'One big psy op': Musk rips liberal media for hypocrisy over Cory Booker's 'Nazi salute'



Democratic Senator Cory Booker (N.J.) gave a fiery speech on Saturday at the California Democratic Party's 2025 state convention in Anaheim. Following his remarks, the senator pressed his hand to his heart, then extended it in a salute to the crowd.

Whereas Democrats and elements of the liberal media previously expressed horror at the sight of Elon Musk making the exact same gesture during a speech in January — some characterizing it as a Nazi salute — they did not appear similarly troubled when Booker did the same thing.

Musk joined Republicans and other critics in highlighting the selective outrage over the weekend, noting, "Fate loves irony, but hates hypocrisy."

A tale of two salutes

Musk gave an excited speech in January at the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., following President Donald Trump's second inauguration.

— (@)

"This was no ordinary victory. This was a fork in the road of human civilization," said Musk, who previously admitted to having Asperger's, a syndrome on the autism spectrum. "This one really mattered. Thank you for making it happen!"

The billionaire then slammed his chest, then saluted both the crowd and the American flag, adding, "My heart goes out to you."

Some of the media outfits and Democrats who previously painted Trump and his allies as fascists in the lead-up to the election seized on the gesture as confirmation of their fears.

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) stated that "regardless of any justification, his salute last night at Donald Trump's inauguration rally can only be interpreted as a Seig [sic] Heil salute that is synonymous with Nazi support for Hitler."

"Jews around the world are scared because of the contemptible rise in antisemitism, and Musk's conduct only increases the problem," continued Goldman. "Musk must issue an immediate apology, and President Trump must disavow and denounce his actions."

'All sides should give one another a bit of grace.'

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.) claimed on MSNBC, "Elon Musk did [the] heil Hitler salute. He did. And of course he did."

Democratic Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York claimed that it was a "Heil Hitler salute that was performed and repeated for emphasis and clarity."

RELATED: Southern Poverty Law Center attacks Turning Point USA with 'cheap smear' in latest hysterical 'extremism' report

Photo (left): DON EMMERT/AFP via Getty Images; Photo (right): ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images

The media similarly feigned horror and characterized the gesture as a Nazi salute. For instance:

Musk noted at the time, "Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The 'everyone is Hitler' attack is sooo tired."

Despite the apparent eagerness on the left to frame Musk as a Nazi, some proved willing to admit that the narrative was bogus.

The Anti-Defamation League, for instance, stated that Musk "made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute."

"In this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath," added the ADL.

Hypocrisy

Booker spoke Saturday at a convention attended by California Democrats including Sen. Adam Schiff and Rep. Robert Garcia. Garcia was among those who condemned Musk for his gesture earlier this year.

"Real change does not come from Washington. It comes from communities. It comes from the streets," said Booker. "It comes from the people who's standing up and have shown over and over again — against the powerful, against the elected, against the rich — that the power of the people is greater than the people in power."

Booker made the Musk-styled heartfelt gesture after whipping up the crowd, then walked off stage.

Footage of Booker's gesture made the rounds online, prompting comparisons between his gesture and the one previously made by Musk. Critics, observing that the gesticulations were virtually identical, suggested that the absence of pearl-clutching and condemnations from the media or Democrats this time around was further evidence of their hypocrisy and double standards.

Libs of TikTok, for instance, noted that when Musk made the gesture, Newsweek ran an article titled "80 Years After Auschwitz, Elon Musk Keeps the Fascist Salute Alive," but painted Booker as a man wrongfully accused in an article titled "MAGA Accuses Democratic Senator Cory Booker of Doing 'Nazi Salute.'"

'The mainstream media is totally corrupt.'

Newsweek performed some mental gymnastics in its coverage of the reaction to Booker's gesture, writing that "the gesture is similar to the ones made by Musk and Bannon but not made as forcefully, the video shows."

"Pure trash propaganda," wrote Libs of TikTok.

Musk responded, "Legacy media like Newsweek lie relentlessly."

"Here's a list of all the news networks who have not covered Cory Booker's salute: - NYTimes - CNN - Washington Post - MSNBC - NPR - USA Today - Reuters - Axios - ABC News," wrote former nuclear scientist for the Department of Energy Matt Van Swol. "Every single one of them wrote stories on Elon Musk's 'salute' … … do you get it yet?"

"Legacy media is one big psy op," responded Musk.

RELATED: Trump commends Elon Musk as he departs from DOGE: 'Americans owe him a great debt of gratitude'

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) tweeted, "The mainstream media is totally corrupt."

"In January, Democrats and the Left were hyperventilating about this false smear of Elon and the stenographers in the media went to work," wrote Stefanik.

"Neither Elon Musk or @CoryBooker are giving the Nazi salute. Americans see thru this obvious and destructive double standard by the totally broken media and Democrat Party."

"If Elon Musk is a Nazi for doing this gesture ... Cory Booker is one too," wrote Angela Belcamino, host of "Last Week on X." "Sorry, I don't make the rules."

A spokeswoman for Booker suggested in a statement to Forbes that Booker's gesture was somehow different from Musk's, writing, "Cory Booker was obviously just waving to the crowd. Anyone who claims his wave is the same as Elon Musk’s gesture is operating in bad faith. The differences between the two are obvious to anyone without an agenda."

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Trump orders Corporation for Public Broadcasting to end funding for NPR and PBS: 'Outdated and unnecessary'



President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday directing the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and relevant agencies to terminate federal funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service — not exactly the news that socialists may have wanted to hear on May Day.

"The CPB Board shall cease direct funding to NPR and PBS, consistent with my Administration's policy to ensure that Federal funding does not support biased and partisan news coverage," wrote Trump. "The CPB Board shall cancel existing direct funding to the maximum extent allowed by law and shall decline to provide future funding."

Trump also targeted the liberal outfits' indirect federal funding, directing the CPB — which has an operating budget of over $535 million for fiscal year 2025 — to ensure that "licensees and permittees of public radio and television stations, as well as any other recipients of CPB funds, do not use Federal funds for NPR and PBS."

The loss of this indirect funding will be the more devastating.

While NPR claims that less than 1% of its annual operating budget comes in the form of grants directly from the CPB and other federal sources, multitudes of CPB-funded public radio stations in NPR's massive syndication network pay for its programming.

Blaze News previously reported that consolidated financial statements show that the organization secured over $96.1 million in "core and other programming fees" in 2023, $93.2 million in 2022, $90.4 million in 2021, and $92.5 million in 2020.

"These station programming fees are one of NPR's primary sources of revenue," noted the media outfit. "The loss of federal funding would undermine the stations' ability to pay NPR for programming, thereby weakening the institution."

PBS similarly receives taxpayer dollars indirectly from CPB-funded public TV stations that pay for its programming.

According to PBS, its flagship "News Hour" program, for instance, receives roughly 35% of its "annual funding/budget from CPB and PBS via national programming funds — a combination of CPB appropriation funds and annual programming dues paid to PBS by stations re-allocated to programs like ours."

A spokesman for PBS, which has over 330 member television stations, indicated earlier this year that the organization receives 16% of its funding directly from the federal government each year.

"Americans have the right to expect that if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting at all, they fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage," Trump noted in his order, titled "Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media."

That is certainly not the case with NPR and PBS.

The Media Research Center conducted a study from June 1, 2023, to Nov. 30, 2024, analyzing political labels used by anchors, reporters, and contributors on PBS' "News Hour." PBS staff threw around the term "far right" or some variation thereof 162 times but used the term "far left" only six times.

PBS reporters and guests routinely deemed social conservatives and Trump-adjacent Republicans as "extreme" or "extremists," and liberally applied the "fascist" label to Trump or his policies.

Meanwhile, the organization clamped down on unfavorable characterizations of failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris and other Democrats, writing the "Marxist" and "communist" labels off as "slurs."

Another MRC study published last year tallied every comment made by PBS journalists during the Republican and Democratic national conventions. Of the 191 minutes of PBS commentary on the Republican National Convention, 72% of opinionated comments were reportedly negative, and only 28% were positive. The PBS' DNC coverage was alternatively sycophantic.

NPR's bias is similarly so substantial that Peabody Award-winning business editor Uri Berliner was willing to throw away 25 years at the outfit just to call it out.

Berliner, a liberal who characterized himself as something akin to the stereotypical NPR listener — "an EV-driving, Wordle-playing, tote bag-carrying coastal elite" — noted in an April 2024 op-ed that NPR had effectively transformed into a Democratic propaganda machine, working strenuously to "damage or topple Trump's presidency," in part by "hitch[ing] our wagon to Trump's most visible antagonist, [then-]Representative Adam Schiff," and amplifying the Russia collusion hoax.

'Neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.'

In addition to boosting "Russiagate" propaganda, Berliner noted that NPR — where 87% of the Washington, D.C., editors and reporters were registered Democrats and none were registered Republicans — evidenced its unmistakable bias with its coverage of the COVID-19 lab leak theory and the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, both of which the network downplayed.

The White House highlighted other examples indicating an ideological bent at NPR, noting for instance that it:

  • declared the Declaration of Independence to be a document with "flaws and deeply ingrained hypocrisies";
  • apologized for calling illegal immigrants "illegal";
  • concern-mongered about the choice of young men to abstain from masturbating to pornography;
  • "routinely promotes the chemical and surgical mutilation of children as so-called 'gender-affirming care' without mentioning the irreversible damage caused by these procedures"; and
  • "suggested doorway sizes are based on 'latent fatphobia.'"
The White House similarly blasted PBS for its bias, noting that it produced a documentary making the case for reparations and produced a movie celebrating a transvestic teen's "changing gender identity."
— (@)

Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation who has long written about the need to defund public broadcasting, previously told Blaze News that NPR and PBS "gave up any attempt at appearing impartial or objective in any way," adding that in the case of NPR, the choice of Katherine Maher as CEO was a crystal-clear message that things won't soon change for the better.

"Maher, on the record, is calling Trump racist. She was an enthusiastic supporter of Kamala Harris," said Gonzalez. "She's on the record as saying the First Amendment and our obsession with truth is getting in the way of consensus. Well, gee — that's the CEO of NPR. Anything else you need to know?"

Trump noted that "no media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies, and the Government is entitled to determine which categories of activities to subsidize."

"The CPB's governing statute reflects principles of impartiality: the CPB may not 'contribute to or otherwise support any political party,'" continued the president. "The CPB fails to abide by these principles to the extent it subsidizes NPR and PBS. Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter. What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens."

In addition to emphasizing the biased nature of NPR and PBS, Trump noted that the ubiquity of media alternatives precludes any need for taxpayers to continue the liberal outfits.

'Trump is working to ensure taxpayer dollars are no longer wasted on progressive pet projects.'

"Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence," added the president.

Trump further directed the heads of all federal agencies to "identify and terminate, to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, any direct or indirect funding of NPR and PBS," and tasked Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to investigate the liberal outfits for possible employment discrimination.

Trump gave the CPB board until June 30 to effectuate his order.

When NPR learned of a draft for the order, it stated earlier this month, "Eliminating funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would have a devastating impact on American communities across the nation that rely on public radio for trusted local and national news, culture, lifesaving emergency alerts, and public safety information."

"We serve the public interest. It's not just in our name — it's our mission. Across the country, locally owned public media stations represent a proud American tradition of public-private partnership for our shared common good," added the liberal outfit.

PBS CEO Paula Kerger reportedly said last month than an order to defund her organization would "disrupt the essential service PBS and local member stations provide to the American people."

The CPB, which is not a federal agency, has already filed suit against Trump because the White House attempted to fire three of its board members.

"Because CPB is not a federal agency subject to the President's authority, but rather a private corporation, we have filed a lawsuit to block these firings," the corporation said in a statement obtained by CNN.

The CPB is likely to seek to block this effort as well.

The White House noted that "President Trump is working to ensure taxpayer dollars are no longer wasted on progressive pet projects, but rather used to benefit hardworking Americans."

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Blaze News investigates: Sparing taxpayers from funding leftist propaganda



National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service are kept afloat with the help of taxpayer dollars. NPR has gone so far as to claim that "federal funding is essential to public radio's service to the American public and its continuation is critical for both stations and program producers, including NPR."

The media outfits' unmistakable ideological bias and imbalanced coverage in recent decades have prompted a steady stream of calls to defund both organizations or perhaps even to close the fountainhead of most of their taxpayer funding, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — a move that would require lawmakers to revisit the Communications Act of 1934 and its amendments.

Following the re-election of President Donald Trump, who has characterized NPR as a scam and whose first administration sought to cut funding for the CPB, there has been mounting pressure both to ascertain whether NPR, PBS, and their respective member stations have violated federal bylaws and to spare American taxpayers from having to bankroll leftist propaganda.

Blaze News reviewed the media outfits' recent history of partisan hackery and reached out to a top critic of public broadcasting as well as to lawmakers involved in holding the taxpayer-funded media outfits accountable. It appears that to ensure no partisan media outfit is subsidized at taxpayers' expense, the government may have to get out of the business of public broadcasting altogether.

Funding

NPR, a beneficiary of National Endowment for the Arts grants, claims that less than 1% of its annual operating budget comes in the form of grants directly from the CPB — which has an operating budget of $545 million for fiscal year 2025 — and other federal sources.

The outfit, which operates as a syndicator to a network of well over 1,000 public radio stations, has acknowledged, however, that multitudes of public radio stations that receive grants directly from the CPB use the funds to "pay NPR and other public radio producers for their programming."

According to consolidated financial statements, the organization secured over $96.1 million in "core and other programming fees" in 2023, $93.2 million in 2022, $90.4 million in in 2021, and $92.5 million in 2020.

"These station programming fees are one of NPR's primary sources of revenue," noted the media outfit. "The loss of federal funding would undermine the stations' ability to pay NPR for programming, thereby weakening the institution."

Like NPR, public TV stations that receive CPB funding pay significant programming dues to PBS.

According to the public TV broadcaster, its flagship "News Hour" program, for instance, receives roughly 35% of its "annual funding/budget from CPB and PBS via national programming funds — a combination of CPB appropriation funds and annual programming dues paid to PBS by stations re-allocated to programs like ours."

A spokesman for PBS, which has over 330 member television stations, recently indicated that the organization receives 16% of its funding directly from the federal government each year.

Propaganda

While neither NPR nor PBS has done a good job hiding its political leanings, Uri Berliner, a Peabody Award-winning senior business editor who worked at NPR for 25 years, helped shine a spotlight last year on just how slanted public broadcasting has become, slamming NPR specifically in an opinion piece for mindlessly advancing Democratic propaganda and altogether giving up on journalistic independence.

Berliner, the son of an LGBT activist and a grandson of Holocaust victims, made clear at the outset he was no rightist, characterizing himself instead as something akin to the stereotypical NPR listener, "an EV-driving, Wordle-playing, tote bag-carrying coastal elite."

While acknowledging the media outfit’s long-standing "liberal bent," Berliner noted that NPR had effectively transformed into a Democratic propaganda machine, working vigorously to "damage or topple Trump's presidency," in part by "hitch[ing] our wagon to Trump's most visible antagonist, Representative Adam Schiff," and amplifying the Russia collusion hoax.

Berliner — who discovered that 87% of NPR’s Washington, D.C., editors and reporters were registered Democrats and that none were registered as Republicans — hammered NPR further for gaslighting Americans about the likely origins of COVID-19, for turning a blind eye to the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and its characterization of the damning story as a "pure distraction," and over its obsession with race.

While NPR's objectivity had been criticized for decades, Berliner suggested that "independent journalism" at the company really began to slip under former CEO John Lansing, who apparently used George Floyd's death as an excuse to center race and identity in everything the company did while eliminating any remaining "viewpoint diversity."

Berliner indicated that things worsened under the current CEO, Katherine Maher, a longtime BLM supporter who previously helped transform Wikipedia into a repository of leftist propaganda, publicly stated, "Donald Trump is a racist," and suggested that "our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that is getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done."

After Maher said that Berliner had been "profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning" for daring to question the neutrality and integrity of taxpayer-funded propagandists, NPR suspended him. The journalist resigned shortly thereafter.

PBS may not have a Berliner-caliber whistleblower to call its own, but it is certainly no better.

The Media Research Center conducted a study from June 1, 2023, to Nov. 30, 2024, analyzing political labels used by anchors, reporters, and contributors on PBS' "News Hour." PBS staff apparently threw around the term "far right" or some variation thereof 162 times but used the term "far left" only six times.

Reporters reflexively deemed social conservatives and Trump-adjacent Republicans as "extreme" or "extremists."

'I understand the importance of nonpartisan, balanced media coverage.'

While numerous reporters and guests liberally applied the "fascist" label to Trump or his polices, PBS reportedly clamped down on characterizations of failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris and other Democrats as Marxists or communists, writing them off as "slurs."

In another study published last year, the MRC tallied every comment made by PBS journalists during the Republican and Democratic national conventions. Of the 191 minutes of PBS commentary on the Republican National Convention, 72% of opinionated comments were reportedly negative and only 28% were positive.

For instance, when it came to the RNC, "News Hour" co-anchor Amna Nawaz exhibited no pretense of neutrality, accusing Republicans of "echoing some white supremacist notions" and veering "into outright racism."

The DNC coverage was a different story altogether. Not only did PBS air more speeches and footage from the Democratic convention than for the Republican convention, the co-anchors salivated over the speakers.

Geoff Bennett said that the "elevation and evolution" of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) was "so striking because she has found a way to blend populism and pragmatism and blend protest and power."

Not to be outdone by her co-anchor's fawning over AOC, Nawaz stated, "We know we're hearing a lot of this messaging around the joyful warriors that are Harris and Walz, which is really a stark contrast to what we saw on the Republican side."

Defunding

There have been numerous efforts in recent years to defund NPR, defund PBS, and/or shutter the CPB.

Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), for instance, took aim at both NPR and PBS with a bill in March 2023 titled the No Partisan Radio and Partisan Broadcasting Services Act. By the following year, the bill had 13 co-sponsors but did not go the distance.

Jackson noted that whereas at the time of the media outfits' initial receipt of federal funds, the understanding was that their content "would remain unbiased and benefit every American," it has become "obvious that NPR and PBS have abandoned their founding principles."

Following Berliner's suspension, Republican lawmakers narrowed their focus and pushed multiple bills aimed specifically at kneecapping NPR.

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.), for instance, introduced the Defund NPR Act of 2024, a piece of legislation co-sponsored by 16 other Republicans that would have prohibited federal funding to NPR or to any successor organization.

"As a former newspaper owner and publisher, I understand the importance of nonpartisan, balanced media coverage and have seen firsthand the left-wing bias in our news media," Tenney said at the time. "NPR is using American taxpayer dollars to manipulate the news and lie to the American people on behalf of a political agenda."

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, tried something different in December, introducing the No Propaganda Act, which would amend the Communications Act of 1934 to prohibit federal funding for the CPB. Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) introduced a corresponding bill in the House.

Kennedy cast doubt on whether the over $15 billion already blown by Congress on the CPB has actually gone toward satisfying the organization's stated goal of educating, informing, fostering curiosity, and promoting civil discourse essential to American society, suggesting that instead it has merely bankrolled "Big Brother's propaganda outlet."

"The Corporation for Public Broadcasting refuses to provide Louisianans and Americans with fair, unbiased content," said Kennedy. "It wastes taxpayer dollars on slanted coverage to advance a leftist political agenda."

Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation who has long written about the need to defund public broadcasting, emphasized to Blaze News that given the option of whether to defund the propaganda outfits or to defund the CPB altogether, the latter choice is optimal, although he'd personally seek to go farther.

Gonzalez, who indicated that no attempt at mending could justify keeping taxpayers on the hook for public broadcasting, said that Kennedy "going after the CPB is the right approach."

"I would prefer dissolving it," continued Gonzalez. "You can defund the CPB, but that only delays the problem. That's not a permanent solution."

'For my own part, I do not see a reason why Congress should continue sending taxpayer dollars to NPR and PBS.'

While Gonzalez anticipates that the liberal media will continue to circle the wagons and gripe over the potential loss of taxpayer cash to fellow travelers, he suggested that those open to defunding public broadcasting should not lose sight of NPR's and PBS' long-standing efforts to antagonize at least half the population..

"My liberal friends say, 'Look, this is important. We need more journalism, not less journalism.' I don’t, first of all, think [NPR and PBS] are going to go away, but if they go away, I don’t care," said Gonzalez. "Second of all, you have to know what they're doing."

Gonzalez noted that NPR and PBS "gave up any attempt at appearing impartial or objective in any way," adding that in the case of NPR, the choice of Maher as CEO was a crystal-clear message that things won't soon change for the better.

"Maher, on the record, is calling Trump racist. She was an enthusiastic supporter of Kamala Harris," said Gonzalez. "She's on the record as saying the First Amendment and our obsession with truth is getting in the way of consensus. Well, gee — that's the CEO of NPR. Anything else you need to know?"

Neither NPR nor PBS responded to Blaze News' request for comment by deadline.

Comeuppance

There is clearly blood in the water.

The Federal Communications Commission has public broadcasting in its sights, as does the new House Oversight Delivering on Government Efficiency subcommittee, which is chaired by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

On Jan. 29, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced that the commission's enforcement bureau was opening an investigation into the airing of NPR and PBS programming across their various broadcast member stations.

Carr expressed concern that the two media outfits might be in violation of federal law by airing commercials. While apparently concerned that NPR and PBS member stations might be testing the boundaries of their federal noncommercial authorizations, Carr made no secret that the investigation could furnish lawmakers with further justification to pull the plug on the whole project.

"Congress is actively considering whether to stop requiring taxpayers to subsidize NPR and PBS programming," wrote Carr. "For my own part, I do not see a reason why Congress should continue sending taxpayer dollars to NPR and PBS, given the changes in the media marketplace since the passage of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967."

'We shouldn't be taxing the American people to fund radically left-wing propaganda.'

"To the extent that these taxpayer dollars are being used to support a for-profit endeavor or an entity that is airing commercial advertisements, then that would further undermine any case for continuing to fund NPR and PBS with taxpayer dollars," added Carr.

On Feb. 3, Greene invited the CEOs from NPR and PBS to testify at a hearing in March regarding their biased news coverage. Both Katherine Maher and Paula Kerger were notified that the hearing constitutes an opportunity to explain why they feel they deserve to continue receiving federal funds.

The subcommittee said in a release, "NPR and PBS have repeatedly undermined public trust by ignoring stories that were damaging to the Biden administration, dismissing genuine calls for balanced reporting, and pushing partisan coverage. As stewards of tax dollars, NPR and PBS have an obligation to provide objective and accurate coverage that serves all Americans."

When asked about the perceived need to defund NPR and PBS and the significance of doing so, a spokesman for Greene told Blaze News that the congresswoman "is looking forward to the hearing and questioning the heads of these publicly funded media outlets, and her letters speak for themselves."

In Greene's letters to the CEOs of the liberal media outfits, she noted on both occasions that as organizations that receive federal funds through their member stations, they should provide reporting that serves "the entire public, not just a narrow slice of like-minded individuals and ideological interest groups."

When asked about the prospect of defunding NPR and PBS or dissolving the CPB altogether, Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas), a member of the DOGE subcommittee, told Blaze News in a statement, "I fully support defunding these organizations and am exploring legislative options to ensure public funds are spent responsibly."

"We shouldn't be taxing the American people to fund radically left-wing propaganda," continued Gill. "Nothing about NPR or PBS is neutral, and taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to bankroll news organizations that hate them and everything they stand for."

While NPR appears set in its ways, PBS — having seen the writing on the wall — appears eager to placate some of its harshest critics by doing the bare minimum: its lawful obligation.

A PBS spokesman confirmed to the Hollywood Reporter on Feb. 10 that the organization had shuttered its race-obsessed DEI office in order to comply with President Donald Trump's executive order "ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preference."

"The staff members who served in that office are leaving PBS. We will continue to adhere to our mission and values. PBS will continue to reflect all of America and remain a welcoming place for everyone," the spokesman said in a statement.

While it was apparently easy to shutter the DEI office and kick to the curb Cecilia Loving, the organization's senior vice president of DEI, eliminating political bias at PBS and NPR would be a herculean feat with no promise of a lasting solution.

When condemning the use of taxpayer funds for public broadcasting during the first Trump administration, Mike Gonzalez appealed to Thomas Jefferson to help make his point, quoting the third president as saying, "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagations of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.

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Trump takes powerful stand for Christians — something Biden refused to do



Hours after vowing Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast to "protect Christians in our schools and our military, and our government, in our workplaces, hospitals, and in our public squares," and to bring the country "back together as one nation under God with liberty and justice for all," President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to "eradicate anti-Christian bias" in the federal government.

Leftists and other radicals apparently keen to ignore the past four years of abuse rushed to condemn the order, suggesting that Christians — 380 million of whom suffer high levels of persecution worldwide — have not been subjected to any form of bias in America.

After noting that the Constitution guarantees the right to religious liberty and that federal laws both prohibit religious discrimination and government interference with Americans' right to exercise their faiths, Trump noted that the Biden administration "engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses."

Trump provided as an example the Biden administration's weaponization of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act against peaceful pro-life protesters, dozens of whom the 47th president pardoned after taking office.

'My Administration will not tolerate anti-Christian weaponization of government or unlawful conduct targeting Christians.'

The FACE Act was used almost exclusively against pro-life activists during the Biden administration, even when the nation saw a massive uptick in attacks by abortion radicals on churches and pro-life pregnancy centers following the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs decision.

The president noted further in his order that the Biden DOJ "largely ignored" multitudes of attacks against Christian churches, charities, and pro-life centers.

According to the Family Research Council's 2024 Hostility Against Churches report, there were 915 acts of hostility against American churches, such as vandalism, arson, gun-related incidents, and bomb threats, between 2018 and 2023. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) noted during a hearing in December that the Biden administration did not appear particularly concerned about such anti-Christian attacks.

Extra to the Biden administration's imbalanced application of the law, Trump highlighted in his order:

  • the Biden FBI's characterization of conservative Catholics as potential domestic terrorists and proposal to infiltrate Catholic churches as "threat mitigation";
  • the Biden Department of Education's efforts to rescind religious-liberty protections for religious student groups;
  • the Biden Equal Employment Opportunity Commission attempt to force Christians to pay for employees' sex-change mutilations;
  • the Biden Department of Health and Human Servicesattempt to effectively bar Christian providers who hold biblical and scientifically grounded views about sex and marriage from the foster-care system; and
  • the Biden administration's official proclamation honoring a "Transgender Day of Visibility" on Easter Sunday.

"My Administration will not tolerate anti-Christian weaponization of government or unlawful conduct targeting Christians," wrote Trump. "The law protects the freedom of Americans and groups of Americans to practice their faith in peace, and my Administration will enforce the law and protect these freedoms. My Administration will ensure that any unlawful and improper conduct, policies, or practices that target Christians are identified, terminated, and rectified."

Trump has tasked Attorney General Bondi with forming and chairing the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias, which will engage in a systematic review of the activities of all executive departments and agencies and "identify any unlawful anti-Christian policies, practices, or conduct by an agency contrary to the purpose and policy of this order."

The president's order calls for the revocation or termination of all violative policies or practices, as well as for the task force to "identify deficiencies in existing laws and enforcement and regulatory practices that have contributed to unlawful anti-Christian governmental or private conduct."

Rachel Laser, the CEO of the left-leaning advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State, condemned Trump's initiative to stop anti-Christian bias, stating, "This task force will misuse religious freedom to justify bigotry, discrimination, and the subversion of our civil rights laws. We've seen Christian Nationalists do this already, turning the sacred concept of religious freedom on its head and into a license to harm others."

'All Americans should be free to exercise their faith without government intrusion.'

Laser suggested further that the effort to protect Christians, who make up an estimated 68% of the American population, is "part of the Christian Nationalist crusade to remake our country."

USA Today columnist Chris Brennan suggested that Trump's suggestion that Biden and the Democratic Party harbored an anti-Christian bias was a lie, stating he was trying to frame "the faithful [as] faithless oppressors of religion."

Unsurprisingly, the Freedom from Religion Foundation similarly expressed outrage, stating, "Christianity is not under attack in this country — if anything, it enjoys overwhelming privilege. We stand ready to fight back against this attack on our secular democracy and the rights of non-Christians."

Whereas various groups that reflexively antagonize Christians condemned the order, conservatives and Christian organizations alternatively expressed their delight.

National Religious Broadcasters, an association of evangelical communicators, thanked Trump for his "leadership on this issue."

Kelly Shackelford, the CEO of the First Liberty Institute, said in a statement, "We are thrilled that President Trump recognizes that religious liberty is foundational to all of our Constitutional freedoms and plans to do all he can do to protect our first freedom."

"All Americans should be free to exercise their faith without government intrusion in school, in the military, in the workplace, and in the public square," continued Shackelford. "We are ready to stand with President Trump to ensure that the religious liberty of every American is safe and secure."

At the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump also announced the creation of a commission on religious liberty, noting, "If we don't have religious liberty, then we don't have a free country."

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Wikipedia blacklists Blaze News and other right-leaning sources, ensuring it's a one-stop liberal propaganda shop



Wikipedia maintains that articles on its site "should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered."

A new study by Media Research Center Free Speech America highlighted that Wikipedia has discounted right-leaning sources as reliable and prohibited their citation in articles, all but guaranteeing that the site is little more than a repository for liberal propaganda.

It's no secret that Wikipedia's volunteer editors are predominantly ideological myopes favorable to leftist causes, ideas, and personalities and antipathetic to conservatives of various stripes.

For instance, editors at Wikipedia, whose parent company blew 29.2% of its 2023-2024 budget on race-obsessive DEI programs, tried to hide Vice President JD Vance's military accomplishments in the lead-up to the 2024 election; strategically eliminated any mention of Kamala Harris' appointment as border czar on the list of executive branch czars; advocated deleting the entry detailing the mass killings executed by communist regimes, citing an anti-communist bias; labeled Elon Musk's temporary suspension of journalists who allegedly violated his platform's terms of service as the "Thursday Night Massacre"; and gaslighted readers about the history, existence, and nature of cultural Marxism, characterizing the well-defined and well-chronicled offshoot of Marxism as a a "conspiracy theory."

'Even in cases where the source may be valid, it is usually better to find a more reliable source instead.'

A 2024 study published in Online Information Review found that Wikipedia — now run by the former chief operating officer for Planned Parenthood Federation of America and previously run by a censorious alumna of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leader program who stated that "our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that is getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done" — suffers a "significant liberal bias in the choice of news media sources."

The Dutch researchers noted further that "this effect persists when accounting for the factual reliability of the news media."

Wikipedia, which now deals primarily in "propaganda" and exists only to "give an establishment point of view" according to co-founder Larry Sanger, has apparently leaned harder into its bias.

The new MRC study noted that Wikipedia editors are permitted to cite a variety of leftist publications that have a reputation for pushing false narratives and fake news, including Jacobin, Mother Jones, NPR, and Rolling Stone, but are precluded from citing publications not similarly staffed by liberal activists.

Citing the Wikipedia page on reliable and perennial sources, the study highlighted that numerous reputable right-leaning publications have been blacklisted.

Wikipedia states, for instance, that Blaze News, the Daily Wire, the Daily Caller, the Epoch Times, Fox News, ZeroHedge, the Washington Free Beacon, the Federalist, RedState, the Media Research Center, and the Alexander Hamilton-founded New York Post "should normally not be used" as sources and "should never be used for information about a living person."

"Even in cases where the source may be valid, it is usually better to find a more reliable source instead. If no such source exists, that may suggest that the information is inaccurate," added the Wikipedia entry on reliable sources.

'It is now only reliable for pushing a radical narrative.'

Whereas most right-leaning publications were flagged as "generally unreliable," Breitbart News appears to have been among the few singled out for a formal blacklisting. Wikipedia alleged that the "site has published a number of falsehoods, conspiracy theories, and intentionally misleading stories as fact" and complained that the publication had revealed the identity of multiple Wikipedia editors.

The New York Times qualifies as reliable despite falsely accusing President Donald Trump of lying about Democrats' abortion ambitions; characterizing the suggestion that COVID-19 originated in the Wuhan lab that conducted dangerous experiments on coronaviruses as a "fringe" "conspiracy theory lack[ing] evidence"; printing false Hamas propaganda; pushing the Russian collusion narrative; and misleading readers on various other issues.

Rolling Stone, which has paid out millions in the past for false and defamatory reporting, appears not to have learned its lesson, lying, for instance, in recent years about an imagined Florida book ban and smearing Michael Knowles of the Daily Wire. It was also characterized as "generally reliable."

Politico similarly received a reliable rating despite — or perhaps as a result of — its willingness to help a cabal of former intelligence officials interfere with the 2020 election by mischaracterizing the New York Post's reliable Hunter Biden laptop story as "Russian disinfo," and to mislead Americans about the working relationship between former President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for the benefit of the former vice president's campaign.

According to the MRC study, only 16% of left-wing media sources were unable to secure Wikipedia's stamp of approval. Meanwhile, 100% of right-leaning sources were effectively blacklisted.

The MRC study noted further that the predicable result is that "conservatives, Republicans, and Trump appointees are smeared, maligned, and slandered by the most popular online source for information about people."

Christopher Bedford, senior editor for politics and Washington correspondent for Blaze Media, noted, "You've got to remember, none of this — none of it — is based in fact. We were right about COVID, right about Biden, right about immigration, right about trans. We were right about virtually every major contested issue impacting this country for the past 10 years, while over and over again outlets from the New York Times to PolitiFact were embarrassingly wrong."

"They can't handle that, and so the ideologues ban us," continued Bedford. "It's pathetic, but it's also dangerous, and every penny you give to support this project is a penny given against speech and truth."

Dan Schneider, MRC vice president, noted, "There used to be a joke about how Wikipedia could not be relied on by historians and academics. Wikipedia has now become the joke."

"Its radical editors and staff reveal their contempt for conservatives in almost everything they inject into descriptions," continued Schneider. "It was never something people could rely on for accurate information. It is now only reliable for pushing a radical narrative."

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