Canadian feds to sieze iconic 'Big Red' as Freedom Convoy persecution rolls on



On Friday, Saskatchewan truck driver Chris Barber took to X and posted a photo of "Big Red," his 2003 Kenworth W900Lr. With it, he included a reminder of Canada's upcoming federal election April 28.

"This is my livelihood, the breadwinner that has kept my family fed for years, and the crown seeks to destroy my life and future because we took a stand against tyranny. Government overreach at its finest. Our Canada under #Liberal rule!!!!! Vote smart #Canada"

The Convoy was the largest peaceful protest in Canadian history, and these proceedings now hold the title of longest mischief trial in the history of the nation.

As one of the faces of 2022's Freedom Convoy, the largest and most effective populist uprising in recent history, Barber has been subject to three years of vicious lawfare from the Liberal-controlled Canadian government.

And now that same government wants to take "Big Red," which has become a symbol of the Convoy.

The truck stops here

On Thursday, April 3, a ruling came down in an Ottawa courtroom against Barber and another prominent Convoy protester, Tamara Lich, a grandmother and musician from Alberta.

Ontario Court Justice Heather Perkins-McVey gave her final judgments on a number of charges stemming from the three-week protest in February 2022, where Barber, Lich, and thousands of others exercised their once-cherished rights to freedom of expression, hurting no one and causing no property damage as they demanded to meet Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or his underlings and negotiate an end to Trudeau’s punishing COVID regime.

Perkins-McVey acknowledged the peaceful nature of the protest in her ruling, despite presiding over 45 days of government testimony spread across 20 months in a Kafka-esque show trial where the government argued over the minutiae of TikTok videos and the meaning of slogans such as “Hold the Line!”

Court-sanctioned 'mischief'

This entire situation has been one for the record books. The Convoy was the largest peaceful protest in Canadian history, and these proceedings now hold the title of longest mischief trial in the history of the nation.

Prosecutors failed to convince Perkins-McVey of most of their cases against Lich and Barber, who were found not guilty of intimidation, along with other fraudulent and spurious charges.

Lich and Barber were, however, found guilty of mischief, and Barber additionally was found guilty of disobeying a court order regarding the honking of truckers’ air horns, which became a rallying cry of the protest and an instant online meme. Barber had made a video telling his followers to honk their horns in defiance of the order if, and only if, their trucks were approached by a large group of police officers. This context didn’t move Perkins-McVey.

The problem with mischief, as a criminal charge in Canada, is that it is a “property” crime, and a conviction can land you in prison for a maximum of 10 years.

What was the property here? The public property of the streets of Ottawa.

Hamas exception

In a very peculiar part of the ruling, McVey asserts that the public’s enjoyment of the use of city streets took precedence over the Convoy’s right to protest. It ought be noted that since the tragic events in Israel in October 2023, supporters of Hamas have protested every single week, unencumbered by the government, nor have they been accused of interrupting the enjoyment of those streets.

At the conclusion of the ruling, Justice Perkins-McVey sought to issue sentencing the following day, but on the objection of the prosecutors, a later date was set to … set another date.

Prosecutors wanted time to assemble more victim impact statements, as if three years of hearing from Ottawa’s bureaucrats about the delusions of phantom honking wasn’t enough to assemble them all. Maybe they needed to hear about the honking again, just one more time. In case anyone forgot.

'Red' notice

On April 16, we found out the punishment that the crown seeks against Lich and Barber is two years in a federal clink, and, in a request that is clearly vindictive and requires an essay of its own to unpack, the crown is seeking to seize “Big Red.”

Barber’s rig had become a symbol of the Freedom Convoy, featured in thousands of pictures, videos, and memes, as it led the Western Canadian Convoy to Ottawa. Barber has owned and operated that truck since 2003 and put 3.4 million kilometers (roughly 2.1 million miles) on it, mostly hauling heavy agricultural equipment across his home province of Saskatchewan and picking up new equipment from factories in America for his customers.

In the 22 years Barber has owned and operated that truck, he has raised his children in it over trips too many to count, and when his dog Buddy was approaching the end of his life, the poor old dog was put down while lying on the passenger seat: Buddy's favorite place to be.

With the mischief conviction, Barber may not be allowed back into the United States to serve his customers, a pretty major blow to his business — and punishment enough, in a way.

A new low

What justice is served in this move by the Canadian government? In all the hundreds of prosecutions of other Convoy protesters, many of which remain ongoing, never has the government sought to seize anyone’s property.

Perhaps authorities did enough of that during the protest itself, when they froze hundreds of people’s bank accounts and locked them out of economic life altogether, something that likewise happened to Barber. The actions of the banks were so comprehensive that drivers working for Barber’s small company were calling him when the bank freezings started, to tell him the fuel cards for their trucks no longer worked.

It seems like the government is trying to send a message to every Canadian that dissent will not be tolerated at all and that if you defy the government diktat, the authorities will crush you, your family, and your very own business.

Barack Obama famously dismissed the efforts of American business owners with his comment, “You didn’t build that.” It seems that the Canadian government, under the Liberal Party of the very recently departed Justin Trudeau, is building on Obama’s attitude.

He built that

It doesn't matter that Chris Barber did build something. Never mind the time and blood and sweat and sacrifice he put into his successful small trucking company. Our leaders can come and take it all away with the swipe of a pen.

Truly and terribly evil — and unbecoming a once supposedly free country.

Lawyers for Barber have filed for a stay of proceedings. It’s a pretty long shot, but if granted, this gross abuse of state power and capricious message-sending will be stopped.

Meanwhile, in a TikTok video thanking his supporters, Barber paid tribute to "Big Red:"

I bought this truck brand-new in 2003, November 26 to be exact, and I've got 3.4 million kilometers on this truck as of today. I have raised my children in this truck. I have trucked all over North America with this bad boy. It is a piece of me. It even has the little foot marks from where Jonathan as a toddler used to kick the dash with his little winter boots in the car seat.

Click here to watch the message in its entirety.

A version of this article previously appeared on the Autonomous Truck(er)s Substack.

Trump mocks Joy Reid after MSNBC cancels her show: 'Mentally obnoxious racist'



Joy Reid was given the 7 p.m. weeknight time slot on MSNBC in the wake of the Black Lives Matter riots. The leftist host, previously dubbed a "heroine of the resistance to [President Donald Trump's] leadership" by the New York Times, was paid millions of dollars over the next four years to issue Democratic propaganda and racist diatribes.

Reid's time slot has come to an end. The network is reportedly canceling "The ReidOut," which has in recent months underperformed and hemorrhaged viewers.

Conservatives and members of other groups long vilified by Reid were jubilant over the news of the shake-up, which the Times indicated was orchestrated by the network's new president, Rebecca Kutler. Among those evidently happy to see Reid's show go was President Donald Trump, a frequent target of her vitriol.

Trump held little back when opining on the demise of the leftist's show.

'Who's crying now, Joy?'

"Lowlife Chairman of 'Concast,' Brian Roberts, the owner of Ratings Challenged NBC and MSDNC, has finally gotten the nerve up to fire one of the least talented people in television, the mentally obnoxious racist, Joy Reid," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Based on her ratings, which were virtually non-existent, she should have been 'canned' long ago, along with everyone else who works there."

The 47th president suggested further that in terms of talking heads with the greatest deficit of "television persona," Reid was in competition for first place with Rachel Maddow.

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk wrote, "Good riddance to the most vitriolic, lowbrow, and unhinged race hustler ever allowed on national television."

"Remember when Joy Reid laughingly mocked 'white women tears' as pathetic and offensive to her?" tweeted conservative commentator Megyn Kelly. "Who's crying now, Joy? Good riddance to the absolute worst person on television, and shame on NBC for letting it go on this long."

Normalcy advocate Robby Starbuck wrote, "Joy Reid is a racist. ... Her low ratings are a hopeful signal that many are sick and tired of anti-White garbage and intentionally stoked racial division. Most want to Make America Great TOGETHER, and we will!"

In the four years that "The ReidOut" was on the air, its host launched into countless rants, characterizing parents concerned over their kids' subjection to racist propaganda as conspiracy theorists; imagining parallels between Kyle Rittenhouse and "slave catchers"; questioning the faith of Christian conservatives; blaming progressive white women for Kamala Harris' humiliating electoral defeat; routinely calling Trump a racist; calling Republicans fascists; bemoaning the removal of opportunistic men from women's prisons; pushing the Russia collusion hoax; calling the COVID-19 lab-leak theory "debunked bunkum"; likening Republican governors who bused illegal aliens to sanctuary cities to "old segregationists"; and attacking conservative Supreme Court justices.

Reid secured the time slot in 2020 despite already having a record of anti-Semitic commentary and engaging in the kind of "homophobic" rhetoric — which she falsely blamed on hackers — that usually would warrant professional exile on the left.

Variety reported that the cancellation of Reid's show comes amid serious business challenges at MSNBC, which is apparently set to lose 10.5% of its subscribers between the end of 2023 and the end of this year. According to the market-research firm Kagan, the network may see a decline in its audience of around 7.2 million viewers when compared to 2023.

The network is reportedly planning to replace "The ReidOut" with a show led by Symone Sanders-Townsend — a talking head who worked on the Biden-Harris transition team in 2020, then as a spokeswoman for the Biden White House — along with former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele and journalist Alicia Menendez.

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Critics blast liberal reporter for seizing upon hurricane devastation to belittle North Carolinians' beliefs



The Guardian, a leftist publication based in the U.K., is facing criticism over a Sunday article that seized upon the devastation wrought in North Carolina by Hurricane Helene as an opportunity to belittle locals' beliefs, attack President Donald Trump, and push a climate alarmist agenda.

The article was penned by the Guardian's "senior climate justice reporter" Nina Lakhani — a British national who previously suggested that nTrump was a terrorist and a fascist; pushed the Russian collusion hoax; claimed that America's border wall created "environmental and cultural scars"; advocated for banning white men from positions of power; and called the British monarchy a "white supremacist institution."

After insinuating that Trump and Elon Musk were to blame for delayed disaster relief, the Guardian reporter expressed concern that in her travels through Buncombe County, North Carolina, "the climate crisis was largely absent from people's thoughts" in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

Resident Twila Little Brave, for instance, told the Guardian about her struggles in the wake of the hurricane, her gratitude about being alive, and how the efforts of her community, not her government, helped her survived the ordeal.

Sharon Jarvis, a 59-year-old woman who lives on a mountain slope on the outskirts of the community, criticized the Biden administration's disaster relief or lack thereof and noted that Christian relief groups, local churches, and other volunteer or nonprofit groups — not the government — stepped into the breach to help.

David Crowder, the pastor at a Barnardsville Baptist church, discussed tough living conditions along with potential threats to local pride and the storm's transformation of the landscape.

Since Brave, Jarvis, and Crowder failed to furnish Lakhani with the talking points the foreign reporter needed for her preferred narrative, Lakhani clumsily shoehorned them into the piece herself with the help of fellow travelers.

'We've failed to communicate this in a way that reaches some of the most vulnerable people.'

Lakhani insinuated that Brave and others who "have found comfort from attributing Helene to God's will" were ignoramuses, noting that "the science is clear: the intensity of the wind and rain during Helene was supercharged by the climate crisis, and the frequency and severity of such storms will increase as the planet continues to warm — driven by the world's dependence on the burning of fossil fuels."

While dismissive of locals' religious beliefs, Lakhani appeared more than willing to accept as gospel truth an assertion from Thomas Karl, the former head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Centers for Environmental Information, that might rely on misleading and inaccurate claims.

Lakhani shared Karl's belief that "these events will become more intense and stronger. But somehow we've failed to communicate this in a way that reaches some of the most vulnerable people, while they're getting false information from places they trust."

The government watchdog group Protect the Public's Trust noted in a complaint last year that the NOAA's Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters tracking project relies on economic data and cannot as a consequence "distinguish the effect of climate change as a factor on disaster losses from the effect of human factors like increases in the vulnerability and exposure of people and wealth to disaster damages due to population and economic growth."

'This is a vile, mean-spirited article.'

The so-called Billions Project not only has been been cited in over 1,200 articles but has been characterized by the U.S. Global Change Research Program as a "climate change indicator" and had its data cited in 2023 as evidence that "extreme events are becoming more frequent and severe" in the same federal program's "Fifth National Climate Assessment."

Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. noted in a study published June in the Springer Nature journal npj Natural Hazards:

NOAA incorrectly claims that for some types of extreme weather, the dataset demonstrates detection and attribution of changes on climate timescales. Similarly flawed are NOAA's claims that increasing annual counts of billion dollar disasters are in part a consequence of human caused climate change. NOAA's claims to have achieved detection and attribution are not supported by any scientific analysis that it has performed.

Despite outstanding questions about the veracity of claims of intensifying weather, Lakhani framed Karl's statement as the "clear science," then echoed his concern about the germination of alternate viewpoints regarding the storm and broader weather patterns.

Lakhani complained that "false rumors and conspiracy theories," as well as "fossil fuel-friendly" narratives, appear "to resonate among even those directly hit by floods and fires."

When criticizing so-called "disinformation," Lakhani turned to a fellow traveler to shore up her narrative — Sean Buchan, the so-called research director at the leftist censorship outfit Climate Action Against Disinformation.

Buchan appeared to insinuate that rural North Carolinians and other disaster-struck Americans were not smart enough to grasp "climate science" because it is "complicated and nuanced and requires patience." As a result of locals' supposed inability to understand what he and Lakhani believe to be true, Buchan suggested that "propagandists and bad actors will show up in person or online to fill the information vacuum."

Matt Van Swol, a former nuclear scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River National Laboratory, called the Guardian article "absolutely disgusting."

"This is a vile, mean-spirited article from The Guardian," continued Van Swol. "Everything mountain-folk HATE about big city reporters is covered in this article."

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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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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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Rebuking the demonic demands that we reject leftist lies



A few years ago, I started attending counseling sessions with a Christian therapist because I was wrestling with what the broader field of psychology calls an “inner critic.” It’s that nasty voice that whispers you’re not good enough, you’re a failure, you’re unlovable.

Being a reader and a researcher, I went into my initial session already knowing that our inner critic originates primarily from two places: Either it's born of society’s unrealistic expectations, or it comes from internalizing criticism from others, usually during childhood.

I guess I didn’t account for the fact that I was seeing a Christian therapist — someone who does not exclusively operate in the bounds of mainstream psychology — because before I could finish telling her what I thought were the origins of my inner critic, she cut me off.

Actually, I think what you’re dealing with is demonic lies.

Pardon?

Yeah, I think those terrible things you think about yourself aren’t necessarily your thoughts. They’re lies being whispered to you by the enemy. You need to rebuke them.

At the time, the idea was outlandish to me. I believed in the demonic — believed that demons could and often did torment people. But this wasn’t that, surely. This was me mentally flogging myself for failing to meet expectations that I subconsciously agreed to.

The left has been captured by demonic ideology.

I won’t bore you with the details of the long and somewhat strange journey it took for me to realize that my counselor was right. Suffice it to say that I learned to distinguish between the voice that gently convicts and spurs us toward repentance when we have erred, our God-given conscience that guides us in general ethics and morality, and the hateful, lying voice of the enemy that seeks to incapacitate us with fear and shame — often using our past traumas and modernity’s lofty standards to do it — and to create division between us and God.

When that hateful voice of the enemy rears its head, hurling accusations, insults, and lies, I have learned that the only way to silence it is indeed to rebuke it as slander from the demonic that follows in the stead of Satan, whom the Bible calls “the accuser of our brethren” (Revelation 12:10). Lying is "his native language,” it says in John 8:44.

Perhaps it’s this practiced discernment that allows me to recognize demonic lies in other playing fields.

By now Christians — not those in name only, but the saints who regard the Bible as both truth and authority — understand that the left has been captured by demonic ideology.

Since the dawn of this new progressive Democratic Party, believers have been calling out the big three — the sexualization of children, abortion, and gender theory — as those are the issues that are most diametrically opposed to biblical doctrine and therefore can easily be identified as demonic.

But there’s another way Satan has influenced the Democratic Party and its voter base to do his bidding, and it’s not one that gets adequate attention. On top of convincing liberals that progressivism, which inverts biblical truth, is the way forward, he’s also convinced them that the response to opposition is to spit venomous, defamatory accusations, the vast majority of which are egregious lies.

Let’s look at some common indictments that come from the radical left.

  • If you think marriage is something that occurs between a man and a woman, you’re a homophobe.
  • If you’re not pro-censorship, you endorse hate speech.
  • If you think it’s impossible to be born in the wrong body, you’re a transphobe.
  • If you don’t want your child exposed to gender theory in school, you’re a bigot.
  • If you don’t get on board with the idea of black reparations, you’re a racist.
  • If you don’t support abortion, you want to deny women lifesaving health care.
  • If you don’t shriek in horror at Trump’s mass deportation plans, you’re a xenophobe.
  • If you don’t besmirch the founding of our country, you’re a white supremacist.

The list is endless.

It boils down to this: If you don’t agree with X leftist idea, then you’re a vile person deserving of condemnation, ostracization, and shame. Your head is immediately placed on the guillotine of cancel culture.

These kinds of accusations fit the description of the voice of evil I described above. They are accusatory, hateful, and aimed at silencing people using shame and fear; they create division; and most of the time, they’re lies.

Unless, of course, someone is a legitimate racist, misogynist, or whatever it might be. When it comes to these people (and they do exist; I know some of them), certain accusations are true and deserved. To hate people for their race, gender, or other immutable trait is also demonic and should be called out as such.

When something falsely accuses, breeds fear, shame, and division, spreads lies, and incites persecution, you can be sure it's demonic in origin.

But if you look at the entire landscape of our country, the truth is that these people are rare and getting rarer — and of the ones who do exist, many of them are actually on the left. They’re the ones fighting fabricated racism with real racism, perceived misogyny with genuine misandry, pretend homophobia with slights against the nuclear family.

But radical leftists either can’t see this or they simply don’t care because their agenda is pre-eminent.

Either way, they spit these accusations with the intention of silencing dissent. In doing so, they crush their adversaries and instill fear in the bystanders who watch wide-eyed as the heads of bold naysayers roll. Fear waxes, brave opponents wane, and a destructive lie — whatever it may be — crystallizes: Pro-lifers don’t want women to get lifesaving care, DEI opposers want black people to fail, and those who didn’t get the COVID vaccine are granny-killers. Society at large then accepts these lies as truth. Those who don’t bend the knee are then persecuted.

When something falsely accuses, breeds fear, shame, and division, spreads lies, and incites persecution, you can be sure it's demonic in origin. And when something is demonic in origin, you rebuke it.

But what does this look like? After all, when it comes to these kinds of accusations, we’re dealing not with actual demons but with human beings who have probably unknowingly adopted a demonic creed. Rebuking isn’t going to look the same.

And maybe "rebuke" isn’t even the right word. Perhaps "reject" is a better fit for this scenario.

I like what Megyn Kelly said recently when she was covering the acquittal of Daniel Penny. To the BLM radicalists who were spewing the lie that Penny acted out of racism, Kelly said, “That's not working any more. You're going to have to find a new line. I don't know what it's going to be, but the BLM era is officially over.”

I think her words are a good template: No, that’s not true. Now move along with your lies. They have no impact here.

Imagine how public discourse would shift if we all had this response when another false accusation was thrown at us. The power would be sucked from that lie, and we could simply move on.

Under the Biden regime, with its chain links to the legacy media, big tech, and every other big _____ out there, perhaps this simple notion wouldn’t have worked. The narrative was set in stone. But it’s dawn in America, and the stone is crumbling. With the inauguration of Donald Trump just days away, change is here, with more of it on the horizon. The mouths of lions are already being shut. The heads of giants are already rolling.

I say this not to equate Trump, however powerful and mighty he might be, with God but rather to say that God saved this man because of the role he will play in the revival of America — a revival that is already unfolding before our eyes.

Trump has his part to play in the rebuilding of this great nation — securing our borders, re-establishing order in our streets, weeding out anti-Americanism, dismantling the Deep State, and restoring economic prosperity, among others.

But we also have a critical role to play. I feel strongly that part of that role is, one, to recognize that the accusations and name-calling of the left are a demonic plot, and, two, to reject them and speak the truth.

We must boldly declare that men are men and women are women; that babies, regardless of their age and circumstances surrounding their conception, deserve life; that all people, as image-bearers of God, are equally deserving of dignity; and, perhaps most importantly, that these statements do not make us homophobes, racists, white supremacists, Christian nationalists, or even far-right radicals. They make us truth-tellers.

MSNBC talking head was giddy over Fox defamation settlement — but now ABC's fate has her singing a different tune



MSNBC host Symone Sanders-Townsend spoke out Sunday about the resolution of President-elect Donald Trump's defamation lawsuit against ABC and its news anchor George Stephanopoulos, suggesting that the result might have "a real chilling effect."

Although apparently worried about the impact of legal penalties for imprecise speech now that a price has been exacted from a fellow traveler, Sanders-Townsend sang a different tune when Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million over suggestions that its machines were used to rig the 2020 election.

Background

President-elect Donald Trump sued ABC and George Stephanopoulos earlier this year concerning a March 10 interview wherein the ABC News host falsely stated that the Republican had been found liable by multiple juries for the rape of E. Jean Carroll, referring to the verdicts in Carroll's sexual battery and defamation lawsuits. The complaint accused Stephanopoulos of acting "with actual malice or with a reckless disregard for the truth."

The ABC News host said in conversation with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-N.C.), "You endorsed Donald Trump for president. Judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape and for defaming the victim of that rape"; "Donald Trump has been found liable for rape by a jury"; "I'm asking you a question about why you endorsed someone who's been found liable for rape"; "it was a civil court that found him liable for rape"; and "why are you supporting someone who's been found liable for rape?"

'I think the lesson here going forward is the truth does matter.'

Although insistent, Stephanopoulos was dead wrong. Jurors in neither case found Trump liable for rape.

According to documents filed in a U.S. District Court on Saturday, ABC settled the action, agreeing to pay $15 million toward Trump's yet-to-be established presidential library as well as to pay Trump's attorneys $1 million in legal fees.

ABC News also appended the following editor's note at the bottom of the article that corresponded with the offending interview: "ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding President Donald J. Trump made during an interview by George Stephanopoulos with Rep. Nancy Mace on ABC's This Week on March 10, 2024."

A spokesman for the network told CBS News in a statement, "We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit on the terms in the court filing."

While ABC News was apparently pleased with the result, Sanders-Townsend — the leftist talking head who previously took umbrage with the use of the word "raid" when used in reference to the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago — suggested that Stephanopoulos was in the right and the result was troubling.

Selective concern

When Fox News agreed to pay $787.5 million in April 2023 to settle its defamation lawsuit with Dominion, Sanders-Townsend — who worked on the Biden-Harris transition team in 2020, then as a spokeswoman for the Biden White House — adopted a jubilant tone.

After mocking the statement that the right-of-center network released, suggesting that Fox News' mention of journalistic integrity made her "eyes [get] very big," Sanders-Townsend said, "I think that going forward, every entity that enter the media apparatus — politicians, campaigns — they now have to decide how they are going to engage with Fox News going forward."

Noting the expensive nature of the settlement, Sanders-Townsend suggested, "Someone at Fox is going to have to answer for this. I highly doubt, though, it will end up being talent."

"I think the lesson here going forward is the truth does matter," said Sanders-Townsend. "It is very important to speak plainly, to speak with facts, and when someone is lying to call it a lie and to show your work as to why that is."

When it came time for ABC News to pay the price for falsehoods on the air, Sanders-Townsend took a different approach.

Responding to a guest's suggestion that the press has an obligation to be "straightforward and objective when it comes to Donald Trump," Sanders-Townsend said on MSNBC's "The Weekend" Sunday, "I would just say, I mean, this feels like it has a real chilling effect."

"Like, I mean, shout out to the standards department. Standards is always making sure that we are keeping the bar high and substantive and accurate," continued Sanders-Townsend. "But what George Stephanopoulos said in that interview — I mean, it seems to hold up with what the judge said after the fact. And now his news organization and himself, George Stephanopoulos himself, is paying $1 million of his own money to the lawyers and ABC is $15 million. It's insane."

Sanders-Townsend was not the only liberal talking head to take a markedly different approach to the two settlements.

CNN's Brian Stelter appeared giddy when reporting on the Fox settlement last year, telling Yahoo Finance, "Almost $800 million dollars for these lies that were spread on television. This is going to be a landmark moment for accountability when it comes to the big lie."

Stelter was devoid of that enthusiasm following the ABC News settlement, agreeing with CNN talking head Jim Acosta that "there's just going to be a chilling effect on the news industry."

"The answer is yes. Media lawyers are worried about this. They're preparing for it," said Stelter. "They are preparing their newsrooms for it with the expectation of more lawsuits, more leak investigations, more subpoenas in the months and years to come."

"You know, there will be some attempt to troll as a result of this," continued Stelter. "We are in a climate where more of this kind of litigation is expected."

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'There's supposed to be freedom of speech': 'Saturday Night Live's' Kenan Thompson says movie studios suppress edgy comedians



Veteran "Saturday Night Live" cast member Kenan Thompson said actors and comedians no longer have the freedom to write edgy material, and those who do are "suppressed."

Thompson, who has starred in movies like "Good Burger" and "D2: The Mighty Ducks," said that comedians sometimes struggle to align their comedy to public "sensibilities," especially when they are used to speaking a certain way in their private lives.

The 46-year-old noted that while some comedians can emerge out of the industry's blanket censorship, most edgy comedy is shut down by film studios.

"There's supposed to be freedom of speech. They keep trying to suppress, but then you have the [comedians] that pop up out of that suppression," Thompson revealed.

'That's where it felt like was the end of the road for the freedom of wanting to be funny.'

During an interview with comedians Mark Normand and Sam Morril, Thompson said it was disheartening to see how few comedies get a green light in modern Hollywood.

"There's not enough comedies anymore. There's no comedies to be seen right now. It's so sad."

"Of course the classics like the 'Tropic Thunders' of it all, but that's where it felt like was the end of the road for the freedom of wanting to be funny kind of thing. ... I'm looking for that era," Thompson explained.

Ben Stiller's "Tropic Thunder" received very little backlash when it was released in 2008 despite its frequent use of the word "retard" and the simple fact that actor Robert Downey Jr. was in blackface for nearly the entire film.

Thompson also cited movies like Mike Myers' "Austin Powers" and "Baseketball" as edgy movies that likely couldn't be made today.

"It should be allowed to be done!" Thompson declared.

Host Normand then asked Thompson about recent episodes of "Saturday Night Live" in which comedians Bill Burr and Dave Chappelle took a moment to acknowledge how sensitive the show's audience has become.

"Everybody was like, 'This is crazy; this is so offensive,'" Normand recalled. "Did you find it was a little touchy over there?" he asked the cast member.

"It's touchy everywhere," Thompson replied. "That audience comes in and like, there is some clutching of the pearls."

Thompson implied that the studio audience at SNL is usually on edge and afraid to laugh at anything that could be deemed offensive. This results in comedians often receiving little "support" from the live viewers when they perform stand-up comedy on the show.

Despite this, the actor claimed the executive producer of SNL, Lorne Michaels, is reasonable in his approach about what can or cannot be said by performers. He said Michaels will simply say "good luck" to a comedian and let the audience reaction do the talking.

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Jimmy Kimmel breaks down in TEARS after Trump landslide



Donald Trump’s win means a lot of great things for America, and it also means there’s no shortage of liberals recording themselves crying.

And late night host Jimmy Kimmel just became one of them.

“Let’s be honest, it was a terrible night last night. It was a terrible night for women, for children, for the hundreds of thousands of hardworking immigrants who make this country go, for health care, for our climate, for science, for journalism, for justice, for free speech,” Kimmel began.

“It was a terrible night for poor people, for the middle class, for seniors who rely on social security, for our allies in Ukraine, for NATO,” he continued, as his eyes sparkled with tears and his voice began to tremble.


“For the truth and democracy and decency, and it was a terrible night for everyone who voted against him. And guess what? It was a bad night for everyone who voted for him too, you just don’t realize it,” he concluded.

Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” is amused to say the least.

“He’s just a sad, sad man,” Rubin says, adding, “look at the poor sad man. All of the money, all of the fame, and you didn’t get what you want.”

Want more from Dave Rubin?

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New York Times and Media Matters team up to censor BlazeTV hosts and other conservatives



The New York Times and the leftist outfit Media Matters dropped complementary hit pieces Thursday, accusing BlazeTV hosts Steve Deace, Mark Levin, and Jason Whitlock — along with various other prominent voices in conservative media, including Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, and Lara Trump — of "election misinformation."

The apparent aim of this coordinated attack, which the Washington Post did its part to reinforce, is to pressure the Google-owned platform YouTube to demonetize or possibly even deplatform Democrats' ideological opponents before Election Day.

"Being lumped in with those fine fellows, and being labeled an enemy number one from the official Pravda of the regime, is truly the greatest honor of my career," Deace told Blaze News.

'It defines "false claims" and "election misinformation" so broadly.'

Times reporter Nico Grant gave the plot away in advance when asking Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, and Mike Davis of the Article III Project on Monday about their respective memberships in the YouTube Partner Program, their track records of demonetization, and history of notes from YouTube regarding "misinformation."

Grant, whom Carlson told to "f*** off," indicated that Media Matters, a leftist organization founded by Democratic operative David Brock that is presently being sued by Elon Musk for alleged defamation, identified "286 YouTube videos between May and August that contained election misinformation, including narratives that have been debunked or are not supported with credible evidence."

Blaze News previously reached out to the Times and Media Matters for a working definition of "misinformation" but did not receive a response from either outfit. As a result, it remains unclear whether the Times' false or misleading reports about Russian collusion, former Covington Catholic student Nicholas Sandmann, the death of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, and jihadists' missile misfire at a Gazan hospital would qualify.

Journalists Matt Taibbi and Paul D. Thacker wrote Friday on the "Racket News" Substack, "The problem with the Times piece is it defines 'false claims' and 'election misinformation' so broadly that legitimate questions or analyses and even jokes get wrapped in with far-out conspiracy tales."

Media Matters did, however, shine some light on what sort of claims it apparently feels should not be uttered on YouTube, namely: suggestions "that the election process is 'rigged' against Trump, that the legal cases against him constitute 'election interference,' that Democrats want and are enabling noncitizens to vote in order to win the election, and that Kamala Harris was 'illegally installed' as the Democratic nominee in a 'coup' against Joe Biden."

If Media Matters gets its way, then YouTube might penalize critics for highlighting the unmistakable efforts by Democrats to throw Trump in prison before the election and to remove him from the ballot; Democratic lawmakers' publicly stated plans to invalidate a lawful Trump victory; the Biden-Harris Department of Justice's lawsuits aimed at restoring the voter registration of thousands of suspected foreign nationals; or for questioning the nature of Biden's ouster as Democratic candidate and Harris' voteless candidacy.

Media Matters specifically complained that BlazeTV host Mark Levin said in May that Democrats "will do anything for votes — imprison Trump, steal elections," and that Democrats would "change the electoral process" to get more votes.

The Democratic attack dog attacked Levin further for apparently suggesting in July that Democrats "stole the election from their own primary voters and they're going to install somebody who hasn't gotten a single delegate on her own."

Media Matters also set its sights on Deace, complaining:

Right-wing radio host Steve Deace said Democrats would be "dropping ballots" and "bussing people in … to keep the spigot going until they get what they want" on Election Day. Deace continued, "All they’re trying to do is make her credible enough so they can fortify this thing at the end here."

Media Matters was apparently distressed to learn that Deace could exercise his First Amendment rights and suggest on YouTube that Democrats might want to get the polls "within their narrative margin to justify cheating."

The hit piece also noted that BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock accused California of "manipulat[ing] voting."

A YouTube spokeswoman told the Times that the company reviewed eight videos identified by the liberal paper and found that none of them violated its community guidelines. However, that's not what the Times originally reported.

'But what they meant for evil, I will choose to use for good.'

"A YouTube spokeswoman said none of the 286 videos violated its community guidelines," wrote Grant.

The Times has since issued a correction:

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of videos that YouTube reviewed when asked for comment on whether they contained misinformation. YouTubesaid it reviewed eight videos, which were identified by The New York Times and referenced in the article, not all of them, and found that those eight did not violate its community guidelines; it did not comment on whether they contained misinformation.

The YouTube spokeswoman whose response was initially misrepresented by the Times apparently also told Grant, "The ability to openly debate political ideas, even those that are controversial, is an important value — especially in the midst of election season."

Evidently not all are keen on open debate and free speech.

Kayla Gogarty, an LGBT activist who interned at the Human Rights Campaign before becoming "research director" at Media Matters, said, "YouTube is allowing these right-wing accounts and channels to undermine the 2024 results."

Media Matters was not entirely impotent regarding its censorious crusade. The Times indicated that YouTube censored three videos and placed "information labels" that link to supposedly factual information on 21 other videos.

Deace told Blaze News, "The timing of this hit piece is obviously to induce Google, which also owns YouTube and thus the two largest search engines on this planet, to censor those of us who are among the most effective in deconstructing the Left's attempts to deconstruct America right before the election. But what they meant for evil, I will choose to use for good."

Taibbi and Thacker summarized the attack campaign thusly:

A DNC-aligned group produces a "report" documenting a sciencey-sounding quantity of "misinformation" incidents, then passes the scary number to a politically willing mainstream news outlet, which trumpets the new "facts" while publicly and privately pressuring platforms to remove offending material. Welcome to the new "accountability journalism."

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