Tag: media

ABC Wants Free Speech Protection And A News Exemption — It Cannot Have Both

Disney and ABC walked into federal court this week demanding a judge protect them from the Trump administration — arguing the FCC is running a retaliatory campaign against their broadcast licenses because the White House dislikes what they air. It is a serious First Amendment claim. It is also being made simultaneously with an argument, in a separate FCC docket, that The View is functionally identical to Meet the Press.

Both things cannot be true at once.

The FCC, under Chairman Brendan Carr, ordered early license renewal reviews for Disney’s eight owned-and-operated ABC stations in April — the first such action in more than 50 years. The timing followed a dust-up over Jimmy Kimmel mocking Melania Trump, and landed on top of an existing FCC probe into Disney’s DEI practices. ABC’s 45-page lawsuit, filed before U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan, calls it a retaliatory campaign against protected speech and asks for a temporary restraining order.

At the same time, Disney’s lawyers have spent months arguing in a separate FCC docket that The View — a daytime opinion panel anchored by Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg — qualifies for the “bona fide news interview” exemption to the federal equal time rule. That exemption, written into law in 1959, lets stations host one candidate without owing every rival candidate equal minutes. The catch: the programming has to actually function as journalism.

A NewsBusters count of The View’s full 29th season found 87 liberal guests against 5 conservative ones — a 95-to-5 ratio. The year before was worse: 128 liberal guests, 2 conservative, better than 98 percent one-sided. One of those two conservative bookings only happened because Marjorie Taylor Greene was feuding with her own party that week.

That is not a rounding error. That is a programming decision made deliberately, year after year, by a staff that knows exactly what it is producing.

Co-host Ana Navarro told her audience on air earlier this year to “vote Democrat.” ABC is now asking a federal agency to treat that same program as a neutral news broadcast.

Here is the reality Washington’s media class refuses to say plainly: both sides can be wrong at once. The FCC ordering accelerated license reviews because a president dislikes a late-night comedian’s jokes is exactly the kind of government content-based pressure the First Amendment was designed to stop. That is a real concern, and conservatives who forget it when the target is a network they dislike are making a mistake they will regret.

But ABC’s position is equally dishonest. A program booking political guests at a 95-to-5 liberal ratio is not a discussion. It is a caucus meeting with commercial breaks. Free speech protects ABC’s right to run an all-left-wing panel every weekday morning. It does not entitle ABC to call that panel a news program when the equal time rule is inconvenient, and a protected editorial product when the FCC comes knocking.

Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro vowed this week that ABC “won’t be told how to run” its business. He is right that government does not get to dictate editorial content. He is wrong to pretend The View is journalism. The American public deserves honesty from both the FCC and the network — and right now it is getting spin from both directions.

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Really, O’Reilly? Bill Demands War Crimes In Iran

Hasn’t Bill O’Reilly done enough harm beating the drums for America’s failed foreign wars? But he’s still around somewhere, trying to top his earlier act with more of his trademark fever-swamp rants, now offering advice to President Donald Trump on the Iran War.

His latest advice is the stuff of world historic war crimes.

The danger is acute. The president watches Fox News “incessantly.” No one is real in Trump-world unless they are seen on TV. Those who are real assume a larger-than-life influence if they’ve been Fox fixtures. The passageway between Fox News and the Trump administration is like an eerie science fiction wormhole between galaxies. It not only seems to defy space and time, it defies common sense. How else could Trump have gotten Pete Hegseth?

Other Fox New hosts and contributors who ended up in the Trump administration include Sean Duffy, Jeanine Pirro, John Bolton, Larry Kudlow, Mike Walz, Dan Bongino, Sebastian Gorka, Mike Huckabee… There are more, but you get the idea. A preponderance of war enthusiasts, some for Iraq, others for Ukraine, all for Iran.

O’Reilly supported all three wars. And since he was the biggest Fox star for sixteen years, one must assume he looms large in Trump’s consciousness. That makes his pathogenic influence especially menacing.

O’Reilly does not appear to be given to intellectual exertions. During the heyday of Dr. Ron Paul’s presidential campaigns, for example, when the Federal Reserve, fiat money, and monetary policy were front and center, Bill asked a guest, “Who is this guy Keens [sic] that everybody is talking about?” Despite bloviating about politics and policy every night for years, O’Reilly simply had no idea who John Maynard Keynes was, the North Star of Washington’s calamitous economic policies for generations now.

In the twilight of a career riddled with little knowledge and worse judgement, O’Reilly showed up on NewsNation recently with advice for Trump in the Iran War. This, said O’Reilly, is what he would do if he were president of the United States:

“I would tell Iranians living in Tehran, the capital city, to get out. Because we’re going to wreck your infrastructure. That means water. That means power.”

Given his intellectual indolence, one immediately suspects that strategic advice isn’t original with O’Reilly. He is merely giving structure to a babbling, midnight Trump post during the June 2025 U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran: “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”

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Fact Check: Premier Smith claims Russian interference is happening in the referendum campaign. Is it?

Speaking to Focus Punjabi on OMNI TV, Premier Danielle Smith said, “There are various shares of information online that appear to be amplified by different bot farms that may have a link to Russia.”

The whiffs of foreign interference in the referendum have yet to turn into a smoking gun of any sort. That’s why the premier was careful to use the terms “may” and “appear” in her statement. The foreign interference bogeyman has been an effective tool for federalists to discredit an independence movement which has existed far longer than the internet has.

The source of the latest allegations is Cipher AI, which is a tool that scans foreign media sites. Cipher’s recent snapshots (roughly 150 flagged items over two-week windows in July and August 2026, about 80% linked to Russian content farms) document amplification of anti-government or pro-separation talking points.

That volume is modest against the total volume of Canadian social media discussion on energy policy, federal-provincial relations, and the referendum. Russian bot farms also plug Temu items and porn sites. It doesn’t mean they are being guided by foreign governments or have an agenda at play.

Identifying “foreign interference” requires more than detecting non-Canadian IP addresses, Russian-language origins, or content farms. Cipher flags “dubious claims” from foreign media or proxies and tracks amplification. Human reviewers then decide whether material qualifies as disinformation or coordinated influence. This step is subjective.

Alberta Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis reported that the RCMP found “no credible information” suggesting the separatist movement itself has been subject to foreign interference. CSIS sent a form letter to NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi saying they are watching the situation, but monitoring a risk is not the same as confirming that risk has materialized into significant interference capable of steering results.

The U.S. element cited in reports is largely public and open. Presidential rhetoric about Canada as a potential “51st state,” meetings between independence advocates and alleged U.S. officials (with no commitments reported), and commentary from Trump-aligned media figures. There is no coordinated campaign, and there haven’t been efforts to interfere in Alberta from south of the border.

There has been no indication of significant overseas foreign interference in Alberta’s referendum campaign.

Past reports involved a group in the Netherlands making money for themselves by creating pro-independence YouTube channels and a noodle merchant from Indonesia who made $14 from Facebook by placing pro-independence postings.

Albertans are capable of distinguishing messaging and determining how to vote. The ground game in the referendum is what’s moving the needle in the independence movement through public meetings and door-knocking campaigns.

Foreign interference is an insignificant factor in the campaign despite how hard federalists are trying to amplify that narrative.

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Debunking Corporate Media Propaganda: Americans Are NOT Wealthy. Here’s The Truth About The US Economy.

It is often said that the United States is the richest country on Earth. This is a myth.

It is certainly true that, in the United States, there are some very, very rich people, including the wealthiest billionaires on Earth, and the first ever trillionaire (Elon Musk).

However, when you look at the country as a whole, you see that the US is not a relatively prosperous nation.

This article will analyze a broad set of data, including several different indicators, that show how Americans are not wealthy compared to people in other advanced economies.

Americans are NOT wealthier than Europeans

US media outlets constantly promote a pernicious narrative, claiming that, supposedly, the United Kingdom is poorer than Mississippi, the poorest US state.

This misleading idea is especially common on the US right. Trump’s MAGA supporters often disparagingly refer to Europeans as “Europoors”.

Even some European media outlets have published articles claiming that “American families are so much richer than us”.

This is completely ridiculous — and, frankly, false.

UBS, the major Swiss bank, publishes an annual Global Wealth Report. The document is written primarily for rich investors, but it includes some interesting data that can be relevant to everyday people.

In the 2026 report, UBS calculated the wealth per adult in the 30 richest economies in the world. What was especially useful about this report was that it included both average wealth and median wealth.

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Lily-White MSNOW Guest Calls Black Republican Byron Donalds a ‘Bigot’ and Compares Him to a Drug Dealer 

During a recent broadcast on MSNOW, John Fugelsang, a supposed actor and comedian, was invited on as a guest. When the host began talking about the Florida governor’s race, Fugelsang called black Republican Byron Donalds a ‘bigot’ and then proceeded to compare Donalds to a drug dealer.

There is nothing white liberals hate more than a conservative black person. We have seen countless examples over the years of liberals lashing out at black people who vote for and support Republicans.

It’s ugly, and so is Fugelsang.

Transcript via NewsBusters:

CATHERINE RAMPELL: So, speaking of potentially flipping certain offices, as I mentioned in the last segment, the Republican primary to replace Florida governor Ron Desantis has been like, totally nuts. You have the Trump-endorsed candidate, Byron Donalds. You have this bigoted guy, James Fishback. And Donalds, of course, has endured — has embraced the anti- weaponization fear.

FUGELSANG: Hey, let’s be clear. Donalds is a bigot, too. He’s a bigot as well. Come on, now.

RAMPELL: Okay, if you say so. Florida has not actually had a Democratic governor that is elected in over 30 years. Like since I was a child growing up in Florida. And so my question to you is, given this sort of clown car of candidates who are running on the Republican ticket, is this the chance for David Jolly, who’s running as the Democrat, to actually finally turn that governor’s mansion blue?

FUGELSANG: A lot will depend on who the Republicans pick. I think.

RAMPELL: Well, who’s the good one?

FUGELSANG: Who’s the best — as a comedian or as a civic society? It’s hard to say. I mean, Byron Donalds is like the guy you’d buy weed from and then watch him put other men in jail for selling weed, isn’t he? So there’s that.

David Jolly gets to come out there and say, “I’m not a radical. I was a Republican. And then I looked around and saw what was going on. Their entire MO is selling the Democratic party as communist, radical, groomer, transgender lunatic.”

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WSJ Hid Reporter’s Soros-Funded Ties in Kushner Albania Hit Piece

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published a report this month on the Albanian corruption case entangling Jared Kushner’s resort project that was co-written by an editor at a newsroom funded by George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, a tie the paper did not disclose to readers.

The August 8 report, “The Suspected Gangster Causing Headaches for Kushner’s Albania Deal,” carried the byline of WSJ staff reporter Eliot Brown and Vladimir Karaj. The story detailed prosecutors’ allegations against Artur Shehu, a landowner who sold property to the Kushner-backed development group before Albanian authorities sought his arrest in a cocaine trafficking and money laundering case.

Karaj is an editor at the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network’s (BIRN) Albania office, which runs the outlet Reporter.al. BIRN’s own donor page states that the Open Society Foundation Albania funds the network’s anti-corruption program “through investigative reporting and closer cooperation between journalists and civil society organizations.” Reporter.al is grant-funded by the same Soros foundation.

The prosecutors’ office driving the case, known as SPAK, traces directly to the same donor network. SPAK was created under Albania’s 2016 justice reform, an overhaul the U.S. backed with roughly $270 million in USAID spending routed through organizations tied to Soros over fifteen years.

Andi Dobrushi, the executive director of OSF Albania, described his foundation’s role plainly.

“OSF Albania has been the main funder of the entire reform process,” Dobrushi said.

Six Republican senators, including Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), pressed the State Department in 2017 to examine the relationship between USAID and the Soros foundations in Albania. Judicial Watch later obtained embassy records through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation showing the U.S. mission in Tirana gave the Soros organization input into its own program funding reviews.

Open Society has rejected characterizations linking its work to U.S. government money. The foundation called claims that it receives USAID funding or directs the agency’s spending “manifestly false,” saying it sets its own priorities and uses its own funds.

Kushner’s $1.4 billion Sazan Island project faces daily protests in Tirana. Prime Minister Edi Rama, who has been described as Soros-linked and calls Alex Soros his “brother in Tirana,” has vowed the development will proceed.

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Disgusting Trump-Hating Forbes Editor Who Threatened Firms that Hired Former Trump Officials Is Fired Over $6 Million Secret Payment

Disgusting Trump-hating Forbes content editor Randall Lane was fired this week after receiving a secret payment of about $6 million from the founder of a firm that does business with the magazine.

Randall Lane frequently joined MSNBC where he often trashed President Donald Trump.

Forbes is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917 that publishes finance, business, industry and investing topics. You would think they would LOVE Donald Trump, the greatest business president since Calvin Coolidge, but not this guy.

Lane was the content editor of the page who was famous for going after companies that hired former top Trump officials.

This is what communists do – not capitalists.

Lane was fired for hiding a $6 million secret payment from RJ Shook, the founder of the firm that worked with Forbes to publish wealth adviser rankings.

The payment was made after RJ Shook sold a majority stake in Shook Research to PPC Enterprises, a private equity firm, last August.

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YouTube Children’s Host ‘Ms. Rachel’ Now Pushing Reparations for Slavery and Jim Crow

The last time we checked in on popular YouTube children’s host ‘Ms. Rachel’ it was because it had been reported that she donated thousands of dollars to the campaign of Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.

Now she is calling for slavery reparations.

It’s starting to look like this woman is a kind of radical leftist. What other conclusion could one reach?

Breitbart News reports:

Children’s YouTube, Netflix Star Ms. Rachel Pushes Reparations for Slavery and Jim Crow Laws

Children’s YouTube and Netflix star Ms. Rachel has added support for reparations over slavery and Jim Crow Laws to her growing catalogue of left-wing causes, taking her latest stance via an Instagram post to her five million-plus followers.

Ms. Rachel, AKA Rachel Accurso, took an excerpt from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ 2014 essay The Case for Reparations to illustrate the need to “reckon” with America’s history of slavery.

“Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole,” the quote read.

Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates is an American author, journalist, and activist whose essay “The Case for Reparations” argued “American prosperity was ill-gotten” and the nation needs to reconcile with its past beyond handing out money.

Neither Coates nor Ms. Rachel seem to care to acknowledge how both slavery and Jim Crow Laws were Democrat Party constructs.

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CBS star Matt Gutman accused of sexual harassment in bombshell lawsuit amid ratings fight

CBS star Matt Gutman is facing a bombshell sexual harassment lawsuit as his turn behind the “CBS Evening News” desk helped deliver the struggling network a ratings boost.

The show averaged 4.1 million viewers for the week of July 27, according to Nielsen, its best weekly audience in 17 weeks and its first time topping 4 million viewers since late March.

Gutman was filling in for vacationing anchor Tony Dokoupil.

Gutman, 48, was sued Friday by former ABC News field producer Samira Said, who accused him of making inappropriate sexual remarks during two assignments several years ago.

Said filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court, naming Gutman, ABC News and parent company The Walt Disney Co. as defendants.

In one alleged incident, Said claims Gutman began discussing and rating the appearance of a female correspondent while the two were waiting on a public line during an assignment.

The suit says Gutman “initiated a discussion rating a female correspondent’s appearance and reducing her professional standing to a numerical score based on her physical attributes.”

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PBS broadcaster loses access to 50TB of data comprising 70 years of TV history after contracted cloud storage vendor goes defunct — public TV channel sues Iron Mountain data center, which hosts archival materials, to ensure preservation

Nine PBS is afraid that it will lose over 70 years of archival materials and programming after its contracted cloud storage vendor has apparently gone out of business. According to Current, the channel used Open Source Storage, or OSS, for storing over 50TB of data — but it suddenly lost access to its data earlier this year. Nine PBS has been working with OSS and its predecessor since 2019 and intended to renew its contract on March 6 of this year. The company never responded and abruptly cut off the station’s data access even though it still had 30 days to retrieve its data after the contract ended.

The station dug a little bit deeper when it discovered that the OSS website no longer existed and was listed as delinquent under the Colorado Secretary of State. It also discovered that OSS utilized Iron Mountain’s services, so it sent a demand letter to the latter to preserve its data and to “pay any reasonable costs associated with its demand.” At the time, Iron Mountain did not confirm or deny that it possessed Nine PBS’ data.

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