Newsbusters

People seem to assume that because PBS is dry and somewhat boring, that must also mean it’s also more serious than other news channels. But the truth is, the commentary on shows like NewsHour is as far in crazy left-wing territory as most prime time MSNBC shows, and it’s been this way since at least the 1990s.

Back in 2017 when MSNBC’s Joy Reid implied that then-House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) was to blame for his own attempted assassination, conservatives were disgusted, of course, but we weren’t exactly surprised. That’s just MSNBC, we thought. There’s something significantly more alarming about — for example — the 1994 incident in which columnist Julianne Malveaux said on PBS’s To the Contrary: “I hope [Clarence Thomas’s] wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter, and he dies early, like so many black men do, of heart disease.”

Of course, the difference is that PBS is publicly funded. That commentary by Malveaux was paid for by tax dollars extracted from conservatives all across the country, and even from Clarence and Ginni Thomas themselves.

 

 

Granted, 1994 was a long time ago. So let’s look at some more recent cases of venomous, taxpayer-funded political commentary.

2003: Longtime PBS documentarian Bill Moyers compared the American flag lapel pins sported by congressional Republicans to Mao Zedong’s “Little Red Book”:

When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao’s little red book on every official’s desk, omnipresent and unread.

2010: PBS talk show host Travis Smiley explicitly equated radical Islamic terrorism to the everyday behavior of Christians in America:

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: The idea got into [radical Islamists’] minds that to kill other people is a great thing to do, and that they will be rewarded in the hereafter.

TRAVIS SMILEY: But Christians do that every sigle day in this country.

ALI: Do they blow people up?

SMILEY: Yes — Christians? Every day.

2017: Notoriously boring PBS host Charlie Rose had this exchange on his talk show with author Kurt Andersen:

KURT ANDERSEN: America is exception religious, has always been exceptionally religious, compared to the rest of —

CHARLIE ROSE: Well, it was founded by people who were seeking religious freedom.

ANDERSEN: Well, that’s one, that’s the charitable way of putting it. Founded also by a theocratic cult of religious nuts.

ROSE: Okay. Right, right.

2020: British-Iranian PBS host Christianne Amanpour likened the first Trump administration’s “modern-day assault” on “fact, knowledge, history, and truth,” to Kristallnacht and the Nazi regime’s book burnings. She went on to laud the then-incoming Biden administration as a “return to norms, including the truth.”
2021: PBS contributor Jonathan Capehart accused the Republican Party of “picking at white grievance and tap-dancing with white supremacy,” as a means of getting “back into power.”
2023: David Rubenstein, in his PBS documentary about the Tea Party, asked Democratic Representative James Clyburn: “In 2010, there was a Tea Party rally eat the Capitol. Did you have a sense, from listening to that rally and the people there, that they were as much interested in being anti-black as they were anti-ObamaCare?”
2024: During PBS’s live coverage of the second night of the Republican National Convention, host Amna Nawaz remarked: “We have seen though, I should note, Republican rhetoric veer into outright racism, echoing some white supremacist notions as well.”
All of this rabid left-wing activism begs the world’s most obvious question: Why the hell are we funding this?

Those quotes above represent a mere drop in the very large, boring, pseudo-Marxist bucket that is PBS. The sheer volume of liberal insanity that is broadcast by PBS boggles the mind. Just take a look at Clay Waters’s author page on NewsBusters and you’ll find more than you could ever want.

Private-sector networks like MSNBC already can (and do) liken Trump to Hitler and accuse Republicans of white supremacy to their heart’s content. (As always, we’ll be there to cover it when they do.) But if PBS wants to engage in that same beltway brand of disgusting, misleading, and useless political coverage, they can do it on their own dime.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom hosts a podcast. Why not? He has plenty of free time.

In the last few years, California experienced a net population loss of nearly 1 million people. The average price of a home in the state is twice that of the national average. Its K-12 test scores in reading and math place California 37th of 50 states. The state’s January 2025 unemployment rate, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was the second highest in the nation.

As for California’s poverty rate, CalMatters, a respected, California-based nonprofit news organization, wrote: “The Public Policy Institute of California, using a methodology similar to that of the Census Bureau, calculated that in 2023, 31.1% of Californians were either at or near poverty. Deep poverty, defined as ‘families with less than half of the resources to meet basic needs,’ was at 3.4%.” (California’s homeless population, at an estimated 187,000, is the nation’s largest.)

In a separate report, CalMatters wrote, “Nearly a quarter of all unhoused Americans live in California — as well as 28% of all homeless veterans and 44% of all ‘chronically homeless’ Americans (people who have a disability and have been homeless for a significant period of time.)”

As to violent crime, the Ventura Star in October 2024 wrote: “After achieving a 50-year low of 391 incidents (per 100,000 residents) in 2014, California’s violent crime rate started to increase in 2015 and has been trending upward, with increases in seven of the past ten years. The 2023 rate is 15.4% higher than 2019, pre-pandemic. … While homicide and aggravated assaults are down since the pandemic surge, they are still higher than pre-pandemic levels.”

The state budget is a mess. In 2022, Newsom asserted, without documentation, the state had a budget surplus of $100 billion: “No other state in American history has ever experienced a surplus as large as this.”

So, the supermajority Democrat-dominated legislature proceeded to spend accordingly. CalMatters wrote, “Two years later, buried in its fine print, the deficit-ridden 2024-25 budget acknowledged that sales taxes and personal and corporate income tax revenues would fall well short of the $200 billion a year projection, estimating a $165.1 billion shortfall over four years.”

Newsom invited to his inaugural podcast conservative Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA. They discussed the term “Latinx,” the supposedly “inclusive” term to describe Hispanics. According to Pew Research, of Hispanics familiar with the word, 75% do not think it should be used.

Newsom: “By the way, not one person ever in my office has ever used the word Latinx.”

Kirk: “So can we finally put that to bed? Yeah, what the hell? Where did that even go? No more Latinx, everybody.”

Newsom: “I just didn’t even know where it came from. I’m like, ‘What are people talking about?’”

But CNN and other outlets showed clips of Newsom repeatedly using the word, including when he implied Republicans were racist for rejecting the word.

Here’s more gaslighting. Newsom, dismissing complaints of massive job loss, signed a bill increasing the minimum wage for fast-food workers from $16 to $20 an hour, effective April 2024. Months later, his office issued the following statement: “California has added jobs in limited service restaurants (fast food) both since Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 1228 the FAST Recovery Act in September 2023 and since the law’s new $20 minimum wage for fast food workers took effect April 1, 2024.”

Don’t tell the BLS. It found that California has lost nearly 16,000 fast-food jobs since the bill was signed.

In December 2024, the California Globe wrote: “While many stores let only a few employees go, others had more drastic numbers. Pizza Hut alone laid off 1,200 delivery drivers due to the higher costs. Others, including Round Table Pizza, did the same, pushing delivery duties onto services like DoorDash and Uber Eats.” Fast-food prices increased by an average of nearly 15%.

Voters in November 2024 had a chance to vote for a hike in the minimum wage for the rest of California workers. For the first time in history, California voters nixed a measure to increase the minimum wage. Newsom ignored the massive damage his wage hike did to fast-food worker employment, but California voters did not.

ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel was the only late night comedian to acknowledge the existence of Wednesday’s House hearing on how PBS and NPR have used taxpayer money to promote liberal causes while attacking conservatives. However, for Kimmel, the main takeaway was that subcommittee chair Marjorie Taylor Greene supposedly looks like one of the drag queens she was dismayed was aired on a PBS childhood education program.

Kimmel introduced a clip of Greene at the hearing after mocking Rep. James Comer for demanding answers on whether it was an NPR reporter that accidentally hit President Donald Trump in the face with a boom microphone, “You’d be shocked to know they did not get to the bottom of this, because the chair of the committee that called the hearing today had more important fish to fry.”

 

 

In the clip, Greene introduced a video of her own, “This show was aired on PBS on April 1, 2021.”

The clip within a clip showed a drag queen called Lil Miss Hot Mess singing a song to children to the tune of “Wheels on the Bus,” “The hips on the drag queen go swish, swish, swish, swish, swish, swish. The shoulder on the drag queen goes shimmy, shimmy, shimmy, shimmy, shimmy, shimmy, shimmy, shimmy.”

Green then replied, “The hips go swish, swish, swish. The shoulders go shimmy, shimmy, shimmy. That’s repulsive.”

As for Kimmel, he reacted, “Someone please make a song out of that, will you? Wait, which one was the drag queen? I’m confused.”

PBS denies the clip in question ever aired on PBS and was a project undertaken by its New York City affiliate in partnership with the city’s department of education for a YouTube series called Let’s Learn. However, that is not much of an excuse. A local PBS affiliate is still federally funded via the national company. Meanwhile, Kimmel never did have a good explanation for why taxpayer money should be spent on such programming. 

Sign the petition to help us defund another MSNBC in PBS and NPR at defundpbsnpr.org.

Here is a transcript for the March 26 show:

ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live!

3/26/2025

11:47 PM ET

JIMMY KIMMEL: You’d be shocked to know they did not get to the bottom of this, because the chair of the committee that called the hearing today had more important fish to fry.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: This show was aired on PBS on April 1, 2021. 

LIL MISS HOT MESS: The hips on the drag queen go swish, swish, swish, swish, swish, swish. The shoulder on the drag queen goes shimmy, shimmy, shimmy shimmy, shimmy, shimmy, shimmy, shimmy.

GREENE: The hips go swish, swish, swish. The shoulders go shimmy, shimmy, shimmy. That’s repulsive. 

KIMMEL: Someone please make a song out of that, will you? Wait, which one was the drag queen? I’m confused.

It’s apparently Opposite Day. A leftist economic think tank is crying that the media lied about President Joe Biden’s economy … by trying to convince everyone that it was bad. What is this, the Twilight Zone?

Center for Economic and Policy research co-founder Dean Baker put out a nutty blog March 25 headlined, “Yes, the Media Lied About the Pre-Election Economy.” At first glance we would agree with that, but digging into the finer details reveals that Baker wasn’t referencing how much leftist media outlets simped for Bidenomics to the point of beclowning themselves into a poorly choreographed circus act. In fact, in Baker’s upside-down world, the media was supposedly just telling the public that the Biden economy was actually a disaster.

George Soros funneled $1,011,518 into Baker’s outfit between 2016 and 2023 alone.

“As I’ve argued many times, a big factor was the media (the NYT and WaPo, I don’t mean Fox) had poisoned the well, continually highlighting or even inventing bad news about the economy,” Baker railed. Uh, what?! Is that why outlets like Politico were adamant that Vice President Kamala Harris was riding a so-called “dream economy” into the election because they were just continually “highlighting” or “inventing bad news?”

How about when Politico praised Biden’s “‘holy grail’” economy or when The New York Times ran the headline “The Economy Looks Sunny, a Potential Gain for Biden” on the same day in February 2024 alone?

How about The Washington Post’s repeated treatment of voters as idiots for not realizing how great the Biden economy supposedly was? Or how about this beauty from The Times from July 25, 2024, “2025 Could Be a Great Time to Be President, Economically Speaking?” Here’s another absurd pre-election gem from The Times, “The Economy Looks Strong as Election Day Nears.” 

Insanity doesn’t even begin to describe Baker’s ridiculous historical revisionism, but luckily the MRC has the video records of the media’s general treatment of the Biden economy during his presidency. Grab some popcorn, watch the clip below and judge for yourself.

Media: The Economy Is Actually ‘Fantastic,’ Voters Are Just Too Dumb To Notice

 

In a nutshell, the media was doing the very pro-Bidenomics tribal dancing that Baker made it seem like was non-existent. Instead, he cherry-picked just two stories from The Times, one from The Post and a generic allusion to media that reported recent college graduates couldn’t find work as his evidence to back up his claims that the media writ large was just pooh-poohing Biden’s economic record. That was it.  But Baker doubled down:

These are some of my highlights, but the point is the ‘bad economy’ was a repeated theme of the media’s reporting throughout the Biden years. I don’t expect the media to tell people how to feel about the economy, we all know people hate inflation and everyone has heard the story that workers think they have ‘earned’ their pay increases, while inflation is the government’s fault, but this doesn’t justify the media’s mis-representing reality to tell a story that isn’t true.

Oy vey.

Baker’s faux-furor over the media stemmed from his citation of new data from another leftist anti-free market think tank heavily funded by Soros, the Economic Policy Institute, suggesting that low-end, minimum wage workers experienced supposedly explosive wage growth for the year 2024, “bucking historical trends.” “It shows that workers, especially those at the bottom of the wage distribution, had substantial real wage gains since the pandemic,” claimed Baker. He embellished further: “[T]here were long periods over the last half-century where wages for lower and middle-wage workers did not keep pace with inflation. In the last five years, they not only kept pace, but hugely exceeded inflation.”

Not so fast. Research was also released by Statista in February 2025, which found that “[d]espite the level of wage growth reaching 6.7 percent in the summer of 2022, it has not been enough to curb the impact of even higher inflation rates. The federally mandated minimum wage in the United States has not increased since 2009, meaning that individuals working minimum wage jobs have taken a real terms pay cut for the last twelve years.”  

The other inconvenient factoid about the EPI report Baker is waving around like a foam finger at a ballgame is that he apparently distorted the findings. There’s a surprise (not)! MarketPlace, which covered the same report that Baker did, was much more upfront about what the EPI data really showed: “The lowest paid workers saw wages rise since the pandemic, but many still struggle.” MarketPlace turned to W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research Senior Economist Brad Hershbein, who “said even with that jump in wages many of the lowest-paid workers are still struggling, and that inflation has hit them particularly hard. ‘[Those workers] tend to buy things that are more subject to inflation, and those things also represent a larger share of all the things that they buy,’ he said.”

Baker is virtually guilty of committing the very media gaslighting on the Biden economy that the MRC Business had been reporting on for years in effectively telling struggling Americans: Stop complaining, you’re actually doing great economically but you’re just too dumb to see it. Real estate company Redfin released another report February 24, 2025, which found that “[t]he average minimum-wage earner in the U.S. would have to work 106 hours per week to afford the $1,599 median-priced apartment.” 

This was a minor step down from the “126 hours” peak in 2022 when the inflation rate hit 40-year highs and the median asking rent was over $1,700, but Redfin noted that this was still “20.4% ($271) higher than pre-pandemic (January 2020) levels.”

“A rule of thumb in personal finance is that people should spend no more than 30% of their earnings on housing, though this rule has become harder to follow as housing costs have soared,” Redfin stated. “Many minimum-wage workers are spending over 30% to make ends meet. Many are also living in apartments with below-average rents.” 

Another March 2025 report from MortgagePoint found that “more than half of Americans say they feel ‘overwhelmed’ by rising utility costs, mortgage payments, and rent, leaving many consumers with little money left over after paying their monthly housing expenses,” based on new research from American Home Shield. Just on energy bills alone in the past year, “Americans reported an average rate increase of 11%, and more than three out of five are unaware of the reasons for these increases,” MortgagePoint reported.

Does that sound like an economy that workers should be just tickled pink over, Baker?

NewsBusters Media Editor Bill D’Agostino contributed to this report. 

In a report shown on Monday’s Erin Burnett OutFront and Tuesday’s CNN News Central, reporter Meena Duerson spoke with a group of mothers who smoke marijuana together and claim it makes them better parents.

By contrast, Fox News has had a recent history of highlighting studies linking marijuana use to an increased incidence of mental illness. 

On Monday night, setting up the pre-recorded piece, host Burnett repeated claims that marijuana can help women be better parents: “For the first time ever, women have surpassed men when it comes to marijuana use in America. And tonight we’re hearing from a group of moms who get together to smoke. They say that they are better parents and that they are better partners because of it.”

And on Tuesday morning, CNN host John Berman similarly asserted: “All right, new this morning, marijuana as a parenting tool. One group of women has turned to the drug as a way to cope with the challenges of motherhood. They call themselves ‘Cannamoms’ and say smoking has made them better parents.”

Each host was introducing a report by correspondent Meena Duerson which included her speaking with several women who take part in a game night every two months in St. Louis where they consume marijuana and take time to get away from their children. An unnamed participant could be heard describing their activities: “Cannamom game night is a night out with your besties away from the kids. You’re meeting new friends. You’re going to be gifted some joints and play some games, and you’re just going to live your best kid-free life for a couple of hours.”

Duerson related: “Here in Missouri, recreational cannabis has been legal since late 2022. Every few months, these moms get together to consume.”

After clips of several women complaining about there being stigma attached to mothers using marijuana, then came soundbites of women who wished that marijuana were as socially acceptable as alcohol:

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #5: Moms that smoke weed should be just as acceptable as moms that drink wine. It should be, you know, something that is exactly the same.

DUERSON: And do you think that they’re not treated like that?

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #5: Not at all.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Both of us used to drink — we used to go to the bar — we used to go out.

DUERSON: What’s the difference?

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Huge. I’ll never in the world understand how marijuana was illegal for so long and alcohol was legal when alcohol has literally killed and destroyed so many people in my family’s lives.

The CNN reporter went on to speak with the co-founders of the “Cannamoms” group — Kimberly Kesterson and Jessica Carol — so they could explain why think marijuana benefits them. In a report that lasted just over four minutes, Duerson only devoted nine seconds to possible health consequences of marijuana use: “The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns it may have, quote, ‘a wide range of health effects on the body and brain,’ and cautions against smoking and driving.”

But over on Fox, back on February 9, Fox & Friends Sunday covered a study linking marijuana to serious mental illness. Co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy related:

All right, it’s time now for your “Weekend Wellness,” and this week we’re focusing on a new study on the dangers of smoking excessive marijuana. A Canadian study found that nine percent of those who use marijuana excessively develop schizophrenia compared to just 0.6 percent for those who don’t.

Medical contributor Doctor Nicole Saphier discussed the study and recommended other herbal ways to relax that are safer than using marijuana.

Transcripts follow:

CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront

March 24, 2025

7:56 p.m. Eastern

ERIN BURNETT: For the first time ever, women have surpassed men when it comes to marijuana use in America. And tonight we’re hearing from a group of moms who get together to smoke. They say that they are better parents and that they are better partners because of it. And Meena Duerson has this special report “Out Front.”

MEENA DUERSON: These are the St. Louis Cannamoms, and this is game night.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Cannamom game night is a night out with your besties away from the kids. You’re meeting new friends. You’re going to be gifted some joints and play some games, and you’re just going to live your best kid-free life for a couple of hours.

DUERSON: Here in Missouri, recreational cannabis has been legal since late 2022. Every few months, these moms get together to consume. What is special about this being like a roomful of moms?

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: It gets me out of the house. The women here are all very accepting.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: If you put marijuana and a mom together (inaudible) don’t really go together.

DUERSON: Why do you think people care if it’s a mom?

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: Because mom is supposed to know everything — they’re supposed to be this picture perfect person.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #4: You’re held to a certain standard.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #5: Moms that smoke weed should be just as acceptable as moms that drink wine. It should be, you know, something that is exactly the same.

DUERSON: And do you think that they’re not treated like that?

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #5: Not at all.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Both of us used to drink — we used to go to the bar — we used to go out.

DUERSON: What’s the difference?

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Huge. I’ll never in the world understand how marijuana was illegal for so long and alcohol was legal when alcohol has literally killed and destroyed so many people in my family’s lives.

DUERSON: Jessica Carol and Kimberly Kesteron started this group to help moms like themselves find and support each other.

KIMBERLY KESTERSON: We just really have created a community — a space where women come together. They laugh.

JESSICA CAROL: So if you’re any parent like me, you put your children first. So to be able to step away and give yourself some time and do some self care. It’s hard to do.

DUERSON: A lot of these women say their kids know they smoke and that weed actually helps them be better moms.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: They see that I’m not doing it to party — I’m doing it to relax. And as far as motherhood, it helps me be able to calm down and handle the situation at hand.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #4: I normally do it in the nighttime right after I get my kids on their scheduled sleep.

DUERSON: So, for you, like, you’re tucking your kids into the bed, they’re asleep, and you’re like —

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #4: It’s time for me to relax — I got through the day. Kind of like I replenish myself — I water myself like a plant.

DUERSON: Cannabis is still illegal at the federal level. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns it may have, quote, “a wide range of health effects on the body and brain,” and cautions against smoking and driving. For these moms, the group’s about more than getting high. St. Louis Cannamoms — one of dozens of similar Facebook groups around the country — has more than 4,000 members and provides donations to moms in need.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #6: Not just me and my kids — I don’t know where we would be without that. They’re my family.

KESTERSON: Being a mom’s hard. There are so many expectations on you, and we feel like we have to be perfect. We feel shame around our blowups and having a hard day. And so I think it’s super important that we’re able to see that there are so many other moms that go through the same struggles.

DUERSON: Do you see it now as like a tool in your parenting.

KESTERSON: Oh, yeah. For sure. I think it definitely helps me stay patient. I actually want to sit down and do stuff with my kids instead of sit and scroll on my phone all day.

DUERSON: Do you get any backlash?

KESTERSON: Just, you know, “You’re a bad mom — you shouldn’t have your kid because you smoke.”

DUERSON: People say that to you?

KESTERSON: Mm-hmm. I feel like I’m at a space now where I feel very secure within myself and who I am and how I use cannabis. And if people want to judge me for that or make an assumption that I’m a bad mom, then let them.

DUERSON: That’s not something that’s keeping you up at night?

KESTERSON: No, not at all. Absolutely not.

DUERSON: Meena Duerson, CNN, St. Louis, Missouri.

(…)

CNN News Central

March 25, 2025

9:51 a.m. Eastern

JOHN BERMAN: All right, new this morning, marijuana as a parenting tool. One group of women has turned to the drug as a way to cope with the challenges of motherhood. They call themselves “Cannamoms” and say smoking has made them better parents. CNN’s Meena Duerson has the story.

(Same report by Meena Duerson that aired on Erin Burnett OutFront)

BERMAN: Great report there.

SARA SIDNER: It really is.

BERMAN: Our thanks to Meena Duerson for that.

(…)

Fox & Friends Sunday

February 9, 2025

7:45 a.m. Eastern

RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY: All right, it’s time now for your “Weekend Wellness,” and this week we’re focusing on a new study on the dangers of smoking excessive marijuana. A Canadian study found that nine percent of those who use marijuana excessively develop schizophrenia compared to just 0.6 percent for those who don’t. Here to unpack it all is Fox News medical contributor Doctor Nicole Saphier.

Nicole, I have always been on the side of not legalizing, and the reason — marijuana use — and the reason is my husband was a prosecutor, and he dealt with a lot of, you know, these groups that were trying to help rehabilitate people on drugs, and they always told him — this was before we saw the legalization — “Please don’t legalize — please don’t allow, you know, your party to get behind legalization because it’s a gateway drug to other drugs.” But you’re saying there’s also other impacts on just your mental health?

DOCTOR NICOLE SAPHIER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, that’s right, Rachel. So, first of all, it’s important to recognize that there are some benefits for marijuana — specifically, medical benefits when it comes to glaucoma, pain, appetite stimulate, and even — even has some benefit with multiple sclerosis, and then cancer patients. However, I have also — like you — have been very cautious about legalization of marijuana because there are known risks with it. And this large population-based study out of Canada looking at over 13 million people in the province of Ontario is showing that there is nearly a 15 times risk associated with schizophrenia with cannabis use disorder.

Now, this is not surprising because we have already been well-documented of the risk of other psychoses when it comes to cannabis use. It can also negatively affect your heart, your lungs, your metabolic system. It can also increase your breast tissue and cause an increase in breast cancer. And you can see depressed sperm count and fertility with it. So it is very concerning when it comes to people using this a lot more, and you’re seeing rising levels of THC over the years in marijuana that people are using.

Now, when you ask people, “Why are you using marijuana?” a lot of people say, “Well, I have anxiety,” or, “I just want to relax myself.” Well, let me tell you, not everything that is natural is good for you. So you should always talk to your doctor before you use it, but I can tell you there are far safer other herbs that I like that are natural that can help with relaxation.

(…)

President Donald Trump ended federal DEI programs.

Even before, companies were having second thoughts.

Victoria’s Secret changed “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” to “inclusion and belonging.”

Now, even woke Disney, despite squandering 270 million shareholder dollars on a moronic new version of “Snow White,” joined the mob of companies dropping DEI programs.

Why? Diversity, equity and inclusion sound good.

The problem is that DEI programs were captured by activists who obsess about victimhood. They divide people more than they empower.

“Diversity, equity and inclusion,” says activist Robby Starbuck in my newest video, “don’t mean what they pretend to mean.”

Before Trump ended federal DEI programs by executive order, Starbuck ended them at some companies merely by using the power of speech. His strategy: warn companies that he’ll tell his social media followers what stupid things they do.

Remarkably, that worked!

After he criticized John Deere on Twitter for encouraging “preferred pronouns” and holding woke diversity trainings, John Deere quickly dropped those policies.

Toyota, Target and Harley Davidson did, too.

“Why did they listen to you?” I ask.

“We go to them like any other investigative journalist and we say, ‘Hey, we have a story we’re working on.’”

Then, if they don’t change their policies, he goes public — posting the policies and his criticism on YouTube, Twitter, etc.

One week after he posted that Toyota sponsored pride parades and divided workers into identity-based groups such as LGBT, Black and Christian, Toyota stopped sponsoring LGBTQ events and opened employee groups to all workers.

Coors has been requiring DEI trainings and donating to pride events. All it took was Starbuck looking into the company, and they stopped.

So did Jack Daniels, McDonald’s, Walmart, AT&T, Lowe’s and Ford.

“I like diversity,” I tell him, suggesting DEI programs were good.

“They sound warm and fuzzy,” says Starbuck. “It’s why at the beginning, it got a lot of buy-in … I want to include everybody. I don’t want to be mean. What it actually turned out to be in reality looked more like crazy trainings, overtly racist hiring practices, diametrically opposed to the very warm, fuzzy sounding words they try to sell.”

I think private companies should be able to have whatever policies they want. Customers and workers can buy other products or work someplace else.

But over the past few years, DEI mandates became so prevalent, you couldn’t avoid them.

I’m a Chase Bank customer. The bank is run by a very smart guy, Jamie Dimon.

Just last year, Dimon said DEI is “good for business; it’s morally right; we’re quite good at it.”

But after Starbuck revealed JPMorgan’s policies, Dimon quickly changed his mind.

“I saw how we were spending money on some of this stupid s–t,” Dimon said, “and it really pissed me off … I’m just going to cancel them. I don’t like wasted money in bureaucracy.”

In my years of reporting, I’ve never seen changes this fast.

DEI activists are angry about it.

The president of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation says, “We will not be erased!”

“What existed before DEI?” replies Starbuck. “Did black people not exist before that?”

On “The View,” host Sunny Hostin claims, “This will specifically harm women … African Americans and Latinos.”

“What she’s actually saying is that minorities are not going to be able to get jobs if the sole thing you’re looking at is merit. The way I was raised, you call that racism,” replies Starbuck. “She’s being racist.”

I push back:

“They’re just saying, ‘We have a history of disadvantage. We were slaves in this country.’”

“None of them were,” he points out. “I’m Cuban. I could say my family went through this and that. I didn’t go through it. I’m not going to claim their disadvantage as my own.”

“We’re not going to fall for the same stupid stuff anymore. We’re going to judge people based on merit.”

Every Tuesday at JohnStossel.com, Stossel posts a new video about the battle between government and freedom. He is the author of “Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media.”

PBS and NPR each faced the difficulty on Wednesday night of covering their own bosses taking tough questions from Republicans at the Capitol in a hearing on Wednesday. PBS actually aired a Republican citing us — just as a “conservative media watchdog group.” NPR didn’t want to seriously engage in anything….

PBS correspondent William Brangham included plenty of Republican and Democrat soundbites from the hearing. He also aired PBS boss Paula Kerger claiming that the drag queen singing to children “The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish Swish Swish” were never broadcast on TV. Subcommittee chairman challenged that, saying WNET in New York aired it on April 20, 2021. The video is available across the country at the PBS website.

Here’s where the studies on PBS tilt were mentioned: 

Rep. PAT FALLON (R-TX): Propaganda wing of the Democratic Party.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The PBS News Hour was criticized as well. Representative Pat Fallon, Republican of Texas, cited a conservative media watchdog group that says it analyzed the News Hour’s coverage of the 2024 presidential conventions.

FALLON: Seventy-two percent of the coverage of the GOP convention was negative; 88 percent of the coverage of Democratic Convention was positive.

Rep. ROBERT GARCIA (D-CA): A large majority of Americans say they trust PBS. And that’s exactly why extremists are trying to tear it down.

As usual, Brangham claimed their funding was a tiny percentage of the enormous federal budget, and cost about $1.50 a day per American…as if the issue was merely fiscal, and not about all their horrendous daily “news” product. 

NPR media reporter David Folkenflik always arrives with the disclaimer that no NPR executive has reviewed his copy, but it still sounds like tinny self-defense. Online, he huffed: 

The hearing, entitled “Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the Heads of NPR and PBS Accountable,” appears arranged more to score points than to find facts. 

He’s not looking in the mirror to see if this applies to NPR “news.” On All Things Considered, notes. 

Barely a year after it was launched, CBS has canceled After Midnight hosted by Taylor Tomlinson. According to Variety, CBS has no plans to replace the show with original programming, as many Paramount executives are worried about running “up more costs.”

Still, executive producer and fellow CBS late night host Stephen Colbert said in a statement the decision was Tomlinson’s, “While we were excited and grateful for our third season to start in the fall, we respect Taylor’s decision to return to stand-up full time.”

Last month Tomlinson had told SXSW that taking the job was a difficult one because it would mean less time on tour.

After Midnight was supposed to be a different kind of late night comedy show. For diversity-conscious liberals and industry insiders, that was seen in Tomlinson being the only woman among the permanent septet. For people who just want jokes, After Midnight was a reboot of Comedy Central’s @Midnight where improv games replaced the traditional talk show format. At one point in her career, Tomlinson even claimed to stay away from politics because she was not qualified to speak about them, “I’m just very like — what’s going on in my life right now? What, in my experience and personally, do I feel like I have some authority to talk about?”

However, about halfway through 2024, After Midnight started employing a traditional monologue at the beginning of the show, and Tomlinson got more political.

Her most common bit has been trying to help turn alleged terrorist and CEO assassin Luigi Mangione into a sex symbol. One time she referred to his victim, Brian Thompson, as “whose name was—he’s not hot, so I don’t remember.”

Speaking of sex, another Tomlinson moment came after the VP debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz. The rules of the debate stipulated the moderators would not fact-check the candidates, but CBS colleague Margaret Brennan ignored those rules to issue a questionable fact-check of Vance’s take on the CBP One app. Brennan also tried to dunk on Vance by claiming she couldn’t hear him because they cut his mic. Tomlinson reacted, “And before anyone asks, yes, I masturbated to this. A woman, silencing men? Yeah, that’s going in the spank bank.”

 

 

Tomlinson has also seemingly displayed an urge to move beyond her conservative Christian upbringing. While her career started with church performances, she has since sought to leave that form of comedy behind. At CBS, she would encourage contestants to belittle Jesus and the Catholic Church.

After Trump won in November, Tomlinson mourned, “A lot of people want solutions, so they’re posting today about what we can do to move forward. And I think that’s valuable. But also, let’s have a [bleep] second to be sad. It’s all right. You know. If your friend dies, you go to the funeral and say, ‘I really miss my friend.’ You don’t go to the funeral and immediately scream, ‘Volunteer at the library!’ Like yes, okay, I’ll volunteer at the library, but let me bury democracy first.”

In the final quarter of 2024, Tomlinson got an average of 300,000 fewer viewers than fellow 12:37 slot host, NBC’s Seth Meyers. After Midnight’s series finale will take place sometime in June.

Publicly funded National Public Radio continues to defy basic biology by muddling the facts of life. 

On Tuesday, Kristen Schorsch took the emotional approach to the gender identity topic in “What happens when a Chicago hospital bows to federal pressure on trans care for teens.”

He’s 17 and lives in the Chicago suburbs. He loves theater and recently helped direct a play at his high school. He takes competitive AP courses and is working on his Eagle Scout project. And he’s been on a journey for four years. Once a week, the transgender teen injects testosterone into his body. He’s already frozen his eggs in case he wants to have his own biological children one day….

Yes, “he” has frozen his eggs. Schorsch hyped up the melodrama over the Trump administration’s funding pressure. America is so backwards the star of the story has to remain anonymous.

NPR is not identifying the teen by name — or using his mother’s last name — because they are concerned he could be targeted for being transgender.

Reading the text of these stories is like stepping into Wonderland: A boy due for a mastectomy.

Another patient, a 16-year-old boy from Chicago, had a surgery date for a double mastectomy procedure — until Lurie canceled it. NPR is not identifying him because he fears for his personal safety.

The teen felt betrayed by the cancellation, he said. He has been binding his chest for more than five years, but doing that causes rib and back pain.

There are two sexes, male and female, determined by whether their bodies are primed to produce sperm or eggs. It took NPR four reporters to pretend otherwise in the recent long investigation “How is sex determined? Scientists say it’s complicated.”

From the text version of the report for the NPR podcast Short Wave:

Between the presidential executive order affecting passport policy, moving transgender inmates between prisons and regulating women’s sports, appeals to “the biological reality of sex” are constant.

The truth is that biological sex, like a lot of scientific categories, is nuanced.

It’s defined by multiple criteria – including chromosomal, chemical, and physical factors – that can, and do, change over a person’s lifetime. And it’s a reality that’s definitely not limited to male and female.

The NPR report treats a person’s sexual identity is an unsolvable mystery, not an easily observed fact.

Medical experts often determine sex by observing internal genitalia like ovaries or external genitalia like penises and testes. They also look at secondary sexual characteristics. These don’t usually develop until puberty and include traits like breasts or facial hair. A person’s voice, height, fat distribution and muscle mass are other hormone-influenced characteristics that are often used to determine sex.

But these traits don’t always fall on a strict binary.

There are tall women and short men, women with flatter chests and men without facial hair; people’s appearances can vary widely.

NPR continued to muddle undeniable biological facts.

Why not define human sex by reproductive capacity?

This is, in part, what President Trump’s recent executive order suggests: two distinct sexes — one that produces large reproductive cells (i.e. eggs) and one that produces small reproductive cells (i.e. sperm). The issue is that all humans’ reproductive capacity changes throughout their lifespan – children and menopausal adults, for example, cannot reproduce, but that doesn’t mean their biological sex is invalid. Plus, there are rare cases of people born with both ovarian and testicular tissue.

In short, science has documented humans who produce eggs, sperm, both, or neither. There’s a wide range of possibilities!

Are there really? Next up, the hyped-up condition “intersex.”

How common are intersex conditions?

A lot more common than you might think!

NPR pushed activist propaganda that “intersex conditions overall affect 1-2 in every 100 people. That would make being intersex about as common as having red hair – and more common than being an identical twin.” Using actual scientific definitions, that figure is about 100 times less.

NPR had to run a later clarification: “This story has been revised to clarify that while there are documented examples of people who produce sperm and viable eggs, there are no documented examples of people who produce both viable eggs and viable sperm.”

So much for scientific expertise at NPR.

The “legacy” media have been considered to be a nihilistic institution, especially lately. Tonight’s report on ABC World News Tonight puts any and all doubt to rest, as they prop up a liberal favorite by promoting a movie they had no business promoting. 

Watch the full report on the release for the trailer of Rust, starring Alec Baldwin, as aired on ABC World News Tonight on Wednesday, March 26th, 2025: 

The Regime takes care of their own: ABC promotes the upcoming release of Rust, the Alec Baldwin vehicle made infamous after he shot the cinematographer pic.twitter.com/MOwH5hgfa0
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) March 27, 2025

WHIT JOHNSON: A first look at the trailer for the movie “Rust” ahead of its release in May.

ALEC BALDWIN: Some things in this life you can’t get back, I reckon.

JOHNSON: The movie, starring Alec Baldwin, became infamous before it was even completed, after the 2021 on-set tragedy that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza. Charges against Baldwin were eventually dropped. 

One is left wondering what pirouettes were performed by Alec Baldwin’s publicity team in order to score this “story”. One thing is for certain and it is that Rust would have drawn scant to no coverage at all had Balwin not accidentally shot and killed the movie’s cinematographer.

This tragedy garnered significant attention across the network dial. From the shooting, to the investigation and through the trial. It seems unsavory to now reward Baldwin with free media and exposure for the film.

But Baldwin, of course, is a notorious liberal celebrity who made his bones berating conservatives and by manifesting extreme Trump Derangement Syndrome. The Regime, perhaps saw fit to throw Baldwin a bone- especially after being brutally and publicly humiliated by his wife with the phony Spaniard accent. Unless the surviving loved ones of the shooting victim are getting a cut of the film’s profits, there was no real reason to promote it on valuable network news air time.