Republican News

National Public Radio is celebrating its 50th anniversary this week in a classic way: asking their fans for money. A fundraising email gushes “From covering the Vietnam War in 1971 to the COVID-19 vaccination effort today, and everything in between, NPR has delivered fact-based news and trustworthy analysis to millions.”

Some of that “fact-based news” included “founding mother” Nina Totenberg’s attempts to ruin Douglas Ginsburg’s Supreme Court nomination (successful) and then Clarence Thomas’s nomination (unsuccessful). Years later, she did a syrupy sister act with feminist Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, hosting RBG celebrations at awards shows and film festivals.

NPR dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop before the election as a “pure distraction” and then had to add a correction to a January puff piece on Hunter that insisted the laptop story was “discredited by U.S. intelligence and independent investigations by news organizations.”

If you’re a conservative, you see NPR as a sandbox for liberals, and object to your tax dollars going for that propaganda. If you’re a liberal, you love it dearly and fight any attempt to cut its federal funding.

On May 2, the CBS show Sunday Morning shamelessly aired an eight-minute commercial selling NPR’s view of itself. Every single person interviewed on camera was a current or former NPR employee. At the end, host Jane Pauley oozed “ By the way, the producer of this report, Sunday Morning’s Jay Kernis, was himself a pioneering NPR staffer.”

The “reporter” on this story was Faith Salie, who announced in the middle that she had been a regular panelist for 12 years now on the snarky liberal NPR game show/current events quiz Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me! The notion of a conflict of interest means nothing to CBS.

In  2017, Salie wrote an angry article for the radical-feminist website Jezebel about battling Bill O’Reilly on Fox News: “Our country so condones the hatred and denigration of women that we’ve voted it into the highest office in the land (with a helping, hairy hand from Fox News).” Don’t ask Salie if she ever voted for a Clinton. Nina Totenberg didn’t care about Bill’s sex life.

Salie began by touting “60 million weekly followers,” and then let NPR founder Bill Siemering insist it’s “not about ratings.” I’m sure they never give potential underwriters a sheet of how many listeners they’ll be reaching.  

Then Salie buried the notion that taxpayer money was involved: “Most of NPR’s funding comes from corporate sponsors and from independent public radio stations around the country that buy its programming.” That’s just a lie.  Public radio stations often buy NPR programming with “community service grants” from the taxpayer-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The only critical note came when TV critic Eric Deggans was asked if blacks listened to NPR, and he said “No. I think black folks, we have a highly developed sense of when our culture is included in programming. NPR is not that.” We’re told NPR’s audience is 81 percent white.

But they’re trying to fix this with podcasts like “Code Switch,” which just touted how two friends in Vermont asked white people to give money directly to their black neighbors – a “DIY, hyperlocal reparations program, of sorts.” The hosts confessed they’re “obsessed with reparations….sweet, delicious reparations.”

In this spirit, I would like to ask for a refund. I’ve been paying taxes for more than 40 years, and I would like my involuntary donations to NPR returned to me. CBS can serve up one-sided stories on their own dime. But NPR is taking my dimes and either excluding or eviscerating my conservative point of view. Enough is enough.

As Congress prepared to slink into their smoke-filled backrooms to craft the next federal budget, President Biden made it clear that his old-timey ways meant that the era of wasteful earmarks and pork-barrel spending was back. And despite Democrats and some Republicans packing on millions of dollars of taxpayer money in spending for their pet projects in their home districts, the flagship morning and evening newscasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC were uninterested in the smell of cooking pork.

Instead of reporting on the wasteful pork spending of Congress, all of the networks covered the descent of a Chinese rocket that was falling to Earth. ABC’s World News Tonight also reported on the coming emergence of a brood of cicadas. And NBC Nightly News talked about surprise fees for summer vacation. A prime example of their lack of allegiance to their audiences.

As usual, Fox News Channel was on the case Thursday. “Earmarks are back in Congress and that means politicians are competing for your tax dollars to spend in their districts on all kinds of projects,” Special Report anchor Bret Baier announced at the top of the segment.

Following a soundbite of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) saying she’s “very proud” of what they had going on, correspondent Hillary Vaughn noted the weak oversight measures that were in place.

“House Democrats want to win over taxpayers that have been turned off by fatty pork-barrel spending in budget bills of the past. Lawmakers have to post their projects to their website and the Government Accountability Office is in charge of oversight,” she said.

From there, Vaughn read off a laundry list of ridiculous requests from Democrats accompanied by a picture of the requester, their names, and states, including hundreds of thousands of dollars for toilets:

Some of the projects requested though are already raising eyebrows. Almost half a million dollars for toilets on a hiking trail requested in Texas and a yoga program in New Jersey. More than $6 million for a Gandhi museum. 2 million to remodel planned parenthood facilities. Money for a gender discrimination and cultural bias program in New York. And an equity and inclusion program at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.

“It’s not just Democrats though that are cashing in, Republicans are, too. A million dollars for a trolley in New York and 18 million wanted for a fire station in Alaska,” she added.

Vaughn recalled that the “rules” said “lawmakers can’t benefit financially,” but deduced “that doesn’t mean they can’t try to benefit politically.” As evidence, she cited that nearly all of the Democrats in seats Republicans thought were vulnerable in 2022 had submitted pork-barrel spending requests, while “16 Republicans from the DCCC’s list are trying to bring some of that bacon home.”

“In 2010, under president Obama earmarks were out. Today, under President Biden they’re back,” she reminded viewers. “Today, under President Biden they’re back.”

In her conclusion, Vaughn cautioned that “Earmarks making a comeback could be a win for Democratic districts if Republicans that have protested them in the past do not get on board and all Democratic projects get approved.”

This refusal to cover the return of pork-barrel spending was made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from Fisher Investments on ABC,  Liberty Mutual on CBS, and Progressive on NBC. Their contact information is linked so you can tell them about the biased news they fund.

The transcript is below, click “expand” to read:

Fox News Channel’s Special Report
May 6, 2021
6:25:50 p.m. Eastern

BRET BAIER: Earmarks are back in Congress and that means politicians are competing for your tax dollars to spend in their districts on all kinds of projects. Fox Business correspondent Hillary Vaughn takes a look tonight from Capitol Hill.

[Cuts to video]

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We can’t afford what are called earmarks.

HILLARY VAUGHN: In 2010, under president Obama earmarks were out. Today, under President Biden they’re back.

SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): You have to show what your project is. It’s not just well slip it in. [Transition] I’m very proud of it.

VAUGHN: House Democrats want to win over taxpayers that have been turned off by fatty pork-barrel spending in budget bills of the past. Lawmakers have to post their projects to their website and the Government Accountability Office is in charge of oversight.

CHRIS STEWART (R-UT, House Budget Committee): Wasteful spend something wasteful spending whether it’s coming from a Republican or from a Democrat.

VAUGHN: Some of the projects requested though are already raising eyebrows. Almost half a million dollars for toilets on a hiking trail requested in Texas and a yoga program in New Jersey. More than $6 million for a Gandhi museum. 2 million to remodel planned parenthood facilities. Money for a gender discrimination and cultural bias program in New York. And an equity and inclusion program at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.

It’s not just Democrats though that are cashing in, Republicans are, too. A million dollars for a trolley in New York and 18 million wanted for a fire station in Alaska.

KEVIN BRADY (R-TX, House Ways & Means Committee): Let’s not paint them all with the same brush. I think there are differences.

VAUGHN: There are rules on what projects get approved. Lawmakers can’t benefit financially. But that doesn’t mean they can’t try to benefit politically. All of the House Democrats but one on the NRCC midterm’s target list filed requests and 16 Republicans from the DCCC’s list are trying to bring some of that bacon home.

(…)

[Cuts back to live]

VAUGHN: Earmarks making a comeback could be a win for Democratic districts if Republicans that have protested them in the past do not get on board and all Democratic projects get approved. But, the pork is proving to be tempting for at least a small sliver of Senate Republicans, six GOP senators told Politico they are planning to submit earmarks of their own and 10 other Republican senators say they’re still chewing it over. Bret

BAIER: We’ll keep track of it. Hillary, thank you.

MSNBC’s The ReidOut has had quite the week, going from hating trans Republicans on Tuesday to being pro-al-Qaeda on Wednesday to Thursday’s declaration of being a pro-toilet humor show. This new development came thanks to host Joy Reid and former RNC Chairman Michael Steele joking that Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) was human feces who was treating Donald Trump’s “gold toilet” at the RNC like “it’s a pool.”

Reid led off the show by lamenting reports that Stefanik could take the spot of Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) in House Republican leadership and then trashing her as a raging conspiracy theorist.

She then brought in Steele and Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson as reinforcements and after going through some of the Republicans she had worked for as a staffer and her voting record, Reid chuckled: “So she is — she is add much defrauding Republican, Trumpy voters as [Steve] Bannon was accused of, right?”

Steele replied with the fairly-routine quip about someone being “full of crap”: “[T]he question is was she full of crap then when she was hanging out in Bush world and — and — and Romney world? Or is she full of crap now? I don’t know.”

Again, fairly standard. 

But Reid and Steele then took things to a whole other level by talking about Stefanik as feces in a Trump “toilet” and leaving it clogged without “a plunger around” (click “expand”)

STEELE: So either way, crap is crap and it is the best reflection of where the GOP is right now, as they are about to knock out a principled woman for crap and I think we need to be honest about what it is. Donald Trump brought the gold toilet into the RNC, into the party, and everyone is — thinks it’s a pool. [REID LAUGHS] [ROBINSON LAUGHS] And they’re just diving in. 

REID: And here’s the thing.

STEELE: They’re just diving in. 

REID: But I mean, Eugene, they’re diving in, and the poop toilet is full. It’s not like they’re diving in and it’s empty. [ROBINSON LAUGHS] It’s full. 

STEELE: And there ain’t a plunger around. 

REID: No plunger. 

ROBINSON: So I’m going to switch metaphors, okay? [LAUGHS]  

REID: Please do. Save us from ourselves. 

ROBINSON: I don’t — I don’t know where we go if we take it any further. 

Robinson dialed things back from the juvenile and partisan to simply partisan as he offered a cyclical, tiresome take about how the GOP was devoid of any policy positions (besides the false claims about the 2020 election being stolen) and that it’s on the verge of irrelevancy.

“This party has gone off the rails. Yes, it’s gone into the toilet, wherever you want to say it’s gone, it’s gone. And no one should be optimistic about this party in the — in the foreseeable future, because I think this is where it’s stuck,” he added.

After a brief aside on the January 6 insurrection, Reid and company ended the segment with another leftist trope, which was the only way Republicans win elections was by stealing them (primarily through redistricting) and will stop at nothing to ensure not one non-white person votes.

Steele, who’s apparently a possible Maryland gubernatorial candidate, said that the GOP would “white it up as much as possible” if they ever gained more power in Washington (click “expand”):

REID: Eugene, the thing that scares a lot of Democrats is that despite how ludicrous and freakish the Republican Party has become — 

ROBINSON: Right.

REID: — because of gerrymandering and because of the census and the way it turned out and people not turning it in, et cetera, this actually could work, right? 

ROBINSON: Oh, absolutely. 

REID: They could — they could acquire power without having done anything other than behave as a freakish rump of what a party is supposed to look like, and then what? 

ROBINSON: Well, and then what? And I hope we don’t find out, but we may find out. I mean, you add gerrymandering and whatever gerrymandering is done because of the census — not that there isn’t already a lot in favor of Republicans, but you also add history. Add the fact that in the first midterm election after a new president, the other party generally picks up seats in Congress. Now, you know, there are historical exceptions to that. George Bush after 9/11 in his first midterm, he — he — the Republican Party gained seats. And — and Joe Biden and the Democrats have to try to make this, you know, the post-pandemic midterm like the post-9/11 midterm and try to gain seats and they’re fighting history. This is serious, because as you said, then what? What if this, this — this Republican Party, this shell of a party actually — actually obtains any measure of power right now. It would be awful to the country, just objectively awful for the country. 

REID: It’s hard for me to imagine what that even looks like, Michael, but can you discern as a Republican, what is it that they would want to do if they got power? Because all they seem to want to do right now is fall on their knees and worship Donald Trump. So let’s say they get power. What is it that they want to do? What are they going to do to us? 

STEELE: White it up as much as possible. You know, most people say light it up. No, they just white it up as much as possible. I mean, it’s —

REID: Basically hold power forev — essentially just lock people of color out of being able to vote.

STEELE: Hold power — I think you got a sense and a glimpse of it during the four years of Donald Trump of what an extended, unchecked, unfettered power base would look like in this iteration of the party. You, the three of us, persona definitely non grata. 

REID: Persona non grata, yeah.

The former Lincoln Project advisor concluded with lazy rhetoric, engaging in call and response with Reid about how the GOP currently lacks and would never come up with policies on issues like the economy, health care, and infrastructure, but instead solely focus on passing tax cuts for the rich.

In other words, Steele didn’t sound like someone who actually cares about the future of the GOP.

Reid went to break with yet another dig at Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), a man whom she has developed quite the vendetta against: “Somebody call Joe Manchin, because literally, it’s shots and checks on the one side and just a freak show on the other side. I don’t — I don’t know what else it’s going to be.”

This juvenile toilet humor that would have drawn outrage on MSNBC if Fox had said this about a female Democrat was made possible thanks to the endorsement of advertisers such as CarShield, Discover, and Fidelity. Follow the links to see their contact information at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page. 

MSNBC’s The ReidOut has had quite the week, going from hating trans Republicans on Tuesday to being pro-al-Qaeda on Wednesday to Thursday’s declaration of being a pro-toilet humor show. This new development came thanks to host Joy Reid and former RNC Chairman Michael Steele joking that Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) was human feces who was treating Donald Trump’s “gold toilet” at the RNC like “it’s a pool.”

Reid led off the show by lamenting reports that Stefanik could take the spot of Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) in House Republican leadership and then trashing her as a raging conspiracy theorist.

She then brought in Steele and Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson as reinforcements and after going through some of the Republicans she had worked for as a staffer and her voting record, Reid chuckled: “So she is — she is add much defrauding Republican, Trumpy voters as [Steve] Bannon was accused of, right?”

Steele replied with the fairly-routine quip about someone being “full of crap”: “[T]he question is was she full of crap then when she was hanging out in Bush world and — and — and Romney world? Or is she full of crap now? I don’t know.”

Again, fairly standard. 

But Reid and Steele then took things to a whole other level by talking about Stefanik as feces in a Trump “toilet” and leaving it clogged without “a plunger around” (click “expand”)

STEELE: So either way, crap is crap and it is the best reflection of where the GOP is right now, as they are about to knock out a principled woman for crap and I think we need to be honest about what it is. Donald Trump brought the gold toilet into the RNC, into the party, and everyone is — thinks it’s a pool. [REID LAUGHS] [ROBINSON LAUGHS] And they’re just diving in. 

REID: And here’s the thing.

STEELE: They’re just diving in. 

REID: But I mean, Eugene, they’re diving in, and the poop toilet is full. It’s not like they’re diving in and it’s empty. [ROBINSON LAUGHS] It’s full. 

STEELE: And there ain’t a plunger around. 

REID: No plunger. 

ROBINSON: So I’m going to switch metaphors, okay? [LAUGHS]  

REID: Please do. Save us from ourselves. 

ROBINSON: I don’t — I don’t know where we go if we take it any further. 

Robinson dialed things back from the juvenile and partisan to simply partisan as he offered a cyclical, tiresome take about how the GOP was devoid of any policy positions (besides the false claims about the 2020 election being stolen) and that it’s on the verge of irrelevancy.

“This party has gone off the rails. Yes, it’s gone into the toilet, wherever you want to say it’s gone, it’s gone. And no one should be optimistic about this party in the — in the foreseeable future, because I think this is where it’s stuck,” he added.

After a brief aside on the January 6 insurrection, Reid and company ended the segment with another leftist trope, which was the only way Republicans win elections was by stealing them (primarily through redistricting) and will stop at nothing to ensure not one non-white person votes.

Steele, who’s apparently a possible Maryland gubernatorial candidate, said that the GOP would “white it up as much as possible” if they ever gained more power in Washington (click “expand”):

REID: Eugene, the thing that scares a lot of Democrats is that despite how ludicrous and freakish the Republican Party has become — 

ROBINSON: Right.

REID: — because of gerrymandering and because of the census and the way it turned out and people not turning it in, et cetera, this actually could work, right? 

ROBINSON: Oh, absolutely. 

REID: They could — they could acquire power without having done anything other than behave as a freakish rump of what a party is supposed to look like, and then what? 

ROBINSON: Well, and then what? And I hope we don’t find out, but we may find out. I mean, you add gerrymandering and whatever gerrymandering is done because of the census — not that there isn’t already a lot in favor of Republicans, but you also add history. Add the fact that in the first midterm election after a new president, the other party generally picks up seats in Congress. Now, you know, there are historical exceptions to that. George Bush after 9/11 in his first midterm, he — he — the Republican Party gained seats. And — and Joe Biden and the Democrats have to try to make this, you know, the post-pandemic midterm like the post-9/11 midterm and try to gain seats and they’re fighting history. This is serious, because as you said, then what? What if this, this — this Republican Party, this shell of a party actually — actually obtains any measure of power right now. It would be awful to the country, just objectively awful for the country. 

REID: It’s hard for me to imagine what that even looks like, Michael, but can you discern as a Republican, what is it that they would want to do if they got power? Because all they seem to want to do right now is fall on their knees and worship Donald Trump. So let’s say they get power. What is it that they want to do? What are they going to do to us? 

STEELE: White it up as much as possible. You know, most people say light it up. No, they just white it up as much as possible. I mean, it’s —

REID: Basically hold power forev — essentially just lock people of color out of being able to vote.

STEELE: Hold power — I think you got a sense and a glimpse of it during the four years of Donald Trump of what an extended, unchecked, unfettered power base would look like in this iteration of the party. You, the three of us, persona definitely non grata. 

REID: Persona non grata, yeah.

The former Lincoln Project advisor concluded with lazy rhetoric, engaging in call and response with Reid about how the GOP currently lacks and would never come up with policies on issues like the economy, health care, and infrastructure, but instead solely focus on passing tax cuts for the rich.

In other words, Steele didn’t sound like someone who actually cares about the future of the GOP.

Reid went to break with yet another dig at Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), a man whom she has developed quite the vendetta against: “Somebody call Joe Manchin, because literally, it’s shots and checks on the one side and just a freak show on the other side. I don’t — I don’t know what else it’s going to be.”

This juvenile toilet humor that would have drawn outrage on MSNBC if Fox had said this about a female Democrat was made possible thanks to the endorsement of advertisers such as CarShield, Discover, and Fidelity. Follow the links to see their contact information at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page. 

MSNBC correspondent Sam Brock admitted on Thursday’s Hallie Jackson Reports that critics of Florida’s new election law do not know how it will suppress the vote, but are certain it will.

After criticizing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for excluding non-Fox media in the signing ceremony, Brock added “I spoke with a voting law expert who said it’s like 1,000 paper cuts. It’s not clear what any one of the components of S.B. 90 will actually do in terms of suppressing the vote. When you add them all up together, it could make for a lot of bleeding when it comes to voter access, Hallie.”

The anonymous “voting law expert” in question no doubt had to really stretch the definition of voter suppression for that assessment as Brock unwittingly confirmed after Jackson asked him to, “tell us more about what some of the opponents of this bill, now law, are saying about it and trying to do about it, specifically, besides just filing lawsuits. Is that what they believe is their best chance at trying to undo what Florida has put in place is lawsuits?”

Brock tortured the definitions of voter suppression and racism to claim that “I didn’t mention, you can only bring two mail-in ballots per person now. So, in larger households that are diverse, potentially of color, with less economic means will they get their ballots to the box in time or will they be able do it at all? Those are concerns voiced right now.” This seems like more imagining than reporting. 

Are there no large white households in Florida? What does race have to do with any of that? If anyone was being racist, it appeared to be Brock who seemed to imply minorities would be challenged to competently navigate drop box rules.

Jackson then tossed the segment over to correspondent Jane Timm in Texas for more dire warnings about Republican voter bills.  “Tell us more about that and what we’re about to see.” 

Before bringing on a Democratic State Rep. Jessica Gonzalez to decry the bill, Timm summarized it as:

The bill makes it harder — it adds a bunch of criminal penalties to various parts of the election process, making it harder for things like election officials to talk to voters about absentee ballots and empowering partisan poll watchers and adding protections for them. Numerous criminal penalties with felony penalties for various parts of the election process. People say this is a chilling effect. It actually adds rules as to how people can help other voters. 

Rather than having a chilling effect, both the Florida and Texas laws will likely have no effect on voter turnout as even the New York Times recognized during the blowup over Georgia’s new law. 

This segment was sponsored by HughesNet.

Here is a transcript for the May 6 show:

MSNBC

Hallie Jackson Reports

10:03 AM ET

SAM BROCK: Hallie, One thing I would add, I spoke with a voting law expert who said it’s like 1,000 paper cuts. It’s not clear what any one of the components of S.B. 90 will actually do in terms of suppressing the vote. When you add them all up together, it could make for a lot of bleeding when it comes to voter access, Hallie. 

HALLIE JACKSON: Sam, tell us more about what some of the opponents of this bill, now law, are saying about it and trying to do about it, specifically, besides just filing lawsuits. Is that what they believe is their best chance at trying to undo what Florida has put in place is lawsuits? 

BROCK: Yes. Of course, there’s the question of severability, can parts of the law be struck down while others are maintained in place. Democracy Docket is made up of voting rights activists, League of Women’s Voters, some other groups in there challenging this court immediately after it took effect. Their argument is this affects First Amendment rights: free speech, 14th Amendment: equal protection under the law, what communities are impacted by not being able to potentially mail in their ballots or another component that I didn’t mention, you can only bring two mail-in ballots per person now. So, in larger households that are diverse, potentially of color, with less economic means will they get their ballots to the box in time or will they be able do it at all? Those are concerns voiced right now. The proponents of the lawsuits feel they have a strong argument to be made. 

JACKSON: Then you have what’s happening in Austin where you are, Jane. We know protesters have been getting together the. In about 25 minutes, there’s this show of opposition against what they see as a restrictive voting bill in Texas. Tell us more about that and what we’re about to see. 

JANE TIMM: Advocates and Democrats, Hallie, are trying to make this as painful as possible for the Republicans to pass this bill, H.B. 6. They know they don’t have the votes to stop the law, but they want to highlight various issues about it. So now, the bill makes it harder — it adds a bunch of criminal penalties to various parts of the election process, making it harder for things like election officials to talk to voters about absentee ballots and empowering partisan poll watchers and adding protections for them. Numerous criminal penalties with felony penalties for various parts of the election process. People say this is a chilling effect. It actually adds rules as to how people can help other voters. 

As the Biden administration released new images Thursday from inside a Border Patrol facility to show how they were allegedly getting a hand on the border crisis, Democratic Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar called them out for playing a “shell game” with migrant kids by just shuffling them around. Of course, Fox News, and surprisingly NBC Nightly News highlighted the administration’s attempted switcheroo. Meanwhile, ABC’s World News Tonight and the CBS Evening News pretended they were blind.

“Now, in March, this facility had 5,000 migrants inside. Average length of stay five days, sometimes 15. That’s down to less than 24 hours. Major progress. Today, population about 1,300 here,” reported Fox News correspondent William La Jeunesse on Special Report, teeing up the game Biden was playing.

He added: “Well, that’s a little bit of an overstatement. Representative Henry Cuellar, Democrat in Texas said they are playing a shell game. Why? Because some of those people were just transferred from the Border Patrol over to HHS facilities.”

Further, La Jeunesse used a drone to show how the “shell game” was being played inside one federal campus in Donna, Texas:

So, if you look at our drone shot, the two tents on the north side or on the top of the screen, that’s Border Patrol. Well, the five on the left, those belong to HHS. And that’s where some of these individuals are now being housed.

Now, even though they were still refusing to call the situation at the southern border a crisis, NBC News correspondent Gabe Gutierrez highlighted Congressman Cuellar’s comments. “What they’re doing now is they’re moving the kids from the Border Patrol tents over to next door to the HHS facility. With all due respect, it’s all a shell game,” said Cuellar.

“Now an update on the record migrant surge at the southern border and new images from inside a Border Patrol detention facility for unaccompanied children, which one Democrat tonight says are misleading,” announced anchor Lester Holt.

“It’s much less crowded than it was months ago, and now officials say children are being kept here for an average of 24 hours, much less than before,” Gutierrez told viewers. “But a Texas congressman, a Democrat who’d previously leaked these photos of packed conditions at the facility in March, says the claim that the problem is under control is misleading.”

As further proof of the administration’s migrant child shuffle, Gutierrez cited the administration’s own numbers:

The number of unaccompanied migrant children in Border Patrol custody has dropped dramatically to around 700. But the number with the Department of Health and Human Services has soared to almost 22,000.

“Officials say 160,000 unaccompanied children are expected to cross the border this year,” he added.

Back on Fox News, La Jeunesse concluded with a warning from the chief of the facility: “He did say that unless the administration delivers consequences to entering illegally, his fear is that it will continue.”

This refusal to cover the Biden administration’s “shell game” with migrant kids was made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from Fisher Investments on ABC and Liberty Mutual on CBS. Their contact information is linked so you can tell them about the biased news they fund.

The transcripts are below, click “expand” to read:

Fox News Channel’s Special Report
May 6, 2021
6:17:12 p.m. Eastern

(…)

WILLIAM LA JEUNESSE: Now, in March, this facility had 5,000 migrants inside. Average length of stay five days, sometimes 15. That’s down to less than 24 hours. Major progress. Today, population about 1,300 here.

Now, in these pods, they are down from 500 to sometimes 75. The administration released some photos with some maybe a few children inside these foil wrappers. Well, that’s a little bit of an overstatement. Representative Henry Cuellar, Democrat in Texas said they are playing a shell game. Why? Because some of those people were just transferred from the Border Patrol over to HHS facilities.

So, if you look at our drone shot, the two tents on the north side or on the top of the screen, that’s Border Patrol. Well, the five on the left, those belong to HHS. And that’s where some of these individuals are now being housed.

HHS is spending about $60 million a week on tents, on motels, on convention centers around the country. Now, the administration said in a conference call earlier today they are making a dramatic turnaround in this surge, that is not exactly what we are seeing on the ground.

Indeed, about 40 percent of the agents are still not on the line but here in the processing facility. We quoted the chief, he said, they are still seeing about 1800 apprehensions per day. About half of those are single adults and, Bret, he did say that unless the administration delivers consequences to entering illegally, his fear is that it will continue.

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’s signature into law of SB 90, the state’s election integrity statute, has apparently triggered Univision to the point of repeating easily-debunked lies and passing them off as news coverage.

Watch as midday anchor Aylen Del Toro goes back to the well, and insists on framing the law as restrictive:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs the controversial SB 90 bill, which seeks to curtail access to voting by mail, as has been proposed by which seeks to curtail access to voting by mail, as has been proposed by other Republican-led, Trump-supporting states- with the baseless election fraud. Now, what does this law consist of? I’ll explain it to you.

They’ll verify your signature, which means that voters must have a signature on file at (their local Supervisor of Elections office). Now, those who want to vote by mail must request their ballot each election cycle. It creates limits upon who can collect and return a voter’s ballot. It bars private financing of elections, and expands partisan observer power during the counting of the ballots in particular. On the other hand, it restricts the use of dropboxes during the early voting period, which used to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The report was basically a remix of the previous report on SB 90, but with an extended intro that made sure to check off all the scary boxes: “Republican-led, Trump-supporting states”, with some Capitol riot thrown in for good measure. Completely absent from the report: any context or statement from DeSantis or other supporter of the legislation. After all, the governor’s signing ceremony had just aired on Fox a couple of hours prior. Univision could’ve very easily grabbed a clip, slapped some subtitles on it and said, “this is what DeSantis says”. We totally expected them to exclude DeSantis’ statement. That’s why we published a subtitled video of DeSantis’ remarks, so Univision’s viewers could see what was left out of the “report” (which reads: In the interest of public service, we’ve subtitled Gov. Ron DeSantis’ statement after his signature of Florida’s election reform bill, given that Univision excluded it while insisting on (falsely) reporting that SB 90 “limits the early vote”.):

En interés del servicio público, subtitulamos las expresiones del @GovRonDeSantis tras firmar la reforma electoral de Florida, ya que @UniNoticias las excluye mientras insiste en reportar (falsamente) que la SB90 “limita el voto adelantado”. pic.twitter.com/qqKYFDd70F
— MRC Latino (@MRCLatino) May 6, 2021

As we began to explain in our previous take on Univision’s misreporting of SB 90, successful framing of election security laws as “restrictive” depends on widespread acceptance of pandemic emergency election measures as the existing norm, with the actual pre-pandemic norm being wiped from memory:

One might think that Florida actually cut down on early voting, given Del Toro’s overly broad frame of Florida’s new dropbox guidelines, which mandate that dropboxes will only be open while staffed by personnel from the county Supervisor of Elections. This is another instance where pandemic exceptions are framed as the norm with which to adversely compare new legislation and falsely frame as restrictive, such as Georgia’s election security law. 

Univision’s cries of “restrictive” don’t make it so, no matter how hard they try- and it is a shame that America’s leading Spanish-language network sees the need to resort to the dissemination of outright propaganda and disinformation.  

This blatant propaganda was brought to you by Walmart. Click here and let them know what you think.

I spent late Saturday afternoon in what has become, for me, a rite of spring. I watched the Kentucky Derby. I am no afficionado of horse racing and will not betray my ignorance of the sport’s desiderata in this column. At most, I watch three horse races a year. After the Kentucky Derby, I watch the remainder of the races hoping to round off the Triple Crown. The Derby is a spectacle, from the enormously beautiful thoroughbreds to the women’s glamorous hats. It is like the World Series and the Super Bowl; all are a piece of American culture.

I know the Derby is under siege. For that matter, so is the World Series and the Super Bowl. On the other hand, find me an area of American culture that is not under siege. There are people out there who want to force their politics on us, and they use the prestige events of our culture to do it. Take a knee; carry a protest sign; lie down on the track — all for a noble cause. Balderdash!

About the only prestige event that has overcome the political fanatics is the Masters golf tournament, which, by the way, is also a spectacle of great beauty. Drive that little white ball down the fairway. Shove it into the cup. A colorful crowd of spectators is watching. The Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, is beautiful in the springtime, too. A decade ago, this piece of American culture was also in danger of being politicized, but somehow it escaped the demonstrators’ wrath. Perhaps we could prevail on the club’s leaders to write a book about how the Masters Tournament went from being a gathering of political pariahs to reverting to its former dignity of being a stylish spring sporting event.

America is in danger of being divided into two cultures. One will be free of political sloganeering and cant. It will remain true to its original purpose of putting on a first-rate sports event or a cultural event or exposition. The other will go the way of the Academy Awards or, for that matter, Major League Baseball or the National Basketball Association. I almost feel sorry for Oscar night. It once had real stars and real dramas to celebrate. Now, well, did the Soviet Union ever offer awards for film? It had Pravda, whose journalism closely approximated CNN and The New York Times. How about little statues of Lenin for the American films and the actors who most slavishly followed the Communist Party line? I believe the comrades did offer the Lenin Peace Prize for humanitarian endeavors from a Marxist-Leninist point of view. They should have offered the Lenin Peace Prize for film. I will bet you by now, if the Soviet Union were still standing, our Hollywoodians would be annually flying to Moscow to get a little Lenin to put on their mantels back in Malibu.

Political scientists tell us that they see increasing segregation in the way Americans live. It is not racial segregation but political segregation. The coasts, particularly the Pacific and the northeast Atlantic coast, are left-wing. The rest of the country is pretty much right-wing to centrist. People divided along these lines also live different lives. My guess is that left-wingers increasingly follow the culture of forward-lookers: marijuana, rock music and rap music, bird-watching, video games. I hope I am not diminishing their culture. The right-wingers settle on the old standbys: booze, country music and the American songbook, outdoor pastimes of the National Rifle Association, old movies. Surely, I have not diminished the right, have I? Well, my knowledge of both cultures might be a little shaky, but you get my drift. Americans increasingly self-segregate and gravitate toward different cultural values. Think back to last weekend’s Derby. Surely, you did not see Sen. Elizabeth Warren wearing one of those flamboyant bonnets.

My guess is that this segregation is going to get worse before it has a hope of getting better. My mind goes back to 15 years ago. I was having a talk with one of the wisest confidants I know, Jim Piereson. Jim has been in the philanthropy business for years, following his career of teaching political science. Fifteen years ago, Jim startled me by predicting that America was going to become more politically polarized, and he spoke of the possibility of civil war. He made no prediction, but he let his proposition dangle before us. I still see it dangling before me. Had Jim become a prophet?

R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and the author, most recently, of “The Death of Liberalism,” published by Thomas Nelson, Inc. 

I recently came across the term “white-savior movies.” According to critics, this is a type of film that features a white hero or heroine entering the life of a helpless, troubled, often clueless Black person and, as one Black critic puts it, “swoops in” to turn his or her life around.

In an article called “Top 5 Most Cringeworthy White Savior Films,” a critic named OnlyBlackGirl offered this definition: “If you’re not familiar with the ‘white savior complex’ it’s basically is when there’s a person or community of color facing some hardship and some white figure swoops in on their kale carpet to save us. Obviously, no person of color can succeed without a pale hand of whiteness reaching down into our broken lives.”

The hit movie “The Blind Side,” starring Sandra Bullock, drew the wrath of many Black critics who found it insulting and condescending. OnlyBlackGirl wrote: “Let me just start by saying, I hate everything about this film. I hate how they portray this young man as a stupid Black man incapable of doing anything without being cradled in the white bosom of this lady who kind of forcefully takes pity on him and brings him into her home.”

But this is the exact same message and the very narrative that white-savior liberal politicians like former presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke and President Joe Biden have preached for decades. “Systemic racism,” they tell Blacks, prevents them from achieving success, unless, of course, they vote for us Democrats to pave the way.

Biden told Black radio host Charlamagne tha God, “Well, I tell you what: If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black.” During the 2012 presidential race, Biden attacked Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s policy of fewer Wall Street regulations as practically tantamount to reinstating slavery. To a Virginia audience of supporters that included a number of Blacks, Biden said: “Romney … said in the first 100 days, he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules. Unchain Wall Street. They’re going to put y’all back in chains.”

During the 2020 campaign, O’Rourke rarely missed an opportunity to warn Blacks about America’s thicket of contemporary racism that, who knows, with his help, Blacks just might be able to navigate. At a primary debate, O’Rourke said: “Racism in America is endemic. It is foundational.” He said this while flanked by rivals that included a Hispanic man who served in former President Barack Obama’s Cabinet, a Black-Indian female who served in the U.S. Senate and a Black man also serving in the Senate.

As for Hillary Clinton, she really, really feels Blacks’ pain. In her best “Black accent,” Clinton, in a 2007 speech in Selma, Alabama, said: “On this floor today, let us say with one voice the words of James Cleveland’s great freedom hymn: ‘I don’t feel no ways tired. / I come too far from where I started from. / Nobody told me that the road would be easy. / I don’t believe he brought me this far to leave me.'”

Never mind what Edward Rodrigue and Isabel Sawhill of the center-left Brookings Institution call the “success sequence”: “Graduate from high school, live in a family with at least one full-time worker, and wait to have children until you are married or at least are in a committed partnership with another adult.” To this formula, economist Walter Williams added, “And be a law-abiding citizen.”

But white-savior politicians like Biden, O’Rourke and Clinton tell Blacks that America’s “systemic racism” means the success sequence does not apply to them. About white-savior films, OnlyBlackGirl said, “Obviously, no person of color can succeed without a pale hand of whiteness reaching down into our broken lives.” But the “pale hand” of white-savior Democratic politicians who sell Blacks the same insulting, condescending message does not provoke the same outrage. It should.

Larry Elder is a bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio talk show host. His latest book, “The New Trump Standard,” is available in paperback from Amazon.com and for Nook, Kindle, iBooks and GooglePlay. To find out more about Larry Elder, or become an “Elderado,” visit www.LarryElder.com. Follow Larry on Twitter @LarryElder

NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd offers this commentary on the state of the Republican Party on May 6, 2021:

CHUCK TODD, NBC NEWS: None of this we say lightly.

Today appears to be the day you can mark in your calendars as the day that represents the Republican Party’s complete and total surrender to Donald Trump.

Whether it’s the party’s revolt against Liz Cheney in Washington, or the new voting restrictions they’re celebrating in Florida and Texas, or the bizarre audit that’s playing out of presidential results in the state of Arizona, the Republican Party has surrendered to a lie, as it surrenders to Trump.

Let’s not mince words, it means the American democracy is in really big trouble, more so today than it was yesterday.

The number three House Republican, Liz Cheney, is being ousted as the number three Republican in leadership for the sin of speaking out against her party’s embrace of the former president’s outright lie that somehow the election was stolen from him.

And it’s not just why she’s being ousted that is so alarming, there’s also the way, via mob rule, that Republicans are absurdly rationalizing it. They claim Cheney is out of step with the party, that she’s stuck in the past, that she won’t stop talking about the 2020 election results. As if she’s the one looking for bamboo fibers in Arizona.

It’s pretty clear what they really mean is she’s out of step with the party’s embrace of Trump’s lies about those election results, that’s it, which he, and many in the party won’t stop talking about. It’s not Liz Cheney that keeps bringing it up, it’s Donald J. Trump. In fact, he’s already put out two statements today that reinforce these lies that he’s trying to get people to believe, that he’s trying to bully the party into accepting, including a very detailed statement explicitly reiterating this belief in a documented, proven lie.

This morning in a hotel ballroom not far from Mar-a-Lago, Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis made a “Fox & Friends” spectacle out of signing new voting restrictions in a state that had no reason to do this, other than Donald Trump resides in it.

Protesters gathered at the Texas state legislature as Republicans are pushing new ballot restrictions that are based, again, on these myths perpetrated by Trump on the issue of supposed voter fraud.

Add it all up and it’s pretty clear that what’s left of the conservative movement that was once based on principles and democracy has been completely snuffed out, and Liz Cheney, it felt like she was the last flickering light among the elected Republican leadership, and today the light’s been snuffed out.

Trump co-opted conservatism, and now, just like he did with casinos, hotels, golf courses, anything he’s really touched in his life, he’s about to bankrupt that too.

As Liz Cheney warns her party in a “Washington Post” op-ed — “I’m a conservative republican and the most conservative of conservative values is the reverence for the rule of law… The electoral college has spoken. More than 60 state federal courts, including multiple Trump-appointed judges, have rejected the former president’s arguments. History is watching. Our children are watching. We must brave enough to defend the basic principles that underpin and protect our freedom and democratic process.”

Time and again we’ve seen elected Republicans find ways, however bizarre, to defend Trump, and ultimately at this moment, our democracy is in danger as elected Republicans keep choosing to show their fealty to somebody trying to undermine them.

We want to believe a plurality of elected Republicans. in Washington, at least, know better. I still say that. But I will say this, if they do, they need to realize their silence right now is helping to marginalize the entire Republican Party from the mainstream of American life, and maybe these folks will comfort themselves by muting the mainstream and only listening to their echo chamber, but that doesn’t change the reality that they are all in on Trump’s crusade against the foundations of our democracy. They’re marching right along, la, la, la, la, la. It looks increasingly dire right now, as this ends with the GOP imploding, or worse, the country.