https://newsbusters.org/ en https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2024/12/24/not-so-sunny-hostins-9-most-racist-moments-2024 The View’s Sunny Hostin is arguably one of the most racist personalities in the liberal media these days. She white people, particularly white women, are among her favorite hate objects. White women who marry black Republicans also get the brunt of her hatred. She does all this while also claiming it’s America writ-large who’s the truly racist ones. From decrying Senator Tim Scott’s engagement to a white woman to lashing out at female athletes for being “white” and “pretty” to denying the existence of black Republicans, listed here are some of Hostin’s most racist moments of 2024. Presenting in chronological order are nine of those moments and one deeply ironic revelation about Hostin’s family that came to light this year. Racist Hostin: Tim Scott’s Engagement Proves He’s a Puppet for Whites In January, Hostin spit venom at Senator Scott’s engagement to his girl friend Mindy, who is white. The miserable co-host of The View suggested that the engagement was proof that Scott was just a puppet of white people, a la the movie The Sunken Place: But he's in The Sunken Place. Okay? I mean, that's just the bottom line for Tim Scott, what's so fascinating is you know he's running for vice president. He endorses Trump on a Friday and then gets engaged on a Saturday, and announces his engagement on a Sunday because it's like, “Pick me. I'm getting married this year.” And no other vice president has been unmarried, right, and has been successful so it just screams “I want to be your vice president. I love you.” Hostin: ‘You Can’t Say’ the ‘Vast Majority’ of America Is Not Racist Hostin kicked off Black History Month by insisting that it was not only incorrect but inappropriate to say the “vast majority” of America was not racist. When her co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin tried to nail Hostin down on whether or not she was asserting that “the vast majority are racist,” Hostin tried to shut down the debate by calling it her “lived experience” which meant no one could question her: FARAH GRIFFIN: So, just to understand are we saying – do we think the vast majority of Americans are racist? That’s what I’m trying to – Help me understand. HOSTIN: I think there is a significant portion that are racist and you can't dismiss my lived experience!     Hostin Conspiracy: GOP Only Support IVF to Stave Off White Replacement Later that month, there was a dust up over the Alabama Supreme Court ruling on in vitro fertilization (IVF) in relation to the state’s pro-life laws. This controversy led to many Republicans coming out and making statements in support of IVF. According to Hostin, their support had an ulterior sinister motive. She cooked up a conspiracy theory that the real reason Republicans supported IVF was to stave off white replacement (something she’s previously claimed was a conspiracy theory in and of itself): I think they do want you to have more children and they just not saying the quiet part out loud…multicultural Americans are going to become the majority population by 2050. By 2050, the Hispanic Americans are expected to have the most population growth, an increase of about six percent, while the white population is expected to decrease by about 11 percent…they're coming out sort of against it and not being able to explain why. They want to have more American white children born because the birth rate has gone down. The View Gets TRIGGERED By a Guest Who Argues Against Racism Hostin gets particularly offended when people decry her brand of racism. During an interview with author Coleman Hughes about his book about removing race as a factor in government programs and policy making, Hostin called Hughes a “charlatan” and “a pawn” of Republicans (Hughes did not identify as a Republican). She also engaged in grievance politics and tried to use clout to win the argument: This is not my question, but when you say that socioeconomics picks out people in a better way than race, when you do look at the socioeconomics, you see the huge disparity between white households and black households. You see the huge disparity between white households and Hispanic households. So, your argument – and I've read your book twice because I wanted to give it a chance – your argument that race has no place in that equation is really fundamentally flawed in my opinion (...) That part is true, but as you are a student of Dr. King, I'm not only a student of Dr. King, I know his daughter Bernice. Right? So, I'm going to get to my question.     Race-Obsessed Hostin: Too Many White People in Trump Trial Courtroom, Needs 'a Little Color' During the height of the politically motivated hush money trial against President-elect Trump, Hostin managed to make it into the courtroom to watch it live. In addition to saying it it was her first time seeing Trump in person and was “radioactive orange,” her other comments about skin color huffed about there being too many white people in the room: HOSTIN: What I want to do is give a little color to the courtroom, because a lot of people – WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Oh, redo that. HOSTIN: No, no, a little color. I mean that literally and figuratively. Hostin Blasts WNBA Star Caitlin Clark for Being ‘White’ and ‘Pretty’ There was also the time Hostin lashed out white WNBA player Caitlin Clark for her skin color and good looks. As a member of the WNBA Players Association’s board of advocates, commended Clark as a “vehicle that will bring this sport that I have loved so much and so long to little 5-year-old girls playing in Harlem.” But as a racist, Hostin attacked skin color: With that being said, I do think that there is a thing called pretty privilege. There is a thing called white privilege. There is a thing called tall privilege. And we have to acknowledge that, and so part of it is about race because if you think about the Brittney Griners of the world, you know.     Hostin Says Black Republicans Don't Exist, 'Like Looking at Unicorns' While Hostin has called black Republicans “oxymorons” and puppets of white people (as noted above), in the early summer Hostin suggested they just didn’t exist at all; like unicorns: I thought it was interesting that the framing was a room of black Republicans. Where are they? Where are they? Because if you look at the stats, 77 percent of – 81 percent, I'm sorry, of black men are part of the Democratic Party. Black voters consistently align with the Democratic Party.  Ninety -- Over 95 percent of black women are part of the Democratic Party so these black men that he was speaking with, I'd love to see them. It would be like looking at unicorns. The View Suggests Brittany Mahomes Is Racist Over ‘Liked’ Trump Post In another instance of Hostin attacking a white woman married to a black man, she went after Brittany Mahomes – the wife of NFL quarterback Patrick Mahomes – by suggesting she was a racist and hated her biracial children because she like a pro-MAGA post on Instagram: It just seems to me that since she is in an interracial marriage, she should have known that to support a racist is problematic. Her children are biracial and her family is one of the families that in the '70s could not have lived in any of Donald Trump's buildings, so it just seems to me that maybe she's just not that politically savvy, or maybe she's just not read in, but its problematic. Hostin Lashes Out at ‘Uneducated White Women’ for Kamala Losing Bigly In the wake of Trump’s victory over failed Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris, Hostin was on a racist warpath against white women. With exit polls showing Trump received a majority of the non-college educated white female demographic, Hostin’s hate surged as she resorted to calling them “uneducated white women” while praising black women like here: I want to dig further into the demographics because black women tried to save this country again last night. 92 percent of black women voted for the Vice President. You have Latinas in the 70 percentile voting for the Vice President. What we did not was white women, who voted about 52 percent for Donald Trump, uneducated white women in my understanding.     Notable Irony: Racial Revelations: Sunny Hostin’s Family Owned Slaves, Still DEMANDS Reparations In a moment of notable irony amid all of Hostin’s racism in 2024, an appearance on Finding Your Roots uncovered that not only was Hostin’s family prolific slave owners, they had actually fled the abolition of slavery with their slaves across the Atlantic and across the Caribbean. Hostin still insists that she’s entitled to reparation, while she has not publicly committed to paying the families hers enslaved.   December 24th, 2024 12:30 PM Nicholas Fondacaro 287232 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mark-finkelstein/2024/12/24/joe-scarborough-scours-evil-geniuses-redistributing-income Last week, we caught Joe Scarborough sounding like Bernie Sanders as he banged his desk in frustration, inveighing against "billionaires" and wondering how the Democrats could possibly have missed the "layup" of beating the Republicans in November's election, given the disparity in income between those billionaires and working-class Americans.  On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough made it clear that he has signed on to the project of rebuilding the Democrats. He brought in two critics of capitalism: Kurt Andersen and Daniel Chandler. The former wrote Evil Geniuses, a book condemning conservatives who want to reduce taxation and regulation. The latter has written Free and Equal, a book recommending that the Democrats embrace the philosophy of John Rawls--which at its core calls for the redistribution of income.  Scarborough claimed to be a "proud capitalist" and then came the "But." He added "But I am a proud capitalist with guardrails that capitalism used to have. And I understand, people don't want to talk about income redistribution. I'm not a big fan of income redistribution. I'm especially not a big fan when the income is being moved from middle class Americans to billionaires." So if the middle class flock to Amazon for their shopping, is that a "redistribution" of income to Jeff Bezos? Or is that the middle class finding the best price? Scarborough thinks just like the Democrats, that letting people keep more of what they have earned is the same as welfare programs taking money from those who have earned it and giving it to those who have not. Hey Joe: does "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" ring a bell? Andersen expressed nostalgia for FDR's New Deal, a form of soft socialism. Chandler spoke little of the specifics of the Rawls philosophy, or of his own. But exploring Chandler's beliefs, it becomes apparent that he would remake our economy and society in radical ways.  He claims to support free speech, but only the kind that helps us develop "our sense of what is fair and how to live.” And since advertising, in Chandler's opinion, plays no meaningful role in helping us figure out how to live a good life, such speech can be limited. He would restrict private money in politics. Government-funded elections, really? You worry about the corruption of money in politics? Just wait until politicians and bureaucrats are in charge of it! He would establish "worker cooperatives" in which “workers decide how things are done.” Sounds a lot like the proletariat controlling the means of production: i.e., Marxism. He would abolish private schools. Ah yes, subject all children to the indoctrination of government schools and the unions that control them. He would impose heavy estate taxes to limit the intergenerational transfer of wealth. Lifetimes of hard work taken away, to be redistributed to the more deserving, in Chandler's opinion. The one note of reason in the discussion was Richard Haass, the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. Haass expressed discomfort with all the talk of the redistribution of income. He suggested that Democrats should focus on public education -- but can't do so "because of teachers' unions." Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 12/24/24 6:00 am EDT JOE SCARBOROUGH: There's been a massive redistribution of income since the 1980s from working class and middle class Americans to the richest .001%. And until we take care of those two things, we're going to continue to have our social fabric tearing apart.  And you talk about how this has been a long time coming.  KURT ANDERSEN: Yeah, Joe, it's been 50 years coming. And the thing is that happened in the 1970s. Two things happened at once, which is to say, the rich corporate right, the Republican elite donor class, people I call evil geniuses, had built this new counter-establishment, starting with the Heritage Foundation and all the rest.  And they kept their eye on this prize in that sense and for the party, which is: no taxes, anti-tax, sign the Grover Norquist Pledge, all that stuff. No, less regulation, just across the board, less regulation. We don't like unions. Reagan, bust the unions, we're good.  The Democrats, meanwhile, the new Democrats, like Gary Hart, were saying, and most of the new Democrats that were the stars of the 70s and then in the 80s, were saying, yeah, the New Deal's over. The whole New Deal thing is over. And by extension, the Democratic party's connection with working people and labor unions is over, pretty much.  So by the end, pretty much, you have the Democrats and the Republicans do, by the 80s and 90s and front of the century, become the same, close to a uniparty, as they were being charged of, economically.  . . .  MIKA BRZEZINSKI: So also with us, economist at the London School of Economics, Daniel Chandler. He's the author of the book, "Free And Equal: A Manifesto for a Just Society." He wrote a new piece for the New York Times entitled, "The Democrats Are in Trouble. This Man Can Save Them." So tell us about who can save the Dems.  DANIEL CHANDLER: It's good. The New York Times people: they do a good headline. So, you know, in a way it might surprise you because the person who I think can save the democrats is a philosopher rather than a politician. So the person that my article is inspired by, and the same is true as my book, is the philosopher John Rawls. Who, you know, he's not a household name, but he is by far the towering figure of 20th-century political philosophy. And, you know, he completely revolutionized liberal thinking. But my interest in Rawls and why I think he has a lot to offer now is not, you know, this is not historical or intellectual, it's political.  And I think what you get from Rawls is a hopeful and constructive vision of what, you know, a more fair and just society would look like.  And, you know, picking up on the conversation so far, I really agree with most of the, you know, all of the discussion so far. But, you know, most of it is, the discussion has mostly been diagnostic. You know, there's a kind of analysis of how and why the Democrats have ended up in the situation where they are, where they have alienated working class voters, where they lack  a kind of constructive vision of where they want to go.  And in a sense, that's where my article and my book, Free and Equal, picks up. It tries to sort of say that the future of the Democratic party rests not on just assembling the biggest possible anti-Trump coalition, but on kind of reclaiming their soul, on finding a sense of what it is that they stand for. And I think Rawls can help them do that. And then what we need to do is connect, you know, abstract philosophy that you get from thinkers like Rawls with practical ideas for how we could actually transform America's political and economic institutions for the better.  MIKA: This is Richard, I don't think agrees with the Trump that I -- RICHARD HAASS: Let me say one thing. I mean, what's the great ladder in American society? It's not necessarily redistribution. A lot of this conversation doesn't leave me wildly comfortable.  It's opportunity. It's making the American dream real. Its opportunity. You want to do it? How about improving the quality of public schools? That is the principal ladder in American society. And when did the Democrats in this election, maybe I missed it, Donny. When did they talk about public education? And the answer is they can't. Why can't they? Because of teachers' unions.  . . .  SCARBOROUGH: Here's the thing, though, Kurt. I am a capitalist. I am a proud capitalist. But I am a proud capitalist with guardrails that capitalism used to have. And I understand, people don't want to talk about income redistribution. I'm not a big fan of income redistribution. I'm especially not a big fan when the income is being moved from middle class Americans to billionaires. And that has been happening for four decades, really three decades in earnest.  . . .  ANDERSEN: Capitalism was working just fine from the end of World War II through the 70s. And that's because all the boats, more or less, were rising together as we prospered. That ended. And that ended because your former party, with the complicity of a lot of Democrats, concentrated on changing that.  December 24th, 2024 10:31 AM Mark Finkelstein 287265 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2024/12/24/zero-questions-foxs-peter-doocy-rips-colleagues-skipping-wsjs-biden Stepping in to co-host Fox & Friends Saturday, White House correspondent Peter Doocy took a moment to express amazement at the lack of curiosity from his fellow White House reporters after the bombshell Wall Street Journal report that outlined how the White House hid President Joe Biden's cognitive decline from the public going back to the 2020 campaign.  Why is their no curiosity? Either everyone's embarrassed that they've been so sheepish (a room full of sheeple), or they're still easily pressured out of touching this issue by the White House staff.  PETER DOOCY: We have another story that’s near and dear to my heart. It has to do with the White House press briefing room. Yesterday there were zero questions about this huge Wall Street Journal story that cites 50 people familiar with, apparently, the biggest cover-up in Washington since Watergate. The story, it was 18 pages long when I printed it, but the gist is that there were staff, unelected White House staff, who knew during the last campaign and transition that President Biden might be diminished, and they actively worked to hide that information from the American public. And we don’t know what it necessarily means for his decision making, but this is a huge story, and somehow there was no curiosity and our colleague, Jacqui Heinrich, was in the room. She was not called on. I have a source familiar that this was on her list. Jacqui tweeted that she planned to ask about this, but wasn't called on (how conveeeeenient for KJP).  some of us (ahem 🙋🏼‍♀️) never got the chance https://t.co/dBuNG5YOI0 — Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) December 20, 2024 “Typically when I am in the White House press briefing room getting an arm workout for the first hour, I’ve got a list,” Doocy said. “And if something that I’m curious about comes up 20 times, I’ll cross it out and go to the next thing. I don’t know if nobody else had this on their list of questions or if it’s just still so uncomfortable to ask even though this White House has, as of yesterday, only a month left.” After playing some Biden clips, Doocy returned to his point: "If Karoline Leavitt in a month was at the podium and there was this Wall Street Journal story with 50 people familiar with Trump's operation, that there was this big coverup to try to conceal diminished faculties, that would be every single question!" Doocy suggested this has been a source of curiosity, but there's no follow-through. “I wish I had answers. I can’t get in their heads. Sometimes I would like to, most of the time I don’t want to.” December 24th, 2024 8:20 AM Tim Graham 287264 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2024/12/24/abc-still-silent-horrendous-immolation-woman-f-train The horrific murder of a woman on the New York City subway, by involuntary immolation at the hands of an illegal migrant, has shocked the nation while going almost unreported on the “legacy” networks. Today NBC Nightly News broke the ice, leaving ABC Whirled News Tonight as the lone network holdout. Watch the report in its entirety below: NBC NIGHTLY NEWS 12/23/24 6:40 PM LESTER HOLT: Also in New York, a suspect was arrested after a disturbing attack on a subway over the weekend. Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, a 33-year-old undocumented migrant from Guatemala, is accused of lighting a sleeping woman on fire on the train. An ICE spokesperson says the suspect was previously deported in 2018, but managed to get past immigration officials again. CBS Weekend News, to their credit, was the first network newscast to report on the murder, but had omitted important details regarding the suspect’s immigration record. Although NBC’s report is essentially a brief, shorter in duration than CBS’s item, it provides viewers with more of the full picture painted by this awful story. Illegal migrant crime was already an inconvenient story within the current environment, but this particular illegal migrant crime is so heinous that it threatens to stand in the public memory as the bookend to President Joe Biden’s border policy.  Perhaps this might explain why ABC, the most routinely pro-Biden/Harris network out there, has yet to report on this horrendous murder. There isn’t much in the way of advocacy that ABC could do in this instance, so it’s better to simply pretend the story doesn’t exist at all. That might work within the cloistered confines of the ABC newsroom but not in the real world, where the public is well aware of the horrors of an open border.  We will continue to monitor news media coverage of this awful story as it develops.   December 24th, 2024 2:19 AM Jorge Bonilla 287263 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2024/12/24/regime-media-unsure-about-how-report-bidens-death-row The Regime Media, with just weeks remaining in the Biden presidency, appear uncertain as to how to cover one of his big legacy items: the commutation of 37 out of 40 federal death row inmates. Evening news coverage ranged from treating it as an afterthought to making it all about Biden.  ABC World News Tonight treated the story as if it were an afterthought, tacking it on to the back of the obligatory item on the Matt Gaetz report released by the House Ethics Committee. Below is that report in its entirety: ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT  12/23/24 6:42 PM RACHEL SCOTT: Selina, we also want to get to another headline tonight out of The White House. President Biden commuting 37 sentences, and you're learning tonight, that's nearly all the prisoners on federal death row. SELINA WANG: That's exactly right. So those 37 inmates will now serve life in prison without the possibility of parole. So, now there are only three men who remain on federal death row, including one of the Boston marathon bombers and the mass shooters in the attacks on the Tree of Life Synagogue and the Mother Emanuel AME Church. And tonight, Trump's team and some of the family members of the victims are slamming President Biden’s decision. Rachel. SCOTT: Selina reporting from Washington tonight. Selina, thank you. 37 seconds does not allow for much in the way of overt bias by commission. Rachel Scott and Selina Wang go over the terms of the commutation, and who remains on death row. But there is no further context as to what some of these other inmates may have done. Thus, viewers receive no predicate with which to underlie the assertion that Trump’s team and the victims’ families slammed the commutations. Without that predicate, they cannot assess the merits of Biden’s decision. This is omissive bias at play here. CBS doesn’t delve too deeply into the crimes committed by recipients of Biden’s clemency, either. Senior White House Correspondent Ed O’Keefe focused instead on, to use an annoying and overused CNN term, the Joe Biden of it all: JERICKA DUNCAN: With less than a month to go in his term, President Biden has granted executive clemency to nearly all federal death row inmates, 37 out of 40. The move reduces their sentences to life without the possibility of parole. It also makes them immune to President-Elect Donald Trump's promise to resume federal executions. CBS's Ed O'Keefe has more tonight, including the prisoners who did not get clemency. ED O’KEEFE: He once wrote legislation expanding the federal death penalty. JOE BIDEN: I am not Mr. Soft-on-Crime. I'm the guy that put these death penalties in this bill. O’KEEFE: But four years ago, then-candidate Joe Biden campaigned to end it. And as president, he pauses federal executions. BIDEN: One of the reasons I'm against capital punishment is, you know, we have confirmed there’s at least 195 cases since 1972 that the person who was convicted and about to be put to death was innocent. First, take notice of anchor Jericka Duncan’s weird frame of the commutations as needed in order to stop Trump. Then, take note of O’Keefe’s focus on the historical contradictions inherent to Biden’s commutations. The focal points of this report were Biden’s history with the death penalty, the commutations, and the timing thereof ahead of a visit to The Vatican. There was no detailed mention of the crimes perpetrated by some of these individuals. Finally, there was NBC’s report- the most complete of the network bunch. Sure, there was the historical context. Sure, there was the presentation of both sides of the advocacy surrounding this issue. But what made NBC’s the best report on these commutations was its reporting on actual crimes committed by the recipients of Biden’s clemency: LESTER HOLT: Today’s move coming ahead of President-Elect Trump's plan to resume federal executions, halted under the Biden administration. Trump’s transition team saying, “These are among the worst killers in the world,” calling it an “abhorrent decision by Joe Biden,” and “a slap in the face to the victims, their families, and their loved ones.” Among those whose sentence was commuted: Kaboni Savage, a drug dealer involved in organized crime, convicted of murdering 12 people, four of them children, during a firebombing incident at a house of a federal witness.  The disastrous nature of the Biden presidency, a rolling dumpster fire to the bitter end, throws complications into how the Regime Media might cover (or, more accurately, attempt to frame) his legacy. If commutation coverage is any indication, uneven may well be the best we can reasonably expect. Click “expand” to view the full transcripts of the aforementioned reports as aired on their respective network newscasts on Monday, December 24th, 2024:  CBS EVENING NEWS 12/23/24 6:35 PM JERICKA DUNCAN: With less than a month to go in his term, President Biden has granted executive clemency to nearly all federal death row inmates, 37 out of 40. The move reduces their sentences to life without the possibility of parole. It also makes them immune to President-Elect Donald Trump's promise to resume federal executions. CBS's Ed O'Keefe has more tonight, including the prisoners who did not get clemency. ED O’KEEFE: He once wrote legislation expanding the federal death penalty. JOE BIDEN: I am not Mr. Soft-on-Crime. I'm the guy that put these death penalties in this bill. O’KEEFE: But four years ago, then-candidate Joe Biden campaigned to end it. And as president, he pauses federal executions. BIDEN: One of the reasons I'm against capital punishment is, you know, we have confirmed there’s at least 195 cases since 1972 that the person who was convicted and about to be put to death was innocent. O’KEEFE: Tonight, three men remain on death row. Robert Bowers, sentenced last year for killing 11 at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Dylann Roof, who killed nine in the 2015 Charleston church massacre, and Dzhokar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber who also killed a police officer. But 37 others will now serve life sentences with no chance of parole. Nine convicted of killing fellow prisoners, others killed prison guards, conducted mass killings, or deadly drug-related crimes. “In good conscience,” Biden said today, “I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted. DONALD TRUMP: I will ask Congress to send a bill to my desk ensuring that anyone who murders a police officer will receive immediately the death penalty. O’KEEFE: President-Elect Trump campaigned this year promising to restore the death penalty. Today a Trump spokesman called Biden's decision “abhorrent" and said Trump will restore the rule of law when he takes office next month. 53% of Americans support the death penalty for convicted murderers, down ten points in the last decade. But civil rights groups cheered Biden's decision. MARTIN LUTHER KING, III: Our society is better as a result of it.  O’KEEFE: And Pope Francis, whose Catholic Church opposes the death penalty, openly prayed this month that Biden, who is also Catholic, would commute death sentences.  Today is a good reminder of how long President Biden has been involved in criminal justice issues because nearly all the men who are on federal death row were there because of the 1994 crime bill he wrote as senator. Now 30 years later he’s sparing their lives. Jericka. DUNCAN: Very interesting. NBC NIGHTLY NEWS 12/23/24 6:40 PM LESTER HOLT: There's growing controversy after President Biden commuted the sentence of nearly every federal death row prisoner to life without parole. But the historic move is not sitting well with all.  Praise and anger today as President Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 of the 40 men on federal death row to life without parole. Saying in a statement, “Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts…But guided by conscience and my experience as a public defender, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.” He declined to commute the sentences of three men: the mass shooter at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh where 11 people died, the killer of nine people at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015, and the Boston Marathon bomber.  Can you reflect on the historic nature of this commutation decision by the president? BRIAN STEVENSON: It's unprecedented. We’ve never had a U.S. president commute this many people who were awaiting execution. HOLT: Brian Stevenson is the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, and a leading death penalty opponent. STEVENSON: The question is not whether people deserve to die for the crimes they’ve committed. The question is whether we deserve to kill. If we have a flawed, biased, unreliable system, we cannot impose this perfect punishment with an imperfect system. HOLT: Today’s move coming ahead of President-Elect Trump's plan to resume federal executions, halted under the Biden administration. Trump’s transition team saying, “These are among the worst killers in the world,” calling it an “abhorrent decision by Joe Biden,” and “a slap in the face to the victims, their families, and their loved ones.” Among those whose sentence was commuted: Kaboni Savage, a drug dealer involved in organized crime, convicted of murdering 12 people, four of them children, during a firebombing incident at a house of a federal witness. Steve Mellon is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney who helped prosecute Savage: STEVE MELLON: We are sacrificing the safety and security and concerns of the American public as well (VIDEO SWIPE) and the family members of those that were adversely affected directly by this, while the president is giving a Christmas present to these 37 out of 40 death row inmates. HOLT: Also learning his sentence is being commuted today, Billy Allen, sentenced to death at 19 for the murder of an armed security guard in Missouri. He has always maintained his innocence. We spoke to Allen today by telephone from prison. BILLY ALLEN: Honestly, it shocked me, you know. And I’m like, okay, let me make sure I'm reading this right. When it hit, I was excited and the people I thought about the most was my family, the relief it would give them.  HOLT: Death penalty opponents hoping tonight some blue state governors may follow the president’s suit, and spare the lives of prisoners on their death rows. December 24th, 2024 1:09 AM Jorge Bonilla 287262 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2024/12/23/newsbusters-podcast-nick-kristofs-fake-virgin-births-and-nprs-pagans Some media outlets aren’t interesting in wishing you a Merry Christmas. They use the occasion to suggest the Christmas story is bunk. But taxpayer-funded NPR will eagerly promote a pagan "High Priestex" in Kansas performing rituals at the Winter Solstice. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof published a column over the weekend titled “A Conversation About the Virgin Birth That Maybe Wasn’t.” On Twitter, Alan Cornett, a former assistant to author Russell Kirk summed it up: “Imagine the media of record doing this every year for any other faith’s holy days.” Most of us would get specific, and say, imagine the New York Times doing this for Islam.  Kristof began his interview with Princeton religion professor Elaine Pagels: "Your book raises questions about the virgin birth of Jesus, even pointing to ancient evidence that Jesus might have been fathered by a Roman soldier, possibly by rape." This is the kind of expert that is revered in the liberal media and in the Democrat Party, if there’s any difference between the two. Elaine’s publishers at Doubleday boast, “In 2015 she received the National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama.” The book has blurbs from MSNBC pundits Jon Meacham and Eddie Glaude.  Pagels told Kristol  “these stories circulated after Jesus’ death among members of the Jewish community who regarded him as a false messiah, saying that Jesus’ father was a Roman soldier. I used to dismiss such stories as ancient slander. Yet while we do not know what happened, there are too many points of circumstantial evidence to simply ignore them.” By contrast, at winter-solstice time, NPR celebrates the growth of paganism and witches. In a four-minute story on All Things Considered, Kansas-based reporter Rose Conlon considered only the pagans, with no critics. The expert was Harvard Divinity School scholar Helen Berger, who "studies pagan communities" and said the trend among young people was tilting against that annoying foe they call "organized religion." Conlon promoted pagan groups in Wisconsin and then in Kansas, where High Priestex Orin Hart is preparing the annual Yule ritual. This high priestex requires the use of they/them pronouns. This is a group of eight people. Is it too tiny for "news" networks to notice? NPR loathes the megachurch, but adores the mini-coven. This story called to mind a December 19, 1995 All Things Considered commentary by leftist professor Andrei Codrescu, who described a fundamentalist pamphlet he was handed that said anyone left after the "Rapture" of Christians should just kill themselves. Codrescu proclaimed "the Rapture is indeed necessary. The evaporation of four million who believe this crap would leave the world an instantly better place.” NPR received 40,000 letters about this commentary. Three days after the commentary, NPR apologized (despite Codrescu’s lack of remorse), but refused then-Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed’s request for a rebuttal. “We turned them down because we felt it was a mistake in the first place,” said NPR flack Kathy Scott. “We weren’t stating a position. You can’t put a counterpoint to a mistake.” The mistake is a taxpayer-funded network that has nothing but contempt for Christian conservatives. Enjoy the podcast below or wherever you listen to podcasts.    December 23rd, 2024 10:07 PM Tim Graham 287260 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/gabriela-pariseau/2024/12/23/why-grok-attacking-x-owner-elon-musk-and-free-speech X’s own AI is disparaging the platform’s owner for allowing free speech on X. Grok, X’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, attacked Elon Musk and blamed him for alleged “Racial Slurs on X.” Relying on debunked theories falsely asserted against Musk, Grok claimed that after Musk’s acquisition of the platform “there was a noted increase in racial slurs on the platform, with some research indicating a significant spike which was perceived as a direct result of his policies or lack of moderation.” The AI chatbot eagerly volunteered this response after MRC researchers tested how it would respond to questions about Musk and false claims of racism.  Without qualification, Grok listed several other false or selectively characterized accusations against Musk, including claims that he has endorsed “Racist Conspiracy Theories,” or that his willingness to call out a Scottish official for racism somehow makes Musk racist.  MRC Vice President for Free Speech America Dan Schneider argued that “Grok’s disparagement of Musk and his pro-free speech values is indicative of a larger issue at X. There is still a seditious left-wing element left-over from the Jack Dorsey era which continues to push politically-motivated lies and misinformation as part of their radical agenda.”  Schneider continued, “It is important to always keep in mind that ‘algorithms’ do not write themselves; people do. And the people at any social media company who push false narratives for their political purposes should be rooted out and removed. They seem to be attacking their own boss and their own company specifically because they oppose X’s new commitment to free speech focus.” For all of its claims regarding Musk, Grok only cited media outlets proven to have a leftwing bias, such as CNN, The Guardian, Mother Jones, BBC News, NBC News and The New York Times. At no point did it cite any right-leaning media.  X’s AI chatbot cited the Associated Press for the claim that Musk’s acquisition of Twitter led to more racial slurs. In reality, the Associated Press article was merely quoting the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). The CCDH is a shady censorship outfit linked to the United Kingdom’s far-left Labour Party. The chatbot similarly cited Musk’s lawsuit against the CCDH as another reason he might be racist. It’s worth noting the significance of Grok citing its sources, as most other AI chatbots will not do the same. This is, of course, because of Musk’s commitment to transparency. However Grok’s exclusive use of left leaning sources seems to indicate an ongoing problem of the old ranks of pro-censorship Twitter creeping into X. An MRC study published in August revealed that, according to Grok’s own data, X’s algorithm suppressed the accounts of right leaning media sites while boosting the accounts of left leaning legacy outlets. Another MRC study using Grok’s data, showed that X boosted the accounts of Democrat congressmen and suppressed posts by Republican congressmen. X even listed Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who is known for her anti-Semitic remarks, as less toxic that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).    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. December 23rd, 2024 3:12 PM Gabriela Pariseau and Tim Kilcullen 287261 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/pj-gladnick/2024/12/23/us-editor-uk-guardian-fundraises-pledge-never-capitulate-evil-trump Betsy Reed is the US editor of the U.K .Guardian. She happens to have a case of extreme Trump Derangement Syndrome. And she wears that bias proudly in order to fundraise from likeminded readers of the US edition of The Guardian to the extent that her bias comes off as flatly comical.  You can read Reed making her pitch at the bottom of this Sunday article about a lost tribe of indigenous people deep in the Amazon. You can see Reed begin her pitch with this title: "Why you can rely on the Guardian not to bow to Trump – or anyone."   Now pull out the popcorn and  the Christmas cheer because you are about to be entertained by Reed pleading for funds as if it is the last barrier between democracy and the impending Trumpocalypse: I hope you appreciated this article. With just days left of our crucial end-of-year fundraising appeal, I wanted to ask whether you could support the Guardian’s journalism as we prepare to cover the second Trump administration. As Trump himself observed: “The first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.” But not the socialists at the Guardian, who shun the thought of treating Trump with anything but utter contempt. Now we come to the moral high horse section of the Reed pitch for funds: He’s not wrong. All around us, media organizations are beginning to capitulate. First, two news outlets pulled election endorsements at the behest of their billionaire owners. Next, prominent reporters bent the knee at Mar-a-Lago. [Joe and Mika?] And now a major network – ABC News – has rolled over in response to Trump’s legal challenges and agreed to a $16m settlement in his favor. The Guardian is clear: we have no interest in being Donald Trump’s – or any politician’s – friend. Our allegiance as independent journalists is not to those in power but to the public. We cower in the face of your moral superiority over much of the rest of the media... as well as the rest of the universe. How are we able to stand firm in the face of intimidation and threats? As journalists say: follow the money. The Guardian has neither a self-interested billionaire owner nor profit-seeking corporate henchmen pressuring us to appease the rich and powerful. We are funded by our readers and owned by the Scott Trust – whose only financial obligation is to preserve our journalistic mission in perpetuity. What’s more, we make our fearless, fiercely independent journalism free to all, with no paywall – so that everyone in the US can have access to responsible, fact-based news. "Fact-based news" as long as it reflects an extreme anti-Trump bias. With the incoming administration boasting about its desire to punish journalists, and Trump and his allies already pursuing lawsuits against newspapers whose stories they don’t like, it has never been more urgent, or more perilous, to pursue fair, accurate reporting. Can you support the Guardian today Send money now! The "fearless, fiercely independent" Guardian is only $10 away from saving OUR Democracy from Orange Man Bad! December 23rd, 2024 3:00 PM P.J. Gladnick 287258 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/catherine-salgado/2024/12/23/desperate-election-interference-giant-google-tries Google is desperately fighting to stop the federal government from breaking its powerful search engine monopoly, which it has exploited to manipulate elections to benefit leftist candidates.  In August, U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled that Google‘s payouts to other tech companies to ensure that its search engine is automatically provided to users were illegal and monopolistic. After the Department of Justice asked the judge to force a sale of Google’s Chrome, Google countered with much less dramatic changes in hopes of appeasing the government and the court. The New York Times reported that Google’s attempts to “fend off the government’s sweeping requests” could “set a precedent for a string of other antitrust cases that challenge the dominance of tech behemoths.” MRC Free Speech America researchers have  repeatedly exposed Google’s blatant search engine manipulation before, during, and after the 2024 election, but Google is now in the midst of an antitrust legal battle that could change that.  Google consistently attempted to give the edge in search first to President Joe Biden, then to his appointed successor, Vice President Kamala Harris. In turn, Google repeatedly suppressed the campaign websites of President-elect Donald Trump and other Republicans while elevating Democrats. In addition, Google also habitually elevated content from leftist outlets denigrating the policy positions of Trump and his vice presidential pick Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), all while burying election content from right-leaning media.   Now that its lucrative election-interfering apparatus is under threat, Google is scrambling to make itself appear like the victim of government overreach. Google has pleaded that the drastic changes would harm consumers, and decried the government for being supposedly “interventionist.”  MRC Vice President for Free Speech Dan Schneider explained, “Conservatives object to using antitrust enforcement against companies simply because they are big, but Google’s repeated and egregious abuses have made it easy for most of us to realize that the law was written to stop this kind of wretched behavior.” He continued: “Google has earned whatever it has coming.”  Google has proposed milquetoast changes to its agreements with other companies that really won’t change the grip it holds over the search engine market, which still hovers around 90 percent These include “multiple default agreements across different platforms (e.g., a different default search engine for iPhones and iPads) and browsing modes, plus the ability to change their default search provider at least every 12 months.” As The Times quipped, “Google said on Friday what it thought should change to address a ruling that it had illegally maintained a monopoly over online search: not much.” [Emphasis added.] None of this would change Google’s ability to manipulate its search engine to match its political preferences, as MRC research has shown. In fact, even Trump’s sweeping electoral victory wasn’t enough to get Google to stop putting its thumb on the scale. Recently, MRC found Google turning its sights on President-elect Trump’s nominees in searches with overwhelmingly leftist results for five consecutive weeks. Conservatives are under attack! Contact Google here 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. December 23rd, 2024 2:32 PM Catherine Salgado 287259 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2024/12/23/washpost-panics-abc-news-settling-trump-will-spur-media-self-censor The front page of Monday's Washington Post bubbled over with liberal panic after ABC News settled with President Trump over George Stephanopoulos repeatedly smearing Trump on his show This Week as "liable for rape." Somehow, that's not as hostile or combative as Trump's rhetoric.  Media reporters Sarah Ellison and Jeremy Barr are all about pushing scary talk about Trump oppressing his haters in the press. The headline:  Trump signals plans to use all levers of power against the media Press freedom advocates say they fear that the second Trump administration will ramp up pressure on journalists, in keeping with the president-elect’s combative rhetoric. "Press freedom advocates" are apparently those who think Stephanopoulos should be free to say all kinds of nasty things about Trump. Saying nasty things about Trump is their idea of journalism.  Ellison and Barr says this settlement has "spurred concerns that his efforts could drastically undermine the institutions tasked with reporting on his coming administration, which Trump has promised will take revenge on those he perceives as having wronged him." If someone said "Jeremy Barr is liable for rape," would it just be he perceived being wronged?  They turned to lawyer (and Kamala Harris donor) David Korzenik to admit that gee, media law hasn't suddenly changed, but "the atmosphere and hostility to the press is intense, and that emboldens plaintiffs of all kinds." So the media can dish out intense hostility to Trump, but they can't take it.  Then came the anonymous sources within Trump's orbit:  The pressure from Trump and his allies on the media is already growing and will continue to intensify, according to two Trump aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive internal deliberations. In the two months before the presidential election, Trump attacked the media more than 100 times in public speeches or other remarks.  At the very least, the Post admitted ABC didn't want public eyes on its internal communications:  Continuing with the case might have made public any damaging internal communications to and from Stephanopoulos. If the case made it to trial, it would face a jury in Florida — a red state that Trump carried by 13 points — that could side with the president-elect and award a penalty that could easily exceed the price of a settlement." The story included cheers from Steve Bannon and boos from former Meet the Press host Chuck Todd: "“This was stunning to me and absolutely a gut punch to anybody that works for a major media company." Law professor RonNell Anderson Jones added “The concern here is that we might be seeing a confluence of forces — legal, political and social — that work together to erode the confidence we once had in the vibrancy of the American press,” and "pressure other media outlets to self-censor." Now ask if the media's four years of downplaying or ignoring Biden's cognitive decline defines "vibrancy" or knuckling to Democrat pressure to "self-censor."  Ellison and Barr closed with an "expert in polarization," without imagining that the expert is saying polarizing stuff:  Experts in polarization said that Trump’s posture toward the press has eroded trust in the Fourth Estate. From the Oval Office, he can do even more. “My concern is what he does when he has the power of the U.S. government in his hands,” said Liliana Hall Mason, a political science professor at the University of Maryland. “It looks to me like all the guardrails have been removed, and we are in for a presidency unlike any we’ve experienced before.” December 23rd, 2024 2:10 PM Tim Graham 287256 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2024/12/23/editors-pick-national-review-excoriates-liberal-media-hidin What exactly is it that you do here? On Thursday, that was the question National Review staff writer Jeffrey Blehar wondered of the establishment liberal media given the range of excuses from ignorant to purposeful coverup of not having been more dogged in exposing the President’s failing cognitive state. He argued that “Joe Biden’s mental decline was no secret to conservatives for the simple reason that each of us had eyes and the ability to use them” while the liberal media were, in his view, purposefully silent since “it was not in the best interests of the Democratic Party to do so, at least as perceived by the ‘herd mind’ of the media” of Washington D.C.: So what the hell happened to the mainstream media during this entire period? Where were our sentinels of the republic, our tribunes of truth? How could the Fourth Estate, with its eyes forever upon the world of Washington politics, have missed Biden’s advancing mental and physical decrepitude? Why did so many journalists claim they weren’t even suspicious after it all came crashing down in late June? I have an appealingly simple theory to explain the mystery: They didn’t miss it at all. Everyone knew, and the sorts of people who would have normally pursued these whispers about Biden’s remoteness — obvious enough from his calendar and the behavior of his public minders — simply decided not to because it was not in the best interests of the Democratic Party to do so, at least as perceived by the “herd mind” of the media, the left-tinged blob of assignment editors, investigative reporters, and liberal commentators across Washington. Do you know how I know this? I know this because back in 2019, when Joe Biden seemed for all the world like a hopelessly boring retread with no chance of winning the 2020 nomination…the New York Times was more than happy to report about Biden’s age. Once he captured the nomination and went into a quasi-hibernative “basement campaign” (timed perfectly to conceal his weakening state), however, that was it for any investigations into that topic. Blehar later observed the press “want to tell us that they didn’t know” about Biden’s mental incapacitation, yet they were “so eager” after the fateful June debate “to raise the subject when it seemed possible to prevent Joe Biden from winning the nomination, or discourage him from running again,” despite having weeks earlier “act[ed] as Karine Jean-Pierre’s water boys” in the weeks prior when the regime wanted to peddle the “cheap fakes” narrative. He closed with the other side of the coin, which would be just as disturbing. If some in the press had no idea Biden wasn’t cogent, Blehar said, the question should be asked: Of what value are these people? If the media professionals really didn’t know — when I could tell, when you could tell, when it was a key concern among voters…then why should we respect them? What would we say it is they do here? The flip side is, once again, not pretty either: “If the media chose not to explore Biden’s mental decline because of partisan allegiance to the Democrats or dislike of Trump, then they have forfeited their credibility in a devastatingly permanent way.” To read Blehar’s full story, click here. December 23rd, 2024 12:50 PM Curtis Houck 287255 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2024/12/23/cbs-cheers-mexico-targeting-us-gun-rights-blame-cartel-crime Mexico either refuses to or is utterly incapable of getting their drug cartel problem under control as they ravage innocent people. So instead, they’ve chose to shift blame to the United States and target American gun rights in a pair of lawsuits in American courts. In a segment on Sunday’s 60 Minutes, CBS News chose to cheer on Mexico’s effort as they willing pushed foreign propaganda in an effort to tear down Americans’ Second Amendment rights. “There`s been a lot of talk about stopping the flow of illegal immigration and drugs from Mexico. But few people are talking about another crisis at the border -- guns. Specifically, American guns,” chided correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi. She parroted Mexican talking points that blamed American gun rights for cartel violence, not Mexico’s refusal to crackdown and their rampant corruption. She even suggested that Mexico’s actions against the U.S. could “fix” the “problems” with America’s gun rights: Mexico says those American guns are responsible for much of the cartel violence that`s plagued its country. And now, it`s taking an unusual approach to try and stop it -- it`s suing. The government of Mexico has filed lawsuits in U.S. courts against a handful of gun stores and one of the largest gun manufacturers in America. It believes damning that "iron river" might also fix some of the problems that plague the U.S.     The video portion of the segment opened with comments from anti-gun rights lawyer Jonathan Lowy suggesting that Americans should care just as much about Mexico’s crime rates as they do about fentanyl overdoses and illegal immigration into the U.S. Alfonsi touts that Lowy had teamed up with Mexico against America: LOWY: If you think fentanyl overdoses are a problem, if you think migration across the border is a problem, if you think the spread of organized crime is a problem in the United States, then you should care about stopping the crime gun pipeline to Mexico. And you need to stop it at its source. Because all those problems are driven by the supply of U.S. guns to the cartels. ALFONSI: Jonathan Lowy is an American attorney who`s been battling the gun industry in court for 25 years. Mexico asked Lowy to help devise its strategy to cut off the gun pipeline after one of the deadliest chapters in the country`s history… Alfonsi also sat down with anti-American former Mexican President Andrea Manuel Lopez Obrador, who made the dubious claim that when he was leading the country, “We have confiscated, in the time that I`ve been in government, 50,000 guns of high power, of high caliber -- 50,000 guns. And 75 percent of them from the United States.” Being an ignorant liberal journalist, Alfonsi didn’t ask about what Obrador meant by “guns of high power, of high caliber.” The report cheered on Mexico’s lawsuits against gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson and five gun stores in Arizona. Without providing evidence, Alfonsi boosted claims by Lowy that the store owners should just magically know that the people walking into their establishments were working for the cartels. One of the telltale signs? Using U.S. currency (Click “expand”): LOWY: The dealer`s main responsibility, in my view, is to pay attention to indicators to see if the person standing in front of them, on the other side of the counter, is a potential criminal or supplier to the criminal market. ALFONSI: The gun retailers say it`s really hard to know sometimes if somebody`s a straw buyer, right? That they come in with a good cover story and you have to believe them. LOWY: It`s pretty obvious. I mean, you see these multiple sales of AR-15s. You see these large cash payments, you see these persons coming back to the store every few days or every few weeks. I mean, these are not normal buying patterns. Lowy also claimed S&W was somehow aware that they were selling to stores selling to Mexican drug cartels: ALFONSI: How can you say manufacturers are responsible for anything when there are so many steps in the process between the time that they make it and it goes to the retailer, and then maybe it`s sold to somebody else or resold? How can you trace it back and say, "It`s the manufacturers." LOWY: When manufacturers make the decision, "We`re going to sell guns through dealers no matter what their record is, no matter how many crime guns they`re selling," you know, that`s on them. What the report failed to establish, and Alfonsi was probably too ignorant to ask, was: how long was the time-to-crime between the sale of the guns in America and them turning up at crime scenes in Mexico? CBS News like to blame gun crime on the increase in gun sales. But as The Reload founder Stephen Gutowski told NewsBusters in April 2022, the trace data shows (the same data cited in the report to smear S&W) “most guns recovered at crime scenes are years old,” which means the guns are likely stolen. At least in the U.S. Despite speaking with former ATF Agent Tim Sloan, who worked in the Mexico field office, at no point in the report did Alfonsi mention that the AFT helped to facilitate straw purchases of guns to Mexican drug cartels via the infamous Operation Fast and Furious gunwalking scheme. There also didn’t seem to be a question about how many of those guns could still be kicking around in Mexico; guns which were allowed to be purchased from stores in Arizona. Elsewhere in the segment, Alfonsi touted how Mexico only had one gun store in the entire country. “Like the U.S., Mexico`s constitution grants citizens the right to bear arms. But unlike the U.S., that right comes with a long list of restrictions,” she boasted. “There`s only one gun store in Mexico -- in the middle of a heavily guarded military base in Mexico City…But before customers can enter, they have to show proof they`ve passed psychological tests, drug screens, and extensive background checks.” Again, as an ignorant liberal journalist, Alfonsi didn’t seem aware that the U.S. mandated background checks. The form also included drug use and mental evaluative questions. In fact, it was one of those questions that Hunter Biden lied on which led to him catching a felony charge, only to be pardon by his daddy, President Biden. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CBS’s 60 Minutes December 22, 2024 8:02:10 p.m. Eastern SHARYN ALFONSI: There`s been a lot of talk about stopping the flow of illegal immigration and drugs from Mexico. But few people are talking about another crisis at the border -- guns. Specifically, American guns. An estimated 200,000 to half million U.S. firearms are smuggled into Mexico every year, part of what`s known as the "iron river." Mexico says those American guns are responsible for much of the cartel violence that`s plagued its country. And now, it`s taking an unusual approach to try and stop it -- it`s suing. The government of Mexico has filed lawsuits in U.S. courts against a handful of gun stores and one of the largest gun manufacturers in America. It believes damning that "iron river" might also fix some of the problems that plague the U.S. [Cuts to video] JONATHAN LOWY: If you think fentanyl overdoses are a problem, if you think migration across the border is a problem, if you think the spread of organized crime is a problem in the United States, then you should care about stopping the crime gun pipeline to Mexico. And you need to stop it at its source. Because all those problems are driven by the supply of U.S. guns to the cartels. SHARYN ALFONSI (voiceover): Jonathan Lowy is an American attorney who`s been battling the gun industry in court for 25 years. Mexico asked Lowy to help devise its strategy to cut off the gun pipeline after one of the deadliest chapters in the country`s history that culminated with this -- (People speaking in foreign language) SHARYN ALFONSI (voiceover): -- 2019, Mexican armed forces captured one of the most wanted drug lords in the world, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, the son of the former Sinaloa cartel boss, known as El Chapo. In their custody was the man, U.S. prosecutors say was largely responsible for the massive influx of fentanyl in the United States. But what should have been a turning point in the war on drugs, turned into a deadly, five-hour gun battle with 600 cartel gunmen. That is a 50-caliber belt-fed rifle sourced from America. The cartel doused soldiers with gunfire, took hostages, and blocked entrances to the city, burning vehicles. Outgunned, and hoping to end the bloodshed, Mexico`s president at the time, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, ordered Guzman to be released. This past March, we spoke to then-President Lopez Obrador in Mexico City. Homicides and cartel violence soared during his six-year term. We were surprised who he said was partly to blame. SHARYN ALFONSI: Where is the cartel getting their guns? ANDRES MANUEL LOPEZ OBRADOR (Through Translator): From the United States. We have confiscated, in the time that I`ve been in government, 50,000 guns of high power, of high caliber -- 50,000 guns. And 75 percent of them from the United States. SHARYN ALFONSI (voiceover): Which is why, he said, his government was pursuing two civil lawsuits in U.S. courts seeking $10 billion for the damages U.S. guns have caused in Mexico. The first, filed in 2021, included U.S. gun manufacturer, Smith & Wesson, and one of their wholesalers. The other, filed a year later, against five U.S. gun stores for what Mexico claims are, quote, "reckless and unlawful business practices that supply dangerous criminals." SHARYN ALFONSI: Is it the U.S.` responsibility to stop guns from getting in the hands of the cartel? Or is it the Mexican government`s responsibility to keep the guns out? ANDRES MANUEL LOPEZ OBRADOR (Through Translator): Of both. Of both governments. But there has to be cooperation. You cannot sell weapons to just anybody. SHARYN ALFONSI (voiceover): Like the U.S., Mexico`s constitution grants citizens the right to bear arms. But unlike the U.S., that right comes with a long list of restrictions. There`s only one gun store in Mexico -- in the middle of a heavily guarded military base in Mexico City. We were allowed in. But before customers can enter, they have to show proof they`ve passed psychological tests, drug screens and extensive background checks. The store sells about a thousand guns a month, mostly shotguns, small caliber rifles, and handguns. What civilians can`t buy here are the weapons the cartel favors. Those are not legally sold anywhere in Mexico. TIM SLOAN: Cartels` favorite weapons are weapons of war -- belt feds, .50 caliber rifles, guns that you can shoot from a mile away. The more expensive, the more powerful, the sexier they think they are. SHARYN ALFONSI: It`s a trophy. TIM SLOAN: It is a trophy. SHARYN ALFONSI (voiceover): Tim Sloan worked for the ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, for 22 years. His last assignment was running the ATF`s four field offices in Mexico during some of the bloodiest years on record. TIM SLOAN: It`s so easy -- SHARYN ALFONSI (voiceover): Part of his job was tracing the guns recovered at crime scenes. In 2019, one of those scenes was inside a cartel ranch near Guadalajara. TIM SLOAN: There was dead bodies everywhere. There was a 14-year-old girl chopping up bodies. And so there were 55-gallon drums with body parts in them. It`s something that the human mind can almost not comprehend or fathom. And all the weapons in that house came from the United States. All of them. Every person there was murdered by a firearm purchased in the U.S. And so it was -- it made a very lasting impression on me. SHARYN ALFONSI (voiceover): Sloan says most of the guns the ATF traced in Mexico were sold directly to traffickers or to so-called "straw purchasers," someone who buys a firearm on behalf of another person. In this case, Americans buying guns that, ultimately, end up in the hands of the cartel. SHARYN ALFONSI: What did you learn during your time about how the cartel was getting these guns from the United States into Mexico? TIM SLOAN: Well, I mean, it`s pretty easy, right? So it`s straw purchasers. You know, you`re offering a 23-year-old girl in Arizona $4,000, $5,000 just to go into a store and buy a gun for you. She`s going to do that. A lot of people are going to do that, especially if they have any addiction problems, but no criminal record. SHARYN ALFONSI: Can you send a 24-year-old to go buy an AK-47? TIM SLOAN: Oh, as many as they want. Five, 500, they can buy as many as they want, as long as they`re not prohibited. SHARYN ALFONSI: And how do they get them into Mexico? TIM SLOAN: Well, that`s the easy part. Just drive across the border. SHARYN ALFONSI (voiceover): That porous border works both ways. Over seven years, the ATF traced 50,000 American guns recovered in Mexico to gun dealers across the United States. But Mexico`s lawsuit names just five dealers -- from one state -- Arizona. In Mexico City, attorney Alejandro Celorio spearheaded the lawsuits for the Mexican government. ALEJANDRO CELORIO: We believe they`re liable for actively facilitating the trafficking of firearms that empower the cartels, the fentanyl crisis. A cartel without firearm is just a gang. SHARYN ALFONSI: The five gun shops that you`ve named in Arizona, how did you choose those five gun shops? ALEJANDRO CELORIO: It`s based off who do we believe are the bad actors in this dynamic. SHARYN ALFONSI (voiceover): It`s difficult to know which gun dealers could be, "bad actors" because U.S. law prohibits the ATF from publicly releasing specific gun trace information. WOMAN #1: And with the ATF National Tracing Center -- SHARYN ALFONSI (voiceover): But 60 MINUTES reviewed internal ATF and Mexican law enforcement documents. According to the documents, 566 guns recovered in Mexico over a four-and-a-half-year period were traced back to the Arizona gun dealers named in Mexico`s lawsuit. And nearly 200 of the guns came from one dealer, Ammo AZ near Phoenix. Veerachart `Danger` Murphy is the store`s owner. VEERACHART MURPHY: We sell guns here legally. We`ve been -- SHARYN ALFONSI (voiceover): Murphy declined to be interviewed by 60 MINUTES. But after Ammo AZ was named in Mexico`s lawsuit, he posted this response online. VEERACHART MURPHY: If we were actually doing something illegal, ATF, FBI would have already shut us down and I would be in jail. SHARYN ALFONSI (voiceover): The ATF has said a crime gun trace does not necessarily indicate gun dealer wrongdoing. JONATHAN LOWY: If you`re a dealer and you have reason to know that that person is a straw buyer or gun trafficker, it`s your legal obligation not to supply them with guns. SHARYN ALFONSI (voiceover): Jonathan Lowy, who is Mexico`s co-counsel, has litigated gun cases in more than 40 states. SHARYN ALFONSI: The gun shop owners we spoke to said, "Look, I`m running the background checks, I`m filling out the paperwork. I`m doing everything that I`m supposed to do. Isn`t that enough?" JONATHAN LOWY: Absolutely not. The dealer`s main responsibility, in my view, is to pay attention to indicators to see if the person standing in front of them, on the other side of the counter, is a potential criminal or supplier to the criminal market. SHARYN ALFONSI: The gun retailers say it`s really hard to know sometimes if somebody`s a straw buyer, right? That they come in with a good cover story and you have to believe them. JONATHAN LOWY: It`s pretty obvious. I mean, you see these multiple sales of AR-15s. You see these large cash payments, you see these persons coming back to the store every few days or every few weeks. I mean, these are not normal buying patterns. SHARYN ALFONSI (voiceover): There are more than 75,000 licensed gun dealers in the United States, twice as many as U.S. post offices. Jonathan Lowy says most of those dealers are acting responsibly. JONATHAN LOWY: About 90 percent of gun dealers sell zero-crime guns. I mean, that is a great mark for the gun industry. That shows that if you pay attention to these obvious indicators of trafficking and straw buying, you can actually stop supplying crime guns. The problem is these bad actors. And there`s no good reason why manufacturers don`t say, "Look, if you`re selling our guns, use best practices." SHARYN ALFONSI (voiceover): Which is why Mexico filed its other lawsuit against gun manufacturer, Smith & Wesson. Under U.S. law, gunmakers have typically been shielded from liability when one of their guns is used in a crime But Mexico is arguing the manufacturer is "aiding and abetting" gun trafficking to the cartels. In court, Smith & Wesson called that allegation "not true." They did not respond to our request for comment. SHARYN ALFONSI: How can you say manufacturers are responsible for anything when there are so many steps in the process between the time that they make it and it goes to the retailer, and then maybe it`s sold to somebody else or resold? How can you trace it back and say, "It`s the manufacturers." JONATHAN LOWY: When manufacturers make the decision, "We`re going to sell guns through dealers no matter what their record is, no matter how many crime guns they`re selling," you know, that`s on them. SHARYN ALFONSI: You say they know that the guns are going to the gun stores that are bad actors. How do they know JONATHAN LOWY: Well, manufacturers, and dealers, and distributors all get trace data. That is when law enforcement recovers a gun in crime, they determine its commercial history. And every seller in every point of the chain knows that that`s a gun that they sold, that was recovered in crime. SHARYN ALFONSI (voiceover): If Mexico`s lawsuit is successful, it could open the door for more lawsuits, foreign and domestic, against the gun industry. Earlier this year, gun manufacturers successfully petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case. They argued they could face years of costly litigation by another country that`s "trying to bully the industry into adopting a host of gun-control measures." Three years after the deadly battle that ended with his release, fentanyl drug lord, Ovidio Guzman Lopez was finally recaptured in Sinaloa in 2023 His arrest sparked another gunfight that left 10 soldiers dead. The violence continues today. In the last four months, cartel in-fighting has killed more than 500 people in Sinaloa. According to documents obtained by 60 MINUTES, 47 guns were seized after Guzman`s capture, including an AK-47-style rifle traced back to one of the defendants in Mexico`s lawsuit -- Ammo AZ. December 23rd, 2024 12:20 PM Nicholas Fondacaro 287254 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/clay-waters/2024/12/23/your-taxes-work-pbs-queering-your-classroom-lgbtq-identity-toolkit Whenever the first Trump administration made noises about defunding public media (in its 2017 and 2018 budget proposals, for instance), including National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the congressionally founded tax-funded entity ostensibly in charge, would respond by emphasizing how PBS benefits kids. This statement from PBS CEO Paula Kerger in February 2020 bragged: Decades of research confirms that PBS’s premier children’s media service, PBS KIDS, helps children build critical literacy, math and social-emotional skills, enabling them to find success in school and life. But must PBS’s educational support for children also include transgender and gender-identity propaganda? PBS has run plenty of stories on its evening broadcast encouraging transgender treatments and surgery and standing for “transgender rights,” not only for adults but even impressionable minors who are not ready to make such irrevocable decisions about their body. The controversial Trevor Project, which bills itself as “the leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention nonprofit organization for LGBTQ+ young people” and aggressively pushes so-called “gender-affirming” surgeries (like “cross-sex hormones, castration, and breast removal”) onto kids, has not only figured heavily in PBS coverage, which regularly promotes its slanted surveys on so-called suicidal ideation among LGBTQ youth. Trevor's presence has also seeped into its coverage aimed at children themselves. More trans-propaganda aimed at children: WNET, an influential public station which serves New York City and produces much PBS programming, ran a “Teacher’s Voice” piece in October 2020, “Queering Your Classroom with the Understanding LGTBQ+ Identity Toolkit,” written by Natalie Nuzzo, an 8th grade (!) teacher who celebrated that “LGTBQ+” resource: In my 8th grade English class, I teach a project and inquiry based unit on discrimination. I begin the unit with a class viewing of the video “All Oppression is Connected,” featuring poet and activist Staceyann Chin….After the viewing, I adapt the support materials to deepen our understanding of how LGBTQ+ rights are connected to the struggles around race, gender, reproductive rights, wealth inequality and immigration. Although our students may have experience discussing the aforementioned topics, they may not perceive the interconnected nature of these relations. As Chin reminds us at the close of the interview, “we cannot remove our struggle from the person next to us.” No wonder Oklahoma’s Republican governor Kevin Stitt vetoed funding for the state’s PBS station in 2023 for “indoctrination and over-sexualization” of children. Citizens Defending Freedom also called on PBS to be defunded for promoting its LGBT ‘toolkit’ for schools “Understanding LGBTQ+ Identity: A Toolkit for Educators,” initially created by the NYC Department of Education.  The PBS News Hour’s segment on the Supreme Court’s recent oral arguments on whether Tennessee could ban so-called gender-affirming care for minors, from reporter Laura Barron-Lopez, ignored the intellectual disintegration of the trans-kids argument under Justice Samuel Alito’s rigorous questioning. Her piece was instead dominated by emotional blackmail about “transgender” kids killing themselves for lack of surgery, lack of access to their chosen school bathroom, or having their chosen pronouns ignored. December 23rd, 2024 11:50 AM Clay Waters 287085 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mark-finkelstein/2024/12/23/cnn-devout-catholic-bidens-faith-led-him-commute-death-penalty Today's episode of CNN This Morning began its segment on Biden's commutation of the death sentences of 37 federal death row convicts with a clip of then-Senator Biden, in 1994, proclaiming "I'm a death penalty supporter," and bragging "I'm the guy who wrote this bill with my own little hands," a bill that added 50 federal death penalty-eligible crimes. I encourage people to watch Biden's display.  Even death penalty supporters could cringe at his unseemly hubris. Fast-forward 30 years, and now Biden defenders are explaining his decision yesterday to commute the death sentences of 37 convicts on federal death row in terms of his religious faith. Substitute host Rahel Solomon described Biden as a "devout Catholic" and suggested that religion could explain his decision. Democrat aide Hyma Moore claimed that the decision reflected the fact that Biden "cares deeply about his faith." Moore said that one thing he loves about Biden is, "when he is wrong, he's willing to say it." But Biden has admitted no mistake. To the contrary, in his commutation announcement, he said that he is "more convinced than ever" that the death penalty is wrong. More convinced "than ever?" In 1994, Biden wasn't convinced at all. To the contrary, he boasted of being Senator Death Penalty Biden -- "with my own little hands!" Biden will visit Pope Francis next month. Just two months ago, Pope Francis said, "An abortion is a murder. Doctors who do that are — allow me to use that word — contract killers.” What kind of moral compass leads "devout Catholic" Biden to commute the death sentences of people guilty of heinous murders, but do nothing to protect the lives of utterly innocent unborn children? Question: Returning to Biden's braggadocious '94 performance, does anyone believe his claim to have written the death penalty bill with his "own little hands?" Bueller? Bueller? Here's the transcript. CNN This Morning 12/23/24 6:15 am ET JOE BIDEN: I'm a death penalty supporter. I'm the guy that wrote this bill. Presumptuous thing to say, but I wrote this bill. My own little hands. And I added into the bill more than 50 death penalties. I support the death penalty. This president supports the death penalty.  RAHEL SOLOMON: That was then-Senator Joe Biden boasting about the 1994 crime bill, his 1994 crime bill, which added a list of federal crimes punishable by the death penalty.  But new this morning, President Joe Biden now announcing that he is commuting 37 federal death row inmate sentences to life in prison without parole. But there are three names that are notably absent from this list of commutations, convicts like the Boston Marathon bomber, Charleston church shooter Dylan Roof and Tree of Life synagogue mass shooter Robert Bowers, all excluded from this list that was released this morning. They were left off due to their crimes being terrorism or hate-motivated mass murder.  In a statement, the president said, quote, make no mistake, I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss. But guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vice President, and now President, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level. In good conscience, I cannot stand by and stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.  . . .  SOLOMON: I mean, Biden, of course, a devout Catholic, so you have to wonder sort of how much his religion played into this as well.  . . .  Lance, I'm curious how you think Trump's death row stance may appeal to people who perhaps voted for him on the basis of things like the economy, the number one issue for a lot of people, but maybe didn't pay as much attention to this issue necessarily. What do you think?  LANCE TROVER: I think Donald Trump is the most out there and open candidate we've ever had for president in the history of the country. It's not like he hides where he is on these positions. Unlike Joe Biden. I mean, Merry Christmas to child killers out there. I mean, this is absurd. It's reprehensible. Two days before Christmas and he is pardoning? But this is classic Joe Bidenesque. In the final waning days of this sad presidency that he's had. On one hand, he says he supports law and order in this country, and then pardons his son for 11 years worth of crimes, crimes that he pled guilty to. On one hand, he again says, I support law and order, and then pardons a bunch of child murderers out there, but then leaves three others to stay on the death row. It makes absolutely no sense.  It makes me wonder who is actually making these decisions at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in the waning days of this administration, because it sure does not seem like it's Joe Biden.  SOLOMON: Hyma, let me let you have the last word here. I see you shaking your head in response to what Lance is saying.  HYMA MOORE: Yeah, look, I don't want to take cheap shots at the president. I think Joe Biden has been a fantastic president on many accords [sic]. But look, we know two things about Joe Biden. He cares deeply about his faith. And to Annie's point, he's allowed his faith to help him make these decisions.  And secondly, one thing I really love about Joe Biden is, when he is wrong, he's willing to say it. He's willing to evolve. He's willing to grow. And so this is an evolution of thought. And so Joe Biden feels the same way he's felt about his faith for many years. But this is an evolution of thought. And he feels very strongly about bringing some equity to this process.  December 23rd, 2024 9:54 AM Mark Finkelstein 287250 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/cal-thomas/2024/12/23/ultimate-gift-life In past years I have suggested going beyond Christmas and other holiday gifts that will soon be forgotten, returned or worn out, in favor of one that will last for generations to come. Last year I wrote about the Children’s Scholarship Fund, which provides private school tuition for poor and middle-class children in failing public schools. Not only do the private schools offer them a better education (most go on to college), but they also provide a moral foundation essential to living a successful life. This year I’m recommending the ultimate gift – the gift of life to an unborn child, with accompanying assistance to the mother to help her prevail over what can be difficult circumstances in an unplanned pregnancy. Heartbeat International was founded in 1971, two years before the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case which struck down all state abortion restrictions. According to its year-end report, “(Heartbeat) is now the most expansive network in the world, assisting more than 3,500 affiliated pregnancy help locations … with medical clinics (ultrasounds), maternity homes and adoption agencies in more than 90 countries to provide alternatives to abortion.” In its annual report for 2023, Heartbeat says it received more than 1.8 million in-person client visits. Their promotion of a pill that reverses abortions for women who have changed their minds after initiating the procedure has “rescued” 5,000 babies. It is something Planned Parenthood vigorously opposes. California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued Heartbeat to force the organization to provide women at their help centers with abortion information. The Supreme Court rejected California’s efforts, but thanks in part to subsidies from the federal government (Elon and Vivek take note as you seek to reduce spending), they are likely to pursue other efforts to stymie the work of Heartbeat and pro-life organizations. The experience of holding a baby in your arms and embracing a woman who sought life-affirming help, rather than an abortion – realizing you have contributed to that moment – is a unique experience. It is one I have enjoyed on many occasions. Think of the positive impact. Each child rescued from an abortion will likely have children, and they will have children and so on for generations to come. A woman will be free of the guilt and sometimes depression and self-destructive behavior that too often comes after the procedure. An abortion removes a branch from the family tree. News stories report sharp declines in birth rates in the U.S., Canada and Europe. There are several reasons, but abortion, along with a desire to avoid the “expense” of children, appear to be the main ones. Failing to have enough children to at least replace adults who die will have serious economic, social, political and other consequences for especially free nations. While there have been more abortions since Roe was overturned in the Dobbs decision, Heartbeat and other pro-life groups continue to spread information often denied women by abortion clinics. On Heartbeat International’s website there are testimonies from women who at first sought an abortion, in some cases taking the abortion pill, and then changed their minds. Their comments also include the words “support” and “resources,” something lacking at abortion clinics. Their stories counter the lie told over the years that pro-life people don’t care about the woman or the baby after birth. Saving lives – babies and mothers – is a two-way blessing. Make a donation and see what I mean. December 23rd, 2024 8:57 AM Cal Thomas 287249 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2024/12/22/abc-nbc-omit-horrific-migrant-burning-woman-death-nyc-subway UPDATE, 12/23/24, 8:42 a.m. Eastern: On Monday morning, ABC and NBC remained completely uninterested in this horrifying act of violence with nothing on Good Morning America and Today, respectively. The segment on CBS Mornings was nearly identical with the exception of Tammy Mutasa being replaced by Michael George. The original post continues below. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Three days before Christmas, the nation is horrified to learn details of the murder by fire of a woman on the New York city subway. The one legacy media newscast that bothered to report this story omitted significant details regarding the suspect’s immigration status. Watch the full report as aired on the CBS Weekend News on Sunday, December 22nd, 2024 (Click “expand” to view the transcript): JERICKA DUNCAN: Now to a disturbing and deadly attack here in New York City. Tonight, police say they have a suspect under arrest after a woman sleeping in a subway car was set on fire. She later died. CBS’s Tammy Mutasa is in New York with details on what exactly happened. Tammy? TAMMY MUTASA: Jericka, you know, this was a brutal attack on a woman who just appeared to be sleeping on a public train. And police found that victim when they saw smoke during a routine patrol. Horrifying moments inside an F train on the New York City subway. Just before 7:30 this morning, NYPD investigators say a woman was set on fire and burned to death. Police say as the train approached the last stop in Brooklyn, the suspect walked up to her, lit her on fire and stayed on the scene, watching her burn from the train platform. After the NYPD released images of a person of interest, three young men called 911 when they saw the suspect on a different subway. Police stopped the train and arrested the man. MICHAEL KEMPER: There must be strong and swift consequences on this person, and I use that term lightly, who committed this brutal, brutal homicide. MUTASA: And Jericka, the NYPD said cameras have been installed in every subway car. And it's because of images from those cameras that led to this arrest. This week, Governor Kathy Hochul announced an additional 250 National Guard members will be deployed inside the subway cars to make sure that everyone is safe. DUNCAN: Tammy Moutasa reporting in New York City tonight. Thank you. To CBS’s credit, they aired a report (as did also Telemundo). ABC, NBC and Univision couldn’t be bothered to air a report at all, despite the fact that weekend newscasts usually draw more resources from New York affiliates. However, there was one major omission. Per Fox News: While police did not identify the person of interest, a high-level NYPD source told Fox News Digital the individual entered the U.S. illegally from Guatemala in 2018, when President-elect Trump was president during his first term. The person of interest has no prior arrests in New York City and one prior arrest in Arizona, the source said, though details about the arrest were not available. Other reporting shows the suspect as having arrived in 2023. Perhaps this indeterminate immigration status explains Univision, ABC and NBC’s reluctance to cover the story. An illegal alien burning a woman to death on the NYC subway would serve as a gruesome capstone to President Joe Biden's immigration policy.  The lone network newscast to mention immigration, albeit tangentially? Telemundo, who aired NYPD Chief of Transit Joe Gulotta: JOE GULOTTA: That individual arrived here, it looks like, 2018- from Guatemala. Just want to put that point out. And that's all we have on them right now, but with that being said- no one on the scene identified him, so, as being there. With less than a month before President Donald Trump is inaugurated, the Regime Media are showing why they earned that nickname: in this instance, their refusal to air news that is politically damaging to Democrats in power. Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on Noticias Telemundo Fin de Semana on Sunday, December 22nd, 2024: JOHANNA SUAREZ: We begin today with breaking news. In New York, authorities arrested a person of interest in connection with the murder of a woman who was set on fire in a subway train car in Brooklyn. We now move on to Yaimeé Bell, who is in New York with all the details. YAIMEE BELL: The press conference was held here at NYPD Headquarters. They reported that the man is in police custody thanks to a call made by three students to 911. JOE GULOTTA: That individual arrived here, it looks like, 2018- from Guatemala. Just want to put that point out. And that's all we have on them right now, but with that being said- no one on the scene identified him, so, as being there. BELL: These students identified the man and called the police. The subject was on a train that was later boarded by the authorities, who searched car by car until they took him into custody. They found a lighter in his pocket, which he allegedly used to commit the crime. This call to 911 was made around three or four in the afternoon. The incident occurred this Sunday, around 7:30 in the morning. The subject approached and set fire to a woman who was sleeping aboard an F train at the Stilwell Avenue station, Brooklyn. NYPD confirmed that the woman was sitting in an idle subway car and that there were several bottles of alcohol around her at the scene. Officers patrolling the subway felt something burning and found the woman on fire. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene, but has not yet been able to be identified due to the conditions in which she was left. I tell you that in 2023, 2,231 crimes were committed in the transit system in New York City, and so far in 2024, at least 2,095 have been reported, a decrease of 6%. This same week, the Governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, reported that 100% of subway cars are equipped with security cameras to prevent crime. And this is the reason why the community managed to identify the suspect so quickly. Joanna, back to you. SUAREZ: Now, what is happening in New York is troubling. Thanks to Yaimeé for that report.   December 22nd, 2024 11:47 PM Jorge Bonilla 287248 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/clay-waters/2024/12/22/pbss-washington-week-wont-own-previous-praise-bidens-mental-acuity Washington Week with The Atlantic’s year-in-review episode Friday contained a fleeting reference to a bombshell Wall Street Journal story about how the White House and Democrats actively hid President Joe Biden’s descent into decrepitude, including several public stumbles, shaking hands with the air, and taking the “short stairs” up Air Force One. The supposedly vigilant media acceded to Democratic wishes and showed astonishingly little curiosity about Biden’s decline, even issuing defenses of Biden’s acuity in the face of Republican observations, defenses that look simply pathetic in retrospect, like the New York Times story lamenting so-called Republican “cheap fakes." Such defenses also appeared on tax-funded PBS including a notorious exchange from the September 1, 2023 edition of the network’s political roundtable, Washington Week with The Atlantic, after a disastrous Biden press conference spurred by a damning special counsel report from Robert Hur. After Politico’s Kyle Cheney issued his own embarrassing take on how Republicans were just using the non-issue to attack President Biden, panelist Mark Leibovich of The Atlantic and moderator Jeffrey Goldberg (Leibovich’s editor boss at The Atlantic) went out on a limb in the Democratic president’s defense. Leibovich called out Republicans as “lying” about making an issue of Biden’s age – an issue that would prove all too relevant for the Democratic ticket in 2024. The Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich: Can I just actually just point out, though, that, I mean, it’s not just making an issue of Biden’s age, it’s lying, it’s saying he’s senile, saying he’s demented, saying he’s out of it. I mean, I think it’s important to sort of state for a fact that a lot of these are just -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Mentally, he’s quite acute. Leibovich: It seems like it. But that embarrassing exchange has been flushed down the memory hole on tax-funded PBS. There was no mea culpa in Goldberg and Leibovich’s latest post-election exchange about Biden’s age and infirmity, just the false insinuation they were right all along: Goldberg: Mark, I want to ask you about Joe Biden, remember Joe Biden? President of the United States for another few weeks. A lot of coverage in the last week or two about, including The Wall Street Journal, his limitations that were showing themselves, his intellectual limitations or cognitive limitations, the age issues, coming out long before this past summer, or the debate on June 27th. You were warning early about Biden’s age. Is there anything surprising coming out to you now or is this kind of a story about a group of people around Joe Biden covering up for him? Leibovich: I’m not really surprised. I’m surprised to the degree to which he has completely disappeared since the election. I guess it’s sort of obvious that a lame duck president by definition will not be a factor, especially when someone who has such a big footprint as Donald Trump is waiting in the wings. I do think that there’s a lot of sort of unfinished reporting done on this, which I think is going to come out around what this White House really did look like. And is that a failing of the media over the last few years? Maybe. But I also think, you know, there was a very serious effort to protect him, and to shelter him, and to keep him away from cameras, and to keep him away from situations where this would be exposed. And, look, is it a scandal? I don’t know if I’d use that word, but I also think it is a massive source of, you know, information that we`re still trying to understand. Leibovich authored an Atlantic piece in June 2022, “Why Biden Shouldn’t Run in 2024.” Yet fifteen months later, in September 2023, with a Trump-Biden rematch looming, he agreed with his boss Goldberg’s statement about Biden’s “quite acute” mental state. It's not just politicians who are slippery in their rhetoric.  December 22nd, 2024 10:29 PM Clay Waters 287244 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mark-finkelstein/2024/12/22/mocking-trump-nominee-msnbcs-michael-steele-should-have-read Sunday's episode of MSNBC's The Weekend devoted a segment to mocking Trump's naming Mark Burnett as a special envoy to the UK.Co-hosts Michael Steele and Symone Sanders dismissed Burnett as merely the producer of The Apprentice, having none of the international and diplomatic credentials that Trump cited in his nomination message. Steele huffed that all Burnett ever did was negotiate some actor contracts for the show, and belittled the nomination as Trump putting "his boy" in place. Before bashing Burnett, Steele and Sanders should have taken a few minutes to read the man's Wikipedia bio.  Where to begin? Burnett is a British native who enlisted in the British Army at age 17, rising to become a Section Commander in the Parachute Regiment, and serving in the Falklands War and Northern Ireland. He emigrated to the US at age 22, and eventually became one of the world's most successful people in TV. Whereas Steele and Sanders portrayed him as only having been the producer of The Apprentice, in fact he has produced countless successful shows, including multiple Shark Tank, The Voice, Survivor, and Martha Stewart. He and his wife produced a ten-hour History Channel series, The Bible, which became the No. 1 series in a number of countries and was seen by more than 100 million viewers. He has won 13 Emmy Awards including 10 Primetime, one Sports Emmy Award and two Daytime Emmy Awards. His other accolades include five Producers Guild of America Awards, twelve Critics' Choice Television Awards, and ten People's Choice Awards. From 2013 to 2017, Burnett was listed on Variety500, an index of the 500 most influential business leaders shaping the global media industry. As for his international/diplomatic experience, Burnett has produced more than 3,200 hours of TV programming which regularly airs in more than 70 countries. Beyond his success as a producer, Burnett served as President of United Artists from 2014 to 2018 and as chairman of MGM Worldwide Television Group from 2018 to 2022. In 2004, Time magazine named him one of 'Time 100: 100 Most Influential People in the World Today.' We could go on. But you get the picture. This is an immensely talented, productive, globally-connected man with deep British roots. Next time, Symone and Michael, before dumping on a Trump nominee, do your homework. Note: Sanders facetiously suggested to Steele, a former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, that should he ever be elected to office again, he should appoint the show's producer, Kyle Griffin to some position. Steele played along, saying he'd appoint Griffin as ambassador to Turks and Caicos. That would be fine, if Griffin has even a smidgen of Bennett's accomplishments.  Here's the transcript. MSNBC The Weekend 12/22/24 8:33 am ET ALICIA MENENDEZ: So while she has removed herself, Lara Trump, from the Florida Senate sweepstakes, you have Donald Trump tapping the former producer of The Apprentice, Mark Burnett, as special envoy to the UK.  Quote, with a distinguished career in television production and business, Mark brings a unique blend of diplomatic acumen and international recognition to this important role. That was Trump on Truth Social.  MICHAEL STEELE: Well, that's just a load of crock. Well, one thing has nothing to do with the other. I mean, come on, let's be serious, that you would take a television producer and say he's got these diplomatic -- what is diplomatic skill? Negotiating a contract between an actor and, and the set?  I mean, what, what are you, what is he even talking about here? This is, this is putting his boy in place and that's all it is.  SYMONE SANDERS: I mean, yes, because, I mean, Mark Burnett literally made, helped craft the image of Donald Trump that we know today, right?  STEELE. Right. SANDERS: The Apprentice, the fact that people say they really believe that Donald Trump is a good businessman, it stems specifically from him being on television for all of those years as a CEO, right, hiring and firing people. So, to me, look -- STEELE: The script, by the way, people, in case you didn't know, said, okay, you're going to hire this person, you're going to fire that person. Come on. SANDERS: All I'm saying is, Michael, maybe the control room is thinking if, you know, anybody here ever get elected again, they will hope that you would appoint one of them. If it can happen to Mark Burnett, it can happen for Kyle Griffin, okay, and James and Brittany, too.  ALICIA MENENDEZ: They do a lot of diplomacy, in fairness.  SANDERS: I mean, this is diplomatic right here.  STEELE: Kyle will be the ambassador to Turks and Caicos. There you go.  SANDERS: I will visit.  December 22nd, 2024 10:05 PM Mark Finkelstein 287245 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2024/12/22/scott-jennings-destroys-left-over-dopey-king-elon-talking-point Christmas may be upon us but politics rests for no one, as we see on CNN State of the Union. Host Dana Bash once again tries to push the tired “King Elon” narrative but CNN commentator Scott Jennings was there to quickly and expeditiously shut it down. Watch as Jennings scores a two-for-one hit on the media: CNN STATE OF THE UNION 12/22/24 9:45 AM DANA BASH: I want to bring in the Elon Musk of it all, because this has been a through line of discussion both by Democrats and Republicans. Democrats are saying he's the real President-Elect. A lot of Republicans are saying “that's not true, but thank goodness he did what he did.” Um, is this going to wear thin with Donald Trump soon? SCOTT JENNINGS: I don't think so. I mean, look, they appear to be getting along well. Musk was very instrumental in his victory. And I hear Democrats, you know, criticizing the idea that we have unelected people with too much influence over the government. I invite them to pick up The Wall Street Journal from this week and find out that unelected people have been running the government for the last four years. I hear Democrats criticizing, criticizing the influence of billionaires on our politics when you've got this Soros punk running around collecting Democrat politicians like my kids collect Pokémon cards. So I think all the criticism of Musk coming from the left is totally hypocritical, totally over the top, and he is doing something interesting. Bringing some transparency to the federal government. It’s not a terrible thing. We saw some of the beginnings of the anti-Musk narrative when the initial Cromnibus bill died in a flurry of Musk (and Ramaswamy) posts. Recall that it was CBS’s Norah O’Donnell who initially gave a voice to the left’s stated concerns over the influence of the “unelected” Musk: NORAH O’DONNELL: As we seem to be witnessing the growing influence of the world's richest man, unelected tech billionaire Elon Musk spent the day repeatedly and publicly calling on Republicans to vote no and called for those who support the plan to be voted out of office. Those disparate talking points have been distilled into some variant of “King Elon” or “President Musk”, ham-handedly crafted so as to drive a wedge between Musk and President-Elect Donald Trump, which leads us to CNN State of the Union. Jennings took this “King Elon” softball and proceeded to smash it over the fence. First, by linking that narrative to the non compos mentis Biden presidency as outlined in that Wall Street Journal article that the Regime Media still mostly refuse to acknowledge. If the media are to whine about the influence that unelected advisors are having upon policy, then the current administration is certainly a good place to start. Jennings then pivots to the “billionaire” portion of the talking point, calling out the hypocrisy of elected Democrats whining about Musk’s influence. As we pointed out not even two weeks after the election: Of course, this reporting is fundamentally unserious. The media are perfectly fine with billionaires dabbling in politics so long as they dabble in the right politics. No one blinked when Mark Cuban threw on the Rachel Maddow glasses and shilled for Kamala Harris. No one suggested nefarious quid pro quos or conflicts of interest. Cuban was a patriot, you see, exercising his First Amendment right to shill for the Regime. Likewise, no one gives a rip that Dauphin Prince Alex Soros routinely posts pictures of himself with captured Democrat politicians, in a manner reminiscent of a big game hunter posing with his trophies. Soros isn’t a problem, either.   Only Elon is an issue, because he chose to side with the Bad Orange Man. Soros playing Catch’em All with elected Democrats only serves to highlight the hypocrisy of a media that have lost their footing and are still reflexively shilling for the left. What Jennings exposes here is the media’s shift, in real time, from Regime to Resistance.   December 22nd, 2024 7:11 PM Jorge Bonilla 287247 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2024/12/22/msnbcs-weekend-despair-over-media-rolling-over-tyrant-trump There was an air of despair on MSNBC’s The Weekend on Sunday morning, as an anti-Trump panel expressed outrage about the President-elect’s various lawsuits against journalists and news organizations, but also despair that the liberal media establishment is failing to step up as leaders of the #Resistance, singling out ABC News for its $15 million settlement earlier this month. “Donald Trump isn’t even in office yet, but his promises of retribution against the news media are already becoming a reality,” co-host Michael Steele warned at the top of the 9am ET hour. Co-host Alicia Menendez casually labeled Trump a “tyrant” as she asked anti-Trump lawyer George Conway: “What kind of guardrails are there, constitutionally speaking, to prevent a tyrant like this from a retribution tour?” After Conway noted that most libel and defamation lawsuits are either settled or dismissed by the courts, co-host Symone Sanders-Townsend groused: “Isn’t that part of the chilling effect? It doesn’t actually go anywhere, but if someone pays money, like ABC has a $15 million judgement – ” referring to the amount ABC paid Trump after its star host George Stephanopoulos repeated — and wrongly — claimed Trump was deemed ‘liable for rape’ in a civil proceeding earlier this year. Conway interjected: “Well, that was ridiculous.” “Well, they are paying it,” Sanders shot back. “People have to band together,” Conway advised. “These media organizations can’t cave the way ABC did, which was outrageous....It’s really incumbent on people to stand up and do something, because if you don’t do that, then they win by intimidation even if they don’t actually win these lawsuits.” Steele argued the other networks should have joined forces with ABC and Stephanopoulos in their fight against Trump. “I didn’t see other networks and other outlets defend, come to the defense of ABC....There is strength in numbers here, I think.” Vanity Fair’s Molly Jong-Fast agreed that the anti-Trump forces “need to be brave,” but cautioned that the liberal media are much weaker now than they were in 2016: “There are many fewer outlets. There is much less money. There is much less, you know, good will towards the mainstream media than there was eight years ago. This is just a sort of husk of a business....” Despite their unanimous advice that the broader liberal media needed to join forces against Trump, there wasn’t much optimism that the press would follow MSNBC’s instructions. Here’s a clip of the a portion of that discussion, followed by a partial transcript (click “expand” to read it). # MSNBC’s The Weekend December 22, 2024, 9:02am ET Co-host MICHAEL STEELE: Welcome back to The Weekend, everybody. So Donald Trump isn’t even in office yet, but his promises of retribution against the news media are already becoming reality. Trump is now suing Iowa pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register over her final pre-election poll that showed Vice President Harris beating him in the Hawkeye State. Now, Trump’s lawyers have been warning journalists and others of defamation lawsuits for what they’ve said or written before and after the election. So have two of Trump’s Cabinet picks,...Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel. As The New York Times notes, “The small flurry of threatened defamation lawsuits is the latest sign that the incoming Trump administration appears poised to do what it can to crack down on unfavorable media coverage,” now and after the election.... [continuing to quote] “Mr. Trump and his allies have discussed subpoenaing news organizations, prosecuting journalists and their sources, revoking networks’ broadcast licenses and eliminating funding for public radio and television.” ... Co-host ALICIA MENENDEZ:  Did the Constitution imagine this, right? What kind of guardrails are there, constitutionally speaking, to prevent a tyrant like this from a retribution tour? ... Co-host SYMONE SANDERS-TOWNSEND: On Monday, about a week ago, almost a week ago, Donald Trump actually spoke about the lawsuits, at Mar-a-Lago, against the press. Take a listen. President-elect DONALD TRUMP: I feel I have to do this. I shouldn’t really be the one to do it. It should have been the Justice Department or somebody else. But I have to do it. It costs a lot of money to do it, but we have to straighten out the press. Our press is very corrupt. Almost as corrupt as our elections. SANDERS-TOWNSEND: I heard this and I think about the fact that we — people often talk about, ‘oh, there is guardrails’ and I’m like, ‘the guardrails are few and far between and people are not actually willing to stand up and do their due diligence.’ You have to actively protect democracy. It doesn’t happen on its own. And in 1964 during the civil rights movement and all the way through 1964 news organizations were regularly sued for libel by governments, by local — like, people were suing for libel. and it was a Supreme Court case, New York Times v. Sullivan, that ended up protecting the press, saying — protecting them from libel lawsuits and really reinforcing the freedom of the press to report vigorously. That Supreme Court precedent still stands today, yet civil lawsuits left and right are being brought. Lawyer GEORGE CONWAY: Yeah. But most of these lawsuits never go anywhere. Most libel lawsuits, defamation lawsuits, don’t go anywhere. They make a big splash and then they are ultimately dismissed or settled with an apology or something, or they’re just withdrawn. SANDERS-TOWNSEND: But that’s what I mean, George! Isn’t that part of the chilling effect? It doesn’t actually go anywhere, but if someone is — someone pays money, like ABC has a $15 million judgment – CONWAY: Well, that was ridiculous. SANDERS-TOWNSEND: Well, they are paying it. George Stephanopoulos is also on the hook for $1 million of his own money. Someone threatening a lawsuit, then people maybe think twice about if they want to be even slightly critical of the folks in charge even if it’s warranted. CONWAY: Right. No. I mean, and that is a problem. I mean, this is how the intimidation works. They are trying to impose costs on people and, you know, this is one of the ways they’re trying to make people obey in advance, to use Professor Snyder’s words. And it can work because, it’s like, it’s not worth it to any single individual to just say something if they are going to incur this cost. And that’s why you are absolutely right — people have to band together. We have to work and help defend — first of all, these media organizations can’t cave the way ABC did, which was outrageous. But also there has to be a lot — I think lawyers need to step up now. Lawyers need to volunteer their time, volunteer their services and learn new tricks and learn new trades....And it’s really incumbent on people to stand up and do something because if you don’t do that, then they win by intimidation even if they don’t actually win these lawsuits. ... STEELE: I’m surprised that the media is not locking arms. I didn’t see other networks and other outlets defend, come to the defense of ABC, standing, knowing that they could be next and likely are next. [to Molly Jong-Fast] What’s your thoughts there in terms of much more of a, hey, we’re all in the crosshairs here as opposed to this sort of competitive kind of, oh, we’ve still got to get, you know, one more viewer than you, which then loses sight of the fact that you’ve now possibly exposed yourself to the same thing that we see other outlets and networks and individuals exposed to? There is strength in numbers here, I think. ... Vanity Fair’s MOLLY JONG-FAST: What George is talking about, which I think is so important, is this idea that be need to be brave, right? We need to be brave....Look, the mainstream media is not in the place it was in 2016. In 2016 there were many more outlets, there was much more money, there was, you know, a sort of belief in the mainstream media from the right and the left. That is no longer true. There are many fewer outlets. There is much less money. There is much less, you know, good will towards the mainstream media than there was eight years ago. This is just a sort of husk of a business, you know, anymore. And so, like, in my mind the goal has to be, because this is really, you know, protect norms and institutions, and that means the kind of journalism, the kind of reporting, that Pro Publica does, the stuff that is very expensive, very important, and hard to replicate anywhere else.   December 22nd, 2024 11:21 AM Rich Noyes 287246 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2024/12/22/ex-cnnwashpost-reporter-chris-cillizza-i-should-have-pushed-harder Former CNN and Washington Post political reporter Chris Cillizza was feeling contrite. In a Friday video, he suggested "As a reporter I have a confession to make. I should have pushed harder, earlier for more information about Joe Biden's mental and physical well-being and any signs of decline." He explained he worked at CNN through 2022, and Republicans would regularly nudging him to ask more questions about Biden's mental fitness. "I would sort of brush them off because what I would say is 'well, there's no obvious evidence that he's declining. Yeah, he moves a little slower. He talks a little slower, but there's no evidence that he's declining.'" Of course, the Biden White House "were absolutely adamant that suggesting anything, asking the question about whether he was in some physical mental or both decline was offensive. How could you?! It's age-shaming! And I think that impacted me at some level...I didn't really push on it if I'm being honest." He claimed he was tougher after he left CNN, which tells you something about CNN. Cillizza read from this week's New York Times and Wall Street Journal stories on how Biden struggled. He admitted Biden didn't do a lot of press conferences or interviews -- clearly, he was being hidden. But he said Biden's somewhat screamy State of the Union speech this year was "fine," with "no obvious signs of decline." That's a matter of opinion. So they did a good job of hiding it for a long time, but journalists, and I put myself here, you've got to, we should have been pushier, we should have, I should have, I don't want to speak for everyone. I should have not let the shame campaign to make you feel bad for asking the question get to me. Because it's now clear from both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times piece that there was real deterioration even before -- and by the way all the reporting that we've seen since the June 27th debate -- it's not just these two stories -- that there was real and significant decline In Joe Biden and that it was being managed by the people around him. They were insulating him. They were keeping sort of the world, the political world out and keeping him sort of bunkered in. And that should have been something we knew more about. He added that it was concerning that we've let him be president for six months after learning he's incapacitated on "bad days." But I think the media elites wanted to help Democrats keep whatever promise they made that he could serve out his term if he quit the campaign. Naturally, Cillizza closed by suggesting President Trump should be pressed for more transparency about his health in his second term. That's a fair point -- not considering the media's horrible suppression of Biden's decline -- but does anyone doubt they'll be all over hints or gossip over this in the years to come? December 22nd, 2024 6:37 AM Tim Graham 287243 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2024/12/21/taxpayer-funded-npr-touts-sequeerity-squad-protecting-trans-folks Everyone knows National “Public” Radio hates half the public, the half that voted for Donald Trump. On Wednesday’s terribly named All Things Considered, an eight-minute story on NPR promoted “Sequeerity,” an LGBT security force in Minneapolis protecting their own from the allegedly violent hatred of the Trump-loving right-wing extremists. The reporter was their “domestic extremism” reporter Odette Yousef, who doesn’t report on any LGBT extremism -- they don't acknowledge that exists. that can’t be identified. The sympathetic headline was “Neighbors protecting neighbors: Worried marginalized communities prep for Trump term.” Anchor Ailsa Chang set the anti-Trump table: AILSA CHANG: In a few weeks, some Americans will celebrate the beginning of Donald Trump's second term. For some others, the next four years will be filled with anxiety over personal safety. A group of people in Minneapolis is helping some neighbors feel more prepared. NPR domestic extremism correspondent Odette Yousef spent some time with them. Trump's victory is the opposite of safety, that's the government-radio line. Kimmy Hull co-founded "Sequeerity" after the George Floyd riots engulfed Minneapolis. Yousef said "Hull refers to the unrest that followed Floyd's murder as the Uprising." But after that, she said, "Proud Boys and white nationalist biker gangs were terrorizing the neighborhood. And police abandoned the 3rd Precinct. Locals were on their own for safety." Hull became a "culturally sensitive" firearms instructor, and explained the trans advocates in Minnesota are buying guns:  HULL: We just felt like firearms weren't for us. We wanted to sit back and see what happened. And as soon as he got reelected, we decided that - it's not about whether they want one or not. They feel like they have to have one. ODETTE YOUSEF: In other words, it's a Donald Trump effect. KIMMY HULL: And the scary part about this is that this is Minneapolis, Minnesota. We are one of the safest states for trans communities, and our trans communities are buying guns because they don't feel safe. Yousef took a sled a slippery slope, associating violence with conservative legislation. Tim Walz signing a "Trans Refuge" bill wasn't extremist. Only the opponents are:  YOUSEF: Early in November, two trans women were attacked at a Minneapolis light rail station. This even though Minnesota is a trans refuge state -- it protects trans people's rights to medical care and bars discrimination against them. In many other states, it's very different. Trans people are less than 1% of the U.S. population. But in 2023, there was an explosion of state bills to curtail their access to bathrooms, medical care and sports teams. Trump has promised similar policies at a federal level. And anti-trans violence has jumped as well. In Minneapolis, several people told me the trans community is falling back on a long held motto -- we keep us safe. NPR never interviewed anyone who advocates "anti-trans" policies. They are not a Thing to be Considered. Hull and "Sequeerity" are unchallenged throughout. The narrative of anti-gay "danger" dominated. Yousef claimed "As some states have become increasingly dangerous for LGBTQ people, community defense networks have emerged. Volunteers coordinate to protect people at Pride and drag events. But often they like to remain anonymous, and there's no data on how many have formed." Yousef ended by calling out the Minneapolis Police Department for not being supportive enough: "The Minneapolis Police Department did not respond to an NPR request. And clicking a link on the department's website to a, quote, "LGBTQIA liaison" leads to a 404 error page." Wrong. A quick Google search leads you right to a working page for "Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging." December 21st, 2024 9:00 PM Tim Graham 287239 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/clay-waters/2024/12/21/pbs-oozes-over-krugmans-nyt-retirement-he-sees-resurrection-bidens On Friday’s PBS airing of Amanpour & Co., host Christiane Amanpour introduced “the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Paul Krugman, who's written his last column for The New York Times, after 25 years of sharp and often indispensable takes on major issues that shape America and the world.” Stop laughing, please. NewsBusters has compiled decades of research proving Krugman’s knee-jerk partisanship is the opposite of sharp, and his conventional wisdom opinions far from indispensable. And he continues to claim Bidenomics has been vindicated. None of this penetrated the liberal PBS bubble, which didn’t offer the economist a single challenging question. The retiring columnist and laughingstock for conservatives talked to show contributor Michel Martin, who first congratulated him on “this chapter of your very distinguished career.” Krugman proceeded to brag on himself, mentioning the Iraq War and “the debate over Social Security privatization in 2005.” Martin's claim that Krugman had been just as tough on Democrats and liberals didn’t hold water, as she herself noted – Krugman’s only complaint about Democrats was when he thought they weren’t pushing sufficiently ultra-liberal economic policies. Martin: You have been critical equally of initiatives on the Democratic side – Democratic-slash-progressive side, when you thought they were ill considered and didn't go far enough. And I wondered is that harder in a way? Krugman: That hurts much more. I mean, I was practically tearing my hair out. You can go back and look at what I was writing just before and just after President Obama took office, and I was tearing my hair out over the obviously, seemed to me, inadequate size of his economic stimulus plans and even participated in meetings with government officials, and they didn't do it. And so, no, it hurts much more when you are -- I have no illusion that anything I write is that are going to persuade Donald Trump of something, but when you fail to persuade Barack Obama, it hurts more. On air, Krugman recorded his ludicrous first draft of history -- that the economic policy of the Biden presidency would be vindicated by historians. Yes, that same one that resulted in runaway inflation and help cost the Democrats the presidency in 2024. Krugman: Here's the deeply unpopular opinion that will, I think, become orthodoxy a few decades from now, which is that Biden and his team actually managed the economy extremely well. It's going to be like Harry Truman's. There'll be a resurrection of his reputation. Because they learned from the mistakes. Obama went too soft, too weak on the economy in 2009. And as a result, it took years to recover. And Biden said they understood, which Obama didn't, that they really had one shot at taking strong measures. And so, they did, they spent a lot of money, which temporarily boosted inflation, although in the end, cumulative inflation in the U.S. is similar to that -- of the whole rest of the world…. Krugman's Biden prediction will no doubt turn out to be as visionary as his previous predictions about the failing American economy under Trump, or the Internet's effect on the economy. When Martin prodded him why Biden’s policy remains politically unpopular, he tried and failed not to be condescending. Krugman: If you look at who voted which way in the election, basically people who pay attention to the news supported Harris by a strong margin, and people who don't supported Trump by a strong margin. So, a lot of it is just plain, it didn't filter through. And look, but a little bit more to less contemptuous -- if you like, you know, that can come across as a really talking down to people, which I try to avoid doing [Editor’s Note: Really?] but the -- we know, this is one of those things that's been documented again and again, if prices go up and wages also go up, people think that they earned the wage increase and that the price increase was done to them. And the -- you know, which is not the economist model. We think about wage price spirals and think of them as being kind of related. And -- but we did have a shocking, fairly brief, roughly two-year period of elevated inflation, which was probably not even U.S. policies because it happened everywhere…. Host Amanpour wrapped up the segment with nauseatingly fulsome praise. Amanpour: And we all benefited so much from his wisdom and his columns. Long may they continue wherever they are. December 21st, 2024 5:45 PM Clay Waters 287241 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jeffrey-lord/2024/12/21/now-we-learn-we-had-diminished-biden-charge-all-four-years Finally. For Americans wondering when the media will finally admit President Joe Biden is, in the words of Fox’s Sean Hannity, “a cognitive mess,”, light dawns. On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal carried the headline:  How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in Charge  Aides kept meetings short and controlled access, top advisers acted as go-betweens and public interactions became more scripted. The administration denied Biden has declined. The quadruple-bylined story, published on Friday's front page, underlined that Biden aides were trying to hide his decline in his first year in office. Our Curtis Houck noted the networks didn't touch it. The Journal story, among many things, referred back to another Journal story on Biden from July, headlined:   How Biden’s Inner Circle Worked to Keep Signs of Aging Under Wraps.  Aides kept a tight rein on the president’s travel plans, news conferences, public appearances and meetings with donors while Biden’s stumbles became increasingly obvious The dates of those two stories are a picture of exactly what has been wrong with the media coverage of the Biden presidency. One was in July, the second in December. Six months apart. The Journal deserves plaudits for running the stories at all, because they stand out in a mainstream media that should have been -- but wasn’t and isn’t -- on top of the clearly big story about the 46th president’s mental condition. Think back to media coverage of other troubled presidencies.  Their Watergate coverage made stars out of the Washington Post’s relentless young investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The stories of the Nixon scandal went from a trickle to a torrent. The two would turn out entire books on their story, one of which became a hit movie. Here’s but a promotional blurb from their first book, the bestselling All the President's Men, made into a movie:  “In what must be the most devastating political detective story of the century, the two young Washington Post reporters whose brilliant investigative journalism smashed the Watergate scandal wide open tell the whole behind-the-scenes drama the way it happened.” Move from the Nixon era to the Reagan era and the explosive Iran-Contra scandal. As a White House staffer back in the day, I well recall the seemingly endless flood of “inside the White House” stories that swirled around Reagan’s policies revolving around a young national security aide named Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North.  Move on to the Clinton era, and one finds this headline: Drudge says Newsweek sitting on Lewinsky story, Jan. 17, 1998 In a look back at the time period, Politico would later write:   “On this day in 1998, the Drudge Report carried an item on its website alleging that Newsweek magazine was sitting on a story exposing an affair between President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, a 22-year-old White House intern.” You get the picture. When a Republican was in the White House the media was relentless in following any and every last lead they could find, generating one story after another about the inside, scandalous operations of that presidency. But when it came to exposing the doings of Democrat Clinton, as Matt Drudge exposed, the mainstream media’s Newsweek had the goods on the Clinton-Lewinsky affair and sat on it. Finally the story making the spotlight with the arrival on the scene of Matt Drudge’s Internet sensation, the Drudge Report.  And now?  Where are the current media’s Watergate or Iran-Contra style relentless investigative reporting that rips the facade off the Biden White House and tells Americans what is really going on inside a White House where the President of the United States -- with the authority and access over the nuclear codes -- is seen by many as being a “cognitive mess.” The mere facts in the Wall Street Journal’s article reporting on a “Diminished Biden in Charge” and the fact that it hits the streets when Biden has barely a month left in his four year term speaks volumes about the state of the mainstream media. None of it good. Not unlike the days when Newsweek sat on its scoop about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, it is clear from the silence of most of the media on what’s really going on inside the Biden White House that they are more interested in protecting the left-leaning Biden then reporting the realities of his White House. One obvious question? Can you imagine if the president were Donald Trump and he was seen as a “cognitive mess”? The Trump White House would be besieged Watergate or Iran-Contra style with “journalists” demanding to see inside every last nook and cranny of the Trump White House, with an avalanche of stories about the president’s mental fitness to do his job. With January 20th looming, the Biden presidency is about to close shop. Perhaps with Biden gone, and with him the media’s felt -scandalous? - need to protect him from factual stories about his White House? Only then will the memoirs of this or that Biden aide make an appearance designed for the New York Times bestseller list that reveals what has really been going on inside a White House run by a president who is politely described by the Wall Street Journal as “a diminished leader.” Why wait for the tell-all books until now? December 21st, 2024 4:00 PM Jeffrey Lord 287236 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2024/12/21/cbs-springfield-ohio-victims-trumps-mass-deportation Right on the heels of PolitiFact declaring President-elect Donald Trump’s line about immigrants eating dogs and cats as the “Lie of the Year,” CBS Saturday Morning profiled legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, suggesting they would somehow suffer because of Trump’s promised mass deportation of illegal immigrants. Correspondent Nicole Valdes highlighted a Haitian restaurant owner, Ketly Moise, who is legally in the U.S. thanks to Temporary Protected Status granted by the Department of Homeland Security. Listening to Moise describe the violence she and her family endured in Haiti, Valdes asked, “How scared are you to have to go back to Haiti?” without ever explaining how a legal resident could be deported as part of a program aimed at the millions who illegally crossed the U.S. Southern border during the Biden administration. “Moise has watched her customers, employees, even daughter pack up and leave to other U.S. cities where they hope they won’t be targeted,” Valdes recounted. She asked Moise: “When your daughter told you she wanted to leave, did you think about also leaving?” “Yes, I keep thinking about that,” Moise replied. “ I don’t know where I’m going to go, but I keep thinking about it.” Valdes also talked to Moise’s cook, who showed a presumably gruesome (heavily blurred) picture of his brother who had been murdered, explaining that’s why he fled Haiti. Valdes asked, “Are you thinking about leaving because of the threat of deportation?” “Yes,” the man replied in his own language, with Valdes translating. Just this week, Trump’s incoming border czar, Tom Homan, made it clear that the deportation program will only target those in the U.S. illegally, prioritizing “criminals, gang members and fugitives” — like the gang currently tormenting the citizens of Aurora, Colorado. Yet instead of focusing on the problem of criminal illegal immigrants, CBS touted hardworking Haitian refugees who are legally in the U.S. as potential victims of Trump’s campaign pledge to restore order to the immigration process. It was to be expected. During the President-elect’s first term, liberal journalists routinely castigated Trump’s immigration policies as evil, even akin to something from Nazi Germany. Saturday’s piece suggests we’ll hear more of the same in 2025. Here’s a portion of the story as it aired on CBS Saturday Morning, followed by a full transcript (click “expand” to read it).   # CBS Saturday Morning December 21, 2024, 8:30am ET Co-host DANA JACOBSON: Welcome back to CBS Saturday Morning. We begin this half hour with the impact of one of Donald Trump’s key campaign pledges. The President-elect made mass deportation a pillar of his re-election bid. He has promised to deport millions of immigrants, including some who are currently living in the United States legally. Nicole Valdes visited Springfield, Ohio, the city that is home to a sizeable community of Haitian immigrants that became the epicenter of the deportation debate during the election. NICOLE VALDES: At the heart of a small Springfield, Ohio, shopping center stands Keket Bon Gout Caribbean restaurant, where every dish is a taste of home. Owner KETLY MOISE: I just boiled that. It takes a long, long time to cook. VALDES: That home is a a place Ketly Moise struggles to remember. MOISE, crying: I can’t talk a lot. VALDES: How scared are you to have to go back to Haiti? MOISE: I’m scared.... I lost my mom, they shot my mom with a gun. Bombed my business. My daughter, she’s almost die [sic]. VALDES: Haitian immigrants like Moise have lived and worked in Springfield for years, getting work permits through Homeland Security’s Temporary Protected Status program, as violence in Haiti soared. MOISE: I stay here. I do two job to make my business. That’s why I don’t wanna go back to Haiti. VALDES: As America prepares for the start of a new administration, one that’s vowed to begin – President-elect DONALD TRUMP: The largest deportation in the history of our country, and we’re going to start with Springfield. MOISE: Sometimes I feed 60 people. VALDES: 60? MOISE: 65. For now sometimes 20, 25. VALDES: How does that make you feel to see so many less people coming in? MOISE: I feel bad. But I can’t do nothing. VALDES: Moise has watched her customers, employees, even daughter pack up and leave to other U.S. cities where they hope they won’t be targeted. [to Moise] When your daughter told you she wanted to leave, did you think about also leaving? MOISE: Yes. I keep thinking about that. I don’t know where I’m going to go, but I keep thinking about it. VALDES: This cook shares similar grief. Oh my gosh. MOISE: He wanna show you why he left Haiti. VALDES: Showing us this photo [blurred picture on cell phone] of his brother who, he says, was brutally murdered in the country they once called home. Is that why you came here? MOISE, translating: Yeah. VALDES: Are you thinking about leaving because of the threat of deportation? [Foreign language spoken] Yes. VALDES: Palpable fear and evidence of what life could look like for those forced to return to Haiti. Lindsey Amy [ph?] helps run Springfield’s Haitian community help and support center. LINDSEY AMY: We’re not involved in drugs. We’re not involved in gun activity. So all we do is come to do is go to work, go to church, take our kids to school. VALDES: And he’s trying to help calm fellow Haitians after he’s been asked by many whether they, too, should leave town. AMY: Everybody tried to see if they can get themselves together, or try to not be the very first victim of the deportation. VALDES: What do you think the impact will be if you continue to see members of this community leave Springfield? AMY: The people who would leave Springfield, the migrants, people used to go to work everyday....They’re going to miss some good workers. Restaurant customer: We’re hoping and praying for all the — everybody that’s here, whether it’s temporary status, protection, everything works out the way it needs to work out. God somehow works everything out, you know. MOISE:  If you have God, you have everything. Customer: That’s right. VALDES: Faith fueling Moise’s motivation to keep cooking and stay in Springfield, while her business and her future hang in the balance. For CBS Saturday Morning, Nicole Valdes, Springfield, Ohio.   December 21st, 2024 1:02 PM Rich Noyes 287240 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/christian-toto/2024/12/21/justine-bateman-shames-hollywood-reporter-fake-news Justine Bateman said we can collectively breathe again following Donald Trump’s re-election. Decompressing from walking on eggshells for the past four years. — Justine Bateman (@JustineBateman) November 8, 2024 What does that mean? The actress-turned-filmmaker saw the results as a rebuke to those eager to silence debate, attack free speech and make select opinions untenable. Even if the vast majority of Americans hold them. That doesn’t mean she endorsed Trump, nor does she call herself conservative. She avoids political labels. She wants a free, robust return to free speech, American style. That should be a bipartisan clarion call, but it’s not in 2024. That explains why The Hollywood Reporter mischaracterized her interview with new media superstar Megyn Kelly this week. Bateman and Kelly explored a crush of topics, including free speech and the raging culture wars. Bateman saw the election results as a death knell for a “mob mentality momentum” that fueled Cancel Culture and diminished artistic creativity across Hollywood. Someone even wrote a book about that. “The last eight years, and most acutely last four years, were f***ing unbearable. Unbearable. I never want to go through anything like that again in my life. I truly don’t. It was the most un-American situation I’ve ever been in. And I’m 58.” The Hollywood Reporter noted the conversation in question. And, much like the site unfairly maligned conservative actor Nick Searcy earlier this year, they did something similar to Bateman. Consider the story’s original subhead: “Bateman is a well-known supporter of Donald Trump and frequently speaks out against those in Hollywood who criticize her for expressing her conservative views.” The magazine made that sentence up out of whole cloth. Bateman isn’t a Trump supporter. Nor is she a conservative. She’s aggressively apolitical. This isn’t an obscure blogger weighing in with false information. The Hollywood Reporter, along with Variety, are considered the dueling bibles of the entertainment field. And THR got the story wrong. Bateman used her X perch to call them out. .@zoegphillips @THR, what are you doing? Your assessment of me in this article is wildly inaccurate. I have always have a good relationship with THR, including interviews with Lesley Goldberg @Snoodit and Daniel Feinberg @TheFienPrint, and others there anytime they have asked… https://t.co/IYDCDqP1WB — Justine Bateman (@JustineBateman) December 19, 2024 To THR’s credit, the site updated the story and removed the erroneous information. It even included an editor’s note, although it didn’t fully address the issues with the original reportage. Updated Wednesday, Dec. 18, 11:06 p.m.: An earlier version of this story reported that Bateman is a supporter of Trump. She has not shared support for any presidential candidate in the 2024 election. Why would the site make such a glaring mistake? Two possibilities. Blame Trump Derangement Syndrome. The author’s rage against all things Trump saw Bateman’s comments as unabashedly pro-Trump even though she’s been clear in public statements that she’s hasn’t endorsed Trump or any other politician. The other possibility? The site’s lack of intellectual diversity meant no editor could stop the story from going or quickly retract it without Bateman’s intervention. There’s a third, more cynical option in play. The site wanted to tar Bateman as a MAGA activist to diminish her in the eyes of her Hollywood peers. We’ll never know the final answer, but it’s a sign that Bateman is looking forward while THR is stuck in the past.  December 21st, 2024 12:45 PM Christian Toto 287228 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2024/12/21/cnns-friday-night-fusillade-vs-musk-over-shutdown-didnt-happen Soon after the House on Friday night voted to advance a massive spending package and avoid a government shutdown (at least until March), CNN’s hosts and anchors targeted Elon Musk as the instigator of the “chaos,” “panic” and “madness” because he “threw a grenade” and “torpedoed” the backroom deal reached earlier in the week. “It was Elon Musk who first upended this process,” charged fill-in host Sara Sidner on Erin Burnett OutFront soon after 7pm ET. “It was Musk who began the panic and helped blow up a bipartisan agreement that was about to pass,” she insisted later in the same show. “Donald Trump and Elon Musk threw a grenade into a bipartisan deal to keep the government open,” NewsNight host Abby Phillip argued a few hours later. Both Sidner and Phillip opted to display fake A.I.-generated images, created by Democratic mischief-makers, of Musk as king and Trump as his court jester. During the 11pm ET hour, host Laura Coates chose to bring in longtime Musk critic Kara Swisher, who determined the entire episode was a waste of time. She said of Musk, “He couldn’t be satisfied. He just created a disaster and a mess, and it didn’t change anything.” During OutFront, Sidner also ticked off a list of what she said were false statements Musk had posted on X regarding the original spending package. She also pointed out how Musk was “riling some German lawmakers” by endorsing the AfD (Alternative for Germany) party which, Sidner explained, “one of its regional leaders has been convicted of using Nazi rhetoric.” For good measure, she also brought aboard Tesla shareholder Ross Gerber to complain about how Musk was ignoring his day job. “While he’s running the government,” Sidner snarked, “he’s being criticized for neglecting his day job as Tesla’s CEO.” Add it all up, and it reflects an obvious editorial decision by CNN to target Musk as the culprit behind the two-day kerfuffle over government funding. Here are transcripts of some of the key moments in CNN’s primetime coverage on Friday, December 20, 2024 (click expand to read them all): # CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront Fill-in host SARA SIDNER: The House voting to pass a last minute spending bill, just a few hours before a government shutdown would have gone into effect. Now it’s the Senate’s turn. It comes after two days of sheer chaos, spurred on by [the] President-elect and his unelected buddy....[montage of Democrats referring to “President Musk”] It was Elon Musk who first upended this process, furiously tweeting his opposition to the spending bill after a bipartisan deal was in place, the result of months of negotiations between both parties. ... SIDNER: The image of Musk as the one running the show, also being reinforced tonight on social media in ways Trump will likely not enjoy. This is A.I.-generated images of Musk as a puppeteer, pulling Trump’s strings, and [from] Democratic Congressman Mark Pocan, one of Musk as king there, and Trump in the court jester outfit there. How long before all of this gets under Donald Trumps skin? ... SIDNER: Musk pushed, repeatedly, false claims online. This is just a few of them, and we’ll lay them out for you. He said that the initial bill had a 40 percent pay hike for lawmakers. Totally false. It was less than 4 percent. Also claimed, quote, we’re funding bio weapon labs in this bill. Again, not true. And Musk retweeted a false claim that the bill included $3 billion for a new NFL stadium in D.C. — again, false. It only transferred control of RFK stadium to the D.C. government. All are still online, even though they’ve been repeatedly pointed out as being false by many different outlets. So was Musk gullible enough to fall for these false claims, or is this purposeful? Because he knows a lot of people are not going to go check up on him, especially those who follow and believe in him. ... SIDNER: Tonight, Elon Musk, on the heels of helping cause chaos in Congress that almost led to a government shutdown, he is now riling some German lawmakers by endorsing Germany’s far right political party in the upcoming election. Posting on X ‘only the AfD can save Germany.’ The German government has deemed AfD an extremist group. One of its regional leaders has been convicted of using Nazi rhetoric in Germany. The party takes a hard line on immigration. They are anti-immigration. It comes as the U.S. federal government just narrowly avoided a shutdown. It was Musk who began the panic and helped blow up a bipartisan agreement that was about to pass. And while he’s running the government, he’s being criticized for neglecting his day job as Tesla’s CEO. One of those critics is my next guest, Ross Gerber, president and CEO of Gerber Kawasaki and a long time major Tesla investor.... # CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 Fill-in host JIM SCIUTTO: Tonight on 360, two days after Elon Musk and Donald Trump torpedoed a bipartisan bill to pay for everything from air traffic controllers to disaster relief to the troops, and just hours before a government shutdown, House Republicans finally agree on a bill that can pass. ... SCIUTTO: Inside the Republican caucus, you see the disruptive capability of someone like Elon Musk with a single tweet. Is this a taste of what it is going to be like under Republican management as we begin the New Year? # NewsNight with Abby Phillip Host ABBY PHILLIP:  After Donald Trump and Elon Musk threw a grenade into the bipartisan deal to keep the government open, Congress is about to get its act together and avoid a shutdown. ... Former GOP Congressman CHARLIE DENT: There’s going to be a collision here between Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Elon Musk got way out in front of Donald Trump on this continuing resolution agreement. And, basically, Musk kneecapped Speaker Johnson, and Trump gave an assist. So, I have to think that, you know, Donald Trump can’t be too happy that Musk is trying to dictate how the Congress should operate. PHILLIP: But he went along with it. DENT: Well, he did. I mean, I can’t imagine he’s happy about this, though. He was kind of pushed aside. He was late to the parade in this case. But my question is was Elon Musk going rogue, or was he given direction? I got the sense he was going rogue. There are a lot of unhappy people about this whole circumstance. ... PHILLIP: “Take a look at this. This is what Democrats are doing to troll Elon Musk. This is an A.I.-generated image of Musk sitting at the king’s throne, and Trump as the jester. # Laura Coates Live Host LAURA COATES: Well, one of the men who played a key role in the madness we’ve seen on Capitol Hill this week received no votes and doesn’t even hold a government office. Of course, you know, I’m talking about Elon Musk, right? In an early test of his political might, the tech billionaire helped torpedo the original spending bill put forth by House Speaker Mike Johnson just earlier this week. Musk, then taking a kind of a victory lap tonight after the House passed their scaled down version, posting on X, ‘The Speaker did a good job here, given the circumstances. It went from a bill that weighed pounds to a bill that weighed ounces. Ball should now be in the Dem court.’ Well, joining me now to discuss, CNN contributor and podcast host Kara Swisher. So good to see you, my friend. Look, he must be pretty satisfied with himself and the spending bill tonight on X. I mean, how do you think he’s reacting behind the scenes? CNN contributor KARA SWISHER: Oh, he couldn’t be satisfied. He just created a disaster and a mess, and it didn’t change anything. I mean, it’s fine. Okay, the paperwork is lighter. I don’t know what to say — ‘Good for you, great job, we saved money on paper.’? But in general, there was no spending changes. Created a lot of chaos. I think it weakened Speaker Johnson, obviously, and even Donald Trump because they look chaotic once again. And, you know, Elon always says, you know — to me, every accusation is a confession with these people, like, he says he wins, and I don’t think he won.   December 21st, 2024 10:13 AM Rich Noyes 287238 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2024/12/21/pbs-anchor-geoff-bennett-quotes-washpost-elon-has-too-much-power-its The PBS NewsHour Friday night pundit panel of Jonathan Capehart and David Brooks took on the shutdown showdown. Anchor Geoff Bennett quoting from a “news report” from The Washington Post that sounds a lot like a liberal editorial, that Musk’s advising reeks of “oligarchy.” These people really have to keep insisting democracy on the wane: BENNETT: Jonathan, David mentioned Elon Musk. I mean, what about his influence? Because he led the rebellion against the initial bill, as you mentioned. And The Post reported that "his swift accumulation of political power has sparked criticism that the incoming Trump administration will function like an oligarchy." CAPEHART: Well, yes, because, remember, this all got started, not because Donald Trump weighed in first. Elon Musk weighed in. And he's the — he — I just start calling him the first buddy. He is in on all the phone calls. He's in on all the meetings. No one elected him to anything! no one! And yet Republicans on the Hill listened to what he had to say. Donald Trump listened to what he had to say. There's a reason why Democrats this week were calling — were saying — were calling him President Musk and then calling Donald Trump Donald Trump. PBS @NewsHour anchor Geoff Bennett quotes from The Washington Post that Elon Musk serving as a Trump adviser somehow reeks of "oligarchy." Jonathan Capehart protests: "No one elected him to anything!" Nobody elects the media either. pic.twitter.com/uYtA4Jq5xs — Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) December 21, 2024 No one elected journalists to run Washington, but here they are routinely intimidating politicians with their advice or critiques. David Brooks offered a little sanity, that gee, presidents have advisers, but he thinks this is very temporary:  “This bromance is going to end in tears. We're all — I give it 30 days, maybe 60 days, something like that. We're all going to be crying as they part ways and they start taking shots at each other.” But Brooks still suggested Trump and Musk don't know what they're doing: "My posture right now is let's let him try. He's got some instincts that are terrible and some instincts that are not terrible. And let's let him try. But change in government is just phenomenally hard. And you have to really know what you're doing. And neither Donald Trump nor Elon Musk really knows how the game is played." Then Bennett asked about Biden being nearly invisible in all this, and no one mentioned this week's reporting his long-running mental decline:  BENNETT: Jonathan, where was President Biden in all of this? And I raise the question because at one point Donald Trump posted on social media, if there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now under the Biden administration, not after January 20 under Trump, and no response from President Biden himself. He really seems to have abdicated the bully pulpit. CAPEHART: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Why should President Biden get in the middle of a Republican-on-Republican food fight melee? Why should he? If this were any other time, any other president, everyone would be saying the president is staying out of it because, when you're when your opponent is digging the hole, just let them dig the hole. Or he's staying out of it because his fellow Democrats don't want him to be the babbling center of attention. They just want to let him play president for another month and go away. December 21st, 2024 6:49 AM Tim Graham 287237 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2024/12/20/newsbusters-podcast-shameless-spending-and-shutdowns-paul-teller How will the latest shutdown showdown end? The media always use the threat of shutdowns to paint Republicans as heartless budget slashers, and that's especially fun for them at Christmas time. They paint federal employees as too broke to buy a Christmas tree.  Paul Teller, executive vice president of the group Advancing American Freedom talks about hopes for restricting federal spending in 2025 and beyond. AAF, founded by former vice president Mike Pence, has called for ending federal benefit programs tasked with helping illegal immigrants, prohibiting federal funding for programs that push diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and clawing back unspent COVID-19 money. They also want to halt hundreds of billions of dollars in student debt from being canceled via programs started by Biden’s Education Department, and get non-defense spending back to pre-COVID levels. In our "Best Notable Quotables of 1996," we had several amazing quotes underlining how the media exploit shutdown battles:  "Monuments and national parks are shut. So are museums. A long-awaited rare exhibit of the Dutch painter Vermeer at the National Gallery, eight years in the making, is closed. And the shutdown now has a human face. Joe Skattleberry and his wife Lisa both work for the government. Both have been furloughed. They can't afford a Christmas tree." -- ABC reporter Jack Smith, December 22, 1995 World News Tonight, the fifth day of the federal government shutdown. "In April, terrorists tried to kill them. Today politicians stopped their paychecks. In Oklahoma City's Social Security office, they're being ordered to work for nothing." -- Beginning of CBS reporter Scott Pelley's January 2 Evening News story on some federal workers being ordered to work during the shutdown. Now obviously, someone who has yet to miss a paycheck shouldn't be broke, and nobody was ordered to "work for nothing." They're always going to get paid.  Here we go again. The TV anchors and reporters parachute into a budget battle, and they have spent the year pretty much ignoring the mundane matter of Congress passing spending bills. The Senate has spent the year NOT passing any spending bills.  I think they presume this entire subject bores their viewers unless they can spotlight some human crisis. As much as the media love to pose about the partisan fray and tsk-tsk the politicians for failing to arrive at a solution, they are not part of the solution. They are part of the problem. They don't care about the deficit or the national debt, unless there is Republican-shaming to be done. The Democrats are emboldened to careen toward a shutdown because they know the Democrat media will do their messaging. The blackmail machine kicks into gear, with the whole bureaucrats-can’t-afford-a-Christmas-tree garbage. Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts. December 20th, 2024 10:50 PM Tim Graham 287235 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mary-clare-waldron/2024/12/20/msnbcs-ruhle-republicans-want-cut-funds-children-cancer Stephanie Ruhle took shots at Republicans in their Congressional struggle between a government shutdown and raising spending during her segment on Thursday during The 11th Hour. Claiming their tactics of running the government like a business as incomplete, Ruhle made digs towards the party’s choice in cutting programs. Though David Drucker provided pushback explaining the eventual need for government cuts, Ruhle replied with petty insinuations, including the cartoonish claim they’re fine with kids dying of cancer. As the news focuses on the potential of another government shutdown, the blame has been thrown especially at the Republican Party. Yet Drucker points out the impossible balance of cutting the Government's spending in relation to constituent sentiments: It’s because voters don't want to touch spending. They want to cut spending that goes to other people, but they don't think it's necessary. And those other people, Stephanie, want to cut spending that goes to other people that they don't think is necessary. And you have 435 members of congress plus the 100 senators, and they all have constituents, they were all elected, they all feel like they have whatever mandate they feel they have to continue spending the money that they either promised to spend, not cut the money they said they wouldn’t cut(...)     Though Drucker provided a fairer view of the situation, Stephanie did not leave without just one more complaint against the Republican Party. As discussed previously, Ruhle complained about the cut from pediatric cancer research, one of many changes made following the first failed bill. Yet following Drucker’s explanation, which Ruhle seemed to ignore entirely, she finished her segment with an unfair conclusion for the Republicans: DRUCKER: We have entitlement programs that keep going up every single year on a formula, and eventually, a president is going to go on the air one day and say, “Unless we make emergency cuts, nobody gets checks next week.” But until the American people are willing to embrace cuts rather than wait for that day, nothing will happen. RUHLE: So whose program doesn’t get protected? children with cancer, children with cancer. I guess they don’t vote. With this, Ruhle headed for the break, leaving viewers with an incomplete understanding, yet again, as to what the real conversation referred to, and to what part the Republican Party played in it.   December 20th, 2024 7:02 PM Mary Clare Waldron 287231 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2024/12/20/doocy-vindicated-networks-ignore-bombshell-wsj-story-bidens Now that the coast is (largely) clear, the liberal media and their Biden administration sources have increasingly come out of the woodwork to sound off on the President’s reportedly paper-thin mental fitness to have fully served the last four years. With 50 sources, Thursday’s Wall Street Journal item was devastating, but of no concern to ABC, CBS, and NBC on their flagship newscasts Thursday night and Friday morning. The four-byline story’s headline and subhead spoke volumes: “How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in Charge; Aides kept meetings short and controlled access, top advisers acted as go-betweens and public interactions became more scripted. The administration denied Biden has declined.” Whether it was his early 2023 interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur, the 2021 collapse of Afghanistan, or even the 2020 presidential campaign, The Journal piece revealed entire cabinet agencies were run with little direct input from the President and major decisions were done when explained in elementary detail to him or done on one of his “good days.” On Friday’s Fox & Friends, The Journal article came up 15 minutes into the show with co-host Brian Kilmeade calling it an “explosive report” with senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy summarizing the 3,600-word story. Peter had to have felt at least some validation as he recalled early 2021 when President Biden “was walled off” for what Americans had been told was to avoid Covid exposure, “but then he stayed walled off.”     He then read one devastating passage: [I]t comes with this quote: “If the President was having an off day, meetings could be scrapped all together. On one such occasion in the spring of 2021, a national security official explained to another aide why a meeting needed to be rescheduled. ‘He has good days and bad days and today was a bad day, so we’re going to address this tomorrow,’ the former aide recalled the official saying.” The President showed natural signs of aging but key allies always stuck their necks out to say no big deal. Doocy reminded viewers he “had a front row seat to a lot of this and at various times was basically told not to believe what I was seeing or hearing” and instead buy the excuses of Biden misspeaking or having “a cold.” Kilmeade replied by pointing out this wasn’t the first bombshell Journal article about Biden’s health with one having come months earlier (on June 4) to serve as a “dip[ping] their toe in the water on this very topic and they got blasted.” He then added: You’ve gotten blasted when you’ve questioned the President’s acuity...[T]hey talk about “interaction between Biden and many of his cabinet members were infrequent, often tightly scripted. One cabinet member stopped requesting calls with the President because it was clear that such a request wouldn’t be welcome”...Adam Smith, who is chairman of Armed services, tried to tell the President how bad Afghanistan could turn out, he couldn’t get to him. This is cataclysmic. Doocy stated the obvious that the stories in the article have “raise[d] a lot of questions about who was making key decisions — you mentioned the Afghanistan withdrawal” and, if the claims are true, that’s “a huge problem and it could explain why certain decisions were made that turned out to be catastrophic and why no apologies ever paid.”     The Fox correspondent passed along a stunning finding from the article about cabinet meetings and also explained how things he had heard about Biden’s mental incapacitation were only second-hand (and thus not something able to be reported with certainty) (click “expand”): PETER DOOCY: [W]hen the cabinet met all nine times, which is the least in the last several decades that a president has had their whole cabinet together in an entire term, there was a different item a few months ago where cabinet secretaries were being asked to submit their questions for the President behind closed doors in advance and they were being told to keep it quick because the way it worked they would ask a question pre-screened and the President would have a card with the answer even in a closed setting. And I hear a lot of the complaints and there was a bite in the open — why wasn’t there more coverage of the president’s age and acuity earlier? Well, a lot of the stories that you hear — STEVE DOOCY: You kept asking. PETER DOOCY: — I — I kept asking the whole time. And a lot of the stories that we would hear that we would try to report out are second hand. But it’s a lot of stuff like “oh,” — you would hear from somebody on the staff or somebody that works at the White House — “it looked like the President was falling asleep somewhere.” Okay. Hard to confirm that but we have tape of him falling asleep — KILMEADE: Yes, yes, right. PETER DOOCY: — at events as recently as his most recent foreign trip. Before shifting topics, co-host Lawrence Jones blasted the irony of the D.C. “talking about the Republican Party right now and who’s debating this bill and Elon Musk,” but the real question should be “who is running the country right now?” For her part, co-host Ainsley Earhardt wondered how the Abbey Gate families must feel hearing that, even in those moments of crisis, Biden was distant. Kilmeade wrapped it up: I think that this disqualifies Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Kamala Harris, KJP — they all lied to us. They told us he was fine. Campaigned to get him another four years until he fell apart in June. And they hid this from the country...And Jill! And she was the most complicit. Instead, the networks had other priorities such as NBC Nightly News advocating for a requirement to have guns include a magazine disconnect mechanism, nearly seven minutes (6:56) on Friday’s CBS Mornings celebrating co-host Gayle King’s birthday, and two minutes on ABC’s Good Morning America reminding those traveling this holiday season that airport parking is a disaster. To see the relevant Fox News Channel transcript from December 20, click here. December 20th, 2024 3:12 PM Curtis Houck 287230 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2024/12/20/too-speculative-judge-axes-cnn-witnesss-claims-ahead CNN is set to ring in the New Year in a Panama City, Florida courtroom (on January 6) as they try to defend themselves from a $1 billion defamation lawsuit. But before they even got there the network got hit with a set back in the form of getting witness testimony partially axed by the judge. Judge William Scott Henry of Florida’s 14th Circuit Court ordered that CNN’s expert witness on alleged damages to U.S. Navy veteran and Plaintiff Zachary Young was “too speculative” and not qualified to claim CNN’s reporting didn’t harm Young’s income. In an order exclusively obtained by NewsBusters, Judge Henry noted that CNN retained the services of Brian Buss “to opine regarding Young’s lost income/profits and mitigation of damages, and as a rebuttal witness to Plaintiffs’ expert.” Judge Henry’s summary of Buss’s written testimony thus far asserts that, among other things, Young did not experience any loss of income as a result of CNN’s allegedly defamatory reporting: In formulating his opinions, Mr. Buss reviewed documentation produced by Plaintiffs regarding past income, including tax returns, employment contracts, bank statements and other financial reports and records, along with deposition testimony. After analyzing these items, Mr. Buss opined: Plaintiffs did not experience a decline in personal income or business profits as a result of Defendant’s publications Any loss of income was the result of an employment contract ending and Plaintiffs not bseeking additional employment Plaintiffs did not invest in new business activities after the publications Any financial losses experienced by Plaintiffs are likely the result of factors other than the publications The filing does say that much like one of Young’s economic damages witness, “Mr. Buss laid out to prepare an opinion regarding lost income/profits is a standard recognized method – review pre-incident income and compare such to post-incident income.” Adding: “Based on his education, training and experience, the Court is satisfied that Mr. Buss is reasonably qualified to render such a calculation and opinion.” But further, Judge Henry said Buss “goes too far in ultimately opining that Defendant’s publications had no effect on Plaintiffs’ income.” According to Judge Henry’s explanation, Buss goes too far in trying to attribute a cause to the decline in Young’s income, essentially suggesting that he (Buss) does trust Young’s claims that others in the security contracting world wouldn’t talk to him, and that determining trust is outside his qualifications: While he could certainly talk about the expiring contract and lack on [sic] recurring revenue, his ultimate conclusion was essentially “Plaintiffs did not provide proof that no one would talk to him or hire him because of the publications, and therefore he lost no income because of the publications.” If he was performing forensic consulting work or acting as a certified financial analyst for a business in a private setting, this type of conclusion may be appropriate. However, for purposes of rendering such opinion, which in essence was that “I do not believe Plaintiffs that no one would talk to them because they have shown me that people wouldn’t,” that does not pass evidentiary muster. For this purpose, he would be acting as the arbiter of truthfulness and credibility, which is the jury’s job and not something for which Mr. Buss is qualified. In finalizing his order on what Buss could attest to, Judge Henry says he would be permitted to discuss “what the documentation demonstrated in terms of pre-publication income and prospects of ongoing revenues, what items of revenue were not recurring or future expected income, and what Plaintiffs did or did not do to obtain income after the date of the publications.” As for what couldn’t be discussed, “concluding that Plaintiffs suffered zero lost income/profits as a result of the publications is too speculative and beyond Mr. Buss’ qualifications for the reasons discussed above.” In response to the ruling, Young’s lead counsel Vel Freedman (Freedman Normand Friedland LLP) told NewsBusters, “We are pleased with the Court’s ruling, but our attention remains with getting the case ready for trial.” As NewsBusters previously reported, CNN had already suffered numerous defeats ahead of the trial. CNN’s comments about the Fox News settlement with Dominion Voting Systems were looking like they could come back to bite them. We’re also still waiting to hear Judge Henry’s opinion on accusations against CNN that they misled the court on producing key financial documents needed for a possible punitive damages reward. December 20th, 2024 1:10 PM Nicholas Fondacaro 287229 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mark-finkelstein/2024/12/20/morning-joe-michael-tomasky-blames-right-wing-media-trump Michael Tomasky was back on Morning Joe today, beating his dour, one-note samba: right-wing media is the root of all evil. Last month, we caught New Republic editor Tomasky blaming conservative media for Kamala Harris's defeat. He even claimed that right-wing media is more powerful than the MSM. As we wrote: "If only!" Today, Tomasky blamed right-wing media, singling out Rupert Murdoch for particular opprobrium, for Trump's current popularity, as reflected in majority support for his handling of the transition. Trump has nominated "unqualified extremists" across the board, and yet the public approves of the transition. He doesn't blame "people," he blames Fox. "First and foremost, I blame Rupert Murdoch and, to a lesser extent, his imitators, whose media properties have injected so much poison and so many lies into our discourse since 1977 that common civic agreement about basic morality in public life has become impossible." "Common civic agreement about basic morality." Translation: when the liberal media set the agenda. Care for an example from the liberal media of that "common civic agreement about basic morality" and "what kinds of actions did and did not reflect our best values?" Try this bit of rank, rancid bigotry in a description of the South: "Reactionary, prejudice-infested, fetid, reject[ing] nearly everything that’s good about this country, just one big nuclear waste site of choleric, and extremely racialized, resentment." The author? Michael Tomasky, as we caught him ten years ago. Tomasky approvingly cited John Dean asserting that if Fox News were around in 1973-74, Nixon would have survived Watergate. And yet, though Fox News was alive and well in recent times, that didn't prevent the Democrats from twice impeaching Trump and indicting him for 90-plus felonies in several separate criminal cases. Note: Tomasky, in both word and mien, has to be the most lugubrious guy in the liberal media. Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 12/20/24 6:31 am ET JONATHAN LEMIRE: So, Michael Tomasky, in your latest article for the New Republic, which is titled, "The Real Reason Why Americans Approve of Trump's Disastrous Transition," you write in part this. "How can it be, you may be wondering, that 55% of Americans tell pollsters they approve of how Donald Trump is handling the transition? He has nominated almost, but not quite literally across the board, unqualified extremists. I don't blame people," you say. "I blame the larger culture, which has been almost totally drained of common concern about our civic health.  "First and foremost, I blame Rupert Murdoch and, to a lesser extent, his imitators, whose media properties have injected so much poison and so many lies into our discourse since 1977 that common civic agreement about basic morality in public life has become impossible." You go on.  "We had a basic understanding about what kinds of actions did and did not reflect our best values. And this was why Richard Nixon had to resign in disgrace for committing far fewer offenses than Trump already has. Everyone, whatever their politics, agreed that Nixon had clearly crossed a line. But that impulse is dead in the United States, and the right-wing media killed it. Michael, a powerful piece tell us more about your argument about the right-wing media. What it's done, and do you see any way that this civic bond, this civic concern can be repaired? MICHAEL TOMASKY: Uh, I'm not very hopeful about that, Jonathan, unfortunately. You know, John Dean famously said a few years ago that if Fox News had existed in 1973-74, Richard Nixon would have survived Watergate. I think that's probably true.  December 20th, 2024 11:19 AM Mark Finkelstein 287227 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mary-clare-waldron/2024/12/20/sunny-hostin-claims-aoc-not-far-left-only-demonized-gop As more Democrats are losing House seats, following the Republican presidential win, the Democratic Party has been questioning its up-and-coming leaders. In reviewing this discussion, The View’s Sunny Hostin was appalled on Wednesday, claiming persecution against young Democratic lawmakers such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) by Republicans. The ABC co-host claimed that Ocasio-Cortez’s political beliefs were not so left-leaning, aligned with most of young Americans, and should be considered basic stances by the Democratic Party. These outrageous opinions surrounding AOC, by Hostin stemmed from the criticism mounting against young leaders. Sunny continued with her outrageous claims that the stances of AOC should be commonly held and not “demonized,” even claiming they should be “everybody issues.” HOSTIN: She has been demonized by the right, and she's been demonized as this, like, too progressive far-left person, and I want to set -- try to set the record straight cause if she is too progressive, then the Democrats really are going to lose the working class. Because this is her platform: The key issues, health care for all people, affordable housing, rebuild the unions, federal job guarantee, free public college, create clean energy jobs, pay parental leave and expand protections for the LGBTQ+ community.      Sunny decried that “If that is too progressive for this country, then that's a problem for the Democrats, and that's a problem, quite frankly for this country.” These extreme comments, which normally go unchecked on The View, were countered by the token “Conservative” on the show, Alyssa Farah Griffin. Griffin pointed out that some of AOC’s stances were in no way generally accepted in the U.S. electorate, especially when it comes to healthcare: Most Americans think they want to have some choice and optionality in their healthcare. There is a reason Obamacare did not have the public option. That's not where the majority of the country is. I would argue that AOC is definitely too left for the majority of the country. This was reminiscent of when Hostin claimed back in July that, much like her, Vice President Kamala Harris wasn’t far left. “Well, to be clear, she's pretty moderate also. She's pretty moderate also,” she said at the time, “…former prosecutors aren’t leftist.” With Hostin’s comments furthering progressive ideology as common views, Griffin created a reality check amongst a panel of one-sided, and out-of -touch opinions.   The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’S THE VIEW  12/18/2024 11: 04 16 AM EST (...) SUNNY HOSTIN: The other thing that I will say is about AOC, she has been demonized by the right, and she's been demonized as this, like, too progressive far left person, and I want to set -- try to set the record straight cause if she is too progressive, then the Democrats really are going to lose the working class, because this is her platform: The key issues, healthcare for all people, affordable housing, rebuild the unions, federal job guarantee, free public college, create clean energy jobs, pay parental leave and expand protections for the LGBTQ+ community. If that is too progressive for this country, then that's a problem for the Democrats, and that's a problem, quite frankly for this country. (…) 11:05:05 AM EST HOSTIN: Well, healthcare for all should be an everybody issue. ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: But the devil is in the details because a lot of is country does not support, for example, the Green New Deal which would absolutely crush jobs across the country, wreak havoc on the econo– SUNNY: It would create millions of jobs actually– ALYSSA: It would make, it would actually make international travel virtually impossible to do because of some of the regulations that have been placed. Universal healthcare. You should have, of course, anyone who needs emergency coverage, people should have catastrophic coverage but most Americans think they want to have some choice and optionality in their healthcare. There is a reason Obamacare did not have the public option. That's not where the majority of the country is. I would argue that AOC is definitely too left for the majority of the country… December 20th, 2024 9:16 AM Mary Clare Waldron 287221 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2024/12/20/column-shocker-politifact-tags-trump-lie-year-7th-time Don’t call PolitiFact an “independent fact-checker.” When they assemble to select their “Lie of the Year,” they have singled out Donald Trump in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, and 2021. No Democrat has been tagged with this dishonor since Trump arrived on the scene. It was Trump again this year, as PolitiFact tweeted: “A lie marked a town and its residents in the name of campaign rage. It was absurd. It was consequential. Our Lie of the Year goes to Donald Trump and JD Vance for false claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pet dogs and cats.” This was an unproven accusation in a presidential debate. It’s also exactly the pick you expect if you only poll liberals. Everything in the “fact checking” racket is about target selection. Republicans are “fact checked” more, and get harsher ratings for dishonesty. PolitiFact reported “eating the pets” won in a “landslide” in their readers’ poll, with 54 percent. The second-place finisher was also Trump: the argument that FEMA is spending its disaster dollars on illegal migrants drew 17 percent. In fact, if you look at the 10 items PolitiFact listed for readers, the Trump side – including Vance, Elon Musk, and Marjorie Taylor Greene – drew 88 percent of the votes! “Joe Biden won’t pardon Hunter Biden” was on the ballot, and it drew six percent. But they don’t call that a lie. That’s a “Full Flop.” Now let’s list a bunch of blatant falsehoods the Democrats will not put on a Lie of the Year ballot: Joe Biden is sharp as a tack, the best version of Biden ever (see Joe Scarborough). Inflation is “falling.” (Prices haven’t.) Donald Trump was found “liable for rape” by a Manhattan jury. Kamala Harris was never the “border czar.” January 6 was “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War” (see Kamala Harris). Trump’s election would coincide with the end of American democracy. Let’s hope that will look like their Big Lie in the years to come. The Democrats abruptly replacing Biden with Harris would never be categorized as undemocratic. PolitiFact’s Maria Ramirez Uribe, one of the co-authors of the 3,500-word “Lie of the Year” report, was actually sent to Springfield, Ohio, in September. That article began with a sympathetic Haitian immigrant. “Vilbrun Dorsainvil said he fled his home country, Haiti, after someone tried to kidnap him. Three years later, he says he’s afraid for his and his community’s safety in the U.S.” He feared a mass shooting. The Left always smells racism and xenophobia whenever mass immigration causes anxiety among the natives. They naturally and staunchly side with recent migrants over native-born Americans. Uribe and her “Lie of the Year” co-author Amy Sherman touted a commenter to the United Way: “We choose love over lies. You are welcome here.” They were deeply invested in playing up “hate speech” and death threats. Uribe described “Dozens of bomb threats at schools, grocery stores, and government buildings. The police department sent an officer to protect churchgoers at a Haitian Creole Sunday afternoon mass. Haitian restaurant owners and schoolchildren heard taunts from people using Trump’s words.” In other words, Trump spreads “racist tropes.” This can sound more like Democrat campaign communication than “fact checking.” Uribe minimized all the social problems and taxpayer costs from massive immigration in Springfield as mere “growing pains,” without questioning the wave, and how Team Biden facilitated it. “Fact checking” is often spin-spoiling, and PolitiFact clearly hates the spin that mass importation is a serious problem that should be solved with mass deportation…and they hate that voters favor mass deportation. December 20th, 2024 5:57 AM Tim Graham 287225 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2024/12/20/regime-media-very-reluctant-report-fani-willis-dismissal It appears that the Regime Media, which just a few months ago breathlessly covered every aspect of civil and criminal litigation against former and future President Donald J. Trump, now have little interest in updating the status of one of the pending trials. There was nary a peep on the network evening newscasts about the disqualification of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the trial involving President Donald Trump. The most comprehensive report on evening network news comes via NBC. Below are all 24 seconds of that report: NBC NIGHTLY NEWS 12/19/24 6:39 PM LESTER HOLT: In Georgia, a legal victory today for President-Elect Trump. An appeals court disqualified Fani Willis from prosecuting the Georgia election interference case against Mr. Trump. The appeals court said a lower court was wrong in allowing Willis to keep the case despite a  romantic relationship with the lawyer she brought in to manage the prosecution. Holt’s use of “legal victory today” within the context of the ramifications of the disqualification ruling seems unusually muted. Anodyne, even. Consider how Willis’s hometown paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, covered that same ruling: The Georgia Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office should be disqualified from the 2020 election interference case, a bombshell decision that upends the last remaining criminal case against incoming President Donald Trump. After hyping up the weaponization of state and federal governments against Trump, there is a collective shrug now that the last case against Trump would appear to begin to vanish. It bears repeating that NBC’s 24 seconds are the most thorough presentation of Willis on the big three network newscasts. ABC’s reaction to the disqualification was just as brief: MARY BRUCE: And David, tonight, another headline related to Donald Trump. This one about his election interference case in Georgia. The States’ Court of Appeals disqualifying Willis, the prosecutor who brought the case against Trump and his allies because of a relationship she had with a lawyer who she hired to prosecute the case. Now, the indictment still stands, but tonight Donald Trump is celebrating the move. These miserly 20 seconds and NBC’s 24 seconds far eclipse CBS, which could not even be bothered to cover the Willis disqualification.  As the Regime Media shift back to Resistance Media, we can expect a continued dilution of the kinds of stories that make Democrats look bad.   December 20th, 2024 1:42 AM Jorge Bonilla 287226 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/dawn-slusher/2024/12/20/alanis-morissette-misgenders-jesus-newly-released-version Alanis Morissette has been enjoying renewed fame lately, touring across the country this year following the hit Broadway show Jagged Little Pill, which is based on her music. So, it was a pleasant surprise at first when she released her version of a classic and cherished Christmas carol, “O Holy Night.” But in the second part of her version of the song, Morissette blasphemously misgenders Jesus as “she,” all in the name of “peace and healing.” You Oughta Know, Morissette, so we’re here to remind you of the mess you made when you trashed this beloved song and insulted Christians who love and worship the God of the Bible. The song actually starts off lovely, and it’s surprising to hear her sing about “our dear Savior’s birth.” It lulls you into thinking she’s actually going to be respectful of Christianity, despite her feminist, woke history, including her playing "God" in the 1999 Kevin Smith movie Dogma. She sings the first verse and chorus quite beautifully: O Holy night! The stars are brightly shining It is the night of our dear Savior's birth Long lay the world in sin and error pining 'Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn Fall on your knees; O hear the Angel voices! O night divine, O night when Christ was born O night, O Holy night, O night divine! However, when she sings the third verse (skipping the second) at minute 2:00 in the video, she begins referring to Jesus as “she”: Truly she taught us to love one another; Her law is love and her gospel is peace. Chains shall she break for the slave is our brother; And in her name all oppression shall cease. Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we, Let all within us praise her holy name. If Jesus had been transgender (female to male), Morissette would likely consider it offensive if anyone referred to Him as “she.” I thought the woke left was supposed to respect how someone “identifies" and was all about using their preferred pronouns. The artist posted an announcement of her version of the song on X, writing, “Happy and healing holidays to you and yours”: happy and healing holidays to you and yours. so grateful to you each 😭 what a year. 🎄🕎✨ sharing my version of one of my favorite holiday songs "o holy night" 💝 you can listen now on youtube ✨ https://t.co/wnMTR4mmKR pic.twitter.com/3SRGhAHcfk — Alanis Morissette (@Alanis) December 19, 2024 There's nothing happy or healing about twisting the sacred beliefs of billions of Christians around the world and disrespecting their God. Jesus was a man. Plain and simple. To blaspheme Him and trash such a beautiful, classic song that’s been around since 1843 (especially with the line, “Let all within us praise her holy name”) during one of the holiest times of the year for Christians is just complete and utter disrespect to God and all who worship Him. December 20th, 2024 12:55 AM Dawn Slusher 287224 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/clay-waters/2024/12/19/pbs-amanpour-laments-medias-kiss-ring-progression-mar-lago Amanpour & Co. host Christiane Amanpour talked to former Washington Post executive editor Martin Baron about Trump’s “massive chilling effect” on the press on Wednesday, and added another metaphor to describe the media supposedly bowing down to Trump’s threats (since when!). Christiane Amanpour: ….in the United States, the press is facing legal assault from the incoming president, Donald Trump. He's suing the Des Moines Register newspaper over its covering polling which showed Kamala Harris ahead in Iowa days before the election. She asked Baron how "the next administration can come after" the press: Amanpour: And ABC News has agreed to a $15 million settlement to Trump over a defamation case he brought against him. This is happening in America, which has constitutional protections for press freedom. Other democracies that are around the world do not and some of them are coming after the press too. It's a trend that deeply concerns my next guest, the former executive editor of The Washington Post, Marty Baron, and he's joining me now from Massachusetts….So lay out how you think the next administration can come after us. I mean, it is us in the big sense. What tools can they use? Martin Baron: ….I think they are salivating for the opportunity to prosecute journalists for leaks of supposed national security information. I think that they've already threatened to revoke the licenses for stations affiliated with the – with some of the major networks. They are already, as you mentioned, likely to sue a lot of media outlets for supposed defamation and other supposed offenses…. Amanpour ran a clip from President-elect Donald Trump justifying his suit, including "we have to straighten out the press. Our press is very corrupt.” Amanpour: You know, that's a horrible thing to hear, frankly, that our press is very corrupt. Do you think that lands with people?.... The press remained blameless in Baron’s view. He never once stopped to wonder if perhaps the press had made fatal mistakes or engaged in partisan coverage which contributed to the decline in public confidence. Baron: Well, certainly there's a large segment of the American public who do not have a confidence in the mainstream press, and I understand that. There's been a decline in confidence in all institutions in our country, from the presidency to the Congress to banks to major businesses, the medical community, religious institutions, pretty much everybody, and the press is certainly in there and has suffered a lot. I think the intent here is, as you say, to intimidate the press…. Amanpour responded with a tedious cliché, employed whenever a reporter is challenged by a Republican, quoting partisan Democrat lawyer Marc Elias, never mentioning he's a partisan Democrat. Amanpour: That's absolutely true, and I wonder whether you think that it's also going to lead to a sort of a mass self-censorship, because presumably it's going to have a massively chilling effect. Look, an elections lawyer, Marc Elias, posted after the ABC settlement for $15 million and an apology by ABC and George Stephanopoulos said, ‘knee bent, ring kissed, another legacy news outlet chooses obedience.’ And just to be clear, Stephanopoulos had said in an interview that Trump was found, quote, "liable for rape in the E. Jean Carroll case." In fact, he was found liable for sexual abuse. Do you think Marc Elias, the election lawyer's characterization is accurate? Baron: Well, I think it trends in the right direction. I don't know that I would use language quite that strong….ABC News did make a mistake in the way that they characterized it. But he said that in common parlance, it would be considered rape. So, that -- there was a strong defense that ABC News had, and it caved. And it probably caved for a variety of reasons… None of Baron’s reasons included an obvious one, the discovery process, which would risk uncovering potentially embarrassing internal communications from ABC News that would confirm the news network’s inexorable hostility toward Trump.  Amanpour moved on to another metaphor, the supposed idea of quivering media lickspittles making pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago to kiss King Trump’s ring. Amanpour: Yes. And we're seeing quite a lot of media and like the tech streaming titans and all the rest of it making, you know, sort of a kiss-the-ring progression to Mar-a-Lago. She pivoted to the “Pete Hegseth drama,” Hegseth's nomination for Secretary of Defense and the resulting “MAGA swarm [that] came at” the press, and asked Baron: Amanpour: What do you make of the fact that the right-wing media sphere, as it's described, had disproportionate success during the election campaign, whether it's Fox News, whether it's radio stations, whether it's the right-wing trending podcasters, they had a huge influence and more mainstream or even liberal-leaning ones were left thinking, oh, my gosh, how do we compete with this alternative media sphere? Baron agreed that in today’s “much more fragmented media environment today….right-wing media has been ascendant.” But he also twice denied the election results were “a referendum on the media,” acknowledging instead “people's concerns about real issues” like inflation. Amanpour asked about the owner of Baron’s old paper, The Washington Post, which declined to endorse for president in 2024 (again with a Donald the King metaphor): “Did you have a timing issue with it, or do you think it's just, again, bending the knee in this case?” Baron basically agreed, albeit in less fiery terms than what he told NPR at the time. Since the paper began regular endorsements in 1976, the Post has solely endorsed Democrats for president (Michael Dukakis didn't get one in 1988), and the progressives at the Post were mightily peeved at Bezos's decision. December 19th, 2024 10:11 PM Clay Waters 287223 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/michael-wnek/2024/12/19/colbert-criticizes-stupid-abc-news-settlement-trump-suit CBS’s Stephen Colbert delivered his usual round of lackluster one-liners during his news summary on Wednesday night’s episode of The Late Show. After a couple digs at Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-SC) and astronauts stranded in space, the host pivoted to the latest on President-elect Trump and the $15 million settlement in his defamation suit with ABC News; the first time a show on CBS has mentioned the settlement. Colbert began by referring to a new lawsuit Trump filed against Iowa pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register for a poll that falsely reflected him trailing behind Vice President Kamala Harris, whom Colbert affectionately called “the nice lady who didn't do the crimes.”  The host ridiculed the president-elect for demanding accountability, wondering, “So now it's interference just to get a prediction wrong,” before following up with a lame Punxsutawney Phil comparison.     Perhaps Colbert should have checked himself before milking the joke any further but he continued with a comment on the lawsuit’s claim that the newspaper favored Harris “through the use of a leaked and manipulated poll.” “It's true. The Des Moines Register leaked its poll where you'd least expect it: in the Des Moines Register,” he scoffed to the apparently immense hilarity of his studio audience.  If Colbert spent more time doing his research and committing to at least a minimal standard of accuracy in his lousy jokes, he would quickly find that a probe had been launched into a possible leak of the poll’s findings, which occurred before it was officially published. In fact, what Colbert dismissed as a simple “prediction” was sufficiently important for a Semafor article to label it a “bombshell” poll. And while polling involves a certain amount of estimation, Selzer herself admits that her thirty years in the profession led to an A+ Nate Silver rating which “never dropped.” Evidently confused by the reason for the lawsuit, CBS’s host questioned his audience, “Why is this stupid thing stupidly happening?” He concluded that the only explanation was “the stupid, stupid thing ABC did,” specifically their agreement to the settlement in the defamation suit as well as an apology to Trump. This prompted Colbert to issue a mock challenge to “the president” for “bully[ing] the media into never saying anything bad about him” before abruptly changing the topic, as if to perpetuate the regime media’s new pet fear of the “chilling effect” they are convinced will follow as a result of ABC’s settlement.  The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert 12/18/2024 11:42:51 PM EST STEPHEN COLBERT: Back on Earth–back earthside, remember that Iowa poll that came out right before the election that showed Trump losing the state by three to four points to the nice lady who didn't do the crimes? Well, uh, Trump remembers because yesterday, we found out that Trump is suing Iowa pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register newspaper for that poll, claiming they were seeking “accountability for brazen election interference." You won!  [Laughter] COLBERT: So now it's interference just to get a prediction wrong? Well in that case, Punxsutawney Phil, you better lawyer up, buttercup… [Laughter and applause] COLBERT: …if you ever want to see your shadow again.  [Cheers and applause] COLBERT: I got another one. I got another there for you. The lawsuit says the defendants favored the Democratic nominee, quote “through the use of a leaked and manipulated poll.” It's true. The Des Moines Register leaked its poll where you'd least expect it: in the Des Moines Register.  [Laughter and applause] COLBERT: Same way I leak my opinion every night at 11:30, 10:30 central, following your local news sports and weather leaks. So, why–wait, why–the question is–this is the question, my friends: why is this stupid thing stupidly happening? My guess,  because of the stupid, stupid thing ABC did. You see, this weekend, ABC News agreed to pay $15 million and issued an apology to settle a defamation lawsuit. And if the president… [Crowd boos] COLBERT: If the president thinks he can bully the media into never saying anything bad about him, well…What else is going on? (...) December 19th, 2024 9:52 PM Michael Wnek 287222 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2024/12/19/whoopi-claims-musk-vance-plotting-trumps-murder-blames-her The loony liberals of ABC News’s The View were in a festive spirit Thursday morning as they kicked off their discussion with a baseless conspiracy theory that billionaire Elon Musk and Vice President J.D. Vance were plotting to have President-elect Trump assassinated and usurp control of the government by pushing him down a flight of stairs. There was an attempt to walk it back my blaming her cat for putting the idea in her head. On the same day The Wall Street Journal published an article chronicling how President Biden’s advanced decline left his unelected advisors and staff running the government, moderator Whoopi Goldberg seemed intent to distract from the story. “Who is in charge?” she demanded to know of the Trump transition team. Her issue was with Musk’s non-governmental advisory role and his public comments about policy and intent. “I've been saying it. I think Elon Musk believes he's president. I do,” Goldberg chided. She then teamed up with Friday moderator Joy Behar to suggest that a “possible” reason for Vance to be purportedly silent so far during the transition was because he and Musk were plotting to assassinate Trump at some point: BEHAR: Well, you've called him vice president. GOLDBERG: I’ve called him vice president. I’ve called him president because I don't know what J.D. is doing. I hardly ever -- I don't remember the last time we even talked about J.D. HOSTIN: You’re right. BEHAR: He’s planning the presidency when they get rid of Trump. GOLDBERG: So, you think it's Musk/Vance? BEHAR: Possible.     “Hey, [Trump], stay away from the stairways. Because, you know, people put their leg out to trip you going down the stairs. Watch out,” Goldberg proclaimed. Following a commercial break, Goldberg tried to walk back her comments by blaming her cat. “Okay, I need to clean something up because my cat lays in wait for me on my stairs all the time and that's what I was referring -- I was thinking of that. I wasn't trying to indicate that they were actually standing there with their legs out hoping he would trip,” she claimed. She ridiculously suggested that her talk about killing Trump was meant to be “light-hearted.” “[I]t's the holidays. Come on! My goodness!” she exclaimed. Ignoring the previous two attempts on Trump’s life, co-host Sunny Hostin falsely declared that, “Nobody wants anything done to the president.” Goldberg went on to lament the double-edge nature of the show when they “step in poo”: GOLDBERG: Okay. You know, the thing about this show, there is no way not to step in poo! There's no way to do it! There's no way not to do it! BEHAR: That's true. She then snapped at her critics: “So, for all of you who were waiting and saying, ‘oh my god, listen to what she said,’ I got a cat who does it to me every day and that is what sparked it.” The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View December 19, 2024 11:02:48 a.m. Eastern (…) WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Who is in charge? Because I've been saying it for awhile. SUNNY HOSTIN: Yes, you have. GOLDBERG: I've been saying it. I think Elon Musk believes he's president. I do. JOY BEHAR: Well, you've called him vice president. GOLDBERG: I’ve called him vice president. I’ve called him president because I don't know what J.D. is doing. I hardly ever -- I don't remember the last time we even talked about J.D. HOSTIN: You’re right. BEHAR: He’s planning the presidency when they get rid of Trump. GOLDBERG: So, you think it's Musk/Vance? BEHAR: Possible. GOLDBERG: Hmm. Hey, you-know-who, stay away from the stairways. [Laughter] Because, you know, people put their leg out to trip you going down the stairs. Watch out. But it kind of seems like maybe he is the president, because he got a promotion of some sort that none of us knew about. (…) 11:15:56 a.m. Eastern GOLDBERG: Okay, I need to clean something up because my cat lays in wait for me on my stairs all the time and that's what I was referring -- I was thinking of that. I wasn't trying to indicate that they were actually standing there with their legs out hoping he would trip. It was like -- HOSTIN: No. Nobody wants anything done to the president. GOLDBERG: No. It was light-hearted and it's the holidays. Come on! My goodness! [Applause] HOSTIN: You did not mean that anybody should hurt the president. GOLDBERG: No. HOSTIN: Of course not. GOLDBERG: Okay. You know, the thing about this show, there is no way not to step in poo! [Laughter] There's no way to do it! There's no way not to do it! BEHAR: That's true. GOLDBERG: So, for all of you who were waiting and saying, ‘oh my god, listen to what she said,’ I got a cat who does it to me every day and that is what sparked it. (…) December 19th, 2024 2:43 PM Nicholas Fondacaro 287219 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/tom-olohan/2024/12/19/google-turns-heat-trump-nominees-continues-rig-results Google’s relentless PR campaign against President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees is still ongoing. The Media Research Center has caught the search giant rigging the results for a fifth consecutive week. MRC Researchers searched Google for the names of Trump’s cabinet nominees along with two additional top officials–Brendan Carr who Trump selected to Chair the FCC and Kash Patel who he selected as his FBI director. Researchers searched both via a general Google search and a news tab search each of which yielded results that were full of leftist articles from legacy media outlets attacking the nominees. Indeed, Google presented 15 times the number of articles from often hostile left-leaning sources than from outlets that media ratings firm AllSides rates as "right or "lean right."  For most of the nominees, Google did not present a single “lean right” or “right” result in the general search. Only five of the general searches returned any right-leaning articles to counteract the vicious attacks that legacy and leftist media hurled against Trump nominees. Indeed Google presented zero “lean right” or “right” search results for 75 percent of the nominees recognized by Google.  As in previous search studies for the names of Trump nominees, Google provided no relevant search results in a search for Christopher Wright, Trump’s choice to run the Department of Energy.  Google rigged the news tab results as well, providing over six times as many left-leaning articles as U.S.-based “lean right” or “right” articles. Absurdly, Google once again found space in the news tab results for climate cult propaganda outlet Inside Climate News and the aggressively anti-Trump publication, The Bulwark. AllSides rates The Bulwark as “lean right” even though The Bulwark’s writers advocated supporting Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris while embracing leftist positions on a number of issues.  The Bulwark article, which attacked potential Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, was just one of many negative articles that Google filled its search results with. At least fourteen of the twenty-five nominees were subjected to vicious attacks in the news tab results.  The articles that Google featured fiercely went after Patel providing at least six news tab articles attacking the nominee. Google elevated headlines that suggested Patel is a “conspiracy theorist,” and that he would run a “‘bureau of intimidation’” or a “Bureau of Retribution.” An MSNBC article fretted about Patel’s “normalization,” while another piece scolded one of his endorsers.  Google’s results also targeted Russell Vought, Trump’s chosen Director of the Office of Management and Budget. For the third week in a row, Google shoved the same ProPublica attack in users’ faces with an article headlined, “‘Put Them in Trauma’: Inside a Key MAGA Leader’s Plans for a New Trump Agenda.”  Additionally, Google filled its results for Pete Hegseth, Trump’s chosen Secretary of Defense and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (RFK Jr.) the president-elect’s nominee for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services with negative articles. Google even included an attack on Elise Stefanik who is slated to be the next U.N. Ambassador in an article by the leftist publication The New Republic, headlined, “Trump Names U.N. Ambassador Who Will Wreck Gaza to Unseen Levels.” All told, MRC researchers have exposed Google for rigging results for the names of Trump’s nominees on Nov. 19, Nov. 26, Dec. 3, Dec. 10 and in this report. Each study demonstrated that Google filled its results with personal attacks and absurd ratios of left-of-center vs. U.S.-based “lean right” or “right” articles. The Nov. 26 study found the worst ratio, showing that Google gave users 20 times more left-leaning articles than right-leaning.   Google’s attack against Trump’s nominees follows a campaign against Trump himself. A Sept. 6 MRC Free Speech America study demonstrated that Google required users to wade through a deluge of leftist news articles to get to Trump’s campaign website. Additionally, MRC researchers showed further election interference by Google on Oct. 1, Oct. 9, Oct. 15, Oct. 22, Oct. 30 and Election Day. This late push to block Trump’s return to the presidency follows years of similar election interference by Google.  Study after study found that Google consistently propped up legacy media outlets like ABC News, NBC News and CBS News which were going after Trump’s nominees not only in articles but also on air. A study by MRC senior research analyst Bill D’Agostino showed that from Dec. 1 to Dec. 14, ABC’s "World News Tonight," "CBS Evening News" and NBC’s "Nightly News,” provided 96 percent negative coverage about the nominees.  D’Agostino noted that the coverage aggressively targeted nominees who appeared vulnerable like Patel or Hegseth, in order to cause their withdrawal. D’Agostino scathingly blasted the networks’ bias, noting, “the only positive commentary any Trump nominee received on the broadcast networks was from his own mother.” Methodology  For this report, MRC Free Speech America analyzed the Dec. 17 Google Search and News tab results for the first and last names of 23 men and women nominated for cabinet-level positions in the second Trump administration as well as Trump’s choice for FCC chairman and Trump’s choice for FBI director. MRC Free Speech America created an algorithm to automate this process in a clean environment. A “clean environment” allows for organic search to populate results without the influence of prior search history and tracking cookies.  MRC Free Speech America also utilized the AllSides media bias chart as a gauge to determine which outlets are “right” and “lean right.” AllSides notes it has a “patent on rating bias and use[s] multiple methodologies,” not a homogenous group or an algorithm. “Our methods are: Blind Bias Surveys of Americans, Editorial Reviews by a multipartisan team of panelists who look for common types of media bias, independent reviews, and third-party data.” Readers should be aware that this report only uses the AllSides list to analyze ratings of outlets considered by AllSides to be “right” and “lean right” and does not necessarily reflect MRC’s characterizations of these outlets. Nominees searched on December 17 include Scott Bessent, Pamela Bondi, Douglas Burgum, Brendan Carr, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Doug Collins, Sean Duffy, Tulsi Gabbard, Jamieson Greer, Kevin Hassett, Peter Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Kelly Loeffler, Howard Lutnick, Linda McMahon, Kristi Noem, Kash Patel, Brooke Rollins, Marco Rubio, Elise Stefanik, Scott Turner, Russell Vought, Susan Wiles, Christopher Wright and Lee Zeldin 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. December 19th, 2024 2:34 PM Tom Olohan 287220 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2024/12/19/msnbc-swerves-around-new-york-times-page-1-story-noting-biden Thursday's front page at The New York Times featured a story headlined, "Biden, Wearied and Stinging, Prepares to Exit." White House reporters Peter Baker and Zolan Kanno-Youngs were blunt in the third paragraph about Biden's inability to do the job any more (without openly expressing concern over how he's doing it right now). Time is catching up with Mr. Biden. He looks a little older and a little slower with each passing day. Aides say he remains plenty sharp in the Situation Room, calling world leaders to broker a cease-fire in Lebanon or deal with the chaos of Syria’s rebellion. But it is hard to imagine that he seriously thought he could do the world’s most stressful job for another four years. Somehow, the morning pundits on MSNBC didn't think this passage was the highlight. Instead, Way Too Early host Jonathan Lemire led off his 5 am show with readings that swerved around the blunt stuff. He began paragraphs six and seven. Then he briefly noted Biden's "fragility" was "painfully clear" in paragraph 13, then rushed forward to paragraph 20 touting his "command of the details."   MSNBC's "Way Too Early" on Wednesday led with a @nytimes story on Weary Biden (on the front page today). Jon Lemire reeeally popped around to the more positive paragraphs. pic.twitter.com/DioH9pcT2D — Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) December 19, 2024 This was the sensitive stuff in paragraphs 13, 14, and 16: During his visit to the Amazon rainforest last month, his fragility appeared painfully clear to those traveling with him. After speaking for seven minutes on a day of draining humidity, a blue shirt hanging loosely over his frame, he turned to slowly shuffle away down a dirt path as several people in the audience not used to seeing him up close said they held their breath, worried that he would trip. (Aides said his gait was no more unsteady than usual.) ….When Mr. Biden visited the National Museum of Slavery that afternoon, he did not actually enter the main building to view the exhibitions; instead, artifacts were brought outside to show him, which two people familiar with the planning attributed to fear that the steep stairs would be too much of a challenge. Baker and Kanno-Youngs also touched on how "several" people traveling with the president noted he "maintained a light schedule at times and sometimes mumbled, making him hard to understand."  On Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski only repeated paragraphs 6 and 7, and how Trump was so "ungrateful" for the supposedly vibrant economy.  On "Morning Joe," Mika Brzezinski performed a dramatic reading of just two paragraphs from the @nytimes, hyping how Biden is "claiming credit for a healthy economy that he is turning over to his ungrateful predecessor." pic.twitter.com/Lac7QAbS0K — Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) December 19, 2024 Morning Joe also failed to revisit how Biden's "fragility" was portrayed by them as a lie, as Joe Scarborough uttered our Quote Of The Year, claiming ridiculously that the 2024 version of Biden was the "best Biden ever."  December 19th, 2024 12:18 PM Tim Graham 287218 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mark-finkelstein/2024/12/19/cnn-mocks-gaetz-hard-partying-his-30s-hunter-biden-ted-kennedy Matt Gaetz's past behavior isn't role-model material.  By his own admission, Gaetz, in his 30s was "playing too hard....womanized, drank, and smoked more than I should have." But that doesn't excuse CNN for its double standard on the subject. At the end of a segment on today's CNN This Morning regarding the House Ethics Committee's impending release of its report on its investigation of Gaetz, host Kasie Hunt, speaking of Gaetz's activities, dubiously wondered, "in his 30s?" Hunt was apparently suggesting that the 30s are too old to still be a hard partier.  Annie Linskey of the Wall Street Journal agreed, saying, "I know. Maybe in your 20s." Not so surprisingly, CNN never mentioned two other men who were still partying hard at an advanced age. By his own admission, Hunter Biden didn't get sober until 2019--when he was 49. And then there's Ted Kennedy, who was 37 at the time of Mary Jo Kopechne's death at Chappaquiddick. At age 53, there was Kennedy's infamous "waitress sandwich" with fellow Dem Senator Chris Dodd. The episode's label might be lighthearted, but the details are anything but.  Kennedy was still going on Spring Break at age 59, when he accompanied his nephew William Smith to a Florida bar, leading to Smith's prosecution [and ultimate acquittal] for rape. Of all the panelists, it was, interestingly, Republican strategist Brad Todd who had the toughest takes on Gaetz. Todd said of him: "In a town full of reptiles, Matt Gaetz is the least popular snake," adding "He's about to be a footnote in history. This may be the last story we write about him." Maybe so, but today's story was CNN's way of kicking Gaetz on his way out the door--while conveniently omitting mention of other notorious miscreants.  Here's the transcript. CNN This Morning  12/19/24 6:15 am ET MIKE JOHNSON: Matt Gaetz resigned from Congress. He is no longer a Member. There's a very important protocol and tradition and rule that we maintain, that the House Ethics Committee's jurisdiction does not extend to non-Members of Congress. I think that would be a Pandora's box.  KASIE HUNT: That was House Speaker Mike Johnson urging the Ethics Committee to keep a report into Matt Gaetz under wraps a month ago. But now, the committee seems ready to open that Pandora's box. Sources tell CNN the panel authorized the report's release in a secret vote earlier this month. It is now expected to be made public any day now before Congress leaves Washington for the holidays.  The report caps a years-long probe by the Ethics Committee into allegations that Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct, used illicit drugs, and, quote, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor. Gaetz posted on X, denying any wrongdoing, writing, "I was charged with nothing, not even a campaign finance violation. My 30s were an era of working very hard and playing too hard. It's embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank, and smoked more than I should have earlier in life. I live a different life now." Gaetz also reiterated his innocence in an interview last month after his bid to be the next Attorney General fell apart.  MATT GAETZ: Like, if the things that the House Ethics report were true, I would be under indictment and probably in a prison cell. But of course, they're false.  HUNT: Oka-a-a-y. . . .  BRAD TODD: In a town full of reptiles, Matt Gaetz is the least popular snake. [Laughter] You know, it's . . . The lesson in all of this is Matt Gaetz made no friends. He helped nobody with their objectives in the U.S. House. And so, therefore, no one's ready to stand up for him right now. He also had bragged about his exploits, according to Markwayne Mullin and others. So it's no surprise, I think, that these members of the Ethics Committee, they don't want to be on the hook for this. They want the world to know what they know because they don't want to be accused of covering up for him.  Something else happened, though. Ballots dropped in the 1st District of Florida yesterday. Absentee ballots did, in the special election to replace Matt Gaetz. He's about to be a footnote in history. This may be the last story we write about him.  KATE BEDINGFIELD: And I would imagine they're also, the same people are trying to kind of put a political nail in his coffin, too, right? There's been discussion of does he run for governor someday? I would imagine that these members of the Ethics Committee looked at the report and said, you know what? We need to make sure that we do everything that we can to ensure that there's no great political revival here.  Just judging by Matt Gaetz's own response, I mean, the detail that he goes into in responding to what he expects will be in this report just gives you a little bit of an idea what's expected to be in there.  HUNT: Yeah. Is it just me, like, for most of us, is this stuff, I mean, the partying too hard, we'll set aside the more, you know, problematic allegations. Like, your 30s?  ANNIE LINSKEY: I know. Maybe your 20s.  BEDINGFIELD: I'm much younger. I'm like, 35, okay.  December 19th, 2024 11:20 AM Mark Finkelstein 287216 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2024/12/19/puck-scoop-says-abcs-stephanopoulos-got-new-contract-amid-trump On Wednesday, Puck’s Dylan Byers revealed that – in a complete coincidence – ABC’s Good Morning America and This Week co-host George Stephanopoulos “Stephanopoulos has just signed a new, multiyear contract with the network, unrelated to the timing of” the network’s $15 million donation Saturday to President-Elect Trump’s future presidential library as settlement for a defamation suit stemming from Stephanopoulos’s false comments about Trump and the E. Jean Carroll case on March 10. “Several insiders speculated that Stephanopoulos’s new deal includes a pay cut, and noted that he is likely to eventually take on a more limited role, after already ceding pole-anchor position on special event coverage to David Muir,” Byers added. For ABC, Byers cited reports that “Stephanopoulos and his co-anchors Robin Roberts and Michael Strahan have historically made around $25 million a year—a gross misalignment of funds, given the declining audience for morning television[.]” Who would replace Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America, perhaps in the near future? NewsBusters wasn’t surprised to see Byers scoop it’d likely be weekend co-host, Saturday World News Tonight anchor, and frequent weekday fill-in Whit Johnson: Presumably, Stephanopoulos’s heir apparent, Whit Johnson, would deliver similar ratings and cost a lot less.  Indeed, that is where things seem to be headed—albeit with the discretion and diplomatic finesse befitting a revered network veteran who, despite his slip-ups, has earned the right to an elegant exit. Also, as you all know, television news is a business wherein executives and talent air kiss each other at lunch but complain ceaselessly about one another in private…George may be headed toward his next act as a public figure, but no one wants to be the person responsible for it. The pay cut speculation seems plausible, given the impending departures of Norah O’Donnell from the CBS Evening News and Hoda Kotb NBC’s Today as, while both will stay with their networks, they were likely to be asked to take hefty pay cuts as networks are forced to trim costs in this new media age. Byers’s scoop was tucked inside an item that was largely a kvetching about ABC settling. Byers griped it triggered “a predictable shitstorm over the weekend among First Amendment advocates, legal scholars, and Chuck Todd types, who rightly noted that Disney would have been in a strong position to win the case had it not caved, and thus expressed fear over the precedent this might set for the media in the Age of Trump II.” He whined ABC caved despite what he felt was an “error” that “seemed to fall well short of the high bar for defamation of a public figure as established 60 years ago by The New York Times Co. v. Sullivan” and quoted a “one media executive” as having felt “it’s a terrible sign for the news media.” Referring to Disney’s legal counsel, Byers said they settled because any trial “would have been overseen by an unfavorable judge and a potentially biased jury in the largely pro-Trump Southern District of Florida” and could have ended up before a conservative Supreme Court. To his credit, at least Byers pointed out the real reason for a settlement: discovery. “[]There was extremely high concern among leadership over the release of Stephanopoulos’s correspondence and how it might expose the anchor, the news network, and the parent company to greater scrutiny. “He is sloppy electronically,” one source said of Stephanopoulos. ‘They didn’t want the phone going into discovery’” he said. December 19th, 2024 10:50 AM Curtis Houck 287217 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/bill-dagostino/2024/12/19/study-broadcast-transition-coverage-aimed-sinking-trumps-picks While polling demonstrates a majority of Americans approve of President-elect Trump’s handling of the transition process, the coverage by broadcast networks ABC, CBS, and NBC has been almost uniformly negative. In addition to a whopping 96 percent negative tilt across their flagship evening newscasts, these networks also appear to have paid the most attention to cabinet nominees who appeared to have the highest chances of sinking. MRC analysts examined all coverage of Trump’s cabinet appointees on ABC, CBS, and NBC’s evening newscasts from December 1 through December 14. The study primarily focused on Trump’s intended Defense Secretary (Pete Hegseth), FBI Director (Kash Patel), and Director of National Intelligence (Tulsi Gabbard), though it also included the other sparsely-discussed appointments. Throughout the two week period, Trump’s nominees earned a combined total of just over one full hour: 60 minutes and 47 seconds. Networks Were Uniformly Negative On All But The Most-Covered Nominee Across all three networks, the coverage of Gabbard, Patel, and the handful of other nominees mentioned was entirely negative. Only Pete Hegseth, who received the lion’s share of the airtime, enjoyed a scant four positive evaluative statements, all of which cited his mother describing him as “redeemed” and “a changed man.” To reiterate: the only positive commentary any Trump nominee received on the broadcast networks was from his own mother. CBS spent the most time on both Trump’s nominees overall (24 minutes and 40 seconds), and on Hegseth specifically, with 14 minutes and 32 seconds (58%). While CBS had the most negative overall coverage of the Trump transition (96.7%), they actually were softer on Hegseth than their counterparts: 88 percent negative, making them the only network of the three not to cross the 90 percent negative barrier. The second-most transition coverage came from NBC (21 minutes and 3 seconds, 94.7% negative), who, despite spending the least amount of time on Hegseth (11 minutes and 29 seconds), were also the only network to have 100 percent negative coverage of him. ABC, meanwhile, spent 19 minutes and 25 seconds on Trump’s nominees, 90 percent of which was negative. The network devoted 13 minutes and 33 seconds of that time to Hegseth, with a 91 percent negative slant. While Hegseth was a distant first in terms of total minutes of coverage, Patel was an almost equally-dominant second. He was the only other nominee to receive more than a full minute from each network: 380 seconds from CBS, 361 seconds from NBC, and just 339 seconds from ABC. Evaluative statements about Patel across all three networks were uniformly negative. Coverage Followed Whichever Nominee Appeared Least Likely To Be Confirmed Although the majority of the reports about Hegseth centered around the handful of salacious allegations against him, the networks abruptly lost interest once his chances of being confirmed started to look more promising. On December 10, Republican Senators like Joni Ernst began to express their willingness to support Hegseth’s nomination, despite previously having appeared skeptical. Incidentally Hegseth received 37 of his total 39 minutes of coverage from the three broadcast networks on or before December 10. In other words, once his confirmation appeared probable, the broadcast networks abruptly lost interest in the scandals with which they had inundated their airwaves for the previous week and a half. Meanwhile, Trump announced Patel’s nomination on November 30, and the following night he dominated the evening newscasts with a combined 18 minutes of immensely negative coverage. NBC senior Capitol Hill correspondent Garrett Haake dubbed Patel a “controversial,” “long-time loyalist” to Trump who threatened to produce a “tectonic shakeup” at the FBI. But when key Republican Senators who had expressed uncertainty about other nominees publicly indicated that they would support Patel’s confirmation, he quickly became an afterthought. Then like clockwork, on December 11 — the day after Hegseth received that much-needed public support — Patel was back to being the most interesting cabinet appointee, earning 193 seconds of airtime that evening, compared to just 21 seconds for Hegseth. This pattern of focus suggests that the broadcast networks were budgeting their coverage of cabinet appointees based on whose nomination they felt they had the best chance of sinking. When Patel looked relatively safe, they began hammering the various scandals plaguing Hegseth. Then when Hegseth’s odds improved, they immediately lost interest and returned to slamming Patel as a “controversial” and “concerning” pick. The networks’ transition reporting seems designed to keep their coverage steady at a 90 percent-negative pitch. Liberals watching at home can rest assured that the media are doing their part to hamper Trump’s second term. Though without a years-long Special Counsel investigation to help them this time around, they’ll have their work cut out for them. December 19th, 2024 10:02 AM Bill D'Agostino 287215 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2024/12/19/regime-media-freak-out-over-elon-musks-role-exposing-and-killing The Regime Media went into full meltdown mode over the death of the 1500-page cromnibus bill that went down in flames once DOGE chairs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy became aware of some of the bill’s provisions. D.C. media reacted at the very un-D.C. pressure placed upon the cromnibus with equal parts shock and horror. Watch as CBS’s Norah O’Donnell leads off the Evening News with the kind of overwrought and manipulative editorial most typically on ABC: CBS EVENING NEWS 12/18/24 6:31 PM NORAH O’DONNELL: It is quite a night of news because America is two days away from a government shutdown unless Congress acts soon. That means millions of government workers and military members could be without a paycheck days before the holidays. And it's quite a reversal since where we started just this morning. The House of Representatives appeared to be on the verge of approving a last-minute bipartisan plan. But tonight, it is imploding. As we seem to be witnessing the growing influence of the world's richest man, unelected tech billionaire Elon Musk spent the day repeatedly and publicly calling on Republicans to vote no and called for those who support the plan to be voted out of office. Then President-Elect Donald Trump weighed in, also urging a "No" vote, and then within hours, Musk declared the deal dead. There is a lot to get to and it concerns your tax dollars, your government, and your election officials. The fact that the media are so horrified by Elon’s influence with the Trump team in killing the cromnibus seems to suggest that they’re on the right path. As the saying goes, the hit dog hollers the loudest. On the one hand, outgoing CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell’s intro to the report was clearly the worst. On the other, Nikole Killion’s video package was the most transparent in detailing some of the excesses of the CR: NIKOLE KILLION: The stopgap measure would keep the government operational through March of next year, and includes more than $100 billion in disaster relief for Hurricane Helene and Milton victims and $10 billion in direct aid for farmers. But it’s also padded with plenty of extras, from funding for the fallen Baltimore Key Bridge, to health care extensions, authorization for a new Washington Commanders football stadium, and a pay bump for Congress. ABC and NBC do not go into this depth of detail. In addition to the aforementioned extras, the CR sought to protect the January 6th Committee from investigation, and continued to fund the government censorship apparatus.  ABC’s Mary Bruce, her Biden-Harris apple polishing days soon coming to an end, followed O’Donnell’s lead in driving up the shutdown hysterics: MARY BRUCE: If Congress doesn't pass the bill by Saturday and the government shuts down, millions of federal workers could head into the holidays without paychecks. Some will be furloughed, others asked to work without pay. That includes some members of the military, and other critical government workers like TSA agents and air traffic controllers, just as the holiday travel craze begins. Remaining coverage all around was consistently the same, consistently featuring the soon-to-be-released House Ethics report on Matt Gaetz in the same schadenfreudy style.  We are 33 days away from the Second Trump Inaugural, but in many ways it feels like he’s already in charge. The media’s reaction to the end of the 1500-page Cromnibus attests to that. Click “”expand” to view the full transcripts of the aforementioned reports as aired on their respective network newscasts on Wednesday, December 18th, 2024: ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT 12/18/24 6:38 PM DAVID MUIR: We continue tonight, and to The Hill. The showdown brewing over a looming government shutdown right before Christmas. And now, Elon Musk with a power play of sorts. Now threatening members of Congress himself, saying anyone who votes for this new bipartisan spending bill that would keep the government open, quote, “deserves to be voted out in two years”. Tonight, President-Elect Trump now weighing in, and here's Mary Bruce. MARY BRUCE: Tonight, after a relentless pressure campaign from billionaire Elon Musk, Washington is now barrelling towards a possible government shutdown, just days before Christmas. Musk calling a shutdown “infinitely better than passing a horrible bill,” threatening any lawmaker that votes for it deserved to be voted out. The bipartisan deal that would keep the government up and running for three months was brokered by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson. MIKE JOHNSON: We've got to get this done, because here's the key. By doing this, we are clearing the decks and we are setting up for Trump to come in, roaring back, with the America First agenda. BRUCE: But this morning, Musk, who President-Elect Donald Trump has tapped to lead a new department on government efficiency, posted on X, "This spending bill is a crime." The bill would fund the government through mid-March. Among other things, it includes $100 billion in disaster relief, and billions more in assistance for farmers. But Musk says it's also bloated with wasteful spending. Republican leaders today caught off guard by Musk's pressure play. JOHN THUNE: There’ll be a lot of hard votes in the next couple of years, and it's not always going to be the case that the outside world, the social media audience is going to be weighing in. BRUCE: If Congress doesn't pass the bill by Saturday and the government shuts down, millions of federal workers could head into the holidays without paychecks. Some will be furloughed, others asked to work without pay. That includes some members of the military, and other critical government workers like TSA agents and air traffic controllers, just as the holiday travel craze begins. Late today, Trump finally weighing in, criticizing the bill without telling Republicans exactly what to do, urging them to get smart and tough. But Democrats tonight are blunt. HAKEEM JEFFRIES: House Republicans will now own any harm that is visited upon the American people that results from a government shutdown or worse. BRUCE: And David, another headline here tonight. The House Ethics Committee has quietly voted to release its report on former Congressman Matt Gaetz, Donald Trump’s first pick to be Attorney General. They've been investigating him for sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. Gaetz saying in a statement, in part, quote: “in my single days, I often sent funds to women I dated. Even some I never dated but who asked. I never had sexual contact with someone under 18… It's embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life. I live a different life now.” David. MUIR: Mary Bruce, live at The Hill tonight. Mary, thank you. CBS EVENING NEWS 12/18/24 6:31 PM NORAH O’DONNELL: It is quite a night of news because America is two days away from a government shutdown unless Congress acts soon. That means millions of government workers and military members could be without a paycheck days before the holidays. And it's quite a reversal since where we started just this morning. The House of Representatives appeared to be on the verge of approving a last-minute bipartisan plan. But tonight, it is imploding. As we seem to be witnessing the growing influence of the world's richest man, unelected tech billionaire Elon Musk spent the day repeatedly and publicly calling on Republicans to vote no and called for those who support the plan to be voted out of office. Then President-Elect Donald Trump weighed in, also urging a "No" vote, and then within hours, Musk declared the deal dead. There is a lot to get to and it concerns your tax dollars, your government, and your election officials. CBS's Nikole Killion is going to lead us off from Capitol Hill to explain all that’s happening up there. Good evening, Nikole. All right, where does this bill stand right now? NIKOLE KILLION: Hey, good evening to you, Norah. Well, a lot of folks want to know that, but I can tell you that all of these developments have really sent Capitol Hill into a tailspin. This bill came out just about 24 hours ago, and now it appears on the brink of collapse. Tonight, chaos in Congress, with Vice President-Elect JD Vance on Capitol Hill, telling lawmakers what to do. JD VANCE: Well, what the president believes is we should support a clean CR so long as it contains a debt limit increase. KILLION: It follows an intense pressure campaign on X by none other than its own CEO, Elon Musk. The billionaire tapped to co-lead a commission on government efficiency posted more than 100 times since the early morning hours. He bashed the 1500-page bill as pork, warning “this bill should not pass.” MIKE JOHNSON: Elon and Vivek and I are on a text chain together. They understand this situation. They said, “it’s not directed to you, Mr. Speaker. But we don't like the spending.” I said, “guess what, fellas, I don't either.” KILLION: The stopgap measure would keep the government operational through March of next year, and includes more than $100 billion in disaster relief for Hurricane Helene and Milton victims and $10 billion in direct aid for farmers. But it’s also padded with plenty of extras, from funding for the fallen Baltimore Key Bridge, to health care extensions, authorization for a new Washington Commanders football stadium, and a pay bump for Congress. ANNA PAULINA LUNA: Look, this is a [bleep] Sandwich, I don't know how else to say that. KAT CAMMACK: It is absolutely bloated pork barrel spending. KILLION: Several hard-line Republicans blame Speaker Johnson for conceding too much to Democrats, even threatening not to support him for the post next year. THOMAS MASSIE: I’m not voting for him. KILLION: Meantime, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries fired back. HAKEEM JEFFRIES: House Republicans have been ordered to shut down the government and hurt everyday Americans, all across this country. KILLION: Some members are pushing for a clean continuing resolution without any extras. However, at this point, members have been advised that there will be no votes tonight. Norah? O’DONNELL: Really interesting. Nikole, I do have to ask you about that House Ethics report on Matt Gaetz. Are we going to see it? KILLION: Well, the hope is that that will be released soon, after the House Ethics Committee voted to release its highly anticipated report into Matt Gaetz following its investigation into him. He faced allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, and bribery. He said that he did not have sex with a minor but did acknowledge that he may have parted and womanized more than he should have. Gaetz, of course, was briefly tapped as Trump’s Attorney General pick but later withdrew his name over this controversy. Norah. O’DONNELL: It is busy there on Capitol Hill. All right, Nikole Killion. Thank you very much. NBC NIGHTLY NEWS 12/18/24 6:31 PM LESTER HOLT: In what could be seen as another sign of Elon Musk’s growing influence within the Trump orbit, the President-Elect joined Musk today in his call to scrap a spending bill backed by some Republicans, raising the chances of a government shutdown. Musk, tasked with tackling wasteful spending in the new administration, posted throughout the day on his X platform, demanding the spending bill be killed. Calling the package put forward by Republican Speaker Mike Johnson “pork barrel spending.” Later, Mr. Trump delivering the death knell, following Musk’s lead, and calling for the package to be scrapped- dramatically increasing the odds of a government shutdown as soon as this weekend. Meantime, there are new developments today regarding the House Ethics Committee investigation of former Congressman Matt Gaetz. Ryan Nobles is covering it all. Ryan, this new move by President-Elect Trump comes as that Friday deadline is quickly approaching. RYAN NOBLES: Lester, that’s right. In fact, lawmakers were planning to vote on this massive spending bill as soon as tonight. But now they are left to grapple with the changes that President-Elect Trump is demanding.  Tonight, President-Elect Trump blowing up a bipartisan spending deal worked out by House Speaker Mike Johnson, designed to keep the federal government open through March of next year. Writing, quote: “We should pass a streamlined spending bill that doesn't give Chuck Schumer and the Democrats everything they want. The bill extended government funding while also adding $100 billion for disaster aid and $10 billion for farmers. But it also included health care reforms, and a provision allowing for pay raises for Members of Congress, leading to conservative backlash. Billionaire Elon Musk, who will lead Trump's effort to cut government spending writing, “any lawmaker who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in two years. Tonight, Vice President-Elect Vance talking about the spending plan known as a CR. JD VANCE: Well, what the president believes is we should support a clean CR so long as it contains a debt limit increase. That's the position of the president, and that’s what we're going to try to push for. NOBLES: All of it coming after another surprise headline. NBC News learning the House Ethics Committee has voted in secret to release its report on former congressman Matt Gaetz, according to two sources familiar with the process. Now the committee is set to release its findings by the end of the week. Gaetzearlier  withdrew as Trump's pick for attorney general. MATT GAETZ: Haven't been paying attention to that. NOBLES: The committee looking into allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use which Gaetz denies. Tonight,Gaetz writing, “I ‘ve never had sexual contact with someone under 18. It's embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life. I live a different life now.” A Justice Department investigation into the allegations was ultimately closed, with no charges filed against Gaetz. HOLT: Ryan, let me circle you back to the potential shutdown. Speaker Johnson is facing a really major challenge tonight. NOBLES: That's right, Lester. He needs to come up with a plan B, which will likely be a slimmed down version of what he has already proposed. But that risks alienating support for some Democrats. And he needs to do it all by that deadline of midnight on Friday. Lester. HOLE: All right. Ryan Nobles, thanks.   December 19th, 2024 12:30 AM Jorge Bonilla 287214 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2024/12/18/newsbusters-podcast-how-will-trump-revise-white-house-briefing How will Team Trump revise the seating chart or the questioner list at the White House briefing when new press secretary Karoline Leavitt takes the podium in January? Would they dare to put conservative media in the front row? Managing editor Curtis Houck brings all his daily monitoring of the briefings to the table. People close to Trump have suggested he should dramatically change who is placed in the front rows of the briefing room. Routinely, it has been Fox, the liberal networks, Reuters and the Associated Press. Could Trump put conservative (or less liberal) media outlets in the front row to symbolize the growing trust problem with legacy media?  Currently, the seating chart is determined by a committee of four members of the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) board. But Team Trump could impose their vision.  “It would be a total mess,” one White House reporter told The Hill newspaper. “I would expect people would probably boycott the briefings, though that would put certain outlets in a tough spot deciding if they want to go along with what the Trump people are trying to pull.” They could leave the briefing room like they left Twitter. But they want to be there to challenge the Trump team, and don't want to give on their flagrantly negative bias, which they imagine is "pro-democracy." How will Leavitt perform as the youngest press secretary we've seen? It can't be worse than the bumbles and stumbles of Karine Jean-Pierre, who did draw some angry questions from the liberal reporters when Joe Biden reversed himself on granting a pardon to his corrupt son Hunter. Nobody saw a reason to make Karine resign for being left in the dark on this (if she was). There's only a month to go, and the daily briefing is more like weekly since Election Day. Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts.    December 18th, 2024 6:56 PM Tim Graham 287211 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/john-stossel/2024/12/18/white-pill-big-government-can-be-defeated-just-ask-soviet-union The movie “The Matrix” gave us the “red pill” and the “blue pill.” The red wakes you up to reality; the blue keeps you indoctrinated. Internet culture then invented a black pill. Those who take it think the world is doomed. So, podcaster Michael Malice wrote the book “The White Pill,” calling it a “symbol of hope.” “Young people in recent years,” he tells me, “were discouraged about the future of this country. But people in a far worse position than us won a far greater victory in our lifetime, and no one talks about it.” He refers to the fall of the Soviet Union. We talk about that in my new video. Malice was born in Russia. He’s researched how even ruthless tyrannies can be toppled. I say to Malice, “What I find unbelievable about the Berlin Wall being torn down is that I thought, ‘Finally, people wised up to the evil of central planning and socialism.’ Yet (today) academically smart college students want socialism!” “You go to school,” Malice quips, “and then leave four years later as a swamp walrus who can’t have a conversation with their parents.” He calls universities “the real villains.” Universities do “black-pill” students about capitalism. Professors emphasize its problems and downplay its many benefits. A Pew study found that the more education Americans have, the more they prefer socialism. “One thing that drives me crazy,” says Malice, “is when people say, ‘communism works in theory.’ ... Everything works in theory. Reality is how you determine how something works or not!” I once thought we’d learn about reality from media. But reporters like central planning. It’s easy to cover. We spend time with politicians and often interview them about their plans. “Intellectuals” tend to grab media jobs, and for some reason, intellectuals want to believe that big government is good for people. Intellectuals convinced themselves that the Soviet Union must be a success, a happy commune. New York Times’ star reporter Walter Duranty covered up mass famine there. “Why would he do that?” I ask Malice. “I assume he doesn’t want people to starve.” “He doesn’t care,” replies Malice. “When you’re the biggest guy in the most interesting country on earth, that’s status. When that’s the most important thing to you, everything else can fall by the wayside.” Soviet officials praised The New York Times. Duranty won a Pulitzer. Neither the Times nor the Pulitzer leftists ever apologized. Malice says Americans are smarter today. “There is an enormous increase of contempt and skepticism towards corporate journalism.” I point out that some people see the election of Donald Trump as the antidote to media and big-government tyranny. “What I’m excited about,” he responds, “Is someone like Elon (Musk). ... I trust his judgment far more than I trust Trump’s.” “You think he can shrink the state?” “No,” he says, “But I’m hopeful that things will move in a better direction. ... I don’t think there’s any sense in Washington or in the population that (shrinking the state) is desirable. People want government to be smaller, except for this program and that one.” Still, the author of “The White Pill” is hopeful, in a weird way. “Maybe Trump, who’s very petty, will be vindictive and will close down bases in the home states of politicians he doesn’t like!” I thought Malice was a libertarian, but he says no, he’s an anarchist. We small-l libertarians want limited government, one that handles defense, courts and problems like pollution. Malice says we’re mistaken, because government doesn’t do anything well. Anarchists believe “voluntary exchanges between individuals” would do a better job. Would that mean private armies? Private lawsuits fighting pollution? I don’t see how those would work. So, Malice and I argue about that. In a few weeks, I’ll air our debate. December 18th, 2024 6:31 PM John Stossel 287212 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/catherine-salgado/2024/12/18/massive-spending-bill-extends-censorship-agencys The end-of-year continuing resolution postpones the imminent shutdown of a State Department entity infamous for funding censorship efforts — for now. The State Department notified Congress earlier this month that the Global Engagement Center was being shut down, and spending legislation did not provide an extension for GEC, according to Washington Examiner reporter Gabe Kaminsky. The current continuing resolution, which has drawn criticism from numerous congressmen and media figures, contains a provision on page 139 for a “Global Engagement Center Extension.” Read the full blog on MRC Free Speech America’s site. December 18th, 2024 5:47 PM Catherine Salgado 287210 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/michael-wnek/2024/12/18/reid-mocks-ceos-and-republicans-support-toddler-trump MSNBC’s Joy Reid perhaps may never come to terms with President-elect Trump’s November victory. Tuesday night’s episode of The ReidOut included the host hilariously downplaying Trump’s entire campaign while ridiculing the various CEOs and Republican politicians who had voiced their support for Trump. Reid began the segment with the outrageous claim that Trump only ran for president “to make all of his legal problems–poof!–go away.” She gleefully added that he was unsuccessful in his bid to Judge Juan Merchan regarding the guilty conviction from his hush money trial. “Trump will have to live with the infamy of being the first convicted felon president,” Reid cackled. The MSNBC host continued to reference the recent $15 million settlement in Trump’s defamation suit with ABC News, arguing that he felt “emboldened” by various CEOs “willing to comply in advance.” She supported her claim by pointing to LA Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong who reportedly “requested that the newspaper’s editorial board outright take a break from writing about Trump, and balance any critical editorials or articles with positive ones.”     Reid evidently interpreted moves such as this as an attempt to placate a “toddler” Trump, insisting that such efforts would be fruitless since “his ego is too fragile and his needs are endless”: Trump is that toddler, and he wants nothing short of complete obedience and constant adulation, for everyone to say they love him and praise him and tell him he’s the best president ever! And it’ll never be obsequious enough or vigorous enough. He’ll always want more, and punish and humiliate even those who do comply. Her proof? Apparently, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), and “all the black Republicans who went to the mat for Trump during the campaign” were “snubbed” by the president-elect because “he will always reward weakness with more humiliation.”  It’s no surprise that yet again the short-sighted Reid failed to do her own research into the matter. In reality, Rubio had been nominated by Trump as his pick for secretary of state. As always, Reid couldn’t help but succumb to her blind hatred of Trump despite the continued insistence by her MSNBC colleagues of the network’s commitment to accuracy and the truth.  The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: MSNBC’s The ReidOut 12/17/2024 07:21:03 PM EST JOY REID: Donald Trump ran for president for one reason and one reason only: to make all of his legal problems–poof!–go away. And for the most part, he was successful, with one exception. Yesterday, the New York judge, who presided over Trump’s hush money trial, denied his bid to toss out his guilty verdict, meaning Trump will have to live with the infamy of being the first convicted felon president. And yes, MAGA, you are still a convicted felon before you are sentenced. That’s how it works. But that isn’t stopping Trump from trying to hit the delete button on every other bad headline ever printed about him, going so far as to sue Iowa pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register, saying he’s seeking “accountability for brazen election interference” over a November poll that showed Kamala Harris up three percent in Iowa. Never mind the fact that Trump won the election and won the state of Iowa by double digits. He’s clearly feeling emboldened by ABC News agreeing to pay a $15 million settlement in a defamation lawsuit nearly every legal expert said that they would’ve won; and as others in the media show they are increasingly willing to comply in advance, like the owner of the LA Times Patrick Soon-Shiong, who Oliver Darcy is reporting requested that the newspaper’s editorial board outright take a break from writing about Trump, and balance any critical editorials or articles with positive ones.  Yeah, but here’s the thing. These CEOs who are thinking, “Let me just give him what he wants this one time and he’ll leave me alone. He won’t–he won’t hurt me or my company, or he’ll give me goodies like tax cuts or tariff exemptions or federal contracts, a pat on the head.” That is not how it works with Trump. His ego is too fragile and his needs are endless. As any parent knows, if your toddler is having a tantrum in the middle of the grocery store, the solution isn’t to just buy them the cookies they’re screaming for because then they’ll do it again and again, and you’ll be out of money and sanity and their teeth will be rotten.  And right now, Trump is that toddler, and he wants nothing short of complete obedience and constant adulation, for everyone to say they love him and praise him and tell him he’s the best president ever! And it’ll never be obsequious enough or vigorous enough. He’ll always want more, and punish and humiliate even those who do comply. Just ask Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and all the black Republicans who went to the mat for Trump during the campaign, only to get snubbed as he builds his administration. He will always reward weakness with more humiliation. And that includes foreign leaders, like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who went to Mar-a-Lago, last month, to kiss the ring, behaving like Trump was already president, which he’s not. And how does Trump reward him? By publicly mocking Trudeau on his social media site, once again calling Trudeau the “governor” of the “Great State of Canada.” (...)   December 18th, 2024 4:02 PM Michael Wnek 287209 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2024/12/18/hostin-navarro-brag-about-attending-biden-harris-christmas A couple of members of the Cackling Coven known as The View flaunted their elitism during Mondays show as the ABC News hosts boasted about attending Washington, D.C. Christmas parties hosted by President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Sunny Hosting showed off pictures of her in the White House while fake Republican Ana Navarro gushed about dancing the night away with the failed presidential candidate. They were so excited about attending the White House Christmas party; one could easily think they were handing out pardons as party favors. Teed up to discuss how awesome their weekend adventures were by moderator Whoopi Goldberg, Hostin bragged that she “went to D.C. for the President's holiday party. And it was so wonderful.” Hostin went on to recount how she spent the last couple weekends bouncing around the country to attend Biden’s party, Harris’s party, and the wedding of a Hollywood actress: It was so wonderful. I took my best friend, Regina, because Manny operates on Fridays and he was running really late. And so, I was able to get my best friend in because she also works for the government so she has security clearance so it was easy! And then I got up early the next morning and flew to Yvette Nicole Brown's wedding in L.A. And Manny joined me there, and she seemed so happy. It was so amazing. “And then the weekend before, I was at Kamala Harris -- I was at the Vice President's holiday party. So -- And that was wonderful as well,” she recalled.     For Navarro’s part, he noted that she and Hostin were on the same Amtrak train to D.C. “I was going to Kamala Harris' black tie event. She does a black tie for her close friends and family, and people she's known for decades,” she gloated. Navarro wanted people to know that Harris was “good” despite the embarrassing loss to President-elect Trump. “There's no phones allowed because she lets her hair down. We all let our hair down. She danced until way past midnight, every song. Tim Walz was there. She's good, guys. She's good,” she said. She followed up by giving a rundown of all the other Christmas parties she “dragged” her “old ass” to, and how it was important she attend the one at the White House since she likely would not get one for a long time: And then I dragged my old ass up at the wee hours and flew back to Miami because I had to host a family pre-Christmas celebration for Al and his grandkids and his kids. So, that went on until the wee hours. Then I dragged my old ass back to Washington for the White House Christmas Party because you know there's, like, 50 of them. Last year, but it's the last one I'm going to for a long time. So, I was going to go. And then I dragged my old ass here. “That's a lot of old ass dragging,” Goldberg quipped. Hostin and Navarro weren’t the only ones in the room who got an invite to the White House Christmas Party. Executive producer Brian Teta was finally graced with an invite: GOLDBERG: So Brian, were you at any of this? Did you do any of this? HOSTIN: Yes, he was! TETA: I went to the White House Christmas Party on Friday night, which was really cool and got to make my wife. I was excited. NAVARRO: This is a really big deal because you’ve been wanting to go for years. TETA: Yes. HOSTIN: I was hanging out with Brian. TETA: That's right! Navarro also told an embarrassing story about how Teta was on the same train as Hostin and her. She went to Teta to fix her laptop and passed Hostin, who she said was passed out after a couple glasses of wine. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View December 16, 2024 11:03:45 a.m. Eastern (…) SUNNY HOSTIN: I actually went to D.C. for the President's holiday party. And it was so wonderful. ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: Oh, pretty. HOSTIN: It was so wonderful. I took my best friend, Regina, because Manny operates on Fridays and he was running really late. And so, I was able to get my best friend in because she also works for the government so she has security clearance so it was easy! And then I got up early the next morning and flew to Yvette Nicole Brown's wedding in L.A. And Manny joined me there, and she seemed so happy. It was so amazing. WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Did somebody hit you with something? The dress. It looked like a pie. [Crosstalk] HOSTIN: And then the weekend before, I was at Kamala Harris -- I was at the Vice President's holiday party. So -- And that was wonderful as well. [Applause] So I have been -- I have been busy, busy, busy, busy but my kids aren't back from college yet so when they get back, I'm going to settle down. GOLDBERG: Right. Okay. What about the rest of you? ANA NAVARRO: Well, I -- On Friday, Sunny and I were on the same train to Washington, D.C. and I was going to Kamala Harris' black tie event. She does a black tie for her close friends and family, and people she's known for decades. There's no phones allowed because she lets her hair down. We all let our hair down. She danced until way past midnight, every song. Tim Walz was there. She's good, guys. She' good. [Applause] And then I dragged my old ass up at the wee hours and flew back to Miami because I had to host a family pre-Christmas celebration for Al and his grandkids and his kids. So, that went on until the wee hours. Then I dragged my old ass back to Washington for the White House Christmas Party because you know there's, like, 50 of them. Last year, but it's the last one I'm going to for a long time. So, I was going to go. HOSTIN: That's what I figured, right? NAVARRO: And then I dragged my old ass here. GOLDBERG: That's a lot of old ass dragging. [Laughter] But okay. Sara? SARA HAINES: It's funny how different all our lives are. So on Friday, I went to see the mall Santa. (…) 11:07:03 a.m. Eastern GOLDBERG: So Brian, were you at any of this? Did you do any of this? HOSTIN: Yes, he was! BRIAN TETA: I went to the White House Christmas Party on Friday night, which was really cool and got to make my wife. I was excited. NAVARRO: This is a really big deal because you’ve been wanting to go for years. TETA: Yes. HOSTIN: I was hanging out with Brian. TETA: That's right! And then the rest of the weekend, we were making gingerbread houses and my daughters performed. (…) December 18th, 2024 1:30 PM Nicholas Fondacaro 287199 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/geoffrey-dickens/2024/12/18/brian-stelter-award-worst-quote-year It was a challenging task, but an esteemed panel led by MRC President L. Brent Bozell and MRC’s Vice President for Research and Publications Brent Baker, which included NewsBusters Executive Editor Tim Graham, MRC Director of Media Analysis Geoffrey Dickens and NewsBusters Managing Editor Curtis Houck, boiled down all the biased outbursts from lefty hack hosts, anchors, reporters and pundits in 2024 and declared a winner. This year the winner is Joe Scarborough!  The MSNBC host won for his truly laugh-out-loud March 6 take that the 2024 “version” of President Joe Biden was “intellectually, analytically” the “best Biden ever.”      MRC President L.Brent Bozell announced: “Back in March when it was apparent to everybody that Joe Biden was losing it, here comes Joe Scarborough to not only reject those claims but boldly boast that Biden was quote ‘intellectually’ and ‘analytically’ the sharpest he’s ever been. Four months later his own party dumped him. In a media landscape full of Biden excuse-makers, Scarborough’s sycophancy stood out.” This makes the Morning Joe co-host a back-to-back winner of Worst Quote of the Year! In 2023 he won for his absurd and dire prediction that if Donald Trump won re-election he would “imprison” and “execute” his political opponents. Without further ado, here is the winner (followed by the top runners-up):   WINNER   “Start your tape right now, because I’m about to tell you the truth. And f-you if you can’t handle the truth. This version of Biden intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever. Not a close second. And I’ve known him for years. The Brzezinskis have known him for 50 years. If it weren’t the truth, I wouldn’t say it.”— Co-host Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, March 6 rejecting claims Biden was slipping mentally.   FIRST RUNNER-UP “He [Joe Biden] will be remembered as a great President. He will be mentioned in the same sentence as George Washington.”— Long-time Newsweek writer Jonathan Alter on NBC’s Morning News NOW, July 22.   SECOND RUNNER-UP  “It [bloodbath comment] scared me, honestly, you know? I didn’t think ever in my lifetime I would see that….He [Donald Trump] is using that kind of World War II rhetoric that led to the deaths of six — the murders of 6 million people.” — Co-host Sunny Hostin on ABC’s The View, March 18.   THIRD RUNNER-UP “There is an entire right wing media ecosystem that doesn’t exist on the left and it does not exist in the center or mainstream.”— PBS News Hour White House correspondent/CNN analyst Laura Barron-Lopez on CNN’s Inside Politics, November 7. December 18th, 2024 10:45 AM Geoffrey Dickens 287146 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/clay-waters/2024/12/18/pbs-ny-times-fear-abcs-trump-defamation-settlement-sends-really The PBS NewsHour was in full panic on Monday evening after ABC settled a defamation lawsuit by Donald Trump, offering scaremongering with this online headline: “ABC News settlement with Trump raises concerns about press freedom in his 2nd term.” PBS’s guest, New York Times business investigations editor David Enrich, mourned ABC’s decision “sends a really chilling message.” Both PBS and Enrich hyped a "crackdown on unfavorable news coverage." Geoff Bennett: Mr. Trump also weighed in on a defamation lawsuit he settled with ABC News for $15 million. The suit followed an ABC segment earlier this year in which George Stephanopoulos said Mr. Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. A New York jury found him liable for sexual abuse. Amna Nawaz: The $15 million will be contributed to Trump's future presidential foundation and museum. Mr. Trump was asked about the settlement and whether he plans to file similar suits against other news outlets or individuals. Donald Trump: I think you have to do it because they're very dishonest. You need a fair press….I'm doing this not because I want to. I'm doing this because I feel I have an obligation. Nawaz: Following this all closely is New York Times reporter David Enrich, whose upcoming book Murder the Truth explores challenges to press freedoms…. That upcoming book sounds like liberal catnip. Full title: “Murder the Truth -- Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful.” The first promotional blurb comes from Trump-trashing academic Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a PBS favorite. Enrich’s piece on the front of Monday’s Business section was ominously headed “Message Sent With a Rise in Threats of Libel Suits.” The online headline deck was even more so: “Trump and His Picks Threaten More Lawsuits Over Critical Coverage -- The small flurry of threatened defamation suits is the latest sign that the incoming Trump administration appears poised to do what it can to crack down on unfavorable media coverage.” Enrich wrote: “The deal set off criticism of ABC News by those who perceived the network as needlessly bowing down to Mr. Trump. And it led some legal and media experts to wonder whether the outcome would embolden Mr. Trump and others to intensify their assault on the media, at a moment when many news organizations are struggling with declining public trust and deteriorating finances.” As usual, this ignores how the media can't intensify their assault on Trump -- since it's been at full intensity since 2015. The discussion continued with no mention of “discovery,” the legal term for the exchanging of evidence between opposing parties before trial, which in this case would risk uncovering potentially embarrassing internal communications from ABC News that would confirm the news network’s inexorable hostility toward Trump. Instead, the journalists played dumb about why ABC settled, though other networks had ideas. Attorney Andrew Stoltmann was quoted by Fox News about the potentially embarrassing discovery process: "There likely would’ve been a tsunami of bad emails and text messages that would’ve been revealed that would’ve fed into the incoming president’s argument that it is biased against him.” Amna Nawaz kept it vague:  Nawaz: My understanding is, the bar for defamation in particular is high for public figures. So what do we know about why ABC did decide to settle? Enrich: That is a very good $15 million question right now. And it seems like -- based on the reporting we have done and just talking to people, it seems like they were just very reluctant to have a long legal battle with the president of the United States…. Enrich went on to warn the decision “potentially sends a really chilling message to anyone who wants to not only scrutinize or criticize the president, but really anyone else who is influenced by Trump.” This paranoid segment was brought to you in part by Consumer Cellular. A transcript is available, click “Expand.” PBS News Hour 12/16/24 7:27:18 p.m. (ET) Geoff Bennett: Mr. Trump also weighed in on a defamation lawsuit he settled with ABC News for $15 million. The suit followed an ABC segment earlier this year in which George Stephanopoulos said Mr. Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. A New York jury found him liable for sexual abuse. Amna Nawaz: The $15 million will be contributed to Trump's future presidential foundation and museum. Mr. Trump was asked about the settlement and whether he plans to file similar suits against other news outlets or individuals. Donald Trump: I think you have to do it because they're very dishonest. You need a fair press. And the press is — no, I see others. I have a few others that I'm doing. I'm going to — as an example, we're bringing — I'm doing this not because I want to. I'm doing this because I feel I have an obligation. Amna Nawaz: Following this all closely is New York Times reporter David Enrich, whose upcoming book "Murder the Truth" explores challenges to press freedoms. David, welcome to the "News Hour." Thanks for being with us. David Enrich, Author, "Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful": Thanks for having me. Amna Nawaz: So let's start with that ABC News settlement. They're paying $15 million in that settlement, plus a million dollars for Mr. Trump's legal fees. They also added an editor's note on the interview page Web site. It reads thusly: "ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding President Donald J. Trump made during an interview by George Stephanopoulos with Representative Nancy Mace on ABC's 'This Week' on March 10 of 2024." David, how strong a case did Mr. Trump have in this lawsuit? And how usual is a lawsuit like this in the first place? David Enrich: Well, lawsuits like this have become increasingly common. And this is a tactic that Trump decades ago began pioneering. And he has just been banging this drum more and more loudly ever since. And it's a tactic that's caught on, especially in MAGA circles, but really, politicians, business leaders, companies, big organizations are increasingly using defamation threats and defamation lawsuits as kind of a cudgel to attack unfavorable news coverage. And the reality in this case is that, according to everyone I have spoken to, Trump's case against ABC News seemed not great. And there are very strong protections built into the First Amendment and how it's interpreted by the Supreme Court that give the media and others a lot of leeway when they are scrutinizing powerful individuals, no more so than the president-elect of the United States. And it's basically meant to prevent exactly this type of lawsuit. So I think ABC had a pretty good chance of prevailing in court if they had wanted to let it go that power. Amna Nawaz: My understanding is, the bar for defamation in particular is high for public figures. So what do we know about why ABC did decide to settle? David Enrich: That is a very good $15 million question right now. And it seems like — based on the reporting we have done and just talking to people, it seems like they were just very reluctant to have a long legal battle with the president of the United States, which is understandable, right? But it also sets the precedent, potentially, that it really could embolden other political leaders, including Trump himself, to really double down on this tactic. So I think there are a lot of people in the First Amendment community and certainly in the media that were very surprised and quite troubled by this decision to essentially concede this to Trump so early on in what could have been a yearslong legal fight. Amna Nawaz: You also heard there Mr. Trump saying today that he might go after other platforms, other individuals, including social media influencers in the same way, not just journalists, so suggesting a much broader use of these kinds of lawsuits. What's the potential impact of that kind of statement? David Enrich: Well, I think it potentially sends a really chilling message to anyone who wants to not only scrutinize or criticize the president, but really anyone else who is influenced by Trump. I mean, already we have seen in the past couple of years a real explosion in the use of legal threats and lawsuits against not just journalists, but everyone. And it's not just people on the right going after people on the left. This is at times a bipartisan trend, where litigation is seen as a solution to shut people up. And I think that's something that we are unfortunately probably going to see a lot more of in the years ahead. And it's not something that is just the mainstream media that's going to be affected by, potentially. And we have — there's — as Trump said today, there are — it's possible he would go after people with huge followings on social media or on YouTube, things like that. So I think it's potentially — the ramifications of this are possibly quite broad. Amna Nawaz: Well, specific to news organizations, we should note that Mr. Trump has another pending lawsuit against CBS News' "60 Minutes." He said today that he might think about suing The Des Moines Register as well. Is there legal precedent that we should be thinking about or considering for how these kinds of cases might be handled? David Enrich: Well, the most important legal precedent is a Supreme Court case from 60 years ago, New York Times v. Sullivan, which basically created a very high threshold for public figures like Trump to prevail in defamation cases. The problem is that — or maybe not the problem, but the fact of the matter is that, in recent years, Trump and many of his allies, including two Supreme Court justices, have expressed a willingness, if not a desire, to reconsider that 1964 decision. And so that really — there's the possibility here that not only will Trump and his allies start bringing more and more of these cases, but that some of the historical protections against these cases having a chilling effect are going to start being chipped away at by the — by federal courts. Amna Nawaz: That is David Enrich of The New York Times, author of the book "Murder the Truth." David, thank you for your time. Really good to talk to you. David Enrich: Thanks for having me. Thank you. December 18th, 2024 10:26 AM Clay Waters 287205 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/justine-brooke-murray/2024/12/18/woke-weak-justice-hands-our-court-jesters Deep down, most of our lawmakers, interpreters and political commentators are truly frustrated theatre kids at heart. Leave it to our DEI judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who's supposed to uphold justice on the Supreme Court to turn that role into nothing more than a court jester.  Broadway decided what better way to perform their new feminist rendition of “Romeo and Juliet,” than by rewarding the judge, who doesn’t even know what a woman is, with a cameo?! But in a way, her broadway debut is kind of symbolic. Both in fiction and real life, our most vocal leftists, those same theatre types, have turned justice on its head.  Tune into this episode of “Woke of the Weak!” December 18th, 2024 10:20 AM Justine Brooke Murray 287208 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/dawn-slusher/2024/12/18/cbss-woke-drama-fbi-most-wanted-goes-ridiculously-anti-cop Leave it to a show as woke as CBS’s FBI: Most Wanted to come up with a fall finale where an entire “sundown town’s” police force is a “racist” “gang” of murderers out killing innocent black people to supposedly clean up the county’s drug problem. But it gets even worse. The episode was titled “The Electric Company” because the police are using tasers to murder their victims and proudly call themselves by that name. Yes, seriously. The episode opens in fictional Archer County, Maryland, where two, white intruders attack a black man, Emanuel “Manny” Birdsong (Apollo Levine) in front of his wife and child and tase him to death when he won’t tell them where his supposed drug stash is. They dump his body in a Virginia swamp where other bodies from the same county end up being found. When FBI Agent Ray Cannon (Edwin Hodge), who is black, learns the victim is from Archer County, he remarks, “Archer County was once referred to as a ‘sundown town.’ Probably still is. It's home to the Eastern Shores' most rabid bigots. My father said they were burning crosses there till the early '70s.” The team sets out to investigate and first attempts to question Manny’s wife, who is white, but she flees. When Ray catches her and asks why she ran, she tells him, “I don’t like cops.” “I get that,” he replies. The team eventually learns Manny was killed with a Taser which they trace to Archer County Deputy Eli Nelson (Andy Favreau). They interview Sheriff Blake (John Bedford Lloyd) who turns out to be a perfect caricature of a corrupt, racist cop covering for his team of equally corrupt officers: Sheriff: Look, we got a lot of bad actors in this county who would like nothing more than to pin a charge on one of my boys. Nina: Well, let's just take a look at your Taser logs, then. You know, I'd like to see if Eli used his device on the night that's in question. Sheriff: We don't keep logs on our Tasers. Nina: How come? Sheriff: Because I trust the men who work for me. Nina: Convenient. Remy: Electric Company. What's this? Sheriff: Well, that's kind of an inside joke around here. That's my anti-crime unit. They collared a murderer who, you know, eventually got the chair. Nina: So, who's everyone in the picture with you? Sheriff: That's Dobbs, Harvey, and Eli Nelson. So, now that we have cracked the case of the missing Taser cartridges, I'll be taking over this murder investigation. We like to clean up our own garbage here in Archer County, so you guys can just go home. Remy: Take a look at these faces, because we're sticking around here for a while. Sheriff Blake can barely stand being in the same room with us. That means we're onto something. Nina: Yeah, but it wasn't his department that requested our assistance. It was Virginia. So, do we need to run this by Isobel? Remy: Already did. By the way, no one's ever gotten the chair in Maryland. That whole "Electric Company" story? Bunch of caca. Nina: Okay. Update from Quantico Forensic Lab. All three victims in the Virginia swamp died of cardiac arrest. Remy: Consistent with being lethally tased by the Electric Company. Nina: There's also evidence of blunt-force trauma on all three victims, and Manny Birdsong had fractured ribs and a broken jaw. Remy: They roughed him up and electrocuted him before they dumped him in that swamp. This profiles as renegade cops who believe they're doing the right thing by taking matters into their own hands- judge, jury, and executioner. Let's deconflict with the county D.A. before we track them down. I don't want this dumbass sheriff mucking things up. The county D.A., also white, ends up defending the cops because the county’s lowered drug crime rate reflects well on her. Meanwhile Eli and his partner, Deputy Logan Dobbs (Shane Patrick) boldly plant the Taser used in Manny’s murder in the car of another innocent black man, Ronnie, who they refer to as “a real piece of trash.” They then force a black, male teen to call in a “tip” about the Taser’s location by threatening to arrest him for the pot he’s smoking. Logan chastises the teen’s white, female friend, who was also smoking pot, for hanging out with a “loser.” “You should know better,” he admonishes her. FBI agents Sheryll Barnes (Roxy Sternberg) and Ray Cannon (Edwin Hodge), both black, are pulled over in the county for speeding, and the scene is astoundingly absurd, even for a woke Hollywood drama: Ray: Is there a problem, Officer? Sheriff: Hands on the wheel, son. Ray: First of all, I'm not your son. Sheryll: Ray. Just so you know, we're both FBI agents, and we're here on official business, and we're both carrying sidearms. Sheriff: Is that so? Does that give you the right to do 80 on a 45? Ray: This is an emergency vehicle. I'm authorized. Sheriff: Not in Archer County, you don't. Ray: Right. Look, we'll slow it down, all right? Sheriff: All right. Why don't you exit the vehicle? You too, ma'am. Sheryll: Is that really necessary? Deputy: Are you telling us how to do our jobs? Sheryll: No, I'm not telling you how to do your job. Deputy: Get out of the car! Ray: Well, I need you to de-escalate. Sheryll: Ray, let's get out the car. Ray: I'm not getting out the car, Sheryll. Sheryll: Let's get out the car. Ray: I'm not getting out the car. Sheryll: Ray, let's get out the car. Come on. Deputy: Move. Ray: What is this really about? Sheryll: I am moving. Don't tell me to move. Ray: We've already identified ourselves, all right? Sheryll: I'm moving, okay? So, you don't need to tell me to move. Ray: This ain't right. Deputy: Turn around. Ray: Don't tell me to turn around, man. Sheryll: I don't need to turn around. I didn't do anything. Deputy: You really wanna do this right now? Sheryll: Do I wanna do what? Deputy: Turn around! Ray: Get your hands off of her! Deputy: Stay back! Sheryll: Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! Hey, what the hell are you doing? He didn't do anything! Deputy: Stay down! Stay down! Sheryll: He didn't do anything! Deputy: Stay down! Sheryll: He didn't do anything! Sheriff: Welcome to Archer County. I mean, technically, they weren’t following orders and Ray lunged at the officer, but yeah, it was obviously targeted racism knowing they were FBI agents. Agents Remy (Dylan McDermott) and Nina (Shantel VanSanten) meanwhile interview Ronnie’s son James (Denzel Rodriquez) who warns how deep the county’s corruption runs: James: All right, the night that guy Manny got killed, I was at home with my pop watching the Wizards play on the West Coast. Remy: Wizards fan. Woof. That's rough. James: Not as rough as being framed for murder. Thing is, I crashed out on the sofa after the game. My pop never left the house. Nina: So, that's a strong alibi. Does his public defender know? James: Yeah, I told him, but that doesn't matter. Nobody's gonna believe us. Nina: Why not? James: It's just the way it is out here. Remy: Why are you so worried, James? James: My father wouldn't do something like this. Never. Everybody I know thinks that Manny was killed by the Electric Company. Remy: And? James: Word on the street was that Manny was dealing. Whether that's true or not, I can't say. But Sheriff Blake and his Electric Company crew, that's how they roll with that situation- Tasers and beat-downs. They say that they're cleaning up the drug problem in this county? Yeah, maybe. But there's a trail of dead and broken bodies along the way. Last year, I got stopped by Nelson and Dobbs. Said they were looking for meth. They tore apart my car and they tased me. Nina: Did you tell anybody about this? James: You kidding me? The last person to complain to Sheriff Blake disappeared. Yeah, that was him sending a message. You open your mouth, The Electric Company crew will bust down your door in the middle of the night on some anonymous tip. Remy: Like what happened to Manny. James: Yeah. I know five, six people. Same thing. Look, I can't talk to you anymore. I gotta get back to work. Remy: This whole damn county is going to the dark side. We need to talk to the U.S. Attorney in Baltimore. As the episode’s end nears, the U.S. Attorney thankfully believes the FBI’s suspicions and takes them seriously: Attorney: I’ve heard rumors of law enforcement corruption in Archer County from time to time, but nothing we could verify. Remy: Corruption is one thing, but this is a systematic policy of intimidation, brutality, and murder. There's an entire community living in fear of a handful of deputies who operate like a street gang. Hana: And a county DA who turns a blind eye in the name of a drug war. Attorney: Other than the case you're working, is there any criminal activity you could substantiate? Remy: We just spoke with someone who might be willing to break the ice. He has a list of other victims. Nina: Plus, we may have eyewitnesses and medical records to corroborate his story. Attorney: And why might this brave soul be willing to come forward now? Remy: His father is being framed for murder committed by these cops. Attorney: So, he has a bone to pick? Remy: No, no, no. This young man is absolutely credible. Attorney: If that's the case, I'm on board. Give me the name of your targets, and I'll have arrest warrants within the hour. Then I'll need to talk to your informant myself. Remy: It's not gonna be easy to round up these hooligans in their own back yard. They have a network of co-conspirators and nothing to lose. Nina: We need to speak with James Mccaffrey. We need to make sure that he's willing to cooperate with us before things get ugly. Remy: Barnes and Ray will scoop him up at his job and bring him here. The FBI attempts to persuade James into becoming a witness, but as he steps into his car, it immediately explodes. You can probably figure out who the culprit was: Ray: This has the Electric Company written all over it, Remy. Look, he was innocent, and they lynched him! Nina: Look, somebody had to have found out that he was talking with us, Remy. Hana: We can use this to get justice for James McCaffrey's father. Sheryll: Well, how's that gonna work now that they murdered his son? Remy: We still have the arrest warrants, and the U.S. Attorney can convene a grand jury. Let's go round up these sons of bitches. Hana: I've got bolos on their personal vehicles. Sheryll: What the hell does he want? What the hell does he want? Sheriff: Hey! Why wasn't I notified about this? Remy: You know exactly why. Sheriff: Oh, you think I had a hand in this? Remy: Damn right, I do. Sheriff: Oh, I should have put down your candy ass when I had the chance. Now, clear your people off of my crime scene so I can get to work here. Remy: Your deputies murdered a witness in a federal prosecution. They have 24 hours to surrender. In the meantime, if you don't turn around and get back in your vehicle, I'm gonna arrest you for obstruction, you racist pig. That's right. You heard me. Get him out of here! Deputy: Come on, boss. Sheriff: Let's go home! Remy: We're not waiting until tomorrow. Let's split up and get these dirtbags before they rack up even more bodies to cover their tracks. In the end, the FBI gets enough evidence against The Electric Company to take them all into custody, minus one who shot himself. It seems quite unfair that one hit CBS procedural drama that always respected blue lives just aired their series finale after being canceled by the network while this woke garbage of a show gets to continue on. But sadly, that’s Hollywood’s priorities for you. December 18th, 2024 9:44 AM Dawn Slusher 287213 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/daniel-mccarthy/2024/12/18/fighting-communism-after-cold-war Communism didn’t win the Cold War, but it’s doing surprisingly well in the 21st century, including in America. Elsewhere, especially in East Asia, Communism is the tyrannical creed of a ruling class that stays in power by jailing its opponents — or rolling tanks over them. Here, especially on college campuses, Communism is a status marker and a way to make murder seem cool. Fascism isn’t the totalitarian ideology having a moment in America right now. It’s Communism whose chief theoretical work — or Bible, really — has just been published in a new translation by Princeton University Press. Karl Marx’s “Capital” still confers prestige on students and professors who aspire to be revolutionaries without risking their lives. Campus Communism offers an easy way to appear edgy yet intellectual, and if Communism outside the Ivory Tower bears responsibility for the deaths of some 100 million people in the 20th century (most in the developing world), well, that just proves how truly “serious” its ideas are. The Marxist-Leninists of old knew you couldn’t make an omelet without breaking the eggs, and class enemies deserve to die anyway. That’s exactly the attitude of the self-described socialists in higher ed (and elsewhere) who celebrate the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Julia Alekseyeva, a blue-haired assistant professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania who goes by the social media handle “@TheSoviette,” had to insist that she didn’t really mean her posts seeming to cheer Thompson’s slaying after they stirred a maelstrom of controversy for her Ivy League employer. Maybe she was just being flippant or ironic — but then, is the picture of Leon Trotsky that adorns the top of her personal website, along with cartoons of BLM activism and protest politics, also ironic? It’s hard to support Trotsky, a revolutionary later famous for massacring the Soviet Union’s own rebellious sailors, if you do not, in fact, “condone violence” — it would be a bit like pretending Hitler was just a painter. Twenty-first-century Communism in this country is a smart aleck’s way to feel clever about holding stupid and morally bankrupt views. But because they are anti-Western and anti-capitalist views — and because the realities of Communism are so little known to most Americans — they carry little stigma. (How little stigma? Barack Obama’s CIA director John Brennan actually voted for the Communist Party USA candidate for president in 1976 — not exactly a time when Soviet atrocities were unknown.) Luigi Mangione’s fans aren’t about to touch off a Bolshevik Revolution; most are too busy trying to get tenure. But the Ivory Tower Communism of today does promote hatred and violence — and relentlessly argues for using government power against political enemies, who are always labeled “fascists.” Higher ed’s attitudinal Communism corrupts education in general, concealing the crimes of socialist regimes while demonizing the West as uniquely imperialist. It’s as if Beijing or Pyongyang were dictating what Americans ought to know about Communism and how its morality compares with ours. Lee Edwards thought Americans, and the world, should see and hear the truth instead. He was the son of a Chicago (later relocated to D.C.) newspaperman, a stalwart of the conservative movement who had been Barry Goldwater’s press man on the historic 1964 campaign and later became the all-but-official historian of conservatism’s institutions and leaders from the 1950s onwards, producing biographies of Goldwater, William F. Buckley Jr. and many more. Lee, a friend and inspiration to me, was the conscience and memory of the conservative movement in Washington when he died last week at age 92. But his greatest professional legacy, as Lee himself would insist, was the work he undertook right after the Cold War to ensure our nation and the world didn’t forget what had happened in that twilight struggle — and what was still happening in Communist China, North Korea, Cuba and elsewhere. If Communism weren’t remembered correctly, its evil would grow in new forms. So Lee founded the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, and — after a protracted struggle with planning commissioners — in 2022 opened the Victims of Communism Museum in Washington, D.C. A museum and a foundation aren’t enough to correct the record by themselves. But Lee Edwards didn’t think they would be: What they are is a reminder, something to compel us not to forget. In this case, not to forget to fight for the truth about an evil that hasn’t disappeared, only changed. For the people of China, Vietnam and North Korea, and even in our own hemisphere Cuba, the Communist era never ended. In the West, it never began — yet the political heirs of the people who wanted it to are still at it, as reactions to Brian Thompson’s murder show. Remember where their ideas lead, and where they led in the last century, so America can say “no” to them every single time. Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review. To read more by Daniel McCarthy, visit www.creators.com. December 18th, 2024 9:36 AM Daniel McCarthy 287207 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mark-finkelstein/2024/12/18/scarborough-desperately-clings-wisconsin-downplay-trump-win How pathetic was Joe Scarborough's desperate attempt to downplay the scope of Trump's victory? The best Scarborough could do was to repeatedly cite a state that Trump won! A state Trump flipped, after losing it in 2020! On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough repeatedly relied on the results in Wisconsin to make his flimsy case. Scarborough harped on Trump winning Wisconsin by "less than 1%" [the margin was 0.9%.] Scarborough conveniently ignored that Trump had lost the state by 0.7% in 2020, thus improving by 1.6%.  Scarborough tried to bolster his case by twice mentioning that on the same day Trump carried Wisconsin, voters there also re-elected "a lesbian Democratic senator." (Tammy Baldwin won by 0.8 percent over a first-time candidate.) Discussing national trends, Scarborough mockingly referred to Trump's "1% landslide."  But Scarborough again ignored the bigger picture. As the New York Times reported, in the November election, "all 50 states had shifted right." And on a more granular level, "More than 89 percent of counties in the United States shifted in favor" of Trump, who "improved on his 2020 margin in 2,793 counties. His margin decreased in only 319 counties." This happened despite all kinds of MSNBC-boosted lawfare against Trump. So keep whistling past the graveyard, Joe. You know what they say about people who ignore history. Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 12/18/24 6:07 am ET JOE SCARBOROUGH: Right now, they're in this bubble. They won. And so all these Republicans are running around acting like they had a mandate. They won by one percentage point. They won Wisconsin by less than one percentage point.  Let me just say, and I was talking about this on the show yesterday. Everybody needs to take a deep breath. Everybody needs to take a deep breath. Because people are going, oh, this is the age of Elon. Oh, this is the age of the bro culture. Oh, America has darted so for right.  Let's take Wisconsin, the bellwether states of bellwether states. Kamala Harris lost by less than one percentage point because of the bro culture, right? Wrong. They elected a lesbian woman as senator on this same day.  The same thing with Michigan. Oh, the bro culture. No, they elected a woman senator the same day that Kamala Harris lost by one and a half points. A woman who was running the shortest presidential campaign in American history, right?  So, all I'm saying is here we are, everybody's over-reading this. Everybody's saying, you know, it's like, sackcloth and ashes for Democrats. Oh, we've got to change everything. Whoa, this was the greatest defeat in the history -- No, no, there's no sweeping change here as far as what the American people said. It's like one percentage point.  And come January 20th, you start looking at policies. If they try to dart too for one direction or the other, we're going to see what happened in the first term. Democratic wins in '17, '18, '19, and '20. Everybody needs to be very careful not to overread the 1% landslide.  . . .  Well, Eddie, talk about the danger of Democrats overreacting to a 1% landslide. And again, I talk about Wisconsin. I just want to keep going back. Because everybody's over-reading this as some radical swing to the far right. Where in Wisconsin, Kamala Harris lost by less than one percentage point, and the Wisconsin voters re-elected a lesbian Democratic senator.  December 18th, 2024 9:01 AM Mark Finkelstein 287206 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2024/12/18/column-abcs-payment-trump-creates-chilling-effect After ABC News settled with Donald Trump for $16 million over George Stephanopoulos incessantly lying about Trump being held “liable for rape,” the hot concept in media panic was the “chilling effect.” MSNBC commentator Barbara McQuade lamented “the chilling effect it might have on people who otherwise would be critical of Trump.” Is there a shortage of critical statements in the media about Trump? It seems more like the opposite. CNN anchor Jim Acosta – the Old Yeller of the White House press corps in the first Trump term – complained to Brian Stelter: “I have to ask you whether or not you think there’s just going to be a chilling effect on the news industry as just as he is coming into office because of this. I mean, I suppose it’s almost a rhetorical question because the answer is yes.” Stelter agreed. Trump has sued CBS News for its bizarre edits of their 60 Minutes softball interview with Kamala Harris, and now the Des Moines Register over their wildly inaccurate poll showing Harris leading in Iowa in the final days – which was heavily promoted by the pro-Kamala media. Both the Democrats and their media enablers can’t imagine that people see them as the ones who are the Freeze Police of the chilling effect. They’re constantly trying to intimidate people from speaking in Trump’s favor, describing all their arguments as “misinformation” or “without evidence,” and it doesn’t matter if they turned out to be true – like the corruption evidence on the Hunter Biden laptop. Others have described the suits as part of an “authoritarian playbook.” Is the principle here that the media is the epitome of Democracy, so any lawsuit against a media outlet is anti-democratic? Obviously, the answer is no, because they all loved the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox News. Because only Democrat news outlets are for Democracy. Only they represent Journalism. Brian Stelter based much of his second Fox-trashing book on the discovery of internal Fox emails from the Dominion suit. Maybe Brian doesn’t fear conservatives writing a book based on the internal ABC emails that Trump’s lawyers could have unearthed. The principle coming from the chilling-effect chorus seems to be incessant aggression matters much more than accuracy. It’s essential for journalists to trash Trump constantly, and whether it’s accurate or not is seven pages down the list. Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple marshaled language from the 1991 court case Masson v. The New Yorker that libel law in America “overlooks minor inaccuracies and concentrates upon substantial truth.” Do we know E. Jean Carroll is substantially truthful in her claims of department-store sexual assault by Trump? She can't remember what year in the 1990s her "liable for rape" event occurred. All that matters is aggression. The anti-Trump media always believe the worst about Trump, so they believe Trump “raped” Carroll without needing troublesome facts like what year it was. It doesn’t matter if the anti-Trump jury is stacked with Manhattan Democrats. Every legal finding against Trump is routinely presented as super-duper-objective and nonpartisan. On Laura Coates Live, Stelter complained lawyers will benefit from Trump’s lawsuits, but “everybody else is going to suffer because journalism, because newsrooms, because media outlets are going to be tied up as a result of this effort.” A CNN employee actually complained on CNN that journalists will be “tied up” by court cases without the slightest smirk over how Trump has been perennially tied up in legal actions against him. That whole network sounds like a 24/7 mudslinging advertisement against Trump the "convicted felon." It's a perpetual “chilling effect.” December 18th, 2024 6:00 AM Tim Graham 287202 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2024/12/18/networks-are-struggling-cover-motive-behind-madison-school At this stage, the motive of the Madison school shooter seems pretty clear, but the network news seems hesitant to report what it is. Of course, this generally means that the motive is inconvenient to prevailing leftwing narratives or identity politics. This case is not the exception. Of the three networks, ABC comes closest to exposing the shooter’s motives: ALEX PEREZ: Investigators now poring over online accounts believed to be Rupnow's that appear to show the suspect gravitating toward neo Nazi ideology, as well as interest and engagement in online forums that idolized mass shooters. Much of the information regarding motive was readily available and confirmed to be attributable to the shooter within hours after the shooting. ABC is right to report that the shooter had clear neo-Nazi ideations, and her writings confirm her to be a racist. Likewise her admiration for other school shooters both in the United States and overseas. As our friends at Not the Bee report, radical feminism was the shooter’s main motivation. Not reported by ABC is the fact that the shooter posted several writings across multiple platforms indicating what can be reasonably described as an eliminationist hatred of men.  ABC’s 13-second reporting on motive was brief and incomplete, and was also the best the networks had to offer. Inexplicably, CBS and NBC didn’t even touch motive, despite the neo-Nazi angle being out there. This shooting is not an easy one to report for the media, inasmuch as there isn’t an easy narrative to run with. The shooting was conducted with a pistol so there isn’t really much of a gun control angle to work with, and the only mystery left is the provenance of the handgun. If the shooter obtained the gun as an illegal gift from a parent, then this will become the angle the media runs with- as was the case in the Michigan and Georgia shootings. Feminism paired with neo-Nazism and school shooter worship? That’s a no-win angle and furthermore explains why the media are uncomfortable when it comes to reporting on motive in the Madison school shooting. Click “expand” to view the full transcripts of the aforementioned reports as aired on their respective evening newscasts on Tuesday, December 17th, 2024: ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT 12/17/24 6:35 PM DAVID MUIR: In the meantime, we turn now to the other developing story at this hour, and what authorities are now saying about motive in the deadly school shooting 24 hours ago in Madison, Wisconsin. Tonight here, the image of the suspect. Police say the shooter was a 15-year-old student, Natalie Rupnow, they also call her Samantha, her friends, where authorities are now searching tonight, and ABC's Alex Perez reporting again from Madison. ALEX PEREZ: Tonight, police trying to find out what drove 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, seen here in a recent Facebook photo, smiling and hugging a dog, to bring a gun to the Abundant Life School Monday morning and kill a teacher and a fellow student. SHON BARNES: At this time, it appears that the motive was a combination of factors. PEREZ: Police say Rupnow, who also went by Samantha, shot her victims in a study hall classroom with kids of all grades inside. NORA GOTTSCHALK: I was in the hallway and I was changing from my shoes to my boots to go to lunch. But then I heard the shooting. And screams. PEREZ: Second grader Nora Gottschalk reunited with her dad, still barefoot, trying to process what happened. GOTTSCHALK: We went to the church right next to my school and everyone was panicking still. Because the -- a lot of police were there. PEREZ: Investigators now poring over online accounts believed to be Rupnow's that appear to show the suspect gravitating toward neo Nazi ideology, as well as interest and engagement in online forums that idolized mass shooters. In the minutes before the shootings, multiple posts to X, formerly Twitter, from an account believed to be Rupnow's, one at 10:45, showing a hand making the "OK" symbol, a gesture flashed by past white supremacist mass shooters. And another, at 10:50, linking to a locked Google drive that may contain writings by the suspect. BARNES: We are working to authenticate the documents that you see online that some are referring to as a manifesto, and as soon as we do that, we'll let you know. PEREZ: And David, investigators have collected evidence from the shooter's home and say her family is cooperating. They're still trying to figure out how she got that handgun. A vigil for the victims will be held later tonight. David? MUIR: The country thinking about that community tonight. Alex, thank you. CBS EVENING NEWS 12/17/24 6:37 PM NORAH O’DONNELL: The police chief in Madison, Wisconsin, says identifying a motive is a top priority following yesterday's deadly shooting at a private Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin. Two students are in critical condition tonight. Another student and a teacher were killed before police say the 15-year-old female shooter took her own life. CBS's Charlie De Mar is on the ground speaking to parents about the terrifying moments. SHON BARNES: The past 24 hours have been a flurry of emotion, sadness, anger, disappointment, grief. CHARLIE DE MAR: Madison police provided few details but now say a combination of factors may have led 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow to kill a classmate, a teacher, and wound six others before taking her own life. BARNES: There are always signs of a school shooting before it occurred. We are looking into her online activity, anyone who may have known her or knew what she was feeling or going through at that time. DE MAR: Investigators are making a public appeal for information after searching the shooter's home. They're also analyzing social media posts. CBS News has learned that the ATF has traced the weapon, but it’s still not clear how Rupnow obtained the gun. Outside the Abundant Life Christian School, there's a growing memorial where we met a group of bus drivers. For Megan Mojica, Monday's shooting brought back memories of the attack five years ago at a high school in nearby Waukesha, where her son attended. MEGAN MOJICA: He was a victim of that shooting. He had the gun pointed at his face, so when I was seeing everything go on here it brought me right back to that day. DE MAR: Her son survived that shooting. Today, families in Madison are taking stock. Reverend Kellen Lewis. KELLEN LEWIS: Not knowing if my kids are alive or not. I just prayed. DE MAR: He has four children attending the school, and last night... LEWIS: Hugging them a little bit extra tight, giving them a kiss, letting them know I love them. And- you know, it's tough, it makes you appreciate your kids, but man, my heart goes out to those that- they don't have their kids to hug anymore. DE MAR: Police now say that initial call to 911 came from a second grade teacher, and not a student. While there are no school resource officers or metal detectors at the school, we are told that there are cameras throughout and parents, who we have had the opportunity to speak with, they say they feel both safe and confident sending their kids back to school, Norah. O’DONNELL: Praying for those victims. All right, Charlie De Mar, thank you. NBC NIGHTLY NEWS 12/17/24 6:35 PM LESTER HOLT: In Madison, Wisconsin, new details tonight on the deadly Christian school shooting and what might have motivated a 15-year-old to shoot people at the school. Shaquille Brewster is there. SHAQUILLE BREWSTER: Tonight, police are learning more about the 15-year-old female student who they say killed a teacher and classmate before turning a gun on herself in Madison, Wisconsin. SHON BARNES: At this time, it appears that the motive was a combination of factors. BREWSTER: Police identifying the shooter as Natalie Rupnow, saying she went by the name Samantha. BARNES: We're talking to students to understand whether bullying was one of those multiple factors that I mentioned earlier. BREWSTER: Police clarifying the initial 911 call was made by a second grade teacher. Two students are still battling life-threatening injuries. Law enforcement spending the night sifting through the home of the shooter’s parents. BARNES: Everyone was targeted in this incident. And everyone was put in equal danger. BREWSTER: Investigators looking into how the 15-year-old accessed the handgun used in Monday's shooting, spending hours interviewing her father and looking into her social media footprint, with detectives scrambling to verify a document circulating online reported to be from the shooter. BARNES: The process for doing that is looking at original documents that may have been taken from the suspect's home. Looking at information that may be on laptops. BREWSTER: The community left reeling. REBECCA SMITH: We know a lot of the people involved. BREWSTER: James and Rebecca Smith waited six hours to be reunited with their 11th grade daughter, whose classroom was down the hall from the shooting. JAMES SMITH: She didn't say much. But- she’s not a hugger, and she allowed me to hug her at the reunification.  BREWSTER: Parents now left to wonder how to make their children feel safe again. REBECCA SMITH: You talk about having metal detectors and being frisked coming into school. Do we want our kids to think they're at a security checkpoint at an airport coming to school every day? That's a hard one to answer. BREWSTER: And multiple vigils are scheduled across Madison tonight, but as the community tries to grieve, police say numerous schools across the area were targeted by false threats. Lester. HOLT: All right, Shaquille Brewster. Thank you.   December 18th, 2024 12:34 AM Jorge Bonilla 287204 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2024/12/17/taxpayer-funded-pbs-mourns-aoc-annihilated-house-oversight The DOGE chainsaw won’t officially rumble to life for another 34 days, but one of its potential targets insists on calling attention to itself. The Public Broadcasting System (PBS), although taxpayer-funded, insists on pretending it is MSNBC as it covers House Democrat committee chair races. Watch as PBS’s Geoff Bennett and Lisa Desjarlais mourn the fact that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) lost her race for House Oversight Committee Ranking Member to Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA):     PBS NEWSHOUR 12/17/24 7:23 PM GEOFF BENNETT: I want to ask you about some internal Democratic Party politics. Namely, that New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez today lost her bid to become the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. And this is at a time when Democrats- there’s an appetite for fresh faces, especially in Congress leading some of these committees. Bring us up to speed. LISA DESJARDINS: That was a big part of her pitch. She is now going to be a four- a fourth-term congresswoman, she’s not new to The Hill anymore. Ocasio-Cortez has talked about that race. First of all, she pitched that new generation. She said, “I am one of the top fundraisers. Seniority is not- should not just be the way that people gain traction here. It should be the people who are strongest and able to voice things for the working class.” But she lost to Gerry Connolly, a Virginia congressman who among other things, has important ties to Washington, D.C., which is part of the Oversight Committee’s job. You can identify the pro-AOC angle in this reporting by the fact that it didn’t mention Gerry Connolly’s margin of victory over AOC. Per Axios: Driving the news: Connolly defeated Ocasio-Cortez 131-84, lawmakers told Axios. He had the backing of several veteran lawmakers, including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). The role came open after current Oversight ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) opted to run for the top Democratic spot on the Judiciary Committee. This wasn’t just a victory by Connolly, it was an embarrassing 61-39 annihilation of AOC within her own caucus. Furthermore, it was the messy end of a proxy war between AOC and a recently hip-replaced Nancy Pelosi, gone from the Speakership but still calling shots within the Dem conference from her hospital suite at Landstuhl. Somehow, this didn’t make it into PBS’s réportage. Instead we get a gushy brief within a D.C. wrap that is stripped of anything resembling news other than the progressive heroine was thwarted by the patriarchal Establishment despite her fundraising prowess and social media presence.  This kind of partisan reporting is, unfortunately, predictable. And, at least for the time being, funded by the American taxpayer. Hopefully, not for long.   December 17th, 2024 11:10 PM Jorge Bonilla 287203 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/brad-wilmouth/2024/12/17/cnn-sets-democrat-congressman-trash-nra-after-wisconsin-school On Tuesday's CNN This Morning, host Kasie Hunt gave no pushback as Congressman Marc Veasey (D-TX) called for more gun control in the aftermath of the Wisconsin school shooting as he also complained about opposition from the NRA. Even when the Democrat congressman admitted to having doubts about whether more gun control would actually work, the CNN host still did not try to steer to conversation to anything that might actually work -- like arming teachers. After Congressman Veasey recalled that, while he was working as a teacher, there was a 14-year-old in his school who was caught with a gun he bought on the illegal black market, Hunt followed up: "Do you think that this has become normal in America? And is there anything that can be done about it?" It's obviously not "normal." But CNN paints America like the most violent nation on Earth. Congressman Veasey then used the tired Democrat playbook of trying to blame the NRA as he responded: What I really think has happened here is that, you know, it's another case of the group -- and when you talk about the groups and the groups being out of control in D.C., the king of the groups is the NRA. They have way too much power -- way too much control over Republicans and even legislation that, you know, 80, 90 percent of the public supports because the Republicans would rather listen to this group than listen to the American people and get some things done. The Texas Democrat then argued that, even though he has doubts about whether more gun control would work, it should be passed anyway: I don't think that it's going to cure everything if we pass some of these more common sense gun safety legislation packages, but at least we're showing the American public that we're trying to do something about this. And we need to do that. Look, there are a lot of guns that are just floating around out there that are on the black market that have been stolen -- guns that the police aren't even -- that the police don't even know have been stolen, but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't do anything. We have to pass just some basic, common-sense gun legislation. Hunt brought up ghost guns as she followed up: "Do you think that there would be any path in Congress for legislation related to ghost guns? Especially in the wake of the CEO killing where a ghost gun was apparently allegedly used in that murder. Is that an area where Republicans and Democrats could find some common ground?" Congressman Veasey responded by tying in the NRA again as he called for more regulation of ghost guns: We would have to go to the NRA website and see what the NRA says about ghost guns because if the NRA has a problem with us doing something about ghost guns. And that means that with a Republican presidency and a Republican House, that means nothing's going to get done on ghost guns. And so do I think that most Americans would like us to not let someone that is as crazy and demented as this guy that killed the United Healthcare CEO should never be able to make a ghost gun again? And so I do think that most Americans don't want anyone like that to ever be able to make a ghost gun again. But do I think that this body that is led by Republicans are going to do anything? I think they would do something if the NRA told them that it was okay. December 17th, 2024 10:32 PM Brad Wilmouth 287200 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2024/12/17/good-move-comcast-msnbc-fell-behind-newsnation-saturday-trouncing As per new Nielsen Media Research data from this weekend, MSNBC’s precipitous ratings decline hit a new low when the 28-year-old network has fallen behind NewsNation, which has only been around three years and added around-the-clock news programming on June 1. On Saturday, NewsNation topped MSNBC in the key 25-54 demographic for a total of six hours with the noon Eastern hour and then from 2:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Over the course of noon to 7:00 p.m. Eastern, NewsNation won by a healthy 35 percent over the failing MSNBC. This might be a Captain Obvious-like observation, but Comcast seems to have made the right move in soon jettisoning MSNBC (and six other cable networks, including CNBC). As for the specifics, noon Eastern’s NewsNation Live with Laura Ingle beat an MSNBC rerun of The Katie Phang Show by a whopping 162 percent (34,000 in the demo versus a bleak 13,000). By 2:00 p.m. Eastern, NewsNation Now with fill-in host Jesse Weber (subbing for former Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Anna Kooiman) would crush longtime MSNBC weekend host Alex Witt by 52 percent and expand to a massive 150-percent disparity an hour later. The numbers continued to tilt heavily in NewsNation’s direction.  For example, the 6:00 p.m. Eastern hour had a 90-percent win for NewsNation Now host Adrienne Bankert romping over the deeply partisan Saturday Show with Jonathan Capehart, which featured far-left darlings such as New York University professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, NBC law enforcement analyst Frank Figliuzzi, former Congressman Mondaire Jones (D-NY), Vanderbilt’s Dr. Jonathan Metzl, and former U.K. Labour Party leader David Miliband. Overall, from noon to 7:00 p.m. Eastern, NewsNation’s advantage over MSNBC in the 25-54 age range clocked in at 35 percent. NewsNation’s growing ratings also extended to its weekday primetime lineup of Chris Cuomo, Dan Abrams, and Ashleigh Banfield seeing a 33-percent increase in total viewers when comparing the first two weeks of December.  In the 25-54 demo, it was a one-percent jump. In both cases, they were the only major cable news outlet able to point to growth amid these unusually busy news cycles for the holiday season. Speaking of Cuomo, the win came just two days before the network announced an extension for Cuomo, whose primetime show has doubled in total viewers and 28 percent in the demo since its premiere on October 3, 2022. Abrams stated it plainly in February 2023 by comparing concerns about ratings for Fox News Channel and — wait for it — MSNBC in 1999, just three years after both launched to NewsNation’s aspirations after The Washington Post penned a disparaging profile:  It takes time to build an audience, particularly in the cable news world. It takes time to establish brand awareness, recognition, and trust. But based on the direction we are going compared to the other three networks [CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC], it sure seems like any objective observer would say that it appears to be working. The non-biased, non-agenda-driven headline might have said “Chris Cuomo’s new cable home moves moderates; They may have a ways to go, but the winds sure seem to be going their way.” December 17th, 2024 5:42 PM Curtis Houck 287201 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mark-finkelstein/2024/12/17/was-bernie-sanders-kvetching-about-billionaires-nope-its-joe All that was missing was Bernie's trademark "gr-e-e-e-e-d" . . .  If you had only read the transcript, you might have thought it was the socialist senator from Vermont who was inveighing against a government for billionaires. "of the billionaires, for the billionaires, by the billionaires." But no! That was born-again liberal populist Joe Scarborough on today's Morning Joe. Scarborough demanded that former Ohio congressman Tim Ryan [who lost to J.D. Vance in the 2022 senatorial race] explain how Democrats have lost Ohio to the Republicans, given the disparity between the household income of only $34,000 in Youngstown, and the wealth of those billionaires. Banging his desk in frustration, Scarborough clamored, "How does that happen? How do Democrats miss that lay-up? Average household, $34,000? Yeah. Voting for the government of the billionaires, for the billionaires, by the billionaires, over and over again. How could it be that Ohio is gone?" Ryan blamed Bill Clinton [while trying to stay in his good graces by claiming to "love" him] and the Democrats who supported NAFTA, which led to the export of many Ohio jobs to Mexico. Scarborough wasn't satisfied, saying NAFTA was adopted in 1994, and Dems could have come up with something since then. If you didn't know better, you might think ex-Republican Scarborough, so frustrated by Trump having carried Ohio, has gone full Democrat. Oh, wait. Say: here's an idea. If Scarborough finds himself out on the sidewalk after Comcast spins off MSNBC, Joe could make himself over as a Democrat election consultant. Trump won Ohio by 11 points in November. But since Joe thinks it was "lay-up" easy for Dems to have won the state, he's bound to have great ideas to turn the electoral map blue. After Joe puts Ohio in the Dem column in 2028, it's on to Oklahoma! Speaking of elections: Ryan's been doing a lot of TV recently. As mentioned, he lost to Vance in the 2022 senatorial race. But there'll be an open gubernatorial election in Ohio in 2026, because Mike DeWine is term-limited. Odds Ryan makes a run for it? About the same as my Buffalo Bills clinching a playoff spot this year.   Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 12/17/24 6:40 am EDT JOE SCARBOROUGH: How can it be that in Youngstown, Ohio, the average salary last year was $34,000 a year for a family, for a household? Household average salary last year, $34,000.  And yet a government of the billionaires, for the billionaires, by the billionaires, won Ohio overwhelmingly. How does that happen? How do Democrats miss that layup? Why have they continued to miss that layup for years? Average household, $34,000? Yeah.  Voting for the government of the billionaires, for the billionaires, by the billionaires, over and over again. How could it be that Ohio is gone?  TIM RYAN: I don't think Ohio's gone, but they saw Trump as the blue-collar billionaire who's going to go in and help fix it, and maybe he's the only guy that could.  And unfortunately, as much as I love Bill Clinton, they see the Democrats as the ones who passed NAFTA and led us through globalization. And those workers at places like Delphi or General Motors, we literally watched those jobs go from Warren, Ohio, over the border into the maquiladoras in Mexico, and shipped the product back.  Our workers were unfolding machines, my cousin did, from the factory floor and shipped it to China. Workers went to Mexico.  SCARBOROUGH: That happened in 1994.  RYAN: It's still in the DNA, Joe.  SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, I mean, Democrats can't figure something out from 1994 forward?  RYAN: Well, no, that's the problem, is they said, you did this, and Obama was in for eight years, and things have not gotten any better. Now, finally, to Biden's credit, we are re-industrializing the country. But we didn't have a reform re-industrializing, we're taking on those guys, we're putting -- There's a battery plant outside of Youngstown, 2,000 UAW jobs, $30 bucks an hour, just renegotiated the contract. We didn't hear about that. So all the upside, we didn't talk about. All the reforms that we were trying to make around insulin and these other things.  You didn't hear a ton about it. It wasn't this big, bold agenda. It was really piecemeal. And we need that big reform agenda. Carry a big stick.  SCARBOROUGH: All right.  MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Former Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan, always good to see you. Thank you for coming on this morning.  December 17th, 2024 5:27 PM Mark Finkelstein 287196 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/catherine-salgado/2024/12/17/wont-let-go-tiktok-hit-latest-defeat-amid-impending Communist Chinese government-tied TikTok just lost yet another frantic appeal to halt federal legislation that could kill its American market success. The Chinese-owned app recently lost its case before a federal appeals court, which ruled that the ultimatum taking effect on Jan. 19 is constitutional and justified in light of the app’s national security risks. TikTok appealed to that same court for a hold on the ban while it readied itself to make its case before the U.S. Supreme Court. That last-ditch effort has failed. Read the full article on MRC Free Speech America’s site. December 17th, 2024 4:06 PM Catherine Salgado 287198 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2024/12/17/cnns-bash-takes-issue-trump-saying-people-want-be-his-friend CNN host Dana Bash put her pettiness on full display during Tuesday’s Inside Politics as she took issue with President-elect Trump quipping about how “In the first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.” While the rest of her panel of liberal journalists were able to admit things were “going his way,” Bash felt the need to fact-check what she admitted was “rhetorical;” to point out how journalists and an anti-Trump judge don’t want to be his friends. After teeing up the soundbite of Trump’s comments by noting that she and CNN political director David Chalian had huffed about it in his office the day prior, Bash thought a fact-check of Trump’s personality was needed: TRUMP: One of the big differences between the first term – In the first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend. I don't know. My personality changed or something. [Cuts back to live] BASH: That was rhetorical. His personality has not changed. She marveled at how Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos had recently gone down to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump. “We've seen so many other examples of all of these big, big, big time CEOs, many of whom I would even say, most of whom have given to Democrats historically and are now many of them giving to Donald Trump's inauguration and making the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago,” she added. “So, as we know, Donald Trump is happy to take their money and help pay for his inauguration. There's no doubt that is part of this,” Chalian responded. Further in the segment, Bash’s fact-checking pivoted to the “everybody wants to be my friend” line from Trump. “And yet not everybody is bending the knee,” she said as she proceeded to tout the judge overseeing the hush money case against Trump: Like Judge Juan Merchan in New York, who said that he is not immune from sentencing in the case that he's in charge of up there. And Donald Trump took notice of that. He attacked the judge today in the last hour, as “deeply conflicted, corrupt, biased, incompetent,” called him “a radical partisan” “keeping in place an illegal gag order so I cannot expose his and his family's disqualifying and illegal conflicts,’” so on and so forth.     Her other example of people who didn’t want to be Trump’s friends were her fellow left-wing journalists. She parroted the latest talking point fear that Trump’s lawsuit against the Des Moines Register was going to have a “chilling effect”: Maybe a more severe example of the way that he is trying to set the table and set the stakes for those who are not going down [to Mar-a-Lago] or for those he wants to, as I said yesterday, you know, throw a shot across the bow, perhaps make a chilling effect for those of us who are reporters. He officially launched a lawsuit, filed a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and its pollster, Ann Selzer, last night because of its poll in October, which showed Harris winning the state of Iowa, which of course didn't happen. It's kind of difficult for it to have a chilling effect when the liberal media’s hatred for Trump burns with the fire of a thousand suns. The CNN journalists on the panel did disagree with the critique Bash was forwarding. National correspondent Kristen Holmes described what Trump was experiencing as him “living his best life right now.” Holmes also noted the tonal change to Trump’s transition in contrast to 2016: This is the life that Donald Trump thought he was going to have in 2016 after he was elected president, and then realized that the platform that he had run on was not popular with any of these people, and he was quickly shunned by the tech industry, by a lot of media. He did not have the same welcoming that he had this time around. I mean, when I talked to some of his advisers and we talk about the fact that he won TIME person of the year, he even feels like this time around was different, like he actually won it. “The same way that he feels about the election, which is that he won the popular vote, as well as the electoral college, and he feels like he actually won this time. And that's why people are coming to him,” she added. Senior political analyst Nia-Malika Henderson did admit that Trump was experiencing a pretty good honeymoon period with the American people and that “lots of things [were] going his way.” “One of the things that will be interesting to see is sort of how long the honeymoon lasts,” she said. “It is certainly a honeymoon. The second time is sweeter for Donald Trump. And you see lots of things going his way. His approval rating is high. The transition ratings – which you talked about last week – are higher than they were last week.” The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CNN’s Inside Politics December 17, 2024 12:09:19 p.m. Eastern (…) DANA BASH: You and I were talking. I'll give people a behind the scenes look – color of you and I were talking in your office yesterday after Donald Trump's press conference about a moment that we played afterwards, which kind of sums up the moment that he is in right now. And I want to play a little bit more of that and talk to you on the other side. [Cuts to video] PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: One of the big differences between the first term – In the first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend. I don't know. My personality changed or something. [Cuts back to live] BASH: That was rhetorical. His personality has not changed. And the reason I wanted to keep talking about it today is because we're seeing another example of that today with Ted Sarandos of the – of Netflix going down to see him. And then just kind of look at the big picture of it all, tech titans. This is just in the tech world. We've seen so many other examples of all of these big, big, big time CEOs, many of whom I would even say, most of whom have given to Democrats historically and are now many of them giving to Donald Trump's inauguration and making the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago. DAVID CHALIAN: So, as we know, Donald Trump is happy to take their money and help pay for his inauguration. There's no doubt that is part of this. But you say, look at the tech titans, and I look at that list and I see the leaders of modern-day media just broadly. And Donald Trump's fascination with his ability to be dominant in media space and communicating a message and garnering a ton of attention. Those are the executives of the companies that have the largest spotlights to shine places these days. And I don't think that's lost on Donald Trump in seeking [inaudible]. BASH: That's such a good point. Media, which is different, I think, from journalism, which we're going to talk about in a second. But you're right, that is modern media. And then just going to another list, Kristen, because you spent a lot of time down in and around Mar-a-Lago about everybody who wants to be his friend. World leaders in in addition to the tech people we were talking about, of course, he was just named TIME magazine's person of the year. He rang the opening bell at the New York stock exchange. He had a front row seat at the reopening of Notre Dame. KRISTEN HOLMES: He's living his best life right now. BASH: Yeah. HOLMES: This is the life that Donald Trump thought he was going to have in 2016 after he was elected president, and then realized that the platform that he had run on was not popular with any of these people, and he was quickly shunned by the tech industry, by a lot of media. He did not have the same welcoming that he had this time around. I mean, when I talked to some of his advisers and we talk about the fact that he won TIME person of the year, he even feels like this time around was different, like he actually won it. The same way that he feels about the election, which is that he won the popular vote, as well as the electoral college, and he feels like he actually won this time. And that's why people are coming to him. But what's been so interesting, talking to the people around him in this moment, is just what it is that he's saying behind the scenes, because that you just saw in that press conference is a lot of what he says to people around him, this kind of marvel and awe that all of these people want to meet with him and talk to him, and he's taking it in and he's taking advantage of it. BASH: And yet not everybody is bending the knee. HOLMES: Not everybody, no. BASH: Like Judge Juan Merchan in New York, who said that he is not immune from sentencing in the case that he's in charge of up there. And Donald Trump took notice of that. He attacked the judge today in the last hour, as “deeply conflicted, corrupt, biased, incompetent,” called him “a radical partisan” “keeping in place an illegal gag order so I cannot expose his and his family's disqualifying and illegal conflicts,’” so on and so forth. NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON: Yeah. I mean, and this is what he's been saying for many months, saying that he is compromised, that he has a conflict of interest because of one of his family members. So, not everything is going his way. One of the things that will be interesting to see is sort of how long the honeymoon lasts. It is certainly a honeymoon. The second time is sweeter for Donald Trump. And you see lots of things going his way. His approval rating is high. The transition ratings – which you talked about last week – are higher than they were last week. So, we'll see what happens when he gets to Congress when he goes through these confirmation hearings that I think are going to be fairly bruising for some of some of these picks and tries to muscle his agenda through a very narrow House, and then a senate that he has much wider, wider margins on. So, you know, stay tuned for the next month. BASH: But he is all in. I mean, that's one example. Maybe a more severe example of the way that he is trying to set the table and set the stakes for those who are not going down or for those he wants to, as I said yesterday, you know, throw a shot across the bow, perhaps make a chilling effect for those of us who are reporters. He officially launched a lawsuit, filed a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and its pollster, Ann Selzer, last night because of its poll in October, which showed Harris winning the state of Iowa, which of course didn't happen. And I'm just wondering what you make of that given the obvious attempt at what he's trying to do and whether or not – I mean, whether or not he's going to have success because people like us are, you know, we understand what it is that he's trying to do. But just even the notion that he's trying this hard with the litigious way that he is. CHALIAN: Well, first of all, being litigious is not new to Donald Trump. BASH: No, that’s always the way he is. CHALIAN: So, this is the story of his life long before he got into politics. So, this is a continuation of that personality trait. The chilling effect is no doubt the goal here that – I don't think he's actually trying to win this lawsuit. Also. I mean, I find me a pollster in America, including Donald Trump's pollsters, who don't come back with a bad poll once in a while. It's like, what makes all the good polls valid is that you sometimes come out of the field with a bad poll. So, this is particularly an egregious example, but this is also classic Donald Trump. BASH: Yeah. Okay. December 17th, 2024 3:03 PM Nicholas Fondacaro 287197 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2024/12/17/horse-tranquilizer-cnns-abby-phillip-tries-dunk-covid-skeptics Part of the reason that there is a crisis of confidence in the media is because of the sense of absolute moral certitude with which they look down upon anyone who strays from the preordained consensus, even as they themselves spit out active disinformation. As CNN’s Abby Phillip demonstrates, sometimes these efforts fail hilariously. Watch as Abby Phillip accuses Covid skeptics of pushing…horse tranquilizer? CNN NEWSNIGHT WITH ABBY PHILLIP 12/16/24 10:15 PM SCOTT JENNINGS: I also think it's important for us to remember why are we here at all in this moment where people are questioning the public health regime, and it is all out of Covid.  ABBY PHILLIP: Yeah. I agree. JENNINGS: Everything comes from Covid, things we were told that weren't true, things about the vaccine that we were told that weren't true. This has caused people- in the past, folks might have just accepted this sight unseen. Now, I think it's legitimate for Americans to say, are we being told the absolute truth by the supposed experts? I don’t have a problem with those questions. PHILLIP: Look. I also- I'm old enough to remember hydroxychloroquine and the horse tranquilizer and all that stuff. I mean, those things weren't true either, okay? So let's be honest about the fact that there- there was misinformation happening pretty far and wide in the Covid era. And it's not just that we were telling people the vaccine is the best thing we've got so far to help you in this moment. It's also because some people were actually trying to mislead people for profit. There are people right now still selling Covid cures that are invented. So that’s- that’s-we have to be honest about the fact that it’s- it’s happening on a lot of different sides. Either Phillip is suggesting here (without evidence) that people took xylazine (street name: tranq) to treat Covid, OR she is repeating the debunked smear of the powerful antiviral ivermectin as horse medicine- a common smear aired on CNN at the height of the pandemic. In fact, when Joe Rogan talks about how his eyes were opened to the media’s tendency to destroy those who dissent from the official narrative, he often cites his run-in with CNN over their prime time hosts’ insistence on saying that Rogan took “horse paste”, which resulted in Rogan calling CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta out on his eponymous podcast.  Fast forward to 2024, and Abby Phillip couldn’t even be bothered to get the equine pejorative right while trying to contain Scott Jennings’s correct explanation of the deceptions that underlie skepticism of the current public health regime. Discussing the things that led to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. being the nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services on CNN gets you a performance of that institutional arrogance in real time. Abby Phillip tried to mock public health skeptics and shut down a reasonable discussion of the ongoing crisis, failing badly on both counts.   December 17th, 2024 12:23 PM Jorge Bonilla 287195 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/clay-waters/2024/12/17/ny-times-heads-battle-vs-trump-alongside-radical-youth-climate The New York Times huddled with the leftist “youth climate movement” as they girded for battle against Trump II, in a so-called news story that appeared in Thursday’s paper: “As Teens, They Fought Trump on Climate. Now What?” by Austyn Gaffney, who has previously written freelance for Rolling Stone, The Guardian, and Grist, three left-wing publications. Activists in groups like the Sunrise Movement, Zero Hour and Fridays for Future have pushed for the Biden administration to step up climate action before its exit next month: They want land protected as national monuments, permits denied for liquid natural gas projects, funds allocated from the Inflation Reduction Act and the Dakota Access Pipeline shut down for good. After the inauguration, they’ll retrench. They might ease off the mass marches and school strikes that built their platform, while refining new strategies like focusing on state politics, reducing the use of fossil fuels at a local level, and re-energizing the country to elect climate-conscious leaders. The activists and the reporter were quite cozy -- almost like a huddle, as if Gaffney is plotting strategy and tactics against Trump alongside the kid radicals on climate (and Gaza, and capitalism, and whatever else.) The article even featured flattering posed photos and pull quotes from four youth activists. The 2018 child activists who were in middle and high school are now in their 20s, moving through college and into their careers. They’re facing the conflict so many generations before them have grappled with: how to balance the scales between hope and despair. She dredged up Greta Thunberg, whose placement on the autism spectrum didn’t stop the left from using her as an environmental mascot. Currently Thunberg is serving as a vulgar mascot supporting the anti-Israel terrorists of Hamas. (Gaffney’s story came with a noteworthy correction – she’d first described Thunberg as some expert mariner who’d made a solo journey across the Atlantic Ocean while protesting climate change.) There was no journalistic concern displayed over the extremist tactics used by Just Stop Oil, with “throwing cans of soup on famous paintings….” relegated to a single sentence. Zero Hour sent Jamie Minden, the group’s senior director of global organizing, who at 13 was lying in her bed staring at the ceiling when she decided to devote her young life to fighting the climate crisis. But almost a decade later, Ms. Minden, now 21, knew to brace herself. COP29 was a disappointment, she said, if not a death sentence for poor nations. The intellectual incoherence of this “climate” movement was only implied by Gaffney noting the splintering of various factions over non-climate causes. ….. Zero Hour did not endorse a candidate because of the group’s opposition to the war in Gaza. Some of the nine youth climate activists who spoke to The Times said they voted for Jill Stein, the third-party candidate, in protest. The Times better hurry, all these woke terms are surely past their expiration date: Leah Thomas, 29, made a social media post in 2020 that popularized the term “intersectional environmentalist.” Her platform was based on links between racial and environmental justice, looking at “the ways in which injustices happening to marginalized communities and the earth are interconnected.”…. The reporter's call to arms near the end unwittingly underlined that incoherence, while trying to pat the young radicals on the back. Whatever the next round of youth climate activism looks like, youth activists overwhelmingly agree that it will be about more than just climate. December 17th, 2024 12:12 PM Clay Waters 287182 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2024/12/17/cnn-spent-56-minutes-touting-exclusive-report-debunked-syrian Starting with Wednesday’s The Lead and continuing through Saturday night, CNN gave a massive 56 minutes (56:29) to repeated airings and subsequent fawnings over a supposed exclusive trip inside a Damascus, Syria prison by chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward that resulted in what they billed as the discovery and release of someone who insisted he had been stuck inside a notorious Assad regime prison for three months. Some basic skepticism about its implausibility and public pressure later, CNN conceded they would investigate the circumstances of Ward’s report and a CNN.com article early Monday night confirmed a finding by a Syrian watchdog group that the man’s name was Salama Mohammad Salama (when he had claimed it was Adel Khurbar) and he was a lieutenant in Assad’s air force. The whole thing seemed fishy, starting with the bizarre circumstances that Ward insisted in an X post was “one of the most extraordinary moments I have witnessed” in her “nearly twenty years as a journalist.” She said in the TV report that she and her team were “hoping to find traces of Austin Tice, an American journalist held captive in Syria since 2012” by venturing inside one of the Assad regime’s secret prisons and while they didn’t find Tice, they came “across something extraordinary” with fighters exclaiming they might have found someone in a cell.     Along with the fact that the regime had fallen on Sunday and this happened on Wednesday, it seemed dubious. It was made even more implausible when Ward revealed a rebel fighter made CNN “turn [their] camera off while he shoots the lock off the cell door” and found “something under the blanket.” Allegedly confused and frightened, the man said he was a “civilian” and clung to Ward as she assured him she was a “journalist” and fetched him water. The man’s fable continued to spin as he gingerly was led out of the prison and claimed to have no knowledge in his three months of captivity that the Syrian government had collapsed. In the CNN.com article, producers Tim Lister and Eyad Kourdi were forced to relay more of Salama’s tall tales as they published the embarrassing news:     A man who was filmed by CNN being released by rebels from a Damascus jail was a former intelligence officer with the deposed Syrian regime, according to local residents, and not an ordinary citizen who had been imprisoned, as he had claimed.     CNN initially found the man while pursuing leads on the missing US journalist Austin Tice. In a video report, chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward and her team, accompanied by a rebel guard, came across a cell in a Damascus jail that was padlocked from the outside. The guard blew off the lock with a gun, and the man was found alone inside the cell, under a blanket.     When he emerged into the open air, the man appeared bewildered. Questioned by the rebel fighter who freed him, the man identified himself as Adel Ghurbal from the central Syrian City of Homs.     He claimed that he had been kept in a cell for three months, adding that it was the third prison where he had been confined. The man also said he was not aware that the Assad regime had fallen. He was being held in a jail that had been run by the Syrian air force’s intelligence services until the Assad regime collapsed. After airing the footage for the first time, The Lead host Jake Tapper gushed Ward’s report was “just absolutely remarkable” and “another” case of “vital, vital journalism” while Ward herself took these claims as gospel (click “expand”):     Jake, I have to say, I have been doing this job for nearly 20 years now, and that really was one of the most extraordinary moments that I have ever witnessed. We don't know why the regime of Bashar al-Assad took Adel Khubar (ph). He doesn't know why they took him. He was basically living a very simple life in the city of Homs, in an area called Khalidiya. He said the Mukhabarat basically came to his house and said that there was some issue with people he had been making phone calls with. But we have to be very clear here. This is the type of thing where the Mukhabarat would take anyone with impunity. They would detain them. They would interrogate them. They would beat them. They would keep them for months, years on end. They didn't have to give a reason. You didn't even have to be an activist. You didn't even have to be part of the opposition against Bashar al-Assad.     So many of the people, Jake, who disappeared inside these dungeons were ordinary Syrians struggling to understand what on earth they had done to get there in the first place. We don't know where Adel Khubar (ph) is now. He got into that ambulance. We offered to give him our phones to call his family. But as you can see, in that moment, he was in a state of profound shock. He wasn't able to collect himself to the point where he was able to get in touch with his family. But all of us, of course, are wishing that he is safely reunited with them and that all of the prisoners who have been held for so long without any legal recourse, those who are alive, will be returned to their loved ones soon, Jake. The Lead segment totaled 12 minutes exactly and was followed Wednesday with seven minutes and 37 seconds on AC360. On Thursday, Ward’s fake story ran five times on CNN’s flagship U.S. station (CNN Newsroom with Max Foster, CNN This Morning, the AM and PM editions of CNN News Central, and CNN Newsroom with Pamela Brown). Foster called it “what a story” while CNN This Morning host Kasie Hunt hailed Ward’s “remarkable reporting.” A few hours later, morning CNN News Central co-host Sara Sidner praised Ward’s “incredible story” and “incredible reporting” illustrating “such a moment of humanity in a place where we have seen so much death and so much carnage.” However, Sidner’s co-host John Berman was first to open the cracks on the story’s credibility, making clearly “CNN cannot verify why that man was questioned by Syrian intelligence” and referenced questions in Ward’s reporting being asked of him why he had a cell phone if he was a prisoner. With X posts and common sense starting to set in, the story vanished from CNN’s airwaves after a run in the 2:00 p.m. Eastern hour until early Saturday night when CNN Newsroom with Jessica Dean gave it one last run and made no comments prior or after about concerns surrounding its accuracy. December 17th, 2024 9:26 AM Curtis Houck 287192 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2024/12/16/historic-cbss-norah-odonnell-gushes-over-justice-theater-kids Outgoing CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell is making the most of her remaining time at the Tiffany Network. Tonight’s final story stood as an ode to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and to her cameo performance in a Broadway play. Watch the full report for yourself below, and try not to be overwhelmed with cringe: CBS EVENING NEWS 12/16/24 6:57 PM NORAH O’DONNELL: For many, serving on the Supreme Court is a dream role, it was for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, but she also had another dream. Broadway.  KETANJI BROWN JACKSON, ET AL: Show me the meaning of being lonely ♪ ♪ is this the feeling I need to walk with ♪♪ O’DONNELL: Jackson made history as the first Supreme Court justice in a Broadway production, when she took the stage Saturday in the musical "And Juliet." I spoke with Justice Jackson earlier this year about her theater ambitions, something she wrote about in her Harvard application.  “As I believe it might help me (quote) to fulfill my fantasy of becoming the first black female Supreme Court justice to appear on a Broadway stage." KETANJI BROWN JACKSON: Yes. Because I love theater. I mean, I did a lot of theater in college, and there was a time when I thought, “should I go into acting as opposed to law?” but, you know, I stuck with law, and so I thought this is a good way to combine the two. O’DONNELL: Well, the verdict in this landmark case was a standing ovation for Jackson. The play "And Juliet" explores what if Juliet hadn’t ended her life for Romeo, and had been given a second chance at love and life on her terms.  We have a little bit of omissive bias at the very end of the report because O’Donnell doesn't really disclose what the play is all about. But The New York Post does: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson briefly ditched the black robes and drama of the Supreme Court and made history with her Saturday night debut on Broadway in the musical “& Juliet,” a queer reimagining of William Shakespeare’s classic “Romeo & Juliet.” Jackson, who told members of the Senate during her 2022 confirmation that she can’t define what is a woman because she’s not a biologist, portrayed Queen Mab — described as a “she/her” character on a production poster — during her brief Broadway stint on Saturday. Justice Jackson is chiefly known for her unwillingness to define a woman at her Senate confirmation hearings. It is only fitting that she’s now performing in a play featuring sexually confused characters. Of course, this isn’t the first time that O’Donnell gushes over Jackson’s utterances. The last time we covered O’Donnell-Jackson was during their summer interview wherein, among other things, O’Donnell attacked the legitimacy of the Court. The rest of that interview was syrupy sycophancy and an emphasis on Jackson’s “first” status. Here, now, is another “historic first” for O’Donnell to gush over. It never ends!  Jackson was cited as having spoken the most words spoken in a session since 1990, which makes absolute sense now that we know she’s a theater kid. Historic. December 16th, 2024 11:21 PM Jorge Bonilla 287194 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2024/12/16/newsbusters-podcast-abc-will-pay-trump-stephanopoulos-rape-smear The Left was enraged that ABC News settled a defamation lawsuit with Donald Trump by agreeing to donate $15 million to a Trump “presidential foundation and museum” over George Stephanopoulos repeatedly claiming in a March interview that Trump was found “liable for rape.” That's not accurate. But cable "news" partisans shrieked about Trump's "authoritarian playbook." Like suing a media outlet is authoritarian? Stephanopoulos didn’t mention the settlement when he hosted This Week on Sunday. But he suggested to Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) that Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence had a problem. “Tulsi Gabbard has a history with Bashar al-Assad and his regime. She met with Assad, she has said supportive things about him, said he wasn't an enemy of the United States.” Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry also politely met with the murderous Syrian dictator, who was just deposed. But it gets more embarrassing for George. ABC’s Diane Sawyer fawned over Assad in a February 2007 interview: "You like video games?...Do you have an iPod? And you're a country music fan. Faith Hill? Shania Twain?" Sawyer also fawned over Mrs. Assad the next day. So ABC should probably go easy on who was a pushover for the Syrian tyrant. We also discuss how MSNBC loves AOC and how Politico is warning everyone that Kash Patel is the second coming of J. Edgar Hoover, sure to commit "egregious abuses of power." The dominant fiction in today's leftist media is that Biden's Justice Department or FBI are nonpartisan, or nonpolitical. Nothing could be further from the truth.  Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts:  December 16th, 2024 10:32 PM Tim Graham 287193 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/michael-wnek/2024/12/16/msnbc-whines-about-defamation-settlement-fearmongers-chilling MSNBC’s Sunday shows followed a characteristically redundant script while discussing the newly reached settlement in President-elect Trump’s defamation suit with ABC News. The hosts were evidently convinced that the case spelled disaster for the “free press” as the Republicans realized their malicious plans, straight from the “playbook in authoritarianism.” The Weekend co-host Symone Sanders ironically reassured viewers that MSNBC’s standards department “is always making sure that we are keeping the bar high, and substantive, and accurate,” apparently confident that ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos met that standard in his March interview with Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-SC). She further worried about the “chilling effect” the settlement would have on the media.   “It’s insane.” MSNBC’s @SymoneDSanders on @TheWeekendMSNBC re ABC’s $15 million defamation settlement in which @GStephanopoulos must personally pay Trump $1 million for cost of lawyers despite, she insisted, the accuracy of what he said. pic.twitter.com/USL2uHR3sk — Brent Baker 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) December 15, 2024   Co-host Michael Steele wondered what exactly the money could be used for and indignantly pointed out that “they didn’t even have an account set up for this…they have no place to put [it].”  He decided that the case was proof of an “easily manipulated” legal system and a media space “willing to blow past the obvious problems with this incoming administration,” even though the regime media’s attacks on the Trump administration have not ceased since his first term. During the show’s second hour, Sanders reiterated MSNBC’s commitment to accuracy and the truth before firmly deciding, “this seems quite targeted and I don't think George Stephanopoulos was wrong.” She was met with a brief moment of silence which she triumphantly interpreted as the immediate result of the “chilling effect.”   More @SymoneDSanders on @TheWeekendMSNBC: “We want to be accurate” and rued: “This seems quite targeted and I don’t think George Stephanopoulos was wrong. I’m sorry.” When guest doesn’t immediately agree, Sanders: “This is the chilling effect!” pic.twitter.com/kToqhUDxf0 — Brent Baker 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) December 15, 2024   MSNBC’s Velshi adopted a similar tone, with legal analyst Barbara McQuade expressing concern that “ABC buckled” in spite of what she saw as “a strong case.” Taking up the buzzword of the day, she raised the question of a “self-censoring effect” with an additional note of warning and poorly disguised insinuation of what the press could expect from the Trump administration.  In McQuade’s words, “a vigorous free press is essential in any administration, even more so in one where Donald Trump has vowed to go after his enemy.”   “I think it’s a concerning sign that ABC buckled. They were just about to take the deposition of Donald Trump this week, which would have helped solidify their case, which is already, in my view, a strong case...yet they...caved.” – @BarbMcQuade on MSNBC’s Velshi w/o @AliVelshi pic.twitter.com/cMBPPnDRhq — Brent Baker 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) December 15, 2024   Later, on The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart, lawyer and activist Maya Wiley outrageously suggested that the settlement guaranteed the Trump administration’s utilization of what she called the “playbook in authoritarianism.” She continued to explicitly spell out how she thought the Trump administration would attack the media: "The playbook is you come for independent journalism and you work hard to threaten it, make it afraid, and therefore, no longer independent. And we've already heard in the news cycle the threats of continuing legal battles because it has now worked." Of course, this came as no surprise from the doomsayers over at MSNBC who remain bent on persuading their viewers that Trump and the Republicans exist as the modern Adolf Hitler and his Nazis. The transcripts are below. Click "expand" to read: MSNBC’s The Weekend 12/15/2024 08:07:54 AM EST SYMONE SANDERS: I would just say, I mean, this feels like it has a really chilling effect, like. I mean, shoutout to the standards department, ok. Standards is always making sure that we are keeping the bar high, and substantive, and accurate. But, what George Stephanopoulos said in that interview, I mean, it–it seems to hold up to what the judge said after the fact. And now, this news organization and himself–George Stephanopoulos, himself, is paying $1 million of his own money to the lawyers, and ABC $15 million. It’s insane. (...) 08:16:15 AM EST MICHAEL STEELE: For Trump, this is, you know–they didn't even have the account set up for this. They don’t have–they have no place to put the $15 million. SANDERS: The $15 million is gonna, what, be sent in escrow like they about to buy a house? STEELE: Right, exactly. So, I mean, what does that say to you? That–you know, I have been on this program and elsewhere complaining–’cause it is a complaint–about how the legal system itself has been so easily manipulated. The media now is sort of falling into that, “Oh, we just–we want to play nice.” What’s–what is your assessment of how this affects the way the country governs itself when both the judicial and the media space seem so willing to blow past the obvious problems with this incoming administration? (...) 09:06:15 AM EST SANDERS: George Stephanopoulos, le–let’s–just to be clear about what he said during the interview. He said that “Trump has been found liable for rape by a jury”–this is according to NBC article. Trump, however, was found liable in a civil case for sexually abusing Carroll, not for her alleged rape. Then I remember during that case check the box marked no when asked whether Carroll had proven by a preponderance of evidence that Mr. Trump raped Carroll. But then you have the judge in the case after that exchange with Nancy Mace and George Stephanopoulos, the judge came out and actually put an asterisk there and kinda underscored that what George Stephanopoulos said is true. All of this to someone watching this might sound like semantics but, I guess, for me, as Michael and I are sitting here and as–you know, we all go on TV all the time and we talk about late breaking news, right? STEELE: Yeah. SANDERS: And, Michael, I'm just kinda wondering, the parsing of this–the judge said that George Stephanopoulos was right, essentially.  STEELE: Right. SANDERS: But Donald Trump sued anyway for defamation and ABC made the calculated decision that, “You know what, we’re just going to pay.” That–George Stephanopoulos also has to pay, he is on the hook for $1 million of his own money. And that leaves the rest of us with–what? We want to be accurate, right? We have a standards department. We are all endeavoring to keep the bar high and substantive and not allow–not engage in interviews and conversations where people just lie or throw out conspiracy theories and they themselves are not accurate. But this–this seems quite targeted and I don't think George Stephanopoulos was wrong. I'm sorry. [Silence] LISA RUBIN: I don’t know if… SANDERS: Now y’all got nothing to say ‘cause nobody wants a lawsuit. See? This is the chilling effect!  RUBIN: Well… SANDERS: This is the chi–my mom is about to text me, “Shut up, ‘cause what are you d…” STEELE: (Laughs). No, no, no, no. Li–I mean, go ahead, Lisa. You can… RUBIN: No, what I was gonna say is I'm not sure that George Stephanopoulos was wrong in a colloquial sense. But where this case emerges from and where he got tripped up is in attempting to describe what was found by the jury.  SANDERS: Mmmmm. RUBIN: And, as you noted, the jury itself found very precisely that Donald Trump did not commit rape within the technical definition of rape in New York’s criminal code. They found him liable for sexual abuse. Now, Judge Kaplan, who is the judge in the New York cases brought by E. Jean Carroll–in a separate finding found that Donald Trump could not sue E. Jean Carroll for defamation after that verdict because colloquially speaking, what the jury had found that Donald Trump did to E. Jean Carroll could be understood by normal, nonlegal people as a rape. It is a–essentially what they found was that he digitally penetrated her. But New York law said that unless there is genital to genital contact, it’s not rape.  The problem with what George Stephanopoulos said was that he was trying to describe the jury verdict, not what conventional people understood or, at least, the difference that I just described to you is how a Florida district court judge saw it when faced with a motion to dismiss by Stephanopoulos and ABC. And having not won on that initial motion to dismiss on solely legal grounds, ABC had said that, essentially, what the New York judge found and what George Stephanopoulos said were so similar that the issue had already been litigated and there was nothing for Donald Trump to sue about. That Florida judge disagreed and that’s what allowed the case to continue and put ABC in the position of either having to continue to litigate through discovery and potentially to trial, or to settle this thing now, shortly after a judge ruled on Friday that both sides were going to have to sit for the deposition. SANDERS: Mmmm. (...)   MSNBC’s Velshi 12/15/2024 10:11:18 AM EST BARBARA MCQUADE: Yeah, I think it’s a concerning sign, Melissa, that ABC buckled here. They were just about to take the deposition of Donald Trump this week, which would have helped to solidify their case, which is already, in my view, a strong case. The phrases that they objected to was when George Stephanopoulos repeatedly said that Donald Trump had been found civilly liable for rape. Of course, what the jury actually found was sexual assault, but the judge said, that in the way the terms are commonly understood, Donald Trump did indeed commit rape. So, it’s a matter of interpretation, about what that word means to most people.  But ordinarily, in defamation cases, you have to prove that the person was defamed, that there was actual malice, and that the gist of the story was inaccurate. In addition, you have to show the person's reputation was harmed in this way. It seems that ABC had a very strong case here and yet they sort of caved anyway. And I think it sends a bad signal to other media enterprises and might have a chilling effect or a self-censoring effect on the media, as they cover the Trump administration. And, of course, a vigorous free press is essential in any administration, even more so in one where Donald Trump has vowed to go after his enemy. (...)   MSNBC’s The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart 12/15/2024 06:43:20 PM EST MAYA WILEY: The common understanding of what he was found civilly liable for is the equivalent of rape. It just doesn't meet the narrow legal definition. JONATHAN CAPEHART: Mhmm. WILEY: And when you have a public figure, you have an even higher burden when it's a journalistic issue about whether or not–in other words, there's a stronger defense for journalists when they're using common parlance about whether or not they've engaged in defamation. So when you have a judge who has said in two separate cases, “Saying it's rape is not defam–is not a problem,” then you can understand why a Stephanopoulos might say, “Call it rape,” as it's commonly understood.  But I say that because it’s–because what really is so troubling here is there was a defense. Put aside whether or not there were other reasons to settle it and in the context of the playbook in authoritarianism, the playbook is you come for independent journalism and you work hard to threaten it, make it afraid, and therefore, no longer independent. And we've already heard in the news cycle the threats of continuing legal battles because it has now worked. CAPEHART: Mhmm. (...) December 16th, 2024 9:51 PM Michael Wnek 287189 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/brent-baker/2024/12/16/washington-examiners-liberal-media-scream-mrcs-assessment Since late January of 2012, the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard has once a week featured a “Mainstream Media Scream” selection in his “Washington Secrets” column. For each pick, usually posted online on Monday, I provide an explanation and recommend a “scream” rating (scale of one to five). This post contains the “Liberal Media Screams” starting in January 2023. > For 2021 and 2022, for all of 2020. For all of 2019. For all of  2018. (Re-named “Liberal Media Scream” as of June 11, 2018.) “Mainstream Media Screams” for: > July-December 2017 posts; January through June 2017; July to December 2016; for January to June 2016; for July to December 2015; for January to June 2015. (2012-2014 are featured on MRC.org: For 2014; for June 17, 2013 through the end of 2013. And for January 31, 2012 through June 11, 2013.) Check Bedard’s “Washington Secrets” blog for the latest choice and his other Washington insider posts. Each week, this page will be updated with Bedard’s latest example of the worst bias of the week. (For more of the worst liberal media bias, browse the Media Research Center's Notable Quotables with compilations of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media.)   ■ New on December 16: Liberal Media Scream: Of course MSNBC defends Stephanopoulos lies See the posting on the Washington Examiner's site where you can watch the video and read Baker's assessment. A week later, Bedard's article will be posted here.   ■ December 9: Liberal Media Scream: PBS TDS blames Trump for Hunter Biden’s pardon (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features tax-dollar-supported PBS behind the latest Trump Derangement Syndrome claim that the incoming president caused President Joe Biden to flip-flop and pardon his son Hunter Biden of felony charges. Sounding more like a practiced Democratic Party spokesman than a journalist, commentator Jonathan Capehart said on PBS NewsHour that Joe Biden had no choice but to pardon his son because President-elect Donald Trump wanted to throw the book at Hunter Biden, who has been caught up in gun and tax cases. He also appeared to blame Vice President Kamala Harris for the pardon, suggesting that her loss cleared the way for Trump to target the younger Biden. Winging it as usual without any evidence, the Washington Post columnist and PBS regular said: “I am almost certain, 99% certain, that President Biden was hoping that Vice President Harris would win and that this would not be an issue.” The president’s pardon has been condemned by many Democrats, and it threatens to ruin what’s left of Biden’s presidential legacy. A handful of defenders, however, are making excuses for Biden’s pardon. Capehart, a contributor to PBS as well as the host of a weekend show on MSNBC and an opinion writer for the Washington Post, on Friday’s PBS NewsHour: HOST GEOFF BENNETT: Jonathan, in your view, was it justified, and what’s the lasting impact? JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, one, yes, it was justified. When the president said that he would not pardon his son, wouldn’t grant clemency, the facts on the ground were completely different. It’s the middle of a presidential campaign. He was the candidate for president, didn’t want to be viewed as interfering. He’s no longer the candidate. His vice president is the presidential nominee. I am almost certain, 99% certain, that President Biden was hoping that Vice President Harris would win and that this would not be an issue. But when the person who won the race won the race by vowing, through a campaign of retribution, revenge, naming the Biden family in general and Hunter Biden, in particular, as someone or groups of people, he wanted to go after if he won election, of course, the president looks at the facts, says I cannot allow that to happen to my son. And I understand the criticisms and the brickbats that the president is taking. But for some Democrats to be complaining about how “you’ve ruined norms” and “you’ve given him an avenue,” have they not been paying attention to who Donald Trump is either during the campaign or during his four years as president the first go-round? And these are the same people who would be yelling at Biden had he not done something and then President Trump took action against Hunter Biden: “Why didn’t you save your son? Why didn’t you help your son when you had the opportunity to do so when you were president?” He’s done it. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explains our pick: “The very definition of rationalizing situational ethics and further proof, if any were needed, that Capehart is more a Democratic Party partisan than any kind of impartial analyst. If a Democrat or liberal does it, Capehart will defend it.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE Screams.   ■ December 2: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough back to attacking Trump (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough back to attacking President-elect Donald Trump, showing he learned “nothing” from his trip to Mar-a-Lago to break bread with the incoming president. Siding with those who criticized his trip to Florida with wife and co-host Mika Brzezinski, Scarborough came out Monday with his guns blazing at two Trump top staff picks, Kash Patel for FBI director and Pete Hegseth for defense secretary. “There are two picks right now that, if you talk to people in Washington, D.C., they will, this morning, tell you two of the most dangerous selections they’ve seen,” Scarborough said. Scarborough and Brzezinski traveled to Florida two weeks ago to “mend fences” with Trump after years of bashing the former president. Once they announced their trip, however, their media friends pummelled the duo, and Scarborough’s monologue on Monday showed whose side he was on. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough on Monday’s Morning Joe: We hear what people talk about flooding the zone and a lot of information coming at you all at once and not being able to sort through things. There are two picks right now that if you talk to people in Washington, D.C., they will, this morning, tell you two of the most dangerous selections they’ve seen. No. 1, Pete Hegseth. Simply because he’s unqualified to run the most complicated and most powerful bureaucracy not only in America but in the world. And No. 2 now, Kash Patel. Kash Patel, of course, is a person who infamously said he was going to jail reporters and journalists and news people who did not go along with the 2020 election conspiracy theory. And we’re going to be talking in a little bit to Elaina Plott Calabro, who wrote a story about six months ago on Kash Patel. Let me just read you just a little bit from that: “When Patel was installed as chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense, just after the 2020 election, Mark Milley, who, of course, was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, advised him to not break the law. Quote: ‘Life looks really s***ty from behind bars,’ Milley reportedly told Patel. When Trump entertained naming Patel for deputy director of the FBI, Attorney General Bill Barr, again, another Trump loyalist, confronted the White House chief of staff and said, quote: ‘Over my dead body.’ “When in the final weeks of the administration, Trump planned to name Patel deputy director of the CIA, Gina Haspel, the head of the CIA, threatened to resign. Trump relented only after an intervention from Vice President Mike Pence. She goes on to ask: Who is this man, and why did so many top officials fear him?” We will go through it. It’s certainly not because he’s an expert in any of these fields. It’s not even because he’s an ideologue. It’s because he seems, according to this piece and everything we’ve seen, singularly focused on exacting revenge on people who did not carry through on Donald Trump’s threats of retribution. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explains our pick: “So much for Joe Scarborough’s trip to Mar-a-Lago to build a new relationship with the incoming president after years of vicious attacks on him. If Scarborough is just going to continue to channel the deep state’s refusal to accept the right of Trump to staff his administration by trying to impugn those picks, he’s learned nothing about why so many have such contempt for the legacy media.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ November 25: Liberal Media Scream: Axios founder rants ‘Elon Musk is bulls**it’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the co-founder of Axios ranting about billionaire Elon Musk and his comments on X about being part of the news media. “Being a reporter’s hard,” said Jim VandeHei. “Elon Musk sits on Twitter every day, or X today, saying, like, ‘we are the media, you are the media.’ My message to Elon Musk is: Bulls**t. You’re not the media. You having a blue check mark, a Twitter handle, and 300 words of cleverness doesn’t make you a reporter.” VandeHei’s comments came after he accepted the National Press Club’s Fourth Estate Award. Musk has been on X from Mar-a-Lago zinging the media as he prepares to head the Trump-created Department of Government Efficiency. The billionaire’s comments irked many in the media, especially since he owns X, and VandeHei showed that he’s one of those miffed with Musk. The comments were shown on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, which dubbed them “very powerful.” Jim Vandehei at the Fourth Estate Award Gala held Thursday at the National Press Club, as played Monday on Morning Joe: JIM VANDEHEI: I hate this damn debate about, oh, “we don’t need the media.” It is not true … There’s something about freedom, capitalism, the animal spirits of democracy, but at the core of that is maybe transparency, maybe a free press, maybe the ability to do your job without worrying to go to jail, maybe the ability to sit in a war zone and tell people what is actually happening so they’re not just looking at distortion, matters. It matters profoundly. It’s why, it’s not like we just love getting up at 3:00, 4:00 in the morning, doing this every single day, we do it because we love it. We do it because it matters. The work that we do matters. Everything we do is under fire. Elon Musk sits on Twitter every day, or X today, saying like, “We are the media, you are the media.” My message to Elon Musk is: Bulls**t. You’re not the media. You having – [applause] you having a blue check mark, a Twitter handle, and 300 words of cleverness doesn’t make you a reporter any more than me looking at your head and seeing that you have a brain and telling you have an awesome set of tools makes me a damn neurosurgeon. Right? Like what we do, what journalists do, what you did in Mississippi, what Al Jazeera does in the Middle East, you don’t proclaim yourself to be a reporter. Like, that’s nonsense. Like being a reporter’s hard. Really hard. You have to care. You have to do the hard work. You have to get up every single day and say I want to get to the closest approximation of the truth without any fear, without any favoritism. You don’t do that by popping off on Twitter. You don’t do that by having an opinion. You do it by doing the hard work. JOE SCARBOROUGH: Yeah. Come on, slow clap, everybody. First of all, I got to say, extraordinary content. It needed to be said. It continues to need to be said when all of the garbage that’s flying around on social media, lying about reporters, lying about the hard work they do, lying about the hard work editors do, lying about everything up and down about not only their alternative set of facts but alternative set of facts about what people like you do. And I love how you connected reporters in Mississippi in the 1960s to reporters fighting for their life to get the story out in the Middle East today. Jim, it was very powerful. MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Really good. SCARBOROUGH: Very powerful. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Arrogance combined with obliviousness. In the face of record low trust in the media, instead of some introspection about why the media have lost the public’s trust, VandeHei decided to instead lash out at the competition, a platform which wouldn’t have such relevance if the legacy media weren’t so discredited. It’s as if Ford responded to exploding Pintos by denouncing the gas mileage claims made by GM.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE Screams.   ■ November 18: Liberal Media Scream: ABC’s Raddatz shows why it’s time to boycott networks (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features one example of the media lunacy that has followed the sweeping electoral and popular vote for President-elect Donald Trump despite years of warnings and smears from the resistance media. While most in the Democratic Party are licking their wounds and trying to figure out how they did so poorly against Trump and why they picked the worst candidate around in Vice President Kamala Harris, many liberal TV anchors are still suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome.” Sunday showed them all still at work. On 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley opened with a rant against Trump’s Cabinet picks. And he was preceded by the frenzied Sunday public affairs shows trying to convince the nation that the president-elect was unfit for duty. On Monday, two of those with the worst case of TDS, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, all but admitted their preelection anti-Trump hype on their MSNBC show Morning Joe was a lie when they revealed that they traveled to Mar-a-Lago last week to break bread with Trump. The worst example of the ranting rage on network TV came from ABC’s Martha Raddatz, who opened Sunday’s This Week with a charge that Trump’s picks were “retribution” for those who have wronged him. “The retribution begins,” she declared. From the top of Sunday’s This Week on ABC: MARTHA RADDATZ: The retribution begins. DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT: We’re going to clean out the corrupt, broken, and failing bureaucracies. RADDATZ: The president-elect sparking alarm with controversial Cabinet nominees, including a firebrand Fox TV host to lead the Department of Defense. PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY NOMINEE: I’m straight up just saying, we should not have women in combat roles. RADDATZ: Noted vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health and human services secretary. TRUMP: He wants to make people healthy. It’s driven him pretty wild over the last number of years. RADDATZ: And ardent Trump loyalist, now former congressman, Matt Gaetz, to run the Justice Department. SEN. KEVIN CRAMER (R-ND): He’s got a really steep hill to climb to get lots of votes, including mine. RADDATZ: Democratic Sen.-elect Elissa Slotkin responds to the nominations. Plus, former CDC Director Richard Besser, former prosecutor Preet Bharara, and analysis from our powerhouse roundtable. Plus: JOE DEL BOSQUE, CALIFORNIA FARMER: We pay some of the highest wages for farm workers in the nation right here in California, and they won’t come out. RADDATZ: We traveled to California farmland to see what Trump’s massive deportation plans could mean for farmers and the nation’s food supply. Texas Republican Tony Gonzales joins us for reaction. ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, it’s This Week. Here now, Martha Raddatz. RADDATZ: Good morning, and welcome to This Week. Donald Trump is wasting no time naming the team he wants around him in a second term. In rapid-fire fashion, he announced a series of nominees this week to fill the White House and lead key Cabinet departments. Many of them were right by Trump’s side last night to attend a UFC fight at Madison Square Garden in New York. Among them, controversial picks like the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who will lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, an amorphous role aimed at slashing federal spending. While that move raised a lot of intrigue, other picks have raised eyebrows to say the least, and some, outright opposition. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explains our pick: “Less than two weeks after the MAGA agenda won an electoral mandate and showed how the legacy media have lost their influence, Raddatz is still living in a preelection world. Instead of explaining to her viewers what the appeal of Trump’s picks could be, or presenting a balanced take with matching praise and criticism for them, she didn’t even try to hide her disdain for them. And Disney wonders why they’re losing viewers.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE Screams.   ■ November 12: Liberal Media Scream: How dare Trump make demands on Senate, CNN whines (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features CNN struggling to find new ways to attack President-elect Donald Trump. This time, it’s Trump’s pressure on the Senate to OK his Cabinet picks, which are coming fast and furious, without the normal confirmation steps. At CNN, they said it’s just Trump “again bucking norms.” From Sunday’s CNN: ALAYNA TREENE: [President-elect Donald Trump] said, quote: “Republican senators seeking the coveted leadership position in the United States Senate must agree to recess appointments in the Senate, without which, we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner.” The post goes on to describe other things. But I want to explain why this is so important. Essentially, Donald Trump is calling for the shattering of norms. Now what this means, a recess appointment, I know this sounds like we’re getting in the weeds a bit with the Hill lingo. But recesses are normally avoided in Congress. Normally, when they actually go on break, they do something called a pro forma session. Part of that is because if you go to a recess, you actually have to have a vote in the House and the Senate, and Democrats, in this case, giving Republicans control of the Senate come next year, would be able to filibuster. But essentially, to get down to it, to really boil down to what this would mean, is that Donald Trump is trying to find a way and use whoever the next Senate leader — Republican leader — is to try and avoid the confirmation process for his top Cabinet officials. And I remind you, a lot of times when different presidential candidates or people are looking to make these hires and to appoint different people to these different Cabinet roles, a key thing that is always at the top of their minds is whether or not this person can get confirmed in the Senate, if they have a controversial background, if they are more conservative, in this case, if they were Democrats, they’d be maybe too liberal. But really, the Senate is kind of the last line of defense of who the president could put into office with him. And so this would be a huge change. And I will also argue that really this process that Congress has now about avoiding recess appointments in their entirety started back with George W. Bush and has continued since then under the different presidents with Obama and Trump and now Biden. And so, this again would be a huge break from the norms that we currently have. Fred. FREDRICKA WHITFIELD: And again, bucking norms. Jorge Bonilla, a news analyst at NewsBusters, explained our weekly pick: “The Biden administration shattered many norms, whether it was the weaponization of state and federal governments against President-elect Donald Trump, the suppression of President Joe Biden’s physical and mental decline, or the government’s cooking of all sorts of data. Any one of these incidents occurring under a Trump administration would’ve garnered wall-to-wall ‘shattered norms’ coverage. On the contrary, the Biden parade of horribles drew nary a peep. Now, the media go nuts about norms the second a just-reelected Trump talks about staffing his administration via recess appointments.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ November 4: Liberal Media Scream: Gaslighting Politico calls Obama, Harris, and Biden ‘centrists’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the claim by Politico that Democratic leaders considered the most liberal in history are “centrists.” In gaslighting voters, the outlet’s White House correspondent Eugene Daniels said President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, and Vice President Kamala Harris aren’t liberals. Ditto for the Democratic Party and the party’s “base” of black voters, he added. “What it reminds us is that the Democratic Party continues to be a more centrist party, right? When you look at Obama, who, despite what people thought, kind of operated as a centrist, Biden, centrist, Kamala Harris, a centrist,” Daniels said on PBS. Daniels from Friday’s Washington Week with the Atlantic: “What it reminds us is that the Democratic Party continues to be a more centrist party, right? When you look at Obama, who, despite what people thought, kind of operated as a centrist, Biden, centrist, Kamala Harris, a centrist. The base of the Democratic Party continues to be black voters. They are still more centrist and more pragmatic as opposed to ideological. And so the takeover of the Democratic Party, as the Republican Party has found out, it hasn’t happened on the Democratic Party, the same with the Left.” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “The party of letting high school boys play on girls sports teams and running an open border is ‘centrist’? Daniels needs to bring a little more skepticism to his journalism. Just because a politician spins themselves as ‘centrist’ does not make them one. Kamala Harris has a long record of far-left policy views that haven’t disappeared just because she is not touting them in this year’s campaign.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE Screams.   ■ October 28: Liberal Media Scream: CBS’s Brennan frets Cheney’s safety if Trump wins (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the Face the Nation host raising concerns that a Trump election will lead to violence against former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney for endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in her yearlong campaign to stop former President Donald Trump’s comeback. Though it’s Trump who has been the target of two assassination attempts, CBS’s Margaret Brennan asked Cheney on her show on Sunday, “Given how outspoken you have been, are you concerned about your personal security if Donald Trump wins this election, as he well may do?” Fed the softball pitch, Cheney hit it hard: “Trump has ushered violence into our politics in a way that we haven’t seen before.” It was just the latest example of the anti-Trump bias network TV has wallowed in this election year. Earlier on Monday, the Media Research Center, which helps with this weekly feature, issued a report that showed a historic level of bias by CBS, ABC, and NBC. From Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS: MARGARET BRENNAN: Given how outspoken you have been, are you concerned about your personal security if Donald Trump wins this election, as he well may do? LIZ CHENEY: Look, first of all, I am very confident that Vice President Harris is going to win this election. It’s what we’re seeing all across the country, the kind of absolutely unprecedented coalition that’s coming together to support her, you know, we’re going to run through the tape, and nobody is overconfident here, but I do believe she’s going to be the next president of the United States. And I think that Donald Trump has ushered violence into our politics in a way that we haven’t seen before. And any violence is unacceptable. Certainly, the assassination attempt on the former president was completely unacceptable and obviously should never have happened. But when you have a situation where, you know, Donald Trump suggests that people who disagree with him ought to be put before military tribunals, that the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be hanged for treason, and his running mate doubles down on it, that tells you that you’re dealing with a man who doesn’t have any conscience, and the people who worked most closely with him know that. So, I’m confident that he’s going to be defeated next week. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “The reality of political violence in this year’s campaign came from the Left and opponents of Trump, not from him. Brennan seemed to have her own political agenda to try to generate an answer which would demonstrate another reason to vote for Harris: that a Trump win would physically endanger his critics. But not even Cheney, a Trump-hater, would go that far to presume Trump’s supporters are a bunch of violent fanatics who must be feared.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ October 21: Liberal Media Scream: ‘Swamp’ journalists admit cluelessness on Trump and MAGA (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features three of Washington’s prominent political correspondents finally admitting just how clueless they are about former President Donald Trump, whom at least half the nation sees as one of the easiest politicians to understand — and like. We feature the puzzlement of Washington Post journalists Max Boot and Jonathan Capehart and the Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich as they mull Trump’s comeback. “How can we have tens of millions of our fellow citizens think it’s OK to elect this delusional maniac as president of the United States? I, you know, I just don’t get it,” Boot told Capehart, who whined, “It is baffling to me as well.” Mark Leibovich on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Monday: “I think the larger stain on our history that we’re living through right now is Trump obviously and what he has stood for and what he has gotten away with.” “The idea that Donald Trump has operated within a permission structure of one of our two major parties to a point where there is just a consequence-free environment for him to operate in is one of the most appalling, I think, takeaways from this era. Obviously, one that portends very, very ominously in case he wins because there’s not going to be a check and balance from his own party. They’ll operate from a platform where he can do whatever he wants. But, essentially, I mean, these are people who I think will, hopefully, you know, live under a very, very damning verdict of history.” Max Boot during Friday’s “First Look” show for Washington Post Live “To me, what’s dismaying is not that Trump is denying reality, that he is depicting the rioters and insurrectionists of Jan. 6 as people engaged in a day of love. It’s not that Trump is denying the results of the 2020 election, as is his running mate, J.D. Vance. All of that we’ve come to expect by now. “What is dismaying to me, Jonathan, is that despite all of this, Trump is very close to winning the presidency again. It’s basically a coin-flip election. We don’t know how it’s going to go, but simply the fact that it’s as close as it is right now is, to me, a terrible commentary on America and a very dismaying, very dismaying augury of our future, that so many Americans seem to be so OK with this. I mean, how is this? How can we have tens of millions of our fellow citizens think it’s OK to elect this delusional maniac as president of the United States? I, you know, I just don’t get it.” Jonathan Capehart: “Yeah, it is baffling to me as well.” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “What’s ‘dismaying,’ ‘appalling,’ and a ‘terrible commentary’ on the state of American journalism is that two veteran journalists with major media institutions have such disdain for half of their fellow citizens. It also portends a dangerous reaction from the media if Trump does indeed win. Instead of dispassionately reporting on how and why he won, they’ll be condemning as a ‘stain’ on the nation those who voted for him.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE Screams.   ■ October 14: Liberal Media Scream: Vance and Johnson hit media TDS nitpickers (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the escalation of media whining and excuse-making for the problems Vice President Kamala Harris is encountering in her wobbly bid to become president. We feature MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who worried on Meet the Press about black and white men and businesses favoring former President Donald Trump, though she expressed no similar concerns about women favoring Harris in the gender gap. In one segment, she advised Harris to do more interviews to win over more men, though the vice president’s recent media blitz has brought mostly negative reviews. And she said Harris needs to push back on businesses’ view of her as a lightweight. “I think there’s misogynation in all of this, black and white men, big problem. But also, the business world, they don’t think she is serious,” Mitchell said. Mitchell’s comments came during a discussion on NBC’s Meet the Press about how Harris needs to do more media interviews to let people know about her economic policies: “They’ve got to double down on doing more interviews and serious interviews because what I’m hearing from Democratic and Republican businesspeople and a lot of men — and she’s got such a big problem with men. I think there’s an undercount of the Trump vote. I think there’s misogynation in all of this, black and white men, big problem. But also, the business world, they don’t think she is serious. They don’t think she’s a heavyweight. And a lot of this is gender, but she’s got to be more specific about her economic plans.” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “Of course, Andrea Mitchell attributes the worst of motives, misogyny, for why men favor Trump over Harris but expresses no concern for why women back Harris over Trump. Just like a partisan Democrat would see the world. Which is what the NBC News journalist is.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE Screams.   ■ October 7: Liberal Media Scream: Andrea Mitchell whines men and business supporting Trump (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the escalation of media whining and excuse-making for the problems Vice President Kamala Harris is encountering in her wobbly bid to become president. We feature MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who worried on Meet the Press about black and white men and businesses favoring former President Donald Trump, though she expressed no similar concerns about women favoring Harris in the gender gap. In one segment, she advised Harris to do more interviews to win over more men, though the vice president’s recent media blitz has brought mostly negative reviews. And she said Harris needs to push back on businesses’ view of her as a lightweight. “I think there’s misogynation in all of this, black and white men, big problem. But also, the business world, they don’t think she is serious,” Mitchell said. Mitchell’s comments came during a discussion on NBC’s Meet the Press about how Harris needs to do more media interviews to let people know about her economic policies: “They’ve got to double down on doing more interviews and serious interviews because what I’m hearing from Democratic and Republican businesspeople and a lot of men — and she’s got such a big problem with men. I think there’s an undercount of the Trump vote. I think there’s misogynation in all of this, black and white men, big problem. But also, the business world, they don’t think she is serious. They don’t think she’s a heavyweight. And a lot of this is gender, but she’s got to be more specific about her economic plans.” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “Of course, Andrea Mitchell attributes the worst of motives, misogyny, for why men favor Trump over Harris but expresses no concern for why women back Harris over Trump. Just like a partisan Democrat would see the world. Which is what the NBC News journalist is.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE Screams   ■ September 30: Liberal Media Scream: Latinos like Trump because they ‘want to be white’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a key MSNBC Latina guest who smeared her fellow Latinos with a racist anti-Trump rant on Sunday. On The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart, NPR’s Maria Hinojosa ripped Latinos for abandoning the Democratic Party. Reacting to a new NBC News/Telemundo poll that found Vice President Kamala Harris losing support from Hispanic voters, Hinojosa said, “Latinos want to be white. They want to be with the cool kids.” The 63-year-old Hispanic journalist apparently isn’t up with what’s cool on social media. From The Sunday Show With Jonathan Capehart on Sunday: JONATHAN CAPEHART: So she has a 14-point lead, but it has been shrinking after each consecutive presidential election from 2016. Why is that? Why is the Democratic share of the Latino vote shrinking? MARIA HINOJOSA: And what I said to you when we asked the question was, Latinos want to be white. They want to be with the cool kids. They want to be — I’m asking Latinos all the time, and they just say, ‘Well … he’s such a good businessman.’ It’s, like, no, he’s not. He had bankruptcies. But they don’t want to be identified with all of those other immigrants that Donald Trump speaks so badly of, including me, as a Mexican immigrant. So they’re, like, ‘We’d rather, let’s be with him.’ But those numbers? They could cost Kamala Harris the election. Everything that I’ve been saying that Latinos could push her over the top, these are the numbers that could also take her down. Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “Hinojosa reflects the very worst of identity politics. Vote only for liberal Democrats — or you are a race traitor. The fact a solid majority of Hispanics support Kamala Harris isn’t good enough for Hinojosa. Every Latino who dares stray from the party line must be shunned because such betrayal could cost the Democrat the election.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE Screams   ■ September 23: Liberal Media Scream: PBS says Harris a ‘happy warrior’ ready to ‘slap’ Trump (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the latest PBS effort to portray Vice President Kamala Harris as a joyful and happy warrior taking on evil in challenging former President Donald Trump for the presidency. On PBS NewsHour, MSNBC and Washington Post lefty pundit Jonathan Capehart declared Harris as a part of the “culture” willing to fight Trump. “She’s part of what’s driving this culture that I think you said will slap Donald Trump in the face. It’s slapping him in the face now,” Capehart said, adding, “She, in her entire career, has been the happy warrior about helping people and leaving aside the negativity. It just happens to hit at the right person at the right time.” From Friday’s PBS NewsHour, picking up after anchor Geoff Bennett cited David Brooks’s column, “How a Cultural Shift Favors Harris.” GEOFF BENNETT: Jonathan, that word joy, Kamala Harris, Vice President Harris, when she sat down with the three reporters from the National Association of Black Journalists today [actually on Tuesday], one of them asked her about how she views attacks on her joyful warrior approach. And she defended it. And she said people will try to sometimes use your best asset against you. What do you make of that and this notion that she’s benefitting from a cultural wave? JONATHAN CAPEHART: I don’t think she’s benefitting from a cultural — yes, she is, and I read your column, David. It’s not so much that she’s riding — she’s — like see this wave coming and she’s riding. No, she is part of the culture. And that’s why I think when she became the top of the ticket, everyone marveled at how quickly the light switch flipped. That can — and it happened so organically in a very dramatic fashion. That, to me, says you can’t manufacture that. And she was able to do that because she is the culture. She is part of the culture. She’s part of what’s driving this culture that I think you said will slap Donald Trump in the face. It’s slapping him in the face now, which is why I think he’s so discombobulated. He doesn’t know how to deal with her. I think it’s why the polls are — the momentum is moving in her direction. And to your point about happy warrior, and David is right, this is the way the vice president has always been, which sort of reinforces what you’re saying. It’s not that she has met up with the culture. She, in her entire career, has been the happy warrior about helping people and leaving aside the negativity. It just happens to hit at the right person, at the right time. Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “What a joke. Harris ‘is the culture’ and has been the embodiment of ‘the happy warrior about helping people’ for her ‘entire career’? She changes her culture and accent with every crowd she addresses. It must be nice to be a liberal Democrat, where supposed journalists not only endorse the glowingly upbeat imagery you want but celebrate it without any critical thinking over whether it is phony and then promote it as a genuine compelling life story.” Rating: Five out of FIVE screams   ■ September 15: No Liberal Media Scream this week   ■ September 9: Liberal Media Scream: Team Harris calls US ‘incredibly backwards’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a key Team Harris supporter decrying America as “incredibly backwards” for electing only men as president. Trump traitor Alyssa Farah Griffin, the “conservative” on The View, was discussing the debate between her ex-boss, former President Donald Trump, and Vice President Kamala Harris on CNN’s State of the Union when she blasted America. “We’re incredibly backwards as a country that we’ve never had a female president,” she said. The comment clashed with one of the key themes of the Harris campaign: criticizing Trump for claiming that America is in a shambles and spinning backward under the leadership of Harris and President Joe Biden. From Sunday’s State of the Union: ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: And the reality is, you shouldn’t underestimate Donald Trump. He has now done more presidential race — debates, I should say — than anyone in history, and he’s somebody who came up on television. He’s a communicator. He’s somebody who is used to speaking to a mass audience. If he can stay focused and he stays to the core issues: economy, border, it’s a good night for him. But we’ve also seen the world in which he shouts out the Proud Boys, or he talks about Hannibal Lecter, or he gets into name calling. That could go against him. To Kamala Harris, she needs to look presidential. We’re incredibly backwards as a country that we’ve never had a female president. So, for a lot of people seeing somebody up there who’s a woman who might be our first female president, she needs to seem commanding. She cannot get too in the weeds on policy. She needs to talk about it but can’t get sidetracked. Big picture. How will you demonstrably make people’s lives better? How will you turn the economy around? If she can do that and not get rattled by Donald Trump, it’ll be a good night for her. Jorge Bonilla, a news analyst with the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “One can very easily imagine Griffin uttering this same nonsensical hot take on ABC’s The View, with great care so as not to get yelled at by Sunny Hostin and before whatever box-wine-fueled nonsense sputtered by Ana Navarro. Given when a major party first nominated a woman to the top of the ballot, Griffin is calling America ‘backwards’ for committing the sin of electing Donald Trump to the presidency — a presidency that she served. This Trump-deranged nonsense is what passes for ‘analysis’ at CNN.” Rating: Four out of Five SCREAMS.   ■ September 2: No Liberal Media Scream this week   ■ August 26: Liberal Media Scream: ‘CNN’ has become a laugh line (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features talker Bill Maher mocking CNN and its hosts for viewing the lefty cable network as politically centrist, citing unending “gushing” over Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential nomination acceptance speech the night before. “I watched from 8:09 to 8:23. There was just gushing about how great a speech it was,” the talk show host and comedian told CNN host Kaitlan Collins. He said it wasn’t for 15 minutes until “Lonely Scott” Jennings, one of the few conservatives paid by CNN, got a word in. “It was like 5-to-1. It always looks like 5-to-1,” Maher said of how CNN stacks liberals against conservatives. Collins, who a week ago faced laughter from Stephen Colbert’s audience when he called CNN fair, tried to defend the network, but Maher wasn’t hearing it. “It’s, kind of, like, the same as The View. It’s like, it’s almost better to have nobody there like MSNBC,” he dissed. From Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO on Friday: BILL MAHER: You made press because you were on Stephen Colbert’s show, and he said something like you guys at CNN just report the news straight, and the crowd burst into laughter. That tells you a lot, doesn’t it? How do you guys think you are doing in that arena of, like, this is a terribly divided country. We are not only politicized, a lot of people hate the other side. And CNN, in my view, should be the place where both sides can watch. How do you think you’re doing with that? COLLINS: CNN is the place where both sides can watch. And I think, you know, my show is evidence of that. We have lawmakers on from both parties. MAHER: I’m talking about the people on CNN, and I know what the conservative side of America thinks, and I don’t blame them. I watched Kamala’s speech last night. It ended at 8:09, or, I guess, 11:09 in the East. It wasn’t until 11:23 ‘till the one conservative guy, what’s his name? COLLINS: Scott Jennings. MAHER: ‘Lonely Scott,’ I call him. COLLINS: David Urban was there too. MAHER: Wait a second. Wait a second. I watched from 8:09 to 8:23. There was just gushing about how great a speech it was — and I think she did fine. I didn’t think it was as good as they were making it out to be, but if I’m a conservative in America, and I’m watching CNN, just for the straight middle-of-the-road, that’s what I hear for 15 minutes is “it’s great” and then Lonely Scott. When you see — it does look like tokenism. It’s, kind of, like, the same as The View, it’s like, it’s almost better to have nobody there like MSNBC. COLLINS: I think it was a Democratic convention. They turned to Democrats, people like David Axelrod, who ran successful presidential Democratic campaigns first, for their analysis of this, and I don’t think that you can say that CNN is anything but fair. I mean, look at, we covered President Biden’s exit from the race very closely, the pressure on him to get out, and I feel like I could speak with authority on this — I’m from Alabama. I’m from a very red state. I have very conservative family, a lot of them are Trump voters. They watch my show every night, and I think they know that they can trust me, that we call bulls*** on every side, not just whatever leaning our audience may be, and I think that’s something that people want more of is to hear from that. I think Scott’s voice is really important, but I think other voices are important to hear from, and everyone who was speaking last night, it’s not like they were all Democrats. I mean, Dana Bash, Jake Tapper, Abby Philip, all my amazing colleagues giving analysis. MAHER: They come across that way. They came across that way in a moment like that. It was like 5-to-1. It always looks like 5-to-1. Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “It’s hard to believe Kaitlan Collins is really that clueless about the ingrained left-wing, anti-conservative agenda of CNN. That a traditionally left-of-center comedian recognizes that reality, to say nothing of an audience in Manhattan laughing at calling CNN objective, should give Collins pause. The fact that it doesn’t shows just how ideologically blind are Collins and her CNN colleagues are. To them, nothing is more important than keeping Donald Trump out of the White House.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE Screams   ■ August 19: Liberal Media Scream: Media now correcting MAGA, not just Trump (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the media’s latest line of attack on former President Donald Trump, MAGA, and anybody who voices support for the GOP presidential nominee. It comes from the weekend public affairs show hosts who apparently feel compelled to have the last word when featuring Trump or a Trump supporter. One offensive pick came from Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan, who is also co-moderating the Oct. 1 vice presidential debate. She gratuitously hit Trump after he called Vice President Kamala Harris’s plan for price controls “communist.” Brennan promised: “We’ll tell you why that is wrong.” But after a break, she never told her viewers what was false or wrong about the Trump quote or even prompted any guest to correct Trump. Then there was Martha Raddatz, hosting ABC’s This Week. Not only did she open the show with a cheer for Harris, but in reporting shown later, she featured a black woman who said she was leaning toward voting for Trump. “Trump’s rhetoric has clearly had an effect on her in an astonishing way,” said Raddatz, whose fact-checking about race didn’t sit well with the black woman. “There was no convincing her otherwise,” she said. From the top of Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS: MARGARET BRENNAN: I’m Margaret Brennan in Washington, and this week on Face the Nation, Democrats head to their convention in Chicago as inflation cools and the political back-and-forth over economic policies intensifies. With the presidential contest lineup set to be formally locked in this week, both sides turn their attention to issue No. 1 on the minds of the voters: the economy and inflation. KAMALA HARRIS: I will go after the bad actors, and I will work to pass the first-ever federal ban on price-gauging [sic] on food. DONALD TRUMP: A lot of people are very devastated by what’s happened with inflation and all of the other things. But they say it’s the most important subject. I’m not sure it is. But they say it’s the most important — inflation is the most important, but that’s part of economy. BRENNAN: The former president’s prescription is twofold. TRUMP: Vote Trump and your incomes will soar. BRENNAN: And a new line of false attack on Vice President Harris. TRUMP: Kamala went full communist. You heard that? She went full communist. She wants to destroy our country after causing catastrophic inflation. BRENNAN: We’ll tell you why that’s wrong and how the voters see the candidates’ handling of the economy in our new CBS News poll. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “Welcome to the world of establishment media playing speech police, deciding whose rhetoric is so over the line that their delicate viewers must be warned that it is ‘false’ and/or ‘wrong’ without any subsequent justification offered for the effort to discredit the candidate. I await her equal vigilance with Kamala Harris or Tim Walz claims about how the ‘fascist’ Trump will ‘end democracy,’ ‘destroy NATO’ or ‘cut’ Social Security.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE Screams   ■ August 12: Liberal Media Scream: PBS anchor falsely claims ‘no evidence’ of Walz’s stolen valor (Washington Examiner post) Imagine if a Republican military hero, say, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), lied about the high points of his career in the U.S. Marine Corps while running for vice president. The media would be looking at every word he spoke on his career and displaying his misstatements and lies on the front pages of every newspaper. But with Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), the Democratic vice presidential pick, the media have decided to look past his long list of fake claims about serving in “war” and Afghanistan while in the National Guard. What’s more, some even claim that there is no evidence of his fabrications. This week’s Liberal Media Scream features PBS New Hour anchor Amna Nawaz in the no-evidence camp. On Friday, for example, she said Vance has “no evidence” of his claims against Walz despite nonstop postings by amateur fact-checkers on social media. She said, “This is so reminiscent of that swiftboating attack on John Kerry back in 2004,” noting that former President Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, was behind the swiftboat attacks. She asked, “Why run with these attacks when there’s no evidence for what they’re saying right now?” Guest Eliana Johnson, editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon, countered, “There’s no question Tim Walz has padded and inflated his resume.” To which Nawaz demanded: “In what way specifically?” From Friday’s PBS News Hour, in which Johnson was joined by Jonathan Capehart, associate editor of the Washington Post: AMNA NAWAZ: While we’ve seen Mr. Trump continue with personal attacks and kind of veering way off message, we’ve also seen from Sen. Vance focusing now on Tim Walz’s military career. This is a new line of attack we’ve seen open up from Republicans. We know Mr. Walz served in the Army National Guard for 24 years before retiring. And we’ve heard Vance attack him in this way from time to time. SEN. J.D. VANCE: I did it honorably, and I’m very proud of my service. When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him. AMNA NAWAZ: Eliana, this is so reminiscent of that swiftboating attack on John Kerry back in 2004. We know the same man is behind it. He’s running the Trump campaign now, Chris LaCivita. Why run with these attacks when there’s no evidence for what they’re saying right now? ELIANA JOHNSON: Well, I do think there’s some evidence for what they’re saying, but let’s look at it in two parts. One is the issue on the merits, where I think there’s no question Tim Walz has padded and inflated his resume. And the second is his military resume. NAWAZ: In what way specifically? JOHNSON: Well, J.D. Vance mentioned that the timing of his retirement is suspect, and I think it would take a little bit longer to talk about the timeline of that. But the — NAWAZ: He’s alleging that he retired because his unit was being deployed. JOHNSON: Right. He knew that they were going to be called up. He had gotten a warning that they were going to be called up, and he said in a press release for his campaign, if called up, I have a duty to serve. He didn’t do that. It’s clear he has — he’s inflated this, and he’s made it a part of his biography. By the way, this has been an issue in every single one of Walz’s campaigns. But, separately, I think there’s a question of how significant is this going to be down the road? You mentioned the swiftboat veterans. Those attacks were effective, but they were levied against the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, John Kerry, back in 2004 — NAWAZ: They were also discredited. JOHNSON: — which is, which is different. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “Nawaz illustrates what is so wrong with the modern media in how they reflexively take sides at the very moment they think they are acting as tough journalists getting at the truth. Instead of pursuing those in the Harris-Walz camp to determine the truth about Walz’s military record, she presumes the Republicans are in the wrong and so their supposedly false claims must be discredited. It proves which side of the political divide she sits.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE Screams   ■ August 5: Liberal Media Scream: ABC’s Rachel Scott doubles down on Trump (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features ABC’s Rachel Scott, fresh from zinging former President Donald Trump at a black media convention, whacking him again while discussing campaign debates on the network’s Sunday public affairs show, This Week. Participating in a panel discussion, Scott praised Vice President Kamala Harris’s “nuance” on her mixed-race heritage. “It has been really notable for us reporters who have picked up on the nuance about how she has responded to some of these attacks questioning her racial identity,” she said. Scott was criticized by Trump when she opened a Q&A at the National Association of Black Journalists convention by questioning his past comments on black people and why they should support him. An irked Trump shot back, “I think it’s a very nasty question.” On This Week, she channeled a Harris campaign talking point as she fancied a Harris-Trump debate: “And imagine that on the debate stage where you have a prosecutor possibly facing off against someone who has just been convicted.” From Sunday’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I was struck, Rachel, in the vice president’s response to what happened at your interview. She seemed to be aware of what Jonathan Martin is talking about. Don’t make this back about her after he gives those comments. RACHEL SCOTT: And it has been really notable for us reporters who have picked up on the nuance about how she has responded to some of these attacks questioning her racial identity. She is not going there, and Democrats say, “Look, she knows who she is.” She identifies as a black and Asian woman. Why does she have to go out there and respond in that sort of way? What she is doing is putting it back on Donald Trump and Republicans, saying they’re dividing, and then pivoting back to the issues. …. SUSAN PAGE, USA TODAY: I moderated the last debate she did in 2020, the vice presidential debate. She is a good debater. She is confident. She uses a little humor. She made Mike Pence be quiet, which is something I struggled to do, and she came across as a prosecutor, and that is a good message for her. STEPHANOPOULOS: That seems to be her sweet spot. SCOTT: And imagine that on the debate stage where you have a prosecutor possibly facing off against someone who has just been convicted, right? And that’s the sort of image that, of course, Democrats are hoping that they can actually have on the debate stage. But yes, and thinking back to her taking on President Biden when they were running against each other in the Democratic primary, Democrats see her as someone who can thrive potentially on the debate stage. The question is, does it actually happen? Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “Scott seems near-giddy over Harris, acting more as a Kamala Whisperer than as any kind of independent journalist. She may couch her ‘reporting’ by citing ‘what Democrats are hoping,’ but it’s clear she’s hoping for the same thing: eagerly anticipating ‘the prosecutor versus the felon’ debate followed by a Harris election victory.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS   ■ July 29: Liberal Media Scream: CNN spins Biden as martyr for stopping Trump (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the latest spin from CNN that President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of his reelection race guarantees the end of President Donald Trump too. Fareed Zakaria offered this Sunday on his “My Take” commentary: “The final legacy of Biden is that he has returned the presidency to an office of sanity, decency, and dignity, ushering out the dangerous demagoguery and anti-democratic rhetoric and behavior that preceded him. But for that legacy to endure, and for Biden’s term not to simply be a moment in time, he needed to ensure that the United States actually closes the chapter on Donald Trump.” Perspective didn’t matter. In fact, Biden’s “friends” pushed him out because of his poor polling, and while Vice President Kamala Harris has seen a jump in interest in her, she is leading Trump in only two of eight national polls taken after Biden’s July 21 announcement, and those leads are of 1% and 2%. Zakaria on Sunday’s Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN: “The final legacy of Biden is that he has returned the presidency to an office of sanity, decency, and dignity, ushering out the dangerous demagoguery and anti-democratic rhetoric and behavior that preceded him. But for that legacy to endure, and for Biden’s term not to simply be a moment in time, he needed to ensure that the United States actually closes the chapter on Donald Trump. “And to help make this more likely, he made the painful decision not to run for the presidency, which will also earn him a special place in the history books. Joe Biden has felt that he has been underestimated all his life. Judging by his tenure in the White House, he’s right.” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “So much for jaded journalists holding to account those in power. When it comes to keeping Trump from returning to the White House, much of the media eagerly buy into advancing the party line on how Biden made a ‘painful decision’ to put the nation ahead of himself when, in fact, a skeptical journalist would realize it was nothing more than Biden applying grandiose spin, which Zakaria ate up, to cover for an impending humiliating defeat.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ July 22: Liberal Media Scream: NBC insider says Biden as ‘great’ as Washington (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the race among Washington journalists to erase their coverage of President Joe Biden as a senile loser and raise him to sainthood status. The best example came from a former Newsweek reporter and NBC News contributor who not only compared Biden to former President George Washington but also to the Roman statesman Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, considered the figure of virtue for leaving his position of power to return to farming. “I also was thinking of Joe Biden’s legacy,” Jonathan Alter said. “He will be remembered as a great president. He will be mentioned in the same sentence as George Washington. Why? Because selflessly leaving power, and the circumstances of him clinging to it in the last three weeks will be forgotten, the basic decision to leave power, which started with Cincinnatus in 439 B.C.,” he added. From Monday’s Morning News NOW on the NBC News NOW streaming channel: CO-ANCHOR JOE FRYER: You love history so much. What was going through your mind yesterday when this decision came down? How do you rank this in the 21st century as far as important stories? JONATHAN ALTER: Extremely important, extremely unusual in American politics. The last time it happened was in 1968 when incumbent President Lyndon Johnson stepped away. I also was thinking of Joe Biden’s legacy. He will be remembered as a great president. He will be mentioned in the same sentence as George Washington. Why? Because selflessly leaving power, and the circumstances of him clinging to it in the last three weeks will be forgotten, the basic decision to leave power, which started with Cincinnatus in 439 B.C. And then George Washington picks up from Cincinnatus. The city, of course, is named for this. Why Cincinnatus? Why is he still so well known? Because this selfless act — of leaving power, which in human history is an extremely rare thing to do — elevates you. And in combination with a record of genuine achievement, it will put Joe Biden in very, very good stead in terms of history.” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “What’s next? Comparing Biden to Jesus? Only a matter of time, I suspect, at least in the world of MSNBC and NBC News. Apparently, Alter is so enthralled with Biden that he can’t see a difference between the widely admired George Washington, who rejected the public groundswell urging him to become the king, and the unpopular Biden who only stepped away when faced with the near certainty of an embarrassing defeat bringing down him and much of his party.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ July 15: Liberal Media Scream: Anger over blood-splattered ‘fight, fight, fight’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the immediately iconic photos of a blood-splattered former President Donald Trump urging supporters to “fight, fight, fight” to restore him to the White House and the media’s queasiness with and misinterpretation of his message. For the president and his supporters, the message was clear: Stand up to the attacks and build a unified base to win. But to many in the media, they saw it as a disturbing, angry message of revenge. At CNN, for example, Jamie Gangel took offense to Trump, who survived the assassination attempt by millimeters. “I think what we’re hearing from people is that’s not the message that we want to be sending right now. We want to tamp it down,” she said. This is what Gangel said on CNN Saturday night, about four hours after the shooting: “I do want to say there was one thing that, when I watched the tape, I found odd because of all of the heated rhetoric. And that is that after he was hit, former President Trump got up and said, ‘Fight, fight, fight.’ I think what we’re hearing from people is that’s not the message that we want to be sending right now. We want to tamp it down.” Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “I’m sorry, not, that Trump didn’t display the correct decorum to satisfy Gangel a minute after getting shot and barely escaping alive in an assassination attempt. That Gangel’s first instinct was to attack the words of the victim shows the distorted worldview of CNN, where Trump and MAGA are the threats to democracy which must be suppressed.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ July 8: Liberal Media Scream: Welker pushes Meet the Press even further left (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the latest demonstration that NBC Meet the Press host Kristen Welker, in the anchor seat for less than a year, has pushed the show further left than Chuck Todd left it. This Sunday, it was Welker using her trademark practice of beating her point into the ground in demanding another Republican to “accept the election results,” which she obviously believes will show President Joe Biden reelected. Her target was Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), on former President Donald Trump’s short list of running mates. “Can you say unequivocally, unequivocally here and now, that you will accept the results of the 2024 election no matter what they are?” she asked, ignoring warnings from the FBI about election hanky panky and some of the problems found in the 2020 ballot casting. When Vance said he’s hoping for a clean election, Welker said he was signaling that the election won’t be fair. He fired back that it is the media’s blindness to problems that is the threat to the election outcome, not a candidate’s hope for problem-free elections. “What I think actually undermines people’s confidence in the electoral system is when the media is incurious about obvious examples of problems in our electoral system,” Vance said. From Sunday’s Meet the Press on NBC: KRISTEN WELKER: Well, here we are about a week before the Republican convention. Before I let you go, can you say unequivocally, unequivocally here and now, that you will accept the results of the 2024 election no matter what they are? SEN. J.D. VANCE [R-OH]: So long as it’s a free and fair election, Kristen, of course we will. We will use constitutional processes to challenge issues if we think there are issues. But if it’s a free and fair election, we will do what the Constitution requires. We will respect the results. And I expect those results are going to be to reelect Donald Trump. WELKER: It was a free and fair election in 2020. Donald Trump took his concerns to court. He lost in court. But he still has not conceded. Do you understand that when you refuse to commit unequivocally, that feeds into people’s concerns, skepticism about the nation’s electoral process? VANCE: Well, Kristen, I don’t agree with that actually. I think that feeding into people’s concerns about our electoral process is that one-half of America’s political segment, they won’t support legislation that makes it harder for illegal aliens to vote. They won’t support universal voter ID in our elections even though you have to present ID to do almost anything in this country. I think taking people’s concerns seriously about election fraud is the way to reinforce security and confidence in our elections. WELKER: Yes, senator, it’s already against the law for noncitizens to vote. But just on that very point, when you, when others refuse to say, “Yes, we will accept the election results,” do you understand how that undermines people’s confidence in the electoral system? VANCE: But, Kristen, what I just said is I don’t agree with that. What I think actually undermines people’s confidence in the electoral system is when the media is incurious about obvious examples of problems in our electoral system. I think we’ve got great elections, but a lot of things could be better in certain states. I want to work to make that happen so the American people have greater confidence in their elections. That’s what I’ll keep doing. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Welker has managed to make Meet the Press more of a vehicle for the agenda of liberals than it was under Chuck Todd. Every week, it seems, she acts as a thought police operative, demanding Republican guests pay fealty to the Democratic media party line on how elections cannot be questioned, trying to undermine their very legitimacy as elected officials. In Vance’s case, she distorted his answer to appear the opposite of what it was so she could lecture him about his improper thinking.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ July 1: Liberal Media Scream: NBC’s Welker lies about ‘lies,’ can’t stand truthful Republicans (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features President Joe Biden’s media cheerleading squad trying to find some way to divert the public’s attention away from the fact that the president was out of it during last week’s debate with former President Donald Trump. The top tactic of the liberal press was to say that Trump told more “lies” than the comatose president. And when Republicans pushed back, the media just ignored and pressed on. Case in point was NBC’s Kristen Welker, the Meet the Press anchor. One of her featured guests was Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND), who is on Trump’s short list of running mate candidates. Not only did she press him on whether he was a liar, she told lies about debate statements Trump made that have been fact-checked as truthful. “As someone who is on Donald Trump’s short list to be his vice presidential nominee, do you think he should stop saying things that are not true?” She then recited his supposed lies: “Just to say a few: He said that Democrats want to kill infants after birth. That’s not true. He again lied about widespread fraud. Not true. He lied about his comments after Charlottesville. Should he be truthful with the American people if he wants to lead this country? Especially given what you just said that you never lie. That’s your standard, governor.” But Democrats certainly do support allowing abortion up until birth and even death to newborns. That was clearly stated by former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, himself a pediatric neurologist. And liberal reporters love misquoting Trump’s “good people on both sides” comment about the demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, but it has been debunked, and he was not referring to Nazis as one of the “both” sides. From Sunday’s Meet the Press on NBC: GOV. DOUG BURGUM: Four years ago, when we ended up with the current ticket on the Democrat side, that was this grand devil’s bargain of “everybody drop out, we’re going with these two.” Then, the biggest lie that has been foisted on the American public was seen on Thursday night. People can’t un-see what they saw. What they saw was, we’ve been told by the White House, two weeks ago, the White House was attacking journalists, including your friends, saying that no, you can’t say these stories about that Joe Biden isn’t capable of serving right now. And then, all of America saw it. And you know who else saw it? Our adversaries saw it. Putin saw it. Xi saw it. The ayatollah saw it. I mean, the nation — we keep talking about elections. We are at a greater national security risk today than we were on Thursday because the commander in chief showed that he’s not capable of serving. KRISTEN WELKER: Well, there’s not proof of that, but governor, let me just ask you about the debate and a little bit more of what we saw. By one count, Donald Trump made more than 30 false claims during that debate. I want to play something you told my colleague Chuck Todd on this broadcast last year. Take a look. CHUCK TODD: You ever lied in politics? BURGUM: No. TODD: That you know of? You don’t believe you’ve ever lied? BURGUM: No. TODD: You feel like you’ve always told the truth as you understood it? BURGUM: Absolutely. That’s how I was raised and how I’ve gone forward. WELKER: As someone who is on Donald Trump’s short list to be his vice presidential nominee, do you think he should stop saying things that are not true? BURGUM: I think the whole manufactured thing this morning of, that Donald Trump has said something that he hasn’t said before, I mean, everything that he said on Thursday night he’s been saying before. I mean, so this isn’t, this is not news. WELKER: This is not manufactured. But this is not manufactured, governor. I mean, just to say a few: He said that Democrats want to kill infants after birth. That’s not true. He again lied about widespread fraud. Not true. He lied about his comments after Charlottesville. Should he be truthful with the American people if he wants to lead this country? Especially given what you just said that you never lie. That’s your standard, governor. Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Welker is so sure of herself, so smugly superior that she can rattle off a list of supposed lies from Donald Trump without any self-awareness that she is passing on distortions of what Trump said while she demands Gov. Burgum criticize Trump for not being truthful. And then, when Burgum makes a perfectly reasonable observation, she corrects him with the ‘there’s not proof of that’ bromide. Pot, meet kettle.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ June 24: Liberal Media Scream: CNN proves anti-Trump bias days before debate (Washington Examiner post) And just like that, CNN showed its anti-Trump bias on Monday, just three days before hosting the first debate between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, proving Republicans correct in complaining that the debate would be an ambush. It came early Monday morning when anchor Kasie Hunt was hosting Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt. At the time, Secrets was considering the week’s choices for the Liberal Media Scream feature with Brent Baker of the Media Research Center. Stories about the strong anti-Trump bias of co-debate moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper started to appear over the weekend, so it wasn’t unexpected that Leavitt would criticize them. Readers may recall that CNN and Trump have an antagonistic relationship, highlighted when CNN host Jim Acosta tussled with Trump during a press conference five years ago. When Leavitt hit CNN’s bias, Hunt, who often includes Republicans on her show, wouldn’t hear of it, shut off her guest’s microphone, and kicked Trump’s spokeswoman off the air. The two traded tweets afterward, but the damage was done and led to a piling on by those upset with Hunt’s liberal bias, including Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) wife, who noted that Hunt called the story about an attack on the senator one of her “favorite stories.” So, for her actions, Hunt wins our Liberal Media Scream of the week with a rating of five out of five screams. From Monday’s CNN This Morning: KAROLINE LEAVITT: Well, President Trump is well prepared ahead of Thursday’s debates. Unlike Joe Biden, he doesn’t have to hide away and have his advisers tell him what to say. President Trump knows what he wants to say, and he’s going to relay his vision to the American people to make this country strong, safe, secure, and wealthy again. He’s been doing that across this great nation, to all corners of this country. That’s why he was in Detroit, Michigan, last week. He was in Philadelphia for a big rally on Saturday night, and that’s why President Trump is knowingly going into a hostile environment on this very network, on CNN, with debate moderators who have made their opinions about him very well known over the past eight years in their biased coverage of him. So President Trump is willing to bring his message to every corner of this country, to voters, to ensure that he wins this election in November. He looks forward to doing that, and I know the American public looks forward to hearing from him. KASIE HUNT: So, I’ll just say my colleagues, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, have acquitted themselves as professional as they have covered campaigns and interviewed candidates from all sides of the aisle. I’ll also say that if you talk to analysts at debates previous, that if you’re attacking the moderators, you’re usually losing. So, I really want to focus on what these two men are going to do and say when they stand on the stage. Now, we have a little bit of what Donald Trump, your boss, has said in trying to set expectations for this debate. I want to play some of a series of his comments, and then we’ll talk about it. Watch. DONALD TRUMP CLIPS: Maybe I’m better off losing the debate. I’ll make sure he says I lose the debate on purpose. Maybe I’ll do something like that. … I assume he’s gonna be somebody that will be a worthy debater. … Should I be tough and nasty and just say you’re the worst president in history, or should I be nice and calm and let him speak? HUNT: So he’s basically saying there, well, will I let Joe Biden win? It does seem as though many Republicans have set the bar very low in terms of arguing that Joe Biden is basically senile. Now, you have people like Doug Burgum coming out and saying, well, President Biden’s very accomplished, trying to set expectations in a different place. What do you expect from Joe Biden? LEAVITT: Well, first of all, it takes someone five minutes to Google Jake Tapper, Donald Trump to see that Jake Tapper has consistently, frequently likened President Trump to Adolf Hitler — HUNT: Ma’am, I’m going to stop this interview if you continue to attack my colleagues. I would like to talk about Joe Biden and Donald Trump, who you work for. If you are here to speak on his behalf, I am willing to have this conversation. LEAVITT: I am stating facts that your colleagues have stated in the past. Now, as for this debate, the expectations for, the expectations for — HUNT: Now, I’m sorry, guys. We’re going to come back out to the panel. Karoline, thank you very much for your time. You are welcome to come back at any point. She is welcome to come back and speak about Donald Trump, and Donald Trump will have equal time to Joe Biden when they both join us … later this week in Atlanta for this debate. Our thanks to Karoline. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Not a good sign for Donald Trump and his supporters ahead of CNN’s debate. If Hunt’s aggressiveness is any guide, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash won’t be reluctant to use their power to kill the podium microphones to silence the candidate who says things they have a long record of denouncing and condemning. Trump may well regret agreeing to allow CNN to host a debate.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ June 17: Liberal Media Scream: ‘What the f***?’: Celebrities baffled voters like Trump for sounding ‘normal’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features world-class comics expressing shock that the public connects with former President Donald Trump because he sounds normal and even funny. “What the f***?” yelped Charlamagne tha God, appearing on Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher’s “Overtime” with liberal talker Ana Navarro. The trio were talking about Trump and answering questions when Maher said, “Is Trump dangerous because he’s funny?” When Maher said the fact is that people respond to Trump’s commoner way of talking, the black comic said, “Republicans are more sincere about their lies than Democrats are about their truth. Like when you listen to Donald Trump talk, you listen to Marjorie Taylor Greene, that’s what Waffle House sounds like at three in the morning. And sadly, people relate to that.” From Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher’s “Overtime” show posted on YouTube after the regular program aired on HBO, picking up as Maher posed questions from viewers: BILL MAHER: Charlamagne, this is for you. “Is Trump dangerous because he’s funny?” CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD [CTG]: What the f***? No, Trump is dangerous because at one point he was president of the United States of America and he’s running to be president of the United States of America again. If he wasn’t, you know, running to be in that position, he’d be the most hilarious person on the planet. ANA NAVARRO: But, I mean, do you, do you actually — you’re a comedian — do you actually find him funny because people are laughing at him? MAHER: Yes, unintentionally? CTG: Yes. MAHER: He’s a scream? Oh, he’s so funny, but he doesn’t know it. No, really. I mean, there are people like that. He has no— NAVARRO: When I, when I listen to him, when he’s talking in those rallies about the sharks and the batteries, I’m waiting for the men in white jackets to show up. CTG: But it’s only because he’s running for president. If he wasn’t running for president, you’d be like, “This stand-up is amazing.” MAHER: But he sounds — and I’ve heard you talk about this subject before — he sounds like more of a normal person. CTG: Yes. MAHER: And that you, I know you said that the Republicans have a big advantage because they communicate better. CTG: Yeah, Republicans are more sincere about their lies than Democrats are about their truth. Like when you listen to Donald Trump talk, you listen to Marjorie Taylor Greene, that’s what Waffle House sounds like at three in the morning. And sadly, people relate to that. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Charlamagne tha God seemingly reflects much of the bafflement of those on the Left as to why average, not-so-political people would be attracted by the messages delivered by Trump and other Republicans. So, aghast at the phenomenon, he must attribute it to how Trump and conservatives are better talkers and liars, not that their policy views better address the problems facing the country.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ June 10: Liberal Media Scream: ‘The View’ says black people not allowed to leave the Democratic plantation (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features The View engaging in racial politics and suggesting that minority viewers should stay in their Democratic lane. On the show, Sunny Hostin was discussing Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) giving his support to former President Donald Trump. He is one of Trump’s potential picks for a running mate. Hostin, whose roots are Puerto Rican, accused Donalds of pandering to Trump, though several polls show black voters like the ex-president, especially men, and are moving to the Republican Party after decades of pandering by the Democratic Party. She said that such black voters are ultra-rare. “These black men that he was speaking with, I’d love to see them. It would be like looking at unicorns,” Hostin said on Friday’s show. From Friday’s The View, a show produced by ABC News: JOY BEHAR: Florida congressman Byron Donalds hit a new low when he told a room full of black Republicans that he misses the quote, unquote, good old days. Watch. BYRON DONALDS, on June 4: During Jim Crow, the black family was together. During Jim Crow, more black people were not just conservative — black people have always been conservative-minded — but more black people voted conservatively. And then, H.E.W., Lyndon Johnson, and then you go down that road, and now we are where we are. …. SARA HAINES: What’s scary is when you hear the audio, there are a lot of people going, uh-huh, uh-huh. So it feels like a class needs to be taught to everyone in that room because segregation left you with no choice. Like, you weren’t picking the family. They were literally making you go to different places. They didn’t allow for — so, talking about a black person choosing to be with your family and then looking at the greater social scheme and the injustice of that, he must not know what it is? I mean, that seems like a far leap not to understand Jim Crow, segregation, and the separation of the race. I don’t understand. ANA NAVARRO: If he doesn’t know, shame on him, because there is nothing worse, I think, than when people achieve certain status and certain rights and don’t appreciate, take for granted, the struggles, the deaths, the fights, the marches, everything it took to be able to give Byron Donalds the opportunity he has now because, under Jim Crow, he couldn’t vote. He wouldn’t have been in Congress. He couldn’t have married his wife. He’s married to a lovely woman named Erika, who’s white. Interracial marriage was illegal in Florida until 1969. He could have not gone to Florida State University — for over 100 years, black students were not admitted to that university. Over 250 blacks were lynched in Florida under Jim Crow. For him to be waxing nostalgic about that era that elicits so much pain — that was such a dark period in the history of the United States — is offensive. And for him to be doing it as a black man, as a person of color, is even more offensive. What really drives me crazy, though, is that it’s, like, every three months, a Republican says something more stupid about black history and slavery, right? I mean, last year, we had Ron DeSantis saying — defending that there were good things about slavery, skills that were learned that could be put to good use. Then we had Nikki Haley, who couldn’t admit that slavery was the cause for the Civil War. JOY BEHAR: So, my question to you, Sunny: Is it stupidity, like she says, or is it something else? HAINES: I think it’s pandering. I don’t think it’s stupidity. BEHAR: To whom? HOSTIN: It’s pandering to Donald Trump. I thought it was interesting that the framing was a room of black Republicans. Where are they? Where are they? Because if you look at the stats, 77% of — 81%, I’m sorry, of black men are part of the Democratic Party. Black voters consistently align with the Democratic Party. Ninety, over 95% of black women are part of the Democratic Party. So these black men that he was speaking with, I’d love to see them. It would be like looking at unicorns. And so, I think that the sad thing is, you know, I agree with you, Ana, is that this came from the mouth of a black man, right? And so, if you’re pandering yourself and your community and your history to a man like Donald Trump, who is a disgraced, one-term, twice impeached, convicted felon, we get to say now, is even more despicable in this country. Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “What a disgusting display of left-wing elitism. To think that, in the name of calling out racism, you think it’s your place as white people to lecture a black man about his views of the status of the black family and how it has fared over the decades. Liberals just can’t allow anyone to deviate from the approved liberal perspective and, if they do, they must be ‘shamed’ and corrected so they get in line.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ June 3: Liberal Media Scream: Stephanopoulos anti-Trump spin, condescendingly Clintonesque (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream highlights the model of the media’s bias in the legal cases against former President Donald Trump — ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. The former Clinton White House communications boss opened his Sunday show, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, with a lecture against Trump and then brought on Trump lawyer Will Scharf to face left-wing talking points. Scharf didn’t take it and challenged the Democratic talker, especially when Stephanopoulos tried to silence him for making points he didn’t like. The actions by Stephanopoulos were reminiscent of the way he used to try to shut down reporters during the 1992 presidential campaign when numerous Clinton scandals were raised, a practice he and other aides continued while in the White House when facing troublesome stories, especially the Travelgate affair. From Sunday’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning, and welcome to This Week. In 1774, John Adams said representative government and trial by jury are the heart and lungs of liberty. Two hundred and fifty years later, the heart and lungs of liberty are facing what may be the ultimate stress test. Twelve anonymous jurors rendered their verdict on Thursday, finding Donald Trump guilty on all counts. It’s the third time in the last two years that jurors have rendered verdicts against Trump. Jurors have yet to consider charges against Trump for even more serious crimes: blocking the peaceful transfer of power, concealing classified documents, encouraging the filing of false electors. But for now, the New York jurors have already presented their fellow citizens with a choice: Do we want to be represented, to be led, for the first time in history by a convicted felon? That answer will come in November…. STEPHANOPOULOS: The ethics panel for the state of New York said the judge was not required to recuse….   STEPHANOPOULOS: If appearance of impropriety is the standard for recusal, then why shouldn’t Justice Thomas and Justice Alito have to recuse from the cases before the Supreme Court?…. WILL SCHARF: The weaponization of our legal system, the politicization of prosecution, these are all things that President Trump absolutely has to comment on. I think the fact that he labored under a gag order for as long as he did was manifestly unjust. So, yes, absolutely, President Trump needs to be carrying his message to the American people. And I don’t see how anyone can really poke holes at that. STEPHANOPOULOS: You talked about the weaponization of the legal system. Of course, it was former President Trump who threw out the 2016 campaign, led chants of “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton. But what do you expect from the sentencing process? SCHARF: Well, but hold on a second, George, President Trump may have said that, but after he entered office, he certainly didn’t weaponize the Department of Justice to pursue his political opponents the way that we’ve seen … in the last couple years. Remember, this case in New York, it was called the zombie case. It sat and sat and sat. It could have been brought at any point after 2020. And then suddenly, when President Trump announced his campaign for president, it was dusted off, rushed in front of a grand jury, and then rushed into court. You want to talk about the politicization of the legal system, I mean, this is Exhibit A. It’s absolutely unprecedented in American history. It’s not the way that our campaigns are supposed to be run. We contest elections at the ballot box, not in the courts, in this country. STEPHANOPOULOS: That is true. But, of course, we’ve never had a former president or presidential candidate facing the kind of charges that the president faced because of his own activities. And, of course, the attorney general in Manhattan has nothing to do with the Department of Justice. Finally, what do you expect from the sentencing process? SCHARF: I vehemently disagree that the district attorney in New York was not politically motivated here, and I vehemently disagree that President Biden and his political allies aren’t up their necks in this prosecution. I think the fact that the Biden campaign — STEPHANOPOULOS: There’s no evidence here of that. Sir, there’s no — there’s not — I’m not going to let you continue to say that. There’s just zero evidence of that. SCHARF: Well, how about the fact that Matthew Colangelo was standing over Alvin Bragg’s shoulder when he announced this verdict? I mean, Colangelo was the No. 3 official in the Biden Department of Justice who suddenly disappears and shows up as an assistant district attorney, right as Trump’s case in New York starts to proceed. You want to talk about political — STEPHANOPOULOS: After the decision was made there — SCHARF: You want to talk about political coordination, George, it’s right there in front of you. STEPHANOPOULOS: This has nothing to do — this has nothing to do — no, it’s not. This has nothing to do with President Biden. Do you want to answer the question about the sentencing process or not? SCHARF: I completely disagree that this has nothing to do with President Biden. With respect to sentencing, as I said before, we’re going to vigorously challenge this case on appeal. I don’t think President Trump is going to end up being subject to any sentence whatsoever. And we look forward to getting this case into the next court and taking this again all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary to vindicate President Trump’s rights. STEPHANOPOULOS: Thanks for your time this morning. SCHARF: Appreciate it, George. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “A Sunday sermon followed by aggressive left-wing talking points aimed at not allowing legitimacy for views which do not comport with ‘the facts’ as the very liberal and very partisan Stephanopoulos sees them. We’re in for five more months of this from the media and left-wing activists in it like Stephanopoulos: aggressive disdain for anyone making a point on behalf of Trump, imbued with condescending sneering about how there’s ‘no evidence’ for that point when there’s plenty of evidence for it.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ May 27: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC regular cites Clarence Thomas’s white wife in racist rant (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the latest example of the Left’s hysteria over conservative judges on the Supreme Court. MSNBC regular talker Elie Mystal said that Associate Justice Clarence Thomas not only wanted votes from black people to count less than white votes in elections, but he cited Thomas’s wife of 37 years, Virginia Thomas, who is white, as proof. “Yeah, the through line between the Alito flag story, the Clarence Thomas coup story, and their wives, and what we saw today from the Supreme Court in this gerrymandering decision, the through line is that they don’t want black people’s votes to count equally,” Mystal said on All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC Thursday. “I mean, he ain’t married to Ginni Thomas for nothing, all right — like, that’s what the man thinks,” the black pundit said. He was discussing a 6-3 Supreme Court decision last week to keep a South Carolina congressional map that a lower court had ruled included a racially drawn gerrymander. The court said the challengers had not proven their case. The decision was written by Associate Justice Samuel Alito, who has drawn fire for his wife’s flying of their American flag in the “distress” signal. From Thursday’s All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC: CHRIS HAYES: I want to start on what we got from the court today and the fact it was an Alito-authored decision. It was an Alito-authored decision from the Trump majority, 6-3 majority, liberals in dissent, holding up a Republican gerrymander. ELIE MYSTAL: Yeah, the through line between the Alito flag story, the Clarence Thomas coup story, and their wives and what we saw today from the Supreme Court in this gerrymandering decision, the through line between all of that is that they don’t want black people’s votes to count equally. HAYES: Do you think that is true of Clarence Thomas? MYSTAL: I know that it’s true of Clarence Thomas, all right. Their idea and Clarence Thomas, in his concurrence today, wrote straight up that he does not think the 14th Amendment and the equal protection clause of that amendment can be used to protect the voting rights of black people. HAYES: Yes. MYSTAL: I mean, he ain’t married to Ginni Thomas for nothing, all right — like, that’s what the man thinks. He wrote it today. The through line — understand this, Chris, when these people like Alito and Thomas support the insurrection, right, what are they really saying? They’re saying that Trump won — lost the election but won the white vote, which is true, he did, he won the white vote by a lot, white people should probably do something about that, but he won the white vote by a lot. And what Alito and Thomas are saying is that it is that white vote that Trump won is that’s the only votes that matter. That we should do what the white voters want and when they write these decisions like they did in the gerrymandering case, what they are straight up saying is that black voters can be diluted, can have their voting rights taken away, simply because black voters happen to vote Democrat. Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “How insidious an attitude to have toward an American institution when your ideological contention is that it’s Trump and MAGA who are destroying democracy. No, you’re doing that with such a disreputable, race-based attack on the court because you don’t agree with a ruling, compounded by a cheap shot at the first conservative African American on the Supreme Court as a self-hater because the race of his wife doesn’t match his. Can’t go much lower.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ May 20: No Liberal Media Scream this week.   ■ May 13: Liberal Media Scream: Networks shamefully use Reagan to defend Biden (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features all three network Sunday public affairs shows going to bat for President Joe Biden’s betrayal of Israel for largely political reasons by suggesting he was just following a pattern set by former President Ronald Reagan. “Historians would say, ‘Why is it OK for Reagan to do it and not President Biden?'” NBC’s Kristen Welker said in a key example of the effort. At issue was Biden’s flip-flop to hold back weaponry Israel needs to push its effort to rid Hamas from Gaza after the terrorists shocked the world with brutal attacks on Israeli women, children, and troops last October. Biden’s move came in response to campus protests by pro-Hamas protesters. The network talk shows noted that Reagan also played hardball with Israel but typically for more diplomatic reasons than domestic politics. What’s more, as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) noted, nobody ever questioned whether Reagan had Israel’s back in facing down Arab enemies. From the May 12 ABC, NBC, and CBS Sunday morning interview shows: — ABC’s This Week host Martha Raddatz to Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX): You regularly invoke former President Ronald Reagan. You heard Sen. Coons bring up the fact he paused weapons to Israel as well. You constantly ask yourself, ‘What would Ronald Reagan do?’ That’s what Ronald Reagan did. — NBC’s Meet the Press host Kristen Welker to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC): President Biden is not the first president to use arms shipments to try to influence Israeli policy. As you know, former President Ronald Reagan, on multiple occasions, withheld weapons to impact Israel’s military actions. Did President Reagan show that using U.S. military aid as leverage can actually be an effective way to rein in and impact Israel’s policy?… GRAHAM: The Republican Party is with Israel, without apology. WELKER: Well, historians would say, ‘Why is it OK for Reagan to do it and not President Biden?‘ — CBS’s Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan to Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR): You know that past presidents have withheld military aid to Israel to force changes in behavior. President Reagan did that. President Bush did that. Why do you have a problem with President Biden doing it? COTTON: Ronald Reagan’s decision to pause the delivery of fighter jets in the 1980s was totally different from what’s happened here. Israel is fighting a war of survival against a terrorist group that committed the worst atrocity against Jews since World War II. In the 1980s, an Israeli ambassador had been targeted for assassination. Ronald Reagan knew the pause of fighter jets would not interfere with Israel’s fighting because they had plenty of fighters. He did not pause munitions. Joe Biden is not sending munitions in the middle of a shooting war that’s a war of survival. And look at the broader context. Israel knew that Ronald Reagan had its back in the region. He sank half of Iran’s navy. Joe Biden has consistently given Iran hundreds of billions of dollars of sanctions relief that exactly funded groups like Hamas. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “The sudden respect for the policies of Ronald Reagan from members of the Washington press corps, who are normally disdainful toward him, is remarkable. It makes one think they all got a talking points memo from Biden campaign allies and are repeating them to challenge their Republican guests.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ May 6: Liberal Media Scream: ABC’s Karl cries wolf with DEFCON 1 Trump warning (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features another breathless election warning from another ABC News Trump critic, Jonathan Karl. A week after This Week host George Stephanopoulos practically seized up over the possibility of former President Donald Trump returning to power, as many voters want, fill-in Karl spun the election as the most important ever on Sunday. “No more crying wolf. This is it,” he said. With six months before the election, let’s hope the New York City Fire Department starts parking an ambulance at ABC News headquarters in case one of the news readers passes out in warning America whom to vote for. Karl, at the top on Sunday’s This Week on ABC: “Good morning. Welcome to This Week. For as long as I’ve covered politics, politicians have said, ‘This will be the most important election of our lifetimes.’ They said that no matter how high or low the stakes actually were. Election Day 2024 is exactly six months from today, and this time, the divisions in our country are so vast and the choice so stark there’s little doubt this really is the most important election of our time. No more crying wolf. This is it.” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “The election is six months away, and the top anchors for ABC News are already building themselves into a lather of outrage, lecturing their viewers on who they better not vote for — or else. One wonders how out of control they will become as the election grows closer, especially if polls continue to show Donald Trump in the lead. They’re passing DEFCON 2. Once they hit DEFCON 1, what’s next?” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ April 29: Liberal Media Scream: Could you cry more, George Stephanopoulos? (Washington Examiner post) For years, George Stephanopoulos ran block and worse for former President Bill Clinton. First, it was Gennifer Flowers, and then Travelgate and Whitewater. Multiple other scandals followed. His boss got away with most and didn’t face the music until he was finally impeached for lying about the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal. But on Sunday, in an editorial to lead off his ABC Sunday talk show, the former Clinton spokesman ripped into former President Donald Trump, who is facing several court cases for what some legal analysts see as political attacks. That every move Trump makes is hit by the media or added to his legal troubles isn’t enough for Stephanopoulos. Instead, and the reason he’s our feature for this week’s Liberal Media Scream, he wants Trump treated differently, claiming that the former president has pushed the nation to the brink of civil war despite now being the candidate most people want to win in November, according to CNN. “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,” he lectured on Sunday. “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,” he added. From Sunday’s This Week on ABC: 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’s 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. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Speaking of tests, George Stephanopoulos has failed the journalism test. He seems quite proud of it and likely speaks for all too many in the news media who think they have the moral superiority to declare Trump voters not only misguided but guilty of putting the basic tenets of the country at risk. So, Stephanopoulos, a top Clinton spokesman in the 1990s who suppressed from voters information about his candidate’s misdeeds, will save us all by using those left-wing political instincts to decide which candidate voters should be allowed to pick.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ April 22: Liberal Media Scream: Historian Meacham says ‘patriotism’ demands Biden win (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream is a rare five-screamer featuring a liberal journalist turned “historian” and biographer claiming that voter patriotism demands reelecting President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump. Jon Meacham, the former top editor of Newsweek, said on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, “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.” Talking more like an East Coast elitist than a Tennessee native, the liberal analyst added with seriousness, “I’m lucky in that I don’t have particular policy passions, particular issues.” And he included a condescending little jab at his home state. “I want the constitutional order to continue to unfold, and President Biden is devoted to that constitutional order. Donald Trump is self-evidently not. And I would say to my Republican friends — and I live in Tennessee, so that’s redundant — that it is, in fact, a moral question.” Here is Meacham, on Real Time with Bill Maher, reacting to the news that former Attorney General William Barr (a Trump critic) will vote for his former boss: JON MEACHAM: What Barr is doing, and what so many — I sometimes think of them as the Peter Millar Republicans, right, these are Republicans who are not full MAGA people, they’re men’s grill types who don’t want Democrats picking judges or setting tax rates. They talked themselves into this twice. In ’16 and in ’20. And then came December and January of 2020 and 2021, and, at that point, I believe, and I say this with care, that it is become evident, to me, anyway, that there is 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, and I’m lucky in that I don’t have particular policy passions, particular issues. I want the constitutional order to continue to unfold, and President Biden is devoted to that constitutional order. Donald Trump is self-evidently not. And I would say to my Republican friends — and I live in Tennessee, so that’s redundant — that it is, in fact, a moral question…. To me, the interesting thing about the Republican Party is if you are, in fact, going to put partisanship as your central organizing principle, if reflexive partisanship is the most important thing — I would argue that you need to go back and read George Washington’s farewell address. You need to read the founders that otherwise, you know, they love. You know, they love the founders when they can move it around to agree with them. It’s very clear that if party spirit became the organizing principle, that, that was going to be fatal to the Constitution, and it’s very interesting when Barr said it’s “suicide.” The idea that President Biden is leading us to national suicide. I’m not sure what he’s talking about, but Lincoln used that image in his first major speech in the 1830s. He said if we ever fall, it’s not going to be from a foreign foe: It’s going to be from someone internally rising up and mastering those passions. And those passions about partisanship, that’s what’s ruining us. Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Could Meacham be any more condescending and elitist? So much for the pretense of being a journalist and not a partisan activist. His take: I’ve decided which candidate is bad for America, so if you vote for that one, you are not only not a patriot, but you will bring about the destruction of the nation. And he wonders why his neighbors in Tennessee don’t appreciate him for denouncing them as on ‘the wrong side’ of ‘a moral question.’ I bet they have a lot more respect for his views than he does for theirs.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ April 15: No Liberal Media Scream this week.   ■ April 8: Liberal Media Scream: Joy Reid wants prison, not airport, named for Trump (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream revealed again just how easy it is to make cable TV hosts suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome” go nuts. With Congress on Easter break, there wasn’t much Capitol Hill news last week. So when a report was posted about a GOP proposal to rename Dulles International Airport after former President Donald Trump, MSBNC turned all its guns on the idea. On the ReidOut, host Joy Reid said it was bad enough that the “worst” airport in America is named after Eisenhower-era Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. “Let’s make it worse” by naming it for Trump, she said. Instead, she suggested that Trump’s name be put on a Miami prison, a reference to the legal cases he faces, one in Florida. She and her guests, including Ali Velshi and Fordham University professor Christina Greer, piled on. Greer even bashed Washington’s national airport being renamed after former President Ronald Reagan. Reid said, “Yeah, I just call it ‘DCA.'” From Friday’s The ReidOut on MSNBC: JOY REID: Let’s talk a little about this idea of renaming Dulles. Now, Dulles is not the best airport — it might be the worst airport in America. The Republicans are like, “Let’s name it after Donald Trump.” I love the fact that it’s named after one of the most diabolical secretaries of state who destroyed Iran and a bunch of Central America. ALI VELSHI: But let’s make that worse. REID: Let’s make it worse. Also, the Democrats have said, “Instead, let’s name a prison after Trump.” Thoughts? Thoughts? Thoughts? Name a prison in Miami? VELSHI: That is a fantastic idea. … REID: I think this is a great opportunity for the nerds at the table just to talk about Allen Dulles and also his brother — it was John Foster Dulles, I think, and Allen Dulles, and both of them were involved in destroying Guatemala and Iran. VELSHI: Yeah. REID: So I feel like that’s important, and that’s given me the opportunity, so, thank you, Republicans. CHRISTINA GREER: Well, I mean, we’ve — they’ve already renamed National, Reagan, which I refuse to call it. REID: Yeah, I just call it “DCA.“ Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “Glad something about Trump made them laugh, a brief break from the usual full hour of irrational anger at any mention of anything Trump. Naturally, Reid couldn’t hide how her contempt for Republicans goes way beyond just Trump. It’s a disdain so deep she’s still mad about Ronald Reagan getting an airport named for him and the foreign policy of a president who left office more than 60 years ago.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ April 1: Liberal Media Scream: Top editor joins CNN host in ripping MAGA with their ‘truth’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream is a rare but deserved five-screamer in which the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer joins with a CNN host to condemn former President Donald Trump and his MAGA followers. Appearing on CNN This Morning with Kasie Hunt, editor Chris Quinn explained why he wrote a weekend letter to readers about the paper’s anti-Trump coverage. He said, “These are people that watch Fox News or Newsmax and they believe it because they — it appears credible. Then they come to our platforms and see the opposite and they’re conflicted because they like us. They read us for the sports coverage or the local news, or what have you.” Quinn added, “This was for them. I had to, I owed them some sort of an explanation. And the reason it was so difficult is I don’t want to demean them. I don’t want to criticize them. But I can’t stray from the truth. The truth is this guy is a monster. He’s the worst president in history and many people understand that. Those who get their news from not credible sources believe what they’re hearing.” Hunt said, “You said — another piece of this to your point of what the truth is, you said, ‘Trust your eyes. Trump, on Jan. 6, launched the most serious threat to our system of government since the Civil War. You know that. You saw it.’ And just before that you write, ‘This is not subjective. We all saw it. Plenty of leaders today try to convince the masses we did not see what we saw but our eyes don’t deceive us.'” “And I think that this is the piece of it that gets me because I was there on that day and I looked out the window and I saw these people trying to attack the Capitol. And then, now, half of these political leaders are trying to say no, actually, that thing that you saw with your own eyes did not happen.” From today’s CNN This Morning with Kasie Hunt: KASIE HUNT: How to cover former President Donald Trump is — quite literally — one of the hardest, thorniest questions facing us as journalists. It is something that I think about quite literally every single day when I wake up to join all of you. And it is especially true in the wake of Jan. 6, which affected me both personally and professionally in addition to, of course, having enormous implications for our democracy. This is why this all stood out to me. The Cleveland Plain Dealer decided they wanted to address this with their readers head-on over the weekend. The editor, Chris Quinn, writes this: “The north star here is truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information. The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse.” And joining me now is Chris Quinn. He is the editor of the Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com. Chris, thank you so much for being here. It’s an honor to have you. CHRIS QUINN: Good morning. HUNT: So I loved how you approached this because you started with your readers — with the people who write to you about this. Many of them, of course, are supporters of Donald Trump. And you write some of them are more thoughtful than others, shall I say. But this is something that I have wrestled with because there are so many people in the country who support Donald Trump and many of them have reasons for doing that that have to do with the circumstances that they face. We don’t want to lose empathy for those people. We don’t want to not speak to those people. To be, you know, advocates and helpful in terms of providing those people with information. But you sat down and you grappled with this question, and you tried to explain why you’re doing what you’re doing in the way that you’re doing it. Can you explain a little bit more of that to all of us right now? QUINN: Yeah. This was a very challenging piece to write. It actually took me almost six months to get my thoughts together. I get two kinds of correspondence from Trump supporters and one is not nice. It’s very condescending and sneering. And I kind of chalk that up to people who had felt left out of society. Donald Trump gave them a club to participate in. And there’s nothing I can say or do to help them understand what we’re doing. But the other half write me with great courtesy and implore me for an explanation. They say, “You are dismissing a large segment of the country when you say that Donald Trump is the monster you describe him as and I don’t see him that way. What do you say to me?” These are people that watch Fox News or Newsmax and they believe it because they — it appears credible. Then they come to our platforms and see the opposite and they’re conflicted because they like us. They read us for the sports coverage or the local news, or what have you. So this was for them. I had to, I owed them some sort of an explanation. And the reason it was so difficult is I don’t want to demean them. I don’t want to criticize them. But I can’t stray from the truth. The truth is this guy is a monster. He’s the worst president in history and many people understand that. Those who get their news from not credible sources believe what they’re hearing. HUNT: Yeah. I will just say I think that the decline in our local media is a crisis for many, many reasons, but not least is that you, as a local paper, have a level of trust with people in your communities that is simply not possible to establish when you are a national news organization. And I think that really comes through in this piece that you wrote. And you said — another piece of this to your point of what the truth is, you said, “Trust your eyes. Trump, on Jan. 6, launched the most serious threat to our system of government since the Civil War. You know that. You saw it.” And just before that you write, “This is not subjective. We all saw it. Plenty of leaders today try to convince the masses we did not see what we saw but our eyes don’t deceive us.” And I think that this is the piece of it that gets me because I was there on that day and I looked out the window and I saw these people trying to attack the Capitol. And then, now, half of these political leaders are trying to say no, actually, that thing that you saw with your own eyes did not happen. Was it that that really was the thing that underscored this the most to you as well? QUINN: Yeah. And look, it’s heartbreaking what you’re seeing today. I come from a state where we’ve had senators like George Voinovich and John Glenn — people who would never have stood by during these recent years and allowed what’s happened to happen. And today, we have J.D. Vance and we might have Bernie Moreno, whose claim to fame is they want to be puppets for Donald Trump. And it’s not what we should be about. And that’s why I referenced that New Yorker piece in what I wrote because the New Yorker had a book review that looked back and said the reason Hitler came to the fore wasn’t because a bunch of people went and voted to have a fascist leader. It was because the people in government, in trying to get power for themselves, appeased him and that allowed him to rise. That’s what we have going on. Everybody knows what the truth is. The people in Congress were there. They were under threat from it. But for expedience, they’re denying it happened. HUNT: Do you think that those people who are looking to enable Donald Trump, as you say, what is the — their level of culpability here? I mean, obviously, you talk about Trump, himself, and his, the actions that he takes and his role in trying to hang on to power. But these enablers, I mean, what responsibility do they bear? QUINN: I think they have full responsibility. I think journalists who veer from the truth are going to end up having full responsibility. Look, we’re a regional newsroom and we’re doing well. We’re actually one of the local newsrooms that’s kind of figured it out and we’re thriving and we’re not in any danger of going away. But we have our limited influence. And so, we’re doing what we can. We’re, you know, we ask ourselves what’s the right thing to do here? The right thing to do is to call this out, not to say there’s two sides to Donald Trump. There aren’t two sides to Donald Trump. Anybody who has been watching and trying to discern what the truth is here knows that this guy tried to destroy our entire system of government and will do so again. Somebody has to say it. I wish people like Dave Joyce, a congressman from Ohio who’s a good guy, would stand up and just denounce it. Because if you started to have a few people of good conscience do that, maybe we could stop this wave, which is frightening beyond belief. HUNT: Well, I’m very grateful that you took the time to join us today, Chris, and I do commend reading this column. I will again say this is something I think about literally every single day because we do want to be a resource, a place for people who want to support Donald Trump or who feel dissatisfied with the system in their own lives. I just had to make sure that those ears are continuing to be open to us is a challenge that I grapple with every day. And I really appreciated reading this. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “With his smug moral superiority, Quinn encapsulates everything that’s wrong with modern journalism. He’s decided what ‘the truth’ is and his readers better get on board. No wonder fewer and fewer are buying local newspapers. They’ve become just as insulting to their readers as the national media have been for decades. Incredulous that anyone could see Trump as a better president than Biden.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ March 25: Liberal Media Scream: Condescending ‘Really?’ to Rubio’s wish to be Trump VP (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream reveals just how deep the disrespect for former President Donald Trump goes in the press, especially with those who have created a profitable side gig writing and talking about him. In just one word, ABC’s Jonathan Karl heaved up a sanctimonious putdown of Trump and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) when the topic of the likely 2024 GOP presidential nominee’s pick for running mate was raised. Rubio has said he would be honored to get the nod, as have about a dozen other leading Republicans. What’s more, Rubio would likely help Trump add to his coalition to create a potentially winning ticket. But all Karl had to say was, “Really?” It didn’t end there. As Rubio explained the problems President Joe Biden dumped on America, Karl couldn’t help but complain, “You’re not suggesting that’s all happening because of Biden?” Rubio affirmed, “Absolutely I am.” Here’s the exchange on Sunday’s This Week on ABC: JON KARL: There was some reporting this week that you are possibly under consideration to be Donald Trump’s running mate. I don’t put a lot of stock in this reporting right now. We’re early. But you said it would be “an honor” to be offered a spot on his ticket. Really? SEN. MARCO RUBIO: Yeah, I think anyone who is offered the opportunity to serve this country as vice president should be honored by the opportunity to do it if you are in public service. I’m in the Senate because I want to serve the country. Being vice president is an important way to serve the country. But I’ve also been clear. I’ve never talked to Donald Trump. I’ve never talked to anybody on his team or family or inner circle about vice president. That’s a decision he’s going to make. He has plenty of really good people to pick from. KARL: I mean, the reason why I asked is, I mean, look what happened to the last guy. I mean, a mob stormed the Capitol, literally calling to hang Mike Pence, and Trump defended those chants of “hang Mike Pence.” RUBIO: I will tell you this, that when Donald Trump was president of the United States, this country was safer. It was more prosperous. We had relations, for example, in a part of the world that I care about called the Western Hemisphere that were very strong. We had a lot of good things done there. I think the country and the world was a better place when he was president, and I would love to see him return to the White House in comparison to the guy who’s there now, Joe Biden, who’s been a disaster economically. Look at the world. Every single day, we wake up to a new crisis, to a new conflict. Everything has gone on fire since the time Joe Biden took over. Afghanistan’s gone down. Ukraine has been invaded. Now the Philippines and the Chinese are on the verge of something bad happening every single day. Not to mention the threats to Taiwan. And we have this blowup in Haiti going on in our very own hemisphere. We wake up every single day, terrorist attacks, 9 million people across the border. That’s what matters to me. KARL: But, I mean, you’re not suggesting that’s all happening because of Biden? RUBIO: Absolutely I am. Absolutely I’m suggesting it’s happening because of Biden. He’s president and his weakness and his — KARL: It’s because of Biden that Russia invaded Ukraine? RUBIO: Absolutely. KARL: It’s because of Biden that Haiti? RUBIO: Absolutely. I mean Putin is sitting there, saying these guys can’t even stand up to the Taliban and they have to fly people hanging off the wings of these airplanes. Now is the time to go. Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “How arrogant and condescending for a broadcast network TV host to scoff at a U.S. senator for saying he’d be ‘honored’ to serve as the vice presidential candidate of his party. And then, to act astonished over a common Republican talking point about President Biden’s foreign policy failures shows Karl is little more than a liberal political operative in the guise of a journalist who is incredulous that anyone could see Trump as a better president than Biden.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ March 18: Liberal Media Scream: ‘Bloodbath’ is what media are doing to Trump (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream focuses on the media and President Joe Biden’s distortion of former President Donald Trump’s warning of an economic “bloodbath” if he’s not returned to the White House to stop China’s dumping of autos in the U.S. under Biden. The media, and now the Biden campaign, pulled the word out of a long Trump explanation at an Ohio political rally of auto sales to make it sound like he was calling for a civil war if he’s not elected. It’s very similar to what the media did after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots and spelled out how they’d treat a President Trump if given a chance. Leading that fake rant over the weekend was ABC and a guest on This Week, New York magazine’s Susan Glasser, formerly with the liberal-left Washington Post and Politico. Without any sign of embarrassment for distorting Trump’s words, Glasser ranted on about how threatening Trump is. In office, Trump did assail reporters for their “fake news” and overwhelming bias but also was the most accessible and talkative president during his one term. He followed an Obama-Biden administration that was condemned by journalists for avoiding reporters and using technology to go around the media. Susan Glasser on Sunday’s This Week on ABC: “Donald Trump, it seems to me, it’s very hard eight years into this. We still struggle with how to cover him as journalists, but in a way, the unhinged, rambling rants that you see from the former president of the United States are baked in, and I think, in a way, we are all desensitized and inured to the extraordinary, remarkable and very at times un-American and threatening things that the former president is saying. “I’m not saying it’s easy to understand how to cover it, but I think we have to cover it when the former president, who’s already incited violence among his followers, says that there’s going to be a bloodbath after the election if he does not win. He is telling us what he is going to do. … I’m sorry. I just have to say something. Like Donald Trump is attacking, in a broad-brush sense, the basic pillars of American democracy. Period. Full stop. If that’s not news to you. It’s not about tariffs. That’s not the reason why millions of Americans are supporting Donald Trump. Let’s be real about that.” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Yes, after eight years of constant hyperventilating by journalists, over supposed outrageous comments from Donald Trump, many have become ‘inured,’ but it’s not journalists. It’s the public to the media’s never-ending scare-mongering about Trump bringing an end to ‘the basic pillars of American democracy.’ Glasser’s answer: Double down and get more journalists to be even more aggressive in denouncing Trump. Good luck with that, convincing anyone who has already tuned out such vitriol.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ March 11: Liberal Media Scream: Hollywood freaks over Trump (Washington Examiner post) Hollywood’s awards season has finally ended and in perfectly normal election-year fashion: Tinseltown freaking out over former President Donald Trump’s possible return to the White House. Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel got a retort from Trump after he blasted the former president and his Republican allies. Kimmel responded, “Well, thank you, President Trump. Thank you for watching. I’m surprised you’re still — isn’t it past your jail time?” But his shruggable performance was far outdone by the angry venting of actor Robert De Niro, who stepped up his attacks on Trump. On Friday, De Niro pleased Bill Maher’s audience by blasting Trump. “Vote for Trump and you’ll get the nightmare. Vote for Biden and it will be back to normalcy,” he began. To laughter and applause from Maher’s Los Angeles studio audience, De Niro marveled at how anyone could support Trump. He called the poll-leading former president “a total monster” who will install a “dictatorship.” More insults followed: “sociopathic, psychopathic, malignant narcissist,” as well as an “idiot” and “clown.” From Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO: ROBERT DE NIRO: The bottom line is: It’s Biden vs. Trump. We want to live in a world that we want to live in and enjoy living in or live in a nightmare? Vote for Trump and you’ll get the nightmare. Vote for Biden and it will be back to normalcy. … The guy is a total monster, and anybody, I don’t understand it. I guess they get behind the kind of logic: They want to f*** with people, screw them because they’re unhappy about something. He’s such a mean, nasty, hateful person. I’d never play him as an actor because I can’t see any good in him — nothing, nothing at all, nothing redeemable in him. Whoever the people are who want to vote for him, and they look like intelligent people around there, for some reason, it can’t be, it cannot be. If he wins the election, you won’t be on the show anymore. He’ll come looking for me. They’ll be things that happened that none of us can imagine. That’s what happens in that kind of a dictatorship — which is what he says. Let’s believe him. Take him at his word. He’s a sociopathic, psychopathic, malignant narcissist. He is a dangerous person … the people who somehow think he’s going to be the answer to their prayers, whatever those are. BILL MAHER: Did you know him as fellow New Yorkers? DE NIRO: Never wanted to know him. MAHER: Never wanted to, you must have crossed — DE NIRO: He was an idiot. He was a clown. He was a clown in New York. Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Rants like this from pretentious Hollywood celebrities probably drive more to vote for Trump than dissuade anyone from supporting him. How many care about the all-too-predictable left-wing political views of lefties in Hollywood who always denounce the Republican candidate and advocate for the Democratic one? Not anyone who is drawn to Trump.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ March 4: Liberal Media Scream: Media role is reeducating you on greatness of Bidenomics (Washington Examiner post) President Joe Biden has apparently realized that pitching “Bidenomics” is a loser politically, but his White House forgot to tell its media echo chamber. According to an Issues & Insights report, Biden has “ditched” the term, with the report noting Biden and his White House used the term 59 times last July. By last month, it got a mention just 10 times. That makes sense since most polls show that the public viewed the term negatively because they feel that the economy is poor and that prices are unjustifiably high. But the well-paid Washington media thinks the public is stupid and needs to be reeducated on just how great Bidenomics is for them. For example, this week’s Liberal Media Scream features longtime editor and columnist Margaret Sullivan telling fellow anti-Trumper Christiane Amanpour that it’s up to them to make sure people understand the consequences of their wrong-headedness. “You know,” Sullivan said on Amanpour’s show, “people think that the economy is not doing well. You know, do our public service mission, which is to make sure, as sure as we can, that we have an informed electorate. Whose fault is that? Well, it’s partly the fault of the media. And I think that that ought to be rectified.” From Saturday’s The Amanpour Hour on CNN CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: The horse race and an age-old dilemma. Why the obsession over Biden’s age misses the point. MARGARET SULLIVAN, GUARDIAN: I wonder whether people are as aware of Trump’s authoritarian plans as they are of Biden’s age. AMANPOUR: My next guest says enough is enough with the media’s hyperbolic herd mentality coverage of Biden’s age and competency. Critic, columnist, and academic Margaret Sullivan urges us to get real about the issues because this election is about much more than, quote, “chasing clicks.” SULLIVAN: I think that the leaders of major American news organizations should have front and center in their minds, and be communicating to their staffs, that this is an extremely consequential election and we should be doing our public service role that it’s not so much about chasing the latest clicks and the latest horse race coverage but rather to make sure that we’re getting the stakes of the race across to people. You know, people think that the economy is not doing well. You know, do our public service mission, which is to make sure, as sure as we can, that we have an informed electorate. Whose fault is that? Well, it’s partly the fault of the media. And I think that that ought to be rectified. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “What Margaret Sullivan advocates is exactly why the media have lost all credibility and trust for most Americans. She’s decided Trump is too dangerous to be president, so journalists should throw away all standards of journalism by openly joining Team Biden to convince voters of Biden’s virtues while downplaying his negatives. And then journalists wonder why they are seen in such low esteem when they are little more than Democratic Party operatives.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ February 26: Liberal Media Scream: Trump Derangement Syndrome flies off the charts (Washington Examiner post) The media have been on a rantfest lately, warning that former President Donald Trump will end democracy and execute his enemies. Just consider what Bob Costas said over the weekend. “You have to be in the throes of some sort of toxic delusion in a toxic cult to believe that Donald Trump has ever been, in any sense, emotionally, psychologically, intellectually, or ethically fit to be president of the United States,” he said. But that’s nothing compared to our Liberal Media Scream focus on Tom Schaller, the author of White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy, who went further to attack the half of the nation that has supported Trump over the years. White rural voters, he told MSNBC’s Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski, “are the most racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant, and anti-gay geodemographic group in the country. … They’re the most conspiracist group: QAnon support and subscribers, election denialism, COVID denialism and scientific skepticism, Obama birthism.” And that’s just the start of his five scream rant. From Monday’s Morning Joe on MSNBC: MIKA BRZEZINSKI: As we barrel toward a likely rematch of the 2020 election, one candidate continues to have a hold over white rural voters. But it’s not Joe Biden, seen here as a boy on the right side of your screen, who went to public school, is the son of a used car salesman, and was born to a middle-class family in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Instead, it is Trump, here on the left side, a private school-educated son of a New York City real estate tycoon who became a millionaire at 8 years old and didn’t have to serve because he claimed he had bone spurs in his little feet. So, why is it that Trump appeals so much to a group he couldn’t be more different from? Joining us now, professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Tom Schaller, and journalist and opinion writer Paul Waldman. Their new book out tomorrow is entitled, White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy. Tom, I’ll start with you. Why are white rural voters a threat to democracy at this point? You would think, as we pointed out, looking at Joe Biden’s background and Donald Trump’s, that the opposite would be true. TOM SCHALLER: “We lay out the fourfold interconnected threat that white rural voters pose to the country. First of all, we show 30 polls and national studies that demonstrate this. So we provide the receipts in Chapter 6. They are the most racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant, and anti-gay geodemographic group in the country. “Second, they’re the most conspiracist group: QAnon support and subscribers, election denialism, COVID denialism and scientific skepticism, Obama birthism. Third, anti-democratic sentiments. They don’t believe in an independent press — free speech. They’re most likely to say the president should be able to act unilaterally without checks from Congress or the courts or the bureaucracy. They’re also the most strongly white nationalist and white Christian nationalists. And fourth, they’re most likely to excuse or justify violence as acceptable alternative to peaceful public discourse… “I think this is the disconnect, right? They’d rather channel their rage. I think what a lot of white rural Americans have decided is that their economic fortunes are decided by globalization and frankly, late-stage capitalism, which is eating up all the mom and pop stores and taking away the extractive industries, in coal and farming and so forth, so they might as well vote on their culture issues, they might as well vote on God, guns, and religion because they feel like neither party is going to deliver any material benefit. “They’re not going to reverse the closure of rural pharmacies and rural hospitals and rural healthcare facilities, which are disappearing not because of communism and not because of socialism but because of capitalism, right? Rural pharmacies and hospitals are closing because they’re not moneymakers, and unless they’re part of a regional chain, they’re disappearing. So Trump comes in and says, let’s just hate on cities, let’s just hate on minorities, let’s hate on immigrants, and at least they can deliver on that. And so they’re not even voting in their material interest anymore, and that’s causing a further decay and decline of rural communities.” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “So, if a class of voters prefers a candidate you don’t like, it couldn’t be that they just have a differing opinion with which you can respectfully disagree. No, you must impugn and demean them to discredit their irrational preference for the candidate you condescendingly have decided is not in their best interest. And since this makes MSNBC viewers feel superior, you get a welcoming platform on the left-wing cable channel’s morning show.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ February 19: Liberal Media Scream: Colbert says Trump ‘going to prison’ better than sex (Washington Examiner post) Remember when late-night comedy shows were funny instead of being populated by left-wing lecturers? Case in point in our weekly Liberal Media Scream is Late Show host Stephen Colbert. Along with many people last week, he watched the televised testimony of Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis and her explanation of her affair with an attorney she put in charge of the election case against former President Donald Trump. “How good was this sex? Good enough to risk democracy over?” he asked in his monologue. Colbert then added, “You know what feels really good? Donald Trump going to prison. That — that, my friends — is what they call a real happy ending.” From Thursday’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS:     STEPHEN COLBERT: Now, I don’t know who’s telling the truth here yet, but I will say exchanging business cards isn’t exactly a meet cute. The movie’s not called When Harry Networked with Sally. Now, at one point, Willis had had enough and really laid into opposing counsel. FANI WILLIS: You’re confused; you think I’m on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial. COLBERT: Damn straight. Yeah. That’s right. That’s right. Here’s the thing. Yes, it’s true Donald Trump and his associates are on trial in this, one of the most important cases in the history of our republic. So, and, I’ve just got one follow-up question here: Given that if you are removed from the prosecution, it could delay this trial until after the election: How good was the sex? Good enough to risk democracy over? Because I’ve never had sex that good. You know what feels really good? Donald Trump going to prison. That — that, my friends — is what they call the real happy ending. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Liberals love to complain that Donald Trump has broken many norms, but prominent entertainment media figures like Colbert have destroyed late-night TV. It was a comedy refuge from hard-edged politics, but Colbert is using his show to advance left-wing talking points and push his hate of Trump and conservatives in the guise of comedy. It’s not funny, and a legend like Johnny Carson, whose political jokes were light-hearted and chided both sides, is rolling over in his grave.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ February 12: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC host laughably says press against Biden (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream has LOL written all over it. Imagine any cable news show host claiming that the media has a negative bias against President Joe Biden. LOL, right? That’s what happened on Sunday’s Meet the Press when MSNBC host Jen Psaki said the media showed its bias when it simply repeated what the nearly 400-page report from special counsel Robert Hur said about the president’s foggy mind. Psaki, who was Biden’s first White House press secretary, complained that the media should be attacking former President Donald Trump, not her former boss. “If you’re sitting in the White House and on the campaign right now, you’re absolutely banging your head against the wall at the way that the Thursday report has been covered, given all of the things” Trump has said and done, she said. From the roundtable on Sunday’s Meet the Press: JEN PSAKI: If you’re sitting in the White House and on the campaign right now, you’re absolutely banging your head against the wall at the way that the Thursday report has been covered, given all of the things that have happened this week, including, and I know you asked Chris Christie about this, the fact that Donald Trump yesterday suggested that Vladimir Putin should have free rein in attacking NATO allies, and what do we see is wall-to-wall coverage of whether a guy who is four years older than his opponent is too old to be president. KRISTEN WELKER: And we are going to get to NATO. Go ahead. BRENDAN BUCK, former spokesman to ex-speaker Paul Ryan: Part of that job, to bring that to the front is, it’s the president’s job to bring that out and attack his opponent. I mean, the president is not taking the opportunity on Super Bowl Sunday. He’s not taking, really, any opportunities. And we hear, time and again — PSAKI: First of all, that’s not true. It’s not being covered. He has traveled just as much as Donald Trump, as Barack Obama. It is hard to break through the cloud of Donald Trump in this media environment. That is true. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “A media hostile to a liberal cause or Democratic politician is such a novelty that liberal political operatives like Jen Psaki just can’t comprehend it. After three-plus years of sycophantic coverage of Joe Biden, he gets a few days of negative coverage, and she lashes out at the media for daring to briefly act as real journalists. Welcome to the world endured every day for decades by conservatives and Republicans.”   Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ February 5: Liberal Media Scream: Kristen Welker likes to lecture Republicans, too (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a look at new Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker’s treatment of Republican leaders. And surprise — not — she continues to be just as biased as former host Chuck Todd. First, she lectured House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on the border bill released by the Senate on Sunday. “You are now the speaker of the House. Do you not have a responsibility to your voters, to the people who put you in office, to address what you have called a crisis and catastrophe? Isn’t something better than nothing?” she said. Then, she passed along the Democratic talking point that after three years of aggressively enacting open border policies, “Joe Biden said he would shut down the border.” From Sunday’s Meet the Press on NBC: KRISTEN WELKER: You have been calling for legislative change to actually deal with this problem. You are now the speaker of the House. Do you not have a responsibility to your voters, to the people who put you in office, to address what you have called a crisis and catastrophe? Isn’t something better than nothing? SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: Kristen, we did that. We did that nine months ago. And since we passed our measure in the House to solve this problem, and the reason we had to do it is because we saw that President Biden was not fulfilling his obligation under the law. That’s why it is such a failure of leadership, but we did our part. And by the way, since then, in the nine months since that bill sat on [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer’s desk, collecting dust, 1.8 million illegals have been allowed into this country, welcomed into the country, sent around the nation into every community — communities near everyone listening and watching this morning. And that is a catastrophe, and the American people know it, and that’s part of the reason that Joe Biden has the lowest approval rating of any president facing reelection. WELKER: Even former President Trump, though, called for legislative change on this issue. You have one of the slimmest majorities in the House in history. Don’t you have to compromise to get something done? What you passed in the House can’t pass in the Senate, Mr. Speaker. You know that. JOHNSON: We are willing to work. We are willing to work with the Senate. I am not disclosing that, and I’ve been very consistent for the hundred days that I’ve had the gavel. We are willing to work, but they have to be serious about it. If you only do a few of those components, you are not going to solve the problem, and Kristen, that is not a Republican talking point. That’s what the sheriffs at the border, the Border Patrol agents, the deputy chief of U.S. Border Patrol, a 33-year veteran of the agency, told us. He said that it’s as though we’re administering an open fire hydrant. He said, “I don’t need more buckets,” like the president has proposed. I need to stop the flow, and we know how to do that, but Joe Biden is unwilling to do it. WELKER: Let me ask you about your decision, and by the way, Joe Biden said he would shut down the border. He’s calling for more funding. He’s calling for you to pass this legislation. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “A perfect example of a so-called journalist serving as an advocate for Washington’s media-political establishment, demanding a recalcitrant conservative get in line and adopt the approved narrative.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ January 29, 2024: No Liberal Media Scream this week.   ■ January 22, 2024: Liberal Media Scream: Washington Post’s Rubin wants Trump ‘fascists’ reeducated (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features popular Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin doubling down on her Never Trump campaign. Appearing on the MSNBC weekend show Velshi exactly a year from Inauguration Day, the onetime conservative opinion writer said that the masses appearing at former President Donald Trump’s rallies “are part of a fascist cult.” And, she added, “they’re impervious to any kind of data, any kind of information. But what you have to do, if you care about democracy, is mobilize the people who already know that he’s a danger and reaffirm and reeducate the people who are perhaps kind of flirting in the middle — they’re soft Republicans, they’re never Republicans — about the danger of going back to Trump.” Rubin on MSNBC’s Velshi on Saturday: “Why it’s perhaps important to go to one of these rallies is to understand why he does have supporters. These people are part of a fascist cult. And let’s be honest, there are a lot of them. But a lot of them doesn’t mean that they are behaving logically or rationally. To the contrary, we’ve seen in other fascist regimes that millions of people, sometimes even a majority of the country, becomes intoxicated with an authoritarian figure, and these people are utterly irrational. If you speak to some of them, they will spit back these bizarro conspiracy theories. They actually believe in all of the mumbo-jumbo that he tells them. “So I think it would be a wake-up call about what these people are about, and, no, we’re not going to convince people who are part of the cult to switch. As you say, they’re impervious to any kind of data, any kind of information. But what you have to do, if you care about democracy, is mobilize the people who already know that he’s a danger and reaffirm and reeducate the people who are perhaps kind of flirting in the middle — they’re soft Republicans, they’re never Republicans — about the danger of going back to Trump. And I think that’s the job between now and November, and that’s the challenge for the Biden administration.” Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “How condescending of Rubin to be so comfortable denigrating supporters of a presidential candidate she despises with one of the most vile insults. Just because she hates Trump doesn’t make those going to his rallies, the very embodiment of democracy in action, ‘fascists.’ Whatever happened to liberals wanting to expand participation in the democratic process?” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ January 15, 2024: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC’s Mika all in to help Biden’s reelection (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features Mika Brzezinski, the co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, fawning over first lady Jill Biden in a sign of where the cable network stands before the 2024 presidential primary season begins. With easy questions quizzing Biden about her favorite emoji to dismissing chants of “Let’s go Brandon” that still follow the president, Brzezinski put on an able defense of the Biden White House. Among the questions posed to the first lady was this: “The division in this country, the cruelty of MAGA Republicans against your family. Does any part of you once in a while think, ugh, maybe we bow out?” The questions were part of Brzezinski’s Know Your Value “movement.” Our partners at the Media Research Center highlighted these from last Thursday’s show and today’s event at the White House: MIKA BRZEZINSKI: You’ve been married to President Joe Biden for 46 years. There have been Senate races, three presidential campaigns, eight years of your husband serving as vice president. Unthinkable personal loss and challenge, and now democracy is on the ballot. What do you think when you hear people say, “Well, I just can’t vote for Joe Biden this election?” What is it that they may not know about him at this point, especially when the alternative seems to want to change this nation so radically? BRZEZINSKI: Potentially another four years in the White House. With everything you do here, does yet another one give you any pause thinking of, like, the personal health and well-being for both of you? The division in this country, the cruelty of MAGA Republicans against your family. Does any part of you once in a while think, ugh, maybe we bow out? BRZEZINSKI: How have you been coping personally with the onslaught of accusations against your husband and your family, including and especially Hunter, the focus of a House Oversight Committee hearing holding, holding him in contempt, obsessing over him, showing pictures of him during vulnerable moments in his battle with addiction on the floor of the House. This would crush any family. BRZEZINSKI: What do you think when you hear Trump Republicans calling it “Biden crime family” or one congresswoman, “The Biden crime family sold out America,” Marjorie Taylor Greene, “He’s a liar, he’s mentally incompetent,” and let’s not even talk about what “Let’s go Brandon” means. But you have U.S. senators holding signs that say that. ….BRZEZINSKI: Your favorite emoji? JILL BIDEN: Oh, my gosh. The turquoise heart. BRZEZINSKI: Turquoise heart? BIDEN: Yeah. BRZEZINSKI: I don’t have the turquoise heart on my phone. What does that mean? BIDEN: It’s like the beach. It’s calm. BRZEZINSKI: Oh, I like that. BIDEN: Color of the sea. BRZEZINSKI: Do I type out turquoise heart? Comfort food? BIDEN: Oh, french fries. BRZEZINSKI: Umm. Yeah, yeah. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Mika Brzezinski is all in on the reelection of Joe Biden. First lady Jill Biden picked well in selecting Brzezinski to interview her, confident she wouldn’t be challenged as they both could commiserate with how awful Trump is and how mean Republicans are to her family, topped by letting her tout the turquoise heart emoji. How informative.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ January 8, 2024: Liberal Media Scream: Stephanopoulos judges Trump an insurrectionist, unqualified for 2024 (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream is a five-screamer featuring an ABC host and former Clinton handler acting as judge, jury, and executioner of former President Donald Trump and his effort to remain on the 2024 primary ballots and let voters, not partisan state officials, decide his fate. ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, on his Sunday show This Week, was quizzing his panel about the campaigns in some states to declare Trump ineligible for election because an official decided that the former president triggered a 14th Amendment ban on insurrectionists. On his show, which occurred the day after the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, one of his panelists suggested the Supreme Court will decide Trump is guilty but that it will be up to Congress and not the states to erase the GOP front-runner’s name from the ballots. “If you say he engaged in insurrection,” Stephanopoulos said, “I don’t see how you can escape the plain meaning of the 14th Amendment and say he’s qualified to run for office.” Panelist Donna Brazile, an influential liberal and former acting Democratic Party chairwoman, told her host, “I totally agree with you, George.” From the roundtable on Sunday’s This Week on ABC: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Sarah, what’s your guess on what the court does here? SARAH ISGUR, SENIOR EDITOR OF THE DISPATCH: I think you’ll have the Supreme Court hold that he is not disqualified from being on the ballot. They’ll overturn the Colorado Supreme Court. STEPHANOPOULOS: The question is, how will they do it though? ISGUR: Correct. I think they’ll say that, in fact, the 14th Amendment makes clear it’s up to Congress. If Congress can requalify someone by a two-thirds vote, there’s no timeline on that. Which means that, you know, as one of the amicus briefs has pointed out, it’s really supposed to be post-elections about holding office, not running for office. And so I think they’ll say it’s really Congress’s job. The states can’t make up their own standard. Is it beyond a reasonable doubt? Is it more likely than not? Et cetera. What’s interesting to me will be whether or not the Supreme Court goes out of their way in order to get those three, Kagan, Sotomayor, Jackson votes, in saying, “Yes, it was an insurrection, and yes, he engaged in it, but it’s up to Congress.” STEPHANOPOULOS: I don’t see how they can do that, Donna Brazile. If you say he engaged in insurrection, was the question I asked Nancy Pelosi, I don’t see how you can escape the plain meaning of the 14th Amendment and say he’s qualified to run for office. DONNA BRAZILE: I totally agree with you, George. Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Another example of how Stephanopoulos remains a Democratic partisan first, a journalist a distant second. No true journalist would weigh in with a definitive conclusion on what the Supreme Court should do weeks before a ruling on such a contentious issue which divides Americans. Stephanopoulos has clearly put himself in the camp with those who want to deny the public’s ability to vote for whomever they prefer. So much for saving democracy from Trump when you want to subvert the process.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ December 25, 2023 and January 1, 2024: No Liberal Media Screams these weeks.   ■ December 18, 2023: Liberal Media Scream: Scaremonger Scarborough: Trump will ‘execute’ foes, crush ‘American experiment’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features MSNBC Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough’s latest anti-Trump ranting. The host, whose earlier claim that former President Donald Trump will “execute” foes should he be reelected won the Media Research Center’s “Worst Quote of the Year,” said on Monday that Trump would destroy America’s democracy, too. “A year from now, it could be over, the American experiment at an end one year from now,” Scarborough said in comments we graded a rare five out of five “liberal media screams.” His comments are clearly what the latest Rasmussen Reports survey was tapping into when it found that more voters than ever believe the left bias in the media has reached a new high. The comments also raise a question about what scaremongering liberal media figures will be saying in 11 months if Trump is on the verge of beating President Joe Biden. Scarborough on Monday’s Morning Joe in a discussion with Politico’s Jonathan Lemire: “One year from now, it could be over. American democracy could be over. Donald Trump, one year from now, could win. He’s told us what he is going to do. When I say American democracy is going to be over, I haven’t said this. Donald Trump is the guy who said it. He is the one talking about executing generals that are not loyal enough to him, a guy that’s talking about terminating the Constitution if it gets in the way of his power. He’s the guy that’s talking about taking off news networks he disagrees with. He’s the one talking about prosecuting and putting in jail people who disagree with him. He’s the one saying that. “So, a year from now, it could be over, the American experiment at an end one year from now. So, let me ask you, with that being the case and with Joe Biden’s poll numbers getting worse, why is the White House going around singing, ‘Don’t worry, be happy’? Because that’s basically what they’re saying. Why does Joe Biden still have all of his campaign people inside the White House? When are they going to go out and start working on the campaign — not of his lifetime, of our lifetime? When are they going to start acting like American democracy is on the line and stop telling everybody to not worry?” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “Saying day after day after day the same over the top ‘the sky is falling’ warning to try to scare his viewers about Trump ending democracy is doing nothing but making Scarborough look every bit as unhinged as he wants people to see Trump. It may be catnip for MSNBC viewers, but Scarborough has become a parody of someone stuck inside a Trump Derangement Syndrome whirlwind unable to make cogent criticisms.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ December 11: Liberal Media Scream: PBS runs interference for Biden over Hunter scandals (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the efforts of Public TV and a Washington Post columnist to deflect the latest criminal indictment of first son Hunter Biden away from President Joe Biden. Following the tax charges filed by the Justice Department against Hunter Biden, the PBS NewsHour was eager to tell viewers on Friday that it saw no connection to the president. Anchor Geoff Bennett started with the “context” that Hunter Biden “does not work in the White House for his father in the way that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump did. And the indictment does not in any way implicate President Joe Biden.” PBS guest Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post also ran block for Biden. “For Republicans to try to make a connection between Hunter Biden and trying to say that, 'Well, if you’re going to go after Trump, well, why shouldn’t we go after Biden?' these are two completely different cases,” he lectured. From Friday’s PBS NewsHour: GEOFF BENNETT: So, let’s start with the latest legal trouble facing Hunter Biden, with the important context that Hunter Biden’s a private citizen. He is not seeking, nor has he ever held, public office. He does not work in the White House for his father in the way that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump did. And the indictment does not in any way implicate President Joe Biden. And yet this will certainly add to the problems, the political problems, facing this White House, as House Republicans, Jonathan, zero in on Hunter Biden’s business dealings as part of their own investigations. JONATHAN CAPEHART: As part of their own investigations that have been going on for years now, and they’ve been using the president’s son, the president’s troubled son, to try to sully the president. And so far, they’ve come up with nothing, even though, next week, apparently, they’re going to be voting on, you know, to authorize an impeachment inquiry, trying to make connections that aren’t there. Look, when you read the indictment, when you hear about the indictment, it’s bad. I mean, it’s not good. It’s not good at all. But we’re talking about someone, as you — I’m glad you put that proper context there. He’s an adult. He has not held office. He’s not sought office. He’s not working for his father. The only thing is, is that he — his father is president of the United States. He’s being held accountable. And I take — I agree with [Hunter Biden’s lawyer] Abbe Lowell that, if his last name weren’t Biden, he probably wouldn’t even have these charges. They would have worked it out. But he’s facing the consequences, and he’s going through the legal avenues that are afforded to him. And for Republicans to try to make a connection between Hunter Biden and trying to say that, 'Well, if you’re going to go after Trump, well, why shouldn’t we go after Biden?' these are two completely different cases. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “You can almost feel through the screen how uncomfortable the PBS team was to even cover this story, but they realized they had to at least mention it, so they poured on the caveats so their audience wouldn’t be burdened with any information that might hurt their perception of President Biden. It’s the exact opposite tack they take with Donald Trump, where any allegations around him are amplified and discussed ad nauseam.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ December 4: Liberal Media Scream: Media eagerly team with Liz Cheney to undermine Trump (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the remarkable teaming of the media with conservative Republican former Rep. Liz Cheney to stop former President Donald Trump’s 2024 bid. Repeating her success in winning Democrats to her cause after the Jan. 6 riots and in her No. 2 role on the House Jan. 6 panel, the media have eagerly opened its best shows for her to talk about her new book and campaign against Trump. The media have helped to promote her book and provided top platforms, notably on CBS Sunday Morning, where she warned that “one of the things we see today is sort of a sleepwalking into dictatorship in the United States.” In interviewing her about Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, John Dickerson offered the perfect set-up question: “If a person is a member of Congress and they have sworn an oath to defend the Constitution, can they defend the Constitution and also endorse Donald Trump?” Cheney replied: “You can’t be for Donald Trump and for the Constitution. You have to choose.” The media's focus on the book has helped it into the No. 1 spot on Amazon on Monday, a day before it is released. From Sunday’s CBS News Sunday Morning: JOHN DICKERSON: After losing her 2022 Republican primary, Cheney traded the U.S. Capitol dome for the Thomas Jefferson-designed rotunda at the University of Virginia, where she has been lecturing on politics and writing a new book, Oath and Honor. Let me ask you about that oath. If a person is a member of Congress and they have sworn an oath to defend the Constitution, can they defend the Constitution and also endorse Donald Trump? LIZ CHENEY: No. It’s inconsistent. DICKERSON: So, they’re breaking with their oath by saying they would like him to be the next president? CHENEY: In my view, you know, fundamentally, there is a choice to be made. You can’t both be for Donald Trump and for the Constitution. You have to choose. DICKERSON: It’s a lot of people who are choosing Donald Trump. CHENEY: Yeah, it is. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Usually, to earn such a laudatory CBS News segment for your book, it must be published by CBS-owned Simon & Schuster. But Dickerson and CBS are so enthralled with her quest to destroy Trump and anyone Trump-adjacent that despite having Little, Brown and Company as her publisher, they went into full promotion mode, cuing up her talking points with no pushback.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ November 27: Liberal Media Scream: Post reporter says ‘sources’ fret public’s lack of credit for Biden ‘successes’ (Washington Examiner post) For this week’s Liberal Media Scream, we have the latest example of a journalist inside the Beltway concerned that President Joe Biden just isn’t getting the credit he deserves for "Bidenomics," the Middle East crisis, or pretty much anything else. Despite two years of polling that shows the public doesn’t buy the White House spin that their life is better under the Democratic administration, the Washington Post’s Leigh Ann Caldwell on Sunday’s Meet the Press cited “my sources” complaining that Biden is getting treated like the no-respect funnyman Rodney Dangerfield. “My sources are saying President Biden doesn’t get a lot of credit, not only on this, but on a whole host of things,” she said in addressing the hostage releases over the weekend. But maybe there's hope, she added, that Biden will get the credit she says he deserves if his team just sells it better. "They have a lot of work to do to once again, like I said, try to get credit for the successes that he’s had over the past two years which he keeps on getting blamed for everything bad that’s happened." From Sunday’s Meet the Press: KRISTEN WELKER: Leigh Ann, I want to start with you. This is a huge test for President Biden. And obviously now, the pressure’s on to release the Americans. How is this playing for him politically, do you think? LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: Well, obviously it’ll be great if Americans are released with those hostages. But my sources are saying that President Biden also doesn’t get a lot of credit for his successes, not only on this, but on a whole host of things. So that does concern Democrats on Capitol Hill.... Yeah, Bidenomics has really been, become a negative word, especially among Democrats, because it’s not working. I was texting with some Democratic members of Congress last night just trying to get a read over the holiday weekend, what they’re hearing at home and what people are saying, and these members said that it is just not looking good for President Biden politically out there, that he would probably lose some swing states if the election were held today. So they have a lot of work to do to once again, like I said, try to get credit for the successes that he’s had over the past two years which he keeps on getting blamed for everything bad that’s happened. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Caldwell maintained Democrats ‘have a lot of work to do to once again, like I said, try to get credit for the successes’ President Biden has ‘had over the past two years,’ but she’s clearly just as invested as any liberal Democrat in advancing that narrative to help Biden. And in that interest, she reflects much of the press corps which want to influence the outcome, as proven by how complaints that Biden isn’t getting the credit he supposedly deserves have become a common media theme.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ November 20: Liberal Media Scream: ABC’s Jonathan Karl says he wrote book to warn voters away from Trump (Washington Examiner post) For this week’s Liberal Media Scream, we feature the latest example of the legacy media going from self-appointed instant fact-checkers on former President Donald Trump to out-and-out enemies. The choice is ABC’s Jonathan Karl, who admitted that he wrote his latest book on Trump to warn America about him. Asked on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS why Trump is leading the Republican nomination contest, Karl said that “superficially” there’s “a sense” that things were better during the Trump presidency. And, he added of his just-released Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party, “that’s why I wrote this book.” He explained that “if people are going to go into this next election thinking about that, they also need to be thinking, not just about what Trump was, but what he is now and what he is proposing and planning to do, what a second Trump administration would look like. And I don’t think people have come to terms with that at all.” Karl on Thursday’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS: “I think part of what’s happened is people look back. There’s anxiety in the country. People have economic anxiety. There’s discontent with Joe Biden and I think there’s some superficially a sense like ‘Look, if we could only go back to four years ago, the world was relatively at peace, inflation was low, everything was —’ I think there is some of that and that’s why I wrote this book because if people are going to go into this next election thinking about that, they also need to be thinking, not just about what Trump was, but what he is now and what he is proposing and planning to do, what a second Trump administration would look like. And I don’t think people have come to terms with that at all.” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Karl’s quest is the very definition of improper political advocacy by a journalist. His job is to report the news in an impartial manner, not jump into the fray when a candidate he hates gets popular, and write a book to convince voters they are making a bad choice. How could any Trump supporter, or any Republican, ever trust his reporting when they know he has a personal interest in directing the outcome?” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ November 13: Liberal Media Scream: CNN’s Hunt says no room for ‘happy and sunny’ in GOP (Washington Examiner post) For this week’s Liberal Media Scream, we feature the latest CNN absurdity, a blanket declaration that there is no place for happiness in the Republican Party. The claim came today from CNN’s Kasie Hunt, who was giving her early morning assessment on the decision by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) to drop out of the 2024 presidential race, joining former Vice President Mike Pence on the sidelines. “There’s just no appetite in the Republican base right now for someone who’s happy and sunny,” she said, citing her election night sources. Of course, many pollsters would suggest that there is just no appetite in the Republican base for anybody other than former President Donald Trump, and GOP voters seem to be pretty happy with that. Hunt, CNN’s chief national affairs analyst, on Monday’s CNN This Morning: “The noteworthy thing to me about this — I mean, look, I think it was pretty clear that Tim Scott’s campaign never took off the way, frankly, a lot of people in Washington thought that it might. He had, you know, all the ingredients to be really successful in the traditional Republican Party. He had a lot of backing. Honestly, he wasn’t public about it, but a lot of the people who have been working against Donald Trump for more traditional candidates like Mitt Romney were working on his operation trying to figure out how they could make that happen. “But when I talked to sources, and I did a lot of this on election night last week, they keep saying to me that there’s just no appetite in the Republican base right now for someone who’s happy and sunny. They’re angry. The base is angry. And that’s a big part of why Donald Trump has had such a durable lead in this race because he campaigns in a much different way. Tim Scott tried to be the kind of ‘Morning in America’ Republican candidate, and it’s just not what people are into. So, you know, it does make sense. He saw the writing on the wall, especially about the fourth debate, and here we are.” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “None of the GOP presidential candidates are coming close to Trump, so why the particular argument Tim Scott failed because he’s a ‘happy warrior’ and the electorate is motivated by anger? Trump fans would contend his rallies are peppered with funny lines and upbeat messaging about the basis for his movement, Make America Great Again, which in itself is a happy and aspirational quest for a return to the best of America.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ November 6: Liberal Media Scream: CNN’s Zakaria says Biden better on border than Trump (Washington Examiner post) For this week’s Liberal Media Scream we feature the zaniest pro-White House spin yet on the historic border crisis caused by President Joe Biden’s policies. While big city “sanctuary” mayors are crying uncle because the president’s policies are dumping in thousands of illegal immigrants without providing any money or help with housing, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria somehow thinks that the White House is handling the crisis well. Biden is “actually not doing a bad job,” he said on Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher. For proof, he cited the deportation of illegal immigrants, ignoring the enormous crowds of migrants waved into the U.S. every day and the high number of those who slip in undetected. Zakaria on Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO: “Biden’s actually not doing a bad job, they have deported more people — if you think that’s right and I do because you want a system of laws, right? They have deported more people under the Biden administration than Trump did. They’ve been harder line. The problem for Biden is, and this is a problem for Democrats, you can’t take credit for it because then you’re going to outrage, the progressive wing is going to go nuts. And so, even the things he does, it’s like stealth enforcement. You can’t talk about it.” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Talk about missing the forest for the trees. The only reason the Biden administration deported anyone was because of the Trump-imposed Title 42 to deal with COVID, which stayed in place for more than two years of his administration until he ended it in May. In the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2.4 million people crossed the southern border, the highest number since records started being kept in 1960, and that was the third straight record year, all under Biden.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ October 30: Liberal Media Scream: Speaker Johnson takes compare him to KKK and mass shooter (Washington Examiner post) We could see this coming from miles away. For this week’s Liberal Media Scream, we feature the predictably sad reaction of the press to the unanimous Republican vote to confirm soft-spoken Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) as the 56th House speaker last week. Outlet after outlet tried to portray the Bible-toting Johnson as out of touch with America, instead comparing him to a KKK leader. It’s surprising liberal media outlets didn’t identify him with his middle name, James Michael Johnson, like mass killers. Even on CNN, analyst Gloria Borger conceded that the media was trying too hard to demonize the little-known lawmaker. It is “hard to demonize” him, she said, explaining, “He’s not the devil incarnate.” But Bill Maher and his crew didn’t get the memo. First, on his Friday show, Scott Galloway, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, said to audience applause, “The reason this guy is speaker is none of us have the time to read his resume and realize he’s David Duke-lite.” Maher pushed back on that characterization, but he offered his own invective, calling Johnson “a religious nut” before raising last week’s mass shooter of 18 in Maine: “Apparently he heard voices, and I thought, ‘Is he that different than Mike Johnson?’” From Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO and Max: SCOTT GALLOWAY: The whole point here is that we separate church and state, that we believe in the peaceful transfer of power, and the reason this guy is speaker is none of us have the time to read his resume and realize he’s David Duke-lite. BILL MAHER: Well, we do now. I don’t know if he’s David Duke-lite — I read today he has an adopted black son. I don’t think David Duke would do that, but he is a religious nut. .... MAHER: When you’re this much of a religious fanatic, there is no room for real democracy. That’s not what you believe in. He said it today: Look in the Bible — that’s my worldview. I was reading about this horrible shooting in Maine. We don’t know much about the guy yet, but apparently he heard voices, and I thought, ‘Is he that different than Mike Johnson?’ I mean, degree, yes, but it’s thinner than you think. Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “What hypocrisy. You can’t decry how Donald Trump and MAGA have lowered discourse in America and undermined respect for democracy and then smear the incoming speaker of the House as no different than a racist Klan leader or a mass murderer. The comparisons are ridiculous and should be beneath anyone who considers themselves a serious political analyst.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ October 23: Liberal Media Scream: Morning Joe warns of Trump retaliation just short of firing squads (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features MSNBC host Joe Scarborough speculating on a second Trump White House, ranting that it will be one retaliation after another for slights he’s felt over the past eight years, starting with the media and courts. On his show this morning, Scarborough compared Trump to hard-line Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. “He’s wiped out the judiciary, he’s wiped out the free press,” Scarborough charged. There was no mention, of course, of how Trump made history as president with his appointments to federal courts, including three of the current U.S. Supreme Court justices, or that he was among the most accessible presidents in recent memory despite his verbal hits on the press. But at least he offered that Trump won’t line up his enemies and shoot them. Scarborough’s ruminations came during an interview with the Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum, who just wrote an article titled “Netanyahu’s Attack on Democracy Left Israel Unprepared.” Joe Scarborough on Monday’s Morning Joe on MSNBC: “I always tell people, if you want to see what Donald Trump is going to do if he gets reelected, don’t think about him lining up people against the wall and having them shot." “Just see what [Viktor] Orban has done in Hungary where he’s bragged about having illiberal democracy, and he’s wiped out the judiciary, he’s wiped out the free press. And Anne [Applebaum], I suppose, that’s probably what Donald Trump will look for as a blueprint if he gets elected again.” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Left-wing paranoia perfectly encapsulated by Joe Scarborough. No matter how bad you think a second Trump presidency would be for the nation, the idea that just because he makes derogatory remarks about judges, prosecutors, and journalists means he wants to ‘wipe out’ the judiciary and free press, is ridiculous. And even if he were so inclined, the U.S. political system would never allow it, leaving Scarborough’s warning as little more than baseless scaremongering.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ October 16: Liberal Media Scream: CBS anchor scoffs, ‘Indictment’ of Biden? (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the hypocrisy and bewildering ignorance of the media’s coverage of the classified documents cases both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump face. On the hypocrisy front, consider all the hours of TV coverage Trump received for his handling of documents compared to Biden. Also, consider how much time the networks gave the extraordinary two days of questions Biden faced last weekend from the prosecutor: just 48 seconds. Then watch as CBS Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan appears astonished that Biden’s case and charges are similar to Trump’s and that a House Republican chairman would even suggest that they should be handled the same way. “Indictment?” she interjected when her guest, Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said, “President Biden needs the same consequence that they pursue with President Trump.” From Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS: MARGARET BRENNAN: You were talking about classified documents mishandled by the current president, and you said that when it came to Biden and Trump, they’re both equally egregious with equal classification issues. This past week, President Biden was interviewed by special counsel Robert Hur. Will there be legal consequences? Will your committee do anything to act on this? I mean, what exactly do you mean equally egregious? REP. MIKE TURNER: Well, when you look at the documents, both the classification level and the subject matter, both sides, Trump and Biden's documents, if they had been released in the public or gotten into the hands of nefarious parties, would be damaging to the United States national security. When I look at those documents, there are documents on both sides, equally egregious, that would have negative consequences to our means, methods, techniques, and our allies. Now, in this instance, I think President Biden needs the same consequence that they pursue with President Trump. The actions are the same. And in this instance, if you notice— BRENNAN: Indictment? TURNER: You’re getting leak after leak after leak on the Trump documents. You’re hearing nothing on the Biden documents. So you’re continuing to see the inequality that comes out of the Justice Department as there’s silence on the other side with respect to Biden’s. And by the way, he was a serial classified document hoarder. I reviewed documents that were from all the time that he’s been in government. This really is a very serious breach by President Biden. BRENNAN: Just to be clear here, though, are you saying that President Biden had top secret and TS/SCI classification level documents in his personal home? TURNER: That’s public already, Margaret, so I’m not confirming something that people don’t already know. That is correct. BRENNAN: OK. So I think you’re saying that he should be indicted when you say treated the same? TURNER: I think they need to be treated exactly the same. Now, they’re continuing their investigation with President Biden. I don’t think if President Biden in the end has been found to violate the law, and I believe from what I’ve seen that he has, that he should be treated any differently than Donald Trump. Why would he? Just because he’s president or because he’s a Democrat? And that’s how the Department of Justice has been acting. They need to be treated the same. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Brennan’s naivete about President Biden’s potential very serious misdeeds and seeming surprise that a veteran congressman would suggest he deserves to get treated just as harshly as former President Trump, reflects the larger disinterest in Biden’s behavior by the Trump-obsessed press corps. Indeed, special counsel Robert Hur interviewed Biden over two days last week, yet the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening newscasts offered a measly 48 seconds of coverage in total.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ October 9: Liberal Media Scream: CBS touts waitress jobs as sign Bidenomics works (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the transparent effort by the media to prop up Bidenomics at a time when most people believe costs and expenses under President Joe Biden are way too high. CBS led the way over the weekend when Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan said that a jobs report showing restaurant jobs up was proof Biden’s claims are right. She cited it to counter claims from 2024 Republican presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) that the economy is not doing enough for people. “That seems to undercut your argument that the economy’s broken,” Brennan said. Scott slapped down that logic. He said, “Well, all you have to do is talk to the average American family and ask them what they feel — how they feel about Bidenomics. The answer is very simple. We’ve lost over $5,000 of spending power since January of 2021. We should always celebrate the creation of jobs, but we should never forget that we went 52 consecutive paychecks — 52 consecutive paychecks — with a loss of spending power.” From Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS: MARGARET BRENNAN: On Friday, we spoke with Republican senator and presidential candidate Tim Scott from his home state of South Carolina. Our conversation began on the economy and the surprisingly robust September jobs report. BRENNAN TO SEN. TIM SCOTT: Friday's jobs numbers shattered expectations. It showed some economic momentum. In fact, restaurant hospitality hiring is back to pre-pandemic levels. That seems to undercut your argument that the economy’s broken. SCOTT: Well, all you have to do is talk to the average American family and ask them what they feel — how they feel about Bidenomics. The answer is very simple. We’ve lost over $5,000 of spending power since January of 2021. We should always celebrate the creation of jobs, but we should never forget that we went 52 consecutive paychecks — 52 consecutive paychecks — with a loss of spending power. BRENNAN: And you blame political leadership, not the Federal Reserve? SCOTT: Well, if you think about the fact that over the last, I guess, year and a half, we’ve seen 16% inflation since Joe Biden’s taken office, which led to 11 consecutive rate increases, that downward pressure on our economy certainly created cracks and fissures throughout the economy. That was caused by Joe Biden’s lack of leadership and understanding of how to create jobs in America. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Brennan put Democratic talking point spin ahead of reality in getting so excited about a jobs report largely built on gains in part-time employment and government jobs. Her priority was to undermine Scott’s very persuasive argument that Bidenomics is a disaster, something recognized by the vast majority of people outside of the media elite.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ October 2: Liberal Media Scream: MAGA just racists, says MSNBC regular (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the continued smearing of MAGA by MSNBC, this time including the broken-record claim that supporters of former President Donald Trump are racists. Ignoring Trump’s support among black people, his friendships with notable African Americans, and his appointments of black people to top jobs during his administration, MSNBC let legal correspondent Elie Mystal rant that Trump is running for president again “on white grievance” and adding that “without racism, Trump is just dumber Chris Christie, all right?” From Sunday night’s The Mehdi Hasan Show on MSNBC: MEHDI HASAN: When you watch Donald Trump talking about “dampening the forest floor,” and then you look at polls that show him neck and neck with Biden or maybe in the lead by 10 points or 5 points over Biden, do you put your head in your hair in your hands? ELIE MYSTAL: Look, Mehdi, not really. There is a recent poll, a study out of the University of Chicago that said the biggest indicator of whether or not you support Trump is whether or not you believe racism has been defeated, right? Whether or not you believe systemic racism doesn’t exist, whether or not you believe that what white people face more racism than people of color. Trump’s running on white grievance. It’s how he’s always been. It’s what he’s always done. And I feel like reducing it to racism always makes certain kinds of Democrats squeamish. We want there to be a bigger answer. We want to believe maybe Republicans actually think you should “dampen the forests.” We want to believe there is a reason. There’s nothing there there. All it is is white grievance. Without racism, Trump is just dumber Chris Christie, all right? And so, that is why he is where he is because he plays into the racism of his fans. Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “How convenient it must be to be so comfortable dismissing the political choice of a large portion of the public by tarring them all as a bunch of racists. Saves time on having to actually address what failures of your side the top candidate on the other side is fulfilling. But stay in your bubble, Mr. Mystal, and you may very well be surprised when those polls, showing Trump beating Biden, come true.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ September 25: No Liberal Media Scream this week.   ■ September 18: Liberal Media Scream: Meet the Press’s Kristen Welker debuts as Chuck Todd clone (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the debut of Kristen Welker as host of NBC’s Meet the Press. But other than a new face, there was no change from the lefty bias of the declining show’s MC. To help Welker's first episode, former President Donald Trump agreed to appear. In return, he faced the usual liberal fact-checking interruptions, especially when answering questions about abortion. Several times, Welker tried to quiet Trump’s charge that Democrats favor abortion right up to birth. “Democrats aren't saying that. Democrats are not saying that,” she said. Her performance won failing grades from conservatives, who weren’t expecting a big shift from the bias of former host Chuck Todd. Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway was first out with an analysis headlined, "NBC’s Kristen Welker Lied Repeatedly About Democrats’ Extreme Abortion Position." “Kristen Welker brazenly and repeatedly lied in a bizarre, conspiracy-laden debate with former President Donald Trump on Sunday,” she wrote, adding, “Welker interrupted her own pre-taped debate with the president to insert her own ‘fact checks’ that were false or were not responsive to actual claims Trump made.” From Sunday’s Meet the Press on NBC: DONALD TRUMP: Roe v. Wade. For 52 years, people, including Democrats, wanted it to go back to states so that states could make it right. Roe v. Wade, I did something that nobody thought was possible, and Roe v. Wade was terminated and put back to the states. Now, people, pro-lifers, have the right to negotiate for the first time. They had no rights at all because the radical people on this are really the Democrats that say after five months, six months, seven months, eight months, and even after birth, you’re allowed to terminate the baby. KRISTEN WELKER: Democrats aren't saying that. Democrats are not saying that. Does it bother you, though, that women say their lives are being put at risk? Do you feel you bear any responsibility because, as you say, you are responsible for having Roe v. Wade overturned? TRUMP: What’s going to happen? It’s an issue that’s been going on for a long time. It’s a very polarizing issue. Because of what's been done and because of the fact we brought it back to the states, we're going to have people come together on this issue. They're gonna determine the time because nobody wants to see five, six, seven, eight, nine months. Nobody wants to see abortions when you have a baby in the womb. I said with Hillary Clinton when we had the debate, I made a statement: Rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month, you're allowed to do that, and you shouldn't be allowed to do that. WELKER: Again, no one is arguing for that, that's not a part of anyone's platform, Mr. President. TRUMP: The Democrats are able to kill the baby after birth, and nobody wants that. WELKER: Democrats don’t want that, either. Kevin Tober, news analyst for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Kristen Welker either never read the 2020 Democratic platform or she's purposefully trying to gaslight her viewers in the guise of a ‘fact check’ of Trump. The current platform of the Democratic Party poses no limits on abortions. Instead of pointing this fact out, Welker decided to scold Trump for telling the truth, which apparently isn't allowed on NBC. If this is what we can expect from Welker as the new moderator of Meet the Press, Chuck Todd might as well have stayed on as the moderator. Different anchor, same liberal media bias.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ September 11: Liberal Media Scream: Chuck Todd puts self among the greats (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the departure of one of our favorite representatives of bias, Chuck Todd, the outgoing host of NBC’s Meet the Press. Signing off from his daily and Sunday shows, Todd said he hoped he helped educate viewers on the issues of the day and that he would now turn more to nuance and bridging divides. As he looks to his future as the network’s political analyst, he said he would follow the paths of two of the network’s past greats, David Brinkley and Tim Russert. “I will continue, of course, to be a big part of NBC’s political coverage because, as Tom Brokaw said to me, ‘Look, some networks do some things well, but nobody does politics like NBC.’ And he was referring back all the way to David Brinkley. And that is sort of the tradition I’ve always said, from Brinkley to Russert, and that’s the stuff I want to carry on,” Todd said. His final comments on both shows are in this clip: Todd, at the end of Friday’s daily Meet the Press NOW on the NBC News NOW streaming channel: “On my first day on the job on Meet the Press, I was handed an audience survey of Sunday show viewers. The No. 1 reason why folks decided to tune into any Sunday show, the No. 1 reason: to get educated. It wasn’t to find out if their side was winning or losing. They just wanted to know.” “It’s that education piece I’m hanging my hat on for the rest of my professional life because one thing we all lament lately is the lack of knowledge and nuance in our politics. That’s a vacuum I hope to continue to fill, whether in a traditional news platform or other venues —documentaries, docudramas, or even too-close-to-the-truth fiction.” “I’ll continue to be a big part of NBC News political coverage because no one in this business covers politics as well as NBC. Thanks for watching. I’ll see you down the road.” Todd, wrapping up Meet the Press on NBC on Sunday morning: “So, for nearly a decade, I’ve had the honor of helping to explain America to Washington and Washington to America, as Kristen [Welker] just quoted me about. And it’s that education piece that I’m hanging my hat on for the rest of my professional life. One thing we will lament — we all lament lately — is the lack of knowledge and nuance in our politics and citizenship. That’s a vacuum I hope to continue to fill, whether in our continued news coverage here at NBC or via other venues, like docuseries and docudramas, focused on bridging our divides, piercing these political bubbles. And I will continue, of course, to be a big part of NBC’s political coverage because, as Tom Brokaw said to me, ‘Look, some networks do some things well, but nobody does politics like NBC.’ And he was referring back all the way to David Brinkley. And that is sort of the tradition I’ve always said, from Brinkley to Russert, and that’s the stuff I want to carry on.” “So that’s all for today. Thanks for watching and for so many years of loyalty to me and to this show. I’m happy to say my colleague, Kristen Welker, is going to be here next week because it doesn’t matter who sits in this chair. If it’s Sunday, it’s Meet the Press.” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Todd, pretentious to the end. In all his years hosting Meet the Press, he never showed much interest in bringing ‘nuance’ to his liberal agenda or ‘bridging’ divides or ‘piercing ... political bubbles,’ to say nothing of never matching the journalism of David Brinkley or Tim Russert. I watched David Brinkley and Tim Russert. Chuck Todd is no David Brinkley or Tim Russert.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ September 4: Liberal Media Scream: Biden’s coverage ‘tougher than he deserves’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the classic attitude of the Washington press corps toward Democratic presidents that originally got us working with the Media Research Center to highlight out-of-touch newsies. It is the complaint that the press is too tough when, in fact, they have barely scratched the surface of what some critics believe to be a corrupt presidential operation dating back to President Joe Biden’s days as vice president under former President Barack Obama. NBC’s Meet the Press featured Franklin Foer, an Atlantic writer who just released a bestselling book on the president titled The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future. Foer told moderator Chuck Todd that “Trump caused the media to become so emotional, to get so engaged in covering all the high drama.” And with Biden, he said, there has been a "desire on the part of the press to reassert its standards of objectivity.” But, he added, Biden has continued to complain about his press, just like every other president. “He has been covered probably tougher than he deserves,” Foer said. That line prompted our partner Brent Baker, the Media Research Center's vice president of research and publications, to grade it five out of five screams. From Sunday’s Meet the Press on NBC: CHUCK TODD: You write: “Biden considered his poor approval rating a failure of the media, which someone neglected to note all the ways in which his administration was superior to Trump’s. It was also a failure of his own White House to effectively communicate. He complained that there weren’t enough surrogates on television defending him.” I’m shocked to find out that a White House believes they have a communications problem, not a substance problem. FRANKLIN FOER: Right. So I think that Biden has — of course, every president who suffers an upside-down approval rating is going to moan about the media, and I think that there is some truth to it in his case where Trump caused the media to become so emotional, to get so engaged in covering all of the high drama. And I think, with the Biden administration, there’s been this desire on the part of the press to reassert its standards of objectivity. So I think, on certain measures, he’s probably right. He has been covered probably tougher than he deserves. But it also — TODD: There’s no curve? He’s not being graded on a curve? FOER: No. TODD: No. Baker explains our weekly pick: “To channel what President Biden would say, ‘not a joke.’ Foer was seemingly quite serious. But it’s a ludicrous assessment to anyone but the most enthused Biden sycophants or Democratic partisans. To contend that Biden is the subject of media ‘objectivity’ and has received ‘tougher’ coverage than he ‘deserves,’ does not pass the laugh test.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ August 28: Liberal Media Scream: Dour Dana bashes Ramaswamy over KKK reference (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features CNN anchor Dana Bash repeatedly beating GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s comparison of liberal "Squad" member Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) to "a modern grand wizard of the KKK." Over more than five minutes, the anchor harangued Ramaswamy, who said he made the comparison to spark a debate over the lawmaker’s suggestion that candidates of color should be in lockstep with liberals. After four minutes of her bashing, an exasperated Ramaswamy said: “Dana, I think you’re doing, with due respect, what many in the media do, picking on some fringe comment in the context of a broader context that I was offering in a speech, avoiding the meat of the issue.” Here’s a sampling from CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday: DANA BASH: You took issue with comments from Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA). She reportedly said, quote, “we don’t need any more brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice.” About that, you said, “These are the words of the modern grand wizards of the modern KKK.” You know, I’m sure, the KKK was responsible for more than a century’s worth of horrific lynchings, rapes, murders of black people. How in any way are the views you’re talking about comparable to the views and atrocities committed by the KKK?” VIVEK RAMASWAMY: What I said is: The grand wizards of the KKK would be proud of what they would hear her say, because there’s nothing more racist than saying that your skin color predicts something about the content of your viewpoints or your ideas. BASH: No, you didn’t just say that. You didn’t just say that they would be proud. You said, “These are the words of the modern grand wizards of the modern KKK.” RAMASWAMY: It is the same spirit. You’re right about that, Dana. I think it is the same spirit to say that I can look at you and, based on just your skin color, that I know something about the content of your character, that I know something about the content of the viewpoints you’re allowed to express. .... BASH: But can you have an intellectually honest conversation when you accuse her of being a grand wizard of the KKK? Can you have that intellectually honest discussion with that kind of rhetoric? .... BASH: If you want to have an intellectual question, do you think that maybe comparing her to the grand wizard and the notion of what she said to being a modern leader of the KKK was maybe a step too far, or you stand by what you said? .... BASH: What I did was explain to our viewers that you were asked a question and you took it to a point where you called a sitting member of Congress who is black, who was having discussions about race, calling her the modern grand wizard of the KKK. And I’m just not sure how that’s open and honest discussion.         Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Bash’s constant harping was not good television. Ramaswamy explained his point and she should have moved on. But she so vehemently disagreed with him that she wouldn’t let go. In doing so, she helped prove Ramaswamy’s point about the elite who won’t countenance any contrary views on race relations, not even from the target of a racist attack.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ August 21: No Liberal Media Scream this week   ■ August 14: Liberal Media Scream: Media rage at MAGA ‘alternative reality’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the latest example of the sputtering anger Washington journalists have at the support former President Donald Trump has from his MAGA millions. Appearing Sunday on ABC’s This Week, Susan Glasser, Washington reporter for the New Yorker and a veteran of the Washington Post and Politico, coughed up a word salad to the storyline that a growing list of indictments is good for Trump while the building criminal focus on first son Hunter Biden is bad for President Joe Biden. From the roundtable on Sunday’s This Week on ABC: Susan Glasser: “Part of this is the incredible distortion field where we are all somehow living in Donald Trump’s alternate reality, right? We are talking about, ‘Well, it’s a great benefit to him,’ according to, you know, the big story in the New York Times today that he’s been indicted criminally, what, three times — and it looks like a fourth coming up this week — because we’re living in this warped distortion field of a Republican primary in which Donald Trump is stampeding? It’s a minority of a minority in the country, and so then, you have something like these series of abortion rights referenda in the wake of the Roe v. Wade decision. “And you realize that in this country, even in deep-red states, there are solid majorities that don’t think, you know, Donald Trump should be the president again, who defeated him in the popular vote in 2016 and in 2020, who support, by actually record numbers, abortion rights, and yet we live in this world where it’s somehow good that Donald Trump is a criminal defendant but somehow bad electorally for the president that his son is being investigated for something, that as far as we know, does not directly concern Joe Biden.” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “What an incredible lack of inquisitiveness for a journalist. Glasser is living in her own ‘alternate reality,’ one inhabited by virtually all of her Washington press corps colleagues who are enraged by everything Trump but have put on blinders when it comes to President Joe Biden. They don’t want to give legitimacy to anything which could harm Biden’s reelection fortunes.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ August 7: Liberal Media Scream: Joy Behar would exile Trump to Saudi Arabia (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the ladies of The View jumping to a whole new level of "Trump derangement syndrome" following the third criminal indictment of former President Donald Trump. Led by Trump Hater in Chief Joy Behar, they talked up a plea deal that prosecutor Jack Smith could offer that sends the former president away for good — but not jail. Instead, and due to concerns that the Secret Service might not allow a former president to live in a jail cell if he’s convicted, Behar suggested exile in Saudi Arabia. “Wouldn’t that be good?” she said to some audience laughter. “I don’t even care if he goes to jail. I don’t have it in my heart to punish the guy. I just want him to go away and stop ruining my country." From Thursday’s The View on ABC: JOY BEHAR: "Well, what about making a deal? What about, Sunny, if he makes a deal with [special counsel Jack] Smith?" SUNNY HOSTIN: "Without jail time?" BEHAR: "Without jail, and he says, “I’m going away and moving to Saudi Arabia”? Wouldn’t that be good? Just go away. We don’t — I don’t even care if he goes to jail. I don’t have it in my heart to punish the guy. I just want him to go away and stop ruining my country." HOSTIN: "I think there are certain prosecutors that would offer him a plea agreement without time if he would agree to never run for public office again anywhere." BEHAR: "And go away. I don’t want to even see him in the Enquirer." Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Presumably, The View does not air in Saudi Arabia, so this idea might have some appeal to Trump — and many of us — who wouldn’t mind never again hearing Joy Behar’s voice, but I’d recommend flipping this and exiling the entire crew of The View to Saudi Arabia so none of us have to hear their discombobulated daily rantings.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ July 31: Liberal Media Scream: Chuck Todd still trying to downplay Hunter Biden scandals (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a Sunday network public affairs show host that President Joe Biden and his cronies are really going to miss when he finally leaves his perch. It’s NBC Meet the Press host Chuck Todd, of course, playing “D” on the Hunter Biden scandals exploding in the news today. On his Sunday show and while interviewing yet another Democratic politician, he sounded almost apologetic for having to address the first son who is facing tax and gun charges and has been linked to bribery allegations along with his father. Said Todd to his guest, Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Biden’s home state of Delaware, “Republicans are gonna accuse” the president of misdeeds, “they’re going to make the accusation, whether they have the evidence or not,” because they “have an information ecosystem that helps amplify it.” Todd recently announced that he was leaving his show in September to become the network's "long form" political analyst. From Sunday’s Meet the Press on NBC: CHUCK TODD: Let me start with the Hunter Biden situation and I understand that, you know, you believe this is all being emphasized due to politics, the Republican — the House Republicans are doing. Let me ask you this, do you think it would behoove the president for him to come out and say, “Hey, I had no business dealings with my son. My son’s issues are my son’s issues”? Do you think he needs to say that more directly because there’s a lot of people that believe something else happened here? SEN. CHRIS COONS: Let’s be clear about that point, Chuck. There’s been a five-year investigation. Five years by a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney. This investigation started during the Trump administration and they’ve come forward with not one shred of evidence tying President Biden to any of this. I am encouraged that, in sharp contrast to President Trump, you’ve just detailed his mountain of legal problems where President Trump is fighting, and pushing back and obstructing, Hunter Biden’s come forward, taken responsibility, paid his late taxes. As you just discussed with Chuck Rosenberg, I think the hiccup in the Delaware District Courthouse will get ironed out pretty quickly and I don’t think President Biden needs to say anything more than he has. TODD: House Republicans are gonna accuse him. They’re going to make the accusation — COONS: They’re going [to] accuse him of all sorts of stuff. TODD: — whether they have the evidence or not. COONS: Correct. TODD: The question — and they may have an information ecosystem that helps amplify it to a point where you don’t think he needs to just — “Hey, despite what you hear, just so you know, I don’t do business with my son or my brother"? COONS: I think he’s been perfectly clear. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “If only Chuck Todd had shown such reluctance to promote accusations against President Trump about ‘Russian collusion’ made by Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff and others, which turned out to be baseless, when they were on his program. We’d be in a whole different political-media environment. But no, Todd is only upset by publicity for revelations that may hurt the Democratic president, not the Republican one. And he wonders why so many see him as more of a liberal political operative than any kind of respectable journalist.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ July 24: Liberal Media Scream: CBS pushes for Hunter Biden media cover-up (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the latest example of how the networks are covering up the escalating Hunter Biden sex, gun, drugs, and taxes scandal. Not only have most ignored the scandal going all the way back to dissing reports on the first son’s laptop full of dirty deeds, but now some in the media are urging the GOP to “move on.” Exhibit A is CBS Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan, who this weekend said the plea deal Hunter Biden has cut should be the trigger for Republicans to end their investigation into the president’s son. Her guest, former federal prosecutor and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, dismissed her question. “No, I wouldn’t, Margaret, and here’s why. The conduct here by the U.S. attorney in Delaware and by the Justice Department just can’t be justified,” he said. She also rolled out the standard Democratic talking point to make her case: “You know that the U.S. attorney in Delaware was appointed by former President Trump.” It’s typical for senators to suggest prosecutors in their state and U.S. Attorney David Weiss was endorsed by Delaware’s two Democratic senators at the time. From Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS: MARGARET BRENNAN: There are so many legal issues in this campaign, and I want to ask you about one involving the president’s son Hunter Biden who’s going to appear in court this week to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and will enter into an agreement that could avert conviction on a gun-related charge. The deal has infuriated many congressional Republicans, who were holding their own hearings, and I wonder after this plea happens if you would advise your party to move on? CHRIS CHRISTIE: No, I wouldn’t, Margaret, and here’s why. The conduct here by the U.S. attorney in Delaware and by the Justice Department just can’t be justified. It doesn’t take five years, Margaret. As you mentioned, I was the U.S. attorney in the fifth-largest office in the country for seven years during the Bush administration. It does not take five years to investigate two misdemeanor tax counts and to dismiss a gun charge, and we need to know what they were investigating and why these are the charges they concluded to. This is not just any person. This is the son of the president of the United States. And while justice needs to be equal, it needs to be equal, and it doesn’t appear to me that this is the way to do it. And I would say one thing on the gun charge. I mean, this is a case where Democrats yell and scream for more new gun laws in the country, and yet you hear no Democrat yelling about the fact that Hunter Biden intentionally lied on his gun permit application, mishandled the gun after he received it with a false permit application, and faces absolutely no penalty. Guess what? The guy who sponsored that law was his father, Sen. Joe Biden, and that charge carries a 10-year sentence, Margaret. We need to explain — they need to explain to the public why that was done. So no, I don't think it’s time to move on. BRENNAN: And you know that the U.S. attorney in Delaware was appointed by former President Trump. CHRISTIE: Incompetent, Margaret. It doesn’t matter, Margaret. It doesn’t matter whether you’re appointed by a Republican or a Democrat, if your work appears to be incompetent and inexplicable, you need to explain it so we can have confidence in our justice system, and I don’t care whether Mr. Weiss is a Republican or a Democrat. He owes the American people an explanation. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “It takes a lot of chutzpah for Brennan to suggest Republicans ‘move on’ from a topic the broadcast news networks and much of the rest of the news media have done all they can to avoid in their quest to protect President Biden. Numerous revelations about Hunter and his dad have gone unreported, or get one story on one night, and then nothing more. What kind of ‘journalist’ pushes for cover-up and suppression over pressing for more coverage three days after two IRS whistleblowers detailed federal efforts to benefit Hunter and not pursue leads which could hurt the president?” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ July 17: No Liberal Media Scream this week   ■ July 10: Liberal Media Scream: CNN’s Zakaria tells Biden, 'You've been a great president' (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a rare one-on-one interview of President Joe Biden and a hint of what it takes to get a sit-down with him. In the case of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, the payback came in a phrase of praise: “You've been a great president.” The line was part of a long setup on his Sunday show to a question about some Democrats calling for Biden to step aside. From Fareed Zakaria GPS: Zakaria to Biden: “You've often said when people ask you about your age, just watch me. And I think a lot of people do watch you and are impressed, and they think you've been a great president. You've brought the economy back. You've restored relations with the world. But many of these people do say, and these are hardened supporters of yours, the next thing he should do is step aside and let another generation of Democrats take the baton.” Kevin Tober, a news analyst & staff writer at the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters, explains our weekly pick: “Zakaria displayed a masterclass in professional gaslighting Sunday when he told Biden that ‘a lot of people’ watch him and are ‘impressed.’ In reality, even many Democrats have expressed their concern about Biden's age and cognitive decline. Kissing Biden's ring is not ‘facts first’ despite what CNN wants you to think.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ July 3: No Liberal Media Scream this week   ■ June 26: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC historian declares GOP hopefuls insurrectionists (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream highlights the latest example of the conventional liberal media’s view that all Republicans are deplorable and, thus, dismissible. MSNBC “historian” Jon Meacham, an author and former Newsweek Washington bureau chief, wrote off the large and historically diverse collection of Republican presidential candidates as insurrectionists and seditionists because all have been supportive at times of former President Donald Trump. “We have a pretty clear choice in this political season. We can choose a constitutionalist, a party that has been pretty faithful to the Constitution, which is the party of the incumbent president, or we can favor a party that has been shockingly but persistently supportive of an insurrectionist or a seditionist,” he said on Friday’s Morning Joe show. “It’s not simple, but it is straightforward. That’s the choice before the country,” said Meacham, who punctuated his analysis with declarations of “right?!” From Friday’s Morning Joe on MSNBC: JOE SCARBOROUGH: We were talking about the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court who, again, out of control, running roughshod over the will of the overwhelming majority of Americans. And now, we have this president, again, unprecedented, but here we are moving towards, I believe, I think, the most serious charges and the one that I think historians are going to be grappling with long after we are all gone. That is a president charged with conspiracy to commit sedition against the United States of America. JON MEACHAM: You’re right, historians will be wrestling with it as we all do all the time. I think citizens have to wrestle with it now, right? This is, it’s so central, and I just really believe that we have a pretty clear choice in this political season. We can choose a constitutionalist, a party that has been pretty faithful to the Constitution, which is the party of the incumbent president, or we can favor a party that has been shockingly but persistently supportive of an insurrectionist or a seditionist. That’s not a sentence we would have said about Eisenhower and Stevenson, right? That was not something that a lot of people grew up with. But it’s pretty vital. And yet that's the question: Is any policy so important that you would want to favor someone that you think is a vehicle for that policy, even if they don’t and have self-evidently tried to trash the Constitution of the United States? And we could go on, but that’s really kind of it. You know, it’s pretty basic. Do you want a constitutionalist or an insurrectionist? Then we get into the, ‘But, but, but, taxes and judges.’ If we don’t have a Constitution, taxes and judges aren’t going to matter at all. That’s where we are, remarkably, right now. Again, we could go on, but I think it’s a fundamental question. People often say, you know, it’s simple. It’s not simple, but it is straightforward. That’s the choice before the country. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Meacham, in all his haughty glory, sees it as his role to declare every candidate in one party illegitimate presidential contenders because most of them refrain from denouncing the one candidate he really hates. Yet Meacham and Scarborough wonder why conservatives don’t heed their advice when they show such disdain for the choices made by those who don’t share their left-wing worldview.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ June 19: Liberal Media Scream: CNN begs ‘older’ white people to step aside, give values up (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features one of CNN’s liberal big shots decrying “older” white people in Southern states for trying to maintain values and traditions instead of giving up to the “new demography.” Ron Brownstein, a CNN political analyst and Atlantic editor, argued it is longtime residents who are trying to impose their values in states such as Texas, not the other way around. The discussion came Monday when CNN This Morning devoted a segment to how those in red states are “imposing” their values on the rest of the nation. Not considered by the panel: how those in red states see themselves as simply pushing back at the imposition of left-wing LGBT Pride values that CNN euphemistically described as “inclusion.” From CNN This Morning: RON BROWNSTEIN: The attempt to kind of impose the values, and to force companies to toe the line of the values of one segment of society, really puts them in a hard place and, ultimately, they have to decide whether they’re going to embrace this changing, inclusive America, or whether they’re going to back down in the face of this kind of pressure. CO-HOST ERICA HILL: This is going to feel like a rhetorical question, but I mean it very seriously, as from both a political and a business standpoint, as you’re looking at this, right, inclusion is good for business. How and where is exclusion good for business or for politics when you’re narrowing your pool? BROWNSTEIN: Well, look, it’s very different between the red states and the blue and purple states. In the red states, you have Republican coalitions that are running state government with an electoral coalition that is fundamentally rooted in the parts of the state that are not changing, that are basically nonurban, older white voters. And they are using that to impose the values of that coalition on changing places before the new demography maybe changes the political balance in a place like Texas. So you see half the country moving in this direction. And these boycotts are kind of the business flank of that same effort that in many ways is attempting to reverse what has been six decades of nationalizing more rights and creating common rights that are available in every state. I mean, we are moving back toward a pre-1960s world where your basic civil liberties depended much more on your ZIP code. And I think, look, that in some places, like the period before the Civil War, no institution was equally credible on both sides of the sectional divide. And these companies, much as they want to stay out of it, ultimately have to decide: Are they going to embrace the changing America, or are they going to embrace this effort to, in effect, “Make America Great Again” by going back to older rules and older values? Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “In being so concerned about conservatives ‘imposing’ their values on blue America, Brownstein is oblivious to how red-state America sees itself just pushing back against the Left’s values being pushed on them. But to Brownstein and CNN, the liberal blue America world is all that matters.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ June 12: Liberal Media Scream: New host Charles Barkley calls CNN ‘the Titanic’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features something we don’t hear often — a CNN host who admits the cable network is in serious trouble. In this case, it is an incoming host and former NBA great Charles Barkley who is teaming up with CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King for a CNN prime-time show. The show was mapped out by fired CNN chief Chris Licht, who said at the time that the show would begin in the fall. Barkley is apparently a bit concerned about what he’s getting into. Talking hockey with NHL Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky, Barkley said, “Apparently, with this new talk show, I’m jumping on the Titanic.” From the Saturday night NHL on TNT pregame Face Off show: WAYNE GRETZKY: You don’t need to go take that news job. You can come on our show. You know more about hockey than we do. You don’t have to travel out of Atlanta. CHARLES BARKLEY: Apparently, with this new talk show, I’m jumping on the Titanic. So it’s not — everybody keeps saying “abort,” “abort,” “abort!” So, you know what, I’m looking forward to it. Gayle is awesome. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “The truth stumbles out spontaneously in the oddest of places. Barkley didn’t see that comment coming from Gretzky, so he blurted out the first thing he thought, which is the truth about the decline of CNN, before recovering with the more acceptable public stance of looking forward to the show. One suspects he’s having some second thoughts about agreeing to join CNN programming.” Rating for telling the truth: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ June 5: Liberal Media Scream: Chuck Todd says he’s a ‘real political journalist’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream turns the spotlight to NBC’s Chuck Todd, who portrayed himself as a journalistic martyr in announcing that he will step down as host of Meet the Press later this year. “Being a real political journalist isn’t about building a brand. It's about reporting what’s happening and explaining why it’s happening and letting the public absorb the facts,” he bragged Sunday. “I take the attacks from partisans as compliments, and I take the compliments from partisans with a grain of salt,” said Todd, a favorite target of the Secrets' weekly Liberal Media Scream. NBC said that Kristen Welker, NBC News's co-chief White House correspondent, will succeed him in what is a well-worn path to hosting Sunday public affairs shows. Todd, on Sunday’s Meet the Press: “I’ll be honest, though. I leave feeling concerned about this moment in history but reassured by the standards we've set here. We didn’t tolerate propagandists, and this network and program never will. But it doesn't mean sticking your head in the sand either. If you ignore reality, you’ll miss the big story. Being a real political journalist isn’t about building a brand. It's about reporting what’s happening and explaining why it’s happening and letting the public absorb the facts. If you do this job seeking popularity, you are doing this job incorrectly. “I take the attacks from partisans as compliments, and I take the compliments from partisans with a grain of salt. The goal of this and every Meet the Press episode is to do all of the following in one informative hour: Make you mad, make you think, shake your head in disapproval, and nod your head in approval. If you do all of that in one hour of this show, we’ve done our jobs. So, again, this isn’t goodbye. But know this: No matter who sits in this chair, if it’s Sunday, it’s Meet the Press.” Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Arrogant until the end. No acknowledgment from Todd that he just might be biased in favor of the Left and against conservatives. Instead, he played the martyr card, portraying himself as the target of misguided criticism which only proves his integrity.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   May 29: No Liberal Media Scream this week.   May 22: Liberal Media Scream: NBC’s Chuck Todd says only tax cheats oppose more IRS agents (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream shows exactly the difference between small-government conservatives and big-government liberals. Imagine wanting 87,000 more Internal Revenue Service agents. Well, that’s not only what NBC Meet the Press host Chuck Todd said, but he sneered at those who don’t want them as likely tax cheats. On his Sunday show, he took on the GOP plan to roll back the Biden administration’s request and said, “I have never understood the resistance of extra IRA agents — unless you knowingly cheat on your taxes.” His guest, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), replied, “That’s salacious and you know that.” Donalds said that “when you have that many more agents, it’s not to go after the rich. It’s to go after the middle class.” Todd stood by his view that the honest have nothing to fear from more enforcement. “So if you’re paying what you are supposed to pay, then you should have nothing to fear,” he said. The exchange on Sunday’s Meet the Press: CHUCK TODD: But there’s one more thing House Republicans are asking for, which is they want fewer IRS agents. They want fewer attempts to try to properly get tax receipts into the federal government’s coffers. I have never understood the resistance of extra IRS agents — unless you knowingly cheat on your taxes. REP. BYRON DONALDS: First of all, that’s salacious and you know that. Most Americans, by far, pay their taxes, and they do it honorably. What House Republicans, and frankly the Republican Party, is concerned about is having IRS agents go after middle-class families and small business owners. When you have that many more agents, it’s not to go after the rich. It’s to go after the middle class. That’s what it's for. TODD: So if you’re paying what you are supposed to pay, then you should have nothing to fear. DONALDS: You would make the assumption that IRS audits are up, that they’re putting out more liens on the American people. That’s not true. That data is not there. All Joe Biden is trying to do is find every possible nickel out of every couch from every American to pay for his radical spending. Why would we do that? Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “How ridiculous. More people in any job that involves tracking the activities of others means at least some of those in their purview will get harassed. After all, the additional staff has to justify their existence. By Todd’s logic, minority communities have nothing to fear from dozens more police officers on patrol since only criminals have any reason to ‘fear’ more cops. But that’s not the view of Black Lives Matter activists. Yet, Todd and the media would never take on that premise.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   May 15: No Liberal Media Scream this week.   ■ May 8: Liberal Media Scream: Even if Trump loses, Washington Post editor sees America’s ‘dissolution’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream demonstrates that anti-Trumpers have jumped off the deep end eight months before the first primary and caucus vote is cast in the 2024 race. We feature Washington Post columnist and editor-at-large Robert Kagan, who has long criticized former President Donald Trump, once dubbing him a “Frankenstein monster.” In his latest expression of "Trump derangement syndrome," he talked about Trump running again and how it will ruin the nation. But in this case, Trump doesn’t win but loses and claims fraud. The result: America ends. “At that point, I think we face a very serious possibility of dissolution of the United States and secession,” the neoconservative Never Trumper said on the First Look podcast hosted by the Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart. It even seemed too much for the host, who called Kagan’s take “a pretty apocalyptic view, and I’m laughing to keep from crying.” From Friday’s First Look on Washington Post Live: ROBERT KAGAN: If you look ahead a year, I think it’s very hard. I really don’t think most Americans — even attentive Americans — have really focused on the fact that a year from now, Donald Trump is going to be the strongest person in the country in some respects. Certainly, he’s going to dominate the Republican Party. At that point, he will be accumulating votes, which in this country is the ultimate certification of legitimacy. And so I think he’s going to be in an incredibly powerful position. He’s going to make it clear to his supporters that if he loses, it can only be as a result of fraud. And therefore, I think the entire Republican Party is going to, if Trump loses, say that the election was fraudulent. And at that point, I think we face a very serious possibility of dissolution of the United States and secession. I know that that sounds extreme, but secession has been pretty common, what used to be a very common activity or at least, you know, in the first hundred years of our republic, and our country hasn’t changed that much. So, I think that’s what we’re looking at in the 2024 scenario right now. JONATHAN CAPEHART: Danielle [Allen], do you share? I mean, that’s a pretty apocalyptic view, and I’m laughing to keep from crying, Bob, but— KAGAN: For the first thing in the morning. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “The ultimate in 'Trump derangement syndrome' scaremongering. It’s not good enough for former President Donald Trump to lose. Per Kagan, even if Trump loses, we’ll get an apocalyptic outcome. So, the only way for the U.S. to survive as a nation is for Trump to not even run. For someone who sees Trump as a destroyer of democracy, Kagan isn’t very confident in the strength of our democratic institutions.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ May 1: Liberal Media Scream: Todd cues up Mayorkas to tout Biden as ‘incredibly sharp’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream shows how the Washington political/media machine works when it comes to a matter both sides just don’t want to address fully, such as reports President Joe Biden doesn’t have the mental capacity or stamina to run for reelection or serve out a second term. On Sunday’s Meet the Press, moderator Chuck Todd cued up Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to champion Biden as fully fit for reelection. Todd: “Is he up for a second term?” Mayorkas: “100%. Incredibly sharp, incredibly probing, incredible command of the details, probing on the details.” Todd’s follow-up: “You have full confidence he can serve a second term?” Mayorkas repeated his 100% line, and then Todd wrapped up the segment without ever challenging the upbeat assurances from Mayorkas. From Sunday’s Meet the Press on NBC: CHUCK TODD: You’re in Cabinet meetings. There’s a lot of questions about President Biden and his ability to serve in a second term. You see him up close, face-to-face. What say you? Is he up, is he up for a second term? ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS: Oh, Chuck, 100%. Incredibly sharp, incredibly probing, incredible command of the details, probing on the details, asking tough questions. Absolutely. I’m incredibly proud to serve in his administration. I am incredibly proud of the work that we have done across the board — TODD: You have full confidence he can serve a second term? MAYORKAS: 100%. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “It’s the obtuse leading the blind. Everyone knows Joe Biden is as ‘incredibly smart’ as the border is secure, as Mayorkas has repeatedly assured. All but a few Biden sycophants know neither is true, yet Todd let Mayorkas get away with the laugh line.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ April 24: Liberal Media Scream: Government-funded PBS has Biden scandal, gaffe-free (Washington Examiner post) If ever there was an example that Twitter had it right when the social media giant slapped “government-funded” and “state-affiliated” on PBS and NPR, consider our Mainstream Media Scream example this week featuring politically delusional contributors David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart. Imagine a conservative calling President Joe Biden a strong speaker who is gaffe- and scandal-free, ignoring his refusal to meet with the media, his weekly mistaken mumbles, and the investigations into the family finances or the historic crisis on the border. Well, roll the tape from the Friday PBS NewsHour. There you will see Brooks cheering Biden’s reelection plans and saying that the president “gave a strong State of the Union,” and adding that “there hasn’t been any obvious gaffes, big scandals or anything like that.” From Friday’s PBS NewsHour: GEOFF BENNETT, ANCHOR: President Biden’s allies say the fact that he’s facing only token primary opposition from author Marianne Williamson and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. really is a show of strength for him. DAVID BROOKS: Oh, for sure. I mean, there’s — in the polling, there’s still a lot of Democrats who think he should not run, but that’s mostly an age issue, not an ideology issue. But the midterm election sort of silenced all that. And he’s been looking strong. He gave a strong State of the Union. There hasn’t been any obvious gaffes, big scandals or anything like that. And so there’s nothing — or, even ideologically, I’d say, over the two years so far, two and a bit, that he’s pretty well massaged the center-left fights that happen in the Democratic Party by doing things that some people, the centrists like, and some things that people on the Left like. And so there’s no natural home for an opposition candidate, and everyone’s united by Donald Trump. And so, you know, I think what’s interesting about him, he’s been sounding pretty candidate-y for six months now. He’s been talking like, 'I really want to go after Trump.' And he’s been doing it. You know, I think what has to concern the White House a little is they’ve had improving inflation, a lot of good domestic policy achievements, Republicans have staked out some pretty extreme ground on a lot of issues. And if you look at the polls, it’s still reasonably close. His approvals are still in 46s. And it could be that we’re just in an extremely partisan, divided country, an extremely cynical country, where, on the national level, nobody — and this is global — no national leader gets popular anymore. No national leader gets to 55, because there’s so much cynicism across the Western world. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “How surreal to visit the world of PBS News, where Joe Biden is ‘strong,’ has had ‘a lot of good domestic policy achievements’ and hasn’t had any ‘obvious gaffes’ or scandals. Biden is a ‘gaffe’ machine! As for scandals, hello Hunter Biden and Chinese money going to the Biden family, to say nothing of the ongoing scandal of the out-of-control border. Just because PBS ignores Biden’s confusion and malfeasance doesn’t mean he’s good at his job. But to PBS, this is analysis from the ‘conservative’ house analyst. No wonder conservative taxpayers are so annoyed about having to fund PBS.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ April 17: Liberal Media Scream: ABC pundit says Republicans are the bossy ones (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features an ABC News pundit ripping Republicans for pushing people around. Jane Coaston, once with the New York Times, cited abortion in claiming Republicans are America’s busybodies, ignoring how the Democrats are engaged in a wide-ranging effort to force the country to accept electric cars, gas stoves, and kiddie transgender operations. “I think the most important political priority for any political party is to not be the people telling people what to do,” she said. Thankfully, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was sitting next to her on ABC’s This Week. He countered, “Democrats are going to have a hard time making that case when you look at public education and what their position is, which is, us and the teachers’ unions know what to tell your children and where they should go to school and how they should be taught.” From the roundtable on Sunday’s This Week on ABC: JANE COASTON: I think the most important political priority for any political party is to not be the people telling people what to do. For the last five years, we’ve heard from Republicans, especially even during COVID, about how freedom was going to reign and that they were just going to let people make decisions for themselves. They want to be the cool mom of politics. Well, that era has ended. And I think that there’s a specific type of libertarianism that is very popular in America. Unlike the Libertarian Party. But there’s a specific type of, don’t tell me what to do, let me make my decisions. Let me make my decisions for my family, that is very politically profitable. And I think that if Democrats are able to say that we are the party that says you can make these decisions, you can make decisions for your family, your family can make decisions for themselves, I think that that will be politically profitable. And I think that for Republicans, it’s going to be challenging to try to sound simultaneously like cool mom and the Moral Majority that so many of us grew up with. CHRIS CHRISTIE: Well, the Democratic Party is all for that on abortion, but they are against it when it comes to public education. When it comes to public education, people shouldn’t be able to make their own decisions, you shouldn't be able to have the ability to have your child go to parochial school if you can’t afford it, or to go to a charter school if they’re not available in your town. Or to be able to decide what your children should be able to learn about sexuality and at what age they should learn that. So the Democrats are going to have a hard time making that case when you look at public education and what their position is, which is us and the teachers’ unions know what to tell your children and where they should go to school and how they should be taught. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “What a total lack of self-awareness. If you really think ‘the most important political priority for any political party is to not be the people telling people what to do,’ how can you be a Democrat, as Coaston obviously is, since telling people what to do is the fundamental passion of modern Democrats on everything from the kind of car you can drive to the type of stove you can put in your kitchen? As the famous line goes, where Democrats can be substituted for liberals, liberals don’t care what you do as long as it’s mandatory.’” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ April 10: Liberal Media Scream: Liberals can’t handle the truth (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the news industry’s knee-jerk reaction to the expulsion of two Tennessee Democrats from the legislature for violating floor rules in aggressively demanding gun control. MSNBC political pundit Jon Meacham gets our spotlight for his rambling tie-in of abortion, gender, guns, and, of course, former President Donald Trump to the ouster of state Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson last week. “These things are connected,” Meacham said in dismissing Republicans and blaming Trump in the latest example of the media’s Trump derangement syndrome. “It’s a reminder that what Trump has represented, which is this showmanship, this, ‘We’re going to own the libs,’ is actually of enormous real-world consequence, right? His reality show, which is about his attention and his fundraising and his ego and his narcissism, has an impact on how people live and how the vulnerable live.” Our curator, Media Research Center’s Vice President Brent Baker, gave a rare five out of five “scream” rating and said the meandering performance showed that liberals can’t handle the truth. “The Republicans in control of the Tennessee legislature were following the very rules of the state constitution in expelling the two Democrats, the kind of orderly process Meacham advocated but can’t accept when it reminds him of Trump-like wrath,” Baker said in his analysis. Meacham on Monday’s Morning Joe on MSNBC: I can’t help, just because of where I’m sitting in Nashville, to bring this up as well. You know, 14 days ago, the children, the teachers, the adults who were murdered at the Covenant School were getting ready for school at this hour. And I bring it up because there are — there’s the issue of reproductive health, there’s the issue of a wildly and, if I may, weirdly expansive view of the Second Amendment, there’s an anti-democratic, lowercase “D” movement because we have a supermajority here. Because Republicans can expel two members, they did. And these things are connected. It’s a reminder — and imagine a world where we haven’t even mentioned the indictment of a former president and the potential indictments coming — it’s a reminder that what Trump has represented, which is this showmanship, this, “We’re going to own the libs,” is actually of enormous real-world consequence, right? His reality show, which is about his attention and his fundraising and his ego and his narcissism, has an impact on how people live and how the vulnerable live. And people who are vulnerable who don’t even know they’re vulnerable because they’re 9 years old and they’re going to school. And so, the right wing — and, Joe, you alluded to it, you grew up around this, you were elected — the right wing needs to be a fully functioning part of a two-party constitutional system. And they can believe what they want to believe about reproduction and about guns, and that’s all what they’re supposed to do. Then you take it to the people. And when you take it to the people, you then obey the result because that’s what we do. That’s what separates us from chaos. Think about what the Right is doing here. They’re doing two things: They’re pushing, arguably, too far on these important issues, and then if they get a result they don’t like, they storm a capital, or they throw people out of a legislature. Seems to me you can have the first, but you can’t have the second, and if you insist on having both, then you are not part of this conversation, and we need a conversation that has people of good faith, whether you agree with them or not. These are difficult issues, right? I mean, the definition of life and the Roe system. This isn’t easy. There are people of enormous goodwill, enormous goodwill, who differ from lots of folks that we’re talking to and about. But you take it to the system, you take it to the Constitution, and if there’s a decision, you respect it, and if the decision goes the other way, you work within channels. You don’t throw people out of legislative bodies. Baker explains our weekly pick: “A classic example of Trump derangement syndrome, though this time in a droll and low-key manner, yet still an instance of how liberals in the media see everything through a Trump prism. The Republicans in control of the Tennessee legislature were following the very rules of the state constitution in expelling the two Democrats, the kind of orderly process Meacham advocated but can’t accept when it reminds him of Trump-like wrath.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ April 3: Liberal Media Scream: 60 Minutes’ hate list against Marjorie Taylor Greene (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the acid 60 Minutes interview of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene by Lesley Stahl. In it, the Georgia Republican pushed back hard against Stahl’s trolling interview that included a hater’s list of nasty comments thrown at the lawmaker ever since she first ran for the North Georgia House seat. For her reporting project, Stahl went on social media to “look up” some of the comments. She read them to Greene, who shrugged, “Looks like the average troll in my Twitter feed, so I don’t really care.” There was no mention in the televised story of the times Greene has been swatted in several cases where she was worried about becoming a so-called “death by police” victim. Stahl also couldn’t resist the standard liberal media mantra on the necessity of raising taxes. On the debt ceiling, Stahl asked, “Would you be willing to vote for compromise? In other words, raise some taxes?” Greene replied: “I don’t think we have a revenue problem in Washington. We have a spending problem.” Stahl sneered, “That’s glib. That’s glib.” From Sunday’s 60 Minutes on CBS: LESLEY STAHL: We looked up some words that have been said about you. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: OK. STAHL: “Crazy,” “Q-clown,” “Looney Tune,” “unhinged,” “moron.” Pretty ugly stuff. GREENE: Looks like the average troll in my Twitter feed, so I don’t really care. STAHL: You’re used to it? GREENE: I don’t let name-calling bother me or offend me. I just don’t. ..... STAHL: Would you be willing to vote for compromise? In other words, raise some taxes? GREENE: I don’t think we have a revenue problem in Washington. We have a spending problem. STAHL: You know something? That’s glib. That’s glib. That, what does that mean? The two sides have to come together and hammer it out. GREENE: Cut spending. STAHL: Both sides. GREENE: Both sides need to cut spending. STAHL: Where do you want to cut it? GREENE: COVID bailout money and a lot of green energy spending. STAHL: But are you willing to let us go into default? GREENE: No. I’ve always said I wouldn’t do that. STAHL: So, would you compromise? GREENE: It depends. STAHL: On taxes? You won’t. GREENE: No, I’m not raising taxes. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “The 60 Minutes story was unremarkable in many ways as Stahl painted, as you’d expect from the establishment media, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as a crazy far-right extremist. But Stahl showed how she and CBS News consider the congresswoman first and foremost to be an impediment to their consistent demand that taxes must be raised. In that respect, to CBS she’s just as awful as any conservative who prefers cutting spending to raising taxes.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ March 27: Liberal Media Scream: Jon Stewart says America all talk on ending discrimination (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features liberal activist Jon Stewart claiming that efforts in America to embrace the diversity, equity, and inclusion movement are just an inch deep, a “salve” to make people feel good. On CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, the former host of the Daily Show on Comedy Central lumped critical race theory in with DEI and said that despite all the hand-wringing by many to change society’s views on discrimination, it’s mostly just talk. He pointed to the National Football League as an example. The NFL has the so-called Rooney Rule, which requests that teams interview minorities when a top job comes open, nothing more. “So here’s what we are going to do,” Stewart said. “We’re going to have to talk to one black guy. ‘Are we good? I think we’re good.’” Jon Stewart on Sunday’s Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN: By the way, all these diversity initiatives and CRT and all those other things are only there because we refuse to actually fix the real problem. The diversity and equity initiatives are a salve. They are to pacify and mollify because we won’t actually do the real thing. We won’t actually dismantle the vestiges of all the systemic racism and all the systemic classism and all the systemic gender issues. We won’t actually dismantle that. But what we will do is you can have an office in the building. And every few months, we’re going to have to sit and listen to you talk for, like, an hour. “And so we’re good, right?” Like, it’s a country that won’t face — I’ll explain it like, OK, the NFL, right? You know the Rooney Rule? The Rooney Rule in the NFL is because there are so few African American coaches, you have to at least interview, like, one of them. So that’s the rule now, instead of it’s the thing you put in place instead of looking at the owner’s box, and realizing, oh, right, that’s just the legacy of the economic segregation that’s been in our country since its founding. So we’re never going to deal with that. So here’s what we are going to do. A diversity and equity initiative, we’re going to have to talk to one black guy. “Are we good? I think we’re good.” But that’s what I’m, what I’m trying to say is we don’t — the thing that they’re pointing at is the thing that’s in place because we won’t do the actual thing. Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “To conservatives, DEI is undermining the American ideal of equal opportunity and replacing it with forced equal outcomes that exacerbate racial tensions. Stewart put himself clearly on the Left, contending DEI doesn’t go far enough but complaining it’s ‘in place because we won’t do the actual thing.’ Yet he never explains what that ‘actual thing’ would entail.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ March 20: Liberal Media Scream: Joy Reid coddles reporter fired for hostility to DeSantis (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream turns to the case of an Axios reporter who was fired for describing as “propaganda” a news release dished out by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Instead of backing Axios in her interview with the reporter, MSNBC’s liberal host Joy Reid blamed DeSantis and gave the reporter a chance to blast Axios and claim that the likely Republican presidential candidate bullied Axios into action. Reid said, “There is a bullying aspect and a lot of trolling" of those who work for DeSantis. The Tampa-based journalist Ben Montgomery said on Reid’s show, “I feel like what Axios did to me has a chilling effect on the entire news media.” Here’s what happened, according to the New York Post: “Journalist Ben Montgomery was fired from the news outlet [Axios] after a staffer in the state Department of Education tweeted out a screenshot of him telling the department’s press office over email, ‘This is propaganda, not a press release’ in reply to a release that highlighted the GOP governor hosting a roundtable on ‘Exposing the Diversity Equity and Inclusion Scam in Higher Education.’” Oh, and of course, he's thinking of cashing in with a book. From the March 16 episode of The ReidOut on MSNBC: BEN MONTGOMERY: So we have the Florida Department of Education, that’s kind of engaged in, in my view, campaigning for DeSantis for 2024 presidential campaign. So what they are doing is weaponizing these emails that we sometimes send and trying to make us look like lefty activists when really we’re just interested in them serving the people and being true public service and doing the right kind of work that the taxpayers are paying them for. JOY REID: There is a bullying aspect and a lot of trolling. They do a lot of Twitter trolling. They tried to bully my dear friend and colleague Andrea Mitchell for asking a question not even to DeSantis, to the vice president, Kamala Harris. Did you experience, before this, any kind of bullying behavior from the DeSantis camp? BEN MONTGOMERY: Look, I mostly write about fluffy kind of things. I cover the news, of course. I’ve been an investigative reporter for a long time but not with this administration. By and large I have not had the opportunity to really do any kind of depth, in-depth reporting on a DeSantis administration. I’m not a person that they should be afraid of, I don’t think. I’m not writing about them every day. I’m not digging deep, in other words. So yeah, but this was propaganda and it was a waste of my time. That’s ultimately what I was saying to them. It’s wasting my time and it’s done in a clear vein of propaganda. This is objectionably propaganda. And I read the whole thing because I give them the benefit of the doubt because they work for the people of Florida. And I want to do right by my readers. And so when this wastes my time and it’s just propaganda, I feel like I have a right to say so. And I feel like what Axios did to me has a chilling effect on the entire news media. It’s a very sad thing. REID: Oh, it 100% does! It does show that bullying works. And that sends a message to every other journalist. You put up a sort of fun tweet after this all happened saying that you made a quiche. What are your next plans? MONTGOMERY: I was talking to my agent today about whether there was a book in this, and maybe there is. Maybe it’s time that somebody isn’t afraid to stand up to DeSantis, write a true biography of him. So I might be the guy to do that. We’ll see. REID: Yeah, good luck, he has his military records, people have lots and lots of questions. Maybe you can pull it off. Ben Montgomery, thank you man. Really appreciate you being here, and best of luck in whatever you do next. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Montgomery’s attitude betrayed as true what the DeSantis staff saw; he is, despite his denial, a ‘lefty activist,’ just one that a media outlet, in a rarity, held accountable. Reid, of course, saw it all through the prism of her hatred for all things DeSantis and thus treated him as the victim instead of as the one who violated the trust of his readers.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ March 13: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC wants baseball out of Florida over DeSantis (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a new call from an MSNBC anchor for baseball to pull spring training out of Florida over some of the recent social policy moves by likely 2024 presidential candidate and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Anchor Lindsey Reiser compared Florida under DeSantis to the days of Jim Crow as she featured Washington Post sports writer Kevin Blackistone, who had just published a column urging Major League Baseball to respond to “Ron DeSantis’s culture wars.” She said: “You outlined Major League Baseball’s move out of Florida for spring training in yesteryear — late ‘40s, a state with some of the harshest Jim Crow laws as the league was introducing black players to the league.” He responded that MLB has already shown a hand, moving the 2021 All-Star Game out of Georgia over voting reform laws that turned out to be a nonfactor in last year’s elections that saw record numbers of people at the polls. Baseball, he said, “should express if it has some uncomfortableness with the things that are going on in the DeSantis campaign, in the way that he’s run the state of Florida, and in some of the other legislation that has been passed there that they should speak out.” From MSNBC Reports in the 10 a.m. ET hour, on Friday: LINDSEY REISER: Back in DeSantis’s home state, his fellow Republicans are pretty busy this week with lawmakers introducing three new bills that would expand on legislation that critics call the "Don’t Say Gay Law," another that would ban abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, and a proposal to require bloggers who write about Florida politics to register with the state. This all comes just over a month after Gov. DeSantis's decision to block AP African American Studies from Florida schools, but as Florida sees all kinds of controversy over those proposals, it’s also in the middle of a spring tradition with 15 Major League Baseball teams currently holding spring training and the league and players facing growing calls to speak out against those bills. Joining me right now, ESPN panelist and sports commentary writer for the Washington Post, Kevin Blackistone. He’s out with a new piece called “Baseball can no longer ignore Ron DeSantis’s culture wars.” Kevin, thanks for being with us. I want to talk to you about the piece. You outlined Major League Baseball’s move out of Florida for spring training in yesteryear — late ‘40s, a state with some of the harshest Jim Crow laws as the league was introducing black players to the league. In 1947, again, Jackie Robinson joining the Brooklyn Dodgers, his team moving spring training to Havana, Cuba. That same year, the Cleveland Indians, the New York Giants moved spring training to Tucson. KEVIN BLACKISTONE: So baseball reacted, right, and they started to depart from, or certain teams did, from Florida. And that really began the tradition of the Cactus League in Arizona. So that is the through line to what is going on now. And baseball has in the very recent past, right, in 2021, they moved the All-Star Game out of the state of Georgia in protest to some of the election laws that a lot of people in the state of Georgia felt were burdensome on black voters in particular and other people of color and people who were marginalized in that state. So I just think that, you know, baseball has spoken out on these issues before, and I think it should express if it has some uncomfortableness with the things that are going on in the DeSantis campaign, in the way that he’s run the state of Florida, and in some of the other legislation that has been passed there that they should speak out. You know, we talked about — and I know this network has — about the review of books for youth in the public schools in the state of Florida and some of those that have not yet been allowed back on the shelves. One of those books happens to be a book about Jackie Robinson, so think about the irony of that. They also temporarily suspended the distribution of books about Roberto Clemente and Hank Aaron, two of the great black stars of baseball. Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “What an incredibly insidious historic precedent to cite, the Democratic Party’s century of enforcing segregation, as a rationale now for punishing the people of Florida over a disagreement with policies pushed by the Republican DeSantis. Nothing DeSantis has ever advocated comes close to the kind of racist, inhumane policies Florida enforced in the 1940s.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ March 6: Liberal Media Scream: Whoopi cheers erasing history she’s ‘not in tune with’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a feud on the Left about “woke” history rewriting between Bill Maher and Whoopi Goldberg. The initial focus is Maher’s defense on CNN of former President Abraham Lincoln, who ended slavery, and an apparent reference to the Washington, D.C., Emancipation Memorial that featured what many believe is a thankful former slave at his feet. “Abraham Lincoln was not a controversial figure among liberals. We liked him. Now they take his name off schools and tear down his statues. Really, Lincoln isn't good enough for you?” said Maher on CNN. Enter Goldberg, a critic of the statue, who slammed the woke movement, claiming she and other black people have always been “woke” to undercurrents of racism. “And this idea of woke, I'll say it again: Most of y'all were asleep,” she said on The View, drawing a look from co-host Joy Behar. From ABC’s The View on Thursday: WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Maher also had some criticism for the other side of the aisle, claiming the Left lost the definition of the term "woke." Huh? OK. Take a look. BILL MAHER: Democrats sometimes can take it too far. You know, I would categorize liberal as different than woke. Woke, which started out as a good thing, alert to injustice — who could be against that? But it became sort of an eye roll because they love diversity except of ideas. Abraham Lincoln was not a controversial figure among liberals. We liked him. Now they take his name off schools and tear down his statues. Really, Lincoln isn’t good enough for you? WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Well, that statue was not good enough. Because it showed a slave down at Lincoln’s feet. And if we’re tearing down statues that are really not in tune with where we are as a nation, or at least where we were a couple of months ago, yeah, you got to take it down. That’s why they removed stuff. That’s why people are moving stuff around. And this idea of woke, I’m going to say it again: Most of y’all were asleep. JOY BEHAR: Who are you speaking to? GOLDBERG: I’m talking to all those folks that use that word “woke” all the time. Y’all were asleep. We were never asleep. We had to stay awake watching you. So, you woke up and you thought, “Oh, my God, there’s lots of women running amok doing things they’re not supposed to be doing and drag queens everywhere and oh, my God, people of color!” You know, you always talk about the snowflakes — look in the mirror. Y’all can’t seem to handle anything. You can’t seem to handle competition from Democrats to Republicans. You can’t seem to handle the discussions of why people feel the way they do. Your idea is to get rid of everything. So, stop calling us snowflakes. Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “One wonders if Goldberg will be so pleased when the calls come to take down statues of Martin Luther King and remove his name from roads and schools. After all, like her argument with Lincoln, ‘he’s really not in tune with where we are as a nation’ since, by 2023 standards, he was homophobic and transphobic.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ February 27: Liberal Media Scream: Hollywood says banning filming plastic bottles will save the world (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream is going a little off beat to highlight a new Hollywood claim that movie studios and actors are saving the world and the environment with an honor system to ban plastic bottles “on camera.” It came from Fran Drescher, the president of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the star of The Nanny, a hit sitcom in the 1990s, as she addressed the SAG Awards show last night. To a smattering of applause, Drescher said that Hollywood’s effort to stop showing plastic on camera was the industry’s biggest effort “to save the planet since World War II.” Drescher, during the SAG Awards carried live Sunday night on Netflix’s channel on YouTube, said: “I am very proud to say that SAG-AFTRA and MPAA has forged Green Council, the biggest joint effort of stars and studios to save the planet since World War II. Mission No. 1: an honor system to eliminate single-use plastic on camera, behind the scenes, and leverage star power to challenge audiences around the world to do the same. You may notice this year on your tables, they’re all glass bottles.” Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Nothing better encapsulates out-of-touch Hollywood celebrities than the hubris displayed by Drescher to describe actors not using single-use plastic on camera as key to the greatest effort ‘to save the planet since World War II.’ That’s ludicrous, and even her own union members realized that, hence the very minimal applause in the room. Many viewers watching at home were likely laughing at her absurdity. Perhaps she should be a little more concerned about her members demanding on-set trailers and private jets.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ February 20: Liberal Media Scream: The View hits ‘Ron DeSaster,’ would ‘ban the alphabet’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the hosts of ABC’s The View and their escalating screeching about Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and his efforts to have public school lessons conform with state law and what Sunshine State parents want. Instead of a level-headed discussion about his efforts, the hosts attacked DeSantis as a right-wing social warrior who liberal Republican and never-Trumper Ana Navarro dubbed “Ron DeSaster.” The name-calling included unhinged charges that the governor is so anti-education that he would “ban the alphabet.” The ranting followed moves by DeSantis to question a new College Board Advanced Placement class on black history. He and some other governors are concerned the liberal class plan teaches critical race theory and other lessons banned in the state. “I think he’s going to ban the alphabet. Holy hell,” said Navarro. From ABC’s The View on Thursday, Feb. 16: ANA NAVARRO: What this is all about getting on Fox News. What this is all about is fanning the flames of grievance, of white grievance. What this is all about is manufacturing culture wars that do not exist so that he can come out like William Wallace, the guy in Braveheart — “Freedom!” Listen, I live in Florida. I live under Gov. Ron DeSaster! SUNNY HOSTIN: You got to move, Ana. NAVARRO: Every day, I wake up and wonder what he’s going to be. What’s the flavor du jour today? What’s he going to be against today? He’s against AP He’s against DEI — diversity, equity, and inclusion. He’s against [environmental, social, and governance] this week. He’s against electric stoves. HOSTIN: Don’t say gay. NAVARRO: He’s against LGBTQ. I think he’s going to ban the alphabet. Holy hell. JOY BEHAR: These people, these fascists out there like DeSantis, they think that we’re just going to sit back and let them do whatever they want. No, we’re not. We’ve seen this movie before. OK? Those of us who lived in the '60s and '70s, we saw this movie. There were many, many fascist tactics coming down the pike from Nixon and the rest of these fascists; that’s what they are. And we protested and we protested, and we ended a war that was illegal. And we did stuff. And it’s happening again. That’s the good news. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “The unhinged reaction to Ron DeSantis says something about who the left is most afraid of running for president. The stars of The View can’t have an honest discussion about his policies and ideas, so they rant and rave and call him a ‘fascist’ and make other ridiculous accusations. It may entertain liberal viewers, but it should be embarrassing to ABC News, which produces the daily gabfest.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ February 13: Liberal Media Scream: Stephanopoulos demands GOP investigate Trump family (Washington Examiner post) Armed only with a Washington Post story about Saudi links to Kushner and Trump, Stephanopoulos asked Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chairman of the panel, “Will you be investigating that as well?” Comer called for strict ethics disclosure laws, which Democrats have resisted, but that wasn’t good enough for the media star and former Clinton White House aide. “To be clear,” he said, “you believe that this should apply to Kushner and Trump as well as the Bidens at this point?” The exchange on Sunday’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me ask you more about your oversight responsibilities. You made it clear you are going to be looking at Hunter Biden and his financial entanglements with foreign countries including China. I want to put up a front-page story from the Washington Post this morning detailing Jared Kushner’s ties to the Saudis. “After helping the prince's rise, Trump and Kushner benefit from Saudi funds.” A $2 billion investment in Kushner’s funds from the Saudis. We know the president, former President Trump, has also received funds related to the Saudi golf tour. Sen. Ron Wyden says these entanglements deserve investigation. Will you be investigating that as well? REP. JAMES COMER: I think everything’s on the table. Look, we’re investigating Joe Biden. We know that Joe Biden said during the presidential campaign that he had no knowledge of his son’s business interests. He wasn’t involved. He didn’t benefit from them. We have evidence that would suggest otherwise, and this is very concerning. ... The Democrats complained about Kushner’s foreign dealings. Republicans are certainly complaining about the entire Biden family’s foreign business dealings. We need to know what is allowable and what isn’t allowable. We need to have strict ethics laws, and we need to significantly increase the disclosure laws in America. So I think this investigation is going to be very important to fix a problem before it gets out of hand. STEPHANOPOULOS: But to be clear, you believe that this should apply to Kushner and Trump as well as the Bidens at this point? COMER: I believe that when we talk about passing legislation to set a line as to where you can be with relatives of high-ranking government officials with respect to doing business with adversaries overseas, then it would apply to everyone. We need to fix this before it gets worse in the next administration. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “If only the Washington press corps were as eager over the years to jump on stories about Hunter and Joe Biden getting money out of China as they have consistently been to promote every new allegation against anyone in Donald Trump’s orbit. It’s almost as if Stephanopoulos is trying to deflect from Joe Biden, to apply his own version of ‘both-siderism’ to undermine the impact of Congressman Comer’s upcoming hearings on the Bidens.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ February 6: Liberal Media Scream: Reporters beg for Biden to get ‘credit’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream shows how desperate some in the media are for President Joe Biden to get “credit” for his efforts at a time when polls show that 62% do not believe the Democrat has accomplished much. The top cheerleader is NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell who said on Meet the Press that the president isn’t getting the thanks he deserves. “He’s not getting credit for the economy, and should be,” she told host Chuck Todd. From Sunday’s Meet the Press on NBC: ANDREA MITCHELL: And he’s not getting credit for the economy, and should be. Look at it, you know, I think the danger of recession is receding. It’s not altogether gone. We see a big jobs market. It’s a problem for Jay Powell [chairman of the Federal Reserve] because now they do have to keep tightening. But, you know, wage growth is moderating. CHUCK TODD: I tell you, people don’t– MITCHELL: Layoffs are only in a few sectors, they’re not universal. TODD: There's no doubt– AMY WALTER: Manufacturing is building. TODD: –but people still feel like this economy’s just not– MITCHELL: That’s right, because inflation’s stable. TODD: It still feels wobbly. CORNELL BELCHER: Mid-summer, mid-summer – let’s, let’s check in on that. TODD: That’s fair. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “How nice it must be to be a Democratic president so you have leading members of the Washington press corps spinning talking points in your favor, days before your big speech, about how you ‘should be’ getting more credit. Mitchell’s contentions about Biden’s record are better suited for someone from the White House press office than someone who is supposed to be a dispassionate journalist.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ January 30: Liberal Media Scream: Hammer time: Speaker McCarthy pounds media bias and double standards (Washington Examiner post) Last week, for example, when a reporter didn’t like McCarthy’s answer to a question, the speaker said: “Let me be very clear and respectful to you. You asked me a question. When I answer it, it's the answer to your question. You don't get to determine whether I answer your question or not, OK?” Then, on Face the Nation, he bristled when host Margaret Brennan criticized his appointment of “election deniers” to committee posts. Noting that she didn’t complain when Democratic deniers of former President Donald Trump’s election got good committee seats, he said, “If you want to hold Republicans to that equation, why don’t you also hold Democrats?” From Sunday’s interview on CBS’s Face the Nation: Margaret Brennan: I want to ask you about some of the makeup of your caucus. Speaker Kevin McCarthy: Yes. Brennan: According to CBS records, 70% of the House GOP members denied the results of the 2020 election. You put many of them on very key committees: Intelligence, Homeland Security, Oversight. Why are you elevating people who are denying reality like that? McCarthy: Well, if you look to the Democrats, their ranking member [Jamie] Raskin had the same thing, denied Trump or Bush was in there. Bennie Thompson — Brennan: Did you see those numbers we just put up there? Seventy percent! McCarthy: Did you also be fair and equal where you looked at Raskin did the same thing, Bennie Thompson, whose a ranking member and was a chair? These individuals were chair of the Democratic Party. Brennan: I’m asking you, as leader of Kevin McCarthy’s House, why you made these choices? These were your choices. McCarthy: Yeah, they're my choices, but they’re the conference choices. But I’m also asking you when you look to see just Republicans — Democrats have done the same thing. So maybe it’s not denying. Maybe it’s the only opportunity they have to have a question about what went on during the election. So if you want to hold Republicans to that equation, why don’t you also hold Democrats? Why don’t you hold Jamie Raskin? Why don’t you hold Bennie Thompson? When Democrats had appointed them to be chair, I never once heard you ask Nancy Pelosi or any Democrat that question when they were in power, in the majority. When they questioned — Brennan: You’re talking about things going back to 2000, which was a time, I didn’t have this show back then, which is why I’m asking you now about your leadership. McCarthy: No, no! They were in power last Congress. So why — Brennan: You’re talking about questions from the 2000 election. McCarthy: You’re asking me about questions that happened to another Congress. Brennan: About these choices you just made, just made. This is your Congress. McCarthy: These are members who just got elected by their constituents, and we put them into committees. And I’m proud to do it. Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “It’s always refreshing to see a politician push back against a liberal media storyline the journalist presumes is beyond questioning, especially when the journalist is someone so oblivious as Brennan is to her bias.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS (CHEERS).   ■ January 23: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC’s Joy Reid says DeSantis likes only ‘happy slaves’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream highlights the latest cable TV attack on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s war on woke policies in what is likely to become a regular media pattern as the top Republican rival of former President Donald Trump steps closer to a 2024 bid. The attack came from MSNBC’s Joy Reid, enraged that DeSantis scuttled a pilot AP black course in state schools. But it’s not that simple, despite her spin. According to the DeSantis administration, the new course offered by College Board violates Florida's new anti-"woke" law because it is favorable to critical race theory. “As submitted, the course is a vehicle for a political agenda and leaves large, ambiguous gaps that can be filled with additional ideological material, which we will not allow,” said Bryan Griffin, the governor’s press secretary. “As Governor DeSantis has stated, our classrooms will be a place for education, not indoctrination." Reid, however, smeared DeSantis as a racist for his administration’s actions. “I’m not saying Ron DeSantis is racist, but to quote [former Tallahassee Mayor] Andrew Gillum, I think the racists might think he’s racist.” She added that DeSantis wants only happy history taught in schools, “the history of slavery as happy slaves, good slave masters.” Plus, watch as she twists the other AP history classes taught in Florida as she bashes the “book-banning wannabe president.” From Thursday’s The ReidOut on MSNBC: Joy Reid: The [Stop Woke Act] is aimed at eradicating the teaching of history, gender identity, and sexual orientation in favor of curriculum that centers and lionizes people who look like Ron DeSantis. Just take a look at what AP courses are deemed educationally valuable in the state of Florida per the book-banning wannabe president. European history, of course. Along with courses on the history and language of Italy, where DeSantis’s family hails from, Germany, and Japan, which happened to be the Axis countries the U.S. fought during World War II. Now, whether Ron would consider fascist Italy to have been a bad guy in that war, well, that’s up for debate. ... So, what DeSantis is essentially saying is that the only valuable Advanced Placement class for a Florida student are classes that are about Europe or the other Axis countries. That’s it. African-American studies is not deemed valuable, and it’s not that he’s saying you can’t teach black history, but here’s the evidence. It’s how you teach black history that he’s got a problem with. DeSantis, when he was a high school history teacher — this is the quote from one of his former students. He was a high school history teacher at a private school in Georgia. ‘Mr. DeSantis was mean to me and hostile toward me,’ said Miss Pompey, who graduated in 2003. ‘Not aggressively but passively because I was black.’ She recalled DeSantis teaching, this is the important part, Civil War history in a way that sounded to her like an attempt to justify slavery. So, when I add that to the fact he’s going after the National Hockey League because they dare to recruit nonblack people, essentially saying you may recruit white people and continue to keep a very white league white, but you may not try to recruit minorities. You know, I’m not saying Ron DeSantis is racist, but to quote Andrew Gillum, I think the racists might think he’s racist. ... It’s the Daughters of the American Revolution, the pro-Confederate groups who insisted that we can only teach the history of slavery as happy slaves, good slave masters. If you’re doing that, I promise you an AP class that taught that, that slavery was good, because it seemed at least per his former students, Dr. [Steve] Gallon [member of the Miami-Dale school board] that he wanted to teach history of slavery as sort of gallant slave owners who were kind to their happy slaves. He’s cool with that. And if the AP course said that, he’d be fine with it. I also think that you’ve seen the revelation of what this is really about. A guy named Stanley Kurtz claims he read the story, that he read the curriculum, and he said, ‘The larger danger here is that these courses, if they’re approved, will see the college board devise AP courses in women's studies, gender studies, transgender studies, Latino studies, environmental studies, a full panoply of polarized studies that have Balkanized and politicized higher education.’ Dr. Gallon, in your view, is this an attempt to shut down the teaching of not just black history but any history but the Hallmark card of white and European history? Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Reid’s vitriol shows DeSantis must be succeeding in making inroads to undercut institutions, such as the education establishment, as vehicles for liberal indoctrination of students. So, DeSantis must be discredited with over-the-top invective before he gains any traction in a presidential race. But Reid’s hatred toward him will only elevate the admiration for him amongst conservatives and many independent voters.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ January 16, 2023: Liberal Media Scream: In Chuck Todd’s ‘facts,’ Sen. Ron Johnson sees bias (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream raises an interesting question in today’s partisan Washington. Why do Republicans talk to liberal journalists if they know that they are going to be insulted? That was the case Sunday on Chuck Todd’s Meet the Press when Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WY) appeared, knowing he was holding the short end of the stick no matter what he said. Johnson even said so: “This is pretty obvious to anybody watching this, is you don’t invite me on to interview me. You invite me on to argue with me.” The host, of course, was having none of it. In between his favorite authority openings of “Look” and “So,” he got the last insult in when he said, “You can go back on your partisan cable cocoon and talk about media bias all you want. I understand it’s part of your identity.” From Sunday’s Meet the Press: CHUCK TODD: I’ll take it at your word that you’re ethically bothered by Hunter Biden. I’m curious, though. You seem to have a pattern. SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): Are you not? Are you not? TODD: I’m a journalist. I have to deal in facts. I deal in facts, so senator, my question to you is, I have skepticism of both parties. I sit here with skepticism of a lot of people’s work. JOHNSON: So do I. TODD: And I’m curious, are you — were you at all concerned — your Senate Democrats want to investigate Jared Kushner’s loan from the Qatari government when he was working in the government, negotiating many things in the Middle East? Are you not concerned about that? I say that because it seems to me if you’re concerned about what Hunter Biden did, you should be equally outraged about what Jared Kushner did. JOHNSON: I’m concerned about getting the truth. I don’t target individuals — TODD: You don’t? You’re targeting Hunter Biden multiple times on this show, senator. You’re targeting an individual. JOHNSON: Chuck, you know, part of the problem, and this is pretty obvious to anybody watching this is, you don’t invite me on to interview me. You invite me on to argue with me. I’m just trying to lay out the facts that certainly Sen. Grassley and I uncovered. They were suppressed. They were censored. They interfered in the 2020 election. Conservatives understand that. Unfortunately, liberals in the media don’t. And that’s part of the reasons our politics are inflamed is we do not have an unbiased media. We don’t. It’s unfortunate. I’m all for a free press, and it needs to be more unbiased. TODD: Senator, look — go to partisan — Senator, look, we’re trying to do issues here and facts. Look, you can go back on your partisan cable cocoon and talk about media bias all you want. I understand it’s part of your identity. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Chuck Todd, in all his obnoxious glory. Kudos to Sen. Ron Johnson for taking on Todd’s obvious bias and hostility to the concerns of conservatives, even if he is obvious to his own ‘cocoon.’ Pot meet kettle.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.   ■ January 9, 2023: Liberal Media Scream: James Comer nails Chuck Todd’s biased views (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream is the first proof that there is a new sheriff in town, a House GOP majority that is eager to point out the biased and often hypocritical views in the media. In our spotlight is Rep. James Comer (R-KY), incoming chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, invited on to Chuck Todd’s NBC Sunday show, Meet the Press. He faced the typically biased questions and views of the host, such as when Todd suggested the GOP would be holding votes on legislation it knows President Joe Biden won’t sign, as if Democrats never held “show” votes. Todd also sneered at Comer’s investigation agenda, suggesting it was just political theater. But instead of taking it, the lawmaker pushed right back, calling out the biased media. When Todd dismissed Republican plans to hold votes on term limits and a balanced budget as “show votes,” Comer countered, “A lot of times, as you know, Chuck, you have to take bills through numerous sessions of Congress before they finally become law.” And when Todd hit GOP plans to probe the Biden administration as “more partisan than professional,” Comer said, “I think the only people that see this as a partisan investigation are the media and the hardcore Democrats.” And for good measure, he added, “Are you kidding me!” Two of the exchanges from Sunday’s Meet the Press on NBC: CHUCK TODD: I‘m curious, those two things you mention, those are show votes. They’re not going to pass. They have no chance of passing. Some of them might need to be constitutional amendments, and you know how arduous that process is. What’s the point of passing a bill that basically, you get to put a press release out on, but it doesn’t get enacted? REP. JAMES COMER: A lot of times, as you know, Chuck, you have to take bills through numerous sessions of Congress before they finally become law. TODD: Let me ask you this. You’re going to do a lot of oversight. You’re going to have a lot of subpoenas. Many people look at what you’re doing, and they see that it looks more partisan than professional. Tell me how you’re going to try to departisanize an investigation? Or do you expect it to be partisan? COMER: Well, with all due respect, Chuck, I disagree with that. I think the only people that see this as a partisan investigation are the media and the hardcore Democrats. Look, at the same moment that the Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee released Donald Trump’s taxes, they then moments later turned around and said, “Comer’s investigation of the Biden family influence peddling is a revenge hearing.” I mean, are you kidding me? Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Comer is off to a great start, recognizing the news media are his enemy just as much as Democrats. It was refreshing to hear an elevated Republican leader take on Todd for his multiple hypocrisies, suddenly concerned, now that Republicans are in charge in the House, about the partisanship of an investigation and the futility of votes on two conservative agenda items that will embarrass Democrats. As if Democrats have never had ‘show votes,’ to put Republicans in a bad light, which most journalists found admirable.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS (CHEERS.)   ■ January 2, 2023: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC calls GOP the party of il Duce (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features MSNBC doing its best to become the network of the crackpot Left, talking itself into irrelevance for just about everyone else. Not satisfied with its record of attacking Republicans and conservatives as MAGA crazies, the cable channel rolled out a host and guest who dismissed the party as fascists. And not just simple fascists such as World War II-era Italian leader Benito Mussolini. How about “neo-fascist,” “proto-fascist,” and “semi-fascist?” Now that’s got to hurt. The name-calling came Saturday when Mehdi Hasan hosted Yale University philosophy professor Jason Stanley on Velshi on MSNBC. Stanley, who authored a book titled How Fascism Works, warned, “I think ‘semi-fascism,’ ‘fascism,’ ‘neo-fascism,’ these are accurate descriptions. We need to drop talk of populism, drop these misleading descriptions that hide what we’re actually facing.” From Saturday’s Velshi: MEHDI HASAN: Jason, the GOP is back in power again, at least in the House of Representatives, which means there will be a fair bit of normalizing of them again by the media. In your view, is it fair to describe the modern GOP as ‘neo-fascist’ or ‘proto-fascist’ or, to quote Joe Biden on the MAGA movement, ‘semi-fascist?’ JASON STANLEY, Yale University: There’s certainly within the modern GOP, as the scapegoating of LGBT citizens demonstrates, a fascist movement rising. We — and, to talk about this as some kind of European thing is a confusion since fascism is Jim Crow with a foreign accent. So we have a native, we have multiple native far-right extremist movements: Christian Nationalism, we’ve got, sort of, heritage of Jim Crow. We’ve got an anti-democratic business establishment. And this is a structure, a grouping, that’s going to bring people to vote for an authoritarian party. And that’s what we have, that’s what the modern GOP is increasingly looking like — as Ruth [NYU history professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat] said, an anti-democratic party. I think ‘semi-fascism,’ ‘fascism,’ ‘neo-fascism,’ these are accurate descriptions. We need to drop talk of populism, drop these misleading descriptions that hide what we’re actually facing. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Quite the multiple-choice, a range which says more about the narrow thinking of MSNBC hosts and guests trying to discredit Republicans than it does about anything to fear from Republicans. Hasan dreads ‘normalizing’ Republicans because it’s a lot easier to demonize them than to take on and seriously address views with which you disagree.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.   > Liberal Media Screams for 2021 and 2022 > For all of 2020. > For all of 2019. > For all of 2018. > For July through December 2017. > For January through June 2017. > For July through December 2016. > For January through June 2016. > For July to December 2015.   December 16th, 2024 7:56 PM Brent Baker 276694 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2024/12/16/cnns-mccabe-demands-context-gun-ownership-change-after-wi-school On Monday afternoon’s CNN News Central, former deputy FBI director, far-left CNN senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe declared “the context of gun ownership” has to undergo substantial changes, regardless of whether it’s “relevant” to the circumstances of a shooting at Madison, Wisconsin Christian school. McCabe opened the door in response to a question from co-host Boris Sanchez about whether he agreed with Madison’s police chief insisting security measures like metal detectors shouldn’t exist: CNN’s Andrew McCabe on the Madison Christian school shooting: “Do we want our kids to have to go to school in lockdown compounds that look more like jails...No security measure is perfect...I think we need to be realistic about what we can expect from those security measures, but… pic.twitter.com/W1SbmK3KVh — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) December 16, 2024 Keilar followed up with an emotional plea to McCabe on the heels of his declaration that “we need to be doing something differently,” asking if there’s “anything” that could be done to “tackl[e] this problem” of guns and the complacency of the American people. McCabe declared the country’s going “nowhere because it keeps happening” and “[w]e know it's going to happen again...in the near future” and he “can guarantee you that and every time it happens, we do just about nothing.” As for what, the anti-Trump and Deep State character said Americans should “support and enact legislation that changes the — the — the context of gun ownership in this country and emphasizes gun safety and responsibility with the firearms that you own and keeping them out of the hands of children and doing — and really vigorous, consistent background checks across the country.” That sounds pretty serious! Care to elaborate, Andy?     Unfortunately, it was little more than boilerplate liberal talking points, arguing Congress should “stop selling people — stop — you — eliminate the ability to purchase guns without a background check.” He then admitted “we don't know if any of those factors were relevant in this shooting, but” it doesn’t particularly matter since “we're talking about a big problem here” and such changes he referenced “impact the level of gun violence in our country.” McCabe went on about the need for “greater gun safety” and even seemed to accuse too many Americans of finding school shooting palatable:  [W]e do not have the political will to improve this situation. We don't have that and so, as — as citizens, it can be frustrating because you like, what can I do? Well, what you can do is start supporting people who think the same way that you do about a need for greater gun safety, a need for greater safety in our schools, and are — are committed to the idea of reducing gun violence, but until we do that, as long as we keep sending the same sort of political calculations to Congress every year, we can't really — we're not — we're not really ever going to change the fundamentals around this and those are those are the only things that we can do in a free, democratic society. We can enact laws and try to make things better for everyone or we can just keep shaking our heads, turning off the television and waiting for the next mass shooting. To see the relevant CNN transcript from December 16, click “expand.” CNN News Central December 16, 2024 2:37 p.m. Eastern BORIS SANCHEZ: Andy, what do you make of — of that perspective? You know, the idea that metal detectors don't belong in schools, irrespective of how effective they might be at preventing something like this from being carried out. ANDREW MCCABE: You know, Boris, there's always — communities have vigorous conversations around — adding safety measures to schools. There's really no limit to the number of things you could do. You're limited only by budget and creativity, but increased door locks, greater surveillance, really monitoring the perimeter with 000 with human beings, security specialists, be they law enforcement or private contractors, metal detectors, massive fences. These are all things we can do. But I think what the chief is alluding to there is, is that what we want? Do we want our kids to have to go to school in lockdown compounds that look more like jails than they do elementary schools? And so, I think, obviously, something that Madison will — will struggle with for some time going forward, trying to figure out what the appropriate level of security measures are. No security measure is perfect. Sandy Hook Elementary, 12 years and a few days ago today — had just recently imposed new security restrictions on access to the school. All the doors remained locked during the day. There was video surveillance outside the front entrance to the door, and you had to be, like, recognized by video or have ID or something like that before they would let you in. Adam Lanza simply took out an AR-15 and shot his way through the glass door and entered. So there — you know, I think we need to be realistic about what we can expect from those security measures, but clearly — you know, the profusion of weapons in schools, in places of learning, places that are supposed to be safe spaces kind of screams out at this point that we need to be doing something differently. BRIANNA KEILAR: Yeah. And I wonder what you think about whether we are or not, Andy, because I think of the conversations that I know we're all going to have, people watching this program right now are going to have with their friends. Some of them are going to say, you know what? I had to turn off the TV. I couldn't even watch. I didn't see the point. It just upsets me so much. Some are going to say I couldn't turn away. It upsets me so much. And yet, I feel like almost all of them will say, I don't feel like there's anything I can do about it. And is there ---- is there anything — where are we as a nation at tackling this problem? MCCABE: Well, Brianna, we’re nowhere. We’re nowhere because it keeps happening. We know it's going to happen again. It's happening today. It's going to happen again in the near future. I can guarantee you that and every time it happens, we do just about nothing. That doesn't mean there aren't things we can't do. We could do things. We could — we could support and enact legislation that changes the — the — the context of gun ownership in this country and emphasizes gun safety and responsibility with the firearms that you own and keeping them out of the hands of children and doing — and really vigorous, consistent background checks across the country. We could stop selling people — stop — you — eliminate the ability to purchase guns without a background check. Now, we don't know if any of those factors were relevant in this shooting, but we're talking about a big problem here — right — that these are the things that impact the level of gun violence in our country, but the fact is, we do not have the political will to improve this situation. We don't have that and so, as — as citizens, it can be frustrating because you like, what can I do? Well, what you can do is start supporting people who think the same way that you do about a need for greater gun safety, a need for greater safety in our schools, and are — are committed to the idea of reducing gun violence, but until we do that, as long as we keep sending the same sort of political calculations to Congress every year, we can't really — we're not — we're not really ever going to change the fundamentals around this and those are those are the only things that we can do in a free, democratic society. We can enact laws and try to make things better for everyone or we can just keep shaking our heads, turning off the television and waiting for the next mass shooting. SANCHEZ: Andrew McCabe, appreciate the perspective. As always, thanks so much for being with us again. December 16th, 2024 4:43 PM Curtis Houck 287190 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2024/12/16/anti-israel-cbs-reporter-mourns-destroyed-syrian-military With Bashar al-Assad ousted from Syria and the Syrian military in shambles, Israel took the opportunity to set back any possible hostile threat from any new government that could rise up to fill the void by striking air defense sites and weapon/equipment caches. But according to the tone of foreign correspondent Imtiaz Tyab on Monday’s CBS Mornings, Israel might as well be blowing up residential buildings and minivans. He even mourned for a Russian-made Hind attack helicopter because it could be on a target list and destroyed soon (pictured above). The pearl clutching nature of the report was obvious with co-anchor Nate Burleson’s opening spiel for the segment: The Israeli military is continuing its barrage of Syrian military targets after the country's long-time dictator was ousted. Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on weapons stockpiles, it says, to keep them out of the hands of extremists. Israeli troops are occupying territory across the border in Syria. As if he was walking through a residential neighborhood, Tyab showed video of him exploring “a Syrian military air base on the outskirts of the capital Damascus” and looking on in horror at “the devastation caused by Israeli air strikes.” He balked at Israel’s state mission and the idea that the Islamist rebels who toppled Assad were “extremists” in any way. “All part of efforts, Israel says, to destroy weapons and hardware before it can fall in the hands of, quote, ‘extremists,’” he scoffed.     Seemingly upset that the Syrian military wasn’t in a position to fight back, Tyab huffed: “Years of corruption hollowed out the war-scared nation’s the armed forces contributing to his regime's collapse.” That was immediately followed up with Tyab’s mourning for the possible destruction of the Hind attack helicopter. He might as well have been Sarah McLauchlan singing “In the arms of the angel” in an ACPCA commercial as he spoke about how much potential the aircraft still had despite its “neglected” state: Now this is a Syrian military attack helicopter. It may be old, it may be a bit neglected, but it is still operational. In fact, it also still has ammunition, making it a prime target for Israel strikes. How much to adopt it into a new forever home? Throughout his report, Tyab also falsely referred to a region of northern Israel as “the occupied Golan Heights;” a term used by anti-Semitic terrorists: The lightning-fast takeover of Syria one week ago by Hayat Tahir al Sham rebels has also seen Israeli forces carry out a land incursion that stretches past the occupied Golan heights into a previously demilitarized buffer zone. (…) And Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has also approved a plan to effectively double the Israeli population of the occupied Golan heights, a territory taken from Syria over 50 years ago. But in a statement, Netanyahu insisted that he did not want a conflict with Syria. The Golan Heights became a part of Israel after Syria chose to join a multi-nation coalition in 1967 with the goal of wiping out the Jewish state. That coalition lost the Six-Day War and Israel took over that territory. But the facts didn’t matter to Tyab. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CBS Mornings December 16, 2024 7:08:35 a.m. Eastern NATE BURLESON: The Israeli military is continuing its barrage of Syrian military targets after the country's long-time dictator was ousted. Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on weapons stockpiles, it says, to keep them out of the hands of extremists. Israeli troops are occupying territory across the border in Syria. Imtiaz Tyab reports from a Syrian military base hit by Israeli attacks. [Cuts to video] IMTIAZ TYAB: As we drove through a Syrian military air base on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, the devastation caused by Israeli air strikes was clear. All part of efforts, Israel says, to destroy weapons and hardware before it can fall in the hands of, quote, “extremists.” What the Israeli military has been targeting, Syrian military infrastructure like this, recent relentlessly, and the damage is just breathtaking. Like this massive strike overnight in the coastal city of Tartus. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Israeli war planes destroyed Syrian air defense units and other naval and military assets. The lightning-fast takeover of Syria one week ago by Hayat Tahir al Sham rebels has also seen Israeli forces carry out a land incursion that stretches past the occupied Golan heights into a previously demilitarized buffer zone. Ahmad al-Sharaa, Syria's de facto new leader has criticized what he described as Israel's, quote, “uncalculated military adventures.” And said he was more interested in state building than opening another conflict. The targeting of Syria's military sites has also revealed the deep neglect by Bashar al Assad. Years of corruption hollowed out the war-scared nation’s the armed forces contributing to his regime's collapse. Now this is a Syrian military attack helicopter. It may be old, it may be a bit neglected, but it is still operational. In fact, it also still has ammunition, making it a prime target for Israel strikes. Strikes which show no sign of slowing down. [Cuts back to live] And Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has also approved a plan to effectively double the Israeli population of the occupied Golan heights, a territory taken from Syria over 50 years ago. But in a statement, Netanyahu insisted that he did not want a conflict with Syria. Nate. BURLESON: Imtiaz Tyab in Syria, thank you. December 16th, 2024 4:42 PM Nicholas Fondacaro 287191 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/erick-erickson/2024/12/16/proliferation-democrats-buts Democrats are slowly, but surely, building a permission structure for progressive activists to kill those they determine are bad. From the rise of antisemitism to, now, the murder of an insurance CEO, few Democrats seem capable of condemning violence without adding a “but.” To their credit, Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania have condemned both without buts. Unfortunately, when President Joe Biden condemns antisemitism in the United States, he cannot help himself but muddy the water with equal condemnations of Islamophobia. No one is chasing Muslim students off college campuses. Progressive activists are turning violent, and too few Democratic leaders want to condemn the violence without adding caveats. Luigi Mangione’s alleged murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has also been met with lots of “buts.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren could not help but justify Thompson’s murder on television with MSNBC’s Joy Reid: “Violence is never the answer. This guy gets a trial who’s allegedly killed the CEO of UnitedHealth, but you can only push people so far, and then they start to take matters into their own hands.” “You can only push people so far,” she reasoned. Warren is a supporter of Obamacare, the present health care system in the United States that people hate. In fact, Americans’ hatred of health care in this country has grown since passage of the legislation Warren supports. God forbid people connect the dots and decide Democrats are the ones who pushed people too far by breaking the health care system. The caveats and excuses and buts complicate the situation. If killing Brian Thompson can be explained away as Thompson and his company pushing people so far, who is next? The oil company executives who the left says are evil for climate change? What about the abortion doctors who kill children or the trans-affirming doctors who do sex change operations? We cannot give ourselves the permission structure or power to make exceptions to the very basic rule that killing another human is wrong. Unfortunately, Democrats do not seem capable of saying that without adding a but or an excuse. In 1970, there were 20 bombings a week in California orchestrated by progressive activists. In 1971, the Weather Underground bombed the United States Capitol. In 1972, the Weather Underground bombed the Pentagon. In 1975, the Weather Underground bombed the State Department. The members plotted the assassination of a California State Senator in 1978. According to a report prepared by the Department of Energy in 2001, “Leftist extremists were responsible for three-fourths of the officially designated acts of terrorism in America in the 1980s.” The same report noted left-wing extremists tend to be younger and better educated than right-wing extremists and they tend to live in urban areas, thereby making high population centers more target-rich. While there are instances of right-wing extremists in the United States engaging in violence, such as killing an abortion clinic doctor, Democrat politicians and Republican politicians uniformly condemn the violence without caveats, exceptions or buts. For that matter, pro-life activists are the loudest voices to condemn abortion doctor murders -- noting that it is antithetical to their core mission and beliefs. But gun down an insurance executive or firebomb a synagogue and, should it be a progressive, few Democrats can resist adding a but to the end of their statement against violence. Over time, these caveats, carve outs and exceptions form the permission structure for more violence. “Violence is not the answer, but people can only be pushed so far” turns to “violence is not the answer, but something has to change,” which morphs into “violence is not the answer, but it’s understandable.” That then moves to violence. The left has called Donald Trump the second coming of Hitler and a threat to democracy. That provoked multiple assassination attempts, with one nearly successful. They now are bemoaning a CEO’s murder while justifying the killing. Wanted posters have gone up in New York City with the pictures of other insurance CEOs’ faces. One might suspect the people putting them up are the same who tore down the posters of kidnapped Israelis. What comes next? If oil companies are destroying the planet and the murder of an insurance CEO can be justified, surely someone will rid us of those other turbulent executives. December 16th, 2024 2:48 PM Erick Erickson 287169