Newsbusters

On Tuesday night’s episode of MSNBC’s The 11th Hour, a panel hosted by Stephanie Ruhle expressed their regret, dismay, and indignation at the implosion of public confidence in established, mainstream media outlets, such as their own. In typical fashion for them, they pinned all the blame on such favorite bogeymen as President Trump and Elon Musk, and showed no self-awareness of the fact that they themselves may have borne much responsibility for the trend, with their own track record of politicized, one-sided, and less-than-transparent reporting.

Raising the subject, Ruhle turned to Semafor political reporter Dave Weigel, with the words, “you’ve also been reporting on this evolving problem…where less information is coming from newsrooms-right? Legitimate newsrooms- and what’s happening is more and more hoaxes are gaining traction on social media, where none of them need to be verified whatsoever.”

 

 

Weigel agreed that it was a problem, saying, “[I]t’s a decades long process of Americans losing trust in mainstream media.” And without any reflection as to why, he noted: “It was sped up by- at- around COVID it was sped up by Donald Trump. He’s the biggest beneficiary, politically, of people saying they don’t trust information from mainstream news networks.”

After noting that Democrats were likely to approved of the liberal media, Weigel lamented that people were going around them to get information:

The population that does not trust the mainstream media, that wants to read links without filter, that- that is relying on accounts that post news clips- and sometimes they use the language of news like ‘breaking,’ or ‘exclusive,’ or ‘just in,’ but don’t actually know how to construct the story or verify it or report it- don’t have to worry about getting something wrong.

Basically, his view was that the general American public- at least those who were not already committed liberals- were being duped by unscrupulous and sensationalist propaganda, fiendishly disguised as legitimate journalism, and put out by unscrupulous actors with ulterior motives of their own. Ideally, the public should return to reliance on pure, noble, impartial sources of legitimate news, like MSNBC.  

Ruhle was all too happy to agree:

And listen, people are primed and ready to believe, with good reason, that the government spends too much money, it spends it in wasteful places. And when you hand them a ridiculous whopper of a story that fits that narrative, they gobble it up. 

Speaking of ridiculous whoppers that happened to fit a chosen narrative, these same mainstream media outlets were not exactly unsullied in that respect themselves. MSNBC themselves were, at that very moment, facing a $30 million defamation suit for their attacks on a Georgia gynecologist treating illegal immigrants under the auspices of ICE. MSNBC had erroneously dubbed this physician “the uterus collector” and alleged with no actual evidence that he had abused his patients, and performed unnecessary hysterectomies on them.

In their minds, though, none of that seemed to matter. Clearly they were so obviously trustworthy and morally and professionally superior, no one could have any legitimate motive for doubting them.

Ruhle continued on the topic of what she perceived as the Trump administration’s completely unwarranted persecution:

President Trump’s FCC chief is now opening an investigation into PBS and NPR, two truly independent news organizations. Is this just another example- dangerous example- of Project 2025 in action? Because they called on all funding for public broadcasting to end, and here we are.

Actually, this was itself misleading at best. While defunding public broadcasting may have been part of Project 2025, the idea had been part of conservative cost cutting proposals for decades. So it was nothing new.

Additionally, Ruhle’s claim that PBS was “truly independent” was laughable seeing as there’s a ton of crossover between the public broadcaster and MSNBC. PBS host Amna Nawaz is also an MSNBC contributor, Jonathan Capehart hosts an MSNBC show and is PBS contributor, Yamiche Alcindor left PBS to join MSNBC after years of appearance on the cable network, and Geoff Bennett went the other way, leaving MSNBC for PBS.

Not for the first time, MSNBC’s complete lack of self-awareness was truly mind-boggling.

To read the full transcript, click “Expand”

MSNBC’s The 11th Hour
02/11/2025
11:08 PM

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: FCC OPENS INVESTIGATION INTO NPR, PBS]

STEPHANIE RUHLE: Dave, you’ve also been reporting on this evolving problem- you guys could all weigh in on this- where less information is coming from newsrooms-right? Legitimate newsrooms- and what’s happening is more and more hoaxes are gaining traction on social media, where none of them need to be verified whatsoever. How do Democrats counter that?

DAVE WEIGEL, SEMAFOR POLITICAL REPORTER: They have not figured out a good strategy for doing that yet- there isn’t one- there are lots of people who thought about this- but it’s a decades long process of Americans losing trust in mainstream media.

It was sped up by- at- around COVID it was sped up by Donald Trump. He’s the biggest beneficiary, politically, of people saying they don’t trust information from mainstream news networks. 

And I should be a little more specific: There are lots of people who do trust information they get from legacy media outlets- that’s kind of the conservative pejorative- they’re usually Democratic. They’re the sort of people who have these careers at USAID that are- that are ending as we- as we speak. 

The population that does not trust the mainstream media, that wants to read links without filter, that- that is relying on accounts that post news clips- and sometimes they use the language of news like ‘breaking,’ or ‘exclusive,’ or ‘just in,’ but don’t actually know how to construct the story or verify it or report it- don’t have to worry about getting something wrong. That- that is trafficking- a lot of these- false ideas about what the government has been funding. We saw that very early on in this process, with the idea that USAID was going to $100 million, in Trump’s words, of condoms for Hamas, that-

RUHLE: (Sighs)

WEIGEL: None of what I said in that sentence is just true. But there have been a number of these, and they’re- basically- DOGE- without the kind of transparency that we might identify- here- here are- here’s the line item, here’s what we got rid of, here’s- here’s who’s responsible. Just posting these items and saying, we have gotten rid of this funding. Take our word for it. 

There are a lot of news consumers who are staying fairly informed and will not read the fine print or go do the research themselves. They believe this is- this is happening because sources they trust- and Elon Musk is one of those sources on X- are telling them that it’s working and it’s good. They don’t trust the media if it says otherwise.

RUHLE: And listen, people are primed and ready to believe, with good reason, that the government spends too much money, it spends it in wasteful places. And when you hand them a ridiculous whopper of a story that fits that narrative, they gobble it up. 

In that same vein, Jeff, President Trump’s FCC chief is now opening an investigation into PBS and NPR, two truly independent news organizations. Is this just another example- dangerous example- of Project 2025 in action? Because they called on all funding for public broadcasting to end, and here we are.

JEFF MASON, REUTERS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I think it probably is another example. And I think it’s just in line with this- this administration and President Trump’s very aggressive stance this time around against the media and-  and the press, and the news organizations that he doesn’t- that he doesn’t like. 

And- when I say this time around, I don’t want to downplay the pressure that was put on the media during his first term, but- but just the list of examples that we could- we could talk about right now in addition to these two, in terms of lawsuits that he has launched. And, by the way, in terms of the response from some of those media organizations, is- is, I think- a good example of how much pressure he feels empowered to give now that he has won this second term.

RUHLE: But don’t- 

MASON: And I also wanted to just make a note about the other piece of the conversation we were talking about earlier: Elon Musk, in the oval office, earlier tonight, was challenged about that condom story that we were just talking about, and he- I don’t want to say he dismissed it, but he said, ‘I’ll make mistakes. We’ll make mistakes sometimes and then we’ll correct it.’ 

And of course, we as reporters also have to correct our mistakes and do make mistakes. But just the way that he seemed, accepting of the fact that it’s not a really, really important goal to get it right from the very beginning, was an interesting point from the world’s richest man, and perhaps one of the most powerful people in President Trump’s government.

RUHLE: Okay, but that was kind of a sideways comment, right? He publicly came out with the nonsense condom story and pushed it and pushed it. After he answered that question, did he- did he then go to X and say, ‘I made a mistake? This story that was posted here, and posted thousands of times on this platform, was wrong?”

MASON: Uh, not that I’m aware of.

RUHLE: Me either.

Having decided in recent days to collectively settle on a new narrative of painting the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as a constitutional crisis and defend faceless, unelected bureaucrats as heroes, the liberal media Borg were handed a brutal reality check Wednesday with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt made clear this disinformation campaign wouldn’t be tolerated.

Leavitt had this to say about the liberal media’s “fear-mongering” and claims the administration would ignore (far-left) federal judges yielding “radical injunctions” thwarting DOGE and ignoring the will of the people:

WELCOME TO LEAVITTOWN, liberal media!@PressSec goes nuclear over their “constitutional crisis” nonsense: “Now before I take questions I would like to address an extremely dishonest narrative that we’ve seen emerging over the past few days. Many outlets in this room have been… pic.twitter.com/Rrb4vZMLhQ
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 12, 2025
Thankfully, the thin-skinned liberal media reporters largely behaved themselves when it came to this issue.

Sitting in the new media seat and thus kicking off the briefing’s Q&A? Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski:

Rumble CEO @chrispavlovski gets today’s “new media” seat at the White House Press Briefing: “Rumble was a victim of censorship at the hands of multiple foreign governments. It is clear there are still many countries who oppose free speech and even target American companies. Can… pic.twitter.com/MGb0vzME3w
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 12, 2025
After a questions from Bloomberg’s Jordan Fabian about inflation and tariffs, CBS’s Jennifer Jacobs respectfully asked about whether DOGE has found any evidence of government waste, fraud, and abuse.

Leavitt brought the receipts, including “$57,000 for climate change in Sri Lanka”:

CBS’s @JenniferJJacobs: “On DOGE and the fraud claims, Elon Musk in the Oval yesterday gave us some information on that. We are just wondering if there’s some proof, evidence — is the White House willing to share evidence of those fraud claims or can Elon Musk come to the… pic.twitter.com/D1aB3zqEN8
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 12, 2025
Jacobs followed up on whether the examples in Leavitt’s lengthy answer are “fraud,” “waste, or…just contrary to the President’s policies.”

Leavitt calmly responded that she “would argue that all of these things are fraudulent, they are wasteful, and they are an abuse of the American taxpayers dollar” and “not what the American government should be spending money on,” but “anybody in here” was free to insist they’re worthwhile.

Our friend Mary Margaret Olohan at the Daily Wire asked Leavitt to elaborate on the administration’s view of judges standing in the way of Trump’s agenda:

@realDailyWire’s @MaryMargOlohan: “More on the judges. Does the White House believe the courts have the authority to issue these nationwide injunctions?”@PressSec @KarolineLeavitt: “We believe that the injunctions issued by these judges have no basis in the law and have no… pic.twitter.com/4SmqiBqHvj
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 12, 2025
A few minutes later, Real Clear Politics’s Philip Wegmann brought up the other dominant news story, Russia and Ukraine (click the tweet to see the whole thread, including follow-ups):

.@PhilipWegmann: “Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has said after the war that he wants NATO membership or nuclear weapons. We heard Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth say that NATO membership was unrealistic. What’s the President’s view on the other option, on a nuclear Ukraine?”… pic.twitter.com/6x42lkPq9u
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 12, 2025
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins — who peddled fear-morn on her primetime show Monday night insisting America’s on the verge of a “constitution crisis” — chose instead to ask about Russia vs. Ukraine and then pitch a small fit about the White House keeping the Associated Press from press pool events (attended by wire services, one print, one radio, and one TV reporter) because the outlet refuses to comply with the Gulf of Mexico’s name change to the Gulf of America:

CNN’s @KaitlanCollins: “And final thing for you, which White House official made the decision to bar the AP reporter from the Oval Office and the Diplomatic Reception Room last night?”@PressSec @KarolineLeavitt: “Well, first of all, let me just set the record straight. It is a… pic.twitter.com/IuJmXQhbKT
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 12, 2025
In her second question, Collins fretted this was “retaliatory in nature” against the AP and has created “ a precedent that the White House will retaliate against reporters who don’t use the language you guys believe reporters should use.”

Leavitt replied to the arrogant former conservative reporter-turned-corporate liberal darling that she “was upfront in my briefing on day one if we feel there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room we are going to hold those lies accountable.”

After calling on his fiancé Monica Luisi of TPUSA and hearing her question about declassifying documents on the MLK Jr., JFK, and RJK assassinations, One America News’s Daniel Baldwin shared this stunner about wasteful spending in New York City:

.@OANN’s @Baldwin_Daniel_: “I wanted to ask about the $59 million that FEMA sent to New York City migrant hotels. Secretary Kristi Noem just put out a statement, saying that she had clawed back the whole payment that FEMA activists unilaterally gave to NYC migrant hotels. She… pic.twitter.com/8slR1pvqv1
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 12, 2025
The briefing concluded with Gateway Pundit’s Jordan Conradson, who started with a question that, if asked by a progressive, would have been seen as eyeroll-inducing. Instead, he seemed to have been wanting to make a point about the left’s unhinged nature, which Leavitt diagnosed as the liberal media trying to sow division inside the administration:

Gateway Pundit’s @ConradsonJordan: “Does @ElonMusk have power of the presidency?”@PressSec @KarolineLeavitt: “Absolutely not. That’s ridiculous question.”
Conradson: “Right. I ask that question — I ask that question because the Democrats have been hurling insults, calling him… pic.twitter.com/xytE0xPXGe
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 12, 2025
To see the relevant transcript from the February 12 briefing (including foreign policy questions from Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich and the New York Post on bellyaching from the city’s far-left comptroller), click here.

Politico may be trying to re-ingratiate itself with the American public after its government funding scandal by finally admitting what voters already knew about the Biden economy: It sucked.

“Voters Were Right About the Economy. The Data Was Wrong,” read the eye-popping Politico magazine headline from Tuesday by author Eugene Ludwig, chairman of the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity.

Ludwig reminisced how “[m]any in Washington bristled at the public’s failure to register how strong the economy really was. They charged that right-wing echo chambers were conning voters into believing entirely preposterous narratives about America’s decline.”

But as Ludwig conceded, “What they rarely considered was whether something else might be responsible for the disconnect — whether, for instance, government statistics were fundamentally flawed.” No kidding!

It is quite the turnaround from Politico’s pre-Election Day propaganda salivating how then-Vice President Kamala Harris was supposedly riding a “Dream Economy Into the Election!”

So that narrative flies out the window now that President Donald Trump is back in the White House, right?

Ludwig’s characterization inadvertently blasted the seemingly never-ending, sour-noted cacophony of media falsehoods on everything from unemployment, to wages, to inflation, to GDP growth that American people were inundated with on a daily basis to believe how star-spangled awesome the Biden economy supposedly was. But Ludwig still attempted to throw the apparatchiks spewing out the flawed government statistics a lifeline by defending their reputations:

What we uncovered shocked us. The bottom line is that, for 20 years or more, including the months prior to the election, voter perception was more reflective of reality than the incumbent statistics. Our research revealed that the data collected by the various agencies is largely accurate. Moreover, the people staffing those agencies are talented and well-intentioned. But the filters used to compute the headline statistics are flawed. As a result, they paint a much rosier picture of reality than bears out on the ground.

Ludwig then issued a scathing rebuke of those who parroted the out-of-context government figures to prop up the Biden economy: “[T]he reality is that, if the prevailing indicators remain misleading, the facts don’t apply.”

Well, here are some “facts” that the American people have been forced to contend with.

Consumer prices are now 21 percent higher on average than when Biden first took office. On wage growth, even the Associated Press conceded in its Jan. 14 propaganda piece promoting Bidenomics that “consumer prices rose a combined 20.8% during the course of Biden’s presidency, but people’s average weekly earnings rose just 17.4% over the same period.”

Fox Business also recently reported on a new study from digital lender Biz2Credit, which the outlet said showed how “[t]he backbone of the U.S. economy – the American small business – may be breaking beyond repair without some serious intervention.”

Specifically, the outlet noted that “[d]ata from the study was pulled from more than 100,000 financing applications submitted to Biz2Credit between January 2022 and December 2024, and it shows a sharp decline in the earnings of small businesses toward the end of 2024, a trend the lender sees continuing into 2025.”

In addition, much of the GDP growth that occurred under President Joe Biden was a result of a massive sugar high brought on by his administration launching the national debt into orbit. Now the debt is a ridiculous 123 percent of GDP.

Inflation is transitory, they said
Inflation is coming down, they said
But your wages are rising, they said
Translation: food prices set another record high in the last month of the Biden admin… pic.twitter.com/XPY7Xg4xkI
— E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) February 12, 2025
Bottom line: The Biden economy was always a nightmarish streak of unbelievably stupid policies from beginning to end, even by liberal standards. Politico may be late to the show, but at least one outlet finally had the guts to publish the obvious.

Just because Caryn Elaine Johnson, who does by the fake name Whoopi Goldberg, was 69 years old and Joy Behar was 82 years old, didn’t mean they were above acting like juvenile bullies. The oldest members of ABC’s Cackling Coven, The View kicked off Wednesday’s show by taking swings at Elon Musk’s 4-year-old son, mocking and bullying him for his name: “X.” At no point did any of the other cast members intervene on behalf of the child. Instead, one of them blamed Musk for South African apartheid.

Looking to start the show’s Hot Topics segment with Musk’s Oval Office press conference about the activities of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from yesterday, things were immediately derailed by Behar targeting Musk’s son, who was in attendance. Goldberg joined in and scolded people for mocking their names when Musk’s son was named “X”:

GOLDBERG: Yeah. So yesterday Elon Musk took his son X to a press conference —

JOY BEHAR: X?

GOLDBERG: I did not name the child.

[Laughter]

BEHAR: That’s the kid’s name?

GOLDBERG: And I don’t want to hear any more mess about our names, okay? Okay?

With Goldberg mockingly calling him “little X,” despite him being older than his father’s acquisition and rebranding of the social media network, Behar jabbed that he had a sibling called “Instagram.” Co-host Sara Haines spoke up but only to note that Musk didn’t own Instagram. “I know,” Behar huffed.

 

 

Later in the segment, staunchly racist Asuncion Cummings Hostin, who goes by the fake name Sunny, attacked Musk for having the audacity as a naturalized American citizen to be a champion for American democracy.

Despite Musk being a child at the time, Hostin blamed Musk for South African apartheid and seemed to suggest it was still active:

And what is rich to me again he is not elected and he is talking about our American democracy. A man who grew up in South Africa during the apartheid era benefited from apartheid. And apartheid is the very antithesis to our American democracy because in South Africa today, there is let’s see 81 percent of South Africa’s population are black Africans, yet, only four percent of those black Africans own the land. So, this is what we’re — this is the person that’s supposed to be teaching us about democracy.

Musk was born on June 28, 1971 and apartheid ended on May 4, 1990, so Musk was still 18 at the time (he became an American citizen in 2002). Obviously he was too young to have had an influence, but then again The View had just shown that attacking kids was not off limits to them. And Hostin also seemed to be ignorant enough to think it was still going on, or perhaps she wanted the government to steal the land from the whites.

It’s also worth the reminder that Hostin’s family were prolific Spanish slave-owners. They actually fled across the Atlantic Ocean in an attempt to out run the abolition of slavery.

The transcript is below. Click “expand” to read:

ABC’s The View
February 12, 2025
11:02:33 a.m. Eastern

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Yeah. So yesterday Elon Musk took his son X to a press conference —

JOY BEHAR: X?

GOLDBERG: I did not name the child.

[Laughter]

BEHAR: That’s the kid’s name?

GOLDBERG: And I don’t want to hear any more mess about our names, okay? Okay?

Anyhoo, he took little X —

BEHAR: Sorry. And little Instagram.

SARA HAINES: He doesn’t own Instagram.

GOLDBERG: He doesn’t own Instagram.

BEHAR: I know.

GOLDBERG: He just took X with him to a press conference in the Oval Office to defend himself against critics who say he should not have the power to gut the federal agency.

(…)

11:04:11 a.m. Eastern

GOLDBERG: Okay, just before we even say anything, I want to say over the last decade, last ten years Musk’s company SpaceX and Tesla were awarded at least 18 billion in federal contracts according to spending data and since the president’s election, his net worth has increased 64 billion or nearly 25 percent. So, yeah, I’m going to say, you want to cut something, cut some of the stuff you’re taking out.

[Applause]

SUNNY HOSTIN: Yeah.

GOLDBERG: Because, you know, I get that there’s fat everywhere and, yes, we’d all like to see less of it but what you’re doing is a lot more than just cutting fat. You’re giving people information that they should not have because they’re not the people whose information it is. And nobody elected you! That’s the part. That’s the part.

[Applause]

HOSTIN: That’s the main part. You know Whoopi, to your point – To your point Whoopi, about all these government contracts, the billions of dollars that his companies have, his six companies have with the U.S. Government. What is also very interesting is, the cutting that he has done with the federal agencies, those very same agencies have 32 continuing investigations, complaints, or enforcement actions against his companies. Those are the agencies and the people that he is cutting, so he is all of it is inuring to his benefit.

And what is rich to me again he is not elected and he is talking about our American democracy. A man who grew up in South Africa during the apartheid era benefited from apartheid. And apartheid is the very antithesis to our American democracy because in South Africa today, there is let’s see 81 percent of South Africa’s population are black Africans, yet, only four percent of those black Africans own the land. So, this is what we’re — this is the person that’s supposed to be teaching us about democracy.

(…)

Tuesday’s installment of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 was a little spicier than usual as Cooper implored former New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu not to “be a dick” as he defended DOGE’s efforts to cut government waste. Cooper would later apologize, and Sununu, being a good sport, played it off as not a big deal.

Addressing Cooper and his fellow panelists, The View’s Alyssa Farah Griffin and former CNN legal analyst-turned Zoom masturbator-turned author and man trying to rehabilitate his image, Jeffrey Toobin, Sununu lauded DOGE’s work, “It is 23 days in here, guys, 23 days. You’re talking about $2.3 billion that was saved last year. These guys are saving $2.3 billion a day. That’s incredible.”

Toobin wasn’t convinced, “That’s what they’re saying. But where’s the proof?”

 

 

Sununu shot back, “You’re waiting—you’re not going to be satisfied until he shows up with 10,000 pages—”

Cooper then joined in on Toobin’s side, “He’s giving very specific things, but he’s not actually giving any evidence of that.”

Holding his ground, Sununu recalled, “It’s all going to come because what they also said was, if we have to go to Congress, we will go to Congress.” Cooper still wasn’t convinced, “But where are some of the details that have come out, like the, you know, $59 million spent on luxury hotels. It’s actually not—”

Sununu interjected, “You’re talking about the FEMA money that was used for migrants? That was FEMA money for migrants. That’s okay now?”

By now, the two men were talking over each other as Cooper added, “No, I’m not saying it’s okay. I’m not saying it’s okay. Don’t put words in my mouth, while Sununu wondered, “So, would you stop that? Would you stop that process?”

Cooper then demanded of Sununu, “Don’t be a dick. The portrayal—what I’m saying is the portrayal by him is just not factually accurate. He’s talking about luxury hotels. I’m not in—look, I was in Hurricane Katrina. I saw what FEMA does.”

Later, as Cooper was concluding the segment, he declared that “Before we go, I want to apologize. I was mean, I was rude to you, and I never –”

Raising above it, Sununu interrupted, “Are you kidding? I grew up with seven brothers and sisters, and I’m a Sununu. I’m a former governor, you want to know what I’m normally called, that’s one of the nicest things I’ve called all week, it’s great.”

Cooper insisted, “No, but I invited you here and I—yes, I know, but no, I apologize, it’s not, I don’t know why I said that, I really do,” as Sununu joked, “It keeps it spicy, it keeps it hot, it’s post eight o’clock, have some fun on CNN.”

With all that settled, the only question is why does CNN keep trying to normalize Toobin?

 Here is a transcript for the February 11 show:

CNN Anderson Cooper 360

2/11/2025

8:12 PM ET

CHRIS SUNUNU: It is 23 days in here, guys, 23 days. You’re talking about $2.3 billion that was saved last year. These guys are saving $2.3 billion a day. That’s incredible.

JEFFREY TOOBIN: That’s what they’re saying. But where’s the proof?

SUNUNU: You’re waiting — you’re not going to be satisfied until he shows up with 10,000 pages –

ANDERSON COOPER: He’s giving very specific things, but he’s not actually giving any evidence of that.

SUNUNU: It’s all going to come because what they also said was, if we have to go to Congress, we will go to Congress.

COOPER: But where are some of the details that have come out, like the, you know, $59 million spent on luxury hotels. It’s actually not –

SUNUNU: You’re talking about the FEMA money that was used for migrants? That was FEMA money for migrants. That’s okay now?

COOPER: No, I’m not saying it’s okay. I’m not saying it’s okay. Don’t put words in my mouth.

SUNUNU: So, would you stop that? Would you stop that process?

COOPER: Don’t be a dick. The portrayal — what I’m saying is the portrayal by him is just not factually accurate. He’s talking about luxury hotels. I’m not in — look, I was in Hurricane Katrina. I saw what FEMA does.

SUNUNU: Until he sends you a personal text, you’re not going to believe it, I guess.

…

COOPER: Before we go, I want to apologize. I was mean, I was rude to you, and I never –

SUNUNU: Are you kidding? I grew up with seven brothers and sisters, and I’m a Sununu –

COOPER: No, but I invited you here and I –

SUNUNU: I’m a former governor, you want to know what I’m normally called, that’s one of the nicest things I’ve called all week, it’s great.

COOPER: Yes, I know, but no, I apologize, it’s not, I don’t know why I said that, I really do.

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: We’re all friends here.

COOPER: No, I mean — I admire –

SUNUNU: It keeps it spicy, it keeps it hot, it’s post eight o’clock, have some fun on CNN.

COOPER: I don’t want to do that.

You don’t have to be a “boomer” or a snobby jazz enthusiast like me to notice that good taste is now apparently whatever subpar “music” is currently being jammed down our throats by our pop-culture elitists. Take the ghetto mumbling we were supposed to accept for a halftime performance at Sunday’s Super Bowl as an example. 

We were all gaslighted into accepting the new standard that asserts the more a talentless “artist” phones it, the more accolades we owe them.

Maybe it’s DEI. Maybe it’s the corporate pressure to produce as much crap within the shortest time frame. Perhaps it’s just as stupid as our cultural elitists charging everyone with being uncool and unenlightened if we reject their push to redefine the mediocre products of laziness as some deep, post-modernist artwork we common Western folk simply don’t understand.  

Somewhere during our collective subway ride through the early 2000s, we’ve willingly tolerated the stench of the passenger cars and begun to reward crackheads and bums with a billion dollars music career and a global platform. Thug music, produced by thugs, gets thugs honored as the world’s most renowned composers.

Everyone is still somehow shocked when our most propped-up composers reveal themselves as women beaters and alleged sex traffickers (Looking at you, Diddy.) 

It’s because for so long, we’ve blindly rewarded their soulless diarrhea, no matter how sloppy it is, as the music of the “marginalized.” 

Brace your ears for this episode of “Woke of the Weak.”

 

The New York Times is apparently more concerned about taxpayer-funded goods from USAID not making their way into Hamas-controlled Gaza than USAID potentially funding Hamas terrorists.

The February 8 print edition of The Times had this insane headline blaring over the front page: “U.S.A.I.D. Turmoil Threatens Goods Heading to Gaza.” Sure, let’s just forget about the enormous waste that USAID perpetrated over the years, right?

Jerusalem Bureau Chief Patrick Kingsley and reporter Adam Rasgon mourned that “[t]he Trump administration’s efforts to downsize the United States Agency for International Development have endangered the funding for food, tents and medical treatment for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza.”

The authors conveniently memory-holed the fact that Hamas has a sordid history of stealing humanitarian aid and using it to finance terrorist operations.

But worse, as the Middle East Forum reported February 1, “Millions of federal dollars have been handed by USAID to organizations directly in Gaza controlled by Hamas, with government officials even visiting Gaza terror proxies’ offices and launching joint programs.” The newspaper didn’t mention any of the damning aforementioned context of course. What, was The Times staff having a nervous breakdown about Hamas getting its gravy train cut off? Apparently so:

Officials said that the threats to the aid supply chain risked destabilizing the fragile cease-fire agreement between Hamas and Israel, which is contingent on the weekly entry of 4,200 aid and commercial trucks to the territory.

MEF also noted “USAID beneficiaries have called for their lands to be ‘cleansed’ from the’“impurity of the Jews,’ among dozens of other chilling examples.”

In fact, according to the MEF report, “USAID staff attend the offices of charities which seemingly operate on behalf of senior Hamas leaders, while staff of multiple multi-million dollar USAID beneficiary charities openly praise and encourage violence against Jews.”

But The Times, true to form, tried to drum up fear that “there will be only a handful of officials left to sign off on and audit hundreds of millions of dollars in outstanding payments to the agency’s partners on the ground in Gaza, raising alarm about how those groups will fund their operations.” 

Reading The Times made it appear that Trump was just being a malevolent brute by freezing USAID funding:

The funding freezes have already suspended tens of millions of dollars earmarked for Gaza, including for water infrastructure, mobile hospital units and psychological support programs, according to one of the U.S. officials.

But The Times’s pro-Hamas agitprop is par for the course. 

In its now panned October 17, 2023 story —“Israeli Airstrike Hits Gaza Hospital, Killing 500, Palestinian Health Ministry Says” — based its reporting on propaganda from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry to falsely accuse Israel of perpetrating the infamous al-Ahli hospital bombing. But to make matters worse, the leftist rag used a photo of the wreckage of a completely different structure.

As Pluribus editor Jeryl Bier pointed out in a piece excoriating the newspaper, “the accompanying photo was not even of the hospital, but rather of a building in a city some 15 miles to the south.” 

Bier also concluded The Times’s framing, bolstered by its misleading imagery, would “likely” lead readers to believe the depicted carnage was of the “hospital in question.” The original, false story was plastered on the front page of the newspaper’s website with the misleading photo prominently displayed.

You don’t despise the media enough.

Actor Haley Joel Osment reprised his role as Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday’s edition of Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC, where he joined the eponymous host for an interview where he could not decide whether he was a sex-confused weirdo or sexual freak.

The “interview” came as the real Vance traveled to Paris for an AI summit with other world leaders, but Kimmel asked the fake Vance, “What is it that you are doing in France?”

Osment replied, “I am in France to find that place where the naked ladies dance and shut it down.”

 

 

Kimmel then wondered, “Okay, and how’s that going so far?”

Pulling a handful of baguettes out of a bathtub, Osment lamented that “Lord Jesus hath not prepared me for the moral depravity over here. I have personally confiscated dozens of dildos from the bicycle baskets of these hairy-pated perverts. Look! They call them bag-wets.”

Kimmel insisted, “No, they don’t. I think that’s just a loaf of bread you’re holding.”

Osment then switched personas, from the uptight conservative to alluding to the myth that claims Vance once had sex with a couch, “Oh, well. You won’t want to eat one after what I done with it.”

Taking a break from the sex talk, Kimmel referenced new footage from President Donald Trump’s recent Super Bowl interview, “Oh, speaking of Daddy Donald, did you hear what Trump said about you being his successor?” After Osment claimed he hadn’t, Kimmel continued, “He said he doesn’t see you as his successor.”

A despondent Osment wailed, “No, he didn’t… It’s fine, I’m sure he’s right. He’s always right.”

The skit then returned to the sex stuff, with Kimmel wondering, “Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. Are you at least seeing the sights in Paris?”

Osment claimed that, “I went to a museum known as The Lube,” to which Kimmel corrected him, “It’s The Louvre. The Louvre.”

Still alluding to the couch lie, Osment asked, “Whatever these Frenchies call it, I was rudely kicked out for ‘acting inappropriate.’ Why did they even call it French kissing if you can’t sex lick the Mona Lisa?”

Later, Osment dropped the allusions and asked “Have you ever heard of a chaise longue?” After Kimmel affirmed he had, Osment continued, “Well, I found one and tonight, I’m going to [bleep] It. Don’t tell Usha.”

It wasn’t that long ago when Jimmy Kimmel insisted that he and his team rigorously fact-check his jokes before he goes on stage. As it turns out, that itself wasn’t completely accurate.

Here is a transcript for the February 11 show:

ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live!

2/11/2025

11:46 PM ET

KIMMEL: Are you enjoying your time in Paris?

HALEY JOEL OSMENT: [AS JD VANCE]: Heck, no, I am not. I ate what I thought was a booger yesterday, it turned out to be a snail, yuck.

KIMMEL: What is it that you are doing in France?

OSMENT: I am in France to find that place where the naked ladies dance and shut it down.

KIMMEL: Okay, and how’s that going so far?

OSMENT: Lord Jesus hath not prepared me for the moral depravity over here. I have personally confiscated dozens of dildos from the bicycle baskets of these hairy-pated perverts. Look!

KIMMEL: No, those are —

OSMENT: They call them bag-wets.

KIMMEL: No, they don’t. I think that’s just a loaf of bread you’re holding.

OSMENT: Oh, well. You won’t want to eat one after what I done with it.

KIMMEL: Okay, now — are you meeting with people? Officials and — no?

OSMENT: No, sirree. This place is teeming with foreigners. And Daddy Donald says that is a no-no.

KIMMEL: Oh, speaking of Daddy Donald, did you hear what Trump said about you being his successor?

OSMENT: No. What’d he say?

KIMMEL: He — oh now, well — you know, he said he doesn’t see you as his successor. 

OSMENT: No, he didn’t.

KIMMEL: He — yeah, he did. He said it was too soon — to know — oh. 

OSMENT: It’s fine, I’m sure he’s right. He’s always right.

KIMMEL: Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. Are you at least seeing the sights in Paris?

OSMENT: I went to a museum known as The Lube.

KIMMEL: It’s The Louvre. The Louvre.

OSMENT: Whatever these Frenchies call it, I was rudely kicked out for “acting inappropriate.” Why did they even call it French kissing if you can’t sex lick the Mona Lisa? 

…

OSMENT: Have you ever heard of a chaise longue?

KIMMEL: Yes, of course I have, yeah.

OSMENT: Well, I found one and tonight, I’m going to [bleep] It. Don’t tell! Usha.

This week’s episode of CBS’ FBI focused on Mexican cartel violence after a cartel leader’s mistress illegally flees to New York.

The episode, “Shelter,” begins like the usual left-wing fantasy of an evil white guy targeting illegal immigrants for murder. 

A white male shooter kills 11 people in a shelter housing illegals. The shelter, Graceful Shepherd, is located in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood, and the shooter has a history of racist behavior.

After getting the case, FBI analyst Ian Lim (James Chen) gave details to Special Agent Jubal Valentine (Jeremy Sisto) about the shelter’s role in housing illegals. 

Analyst Lin: Now Graceful Shepherd is donation driven, but they do receive a city grant. That means they have to start taking in undocumented migrants bussed up from other states. Turned a quiet shelter into a lightning rod of controversy.

Special Agent Valentine: Right, well, based on the location and victims, we’re going to operate under the assumption that this is a federal hate crime, so let’s dig into the usual suspects, hate groups, extremists. NSA, you want to scrape online chatter for me? 

At this point, one usually has to eye-roll at the predictably left-wing script.

Then the episode takes an unexpected turn. A Mexican cartel actually hired the shooter to kidnap a woman named Inés Madera, an illegal hiding in Graceful Shepherd. Madera is the former mistress of fictional cartel leader, Jorge Ortega. Ortega chose Madera when she was 16 years old. She secretly fled over the border with their 8-year-old son Miguel to keep the child from turning into a “monster” like his father. The cartel leader asked little Miguel to kill a man, but the boy refused.

Special Agents Maggie Bell (Missy Peregrym) and Omar Zidan (Zeeko Zaki) argue about Madera’s predicament. 

Bell: I know you’re angry with her, but you need to remember that she’s a victim. You know that when someone like Ortega singles you out, you don’t have a choice.

Zidan: And that may be true, but she had a choice when she came to New York, and she should have chosen to talk to the cops, not go to a shelter filled with innocent people when she knew a cartel was after her.

Bell: I understand, and it was in your old neighborhood.

Zidan: That is filled with good people who just want what this country has to offer, and then she brings in this violence, Maggie. The people that died today are not the only ones that get hurt. It’s the owner of the halal market and the dry cleaner across the street. They’re all collateral damage. And now what are people gonna say? “What do you expect from a Muslim neighborhood?”

Bell: You’re right. But she still deserves our protection, and so does her son. 

While hidden from Ortega, Miguel is kidnapped by a former narco assassin named El Diablo. El Diablo wants justice because Ortega burned his wife and daughter alive in a junkyard and texted him the video. He hopes to exchange Miguel for Ortega’s life. 

The FBI rescues Miguel from El Diablo only to discover that the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has been secretly working with Ortega the whole time and cut a deal with him in exchange for information. The DEA gives Miguel back to Ortega against the mother’s wishes.

As the shady government official hands the boy back to the vicious cartel leader, you wish corrupt government leaders in cahoots with cartels could be exposed. You also wish a secure border would keep the cartels’ violence out of our country in the first place.

Next week’s episode of FBI is about rescuing a human trafficking victim. For all the virtue-signaling, has Trump’s election caused some introspection in Hollywood?

 

The entire media-Democrat complex spent years building panic over President Trump being a dire threat to democracy, only to be embarrassed by the electorate who decisively chose the Terrible Threat over Kamala Harris.

Now President Trump is displaying the highest approval ratings of his political career, and voters are satisfied he’s acting on his campaign promises. Pretty much all his Cabinet picks are getting confirmed. So what can this Panic Patrol do now? Just as judges and prosecutors were arrayed to stop Trump before he was elected again, a passel of mostly Democrat-appointed judges are getting in the way of his early executive actions designed to restrain government.

The new media buzzwords are “constitutional crisis.” In his “Reliable Sources” newsletter, Brian Stelter was making a crazy quilt of quotes from all of the anti-Trump forces.

“Constitutional crisis looms as Trump overhauls government” was the lead story on CNN’s homepage. CNN’s Joan Biskupic warned “some of Donald Trump’s top advisers have cast doubt on whether rulings on those lawsuits would even constrain the president.”

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin told Anderson Cooper, “If you listen to what the president and vice president are saying, it certainly suggests that it’s a real possibility that they’ll simply ignore what a court says.”

Then Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told CNN host Kaitlan Collins “this isn’t hyperbole to say that we are staring the death of democracy in the eyes, right now.” Crying wolf never goes out of style on their side.

Stelter did not account for the conservative rebuttal on this, starting with President Biden’s shameless avoidance of any judicial or congressional power in single-handedly forgiving federal student loans. Biden boasted: “The Supreme Court tried to block me from relieving student debt. But they didn’t stop me.”

Try to find anyone on the left who uttered the term “constitutional crisis.”

Instead, it was hailed as “historic.” On October 17, 2024, CNN.com posted this press release: “Biden has approved $175 billion in student loan forgiveness for nearly 5 million people.” Reporter Katie Lobosco proclaimed “the Biden-Harris administration is reminding voters how it has delivered a historic amount of student debt relief even as Republicans have challenged several of its efforts in court and balked at the costs.”

It’s a press release because there isn’t a Biden-Harris critic quoted anywhere in the 764-word article. Only the Biden folks are quoted.

CNN and Stelter should account for Anderson Cooper’s show on April 7, 2023, as they discussed judges ruling on the availability of abortion-inducing drugs. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was the anti-judicial rebel: “I believe that the Biden administration should ignore this ruling.” The judiciary was engaged, she claimed, in “an unprecedented and dramatic erosion of the legitimacy of the courts” by ruling against the abortion pushers. No one cried “constitutional crisis.” 

As usual, the liberals use situational ethics depending on who is in power and what is at stake. Right now, liberals don’t have the power in the White House or in Congress, and it’s clear they are feeling angry and powerless.

It’s very early in Trump’s second term, and we don’t know how all of these early battles will play out. But we certainly know that the “independent” media cannot be trusted to define “democracy” or “constitutional crisis.” To them, these are just malleable words in party-line press releases.