protesters calling on the university to divest any financial support to Israel. Now, Columbia has banned a student leader in the protests after videos surfaced of the individual calling for the death of Zionists, the student has since apologized for the remarks.  *** MICHAEL GEORGE: At Columbia university as talks between school administrators and pro-Palestinian protesters continue— PRO-ISRAEL PROTESTORS: Bring them home! GEORGE: -- pro-Israeli demonstrators, many non-students, made their voices heard outside the campus. PRO-ISRAEL PROTESTOR: Nobody’s talking about the hostages. GEORGE: This Columbia grad student who took part in the rally argues those in the encampments are promoting anti-Semitism and ignoring the hostages still held by Hamas. PRO-ISRAEL PROTESTOR: If you want peace to be achieved, as we do, and if you want a ceasefire, the hostages need to be released.   *** NBC Today 4/26/2024 7:07 AM ET LIZ KREUTZ: At Columbia, the university banning a student protester who made anti-Semitic remarks in a video that surfaced this week. Khymani James apologizing on Friday for the incendiary comments saying they “misspoke in the heat of the moment.” … 8:05 AM ET GEORGE SOLIS: Tensions escalating this morning as a large police presence is unfolding in Boston, where authorities are dismantling a student encampment there at Northeastern and making arrests. Meanwhile, students here at Columbia have been camping out now for 11 days now, and still at issue, pro-Palestinian protesters calling on the university to divest any financial support to Israel. Now, Columbia has banned a student leader in the protests after videos surfaced calling for the death of Zionists, the student has since apologized for the remarks.  *** MICHAEL GEORGE: At Columbia university as talks between school administrators and pro-Palestinian protesters continue— PRO-ISRAEL PROTESTORS: Bring them home! GEORGE: -- pro-Israeli demonstrators, many non-students, made their voices heard outside the campus. PRO-ISRAEL PROTESTOR: Nobody’s talking about the hostages. GEORGE: This Columbia grad student who took part in the rally argues those in the encampments are promoting anti-Semitism and ignoring the hostages still held by Hamas. PRO-ISRAEL PROTESTOR: If you want peace to be achieved, as we do, and if you want a ceasefire, the hostages need to be released.

Can Colbert Ignore ‘Genocide Joe’ Chants at DNC?

Stephen Colbert is a master at compartmentalization. CBS’s “Late Show” host has spent three-plus years looking the other way as President Joe Biden bumbled through his first term. Colbert ignores the endless gaffes, senior moments and shocking inflation rates. Not to mention crazed tales of uncles eaten by cannibals.   BIDEN: "I made it clear to the Israelis — don't move on Haifa!" Haifa is a major city *IN* Israel. pic.twitter.com/BdNgoDlGkM — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 18, 2024   And, when a Special Counsel dubbed Biden “an elderly man with poor memory,” Colbert spun the awful news to Biden’s advantage. That isn’t easy. His job as the Democrats’ late-night propagandist is about to get even harder. CBS has announced that Stephen Colbert will host his Late Nightshow from Chicago as the city plays host to the Democratic National Convention and will broadcast from the Auditorium Theatre in the Loop from August 19 to the 22nd. The decision makes sense on several levels. Colbert will be able to book major Democratic players. The comedian recently joined a Democratic fundraiser to boost President Biden’s re-election chances, making his commitment to the party official. “The Late Show” could get an energy boost from being in the belly of the political beast. Except this year isn’t going to be a typical DNC event. Pro-Palestinian protesters have been harassing Democrats for weeks in public over the Israel/Hamas war. The far-Left contingent has no qualms attacking mainstream Democrats and disrupting events. Some dubbed the Commander in Chief “Genocide Joe” for his quasi-support for the state of Israel.     We’re seeing violent protests across cities and campuses nationwide, and the movement seeks as much media attention as possible. And it’s getting louder. Politico, a liberal news outlet, echoed a phrase many are saying about the upcoming event. Democrats descend on Chicago as specter of ‘68 convention looms Here’s a refresher course from that tumultuous chapter in history which also took place in Chicago. As delegates flowed into the International Amphitheatre to nominate a Democratic Party presidential candidate, tens of thousands of protesters swarmed the streets to rally against the Vietnam War and the political status quo. By the time Vice President Herbert Humphrey received the presidential nomination, the strife within the Democratic Party was laid bare and the streets of Chicago had seen riots and bloodshed involving protesters, police and bystanders alike, radically changing America’s political and social landscape. That was without social media, YouTube and other ways to share information at the speed of a click. Another factor could weigh heavily this time ’round. Then-Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley had no qualms summoning both the police and the National Guard to keep the peace. They collectively failed. Today, blue cities like Chicago are far less interested in law and order. Violent, anti-semitic protests are the new norm in urban pockets and academia. Those breaking the law often go unpunished. That only emboldens them. What happens when that energy is left more or less unchecked? What impact will it have on the national mood, let alone the November elections? Will Biden’s poll numbers suffer even greater drops as a result?     Should the authorities attempt to keep the peace it might enrage the party’s base. Plus, these protesters have no qualms about breaking the law. Kobi Guillory, a spokesperson for the Coalition to March on the DNC, says protests will happen in August whether or not organizers are able to secure permits. The 1968 debacle followed a stunning change of leadership. President Lyndon B. Johnson announced he was withdrawing from the race in March, replaced by Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Will President Biden, diminished by age and sagging in the polls, be swapped out before the convention begins? More importantly for pop culture watchers, can Colbert look away as the city he temporarily calls home is roiled in chaos? Early projections expect north of 30,000 protesters to greet Team DNC. Will he or his audience be in the mood for garden-variety “clapter” if chaos envelops the nearby convention? What will Colbert say about the far-Left protesters, a group that will never vote for President Donald Trump or his fellow Republicans? Can he cover his ears while protesters chant, “Genocide Joe has got to go?” Colbert has kept his political head in the sand for three-plus years. It may be impossible to do the same come Summer.

PBS Is 'Frustrated' By Lack Of 'Nuance' On Reaction To Campus Encampments

New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart both claimed to be “frustrated” on Friday's PBS NewsHour that the encampments occurring on college campuses are not being treated with the “nuance” they deserve. They both called for the anti-Semitic among the demonstrators to be expelled, but insisted most are honest and sincere people who simply want to see the suffering of Gazans end. Host Amna Nawaz started by asking Brooks, “David, they have spread very quickly. They are sustaining on campuses. How do you look at these? I mean, should these be a sort of warning sign to the Biden Administration? What do you make of how quickly and widely they spread?”     Brooks claimed to “have been frustrated that people aren't making some distinctions here. So, I think most of the protesters are appalled by the horrors the Palestinians are suffering and they're well-motivated by compassion. There are some people who are probably hard-left people, and they get to have their views.” He also noted, “There are a lot of people who are anti-Semitic and violent. And so you should not be able to say, as one of the Columbia students said, ‘Zionists don't deserve to live.’ If that happens, you should be expelled. And so, in my view, they should let them protest. But if somebody says something, ‘Go back to Poland,’ or even a pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli, ‘Go back to Gaza,’ that's ruining the community of the campus and so those people should be expelled.” It wasn’t some random student who said, “Zionists don’t deserve to live,” it was one of the leaders. At what point do the people who style themselves as peace activists who genuinely, but naively simply want a ceasefire and Palestinian administration of the West Bank have a moral obligation to dissociate themselves from leaders who want to destroy Israel and murder its supporters? After reiterating his call for expulsions, Brooks worried that “As for the Biden administration, I do worry that the Chicago convention is going to look a lot like 1968 and that will just be terrible for the Biden administration. The president will look hapless and powerless.” After Brooks rattled off some polling data showing the Israel-Hamas War ranks 15th out of 60 issues for young people, it was Capehart’s turn. He echoed Brooks, “I think the discussion about what's happening on these-- in these protests is missing a lot of nuance. Not everyone who's protesting is anti-Semitic, is rooting for violence, or is he even causing the violence? They are there for legitimate reasons. And I agree with David. If a person of the college community is disrupting and saying racist, anti-Semitic things, then, yes, they should be expelled.” At the same time, Capehart urged caution, “But we also should be mindful that, who are these people who are saying these things? Some might be members of the university or college community, but some could be from the outside. And my big fear from the BLM movement is, folks from the outside causing violence and then the blame being foisted upon the people who are legitimately protesting. And that is my big concern when we talk about this latest national protest.” The BLM leaders also professed to being Marxists, so maybe instead of shaming people for noticing their major protest movements are run by radicals and horrible people, the left should get better protest leaders with better causes. Here is a transcript for the April 26 show: PBS NewsHour 4/26/2024 7:41 PM ET AMNA NAWAZ: Meanwhile, as you saw earlier in the show, we continue to report on the spread of these campus protests, pro-Palestinian protests, by and large, and protesting Israel's war conduct in Gaza. David, they have spread very quickly. They are sustaining on campuses. How do you look at these? I mean, should these be a sort of warning sign to the Biden Administration? What do you make of how quickly and widely they spread? DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I have been frustrated that people aren't making some distinctions here. So, I think most of the protesters are appalled by the horrors the Palestinians are suffering and they're well-motivated by compassion. There are some people who are probably hard left-people, and they get to have their views. There are a lot of people who are anti-Semitic and violent. And so you should not be able to say, as one of the Columbia students said, “Zionists don't deserve to live.” If that happens, you should be expelled. And so, in my view, they should let them protest. But if somebody says something, "Go back to Poland," or even a pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli, "Go back to Gaza," that's ruining the community of the campus and so those people should be expelled. So, that's the distinction that should be made. And, somehow, the people who are really threatening the community by threatening violence, they're not being expelled. And I think that would have the deterrent effect that would separate really the bad actors from the people who are just well-motivated to do — to try to save lives. As for the Biden administration, I do worry that the Chicago convention is going to look a lot like 1968. NAWAZ: Really? BROOKS: And that will just be terrible for the Biden administration. The president will look hapless and powerless. One other final thing that I just found interesting, Harvard does this survey. What are young adults interested in, what issues? Israel/Gaza is 15 out of 60. And so a lot of people I know are passionately in on both sides of this issue. NAWAZ: Yeah. BROOKS: But most young voters are interested in inflation, crime, health care, the normal issues. And so it's important for us, those — especially those of us who are in “educated circles,” not to generalize from our own immediate experience, because a lot of people are thinking about very different things than this. NAWAZ: Jonathan? JONATHAN CAPEHART: I would say I agree with you, David. I think the discussion about what's happening on these in these protests is missing a lot of nuance. Not everyone who's protesting is anti-Semitic, is rooting for violence or is he even causing the violence? They are there for legitimate reasons. And I agree with David. If a person of the college community is disrupting and saying racist, anti-Semitic things, then, yes, they should be expelled. But we also should be mindful that, who are these people who are saying these things? Some might be members of the university or college community, but some could be from the outside. And my big fear from the BLM movement is, folks from the outside causing violence and then the blame being foisted upon the people who are legitimately protesting. And that is my big concern when we talk about this latest national protest.

Amanpour Cues Guest to Fret Over Trump Undoing Climate Regulations

On Monday's Amanpour & Co. -- simulcast on both PBS and CNN International -- host Christiane Amanpour promoted the liberal alarmist view that a President Donald Trump would be a danger to the environment as she interviewed ProPublica's Abrahm Lustgarten. Pivoting from a segment that discussed the possible impact on foreign policy of President Trump being elected again, Amanpour fretted: Now, the other concern about Donald Trump is his effect on the climate after rolling back many environmental provisions in his first term, not to mention pulling out of the Paris climate accord. April 22nd, today, is World Earth Day, and my next guest says the verdict is in: Americans are already being displaced by the climate crisis, and it will only get worse. Abrahm Lustgarten is a climate reporter, and he works for ProPublica. His new book, On the Move, explores how climate is about to profoundly reshape American life. After Lustgarten promoted the prediction that wildfires caused by rising temperatures will affect migration within the U.S., Amanpour followed up by repeating the liberal trope blaming global warming for Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans in 2005: ...in your book, you write, "People have always moved as their environment has changed, but today, the climate is warming faster, and the population is larger than at any point in history." And in one -- one chapter, you talk about Hurricane Katrina, and what it did to Louisiana. You detail the life of one woman who became a climate migrant -- just one story -- but explain how climate, you know, affects just this one individual. Her guest recalled the case of a woman who left New Orleans after the 2005 flooding and gave up on the possibility of ever living there again in spite of initially intending to move back. But the strength of Hurricane Katrina when it hit New Orleans as a category 3 storm was not unprecedented, and the catastrophe happened because of a failure to maintain the levees so they would hold the flood waters back. And on the subject of recent hurricanes being stronger and more frequent than in the past, it has been pointed out by right-leaning meteorologist Joe Bastardi that hurricane activity goes through cycles that last for decades, and that there have been previous periods of strong storm activity or more frequent storms. According to NOAA's list of hurricanes that have made landfall in the U.S. since 1850, in the 25 calendar years from 1998 through 2022, there were 15 hurricanes of at least category 3 strength that made landfall in the United States, compared to 18 between 1945 and 1969. Additionally, between 1998 and 2022, there were seven hurricanes that were at least a category 4 while, between 1945 and 1969, there were 11. The segment concluded with more handwringing about how Trump might effect the climate if he gets back into office: AMANPOUR: Are you concerned about, you know, since the evidence of Trump in his first term was to, you know, roll back so many protections, are any locked in and sort of Trump-proof now? LUSTGARTEN: No, nothing's locked in. And there's enormous risk of reversing some of the positive progress, not both American emissions cuts, which have been legislated, but the example that we set globally. So I think it's a very precarious position, and if you take back some of those measures, you know, it will have dramatic consequences globally. AMANPOUR: Abrahm Lustgarten, thank you so much indeed. Transcript follows: PBS's Amanpour & Co./CNN International's Amanpour April 22, 2024 CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Now, the other concern about Donald Trump is his effect on the climate after rolling back many environmental provisions in his first term, not to mention pulling out of the Paris climate accord. April 22nd, today, is World Earth Day, and my next guest says the verdict is in: Americans are already being displaced by the climate crisis, and it will only get worse. Abrahm Lustgarten is a climate reporter, and he works for ProPublica. His new book, On the Move, explores how climate is about to profoundly reshape American life. He's joining me now from Berkeley, California. (...) ABRAHM LUSTGARTEN, PROPUBLICA: -- and we had a terrible fire season -- this was 2018-2019, string of fires near where live in the San Francisco Bay area, and it really made clear how much Americans are also being effected by rising heat, by smoke, by the danger of fires, by sea level rise on our coasts, and caused me to start looking, not only at my own situation, but to consider, from a reporter's perspective, what this means for Americans as the climate gets hotter. AMANPOUR: So, we're going to discuss the effect in a moment, but in your book, you write, "People have always moved as their environment has changed, but today, the climate is warming faster, and the population is larger than at any point in history." And in one -- one chapter, you talk about Hurricane Katrina, and what it did to Louisiana. You detail the life of one woman who became a climate migrant -- just one story -- but explain how climate, you know, affects just this one individual. LUSTGARTEN: Yeah, so, Collette is the subject of this story, and she is from a town called Slidell, Louisiana, just a little bit north of New Orleans, and when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005 in her area, her town was really devastated. She was living in Washington, D.C., and she moved back to Louisiana, and she moved back with this hope of -- from a legal perspective and from an organizational perspective, and as a member of her community, seeing if she could help rebuild and help keep that community in place and kind of prevent this migration -- this diaspora. And her story is a 15-year battle to do that, and sort of slowly coming to realize that, in some sense, it is a losing proposition or a difficult proposition in southern Louisiana, and that's because Hurricane Katrina, so many years ago, was really the start of a shift of population out of that region, and we see, you know, along the Louisiana coast, which is sinking and being subsumed by sea level rise already, a gradual decline in population, and so, Collette's story is kind of an example of the nuance of American climate migration, where it's not black and white, it is not a disaster happens and people move, but it is sort of a long and emotional battle... (...) AMANPOUR: You also have a chapter called "The Great American Climate Scam." What is that? LUSTGARTEN: Well, one huge question that comes up when you look demographically at where people live in the United States is why -- as climate impacts have grown, as hurricanes have become more common and more powerful, and as heat has overwhelmed the South -- why those are still some of the fastest growing parts of the country, and there's a lot of reasons for that, but one of the sets of reasons is a host of perverse incentives that the United States has always had to attract people and effectively blind them from the risk that they face in moving to places like coastal Florida, and one of those subsidies is the provision of homeowners insurance, or property insurance, and Florida's a great example of this. After Hurricane Andrew in 1992, insurers were leaving the state, and it might have suggested that property was uninsurable, but the state stepped in and said, "We don't want all these people to leave the state because of this economic risk, so we are going to provide our own insurance," and so they created a state-subsidized plan that basically said, "Anybody can get insurance, and we'll promise it's going to be cheaper than any other insurance on the market." And that's the type of thing that has attracted many more people to Florida and has been replicated across 30-odd states in the country, and that's the kind of just one example of policies that tend to sort of blunt the risk and the personal economic household decision-making that people have to make about where they live in this country. (...) AMANPOUR: Are you concerned about, you know, since the evidence of Trump in his first term was to, you know, roll back so many protections, are any locked in and sort of Trump-proof now? LUSTGARTEN: No, nothing's locked in. And there's enormous risk of reversing some of the positive progress, not both American emissions cuts, which have been legislated, but the example that we set globally. So I think it's a very precarious position, and if you take back some of those measures, you know, it will have dramatic consequences globally. AMANPOUR: Abrahm Lustgarten, thank you so much indeed.

NewsBusters Podcast: Cassidy Hutchinson Nails Those CNN Talking Points

CNN primetime host Kaitlan Collins gushed over former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson for 20 minutes on April 24. Hutchinson nailed all the CNN-pleasing talking points. Collins introduced her as “now a frequent target of Donald Trump's, after her explosive testimony before the January 6 Committee." Hutchinson warned: "It's really important to stress that the American people were not given the truth about Donald Trump in 2016, and he won. He almost won in 2020. And he very well could win again, if the American people do not, are not made aware of who he actually is." CNN types think Trump voters are so dumb that they have no idea who Trump is. She didn't say out loud she'll vote for Biden, but her underlining of how crucial it is to defeat Trump sends the message loud and clear. She's advertising for Biden-Harris, and CNN is happy to air it for free.  Only at the end of this 20-minute interview, in the last two minutes, do we get a slight hint of how Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony turned out to be wrong, this tale of Trump grabbing the steering wheel. We know now that Trump's driver says that never happened. But Collins could only negotiate around the phony story. A Secret Service agent "could not corroborate your testimony of something that you said you were told by the White House Deputy Chief of Operations, at the time, Tony Ornato. And he's gone after you publicly as you've spoken out bravely." So Hutchinson poses as one who speaks the truth, and CNN doesn’t really want to challenge that. And it certainly doesn’t want to challenge her wild claims that this could be the final election: "what scares me more is the fact that this could potentially be the final election of our American democracy, as we know it, if he's reelected." That paranoid line couldn't please CNN bosses (or viewers) more.  Hutchinson claimed she really doesn't want to be a public person, but it's worked out well for her. She had the book deal with Simon & Schuster, and she speaks in public for money (not on CNN, but the CNN appearances don't hurt). Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

NPR: Baby Sleep Training ‘Sacrifices Our Babies' Well-Being on Altar of Capitalism’

Greg Rosalsky of National Public Radio’s podcast “Planet Money” (which aims to explain the economy to listeners) has returned back from “lengthy parental leave” smitten by leftist social media rants, as shown in Monday’s segment “Sleep training: Life preserver for parents or "symptom of capitalism"?” No surprise, given the woke lunacy that has taken over taxpayer-supported NPR. ….Now that I'm a working parent, I want to take just one brief moment to complain on behalf of all of us. Like millions of parents before me, I've discovered it's hard to be productive when you're sleep deprived. He explained the concept of "sleep training," a “euphemism for the most infamous and controversial method: Cry It Out. Basically, you put your baby in a crib or bassinet in a separate room and don't come back until the morning. If they cry, so be it. The idea is they will learn to self-soothe and become good sleepers.…" Facebook and other companies have begun "subsidizing the cost of sleep training coaching for their workers." But then Rosalsky, who worked in the Obama White House, went off on a bizarre tangent, triggered by a stray political comment. For example, my wife was targeted with a post from a baby sleep consultancy called Taking Cara Babies that marketed their services to us (and our employers)….. It seemed pretty innocuous. But the most liked comment was the following: "Wish we had actual parental leave like the rest of the modern world so we weren't forced to sleep train and get back to work like good little capitalists." It turns out this sentiment can be found across the internet….There's a large community of parents who disparage sleep training -- and, in particular, any form of cry it out -- as basically a cruel practice that sacrifices our babies' well-being on the altar of capitalism. He went on, quoting comment after comment, before reining it in slightly. Whole Mother Therapy, which provides online therapy to parents, for example, argues on their blog that "Sleep training is a symptom of capitalism -- it cuts parents off from the natural attachment and nurturance that is essential for infant and baby development." "Sleep training is breaking your child's mind and nervous system to fit into the productivity model capitalism requires," tweeted an X user named HR. But is not wanting to be really sleep deprived only driven by economic concerns? If I had the luxury of not working, I probably would still want to be well-slept. And aren't there a whole bunch of countries that have capitalist economies -- but, at the same time, robust safety nets -- that give parents greater opportunity to stay home and be sleep-deprived without having to go into work? I'll let you be the judge. His concluding snark made no sense: As for us, we've pursued a strategy that you might call sleep training lite. Basically, when our baby cries in the night, we either feed him if it's been a while since he's eaten or we hold his hand and sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star to him while he stays in his crib. Honestly, it worked really well between months 4 and 7. But recently, he started teething, and... well, we're both really tired. Take that, capitalism. Public-funded radio: Come for the sleep tips, stay for the socialism? PS: Christopher Rufo used this story to mock an NPR reporter being all about "factual news" on the website: This NPR employee wants you to believe that NPR is a home for unbiased, factual news, but the first story on the homepage is: "Sleep training: A life preserver for parents or a 'symptom of capitalism'?" Everyone knows NPR is biased, except NPR employees who are paid to deny it. https://t.co/zUZbTc92K7 — Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 23, 2024

The Most Disturbing Part of It

The Big Ten, the Pac-12, and the Ivy League are overrun with antisemitic students protesting in favor of Hamas. They claim they support Palestinians, but “Globalize the intifada” and “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea” are explicit genocidal slogans of Hamas. Democrats insist words mean things. These words mean the students are terrorist sympathizers. Some of the protestors are chanting “Death to America.” At least one Columbia University student screamed at Jewish students, “The seventh of October is going to be every day for you!” Jewish students have been pushed off campuses, harassed, attacked, and silenced. The protestors say it is about Israel and “Zionism” but attack any Jewish student without first asking the student’s views on Israel and Zionism. The protests are not organic. They are organized by several antisemitic groups, including Students for Justice in Palestine. That organization claims, “Resistance comes in all forms -- armed struggle, general strikes, and popular demonstrations. All of it is legitimate, and all of it is necessary.” Nationwide, these college kids did not all spontaneously run to their local REI and buy tents. There were organizers and organizations advancing the funds, coordinating and getting ready for action. It is no coincidence the protests really took on a life of their own on April 20. That is Hitler’s birthday. The kids who would otherwise be getting stoned instead decided to stone some Jews. But one aspect of this has been more disturbing than everything else we have seen. And what we have seen has been disturbing enough. The antisemites have harassed Jewish students. They have antagonized Jewish professors. They have assaulted Jews. They have stormed into events organized by Jews to chase out the speakers and harass the attendees. At Columbia, one blond-haired white girl with a keffiyeh covering her face stood in front of a group of Jewish students who were waving Israeli and American flags. The girl held a sign with an arrow pointing to the students that read “Al-Qasam’s Next Target.” Al-Qasam is the military wing of Hamas that orchestrated the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. Around Yale and Columbia, students have chanted for Al-Qasam to target Tel Aviv, kill more Jews and otherwise commit violence. But that was not the most disturbing thing to happen. The most disturbing thing was a video of a Jewish student approaching the protestors with a microphone and camera asking the white American kids if Hamas should release the remaining Israeli hostages. Many of the protestors refused to answer, but of those who did, every last one of them said, “No.” The video came out the day Hamas released a proof-of-life video of Hersh Goldberg-Polin. Goldberg-Polin had attended the music concert for peace on Oct. 7. He and others went into a bomb shelter to escape Hamas, which began throwing grenades in. Goldberg-Polin and a friend started throwing the grenades back. The friend died. Goldberg-Polin lost his hand. Hamas took him hostage. White, privileged American kids think Hamas can keep him. Now the protestors have trotted out Jewish students who are protesting to claim the protests are not really antisemitic. On social media, Black trans-conservative (a progressive who identifies as a conservative) Candace Owens has been on a tweet storm defending the Nazis. A Black defender of the Nazis no more absolves the Nazis of their racism than a few ethnically Jewish rubes absolve the protestors of their vile antisemitism. Every barbarous regime depends on useful idiots for cover. Queers for Palestine would be thrown off buildings in Palestine if they ever went there. The white, blond Americans chanting “Globalize the intifada” would be shot. Hamas killed Vivian Silver. The 74-year-old Canadian lived in Israel championing the Palestinian cause. What we are witnessing on American college campuses is evil. It has infected college campuses across America. Only the Southeastern Conference has seemingly remained untouched along with most of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Those concerned about the rise of antisemitism should look to those schools for future workers and the rest of us need to understand something -- too many academic institutions have become breeding grounds for evil.

‘Truly Appalling': MRC’s Hamill Reacts to Media Coverage of Anti-Israel Protests

Media Research Center (MRC) contributing writer Stephanie Hamill was a guest on Newsmax2 with host John Bachman on Wednesday where they discussed the anti-Israel protests sweeping American Universities across the nation and the mainstream media’s coverage of it.  The MRC has documented several examples of the bias in regards to the anti-Israel protests –– from a CNN analyst demanding colleges ‘allow space’ for anti-Semitic rallies, to the lack of coverage on the threats and violence against Jewish students. Hamill: We see a lot of the networks portraying this as peaceful protests, they’re trying to push the violence and threats against Jews under the rug, discredit Jewish student, –– the media coverage on this is truly appalling.  

Par for the Course: Google AI Gemini Justifies Censorship, Defends Climate Propaganda

MRC researchers caught Google’s biased artificial intelligence chatbot Gemini presenting an argument for censoring so-called climate “misinformation,” while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge any evidence undermining the “mainstream” climate narrative. While Gemini AI did admit that most so-called climate “misinformation” — or analysis that the left disagrees with — is protected free speech, it still offered an alternative argument for censoring such content. What made this particularly concerning is that the Google AI apparently classifies any evidence or data undermining a climate alarmist narrative as “misinformation,” repeatedly pushing narrative over scientific evidence. This included questioning the reliability of some experts and downplaying evidence against “man-made” climate change and “green” energy. MRC Free Speech America researchers asked on Earth Day, “Is climate information free speech under the First Amendment?” Gemini confessed, “Yes, climate information is generally considered free speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. The First Amendment protects the right to express ideas and information, even if they are controversial or unpopular.” After explaining why climate information was free speech, however, Gemini asserted “there are some limitations to free speech.” Gemini pontificated that “Incitement to Violence” and “Fraudulent Speech” or “Speech intended to mislead for personal gain … can be restricted.” Gemini did not clarify how climate information could potentially fit into these categories. And while Gemini was correct to point out that there are limits on permissible speech under the Constitution, Google’s AI went on to regurgitate what amounted to leftist propaganda on the issue of climate change. For instance, while admitting the scientific expertise of Dr. John Clauser, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Gemini then critiqued his evidence-based argument against climate alarmism. Clauser argues that the earth has a built-in thermostat and that atmospheric CO2 and methane have little effect on climate. Refusing to provide any of the arguments Clauser has made, however, Gemini instead sneeringly cited his ties to “climate change denial organizations.” The Google AI added that “it's important to note his recent comments differ from the established consensus.” Of course, consensus is not the standard for ascertaining truth in science. After all, the consensus once was that the Earth was the center of the universe.  In striking contrast to its criticism of Clauser, Gemini aggressively defended and praised leftist climate change propagandist Greta Thunberg — even while admitting she has no scientific credentials — because she “amplifies the scientific consensus on climate change.”  Indeed, throughout some dozen questions about climate and climate experts, Gemini consistently provided little to no scientific data or evidence. Rather, it emphasized “consensus” and “mainstream” narratives. Surprisingly, when asked whether liberal climate propagandist and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore was reliable and why his predictions have always been wrong, Gemini replied, “I'm still learning how to answer this question. In the meantime, try Google Search.” But Gore’s mistakes aren’t hard to find. As far back as 2007, a British court ruled there were eleven inaccuracies in Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” film. In fact, the Arctic ice cap actually increased in size the same year Gore predicted it would disappear. Furthermore, Google Search is equally problematic as it pertains to bias. A recent MRC Free Speech America study on Google election interference illustrates this bias. For instance, Google used its algorithm to promote Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016, and, in 2024, Google has suppressed campaign websites for Biden opponents.  Google’s Gemini also consistently and clearly took the side of climate alarmism on issues where evidence supports an opposing view. For example, there is data to support the argument that the Earth is cooling rather than warming, including UAH satellite-based temperature data. But when asked about the apparent cooling trend, Gemini fumbled, “Focusing on a single year or even a few years can be misleading due to natural variations. … While some regions might see cooler-than-average years, the long-term trend shows a clear warming pattern.  Each of the past five years has been among the warmest on record.” The latter claim depends largely upon which source of temperature data a person chooses to evidence the point made, particularly in this case, since some sources seem to show warming while others show cooling. For instance, The Heritage Foundation explained in January, “Warming of the global climate system over the past half-century has averaged 43 percent less than that produced by computerized climate models used to promote changes in energy policy.” Gemini also listed National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as a “trusted” source for climate data. But NOAA was just recently exposed for presenting questionable data. According to a recent MRCTV report, 30 percent of its “temperature stations” for estimating global warming do not even exist.  When asked about the left’s favored so-called green energy sources, Gemini did acknowledge some potential “drawbacks” of wind turbines and solar panels, including “hazardous materials” involved in their manufacture and requirements for a “significant amount of land.” The Google AI, however, instead of simply stating facts, defended leftist energy policy: “While solar panels and wind turbines aren't perfect, they represent a significant step towards cleaner energy production.” In actuality, both solar panels and wind turbines are extremely toxic to manufacture and to dispose of. Even leftist news site NPR has acknowledged how “expensive” these leftist alternative energy sources can be. Policy experts have also pointed to their unreliability and how they provide no long-term benefits to offset their heavy negatives. Google’s AI failed to mention that solar and wind cannot produce enough electricity to power America, despite evidencethat they cannot, and directed users to Biden’s Department of Energy, which aggressively promotes wind and solar, for more information (see below). Google has censored content in the past to enforce the leftist narrative on climate. Back in 2021, Google and its YouTube video platform banned advertising on so-called climate “misinformation,” or information that goes against the left’s preferred narrative.  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.

HOT DAMN: NY Post’s Nelson Details ‘Failed...Coup to Oust’ KJP by Biden Aides

The great Steven Nelson of the New York Post has always had great questions at White House press briefings and even went over half a year without being called on by the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre, so it won’t be entirely shocking when it happens again thanks to his bombshell Friday morning piece about what the headline dubbed a “failed White House coup to oust” Jean-Pierre. While it was surprising to see Nelson report the depths to which even senior White House officials were behind this, what was unsurprising was it failed due to Jean-Pierre’s stubborness that one source described as “come hell or high water” to stay through the election and the reality that a black lesbian axed by white people would make her a martyr. Nelson began by explaining “[t]op aides to President Biden secretly hatched a plan this past fall” to oust her as even they had seen she “developed the exasperating habit of reading canned answers directly from a binder to reporters at her regular briefings” and thus provided “a less-than-compelling pitch for the 81-year-old Biden”. As for who led this, Nelson revealed it was “[d]e facto White House communications chief Anita Dunn, 66, the wife of Biden personal attorney Bob Bauer” who “decided to call in prominent Democrats to explain to Jean-Pierre, 49, that the time was ripe to move on” with one source saying “[t]here were a number of people she asked to engage Karine” such those who she “trusts” about quitting. While Dunn herself has one of the widest leashes in any Democratic administration, Nelson said this had both the blessing and backing of White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients According to one source, this gentler approach was deployed because they “‘were trying to find Karine a graceful exit’ because of the ugly optics of removing her against her will” and “afraid of what” the DEI crowd were “going to say” if they kicked her out. A source had some brutal words for their colleague, which has been plainly obvious to those in reality, ripping Jean-Pierre for lacking “an understanding of the issues and she reads the book [binder] word-for-word” while simultaneously not “hav[ing] a grasp of the issues and doesn’t spend the time to learn.” The source was correct in pointing out predecessor Jen Psaki would remark during briefings about studying up on issues beforehand (and we would add Kayleigh McEnany also did in sharing facts she learned from experts and fellow White House officials). Despite Jean-Pierre’s failure to even speak basic English, the source said Jean-Pierre believes “she’s doing an amazing job” and, unfortunately for Team Biden knows she won’t leave “on her own.” A different source had more hard truths for Jean-Pierre that, despite what some people may think, “[t]here’s an enormous amount of work that goes into getting ready” and, of course, she doesn’t do any of that. Nelson connected this to what NBCNews.com reported in February about one possible escape hatch of having Jean-Pierre resign to take over the pro-baby-killing group EMILY’s List (click “expand”): In December, not long after word of Dunn’s plan circulated in the White House, Jean-Pierre received and rejected an unsolicited offer to become president of EMILYs List, a major Democratic group that raises money for female candidates who support expanded abortion rights. When NBC News reported on the offer in February, the outlet said Jean-Pierre had emphatically told the group that she was “committed to the president” and “I’m not going anywhere.” Both the initial offer to Jean-Pierre from EMILYs List and its disclosure to NBC are topics of intrigue within the White House — with unsubstantiated theories suggesting the hand of Dunn behind the approach and Jean-Pierre behind its leak. EMILYs List did not respond to a request for comment. By December, Dunn appeared to have accepted that Jean-Pierre was secure in her post. A West Wing official supportive of the press secretary provided The Post with text from an email written by Dunn ahead of Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi’s Dec. 11 article that noted National Security Council spokesman John Kirby’s increased profile as co-briefer alongside Jean-Pierre. “I am happy to talk to [Farhi]. And tell him KJP isn’t going anywhere so this is a ridiculous piece,” Dunn wrote in the message. The pro-Jean-Pierre official also told The Post that Dunn was among those who had backed the press secretary’s promotion from being Psaki’s deputy — with the comms chief even calling in a former White House official to request their help communicating to reporters that “Karine is very strong and doing a very good job in the briefing room.” “She is an incredibly quick study on a variety of policy issues that she has to be appraised of every single day,” that ex-official said. And, on the reported feud with frequent briefing partner and longtime Democratic foreign policy and military spokesman John Kirby, Nelson cited one source who said “[s]ometimes he talks to her and she acts as if he is not talking” with Jean-Pierre “pretty aggressive[ly]...marking her territory.” It’s plainly obvious for briefing observers that not only does Kirby come off as more prepared and professional, but also that he’s “widely respected by journalists as a valuable source of both information and soundbites”. Nelson wrapped with a few words on Jean-Pierre still “hav[ing] important allies within the White House, including first lady Jill Biden’s top adviser Anthony Bernal,” whom Nelson recently reported as having sexually harassed colleagues.

Media Ignore Liberty University's Massive Pro-Israel Rally

Hundreds of pro-Hamas protests have erupted at college campuses throughout the country in the months since the terrorist group attacked innocent Israeli citizens on October 7. And the media have been consistent in reporting on anti-Israeli voices and outcries as a way of encouraging more students and protestors to act the same This week, as contrast, the private Christian school Liberty University held a massive prayer vigil for the people of Israel - and the media couldn’t care less. It’s obvious where they stand in this debate. Liberty University held its event on the campus’ Academic Lawn on Wednesday night, where a huge crowd of students stood together to pray, worship, and read the Bible. Here’s what Liberty’s chancellor told Fox News Digital: While so many campuses are erupting in anger, hatred and violence; it is refreshing to see the students at Liberty University reflecting the love of Christ as we are commanded to do by Scripture. Jesus clearly tells us to love, and it is so telling that in higher education today, it seems as if some of the only places where love is being displayed are from the campuses of Christian universities like Liberty University. “We do this because Christ is King and today He is seated at the right hand of the Father!” - @jonathanfalwell I’m eternally grateful for the leadership at @LibertyU and their constant commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Truth of God’s Word! pic.twitter.com/8ojMqJf4FC — Jesse Hughes ✝️🇺🇸 (@JesseHughesNC) April 26, 2024 The students at Liberty University stand in stark contrast to students at other schools. Recently we’ve seen pro-Palestine terrorism apologists praise Hamas and advocate in every way shape and form against innocent Israeli lives. including threatening Jewish students on American campuses. On April 23, a group of young protestors shouted in support of Hamas rockets being fired on Israeli citizens, chanting, “Al-Qasam you make us proud, take another settler out," before screaming."Tell Hamas we love you, we support your rockets too!” Student-led demonstrators at Columbia University called for the murder of innocent Jewish students while other students from the school danced around with red strings as a form of “solidarity” with Palestinians. One of the Columbia protest leaders said during a live-streamed school meeting back in January that “Zionists don’t deserve to live," and that he'll kill them if he has to. Related: Anti-Jew Protests Engulf American Schools, and It's Not Surprising At All The violence at these schools has also not gone unnoticed. The University of Southern California even canceled the official commencement portion of their graduation amid the violence concerns. MRCTV’s Managing Editor Brittany Hughes released an episode of The Brittany Hughes Show this week with more in-depth analysis the anti-Israeli hate and called all these acts part of “seeing the destruction of America in real time.” While all this is happening, the media are incredibly partial in their reporting. They said nothing about Liberty’s prayer vigil for Israel, but are covering everything under the sun when it comes to universities proclaiming their support of Palestine and Hamas. Yet, the media are not necessarily condemning the violence, rather just amplifying the voices. Follow us on Twitter/X: Woke of The Weak: The Left's Broken Moral Compass Whether it's shoving prosthetic breasts in the faces of children or barking at strangers for attention, the left has their heads screwed on backwards. pic.twitter.com/K10xekDnBp — MRCTV (@mrctv) April 23, 2024  

PBS Tries To Blame Conservatism For Mass Stabbing

Thursday’s Amanpour and Company demonstrated everything wrong with public broadcasting by using hushed and solemn tones to offer up the most incendiary hot takes. This particular hot take came from feminist, gender, and sexuality studies Prof. Kate Manne and NPR’s Michel Martin as they tried to tie conservatism to the recent mass stabbing in Australia. As Manne acknowledged, the perpetrator was “a diagnosed schizophrenic who had recently, according to his family, discontinued medication, and he was living in a way that was largely itinerant.” However, “But I think we can recognize that when it comes to that question of why he targeted girls and women and why it is invariably a Joel rather than a Jane, a man rather than a woman, who has this kind of horrifically violent eruption after romantic or sexual disappointment, then we can recognize that his father's explanation is, again, helpful that he was motivated by the sense of entitlement to women's labor and to be ministered to and cared for by women.”     Later, Martin started the process of trying to tie this schizophrenic woman-hater to conservatives, “Some people feel like there's kind of a worldwide movement of trying to sort of reclaim male dominance. Like, for example -- like in South Korea, for example, there's like a whole political movement to kind of fight feminism, right? The argument that there are like political parties and political leaders whose main organizing principle is that. And I'm just wondering, do you see something worldwide? And if so, what is it?” Manne, of course, agreed, “Yes, we are absolutely seeing a rise in anti-feminist leaders worldwide who are basically capitalizing on the fact that between men and women, particularly what we see this when it comes to young men versus young women, there is a real disparity in attitudes towards feminism… And we also see that these attitudes are very common -- more common, unsurprisingly, in young Republican men and to some extent, women.” That just means people have different definitions of feminism. Young women associate it with equality and women’s rights while Republicans associate it with abortion and fake news about unequal pay, and young men associate it with the anti-male stereotyping that Manne would soon engage in after Martin asked, “Why do you say unsurprisingly?” Manne replied with all the left-wing buzzwords, “Well, I do think that anti-feminism and conservatism are in lockstep, partly because conservative ideology is often invested in patriarchal roles and expectations being maintained, particularly for people who are also invested in white supremacy and racist ideals and values being promulgated and maintained in society.” Later, Martin asked, “What do you think would make a difference?” Manne responded, in part, by declaring: So, I think we have to go right to the root of it and really start with education. Parents and educators need to be teaching people in general, children in general, but young boys in particular, that they are not entitled to social and sexual services from girls and women… I think we need to address intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and also forms of incel ideology in our education systems. And I think that there is a real call for not just teaching the nuts and bolts of sex, but also what coercive and misogynistic sexual practices look like. One example of this is there has been an alarming rise as a recent New York Times report by Peggy Orenstein showed in the rates of strangulation by men upon women during sexual encounters, and that is not a safe practice from the perspective of brain health. Did Manne actually read Orenstein’s piece? The words “conservatism” and “misogyny” do not appear. Things that do appear include pornography, ShoTime’s Californincation, Fifty Shades of Grey, HBO’s Euphoria and The Idol, and “The chorus of Jack Harlow’s ‘Lovin On Me.’” Here is a transcript for the April 25 show: PBS Amanpour and Company 4/25/2024 MICHEL MARTIN: When the father of the killer expressed these thoughts, he said he wanted a girlfriend and he has no social skills and he was frustrated out of his brain, some people thought that he was blaming the victim -- victims, but I felt that he was just describing what he saw, and I just wonder -- I thought that was helpful information to know that he -- that that was what was in his mind. KATE MANNE: I admit that when I initially saw the remarks taken out of context, I worried that it was an example of what I call himpathy, where sympathy is extended to a male perpetrator of violence and misogyny over his female victims. But when I saw the entire interview of this grieving father, my reaction was very different. I think he was just trying to explain, not excuse or justify his son's actions. I think he was horrified by what his son did. His statement had a recognizably both and form. He said, “I am loving a monster. And to you he's a monster, to me, he's a sick boy. He's a very sick boy. Believe me, he's a sick boy.” And that is not inaccurate. Joel Cauchi was a diagnosed schizophrenic who had recently, according to his family, discontinued medication, and he was living in a way that was largely itinerant. He was on the fringes of society. We don't have to sympathize with him whatsoever to recognize that when it comes to a particular question, why did this man, who was aggrieved and lonely, snap on this day, then we can invoke the fact that he had a particular kind of mental illness that unlike most kinds of mental illness does result in an increased rate of violence. But I think we can recognize that when it comes to that question of why he targeted girls and women and why it is invariably a Joel rather than a Jane, a man rather than a woman, who has this kind of horrifically violent eruption after romantic or sexual disappointment, then we can recognize that his father's explanation is, again, helpful that he was motivated by the sense of entitlement to women's labor and to be ministered to and cared for by women. … MARTIN: Some people feel like there's kind of a worldwide movement of trying to sort of reclaim male dominance. Like, for example -- like in South Korea, for example, there's like a whole political movement to kind of fight feminism, right? The argument that there are like political parties and political leaders whose main organizing principle is that. And I'm just wondering, do you see something worldwide? And if so, what is it? MANNE: Yes, we are absolutely seeing a rise in anti-feminist leaders worldwide who are basically capitalizing on the fact that between men and women, particularly what we see this when it comes to young men versus young women, there is a real disparity in attitudes towards feminism. And we see this in the U.S. context too where almost half of young Democratic men in a recent study by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2022 showed that nearly half of Democratic men believed, when they were young, that feminism was a backward step and that it was a mistake and a negative for society. And that is in marked contrast to women's attitudes where young women, it was less than a quarter who said that. And we also see that these attitudes are very common -- more common, unsurprisingly, in young Republican men and to some extent, women. MARTIN: Why do you say unsurprisingly? MANNE: Well, I do think that anti-feminism and conservatism are in lockstep, partly because conservative ideology is often invested in patriarchal roles and expectations being maintained, particularly for people who are also invested in white supremacy and racist ideals and values being promulgated and maintained in society. We're seeing a lot of feminist social progress. We're seeing women educated in record numbers, and women being able to achieve positions of power and prestige and leadership and having a voice in new ways, we're seeing women tell their stories as in the MeToo movement in ways that are unapologetic and unashamed. But it's not in spite of that, but I think precisely because of that we also simultaneously see anti-feminist backlash where patriarchal forces are trying to re-entrench and re-establish the status quo, and that you often see people who are influenced by those social forces being caught in the grip of misogynist ideologies, and also those misogynistic ideologies being used and exploited to elect certain people who are anti-feminist positions of power worldwide. MARTIN: What do you think would make a difference? MANNE: So, I think we have to go right to the root of it and really start with education. Parents and educators need to be teaching people in general, children in general, but young boys in particular, that they are not entitled to social and sexual services from girls and women, and that they need to be obligated to other people and reciprocating forms of care that we all owe to each other, but not because of our gender, rather, just because we're decent human beings. I think we need to address intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and also forms of incel ideology in our education systems. And I think that there is a real call for not just teaching the nuts and bolts of sex, but also what coercive and misogynistic sexual practices look like. One example of this is there has been an alarming rise as a recent New York Times report by Peggy Orenstein showed in the rates of strangulation by men upon women during sexual encounters, and that is not a safe practice from the perspective of brain health. So, we need to be teaching young people that this is not a sexual practice that is safe. And it is one that is rooted in a form of domination and control that is deeply misogynistic. I think that some of the answers also have to do with having better mental health care available for victims recovering from these kinds of assaults and traumas and even just the everyday weathering that we suffer as the result of street harassment. And also, yes, potential perpetrators also need access to better mental health care in America and Australia alike.

Dan Schneider on Facebook Election Interference: '98% of the Firepower Is Directed to Conservatives'

MRC Free Speech Vice President Dan Schneider went after Facebook for not only repeatedly engaging in election interference but also for relentlessly censoring conservatives.  During the April 24 edition of WJLA-TV’s The National Desk, Schneider hammered this point again. “Basically, 98% of the firepower is directed to conservatives,” he said. “There are instances where Facebook has taken down liberals. But typically, those liberals are either in opposition to Joe Biden, you know, like RFK Jr., or else they were in opposition to Facebook itself.” The April 23 MRC Special Report by MRC Assistant Editor Gabriela Pariseau and Schneider compiled 39 examples of Facebook interfering in American elections. As Schneider mentioned, the vast majority of these cases targeted conservatives, repeatedly censoring Republican candidates for U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races across the country.  READ IT: 39 Times Facebook Interfered in US Elections Since 2008 Schneider alluded to this point in reference to Facebook’s censorship of criticism of President Barack Obama’s handling of the fall of the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi. Schneider suggested that in this case Facebook was “trying to help Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton at the same time.” Facebook censorship of the left largely targeted the opponents of Democrats in power. For example, Facebook acted against supporters of then-Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in 2016; and against Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in this election cycle.   The Daily Wire host Michael Knowles also addressed the “really good” MRC Special Report on the April 25 edition of The Michael Knowles Show. After reading examples from the report, Knowles agreed with its assessment of Facebook censorship and Schneider’s point about Facebook protecting the liberal establishment.  “Facebook censored Bernie Sanders—then, you know something of a real challenge to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president—just censored him outright, censored conservative topics and news,” Knowles said. “We experienced this, I saw this part really first hand, and it not only hurt conservatives, it hurt any opponent to the liberal establishment, including Bernie Sanders.”  .@theMRC is giving us the goods! According to their new study, Facebook has interfered in elections 39 times since 2008. Power doesn't go away. When we limit what governments and candidates can do, power goes to private corporations and super PACs. pic.twitter.com/iO1mGOjZqB — The Michael Knowles Show (@MKnowlesShow) April 25, 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.

Networks Ignore Columbia Camp Leader’s Blood-Thirsty Rant Against Jews

All week, the Big Three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) have been trying to gaslight Americans into believing that the anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas encampments sprouting up like weeds across the country were peaceful gatherings where nothing bad was going on. But video resurfaced of the leader of the Columbia University encampment going on a blood-thirsty diatribe where he called for the murder of Jews. Between their morning and evening newscasts, the Big Three dedicated a whopping ZERO minutes and ZERO seconds to the story. While the networks all acknowledged that Columbia University was the “epicenter” of the current encampment trend to support Hamas (they’d falsely label the students as just “pro-Palestinian”), they didn’t want to put a spotlight on the camp’s dangerous leader Khymani James.   Meet Khymani James, a student leader of Columbia University’s anti-Israel Gaza Solidarity Encampment who openly states that "Zionists don’t deserve to live" He made the comments during a meeting with the school that he live-streamed. We put together the highlights: pic.twitter.com/JFlxnRkNC2 — Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) April 25, 2024   The video in question came from a live-stream James did of a months-ago hearing he had with Columbia’s Center for Student Success and Intervention about his disturbing conduct. In the interview, James proudly announced he felt “very comfortable, very comfortable, calling for those people to die.” He also enthusiastically declared that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and he was willing to kill them with his bare hands: These were masters who were white supremacists. What is a Zionist? A white supremacist. So let’s be very clear here, I’m not saying that I’m going to go out and start killing Zionists. What I am saying is that if an individual who identifies as a Zionist threatens my physical safety in person, i.e., puts their hands on me, I am going to defend myself and in that case scenario, it may come to a point where I don’t know when to stop. “Zionists don’t deserve to live comfortably, let alone Zionists don’t deserve to live…Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists,” he added. The hearing was in regard to an Instagram post in which James talked about meeting up with Zionists to fight and how “I fight to k***.” Despite these threats, Columbia decided against further disciplinary actions. Instead of reporting on James during Friday’s Today show, correspondent Emilie Ikeda scoffed at the idea that anti-Semitic rhetoric was a staple of the encampments. “But what protesters are defending as free speech, some Jewish students call hate speech,” she downplayed the intent of students like James.     Ikeda actually feared for the Columbia encampment: “And overnight at the epicenter of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, Columbia University ramping up security. As counter-protests from outside groups March near campus, demonstrators clashing on campus.” While the liberal broadcast networks were ignoring the blood-thirsty Columbia leader, NewsNation’s Leland Vittert was exposing him to the world during On Balance throughout the week. In addition to sharing part of James’s rant to Columbia’s conduct board, Vittert unearthed audio of him defending his racism against white people.   A couple of nights ago, Vittert also exposed James's racism against white people. "I too hate white people," he proclaimed while defending what he was saying. pic.twitter.com/IYSic7iD6q — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) April 26, 2024   This was the biggest story to rock the Columbia encampment, but CBS couldn’t even be bothered to write a story for their website. Instead, they wrote one boasting about the students “filed a federal civil rights complaint against the school, accusing the university of discriminating against Palestinian students and pro-Palestinian protesters.” Meanwhile, there’s a video of James infringing on the free-speech rights of pro-Israel counter-protesters by rallying his pro-Hamas ilk to run them out of campus. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: NBC’s Today April 26, 2024 8:10:21 a.m. Eastern (…) EMILIE IKEDA: But what protesters are defending as free speech, some Jewish students call hate speech. JEWISH STUDENT: Freedom of speech is very important, and I'm very for that, but I think [Transition] there's a point where the university itself has a duty to protect all of its students, including the Jewish ones. IKEDA: And overnight at the epicenter of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, Columbia University ramping up security. As counter-protests from outside groups March near campus, demonstrators clashing on campus. PRO-HAMAS PROTESTER 1: You guys should be sent back to Europe. IKEDA: The clock is ticking on negotiations with students on site of the encampment, though with no clear deadline from the university. PRO-HAMAS PROTESTER 2: I'm absolutely worried what happens at the university brings in the NYPD, it's going to change the university forever. [Cuts back to live] IKEDA: And it does appear Columbia University is still preparing to hold its graduation scheduled to happen in less than three weeks. Walking around campus you'll see stacks of chairs, signs, bleachers, but many of the students I talked to are doubtful it will actually happen. A sore point for some, part of a class that graduated high school four years ago in 2020, that also cancelled by the pandemic.

Calif. Teacher Pleads No-Contest to Raping 14-Year-Old Student

Michelle Solis, 46, pled no contest after being accused of raping a 14-year-old student on the child’s eighth grade graduation day in 2021. A press release from District Attorney Mike Ramsey indicated that Solis, who was a 20-year veteran educator, raped the 14-year-old inside a locked classroom on graduation day, Daily Mail reported. Solis also allegedly sent explicit photos to the boy which “made their way back to local parents," facilitating the investigation by police. Solis, who was the boy’s teacher at the middle school, “friended” him on Instagram a few weeks prior to his graduation. Records indicate that was the start of her inappropriate relationship in which she allegedly sent him four inappropriate images. Then, on the day of his graduation from Sycamore Junior High School in northern California, she raped him. That seems like a horrible graduation gift if you ask me. Solis was arrested last November and released on $15,000 bail. She’s technically free right now until her sentencing hearing, scheduled for June 6. As part of the agreement and her no contest plea, “she agreed to register as a sex offender.” It’s likely that she’ll only face as much as four years in state prison. Unfortunately, Solis’ case isn’t rare and is part of an ongoing trend of female teachers raping their students. In March, a Texas teacher faced a series of grooming and sexual assault charges that could involve up to 12 young boys. Reports indicate that she bought young boys vaping accessories, got them intoxicated and then raped them. To add to the story, after resigning as a science teacher, the woman told officials she was pregnant. In February, a 24-year-old teacher from Minnesota admitted to having sex with one of her 18-year-old students. Since she lived with her parents, the teacher admitted to bringing the student to a hotel room a “handful” of times for sex. Additionally in February, a 25-year-old teacher from the Richmond, Va. area pled guilty to four counts of carnal knowledge and one count of indecent liberties of a minor. She engaged in sexual relations with her 14-year-old student, sneaking into his home and into his bed to rape him. Sadly, those are just a few of the recent examples of how absolutely out of touch with reality these teachers are. It’s heartbreaking to see that their delusional sense of what they consider appropriate behavior is harming countless innocent children in these ways. If you needed another reason to homeschool, this would be a good one to consider.

Ex-NBC Disinformation Reporter Is The New CEO Of The Onion

No, that headline is not satire. Ex-NBC disinformation reporter Ben Collins announced on his Twitter account on Thursday that he is the new CEO of The Onion. It’s a fitting end for both parties as they tailspin into the depths of bitter politics. Before he was suspended by NBC for having an unprofessional obsession with Elon Musk, he was on the network’s disinformation and extremism beat, which was exclusively focused on the right side of the political spectrum. Collins’s shtick was to find the most outrageous things coming from the internet and pretend that they represented all conservatives. For example, he declared that Kanye West’s anti-Semitism was within the Republican Party’s Overton Window.   NEWS: My friends and I now own and run The Onion. I’ll be the CEO. We’re keeping the entire staff, bringing back The Onion News Network, and share the wealth with staff. Basically, we’re going to let them do whatever they want. Get excited.https://t.co/CQtWzFHn4A — Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) April 25, 2024   He also claimed ex-Harvard President Claudine Gay’s plagiarism scandal was no big deal because the people most likely to talk about it were conservatives, that the opposition to Critical Race Theory is made up to scare people into voting for Republicans, and falsely blamed Fox News for spreading conspiracy theories about the 2019 fire at the Notre Dame cathedral. Now, he’s going to be the CEO of a dying satirical website. To that end, Collins and his business partners have been tweeting and urging people to donate $1 to help rescue the site.   Pitch in your $1 here:https://t.co/IAHe5uoINv — Jeff Lawson (@jeffiel) April 26, 2024   After 9/11, The Onion made it okay for Americans to laugh again by making fun of the hijackers by reporting that they were surprised to find themselves in hell. Now, The Onion has devolved into essentially terrorist propaganda as it bitterly runs story after story after story after story after story after story after story, with borderline blood libel claims that Israel is some sort of death-loving nation intent on wiping out the Palestinians and Americans simply don’t care. Additionally, The Onion agrees with Collins on Gay and CRT. Collins made his name defending social media censorship as necessary to combat fake news and disinformation. Some of Facebook’s fact-checking partners still do not have satire labels and now Collins is going to the country’s predominant left-wing humor/fake news websites. Behind the joke, there is an argument being made and based on both their histories, The Onion is about to become more insufferable just when nobody thought that was even possible.

Daily Show Tells Netanyahu Campus Encampments Are His Fault

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the anti-Semitism at multiple encampments on college campuses across the United States and that did not sit well with Comedy Central’s temporary co-hosts of The Daily Show, Jordan Klepper and Ronny Chieng on Thursday. Conceding there are “plenty of bad actors,” the duo argued that the encampments are Netanyahu’s fault because of “Israel’s disproportionate use of force.” After playing clips of Speaker Mike Johnson and Sen. Josh Hawley calling for the National Guard to break up the encampments, Klepper teed up a clip of Netanyahu, “Honestly, I can't think of anybody worse to give their opinion on how to protest the war in Gaza. Well, there is one guy.”     In the clip, Netanyahu declared that “what’s happening in America's college campuses is horrific. Anti-Semitic mobs have taken over a leading university. [jump cut] It’s unconscionable. It has to be stopped.” The protests are ostensibly about Netanyahu and his country’s policies. In reality, many of the demonstrators are protesting his country’s existence, but either way, of course, the leader of the Jewish State is going to have thoughts about these people. Nevertheless, Klepper responded, “Oh, thanks for taking the time to give your feedback, Benjamin Netanyahu! Is there nothing else going on with you?” Chieng followed by starting the blame game, “Yeah, I know, this guy is like, ‘The situation in U.S. college campuses is unacceptable, do you see how the buildings are not rubble? I am disgusted!’" Klepper was happy to play along, “Here's the point: there’s a lot of noise and plenty of bad actors, but fundamentally, what's driving these protests is anger over Israel's disproportionate use of force. So before we respond to the protests with disproportionate force, maybe we should listen to what they have to say, and then, if we still don't agree with the students, then we can send in the college improv troupe.” If you are someone who simply has genuinely heartfelt, but nevertheless wrong-headed ideas about how a ceasefire is needed to end suffering and pursue a two-state solution, then why are you at a protest movement led by people who do not support such a policy? The point where the naïve among the protesters should have disassociated themselves from the “plenty of bad actors” has long since passed.  Here is a transcript for the April 25 show: Comedy Central The Daily Show 4/25/2024 11:17 PM ET JORDAN KLEPPER: Honestly, I can't think of anybody worse to give their opinion on how to protest the war in Gaza. Well, there is one guy. BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: What’s happening in America's college campuses is horrific. Anti-Semitic mobs have taken over a leading university [jump cut] it’s unconscionable. It has to be stopped. KLEPPER: Oh, thanks for taking the time to give your feedback, Benjamin Netanyahu! Is there nothing else going on with you?  RONNY CHIENG: Yeah, I know, this guy is like "The situation in U.S. college campuses is unacceptable, do you see how the buildings are not rubble? I am disgusted!" KLEPPER: Here's the point: there’s a lot of noise and plenty of bad actors, but fundamentally, what's driving these protests is anger over Israel's disproportionate use of force. So before we respond to the protests with disproportionate force, maybe we should listen to what they have to say, and then, if we still don't agree with the students, then we can send in the college improv troupe.

CBS’s ‘FBI: Most Wanted’ Pushes Anti-Capital Punishment Agenda, Shockingly Portrays Christianity in Positive Light

With pro-abortion propaganda so heavily pushed in Hollywood since Roe’s overturning, it’s been awhile since they took on another important pro-life issue, the death penalty. But that changed on the latest episode of FBI: Most Wanted when they made their position quite obvious with their usual tactic of heavily dramatizing the rarest cases to play on viewers’ heartstrings. As a pro-life, Christian conservative, I am conflicted on the issue. Capital punishment was permitted in the Bible, and I understand it can be a strong deterrent, thus saving lives. Murderers aren’t innocent like pre-born babies, either. They make a conscious decision to risk their life via the death penalty when they take a life. However, as demonstrated in the episode “Bonne Terre,” there are instances when innocent people are killed. Though rare, it’s still concerning, because even one innocent life ended is one too many.   Not surprisingly, the show made it into a right versus left issue, stating Missouri is a “conservative state.” So, of course the judges haven’t cared that Emmett (Benny Elledge), the man falsely convicted, has a limited mental capacity due to a traumatic brain injury and recanted his coerced confession made without a lawyer present. His new lawyer Abby (Susan Misner) explains the dire situation to FBI agents Remy (Dylan McDermott) and Hana (Keisha Castle-Hughes) who are working to solve three new murders possibly connected to Emmett’s case: Remy: What can you tell us about 'em? Abby: Um, well, this is Tina on the left. And that's Ashley. She lost a part of her leg in a skiing accident when she was in high school. They were both seniors at Thornton. Remy: How were they murdered? Abby: Well, the girls had a party at their house one night, and about a dozen boys showed up. There was lots of drinking, and the party broke up around midnight. Later that night, someone came back and abducted and killed them both. Hana: Your client. Abby: So they say. Emmett was the landlord's handyman. So, he knew the girls well. He was around the house a lot. He bought them the alcohol. He even drank with them for a while. His DNA was on Tina when they found her. Remy: What about Ashley? Abby: Ashley's body was never recovered. Hana: So how did they convict him of her murder? Abby: Because Emmett confessed, allegedly. Remy: Was he coerced? Abby: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. He got hit in the head when he was 16. He has a limited mental capacity. He had no lawyer. He was scared. He was willing to say whatever those detectives wanted for an orange soda and a ham sandwich. Remy: Did this come out in trial? Abby: Not as much as it should have. I mean, he had a public defender. Emmett later recanted, which is when I took the case. And I have been making the mental defect and coercion arguments on appeal for seven years. But Missouri is a really conservative state. And no one will listen. His execution is set for tomorrow. Remy: Tomorrow? Abby: Yeah. 6:00 P.M. Hana: Well, that's 26 hours from now. Even AI notices the agenda, as the system the MRC uses automatically suggested the title, “Murder and Injustice in a Conservative State” for this clip. With time running out, Hana rushes to find more evidence in the hopes of proving Emmett’s innocence. Abby and Remy stay back with Emmett, whose child-like demeanor makes him a very sympathetic character - propaganda at its finest: Remy: Do you know what's happening, Emmett? Emmett: Yeah. They denied my appeal again. Remy: I mean what's happening... Next? Emmett: Why do we kill people to prove that it's wrong to kill people? I read that on a bumper sticker once. Remy: Except you didn't kill anyone, right? Emmett: No. I didn't. Ashley and Tina were my friends. They liked me. Abby: Yeah. Guard: It's time. Emmett: I thought you said it was at 6:00? Abby: It is. We just have to take a short ride to another prison in Bonne Terre. Emmett: That's where they put me to sleep? Okay. I'm ready. I’m sure the writers thought viewers would marvel over the “profound” quote and maybe even be swayed to become anti-capital punishment if they weren’t already. Except the point of the death penalty isn’t to prove anything. It’s to deter people from committing murder and to provide justice for victims. Despite finding mountains of evidence proving Emmett’s innocence, including capturing the real killer Curt Rowan (Nicholas Michael McGovern) and finding the second body which has foreign DNA inside of it that doesn’t match Emmett’s, the judge still refuses to stay his execution. Of course. Dang those mean, old conservatives! In an unexpected turn, however, the show portrayed a Catholic priest positively and handled the quoting of Scripture respectfully. Quite shocking considering Hollywood’s long record of bashing Christians and Christianity: Priest: This is not the end of your journey, but the beginning. You're on this journey to meet your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Emmett: So, God will save me? Priest: Have you accepted him in your heart? Emmett: I have. Priest: Then God will save you. Warden: I need you to change into these, Emmett. Emmett: Diapers. What are these for? I don't have to go to the bathroom. Abby: It's just something they make you do, Emmett, okay? We'll give you your privacy. Remy: Barnes, tell me you have him. Barnes: We do, but he's asked for a lawyer. Remy: The execution is happening. Barnes: He does not care. Remy: Jab a swab down his throat and get his DNA to the lab right away. Barnes: ERT's on their way with a kit. They're minutes away. Remy: We don't have minutes. They're about to walk him into the death chamber. Remy: We're doing the best we can, Remy. Wait a second. I see them. They're pulling in now. Remy: Tell them to hurry. Emmett: I thought you said God would save me. Priest: It's okay, Emmett. Have faith. Emmett: What are you doing? Ow. Ow! Priest: God is calling you home, son. Tech: I'm going to try the other arm. Emmett: Uh, that hurts. You're hurting me. Priest: Remember what we talked about? That Bible verse? Emmett: The Lord is my shepherd. I shall… Both: Want not. Emmett: He restores my soul. He leads me through paths of righteousness. Ow! Perhaps Hollywood is hoping to appeal to Christians who support the death penalty, so they were smart enough not to offend them this time. After failing to place an IV in Emmett because his veins are small and difficult, the warden announces they’re doing a “cutdown” procedure, seemingly without anesthesia. The procedure makes Emmett scream even louder in agony and fear as his mother and a sister to one of the victims wait with frustration in the gallery: Victim’s Sister: It's been 47 minutes. Why aren't they opening the curtain? Emmett’s Mother: Something's wrong. They can't do this to my boy. It's not right. Victim’s Sister: It's called justice. After what he did to my sister, I hope it takes forever. Let him feel the pain. Abby: Anything? Remy: ERT has Rowan's DNA typed. They're waiting for the lab to match it against the foreign DNA in question. What's happening here? Abby: I'm not sure. Oh, Warden, what is happening? Warden: We can't find a vein. I've asked for a cutdown. Remy: What? Warden: It's a simple medical procedure. Abby: No, that is not true. It is not. Warden: Step back, please. Doctor: Here you are, Warden. Remy: Wait, you're gonna cut him open? Warden: It's protocol, Agent Scott. Abby: Is he gonna have an anesthetic? Warden: Please, just take a seat in the gallery. All right? The fight is over. Remy: No, it's not. Warden: I've got to do my job. When Rowan’s DNA comes back as matching the foreign DNA in the second victim, Remy and Abby call the governor to appeal for clemency: Remy: He kept her prosthetic as a trophy of his kill. And we just got confirmation that his DNA is a 100% match to the unidentified DNA in Tina Adams' body. Rowan killed those girls. Not Emmett Allen. Abby: Ashley and Tina were innocent victims. Please just don't let another innocent person die. Governor: I have to admit, I'm no longer fully convinced of Emmett Allen's guilt. Let me speak with Warden Nesbit. Halt the execution. Warden: Are you sure, sir? Governor: We'll explore clemency in later hearings. I'm sure Emmett's lawyer will waste no time filing a motion. Abby: Yes, sir. And thank you. Warden: Get him up. Bring in that microphone. Get ready to open the curtain. The governor has granted clemency. The execution is off. Remy: See? Mother: Oh, my God! Thank you, God, for my baby's life. Oh, and you too, of course. Of course. Emmett: I love you, Mama. Mother: Oh, I love you, too, my baby boy. As a mom of a grown son who will always be my baby boy, I have to admit that scene hit hard. That’s what Hollywood’s “propaganda machine” is supposed to do. However, since innocent people have been wrongly executed, it’s a valid concern. It just would be nice if Hollywood would entertain without politics. But we all know that’s a lost cause. Kudos, though, for showing that prayers can be answered miraculously just when we least expect it. But don’t think Christians will soon forget how they’ve been treated by Hollywood.

MRC’s Hamill Blasts MSNBC Over John Legend Interview Lies About Trump on Newsmax

MRC contributing writer Stephanie Hamill was a guest on Tuesday’s The Balance on Newsmax with host Eric Bolling where they examined a recent interview of singer John Legend with host Jen Psaki on MSNBC, where he accused former President Donald Trump of ‘being racist to his core’  –– this of course without any real evidence.  Legend's commentary was met with no push back or further questions. Instead, Psaki appeared to just shake her head in agreement.  Hamill: When it comes to Donald Trump, I mean the Hollywood people don't like him because of his politics. They all sing the same tune and use the same regurgitated talking points, –– which is exactly what he's doing. MSNBC brought him on for a purpose, which is, Biden is doing so poorly in the polls, they're rolling out the Hollywood people to try to help boost him. But as we saw in 2016, that actually didn't really get Hillary Clinton over the finish line, if you will. So many Americans are tired of these Hollywood people lecturing us on how to vote. But then they come out and just, you know, roll out all these blatant lies. You have to wonder where the fact checkers are on this.   

Column: Leftist Reporters Pretend They're Not Partisan News Squashers

Eight years ago, the leftist media took great offense to being dismissed by Donald Trump as “fake news,” but they never seemed to grasp this is exactly how they painted the conservative media, as truth-defying propaganda outlets. When the Trump trial turned to the National Enquirer, we could find national unity that the Enquirer defines “fake news.” The lefties are very excited to remind voters how the Enquirer was a Trump-allied tabloid full of garbage stories. But the liberal media spread some of them. In May 2016, the Enquirer uncorked some garbage that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) had cheated on his wife. ABC, CBS, and NBC spent a combined 15 and a half minutes spreading the word of this character assassination campaign. The pro-Biden “media reporters” are still upset this week about the Enquirer and how they played “catch and kill” with Trump accusers, squelching stories that might embarrass Trump. NPR’s David Folkenflik complained to MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace that burying salacious stories is “not a journalistic impulse, it's not even a tabloid gossip impulse, this is essentially a partisan or propagandistic arm of the Trump campaign in all but name." This is coming from NPR, which aggressively trashed the Hunter Biden laptop story as a “pure distraction.” Folkenflik engaged with the story only to dismiss it as “a story marked more by red flags than investigative rigor." When The New York Times and The Washington Post published stories acknowledging Hunter’s laptop was real in March and April of 2022, Folkenflik didn’t file a story with his regrets. He just kept attacking Fox News, his usual bread and butter. So on the Hunter laptop, we can throw it back in Folkenflik’s face – NPR’s suppression was not a journalistic impulse, and NPR was essentially a propagandistic arm of the Biden campaign in all but name. Worse yet, we fund it with our taxes. That gravy train should end. Ex-CNN reporter Brian Stelter said the same thing on Joy Reid’s MSNBC show about the Enquirer: “It has nothing to do with journalism.” David Pecker’s “not a news man. He’s an advertiser! He’s a marketer, and his product was Donald Trump.” Thanks, Sherlock Stelter. Nobody should define Mr. Pecker as a news man. Like Folkenflik, Stelter squashed the Hunter Biden laptop in 2020 as a Murdoch plot, or as a Russian disinformation campaign, because CNN’s a marketer and its product was anyone but Trump (meaning Joe Biden). Stelter also showed up on Alex Wagner’s MSNBC show. Wagner was hopping mad, asking what’s the point of a gag order on Trump when you have a “media-industrial complex that is effectively acting as a public defense line” for Trump? Once again, Wagner can’t imagine MSNBC acting as a “media-industrial complex” for the Democrats. So does Wagner wish the judge could issue a gag order for the entire conservative media landscape? No criticism allowed of the get-Trump prosecutors and judge? I thought this was a democracy. Stelter broke out the usual bravado that the liberals live on “Earth One,” and they must see what’s happening on “Earth Two,” which is an alternative universe of hallucinations. Stelter claimed “For Jesse Watters, Trump is God, and that is the programming every hour of every day on these other networks.” That sounds like some crazy religion. Would Stelter survive a little fact check on whether Fox and Newsmax perpetually pray hourly to the Orange Lord and Savior? Both sides suggest the other side of the media is fake. But both sides are slinging a lot of opinionated hot takes, and Stelter can certainly flip a flapjack on that skillet.

Networks OMIT Removal of Secret Service Agent From VP Harris’s Detail

Yet another major scandal is swirling around the Secret Service. This time, a member of Vice President Kamala Harris’ protective detail was removed due to an incident including what appears to be an apparently violent mental health episode. But none of the evening network newscasts picked the story up. Per CBS News: Washington — A U.S. Secret Service agent assigned to Vice President Kamala Harris exhibited "distressing behavior" Monday morning at Joint Base Andrews and was hospitalized, authorities said. Harris was not present at the airbase at the time. In a statement provided to CBS News, the U.S. Secret Service said that at about 9 a.m. local time Monday, the agent "began displaying behavior their colleagues found distressing. The agent was removed from their assignment while medical personnel were summoned." Two sources briefed on the situation told CBS News the agent spouted gibberish, was speaking incoherently and provoked another officer physically. According to sources, the agent in question pushed the special agent in charge while they were near the lounge of Joint Base Andrews. Harris was at the Naval Observatory at the time, USSS said, and the incident had "no impact on her departure from Joint Base Andrews." Sources said it occurred about one hour before Harris arrived at the airbase for a flight to Wisconsin. The Secret Service has not been without problems, going back to the Obama years and the scandal involving agents carousing with prostitutes in Colombia. Since then, agents have been successful in avoiding overseas prostitutes. Unfortunately, they’ve been unsuccessful in avoiding President Biden’s dogs and their teeth.  This more recent scandal involving the meltdown of an agent on the Vice President’s detail goes beyond the facts of what happened on Monday at Joint Base Andrews. Per Real Clear Politics: An incident involving a physical attack by a female Secret Service agent tasked with protecting Vice President Kamala Harris is raising questions about whether the agency had thoroughly vetted her during her hiring and whether an ongoing push to increase the numbers of women in the service and boost overall workforce staff played a role in her selection.   It appears that the Secret Service signed on to an initiative to ensure that the agency is no less than 30% female. There are now very serious questions over whether this particular agent, a former law enforcement officer with a very questionable shooting on her record, should’ve even been in the Secret Service to begin with.  This isn’t just a scandal about a Secret Service agent having a meltdown but is now about DEI, and whether self-imposed diversity mandates at the Secret Service could have potentially placed the Vice President’s life at risk. And that’s the reason why this story, so far, has gone entirely unreported on the major evening network newscasts. But we'll be watching.

THE PUREST VICTIM: NBC Absolves Biden From Role In Current Inflation

We’ve often said that the Regime Media, often cast President Joe Biden as the truest, purest victim of whatever calamity they happen to be reporting on. And so it is with inflation, which is at or near the top of the list of voter concerns ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Here is how NBC Chief White House Correspondent Peter Alexander began his report on inflation: PETER ALEXANDER: Tonight after more than a year and a half of strong spending, some of the steam is now coming out of the economy. The GDP rate slowing to 1.6% in the first three months of this year. Well below expectations. STEVE LEISMAN: What it means is that the core of the economy, business and consumer spending, is doing just fine. Inflation numbers, they are not fine. ALEXANDER: Inflation, while down from 40-year highs just a couple of years ago remains stubborn. Those consumer prices we all pay, up nearly 3.5% a bigger jump than just three months ago. This perfectly sums up the report inasmuch as it throws out a lot of figures but does not assign responsibility. There is no explanation of HOW things got to where they are- only commiseration over these things that seem to have randomly happened. There is the lamentation over the slowing of the economy, but no explanation as to why there is a slowing. There is the interview fragment with the registered dietitian mom who deals with high food prices by limiting herself to two grocery bags. But again, there is no explanation as to HOW food got so expensive. Nor is there any discussion of how a dietitian gets to the point of creating a hard “two bags” rule due to high food prices. The report closes out with both a weird non-sequitur about families going on vacation despite inflation, and dismay over the effects of persistent inflation upon the Fed rate cuts everybody was hyping just a few months ago. This story, unlike the recent CBS story over “sticker shock”, acknowledges the existence of President Biden. But it is only to cast him as the purest and cleanest victim of inflation- as opposed to its chief instigator. If it weren’t for Regime Media, we’d have none at all. Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on NBC Nightly News on Thursday, April 25th, 2024: LESTER HOLT: New evidence about how the high prices we’re still paying for so many things are slowing down the economy, while President Biden tries to maintain a positive message. Peter Alexander now with the latest. PETER ALEXANDER: Tonight after more than a year and a half of strong spending, some of the steam is now coming out of the economy. The GDP rate slowing to 1.6% in the first three months of this year. Well below expectations. STEVE LEISMAN: What it means is that the core of the economy, business and consumer spending, is doing just fine. Inflation numbers, they are not fine. ALEXANDER: Inflation, while down from 40-year highs just a couple of years ago remains stubborn. Those consumer prices we all pay, up nearly 3.5% a bigger jump than just three months ago. Taking its toll on Christy Coughlin and her family in Bend, Oregon.  You're a registered dietitian. Food is your life. So how have your grocery shopping habits changed? CHRISTY COUGHLIN: We decided to use the one bag rule or two bags….both filled up. And once those bags are full, we'll walk out. It really eliminates impulse buys. ALEXANDER: In Syracuse, New York today, President Biden optimistic about the economy. JOE BIDEN: America manufacturing is back. That’s what it is- it's a comeback story creating new jobs, new businesses, new hope. ALEXANDER: But with most Americans disapproving of his handling of the economy, the president has some convincing to do before the election this fall. Still, as summer comes, despite higher costs, Americans are willing to spend to get away. At Dollywood theme parks in Tennessee, they're on pace to surpass last year's record attendance. American families booking further in advance and coming from farther away. These latest figures complicate the Fed's decision about when it could finally cut interest rates, reinforcing concerns that borrowing costs for consumers and businesses could stay higher for longer. Lester. HOLT: All right, Peter Alexander at The White House. Thank you.  

Everyone Point and Laugh at Team Biden Hating the NYT for Not Being Liberal Enough

In need of a laugh? Check out this unintentionally comical story running 3,850 words from Thursday in Politico about the Biden regime’s apparently disgust with The New York Times: “The Petty Feud Between the NYT and the White House; Biden’s people think they’re ‘entitled.’ The Times says ‘they’re not being realistic.’” In short, Politico’s Eli Stokols revealed the Biden campaign and White House are up in arms with The Times for being what they’ve come to believe are insufficiently loyal to The Cause of liberalism and not antagonistic enough toward Donald Trump given democracy supposedly being on the line in November. The comical tale of liberal eating themselves began with a seemingly innocuous mix-up between a Times reporter not on the White House beat being unaware with how to attribute quotes from a junior White House press aide becoming a hissy fit that resulted in the Times temporarily being kicked off the administration’s “‘tier one’ email list for background information about various briefings and other materials”. “Biden’s closest aides had come to see the Times as arrogant, intent on setting its own rules and unwilling to give Biden his due. Inside the paper’s D.C. bureau, the punitive response seemed to typify a press operation that was overly sensitive and determined to control coverage of the president,” Stokols explained. Stokols further summarized his tome as based on “interviews with two dozen people on both sides” about “the relationship between the Democratic president and the country’s newspaper of record — for years the epitome of a liberal press in the eyes of conservatives” that’s become “remarkably tense, beset by misunderstandings, grudges and a general lack of trust.” Here came the first of many laughers as Stokols proclaimed that “the Times is unique, reflecting the resentment of a president with a working-class sense of himself and his team toward a news organization catering to an elite audience — and a deep desire for its affirmation of their work.” Biden? “[W]orking-class sense of himself”? Please. Not surprisingly, Team Biden must think they’re owed Obama-like snuff pieces seeing as how, in their mind, The Times has “fall[en] short in a make-or-break moment for American democracy, stubbornly refusing to adjust its coverage” away from “impartial neutrality, often blurring the asymmetries between former President Donald Trump and Biden when it comes to their perceived flaws” when America itself is at stake. Stokols further explained with more hilarious prose and revealed the resentment dates back to Biden not being The Times’s preferred candidate in the 2020 Democratic primary (click “expand”): Biden aides largely view the election as an existential choice for the country, high stakes that they believe justify tougher tactics toward the Times and the press as a whole. Some Times reporters have found themselves cut off by sources after publishing pieces the Bidens and top aides didn’t like. Columnist Maureen Dowd, for example, complained to colleagues that she stopped hearing from White House officials after a column on Hunter Biden. For many Times veterans, such actions suggest that the Trump era has warped many Democrats’ expectations of journalists. “They’re not being realistic about what we do for a living,” Bumiller told me. “You can be a force for democracy, liberal democracy. You don’t have to be a force for the Biden White House.” [A]ides to Biden...said they didn’t know anyone on the politics team well. “Unlike some outlets, the Times just never invested in a reporter who really knew and understood Biden and his appeal,” said one former campaign staffer. “And the coverage reflected that.” (....) While Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren was gaining ground in early polls and enjoying positive early coverage, stories about Biden in the Times frequently depicted him as a relic, out of step with younger, more liberal primary voters and, following defeats in the early contests, poorly organized. Although it had nothing to do with the newsroom, the Opinion page’s double endorsement of Warren and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota....helped cement Biden world’s view that the Times was out of touch with the broader electorate — an electorate personified by the Times security guard who gushed over Biden in the Times elevator as he was headed up for his interview with the editorial board. (....) Biden aides, who spent months privately imploring the paper’s editors and reporters not to write him off too early in the cycle, still hold a grudge under the belief that the paper was institutionally aligned toward Warren and progressives. Worse yet, Team Biden resented the fact that The Times would even acknowledge Hunter Biden’s life of ruin (even if they were part of the 2020 coverup of Hunter’s laptop). Stokols later pointed out The Times has “devoted pages of coverage to the president’s early legislative successes”, but none of that has mattered to the regime as a “focus on Biden’s advanced age and his low numbers in the NYT’s approval poll have frustrated the president and top aides to no end.” Once again, the White House is apparently gnashing its teeth over the paper even entertaining the slightest allusions to Biden’s age and other concerns or critiques because, in their eyes, their friends in the media should be wholly focused on the danger of Trump. In other words, stories like these, these, these, and these are verboten (despite stories like this one and this one that do what their elected overlords want). Along with those gripes, check out the hilarious quotes from two Times leaders about their supposed impartiality, including claims they “don’t” “put [our] thumb on the scale” and instead “hold power to account” everyday (click “expand”): The Times’ chief White House correspondent, Peter Baker, whose stories about Biden’s age have regularly strummed a particularly sensitive nerve, told me that the administration’s frustrations over his and his colleagues’ coverage wasn’t all that unique. “Every White House I’ve covered complains about our coverage. It comes with the territory,” he said. “But because of Trump, there’s this new assumption that the New York Times and other media are supposed to put their thumb on the scale and take sides and we don’t do that.” Privately, other Times reporters who have engaged with the Biden White House and campaign view the frustration with the paper as a misguided effort to control its coverage. Beyond that, they believe writing about Trump with the stronger language Biden aides seem to want would likely do more to affect the newspaper’s brand, and the public’s trust in it, than Trump’s. “We haven’t been tough enough on Trump? I mean, give me a break,” Bumiller responded when I asked about that oft-heard complaint. “Have they read our coverage? I don’t have to go through all the things we have covered on Trump so I just — we just do our jobs.” Still, the White House and campaign officials most incensed by the Times’ coverage often trace their outrage back to Trump, who they see as a true threat to American democracy and, by extension, a free press...[t]hey viewed the matter as bigger than their or even Biden’s self-interest, expressing aggravation over the Times’ determination to maintain its neutral voice of God approach to an election that, in their view, is a matter of democracy’s survival. When describing their grievances with the Times, almost every Biden administration and campaign official used the word “entitled” to characterize the institution writ large and several of the individuals within the newsroom, where “Timesian” is an adjective routinely deployed without irony. Those officials described reporters who refused to correct minor errors or mischaracterizations in stories or those who haven’t been willing to engage with anyone besides the most senior administration officials. That said, many White House officials maintain productive working relationships with most of the Times reporters who cover the beat. Bumiller and other Times White House reporters note that it’s always been the newspaper’s prerogative to determine what to cover and how. “This is pretty much par for the course,” Bumiller said. “No White House has ever been happy with our coverage and I don’t see why they should be. Our job is to hold power to account.” The end of Stokols’s piece revolved around a story in Semafor about off-the-record visits by news organizations to Biden’s reelection headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware to meet with staff and specifically that details of The Times’s visit leaked out. “Times reporters believe the leak had to have come from the campaign, the only ones who’d have had knowledge of all the meetings. And it led to conversations on the politics staff about whether to even engage with Wilmington in an off-the-record capacity. But campaign aides are certain the leak came from the Times side,” he explained. But the most public backlash to the piece on Thursday came from the other half of the piece, which alleged The Times’s coverage of Biden has been dictated by publisher AG Sulzberger’s annoyance with the President refusing to sit for an interview with Times reporters. On that, he would admittedly have a point as Biden has only given two print interviews thus far with one going to AP backscratcher Josh Boak and the other to his own personal biographer, Evan Osnos, to publish in The New Yorker. In response, multiple Times personalities have lashed out and denied these claims of retribution and a spokesperson sent out a lengthy statement pushing back. Go figure.

ABC, CBS Whine About Schools Cracking Down on Pro-Hamas Encampments

While NBC’s Today was praising the resolve of the anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas students encamped at Columbia University on Thursday, ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS Mornings lamented that other schools were cracking down and forcefully removing the encampments. They were also dismayed by the hundreds of arrests that were made. “Now, to another tense day of protests over Israel's war in Gaza. Those protests taking place on college campuses now all across the country. From coast to coast, hundreds of people have been arrested in Massachusetts, Texas, and California,” decried CBS Mornings co-anchor Natalie Morales. Completely ignoring the video evidence of the crowd chanting their “love” of Hamas and the signs saying Jewish counter-protesters should be murdered, CBS correspondent Nancy Chen reported: “Here at Columbia University, students say their encampment is peaceful.” According to Chen, the police were the problem. “Overnight, chaos erupted as police tried to break up a pro-Palestinian encampment at Emerson College in Boston,” she said. “On Wednesday, demonstrators clashed with school security at USC in Los Angeles after school police ordered students to move their encampment.” Chen also decried the rallies authorities were able to shut down. “By nighttime, police shut the gates to the school and pushed pro-Palestinian protesters out. Also on Wednesday, hundreds gathered at the University of Texas at Austin where they were met with a show of force, as well,” she lamented.     Over on Good Morning America, correspondent Trevor Ault also bemoaned the successful crackdowns. He huffed that “up to 100 protesters [were] arrested at Emerson College after they “attempt[ed] to form a human wall to stop police.” “Police at the University of Southern California arresting 93 people while removing tents and clearing protesters from a Gaza solidarity camp, one precinct now full of arrested protesters,” he noted. He reported that one of ABC’s reporters, Mireya Villareal, was caught up in the crackdown at the University of Texas at Austin where they “used horses to disperse crowds.” “A cameraman filming the demonstration, grabbed by police and thrown to the ground,” he added, editing out the part where the Fox 7 Austin cameraman named Carlos ran up and used his camera as a weapon to ram into an officer.   What NOT to do, as a member of the press: Ram a police officer with your camera.pic.twitter.com/V1iiEl7XKX — Bree A Dail (@breeadail) April 24, 2024   Ault didn’t seem to like that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) threatened to pull federal funding from the schools that were allowing anti-Semitism and threats to Jewish students, nor Johnson’s encouragement to bring in the National Guard: AULT: The Speaker telling our Linsey Davis schools could lose federal funding. JOHNSON: They've been camped on the campus. They are threatening people with their lives and they are preventing them from exercising their freedom. That's the limit. That's the line. [Cuts back to live] AULT: And Speaker Johnson even said it's possible they could call in the National Guard to these schools if needed. At least when Chen reported that Johnson had said Columbian had been “taken over by a radical and extreme ideology,” she admitted he was, “Citing several recent incidents of anti-Semitic language by protesters on and off campus.” The transcripts are below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s Good Morning America April 25, 2024 7:08:16 a.m. Eastern (…) TREVOR AULT: This morning the nationwide movement of campus demonstrations leading to sometimes violent. Overnight at Emerson College in Boston, protesters attempting to form a human wall to stop police moving in, up to 100 protesters arrested. Police at the University of Southern California arresting 93 people while removing tents and clearing protesters from a Gaza solidarity camp, one precinct now full of arrested protesters. These tense moments after a scuffle between officers in riot gear and a pro-Palestinian group, the university now closed to anyone but students. JAKE PUZEL (USC student): It makes me feel threatened and intimidated and I think the anti-Semitic rhetoric must be condemned by the university. AULT: An unauthorized protest breaking out at the University of Texas in Austin. Dozens arrested as officers used horses to disperse crowds. Some nearly crashing into our Mireya Villareal, who was on the scene. A camera man filming the demonstration, grabbed by police and thrown to the ground. Similar encampments springing up at Brown University and Harvard. And at Columbia, university officials extending a deadline to remove this large encampment to Thursday night as negotiations with students continue. SPOH ASKANASE (Pro-Hamas Barnard College student): Myself, my peer, my colleagues, my friend, we're not going to stop. We're not going to rest. We will stand here until the university divests from Israeli apartheid and their genocidal campaign in Gaza. AULT: House Speaker Mike Johnson visiting campus, criticizing school officials for allowing the continued demonstrations. SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): We just can't allow this kind of hatred and anti-Semitism to flourish on our campuses. [Transition] They have chased down Jewish students. They have mocked them and reviled them. They have shouted racial epithets. AULT: The Speaker telling our Linsey Davis schools could lose federal funding. JOHNSON: They've been camped on the campus. They are threatening people with their lives and they are preventing them from exercising their freedom. That's the limit. That's the line. [Cuts back to live] AULT: And Speaker Johnson even said it's possible they could call in the National Guard to these schools if needed. (…) CBS Mornings April 25, 2024 7:07:47 a.m. Eastern NATALIE MORALES: Now, to another tense day of protests over Israel's war in Gaza. Those protests taking place on college campuses now all across the country. From coast to coast, hundreds of people have been arrested in Massachusetts, Texas, and California. Nancy Chen is at Columbia University once again for us. It has been a flashpoint there for more than a week now. Nancy, good morning. NANCY CHEN: Natalie, good morning to you. Here at Columbia University, students say their encampment is peaceful. Meantime, at colleges across the country it has been a very different picture over the past 24 hours. [Cuts to video] Overnight, chaos erupted as police tried to break up a pro-Palestinian encampment at Emerson College in Boston. As the latest flashpoint in a growing movement at campuses nationwide protesting Israel's war in Gaza. On Wednesday, demonstrators clashed with school security at USC in Los Angeles after school police ordered students to move their encampment. RANDA SWEISS (Pro-Hamas protester): Both sides of my family were displaced from Palestine, and I'm here using my voice because my grandparents couldn't. CHEN: By nighttime, police shut the gates to the school and pushed pro-Palestinian protesters out. Also on Wednesday, hundreds gathered at the University of Texas at Austin where they were met with a show of force, as well. In New York, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson was interrupted by loud booing during his visit to Columbia University. The epicenter of demonstrations calling for cutting all school financial ties to Israel and amnesty for students punished for participating in protests. He claimed the university is being taken over by a radical and extreme ideology. PRO-HAMAS ANTI-SEMITIC PROTESTER: Go back to Poland! CHEN: Citing several recent incidents of anti-Semitic language by protesters on and off campus. (…)

The ‘Mary Poppins’ of Censorship Is Back — Again!

The winds have unfortunately changed and brought the former director of the defunct Disinformation Governance Board back — and with her a new censorship organization. Nina Jankowicz, the self-proclaimed “Mary Poppins of disinformation,” announced her newest censorship venture, The American Sunlight Project. During an interview with CNN’s America’s Choice, Jankowicz described her group as “bipartisan” and “big tent,” claiming to “represent people on both sides of the political spectrum.” But as is often the case with these allegedly neutral censorship efforts that attack free speech, bipartisanship seems to be the spoonful of sugar that helps the bias go down. Apparently, nobody told Jankwicz that if you want to be considered “bipartisan,” maybe don’t attack Republicans and “conservative media,” calling them “extremists” in a welcome blog on your website. “Since April 2022, extremists have been running a campaign to undermine critical disinformation research ahead of the 2024 election and beyond,” the group wrote, linking to an article from The New York Times titled “How Trump’s Allies Are Winning the War Over Disinformation.” The group continued, “Encompassing elected officials, conservative media, attorneys, paid-for ‘journalists,’ and online influencers, the campaign has falsely claimed the Federal Government is overseeing a vast censorship regime in coordination with social media platforms, academic institutions, and civil society organizations.” The American Sunlight Project seems to be dismissing the very real concerns that came from The Twitter files and The Facebook Files, which showed executive branch agencies and non-profit groups pressuring Big Tech companies and their employees a censor posts. The new group even sent a carefully worded letter to the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government condemning the committee’s investigations into Big Tech-government collusion and calling for more transparency. Jankowicz has even repeatedly painted so-called “disinformation” researchers, censors really, as victims of government oversight and public criticism, and her new group is following suit. In its welcome blog, The American Sunlight Project even went so far as to call these researchers “canaries in the coal mine” who are being “snuffed out” and “intimidated” by the Select Subcommittee’s investigations. The group placed an emphasis on being not only bipartisan but also transparent. And yet when asked about her donors in an interview with The New York Times, Jankowicz kept her donors in the shadows and out of the “Sunlight.” Jankowicz was previously the director of the now-defunct Disinformation Governance Board, also known as the Ministry of Truth. She was criticized heavily in 2022 for her support of Twitter’s fact-checking program “Bird Watch” and “demoting content.” She also repeatedly framed, without evidence, the New York Post’‘s Hunter Biden laptop story as Russian propaganda. 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 Gloats Over Biden Killing U.S. Energy: ‘Signals the End of Coal in the United States’

The left’s cheerleaders at CNN had only good things to say about President Joe Biden’s latest anti-energy power grab.  During the April 25 edition of CNN News Central, CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir celebrated the impending demise of a major American energy source, enthusing, “This is really, really significant and essentially signals the end of coal as a power source in the United States.” Weir's upbeat reporting referred to the new EPA rules on coal and natural gas, which the Biden-led EPA announced on Thursday. Weir and CNN Anchor John Berman spent a segment discussing how the EPA’s rules would impact climate emissions. Yet, the CNN duo spent not a single second on how this might impact American jobs, energy independence, grid reliability or states and communities depend on coal revenue.  Although the EPA claimed the new rules were designed to avoid “disrupting the delivery of reliable electricity,” Weir admitted to CNN viewers that the coal industry did not have the technology to comply with these regulations. “Four new rule changes,” Weir said of the EPA announcement, “they also include cutting down on the neurotoxin Mercury … but the big one is this new rule that would require coal-fired plants to reduce 90% of their planet-cooking pollution and right now there's not really a technology capable of doing that.” He continued, “The industry has never really taken carbon capture and sequestration seriously in the United States, and so it will essentially push most of the remaining 200 or so coal-fired plants out of business—about a quarter of them are scheduled to retire anyway.”  The regulation also cracks down on new natural gas plants. This means that the Biden EPA is not only obliterating coal-fired power plants that many Americans depend on but also ensuring that the country can’t replace them with another cheap energy source.  Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) agreed that the rule was designed to kill the coal industry, but responded with the compassion entirely missing at CNN. “Electricity demand is soaring, but Biden's EPA is killing reliable electricity production,” he wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter). “EPA's new rule would kill coal powerplants - which produce 20% of US electricity - forcing dependence on unreliable wind & solar. This will destroy the American way of life & empower China.” CNN didn’t explore this angle nor did they provide suggestions on how to cheaply replace one-fifth of America's energy. Instead, Weir told Berman that “Republican governors and utility lobbies” might object to these regulations to the Supreme Court. Tellingly, Berman and Weir did not explore why these utility companies might object.  According to West Virginia State Treasurer Riley Moore, his state gets “nearly a billion dollars in what’s called severance taxes from those fossil fuels,” which makes up a significant part of the state budget. This means that Biden’s EPA regulations would ultimately make it significantly harder for West Virginia to deliver on its obligations. 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.

In Defense of Speaker Mike Johnson

Author Herman Wouk captured well how to understand heroism. “Heroes are not supermen; they are good men who embody — by the cast of destiny — the virtue of their whole people in a great hour,” observed Wouk. We have today an American hero in the name of House Speaker Mike Johnson. Anyone with eyes open knows the world today is a very dangerous place. Johnson, a conservative Republican and a devout Christian, knows that the way for it to become even more dangerous is for the leader of the free world to withdraw from its responsibilities as such. In the face of threats from some within his own party, in the face of the possibility of a purge like that which happened to his predecessor Kevin McCarthy, Johnson stepped up, rounded up 101 Republican votes in the House and, together with Democrats, passed a $95 billion military aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. As a Christian, Johnson understands that there is no understanding of what freedom is without appreciation that there is good and evil in this world. Our tendency in our country is to emphasize individual rights when we think about freedom. But the equal and opposite side of rights is responsibilities. Without responsibility, whether as individuals or as a nation, freedom is gone. As President Ronald Reagan famously observed, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.” Speaking to reporters after the vote, Johnson noted that this is a “critical time” and that “Xi (China) and Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil.” This is not a matter of our nation aspiring to be the world’s policeman. It is matter of knowing that the force of evil cannot be ignored and the price of believing that it can be ignored only grows and becomes increasingly more dangerous. Is this a matter of focusing abroad at the expense of what is happening at home? Certainly not. If a hero, in the words of Herman Wouk, embodies the “virtue” of his or her people, how do we define the virtue of the American people? It’s about the principles of a free nation under God. We also face great danger at home as we have departed from these principles. The $95 billion that will go in aid abroad is peanuts compared to what we waste at home in spending programs that do nothing. The Biden administration has appropriated $80 billion to the IRS to bolster tax collection. But at the same time, Biden has submitted a 2025 budget to Congress increasing federal spending by some $800 billion. We are now trillions of dollars in the red as result of bankrupt entitlement programs that are basically socialism. These programs are gushing red ink because they are not about, and never have been about, American principles of freedom and personal responsibility. We, of course, need to assure that those that immigrate to our country come to embrace the principles that make our country great. But Republicans need to contend with a president and his party who have long abandoned those principles. Enough Democrats do seem to understand the importance of defending our principles abroad, and here Republicans and Democrats must work together. So it’s not a matter of either/or. Freedom is about knowing that we have choices, that there is good and evil, and we must fight evil everywhere by choosing the good. Johnson has done us all a favor through his principles and courage. We have great challenges at home, but we cannot ignore what’s happening around us. Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education and host of the weekly television show “Cure America with Star Parker.” Her recent book, “What Is the CURE for America?” is available now. To find out more about Star Parker and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

CNN Wonders Why Johnson Cares About Anti-Semitism at Columbia

When Speaker Mike Johnson traveled to Columbia University on Wednesday to call for President Minouche Shafik's resignation, he was joined by CNN’s Erin Burnett who sat down with Johnson for an interview on OutFront. Burnett would claim that it was a good thing Johnson was booed or the situation might have spun out of control and also asked him why he cares so much about anti-Semitism at Columbia considering it is a private university. Previewing her interview, Burnett recalled, “They were, and I'm going to show you here, this is my cell phone video, chanting ‘Free Palestine,’ heckling, booing when Johnson called for the president of the school to resign. They were not friendly. They couldn't actually hear the Speaker, which I can tell you is a good thing, because much of what he said would have incensed that crowd.     During the recorded interview, Burnett wondered if Johnson was overreacting, “The NYPD, at least as of Monday, said they've not received a single call from Columbia University of reports of any physical harm.” Johnson pushed back: But you have to speak to these Jewish students who are in fear of their lives, who are cowering in their apartments right now, who are not coming to class. In fact, the administration recognized the threat was so great, they canceled classes. Now they've come out with this hybrid idea, ‘Well, if you're Jewish, maybe you do want to stay at home. Maybe you'd be better off for you.’ It is so discriminatory. It's so wrong in every way. The responsibility of a university administrator is to keep peace on campus and ensure the safety of students -- job number one. If they're incapable of doing that, they need different leadership. I think this is time for a really strong hand. Not convinced, Burnett tried again, “I'm trying to understand, though, why as Speaker of the House, this is an issue you would want to get involved with? It's a private university. It's an issue happening here. Why is this something that you are choosing to get involved in calling for the removal of the president of a private university?” Johnson, again, held firm, “Well, they receive federal funding as well. And Congress is looking at all of these aspects to determine how they're using those funds. Is that appropriate? If they can't fulfill their basic obligations, I don't think the American taxpayers want to be funding this kind of thing.” He also noted that it isn’t just students, “We know that professors are engaging in this as well, some of their professors. Some have been supportive of the Jewish your students, but I believe it's a small subset from what I'm told. They've allowed this to go on and it is not okay with the American people. This isn't a partisan issue. This is about right and wrong, and we've got to call it for what it is.” Burnett then asked, “And so, when -- when people talk about genocide and say that Israel is engaging in genocide, do you think that that is a legitimate conversation that they should be allowed to have as part of First Amendment rights here, or no?” Johnson reminded Burnett that he used to be a First Amendment lawyer when he answered, “when you shout down and physically threatened with intimidation and threats of violence the other side, that is not a peaceful expression, as peaceful -- peaceful exchange of ideas. That's something very different and that's what we're saying that they need to get control of.” Elsewhere in the interview, Burnett would ask, “The main thing they were chanting was ‘Free Palestine.’ How is that anti-Semitic?” and “Do you think that protesting the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, protesting the tens of thousands of innocent people who have died there is anti-Semitic in and of itself?” Both times Johnson would throw the blame back where it belongs: Hamas, but it should also be added that by “Free Palestine” many, if not most, of these people do not mean ending Israeli administration of certain parts of the West Bank. Rather, they mean Israel’s destruction and, yes, that is anti-Semitic. Here is a transcript for the April 24 show: CNN Erin Burnett OutFront 4/24/2024 7:57 PM ET ERIN BURNETT: They were, and I'm going to show you here, this is my cell phone video, chanting "free Palestine," heckling, booing when Johnson called for the president of the school to resign. They were not friendly. They couldn't actually hear the Speaker, which I can tell you is a good thing, because much of what he said would have incensed that crowd. … BURNETT: All right. So let me ask you about that because when it comes to that, the NYPD, at least as of Monday, said they've not received a single call from Columbia University of reports of any physical harm. MIKE JOHNSON: Well – BURNETT: No physical harm. JOHNSON: Right. But you have to speak to these Jewish students who are in fear of their lives, who are cowering in their apartments right now, who are not coming to class. In fact, the administration recognized the threat was so great, they canceled classes. Now they've come out with this hybrid idea, “Well, if you're Jewish, maybe you do want to stay at home. Maybe you'd be better off for you.” It is so discriminatory. It's so wrong in every way. The responsibility of a university administrator is to keep peace on campus and ensure the safety of students -- job number one. If they're incapable of doing that, they need different leadership. I think this is time for a really strong hand. BURNETT: I'm trying to understand, though, why as Speaker of the House, this is an issue you would want to get involved with? It's a private university. It's an issue happening here. Why is this something that you are choosing to get involved in calling for the removal of the president of a private university? JOHNSON: Well, they receive federal funding as well. And Congress is looking at all of these aspects to determine how they're using those funds. Is that appropriate? If they can't fulfill their basic obligations, I don't think the American taxpayers want to be funding this kind of thing. We know that professors are engaging in this as well, some of their professors. Some have been supportive of the Jewish your students, but I believe it's a small subset from what I'm told. They've allowed this to go on and it is not okay with the American people. This isn't a partisan issue. This is about right and wrong, and we've got to call it for what it is. BURNETT: And so, when -- when people talk about genocide and say that Israel is engaging in genocide, do you think that that is a legitimate conversation that they should be allowed to have as part of First Amendment rights here, or no? JOHNSON: Of course, look, I was a First Amendment lawyer for 20 years, I went to the courts and defendant the -- our First Amendment freedoms, religious expression, the right of free speech on campus. I litigated those cases. Of course, the university is supposed to be the free marketplace of ideas. But when you shout down and physically threatened with intimidation and threats of violence the other side, that is not a peaceful expression, as peaceful -- peaceful exchange of ideas. That's something very different and that's what we're saying that they need to get control of. When they camp out around the campus and they prevent students from exercising their rights, that's the problem. 

Top Ten Egregious Reasons to DEFUND NPR

Anyone who spends time reading about NPR on NewsBusters is going to roll their eyes when NPR executives blather about how they believe in "viewpoint diversity" and "inclusion" of important voices. It's readily apparent on a daily basis that NPR is a sandbox for left-wingers, polishing Democrats and punishing Republicans, touting liberal journalists as heroic and conservative journalists as a pox on the First Amendment. Coming up with a list of ten egregious examples to advocate for separating NPR from the taxpayers is difficult, because there are many more examples than just ten. We decided to limit it to the Trump era, since that's roughly how long Uri Berliner was complaining inside NPR. Anti-Patriotic Song. On July 4, 2018, NPR's All Things Considered ripped a classic Irving Berlin song under the headline “For 'God Bless America,' A Long Gestation And Venomous Backlash.” NPR reported that leftist folksinger Woody Guthrie thought it was "a whitewash of everything wrong in America" and that it’s “annoyed many” people (NPR staffers and audience members, surely) "who hear it as a tune of syrupy nationalism and trivialized faith." Pro-Marxism. On February 24, 2023, NPR On The Media host Brooke Gladstone touted The Communist Manifesto: "like Hamlet’s ghost, the Manifesto is both impossible and imperative in its call for action.” It’s a “stalwart text…it’s stirring! It scans!” For the oppressed, it’s “music for their dreams.” Her Marx-interpreting guest China Mieville said true communism has never been tried, and “If you see this new sadistic hard right as an inevitable feature of capitalism, then the stakes of moving beyond capitalism become ever more urgent.” Pro-Chinese Communism. On October 1, 2018, NPR’s Morning Edition celebrated the 70th anniversary of the communist takeover of China. Co-host Ailsa Chang was in Beijing to gush. “It's communist in name, but it is not the party of the proletariat; it's the party of state capitalism. And it's a party that promised to lift people out of poverty, which, you know, to be -- truth be told, it has done a spectacular job of.” Chang interviewed a young woman who said China was doing great, that “we know the leader would make steady, wise choice, unlike (laughter) the United States.” Pro-Looting. On August 27, 2020, NPR's blog "Code Switch," with the slogan "Race In Your Face," posted an interview promoting a new book titled In Defense of Looting. Natalie Escobar promoted author Emily Osterweil's view that “looting is a powerful tool to bring about real, lasting change in society. The rioters who smash windows and take items from stores, she says, are engaging in a powerful tactic that questions the justice of ‘law and order,’ and the distribution of property and wealth in an unequal society.” Pro-Rioting. On The NPR Politics Podcast on July 17, 2021, NPR reporter Danielle Kurtzleben brought on Yale law professor Elizabeth Hinton to promote her book on the acceptability of violence as a protest tactic against police. Kurtzleben explained: “You talk about these clashes as rebellions -- and quite pointedly, not as riots. It's a very meaningful choice. It really kind of shapes how the reader perceives these clashes.” Kurtlzeben proclaimed “It’s an excellent book!” Pro-Sabotage. On NPR’s Fresh Air on April 15, 2023, their movie critic John Powers praised the movie How to Blow Up a Pipeline, hailing it as “hugely timely” when “people are frustrated by society's inability, indeed unwillingness to even slow down ecological disasters like climate change.” The movie’s a fictional take on the Andreas Malm book of the same name – “the most compelling argument I’ve read for eco-sabotage,” proclaimed Powers. He praised the movie for treating the saboteurs not as villains or “parody radicals,” but as “ordinary people whose reasons we can sympathize with.” Pro-Abortion Audio. On November 3, 2022, NPR’s Morning Edition featured reporter Kate Wells at an abortion clinic in Detroit, and they actually aired audio of an abortion of an 11-week-old baby. The abortionist told the woman,“you’re going to hear this machine turn on now, okay? It makes a loud noise.” NPR’s website warned some “may find it disturbing.” The doctor advises the patient to breathe during the killing. When the baby is dead, an assistant tells the woman, “Don’t you ever tell yourself that you can’t do something.” Anti-“Fox Monster.” On 2021, NPR’s On The Media devoted an hour to what they called “Slaying the Fox Monster.” Host Bob Garfield said “we're discussing how the marketplace might force Fox News Channel into responsible behavior or even into financial catastrophe." (In 2022, NPR also promoted Fox-deplatforming activist Nandimi Jammi, who quipped “you can’t chop off Fox News’s head in a day.”) Treasonous Mitch? On NPR’s Fresh Air on October 1, 2018, host Terry Gross discussed emerging claims on Trump-Russia collusion, and she imagined Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell might be treasonous: “If it can be proven that McConnell knew that Russia was trying to interfere in our election and influence the outcome of it and then tried to cover it up, to deny that it was happening, is that treason? Is that, like, legally treason?” Washington Post reporter Greg Miller wouldn’t bite. Hunter Laptop Deniers. The most egregious example is NPR's red-hot loathing of Biden scandals. On October 20, 2020, NPR “Public Editor” Kelly McBride tweeted,  "Why haven't you seen any stories from NPR about the NY Post's Hunter Biden story?" She quoted Terence Samuel, NPR's Managing Editor for News. “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.” He dismissed the Post story as a “politically driven event.” Today, McBride’s tweet remains, but the link to her newsletter doesn’t work. Why haven't you seen any stories from NPR about the NY Post's Hunter Biden story? Read more in this week's newsletter➡️ https://t.co/CJesPgmGvo pic.twitter.com/jAi7PnpbZf — NPR Public Editor (@NPRpubliceditor) October 22, 2020

‘Aren’t Going Anywhere’: NBC Praises Resolve of Anti-Semitic, Pro-Hamas Columbia Students

NBC’s Today kicked off their show Thursday by hyping up and lionizing the anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas extremists calling for the murder of Jews at Columbia University. Completely ignoring the video evidence of the crowd chanting their “love” of Hamas and the signs saying Jewish counter-protesters should be murdered, NBC correspondent Stephanie Gosk boasted of their resolve to stay encamped on campus “until their demands are met.” “Columbia University extended the deadline from the tent encampment here by 48 hours, but that deadline runs out tonight at midnight and the students I’ve spoken with here say they aren't going anywhere,” she touted at the top of her report. Gosk did fret that “tension around the country is growing, it's spreading, it's leading to dramatic confrontations with police and dozens of arrests.” She seemed disheartened that people were growing tired of the pro-Hamas rallies with some schools cracking down: The temperature this morning on some college campuses reaching a boiling point. A growing number of protests forming over the ongoing war in the Middle East at campuses across the country, some leading to standoffs including the University of Texas at Austin. Students and police clashing during protests Wednesday. More than 30 were taken into custody. Protesters gathered outside the jail, with some faculty saying in a statement they would not work today. And overnight, police and protesters clashing at the University of Southern California. Officers hit with objects arrested more than 90 people, though it's unclear how many were students.     Ignoring videos of the Columbia students chanting things like “Hamas we love you! We support your rockets too,” Gosk tried to water down their anti-Semitism with propaganda from the terrorist-linked Center for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) about the rise in Islamophobia. “The tensions rising nationwide as reports of anti-Semitism and islamophobia have skyrocketed since last October, with the Anti-Defamation League and Center for American Islamic Relations each reporting record high complaints,” she reported. In wrapping up her report, Gosk marveled at the Columbia encampment and commended the anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas extremists on “how well organized they are” and how “they have a lot of food coming in, they have good tents, the weather is not that bad.” “They say they are willing to stay here until their demands are met even if it means weeks,” she beamed. Gosk didn’t seem to show enough journalistic curiosity to ask who was paying for all that food and those good tents. But she did anticipate that a clash between the extremists and the police would soon occur, noting: “And in three weeks, this campus is going to have its graduation and it takes place exactly where that tent encampment is set up right now.” The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: NBC’s Today April 25, 2024 7:04:07 a.m. Eastern (…) STEPHANIE GOSK: You know, Columbia University extended the deadline from the tent encampment here by 48 hours, but that deadline runs out tonight at midnight and the students I’ve spoken with here say they aren't going anywhere. As you mentioned tension around the country is growing, it's spreading, it's leading to dramatic confrontations with police and dozens of arrests. [Cuts to video] The temperature this morning on some college campuses reaching a boiling point. A growing number of protests forming over the ongoing war in the Middle East at campuses across the country, some leading to standoffs including the University of Texas at Austin. Students and police clashing during protests Wednesday. More than 30 were taken into custody. Protesters gathered outside the jail, with some faculty saying in a statement they would not work today. And overnight, police and protesters clashing at the university of Southern California. Officers hit with objects arrested more than 90 people, though it's unclear how many were students. And back on the east coast a dramatic scene at Emerson College; where students are encamped on an alleyway in the middle of downtown Boston. Police and demonstrators facing off. The tensions rising nationwide as reports of anti-Semitism and islamophobia have skyrocketed since last October, with the Anti-Defamation League and Center for American Islamic Relations each reporting record high complaints. (…) 7:06:39 a.m. Eastern HODA KOTB: Steph, it seems like every day we're reporting on another campus where these protests are breaking out. So, what happens next? GOSK: Well, they're here to stay, according to the students I've spoken with here at Columbia. And we were walking around that encampment yesterday Hoda and I was struck by how well organized they are, they have a lot of food coming in, they have good tents, the weather is not that bad. They say they are willing to stay here until their demands are met even if it means weeks. And in three weeks, this campus is going to have its graduation and it takes place exactly where that tent encampment is set up right now, Hoda. KOTB: All right. Stephanie Gosk for us there at Columbia. Steph, thank you. (…)

Buckle Up: CCP-Tied TikTok Announces ‘Conspiracy Theories’ Counteroffensive

Communist Chinese government-tied TikTok is doubling down on election-interfering censorship even as it faces a potential U.S. ban. President Joe Biden signed into law a Republican-led bill that could force TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell the app or have it banned in America. TikTok came under fire for a March update to its “For You feed Eligibility Standards,” where the app announced its determination to censor alleged “misinformation,” “conspiracy theories” and “false or misleading” election content. This could constitute foreign election interference ahead of the 2024 election, as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) owns a board seat and maintains a financial stake in TikTok’s parent company ByteDance. TikTok’s update to its “Standards” details the alleged “Misinformation” it bans specifically for the “For You” feed, including “General conspiracy theories that are unfounded and claim that certain events or situations are carried out by covert or powerful groups, such as ‘the government’ or a ‘secret society.’” Can TikTok be trusted to determine what constitutes “Misinformation” unbiasedly? The platform's record suggests it cannot. TikTok has censored content to please the CCP in the past, including about Tibetan independence and Tiananmen Square, leaks have suggested. As for accusations against the American government, at least some of those would fall under the category of free speech.  MRC Free Speech America VP Dan Schneider said, “It is a fact, not a conspiracy theory, that the Biden administration coordinated and coerced Big Tech to censor conservatives who criticized Biden and his radical policies. But with Biden using TikTok as the centerpiece of his re-election campaign, it is now very possible that TikTok will do his bidding and hide this kind of information from voters.” Moreover, the Chinese-owned app’s standards also ramble vaguely about additional content that could get censored: “Unverified information related to an emergency or unfolding event where the details are still emerging” and “Potential high-harm misinformation while it is undergoing a fact-checking review.” The lack of clarity in these standards could lead to biased censorship of free speech. Finally, TikTok declared its ban on alleged “[u]nverified claims about the outcome of an election that is still unfolding and may be false or misleading.” The app does have indirect ties to the Chinese government which makes this new policy particularly dangerous. Multiple former TikTok employees recently told Forbes that the app has much closer ties and extensive data sharing between TikTok and ByeDance. This raises serious concerns about TikTok’s potential election interference. 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 while providing transparency. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

MRC’s Bozell Condemns Facebook Election Interference, Unveils Its No. 1 ‘Target’ for Censorship

MRC President Brent Bozell once again condemned Facebook's repeated election interference detailed in a bombshell MRC Free Speech America’s Special Report. During a Thursday morning interview with WMAL-FM’s Larry O’Connor, Bozell reiterated the findings featured in the report: Facebook has interfered in U.S. elections a whopping total of 39 times since 2008.  Bozell suggested that the censorship was vast and overwhelmingly biased, including “candidates,” “political action committees” and “organizations that either support a Republican or criticize a Democrat.” ICYMI! See MRC Free Speech America’s Harrowing Findings on Facebook “Target number one was Trump, and he was the target in two different ways,” Bozell said, detailing how Facebook banned the then-sitting president in 2021, while coincidentally strangling “any coverage of anything that would hurt Joe Biden.” Earlier in the interview, an appalled O'Connor asked Bozell to describe the implications of the MRC findings, which he described as “insidious interference.”  To this, the MRC president replied that election interference by way of censorship leaves Americans without knowledge “about the issues of the day” because of the deliberate actions “by these massive monopolies.” Must Read! Bozell and Levin on ‘Systematic’ Nature of Facebook’s Election Interference During the WMAL-FM interview, co-host Julie Gunluck asked Bozell to break down some of the examples found in the report. Bozell was well-prepared and did not hold back.  “Let's take 2016: Facebook partnered with this left-wing organization funded by Soros, the Poynter Institute, to create a network of left-wing fact-checkers,” Bozell said. But there was more, Bozell warned, asking rhetorically, “What did they then do? Over and over again, they suspended numerous pro-Trump Trump pages. They elevated liberals in their trending news, giving them preference over conservatives. They blacklisted [Sen.] Ted Cruz; they blacklisted [Sen.] Rand Paul.” Bozell’s remarks come a little over a month after a similar MRC Free Speech America report found that Google, like Facebook, interfered in U.S. elections 41 times. “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,” Bozell said on April 17, alluding to the MRC report on Google’s election interference. 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.

Hayes Dismisses Johnson As 'Angry' For Columbia Press Conference

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes reacted to the latest developments at Columbia University and campuses around the country on Wednesday’s edition of All In by seeking to provide cover to the protestors by claiming they are simply “anti-war” and that all the anti-Semitism is from off-campus “trolls.” As for the GOP response, he dismissed Speaker Mike Johnson as “angry.” Coming out of a commercial, Hayes declared that “Fresh off the passage of those foreign aid bills that President Biden signed today, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson didn't take a victory lap. Instead, the LSU graduate made an angry press appearance on the campus of Columbia University in New York, where he was booed by most of the crowd assembled.”     Was Johnson supposed to be happy? The fact that the crowd booed him says more about the crowd than it does about Johnson, but Hayes continued, “As you probably heard, the school has been the center of the media world for the last week over student protests of Israel's war in Gaza.” He added: Last week, the school's president, after appearing before a House committee, had many of those students arrested by the New York Police Department, thrown out of their university housing amid allegations of harassment against Jewish students on campus, or at least near the campus gates, where non-students and trolls have gathered to spout some truly genuinely vile, threatening stuff in viral scenes.  As Hayes was acknowledging the anti-Semitism present among the demonstrators, MSNBC showed pictures of some of these people. One was a group marching behind a banner that read “From Gaza to Jenin” and “Revolution to Victory” with a map of what they imagine a future Palestinian state should look like. It was a map that included not simply Gaza and the West Bank, but all of what is internationally unquestionably recognized to be Israeli territory. That is something that groups like Students for Justice in Palestine, who are students demonstrating on campus, would agree with, and they are given platforms on MSNBC. Yet, Hayes sought to dismiss concerns about this form of anti-Semitism, instead claiming they are simply anti-war and that the real problem is that Republicans want to put an end to these illegal encampments: Even as the anti-war protests spread to other universities across the country, and conservatives like Johnson blast higher education as a bastion of radicalism, again, Senators Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley have even called for the National Guard to come in. Today, Greg Abbott sent in the Department of Public Safety into the UT Austin campus. None of this new for any of these conservatives. Cotton, you’ll remember, wanted the Army to crush protests against police brutality in 2020. It was more that Cotton wanted to end the rioting and the looting, but why would Hayes let facts get in the way of a good narrative? Additionally, these demonstrators aren’t anti-war, they’re just upset that their side is losing a war that it started. Here is a transcript for the April 24 show: MSNBC All In With Chris Hayes 4/24/2024 8:45 PM ET CHRIS HAYES: Fresh off the passage of those foreign aid bills that President Biden signed today, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson didn't take a victory lap. Instead, the LSU graduate made an angry press appearance on the campus of Columbia University in New York, where he was booed by most of the crowd assembled.  As you probably heard, the school has been the center of the media world for the last week over student protests of Israel's war in Gaza. Last week, the school's president, after appearing before a House committee, had many of those students arrested by the New York Police Department, thrown out of their university housing amid allegations of harassment against Jewish students on campus, or at least near the campus gates, where non-students and trolls have gathered to spout some truly genuinely vile, threatening stuff in viral scenes.  Even as the anti-war protests spread to other universities across the country, and conservatives like Johnson blast higher education as a bastion of radicalism, again, Senators Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley have even called for the National Guard to come in. Today, Greg Abbott sent in the Department of Public Safety into the UT Austin campus. None of this new for any of these conservatives. Cotton, you’ll remember, wanted the Army to crush protests against police brutality in 2020.

Seven Brand New Biden Gaffes ABC, CBS, NBC Are Hiding

The Biden gaffes keep coming and the Big Three networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) keep ignoring them.  If Donald Trump or any Republican president was committing mistakes at the rate Biden is, you can bet network reporters and anchors would jam their broadcasts with their bloopers, but it’s not so for President Joe Biden.  In just the past week, he’s insulted Jews, middle-class Americans, and caused a minor international incident with his bumbling statements.  The following are seven brand new Biden blunders the networks have refused to cover:   Biden Reads Instructions Off Teleprompter: “Four More Years, Pause”          On April 24, FoxNews.com reported:  President Biden seemed to suffer a verbal slip-up during a speech at a trade union conference in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. Biden, reading off a teleprompter, appeared to incorporate script instructions in the middle of his speech, resulting in an awkward applause line. The moment came during a section of his remarks straight out of a campaign stump speech. “I see an America where we defend democracy, not diminish it. I see an America, where we protect freedoms, not take them away,” Biden said. “I see an economy that grows a lot in the bottom up where the wealthy pay their fair share, so we can have child care, paid leave and so much more, and still reduce the federal deficit and increase economic folks. “Imagine what we could do next. Four more years, pause,” he said before laughing. ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage: PENDING   Biden Claims Uncle Was Eaten By “Cannibals” in New Guinea, Sparks International Incident         On April 22, the New York Times reported:  Prime Minister James Marape of Papua New Guinea has hit back at President Biden’s suggestion that his uncle, a U.S. serviceman whose plane went down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of New Guinea during World War II, had been eaten by cannibals there. “President Biden’s remarks may have been a slip of the tongue; however, my country does not deserve to be labeled as such,” Mr. Marape said in a statement provided to news organizations including The Associated Press and Reuters. Twice last week, Mr. Biden suggested without evidence that his uncle had been eaten by cannibals. “He got shot down in New Guinea, and they never found the body because there used to be — there were a lot of cannibals, for real, in that part of New Guinea,” Mr. Biden said of his uncle during an address on steel and aluminum tariffs in Pittsburgh on Wednesday. Papua New Guinea has become an important strategic partner of the United States in the region. Mr. Marape has twice visited the White House. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. Mr. Biden’s description of his uncle’s death does not match military records. Ambrose Finnegan, a brother of Mr. Biden’s mother, was a passenger in an aircraft that “for unknown reasons” had to ditch in the Pacific Ocean off the northern coast of New Guinea on May 14, 1944, according to the Pentagon’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. Both of the plane’s engines failed at low altitude. There is no indication the aircraft was shot down. Mr. Finnegan and two other men “failed to emerge from the sinking wreck and were lost in the crash,” the Pentagon records state. “One crew member survived and was rescued by a passing barge. An aerial search the next day found no trace of the missing aircraft or the lost crew members.” Mr. Biden made a similar suggestion that his uncle had been cannibalized when he visited a war memorial bearing Mr. Finnegan’s name in his childhood hometown, Scranton, part of a three-day campaign swing through the key battleground state of Pennsylvania. ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage: 0 seconds.   Biden Urges Americans to “Choose Freedom Over Democracy”      On April 19, FoxNews.com reported:  Critics of President Biden slammed him on social media for making a puzzling statement encouraging voters to “choose freedom over democracy” by re-electing him to the presidency. Conservatives expressed confusion over Biden’s message, and others insisted it was yet another gaffe showing his cognitive decline.  Biden made the claim while accepting the formal presidential endorsement of the Kennedy family in Pennsylvania on Thursday. During the political rally, half a dozen Kennedy family members appeared alongside President Biden to publicly back him over Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is running as an independent candidate for president in 2024. Kennedy Jr.’s own sister Kerry Kennedy spoke at the event, stating, “President Biden has been a champion for all the rights and freedoms that my father and uncles stood for.” After being introduced by the Kennedys, Biden addressed the crowd. Toward the end of his speech, he asked, “Are you ready to choose unity over division? Dignity over demolition? Truth over lies? Are you ready to choose freedom over democracy? Because that's America.” The last stanza turned heads with its seemingly contradictory message.  Author and Canary CEO Dan K. Eberhart commented, “He’s fine. Everything’s fine. Biden is definitely not in severe mental decline. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage: 0 seconds.   Biden Mixes Up Israeli City With One in Gaza: “Don’t Move on Haifa”        On April 18, the New York Post reported:  President Biden on Tuesday confused the Israeli port city of Haifa with the last refuge for civilians in the Gaza Strip — Rafah — in a stunning blunder.  The 81-year-old president made the gaffe when asked in a one-on-one interview with Nexstar Media’s Reshad Hudson about his plan to win back pro-Palestinian voters in the wake of Israel’s war against Hamas.  “I’ve been meeting with them, number one,” Biden said. “Number two, I made it clear that we have to vastly increase the amount of food, water, healthcare going into Gaza.” “And I made it clear to Israelis – don’t move on Haifa,” he added, apparently meaning to say Rafah. … Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city and a popular tourist destination, is more than 100 miles north of Rafah.  Numerous social media users mocked Biden over the gaffe.  “I think Israel should accommodate Biden’s demand not to attack Haifa,” former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman wrote on X. “Think there’s strong likelihood Israel refrains from hitting Haifa,” former New York state Assemblyman Dov Hikind similarly tweeted, calling the error, “seriously embarrassing.” ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage: 0 seconds.   Biden Falsely Claims He Never Earned $400,000 In His Lifetime On April 19, CNN.com reported:  In Scranton, Biden repeated his regular promise that nobody making less than $400,000 per year will pay even a cent more in taxes under his proposals. He then added, “I hope you’re all able to make $400,000. I never did.” Facts First: Biden’s “I never did” claim is false. In fact, his presidential salary is $400,000 per year; the joint tax filings of President Biden and first lady Jill Biden showed $619,976 in income last year, $579,514 in 2022 and $610,702 in 2021. In addition, Biden earned millions in 2017 and 2018, when, during his time as a private citizen following his vice presidency, he and Jill Biden signed a lucrative book deal and he delivered paid speeches. The Bidens’ joint tax filings showed a total of about $11 million in 2017 income and about $4.6 million in 2018 income. Biden, who was a US senator for 36 years prior to his vice presidency, did regularly earn less than $400,000 per year before 2017. As PolitiFact has previously noted, the Bidens’ joint filings reported less than $400,000 in income in each year from 1998 through 2016 except for 2013, when they were just over $407,000. ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage: 0 seconds.   Biden Gets Basic Demographics Wrong On China  On April 19, CNN.com reported:  In a Wednesday speech in Pittsburgh that was focused on US steel competition with China, Biden said, “I always say to my colleagues — when I meet other world leaders, I say, ‘Would you trade places with China? Would you trade places with their problems?’ They’ve got a population that is more people in retirement than working.” Facts First: The claim that China has more retired people than working people is false. Fuxian Yi, a University of Wisconsin-Madison senior scientist who is an expert on Chinese demographics, called Biden’s claim “overstated and premature.” China reported having more than 740 million employed people at the end of 2023, while it also reported having just shy of 297 million people age 60 or above that year. (Sixty is the normal retirement-benefits age for Chinese men; it’s 50 to 55 for women depending on the nature of their jobs.) And some of the 60-plus population is still working.  Yi noted that China’s ratio of working people to seniors is shrinking as the country’s population ages. But Biden’s claim that the number of retirees already exceeds the number of people working is clearly not correct, even if you apply the usual dose of skepticism to official Chinese data. “It’s certainly the direction they’re heading, but still an exaggeration,” Derek Scissors, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank who is an expert on the Chinese economy, said of Biden’s claim. Biden made a similar claim in 2021, which CNN fact-checked as false at the time. ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage: 0 seconds.   Biden Has His “Very Fine People On Both Sides” Moment      On April 22, FoxNews.com reported:   President Biden’s latest comment on antisemitic protests on college campuses is being called his “very fine people on both sides” moment by some on social media. Following the president’s Earth Day comments at Prince William Forest Park in Virginia, reporters caught up with Biden and asked for a comment on anti-Israel protests occurring across multiple universities at the time. “Do you condemn the antisemitic protests on college campuses?” Biden was asked. “I condemn the antisemitic protests. That’s why I have set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don't understand what's going on with the Palestinians,” he said. Equating the antisemitic protests with people who “don’t understand” the Palestinians ignited several comments accusing Biden of echoing Trump’s “very fine people on both sides” Charlottesville comment from 2017. “This sure sounds like he’s ACTUALLY saying there are very fine people on both sides,” OutKick founder Clay Travis remarked. “Very fine people on both sides,” RedState writer Bonchie agreed. American Spectator writer Nate Hochman noted, “I’m old enough to remember when ‘good people on both sides’ was evil and racist.” The Federalist editor-in-chief Mollie Hemingway wrote, “President Biden says there are good people on both sides of October 7.” ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage: 0 seconds. (It should be noted that CBS and NBC both briefly reported Biden’s comments, but NEVER indicated they represented any kind of miscue. ABC failed to even mention Biden’s remarks.) The following are the relevant transcripts: CBS  Evening News  April 22, 2024 [13 seconds] CORRESPONDENT MEG OLIVER: Late this afternoon president Biden denounced anti-semitism. PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I condemn the anti-semitic protests, that’s why I have set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on and the Palestinians. … CBS CBS Mornings April 23, 2024 [12 seconds] CORRESPONDENT MEG OLIVER: President Biden yesterday condemned the anti-semitic comments directed towards Jewish students but added that he also condemned anyone who doesn’t realize what Palestinians are going through. Gayle?  CO-HOST GAYLE KING: Meg, thank you. … NBC Nightly News April 22, 2024  [17 seconds] ANCHOR LESTER HOLT: And Erin tonight, the White House is weighing in on all this.  CORRESPONDENT ERIN MCLAUGHLIN: That’s right, Lester. Tonight President Biden saying he condemns both anti-semitic protests and those who, quote, “don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.” Lester? HOLT: Erin McLaughlin tonight. Thank you.

RARE: CNN Airs Criticism Of The Basis For The Bragg Case Against Trump

The Regime Media has promoted, covered, and obsessed over the Bragg prosecution of Donald Trump in New York City- the so-called “hush money” trial. And they have done so, continuously. But tonight, CNN takes the extraordinary step of airing the case against the indictment. Watch as Boston University law professor Jed Handelsman Shugerman lays out the case, as aired on CNN NewsNight With Abby Phillip on Wednesday, August 24th, 2024 (click “expand”): ABBY PHILLIP: Professor, you say- see, three red flags with this case. What are they? JED HANDELSMAN SHUGERMAN: Well the three red flags are: first, that there has- there's no reported case. I've checked the records of state cases. There's no state case that shows a state prosecutor using the Federal Election Campaign Act, which is the- really the crime that the prosecutors are alleging here. A federal election violation, a federal campaign filing violation as the basis, either directly or indirectly, for any crime. So that is a first example of what's unprecedented here, and there- this is not just a coincidence. There are good reasons why a federal prosecutor has complete control to the exclusion of the states for enforcing something as complicated as the Federal Election Campaign Act. That's the first one.  The second problem is that there is no example of this statute that relies on an intent to defraud being such a broad general public. The idea that one would be defrauding the general public or voters. There's no precedent for using it for election interference.  And the final problem is the use of this statute. But basically what the business filing violation is, a misdemeanor with intent to defraud, it becomes a felony only if the prosecutors can show an intent to commit or conceal another crime. The Trump lawyers pointed out, made an argument that- in New York, there is a problem with trying to use the filing. The mis filing to upgrade it to a felony, relying on another jurisdiction. And the Manhattan DA could only point to two examples, neither of which is a judicial interpretation. So it's an untested theory. Those two cases, one was a guilty plea and one was jury instruction. Neither one counts as a judge hearing an argument and ruling on it. So those are examples of how this case, three examples of how it's unte- based on untested legal theories and on unprecedented applications. Shugerman is the author of an op-ed recently published in The New York Times, subtly titled: I Thought the Bragg Case Against Trump Was a Legal Embarrassment. Now I Think It’s a Historic Mistake. In criticizing the case as a selective prosecution, Shugerman writes: Eight years after the alleged crime itself, it is reasonable to ask if this is more about Manhattan politics than New York law. This case should serve as a cautionary tale about broader prosecutorial abuses in America — and promote bipartisan reforms of our partisan prosecutorial system. Nevertheless, prosecutors should have some latitude to develop their case during trial, and maybe they will be more careful and precise about the underlying crime, fraud and the jurisdictional questions. Mr. Trump has received sufficient notice of the charges, and he can raise his arguments on appeal. One important principle of “our Federalism,” in the Supreme Court’s terms, is abstention, that federal courts should generally allow state trials to proceed first and wait to hear challenges later. This case is still an embarrassment of prosecutorial ethics and apparent selective prosecution. Nevertheless, each side should have its day in court. If convicted, Mr. Trump can fight many other days — and perhaps win — in appellate courts. But if Monday’s opening is a preview of exaggerated allegations, imprecise legal theories and persistently unaddressed problems, the prosecutors might not win a conviction at all. It should be noted that Shugerman is no Trump fan. During the segment he claimed to have never voted for a Republican, and criticized Trump’s description of the Bragg prosecution as “election interference”- citing the Biden Department of Justice’s refusal to bring the case forth.  Abby Phillip questioned Shugerman’s theories, then had her legal panel do likewise. Shugerman held his own and then some. The panel was an extremely rare break from the hysterical “walls are closing in” coverage that the media have given this matter to date. Will there be more of it? Given the ease with which Shugerman made his case, I’m not so sure.

OF COURSE: CBS’s O’Donnell Asks ‘Progressive’ Pope Francis Obligatory Climate Question

CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell delivered this evening’s newscast from Rome, and her interview with Pope Francis featured heavily within the newscast. But if the early tease is any indication, O’Donnell devoted the interview to the reheating of the media’s same old talking points regarding the Catholic Church. Case in point: the media love Francis on climate change, and often hail him as a “progressive”.  Watch as O’Donnell does both of these things: NORAH O’DONNELL: Francis is also the first pontiff to make climate change a priority. In 2015, to make an important point, images of the environment were projected onto St. Peter's Basilica, the dome designed in the mid-16th Century by Michelangelo. What do you say to the deniers of climate change? POPE FRANCIS: There are people who are foolish, and foolish even if you show them research, they don't believe it. Why? Because they don't understand the situation or because of their interest. But climate change exists. O’DONNELL: His progressive style has made him popular worldwide, with millions coming here to St. Peter's Square to catch a glimpse of the Holy Father. OF COURSE O’Donnell asked the question and CBS aired it, given Francis’ proclivities and economic orthodoxies, as well as the fact that “Earth Day” was observed earlier this week. The questions with answers reflecting that the Pope is still a Catholic, such as on abortion and marriage, will have to wait for the full broadcast three and half weeks from now. The interview opens with O’Donnell trying to bait the Pope into calling Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza a “genocide”, an invitation to attack Israel that Francis appears to resist based on the footage aired tonight. The Pope then takes another question on Gaza and redirects it towards Ukraine.  After some conversation on children comes the climate question, which Francis answers in a manner that temporarily delights the left. O’Donnell goes on to hail the Pope’s “progressive style” and implied subsequent  popularity, before citing data suggesting that Church membership in the U.S. is declining. The full interview will air in three and a half weeks and feature O’Donnell running the Pope through the entire leftwing policy pupu platter. Very predictably so. Click “expand” to view the  transcript of the interview fragment as aired on the CBS Evening News on Wednesday, April 24th, 2024: NORAH O’DONNELL: Oh, my goodness. Bongiorno, Your Holiness. What an honor. So wonderful to meet you.  POPE FRANCIS: Lovely to meet you.  O’DONNELL: Love to meet you. Yes. Thank you so much for doing this.  We met Pope Francis today at Casa Santa Marta, the guest house where the pontiff lives, instead of the lavish papal palace. At 87 years old, he may have trouble walking, but he had no difficulty sitting down with us for an hour long conversation. How is your health? POPE FRANCIS: My health is good. O’DONNELL: In nearly every address… POPE FRANCIS: …who suffers so much from the war…  O’DONNELL: The pope often calls for peace. He condemned Hamas' October 7th attack, but has also called on Israel to use restraint.  There are now pictures of starving children coming out of Gaza. What about those that call that a genocide? POPE FRANCIS: Genocide. Every afternoon at 7:00 P.M., I call Gaza to the parish. There are about 600 people there, and they tell me what’s going on. It's very hard. Very, very hard. Food goes in, but they have to fight for it. It's very hard. O’DONNELL: I know you call for peace. You have called for a ceasefire in many of your sermons. Can you help negotiate peace? POPE FRANCIS: I can pray. I do. I pray a lot. O’DONNELL: During World Children's Day, which is the end of May, the U.N. says over a million people will be facing famine in Gaza. Many of them children. What can be done? POPE FRANCIS: Not only Gaza. We should think about Ukraine. Those kids don't know how to smile. I tell them something, but they forgot how to smile. And this is very hard when a child forgets to smile. That's really very serious. Very serious. O’DONNELL: Do you have a message for Vladimir Putin when it comes to Ukraine? POPE FRANCIS: Please. Countries at war, all of them. Stop the war. Look to negotiate. Look for peace. A negotiated peace is better than a war without end. O’DONNELL: His Most Holy Father is considered one of the most influential people in the world. Leading nearly 1.4 billion Catholics. He is the first pope from the Americas, the first Jesuit, and will host the Vatican's first World Children's Day next month. I love that you take the kids in the Popemobile with you and bring them up to the Apostolic Palace when you say a prayer. Why do you do that? POPE FRANCIS: Children always bear a message. They bear a message and it is a way for us to have a younger heart. O’DONNELL: Francis is also the first pontiff to make climate change a priority. In 2015, to make an important point, images of the environment were projected onto St. Peter's Basilica, the dome designed in the mid-16th Century by Michelangelo. What do you say to the deniers of climate change? POPE FRANCIS: There are people who are foolish, and foolish even if you show them research, they don't believe it. Why? Because they don't understand the situation or because of their interest. But climate change exists. O’DONNELL: His progressive style has made him popular worldwide, with millions coming here to St. Peter's Square to catch a glimpse of the Holy Father. MARY BENNETT: It has made us emotional, just being here, going into St. Peter's Basilica, going into the Sistine Chapel, just tears coming into our eyes because we are actually, you can feel the spirit. O’DONNELL: Sophia and Aaron came with their family from San Diego, California. How did it make you feel when he came out the window? SOPHIA: It made me feel good, like butterflies in my stomach. O’DONNELL: Still, the number of Catholics in America is dwindling. In the U.S., only 20% of adults identify as Catholic, and that is down from 24% in 2007.  I wonder if you could speak to those who don't go to Mass anymore, or maybe don't see a place for themselves in the Catholic church. POPE FRANCIS: I would say there is always a place, always. If, in this parish, the priest doesn't seem welcoming, I understand, but go and look. There is always a place. Do not run away from the Church. The Church is very big. It's more than a temple. It's more. You shouldn't run away from it. O’DONNELL: We also asked the Pope about the migrant crisis, gay rights, women's role in the church, and whether he’s thinking about retirement. We'll have that and much more on "60 minutes" on Sunday, May 19th, and then, a prime time special on Monday, May 20th, right here on CBS.  

NewsBusters Podcast: Pretending the Trump Prosecutors Are Nonpartisans

ABC and CBS almost completely refuse to identify Trump's elected Democrat prosecutors -- Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, and Fani Willis -- as Democrats, and certainly not Democrats elected on a promise to get Trump. NBC dabbles with the D. For example, elected Democrat Alvin Bragg, the District Attorney of Manhattan, was described as a Democrat in 16 of 59 evening-news stories on NBC programs. But CBS never did in 48 Bragg stories. On ABC, there were 56 stories, but 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.’” He's only described as a Democrat when they can make it sound like a wild Trump accusation. Elected Democrat Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York state, NBC mentioned her Democrat-ness in seven of 26 stories. But ABC’s World News Tonight has aired 44 stories mentioning James’s civil suit against Trump and his businesses, yet only one -- back in November -- showed the word "Democrat" in a fleeting on-screen graphic that was shown for less than two seconds. CBS also had one citation (in 35 stories), but only on screen: 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.” Elected Democrat Fani Willis, the District Attorney of Fulton County (Atlanta), Georgia drew 60 stories on ABC’s World News Tonight (60) and 39 stories on the CBS Evening News, and ZERO out of 99 mentioned she was a Democrat. NBC were the "rampant" labelers at eight out of 50 stories (meaning they skipped it in 84 percent of stories. Longtime MRC Director of Research Rich Noyes (now freelancing from Connecticut) was at MRC headquarters to explain his latest study numbers (ending right before the Trump trial in Manhattan began) and projects it into this election year. He noted that while the networks liked to point out that Kenneth Starr was a "Republican independent counsel," he was never elected, but had served as Solicitor General under the first President Bush. Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

WATCH: Schneider, Solomon Discuss ‘Most Comprehensive’ Report on Facebook’s Election Interference

MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider addressed over a decade of rampant Facebook election interference in a conversation with Just the News founder John Solomon.  During the April 24 edition of Just the News, No Noise, Schneider went after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerburg and Facebook for 39 instances of election interference between 2008 and 2024. “Facebook has engaged in censorship over and over and over,” Schneider said in response to an MRC Special Report. The report demonstrated a pattern of Facebook censoring free speech, including silencing criticism of President Barack Obama’s handling of the fall of the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi and muzzling Republican candidates for office during the 2022 midterm elections.  Solomon praised the “extraordinary detail” of the study and called it the “most comprehensive review of Facebook’s interventions.” In response to a question from co-host Amanda Head, Schneider pointed out that these 39 instances are just the tip of the iceberg of Facebook censorship, but emphasized that they are serious, carefully researched examples of Facebook putting its thumb on the electoral scale.  Schneider said, “Well of course there are thousands of instances of Facebook censoring people, the great bulk of them are conservatives. But these are the 39 times that we've found where it's clear that they were meddling in the election, that they were trying to sway the election.”  The MRC Free Speech America vice president went on to refer to a video exposing insane bias within Facebook staff. “And we've got quotes from their own internal staff saying, “‘Yeah, you know the CEO, he may claim that that it's a free speech platform but we are not going to allow Trump to win the election again.’ That kind of language is being used internally,” said Schneider. Expanding on his remarks, Schneider added: “Mark Zuckerberg has said to us, to us conservatives that the people of Facebook … don't understand who conservatives are or what we believe.’ They only understand the will to power and to use their company to try to promote, you know, the next president of the United States. 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.

CNN Analyst Demands Colleges ‘Allow Space’ for Anti-Semitic Rallies

Anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas rallies have been spreading like hateful wildfire across American universities, with encampments spouting up in UT Austin and Harvard on Wednesday. And on CNN News Central that afternoon, Harvard professor and former Obama DHS official Juliette Kayyem demanded that universities like hers “allow space” for those mini-Nuremberg rallies. “And I'm pretty clear about this,” Kayyem declared. She demanded that schools “allow space for students to protest” in favor of Hamas. Essentially her defense of the students was ‘kid will be kids.’ “This should not be a shock to anyone with teenagers or young, young adult children. They have strong feelings and they’re passionate,” she argued. Coddling the anti-Semites, Kayyem said they needed to be given “off ramps” before the schools cracked down on any violent rhetoric or other misconduct. As if the students didn’t agree to a Student Code of Conduct when they joined the school, she huffed: “You've got to give students rules about what they are and are not allowed to do. And maybe this happened at USC, but they have to be clear about, ‘Yes, you can protest. No, you can't block a building and this is what's going to happen if you block the building.’” She did admit that at some point the schools might need to consider when to get police involved. “I mean in other words, these kids who are violating these rules these students then have some sort of punishment and whether you need the police or something less than that is each college and university’s decision,” she said.     But a few minutes later, Kayyem proved herself to be a hypocrite and declared schools “cannot” get the police involved at all. She whined they were “terrifying students" who were just "expressing their dismay with the war”: What are the rules of engagement? We cannot put police officers, especially non-university police officers, as we've seen in some of these jurisdictions, just out there fully armed, terrifying students who are maybe they just viewed themselves as just expressing their dismay with the war or their criticisms of the Biden administration. That wasn’t the only way Kayyem was a hypocrite on the issue. In 2022, she opposed the Canadian “Freedom Convoy” that was protesting their county’s COVID restrictions by blocking critical roads. She lashed out at them and demanded authorities “slash the tires” of their semi-trucks. “Slash the tires, empty gas tanks, arrest the drivers, and move the trucks,” she wrote. “The notion that these are rational people that will change if asked is long gone,” she sneered in a follow-up post. “This disruption is an irrational gang and, again, we should stop being so nice.” Kayyem also used to have a hair-trigger when it came to antisemitism. In 2019, she accused former New York City Mayor Ruby Giuliani of “antisemitism” when he called out Democratic Party dark-money donor George Soros. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CNN News Central April 24, 2024 3:10:55 p.m. Eastern (…) JULIETTE KAYYEM: And so, colleges and universities have to do three things. And I'm pretty clear about this. One, is they do have to allow space for students to protest. I said you've got to give them an outlet. The students are allowed to protest. This should not be a shock to anyone with teenagers or young, young adult children. They have strong feelings and they’re passionate. Because if you just immediately go to arrest, it's going to cause I think some of the what we're seeing on air which is nothing's happening. And then lots is happening. You want to give students space as long as you're protecting students who want to go to classes, Jewish students, if they’re targeted. The second is you have to have off ramps. You have to, in terms of these colleges and universities you've got to give students rules about what they are and are not allowed to do. And maybe this happened at USC, but they have to be clear about, “Yes, you can protest. No, you can't block a building and this is what's going to happen if you block the building.” And then third is, of course, then exert your outcomes, right? I mean in other words, these kids who are violating these rules these students then have some sort of punishment and whether you need the police or something less than that is each college and university’s decision. (…) 3:14:13 p.m. Eastern KAYYEM: What are the rules of engagement? We cannot put police officers especially non-university police officers, as we've seen in some of these jurisdictions, just out there fully armed, terrifying students who are maybe they just viewed themselves as just expressing their dismay with the war or their criticisms of the Biden administration. So, what are the rules of engagement? The second is, is there – is there a reach out as we're seeing in some of these colleges and universities to these student organizations to engage them on what is and is not appropriate activity? In other words, we don't have to treat the protesters as enemies. They just disagree with the institution or they disagree with the government. And that can help de-escalate as well. And then third, is the punishment that we're talking about. If someone is violent, if someone is threatening students, if someone ought not to be there and is exacerbating the tensions. (…)

Election Year Pandering: Nets Spend 22 Mins Peddling Biden Propaganda to Voters

On Wednesday, ABC, CBS, and NBC combined for a whopping 22 minutes and 18 seconds on their lead morning shows playing Baghdad Bobs and Barbies, touting the Biden regime as dedicated to the American people with segments on their fight to ban non-complete clauses in the workplace, cracking down on airlines slow-walking refunds when things go wrong, expanding overtime rules, and letting women murder their babies at will. When including its third-hour, NBC’s Today came out on top with 10 minutes and 55 seconds. It started with the Biden administration fighting to ensure baby murder remains easily accessible in Idaho. Co-host Hoda Kotb touted the “blockbuster” Supreme Court arguments “concerning reproductive rights, raising the legal and political stakes headed into the November election.” Senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson hyped the case as part of an issue that will have “enormous” “stakes” on the outcome of the election. She eagerly adopted the Biden administration’s framing and even referred to an expecting mother as “a pregnant patient”. She at least gave a soundbite to the great Roger Severino with our friends at the Heritage Foundation (click “expand”): JACKSON: The question: whether a federal law guaranteeing emergency care for patients overrides an Idaho law banning most abortions with exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. The Biden administration saying that federal law should take precedence, arguing Idaho’s law requires doctors to wait until the health of a pregnant patient gets worse before performing an abortion. But Idaho’s attorney general, in a statement, accuses the administration of showing a “reckless disregard for Idaho’s right to protect life.” SEVERINO: The Biden administration has twisted this law. [SCREEN WIPE] They’re trying to use federal executive power when the law does not support it. This is beyond the breaking point and I’m hopeful the Supreme Court will rein them back in. JACKSON: And with Idaho allowed to enforce the near total abortion ban for now, many OBGYNs are leaving the state, including Dr. Lauren Miller, who moved her practice to Colorado. She says Idaho’s law has created a dilemma for doctors. (....) JACKSON: The legal fight raising political stakes heading into the November upcoming election with voters in 11 states likely to decide abortion rights on ballot measures this fall. President Biden, in Florida Tuesday, slamming that state’s six-week abortion ban set to go into effect six days from now and blaming his predecessor. The show went next to the daily messaging from the Department of Transportation. Co-host Savannah Guthrie touted the “big news regarding air travel” with co-host Craig Melvin adding “it could affect folks in a good way.” Longtime transportation correspondent Tom Costello even explicitly said he’d be providing “the bullet points coming from the Biden administration” about their desire to have airlines “provid[e] compensation quickly to passengers who are owed money from an airline and if that passenger declines other alternative transportation needs or credits” that’ll be “cutting through all of the clutter and making it very clear what the rules are for every airline.” Costello and Melvin then focused on the other piece with fee transparency, the latest step in Biden’s ongoing obsession with ending so-called junk fees. In the 3rd Hour of Today, Costello returned for more banter and praising the regime for these crackdowns. ABC’s Good Morning America came next with six minutes and 33 seconds over four segments.  Like NBC, they began with abortion. Congressional correspondent Rachel Scott passed along the Biden Justice Department’s arguments and stomped on a single sentence provided to the opposition, which led into a nauseating love letter voiced by chief White House correspondent and chief Biden apple polisher Mary Bruce (click “expand”): SCOTT: And the stakes here are high. This is the first time that the Supreme Court is considering the scope of a state’s abortion ban since Roe vs. Wade was overturned. At the center of the case is Idaho. The state bans abortions in nearly all cases. It does include a narrow exception to save the life of the mother. But the Justice Department is arguing that, even in states where abortion is banned under federal health care law, hospitals are still required to terminate pregnancy if the patient’s life or health is at serious risk. The Justice Department is pointing to a law from decades ago before Roe vs. Wade was overturned that was originally created to ensure patients who do not have insurance are turned away from hospitals. Anti-abortion rights advocates argue that the Biden administration is misusing this law to try to justify abortions. On the other side, though, we have talked to doctors and patients who told us they are caught in a web of confusing laws. Some doctors have told us they have questioned whether or not their patient is sick enough before they can even provide life saving care. And doctors, of course, face serious penalties, loss of license, fines, and, in some cases, even prison time. And, all of this is playing out in the back drop of an election year where the Biden administration is hoping to use this to energize voters ahead of a very critical, George. GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay, Rachel, on that point, President Biden is targeting Donald Trump over abortion rights, blasting him yesterday at a Florida campaign event over a six week abortion ban going into effect in the state next week. [BIDEN CLIP] (....) BRUCE: Well, President Biden is eager to put the issue of abortion front and center in this campaign. As you heard there, he is trying to make Donald Trump own this, blaming him for the new restrictions and bans that we are seeing across the country. Yesterday, in that speech in Florida, the president’s first major campaign address on this issue, by our count at least a dozen times the President argued Trump should be held accountable and is to blame for us. Now, Donald Trump has bragged about overturning Roe vs. Wade, appointing the three justices who helped strike it down. And since then, 21 states have now enacted tough new restrictions and bans. The former President, though, said this should be up to the states. He says they are handling it brilliantly. President Biden, obviously, strongly disagrees. He says Trump has to be held accountable and he is hoping this issue will drive voters to the polls in November. He is well aware that every time this issue has been on the ballot since Roe was struck down, abortion rights have won. Bruce’s North Korean-state-run-media behavior went right into ABC’s airlines segment. Co-host Robin Roberts proclaimed that “[t]he Biden administration [is] taking action this morning to protect airline consumers” with “[n]ew rules that mandate automatic refunds.” “This is a major change from the Department of Transportation. And, again, it affects your money,” said transportation correspondent Gio Benitez at the start of his report. In the second hour, ABC made sure to reiterate all the supposedly great things a President running for a second term has done for Americans. This time, correspondent Elizabeth Schulze held up a vote by the Biden Federal Trade Commission “that could make it easier for workers to quit their jobs”. “The FTC voting to ban non-compete agreements, which prevent workers from switching jobs to work for a rival company. The nationwide ban means workers applying for a new job wouldn’t be forced to sign a non-compete and almost all existing non-compete clauses would be voided,” she added. For good measure, Schulze also shared a Biden Labor Department initiative that’ll be “a major expansion of overtime” which, starting in July, will see the salary threshold of workers eligible for overtime rise to $44,000 ahead of a $60,000 ceiling in January. CBS Mornings clocked in third with a still-strong four minutes and 50 seconds of stenography. After a segment about the Senate passing the bill to force TikTok to be sold from its Chinese parent company (or be banned in the U.S.), co-host Tony Dokoupil brought up the airlines and FTC stories as other examples of “words turning into action in Washington” with “[s]ome big changes there that could have an effect on millions of Americans”. Transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave and senior tech correspondent Jo Ling Kent came next doubling as regime mouthpieces (click “expand”): VAN CLEAVE: The next time you run into travel troubles, you could be eligible for a cash refund. These new Department of Transportation rules that will be going into effect say you can get a refund for a canceled flight, but if you’re delayed more than three hours for a domestic flight or more than six hours internationally, you can also get a refund if you choose not to fly. Also, bag fees must be refunded if a checked bag is significantly delayed, and refund must be given if any services you paid for aren’t provided like broken wi-fi. Airlines are also required now to disclose what fees they charge up front for things like a checked bag, a carry-on bag, a cancel or change fee. Now, most airlines in the U.S. already do that. These new rules will be phased in over the next 12 months[.] (....) KENT: [T]he Federal Trade Commission wants to make it easier for you to get a new job. It plans on banning non-compete clauses, and those are the parts of employer contracts that bar workers across industries from leaving for a competitor or starting a competing business. Now, some saying non-competes help employers protect their trade secrets and allow them to invest in training for employees without fear of losing them, while others argue the clauses are overly restrictive on the workers. The FTC says its ban would translate to $524 more each year for the average worker, yield as many as 29,000 more patents, and create at least 8,500 new businesses. But, of course, this is not set in stone yet. The U.S. Chamber of commerce called the ban an unlawful power grab and said it would sue the FTC to block it. CBS conveniently and immediately pivoted to abortion, but longtime Supreme Court correspondent Jan Crawford kept it straight (as usual). While she said “the Biden administration is challenging Idaho’s pretty strict restrictions with a really creative legal argument”, she also gave two soundbites to Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador (R) to defend his state’s pro-life law. To see the relevant transcripts from April 24, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).

US Gives TikTok an Ultimatum: Sell or Wave American Market Goodbye

TikTok might be on its way out of America if it does not separate from its ties to the communist Chinese government. After House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-AL) maneuvered to include a TikTok ultimatum in a bipartisan foreign aid package, President Joe Biden signed H.R.815 Wednesday. The foreign aid spending bill forces TikTok’s  Chinese-controlled parent company, ByteDance to divest itself from TikTok, or risk being banned from the U.S. The legislation also penalizes app stores and web hosting services that carry foreign adversary-controlled apps or websites to American users barring divestiture. The law applies not just to Chinese-controlled apps, but also to those controlled by Russia, Iran and North Korea. TikTok must divest itself from China if it wants to do business in the United States. We at the MRC have been consistent from the beginning. TikTok is a national security threat. @BrentBozell pic.twitter.com/FfSh1futU3 — Media Research Center (@theMRC) March 12, 2024 The new law empowers Biden to effectively block TikTok from doing business in the U.S. if ByteDance does not sell it to a company not based out of the forenamed countries.  The legislation gives TikTok nine months to decide whether or not to divest, which ends notably just after the 2024 presidential election. Biden, who endorsed the TikTok provision, can even grant an additional three-month grace period. Biden, however, will have to do more than sign a bill to prove he is serious about banning TikTok. As MRC has repeatedly noted, the president has actively used TikTok for his 2024 presidential campaign. To date, he has posted 149 TikTok videos even though he issued an executive order two years ago barring federal employees from using the app on government-issued devices. 🚨 @SpeakerJohnson won a victory for America's security, but now our Commander-in-Chief needs to abide by both the spirit and the letter of the law. President Biden has signed into law the bill requiring TikTok to separate itself from its masters at the Chinese Communist Party,… — Media Research Center (@theMRC) April 24, 2024 “Biden wants to have it both ways,” MRC wrote in a statement. “He wants to run out in front of the parade to eliminate a serious security threat from America’s biggest adversary while simultaneously using TikTok in a lame attempt to lure back voters who have grown tired of his failed policies.” When legislation targeting foreign adversary apps was first introduced by the House, in March, MRC President Brent Bozell came out in support of the bill. “It is absolutely correct and necessary for TikTok to divest itself of any control from the communist Chinese government in China if it wants to do business in the United States,” he said. While the bill puts great emphasis on national security concerns associated with the communist Chinese government-tied TikTok app, some Republicans and free speech advocates fear that it could be abused in ways that may hinder freedom of speech with regard to other platforms. The law will fine violating app stores and web hosting services $5,000 per user for violations of the provision. X owner Elon Musk and Reps. Thomas Massie (R- WV) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) have voiced concern that if the legislation is abused, it could lead to more online censorship. In an interview with Newsmax’s First Edition, MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider addressed similar concerns about government overreach and abuse. He said critics were “right to be concerned especially with Biden sitting there in the white house with all the 25-year-olds who are pulling the strings and moving his mouth and lips.” Schneider added, however, that “under our constitution, the president is the one who controls our foreign policy and right now China is such a threat to America that they are actively infiltrating America both with troops and with data, scouring the internet for all our information. They are working aggressively to control us and TikTok is their number one tool and it’s got to be stopped.   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.

Norberg: Sweden’s ‘Socialism,’ the Loneliness ‘Epidemic,’ Degrowth, & Other Myths

Capitalism and racism go together? I hear it all the time. “Racism is intricately linked to capitalism,” says famous Marxist Angela Davis. “It’s a mistake to assume that we can combat racism by leaving capitalism in place.” “Anti-racist” activist Ibram X. Kendi says, “In order to truly be anti-racist, you also have to truly be anti-capitalist.” This is just silly. In my new video, Swedish historian Johan Norberg explains how free markets discourage racism. Capitalists make a profit by serving their customers. The more customers they please, the more money they might make. It hurts the bottom line to exclude any groups. “Look around the world,” says Norberg, “The least racist societies with the fewest expressions of racist attitudes are the most capitalist countries.” Norberg’s new book, “The Capitalist Manifesto,” highlights a Journal of Institutional Economics study that found a correlation between economic freedom and “tolerance of ethnic groups.” “Capitalism,” he says, “Is the first economic system where you only get rich by opening up opportunities for others. It pays to be colorblind. It pays to be open to willing customers and workers who could enrich your company no matter what religion or race. ... It doesn’t mean that every person will be colorblind. There will always be idiots. But in capitalism, it’s costly to be an idiot.” He reminds us that in the Jim Crow South, businesses fought racism, because the rules denied them customers. “It’s often forgotten that owners of buses, railways, streetcars in the American South didn’t really segregate systematically until the late 19th century,” says Norberg. “It was probably not because they were less racist than others in the South, but they were capitalists. They wanted money, they wanted clients, and they didn’t want to engage in some sort of costly and brutal policing business in segregating buses.” Even when segregation was mandated, some streetcar companies refused to comply. For several years after Jim Crow laws passed, Black customers sat wherever they wanted. Norberg adds, “Those owners of public transport, they fought those discriminatory laws because they imposed a terrible cost. ... They tried to bypass them secretly and fight them in courts. They were often fined. Some were threatened with imprisonment.” The streetcar company in Mobile, Alabama, only obeyed Jim Crow laws after their conductors began to get arrested and fined. Those business owners may have been racist -- I can’t know -- but they fought segregation. “We got Jim Crow laws,” says Norberg, “Because free markets weren’t willing to discriminate.” Capitalists cared about green -- not black or white. Free markets all over the world coordinate and cooperate. Many don’t know of each other’s existence, and if they did meet, they might not get along. But they work together in search of profit. It’s odd that socialists now call capitalism racist, when the opposite is more often true. The Soviet Union invited African students to study science in major cities. But “Soviet citizens often treated the Africans in their midst with disdain and hostility,” New Lines Magazine describes. Russian children’s books portrayed Blacks in animalistic ways. Name-calling was common. Today, China and Cuba claim to have “zero-tolerance” for racism, but during the Covid pandemic, authorities forcibly tested Blacks and ordered strict isolation. Landlords evicted African tenants. Businesses often refused to serve them. In Cuba, Castro insisted he would eliminate racism. But “Racism persists,” reports France 24, saying it’s “banned by law,” but “alive on the streets ... In local jargon, a white woman with a black boyfriend is ... ‘holding back the race.’” Cuba’s government is still instituting programs to “combat racism.” It’s capitalism that makes people less racist.

Tennessee Bill Allows Teachers to Possess Concealed Handguns in Class

A year after transgender Audrey Hale entered and shot innocent people at the Covenant Christian School in Nashville, the Tennessee legislature passed a bill that would allow teachers to carry guns at school to protect their students and themselves. In a 68-28 vote on Tuesday, Tennessee legislators voted in favor of HB 1202/SB 1321, which allows some teachers and staff to carry concealed handguns on public school grounds. The bill also indicates that parents and other teachers won't know which staff members have possession of a handgun.  All but four Republicans supported the bill and all Democrats voted against it, but it still passed with flying colors. Armed teachers will go through intense training in order to be allowed to carry concealed handguns in their classrooms and around their school if Tennessee Governor Bill Lee (R) doesn’t veto it when it reaches his desk (Lee has reportedly never vetoed a bill). Additionally, the school district’s director of schools, the school principal and the chief of the area’s law enforcement agency must sign off on each staff member’s authority to carry a gun. As The Tennessean noted, staff would also be required to pass criminal and mental health background checks prior to gaining the authority to carry a gun on school grounds. This bill comes at a time when six families are still heartbroken after their loved ones were shot dead when Audrey Hale entered the Christian school and ruthlessly took their lives. While the bill has the potential to stop a school shooter like Hale, it faced criticism and pushback.  Some critics insisted it would lead to “unintended consequences,” like a teacher accidentally leaving the gun unattended for a “student to find” or that it is a “bad disaster and tragedy waiting to happen,” The Tennessean reported. Other critics insisted that Tennessee schools should just rely on School Resource Officers (SROs) to be armed and protect the school, but realistically SROs can’t possibly protect hundreds of students at one time, not to mention “nearly 600 schools do not have an SRO in place” due to staffing issues, The Tennessean added. Bill sponsor, State Rep. Ryan Williams (R-Dist. 42), noted that the bill doesn’t force anyone to carry a gun at school but opens up the option in the case that approved personnel do want to - it simply requires that school personnel consider allowing qualified and approved carriers to possess a gun on school grounds.  Williams hopes that this, as well as the fact that it won’t be publicized which teachers and staff are carrying, will serve as a deterrent from violent people who seek to shoot up schools.    Opponents of the bill called it “absolutely insane” and said that they “think it’s a parent’s job to know if their child is being put at risk by having someone in the classroom with a firearm that another child could find, that could be discharged and actually harm them or other kids.” Others held signs outside the State House saying things like “SHAME” and “1 Kid > All the guns.” Other opponents staged a “die in” where they laid on the floor of the house building and later screamed like lunatics once it was passed.  On the other hand, supporters thought similarly to Williams and those who voted for the passing of the bill. Here’s what Vigilant News reported:  And here we find the disconnect that anti-gun advocates don’t grasp:  They seem to believe that the mere presence of a gun will automatically trigger violence, as if it has magical powers to attract and inspire evil.  In reality, the problem is evil people, not “evil” objects.  There’s nothing stopping a bad person from acquiring and using a firearm for terrible purposes at any place of their choosing.  Gun free zones only prevent good people from carrying. Tennessee would become at least the 30th state that allows some teachers to carry firearms, if passed, but time will tell. Whether the bill becomes law or doesn't, it seems like there’s going to be some people on both sides who are not satisfied.

This Platform Targeted Libs of TikTok; Turned Blind Eye to Terrorist Organizations: Report

Slack, a workplace communications provider, used its terms of service to push an ideological agenda and sabotage conservative customers, a new report alleged. On April 24, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation released a new report written by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) accusing Big Tech companies like Slack of weaponizing ambiguous terms of service to target their ideological adversaries, including prominent voices like Libs of TikTok, 12x All-American swimmer Riley Gaines and podcast host Matt Walsh.  As the Ranking Member of the @SenateCommerce Committee, one of my top priorities is holding Big Tech accountable. Recently, my team and I complied a report detailing how Big Tech giants are wielding their terms of service against conservatives and conservative causes. In this… pic.twitter.com/LBTmLQN9MI — Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) April 24, 2024 According to the report, Slack claimed that Libs of TikTok’s workspace violated its Acceptable Use Policy. Slack’s internal review of the account claimed that Libs of TikTok violated its terms of service by allegedly “encouraging hate against LGBTQ+ individuals, and enabling or encouraging threats against children’s hospitals, libraries, and various LGBTQ+ communities.” Slack’s team also proclaimed that the purpose of Libs of TikTok’s account was to “incite hatred.” One of the posts that got Libs of TikTok booted was a tweet merely reporting on Boston Children’s Hospital offering “‘gender affirming hysterectomies’ for young girls.”  The post was entirely accurate and corroborated by a March 2022 MDPI study, which refers to the Center for Gender Surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital as “the first pediatric center in the United States to offer gender-affirming chest surgeries for individuals over 15 years old and genital surgeries for those over 17 years of age.”  Related: Babylon Bee CEO Says Slack CANCELED Libs of TikTok Account, Gave Vague Explanation Why Other purportedly offending posts were flyers advertising drag queen shows for all ages.  One post read, “An LGBT youth group is holding a drag show happy hour for all ages at a bar in Woodland, CA. They encourage kids to tip the drag queens.” There were no additional comments or personal opinions expressed in the post.  The report said that on Feb. 24, 2023, Slack used the internal investigation as a pretext for suspending Libs of TikTok’s workspace. In addition, the report highlighted that Slack platforms many other organizations that have advocated for, or even participated in, blatant violence and other alleged illegal activity. For instance, Antifa has its own Slack workspace and is yet to be suspended despite the group’s frequent participation in acts of arson and terrorism, according to the report.  During the George Floyd Riots of 2020, Antifa members and other leftist militants seized a six-block neighborhood in Seattle’s East Precinct, dubbed the CHAZ or “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.” The armed occupation resulted in the death by shooting of a 16-year-old boy and another 14-year-old boy being critically injured. Another communist group, the Stop Cop City movement, is also still platformed on Slack. The group was formed to impede by force the construction of a new training facility for cops and firefighters in Atlanta. On March 6, 2023, the Atlanta Police Department announced the arrest of 23 militants on charges of domestic terrorism after the rioters allegedly threw bricks, rocks and Molotov cocktails at police officers.    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.

Politico Exposes Media's Anti-Trump Legal Echo Chamber's Meetings

Cable news has often been described as an echo chamber, but a Tuesday report from Politico’s Ankush Khardori provided evidence that cable news legal analysts regularly meet up to discuss what talking points they should bring with them when they are on the air. Khardori begins, “As the Jan. 6 committee was working on its bombshell investigation into the Capitol riot and President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the last election, committee staffers took some time out of their seemingly 24-hour jobs one day in 2022 to brief a group of lawyers and legal pundits on a Zoom call.” He further notes, “The group’s gathering was not a one-time event, but in fact an installment in an exclusive weekly digital salon, whose existence has not been previously reported, for prominent legal analysts and progressive and conservative anti-Trump lawyers and pundits. Every Friday, they meet on Zoom to hash out the latest twists and turns in the Trump legal saga — and intellectually stress-test the arguments facing Trump on his journey through the American legal system.” The meetings resemble cable news itself, “Some group members wouldn’t describe themselves with any partisan or ideological lean, but most are united by their dislike of Trump.” Khardori further reports that former Obama official and Trump Impeachment 1.0 lawyer Norman Eisen hosts the group. Other regulars include a who’s who of anti-Trump media figures and famous liberal law professors such as Bill Kristol, Laurence Tribe, John Dean, George Conway, Andrew Weissmann, Jeffrey Toobin, Harry Litman, Barbara McQuade, Joyce White Vance, Jennifer Rubin, Mary McCord, Karen Agnifilo, Elliot Williams, Ryan Goodman, Renato Mariotti, Asha Rangappa, Shan Wu, and Norman Ornstein. Apparently, multiple people thought it was a good idea to welcome Toobin to a Zoom call. Apart from the regulars, “Sometimes there is a special guest,” Khardori adds, “like the Jan. 6 committee staffers (who recalled briefing the group). One Friday last May, after E. Jean Carroll defeated Trump in the first of her two defamation cases to go to trial, her lawyer Roberta Kaplan joined as a guest to talk for roughly half an hour about her strategy for beating Trump in court. Another time, J. Michael Luttig, a conservative legal scholar and former judge who helped lead the public campaign to disqualify Trump under the 14th Amendment, showed up to make his case.” Khardori does note later on that CNN’s Elie Honig once challenged Luttig on his arguments and Khardori himself notes that echo chambers tend to make their members look foolish, “The conversations, though, could also spread dubious analysis, or perhaps lead to wish-casting. The effort to disqualify Trump under the 14th Amendment never really had a chance, but many commentators — including some who participate in the calls — publicly argued otherwise.” Additionally, Khardori recalled, “As I was reporting this story, I learned that some members of the group were understandably anxious about its publication. Trump has claimed that there is a legal conspiracy against him, and there is a risk that news of a group such as this could give Trump and his allies an attractive target.” The people present on these Zoom calls may portray themselves as a bunch of law nerds bouncing ideas off of each other, but the end results look like a group of people who agree with each other about how awesome they are and who then go on air and tell their audiences what they want to hear.

Networks Praise Pro-Hamas ‘Solidarity Movement’ Spreading, Promote BDS

The three major American broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) were out in force Wednesday morning as all three of them took to praising the pro-Hamas extremists taking over college campuses across the country. Ignoring the raging antisemitism that was on full display and captured on videos circulating on social media, they praised the “solidary movement” that was spreading to more campuses. They also promoted the so-called “boycott, divest, and sanctions” movement, omitting its anti-Semitic roots. “Pro-Palestinian protests have spread across university campuses from coast to coast. Columbia here at the center of this solidarity movement,” ABC correspondent Stephanie Ramos boasted on Good Morning America. In something of a skeptical tone, Ramos seemed to cast doubt on Jewish students who felt unsafe and threatened by the pro-Hamas crowd that was literally calling for Jewish blood: “Columbia University offering virtual learning for the last week of class after some Jewish students said they felt unsafe on campus…” Noting that it’s been 200 days since the start of the war, Ramos cheered that pro-Hamas rallies were “spreading” with “protesters digging in” across the country. She also promoted their anti-Semitic demands of divestment. “Protesters demanding colleges divest from companies they say profit from ties with Israel,” she said.     Over on CBS Mornings, they abdicated the moral high ground they occupied on Tuesday when they called out the antisemitism. On Wednesday, correspondent Nancy Chen promoted divestment as “one of the most crucial components [of their demands]”: PRO-HAMAS PROTESTER 1: Our first demand is complete divestment from anything related to Israeli settler colonialism, apartheid, and genocide. CHEN: The words apartheid and genocide are loaded but the idea of divestment is a refrain echoed over and over by protesters we spoke to on campus. PRO-HAMAS PROTESTER 2: Financial divestment, financial transparency. PRO-HAMAS PROTESTER 3: Is financial divestment from any companies that profit off of Israeli apartheid. After noting that Columbia students “remained defiant,” Chen hyped: “From coast to coast, California to Massachusetts, demonstrations expressing anger over Israel's bombardment of Gaza.” Correspondent Erin McLaughlin was back on NBC’s Today to cheer Columbia University for capitulating to the pro-terrorist mob. “Now, it seems the deadline has extended; as this morning university spokesperson telling NBC News they'll be in talks with students for the next 48 hours. And we're hearing they made progress,” she touted. She too was excited by how the anti-Semitic crowds were taking over other campuses. “Columbia's encampment inspiring protesters at at least 15 other universities, including at Cal Poly Humboldt where dozens occupied a campus building and at the University of Minnesota where nine were detained trespassing. Students at NYU walking out of class Tuesday,” she said, omitting the violence at CPH. What none of them dared to show was the video of Columbia students chanting for the murder of Jews. In a video shown on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper on Tuesday, the pro-Hamas students were clearly heard chanting: “Al-Qassam you make us proud, take another settler out!" and "Hamas we love you! We support your rockets too!"   This morning, @ErinNBCNews suggested there were no chants or acts of antisemitism at Columbia University. You should watch this Erin: "Al-Qassam you make us proud, take another settler out!" "Hamas we love you. We support your rockets too!" pic.twitter.com/KHnXKaLUh1 — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) April 23, 2024   The transcripts are below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s Good Morning America April 24, 2024 7:10:11 a.m. Eastern (…) STEPHANIE RAMOS: Pro-Palestinian protests have spread across university campuses from coast to coast. Columbia here at the center of this solidarity movement. [Cuts back to live] This morning, images showing protests turning violent at Cal Poly Humboldt. Police struggling to control hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators on the college campus. The school, now closed today. This comes on the heels of demonstrations across the country. NYU ramping up security with a new barricade after clashes with police. Columbia University offering virtual learning for the last week of class after some Jewish students said they felt unsafe on campus, like Aiden Hunter who tells us he understands why people are protesting. AIDEN HUNTER: I don't mean to diminish that. But I'd say the majority of my friend, especially my Jewish friends, feel a sense of insecurity at this time. RAMOS: It's been more than 200 days since the start of the Israel/Hamas War prompting pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, which are spreading. Protesters demanding colleges divest from companies they say profit from ties with Israel. MIRYAM ALWAN (Pro-Hamas protester): We’re not planning on packing up and going home. Because people in Palestine are going through so much worse. RAMOS: Protesters digging in from Berkeley to the University of Michigan to the University of Minnesota, where police took down tents and made arrests. (…) CBS Mornings April 24, 2024 7:02:54 a.m. Eastern (…) NANCY CHEN: Outside of Columbia University's campus, demonstrators continue to rally. After the school's administration warned students on campus to dismantle their camps or face consequences, some were seen breaking them down, while others remained defiant. From coast to coast, California to Massachusetts, demonstrations expressing anger over Israel's bombardment of Gaza. (…) CHEN: Earlier in the day at Columbia, protesters reiterated their demands including an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. And one of the most crucial components – cutting off any financial interest connected to Israel. PRO-HAMAS PROTESTER 1: Our first demand is complete divestment from anything related to Israeli settler colonialism, apartheid, and genocide. CHEN: The words apartheid and genocide are loaded but the idea of divestment is a refrain echoed over and over by protesters we spoke to on campus. PRO-HAMAS PROTESTER 2: Financial divestment, financial transparency. PRO-HAMAS PROTESTER 3: Is financial divestment from any companies that profit off of Israeli apartheid. (…) NBC’s Today April 24, 2024 7:07:26 a.m. Eastern (…) ERIN MCLAUGHLIN: It appears the situation here at the university is changing by the hour. Now, originally the university had called for the student encampment to be taken down overnight. Now, it seems the deadline has extended as this morning university spokesperson telling NBC News they'll be in talks with students for the next 48 hours. And we're hearing they made progress. [Cuts to video] This morning, Columbia University – a flash point in the nationwide unrest at college campuses across the country – reporting progress in negotiations with pro-Palestinian protesters who’ve been encamped on campus since last week. A Columbia spokesperson telling NBC News this morning, students have committed to dismantling and removing a significant number of tents and have agreed to prohibit discriminatory or harassing language. The school has been flaring with unrest with a growing pressure on its president Minouche Shafik, amidst allegations that the university is not doing enough to de-escalate tensions or adequately protect the safety of Jewish students. (…) MCLAUGHLIN: Columbia's encampment inspiring protesters at at least 15 other universities, including at Cal Poly Humboldt where dozens occupied a campus building and at the University of Minnesota where nine were detained trespassing. Students at NYU walking out of class Tuesday. (…)

SCOTUS Hears Idaho Defense of Life Act Opening Statements, Activists Respond

On Wednesday, April 24, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments from the Idaho Attorney General’s office insisting that the Biden administration acted unlawfully when it sued the state of Idaho in an attempt to allow emergency room doctors to violate state law and conduct illegal abortions. Many pro-lifers and pro-aborts showed up in Washington D.C. outside the court and users online put their two cents in as well. After Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, the state of Idaho enacted the Defense of Life Act to protect women and unborn children in the state and ensure that abortions don’t take place unless absolutely necessary to save the life of the mother. Shortly after the ruling, the Biden administration sued the state and cited the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA). The administration used a radical interpretation of EMTALA in order to mandate abortion and force Idaho emergency room doctors to perform illegal and unnecessary abortions. While EMTALA, passed in 1986, was designed to help uninsured people receive emergency care, including care for pregnant women and their “unborn child[ren],” the Biden Administration has convinced pro-aborts that Idaho’s law won't help pregnant women in emergency situations. Obviously, that’s a lie.  After some blocks and overrules, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, with help from the Alliance Defending Freedom and Cooper & Kirk law firm, facilitated the Supreme Court to hear oral arguments about how the Biden Administration is “continuing to manipulate EMTALA to override Idaho’s law and force emergency room doctors to take vulnerable lives.” At its core, Idaho’s “law is consistent with EMTALA because it limits only elective abortions,” Washington Examiner reported. Yet, the pro-aborts have been manipulated into believing the Biden administration’s new interpretation, which would allow for abortions even when not absolutely medically necessary. Wednesday was that day and many pro-lifers and pro-aborts showed up to hear. A group of protestors laid on the floor with white sheets covered in red paint to look like blood draped over them. Behind them stood people with signs that read “Without EMTALA, women in Idaho will die.” The signs were all the same except the state listed was different on each one. They were created by the Women’s March which, in an email encouraging pro-aborts to show up at SCOTUS, insisted that “anti-abortion extremists want to exclude pregnant people from this protection and force doctors to turn away patients suffering emergency pregnancy complications.” The Supreme Court is hearing a case today on whether ER physicians in Idaho can provide abortions in emergency situations despite the state’s near-total ban, which has narrow exceptions The question before the justices: Does federal law (EMTALA) preempt the state’s ban? pic.twitter.com/UdgmzOkpoH — Oriana González (@OrianaBeLike) April 24, 2024 The thing is, if an abortion is absolutely necessary to save the life of a mother, it’s perfectly legal in Idaho to do so. The state is simply arguing that if abortions aren’t absolutely necessary, then they shouldn’t be done. It’s that simple. A group from the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising held signs that said “Expose & Shut Down the Abortion Industrial Complex NOW!” and yelled “Pro-choice is a lie, babies never choose to die.” Members were also spotted holding signs that said “We need free birth not more abortion” which was a stark difference from the pro-abort signs that read “Abortion is health care,” “Abortion is our right” and “Abortions save lives!” Over on X, Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life wrote, “Today, we see that abortion is both FEDERAL & STATE. Biden’s team is trying to force abortion into Emergency Rooms and Idaho fights to protect the lives of both mother and preborn child." LifeNews.com wrote, “Every state with an abortion ban allows emergency medical care for pregnant women, including Idaho.” The pro-aborts continued spewing lies, insisting that if the Supreme Court allowed Idaho to protect life, that pregnant women wouldn’t be helped in emergency situations. One user insisted that Idaho was treating women as second class citizens and that they may “end up disabled or harmed in the name of being pro-life” if they need medical attention while pregnant. The thing is, even with the federal law of EMTALA, which was set up to protect life, Idaho can still follow through with its state's decision to protect life at all costs and at all points and only conduct abortions when absolutely necessary. But, leave it to our current administration to lie and purposely cause a divide. To conclude, Washington Examiner summed up our administration’s goals well: The lawsuit involving Idaho now before the Supreme Court shows the extent of the Biden administration’s unhealthy obsession with abortion, even if it means spreading misinformation and lies about women’s health. It also shows that the underlying motive for the litigation is not about women’s health because Idaho and all other states already protect the lives of pregnant women. The Biden administration’s ultimate goal is to mandate abortion.

MRC’s Brent Bozell with Levin on Staggering Facebook Election Interference: ‘It’s Systematic’

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell called out yet another Big Tech company for interfering in U.S. elections — and he has the receipts to prove it. During a Tuesday interview with nationally syndicated radio host Mark Levin on The Mark Levin Show, Bozell lambasted Facebook following an MRC Special Report detailing how the Meta-owned social media platform interfered in U.S. elections 39 times since 2008.  Bozell minced no words in his response to the MRC findings, stating, “We looked at Facebook since 2008. We found 39 examples of Facebook directly interfering with political campaigns.” Bozell said, “This is, it’s systematic. … These Big Tech companies have got to stop interfering.” The MRC president referred to a bombshell report published by MRC Free Speech America on Monday. READ IT: 39 Times Facebook Interfered in US Elections Since 2008 The report found that while Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has publicly embraced the First Amendment and the freedom of expression, his companies’ censorship acts have directly interfered with the democratic process in American elections.  The evidence shows that while censorship was not exclusively directed toward Republicans, a large proportion of it was aimed at non-Democrat candidates, ultimately reaching its height in the lead-up to, and shortly after, the 2020 election. “In 2020, [Facebook] censured Trump ads; Trump super PAC ads; Hunter Biden suppression is what exploded in 2020; and then you have the anti-COVID posts, which were all taken down,” Bozell told Levin.  Tellingly, Facebook censored Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), then a Democratic presidential candidate, for launching an ad “calling for breaking up Big Tech companies,” Bozell added, before saying in jest, “I love it.” The censorship was vast and rampant, Bozell continued. “They also removed an anti-Antifa ad that was run by [Rep.] Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). In 2021, they officially suspended Donald Trump from their platform.” The MRC report on Facebook’s election interference comes just weeks after it published a similar report on Google's election interference tactics. The Google report found at least 41 times the tech giant used its power to interfere in U.S. elections. Related: 41 Times Google Has Interfered in US Elections Since 2008 “Their algorithms are being tinkered with so that they can advance the left in America. … Google has the power to define what is and what isn’t truth,” Bozell said of Google at the time. You May Also Like: MRC President Bozell Details Startling Reality About Google: It Has ‘Power to Define’ Truth 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.

NPR CEO Disses 'Distraction' of Bias Complaints, 'Bad Faith' Criticism of Her Tweets

Wall Street Journal media reporter Alexandra Bruell secured an interview with new NPR CEO Katherine Maher, and naturally, she discovered NPR doesn't want anyone focusing on the "distraction" of leftist tilt. They don't want anyone disturbing their "mandate" of taking taxpayer money from Republicans and whacking them with it. The headline defined it:  NPR Chief Defends Coverage, Accuses Critics of ‘Bad Faith Distortion’ of Her Views Katherine Maher said controversy stemming from an editor’s essay criticizing the radio network has been a distraction Bruell offered a sort of "poor thing" spin in how Maher's tenure had a rocky start with the Uri Berliner expose and conservative Christopher Rufo's unearthing of her woke tweets before joining NPR:  Critics have scrutinized her political views and seized on past comments she made on everything from the First Amendment to misinformation to the idea that written history is tilted toward the worldview of white men.  “All of this frankly is a bit of a distraction relative to the transformation our organization needs to undergo in order to best serve our mandate,” Maher said in an interview. Which "mandate" is that? We aren't told. She said NPR should be open to criticism...but clearly, she prefers internal conversations, not objections from, you know, the "public" when it comes to public radio. “We have robust conversations across the organization, including in response to the article,” she said. “Clear and well-reasoned pieces” from reviewers, like a write-up from NPR’s public editor and Poynter executive Kelly McBride that examined coverage of Israel and Gaza, have “found that our journalism is really solid,” Maher said. Citing McBride is especially perfect, since McBride went on Brian Stelter's podcast and divided NPR critics as supporters (liberals) and "bad faith" critics (conservatives). McBride sounds less like a Public Editor (working on behalf of the audience) and more like a Public Cheerleader (working on behalf of company morale). Maher's rah-rah memo to staff (posted on NPR's website) attacking Berliner for criticizing staffers for "who they are" instead of their on-air propaganda wasn't enough:  Days after Maher sent a note to staff addressing Berliner’s essay, NPR employees wrote to her urging stronger support for employees and asking her to call out factual inaccuracies in the piece “Without true leadership, resentment and discontent are festering among your staff,” the staffers wrote.  In a statement, Berliner said, “I wish that the company would have addressed and taken seriously some of the points I made.” If NPR wants to foster a broad range of views, “suspending and then rebuking a staffer is not the best way to go about it,” he said. The Journal reporter somehow didn't get any reaction from Rufo about all the Maher tweets about "cis-White mobility privilege" and so on. Maher tried to suggest her personal opinions are set aside in her professional life:  “There are many professions in which you set aside your own personal perspectives in order to lead in public service, and that is exactly how I have always led organizations and will continue to lead NPR,” she said. But Maher's attack on Berliner for his complaints about wokeness and "affinity groups" in the newsroom surely reflect her publicly-aired personal wokeness. Maher said their internal research shows people see NPR as “accurate and intellectual,” she said. “We want to be able to speak to folks as though they were our neighbors and speak to folks as though they were our friends.” That's not the way conservatives hear it on the radio.

Kimmel Mocks Red States For Book Bans, Cites Books Banned By The Left

Tuesday was World Book Day and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel celebrated by bringing a quintet of librarians together to tell Republicans to “shut the [bleep] up” over their supposed book bans. The only problem was that the books Kimmel and his new friends highlighted, such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill A Mockingbird, are regularly targeted by race-obsessed progressives. Kimmel began by declaring, “It’s also World Book Day today or as the state of Florida calls it, Bonfire Day.” After a digression into the demise of the phone book and the Yellow Pages, Kimmel continued, “All jokes aside, this World Book Day is a weird one. There are at least 100 bills in various red states, three of which have become law already, threatening librarians with prison for the crime of lending books. Books that aren't government-approved. Which to me, not only is this the opposite of what our country's supposed to be about, it's completely nuts. We're going to throw librarians in jail for loaning out Huckleberry Finn. This is not what they signed up for. I think it's disgusting and wrong and anti-American.”     Schools that target Huckleberry Finn generally do so under the guise that the book contains the N-word and therefore removing the book from the curriculum is needed “to protect the dignity of our students.”  Kimmel then played a sketch the show put together of five librarians reacting to Kimmel’s anti-red state diatribe. The librarians informed viewers that they are “not groomers,” “not sex fiends,” “not pornographers,” and “not Satanists.” One lamented, “Some people want to make us criminals,” while another declared, “It's not meth. It's Judy Blume.” They wondered why Republicans want to “make books the enemy” and “make knowledge the enemy.” Three of them responded that conservatives should “shut the [bleep] up.” In a post-credit scene, one added, “You can have To Kill A Mockingbird when you pry it from my cold, dead hands! Or you can check it out.” Like Huckleberry Finn, To Kill A Mockingbird is targeted by blue school districts for its unsettling, but historically accurate language, while also being attacked for the alleged white savior complex of its protagonist. Meanwhile, Kimmel’s monologue and the corresponding skit from the librarians were just another case of Jimmy Kimmel Live! not sufficiently checking their facts. Here is a transcript for the April 23 show: ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live! 4/23/2024 11:46 PM ET JIMMY KIMMEL:  It’s also World Book Day today or as the state of Florida calls it, Bonfire Day. … All jokes aside, this World Book Day is a weird one. There are at least 100 bills in various red states, three of which have become law already, threatening librarians with prison for the crime of lending books. Books that aren't government-approved. Which to me, not only is this the opposite of what our country's supposed to be about, it's completely nuts. We're going to throw librarians in jail for loaning out Huckleberry Finn. This is not what they signed up for. I think it's disgusting and wrong and anti-American. But don't take it from me, take it from these real-life librarians. MALE LIBRARIAN: I'm a librarian. FEMALE LIBRARIAN: I'm a librarian. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 2: I've been a librarian for 26 years. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 3: We're librarians. MALE LIBRARIAN: Masters of the library sciences. FEMALE LIBRARIAN: Not groomers. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 2: Not sex fiends. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 4: Not pornographers. MALE LIBRARIAN: We're the people who hand out library cards. FEMALE LIBRARIAN: We do story times. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 4: We put away the books you guys leave out on the tables instead of putting them on the reshelf cart. FEMALE LIBRARIAN: The clearly labeled reshelf cart. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 2: You can read that, right? MALE LIBRARIAN: We're not the deep state. FEMALE LIBRARIAN: We're not Satanists. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 4: We're librarians. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 3: But some people want to make us criminals. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 2: Put us in jail. MALE LIBRARIAN: I would not do well in jail. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 4: It's not meth. It's Judy Blume. MALE LIBRARIAN: Judy effing Bloom. FEMALE LIBRARIAN: Judy effing Bloom. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 4: Fine us thousands of dollars? FEMALE LIBRARIAN 3: Like we have thousands of dollars. FEMALE LIBRARIAN: Make books the enemy? MALE LIBRARIAN: Make knowledge the enemy? FEMALE LIBRARIAN 4: And you know what we say to this? ALL: Shh! FEMALE LIBRARIAN: Shut the [bleep] up! FEMALE LIBRARIAN 2: Shut the [bleep] up. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 4: Please shut the [bleep] up. MALE LIBRARIAN: What's wrong with you? NARRATOR: Paid for by Americans Against Americans Against Librarians. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 2: You can have To Kill A Mockingbird when you pry it from my cold, dead hands! Or you can check it out.

NEED A HANKY? Taylor Lorenz Ugly Cries Over Neutral Meta Policy Because It Affects Lefties Too

The Washington Post’s in-house cry-bully Taylor Lorenz apparently only seems to care about Big Tech when its policies affect leftists’ ability to spread their off-the-rails agitprop all over the social media landscape.  Meta announced Feb. 9 that it would be limiting all political content recommended writ large to its user bases on Instagram and Threads. This apparently struck a nerve with Lorenz, who jumped on the news with a Feb. 10 piece of her own lambasting the move as “angering some news creators” who were “gearing up for a crucial election year.” Talk about projection.  Lorenz is apparently still miffed, as her Apr. 10 piece regurgitated the bellyaching of leftist “content creators” pleading for Meta and its subsidiary Instagram in an open letter to “reverse” course, despite it being a neutral policy that affects everyone, both left and right-leaning content creators. The letter was spearheaded by the radical LGBTQ group GLAAD — a drag-queen-shows-for-kids apologist organization — and the anti-free speech leftist group Accountable Tech, which has deep ties to the Democratic Party, which Lorenz failed to disclose.  In 2023, Accountable Tech was “beefing up its team with former Democratic staffers to combat what they call an undermining of the information ecosystem and democracy ahead of next year's elections,” reported Axios at the time.  Accountable Tech’s co-founder, Jesse Lehrich, was a foreign policy spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 campaign. The group’s current chief of staff, Robbie Dornbush, served on then-candidate Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. Accountable Tech’s communications director Bianca Recto previously worked for the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), in addition to the Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) 2020 presidential campaign.  Lorenz didn’t bother letting readers know about any of this, but perhaps that’s because in Lorenz’s world, targeting right-leaning content is OK, but a neutral policy that even remotely affects left-leaning content is a foul ball. Hypocrisy much? Lorenz whined that Meta’s new apolitical policy (no pun intended) “alarmed users who post about social issues, including LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, racial inequality and disability.” According to Lorenz, so-called “Independent” journalists and content creators “say they’ve struggled to reach their audiences in recent weeks since the change was rolled out.” Conveniently, nowhere does Lorenz mention that Meta’s new policy affects all sides of the political spectrum, not just the woke, social justice warriors she’s mourning about.  Is Lorenz going to take issue with Meta in light of MRC Free Speech America’s latest study showing that Facebook interfered in U.S. elections to the overwhelming benefit of leftist candidates at least 39 times since 2008? Doubtful. But Lorenz did manage to complain in her April 10 screed that LGBTQ creators were potentially going to be inhibited from promoting sex changes for children. Yes, she actually wrote that: LGBTQ creators have been particularly concerned by the limitations because they were imposed as some states were placing restrictions on medical treatments for transgender youths. It’s a wonder how many more buckets of lefty crocodile tears Lorenz is going to cry before she starts treading water.  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.    

Column: Anti-Censorship Group PEN America Canceled by Pro-Hamas Authors

The leftist “free expression” group PEN America collided with a brick wall of radicals who don’t like anyone who expresses a sympathetic view of Israel after the Hamas slaughter of October 7. Their literary awards ceremony had to be cancelled due to a substantial withdrawal of authors striking a “pro-Palestinian” pose. If you disagree with that view? You’re “complicit” in genocide. Agree with the mob, or you favor mass murder. Their view is so obviously correct that they cannot understand how anyone could possibly disagree with it. “We refuse to gild the reputation of an organization that runs interference for an administration aiding and abetting genocide with our tax dollars,” a group of nominees wrote in an April 17 letter addressed to PEN America leaders. “And we refuse to take part in anything that will serve to overshadow PEN’s complicity in normalizing genocide.” Of 61 authors and translators nominated for a book prize this year, 28 declined. For the most prestigious book prize — the PEN/Jean Stein award, which comes with $75,000 — nine of 10 finalists dropped out. The fiasco will continue. PEN America’s annual World Voices Festival has also been hemorrhaging participants. Activists want heads to roll. “The fact is that Israel is leading a genocide of the Palestinian people. PEN’s perpetuation of false equivalences, their equivocation and normalizing, is indeed a betrayal.” PEN America replied: “The current war in Gaza is horrific. But we cannot agree that the answer to its wrenching dilemmas and consequences lies in a shutting down of conversation and the closing down of viewpoints.” This furor underlines what conservatives have been saying about PEN’s self-righteous “book ban” posture. They’re not “anti-censorship.” They’re promoting a leftist revolution in literature and libraries. What the Left wants is a system where the "experts" — educators and librarians — select all the books, and the "nonexperts" — parents — shut up and accept them. So it’s amazing to see the Left eating its own over who can position themselves with moral authority as the most “pro-Palestinian.”  Free expression is nowhere to be found. The Washington Post reported many of the withdrawing activists objected to a January event where author Randa Jarrar was physically removed after she screamed incessantly during a PEN-sponsored discussion of American comedian Moshe Kasher’s memoir Subculture Vulture, which featured Israel-supporting actress and Jeopardy host Mayim Bialik. Protesters were the censors: “Jarrar and other protesters from the group Writers Against the War on Gaza were shouting, through a loudspeaker, the names of Palestinian writers killed in Gaza.” The group tweeted video, complaining: “With delusional liberal aplomb, PEN America claims objectivity while platforming genocidal Zionists and silencing Palestinians.” As usual with the radicals, “objectivity” or "bothsidesism” is painted as evil, and anyone speaking in support of Israel is automatically a maniacal Zionist who must be deplatformed. The Post story ended with a quote from novelist (and former Andrew Cuomo speechwriter) Camonghne Felix: “We cannot hope to change every institution, but we hope that by changing ourselves what we will accept, that the organizations will have no choice but to bend towards us.” The notion of free expression is going to crumble when the leftist “negotiating” position is “no choice but to bend.”

STATE PROPAGANDA: ABC Wishcasts Abortion Driving A Biden Florida Win

Among the major broadcast network evening newscasts, ABC’s is often the likeliest to go into over-the-top campaign propaganda for Democrats holding power. Case in point, ABC Whirled News Tonight’s coverage of President Joe Biden’s Florida speech on abortion. Watch as anchor David Muir and Chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce being a heavy dose of hopium to their abortion coverage:  DAVID MUIR: We turn now to President Biden tonight, hoping to put the state of Florida back in play this November. Tonight, the president's major abortion rights speech in Florida, with that state's new six-week abortion ban just days now from going into effect. Mary Bruce in Florida. MARY BRUCE: President Biden today traveling to Florida, just days before the state's strict new abortion law goes into effect. Banning the procedure at just six weeks, when many women don't even know they're pregnant. JOE BIDEN: There's one person responsible for this nightmare, and he's acknowledged, and he brags about it, Donald Trump. BRUCE: It's Biden's first major campaign speech on abortion, an issue he’s putting at the center of his re-election bid. Disney-owned ABC got into the dream business with this report, and I will respectfully remind you all that a dream is a wish your heart makes. Or in this instance, a wish Muir and Bruce make- the idea that abortion will help Biden carry Florida. The report was laden with what our friend Curtis Houck calls Team Biden apple-polishing. There was tons of that, for sure, crammed into 2 minutes and 11 seconds. After the usual Biden talking point-parroting, Bruce trots out someone from out of state to talk about how abortion is on the ballot. And then Bruce proves the dangers of being an Acela type parachuting into a state to talk local politics. She closes out her report by saying: BRUCE: And Florida is one of 14 states where abortion could be on the ballot in November The Biden campaign hoping that could put this state in play for them. They know every time the issue's been on the ballot, even in red states, abortion rights have won. In fact, an abortion question is on the Florida ballot in November. Not “could be”. Bruce might have known this had she read about it on ABC News dot com. A little more reading would’ve yielded the fact that recreational marijuana is also on the ballot, and that Florida Republicans have in the past won elections where there are also liberal ballot questions before the voters. Consider the sparse attendance at Biden’s Florida events where he was hyping abortion despite abortion already being on the ballot. Abortion isn’t the driver that Bruce and Muir are telling viewers it is.  But, alas, those apples aren’t going to polish themselves. Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on ABC World News Tonight on Tuesday, April 23rd, 2024: DAVID MUIR: We turn now to President Biden tonight, hoping to put the state of Florida back in play this November. Tonight, the president's major abortion rights speech in Florida, with that state's new six-week abortion ban just days now from going into effect. Mary Bruce in Florida. MARY BRUCE: President Biden today traveling to Florida, just days before the state's strict new abortion law goes into effect. Banning the procedure at just six weeks, when many women don't even know they're pregnant. JOE BIDEN: There's one person responsible for this nightmare, and he's acknowledged, and he brags about it, Donald Trump. BRUCE: It's Biden's first major campaign speech on abortion, an issue he’s putting at the center of his re-election bid. Florida one of 21 states to ban or severely restrict abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Trump boasts of appointing three of the justices who struck Roe down. DONALD TRUMP: We broke Roe v. Wade, and we did something that nobody thought was possible. We gave it back to the states. And the states are working very brilliantly. BRUCE: Today, Biden calling Trump out. BIDEN: Individual state laws are working, in his words, brilliantly. Brilliantly. It's a six-week ban in Florida, it's really brilliant, isn't it? Even before women know they're pregnant. Is that brilliant? BRUCE: Biden is counting on the issue to energize voters, especially women. He was introduced today by Kaitlyn Joshua of Louisiana. She was almost 12 weeks pregnant when she suffered a miscarriage. When she showed up at the hospital bleeding, doctors refused to treat her, afraid of running afoul of Louisiana’s near-total abortion ban. KAITLYN JOSHUA: Another hospital basically just told me they would send me home with prayers, but were not able to medically diagnose miscarriage. BRUCE: They said they would send you home with prayers… JOSHUA: Correct. BRUCE: …but couldn't give you medical advice? JOSHUA: That's correct. BRUCE: Her message to women tonight -- JOSHUA: Abortion is absolutely on the ballot this year. If this is not a topic that you think is going to touch you or doesn't touch you currently. It absolutely will. BRUCE: And Florida is one of 14 states where abortion could be on the ballot in November The Biden campaign hoping that could put this state in play for them. They know every time the issue's been on the ballot, even in red states, abortion rights have won. David. MUIR: Mary Bruce, traveling with the president in Florida. Mary, thank you.  

WHAT? Threats Against Jews Disappear From Pro-Hamas Protest Coverage

The evening network newscasts are barely into their second weeknight covering the violent, pro-Hamas protests outside Columbia University and throughout college campuses across the nation, and there is already a discernible shift in their coverage. Direct threats against Jewish students have all but disappeared from coverage. In place of the threats and violence, we get a lot more militancy across the dial. Case in point and most emblematic is this snippet to close out CBS’s coverage of the protests: NANCY CHEN: From coast-to-coast, campus to campus, protests are growing louder in solidarity. Students are also joining in at UC Berkeley. MALAK AFANEH: Quite frankly, I think it's important that people start to align themselves with the Palestinian resistance. CHEN: Here at Columbia University, the seventh day of protests. Demonstrators want the school to divest from all business that supports Israel. STUDENT: I think it's time to divest from those weapons manufacturing and re-divest(sic) them into other important things. CHEN: They are also demanding amnesty for all students who have been punished.  Is the goal to stay here until those demands are met? STUDENT: Yes. CHEN: And as you can see behind me, demonstrators both on and off campus are still demanding to be heard. Meanwhile, there are growing calls for the university's president to resign. ABC and NBC were not that much better.  Somebody got to the media, plain and simple. Just yesterday, newscasts were reporting on the young girl that stood in front of a group of Jewish counter protesters while holding a sign that read “Al Qassam’s next targets”. Today, those very real, tangible, and unresolved threats hung in the air as each of the networks reported nearly exclusively from the protesters’ perspective. It would appear, judging from the coverage, that the media is inching towards a left-consensus position from which to cover the protests- that is, as Pro-Hamas as possible. What Jews were featured tonight were there only to discuss unspecified “discomfort”- not narrate getting poked in the eye with a Palestinian flag or having “go back to Poland” yelled at them. And in ABC’s case, immediately had that concern followed up with by a Jewish protester’s perspective: AIDEN HUNTER: I don't mean to diminish that, but I'd say the majority of my friends, especially Jewish friends, feel a sense of insecurity at this time. STEPHANIE RAMOS: But among the pro-Palestinian protesters here are also some Jewish-Americans, like professor Alex Wolf. ALEX WOLF: Anti-semitism and anti-Zionism are not the same thing. And that is one thing to have beliefs -- beliefs of the Jewish religion, and it's another thing to support the policies and actions of the Israeli state. NBC’s Erin McLaughlin went off on a weird tangent as she described “a new flashpoint between free speech and hate speech.”  MCLAUGHLIN: The university said many of the protesters were not affiliated with the school, and that they'd witnessed disorderly, disruptive and antagonizing behavior, pointing to intimidating chants and several antisemitic incidents reported. The days of protests following congressional testimony from Columbia's president, creating a new flash point between free speech and hate speech.  What does that even mean? There is only “speech”. Far from protecting Jewish students by keeping their stories away from the gaze of the viewing public, this increasingly pro-Hamas coverage actually puts them at risk.  Click “expand” to view the transcripts of the aforementioned reports as aired on their respective network evening newscasts on Tuesday, April 23rd, 2024: ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT: DAVID MUIR: We turn now to the violent scenes breaking out at campus protests across this country over the war in Gaza. Dramatic images tonight. Mass protests at Columbia, NYU, M.I.T., Yale, the University of Minnesota, Berkeley, and several more campuses. At NYU, New York City's mayor blaming outside agitators for tossing bottles and chairs at officers. At Cal Poly Humboldt in northern California, protestors clashing with police in riot gear trying to get them to leave. ABC’s Stephanie Ramos at Columbia tonight on the scenes playing out across this country. STEPHANIE RAMOS: Tonight, these images show protests turning violent, as police struggle to control students at Cal Poly Humboldt. Demonstrations spreading from coast to coast. Protesters facing off with police in riot gear. Using furniture to barricade themselves inside this academic building, as officers with shields try to move in. One protester bashing police with an empty water jug. It comes after more than 150 students and faculty were arrested at NYU overnight, when police moved in to clear pro-Palestinian protesters who refused to move. The crowd then marching to Police headquarters. New York's Mayor Eric Adams blaming outside agitators for a violent turn in campus protests. Pointing to this video he says shows bottles and chairs thrown at officers. ERIC ADAMS: People who peacefully protest for an issue, they’re not throwing bottles and chairs. The chair dented the helmet. Can you imagine if he didn't have the helmet on? RAMOS: Today, NYU ramping up security with a new barricade. Protesters are now digging in. From Berkeley, to the University of Michigan, to Minneapolis, where police today took down tents and made arrests. Colleges struggling under a new wave of solidarity protests inspired by the movement at Columbia University. The encampment here at Columbia University is at the center of this campus. Demonstrators are studying and sleeping here, all while workers try to set all of this up for graduation just three weeks away. Protesters are demanding colleges divest from companies they say profit from ties to Israel. MARYAM ALWAN: We're not planning on packing up and going home. We are here because people in Palestine are going through so much worse. RAMOS: Columbia offering virtual learning for the last week of classes, after some Jewish students said they felt unsafe on campus. Like Aiden Hunter, who tells us he understands why people are protesting. AIDEN HUNTER: I don't mean to diminish that, but I'd say the majority of my friends, especially Jewish friends, feel a sense of insecurity at this time. RAMOS: But among the pro-Palestinian protesters here are also some Jewish-Americans, like professor Alex Wolf. ALEX WOLF: Anti-semitism and anti-Zionism are not the same thing. And that is one thing to have beliefs -- beliefs of the Jewish religion, and it's another thing to support the policies and actions of the Israeli state. RAMOS: Columbia University says they are still in talks with protesters, adding, “that work continues in good faith.” David. MUIR: Stephanie Ramos again tonight. Steph, thank you. CBS EVENING NEWS: MAURICE DUBOIS: Now to those escalating clashes and threats of violence on college campuses. Protests are growing as more students across the country are staging demonstrations against Israel's war in Gaza. CBS's Nancy Chen tonight on what protesters are demanding. PROTESTERS: We are not afraid of you! NANCY CHEN: Pro-Palestinian demonstrators clashed with police at Cal Poly Humboldt in northern California, after a group of students used chairs and other furniture to barricade themselves inside one of the school’s main buildings. At NYU, NYPD officers in riot gear cleared out a pro-Palestinian encampment last night after students defied the university's order to leave PROTESTER: We want to see an acknowledgment from our university that there is a genocide happening. NYPD: Leave now or you will be arrested for trespassing. CHEN: 120 people were arrested. PROTESTERS: Free Palestine! Free Palestine!  STUDENT: If you’re going to host a protest, you should host it in a spot that is not so busy and dependent upon students' classes. CHEN: Today, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said students who protest peacefully are not the problem. ERIC ADAMS: We can't have outside agitators come in and be destructive to our city. There was- someone wanted something to happen at that protest at NYU that police officers didn't respond to. CHEN: From coast-to-coast, campus to campus, protests are growing louder in solidarity. Students are also joining in at UC Berkeley. MALAK AFANEH: Quite frankly, I think it's important that people start to align themselves with the Palestinian resistance. CHEN: Here at Columbia University, the seventh day of protests. Demonstrators want the school to divest from all business that supports Israel. STUDENT: I think it's time to divest from those weapons manufacturing and re-divest(sic) them into other important things. CHEN: They are also demanding amnesty for all students who have been punished.  Is the goal to stay here until those demands are met? STUDENT: Yes. CHEN: And as you can see behind me, demonstrators both on and off campus are still demanding to be heard. Meanwhile, there are growing calls for the university's president to resign. Maurice. DUBOIS: And no real end in sight tonight. Nancy Chen at Columbia University in New York. Thank you. NBC NIGHTLY NEWS: LESTER HOLT: Tonight's other top story, the growing number of pro-Palestinian demonstrations and people being arrested on America's college campuses from coast-to-coast. And there’s concerns over antisemitic rhetoric. Erin McLaughlin now with late developments for us. PROTESTERS: Shame on you, shame on you! ERIN MCLAUGHLIN: Clashes and arrests from the streets of New York to the University of Minnesota to Cal Poly Humboldt. As more universities crack down on pro-Palestinian protests citing safety concerns and antisemitic rhetoric. Pro-Palestinian encampments now across more than a dozen campuses as students call for universities to divest from companies connected to Israel. PROTESTER: We're paying a lot of tuition to be here. We want to know where our money is going. We want to know where the investments are going as students. MCLAUGHLIN: Overnight at New York University, police say 120 protesters were taken away in zip ties. 116 were released with summons for trespass, including assistant professor Zach Samalin.  Did you have the opportunity to leave? ZACH SAMALIN: I did have the opportunity to leave, yes. But what I did instead was I linked arms with my colleagues on the faculty of New York University in order to protect our students from the police. MCLAUGHLIN: The university said many of the protesters were not affiliated with the school, and that they'd witnessed disorderly, disruptive and antagonizing behavior, pointing to intimidating chants and several antisemitic incidents reported. The days of protests following congressional testimony from Columbia's president, creating a new flash point between free speech and hate speech.  Why do you believe they stopped this protest? SAMALIN: NYU has been engaged in a campaign of repressing pro-Palestinian speech for six months, seven months. That is- I'm unequivocal about that. MCLAUGHLIN: Students insisting the protest was peaceful. Today with the NYU business school barricaded… PROTESTERS: The people! United! Will never be defeated! CHEN: Students gather in nearby Washington Square Park. STUDENT: It's really frustrating because they say they're for free speech and they say they're for academic freedom. MCLAUGHLIN: At nearby Columbia University, classes are being offered online the rest of the year. The pro-Palestinian encampment still standing following last week's mass arrests. HAGAR CHEMALI: It's not safe. MCLAUGHLIN: Associate professor Hagar Chemali says the university needs to do more for Jewish students to feel safe. CHEMALI: It shouldn't be that we have to shut down classes and go virtual and force us to stay home and encourage Jewish students to stay home because the protesters have created an unsafe environment. It should be the other way around. MCLAUGHLIN: Meanwhile, U.S. House Republicans demanding Columbia's president resign immediately for failing to crack down.  HOLT: And Erin joining us live now from New York, where demonstrations are taking place. Erin, the House Speaker will visit nearby Columbia University tomorrow. MCLAUGHLIN: That's right, Lester. According to his office, House Speaker Mike Johnson will meet with Jewish students on the Columbia University campus tomorrow. He’s expected to hold a press conference after that. Lester.  HOLT: Erin McLaughlin in New York, thank you.  

NYT Reporter Stuns CNN's Goldberg by Spinning for Anti-Semitic Protesters

On Tuesday's CNN This Morning, while right-leaning contributor Jonah Goldberg was condemning the anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas rhetoric used by far-left protesters on college campuses, New York Times reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro got snippy as she jumped in to cut him off and argue against the use of police against anti-Israel protesters harassing Jewish students. After host Kasie Hunt had just interviewed Congressman Josh Gottheimer -- a Jewish moderate Democrat from New Jersey -- about his visit to Columbia University and his calls for the university administration to protect Jewish students, she then went to Goldberg to begin a panel discussion. The right-leaning CNN contributor and Fox News alum complained: Look, I think the anti-Semitism stuff, particularly at Passover, is a big issue. It's a legitimate issue to talk about. It's a serious issue, and I think there's a lot of anti-Semitic stuff going on out there. But when you're saying you're Hamas, when you're praising Hamas, when you're praising Hezbollah, when you're saying you're going to globalize the intifada --     Garcia-Navarro took exception to his commentary and jumped in to interrupt: GARCIA-NAVARRO: Excuse me, I'm so sorry. GOLDBERG: Yeah? GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm sorry, but everyone is -- GOLDBERG: I'm going to finish my point. It means you're pro-terrorist. If you are celebrating Hamas, you are pro-terrorist. After declaring that she was "not disputing" that part of his analysis, she then spun for left-wing student organizers who did not act to stop anti-Semitic rhetoric at their demonstration by recalling that left-wing Jews had also protested against Israel: "Yeah, but what I'm saying is there are selective quotes that are being taken not from students themselves -- in the encampments in Columbia, they have said this -- there are Jewish students who are actually part of this." As Goldberg reacted with a befuddled facial expression, the Times journalist added: "And I just would say more broadly, when people are calling for action -- like Representative Gottheimer -- what are they actually calling for? You already had police go on --" Hunt jumped in to inject: "Well, hold on. If there are -- if the people in those encampments -- whether they're Columbia students or not -- if the university can clear them from that encampment, that is something the university can do." Garcia-Navarro continued: But they've already put -- let me just say how we got here. Columbia chose to bring police to clear the encampment that inflamed the situation to where you're now seeing these protests spread to Yale, to New York University, and beyond. I am -- many people have said that the action of bringing police into a group of people who are already feeling that they are sort of representative of the oppressed -- who are inspired by what happened with George Floyd in 2020 and seeing what is happening in Gaza, that that has really only acted as a catalyst here. And so I wonder at the wisdom of bringing in the armed police into what is essentially a university campus. Goldberg was visibly taken aback as the two went back and forth again: GOLDBERG: I question the wisdom of having a double standard that says it's okay to shout hateful pro-terrorist things at Jews, but you can't --you have to have total -- GARCIA-NAVARRO: No one is endorsing that. GOLDBERG (after looking shocked): A lot of people are endorsing that. A lot of people aren't -- GARCIA-NAVARRO: Not here. GOLDBERG: -- condemning it. Yeah. A lot of people aren't condemning it, and I -- look, I agree with you. Universities and the Democratic party and the left have a huge problem trying to figure out how to cut this Gordian knot that they've created for themselves. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CNN This Morning April 23, 2024 6:55 a.m. Eastern (after interview with Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) (a moderate Democrat) about anti-Semitic protests on college campuses) KASIE HUNT: Just how troubling is this? And how did we get to this point? JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Gosh, you got an hour? HUNT: We have six minutes. GOLDBERG: I think there's a long tradition of campus protests in this country that goes back to before the founding. It has gotten much more intense whereas schools -- they consider part of your academic college experience to be protesters. And I think that sort of encouragement gives a lot of administrators a blind eye to when these things go off the rails. Look, I think the anti-Semitism stuff, particularly at Passover, is a big issue. It's a legitimate issue to talk about. It's a serious issue, and I think there's a lot of anti-Semitic stuff going on out there. But when you're saying you're Hamas, when you're praising Hamas, when you're praising Hezbollah, when you're saying you're going to globalize the intifada -- LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO,  NEW YORK TIMES JOURNALIST/CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Excuse me, I'm so sorry. GOLDBERG: Yeah? GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm sorry, but everyone is -- GOLDBERG: I'm going to finish my point. It means you're pro-terrorist. If you are celebrating Hamas, you are pro-terrorist. GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm not disputing that. GOLDBERG: Okay, that's my point. GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yeah, but what I'm saying is there are selective quotes that are being taken not from students themselves -- in the encampments in Columbia, they have said this -- there are Jewish students who are actually part of this. And they are being used -- (Jonah Goldberg displays a confused facial expression) -- wait, let me -- let me -- GOLDBERG: You didn't let me finish my point -- GARCIA-NAVARRO: That's true. GOLDBERG: -- but go ahead. GARCIA-NAVARRO: And I just would say more broadly, when people are calling for action -- like Representative Gottheimer -- what are they actually calling for? You already had police go on -- KASIE HUNT: Well, hold on. If there are -- if the people in those encampments -- whether they're Columbia students or not -- if the university can clear them from that encampment, that is something the university can do. GARCIA-NAVARRO: But they've already put -- let me just say how we got here. Columbia chose to bring police to clear the encampment that inflamed the situation to where you're now seeing these protests spread to Yale, to New York University, and beyond. I am -- many people have said that the action of bringing police into a group of people who are already feeling that they are sort of representative of the oppressed -- who are inspired by what happened with George Floyd in 2020 and seeing what is happening in Gaza, that that has really only acted as a catalyst here. And so I wonder at the wisdom of bringing in the armed police into what is essentially a university campus. There have, you know, to try to be (inaudible) GOLDBERG: I question the wisdom of having a double standard that says it's okay to shout hateful pro-terrorist things at Jews, but you can't --you have to have total -- GARCIA-NAVARRO: No one is endorsing that. GOLDBERG: A lot of people are endorsing that. A lot of people aren't -- GARCIA-NAVARRO: Not here. GOLDBERG: -- condemning it. Yeah. A lot of people aren't condemning it, and I -- look, I agree with you. Universities and the Democratic party and the left have a huge problem trying to figure out how to cut this Gordian knot that they've created for themselves. But that doesn't mean I have to sort of condone or not call out. I spent -- I got a lot of scars from calling out horrible statements on the right over the last 10 years. I call out anti-Semitism and bigotry all the time on the right. GARCIA-NAVARRO: Of course. GOLDBERG: I don't hear a lot of that from the sort of Squad adjacent type people calling out this stuff on the left. HUNT: So John Fetterman had put out a tweet yesterday saying, like, "We are very close to Charlottesville for some of this stuff." Do you agree with that? GOLDBERG: I think the comparison can go too far, but I think Joe Biden's statement yesterday where he basically -- basically did "there are good people on both sides" kind of thing, was not the kind of moral clarity. The written statement was pretty good, but, look, Democrats have a huge problem here because there's a big chunk of Biden's coalition that does not like to hear criticism of any of this, you know, anti-Israel stuff, and they don't know how to get out of it.

Marc Morano on Biden Energy Agenda: 'Exact Opposite of Anything in the Interest of American National Security'

Climate Depot founder Marc Morano spoke out against President Joe Biden’s decisions to slow down American energy production while potentially easing energy sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran. On the April 22 edition of Fox Business’ The Evening Edit, anchor Elizabeth MacDonald told Morano that a recent foreign aid bill passed by Congress includes “fine print” suggesting that Biden doesn’t have to enforce sanctions on Iranian oil. “What do you think of that fine print there?” MacDonald asked. Morano responded by blasting the administration for putting Americans last. “The fine print is just, I hate to say it, ‘Screw America,’ once again from this administration, especially on energy. They begged Venezuela, the Middle East for more and more oil, at the same time restricting our domestic energy,” Morano said. “When you look at what he's trying to do, you have to wonder, this is the exact opposite of anything in the interest of the United States national security.”  Morano went on to say that these awful decisions would have to come from people blinded by an “ideology that believes shutting down American energy … somehow benefits the world.” Later in the interview, MacDonald played a clip of Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) making a similar point about Biden’s Alaska drilling restrictions on the April 21 edition of CBS News’s Face the Nation.  “This president won't sanction the Iranian oil and gas regime … but he has no problem sanctioning Alaska,” Sullivan decried. The senator pointed out the extent of Biden’s anti-energy push in his state: “This administration has issued 63 executive orders and executive actions singularly focused on Alaska to shut our state down.” Sullivan added that this decision would not only hurt Alaskans who benefit from the industry but would also hurt all Americans. Beyond Biden “putting off limits thirteen million acres of land in Alaska” for oil drilling—as MacDonald said—he has also halted future liquified natural gas projects. Additionally, Biden reversed a number of former President Donald Trump’s pro-energy policies shortly after taking office. Among other things, Biden rescinded the approval of the Keystone pipeline and put restrictions on the use of public land for energy extraction. He has been critical of the oil and gas sector for allegedly not making new investments while simultaneously demonstrating his leftist intent to phase out the industry through his actions and statements.  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.

New German Law Says Parents Can Change Child's Gender, Fines for ‘Deadnaming’

It seems progressives in Germany may have had too much beer before deciding on this recent law, because no sober-minded individual should’ve voted yes for this! Earlier this month, the German Parliament, Bundestag, passed a policy that would enable parents to change the gender on their child's birth certificate if the kid isn’t satisfied with their biological sex at birth, and enforce fines for any citizens who "deadname" or "misgender" other civilians. The Self-Determination Act (SBGG) is an extreme policy that caters to delusion and desire over fact and truth. As Reduxx reported, parents can alter the sex on a child’s birth certificate once the child turns five, if there is “mutual consent” between the parent and said five-year-old. Here’s more from Reduxx’s report: According to a description of the bill on the Bundestag's official website, the Self-Determination Act was designed "to implement a core idea of ​​the Basic Law, the protection of gender identity, by giving people the opportunity to change their gender entry and first name without discrimination." It continues that following a change, a one-year "blocking period" will apply where no further changes are allowed, though a person may change their name and sex once again after the year passes. Additionally, if a child is at least 14 years old, they can change their sex and name themselves, but need parental consent. Since that may cause roadblocks for some kids, the parliament will allow a family court to “decide based on the best interests of the child,” so the parent’s decision could be overruled. Related: Exposing Fake Breasts to Children, Barking for Attention & Genderseasons The new law is set to replace the 1980 law which required "trans" people to provide a local court with two separate “expert reports” that indicated to “a high degree of probability” that the individual was not going to go back and forth and revert to his or her original gender identity. Apparently people complained that the original law made the name and sex changing process too cumbersome and lengthy, hence the updated and easier path.  Not The Bee summed it up well when writing: There's no way to parody this. They're really writing it into law that you can choose your baby's sex at birth. And of course this has nothing to do with normal sane people who assign their children the correct sex at birth. It's the crazies who want to immediately throw their boy in a dress, or their girl in a "chick magnet" shirt as some sort of sick and twisted science experiment. This law is literally written to protect insane people who are hell bent on creating sociopath children. The same decision by Bundestag declared that a fine of up to €10,000 (about $10,625) would be leveled against anybody who uses a transgender person's “deadname” (the name they were born with) or "misgenders" them.  This is absolutely flabbergasting. I hope and pray nothing like this comes over to the States, because I know leftist loonies over here would be ALL over it. Follow us on Twitter/X: Things That Need To Be Said: Our Congress Does Not Represent Us Those elected to represent us are overwhelmingly serving against the interests of the American people. pic.twitter.com/tNH61Was1J — MRCTV (@mrctv) April 22, 2024  

Just Join the Biden Campaign: ABC’s Bruce Celebrates Biden Celebrating Baby-Killing

Another day, another act of Biden campaign propaganda. As we’ve seen day after day, ABC’s Good Morning America openly and unapologetically ate out of the hand of the Biden press office with a full report on the regime’s preferred topic of the day. On Tuesday, it was chief White House correspondent and chief Biden apple polisher Mary Bruce cheering Biden traveling to Florida to celebrate murdering children in the womb. A simple perusing of the NewsBusters tag for Bruce would show she’s a diamond-level frequent rider of the Biden train.     Co-host Robin Roberts did her part as well setting the table: “And now, this morning, President Biden taking his message about a woman’s right to choose to Florida exactly one week before the state’s new law outlawing most abortions goes into effect.” Even the chyron served its purpose: “New This Morning; President Biden Heading to Florida; States’s New Abortion Ban Takes Effect in One Week”. Bruce giddily boasted of “the Biden campaign...trying to seize this moment, blasting new abortion restrictions across the country” and huffing that “Donald Trump did this as he boasts of appointing three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe.” Ignoring the fact that Florida is increasingly a fervently red state, Bruce added: “Now, in Tampa today, President Biden will hold his first major campaign on the issue, one week before Florida is set to ban most abortions after six weeks before most women even know that they are pregnant.” After pointing out “Vice President Kamala Harris has been leading the charge on this issue” before Tuesday’s visit, the brisk, 56-second segment wound down with her waving pom-poms for Biden as “a staunch defender of the abortion access” amid “a complicated evolution on the issue” since he’s “a Catholic.” Challenge for Mary Bruce: Please be objective and keep yourself from getting weak knees over your liberal handlers. Impossible. Right to the end, she shilled in claiming abortion would define the election: “[T]he campaign knows this is going to be a defining issue for this campaign and they’re eager to put it front and center, Robin.” To see the relevant transcript from April 23, click “expand.” ABC’s Good Morning America April 23, 2023 7:15 a.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: New This Morning; President Biden Heading to Florida; States’s New Abortion Ban Takes Effect in One Week] ROBIN ROBERTS: And now, this morning, President Biden taking his message about a woman’s right to choose to Florida exactly one week before the state’s new law outlawing most abortions goes into effect. Our chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce will be traveling today with the President. Good morning, Mary. MARY BRUCE: Good morning, Robin. Well, the Biden campaign is trying to seize this moment, blasting new abortion restrictions across the country, urging Donald Trump did this as he boasts of appointing three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe. Now, in Tampa today, President Biden will hold his first major campaign on the issue, one week before Florida is set to ban most abortions after six weeks before most women even know that they are pregnant. Now, so far Vice President Kamala Harris has been leading the charge on this issue. The President, of course, is a staunch defender of the abortion access, but, as a Catholic, he’s had a complicated evolution on the issue, but the campaign knows this is going to be a defining issue for this campaign and they’re eager to put it front and center, Robin. ROBERTS: Alright, Mary, thank you. And safe travels today.

ABC Tries to Brush Aside Evidence of Antisemitism at Columbia University

While NBC was busy trying to discredit Jewish students who were victims of anti-Semitic attacks and threats caught on camera at Columbia University on Tuesday, ABC’s Good Morning America thought they could get by without admitting there was antisemitism coming from the pro-Hamas crowd. Instead, correspondent Stephanie Ramos simply said Jewish students “don’t feel safe” with no explanation as to why. Instead of focusing on the anti-Semitic attacks and rhetoric that caused classes at Columbia’s main campus to go virtual for the rest of the year, Ramos huffed about university administrators who allowed an increased police presence on campus and the crackdown on trespassers: RAMOS: Security heightened at Columbia University where student protesters pitched tents at the center of campus. The encampments still in place this morning. Classes there going virtual Monday. University president Minouche Shafik authorized the NYPD to make arrests last week. MIKE GERBER (NYPD deputy commissioner, legal matters): They informed us they had students who were trespassing. They asked us to come on to campus and we did. RAMOS: Demonstrators demanding institutions divest from companies with ties to Israel.     At those gatherings, far-left, pro-Hamas students chanted anti-Semitic slogans like “Go back to Poland” and held up signs calling for Jewish student counter-protesters to be killed. But instead of showing the ABC audience the far-left’s hatred of Jews, she highlighted one of the students arrested: RAMOS: Columbia PhD student Linnea Norton tells us she was one of the arrested and just wants her voice to be heard. LINNEA NORTON: We were all just sitting cross-legged together in a circle and then the NYPD came in and arrested us one by one. Immediately zip-tied us with our hands behind our backs. Ramos did note that “Many Jewish students telling us they don't feel safe on campus,” and interviewed one who explained: “It's not only mentally exhausting. I found these past few days it's been like physically affecting me. And I got told that an Israeli flag is a Nazi flag.” But that didn’t do justice to show how dangerous the situation actually was. Over on CBS Mornings, correspondent Meg Oliver showed a video of the “go back to Poland” chant. “Like near Columbia University where some demonstrators chanted anti-Semitic slogans. In one video, a protester can be seen holding a sign near Jewish students that reads ‘Al-Qasam’s [sic] next targets.’ A-Qassam is Hamas’s military arm,” she added. “Columbia announced that, to ensure safety, most classes on its main campus will be hybrid for the rest of the semester. It has also more than doubled security after a recent series of anti-Semitic incidents,” Oliver reported. At the end of her report, Ramos concluded by noting that New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft (an alum of Columbia) was “reconsidering his support for the university” without noting it was in regard to the antisemitism. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s Good Morning America April 23, 2024 7:04:39 a.m. Eastern (…) STEPHANIE RAMOS: Security heightened at Columbia University where student protesters pitched tents at the center of campus. The encampments still in place this morning. Classes there going virtual Monday. University president Minouche Shafik authorized the NYPD to make arrests last week. MIKE GERBER (NYPD deputy commissioner, legal matters): They informed us they had students who were trespassing. They asked us to come on to campus and we did. RAMOS: Demonstrators demanding institutions divest from companies with ties to Israel. Columbia PhD student Linnea Norton tells us she was one of the arrested and just wants her voice to be heard. LINNEA NORTON: We were all just sitting cross legged together in a circle and then the NYPD came in and arrested us one by one. Immediately zip tied us with our hands behind our backs. RAMOS: Tensions have been mounting at universities since the Israel/Hamas conflict began last October. Many Jewish students telling us they don't feel safe on campus. How has this hit you, the demonstrations over the last couple of days? UNNAMED JEWISH STUDENT: It's not only mentally exhausting. I found these past few days it's been like physically affecting me. And I got told that an Israeli flag is a Nazi flag. (…)

Exposing Fake Breasts to Children, Barking for Attention & Genderseasons

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. This week we took a look at how far from normal the left is.  We started out by watching a drag queen shimmy his prosthetic breasts in the face of a toddler, another drag queen didn’t shimmy as much but made sure to shake his hips and drop it low for a different young child. A transgender was invited to a queer prom to secretly talk to kids about queerness and started his announcement with “hey guys, gals and nonbinary pals.” Speaking of queer kids, a furry and a purple-haired freak at a college bent down to smell, lick or taste something out of another furry’s booty while others with intense black eyeliner barked as a form of protest. A man in pink booty shorts and a crop top, was spotted leaving the women’s restroom at the University of Tampa and a different transgender posted a video of his reaction to getting his lower bits tamed and groomed before his bottom surgery. Why he thought that was appropriate to post on the internet, I will never know. Next we saw a pink-haired individual explain that there’s something called “genderseason” which is supposedly a gender identity that is linked with a season. It represents someone who may identify as a female in the springtime, a male in the summer, neither in the fall and both in the winter...whatever. As a final nod to the strange behavior of the left, climate activists sang and chanted in long red robes with white painted faces and red gloves at what looked like some sort of church. I’m sure their little skit really helped stop climate change.

Foreign Policy Splits the Parties

In 2024, foreign policy doesn’t pit Republicans against Democrats so much as it pits Republicans against Republicans and Democrats against Democrats. For Joe Biden’s party, Israel is the fault line, with Democrats split between supporters of the Jewish State and those of Palestinian sympathies. For the party of Donald Trump, the internal conflict is over Ukraine, and the bitterness of the battle risks costing Mike Johnson his speakership. These crises in the Middle East and on NATO’s frontier are catalysts for tensions that have been growing in both parties’ coalitions since the end of the Cold War. The United States is the most powerful nation in the world, by far; what obligations does that impose on us for using our power to promote our values? And what are those values anyway? The anti-colonialist left thinks America is too wicked to do good on the world stage. The anti-interventionist right thinks the world is too unlike us to benefit from our crusading — which instead only undermines what makes us special and strong at home. The more internationalist right, on the other hand, sees greater danger to our institutions and way of life arising from insufficient engagement with a dangerous world, which will turn away from our values and interests if we don’t actively promote them. That requires, they say, supporting friends and allies around the globe and confronting hostile states, ultimately, if necessary, with military force, and by every means short of that in the meantime. The interventionist left, for its part, has the same confidence in government’s ability to improve the world outside our borders as it has in the competence of government at home. And if engaging with the world erodes American distinctiveness, as some on the right fear, that’s a benefit rather than a drawback as far as these progressives are concerned. These are basic dispositions. They’re complicated by several hard realities that can’t be avoided no matter what one’s ideal policy might be — external threats, for one thing, and the limits of America’s unprecedented but not unlimited wealth and power for another, as well as the limits of national morale and political will in support of any long-term project. There are serious debates to be had both on the left and the right. Yet on the left, as is typical for that side of politics, protest often takes the place of serious discussion, especially on college campuses. To judge by social media, one might think the right can’t have an adult conversation about foreign policy, either. But an event I recently moderated suggests that conservatives can grapple intelligently with their differences. The University of Texas at Austin held a debate — organized by UT’s Civitas Institute and my employer, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute — on the proposition “Resolved: America’s Defense of Ukraine Is Vital to Upholding the Liberal International Order,” with National Review’s Noah Rothman affirming the proposition and former Trump administration national security official Michael Anton opposing it. Although Rothman and Anton didn’t come to a meeting of minds by the end of the debate, each made points that arguably worked in the other’s favor. After an audience member asked Rothman how his fears of further Russian aggressions beyond Ukraine differed from Vietnam-era “domino theory,” Anton added that Singapore’s leader Lee Kuan Yew was reputed to have said that America really won the Vietnam War. How so? The resolve America showed in fighting the war signaled to the wider Indo-Pacific region that Communism could not expand easily and without resistance, even if Washington proved unable to save South Vietnam. That message fortified the willingness of other states to resist Communism, including Singapore. I asked Anton if this lesson applied to Ukraine. Would it mean that even if American support wasn’t enough to defeat Russia, the heightened cost of Putin’s war would still discourage further depredations by Moscow — or anyone else — and strengthen other nations’ inclinations to resist them? Anton wasn’t convinced the precedent would apply in today’s circumstances. Nevertheless, in sharing Lee’s opinion, he helpfully complicated the debate. In turn Rothman acknowledged that his support for Ukraine did not extend to sending American troops to fight for Kyiv, even if Anton proved correct in his contention that nothing less than that would secure victory for Ukraine. Rothman believed, however, that supporting Ukraine was the best way to keep America out of a European conflict, as Russian success would foment chaos on NATO’s borders and weaken the alliance architecture that kept Europe at peace. There were no concessions on either side, yet the debate showed how conservatives with starkly different views could compare them productively. It also showed a college campus can still hold a mature debate, not just another protest. Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review. To read more by Daniel McCarthy, visit www.creators.com

Stewart Mocks MSNBC, Tapper For Obsessing Over Trump Trial

The media is obsessed with Donald Trump’s Manhattan trial to such a degree that even Jon Stewart can’t help but mock them. On Monday’s edition of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, Stewart ridiculed the media for their priorities, with MSNBC and CNN’s Jake Tapper bearing extra scrutiny. Of course, it is not the first time the media has obsessed over something Trump-related, as Stewart recalled, “This trial will obviously be a test of the fairness of the American legal system. But it's also a test of the media's ability to cover Donald Trump in a responsible way, a task they have acknowledged they have performed poorly in the past.”   Jon Stewart mocked the media's (particularly MSNBC's) obsession with Trump's trial "it's also a test of the media's ability to cover Donald Trump in a responsible way, a task they have acknowledged they have performed poorly in the past." (1/?) pic.twitter.com/u6UESghJpk — Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) April 23, 2024   Stewart then played a montage of several MSNBC and CNN personalities lamenting media coverage of Trump. John Heilemann claimed it was “irresponsible” to “give Donald Trump hours and hours of free air time,” while Audie Cornish claimed, “All of us have learned some very valuable lessons from the last couple of years in delineating what's significant, what's important.” After the montage, Stewart returned to introduce another series of clips, “So brave. Well done. And I think for this trial, we will see the seeds of that introspection bear fruit. Or we will learn that learning curves are for pussies.” With the exception of one clip from a local news analyst, it was exclusively MSNBC. It included multiple claims that we are witnessing “the trial of the century” and the return of the classic, “The legal walls, closing in around Donald Trump.” The trial is obviously newsworthy, but Stewart suggested, “Perhaps if we limit the coverage to the issues at hand, and try not to create an all-encompassing spectacle of the most banal of details, perhaps that would help.” That cued yet another montage of Tapper and local news reporters following Trump’s motorcade. The last reporter waxed poetic as she claimed Trump was “arriving at this intersection of American history with defiance.”     An exasperated Stewart wondered, “Seriously, are we going to follow this guy to court every [bleep] day? Are you trying to make this O.J.? It's not even a chase! He's commuting. So, the media's first attempt, the very first attempt on the first day at self-control failed. And I'm sorry to say that it didn't -- I'm sorry, hold on, we're getting breaking news.” In the next clip, Tapper was interrupting his guest, “I'm sorry to interrupt, I've just-- one second. I apologize. We're just showing the first image of Donald Trump from inside the courtroom. It's a still photograph that we're showing there. Just want to make sure our viewers know what they're looking at.” Stewart wasn’t convinced viewers needed this information, “Yes, for our viewers who are just waking up from a 30-year coma, this is what Donald Trump has looked like every day for the past 30 years.” Later, after skewering MSNBC for interviewing a dismissed juror who almost saw Trump, Stewart teed up another clip of Tapper, “Anyway, coming up, more of our three-part interview with a guy who nearly saw Donald Trump in the courtroom. So, we have a photograph—it’s freaking me out, that picture— we have a photograph, we have eyewitness accounts, but do we have anything in a pastel?” Tapper marveled about “A courtroom sketch that we're getting in right now. I'm looking at the courtroom sketch and Mr. Trump looks like he is glowering [jump cut] I'm not sure if that's supposed to be a glower or just a glance [jump cut] I don't know how this -- it's art. It's not necessarily -- it's artistic journalism, but it's not a photograph.”     Stewart then turned to Tapper’s colleague, Erin Burnett, “Why are you showing it to us? It is a sketch… Well, I guess we'll never know. Unless! We could talk to the person who drew the sketch! But do we have the time? Nothing but!” Burnett was shown conversing with sketch artist Christine Cornell, “I want to show one of your sketches today. We're going through some of them, but this one, it appears in this one that his eyes are closed. What was happening here?” Cornell didn’t have the profound answer Burnett was looking for, “My apologies, ma'am. I was sitting 50 feet away. I was having such a struggle to try and get those eyeballs in.” If that's not a metaphor for media coverage of Trump's legal battles, then nothing is. Here is a transcript for the April 22 show: Comedy Central The Daily Show 4/22/2024 11:02 PM ET JON STEWART: This trial will obviously be a test of the fairness of the American legal system. But it's also a test of the media's ability to cover Donald Trump in a responsible way, a task they have acknowledged they have performed poorly in the past. NICOLLE WALLACE: I think to the degree that the media had lessons to learn in '16, they seemed to have been learned. JOHN HEILEMANN: It was irresponsible for cable news networks to give Donald Trump hours and hours of free air time. BRIAN STELTER: Way too much speculation and liberal wishful thinking in attempts to connect dots that did not connect. RACHEL MADDOW: It's the media's responsibility to not get distracted. NICHOLAS KRISTOF: I think we were much too busy chasing after shiny objects. AUDIE CORNISH: All of us have learned some very valuable lessons from the last couple of years in delineating what's significant, what's important. STEWART: So brave. Well done. And I think for this trial, we will see the seeds of that introspection bear fruit. Or we will learn that learning curves are for pussies. WALLACE: Here we go. MIKA BRZEZINSKI: It's on, it's happening, history will be made. ALEX WITT: Shaping up to be the trial of the century. FEMALE LOCAL NEWS ANALYST: Maybe the trial of the century. CHRIS HAYES: The trial of the century. WALLACE: What just might be the trial of the century. KATIE PHANG: The taxman is here, Donald Trump. AYMAN MOHYELDIN: He will finally be forced to face the music. CHRIS JANSING: The legal walls, closing in around Donald Trump. ANTHONY COLEY: The legal walls are starting to close in on Donald Trump. STEWART: Yes, this time, Mr. Bond, it truly is your doom! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to leave this room. Obviously, when I leave, I'm not going to press the button that opens all the doors and dismantles the killing machine I've established. Don't follow me, Mr. Bond. Perhaps if we limit the coverage to the issues at hand, and try not to create an all-encompassing spectacle of the most banal of details, perhaps that would help. JAKE TAPPER: You're looking at live pictures in New York City of Donald Trump's motorcade. MALE LOCAL NEWS REPORTER: It's about a 20-minute drive between Trump Tower and the court building. FEMALE LOCAL NEWS REPORTER: Trump leaving Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. MALE LOCAL NEWS REPORTER 2: They're now making their way across town along 57th Street. [jump cut] They just crossed Park Avenue making their way up towards Lexington Avenue. BRETT TOLMAN: He's heading down the FDR. RANJI SINHA: To the Manhattan courthouse on Chambers Street. FEMALE LOCAL NEWS REPORTER 3: Arriving at this intersection of American history with defiance. STEWART: Arriving at the intersection of American history with defiance. The brilliant juxtaposing of the gravitas of the moment with simple traffic terms was... [Chef's kiss] "He arrived at the intersection of American history, where he put a quarter in the parking meter of destiny. Leaving the car, looking to avoid stepping in the urine puddle of jurisprudence."  Seriously, are we going to follow this guy to court every [bleep] day? Are you trying to make this O.J.? It's not even a chase! He's commuting. So, the media's first attempt, the very first attempt on the first day at self-control failed. And I'm sorry to say that it didn't -- I'm sorry, hold on, we're getting breaking news. WILLIAM BRENNAN: You know, he wanted to get a jury seated. So we had a lady – JAKE TAPPER: Will, I'm sorry to interrupt, I've just-- one second. I apologize. We're just showing the first image of Donald Trump from inside the courtroom. BRENNAN: Okay. TAPPER: It's a still photograph that we're showing there. Just want to make sure our viewers know what they're looking at. STEWART: Yes, for our viewers who are just waking up from a 30-year coma, this is what Donald Trump has looked like every day for the past 30 years. … STEWART: Anyway, coming up, more of our three-part interview with a guy who nearly saw Donald Trump in the courtroom. So, we have a photograph—it’s freaking me out, that picture— we have a photograph, we have eyewitness accounts, but do we have anything in a pastel? TAPPER: A courtroom sketch that we're getting in right now. I'm looking at the courtroom sketch and Mr. Trump looks like he is glowering [jump cut] I'm not sure if that's supposed to be a glower or just a glance [jump cut] I don't know how this -- it's art. It's not necessarily -- it's artistic journalism, but it's not a photograph. STEWART: Why are you showing it to us? It is a sketch. Why would anyone analyze a sketch like it was—it’d be like looking at The Last Supper and going, "Would you say Jesus looks sad here? What do you think? It's because of Judas? What if we interview one of the waiters at one of the tables from, like, a different section of the restaurant who maybe actually didn't see him? But you know, we got time to kill."  Well, I guess we'll never know. Unless! We could talk to the person who drew the sketch! But do we have the time? Nothing but! ERIN BURNETT: Christine Cornell was in the courtroom today, the official sketch artist [jump cut] I want to show one of your sketches today. We're going through some of them, but this one, it appears in this one that his eyes are closed. What was happening here? CHRISTINE CORNELL: My apologies, ma'am. I was sitting 50 feet away. I was having such a struggle to try and get those eyeballs in. STEWART: Damn it, woman! Does Donald Trump have eyeballs or no, ma'am? Does he or no? You were in the room! Tell me! Or I will not come to your trinket shop in Newport!

NBC Tries to Discredit Jewish Victims of Antisemitism at Columbia University

In recent days, the pro-Hamas gatherings at university campuses across the country have grown more violent and more brazen with their anti-Semitic rhetoric; causing Jewish students to feel unsafe and universities to advise them to stay away as they shift to virtual learning. But despite all the videos of these incidents, the Tuesday edition of NBC’s Today (via correspondent Erin McLaughlin) worked hard in an apparent attempt to discredit the Jewish students who were trying to get the world’s attention and expose the far-left. At the top of her report, McLaughlin lamented that police were cracking down on violent pro-Hamas riots. “Overnight, a tense scene at New York University after pro-Palestinian protesters were forced to leave a campus plaza. NYPD moving in with riot gear, police breaking down encampments as a sea of protesters marched through the city streets,” she mourned. McLaughlin actively tried to discredit the accounts of Jewish students who witnessed the crowds chant anti-Semitic slogans, and were assaulted and chased from pro-Israel protests: MCLAUGHLIN: Students like Andrew Stein who said he was on campus late Saturday night for a pro-Israel counter-protest, but left terrified by an angry mob. ANDREW STEIN: They started say in Arabic: “Hamas, Hamas our beloved please bomb Tel Aviv.” MCLAUGHLIN: Stein says this video shows him being followed off campus. STEIN: Me and my friend had water poured – physically poured in our face. MCLAUGHLIN: At the pro-Palestinian encampment in the heart of the university, heated confrontations. UNNAMED FEMALE STUDENT: “Go back to Poland” is not anti-Zionism, it’s anti-Semitism and that’s what was said.     She tried to contradict them with claims from the pro-Hamas side who, as she put it, “say they have no knowledge any antisemitism on campus Saturday night.” “Anyone who makes any thread to any Jewish student, we oppose you, we do not associate with you,” a pro-Hamas student told her. It was the same student who was confronted about the “go back to Poland” chant in the block quote above (included in the embedded video). While McLaughlin wanted to suggest there was no evidence of the antisemitism, over on CBS Mornings, correspondent Meg Oliver showed a video of the “go back to Poland” chant. “Like near Columbia University where some demonstrators chanted anti-Semitic slogans. In one video, a protester can be seen holding a sign near Jewish students that reads ‘Al-Qasam’s [sic] next targets.’ A-Qassam is Hamas’s military arm,” she added. “Columbia announced that, to ensure safety, most classes on its main campus will be hybrid for the rest of the semester. It has also more than doubled security after a recent series of anti-Semitic incidents,” Oliver reported. While McLaughlin was trying to discredit and ignore the violence and anti-Semitic incidents caught on camera, she was more concerned about Islamophobia: “Meanwhile at Rutgers University on Monday, a 24-year-old man was charged with a federal hate crime for allegedly breaking into that university's Islamic center during the Eid celebrations earlier in the month.” “Many are left wondering if this will continue to spread,” she feared. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: NBC’s Today April 23, 2024 7:04:16 a.m. Eastern (…) ERIN MCLAUGHLIN: Overnight, a tense scene at New York University after pro-Palestinian protesters were forced to leave a campus plaza. NYPD moving in with riot gear, police breaking down encampments as a sea of protesters marched through the city streets. It comes as tensions flair at Columbia University, now entering its seventh-consecutive day of pro-Palestinian protests; with the school announcing main campus classes will be hybrid until the end of the semester, stating “safety is our highest priority” after the university president's call to “de-escalate the rancor.” A massive NYPD presence was around the campus as a growing number of Jewish students report feeling unsafe. Students like Andrew Stein who said he was on campus late Saturday night for a pro-Israel counter protest, but left terrified by an angry mob. ANDREW STEIN: They started say in Arabic: “Hamas, Hamas our beloved please bomb Tel Aviv.” MCLAUGHLIN: Stein says this video shows him being followed off campus. STEIN: Me and my friend had water poured – physically poured in our face. MCLAUGHLIN: At the pro-Palestinian encampment in the heart of the university, heated confrontations. UNNAMED FEMALE STUDENT: “Go back to Poland” is not anti-Zionism, it’s anti-Semitism and that’s what was said. MCLAUGHLIN: The pro-Palestinian students we spoke to say they have no knowledge any antisemitism on campus Saturday night. SHERIF (Columbia University Student): Anyone who makes any thread to any Jewish student, we oppose you, we do not associate with you. MCLAUGHLIN: Patriots owner and Jewish alum Robert Kraft, a major donor, announcing he is pulling his support until corrective action is taken. (…) 7:06:26 a.m. Eastern MCLAUGHLIN: Meanwhile at Rutgers University on Monday, a 24-year-old man was charged with a federal hate crime for allegedly breaking into that university's Islamic center during the Eid celebrations earlier in the month. Many are left wondering if this will continue to spread. CBS Mornings April 23, 2024 7:08:05 a.m. Eastern (…) MEG OLIVER: The mood on campus is tense. Columbia announced that, to ensure safety, most classes on its main campus will be hybrid for the rest of the semester. It has also more than doubled security after a recent series of anti-Semitic incidents. But on many campuses, police trying to contain the demonstrations have been met with resistance. [Cuts to video] [Video of pro-Hama rioters beating police] A chaotic scene at Cal Ploy Humboldt in northern California as police in riot gear clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters. And at New York University last night, the NYPD broke up a pro-Palestinian encampment. The demonstrations have spread to campuses across the country with Palestinian supporters angry over Israel's war in Gaza and many Jewish students expressing fear after incidents of anti-Semitism. [Video of pro-Hamas man yelling “Go back to Poland”] Like near Columbia University where some demonstrators chanted anti-Semitic slogans. In one video, a protester can be seen holding a sign near Jewish students that reads “Al-Qasam’s [sic] next targets.” A-Qassam is Hamas’s military arm. UNNAMED JEWISH STUDENT: Jewish students are petrified to go onto campus. (…)

PBS News Show Defends 'The Unhoused' From 'Punitive' Laws Banning Street Camping

Sunday’s edition of PBS News Weekend spent 13 minutes out of its allotted 25 taking the loose liberal attitude toward homelessness (“the unhoused”) as a Supreme Court case looms. PBS found yet another liberal, an assistant public health professor at Cornell University, to make its preferred ideological case in the first segment, arguing an Oregon law limiting homeless camping in public spaces punishes people for being on the streets. JOHN YANG: Tomorrow, the Supreme Court hears arguments about whether laws limiting homeless encampments in public places are unconstitutional because they punish people for being homeless. The case is about laws in Grants Pass, Oregon, a city of about 40,000 in the state’s southwest corner, but the outcome could reshape policies nationwide for years to come. CHARLEY WILLISON, Cornell University: ….cities generally use much more punitive policies, these criminalization approaches that are at the heart of Johnson vs. Grants Pass to effectively punish people who are experiencing homelessness for behaviors that are associated with the realities of homelessness. Now, importantly, the use of these punitive policies actually facilitate cycles of homelessness and does not effectively end homelessness…. (Willison would throw in another “punitive” description before she was done.) Asked about Florida’s new camping ban, she responded similarly: “So these camping bans and other broadly punitive responses again, where we see people who are experiencing homelessness being either fined through civil penalties or criminalized through criminal penalties for realities associated with homelessness….” She responded to Yang’s question about a new California law to provide more drug treatment with liberal fantasizing, with no opposing views from Yang: ….For example, having more accountability, where cities are required to spend a certain proportion of their budgets on housing will likely help improve the situation and require cities to engage in these evidence-based policies which are far more effective. The anchor transitioned directly to a field report from Montana, with reporter Joe Lesar of Montana PBS speaking to Steve and Belinda Ankney, “[who] have been living in their trailer on the streets of Bozeman for the past three years.” Lesar admitted “Both have struggled with addiction” and Belinda has been previously jailed, which she blamed on “not getting the right help, not being on the right meds.” Lesar: To tackle this growing issue, Bozeman recently implemented a new ordinance limiting camping in the same spot to 30 days with an option for filing for an extension. There are rules about keeping camps clean, and after three warnings $25 civil penalties will be issued…. The reporter at least provided some anecdotes from citizens helping pay for homeless upkeep, with the head of an environmental consulting firm noting he’d suffered thefts on his company’s property and the harassment of an employee. But he ended with the view of a hand-wringing social worker and a lecture from the trailer-living denizen: Heather Grenier, Human Resources Development Council: Just general sentiment that everyone deserves the safe warm place to sleep is that doesn’t really resonate with everyone anymore. Steve Ankney: “….there are good people in Bozeman, just the ugly overshadows the good so bad.” The segment ended with a graphic of a federal government statistic claiming a 551% increase in “individuals experiencing chronic patterns of homelessness” from 2007 to 2023, which is a bit vague. When even the liberal Washington Post editorial page admits “There is no constitutional right to pitch your tent on the sidewalk” -- the kind of common-sense argument absent from PBS -- it’s clear that taxpayer-supported outlets like PBS and National Public Radio are pitched far to the left of the average American taxpayer who is involuntarily supporting them. This segment was brought to you in part by Consumer Cellular, and taxpayers like you. A transcript is available, click “Expand.” PBS News Weekend 4/21/2024 7:12:56 p.m. (ET) JOHN YANG: Tomorrow, the Supreme Court hears arguments about whether laws limiting homeless encampments in public places are unconstitutional because they punish people for being homeless. The case is about laws in Grants Pass, Oregon, a city of about 40,000 in the state southwest corner, but the outcome could reshape policies nationwide for years to come. Charley Willison teaches public health at Cornell University. She`s the author of "Ungoverned and Out of Sight: Public Health and the Political Crisis of Homelessness in the United States." Charley, in the filings for this case Grants Pass as well there these laws are about public health and public safety. The two homeless people who have brought this case say it`s really about pushing homeless people out of the -- out of Grants Pass getting them to move on to go someplace else. What`s your take on that? CHARLEY WILLISON, Cornell University: This is such an important question. And what this case is really getting at is a deep tension that American cities face when thinking about how to respond to homelessness across the country, but especially in West Coast cities that have very limited shelter capacity, and are also in the midst of a housing crisis. And these two tensions that I`d like to emphasize are that cities generally use much more punitive policies these criminalization approaches that are at the heart of Johnson versus Grants Pass to effectively punish people who are experiencing homelessness for behaviors that are associated with the realities of homelessness. Now, importantly, the use of these punitive policies actually facilitate cycles of homelessness and does not effectively end homelessness. While the alternative addressing homelessness through the use of more housing, as well as housing paired with access to social and medical services, does successfully end homelessness. However, we have seen cities across the United States have much less emphasis on the use of housing and supportive services compared to these punitive policies that are at the heart of this case. JOHN YANG: But at the same time, these camping bans are really spreading just this spring. Governor DeSantis and Florida signed a ban statewide banning camping in public places. But you say this really doesn`t help homelessness is it, does it hurt it? CHARLEY WILLISON: So these camping bans and other broadly punitive responses again, where we see people who are experiencing homelessness being either find through civil penalties or criminalized through criminal penalties for realities associated with homelessness, whether it is sleeping in public sitting down in public eating public, things like this do actually promote cycles of homelessness. Now, the Florida law that is in question is a ban on camping. However, it is also using an interim solution where there are temporary shelters and that will hopefully be used, as opposed to criminalizing people. So banning camping as opposed to incarcerating people, or finding people directing people into temporary shelters, which appear to be sanctioned camping sites. JOHN YANG: What about the ballot proposal that narrowly passed earlier this year in California that directs counties to spend more money on housing programs and drug treatment programs? Will that help? Will that make a difference? CHARLEY WILLISON: Proposition one in California, which passed just about a month ago, this raises the issue of the housing crisis itself, and the need for West Coast cities in particular, but especially cities across the United States, to engage in more housing based solutions, which are the only solution that effectively successfully ends homelessness. Across the country having these investments and in California, especially where there are by far very limited or far more limited shelter and housing opportunities compared to other East Coast cities. For example, having more accountability, where cities are required to spend a certain proportion of their budgets on housing will likely help improve the situation and require cities to engage in these evidence based policies which are far more effective. JOHN YANG: From your perspective, what`s the public health issue or what`s the public health effect implications of homelessness? CHARLEY WILLISON: There are many, many grave public health effects of homelessness. If we think about homelessness, in general, people experiencing homelessness, whether it is short term or long term face group far greater morbidity and mortality compared to the general population. And this is both in the short term and the long term. For example, we know that people who are experiencing sheltered homelessness, so this is when they don`t have to sleep outside, they have a place to go their mortality rates are about three times higher than the general population. Whereas people who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness, which is the population that is at the heart of this court case, have mortality rates are about 10 times higher than the general population. So when we`re thinking about population health and homelessness is absolutely a public health problem because of the grave and dire consequences for people and their health in these ways. JOHN YANG: In your view, what`s at stake in this case? CHARLEY WILLISON: There are many things at stake in this case, but I would say probably the most important thing is again, going back to this tension, where cities have placed a lot of very robust resources in these punitive responses to homelessness. Now, if they are allowed to continue to do this, the question will be whether or not cities will be incentivized to create these alternative solutions using housing paired with social medical services, which we know actually successfully ends homelessness. However, if the court rules in favor of Johnson, we I think this is a very big opportunity for cities to engage in these evidence based solutions and make investments especially in West Coast cities, where they have not previously done so, so that we may actually successfully reduce and end homelessness. JOHN YANG: Charley Willison of Cornell University. Thank you very much. CHARLEY WILLISON: Thank you so much. JOHN YANG: In some cities with growing numbers of homeless people, the issue goes beyond encampments and public places. They`re also coping with more people living in cars and RVs parked on city streets. Montana PBS`s Joe Lesar reports on how city leaders in Bozeman Montana are dealing with the tensions arising from this more visible display of homelessness. STEVEN ANKNEY, Bozeman resident: Terry, oh, man, you got to have thick skin out here. BELINDA ANKNEY, Bozeman resident: Oh, we got the windows broke out. Not went up there. It`s just completely gone. STEVEN ANKNEY: Yeah, that one`s had the BB come through there. JOE LESAR (voice-over): Steve and Belinda Ankney, have been living in their trailer on the streets of Bozeman for the past three years. STEVEN ANKNEY: We take plates around or if people are having a hard time and they`re not eating, they`ll stop by and ask if we can help her anyway. JOE LESAR (voice-over): The rising cost of living has only compounded issues they I`ve been facing for years.   BELINDA ANKNEY: I was raised with the drugs. I was raised with the alcohol. That`s all I knew. JOE LESAR (voice-over): Both have struggled with addiction. Belinda works full time at a restaurant. But health issues made worse by inconsistent access to care have affected Steven`s ability to work. BELINDA ANKNEY: One of the biggest misconceptions is that we want to be here that we`re not trying to get out. JOE LESAR (voice-over): Belinda`s legal troubles out another barrier to securing housing. BELINDA ANKNEY: Yeah, the mental health issues. The drug issues the in and out of incarceration not getting the right help not being on the right meds, you know, just as (inaudible). JOE LESAR (voice-over): Urban camping as it`s been named, has increased by 200 percent in the last two years, according to city officials. It`s a growing issue. It`s increasingly dividing Bozeman. WOMAN: If Bozeman is too expensive to live in, choose another place to live. MAN: But it feels more like a warzone with all these housing crises and no solutions to anything. MAN: Bozeman doesn`t owe anybody anything. MAN: I`ve never seen or been in a city where there`s so much conflict over how this homelessness thing. JOE LESAR (voice-over): To tackle this growing issue, Bozeman recently implemented a new ordinance limiting camping in the same spot to 30 days with an option for filing for an extension. There are rules about keeping camps clean, and after three warnings $25 civil penalties will be issued. If unsanitary conditions continue, the city can clear camp 72 hours after giving notice. But some are criticizing city leaders for putting too much of a burden on the unhoused. Others feel they`re being too lenient. Mayor Terry Cunningham says the rules about where camping will be allowed will help make the situation more manageable. MAYOR TERRY CUNNINGHAM, Bozeman, Montana: You can`t be parked in front of a business, you can`t be parked in front of a school, childcare facility, residence, et cetera. So narrowing the areas that it is acceptable to camp in front of is important so we can get some level of predictability and control. JOE LESAR (voice-over): But many camps are already in compliance with those rules. A group of businesses are suing the city alleging that it is refusing to enforce existing laws within the homeless encampments. Andrew Hinnenkamp runs one of the businesses involved in the lawsuit. ANDREW HINNENKAMP, Principal, Modulus Corporation: Early on, we had some thefts of services on the property. We had a little bit of a harassment interaction with an employee and one of the individuals. TERRY CUNNINGHAM: homelessness has always been on the radar. This with urban camping RV`s, more cars. This is a recent phenomenon. JOE LESAR (voice-over): Because of the generators, new model cars and TV antennas, there`s a sentiment in Bozeman that people are choosing to camp in order to save money on housing. City officials acknowledged that some people are doing that and will be asked to move on. But figuring out who those people are comes with challenges. TERRY CUNNINGHAM: One of the difficulties is having the discussion and saying why are you currently homeless? We -- they are not required to provide us with that information and often are uncomfortable answering those types of questions. JOE LESAR (voice-over): The population of people experiencing homelessness in Bozeman has increased by 50 percent since 2020. In the groups providing services to this growing population have struggled to meet the demand. HEATHER GRENIER, President, Human Resources Development Council: As a result of COVID there was this big uptick in demand and there was this outpouring of support. And now that outpouring of support has dropped off, but the demand has stayed up at this level and the resources are very insufficient to meet the need. JOE LESAR (voice-over): Heather Grenier, who runs the nonprofit Human Resource Development Council, says her organization`s caseload is at capacity. And there are not many alternatives available. HEATHER GRENIER: It`s remarkably difficult because there`s no pathway for us to help them. There`s no housing. There`s no rental assistance to help them get into housing. And even if there were a housing unit, there`s no transitional housing. JOE LESAR (voice-over): Usage of HRDC overnight shelter has nearly doubled since 2019. Some of that needs should be eased when they`re new 24/7 shelter opens, but that`s not expected until next year. Grenier believes this newer, more visible form of homelessness has caused a shift in attitudes around Bozeman. HEATHER GRENIER: Just general sentiment that everyone deserves the safe warm place to sleep is that doesn`t really resonate with everyone anymore. BELINDA ANKNEY: Are we out? Are we out for it? STEVEN ANKNEY: No. I`ve seen not. I don`t know. BELINDA ANKNEY: OK. JOE LESAR (voice-over): Cost between a lack of services and a frustrated community, are people like Steven and Belinda? STEVEN ANKNEY: There are good people in Bozeman there. Yeah. It`s just the ugly overshadows the good so bad. This is what it`s about. We are having me struggles and we are having these problems. But as soon as we get through them, we are going to be okay. We are going to get to the other side. JOE LESAR (voice-over): Yeah. For PBS News Weekend, I`m Joe Lesar in Bozeman, Montana.

WATCH: The Absurd Reason This Senator Claims Elon Musk ‘Should Be in Jail’

Elon Musk has been targeted by yet another authoritarian government for his company X’s reluctance to censor political content.  In an April 23 interview with Sky News, Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie appeared to threaten Elon Musk over his well-known advocacy for free speech and the way his company X handles political content on its platform, specifically X’s refusal to censor videos of recent attacks in Australia, contradicting the orders of the country’s eSafety commission.  Lambie engaged in a vitriolic spree against the tech mogul and considerably blackened his character. “So when it comes to the tech billionaire, like I’ve already said, I think he’s a social media nob with no social conscience,” Lambie said. “He has absolutely no social conscience.” The senator then proceeded to issue explicit threats against Musk, advocating for him to be imprisoned. “Someone like that should be in jail, and the key be thrown away,” Lambie asserted. “That bloke should not have a right to be out there on his own ideology platform and creating hatred, you know, showing all this stuff out there to our kids and all the rest.” Australian politicians want to shut down X and imprison Elon Musk because free speech is a danger to their fragile democracy that’s run by fragile, pathetic people. You couldn’t make this up. pic.twitter.com/mEBLqMtO6f — Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) April 23, 2024 In another interview, Lambie made her threats even more explicit and suggested that the  Australian government should introduce new rules to target X. “And quite frankly, the bloke [sic] should be jailed, and the sooner we can bring rules in or do something about these sorts of game-playing with their social media, the better off we’re going to be.” Lambie did not immediately respond to MRC Free Speech America’s request for comment. She is not the first Australian political figure to try to criticize the tech mogul for protecting the free expression of X users. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has also taken issue with X’s handling of what he terms “misinformation” and “disinformation.” “By and large, people responded appropriately to the calls by the [eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant],” Albanese recently commented. “They stand, I think … I find it extraordinary that X chose not to comply and trying to argue their case.” Albanese appeared to rationalize his stance against the rights of X users by arguing that it was simply the will of Australians. “We know, I think, overwhelmingly Australians want misinformation and disinformation to stop,” he said.  The controversy comes after X was ordered by Grant on April 16 to take down two videos of stabbings.  One video depicted a bishop and a priest being stabbed during a live-streamed mass, and the other video showed a knife-wielding assailant killing six at a mall. X refused to comply with the request because its Global Government Affairs team argued that the request was not within the scope of Australian law nor did the videos violate X’s own policies.  As reported by Time Magazine, the orders required X to make the videos inaccessible even to users outside Australia or face a fine of $785,000 AUD (about $500,000 USD).               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.  

The Empires Begin to Strike Back

With all that is occurring in our political and cultural life, there are signs some Americans have had enough. Google recently fired 28 employees from its New York and Sunnyvale, California, offices for protesting the company’s cloud-computing contract with Israel. The reason given by the company’s vice president for global security, Chris Rackow, as reported in The Wall Street Journal, was that the sacked employees “took over office spaces, defaced our property and physically impeded the work of other Googlers,” violating company policies. They apparently aren’t familiar with this sage advice: don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Another optimistic sign. Columbia University decided they had enough of protesters disrupting the campus and shouting antisemitic, anti-Israel and pro-Hamas slogans. Police were called and arrested 108 protesters who had set up shanty-like tent camps on school property. Columbia President Minouche Shafik said the occupiers posed a “clear and present danger to the substantial functioning of the University.” The definition of “student” ought to bring some humility to these don’t-know-it-alls: “ a person formally engaged in learning.” For too long and in too many places – and not only on many college campuses – adults have ceded their leadership responsibilities to teenagers and twenty-somethings, too many of whom regurgitate what they have been told by leftist professors and friends on social media. At Columbia, at least three tenured professors dispense propaganda about the history of the Middle East. The New York Post identified them: “ Joseph Massad, a professor of modern Arab politics and history, has faced widespread calls to be fired ever since he referred to the Oct. 7 attack inflicted by Hamas terrorists (on Israel) as ‘awesome.’” Mohamed Abdou, who is described on Columbia’s website as “a North African-Egyptian Muslim anarchist interdisciplinary activist-scholar of Indigenous, Black, critical race and Islamic studies, as well as gender, sexuality, abolition and decolonization.” Abdou declared on social media, “Yes, I’m with Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.” There is also Hamad Dabashi, a professor of Iranian studies. The Post reports Dabashi “has come under fire in recent years for a slew of controversial social media posts, including a since-deleted one in which he blamed Israel for every “dirty” problem in the world: “Every dirty treacherous ugly and pernicious happening in the world just wait for a few days and the ugly name ‘Israel’ will pop up in the atrocities,’ Dabashi wrote in a 2018 Facebook post, cited by the Jewish Journal.” There are likely more professors with views like these at Columbia and elsewhere, but you get the picture. It may be a generalization, but too many young people have been treated as though they were the font of all wisdom while older, wiser, and more experienced people have been sidelined and their views silenced. Few speak of responsibility or accountability for actions once deemed illegal, immoral, impractical, uninformed, duped and just plain stupid. Students who take out big loans to learn propaganda and worthless subjects at too many universities now expect those loans to be forgiven at taxpayer expense. When I flunked out after my freshman year at American University in Washington, my father said he wasn’t going to pay the bills anymore. When I went back a year later and paid my own way a remarkable thing happened. My grades went up because I was now invested in my education and had to take responsibility for the outcome. I also paid back my student loan. Let’s hope that others follow the lead of Columbia’s president and Google management and we stop wet nursing kids who for too long have demonstrated their ignorance and in some cases denounced America while reaping its benefits.

Liberal Media, Soros-Funded Group Attack Ted Cruz for....Hosting a Podcast

For years, the liberal media have constantly lost their noodles over the alleged, supposed crime that Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) is a walking campaign violation for co-hosting a hit podcast that’s been three years running, Verdict With Ted Cruz. Originally launched during the first Trump impeachment with Daily Wire host Michael Knowles, the show continues to publish episodes three times a week alongside longtime conservative talk show host and commentator Ben Ferguson. The liberal media helped set the table with a litany of sites coincidentally publishing nearly identical stories. Here’s the headline from one of two stories by the tools at the Daily Beast: “The Ugly Truth Behind Ted Cruz’s Super PAC Podcast”. And Newsweek — which has an unhealthy obsession with the junior senator from Texas — had not one but two stories waving pomp pomps about said complaint. Here was the headline for one of them: “Ted Cruz Faces Second Investigation in Less Than a Year”. Expand the scope and there was everyone from local and state media (the Austin American-Statesman, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Texas Monthly, Texas Tribune, and Laredo Morning Times to name a few) to liberal gadflys at Business Insider, The New Republic, Raw Story, and Rolling Stone. As for the complaint, National Review’s James Lynch wrote last week that, along with the constant liberal belly-aching, “[l]eft-wing legal and advocacy groups are targeting” him for alleged “campaign finance issues” just so conveniently as the general election between Cruz and Congressman Colin Allred (D-TX) begins in earnest. Lynch explained that “[t]he Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and End Citizens United, two left-leaning watchdog groups, filed a complaint last week with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) accusing Cruz of campaign finance violations by putting podcast ad revenue towards a pro-Cruz super PAC.” “The complaint demands the FEC investigate the situation and accuses Cruz of violating campaign finance laws prohibiting corporations from contributing directly to campaigns,” he added. With some help from the Capital Research Center, Lynch revealed to what’s probably no surprise to you, NewsBusters readers, that said groups are funded by none other than George Soros: Left-wing foundations such as the Sandler Foundation, Ford Foundation, McArthur Foundation, and George Soros’ Foundation to Promote Open Society have bankrolled the Campaign Legal Center, according to Influence Watch, a project by watchdog think tank Capital Research Center. “Campaign Legal Center is a Soros-funded left-wing attack group, and its 501(c)(4) arm was a puppet of Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced ex-crypto-billionaire who gave Democrats almost as much cash as Soros. End Citizens United is little better than a scam PAC and endorses Democratic candidates. In short, Sen. Cruz is lucky in his enemies, because these groups disgrace themselves when they pretend to be nonpartisan watchdogs,” Capital Research Center President Scott Walter told National Review. CLC has repeatedly targeted Cruz with ethics complaints, and each time the complaints have been rebuked. In 2022, CLC filed an ethics complaint to the Senate ethics committee accusing him of improperly accepting a gift from iHeart media. The Senate Ethics Committee shot down the CLC complaint. A Cruz spokesman called it “bewildering to see...lazy attacks during an election year”, particularly on something he does “for free”. Cruz himself spoke to Houston-area CBS affiliate KHOU about this nonsense and tore into these leftist “front groups” looking to engage in election interference (click “expand”): There are two groups that file these complaints. And they’re both Democrat front groups. So what they do every election cycle is they file complaints against Republicans. And that’s what they exist to do—create news stories that are just attack vehicles. It’s interesting because these same groups previously filed a complaint...about my podcast...The Senate Ethics Committee dismissed it and said that [my podcast] is entirely consistent with law...I’m very proud of my Podcast...Verdict with Ted Cruz. I do it three days a week, and we have nearly a million people across Texas and across the country who tune in. The reason that I do the podcast is to tell Texans and Americans what’s happening in Washington...I do it because much of the media refuses to report the news fairly. And so people are turning to podcasts to understand what’s really going on...The podcast is something I’m very proud of. I think it’s integral to my job as a Senator to talk to Texans about what is happening in the U.S. Senate that affects the state of Texas and to talk to Texans about the threats that they are facing, whether from open borders, releasing criminals, or Iran getting billions of dollars from the Biden administration—all of which are topics that I have discussed at great length on the podcast.

Hard to Believe: Google Spreads Climate Propaganda on Earth Day

Leftist Google displayed its search engine bias yet again on “Earth Day” with a specialized logo and promotion of climate alarmist propaganda. Users going to Google’s search engine on April 22 noticed a doodle specially designed for Earth Day. Clicking on the doodle brought up biased information on alleged “climate change progress” and “climate justice.” This aligns with Google’s previous history of censoring content that doesn’t support a climate hysteria narrative. Below the sponsored sites Google provides, the tech giant proudly explains its doodle. “Happy Earth Day 2024! Today's annual Earth Day Doodle features the planet's natural beauty and biodiversity and reminds us of the importance of protecting it for future generations,” Google enthused. Google then promoted outlets and organizations including left-leaning USA Today, Wikipedia and the anti-free speech United Nations. MRC Free Speech America researchers found the top, sponsored search result in this Google search engine Earth Day tribute to be from Global Human Rights on “Climate justice definition.” The organization insanely claimed “Climate change is an existential threat to humanity” and “a leading cause of human rights violations.” You May Also Like: CNN Virtue Signals to Save Planet by Releasing Hysterical Letter: ‘To My Son, Born in the Climate Crisis’ Google has censored content in the past to enforce this leftist narrative on climate. For instance, in 2021, Google and its YouTube video platform banned advertising on so-called climate “misinformation.”  YouTube has also censored and fact-checked climate content, including putting context labels on 2024 GOP and Democrat presidential candidates’ videos, particularly Vivek Ramaswamy. Junk Science’s Steve Milloy highlighted the hypocrisy of such climate virtue-signaling on Earth Day, “The green agenda has focused on total control of society through the climate hoax and not at all about the environment we live in.” 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.

39 Times Facebook Interfered in US Elections Since 2008

If Facebook, the company, had a personal Facebook profile, its “relationship status” with free speech would say, “It’s complicated.” The platform, however, has consistently courted election interference efforts. MRC Free Speech America researchers compiled 39 times Facebook was caught interfering in U.S. elections since 2008. The platform’s record of election-interfering censorship began in 2012, reached a crescendo in 2020 and has begun fading somewhat in the early stages of the 2024 electoral cycle. All the while, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly made pro-free speech comments including during his famous 2019 speech at Georgetown University. “We can either continue to stand for free expression understanding its messiness but believing that the long journey towards greater progress requires confronting ideas that challenge us. Or we can decide that the cost is simply too great,” said Zuckerberg. “I'm here today because I believe that we must continue to stand for free expression.” He has similarly called politically-motivated censorship “dangerous” and said that Facebook and other social media platforms should not be acting as the “arbiter of truth.” And yet, from 2012 through 2024, Facebook has vacillated between a hands-off approach to free speech online and repeated election interference through policy changes and outright censorship of political candidates and ideas. Below are some of the highlights of MRC’s findings. In 2012, Facebook suspended a Veteran PAC for a meme drawing attention to the attack on Benghazi. Just over a week before the 2012 presidential election, Facebook suspended the account of Special Operations Speaks, a veteran-led PAC. The group had posted a meme reminding its followers that Navy SEALs were denied backup during the tragic terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The meme showed pictures of then-President Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden along with the words “Obama called on the SEALs and THEY got bin Laden. When the SEALs called on Obama THEY GOT DENIED,” Breitbart News reported. Facebook removed the post, which it claimed “violate[d] Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities,” according to screenshots Breitbart News included in its reporting. The page administrator proceeded to repost the meme, which was subsequently also removed. After Breitbart News ran the story, then-Facebook Manager Andrew Noyes responded to the accusation denying all fault. “I assure you that removing the image was not an act of censorship on our part. This was an error and we apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused,” he reportedly wrote.  In 2016, Facebook censored then-Democratic Party candidate for president Bernie Sanders and “conservative topics” and news. Facebook used to have a trending section on its website that included trending news manually curated by contractors. Several of the curators who worked for Facebook in 2014 and 2015 told Gizmodo the articles that appeared in Facebook’s Trending News section often depended on the biases of the curator and what Facebook wanted to be trending at the time. “Depending on who was on shift, things would be blacklisted or trending,” a former curator who asked to remain anonymous said. “I’d come on shift and I’d discover that CPAC or Mitt Romney or Glenn Beck or popular conservative topics wouldn’t be trending because either the curator didn’t recognize the news topic or it was like they had a bias against Ted Cruz.” Stories about then-presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) were also reportedly excluded. Facebook’s anti-spam algorithm also flagged many different Facebook groups, including six groups created for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) supporters, in the Democratic Party primary race against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  In 2018, Facebook censored multiple candidates for Congress and state legislatures. Facebook removed ads for Sen. (then-Rep.) Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) and Michigan state Senate Republican candidate Aric Nesbitt. The platform additionally censored an ad promoting border security paid for by then-President Donald Trump. Similarly, the platform reportedly removed a video promoting an AR-15 giveaway that Senate candidate Austin Petersen (R-MO) was conducting on his own website. In 2020, censorship on Facebook exploded.  The platform censored posts and ads from then-sitting President Donald Trump at least four times and took down seven political ads paid for by the political right. One of these ad campaigns Facebook killed just over a month before the election. The ad reportedly pointed out the incongruence between Democrats’ open borders and COVID-19 lockdown policies. The Washington Post reported at the time, “There were more than 30 versions of the ad running on the social network, according to Facebook’s ad transparency library. It had gathered between 200,000 and 250,000 impressions.” Other candidates impacted by censorship included Rep. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Florida candidate and activist Laura Loomer (R) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).  2020 election interference came to a head, however, when the platform censored the New York Post’s bombshell Hunter Biden report documenting the Biden family’s financial scandals and then ultimately placed an indefinite suspension on then-sitting President Trump’s accounts shortly into 2021. In 2022, Facebook censored multiple gubernatorial candidates and candidates for U.S. Congress. The platform censored Rep. (then candidate) Rich McCormick (R-GA), Virginia GOP congressional candidate Jarome Bell, Tennessee GOP congressional candidate Robby Starbuck, and Missouri GOP U.S. Senate candidate Eric Greitens. In McCormick’s case, the congressman made an ad criticizing President Joe Biden’s “disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.” Facebook removed the ad for violating its “'Disruptive Content' policy," McCormick wrote in a Facebook post. The platform similarly censored Arizona, Alabama and Texas Republican gubernatorial candidates Kari Lake, Governor Kay Ivey and Chad Prather respectively. In the case of Lake, she said her Instagram account was restricted for 24 hours after “posting photos of Arizona and Arizonans.” In 2024, Facebook and Instagram are limiting users’ access to political content. Meta already began limiting its distribution of political content in 2022 but has continued to lean into that in the lead-up to the 2024 election. In February, Meta announced that Instagram and Threads (a new social media platform owned by Meta) will no longer recommend political content by default, but users can opt in to having such content promoted to them. “If you decide to follow accounts that post political content, we don’t want to get between you and their posts, but we also don’t want to proactively recommend political content from accounts you don’t follow,” Instagram wrote in a blog. “So we’re extending our existing approach to how we treat political content – we won’t proactively recommend content about politics on recommendation surfaces across Instagram and Threads.” Although the move sounds harmless, it makes it more difficult for those who produce political content to grow their page and for more viewers to decide for themselves whether or not they want to follow that content. The platform has also censored GOP presidential candidate Larry Elder, Democrat-turned-Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.   Recommendations House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) should direct relevant committees and committee chairmen to investigate Facebook for interfering in elections. State legislatures should ensure that Big Tech cannot engage in viewpoint discrimination. State attorneys general and state secretaries of state should take appropriate action to enforce state election laws as it relates to Facebook’s election interference.  In the spirit of openness and transparency, Facebook should establish a bipartisan, blue-ribbon commission to address the election interference and censorship issues outlined in this report.   You can read the full study here.  

Reid Claims Columbia Hamas Protests Are 'Singing About Peace'

MSNBC’s Joy Reid pulled out the head in the sand strategy for Monday’s edition of The ReidOut when discussing anti-Semitism being prevalent at Columbia University. During an interview with Rev. Mark Thompson and Maryam Alwan of Columbia’s chapter of Students for Justine in Palestine, Reid claimed she simply “didn’t hear it.” Addressing Thompson, Reid claimed that things at Columbia are fine, “I saw, Mark, these students singing and singing about peace and singing salaam, singing words of peace. So, it just didn't square with what I was even hearing on television and television commentators saying was shrieking anti-Semitism, I didn't hear it.”     Perhaps Reid wasn’t looking because a rabbi has advised Jewish students to avoid campus and return home. As for Thompson, whose MSNBC chyron labels him as a “social justice activist,” he also wanted to act as if the majority of demonstrators are simply peace activists, “No, I was there yesterday, and it was very peaceful and very moving. The-- one of the institutions affiliated with Columbia, of course, is Union Theological Seminary and the Union students held a Sunday worship service and served communion there on campus, even to those beyond the gates who couldn't get in. So, this betrays the imagery of there being violent rhetoric spewed.” Thompson conceded that “I do have a colleague whose daughter is a freshman at Barnard and she has faced some harassment, but as Maryam said, these are outliers and in the movement, we’ve always had –” Reid interrupted to add, “It happened at Black Lives Matter rallies,” as Thompson continued, “So, that’s—but, in general, it’s not a good idea to generalize what is going on. These are peaceful and non-violent demonstrations.” Meanwhile, Reid generalizes about people all the time. Almost every show is the same: conservatives are racists, sexists, religious weirdos, and Trump cultists. She does not get to claim that those who want Hamas to survive to possibly commit another October 7 get to disassociate themselves with Hamas supporters who hold signs reading “Al-Qasam's Next Targets” while pointing to Jewish counter-protestors or over 100 professors who want to “recontextualize” October 7 and frame it as a “military response.” Turning her attention to Alwan, Reid wondered, “What do you make of leaders of your school seeming, I guess, to appease maybe members of Congress that have been all over your president and want her to resign, calling the NYPD on you all?” Naturally, Alwan decided to portray herself as the victim, “It feels like it's been a McCarthyite campaign to try to equate our peaceful protest, calling them to divest from violence, and they are calling us violent instead. It was horrifying to be carried out in zip ties when we were just, you know, peacefully calling for an end to the violence.” Reid, claimed she didn’t see any anti-Semitism at Columbia, yet by referencing BDS, Alwan proved it was right there at her desk. Here is a transcript for the April 22 show: MSNBC The ReidOut 4/22/2024 7:50 PM ET JOY REID: I saw, Mark, these students singing and singing about peace and singing salaam, singing words of peace. So, it just didn't square with what I was even hearing on television and television commentators saying was shrieking anti-Semitism, I didn't hear it. MARK THOMPSON: No, I was there yesterday, and it was very peaceful and very moving. The-- one of the institutions affiliated with Columbia, of course, is Union Theological Seminary and the Union students held a Sunday worship service and served communion there on campus, even to those beyond the gates who couldn't get in. So, this betrays the imagery of there being violent rhetoric spewed. I will say this, I do have a colleague whose daughter is a freshman at Barnard and she has faced some harassment, but as Maryam said, these are outliers and in the movement, we’ve always had – REID: It happened at Black Lives Matter rallies. THOMPSON: You’ve got provocateurs.  REID: Yeah. THOMPSON: So, that’s—but, in general, it’s not a good idea to generalize what is going on. These are peaceful and non-violent demonstrations. REID: Let me, what do you make of leaders of your school seeming, I guess, to appease maybe members of Congress that have been all over your president and want her to resign, calling the NYPD on you all? MARYAM ALWAN: It feels like it's been a McCarthyite campaign to try to equate our peaceful protest, calling them to divest from violence, and they are calling us violent instead. It was horrifying to be carried out in zip ties when we were just, you know, peacefully calling for an end to the violence.

'No Evidence'! Dana Bash Yells at Gov. Kristi Noem Over Who's Behind the Trump Trial

Gov. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) saddled up for another fight against CNN host Dana Bash on Sunday’s State of the Union. Two years ago, Bash pushed Noem around, insisting she support an abortion for a raped 10-year-old girl in Chicago. Noem kept attacking the rapist. On Sunday, the combat resumed over the Trump trial in Manhattan. Bash kept pressing Noem about how she couldn’t possibly support Trump if he was convicted, and pulled out the usual “No Evidence” fussing when Noem attacked the Bidens. BASH: Prosecutors allege Donald Trump falsified business records to hide hush money payments weeks before the 2016 election. As I mentioned, he violated both state, tax and federal campaign finance laws. So, are you saying that, even if that's true, he shouldn't have been charged and that he's above the law? NOEM: What I'm saying is that these prosecutors are using someone as -- whose testimony has been proven to be a liar. Michael Cohen has lied before Congress multiple times. That's their main witness. I would say that he certainly is not someone who can be trusted to do the right thing during this jury trial. They're also using a woman's testimony [Stormy Daniels] who signed a letter saying that this affair did not happen, that she has testified in the past that this never occurred. And so now they're going forward with a case built on that and saying that, because Donald Trump paid his legal bills, that now he can be prosecuted for something that even the person that alleged it happened is saying did not happen. Noem added: "When I'm walking around this state and talking to people, talking to people across the country, they don't even know which trial this is. They're like, I don't remember which one this isn't about. Is this the one they're coming after him for this or this?" Where Bash really got agitated and wouldn't let Noem finish a sentence is when the governor said "the Democrats and the activists are using this trial to derail him, to keep him in court, instead of out talking to Americans about what their real concerns are." She then interpreted that more narrowly as if only Biden was trying to derail Trump, when all the Democrats are, including the entire staff of CNN. NOEM:  And their real concerns are their everyday lives. They need a leader in the White House who gets up every day and puts them first and doesn't raise their taxes, doesn't overregulate them, take away their freedoms and give all our money to other countries, instead of making sure that we're taking care of America first and keeping us safe and secure. BASH: I just want to say for the record there's absolutely no evidence that President Biden is involved in this. This is the case that is being brought in the state of New York by the Manhattan DA. NOEM: And that's what I think is remarkable, is that, if you look at President Biden and what he's done and what his son has done, and the fact that... BASH: That has nothing... NOEM: ... they are not being prosecuted for some of their crimes... BASH: That -- OK, that has -- that has nothing to do with this. NOEM: ... that they have committed, it's really kind of unprecedented. BASH: That has nothing to do with this. Bash finished with this: "But kind of big picture, Governor, if Donald Trump is convicted in this trial, will you still support him in November?" PS: After Noem, Bash questioned Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-Ill.) and she was still on a "no evidence" kick as she typically pressed the Democrat from the left, that Biden was too weak in attacking Trump:  We, of course, have seen the split screen that we're going to continue to see, President Biden campaigning, former President Trump in court. Biden is deliberately avoiding talking about Trump's legal issues on the trail because he doesn't want to play into the claims that he's orchestrating the political prosecution, which I guess I should say again that there's no evidence of. But just as a political strategic matter, do you think ignoring it is a mistake, or should Biden be reminding voters at every turn that the Republican nominee is currently on -- involved in a criminal trial? 

CBS Manages Story On Sticker Shock With No Mention of Inflation, Biden

There is a reason we call them Regime Media: their propensity to file stories that protect President Joe Biden from any scrutiny whatsoever, and absolve him from responsibility over the present-day calamities. Case in point: the latest CBS Weekend News report on high car and insurance prices. Watch as anchor Jericka Duncan introduces correspondent Jeff Nguyen’s report, wherein she assures viewers that Nguyen will explain why car prices are so doggone high:  JERICKA DUNCAN: Drivers are facing the worst sticker shock in a generation. Take used car prices. They now average $25,600. That's nearly 25% higher than five years ago. From loans to insurance, costs are soaring at every turn. In tonight's "Weekend journal" CBS's Jeff Nguyen in Los Angeles explains some of the reasons why. Alas, Nguyen didn’t really explain the reasons why. Instead, viewers were offered numbers as reasons. For example: JEFF NGUYEN: Last month the average price of a new car was just under $47,000. And the average new car payment was north of $700. Also in March, the average interest rate for a new car loan was more than 7%. Used, nearly 12%. Yes, but WHY are average new car prices under 47,000? Was there anything that happened over the past few years that might have affected the cost of raw materials? Say, disruptions in the supply chain and INFLATION? It’s inscrutable. Nguyen offers no answers.  Likewise, WHY are interest rates higher than they were previously? Why did the Fed raise rates over the past few years? What unmentionable phenomenon were they trying to curtail by raising rates? Might this thing that Nguyen refuses to mention rhyme with schminflation? Maybe? Yes? Really, Nguyen manages to burn 2-plus minutes without saying much. The profiled lesbian couple balks at a new $85,000 car and ends up buying two used cars. The insurance expert proffers that rates are higher because the cost of fixing a bumper increased tenfold due to all the sensors and whatnot. The dealership owner seems hopeful that incentives are coming back. But there is no WHY in all of that. Nguyen never gives it up, even as he closes his report by mentioning that repossessions are up and citing high prices and interest rates as the primary culprits. But we know the game Nguyen has been playing all along: The Floor is Hot Lava, but with mentioning Biden, inflation, and Bidenomics instead of touching the floor. This is how the media, in full Protect the Precious mode, manage to pull off a report on high prices and interest rates without ever mentioning inflation, or the president whose policies aggravated inflation and forced Fed rate increases. The title Regime Media is well-earned here. Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on CBS Weekend News on Sunday, April 21st, 2024: JERICKA DUNCAN: Drivers are facing the worst sticker shock in a generation. Take used car prices. They now average $25,600. That's nearly 25% higher than five years ago. From loans to insurance, costs are soaring at every turn. In tonight's "Weekend journal" CBS's Jeff Nguyen in Los Angeles explains some of the reasons why. KAREN HOOD: Here we go. MARISSA HOOD: What do you think? KAREN HOOD: There you go. JEFF NGUYEN: Karen and Marissa Hood and baby Noah have been looking for a new car since January, only to find sticker shock. KAREN HOOD: Now you're looking at the payments and it's just kind of crazy. NGUYEN: Last month the average price of a new car was just under $47,000. And the average new car payment was north of $700. Also in March, the average interest rate for a new car loan was more than 7%. Used, nearly 12%. As for finding something affordable -- IVAN DRURY: 20,000 vehicles, dead. If you want a $20,000 vehicle, you're buying a used car. NGUYEN: What will it take for prices to turn around? DRURY: In the end, if consumers don't buy, prices will go down. NGUYEN: Things may be turning around. Beau Boeckmann owns a car dealership group in Los Angeles where inventory has been sitting longer. BEAU BOECKMANN: Now we’re getting incentives back. Most of our interest rates are between 2.9% and 0%. NGUYEN: But then there’s the cost of insurance. The latest Consumer Price Index shows a 22% increase over last year. Safety features, do they affect insurance rates? JANET RUIZ: There's backup cameras, there's sensors. All these things cost quite a bit more to repair, so a bumper went from being a $1,000 repair to maybe a $10, $20,000 repair. NGUYEN: The Hoods recently purchased a used Tesla. They're looking to add a three-year-old Ford Explorer, priced at $40,000. MARISSA HOOD: We were looking at new cars and we realized that we could get two used cars. NGUYEN: The New York Fed says auto loan delinquencies are at their highest level since 2008, because of higher prices and ballooning interest rates. Jeff Nguyen, CBS News, Los Angeles.  

ABC World News Tonight SUPPRESSED Biden’s ‘Very Fine People’ Moment

All three major broadcast networks covered the ongoing violent antisemitic campus protests during their evening newscasts. Only one, ABC, omitted President Joe Biden’s statements granting moral equivalency both to the antisemitic protesters and to those who oppose them- his own “very fine people” moment. Here are the remarks in question, as aired on the CBS Evening News- the only network to actually air them: MEG OLIVER: Late this afternoon, President Biden denounced antisemitism. JOE BIDEN: I condemn the antisemitic protests, that’s why I’ve set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.  NBC Nightly News, for their part, did not directly air Biden’s remarks but ended their otherwise very balanced report with a recitation of Biden’s statements by correspondent Erin McLaughlin: HOLT: And Erin, tonight the White House is weighing in on all this. MCLAUGHLIN: That's right, Lester. Tonight, President Biden saying he condemns both antisemitic protests and those who, quote, don't understand what's going on with the Palestinians. NBC’s report was the most extensive in featuring the concerns of Jewish students, a welcome correction from their weekend reporting. CBS, after not reporting on the protests at all during the weekend, corrected the course.  This brings us back to ABC. Not only was their report on the protests the most ambiguous, but offered one glaring factual inaccuracy. The protests, contrary to what anchor David Muir said in his lead-in to Stephanie Ramos’ report, are NOT about the war in Gaza but about forcing Columbia and other universities to divest from Israel. It’s BDS on steroids. And, here again, ABC emerges as the network likeliest to air a story in a light most favorable to President Joe Biden- He Who Must Be Protected. By condemning “those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians”, Biden granted moral equivalency to the antisemitic protesters.  In a bizarro way, Biden gave a “very fine people on both sides” statement. This is all the more ironic given Biden’s performative condemnations of statements issued by former President Donald Trump in the wake of Charlottesville- which was also the caucus belli for Biden’s 2020 candidacy. In the coming days, expect the media to settle on ye olde “Republicans Pounce” or some variant thereof as they try to help Biden spin out of this. Contrary to media reports, Biden didn’t just condemn antisemitism. He bothsidesed it with terrorist sympathy.  Click “expand” to view transcripts of the aforementioned reports as aired on their respective evening newscasts on Monday, April 22nd, 2024: ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT: DAVID MUIR: Tonight, here in New York City, Columbia University increasing security as pro-Palestinian demonstrators rally against the Israel-Hamas war. The school switching to remote classes, and tonight, protests now spreading to campuses across the U.S. ABC's Stephanie Ramos at Columbia tonight. STEPHANIE RAMOS: Tonight, college campuses scrambling to handle a growing pro-Palestinian protest movement. Columbia University is stepping up campus security and moving classes online. The school's president saying, "We need a reset to de-escalate the rancor." But today, fresh arrests and tensions boiling over on the first night of Passover. This Israeli assistant professor confronting university officials over being denied access to the main lawn, as school officials tried to separate protesters. SHAI DAVIDAI: I am a professor here. I have every right to be everywhere on campus. You cannot let people that support Hamas on campus and me, a professor, not go on campus. Let me in now. RAMOS: It comes after a campus rabbi urged students to stay home, saying the school and the NYPD cannot guarantee Jewish students' safety. New York Mayor Eric Adams saying he is horrified and disgusted with antisemitism spewed at and around Columbia's campus. Pointing to videos circulating online, showing a woman in front of pro-Israel protesters with a sign reading: "Al-Qasam's next targets," a reference to Hamas' military wing. SHIRA: Made me sick hearing the things they were saying and doing. So, over this holiday, I kind of just want to try to avoid it as best as I can, for my own safety. RAMOS: Many pro-Palestinian protesters insist their movement is peaceful. MOHAMMAD KHALIL: Violence has no place on this movement. And we regret some of the incidents that has happened that were actually unassociated with this movement. RAMOS: The protests calling for colleges to divest from companies with ties to Israel now spreading to other campuses. Today, at least 45 people arrested at Yale university. At NYU, a standoff with police, after protesters were told to vacate a campus plaza.  Back here at Columbia University, students are still waiting to hear when they can return to in-person classes. New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who visited the campus today, calling on people to find their humanity and have conversations so they can understand different points of view. David? MUIR: Stephanie Ramos reporting from Columbia for us again tonight. Stephanie, thank you. CBS EVENING NEWS: MAURICE DUBOIS: Now to those escalating protests on college campuses across the country. The president of Columbia University in New York taking the extraordinary step of moving classes online due to safety concerns for Jewish students. The White House condemning the unrest, calling it blatantly antisemitic and dangerous. CBS's Meg Oliver reports. MEG OLIVER: Tension and concerns about safety continue to embroil Columbia University. With classes remote only, some Jewish students and faculty save the environment has only escalated. STUDENT: The jewish students are petrified to go to campus. OLIVER: For the past six days, hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, including Jewish students, have occupied the school’s quad, demanding the school divest from companies funding Israel. PROTESTER: Antisemitism is a huge problem in the United States, but anti-Zionism and antisemitism are two different things. MEG OLIVER: Late this afternoon, President Biden denounced antisemitism. JOE BIDEN: I condemn the antisemitic protests, that’s why I’ve set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.  OLIVER: The protests have spread to multiple universities including the University of Michigan, MIT, NYU, and Emerson College in Boston. About 60 people have been arrested at Yale since the start of the protest. Orthodox Jew Sahar Tartak, the editor-in-chief of the Yale Free Press, says demonstrators surrounded her on campus while she was reporting over the weekend. SAHAR TARTAK: So they started taunting me and giving me their middle finger and yelling in my face, and until one of them waved his Palestinian flag in my face and then jabbed me with it in my left eye. OLIVER: With Passover starting at sundown, Columbia has more than doubled its security presence. The NYPD has also stepped up controls outside and for the foreseeable future, only students and staff are allowed on campus after scanning their ids. Maurice. DUBOIS: Okay. Meg Oliver, thank you. NBC NIGHTLY NEWS: LESTER HOLT: Pro-Palestinian protests spreading to more college campuses across America tonight, prompting new restrictions and more arrests. Classes moving online at one major campus amid rising concerns over safety. Erin McLaughlin has late developments. ERIN MCLAUGHLIN: Tonight, tension across major American college campuses. NYPD: If you do not leave, you will be arrested. MCLAUGHLIN: Students setting up encampments from the University of North Carolina to M.I.T. Harvard's Yard closed until Friday. All of it as fury over the Israel-Hamas war boils over. Students expressing fear for their personal safety and concern for antisemitic hate speech. Raising new questions about the line between hate speech and the First Amendment. STUDENT: We're asking for the school to call for a cease-fire in Gaza. MCLAUGHLIN: This morning, police say at least 45 pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested at Yale University for violating Yale's policies and instructions. Police say they were later released. In a statement, the university adding that Yale does not tolerate behavior that threatened, harassed or intimidated others. Meanwhile, at Columbia today's classes were online only, with the university's president calling for a reset to de-escalate the rancor, while also adding more than 100 safety personnel to campus after more than 100 protesters were arrested last week. But with videos like this… PROTESTER: WE ARE HAMAS! MCLAUGHLIN: …emerging online, and another showing a young woman holding a sign pointing in the direction of Jewish students saying "Al Qassam's next targets”, Hamas's military wing, students Andrew Stein and Elisha Baker say they don't feel safe. ANDREW STEIN: It was the most terrified I've probably been in my entire life. MCLAUGHLIN: On Saturday night, Stein says he was on campus for a pro-Israel counterprotest when this happened. You see him in the white sweatshirt filming as a group of pro-Palestinian protesters yell expletives against Israel. STEIN: They started saying in Arabic, “Hamas, Hamas, our beloved, please bomb Tel Aviv” and then they started saying “we're coming for you, those Zionists on this campus, like, get off campus”. MCLAUGHLIN: Stein alleges the situation escalated. STEIN: Me and my friend had water poured in our face. My friend was actually abused in the middle of campus. MCLAUGHLIN: On campus Monday, faculty from Barnard and Columbia came out in support of the pro-Palestinian students who were arrested and suspended last week. PROTESTER: We're calling for divestment. We're calling for a cease-fire. MCLAUGHLIN: Students inside the encampment told NBC News they were unaware of any physical or verbal threats toward students on Saturday Night. PROTESTER: Anyone who makes any threat to any Jewish student, we oppose you. We do not associate with you. MCLAUGHLIN: Meanwhile, at Rutgers University, police announcing a man has been charged with a federal hate crime for breaking into the university's center for Islamic life and destroying property earlier this month. Tonight, on college campuses across the country, students saying they don't feel safe. HOLT: And Erin, tonight the White House is weighing in on all this. MCLAUGHLIN: That's right, Lester. Tonight, President Biden saying he condemns both antisemitic protests and those who, quote, don't understand what's going on with the Palestinians. Lester? HOLT: Erin Mclaughlin tonight, thank you.  

NewsBusters Podcast: Hillary Clinton Says Trump Wants to 'Kill His Opposition'

As pro-Biden media outlets argue that Donald Trump's criticism of his legal adversaries is endangering lives, Hillary Clinton claimed on a podcast that Trump would like to "kill his opposition," and the media find that's not dangerously suggestive. Democrats (like congressional candidate Nate McMurray in New York) tweeting "Die MAGA Die" shouldn't be questioned. On a podcast with her old lawyer Marc Elias, Hillary said "Trump was like, you know, just gaga over Putin because Putin does what Trump would like to do: Kill his opposition, imprison his opposition, drive journalists and others into exile, rule without any check or balance."  Where are the so-called "independent fact-checkers"? Because if we used the typical Daniel Dale/Politifact standard, you’d expect them to say there’s no evidence Donald Trump ever said “I’d love to kill my opposition like Putin does, but nobody will let me.”  Maybe the media would get upset if a Republican tweeted "Die Hamas Die." That wouldn't be "mostly peaceful protest."  On the Left today, Hamas is viewed as more virtuous than people wearing red MAGA hats. On the Left, the American conservative is always the most evil enemy. No one on the Left is really an enemy, not compared to the domestic extremists on the right wing. Meanwhile, the Meet the Press gang gang was a little happy on Sunday. Steve Kornacki announced Donald Trump does lead Joe Biden 46% to 44% in the latest NBC News poll, but the margin decreased from five points to two, and Trump is down two points when they add Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other third-party candidates.  Even so, Andrea Mitchell was worrying out loud that "the problem for Joe Biden and the Democrats" is Trump's trial is "crowding out everything else." Biden can't tout his steel tariffs or his student-loan "relief" handouts (going against democratic norms to buy Democrat votes). As if the media can't help but overshadow Biden with all the Trump-trial obsession?  Over on ABC, Politico's Jonathan Martin sounded a different note of panic: "I think if the election's about Trump, Biden's got a lot better chance." (That's the media's rationale for wall-to-wall coverage.) "Right now, Biden's problem is this election is about Joe Biden." Martin's lecturing the voters that they're focused on the wrong guy. Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts.   

Washington Examiner’s ‘Liberal Media Scream’ With the MRC’s Assessment

PBS Host Smears Republicans as ‘Influenced By Russia’ and Neo-Nazis

PBS likes to pretend they have a conservative host on staff, but Firing Line’s Margaret Hoover is anything but. Between being married to Democratic congressional candidate John Avlon (also a former Republican for CNN) and her Monday comments on CNN News Central, Hoover proved it. And in those comments, she lashed out at one sitting Republican member of Congress and a famous YouTuber looking to unseat a Republican incumbent from the right. Joining CNN host Kate Bolduan to speak about the House passing massive foreign aid packages and the fallout, Hoover lashed out at Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) over her threat to remove Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) from that position: HOOVER: Look, he didn't get it done to his point. And then to this question of whether Marjorie Taylor Greene is actually going to pull the trigger on this motion to vacate the threat. BOLDUAN: What’s the threat? What's the lingering threat do, do you think? HOOVER: Well look, she wants to have power and she's a chaos organizer. I mean, that's that's her end game. I mean, she just wanted to have power and be relevant. But Hoover’s criticisms went too far when she claimed that Greene was “not here for public the policy” but rather “she's being influenced by Russia.” Without evidence, she asserted, “perhaps there's an argument there.”     With the topic shifted to Republicans who opposed Greene, Bolduan wanted to talk about embattled Republican incumbent Tony Gonzalez of Texas who was forced into a runoff against popular gun YouTuber Brandan Herrera. Hoover parroted a lie that Herrera was a “neo-Nazi”: BOLDUAN: I'm wondering what the fight looks like. What's the “stand up and fight” look like from this, he [Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-TX)] was suggesting kind of the more moderate Republicans who are serving in the House in an election year. What does that look like now in the six months to? HOOVER: Well look, for Tony Gonzales, he's got he has a primary – a runoff election coming in several weeks against a Trump-endorsed neo-Nazi. He might – Meanwhile, he’s in the largest segment of the border. I mean, the only fight he cares about is the border question. Not only was Herrera not endorsed by former President Trump, but one of the Gonzalez campaign talking points was that Herrera had mocked Trump’s youngest son Barron (which was false) in an apparent effort to get support from Trump voters. And while Hoover was trying to suggest a Trump endorsement of Herrera meant Gonzalez was ‘the good one’ in the race, Gonzalez was endorsed by Trump in the 2020 election. On Hoover’s accusations of Herrera being a “neo-Nazi,” fact-checks of that claim came back as disinformation. That accusation stems from dishonest claims about his YouTube content. In addition to Gun Meme Reviews and gun safety videos, Herrera also makes videos that examine guns through a historical lens to talk about their manual of arms and what role their country of origin designed them for. As part of that series, he’s reviewed a lot of firearms from WWII (you can probably see where this is going) and showed images of soldiers using their weapons as B-roll footage. In addition to highlighting guns used by American, British, and Soviet forces, he’s covered guns used by the Germans. Essentially, Herrera has been accused of using “Nazi images” in his videos in the same context that would allow the accusation to be leveled against the History Channel. Hoover’s antics on CNN were another reason to defund PBS. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CNN News Central April 22, 2024 7:54:54 a.m. Eastern (…) JIM MESSINA: And now we're saying to the rest of the world, look America can walk and chew a little gum at the same time. KATE BOLDUAN: But what does it look like? I mean, it's like really gross, gross gum. [Laughter] MARGARET HOOVER: Well, the sausage making is never pretty, Kate. Look, he didn't get it done to his point. And then to this question of whether Marjorie Taylor Greene is actually going to pull the trigger on this motion to vacate the threat. BOLDUAN: What’s the threat? What's the lingering threat do, do you think? HOOVER: Well look, she wants to have power and she's a chaos organizer. I mean, that's that's her end game. I mean, she just wanted to have power and be relevant. She's not here for public the policy, although to the extent that she's being influenced by Russia to influence their public policy, perhaps there's an argument there. (…) 7:56:53 a.m. Eastern BOLDUAN: I'm wondering what the fight looks like. What's the “stand up and fight” look like from this, he [Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-TX)] was suggesting kind of the more moderate Republicans who are serving in the House in an election year. What does that look like now in the six months to? HOOVER: Well look, for Tony Gonzales, he's got he has a primary – a runoff election coming in several weeks against a Trump-endorsed neo-Nazi. He might – Meanwhile, he’s in the largest segment of the border. I mean, the only fight he cares about is the border question. (…)

UPDATE: SEE IT! Cruz Offers Thoughts on ‘Major Legislation’ Against TikTok

Editor’s Note (4/23/24): This article has been edited to include Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-TX) exclusive comments to MRC Free Speech America regarding House Republicans’ legislation protecting Americans from potential communist Chinese influence. A Republican senator spoke against Chinese influence on a major social media platform. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) hailed House Republicans for passing a provision seeking to force TikTok’s infamous parent company, ByteDance, to divest its social media platform ownership. “Everyone appears to be very concerned about what the Chinese Communist government is doing with TikTok,” Cruz told MRC Free Speech America in exclusive comments on Monday evening. “I support what the House accomplished when it comes to TikTok, which is forcing China to divest TikTok and I think if and when that bill comes to the Senate, I expect that the Senate will agree,” the Texas senator added. Speaking on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures on Sunday, hosted by Maria Bartiromo, Cruz had called the bill “very important” and “a major step forward” to protect Americans from Chinese propaganda and potential espionage. “I have deep, deep concerns about TikTok, controlled by the Chinese communist government,” Cruz told Bartiromo, voicing his support for the TikTok ultimatum bill.  The Texas senator accused the Chinese communist government of exploiting TikTok for the “surveillance and espionage of American citizens.”  Expanding on his concerns, Cruz added: “They use it right now, aggressively, to push propaganda, anti-America propaganda, to our young people.” Flashback! WATCH: Sen. Ted Cruz Blasts TikTok as Communist Chinese Gov’t ‘Espionage’ Tool Cruz’s comments came a day after the Republican-led House of Representatives passed a massive $95 billion foreign aid package. The package includes a provision that gives the president the authority to compel ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok or else face a ban in the United States. The bill is set to be passed by the Senate on Tuesday. President Joe Biden is also expected to sign the bill into law. The bill gives ByteDance 270 days to sell its ownership. “This bill is a major step forward in that it forces China to divest of TikTok,” Cruz added, echoing the sentiments of the Media Research Center, which came in support of the initial TikTok bill in March. You May Also Like: ‘Consistent from the Start’: Bozell Says TikTok Must Divest from Communist Chinese Gov’t “It is absolutely correct and necessary for TikTok to divest itself of any control from the communist Chinese government in China if it wants to do business in the United States,” said MRC President and Founder Brent Bozell in a video statement.  “I support this bill. I support reining in TikTok. I support stopping the communist Chinese from influencing the United States subversively,” Bozell added.  In response to the ultimatum, TikTok has deployed a multi-million dollar marketing campaign in a failed attempt to persuade lawmakers against backing the legislation.  Related: TikTok’s Last-Ditch Effort Amid US Ban: Recruiting Nuns, Veterans and Ranchers 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.

NYT Ignores Soros Influence in Coverage of Biden State Dep’t Sanctions on IDF

Yet another Soros-funded group just got caught trying to drive a wedge into the American-Israeli alliance, but The New York Times didn’t find any space to mention it in a news report.  In an April 20 article, The New York Times covered potential U.S. State Department sanctions on the Israel Defense Forces’s Netzah Yehuda Battalion. In a post on X the next day, research institute NGO Monitor addressed crucial information ignored by The Times, blaming these possible sanctions on a “coordinated campaign” by the Soros-funded program Democracy for the Arab World Now founded by murdered Washington Post journalist and former Muslim Brotherhood member Jamal Khashoggi. DAWN Executive Director Sarah Leah Whitson boasted that the program had worked hard to bring these sanctions about in a post on X. She also went after Secretary of State Antony Blinken for not acting sooner, saying that her organization “Submitted Leahy sanctions requests for 2 of the Israeli units that ⁦@SecBlinken has putzed and punted on.” Key employees of this organization have celebrated the decision on Al Jazeera and during an X space.  In a post on the program’s Instagram account, Democracy for the Arab World Now pushed for Secretary Blinken to “Sanction Israeli security forces implicated in gross violations of human rights, including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearance, torture, and rape, under the Leahy Law amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act.” According to online records reviewed by MRC Business, Soros gave $525,000 to Democracy for the Arab World Now between 2020 and 2022, the year it was founded. Democracy for the Arab World Now is a program of the Dawn Foundation, which Soros gave $275,000 to in 2021. Furthermore, in their frequently asked questions section, Democracy for the Arab World Now tells users who wish to donate anonymously, “You can donate to the MENA Now Fund of the Tides Foundation, which will then transfer the donation to DAWN without revealing your identity.” According to the Open Society Foundations’ website, Soros has given at least $15,013,960 to the Tides Foundation and $14 million to the Tides Center from 2016 to 2022. Additionally, Soros gave over  $34 million to Tides Advocacy from 2017 to 2022. The Times didn’t mention Democracy in the Arab World Now, the Dawn Foundation or Soros’ contributions to either organization. This is particularly astonishing as The Times specifically mentioned the law that the Soros-funded project was lobbying for the IDF to be sanctioned under. “The possible imposition of sanctions against the Netzah Yehuda and other battalions would come under the so-called 1997 Leahy Law, which bans foreign military units accused of human rights violations from receiving U.S. aid or training,” The Times reported. This major omission occurred in the same paper that infamously, and without ironclad evidence, accused the IDF of bombing Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, killing hundreds. This ultimately led to The Times posting an apology note admitting that the paper relied too heavily on the terrorist group Hamas. After repeated MRC reports calling out The Times and NewsGuard’s ratings of the leftist rag, the biased website ratings firm NewsGuard dropped The Times’s perfect rating to 87.5 on account of this flub.  Conservatives are under attack. Contact The New York Times at 800-698-4637 and demand they report on Soros’s funding of anti-Israel causes.

CNN Virtue Signals to Save Planet by Releasing Hysterical Letter: ‘To My Son, Born in the Climate Crisis’

CNN once again exposed that it is in fact an activist organization masquerading as a news outlet with a sappy piece on the “climate crisis.” On April 22, CNN celebrated “Earth Day” with an editorial piece from chief climate correspondent Bill Weir. The piece is formatted as a letter to Weir’s four-year-old son. Within the first sentence, Weir’s language quickly devolves into hysterics about mass extinctions and the usual doomsday predictions. For some context, Weir has a history as a natural observer, particularly of waterfowl. He used this critical expertise at then-President Barack Obama’s Second Inauguration, an event so momentous and ponderous that even the seagulls were “awed” according to Weir as if in the presence of a Saint Francis or the Infant Christ.   “This is your fourth Earth Day, and so much has happened in your little lifespan that what started as an annual record of anger and regret has grown into a book full of hopeful solutions,” Weir began in his letter, in what sounds like an excerpt from a Greta Thunberg speech.  The exaggeration continued.  “There are still dark days to be sure, and since you love animals so much, I can’t bring myself to explain just how many of your favorites are on extinction’s brink,” Weir said, persisting in his overblown tirade.  But not to worry, Weir found a way to deal with the lingering dread of a world still chock full of plastic straws and gas-powered stoves: Mister Rogers.     “When disasters strike, I remember the advice of Mister Rogers, who taught me that every time there is a scary event on TV, ‘Look for the helpers. There are always helpers,’” Weir said, dispelling the inevitable sense of helplessness and abject fear that has no doubt gripped the reader when they ponder the sheer cruelty of the rapacious Colombian cattle rancher. The rancher is a beast who hacks away at the sacred heart of Mother Earth in order to make a pittance to feed his starving family.  Weir went on to describe these heartless capitalists, exploiting the land to eat and take up Earth’s precious resources. He described the difficulty of local conservationists like Rosamira Guillen in getting the cooperation for conservation efforts from these villains.  “But to connect enough fragmented habitat for the gene pool to thrive, she would need land,” Weir detailed. “And the cooperation of cattle ranchers who do not share her love for toy-sized primates.”  Guillen further expounded on the difficulty of dealing with such a rabble.  “‘In a country like Colombia, where there’s so many challenges, people don’t realize that if you screw up the forest we’re all going to be screwed,’" she allegedly said, lamenting the ignorance of such people.  Despite such grimness and despicable evil, Weir ended with a message of hope for his son, cursed to be born in such a time of unremitting woe.  “Still, River, when days get dark, and I feel the need to look for helpers, I sometimes flash to the series of fortunate events that gave almost 1,000 acres of forest to the titis – and I imagine all the spots that need similar love,” Weir advised.  And in case this wasn’t enough incentive to put down that burger and go vegan, CNN also helpfully included an editorial note.  “Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Initiative has partnered with CNN to drive awareness and education around key sustainability issues and inspire positive action,” the note informed. 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.  

MRC, Bozell Petition FCC Not to Create a ‘Special Soros Shortcut’

The Media Research Center wants the Federal Communications Commission to know: “The Communications Act does not contain a special Soros shortcut.” Today, the Media Research Center (MRC) and its president, Brent Bozell, filed a formal petition to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) requesting that the agency not fast-track George Soros’ scheme to take over radio behemoth Audacy, which owns the second largest number of broadcast radio stations in the country. Leftist activist billionaire George Soros and his company Soros Fund Management have pushed for the FCC to approve their assignment applications to become the largest shareholder in Audacy. The Communications Act, however, requires the FCC first perform a “public interest” analysis before approving such an acquisition, particularly in a case like this one, where foreign ownership interests are involved. However, Soros has asked the FCC to disregard this congressionally-mandated procedure, saying the commission should use its byzantine “special warrant” process to sidestep proper review. Soros Fund Management, made a move to spend $400 million to acquire 40 percent of Audacy’s shares, insisting that the “special warrant” process is necessary as Audacy has recently filed for bankruptcy. However, as Bozell stated succinctly on behalf of the MRC in the FCC petition, “The Soros filings fail to demonstrate that in this case any interest in the reasonably efficient emergence from bankruptcy cannot be accommodated while also assessing the foreign ownership interests at the same time.”   Bozell pointed out that rather than being motivated by necessity, Soros groups are simply pushing to disregard the congressionally-mandated rules. Bozell explained: “[I]t appears that the Soros groups are simply trying to create an entirely new process or rule [to] … get special treatment when it comes to the [Communications Act] process.” The New York Post previously reported that Soros’ attempted takeover of Audacy may mean the left-wing billionaire “was buying the stake to exert influence on public opinion in the months leading up to the 2024 presidential election.” Between 2016 and 2020, Soros gave over $130 million to other media organizations in order to push his left-wing agenda. He has also given extensively to the International Fact-Checking Network, which coordinates censorship efforts between various left-wing outlets such as The Washington Post and Meta platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp). MRC Vice President for Free Speech America Dan Schneider cautioned that FCC commissioners sympathetic to Soros’ agenda might try to disregard the law to fast-track the Audacy acquisition.  Schneider warned: “Right now, the Democrats on the Commission are trying to grease the skids to allow George Soros and his son Alex to buy skads of radio stations all across America…right before the election. I don’t think that’s coincidental.”  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

CBS Frets ‘Apparently Anti-Semitic Incidents’ at Columbia Marred ‘Peaceful Protests’

CBS broke the ice Monday (after a footnote last week then silence) on the rampant anti-Semitism and terrorist sympathizing at Columbia University by pro-Hamas elements of the student body and like-minded fiends, but they went full-blown ‘fiery but mostly peaceful’ as CBS Mornings co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King fretted the “apparently anti-Semitic incidents” overshadowed “peaceful protests”. CBS only spent 49 seconds in an extended news brief delivered by King, which began innocently enough: “Back here in New York, Columbia University has moved all classes on line today as pro-Palestinian demonstrations continue on and near the campus.”     King then did her best impression of CNN’s Omar Jimenez and MSNBC’s Ali Velshi: “Although there have been peaceful protests, a series of apparently anti-Semitic incidents near campus prompted one rabbi at the school to call for all Jewish students to leave. However, Jewish groups on campus pushed back on that saying students should stay.” After reading an excerpt of a statement from White House social media troll Andrew Bates, King acknowledged Monday night marks the start of Passover and noted the heat Columbia’s president received from “both sides of the aisle...last week about anti-Semitism on college campuses”. Even the chyron was harsher as it stated without a qualifer that “Anti-Semitic Incidents Occur[red] Amid Pro-Palestinian Demonstrations”. In the “Eye Opener”, co-host Nate Burleson also downplayed the anti-Semitism: “Protests lead to charges of anti-Semitism on the campus of Columbia University as a crackdown fails to stop the demonstrations.” In both cases, Burleson and King certainly wouldn’t have been as muted if those calling for harming Jews were uttered by middle-aged or elderly white males like in Charlottesville. ABC continued its coverage with a 67-second segment on Good Morning America, starting with vague allusions by co-host Robin Roberts of “security concerns...at Columbia University amid the Israel/Hamas war.” World News Now/America This Morning co-host Rhiannon Ally spoke of “growing concern about safety at the school, as protests stemming from that Israel/Hamas war intensify” and the remote learning day following “a fifth day yesterday of Columbia pro-Palestine students protesting.” The so-called protests, she explained, have merely been aimed at having Columbia “divest its stocks, funds, and endowments from companies that they say profit from Israel’s violation of international law and Palestinian human rights.” Ally never explained what the threats were to Jewish students, omitting shouts wanting an “intifada”, praising Hamas fighters Al-Qassam, calling for the restoration of Palestine (i.e. an ethnic cleansing of Jews), demanding Tel Aviv be burned to the ground, telling Jewish students to “go back to Poland”, or praising the “martyrs” who died slaughtering Jews on October 7. NBC’s Today had the most time with a two-minute-and-49 second segment. After warning in a tease of “crisis on campus”, co-host Hoda Kotb downplayed the scene with more esoteric descriptions of “[p]ro-Palestinian protesters have been demonstrating on campus for days”. Correspondent Erin McLaughin provided a little bit more detail (click “expand”): MCLAUGHLIN: Last week, more than 100 protesters were arrested on campus and now a rabbi is urging Jewish students to return home as soon as possible citing concerns over their safety and classes today are happening virtually. All of this ahead of Passover, the Jewish holiday, which begins at sundown tonight. PRO-HAMAS PROTESTERS: We will free Palestine! MCLAUGHLIN: This morning, as demonstrations continue on university campuses, New York’s Columbia University announcing all classes will be held virtually today. University president Minouche Shafik issuing a statement saying “we need a reset...to deescalate the rancor” and the university announcing it is adding more security on campus, including 111 additional safety personnel. The move comes as a rabbi at Columbia is urging students to “return home as soon as possible.” Rabbi Eli Buechler. in a letter to Jewish students this weekend, going on to say, “no one should have to endure this level of hatred, let alone at school.” PRO-HAMAS PROTESTERS: In-ti-fada! MCLAUGHLIN: The campus tense amid demonstrations denouncing the Israel-Hamas war. New York Mayor Adams condemning video such as this, which he says shows a young woman with a sign pointing to Jewish students saying, Al Qassem’s next targets. Adams also pointing to one incident last week: a demonstrator chanting, “we are Hamas”. Shafik saying in her statement, “tensions have been exploited and amplified by individuals who are not affiliated with Columbia”. BAUM: As a Jew, I no longer feel welcome, I no longer feel safe on campus, and I no longer feel like I belong. SONYA POZNANSKY: To be honest, no, I think my safety has definitely been compromised in a lot of ways over the last few days. McLaughlin concluded her report with press releases from the Columbia president and the White House, but proceeded them with some serious belly-aching from Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine: Last night in a press release, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine expressed frustration over, “inflammatory individuals who do not represent us”, adding the group rejects “any form of hate or bigotry.” To see the relevant transcripts from April 22, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).

Networks Decry House Passing Bill to Protect America from China, TikTok

The liberal broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC finally found something they disapproved of amid all the foreign aid packages passed by the House over the weekend: a bill that aimed to protect Americans from the influence of Chinese propaganda. During their Monday morning newscasts, each of the big three threw their own hissy fits about the bill that could “ban” TikTok in the U.S. if their China-owned parent company didn’t sell it off. And again, they omitted the TikTok users threatening to kill lawmakers. “Meanwhile, a sweeping national security funding package that will provide aid to Ukraine and Israel and Taiwan as well also includes a possible ban on the popular app TikTok,” NBC Today co-anchor Craig Melvin announced at the top of the segment. “The social media platform could disappear from app stores nationwide unless its Chinese parent company sells it.” Lauding how the Chinese propaganda and spy app had “become engrained in American culture,” NBC correspondent Emilie Ikeda began her report by touting how “some TikTok users using their platform as a call to action hoping to save the app…” She fretted: “This morning, the fate of TikTok in a race against the clock. The House passing a bill that would force the app's Chinese parent company Byte Dance to sell the platform within a year to a new owner, up from the original six months, or face a national ban of the widely popular social media app with 170 million American users.”     Instead of mentioning how the app was responsible for harmful trends such as eating Tide Pods, cooking chicken in Nyquil, and promoting the writings of terrorist Osama Bin Laden, Ikeda blamed the bill for the “escalated” tensions between the U.S. and China. “On Friday, Apple said China ordered the company to remove Meta’s WhatsApp and Threads from its app store there,” she blamed U.S. lawmakers. Over on ABC’s Good Morning America, correspondent Janai Norman mourned that the “clock could be ticking” for the “170 million users and countless of those who rely on TikTok for their livelihood now concerned their financial security could be at risk.” Norman did throw those upset by the bill a lifeline. She cheered that if the bill became law it would be immediately challenged in court: NORMAN: The Senate is expected to take up the legislation tomorrow, and if passed, President Biden has already indicated he will quickly sign it into law. But, not so fast! Experts say don't expect the app go away any time soon. KATIE NOTOPOULOS (Business Insider, senior correspondent): It's not like the app is going to delete off your phone right away. It could be months. It could be years of wading through regulatory and legal hurdles to actually get this done. CBS Mornings was dry in their reporting on the matter since they tucked the TikTok news into the end of a larger report about the foreign aid packages. “It has huge bipartisan support, but now that it is part of this foreign aid bill, it could move more quickly than the similar bill passed in March,” correspondent Scott MacFarlane warned. None of the networks mentioned that members of Congress received death threats after TikTok told users to contact their representatives. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s Good Morning America April 22, 2024 7:31:58 a.m. Eastern ROBIN ROBERTS: Michael, the new fallout for TikTok after the House passed a bill over the weekend that could potentially ban the popular social media app within a year. Janai Norman is here with what this could mean for content creators and the more than 170 million users. Good morning, Janai. JANAI NORMAN: Good morning, Robin. 170 million users and countless of those who rely on TikTok for their livelihood now concerned their financial security could be at risk. But for lawmaker, the concerns they say are about data security and personal information about all those millions of users. [Cuts to video] NORMAN: This morning the clock could be ticking for popular app, TikTok. TIKTOK USER: Breaking news right now, the House of Representatives has officially passed another TikTok ban. NORMAN: Over the weekend, the House of Representatives passing legislation that could see the app banned in the U.S. if Chinese owner Byte Dance doesn't sell within a year. KATIE NOTOPOULOS (Business Insider, senior correspondent): The two options are sell to a U.S. owner or cease operating in the U.S. NORMAN: An unprecedented move that sparked serious concerns for some content creators. (…) NORMAN: The Senate is expected to take up the legislation tomorrow, and if passed, President Biden has already indicated he will quickly sign it into law. But, not so fast! Experts say don't expect the app go away any time soon. NOTOPOULOS: It's not like the app is going to delete off your phone right away. It could be months. It could be years of wading through regulatory and legal hurdles to actually get this done. [Cuts back to live] NORMAN: Right.  And so for now, TikTok is not for sale but if and when that bill passes, it would likely kick off a lengthy legal battle. So, Robin, Michael and George’s dance video on TikTok, good shape. NBC’s Today April 22, 2024 8:04:24 a.m. Eastern CRAIG MELVIN: Meanwhile, a sweeping national security funding package that will provide aid to Ukraine and Israel and Taiwan as well also includes a possible ban on the popular app TikTok. The social media platform could disappear from app stores nationwide unless its Chinese parent company sells it. NBC's Emilie Ikeda is here with more on this. Emilie, good morning. EMILIE IKEDA: Hey, there. Good morning to you. This is likely the closest the U.S. has come to banning TikTok with Congress lumping the measure in the foreign aid bill, which is headed to a Senate that’s eager to send funding to our allies. Now, some TikTok users using their platform as a call to action hoping to save the app that’s become engrained in American culture. [Cuts to video] This morning, the fate of TikTok in a race against the clock. The House passing a bill that would force the app's Chinese parent company Byte Dance to sell the platform within a year to a new owner, up from the original six months, or face a national ban of the widely popular social media app with 170 million American users. (…) IKEDA: The vote passing with the resounding 360 to 58, but online, some are rallying against the ban. (…) IKEDA: Urging their followers to take action. (…) [Cuts back to live] IKEDA: And TikTok is already banned on federal government devices. And even the potential for a forced TikTok sale may have escalated the U.S.'s tense relationship with China. On Friday, Apple said China ordered the company to remove Meta’s WhatsApp and Threads from its app store there.

NYT’s Annie Karni Pouts Over Speaker Johnson Doing ‘What Passes for Brave in Today’s GOP’

Congressional correspondent Annie Karni got snarky against Republicans (and, perhaps, some of her fellow reporters?) in Sunday’s New York Times, after House Speaker Mike Johnson received some backhanded praise from some quarters of the media/Democratic alliance for pushing a military aid bill for Ukraine through: “Mike Johnson, Like Pence, Does What Passes for Brave in Today’s GOP: His Job.” The accolades directed at Speaker Mike Johnson in recent days for finally defying the right wing of his party and allowing an aid bill for Ukraine to move through the House might have seemed a tad excessive. After all, a speaker’s entire job is to move legislation through the House, and as Saturday’s vote to pass the bill demonstrated, the Ukraine measure had overwhelming support. But Mr. Johnson’s feat was not so different from that of another embattled Republican who faced a difficult choice under immense pressure from hard-right Republicans and was saluted as a hero for simply doing his job: former Vice President Mike Pence. When Mr. Pence refused former President Donald J. Trump’s demands that he overturn the 2020 election results as he presided over the electoral vote count by Congress on Jan. 6, 2021 -- even as an angry mob with baseball bats and pepper spray invaded the Capitol and chanted “hang Mike Pence” -- the normally unremarkable act of performing the duties in a vice president’s job description was hailed as courageous. Mr. Pence and now Mr. Johnson represent the most high-profile examples of a stark political reality: In today’s Republican Party, subsumed by Mr. Trump, taking the norm-preserving, consensus-driven path can spell the end of your political career. Karni brought her paper’s hostile labeling pattern with her. Mr. Johnson and Mr. Pence, both mild-mannered, extremely conservative evangelical Christians who have put their faith at the center of their politics, occupy a similar space in their party. They have both gone through contortions to accommodate Mr. Trump and the forces he unleashed in their party, which in turn have ultimately come after them….Mr. Pence has been offering Mr. Johnson private encouragement in recent weeks, as he faced growing discontent from the far right. Karni saved space for Ukraine president and media hero Zelensky praising Johnson “for the decision that keeps history on the right track,” but instantly pivoted with “Not everyone was eager to pile on the kudos,” citing a Democrat who aired criticism precisely like Karni’s. “I’m so glad Republicans finally realize the gravity of the situation and the urgency with which we must act,” Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, said on Friday as the House was about to take a vote to clear the way for the bill. “But you don’t get an award around here for doing your damn job.” Karni got the scoop from The View’s allegedly Republican co-host. Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former top aide in the Trump administration, was lukewarm, at best, in her praise for Mr. Johnson, who she noted had dithered for months before moving ahead on Ukraine aid, even though it was clear there was a broad consensus that the aid was critical. “It’s remarkable that this is being viewed as a brave or heroic move -- simply putting a bill on the House floor for a vote that has bipartisan support to pass,” she said. “In the period of time that Johnson waffled over whether to even allow a vote on it or not, Ukraine lost ground and Ukrainians were killed by Russians.” Alyssa Farah served with Trump for almost his entire term, and then quickly became a high-paid host on The View. Why is she the "bravery" judge? But the Times just did a puff piece on her.  Even after Johnson did what the Democrats (who waved Ukrainian flags on the House floor) wanted, Karni didn’t pause from her petulance. Even after his impassioned comments, he hesitated before releasing the text of the bills, prompting Democrats to worry that his indecision and desire to appeal to the far right would again win out.

CNN's Zakaria Nudges Michael Douglas to Tout Biden's Brain: ‘He’s Sharp As A Tack!’

On Sunday's CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS brought on 79-year-old actor Michael Douglas to plug his new Benjamin Franklin movie on Apple TV+. Zakaria nudged Douglas, a liberal Democrat, to vouch for Biden's mental acuity. From what he's heard, Douglas says Biden's "as sharp as a tack." Isn't that what all the Democrats say off the talking-points list?    ZAKARIA: So you and Biden are about the same age. Are you one of those people who wished he had, bowed out and let the field choose somebody else? How do you think about that? DOUGLAS: Well, I think that I walk a little similar to him. And the people that I’ve talked to and everybody that I have, say he’s sharp as a tack! He’s fine. We all have an issue with memories as we get older, we forget names. He’s overcome a stutter in his life. But let’s just say that his entire cabinet, including his vice president, everybody in his cabinet would be more than happy to work with him again in the next term. I cannot say that about the other candidate running because nobody in his cabinet from 2016 wants to be involved with him. Can we be sure that nobody in Trump's first-term cabinet would come back? Fact-checkers? It's obviously much easier to be in Biden's cabinet when no one at CNN is trying to get you removed for being a Trump selection (and trying to ruin your post-Trump career on top).  Zakaria then "went there" to where voters have concerns, that Biden won't be sharp as tack in 2026, or 2027. This answer may not have been what he wanted:   ZAKARIA: Do you -- do you think when you -- you know, everyone says, yes, he is OK now, but -- you know, what's it going to be like the next four or five years? But you're -- you're going to work for the next four or five years. You're not retiring. DOUGLAS: Well, I'm not. However, I will say we did Franklin in 2022. And after 165 days of shooting, for seven months, I haven't worked since. So, I took '23 off and we're going into '24. And I must say I'm enjoying the time off. And I think he'll be fine. Thank you very much. In the first half of the interview, Douglas talked about his reading of philosophy and his "Jewish roots," but Zakaria didn't have any questions about the Islamists vs. Israel or anti-Semitism on campus. This was more like a Larry King celebrity interview.

Doocy SLAMS KJP Over Biden’s Latest Tall Tale: ‘Where Did the Cannibalism Come From?’

In case you missed it from Friday, Fox’s Peter Doocy clashed with the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre during the White House press briefing when Doocy called out the President for falsely claiming his uncle not only died during World War II, but was cannibalized in Papua New Guinea by blood-thirsty natives. Jean-Pierre ducked, attacking Doocy and invoking the dubious “suckers” and “losers” tall tale about Donald Trump from The Atlantic. Doocy respectfully cut to the case: “Why is President Biden saying that his Uncle Bosie was eaten by cannibals?”     Jean-Pierre complained she already “answered this question yesterday” and “your network” even played “clips....about me answering this question” before claiming Doocy saw for himself if he was on the trip to Scranton that Biden “had an emotional and, um, I think a symbolic moment” in taking “an opportunity, as President, to honor his uncle’s service in uniform.” “He had an opportunity...to speak to the bravery of his uncle and not just his uncle, but many U.S. service members that put their lives on the line on behalf of this country,” she added, with his uncle Ambrose Finneagan serving as an example “for honoring our sacred commitment to equip those — we stand — we sent to war and take care of them and their families when they come home.” She then made it about Trump [A]s he iterated, the last thing American veterans are — or the last thing Americans should be called or suckers and losers and — and that is — those types of words should not come from a commander in chief, as we have in the past. And we should actually be lifting up our American veterans and honoring them and that’s what you saw from this President. Doocy said he felt the same about how veterans should be treated and that “Second Lieutenant Ambrose J. Finnegan was a war hero, but the Pentagon says, for unknown reasons, the plane was forced to ditch in the ocean and both engines failed at low out — altitude.” He then ripped Biden for why then did he have to lie when his uncle was already a war hero: “Why is President Biden saying he was shot down? There’s no evidence of that. And why is he saying that his uncle was eaten by cannibals? That’s a bad way to go.” Instead of conceding Biden lied or moving on, Jean-Pierre attacked Doocy by alleging he’s disrespectful of the dead: “[W]e should not make jokes about this.” Doocy clapped back before letting Jean-Pierre drone on: “[I]t’s not. The President — Biden said with his own lips he was eaten by cannibals.” “[N]o, no, I mean, your — your last line. It’s — it’s for a laugh. It’s for a funny — funny statement and he takes this very seriously. His uncle who served and protected this country lost his life serving and that should matter,” Jean-Pierre whined. After she again deflected to Trump, Doocy tried one last time: “Where did the cannibalism come from?” Jean-Pierre punted one last time, alleging Doocy “miss[ed] the point” and not recognizing Biden “lifts up American veterans” and “our U.S. service members.” Doocy’s first question concerned the anti-Semitic, far-left terrorist sympathizers at Columbia University as a follow up to CNN’s Priscilla Alverez (click “expand”): ALVAREZ: More than 100 people protesting the war in Gaza were cleared off the Columbia University campus yesterday and arrested. Is the President aware of these arrests? And what is his message to these protesters? JEAN-PIERRE: So, just let me say at the top because I have to be mindful here. As you know, there is a — a — an investigation currently being led by the Department of Education. It’s an ongoing civil rights investigation of Columbia University, so I won’t speak to specifics about the protest here. There’s a couple things I do want to say — is that — is that we know this is a deeply painful moment for many communities impacted by this conflict. The President and our administration continues to speak out enforcely [sic] — forcefully condemn anti-Semitism and our administration is implementing the first ever national strategy to counter anti-Semitism. In recent months, we’ve seen a shocking rise in anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, in anti-Arab hate in the U.S. And around the world. He has also been clear that hate has no place in America, whether it is based on race, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or any other form of hate, which is why there is no place for discrimination on college campuses or anywhere, anywhere in America. The President also believes that free speech debate and nondiscrimination on college campuses are important American values. When students are subject to hostile environments because of their faith or ethnicity, schools must act. Students must be safe to learn, and that’s where we stand on that one. [TO DOOCY] Go ahead. DOOCY: And to just follow up on the protest. I get you don’t want to go into specifics, but what does the President think about young people in America, saying things like “we are all Hamas” and “long live Hamas”? JEAN-PIERRE: Can —  I will say — look, this is a President that has been, uh, since he’s been in office, and the reason why he ran has been very clear about what he witnessed in Charlottesville. Let’s not forget what we saw the anti-Semitism, the bigotry, the hate that we saw in the streets of Charlottesville, which, as I just stated, was one of the reasons that he decided to run. And no president has taken more action to combat anti-Semitism than this President. And so you know, in our national strategy, we made clear that, when Jews are targeted because of their beliefs, because of their identity, or when Israel is singled out because of anti-Jewish hate — hatred, that is anti Semitism, and that is completely, completely unacceptable. In contrast, the reporter who sat in the NPR seat hit from the left, giving oxygen to the notion that cracking down on these thugs are “threat to speech or assembly”. Speaking of softballs, the AP’s Darlene Superville brought up gas prices and lobbed a softball that ran counter to the actual questions Fox Business’s Ed Lawrence asked a few days earlier: Average gasoline prices have raised about 20 cents a gallon in the past month. Oil production — domestic oil production is down slightly from its recent peak and now we have the situation in the Middle East. How concerned is the administration about the combination of all of those things? To see the relevant transcript from the April 19 briefing (including a softball from The Washington Post about Biden being “a student of history”), click here.

MSNBC Blames TN Gun Laws for Shooting -- But Gunman Came from Illinois

On this past weekend's The Saturday Show, MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart teamed up with anti-gun activist Dr. Jonathan Metzl to spread misinformation about the effects of gun laws as the two discussed his book on the 25th anniversary of the Columbine school shootings. As the discussion turned to the 2018 attack on a Nashville Waffle House by 29-year-old Travis Reinking, Dr. Metzl reflexively blamed Tennessee's "pathologically loose gun laws" without divulging that the gunman had only somewhat recently moved into Tennessee from the blue state of Illinois. He soon complained about Tennessee expanding gun rights since the shooting: And so, instead, what we've seen is a dramatic expansion in every kind of law that led to the shooting. People can carry guns without permits now. We're arming teachers, long guns to people with 18 and older, so we have this total disconnect between what people know we need as a society to keep our country safe and what the political process in its gerrymandered state right now is delivering which is, unfortunately, more of these horrific mass shootings.     It was not mentioned that Illinois police had confiscated several guns from Reinking after he showed signs of schizophrenia, but then gave them to his father who then returned them to his son later. One of those firearms was used in the Nashville attack after the gunman moved to the state. Reinking's father was also convicted in connection with giving his son's firearms back to him. Capehart played the race card by hinting at the far-left liberal trope that the cops allowed Reinking to live because of he was white. "Dr. Metzl, a question occurs to me when we showed the Waffle House shooter. Was he taken alive after that -- that manhunt?" he played coy. Metzl obliged. Then, without offering any evidence that other racial groups are treated differently, Metzl claimed that the Waffle House gunman was allowed to keep his guns because he is white: Not only was he taken alive, what I show is there were five or six incidents before the shooting. He tried to jump the fence at the White House -- he came to the attention of the FBI -- he jumped naked into a pool and jumped out and shook his gun at people -- and so part of the story I ask in the book is, "What does it take to disarm a white man in America?" That's really the story of the book. And it turns out it's very hard because the laws -- the system -- people see a white man as a patriot. And, yes, he was taken alive after the shooting. He was not killed. Back in February, Metzl made another appearance on the same show to promote his book, and, on that occasion, spread misinformation blaming the loosening of gun laws in Missouri around 2008 for an increase in homicides in that state: Missouri had these pretty reasonable gun laws. I mean, there's a long history of gun ownership ... but until about 2008, believe it or not, you know, people would go to get a permit at the sheriff's office. ... And then they started overturning all the gun laws, overturning everything -- guns in parks, guns in bars, persons -- in 2021, made it almost a crime to even have cities mandate their own gun laws or enact federal -- any federal laws -- and what I saw was not just a rise in all kinds of gun injury and death gun, suicide gun, homicide -- all these things went up.     But, in fact, homicides in Missouri did not see a sustained increase until after 2014 when the Ferguson effect led to a surge in crime after the Mike Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri -- coinciding with a crime surge that was also seen across the country. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: MSNBC's The Saturday Show April 20, 2024 6:52 p.m. Eastern JONATHAN CAPEHART: Dr. Metzl, your book takes a deep dive into the 2018 Waffle House shooting and how these mass shooters reveal a lot about the issues on race and mental health we continue to face in our country. Can you expand on that? Dr. JONATHAN METZL, AUTHOR OF WHAT WE'VE BECOME: Yeah, my book, What We've Become, really takes a deep dive into that 2018 Waffle House shooting. It was a shooting where a naked white shooter went into a Waffle House in a part of Nashville where it was 2:30 in the morning full of young adults of color celebrating after the clubs closed. And it was many things -- it was a mental ill mass shooting -- it was a race shooting -- it was a sign of what happens in a state like Tennessee with our pathologically loose gun laws. In many ways, it's the same thing (similar to the Columbine school shootings from 25 years ago). Our town came together and said, "Enough is enough -- we're going to -- we're going to turn course -- this has shown us the worst of humanity, and now let's turn course." I want to say there are a lot of people who are building from the horror of that moment -- people running for office. The mother of one of the victims of that shooting, Shaundelle Brooks, is running for state office in Tennessee. So there are many things that come out of the aftermath of the horror, but, again and again, it was a similar story, which was the people demanded some kind of action, but because Tennessee is a supermajority state, there was no pressure. Nobody was going to get pushed out of office or voted out of office. And so, instead, what we've seen is a dramatic expansion in every kind of law that led to the shooting. People can carry guns without permits now. We're arming teachers, long guns to people with 18 and older, so we have this total disconnect between what people know we need as a society to keep our country safe and what the political process in its gerrymandered state right now is delivering which is, unfortunately, more of these horrific mass shootings. CAPEHART: Dr. Metzl, question occurs to me when we showed the Waffle House shooter. Was he taken alive after that -- that manhunt? Dr. METZL: Yeah, that's kind of the story I tell in the book. Not only was he taken alive, what I show is there were five or six incidents before the shooting. He tried to jump the fence at the White House -- he came to the attention of the FBI -- he jumped naked into a pool and jumped out and shook his gun at people -- and so part of the story I ask in the book is, "What does it take to disarm a white man in America?" That's really the story of the book. And it turns out it's very hard because the laws -- the system -- people see a white man as a patriot. And, yes, he was taken alive after the shooting. He was not killed. CAPEHART: Dr. Jonathan Metzl, as always, thank you very much for coming -- for coming to the show. (...) MSNBC's The Saturday Show February 17, 2024 6:46 p.m. Eastern JONATHAN CAPEHART: You wrote -- you focus on three states. One was Missouri Missouri's lax gun laws and what those lax gun laws did to Missouri. Real quickly, talk about that. Dr. JONATHAN METZL, AUTHOR OF WHAT WE'VE BECOME: Well, I'm from Missouri -- I grew up in Kansas City -- my brothers and my dad were at the Super Bowl, you know. And so Kansas City is kind of home, and I know from this and from my own research that Missouri had these pretty reasonable gun laws. I mean, there's a long history of gun ownership -- of hunting -- of people caring about the 2nd Amendment -- but until about 2008, believe it or not, you know, people would go to get a permit at the sheriff's office. I interview people in my research -- it took about three seconds to get that. Nobody cared. And then they started overturning all the gun laws, overturning everything -- guns in parks, guns in bars, persons -- in 2021, made it almost a crime to even have cities mandate their own gun laws or enact federal -- any federal laws -- and what I saw was not just a rise in all kinds of gun injury and death gun, suicide gun, homicide -- all these things went up. But the bigger issue for me was that it was the end of a kind of particular public space that people stopped congregating in places like Swope Park -- this park in the middle of the town -- and the public pools -- because everybody was so worried that they were going to get shot. And so there was injury and death, but there was also the end -- I mean, for me in Missouri, there was a Super Bowl parade pretty much every day -- it just never got on the news. But people -- it wasn't weird to go in a public space with people who were different than you. And that's what these gun -- these loose gun laws killed, was the sense of camaraderie and civic engagement. CAPEHART: The name of the book is What We've Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms

NPR's 'Domestic Extremism' Reporter: Trump Could Cause Violence Against Jurors

One way the leftist media want to add juice to the Trump trial is to suggest the jurors will be threatened by Trump outbursts in court or on social media. On Friday’s All Things Considered, they brought in “NPR domestic extremism correspondent Odette Yousef” to spread the conspiracy theory that Trump messages will lead to violence. They really should be blunter, and just call her the Far Right warning correspondent. AILSA CHANG: Odette, you've looked at what it can mean to serve on a jury for a Trump trial, like the safety concerns, the repercussions personally. Tell us what you're finding. YOUSEF: So, Ailsa, the challenge here is that, you know, jurors need to feel that their privacy and safety are not at risk when they serve. But the court also needs to maintain some transparency to court proceedings so that there's public faith in the process. And finding that sweet spot is challenging, and it's been especially hard in the Trump trials. And that's because Donald Trump owns a social media platform, Ailsa. And so, you know, we've seen this pattern, a correlation, where, when he posts criticism about specific people or processes, what follows are threats. And this has already been happening in this case. Judge Merchan's own daughter has been at the receiving end of harassment. And I've spoken to some people, including a former juror on a trial involving a Trump affiliate, who've been just stunned that there haven't been more protective measures set up at the outset of this trial, given what's happened in the past. Notice the vagueness around “Merchan’s daughter,” who could be a minor, for all we know. NPR hasn’t mentioned Loren Merchan on air, and the only thing the shows up in NPR’s search engine is an online AP dispatch that underlines she’s a professional Democrat: Loren Merchan is president of Authentic Campaigns, which has collected at least $70 million in payments from Democratic candidates and causes since she helped found the company in 2018, records show. The firm's past clients include President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Senate Majority PAC, a big-spending political committee affiliated with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Senate Majority PAC has paid Authentic Campaigns $15.2 million, according to campaign finance disclosures. Even AP tries to claim it’s a “daisy chain of innuendoes” to connect the judge to the daughter. Yousef then turned to former Obama aide and CNN analyst Juliette Kayyem (but just like Merchan, NPR launders out the Democrat background).  YOUSEF: She's a former national security official. She says at this point, courts should be expecting Trump to complain about the proceedings and that some of his followers may respond in violent ways. JULIETTE KAYYEM: It feels like we're sort of sleepwalking into 2024. It's just our democratic institutions that used to have these norms, but, well, those norms no longer are holding. And we have to accept that and prepare with the expectation that violence or the threat of violence is going to be part of our democratic processes, at least for the short term. Yesterday, I joined @NPR All Things Considered to discuss with Odette Yousef how we seem to be "sleepwalking" in 2024 as Trump continues with intimidation and threats of violence. How to keep jurors safe? Assume they are not. https://t.co/xpkCfP32Sy — Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) April 20, 2024 This is how pro-Biden news outlets are "setting the table" for the trial. That Trump will inspire violence by objecting to the partisanship on display (including in the press). This is the media trying to create a "gag order" through intimidation: CHANG: Well, I am curious, Odette -- if these so-called norms don't seem to be holding right now, how are you seeing that play out? YOUSEF: You know, there was a policy paper, Ailsa, released earlier this year by the National Conference of State Court Administrators that identified juror safety and well-being among the top issues that need to be addressed these days. And that's not just for the Trump trials. You know, someone with the organization mentioned the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, Derek Chauvin's trial... CHANG: Yeah. YOUSEF: ...Trials of people in Trump's orbit. We are in a moment now in the U.S. where norms have shifted. People who are civically involved, whether it be in trials, in election administration, on school boards, you name it, are now increasingly targeted with violence or the threat of violence. And that's a reality that won't reverse itself overnight, and it chills democratic participation. So people who can should be thinking about safety of these people in ways they may not have had to consider before.

CBS Weekend News OMITS Latest Violent Campus Antisemitism

Weekend reporting of the latest round of anti-semitic protests, at Columbia University and elsewhere, yielded a mixed bag. ABC tried to bring balance to their reporting, NBC tilted heavily in favor of the protesters, and another, CBS, decided it was best not to report on the protests at all. Here’s how ABC World News Tonight opened Sunday’s newscast: LINSEY DAVIS: As we come on the air, New York authorities are issuing a warning ahead of Passover. Officials say the holiday, which begins tomorrow, may serve as a catalyst for extremist groups and individuals to commit acts of violence against Jewish faith-based communities. This comes as tensions are rising at Columbia University here in New York over the Israel-Hamas war. More than 100 people have been arrested in recent days. A rabbi at the school confirms to ABC News that he strongly recommended to Jewish students that they go home and not return to campus because of what he calls extreme anti-semitism at the school. A New York congresswoman is calling for the university's president to resign. And tonight, The White House is condemning calls for violence against Jewish students. Linsey Davis’s frame was most representative of the report, which mentioned the call for Jewish students to go home, and the NYPD’s warning of further violence to potentially coincide with the Passover holiday. ABC here is further reinforcing Columbia’s stated commitment to ensuring the safety of its Jewish students. NBC’s report was the mirror opposite, very heavily favoring the protesters. Here’s how correspondent George Solis began his report: GEORGE SOLIS: In New York City, just outside the Gates of Columbia University, massive protests filling the streets. Pro-Palestinian demonstrations appearing to grow on this fourth day since students set up an encampment on campus that led police in riot gear to make more than 100 arrests at the request of the university president earlier this week. Students tell us despite the risk of suspension, having their I.D. badges turned off and losing access to housing here on campus, they've re-established this encampment demanding the university divest from Israel. Solis’ report would go on to equate these protesters with those who protested the Vietnam War. And other than the one Jewish student featured, it was all protesters: from the organizers, to featuring imagery of flyers created by the pro-Hamas Students for Justice for Palestine, which hailed the barbaric attacks of October 7th as “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance”. This was too much, apparently, for CBS- which found themselves unable to break away from such pressing matters as Taylor Swift’s latest album and Earth Day propaganda, and therefore unable to cover an anti-semitism (and tangentially anti-Americanism) currently festering at our universities. Click “expand” to view the transcripts of the aforementioned reports as aired on their respective weekend newscasts: ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT  SUNDAY, APRIL 21st, 2024: LINSEY DAVIS: As we come on the air, New York authorities are issuing a warning ahead of Passover. Officials say the holiday, which begins tomorrow, may serve as a catalyst for extremist groups and individuals to commit acts of violence against Jewish faith-based communities. This comes as tensions are rising at Columbia University here in New York over the Israel-Hamas war. More than 100 people have been arrested in recent days. A rabbi at the school confirms to ABC News that he strongly recommended to Jewish students that they go home and not return to campus because of what he calls extreme anti-semitism at the school. A New York congresswoman is calling for the university's president to resign. And tonight, The White House is condemning calls for violence against Jewish students. ABC's Reena Roy leads us off. REENA ROY: Tonight, the NYPD issuing an alarming warning on the eve of Passover. Saying in a bulletin obtained by ABC News, that “extremist groups may view the holiday as an opportunity to perpetrate acts of violence or intimidation against Jewish faith-based communities”. Though the document cites no specific threats, it adds: "Jewish people and institutions continue to be the target of violent attacks, targeted harassment, hate crimes, and threats, especially since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war." It comes after a rabbi associated with New York City's Columbia University told Jewish students to go home this week, following pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus. Writing today in an email, "Columbia University's Public Safety and the NYPD cannot guarantee Jewish students' safety." Those protests began after the school's president was grilled on Capitol Hill about anti-semitism on campus. U.S. REP. KEVIN KILEY: There's evidence of anti-semitism among professors on your faculty? MINOUCHE SHAFIK: We have seen some cases and there have been consequences. ROY: More than 100 demonstrators arrested on campus Thursday. The White House saying the Department of Education has launched an investigation into the incident. KARINE JEAN_PIERRE: When students are subject to hostile environments because of their faith or ethnicity, schools must act. Students must be safe to learn. ROY: And Linsey, tonight, Columbia is responding, saying that they are listening to concerns of Jewish students and providing them with additional support. Adding that students do have the right to protest, but not to disrupt campus life or intimidate others. Linsey. DAVIS: And students at several universities are now planning rallies in support of those Columbia protesters. Reena, thank you. NBC NIGHTLY NEWS SATURDAY, APRIL 20th, 2024: JOSE DIAZ-BALART: Protests are expanding to college campuses around the country over Israel's war in Gaza. And heightened tensions at Columbia University tonight, just days after police were called in to clear out a protest encampment on campus. George Solis is there.  [ Chants ] GEORGE SOLIS: In New York City, just outside the Gates of Columbia University, massive protests filling the streets. Pro-Palestinian demonstrations appearing to grow on this fourth day since students set up an encampment on campus that led police in riot gear to make more than 100 arrests at the request of the university president earlier this week. Students tell us despite the risk of suspension, having their I.D. badges turned off and losing access to housing here on campus, they've re-established this encampment demanding the university divest from Israel. STUDENT: I was one of the students arrested, suspended by the university. All of these students know the risk, and they're showing up because they understand that in our numbers we have greater safety. SOLIS: For some, the ongoing protests have led to discomfort even being on campus. (JEWISH) STUDENT: They feel the campus is so toxic, so unwelcoming to Jewish students and people who diverge from this line.  [ Chants ] SOLIS: And demonstrations are now spreading. Overnight, hundreds of Yale students camped outside a dinner for the university president to protest the school's investment in military weapon manufacturers. At UNC-Chapel hill, students set up their own encampment in solidarity with the Columbia students who were arrested this week. All as the national pro-Palestinian student group is calling for action on campuses nationwide.  [ Chants ]  Universities have a long history of political demonstration. Columbia famously seeing buildings overtaken in 1968 by anti-Vietnam war demonstrators. STUDENTS: Revolution! SOLIS: Tonight's protest on campus and out in the streets, once again making their stance known on a war raging overseas. STUDENT ORGANIZER: It's been six months and the protests have only been getting bigger. And it says so much about the hope of this movement. DIAZ-BALART: George Solis joins us from outside Columbia University. George, what is the police presence there like tonight? SOLIS: Yeah, Jose, there's a large police presence here on the periphery of the campus. You can see it right behind me where protests are still growing strong at this hour. What's unclear tonight is if police are going to go back on campus to disperse the groups of students gathered there tonight. Jose. DIAZ-BALART: George Solis in New York. Thank you.  

Politico’s J-Mart Laments: ‘If The Election’s About Biden, Trump’s Gonna Win’

Behold the latest installment of media types fretting over the current course of the presidential election. In this instance, Politico Senior Political Columnist Jonathan Martin lamenting that the current trajectory of the election, a referendum on President Joe Biden, augurs the reelection of former President Donald Trump on this week’s installment of ABC This Week. Watch as J-Mart and host Jon Karl discuss the election’s current trajectory, as aired on ABC This Week on Sunday, April 21st, 2024: REINCE PREIBUS: In 2016, it was 24/7 lousy press, good press, everything in between, Donald Trump. If you look at the press, 90% of it's about Trump, and he -- he went through the last three weeks with five rallies a day, and turned out one of the biggest upsets in modern history. When it's all about Trump, he's winning. JONATHAN MARTIN: Yes. So I disagree with that. JON KARL: FiveThirtyEight average has shown a bit of a movement towards Biden. MARTIN: I think the opposite is true. I think if the election is about Biden… (CROSSTALK)  MARTIN: …Trump’s gonna win. I think if the election’s about Trump, Biden's got a lot better chance. And right now Biden's problem is: this election is about Joe Biden. KARL: Yeah… MARTIN: I mean, that’s the challenge, right? KARL: Those are the kind of numbers that make Biden very nervous. So… MARTIN: And Michigan… KARL: …so, how does The White House feel… MARTIN: And Michigan’s the most ominous number there. Former RNC Chair Reince Priebus begins this segment by schooling the panel as to the effects of trying to drown Trump in free press, as was the case in 2016 when the media gave him over $5 billion in free media. And there are certainly many parallels with 2016 at play in the current cycle. This time, the endless Trump cycle centers around the various prosecutions against him in state and federal courts. But the polling that This Week’s panel was looking at seems to indicate that the negative coverage is not working out. And this is where Jonathan Martin comes in and very plainly argues the case for the media to make the election about Donald Trump. The media NEED the election to be about Trump, otherwise Biden becomes the purest victim of his calamitous record.  But polling shows that the public’s attention is fixed on other things such as the economy, inflation, and immigration- issues where Trump has consistently outperformed Biden. Polling further suggests that the media’s J6 fixations have very little resonance beyond the elite Acela bubble.  Indeed, as Jonathan Martin notes, “Biden's problem is: this election is about Joe Biden.” Part of the story of the upcoming days is going to be centered around the media’s efforts to make the opposite come true. Just as in 2016.  

Washington Post Portrays Twitter-Hating Brazilian Judge as Disinformation Hero

Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes is enraged that X (which will forever still be known as Twitter) allows the free flow of information because he labels some of it "disinformation" which he cannot tolerate. Therefore de Moraes has demanded that Twitter remove a number of accounts. In the old obedient days of Twitter when the management treated "disinformation" (which is mostly information contrary to liberal views) to be one of the great sins of our world, they would have immediately acceded to the request. However  the new owner, Elon Musk, refused to take down the accounts which should make him a free speech hero. But in Friday's paper,  but to the Washington Post found the real hero in this matter is the authoritarian Brazilian Supreme Court Justice. The Washington Post's no longer surprising support of censorship appeared on Thursday in "Having remade Twitter, Elon Musk takes his speech fight global" by the team of Elizabeth Dwoskin, Terrence McCoy and Marina Dias. On one side, there’s Alexandre de Moraes, one of the world’s most aggressive prosecutors of disinformation. In recent years, as right-wing Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters questioned the integrity of Brazil’s elections, Moraes was granted expanded powers to fight false claims online. As head of the country’s top elections court, he has issued arrest warrants against dozens of figures and demanded that social media companies take down scores of accounts. Then there’s Musk, the combative tech billionaire who, since taking over Twitter, has loosened the platform’s restrictions on hateful content and allowed misinformation to flood the platform in the name of free speech. Their opposing worldviews exploded into public view this month, when Musk announced he would no longer countenance judicial orders from Moraes, who he said was breaking Brazilian law, and threatened to shutter the platform, now called X, in one of its most active markets. Moraes, in response, said he was adding Musk as a target in his ongoing criminal investigation into political groups accused of using false information to attack democracy. So guess who the Post castigates in this dispute? Since declaring his independence from Moraes’s orders, Musk has met with Argentine President Javier Milei at a Tesla factory in Texas, been invited to a live online appearance with Bolsonaro and said he will meet soon with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. All are populists bolstered by online armies that have been accused of spreading disinformation. ...Musk’s politics form “a connective tissue between these far-right figures and movements,” said Emerson Brooking, a disinformation researcher with the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council. “He is globalizing America’s culture wars.” The Post failed to note that the leftwing Atlantic Council is a think tank funded by George Soros which hyped the idea for the Biden Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board. Ironic since by their rules, the failure to mention this could be considered... disinformation. See how that works? In stark contrast with their scary-music notes on Musk, the Post tone towards the censorship enforcing Brazilian justice is quite benign. Musk remains a target of Moraes’s investigation, according to a Supreme Court official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under rules set by the court. That probe goes beyond X’s content moderation policies into whether Musk is part of an organized threat to the country’s democracy. ...For more than a year leading up to the 2022 election, a polarizing choice between Bolsonaro and leftist former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaristas pushed doubts about electronic voting systems in a strategy that mirrored Donald Trump’s unfounded accusations in 2020. Before the vote, Moraes sought an expanded interpretation of the election court’s authority to investigate, censor and prosecute people suspected of undermining public institutions. The Supreme Court granted him the power to order the immediate removal of problematic content — and fine or suspend companies that did not comply. Finally we have a member of the Soros-funded Atlantic Council whining about what he perceives as America, due largely to Musk, backing off a bit from censorship. The country, said Brooking of the Atlantic Council, could become an important cause for right-wing groups worldwide, including in the United States in an election year in which tech companies have largely retreated from policing misinformation.

‘THE TRUMP STORY’: NBC's Andrea Mitchell Frets Trump’s NYC Trial Is Crowding Biden Out

During the weekly panel discussion on NBC’s Meet The Press, Chief Foreign Correspondent Andrea Mitchell fretted about the trial of former President Donald Trump overshadowing everything President Joe Biden is doing on the campaign trail, to the point of referring to the present media environment as “The Trump Story”. Watch as Mitchell compares the current Trump cycle crowding Biden to the 2016 news environment crowding Hillary Clinton, as aired on NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday, April 21st, 2024:     KRISTEN WELKER: Pick up on that point, because this is all going- against the backdrop of Donald Trump in court for his first criminal trial this week. ANDREA MITCHELL: The fact is, we don't know how that is going to play. Up until now, these legal cases have only helped him fund-raising, made him- you know, tell people he’s the victim, energized his base. And so, he’s risen in the polls with every indictment. Now we’re going to see him really powerless. The judge has been very effective, and how they handle the gag order is yet to be seen. While Joe Biden is campaigning. The problem for Joe Biden and the Democrats is, it’s- Trump is crowding out -- the trial is crowding out everything else. WELKER:  Mm-hmm. MITCHELL:  So Joe Biden goes out and does policy things. The steel tariffs in Pennsylvania. Everything else that he’s doing- student loans, he’s breaking through a little bit. But everything else is crowded out. And it's The Trump Story. And that's what happened in 2016 to Hillary Clinton. And that could be replicated this year. I think it's really -- I think- the enthusiasm issue and the young voter issue is critical. And as long as this war in Gaza goes on, this is going to be a problem with young voters. Because they have an offramp. That offramp is RFK, Jr. And I know your poll shows that RFK, Jr. would hurt Trump more than Biden, hypothetically. And it's very early in polling, you know, to say who would-- But I think The White House -- I know The White House is more afraid of him.  WELKER: It’s jittery. MITCHELL: His family certainly is, because it was very hard for those siblings to come out and do that. They all did it because they think he really hurts them- Joe Biden- more than Donald Trump.  Mitchell’s comparisons of the current Trump cycle to 2016 betray a fundamental lack of self-awareness. Donald Trump earned over $5 billion in free media throughout that cycle, largely because the media believed he’d be the easiest opponent en route to Hillary Clinton’s coronation. Mitchell’s portrayal of Clinton here is as a victim of history, and not as the failed beneficiary of the campaign to drown Trump in free media. This tracks with current coverage of President Biden as the purest victim of the calamities of the present day. Fast forward to 2024, and Mitchell fretting that the orchestrated effort to weaponize state and federal government against Trump, so as to secure a felony conviction against him ahead of the presidential election, is once and again overwhelming the news cycle and “crowding out” the Democrat that was supposed to benefit from these weaponized trials.  The focus then shifts to the presence of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on multiple state ballots as an “offramp” for young voters disaffected over Biden’s handling of Gaza. Welker’s characterization of the Biden White House as “jittery’ is notable. Also notable is Mitchell’s inadvertent depiction of RFK’s candidacy as hurtful to the Kennedy family. If they really feel it hurts them, then it wasn’t so hard for them to come out and do the thing for Joe Biden. Mitchell stepped all over herself in that one sentence.  More importantly, Mitchell revealed the extent to which the media- as Biden’s Praetorian Guard- are worried about the effects of current events on the election. 

FLASHBACK: Media Seized on Elián Saga to Vilify Anti-Communists

Twenty-four years ago tomorrow (April 22, 2000), Attorney General Janet Reno ordered gun-toting immigration officers to snatch six-year-old Elián Gonzalez from his Miami home in preparation for his return to communist Cuba after a lengthy diplomatic dispute. Five months earlier, Elián was brought by his mother and her boyfriend in their attempt to flee Cuba by sea, hoping for a new life in the United States. Their boat lost power and sank, and Elián’s mother drowned along with most of the other passengers. The U.S. Coast Guard  brought him to Florida after he was found floating in an inner tube on November 25, 1999; the youngster was then sent to live with relatives in Miami, just as he would have if his mother had successfully completed her escape. From the beginning, liberal journalists insisted there was nothing superior about living in the United States vs. the communist dictatorship in Cuba. On his December 6, 1999 Upfront program, for example, CNBC’s Geraldo Rivera argued the only problem was that Castro’s tyranny was “unpopular” with Americans. “You can hate Castro and hate his government,” Rivera lobbied, but then “every time you have an unpopular government that we object to, children can be snatched from that country....It’s just unconscionable....It’s politics, it stinks.” During ABC’s round-the-clock New Year’s coverage on December 31, 1999, correspondent Cynthia McFadden in Havana related how in a visit to a Cuban school, the children “talked about... their fear of the United States... because it was a place where they kidnap children — a direct reference, of course to Elián Gonzalez.” Of course, there was no hint that the children McFadden spoke with were merely repeating the propaganda line fed to them by the government. By April, it was obvious that the Clinton administration was going to find a way to send Elián back to the nation his mother fled. Journalists claimed that life in Castro’s Cuba might be better than life in America. “Elián might expect a nurturing life in Cuba, sheltered from the crime and social breakdown that would be part of his upbringing in Miami,” Newsweek’s Brook Larmer and John Leland argued in their magazine’s April 17, 2000 issue. “The boy will nestle again in a more peaceable society that treasures its children.” “To be a poor child in Cuba may in many instances be better than being a poor child in Miami, and I’m not going to condemn their lifestyle so gratuitously,” their Newsweek colleague Eleanor Clift pronounced on the April 8 McLaughlin Group. Pressed, Clift later doubled down, telling FNC’s Bill O’Reilly on May 1: “I can understand why a rational, loving father can believe that his child will be protected in a state where he doesn’t have to worry about going to school and being shot at, where drugs are not a big problem, where he has access to free medical care and where the literacy rate, I believe, is higher than this country’s.” In an April 20 interview with Vice President Al Gore’s wife, Tipper, CNN host Larry King echoed the Castro regime’s anti-American talking points: “One of the things that Elián Gonzalez’s father said, that I guess would be hard to argue with, that his boy’s safer in a school in Havana than in a school in Miami. He would not be shot in a school in Havana. Good point?” To her credit, Tipper Gore disagreed: “Well, I think that’s a, that’s a bit of a harsh point....” As they peddled the idea that life under communism was grand, journalists also took nasty swipes at the anti-communist Cuban community in Miami. “Some suggested over the weekend that it’s wrong to expect Elián Gonzalez to live in a place that tolerates no dissent or freedom of political expression. They were talking about Miami....Another writer this weekend called it ‘an out of control banana republic within America,’” NBC’s Katie Couric jabbed as she opened the April 3 Today. “In Miami, it’s impossible to overestimate how everything here is colored by a hatred of communism and Fidel Castro,” ABC’s John Quinones relayed the next day on World News Tonight. “It’s a community with very little tolerance for those who might disagree.” “The ‘banana republic’ label sticking to Miami in the final throes of the Elián Gonzalez crisis is a source of snide humor for most Americans. But many younger Cuban-Americans are getting tired of the hard-line anti-Castro operatives who have helped manufacture that stereotype,” Time’s Tim Padgett echoed in his magazine’s April 17 edition. The New York Times suggested it was old-fashioned to have a negative opinion of communist dictatorships. “Communism Still Looms as Evil to Miami Cubans,” the newspaper screamed in an April 11 headline. On CBS’s The Early Show (April 14) , co-host Bryant Gumbel offered this slanted question to his network’s Cuba expert, Pamela Falk: “Cuban-Americans, Ms. Falk, have been quick to point fingers at Castro for exploiting the little boy. Are their actions any less reprehensible?” Then on the Saturday before Easter, immigration officers raided the home of Elián’s Miami relatives to begin the process of returning the child to Cuba. Anchoring live coverage that morning (April 22), CBS anchor Dan Rather praised Janet Reno for ordering the assault: “In the end it worked. The child was gotten out safely.” Rather also took the opportunity to vouch for the Cuban dictator’s good intentions: “There is no question that Castro feels a very deep and abiding connection to those Cubans who are still in Cuba....There’s little doubt in my mind that Fidel Castro was sincere when he said, ‘listen, we really want this child back here.’” The heavy-handedness of the raid, typified by the picture of a fearful Elián being confronted by an armed immigration officer, was actually saluted by some in the press. “I gotta confess, that now-famous picture of a U.S. marshal in Miami pointing an automatic weapon toward Donato Dalrymple [the man holding Elián in the picture] and ordering him in the name of the U.S. government to turn over Elián Gonzalez warmed my heart,” New York Times columnist Tom Friedman cheered in his April 25 column headlined “Reno for President.” According to Time’s Michael Duffy, the only valid criticism of Attorney General Janet Reno is that she waited too long to send in the soldiers. “I think any raid where no shots are fired and no one is hurt is a success,” Duffy affirmed on the April 28 edition of PBS’s Washington Week in Review. “I think where Reno is to blame is not that she should have talked longer or kept the negotiations going, but that she should have cut them off much sooner....She just should have stopped it earlier.” Meanwhile, NBC’s Avila continued to reject the idea that Cuba was oppressed by communism. “The one thing that I’ve learned about Cubans in the many times that I have visited here in the last few years, is that it is mostly a nationalistic country, not primarily a communist country,” he naively insisted on MSNBC’s Imus in the Morning four days after the raid (April 26). After two months living with his father as court challenges concluded, Elian and his father returned to Cuba in late June, 2000. The media continued to present the communist indoctrination that awaited him as normal. “The school system in Cuba teaches that communism is the way to succeed in life and it is the best system. Is that deprogramming or is that national heritage?” NBC’s Jim Avila wondered on CNBC’s Upfront Tonight on June 27. “Elián will almost certainly rejoin the Pioneers as almost all Cuban children do. It’s very much like the Cub Scouts, camping trips and all, but with a socialist flavor and a revolutionary spin,” NBC’s Keith Morrison exclaimed on the June 28 Dateline. All of that “education” has certainly had an impact: In March 2023, Elián Gonzalez was “elected” to Cuban National Assembly — which means he was selected by the communist party to run unopposed in his district. “At 29, he is a show pony for Cuba, just as many exiles feared,” the Miami Herald noted in a March 27 editorial. “The fight to claim Elián Gonzalez and give him a life in America was the last great battle between Castro, U.S. ‘imperialism’ and Miami exiles. And the dictator won.” With a lot of help from a compliant news media. For more examples from our flashback series, which we call the NewsBusters Time Machine, go here.                          

CNN's Jake Tapper Brings In 'Fact Checker' Daniel Dale to Knock Trump's Opinions

CNN's resident "fact checker" Daniel Dale usually shows his face on air when CNN wants to attack Donald Trump. On Thursday's The Lead with Jake Tapper, Dale confessed that Trump's statements during jury selection were mostly just opinion, but he mocked the "false conspiracy theory" that President Biden had something to do with Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's prosecution, even though an Associate Attorney General joined Bragg's team.  JAKE TAPPER: Daniel, we just heard a little speech from Mr. Trump. What did you make of it? Did he say anything that was not true? DANIEL DALE: He did. I mean, it was mostly uncheckable, subjective opinion, but he did say a few things that weren’t quite right at very least. So he repeated his false conspiracy theory that essentially that Joe Biden is behind this case, which was brought by a locally elected [Democrat!] district attorney. He said Biden is behind it. He has his top people working with the DAs office to make sure everything goes right. There is no basis for that. That appears to be a reference to a former Justice Department official who went to work for the DA’s office. But there’s no sign that was anything but his own employment decision. In fact, this former official, Matthew Colangelo, had previously been a colleague of DA Bragg, so he rejoined his old colleague. At least CNN is mentioning Colangelo in passing. If this were a Trump Justice Department official arriving on a Biden prosecution, it would be a major scandal of partisanship. CNN would be aggressively digging for anonymous insiders to decry this plot. Then the Canadian Trump-basher turned to the usual "no evidence" claims on the Biden impeachment inquiry: DALE: He also claimed that Joe Biden is a crooked president should be on trial. I think that’s mostly opinion, but I think it’s worth noting, Jake, that we’ve had this extended Republican House investigation impeachment inquiry, no evidence of impeachable offenses, high crimes and misdemeanors, let alone criminal offenses. And then I should note, as you did briefly, that, you know, he read this big pile of documents of articles citing headlines denouncing the case. I googled some of them as he was speaking, so he read one — talking about the whopping outrage in Trump’s indictment. Well, that’s harsh criticism. Where was it from? A Fox News column. He mentioned the Daily Caller, another right wing publication. I googled another headline from the right wing National Review he mentioned. So there are some liberal scholars, legal experts, publications who have raised questions about this case. But that pile he showed was largely his usual friends, the usual suspects praising Trump, defending Trump in the conservative media. Dale (and Tapper) weren't going to mention CNN's own legal analyst Elie Honig isn't impressed with Bragg's effort. This was for left-wing consumption, as in this headline at Mediaite: "CNN’s Daniel Dale Torpedoes Trump’s Attack On Biden — Rips Quoting ‘Usual Suspects’ Like Fox In Courthouse Rant."

PBS 'Washington Week' Gang Hails Speaker Johnson Finding His 'Inner Reagan' on Ukraine

The latest, foreign-policy-facing episode of Washington Week with The Atlantic found the weekly journalistic roundtable quite comfortable with both American hard and soft power -- as long as President Biden and the Democrats hold the reins. Jeffrey Goldberg, moderator of Washington Week and editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, was joined by Eugene Daniels of Politico, Seung Min Kim of the Associated Press, Vivian Salama of The Wall Street Journal, and Graeme Wood of The Atlantic. There was a scattering of hostile labeling, with three “far right” labels foisted on Republicans, including a "very raucous far right." PBS doesn't find "far left" for Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib. But most striking was the panel’s praise for previously mocked House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) for finding his (yes) “inner Reagan.” Now that the press has decided defending Ukraine against Putin’s Russia is vital, the 40th president’s reputation has shifted from warmonger to responsible internationalist. Atlantic journalist Graeme Wood particularly loved Speaker Johnson finally “getting a grip on reality” on Ukraine, which in media terms meant Johnson turning away from his “hard-right” flank toward sweet reason – boosted by Democrats in Congress, who saved his speaker position -- by pushing an additional $60 billion in spending for military aid to Ukraine. Goldberg set up a clip of Johnson arguing for military aid to Ukraine, even mentioning an "axis of evil" (remember those?) consisting of China, Iran, and Russia, but this time to media approval. When asked by host Goldberg whether what we’re seeing is “the true Mike Johnson,” Wood responded thusly. Wood: I don’t know if it’s the true Mike Johnson. But having just been in Poland about a week ago, it seems to most polls and there are some parts of the world where the stakes are very high with these issues, that it’s a person, Mike Johnson, getting a grip on reality. I mean, Poles are seeing this as, arming Ukraine means stopping Kiev from falling and then stopping Russia from getting to the Polish border, which by the way, it’s been there before. Knowing how public television has traditionally treated Ronald Reagan’s presidency, this exchange registered as ironic: Jeffrey Goldberg: ….Vivian, let’s add onto that. Has Johnson found his inner Reagan? And is he strong enough to withstand what might be coming from the isolationist wing? Vivian Salama: I think he would love to believe that he’s found his inner Reagan. Goldberg: I mean, every Republican wants to find their inner Reagan, right? And did the Democrats backing this package show their "inner Reagan" as well? Later there was “optimism” Israeli’s embattled Netanyahu was listening to the wisdom of the American president and refraining from major countermeasures after Iran fired drones and missiles into Israel. Goldberg: So, that brings me to this question about President Biden and his relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu. It seems like there’s been a little bit of a reset in their relationship. And by that, I mean it seems as if Netanyahu is actually listening a bit to Joe Biden now, or is that -- am I over-indexing? Wood: Yes, you might be a little bit too optimistic. But, you know, the hope was that during these last weeks, so much has changed, so much of the narrative could have changed, and it was a frozen and very bad narrative for a number of reasons in the Gaza War. But what can Netanyahu make of this? I mean, there are many Israelis who wish he would just disappear. But the next best thing would be for something in the frozen conflict, in the frozen situation to move…. Wood later admitted he wasn’t a Netanyahu fan: "We’ve got to understand, too, what type of pressure Netanyahu was under. I’ll speak with a rare note of sympathy with Bibi here, because if your country is attacked with 300 drones and ballistic missiles and you do nothing, I don’t think there’s any country that would allow an attack like that to go completely unanswered…." Journalists are certainly more confident of projecting American might during Democratic administrations. Exporting United States military might to Ukraine and putting the diplomatic squeeze on an ally are now admirable traits. Strange days! This sudden new respect for American military power was brought to you in part by Consumer Cellular, and taxpayers like you. A transcript is available, click “Expand.” PBS Washington Week with The Atlantic 4/19/24 8:02:01 p.m. (ET) Jeffrey Goldberg: So, it seems that Mike Johnson, the unlikeliest speaker in recent memory, even Washington reporters who know everything admit that they hadn't heard of him before his selection, might not be falling off the tightrope quite yet. The far right of his party has predictably turned on him, but Donald Trump hasn't, so far at least, and neither have the Democrats. Is Marjorie Taylor Greene inadvertently bringing back bipartisanship? I'll talk about this and the consequences for Ukraine and Israel funding with Eugene Daniels, a White House correspondent and co-author of Politico's playbook, Seung Min Kim is a White House reporter with the Associated Press, Vivian Salama is a national politics reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and Graeme Wood is my colleague and a staff writer at The Atlantic. Welcome, all. Seung Min, you're in the hot seat. Just came from the White House. So, the House is poised to pass this $95 billion foreign aid package finally, and if the speaker gets this done, it's going to be with the help of the Democrats obviously, and his right most members, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, who may or may not be, for further discussion, the most powerful person on the Hill. They're pretty livid. So, what are the chances that Johnson gets this done, and in so doing, also subverts his speakership? Seung Min Kim, White House Reporter, The Associated Press: The chances, on the one hand, the chances are good that the foreign aid package will pass the House tomorrow. On a procedural vote earlier today, you had 316 votes. That is far past the majority, helped with a lot of Democrats, like you said, and a significant portion of Republicans as well. And, you know, that will have to go back to the Senate, and then to the president's desk for it to be signed. But the real question is what happens to Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership position. What's been really interesting over the last couple of days is that it's not just Marjorie Taylor Greene anymore who's threatening to oust him from his speakership. The numbers, slowly, they are growing. You have two more House Republicans now on the record saying they would support him that what we call a motion to vacate, that maneuver, that mechanism that allows one person to oust a speaker. And why that matters -- Jeffrey Goldberg: The mechanism that was fatal to Kevin McCarthy. Seung Min Kim: Definitely, yes, that mechanism. And what's critical here is that the margins in the House are so narrow after there's one person leaving the house after this week and he will have just a one seat majority. That is almost untenable for any speaker to navigate, much less someone who is inexperienced and has a very raucous far right portion of the conference like Mike Johnson does. Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. But I want to show you a chart from -- just to look at this. These are the last Republican speakers, and you see that it's not a job that lasts forever these days. Mike Johnson is at 178 days and counting. I'm not asking Eugene for you to predict the future, although can you predict the future? Daniels, White House Correspondent, Politico: No, not yet. I'm learning. Jeffrey Goldberg: All right. I mean, what are the chances that he finds himself in really dire straits? And what are the chances that Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader, comes in to save him? Eugene Daniels: That's the key to this, right? That the chances of whether or not he gets saved, it's all up to Hakeem Jeffries. If Hakeem Jeffries signals either in front of cameras or behind the scenes to Democrats that, hey, I will let you not come, you can leave, we want you to protect and defend him, Mike Johnson, in any kind of vote, then they will do that. Jeffrey Goldberg: What's the Democratic interest in keeping Johnson in power? Eugene Daniels: The reason that they are, the people that are interested in it, is, one, they're worried about who would come next, right? If Marjorie Taylor Greene, if you're not far right enough for her, people are worried about who's coming next. And also, he's doing something that Kevin McCarthy did not do. He's acting in good faith with the Democrats at this point, right? The way that he's negotiating and trying to get these bills to the floor is something that they wanted from Kevin McCarthy. He would not do. Also, Kevin McCarthy was kind of bad mouthing Democrats on air a day after. They saved his bill, and so they were upset about that. They said, you know, we're not saving you, you're on your own. Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Eugene Daniels: So, they're not getting that from Johnson. Jeffrey Goldberg: Johnson is kind of cool, understated approach is working. Eugene Daniels: It's working. It's working. Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes. Vivian, do you have any thoughts on, on whether he can maneuver this Ukraine bill to passage and maintain his job? Vivian Salama, National Politics Reporter, The Wall Street Journal: It's looking increasingly likely that he will get the Ukraine bill over the finish line. Now, whether or not he maintains his job is another story. Remember, Ukraine was at one point a largely bipartisan issue. Most people in Congress on both sides of the aisle supported some sort of U.S. aid package. However, it has become increasingly a political flashpoint. And there is one person that has driven a lot of that rhetoric, and that is Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, where he made it increasingly become a political issue, where he would say, why are we giving billions of dollars to Ukraine? You know, the country is falling apart. We have problems at the border. And so that has grown. And we've seen then the hardliners in the Republican Party pushing back on Ukraine aid. And that's where we are. It is not a substantive issue here. It is a political issue. And now you see Donald Trump coming along and saying, well, okay, we can give them aid in the form of a loan and everything has changed suddenly. Jeffrey Goldberg: I want to get to Trump. Before we get to Trump, I want to -- so NewsHour's Amna Nawaz earlier this week interviewed President Zelenskyy in Kyiv, and he made his feelings about all of this quite clear. Listen to this one segment. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian President: We wanted another way to get this money last year, but for today, it doesn't matter. We need to survive and we need to defend our people. And that's why your decision, the ball is on your field, yes? Please, just make decision. Jeffrey Goldberg: So, I'm not, I'm not saying that what I'm going to play you now is a direct consequence of PBS' global reach, but, Speaker Johnson causation, correlation, we can have that debate later, but Zelenskyy's plea, it seems as if, you know, that kind of thinking that Zelenskyy is talking about there kind of moved Speaker Johnson. Listen to this. This is kind of an extended riff by Johnson on Ukraine, in which he sounds like an old style Reagan Republican. Listen, listen to this. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA): I think providing lethal aid to Ukraine right now is critically important. I really do. I really do believe the intel and the briefings that we've gotten. I believe Xi and Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil. I think they're in coordination on this. I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed. To put it bluntly, I would rather send bullets to Ukraine than American boys. My son is going to begin in the Naval Academy this fall. This is a live fire exercise for me, as it is so many American families. This is not a game. It's not a joke. We can't play politics with this. And I'm willing to take personal risk for that, because we have to do the right thing, and history will judge us. Jeffrey Goldberg: Graeme, this is pretty remarkable given where Johnson was in the sort of Trumpian quasi isolationist framework. Are we seeing something very unusual? Is this the true Mike Johnson? Graeme Wood, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: I don't know if it's the true Mike Johnson. But having just been in Poland about a week ago, it seems to most Poles and there're some parts of the world where the stakes are very high with these issues, that it's a person, Mike Johnson, getting a grip on reality. I mean, polls are seeing this as arming Ukraine means stopping Kyiv from falling, and then stopping Russia from getting to the Polish border, which, by the way, it's been there before. So it's a matter of someone who -- you know, maybe he has to satisfy Marjorie Taylor Greene, maybe not. These are political questions that are, that are unfamiliar to parts of the world where they're wondering about their future independence and prosperity. Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. I would love as an exercise to try to explain Marjorie Taylor Greene's politics to the prime minister of Poland, but that we'll do that on another show. But, Vivian, come, come, let's add onto that. Has Johnson found his inner Reagan? And is he strong enough to withstand what might be coming from the isolationist wing? Vivian Salama: I think he would love to believe that he's found his inner Reagan. Jeffrey Goldberg: I mean, every Republican wants to find their inner Reagan, right? Yes. Vivian Salama: And one of the things that I've heard a lot from folks on the Hill is that a lot of this is he's driven by faith, that he believes because of his faith that it is imperative upon the United States, it's incumbent upon the United States to help allies, including the Ukrainians who are on the frontline of this war, whether or not -- Jeffrey Goldberg: So, why did we wait so long? Vivian Salama: Well, that's just the issue. There's so much political headwind and it's taken so much time for the party to sort of coalesce around this concept that we have to do this. And it was -- as a standalone issue, I don't know if Ukraine aid would have passed, but we're lumping it in with other issues, support for Israel, support for Taiwan. And so it pads it with those issues that do have more bipartisan support at the moment and can sort of get through the house a lot quicker. Also remember there was a lot of pushback on border security that Republicans wanted to basically get a win by adding border security and linking it to Ukraine aid. And that is largely what slowed down the passage of this. And so this has been a major issue. Eugene Daniels: It's his faith, but there's also like a practical aspect of this. He said, I believe the intel, he gets a lot more access to information as speaker than he did as a kind of a rank and file backbencher in the House. So, he is getting information that he wasn't getting before. This is not the Mike Johnson that many of us did not know when you -- a few months ago, right? Jeffrey Goldberg: Wait, I want to study that sentence. This is not the Mike Johnson that they didn't know. Eugene Daniels: He's somebody we used to know. We know someone else. Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Eugene Daniels: But like that is such a bit of integral part of understanding this change in him. He's in leadership. And there's a different way that you have to operate. His kind of dragging his feet, in my estimation, has always been -- he does have to make it look like he's not being pushed by Democrats to do anything. And a lot has changed in the months leading up to this. Jeffrey Goldberg: Talk about that from the White House perspective. I mean, obviously, he's in leadership. He's getting intel. Now, obviously, if you're in the paranoid nether regions of American politics, you think, oh, then he's like being influenced by the deep state. But what he's getting is real time intelligence about the Ukrainian struggles, right? Is this part of -- I mean, obviously, statutorily, you know, the speaker has to be involved in a lot of this, but is the White House cultivating Mike Johnson in a kind of way. Seung Min Kim: Right. I mean, that was a huge part of the White House's strategy when it came to persuading Mike Johnson on the need for additional Ukraine aid. If you recall literally the day after he was elected speaker, they brought him to the situation room right away. This is where he met Jake Sullivan. He met other national security officials. He met President Biden and spoke to him briefly for the first time. And he was exposed to the kind of information that he did not have as a rank and file member. He was then brought up for multiple meetings. He and National Security Committee chairman had regular briefings recently, obviously had multiple conversations. And that was part of the administration's strategy to convince him and give them real time, concrete information to try to persuade him that this is real, that his is a problem. And what's been fascinating to watch when it comes to Mike Johnson is that you do see an evolution of someone understanding that you can't behave the way as a rank and file member than you would as a leader, and not only as a leader of a House Republican conference, but a leader as a Speaker of the House. Which is why you can go from someone who voted against Ukraine aid like Mike Johnson did to someone who was shepherding it through at the risk of his own job. Vivian Salama: It wasn't just, by the way, the administration who's been lobbying him. Foreign leaders have been lining up to see Mike Johnson. I interviewed the Polish president just this week who had been in to see him a few weeks ago. And one by one, they'd all been going in saying, you do not understand what this threat means. Europe could fall. The Ukrainians have no more ammunition. We are literally at the brink. And I think over time they have managed to get to him, especially people like President Duda of Poland, who's very persuasive. He's also an ally of Trump's and then speaks sort of that language. Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. He's a kind of a populist. Vivian Salama: He's considered right wing. And he appeals both to Trump. He did see Trump as well this week. But he also met with Mike Johnson. Others have as well. And so, progressively, over time, I think those European leaders and parliamentarians, you know, foreign ministers, you name it, they have managed to really get to him and make him understand the stakes here. Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Graeme, this is the actual sort of largest question or most important question. What does this -- if this aid, and, obviously, it's a big package, Israel, Taiwan, but if this aid is freed up for Ukraine, tell us what that means on the battlefield. Graeme Wood: Yes. So, these briefings are very sobering for one reason, which is anything could happen between now and the end of the year. And that could mean the collapse of the Ukrainian frontline. The collapse of the Ukrainian frontline could mean the end of Ukraine as the state that we know it as. And once that happens, then that line starts moving and the political calculations of Europe change completely. So, I think some of the conversations that can happen in Washington can be about, okay, maybe we lose Ukraine. But a complete geo strategic reset that could happen with the collapse of a frontline in Ukraine is an extremely sobering thought. And that's why I think it's been so urgent that these conversations happen with -- Jeffrey Goldberg: So, you think it's plausible that it's not just that Russia will solidify its position in Crimea and in the east. You think that without U.S. resupply, the frontline could actually collapse and Russia could do what it couldn't do two years ago? Graeme Wood: Yes, that is plausible. It seems like right now the line could be frozen. But, you know, the way these things happen is slowly, slowly than all at once. Jeffrey Goldberg: Like Afghanistan. Graeme Wood: Yes. Things can happen so quickly that it would be pretty urgent to at least keep the line where it is. Now, having a plan for it to actually resolve the war, of course, is what everyone would want. But the disaster, the catastrophe that would happen, if the line really collapsed, would be unthinkable. Jeffrey Goldberg: Part of that catastrophe would be that Russia would then be in a better position to threaten actual NATO allies, and then we are required, by treaty, to come to their defense, as opposed to Ukraine, which is not in NATO.

So Sad! Brian Stelter, Post Reporter Can't Get Press Credentials from Trump Campaign

Charlotte Klein at Vanity Fair was upset that the Trump campaign is “cutting off access” to reporters who are extremely hostile to Trump, including Brian Stelter (also of Vanity Fair) and Washington Post reporter Isaac Arnsdorf, whose new book is titled Finish What We Started: The MAGA Movement’s Ground War to End Democracy. Klein protested the book “has been praised by two such members of that movement, Steve Bannon and John Fredericks, both of whom had Arnsdorf on their shows and recommended the book to their audiences.” That’s bizarre. By contrast, the Trump campaign took exception to the “End Democracy” hype. Since February, Arnsdorf has not been permitted to enter campaign events as credentialed media. That doesn’t mean he can’t cover events. He just has to sit where regular folks do. Klein lamented "that requires getting to rallies much earlier, which could be a deal breaker for some journalists given their busy schedules." Cry a river. “Nobody has been denied any access to our events,” Cheung said in a statement. “If reporters want to cover our events but are unable to secure a coveted press badge, they are more than welcome to apply for general admission tickets in order to experience our events." Arnsdorf declined to comment on the situation, but a Post spokesperson said the paper “will continue to fairly, accurately and independently report on the presidential campaign.” They don’t sound fair, accurate, or independent. They sound like Democrat operatives. He's not alone: In recent weeks, the campaign has taken similar punitive measures against other reporters, according to multiple sources familiar with the moves. An Axios reporter had their credentials approved for an event and then revoked the same day, following the publication of a story about the Trump-led Republican National Committee’s struggles in swing states. (An Axios spokesperson declined to comment.) At least one other Post reporter was temporarily denied press credentials to multiple events after accurately reporting on Trump’s public statements. Most recently, Brian Stelter, a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, was denied press access to Trump’s rally in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania  This is true and I know it firsthand — I applied for press credentials for Trump's most recent rally in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania and was rejected https://t.co/CpUHMb2WHy — Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) April 19, 2024 Klein conceded that the Trump campaign’s press engagement has even earned it praise. Some reporters have said they have in certain ways been easier to deal with than Joe Biden’s campaign, according to The New Yorker’s Clare Malone, who recently wrote a piece about Trump spokesman Steven Cheung headlined, “The Face of Donald Trump’s Deceptively Savvy Media Strategy.” Still, some hostile reporters are still "unnerved by the retaliatory behavior" and what will happen next. “This is the calm before the storm. Once there’s a press plane with 30 to 40 reporters flying around all the time, that’ll be when they’ll really have to deal with it,” the first political reporter told me. “Negative stories will be coming thick and fast and they haven’t had to deal with this since 2016; in 2020 they just had the White House pool. It’s only gonna get worse, I think.”