Newsbusters

The Trump White House is doing the very thing that the Biden administration forbade Americans from doing: telling the truth about COVID-19.

Trump has once again demonstrated his commitment to undoing the Biden administration’s censorship designs for America. The most recent example is the White House’s new landing page (COVID.gov) detailing the likely origins of COVID-19 and calling out the failures of the federal government, the World Health Organization and others. Quoting a House Oversight Committee report, the White House stated, “the Biden Administration resorted to ‘outright censorship—coercing and colluding with the world’s largest social media companies to censor all COVID-19-related dissent.’” 

COVID.gov is just the latest example, but Trump hit the ground running with his week one executive orders ending government-orchestrated censorship and encouraging the development of artificial intelligence that is “free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas.” 

[Story Continues on MRC Free Speech America] 

ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel is a big basketball fan, so to put Thursday’s show in basketball terms, he went up for a dunk attempt on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth only to slip, fall, and faceplant.

During a discussion on Hegseth’s alleged makeup studio—something Hegseth denies—Kimmel compared Hegseth with his predecessor, “By the way, do you know who this is? This is Lloyd Austin. He is a four-star general. He was the previous Secretary of Defense. You ever seen him before? No. You know why? He was inside the Pentagon, doing his job! He was not on TV every day. Pete Hegseth is on TV now more than Ryan Seacrest.”

 

 

Kimmel told zero Austin jokes in 2024, so the only question is whether Kimmel is deliberately ignoring Austin’s scandal, where he disappeared from the job without telling anyone at the White House, or whether he lives in such a liberal bubble he genuinely does not know about that controversy.

For all the talk about President Trump and Hegseth bringing culture wars to the apolitical military, it was Austin who inserted the Pentagon into the abortion debate when he flouted the Hyde Amendment and, yes, went on TV to defend it.

And that doesn’t even begin to talk about Austin’s record on military things. The chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and the administration’s overly restrictive and impossible-to-understand rules of engagement for Ukraine will be the things that most define his legacy.

As for Kimmel, he then teed up a clip of a satirical Hegseth, with copious amounts of makeup, declaring, “We’re back with another DOD reform. Americans want to join a military with high, clear standards. We can meet those standards. Biden couldn’t. President Trump has.”

After the video, he added, “You know, he does do a nice job. He’s very pretty. The good news is when he gets booted from the Pentagon, he’ll be able to get a job at Sephora. The Defense Secretary has a makeup room. The vice president wears eyeliner. And yet, somehow, this administration spends all day, every day complaining about trans women ruining sports.”

A few hours later, the cast of MSNBC’s Morning Joe highlighted the synergy between traditional liberal news and the late night comedians, as they were so enthralled by Kimmel’s Austin comparison that they replayed it on their show.

Here is a transcript for the April 24-taped show:

ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live!

4/25/2025

12:25 AM ET

JIMMY KIMMEL: By the way, do you know who this is? This is Lloyd Austin. He is a four-star general. He was the previous Secretary of Defense. You ever seen him before? No. You know why? He was inside the Pentagon, doing his job! He was not on TV every day. Pete Hegseth is on TV now more than Ryan Seacrest. 

PETE HEGSETH [AI VOICE, FILTER WITH HIGH AMOUNTS OF MAKEUP]: We’re back with another DOD reform. Americans want to join a military with high, clear standards. We can meet those standards. Biden couldn’t. President Trump has. 

KIMMEL: You know, he does do a nice job. He’s very pretty. The good news is when he gets booted from the Pentagon, he’ll be able to get a job at Sephora. The Defense Secretary has a makeup room. The vice president wears eyeliner. And yet, somehow, this administration spends all day, every day complaining about trans women ruining sports.

The New York Times recently published a hissy fit about the White House allowing reporters into the Briefing Room who didn’t vote for Kamala Harris. Here was the amazing protest sentence: “Longtime White House reporters say the result has been an erosion of their independence.”

The presence of a reporter who didn’t vote Democrat doesn’t “erode” the anti-Trump animus (“independence”) of liberal activist journalists. It might balance it, suggesting journalism and liberalism are not exactly the same thing.

This spurred a trend. Politico’s Ian Ward profiled these invaders under the headline “Meet the 8 MAGA Outlets Disrupting the White House Briefing Room.” It carried the usual labeling about “the divide between the MAGA-friendly media and their more mainstream counterparts.” The extreme hatred of Trump is “more mainstream.”

Then came CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, who loves to wade into MAGA crowds trying to find the dumbest-sounding Trump supporter he can find. In this case, he went looking for the dumbest-sounding White House reporter. The headline over the video was “‘Do you consider yourself a journalist?’ CNN meets MAGA media at White House.”

O’Sullivan showed clips of these pro-Trump reporters admitting their bias, and he proclaimed “These are White House correspondents like you’ve never seen before.” Really? He spotlighted Cara Castronuova of Lindell TV asking if they’ll release Trump’s fitness routine, since he “actually looks healthier than ever before.” In 2009, a Washington Post reporter touted Obama’s “chiseled pectorals.”

Then O’Sullivan replayed Real America’s Voice reporter Brian Glenn asking Ukrainian president Vlodomyr Zelensky “Why don’t you wear a suit?” He suggested to Glenn he was “trolling,” but it’s a question lots of Americans would ask.

Natalie Winters from Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast said “if it were up to me, I’d kick a lot of these outlets out.” In other words, she has the same opinion as CNN, only reversed.

O’Sullivan asked Winters, “Do you consider yourself a journalist?” He said many say “you don’t deserve to be here because you’re not a real journalist.” She attacked the pro-Biden media: “I’m pretty sure the people in there spent four years covering for someone who was essentially dead, and that’s being charitable…You guys failed, and that’s why we’re here.”  

CNN: “Are you a real journalist?”
Natalie: “The rest of the media covered for a president that was essentially dead. You failed. That’s why new media is here.” pic.twitter.com/ok5YtruWRt
— Natalie Winters (@nataliegwinters) April 23, 2025
CNN exemplified the point last year when anchor Dana Bash was deeply troubled over bumbling-Biden videos. They were “amplified on conservative media that in some cases are just not right and in other cases are highly, highly misleading of President Biden.”

O’Sullivan lectured about the “new media” people: “A lot of them are more cheerleading President Trump than challenging him.” He ended by quoting White House Correspondents Association leader Eugene Daniels: The public “needs news produced by experienced, professional journalists who ask tough questions and produce fair coverage.”

Under Biden, Daniels wasn’t known for asking “tough questions.” At the 2024 Kamala cuddlefest before the National Association of Black Journalists, Daniels began by gently asking if the American people were better off after four years. Daniels went on shows like Washington Week on PBS and denied Kamala was ever “border czar” and insisted she was a victim: “We’ve already seen a lot of racism and sexism, and that’s going to be a huge part of this campaign.”

Then there’s CNN itself. One of the most memorable tongue-bath questions came in 2009, when then-New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny asked President Obama what “enchanted” him about being president. Then-CNN anchor John Roberts praised the softball and Obama’s “thoughtful” answer. Zeleny was later hired by CNN.

Reporters asking softballs at the White House is nothing new. It’s okay when the “mainstream” does it for Democrats. 

It happened again: an illegal alien, having settled in Maryland since crossing the border, committed a heinous and barbaric crime. And once again, the ‘Legacy Media” bite their collective tongues so as to avoid the indignity of having to report an inconvenient story.

Fox News at Night did cover that story: Here it is, as aired on Fox News on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2025:

KEVIN CORKE: Meantime, across the country over in the state of Maryland, well, it continues to be a hotbed of illegal immigrant crime with ICE announcing last night the arrest of a 23-year-old Guatemalan national here illegally by the name of Keycy Robinson Alexis Barrera-Rosa. He’s been charged with the murder of his 23-year-old girlfriend. And this comes roughly a week after ICE arrested Rene Pop Chub, a 32-year-old illegal alien from Guatemala, also in the state of Maryland. He’s facing charges for murder, second degree assault and reckless endangerment. People are asking tonight when will it all end. By the way, keep in mind the last two crimes I just mentioned to you, Trace, happened again in the state of Maryland. That, of course, you know, the very same state where Rachel Morin was strangled, beaten, and raped and murdered by yet another illegal alien. Back to you. 

Further details per The New York Post:

Keycy Robinson Alexis Barrera-Rosa, 23, was arrested after investigators discovered Lesbia Mileth Ramirez Guerra’s remains dumped deep within the Cedarville State Forest on April 17, according to the Charles County Sheriff’s Office.

Barrera-Rosa, a Guatemalan national, had reported his girlfriend missing on April 2, alleging that she had vanished two days earlier from the home in Waldorf where they lived with her kids, authorities said.

Another fine, upstanding “Maryland Man” doing “Maryland Man” things, allegedly. The above Fox News report is the only newscast mention of this horrific murder. There was absolutely NOTHING reported about this crime on ABC, CBS, NBC.

And it is, in a sense, understandable. Covering this murder at the hands of an illegal alien would’ve meant taking time away from the 97-year-old tortoise who became a first time mother, or Pope Francis’ favorite gelateria. Viewers emerged knowing that the pope preferred lemon and mango gelatos, but not knowing a thing about this horrific crime. Speaking of Francis, the fierce open-borders advocate, it is ironic that his passing essentially buried further coverage of the travails of the original “Maryland Man”, confirmed MS-13 gangbanger Kilmar Abrego García, detained in El Salvador. 

The reason this story goes uncovered is the same reason the media clammed up once it was known that Laken Riley’s murderer was an illegal alien. From Venezuela. Who crossed the border illegally as part of the Biden Border Surge. And who was affiliated to the ultraviolent Tren de Aragua. This story is counternarrative and, much to the chagrin of the media, proves Donald Trump right.

The overlords of Carbondale, Illinois seem to run their city like East Berlin. 

With the help of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), one pro-life resident may take legal action, after he was threatened with criminal charges for holding up signs in a public area near an abortion business.

Brandon, a sidewalk counselor and founder of Gospel for Life was standing peacefully outside his local baby killing center on April 16, when the city’s thought police, under the direction from their attorney, demanded he remove his signs.

Why? Because they stated super offensive things, like “Please don’t abort your baby” and “Free baby supplies,” in an effort to convince desperate mothers to seek options other than putting down their unborn children. 

It would seem that apparently violates some sign ordinance, according to the officer who approached Brandon. The ACLJ says the Constitution claims otherwise.

Brandon responded that he had the right to constitutionally protected speech, to which the officer reportedly snapped “No, you don’t.” 

The authorities called for backup, threatening their pro-life subject with citation and criminal charges.

“Let’s be clear,” wrote the ACLJ in a response. 

“The First Amendment protects the right to speak out in public spaces – especially on matters of public concern.”

The center noted multiple courts “have consistently struck down vague ordinances and arbitrary enforcement,” that “chill” that fundamental right,” calling Carbondale’s actions “not only unconstitutional,” but “dangerous.” 

If the thought police refuse to correct course immediately, Brandon’s lawyers are promising to sue.    

If the thought police refuse to correct course immediately, Brandon’s lawyers promise to sue.    

Wednesday’s PBS News Hour fretted over the “wrongful deportation” of the media’s favorite Maryland resident, illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, back to El Salvador, and suggested that it’s unconstitutional not to give every illegal immigrant a trial before deportation.

Co-anchor Geoff Bennett: Last night, a federal judge in Maryland said the Trump administration is trying to obstruct the truth about the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador. The judge added, the administration’s refusal to answer questions about its assertion that Garcia is an MS-13 gang member, nor provide details about its contract with the Salvadoran government — quote — “reflects a willful and bad-faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations.”

Co-anchor Amna Nawaz: Addressing the case this week, President Trump repeatedly said he wants to bypass due process required by the Constitution in order to fulfill his migrant crackdown.

The judge is Obama-appointed Paula Xinis. PBS ran a clip of what Trump actually said:

Donald Trump: We have thousands of people that are ready to go out. And you can’t have a trial for all of these people. They emptied out insane asylums into our country. We’re getting them out. And a judge can’t say, no, you have to have a trial. But let’s — the trial is going to take two years.

Is PBS being sloppy or did they truly suggest every illegal immigrant (out of the millions in America now) really require a trial before being deported? Talk about gumming up the deportation works.

Nawaz: So the president has said he wants to get rid of the legally required due process here for the immigrants he wants to deport. All of that is despite a Supreme Court ruling that blocks more deportations under that Alien Enemies Wartime Act. So what are lawyers telling you right now about their ability to get due process for their clients?

Laura Barron-Lopez: Multiple lawyers that I have talked to said that it’s been increasingly difficult to represent their clients that are being targeted for deportation because the Trump administration is moving these migrants from jurisdiction to jurisdiction….

That story led straight into an interview with liberal Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) under the online headline, “‘Dignity is being compromised’: Democratic lawmakers visit students arrested by ICE.” (Speaking of dignity being compromised, Abrego Garcia’s “home state” Democratic senator Sen. Chris Van Hollen, actually visited Abrego Garcia in prison in El Salvador.)

Geoff Bennett: Meantime, a group of Democratic members of Congress traveled to Louisiana yesterday to visit foreign students Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk in a pair of federal detention facilities as both face potential removal from the U.S. Video captured agents last month apprehending Ozturk, a Turkish national with a valid F-1 student visa near her home outside Boston. Khalil is a former Columbia University graduate student who was also arrested by ICE officials. The Trump administration maintains they’re each a threat to national security for their activism against the Israeli war with Hamas in Gaza. Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey was part of that visit and joins us now….

Yet they only discussed the Ozturk case, which is a more sympathetic one than Khalil’s active pro-Hamas activities at Columbia University.

Sen. Edward Markey: Well, the only public statement which has been made is that she wrote an op-ed in the Tufts University undergraduate newspaper about her views on a resolution that had passed in the Tufts government, undergraduate government. So that’s the accusation against her, that she exercised her free speech to be able to have an opinion, an action that was taken by the student government at Tufts University….

Bennett set up Markey with a question using PBS’s familiar template “What do you say to that?” or “What do you make of that?” for the liberal guest to take an easy swing at.

Bennett: You know, there are those who maintain that no one is entitled to a student visa, it’s a privilege granted by the U.S. government, and the federal government should reserve the right and the authority to revoke or deny that privilege as it deems necessary. What do you say to that argument?

That was Markey’s cue for his impassioned spiel, which concluded with his “dignity” remarks.

These two segments were brought to you in part by BDO.

A transcript is available, click “Expand.”

PBS News Hour

4/24/25

7:20:53 p.m.

Geoff Bennett: Last night, a federal judge in Maryland said the Trump administration is trying to obstruct the truth about the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador. The judge added, the administration’s refusal to answer questions about its assertion that Garcia is an MS-13 gang member, nor provide details about its contract with the Salvadoran government — quote — “reflects a willful and bad-faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations.”

Amna Nawaz: Addressing the case this week, President Trump repeatedly said he wants to bypass due process required by the Constitution in order to fulfill his migrant crackdown.

Donald Trump, President of the United States: We have thousands of people that are ready to go out. And you can’t have a trial for all of these people. They emptied out insane asylums into our country. We’re getting them out. And a judge can’t say, no, you have to have a trial. But let’s — the trial is going to take two years.

Amna Nawaz: Our White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, joins us now for more.

So, Laura, the judge has a very strong word there for the Trump administration, bad-faith refusal to comply. Where do things stand now?

Laura Barron-Lopez: So Judge Xinis has essentially given the Trump administration until this evening to — quote — “respond to all outstanding discovery requests” and to essentially provide the factual basis for their assertion that Garcia is an MS-13 gang member.

And, so far, there have been a number of depositions of Trump administration officials. But we should note, Amna, that now, over the last 24 hours, there have been a number of sealed filings in the case, including one from the Trump administration seeking a seven-day stay of Judge Xinis’ discovery and daily status reports.

And so we expect to hear from Judge Xinis soon, but we don’t know how she’s going to rule on that.

Amna Nawaz: So the president has said he wants to get rid of the legally required due process here for the immigrants he wants to deport. All of that is despite a Supreme Court ruling that blocks more deportations under that Alien Enemies wartime act.

So what are lawyers telling you right now about their ability to get due process for their clients?

Laura Barron-Lopez: Multiple lawyers that I have talked to said that it’s been increasingly difficult to represent their clients that are being targeted for deportation because the Trump administration is moving these migrants from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

And these lawyers have also had limited access to their clients to get interviews and information from them. I spoke to Holly Cooper. She’s the co-director of the Immigration Law Clinic at U.C. Davis. And she warned that the administration’s actions are weakening due process rights.

Holly Cooper, Co-Director, Immigration Law Clinic, U.C. Davis: Without these structures, these pillars of due process, we are going to end up erroneously deporting a lot of individuals into very extreme conditions like what we’re seeing in CECOT in El Salvador.

So this is really even like — it wouldn’t be in exaggeration to say this is a life-or-death situation to provide fair procedures for our immigrants and for people who aren’t even immigrants who are citizens. Those traditional procedural protections that have demarcated us as a democracy are completely eroding before our eyes.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Holly Cooper said that she and other immigration lawyers are also concerned about the escalation, potential escalation, of racial profiling.

And while there’s no requirement for U.S. citizens to carry I.D.s, she said that she may start advising U.S. citizens to carry some form of identification.

Amna Nawaz: And you have been reporting on the case of one U.S. citizen, right, from Georgia who was arrested and detained. What happened there?

Laura Barron-Lopez: That’s right. The U.S. citizen is Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, and he was detained by ICE for nearly 48 hours in Florida. He was arrested during a traffic stop under a state law that makes it illegal for undocumented immigrants to cross into — that are over the age of 18 to cross into Florida.

And, now, the key thing here was that law was suspended by a judge when Carlos Gomez was arrested. Now, we asked the Homeland Security Department about this.

A senior DHS official said in a statement to “News Hour” that: “After a stop by a Florida highway patrol trooper, a dual citizen of Mexico and the U.S. was detained after he said that he was in the U.S. illegally. Immediately after learning the individual was a United States citizen, he was released.’

Now, my producer Shrai Popat and I spoke to Juan and his mother, and Juan disputes Homeland Security’s claim, and he said that he told Highway Patrol that he was a United States citizen and shared his story with us.

Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, Detained U.S. Citizen (through interpreter):

As soon as I arrived at the detention center, they asked me, if I am a U.S. citizen, why do I not speak English? They were just laughing in my face.

After that, they took photos of me and they made me sign a lot of papers, and I didn’t know what I was signing. I immediately got desperate because I didn’t want to be in there and I just felt hopeless.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Juan said that he presented his Social Security card to officials, and that they dismissed it. And that is a proper form of I.D., Amna.

And Juan and his mother described the entire experience as traumatic and Juan said that he’s afraid it could happen again.

Now, Juan Lopez-Gomez’s lawyer said that they are very likely to sue the state of Florida.

Amna Nawaz: And, as you report this out, you found this wasn’t an isolated incident. Is that right? There’s another U.S. citizen’s case you’re following?

Laura Barron-Lopez: There is. Jose Hermosillo, he’s 19. He was arrested in Tucson, Arizona, where he was detained for nearly 10 days. An ICE agent said that Hermosillo told them that he was — quote — “a citizen of Mexico.”

Now, a senior DHS official told us in a statement that standard procedures were followed for an individual who self-identifies as a — quote — “illegal alien.” They said that agents were not aware of a learning disability that Hermosillo has.

Now, we were not able to reach Hermosillo, but in interviews with other reporters, he has said that he made clear that he was a United States citizen, Amna. And the attorney general for Arizona says that they are looking into this incident

Amna Nawaz: All right, Laura Barron-Lopez, thank you for your reporting.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Thank you.

Geoff Bennett: Meantime, a group of Democratic members of Congress traveled to Louisiana yesterday to visit foreign students Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk in a pair of federal detention facilities as both face potential removal from the U.S.

Video captured agents last month apprehending Ozturk, a Turkish national with a valid F-1 student visa near her home outside Boston. Khalil is a former Columbia University graduate student who was also arrested by ICE officials. The Trump administration maintains they’re each a threat to national security for their activism against the Israeli war with Hamas in Gaza.

Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey was part of that visit and joins us now.

Thanks for being with us, sir.

Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA): Great to be with you.

Geoff Bennett: Trump officials say Rumeysa Ozturk’s visa was revoked because she allegedly engaged in activities supporting Hamas. She’s a Ph.D. student at a university in your state. What’s your understanding of why she was detained and targeted for deportation?

Sen. Edward Markey: Well, the only public statement which has been made is that she wrote an op-ed in the Tufts University undergraduate newspaper about her views on a resolution that had passed in the Tufts government, undergraduate government.

So that’s the accusation against her, that she exercised her free speech to be able to have an opinion an action that was taken by the student government at Tufts University. That’s protected under the First Amendment of the United States, freedom of speech, freedom of the press.

And, beyond that, there have been no accusations. There’s been no evidence of a crime. They haven’t even alleged a crime, and yet they whisked her off of the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts, where Tufts University is located, moved her to Vermont and then to Atlanta, and then to a remote part of Louisiana, where Congressman Jim McGovern and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley and I visited her yesterday.

And, thus far, they are presented, from the government’s perspective, no evidence that in any way could be constituted as a crime, and that is a violation of the Fifth Amendment of the United States. That is the protection under due process to have the evidence presented against you. And they have not done that either.

For four weeks, she’s been in prison, no charge of a crime, no evidence presented against her, and yet she sits there in prison wearing an orange jumpsuit without any accusation that has been publicly made by the Trump administration.

Geoff Bennett: What’s your understanding of the Trump administration’s motivation in moving her to that facility in Louisiana, despite a court order maintaining that she would remain in Massachusetts?

And, beyond that, under what conditions is she being held right now?

Sen. Edward Markey: Well, she was in Vermont when she was moved.

And obviously the Trump administration is forum shopping. They’re trying to find the most conservative circuit code of appeals in the United States, which is the Fifth Circuit, which is where Louisiana is located. And so to the extent to which they have moved Rumeysa 1,500 miles away from Somerville, and then 100 miles further out from the New Orleans Airport, they seek to distance her from her family, from her friends, from her attorneys, from any support system that could be provided to her.

And it’s all a part of a pattern, which, by the way, is the same thing that they did to Mahmoud Khalil, who is also in prison down in Louisiana in one of these facilities, and we visited him as well.

And I would say that she obviously had a terrifying experience. Where six undercover law enforcement officers swept her up and into a vehicle, put handcuffs on her, and then, as she was being transported, ultimately she was in chains as she was arriving in Louisiana. No charges made against her, despite all of that.

And despite her asthma attacks that keep recurring in prison, despite the less-than-ideal conditions in these prisons, the lack of easily accessible medical care or nutrition, or even extra blankets at night if it’s too cold, she still has an indomitable spirit, an indomitable spirit. And it was just a privilege to be able to meet with her.

Geoff Bennett: You know, there are those who maintain that no one is entitled to a student visa, it’s a privilege granted by the U.S. government, and the federal government should reserve the right and the authority to revoke or deny that privilege as it deems necessary. What do you say to that argument?

Sen. Edward Markey: Well, what I say is that we’re the United States of America, and she’s entitled to due process, and she is entitled to have the evidence presented against her, and it has not happened yet.

There’s no provision that says that Marco Rubio, as the secretary of state, can just designate someone like Rumeysa and all of a sudden she can be whisked to a prison, as though we’re in Russia or Belarus, with no charges made against her. No, we’re better than that.

And that’s why, 250 years ago in Massachusetts, we began the American Revolution to create our Constitution which would provide protections, freedom of speech and protections under the due process Fifth Amendment clauses that have guaranteed that our nation is one of laws, and not of men. And that man cannot be Marco Rubio or Donald Trump. It must be the laws that are enforced.

And, right now, this Trump administration is in complete and total disregard for those laws. And the humanitarian consequences for Rumeysa and thousands of others, the dignity which is being compromised, is absolutely unacceptable in the United States in 2025.

Geoff Bennett: Senator Ed Markey, thank you for your time this evening. We appreciate it.

Sen. Edward Markey: Great to be with you. Thank you.

Thursday’s CBS Mornings Plus featured a remarkable segment about a new book from reporter David Zweig about the wholly political behavior and unscientific actions of keeping schools shuttered long-term during the Covid pandemic, perpetuated by so-called public health experts, certain politicians, and teachers unions.

Once again, co-host Tony Dokoupil showed disgust with this period of time and the damage it’s continued to inflict, but co-host Adriana Diaz seemed annoyed and took umbrage at Zweig arguing the media played a role in harming American children.

 

 

Dokoupil began by noting that, back in 2020, Americans were forced to accept “a new reality,” including “the big one we all had to accept, closing schools for a long time, an indefinite period.”

“Experts, at the time, said that decision was made to keep our kids and stop the spread of this deadly disease…But a new book argues that schools were safe to reopen way, way earlier than many of them. The book is called An Abundance of Caution. It was written by investigative journalist David Zweig, who argues the decision to shut down schools was made while ‘ignoring or dismissing real world evidence.’…Follow the science, trust the science. That’s what we were all told,” he added.

Zweig replied he was and remains in a unique position because he has “both challenged the established position, but I did it from within establishment media.”

He then got to the real heart of the matter about why some schools lost an entire year to the farce that was distance learning: “[U]nfortunately, because our culture in our country is so politically acrimonious and divided, what we find is that and what I talk about in the book at length is that much of the response, led by our public health establishment, aided by the media, was very politically motivated.”

The reporter also called out the lunacy of the fact that, while schools were closed, “adults down the street could be having a glass of wine,” to which Dokoupil concurred as having been “wild” and along with the “loss of access to learning,” children were trapped in “environment that’s sometimes dangerous.”

“Right. Child abuse skyrocketed. You have a kid who is kept home with a monster. Why? Because teachers and educators are the first line of defense who can see when abuse is happening. That was taken away from our children,” Zweig replied.

Asked why this happened despite the initial guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics that schools reopen, Zweig politely as he could on a corporate, liberal, legacy network to slap them across the face for choosing to put defeating Donald Trump ahead of America’s children (click “expand”):

They did and so, the AAP — the American Academy of Pediatrics — came out with guidance. They basically said no matter what, let’s get kids in school. It’s so important. They’re at basically zero risk. They’re not going to be super spreaders. And don’t even worry about six feet of distancing. If you can — three feet, that’s fine. Just get them into the classroom. Shortly thereafter, Donald Trump tweeted in all caps, you know, OPEN THE SCHOOLS IN THE FALL, with a bunch of exclamation points. Immediately after, the AAP reversed its guidance. Gone was the idea of no matter what, get them in the classrooms. Gone was this idea of don’t worry about six feet of distancing. Instead, they replaced it with listen to the experts and we need a lot of money. Otherwise, the schools can’t open. And the other piece is, not only what was in this guidance, but who the co-authors were. And it was the two largest teacher’s unions.

Diaz then came in with an attempt to defend the ruling class, citing a clip from Dr. Tony Fauci telling CBS Mornings last year that his profession wasn’t actually wrong because the only thing worth debating was “how long” schools should have been closed, falsely adding they weren’t “shut…down completely.”

“So, you have said that health officials made errors in their assessment of the data. What errors? What did they get wrong? And how did they get it wrong, because these are top scientists,” she wondered from a position of sympathy.

Zweig upped the heat by saying “much of my book is about the failure of the expert class and one of the most stark examples — kind of the original sin, if you will, is — at the end of April, in the beginning of May, millions of children started going back do school in Europe” and “there was a meeting of the education ministers at the EU…and they said we have observed no negative consequences of schools reopening” with confirmation a month later.

Zweig set Diaz off with this final point about the media’s culpability: “They told everybody schools are open. Millions of kids are in. There’s no negative consequences and you know who covered that in America? This is huge news. This wasn’t in an obscure blog post. This wasn’t in a medical journal. This was the EU. No one. No one covered it.”

Diaz interjected this wasn’t true, leading Zweig to call her out for this “gotcha” (click “expand”):

DIAZ: No, CBS News covered it.

ZWEIG: Oh, you did? Amazing.

DIAZ: I have an article right here. Yeah, we did. I’ll show it to you.

ZWEIG: You covered the —

DIAZ: “Millions of kids around the world adjust to —”

ZWEIG: Fantastic.

DIAZ: “— the reopening of schools.”

ZWEIG: Fantastic. Finally.

DIAZ: But maybe your point was this was not widely covered.

DOKOUPIL: But, no. The —

ZWEIG: This was not widely — I mean, that’s was a good gotcha you had on me, but —

DIAZ: This wasn’t meant to be a gotcha. It was just —

Dokoupil rescued the segment from morphing into something out of CNN Thunderdome (aka CNN NewsNight) by asking Zweig about an observation from his book that “The New York Times had an article that said ‘Cases Could Soar in Communities If Schools Reopen Soon’ on the very same day that the British Medical Journal — the prestigious journal in the UK wrote an article — published an article: ‘Children are not super spreaders. Time to go back to school.’”

The CBS co-host gave his own take: “The disconnect between what was happening there and what was happening here — I mean, we’re still dealing with the consequences.”

After dismissing the article Diaz gave him as not actually related to the subject at hand, Zweig concluded the success of European school reopening “was largely ignored” and took aim at Fauci:

Dr. Fauci said we should get kids back in school, but only when it’s safe — with this special qualifier. Except when it’s safe was a series of contrived, bogus reasons that didn’t have any science behind them when the kids were already in school without masks or distancing or anything with no negative consequences.

To see the relevant CBS transcript from April 24, click here.

Before basketball’s 24-second rule, there was a tactic called freezing the ball. The team that was ahead would attempt to run out the clock by holding onto the ball as long as it could to deny the opposing team an opportunity to score.

That looks like what Iran is again doing – “freezing” negotiations while finishing the final stages of nuclear enrichment on the way to building a deliverable nuclear weapon.

It is important for the U.S. to take Iranian leaders at their word. Failing to do so and believing the regime will pull back on what some of their leaders have said is a religious mandate to wipe out Israel and “the great Satan” virtually guarantees the world will be faced with the greatest threat since the beginning of the Cold War with a nuclear-armed Soviet Union. Except the Soviets were atheists. The Iranian mullahs think doing what they claim to be Allah’s will, especially if it leads to martyrdom, guarantees them a ticket to Heaven.

The West has a history of not taking seriously the announced intentions of its enemies. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publicly stated their economic and political goals, which were fulfilled in the Bolshevik Revolution and the imposition of communism and socialism in Russia.

Adolf Hitler wrote “Mein Kampf” (My Struggle) in which he stated his hatred of Jews, a hatred incorporated in the Third Reich, which led to the Holocaust.

In each instance there were Western academics, journalists, even clergy, who excused, denied or rationalized these objectives. And in each instance millions of lives were lost in a forced famine and gulags (Stalin) and World War II (launched by Hitler).

Past deals with Iran, including initially agreed inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN, have been violated. Why does anyone believe the Iranians will abide by a new agreement?

Writing for the publication JNS.org, New York attorney Eric Levine references an April 14 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal by former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in which Kerry“ discusses what a good deal between the United States and Iran will look like if Iran is willing to reach an agreement with President Donald Trump. Kerry’s hypothetical new Iran deal bears no resemblance to the disaster that he and then-President Barack Obama forced down the throats of Americans in 2015, despite overwhelming bipartisan opposition.”

Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, has no experience dealing with people who claim a religious motivation for their actions. He is no more likely to succeed with Iran than Kerry and Obama who got rolled by the mullahs.

As John Bolton, President Trump’s former national security adviser, has written for the publication Independent Arabia: “Washington has every justification to take military action against Tehran’s proliferation efforts. Iran’s nuclear threat is not a problem merely for Israel, but for the entire world. For thirty years, the ayatollahs have sought to become a nuclear power, to the detriment of everyone else. America has the wherewithal to eliminate this proliferation threat, and would be politically and morally justified in doing so. Helping Israel de-fang Iran follows quite logically.”

Iran is in a weak position, domestically and internationally. Regime change would be the best option, but the rulers are unlikely to willingly relinquish power. The time to strike Iranian nuclear facilities is now. Delay means we will likely have to face a nuclear armed Iran with the ability to launch ICBMs at Israel and American cities. Who thinks that is a risk worth taking?

PolitiFact editor-in-chief Katie Sanders is still decrying Meta Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to break up with the fact-checking companies, so, on Thursday, she wrote an article using the death of Pope Francis to argue he supported their work.

Sanders cites two Francis quotes, “Francis outlined the societal harms of misinformation in 2018, tracing the origin of false news to the Garden of Eden ‘snake tactics’ that led to the original sin” and ‘“There is no such thing as harmless disinformation; on the contrary, trusting in falsehood can have dire consequences,’ he wrote Jan. 24, 2018, for World Communications Day. ‘Even a seemingly slight distortion of the truth can have dangerous effects.’” 

In that document, Francis did write, “Praiseworthy too are those institutional and legal initiatives aimed at developing regulations for curbing the phenomenon, to say nothing of the work being done by tech and media companies in coming up with new criteria for verifying the personal identities concealed behind millions of digital profiles.”

However, and for all his reputation as a “reformer” on certain matters of gender and sexuality, Francis was still fiercely critical of gender ideology and maintained there are only two sexes and used “sex” interchangeably with “gender.” PolitiFact, by contrast, claims such beliefs are wrong.

Sanders then proceeded to list several Francis-related hoaxes, but she missed the main point. It is not objectionable if PolitiFact points out an AI-generated image was, in fact, AI-generated or that a certain article was satirical, provided they don’t slap a “false” label on a joke and suppress social media reach. The problem is when PolitiFact confuses its or its preferred experts’ opinions for facts, when it doesn’t fact-check itself before publishing, or applies double standards to similar claims. 

Towards the end of her article, Sanders recalled, “In his 2018 message, Francis described journalists’ responsibility as the world’s informers to promote accurate, trusted reporting. He called on everyone to ‘promote a journalism of peace.’”

She concludes:

More than ever, the future of information integrity relies on ordinary people seeking truth and providing corrective information in the public square.

Take it from Francis’ message:

‘The best antidotes to falsehoods are not strategies, but people: people who are not greedy but ready to listen, people who make the effort to engage in sincere dialogue so that the truth can emerge; people who are attracted by goodness and take responsibility for how they use language.’

 Yes, “sincere dialogue,” not proclamations from St. Petersburg, Florida. Truth is not relative, and people should put in the effort to make sure what they are saying or posting on social media is true, but Pope Francis would agree that does not mean the truth is defined as whatever PolitiFact says it is.

Life is sooo hard being a Former First Lady with a $70 million net worth. Remember in 2008 when Michelle Obama announced she only became proud of our nation right then, as she was about to achieve First Lady status?

Now that she’s no longer First Lady, she joined the washed-up female star to podcaster pipeline, admitting on her show that she no longer has to pretend she likes America anymore.

On Thursday, I joined Fox and Friends First to discuss how Obama has become the Meghan Markle of White House history. We also covered the Left’s antisemitic double standards when it comes to free speech on college campuses. 

 

 

Going back to Obama, she patted herself on the back for refusing to have the decency to put her grudges behind her and show up at President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January (as if anyone outside her elite bubble cares that deeply, whether she attended or not).

Refusing to get off her lazy butt apparently makes this narcissist a feminist martyr, in her own eyes. The former First Lady made up an imaginary misogynist overlord she somehow defeated by playing hooky and packaging it as a message for young women that “it’s okay to say no.”

But congratulating yourself for staying home and doing the bare minimum is a core Leftist value, after all.