Newsbusters

In an Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) raid the liberal media managed to not leak out, ABC’s senior political correspondent Rachel Scott rode along overnight Monday into Tuesday with ICE and other federal law enforcement agencies on raids in Northern Virginia and, when it was all said and done, her biggest concern voiced on Good Morning America wasn’t that one illegal alien “convicted of sexual battery” had two children living with him.

Nope! Instead, it was what this would mean for the two children to be separated from their father and another adult who was also in the country illegally.

 

 

Scott even framed her table-setter as built on the insinuation ICE may have been lying to her:

[W]e were out with ICE for hours overnight as they went forward with targeted operations. The administration says that they are going after what they call the worst first individuals in the country illegally but have a known criminal record. 

She then griped that “as we saw firsthand today, it is not stopping” with hardened criminals.

“At the second ICE operation, agents arresting one man who they say was deported twice and reentered the country illegally. Officials say he has been convicted of sexual battery,” she scoffed before dropping what she seemed to take issue with. “[I]nside that residence, there were two minors and an uncle. Agents believe that uncle is undocumented.”

Scott revealed they didn’t seize the “uncle” on the spot, but ordered him to surrender two days later so he can figure out whom to leave the two children with.

The ABC liberal tool posed this to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem:

NOEM: This family — we don’t know what other family members they have. That’s why he has two days to go locate them and make sure these kids are with someone in their family that they believe will keep them safe and set a better example for them.

SCOTT [TO NOEM]: There is that likelihood that these families could be separated.

NOEM: There is consequences and we’re giving him time to leave these children with someone else.

ABC’s Rachel Scott, continuing to show the liberal media haven’t learned a thing since the election in which immigration was one of the leading issues that put President Trump in the White House.

Before tossing back with the observation ICE was joined by the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Scott doubled down on her concern for the children, something the liberal media rarely spend time mentioning when this happens to underage Americans with native-born relatives: “So, DHS tells us they handle these cases on a case-by-case basis. But there are still so many questions this morning on what exactly happens to minors in these scenarios.”

To see the relevant ABC transcript from March 4, click “expand.”

ABC’s Good Morning America
March 4, 2025
8:03 a.m. Eastern

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Breaking at 8; New ICE Raid]

MICHAEL STRAHAN: We’re going to turn now to the latest immigration overnight. Senior political correspondent Rachel Scott was embedded on an ICE operation in Virginia. Good morning, Rachel.

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Breaking at 8; Inside New Immigration Raid]

RACHEL SCOTT: Michael, good morning to you. Yes, we were out with ICE for hours overnight as they went forward with targeted operations. The administration says that they are going after what they call the worst first individuals in the country illegally but have a known criminal record. But, as we saw firsthand today, it is not stopping there. At the second ICE operation, agents arresting one man who they say was deported twice and reentered the country illegally. Officials say he has been convicted of sexual battery, but inside that residence, there were two minors and an uncle. Agents believe that uncle is undocumented. They told him to turn himself into immigration authorities in two days. So, we asked the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, what happens to those minors.

DHS SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: This family — we don’t know what other family members they have. That’s why he has two days to go locate them and make sure these kids are with someone in their family that they believe will keep them safe and set a better example for them.

SCOTT [TO NOEM]: There is that likelihood that these families could be separated.

NOEM: There is consequences and we’re giving him time to leave these children with someone else.

SCOTT: So, DHS tells us they handle these cases on a case-by-case basis. But there are still so many questions this morning on what exactly happens to minors in these scenarios. I will tell you this was all hands-on-deck situation this morning. It was not just ICE agents. It was also FBI, DEA, and the ATF, Robin. 

ROBIN ROBERTS: Alright. Our thanks to you, Rachel.

Monday’s PBS News Hour promoted former CNN reporter Maria Ressa, who was awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for her “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression,” but her tough experiences as a journalist in the Philippines taught her the wrong lessons — that freedom of speech on social media is responsible for the rise in authoritarianism around the world, using the left-wing excuse of disinformation to call for the silencing of disagreeable voices online.

Without any irony about free speech, her presence was part of the News Hour’s “On Democracy” series, launched after Trump’s victory, which so far has been an excuse to cue up various liberals to warn darkly that elected President Donald Trump is a dictator.

The title of Ressa’s book alone clues viewers in about the slant of her forthcoming segment.

Co-anchor Geoff Bennett: Nobel Peace Prize laureate and investigative journalist Maria Ressa has long fought for global press freedom. Her book How to Stand Up to a Dictator detailed her experience running the news site Rappler under the increasingly autocratic regime of President Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines. She recently sat down with Amna Nawaz to discuss parallels she’s seeing between the Philippines and the U.S. under President Trump….

This is another segment underlining this isn’t Jim Lehrer’s or Judy Woodruff’s show any more.  Amna Nawaz eagerly paints the president as an autocrat: 

Co-anchor Amna Nawaz: So there’s been a lot of concerns you have seen about President Trump’s continuing attacks on the press and concerns about a loss of press freedom. I want you to start by just comparing what you lived through, what you documented, what you covered under Duterte with what we have seen in the first several weeks of this second Trump administration so far.

Ressa’s verdict? It’s worse under Trump! She’s gone around screeching “America is moving into hell.” That’s why PBS booked her. 

Maria Ressa: It’s exactly what we have lived through, except accelerated. It’s incredible how fast it’s going….within six months of the election of Rodrigo Duterte, of him taking office, all of the checks and balances had collapsed. He was an all-powerful — the most powerful leader the country had ever known. And critical to that, crucial to that, is silencing the press and the justice system, the court system, right? Because — and I think that’s what we’re beginning to see right now.

But the actual examples of Trump being dictatorial consisted mostly of another rehash of the “Gulf of America” imbroglio involving a spat among White House journalists.

Nawaz: ….What does it say to you that he’s going after the AP? What’s at stake in their lawsuit against the president here?

They love this false dichotomy: Trump’s “going after the AP,” and the AP is NOT going after Trump? PBS is certainly going after Trump. But the media expect Republicans to absorb punches without punching back. 

Nawaz then briefly acknowledged that some Americans don’t think Trump is a dictator. He was elected fair and square. Ressa couldn’t accept that argument: 

Nawaz: ….there are folks who will say, look, the U.S. is not the Philippines. Trump is not Duterte. Our democracy is not the same as the one that you lived in. What do you say to that, the idea that this is somehow immune, our system, from the same things that the Philippines fell prey to?

Ressa: ….it isn’t just the Philippines. There is a dictator’s playbook, and you can look first at Russia, actually, even before that, Turkey, Hungary, Russia, right, with Putin taking office. And the first step is really to get elected, once you’re elected, to crush the systems of checks and balances, and then replace them with your own — we’re starting to call them the broligarchy, because it’s far more potent, the tech guys are more potent than just normal oligarchies….

Ressa’s evidently was lumping in Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg into that “broligarchy.” Ressa was so harsh that Nawaz actually acknowledged the view of Trump voters: 

Nawaz: We should point out, Maria, that the majority of Americans say they don’t even trust the media right now, that we have seen a decline in that trust over years. And many people like to see the president go after the press in the way that he does. They will hear this conversation and say, ‘good, I’m glad he’s doing what he’s doing. What has the independent press ever done for me?’ What would you say to them?

Ressa: The role of journalists in a country, in a democracy like the Philippines, like the United States is to hold power to account. and I believe that is why — I mean, you’re not going to have an influencer or a content creator stand up to a dictator….

Ressa hit the sweet spot, where journalists think democracy lives or dies based on their crusading leftist advocacy: “You lose journalism the way we practice it, you lose democracy.”

This segment was brought to you in part by American Cruise Lines.

A transcript is available, click “Expand.”

PBS News Hour

3/3/25

7:28:33 p.m. (ET)

Geoff Bennett: Nobel Peace Prize laureate and investigative journalist Maria Ressa has long fought for global press freedom. Her book “How to Stand Up to a Dictator” detailed her experience running the news site Rappler under the increasingly autocratic regime of President Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines. She recently sat down with Amna Nawaz to discuss parallels she’s seeing between the Philippines and the U.S. under President Trump. It’s part of our new series On Democracy, which focuses on the laws, institutions and norms that have shaped this country and the challenges they face today.

Amna Nawaz: Maria, welcome back to the “News Hour.” Thank you so much for joining us.

Maria Ressa, CEO, Rappler: Thanks for having me.

Amna Nawaz: So there’s been a lot of concerns you have seen about President Trump’s continuing attacks on the press and concerns about a loss of press freedom. I want you to start by just comparing what you lived through, what you documented, what you covered under Duterte with what we have seen in the first several weeks of this second Trump administration so far.

Maria Ressa: It’s exactly what we have lived through, except accelerated. It’s incredible how fast it’s going. And part of that is organization, right? But what we did in the Philippines is, within six months — the Constitution of the Philippines is patterned after the United States. We have three branches of government and a powerful executive. But within six months of the election of Rodrigo Duterte, of him taking office, all of the checks and balances had collapsed. He was an all-powerful — the most powerful leader the country had ever known. And critical to that, crucial to that is silencing the press and the justice system, the court system, right, because — and I think that’s what we’re beginning to see right now.

Amna Nawaz: Let me ask you about a few individual things we have seen.You have obviously seen the president go after specific news networks. He’s also opened a probe into PBS, we should note. He’s also blocked access for the Associated Press, known as the AP, for their refusal to call it just the Gulf of America, as he wants. They call it the Gulf of Mexico and say he wants to change the name. Now, the AP, we should note, serves thousands of news organizations. They have a reporter in every single statehouse in America, hundreds of countries — rather, over 100 countries across the world. What does it say to you that he’s going after the AP? What’s at stake in their lawsuit against the president here?

 

Maria Ressa: It’s not just press freedom that’s at stake, right? And, again, let me ground it first in what happened in the Philippines. Our president then went after the largest newspaper, the largest television station, and then online. We were the largest. We were number three. But go big, go fast, take them down quickly, make an example. I was the example of a journalist. I had had, oh, my gosh, a long career. I had headed the largest network in the Philippines after almost 20 years with CNN. And then, when the charges came — so first social media, the attacks came bottom up. You say a lie a million times, it becomes a fact. And it was that journalist equals criminal. Two years before I was actually arrested, they trended that, the network that was created online, so the propaganda. Then, a year later, we had the first criminal charges, 21 of them, and then, by two years later, by 2019, I was arrested. And then it was 10 criminal charges in a little over a year. Look, what you’re seeing is death by 1,000 cuts of democracy. This is exactly what I had written about in the book. And, originally, I was speaking to Filipinos, but it is a cautionary tale for every democracy, where technology is the spark that allows populism to become authoritarianism and to shift over. I think we’re seeing this now.

Amna Nawaz: So, if the press is under attack here, Maria, as an observer watching this all unfold, what do you make of the way that the press has responded, in particular, the fact that there’s been a major news organization in ABC that’s already settled a lawsuit with the president? It’s reported that CBS would likely do the same. What do you make of that?

Maria Ressa: Don’t voluntarily give up your rights, right? I mean, again, in — I will give you our example in the Philippines, where the first newspaper gave up — the television station gave up largest — it lost its franchise or license to operate. And guess what? It never regained it even after the time of Duterte. Little Rappler with, about 100, 120 people, we stood up. And it was difficult. It was frightening, but we’re still here, right? A point in time when I faced over a century in jail, but I’m still here. And, after 2021, I had lost some of my rights. I wasn’t allowed to travel, for example, but now here I am. I’m in New York City teaching at Columbia University, right? So I guess what I’m saying is, hold the line is the phrase we use, because it’s connected to the rights that you deserve as a citizen. And if you do not hold the line at this crucial moment — this is the moment when you are strongest — it will only — you will only get weaker over time. And it isn’t just the journalists, because journalists are the front lines in this, but the question is to every single citizen in America. It’s the question I threw in the book, how to stand up to a dictator. And that question is simple. What are you willing to sacrifice for the truth? Because if you don’t have facts, you cannot — and I have said this over and over since 2016. Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without these, we have no shared reality. You can’t solve any problem, let alone existential ones like climate change. You can’t have journalism. You can’t have democracy. And in a system like that, only a dictatorship wins.

Amna Nawaz: Maria, you’re drawing the comparisons here based on your lived experience, of course, but there are folks who will say, look, the U.S. is not the Philippines. Trump is not Duterte. Our democracy is not the same as the one that you lived in. What do you say to that, the idea that this is somehow immune, our system, from the same things that the Philippines fell prey to?

Maria Ressa: I think I have two — two ways to respond to that. The first is, it isn’t just the Philippines. There is a dictator’s playbook, and you can look first at Russia, actually, even before that, Turkey, Hungary, Russia, right, with Putin taking office. And the first step is really to get elected, once you’re elected, to crush the systems of checks and balances, and then replace them with your own — we’re starting to call them the broligarchy, because it’s far more potent, the tech guys are more potent than just normal oligarchies. This is political largess, political patronage. You have to decide the world you want to live in. You have to decide whether rule of law exists. You cannot normalize impunity. And if you don’t, over time, we normalize that and you lose more and more of your rights. But here’s a positive note. Rodrigo Duterte’s term ended. He had one six-year term. He did try to extend. And perhaps if the military had supported him, I wouldn’t be here. But we now have another president and those 10 criminal cases that I have had, I have now won eight of those 10 and two left. I still have to ask the Supreme Court for approval to travel, but we’re here. It’s alarming to see it happening all over again.

Amna Nawaz: We should point out, Maria, that the majority of Americans say they don’t even trust the media right now, that we have seen a decline in that trust over years. And many people like to see the president go after the press in the way that he does. They will hear this conversation and say, good, I’m glad he’s doing what he’s doing. What has the independent press ever done for me? What would you say to them?

Maria Ressa: The role of journalists in a country, in a democracy like the Philippines, like the United States is to hold power to account. and I believe that is why — I mean, you’re not going to have an influencer or a content creator stand up to a dictator. You’re not going to have someone have a set of principles, of standards and ethics that actually pushes against their own self-interest. We’re seeing all of these begin to fall. But here’s the thing. Part of what triggered that is the technology, the public information ecosystem we live in. Journalists and news organizations have been under attack from the very beginning. So your lack of faith in that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You lose journalism the way we practice it, you lose democracy.

New MRC revelations that George Soros’s own global university that he founded was getting American tax dollars completely fly in the face of his organization’s attempts to dismiss any perceived connections with the disgraced U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

“The claims that the Open Society Foundations (OSF), founded by George Soros, receive funding from USAID or direct the funding of a multibillion-dollar U.S. government agency are manifestly false,” railed OSF in a February 12 press release.

OSF attempted to play the victim, and pontificated that reporting connecting USAID and the OSF apparatus are “part of a broader effort to undermine international development work and delegitimize the independent funding of civil society organizations worldwide.” 

“Independent funding?” What a joke. MRC Business revealed February 28 that Central European University, an anti-American academic behemoth that Soros founded and sits as “honorary chair,” was granted at least $1 million from President Joe Biden’s USAID for the period September FY2021 through September FY2025. So far, $238,609 of the total obligated grant was outlayed, which means CEU is still set to receive tax dollars to complete the grant this year. Soros’s son Alex, who now runs OSF as chairman, also sits on CEU’s Board of Trustees, which is telling, since they’re trying to imply you can’t connect dots from USAID to CEU and CEU to OSF.

In November 2024, OSF celebrated how Alex “outlined a new vision for the Foundations’ higher education work, and reaffirmed Open Society’s financial commitment to the Central European University (CEU) through 2032 and beyond.” During a board meeting, Alex “told fellow trustees that the new model for higher education will be centered around the creation of an Open Society University (OSU), a successor organization to the Open Society University Network. OSU will advance the Foundations’ decades-long commitment to supporting excellence and expanding global access to higher education.” Soros funneled a whopping $948,570,000 into CEU between 2016 and 2023 alone. 

In essence: OSUN, the global university system which is now co-led by CEU along with the Soros-backed Bard College, will morph into OSU, with CEU and Bard at the helm of a new “federated” structure of academic institutions dedicated to pushing Soros’s utopian vision for the world. Did OSF disclose that USAID was funding CEU in either its November 2024 or February 12, 2025 statement? Nope. The aforementioned statements, however, show that — despite OSF’s attempts to downplay its connections to USAID money — treating CEU and OSF as exclusively separate entities is blatant deception since Soros resides at the top echelons of both organizations.

In comments to MRC Business, Bongino Report Content Manager Matt Palumbo ripped apart OSF’s gaslighting on USAID:

This is common wordplay from George Soros – a distinction without a difference. He’s done this before when it came to his funding of rogue, weak-on-crime, district attorneys – such as having denied funding Chesa Boudin after he was ousted as San Francisco DA, or Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg when the Soros connection came under fire due to him targeting Donald Trump. The argument boiled down to nothing more than, ‘We didn’t fund them – the PAC we funded did!’ Only a liberal journalist could find this to be convincing, or be willing to pretend that it is.

MSNBC’s Monday edition of The 11th Hour could not hide their displeasure that Republicans were forcing them to talk about the competitive integrity of women’s sports. Host Stephanie Ruhle claimed that conservative concerns don’t “have any evidence,” and The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser claimed it was “very painful” to have to spend time discussing the issue.

After a clip of Sen. Tommy Tuberville, Ruhle quickly grew impatient, “This is not a topic we cover much here, but it’s an important fact-check because Senator Tuberville has made this claim before. Last month he said it while championing his bill to ban trans athletes from women’s sports. An Alabama news outlet reached out to his office for evidence that there are teams comprised only of trans girls and they didn’t have any evidence.”

 

 

Ruhle then sought to provide context but only ended up making an unrelated point, “When pressed, they said that Tuberville was referring to the fact that he had heard stories. He just heard them out there in the ether about women who have lost trophies and scholarships to trans athletes. So, I just want to set something for the record: in December, the president of the NCAA told a Senate panel that he knew of fewer than ten, fewer than ten transgender athletes in all of college sports, and to Tuberville’s claim that women’s sports are going extinct.”

To fact-check Ruhle’s fact-check: it does not matter if “fewer than ten” such athletes exist. When their best umpire recently got caught up in a betting-related scandal, Major League Baseball didn’t downplay it by saying, “He’s just one umpire.” Furthermore, the world of women’s sports is bigger than the NCAA. The organization Women’s Sports Policy found 578 male victories in women’s sports in a nine-month span. Other studies showed 28 males winning girls’ or women’s championships from 2003 through 2022.

Nevertheless, an exasperated Ruhle kicked the conversation over to Glasser, “Let me remind you: 2024 was one of the biggest years in women’s sports we have ever seen. Led, of course, by record TV ratings for women’s basketball and women’s soccer. Susan, why are we even still talking about this?”

Glasser began by lauding Ruhle’s so-called fact-check, “Well, Steph, that’s a powerful fact check. And, you know, to be honest, I think we know why we’re talking about it. It’s become a really successful political talking point in the culture war for Republicans.”

She continued, “And it’s very painful to see many, you know, vulnerable people in our society targeted like this. And I, you know, it makes me deeply uncomfortable because I think that’s the point, is to beat up on people who can’t really speak for themselves and to distort a painful issue. That seems to me that it should be best left to families and their communities and their doctors and, you know, not the stuff that we talk about on the news.”

Ruhle then reiterated that, “It’s a super powerful talking point, and I just want our audience to know that it’s not true.”

That is half right. It is a super powerful talking point, but it is because it is true.

Here is a transcript for the March 3 show:

MSNBC The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle

3/3/2025

11:17 PM ET

STEPHANIE RUHLE: All right. This is not a topic we cover much here, but it’s an important fact-check because Senator Tuberville has made this claim before. Last month he said it while championing his bill to ban trans athletes from women’s sports. An Alabama news outlet reached out to his office for evidence that there are teams comprised only of trans girls and they didn’t have any evidence. 

When pressed, they said that Tuberville was referring to the fact that he had heard stories. He just heard them out there in the ether about women who have lost trophies and scholarships to trans athletes. So, I just want to set something for the record: in December, the president of the NCAA told a Senate panel that he knew of fewer than ten, fewer than ten transgender athletes in all of college sports, and to Tuberville’s claim that women’s sports are going extinct.

Let me remind you: 2024 was one of the biggest years in women’s sports we have ever seen. Led, of course, by record TV ratings for women’s basketball and women’s soccer.

Susan, why are we even still talking about this?

SUSAN GLASSER: Well, Steph, that’s a powerful fact check. And, you know, to be honest, I think we know why we’re talking about it. It’s become a really successful political talking point in the culture war for Republicans. And it’s very painful to see many, you know, vulnerable people in our society targeted like this. And I, you know, it makes me deeply uncomfortable because I think that’s the point, is to beat up on people who can’t really speak for themselves and to distort a painful issue. That seems to me that it should be best left to families and their communities and their doctors and, you know, not the stuff that we talk about on the news.

RUHLE: It’s a super powerful talking point and I just want our audience to know that it’s not true.

CBS chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett showed off his dismay with the second Trump administration on Tuesday’s CBS Mornings by painting it in apocalyptic terms as “revolutionary” in nearly every sense of the word and “not collegial” and “unremittingly hostile to the established, stable order” that’s kept America and the world safe and secure.

Some doomcasting and fear porn hours ahead of President Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress in his second term (as it’s referred to the first year of a new presidency with the State of the Union moniker returning in 2026)? How predictable!

 

 

Asked by co-host Tony Dokoupil to “[h]elp us understand what is happening in the nation’s capital,” Garrett remarked that “Elon Musk told Joe Rogan on his podcast that Trump’s cabinet is revolutionary and I think we ought to take that seriously because Trump and Musk talk all the time.”

Garrett went all negative:

So, let’s think about what a revolution means. Revolutions, by definition, are not collegial, and they’re unremittingly hostile to the established, stable order, whatever the order is. So, Trump and his White House are trying to remake the order in Europe, whether the transatlantic alliance of 80 years cares or not, whether NATO cares or not.

Closer to home, Garrett lamented Trump wants “Hemispheric domination” based on “why he talks about Greenland the way he does, Panama, and the Gulf of America” and “launched a trade war against Canada and Mexico, our two neighbors, one that is creating economic instability because he is remaking the economy of the world.”

As for the federal government, Garrett huffed that Trump wants to “replace civil servants with loyalists and artificial intelligence” and impose “immigration policies” that “are even more aggressive than his original restrictive immigration policies plus he’s added a $5 million gold card to get you to the head of the line.”

“All these things, taken in together, are a revolutionary scream against the established order, Republican and Democrat, from anybody that preceded Trump,” he added.

Dokoupil said all that sounds “horrifying” and “terrifying” to “people who don’t like President Trump,” but then offered the smallest crumb of balance by acknowledging “fans of President Trump” see his second term thus far as “exhilarating” and “thrilling.”

Only here did Garrett concede he doesn’t view the “revolutionaries” in this White House as violent:

[W]hat we do know about every revolution past, and I’m not saying this as a hostile, aggressive, armed revolution, but revolutionaries have no shortage of confidence and fervor. And this administration, because I covered the first one, is much more self-confident, much more sure of itself, much more convinced about what it wants to do.

In addition to “remaking maps and…economic notions,” Garrett spun the Trump administration’s fight against the scourge of transgenderism and support for families as “tak[ing] our culture back 30, 40 years.”

Garrett concluded by stating, in so many words, being a Trump supporter makes you a cultist:

It’s all, though, in the same spirit of upsetting what we are accustomed to, remaking things in Trump’s image, and expecting Republicans on Capitol Hill to not only go along but applaud enthusiastically. And, if they don’t, they will receive the hardest political backlash that Trump can give to his own party.

To see the relevant CBS transcript from March 4, click here.

NPR’s Public Editor is supposed to represent the audience. They proclaim, “The Public Editor stands as a source of independent accountability. Created by NPR’s board of directors, the Public Editor serves as a bridge between the newsroom and the audience.” But more often — especially now with the threat of defunding — there’s not independence or accountability. There’s just pro-NPR lobbying! 

The latest dispatch from Public Editor Kelly McBride (who keeps her day job at the left-wing Poynter Institute) comes under this headline: 

We can’t answer audience questions about #DefundNPR without talking about the larger implications for public media

How informed do we want Americans to be?

After explaining how NPR is being evaluated by DOGE and the FCC, McBride ran a smattering of comments, and then claimed government-funded media is a boon to democracy: 

Public media is, by definition, media that is funded by the government. Public broadcasting systems exist in almost every democracy. The strongest democracies, as measured by the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, have strong public media systems.

Leftists always argue that Democracy and Democrats are pretty much the same thing, so a “public” broadcasting system that aids the Democrats also aids Democracy. They know the Democrats always back their subsidies, to award the teamwork. They also argue that “public” media represents a “more informed” public, not a more manipulated and propagandized public. 

Here is the tell: NPR types need the government support for their branding. They believe it gives them more moral authority, and an image of steadiness and balance — which they don’t deserve. Obviously, NPR could go on without taxpayer money, but they can’t stand that, it’s not “public.” 

Could NPR exist on individual donors alone? No. If it did, it wouldn’t be considered public media; it would be private nonprofit media. And that wouldn’t solve the root problem that drives this conversation. There’s a growing group of local nonprofit media companies across the country.

Then there’s this laughable argument from an ersatz Republican: 

Even though it’s a small amount, taking the government money out of NPR could actually backfire and make NPR less moderate, said Paul Haaga Jr. He’s a Republican who has served on NPR’s board and as its interim CEO. 

This assumes that NPR is anywhere within miles of “moderate” now! Yes, if you removed the taxpayer money and added Soros money, it might tilt left. But it already does…and then Republicans aren’t paying for their own rhetorical beating. 

McBride closed with her usual state of play, implying the Republican critique is in bad faith, and no one (especially her) should have to address it, since they want to defund it, which she equates with “eliminating” it. Their arguments are “disingenuous.”

After quoting from the Heritage Project 2025 text on the relentless liberal bias of public broadcasting, this was her “rebuttal” — that you can dismiss charges of bias just by saying NPR serves people “not covered by commercial news.” 

Overshadowed by the debate about NPR is the debate is about the mission of public media in a democracy. Should the government support a safety net that ensures that journalists document the stories of people, places and topics not covered by commercial news? Should we guarantee that quality news and information is available to communities not served by commercial newsrooms, because those audiences are not considered financially profitable?

It’s a mistake to conflate the Republican critique of NPR with their larger objective of eliminating public media. NPR is the most visible manifestation of public media. But they are not the same thing.

There is no way to eliminate the small amount of government money that supports NPR without causing significant harm to the whole public media system. Undermining public media would weaken the entire information ecosystem, which would ultimately lead to a less informed American public.

If McBride were interested at all in “independence” or “accountability,” she would nudge NPR bosses and staff to answer questions about why NPR is so hostile to conservatives. But she thinks that’s what makes NPR good. That’s what the “information ecosystem” is designed to do. That’s why NPR named her “Public Editor.” She’s more of a lapdog than a watchdog.

The CW’s sports drama All American has had a long history of race-baiting, pushing liberal propaganda, hating cops, and promoting BLM. So, it really was no surprise to see two characters fawning over the supposedly “cute” former president Obama and his “icon” wife Michelle. That was later followed by a weird quip from a black, lesbian college professor about how it’s sometimes warranted to pour gasoline all over a business and burn “the whole place down.”

We all know Hollywood has had a penchant for uncritical worship of progressive darlings and deifying leftist idols. But Monday’s episode of All American, “I Got a Story to Tell,” was still cringeworthy despite being cliché.

High school student Amina (Alexis Chikaeze) is running for president of her high school student council, and her adult family friend Coop (Bre-Z) brings a box of campaign buttons to her school to help her campaign.

This leads to fawning over the Obamas as if they waltzed into the White House on a runway wearing designer clothes and million-dollar smiles because nothing screams “meritocracy” like gushing over Michelle’s sleeveless dresses:

 

 

Coop: Are you ready for the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen?

Amina: Hi. Why am I scared right now? Oh, my instincts are right. Absolutely not.

Coop: Absolutely yes, ok? And you can thank Prime for the speedy delivery. I ordered hundreds of these.

Amina: Do I need to say no a hundred more times?

Coop: Baby, cuteness sells. How do you think Obama got in office?

Amina: Because he was an amazing politician and married to a literal icon.

Coop: Yes, that, too. Flowers to Michelle.

This exchange is peak Hollywood—vapid, smug, and allergic to substance. Flowers to Michelle? You just know a liberal scriptwriter (excuse the redundancy) patted his or herself on the back believing that cloying reply was good writing. But, as we all know, charisma doesn’t automatically equal competence, as Obama proved.

Oh, how amazing it would have been to have a conservative character pop up and quip that there was nothing “cute” about Benghazi. Nor was there anything cute about Russia’s annexation of Crimea under Obama.

It takes the kind of respect for our leaders that Trump commands, as well as his type of strength, to help garner world peace. Cuteness doesn’t cut it, and charisma doesn’t automatically equal competence.

Meanwhile, over at fictional Golden Angeles University School of Law, Coop attends a class taught by a black, lesbian, female professor she has a crush on. Just when you thought Hollywood was done pushing BLM propaganda and its “arson as a protest vibe” agenda, leave it to a show as woke as All American to raise it back from the dead like an ugly zombie out to terrorize everyone:

 

 

Breonna: I’m walking to the bathroom at a classy restaurant, minding my business, when a random man makes a pass that I reject. Now, the perpetrator falls backwards into a table, and, unfortunately, ends up injuring an innocent bystander we’ll call Betty. Now, the question is, am I liable for the damage, or is the perpetrator for initiating harm? As you know, torts law examines “you shouldn’t” clauses. You shouldn’t inflict physical harm. You shouldn’t misappropriate property. These are our duties. Fortunately for me, I was well within my breach of duty by practicing self-defense, but if I poured gasoline everywhere and burnt the whole place down, that might be a different conversation, although, low-key, sometimes warranted. But you didn’t hear that from me. Thank you. Thank you all for coming.

This was supposed to be a law class, right? Not a Build-A-Riot workshop. But sadly, most colleges these days are a liberal cult out to brainwash young voters with their leftist propaganda. You know, just like the MSM and Hollywood productions like this show.

BLM’s history of burning businesses—often black-owned, ironically—left communities gutted, not liberated. Yet here’s this character, sharing her “low-key” lighter fluid fantasies to her impressionable students and serving up a sassy quip as if arson is as cute as they think Obama is.

Someone should’ve put lighter fluid on this script before it ever made it to air. Not surprisingly, All American has had dismal ratings this season and is second to last among Monday night network shows. Get woke, go broke, as they say. Unfortunately, The CW seems to care more about pushing an agenda than they do in making shows people actually want to watch.

For the second Monday in a row, Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart used his time as host of The Daily Show to launch an attack against capitalism. While Stewart managed to keep his hand in one piece this time, he wondered to Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond if capitalism requires poor people to function while Desmond urged the country to return to the economic policies of the 1960s.

Stewart began, “I mean, does America require poverty to function in the way that we do? Is it a requirement of our society?”

After Desmond said no, Stewart clarified, “I mean that, is the system we run, do they require, in the capitalist system, people in poverty to function at maximum profit?”

 

 

Desmond was not on to be a dissenting voice, “I think a lot of us do benefit from poverty in ways we don’t realize, right?… the labor market, the housing market, we continue to have a government who gives the most to families that need the least by subsidizing affluence instead of fighting poverty. We continue to live in segregated lives, a lot of us are connected to that problem, but it also means we’re connected to the solution. I don’t think we have to live with all of this poverty in America.”

Later in the interview, Stewart asked, “Is there something to getting the government to value labor again and the way that they value capital? Capital being tax that, you know, gains that are much lower, there are a lot of rules that ease capital, stock buybacks, you’re only, you know, have to answer to shareholders. Is there a way to get workers in on that? Because that seems like we are the accumulation of wealth seems the greatest. How do we plug labor into that stream without necessarily killing the stream, but letting it really—getting them into the flow of it?”

Desmond began his reply, “Yeah, why don’t we put workers on corporate boards, for example?”

Stewart loved the idea, “Easy! Why do they fight that? And would sectoral bargaining get that done?”

Desmond then replied with a terrible idea:

It could move us closer to something more like a capitalism we deserve. A capitalism that serves the people, not the other way around. And a lot of the time, I think the ideas we have about growth are just wrong. You know, if you rewind the clock, 1960s, we had a higher corporate tax rate, about 50 percent, about one and three of us were belonging to a union, and we were much more productive as an economy than we are now. And we’re kind of fed this lie that we got to slash these unions, got to slash the corporate tax break, and we will get the economic growth, and we win in that bargain, and we got the inequality where we did not get the growth. 

A 50 percent corporate tax rate would tie the U.S. with economic non-powerhouse Comoros for the highest in the world, where 45 percent of people live below the poverty line.

Here is a transcript for the March 3 show:

Comedy Central The Daily Show

3/3/2025

11:29 PM ET

JON STEWART: I mean, does America require poverty to function in the way that we do? Is it a requirement of our society?

MATTHEW DESMOND: Yeah, no, I don’t think so.

STEWART: I mean that, is the system we run, do they require, in the capitalist system, people in poverty to function at maximum profit?

DESMOND: I think a lot of us do benefit from poverty in ways we don’t realize, right? 

STEWART: Right.

DESMOND: We soak the poor, the labor market, the housing market, we continue to have a government who gives the most to families that need the least by subsidizing affluence instead of fighting poverty. 

STEWART: Right.

DESMOND: We continue to live in segregated lives, a lot of us are connected to that problem, but it also means we’re connected to the solution. I don’t think we have to live with all of this poverty in America.

…

STEWART: Is there something to getting the government to value labor again and the way that they value capital?

DESMOND: Right.

STEWART: Capital being tax that, you know, gains that are much lower—

DESMOND: Right.

STEWART: — there are a lot of rules that ease capital, stock buybacks, you’re only, you know, have to answer to shareholders. Is there a way to get workers in on that? Because that seems like we are the accumulation of wealth seems the greatest. 

DESMOND: Right.

STEWART: How do we plug labor into that stream without necessarily killing the stream, but letting it really — getting them into the flow of it?

DESMOND: Yeah, why don’t we put workers on corporate boards, for example? 

STEWART: Easy! Why do they fight that? And would sectoral bargaining get that done?

DESMOND: It could move us closer to something more like a capitalism we deserve. A capitalism that serves the people, not the other way around. And a lot of the time, I think the ideas we have about growth are just wrong. You know, if you rewind the clock, 1960s, we had a higher corporate tax rate, about 50 percent, about one and three of us were belonging to a union, and we were much more productive as an economy than we are now. And we’re kind of fed this lie that we got to slash these unions, got to slash the corporate tax break, and we will get the economic growth, and we win in that bargain, and we got the inequality where we did not get the growth.

On Monday morning, Fox’s Bill Hemmer covered the phenomenal success that the Donald Trump administration has had in cutting the number of illegal border crossings to record low levels.

And on Sunday afternoon, as his colleague Griff Jenkins also covered the story, he and Border Patrol chief Michael Banks recalled that the rate of migrant deaths has also plummeted after there were record deaths under President Joe Biden.

Setting up the segment on America’s Newsroom, Hemmer read from a statement by President Trump:

President Trump is applauding a sharp drop in illegal crossings since he took office. Posting this over the weekend: “The border is closed to all illegal immigrants. Anyone who tries to illegally enter the U.S.A. will face significant criminal penalties and immediate deportation.”

Noting that the number of apprehensions by the Customs and Border Patrol in February was the lowest that it has been for any month since CBP has been collecting statistics, he related:

CBP data shows the number of encounters plummeted — lowest level in about 25 years last month. … February, year by year, you had 2025 — you’re at 8,300. Look at where you were a year ago. … 189,000 for the same month a year ago.

It also happens that, compared to this past December’s tally of 96,035, February’s numbers were 87 percent lower.

Appearing as a guest, National Border Patrol Council president Paul Perez gave President Trump credit for ending “catch and release,” and for sending more border agents into the field to patrol.

Later on, co-host Dana Perino predicted correctly that the liberal media would not cover the good news about the border:

I thought about a communications challenge the Trump administration is going to have going forward, and it is when something starts working, the media stops covering it — not that they were (inaudible) before — but now that you have a trickle of illegal immigration at the border, I can just feel it, Mary Katharine, that you’re going to have them say, “What’s the big deal? It’s working — everything’s working — everything’s fine.

On Sunday’s Fox News Live, as Jenkins also covered the border numbers, he recalled that President Biden a year ago had claimed wrongly that he had already done all he could, playing a clip of the former President.

Addressing Banks, Jenkins observed: “Turns out, Chief, there was more he could do.” The border chief agreed: “There was a lot more he could do, and so — look, there’s no big surprise here. If there’s a consequence to breaking the law, you’re going to have less people breaking the law.”

The two went on to discuss the plummeting death rate of migrants crossing illegally, with Banks relating that the rate has dropped 86 percent since this time last year:

So the prior administration was using the argument that their border mission or their border plan was the most humane border plan [that] ever existed. In fact, it was the exact opposite. It was the most inhumane border plan that every existed. We have seen a decrease in cross-border-related deaths by 86 percent. … We saw the highest recorded numbers of cross-border deaths during the Trump — during the Biden administration, and now we’re seeing those reversed under the Trump administration.

Transcripts follow:

Fox’s America’s Newsroom

March 3, 2025

9:24 a.m. Eastern

BILL HEMMER: President Trump is applauding a sharp drop in illegal crossings since he took office. Posting this over the weekend: “The border is closed to all illegal immigrants. Anyone who tries to illegally enter the U.S.A. will face significant criminal penalties and immediate deportation.”

CBP data shows the number of encounters plummeted — lowest level in about 25 years last month. Paul Perez is the president of the National Border Patrol Council. Sir, good morning to you. Here it is, right? February, year by year, you had 2025 — you’re at 8,300. Look at where you were a year ago. Dana, you looking at that — 189,000 —

DANA PERINO: Yeah.

HEMMER: — for the same month a year ago. All right, this is no accident. What do you think is the factor that did this?

PAUL PEREZ, BORDER PATROL COUNCIL: Well, number one, the policy changes that President Trump put into effect right away, ending “catch and release” and making sure that there are criminal penalties for anybody that’s entering the country illegally was a big step. Putting our agents out on the line for them to be able to detect, deter and patrol the areas that we weren’t able to patrol before. It’s been a big factor and a big change.

(…)

10:07 a.m.

PERINO: I thought about a communications challenge the Trump administration is going to have going forward, and it is when something starts working, the media stops covering it — not that they were (inaudible) before — but now that you have a trickle of illegal immigration at the border, I can just feel it, Mary Katharine, that you’re going to have them say, “What’s the big deal? It’s working — everything’s working — everything’s fine.

(…)

Fox News Live

March 2, 2025

12:35 p.m. Eastern

MICHAEL BANKS, BORDER PATROL: We’ve know how to do it all along. It’s being allowed and supported by the administration and the secretary that allowed us to do our job to get these numbers down to where they are.

GRIFF JENKINS: It’s interesting, chief, you mention that because I remember that, on January 30, essentially a year ago, I was stunned when I heard then-President Biden said this on a departure from the White House. Listen here.

VOICE OF UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Have you done everything you can do with executive authority? Or is there more you can do?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN (dated January 30, 2024): I’ve done all I can do. “Just give me the power,” I’ve asked from the very day I got into office. Give me the border patrol. Give me the people — give me the people — the judges. Give me the people who can stop this and make it work.

GRIFFIN: Turns out, Chief, there was more he could do.

BANKS: There was a lot more he could do, and so — look, there’s no big surprise here. If there’s a consequence to breaking the law, you’re going to have less people breaking the law.

(…)

JENKINS: Some of the most difficult times that I had during the crisis in the last administration was standing on the banks of the Rio Grande and actually witnessing drownings — actual migrants. The administration claimed to be the most humanitarian from an immigration standpoint, but yet we saw an unprecedented number of deaths — people drowning and dying on the journey to cross our border. I have sources today telling me that those numbers may be down.

BANKS: So the prior administration was using the argument that their border mission or their border plan was the most humane border plan [that] ever existed. In fact, it was the exact opposite. It was the most inhumane border plan that every existed. We have seen a decrease in cross-border-related deaths by 86 percent.

JENKINS: Eight-six percent?

BANKS: Eighty-six percent. We saw the highest recorded numbers of cross-border deaths during the Trump — during the Biden administration, and now we’re seeing those reversed under the Trump administration.

NBC’s reporting on protecting children from harmful content was undermined by an enormous omission: Melania Trump’s visit to Capitol Hill to advocate for children exposed to online exploitation. 

Here is the report in its entirety, as aired on NBC Nightly News on Monday, March 3rd, 2025:

LESTER HOLT: All right. Let’s turn now to the ongoing legal battles facing TikTok. A major development in a lawsuit brought by 13 states and Washington D.C. Savannah Sellers joins me. Now, Savannah, this lawsuit alleges the app doesn’t do enough to protect young users.

SAVANNAH SELLERS: Lester, that’s exactly right. And today, in fact, a judge cleared the way for it to move forward. That judge also partially unsealed the complaint, and that allowed us to see what the D.C. attorney general says is never-before-seen data proving exactly what you mentioned, Lester- that the app fails to protect kids. It alleges that an alarming amount of harmful content is not removed from the app, including a third of content dealing with minor sexual solicitation and posts normalizing pedophilia. Here’s another thing. Kids are also able to easily bypass age restrictions. The attorney general citing internal TikTok data showing up to 70% of kids 13-15 falsely reporting their age. Now for TikTok’s part, they say these numbers are misleading, cherry picked, out of date. They say they stand by their efforts, which include robust safety protections, Lester.

HOLT: Okay, Savannah. Thank you for that.

Savannah Sellers’ report was focused solely on TikTok, but it could have benefitted from a tie-in to the First Lady’s Capitol visit. From the Associated Press:

Melania Trump on Monday lobbied on Capitol Hill for a bill that would make it a federal crime to post intimate imagery online, whether real or fake, and said it was “heartbreaking” to see what teenagers and especially girls go through after they are victimized by people who spread such content.

It was her first solo public appearance since she resumed the role of first lady on Jan. 20. She called on the Republican-controlled Congress to prioritize the well-being of young people.

“This toxic environment can be severely damaging. We must prioritize their well-being by equipping them with the support and tools necessary to navigate this hostile digital landscape,” she said during a roundtable discussion about the “Take It Down Act” at the U.S. Capitol.

There is a dovetailing here that renders the First Lady’s exclusion inexcusable. The call to awareness of the sexual exploitation of children is a laudable goal, and well in line with Sellers’ report. 

One can’t help but think that if it were former First Lady Jill Biden visiting the Capitol and advocating for such a bill, it would garner instant coverage. But there is no such media deference for Melania Trump, who appears to draw the same media blackout as she drew during the first Trump administration.

There’s a clear (D)ifference, you see.