WND

Topline: National Public Radio frequently claims that less than 1% of its funding comes from the federal government, an argument used to criticize President Donald Trump’s executive order cutting funds for NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service.

The reality is more complicated, as detailed in a recent report from OpenTheBooks.com.

Key facts: NPR’s most recent tax return shows that it received just $40,000, or .04% of its budget, from the taxpayer-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

However, most of the CPB’s $535 million budget is spent on “community service grants” to local TV and radio stations. By law, radio stations must use 23% of their grants for “acquiring or producing programming that is to be distributed nationally and is designed to serve the needs of a national audience.” That means local stations are required to give those federal funds to NPR to license its content or risk losing funding.

NPR brought in $99.33 million from those programming fees in 2024. Not all of the money originated with the CPB, but a “significant portion” did, NPR’s own website admitted last year. The web page has since been edited.

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Background: NPR and PBS have enough revenue to make millionaires out of their top employees.

PBS CEO Paula Kerger earns $1,055,135 in salary and $113,526 in “other compensation,” per tax returns. Three other PBS employees make more than $500,000, and another ten make more than $300,000.

Former NPR CEO John Lansing made $590,252 in 2023, and anchor Steve Inskeep made $532,188. At least four other NPR hosts earned more than $450,000.

Summary: Regardless of one’s opinions on NPR’s federal funding, the station should be more forthcoming about how much taxpayer money it actually receives.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

An assessment carried out by the UK Department of Health and Social Care on the impact of proposed assisted suicide legislation found that legalizing assisted suicide could save the National Health Service (NHS) as much as £59.6 million ($79 million) annually. But the very fact that such an assessment was sought — evaluating whether a human being should live or die based on monetary cost of death versus treatment/life — fuels the concerns of those opposed to the legislation.

According to The Guardian, the number of people likely to opt for physician-assisted death in England and Wales is expected to increase from between 164 and 787 in the first year to as many as 4,559 in the 10th year, based on government estimates. As more people are pushed toward assisted death, the assessment claims the NHS could save an estimated £919,000 to £10.3m in the first year and an estimated £5.8m to £59.6m in year 10 — by paying doctors to kill people instead of treating them.

The assessment was ordered as Parliament prepares to vote on an assisted suicide bill on May 16. Coercion concerns surround the bill, which is sponsored by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater. Over 3,000 medical experts signed a letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer expressing their opposition to the bill. They warned that legalizing assisted suicide will lead to people being pressured into dying, particularly due to the current state of the NHS, which they described as “broken.”

The new assessment provides more weight to those concerns. Tanni Grey-Thompson, a Paralympian and member of the House of Lords, said, “This impact assessment highlights how assisted dying would put disabled and other vulnerable people at grave risk by providing financial incentives to an already overburdened and under-resourced NHS to offer assisted dying as a ‘treatment option’.”

Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of Care Not Killing, opposes the law and said the assessment “confirms that changing the law will save money … exactly as we have seen in other jurisdictions which have introduced state-assisted killing, placing pressure on vulnerable terminally ill people to end their lives.”

Evidence shows they are right. Doctors in Canada, where assisted suicide is legal, said in 2023 that they are facing at least subtle pressure from the government to use Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) to cut costs for its national healthcare system.

In 2020, Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer publicly released a report stating that its MAiD program created a “net cost reduction” of $86.9 million per year for the government. It further said that the expansion of the categories of persons eligible for MAiD would create an additional net savings of $62 million per year.

In an article for The Spectator, author Yuan Yi Zhu wrote:

Health care, in particular for those suffering from chronic conditions, is expensive; but assisted suicide only costs the taxpayer $2,327 per ‘case.’

And, of course, those who have to rely wholly on government-provided Medicare pose a far greater burden on the exchequer than those who have savings or private insurance….

There is already talk of allowing ‘mature minors’ access to euthanasia too — just think of the lifetime savings.

Opponents to assisted suicide fear that the same will be true for disabled and vulnerable individuals in the UK if assisted suicide is legalized.

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]

A former top staffer in the Biden White House said on Fox News Sunday that former First Lady Jill Biden’s strategy to prop up former President Joe Biden in public is only harming the Biden legacy.

Michael LaRosa, who served as a longtime press secretary to Jill Biden, admitted that Biden’s team is mishandling the fallout regarding his cognitive decline and Joe Biden’s initial decision to seek reelection in 2024. Despite his affection for the Bidens, the former aide urged Jill and Joe Biden to reconsider how they are handling media appearances in the post-presidency period because their current strategy may be doing more harm than good.

“I’ve tried to be loyal, but try to be candid at the same time. They’ve got to start adjusting the people that they’re listening to because none of it has gotten them anywhere good so far,” LaRosa concluded.

Responding to a question about why Biden continues to be pushed into high-pressure public appearances, LaRosa said that Biden’s inner circle is likely sensitive to how history will judge their choices.

WATCH: 

“They’re right to fear that the history is being written right now about their legacy. And I said this back in February of 2024, when he was still in the race that if he loses to Donald Trump, much of his legacy will be erased because it was a really big gamble to take to run again,” LaRosa said.

LaRosa argued the Bidens appear gripped by a “fight or flight mentality” as they face growing criticism. Rather than controlling the narrative early, the team waited too long.

“The media historians and Democrats will only define him but whether he win or loses. And now that they are being blamed for that, they’re probably feeling the fight or flight mentality where they have to get over, get out there and try to define it,” LaRosa continued. “My question to them is, why are you starting now? I would have been starting 10 months ago to start to define his legacy as soon as he dropped out of the race.”

LaRosa previously said the administration ignored internal concerns and “gaslighted” voters about Biden’s waning support within his own party. LaRosa admitted Biden’s team feared unscripted moments because they didn’t trust him to not make a gaffe and because the former president lacked the ability to compete in today’s media-heavy political landscape.

Earlier this month, Biden resurfaced with a pair of high-profile interviews, first appearing on the BBC to discuss his withdrawal from the 2024 race and criticize Trump’s foreign policy. Days later, he joined Jill Biden on “The View” to defend his cognitive fitness and reflect on his administration’s legacy.

In the forthcoming book “Original Sin,” authors Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson reveal that Biden’s aides privately discussed the possibility of the president needing a wheelchair during a potential second term due to his deteriorating physical health. The book further reports that Biden frequently forgot the names of key aides and that cabinet secretaries believe they were deliberately shielded from the president by his inner circle to conceal his decline.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

The top two officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation appeared on national television Sunday to clarify numerous mysteries, including the FBI’s role in the U.S. Capitol mayhem on Jan. 6, 2021, the two assassination attempts on President Donald Trump and the purported suicide of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Appearing on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo on the Fox News Channel, FBI Director Kash Patel said about Jan. 6: “What was the FBI doing? Well we’ve got answers coming. We just found a trove of information and it’s on its way to Capitol Hill right now. And they’ve asked, and they’re getting them. And you’re getting the answers on Jan. 6.

“You’re getting answers on what sourcing was utilized, what money was utilized, how many assets were utilized, who made those decisions. You’re getting it.”

“We can only control the FBI, but you’re getting it from the FBI,” he added.

Bartiromo asked Patel point blank: “Were there FBI agents undercover egging people on?”

“That answer is coming and it’s on its way to Congress,” he replied.

Is the news we hear every day actually broadcasting messages from God? The answer is an absolute yes! Find out how!

Dan Bongino, deputy director of the FBI, said he personally “saw the portfolio of information.”

“We dug far and wide to find it. And I’m pretty sure now we have a conclusive, definitive answer, but you and the public are gonna have it. You’re gonna see it in writing over to Capitol Hill.”

“There is a difference between an agent,” Bongino cautioned, “meaning a trained GS-1811 federal agent, and a source or an asset. There’s a difference. So when you see the material, which I promise you is coming, when you see it, I just want you to understand that.

“There a difference between agents and assets, and I just hope when people put that information out there, they make the distinction. … There’s a distinction there.”

Patel said: “I want the American public to go back and look at what our predecessors stated to Congress under oath: that there were no FBI sources utilized in and around Jan. 6. I’m gonna leave it at that, but go play the videotape and look for this material coming to Congress.”

He added: “Every employee that acted appropriately, we’re gonna defend you to the hill.”

KASH PATEL: You’re getting answers on January 6. Sourcing, money, assets, decisions. You’re getting it! pic.twitter.com/B4B1DvSJ8p

— George Balfour-Kinnear (@balfourUK) May 18, 2025

Regarding the case of notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Bartiromo asked both officials why many Americans don’t buy the government assertion that Epstein killed himself in a New York City jail.

“They have a right to their opinion,” Patel said, “but as someone who has worked as a public defender, as a prosecutor who’s been in that prison system, who’s been in the Metropolitan Detention Center, who’s been in segregated housing, you know a suicide when you see one, and that’s what that was.”

Bongino said: “He killed himself. I’ve seen the whole file. He killed himself.”

I find it hilarious that Kash Patel and Don Bongino are nuking the MAGA conspiracy that Jeffrey Epstein was murdered by Clinton. pic.twitter.com/ktVKY2Lohq

— Blue Georgia (@BlueATLGeorgia) May 18, 2025

Regarding the two attempts on Trump’s life, Patel cited two reasons for the lack of specific details released.

“Two open, ongoing prosecutions,” he said. ‘Two of the investigations are obviously closed because the individuals are dead, but there’s two live prosecutions … so we can’t get ahead of the federal court case.”

“We have personally invested our time in making sure that we have looked at any possible international connections to terrorism and adversaries alike.”

NEW: Kash Patel and Dan Bongino break their silence on why we still don’t have answers about the Trump assassination attempts.

It’s the question nobody in the media wants to ask—but millions of Americans are still wondering:

Why don’t we know more about the attempts on… pic.twitter.com/EtjKGsBIw1

— The Vigilant Fox (@VigilantFox) May 18, 2025

“Kash is not kidding,” said Bongino. “We’ve been personally briefed extensively on every single detail, nugget, tendril of this case.”

He said he’s aware many feel the federal government is hiding something about the assassination attempts.

“I’m not going to tell people what they want to hear. I’m going to tell you the truth, and whether you like it or not is up to you,” Bongino explained.

“In some of these cases, the ‘there’ you’re looking for is not there. And I know people, I get it, I understand. It’s not there. If it was there, we would have told you.”

WATCH PARTS ONE AND TWO OF THE FULL INTERVIEW:

Thank you @FBIDirectorKash @FBI @FBIDDBongino @SundayFutures @FoxNews https://t.co/fwSKEhFiVx

— Maria Bartiromo (@MariaBartiromo) May 18, 2025

@FBIDirectorKash & @FBIDDBongino reveal the latest on President Trump’s assassination attempts, the new direction of the FBI, and plans to leave the Hoover Building in part 2 of @MariaBartiromo‘s exclusive interview. pic.twitter.com/JwHe7zoOVb

— SundayMorningFutures (@SundayFutures) May 18, 2025

Follow Joe on X @JoeKovacsNews

PALM BEACH, Florida – President Donald Trump is threatening fresh legal action against ABC News for what he calls “misleading” and “fake” news coverage of Qatar’s gift of a luxury 747 jet to America.

In a late-night post on Truth Social Saturday, Trump wondered: “Why doesn’t Chairman Bob Iger do something about ABC Fake News, especially since I just won $16,000,000 based on the Fake and Defamatory reporting of Liddle’ George Slopadopolus. He was given warnings, but just couldn’t be restrained by ‘management.’”

“Now I see they are at it again, and I again give these SleazeBags fair warning!

“The wonderful country of Qatar, after agreeing to invest more than 1.4 Trillion Dollars in the United States of America, deserves much better than Misleading (Fake!) News.”

Trump stressed the gift of the plane to be used as Air Force One is not to him personally, but to the U.S. Defense Department.

“Everyone, including their lawyers, has been told that ABC must not say that Qatar is giving ME a FREE Boeing 747 Airplane, because they are not,” he explained.

“Instead, and as Fake News ABC fully knows and understands, this highly respected country is donating the plane to the United States Air Force/ Defense Department, AND NOT TO ME.

“By so doing, they are saving our country, and the American Taxpayer, hundreds of millions of dollars. ABC Fake News is one of the WORST.”

As WorldNetDaily reported last Monday, President Donald Trump unleashed his disdain on an ABC reporter who asked him about Qatar’s $400 million aircraft gift.

Is the news we hear every day actually broadcasting messages from God? The answer is an absolute yes! Find out how!

“What do you say to people who view that luxury jet as a personal gift to you?” ABC News senior political correspondent Rachel Scott asked Trump during a signing ceremony for an executive order designed to slash prices for prescription drugs. “Why not leave it behind?”

Trump instantly responded with an attack on Scott and her network, saying: “You’re ABC Fake News right? Because only ABC – well, a few of you would. Let me tell you. You should be embarrassed asking that question.

“They’re giving us a free jet. I could say no, no, no, don’t give us … I want to pay you $1 billion or $400 million or whatever it is or I could say thank you very much.”

Qatar Amiri Flight A7-HBJ BBJ Boeing 747-8 A Very Rare Truly Stunning VIP Jet Seen Departing Manchester Airport MAN To London Stansted Airport STN On 20/09/2022.

This VIP 747 Is exclusively For The Royal Family And Government Officials And Also Operate Special Worldwide Charter. pic.twitter.com/3y2u68nbG3

— 23L AVIATION (@23LAviation) November 20, 2022

He then discussed an anecdote concerning pro golfer Sam Snead.

“He had a motto, when they give you a putt, you say, thank you very much. You pick up your ball and you walk to the next hole,” Trump recounted.

“A lot of people are stupid. They say, no, no, I insist on putting it. And then they put it, they miss it, and their partner gets angry at them. You know what? Remember that Sam Snead, when they give you a putt, you pick it up and you walk to the next hole and you say, thank you very much.”

Scott continued to press the matter, but was cut off by Trump as she asked: “Respectfully, sir, as a businessman, some people may look at this and say, have you ever been given a gift worth millions of dollars and then not …”

“It’s not a gift to me,” Trump replied. “It’s a gift to the Department of Defense and you should know better because you’ve been embarrassed enough and so has your network. Your network is a disaster. ABC is a disaster.”

ABC: “What do you say to people who view that luxury jet as a personal gift to you?”@POTUS: “You’re ABC Fake News right?… You should be embarrassed asking that question. They’re giving us a free jet. I could say no… I want to pay you $1B… Or I could say thank you.” pic.twitter.com/Q22i73Asle

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 12, 2025

Regarding the offer of the aircraft, Trump said: “I think it’s a great gesture from Qatar. Appreciate it very much. I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer.”

“I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, No, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane. But it was, I thought it was a great gesture.”

President Trump on reports Qatar will gift him a 400 million dollar 747 to use as AF1:

“I could be a stupid person and say no, we don’t want a free expensive airplane. It was a great gesture and a gesture because of the fact that we have helped and continue to, we will continue… pic.twitter.com/aIZwMUpL8k

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 12, 2025

“I think it was a gesture because of the fact that we help, have helped, and continue to, we will continue to all of those countries, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and others,” he continued.

Democrats like Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) claim a Qatar Boeing 747-8 jet for Air Force One violates the Foreign Emoluments Clause. This ignores the deal’s structure.
The jet is offered to the U.S. Air Force, not Trump personally, for official use.

The White House and DOJ say this… pic.twitter.com/0KSrNETf2u

— Media Lies (@MediasLies) May 12, 2025

Follow Joe on X @JoeKovacsNews

‘Your network is a disaster’: Trump holds nothing back as he destroys Big Media reporter

A naval training ship donning a massive Mexican flag crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City on Saturday night, killing at least two people.

In an absolutely stunning modern metaphor a ship blaring Mexican music and flying a massive Mexican flag just got destroyed by the Brooklyn bridge.

Can’t make it uppic.twitter.com/AUJy0q3oFB

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 18, 2025

Videos posted to social media appear to show the mast of the ship crashing into the bridge just before 8:30 p.m., as passengers and nearby onlookers screamed, prompting an immediate search and rescue operation on the East River for the injured and overboard passengers.

NEW: Video shows sailors on the masts of the Mexican Navy ship Cuauhtémoc before it hit the Brooklyn bridge. #PuenteDeBrooklyn #Barco #boat pic.twitter.com/gW5GXBfp1a

— Noteworthy News (@newsnoteworthy) May 18, 2025

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said 19 people were injured in the incident, including two who died from their injuries and two who remain in critical condition.

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case of Trump v. CASA, Inc. Though the case arises out of President Donald Trump’s January executive order on birthright citizenship and the 14th Amendment, Thursday’s oral argument had very little to do with the hotly contested substantive issue of whether the children of illegal aliens born on U.S. soil must automatically be conferred American citizenship. Instead, the argument mostly focused on a procedural legal issue that is just as important as the underlying substantive issue itself: whether lower-court federal judges possess the legitimate power to issue “nationwide” injunctions to bring laws or executive orders to a halt throughout the entire republic.

There is a very straightforward answer to this question: No, they don’t. And it is imperative for American constitutionalism and republican self-governance that the justices clearly affirm that.

Let’s start with the text. Article III of the Constitution establishes the “judicial Power” of the United States, which the University of Chicago Law School professor William Baude argued in a 2008 law review article is “the power to issue binding judgments and to settle legal disputes within the court’s jurisdiction.” If the federal courts can bind certain parties, the crucial question is thus: Who? In other words, what is the legitimate “jurisdiction” of who is strictly bound by a federal court issuing an injunction?

In our system of governance, it is only the named parties to a given lawsuit that can truly be bound by court’s judgment. As the brilliant then-Stanford Law School professor Jonathan Mitchell put it in an influential 2018 law review article, an “injunction is nothing more than a judicially imposed non-enforcement policy” that “forbids the named defendants to enforce the statute” – or executive order – “while the court’s order remains in place.” Fundamentally, as Samuel L. Bray observed in another significant 2017 law review article, a federal court’s injunction only binds “the defendant’s conduct … with respect to the plaintiff.” If other courts in other districts face a similar case, those judges might consider their peer’s decision and follow it, but they are not strictly required to do so. (For truly nationwide legal issues, the proper recourse is filing a class-action lawsuit, as authorized by Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.)

One need not be a legal scholar to understand this commonsense point.

Americans are a self-governing people; it is We the People, according to the Constitution’s Preamble, who are sovereign in the United States. And while the judiciary serves as an important check on congressional or executive overreach in specific “Cases” or “Controversies” that come before it (as Article III puts it), there is no broader ability to decide the “law of the land” by “striking down” a law or order for all of the American people.

As Abraham Lincoln warned in his first inaugural address: “The candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by” the judiciary, “the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.”

Simply put, the patriots of 1776 did not rebel against the tyranny of King George III only to subject themselves, many generations later, to the black-robed tyranny of today. They fought for the ability to live freely and self-govern, and to thereby control their own fates and destinies. Judicial supremacy and the concomitant misguided practice of “nationwide” injunctions necessarily deprive a free people of the ability to do exactly that.

It is true that Chief Justice John Marshall’s landmark 1803 ruling in Marbury v. Madison established that “it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” But it is also true, as Marshall noted in the less frequently quoted sentence directly following that assertion: “Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule.” Note the all-important qualifier of “apply the rule to particular cases.” Marbury is often erroneously invoked to support judicial supremacy, but the modest case- and litigant-specific judicial review that Marshall established has nothing to do with the modern judicial supremacy and “nationwide” injunctions that proliferate today. It is that fallacious conception of judicial supremacy that was argued Thursday at the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice John Roberts, one of the swing votes in CASA, is not always known for judicial modesty. On the contrary, in clumsily attempting to defend his institution’s integrity, he has at times indulged in unvarnished judicial supremacist rhetoric and presided over an unjustifiable arrogation of power to what Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist No. 78, referred to as the “least dangerous” of the three branches.

If Roberts and his fellow centrist justices – namely, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – have any sense of prudence, they must join their more stalwart originalist colleagues in holding that “nationwide” injunctions offend the very core of our constitutional order. Such a ruling would not merely be a win for Trump – it would be a win for the Constitution and for self-governance itself.

Some Chick-fil-A employees are graduating from college free of debt due to a unique program.

Thanks to a partnership among three entities — independent Chick-fil-A operators, Point University and Ficus Education — 177 Chick-fil-A employees were able to graduate this year while working at locations across the country, restaurant industry website QSR reported.

Over 70 of the Chick-fil-A employees participated in a recent graduation ceremony at Point University, a private Christian institution in Georgia.

Topline: The Maryland Department of Health has spent $7 million in federal funds on its True You Maryland program, which taught kids about “fat pride” and used a “Gender Unicorn” for professional development.

Key facts: Records obtained by FOX45 Baltimore showed that the Department of Health and Human Services has given Maryland $1.4 million each year between 2020 and 2024 for True You Maryland — formerly Maryland Optimal Adolescent Health Program — to run in six different counties.

The money is split between local health departments, Johns Hopkins University, and Healthy Teen Network, the nonprofit that runs the program.

The program included a training session for teachers called “More than Pronouns,” where Alicia Miller, a community health educator for the Wicomico County Health Department, told teachers that “Children start to recognize their gender identity at about two years old.”

Miller also said that the words “boy” and “girl” should not be used in sex education, because “Phrases like ‘people with penises’ and ‘people with vulvas’ are appropriate when discussing anatomy.”

“Fat pride” was included in a training session called “Body-Positive Beginnings in the Tween and Teen Years.” Zoe Bisbing, a therapist leading the presentation, told teachers that, “We want to prevent our kids’ first diet, and we want to foster their own ability to maintain their intuitive eating skills because we want them to eat without guilt and without rules, without restrictions,” according to FOX45.

Another training session used a purple Gender Unicorn to help teachers differentiate between gender identity, gender expression, and sex assigned at birth. Vanessa Geffrard, the vice president of education and outreach at Planned Parenthood Maryland, explained to teachers that, “Some women might have a penis and testicles. Rather than being like ‘this is women’s anatomy,’ or ‘this is men’s anatomy,’ we want to stick to ‘people with vaginas, people with uteruses.’ We want to identify the body part.”

The program aims to reduce the birth rate in Maryland rural counties by 15% and achieve a 20% reduction in “racial disparities in Maryland rural county teen birth and STI rates,” according to its website.

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Background: This questionable activity by Healthy Teen Network is a continuation of questions regarding other Maryland nonprofits that OpenTheBooks has covered for years.

Twenty-four of the 100 nonprofits that receive the most money from Baltimore City were not properly registered as nonprofits with the state as of January. Past nonprofits that were delinquent with the state included Strong City Baltimore, whose CEO was indicted for wire fraud. He pleaded not guilty in the ongoing case.

Summary: FOX45 reported that the True Maryland program is set to run through 2028. Perhaps a review from the Department of Government Efficiency is in order.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com